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anxiouslyfred · 2 years

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Connections - Anxceit

Summary: A world of various soulmate connections forming at different ages, The sides need to navigate each having multiple types of soulmate connections and finding each other. Janus and Virgil write letters to each other, unable to connect in other ways until they manage to find each other

Part of an ongoing eventual DRLAMP daily story with each part focusing on one ship

/\/\

Janus hadn't received a letter before the notification. They hadn't expected to, granted, but looking at the notification made them distinctly aware that they would have preferred to have received a letter first, even if they couldn't actually know who it was from.

It was their fourth soulmate to learn about, and the second that their parents wouldn't know of. Their school had already been talking about a penpal scheme that Janus had wondered about joining so they would just declare that as the reason for the letters they would be sending. The fact their their birthday was one of the few days when they'd be the one to collect the mail without it being seen as suspicious did make it easier to hide as well.

/\/\

5 letters with address stamped on over another were in the mail. Virgil blinked at the pile ey'd been given. Beneath a few birthday cards from relatives and an official looking envelope, there were 5 almost identical letters with eir name stamped.

Curiously ey put the birthday cards to one side, looking between the letters and the official envelope for a few moments before deciding to open the official envelope first.

Dear Mr Virgil Stewart,

This is your notification of a soulmate connection that allows you to send letters to the other party connected to you.

The address to direct your letters to so they can be directed to your soulmate is below along with a list of rules and limitations to what will show in the letters you send. If the other person is older than you any letters they've already sent will have arrived alongside this letter and going forward will be sent straight to you after your name is added to the envelope.

Congratulations on your new soulmate.

Sincerely

Personal Connections Officer

Thomas

It took a moment after reading the letter for Virgil to understand what was happening. Ey had a 4th soulmate and a lot of letters to reply to apparently. Hopefully eir soulmate would understand that ey're younger than them so couldn't reply before now.

Dear Soulmate,

It's my fifteenth birthday and I can only assume that you are not yet fifteen given I received no other letters alongside the notification, so hello. If I'm wrong, then I must be offended that you haven't decided to reach out yet, but I'm well aware of how parents can be regarding soulmates. I hope you are able to reply soon though.

I'm not going to tell my parents about having a soulmate connection with you. It's nothing to do with hiding you and a lot to do with their attempts to interfere with the other connections I have that they know about. I hope you have multiple soulmate connections too. I know it isn't always guaranteed that we will share multiple soulmates but that does seem likely to be the path of fewest disputes.

We might have a few arguments anyway. I've been told plenty of times that I'm deliberately contradictory and overly sarcastic. Apparently that's a personality flaw, although I fail to see why. It merely means the times I mislead someone are often more obvious for people to see than when they themselves do so.

I can't write for much longer but I'll try to get at least one letter sent each week if you don't reply.

From Your Soulmate.

Dear Silent Penpal,

Apparently I need to be speaking up more in class to get the attention. Considering I have a few teachers who deliberately try to ignore me that will be difficult, especially since those are the teachers who have just told my parents I'm not speaking up. Why must the adults of the world do one thing but request we do another when they are the ones responsible for it in the first place?

I'm not sure what else to write to you today, but hope that when you begin replying that will be easier. I'll have something to respond to at least.

Until then, My Hand is in the Air

…

Dear My Darling,

I have visited an aquarium today. My parents were being insufferable and they constantly say I should be doing more with my days so I took myself out and decided the aquarium sounded wonderful.

Largely it was a chance to learn some more about the fishes and creatures of the sea, but the one in town also has a section for amphibians. I was hoping that the little frog I've had with me for years could be identified while going around it, but unfortunately, whether due to the incorporeal forms limitations, or simply lack of variety, I was unable to manage this. I do, of course, refer to a soulmate creature, rather than a living pet. Please do not suppose me an irresponsible pet owner who doesn't know the animal they look after due to ignorance.

I don't believe I told you before what the other soulmate connections I have are, but as I've just said, one is an animal, a small frog. The others are a timer counting down, which has a few years left until I meet them, and a ribbon. I've attempted to follow the ribbon numerous times since it formed when I was 13, but sadly am still bereft of meeting any of my soulmates.

Perhaps if we were all fish it would be easier to find each other and form our own little shoal, but then again, the ocean is a very large expanse.

Wistfully, Your Dreamer

…

Dear Stranger,

I wish you were old enough to write back to me. I wish I could find one of my other soulmates without waiting so long. I wish I could finally move out of this house.

Actually that last one will be coming true soon enough. I've been saving for years really. Distrust in my parents has only been growing since I turned 6 and had soulmates explained to me so the moment I understood living on my own would take money I began saving, taking on chores and since I turned 15 part time work when possible to be able to afford my own place. I think I'll have enough by the time I'm 17. Of course that's over a year away now, but it's soon. I have to believe it's soon.

I had an argument with my parents today. Somehow they've figured out I've been saving and are pressuring me to use my money to learn to drive as soon as I turn 16. I stand by that if they want me to do so, then they can pay for the lessons. It isn't like our family is struggling for money.

In fact, if I did know how to drive I'm fairly sure my mum would be trying to come with me every time I left the house, just in case I was going to follow the ribbon around my wrist. Getting away from them has to come first.

I hope wherever you are your family is more supportive of your independence, Dear.

I'll run to you one day,

Your Confidante

…

Dear Soulmate,

I've been thing of ways I could tell you enough for us to be able to meet up. We're told from the beginning that letters breaking the terms won't be sent, and while I've definitely tried, those were returned. My parents tried to read them and when they couldn't scolded me for writing swear words or sexually explicit letters to a school penpal which was frankly amusing to listen to.

I believe I should be able to describe areas and let them get through however. I mean the letter about the aquarium trip got through and that did describe an exhibit that seems relatively unique to my town. Most aquariums don't have an area for frogs and other amphibians, did you know?

Perhaps when you are able to reply you can try describing where you live, or landmarks near it so that we can learn how close or far apart we live.

Yours Scheming,

Virgil read each letter immediately after the one above it, smiling at the connection with eir soulmate actually being a way to get to know them. The latest seemed to be written fairly recently too, and ey could just imagine eir soulmate being frustrated to have the letters breaking the restrictions returned to them.

Ey wasn't certain about what to say, even with 5 letters to reply to, but ey would get something on the page.

Dear Soulmate,

I'm not sure that there is anything I'd call a landmark in this town. It's exhaustingly boring. The museum is cool, I guess. It has an Egyptian exhibit with a few actual mummy's in. I always think the entrance is trying to look like an old Roman building with its columns and the shaping of it.

Sorry you've had to wait for me. I'm writing this as soon as I've read all 5 of your letters on my 15th. I do have 3 other soulmates too. One of mine is a timer connection that's got a few years to go still, and another means I can't see purple or green any more. The last one is their name on my wrist which I assumed meant they were male, my mom thought they were female so I'm not sure of anything beyond their name.

I'd be terrified of hurting a soulmate animal. They do better if you look after them, right? It sounds difficult looking after a whole other being. Convincing myself to look after me is difficult enough.

Sorry again you had to wait for me,

Your soulmate

It wasn't the letter ey thought eir soulmate deserved but ey didn't want to write too much, not with eir first letter. Maybe when they know each other better ey can write more. Besides, at least now they both knew each others first initial.

/\/\

No matter how much J had described of their home town, or how much they convinced Virgil to describe neither of them were certain where the other lived, even after years of writing to each other and moving away from their parents. Virgil knew that J had their own place and was working and studying still, as well as that they had met their other soulmates already. In fact J had even met the soulmate of one of their other soulmates according to their last letter.

Ey was grateful to finally be able to share the same.

Hey J,

I met my neighbour yesterday and he'd one of my soulmates too! The name on my wrist actually.

We spent a wonderful evening together and I think you'd really like his intelligence. I was struggling to keep up with some of the rants he went on.

Plus he could keep up with my sarcasm and said it almost reminded him of one of his other soulmates too. I wish I was as lucky as you and he have been over finding my soulmates.

It was just a short note sent off on eir lunch break, and ey didn't entirely expect a reply.

Ey definitely didn't expect to get a note even shorter than eirs the next morning, delivered just before ey left for work which was unusual for eir postman to manage.

V, That sounds like one of mine who had a similar story. Might have found you. If so, see you tonight. J

Virgil wasn't sure if it was good or bad to be found by J because ey'd mentioned Logan, but if that was what had happened, ey couldn't wait to finish work that night.

/\/\

“Janus, I don't see why you were so insistent on coming over but now refuse to come in at all. If you wish to meet Virgil, I'm sure we can wait in my apartment until ey've arrived home and have relaxed for a while.” Ey could hear Logan saying while climbing the stairs, too impatient to wait for the lift.

“I just want to know if ey're mine too, Logan. You know the desire to find your soulmates, just as well as any of us do.” The voice replying was smooth, deliberately calm Virgil thought as ey hastened eir steps.

The pair must have heard em on the stairs then since they fell silent, already watching the stairs when Virgil reached eir floor. “Hello?” Ey asked, tentative, curious.

“Hello, I'm Janus, Are these letters you've written?” The stranger stepped forward, holding out familiar pages covered in eir handwriting.

Some part of Virgil wanted to wrap this oh so familiar and known stranger in a hug immediately, but ey instead just hugged the pages, nodding. “You found me.”

“I did.”

#anxceit #virgil sanders #Janus Sanders #logan sanders #background loceit #background analogical #soulmate au #Letter Writing #soulmate letters

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rosepetalgold · 8 months

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the art of saying goodbye

Summary: Remus expects a lot of things from the Queen Anne Victorian house he’s just purchased—a restoration project to occupy his time, some peace and quiet from nosy neighbors, a chance to brag about being a homeowner before his goody two-shoes brother.

What he doesn’t expect is for the property to come with a very real, very curious ghost. But what is he supposed to do, just ignore the spirit? That'd be nothing short of rude, especially considering that the specter's fascination with modern science and penchant for hijacking Remus' technology proves unfairly endearing.

But even as their unlikely friendship grows, so too do the questions swirling in Remus’ mind: Why is Logan still haunting the place he used to live? Who is the mysterious Janus he refuses to talk about? And what will it take for the ghost to finally find peace with the life and the love that were stolen from him so long ago?

Relationships: Platonic Intrulogical, past romantic Loceit, background romantic Prinxiety

Warnings for this chapter: None!

Word Count: 7000

Notes: My fic for this year's @sandersidesbigbang, aka another angsty tale that inexplicably grew out of a single fluffy scene, aka a prime excuse to procrastinate by poring through countless photos of beautiful Queen Anne houses my beloved. I hope you enjoy this ghostie story as much I enjoyed writing it! A big shoutout to my wonderful beta reader @dragonsaphirareads for all their feedback on this fic, and don't miss the amazing art by the incredible @casart and @onthevirgeofdestruction—you can check out their pieces here and here! (Seriously, even if you don't read the fic, go feast your eyes on their work because it is straight-up stunning. Go look, you'll see.)

Read on Ao3 Masterpost

start (you’re here!) - next

“This place is definitely haunted.”

Remus snorts, giving his brother a friendly sock in the arm.

“Oh come on, Ro, you scared of a few ghosties now? Afraid a floating white sheet is gonna jump out and yell boo?”

Roman doesn’t answer, just eyes the Queen Anne Victorian home in front of them with the amount of trepidation he usually reserved for any time Remus started a sentence with ‘I have an idea.’ The house does give off distinctly spooky vibes, Remus has to admit, what with its boards in desperate need of a new coat of paint and its broken window in the attic, not to mention the porch that looks liable to send someone plummeting to the ground if they take a single wrong step, but what was wrong with any of that? It all just added to the building’s character, and the risk of falling through the veranda was a delightful way to keep visitors on their toes, in his superior opinion.

And besides, he couldn’t turn his nose up at the property’s many flaws when they made it dirt-cheap. He wasn’t exactly a millionaire.

He grabs Roman’s arm, tugging him forward.

“C’mon, there’s some wicked spindlework on the back you gotta check out.”

His brother makes a sound of protest, dragging his feet as Remus hauls him onward.

“Aren’t we going to go inside?”

“Nah, I don’t have the keys yet. Everything’s still pending or whatever.”

Roman shifts his incredulous gaze from the house to Remus.

“You made me come all this way just to look at the outside of a house you haven’t even officially bought yet?”

Why yes, he had. He was such a good brother.

“Don’t act like it’s such a burden to drive twenty minutes out of the way to get here, especially when it means you’re twenty minutes closer to a booty call with Virgil.”

Roman splutters, face flushing a splendidly scandalized shade of crimson, and Remus cackles. That was more like it.

“Now c’mon c’mon c’mon, the sooner you ooh and aah over all my cool house shit, the sooner you can get some of that good di—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Roman interrupts, slapping his hands over his ears, but he doesn’t protest as Remus pulls him around to the back of the house and points out the expansive if overgrown backyard, the plethora of decorative elements adorning the home, the leaded glass windows that have survived well over a century.

“I don’t get it, though,” Roman says as he eyes the tower gracing the corner of the house, something Remus would swear is a hint of jealousy in his gaze. Made sense. He knows for a fact his brother would sell his soul to be Rapunzel. “If this is such a nice place, why has it sat empty for so long?”

“Dunno. The realtor just said it stayed in the family of the guy who built it for a while before changing hands a bunch. Apparently every time it’s been on the market it’s taken ages to find a buyer, but she didn’t really say why no one wanted to live here for too long.” Probably just her trying not to scare him away from what was clearly a substantial restoration project so she wouldn’t lose her commission. Either that or there was some kind of toxic fungus in the walls that had taken over all the previous residents’ brains and turned them into zombies and Remus was about to become its next victim.

What a delightful gamble to find out which one it was.

“Can we please go now before some serial killer comes charging out of this place and we both end up on the news?” Roman asks, already edging back towards the front of the house.

“Sure, if you really want to give up your one shot of having your fifteen minutes of fame in the media,” Remus replies, dancing away with a grin as Roman aims a kick at his shins. “Fine, fine, we’ll go. I wouldn’t want to keep you from a hot date and some—”

Something catches his attention, a flash of movement out of the very corner of his eye, and he pauses mid-stride, doing a double-take at the second-story balcony overlooking the backyard.

Nothing. Not even a curtain blowing in the non-existent breeze.

“What?” Roman questions from where he’s also stopped a few yards ahead of him.

Remus looks a moment longer, searching for anything out of place, but all is still.

“Nothing. Probably just a bat or something. Wouldn’t that be cool as shit, to have bats as roommates? Hey, maybe they have rabies if they’re out in the daytime. Did you know…”

He launches into a spiel of the most gruesome and fascinating facts he knows about the disease, joyfully watching his brother’s face grow increasingly horrified with each one as they make their way back across the yard, and by the time they reach the driveway, the flicker of movement is barely a blip on his mental radar.

Just a trick of his eyes, surely.

It wasn’t like houses could actually be haunted, after all.

---

Home sweet home.

Or home rundown-and-slightly-musty-smelling home, as the case may be, but who was Remus to nitpick?

He fits his shiny new key into the lock and steps inside, letting the door click shut solidly behind him as he pauses just over the threshold, taking a moment to survey the foyer. His foyer now, in his very own home. The sale had been endless offers and counteroffers and a mountain of paperwork so large he’s positive he could have buried himself beneath it and never been seen again, but the place is finally his.

Him, a homeowner. Who’d have thunk it. He’ll be rubbing this in Roman’s apartment-renting face every chance he can get, thank you very much. It’s the least he can do, really.

He unceremoniously deposits the cardboard box in his arms on the floor and wanders further inside, trailing his hand along the smooth wood of the stair banister as he passes. He’s supposed to be meeting some of his friends back at his old place shortly—or now, actually, but that was wholly irrelevant—to start moving all of his worldly possessions into his fancy new abode, but he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of taking the first load of boxes alone just to have the place to himself for a bit; he could use a few minutes to enjoy the space in peace before it’s filled with Roman and Virgil squabbling about the worst Disney movie heroes or whatever argument they were bound to get into.

Despite its well-worn exterior, the house is in surprisingly good condition inside, he muses as he roams through the empty rooms. There’s clearly extensive work that needs to be done if he wants to restore the place to its Victorian glory, an ambitious undertaking he knows will be neither cheap nor easy, but the bones of the structure are all solid, especially considering how many years it’s stood empty.

He finishes his meandering loop around the first floor and heads up the stairs, the tread of his steps entirely too loud for the pervasive quiet as he continues his exploratory wandering through the second story rooms. He pauses as he reaches what is clearly the master bedroom, surveying the original fireplace, the century-old hardwood, the attached balcony that was just begging to be used to pour water onto his unsuspecting brother’s head. Shit, his new house was cool as fuck.

It’d make the most sense to start hauling his load of boxes here, considering that’s where most of his crap is going to end up eventually, but the longer he hovers in the doorway, the more something feels … off. Just the slightest tingle prickling down his spine, and not the good kind. He steps inside and the temperature drops noticeably, a chill raising the hair on his arms.

“The fuck?” he mutters, raking his gaze over the windows in search of damaged panes letting in a breeze, but everything is intact.

He advances another step on impulse and the pinpricks dancing along his vertebrae only grow stronger, now accompanied by the distinct feeling he’s being watched. He scans the room again, slower this time, but there’s no furniture, no closet, not so much as a nook or cranny for anyone or anything to hide. Even the ceiling is empty when he turns his gaze upwards on the off chance he really does have some bats hanging around that he’s somehow missed on his numerous pre-sale walk-throughs.

Nary a beady eye to be found and still the sensation of being in someone’s sights doesn’t lessen. Not that it’s a threatening feeling, exactly, just distinctly unsettling, like there’s someone behind him no matter how many times he glances over his shoulder and finds nothing but empty air.

But that was crazy. He’d read the final sale documents until his eyes had been about to start bleeding and he’s absolutely positive that the house hadn’t come with any roommates. He’s probably just imagining the feeling, the result of watching one too many horror movies in the last week or his brain making things up in an attempt to liven up the empty space.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, yanking him out of his thoughts, and he rolls his eyes without even looking at the screen, already able to see the text from Roman in his mind’s eye: where you at?? i’m not packing up all your crap for you followed by an absurdly long string of emojis that basically constituted their own Roman-specific hieroglyphic language.

Time to face the moving-day music before Roman got annoyed enough with waiting that he rescinded his promise of free manual labor, then. Any investigations of potential invisible voyeurs would have to wait, no matter how titillating such a prospect sounded when he put it like that.

“You win for now, house,” he says into the quiet as he turns to leave, an edge of coldness still dancing along the goosebumps on his skin. “Keep your secrets. I’ll figure ‘em out eventually.”

---

The afternoon passes in a blur of hauling entirely too many heavy boxes and unwieldy pieces of furniture to the new house, and by the time night settles onto the horizon, Remus is utterly exhausted. He flops back on the couch, too tired to even think about putting his bedframe together, and he’s out in minutes.

He wakes disoriented, mind scrabbling blankly for a moment before the darkness coalesces into the still-unfamiliar contours of his sitting room. He just lies there for a moment, trying to figure out what’s roused him, but all is still. Just his brain deciding to deprive him of some tantalizingly horrifying nightmares, unfortunately—

Tap tap tap.

Remus bolts upright at the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the hardwood upstairs, adrenaline surging in a dizzying rush. There hadn’t been any signs of a squatter all day, and surely he’d remembered to lock the doors so no one could steal all the crap he’d just spent a whole day of his life lugging around. He waits for a moment, holding his breath as silence falls, and just when he’s about to pass the whole thing off as his imagination playing tricks on him, the steps start up again, slow and rhythmic like someone is pacing on the upper level.

Fuck his luck. If someone is secretly living in the attic of his fancy new home, he’s not going to be pleased.

He rolls off the couch and snatches his phone off of one of the plethora of boxes waiting to be unpacked, debating whether to risk turning on the flashlight before deciding for it; he might give away any element of surprise with the beam, but he’s certain to give it away if he starts banging face-first into walls or cracking his skull open falling down the stairs. His eye catches on a glass paperweight on the coffee table, a characteristically pretentious housewarming present from Roman, who apparently thought Remus had so many papers flying about that he needed to corral them with a glorified rock, and he seizes it on a whim.

Makeshift weapon was a much more useful purpose for the thing than its intended function anyways.

He edges around the scattered boxes towards the stairs, careful to keep his steps light and his hand shielding the light from his phone as the footfalls continue overhead, and makes it all the way up the steps without so much as a creak to give him away.

Flawless. He knew all those times sneaking up behind Roman to scare the shit out of him as kids would pay off someday.

He pauses on the landing to triangulate the noise, then creeps down the hall towards the footsteps as the sound grows even more distinct. The master bedroom again? What the actual fuck was going on with that room? Had he really managed to miss someone in there when he’d investigated earlier in the day? No, he couldn’t have, but then how had someone managed to get past where he’d been sleeping on the couch? Unless he really did have somebody living in the walls—

A floorboard squeaks underneath his foot, deafeningly loud in the quiet of the night, and the footsteps abruptly stop. Remus swears under his breath. Traitorous piece of wood. Now or never, then.

He lunges forward into the doorway of the master bedroom, raising the paperweight and howling a war cry as he swings his light across the room to reveal—

Nothing. The space is as entirely and utterly empty as it had been that morning.

Well, shit. There went any element of surprise he had left.

He darts back into the hall, racing to search through the rest of the rooms on the upper level one by one, but they’re all just as vacant as the first. He even hauls himself into the attic, bracing himself to be clubbed over the head by whoever is lurking, but with the exception of innumerable shadows billowing away from his flashlight, the space proves equally empty as the rest.

Unease stirs in his gut, creeping in alongside the lingering adrenaline as he makes his way back down the precariously rickety ladder into the main house. Surely there’s no way someone could have gotten past him, not when he would have heard them in the hall or going down the stairs.

And yet, as far as he can tell, besides a few mice tucked away in the attic, there isn’t another living soul in the house.

He stops in the doorway of the master bedroom again, staring inside. He’s positive this is where the footsteps had been emanating from, lack of proof be damned. Something weird was going on with this house.

Good thing Remus had just made the biggest financial commitment of his life to buy it.

Nothing for it now but to hope some elusive, wall-dwelling ax murderer doesn’t give him the chop in his sleep, he supposes, although he has to admit that’d be a badass way to go.

He reluctantly makes his way back downstairs and shoves a pile of boxes at the foot of the stairs to trip any nefarious intruders coming down, then retreats back to the couch, all the while keeping his ears primed for so much as a whisper of sound above him.

But even though it takes him a long time to drift back to sleep, the house around him remains as silent as a grave.

---

The whole thing must have been an impressively lucid dream, Remus decides the next morning. A second investigation in the light of day doesn’t reveal anything out of place: no shoe prints on the floor, no critters, certainly no people. It was probably nothing then, he tries to convince himself, just his overactive imagination needing an outlet after being a bit too jittery from all the excitement of moving.

But he finds himself pausing in the master bedroom again, something drawing him back to the space. First the chill and the strange feeling of being watched, then the mysterious footsteps? Two separate coincidences, or something more?

God, he sounded about as paranoid as Virgil. Next thing he knew he was going to be inventing his very own conspiracy theory to explain a few bumps in the night.

It really was nothing, he tells himself, shaking off any lingering unease as he tromps back down the stairs. If he starts jumping at every little noise in his old-as-shit house, he’ll be long dead before he gets the property restored. If he starts seeing glowing red eyes in the dark, he’ll start to worry. Until then, he has a mountain of boxes to unpack.

Unfortunately, said mountain does not pull a Beauty and the Beast and begin unpacking itself, leaving Remus to spend a dreadfully dull afternoon doing it instead, only the allure of building a fort out of all the empty boxes keeping him from living out of cardboard for the rest of his life.

By the time he’s finally finished unboxing most of the downstairs and getting the tv and wifi set up, most of the day has passed him by, afternoon sunlight splaying golden fingers across the hardwood.

Break time, then. He’s earned it, if he does say so himself.

He collapses onto the couch, flipping on the tv and surfing through the channels until he finds a rerun of some low-budget horror film from the eighties. Perfect. Nothing like a bit of mindless tv to rot his brain just that much more. Settling back more comfortably into the cushions, he pops open the bag of chips he’s snagged from the kitchen and pulls out his phone, beginning to scroll through his notifications.

Modern multitasking at its finest, truly.

But he’s barely a minute into atrophying his mind via social media before the tv starts flickering, volume dropping precipitously before ratcheting back up, the picture jumping to the weather channel, then a British cooking show, then the news with Spanish subtitles flashing in and out at the bottom of the screen.

Remus freezes with a chip halfway to his mouth, staring at the remote where it’s very definitely out of his reach on the coffee table, all by its lonesome. He’s no expert, but he’s pretty sure technology was not, in fact, supposed to suddenly start functioning by itself without any human input. Was his new house secretly sitting over some freaky radioactive waste? That would certainly explain why no one had wanted to buy it. Or was this some EMP disaster? Had someone decided to take out the whole country’s power grid, starting with Remus’ shitty tv?

He sits up, reaching for the rogue remote, only to pause as a chill moves over him, then past him like it’s heading for the tv, and the screen crackles, static beginning to fuzz both the video and the audio as the picture continues to leap wildly between programs.

Fuck the remote, then. Whatever freak accident has descended upon his living room, it’s time to go straight to the source.

Abandoning his snack, he stands, striding to the outlet and yanking the plug out of the wall. Silence falls immediately, the screen fading to black, but there still lingers a noticeable chill in the air, cold energy palpable against his skin and all too reminiscent of the feeling he remembers from being in the master bedroom.

“What the hell,” he mutters under his breath, casting his gaze around the room. Empty, just as upstairs had been the last three times he’d checked. He takes a step backwards, then another, and the strange chill decreases. On a whim, he pulls out his phone, scrolling through several apps without even paying attention to them, and sure enough, the hair on his arms raises as the temperature falls again, that sparking feeling of energy growing more intense as his phone begins to flicker on its own.

“What the actual hell,” he whispers again. Roman can’t have been right—this place can’t actually be haunted. There’s absolutely no way there’s a real, live—or dead, technically, he supposes—ghost in his living room right now playing fuck-up-the-electronics.

But if there is…

“Hello?” he calls, and the flickering abruptly stops, chill retreating once more. Shit. One word in and apparently Remus has already fucked things up. “Hello?” he tries again. Did this maybe-possible-potential ghostie even speak English? “I’m Remus,” he says, feeling more than a little crazy for introducing himself to his empty living room. If Roman ever knew of this, he’d die laughing and then Remus really would have a ghost haunting his ass.

He wracks his brain for something to say. If he were a ghost and a stranger started moving all of their shit into his home, what would he want to hear from them?

“Um, cool house you have here. I’m not gonna like, fuck it up or anything.”

Silence.

“I’m planning on restoring it bit by bit as I have money so if you could tell me the original paint color or wallpaper patterns, that’d be dope.”

Still nothing. Apparently the ghost is not amused. Time for a different tactic, then.

“What’s your name?”

Not even a cricket chirping. Jesus fucking christ, Remus is really blowing this.

“That’s the tv—the television,” he explains, gesturing towards the device that had seemingly either fascinated or enraged his new housemate, he can’t quite tell which. “It works by… well, I don’t really know how it works. Something with waves and frequencies or some shit? But you can watch recordings, people acting or baking or doing dumb reality dating shows or whatever, so if there’s something that you wanna see…”

He trails off, surreptitiously scanning the room for any ethereal presences, but the house is quiet, the ghostly feeling fading bit by bit. Great. An actual paranormal experience and he’s gone and shoved his foot so far in his mouth he can practically feel his toes wiggling in his small intestine.

“Alright, that’s cool, no worries. Just lemme know if you change your mind.”

He waits a moment more, hoping for a disembodied voice to speak or an object to start moving on its own or his body to suddenly become possessed, but there’s nothing. Snagging his leather jacket off the back of the couch, he beelines for the door, forcing himself not to run as excitement begins to grow with every step, bubbling up around his bones. He has a ghost. A ghost, an actual fucking ghost, and he hadn’t even had to pay extra for it. No way he’s not going to take advantage of the universe handing him the sickest housewarming present in the world, never mind the fact that he might end up a walking meat suit for the spirit.

He pauses as he reaches the edge of the yard, then thinks better of it and pivots, heading for his car instead. Who knew how far ghost range was, and he doesn’t want his new roomie overhearing. He’s practically vibrating with energy as he makes his way down the long, winding drive, and he only makes it a few miles down the road before he’s pulling over onto the shoulder, hopefully well out of spirit range.

His first call rings through to voicemail, but Remus doesn’t bother leaving a message, just hangs up and tries again, only to be met with the same result. The third time, though, proves to be the charm.

“What,” the voice on the other end spits, cheerful as ever. “Fuck you, Remus, I’m in the middle of—”

“You’re still into all that weird stuff, right? Like the cryptids and the creepies and the ghouls and ghosties and all that?” Remus interrupts. He can deal with Virgil’s wrath another time—he has information he needs and he needs it pronto.

A pause, so long he’s sure Virgil has hung up on him and he’s going to have to keep calling until the emo answers his question.

“Yeah?” the distrustful reply finally comes, anger blunted by obvious wariness. “Why—”

“I need to pick your brain,” Remus cuts in again. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

---

Plan Contact The Resident Possibly Unfriendly Ghost Who Might Possess Him, or CTRPUGWMPH to be short and snappy about it, is officially a go.

Unfortunately, it isn’t off to a promising start.

Virgil’s knowledge had turned out to be more spirit lore than specifics about how to get a ghost to actually appear, although he’d been infinitely more helpful than Roman, who’d just stared at him and asked if he’d had the house checked for carbon monoxide poisoning. Remus had soundly ignored him and had left Virgil’s apartment with his head swimming with theories about why ghosts haunt particular places and an extensive lecture from Virgil about how to find any potential objects or reasons tying a ghost to the house that might provide a potential talking point to engage said ghost in conversation.

But despite digging into every crack and crevice on the internet, emailing the local historical society, even calling his realtor to ask again about the history of the property, Remus comes up with precious little. The house had originally been built in the 1880s by a local merchant, everyone seems to agree, and had been inherited by his nephew soon after, but beyond that there’s frustratingly scant information available, and he can’t find so much as a whisper about anyone dying in the home. His ghostie could be anyone, then: A Victorian builder who’d taken a tumble, a flapper girl who’d partied a tad too hard, a hapless victim of some modern serial killer who’d taken advantage of the place sitting abandoned for years to do a bit of light murdering.

With precisely zero context clues as to his new housemate’s identity, then, Remus embraces his remarkable talent of keeping up an entirely one-sided conversation as he works around the house the next few days, rambling about anything and everything related to the property he can think of, hoping something will pique the ghost’s interest. But besides a few more cold spots and flickering screens, the house remains stubbornly quiet. Maybe his ghost just needed a bit of help in communicating, though; drifting around an empty building with no one to talk to for the past god-knew-how-many years can’t have done good things to their incorporeal vocal cords.

Which brings him to Plan B: The infamous Ouija board, favorite tool of grifters and bullshit paranormalists everywhere.

And yet despite the makeshift, very high-budget seance he conducts with the two dollar board and the zero dollar candles he’s lovingly stolen from his brother, there’s once again no reply from beyond the veil besides a chill in the room that somehow radiates disapproval. Apparently his ghost isn’t a fan of pseudoscientific games any more than he is. At least they had standards, whoever they were.

But Remus is a stubborn bastard if he does say so himself, so on to Plan C it is. The used EMF meter he snags off of ebay has definitely seen better days, given the prominent crack across its screen, but the thing had been cheap and still seemed to work, so Remus wasn’t complaining. Fancy equipment was for fancy people, after all, and of all the things he’s ever been called, he’s positive fancy isn’t one of them. He sets up the device behind the tv, which still seems to intrigue his ghost every time it’s turned on, puts on the first show he can find, and forces himself to walk away. His little trap is set. Now all he has to do is bide his time pretending to busy himself unpacking a box of books in the next room—

He barely has the chance to register the tv screen flickering out of the corner of his eye before an ear-splitting shriek is rending the air, startling him so violently that he promptly drops a hefty tome on his foot.

“Shit,” he breathes, surging back into the living room, but the noise has already stopped just as suddenly as it began, replaced by a frigid chill permeating the room. Maybe he should have thought twice about scaring the resident phantom without first hiding any of his valuables. Hopefully he won’t wake up tomorrow to find his tv shattered. “It won’t hurt you,” he calls, though the EMF meter indicates a distinct lack of any supernatural presences. “It just makes noise to let me know when you’re nearby, yeah? Totally harmless.”

No response, but for once he doesn’t mind, not when there’s excitement dancing white-hot across his nerves. There really is a ghost or spirit or demon or something here, and he hasn’t just been imagining things.

Fuck, this house is single-handedly the coolest thing that’s ever happened to him, even if he does now have to worry about his haunting buddy getting a bit of revenge on him in the middle of the night.

But Remus survives safe and sound into the next day without so much as a supernatural scratch on his skin. Bloody payback didn’t seem like his ghost’s style anyways, not when their favorite activity seemed to be pressing as many buttons as possible on the tv remote at once. Curiosity is still nipping impatiently at his heels though, urging him to explore this latest avenue of potential communication more, so he sets up the EMF meter again, this time in the master bedroom where the spirit seems most inclined to spend time if the continued pacing in the middle of the night is anything to go by.

A brilliant plan, only minorly ruined by the fact that the device is nowhere to be found when he goes searching for it the next morning.

“Are you disappearing things, ghostie?” he asks the empty bedroom. “Gonna zap me into another dimension next?”

He’s joking, but as his hunt through the house reveals neither hide nor hair of the EMF meter, he can’t help but wonder. Had the ghost really just yeeted the thing into the ether? Or maybe it was right where he’d left it in the middle of the bedroom, but had been turned invisible like the spirit themself? What kind of ghostly superpowers did he even have, if any—

He comes to an abrupt halt as he emerges out the back door onto the porch, a laugh spilling past his lips as he surveys the myriad bits of metal and broken plastic strewn around him. Looks like he’s found his EMF meter. Apparently his ghost wasn’t nearly as endeared to this technology as he was anything with a screen. He glances up to the master bedroom window over his head, shading his eyes from the sun.

“Fair enough,” he calls, still fighting down amusement despite himself, and there’s the faintest shimmer in the air above the balcony, reminiscent of a heat mirage despite the cool morning air. “No more screeching little boxes.”

Left with zero information about his ghost’s identity, a useless Ouija board better repurposed as a doorstop, and the remains of his one piece of official ghost-hunting equipment, Remus concludes his only option is to embark on Plan D. Said plan isn’t so much an strategic approach as it is a wild hail mary to find any way to communicate with his ghost that didn’t involved hurling objects from balconies, as much fun as such an activity was, but then again, Plan D did sound delightfully dirty, so he’ll take the trade-off.

The internet, of course, is the place to turn to for highly questionable ghost advice, and it only takes a single google search to find message boards teeming with it. Half of it is clearly bullshit, he quickly discovers as he trawls through post after useless post, and the other half is baseless theories without any semblance of evidence to back them up, but just as he’s about to call it quits and move on to whatever the hell Plan E is, an old thread catches his eye.

‘Old Ghost Caught By Photography?’ the title reads, and Remus skims through the post, intrigued despite himself at the detailed claims the author had been able to capture the image of a Victorian spirit by using an antique camera and photography methods from the end of the nineteenth century. He pores over the attached images, searching for the slightest hint of photoshop or manipulation, but everything seems legit. And it made sense in some weird, probably illogical way, he supposes, that ghosts might only be spotted by using technology from their day and age—historical continuity in the metaphysical realm or some shit.

It’s the best lead he has after hours of searching, and really, he’s just spent a very hefty chunk of change buying a whole-ass house; what was the harm in dropping a few more dollars on some vintage photography equipment?

Which is precisely how he finds himself crammed into his makeshift darkroom in the tiny closet under the stairs several weeks later, holding his breath as he carefully begins to look through the latest batch of negatives he’s just finished processing. It had taken an obscene amount of research, a healthy dose of trial-and-error, and more than a few failures to figure out the intricacies of the dry plate photography process, but he’d gotten there in the end, even if the most he has to show for it is a few suspicious blurs in a couple of images.

Maybe this whole idea of capturing ghosts in photos was just as bullshit as the others, he muses as he examines yet another empty picture of the dining room, or maybe his ghost wasn’t from the same era as the camera he’d bought. Maybe his ghost simply didn’t want to have his photo taken, or maybe—

His train of thought abruptly derails as he picks up the next plate.

Holy shit. Holy shit.

The image is still a negative, the reversed colors lending a certain eeriness to the picture under the red darkroom lights, but there, right smack in the middle of the photo—a figure. An actual human figure, clear as day, looking right at the camera. Remus whoops, nearly knocking over a vial of chemicals with his elbow as he dances backwards in pure giddiness. Oh fuck yes , there is a ghost haunting the place. His ghost, now that he owns the house. His ghost who is…

He pauses, forcing himself to focus on the figure in the photo even as he feels like he’s about to vibrate right off of his bones with excitement. Spectacles, clean-shaven, dark hair neatly styled. Neat trousers, white shirt, trim waistcoat, and a decidedly fancy ascot, the whole ensemble distinctly old-fashioned. Victorian, then? Or Edwardian? Or some historical reenactor who’d met an untimely demise in costume? And it does seem to be an untimely demise; the man looks to be in his mid- to late-twenties, unless he’d found some ability to look whatever age he wanted in the afterlife.

Regardless, he can’t make himself focus on fashion for long. He has a ghost to talk to. Fighting his way out of the cramped closet, he bounds up the stairs, forcing himself to slow to a respectable jog as he darts into the master bedroom. He stops in the middle of the still-bare room, trying and utterly failing to keep his hopes in check.

“Hello? Ghostie?”

No response.

“Mr. Glasses and White Shirt?”

His skin prickles, the hair on the back of his neck raising. Aha. There he was.

“Hey, what’s up?” He turns in a slow circle, searching for any sign of his specter, any flicker of light off a spectacle lens or a flash of a shirtsleeve, but the room is as empty as ever.

“I have a photo if you’d like to see it.” Could ghosts not see themselves in mirrors or was that only vampire lore? And if he couldn’t see his own reflection, did the ghost even remember what he looked like?

He raises the picture, proferring the negative to the vacant room, and holds his breath. Nothing, for several long moments, and then the chill edges closer. Remus bites his lip, barely able to keep himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet at the prospect of a ghost being within arm’s reach.

“I wasn’t trying to be creepy or anything, I just wanted to see if you were real or if I needed to go check myself into a padded room, you know? I’m Remus, if I haven’t said that. What’s your name?”

Several more excruciatingly long moments that Remus is sure has to be the longest span of silence in history, then—

“Hello.”

The voice is thin and slightly hoarse, quiet enough that Remus has to strain to make it out, but it’s as unmistakably real as the form that flickers into existence right in front of his eyes, identical to the man in the photo. He’s distinctly transparent, the edges of him not quite defined, fuzzing out around the edges like the ambient glow of neon signs, but he’s here and he’s real and this is so fucking cool that Remus could keel over right here and now from excitement and join the ghost in wandering around the house for all eternity.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, because if there was ever a time for swearing, by god this is fucking it, and the spirit withdraws slightly, already guarded expression closing in further. “No no no, it’s good,” he rushes to assure him, resisting the urge to reach out and try to touch him. “Good holy shit. Complimentary holy shit.”

The ghost doesn’t seem entirely appeased, but he tilts his head slightly, something like curiosity sparking in his eyes as he evaluates Remus.

“Why are you not frightened of me?” he finally asks, and Remus has to fight back the absurd laugh bubbling up in his chest. He’s being questioned by a century-old ghost in the middle of his haunted home. Life really was delightfully freaky.

“No offense, man, but you’re not exactly terrifying. I mean, I’ve been here what? A solid month? And you haven’t even tried to pluck my eyeballs out or anything.”

Another unreadable pause. Is he just giving the spirit ideas? Were his eyes about to be forcibly unmarried from his skull à la eagles tearing out Prometheus’ liver?

“Do you want me to be afraid of you?” he asks after a further absolutely unbearable five seconds of silence.

“No,” the ghost admits after a moment of clear hesitation, “but previous residents certainly have not appreciated my presence here.”

Remus scoffs. “That’s their problem. Some of us are smarter than that.”

The other man’s head tilt deepens, something akin to puzzlement furrowing his brow, as if he can’t fathom why having a ghost is actually the most badass shit on the face of the planet.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Remus asks, exhilaration still racing along the underside of his skin so intensely that he can barely stand it. “You can ask me whatever you want, too.”

The ghost nods, although he still seems cautious as one hand fiddles absently with his ascot. “I suppose that would be alright.”

Twenty questions with an undead spirit. Remus’ life really was getting better by the minute.

“Did you used to live here?”

“I did, many years ago.”

“Did you own the place?”

“At one point in time, yes. It was truly a beautiful house in its day, and a wonderful place to reside.”

Oh fuck yes. If having an old-timey ghost who can give him historically accurate advice about restoring the house isn’t the coolest fucking thing that’s ever happened to him, he isn’t sure what is. He has half a mind to start grilling him on paint colors and wallpaper prints and the original hardwood, but—

“Did you die here?”

The words are blurting out of his mouth without even bothering to detour through his brain on the way out, burning curiosity eclipsing any thought that perhaps asking about death isn’t exactly acceptable ghost etiquette. He barely has time to register the change in the spirit’s expression, the visceral upset written across his features clear as day, before he’s gone in between one breath and the next, vanishing back into whatever thin air he’d come from and leaving nothing but a biting chill in his wake.

Shit shit shit. He’s finally gotten the ghost to trust him enough to show up and talk and then he’s gone and ruined it within the span of two minutes all because he had all the self-control of a sieve trying to retain water.

“Wait,” he calls, casting about in vain. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.” Well, apparently his subconscious had, but that hadn’t been his intention. “Please come back. You can ask me as many invasive questions as you like.” Nothing. “You can haunt me for revenge, if you want.” Utter silence. “Are you gonna hurl me off the balcony like my EMF meter?”

There he goes again, giving the specter ideas, although really, being yeeted out of a window by a ghost would be a damn cool end if he does say so himself. He lingers in the room for several long minutes, forcing himself to keep quiet lest he miss the spirit’s hushed voice, but there’s nothing but the faint sound of a bird twittering outside.

“Alright,” he finally relents, disappointment pooling in his stomach as he glances down at the photography plate still in his hand, the negative serving as indisputable evidence that the encounter hadn’t just been a fever dream. He’ll find a way to make things right with the ghost somehow, one way or another. He has to. “Just come spook me if you change your mind.”

Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!): @darth-does-stuff

#thomas sanders sides big bang 2023 #tssbb2023 #sanders sides #ts remus #remus sanders #ts logan #logan sanders #ts roman #roman sanders #ts virgil #virgil sanders #intrulogical #loceit #ts fanfic #the art of saying goodbye #my fic #rosepetal writes

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anxiouslyfred · 2 years

Text

Connections - Logicality

Summary: A world of various soulmate connections forming at different ages, The sides need to navigate each having multiple types of soulmate connections and finding each other. Shared soulmates make finding each other a bit easier, especially when Logan can copy Janus's methods to try and find the soulmate he writes letters to.

Part of an ongoing daily DRLAMP series with each part focusing on one pairing

/\/\

Logan was learning, not stealing ideas, just learning from his soulmates methods of finding each other.

Honestly with this specific soulmate he'd been learning almost immediately after he got his first reply. She had corrected him over the importance of being himself and not needing to fit into some questionnaire format for other people to understand him by.

Nowadays he was a little embarrassed to remember that his first letter sent was essentially a dating site profile, barely even looking like a letter to anyone. His soulmate had sent it back to him covered in question marks for his first reply.

That letter was still at the front of the folder he kept their correspondence in though.

Dear Soulmate Hi Honey

??? Name: I'm not allowed to provide this. Perhaps you may call me Scientist since that is a passion of mine

Age: 15 as this process dictates I must be to know of our connection Did you base this off an online dating profile?

Location: I live in a 2 story family home with a pond in the garden.?? That sounds like a lovely home. What are your siblings like?

Turn Ons: I do not understand this section. Does it mean my interests? It could do to be clearer. My interests are in astronomy and chemistry primarily but beyond that I desire to learn everything I can about the world we live in. Honey, it means what gets you excited according to my parents. If your passionate about science then I guess that would class as a turn on.

Turn Offs: Another section I do not understand. As humans the only way for us to be turned off, as it were, would be in death. For machinery and electronics perhaps there are other ways to turn them off but for every living thing we are only truly off in death. I asked my mum to explain turn-offs too and she says they're things that stop you wanting to be around someone. It could be small things, pet peeves, like how someone constantly taps things, or larger like hating the political views people hold.

Perfect Date: The ideal time of year for me is usually as Autumn truly sets in cooling the fervour of summer. I suppose to give that a more specific date would be early to mid October. I love sweater weather too.

Dear soulmate,

This was interesting to read but you don't need to fill out a form to tell me about yourself. We're just talking you know, even if that's talking through letters. Are you okay with me calling you Honey? My family is big on pet names and that one just seems to fit you.

What are your siblings like? I've always wished I could have younger siblings to look after, but I often get to babysit for my cousins and our neighbours anyway. Kids have the biggest imaginations you know, and don't care about staying in the lines when colouring either.

Love Popsie (that's my cousins nickname for me)

Of course the letter was old now, and the folder it was kept in had changed a few times to have space for all their letters to be kept together, but Logan still re-read them often enough.

What was hanging on his mind more than that first letter though was that Janus had managed to find Virgil through him, and both of them mentioning how they met each other to them. He wondered if there could be a way to meet his letter connection by doing the same; If by some miracle, Janus or Roman already knew her.

They had both already told him of the one they knew that he hadn't managed to meet yet, Patton, and the connections shared with him. It even seemed plausible since both his letter soulmate and Patton used she/he pronouns and happily asked people to swap between them regularly. The only thing he needed to know now was if she truly was his soulmate.

Dear Soulmate,

I hesitate to write this, since I know we agreed not to push the limits of what we can share in an attempt to meet up before life gives us that chance, but curiosity makes me ask.

As I've mentioned before in letters I currently know 3 of my soulmates, with only yourself and my item swap soulmate left to meet. What I did not wish to share as the story wasn't mine to tell, is that 2 of my soulmates also know another of their own who uses pronouns the same way you do.

The first I met, whom I had a timer counting down to when we'd meet, met this other a few months after we first met. They had soulmate creatures, themself a frog and their soulmate a serpent and encountered each other at the city zoo.

My ribbon soulmate informs me that the other they've met was the cause they believed the ribbon that connected us was black for the longest time. He described a rather fantastical scene of colours coming back to him mid-performance and interrupting the entire show. I suspect he's embellished some since surely the theatrical company he was performing with would not be so happy to give him roles again if that was the case.

If either of these situations sound at all familiar to you, please can you meet me in the astronomy exhibit that's currently visiting the town museum? I'll be visiting everyday after work for this week.

Yours Hopefully

Astronomer.

/\/\

Patton read the letter and froze, knowing that his scientist had just described how he met Janus and how Roman felt things happened when they met. There was no way she wasn't going to the museum that week, and it did have the exhibit mentioned showing on the website for it.

He was going to meet his third soulmate deliberately, and knowing that it was going to happen. It sounded like a lie, as if they'd managed to break some unspoken rule, even if they were just letting their soulmate connections help each other. Then again she was too nervous to ask either of her soulmates about Logan directly. Once they met, he could get to know Logan more in person, although he already knew him fairly well from all the letter's they'd written over the years. Perhaps he should take a few, just to confirm again that they're meant to be.

It's the first and latest that end up in her bag come Monday evening when she's entering the museum, following the arrows around for the exhibit. Her soulmate had mentioned preferring to look and dress smart, so she was looking around for someone in a suit, or at least a shirt and tie. If Roman had thought the ribbon connecting him to Logan was black that meant he was likely wearing blue as well, so there were definitely clues to help Patton locate him.

There was a man stood tracing the constellations with his fingers on one of the displays who was dressed how Patton thought his penpal would be. He hesitated to interrupt, but went over to stand next to him, glancing over occasionally and pulling the pages from his bag. “Excuse me, Kiddo. Can I just ask if you were the one to write these letters to me?” He asks when he realises the man glancing over at him.

“I am, although I would prefer not to see a copy of that one ever again. It was quite mortifying for you to return it questioning my methods of introduction. Are you Patton?” Logan turned to her, flushing slightly as he recognised the profile of his first letter.

“Are you Logan?” She replied, nodding to answer his question. “And it was cute. Don't be embarrassed. I doubt anyone had such a unique first letter.”

Logan paused before nodding back, “That is a much kinder view of it than I've allowed myself and yes, I am Logan. How useful it is for us to share soulmates in Janus and Roman.”

“Best thing to share ever!” Patton agreed, almost cheering the words but trying not to since they were in a museum and shouldn't disturb the other visitors.

#logicality #patton sanders #logan sanders #background moceit #background loceit #background logince #background royality #soulmate au #Letter Writing #soulmate letters

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