#holidays2020

Roman straightened out his ascot and secured it with the tie pin that featured his logo. He knew Remus would be in a similar outfit tonight; they’d planned that out, after all. The Prince pulled on his vest and buttoned it up, before sitting on the bench at the end of his bed and pulling on his tall boots, lacing them up and tying them. He tucked the ends of the laces into the boots, and stood once more, adjusting his hair in the mirror before straightening up, smiling a bit to himself. His boots were black, as he usually wore. His pants were white, and fit close to his frame. Roman had on a red dress shirt, with a white ascot, and over that he had a white vest with gold roses embroidered in. Over everything, he pulled on a red tailcoat. He rarely wore this suit, finding it far too formal for most events, and especially before Remus was accepted, he hated wearing it, as it made him stand out a bit much even for his own liking. But, Remus would be in a similar suit, which comforted him.

Roman came into the ballroom to find the castle staff setting out different food and drink options, and Remus setting up a few smaller things off to the side. Remus was in a similar outfit to Roman, though his clothes were black where Roman’s were white, green where Roman’s were red, and instead of gold roses, Remus’ vest had silver thorns embroidered in. Remus’ mustache was trimmed and neat, and his hair, though fluffy, was actually combed, and the white streak was freshly touched up, going by just how brightly it stood out from the rest of his hair.

“Looking good, Re,” Roman praised with a smile. It wasn’t often Remus would clean up like this, so it was quite a sight.

“Right back at ya, Romano,” Remus smiled. “Matthew keeps trying to get me to put on my damn crown.”

“I almost forgot about the crowns,” Roman mused. “Would you wear it if I wore mine?”

“They’re still dumb.”

“We’ll look dumb together, then.”

“Fine.”

Almost immediately, a pair of castle staff approached the pair, one carrying a gold crown with red jewels set into it, and the other carrying a silver crown with green jewels set into it. The crowns were set on each twins’ head, and the two staff bowed and took off to assist with final preparations. It didn’t take long for things to be completely ready, just in time for the other residents of the Mindscape to enter.

Logan was first, unsurprisingly. They were dressed in a fairly simple suit, with black shoes, dark blue slacks and matching jacket, black shirt, and a two-toned blue tie consisting of a dark blue base color, and lighter blue circuit-board patterning. Their hair was combed back neatly away from their face, and they actually looked a bit intimidating.

Entering next was Janus. He was in a set of black shoes and black slacks, a yellow dress shirt, black bowtie, and a black suit jacket with an intricate snake embroidered into the left side with metallic gold thread. As usual, he had his yellow gloves, bowler hat, and capelet on, as well. As always, he looked put together.

Patton and Emile entered together. Patton wore the grey suit he’d worn in the courtroom before Lee and Mary-Lee’s wedding, though his jacket had hearts and swirls embroidered into it in light blue, and he had a small frog pin on his lapel. Meanwhile, Emile wore a tan two-piece suit, white shirt, and a light blue tie with a light pink paisley pattern on it. It was a new tie Patton had just given him for Christmas, and Emile seemed to love it.

Virgil came in next, dressed in black skinny jeans, black heeled boots, a purple dress shirt, black tie with shimmery purple spiderwebs patterned on it, and a black vest with his usual purple and black patches and white stitches. His eyeshadow was more glittery than usual, and had a purple tint to it, and he was wearing proper eyeliner, as well.

Remy and Dice came in last, entering together. Remy had on his dark sunglasses, like he always did, along with a set of black shoes, black skinny jeans, a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a tie the color of coffee with a bit of cream added with a pattern of white Zzz’s all over it, and matching suspenders. Dice, meanwhile, was wearing black shoes, black slacks, a dark grey turtleneck, a dark plum suit jacket, and a scarf made to look like a strip of film. To say they both looked good would be an understatement.

With everyone now in the ballroom, the party was able to properly begin. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, chatting, eating, drinking, and getting up to various sorts of shenanigans. Remus pulled Logan aside to dance, Remy was seemingly playing a game with himself to see just how bright he could get Patton and Emile to blush -which at some point the other two seemed to join in on and retaliate, trying to make Remy blush as bright as they could get him to-, Janus was chatting with Dice about various movies, and Virgil and Roman were joking and chatting.

By the time midnight was approaching, just about everyone had shed at least one layer of their clothes. Remus and Roman had both ditched their tailcoats, many of the others had shed their jackets, Dice had also taken off his scarf, Janus had taken off his capelet, hat, and jacket, and untied his bowtie, Remy’s suspenders were no longer on his shoulders, but rather hanging from where they were secured to his pants, Virgil was walking around without his shoes on, and even Logan had taken off their jacket and loosened their tie.

Patton, Emile, and Remy were growing fairly handsy with one another, and Remus and Janus were in a similar state. Virgil half-joked that it wouldn’t be surprising if people had various bruises in the morning. Roman had simply swept him into another dance in response.

Time practically flew until they were approaching the final countdown to the new year. Roman attempted to get everyone’s attention, though over the noise his words were lost, until Remus got up on a table, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted.

“Hey, horny bastards, listen up!” Remus called out over the group, catching everyone’s attention and directing their eyes to him as he cackled.

“To be fair, you’re a horny bastard, yourself,” Logan stated, pushing their glasses up the bridge of their nose.

“Yeah, but that’s my natural state of being,” Remus shrugged.

“Put a pin in that, for now,” Roman stated. “I just wanna say, before we ring in the new year, that this year was quite a ride. We’ve helped Thomas, helped each other. Hell, there’s no more Dark Side to the Mindscape! We’re all together, now. Thomas met a cute guy, we accepted Remus,” he paused and looked at his twin, smiling a bit as Remus looked back up at him with a smile of his own. “Logan came out of the closet, and we finally learned Janus’ name. Sure, Thomas skipped out on a massive call-back, and went to a wedding where he felt like he was just another face in the crowd, and, he burnt himself out… But, we’ve all learned from all that. This coming year will be better, I know it,” he finished, as the others murmured their agreements.

Soon, the group had all pulled themselves together enough to head out onto the balcony and join the final countdown to the new year. Roman had Virgil held close, an arm around his shoulders. Remy had Patton and Emile held close to him, and Remus held Janus and Logan around the shoulders. Dice was leaning against the wall near everybody else, seemingly unbothered by the fact he wasn’t being held close by someone else.

Finally, the countdown began.

“Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Happy New Year!”

The Sides all joined in, cheering as fireworks began to go off overhead. There were kisses exchanged, laughter, and just a wave of joy coming over everyone. It was enough excitement to turn Virgil’s eyeshadow a bright, glittery purple as Roman pulled him into a kiss.