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Roman was never conscious of the fact that he had a brother. It wasn’t like Remus was hidden from him, or invisible, or under any other kind of cool spell the storybooks he always read depicted. Remus was always just a second part of him, his other half, not even another person. They were two sides of the same coin (as Morality would always joke). They were Creativity. Together.
“The dragon witch hovers over the castle menacingly!” Remus would shout, hunched over a makeshift the castle the two had made out of cardboard and tape and sneering as if he were the said dragon witch.
“The prince charges towards the castle unwavered and ready for action!” Roman would call back, holding up a prop, cardboard sword in defense. Then he’d jump at Remus so they landed in a pile of limbs, laughter, and flattened cardboard, the sharp corners of which would poke and prod into the boys’ bodies, but they never seemed to care.
Eventually, they’d wear themselves out and Roman would sit up, breathing hard but smiling nonetheless, and brush back some hair that had swept in front of his face. “The dragon witch is defeated once again!”
Remus, from his position on the ground, would scoff. “No! The prince was defeated by the mighty hands of the dragon witch!” Remus would pump his fist in the air for emphasis, but then his hand would immediately fall back on top of his chest, which was still breathing heavily.
“Nuh-uh!” Now Roman stood up, waving around his sword. “Morality said that princes always win and villains always lose!”
Remus’ brows knit together and he slowly stood too, glaring at Roman defiantly. “No! The dragon witch is a super-strong villain, though! And she always wins!”
This sort of feud was normal, even natural for the two parts of Creativity, and eventually would just end in more play-fighting and tackles interrupted by fits of giggles. It was ordinary, and it was never something Roman thought he would ever have to reminisce about.
Of course, like most things in his life, he’d find the case wasn’t at all what he’d thought it to be.
Over time, their arguments became worse. Although, they were never any longer than usual or even over different topics. When they came to a disagreement, Remus would simply just become suddenly more passionate about his side of things.
“The prince has won , Remus,” Roman would try telling him, “and that’s okay! Come now, don’t pout, let’s just go back and play!”
Roman’s rhyming did nothing to persuade Remus, however, and he’d stomp over to the door beside them and announce, “No! I’m going to my room!”
“You mean our room, dimwit!”
“Whatever!”
Remus then would step inside and slam the door behind him, and Roman was left in the hostile air he had created. The change in the air didn’t bother him, and he would continue playing by himself, something he wasn’t used to but nothing he certainly couldn’t handle. Everyday things seemed to intensify after this, and everyday Roman was left undeterred, completely sure Remus would come around eventually. He always did.
What wasn’t expected was how one day Remus stepped up to Roman, uncharacteristically serious. Roman didn’t let this affect him, and he held up Remus’ mace (which, like his sword, was also made of worn cardboard) for Remus to grab.
“Remus!” he said excitedly. “Wanna play?”
“No.” The tone Remus used spooked Roman ever so slightly, so dull and dark it was enough to make Roman shiver.
“Oh. Well, what do you want to do then-?”
“I’ve been talking to Deceit,” Remus said, ignoring Roman’s question. His eyes finally lifted off from their place facing the ground to meet Romans’.
Roman’s face scrunched up and he shook his head. “That snake? Why? He’s no fun, worse than Logic, I’d say. Why don’t you just hang out with me?”
“I want to play with Deceit from now on,” Remus affirmed, snatching his mace out of Roman’s hands.
“But-”
Roman was cut off when Remus growled and left, and he was alone with his confusion. Roman had to mull over his thoughts for a while before finally being comforted with the idea that Remus was just going through a phase and he was just going to experiment for a bit. After all, Logic had once said experimenting was healthy, especially for Creativity, and maybe Remus was going to take his advice to heart.
There! Now he knew there was nothing to worry about! Roman smiled to himself and plucked his sword from the ground before jabbing it through the air at the invisible dragon witch his imagination had conjured up for him.
-
A year had passed, and Roman, to his surprise, continued to play alone. Well, Morality would join in sometimes, and if he begged Logic would too, but the other half of Creativity never did. Roman just assumed he was hanging out with that foul snake and possibly even—God forbid—that punk Anxiety. As bothersome as those thoughts were, Roman held onto the fact that they were Creativity, nobody else, and therefore they were inseparable. No matter what.
Or so Roman thought.
The start came when Roman was settling into bed one night, eyes sleepy after staying up to finish a drawing he had hashed out in crayon after a sudden idea had come to him not long ago. He was ready to rest, but his mind was still buzzing, and he knew whose fault that was.
Roman and Remus shared a mind, practically, as they were never really two separate people. So, reasonably, Roman could feel Remus’ energy and become more tired himself, wondering why these days Remus never seemed to want to sleep.
Roman pulled the sheets up over himself, doing his best to not mind whatever Remus was up to.
Another thing about Roman and Remus’ minds was they were always in tune, and sometimes that meant it wasn’t just their energies but their thoughts that were also shared. It was only practical for Creativity so their ideas were more easily and efficiently formed, of course, but lately Roman had only been getting thoughts of rage and despicable things from Remus’ side. Deciding to not confront his other half on this oddity, Roman just stayed silent (for once) about it.
But now, as soon as Roman’s head hit the pillow, Roman’s brain flashed and visions of spattered blood flooded inside it.
Roman sat back up immediately, eyes popped open and panting hard. He put a hand to his chest and tried to calm down, not even yet able to try and comprehend what he had just seen.
His eyes wandered to the other half of his room where Remus’ bed was, usually empty nowadays, and to his terror, Remus was sitting there. His legs were crossed and his back was towards Roman. Roman turned on the lamp by his bed and squinted, taking note of how Remus was dressed head-to-toe in black instead of his usual green (something he would mentally blame on that fiend Anxiety).
“Remus?” Roman asked, although he knew it was him. “What are you doing?” He wanted to add he hadn’t even heard him come in, but suddenly his mouth was too dry to speak.
“I’m thinking,” Remus answered.
The reply made Roman suddenly aware that was the first time they must’ve spoken all week, Remus too busy playing with the others as Roman stayed in his room, working on ideas and perfecting his appearance (which had started becoming more and more of a hobby to him).
Roman, no longer fearful, eagerly sat on the edge of his bed and smiled. “Oh? What about? Have any ideas?”
There was no response at first and then Remus darkly chuckled. “A few,” he said, followed by a strange sound.
Roman frowned and his eyes met the black, long object sitting his Remus lap. It looked like a long pole, but Roman’s eyes traveled further up it and realized it wasn’t a pole at all. At the end of it was a large, spiky ball. A mace, just like Remus’ cardboard one but real .
Roman gulped.
Remus’ hand moved up the mace enough to reveal to Roman the sounds he was hearing was the sound of Remus polishing his weapon with a cloth. He was being so tender with it in a way Roman had never seen him be before, and it made him relax a bit, enough to continue talking.
“Oh… cool! Like what?”
Remus finally turned around, and Roman’s eyes widened cartoonishly.
However big they were was nothing to compare with how Remus’ looked, so large they took up about half his face, twitching and quivering in their sockets. That was the least concerning part about him, though. Where Remus’ eyes weren’t his smile was, wide and curving upwards on the sides of his face, grinning like a madman. Even worse, each one of his teeth and all around his mouth was smeared in dripping, red gooeyness.
“Have you ever thought of killing and eating a squirrel?”
Roman instinctively scooted backward, taking a long breath in from his nose. “You- Remus what is that stuff?” he hesitantly asked.
“Blood, silly,” Remus grin twisted and widened more.
“W-What? Why- how ?” Roman blubbered, tongue stiff in his mouth as he tried to process all that was happening.
“Like this!” Remus jumped up out of his bed, suddenly summoning a squirrel out of thin air. The furry little creature perked up and bounded around for a bit until Remus, staring down at it as if it were a work of art, lifted his newly cleaned mace over his head and then smashed it down on the squirrel.
Roman screamed, watching the blood splash onto Remus' face, which eerily looked back up at him.
“See? Fun,” Remus said, but Roman was having none of it.
“You just killed an innocent squirrel! That is not fun! That’s evil!” Roman cried, standing up so that he and Remus were eye level.
“Evil and good are all relative, Deceit says.”
“I don’t care what Deceit says!” Roman said. He moved closer to Remus (his other half ) and tried to find some sanity in those large, haunting eyes that was worth holding onto. “What happened to you, Remus? We used to be so close!”
He ripped Remus’ mace out of his hands and threw it to the ground, and Remus was too shocked to fight back as Roman grabbed his hands and held them.
“Now you’re all… weird! What happened ?” Roman was pleading now but Remus seemed unaffected, only squirming if anything.
“We’re in this together, remember? Like the song from High School Musical? We’re… we’re Creativity!”
“NO!” Remus suddenly yelled, swatting Roman’s hands away. “NO, WE’RE NOT!”
“What do you mean?” Roman’s voice cracked with hurt and confusion. “Yes, we are!”
Remus picked up his mace, now red with blood for what Roman assumed was at least the second time that day. “I’m Remus. You’re Roman.”
“Yes, but-” Roman started, but stopped. His forehead wrinkled and he looked at Remus in betrayal. “Why can’t I hear your thoughts?”
Whenever Remus confused him (and that was a lot), Roman always did his best to hear the other’s thoughts. But his mind was just blank… like static, trying to find where Remus’ thoughts had gone to but in the end, it was in vain.
“I told you, we’re not Creativity. We’re not one, we’ve split,” Remus explained.
Roman was dumbfounded, unsure of what to say, only letting out small noises that sounded like the start of words that just trailed off. Remus watched him for a second and shook his head.
“Goodbye, Roman,” he said and swung his mace down on Roman’s head.
-
When Roman woke up the other bed in his room was gone, along with all of Remus’ things, leaving the wall much closer to Roman’s bed than he remembered it being. Roman didn’t know exactly what had happened or how to feel—aside from the massive pain in his head, of course.
Logic, in an attempt to be consoling for Roman, explained that Remus was right. They had split. They were now two people, two sides. Two whole different parts of Creativity.
It was nothing Roman had expected, and as much as he tried to proceed on as if things were the same as always, grief for what once was his other half would always come back now and then. Alone now he could finally see how much he cared for Remus, it seemed, when before he had never really thought about the other. He took him for granted every day, and now look where that got him.
Then again, one does not love breathing.