#rero

Remus hummed vaguely from the floor, his voice almost inaudible under the sounds of the firewood he was throwing into their fireplace. They had made a pillow fort some time earlier -- a Remus patented, chaotic mess of pillows and blankets that they had long given up on keeping stable, opting instead to lounge on top of it, treating it like a makeshift couch. It had been Remus' idea; Roman had been bummed out by their potential abscence from the party they were supposed to attend with their friends (hosted by Janus, who had the biggest house, but organized by Patton, because Patton was the one who cared about these things), and Remus had brought up the thought as an excuse to cheer him up.

The party had only been an annual tradition for the last two years, but Roman and Patton both worked for it as though it were an ancient ritual. Janus and Virgil, though they always said they couldn't care less, fretted about it nearly as much as Roman did -- a well-kept secret that only Remus was privy to, of course.

"i'm serious," Roman insisted. "I don't want them to keep hoping we'll get there eventually."

"I sent a text," Remus answered vaguely.

It was a shame, really. Roman had prepared both his and Remus' bags filled with gifts (they'd made them together over the course of the month; Remus hadn't been planning on making anything, but Roman had roped him into his own plans and they'd ended up working on them an equal amount, so Roman insisted on calling them "joint gifts"). They had been basically ready to step out the door when they had realized they were snowed in.

Roman had nearly cried, the poor thing. Remus was actually quite content with staying in and drinking himself into a dizzy state in the comfort of his brother's arms rather than in front of a crowd. He'd have Roman all to himself, for once. They had jumped directly from family gatherings to this arrangement with their friends, and Remus, as happy as he always was to socialize with a group of people who only kind of wanted him there, had been sick of the Christmas energy since November.

Having finally successfully set up the fire, Remus stood back up with a satisfied sigh. He turned back towards Roman, "There! Not so bad for a cozy atmosphere, eh?"

Roman pouted at him dejectedly.

Remus had been trying to cheer him up for the better part of the afternoon. He was starting to run out of ideas.

"Want a hot chocolate?" he pivoted.

Roman nodded. Remus turned and walked to their kitchen.

Remus was never comfortable with genuinely sad people. His best friend was Janus, who couldn't express genuine vulnerability to save his life (unless it was to make himself look good), and the very few times he'd seen him cry, they had both been happy to simply pretend it wasn't happening. Roman was theatric with it, though. Remus supposed Janus was too; the difference being that Janus' theatrics were rehearsed. Remus prided himself on being as open as a man could possibly be, but he truly didn't do good around other people's openness.

He knew Roman, though. He knew the kind of sappy shit Roman would do when he was sad, to cheer himself up, to make himself worse. It wasn't as easy to imitate him as Remus thought it would be. In a way, Remus kind of wished Patton was there. He always seemed to know how to lift people up, when to indulge or distract them, what they needed. Then again, if Patton was there, Roman probably wouldn't need any cheering up at all.

Not that he cared.

He glanced at Roman's curled-up form lying down on their pillow-couch while waiting for the mild to warm up. He had dressed down from his party outfit to an ill-fitting sweater that Remus thought he must've gotten as a joke gift, it was such bad taste. Remus could almost wear it himself. He had half a mind to ask to try it on, but Roman had also been complaining about the cold (hence: fireplace) and Remus guessed that he wouldn't take kindly to being asked to strip. Not that that was the point of Remus asking to try his sweater on. He was never upset to see a handsom man shirtless, but Roman certainly wouldn't take kindly to that thought, either.

"Heh, gross," Remus chuckled under his breath. If Patton had heard that, he'd have screamed.

Remus finished Roman's hot chocolate and walked back to their living room and presented it to him with a flourish. "Ta-daaa!"

The corner of Roman's lips twitched ever so slightly, either at the drink or at the sillyness. Success.

"Thank you," Roman said, then reached out towards the mug.

And promptly dropped it.

Roman yelled -- a short, quick sound that barely made it to Remus' ears before it was stopped by Roman's throat seemingly closing in on it as he froze up.

"Oh, shit," Remus swore, then hurriedly grabbed the mug from where it sat in Roman's lap -- somehow fast enough that half of the liquid was still in there. He turned to set it down on the small table in front of the TV so that it couldn't be dropped again by accident, then turned back to Roman. "Are you okay?"

Roman didn't answer. Instead, he hiccupped.

Well, fuck.

"Hey, hey," Remus said softly, climbing on the couchfort and grabbing Roman's face with inexperiencedly gentle hands. "It's okay, it's okay! You're not hurt, are you? It wasn't that hot, yeah?"

Roman shook his head with a sob. "No but it's all over my clothes and you made it for me and I really wanted that hot chocolate and you--"

"I'll make you another one. Like, right now," Remus said. "It takes two minutes. We have a lot of milk. Come on, take off your clothes and I'll put them in the wash now so it doesn't stain."

"I'll be cold," Roman whined.

"No you won't, the fireplace is right here. Look," Remus refuted, stripping down and only leaving his collar on, "I'm not cold! Not cold at all! C'mon, it's so hot in here!"

Roman stared at him all teary-eyed for about two seconds but, thankfully, obeyed easily enough.

"There, good," Remus whispered (to himself more than to Roman). He really didn't fucking do well with genuinely sad people.

He literally ran to the washing machine and back (because God knew what state Roman would be in if left alone for too long) and jumped back to Roman's side.

"This is the worst Christmas of my life," Roman sobbed.

"Well, thanks," Remus joked.

Roman looked up towards him, then completely broke down in sobs. "That's not," he sniffled, "not what I," another hiccup, "what I meant, I'm..." and a sob, "I'm sorry!"

Remus panicked. He had quite literally exhausted his entire list of things to cheer sappy, melodramatic people up with, the last item resulting in disaster -- and something in his brain was shouting about shitty Christmas romcoms, grand gestures, things Roman liked--

So I think someone mentioned, it was months ago, something about a Remrom background and I thought that was a fun idea, got an idea in my head about how they could be posed and finished it like 80% of the way. Well I was giving away that old laptop so I obviously saved all my art to an external drive to finish it later...

And then I lost the hard drive.

Yah I was not excited about the idea of starting over from scratch so I kinda abandoned the idea and between getting a second job and becoming way too obsessed with my ocs I figured I wasn't going to revisit it.