#remus-tow

[ricorper-tow-blog]

/pops in from the shadows. Beck, Haneul, or Remus?

“Computer, start.”

And so it did.

Of course, that was because he hit a button. It had nothing to do with any phenomenal cosmic powers, nor any change of heart. But the thought of it still brought a hazy smile to Remus’s face, illuminated by the aquamarine glow of modern technology.

The shiny, chrome machine still worked--despite all the off-grid nonsense of an island floating in the middle of some time and place most had no access to whatsoever. As fate would have it, though, here he was; coming to the world live from a world that should’ve had its own sci-fi show.

Or at least, its own vlogcast. But perhaps that was why he was here, in his room full of nonsense with a dream in mind and a fire in his chest.

“To your immediate left,” Remus noted, turning the camera attached to the computer ever so slightly in that direction, floppy gray sweater cascading over his bony wrist, “is my poster of a galaxy.” He nodded, satisfied with the test of the image on-screen, and then began to turn the camera the other way--the other way, where Dusek sat, hunched and stiff, over a lit desk, frantically rearranging headlines. “And over yon,” said Remus, a little drier than before, “you’ll see the ant to my grasshopper; my better half, my tw--”

A hand rose to cover the camera. Remus, startled, looked up--apparently unaware of how much closer he’d drifted to Dusek. The fate-child eyed him with a look of plaintive despair and sleepless twitchiness, his thick glasses pushed all the way to the bottom of his nose; askew and dangerously close to falling.

“It’s--could you really not right now?” The faintly Slavic accent clipped the words more curtly than usual. Remus blinked and closed the camcorder with an inaudible snap, apology written in the way his brow was knitting between each sea-hued eye. “I--know your work is important,” Dusek added, hands framing his jumbled mess of an article, “I just--it’s--everything is wrong. I know this happened, I saw it happen, but why can it not--”

This time it was Dusek who paused. Remus had settled a warm hand over his two cold, shaking ones and given it a squeeze. The sudicky glanced up, shoving his spectacles into place--or trying to. With his other hand, having set his playthings aside, Remus carefully pushed Dusek’s glasses into place.

“It’s alright, brother mine,” said Remus quietly. “What can I do to assist?” 

[dusek-tow]

"Teach me how to be a person."

The adjacent reflection of one man sat across from the other, each a little off from the first. The one who had, up until this point, been reading, glanced up and observed his brother with a bemused and distant, dreamy expression. The more somber of the two fidgeted briefly with hands that sparked in nervous gold, ink which skittered across his knuckles and wrapped coils around his wrists.

"I don't follow, brother mine," said the dreamer, closing his book. The bespectacled figure across from him on the window seat sighed and worked his jaw, teeth digging into the inside of his cheek. The rain lashing against the window outside was as glum as the glow reflecting off the glasses he wore. There was a pressure to the moment the second (or was he the first; who came first?) didn’t care for. He instead smiled to himself and set his book aside, sitting a little more upright.

“Perhaps you’d care to draw me a diagram,” Remus suggested pleasantly. The tattoos of gold stiffened and retreated like snakes from Ireland’s shores up Dusek’s sleeves. The sudicky adjusted his dark frames and frowned at the floor.

               “That’s—not precisely what I had in mind.” The care he took in enunciating each word wasn’t just particular. It was manically precise. Remus heaved an internal sigh, wishing his brother would simply…let go; speak plainly. Of late, he’d found an impatience in himself that had less to do with the fire kindling in his chest from a stolen draconic heart (or, rather, in a way, bought and paid for; or at least, lovingly donated) and more with the realization Dusek wasn’t one to easily accept help.

               Except, this time, he appeared to be the one reaching out.

               “Then please clarify another way,” said Remus, as tenderly as a man with the heart of a dragon could muster, “so I might better help you.”

               Fidgeting with his fingers, picking at the ink stains he found there, Dusek was silent for such a long moment the chimera of a man before him thought he might’ve forgotten what else it was he wanted to say. The rain continued in its relentless downpour, dragging layer after layer of silvery damp against the panes. The thin cracks between the edges and the ledges offered a thin wind of chill that made Remus shiver—and in that moment, Dusek rose from his perch on the window seat and bestowed his jacket around Remus’s shoulders.

               (It was just as well, Remus had begun to hoard every other jacket Dusek owned, so really, it was only a matter of time.)

               Huddled in the goods of wool and cotton, Remus observed his brother’s face in the soft light of the reading room and the dimming moon outside. Dusek’s pale features shifted into an expression of unease, as they always did when looked at for too long. Remus tilted his head, lips pursing vaguely.

               “…I don’t—believe I am a person, sometimes,” the Czech reporter said slowly, fingers once again twisting, twining, and writhing. “I just—I am…made for a specific purpose, and is that not what a machine is…?” His eyes flickered away; shame applying weight to the back of his neck and pushing him forward into a bow. He hunched and swayed, hugging a knee to his chest as his gaze sought the rain’s reflective eyes instead of his brother’s own. “I do not know how to be a person, Remus.”

               There was a silence that threaded between them, and Remus tugged on that thread until he found his way to the source of the issue. It wasn’t that he was slow on the uptake—it was that a thought registering in Remus’s head was a seed that instantly took (firm, unyielding) root and he tended to branch out elsewhere, finding new ways to look at old problems…

               “…You already are,” Remus offered calmly, reaching out to drape Dusek’s coat over both of them as his brother’s trembling caught his eye. “A person. You’re my brother. You’re a reporter.” Remus’s eyes sought Dusek’s own, and the fate-child finally returned the favor of his gaze. Remus smiled, offering a nod of encouragement. “These are the things you are, but also, you are you. Dusek. And it’s not up to anyone else to decide who or what a Dusek is. You’re not a blender,” Remus added, and Dusek snorted, watery eyes cinching shut. “Or a potato masher or some sort of punch ladle…”

               “It was getting good,” Dusek said shakily, running a hand under his eyes—to fix his glasses, he’d argue. Allegedly fixing his glasses, Remus would shoot back. “Until your mouth kept going.”

               “Part of being a person is being messy,” Remus pointed out.

               “I don’t do messy, brother.” Remus’s heart warmed at Dusek’s rueful response, and he dragged him in for a hug beneath the coat.

               “Too bad,” Remus murmured, as Dusek sighed with defeat at once again being hoarded.

               “Messy is what we are.”

[nan-tow]

28, Dusek and Remus

“No--no--!”

“Brother mine...”

Remus sighed heavily as Dusek planed his feet and all but grappled with one of the pier’s poles, bright blue eyes petrified. The thin sudicky looked out of place in his fine dark suit and open-throated purple shirt. Remus, in his khaki shorts and v-neck, feet toughened by many days roaming Normandy’s warm white sands, seemed more at home--if somewhat exasperated--than his brother.

“I like my routine,” Dusek blurted, before Remus could even open his mouth.  “It--has a--a structure. A purpose. It--it--”

“Is boring,” Remus agreed, plucking a cotton candy from the nearest vendor with a pleasant smile. Dusek, detaching an arm from the pier long enough to pay the man, frowned stormily. 

“Not the words I would’ve used, ‘brother mine’,” said the fate-child irritably. “Structure is necessary. It...soothes, organizes the mind.” Remus was pulling faces as he stuffed his cheeks with cotton candy. His nose was staining blue and pink by it, and his greenish eyes were bright.

“You worry too much,” decided the more draconic of the two, his face serene. Dusek’s scowl intensified; lightning-like crags of displeasure twisting his face like a rubbery mask. “Come,” Remus reached for Dusek and the sudicky took an instinctive step backwards. “Let’s just--” And another, though this time, he’d run out of boardwalk to step on, and Remus flinched as the ocean opened up with a splash, Dusek’s yelp immediately swallowed by the brine.

“To be fair,” said Remus diplomatically to no one in particular, picking more cotton candy off his cone, “he disrupted himself that time.”

[ivyrper-tow]

remus-tow replied to your post:remus-tow replied to your post:*whispers* Sonia’s...

Remus: =v= I’m terribly sorry, Miss Sonia. /nuzzles her hand. [he’s not sorry]

Sonia: >8V "You should be!"

[dusek-tow]

Remus's smile was slightly strained, but he did his best to hide it and nodded. "It isn't--ah, my immune system has never been the finest," came the shaky reply. That was an understatement, he knew but a simple one to make. "My heart is not right, so neither is much of the rest of me I am afraid." One hand moved to grip his chest lightly and he shrugged the concern away. "It will pass," he repeated, standing a dizzying moment later. His hand gripped tighter as his chest constricted once more.

"Remus?"

The voice that came out of Dusek's mouth was smaller than usual. It lacked the self-aware arrogance, the dripping disdain that filtered off into watered-down detachment and aloofness. It was a child's voice, coming from a man who was barely a man's mouth, his bright blue eyes nervous and uncertain, watching Remus with trepidation. 

One hand reached out to steady Remus by the shoulder, and the other fumbled for his phone, suddenly shaking and clumsy. Did the Isle have ambulances? How would he call for help? Should he? What was he supposed to do? Fight or flight was new to him--

He'd never had to care about anyone else before.

Panicking, Dusek shook Remus gingerly by the shoulder, phone slipping in a limp hand.

"What do I do?" He piped weakly; stricken. "Remus? Remus, what should I do...?" He knew this wasn't right.

He just wasn't sure how wrong it was yet.

[dusek-tow]

Blinking wide green eyes, Remus shook his head. "I believe I would have taken notice of something like that, at least the initial encounter. Most likely," the younger replied, leaning unconsciously toward the touch of his brother's cool hand. After a moments pause, he shut his eyes and letting a labored sigh. A moments rest should relieve the mounting pressure; it usually did when he was around Romulus. "I'm sure it will pass. It happens every so often and I've become quite used to all of it."

"Ano, you have observation skills not unlike my own." The trace of sarcasm was a friendly one, a cat twining around one's ankles rather than a snake slithering in the grass. The reporter smiled slightly as he parted Remus's fringe to smooth his curls out of his face. His skin was hot, but he didn't seem too badly off, all things considered. 

Till the sound of the breath he took set off alarm bells in Dusek's mind.

"...You are certain?" Dusek asked slowly, tracing an anxious glance across Remus's face from behind thick spectacles. "What do you mean--happens every so often? What is this, then...?" All jokes had fled--Dusek's tone was gravely serious.

[dusek-tow]

Making a face at the descriptor himself, Remus could only laugh. "An effort all the same. He winced as apologetically as he could muster. Sliding the cake away from his brother, Remus settled on the nearest chair with a shrug. "I am--ah, I wouldn't normally turn down such an adventure, but I have not had much of an appetite today. I'm not sure I could stomach even a pastry of proper form." Admittedly, a tightness in his chest had grown in the recent weeks and it was becoming quite a problem.

Eyeing Remus with distant concern, pushing black-rimmed glasses into place up the bridge of his nose, Dusek twitched his lips with a faint sigh of relief when the cake slid away from him.

"We will have to practice, both of us. I am not much of a cook, either," Dusek admitted, fanning his hands on the table with idle tapping of his spindly digits. "It is a wonder either of us has survived as long as we have..."

Dark brows furrowed a little further at the mention of Remus's lack of appetite. Lifting one hand from the table and leaning forward, the Czech-born twin smoothed back his brother's dark hair, feeling his brow.

"You do feel slightly warm," Dusek said, drawing his hand away at last with a blink of puzzlement. "Perhaps you are unwell." His tone took on a wry, chiding note. "Haven't been bitten by anyone strange, have you...?" His face was a mask of innocence. "I won't like you any less if you turn out to be a werewolf."

[dusek-tow]

Lifting his brows, Remus leaned closer in a moment of anticipation and to watch for any signs of rejection. He knew quite well the thing he'd created looked like a monstrosity, but he had been determined to present it nonetheless upon the discovery that his brother had never experienced a right and proper birthday. The younger could only hope that it didn't taste as awful as it looked; that was all either of them could hope at this point of no return. "So? Is it the death you imagined?"

The consistency of the cake was, admittedly, like swallowing wet loam. The flavors were there, but--odd. Dusek's face scrunched and he did his level best to appear as unbiased as possible despite the uneasy expression--blue eyes narrowed anew and he slowly; mushily chewed and swallowed, grimacing kept to a minimum.

"It's, ah--moister than imagined," he teased, fully aware that most people disdained that particular descriptor. "That being said, a noble effort on your part, brother mine." The last two words were soft; endeared, even. Dusek flashed Remus a faint smile. "I see you're not eating any."