Running

News

TW: Remus being Remus, cusing

When the door opened, a tall man with cotton-candy pink hair answers. He smiles and sighs at the same time.
"I can't say I wasn't expecting you, come in, come in." We follow him inside, his apartment has a small living room, but what looks like three bedrooms. We all take a seat on the couch and Emile turns to Patton.

"Your group has expanded a little since I last saw you, Pat. Last thing I remember it was only you, Lo and Roman."
"Yeah! But, that was a while ago, and everyone else is really nice!"

Janus extends his arm to Picani. "Janus, nice to meet you." Picani smiles and shakes it gratefully. Remus does a similar thing, by that I mean he puts his hand out for a fistbump and then winks at Picani, calling him a cutie. Janus cuts in to apologise.
"He does that to everyone. He's had too much sugar today." Remus laughs and leans back on the sofa.

I then realise that it's my turn to introduce myself. "V-virgl." Shit. I sound so pathetic.

"Wait, Emile, you said that you were expecting us, yes?" Logan asks.
"Yeah."
"Why is that?"
"Oh! You guys were all over the news about twenty minutes ago, I'll show you."

We- we were on the news? That's not very good if we're trying to be secretive. Roman reaches forward and grabs the TV remote, switching it on to the local news channel. At this point, I pick up my glass of water and start to drink it, but practically spit out the water when I see the television screen.

On the screen is a newscaster talking with a stack of papers in his hand. In the top left corner of the screen is a slideshow of pictures, they are switching from a picture of me, taken about two years ago. In the picture, I'm standing against a white wall, and a lab worker is standing behind me holding a remote that controlled an anklet that would shock me when the button was pressed, but you can't tell that in the picture. All you can see in the photo is the top half of my body and my head. My eyes are watering from the pain of being shocked so much while they were trying to get me to stay still for the camera. There's a cut going along my left cheek and my lip is quivering.

While this picture is on the screen, the other six people turn to look at me sympathetically. I shurg at them and look back to the screen. The picture has changed. It's a picture of Remus. The picture was clearly taken without him knowing, because he's facing half away from the camera, walking out of a small alleyway. Worry is painted accross his face, and I can tell that this picture is quite old.

Then Janus' picture appears, it's hard to recognise him at first. He looks to be about five years old in it, and his photo was clearly taken in a similar environment to mine. When the image comes on screen, Janus snorts while laughing. "To think they couldn't get a better picture of me." He says, putting his glass of water onto a coaster. The newscaster explains that they don't have images of the other three, but gives a breif description of each, quite accurately.

"If you know any information regarding the whereabouts of these six induviduals, the government is awarding an $800 reward for any information recieved that leads to their capture. And if you are watching this news broadcast, fugatives, the government assures you that you will be located very shortly, and will have a much more pleasant experience if you hand yourselves in. Please phone 12345 67890 if you have any information."

I look uncomfortabley at my shoes for about thirty seconds while some cheery soup commercial plays. "I only have two guest bedrooms, but I do have a lot of blankets, so four of you will have to make do on the ground."
"That's fine, thank you." Roman says.

Just then, the front door swings open and a tall man walks in. He's wearing a black leater jacket and sunglasses, holding a keyring in one hand and an iced starbucks drink in the other. He shuts the door behind him and then stops when he sees the group sitting on the sofa.

"Emile! What the fuck? We've talked about this!"
"Guys, this is my husband Remy."
"No, no! Don't introduce them to me, they were just leaving, weren't you?"

Remy sighs and goes to sit the arm of the armchair that Emile is sitting on. "Babe, you know I love you, but this is highly illegal."
"I know, I know, but, Patton's an old friend, and they really need somewhere to stay!"
"Yes, I get that his parents were friends of yours and all, but, babe, if we get caught we could go to prison for this."

Janus inturrups. "Sorry, to, yknow, barge into your conversation, but, we'd only really be staying two nights at most, we have to keep moving."

"Look, you all seem like great people, but I'm really not comfortable with you staying here, babes."
"Please, Remy! We don't have any other options, we won't survive another night out there!" Patton says desperately.

"Fine, fine. But, if we get caught, you can't pin it on me."

Phew. We all agreed that Janus and I could sleep on one of the two sofas each, Remus said he'd sleep in the armchair because he usually likes sleeping in strange positions anyway, like a contortionist. Patton and Roman will take a bed each and Logan is gonna sleep on a spare matress that we found in an obscure cupboard. Remy spent the whole evening complaining about us getting caught, but I think he secretly liked the company.

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There's nothing like a bit of Remile at 3:47pm on a thursday. Thanks for reading this chapter!