Chapter Text
“Who are you?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still cooking.”
Midnight.
The witching hour.
Or was that 3AM? Roman scowled. No, that’s the devil’s hour…damn it, Virgil! You had to get them all mixed up!
It was nearly midnight on the Imagination’s border. Moonlight, pearlescent and brighter than it could ever shine in the real world, floated feather-light through the tall windows on Roman’s side of the Dream Palace. It made patterns of shine and shadow over the black marble floors, made nighttime caricatures of the white ivory statues that lined the corridor.
Roman’s heeled boots echoed in the silence; jarring, compared to Logan’s whisper quiet dress shoes.
Logan himself had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered this place, Roman noted as he glanced back. Curious Logan should have asked a million questions by now, or made a million plans, or be several bullet points into a lecture about gothic palace construction, why America still used imperial measurement units, or some other nerdy, obscure subject. And Roman would either pretend to be annoyed or interject witty counterpoints to make Logan stop and bluster and…
But not tonight.
Maybe he’s nervous about being here. Roman smoothed a hand over his red sash. He’s only pointed out a million times that Logic and the Imagination are anathema to one another. Maybe I should have planned something else…
Or maybe he’s just annoyed at you for dragging him out of bed in the literal middle of the night, a more insidious inner voice whispered. When you know he likes to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Roman pressed his lips together and lifted his chin. He might be a mere facet of a single person, but he was also a Prince, and Princes do not listen to inner demons. And yet, he found himself looking back for the dozenth time to make sure Logan was actually still there.
That was the only reason Roman kept looking back.
It had nothing to do with the way the translucent moonlight caught the other’s dark, immaculate hair or glinted off his glasses.
In the real world, of course, and whenever they manifested near their Source, the Sides all had precisely the same face and body as Thomas. But deep inside the mind, where physical appearance was an illusion anyway, the Sides exercised much more control.
Thomas remained their base template, but each Side also portrayed himself with features that Thomas associated with their core function. Like Patton’s fluffy curls and childlike freckles; Virgil’s hunched posture and ever-changing eyeshadow; and Remus’s abominable comic-book villain mustache. Like Deceit’s…no, Janus’s very real scales.
Roman scowled again. Damn that snake. Why did I have to think of him now?
Hopefully the lying bananaconda had better things tonight to do than pop up and spoil things. Because tonight, Roman was finally fulfilling a longtime promise and taking Logan on a grand adventure.
The thought made his heart flutter in anticipation, and he snuck another guilty look at his companion.
Logan within the mindscape was leaner than Thomas, an inch or two taller, and his neatly trimmed hair and intelligent eyes were almost black in the low light. His face was narrow and intense, the nose more aquiline, and he had a habit of standing straighter than any of the rest of them—a habit which constantly showed off his trim waist and chest muscles.
Not that Roman paid any attention to that.
Roman, by contrast, was shorter, but his shoulders were broader, his body more muscular from all the questing and sword fighting he did here in the Imagination. He wore his hair in longish disarray that paired devastatingly with his clean, square jawline; hair that could be turned loose and wild on quests or pulled neatly back as befitted royalty. His hands were strong, with long, artistic fingers as skilled at wielding pens and paintbrushes as they were at wielding swords.
He liked to think he was handsome.
He was also painfully aware of how little it mattered when a certain someone…ehem…never seemed to notice.
“Roman, I confess to still being lost as to the purpose of this journey.” Logan’s deep baritone shattered the high-ceilinged silence with its musical resonance. “You said you were taking us on a…‘lark’? If so, why are we wandering around the Dream Palace?”
“LARP.” Roman flashed him a smile. “L-A-R-P. It stands for live action role play, Specs.”
Logan’s nose wrinkled at the words “role play”, making Roman’s stomach lurch. He hates it, he hates the very idea of it, you haven’t even started and you’ve already failed…
“Oh, don’t make the scrunchy face!” Roman added, a bit louder than necessary. “At least wait until you’ve seen it.”
He’d only been planning this for weeks.
“You know, when you promised to take me on one of your ‘adventures’.” Logan made exaggerated finger quotes. “I was not expecting to be roused from bed.”
“That’s because this isn’t your average adventure.” Roman gestured around them. “I constructed a special dreamscape to get all the details right, which we can only use in the Dream Palace when Thomas is asleep.” He turned with a wink. “Only the best for you, my detail-oriented friend.”
Logan adjusted his glasses. “Let it be known that I am indulging your antics right now because you do, on occasion, stumble upon some excellent ideas. You will, in turn, have to indulge my skepticism.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m gonna pretend it was a compliment.” Roman dared another wink, which Logan rolled his eyes at.
“And here we are!” Roman stopped at a set of iconic blue doors, nearly vibrating in excitement as he waited for Logan to recognize them. The nerd did not disappoint.
“Roman…” Logan stepped forward to touch the white PULL TO OPEN sign. “The attention to detail is exquisite; this looks just like the entrance to the TARDIS. But why?”
“Because I’m taking you on a Doctor Who LARP!” Roman flapped his hands. “All we have to do is step through, the Imagination will make us Doctor and companion, and we’ll whisk away through all of time and space!”
Logan’s face bore a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Again, why?”
“Because it will be fun?” Roman bit his lip. “I…I know you aren’t into swords and sorcery and dragon-witches and whatnot. I wanted this to be something you might actually enjoy.”
Logan’s brow furrowed, as it often did when he tried to process something that didn’t fit neatly into his graphed, notated, logical worldview. Usually, it was an emotion.
“Won’t us enacting such a detailed scenario at this time of night negatively affect Thomas’s sleep?” Logan asked.
“That’s the genius of adventuring in the Dream Palace.” Roman rapped his knuckles against the TARDIS doors for emphasis. “You can do hyperreal, immersive stuff, and if Thomas does remember anything, he’ll just think he had a weird dream. The worst that could happen is he might post about it on Twitter.”
“Hmm. I can see you’ve thought this through. I am…flattered that you went to all the trouble.” Logan’s normally confident, self-assured voice softened as he spoke.
Roman bit back an ecstatic giggle at the praise. Not…not because his nerves skittered below his skin when his gaze caught Logan’s black eyes and near-smile. No, Roman was merely excited! That someone like Logan, someone he very much respected, appreciated his hard work!
It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, like some middle school boy with, you know, a crush or whatever. For the last, well…
Two years.
Ugh.
Denying his feelings would only accidentally summon Janus and his oily smirk. If that happened, Roman would most certainly die of embarrassment, and that was not a lie, thank you very much.
The truth was, ever since Thomas had placed that jar of Crofters into Logan’s hands and inspired him to sing—not just rap, or begrudgingly harmonize, but actually sing—Roman had fallen sash over boots.
How could he not?
Logan’s words and reasoning and ideas had always challenged him, pushed him to be smarter, sharper, better, just to keep up. Logan was the grounding anchor to his sails, the guide rope keeping his flights of fancy from soaring to unmanageable heights. It used to infuriate Roman, the way he and Logan came at problems from opposite sides and fought, sometimes bitterly, over the best way to meet in the middle.
But now? Now Roman relished the way they traded words in a good battle of wits, like blades in the hands of expert swordsmen. Logan, despite his open dislike for anything fanciful, was a natural wordsmith…and Roman was a great lover of poetry. He would willingly throw himself upon the sharp edges of that expertly wielded vocabulary any day…
Roman mentally reeled in that sprawling metaphor with a frown. Too much like Remus. And thinking of his brother only reminded Roman of everything that had happened over the last few months.
The Decision.
Deceit, and the way that snake had let Remus out of the shadows to wreak havoc. Then the disastrous wedding itself…
And Roman knew that Logan, through all of it, had been feeling pushed aside. Goodness knew Logan hadn’t deserved to be shoved to the back of a courtroom, or relegated to a pixel-y shadow of himself before being removed from the discussion entirely.
Worse, in both of those scenarios, Roman had either done nothing…or had actively made things worse.
Roman knew he was guilty of letting his mouth run wild in his zeal to solve Thomas’s dilemmas or in desperately hiding his true feelings. He knew his nicknames often came with barbs, he knew his insults sometimes drew blood. More often than not, in the heat and passion of the moment, Roman tended to ignore or dismiss Logan’s cool, unemotional perspective.
He knew he needed to be better.
I’ll make it up to him tonight. Roman laid a hand on the wooden blue doors and glanced back at Logan. The other nodded, giving Roman a tiny burst of confidence. He’ll get to play his favorite character and be his best nerdy self. This is going to be great!
Roman took a breath, let it out, and shoved open the TARDIS doors.