A/n: Things get pretty dark here. I'm satisfied with the level of angst that i've achieved.

I don't know why i've done this.

✨ TRIGGER WARNINGS ✨

•Blood
•Nightmares
•Flashbacks
•Suicide attempt
•Self-harm
•Anger
•Yelling
•Selfishness
•Death
•Stabbing
•Crying
•Stabbing
•Implied incest

If I missed any, do tell!

Raegan and Andrew had been imprisoned for about 24 hours. And in that short period of time, there were hundreds of news reports. A bunch about Rose's sudden disappearance, too.

They kept their mouths shut when questioned, and the only reason the cops knew they were the cause of Rose's kidnapping was because of the smirks they'd have during the entire questioning.

————————————————————

A day after the kidnapping, Rose woke up. She was lightheaded, and it was dark.

She wondered if she was dead. Was there really a place after death? She always thought that she'd just be a rotting corpse in the ground. No afterlife.

She moved, and that's how she knew she was alive. She was tied up, and remembered what had happened to her.

It was sweaty and hot, she was sore, and sticky. She felt what she could only assume to be blood everywhere. She couldn't breathe, and she wondered where she was. She felt weak and dehydrated, and could barely move.

She knew she was in a small, cramped space because even when she did try to move, she could barely move her sore, aching limbs at all.

She remembered that someone had broken into he house. She thought about it, and realized she was in the trunk of a small car. They must've put her inside after they knocked her out.

She wondered how long she'd been in there. It couldn't have beeb longer than a day or two because she wasn't that dehydrated yet.

Her clothes stuck uncomfortably to the sticky, crimson substance she was covered in. She tried to spit out her gag, only to find that she had a huge piece of tape covering her mouth. She shook her head quickly, however, the only thing she achieved through this was becoming light headed, which caused her to pass out again.

There was a long, sharp object poking in her back. She had laid down wrong when she went limp, and fell on one of the knifes Andrew had in a bag. It would sure hurt when she woke up.

————————————————————

"Is-is this what you wanted, Roman?!" Ran screamed, grabbing Kurt and pulling him closer to his chest, "we-we're done, I swear to god! You aren't roping us back in like you always do-i'm tired of thi-SICK AND TIRED OF THIS!! Look what you made him do!"

"This-this isn't what I wanted!" Roman yelled back, trying to defend himself. Ram glared. He knew he didn't actually care-he was just trying to cover his ass, as always.

"Then what did you want?" Ram asked quietly, near tears.

"I-I just wanted to get the damn job done, okay?! I wanted to be free from this, to move on! We've made so many mistakes, I just wanted to change!" Roman yelled.

"Oh, well good job with that! Look at Kurt-LOOK AT HIM! Shut the hell up with your excuses, 'I wanted to get the job done' that has nothing to do with the fact that Kurt just about committed suicide!!"

"Ram, I—"

"No! You've been teasing him and-and bullying him for years now! Just because he's weaker than you! He's your boyfriend, you should be caring, not manipulative, you practically roped us into this shi-"

"ENOUGH!!! Okay?! I'm sorry, is that what you wanted?!" Roman asked coldly.

Ram's eyes were filled with hatred, "You're sorry?! Well thank-fking-you!! But sorry won't bring back our normal lives, sorry won't get rid of Kurt's cutting, or-or the rope burn around his neck! God, I love him so much!! And-oh my god, look at us talking about him like he's not even here!"

Ram helped Kurt up. He was drained physically and emotionally from the attempt.

"Roman..i'll talk later" he said coldly, walking off.

Roman rolled his eyes, stomping off.

Remus wondered why Roman was in such a bad mood that night, in fact, he was in such a bad mood, that he ended up smacking Remus across the face hard enough to leave a mark.

"You're so damn annoying, Remus! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!"

——Flash-forward brought to you by Roman's redemption arc that might only be possible in your dreams——

Roman sighed, thinking of the memory. How could he have been such..a jerk? Especially to his best friend, who he knew was suicidal? Even if that happened almost three years ago, it still made him feel a bit guilty.

He didn't even know where they were now, but he couldn't help but think about how awful he was. Ram said he wouldn't fall for Roman's tricks again, but he did. He came right back into his arms, and under his influence, helped bully many other kids.

Roman grabbed a knife out of the kitchens knife block. Kurt always said that it made him feel better to cut. It took the pain away for a while, and distracted him.

He'd rather have physical pain, than the burden of this emotional pain.

He brought the cool metal object to his wrist.

He took a deep breath, and-

"Roman?" Remus questioned quietly. He'd heard noises and came into the kitchen, where Roman was, a sharp steak knife in his hand, pointed towards his wrist, milliseconds away from dragging across his pulsing veins.

Remus quickly ran over, and snatched the knife, disbelief clouding in his eyes, "no-n-nn-no! HELL NO! You don't get to do this-you-god, after everything you've done! You think you-christ, no, you don't get to feel the emotional pain great enough to need to cut yourself, damn it!"

"Remus, wait, I-"

"No!" Remus cut him off, anger flaring inside of him, "hell no, do you know what you put us through? Me? Virgil? Everyone?! Every single day, I missed you, I waited for you, and I hoped you'd come home-to play, or hang out or something! But no, you always left me behind, teased me, acted disgusted every time you looked at me!"

Roman opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by a voice crack, "i'm constantly trying to feel pain so I don't feel nothing! I'm so used to being alone by now!"Remus pulled up his sleeves, revealing deep, jagged cuts, and long scratch marks, "do you know what I have to do to feel like i'm a person?! I have to stab myself!"

"Remus.." Roman whispered in horror, looking at the marks.

Remus snorted, "funny how you care now that something's wrong!-Oh, sorry, funny how you pretend to care!"

"Even through all the horrible crap you've done, everybody always loved you. Mr. Popular! Friends around every corner, and what was I left with?! I was left with whispers and laughs! Don't think that I don't know what you told everyone!! You told everyone disgusting lies about me-I had to get in trouble and act out for any attention! I had to fight my way to be even half as great as everyone believed you were!"

"And you know what?!" He continued, before Roman could even get a word in, "i'm so tired of this!"

Remus took the knife, jabbing it half-way into his stomach, then taking it out, and stabbing himself again.

Remus's eyes rolled to the black of his head as black tears rolled down his face, "is this what you wanted?"

Suddenly, Roman woke up, shooting up in his bed, screaming, thrashing, and sobbing. He put a hand over his mouth to stifle his screams.

Oh thank god-it was just a dream-a nightmare-the flashback was very real, though.

Roman cried though, the message behind the dream was real. He had bullied Remus relentlessly in school, and made fun of him in front of his friends. He told his friends embarrassing secrets about Remus too, and twisted the truth.

He tried to turn people against Remus, because Roman didn't want to be a bread roll to hold you over before dinner. He didn't want to be scrapped left-overs that nobody wanted to save.

Yet, all those years, he knew that's how Remus felt.

And he. did. nothing.

Remus burst through the door, hearing the screams and cries. "Ro, are you okay?!"

'Ro..' He thought, 'haven't heard that one in a while..'

Roman thought, 'I don't deserve the right to feel okay.

"R-Remus, t-take off your shirt" he gasped out.

Remus raised a brow, "Okay, despite what you've probably heard from Andrew, incest is not wincest-"

"Remus, i'm serious!" Roman sobbed, burying his face in his hands.

So, Remus quickly obeyed, realizing the seriousness in Roman's voice, taking his shirt off, trying to lighten the tension by doing it slowly in almost a sexual manner, as Roman turned on the lamp next to his bed.

Roman sighed in relief. No stab wound. No cuts.(Well, no cuts that hadn't already been healed by then. But Roman didn't need to know about that.)

So Roman, who had slept without a shirt on, quickly got up to hug Remus, who hugged back after a few seconds of being shocked.

"Boys, what is the screaming about?!" Katlin asked, running in. She saw them both without shirts on, and widened her eyes, "are you...?"

"Mom, no! We aren't having sex!" Roman said quickly, pulling away.

"No, no, let her think what she wants. Maybe we could convince her to get in on some family fun one night" Remus smirked, wriggling his eyebrows.

"I mean, I know that you guys want to experiment and stuff because your bodies are changing-"

"MOM! We aren't sixteen, we're eighteen! Our bodies are already changed!'I had a nightmare and Remus is comforting me!" Roman quickly yelled.

"With your shirts off?"

"I-"

" 'Comforting' yeah, that's not what the kids called it back in my day" she smirked, "but in all seriousness-are you okay?"

"Yes" Roman lied without hesitation. He seemed to lie a lot.

A/n: Ya'll want some more angst? Because I can make up some Patton and Logan missing 'the old Roman' sub plots. 😂

OOOH I could also make up some angst with Virgil being made fun of for being related to a murderer.

At this point, i'm just trying to stall the ending of the story.

Maybe afterwards i'll write some oneshots. Or maybe a prequal that explains more about Andrew and Lucia's relationship, and what changed in Andrew.

Idk, if that's something ya'll would be interested, do tell.