Chapter Text
Janus had only initially come to the slumber party on Logan’s behest. They were barely a couple of weeks into their first year at college, and Logan was the one person they really considered a friend thus far. He had been the only person in their orientation group to consistently not misgender them, so Janus had promptly begun sticking to his side like a burr, and after orientation was over the pair had continued to hang out, because Logan wasn’t that bad, actually. His roommate—Roman, a noisy, uproarious boy with far too much energy for anyone’s good—had seemed a different story at the time.
“Please, Janus,” Logan had said when he invited them. “For my sanity. I know Roman’s guest list will undoubtedly be far too high-energy for me. At least this way I will have an enjoyable conversation partner while I am kept up until three in the morning.”
“You make it sound so tempting,” Janus had responded drily, but they’d shown up all the same. Logan’s estimation had been correct; the half-dozen or so people that Roman had invited were all quite loud and extroverted, and Janus and Logan took refuge on the top bunk, entertaining themselves by quietly insulting the Disney movie blaring on the television in the background.
A little after midnight, Roman’s mop of thick red-brown curls popped up over the bunk railing. “We’re playing spin the bottle!” he announced. “Want to join?”
“No,” Logan said immediately.
“I’m alright,” Janus said, a second later.
“I demand a tribute from this bunk bed to participate!” Roman pouted at the pair of them. “You two have been ignoring us all night long!”
“Yes, that is on purpose,” Logan said calmly.
Janus glanced down at the group of Roman’s friends sitting on the dorm room floor. One person in particular caught their eye. They were compact and sturdy and softly chubby, sitting in the midst of the chaos and laughing uproariously. They had a mullet dyed a bright shade of green and were wearing a rainbow binder that did not quite hold in their chest, doc martens, a septum ring, and a pair of jeans too large for them, held up around their waist with a belt covered in spikes.
Spin the bottle, hm?
Roman pouted harder. “Come ooooonnnn, it’ll be fun!” he begged.
Logan sighed. “Go away, Roman.”
When Roman did not go away, Janus shrugged. “Fine, I’ll come down for a few minutes.”
“Really?” Roman looked thrilled.
“Are you sure?” Logan asked. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” Janus waved him away, not looking away from the green-haired person below. They looked up and caught Janus’s eye; for a moment they seemed curious, with wide, bright eyes, then they grinned devilishly and threw Janus a wink before looking back to the group they were seated amidst.
“Gosh, Specs, maybe your taste in friends isn’t so terrible after all,” Roman said teasingly, hopping off the bunk and accompanying Janus’s descent with a flourish. “After you, m’theydy.”
Janus took a seat in the circle, beside Roman and not quite all the way across from the captivating green-haired person, who was shamelessly looking Janus up and down, eyes dragging along their body with a gaze so lascivious Janus could almost physically feel it. They hadn’t thought a black turtleneck and matching skinny jeans were all that compelling of a look, but they weren’t complaining about the way they were being stared at.
“Are we playing with the normal rules?” a lanky, bored-looking boy with neon orange hair asked, not looking up from his phone.
“Yep,” Roman said.
“Except if Ro or I land on each other, I get to punch him,” the green-haired person added.
“What? Hey! No!” Roman protested at once, hands flying up to shield his face defensively even seated so far away from them.
The person cackled. “Well, I’m not kissing you, idiot.”
Roman frowned. “We’ll just spin again if that happens. Don’t punch me.”
“You’re no fun.” They stuck their tongue out at him. “Who’s your friend?” Their glance went to Janus, becoming far more interested.
“Oh! Right!” Roman straightened. “We should do intros before we play, so Janus knows everyone. We can just go around the circle, I’ll start. I’m Roman, first year, theatre major, he/him.” Roman pointed to Janus. “Your turn.”
“Janus, they/them, first year pre-law.”
The introductions continued around the circle until at last it was the turn of the person with green hair, who hadn’t stopped raking their eyes up and down Janus’s frame this whole time. They grinned and shifted in place into what could only be described as a manspread, sitting back confidently and pushing their mullet back, twirling an emerald lock around their finger. “I’m Remus, he/they, the cooler sexier twin of the Disney apologist over there—”
“Hey!” Roman protested.
“—and a first year art major.” He grinned at Janus. “Absolutely down to be the sugar baby of a rich lawyer, by the way.”
“Remus!” Roman cried, clearly scandalized.
“Jeez. I’m kidding, I’m kidding, calm down.” He waved a hand appeasingly at his twin but sent Janus a wink that was not subtle at all.
Janus stifled a smile. “I’ll let you know when I’m accepting applications.”
Remus threw their head back and cackled. “Oh, I like them!” he announced, before composing himself and nodding at the orange-haired boy on his left to continue the circle of introductions.
The game commenced soon afterward; it was nothing special, by and large. The boy with orange hair, whose name was Jaxon, surprised everyone by setting aside his phone for exactly long enough to roughly kiss the air out of Roman’s lungs and clearly leave him with his head spinning, staring open-mouthed at Jaxon as he nonchalantly returned to his game. Roman, in turn, kissed a short person named Nicky who had dark skin and short blue hair. He kissed them far more sweetly and gently, leaving them hiding a shy grin behind their hands and Roman looking very pleased with himself. Janus sat, nibbling on their thumbnail and watching the game proceed, feeling simultaneously disappointed and relieved each time the bottle was spun and did not land on them.
When it was their turn, despite their best effort and crossed fingers, the bottle landed on Jaxon, just to Remus’s left, who barely looked up from his phone even when he was nudged. “Cool,” he said without much interest.
Janus hesitantly crossed the circle until they sat on their knees before him. “Uh,” they said eloquently when he did not look up from the phone.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, dude.” He put the phone aside and glanced them over. “Alright, shoot,” he offered with a half-smile.
Heart pounding for some reason, and far less aware of Jaxon than they were of Remus’s dark eyes on them as he watched with intense, perfect silence, Janus leaned forward and tentatively pressed their lips to Jaxon’s in a brief kiss before sitting back on their heels once more, almost afraid to look at Remus and see their reaction.
“Nice,” Jaxon said, in a tone that somehow against all odds managed to not come off as condescending. He gave them a thumbs up and picked his phone up again.
Janus nodded, mouth dry and heart rate not slowing. Remus was right next to Jaxon, so Janus could look at him without directly, openly looking at him, and oh, wow, he was looking at them, pinning them down with a heavy, heated gaze that Janus did not really want to escape from.
They swallowed and slowly returned to their spot in the circle, where they sat and picked at the knee of their jeans, sneaking glances at Remus as the game went on, nerves and curiosity both ratcheting up as the game wound closer and closer to Remus’s turn.
“That’s cheating,” Jaxon said when the girl on Remus’s right also landed on Nicky, but opted to simply kiss their cheek. It was unclear how he had noticed, as his eyes remained glued to his screen. “The rules are—”
“Nah, it’s all good, Jaxon, don’t push her,” Remus interrupted quickly. “C’mon, it’s my turn, give me a go.”
Jaxon raised his eyebrows, but was silent as the bottle passed to Remus.
“Alright,” Remus said, rubbing their hands together. They glanced over at Janus and winked. “I’ve got this.” They rested a hand on the bottle, nudging it back and forth a few times as if to test its weight, then sent it spinning with a flick of his wrist.
Janus watched the bottle spin, heart in their mouth as it began to slow. It spun right past them, pointing towards—
Remus’s hand shot out and caught the bottle, turning it back towards Janus.
“Okay, that is cheating,” Jaxon snapped.
“Oh, shut up,” Remus said, crawling across the circle and taking Janus’s face in their hands, sitting up on his knees so they were taller than Janus.
Up close like this, Janus could see that Remus’s eyelashes were so long they brushed against his cheeks when he blinked, and he had a few very tiny freckles on his nose, and his lips were soft and plump and pink, and he had mascara on his upper lip to make it look like he had a mustache, and his eyes were warm and brown just like Roman’s but better, and he was looking at them with an expression of want that sparked a warm answering feeling in Janus’s chest and low in their stomach, and they abruptly decided that participating in spin the bottle tonight was possibly the best idea they’d had in their entire life.
“Hi,” Remus murmured with a tiny grin.
Janus found themself a little too overwhelmed to speak, faced with what was practically a lapful of eager, pretty person wanting to kiss them, so they simply hooked a finger in the collar of Remus’s binder and tugged him closer.
Remus grinned wider and dove in, connecting his lips to Janus’s at once.
Janus was vaguely aware of someone whistling, but was more focused on the warm mouth against their own and the frankly undignified soft little noise of pleasure they made as Remus tilted their head back a little more and nudged their lips open with his tongue. They reached up one hand to tangle in his green hair—too curly to be wavy, but too wavy to be curly, and dreadfully tangled but oh so soft—and leaned into his touch, kissing back cautious and eager all at once.
Remus tasted of the clementines and candy Janus had seen being passed around earlier, and he kissed firm and hot, and Janus was overwhelmed in the best way, feeling deliciously helpless in his grasp. His hands were warm against their cool skin, one hand cupping the side of their face and one wrapped around the back of their neck, the sensation of his caresses making something beneath Janus’s skin spark hot and wanting.
Janus’s feet just barely brushed against his thighs where he’d sat himself down between them, and the feeling of Remus’s blue denim jeans against the tiny bit of bare skin on Janus’s ankles was somehow the most wonderfully scandalous sensation they could imagine. Their hand was still caught in the collar of his binder, the knuckle of their forefinger pressed against the divot between his collarbones and fingertip barely brushing against the softness of his chest, and they wondered if it felt as tingly-exciting-special-daring- hot to him as it did to them.
Remus did something with his tongue that drew another tiny moan from Janus, which Remus swallowed eagerly and seemed almost to use as fuel in what must be his quest to kiss Janus so hard he turned their brain to actual mush, because holy shit Remus was a fantastic kisser. Janus could happily do this all day, breathing in air that was warm because it had been trapped in the inch of space between their skin and drowning in the sensation of being kissed and kissed and kissed, like it was as necessary to Remus to kiss them as it was to breathe.
Remus pulled back from Janus at last and cradled their flushed, dazed face in his hands for a second more, running his thumbs soothingly back and forth along their cheekbones, something delighted and soft in his face, before he released them and sat back down. “Good game, everyone,” they said nonchalantly, ignoring (or possibly pleased by) the shocked gazes focused on him from around the circle. “Who wants to do another round?”
“…What if we played Mario Kart instead?” Roman, who was looking distinctly weirded out, said.
When the group proved amenable to Roman’s suggestion, Janus, whose heart rate was only just beginning to calm, hoisted themself to their feet and climbed back up the ladder to where Logan was attempting to read a book with a longsuffering expression on his face.
“Welcome back,” Logan said.
“Thank you,” Janus responded, then was distracted by an exchange below.
“I see you enjoyed yourself,” Jaxon was saying to a still-smug Remus.
“Oh, yeah,” he agreed, grinning. He took on a thoughtful expression, and a second later announced: “I want to peg them.”
Janus choked on air.
“Remus!” Roman cried, so shrill several people winced. “What the hell?”
“Well, I do!” Remus protested. “What is your problem, honestly—”
“Excuse me, my problem?” Roman put his hands on his hips. “How is any of this my fault? You’re the one making it weird, they’re probably so uncomfortable right now—”
“Ro,” Remus cut in, “shut up.”
“Don’t tell me what to—what are you doing?”
A minute later a curly green head popped up over the bunk bed railing. “Hullo,” Remus said cheerfully. “Scuse me, Jan, you’re very pretty and watching Jaxon kiss you was real nice and kissing you was, like, super hot, so may I please have your number?” He beamed sweetly at them.
“No, how dare you,” Janus said drily, then cracked a half-smile. “Sure. Give me your phone.”
Remus cheered under his breath, fishing their phone out of their back pocket while remaining precariously balanced on the side of the bunk bed, and handed it over, open to their contacts page.
Janus punched their number and name in and hit save while Logan looked on in bewilderment. “Afraid I don’t have the rich lawyer thing going on yet,” they said lightly, handing the phone back to Remus. “If that’s what you were hoping for.”
“Oh, hon, I can already tell you’re a selling point all on your own.” Remus pulled himself further over the railing and pressed a tiny kiss to Janus’s cheek before hopping back down to the floor. “Got their number,” they announced smugly to a clearly annoyed Roman. “So they can’t have been too unhappy with me. Good on you for inviting them, by the way.”
“Logan did that, actually,” Roman mumbled, crossing his arms.
“Oh, did he? I like Logan, then,” Remus said. He giggled. “Guess I’ll have to find him a boyfriend to pay him back.”
“I am alright, thank you,” Logan called quickly, a deeply alarmed look in his eyes at this prospect. “Please do not bother yourself.”
“No, I’m doing it, I’m doing it,” Remus said in a tone that could be joking or serious, it was impossible to tell. He stretched, his binder riding up on his stomach and showing off a belly button piercing. “Not tonight, though,” he added. “I’m heading home.”
“You’re not going to play Mario Kart?” Roman inquired.
“Nah, I have calc at eight AM tomorrow. Plus, I mean, my night has definitely peaked with that cutie.” Remus grinned over their shoulder at Janus and blew them a kiss. “Catch you all later!” They wrapped an arm around Roman’s shoulders in a quick hug, grabbed a jacket off Roman’s bed and a backpack from the pile inside the door, and strode out the door.