Romangst || A Sanders Sides One-Shot Compilation

Trigger

Oh look... I'm back... with a vent fic where I project my experiences onto Roman... cool...

Warnings: Unsympathetic Remus, rape/non-con, forced incest, traumatic amnesia, foster care, fire mentions, death mentions, open ending

Sorry...

Roman winced as the bed creaked above him, drawing his eyes open to the reality that he was on the bottom bunk. He hated the bottom bunk.

The top bunk wasn't even a bed, though. It was a storage shelf. To conserve space in the small bedroom. So there was nothing to worry about. Hell, he didn't even know why he was worried. It's not like he could remember anything that happened before he was, what, ten? Nine? The earliest thing he could remember in his life was... gee... the fire?

He remembered... bits and pieces. Kind of. He remembered what his family looked like. Their faces, names, house, etc. But no... events. No memories. None that actually made sense. He'd get a glimpse of a dinner, sitting around the table with them. Or a flash of some weekend celebration, playing with sparklers and trying to set his brother on fire.

Roman grimaced.

His brother...

Remus.

That's what his name was, wasn't it? He'd set the house on fire. He'd killed their parents. He'd - ... he'd done something. Roman groaned, sitting up and getting out of bed, starting to pace. He'd always had a shitty memory like this, it wasn't fair. All he knew was that Remus was bad news, and it was a good thing he was in a reformatory for as long as it took him to... not be Like That.

"Roman?" Roman jumped at the quiet knock on his door. "Sweetie, why are you up?"

Oh. It was just his foster dad. Roman opened his mouth to reply, only to find that - annoyingly - he wasn't able to speak at the moment.

What was with that?

Everyone said he'd been through trauma - and a lot of it - even before the fire. Therapists said it was the only explanation, doctors saw the scars, social workers saw his reaction to Remus's name.

But for the life of him, Roman couldn't figure out what it was.

"Okay, knock on something twice if you don't want me to open the door," Patton said after Roman's silence. Roman sighed, shoulders falling, as he didn't rap his knuckles on the wall. After another moment, Patton slowly opened the door and stepped inside, leaving it wide open.

Why did closed doors scare Roman so freaking much?

"Are you okay?"

Roman shrugged, gesturing idly at the bed, even though he knew Patton wouldn't understand. Patton frowned.

"You can't... sleep on the couch every single night," he said gently. "It's... it's not..."

Yeah, yeah. Roman didn't want to fuck up these guys' chances of fostering in the future, either. But he hated bunk beds. They felt too closed off, too dangerous. He wouldn't be able to run or escape if Remus swung down and-

And... he'd do something.

Roman grimaced, burying his head in his hands. Patton made a soft noise of understanding.

"You're remembering things, huh?"

Roman didn't know how to respond to that. Because, really, he wasn't. He wasn't remembering anything important. Nothing that would help to explain why he was so fucked up. He remembered what he was afraid of, but had no reason why. Other than Remus.