Sanders Sides One-shots

Crown (BROTP - Prinxiety)

Ship: BROTP Prinxiety (shifts slightly to Poly (LAMP) towards the end)

TW: Swearing

Word count: 4197

Note is at the bottom!

He still remembers the day—with the same vivid colours, classical music playing, and rich scents in the air.

The box was inconspicuous and plain; cardboard brown with the edges slightly worn from being tucked away in one of the many forgotten memory closets. The base seemed slightly unsteady, but he'd simply pushed it around and prodded the joins until they fell back into their intended positioning.

He remembers emptying out the contents, and getting distracted along the way when he uncovered some old memoirs, like the old disk of Fantasia he'd watch and pretend to conduct to, and his old Bernie teddy. He remembers smiling, with a fond edge of nostalgia creasing the corners of his eyes, whilst he reverently placed them in different boxes.

When he'd cleared out the box, his eyes were abnormally glassy and his white sleeves were wetter than when he'd started out. Irrespective of this, he took the small, plain, boring cardboard box into his arms and snuck back into his room (but only after checking that no one was around to see him do so).

With legs still slightly stiff from sitting on the floor of the storage room and back clicking as he stretched to rest on the bed, he'd settled into a comfortable position on the bed. Leaning over to his bedside table, he picked up the permanent marker and opened it; to this day, he can still remember being hit with the permeating, distinctly chemical smell that had made him scrunch up his nose when upon opening it.

Marker in hand and tongue stuck out the side of his mouth, he pressed the tip of it to the cardboard. And he wrote.

"Princey? What's this?"

Roman hummed, sweeping off the last remnants of dust on the sill of his closet frame before glancing down to see what had caught Virgil's attention. He almost dropped the duster at the sight of the shoddy, sad-excuse-of-a-cardboard-box that he was peering at curiously.

Eyes widening and grip tightening on the duster (to keep it from falling or to gain some sort of emotional support, he didn't know), he hopped down from the seat he'd been standing on and pattered sheepishly to where Virgil was now reading his old scrawl of marker handwriting on the side of the box.

"'For when you feel like the damsel?'" He read aloud, an inquisitive look shot at him from underneath hazel bangs. "Princey?"

"'tis nothing!" Roman declared, boisterous and loud and every bit the confident prince he usually sounded.

If not for the hasty movement to grab at the box, Virgil would not have suspected anything out of the ordinary. He stepped away, just out of reach, and cradled the box closer to himself.

"Princey." He repeated, softer but with an empathetic note that made Roman deflate from where he'd puffed his chest out in some semblance of confident normalcy. "Can I look inside?"

Roman hesitated, eyes flicking first to the box, then to his face. He stared for a bit, searchingly (and, dare Virgil say, hopefully), before he nodded. "I—yes. Yes, you can."