#past prinxiety

[naminethewriter]

Extra Service

Chapter Two: The Brother

Masterpost | Chapter 1 | Chapter 3 | Ao3

Hello everyone! I'm finally returning to this story and hopefully the third chapter won't take me as long as this one has 😅 Please be mindful of the content warnings, if you would rather skip this chapter, there is a summary of it at then end of the Ao3 link.

Story Summary: Remus hadn't expected to work as a housekeeper at a hotel managed by his best friend but he wasn't complaining. Especially if it gives him the opportunity to keep a (very attractive) guest from overworking himself.

Content Warnings: Past Roman/Virgil, Discussion of Past Self Neglect, bordering on self harm, but not from the person themselves

~~*~~

Soon Logan had showered and the salad had arrived. Remus used the time in between to roughly vacuum the room and use some air refreshener so he could finally close the windows. He also pushed the books and papers around to make space on the tabledesk for the salad. Thankfully nothing fell to the floor (though some of the stacks were very wobbly and Remus couldn’t help but imagine what it would look like if one crashed into the salad and food and plate shards would fly everywhere. His brain tried to get him to topple it, but he managed to resist. Barely.)

Logan emerged from the bathroom in shirt and sweatpants (since Remus had refused to let him take another suit), a towel around his shoulder and still trying to dry his hair. Remus grinned at him and stood behind the chair as if he were a gentleman offering a seat to his lady. He could be courteous if he wanted to be!

“Is this really necessary?” Logan asked, eyeing him skeptically.

“No,” Remus grinned but didn’t move. The other sighed and sat down without another word. Remus pushed his chair closer to the tabledesk with a giggle before sitting down himself and resting his elbows on the polished wood, watching Logan intently. The other raised an eyebrow at him.

“Do you intent to watch me eat?”

“Yeah!”

“Why?”

“To make sure you finish! Also thought this is a good opportunity to tell you why I’m doing this! You said you wanted to know and it’s gonna take a while, so…”

Logan sighed again but picked up the fork Remus had placed in its proper place next to the plate, motioning for him to continue.

“Very well. Do explain yourself.”

“Chance to ramble? I will take it!” Remus grinned at Logan, who looked a bit more reprehensive but didn’t protest. Instead, he started eating his salad, though his eyes remained on Remus for the most part. Before starting his explanation, Remus took a moment to appreciate how Logan’s lips closed around his fork. He really hoped he’d get an opportunity to taste those lips for himself. Only with consent, of course.

‘Focus on the issue now, fantasize about the hot nerd later!’ he reminded himself.

“You see, I have a brother, a twin, actually,” Remus began, leaning back in his seat. “He’s a bit of a dumbass but has a good heart, y’know? We’re both the creative types, though I mostly work with sculptures, art, and pottery – I teach a late-night class actually! Doesn’t pay well, but it’s fun for the most part – while he’s more of a writer. He’s also a perfectionist, which I am most definitely not, I let my hands wander and see where they get me!” Remus winked at Logan but either the other didn’t understand his innuendo or had a great poker face. ‘Uhhh, you should invite him to play strip poker with you! That’d be fun!’ He tabledesked that idea for later, he should probably ask him on a more normal date first and see where that’ll lead him.

“Aaaaaaanyway,” Remus continued, “my brother decided he wanted to write a play and then perform it in our local theater where he works. His boss basically green-lit the whole thing after Ro-bro gave him the pitch but had some guidelines. Nothing major, but enough that my brother felt the pressure.”

Remus could see Logan watching him intently – those deep green eyes were so hot – while he slowly chewed his food. He seemed the observant type, but even if he wasn’t, it was hard to miss the shift in tone. Remus couldn’t tell this story without being somber, it was a time he didn’t like revisiting.

“Roman threw himself into his work. It was fun at first, see him talk about it so passionately, what his plans for the characters were, the twists and turns and how he could see it performed on stage already. His boyfriend at the time was also super supportive, the both of us rubber ducking him constantly.” A wry smile played on Remus’ lips. He took a deep breath before continuing.

“But writing’s fucking hard if you didn’t know. The words can be perfectly aligned in your head but once you put them to paper they look mangled, like rotting corpses you clumsily stitched together and suddenly the eyes aren’t on the same height and one arm’s longer than the other and you forgot a nipple and maybe even a spleen, so how are you supposed to create a functioning monster?!”

“I understand your point, Remus,” Logan cut in before he could get even more lost in the rather gruesome picture he was figuratively painting. “I assume your brother struggled with the writing process once he got started.”

“Yeah, he did. Like a lot. And when he can’t get what’s in his head on the page the way he wants it to be, he gets frustrated and that leads to him struggling with the words even more and it’s a vicious circle. He started spending more and more time at his desk. When he wasn’t working, he was writing. Or attempting to write. He started losing sleep. I often had to drag him to meals. He cancelled plans or didn’t show up at all because he forgot all about them. It was really worrying.

“And it really put his boyfriend on edge. Like the dude’s been a friend of mine before he got together with my brother and anxiety is like half of his personality. So having plans cancelled on him constantly and his boyfriend not taking care of himself properly led to some problems.”

Remus’ had to make a conscious effort to relax his hands after they curled into fists. To be honest, he still hadn’t entirely forgiven Roman for how he treated Virgil during the last legs of their relationship. It hadn’t been fair to the Emo and while his brother had admitted to his faults, Remus just couldn’t get Virgil’s red-rimmed eyes out of his mind. ‘You should revisit that idea about dunking his head in the toilet bowl’ his head suggested and Remus waved the idea off. Roman would wiggle too much.

“It came to a head eventually and the guy broke up with him. Which sucked because I liked him, but because of his anxiety he needed a clean break, so he asked me not to contact him either for a while. Which turned out to be never, but that was more my fault than his I guess.”

Logan raised an eyebrow. (Remus wondered how often he worked on those; they were immaculately symmetrical.)

“What do you mean by more your fault?” he asked.

“Well, like I said, I was friends with the guy so I knew that he would have trouble reaching out to me first. I should’ve contacted him after the situation settled somewhat, but I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Remus chuckled but it was a dry and sad sound.

“I… always had the feeling that he was kinda afraid of me. I know I come on strong, and I have intrusive thoughts and keeping them in my head is hard, so I usually blurt them out or use them for my art and he… well, it often triggered his anxiety. I didn’t really want to contact him and have him feel like he needed to talk to me again.”

Virgil had been a good sport about it most of the time but even before he started dating Roman, he had visited Remus in his art studio less and less. He took great care to censor his words in front of him, too, but it sucked that he couldn’t discuss things with Virgil freely anymore. It was like he had to be constantly on guard around the man and it only got worse during Roman’s breakdown.

Remus missed Virgil, but he figured he was better off without him in his life. At least Janus still contacted him once in a while, so he knew he was doing well enough. It was a small comfort.

Logan had put his fork aside and was watching Remus with his piercing green eyes. He felt like a bug underneath a microscope and that shouldn’t have had him as hot and bothered as it did. Well, not literally bothered – don’t get him wrong, the dude was hot and being examined by him so intently was a nice bonus, but Remus needed more than that to actually get physically excited.

It would lead to new fantasies however; he was sure of that.

“I get the impression that that conclusion is based on a cognitive distortion,” Logan commented eventually. Remus just blinked at him. “In other words, I think you are jumping to a conclusion. If that man was your friend for as long as you are implying, then I am sure he would appreciate you contacting him again.”

“You stopped eating,” Remus said instead of answering and after a few moments of simply staring at each other (‘Staring contest! Staring contest! How long would it take for their eyes to dry out?), Logan relented with a sigh and picked his fork back up.

“Very well, I will not meddle in your personal affairs. Unlike other people, I respect such boundaries.”

Remus cackled at the obvious jab at his intrusion and as he calmed down, he could see a small smile on Logan’s lips, though he tried to hide it behind the next bite of his meal.

“Well, back to the story: my brother got dumped. Which I had hoped would be a wake-up call for him to quit the bullshit and realize how bad he’s gotten. But instead he doubled down. Every waking minute he had that wasn’t spend at work, he was writing the script – or more accurately, he tried writing it. More and more often I would hear him shouting at his laptop about how nothing was going like he wanted it to, how it needed to be perfect, how he would show everyone that he could do it.

“I tried to get him to eat and sleep, but it would only end up in yelling matches. We both don’t have great tempers and more than once I stormed off and didn’t return until like a day later. I don’t think he left his desk in those days…”

Remus sighed, remembering the sorry state of his brother, hunched over his laptop with bags under his eyes that reminded him so much of Virgil that Remus was almost glad that Roman was hardly going to the bathroom so he wouldn’t catch his own reflection in the mirror.

It had been an absolute trainwreck.

“Eventually, my brother collapsed during one of our fights. Passed out on the spot. I barely managed to catch him before he would’ve hit his head on the ground. He woke up only moments after and tried to convince me that it was just a dizzy-spell and that it wasn’t anything to worry about, but I had enough. I carried him off to the hospital right then and there.”

Roman had fought him the entire way, cursing at him and demanding to be brought back home. He almost fainted again in the car since he worked himself up so much. Remus had thought about pulling into the oncoming traffic and putting them both out of their misery – the stress had made his intrusive thoughts so much worse.

“I got him to cooperate by saying that if nothing was wrong, the doctor would just let him go home and I’d leave him alone afterwards if that was the case. He still complained though. Then he was diagnosed with severe malnutrition and anemia. He had to stay there for a few days.”

“And did he do so without complaint?”

Remus had almost forgotten Logan was there. Almost. He looked back at the other – after he had apparently just stared at the wall for the last few minutes – to see that he had finished his plate.

Good.

“Yeah. I’m not entirely sure what happened since I wasn’t allowed to be there when they took his vitals and shit but apparently one of the nurses laid into him about proper self-care and that he could’ve killed himself. I think only then he truly registered how bad it’s gotten.”

“I see…” Logan looked thoughtfully at his empty plate and Remus just watched him until he spoke up again. “And what happened after? Did your brother finish the play?”

“He did. Took a long break from it though. Went to therapy. He’s doing well now, has a sleep and eating schedule and goes to the gym on the regular. It’s kind of annoying how toned he’s getting. Jan sure appreciates it though.” Remus wiggled his eyebrows, but once again Logan doesn’t react to his implications.

“What about the performance?”

“What performance?”

“Of the play. You said that your brother was ensured that he could perform the play at his place of employment.”

“Oh! He didn’t go through with it.”

Logan blinked at him, surprised.

“What do you mean ‘he didn’t go through with it’? Doesn’t that make the entire ordeal worthless?”

“It wasn’t worthless,” Remus said softly, feeling like this might be the point where he can get through to Logan. “Roman learned a lot from it. So did I, to be honest. The entire thing helped my brother to grow as a person. Yeah, he finished the play, but he had to rewrite around half of it since what he wrote during his mania was either awful, extremely personal, and or sometimes even harmful. And even after all that editing, he still found it too close to his heart to publish. He says that maybe sometime down the line, when he’s healed more, then he'd put it on, but not right now.”

“I… think I understand. Still, I cannot shake the belief that it means his struggles were for naught.”

“I know where you’re coming from, but productivity isn’t all we live for. Learning from our struggles and teaching that to those who come after us is what I think we’re supposed to do.”

“That is quite the profound way to see the world.”

Remus shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

“Maybe. It’s at least what led to me coming in through that door and forcing you to take care of yourself. Which reminds me, you should be going to bed.” He got up and pulled at Logan’s arm.

“Sleep?! It’s the middle of the day!” the other protested, but Remus remained insistent and led him over to the freshly made, plush bed.

“Yeah, but that hardly matters when you’ve been up for who knows how many hours. Your eyebags make you look like a raccoon. Oh, maybe I should’ve gotten you your dinner out of the garbage bins outside!”

Finally, he managed to push Logan onto the bed who looked at him with trepidation.

“I cannot go to sleep, I need to finish my work,” he insisted.

“Pish-posh, I bet you can barely remember what you’ve been writing for the past few hours anyway. Get some rest and then look over what you wrote again, I’m sure you’ll want to make some changes. Sleep-deprived brains rarely put out the work in a quality you want.” Remus pushed at his shoulders until Logan was lying down and then covered him with a blanket.

“Fine,” the other sighed. “But I need to set an alarm. I have a deadline.”

“How about I’m gonna come by when my shift ends in—” Remus glanced at his wristwatch—  “about four hours? I’ll help you sort through those books, too, since I kinda just put them together willy-nilly.”

“I guess that’s acceptable.”

It seemed that lying down had a quick effect on Logan as he let out a long yawn and snuggled deeper into the comforting warmth. Remus smiled, proud to see him follow his advice and relax.

“Then see you in a few, Lolo! Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite!”

“If they do, I’ll sue you.”

Remus grinned as he listened to Logan’s half-asleep mumble before he gathered up his used dishes and silently tiptoed out of the room.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

#namiswriting #my writing #Extra Service #Chapter 2: The Brother #platonic intrulogical #past prinxiety #ts logan #logan sanders #ts remus #remus sanders #human!au #discussion of past self neglect #multichapter fic #sanders sides #fanfiction #reblogs are appreciated

[robertdownerjunior]

why do ppl suddenly love to hate on prinxiety?

#i get that it's really popular #but that's because people LIKE it #leave them alone #idk why people love to hate on popular ships just because they're popular #like ships can be popular without being bad and it's making people happy #i do have a specific ship fan in mind but i don't want to call anyone out #though i think we're all aware #come on #i thought we were past this now #anyways prinxiety fans PLEASE interact #and anaroceit/analogince fans #prinxiety #sanders sides #fandom critique #virgil shut up challenge #i have seen the best of queue and the worst of queue and i choose both

[bennyyrabbit]

I'm listening to LIke a Robot by Aqua rn and I--

I'm going to announce my Roman Is Bad At Sex Agenda

Also my Past Logince Agenda.

ANYWAY.

This idea is set pre-show.

So, Logan and Roman are together. Logan is SUFFERING because Roman just. Sucks.

And eventually, Logan is like, "You need to put more effort into our sex life because you are Very Bad at this, and you never actually get me off."

And Roman's like. What????

And Logan is like. "Yeah. You're bad. And I deserve to actually get off during sex with my boyfriend, so, get better. Here's an extremely long list of ways to improve, if you have questions, feel free to ask them."

Months go by. MONTHS.

Roman does not improve.

Remus is super annoying, btw, so he definitely will just show up at the light side's area of the mindscape and annoy the shit out of them all, just for context.

SO, Remus just randomly shows up, constantly, because he's an annoying little shit, and he is always flirting with Logan, telling Logan he's super hot, basically being a huge flirt, and he's basically like, I can fuck you.

And Logan says the usual I Have A Boyfriend, and Remus is like.

Does he get you off?

And Logan LIES TO HIM and says yes, because telling his boyfriend's brother who is very clearly interested in him that his boyfriend is bad at sex is a VERY NOT SMART IDEA.

And then he has to bring it up with Roman, because it's been MONTHS and he has not improved.

And when he does he's basically like, Look. I'm being patient here. But you need to IMPROVE. I'm too attractive to not get off with my boyfriend.

And Roman's like Too attractive???

And Logan's just like. Your brother wants to fuck me and I have a theory that he is BETTER AT IT THAN YOU, so. Improve.

Does it sound like if Roman doesn't actually improve, Logan will leave him for Remus? Yeah, a little.

Would Logan actually do that? No. But he's hoping the implication will make Roman work harder to improve.

Uh. It does, but Roman gets. Worse.

And then things just. Fall apart, unrelated to the Roman Is Bad At Sex thing (this is when the show starts), and Logan ends things with Roman.

Roman thinks Logan is automatically going to get with Remus, but he doesn't.

Roman gets with Virgil, and DOES improve at sex, because he does for some reason, and eventually, (right about where we are in the current story), Logan decides to take Remus up on that offer. The offer he repeatedly reminds Logan is VERY MUCH on the table.

And Logan is proven right. Remus is EXPONENTIALLY better than Roman was.

#past logince #talk of sex #mention of sex #intrulogical #prinxiety #mentioned prinxiety #roman is bad at sex #sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders

[witchytae07734]

🎶I swear now that I can't take it

Knowing somebody's got my baby

And now you ain't around baby I can't think

I should've put it down, should've got that ring

'Cause I can still feel it in the air

See his (her) pretty face, run my fingers through his (her) hair

My lover, my life, my baby, my husband (wife)🎶

#anxceit #virgil sanders #janus sanders #sanders sides #prinxiety #anxceit angst #past anxceit #janus sanders angst

[snowdice]

Best Laid Plans (Part 8/8: Breaking News) [Sometimes Labels Shift Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships:  Virgil & Logan, Virgil & Patton, Virgil & Roman, Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Virgil, Roman

Appear: Logan, Patton

Mentioned: Remy, Emile, Janus, Remus

Summary:

Virgil (now) Sanders was once a villain vigilante kid down on his luck. After being injured helping the superhero Bluebird, he ended up being adopted by him and his husband. Logan and Patton Sanders helped Virgil in ways he didn’t even know he needed. Since then, he’s put away his persona of Shadow Caster, the strange, hard to label, super who haunted the city for a few years. Instead he’s opted for being a normal teenager and university student.

But while Logan and Patton often forgot in the midst of ice cream and movie nights and arguments about silly little things who he had been, he never had. And when worst comes to worst, Virgil will be willing to reach for a mask once again despite his fathers’ wishes and expectations.

Sometimes even the best laid plans fail.

Thanks to @bilgisticallykosher, @kiapet2, and ASmallForest (on discord) for being betas!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Virgil had not expected Prince to pull off his mask and reveal the face of Roman Sylvia underneath. Honestly, could this night get any weirder?

“But you’re the son of the mayor,” he blurted, not knowing what else to say.

“Yeah, and?” Roman said. “Bluebird’s a math teacher of all things.”

“Yes, but, you’re the mayor’s kid. Why would you need to go out being a secret hero?”

“Well, why were you out being a secret vigilante at…” Roman paused to think for a few seconds. “Wait, we fought for the first time when you were 14?!” He looked horrified by this fact.

“Yeah…” Virgil said awkwardly.

“I beat up a baby?!”

Virgil scowled at him. “I was not a baby… you did not beat me up!”

“Did so!”

“Did not! I always got away, easy.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because I let you,” Roman sniffed. It was the same way he always said he let Virgil win games of Mario Kart.

“Bullshit!” Virgil returned, just like he always did in those moments too.

“I could have used my superstrength on you, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone, so I didn’t.”

“Yeah, so, that was you not being able to control your powers enough to catch me,” Virgil said, folding his arms, “not you purposefully letting me go!”

“Oh, whatever,” Roman replied flippantly. “Why were you even out and about fighting me? You couldn’t even drive. What were you doing robbing banks?”

“You think I don’t realize you were 17 when you started?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah,” Roman said, smugly. “Old enough to drive.”

“You’re the son of the mayor. I was poor. At least I had an excuse!” Virgil exclaimed.

“You’re burning the spam!” Roman exclaimed back.

“Fuck,” Virgil said, whipping back around to remove the frying pan from the stovetop. The slices looked a little crunchy, but that would be fine.

He’d also forgotten to start the water for the ramen, distracted by that whole conversation, so he grabbed a saucepan now and filled it up with enough water to make all of the Ramen at once. It was only after he’d finished with that that he turned back to Roman.

“So…” Virgil said.

“So.”

Virgil crossed his arms and leaned against the counter to study him. “I never pegged you for the superhero type.”

Roman frowned. “Is that an insult, or…?”

Virgil shrugged with a slight teasing smile on his face. “Take it however you want.”

Roman scowled, but then rolled his eyes. “So, what exactly happened then?” Roman asked. “Back then, I mean. How did you end up getting adopted by Bluebird?”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “When I got shot, Logan didn’t want to take me to a hospital since I’d just saved his life. He didn’t want to risk people unmasking me, so he took me home to Patton. Patton fixed me up and then pretty much emotionally adopted me as soon as I woke up because he’s, you know, Patton.” 

Roman nodded in understanding. 

“I let it slip that I was a foster kid and that my foster father wasn’t a particularly good one. From there they figured out my exact age and why I’d become a vigilante. They had Remy document injuries from my foster father and sent them to the police. Patton pulled some strings,” Virgil gestured towards Roman, since said strings had been his mother, “and the next thing I knew, I was living with them. The rest, you pretty much know. They were good to me; they adopted me, and here we are.”

“Huh,” Roman said. 

Virgil turned off the heat once the noodles had finished cooking and started dishing them out into two bowls. He then topped them with the slightly-too-crunchy spam and slid one over to Roman.

“So,” Roman said as he pulled the bowl to himself. “You got to train with Bluebird.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Of course, that’s what you focus on.”

Roman’s nose scrunched up. “And Bluebird is… Mr. Dr. Sanders? That’s wild. I’d never expect it. No wonder no one’s ever figured out his secret identity…”

Roman trailed off, remembering the events of today. There was an awkward silence in which they were clearly both thinking the same thing. No one had ever figured out his secret identity until today. He hadn’t been wearing a mask when they’d found him.

Roman stared into his bowl of noodles. “You know,” he said after a few moments, “it… it actually does kind of fit in a weird way. Your dad being Bluebird.”

“How so?” Virgil asked curiously. Logan Sanders had always been Bluebird to Virgil. He’d never had to put the two identities together; they’d always just been the same person.

“Well, when I look at Bluebird, I don’t really think of Logan Sanders the math and physics nerd, but if I think about what Logan Sanders would be if he ended up a superhero… yeah, that tracks.”

Virgil snorted. “How does that even make any sense, Princey?”

“I don’t know,” said Roman. “Just… yeah, no, your dad would 1000% just roll his eyes at villains monologuing at him and then throw them into a wall so he could get back home to grade a calculus exam. I can’t believe no one’s ever figured it out.”

“Well, a few people have to be fair,” Virgil said with a laugh.

“Dr. Patton?”

“Well, he got a pretty big hint from what I understand, but yeah, he put it together. So did Remy, actually.”

“Remy knows?” Roman asked.

“Pretty much since Patton has,” Virgil confirmed. “Logan told me when he started fostering me, not that he had a choice because he’d already shown me his house as Bluebird. He told Emile after that because, I, uh, needed therapy with someone he trusted. It’s… it was a pretty closely guarded secret.”

They descended into silence again after that, going back to eating their food. They eventually migrated to the couch once finished, waiting on Patton to be done with whatever he was doing to help Logan. Clearly growing bored after a bit, Roman leaned over and flipped on the television. They watched the end of some sitcom rerun before the channel switched over to the early morning news at 4am.

They listened to the main story that most people were going to wake up to today, and which was likely going to be blasted all over the news, all day.

“What the hell did he do?” Virgil breathed.

There had been a blackout across a good 1/8th of the city, centered exactly at the old factory they’d invaded earlier in the night. That wasn’t much of a surprise to Virgil and Roman since they’d both noticed the lack of lights when they’d left the building. What did surprise them was reports of people having memory loss. The police had even ended up finding the factory as it appeared to be the epicenter of whatever had happened. They weren’t sure what had happened yet as it was breaking news and the police hadn’t had time to investigate, but the news clearly thought it must have been some villain attack.

“Does your dad have mental powers?” Roman asked.

“I…” Virgil said. “He did allude to having something once or twice, but I never thought...” Had Logan… erased everyone’s memories? There were no fatalities reported yet. Everyone who’d been in the factory was still unconscious, but people who’d been outside of the factory but within a mile of it pretty much had no recollection of the past 12 hours. Who knew what had happened to the people in the factory. Virgil wondered if Logan even knew.

“Well,” Roman commented, “Bluebird just became even more terrifying.”

They continued to watch the newscast, and Roman ended up scrolling through twitter to see if there was any more news breaking that hadn’t gotten to the mainstream.

It was pretty much all the newscasters talked about besides the weather for the next hour. It was an evolving story. The police had found prisoners in cells in a different part of the facility than Roman and Virgil had been in. They were also unconscious and hadn’t been identified yet. So far, nothing could be recovered from the computers despite their generators not having let the computers be cut from power for too long. They’d seemingly been completely wiped somehow.

Just like everyone's minds.

The news went on a small break before promising to start up again at 5. That’s when Patton finally came out of the bedroom.

Roman and Virgil both looked back at him when they heard the door open. He paused and blinked at their maskless faces.

Virgil just shrugged. “He figured us out,” he explained.

“Hi, Dr. Patton,” Roman said.

“Hello, Roman. I didn’t realize you were a superhero.” Virgil would give him a couple of hours before he did the math on Prince’s first appearance and Roman’s age, but for now he seemed too tired and distracted to notice anything amiss. Or even to really react to Roman being Prince at all.

Patton turned to Virgil. “Lo’s fixed up now,” he said. “He’d like to see you. I’m just getting him some soup.”

Relief crashed over Virgil. He’d felt fairly confident that Logan would be okay once Patton had his hands on him, but still, it was a relief to know he was bandaged up with no unforeseen issues. 

“Yeah, I’ll go check in with him,” Virgil said.

“Why don’t you sit down for a second, Dr. Patton,” Roman suggested, hopping to his feet. “I’ll prepare the soup. You’ve been standing and worrying for a while.”

Patton flashed him a half smile that was a bit brittle around the edges. “If I sit down, I might crash.”

“Well, that’s okay too!” Roman said. “You deserve to rest a bit.”

Virgil highly doubted the type of crash Patton meant was the physical kind, and that was only emphasized by the tight-lipped smile he gave Roman in response. He did, however, sit on the couch. Virgil handed Patton the remote while getting to his feet.

“You might want to… change to a non-news station,” he suggested.

“Mmm,” Patton acknowledged.

Virgil then turned to the bedroom door. It was closed but cracked open, and Virgil pushed it the rest of the way open to slip inside before closing it completely behind him.

Logan was no longer in his ripped superhero suit. Patton had at some point helped him change into pajamas and had left him propped up on the bed for eating. He looked rather normal except for a bandage on his neck and a couple of bruises disappearing behind the mask on his face, but Virgil knew very well that he was a lot worse for wear underneath his clothes.

He glanced up when Virgil came in.

“Did Prince leave?” he asked, curiously.

Virgil was confused for a moment before he remembered that he was no longer wearing a mask. “Oh, uh, no,” Virgil said. “Prince turned out to be Roman and tonight was all he needed to figure all of us out, so there’s no point to the masks anymore.”

“Roman as in Rhea’s child, Roman?” Logan asked.

“That’d be the one,” Virgil said with a shrug.

He hummed in acknowledgment, contemplating the information for a long moment. Then, he patted the bed next to him.

Virgil was rounding the bed in an instant to climb up into the empty space next to him. He was careful while settling down near him, moving close but not quite touching him since he wasn’t sure where exactly all of his injuries were. He turned on his side to face him, cheek laying on the same pillow as Logan’s head.

“Hey there,” Logan said softly once Virgil had stopped moving.

“Hi, Dad.”

Logan didn’t move to turn onto his side for obvious reasons, but he did shift a bit so he could reach over and pet the back of Virgil’s head for a couple of seconds before just letting his arm flop down onto the bed, curled half around his son.

“Thank you, I suppose I should say,” Logan said after a few seconds. “Though I am not a fan of your methods of saving me.”

Virgil scowled slightly, not that Logan could see it with the way his face was staring at the ceiling. He hoped his dad senses allowed him to feel Virgil’s discontent with that statement anyway. “You don’t even know my methods.”

Logan glanced over at him briefly, an eyebrow raised. “I was informed there was something about a decoy shadow under a pile of blankets and observed you in costume in a secured facility.”

“And what of it?” Virgil asked.

“You were impatient,” Logan scolded. “You could have gotten yourself hurt.”

“Of course, I was impatient,” Virgil argued. “I wasn’t just going to sit around and do nothing.”

“You should have sat around and thought through a plan.”

“Sometimes plans are fucking stupid,” Virgil shot back. “Like yours. My plan worked.”

“And my plan likely would have worked as well, eventually,” Logan said.

“Well, we know mine worked, and quicker, so what’s the problem?”

Logan huffed. “Just because someone manages not to get hurt doing something reckless like jumping from a two-story building doesn’t mean jumping from a two-story building was a good idea.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well your plan was like jumping from a three-story building.”

“My plan was perfectly well thought out,” Logan insisted, a stubborn tilt to his eyebrows.

“Yeah?” Virgil asked. “And what exactly did you think I was going to do when you made your plan? Because it’s not a good plan when I was always going to do what I did.”

Logan sighed. “Good point,” he conceded, shutting his eyes. He apparently was willing to let the argument die there for the moment at least. He was clearly exhausted. Virgil was sure he’d hear more about it when the man was feeling better though.

There was a long pause in which Virgil pressed his face against Logan’s shoulder. He’d honestly thought that Logan had fallen asleep, with his eyes closed and his breathing leveling out. Yet after a few minutes, Logan spoke again.

“You have a hero’s soul, you know,” he said conversationally.

“What?” Virgil asked, not quite sure what he was talking about, but still saying, “No, I don’t.”

“You do,” Logan corrected easily. “It’s admirable, but I fear it’s also liable to drive you towards stupidity.”

“I do not, and it does not,” Virgil argued back.

“The last time you threw yourself into danger for me, it was in front of a bullet.”

Virgil was silent.

“I was very much hoping there wouldn’t be a repeat performance.”

They were silent again, because of course there had been a repeat performance. How could there not have been? When Logan was Bluebird and Logan was Logan. Virgil would have literally thrown himself in front of a bullet again if the circumstances had necessitated it.

Logan sighed, knowing what Virgil was saying with his silence.

“I’m fine,” said Virgil.

“I know.”

“You’re not.”

“I will recover.”

“Will you?”

Silence, and Virgil knew what Logan was saying in his.

There was a knock at the door then. “I come bearing soup,” Roman’s voice declared.

“Come in,” said Logan.

Roman shouldered the door open, a tray of soup in his arms. “Hey, Mr. Dr. Sanders,” he said with a small smile.

“Hello, Roman,” Logan replied. “I suppose I can take my mask off.”

“Here, I’ll do it,” offered Virgil, reaching up to carefully pull the black mask off of Logan’s face. He tried not to wince at the purpling bruises covering it.

Roman came fully into the room, and Patton followed closely behind. Roman settled the tray on Logan’s lap while Patton perched on the edge of the bed. Patton’s hand reached back to touch Virgil’s ankle briefly.

“Thank you,” Logan said as Roman sat down in one of the chairs in the room. It was awkward and quiet while Logan started eating his soup.

“So,” Roman eventually said, breaking the silence, “I never would have guessed Bluebird was a nerd.”

Logan scoffed immediately and rolled his eyes. He pointed his spoon threateningly at Roman. “Enough out of you.”

“No, seriously, great secret identity. You could walk into class still in the Bluebird suit and everyone would wonder why Professor Sanders was cosplaying Bluebird that day.”

“Honestly, I should have been able to guess with you,” Logan grumbled. Roman smiled slightly, and Virgil was glad Roman was here to lighten the mood and make Logan act a bit like normal.

“You know, I have so many questions for you!”

Logan arched an eyebrow, looking tired, but in a different way than he already was tired. “Like what?”

“If you think too hard about a math equation, do you accidently explode your chalkboard?”

Logan stared at him for a moment and then Roman yelped, shooting off of his seat. “Hey!”

Virgil snickered as Logan smirked into his soup.

“Yes,” Patton answered, with a soft smile.

Logan turned to him with a pout. “I haven’t done that since my dissertation.”

“And when you read the Dahlberg paper 3 years ago,” Patton reminded him.

They continued to argue about it then in that soft way that they always argued. That being, it wasn’t really an argument at all. If Virgil closed his eyes, he could pretend it was just a normal night at home with his parents and that Roman was visiting. That was enough for now.

Want to read more? Click below!

Labeled Master Post.

My Masterpost.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #platonic moxiety #platonic analogical #platonic prinxiety #logicality #adriana writes #not pieces fic #labeled universe #sometimes labels shift #best laid plans #past child abuse #past child neglect #implied/referenced torture #blood and injury

[glittter-skeleton]

A 4am-induced logical exercise which is a graphic/chart/whatever of every ship I’ve actively been obsessed with

#some of these are YEARS OLD don’t judge me I was 13 #I’ve moved past BFFs to lovers to old bickering couples #in order of me shipping it if u wanna know #phan #lams #boyf riends #kiribaku #prinxiety #intrulogical #nygmobblepot #newmann #tntduo #klaine #st berry #reddie #dream smp #sanders sides #it chapter 2 #gotham 2014 #glee #MHA #fandom analysis #fandom #shipping

[infawrit10]

13! for the fic questions about drag

!!!!!! This was sent to me MONTHS ago, I am SO sorry, anon :(( Haven’t had much time to formulate a response in a Hot Second. I believe this ask was talking about what kind of music I listened to while writing/brainstorming for Drag.

That’s kind of a big question because a LOT of music inspired certain scenes or influenced certain elements, and that’s partially why I spent so long trying to figure out how to answer this (again, I’m SO sorry.) Eventually, I decided to go with what influenced but didn’t actually make it in to the fic.

A lot of Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards stuff comes to mind. What Good Am I?, Deserve, That Doesn’t Happen, and later on after the first draft of the fic was finished, Alright. The first three all influenced Fem’s personality and performance style in a BIG way, I can’t even stress how formative those were. They gave her her self-deprecation (not hugely touched upon in the fic, but it’s definitely there in off-screen performances), her kind of showy flair, how she moves, what sort of songs she looks for, her emotional connections to music in addition to how they reflect her life and mindset at any given time, they had a LOT to do with that! These were some of the songs I brainstormed to to figure all that out! What Good Am I? actually gave me the choreo for… one of her sets, lol, can’t remember which one, one of the earlier ones, the one where she holds onto the railing with her heel and plunges her hands through her hair? And also, same song influenced the design of Lucky Star by giving me the idea of there being a staircase and a railing up above the stage itself!

And I said this in the notes of one of the recent chapters, but Alright is literally just Anxceit in Chapter 21. The vibe is perfect, and it hits on the defeated, resigned story of two people falling back together when they both feel they’ve got no other option, and I love that for them. Janus snaps out of that after a moment, but I think in that initial shock, he honestly has similar feelings to Virgil. I imagine Alright being mainly Virge’s perspective of the situation, but it could Definitely be applied to both of them. Had I known of that song before I wrote that scene, I might have put it in and have Virgil listen to it on the walk home or something, which I actually think would have probably been a mistake. I love that scene So Much, it was one of my favorites to write, and it’s probably my favorite of the whole fic, if I’m being totally honest, and the idea of changing anything about how it ended up makes me cringe.

Man to Man by Dorian Electra came later on in the process, but I really think it encompasses Roman and Virgil’s relationship throughout most of the fic. The gentle reassurance of the way it’s sung, the tender plea for a fair fight/a fair conversation, the obvious bond there is between the speaker and their friend, and especially the homoeroticism underlying it, because all of their conversations are charged with frustration, sexual frustration, genuine, unconditional love, or some combination of the three.

A lot of Tillie, but specifically loud mouth. That one really shaped Fem’s no-filter-ness, haha. I also love the idea of Peachie being an influence on her. I was also gonna use Save Yourself for another fic I was gonna write, but it’s definitely applicable to Virge’s feelings about Janus in this universe, too.

Sleeping In by All Time Low… This is a little bit of a spoiler for the final chapter, but let’s just say this inspired a bit of what Prinxiety’s like after they get together ;)

Also from that same album—Wake Up, Sunshine, if you’re curious—Trouble Is…, Wake Up, Sunshine, and Monsters also really influenced a lot. Trouble Is… and Monsters in particular influenced Anxceit’s dynamic. Now that I’m thinking about it, Clumsy might have had a minor influence as well.

Out Tonight from RENT was actually the song that gave me the idea for the fic to START with! I think the visual of the wild child lady on a stage really helped me visualize EVERYTHING, and a lot of brainstorming to this song brought me Fem’s first performance at ADN pretty much exactly.

The Heart Is A Muscle by GANG OF YOUTHS is PERFECT for Virgil’s feelings when he finally gets together with Roman. I actually brainstormed this playing at Pat and L’s wedding and Virgil confessing to him that way as they danced to it, or him consciously playing it for Roman when they got back to his apartment because he didn’t know if he could trust his own words, but it just didn’t end up seeming like something he would do, so the idea was scrapped. But like, TO A T, this is Virgil’s experience with love and what he wants with Ro.

Good To Be Alive by PVRIS was also supposed to be in the fic, but it did not make it in, which I’m SO BUMMED about since I think it so perfectly fits Virge’s perspective towards the end of the fic where he’s at his wit’s end before the secret’s out. Also a major influence on how I portrayed those feelings within him.

There’s definitely more, but this is already so long, so I’ll stop here for now. I hope this was interesting for you guys to see a little look into my process! Music REALLY helped motivate and inspire me to write this fic in a year, and I’m sure that comes across in how heavily it influenced the story and how much content you see here. If you ever have any questions about the Drag verse PLEASE feel free to send me an ask! I will take any excuse to ramble about this universe shcnajxn

#life’s a drag #sanders sides #prinxiety #spoilers for my fic #past Anxceit #drag

[skeletinmoss]

Ruffled feathers

Chapter 2: The avian's nest

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Ships planned: Prinxiety, Logicality, Dukeciet

Patton and Virgil are brothers in this one

Thanks @lovelivingmydreams for being my beta

Virgil wasn't sick for too long. And after speaking with Emile he was much easier to deal with. He still hissed at anyone who got close to him though, even his brother. He hated being vulnerable and certainly didn't want to be treated like a baby.

« Being sick sucks,» he decided observing his brother's work from the height of the tree.

« Is that so? You must be glad it's over then,» Patton briefly looked up from his creation and quickly returned to gathering. It didn't look like much yet, but it began to look like a circle. Virgil huffed from his observation point.

« Are you making a nest?» he asked confused. « You think it's safe enough here?» he already knew the humans were going to freak out about it.

Avians made nests for two reasons: they either felt really safe or really stressed. In particularly bad situations avians made so-called panic nests. It was usually a couple of twigs and leaves, or, as they both did, from anything they found at hand (one time Patton made it out of cutlery). Panic nests looked rightfully awful and the word 'nest' mostly meant it was kinda circular pile of things.

What Patton was making looked nothing like that. It was going to be a proper nest about two meters wide judging by the lines Pat drew on the floor. This meant he wanted to make this his sleeping place. And he even did it in the open where everyone else could see.

« It's mostly so we can get more comfortable,» he blushed looking for the sticks he could use. His brother growled in disapproval, « You don't even have anything soft for it.»

« Yes, I do! I have moss!» he pointed at the floor, «And our wings will start to molt soon.»

« Eh. A so-so nest. Not sleeping in the mossy bed,» Virgil hopped on the ground and strolled past the construction.

« You sleep on the floor!» Patton argued.

« Yeah. And that's why I'm not making a bed out of it,» bit the black avian before disappearing behind the door.

Bathroom was Virgil's favorite place. It was warm and shiny. And oh boy did he love the shiny stuff! He made a mental note if ever going to build a nest he will steal that bigass mirror.

He started at it for a minute. There was a scar on his nose left from a muzzle, two more on his hands from the handcuffs and one on his neck from the electric collar. They looked kind of badass, but held dark memories. He looked skinny, but not as bad as before. A proper feeding could do wonders, and he hoped that he could get his muscles back too. He was sick of being weak.

He took off the hoodie, struggling a bit to get it off the wings. Pants went down next, and he plopped into the warm water face first. Wings, still dry, held him him on the surface of the water as he did little to no movement, drifting in the middle of the pool. He tilted his head just enough for him to breathe and relaxed.

It looked like a corpse. And it scared Roman half to death. He sprinted out of the door, through the hallway, past the confused Logan, past the not so confused Janus, into the enclosure and into the bathroom. But before he could pick the body up, it moved disturbed by the sound of splashing water. He did however drag the avian out of the water.

The rescued was not pleased with it and declared so with a strong bite. Roman however was reliеved, « You can't just drown yourself!»

Moody stuck his tongue out.

Roman frowned at his bratty patient. «You looked dead! Did you think that wouldn’t make us worried?»

The avian seemingly tasted the thought. He grabbed Roman by his shirt and walked back in the water, not even bothering to hide his naked body with his wings. He once again settled on the water's surface. His wings were now wet because of him jolting from Roman's touch, so he sank deeper than before. But his head was still afloat and Roman calmed down after he realized it was simply the way he relaxed. Moody squinted his eyes from the comfortable warmth and purred quietly.

« You're an absolute nightmare,» the rescuer huffed dramatically. He observed the avian a little intrigued. It's been a while since he was this close to him. Moody hadn't allowed himself to relax near anyone other than his brother and now he was swimming near him seemingly unbothered.

« Your wings look better,» Roman couldn't help himself but to comment. To his delight the avian in question blushed and started daggers at him. « What? It's true! We definitely need to thank our fawn friend for that thing he gave you,» he declared.

The actor pushed himself out of the water and sat on the edge. His clothes were soaking wet now, but it wasn't something that bothered him at the moment. He couldn't take his eyes of the beautiful feathers. Now looking at them he noticed how wobbly they looked. It wasn't just because of the water, they looked more messy when they should be. They were ungroomed. It would have been understandable if Moody was on his own, but he had a brother. Didn't they groom each other?

Now thinking about it he remembered what Logan told him. Right… Patton didn't have any claws, and his brother simply couldn't reach his back to do it on his own.

« Can I touch them?» he asked finally.

A hiss was the obvious answer.

« I can groom them, you know,» he tried to justify. There was a hesitation before the next hiss, a true master of pretending to not understand the language. Now Dark and Stormy moved further from Roman not quite interested in letting an untrusted creature near his wings. It made Roman frown.

He wasn't frustrated, no. He was angry actually, but not at the avian. Each time he tried to help, Virgil would hiss and try to get away. And it was all because of how he was treated before. It was infuriating! Who can do something bad to a creature this beautiful?! Or any other creature for that matter, not just the beautiful ones. It was so wrong and inhumane!

« I will make friends with you,» Roman half jokingly threatened, and had to go after another loud hiss.

Later, when Virgil finished his bath, he went out to now three people working on the nest. There was a couple of boxes with some soft materials like animal undercoat, feathers and cotton fiber. Patton was currently looking through the box with twigs, Logan helped making the base of the nest and Princey was mostly being a hype man and helping them both. Still in semi wet clothes.

« I told you I got soft stuff for it,» Virgil's brother pointed out smugly.

The black one huffed at that. « You mean THEY got it,» he argued.

Patton's wings shot up flustered, nearly hitting the nerd in the face. His darkwinged brother smirked and stuck out his tongue. There was a moment of silence between them until Patton stood up. Another moment. And then suddenly they both ran: Virgil for the trees and Patton after Virgil.

« Come here, you smart butt!» yelled Pat trying to catch his brother who climbed away as fast as he could giggling to himself.

Eventually they both reached the top and Virgil didn't have anywhere else to run. « No, stop! I'm sorry!» he laughed as his brother got him in a head lock and started to ruffle his hair.

The humans watched it with amazement. It was nice seeing the avians coming back to life. They probably didn't have much opportunities to have fun and banter like that in captivity. To think only two weeks prior they hadn't even talked in front of anyone.

« They are nice,» Patton said more quietly, releasing his brother from his hold. « Don't you want to talk to them?» he wondered.

Virgil took his time to respond, « What if they are still hiding something? Princey absolutely hates me. We're clearly doing something to upset them.»

« I don't think they are upset,» Patton replied. « Not at us at least. They give us nice food and we can move how much we want, they take care of us,» he brushed Virgil's hair.

Storm cloud sight and hugged his legs. « You can talk if you want to,» he relented. The smile on his brother's face lit up his soul.

« I'll ask them if we can go outside!» Patton suggested.

V shook his head at the helpless optimism. « Don't get your hopes up,» he warned, but Patton was already on his way down.

« Can we go outside?» this was the first official thing any of the avians said to their saviors in the human language. The conversation before it was short, but the older brother clearly allowed for it to happen. The whole team should have discussed this and given an answer later with all of the details figured out. But looking in those innocent blue eyes all Logan could say was « Yes, of course.»

Both birds got a little surprised at the answer.

« R-right now? Can we do that right now?» Patton's wings folded behind his back in anticipation. He tried to make himself presentable and obedient as if a little walk outside should be earned.

« If you won't fly away I don't see any reasons not letting you. Clear air is good for health, as people say. And our goal is your recovery.» Logan allowed and Prince nodded.

They should have discussed this with the team first. They should have predicted that something like this would happen.

Virgil tried to fly.

And he fell, of course. They couldn't have reacted in time. The avians were just walking and enjoying the grass and the trees, and the wind outside when the Black one suddenly started to climb higher with a surprising speed. His wings unfolded to their full size and a moment later he was in the air.

The landing was not as rough as it could have been if one of the humans just jumped of a tree. Wings still allowed for some gliding. But it was heartbreaking. Very heartbreaking. And Virgil showed just how much with the enraged scream that left him.

His brother slowly went up to him and hugged him.

They stayed like that for a while before going back into the enclosure.

Tag list: @aphandgflover @yourdragonwitchroyalty @warcats-cat @aevhee

Let me know if you want to be in the tags. Preferrebly in the post

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #ts virgil #ts patton #patton sanders #roman sanders #ts roman #logan sanders #ts logan #ruffled feathers au

[candied-peach]

ao3: "i'm afraid we won't be leaving" rating: T warnings: prinxiety, remus shenanigans mentioned genre: fluff description: Roman's not been sleeping. Virgil has a fix for that. (for anonymous: "tss fluff prompts.... prinxiety and a nap?")

Roman's jaw cracks in a yawn as he covers his mouth with one ink-spattered hand. He's been struck with a burst of creativity the past few days, so he's been working extra hard for Thomas. A bundle of scripts lay untidily stacked on a corner of his desk, and he's steadily plowing through another. This is good. This is great! Sure, he hasn't really slept in three days, but he doesn't need it! Not when energy thrums through his veins, exhaustion be damned. He's been drinking and eating for the most part (Virgil keeps dragging him off to meals and replenishing his water bottle). All in all, he is doing fantastically and he's so proud of himself. What would Logan say if he could see Roman now? Buckling down and getting the work done? 

"Ro," Virgil's voice intrudes. Roman's mouth turns down into a pout before he can stop himself. He loves his boyfriend. He really does. Virgil is incredible and Roman doesn't know how he managed to get so lucky as to have Virgil say yes.

But Virgil doesn't understand how important it is for him to keep going when he's in the groove like this! He needs to finish it! Anxiety plucks at his heart strings, sending little shocks of worry throughout his nervous system. 

"Ro, you need to sleep," Virgil says, resting his chin on Roman's shoulder.

"I'm nearly done," Roman argues absently. Virgil eyes him, and Roman finds his face reddening.

"No, you aren't," Virgil says. "I can tell you're lying from a mile away, Princey. Are you trying to get Janus's attention?"

"No!" Roman sputters, still red-faced. "I'm just- I'm not at a good stopping point, Dark and Stormy, just let me-" He wheedles. Virgil raises a dubious eyebrow.

"I don't think so," Virgil says, tugging Roman's chair out from his desk and spinning him around. Roman squeaks, nearly dropping his pen. 

"Virgil!" Roman exclaims. 

"Roman!" Virgil echoes his intonation. "You need a nap, darling. Come on. Up you get." He tugs at Roman's wrists. "I promise, I will let you get back to it once you've had a nap."

"But what if I forget my thought process?" Roman asks, his eyebrows scrunching together in worry. "I need to get this done, I told Thomas and Logan I'd have this done by the end of the week-"

"Darling, it's Wednesday," Virgil calmly points out. "You still have a few days to get it done. You won't finish it if you collapse instead."

"You're supposed to be on my side," Roman playfully accuses. "What happened to Anxiety prodding Thomas to get his shit done?"

"I realized self care is also important, and you'll get nothing done if you don't sleep," Virgil retorts, deadpan. "I will give you one minute to write down some notes for what you want to do, and that's it."

Seizing his opportunity, Roman whirls his chair back around, grabbing a spare sheet of notebook paper and scribbling down as many thoughts as his crammed-full brain could spit at him. All too soon, the minute is up, and Virgil is plucking the pen out of his hands.

"Nap time," Virgil insists. Roman throws him a pleading look.

"Now darling-" Roman starts, but Virgil just leans forward and kisses his nose, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"You look exhausted," Virgil informs him. "Your bags have bags and are moving cross-country. You look like you're wearing my eyeshadow, babe. Come on."

"Fine," Roman grumpily acquiesces. Virgil helps him stand and fatigue weighs every limb down as he is suddenly accosted with exhaustion. He wobbles and Virgil steadies him with a sympathetic smile. His opulent red and gold-draped bed looks more welcoming by the second.

"Just a few more feet," Virgil encourages him softly.

"You'll nap with me, won't you?" Roman asks. Virgil nods immediately.

"Of course, Princey," Virgil says. A soft, sappy look spreads across Roman's face as he sits down on the edge of the bed and snaps himself and Virgil into their pajamas. He yawns again and Virgil pushes him back onto the bed, crawling in after him.

"Go to sleep, love," Virgil says. The soft sound of rushing water fills the room, as Roman nonverbally turns on his noise machine. He can't handle the quiet otherwise, and Virgil's soft breaths aren't enough white noise to help.

"Love you, stormcloud," Roman murmurs. His eyelids feel like they have five pound weights attached to them. Virgil kisses him, then peppers more kisses across his cheeks.

"Love you, too, Princey," Virgil says, his voice so thick with fondness, it makes Roman's heart swell. "Your work will still be there when you wake up. Promise."

Hearing that, Roman immediately snaps his fingers to turn on the Anti-Remus Wards, just in case, and Virgil laughs.

"Point taken," Virgil says. "Now it will still be there."

"I know my brother," Roman mumbles, already halfway to dream land. Virgil curls up tight against him, one arm draped over his middle, and Roman's breathing slows, evening out.

He sleeps for hours and when he wakes up, his door is streaked with green slime that seems to be smoking.

But his work is untouched.

#🍬.txt #sanders sides #prinxiety #roman sanders #virgil sanders #roman #virgil #sanders sides fic #ok to rb #peach writes #📚

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Hot Chocolate, Ice Skates, and Prince Charming

Heya! I’ve just been quietly reading and rereading all your Roman angst and I hope you’re not tired of writing it because I have an idea 😅 How about some christmas Roman angst? I can’t think of anything specific but there’s that XD Keep up the writing and don’t feel pressured to post the fic on Christmas or to even take the request ❤️- lio-the-chaotic-nonbeanie-weenie

Hello hello! :) Absolutely adore your work, and I hope you're having a wonderful holiday! I have come with a request for whenever you're up to it. If you would, it would be amazing to see your take on a Christmas-y themed fic with a focus on disabled Virgil. I had a hankering for Hallmark styled Christmas movies lately and I was just thinking about how fun it would be in your style. Hope that's ok! – anon

Read on Ao3

Warnings: some ableist language

Pairings: prinxiety (i am ashamed at how long it took me to fucking remember what their ship name is jfc)

Word Count: 10,080

At some point, Virgil will work out the exact science of how much to say 'yes' to friends who desperately want to do holiday-spirit-festive-stuff because they're his friends and he loves being there to watch them love things, but he also does not enjoy dying of either pain or sensory overload. This year doesn't look to be one of those years where he does better than others, though, if being surrounded by screaming children and off-key grainy speakers belting Mariah Carey for the past Too Fucking Long is any indication. He ducks his head to avoid yet another flying something-or-other as he huddles in on himself, making sure his cane doesn't get knocked over for the fourth time in as many minutes. "Excuse me?" He turns, half expecting someone selling cotton candy or those little memorabilia keychains, and— Oh. Hello. *** Virgil, fed up with the holiday spirit, meets Roman, a man who seems far too good to be true for such an auspicious time of year. From apology hot chocolate to late-night Christmas lights, maybe this year the magic will linger just a little bit longer.

 

At some point, Virgil will work out the exact science of how much to say 'yes' to friends who desperately want to do holiday-spirit-festive-stuff because they're his friends and he loves being there to watch them love things, but he also does not enjoy dying of either pain or sensory overload. This year doesn't look to be one of those years where he does better than others, though, if being surrounded by screaming children and off-key grainy speakers belting Mariah Carey for the past Too Fucking Long is any indication. He ducks his head to avoid yet another flying something-or-other as he huddles in on himself, making sure his cane doesn't get knocked over for the fourth time in as many minutes.

May your days be merry and bright indeed.

He sighs, squinting fruitlessly through the crowd to maybe catch sight of one of his friends' coats or something, before realizing that there's absolutely no way he's going to be able to do that when he can't even see the skating rink over the crowd gathered around the outside. And sure, he could stand, but is he going to? No. So he may as well just continue sitting here until one of them remembers that yeah, he's here too, and wades through the horde to his little bench oasis.

"Excuse me?"

He turns, half expecting someone selling cotton candy or those little memorabilia keychains, and—

Oh.

Hello.

"Sorry," the actual fucking model in front of him says, smiling sheepishly, "is the other half of this bench taken?"

"No," Virgil says way too quickly, but can you fucking blame him? The prettiest human that's ever existed just asked if he could sit down next to him. "Bench, uh—bench is very much not taken, you can—you can sit."

"Thanks."

Well, this might have backfired, because now very-pretty-attractive person is sitting right next to Virgil. And he definitely knows how to deal with this. Yeah, this is fine. This is totally fine. He just has to not keep sneaking glances at his perfectly coiffed hair…or his jawline…or the freckle right on the end of his nose…

"Is there something on my face?"

Shit. Fuck. "No, no, you're fine—" really fucking fine, dude— "sorry, I, uh, didn't mean to stare."

He chuckles. Not fair. Not fair at all. "It's okay, honey, no harm done."

Abort fucking mission, abort fucking mission, Very Pretty Person just called me a pet name, shit fuck holy shit what the fuck am I supposed to do?

He's spared the humiliation of verbal floundering when he chuckles again and holds out his hand. "Roman."

"Virgil." Please God, I hope my hand isn't too sweaty. "Nice, uh, nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Roman nods his chin toward the skating rink. "Taking a break?"

"Oh, I, uh, I'm not really big into ice skating."

"You've dragged yourself all the way to the madhouse and you're not going inside?"

"My friends," he says lamely, waving toward the entrance, "they really wanted to come, so I tagged along."

Roman hums, tilting his head. "Not very nice of them to leave you behind, is it?"

Shut up, he hisses at his heart which starts to pulse threateningly towards his throat, it's fine. This is fine. "It's fine. I don't really mind."

"Yes, being surrounded by extremely loud children and sitting right underneath a speaker," Roman says skeptically, "I'm sure."

"Well, I—uh—"

Roman sighs. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude. It's none of my business, I know."

It totally could be your business though. Like, I would have exactly zero problems if you decided it was your business.

"I'll go with you if you want."

Virgil shakes himself out of his thoughts in time to see Roman smiling softly at him and he needs to figure out what the fuck he just said real fast before he gets lost in it. "Sorry, what?"

"If you want to go skate," Roman repeats, "I know it's hard if you're by yourself, especially in a crowd this big, so I'd be happy to come with if you wanted."

His heart sinks and the cane at his side grows a little colder. He forces himself to smile and shakes his head. "Sorry, I, uh, really am not into skating."

"Come on," Roman coaxes, holding his hand out, "I promise I'll be nice."

This is torture. This is literal actual torture and Virgil is about to sink into this fucking bench because the most attractive person he's ever fucking laid eyes on is asking him to skate and he can't and he's going to have to say no and then Roman might leave and they won't get a chance to talk anymore or he'll find out why Virgil doesn't want to skate and then it might turn out that he's not actually as sweet and charming as he's acting right now and—

Virgil's eyes slide to his cane and back up to Roman's. Roman follows his gaze, a cute little wrinkle between his brows, before his eyes widen in realization and his mouth drops open.

"O-oh," he stammers, "sorry, I thought—I didn't—"

"It's fine," Virgil mutters, picking up his cane and hunching over it.

"There's—well, I suppose there's no coming back from that." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Roman's cheeks turn a little pinker—so cute—and scratch the back of his head. "Can I buy you a hot chocolate to make up for it?"

Virgil's head snaps around. He stares at Roman. "What?"

"As an apology. I'll even make sure they put extra whipped cream on it."

He vaguely hears himself say something about sprinkles and then Roman's grinning again and sliding from the bench and vanishing into the crowd. Part of Virgil wants to immediately get up and run after him, but his hands are still wrapped around his cane and all he can do is hope to God that Roman wasn't some hallucination or fantasy and there really is a cute guy going to but him apology hot chocolate.

Five minutes pass.

Ten.

Fifteen.

No sign of Roman.

Virgil checks his phone and sees nothing—no text messages from his friends, no alarm, nothing except the battery he really should have charged before leaving the house and he now has to use extremely sparingly. The sinking feeling in his stomach is back; maybe Roman just wanted a quick and easy exit away from the pathetic whelp with the cane, or maybe he realized that there was something better he could be doing. He wouldn't blame him, not really. He might call him an ableist asshole the next time—if they ever saw each other again, but—

"Sorry, I'm so sorry," he hears breathlessly, "the line was miles long and then they couldn't find the sprinkles."

He turns, hardly daring to believe it, when he sees a massive cup of still-steaming hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream and red and green sprinkles held out toward him. He pries one of his hands from his cane and takes it, looking between it and Roman with disbelief. Roman smiles at him again and nods to the cup.

"Is that enough whip-cream?"

"Yeah," Virgil says faintly, "that's—I don't think I've ever seen this much before."

"Well, you deserve it," Roman says like an asshole because now Virgil has to down like half of it in one go to prevent him from seeing how fucking red he gets at that one little comment and he nearly burns his tongue off for it. "Whoa, whoa! Slow down, no one's gonna take it away from you, don't burn your mouth!"

"Too late."

Roman just chuckles again, like he's fond, like that's something they do, and he leans back against the bench. "Suit yourself, honey."

And now he has to do it again. Honestly.

You could not pay Virgil to remember what all they talk about. He doesn't know. He's too busy memorizing the crooked half-smile Roman has when he's vaguely amused by something, or the cute wrinkle that forms when he's thinking or concerned, or the way he keeps reaching out to almost touch Virgil's shoulder before changing his mind last-minute and leaning on the bench instead. He wants to reach back for him so bad but he's trying to hold the hot chocolate and his cane at the same time. His cheeks hurt from smiling and blushing and apparently Roman is really good at saying little things to make that worse. Does he remember what they are? No, because he's not paying attention to shit like that.

They're laughing at something—again, who knows what—when Roman checks his phone and sighs.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. But it was really nice to meet you and sit with you."

"You, uh, you too."

Roman grins and stands. "Happy Holidays, Virgil," he says, and disappears into the crowd.

"You too," he says, way too late, just as he realizes that he didn't even ask for Roman's number.

He looks down at the dregs of the hot chocolate and finds himself smiling slightly.

Maybe being dragged out here wasn't the worst thing after all.

2.

He truly doesn't expect to see Roman ever again, and he may have moped around the house for a few hours upon realizing that, so it takes him by surprise when he ends up sitting in the corner of some mall as his friends go last-minute shopping and a familiar voice calls out.

"Virgil?"

He almost breaks his neck with how fast he turns around. "Roman?"

Roman grins at him, a bag over his arm, before nodding to the other chair at the table. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I mean—please sit down."

"That's on me, I should've asked it in a less-annoying-to-answer way." He sets the bag on the floor and tucks his hands into his pockets. "Can I be really honest with you?"

"Sure."

"I wanted to run back to the bench the second I left because I realized I didn't ask you for your number. So, can I do that now before I forget again?"

"Yes," he says, pulling his phone out before Roman's even finished speaking, "yes, absolutely, go ahead. I wanted to do the same thing."

They exchange numbers and Virgil's in the middle of totally not putting a bunch of cute things after Roman's name because he has standards and a reputation—but come on, his last name is literally 'Prince,' what the fuck is he supposed to do?—when Roman calls his name and he looks up, surprised. Roman laughs and holds up his phone.

"Can I take a photo? For your contact?"

"Uh—um—sure?"

"Not that I'd forget what your pretty face looks like," Roman says as he takes a picture in the middle of Virgil blushing like an idiot, "but in case I want a reminder."

This. This is what he didn't remember. That Roman is apparently really good at being charming—literally Prince Charming, this is fake, this isn't real, people like Roman don't actually exist, where are the camera crews and reality show hosts?

"Alright, now that's out of the way…" Roman trails off when he notices that Virgil's still staring at the table, his cheeks bright red. "Hey, you okay?"

"I—uh—you—"

He chuckles. "Still stunnable, I see? Sorry, honey, am I being mean?"

"Okay, well, it's hard to tell how sincere you're being when you're still doing it, so—"

Roman throws his head back and laughs, holding his hands up in surrender. "Okay, you got me."

"Rude."

"You're still smiling at me, though."

"Shut up."

"Your smile is cute."

"Shut up," he mumbles again, trying to hide his face in his sleeves. Unfortunately, that means he's not balancing his cane against the table anymore and it falls to the ground with a loud clatter. A few people walking by turn to look. He goes to pick it back up only to realize Roman's already doing it, leaning it back against the table. "Oh, uh, thanks."

"Of course." He inclines his head toward some of the stores nearby. "You here by yourself?"

"No. Friends scrambling for last-minute stuff."

Roman makes a noise. "I'm not getting a fantastic impression of these friends of yours who drag you places and then leave you."

"They're not so bad, they know to pick places with easy seating so I can take breaks when I need them. Besides, they know better than to take me in certain places."

"Oh? Do tell."

"Apparently there's only so many times I can call out fancy soaps for smelling like ass before I get politely asked to leave, but—"

"Wait, wait, wait," Roman says, sitting forward with a grin, "you gotta tell me everything now, you can't just leave it there."

And so, Virgil dutifully recounts the story of the time some of his friends decided a fun way to spend the afternoon was to go into the fancy soap and other scented things shop to 'browse,' when in reality they were just going to see what the most obscure and specific scent was and mock it mercilessly. They managed to find everything from 'Bourbon-soaked Cotton' to 'Miasma,' which of course prompted Virgil to point out that they really didn't think that one through because miasma was the 'bad air' that supposedly caused things like the Black Death and you probably didn't want a candle called 'Miasma' in your house, which logically led to them all pretending to be plague doctors by wrapping up the complimentary cardboard box/bag things and holding them in front of their faces like plague doctor masks and acting like they'd discovered some new herbs to treat the nefarious diseases with.

Needless to say, they were politely asked to never come back ever again, and they definitely kept pretending to be plague doctors as they were 'escorted from the premises.'

Roman's fully collapsed back into the chair, shaking with laughter, by the time Virgil finishes telling the story. He has to stop and just look at him, because of course Prince Charming is really fucking pretty when he's laughing, and then he looks up at Virgil with that soft smile again and he can literally feel himself melting inside his hoodie.

"Well," he says through the last of the laughter, "I can see why they asked you not to come back."

"Yeah, well…" He shrugs. "Plus, if my friends actually want to get any shopping done, they decided it's best if I don't tag along so they can actually, you know, focus."

"Can't say I blame them, then. I'd be distracted by you too."

"Roman!"

"Okay, okay, I'm done, I promise." He grins. "I think your face might explode, it's so damn red."

'Yeah, well, whose fault is that?"

Roman holds a hand over his chest and bows halfway, like he's actually out of some period drama and wearing a fancy knight's costume instead of a button-down coat and scarf. "My deepest apologies, Virgil."

"Yeah, yeah, knock it off," Virgil grumbles as he chuckles.

They sit there in the quiet for a few more moments as a few groups of kids run by. The lights strung up around the pillars and various levels of the mall sparkle with that faux-snow-wet look as Christmas carols play over the speakers, Virgil taps his fingers absentmindedly to the beat, watching an ad play inside one of the stores.

"Okay, I have a potentially rude question that you can totally tell me to shut up for."

Part of Virgil immediately raises its hackles, but he turns to look at him. "Okay?"

Roman nods to his cane. "Where did you get your cane? My great-aunt uses one and she's been complaining about how boring her current one is for like, as long as I can remember, and yours is sick as hell."

It is pretty cool—it has this purple holo body and Virgil's stuck all sorts of stickers to it and the base is really nice and it's got an adjustable length too. "I can text you the name of the place?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, thank you."

He sends it off and puts his phone on the table. "That wasn't a rude question, by the way. That was fine."

Roman's shoulders visibly slump. "Okay, great, I wasn't—I really wasn't sure. I don't—sorry."

Virgil's eyes widen slightly as Roman starts to…fluster?

"I don't know a lot of people who use mobility aids on the regular and so I don't…really know what sort of things are appropriate to ask."

"You're fine," he says, still a little bemused, "you're doing great."

But then Roman smiles at him all soft again and he has to look away and cough before he starts getting all red again.

"Besides, you're right. My cane is sick as hell and it deserves compliments."

"It's definitely the coolest one I've ever seen. How did you get the stickers to stay so well?"

"There's this Etsy seller who specifically made them to go on mobility aids—she has forearm crutches and hers are decked out with cool shit, so I bought a couple for mine just to try them out and then, well, I couldn't stop."

"Could you send me the name of that place too? My aunt might want some."

"Sure, yeah, give me a moment to find it."

As he looks through his phone, he catches sight of Roman watching him. Not in a creepy way, he's just doing that fond thing where he's got his head slightly tilted and he's still smiling like he's just happy to be here with Virgil and he needs to stop thinking about it right now before his ears start going bright red too.

"There. Sent."

"Thanks, Virgil." He checks his phone just to make sure he's gotten it before he stands up. "I'd love to sit here all day with you, but I do have to run."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'll text you, okay? If you're not—I mean, if you don't have plans, I'd really like to see you again."

"Yeah," he says, grinning like an idiot, "I'd like that too."

He's still staring off in the direction Roman went when his friends come to tell him that they may have gotten kicked out of another store.

3.

Prince Charming: I have another potentially rude question.

Virgil tries not to grin when he sees Roman's text. He knows better than that. Absolutely not.

He fails.

Me: what's up

Prince Charming: How far of a walk is too long of a walk before you need a break?

Me: walking is actually fine it's standing that makes me want to die

Me: i mean i'm not trying to hike a mountain

Prince Charming: No, I suppose that makes sense.

Me: why?

Prince Charming: One of my favorite things to do this time of year is go to the Tadford Park Conservatory. They have this really cool thing they do to get all festive and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me? They have places to sit on the way and it's basically a greenhouse so we don't need to lug big heavy coats around.

Virgil quickly looks up 'Tadford Park Conservatory' and scrolls through the pictures of the plants and decorations. Honestly, it looks stunning. He's about to say as much when he gets another text,

Prince Charming: And I have a car so I could pick you up and we could drive.

Me: that sounds really amazing when do you want to go?

Prince Charming: Are you free tomorrow?

Me: sure am

Prince Charming: Can I pick you up at 9?

Me: absolutely see you then

Prince Charming: Perfect :)

Only after Virgil's put the phone down and gone back to what he was doing does he realize he has no idea whether this is supposed to be a date or not.

Is it? No, Roman would've said. Right? That seems like something you'd say. You'd be like: 'hey, I want to do this thing with you as a date.' Or 'hey, I want to take you out and I thought we could do this.' Something like that. Something that puts a big and flashy 'this is a date' sign on it. Roman didn't do that. And Roman seems like the person who would do that. Right? Maybe Virgil should ask. That was reasonable, to ask if something was a dare. But then what if Roman hadn't intended for it to be a date? Then it would get really awkward and Virgil would have to backtrack and then Roman might offer to make it a date out of pity and then it would be even more awkward and Virgil wouldn't actually get to enjoy anything they did because he'd be too busy thinking about how awkward it was and then it would be ruined and—

No. He's just gonna act like he's going to do something fun with a friend. He does that all the time.

Just so happens that Roman's Roman.

It's gonna be fine.

So fine.

He really is so fine—okay, that's enough of that.

He definitely stresses over what he's wearing for way too long before he gets a knock on his door and he just throws a coat over it before he can overthink it and goes to meet Roman. Roman opens his car door for him like he's really some prince that crawled out of a storybook and it doesn't even feel like he's doing it out of pity, like he'd do it even if Virgil didn't have a cane, which is another thing to fret about as Roman drives them to the conservatory. As they walk inside, Virgil goes fumbling for his wallet only for Roman to reveal that he's already gotten their tickets, scanning the code at the front and going over to the coat closet.

"How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, it's on me." Roman hangs up his coat and huffs a laugh when he sees the way Virgil's staring at him. "What's that for?"

"No, really, I saw those ticket prices, there's no way—"

"My mom has a membership, we basically got in for free. It's okay, honey, you don't have to worry about it."

Virgil mumbles something about pet names being unfair as Roman chuckles and they start walking toward the doors. A wave of warm air washes over them as they step through and Virgil's eyes widen as he looks around at the plants and decorations hanging from the ceiling. It's like he's stepped into some alternate reality, trees curling up and over him in a green ceiling as vibrant flowers bloom impossibly bright, catching the glistening light as the giant ornaments overhead twist and turn in the faint breeze. The faint smell of freshly watered plants mixes with the pine and gingerbread from the lobby as they start walking and he can't pay attention to where he's going because every few seconds, he sees something else incredible. Bright blue flowers. A tree with bark like peeling parchment. A crawling vine straight out of a fairytale book. Roman keeps him as much on the path and out of the crowd as possible and he can't even spare the attention to thank him.

"It's beautiful," he manages as they near another door, "it's so pretty, Roman."

"Yes, it is."

"If you're looking at me while you say that, I swear to God—" Roman pushes open another door and they start into a room filled with flowering trees— "holy shit."

Roman chuckles and guides them to a bench underneath one of them. "Do you want to sit for a second or keep going?"

"How close is the next bench after this one?"

"Two rooms down, I think."

"I can make it until there."

They walk through a room of twisting and turning jungle trees, ferns and other smaller plants hiding between the leaves. They pass a pond of koi fish swimming underneath a massive tree. The room with the bench has a long, clear pool in its center, flanked by paths through what look to be walls of moss and other ferns, a waterfall at the far end. Roman walks them carefully over one of the paths to a bench tucked into a little alcove, through which they can see the pool and the bright green foliage on the other side. Virgil sits down, still spellbound at the room.

"I'd ask if you were enjoying yourself," comes Roman's voice, "but I think I know the answer."

"It's like I've been transported to some fantasy realm, this is so cool. How have I never known this existed?"

"A lot of people don't come here. Which is good because I'm selfish and I really like when there's not a lot of crowds." Roman sits back, one leg slung over the other. "But—I don't know why. Maybe it's because they think plants are boring or something."

"They're fucking wrong."

He chuckles. "Yeah, I think so too. I'm glad you like it."

"Okay, it's my turn to ask a potentially rude question."

"Shoot."

"Why here? I mean, it's gorgeous, and the decorations really help, but it's not—a conservatory isn't really what I think of when I think of festive stuff."

Roman sighs. Ripples from the waterfall spread out along the pool's surface. "I don't know, really. I think it's just because holidays are really hectic for me and this place…never really feels like that. It's always sort of like this, calm, serene. Quiet. I think…I think I just really like that."

Virgil turns at the wistful note in Roman's voice, watching him send one of those soft smiles at the pool. The greenery around them almost seems to curve, like the petals of a flower around its center. Roman…fits here, like he really is some prince that even nature itself can't help but adore.

…fuck, he's so far gone.

He loses track of time as they sit there, just enjoying the still quiet of the room. The ferns have their own smell, soft and sweet, that mixes with the crisp dampness of the water as some misters turn on to water the plants. He holds his hand out in front of one, just for a second, watching the droplets catch on his hand and sparkle as he turns them in the light. Roman's side presses against his after a while and he finds himself lost slightly to the solid comfort of it. And then, well, then that's all he thinks about for a while.

At least until his stomach growls and ruins the moment.

"Come on," Roman chuckles, "the food's not far from here."

The cafe bustles with energy after being in that quiet room for so long, and Virgil quickly finds a table to sit at while Roman goes and gets the food. He does have to slightly threaten Roman into letting him pay for their lunch, but Roman concedes after a while and goes to stand in line. He pulls out his phone to send the few pictures he remembered to take to the group chat, when suddenly—

"Shame on you, young man!"

Virgil startles so badly that he almost drops his phone. He looks up to see a stern older woman glaring at him, hands on her hips. "Uh—"

"How dare you?" she says again, wagging her finger at him. "You go and find whoever you stole that from and give it back right this instant!"

"I don't—what—what are you talking about?"

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?" She points at his cane. "That does not belong to you! You're old enough to know better, especially to steal something like that, your parents would be so disappointed in you!"

Oh. Oh, fuck, it's one of these. Disgust and embarrassment crawl up his throat as a few people at the surrounding tables start to look over. He swallows. "Actually, that is mine."

The woman scoffs. "What do you think, I was born yesterday?"

"That is my cane," he says, voice a bit firmer. "I bought it with my money, I use it for my disability. I didn't steal it. It's my cane."

She looks him up and down over the rim of her glasses. "You? You expect me to believe a young person like you uses a cane? What on earth could you possibly need a cane for?"

And really, he should be used to it by now, he's had ableist assholes like this yelling at him for actual years, he shouldn't be this upset over it. But goddamnit, this day was going well. He was having a good time. And now someone is telling him his disability doesn't exist and he should be ashamed for using a mobility aid and he can feel his eyes starting to water even as he struggles for words.

"Excuse me."

Roman. He looks up to see Roman setting a tray with their food on the table, his hand coming to rest on Virgil's shoulder.

"Would you like to explain why you're bothering someone you don't know?"

The woman splutters. "I—well, I—"

"It is none of your business what someone else does to take care of themselves," Roman says, cutting her off firmly, "you do not get to make assumptions about someone else's life and act as though you know the truth. No one would be so rude as to insist you don't need glasses, would they?"

"People your age don't need canes!"

"And people your age should know to treat people better." Roman gives her a look that's so profoundly disappointed that he can see a few people wince in sympathy. "This time of year is supposed to be about sharing compassion and kindness. I hope for your sake you learn that this season."

He turns his back pointedly and the woman shuffles off without another word.

"Are you okay?" Roman asks, his voice so soft and worried that it almost gives Virgil whiplash. "I'm so sorry that happened."

"It's not your fault," he mumbles, "and…thank you."

"You don't need to thank me for being a decent person, honey."

"Yeah, well…" Roman's hand is still on his shoulder and he dares to lean into it a little. "Still. Thanks."

Roman still looks a little worried but he pushes Virgil's food towards him. "Here. Eat."

"Thanks."

Roman doesn't sit across from him. He sits next to him and after a moment, lets his leg rest against Virgil's. Virgil almost chokes on his sandwich but quickly shakes his head when Roman looks up, concerned.

"Is this alright?"

"Yeah, it's…more than alright." Virgil smiles. "You're really great, Roman."

Nice one, asshole.

"So are you." After a moment, his smile widens. "When we're finished, do you want to go see the desert room? There's a bench in there too."

"Cactuses?"

"I think it's technically cacti, but yes."

"Don't make me look up grammar while I'm eating."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

4.

Virgil gets another text the night before he's supposed to get lunch with Roman. He peers at his phone, sitting up from his horrible position on the couch.

Prince Charming: Hey, I'm sorry to do this so last minute, but my boss really wants me to come in in the morning tomorrow. I don't think I'll be able to come pick you up to go to the place.

Me: is there public that can get me there?

Prince Charming: You'd have to walk a fair ways and it's not like it's nice outside right now.

Virgil glances at the snowstorm outside and winces at the thought of all the ice. He's about to figure out a way to propose a rain check—or snow check—without upsetting either of them when his phone buzzes again.

Prince Charming: I mean, if it's not too much of an ask, I could always pick you up before I go into work and you could come with me? I don't think it'd be longer than a few hours at the most and then we could just go straight there afterwards.

Me: what do you mean come to work with you?

Prince Charming: I could pick you up and drive us both to the arena. There are the offices and stuff upstairs where you could sit and work or do something until I'm done then we could go?

Me: would your boss care that there's just some random person with you?

Prince Charming: You're not just some random person, Virgil. And no, he won't care.

Virgil's too caught up in the fact that Roman said he's not just some random person to really think about it when he sends back a 'yes,' nor did he really read the part where Roman mentioned an arena.

But sure enough, that's what they pull up to the next morning and Virgil's left blinking at the giant sign that says 'Stadium Entrance' as they get out of the car. He glances at Roman, who looks truly nonplussed as he leads the way to the door. He waves at the person at the front—Virgil waves too on instinct—and nods toward the elevator.

"I told them I was bringing someone, you can go on up and find somewhere to sit, if you want. I can come with too if you'd rather?"

"You, uh, you can go. I think I can find something."

"If anyone tries to give you shit, just say you're with me, okay?"

He huffs a laugh. "What, are you some kind of famous person?"

Roman laughs too, but it comes out a bit too forced. "Something like that."

And before he can ask what the fuck that means, Roman's walking off down another hallway and Virgil just shrugs and goes to find somewhere to sit. The elevator takes him up to something that looks almost like an office and he wanders into an open room, sitting down and shooting off a text to let Roman know where he is. He gets a quick acknowledgment and that he'll let him know when he's done. He switches over to the thing he'd been looking at in the car and loses himself quickly in the mindless scroll of the Internet.

He's not sure how much time passes before he glances around for an outlet to charge his phone. He drags a chair over to the corner and plugs in the charger, looking around as he waits for the little beep that lets him know it's working. There's a set of screens on the far wall, each showing a different camera, he presumes. One of them looks out at a loading dock, one of them shows a skating rink where someone's training, one of them shows another empty rink, and the last one has another door—probably a secondary exit of some kind. He shrugs and looks back at his phone.

"Excuse me?"

He looks up to see a man with glasses and a big coffee mug with cat whiskers peering through the door. "Uh, hi?"

"Are you supposed to be in here?"

"I, um, I'm with Roman? He said I could find somewhere up here to sit?"

"Oh, you must be Virgil!" Virgil blinks as the man grins and comes over to offer his hand. "I'm Patton, nice to meet you."

"Hi, Patton. Uh—you are? Sorry."

"No, it's fine, you're all good. I'm one of the event coordinators for the arena. Roman talks about you all the time, I was wondering if we'd ever get to meet you."

"Yeah, I, uh…nice to meet you too." Virgil shuffles a bit. "You, uh, have you worked with Roman for long?"

"Sort of—I don't work with Roman directly, but I see him when he's booked here. They've decided to train here this year, which is exciting, but he's so busy all the time." Patton grins, crossing his arms. "But I guess you know that, huh?"

"Yeah, I—wait, you—" he frowns. "What do you mean 'booked here?'"

"For a show or a competition or something." Patton leans down, muttering like they're sharing a secret. "Between you and me, I don't blame you for sitting up here. It gets cold in the rinks, doesn't it?"

"Sorry—can we go back another step?" Virgil shakes his head. "What do you mean, for a show or competition?"

Patton frowns. "For the season."

"What season? Season of what?"

He frowns for another second, before something like exasperation makes him sigh. "Did Roman tell you what he does?"

"No. Not even a little bit."

Patton sighs again and nods to the screens. "That's him, on the camera there."

Virgil turns to look. The only person on the screens is the one skating. Wait—

"That's Roman?"

"Roman Prince, reigning champion," Patton says, coming up behind him as Virgil stares at Roman training on the ice, "I'm not that surprised he didn't tell you, he's surprisingly private about his off-stage life."

Roman skates. Roman is a figure skater. Roman competes at a professional level as a skater. Roman is the fucking reigning champion?

He hears Patton say something about getting back to work but if he needs anything, let him know. He must respond—he hopes it wasn't too rude—but he's too focused on the way Roman is literally fucking dancing on the ice right now. He looks like he's at the Olympics. Shit, has Roman been to the Olympics? Why didn't Roman tell him he skates for a living? Why is he here while Roman is training? And what the fuck did Patton mean about Roman talking about him all the time?

He completely fucking forgets about his phone as he watches Roman skate. Every so often someone else skates up to him—his trainer, probably, even though Roman called him his boss. Shit, Roman really didn't want him to know about this, did he? Is he gonna be mad that Virgil's watching him?

He's really fucking good.

It feels like no time at all before Roman's disappearing from the frame and then he gets a text that he's almost done, coming up to find him, and Virgil's still staring at the screen trying to fit the pieces together that Roman's a professional skater who talks about him to the people he works with.

He doesn't quite manage that by the time Roman's pushing the door open with a breathless smile, his hair slightly messy, and his cheeks glowing from the exercise.

"Hey, sorry about that, but I'm all done, we can…"

He trails off when he notices Virgil staring at the screens, smile fading a bit.

"Right," he says, mostly to himself, "forgot about those."

"You, uh," Virgil mumbles, "so you skate?"

"Yeah. I skate."

There's a moment. Someone down the hall opens a door.

"I'm sure you have questions," Roman says finally, "but can I answer them in the car?"

"Yeah, sure."

Roman's quiet as they go back downstairs, waving to the front desk person again. They get in the car and start driving. Virgil bites his tongue for as long as he can before they finally stop at a red light and he musters his courage.

"Why didn't you tell me you skate?"

He hears Roman sigh. "I didn't mean to keep it a secret from you, it's just…I didn't know how you'd react."

"Did you think I wouldn't think it was a real job, or something?"

"What? No, no, I just—I didn't know if you watched skating or followed it at all or—or if you'd know who I am, or something like that." The light turns green and Roman turns onto the next road. "And then…well, it's not like I know what you do for a living either."

"I'm a systems engineer."

"Oh. That's cool."

"Thanks."

They drive for a few more minutes.

"Patton said you're quiet about your private life," he says, like an asshole, and he wants to take it back as soon as it comes out but Roman's already answering.

"Yeah, well, I'm not famous famous like some people are, but I'm…people know me. And it's not like I want people poking into what I do when I'm not being Roman Prince on the ice. Plus, especially with it being the holidays…" He trails off and sighs again. "Sorry, I don't want to bring the mood down."

"You're not bringing the mood down, you're just talking. You can tell me if you want to."

They stop at another red light and Roman looks at him. Really looks at him, like he's trying to figure out if Virgil's telling the truth. Which he is, he totally is, and he hopes Roman can see that. He must, or at least decide Virgil's not just asking to be nosy, because he looks away again.

"There are people who are into figure skating all year long and that's great, but they're, like, fans. And I love my fans, really, but I don't—sometimes it gets a bit much, you know?"

"Yeah."

"And then there are people who just like it for the holidays because it's 'festive.' Like, 'oh, let's go ice skating, it's Christmas,' or 'oh, let's go see a skating show because it's winter,' that sort of thing. And then they do it, and then it's done, and they go home and have their actual holidays together, and…"

Something terribly sad enters Roman's voice as they sit in the snow at the light, and Virgil suddenly has the image of a performer's smile fading as the lights go out. And it strikes him how terribly lonely what Roman's describing sounds, like he's just something people check off their lists and then move on with those they actually care about. And how much Patton seemed to understand that of course Roman didn't tell him what he did for a living.

"You want people to want to spend time with you for who you are," he says quietly, "not what you are."

"Yeah," Roman says back, equally soft, "that's it."

He looks down at his cane, spinning it in his hand. "I get that."

"I know you do." Roman reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. "I really didn't mean to keep secrets."

"It's fine, I get it. But thank you for telling me."

The light turns green and they start driving again. The silence feels gentler, somehow, Roman even starts humming under his breath. It's that same song that was playing over the speakers when they first met at the park.

Wait a fucking second.

"You asked me to skate."

"Huh?"

"When we met, at the park, you offered to skate with me. Even though you skate for a living and someone might have recognized you."

"What was I supposed to do?" Roman sighs, but this time it's clear he's going for drama. "I was talking to this cute guy and my brain fell out of my ears."

"You—what?"

Roman glances over and chuckles. "You're getting all blushy again, you know."

"I—what—shut up!"

"Did Patton also say I talk about you all the time?"

"Maybe!"

"Well, there you go, cutie. Wha—hey, hey! I'm driving!"

"You'll fucking live, you absolute dick."

But Roman's laughing again and he looks so happy that Virgil can't be mad for very much longer. And, you know, he is driving, and he would like to make it to the restaurant in one piece.

"You're paying for lunch, you know."

"Whatever you say, cutie."

5.

"If you dragged me all the way out here for nothing, I swear to God—"

"We're almost there, I promise, I promise."

Virgil groans, slumping down in the car seat at Roman makes yet another turn. Roman texted him two hours ago asking if he was free and could they go somewhere really quickly, he promises it's worth it, and Virgil had been too caught up in the sappy floaty feeling of Roman's excitement to say no, and now here they are, driving who the fuck knows where, in the dark, up a path that barely has any lights.

"How do you even know we're not getting lost?"

"We're not lost, I know exactly where we are."

"So if I got out a paper map and said 'where are we,' you could point to it and you'd be right?"

"Well, I'd be more impressed that you had a paper map with this exact area that you could be accurate about—"

"What, you don't think I've got maps?"

"I'd never doubt your map capabilities, Virgil."

"You'd better not, the atlas my mom got me for fourth grade would be so disappointed at you when I throw it at your head."

"I'm sorry, you're the one throwing it and it's going to be disappointed at me?"

"Yeah, 'cause you did something so outrageous it's made me need to throw it."

Roman chuckles as he makes another turn—are they going up a hill or something? "My mistake. Really, we are almost there."

"Uh-huh."

"What, you don't believe me?"

"I believe you about as much as I did the last ten times you've said it."

"I have not said it ten times!"

"No, you've said it way more than ten times."

"Well, if you keep asking 'are we there yet,' I'm going to keep answering you."

"Are we there yet?"

"Almost."

"Are we there y—" Roman reaches over and pushes his shoulder lightly. "Okay, okay, I'll knock it off."

"Look, see that sign?"

Virgil sits up and peers through the windshield at the sign that reads 'Observation Point.' "Yeah."

"That's where we're going."

"Fine, fine, you're not a liar."

"Thank you."

Sure enough, it really is only a few more moments before Roman's pulling the car out onto a large flat overlook and putting it in park. Virgil looks around, trying to figure out what exactly they're doing all the way out here and why Roman was so insistent that they go tonight, when Roman turns the headlights off. "Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?"

"Relax, I'm keeping the heat on so we don't freeze." He nods out the window. "Look."

"I can't see shit, Roman, look at what?"

"Give your eyes a second to adjust."

He looks, truly not expecting to see anything. It's just blackness, the afterglow of the headlights still burning his retinas out. He squints. There are surprisingly few clouds out tonight, especially considering the winter weather they're supposed to get later this week. He can sort of see something through the gloom, below them, but it's not that clear yet. Slowly, little by little, his eyes adjust and…

"Oh," he says in a rush of breath.

The entire city sprawls out beneath them. Glittering and shimmering houses, buildings, Christmas lights and flashing decorations. The snow sparkles with it, the glow almost a sea of wonder against the inky blue night sky. Reds, greens, blues, purples, far-away inflatables that must be giant but look like nothing more than storybook characters from this high up. Some of the houses closest to them have trees, right out front, others have sleighs and reindeer, even more have snowmen just barely lit by the edges of the shining lights.

It's incredible.

"I didn't think I'd get a chance to see it this year," Roman says, as if he's afraid to break the silence, "but then it cleared up and I knew it'd be perfect."

Virgil can't say anything. He's too spellbound.

"Thank you for coming with me."

"Thank you for asking. This is—holy fuck, Roman, this is so fucking cool."

"I'm glad you like it. I was a bit worried with the roads, sometimes they don't clear them properly, but at least we can sit in the car instead of having to walk or something."

Maybe it's the fact that he's tired, or the surge of sappiness when Roman had said he'd known it'd be perfect and he'd reached out for Virgil, or maybe he's been holding this in since Roman held out that stupid hot chocolate. Whatever it is, Virgil sniffles.

"Whoa, hey, hey," Roman murmurs right away, reaching out for him like the stupidly perfect Prince Charming, "what's wrong, honey? Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?"

"No," Virgil spits through his stupid tears, "no, you did—you did everything right."

"O..kay?"

"You did everything right," he says again, "you—you made sure we could drive so we could just sit in the car and you picked me up so you could drive me instead of making me take the bus and you asked how much walking was too much walking and you stood up for me and you asked me if it was rude before you asked about my cane and you got me hot chocolate and you're—you're—"

An actual sob chokes out of his mouth and he claps a hand over it, only for Roman to let out a noise of dismay and coaxes his hand away, holding it tightly. He leans over the console and tenderly wipes away one of Virgil's tears and it's too soft and gentle and perfect—

"You did everything right," Virgil manages, not daring to look at Roman's concerned face, "you—you're too sweet."

Roman lets out the softest noise and strokes his cheek again. "You're worth being sweet to, honey."

"Shut up, you're gonna make me cry more."

"That's okay, honey, you can cry. That's—it's a good cry, right?"

"Yeah, you bastard, it's a good cry." He sniffles. "Now shut up."

"Can I shut up and hug you?"

"Yes."

And goddamnit, an awkward hug where Roman has to lean halfway out of his seat over the console to get his arms around him should not feel so warm and safe and comforting, but fuck it, Virgil's already crying into his shoulder anyway, he might as well fully commit to it. If Roman has a problem with contorting himself to hug a sobbing mess, he doesn't say anything about it. No, he just keeps humming and shushing Virgil with sweet nonsense, his hand alternating between carding through his hair and stroking his cheek. It's not fair, and Virgil's not giving it up for anything.

Eventually, his tears run dry and he scrubs his nose with his sleeve as Roman sits back down, keeping one hand on the back of his neck. Fingers play with the hair right above his collar. He sniffles.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize, honey, it's okay. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I just cried all over you."

"Oh no," Roman says dryly, "however will I survive such a terrible fate?"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up."

Roman chuckles, fingers still scratching lightly at Virgil's scalp. "Really, Virgil, it's alright. I'm just glad I'm not the only one getting all sappy."

If he were less emotionally drained from crying, or if Roman's fingers were less good at making him melt into a boneless little puddle, he might have had a retort for that. Instead, he just looks out over the lights in all their sparkling glory and sighs, leaning into the touch. Roman starts humming again and there they sit, enjoying the night.

"If I fall asleep," he mumbles, "will you wake me up?"

"If you fall asleep, I'll drive you home and then wake you up so we can get you to bed."

"Fine."

He tries. He tries doggedly to stay awake, to not miss a moment of this, of the lights, the night, of Roman and his stupid Prince-Charming self. But he must fall asleep, or at least get close to it, because the fingers in his hair slow, and stop. Roman chuckles softly, and the car starts, and they drive through the night. And for a moment, as they leave behind the sea of lights, he thinks that Roman lied to him—they can't be in a car, just driving home.

Not when it feels like they're flying.

+1.

It's really a surprise that he managed to hold it back for this long, but it was eventually going to happen.

The swirling mist of a monster that is his anxiety has been biding its time, waiting for him to let his guard down to spring out and warp him up in its stupid fucking mess and make him stop appreciating everything that's going on and make it just the fucking worst.

Roman Prince is too perfect, it decides. There's no way this all gets to happen to him and there's no catch. The image of the hidden cameras and the reality show crew comes back; when do they jump out and say it's all fake? When is the illusion going to shatter?

Maybe he's just biding his time and trying to find a way to exit Virgil's life and never return. Maybe he has a partner, or something, and he really thinks Virgil's just his friend. Maybe he's not even gay. Maybe Virgil's just a fling and he's going to leave as soon as New Year's is over. Maybe he's going to get swept up in his life of professional figure skating again and Virgil will be stuck with chasing down his shows and competitions to even see him ever again. Maybe they're going to become the friends that aren't really friends but they still have each other's number for some reason.

Maybe—

"You're thinking too loudly," Roman murmurs from where his face is tucked near the crook of Virgil's shoulder, reaching out to pause the movie, "are you okay?"

Virgil sighs, leaning back into Roman's embrace. He'd surprised him by coming over—well, no, he'd texted to ask if Virgil would mind if he came over, but that was out of nowhere, so it counted—and then they'd ordered way too much food and put on a Christmas movie, and Virgil had pushed for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Roman hadn't protested. And then Roman had asked if he could cuddle him—"Because it's a crime to leave you sitting there on the couch, in the dark, like you have no one to cuddle you, honey."—and then he'd wrapped his arms around him and it'd been all warm and soft and cozy and Virgil hadn't wanted to move to get his hot chocolate from the coffee table that probably wasn't even hot anymore—

"You're still drifting." Roman sits up, pulling away. "Is everything okay?"

Virgil bites his lip. "It's dumb."

"I like dumb things."

"You'll laugh."

"Only if you say something funny."

"You'll be mad," he says in a very quiet voice, and he feels Roman stutter above him. He squeezes his eyes shut.

"Oh, honey," he hears distantly, before the couch is shifting under him and there are warm hands carefully cupping his face. "Will you look at me, please?"

He doesn't want to. He wants to stay here in the dark with Roman touching him like he's something precious, but then Roman's calling his name and fuck it, he can't disappoint Roman, so he opens his eyes. Roman smiles at him with that same fucking soft smile that's been taking him out at the knees since day one, and he can tell he's pouting before Roman even says anything.

"I'm not going to be mad," he says with all the patience in the world, "if something's bothering you, I want to know about it. Please, tell me?"

"You're not leaving, right?"

As soon as the words leave his mouth and Roman scrunches up his face in confusion, he wants to run away and hide under all his blankets and never speak to anyone again.

"Never mind. Forget it."

"What do you mean, am I leaving?"

"I said forget it. See? Dumb. Never mind."

"Don't do that," Roman chides gently, pulling his focus back, "don't hide from me. What did you mean?"

Virgil sighs, trying to not lose himself in how warm Roman's hands are. "It's just—everyone leaves. Sort of. I know—I mean I get it. I get how these things go. You—it's the holidays, right? You get all the emotions and then New Year's happens and you move on. I know that happens, I know that's how it works sometimes, and it's fine, I get it, but—"

"Slow down." He sits up. "Why do you think I'm leaving?"

Fuck it. "Because you're too perfect, okay? You—you're sweet and kind and you help me with everything and you're fun to be around and you're funny and you're smart and—and you're really fucking attractive, and I don't—" he takes a deep breath— "I don't know what to do about it anymore, okay?"

Roman's quiet. He's quiet for a long moment. Then his hands leave Virgil's face and he cringes, curling up in on himself—he's done it, he's made Roman leave, it's his fault, it's all his fault, they didn't even make it to New Year's—

His eyes fly open in shock when Roman suddenly hugs him tightly. His breath leaves him in a rush as Roman squeezes, holding him with such a fierce strength that he just ends up going limp in his hold.

"I don't know," Roman growls, "what sort of absolute assholes have been so cruel to you that you think everyone is just going to leave, but they'd better fucking hope we never meet."

"Wh—what?"

"You're fucking perfect too, Virgil. You're smart and you make me laugh and you're genuinely kind to people and you—you make me feel safe, okay?" He pulls back but somehow this is worse because now they're just staring into each other's eyes. "You're amazing. Why the hell would I want to leave you?"

"I—um—well—"

"I don't want to leave," Roman confesses, and fuck, Virgil can hear his heart breaking, "do…you don't want me to leave, do you?"

"No," he says in a rush, "no, I don't want you to leave."

"Great, 'cause I wanna be stuck with you until you're sick of me."

"I'm not gonna get sick of you—"

"Well, I'm not gonna get sick of you either—"

"Great!"

"Great!"

And then he's the one leaning forward to knock Roman over with a hug. Roman wraps his arms just as tightly around him and suddenly there's a kiss being pressed to his head.

Everything stops.

"Shit," Roman breathes, and it curls around his ear, "I…I meant to ask if that was okay before I did it, I'm sorry, I—"

But Virgil's already turned and pressed a kiss of his own to Roman's jaw. He feels more than hears Roman's breath stutter, the chest under him jumping as Roman turns to look at him. Like this, their faces are barely a few inches apart, and Roman smells like hot chocolate.

"It's okay," Virgil mumbles into their shared space, "it's…more than okay."

And there Roman goes, curling his mouth up into that fucking soft smile again, and then he's sliding a hand up to cup the back of Virgil's. "So I can kiss you?"

"Yes, you can kiss me."

Fuck, he tastes like hot chocolate too.

"I'm not leaving," Roman whispers against his lips, not bothering to pull away, "I'm not leaving you, baby."

"Fuck."

"No good?"

"Very good," Virgil mumbles, leaning forward again, but then his phone is buzzing and he's pulling back with a curse to make it shut the fuck up. Roman comes up and wraps his arms around him again, hands slowly playing with the hem of his sweater as his chin hooks over his shoulder. "I'm almost done, I promise."

"Am I 'Prince Charming' in your phone?"

"No," Virgil says, like a liar as he throws his phone onto the floor.

"Aww, that's so cute, baby."

"Shut up and kiss me, Princey."

"As you wish," Roman murmurs, and then Virgil doesn't have a chance to think about the fact that he just called Roman 'Princey.'

They don't end up finishing the movie, but Roman says they can watch the rest over breakfast instead.

General Taglist: @frxgprince@potereregina@gattonero17@iamhereforthegayshit@thefingergunsgirl@awkwardandanxiousfander@creative-lampd-liberties@djpurple3@winterswrandomness@sanders-sides-uncorrect-quotes@iminyourfandom@bullet-tothefeels@full-of-roman-angst-trash  @ask-elsalvador @ramdomthingsfrommymind@demoniccheese83@pattonsandershugs @el-does-photography @princeanxious@firefinch-ember@fandomssaremysoul@im-an-anxious-wreck@crazy-multifandomfangirl @punk-academian-witch@enby-ralsei@unicornssunflowersandstuff@wildhorsewolf @thetruthaboutthesun @stubbornness-and-spite @princedarkandstormv  @your-local-fookin-deadmeme @angels-and-dreams@averykedavra @a-ghostlight-for-roman @treasurechestininterweb @cricketanne @queerly-fluid-fan @compactdiscdraws@cecil-but-gayer@i-am-overly-complicated@annytheseal@alias290@tranquil-space-ninja @arxticandy @mychemically-imbalanced-romance@whyiask@crows-ace @emilythezeldafan@frida0043 @ieatspinalcords @snowyfires@cyanide-violence@oonagh2@xxpanic-at-the-everywherexx@rabbitsartcorner @percy-07734@triflingassailantofmyemotions @virgil-sanders-the-gay-emo@cerulean-watermelon@puffed-up-bees@meltheromanstan@joyrose-fandomer@insanitori@mavenmush@justablah65@10paradox10@uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous@cutebisexualmess@bella-bugatti-frogetti-baguetti@ultrageekygirl

#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #roman sanders #virgil sanders #prinxiety #fic

[aollosjustlurking]

after the last episode i'm glad to report that my past anxceit to past roceit and then now current prinxiety narrative is still very intact

#i will probably elaborate on this story i've built in my head someday #sander sides #virgil sanders #thomas sanders #prinxiety #anxceit #roman sanders #roceit #janus sanders

[glacierruler]

If I Could Just Kiss You

No it is not almost 4 am now where I live shut up /j /s

Ships: Prinxiety and Dukexiety (Roman and Remus both date Virgil and are fine with it)

Want to make it very clear, Virgil thought Remus was a boy until it introduced himself.

Angst/Fluff, mostly fluff though

CWs: transphobia, accidental misgendering, deadnaming, death mentions(no actual death, I swear), self-deprecation, tell me if I missed any!

Words: 5080

Feel free to spam my inbox with questions about this au

Taglist: @uhhh-hi-there-i-am-nervous @hyperfixated-homo @cutebisexualmess @starlocked01 Please tell me if you'd like to be added/removed!

Virgil didn’t know what to do. Storm didn’t know what to do because storm liked these two boys. And they were siblings. And Virgil knew that they wouldn’t like storm back, because who would? Storm was self-deprecating, small, and honestly not that attractive. At least not in storm’s eyes. Virgil had weird eyes too, and who would want a freak like storm, with storm’s weird mismatched eyes. One of them a deep purple and the other a bright green. Plus storm’s clothing choices were questionable to most. Most of the time storm wore a black with purple patches hoodie, along with an oversized Fall Out Boys T-shirt, with black jeans. The most expensive thing storm wore were storm’s Doc Martins, although storm had some more expensive shoes at home. Shoes were the one thing storm ever splurged on, because Virgil couldn’t design or make shoes. Storm could hand sew some clothing. Specializing in skirts, but storm was getting better at making dresses, shirts, and pants as well. Also storm loved hand sewing, as it was calming and took up time. Storm was also decent at painting abstract art, and somewhat good at drawing humanesque figures on storm’s computer. So maybe Virgil wasn’t actually useless, storm just thought that way because of past incidents, but let’s not wander there yet. As Virgil was circling into storm’s own thoughts of panic, storm saw movement out of the corner of storm’s eye. Virgil freaked out for a moment, before remembering storm was at the local coffee shop, and there was going to be some movement. It did not help storm’s panic, however, when storm saw who walked in. It was the two siblings. And their friends. And oh, Virgil was so screwed if they saw storm. So so very screwed. Mainly because none of them know Virgil’s actual name, just storm’s deadname, because of course storm’s job at the local college wouldn’t let storm change storm’s name! And storm is so used to not being deadnamed or misgendered here. Just wearing different wristbands to denote the gender that storm was for that day, if storm could pinpoint it down. After all being genderfluid wasn’t easy sometimes. Also now, whenever Remy’s shift ended, Virgil would have to be very careful not to mention either crush’s name because they were here. And by the looks of everyone’s bags, they were here for a while. So Virgil hid behind storm’s computer screen, and did storm’s best not to draw attention to stormself. But eventually…

“Hey, bitch! I’m off my shift!” Remy shouted for the whole cafe to hear. A few of the regular customer’s chuckled, but the table that the two siblings and their posse had sat at all looked confused for a second, and Virgil could feel the heat rush to storm’s cheeks. Storm was not ready to come out to any of those five over there yet. Thankfully Remy’s partner, Emile, walked in just at that moment. Virgil looked at their necklace, and it was pink. Meaning they were a girl today, but storm would wait until storm could see their pronoun pins before using she/her for them.

“Love, what did we say about cursing right after you got off shift?”

“Too wait five minutes before doing so… but, like, hon-”

“Nope, you almost got fired last time you called Virgil a bitch right after you got off of your shift, and we can’t afford to live off of one income in this economy.” Emile stated. And now Virgil could die, because both of them were about to sit at storm’s table, after just calling storm by storm’s preferred name. In front of storm’s crushes who did not know storm’s preferred name. Which, to be fair to Remy and Emile, Virgil was out pretty much everywhere except for storm’s job. Which didn’t allow storm to be out and storm thought that was stupid. But storm couldn’t afford to live based on just commissions and sponsorships alone just yet, so they had to deal with it. Either way, Virgil had been kind of hoping to tell the siblings on storm’s own, without being accidentally outed to them. And, oh great, all of them were paying attention to Remy and Emile now. Who had just kissed, and were walking over to Virgil right now. Oh shit oh shit oh shit! What do I do. Virgil’s heart started pounding, and it was getting harder for storm to breathe, and then storm was shocked and sucking in a huge breath of air after storm felt something cold against storm’s skin.

“Hun, you good, you haven’t freaked out like that here for a while.” Remy’s voice was full of concern. And Virgil nearly cried. Storm had had a panic attack in front of storm’s two crushes. In front of people that constantly talked to storm at the college. Storm was so very fucked if they recognized him. 

“I’m fine,” Virgil croaked out, well at least storm’s voice wouldn’t be recognizable, “can we talk about it later?”

“Yeah of course, whatever you need.” Emile said, and Virgil could see their pronoun pins now. So she is using she/her today, good to know. 

“Yeah, I’ll tell you two about it later,” Virgil whispered, not wanting anyone else to hear storm. Both of storm’s friends nodded, and storm breathed out a sigh of relief. However before storm could go back to drawing, storm heard a gasp from the table that storm’s crushes were sitting at.

“You’re the person who works at the college right? The one who helps with art and english papers!” Excitement seeping out of this individual’s voice. Virgil looked over, and it was Patton. The guy who storm had helped with an english paper and art assignment. Although the english paper was what storm was payed to do. Patton had chestnut brown eyes, with brown hair to match. If Virgil had remembered correctly something Patton had said, he was from Papua New Guinea. So english hadn’t been his first language, as his parents taught him some other language, Virgil couldn’t remember what it was called, but storm thought it was cool that Patton knew another language. Sometimes storm wished that storm had payed more attention in spanish class. Mainly having taken it because storm’s family was from Mexico, and neither Virgil nor storm’s mother had been taught the language. Either way, now everyone at that table was looking over at storm. And now Virgil was officially screwed. What was storm supposed to do, hide under the table and never get up again. Then Patton spoke up again, “Although I thought you went by a different name? Something like-”

“Er, that’s only my name at the college, I don’t use it anywhere else.” Virgil interrupted, not feeling like getting deadnamed today. And now Roman was looking at storm, and Virgil felt like maybe storm should prepare some lines in storm’s head just in case Roman said something. Although he shouldn’t, after all his sibling, who’s older by one year is nonbinary. 

“Ah, then what is your name? And pronouns if you don’t mind me asking.” And oh, Roman’s voice was sweet as honey, and Virgil could swim in it all day. Ah, storm could feel storm’s ears starting to heat up.

“Er, the name I like to use is Virgil, and my pronouns change all the time, but storm/storms pronouns always work,” Virgil’s voice was hoarse, and still a bit scratchy from the panic attack that storm had just had. And before storm could say anything else, Remus spoke up. 

“Oh you use neos too! That’s so cool, you know meeting another person who uses neopronouns is like meeting a celebrity from that famous horror movie, Monstruo de la Noche.” The way Remus’s voice sounded like an old, scratchy record, but in a good way, just made Virgil want to melt. Although Virgil didn’t really like horror movies in most aspects, storm would love to watch a horror movie with Remus.

“Er yeah, before I forget to ask what are all your names and pronouns?” And oh no, storm’s voice was no longer scratchy, and while storm liked it on some days, other days it felt way to feminine. Virgil sometimes wished storm had a voice modifier on them, but then again storm was working on speaking more masculinely, it was just a lot of practice. Sometimes Virgil got sick of practicing, just wishing storm could flip a switch and storm’s voice would be deep. And honestly-

“Well you already know who I am kiddo, but I’ll introduce myself again in case you forgot, you do help a lot of people throughout the college. I’m Patton, 23 years old, and he/him and they/them pronouns for me!” Virgil was roughly jarred from storm’s thoughts by the loud voice, although it was a welcome distraction from where storm’s mind was taking storm. Then the person who was sitting across from Patton spoke up.

“My name is Logan, and please use he/him pronouns when it comes to addressing me.” Logan seemed analytical and smart, based on his body language and tone of voice. He had slightly tanned skin and was wearing glasses, a suit, and a tie. Virgil could’ve sworn he was the person who tutored students in the math lab, now that storm though of it. Before he could analyze too much, Remus spoke up.

“Well you already know my name, but my pronouns are he/him and it/its.” Remus looked like it was about to jump on the table with how excited he was.

“The name’s Janus,” a silky smooth voice said next, “although I believe you already knew that, my pronouns however have changed since we last talked. I use they/them and fae/faer pronouns now.” And Janus was right, Virgil had known faer name. Storm had known them in elementary school. They had been the best of friends, but after the incident, Virgil and Janus had grown apart. Storm still felt guilty about the scar that encompassed half of Janus’s face. However, before Virgil could say anything, Janus cut in again. “Just so you know, it wasn’t your fault,” and Virgil felt even more guilty now. Why, storm didn’t know, but now everything felt awkward. The tension in the room was really thick, and storm could tell that everyone else at that table was confused as to what was going on.

“Ah, before I forget to introduce myself to a such a lovely person, my name is Roman and my pronouns are he/him.” Roman announced flamboyantly, and oh, was Virgil head over heels for this guy. Maybe a little too much.

“Right, well it was nice meeting you all…” Virgil trailed off, not sure of what to say. Storm was really bad at socializing, having taken forever to warm up to Remy. Although storm was pretty sure it was because of the incident, but again, storm never liked to think about that. Thankfully Remus stepped in.

“Soo, what’s a school tutor doing at this coffee shop? Oooh, is this where you come to complain about the last minute papers all the students submit,” Virgil did not miss the playful look it gave its brother.

“Err, not quite, this is where I go to draw and do my online courses,” Virgil stated, not sure where to go from here. Thankfully someone else did.

“And storm def comes here to vent about what the english class kids do too, don’t you hun?” Remy snickered, nevermind, Virgil was suddenly reminded of why storm hated Remy now. 

“Only a little!” Storm defended, which only got Remy and Emile to snicker as well as a few eyebrow raises from the other table. Before the conversation could go any further, Remy introduced themself.

“Sup you five, I’m Remy, and I use they/them pronouns, and this here is my partner-”

“Hi! I’m Emile, my pronouns also change all the time, like Virgil’s, currently I use she/her, but if you’re ever unsure of what to use, they/them is always okay!”

“Ah, if it wouldn’t terribly bother you three-” Roman started, before Remus interrupted, saying,

“We could totally blow your party! And cafe, into smithereens!” And Virgil couldn’t help but snicker at that, before remembering that they brought bags in, and storm caught Roman give a playful glare to his sibling. 

“Uh…” Not a good idea, not a good idea, not a good idea, “sure, I don’t have a problem with it, Remy, Emile?” 

“That sounds like a wonderful idea!”

“You need more friends anyways hun.”

“Remy! Be nice!”

Virgil heard Janus chuckle a bit, which was either very good or very bad. Storm’s brain started screaming at storm, thinking it was an absolutely horrible idea to do this, so before anyone could get any further with conversation, Virgil went and sabatoged stormself. “But, before you decide to join us, don’t you have schoolwork to do? With your bags and all?”

“Ah, but lovely Virgil, we have been working on schoolwork for the three hours that we’ve been here! It’s only fair that we catch a break to chat with an engaging individual such as yourself!” And Roman flashed storm that smile that storm loved so much, with slightly crooked, very slightly tinted yellow teeth, which meant they were healthy, as they weren’t an obvious yellow, but subtle enough for someone to tell they weren’t pure white, (don’t ask Virgil why storm knew the proper color healthy teeth were supposed to be). Sure, Virgil knew that he probably flashed that smile at everyone he met, but he certainly didn’t call everyone he met lovely, did he? Maybe he did, how was Virgil supposed to know, anyways Roman had a point. Strictly studying is bad for people. And Virgil knew that because storm had burnt stormself out by doing that.

“Ah, alright, just didn’t want get in the way of studying, y’know?” And oh, the way all of them beamed at storm made Virgil want to never leave this moment of feeling wanted.

After about three hours of all of them sitting and talking, the cafe closed, and Virgil got all of their numbers. And maybe, when no one was looking, storm put a red heart by Roman’s number and a green one by Remus’s.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Virgil was back at the college, having just finished working with another student, when Roman, Remus, and their friends walked in. Honestly, she was exhausted, trying her best not to cry everytime one of her coworkers called her by that name.

“Yo, Vee, it’s us from the cafe, remember?” And the way Remus nearly screamed that, honestly made Virgil’s day so much better.

“Yeah, do you need help with something?” Virgil was so professional at storm’s job, she honestly deserved a gold star for not acting like storm was hopelessly in love.

“Actually [Redacted], I’ve got this.” One of Virgil’s coworkers, who had an obvious crush on Roman, said. Virgil could see the way Roman tensed up at her voice. 

“Nah, Sally, you’ve got a meeting in fifteen, remember?” Storm was trying not to start a fight, not sure why Roman was so tense around her, but he was, so Virgil was going to do her best to make Roman more comfortable.

“Actually, I was wondering if you could take that appointment-”

“This will be the third time this week, Sally, I’m not doing that. I can do this, plus I believe one of them actually has me scheduled to work with them in the next five minutes.” Which, the last part of that was technically a lie, but Virgil never shared who she was working with with her coworkers. Storm never really liked them anyways. Sally huffed, but ultimately said nothing. As soon as she went back, Virgil led them over to a table that was a little further away from everything else.

“Question, do you want us to call you by the name that Sally used when you’re here, or something else?” Logan asked, which Virgil thought was sweet of him, but what really surprised Virgil was the twins talking over each other.

“Was it okay for me to call you Vee? If it wasn’t-”

“I’ll hit him over the head with my morningstar and bury him and-”

“I’ll let Remus do that to me without fighting back, I hope I didn’t almost out you-” And, oh was it sickeningly sweet how much both of them cared about different things, but Virgil should really cut in before it gets worse.

“Look, it’s fine. I’ve told them my preferred name before, they just don’t really use it. Because it’s not my legal name or whatever.” The way all five of them looked at her, seemingly baffled at what she just said, confused Virgil to no end. “Err, what’s wrong?”

“Why do you work at a job, that consistently deadnames and misgenders you?” Remus asked, concern seeping through its voice.

“Because it pays the bills, and I don’t really have a choice at the moment.” Virgil was a bit unsure as what else to say, she really didn’t have a choice if she wanted to be able to pay for all the necessities. “I am trying to find another job, but right now it’s not plausible,” storm really didn’t know why she felt so defensive.

“Vee,” Roman starts, staring at her softly, “we aren’t judging you, we’re just concerned.” And oh, Virgil hadn’t meant to make eye contact, honestly, it was mostly painful. But if she could stand eye contact, she would look in both the twins emerald green eyes all day and night.

“Ah, sorry-”

“Why are you apologizing? Did my brother said you did anything wrong? No, because you didn’t. He was just clearing up a misunderstanding. But if you want, we can pay you to be our personal tutor’s. How does $20 an hour sound?” And Virgil stilled at that, not sure what to do. 

“A-are you sure? That’s a lot of money, especially since tutoring sessions can be long.”

“Look, absolutely no offense to you, but I’d pay you $100 per hour if it meant I never had to deal with Sally again,” Roman said dryly, and oh, was Virgil glad to know that there was no way Roman had even the smallest crush on Sally.

“Okay, um, then yeah, I can tutor you all, do you want to do group or individual sessions?”

“Group for now, and maybe, if any of us have extra money and need help, we can do individual sessions next,” Janus supplied, faer voice sounding uninterested, but Virgil could see the intrigue in their eyes. Virgil nodded, and the next day she sent in storm’s two day notice.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a few months, Virgil was turning 19 soon, and both of his crushes were 20 and 21 respectively. Still, storm’s feelings for them weren’t going away anytime soon. So he had decided, he would tell both the siblings that he liked them within a week. 

“Remy, you just don’t understand! They’re so cute and sweet and kind, and honestly I think this is something amazing that’s happening. If I can just get the guts to ask them out. You don’t understand-”

“Right hun, because I don’t understand how simping for someone else feels,” Remy rolled their eyes, sounding slightly annoyed. “Now where’s the part where you tell them?”

And that’s how Virgil started telling a very long story. “Well, I was gonna tell them on Monday, but when I saw them they were kind of flirting with another guy. And I didn’t know if maybe one or both of them were dating that guy. I found out later that day, that they were just being friendly with him because he’s a cool guy, and flirting is just their dynamic. Which y’know kinda makes me feel jealous a little, and maybe hopeless, because I thought that they might be flirting with me because they like me, but it could just be because that’s our dynamic, and do I really need to ruin our dynamic with my stupid feelings.” Virgil breathed in and out heavily after that. Speaking fast, because the siblings could be at the cafe soon, and Virgil honestly couldn’t risk them finding out before storm was ready. “Then on Tuesday, they were busy studying for a few tests for their english class and overall I was really busy with commissions, and I also knew I wasn’t ready to tell them yet. On Wednesday I meant to tell them after tutoring was done, but then everyone was there, and I don’t know if I want everyone to see me embarrass myself trying to make a love confession, and then a thought occurred to me. What if they thought I was just getting closer to them to get with them? I wasn’t doing that, but what if they thought that. Surely they would hate me, and because they’re friends with everyone else,” Virgil gasped for air mid sentence, looking around the room for any sign of the twins, they weren’t due to show up yet, and were almost always late. But still Virgil couldn’t risk them finding out from storm rambling to Remy. “then everyone else would hate me. Throughout the whole day Thursday, I meant to tell them, but then my mind was all like ‘would they even like you back, and what would you do if they don’t, it would be too awkward to stay friends, wouldn’t it?’ And so I backed out. Cause I’m really scare of ruining my friendship with them becuase I have feelings and they don’t.” Virgil’s speech was slowing down a little bit, but that was only due to the lack of breath that storm was taking in. So he took a few to breathe in and out deeply, and quadruple checked the room to make sure that the twins still weren’t there to continue rambling. “Friday was weird, because I actually almost told them. Roman, Remus, and I were just hanging out at the park, and I got cold, and they both offered me one of their jackets, and honestly how could I say no. And is that a sign they were flirting with me? Anyways, they each handed me a jacket, but before I could say anything, I remembered that I never asked them about their thoughts on polyamory before, and if they would ever, like, share a boyfriend. That sounds weird, but you know what I’m trying to say,” Virgil interrupted stormself again, gasping for breath again because he kept losing all of the oxygen in his lungs due to the fact that storm was trying to get this all out in one go. He caught Remy’s eyebrow raise, and could tell that storms friend was actually invested in whatever was going on in his love life.

“Hun, maybe you should take a few to breathe before continuing.”

“No time Remy, both of them will be here in maybe a few minutes, and I’m confessing to them today, at this cafe. Where I officially got to meet them y’know? Anyways, where was I…”

Remy sighed, knowing they weren’t going to convince Virgil to slow down on his storytelling. “Alright hun, you were at the part where you said you were just thinking about their thoughts on polyamory, and whether or not they’d be fine with you dating both of them.”

“Oh yeah, so that was on Friday, and I didn’t know how to bring it up without sounding weird, so I kept trying different topics of small talk, like, isn’t the sky pretty, kind of small talk. And eventually we got on the topic of polyamory, although I don’t remember how,” Virgil started looking around again, trying to make sure that neither Roman nor Remus were here yet. Thankfully storm didn’t see either of them. It really was a good thing that Remus and its brother were always running late. “And eventually I learned that not only were they fine dating the same person as their other brother, but they both actually have a crush on the same person. And while I know that they probably don’t like me like that, I have to tell them before I can move on y’know? Like I want to be happy for them when they get into a relationship with the person they like. But I can’t do that unless I tell them I like them.”

“Alright babes, I have a few questions. One, how do you know they don’t like you? Yes, you do have to answer that question with actual facts. Two, how do you know that, if the person they like isn’t you, they would get into a relationship with them? And three. How The Fuck do you talk so fast?” Virgil stilled at that, not quite sure how to anwer the questions that storm’s best friend just posed.

“Well, for the first question, I know I’m really self-deprecating, and I’m not that attractive. Plus I’m kind of small for someone my age, and they have said before that dating someone small could be a problem because kissing them would be harder, and so I’d have to be worth the effort for them to bend down and kiss, and honestly Remy, I don’t think I am. Plus if they liked me wouldn’t I have noticed by now?” Virgil gasped and looked around the cafe again for those two. Thankfully, it seemed like they were running late. “As for your second question, who wouldn’t want to get into a relationship with them? They’re cute, sweet, handsome, stunning, smart, adorable, kind, beautiful, pretty, intelligent and despite the sometimes crude subjects that they bring up, both of them are really compassionate, like that time when-”

“I get it hun, they’re cute, kind, and smart. But, no offense, I wouldn’t date them, they aren’t my type. Also, remember not to idolize them, as that’s not healthy for anyone. Like, babes, I’m not saying that they aren’t cute, kind, and smart. I’m saying don’t put them on a pedestal. It gives them hopeless expectations to live up to, and it hurts you when they can’t live up to it. It’s not pretty, remember my relationship before Emile? That’s why it went so sour. Also, please stop putting yourself down like that hun, I get feeling that way, but saying it outloud to yourself makes it worse. I know this from experience.”

Virgil had to stop for a minute, and made a note to also acknowledge the mistakes that the siblings made, instead of only focusing on what they did right. It wasn’t good for anyone for storm not to acknowledge what they did that ticked him off, or was downright wrong. “Alright Remy, I promise not to idolize them, I definitely don’t want what happened to you to happen to me. And I’ll try not to, actually with the paycheck I’m getting from all my new friends, I’ll probably be able to get into therapy, since we’ve discussed that that would be a good thing for me to do too.”

“Now hun, you don’t get to ignore my third question either,” Remy said, before adding, “but it looks like your dates are here, so I’ll take my leave.” Virgil blushed and hissed at them, before turning around and seeing two twins grinning and standing behind where storm’s back used to be.

“So, lovely stormcloud, I heard you wanted to meet us here. Could I ask what this is about?” Roman asked, his voice smooth as silk, and his face held a playful smirk to it.

“U-uh, yeah, just give me a minute, I got sidetracked and need to remember what I was going to say.”

“Well it wasn’t to brutally murder us, but maybe poison? Nah, too many people around, you’d never get away with it, unless…” Remus joked, bouncing on the soles of its feet. 

“No, I did not bring you here to murder you. Neither of you have made my hitlist, yet…” Virgil trailed off trying to sound ominous. Although it definitely helped that storm had been getting better at making his voice deeper. 

“Oh? What do we have to do to make it on their?” Remus was entirely too excited for being told that it could end up being on a hitlist.

“Uh, haven’t figured that out yet?”

“Oh, that’s kind of sad, I wanted to be first on your hitlist!” Virgil couldn’t help but laugh a little at that, before remembering why storm had brought those to here. 

“Err, there’s something th-that I h-have to t-tell you, a-and,” Virgil was having trouble breathing all of a sudden. And storm’s hands were really clammy now, and this was a stupid idea, there’s no way they’ll ever like you back, what are you doing!

And then he felt something cold against storm’s neck. “Stormcloud, I know you want to tell us something, but if you’re not ready we can just hang out and chill. Don’t force yourself to do something you’re not ready for.”

“Yeah, how are we supposed to fill Roman’s shampoo with sickly green hair dye, if you’re panicking.” Roman rolled his eyes, but smiled a little when Virgil snorted a little at that. If you’re gonna do it, do it now before you back out coward!

“I- just- there’s something I need to say, and if I could just kiss you…” Virgil eventually managed to get out, storm’s eyes scared of rejection from either of the two siblings, but willing to risk everything because these feelings were too much for storm. Both Roman and Remus looked at eachother, before Roman walked over to Virgil. And despite Virgil wearing two inch platforms, he was still smaller than both of them, and it showed. Because when Roman got close to storm, Virgil couldn’t help but feel a little small considering with the platforms he stood at 5’4. And Remus and Roman were both 5’8

“All you had to do was ask, stormcloud.”

“Also we kind of figured you liked us both,” Remus said as it started to walk behind Virgil, and eventually wrapping his arms around storm. “You weren’t good at hiding it. Just wanted you to tell us without feeling pressured.” After that Roman lifted Virgil’s chin up with two fingers and kissed him softly and sweetly. Then, after Roman was done kissing him, Remus turned Virgil around and kissed him roughly and passionately.

#dukexiety #prinxiety #roman #remus #virgil #patton #janus #logan #remy #emile #glacier writes #glacier's fanfics #cw transphobia #cw deadnaming #cw murder mentions #cw self deprecation #cw accidental misgendering

[rose-coloured-prince]

Peach

Ambiguious Prinxiety, High School AU

Warnings: implied/vauge past homophobia, minor anxious thoughts

Word Count: 173

@harmonialcollisions

-

Roman sat down in his first period class, tapping on his desk. Yes, nervously! No one's said anything. He really likes the color of his hair but he already gets comments about other parts of his personality but he thought at least some people would like it.

He hasn't seen anyone he knows yet so he's going to try to stay on the optimistic side.

"Hey, Princey."

Roman looks over.

Virgil Jones, he's in a couple of his classes and Roman thinks he's friends with Patton but otherwise he's never really talked to him more than a few times. He seems cool.

He's called him Princey every time since he played a prince for the school play sophomore year which Roman kind of loves.

"I love your hair." He says passing by his desk to go sit down. "The peach, it looks good on you."

Oh!

Roman smiled. "Oh my gosh. I-" he giggles a little, "Thank you."

Once Virgil passes him, Roman rests his head in his hands.

He cannot stop smiling.

#Prinxiety #virgil sanders #Roman sanders #sanders sides #erriwrites

[rosepetalgold]

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

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start (you’re here!) - next

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“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

[prince-rowan-of-the-forest]

Ribbons and Rainstorms

Chapter 1 : That Fateful Day

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Roman Edevane has been terrified of storms since his twin brother's death when they were small children. He sits and he watches the dark clouds roll from his window, too afraid to sleep but unable to tear his eyes away. Then, one night, lightning strikes the temple on the hill and he forgets all about the storm in his rush to protect it. When he finds not a burning temple, but the God of Storms himself.

After that he kept coming back—Why? He wasn’t sure, and though meeting the god responsible for the storms doesn't abate his fear completely at first, Vi was… nothing like Roman could have ever expected. The God of storms was kind, he was sweet, a little shy and not to mention a whole other level of handsome. Somehow Roman can’t help but fall for them.

But he can’t be in love with a God… can he? Even if he was, could a God ever love him back?

----

-Ao3-

Masterpost | Next ->

Art For This Fic by @anxious-mess19

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Warnings: Past character death, touch starvation, panic attacks + flashbacks, non-graphic injuries.

Pairings: Prinxiety, platonic DLAMPR, background Remile

Word count: 42,585

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Thunder terrified Roman.

The fear started on a night like this. When he and his twin brother were only six years old. The night he lost him.

He couldn't help but think about it whenever there was a storm, curled up in the bay window seat of his bedroom wrapped in blankets that couldn’t quite bring him the comfort he wanted. He kept a lantern on the other side of the window seat, but it was still the lightning that brightened his room, water that raced down his window and thunder that shook him to his very soul.

Neither of the servants knew. Of course, he had never told anyone aside from his parents about his fear. The servants would think him weak, a hopeful Protector of the Storm being afraid of thunder, and his tutor would think it an issue he must overcome. 

And while he rejected most notions of fear, this one he kept close to his heart. 

As much as he hated it while the storm itself raged on, when his fear took control and made him weak. When there wasn’t a storm to scare him he kept that same fear safe in his heart, reminding him of his lost brother, lost to the fire that struck him down from the sky. He had been there when it happened and seen Remus afterwards, drenched in water and coated in mud in their garden but so severely burned that he didn’t even look like his brother anymore. He had screamed and cried until a maid had rushed down from the house to find the young Roman cradling his twin close. He had still been alive, though barely, and unconscious. They had rushed him to the closest healer, still in the darkness of the storm. But in the end he hadn’t made it, and died with Roman clutching his hand. 

After Remus died, Roman had refused to leave their room for nearly a week, and for every thunderstorm since he had sat in his window wrapped in blankets, praying to the great God of the Storm that his brother was safe in the afterlife and no-one else would be hurt. 

His household by now knew not to bother him during a storm, even if only his parents knew why. 

From beyond his window, one stormy night that was the same as most, Roman saw a flash and flinched, before his eyes widened, lightning had just struck the temple that stood tall on the hill in the forest beyond their house. He watched as lightning struck once more, twice, then three times and that… couldn’t be normal? Wasn’t it said that lightning never struck twice? But here it was, striking the temple over and over. 

Not to mention, that was the temple the lightning had hit. The temple dedicated to Vi, the storm God. The temple he, Roman, was supposed to protect, ironically.

Storm almost entirely gone from his mind in an instant, Roman ran from his room. Grabbing his sword from its hook by the door as he went. He ran through the house, grabbing his cloak with one hand and throwing it over his shoulders while he tugged on his boots with the other.

“Roman?” Taz, called, shock lacing her voice, “Honey, what in the name of the Sun himself are you doing? Where are you— Roman!?”

“No time, Ma! I have to go, I’ll— I’ll be back— I’ll explain later,” he called, throwing open the back door and running straight out into the rain. 

His boots slid a little when they hit the soaked, mud coated grass. But his years of training — agility courses and races against other trainees through rough terrain — helped him to keep his footing as he ran through their gardens towards the forest. The sky lit up once again with lighting, and Roman’s attention was drawn back to the storm. The thunder crashed as he ran, the fear in his heart somehow guiding him towards the temple. He ran faster, not even hesitating as he leapt over the wall that separated their gardens from the road and the forest on the other side. He didn’t stop running until he stood on the steps of the building. 

The temple was grand, as it should be, built from bricks of black marble, streaked with white like lighting strikes. The large brackets that usually held flaming torches — which he lit and replenished mind you — were put out by the rain that had soaked the front steps and a large portion of the inside of the temple too, though the braziers at the back nearer the altar were still glowing bright with fire. The sight had Roman wondering if he had been seeing things. The temple didn’t seem damaged from the lighting strikes in the slightest. The only damage the temple faced was the constant wasting of time and abandonment — he had always been one of the very few to come here, after all. 

His instincts still urged him forward though, so Roman mounted the steps to the temple, trying his best to get some of the mud from his boots. As he entered the temple at last he noticed a figure stood next to the altar. They dressed in black and a deep, rich purple, they looked almost like a shadow in the firelight. 

“Hey!” Roman called, raising his sword, he was the lone defender of this temple, after all, and his gut was telling him there was something strange about this figure, some kind of… strange aura, they didn’t turn, but their head lifted, “What is your business here?”

“You’re not going to fight me with that sword, are you?” The stranger said, still facing away from him, Roman thought he could hear the smirk on their face through their voice. 

“That depends,” Roman answered slowly, this figure sent a spark of adrenaline through his heart that he hadn’t felt for a reason other than rumbling thunder for years and years, “Do you wish to do harm to this temple?”

“I do not,” They said, running their fingers over the old silver candelabra that sat on the altar in a way that seemed much too delicate for their imposing presence, “You are the one who sits and watches the storms, fearful, from your window, are you not?”

Roman wasn’t sure what to say, his sword now lowered to the ground. He still wasn’t certain this stranger wasn’t a threat. Besides, how on earth did this stranger know that?

“I see you there often,” They said by way of explanation, “But I don’t understand why you’re here now? The storms make you afraid, yet you have left your safety, here in the Storm’s temple itself, don’t you think you’re in more danger?”

He had to take a deep breath, the words stabbing through him, he noticed then that his hands were shaking. Only now did he realise that yes, he had left the safety of his windowsill, why? What was it that brought him here?

“I… I saw lightning strike the temple,” He said, “So…”

“The temple is undamaged by the sky’s fire,” The stranger told him, resting a hand fully on the altar and lifting the other to gesture to the ceiling, “It is the storm God’s temple, after all,”

“Oh… of course” Roman said quietly, admittedly, he now felt a little stupid. He should have had faith that the Gods could protect their own temples.

“The temple is safe, why don’t you go home?” The stranger asked. Roman turned to look back out the door, just in time to see a lightning bolt strike somewhere in the far distance. He flinched, the idea of staying in the temple with this stranger seemed far superior to going back out into the storm now that he had come to his senses. 

“No I… I think I’ll stay,” Roman said, clutching his sword tightly, his drenched cloak heavy on his shoulders. He honestly felt rather pathetic in front of the stranger, whose robes seemed to be of finer quality than any noble he’s ever seen, definitely more expensive than anything his family owned. They may be rich for their small village, but in comparison to other families… they had barely anything. He was soaking wet and in his nightclothes underneath the cloak and boots, he hadn’t been expecting to meet a pretty, well-dressed stranger in the temple, though he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting either. 

“Oh, really?” The stranger asked, “Shouldn’t you go home to your mother? She’s worried about you, after you ran off into the rain without a warning nor an explanation,”

“How do you… know that?” Roman asked slowly, his curiosity finally getting the better of him. 

“I know of all that takes place in my domain,” They said, turning a little, black hair and glittering silver circlet giving way to moonlight pale skin and piercing silver eyes that glowed slightly in the darkness, Roman took another step back that must have been instinct, “And you, little protector, just happen to be quite interesting." 

“You’re…” Roman trailed off, gaze flickering from the stranger’s face to the tapestry that hung between the flaming torches on the back wall of the temple. The same pale skin, though depicted with purple eyes, and black hair splayed out like a dark halo. The figure on the tapestry was wearing dramatically flowing purple and midnight blue robes and held a lightning bolt within their hands. The figure who stood in front of him had black streaks under their eyes, as if they had been crying black tears and he wore simpler clothes than the tapestry depicted, but Roman had no doubt that they were the same person. 

The God noticed Roman’s line of sight and turned to look at the tapestry as well, before turning back with a smirk on their face. He noticed distantly that his eyes now glowed purple like the tapestry, and his hair had gained purple streaks amongst the black. What on their good earth.

“Perhaps,” they said, glancing back at the tapestry, “It’s quite unflattering, really, I look far too…” They paused, bringing a hand up to their chin, “Villainous, maybe, is that why no-one comes here?”

Roman spluttered for a second, his mind tripping over the fact that he was talking to a literal God right now far too much to form proper sentences. After a moment of opening and closing his mouth, though, he finally found a sentence, “I— I don’t know… most people I meet say that the Sun God is more friendly or the God of Stars more appealing, even my mother doesn’t understand why I worship here,”

“Of course,” Vi sighed, “Why do you?”

“Why do I… what?” Roman asked, confused.

“Worship here,” they said, “You’re afraid of me and my storms, yet you still pray to me and see that my temple is clean and protected. I do not understand why.”

“Oh…” Roman sighed, looking down, he didn’t want to talk about this, God or not. He supposed he would have to, a direct request from a God was not one to be refused, “I— um— well— my brother— twin brother— he died, when we were a lot younger…”

Vi’s eyes seemed to soften, but he didn’t tell Roman to stop.

“He was struck by lighting, during a thunderstorm,” Roman said, his voice growing small, “I started worshipping you afterwards because— I guess because six-year-old me thought since your lightning killed him, you’d be able to protect him in the afterlife, which is, stupid, I know, Jay probably would’ve been better, but I guess I’ve hoped— whatever, storms remind me of the day it happened, that’s— that’s why I’m scared at least.”

When he looked up he found that Vi was now right in front of him, like, right in front of him. He had to look up to look at their face, this guy was unfairly tall, and unfairly pretty too, it probably came with being a God. 

“I’m sorry for what has happened to you,” Vi said, his deep voice unfairly soft. Was everything about this God unfair? “Storms are forces of destruction, it’s true, but I never intend for them to take the lives of those so young and undeserving.”

“Thank you-?” Roman stuttered, when on earth had he started crying? One corner of Vi’s mouth pulled up into a half smile as he leaned forward and kissed his forehead. The spot they had touched felt almost like it burned but… in a way that wasn’t unpleasant, somehow.

“I accept your thanks,” Vi told him, hands on his shoulders, the touch burning even through his clothes made him jolt slightly in surprise. He wondered if that burning sensation was something that came with Vi or if it was something else, “I will see you another time, for now you must return home, the storm is clearing up,”

True to his word, the rain outside the temple was starting to calm and the thunder was sounding much further away. When Roman looked back to Vi, he found him gone in a swirl of purple sparks.

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Masterpost | Next ->

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(i'm only tagging you all in this first chapter because today is going to be a longggg day of spam!)

#sanders sides #roman sanders #virgil sanders #prinxiety #sanders sides fanfiction #fanfic #ts roman #ts virgil #rowan writes #Ribbons and Rainstorms

[snowdice]

Best Laid Plans (Part 3/8: An Old Enemy) [Sometimes Labels Shift Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships:  Virgil & Logan, Virgil & Patton, Virgil & Roman, Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Virgil, Roman

Appear: Logan, Patton

Mentioned: Remy, Emile, Janus, Remus

Summary:

Virgil (now) Sanders was once a villain vigilante kid down on his luck. After being injured helping the superhero Bluebird, he ended up being adopted by him and his husband. Logan and Patton Sanders helped Virgil in ways he didn’t even know he needed. Since then, he’s put away his persona of Shadow Caster, the strange, hard to label, super who haunted the city for a few years. Instead he’s opted for being a normal teenager and university student.

But while Logan and Patton often forgot in the midst of ice cream and movie nights and arguments about silly little things who he had been, he never had. And when worst comes to worst, Virgil will be willing to reach for a mask once again despite his fathers’ wishes and expectations.

Sometimes even the best laid plans fail.

Also I keep forgetting to put it on here, but thanks to @bilgisticallykosher, @kiapet2, and ASmallForest (on discord) for being betas!

Part 1 Part 2

Roman was unsure why something in the air felt off that night, but it did. Usually, he’d be off roving through the city as the well-renowned, spectacular, rivaled only by the likes of Bluebird himself, the glorious superhero, Prince. However, this night, urged on by some strange feeling, he decided to be a bit more discreet.

Nadir was the name he’d given the persona he was currently using, not that anyone knew that. The public didn’t know Nadir; that was rather the point. Still, it was nice to have something to separate who he was as Nadir from Prince and from Roman. Nadir would probably be classified as a vigilante (if anyone knew of him) as he acted from the shadows and as a rule didn’t cooperate with anyone let alone with the police. Though people who knew Prince might have been surprised by this fact, Roman was fine with being classed as a vigilante.

Prince often denounced vigilantes publicly and vigorously. He thought they should all stand in the light if they wanted to go against the dark mostly because he, himself, enjoyed the limelight.

Roman had always known vigilantes could be good. They could be better than heroes in many cases.

And Nadir was one.

And he was not the only vigilante out and about tonight. In fact, that might have been contributing to the off feeling that Roman had. Deceit had been out tonight, and he was out out. He was in full costume and everything.

The old vigilante wasn’t big on being seen by the public. He mostly worked silently, striking like a snake from the grass. He used to be a bit more put together in his youth, but these days when he did end up in the public eye, it was usually clearly an unplanned appearance.

90% of these fights he did in pajamas and simply used his powers to make everyone around him think he was wearing his normal costume. He was good at it too. It used to work on even Roman, until Remus had pointed out the edges to the illusion.

Remus had always been better at the Seeing power. As twins, they shared powers, but Remus had been the one to develop that power first and had taught it to Roman. So, he’d been the one to first spot that the intimidating, hardened, famous vigilante Deceit was wearing pajama pants with little cartoon lemons sporting sunglasses on them while fighting a shapeshifter.

Honestly, considering what Roman’s grandfather and mom had told them about the man (which went directly against the general public consensus regarding the vigilante), that about tracked. It was still hilarious though.

Tonight however, Deceit was not in his pajamas. He’d been making his presence known, and everyone had pretty much stayed clear of him. It was probably why the streets were so utterly quiet. Citizens in general liked Deceit these days, but they also knew to stay out of his way if he was doing something, if not because it was important then because he was prickly. Nadir had silently followed him for a bit but hadn’t been able to figure out what he was doing.

Now Roman was in a park. He thought about going back to his apartment and going to bed. Usually, he would have by now. He didn’t have any early, early classes, but he still had to be up at some point tomorrow morning. Yet, he didn’t. He continued to sit in the park in his Prince costume, but as Nadir instead of Prince.

The difference between Nadir and Prince was not a costume. In fact, Nadir had no costume, as no one ever saw him. The difference between the two was primarily which power Roman was leaning on the most at the time, though he obviously would use all of his powers when necessary, in any form.

Roman had three fairly distinct powers. There was Seeing which Roman honestly left to his brother most of the time except to give himself an edge in certain fights, superstrength which was what the public knew Prince for, and Nadir’s power: the power to not be perceived.

The first time Roman ceased to exist was the day the world almost ended three times. The first in the way that a child thinks the world is ending because they didn’t get their way; the second because it almost actually did, and the third because Roman’s own personal world got right to the edge of shattering.

The last thing Roman had ever said to his mom before she went into work as the chief of police for the last time was that he’d never forgive her. He’d gotten a wad of gum stuck in his hair and Mom had been forced to cut it out. Roman had liked his hair long because it was pretty, and Mama would always help him style it in the mornings. Roman had been lying face down on the kitchen floor, face beet red and bawling when Mom had kissed Mama and Remus goodbye and walked out of the door for the last time. Roman had refused her offered kiss.

Later that day, an organized, ruthless group of villains had attacked strategic locations across the city and the world; this attack would later be referred to as The Onslaught. It was one of the most devastating villain attacks in recent history. Their city was one of the main targets.

Three separate villains took part in the attack. From what the authorities had been able to guess afterwards, they had been trying to get something from the university. Presumably, they had not gotten whatever it was before being taken down because nothing horrible had happened from it. Bluebird had somehow figured out the attack on the city was a distraction because he’d gotten into a fight with one of the attackers at the university.

Bluebird, along with the vigilante Deceit, the police force, and a few less notable heroes and vigilantes from the time did their best to stop the attack and protect civilian lives, but it was a vicious attack and they were spread thin. A lot of people died, and a lot of people got hurt.

Including Mom.

Mom got pushed off a building.

In the hospital, Mama had been inconsolable, and the people tasked with watching her two sons had had their hands full with Remus who’d been set on destroying the hospital with his super strength in his ill-handled childhood grief. Roman had crawled under a table, curled up into a little ball, and promptly decided he wasn’t there anymore.

The universe had been cruel that day, but it had seemed to see fit to allow him that wish.

He’d watched with interest once his caretakers had finally managed to calm Remus enough so they could direct him to just tearing up paper and stuffed animals instead of walls and pipes. Then, they’d realized they didn’t know where the other twin with superstrength was. He’d listened to them panic saying again and again that he couldn’t have snuck out of the room because the door was still locked. They’d looked everywhere in the private waiting room… except under the table.

Remus had told them he’d seen Roman climb under the table, but they still hadn’t looked under the table. They’d called someone else in to look for him too, but that person had not looked under the table either. Roman hadn’t called out to them to tell them where he was.

He hadn’t wanted to come out. He hadn’t wanted them to find him. He hadn’t wanted them to even look in his direction.

So, nobody had.

Nobody had even after they’d moved Remus to a different room. Nobody had even when they’d started searching the hospital. Nobody had when there was a hospital-wide announcement on the intercom about him being missing. That had been fine with Roman.

It wasn’t until a man in a doctor’s coat had come into the room and walked over to the coffee machine in the waiting room that anything had changed. The man had looked how Roman felt in that moment. He’d looked tired and sad and a whole bunch of other jumbled things Roman couldn’t parse enough to put a name to.

He hadn’t been looking for Roman, but when he’d leaned against the counter while waiting for his coffee, he’d looked down and their eyes had met.

He’d seemed to forget about his coffee the moment he saw Roman, walking over to kneel in front of the table. He’d sat there for a long couple of moments. “Hey there, kiddo,” the man had said gently. “I’m guessing you’re the Mr. Roman Silvia everyone’s been looking for.”

Roman had nodded, hugging his knees miserably.

“Well, what are you doing under there?” the man had asked. “Doesn’t look very comfy.”

“My mom’s not okay,” he’d said instead of answering, though perhaps that was an answer on its own.

“I…” the man had said, sucking in a breath. “I know, honey.”

“I didn’t kiss her goodbye this morning, because I was mad she’d cut gum out of my hair,” Roman had divulged, sniffling, “and now she’s gonna die.”

The man had paused for a long moment, something intense flashing across his face. “I’m going to make you a deal, Roman,” he’d said after a moment. “If you can hope your mom’s going to live, then I will too. How about that?”

He hadn’t understood what the man had been promising him then. “Okay,” Roman had said.

“Okay,” the man had repeated. “Now, let’s get you back to where you need to be, and I’ll get back where I need to be.” He’d reached out a hand and Roman had taken it. He’d crawled out from under the table and let the man take him to the people who were looking for him.

He’d learned later that that man had been Dr. Sanders.

Dr. Sanders had been the one to save his mom’s life.

He hadn’t saved his mom’s legs, and she’d been asleep for almost 6 months, but he’d saved her.

Roman had learned how to use a new power that day. It had risen up inside him from a place he still didn’t quite understand. He hadn’t realized it was a power until later, but after a while he’d been able to figure out what it was and learn to control it. In truth, he was better at using it than the superstrength he and Remus had been using since before they could even walk.

It was a mental power, he would later understand, and a rare one at that because of its complexity and subtlety. He could basically put out a mental field around himself that made anyone perceiving him either pay absolute and complete attention to him or none at all. With work, he’d managed to turn it from an on and off switch to a gradient. He could make it so his teachers didn’t notice him checking his phone during class but didn’t forget he was there or make sure people paid just a bit more attention to his monologues on stage. He’d even gotten to the point where he could pick and choose who was affected and could extend his power to one or two other people as well.

When he’d started going out as Prince, the power had been useful. It was easy to sneak up on villains when their eyes slid right over him and with a couple of superstrength taps, it was all over. Or when he was helping Bluebird, he could shout ‘I’m a distraction’ and completely pull the attention of the villains they were fighting away from the other superhero so Bluebird could defeat them easier. Roman would always get a lecture about how that was not a good distraction and how it was very dangerous to draw fire like that. Roman would just shrug and say “it worked, didn’t it?” which never failed to send the man fuming.

And yet, Prince wasn’t Roman’s only alter ego who helped Bluebird with perception powers. Nadir was good at getting information. He could walk into a villain’s base, make himself a sandwich, and walk back out without any issues most of the time. Roman would often slip anything he learned to Bluebird in some way.

He wasn’t gathering or slipping Bluebird information tonight, however. In fact, he hadn’t even seen the hero today. It wasn’t unordinary to not run into him, either because they were in different places or one of them simply wasn’t out. There was nothing wrong and yet there he sat. There Nadir sat.

At least, until a human shaped mass of shadows swiftly began to pass through the park. At first, Roman ignored it, figuring it was just some normal person taking a shortcut, but he was startled when the figure moved closer and under a streetlight and the shadows remained just as thick as they had been in the dark.

It took Roman an embarrassingly long time to figure out who he was seeing. Though, to be fair to him, he was not exactly expecting to see his old nemesis taking a stroll through the park.

Yet there was no question in Roman’s mind as he stood up and started following the figure that he was looking at Shadow Caster. Roman had looked into Shadow Caster’s power after he’d first shown up on the scene 5 years ago, before Roman had even met him face to face. It was something he still did to this day when a new player appeared. He always wanted a leg up on the new villain in case he ever came face to face with them.

Shadow Caster’s powers were unique. Roman had not been able to find any accounts of someone using a shadow manipulation power other than him. Usually even with rare powers you could find something similar being used by someone, but Shadow Caster’s powers simply didn’t exist in any record Roman could find.

Yet he and his power had disappeared, seemingly for good, 3 years ago. It wasn’t strange for villains, heroes, and vigilantes to stop after a certain amount of time; most didn’t last more than a year or two. Bluebird and Deceit were exceptions to this rule. Roman himself was nearing the 5-year mark of being a hero and people were starting to take note that he might be planning to actually stick around.

Shadow Caster hadn’t left like that. He hadn’t mysteriously disappeared back into the darkness he’d come from. He'd been shot in full view of the city cameras. The last anyone had seen of him, Bluebird had been flying away with him in his arms.

It had sparked a lot of media attention and rumors. Most people had assumed he’d died; some people had assumed he’d been silently turned over to the authorities, though Roman knew for sure that had not been the case. Bluebird had come out a few months later and said the man was alive and recovering but wouldn’t be coming back onto the superhero/villain scene. He’d refused to say why. It had spurned a bit of conversation in the public, but Bluebird had ignored all of the questions posed to him about the issue. Most people trusted Bluebird enough to eventually let it go, though the question of where Shadow Caster was still cropped up every so often.

Roman hadn’t expected to ever get the answer to that question, let alone for that answer to be right here, right now.

So, Roman followed him silently out of the park and onto the mostly abandoned city streets. To his surprise, the man slowed after a while and looked around, almost like he could tell someone was following him. He turned back around and continued walking but was still going much slower and seemed twitchy. Roman decided Shadow Caster probably wasn’t going to lead him anywhere important if the villain was being this twitchy. So, Roman chose to reveal himself.

“Where did you come from?” Roman asked, making himself suddenly perceivable.

He was entertained for the first half a second by the way the man jumped and whipped around to face him. During the second half of that second, Roman was suddenly grabbed by surprisingly solid shadows and lifted off the ground. What was even more surprising was the sudden burst of light that lit up the fingertips of the man and Roman’s masked face, but nothing else.

…When did Shadow Caster get light manipulation powers? What?

After blinking, Roman took a moment to study him. The shadows still obscured his entire face despite the new light, but Roman could make out the folds of thick black fabric on his arms and what looked like jeans. He also seemed… taller? It was always hard to tell the man’s dimensions with his shadows constantly flowing every which way around him, but Roman had been up close with him in fights before and he’d always been rather short. Perhaps it was just different shoes.

“Prince?” Shadow Caster asked after a moment. His voice was different too, Roman thought. Though in truth Shadow Caster had always been rather quiet… except for when he was telling Roman to ‘fuck off.’ Speaking of, there was a strange lack of animosity in his voice considering the last time they’d seen one another, they’d been wrestling in a sand pit on a playground. Roman hadn’t gotten the sand out of his costume for months. Then again, that had been 3 years ago.

“Release me, fiend,” Roman demanded.

Shadow Caster cocked his shadow-cloaked head to the side, and the shadows slithered a bit around his waist like particularly chilly snakes. “Why?”

Roman jerked his arm with all of the strength he could muster, but the shadows simply moved with him, letting him punch the air like an idiot but not get down or anywhere near Shadow Caster. They didn’t pull taunt even when he started pulling at them and squirming with all of his might.

“Are you finished?” Shadow Caster asked after a minute.

“What the hell even is this stuff?” Roman asked. “It’s cold!”

“Want me to set you on fire?” he offered, snapping his fingers and making a flame appear for a moment.

“You have shadow manipulation, light manipulation, and fire-starting powers now?” Roman asked.

“I’m a prodigy,” he replied lazily.

“You’re not a prodigy; I’m a prodigy!”

“Say that again when your feet are on the ground.”

“Say that again when my fist hits your face.” Roman stuck out his tongue.

Shadow Caster let the shadows around his lips disperse enough so Roman could see him stick his tongue out at Roman in return. Roman stuck his tongue out harder.

Shadow Caster had the audacity to scoff. “Welp, anyway,” he drawled. “This has been fun, but I’m actually in the middle of something right now. So, see you later.” He gave Roman a two-finger salute and turned to walk away.

“You’re just going to leave me hanging in mid-air?!” Roman asked, aghast.

He waved him off over his shoulder. “They’ll fade once I’m out of range.”

“Villain,” Roman spat, though even he could acknowledge that the insult was just out of his own pettiness. The venom in his tone had more to do with keeping up appearances as Prince than any actual strong ire. Keeping him restrained until Shadow Caster was gone wasn’t exactly the epitome of evil. Yet, something about the word did make the man pause.

“I’m not actually,” he said and turned back to look at Roman. “Not tonight especially.”

“What?” Roman asked. After a couple more seconds of consideration, Shadow Caster slowly lowered Roman to his feet and the shadows retreated. Roman watched him in confusion.

“I’m not a villain anymore,” he said, “and I’m also not stupid.” He squared his shoulders, and he was… he was definitely taller, wasn’t he? “You’re allies with Bluebird, and I need all of the help I can get tonight.”

The Prince part of Roman wanted to scoff at the idea of helping Shadow Caster of all people, but Prince wasn’t all he was, and the way Shadow Caster said it gave Roman pause. The fact that he was here at all after 3 years gave Roman pause. The fact that the reason he was out was connected with Bluebird, who was the last person seen with him, gave Roman pause.

“What happened?” Roman asked.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 4

Labeled Master Post.

My Masterpost.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #platonic moxiety #platonic analogical #platonic prinxiety #logicality #adriana writes #not pieces fic #labeled universe #sometimes labels shift #best laid plans #past child abuse #past child neglect #implied/referenced torture #blood and injury