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Patton gasps, a deep sound of horror as his lungs fill to capacity. Virgil visibly cringes, shrinking back into his hoodie and pulling the strings to hide his face. Logan has one eyebrow raised, but his eyes are wide with shock, disbelieving in what he’s just heard. Thomas bites his bottom lip, looking uneasily between him and Roman, who….
Who looks like he’s going to cry.
“Wait-” Remus starts, reaching for his brother, but Roman sinks out before he can say anything else, vanishing back into the mindscape.
Then it’s just the five of them, and all eyes are on Remus. It feels like getting up on stage to a play you never signed up for, and you don’t know what any of the lines are, and then the audience starts to throw knives at you and you’re pinned to the curtains as your blood pours down the stairs-
“What the hell dude?!” Thomas snaps, and Remus shakes himself out of his thoughts, bewildered and dazed. It’s like a bug pinned under glass, but it’s still just him, and the needle is going straight through his heart and they’re all laughing at him as they watch him pitifully squirm to get free while bleeding out-
“Stop it!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Remus finally says, words but a hoarse whisper. The others look surprised, but he doesn’t stick around to find out what for. Remus sinks down, guilt heavy in his stomach, like he ate broken glass.
“Please- I’m- wait!”
Roman runs from him, because of course he does, and Remus gives chase, because he isn’t sure what else he’s supposed to do. Roman is faster, he always has been, and he makes it to his room long before Remus even turns the corner. He waits there, Remus knows, to watch him come around, to see the look on Remus’s face when he sees Roman slam the door shut.
Maybe he should have been more focused on that, the clear indication that he’s not wanted, but Remus just remembers the sparkling tears rolling down his brother’s cheeks.
“Wait!” He screams, even though the door is already closed, the chase already lost. “Wait! Please- I’m sorry, just- wait. Roman, I’m sorry!”
No amount of banging on the door helps. No amount of screaming gets his brother to come out. Remus starts crying too, and he slumps against the wood, at a loss.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it- Roman I’m sorry…”