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Remus was fucked.
And no, not in the good way.
He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten himself into this situation. He wasn’t entirely sure how Logan was interpreting the situation, given the lunacy of what he was asking Remus. And lunacy was supposed to be his job!
So, for the record, was making class interesting. Well, granted, Patton would probably find a million ways to object to that concept and send him back to his time-out corner. Remus was a little fed up with how ridiculous all of that put together was, but that wasn’t really the problem right now.
No, the problem right now was that Logan had just asked to see his second-rate, deficient, hollow, vacuous-as-Patton’s-personality excuse of an imagination, in order to try and find ways to make class more interesting.
Remus got very close to passive-aggressively explaining that that should be his job… but whatever. He didn’t have time to think about that anyway, what with the boundless void that was currently his side of the imagination.
Which is what found him pounding on a door at far-too-early-o’clock in the morning.
“Look, I know you’re still up at this time, but seriously V—” Roman stopped when he saw who was at the door. “Remus?”
“I need to borrow your half of the imagination,” Remus got out in a rush.
Roman blinked a couple times before rubbing at his eyes. “Huh?”
“Your half of the imagination? I need to borrow it. Logan wants to look around inside and try and make class more interesting.”
“Shouldn’t that be your job?”
“Yeah, try telling him that,” Remus muttered. “Anyway, it’s just for the day, please and thank you?”
“Uh, yeah sure, alright, but don’t you think—”
“Yes! You’re amazing! Thanks, promise I won’t touch anything!” Remus called, already sinking out.
“—Logan will be a little suspicious when he sees the unicorns and beautiful princes?” Roman finished to the now empty hallway. He blinked a couple times, gave himself a couple of minutes to mourn his warm bed, and walked out and across the hallway to knock on a different side’s door.
“Roman,” Virgil snapped as soon as he saw him. “I know I’m already up at this time, but goddammit that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be left alone!”
“I don’t want to be up any more than you do, but I need your help.”
“With what?”
“You know that thing we were hoping wasn’t happening with my brother?”
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s what’s happening with my brother.”
Virgil looked up at the ceiling. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. And we’ll probably have to do something about that, but for now I need a different favor.”
“At this time of the night? What do you want?”
Roman took Virgil by the arm as he started walking them both towards the imagination. “So as of now Remus is borrowing my half of the imagination due to his being a little, um, lackluster at the moment, and I’m just thinking that when Logan sees it he’ll be expecting something a little more…”
Roman reached out and opened the doors that led to the imagination. They were met with the sun sparkling through the trees, birds swooping overhead as they whistled, very attractive princes singing in the middle of forest clearings run through with brooks that animals were drinking from, and a rainbow spanning from one side of the castle in the distance to the other.
“…Remus,” Virgil finished.
“Yeah.”
Virgil sighed, and stretched, pressing his hands to his back until Roman heard it pop. “Yeah, you need help. Guess I’m not sleeping yet. I’ll go get Janus.”
…
There were times that Roman could easily imagine Virgil taking over his job. He had said several times that he really didn’t want to, and it’s not like Roman was worried that he would, but there were times he was sure he was definitely capable of doing so.
Today’s example was the giant spiders Virgil had created that were now tearing apart the castle.
Virgil was still wincing in the background as they did so, however. “You sure you’re okay with this?” he muttered.
“Virgil, I can build Rome in a day,” Roman said, waving off his concerns as the castle crumpled into ruin. He glanced behind them at Janus, who was currently doing his best to shoo all of the forest creatures into the safe space Roman had made for them. No one would be able to get in until Roman changed the imagination back to normal.
“Hey Roman, I’m keeping one of those princes, okay?” Virgil said, waving the spiders back over once they finished tearing the castle apart.
“Not a chance,” Roman said, turning to the clouds in order to make it start storming. “Do you think you can turn those woods into trees that ooze blood?”
“Gimme two minutes.”
It took them longer than Roman would have liked, but eventually they got the imagination looking like it came from a really gory horror movie, which was probably about as Remus as they would get without actually being Remus. Roman covered up the section with all of his living creations with a promise that he would be back to fix everything in a little bit, and until then they could all have a lovey tea party and enjoy each other’s company.
Virgil and Janus both went to bed, and Roman headed across the imagination, through Remus’ blank void half, and into his room.
Remus glanced over at him from his bed when he entered. It seemed like he had been trying and mostly failing to play with a yoyo that said “Fuck you” on it.
“I fixed up my half of the imagination for you,” Roman said, as he all but collapsed onto Remus’ bed.
“What?”
“Anxiety and Deceit helped. Just don’t go over towards the area that says ‘Keep out,’ that’s where all my creations are.”
“Wha— I just asked to borrow it.”
“Yeah, and you’re definitely the type to create a peaceful kingdom with dancing forest creatures. You can thank me later,” Roman said, rolling over on the bed and burying his head in the pillow, not sure he had quite enough strength to actually sink back out to his room. He was asleep before he could hear Remus’ reply.
…
“Okay,” Logan said, tucking a pencil behind his ear. “So this is the entryway, you said?”
Remus tried to stop a wince and continued through his side of the imagination towards Roman’s. “Yep. I made it white so you could pretend like you’re inside an angel’s vagina.”
“I don’t think that quite makes sense,” Logan said, raising an eyebrow from his spot next to him.
“Making sense is your job,” Remus pointed out.
“I suppose that’s a fair statement,” Logan said. Remus stopped outside the door that led to Roman’s side and took a breath, hoping he hadn’t been lying about fixing it up, because Remus had already tried to prepare Logan for the fact that it would be horror-movie-esque.
Thankfully, when he opened the door, he was met with stormy weather, howling wolves, and woods oozing some kind of dark liquid, not exactly identifiable in the darkness surrounding them.
“Holy shit, he actually did it,” Remus muttered.
“What?” Logan asked.
“Nothing! Come on, I’ll give you a tour!”
He had only made it a couple steps in when Logan spoke up again. “No, thank you.”
Remus turned around. “Huh?”
“I think I formulated a faulty hypothesis. I assumed the imagination would have more science-like features involved.”
“What… what do you mean?” Remus asked, turning back around.
“I don’t think this is going to be helpful,” Logan said, turning back down to his notebook. “Sorry for wasting your time, Remus. You can get back to your day now, just don’t throw your watch in the trash bin.”
He turned around and walked back through towards Remus’ bedroom without saying anything else.
Remus blinked as he tried to process what had just happened. “Patton is better at puns!” he yelled after him.
He turned around, still kind of wanting to explore, and started forward a little bit. The trees, now that he got a closer look, appeared to be oozing blood from them. That had to be Anxiety’s doing. Maybe he wasn’t as boring as Remus had thought.
Spiders were crawling around between the trees, too, and Remus once again heard the wolves howling in the distance. There was a ruined castle in the distance that looked like it would be thoroughly fun to explore.
Remus started towards the doors that would lead to the dark side commons. How could Logan just… this was… He let out a harsh sigh.
Fine. This was fine. The whole point of this was to help Logan, so if Logan decided he no longer needed help, there really was no reason for him to get upset, especially when this wasn’t his creation in the first place.
Remus reached out and opened the doors. “Roman?” he called as he entered.
Roman’s head poked out of the kitchen. “Hey,” he said. “Did Logan like the imagination?”
“Oh, Logan didn’t go in,” Remus said with a casual hand wave. “He thought it would be more science themed, so he when it wasn’t went back to do whatever else he thinks will be helpful.”
“WHAT?!” came a loud voice, and a second later Anxiety and Deceit appeared next to Roman. “Is that asshole serious?! We spent all night on that!” Anxiety snapped.
“I didn’t ask you to,” Remus pointed out. “Sorry you threw your watch in the garbage or whatever.”
“Wh— what?”
“Hang on,” Roman said. “Did he seriously ask for your help with something and then decide the imagination wasn’t going to be useful without even going inside?”
“I mean, he looked at it from the doorway, but that kind of thing happens all the time,” Remus said with a shrug. “No big deal.”
Everyone across from him exchanged a glance.
“Uh, no,” Anxiety said. “Kinda big deal.”
Remus tipped his head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Okay,” Roman walked over and grabbed Remus by the arm, and led him back into the kitchen as Anxiety grabbed another chair and pulled it up to the table. “We’re gonna have a talk.”