Work Text:
-Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Chops' because that was the name of his dog
And that's what it was all about-
Back when everything was bright and smiles were still genuine he had taken up writing. Little Thomas had learned just enough words for him to read a children's book and off Roman went, crayon in hand he scribbled the messy handwriting on a piece of printing paper, thinking long and hard before he wrote each line. Who knew that having to come up with rhymes was so hard!
He whispered the Poem into Thomas's ear in class when the teacher told them to write a story. The yellow paper a stark contrast to the white one Roman had used and the pencil not having the same effect as the colourful crayons had, but they made due and soon Thomas stuck his little hand in the air. Waving it around. Eager to show the teacher what he'd made.
-And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts-
The yellow paper hung proudly on the kitchen door that evening, Roman staring at it through Thomas his eyes and realising that 'that's something I helped made. I can make him feel happy like this!' He had went and told Patton about it. Bouncing on his feet from excitement as he told him that 'Look Pat! Look at how happy I made him! I wanna do that all the time!'
Patton had laughed with him and told him that he could. And they had eaten cookies out of the jar and let Logan, who was the only one that was able to read well enough to do it out loud, read them a bedtime story.
The next few days Roman walked around with his chest puffed out. And Remus asked him why he was being so dramatic and he got excited again, showing his brother how he had made Thomas happy. Remus had called it dumb and then walked away to go see if he could steal a cookie out of the jar while Roman continued onto his day, chest slightly less puffed and smile a little less proud.
-That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed alot-
Singing was another wonderful thing he found made Thomas happy when he made him do it too. And from that day on they kept on singing and dancing while Thomas his mother rolled her eyes and her friends called her son a little drama queen. And he watched his first Disney movie and Patton gifted Roman a stich plushy that Roman put a little crown on and Remus found stupid.
And Thomas his little brother had animated conversations with his stuffed animals and his brother taught him how to fake being upset when he wanted something while his older brothers rolled their eyes and did their homework.
-And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it-
Roman had not felt comfortable intervening when a girl had asked Thomas to be his valentine and Patton had laughed and given him a sympathetic side hug while Logan looked on, brows knitted together in a very un-8-year-old manner. And Deceit was having a laughing fit as Thomas tried to think of an excuse as to why he couldn't accept, each lie more ridiculous as the previous one. And the newest addition to their group sat cross-legged on the floor, biting his nails anxiously as Remus looked at him from afar, very interested in how Anxiety would affect Thomas.
-Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Autumn'
Because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about-
This time the paper was white. Though the blue lines still didn't make a perfect copy of what Roman had written out in his head. It messier in there that year. Doable. But messier. Thomas had gone to high-school and his bag was heavy.
And everybody was already complaining about the homework even though they hadn't gotten any yet. And Logan was excited for this new oppertunity while Anxiety had left them to put his room in what they now called the dark side of the mind palace.
And their little group had become even more little because they had split in two, Deceit telling them that this was for the best while Roman and Remus yelled and yelled until Thomas asked his mother if he could try one of her sleeping pills to calm them all down.
And as autumn rolled around and poetry was a subject once more he had written three poems already and ran them all by Logan to make sure it was presentable before he decided to tell Thomas to write the one he had never let Logan proofread because he had written it the night before.
-And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint
And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes-
He watched as a newly thrown away bud lay on a yellow leaf and slowly burnt it away. The edges smoldering and slowly dissolving, leaving three corners and a little bit of ashes behind as he stepped inside, nose red from the cold near-winter breeze.
And Roman told him that it had looked beautiful. And Logan added that its a fascinating thing, giving Roman a pointed look telling him that he should stop doing something. He never knew what.
And Patton had refilled the cookie jar because it was always empty these days. And they sat crossed legged on the carpet and told eachother who their favourite teacher was and if they should get Deceit to stop make Thomas deny that he did have feelings for the black haired boy in gymclass.
-That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed alot-
Logan said that they must've heard the word gay before. Otherwise he wouldn't have remembered mbered it. Roman thought it ment happy while Anxiety had something else to say. He was around a lot these days
And Thomas and the girl around the corner were close friends, Patton encouraging the friendship while Virgil squeaked about all the red flag and Logan approved or either debunked them.
-And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it-
Thomas was to old to be put to bed now. That's what his parents had said as Roman took control. Clinging onto the stich plushy as Patton slowly tried to pry him off the controls. "He is right we should confront the fact that we are not a small child anymore," was Logan his input and Thomas seemed to agree.
The next day all of his stuffed animals were in boxes and on their way to the homeless shelter. His mother said that it was fantastic that he had done such a kindhearted thing. He himself thanked her and worked hard to not cry in the next few days when he went to sleep and saw an empty bed.
-Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem
And he called it 'Innocence: A Question' because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about-
College was harder for them all. Logan was overworking himself constantly and worked closely with Anxiety more often than not. And they had realised that Thomas was gay but these were scary times and an even scarier mindset and what if his parent were mad and what if the girl next door didn't want to talk to him anymore. They had started a relationship now. Years in the making and her taking all the first steps.
And focusing on putting out a good piece of poetry for his classes was hard so he had Logan do it. And Logan gave him a concerned look and told Roman to focus on the task at hand. And Deceit was around a lot these days and Patton had taken the cookie jar up to his room. And Roman felt stressed, but doing anything other than making Thomas sing his heart out in the shower and act along with songs when nobody was home, he felt powerless. Their interests had dropped to zero and Roman had had another screaming match but this time with Logan after he had proposed for them to start doing theater instead of engineering. And Logan had yelled at him and told him to stop being so selfish. That Thomas was happy with this career path and that he should stop being so self-absorbed. And the others hadn't disagreed or stood up for him.
-And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her-
Roman had blamed Thomas his lack of confidence in the work he put out on Anxiety and had been told to stop blaming everything on the obvious target. And he hated it because they were right and he was the one that should be taking the blame because he had been so insecure about his work recently that it simply must've rubbed of on Thomas.
And he had written and rewritten the poem they had let Thomas hand in a hundred times over before letting him write it, each poem a bit different or completely variating from the original.
And he never showed the others because he knew it wouldn't matter and 'why would they care anyways Roman it's not like they actually like your work'.
And Thomas never showed his mother because what if she saw that it wasn't love and what if she noticed and what if she hated it?
-That was the year Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed went
And he caught his sister making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed or even talked-
Former relationships had been abandoned when Patton drew back and Anxiety became a more prominent figure and Logan became colder and Deceit and the others started drifting away and Roman... Well Roman was left sitting alone in the common room. Dinner that nobody would eat but him sat on seven plates on the dinner table while he stared at the place the cookie jar had once been. And the plates piled up each week until somebody got sick of them and cleaned them up.
And ideas stopped coming without having at least a pinch of sadness mixed through them and he knew that the other would yell at him if they would make the effort to actually look eachother in the eye these days.
-And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do-
The relationship with the girl had continued and they didn't know how to get out of it anymore. Too much makeup and too little connection had wrapped themselves around Thomas like a viper about to strike. And when he finally had the confidence to tell her that 'I'm sorry I just don't think I'm... Into this.' he received a slap across the face and a foul word being screamed at him while they were standing way to close. And they broke up and Roman felt guilty because he should be the one to be able to save this. He should be the one making sure Thomas didn't get hurt and he expected everybody to be furious. But when he walked into the common room he was met with empty air and cold chairs. Nobody even there to do as much as glare at him.
And it was strange because while he had thought that nothing could hurt him more than their screams and disapproving stares. He quickly found out that just simple silence, ignoring him and eachother and no confirmation or disapproval at all, hurt far worst than any comments had ever done.
-And at 3am he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly-
Thomas would develop insomnia in those bad weeks which would make it difficult for him to sleep well into adulthood. And Roman was afraid to tell the others that he was the cause so he stayed quiet and stared at his ceiling while the seconds ticked by.
And he tossed and turned and hugged his stich plushy close while the ceilingfan turned lazily and he counted the uneven dots on the ceiling time and time again. There were 743 of them.
-That's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem-
Now it was odd. A lot of things were these days. But it was truly odd. Because in truth he shouldn't be feeling this bad. But here he was, writing another poem that he would not show to Thomas this time around. No proof reading. A simple poem writen with black marker on the back of an old lunchback he summoned to transport the cookies in he'd been wanting to give to Patton. He hadn't even reached the door to the fatherly traits room before he realised how stupid he was being, let the cookies clatter to the floor, broken pieces and crumbs spilling on the light wood, and making his way to his own room.
-And he called it 'Absolutely Nothing'-
He'd taken the longest shower he'd ever taken in his life. And though his skin was raw and burned from the scaling how water he still felt cold. And thinking back to how simple it had been. How easily they'd been able to fill his place, he felt even colder.
-Because that's what it was really all about-
He knew it was selfish and Logan would probably scowl at him for being overdramatic. But while his brother had a foot firmly lodged between his shoulderblades. Back protesting against the strain and he talked like nothing happened and like he wasn't standing on his brothers back, they had all communicated as if it was nothing. As if it was the easiest thing in the world to include him in their conversation while Roman thought back to how he hadn't been able to get even the shortest word in at their last debate and felt how cold overtook his body. Since then it hadn't left him and recently he had started to think how he might not want it to do so.
- And he gave himself an A-
He took the red permanent marker he'd taken with him together with the black one and drew a big fat A on the bag. A big middle finger to the teacher that had looked as if Thomas was insane when they handed him back his poem and an even larger one to his friends for making him feel like and F while his brother was there, a sparkly gold A pinned to his costume as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
-and a slash on each damned wrist-
He'd decided on it a long time ago already. That, if it all got too much for him he'd leave. How, he hadn't known. And he still wasn't quite sure when he entered the bathroom thirty minutes ago, staring at his reflection with a stranger staring back at him.
Ducking out would be too easy. They'd just follow him. Well, he really wasn't quite sure if they would anymore. But it was a nice thought. Then there was running away into the imagination. Appealing, but if he were to die he'd just pop up in his own room again and he really did not want to risk getting caught sneaking back there.
So heb settled on the most difficult and permanent option. Leaving the light side of the mind.
The dark side hadn't been inhabited for quite some time now. Even the dark sides found it terrifying and rather stayed in the uneventful middle then go anywhere near that place.
That was the only place in the imagination that they could actually die in. Well die as much as a permanent trait could. There would be a new creativity. Freshly thought up and with none of the memories he had. A factory reset. Reincarnation. It almost sounded nice. Almost nice enough to distract him from the fact that, what he was about to do, was as close to suicide as a side could get.
- And he hung it on the bathroom door-
A deep breath as he pinned a note to explain the situation on the door. Eyes closed as he felt himself sink down and rise up for the very last time. The darkness grabbing onto him and twirling around him like vines, pulling him in further. Away from the light.
It shouldn't have come to this. That thought struck him as he felt his consciousness slip away from him slowly. It really shouldn't have.
But then, he shouldn't have been able to feel all of this either. To feel it so intensely. To feel their friendship and interest slip away from him. To feel the pleasant memories fade into the background, the bad ones remaining with their sharp edges and cutting his ties further.
He exhaled slowly. 'they'll be okay.' he thought. And that would be the last thought that Roman 'creativity' Sanders would have before a brand new version of the same trait with a different name and thought pattern would open his eyes in a unfamiliar room.
-because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen-