Chapter Text
“The day shall not be up so soon as I, to try the fair adventure of tomorrow.”
— William Shakespeare
It’s a peaceful day in the mindscape. For once, Thomas has few obligations to attend to, giving the sides a much-needed break from their normal duties. Logan is taking advantage of the reduced need for logical thought by continuing his very important mission of working his way through all seventy-eight Agatha Christie novels, settled into a sensible armchair in the commons.
Virgil is lazily scrolling through tumblr, hanging upside-down over the armrest of the nearby couch (a position that appears both impractical and uncomfortable— Logan wonders passingly if they should invest in a chaise longue); Patton bustles around in the kitchen, making cookies; and Roman is nowhere to be found.
All in all, a nice day, Logan decides, turning a page in his book. Everything is tranquil. Untroubled. Serene. Quie—
“I have a brilliant idea!” Roman sings, swanning into the commons with all the grace and charisma of a prima ballerina. This effect is somewhat stifled by the fact that he’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, his hair an unmitigated disaster. He’s bouncing on his feet with an almost manic grin on his face, an almost-overflowing mug of coffee in one hand and a rumpled stack of paper held together by a binder clip in the other.
“Here’s an idea,” Virgil says, barely glancing up from his phone, “Put some pants on.”
Roman looks down at his outfit and blinks as he seems to register it for the first time. He sets down the papers and coffee and dashes out. A minute later, he bursts back in, dressed in his usual prince outfit, hair brushed, and appearing a lot less like he just stumbled out of a feverish writing session. His unhinged expression remains unchanged, however, which makes Logan very uneasy.
Virgil moves to sit on the couch like a normal person, eyeing Roman suspiciously. “Why do I already feel like I’m going to hate this.”
Roman ignores him. “Where’s Patton?” he asks.
Patton pokes his head out from the kitchen, flour on his nose. “Here!” he says, going to sit beside Virgil on the couch.
“All right!” Roman exclaims. “Now that I have everyone’s attention— Logan put your book down or I’ll take it myself, thank you— I just decided what we’re going to do for my day of Bonding Week.”
Logan is filled with a rapidly rising sense of dread. Bonding Week is currently the fourth item on Logan’s List of Grievances To Take Up With The Universe, right behind Roman, Patton, and Virgil. In that order.
“Nope. Goodnight everyone,” Virgil says with his two-fingered salute, attempting to sink out. Patton grabs him by his sweatshirt hood and yanks him back up.
“Now, kiddo,” he says, “We all participated when you chose the activity. Let’s at least give Roman a chance to share his idea.”
Virgil grumbles and flops back into the cushions, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Anyway, I’m sure it’s great, just like you are!” Patton continues, beaming at Roman, who turns bright red and splutters incoherently for a moment.
The basic premise of Bonding Week is that each side is given a day to choose an activity for them all to participate in together. According to Patton, it’s supposed to get them to “become more of a famILY”, as if they don’t already spend more than enough time in each other’s company. To add to Logan’s many, many issues with the concept, the name is ridiculous. It’s not even a week long. There are only four of them. (Well, to be fair, Patton also extended the offer to Deceit, but he just hissed in Patton’s face in spritzed him with a spray bottle filled with apple juice. They had decided it was pretty safe to consider that a no.)
Logan privately hoped that it was terminated after the disastrous Monopoly Incident, but it appears that this is not the case.
“A quest!” Roman is saying, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “In my realm! It’ll be a nice, straightforward, cookie-cutter kind of thing— nice and classy. A forest, a short mountain trek, a small dragon. A princess in a tower.”
Patton gasps. “That sounds like so much fun!”
“That sounds absolutely terrible,” Virgil says.
“I have to agree with Virgil here,” Logan admits. “I would not consider a so-called ‘quest’ an enjoyable or productive use of time. Besides, isn’t it kind of… excessive?”
“And potentially dangerous?” Virgil adds.
Roman’s smile slips from his face, but it bounces back with a vengeance a millisecond later. “Please? I already set up most of it.” He drops to his knees. “Pleaaaase? I’ll make it really safe! And I can dissolve it if anything happens! I promise!”
“Aw, c’mon, guys,” Patton pipes up, sticking out his lip in a plaintive pout, “Don’t you trust Roman?”
Virgil and Logan exchange looks.
“No,” they say in perfect unison.
Roman claps a hand to his chest, affronted. “Excuse me! I’m a prince! I’ll have you know that I take my word very seriously.”
This is true. Whether by his own moral code or some outside force, Roman seems to be physically incapable of breaking a promise. Though mostly an admirable trait, it once created a very awkward situation involving a dead rat and several soy sauce packets.
“What about Thomas?” Logan asks. “If all of us are in the imagination, wouldn’t that produce potential negative effects on his mental state?”
“We still subconsciously ‘work’ as long as we’re within the mindscape. Besides, Thomas isn’t really doing anything right now.”
Damn. He’s done his research.
Both Roman and Patton are turning their best plaintive faces towards him (Roman’s looks a bit more like a stressed duck, but the sentiment is there) and Logan can feel his resolve cracking. It still doesn’t exactly sound pleasurable, but he can’t think of a logical reason to refuse, and making the right sides upset is an outcome that he likes to avoid if at all possible.
“Fine,” Logan says before he can think better of it.
“I’ve been betrayed,” Virgil mutters darkly.
Roman grins. “Looks like you’re outnumbered, Surly Temple! Three to one!” He executes a flawless pirouette, clapping his hands. “Marvelous! None of you will have to do anything, just meet me in front of my room in an hour. It’ll be fun, I swear!” And with that, he grabs his papers and coffee, twirls towards the door, trips over his own feet, faceplants into the carpet, spills his drink everywhere, and decides to sink out instead.
Patton sighs dreamily, propping his chin in his hand and staring at the place where Roman disappeared. “Isn’t he just wonderful?”
An hour later, Logan is already beginning to have regrets. They’re all assembled in the hallway in front of the door to Roman’s realm, which is aglow around the edges with yellow-orange light.
Roman is cheerfully distributing backpacks to all of them. They’re the old fashioned kind, made of leather and rolled at the tops, and surprisingly heavy for their size. Logan opens his and pokes around. Immediately visible are a couple pots and pans, a few pairs of socks, some granola bars, and a bear canister. He sticks his hand into the bag. It swallows his arm all the way up to the shoulders, far deeper than it outwardly appears, and his fingers aren’t even brushing the bottom yet.
“How long is this quest going to be, exactly?” Logan asks.
Roman shrugs, shouldering his backpack. “I’m not sure. Time’s pretty screwy in the imagination. A few days, maybe?”
“A few days ?” Virgil says.
“Well, yeah. Give or take.”
Logan puts on his pack. It’s pretty weighty, but it fits around his shoulders with a surprising amount of comfort. He still has a lot of questions about how Roman’s managed to break the laws of matter yet again, but he knows that asking any of them would only garner an infuriatingly cryptic answer of “magic.”
“Next order of business,” Roman says, once everyone has their packs on, “Getting into character. As you can see, I’m a prince.” He waves a hand around his face. “So you all are g—”
“Can I be a princess?” Patton interrupts.
“By definition, the term ‘princess’ designates a female, so it’s impossible for—” Logan starts, but he is cut off by identical vicious glares from Virgil and Roman.
“Yes, Patton,” Virgil says, still staring pointedly at Logan, his voice dangerous, “You can absolutely be a princess.”
Roman puts his hands on Patton’s waist and lifts him up, spinning him around in a circle. Patton’s image blurs, going fuzzy and shifting around the edges, and when Roman sets him back down his usual attire has transformed. He’s now wearing a dress, designed to mimic a medieval style, and though the results are historically inaccurate, Logan has to admit that they are aesthetically pleasing.
The gown falls to his ankles, a light-catching velvety overlay that parts in the center to reveal a cream colored petticoat. The bodice is patterned with a criss-cross design, strips of fabric interlocked, the ivory hue peeking out between stripes of blue. Patton lifts up his arms to examine the sleeves, which are tighter from shoulder to elbow and then flow outward into a wide cup, the edges trimmed with intricate gold embroidery.
“Oh!” Patton squeaks, “it’s so pretty! And soft!”
“You like it?” Roman asks.
“I love it!”
Roman glows, grabbing Patton’s hand and pressing a kiss to the center of his palm. “I’m glad. You look gorgeous.”
They take a moment to gaze into each other’s eyes in a way that is totally platonic and definitely not indicative of needless mutual pining. The moment ends. Another moment passes. Another. Now it’s just getting awkward. Virgil clears his throat and they spring apart.
As soon as Roman turns towards Logan, Patton reverently clutches the hand that the creative side kissed to his chest, looking for all the world like a lovestruck teenager.
“You’re next, Specs!” Roman trills.
“Am I required to participate?”
In response, Roman snaps his fingers, transitioning into pointing at Logan with a swirl of his wrist. Logan’s skin tingles as his clothes change, the fabric shifting and writhing, sleeves elongating. The transformation lasts for only a couple seconds, but no matter how many times it happens, he can never get used to the sheer weirdness of the sensation.
He glances down at himself. He’s wearing some sort of white tunic with a navy blue sleeveless doublet over it, imprinted with a repetitive pattern of leafy swirls. It’s paired with some black trousers and soft leather boots that go up to mid-calf. The whole ensemble is surprisingly tasteful. Well, as tasteful as it gets when it comes to fallacious Gothic clothing.
“I suppose it could be worse,” he says after a moment.
Seemingly satisfied with the response, Roman levels his fashion designer gaze at Virgil, who shrinks backward, pulling his arms tightly around himself.
“Oh no,” he says, “Not today, Satan. You take my hoodie and you die.”
“Please?”
Virgil hisses at him. Viciously.
Griping under his breath about the “ruined aesthetic”, Roman heads over towards the door to the Imagination and kicks it open with one swift motion.
A flood of golden light that rushes out from the door, causing Virgil to cringe backward, shielding his eyes. Roman stands there for a moment, hands on hips, swaddled in the glow, his frame darkened into striking silhouette.
“Onwards, comrades!” he shouts, lifting a fist in the air. “In pursuit of that flighty temptress, adventure!” He runs forward and seems to disappear, engulfed in the luminescence. Patton quickly hurries after him, vanishing from view as well.
“You know,” Virgil says thoughtfully, “We could just close the door and run.”
Logan is already beginning to abandon his backpack. “That is an excellent idea.”
“We can hear you, you know!” Roman shouts from the other side. “If you don’t go through in ten seconds I’m coming to get you!”
“Damn it!” Virgil says.
“Ten! Nine!” Patton and Roman are yelling together. “Eight! Seven!”
Logan holds out his arm, resigned to his fate. “It appears that we have no choice.”
Virgil links his elbow with Logan’s. “We’ll figure out some way to ditch them later.”
“Four! Three!”
They run through the doorway together. The light is even more overpowering than when they were standing in the hallway, seeming to shift and swirl and bend around itself in intricate motifs. Logan closes his eyes but it doesn’t help— it’s still there, still painful, the patterns penetrating beyond his eyelids. He hears Virgil wince from beside him.
Logan can’t see anything ahead or behind him, can barely feel Virgil’s arm laced through his. It’s just the all-consuming brightness. His feet are moving, running, but they’re not hitting any kind of surface. Has it been seconds? Hours?
Suddenly, Logan and Virgil crash through some kind of barrier. The world immediately darkens, and Logan loses balance, toppling forward in surprise. His feet collide with solid ground and his face follows suit not a second later.
Someone is laughing.
Logan rolls over to sit up, squinting as his eyes adjust to the change in lighting. Everything is still oddly blurry, though— Oh, wait, his glasses are missing.
A hand suddenly appears in front of his face, and he squints at it, tracing the fuzzy beige blur of an arm upward to a larger, fuzzy beige blur perched atop an even larger fuzzy blue blur. Patton. Logan takes the help and clambers to his feet, nodding gratefully when Patton hands him his glasses.
It appears that Logan took Virgil down with him when he fell, as the hoodie-clad side is currently lying on the ground on his back, staring up at the sky with a blank expression on his face. Roman stands over him, laughing hysterically and making no move to help him up.
As Patton hurries over to be a better person than Roman, Logan takes stock of their surroundings. Roman hadn’t been kidding when he had said “cookie-cutter”— They’re in a forest pulled straight out of every single storybook and Disney movie ever. They’re surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see, wide, glossy trunks extending upward in perfect cylinders, lanky branches reaching up to brush the pale blue sky.
The forest floor is covered with underbrush and soft green moss, dappled with patches of sunlight and softly swaying shadows of the leaves on the trees above. Small stones and bright bunches of wildflowers are placed at regular intervals, as well as some (highly unrealistic) red-and-white spotted mushrooms.
And naturally, right in front of them extends a beautiful meandering path, wide and clear as day and sprinkled with fallen leaves.
Virgil is on his feet now, sticking his tongue out at a still-snickering Roman and dusting dirt off himself. He looks around, taking in the woods with a raised eyebrow.
“Pretty nice, huh?” Roman says proudly, puffing his chest out.
“I suppose our current surroundings are visually agreeable,” Logan concedes.
“So,” Patton chirps, “Can we get going?”
“Actually,” Roman says, taking off his backpack and beginning to rummage through it, “Let me check the map first.”
“There is a path right there,” Logan points out.
“Well, it might not be the right path. Here, hold this.” Roman passes Virgil a frying pan. “And this.” A red-and-white windbreaker. “And this.” A headlamp. “And this.” A sponge. “And—”
“I’m not a shelf ,” Virgil says, indignant, as Roman hands him two bottles of sunscreen.
“Aha!” Roman pulls out a sheet of paper, folded into quarters, and shakes it out. “You can put the stuff down now, Virge.”
Virgil unceremoniously drops it onto the ground.
Logan leans to read over Roman’s shoulder as he turns the map around several times in an attempt to get it oriented. Patton pops up at Roman’s other side and Virgil, pretending not to be curious, wanders over to stand by Patton and peer at the map out of the corner of his eye.
“I’ve already drawn out the route. The door is just behind us,” Roman explains, pointing at a brown, rectangular icon at the bottom left corner of the map, “And we’re heading this way, towards the mountains, so we’ll have to go down… that path.”
He turns and gestures to his right, nearly whacking Patton in the face in the process. Upon closer examination, there is in fact, a path where he’s indicating, but it’s thin and scraggly and is less of a defined walkway than a slight flattening of the underbrush in a vague line.
Of course. Logan stifles a sigh.
Roman takes the lead, as he possesses the map and the greatest amount of experience regarding the outdoors. Patton skips just behind him, peppering Roman with questions, and occasionally falls back to pick a flower or examine a lizard on a rock, but always hurries back to the front.
Logan keeps a purposeful distance behind Patton. There’s something about nature’s unique beauty, however artificial it may be, that inspires something in Logan, and he desires to appreciate it in peace.
Virgil brings up the rear. Probably. He might have deserted them by this point. If so, Logan wishes him godspeed, though the thought having to deal with Patton and Roman’s incessant infatuated sighing alone is a terrifying one. Regardless, the bird songs ringing through the trees, accompanied by the rhythmic crunch of footsteps and the faint rise and fall of Patton’s voice as he chatters at Roman, provide a soothing backdrop for some deep thinking.
They’ve been walking for some time— an hour, maybe two— and Logan is currently in the middle of an impassioned debate with himself over whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich when Roman shouts, “Halt!”
Logan’s far back enough that Roman and Patton are blobs in the distance, so he continues walking towards them. When he catches up, he finds Roman scowling and shaking his fist up at the sky while Patton looks on, puzzled. After a minute, Virgil appears.
“What’s up?” he asks.
Roman points upward, wordless, and Logan tilts his head back to look. His eyes skim the streaky sheets of blue rising softly above the treetops, unsure what the fanciful side is referring to at first. He follows the line of Roman’s directive finger to the edge of the sky, where a flushed pink sunset is beginning to seep through, as if someone took a piece of robin’s-egg cloth and dipped the end in a bucket of pink paint.
Wait.
“That does not seem right,” Logan says, frowning. “We departed at around three in the afternoon. Sunset should not be for another three or four hours.”
Roman folds his arms, still squinting upwards in annoyance, as if the sky did something to personally offend him. “Time is pretty much a construct here. Sometimes a day will be three hours, and other times it’ll be, like, a week.”
Logan blinks. “Wh—”
“Don’t think about it too hard, Specs, you’ll only give yourself a headache. Anyway, I can normally influence it, but this dreamscape is more… controlled than the stuff I usually do, so it isn’t working. This throws off my whole schedule.”
“Since when do you do schedules?” Logan asks. He is ignored.
“Well, that doesn’t seem so bad,” Patton says. “We can just set up camp and call it a day for now. Or we could walk at night.”
“Look,” Virgil says. “There are things that I will hate but grudgingly accept, and things that I will not. I draw the line at walking through some random forest at night, in the dark, with wolves and spiders and things, where we can’t even see when we’re about to be killed .”
“Spiders?!” Patton squeaks.
“Imaginary spiders,” Roman says quickly, “They’re all imaginary! I mean, if there were any! Which there aren’t! But I’d kill them for you!”
Patton still looks upset, so Logan pats his head in a gesture of reassurance that he has seen Patton employ on small, similarly distressed creatures such as dogs, cats, and Virgil. Patton relaxes slightly.
They decide to make camp, mostly because Virgil makes it pretty clear that he isn’t going to take another step either way. It doesn’t take them long to find a suitable campsite— Probably due, in part, to the cultivated perfection of Roman’s fantasy world. It’s a clearing a short ways off the path, relatively flat, with a clustering of large rocks on one side.
Patton and Virgil begin pitching the tents, which doesn’t seem to be going very well, judging from the fact that Patton is currently on the ground, flailing underneath a tarp. Logan starts going through the backpacks, removing and sorting objects that appear to be of immediate use.
(Roman’s pack has several crumpled drafts of love letters to Patton stuffed in the front pocket. Since Logan is sometimes a kind soul, he quickly puts them back. Ugh. Feelings.)
Roman stands near Logan, tapping his foot as he squints at the map. It’s upside down. Since Logan is sometimes not such a kind soul, he does not inform him of this fact. After a few more seconds, he figures it out on his own.
“Hey, nerd,” Roman says, “Pass me my pack, will you?”
Logan does, and Roman all but dives into it before emerging with two large wooden buckets that, by all normal rules of the universe, should not be able to fit in there, goddamnit.
“We need water,” Roman informs him, holding out a bucket.
“So go get it.”
“I need you to come with me.”
“No.”
Further argument is wordlessly exchanged through the use of exaggerated facial expressions, glasses adjustment, and hand gestures. They get sidetracked and end up wiggling their eyebrows at one another for a solid minute before Logan feels stupid and stops.
“Fine,” he concedes, taking the bucket. “Let’s go.”
“Yess!” Roman cheers, grabbing Logan’s arm and dragging him towards the path, waving cheerily at Patton and Virgil, who are both caught in the tarp and screaming.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Logan asks, once they’ve started walking.
“There’s a river some ways away that runs across the path we’ve been walking on,” Roman explains, waving his hand in front of him. “It’s not too far of a walk. We’re actually going to have to cross it tomorrow.”
Logan mentally files that information away before moving on to his next question. “Why did you want me specifically to accompany you on this errand?”
“Because you’re my best friend,” Roman trills, batting his eyelashes at Logan.
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re right, you’re not,” Roman says. “But Virgil drew mustaches on all the characters on my Disney posters last week— Don’t roll your eyes at me, Logan, it’s a serious offense— and Patton is far beyond best friend status, so, you know. Process of elimination and all that.”
“How flattering,” Logan says drily. “I suppose I should be grateful that I come before Deceit, at least.”
“Actually,” Roman starts, thoughtful, “He did tell me that he liked my makeup yesterday.”
“He’s the literal personification of— You know what, nevermind. Please explain what you require from me so that we can get this interaction over with.”
Roman bites at his lip for a moment, looking thoughtful and almost nervous.
“I need relationship advice,” he says finally.
Logan stares at him. “Not from me, you don’t.”
“Yes I do,” he insists. “You’re really smart, Logan.”
“Oh, I know,” Logan says, “But things involving as love, affection and — god forbid — feelings are not my area of expertise, as you are well aware.”
“You’re friends with Patton, though,” Roman presses. This is odd. He has ranted to Logan about his crush on multiple occasions, complete with faux swooning and the recitation of Shakespeare, but never before has he actually asked for advice . “What does he like?”
Alright, now he’s just being daft.
“You know what Patton likes,” Logan says, exasperated. “Puppies, cartoons, hugs, chocolate chip cookies, soft things—”
“I mean, what does he like in guys .”
“Um… faces? Eyes? A functional consciousness?”
“I’m being serious, Logan. What do I have to be to get him to like me?”
God, Logan thinks, why do you run around in circles chasing who you aren’t when who you are is more than enough for him? Do everything you normally do, and he’ll love you like he already does, like the world already does, because you understand the one thing I don’t— how to love and how to be loved.
But Logan doesn’t say this. He and Roman are not honest kind of friends.
“Just be yourself,” he says lamely. The words sound hollow even to him.
Roman huffs out a breath, a not-quite laugh, but says nothing.
They walk further, and the silence that Logan enjoyed so much earlier now feels awkward and stifling. He said the wrong thing, he can tell, but isn’t it Roman’s fault for asking him for advice in the first place; isn’t it true, in the end?
Time passes. They come to the river. It’s about six feet across, and appears fairly deep, with clear, rushing water carving a snaking line through the tall grass. The high banks are framed with cattails and smooth, scattered stones. Dragonflies drift in lazy loops through the mild sky, which is beginning to soak into a soft lavender.
They work together silently to fill the buckets, which is a fairly quick process. When they’re finished, Roman sighs, stuffs the hand not holding a bucket into his pocket and stares out over the water, screwing up his face to chew at the inside of his cheek like he does when he’s nervous or sad or both.
And Logan— Logan’s thinking. This is about more than Patton, Logan knows at some base level, but he can’t decipher it. He can’t see into feelings and social cues and figure out what’s really going on, what Roman really needs to hear, because those aren’t things you can learn and understand and pick apart and analyze. Those are things you have to know .
So Logan’s lost, and he’s resigned to that, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.
“Look,” he says, as gently as he can manage, “You are in charge of many of Thomas’ romantic and emotional functions, Roman. I have no doubt that you are entirely capable of doing and being all that you wish to.”
Roman is silent for a moment.
“Thanks, ” he says, quiet, before his face splits into a grin, usual bravado returning with a force that nearly gives Logan whiplash. “Hey, what do you want to bet that I can run back to the camp without spilling this?”
He lifts the bucket up over his head and starts running.
“Don’t hold it like that, you bumbling idiot, you’re going to— Goddamnit.” Logan groans, grabbing his bucket and chasing after him.
Logan doesn’t do much physical activity, so he’s panting and sweating after barely a minute has passed, and water is slopping from his bucket onto his sleeves and front with almost every step he takes and he’s cold and uncomfortable and exasperated, but it’s okay.
It’s okay, because Roman’s laughing, and it’s okay because now they’re back at the campsite and Patton is pointing proudly at the two upright tents, and it’s okay because Virgil is grinning at him and taking the bucket, asking, “Went for a swim, poindexter?” and it’s okay because the adventure isn’t over yet.
In fact, it’s just beginning.