Work Text:
Trigger Warnings: RemRom, Selfcest (You can read it as incest or not, they don’t call themselves brothers so it’s open to interpretation)
Lyrics are from “Hamilton”
Rating: PG-13
💚 ❤️ 💚 ❤️ 💚
I hadn’t slept in a week, I was weak, I was awake
You’d never seen a bastard orphan more in need of a break
Roman had been running on empty for the past week. Usually there was a break after each video was posted, a time to rest and recharge, but this time it was different. Thomas had been so afraid of taking this risk, of pushing his channel’s boundaries with the “Intrusive Thoughts” video, that he’d been fretting nonstop about the consequences. Normally it would have been Virgil’s job to manage Thomas’s anxiety, but Thomas was freaking out so much about the reactions to this video that the stress was bleeding into Roman’s sphere of influence. He was doing his best to Creatively find a solution to each of Thomas’s fears, but it was taking its toll and Roman was exhausted.
And then there was Remus.
Before the video, before their host knew that Remus existed, Remus had mostly kept to the subconscious - causing havoc but mostly staying out of sight.
But now, that had changed.
There is nowhere I can go…
Remus was everywhere. Now that Thomas had acknowledged his existence, Remus was no longer confined to the shadows of Thomas’s mind. Remus could come and go anywhere in the mindscape, and there was no way to force him back into Pandora’s box. Remus was ecstatic with his newfound freedom, and he was constantly taunting all the the other sides, poking at their defenses and making a general nuisance of himself.
Roman wasn’t special in this aspect. Remus was messing with all of the sides in different ways: He snuck vulgar flashcards into Logan’s collection. He almost poisoned a batch of Patton’s cookies by messing with the ingredients when Patton was distracted. He was pushing Virgil’s buttons, spinning wild scenarios where fans turned on Thomas and tore him apart for his questionable content. Roman wasn’t sure if Remus was messing with Deceit too - the side was still so mysterious and kept mostly to himself despite also being able to freely roam the mindscape.
So, Roman wasn’t alone in his torment.
The trouble was, Remus wasn’t doing anything that Roman could pin down. Sure, there were the occasional butts drawn on his papers or rude suggestions interjected in the drafts of his scripts, but that wasn’t anything new.
No, it was much more complicated than that. Remus was always there, following Roman around every time he left his room. Roman had tried changing his schedule and leaving his room at random times, moving stealthily and sneakily around the mindscape, but Remus would always find him eventually.
Lord, show me how to say no to this
I don’t know how to say no to this
The trouble with Remus was that he was so. Damn. Distracting. Everything he did was designed to draw attention to himself. It only took the flash of light catching on glitter, and suddenly Roman would realize he’d been staring at Remus for several minutes. Remus’s costume was intricate, and Roman’s gaze would drift from the teeth to the belt buckle, then up to the eyeball, before he would notice Remus had felt his attention and was leering right back at him. Roman would shake himself and look away, but his gaze would keep drifting back against his will.
Even the way Remus moved was designed to draw attention. And he was constantly moving. His shoulders would cock at an angle and his hips would shimmy even when he was standing “still”. He couldn’t simply “walk”, he had to strut or sashay his way from point A to B.
And then there was the personal space issue. The issue was, Remus had no concept of a personal space bubble. If he wasn’t literally draping himself over Roman’s shoulder to look at what he was doing, he was standing too close or sprawling half-on-top of him on the couch when Roman was trying to watch cartoons. It was irritating and insidious, and it made Roman twitch and his skin break out in goosebumps every time Remus came near.
The euphemisms were the icing on the cake. Every word out of Remus’s mouth was either disgusting or a dirty double entendre, or both. He was obsessed with butts and could find a way to interject something sexual into any topic of conversation. It was impossible to ignore him - he would just take it as a challenge to be as obnoxious as possible, and then when a side finally looked at him, he would be making a rude gesture or stroking an object suggestively.
‘Cause the situation’s helpless
And her body’s screaming, “Hell, yes”
The other sides (minus Deceit) had started taking shifts keeping an eye on the common rooms of the mindscape - none of them wanted to wake up and find out what Remus had done when he was bored and unsupervised. Roman usually took the night shift - he was already awake and monitoring Thomas’s dreams, so he didn’t mind the late hours.
It was one of these nights, and Roman was pacing the living room. He’d been watching Disney movies when Remus had shown up, and the stress of Remus’s presence was filling Roman with so much nervous energy that he couldn’t sit still anymore. Remus had started pacing a few steps behind him, deliberately copying his movements, and it was driving Roman crazy.
Roman turned on his heel, grabbed Remus by his shirt, and slammed him back against a wall. “Dear God, will you stop?” he exclaimed.
A slow, wicked smirk spread across Remus’s face. “Why don’t you make me? That is, unless-” Roman slapped a hand across Remus’s mouth, willing to force Remus into silence if he had to. Remus started to struggle, but Roman had him firmly pinned against the wall, so Remus’s efforts were reduced to writhing between the hard surface and Roman’s body. The friction made Roman’s nerves catch fire, and he felt himself flush.
“I said, stop it.” Roman growled, shoving Remus even harder against the wall.
Remus must have noticed the blush in his cheeks, because something changed in his gaze. Remus’s struggles slowed into a sensuous undulation, and Roman could feel Remus’s tongue start tracing designs against his palm.
It was too much and not enough at the same time. Something inside Roman broke, and he pulled his hand away, replacing it with his mouth. The kiss was angry and forceful, slamming Remus’s head back into the wall with a loud crack, but Roman didn’t care. The dam was breaking inside him, all of the stress that had been building up over the past week finally finding an outlet, and he was being washed away in the torrent.
With his last shred of self-control, Roman wrenched his head away from Remus, breathing raggedly into his shoulder. “Tell me no,” Roman pleaded, eyes closed, his voice breaking, “Please, tell me to stop.”
Remus’s only response was to grab Roman by the back of the neck and pull him into another brutal kiss.
Nobody needs to know…