Sore Stubbornness

There were times when Roman hated how stubborn he could be and recently was one of them. He thought it would be a good idea to ride a dune buggy over newly-manifested sand hills in the Imagination and go a bit crazy.

Logan did the best he could to warn Queer-vel Knievel of how to be careful on the dune buggy, but Roman responded with "Eh, it's the Imagination, I'm adventurous, what's the worst that could happen?"

Spoiler alert: he tried to take a selfie during a jump over a dune, while trying to steer with one hand, turning too hard, and both himself and the buggy rolled down the dune with the buggy landing over him. He crawled out from under it, grabbed his phone, and flipped the buggy right-side up to get his ride home sorted. He figured in hindsight that the adrenaline kept him from feeling the pain on the way home, but it wasn't until he got off the buggy that he noticed pain in his upper back, his shoulder, and his leg.

As he made it to his room casually, he decided that it would be a good idea to go against his instincts and not seek out his boyfriend for comfort and physical help. Maybe he hadn't been with Logan for half a year by then, but he knew damn well that if he found out what happened, Logan would get annoyed by the Prince's ignorance and wouldn't be in the mood to be his somebody to lean on. When Roman encountered the nerd, he was asked questions about his ride on the dunes, and he responded with concise answers without bringing up the accident.

It turned out to not be that easy for Roman to hide his injuries and pretend everything was fine. He actually had to put more effort into reaching for things he wanted, running normally, and even sitting back on the couch as his boyfriend "accidentally" set his head on his lap while sleeping during a movie marathon. There have even been times when Roman would keep an ice pack on any one of his three injured parts, and turn it invisible in a haste when he heard footsteps nearby, even if it meant his shoulder would end up soaked, for one.

Logan grabbed a jar of Crofters, one day, and prepared to open it from the jar, but ended up staring at the open jar instead. Patton walked by playing with the sleeves of his cat hoodie until he saw Logan.

"Hey, Logan, is something on your mind?" Patton sat across from Logan after asking the question.

Logan looked up at Patton as soon as he heard the father figure sit down.

"You're closer to Roman than I am. Do you know if he trusts me?"

"Of course he does. Sure, he wants to feel like a man for handling things on his own from time to time, but of course he trusts you. Why do you ask?"

"I may not be the best at emotions, but I can see visible signs and have an oddity in the pit of my stomach telling me that something is wrong and that Roman might be hiding something from me."

Patton spent some time thinking as Logan closed his jar and brought it back to the fridge.

"If he's keeping something from you for a reason, I think he might need you, without wanting to admit it," Patton softly stated.

Logan walked to Roman's door with the piece of advice still fresh in his mind and slowly opened the door. Not only did he stumble upon Roman in red checkered underwear, but he took notice of a bruise on his leg.

"Oh my god! Roman!" he cried out before he dragged the Prince to his bed and summoned painkillers and ointment for the bruise.

He wasn't able to rub the ointment on Roman for too long before the Prince strained his aching shoulder to pull the nerd upright.

"Stop! Who are you?" Roman asked while expressing skepticism.

"What are you talking about, Roman? It's me. You know I'm Logan."

Roman pulled himself off the bed and backed towards the door.

"Look, I don't know if you're just Patton or Deceit trying to make me feel better, but I know the real Logan would care less about my wellbeing or injuries and more about the idea that he's, once again, right about me being too careless and stubborn to function!"

Roman ran out of the room swinging his arms, before remembering his shoulder was still bad and tripping onto his bad leg in the midst of running. Logan caught up with his boyfriend and brought him to the couch with the pain relief essentials.

After a good while, he stared the thespian in the eyes and said "Do you really think I don't care?"

Roman still felt skeptical, until Logan gave memorized instructions on taking the aspirin.

"When did this happen and what all hurts?" Logan asked with concern.

"Um, I got careless riding the dune buggy. I've gotten pain on my leg, shoulder, and upper back ever since," Roman answered with shame.

"About what you claimed earlier, is that why you didn't tell me sooner?"

Roman just nodded slowly.

Logan placed his hands gently on Roman's leg.

"I know it's been less than six months, Roman, but I am really sorry for still being new to expressing more care towards somebody that means so much to me. If we're going to make this work, we're going to need to meet each other halfway and develop better communication habits. And, to start, I am confident in your ability to take risks, but that doesn't take away the fact that there's still a chance of you getting hurt somehow and it bothers me."

"O-okay. I do take your warnings into consideration, but I guess the worry about you being condescending just makes me more stubborn. I think I might respond better if you spoke to me like you're my equal more than just an authority figure."

Logan nearly said something, but thought about everything happening and resorted to kissing Roman gently instead.

"From what I can tell, nothing is broken, but as long as we take care of your injuries more properly, the pain will be gone after a short amount of days," Logan told him.

Roman smiled and they proceeded to communicate better from that day forward.