Chapter Text
Roman was a mess. His hair was a mess. His costume was a mess. His room was a mess. It was a mess. It was all a mess.
It had been far too long since that last video had been uploaded to Thomas’ channel. The fans were going to get antsy with all the promises of the new Cartoon Therapy and Sanders Sides videos but they had nothing to show. Everyone on their side was trying to do damage control, trying to balance the desire to rush it out to fans while also producing good quality content.
Roman was sure Virgil hadn’t said anything to anyone the whole week, his own personal anxiety as well as Thomas’ was overloading him. A nonverbal hiding Virgil definitely didn’t help the Sanders Sides video where he was needed to actually be present and participating. Patton was staying optimistic for the group. He’s echoing would act up from the stress but those times were few and far between. Logan was constantly hunched over his carefully planned schedules constantly moving things around. Script writing had taken an extra day, shifting everything a day. Personal emergencies arose for the actors, another day pushed back. The comfortable buffer Logan had devised had slowly disappeared and was now in negative days.
And Roman, well Roman had barricaded his door and refused to come out. The first couple of lost days he could deal with. That’s why the buffers were there. But then it was Friday and they had literally nothing. Roman had been giving 110% for these projects. He stopped sleeping at some point. He couldn’t exactly remember when.
In an attempt to soothe the creative side, Logan explained that the published videos were only a small representation of the work. “If you compare the…distance…the length of a video online to the entire amount of time from idea inception through filming and…correcting, the ratio is wildly in favor of the latter.”
Regardless of how calm and caring the tone was, at least what passed as caring from Logan, Roman was at the end of this rope. The pressure had been building, slowly crushing him. He snapped.
"Retteb dennalp evah dluohs uoy llew! Wonk uoy, uoy no lla si siht. Smelborp eseht gnivah eb t'ndluow ew yad trats ruoy neht reilrae detrats dah samohT fi!" Roman spewed, the words a backward mess.
Logan may not have known exactly what was being thrown at him but he could figure out the gist of it. Roman was blaming Logan. He knew, in part, that the blame could fall to him but also there were too many variables for him to accurately predict the amount of time needed for these things. Logan had repeatedly learnt that there was never enough time.
Aside from the blame Logan felt was at least mildly logical, he knew that Roman had needed to explode. It was better to have him go off on Logan than the others. He could handle it, or rather he could handle it better than the others.
Minutes passed as Roman shouted, turned red in the face, and waved his arms about gesturing angrily. Finally he calmed, or at least tired himself out, and stomped off to his room. That was the last time any of them had seen him.
Within the first hour, the others could hear things being thrown about and crashing to the floor. There wasn’t much they could do. Logan recommended that they focused on the completion of the videos. It was the only way for Roman to relax. So Roman tore his room apart in a blind rage. The red of his room driving him mad like a bull with matadors.
Now Roman was sprawled out on his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was the one thing that had been left untouched by his war path. The Disney posters were either ripped entirely from the wall or hung flopped over itself. Playbills were everywhere, covers bent and pages crinkled. Clothes still attached to hangers hung off the back of his chair or were rolled into a crinkled pile on his bed. A few bulbs on the string lights had broken after being ripped from the walls. The space Roman was lying in was only clear because he had flopped down and made a snow angel.
Around him lay a mountain of crumpled papers filled with horrible no good ideas. The towering piles around him mocked his inadequacy. Even his writing was becoming infected with his backward disease. A great idea would appear in his mind and after catching it in the written form, he would notice the blob of letters and words displayed incorrectly. Sure he could hold it to a mirror and read it that way, but that wasn’t the point. Never before had this horrible thing that plagued him ever evolved. Never before had he gotten stuck.
Roman groaned and covered his face with his arm.
Three short precise knocks came from the other side of Roman’s red door. Logan.
Roman let out another groan. He had unintentionally gone off at Logan who was just trying to help. Even though Roman wanted to lay on the floor silently wishing Logan to go away, he knew the other side would not leave until Roman answered. What even was he supposed to say? He couldn’t say anything!
Logan repeated his knock after receiving no answer. Roman slowly say up on his elbows. Logan made some grumbling noises followed by an almost inaudible, “Please open the door.”
That got Roman up and striding for the door. ‘Please’ was not a common word in Logan’s vocabulary. Logan was able to knock twice before Roman pulled the door open. The logical side seemed to have been startled by the interruption in his knock, or it could have been the disheveled peasant look that Roman currently had.
Logan was quick to recover though, stroking his tie once. “I understand recently you have been under an infinitesimal amount of pressure lately.” Logan paused and gave a horribly awkward smile. Roman let a small smile flash across his face, Logan was trying to be funny which did not happen every day.
“In all seriousness, the pressure has greatly impacted your speech,” Logan returned to his always serious face. “Our speech is not something that is easily controlled, the brain is a complicated…” Logan bit his tongue slightly. He had gone through this multiple times downstairs with the others to make sure his tone and words were alright. This was supposed to be about successfully comforting Roman.
“Nagro?” Roman offered.
Logan nodded his head, though Roman wasn’t sure if he actually understood or simply wanted to move past it. “There is also the complication that we are not exactly real people. Therefore you should not feel as though it is a failure that you cannot currently access a more normal speech pattern. Nor should you take all the blame of what is going on with….the videos.”
Roman nodded slowly. If he could have, Roman would have let Logan know that he was doing alright at this comforting thing.
“More directly to the point,” Logan straightened his glasses and stood straighter. “To help with your feeling of…being alone, I have found something to help with your predicament.”
Roman raised his eyebrows. Logan was smart but he doubted that he could have found a cure for Roman within such a short time.
“It is not a cure,” Logan admitted while reached for the phone in his pocket. “I believe this will be a satisfactory substitute though.”
Logan placed the phone in his hand and motioned Roman closer. He clicked on one of the few apps on his phone. ‘There was no need for all that nonsense on a phone,’ Roman remembered Logan saying. The app was not one Roman recognized and it was definitely a new addition to the phone.
“This is a recording app which allows for the user to record their voice and have the audio played back in reverse.” Logan motioned to the simple controls.
Roman was frozen in shock. An app for him? Logan had given him an app so he could communicate. “It is like a translator one would use if they went to a foreign country, if you think in a….broad sense.” Roman nodded absently looking over the interface.
Logan took Roman’s hand and placed the phone in it. Logan never touched. Logan never let others touch his phone.
“You may try it, if you want.” Logan said after what could have only been minutes of silence as Roman gawked at the iPhone before him as though it was some alien lifeform.
Roman tapped the record button and whispered into the phone. Once the recording was done, Roman clicked the reverse button and held the phone toward Logan.
“Thank you Logan. You are a truly, truly great friend.”