Work Text:
Dusk had just started falling. Roman and Remus found themselves back at that mall construction site they had loads of memories playing around in. Not all of them happy, if you asked Roman.
They were confused by how they ended up here. Despite this, they looked around with watery-eyed nostalgia.
It wasn’t much longer before they saw a couple familiar faced children about to sneak inside, via the secret entrance Roman was so proud of finding. There was no one else but the four of them.
Roman felt compelled to wave them down before they squeezed through the fence, “H-hey!”
The kids turned around, confused about the sight of two older men approach them. They looked all too familiar as well, but also strangely off.
They were twins, the more unkempt of them got in between the adults and his sibling, “And who the hell are you!?”
Remus sputtered, “… kid’s got a real mouth on him, eh?”
Roman glanced back at Remus, and at the kids with a dawning look of realization, “R-rem, I think these two kids are…”
The unkempt kid shouted back, “HEY. Ro is the only one who can call me that! Answer my question!”
Roman gave a sigh, already feeling out of his depth, “Ummm… I’m Roman.”
Remus cheerfully patted his own chest, “And I’m Remus!”
The kids just gawked at them. Roman whispered into his brother’s ear, “I-I think we broke them.”
The neater looking child finally spoke up, “W-wait. That’s our names too… who ARE you people?”
The unkempt child piped up at his sibling, “HOLD UP. What if they’re us… from the FUTURE!?”
As the four of them approached each other, they could have a better view.
The neater twin had the same mostly-olive-colored eyes as Roman, the other child’s eyes were closer to the mostly-mahogany of Remus’s eyes. There was some aspects to their facial structures that matched, if underdeveloped. But it was clear that they looked also very different over the next decade or two ahead of them.
Both had this unnatural skin color to their faces and nearly white hair. Remus had a mustache and was noticeably thinner. Roman in a varsity jacket and Remus in his own elaborately edgy fair.
The neater child bit his lip and cowered away from them, remembering the scary movies his brother would subject him to all the time. Whereas the unkempt child just approached the adult counterparts. Child Remus looked dazzled by this scary biker man.
Roman stared at his younger self, pained by the fear in his eyes. He tried to be as nonthreatening in his tone as he could, “I-I’m sorry if I scared you. I mean you n-no harm.”
Child Roman relaxed only slightly, realizing that both of them had that nervous stuttering habit, he saw a bit more of himself. “S-so… you’re really me, then? B-but older?”
Roman nodded solemnly. His younger self asked another question at both of them, “But why do you look like that?”
Child Remus had to echo that question, but with more enthusiasm, “YEAH! Why DO you look like that?”
Roman and Remus glanced at each other, not entirely sure how best to answer that. Roman started, “Um, it’s kind of a long story…”
Remus slapped Roman’s back, interrupting, “You kids seen Zombieland yet?”
Child Remus gasped, “I KNEW IT!”
Roman coughed as the air was smacked out of him, “There’s no lede burying with you, is there? What if-”
Kid Roman started sniffling, “Y-you’re a zombie? I-I’m going to be a m-mons-?”
Roman felt like he got stabbed in the chest, but gave back a defeated, “Yes.”
Remus just cackled, “Don’t worry so much! You’ll be able to do so much cool shit!”
Roman coughed again, and admonished Remus, “Language.”
Kid Remus somehow got more starry eyed, which only made Remus smile wider, continuing, “Yeah, y’know like some real superhero stuff.”
That interrupted kid Roman’s sniffling, this time looking at the scarier adult, “R-really?”
Roman could only expound, not sure if he could take more disenchantment from his younger self, “Sort of?”
Remus rolled his eyes at Roman, before saying, “Yeah, Ro saved my ass once!”
Roman elbowed Remus, but Remus continued to regale, “Yeah. You’d think it was like Mortal Kombat, but IN REAL LIFE.”
Roman buried his face in his palms, unsure if he should be mortified at giving them such graphic imagery… but also strangely proud to hear Remus’s tone of respect and gratitude for what happened. Rescuing his brother, knowing he had to thank him for the newfound strength. But he still shuddered at the sheer brutality, just the same. Roman didn’t realize his hands drifted down as he was getting lost in thought.
Remus gave his brother another hearty smack to snap him out of it, “Yeah. It was BRUTAL. And dare I say it? AMAZING.”
Roman hesitated, “Y-yeah, I guess that’s… one way to put it.”
Child Roman still looked scared again, perhaps moreso than before as his own imagination ran a little loose on him, “O-okay. I’m not really sure… I want to hear m-more of that.”
Roman gave him a look of sympathy, before Child Remus jumped in, “Maybe YOU don’t. I got more I wanna ask!”
Remus chuckled, “Shoot.”
Roman flinched at that, which only made his younger self confused. Both Remuses didn’t seem to care.
Child Remus started off with a line of questions that made both Romans squirm a little, “So do you like, eat brains? What do they taste like? Why aren’t you like mindless and attacking people?”
Roman decided to approach his younger self, whispering to him before Remus could really get started answering him, “W-would you like to have moment away from that talk?”
Child Roman looked up at him to see a sad sort of kindness, “O-okay. Yeah.”
-
Remus was leaning against a fence post gladly entertaining his younger self.
He laughed, “Yeah. We zombies kind of have to eat brains if we don’t want to go nuts on everyone.”
“What happens then?”
“Well. You start losing parts of yourself and then there’s just nothing but hunger.”
Young Remus was a bit too chipper, “Oooh. That sounds scary!”
“Yeah. I’m gonna give it to you real – I was a bad decision away from getting to that point.”
“Pffft, when have I never made a bad decision!”
Remus briefly became serious, “Touche. But yeah. Ro finally got his big damn hero moment with me. And I prooobably wouldn’t be here if not for that.”
Before Child Remus could ask, his older self got jovial again, “ANYWAYS. Remember that time you felt like eating an entire stick of butter, despite being told not to? From basically everyone?”
The kid excitedly shook his up and down as his adult self explained, “It’s kind of like that. And sucking pennies.”
Child Remus blinked, “Sounds gross.”
Remus shrugged, “You get used to it.”
“What’s it like?”
Remus quirked an eyebrow, “’fraid you gotta be more specific.”
“I don’t know. How does it feel? And- and- how did you become a zombie?”
Remus was struck by a rare moment of restraint, “I was sick as a dog, jumped at the opportunity to feel better, and here we are!”
Child Remus jumped subject matter, staring at his brother sat by a tree, “I guess… I’m kind of happy that we’ll still have each others backs.”
Yet again, restraint, Remus decided not to tell his kid self about going to prison, being estranged from the family, or the fact he went through a cancer diagnosis. Or the whole story of being held captive. Didn’t want to bum the kid out over that whole mess. Even if there were some laughs in all of it too.
Remus shook his head, thinking, “Man, you’ve gone soft, haven’t you?”
Whatever. Being a zombie was cool as hell, both of them could agree on that one. They lost track of time as they continued chattering the night away.
-
Roman and his younger self went over to a nearby tree and sat down at it’s roots, at a fairly wide angle of distance.
They sat there in silence for a little while, before Child Roman broke it, “I-I’m scared of you.”
Roman sighed, leaning on the tree, “I don’t blame you. I scare me too.”
“B-but your Rem made you sound so brave…”
“I was scared out of my mind when that happened. When… everything changed.”
“H-how did you b-become a zombie?”
Roman glanced at his younger self, surprised, “Let’s just say Rem saved me too.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. I probably wouldn’t even be here if-”
“… you don’t sound so happy about that.”
“Yeah. Sometimes too many things happen, too soon, too fast.”
Child Roman looked like he was trying to process what that actually meant. Roman chuckled lightly, “Yeah, just something I learned when I got help with... Everything.”
“Uhhh...”
“Ug. I hope this is some kind of dream and I’m not creating some weird time paradox nonsense but-”
“Y-you mean like Back To The Future?”
“Yeah, but I mean. I guess if I had to tell a past version of myself something… you know you can ask for help, and you deserve it? Right?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I didn’t know what that really meant until I had to learn it.”
It was getting dark out, and the two sat in contemplative silence. Until Child Roman fell asleep against his older self, too tired to register how cold he was.
Roman missed feeling that sort of warmth. Maybe he would try for sleep again, here.
-
Eventually, the children fell asleep.
And the adults woke up, the periphery of the construction site dissolved by the safe house living room.