Chapter Text
**
Things were, shockingly, still going smoothly. The only difference between this week and the last week was that Virgil and Roman now had colored hair. Roman had just done his bangs a bright red color but Virgil had been (easily) convinced to do his whole head. He seemed very insecure about it and simultaneously absolutely delighted.
Roman’s followers had been thrilled with the hair change even though it had taken Roman the better part of three days to convince Virgil to let Roman post a picture of him. (Okay, so he hadn’t been convinced, Roman had taken a photo on the sly and posted it and Virgil had been mad at him for a full two days afterwards.)
However, Virgil was still in the habit of going through Roman’s comments for him so he’d been forced to see everyone’s opinion of his newly dyed hair and Thomas thinks it actually helped him. Nearly every comment had been someone gushing over his hair and Virgil seemed slightly less anxious about people seeing his new look then he had before.
Thomas is certain there must have been some nasty comments as well, although not many, but they somehow never seemed to get to the teen. While Virgil was very sensitive to what was said to or about him, it had absolutely no effect unless said in person. If Thomas were to tell the teen that he was even slightly disappointed in him it was likely to set the teen into anxiously spiraling.
And yet people said the most horrible things about him, Roman, and just centaurs in general online and he was utterly indifferent. It was odd but Thomas is also grateful for it. The same could not be said for Roman (or Thomas for that matter) and he and the ex-racer had to avoid looking at any comments at all for fear of even one negative one.
Thankfully they had Virgil to wade through the trash, although nowadays it was more of picking through a garden in search of trash. That might only make sense in Thomas’s mind but he means to say that there were far more encouraging comments now than discouraging or hateful ones.
Thomas regularly wonders how Roman’s followers would react to seeing Remus. Despite being together for several months now, Roman had not posted a single picture with even a hint of Remus in it. He hadn’t even let on that there was now an additional centaur. Roman seemed paranoid at what might happen if the Royals were to find out he and his brother had been reunited. The second someone saw that white streak in Remus’s hair they were bound to figure out the twins true parentage and Thomas had signed a contract stating he would never reveal that. Even if it wasn’t him who revealed the truth, neither Roman nor anyone else thought it was worth the risk.
Thomas had suggested a way around this, a very easy fix too, but Remus had refused. When Remus had dyed his hair alongside Virgil and Roman, Thomas had suggested he dye the white patch too. He wouldn’t even have to bleach his hair so it would be very simple and no one would ever know he’d had a white patch to begin with.
Remus had given a very firm no. Instead Remus had seemingly changed his mind on dyeing his hair entirely, instead choosing to only dye the tip of his tail green.
No one is sure why, Thomas doesn’t think even Janus or Roman had understood his reasoning, but a ‘no’ was a ‘no’ so nobody pushed it. Instead they just had to deal with Remus showing off his tail via flicking them all in the face with it. Anyone short (Thomas and Patton) or sitting down was bound to end up with a face full of hair.
Remus seemed to tire of this rather quickly though, which was good because they’d been doing a lot of sitting down. Like, a lot. That is to say they’d been watching a lot of movies.
In the following week, they had finally found something Janus would watch. Up to this point the centaur had never bothered to stick around during any of their movies or tv shows. He seemed to think cartoons and animated films were ridiculous and live action films didn’t keep his attention much better. Apparently they’d just been watching the wrong kind of live actions though. Thomas had been showing his friends movies he liked, which limited them to movies he’d seen. This meant they’d been watching mostly superhero or spy movies from his teenage years. As a general rule, they mostly watched action movies and whenever they turned one on Janus never stayed for more than twenty minutes into the movie. He basically left as soon as the action started.
Thomas isn’t sure what the eldest centaur had against action scenes but he clearly felt differently about this new genre. Thomas isn’t sure what the actual name for it is but he’d personally call it crime and mystery dramas. Whatever they were called, Janus seemed to think they were hilarious.
‘Have you noticed that Janus actually watches movies now?” Thomas asks Patton curiously.
Patton nods. “It’s not surprising.”
“Uh, isn’t it?” Thomas says, somewhat baffled.
Patton frowns at Thomas as though he’s unsure why the human isn’t agreeing with him. “Well, I thought it was obvious, we’ve been mostly watching action movies so of course he wouldn’t like them.”
“Why not?” Says Thomas. “If he thought they were dumb then why does he like the new ones we’ve been watching? I kinda thought he just disliked movies in general.”
Patton sighs. “Thomas, he didn’t think they were dumb. He just hated all the shooting.”
Oh.
Yeah, that checked out. In hindsight it seemed rather obvious too. “Well now I feel dumb.” Thomas states, which makes Patton giggle.
“You know,” The pony says, looking thoughtful. “I think it’s less weird that Janus likes these movies and more weird that Remus doesn’t.”
Thomas hesitates. “Wait, has Remus not been watching with us?” He asks.
Patton shakes his head. “No, he either leaves or just sits on his phone.
Huh, Thomas hadn’t noticed. Actually he’s hardly noticed Remus at all this past week. Remus hadn’t been doing any of his usual pranks and even his boisterous talking had died down. Thomas had been so grateful Remus wasn’t smacking him with his tail anymore that he’d completely overlooked the fact that Remus was acting…. differently.
Shit, Thomas was supposed to be keeping an eye on his moods. Thomas isn’t sure if this counted as a mood thought, it was more like a lack thereof.
“Have you noticed anything weird about Remus lately?” Thomas asks Roman the next time he sees him.
Roman gives a deep sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness, I thought it was just me.”
“No, he’s definitely acting a little odd. Like, not bad just….different.”
Roman nods. “It’s kinda hard to keep his attention now, like, he doesn’t get as excited as he used to.”
Thomas nods. While this would normally be a good thing, Remus usually got way too excited over stuff, it was starting to look like Remus wasn’t feeling enthusiasm enough anymore. Like, even over stuff that should have excited him.
“We should keep a really close eye on him, right?” Thomas says / asks.
Roman nods.
“Uh, so where is he now?” Thomas asks.
Roman groans. “Doing his new favorite thing.”
“And that is?”
Roman gestures for Thomas to take his hand, which is the sign that he wants Thomas to hop on, so Thomas takes it and swings up to sit on Roman’s back. Then Roman takes him outside the barn and walks off into one of the unused fields beside it. No one really went over here, instead choosing to stay in the field directly between Thomas’s house and the barn. Thomas thinks this is mostly for the privacy it gave. The field they’re in now borders the road and, even though there wasn’t a ton of traffic, many a car still traveled that road daily. Roman walks closer towards the road and then Thomas finally spots him. Remus is laying completely sprawled out in the field with his eyes shut.
“Uh, what’s he doing?” Thomas asks.
Roman shrugs. “Napping I think? He says he likes sleeping out here better than in the barn. I dunno, maybe everyone else is too loud.”
Thomas knows that centaurs naturally napped several times throughout the day, anywhere between one to four times, but as of yet they always napped inside. Thomas had never wondered why until now.
“Did he say why he chose this field?” Thomas asks.
Roman shrugs again. “I think he likes that no one ever comes out here so he never gets bothered. That and the grass is super tall out here and it’s kinda comfy.”
Personally Thomas thinks it would be very itchy but centaurs had much thicker skin than humans so what does he know? “Well, I guess there’s no reason to stop him. It’s not hurting anybody so…. I guess we just leave him?” Thomas has absolutely no idea what the right protocol is for this.
“I suppose so.” Roman hesitantly agrees before taking Thomas back inside. Both of them are still baffled but, again, Remus wasn’t actually doing anything wrong. It was just odd and new. Everyone else silently agrees that this is odd but Janus is the only one who looks concerned by it. He never says anything though, not to Thomas or Remus.
Thomas does tell Picani about this new behavior and the man encourages him to continue to keep an eye on Remus. Picani says to leave Remus be for now, after all his new habit wasn’t hurting anyone and, according to the social worker, wasn’t all that weird to begin with.
So Thomas just rolls with it and accepts this as just a new, harmless, thing about Remus.
Right up until it stops being harmless.
It’s half past noon and everyone is out and about doing their own thing when a knock on the barn door startles everyone. First off, who the hell was knocking? Nobody ever came to the barn. Second, why were they knocking? The doors were, near permanently, open during the daytime. The barn didn’t have air conditioning or even windows, so the doors were the only source of fresh, cool air they had.
Honestly it shouldn’t have been that big a deal that someone had knocked on their door but Thomas was not surrounded by humans right now, he was surrounded by centaurs, and centaurs were well known for being jumpy.
“Who’s that?!” Roman loudly yelps even as Patton and Virgil jolt in fright. By their reaction you would think someone had set off a firework, not knocked on a wooden doorframe.
“Thomas, were you expecting anyone? A delivery maybe?” Logan asks, eyes a little wider than normal.
Thomas shakes his head no and stands to approach the doors. He hasn’t reached it before a man is sticking his head around the door to peer inside.
“Is there a Thomas Sanders here?” The man asks.
Startled, it takes Thomas a second to answer. “Oh, uh, yeah that’s me.” Thomas stutters.
“Ah, good. I’m Rick, I’m with ASPCC.”
The man, Rick, says this in a tone that says he’s confident Thomas will know what the ASPCC is. To be fair, it does sound familiar, Thomas just has no idea why.
“Uh, what does that stand for-”
Logan leans down to whisper in Thomas’s ear. “American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Centaurs.”
“What kinda name is that?” Thomas hisses back before putting his focus onto Rick again. “Um, nice to meet you Rick, I’m Thomas, obviously. Is there- that is, what can I do for you?”
“I’m here because there have been several calls regarding your care for your centaurs. You are currently under investigation.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Asks Roman.
Thomas had a bad feeling about this. “Can we see your badge?” Thomas asks.
The man shrugs and pulls out his wallet before handing over his government license to Thomas. Thomas takes it over to Roman who studies it carefully before nodding.
“He’s legit.” Roman says.
Rick laughs. “I take it he’s an old racer.”
“Old!” Roman gasps, offended. Patton hurries over and nudges him in the lower ribs so he doesn’t try to confront the man.
Thomas hands the man's badge back to him. “Is it alright if I make a quick phone call?”
Rick shrugs. “So long as you stay here I don’t see why not.”
Thomas calls Picani instantly, aiming to do so before the man can change his mind. When Picani answers Thomas instantly jumps into it.
“I’m being investigated by the ASPCC.” Thomas tells the social worker.
“What?”
“There’s a guy here and his badge is legit so he couldn’t have been sent by my Uncle again, right?”
“Hold up, let me pull up your file, give me just a second.” A moment later Picani is giving out a long sigh. “Oh for Pete’s sake.”
“Is it legit?” Thomas asks.
“It’s legit.” Picani tells him. “You’re under investigation for centaur slaughter.”
“I’m being investigated for what!?” Thomas shrieks.
“For centaur slaughter.” Picani repeats with a sigh. “I should have considered this but I forgot how stupid people are. The field Remus sleeps in, is it by a road?”
“Yeah, it is, but why would that mean I killed somebody?!”
“Because the people driving past keep seeing a centaur laying down in the middle of a field. Too many people don’t realize that centaurs can and do sleep laying down sometimes. If they see a horse or a centaur on the ground they assume it’s dead and call Animal or Centaur Protective Services, sometimes even the police.”
“That’s- how-” Thomas drops his head into his hands.
“Well at least it’s an easy fix.” Picani tells Thomas. “Let the social worker take a look around and show him Remus is alive and there shouldn’t be any more problems.”
Thomas supposes he has a point. Proving Remus wasn’t dead shouldn’t be a problem. Thomas sighs deeply, thanks Picani and then hangs up.
“Okay Rick, what do you want to check out first?”
“Let’s start in the field by the road.” Rick says.
Fair enough. Thomas gestures for the social worker to follow him and, when he glances over his shoulder to make sure he is, he sees Logan signing at him.
‘Roman’s going with you, the rest of us are going to tidy up here.’
Thomas gives a discreet nod. He isn’t sure what all there is to tidy in the barn but if it meant the case against him gets closed sooner then Thomas is all for it.
“So it’s not actually a body that everyone keeps seeing from the road.” Thomas tells Rick as he walks. “Well, it is a body, just not a dead body. One of the centaurs recently started napping out here and he sleeps laying down.”
The man says nothing so Thomas elects to keep his mouth shut until they get there. Considering the only other time he’d come out here he’d been riding Roman, he hadn’t realized just how long a walk it was on his own two feet. Especially since the grass was up to his waist out here. Finally Thomas spots Remus, who is asleep and blissfully unaware of all the trouble he’s caused.
It’s almost funny that the one time the centaur stopped trying to cause trouble and chaos had resulted in murder charges against Thomas. Thomas is just glad he hasn’t been put in chains and thrown in the back of a cop car.
“Remus! Nap times over!” Roman calls from behind Thomas. “Can you get up and show the man you’re not dead?”
Remus groggily sits up. “Dead? Who’s dead?”
“You apparently.” Thomas tells him.
This confuses Remus enough that he fully gets to his feet and Thomas sees Rick writing something on his little notepad.
‘Damn right’ Thomas thinks. Rick had better be writing about how innocent Thomas was and clearing his name!
Rick clears his throat. “If he’s going to continue to sleep out here I recommend putting up some sort of sign so people will know he’s sleeping.
“Okay.” Thomas readily agrees. He sort of hopes Remus will just stop sleeping out here but putting up a sign would be far more reliable.
“I’m still confused.” Says Remus. “Who’s this?”
“This is Rick, he’s a social worker for ASPCC.” Thomas explains. “People saw you when they drove by and they thought you were dead so now I’m under investigation for murder.”
A smile slips over Remus’s face. “Cool.”
“No, not cool!” Roman snaps back. “What if-”
Thomas nudges Roman in his lower side. He knows what Roman was about to say and he doesn’t want the centaur to give Rick any ideas about removing Remus from Thomas’s care.
“So, what else do you need to see?” Thomas asks the social worker.
“I’ll need to see the rest of the barn.” Rick tells him.
Thomas nods and leads the way back to the house. Behind him he can hear Roman and Remus having a hushed conversation, Roman sounds put out but Remus seemed to still be amused with the whole situation. The fact he hasn’t broken into loud, rambunctious laughter is a little surprising.
When they reach the barn Thomas isn’t surprised to see that the place is spotless. Virgil, Logan and Patton had outdone themselves. Thomas hadn’t thought there was anything to clean but the three centaurs had somehow managed to prove him wrong.
Rick has Thomas show him each of the centaurs stalls and Thomas gets the impression that he’s a little weirded out at how similar they look to a regular human room. The barn didn’t really look that much like a barn anymore. Like, it was still obviously not a house but the small touches they’d made over time had really improved the overall look of the place. It had taken about a year to get to this point but Thomas is proud of it.
He’s not sure the social worker agrees but the man doesn’t comment so Thomas doesn’t bring it up. Besides, how could the barn being ‘too nice’ be grounds for getting Thomas in trouble?
After checking out the stalls Rick and Thomas make their way back to the living room, where each of the centaurs is anxiously waiting. Except for Janus, did he even know the social worker was here? He hadn’t been in the living room when the man had showed up and Thomas still hadn't seen him. He must be in one of the backrooms.
“So, are these all the centaurs you own?” Rick asks Thomas, gesturing towards the four anxious centaurs and Remus (who was not anxious at all). “What about the one you’re fostering?”
“Oh, Remus is actually the one I’m fostering. I own one more but I think he’s in the back rooms. If you wanna go check out that half of the barn now we’ll probably bump into him.” Thomas says.
Rick nods so Thomas leads him to the back rooms. Each of the centaurs tags along from a distance and Thomas wonders to himself if he should tell them to stay put. To be frank, they were starting to make Thomas feel even more nervous with their anxious hovering.
Despite his nerves, Thomas thinks they’re actually doing pretty good. They might just pass this inspection with flying colors, all they need is Rick to confirm that there are no dead bodies in the last half of the barn and they should be good.
Thomas keeps up this optimism right until they run into Janus. As is normal, Rick looks shocked to see Janus’s multiple scars, what is not normal is that Rick comments on them.
“You must have had one ugly bitch for a mother.” Rick says, sounding amused.
The dark look that instantly crosses Janus’s face tells Thomas that the social worker has just made a serious blunder. The way Virgil instantly stiffen up only furthers this feeling.
“You fucking piece of-”
Virgil jumps in between Rick and Janus, cutting the older centaur off. “He didn’t mean it!” Virgil yelps, Thomas doesn’t know if he's talking to Janus or Rick.
“You wanna finish that, centaur?” Rick asks Janus, completely ignoring Virgil.
The look on Janus’s face is dark and threatening and Thomas worries about what the centaur will do next. At some point Thomas had forgotten that Virgil and Remus had told him, on more than one occasion, that Janus had a temper.
“Say what you want about my face but leave her the hell out of it.” Janus growls lowly.
“Is that what’s got your tail in a twist?” Laughs Rick.
The look of fear on Virgil’s face and fury on Janus’s has Thomas trying to interfere. “Is there anything else you need to see?” Thomas asks Rick, hoping to redirect the man's attention and praying that Janus won’t do something reckless.
“I believe I’ve seen everything I need.” Rick says after a few tense moments have passed by. “You’re in the clear today but you keep a close eye on these centaurs, six is way too many for one person.”
Thomas deflates. They’d made it. “Yes, Sir.” Thomas says before leading the way towards the man's car. In his peripheral he sees that Janus still has not moved from his spot, hands still furiously balled into fists. Thank heavens the centaur hadn’t said anything else, Janus could not afford to get in trouble.
Really though, who would have thought insulting his mother was an instant trigger for someone who was usually so callous?
*****