Romangst || A Sanders Sides One-Shot Compilation

Kintsugi

"Why?" Logan couldn't help but ask, even though he knew Roman had no answer. As expected, Roman just shook his head.

"I don't know, Logan." he sighed, exhausted. "I just know that sometimes I feel worse about myself, and there are more cracks. I do know that being with you has helped, immensely."

"Me?" Logan raised an eyebrow.

"Just learning that you, I don't know, like me the way I liked you. It took some fear and stress away. And you... you see things more clearly sometimes. It helps. Not with everything, but it does."

"Oh." Logan leaned against his boyfriend's shoulder, eyes falling back to the mirror despite himself. Roman sighed softly, and in an unspoken agreement they lay back down, sitting in comfortable silence.

From that day on, Logan had a cheat system for knowing how his boyfriend felt. It wasn't really a cheat system, as Roman had told him about it. He would look at the mirror when he could, noting the circumstances of the changes within the cracks. And on days he wasn't sure why the one in the center had grown, stretching toward one corner, he would sit with Roman on his bed, or in the imagination, or watching Disney movies, and attempt to make him feel better.

Logan wasn't good at feelings - not dealing with them. He knew the science behind them - and he'd been studying psychology more and more for both Sanders Sides videos and for Roman - trying to understand the swings. The highs, the lows.

Roman didn't always have an answer, Logan found. Not one that he was willing to admit. He would see the way Roman breathed in as if to speak but just shook his head instead after Logan asked what was wrong.

So, over the months, Logan watched the mirror change. Small cracks around the edges, fading and growing over time. The one in the center - always there, never shrinking. It would expand occasionally, before going weeks at a time with no change to that crack whatsoever. Roman never talked about that one. He would sometimes mention smaller ones. Ones that vanished after a hard week, or a stressful moment. But when Logan tried to help, he just found himself pushed away. Roman wasn't willing to share yet, what bothered him so greatly. And Logan was beginning to worry.

The crack had reached the edge of the mirror, he saw one day when he woke in Roman's arms. It was wide, splitting the mirror nearly in two pieces, and the path it followed - jagged, and unlike a crack caused by one strike - made Logan wonder what on earth it could represent. And why it was so large. And why it hadn't left.

Roman made himself scarce that day, leaving just after breakfast.

Logan intended to follow - but was distracted as he found Patton in the middle of a breakdown - sobbing about the hundreds of suffering people on earth.

The issue took some time to resolve, but Logan finally managed to calm Patton and get him a plate of cookies.

Then he went up to Roman's room, knocking gently, more worried than ever when there was no response.

"Roman?" he called, opening the door slowly. "I-" Logan felt a chill race over him when he stepped inside - greeted by a sight he'd never even imagined.

The mirror was shattered.

Shards of the reflective glass covered the floor - as did droplets and spatters of blood.

Among the shards - cruel and jagged, unforgiving, lay Roman.

"Roman." Logan's voice was choked, and he forced himself to kneel at his boyfriends side. The glass stabbed into him, though he didn't feel pain. He never had - he was least affected by the imaginary world they all lived in.