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virmillion · 5 years

Text

Love is a Four Letter Word

Summary: Everyone has magic, and it’s really nothing special at all. Just another skill, sort of like a sixth sense. Roman is not particularly fond of his brand of magic, and sets off to find Thomas—the one person rumored to not have any magic at all.

Ships: platonic logince (more like acquaintances tbh)

Words: 12,758

Warnings: implied major character death, Less Than Happy backstories, some bullying, unhappy ending, let me know if there’s anything else needing tagging

Check it out on ao3!

Roman shoulders his bag up higher, nodding a farewell to everybody in one swift motion without directly acknowledging any of them. He glances over the crumpled piece of paper one last time, reassuring himself that he knows what he’s doing. Past the end of the line is a man free of magic by the name of Thomas. Sticking the page back in his pocket, Roman triple-checks that he has more than enough money for a train ride that long. At the very least, it should be enough to get him well past the reach of anyone in this city.

Everybody falls over themselves to bid him farewell as he makes the trek down to the train station, trying to offer absent smiles to anyone drawing near enough to see his expression. Their words all sound the same after an incredibly short while, all impersonal pleas for him to stay, to help.

“Roman, please hang around, I need your magic to lock down my boyfriend!”

“Roman, can you use some of that energy to bring up the positivity for after you’re gone?”

“Roman, would you bloom this flower early so I can impress my wife?”

“Roman, I need you to funnel me some confidence for my interview tomorrow!”

It only becomes more obvious with every plea that chases him further from the center of town that these people only kept him around to boost their own spirits—always at the expense of his own happiness, but no one ever asks about that. Not when they can get manufactured love for free. Sure, it saps Roman’s energy to use his magic, but doing so is the only way he can feel wanted anymore, and isn’t that enough to justify exhausting his supply for these people? No, he doesn’t know their names, their faces, their histories, but at least they keep him around.

Roman has been waiting for weeks to board a train heading in this direction, all the way to the end of the line. He passes the engineer a fistful of bills, requesting to ride the train as far as it’ll go. The engineer nods him on, seemingly unsurprised by the destination. “Passenger cars are that way. Bit of a bumpy ride near the end, though.”

“Where would we be without some good old ominous foreshadowing?” Roman mutters to himself, slipping through the cars and tamping down the bubbles of joy trying to stir in his stomach. He’s already wearing an oversized turtleneck to hide his face, so there’s certainly no need to broadcast his reputation as the resident magicker of love to the whole train.

None of the cars he sees are empty, but the third to last one is about as close as he suspects he’ll get. Just one passenger, who’s busy fiddling with a pile of shiny silver shards in his lap. They share a brief nod, acknowledging each other’s presence the way only two complete strangers can, after which Roman allows the neck of his shirt to slip just a little lower down his chin. The guy doesn’t seem like the type to jump up and fawn over Roman for a little extra cheer boosting his day, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Roman has seen many a person desperate for his help simply for the sake of an easier day, completely ignoring how much it saps his own energy. Hopefully this trip will solve all of that.

Roman continues on to the third to last seat—three is his lucky number—and exhales as quietly as he can manage, resting his head against the glass and watching the incessant crowds waving from the station. He doesn’t recognize a single person among them.

It’s pretty obvious that they’re searching for a sign of him through the tinted glass, hoping to siphon off just a little more love before he goes, and Roman wonders whether his resolve will hold out long enough to avoid that. He almost wants to leap through the window and into their adoring arms, to feel them welcome him back home, even if he knows it will help absolutely anyone except himself. Better not to, given what happened the last time he gave too much. Roman is terrified of ever giving too much again. He feels himself on the verge of breaking this time, and he might’ve just let himself give in, were it not for the train engine rumbling to life and knocking his head against the window.

Roman allows himself a soft, agitated ow under his breath, wincing as he presses his palm to his skull. By the time the pain wears off, the station is shakily bouncing off into the distance. He doesn’t allow himself to watch as it disappears.

The steady rocking of the train drags him into a fitful sleep, promising no rest behind his closed eyelids. His dreams are messy, just distant flashes of memories, of things he should’ve done, should’ve said, things he wishes he hadn’t and the letter R swirling in in dizzying circles around his head, hammering his brain like so many wasps forced through a long winter with minimal warmth and food. Amidst his short bouts of wakefulness, he tries to ignore the pounding headache on the rise, instead watching the rolling hills of lively green give way to dirt and mud, then to hundreds of thousands of barren tree stumps, all melting together in a mix of nothingness that envelopes his dreams in a cushion of hollow green love.

When he wakes, Roman shouts the name ricocheting inside his head, then immediately claps a hand over his mouth. He holds it firmly in place with the other, then glances at a beanpole of a man hovering to his left.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,” beanpole interrupts. The guy that was messing with the silver stuff when Roman first boarded. Beanpole jerks his chin toward the window, then offers a hand to Roman. “Train’s down. Everybody off.”

Roman absently takes his hand, looking back at the window. Depot town. Not the most clever name, to be sure, but he’s got nothing against this place. Well, one thing, but it’s not a big thing. Well, it’s a pretty big thing. Well, it’s actually the only thing Roman can hold against a place, but it’s fine. He’s fine. It’s the worst possible place this train could have broken down, but it’s fine and he’s fine and everything’s fine, so stop asking.

“Name’s Logan,” beanpole continues, leading Roman to the front of the train. “Guess you slept through the announcement, since you took so long to hear me asking you to get up. They hit some problem in the engine or something, and they’re enlisting anyone that can offer specialized magic to fix it.”

“That’s, um, I don’t think I can help you there. My name’s Roman, by the way.”

“Pleasure. I wasn’t asking for your help, merely informing you of the situation. At which stop were you intending to depart?”

“I don’t know its name, but whatever the last one is.”

Logan stops at the last step leading out of the train, turning around to squint at Roman’s face—well, as best he can, what with the turtleneck in the way. “End of the line guy, hm?”

“Something like that.” Roman shuffles off the train behind Logan, glancing around the town. Well, the area just before the town—they pretty much broke down right outside civilization, not to mention that the designated train station is well near the opposite end of the town. Certainly not ideal. “Did they say what was wrong with the train?”

“Just that it’s down. Something with the machinery. I’ll figure it out.”

“Why you?”

Logan whips his head around—sharper this time, almost indignant. “Why not me? Why anyone else but me?”

Roman pulls his lips between his teeth and looks away, his face flushing bright red under the scrutiny of such an imposing figure. “Never mind.”

Logan sighs and pulls off his glasses—there’s an odd green glint along the lens, something Roman hadn’t noticed before. He watches Logan hold them aloft with one hand, lifting his other as if to present them to an enraptured audience. With a simple flick of his fingers, the glasses wobble themselves into the air, hovering a few inches above Logan’s open palm.

As the glasses levitate on their own, listing just a touch to the right, Logan whirls his hands around them, pinching and pulling as if he were trying to knot a length of string without overlapping the loops. Slowly but surely, the sleek frames stretch and pull at each other, separating into hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny pieces sparking with bright blues and fiery purples. The sparks flicker off, and Roman flinches away from one on instinct—even showy magic can scar.

There’s a soft pop, like someone blowing a sharp puff of air into a closed pair of hands, and the glasses click back together, almost identical to when Logan began his little charade. The only thing is that now, well, they look ever so slightly different. The green of the lenses is much more prominent, almost a pastel tone that nearly blocks out Logan’s eyes when he replaces them on his face.

“Neat party trick,” Roman says finally, uncertain how to react to Logan’s flat manner of demonstrating his magic. Most people only tend to use their magic when they need it or when they’re hassling Roman for favors, not to impress some stranger beside a broken down train.

“It’s not a party trick,” Logan says, rolling his eyes. “I manipulate any technology I’ve taken the time to sit down and understand, which includes those that I’ve built.” He adjusts his glasses, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that that’s what he was talking about. “What I just did, crossing these wires, fusing those pins, what you so callously called a party trick? I switched around the core function. I can now effectively see any major malfunction that may not be immediately apparent to untrained eyes.”

Roman instinctively crosses his arms over his body, not wanting to know what major malfunctions might lie under his thin cotton shirt.

“Not like that, that’s a different setting. This is more for inorganic creations, like the train engine.” Logan gestures to his left, surprising Roman with how quickly they’d arrived at the front. “Remember what I was saying about specialized magic?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m the specialized magic. Thanks for the entertainment. It shouldn’t be long before the train is up and running again, though I wouldn’t hang too close by. Don’t want any techno flares flying off at the wrong moment.” Logan flashes a grin as he holds up a finger, letting a burst of sparks shower from the tip like fireworks. Roman takes the hint, quickly backing up to join the small group huddled a decent distance from the tracks. Not too many people staying on this far down the line.

He watches as Logan kneels beside the engineer at the base of the train, the pair quietly mumbling to each other as Logan waves his slender fingers around a large sheet of metal. In a flash, it smoothly glides off and hovers in the air over Logan’s head, easily poised to slice through skin at a moment’s notice. Logan doesn’t seem to care. He only leans in further, picking at some of the pieces inside the train, none of which Roman can see through Logan’s body. Quickly bored with watching Logan’s relatively still back, Roman glances around at the other stranded passengers.

A few talk amongst themselves, debating whether it’d be worth it to just walk the rest of the way to town and grab a drink while they wait for the specialized magickers to do their thing. Others lean forward over an invisible barrier, desperate to see what kinds of tricks the magickers can pull off with such a large and detailed engine, but clearly hesitant to get too close. There’s a lone mother standing off to the side, desperation in her eyes as she tries to maintain her composure while soothing her wailing baby. A few of the passengers that were discussing getting drinks shoot her nasty looks, but these, of course, do nothing to silence the distressed child.

“You told yourself you wouldn’t do this anymore,” Roman mumbles under his breath, more of a soft chastising than a reminder of a promise destined to be broken the moment it was made. He focuses in on the sound of the mother’s soft voice, amplifying it in his head until her hushed tones, her reassuring coos, her indescribable love flows like a serene river through a spring of endless flowers in his mind, growing and expanding and opening the world into the hope and joy and life that supports the love flowing through it all.

Roman takes this energy, feels it course around his heart, doing cheerful little loop-de-loops and excited hops that lift the corners of his lips, and he sighs softly, picturing his breath floating on the breeze, buffeted by the whispered gossip of the cherry blossom petals dancing across the landscape. He imagines his breath taking life, a pure wave of bright blue that almost blends in with the picturesque sky above, drifting over the heads of the grumbling passengers, teasing at the ends of the mother’s hair and lifting the tips as if there were fairies playing hide and seek on her shoulders. The mother’s voice takes on a new strength, bolstered by a laugh with no source as she bounces the baby and smiles in relief at its face, watching those rosy cheeks puff up with a big breath as the baby inhales the delightful air and releases a bright, burbling laugh, an elated giggles that echoes back into the wind, returning Roman’s joy to the air and spreading a thin layer over the world with the rebound of its happiness.

Roman smiles to himself, feeling the muted sparks of magic intertwine with the spirits of the passengers, all of whom seem to exhale just a little bit in tandem with the baby, suddenly filled with an inexplicable and untraceable sense of rightness. Something in their lifted attitudes allows Roman to forget just how much energy that one sapped out of him.

He glances back to the engine, where he can almost see Logan’s stiff posture relaxing as a display like an explosion of colors shoots out from his hands, whipping his hair up into a quiff for just a moment before it settles back into its usual stern state. Logan sits back on his haunches and cocks his head to the side, pointing at something as he speaks lowly with the engineer.

Specialized magic, indeed.

“Ahem, your, ah, your attention please, esteemed passengers!” the engineer calls, rising to all his four foot eleven glory. Roman turns to face him along with everyone else. “We have gotten the train back, ah, back in working order, it seems, but we want to, erm, we are going to run a quick diagnostic check to ensure the problem will not, eh, reappear.” Roman is pretty sure he catches Logan rolling his eyes at that, but the tint of his green lenses makes it too hard to be certain. “It will probably take us, erm, at least a couple of hours, so I suggest you all, ah, head over to Depot town and see all the attractions they have to offer and enjoy!” This is met with far fewer grumbles than might be expected, and Roman tries not to preen at the knowledge that his magic played some part in that. “I hear they have, eh, an excellent selection of pubs!”

Roman gnaws at the inside of his cheek, watching most of the passengers turn toward the town. One of them lags behind to walk beside the mother, and they both share a hearty laugh when the baby does whatever baby thing it is that they find so funny. He looks to the engineer, who is profusely shaking Logan’s hand, while Logan looks just a little bit bewildered as he adjusts his glasses.

Once Logan finally frees himself from the engineer’s grip, he ambles over to Roman, who busies himself looking anywhere but at those green glasses. “Y’know,” Logan says, removing the frames and scrubbing at them with the underside of his shirt, “I am pretty good at what I do. I’ve fixed many a mechanical issue, simply by applying my knowledge regarding the technology at work behind the problem. What I do not understand is how a train engine, the exact model of which I have never personally seen before, suddenly put itself back into working order with me only needing to lift three fingers in the process.” Logan cocks his head to the side and peers at Roman, a strangely personal expression without the glasses to deflect his gaze. “It usually takes at least five.”

“Magic’s funny that way,” Roman says with an uncomfortable laugh.

Logan lingers on Roman’s face a moment longer, just beyond what could be called reasonable, before he straightens and looks toward the town. “I suppose it is. Let me buy you a drink, and we’ll discuss what else is so funny about magic.” Roman swallows thickly and nods, watching Logan take a few steps toward the town as he begins whirling his fingers around his glasses again. It’s not until Logan gets a solid fifteen feet away that Roman realizes he’s supposed to walk with him, and he trips over himself to catch up.

“You ever been to Depot town before?” Logan asks, holding his glasses over his head and squinting through the lens at the sun.

“Once or twice,” Roman says. Try a hundred times.

“Interesting.” Logan puts his glasses back on and turns to Roman, quirking his mouth to the side. “I don’t know if you could tell based on the mechanical manipulations, but I’ve just reworked the lenses to allow me to see when someone isn’t being entirely honest with me.”

“Oh, is that—I, um—okay, I did come here a lot with my family when I was little,” Roman admits.

“That so?” Logan chuckles softly and shakes his head. “Well, if I may be so candid in return—” He drops his voice to a whisper, forcing Roman to strain to hear it. “These aren’t truth-seeing lenses. I just know when someone’s a bad liar.”

“I am a great liar!” Roman protests.

“That so?” Roman is quickly getting tired of this refrain. He wonders how many more times he’ll have to hear it. “I suppose you’ll have to show me around town, then. I certainly don’t know which pub is the best.”

“Definitely not that one.” Roman waves a hand toward the bar nearest to the front entrance of the small town, where all the other passengers are flooding in like a line of ants. “They put it up to attract tourists like us, but the good stuff is way in the back, like a little secret for the locals.”

“Makes sense.”

With that, they weave their way through the town, careful not to trip over outcroppings of metal gears and wooden planks lining the dirt paths. Roman points out certain buildings as they pass them, returning excited waves from people who know him well enough not to question why he’s here without his family in tow.

“So over there’s the mill—they bring all the best raw wood in there, and the top magickers get their pick of the lot, since they’re usually sworn to funnel about ten percent of the work it brings them back into the town’s funds. Hey, Sigma, how goes it?” Roman nods to someone sitting in front of one of the only shops in town, lazily floating a steady stream of water from one pot to another. They wave back at Roman, the distraction big enough to shatter the rainbow of water over their head, the flow crashing down and soaking their hair.

“Stop doing that!” they shout, shaking their head and sending droplets flying.

“How else will you learn to focus?” Roman retorts with a laugh. The water charmer makes a motion like a conductor cutting off an orchestra, easily drawing all of the water into one big ball just beside their ear. A wicked grin crawls onto their face.

“Run,” Roman says softly, nudging Logan’s shoulder. As that smile grows, he says it more insistently, picking up the pace and urging Logan to “run, technerd, run!”

Logan complies easily, his long legs allowing him to keep up with Roman as they sprint away, dodging the drops of water that come hurtling for their heads.

“Sigma,” Roman huffs, “has never been,” huff, “one for,” huff, “practical jokes,” huff huff huff.

“It might help if you didn’t trick them into drenching themselves,” Logan points out, not struggling for his own breath in the slightest.

“Did I ask you?”

“You didn’t not ask me.”

“Well, I’m not un-didn’t asking you now.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

Roman forces his feet to slow down as they approach a pathetic looking building near the outer limits of the town, where there’s hardly anything but homes and patches of dirt with a little more life than the other patches of dirt. He leans hard into the front door, ramming his shoulder into it a few solid times before it flies open and he goes sprawling across the floor.

“I believe I’m about two pages ahead of you now,” Logan says, bending down to offer him a hand. He helps Roman to his feet, and Roman can’t help but wonder whether that will be a recurring theme with this guy.

“Roman!” an angry voice yells from behind the bar. “I thought I told you to stay away!”

“Hey-ho-de-low, Jackie,” Roman says smoothly—well, as smoothly as anyone can say something so ridiculous. “What if I said I brought a peace offering? A technerd to fix that juke of yours?”

A sturdy little lady who just about tops out at Roman’s chin rounds the corner, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “I didn’t ask for no techie guy in my shop, either. Where’d you hide your family this time, huh? Where’s that boy y’had on your arm? Where’re the fancy stories and lies about why you didn’t bring your brother back around?”

“Your juke has been broken for ages,” Roman says, neatly dodging the other questions. “Let me let you let him fix it.”

“I never agreed to any such thing,” Logan sighs, but he grins at Jackie anyway. She returns the smile—an odd move, in Roman’s opinion. She never smiles at people she hasn’t met before. Although, despite her temper, Jackie always was a charmer. Maybe she just doesn’t like Roman. Of course, that’s an absurd theory, but it’s the only one he’s been able to come up with. Maybe Roman just isn’t that smart.

He moves for his usual seat in the corner, pressed up against the window with one wobbly stool and one wicker chair. He goes for the stool. To the sound of Logan and Jackie discussing the jukebox’s latest malfunction, Roman spins the stool round and round, until it won’t turn any way but right, and rests his chin on the windowsill.

Right out there, in the middle of that large ring of messy tire tracks dug artlessly into the mud, he allows his thoughts to wallow in their own emptiness, swirling up eddies of the forgotten carelessness of childhood hidden in the green grasses, the whole mess struggling to grow against the world of dirt trying to choke them out.

Roman sprinted across the open field, baring his teeth to the wind and imagining someone was using the sun as a camera to capture his every movement. He let out a whoop over his shoulder and yelled, “I’m eating bugs!”

“No you aren’t!” a voice behind him whined. “Stop eating the bugs!”

“I’m gonna eat all the bugs!” Roman insisted. Quick as a whip, he hit the dirt and dragged his hands through it, smearing the colors over his teeth. He spun around and grinned, feeling the mud squelch under his knees. “Look at all these yummy bugs!”

“You’re so gross,” Remy informed him, tripping over his feet as he stumbled to a stop beside Roman. “You didn’t even eat them, liar!”

“Did so!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Did not! I can still see them all up on your teeth!”

“Nuh-uh!” Roman didn’t even flinch as he ran his tongue over his lips, wiping off the mug and flashing his not-very-pearly whites. “See? Ate ’em all! Told you so!”

“Guh-ross!” Remy shouted, planting his hands on Roman’s shoulders. He shoved him backwards, cackling as his brother’s back made a spectacular splashing sound as it collided with the mud.

“You’re gross,” Roman retorted, burrowing his short fingernails in the dirt. Before Remy could dodge it, Roman tossed up the chunks of earth, laughing without a care in the world as they splattered across Remy’s face. “Told you so! Told you so!”

“Boys!” a sharp voice yelled from the building at the far side of the mud ring. Roman and Remy both froze, taking in each other’s filthy faces.

“Bet she yells at you,” Roman muttered, getting to his feet without bothering to dust off his pants. No use trying to hide it now, anyway.

“Bet she doesn’t,” Remy said in a stunning imitation of Roman’s voice. “Older siblings always take the blame.”

“Not if I’m really good at crying.”

“Not if I cry first!”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Remy only grinned, putting on a burst of speed as he ran for his mother. Roman shook his head and laughed, sprinting to catch up, and if he stuck out a leg to trip his brother on the way and take the lead, well, the past is the past, what’re you gonna do about it?

“—his peace, he doesn’t get much of it,” a familiar voice says, floating over the cotton candy skies and ripping Roman out of his sugar-sweet memories. He blinks and shakes his head, trying to ignore how much the green has faded from the grass outside.

“Sorry, what?” He looks up at Jackie and Logan, the latter of whom is staring at him with confusion. Not nearly as bad as the former, whose eyes betray naught but pity. “I’m fine.”

“Didn’t ask, but I guess I’m glad to hear it,” Logan says, settling himself on the wicker chair.

“Drinks for you boys?” Jackie asks. Roman hates the way she softens the edge of her voice when she looks at him. She never used to put on that tone when he still brought Remy around. Granted, it’s kind of his fault that can’t happen anymore—by which he means it’s entirely his fault, which means it’s also his fault that she’s taking that tone, but that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it, does it?

Roman’s lips feel chapped. “Just a couple waters would be—”

“Your hardest ciders, please,” Logan interrupts. He waves off Roman’s protests, continuing, “I’m buying, remember? No worries.”

Roman nods, forcing his eyes not to stray toward the window. There’s a reason he hasn’t been back here in years. “Thanks.”

“Now, do you think you might want to tell me what your deal is with this place?”

“Not really.” Roman briefly considers pulling on some of the upbeat music pouring from the jukebox, wrapping it around Logan’s head and forcing some semblance of tranquility into his mind, but no, bad idea. It was a mistake to cheer up that baby earlier, a taste of what he knows he can’t have. He swore off of messing with emotions a long time ago, back when there was nothing he could do to keep himself in check. No more.

“Think this might help loosen your nerves a little,” Logan says, pushing a mug of cider across the table. Roman hadn’t even noticed Jackie setting it down. He takes a tentative sip, all too aware of the way the other patrons along the bar are very pointedly not looking at him. Having a reputation to precede you isn’t always a good thing.

“Fine, I’ll go first,” Logan says. He takes a long swig from his own drink before plunking it down on the table, ignoring how some of the foam splashes out onto the wood. Roman traces his eyes along the grain of the surface, remembering when his dad let him sit in on the magicking process of converting a useless tree stump into functional furniture. That always was his signature move, wasn’t it? Magicking life into things that were long dead. Well, most things. Even his dad wasn’t one to magic life into things that never had any business being alive in the first place.

“The town where I live—well, used to live—was incredibly strict about when and how we could use magic.” Logan stares into his mug, and Roman has to wonder whether he hears the words leaving his mouth. “They didn’t like that I could disassemble things at will and put them back together according to my tastes, thought I might get carried away and start taking apart people.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Make sense? Sure it does. Remember how I said I can manipulate any technology I take the time to sit down and understand? If you think about it, people are just a different kind of technology, and I was studying to be a surgeon, and, well, one suspicion led to another, and that obviously made some people uncomfortable, so I left. And I left again. And I left again, and again, and every single town I went to was exactly like the last, all nice and welcoming until it came out that I could do more than just basic reparations on junky radios.” Logan furrows his brows, glaring harder at the ripples in his mug. “Well, huh. Didn’t mean to say that last part.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I can manipulate any technology I understand.”

“Right, that’s how you—”

“Fixed the train and did my studies, yes, but more than that. I can do that to almost anything, even intangible things, if given the right parameters.” Logan clenches his fist, and Roman almost thinks he sees the frames on his face flicker like a flame. “I don’t like talking about it, but you’ve obviously got some stuff blocking your system, and since you clearly helped me out with the train—no matter how much you try to deny it—I’d be willing to return the favor, but only if you’ll consent to it.”

Roman tries to laugh off the notion that he had anything to do with the train, but Logan isn’t buying it. “Don’t kid yourself, obviously that train didn’t just fix the engine on its own. We’ve been over this. You don’t have to tell me what your magic is or anything like that, I get it if you’re one of those ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ types, but have you ever turned on a garden hose to full blast and stepped on the line about halfway down?”

“I—er, yeah, why?”

“That’s you. You’ve got some personal nonsense blocking the main flow in your system, and if you don’t release it soon, it’ll explode on its own, and it’ll do a lot more damage than if you let it leak out slowly right now.” Logan leans in with an earnest look on his face, much more sincere than anything Roman had come to expect from him so far. “I’m trying to help you here, Roman. You need to release it now, or you will regret it later.”

Roman takes a long pull from his mug, wishing he was talking to the mother and baby from the train rather than this oddly perceptive stranger. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Logan blows out a large breath, puffing up his cheeks and looking past Roman at the ring of mud outside. “I can take apart your psychology, physically and metaphorically speaking. You’re holding something in, and you need to let it out.”

“I don’t need to do anything of the sort,” Roman snaps, watching the liquid slosh around in his mug. “Nor do I appreciate your trying to say as much.”

“I merely wanted to make the offer,” Logan relents, raising his hands in surrender. “You are free to refuse my services, if it so please you, in which case I will make no further advances.”

“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” Roman mutters, looking up as the main doors swing open. Great. Just who he wanted to see.

“Heard the old love magicker rolled into town!” a gruff voice jeers. Sigma peers out from behind a man who has to be almost seven feet tall and two hundred stone. They mouth an apology to Roman, who just stares blankly back.

“Just get lost, Trev, would you?” he sighs, pointedly not making eye contact as the pair crosses the room in a few long strides to leer down at him.

“Aw, that don’t sound like much fun, does it, Sigma?” Sigma stays silent, only looking closely at Roman’s mug. He glances down to see the ripples taking the vague shapes of letters—probably some half-hearted apology—so he lifts the cup and turns it over, letting the contents splatter onto the floor.

“Hey!” Jackie yells, but she doesn’t sound too upset—at least, not upset enough to do something about it. She merely hangs back and watches the scene unfold. After all, no one’s ever helped before, so why should she lift a finger now?

“Hear you skipped town to keep your magicky love a secret,” Trevor continues, slamming his hands down on the table. “Little boy got too popular with his little love spells, came crying home to Mom and Dad—or, wait, you can’t do that, can you? Don’t got no one to cry to anymore, do you?”

“Shut up, Trev,” Roman whispers, hoping the agitation in his voice will mask the way his words wobble like dictionaries balanced on cooked noodles.

“Wittle baby gonna cwy to the pawents he don’t have!” Trevor whines in a shrill voice. Roman rests his hand on his cheek, all too aware of Logan’s stiff silence across from him. What good is having a silent observer around if they won’t do anything?

“That’s not your information to share,” Roman mutters, wishing Sigma would defend him and knowing full well they won’t.

“Well, somebody’s gotta tell our newcomer here about your deal, don’t they? Guess it falls to me, since you don’t wanna go clarifying it yourself. Forgive me if I decide to embellish some of the details, you know how I am with the dramatics.”

“Shut up,” Roman says again, wishing his voice were stronger than it is.

“Roman,” Logan says. Yes, very helpful addition, thank you for your groundbreaking contributions to this conversation. “Roman,” he repeats, more insistent this time. Roman glances across the table to see Logan removing his glasses, waving his hands in that familiar way again.

“Oh, the glasses are off now! Wittle Roman got a wittle techno dork to help him?” Trevor cackles, folding his impossibly oversized arms and giving Logan a once over. Seriously, his biceps are like sausages on steroids. “Just stay out of this, kid. It’s for your own good. Nothing worthwhile ever comes out of hanging around this guy, y’got that?”

“I don’t know that I’d say nothing,” Logan replies coolly, swirling his fingers faster now. Roman watches, not sure whether to be horrified or amazed as the frames split apart into tiny spears, their tips sharp enough to pierce metal. The flurry of miniature blades organizes itself into a sheet of steel, poised directly in front of Trevor’s face. Logan slows down his fingers, keeping the pieces in a careful rotation mere inches from Trevor’s eyes.

“Woah, okay, let’s just take it easy here,” Trevor says nervously and, as Roman is happy to note, with some degree of fear in his voice.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Logan says with a sickeningly sweet smile. “I’m simply demonstrating my magic for my friend here, while maintaining a casual discussion with a fellow patron of this fine establishment. Trev, was it?”

“I, uh, I didn’t—”

“Neither did I, but here we are.” Logan jerks his head to the side, hard enough that Roman is genuinely concerned he might snap his neck, and the needles rearrange into the silhouette of an arrow that rises to Trevor’s forehead. Something in Roman’s gut twists at the achingly familiar sight. “Anything else you’d like to share with the group, or should you like to be excused?”

Trevor makes a sound similar to that of a kicked puppy before bolting for the door, leaving Sigma shaking beside the table. One pointed glance from Logan, and they’re gone.

“Wh—you didn’t—I mean, I would’ve—you could’ve—” Roman splutters, watching Logan calmly reassemble the shards into normal frames on his face.

“I did, you wouldn’t have, and neither would I,” Logan says. “Now, you are naturally under no obligation to explain what all that was about, but I would recommend filling me in, if it so pleases you. I do think I’ve earned it by now.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Roman admits. “No matter how much I want to. So there’s this guy—”

“Isn’t there always?”

Roman pouts. “There’s rumors of this guy, Thomas, who doesn’t have any magic.”

Logan seems taken aback by this, and Roman finds a considerable amount of satisfaction in having silenced him. “People have had magic for thousands of years, even in just trace amounts. Surely he’s got some semblance of it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.” Roman shrugs, trying to decide how to proceed without bringing up the reason he even started looking for Thomas. “Anyway, he lives out near the end of the lines, of any train there is. I’ve never seen a station that reaches farther than this train’s last stop, and I want to find him.”

“Why?”

“I want to know what it’s like to be free of the magic.” Roman clenches his fist against his thigh, feeling the mud rings outside burning a hole in his back. “I want to know if he can pass it on.”

“You want to take his inability to do magic? Sounds kind of antithetical, no?”

“Well, yeah, but I just—I need to know if it’s true. I need to know if there’s an escape.”

“An escape from what?”

“From magic, from magickers, from all of it, I don’t know. I don’t want to deal with it anymore, with any of it. I just want to be done.”

“What kind of magic could you possibly have been stuck with that’s bad enough to hate it so much?”

“Hate? I don’t think it’s physically possible to hate my magic, actually.”

Logan twists his mouth to the side and considers Roman for a long moment. “Did it ever occur to you that this Thomas—whether or not he actually does exist—lives so far out of reach because he doesn’t want to be found?”

“It has crossed my mind,” Roman admits. “I just want to be done with my magic. I don’t want to mess up again.”

There’s another commotion from near the door—friendly faces, this time, but they sort of remind Roman of starving raccoons. They peer around the room before their eyes come to rest on Roman’s face, and from the way they almost seem to salivate at the sight of him, he knows exactly what they want. He wants no part of it.

“Roman, won’t you please fix my relationship—”

“Roman, my grandmother is sick, can you pull some sunshine—”

“Roman, I love your magic, is that enough to fuel me with—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, I love the idea of you—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, I haven’t seen your parents in a while, is it true that you—”

“Roman, where’s Remy these days, did you scare him off? I thought it was just a rumor that your love—”

“Roman!”

“Roman, what happens when you run out of—”

“Roman, can I have some of—”

“Roman, I love your—”

“Roman!”

Roman feels sick. He hides his head in his hands, propping his elbows on his knees and wishing his stomach would stop turning as their words bounce around his skull, Roman Roman Roman Remy Roman Remy Remy Roman Remy Roman messed everything up and everyone knows it and Remy knows it and it’s too late for Remy so it’s too late for you, Roman, what ever will you do with all the love you can’t have when no one will give you more?

“Right, that’s enough of that,” Logan says suddenly, swiping Roman’s wrists out from under him. He jolts up, feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder as Logan yanks him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

Logan ushers Roman out the door, leaving some coins and bills on the counter for Jackie and ignoring the shocked looks from the other patrons of the bar, all of whom quickly trade their surprise for awe as they realize this really is that Roman, right there in front of them.

“Logan, I—”

“Don’t need to tell me anything that you don’t want to. Keep moving.”

Roman bites his lip, numbly leading the way back to the station, where the train is slowly pulling up to the appropriate departure area. All in working order, then. No more engine problems.

He moves to step on board, only hesitating when he no longer hears Logan’s feet behind him. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Nah,” Logan says, looking back at the station. “Jackie was telling me about a bunch of things that need reparations around here, and it’s a neat little town. Think I might hang around a while, try to fix it up for them. Maybe get to work on repairing some of these people’s attitudes, too.

“I—” Roman falters, uncertain what he could possibly say to Logan after all that just went down. “It’s love, I think.” Logan says nothing, doesn’t even nod for Roman to go on, but he does anyway. “I take different types of love and put them into different places and forms as it’s needed, and I did it wrong this one time, just one time, just one mistake, a big one, and, well—” Roman glances at the engineer, who impatiently waves for him to hurry up and get on board already. “I burned the only bridges that I had, and it was my fault, and I can’t take it back. That’s what all that was about, because Trevor and Sigma and Jackie and, well, everyone—they all got caught up in the fallout. Trevor’s the one holding the biggest grudge, I think, since he was such good friends with—um, well, y’know, with one of those bridges. I—”

“That will more than suffice,” Logan interrupts, gesturing for Roman to board the train. “You needn’t bare your soul to the first stranger that shows you any semblance of decency, you know.” With that, the door slips shut, barring Logan from having to see Roman’s confused expression.

Roman wanders down to the car he arrived on, collapsing on the third seat and wondering where all the sudden candor came from. Didn’t Trevor’s magic have something to do with compelling honesty? Although, Roman could’ve sworn Trevor condemned magickers after what happened last time things got out of control. Maybe he just had a special passion for condemning Roman, and that one mistake was the nail in the coffin that Roman built for himself.

He glances down at the cushion of the seat, shifting uncomfortably against an odd lump as he belatedly realizes that this was where Logan was sitting when he first boarded the train. He fumbles around with a blind hand beneath him, feeling for the source of the discomfort as the train sputters to life, sending him lurching forward. At the same moment as his head slams into the next seat, something dislodges from the cushion beneath him. His hands fumble through the air to catch it, carefully clasping around the figure and hugging it to his chest. Once his balance adjusts to the steady rocking of the train, he opens his hands and peers into them, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

A little 3D heart, vaguely pixelated with all the different pieces of metal and plastic lacing together to create its surface. Roman squints at the thing, turning it under the weak light of the train’s overheads, but there’s no note, no pull tab, no secret compartment, no nothing. Just a heart, and everything Roman is left to interpret from finding it. Did Logan know?

Maybe Roman’s reputation precedes him more than he realized.

----------

“End of the line,” a voice announces over the train speakers. Roman slowly rouses, blinking as his eyes come into focus on the little heart still clutched in his hands. He stuffs it in his pocket, careful not to tear the fabric on the sharper edges, and moves for the exit door. On his way, he tosses a flippant wave toward the ceiling, just in case there’s security cameras watching him go or something. A little politeness can go a long way.

He stumbles out into a cool, dark night, populated only by the densest of shadows. The sole clue that the train station is even designed to be used beyond as a set piece in a creepy picture is the dilapidated set of tracks that end just past the edge of the building, and even those on their own are a pretty flimsy sign. Once the train finishes looping around the track to reposition itself for the return to the inner cities, Roman plops himself down in the middle of the rails and lies on his back to stare at the sky.

As if the travel time weren’t a big enough hint that he’s farther from home than ever before, the stars above look completely different, almost unrecognizable compared to those rare nights in Depot town, much less back home.

Home. Roman turns the word over and over in his head, his thoughts dancing around that saying. How did it go again? Home is where the heart is?

Roman gives a hollow laugh in cheers to that, feeling the outline of the metal heart in his pocket. Hearts, as in love, which is something he never earned enough to make a home with. Foolish of him to try, really. A breathing mannequin in princely makeup, designed to give love, to spread hope and joy, but never to dare try receiving it. He’s not that kind of magicker, something of which he’s all too aware. Everybody seems to know that better than him.

He runs his hands over the dirt beneath him, feeling how solidly it molds around the cold metal tracks, and wonders whether Remy would appreciate the texture. Always did have a thing for mud and dirt, he did. Mom hated it to no end, which just made it that much funnier that Remy couldn’t go ten minutes without another smudge of brown across his cheek.

Roman allows himself to smile at that, trying to ignore the stirring in his chest at the memory of Remy’s toothy grin, how excited he was to show off the latest bruise or scratch to Roman, how his face would light up when Roman joined in on the fun.

All of it gone in an instant, because Roman was too selfish to acknowledge the part of it that Remy actually cared about. The part that everyone cares about, much more than they ever cared about the person behind it. Not that anyone asked. Not that anyone ever asks.

He rolls onto his side and curls up in a ball and waits for the night to pass.

“This you?” a voice demands. Roman blinks blearily, wondering how long he’d been asleep. Not very, if the stars shining proud overhead are any indication. Unless it’s the opposite, and he’s been asleep for days. It’s anybody’s guess, really. “Hey, wake up! This you?”

He reaches up toward the sound of someone shaking a paper in his face, rubbing at his eyes and trying to make out the contents of the page amidst the darkness. A wanted sign, with strikingly accurate details about his magic, his past, and a picture of his face that’s unnervingly spot on, but—

“Why did they make my forehead so big?” Roman whines, dropping the page and glancing around for whoever handed it to him. A hand snatches the paper back, and a pair of eyes appears inches away from his own.

“Look, I’m not exactly an artist magicker, but I did my best,” that same voice mutters from beneath the eyes. “Let’s just head over to the station, okay? You squinting like a bat in sunshine looks really stupid.”

“Your face looks really stupid,” Roman mutters, walking toward the station anyway. He’s been in weirder situations. Mostly because people get too much enjoyment from toeing the line with pestering him about his magic, but still.

“You don’t know how my face looks, but I can assure you it’s worlds better than yours.”

“I look amazing!” Roman’s protest echoes on the hollow breeze of the night, but the voice doesn’t return a snide remark this time. He continues on, seemingly alone, to the lamely flickering light at the station, half expecting someone to jump out and shout at him.

Beneath the sole light bulb, Roman waits for the owner of the voice to reappear and join him on the bench. No one shows up, so he starts talking to the stars instead. “How did you get that information about my magic, and about my family?”

“I think it’s pretty generous of you to call them your family,” the voice says from somewhere over his left shoulder. Roman turns to trace it, but the sound shifts to the shadows beneath his shoes. “You refusing to share information doesn’t mean no one else is allowed to know it. Especially if they know which shadows to shine a light on.”

“Doesn’t give you the right to go spreading it around with a crappy wanted poster.”

“Who said I made more than just the one copy?” The paper reappears in the shadows just past the reach of the station light, and accompanied by the sound of fingers snapping, it disintegrates. “I know what should and shouldn’t be shared. Give me some credit.”

“How am I supposed to do that if I can’t even see you?”

“Right, because seeing is believing. I always seem to forget that. Almost like it isn’t true.” Another snap, and those eyes materialize where the paper shattered. They stare at him like a feral cat, poised to attack. “Now have I earned your credit? Does your seeing me count as believing?”

“Pfft. Hardly.”

“How about now?” Another snap, and Roman finds himself on the edge of Depot town, watching everyone shutter their windows for the night, watching Jackie kick out the last few lingering drunks, watching Logan in deep conversation with Trevor as Sigma keeps a ball of water hovering over them.

“How did you do that?” Roman demands, whirling around with his fists raised.

“Right, because it’s so easy to fight a voice.” There’s an obvious tint of mockery this time, and Roman starts punching at the air. He feels ridiculous, but he doesn’t have it in him to care. “Hey now, no need to be so rude.” Another snap.

Back at the end of the line.

“How are you doing that?”

“You tell me. I’m just bending the shadows. You’re the one connected to the locations and the times.”

“I—what?”

Another snap. Back to Depot town, but it’s different than before. It’s daytime, for one thing, but artificially so. The moon still hangs among the stars, but they wear torn veils of sunshine and clouds, the rips in the fabric shining a spotlight on the mud ring, Roman follows the lines of pure white to the center and walks closer, not entirely certain why.

“No fair!” Remy’s voice echoes across the field. The boy stumbles over his feet, rushing to catch up to another silhouette while trying to hold up the cardboard box around his waist. The crude scribbles along the side try to make it look like a car, but they aren’t the most effective of artistic statements.

“Take me back,” Roman says coldly, desperately trying to tear his eyes away from the scene. But he can’t.

“No, I really think we should watch this play out,” the voice replies.

“I’m gonna beat you!” Roman’s voice shouts, but it’s not this Roman, not now, not quite. His lips move in time with the words, but nothing more than a strangled squeak escapes his throat. Other Roman, the littler Roman, is taunting Remy. What Roman wouldn’t give to hold them both back in the safety of this moment, for just a few seconds, to yank them out and hide them at the end of the line until the awful moment has passed. But he can’t.

As it is, he can only watch as the boys chase each other around the mud ring, bashing into each other with their cardboard boxes and making vroom vroom noises as they go.

“Sneak attack!” little Roman yells in time with Roman mouthing the same words. Little Roman drops his car and produces a long stick from within, grinning triumphantly. The fury of the moon masquerading as a sun burns down on it, and Roman can almost see smoke curling out of the tip, dark and grey and angry.

“Take me back,” Roman pleads, more desperate this time. He can feel the tremors of his voice all the way down to his feet, shaking the ground and sending his knees wobbling.

“Just another minute,” the voice says, completely unfazed. “Don’t forget, we’re only here because you brought it up. I’d happily return to the station if you would let yourself abandon this whole charade.” Roman feels something inside himself shatter as he watches the leaves spiral upward around the boys.

“That’s cheating!” Remy complains, watching little Roman fling his arms to the side. Roman can almost taste the negative pulls of love rising in his own body, and he hates it so, so much, the way the heat of the sun burns in his throat as his smaller self absorbs it, combining it with the dewy sweetness of the grass, the richness of the life in the mud, before it filters over his fingers, twice as bad now that Roman feels it both in his own hands and in his smaller self’s hands. He can feel it eating away at his skin as little Roman sends the emotions blasting into Remy’s chest, knocking the stick sword aside as if it were even less than the mere twig it already is.

“Please take me back.”

“Almost there.”

Roman can hardly stand to watch, yet he can’t force himself to look away, as the wind whips harder, faster, tearing the beautiful pink petals dancing in the air to shreds as they zero in on Remy. Roman falls to his knees, pleading with his younger self not to do it, but it’s far too late, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Say you love me!” little Roman demands, his voice forcing Roman’s jaw to move in time with the words. It might almost be a sweet sentiment, were it not for the millions of shreds of leaves hovering over his head like an arrow, poised directly above Remy’s heart, the moon in the sky using the stars as the bow waiting to release it.

“I—I—” Remy splutters, shaking his head. “This isn’t funny anymore, Roman, I don’t like this game anymore.”

“Say you love me!” little Roman insists, and the words are like a stab to Roman’s heart as he hears how awful, how hopelessly desperate and venomous they sound. They taste like poison as they spill from his own lips.

“Roman, please, I don’t—”

“Just say it before I go completely empty!” little Roman howls. With every quiver of his voice, the leaves over his head split again and again, more and more pieces of the love little Roman is desperate to give, more and more pieces of the love Roman has long since learned he cannot receive. Not unless someone gives it to him freely. No one ever has. Roman learned that the hard way, and here he is taking the same lesson again. He can’t look away.

Remy is frozen, a wild panic in his eyes as he searches for an escape from the sharpening arrow. A wilder look falls over little Roman’s face as he grows desperate, the lines etched in his skin wearing deeper, tearing claw marks over the surface that spawn into scars on Roman’s face. “Please, Remy, I need you to say it!”

“Roman, I don’t—”

“Roman!” an achingly familiar voice shouts from the door of the house nearby. Both Romans whip their heads around to see their mother racing barefoot through the mud, her shoes abandoned at the door. In a flash, she’s at Remy’s side, knocking little Roman out of the way and gathering the smaller boy up in her arms. She shoots little Roman a look of pure disgust, and it’s enough to curdle two stomachs at once, across the span of several years. “What were you thinking?”

“I—I don’t know, I just—” Little Roman’s lower lip wobbles dangerously, and Roman feels his own resolve shaking. His mind does everything it can to ignore the way the arrow overhead is spinning now, slowly breaking up into several smaller daggers. They shake and sink, trying to collapse, but they can’t. “I just wanted him to say he—”

“What, that he cares about you enough to let you force him to give you the magic back?” Though she’s not talking directly to him, not this him, not now him, Roman feels his heart shattering at the hatred in his mother’s voice. “Did it never occur to you that we don’t say it because it hurts too much? Just because you can give that love freely, it doesn’t mean we can, and it certainly doesn’t mean we’re obligated to.”

Roman lifts a hand to warn his mother, watching aghast as the leaves pick themselves back up, a sharper arrow than either of the ones before, aimed squarely at her heart, all the love in the world that little Roman could possibly muster, now a weapon Roman wishes he could turn away. She doesn’t hear him.

The arrow splits in two, one for mother, one for brother, and for a split second, Roman makes eye contact with Remy. The desperation in his face is enough to turn Roman’s heart to stone.

The arrows fall.

Roman’s world shatters.

A snap. The end of the line. “Well, that sure was an exciting little encore, wasn’t it?”

“You son of a—” Roman hisses, building up all the power of the moon back to its natural state, the knowledge of how many lovers use that little sphere as a landmark for their affection, a perspective around which to dance, amidst all the small creatures of the night and the life of the grass tipped in dew and the hum of creation buzzing down the train tracks, whipping it into a storm and bringing it down in tandem with his hands to smash the source of the voice into the ground, flatten and pound and hammer it until it has no chance of escaping, and when it’s all said and done, Roman pants heavily, bent over his knees and letting the energy of the twisted thing he calls love drain out of him.

“You certainly know how to put on a show, I’ll give you that,” the voice says from over his shoulder. Roman feels his body pulling in the energy again of its own accord, but the voice continues on unabated. “Have you considered that I’m just a figment of your imagination, a cursed fragment of your own mind? A shadow among shadows to remind you of all you’ve thrown away?”

“A shadow among shadows,” Roman repeats. He laughs, an empty sound that rings as dull as a cracked bell. In an instant, he pulls in all he can from every painstaking detail of each brick propping up the station building, funneling it into the sky and willing it to tear a hole directly through the secondhand sunshine dripping from the moon. “Any guess where I got the idea for that exciting little encore?” There’s a flash of brilliant light and a bang of sound, and a silhouette appears for a split second in Roman’s peripheral vision.

His whips around and seizes it, wrapping his hands around its throat and squeezing, squeezing, hating the image of the arrow that glows behind his eyelids like stolen sunshine whenever he blinks.

The silhouette still has those achingly empty eyes, which are hazily focused at best—they look over Roman’s shoulder, watching something take shape behind him. Roman glances back, stunned into silence when he sees that oh-so-familiar shape of the arrow of leaves. He swallows around a lump in his throat and slackens his hands, watching the leaves collapse to the ground as harmless debris. With every inch his hands relax, the leaves scatter weaker and weaker into the breeze, normal pieces of nature and not awful tools for something that only a heretic would call love.

The silhouette rocks to its knees and coughs, hacking up every ounce of air as it rubs gentle circles into its neck, and Roman scrabbles to get away from it. Even in the aftermath of that flash, he can still make out those eyes, still almost see the reflection of Remy hiding behind them.

“Like I said, putting on a show,” the voice says, sounding all kinds of broken and tattered. “What was it you called your magic again? Love? That’s a laugh, really, I can’t believe you’d call that love.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, but I do, don’t I? We both saw that little scene of yours. I’m not the one that made that happen. It’s your own connection to the world through the twisted thing you call ‘magic’ that brought you there. You’re the one who was so desperate for love, he would throw away his family’s lives for the chance to get it.”

“Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“And yet here we are, me knowing all this information about you, and you knowing nothing about me. Do you think I didn’t notice all those times you pleaded for someone to love you before? Do you think those dark nights in empty alleys on your own were really so private? You’ve just been waiting for someone to say they love you, and I’m here to break the news that it’s never gonna happen, so you might as well accept it now.”

The silhouette lurches closer, a smattering of purple appearing around his neck. They pulse in time with Roman’s heart, a feeling like fire lighting up on his hands. He wipes them on his pants, trying to separate the bruises from what he doesn’t want to believe he tried to do. Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, the silhouette pulls him up to his feet with impossibly strong hands, pressing their faces together even as Roman tries to resist, tries to ignore the faint details masked almost completely by the shadows surrounding its features.

“What was it you wanted to hear again?” it asks. “Love, was it?” There’s an agonizing ache behind the voice as a clear face takes shape over top of the blank silhouette, an awful recreation of his mother’s face, undercut by the same purple bruises. When it opens its mouth, it has her honeysuckle tone, and Roman feels his stomach turn. “Oh, Roman, darling dearest, I love you.” It shifts, cycling through an impossible list of features and expressions before settling on something gut-wrenchingly similar to his father’s face. “Hey, kid. I love you, you know that?” Another shift, this time to a face that Roman doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to picture, hates it hates it hates it let me go—

“Look at me, Roman,” Remy’s voice says, now aged well beyond any years it had the chance to experience. Roman can’t make himself look, but he feels matching bruises appear on his own throat with every second he ignores the face. Selfish, disgustingly selfish how he forces himself to look just to make the pain stop, but when he meets those eyes, he sees everything all at once—the arrow, the fall, the love that tore apart his mother, his father, ripping through Remy all at once as if it weren’t love but hate, hate, hate hate hate coursing through Roman’s veins as he meets the eyes that have no right being on this bastardization of Remy’s face and hears those awful terrible words echoing through his body, shaking him to his core. “I fzzt you.” Remy raises an eyebrow, trying again. “I fzzt you.” He smiles, an awful toothy expression. “Seems even you can’t imagine him saying it. Think I like this face best.” Remy leers at Roman, eyes wide enough to show the burning white on all sides. “I hate you.” Remy cocks his head to the side and grins, dropping Roman to the cold metal tracks and vanishing.

The voice does not come back.

Roman hates how relieved he is to drown in the silence. He’s starting to think finding Thomas might not be worth all this trouble, and that realization is enough to crumble the last of Roman’s dwindling spirit.

The shadows fold in around Roman as he buries his face between his knees and feels his body shake, his skin prickling as if it were being stabbed by millions of tiny arrows.

And he lies there.

And

Lies

There.

“Well, this simply won’t do,” a new voice, a warmer voice, a softer voice says. Roman doesn’t move, doesn’t even open his eyes. “I see that shadow boy got to you first. Can’t imagine what dark corners of your mind he brought to light to get you like this. I know you can hear me, but you don’t have to say anything. I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Lift one finger if you can hear me and don’t want me to do that.” Roman doesn’t move. “Okay, I’m picking you up now. Please stop me if you’re uncomfortable.” With that, Roman feels a sturdy set of arms wrap around him, lifting him carefully into the air.

Then, oddly, the arms seem to expand, growing more arms like branches on a tree trunk, completely enveloping Roman in a soft blanket of tentative warmth. He stubbornly keeps his eyes shut, still feeling all those tiny arrows, still hearing the echoes of that cold voice in his head, still seeing Remy’s eyes stare out as his whispered those damning words.

He loses track of how many times they play over in his head, I hate you I love you I hate you I hate hate hate hate hate you Roman I hate you, simply letting them wash over his soul because he doesn’t know what else to do with them. They must reach a breaking point eventually, because he falls back into himself in time to feel the blanket retracting, returning to a normal pair of arms, gently laying him down on what feels like a mattress. Roman stares at the backs of his eyelids,, wondering whether they’ll force him to start talking soon.

I hate you, Roman.

Surely it wouldn’t have been possibly for the voice to replicate it so perfectly without hearing Remy say the words himself. Right?

“Now, you’re under no obligation to talk about what happened if you don’t want to. Trust me, I know how thorough that shadow boy is about people who find themselves out here.” The return of the kind voice is jarring in comparison to the cold anger flickering in Roman’s head, the reassurance in this tone almost enough to convince Roman to open his eyes. Almost.

“I’m sure you had some idea of what you were doing if you made it this far,” the voice continues, “so you’re probably here because you heard about that Thomas character.” At this, Roman’s eyes fly open. The voice laughs softly. “Thought so. Nice to see you’re alive, at least.”

Now having no choice but to keep his eyes open, Roman sits up and surveys the area. A greenhouse, it looks like, incredibly humid with the sun beating in—when did it turn to daytime?—through the concentrated glass and reflecting off innumerable green leaves and yellow flowers and brown dirt. The person owning the voice almost blends into it all, his skin a dark tan and his fingers stained green, his hair a sandy blond and his bare feet covered in scrapes and dried mud.

“Name’s Patton. Pleasure,” he says, extending a hand to Roman. Roman stares at it, uncomprehending. “That shadow boy,” Patton tuts. “Never does know when to quit, does he?”

“Can you blame me?” the colder voice asks. “This one’s a downright monster.” Roman leaps to his feet, brandishing his fists like the arrows he so hates, searching for the source of the voice and hearing a low growl escape his lips. “Whoa, Patton, you see? Call off the dog, yeah?”

“What have I told you about harassing our guests?” Patton chastises. “Go on, get out. You’re only permitted around here at night, and you’ve lost even those privileges for the next couple days.” Watching Patton converse with the distant voice is a silly enough sight to relax Roman, who lowers his fists and settles back down on the mattress. “Now, onto you. How can I help you? A name would be beneficial to me, at least.”

“Uh, Roman. I, um, I came here to find Thomas.”

“Roman,” Patton repeats carefully, chewing on the second syllable. Something twists in Roman’s gut at the sound. “That so? Yes, yes, we’ve established the reason you came here, but in order to help you, you need to tell me why you wanted to find Thomas.”

“I want to know how he did it. How he escaped having magic.”

“I would hardly call it ‘escaped.’”

“So he does exist, then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, where is he, if he does exist? I want to get rid of my magic, and if you can’t help me, I’d like to get going sooner than later.”

Patton cocks his head toward the more crowded section of the greenhouse, folding his arms and squinting at Roman through mud-splattered glasses. “He’s in the back, but I don’t think you’re going to like what you find.”

“I don’t think I asked you.”

“I don’t think you didn’t ask me,” Patton mutters, stepping aside as Roman darts past him. Roman barely remembers to keep his feet under himself as he barrels for the back of the room. Nothing in the world could prepare him for how sharply his heart stops.

“It’s a statue,” he whispers, staring in confusion at the cold marble figure. “He’s just a statue?”

“Just a statue,” Patton confirms, appearing behind him. “Just an idea of a person, for people like you who want to believe in that idea. But I know you didn’t really come here to get rid of your magic because of some fairy tale idea, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” Roman murmurs, staring at the statue, at the complete lack of life in its eyes. It was a lie, wasn’t it? It was always a lie, he never really had a chance. “I came here to get rid of it, all of it.” Something hot and wicked coils up in his chest.

“That so?” Patton rests a hand on Roman’s shoulder, ignoring how he flinches at the touch. Actually, he squeezes harder, holding Roman still. “And why is it that I don’t believe you, hm?” His nails dig in deeper. “Maybe it’s what you’re doing to my plants.”

Roman glances around to see all the petals and leaves and branches wilting, browning, slowly dying, their colors filtering through the air and into his lungs as he starts gasping for breath.

“My strongest love has always been for nature,” Patton continues, his grip almost too much to bear. “I pour my heart and soul into my plants, into growing life from the ground and letting it blossom into the air, and I think that’s pretty evident right about now.”

Roman hardly hears the words, still taking in more color, more light, more life, more love from Patton, feeling the room squeeze out its very essence into his body as he pulls and pulls and pulls, his gaze drifting back to the statue, to the dead silence behind those eyes.

“Go on,” Patton murmurs, an impossibly loud noise amidst the silence Roman has created in the room. “Fill an empty husk with love and see what happens.”

Roman can’t exhale, taking in more and more and more air and colors and life and love, his lungs well past full as he swallows more breaths than he can take and he’s choking on all the love in the room, all the energy Patton is funneling into his plants which are spitting it right back out into Roman’s throat and then he sees Remy in his head and looks closer at the statue’s eyes and it hurts, oh God it hurts, and he’s coughing and sputtering and releasing the colors and the life and the love in broken breaths, barely noticing as his body collapses beneath him, not strong enough to hold up his throbbing head, emptying himself of all the colors and the life and the love in his heart that he’s always given, the thing that hurt the worst when he took it for himself, all spilling out in a rush like a slash across the chest and filtering into the statue and flowing around it, the petals of the smallest flowers floating up and dancing around its head like a wreath as Roman exhales and exhales and blessedly exhales and when he’s finally empty of it all and there’s no more love left to give, Roman wonders whether this is what the love he’s always yearned for feels like.

Patton nudges Roman’s still form with his toe, wincing at the way the skin squishes like mud. “That went better than I expected it to, given how much you had to pull at the shadows.” He looks up at the statue, at the flowers slowing their rotations around its head, each coming to rest along the shoulders. His foot strikes something solid.

“Oh, now that’s interesting.” He reaches down and feels around in Roman’s pocket, producing a little metal heart from within the fabric. “We’ll call it an offering.” He lays it at the statue’s feet, and if he were a sentimental man, he might comment on how for the briefest of moments, a spark of life flashes behind the statue’s eyes before it falls dead and silent once more. In the instant after the light disappears from the face, his plants turn a brighter green, growing a solid few inches in mere seconds. “Change the name and restart the rumors.”

“On it,” the voice says. A very familiar wanted sign materializes behind Patton. By nightfall, word had traveled all the way back past Depot town and to the inner cities and into deaf ears that have already forgotten the person who could spin the sunshine into hope. Past the end of the line is a man free of magic by the name of Roman.

In the darkest corner of a neat little pub tucked away in Depot town, beside a jukebox slowly breaking apart its inner machinery, a man disassembles his glasses. He watches the pieces swirl around his head like a crown as he crumples the paper into a ball and stuffs it in his pocket. “Jackie, I’m heading out again. Got a train to catch.”

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#sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #mine #labhwrites #major character death tw #bullying tw #yaLL this. was supposed to be like 5k max as a qUiCk BrEaK from my big bang #that clearly did not happen #i wrote it all in one night but still #oof homeboi got Long(TM)#also i. have no idea what happened to the plot after that line break like??#roman snatched the keyboard from me and wrote the ending himself bc that is. Not How I Expected It To End #uwu catch me posting stuff explicitly for the validation that comes with doing so #i came up with the title first and it s h o w s

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