It’s been two months and five days since the last video. Remus knows—he’s been counting in his head, even though he tries to stop himself. It’s hard not to. Two months and five days since everything went sour. Mushy and brown like an apple left out in the open.
The first week was the worst. Logan locked himself in his room and didn’t come out. Virgil slipped downstairs in the commotion, probably to stay with Deceit. Janus snapped at Remus whenever he said hello. And Roman…Roman was nowhere to be found.
Eventually they found a rhythm. Remus cooked them breakfast before the sun rose. Toast and eggs for Janus, cereal for Roman, and a bagel for Logan. He cooked them lunch, too, and dinner. Sometimes Roman would wander in and help out, and Remus would crack every joke he could to get a little smirk under Roman’s hood. Once in a while Janus emerged from his room, but he didn’t smile no matter how hard Remus tried.
If they didn’t, Remus knocked on their door and handed them their food. Janus always took a moment to open his door and he never said a word to Remus. Roman always managed a “hi” which Remus was grateful for, except on bad days when Roman’s door didn’t open at all. Logan never answered the knocks, but Remus left the food by his door, and the plates were always clean when he came back to collect them.
Sometimes, when he had extra food, he’d bring it downstairs. Virgil was accepted by Thomas now, at least a bit, and Remus couldn’t just let him starve. Although Deceit was probably cooking for him. Still, it was a show of good faith for Remus to occasionally give Virgil some extra pasta. Virgil’s room was always blasting music, so if Virgil said anything when he took the food, Remus couldn’t hear it.
Deceit watched him from the couch as Remus walked back to the stairs. They didn’t speak to each other. Remus was pretty good with feelings, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what emotions were behind Deceit’s eyes.
When he wasn’t cooking, Remus spent the rest of the time in his room. He paged through memories and talked to his pet frog and stared at the ceiling for a long, long time. Sometimes Thomas had a dilemma and Remus would pop in to assist. Nobody else ever would. He would stand alone with Thomas in an empty living room until it got too awkward and Remus forced a cheerful goodbye.
Remus was in his room, tracing the seams of his overalls and hoping for some kind of normal. Logan was in his room, building little mechanical creations only to tear them apart, a pile of uneaten food in his trash can. Janus was in his room, reading book after book after book and creating teetering piles of them by his desk. Virgil was in his room, turning up his music until he couldn’t hear himself think. Roman was in his room, headphones on, sketching the other Sides and wishing he was brave enough to knock on their doors.
Deceit was the only one who wasn’t in his room. He tried his hardest to avoid his room altogether. Whenever he was in his room, he could hear all the suffocating little lies that snaked around the other Sides, sweet and sickly, crawling under his skin. So he sat under the window downstairs and taught himself a few songs on the ukulele. Virgil didn’t come out and Deceit didn’t make him.
It was quiet in the Mindscape. The calm after the storm.
It had been two months and five days, and Remus worried that things would never be the same again.
