Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

what about a fic where Janus and Logan are constantly in a stalemate when they play strategy games against each other, and then decide to play Roman and Remus because they think it’ll be a nice change and an easy win. Only to find out that while the twins may not understand the textbook names for, say, chess strategies, they are Scary Good at those types of games. – anon

"It is just me," Logan sighs as Janus consults the board in front of him, "or is this getting a little…boring?"

"Don't worry, I'll put you out of your misery soon enough."

"No, Janus, I'm being serious."

Janus pauses in reaching for the piece in front of him, glancing up at Logan's tone. At the expression on his face, he sighs and leans back in his chair. "What do you mean? Do you want to switch games?"

"I'm just stating a fact. We already know that your strategy is going to be to monopolize the area along the coast, which cuts me off from being able to use those trade routes and slow down the time I'm able to craft defenses for when you start to actively attack me—" Janus's fingers twitch in silent acknowledgement that Logan's right— "and I'm going to work on getting all the main routes divided up so that you have to go through one of my checkpoints which will effectively drain your resources to the point where you'll need way more output than is feasible before you get anywhere close to my capitals."

"I will neither confirm nor deny any of those statements."

"And then it won't matter whose strategy works out better, because it will come down to who has better luck with drawing the right number of basic building components and who rolls better for going first in conflict scenarios," Logan finishes with a sigh of his own. "We need to face it: we know each other too well for this to be any sort of fun."

Janus looks at the board, then at the rule book, then pinches the bridge of his nose. "Have we really played this that many times? I didn't think we'd reach this point yet."

Logan lets his gaze drift over to the rest of their games. "I don't know necessarily if that's what the problem is, I think it's just that we're too good at these types of games. We understand how each other thinks a little too well. So, we're not having the best experience because we get four or five plays out of games that would take most people closer to eight or nine."

"Such is the problem with being this way, I guess," Janus chuckles, only for Logan to muffle a snort into his coffee. "What do you propose? Not switching to something like Uno, certainly."

"No, of course not, what do you take me for?" He shakes his head. "No. I think we should try playing against someone else."

"What? But the sanctity of board game nights!"

"Which is why—and hear me out, here," he says when Janus already looks put out, "we should ask if the twins want to play with us."

Janus's nose wrinkles. "The twins? Why them?"

"Aside from the fact that they're the only two who would also respect the sanctity of board game nights—"

"Fair enough."

"—you also enjoy watching people figure out just how out-maneuvered they are."

Janus's mouth twitches. He eyes the game with a new zeal in his eyes. "You say as if you don't enjoy the 'here's exactly how I beat you' monologues as well."

"I never made any such claim. Besides, it'll be refreshing, playing against someone else."

"You mean beating someone else."

"That too."

"Alright, then," Janus declares with a grin, "let's invite the twins to play."

"Thank you for inviting us," Roman says quietly as Remus cackles gleefully at Janus's joke, "I know how special board game nights are for you two, I promise we'll behave accordingly."

"Thank you, Roman." Logan winks. "I promise we'll go easy on you."

"Oh, I don't believe that for a second."

"Are you two done flirting over there?" The two of them spring apart, red dusting the top of Roman's ears as Logan adjusts his tie. Remus holds up the box with a grin. "Come on, let's get started! I'm dying to see this thing Janny's been talking my ear off about."

"Then put the box down so I can unpack it, you heathen."

"Would you prefer if we explained how the game works," Logan asks as the four of them sit around the table, "or do you want to read the rules by yourselves?"

"Do you mind if we read them?" Roman reaches out and grabs Remus by the shoulder, pulling him onto the same chair. "Creativity brain things."

"No, of course, go ahead. Ask us any questions you might have."

The two of them turn their gazes on the rulebook and, if neither Logan nor Janus had seen how they read things together before, it would look as if they weren't reading at all. Their eyes scan the text with eerie synchronicity before flipping the pages in near silence. After about five minutes, Roman hands the rulebook back to Logan and smiles.

"Shall we begin?"

"In order to make this fair for you," Janus says with an air that has Logan snickering under his breath, "would you prefer for Logan and I to go first before you two? So you can see how it works?"

"Sure, yeah, thanks."

"Bring it on, Janny!"

Janus's smirk widens. "As you wish."

The first few rounds are mostly uneventful, as go the way of most games. Sure, Remus decides his first move is going to be to place something in the middle of a large territory in the middle of nowhere with nothing but basic level components, and Roman decides to focus securing a mid-level territory with a variety of components as though it's one of the high-value areas, but this is their first time playing. Logan and Janus exchange a look and a small grin.

"You were right," Janus says as he casually takes one of the optimal positions along the coast, something Roman passed up on his last turn, "this is refreshing to play with other people."

"I had a feeling you'd say that."

"Wait!"

They all pause, looking at Remus, who points at the set of cards Janus had just played.

"You can't do that."

"I assure that I can, Remus."

"No, look at the ore you have. You need one more."

"No," Janus says patiently, pointing at the board, "this says I only need four ore. So, I'm playing four ore."

"But you're trying to put a major settlement there. All major settlements need one extra ore to be placed for the first time. Afterwards, you can run through like normal but you need to build it up first."

Janus glances at Logan, who grabs the rulebook, flipping through it. "This isn't real life, Remus."

To their surprise, though, it's Roman who snorts. "Yeah, of course it isn't. Then you'd actually need to take an extra turn to make a combined ore so your walls don't wear away with the seawater or face having to rebuild it like, every three turns or so."

He glances up when both Logan and Janus stare at him.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Combined ore?"

"Yeah, it's how they think Roman concrete was so strong. One theory is that they had quicklime incorporated into the mixture that would act as like a self-healing thing that would react with incoming water to fill any cracks. That way they wouldn't have to waste time and resources rebuilding the walls every time they got cracked," and here Roman indicates the board again. "Of course this isn't real life, otherwise all of your stuff should be geared towards ore production which would leave you no room to do literally anything else on your own."

Janus blinks. And blinks. And blinks again. Logan quickly looks back at the rulebook, only to swallow. "Remus is right. You need an extra ore."

"Well." He quickly places another ore on top. "There. Problem solved. Good catch, Remus."

"Thanks."

Logan quickly scans Janus's resources. If he's right, and he likes to think he is, then that just threw off Janus's whole strategy. The distribution of ore is now way off for anything he wants to do in subsequent turns and he's going to have to spend all of them trying to get to deposits that are way too far away.

"Logan? It's your turn."

"Right. Thank you."

The game continues. Logan can't help but keep glancing at Janus, whose hand is now hidden in the folds of his cloak. Judging by the way his arm keeps twitching, he's barely restraining himself from making a fist. He glances down at his own resources. He still has enough to secure the high-level territory and then start running things through as he normally would. He finishes his turn and Remus nods. He picks up a few cards and leafs through them.

"Ro, I need scrap."

"Here."

"Oh, alright, we're just blatantly cheating now," Janus says, a bit more bite in his voice than there otherwise might have been.

"What? We're not cheating."

"What do you call that, then?"

"We have an alliance. If you're an allied territory adjacent to the player marker, you can trade as an action."

"Logan," Janus barks but Logan's already reaching for the rulebook. He flips through it.

"Oh."

"That's a thing?"

"It's only a thing for more than two players," Logan says quietly, "and we normally only play with the two of us."

"Oh. Shit. Uh—" Remus glances at Roman— "we can play without it if you guys—"

"No, no, we should play rules as written."

"…do you guys want a second to look at it?"

"Yes, if you wouldn't mind," Logan mutters, adjusting his glasses. Janus leans over too.

"Sorry," and the way Remus's voice gets all soft and unsure tugs at Logan's chest, "I thought you guys would know about it."

"It's okay, Re, it's no one's fault. Besides, you could use one of your actions to trade your wheat for scrap if you really wanted to."

"I know, I know, but that eats into my buffer if I draw a natural disaster and I don't wanna risk it."

"That's fair. You've got a pretty decent ore line going though, won't you get a bonus to your roll just because of the terrain?"

"Yeah, that's true."

The confidence with which they're discussing the mechanics has Logan shifting a little where he sits. In an attempt to distract himself, he focuses more intently on the Alliances section of the rule book. As he does so, however, he tenses.

Slowly, he looks up at the board.

Remus's territories consist of the large, land-locked sections at the top of the map with the exception of one small coast port on the far side of the map, too far away to be useful as a trading post for a larger kingdom but guaranteeing him some of the resources only available in ports. Because all of his deposits are so far away from everything else, he has a natural barrier from attacks and no open way to interrupt his supply chain. Roman, on the other hand, is holding onto a few territories smack in the middle of the map that don't necessarily contain the high value resources, but they have every single mid-level and basic deposit there is. He isn't focusing on expanding, only on holding onto what he already has, and his fortifications make it damn near impossible to travel through, let alone raid. But what he can do is trade anything and everything with Remus, who will supply him with enough basic components in bulk to be able to sustain what he's already built. And in turn, Remus gets everything he needs access to without having to lose valuable time trying to get to it himself.

If Logan's reading the rules correctly, the twins have already won the game. It's just a matter of time.

Judging by the way Janus's hand curls decidedly into a fist in his lap, he's realized the same thing. The two of them exchange a look.

"Do you guys want to play with the Alliances thing? We don't have to if you don't want to."

"It's fair," Janus says weakly, "we can do it. Hey, Logan, would you like to be my ally?"

"Uh—" he looks down at their combined resources, which are impressive, yes, but not built for this sort of gameplay— "sure. Let's see what we can do."

What they can do turns out to be bleed themselves slowly dry until they have no more moves left and the twins win.

"Wow, that was fun!" Remus claps his hands. "Thank you guys for inviting us to play, can we do it again?"

"Certainly. Though, maybe a different game first." Logan adjusts his glasses. "How…did you do it? That was a very impressive strategy for your first time."

"Really? It's kind of just…what we normally do."

"What you normally do?"

Roman gives him a look. "You do realize that the kingdoms in the Imagination are actual kingdoms, right? We have to do stuff in there, it's not all just quests."

"You mean 'prince' and 'duke' aren't just titles you made up for the fun of it?"

"What? No! Look, when the King left—" and here Remus clutches Roman's shoulder— "things still had to get done. I took on the role of prince to run the main kingdom and cities and trade routes and politics and stuff and Remus handles the borders and the farms and the other resources gathering stuff. This is literally what we already do."

"Though again, way easier. We don't have to check for quality in any of this, it's just good and you know it's gonna work."

"And there aren't any convenient large creatures we can ally with that will help us."

"I wanna put Ollie in this game!"

"Remus, you can't put Ollie in every game—"

"Oh, really? Watch me."

"Yeah," Logan mumbles, "we're definitely playing a different game next time."

Chapter Text

IF you are open to writing a part two at some point, I am very interested in what happens next! Is there angst as Roman and Remus realize why Janus and Logan REALLY invited them to board game night? – anon

"Oh, no, wait, we can't do Thursday," Roman says, glancing down at his phone, "that's board game night."

"Wait, you and Remus are still going to those?"

Roman ruffles Virgil's hair. "Don't besmirch the sanctity of board game night, shadow-ling."

Virgil raises his hands in mock surrender. "I would never, I would never. Wait, so how does that…work?"

"What do you mean? Re and I go and they pick out a game and we play."

"Do…you and Remus ever pick out games?"

"Sometimes we bring one of ours if we think they'll like it—"

"How do two separate groups of people in here have board game collections? Did Pat and I just miss a memo or something?"

Roman shrugs. Virgil shakes his head, leaning against the foot of the couch. "But their collection has like, more advanced board games that are fun if you play them with a bigger group. They have some that are like, two-player only but I think those are mainly for them and they don't play them with anyone else. Re and I mostly have like, co-op games or party games and nothing super, like, world-building heavy."

"Really? I would've thought it had been the opposite."

Roman grins. "Who needs a few pieces of cardboard and plastic when we have the whole Imagination to use? We've looked at half a dozen games at least and decided we could do it better, so we did."

"Really? Like what?"

"There's this one horror board game called—"

"I'm sorry, a horror board game?"

"Yeah, board games come in all sorts of genres, so it's a horror board game that's called The Night Cage and it's about being trapped in the dark maze with only a candle and you have to explore it to find keys and gates so you can escape from the darkness and the monsters."

Virgil stares at him. "It's a what where you have to do what?"

"Yeah, it's pretty fun—"

"So wait, wait, wait: you and Remus saw this absolute nightmare of a game concept and then went you know what? Not scary enough, we gotta do this for real? That's what I'm hearing right now?"

Roman rubs the back of his head. "Essentially? I mean, we don't make it as scary as the game would imply it is for its prisoners, we can still, like, hear and talk to each other all the time instead of being literally alone in darkness, but yeah, basically."

"Wow." Virgil shakes his head with a huff. "No wonder you guys lasted longer than me and Pat did."

"I mean, I'd be happy to show you that it's not really that scary once you get your bearings and play a few times, but—" Roman stops. His hands fall back into his lap. "Wait, what do you mean, 'lasted longer?'"

"I just mean going to board game nights with Janus and Logan, that's all. If you're doing stuff like that when you're not with them anyway, then yeah, no wonder."

He frowns. "What do you mean? No wonder what?"

Virgil shrugs, one leg lazily flopping to his side. "Well, I imagine you guys can like, win against them and stuff."

"Yeah, we win, but so do they, and it's not—sometimes we bring one of our co-op games and then either we all win or we all lose."

"Huh. Didn't think that was their sort of style."

"Virgil, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing, nothing," Virgil raises his hands, "I'm not trying to say anything. I think it's great that you and Remus are having fun, I do. I'm just glad it didn't go down for you like it did for us."

"Yeah, you keep saying stuff like that, and I have no idea what you're talking about. What—what happened with you and Patton? I didn't know that you guys had ever been invited to board game nights."

Virgil pauses. His gaze narrows a little as he looks at Roman. Roman just shrugs helplessly until Virgil sighs. He scrubs a hand over his mouth and sits up a bit more. "Roman, I don't know if I should say this."

"Well, that certainly doesn't make me feel better."

"Yeah, I know, but it's—I don't know for sure if they did this with you guys and it seems like—it really seems like you guys are having a lot of fun when you play games with them and I don't wanna ruin it for you."

Ice begins to drift down Roman's spine. He swallows. "Virgil…"

"I know, I know, I'm making it worse, aren't I?"

"A little bit."

Virgil sighs. "Look, all my normal disclaimers are in effect, okay?"

"Got it."

"I was…they invited me and Pat to a bunch of board game nights and at first we were really excited. Because it's like, their thing, you know? And we wanted to be a part of it, even it was just a one-off, because it was important to them and we wanted to show it was important to us too, right?"

Roman nods. Virgil runs a hand through his hair.

"And we told them, you know, we're not big board game people, we're not gonna know stuff, can we maybe pick a game that everyone will have fun with, you know, normal things you ask when you do something with people that have been doing it for a while."

"Reasonable."

"And they picked this game that they said was good for beginners and it was…fine. It was a fun enough game. I mean, we had to play it twice because Logan won so quickly that neither Pat nor I could really figure out how to play to begin with, but it was fine. It was fun. And yeah, it felt a bit weird that they were, like, done after that? I mean, you know them, board game nights normally last all night, but here we all were after like, an hour and they were saying they were done?"

Roman frowns. "That is weird."

"Right? So we're like, okay, maybe they figured out they didn't actually like playing games with other people and that's fine, we can go, you guys can have your special night back, but then they just, like, kept doing it?"

"Doing what?"

"Having us play, like, a super quick game—well, a pretty quick game—where Pat and I would lose pretty bad and then send us away. And I'd pass by the door later and they'd clearly be playing a different game."

"That…sucks, Virgil, I'm really sorry. I can talk to them if you want—"

"Oh, no," Virgil chuckles without any humor, "I'm not at the part you wanna talk to them about yet."

"Well, that definitely doesn't make me feel better."

"Yeah, it shouldn't." Virgil shakes his head. "I decided to stop one night, you know? Just listen to them, figure out what game they were playing so that me and Pat could sort of figure it out on our own and maybe play it together next time, something that might be nice and fun to do."

Roman does not like the way Virgil said fun and nice.

"And I hear Janus talking about the 'warm up round.' And I think, well, yeah, that's a nice way to play games, you can sort of get your bearings before playing it for real once everyone knows anything, hey, maybe I'll suggest that next time, and then Logan goes: 'Yeah, I just wish they at least dragged it out a little bit longer.'"

Virgil stares at Roman like he's supposed to understand. When Roman just shakes his head cluelessly, staring right back, Virgil sighs.

"Roman, they were using me and Pat as a warm-up game. They were inviting us so they could beat us and get it out of the way so they could warm up for playing each other."

Oh.

Oh.

"What," he breathes out, "the absolute fuck?"

"I thought I might be misinterpreting things because, you know, Anxiety, but then I actually confronted Logan about it and he…basically said the same thing. He wasn't super rude about it like he was when he didn't know I could hear him but…yeah, said, like, 'why else would we invite you,' some stupid shit like that."

Roman collapses back to the couch in a daze. His mouth opens and closes several times with no sound coming out.

"But you said they actually listen to you and Remus when you guys want to play your games and you even get them to play co-op!" Virgil scrambles up and sits next to Roman. "I don't—maybe it's not the same thing?"

He swallows.

"I mean, did they—did it ever feel like—"

"They were so angry that we won."

"Huh?"

"The first time they invited us. They had us play a game that—" he huffs without humor— "that was literally what we do—which they didn't know, they didn't know that Remus and I literally run kingdoms in the Imagination, and they were so mad at us that we won. They didn't want us to see it, but I could see it. Remus called out that Janus wasn't following the rules as written and he got so pissed off. And then there was a set of rules they didn't even know about because they never play with more than two people—"

"They played it with us."

"Huh?"

"If it's the one I'm thinking of—the one with the territories and the building and stuff and the big map with the sea monster in the corner, right?"

"Yeah."

"They played it with us."

"And they didn't—did you guys know about the Alliances rules? Where you can work with another player to do certain actions and stuff?"

Virgil's smile is tight lipped. "Nope."

Roman huffs. "Yeah. Well, they didn't know about it. And Remus and I won and they only thing they said was that they'd make us play a different game next time."

"Ah." Virgil slumps against the couch. "Well, shit."

"Shit."

Silence. The fridge buzzes. A car drives by.

"I'm really sorry, Princey," Virgil mumbles, "I didn't…I didn't mean to ruin it for you."

"You didn't ruin anything, Virgil. Thank you for telling me."

"Alright, Ro, I got everything, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, Ollie's slime, let's—whoa." Remus skids to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. "What's got you two looking like negative narwhals?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Virgil glance at him. Wordlessly, he holds out a hand and Remus drops everything he's holding, come to sit in front of Roman.

"What? What's wrong, Roro?"

Roman swallows. "Virgil, tell Re what you told me."

Logan sighs, checking his watch for the third time in as many minutes. "They're late."

Janus huffs, already toying with a piece of the game laid out in front of them. "See if we ever invite them back."

"I'm going to go see what's keeping them. Maybe they just lost track of time."

"Yeah, a likely story." He bumps Logan's shoulder as they walk toward the door. "Maybe they're just nervous."

Logan chuckles. The two of them make their way toward the Imagination, only to pause when they hear laughter coming from downstairs. Lots of laughter, and two laughs in particular. Logan glances at Janus, Janus makes a don't look at me face, and they start towards the noise.

"Oh my God, shut up, Pat, it's not."

"Nope! It's yellow, now draw your cards."

"I'll draw you a card, how about that?"

"That's not a threat, Re, we all know how good your drawing skills are."

"Aw, thanks, Roro."

"Remus, it's still your turn."

"Do you not see me picking up every card in this deck because there's no more fucking yellow left?"

Another round of laughter as Logan and Janus peer over the railing. Sure enough, Roman and Remus are on the couch, Virgil perched on the floor on the other side of the table, Patton leaning over in the chair they've dragged closer. There are two piles of cards in the middle, one far more haphazard than the other, and all of them have garish colors.

"You're telling me," Janus says suddenly, causing everyone to jump—and Virgil to let out a quiet don't fucking do that, J— "that you didn't come to board game night to play Uno?"

"Oh, did we not tell you?" Remus bats his eyelashes in a way that fools no one. "Sorry, must've forgotten. You guys can go play without us, we're good here. Go, Roro."

"Is it still yellow?"

"Yeah."

"Goddamnit."

"Yeah, please tell me you have a Wild in there somewhere."

"No, I do not." Roman sighs and goes to draw a card only to glace up and see them still standing there. "We can deal you in if you guys want. Patton can give you some of his yellow cards."

"I don't actually have that many yellow cards, you guys—"

"See, now, I don't believe you, because none of us have yellow and there keeps being a yellow card on top of this deck here and it's only coming from you—"

Patton giggles and glances over his shoulder. "Come on, guys! It's fun, you can—"

"No," Janus says quickly, clearly fighting the urge to turn up his nose if Logan has anything to say about it, "that's fine. I'm not the biggest fan of Uno."

"Oh, that's right, I forgot." Remus's grin sharpens. "You only like games where you can feel better about yourselves by beating people."

Logan freezes. So does Janus. He stares blankly at Remus who just grins back.

"Sorry if Ro and I don't feel like proving ourselves tonight," he says easily as Roman joins his brother in staring them down, "we like playing games because it's fun to do things with our friends and it's nice to have fun."

"You guys are welcome to play," Roman continues, indicating the extra room on the couch.

"G-guys," Janus stammers, "we—I—that's not why—"

"Don't bother trying to lie, Janus," Patton says quietly and Logan's gut clenches at the soft disappointment on his face, "you two didn't exactly make it a secret."

"So," Remus says, clapping his hands. It rings like a gunshot. "Are you two coming to play? No? Hm, pity, didn't think so. Virgil, please change the goddamn color."

"Oh, don't worry, I got you." Virgil throws his card down. "Remus, draw four."

"That is not what I fucking meant, and you know it."

"Sorry, can't hear you over the four cards you need to draw."

"Actually—"

"No," Roman says, "no, Remus, don't do it. Don't do that to me."

"I'm sorry, Ro. I'm really sorry."

Roman sighs. "I think we're both sorry, actually, Patton."

"No," Virgil cackles as Patton stares at them both in horror, "no way, there's no way you both have Draw Fours, there's no way—"

"Consider this payback for all the fucking yellow you made us look for," Roman says, throwing his card down on top of Remus's. Patton just sticks his tongue out and starts picking up his cards. "Let's make it…blue."

"Oh, thank God, Princey, this is why we're friends."

Logan swallows. He glances at Janus, who looks away, mouth twitching.

The two of them leave as the others start laughing again and he's pretty sure none of them even notice.