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Roman’s wings were supposed to be red. A fiery red, too, with shades ranging from so pale it bordered on pink to so dark around the edges they were almost black-rimmed. The feathers on the inside were a white so pure it was blinding when catching sunlight. They were stunning and magnificent and beautiful.
Currently, the red was rusted and washed out. They looked like a bad dyeing attempt. The insides were dirtied and grey-brown tinged. Currently, they didn’t look majestic. Currently, they looked exactly how Roman felt: Pathetic.
The pair of extra appendages sprouting from the prince’s back only manifested in the closed confines of his bedroom or the separate world of the Imagination. They were always present, but they became heavy and solid and real at his back the moment his door shut. No one knew about them.
Except Remus, of course, given he was in the same position with those slimy, horrid tentacles of his. The pair had grown up with these features; it was evident that their young years spent play-fighting would leave their connected rooms scattered with slime and feathers. Unfortunately, though a wall now separated their rooms at this day and age, Roman couldn’t seem to get the connecting door to disappear, no matter how many times Remus knocked it down.
However, today wasn’t an ‘ignore Remus’ day. It wasn’t even a ‘put up with Remus through eye rolls and inward groans’ day.
Another loose feather was added to the growing pile beside him on the floor.
“You’re molting an awful lot,” Remus remarked at Roman’s back, his concentration on a particularly stubborn section of Roman’s right wing and a rebellious cluster of feathers that weren’t listening to his effort to straighten them.
“I’m stressed,” Roman admitted, plucking a baby feather from the inside of his left wing.
“This isn’t stress molting,” Remus said. “Stress makes your feathers all flaky and dry. This is different.”
Roman sighed and gave up on his wing, resting his head in his hands. “Can’t we just talk about something normal?”
“This is perfectly normal!” Remus protested. A scratch through the feathers, down the side of his wing made Roman shudder. “I mean, the standards are you having wings, so…”
Roman didn’t reply. Remus continued to work in silence. He didn’t have his tentacles manifested today. They tended to get restless and search for things to do when Remus was absent minded, and the pair had come to find that was both distracting and mess-making, especially with neat piles of feathers taking up residence on the carpet.
“Is it about last week?” Remus asked.
“It’s always about last week,” Roman grumbled. Remus bit the inside of his cheek in thought, which Roman couldn’t see, and continued to sift through his brother’s feathers.
“You’re going to have to do something about it sooner or later,” Remus said with a shrug. “Doesn’t have to be good. You could put spiders in Patton’s bed, or cut the power to the heating elements in Janus’ room. I did that one once. It was pretty funny; took him thirty minutes of shivering and muttering on his rock to realise nothing was happening. I recorded it.”
Roman didn’t reply.
“Of course,” continued Remus, “then he confiscated all my weapons and didn’t let me poison the coffee, so it wasn’t entirely worth it.”
Roman sighed quietly. He ran a hand through the feathers of the inside of his wing, fingering the tufts closest to his body. They should be as soft as a freshly groomed chinchilla’s fur, but they felt stiff and unhealthy.
“They’re dying,” he said as if they were houseplants not getting enough sun, but it made sense to him. He pulled back and gripped his arms while he glared at the floor. “I can’t even take care of these properly.”
He felt Remus’ gaze burning the back of his neck but ignored his brother. Chances were that he would get bored and leave. Roman would probably have a breakdown, then, but at least there wouldn’t be any witnesses.
Remus shuffled behind him, and a pair of arms wrapped around his waist. Except arms were supposedly not wet and slimy with suction cups on the inside. Roman opened his mouth to ask what Remus was doing, but then his brother was leaning over his shoulder and pointing to a bleached scatter of spots staining the tentacle curled around Roman’s ankle.
“That’s from running into a thorn bush in the Imagination,” Remus said, then gestured to another spot on a separate appendage. Roman blinked at the pale scar running upwards along the moist skin. “That’s from when Logan yelled at me when we were teenagers after I burned all his projects for a prank.”
“That was a dumb move,” Roman told him. Remus grinned.
“This one over here is from when I touched a curling iron to see how it would feel, and then got yelled at by Janus for it,” he said, and Roman wasn’t sure whether to sigh or laugh. “That’s why it’s a weird shape.”
“It does look odd,” Roman admitted. Remus bobbed his head against Roman’s shoulder in agreement. Roman eyed his brother’s wiggling tentacles, several of them finding ways to wrap around his legs, one even reaching up to curl over his wrist. He zeroed in on one, though, not itching towards him and instead twitching along the carpet. Its end looked to be chopped off, leaving a blunt stump awkwardly half-heartedly navigating its path.
Roman reached over and lifted it up, eyeing the ugly scar. “What happened here?”
Remus didn’t reply for a moment before he pulled away, tucking the tentacle out of sight. “Nothing much.”
Oh, and wasn’t that a red flag if Roman had ever seen one?
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Roman asked.
Remus shrugged. “Not anymore. It did when it first happened.”
Roman’s reply was a hum. Remus began to fidget with a cluster of feathers at the edge of Roman’s wing. Roman allowed him.
“What was it?” he asked after a long silence. Remus seemed caught off guard, but then he huffed.
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
Roman frowned. What did that mean? He tilted his head over his shoulder to watch Remus begin to gnaw on the side of his collar while he scratched at Roman’s wing.
“You can tell me anyway,” Roman offered softly. Remus shrugged again. Roman leaned backwards and patted the tentacles around his waist comfortingly. Remus didn’t return the affection, but he didn’t pull away. Roman decided it was good enough.
“Sorry,” Remus murmured, but Roman wasn’t sure why.
“You know that you can always come to me when your tentacles are hurt,” Roman murmured, tracing a long scar trailing along one of the slimy green arms.
“Why don’t you come to me when you molt?” Remus asked. Roman opened his mouth, about to retort, but Remus cut in, “Without having to make me chase after you?” Roman closed his mouth. He sheepishly fiddled with the end of one of Remus’ arms as it curled through his fingers.
“My turn to apologise?” he asked. Remus shrugged. The quiet room suddenly felt oppressing and uncomfortable. It was much different compared to the atmosphere a few minutes ago, when Roman’s wings had first begun to be preened. He didn’t like it very much.
“It kind of sucks.” Remus’ voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “Sometimes I don’t even have to be around to get the scars.”
Roman swallowed. He wondered if he already knew what had mangled Remus’ tentacle. “I can try and make them disappear,” he volunteered quietly.
Remus, predictably, looked affronted. “What, the marks? And take away my battle scars? Who the hell do you think you are?”
Roman relented with a chuckle. “Alright.”
The room echoed with a knocking from the bedroom door.
“Dinner’s ready, kiddo,” called Patton’s voice. “If you have time to come down for a little while. Hope to see you there.”
The twins listened to the moral’s sides footsteps shuffle away. The tentacles around Roman’s waist tightened and Remus headbutted his shoulder with his forehead. “Are you going to go down?”
“Are you?” countered Roman.
“He didn’t ask me,” Remus pointed out.
“He might have.” Roman frowned over his shoulder. “You haven’t been in your room.” Remus didn’t seem convinced. Roman didn’t move to stand up.
“You’re not going?” Remus sounded surprised.
Roman shrugged. “My left wing hasn’t been preened yet.”
“You should eat.”
Roman levelled his brother with a skeptical look. “And since when do you care about my health?”
“Since I found you sobbing in the corner of your room with your wings torn to shreds,” Remus snapped. Roman didn’t have an argument. Remus pulled back and stood, brushing off loose feathers. “Come on, you dumb slut.” Roman shot him a glare, but Remus was dutifully, stubbornly, ignoring his gaze. “If I eat, you eat. Deal?”
Roman considered it, then sighed.
“Very well.” He rose to his feet. He flared his wings, shaking himself. He pretended not to see Remus eyeing him cautiously and moved briskly to the door. “But I still need my left wing preened.”
“Don’t be greedy,” Remus snapped, in as much of an agreement as Roman figured he would get. “Maybe I’ll braid all the feathers so tight you have to shave your wings.”
“Stop being foul,” Roman said, holding the door open for his brother. The rude menace didn’t thank him as he darted out.
“You know that’s my whole deal, right?” Remus asked over his shoulder, his tentacles now having vanished. Roman listened to his brother rant as they travelled downstairs and were greeted by the others. The weight of his wings was still at his back as he sat down to eat, even though they were now hidden.
He smiled when Janus made a joke that made Logan fight to hide a smile and Virgil choke on his drink while Patton scolded them, and Remus made everything worse by adding onto the gag.
The food would be fantastic, as Patton’s cooking a lways was. Even Janus would compliment the meal, and Patton would go giddy with joy as he cleaned up. Janus stopped Remus snorting the crumbs on the table while Logan packed leftovers. Roman helped clean up, and he and Virgil washed the dishes in companionable silence.
He waved goodnight to everyone, the first to retire upstairs, and held the image of his family's smiling faces to his memory. He felt Remus watching him quietly as he left, but he didn’t acknowledge his brother. That was, until he found the gremlin waiting for him in his bedroom, perched on the edge of his bed in the dark with glowing green eyes like the gargoyle he was.
Roman fell asleep that night easily, with newly preened, fiery red wings.