Chapter Text
It begins, as most disasters do, with a horse.
Well. Several horses.
Okay, fine. Maybe a fleet of war horses dressed in luxurious mix of ribbons and imposing glistening armor, armed with prickle teeth and throaty war-barks and a deep hunger.
Alright.
A murderous mob of ravenous equines that feast exclusively on the color green, because it’s ugly and nauseating and Roman is sick of sharing half of his land.
It’s been three months since they all came together in Thomas’ living room, all sat down and criss-cross-apple-sauced because it was one of those Very Serious talks. It’s been three months since they all sat down, every single one of them, Janus and Remus included, and just talked. Long-repressed things were admitted, feelings were shared, devotion was expressed with flair, tears were shed, a lot of emotional music played, yada-yada, you know how it goes. Eventually, all of that sobbing and ramped up hand gesturing had culminated in a tentative agreement.
It’s been three months, four days, and sixteen hours, according to Logan’s precise count, since they merged their pristine, cozy little mind palace with the ugly, decrepit, upside-down-Stranger-Things-wannabe other-scape that held back every one of Thomas’ “dark” sides. (Post-treaty signage dictates that the term “dark side” isn’t applicable anymore, and hadn’t been a very fair assessment of their contributions in the first place.)
It was tolerable, at first. Sort of. Having Janus around for breakfast wasn’t awful, per say. He offered to scramble eggs and make toast and omelets for all of them that first morning. Virgil wouldn’t eat any of it until he watched Janus take an obnoxiously big bite of the eggs first.
Roman, on the contrary, wasn’t one to let an excellent meal sit. Janus’ first few spreads of breakfast were unparalleled .
Look, Roman loves Patton to bits and pieces, but most if not all of his family meals are usually experiments gone destructively, horribly, irreversibly wrong. Roman’s lost count of the times he’s had to comfort Patton after a recipe he poured hours into ends up in flames, or worse, tears. The few recipes that go according to plan are the freaking best though - Roman’s all-time favorite Patton-perfected-dish will always be the cookies he makes. They’re the kind that melt in your mouth, every bite imbued with goodwill and compassion and everything warm and nice, every happy feeling stuffed into a gooey lopsided mess of chocolate.
Mm. Janus could never.
Delicious tangent aside, seeing Janus dressed down in casual wear still felt off-putting to Roman, even after all of these months. It's whatever, he can deal...
What he can’t deal with is how much of the imagination he’d had to cough up so that Remus of all sides could feel included. Logan had even stepped up when they had all collectively lobbied to give Remus his “fair share” of control.
He said this was part of making Thomas more whole. Mending their past biases and learning to control and undress Remus’ contributions, not just repress them.
Roman had made his distaste clear with a concise, strongly worded argument and a newfound level of maturity that Logan had applauded him for...
Okay. So maybe Roman had pouted and sulked petulantly and told Remus that he sucks (among other foul things), and Patton had warned him about his less-than-stellar language, and Virgil had made fun of him for getting reprimanded, and Remus had cackled and leaned obnoxiously into his space to trap him in a headlock, and Logan had sighed and tried reigning them all in, and Janus had sat placidly all the while, chin resting on his knees, quietly taking stock of all of their expressions with sinister repose, and Thomas had made that constipated face he always makes when things aren’t Boding Well.
In the end, Roman had settled on relinquishing a third of his land. As a treat. And even that compromise had been like pulling teeth.
Roman can’t help it, okay? These are his things, his trees, his gardens, his space, his home, his friends, his life, his family, his real family. Remus doesn’t get to take a giant gaping slice out of each of those things just because Patton pities him.
The moment Roman had set in place the divide, carefully picking out the parts of his imagination that he could bare to part with and set aside, like parting with his own children, the places he’s enchanted and manicured and loved, Remus had set about destroying it. The first thing Remus had done was roll all the way down a finely sculpted slope of hill that Roman had smoothed out by hand in the earliest days of the imagination’s existence.
He had cackled in delight and torn up the grass—and oh, Roman feels faint just thinking about it—Roman’s purple pampas, his lilies, his stargazers, his guiltless little gardenias, all beautiful impossible combinations of every flower under the sun, ones he used to stroke the petals of in thought and ones he would lay in for solace, all uprooted and rolled over by Remus’ stupid dumptruck of a body.
A third of his home away from home. Gone. Disassembled. Demolished. And Roman had watched with clenched fists as it happened. As a part of himself was taken away from him by greedy, unworthy hands.
This was for Patton, he had to remind himself. This is Patton’s passion project, the growth of Thomas, the expansion of the mindscape, Thomas-Two-Point-O, Patton’s own grapple with acceptance and the precarious understanding of the lesser parts of themselves that they had long ago agreed to file away as failures of character and repress for years.
Whatever. That isn’t important right now.
The point is that Roman had warned Remus, over and over, that if he tiptoed into his sacred space one more time to leave those tacky little sticky notes with a bunch of crude and gross ideas all over his beloved field of wisteria trees, Roman was going to riot, and it would end well for no one.
It’s Remus’ fault, really. Everything is Remus’ fault. Remus is simply rotten, didn’t you know?
It wasn’t just any old area of Roman’s remaining portion of the imagination that Remus had tampered with—it hadn’t even been the part Roman had dedicated for letting off steam and wrecking things himself, no, it had been the singular, secular, untouched patch he had dedicated to Patton. A breathtaking little island of pristine trees, reflective of every one of Patton’s little nuances, all equal parts soft and sweet and good and petunia-filled. It was a corner of his space that he’d hoped to one day share with Patton, to present to him as a gift.
Now, in just a week’s time, it had wilted. Remus had infested it with ugly little weeds, eating away at the perfect pH of the soil, sapping precious energy from his once elegant towering Japanese Wisteria trees, a forest that Roman had raised from the ground-up himself, with his own hands. A sapling planted for every time Patton had inspired him.
Now, the forest and its thickets are infested with thorn thistles, stinking corpse lilies, cockscomb (because of course, the impropriety of it), red rattles, poison ivy.
Now, it’s putrid.
Now, it’s been taken from him.
Now, Patton’s kindness had been taunted and stepped on, his bright spirit infected with Remus’ ugly tamperings.
Now, it’s ruined.
Roman sees red for several reasons. So, he takes sand from the dunes he and Remus share, he crushes handful after handful in his palms furiously until he’s left with that herd of horrid horses—you remember, the mean ones, from earlier? He makes them scrappy and mean and hulkish and angry and restless. He makes them big and looming and hungry for a color he hates.
So.
Yeah.
Remus breaks a few ribs. And gets a few scrapes. And gets a host of angry bruising bites that dent his pale skin and turn purple-yellow at the edges, because it's what Remus deserves.
And yes, granted, Roman had laughed. He had laughed and harrumphed until Remus’ pleasantly surprised cackles had morphed into piercing, pained, ugly two-toned screams, had devolved to begging, and Roman had rushed right down to put out his own figurative fire.
It could have been worse! That’s what nobody is focusing on!
Even Virgil winces in sympathy when Roman drags a barely conscious Remus into the commons.
Patton screams, and it’s devastating, he looks devastated , panicked, and Janus looks...impartial. He looks like he’d been expecting this, which, rude, he could have at least given Roman a fair warning if he was going to go all future-vision on him and look so unaffected. That wears on Roman’s nerves even more.
Logan impartially assesses the damage as Remus slips in and out of consciousness, and Patton brings shaky hands up to cradle his lulling face in his hands. And Roman gets jealous, okay?
He scoffs and sputters, says mean biting words about Remus being fine and deserving every little bit of the petty retaliation—but Patton’s sharp intake of breath, the way he tenses and turns to Roman with wide, unbelieving eyes, looking at him and through him all at once—it makes Roman feel like the worst thing to exist since...well, since Remus was born.
“Roman,” Patton’s voice warbles, “you—you did this, Roman?”
All eyes turn sharply to him, even Virgil looks appalled and stunned. Not fair. Virgil hates his fellow reformed dark sides even more than Roman does. This is bull. Roman is calling bull.
Logan, too, looks to him with a million questions in his eyes. Roman tries not to read too much into it. Instead, he crosses his arms and averts his eyes as he sniffs and shrugs.
“Is he going to be okay?” Patton turns his big teary heartbreaking doe-eyes to anyone that might have an answer.
Janus hops down from his spot on the counter, “Oh of course not, it’s not like Remus is the poster child for indestructibility or anything. He’s never been in a situation like this before.” Virgil shoots him a warning look as Patton’s face crumples.
“Try again.” Virgil glares.
Janus sighs at Virgil, with feeling, “Fine. He’ll be okay. Remus will bounce back. This is hardly the first injury he's ever incurred in the imagination.”
Patton makes a wounded, sympathetic noise at that, all of his worry and fret and paternal instincts rolled into one Very-Sad-Sound.
Janus cards a hand through the mussed-up silver of Remus’ bangs, brushing them back with tenderness that counters every deceptively casual overtone in Janus' body. Remus makes a pained little noise and leans into it, it’s the only vaguely 'I’m-Alive' sound he’s made since he fainted.
Janus removes his glove and everyone tries very hard not to stare out of courtesy. He places a serpentine hand to Remus’ temple and hums.
“This time it might...take a while. This isn’t just damage he inflicted on himself. If it involved his better half, then...it’s going to take a lot longer to recover from. Not impossible, but not very pleasant either.”
“How long.” Patton says it hollowly, without the true inflection of a question. Empty. Roman’s guilt churns a hole into the pit of his stomach.
Janus purses his lip carefully, “I'd give it a month. Maybe. If he doesn’t do any stitch-pulling and actually rests.”
But this is Remus they’re talking about here, and Patton can read between the lines well enough to know what that means. It means a few months of Remus tearing his wounds open over and over again until he exhausts himself completely and collapses hard into a pit of dreamlessness to heal fitfully and feverishly in the subconscious.
“We’ll have to keep him put. It’s going to be…” Janus waves a hand and conjures something that looks like a fuzzy glorified zip tie, “...a challenge.”
“Kinky.” Virgil mocks, tamping his own shit-eating grin with a roll of his tongue in his cheek.
Janus rolls his eyes so hard that for a second Roman fears they might pop right out, “They’re medical restraints. He’s a bratty, insufferable child—like you.” Janus tugs Virgil’s hood over his eyes.
Janus continues, “You’re going to need these.” he conjures a few more restraints in each hand, all six of them. They spring out of his sides with the flourish of a magician, “You’ll thank me later.”
Roman begrudgingly replaces their couch with a large, endless sea of a bed, since the commons is the only place where they can all reliably convene if they’re really going to take on the intimidating task of nursing Remus of all sides back to health.
For lack of a better word, they shackle him. They wrap the thick, soft foamy straps onto Remus’ wrists and ankles, and they buckle them tight enough to make sure he can’t escape them, but loose enough not to hurt. Patton makes sure.
As an extra precaution, Janus slips these weird, padded mitten guards onto Remus’s hands. They’re shaped like soft little oven mitts and they look stupid, and Roman hopes against all odds that Remus is embarrassed when he wakes up.
He’s expecting Remus to be morbidly delighted when he finally stirs hours later. He’s expecting gross quips about bondage that make half of them cringe and Remus cackle. The last thing Roman expects is harsh, ungodly, two-toned screaming.
Janus is at Remus’ side in an instant.
He almost gets his fingers bitten off.
It takes Virgil hauling Janus back by the collar of his caplet to just barely avoid the second angry clamp of Remus’ teeth. When Janus pulls back, he looks devastated.
Remus thrashes so hard the bed lifts and drops, slams down over and over. He’s snarling and spitting and kicking and straining against the restraints so hard Roman thinks they might all snap at once.
There isn't an ounce of playfulness in Remus, his mouth twisted around a hellish cacophony of, “LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT-”
Roman has never seen Remus so infuriated. Roman’s never been so scared.
Logan is talking, quickly, quicker than Roman’s ever seen him talk, Virgil is yelling, cursing, pressing his hands against Janus’ chest to keep him from trying again, Janus is looking at his hand, at his glove torn to shreds, his eyes keep flickering back to Remus. And Roman. Roman isn’t moving. He can’t move. His knees are trembling. What could he even do if he could move?
It takes so much of his willpower just to turn his head, to watch in horror as Patton quietly steps forward. Roman’s throat constricts.
Patton is walking, walking so calmly. Remus tries to turn his head, to crane it to hiss at Patton straight on, but he can’t, so he settles for twisting his head at an unnatural angle to snarl at him.
With a trembling hand, Patton reaches out.
Virgil screams, “DON’T—”
But it’s too late. Patton’s hand finds Remus’ hair. Remus can’t reach him, try as he might, gnashing his teeth and spitting. Patton is saying something, Roman can’t make out what it is.
Patton is murmuring sweet nothings, stroking Remus’ sweat-slicked hair back and away from his face.
Gradually, with herculean effort, after what seems like forever, Remus’ violent thrashing abruptly stills. He blinks, chest still heaving. Suddenly, he looks helplessly confused. If Roman didn’t know any better, he’d say Remus is afraid. He’s trembling now. High-pitched little whines start spilling out of him, broken and helpless and too awful for Roman to keep listening to.
Patton must feel the same, because he’s shushing him, petting his hair so gently, sweeter and kinder than Remus has probably ever been treated since he came into existence.
Patton is still trembling, but Remus’ cries have finally died down. His breath is slowing, he’s relaxing, eyes fluttering.
Everyone recovers from the chaos slowly.
Very, very, slowly.
Patton conjures pajamas for Remus, a soft Lilo and Stitch-themed onesie with a hood and teeth and ears—the works. It looks fitted and comfortable and snug, something Patton has been working on for a while now.
Logan looks carefully over Janus’ hand, checking for any superficial wounds that might need tending to, as Virgil loiters behind them pretending VERY LOUDLY not to care.
Roman watches as Patton keeps stroking Remus’ hair back with tenderness and tells himself he isn’t bothered. Not even a little.