Chapter Text
Roman knew that he’d changed a lot since high school. Of course he knew, it was on purpose. He hated “Princey”. He hadn’t heard the name in years. He was now the distinguished Mr Kant, a researcher with a team underneath him. He was a doctoral advisor for multiple PHD students. No one even knew the nickname Princey.
It still haunted him in his dreams, though. Every time he messed up his persona and focused too much on himself, he heard a familiar voice’s words in his head.
That didn’t matter right now, though. His roommate and respected colleague, Logan Turing, a chemistry professor, was talking about something important. Roman made sure to maintain eye contact and mirror Logan’s body language as they walked home from the university they worked at.
“Arist said he was having someone come over for dinner later. A friend of his, apparently.” He explained to Roman, mindlessly messing with his tie.
A student of Logan’s waved at him as he walked past. He nodded back.
“Well, a friend of Patton’s is a friend of mine!” Roman smiled. “Speaking of dinner, have you thought about what you want?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Kant, I assure you I am capable of cooking a meal for myself. I appreciate the offer. I imagine Arist will bring something home or make something himself seeing as he offered to bring someone over.”
“How was work? Tell me about your students.” Roman made sure to direct the conversation away from himself. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pointedly ignored it.
“It was the same as always. You can only explain atomic structure in so many ways. I haven’t heard anyone compare my voice to bear tranquilizer yet this semester, though. How are your research team doing?” Logan tried to direct the conversation towards Roman. Roman was sure it was just a mindless pleasantry.
“They’re doing fine. Their studies of organoids as complex systems are-” Roman began, waiting for the inevitable interruption.
“Spare me the details. I just wanted to know if they’re progressing as you expected.” Logan laughed at that moment, a faint sound.
Roman smiled. “They’re doing well, as am I. We should be on track to send our paper to the journal for comment from editors in the next month or so.”
The two reached their apartment building and Logan unlocked the door.
Patton had apparently just gotten home as well, seeing as he was sitting down on the couch, knitting what appeared to be the beginnings of a sweater. It was a part of his routine, after all. Roman could usually use routines to gauge the emotions of his different roommates.
However, someone else was added to the equation. Patton had someone sitting next to him, discussing something with a slight smile. Something about their face was eerily familiar. He felt the urge to tense up his muscles as a sort of fight or flight response but he stopped it as soon as he noticed. It was impolite, after all.
He locked eyes with the person and saw…some flicker of recognition. He didn’t address it. The person was around 5’7, their round face covered in a well-trimmed beard. They had piercings, ones he believed were called snake bites, a septum, and an eyebrow piercing.
He couldn’t see their hair very well due to the purple beanie covering it but from what he could see, it was an emo haircut dyed purple.
He smiled. “Good afternoon, Patton! I assume this is your friend.” He turned his attention to the person next to Patton. “It’s very nice to meet you. I’ll try not to get in the way of your two’s hang out. I’m Patton’s roommate.” He then tried to walk to his room, he would hate to be a bother.
The figure stood up and called out. “Wait a minute, do I know you from somewhere? You look so familiar.” Their voice sounded strikingly similar to a person Roman knew in his youth. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the person he thought it was. He heard the echoes of a familiar dialogue rattle around in his mind. He tried not to compare the inflections to the voice he’d just heard.
“You look familiar as well. I may very well know you from somewhere. No matter, though. Um, my name is Roman Kant, he/him.” He braced himself for what he was sure was coming. Only mentally, of course. He wasn’t rude.
“Princey?” The voice said. At that moment, it clicked.
“Virgil.” He let himself tense at that moment, forgetting who he was. “It’s very nice to see you again. I’d hate to interrupt your time together.” He looked towards Patton and nodded politely.
“Oh no, you don’t. What the hell happened to you?” Virgil asked, shocked.
Logan and Patton shared a look that Roman didn’t want to decipher.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Roman tried to seem confused. He grabbed his wrist and began using acupressure to lower his blood pressure, which was beginning to rise. He took deep breaths to lower his heart rate.
“You…This is rich. I haven't seen you for over 15 years and now you’re like this. What happened?” Virgil questioned loudly. He crossed his arms but he didn’t seem aggravated, moreso confused. Roman was glad Virgil wasn’t mad. He wasn’t sure if he could handle it if Virgil was.
“Nothing happened to me. I simply noticed a flaw and corrected it. I’m glad to see you again, Virgil, but I’m sure your friend would appreciate your undivided attention. We can speak later. I have a lot of work to do.” He tried to stay polite but his tone got snippy. He visibly deflated. “I apologize for taking such a rude tone with you.”
Roman opened the door to his room, the one room in the apartment no one was allowed inside but him, and sat down on his bed. He had kept the room filled with reminders of his past interests, of who he used to be. He heard the same criticism in his head. He’d been hearing it repeat for the past 19 years, after all.
He blinked away the beginnings of tears from his eyes and sat down at his desk. He had work to do.
He didn’t leave his room again until two in the morning, when he was sure that everyone was asleep. He crept into the hallway and closed his door as quietly as he could manage. Their guest had left hours ago.
He grabbed a water bottle from the kitchen and returned to his room. He finally decided to check his texts. He’d been ignoring them all day.
He replied to one from his brother and his phone rang immediately. He winced as he picked up the phone.
“You are aware of how late it is, correct?” He spoke quietly into the phone, closing his laptop and plugging it in for the night.
“Can you please just talk to me like a normal person? And you know I work nightshift.” Remus spoke at a regular volume, almost pleading for some form of normalcy.
“I can try. You know I don’t want to be that person anymore. We get along now. We never did before. Back when I was…different.” He avoided overly policing his language but he still refused to fall back into his own speech patterns. He kept his inflections normal instead of over exaggerating. He almost hated himself for putting a pause before he said different. He was still just as overdramatic as he used to be.
“We only get along because you won’t let yourself be a person. You didn’t used to be this bad. You used to just be a little nicer. Now, you don’t even tell people anything about yourself beyond the surface level. When was the last time you disagreed with someone?” Remus was clearly typing in the background. Roman had no idea what he was typing.
“I’ll have you know I disagree with others every day.” He sounded like Princey for a moment when he spoke. He almost flinched when he heard the voice come out of his mouth, his inflections no longer remaining flat, his voice projected as if it needed to be heard.
“There’s my brother. Why do you force yourself to act like this? To act like a blank slate?” Remus’s smile was audible through the phone at first but Roman could hear the pure concern radiating from him.
Roman sighed. “I hate who I was before. I was…bad. I don’t know why you want me to act how I used to. All I did was hurt people.”
“It’s not better to hurt yourself instead of others. I’m gonna try and get some work done, okay? Sleep well. I miss you.” Remus waited a moment for a response before he hung up the phone.
“I don’t know why you miss me when I’m right here.” Roman then heard the distinctive click of a phone call being ended.
Roman walked into his bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. All he could see was his flaws. He was loud, overdramatic. His tone was unnatural, his movements uncanny. He had been told by one of his researchers that he looked like a perfect example of a repressed man. He wished he could have denied it but all he could do was laugh. They were correct. He was repressed. He kept his old self locked up inside his chest, banging on the bars of its cage. It snarled and fought but Roman kept it subdued, forcing it farther down. Every once in a while, it would yank on his vocal cords and take control. He’d had a major step back earlier that day.
He took a deep breath and splashed his face with water. He was not Princey, he reminded himself. He was not the annoying, self-centered, egotistical, unrealistic, loud mouthed good for nothing that many years ago Virgil had said he was.
He remembered Virgil’s exact words of course. It wasn’t as cut and dry as Roman put it. He was sure that Virgil was too kind to him. Any form of praise was most likely too kind. In his sophomore year, he was a monster, someone who demanded attention and wanted all eyes on himself. He used to be someone who thought the world revolved around him. He was someone that no one could truly love because he refused to lower himself down to their level and allow himself to be known.
He supposed that part hadn’t really changed. He still refused to let himself be known or seen by anyone. He hadn’t even let his brother back in. Remus was simply a visitor who’d done his research.
Virgil was terrifying because he knew the ins and outs of that monster that Roman used to be. Virgil considered that monster a friend until the monster bit the hand that fed it.
Roman wanted to flee but a man cannot flee his own mind. State of nature was something he was overly familiar with, the theories of Hobbes haunted his mind. He so dearly wished that Rousseau was right and he was a monstrous exception to the rule.
He knew in his heart that he was evil. It was self centered to believe he mattered enough to be evil but he allowed himself the one instance to keep himself civil, compliant, and afraid.
Roman finished his night routine and went to sleep. He woke up a measly 4 hours later at 6am. He technically didn’t have to meet with the researchers today, they didn’t need his help with compiling their graphs and finishing up the paper, but he was starting a professorship in biochemistry in a week, so he wanted to help the researchers as much as he could before he had to be confined to the limits of email and office hours.
He laid in bed as his alarm blared in his ears. He considered waking up to be a chore, one that he hated. It was something he dreaded each morning. He took a deep breath and turned off his alarm, making sure that the man trapped inside his chest was still there.
He stood up, unsteady on his feet, and forced himself to go through the steps of his morning routine. He pointedly did not smile. He was alone. His movements didn’t matter. For once, he didn’t constantly think about how he was being perceived, he just existed. He allowed himself to hum a familiar tune from his youth until his eyes became misty. He blinked the tears away.
He waited by his door, listening for any sounds that might have indicated his roommates were awake. All he heard through the thin walls was the soft breaths of deep sleep.
He opened the door and gathered his things. He managed to avoid his roommates, at least for a while. He was sure that they’d have questions for him and he wanted to avoid them as long as possible.