#roman christmas blast upon your dash

[itznarcotic]

HASHIRE SORI YO—

[wroammin]

a hero’s welcome

word count: 1445

warnings: self-loathing, panic attacks, crying, slight gore (because remus)

summary: roman hides out in his room after the events of putting others first. the other sides try to show him how much he’s missed in their own special ways.

once again, happy birthday to the man, the myth, the himbo: roman sanders

it takes weeks for roman to come out of his room after janus reveals his name.

the others worry almost constantly about his well-being, but after multiple failed attempts at convincing him to come out for movie nights, video recordings, or even just food, they can only hope that roman will come around on his own eventually.

and he does. slowly.

it starts with a few missing disney movies from the TV cabinet, a half-eaten jar of logan’s off-limits crofter’s (which both logan & remus swear they did not touch) left mysteriously on the kitchen counter, and then, on one particularly late night for logan, a brief, silent encounter with a bleary-eyed prince in search of a cup of water.

logan notices roman is looking more bedraggled than bedazzled, with wrinkles running all across his costume and dark-colored bags under his eyes that are eerily reminiscent of virgil’s eyeshadow.

no words are exchanged, but as logan carefully hands roman a glass which he’s filled nearly to the brim, roman knows no words are necessary. he can practically recite logan’s self-care spiel by memory anyway.

eventually, the disney movie collection in the TV cabinet dwindles down to a Frozen DVD (which they’d all recently rewatched anyway), and the old, dusty VHS copy of Black Cauldron (which roman’s never particularly liked). seeing as it’s his personal favorite disney movie, virgil tries not to feel too offended by that.

what virgil can’t stop himself from feeling, however, is worry. it’s not an unfamiliar feeling to him, of course, but it doesn’t make him any less uncomfortable.

he tries all of the usual things to calm his nerves: sitting on strange surfaces, fiddling with a fidget cube, rewatching The Nightmare Before Christmas, napping excessively, and—naturally—blasting music through his bulky headphones.

but even with My Chemical Romance screaming out of his speakers, virgil simply can’t ignore the alarming absence of that familiar, sash-framed figure. 

despite his quarrelsome quips with the prince, virgil can admit that there’s always been a certain... comfort to hearing roman’s boisterous voice belting broadway ballads down the halls, or seeing him dash off on another adventure to defeat the dragon witch for the umpteenth time. 

it’s when virgil’s sullenly staring at roman’s usual spot, in the corner of his room, that an idea suddenly strikes him. 

the next morning, roman sneaks down to the living room in the early hours of the day after deciding that rewatching Frozen (again) doesn’t sound so bad after all. he opens the movie cabinet to find a bit of a surprise in the form of a The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD with a scrap of paper taped hastily to the cover. the chicken scratch scrawled onto the sheet is hard to decipher, but he manages to see it reads:

“i have my own backup copy and i’ll hit play at 8pm tonight. you can do it too, so then we can sort of watch the movie together. i’ll let you pick tomorrow’s movie, if you want to, but fyi i will be picking black cauldron the next time it’s my turn. -virgil”

roman smiles subtly as he makes his way back up to his room, the first flicker of joy he’s felt in a while.

he sits down to watch the movie at 8pm, just like virgil instructed. 

for the next night, he chooses aladdin, and for the night after that, he begrudgingly agrees to watch black cauldron. 

twenty minutes into the film, virgil hears a haste knock at his door. before he even knows what’s happening, roman is shuffling inside and curling up on the couch next to him. 

unsurprisingly, the tired prince falls asleep before the movie finishes. surprisingly, virgil doesn’t actually mind all that much. 

meanwhile, patton has nearly eaten his way through the entire cookie stock in the pantry.

it’s not a healthy coping mechanism for his sadness, he knows, but it’s not like he can just go and ask roman to conjure up some puppies for him instead. patton sniffles at the thought, which serves as a painful reminder of how roman was always there for him when he was feeling down, and how patton can’t do the same for him now.

the others hold an intervention for him after logan finds him sobbing over some reheated spaghetti because it made him think of roman. virgil then explains how he’s been watching movies with roman, and how patton can leave some snacks for the prince in the cabinet along with a note if he wants to send a message. 

that very night, patton stays up past midnight to prepare some spaghetti with extra, extra love (& cumin) for roman. he draws him a card and writes a message inside, then sticks it to the top of the tupperware container containing the spaghetti using glitter glue. 

upon discovering patton’s care package beside virgil’s usual note inside the cabinet, roman feels his mood suddenly shift.

he thinks of the days he spent sobbing for hours inside of his room and staring in the mirror and pacing back and forth and staring in the mirror and laying on his bed and staring in the mirror and working through the tears and staring in the mirror and then slicing a line clean through the mirror with his sword and watching his reflection split in two.

those weren’t good days.

but then he thinks of patton’s pleading, hopeful voice whenever he would call him down for movie nights, video recordings, or food.

maybe patton wasn’t lying when he said roman was loved. maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to see him and the others out in the open again. maybe there were better days ahead.

remus, however, doesn’t wait around for roman to feel better. as always, he continuously swings by his brother’s room whenever he feels like it and leaves whenever he pleases.

still, his visits aren’t as fun anymore. perhaps he just doesn’t have the energy, but roman no longer bothers to shriek at remus to get out of his room or to push remus off his desk when he drapes himself across it.

not even the severed, mutilated head that remus kindly leaves on roman’s pillow elicits its usual slew of creative curse words, so the duke decides to step up his game.

he skips casually into roman’s room one late afternoon, lazily swinging his morning star at his side and whistling a jaunty tune. as usual, roman doesn’t spare him a single glance. he’s staring down at some kind of crayon-covered card.

it only takes one hit to knock roman out, but dragging him into the living room is a much more difficult process.

the other sides are already waiting, just like janus promised they would be. they rush over and prop roman up on the couch. patton gives remus a few reprimanding words, virgil sends him a couple scowls, and even logan looks on with more disapproval than usual, but they quickly forget their anger at him as soon as roman groans groggily and slowly blinks open his eyes.

remus takes that as his cue to leave. janus is waiting at the top of the stairs.

“so you’re sure that this plan of yours is going to work?”

janus scoffs. “of course i am. though, have you considered that perhaps you’re just not as annoying to your brother anymore?”

“have you considered that perhaps i could start leaving chopped heads on your pillow instead if your ‘master plan’ fails?” remus shoots him the prettiest, toothiest smile he can muster.

janus’ expression darkens. “well. i suppose it’s a good thing i’m certain it will work, then.”

the sound of laughter bubbles up from the living room. janus doesn’t bother to hide his satisfied smirk.

“i’ll say, when you told me you could help me get roman back to normal, forcing him to attend a party was not what i had in mind.”

“do i even want to know what you had in mind?” janus gives him a quick side glance.

remus’ eyes light up. “well–”

“rhetorical question, remus. ugh, maybe i should start saying ‘figuratively’, as well. anyway, yes, i thought it was about time roman stopped sulking. so, what better way to get him out of his room than by having a, uh, hero’s welcome of sorts for him?”

“well, i got him out of his room by dragging him by his feet.”

janus sighs, wondering why he even opens his mouth to speak anymore. 

his plan better work.

though, judging by the sound of patton and logan’s exhasperated sighs as roman and virgil argue over which movie to watch, he has the sneaking suspicion it will.