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Remus wished he was normal. Really he truly did. But he wasn’t. Because normal people felt emotions. Normal people got sad when their best friend left. Normal people got mad when it happened again. Normal people didn’t want to kill people to try and feel just a little something. Normal people weren’t Remus. Remus never felt emotion and it was driving him insane. Insane. Is that an emotion? Remus felt that a lot. Maybe he was insane. He used to feel emotion. Like that rush he felt when stealing a second cookie after lunch. Or the guilt he felt when he accidentally broke Janus’ favorite mug at the ripe age of eight. Or the joy he felt when Virgil played tea party with him. The sorrow he felt when he ripped apart his favorite stuffed animal. The regret. The anger. He’d give anything to feel those things again. Maybe that’s why he was so weird. Scaring people, making them disgusted. He did all of it to feel something. He didn’t know what though. Remorse? Guilt? Joy? Was he trying to feel happiness when he knocked his brother out or was he trying to feel guilty? Was cutting off his own hand from time to time out of sorrow or anger? Remus didn’t know. But he wanted to know. Wanted to know why he never felt anything. Why couldn’t he cry? Why why why why why WHY?! Virgil left both him and Janus when they were younger, why wasn’t that something he cried over?! Or when Janus, the only person he had left, decided to leave him too! Shouldn’t that make him angry? Shouldn’t it make him want to curl up into a ball and cry until he couldn’t anymore? It should. But it didn’t. Why didn’t it?! Why can’t he just be normal? Remus stared at his wall covered in ninja stars and threw another one at it. He did that. But he was never angry when he did it. Just frustrated. Frustrated? Emotion? He felt that one too. Maybe they were emotions and they were the only two he felt. Yeah. Insanity and frustration. The only feelings he felt. At this point Remus wouldn’t care what emotion he got, he just wanted to feel something. And if that something was an empty feeling, so be it. He just wanted to be normal. So maybe that’s why he scared people. Made them hate him. Made them push him aside out of pure disgust. He wanted to feel left out. Wanted to feel forgotten. Because if he did, wouldn’t he feel sorrow? And feeling sorrowful would make him so joyful. The emotions he would feel if he was normal. It was like a dream to him. Smiling, crying, screaming out of anger. All his screams were just to disturb people. He never actually smiled. No no no. Just creepy smiles that would send chills down somebody’s back. And Remus doesn’t remember the last time he’s cried. Maybe it was when he scraped his knee at five years old. Though that technically wasn’t him. It was King. Any feeling Remus had ever felt had been memories from King. He didn’t break Janus’ mug. King did. And King had felt bad about it for days. Virgil never had tea parties with Remus. He had them with King. Remus didn’t rip apart his bunny. King ripped apart his bunny. All the emotions Remus thought he had used to feel, never came from him. They came from before the split. Before Thomas named him as bad. As wrong. As the thoughts that need to be pushed aside into the back of his mind so he didn’t act on them. Maybe that’s why he was so persistent in getting Thomas to act on what he said. Because if Thomas did something bad because of Remus, he’d feel guilty. Upset. Mad at his own actions. How he envied the way Janus was able to scream when he got upset. The way Virgil could cry when somebody was rude to him. The way Patton beamed when he was praised. The way Roman was able to be proud of his work. And the way Logan was able to be annoyed at all the other’s ridiculous actions. Remus wanted to feel something. Pain even. What did pain feel like? Not physical pain. He knew what that was like. But emotional pain. A sinking feeling? A feeling that made you want to throw everything? He didn’t know. Oh how to feel emotions. But what he really wished he could feel was love. Because the way all the sides and Thomas looked at Nico Flores made him… he didn’t know what. It didn’t make him jealous, though he wishes it did. It just made him… what did it make him? It didn’t make him feel anything and that was the issue! The light sides had everything Remus could ever want and it never made him mad! Never made him sad or jealous. Hell, the fact that Patton had a better relationship with his brother, a person he used to literally share a body with, didn’t make him jealous. The way they laughed at each other’s stupid jokes, the way Patton took care of Roman when he was sick, the way Roman conjured literal animals for Patton. Logan, motherfucking Logic, had a better relationship with Virgil than Remus did. And Virgil had been Remus’ best friend. He had also been King’s best friend. But of course nobody wanted to be his friend anymore. Afterall, who likes insane villains? But that didn’t make him mad. Why didn’t it make him mad? And why the fuck couldn’t he feel emotions?! He was sick of not having answers. He only knew one person who could help him.
~~
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” Logan said, looking up from his book. Remus stared at him deadpanned.
“Emotions? You know, happiness? Sadness? Anger?” Remus replied.
“No I know what those are but I don’t understand what you mean by you don’t feel them. Everybody feels emotions.”
“Didn’t you say you don’t have emotions?”
“That was a while ago. And I was in denial.”
“Okay well I can’t feel emotions and I want to. Fix me.” Remus said.
“You seem to feel emotions just fine.” Logan hummed, looking back to his book.
“Now go away.” He shooed. And that didn’t make Remus upset. Of course it didn’t. Remus just sighed and walked out of Logan’s room only to be face to face with Virgil. Shouldn’t that have struck fear into him?
“What are you doing here?” Virgil hissed.
“Trying to fuck Logie. Byeeee.” Remus grinned, putting on that act he always put on. Virgil rolled his eyes.
“Go back to your room.” Virgil mumbled, pushing past Remus to get to his room. Why didn’t the shove make him mad? Remus needed to think. Who else could help him? Janus! Remus walked to Janus’ room and walked in without a second thought. Janus was sat at his desk, probably doing some boring thing.
“Remus?” Janus asked, clearly alarmed.
“Help me.”
“With? Wait, why are you here?”
“For help.”
“With what.”
“Emotions.”
“What are you in love with somebody?”
“No. That’s the issue.”
“What?”
“I don’t feel emotions and I want to. Why don’t I feel emotions?” Remus asked and Janus raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not sure I’m understanding you correctly.”
“I want to feel sad, Janus! Happy, angry, scared! Any of it, I just want to feel something.” Although Remus was raising his voice the tone remained empty. As if a robot were speaking instead and somebody was just turning up the volume. Janus stared at him for a minute.
“You’ve never felt any emotion before?” Janus asked and Remus shook his head. Janus looked at him sceptially before his eyes widened.
“You’re not lying.”
“Why would I be?”
“Oh-”
“What?”
“Well- you see. Um, during the split I may have, theoretically, taken away your ability to feel emotion because I was scared the split would… well upset you. And I didn’t want you to be upset. Ever. But I guess I didn’t think about how negatively it would affect you.” Janus explained. “Don’t be mad.”
“That’s the issue, Janus. I can’t.” Remus mumbled.
“I can try to find a way to fix it?” Janus offered and Remus rapidly nodded.
“Alright. But I’m going to need Logan’s help. And sit down. It’ll be extremely boring.” Remus nodded and sat on Janus’ bed as the latter summoned Logan. He watched for many, many boring hours of Logan and Janus talking and one quick move to Logan’s lab. But soon, Janus turned to him.
“Okay so I believe we figured something out but, after this you need to promise me something.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re done. Now close your eyes.” Remus did so, fidgeting a bit.
“Stop.” Logan’s sharp voice cut through his ears so he obliged. He didn’t really know what happened but all he knew was that one second, he felt nothing then the next his heart felt... sad? He started crying and screaming and couldn’t stop. Remus curled up into a ball, thinking about how he lost everything but now had so much. He started laughing too. He was happy he was crying because he was feeling something. Remus was pulled into a familiar hold. Janus’ hold. He rubbed his back while he quietly shushed him, trying to get him to calm down.
“It’s okay, Remus.”
“Of course it’s okay. I can feel. I’m sad.” Remus laughed, wiping away his tears. Logan and Janus shared a worried look before Janus turned back to Remus.
“Now promise me something.”
“What?”
“Leave Thomas alone. Go back to the dark side’s palace and stay there. Stick to your side of the Imagination. And for the love of god, let Thomas sleep.” Janus ordered. Remus felt… he felt. Remus felt something. A sinking feeling! It made him upset. The fact that Janus didn’t want to even see him. But he was feeling something! Remus just nodded before sinking out to his room. Feelings! He was feeling something! And that made him happy! But he was also really sad. Sad that nobody wanted him. That he was just a burden to the Mindscape. He remembered some of the times of the past. The sad ones, the happy ones. He could finally remember those memories correctly! But a lot of them made him really, really sad. Actually, most of them did. Only a select few made him smile. He suddenly realized why Janus never wanted this for him. Remus had been hurt more times than he had not been. Way more times. And he understood. Janus had just been trying to protect him. But still, he was happy. Happy that all the fights and yelling and ‘you’re bad for Thomas’s made him sad. He was happy that he wanted to die. Because he never felt that before. He looked to the side and saw a picture of King, Virgil, and Janus. He wished that things could be the way they were before. It made him sad. But that made him so, so, so, so, SO happy. In the midst of all Remus’ tears and screams, he cracked a smile. A small smile that meant so much to Remus.
~~
“Come on, O! I just want to try something!” Remus whined to his… friend? Eh. Fellow dark side. Orange wasn’t known to Thomas yet. Heck, Remus didn’t even know what he stood for. Or his name. He was just told to call him Orange.
“You’re gonna kill yourself.” The mysterious side said from the shadows.
“Okay and?! I wanna feel the rush!” Remus grinned. It was his favorite feeling. It had been about a year since he got his emotions back. He was learning to control them. But he still cried a lot.
“Fine. But if you become a blood splatter on the floor, you’re cleaning it up.” Remus laughed at that nonsense of a sentence. He was standing on the roof of the dark side’s palace which was very high up. After all, it was a creepy castle. An abandoned looking one too. It was practically falling apart. It did that. If a dark side left, the building would die in a way. It took a lot of people to keep a castle from dying. So since the only dark sides were two, mentally absent sides the castle wasn’t in the best shape. Orange was in the corner of his balcony. It led to his room. Remus had never seen Orange’s room before. Or Orange. Said side normally stuck to the shadow’s and never showed his face. He only had two glowly orange eyes. Remus thought it was cool.
“I’m jumping now!”
“Land on my roses and I’ll kill you.” Orange warned. Remus shrugged and just jumped. He landed in the gross, black pond they had in their yard.
“AWESOME!” Remus cackled, climbing out of the slimy pond. He was now covered in a thick, black gunk.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Why thank you!” Remus grinned.
“Alright, I’m going to the Imagination!” He announced, sinking out. So maybe Remus didn’t have the best emotions. He had self destructive ones, homicidal ones, scary ones. But at least he felt something. And the fact he felt things, made him happy. So it didn’t matter to Remus how upset he would grow over the time, he was happy. Because Remus Sanders finally felt something. And that meant everything to him.