#sandersidesgiftexchange2020

[winterknight1087]

Hardly the Villains

Summary: Roman is the superhero Prince, who fights against the Dark Sides, consisting of Green Menace, Viper, and Shadow Wing. What happens when Roman discovers the real identity of these villains will change his outlook of them.

Word Count: 4868

Warnings: sympathetic Remus, sympathetic Deceit/Janus, fighting, injuries, cursing

Pairings: eventual romantic LAMP, romantic Demus, brotherly creativitwins, brotherly anxceit

AO3 Link       My Writing

@rosesisupposes I am so sorry this is a little bit late! 2020 ended the same way it went. But still, I hope you enjoy your @sanderssidesgiftxchange present! It was a fun challenge to work on a superhero fic focused on Roman and Remus!

"Here hold this."

The masked hero barely had time to catch the thing thrown at him, much less identify what it was, before the stick of dynamite blew up in his face. If it were any other super villain, then this would have been the end of the hero. Yet, Green Menace didn't seem to get the memo that he was supposed to try and kill the hero.

The hero let out a squawk as, for the third time this week, his face and hair were covered in cartoonish ash. He heard the cackle of the villain as Viper told Menace that they needed to go.

"Til next time, Princey." Shadow Wing announced.

“Stop flirting and let’s get out of here.” Viper stated to Shadow, not caring if the hero heard or not. The hero did hear, but he also couldn’t see Shadow’s reaction as the villain scooped up Viper and vanishing into the shadows.

"Well, this was fun!" Menace cackled before pulling a paint brush out of nowhere and painting a tunnel on a wall.

The hero knew better than to go after Menace at that point. All of Menace’s powers followed cartoon logic. He had flown straight into too many walls to know that only Menace could use those dumb paintings to travel. So, the hero sigh and flew off.

 ****

“Like honestly, does that fiend have any idea how hard it is to get that gunk out of my hair?” Roman scrubbed his hair with the towel around his head.

His boyfriend didn’t even bother looking up from his book. “I highly doubt that he knows considering that he is smart enough not to be here after your fights.”

“Sure, I have to take a shower anyways, because of normal fight dirt, but that fiend just has to give me that dumb stick and I have to spend 5ever trying to get the stuff out of my hair!”

“You could try asking him not to hand you the stick of dynamite.”

Roman gave the book Logan was holding determinedly in front of his face, the glare meant for the nerd. “Right, yeah, sure. Something like ‘Excuse me, fiend I fight at least three times a week, can you like not hand me your explosion gunk sticks? Thanks boo.’ How’s that sound?”

“Sounds perfect, RoRo! Just make sure to use your please and thank you’s!” The third boyfriend said, swooping in with a plate of cookies.

Logan finally lowered his book to glance at his watch. “Hmm, you are getting faster at washing that stuff out of your hair, Roman. Patton usually has eaten half of his baked goods before you return.”

Roman managed to let out an offended squawk before the windows suddenly blew in, knocking the bug screen inside the house. The gust of wind responsible seemed to spin around Patton before vanishing. The man let out a small giggle before the chaos appeared.

Remus was shrieking as he scrambled through the window. Logan managed to count to two before a furious looking goose followed the chaotic man in. Remus was already running down the hall to his room, but the goose didn’t seem to be deterred, even if the goose had to make its nest and raise its chicks outside this fiend’s door. The goose would get its revenge eventually.

This time, Logan got to ten before the front door was thrown open with the other two. Janus barked at Roman to help him before sprinting down the hall. Roman shut his eyes to let out a breath, but a crash and something shattering sent him after his twin and twin’s boyfriend. Virgil let out his own breath before saying something that couldn’t be overheard by a loud beep.

“Patton, stop trying to give me a filter! It’s not going to happen and I think a murderous goose deserves a swear or two!”

“What did Remus do this time?” Logan asked, unnervingly calm about this entire situation.

Virgil ran a hand through his hair. “Jan told Remus to get out more and enjoy the sunlight for once. Remus pulled out his meme skills and informed us he went to the park. Then as Jan was congratulating him on going outside, Ree pulled out the goose and it did not like that. We’ve been following the idiot and goose since 4th Street.”

“I’ll go grab the three of you some water then.” Patton hummed as he went back into the kitchen, ignoring the screeching and thumps from further down the hall.

“I am pleased to hear you are getting exercise at least, Virgil.” Logan commented, returning to his book.

“I swear the rat is going to give me a heart attack one of these days, and then I won’t hear the end of Jan’s whining.”

“I do not whine.”

Logan lowered his book, questioning why he was even bothering to try and continue reading. “Also, why would Janus whine to you if you were the one to have a heart attack? I would assume he would whine to the rest of us, as I doubt he would whine to his boyfriend.”

“Janny, you would 100% whine that I was making the rat look bad.” Virgil stated, rolling his eyes.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”

A voice at the front door cackled. “But Janny makes you go red and it’s cute!”

Logan raised an eyebrow at Remus, who now stood at the door as if nothing had happened. “Did you climb out your bedroom window to avoid the goose?”

“No,” He grinned. “I climbed out to avoid my bro bro twin. Pretty sure he’s still screaming at my door. Where’d Goose Janus go?”

“Well, Janus is right there, however, I am unsure what has become of the goose.”

“Nooo, that’s Human Janus. I asked about Goose Janus.”

“Do not call me Human Janus either.”

“VeeVee, your brother is being mean to meeeeeeEEEee!!!!”

Virgil rolled his eyes at the two of them. “Where is the goose, Jan? I don’t want to be running after the rat and a goose across town again.”

“Roman managed to get it into a pillowcase. He had the top clutched for dear life while screaming at Remus. Which means, we should probably get out of here before the goose is released.” Janus commented.

“Oh, you three are already leaving?” Patton asked, carrying three water bottles.

“Patton, you are amazing.” Janus stated, snatching a bottle from him and downing it in a single gulp.

Virgil rolled his eyes at the figure going for a second water bottle. “Probably for the best. Prince Whines a Lot isn’t exactly agreeable after… work.”

“Oh, OK. We’ll see you guys later then!”

With that, Virgil shoved the other two out the door, muttering that he wanted to go lay down and not move for the next year. The two left in the living room could hear their third partner ranting at a door down the hall, oblivious to the fact the resident was gone. There were also muffled goose noises that worried Patton.

Logan sighed, setting his book aside. “I’ll call Animal Control to come get it. You want to go inform Roman that his twin is gone?”

“M’kay.”

 ***

 Roman’s day had been absolutely terrible. He had gotten a flat tire, some dragon witch at the store stole the entire stock of Crofters before telling him off for being in her way, and he accidentally dropped his phone so it now had a giant crack on the screen. So, when he walked in to see muddy footprints and what he would argue was the stench of a dead rat in the wall, in the summer, he was not exactly kind as he turned to face his twin.

Remus was curled around his laptop, furiously typing away on it. Roman noted the muddy boots that made the muddy footprints were hitched up on the coffee table, spreading the filth there too. Remus muttered something about ripping someone’s ears off and shoving them up their butt and that was the line for Roman today.

“Are you serious, Remus! This place is a disaster! When I left, it was spotless! And what is that smell?! Did you run a secret trash dump in here while I was gone?”

“Oooooh, that is an interesting idea.” Remus cackled, still not looking up.

If Roman had the ability to shoot laser beams out of his eyes, Remus would have already been a crisp of a crisp. “What are you even doing?”

“Hacking into a multibillion company for a sweet payday.”

Roman managed to get halfway through an eyeroll before realizing what his brother was actually doing. “Great, I’m going to have to burn that couch!”

Remus finally glanced up at the other, eyebrows knit. But before he could ask, his phone let off a ding and he decided that was more interesting. He snatched it up and started grinning. Roman watched Remus quickly throw everything into his backpack. He jumped up and grabbed a duffle bag that Roman hadn’t noticed. If Remus was covered in mud, the duffle was mud disguised as a bag. Remus sang out a ‘smell ya later, bro bro’ before he was out the front door, leaving Roman in the middle of the mess.

Roman took a deep breath as the door slammed behind his twin. He took another. One more deep inhale and he let out a frustrated scream into the arm desperately trying to muffle it. Now his throat hurt on top of him needing to clean up the mess his idiot of a brother left behind.

“Come on, Roman. Mom is paying off your car payments and rent for letting the bastard stay here. And you like not having to use 85% of your paychecks just to pay for those. Plus, the bastard spends most of his time out of the house with those irritating friends of his. It’s fine! It’ll be fine!”

He kept muttering this to himself as he angrily cleaned up the mud. Once he got as much as he could up, he took a seat (on the opposite couch as he now had to get rid of his favorite couch) to Google how to get rid of the stench. Like honestly, what did that bastard do to make it smell so bad in here? Roman thought it would be a bit better once some of the mud was gone, but nope, still just as bad.

Almost louder than Remus’s snoring, the Hercules song Zero to Hero started blaring from Roman’s work phone. He was instantly on his feet, heading to his room as he pulled it out of his pocket.

New message:

Human Computer: The Dark Sides are robbing the regional Walmart financial offices. That is two streetlights left of the so called ‘lame’ coffeeshop, Prince.

Moral Compass: Aww, I just put on the new episode of Steven Universe Future though!

Human Computer: I am sure they will apologize if you inform them of this. Prince, have you seen the message or am I going to have to hack your personal phone and laptop to get your attention?

Prince: 10-4 nerd

Roman grabbed his katana before rushing out the back door. He grinned as he twisted the watch face and pressed the newly appeared button. Sometimes making Logan watch cartoons and daring him to make cartoon gadgets was worth the mutterings and frustration Roman faced from his partner. The hero costume shimmered around him, concealing his identity as he took off into the sky.

Roman could hear the alarms going off. Even if Logan hadn’t specified where it was, Roman would have known where those fiends were. He knew that Patton would give him the scolding of the century if he knew, but Roman welcomed this attack. It gave him a means to take his frustrations off on some villains who constantly tormented the town.

“Sorry, Princey. Can’t let you go any further.” A voice commented behind the hero as he took in the scene.

“Oh look, it’s the talking shadowling.” Roman commented, turning to see the villain.

Honestly, seeing Shadow Wing always took Roman’s breath away upon first sight. Long wings were stretched out, barely flapping in order to keep the person up. Shadows were cascading down the wings, mimicking black flames falling to the ground. As for the villain, Shadow always reminded Roman of Wesley in his full Dread Pirate Roberts getup from the Princess Bride.

“Ooof, pretty sure you used that insult last week. Running out of creative material there, Princey?” That insufferable smirk!

“At least I have a variety, Raven Boy.”

“Mmm, creativity is not my department. Anyways, what’s up with the big knife you’ve got there? Wanna try slicing shadows?”

Roman had enough time to pull out the katana before the strange ball of frozen darkness was dangerously close. He barely managed to slash it. He still preferred Shadow’s cold blobs over being handed the explosive gunk stick Menace always handed him. Roman watched Shadow take off into the sky before swooping down close to the ground.

A ball of darkness landed right before Logan, or as he was in his own hero costume-the Human Computer. The villain was already rising back up into the air, ignoring the fact that he had just barely missed the hero’s sidekick. Roman threw himself into the fight, angry about the day, sure, but this villain just went after his boyfriend! There must be vengeance!

“Oooooooh, Shadow really does have interesting flirting methods!” A new voice commented.

Shadow threw some of his shadows at Green Menace, who was eagerly cackling. Roman quickly scanned, searching for the last of the evil trio. No sight of Viper. Then Menace’s voice forced Roman to turn back to seeing what the villain was cackling about. He did have to admit Menace and Shadow seemed to be close friends at the very least. Why does that hurt Roman?

“Let’s get this over with. I have SUF to watch.” Shadow commented.

“Okie dokie, bro-kie!”

“Say that again and I am sending you to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and leaving you for the eldritch horrors down there.”

“Pleasssssse, even they would ssssend thissss trash back to ussssss.” Ah, there’s Viper.

Menace was grinning as he pretended to wipe away a tear. “The two of you really understand me.”

Roman twisted the katana, mentally mapping out how to try and take these three down. It was always a difficult fight but Logan and Patton were better ground support while the dark trio kept to the skies, out of reach of almost everyone and thing. And because Roman was certain of this fact, he didn’t see the safety hazard strike him down.

All Roman knew was one moment, he was getting ready to whap Menace and the next, he was in a huge crater, staring up at four figures in the sky. The air was knocked out of him and his body did not want to move for the next year. Before he could reorient himself, the new figure knocked an entire building on top of Roman, trapping him under rubble. Not that the hero noticed as he lost consciousness.

 ***

 The three villains stared in shock at the new figure. The new enemy hummed disinterestedly at the pile where the hero had landed. The new figure turned to look over the three standing before them. He had planned this entire take over and subjecting these three useless tools to his will. Half of his plan was already complete, now just to deal with the amateurs.

All three of them had lost the easiness they had with the hero. Now, they look furious. In fact, Green Menace looked like he was about to rip the world apart with his teeth. The new figure didn’t place much thought on that, expecting that reaction.

“Now then. You three idiots see how a real villain does it.” He stated. “I will be merciful and offer you positions as my lackies, but this is now my town.”

Shadow was already pulling all of the shadows towards him as Viper hissed at the newcomer. “No, you will not. This is our home. We will not let anyone else terrorize our home. We might not be heroes to the people here, but we will not let someone come terrorize the town we have under our control.”

“Shadow, Viper.” Menace’s voice was chillingly serious. “Now.”

Shadows shot through the air, stealing the sunlight and replacing it with waves of fear and terror, as a long snake managed to coil around the newcomer. However, Green Menace was the most terrifying to onlookers and the new villain. Menace was out for blood and would not rest until the bastard was twenty feet under for hurting his twin brother.

 ****

 “…kidding me?!”

“What else were we supposed to do, Vee? Leave him there?”

“Take him to the house the two of you share! Hate to break it to you, but your brother is a complete dumbass; I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he doesn’t know the truth. So, he’s not only going to wake up after a massive fight, in a strange place he has never been in, he’s also surrounded by his enemies!”

For all the luck in the world, of course this was the first thing Roman heard as he gained consciousness. The hero tensed as he opened his eyes only the smallest amount to see the trio of villains standing in front of him in a dark room. He desperately wanted to look around and see how much danger he was in, but that would require that he open his eyes and if they weren’t torturing him because they thought he was still unconscious, then he wasn’t going to let them know he was awake.

“I agree that he probably hasn’t figured it out yet, but if we left him, rescue services would have found him and if one of our identities are revealed, all of them are. What do you think the government’s first reaction to having the superhero Prince unconscious in some hospital would be? Hmm? We are working with what we can do. We wouldn’t be able to make it to the twins’ house without being spotted. We have our tunnels to get here.”

Wait… That meant… They knew where he lived. Oh no, they knew where he lived. That meant Remus would be in danger as well. It meant Logan and Patton were in danger. It meant that Virgil and Janus were in danger. It meant that everyone Roman knew and cared about were in danger because of these villains.

“I know that this entire situation is bad, but we’re doing the best we can. Even the walking ray of sunshine and nerd said this was the best option.”

Pound. Pound.

“Where is he?! How badly is he hurt?”

Roman’s heart might as well have stopped in that moment. These villains could do whatever they wanted to him, but he will not let these fiends harm a hair on Patton or Logan’s head. In an instant, Roman was on his feet, and shoving the closest figure to him against a wall. As he looked at the face he had pinned, his heart might as well be stopped as that would be a kinder fate than this. The face he saw, was the face of Virgil Storm-Ekans.

Roman stepped back in pure shock as his eyes swept to the other two villains, taking in all three shocked faces. Standing in front of him were both his brother and Remus’ friends, but also the trio of villains, perfectly mashed together. His twin brother in Menace’s sparkling green and black costume probably found in some thrift store, looking like some knock off Luigi. Janus in Viper’s black and yellow suit complete with the dumb cloak and hat. And Virgil in… Virgil in a black Wesley outfit with huge shadow-y black wings wrapped tightly around him.

“I-No… Noo… This isn’t- it can’t”

Patton appeared, blocking Roman’s vision from the three he hated. “Roman, hey, hey. Shhhh. It’s OK. Come on, let’s get you back on the couch. You’re OK, your safe.”

Roman was gently forced onto the couch before Patton started to heal the injuries he had. Soft blue light shone from his hand as each wound healed and vanished. Roman’s eyes were still trying to take in the mess, however. A creak pulled his attention to a set of stairs to see Logan calmly walking down, looking at something on his phone.

“Lo, do you have information on who the hell Orange Traffic Cone was?” Virgil asked, his wings fluttering nervously as they unwrapped from around him.

“I was going to ask the same of you. They were obviously some kind of villain, so I assumed you three would have more information on who or what they were.”

“Well, isn’t this a wonderful situation we have.” Janus grimaced. “I doubt they will be returning, however.”

Logan adjusted his glasses as he glanced over at Roman, pleased to see the boyfriend was healing up well. “Well, after that impressive show of power, I doubt anyone will try to take over the town from you three. I do wonder how the three of you gained so much power though.”

“We were the ones to find the dumb radioactive stone and spend more time around it, Logan. Proximity to the source of all of our powers.” Janus commented.

“Ah, that does make sense. It would also probably explain the extra developments as well.”

“Call them what they are, Lo. Mutations. Freaks like me… us have mutations.” Virgil spat.

Logan looked over the other, noting that the wings were tightening around the youngest of the group. “You are not a freak, Virgil.”

Virgil scoffed, “Yeah, right.”

Logan narrowed his eyes but could tell that it would take a while to improve the other’s confidence, so decided to try and improve the mood. “You are not a freak, Virgil. I know you do not accept it right now, but hopefully in time. Now, Remus, a question I have been meaning to ask. Did you really dump cow manure on the executive’s desk?”

“Wait, was that what was in that disgusting bag of yours?!”

“It was bull shit!” Remus cackled.

“What-what is going on?” Roman intruded, weakly. “Is-is this some kind of prank or a dream?”

“Roman, have you truly not realized who the ‘dark sides’ are?” Logan asked, curiously. “Did it not occur to you that if you got superpowers, at very least your own twin brother would also develop some powers as well?”

“But-but- they’re evil!” Roman screeched.

“Hardly.”

Remus knelt to look his twin in the face, concern filling the red-tinted hazel eyes. “Ro- did- do you really think that? Do you really think us evil?”

Words would not escape Roman’s chocked throat, but that seemed enough of an answer to the rest of the room. Virgil and Janus instantly backed away, granting Roman more space as Logan moved forward and took the seat on Roman’s other side. Remus looked at his twin in so much shock and pain that Roman wanted to lie through his teeth.

“Roman, while these three may violate legal codes, they are hardly evil. They are more like Robin Hood than some evil monster.”

“But today-“

“We were stealing from Walmart to give money to a homeless shelter full of full-time Walmart employees, Ro. What happened with that rando was unexpected. We still don’t know who they were or what their intentions truly were.” Virgil said, softly.

Patton took Roman’s hand into his. “RoRo, have you not even wondered why despite all those fights, you never actually ended up hurt? Not even a bruise most times.”

“That literally every hit that would actually hurt missed? Like I get thinking that of Remus, but of Jan and me?”

“But- what about you throwing one of those dark snowballs at Logan earlier?!”

Logan barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Roman, I’m not sure you’ve realized yet, but Patton and I knew who these three were. Virgil was tossing me a flash drive that I designed to aide them in hacking through complex security measures that I was able to use to further hide the true amount they stole.”

“You were helping these fiends?!?”

“Well, it’s not acceptable that a multibillion company lets their employees live in poverty.” Patton softly admitted.

“Why-“ Roman was just so lost and confused. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why was I left out?”

“Most of us thought you already knew. Virgil pushed for a verbal confirmation that you knew before letting the idea that you didn’t know rest. It’s not like we made any effort to discuss work out of very specific locations, which rarely intersect between all of us.” Logan answered.

Roman ran a hand through his hair, trying to process all of this. The rest of the room glanced around at each other. A silent agreement to give the hero a moment was passed around. Once they seemed to understand the decision, Janus glanced at Virgil before turning to Patton.

“Hey, literal sunshine. Can you possibly take a look at Virgil’s wing and see if you can heal whatever happened to it?”

“I’m fine, Jan.”

“Bullshit. Don’t make me pull the older brother card on you, little shit. You only hold your wings that close to you when they are hurt.”

“If you’re hurt, I can fix it! You don’t need to be in pain!” Patton said, jumping up.

“Seriously, I’m fine, Princey over there was the one who got hit with an entire building.”

“Vee, let Pat look at your wing. Traffic Cone did a pretty bad number on you, trying to knock you out of the air.” Remus said softly.

“Come on, kiddo. I’ll need access to your back to see if the joints are alright, but you’ll feel a lot better afterword!” Patton said.

“Ugh, I can see the fight is already lost.” Virgil muttered, before taking his black shirt off.

Roman had a lot of information to process, but that didn’t happen as he saw how ripped the other was. He had thought Virgil was hot and Shadow Wing hotter, but seeing the two combined, yeah, Roman was gay. At least he was also poly so could ask his partners if they were interested in romancing a certain shadow. Which if his super gay mind could actually remember anything, he would remember that they were actually already pushing to ask Vee out.

“OK, you have a bruised muscle and some of your feathers are gone. I also think you have a broken bone somewhere around here.” Patton said, pulling Roman out of his gay panic.

Janus immediately moved over, looking over the feathers before letting out a breath. “You are one lucky bastard, Vee. It’s mostly tertiary and a few secondary ones. But that means you were close to getting taken out by that knife.”

There was a small mischievous cackle near Roman. “So bro bro. You crushing hard on Virgil yet, or do Jan and I need to undress him some more for you?”

“REMUS!”

“Whaaaaat, I’m just trying to set up my bro with my hoe’s bro.”

 ****

 2 months later…

 “Oh come on, Princey. Surely you can do better than that.”

Roman was glad that most people couldn’t see details of them from the ground. If they could, they would see that Prince had a huge smile as he dodged his boyfriend’s shadow ball. It wouldn’t do him any harm, and in fact all of their boyfriends found comfort in the gentle cool kiss of them by now. No, Roman was determined to tag the sensor on the other’s arm, indicating that he won the game today. Can’t win if Virgil won.

Below, Remus and Janus were breaking into an Amazon warehouse to steal food, blankets, and clothes to donate to various homeless organizations. Once they were done, the two of them would join their third partner in crime to ‘escape’ from the Prince while the Prince pretended to hate them. Prince would fly off, talk to police about what happened, watch the Human Computer bury the actual amount stolen so that the company would just write it off. The Moral Compass would gently push a calm acceptance upon everyone so that there would be less struggle to hunt the villains down.

Then, the three of them would go and change out of their hero costumes and pick up the trio from their downtown townhouse. They would go home, order pizza, and watch movies all night, laughing and having fun. The next day, they would spend the day dropping off items at various homeless shelters. Roman would see how much it meant to the shelters to receive the donations, and it would make him wonder why he ever thought the trio were evil. Then the group would split so Remus and Janus would head to the townhouse while the four boyfriends would head to Roman’s planning a nice night with their partners.

And honestly, Roman wouldn’t have it any other way.

[winterknight1087]

The Trash Pizza Wasn’t Worth It

Summary:  After accidentally traumatizing Patton in a failed prank for his twin, Remus ends up getting into a fight and ends up in the hospital.

Word Count: 2912

Warnings: sympathetic Remus, sympathetic Deceit/Janus, fight mention, hospital, mention of medication, food mentions, injury mentions, tarantula, Remus has some intrusive thoughts, murder mentions due to those intrusive thoughts, cursing

Pairings: platonic sides, brotherly creativitwins

AO3 Link       My Writing

@franthehorsegir I am so sorry this is a little bit late! 2020 ended the same way it went. But still, I hope you enjoy your @sanderssidesgiftxchange present! It was interesting coming up with ways to try and incorporate all your gift wishes and I hope I did it justice! Happy Holidays!

Pranks were a very common phenomenon around the house. The two main culprits were almost always the twins, each trying to one up the other’s last prank. Everyone has accidentally fallen victim to the twins’ pranks at least once a week. A bucket of soap water dumped on Virgil’s head. The Crofters being traded out for what Logan swears was bubblegum toothpaste flavored jello. Patton got hit with a full-on cake, though he got to eat the rest so it was mostly OK. One time, the twins teamed up on Janus and they have never felt more fear than watching Janus stare them in the eyes as he drank the coffee mixed with salt instead of sweetener, acting as if that were his normal drink. Safe to say the coffee was never a victim of the pranks again at least.

Occasionally, a twin would go too far though. Once Roman shaved off Remus’s mustache, while Remus was fast asleep on the couch. Remus was livid and refused to go anywhere until it grew back. Remus had once accidentally knocked Roman unconscious with his inflatable mace. The others were terrified that Roman was extremely hurt, but once he woke up, he was fine, thankfully. However, one prank mishap will live on as the ultimate disaster prank…

 ***

 “You are going to sit here and wait for RoRo and then jump at him, okay?” Remus whispered to the giant tarantula, currently housed in an empty Crofters jar.

He set the creature down as he replaced the current jar with the prank one. He made sure that it didn’t look suspicious before setting up the rest of the prank. Remus carefully lined a tripwire directly behind where he expected Roman to be. He hid a camera behind the toaster to record the entire incident. The icing on top was a special sticky slime that Remus set up to dump on Roman once he tripped over the wire.

Remus hid in the pantry, waiting for Roman to come down for his afternoon snack. If it had been Roman, or any of the others, the prank would have been fine. Logan and Virgil would be momentarily surprised but wouldn’t do much more than look startled. Janus would have hunted Remus down and stole his fake deodorants as punishment. But no…

A high-pitched scream shot through the house as the sound of glass shattered on the ground. Remus was rushing out of his hiding spot in time to see Patton trip over the wire, onto the broken glass. His eyes were locked on the tarantula and when it moved barely a hair, Patton was screaming again as he scrambled backwards, not aware of the glass. When the slime fell, that was it for Patton. He let out another scream as he scrambled to his feet, frantically trying to get the ‘spiders’ off of him as he ran out of the kitchen.

Remus could hear rushing footsteps and Patton screaming about the ‘creepy crawly death dealers’ in the kitchen. The chaotic rat knew he was about to get into major trouble, so he started cleaning up the kitchen, particularly going after the tarantula first. Once it was in a box to give to Virgil later, Remus started sweeping up the broken glass, thoughts about how dead he was running through his head.

Honestly, the five minutes it took Janus to come down to scold Remus seemed longer than normal scolding intervals. But Janus appeared, caped PJs and bowler sleep hat revealing the snake had been taking a nap when awoken to screams. And one thing with Janus was that no one was allowed to interrupt his nap time unless it was a true emergency. Remus gulped seeing the furious man storm into the kitchen.

Let’s just say that Janus wasn’t his usual suave, collected self when he is rudely awoken by screams.

“I will give you exactly ten seconds to explain why you terrified Patton with a shower of spiders.”

“It was one tarantula and slime! It was a prank for Roman but apparently Pat went in without me seeing him!”

“You damn idiot. We all agreed that anything spider related would not happen in this house. Patton is petrified of spiders, even Vee’s spider curtains set him off. And yet, with all the power of your mere quarter of a brain cell, you decided that it was an OK risk to bring a spider into this house and not have a contingency plan to keep Patton away from it? Remus, I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t realize you were able to lower my standards even more than they already were. Even if it were to be Roman, how would this have turned out any better? Answer me that, Remus. How?”

Remus hung his head. “I don’t know.’

“Exactly. All of us put up with your random weird ass bullshit everyday because we’re your friends, but there has always been a line between an OK thing and a very not OK thing. Sending someone into a panic attack through their phobia? Extremely not OK. You useless trash rat, what were you even thinking!? Probably nothing as that useless brain of yours has only one thought a month.”

“Pardon me,” Logan’s voice cut Janus off, “but can the two of you move out of the way? Patton requires the first aid kit.”

The two immediately stepped aside, letting Logan access the medicine cabinet. This new information added fuel to Janus’ eyes, and Remus couldn’t help but remember the coffee salt incident and now really wanted his twin here to bear some of the fury. He knew the second that he had realized Patton fell into his prank that he had messed up, bad, but Janus was going to make sure that Remus could never hear the word spider without remembering his fury.

Logan left with the first aid kit, focused on how he was going to get Patton to sit still long enough to get the glass out of his hands and bandage them while the other was still panicking about spiders. Not that he would have really had any sympathy for Remus as he faced Janus’ wrath. They had all agreed that even Halloween decoration spiders were off limits. And Remus went and broke that agreement? His own fault for angry, sleepy Janus.

“Out.”

Remus blinked. “What?”

“Get out. I don’t want you in line of sight right now.”

Remus didn’t even bother grabbing anything as he quickly left the house. It was supposed to be a funny prank on his brother, not a traumatizing experience for one of his best friends. He even passed by his favorite store to terrorize, not in the mood to evade employees to set all the alarms to go off or add random items to people’s carts and wait for them to discover the item.

Go jump in front of oncoming traffic. It’ll save everyone the trouble of having to deal with you.

Remus had already started to step off the curb before violently shaking his head. What did Logan call those? “Intrusive thoughts. They aren’t me. They can’t be me. Those are just unconscious thoughts that come out of nowhere. They do not indicate who I really am.”

But they are your thoughts and you’ve thought of how to murder each of them so that they won’t laugh at you behind your back anymore. You are just a screw up that is a burden on everyone. Your brother had to convince his friends to let you move in with them, and it was probably out of pity or guilt than love.

“Not true.” Remus muttered to himself as he walked aimlessly. “Even for things I wouldn’t otherwise know about, all of them still invite me. They all willingly choose to be in the same room as me, even when I am being more extra than normal. They get upset when I do something stupid. That was something stupid, so they are right to be mad. Not what you’re telling me, you stupid brain.”

Remus didn’t notice his feet carry him to the dumpster behind the nearby Dennys. He was too busy trying to rationalize the thoughts running through his head and weed out Häagen-Dazs Distortions or whatever Logan called them along with his normal intrusive thoughts. Remus barely noticed climbing into the dumpster, but he settled down in the corner before curling up, filled with the rare instance of self-hatred.

He did eventually pull himself out of his thoughts long enough to text his brother’s old friend that he was in their dumpster again and not to panic if someone came to toss trash. It spoke multitudes to the amount of times Remus did this that the only response that he received was a single letter k.

What if you just poison Janus? Then you won’t have to suffer his wrath once you go home.

“Shut up, brain.”

Poison Janus and stuff Patton into a coffin!

“NO!”

Pretty sure if you sneak up on Virgil, you could get him to choke to death as well. Just need to figure out a way to get rid of Logan and Roman and you’ll be free.

“Stooooop” Remus covered his ears, as if that would block out

Janus said you were stupider than he thought, so why not show him how intelligent you can be by murdering all your friends and family and getting away with it?!?

Tears were filling Remus’ eyes as he desperately tried to clear his head. He accepted that these weren’t his thoughts, that they were just intrusive thoughts. He tried all the tricks he normally did that helped, but nothing was working. He even tried moving onto something else to distract him like eating left over pizza he found in the trash.

At least, until something opened the dumpster. In popped a beady-eyed creature in search of food. Remus growled at it, looking for a way to distract himself. Instead of being startled, the creature hissed back. The creature had spent the day running from human toddlers who wanted to do things the creature was uncertain of. It had spent the day dodging cars and animal control. It wasn’t about to let this weirdo stop it from enjoying tossed out hamburgers and pancakes. And if the weirdo was going to fight the creature, well, the creature wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

 ***

 Logan tightened his hands around the steering wheel as he waited impatiently for the light to turn. Janus sat next to him in the front seat, fiddling with his phone, hoping that there wouldn’t be a second call with worse news. In the middle of the van sat Patton and Roman. They were trying to distract themselves by planning the fun activities they could do after everything settled down. In the very back of the van sat Virgil, who’s anxiety and nervous tappings of various limbs magnified the worry that was probably spilling from the van.

Janus wondered if he hadn’t been so mad at being woken up by a hurt and terrified Patton due to an accidental misfire of a prank, would they have gotten that call? What had happened anyway? If they were going to get any call about Remus, it should have been from the local grocery store, banning him for the third time this month (though they always welcomed him back in because he was amusing and took on rude and self-centered costumers so that employees didn’t have to).

“He’ll be alright.” Logan stated, cutting through the worry. “It is Remus we are talking about.”

“Save it, Specs.” Roman muttered. “Until we see how bad off he is, nothing you can say will make things better.”

“Did-did they say what happened, Janus?” Patton asked, softly.

“No, all the hospital said was that he was admitted with several injuries and that I was the first listed emergency contact in his phone.”

“Well, I suppose you would be as your name comes first alphabetically.” Logan mused.

“Of course Wine Mom would be all of our emergency contact.” Virgil commented sarcastically.

“Excuse you, but Logan is mine. I wouldn’t trust the rest of you misfits to actually do anything productive if anyone contacted you all.” Janus spat back, glad for the momentary distraction.

“Fair.”

“You got me there.”

“True, but why you gotta call us out like this?”

There was a small chuckle that passed through the van, but almost as if some invisible barrier ripped the sound from the van, the mood soured as they entered the hospital parking lot. It took Logan a few minutes to find a parking spot and that managed to ramp up the tension and apprehension among the group, terrified of what they would find.

“Pat, you sure you can face Remus right now? I think we’d all understand if you decided to just sit outside the door and wait to hear how he is.” Janus asked, softly.

“No, no, I get that it was an accident. We’ve all walked into one of the twins’ pranks by accident. Accidents happen and I also want to see that he’ll be OK.” Patton answered before admitting, “though, I will need everyone else to open the Crofters jar for at least a month in case there is another giant creepy crawly death dealer in one of them…”

So, with that, the group went into the hospital. Janus went and talked to a nurse who directed him to the room Remus was in. Upon hearing the room number, Janus instantly asked if he had asked to be placed there, which made the nurse laugh. So, with that, the group headed up to room 6969.

“POOPY!”

“Sounds like he’s alive at least.” Roman commented.

A nurse came out of the room, shaking her head. She looked over the group before peeking back into the room and telling the occupant that he had company. The group shared a worried look before filing into the room.

Remus sat in a hospital bed with scratches and gaze all over him. His arm was in a sling, his foot in a cast, and a couple sets of stitches were hidden behind gaze or the hospital gown he was wearing. Despite this, Remus was cackling and being his odd self, so the group let out a collective breath, relieved to see he was alright, for the most part.

“How are you feeling, Ree?” Roman asked, moving over to his twin.

“Mhhhh, like cotton candy sprayed with mist.”

“So, that’s what? Like a 3 on the Remus scale?” Virgil asked.

“I would guess a bit higher but also toned done by medication.” Logan answered. “He would not use a nice analogy like that unless he were sort of out of it.”

“What happened, Remus? Did someone try to mug you or something?” Janus asked.

“Yup, and the racoon won both the fight and my trash-pizza.”

The group froze, staring at the chaotic man before Patton finally asked. “You lost a fight to… a racoon?”

“Yuuuuuuuuup.”

“Remus,” Roman sighed. “You are such an idiot. Don’t do something like this again. You scared all of us to death.”

The hurt one instantly froze, his eyes shooting onto Patton, as he remembered the fact he really scared one of his friends. “Oh, shit. Patty, I’m so sorry for what happened earlier! It was an accident! I was trying to get RoRo BroBro, not you.”

Patton moved over and set a comforting hand on Remus’ unhurt arm. “It’s OK, I know it was. You don’t need to beat yourself up over it.”

“Remus, did you seriously lose a tooth to a racoon!?!”

 ***

 The hospital released Remus a bit later, informing him (and more importantly Logan and Janus) about follow ups and care info. The group then dragged Remus to their van before picking up some (not trash) pizza and heading home. Patton tried to join in on pampering Remus, but their friends stopped him and basically forced the happy pappy Patton on the couch next to Remus, reminding him that he was also hurt and on the pampering list. So, instead Patton curled up and cuddled Remus while the other four went around prepping snacks, movies, games, and whatever else they could scrounge up to make sure the chaotic rat and pun-tastic father-figure were entertained.

Soon enough, Remus was surrounded by the group of people he considered his family (brother, what brother? Remus obviously doesn’t have a twin brother named Roman. That’s just his friend Wroammin). They weren’t going to let Remus live down the fact he lost a fight to a racoon, but how could he stop them making fun of it? It was hilarious and even more, they were checking on him every hour to make sure he was alright and comfortable, so they deserved a good laugh.

And if Remus’ brain tried to throw a couple intrusive thoughts at him, they didn’t stand a chance against the love surrounding Remus. Those weren’t his thoughts because his thoughts were focused on listening to Roman and Virgil argue about Disney meanings, cuddling Patton and waiting for Logan and Janus to return from the kitchen with drinks for everyone. How could disturbing thoughts harm him when he was feeling loved despite all of his failings?

“Remus, Thomas just texted me saying you were in their dumpster earlier. Did you really lose a fight with a racoon behind the Dennys?”

“Yuuuuuuuuuuuup.”