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Chapter Snippet: Nothing for Remus had been simple since the split. And now, Remus watched as Roman's gaze remained fixed in the mirror. Remus himself was trying to reconcile the image shimmering across the surface like it was rippling in silvery water. The person staring back at Roman had a crown of teeth and branches. Teeth gnashed like he wanted to see what it would take to make them crack, and branches reaching barren, broken and bent unnaturally for any warmth or light they could find. The person in the mirror looked wrecked.

Logan

Logan could feel the wildflowers tangled around his bones, could feel their leaves making imprints as if they’d been fossilized there, like they were waiting to grow until they’d breached through his skin and poured out of his palms. What a strange dream, he thought to himself, I can’t remember falling asleep.

His bare feet rested on the cold wood of the castle floor - no, not a castle. A lighthouse. He pressed his toes down onto it just to feel the rough grain of the wood scrape against his sensitive, bare toes. It felt so real. Was this a dream? He looked out over the rail of the tower at the twinkling lights of a little town, dim from the distance. It looked like one of the villages Roman had shown them the last time they’d spent a day traipsing through the imagination. That had been so long ago now.

The petals in his hands had finally bloomed and were floating to the ground, brushing his feet as they landed. They were slim and blue, and Logan couldn’t recall ever having seen a flower with petals like this despite his extensive knowledge. The air around him was full like the swelling crescendo in a song and it whipped his hair around as though impatient for him to move. Logan’s feet were silent on the hardwood and the hardwood was loud under his feet, creaking with the age of the old lighthouse. He barely registered anything but the energy around him; it was deafening, drowning out all his other senses. I’m dreaming, he reasoned, bending down to pick up what he’d stumbled onto while he looked around - a violin, positioned just so on the ground at his feet where they’d stilled, like it was waiting for him to find it.

Ignoring for now that sides didn’t have dreams of their own, Logan drew the bow across the strings, and a sweet shrill rose into the air, causing sparks of light to flicker up around him like embers flickering up from a fire. Where am I? He played a little melody across the strings before setting the instrument aside, propping it against the outer wall of the lighthouse’s tower.

He felt a little like a ghost, like he was there but he wasn’t. Like this was a dream, but it wasn’t. Like he’d stepped into a painting and decided to walk around for a while but forgot his way out, then forgot that there was a way out to find. He was under water and he’d never breathed so easily in his life. It was such a relief that he nearly cried, and what few tears managed to shimmer on his eyes turned into mist in the night air, floating away from him with the wind.

The ground under the lighthouse looked like a still pool of water so clear you might think it was a mirror if it didn’t ripple when the leaves fell onto it. A dream… his mind tried again, but the words were getting harder to remember now, and he didn’t have much use for them regardless. Where am I?

Logan. All he remembered was his name, Logan. He’d had a function too the last time he’d thought about it, but that wasn’t coming to mind at the moment. The flowers were back again, peeking through his skin and blooming across his fingers, twining their way around them, then growing steadily around his arms until they’d covered them completely.

He was dissolving away, and the flowers were taking his place, and suddenly he knew. He could feel it all disappearing around him. This is what he was when he had nothing left to strip away. Because Logan and Logic were two very different people, he thought.

Logic was the other side of the coin, the Answer to the Question, the all-knowing and efficient riposte. Logan on the other hand… Logan felt like a complete mess. Logan was surprisingly distractible, wandered off at inconvenient times when a new question implicated itself into his always-buzzing mind, and felt strange echoes in his chest where a human heart would be.

When he was awake Logan tried to make the curiosity in him a quiet thing, barely breathing until he coaxed the flame higher. But after this dream he had the clearest vision then of what he could do, of something else calling to him.

As he woke up he knew that he needed to know what it meant, what was coming their way. This hadn’t been an average dream - every particle in him was lit up like the starry sky outside his window. Sides shouldn’t be getting individualized dreams at all.

Catching his breath, Logan felt his shoulders ease from their tenseness. It was something he could talk over in the morning; there was no sense worrying about it now. He laid back in bed, trying to let sleep pull him under again. It would be fine in the morning.

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Patton

Patton had a monster under his bed.

Technically, he had monsters everywhere, but the one under his bed was the most troublesome because it was impossible to escape when he wanted a decent night’s sleep. It was almost as though it knew that he was due for a good rest and decided to waltz in at the last minute to give him terrible night visions. They couldn’t be dreams if Sides didn’t dream, could they?

The monster under his bed had a name. One might think that a monster’s name would be something intimidating or even inhuman, but his name was Love, and Patton had known him as nothing else since the night they’d met. As far as he knew, Love didn’t seem to be a side or have a function. He was just Love.

It wasn’t as though he wasn’t grateful to Love for all the nights the creature had spent holding his hand through nightmares - they’d grown up together, him and his monster - but there was always going to be that small, spiteful part of him that wished. A part of him that wished maybe he had let it all go, and maybe he would have gotten the good sleep he’d been craving.

Instead, he was having another vision, and he knew he would be exhausted for the next several days.

In his vision Patton saw a boy who looked startlingly like himself - another side maybe? He had light brown skin, a well-defined frame, and somewhat large, green eyes. His hair was a dark reddish brown, short and wavy. Patton knew this other side somehow, didn’t he? The unknown boy appeared to be lost in the forest. Patton trailed behind as he followed a path until a large, nearly vantablack stag began to guide the other boy away. He wondered if they knew anything about spirits and monsters, but it was an idle, fleeting thought as he followed him off the path and into the woods. Spirits and monsters were only real in Thomas’s imagination, after all.

By the time they’d reached the small, decrepit hollow of a cottage, the forest had withered and died. Corpses of long fallen trees still stuck upright from scorched looking earth, as though too stubborn to fully break down. Everything at the boy’s feet had died, and even his stag had withered into a half-rotting skeleton somehow still managing to graze.

The inside of the shack wasn’t much better than the outside had looked, and all that remained was a single wooden table in the center. Patton watched as the boy approached, clearly drawn to the object resting on the weathered wood. He moved closer to see what had been plucked from the dust, but before he was able to focus his eyes on the object, he was thrown from his vision.

He sat up straight in bed, clutching his chest and panting heavily. “What the heck Love?” He hissed with feeling, glaring over the edge of his bed.

Love further fell from his good graces by scaring him half to death when he set a clawed hand on his ankle in what the demon probably assumed was comfort.

“-and when the heck did you get on the foot of my bed you-!?”

Love interrupted him with a tilt of his lips that Patton had learned to read as a smile, in this case sheepish and apologetic. Despite being a monster, he’d never found Love scary. Mildly off putting as best, and only in the daylight. He looked less natural in the light. Love was a long, lithe monster with greyed skin, and dark storm-blue hair. He nearly looked human, but for his long, slender fingers that ended in sharp claws. His eyes were a dark, deep brown that he’d once mistaken for black until the night Love had wrapped around him; a night when they were both still small and open, Love trying to chase his bad dreams away and Patton hopelessly trusting and innocent.

“Sorry Pat. I got worried. It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

“A nightmare? You sent me a vision you- you- silly beast.” He snapped, crossing his arms and yanking his ankle out of Love’s hand.

Love looked puzzled, hand sliding back into his own lap. His hunched shoulders straightened a little, “A vision? I didn’t send you anything tonight. Are you sure it wasn’t just a nightmare?”

Patton shook his head. It was worrying to say the least if this vision hadn’t been sent by Love. To his knowledge, Love had been the only one to ever send him visions as he was growing up. “No… It was definitely a vision. I had full control, and… it wasn’t scary or anything. It was just… a boy. He was being led by his soul manifestation, I think… through a dying forest. There was… Oh I’m losing it.” He clutched at his head, trying to remember the details before they slipped away from him. Most visions weren’t so specific. Most visions were much more straightforward, containing internalized emotions the others needed to release.

Love frowned deeply, a sharp tooth poking out as he bit his lower lip. “Well, that’s… not the usual.” He admitted, “But it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Does it feel like everyone’s heart lines are still functioning like they should?”

Patton concentrated, trying to pull his frayed nerves together enough to feel the pulse of everyone else’s energy. He felt the familiar, steady thrum of emotions from the other sides and it immediately relaxed him. He nodded slowly, “Yeah it… it feels the same. It feels right, still. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Love or himself.

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Remus

Nothing had been simple for Remus since the split. When he and Roman split, everything around him had been black. There had been nothing but thick tar in his throat and in his eyes. Even his tears felt too heavy as he struggled to abrase the tracks clinging to his cheeks. His head was too loud, and the realization of what this nightmare was only made the situation worse.

He was angry at the blackness. He had clawed and torn at it but it never gave way to anything else, as futile as trying to claw at water. He was drowning. Air was getting difficult to find, and breathing was almost impossible when it made his chest constrict on itself and his throat choke.

And then something happened. The blackness didn’t leave, but it hardened around him, and he had wrapped himself in it. He used it as a wall, keeping anything else from getting in to ruin him further. Movement was difficult now, in the hard place, but he managed to muddle through, dragging and crawling and scraping his way through tunnel after tunnel for just a breath of fresh air.

When he could finally look at the others without feeling like he might implode, his world was forcefully, fiercely upheaved. Logan took something heavy to the blackened walls, and everything began to fracture. There was a wonderful, terrible, blinding light coming from the cracks forming in the stone. The fractures let in the first light and sound and air he had experienced since the dark had swallowed him up.

The rubble fell away, and he swore he must have dropped his head against his hands, wondering where he’d been all this time. Blinking away the last of the ink from his eyes, the world leapt into color. Bright yellows, cool blues, vibrant greens, softened reds splattered every surface and he couldn’t help but see Roman properly for the first time too. But it wasn't Roman who had saved him from the hardened darkness. It was Logan.

Logan, the boy who had taken a sledgehammer to his darkness without even trying. The boy who had gently picked through the destruction around him to dig him out of the ruins. The boy who had picked him up, gave him a dust off and said, Yeah, you’re going to be okay. The boy who had taken the time to smooth out all his sore spots and make sure he knew which thoughts were his own and which were a product of his function.

Logan, the boy who had waited, patiently, for Remus to let him love all his mending pieces.

But maybe some people are meant to be brutalized, born for it or built for it from the black chaos of life in the dark. Even nighttime is not blackness, not completely void. The night is dark, but eyes adjust with time. Nocturnal creatures reach into the dark for comfort. They don't see the fear it causes the people who walk in the sunlight, wary of anything they can’t see at face value. Nightlife finds rest in the shadows, and after so long in the darkness the light is painful for their skin and eyes.

So yes, Remus thinks, maybe some people are meant for brutalization, are perhaps even born for it. And others, like him, are built for it, running into the black like a vacuum looking for a place to hide away from prying eyes. The void is soft and quiet, just this side of too cold but cozy and snug nonetheless. Comforting like arms wrapping him up in a sensory deprivation cocoon. Being built for something, though, means that sometimes the hands of the night felt less like a nice hug and more like a chokehold at his throat.

And he watched, gripped in place by his comfort like a vice; watched building pressures rise to something else. Watched as Roman was deconstructed and rebuilt differently than before. This Roman was darker, dimmer, distant. This Roman was less like the throne room and more like a tower spire, less like a prince and more like a weary, battle-worn soldier. This Roman was too subdued, wounded but still honor bound to stand tall, pristine.

And now, Remus watched as Roman's gaze remained fixed in the mirror. Remus himself was trying to reconcile the image shimmering across the surface like it was rippling in silvery water. The person staring back at Roman had a crown of teeth and branches. Teeth gnashed like he wanted to see what it would take to make them crack, and branches reaching barren, broken and bent unnaturally for any warmth or light they could find. The person in the mirror looked wrecked.

“Roman?” His voice sounded like wood creaking under foot, “Roman are you-”

When Roman turned to face him his expression was bright, cheery, energetic - Roman - but his eyes still held ghosts and thorns. His smile was drawn up tight like it might snap but his words still held their usual tenacity, “I’m fine! It’s alright. Everything is fine. You worry too much, Re.”

Remus watched, and in all his watching he wished that he’d seen, because he definitely didn’t believe Roman’s words. He didn’t need Janus to tell him they were lies because Roman was not fine, because things had been weird across the mindscape for days now, because something was wrong with Roman.

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Logan

Logan woke with the immediate and unshakeable feeling that there was something important he needed to do. The sun had just peeked over the distant skyline he’d chosen for his room’s view and the light shone across his legs as he stared at his hands in pensive silence. Things had been different ever since the fight. He’d felt different.

All the moments he’d wanted so desperately for Thomas - for everyone to know the truth about the other sides, and somehow he’d never accounted for how it would change their entire world. Some things had stayed the same; it wasn’t as though the other sides had become entirely different people simply because Thomas knew more now than he had before.

But now they had questions, now they were coming to him for answers he didn’t have and ignoring the answers he did. Thomas wanted him to be a neutral party between the dark sides and the light sides. There was so much that needed to be mended in that bond, and to feel that it was resting largely on his shoulders was a weight he hadn’t thought about when he’d accepted the task. He’d been so concerned over whether Patton and Janus would ever speak again, so set on getting Thomas through his current personal quandary, that he hadn’t thought about what was going to come after.

He hadn’t realized there would be an after, illogical as that was.

As he let the moment, the day, his feelings wash over him, the dream started to resurface. It was like a jolt, as though static were connected to his fingertips. He flexed his hands a few times, waiting for the flowers to sprout through his skin like they’d done in the vividness of everything. It had felt so real, and though he had no logical proof, Logan was nearly positive this had been more than a regular dream.

‘I need to talk with someone about this,’ he thought, and his immediate urge was to go right to Patton, but now he had choices. Should Patton be the only one to know? What if it really had been just a dream? Was there such a thing as ‘just a dream’ when sides weren’t supposed to be having dreams themselves?

If it was a vision, then it must be important, and if it was important, then Thomas and the others would need to know too. Resolving to decide how many he should tell later, he hastened out of bed to catch Patton while he was still making breakfast.

“Good morning Logan!” Patton greeted, still bustling around the kitchen counter, “You’re up later than usual.”

“I am-” Logan agreed steadily, then cut himself off, trying not to rush his words before he could sort them, “I had a dream. Or maybe a vision. I’m not sure- it was strange.” He busied himself in helping Patton finish their morning meal, moving some boiling water to the side to brew tea.

He could nearly feel Patton’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look up from steeping the tea as Patton asked, “Strange how?”

“I’m not sure.” He admitted, finally looking up and wiping his hands off, “It felt real. I don’t know if it was a vision, or if it was just a dream… We’re not supposed to have dreams. There was something about it. And I’m forgetting pieces, I think. There was this castle- or- maybe not a castle…” Blank. There were gaps where there should be something, and he could feel it slipping as he tried to focus. He turned back to the tea.

“I guess there’s nothing we can do but wait. If it was a vision, I’m sure you’ll have more or figure it out soon! Try to write it down in a notebook when you wake up. Like a dream journal!” Patton suggested, and Logan knew the discussion was over. Not because Patton had said so, but because there wasn’t any way for him to articulate what he had felt when he’d woken up. Resigning himself to the truth of it, he straggled out to start his day.

After the fight, a lot had changed, and there had been some surprising revelations all around. Namely, that he and Remus got along much better than one might have intuited. It was somehow both a comfort and a frustration finding that of all of them, Remus was the most adept at handling Logan’s completely indiscriminate curiosity and most especially his morbid curiosity.

The comfort was in knowing that because it was Remus, Logan could let his curiosity run as rampant as he wanted and nothing between them needed to change. There were no conversations to be had, no worries that the Remus would look at him differently. They were going to be as close as they’d always been because Remus didn’t let it color his perception of Logan. The frustration, of course, lay in knowing that there were so many times he could have used Remus’ company, but hadn’t because he’d been afraid Patton might catch him. Times which were, apparently, pointless.

Now though, sitting next to one of his best friends, Logan knew that this was the right time to vent. He retold the whole vision - as much as he could remember, and did his best to explain the feeling of complete urgency he’d felt, the magnitude of the dream’s importance.

“I don’t have a way to make heads or tails of what any of it means, even if it is a vision.” He groaned, a small pout playing on the corner of his lips.

“Mmh,” Remus hummed in what was most probably supposed to be sympathy but came across more as delight, from where he was cleaning his morningstar, “It sounds like you’re thinking too much. If it’s a vision, it’s already telling you exactly what it needs you to know, right? Let it come to you - like prey when it thinks the predator is gone!”

Logan agreed with a sigh, “I suppose you’re right. Patton said something similar.”

“Well, if it’s any help, you mentioned an abandoned castle, yeah?” At the nod of Logan’s head in confirmation, he continued, “I’ve done a lot of traveling in the imagination, and I’ve only ever seen one castle that’s completely abandoned with water around it like that. It’s more of a ruin than a castle, actually-”

“Where is it?” There was a sudden stillness to the air now like the walls were holding their breath around him. He could swear he felt a heartbeat in his temples that wasn’t his own. The dust in the streams of sunlight around them was glittering, and for a moment, he almost thought he saw little blue petals between them.

“It’s far. All the way on the outskirts at the edge of Roman’s domain.” He answered, finishing up with his morningstar and standing to stretch. “I need to head out. I’m meeting Roman today and… well, I just really don’t want to miss this meeting.”

“Of course. Thank you, Remus.” Logan’s voice was crisp with sincerity.

“Anytime, Lo-bot. Good luck!” Remus called out as he hastened away to meet Roman. Come to think of it, Remus had seemed a bit off when he’d mentioned his brother, but Logan couldn’t quite pinpoint why. It was something in the way Remus had sounded unsure of his words, something he almost never was given that he typically didn’t care to think before he spoke.

It wasn’t an answer, but it was a start, and that was what was most important to focus on. In the meantime, he had a meeting to make sure Thomas made it to, and he was already running late. With a buzzing mind, Logan darted in the other direction, hoping Thomas wouldn’t be too set back by his tardiness.

----------

As usual, Logan was more upset with Thomas’ tardiness than Thomas was himself.

“Punctuality is very important, Thomas. I help as much as I’m able, but it’s ultimately in your hands what you do, and this is your only meeting today.” Thomas was making the expression he always made when he wished (not for the first, nor likely not the last time) that he knew a spell that might turn Logan into a mute, or turn himself deaf.

He looked like he’d been just about to respond when something in the air altered, and suddenly Logan was somewhere else, miles away in what must be the mindscape. The ruins, again, in the light of day this time. The air around him was fresh and clean, and there wasn’t a sound he could hear. Not even the whistle of a bird’s call or the rustle of wind in the leaves made it to his ears, despite the breeze brushing along his skin.

And then he blinked, and it was all gone.

Thomas was waving his hands in front of Logan’s face, and he blinked rapidly, backing up to get away from them as the other’s voice filtered back in, “Logan? Are you feeling alright? You look pale.” He sounded worried.

“I’m fine. Sorry. I’m just feeling a bit off today.” He replied dismissively, “Nothing to worry about.”

Not looking convinced, Thomas said, “I was just telling you that the meeting was canceled. We don’t have anything to worry about being punctual for.”

“Meeting?” Logan echoed, feeling there was entirely too much static in his ears, “That’s right. You’d mentioned that a few nights ago. Thank you for reminding me - I’ll get back to helping Patton for the day.”

Thomas looked like he was about to say more but before he could manage it, Logan started sinking out, “Please let me know if you need anything that requires my attention.” When he made it back to the mindscape he turned on heel to rush back to his room.

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Logan was dreaming again. The cool of the water pressed against the underside of his feet as he walked and he marveled at the feeling of floating on top of the water’s surface like a leaf that had just fallen. Gazing out, he saw nothing but open sky, the ocean stretching as far out as his eyes could strain. The sky was crushed - a gradient of pink and purple and blue, and he saw three suns low in the sky just riding the horizon. Each step he took caused ripples to move along the top of the seemingly endless sea.

When he turned around, there were trees towering in the distance, and even as far as he was he could tell that they were much larger than any tree he’d ever seen before - much larger than anything he could begin to fathom. They stretched upwards so high that he couldn’t see the tops even from the distance he was standing, their peaks obscured by a mist that made the trees slowly fade away into blank whiteness. The only visible thing amongst the trees wasn’t actually a tree but a high, high lighthouse, nestled in between the foliage.

Most peculiarly, he noted that the forest seemed to be growing from the water itself, no land in sight at the base of the trees where it began. Their roots were raised and gnarled, rising up into twisted trunks. He could walk beneath them, between the expansive roots, each wide enough to be a tree all their own in the real world.

Where was he?

He’d asked that question before. It tasted familiar on the tip of his tongue. Has he done this before? He’d been here before, hadn’t he? It felt like a blur. He felt like a blur himself, more of a moment than a person.

Who was he again?

That came easier this time. He was Logan.

Logic.

Logan could have sworn he’d just gone to sleep. He’d just closed his eyes to drift off after relaxing into the coolness of his pillow, ready with a notebook at his side should he need it. And now he was here. He’d been here before, he thought to himself, but the thought was a fleeting vagueness pressed unthinkingly into the back of his mind.

When he blinked his own bedroom in the mindscape came back into view, everything exactly as he’d left it. What happened? He’d gone back to his room after a one on one with Thomas about his meeting and then… He couldn’t remember anything past turning his doorknob. With shaky legs, Logan lowered himself to sit on his bed and a long, trembling sigh quavered past his lips as he took stock of what he was feeling. Confusion, hesitancy, unsureness, and a good helping of doubt in his own senses.

More than all those, Logan felt a bit afraid to blink.

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Hey guys, thank you for reading if you got this far. I'm posting a little bit of what I have written here. Please keep in mind it's only been loosely edited, and I'm new to posting my writing on Tumblr so the formatting might leave something to be desired. That said, I'll improve with time and I hope you enjoy what I have today.

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