I saw this guy on the bus that made me go, “Old!Remus? Old!Remus.”

Dude was in baggy camo pants, boots, dark hoodie, and a vibrant green mohawk. It was a great look, imo. :,D

Remus would totally never "outgrow" the punk/adjacent scene. And that lead to some more fun from the co-conspirator:

Remus (90 year old): "Back in my day we had Elvira, Mistress of the Dark"

Remus: "We loved her, we even considered being straight for her. But then it turned out she was totally gay and that was amazingly validating."

Remus:  "I totally made Roman dress up as her for multiple Halloweens, tits and all and he couldn't do anything because I had blackmail material on him.”

Remus: "Until he finally confessed to that dork Logan."

Logan, from another room: "WHAT?"

Remus: "TURN YOUR HEARING AID ON LOGAN, I'M DISCUSSING HOW I BLACKMAILED MY BROTHER INTO CONFESSING TO YOU."

Logan: "I DON'T NEED A VISION TEST."

Logan, still in the other room calmly: "I could hear everything he was saying. But it was pretty damn obvious that Roman was gay for me. Every time I winked at him he dropped his books in a gay panic."

Roman, bolting upright from his nap: "I DID NOT DO THAT EVERY TIME!"

Logan: "This is true, you only did it when we actually made eye contact first so you knew I was in fact winking at you."

Roman: *Offended old man noises.*

The Grandkids (Virgil’s): "But grand-uncle Remus, we still haven't heard how you met your lover."

Remus: "I WON HIM IN A POKER GAME."

Patton: “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE."

Remus: I didn’t know you two idiots were together together...

Virgil: I wouldn’t say we’re together...

Roman: ‘Together’ is a pretty strong word...

Logan: You’re literally married! You made me officiate 3 months ago! Jfc I’ll be in my room, I can’t deal with this...

if only to counter balance some of the high key femme Virgil hcs. Remus running around in a skater dress with tentacles on the skirt, just being a chaotic mess. Virgil is tired and wants some peace and quiet, until he sees Remus go spinny with the skirt. What's underneath? Not important. Remus is giggling and blushing and happy and Virgil is so fucking gay for that disaster -⚡

Y E S!!! Ree rocked the hell out of the tutu for his skirt look and a skater dress is just flowy enough for his chaotic spinning needs... The Emo may want some peace and quiet but seeing his hot Dukey in the dress is more important than sleep (It definitely woke him up and he won't be sleeping for a while)

tell us about the unwritten au 👀

okay, full disclosure, this will never be written. i have no intention of ever doing so. if someone else is willing to take a crack at it be my guest but this would be too much for me to handle

so, here it is

Content Warnings: angst, RAPE (<- read this. the dove is dead. do not pass go do not collect $200. youve been warned) both directly and via proxy, and other kinds of sexual coercion

LAOFT RELAMP but at what cost

In main story laoft, durant does not see roman and remy's dalliances as important or a threat to him/his control over roman.

in this story. he does

in an agonizing display of cruelty, he kidnaps remy and presents him to night roman as a gift.

its a terrible position - roman cant reject the gift and risk durants anger, which will end in disaster for both him and remy... but niether can he accept it and walk back into his day life with the knowledge that remy will remain here, trapped, alone with durant, and impossibly far away from anything roman can do to protect him

Roman takes the only path he can find - feign gratefulness so deep that he no longer had need of his day left, and giving it up. because at least if theyre both trapped remy's not alone.

Remy and Roman disappear the same night, stolen from their beds without a sound or a trace left behind.

In wickhills, Logan is incandescent with fury and patton cries so miserably the woods and hills around his house are bone-dead silent. not even the birds want to sing in his presence.

May sits alone in her house, the door locked, refusing to answer for anyone.

The Adams' put up posters across all of southeast ohio knowing nobody is going to call

And emile watches them all and churns with guilt because he didnt know remy, not really, so why does he think he has a right to be this sad?

Back in faerieland, things escalate in a bad way very quickly. Durant coerces Roman and Remy into increasingly intense sexual scenarios for his entertainment.

in the midst of this, having only one other person you can rely on or trust can, coupled with the rapid increase in intimacy, cross the wires a bit, and wwhoops, Remy and roman are in love now

Remy: or whatever passes for love in this shitshow Roman: you dont get to tell me i dont really love you Remy, crying: ok

and tbh, all of this is more of just context for what im ACTUALLY interested which is

they get out. now what?

Because in the meantime, Emile has reached out to patton, we still have LAMP and remile, and now we have pair-of-cats-that-cant-be-separated creativisleep

Logan: you thought canon logan had anger issues? ha. ha i say. this logan would kill a man sooner than let them make roman or remy even slightly uncomfortable. he'll snarled at his own mother if she gets too close. he'll snarl at thomas, though he'll feel bad about both. this is actually! not great! because logan tried to guard from the outside looks a lot like Guards Keeping Us Inside to remy and roman, so they have to figure out how to navigate logans nuclear reactor protectiveness vs it wigging roman and remy out.

Virgil: Virgil waking up is the catalyst for them getting free, and in the midst of his horror falls in QP love at first sight with remy, who was so brave and so strong and kept roman safe when virgil couldnt.

Remy: i dont know if 'safe' is even slihtly accurate Virgil: the safety of his heart and mind are of equal importance to me as his body. you have cherished both, and you can have anything you ask for as long as i live Remy: [gay fluster noises]

Patton keeps determinedly dragging emile to mays house (where they are holed up for close access to dizzy and jax) even though Emile feels like he's intruding

Patton, constantly on the verge of tears: I almost lost Roman and i've decided im in love with all of you and i CATEGORICALLY refuse to lose anyone else Emile: um Patton: RE. FUSE.

so pattons HOPE is that they all wind up in a big polycule pile, and its doesnt... not do that, but its not quite as clearcut as all that.

Theres stumbling blocks at the beginning withboth remy and roman wavering on whether or not their romantic feelings are genuine, and subsequently wondering if the fact that theeyre still in love with Emile and LAM respectively means that they arent.

this would go through some oscillations of both of them trying to deny those feelings to "prove" their love for each other, vs trying to push the other away so they can go be with p[eople they "really love"

do! not! separate them!

in my head this ends with romantic LAMP, Romantic Remile, Romantic Patmile, and QPR losleep and sleepxiety - everybody else is friends and cuddle buddies

Remy is actually super comforted by the fact that Patton is in love with him/attracted to him but never asks for more than friendship because he knows remy isnt. Metamour besties.

Dizzy suffers a lot from this ordeal (she hid from durant and subsequently roman, knowing if he found her as romans familiar it would be catastrophic) so their bond is.... stretched, lets say. overtaxed. she's a little sicklier. a little smaller, a little more timid. hides in remy or virgils jackets frequently

All of which is to say that this is a fraught extended metaphor that sometimes trauma changes you, and it changes your relationships, and it changes the way you feel attraction, and all of that is okay. it doesnt make those feelings or relationships less real or loving or valid.

anyway this is my monster. im not going to write it (please dont ask) but some people have expressed that they were glad i still shared it, so have some bite sized angst

I'm guessing Virgil is either panicking like the disaster gay he is or being smothered in kisses by Roman

Remus: Roman, you’re not gonna marry Virgil anytime soon. Virgil kissed you ONCE. I’ve kissed Cyrus before and I’m not married to him.

Roman: He kissed you on a dare

Remus: Virgil kissed you as a thank you.

Roman:

Roman: OH NO YOU’RE RIGHT, HE KISSED ME AS A THANK YOU

Remus: I SHOULD NOT HAVE SAID THAT

Can I request a moceit dads thing?

-g

Mociet meet-cute

Janus takes the twins on a playdate. Their friend’s parent is much cuter than he thought they would be.

Ao3 link

I have no thoughts they’re just cute. its more mociet than dad content, hope that’s alright :)

———

"Slow down, you two! You're going to break something!" Janus called exasperatedly.

Remus and Roman ran faster, almost sprinting away from him and towards the house at the end of the neighborhood.

He silently apologized to all of the wonderful people he was sure they were disturbing in the quiet area. It was only nine in the morning and his boys were shrieking like he'd taken away their toys and left them in a closet to starve.

He hoped Mr Heart had some wine in his house. Janus didn't think he could handle dealing with the disaster twins for another day and a half without some alcohol.

There was a slight chill in the autumn air today. The leaves had begun to change to a spectacular display of reds and yellows. Here and there, some had begun to fall from their branches, only to get crushed beneath shoes and car tires. A cloudless blue sky covered a neighborhood of pretty little houses painted all the colors of the rainbow. The wind carried a mix of the tree's scent and the newly fallen leaves.

Janus smiled at the pleasant weather and grabbed the collar of his thick, warm sweater. He pulled it up and grinned at the sun. It was a good day for the kids to have chosen to have a play date.

He strolled towards the address Virgil's dad had given him over the phone (a light blue one, he noted, fifth down the street).

He could see his little eight year olds standing at the driveway. They were both almost vibrating with excitement, calling him over in voices that were far too loud considering he was less than five meters away.

It only made him grin harder.

He made it to them and the boys practically dragged him to the front door. Remus jumped up on the fence to ring the doorbell ("Once is enough, Squishy!") and before he knew it the door was opening with a quiet creak.

And Janus was promptly met with quite possibly the most stunning man he'd ever seen in his life.

The man stood a good few centimeters taller than him, but didn't tower over him by any means. His clothes are simple, a pair of beige khaki shorts and a light blue golf shirt that almost matched in shade with the walls of his house. Soft, kind eyes sparkled at him from behind thin circle glasses, and he wore a smile that made Janus want to know him.

To put it simply, Janus was very, very gay.

Thank god for his three years of theater in middle school, without it he might have just died on the spot.

"Hi there kiddos! You got here just in time, I just finished some cookies that I was going to give to Virgil." God, he sounded like a sweetheart too, this is so unfair. Who gave him the right to look and sound like that? He sounded like he was glowing. How the hell can a person sound like they're glowing?!

Janus felt himself slip into a smooth, honeyed voice almost automatically. He plastered a smirk that he hoped seemed sly and not completely infatuated onto his face.

"Of course, darling. Give the kids a sugar rush before they go out and play. I'm sure that won't end in disaster."

He winced internally at how condescending that came off, but was pleasantly surprised when Mr Heart just chuckled.

"Virge usually need some sugar before they go out. He doesn't like the outdoors all that much" he explained, voice still bright and shining.

"It's a wonder he gets along so well with mine then." Janus responded dryly, rolling his eyes for extra flair (the boys had to learn their over-the-top dramatics from somewhere).

The man laughed again and stepped back to let them in.

Roman and Remus said hello as quickly as they could before sprinting to the counter, yelling hellos at another kid they could now see sitting there.

"I'm Patton," he beamed, holding his hand out "it's nice to meet you!"

Janus took his hand, and instead of shaking it brought it up to his mouth.

"Janus King" came his reply, praying to a god he didn't even believe in that Patton didn't see past his clever facade.

And it seemed his prayers were answered, as Patton stuttered over his words, face turning a pretty shade of pink. Janus found himself staring at the freckles the color brought out.

"Cookies!" he exclaimed suddenly, "I- uh- I just baked some cookies if you want them? I could make you a drink too if you'd like- I mean most people want a drink with cookies-"

Janus found himself giggling at his new friend's poor attempt to hide his scrambling, but he took pity on him and decided to accept the change in conversation.

"Do you have any tea?" he said warmly.

"Ah- yes!" Patton turned on and started walking towards the counter. He only blushed harder when he realized that Janus wasn't planning on letting go of his hand any time soon. "What kind do you like?"

Conversation flowed enjoyably as they made something to snack on. Patton was easy to talk to, and he was charming and charismatic when he wasn't busy being a flustered mess. His sense of humor was not the kind Janus indulged in usually, but he found himself laughing along to his silly puns and dad jokes more often than not.

He laughed a lot around Patton. And not even necessarily in a flirty way either.

The smell of freshly baked shortbread cookies, sweet with the scent of vanilla and honey, waft through the air. The sound of their boy's joyful laughter filled any quiet that may have been present at the little house.

With sugar on tongue stars in his eyes, Janus decided that the twins were going to be spending a lot more time in this house.

Sanders Sides Masterlist

It has been a while since I wrote for Sanders Sides but I still love it and the stuff I wrote for it so here it is! A lot of it was for prompts, in which case I'll put the prompt instead of a title.

Prinxiety

"Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

Fluff

Summary: The story of two theater dorks and their first kiss.

Logince

Flowers

Fluff, with a hint of hurt/comfort

Summary: Logan is a very gay disaster and completely in love. His boyfriend knew the first part, but he wasn’t supposed to know the second. Not yet. Maybe Logan should pay more attention to his surroundings.

Sunrise

Fluff

Summary: Roman is pining, plain and simple, and he is trying so incredibly hard to get something, anything, out of Logan. It happens eventually just not at all how Logan was suspecting.

Dukeceit

“You could never ruin anything.” “Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.”

Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Janus is so excited for his anniversary dinner with Remus. Well, okay, excited may not be the right word, but he was happy to go out with Remus and make fun of all the rich people and dress up. Until his period reared its ugly head and triggered his dysphoria. Shit.

Roceit

One Day

Hurt/Comfort

Summary: The aftermath of Putting Others First when you're in a secret relationship...

Loceit

Allies/Friends/Lovers

Fluff

Summary: Logan prided himself on knowing many, many things. What he did not know was why on Earth Janus Schwartz insisted on following him around.

Dukexiety

Impromptu Ice Cream Dates

Fluff

Summary: Remus wants to flirt, Virgil wants to do his homework, and his email apparently wants to give him a panic attack.

Remile

Kissing on the sofa, foreheads pressed together, breathy, soft, tender. “God I love your face.”

Fluff

Summary: Remy wasn’t one for sappy hipster blog quotes but he did have one that he liked: “I loved you so much I forgot what hating myself felt like.”

“I love you, but I need you to go away because you’re really bloody distracting and I have to pass this test tomorrow.”

Fluff

Summary: Of course, the one time Remy tried to Study

Fic Masterlist

Hello hello! Welcome to my Fanfiction Masterlist!

Here you'll find all of my fics, and the links to them on Tumblr and/or Ao3!

If you like any of my fics, consider popping over to my ask blog and sending an ask or two!

---

| Oneshots |

Organised oldest to newest.

The Stresses of Shapeshifting

Janus is struggling to regain control of his shapeshifting powers after they get away from him.

Thankfully, the noble Roman (and the others helped a bit too, I guess) was there to save the day!

In the end, all anyone really needs is a cuddle pile, Disney movies, pizza and... possibly inedible... cake.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Aeroplanes Are Like Shooting Star

Coming to terms with a disability can be difficult, especially when it means you can't do the things you love. When you realise you can't enjoy something you've loved for so long as well you could if or when you were abled.

When you can't make wishes on shooting stars, you make them on aeroplanes instead.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Faeries in the Forest

Virgil promises Roman a day where they'll do whatever he wants, even if that means spending the day hiking in the forest.

When the pair stray from the path and find themselves lost, Virgil worries that it might be the end- that is until they meet a seemingly friendly fae who promises to lead them back to the path free of charge...

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

The Official Sanders Sides Emergency Sleepover

Patton decides that with the recent tensions in the mindscape after their last video, the best course of action would be to host a sleepover.

Somehow, it didn't end in a complete disaster, despite the two gatecrashers, Roman's inability to cook, Logan's complete cluelessness and Virgil's incredibly long list of doubts.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Not Good Enough For You

Remus and Roman are struggling to cope with their own issues alone, but maybe, if they were only to bring it up, they could help each other.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Putting Yourself First

Virgil didn't go to the wedding because he knew it would go to shit. He didn't quite realise he would have such an influence whne it came to dealing with that shit afterwards.

Or, Roman is very upset by the proceedings after the wedding and turns to Virgil for help.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Flu Season

Roman is sick, despite not wanting to show weakness and impose himself on the other sides, he really, really just wants a hug.

| Ao3 |

----

Duelling

Roman and Remus are both sore losers.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Stressed Bakes

Patton channels a little too much stress into his baked goods, everyone feels the consequences.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Potions of Persuasion

Roman goes to Virgil for a little magical assistance in making his relationship with a prince from another kingdom possible. How can Virgil possibly say no?

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Taking Breaks

Roman is thoroughly overworking himself, Virgil steps in and gets him to take a break.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Assassination

The plan to assassinate the prince was simple, get in, stab him in the back, get out again. Easy, simple, very little room for error.

So how the hell does that end up with the prince not only still alive, but now accompanying Janus and his friends who all plotted and actively attempted to murder him? I hear you ask.

Well the answer is actually quite simple: Both Janus and the prince are very, very gay.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Siren Boy

Janus foolishly sings along to a siren song and somehow ends up with a siren interested in something other than murdering him. (roceit)

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Perfectly Okay

Roman knows it's bad when his only escape is a cat cafe a town away and a barista he barely feels like he knows, but when his soulmate kicks him out of their shared apartment, Roman finds he has no one else to turn to but that same barista.

But maybe everything will be ok, right?

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Hurts Like Hell

Losing a friend sucks, somehow it's even worse when they were still there, only just out of reach.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Fit For Kings

Janus is stressed out and overwhelmed by a discussion that quickly devolves into arguing, Roman sets about helping him - and Virgil too - out in the most extravagant and perfect way possible.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Proper Wing Care

Roman isn't that great at taking care of his wings himself, so Virgil has to step in sometimes.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

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Primroses and Periwinkles

It was a normal day when it first started happening.

Roman thought he might’ve been getting sick. It was winter, and though the sides weren’t as easy to infect with diseases like the flu he was pretty sure it was still possible - he remembered Patton being sick a few times, at least.

And then, one day, when he and Virgil had been playfully bickering on the couch - another debate about which Disney movies were better that had him laughing and blushing - the petals started to appear.

| Tumblr | Ao3 |

----

Where the Ashes Settle

Roman was prepared for normal day, leave the hotel, get coffee, go to the station and head home.

He hadn't made room in his schedule for getting caught up in a villain fight, nor getting kidnapped by the villain and his arch-nemisis, though.

| Tumblr | Ao3 |

----

Into the Snake's Den

Things going missing in a household of four wasn’t uncommon, really. It was normal enough to misplace a sock on laundry day, or get one of your shirts mixed up with someone else’s and never see it again, or misplace one piece of jewellery from a set. Losing things was not out of the ordinary, what was out of the ordinary was just how often it happened for this particular household.

Logan theorised they potentially had borrowers, and if that was the case Patton was content to let them stay, though Roman had always brought up the point that who - or what - ever the culprit was, it was stealing items much too large to be a borrower. Patton had offered the idea that perhaps it was a fairy, or a spirit who lived nearby, in which case the group was even more eager to drop the issue.

That was until something important went missing a few weeks later.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Ship of Dreams

“You know - they say this ship can’t sink, it was all in the papers, impossible - they said.” “Yes, that’s what I’ve heard,” Roman shrugged, shifting just a little closer. He wished he could wrap his arms around him, press kisses to his cheeks - pink with the cold - but they couldn’t, not in public. Roman hoped that was something that would change one day. “If… if she did sink - what would we do?” Virgil asked, eyes still trained on the frothing wake the ship left in its path. “Why, I’d swim us to America, of course, I promise,” Roman said, reaching over to brush his fingers over Virgil’s jaw, so he’d look over at him, “But she won’t sink, don’t worry so much my darling.”

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

The Lost LIbrary

The Library was, first and foremost, a sanctuary. The Library was infinite, The Library was filled with things - all anyone could ever want. Those who lived under The Library’s roof were happy. The Library was, to Virgil, nothing more than an extravagantly decorated prison.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

| Series |

Forests and Rooftops

Tagged: NewYears Verse

Mine was a World of Rooftops and Love Songs

Virgil is invited to a New Years' party and without an excuse not to go he can't turn it down. Who knew that all it takes to make friends is bad punctuality and sensory issues? Honestly, Virgil wished someone had told him sooner.

AKA: Virgil goes to a party, freaks out and ends up on a rooftop with his best friend's brother. Alls well that ends well, I guess?

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

(Vi)vianne Marie Zephyr

Here’s a list of things that Vivianne Marie Zephyr knew.

One, she was twelve years old.

Two, twelve-year-olds should not be trusted to make their own decisions.

Three, twelve-year-olds didn’t know anything about themselves or the world. (at least, according to her extended family they didn't).

Four, Vivianne is not a girl.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Patton Darling Heart

How can a mortal baby befriend four fae courts, their leaders and their queens in less than five years? How does said baby grow up with such a strange family? Well...

Patton Heart knew he wasn't like the rest of his family, he also knew that his situation was an unorthodox one. He also knew that one family wanted him and the other didn't, so to be honest, Patton was pretty happy with his weird and wonderful life.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Darkside!Roman

Tagged 'darkside!roman'

Almost, A Light in the Dark

"In almost any case, we embrace you," Virgil had said.

Roman knew he hadn't meant it like that, Virgil would never say something so cruel. That didn't mean he could stop thinking about it.

It didn't mean it wasn't true for the others, either. ---- A look into Roman's buildup to becoming a dark side in my Darkside!Roman AU

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Dragon Heart

There are a few things that come with becoming a dark side, one of which takes Roman a little by surprise.

Fortunately, he has a fantastic boyfriend and a... maybe not quite as helpful brother to get him through it.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Dragon Quest

Roman is missing,and Janus enlists Virgil and Remus' help to find him. Together they end up on a quest through the imagination, ultimately leading them to... a cuddle pile??

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Squish

Things may be better, but Roman still struggles occaisonally. Remus is happy to help him out.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

More Than Human

More Than Human

At his very core, Janus was human. One might say he was more than human, being a God, but being more than something doesn’t take away from that something, it just adds onto it.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Chocolate Chip

Roman returns to the temple with cookies. Janus makes a tiny bit of progress.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

| Multi Chapter Fics |

Organised oldest to newest in terms of first posting.

Crown Princes and Butterfly Wings

When Crown Prince Remus of Dalandaire goes missing overnight it's up to Roman, his brother, and Logan, his best friend, to find him.

But for how long will Roman be able to keep his secrets? How long will it take Logan to admit his feelings for the cute human they dragged along for the adventure and how on earth do they keep getting quite so off target?? (Currently incomplete, on hiatus)

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

----

Across Land and Water, Forever and Always

My Sanders Sides Gift Exchange fic.

After Patton and Logan are selected to attend the annual meeting between merkingdoms, they expect an easy enough swim up the river to their destination. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the river no longer flows as strongly as it did and because of it they can't make the journey in the traditional way.

Together, along with two other magic folk who they... may have accidentally roped into their journey... must now find their way overland to complete their journey instead, little did they know that this particular adventure would change their lives in ways they could never expect.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

The Choosing Ball

The law is clear and very very simple: Janus must choose someone at the ball to become his future husband or wife. He would have two days to pick and at the ball they would choose. If he refused or wasn't chosen, he would be considered an outcast, a criminal against the state. Easy, simple, there was just one tiny problem.

Janus was already in love with someone else. Someone who he didn't have the option to choose.

Fortunately for him, Prince Roman doesn't seem to see that as a problem at all.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

We'll Save You

Janus finds himself stumbling into problems like one stumbles over rocks on the road, except some problems are a little worse than others. But when he finally stumbles into someone who isn't like everyone else Janus' had met so far in this unforgiving world, he thinks that maybe there is some merit to the world after all.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

To Make a Heaven of Hell

Virgil knew he was dead, somehow. And somehow death was loud and bright and overwhelming, the people within it were beautiful and diverse and strange and the places big and magical and wondrous. But it was hard to accept that you are good, after a short life of being told that you are bad. Sometimes, all it takes is a little help, some hot demons and a whole universe full of new friends and family to get you to accept your paradise.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Ribbons And Rainstorms

Roman Edevane has been terrified of storms since his twin brother's death when they were small children. He sits and he watches the dark clouds roll from his window, too afraid to sleep but unable to tear his eyes away. Then, one night, lightning strikes the temple on the hill and he forgets all about the storm in his rush to protect it. When he finds not a burning temple, but the God of Storms himself.

After that he kept coming back—Why? He wasn’t sure, and though meeting the god responsible for the storms doesn't abate his fear completely at first, Vi was… nothing like Roman could have ever expected. The God of storms was kind, he was sweet, a little shy and not to mention a whole other level of handsome. Somehow Roman can’t help but fall for them.

But he can’t be in love with a God… can he? Even if he was, could a God ever love him back?

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Over The Rainbow

Reds oranges and pinks almost always took centre stage in his drawings and paintings - after all, they were the only colours Roman could see, but the backgrounds were always made up of shades of grey - for him - that would be bright, vibrant colours for everyone else. They represented how he saw the world, and being honest… Roman was a little scared for it to change.

Later on, he would wonder why he worried.

He saw blue first

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

The Spiders' Forest

The forest was dangerous, they said. That's the spider’s place.

Roman and Remus Taylor lived in the village of Dumhan-Collie, a sad, dingy little town along the edge of an equally sad, dingy forest. Most of the people who lived there were miserable, angry or both and the collective dream of the town was to leave it far, far behind.

Most visitors didn’t stay long, and those who did tend to regret it quite quickly.

The main reason for all this? The spiders.

| Ao3 | Tumblr |

Three Written Loves Chapter 7

Romoxiety and Intruloceit soulmate au where you are given a notebook to communicate with your soulmate at 16. You cannot say your name, address, place of school/work, number, etc.

TW: None that I know of Chapter is written in Logan’s POV with Intrulociet, brotherly Analogical, and Romoxiety mention Also short chapter for brotherly bonding moments

Re: You gays take forever Jan: You’re just impatient Re: So? I want attention Jan: Well did you figure out what was up with your brother? Re: Yeah, he’s got another soulmate that just said hi. Gay disasters

Re: I know that silence Jan: I didn’t say anything Re: Mhmmmmm. Anyway nerds taking a bit Jan: He was driving Re: I know but stilllll it’s dinner time Jan: We don’t know that Re: He has a schedule Jan! A schedule Lo: That is correct. I also abide by it. I was getting us a table. Re: NERD! Jan: Hello Lo: Greetings Re: Every gay is here Lo: Go eat Re: Nah. Waiting on everyone else to get home Jan: At work. Munching on a thing of bread. I’ll eat when I get home Lo: I will remind you then. Re: Awwww Lo: I have to go now. I will tell you when I am back on the road Jan: Bye Re: You just got here!

Logan put up his notebook after he read their responses. Re would just have to pout. There were more important things to discuss than the round and round with his soulmates. He set it aside with a soft sigh. He looked over to his brother who was still writing to his soulmates, “are they still anxious?” “Yeah, but they’re better than earlier. I got Ro to calm down.” “That’s good. However, you should let them know you’re at dinner.” “Yeah, yeah,” Virgil wrote the quick excuse and something else before setting his book aside with a slow exhale. “How are you feeling?” “Overwhelmed,” Virgil sighed and his shoulders dropped. “That’s how you felt meeting Ro as well,” Logan reminded him. “I know,” he almost huffed out, “but now I’m being mediator which is even worse.” “They will be okay,” Logan reminded him. “I know…” “Mhm, now we need to figure out what to eat. From there we should discuss what we will be doing when we get there.” Virgil groaned, “can’t we just get there first?” “No,” Logan picked up the menu, “it’ll be two am when we get there. We don’t have any beds or mattresses in there yet either.” “Ugh. Can we just get a hotel for the night then?” “I can attempt to do so,” Logan stated, “I’ll call as you drive.” “I have to drive?” “Yes, that was what we agreed on earlier.” “Ugh, fine,” Virgil paused a moment, “wait, attempt? What if you can’t?” “Then we will have to sleep on the floor for a night,” Logan gave a small shrug in response. “Okay,” he grabbed his own menu to flip through.

Prinxiety week day 4 Crossover Hopping wild

Okay this one was not in an ask, but someone did request childhood friends and “it's always been you". And I thought of this using Amphibia for the crossover. If you haven’t seen amphibia, spoilers obviously. Enjoy!!!

“You got everything mijo?” his mother wondered. Roman nodded. He was beyond nervous. He was headed to the amphibia exhibit at the aquarium. There he’d meet with Virgil who’d arranged a behind the scenes look so they could work on their project together. Virgil had been Roman’s best friend for ages. Until he messed it up big time last spring. Virgil was going through hell at home. His parents were fighting a lot and he tried to help but playing relationship counselor is not healthy for any kid. Especially not Virgil who always took on too much responsibility for all the world’s problems. Roman had wanted to be a good, supportive friend. But he’d been also dealing with his own drama. Nothing that came even close to what Virgil was going through. He just… Dylan was being a massive jerk about how close he and Virgil were. It stung most of all because… He wasn’t completely wrong and Roman was nowhere near ready for people to know that. Virgil coming out to him around that time was exhilarating and terrifying. On one hand, he stood a ghost of a chance. But on the other, how could he confess now that he was so vulnerable without coming across as a creep? Virgil didn’t feel safe coming out at home because there was so much fighting going on already. Roman… Well, he’d always been the ‘good’ son. Remus was a bit of a disaster. Still loved and supported. But no one expected much of him. He made it clear he’d be content living in a van and traveling across the country that way. He was not interested in a family or a career. And that was fine. But that meant that all hopes lied with Roman. And Roman could definitely do the career thing. But starting a family like how his mother wanted for him was not going to happen. He was very gay and very much crushing on his closest friend. And he hadn’t had the heart to break the news to his mother. Roman had gotten defensive over it when Dylan made fun of him comforting Virgil. Some girls had overheard and fawned over him. He didn’t care much for that but it had Dylan furious. And so Roman basked in the attention and praise. Not realizing that Virgil would overhear, and feel betrayed. That was six months ago now. Summer had come and gone, school had started up again and nothing much had changed. Roman hadn’t been able to bring himself to stop the whole knight in shining armor routine. It was the only way he knew how to make sure other people would like him. He and Virgil hadn’t spoken since. Roman had tried. But he’d chickened out every time he laid eyes on him. Especially if he was talking with his new friends. He just hoped they’d been able to be there for him when he was being an idiot. Today though, today he’d show Virgil that he was ready to be brave. They’d been given the assignment last week and Virgil had texted him the plan almost immediately. Roman had been grateful for the chance to mentally prepare for the conversation they were going to have. “Good luck. I know you'll be able to fix things. Why don’t you bring Virgil over after? He can’t say no to my cooking,” his mom smiled. His parents had offered to help reach out as soon as they learned they’d had a fight. But Roman didn’t want them to involve Virgil's parents. There was no telling if it would lead to another fight. And it was not his place to tell others about the trouble that was at play in Virgil’s home life. He told them that it was his mess, so he should clean it up. “Thanks mamá. See you tonight,” he tells her before rushing out the door. After today, he’d have his friend back. He’d make sure of it. He found Virgil waiting for him at the entrance and seeing him kind of took his breath away. He’d gone through a glow up since the fight and Roman was still not used to it. He'd upgraded his wardrobe from just comfortable, to comfortable and badass stylish. His hair was now a vibrant purple and he was really good at applying make-up. Roman took a deep breath. He could do this. Charming, confident, helpful. That was the key. “Virgil! Hi!” he greeted as he jogged up the stairs. Virgil looked up from his phone and gave him a wave. “Hey… you made it,” he muttered. Not sounding too excited. But that was valid. Last time they talked Virgil had seen what could only be interpreted as him using their friendship to get girls to like him. “Of course. I can’t believe you managed to get us backstage! This assignment is going to be a breeze. I got so many ideas already on making it look cool!” he offered in a hurry. Wanting to remind Virgil of his best qualities. The things that made him likable. The faintest ghost of a smile passed over Virgil’s face. Success! “Of course you do,” he said. “My therapist knows one of the people who work here. She introduced me to her to get me a weekend job here. Working with the animals has been a great help. Anyway miss Boonchuy is always happy to help out. She’ll be showing us around and stuff,” Virgil explained as he reached to pick up his bag. “Oh, let me get that for you,” Roman rushed. Knocking their heads together in his hurry to be helpful. “Ow!” Virgil exclaimed. “Oh, sorry,” Roman said, trying to hide his pain as he slung Virgil’s bag over his shoulder. “Dude, you okay?” Virgil asked. Roman nodded. “Yeah, got a thick skull. How about you? Should we get some ice on that?” he felt so stupid. This was not going to get Virgil to want to be friends again, never mind anything else. “No… I’m fine. But you don’t have to carry my stuff…” “Nonsense, I want to,” Roman promised as he headed inside. “You look really good by the way. I never got around to telling you, but the new look suits you,” Roman continued before Virgil could argue any further. “Yeah, thanks. After… Well my parents finally realized I was a mess and got me in therapy and my therapist suggested reinventing myself. Just do whatever weird out there idea that came to my mind. That now was the time to do something out there with my look even if I regretted it later it wouldn’t have terrible consequences. She was right. It kinda feels nice. Gave me the confidence to approach Pat and Lo… They…” “Are your new friends. The pastel sunshine and the kid who looks like he might be a teacher,” Roman said, not able to completely hide how that had stung. He wanted V to be happy and have a support system of course. But he also wanted to be a part of that support system. “They seem nice,” he added to sound a little less bitter. Virgil nodded. “They are. You’d…” “Virgil there you are!” They were interrupted by miss Boonchuy aka the froglady. She was a really sweet woman and her backstage tour was admittedly very awesome. Roman was taking pictures left and right and allowing his fantasy to go wild with ways they could make their assignment visually interesting. Still he wished he’d had a minute or so more with Virgil before they got interrupted. He could feel the underlying tension between them crackle every time they almost fell back into that old familiar rhythm. If miss Boonchuy noticed, she didn’t mention it. Suddenly someone came rushing through a pair of big metal doors. “Ann!!!! I did it! It worked!!!” the blue haired, sciency type exclaimed as she ran towards them. “Oh my god! Terry, are you sure!?” Miss Boonchuy squealed excitedly. “Yes, yes, yes!!! We gotta call the others! I want the whole gang together for this!” Terry nearly screamed. “Boys I’ll be right back. Virgil you and your friend be careful around our little friends okay? I’m just stepping into my office for a few calls,” their guide said, a big smile on her face. “Yes ma’am,” Virgil nodded. And then the adults left. Roman was staring at the doors that held this mysterious, amazing discovery. “Roman, no,” Virgil said. Clearly guessing what Roman was thinking. “I just want a picture. Whatever got that science person so excited, I bet your buddy Logan is going to go wild over too,” Roman argued. Why not try and make a good first impression on Virgil’s new friends? He couldn’t afford letting anything get in the way of their rekindled friendship. “That area is of limits for a reason,” Virgil hissed. “Yeah, so interns don’t mess up research. But we’re not going there to touch anything. Just a quick look and we’re back. We probably won’t even have time to touch anything,” Roman argued already heading for the door. “Roman! Don’t you care that I can get into serious trouble for this?” Virgil demanded. That gave Roman pause… Maybe… But then he heard a sound. A quaint melody. “You hear that? Now he was seriously curious. “Um… Yeah…” Virgil agreed, sounding curious too. “Look if we do get in trouble I’ll say you only followed to drag me back. I’ll take full responsibility. I’m going to check out what that sound was though. I’ll go nuts if I don’t find out now,” Roman argued marching through the door. “Roman!” Virgil hissed, coming in right after him and coming to a halt beside him. Just as speechless. Roman didn’t know what he was looking at but at the center of the metal contraption that was surrounded by schematics, was a bright white light. The melody sounded again. “Si, Sol, Mi, Sol, Si, Sol, Mi,” Roman sang, wanting to show off his excellent musical ear which Virgil always found cool. But that made the light brighten, Roman and Virgil shielded themselves from the blinding light… And then Roman was lying on the deck of a ship. Looking up at… “Aaaaah! Frog people!” he exclaims as he shoots up and tries to get as far back as he can. “Wow dad! Humans are really loud!” one of the smaller frog people shouts. “Look who’s talking?” Roman huffs, his mind going a million miles an hour. His eyes drifting over the deck. Right in front of him were four frog people. Two tall ones and two much shorter. His brain managed to put together that the tall yellow and pink one were the parents and the other two were their kids. Two smallish frogs that were pink and yellow respectively. They were all wearing clothes and standing upright. “Ha, he’s got you there Ziggy,” the tall pink one stated, ruffling the short pink one’s hair. Then he looked at Roman. “Hi there human. My name’s Sprig Planter. This is my family. My wife Ivy,” The tall yellow one who looked ready for adventure gave Roman a wave. “And these two are our kids Ziggy and Rose. What’s your name and how did you get here?” ‘Sprig’ asked. He seemed nice at least. Roman was still looking about. There were more… well not just frogs… Amphibians on the ship. “Um, I’m Roman. And there was a weird sound and we… Where is Virgil?” he asked. He couldn’t stop himself. He needed to know Virgil was alright. “You’re the only one who showed up on our deck. But your friend probably found himself near civilization as well, if not smack dab in the middle of it. That’s how it happened last time,” ‘Ivy’ told him. She didn’t seem too worried. “But he’s okay then?” Roman pressed. The family nodded. That was a relief. Then something else the ladyfrog said clicked. “Wait… Last time?”   “Yeah. When Ann and her friends landed here. It was a whole adventure. They even helped us stop king Andreas from conquering your world,” Sprig explained with a fond smile. Roman’s eyes widened. “I knew it!” He exclaimed. He’d been 6 when the sky opened up and a castle flew in. He’d been on an outing with Virgil actually. It had been scary at the time. The giant herons, the robots… It had definitely kickstarted his desire to draw and write about fantasy worlds. The adults had been scared too. But the next day they insisted that it was just a publicity stunt of some special effects company or something. Roman and Virgil never really bought it but they had kept that to themselves. Adults could be dumb sometimes. They knew what they saw that day. “It was all real! Oh my god. You gotta help me find Virgil, please. It’s my fault we got stuck in here. I shouldn’t have gone nosing around in the back room. I gotta make it up to him. I’ll help out around the ship in anyway I can while we look for him I promise! I can’t believe I’m meeting the frog people… Wait… You guys are good guys right?” Roman asked. Sure they seemed like a sweet little family. But their king had tried to invade other worlds. The family chuckled. “Well, he cares about morals. That’s a plus,” Sprig smiles. “And he didn’t land him and his friend here on purpose. That’s a good thing too,” Ivy added. “And he is standing right here,” Roman pointed out. “Sorry. You are welcome to stay here. We are headed to Reptilia. We should land in a week. Chances are your friend is there. Let us introduce you to everyone,” Sprig suggested. Roman was given the tour and met the dignitaries of the other amphibian people who were making their way to the fairly newly discovered continent of Reptilia. Which held a wide variety of reptile people. Roman was assured that the reptilians might seem more intimidating than the amphibians, they are civilized and wouldn’t attack an intelligent being unprovoked. He just hoped they were right. The journey to this land was… Educational. The first day he did his best to help everyone in any way he could. He usually ended up making more of a mess, or getting himself hurt. “Roman, I know I said you could help. But wait until we ask. Alright?” Sprig suggested as he patched up a cut on Roman’s leg. “But if I wait until you have to ask… I’m supposed to know when I’m needed, what I’m supposed to do before people think to ask,” he explained. “That’s my best quality,” he muttered. That was what his parents praised him for. What his classmates thought was so great about him. If he didn’t do that… “Now where did you get some bogus like that?” Ivy asked. “You can’t read minds nor see the future. That attitude sounds like a good way to have folks take advantage of you.” “I know I would’ve exploited that back in the day,” Captain Grime pointed out. He’d been a bit of a bully before the war against the king. Roman curled into himself. He supposed some people kinda took advantage of the fact that he tended to try and do everything. It hadn’t been as bad before the fight. But he’d always been a bit of a people pleaser. “Don’t worry Ro! I’ll help you. Every time you forget to ask, I’ll give you a nudge in the thigh,” Ziggy offered. He and Rose were twins, and in many ways they reminded Roman of himself and Remus. They were close, but Ziggy was definitely a trouble maker. Rose was mischievous too but she was more mature than her brother. “Thanks squirt, though are you sure you can reach that high?” Roman smirked. That got the twins and the adults alike laughing. By day three, Roman had put together that the Ann Sprig mentioned on his first day was in fact Miss Boonchuy. The Marcy Wu Lady Olivia and her awesome wife Yunan who was teaching Roman real sword fighting, wondered about actually wrote and drew Roman’s favorite web comic. They were all excited to watch him reenact the whole thing. Luckily he had his backpack with him and luckily he’d downloaded the chapters that were out so far. It looked like the characters were somewhat based on her friends and the people she met here. Though the story was completely original and the characters weren’t exact copies. But the knight who shouts his accolades at every opportunity definitely got this quirk from Yunan. Her accolades now included ‘devoted wife’ and ‘Coolest auntie’. Roman wasn’t sure about this Sasha person. When he saw how disappointed the captain was by this he offered the reassurance that maybe Virgil had interacted with her. If the girls were still in contact with one another then Virgil might have heard about her through Ann. Day four was his biggest break through. He’d been playing hero with the twins on deck. They were perhaps being a bit risky. Roman had been feeling down and needed a distraction. Reaching the mainland felt ages away and he was getting worried that Virgil would hate him more and more with each passing day. So the twins offered to distract him. It was fun. Until Ziggy jumped on the railing to get away and Rose jumped after him. One moment all was fine. The next Roman was calling out “frogs overboard!” and diving in after the two. They got back on the ship fine. The parents were seething though. Mostly at Rose though. And suddenly Roman was triggered. Maybe something in the way they’d said ‘disappointment’ or ‘responsibility’ was a little too real for him. “That is unfair!” he called out furiously. The family froze in shock. Roman had been going out of his way to be polite and respectful so far. This was the first time since he landed here that he raised his voice. “Sure what they did was reckless, but they both did it! You can’t expect Rose to be perfect all the time and give Ziggy a free pass! How do you think that makes either of them feel!!!?” His own words registered a few moments later and it kinda came crashing in. “Oh… Oh, I gotta talk to my parents about all this,” he said as he put pieces together. “Kids, why don’t we talk about this in the cabin while Roman takes a minute?” Sprig suggested, gently ushering his family away. Roman hoped they figured things out. He sure could’ve done with having this break through a lot sooner. Remus… What if he did mind that their parents had just accepted that he wasn’t going to college? What if all that was a cry for attention? What was his family going through now? They must be trying to get him back. Was Remus upset with him? Were Virgil’s parent’s blaming him for their missing son? What about Virgil’s friends? How were they coping with him vanishing? And Terry and miss Boonchuy? Were they mad? Did they feel guilty? His thoughts were a mess but thoughts of his brother and the pain he might have been in without Roman realizing kept making it’s way to the front of the line. Maybe… “Roman? The Planters mentioned you’d gotten upset. Can I assist?” Roman looked up, only now realizing that there were silent tears streaming down his face. Lady Olivia was standing in front of him. “I’m not sure how…” he admitted. The newt lady sat down next to him in a very elegant way. He wished he could do that and look equally effortless. “Have we told you of our attempt at springing Marcy free from the king before he infected her with the core?” she asked. “You got caught right?” he recalled. “Yes. But what we didn’t say is that… Our escape was delayed by an illusion of our worst fears. Mine was my late mother’s disapproval and my own guilt over my perceived failures. It can be a heavy burden, a parent’s approval. Their hopes and dreams living on in you,” she tells him. Roman whipped at his eyes. “It’s fine. I can…” he took a deep breath. He was doing it again. Brushing off anyone’s concerns towards him. He realized that he had a tendency to do so for years. Even when his parents asked if he was fine with what was asked for him. He tended to insist it was okay and prove it by taking on more. “I… I’m just so tired sometimes… But I feel if I tell people that then…” “Then you’ll become a burden instead of an asset,” Lady Olivia surmised. Roman nodded. “It’s stupid. I know they love me… And the ones who would ditch me just because I have an off day are not worth my time anyway…” he muttered. “In theory, yes. But clearly you still worry what might happen if you fail at something you think you should excel at,” Lady Olivia noted. Roman made himself smaller. “I was so afraid of being an outcast. And then I ruined things with the one person that actually mattered. The one person who could make me feel like I didn’t have to be 100% all the time… How do I ever make it right?” he asked, his voice breaking under the emotion. “Well… For starters you can talk with him when we find him. It’ll take some time for us to figure out how to get you children home anyway. So you’ll have the opportunity. I promise. From there out, you take steps to change your behavior. And if you two are truly good friends, then you will work it out from there,” Lady Olivia assured him with a pat to his knees before she got up and walked away. “Thanks,” Roman said softly. The newt lady looked back at him with a smile. “You’re welcome master Roman. Now come. Yunan thinks a sparring match will cheer you up,” she announces. Roman smirks and gets up. She might be right about that. Then next three days were mostly uneventful. At least when it came to personal epiphanies. There were a few attacks from sea creatures they staved off, increasing Roman’s confidence in his fighting skills. The planters had talked about whatever issues were at play there. It gave Roman hope for his own family. And then. They arrived at the coast of this new land. The planters greeted the people at the harbor and asked the harbor master if they’d seen a human around. Sadly the answer was no. But Sprig assured Roman that his friend Maddy was currently staying with the local shaman. They might be able to help locate Virgil. Roman was rushing through the woods, eager to find this trail. The Planters were calling out to him to be careful as they chased him. There was no time though. Virgil could be close. He had to… And then he was caught in a net and hung from a tree. “Got yah… Roman?” Roman stopped struggling. He knew that voice. “Virgil!? Thank god I found you!!! I am so sorry for getting us in this mess. I had no clue that would happen just because I sang the tune I promise. I was so worried! But you’re okay!!! Or I think so. It’s hard to see from in here… Can you… Like cut me down please?” This was really awkward. “Sure. Give me a sec.” A moment passed and Roman felt the net slowly coming down until he gently landed on solid ground. Then the net fell away easily. He got up and dusted himself off looking around until his gaze found Virgil. “Lady Serena said I’d find the final piece I needed for the portal back here. Should’ve known she meant you,” he smirked. He looked so cool. He was wearing a black cloak and a shawl around his neck that he puled away from his face as he spoke. He looked like a cool rogue with the way he stashed away his knife like it was nothing… No, no time for gay panic. “You mean you have a working portal!? That’s great!!! I worried we’d have to have a whole adventure to make one!” he grinned. “We did, but I got that out of the way with lady Serena and Maddy already. You can probably leave tonight if you want,” Virgil told him. “Tonight!? Oh that is wonderful… Wait… ‘You’. As in me? As in singular?” he asked shocked when that detail registered. Virgil’s smirk didn’t waver as he got ready to speak. “Roman!” Rose screamed as she burst through the bushes. “Oh… You found him,” she noted right when the rest of the family emerged. “Um… Everyone this is Virgil. Virgil… These are the Planters…” Roman introduced swiftly. “Hi, you guys kept Roman safe the past week?” Virgil smiled kindly. Rose and Ziggy nodded eagerly. “Yep!!! He’s been super cool! He saved us from drowning in the ocean!” Ziggy told him. “Well good thing he was there then,” Virgil smiled. “Kids, why don’t we go say hi to aunt Maddy?” Ivy suggests and under loud protest of the kids who wanted to meet the other human, the planter family left. Roman turned to Virgil. “You are not coming home?” he asked, his stomach twisting and his head a mess. What should he do? “Everyone’s better off if I’m here. I’ve thrived here Roman. I’m respected and needed and… It’s for the best…” Roman was about to protest. To beg and plead. Anything. But instead he took a deep breath. “Okay… Okay. I… I can’t say I’m not devastated to hear that,” Roman admitted, trying to keep his emotions under control. Virgil blinked in confusion. “But if you truly believe that this is where you belong, rather than back home. With your parents and Patton and Logan… I’d love to include me in that but we both know I’ve messed up big time as a friend. I’m sad that I won’t be able to fix that. Not fully. But that is about me and what I want to happen. Not about what you need. Can you do me one favor though? For whatever what we had is still worth?” Roman pleaded softly. He'd have one shot to do this right. He better not blow it. “Roman… I… Sure. Whatever you want,” Virgil promised. Taken aback by what Roman had said so far. Good. He’d made a strong start. “I’m sorry. About what you heard that day. I’m not going to try to make excuses. But you deserve the full picture. I was too scared of people finding out… That I was gay.” Okay. First time coming out. No big deal. “And I reacted poorly to Dylan being his usual crappy self. I didn’t plan on the audience I’d get, nor their reaction, but I didn’t put a stop to it either. I didn’t deny anything they said, I leaned into it because that felt safer. But in the process I hurt you. And I am so sorry for that. I have been ever since I realized you’d overheard. I couldn’t even look you in the eye after that I was so ashamd. Last week… I was so eager to show you, to remind you that I was fun to have around, useful… I know that sounds messed up and I’ve grown a bit in that sense. It’ll take some time to unlearn some of that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let you down when you needed me the most. I’m sorry I was too afraid to apologize sooner. I am sorry that I was such a mess that I got us in serious danger. And… Most of all. I’m sorry that I didn’t just man up and said what I’ve wanted to tell you for a year now. I have a crush on you… For me. It’s always been you. And I hate that I allowed you to doubt how much you mean to me for even a second.” Whew. That was… That was a lot. But it felt good to have said it. “You don’t need to say anything. I don’t expect a simple apology to change your mind. But I hope it makes you reconsider. If you didn’t know how much you meant to me… Maybe you are underestimating what you mean to others too. Just… Just food for thought,” Roman muttered before getting ready to turn and head after the Planters. But his wrist was grabbed before he could take a step. “You… You meant that?” Virgil asked. Much more timid. Roman looked back. “I wouldn’t joke about that,” he said firmly. Virgil smiled a little. “No… No you wouldn’t… Let’s go. I’m starving.” Madam Serena turned out to be a snake lady. And Maddy was a frog with an aesthetic Roman knew Virgil appreciated. He told him as much. Another thing they discovered as the dignitaries gathered was that Sasha was actually Virgil's therapist. Roman was glad that they could bring these good people some news from friends they'd been separated from for over a decade. Roman brought out his phone and suggested making videos for each of them so they could say hi. They had a lot of fun with that  while eating diner. “Gotten used to the local cuisine huh?” Virgil observed. Roman shrugged. “The planters eased me into eating bugs. But I kinda like it now. Doesn’t beat out mama's cooking. But it’s not bad,” he admitted. “The final hour before the next goodbye approaches,” Madam Serena announced. Apparently she saw the future very clearly. She'd made statements like that all night and never been wrong. “Cant believe you voluntarily want to be around that for the rest of your life,” Roman smirked, hoping to make it seem as though he'd fully accepted Virgil's decision. He hadn’t. But he wasn’t going to guilt Virgil into leaving either. Virgil just smiled. And then there was a bright light and there were three more people in the room. And the amphibians tackled all of them in a hug shouting names and crying their little cold blooded hearts out. Then the human women called out the names of the dignitaries and started crying g as well. It was a sweet reunion of the three humans who'd gotten stuck in this world ten years ago and their closest ties to it. “We weren’t building Roman’s way back… you were giving me bussy work,” Virgil realized. Madam nodded with a smirk. “You did help me a great deal with a few projects of mine. We will establish a direct communication line to our sister continent much sooner than if you had not been so dedicated to get your friend home safe as soon as possible,” she said. Virgil didn’t respond, he just hid his blush in his hood. Wait… “You made a portal you never intended on using?” he asked baffled. Virgil nodded. “I mean… If you wanted to go back, you should be able to,” he explained. Roman let that sink in. If… As in Virgil had taken into account the possibility that he might’ve chosen to stay? What was going on? “Virgil!” Oh boy. Miss Boonchuy was done fawning over her ‘cousins’. “Virgil had nothing to do with it miss Boonchuy! He said to stay put, I didn’t listen. He just went after me to keep me out of trouble,” Roman rushed stepping between Virgil and his furious supervisor. Miss Boonchuy was kinda scary when she looked angry. “I promise that he was only in that room to pull me back. I didn’t even touch anything. I just mimicked the melody and then we were here. I’ve been feeling terrible over getting him in this mess all week. Please. If you are angry, be angry with me,” he pleaded. A few moments passed by. “I suppose that makes the most sense. But when we get back, you both are still going to have to answer to your parents. They should be waiting on the other side. The next portal opens in an hour. We weren’t sure how close to you we’d come out or if there was any fighting to be done. So girls… lets make the most of it.” Only now did Roman realize that the women were dressed in color coded tactical gear. Cool. “Come with me,” Virgil whispered as the otherworld travel veterans started talking to their friends again. Roman followed without a word. Curious what was left to say. “We should have some privacy up here,” Virgil muttered after he’d led Roman to a platform in the treetops. Like a patio ten feet off the ground. Roman got settled. Curious what Virgil needed privacy for. “You remember when we saw the invasion. And everyone said it wasn’t real like, the very next day. But we believed it happened and that there was an amazing world out there with magic and robots and flying castles?” Roman nodded. It’d been their favorite type of play pretend. “Every time things got us down, we could escape to that world. And then I woke up here. And Maddy told me about the last time humans came to this world. And I knew we’d found it. Our fantasy world. And… Last week I wanted to try and convince you to be friends again. But I didn’t want to get my hopes up so I kept my distance. I didn’t want to ruin things. But maybe if I could get you to meet Pat and Lo even for just a minute. Maybe you’d like them. And maybe you’d like the three of us better than those people who pretend to know you. Who make you look so tired… Ro. I haven’t seen you really smile in so long. Longer than just since that fight. So when I got here, I figured we could escape. You could smile again and we could be the way we were before everything became so complicated. But I knew that you might not want that. I was scared to hope that you’d want to be with… Here. So I worked hard to make sure that you could go home if you wanted. I wasn’t going to keep you prisoner here…” Virgil was rambling and Roman was trying to process it all. Virgil wanted them to stay here together? Virgil had been worried about him? “But Virgil. What about the people back home?” Roman asked. Virgil shrugged. “I thought… If Maddy’s people can move on from Ann and the others and live their lives content knowing they are safe and happy… but seeing them reunite. I’m not sure anymore… And then after what you said. About how you felt about me. I definitely never dared to hope that. Well. That you’d feel that way about me,” he mumbled, the shade of red on his face reminding of a ladybug. And Roman was sure he was a charming sight as well. Did that mean…? First things first. “Well… We now know where the portal is. We could always try plan A first. And if things don’t work out back home, we can always go on one of our super secret missions to come back,” he suggested. Virgil let out a laugh. Their super secret missions were something from a past long gone. But maybe they didn’t have to be. If they made Virgil laugh, Roman would gladly bring them back. “That… Sounds like a decent plan,” the cloaked magicians assistant allowed. “Good. For I loathe to say goodbye to you. But I do have some things that definitely need sorting out at home… Do you think miss Waybright does family counceling?” Roman wondered aloud. Virgil really laughed at that. “We’ll see,” he allowed. “So. You are coming with me then? For the time being?” Roman asked. “For the time being…” Virgil let out a deep sigh. “We have a lot to figure out,” he noted. Roman nodded. “Just consider it our next big adventure,” he suggested as he got up and held out his hand. “Together?” he asked. Virgil smirked and took his hand. “Together.”

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@moonlightshow00 ​ @naturallyunstablegamer ​ @m-i-r-p @meowthefluffy ​ @frida0043 ​ @angelic-cali ​ @selenechris ​ @theblackveilinreverse ​@prinxiety-week-2022

Trouble

Hi yeah its me, and look I’m already back with a new fic for the new year :D cherish this moment I don’t think i will have have this turn around so quick again. For the TSS Fanworks Secret Santa Exchange because I was a pinch hitter :DD @nerdywriterhaven I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Patton has a thing about boardgames and Virgil has a thing about Logan. Together they figure it out. 

Word Count: 7900

Quick Taglist: @alias290​ @chelsvans​ @coyboi300​ @dante-reblogs @dwbh888​ @glitchybina​ @faithfulcat111​ @felicianoromano​ @harrypotternerdprincess @holliberries​ @jemthebookworm​ @killerfangirl3​ @mrbubbajones​  @musical-nerd18​ @nonasficcollection​ @stricken-with-clairvoyancy​ @the-sunshine-dims​ @themagicheartmailman​ @themultishipperchild @thenaiads​ @treasureofpriam​ @vianadraws​ @welovelogansanders​  

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Patton shows up at Virgil’s dorm room just slightly after six pm on a Tuesday with two thermoses of soup that are still warm to the touch, a halloween tupperware of chocolate chip cookies that had been passed between him and Virgil so many times that Patton really doesn’t remember whose it was originally, his laptop, phone, the chargers for both, and the board game Trouble.

Virgil, predictably, shuts the door in his face the second he sees the game box hidden under all the other things in his arms. Patton also thinks that Virgil tells him to go away, but it’s muddled by the door.

Instead he shuffles all the supplies to his left arm and knee, and knocks again on his door just below the leftover tape from the nametag that his RA keeps putting up and Virgil keeps ripping down because he doesn’t want anyone knowing where he sleeps. His knuckles hum with the rap, datatata dat dat! And he smiles even when there’s the sound of something being thrown at the door from that side.

Patton chooses not to hear it because he’s a good friend and an even more stubborn houseguest.

The door a little bit down the hall opens up with the usual fanfare of someone who is running late to a night class-- which of course is the charm of Roman Prince. He looks nice, as usual, and Patton even thinks that if he hadn’t been wearing two different colored shoes, no one would even know that he had probably just woken up from a nap. The music of his room blares out into the hall with a rap song Patton thinks is Hip With the Kids these days, but Patton himself can’t make out any of the actual words.

All the much better because he’s pretty sure it’s Remus’s music and Remus likes his songs like he likes just about everything else: dirty, scandalous, and offensive. Not that Patton is good friends with either of the Prince siblings, but he’s heard the rumors floating around about both. Roman smiles at him, with glittering white teeth and dimples and soft warm brown eyes that could have been made of melted chocolate.

“Oh! What a spectre!” Roman says, seeming to forget that he’s on the way to a class at the sight of Patton standing at Virgil’s door. “Tell me, angel, what brings a glorious sight such as you to our dorm buildings on this amazing day?”

Virgil’s door swings back open before Patton can answer and Virgil hisses from the darkness, the way he’s usually prone to do whenever Roman or Remus or their blatant disregard for the rules about music volume at two AM is brought up.

He looks not much better from the glimpse Patton got before the door was closed in his face earlier: he’s still pale to the point of looking sickly and dressed in the same clothes as yesterday, with his eye shadow smeared and his hair not brushed at all. There’s a red imprint on the side of his face that Patton thinks matches a crease in his blankets or pillows from where he probably tried to suffocate himself on and off all day between anxiously texting Patton all about “the absolute worst day of my entire life and no I’m not even exaggerating this time Pat”.

“Hi Virgil!” Patton says, as Virgil reaches forward and to take a thermos and the tupperware from his arms and glare unbidenedly at Roman. “I brought dinner!”

“I hate you,” Virgil says, and does not mean because he loves Patton’s Broccoli Cheddar Cheer Up Soup and he’s been in need of cheering up since Patton had seen his messages at noon on his way to his second class of the day.

Roman gasps like he’s offended on behalf of Patton who is not offended as much as endeared to his best friend of several years. “Virgil! How could you act so callus towards a beautiful muse such as this?”

“Get lost, Princey,” Virgil tells him firmly, grumpily, Virgil-ly. “He came here specifically to make a pun about my pain.”

“I do it with love,” Patton adds. “And I brought cookies to make up for it.”

Roman looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that information and Virgil doesn’t give him time to find out because he kinda hates Roman-- although Patton always tells him that “hate” is a strong word and Virgil always says he means it anyway. Patton supposes that if he, too, had hallmates that played music louder than life up to the early hours of the mornings during Finals Week, and then cranked it higher when he knocked on the door to ask them to stop, he might also strongly dislike them.

Virgil ushers Patton into the dark room and then kicks the door closed while Patton is waving goodbye at Roman.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light level: Virgil was certainly making use of those thick blackout curtains! It made the whole room look like it was three AM, rather than six PM! There are blobs of stuff all around the room, piles of clothes and blankets that Virgil prefers to have on the floor rather than put somewhere where he’s not going to trip over it in the middle of the night, but Patton supposes that’s just how Virgil’s always been.

“If someone breaks in, they’re gonna trip over this shit and I will be out of here long before they can get back up,” Virgil had said the first time Patton had suggested maybe, possibly cleaning something until they found the floor.

The desk where Virgil did his school work is empty and the textbooks and computer that normally covered it are all on the ground like a massacre from what Patton can make out. Virgil shuffles through the room and ends up turning on the purple lava lamp that Patton got him three years ago so that they could at least see each other and the faux-floor, and even then he doesn’t look happy at needing that much. The elevated bed had the blankets ripped up from it and turned into a nest with Virgil’s phone light peeking out from the depths like some underwater cave with a sea monster in it waiting for an unsuspecting diver.

“Remind me, how you got into this building?” Virgil says, tiredly as he pries open the cookie container. “It requires a key and last time I checked, you don’t have one of those, Pat.”

“As if a key would stop me from checking on you!” Patton replies. He plops himself on a pile of clothes and clears away another spot for Virgil to collapse next to him, so that Virgil can’t exactly escape. “Now, what is this about Logan again? You were being kinda vague and world-ending-y again. ”

Virgil lets out a moan around the cookie he shoved in his mouth and drops to the floor next to Patton, to munch angrily or just upsetly without actually offering an answer, because he’s Virgil and he’s allergic to talking about things that upset him. Patton sets down his other thermos, his laptop, and his own phone to make room for the game between them.

“Must we?” Virgil asks as Patton sets up the board with a practiced hand. Even in the near darkness of the room he knows exactly what he’s doing, and could probably figure it out with no light at all.

“Of course!” Patton says. “You sounded like you were in Trouble.”

“ Sorry to disappoint.”

“It’s rather Risk -y of you to be self deprecating while within hugging distance.”

Virgil doesn’t say anything for a moment, just swallows the bite of his cookie and stares at the colored pieces in front of him. The board game is well worn and well loved-- one of the first ones Patton had ever gotten and one of the first ones he ever convinced Virgil to play with him. Although “convinced” is a strong word for how Patton had just been staring at the board numbly with red rimmed eyes when his father had asked Virgil to come over and try to coax him into eating something, anything, please .

They’d lost three pieces of the red team and one of the yellow and two of the green, but that’s okay because Patton generally played blue and Virgil had custom ordered four purple pieces for just the two of them a few years ago.

Carefully, placatingly, Virgil reaches a hand forward and pops the dice bubble for his number. He gets a four.

Patton gets a five.

“How many times have we played this one, Pat?” Virgil asks, in a voice much softer than before. In the faded purple light and the shadows, it’s hard to see the number on the die, and harder to see exactly what Virgil is thinking about with his eyes hidden like that. His nails are bitten down to the quick, ruining the black nail polish he spent an hour applying last weekend over their shared Biology notes.

Patton shrugs as he reaches forward to take his turn and pops the bubble. Honestly he didn’t think he could calculate the answer if Virgil pressed: this was their go-to game, this was his go-to pun, this is what they did even when the world was falling apart at the seams. It was easier to focus on moving playing pieces a couple pegs than it was to focus on the sound of a heart monitor or raspy breathing or bony pale fingers that shook when they tried to hold anything.

It was easier to find a way to win when the instructions were so clear, and the rules were so fair, and the consequences of losing were just having to put the game back in the box.

Virgil doesn’t say anything more and Patton doesn’t force him to, although he desperately wants to. He wants to reach out and catch Virgil’s hands in his own, he wants to give him a squeeze, he wants to wipe away the tear tracks in his makeup and he wants to tell Virgil that whatever it is, Patton will be there for him.

He wants Virgil to look at a game for once and have fun.

But the only sound in the room is the popper when they roll the die back and forth.

Patton gets the six first. He moves his second leftmost piece to the start and hits it again for a three.

Virgil stares his blue piece on the board for a long moment, without blinking. His hands lie limply in his lap and the tub of cookies sits at his knee. The purple light makes his eyes glisten sweetly, wetly, sadly, with a resignation that Patton knows and wishes he doesn’t. The lump in his throat swells up.

“Virgil?”

Virgil blinks. And then blinks again.

“Why should I even bother at this point?” he asks. He runs a hand up to his hair and tugs at the locks.

“Virgil, this is the opening of the game,” Patton says. “You can’t give up alrea--”

“But it’s not like I’m going to win,” Virgil says and Patton sucks in a breath sharply.

Oh. It was one of those days.

Patton thinks that he should have been expecting this; it had been a decent amount of time since Virgil last had refused to finish a game, and Patton had almost thought that maybe they had kicked those thoughts for good! That through sheer willpower and perseverance and proof to the contrary, they might have managed to rework how Virgil approached a challenge. That at one point Virgil might laugh and smile even when he wasn’t in the lead--

And yet, Patton’s sitting with one piece three spaces ahead of Virgil and Virgil is ready to call it quits. The game had just started. Patton had only been sitting in the room for a total of five minutes. Virgil hadn’t talked for more than a couple sentences.

It’s one of those days, except that Patton doesn’t think that it’s ever been this bad before, because usually they at least made it to the one piece around the board in Trouble , through to one check in Chess , through to one hotel being built in Monopoly , or one train ticket completed in Ticket to Ride .

“This is a sign, isn’t it?” Virgil continues. “I’m just being stupid even considering it. Of course I am. I always am. Nevermind, I don’t want to do this today Pat. Thanks for the soup and the cookies and I’m sorry that I made you walk all the way--”

Patton reaches out and snags Virgil’s arm before he can get all the way off the ground. The board nudges to the side dislodging several pieces into the surrounding void, but Patton thinks that he can replace a hundred playing pieces.

He cannot replace his best friend.

Virgil’s skin is cold, even though the room was comfortably warm, and he’s soft to the touch-- which is never what Patton expects when he gets those lightning quick hugs, when Virgil rests his head on his shoulder during movie nights, when they go shopping and there are crowds that make Virgil want to run for the hills and only Patton’s hand in his keeps him grounded there. Virgil is soft despite the jagged persona he puts on to drive away other people, and he hasn’t gotten any sort of touch in a while because he shuts up the moment that Patton’s own warmth floods over him.

The room holds the silence for an eternity: Virgil frozen halfway up from the ground, and Patton latching on to him like he can pluck all the reasons Virgil is upset out of his mind through osmosis. The lava lamp makes him look unreal, makes the silence ring louder, makes the lump in Patton’s throat grow larger.

“Virgil,” Patton says, “please.”

Please tell me what I can do. Please allow me to help. Please let me in.

“It’s stupid,” Virgil says.

Patton wants to laugh, because nothing that ever hurts Virgil has ever been stupid. “I don’t think so, kiddo.”

Virgil bites his lip and inhales with all of his chest.

“You didn’t go to any classes today. You’ve been crying. You’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes.” Patton says. “Something happened. And it can’t possibly be stupid because nothing that affects you like this is can be anything less than something huge.”

Patton feels Virgil’s hand curl into a fist like he can hide his shaking when Patton is right there .

“Do you remember Logan Ackroyd,” Virgil says. “The senior a year older than us who I had Sociology with last year?”

The same Logan who took extra notes for when Virgil missed class and emailed them to him. The same Logan who offered Virgil a granola bar when he overheard that Virgil had missed lunch. The same Logan who helped Virgil break into the auditorium after school hours to search for his missing earbuds.

The same Logan who has eyes more knowledgeable than the entire galaxy, who wears a tie to class, who smells like coffee beans and pen ink and looks like he’d give really good, safe hugs.

The same Logan who Patton has never once met, but feels like he knows intimately thanks to Virgil’s starstruck rambles.

Logan must be something great and amazing. Patton has known that for a year now, from watching the months slip away and suddenly the ghost of Logan joins them on every outing, summoned by the blush over Virgil’s ears and the soft smile on his lips and the way that Virgil steadfastly won’t meet Patton’s eyes like it will prevent Patton from noticing the way that the senior is always on Virgil’s mind. Logan is kind. Logan is smart. Logan has a new book every day. Logan has a voice like the ocean waves.

Logan, Patton thinks, should have been more careful if he caused Virgil this much distress. Because there are things that Patton would do for Virgil that not even a cold blooded killer would consider doing.

“Yeah,” Patton says, with a smile soft and dumb and innocent. “You guys have Analytical Science together this year, right?”

Virgil lets go of his lip, and breathes out a breath that sounds like more relief than Patton is supposed to hear. “Yeah. Yeah. He, uh… yeah.” Virgil shifts back down, shifts so that he’s on his knees and Patton is right next to him, and they’re still touching and that warmth is stronger than the shadows made by the blobs in the lava lamp.

“Janus… Janus asked him out yesterday,” Virgil says, using his other hand to pluck at a thread in his jeans.

Oh. Patton doesn’t think cookies and soup were enough.

And golly, Patton doesn’t think Logan is as smart as Virgil is always saying he is either, because if he said yes in front of Virgil, he must have been the stupidest person on the planet.

Virgil is quiet, dismissible, a shadow in his own skin even on his best days. But he is not un-noticeable.

He carries an aura around himself that storms and thunders and promises danger to those that get too close. His laughter is a threat first and a comfort second. His smile is a knife blade that even Patton sometimes wonders if he might find in his back one day. Virgil was someone that you noticed and you stayed the fudge away from.

Unless you were Patton, who hadn’t been afraid of Death from the moment he watched his mother cough up blood over the cards to CandyLand, watched his mother turn into a real-life game of Operation, watched her breathing get ragged and her fingers struggle to hold playing cards between them.

Logan hadn’t been scared away by Virgil’s thunder, and somehow he had weathered the storm that Virgil put up to protect himself and lived securely in the eye of the hurricane. And somehow he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t cared, had taken advantage of Virgil’s softening heart just to shatter it.

“He didn’t…” Virgil says. “Janus… he didn’t really mean it. I don’t think. It might have been a joke because they’re friends but Logan told everyone that he would only consider dating someone who could… could…”

“Could what?”

Virgil’s eyes flick down to the Trouble game board, to the pieces lost in chaos of the floor, to the box they hadn’t needed except for transport. Patton feels his heart thud in his chest before he crawls up his throat and he tastes it in his mouth along with the remains of the raw cookie dough he licked off the spoon while cleaning up.

Virgil’s words come back to him in whispers. But it’s not like I’m going to win. This is a sign, isn’t it? I’m just being stupid even considering it.

“Someone who could….” Patton says, “beat him in a boardgame?”

Virgil yanks the thread on his jeans sharply and nods without meeting Patton’s eyes. “I told you it was stupid.”

“Virgil,” Patton says. “This is great! We’ve been playing games together for years! You can beat--”

“That’s the thing!” Virgil says with his shoulders curling up to his ears and burying him in layers of excess fabric. “Pat, I can’t even beat you in a board game and I know all your strategies!”

“I don’t think that Trouble actually has any strategies. It’s really luck of the roll--”

Virgil peeks out of his hood enough to give Patton a miserable glare. “When was the last time I won against you, Pat? Be honest.”

Patton purses his lips. “I don’t think that’s fair, kiddo. I’ve been playing games since I was able to understand the rules--”

“You don’t even remember, do you.”

“It was Dominos and you won by twenty points.”

“Nice try, but you purposely miscounted and you actually won by two.” Virgil reaches out for another cookie and offers it to Patton without making any move to pull his other hand from Patton’s hold.

“You would have a lot more wins if you didn’t insist on not finishing games sometimes!” Patton says. “You never know the ending of a game until you play it out!”

“I could tell you that Logan was going to beat Janus in Chess the moment the opening moves were made,” Virgil counters. “He won in twelve moves and then the next game in six.”

Patton opens his mouth, but Virgil shoves the cookie in before he can actually say anything.

“And God Rest Remy’s soul because Logan obliterated him in Trivia Pursuit.” Virgil continues, “He turned Roman to mincemeat over Scrabble, and not only beat Remus in Poker, but won one hundred dollars off him too. I also watched him win in Othello against some kid he tutored in Calc, a game of Mancala with an art kid who was doing it for clout, and Stratego which he won before I finished reading the fuuuuuudging rules and made his opponent cry over it.”

Patton swallows down a bite of cookie that he didn’t not chew well enough because he feels it tear up his esophagus as it goes. Virgil politely ignores him dying for a second and offers him his own thermos of soup to help it down, before remembering that he’s supposed to be brooding and staring at Patton for too long makes him soft.

“Not to make a pun here, but no dice; I legitimately cannot beat Logan,” Virgil says. “He’s just… so good. At everything. What is the point in humiliating myself with this? Even if I find a game so obscure that he’s never heard of it and doesn’t have a strategy built for it, just going up to him and putting the board between us is like-- that’s telling him that I’ve had this massive stupid crush on him for ages and what if he doesn’t even like me? What if I win and then he has to date me because he said so but he actually hates me? What if--”

Patton coughs so hard he thinks he might have dislodged his own lung, which is fine!! Because at least it got Virgil to snap back to him and table his panicky spiral for later.

“Weren’t you,” Patton croaks, “Weren’t you already going to confess to him? You bought the chocolate kisses and you sent me pictures of them in your bag right before class last week.”

Patton can’t see Virgil’s ears because of his hood but he knows that they’re glowing red from the way that Virgil can’t meet his eyes again.

“I just….I did but then he….” Virgil nudges a pile of questionably clean band t-shirts with his socked foot. “He said he wasn’t interested because class was starting and I still don’t know if he meant an actual kiss or a Hershey kiss because he had to leave class early to pick up his kid brother from his middle school because he was sick with a fever and then I was too mortified to bring it back up-- See Pat, I can’t even come up with a creative way to tell Logan that I wanna listen to him ramble about jellyfish immortality and play with his hair or tell him that I wanna know what the flavor of his chapstick is-- which, by the way, I did say to him and he told me was cake batter and that I could find it at the corner drugstore because he thought I was looking for recommendations-- There is no way to subtly tell him that I want to date him.”

“Then maybe… don’t be subtle?” Patton suggests, and then points at the game between them. “Boardgame?”

Virgil scowls at the game like it had personally offended him. “But I can’t beat him. And if I lose and by some miracle he still wants to be seen with me, then he’d be breaking the very rules he set up and everyone else who lost is going to be pissed at both of us and I can’t do that to Logan.”

Patton bites back the then don’t lose that he wants to say. It seems so obvious to him. He doesn’t really see why Virgil doesn’t think he can win one single game. There isn’t even a rule that says Virgil can’t come back and play again-- which isn’t that the point of games? That you can play them for a little while, pack them up, and then come back to them later? That you sit down with friends-maybe-more and you play and have fun ?

Not for the first time, and not for the last time, Patton wonders why Virgil ever played games with him at all. He knows the first time was pity because he found Patton sitting on the floor of his bedroom with Trouble on the ground in front of him and staring at it numbly because he had cried all the tears out of himself already at the hospital, at the funeral, at the everything that had come after that he couldn’t remember. The first time it had been to get Patton to react because he had been so lost, but every time after that Virgil had made the conscious decision to pick up the pieces.

Even if sometimes he had put them back down halfway through and Patton hadn’t figured out how to convince him that the point isn’t to win as much as it is to have fun.

Virgil twists his wrist loosely in Patton’s grip so that he’s holding Patton back, his cold fingers somehow feeling comforting rather than startling. Patton has always loved that about him, although he’s never sure how that works. The coolness of his touch is familiar, but the vulnerability of Virgil reaching out is something newer, something special, something fragile and Virgil holds onto him like he’s expecting Patton to let go at any moment and Patton steadfastly refuses to let him drift off. Patton squeezes his wrist gently, lightly, softly.

I’m here. I’m not leaving. We’re in this together.

“I think that Logan can make decisions for himself,” Patton says with words so featherlight they barely move the air. “Remember the dominos? Any player can choose to lose, whether it be miscounting or it be refusing to finish the game in the end. But if you never even offer to play with him… Logan can’t make that choice, Virgil.”

Virgil holds his gaze for a moment, two, three, and there’s something in his eyes that shies away from the glow of the light, something slippery and weak and scared. Something that Patton is afraid to put a name to, lest it disappear from him forever.

Something that causes Virgil to squeeze his wrist back.

Together. Us. We’ve got this.

“So what game do you want to play with Logan?” Patton asks. “We can go look at my collection if you want? I loaned out Backgammon to a girl in my Shakespearean class, but other than that I have the usuals with me.”

Virgil takes a deep breath. “Can we…” He says. “Do it tomorrow? I don’t want…” He squeezes Patton’s wrist again and Patton can fill in the rest of the blanks with his own interpretations. He is, after all, fluent in Virgilese, as much as Virgil is fluent in Pattonish.

“Yeah, yeah,” Patton says and shifts through the piles of clothes that act as cushions so he’s right next to Virgil, pressing their shoulders together, leaning his head on Virgil’s collarbone, and reaching around him for another cookie. Virgil moves the tub between them and then pulls the Trouble game board in front of that.

He hesitates for another moment-- they’re missing two of Patton’s blue pieces to the floor, and one of Virgil’s purples to a pile of sweatshirts-- but the fact that Virgil drops forward and presses the bubble to roll the die makes Patton’s chest warm.

He gets a six, and then a four and that thing in his eyes seems to grow just a bit stronger.

That is, of course, when the rap music from next door starts up loud enough to shake the entire room and Patton wonders if Logan would still be up for playing a game with Virgil when he’s incarcerated for second degree murder.

Patton, at least, gets a hug out of it, when he tackles Virgil to the ground before he can get to the door, and he manages to coax Virgil back to their area, back to the floor, back to the game, and then later into the blanket-fort-and-movie-night that they watch with one earbud each and their foreheads pressed together late into the night.

***

Patton’s mother developed lung cancer when he was seven. He remembers it in vague flashes: the blood, the shakiness, her fall to the floor because they had never had any sign of it happening until it was too late to do much about it. He was told it was because his maternal grandparents both smoked a lot when she was growing up and she spent the weekends helping them around the house still.

The doctors said she had a year. She got eighteen months.

He barely remembers her face from his own memories anymore, all of them blurred and twisted by the passage of time that he almost got swept away in entirely. Her picture still hangs around the house, though, and he guesses he’s lucky in that regard. He liked how he could see her every time he passed by the stairs, even after his dad remarried and he had grown up and the telemarketers stopped calling the house to tell her that there was an interesting charge on the credit card she didn’t have anymore.

He still wakes up sometimes with his heart beating in his ears and his eyes blinded with tears and his lungs refusing to cooperate because of nightmares about forgetting her entirely, of seeing her stand up to call out to his dad, of seeing her cough out blood and then fall to the floor right in front of him as his dad is running down the stairs. He still wakes up and feels his heart aching where she might have once been if everything had gone just a little bit different. He still wakes up and wishes that he could go back to sleep because at least in his dreams she’s still there waiting with a deck of cards and a smile that says, “Alright, Buster, don’t think I’m going to go easy on you this time!”  

Usually those types of days he labels as “Bad Ones”, and he finds it harder to crawl from under his blankets to do pretty much anything.

Virgil knows immediately when he sees Patton staring at his black laptop screen that it’s a Bad One.

Patton loves that he knows not to ask, hates that Virgil can read him so easily, wants to cry because it’s been so long and shouldn’t the edges of that pain have gone away by now? He wants to pull Virgil’s purple comforter back over them and drift back off into the blissful warmth while pretending that the idea of a game right now didn’t make his hands shake.

She hadn’t left Patton specifically a lot of things, but the things that she had left him had been boardgames. Things that she had collected over the years and kept on a shelf in the study for them to play after work and school: Candyland, Trouble, Snakes and Ladders. She had a whole shelf for him when he got to an age where he could understand more complex concepts: Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Mysterium, Star Realms, Settlers of Catan.

After she was gone… Patton had stared at that shelf and wondered if she had ever thought that maybe she wouldn’t get a chance to play some of them with him.

He wonders how many of them he could have beat her at, how many of them she might let him win in, how many of them they would love to play together and how many of them they would both play through once and then wrinkle their noses at because it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.

He wonders and maybe it’s a bit too much because he’s stomach is rolling nauseously and he thinks that if he has to look at a game he’ll actually throw up this time.

Virgil doesn’t say anything, even as he gets up and Patton remains buried under too many blankets and the alarm on his phone goes off again for his morning class. The darkness is safe and warm and Patton thinks he understands why Virgil likes it so much as he closes his eyes and tries not to think of a woman who is long gone and in the ground.

“Breakfast?” Virgil whispers at some point.

“Cookies,” Patton mumbles back.

Virgil had carted a hand through his curls and then the door to the room had opened closed and locked behind him. Patton thinks that was nice of him-- to lock the door like he was protecting anyone from coming in and stealing his valuables even though Patton was there. Or maybe since Patton was there? Patton presses his head into a pillow that smells vaguely like chocolate cherries and black licorice and other things that screamed Virgil, and thinks that Virgil might consider Patton a valuable that needs to be protected and kept safe.

Sometime later Patton wakes up with Virgil lying beside him, headphones on and typing on his computer with one hand while dragging fingers through Patton’s curls with the other. It’s impressive of him by itself, but not nearly as impressive as the fact that Virgil’s hood is down and the blackout curtains are parted enough to bring in a decent amount of light.

Virgil blinks at him and removes one earmuff. “I read that flowers need sunlight to grow,” he says in lieu of explaining the rays of light cascading into the room over the two of them.

Patton wants to laugh, and thinks he might if it were any other day and not this one. He settles for a somewhat bent smile and Virgil reaches to somewhere he can’t see and brings back a muffin from the Campus Cafe.

“Chocolate Chip,” he says. “Which is like a cookie, but better because it’s a muffin and I said so.”

Patton can’t really tell if the tears that prick in his eyes are from the lingering sadness or the softness of just a simple gesture from his best friend. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.

It’s a muffin, not something he should be crying over, and he repeats it even as he takes a bite from the top and Virgil pretends like he doesn’t see Patton scrubbing his cheeks as he chews. It’s a muffin, but Virgil got it just for him and Virgil came right back here and sat with him so he wouldn’t wake up alone and sad and and and--

And if Patton liked anyone romantically like that(™) he thinks he would have fallen straight into love with Virgil.

“Did you miss class?” Patton whispers.

Virgil shrugs. “Nothing important. I sent an email to my teachers saying that I wasn’t feeling too good and didn’t want to risk accidentally spreading anything to anyone, which already helps because I didn’t go to class yesterday and I’ve already turned in all my work for the week for most of my classes. Besides, you were here and I didn’t want to just leave you all alone-- what if Roman started playing his Disney compilations at 160 decibels again?”

“You like Disney, though.”

“I also like my hearing and my best friend,” Virgil says like it’s nothing, like it’s obvious, like it shouldn’t be making Patton tear up again because Virgil is just so nice.

“I’m sorry,” Patton whispers.

Virgil moves his computer and jostles around on the bed until they’re lying side-by-side even though the bed was definitely not made for two persons. He presses his head to Patton’s, and he’s cool and soft and safe.

Together. We got this.

“Your mom?” He asks.

Patton nods, with a lump in his throat that makes all the words he wants to say crumble to ashes on his tongue. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Pat,” Virgil says.

“But… Logan…”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Virgil says. “And, full offense, but no boy is going to be more important to me than you regardless of how fuuuuuuunkily hot he is. Funkily, yeah, sure, that’s a word that I definitely was going to say right there.”

Patton feels the laugh build up in his chest, against all the odds in the world, and it tastes like chocolate when it rolls out of his mouth.

Virgil bumps his shoulder, and grins. “Look, I’m trying here. Cursing is in my nature!”

“Thank you,” Patton says. For everything.

“No prob, Bob,” Virgil says. I would do it all all over again and never change a thing.

“I’m not Bob! I’m Pat!”

Virgil’s laugh is like the sun breaking through the clouds after a rainstorm, like a rainbow cascading through the sky, like being caught after a fall. Patton gets the energy to smile back when he hears it and that alone nearly makes him want to cry again.

Patton twists the blanket under him between his fingers and takes a deep breath. “Did you…” He says before pausing to swallow back the taste of his own stomach acids he’s not sure is entirely imaginary. “Did you pick a game? For Logan?”

Virgil’s nose twitches, which means the answer is a sound no. “It’s not that important right now. You’re not feeling up to--”

“ Vir -gil,” Patton says and Virgil’s nose twitches again.

They share a look for another minute, two, three, before Virgil exhales and looks away.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “I didn’t pick out a game yet. I actually saw him in the Cafe earlier with Janus and he waved, though, which was awesome until I waved back and forgot to look where I was going and walked straight into a glass door. At this point it’s going to be a miracle if Logan doesn’t laugh in my face when I ask him to play anything with me.”

“He won’t laugh at you,” Patton says and Virgil slides his arms up and crosses them so he can bury his chin in them like he doesn’t believe Patton at all. “From what you’ve told me, Logan is really nice isn’t he? And the other day didn’t you say that he went on a rant about Pluto being a planet? I think that’s just as silly as you walking into a door.”

Virgil hums to show he’s listening, even if he isn’t taking the words to heart as much as letting them filter through his ears. Patton licks the last of the chocolate muffin from his fingertips and blinks away the urge to hide away from the rest of the world when he spies the box for Trouble on the ground next to Virgil’s desk trash can.

Virgil follows his gaze to the box and he purses his lips, although Patton isn’t sure if its from the fact that he’s remembering that neither of them won last night, or if he’s thinking about odds of beating Logan again or if he, too, is thinking about ghostly fingers trying so hard to move playing pieces that they can no longer touch.

Patton rolls over and stares at Virgil’s ceiling instead, counting his breaths until he feels like the static between his ears isn’t going to overwhelm him.

“What game do you want to play?” Patton asks.

“I won’t win.”

“I didn’t ask what game you wanted to win,” Patton points out. “What game do you want to play against Logan?”

Virgil is quiet, but he sighs so heavily that Patton can see his bangs flutter out of the corner of his eyes.

“This is going to sound stupid,” Virgil says, and again Patton remembers that nothing Virgil ever says has ever once been stupid. “But I don’t want to play against him at all.”

Patton frowns, rolling his head to the side to take in Virgil’s gaze that is already looking at him. His dark eyes are there and the something in them that Patton doesn’t want to put a name to is there again, shining just like the rays of light between Virgil’s blinds.

“I mean I want to play a game with Logan, just not against Logan. It’s stupid, okay? I was just thinking about the cooperative games back at your house that we used to play with your dad and step mom-- you know like the Unlock , Escape-room-in-a-box games? Or maybe Flashpoint? Or Forbidden Island? I was just thinking how shit I am at making my own decisions in Pandemic and Logan is really good at strategy so I bet that working together we’d be able to beat any game.”

Patton breathes deeply, sharply, and tries to ignore the piercing pain in his chest at the mention of the games. Virgil winces like he wants to take the words right back out of the air and hide them somewhere where neither of them have to face them at all.

“I don’t…” Virgil says, “I don’t want to play against him and lose. I’d rather play with him and win. Again: it’s stupid.”

Patton closes his eyes, and sees the shelf his mom left him full of boardgames she picked out long before he was past chewing on building blocks, of him at eleven years old finally getting the courage to drag a kitchen chair to the case and pick out a game while Virgil stood by to make sure he didn’t fall and to remind him that it was okay if he didn’t didn’t feel strong enough to try, of the two of them sitting at the kitchen table with the game directions between them that don’t really make any sense because it there’s no directions on how to attack each other when his dad comes home early and freezes at the sight

He might not remember his mother’s face outside of photographs he doesn’t remember being taken, but he remembers clearly the softness of his father’s expression when he dropped into the seat next to them and asked if they knew how to play this one yet.

“It’s a cooperative game,” his dad said, with a voice shaking and eyes wet. “That means we all work together to get to the goal at the end. Each player is going to have a different superpower-ability-thing that they can do that will make it easier for us to win as a team.”

So no, Patton doesn’t think that it’s stupid at all. It’s hard to do things by themselves, it’s scary, it’s difficult, it’s frustrating. That’s why when Virgil is texting him that the world is ending because of a boy, Patton will always show up at his dorm with soup and cookies and a game for them to play together instead of telling him that he’s being dramatic and silly. That’s why when Patton is missing a woman who hasn’t been in his life for twelve years now, Virgil will always stay with him to remind him that he’s going to get through it, instead of telling him to suck it up.

It’s much easier to win when they’re on the same side.

And Virgil has only ever had fun when playing games that he wins, hasn’t he?

“Why don’t you?” Patton asks suddenly.

Virgil must have nodded off because he jerks suddenly when Patton speaks up, “huh?”

“Why don’t you play a cooperative game?” Patton asks. “What did Logan say specifically about the whole dating thing?”

Virgil rubs an eye and squints at him tiredly. “I told you, he said he would only date someone who beats him at a game. I don’t--”

“Did he say beats him, or beats the game with him?”

“Neither?” Virgil says. “He literally said to Janus very loudly, “I will only consider someone a viable romantic partner if they can win in a game with me.””

“In a game with me,” Patton repeats. “ In a game with me. Not in a game against me!”

It takes Virgil a long, breathless moment to comprehend it, but it’s clear the moment it hits him. Virgil jerks so hard that he tumbles off the bed entirely and to the ground in a fumbling of long limbs, blankets, dubiously cleaned clothes, and his computer-headphones combo. Patton yelps and leans over to check on him but Virgil doesn’t even look like he noticed.

“Holy Shit,” He says, “holy shit, Pat.”

“Language.”

“ HOLY SHIT!” Virgil yells, and then he laughs and covers his mouth like he’s trying to bottle up the sound. “Patton! Patton! He didn’t say against!”

Virgil’s eyes sparkle, the light through the window makes his dark hair shine and just looking at him Patton thinks he’s never once seen him so happy before, so delighted, so excited.

So full of hope.

The next thing he knows is that he’s sitting up and Virgil is wrapped around him in a hug so tight, so soft, so cool and wonderful that those pesky tears come right back to his eyes. Virgil hugs like he’s unafraid of anything for just this endless moment, like he’s never been unsure of physical touch before, like he’s done it a million times before and Patton shouldn’t feel his breath catch in his lungs lest he shatter this dream with an exhale.

He’s standing at the eye of the storm that is Virgil, and he’s never felt so safe before in his life.

“Thank you,” Virgil whispers, “I, uh, I’m sorry for the sudden hug--”

And then, of course, Remus’s music comes back with a vengeance that rattles the ceiling tiles overhead and makes Virgil hiss and break the hug. Patton thinks that he could forgive it, if it weren’t for the unmistakable sound Disney’s Mulan soundtrack also ringing in the air, like it was trying to be heard over the rap music. Dust sprinkles from the tiles overhead.

“I’m going to kill them both,” Virgil vows, but Patton is quicker. He lunges forward before he even knows what he’s doing and coils around Virgil as tightly as he can, and just hugs him, his best friend, the guy who’s always been there for him, and who deserved all the happiness that he could get.

“Pat?” Virgil says.

“If Logan doesn’t treat you right I’m going to make sure no one finds his body,” Patton says.

And Virgil’s laughter makes it sound like he doesn’t quite believe Patton, but that’s okay. Virgil is still looking for reasons to play a game if not to win, and Patton is still trying to find a game that makes him smile, and together they’re going to figure out how to get Virgil to win with Logan.

But for now the hug is good, and the company is nice, and they have the game Trouble packed away ready for the next time they want to play.

Until It Becomes A Pumpkin- Part Four: Irregular Shapes

When the Student Council President and Vice President are both crushing on the same guy- who is actually crushing on his friend and classmate- and the friend and classmate is crushing on a different friend and club member who is crushing on the Vice President, things get… complicated.

anime high school rom com au

Ao3  - Previous Parts - Masterlist 

Part Four: Irregular Shapes

The unlocking of the old club room was akin to a child getting to go into a candy store. The moment the door was open Roman was through the door and flopping on the couch praising it for being a good couch and waiting for him.

“You’re insane,” Virgil told him.

Roman sat up and shot a glare at his friend, “You don’t need to ruin people’s happiness for sport.”

“I don’t need to, I just like to.”

“You-”

“ So,” Patton interrupted. “ Mr. Club President, can you tell us what’s the plan for our first meeting?”

Roman quickly rose from his spot and moved to the small desk in the room, from it he pulled out a few expo markers and moved to the whiteboard. “We have a few things to accomplish for the first meeting of WeView. First thing we need to do is-”

“Can I ask why it’s called WeView, quickly?” Dee asked awkwardly as he and Logan both moved to sit down.

“Patton came up with it and I liked it. But now what we really need to do is-”

“Pick where we’re going to film first?” Remus suggested. “Cause I suggest that new cafe by the station.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Virgil nodded in agreement.

“No, that's the obvious choice!” Roman disagreed. “We gotta be more fun than that.”

“From a publicity standard, going with what’s new is probably a better way to start,” Dee mused. But at Roman’s glare he gave a cough. “ But considering that place is supposed to be expensive, the idea of a nice but cheap place is good too. Students would like to know where they could get good quality on a budget.”

Roman gave a nod of approval. If he had to deal with Dee all the time he was gonna milk this for as long as he could. “Exactly. And actually what I was gonna say is we need to…,” he paused to write what he wanted on the board before saying it aloud. “We need to pick the cohost of the show. It’s clear I am the lead, but who else will be on camera with me?”

“Can't we just rotate?” Patton asked in confusion.

“I think it should be Remus,” Virgil said. “The two of you are oil and water, it’s entertaining.”

Remus opened his mouth but Logan cut in, “I’m not entirely sure Remus’ sense of humor would be... appreciated. ”

“Then it should be Virgie,” Remus decided.

“ Actually ,” Roman put in. “I already had an idea. Mr. President?”

Logan blinked in confusion, “Yes?”

A pause. “Will you do it?”

The Student Council President gave him a dumbfounded look. “Me? I don’t understand.”

“The opposites of your personalities could be entertaining,” Dee mused. “Mr. Tall-Stern-And-Stupid pairs with someone with a flair for drama.”

“My grades are higher than yours,” Logan said shortly.m as he shook his head. He was about to list multiple reasons why it shouldn’t be him, but he managed to catch Roman’s eye and in an instant he seemed to understand that what Roman had planned was more than it seemed. Because the current rumor had grown a tad boring, so it was time for a new one wasn’t it? “Fine,” Logan sighed. “I’ll do it.”

“I can film then,” Virgil offered.

Roman gave a nod and began to write their positions on the board, hoping to hide his satisfied smile.

~~~~

It was strange.

Not a bad strange, rather it was a pretty good one. But it was strange nonetheless. Walking home with Virgil that is. Or well it really the whole club, but somehow he had come to linger in the back of the group with Virgil. If only he could think of something to say.

“Thanks for joining us again,” Virgil said to fill the silence and calm Logan.  

Logan gave a nod. “I am a man of my word.”

“Yeah but...” he gave a sigh and his pace slowed further as he glanced at the others walking ahead. Logan followed suit. “Yes, but I basically tricked you and Dee into joining. You could have very easily backed out after that.”

Logan gave a swallow and tried to be like Dee by summoning a false confidence. “You were just being smart. And that was using Dee and I’s guilt at closing down your old club to your advantage. Because I think it’s clear that neither of us would ever-”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant because you both have a crush on me.”

The next words died on Logan’s lips. His mouth felt dry. Virgil knew? How? How did he know? It didn’t- how? He knew?

“I’m sure this is all awkward for you,” Virgil was saying. “So I wouldn’t blame you if you left because of it. I don’t want you to be upset and hang around because of me.”

“How..?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow in confusion before he seemed to understand. “Did I know? Because I’ve seen you compete with Dee.”

“I...I see.” Logan said. Virgil’s gaze turned downward toward the ground but he didn’t say anything more. “I appreciate your concern but I assure you I am fine.”

Virgil gave a slight nod. “Still I’m sorry... If it makes you feel better I’m in a similar spot. Patton’s only got eyes for Roman... Oh and I'll apologize to Dee himself so you don't need to tell him.

Logan nodded in acknowledgement of the words, but his mind was elsewhere. Patton Liked Roman? This was the first Logan had heard of this. That truly only managed to complicate things further.

“You look like you aged five years,” Dee said, raising an eyebrow before he switched and began to tease. “Was walking with Virgil bad? Did you screw up all your chances?”

Logan didn’t reply and rather he stopped walking and opened his backpack and pulled out a paper and pen and began to scribble something Dee couldn't see, but ultimately he frowned at the page. “There’s no logical way this works out for me.”

“Most likely, but you gotta be more specific than that if you want me to know what this conversation is about.” It had been a little while since the two had split from the rest of the group to walk their ways home- because of course  Logan had to live only a few blocks away from him. But for some reason ever since splitting with the group after what Dee would call a successful first day of club. Logan seemed... off . Dee couldn’t even use the word sad or angry. He just seemed to have given up hope. But Dee resigned himself to deal with whatever Logan was doing because he needed to know what was discussed.

“I exist outside,” Logan said suddenly. “It’s cruel.”

“Explain idiot.”

Logan turned the page he had drawn toward Dee and began to point out features. “Here’s Virgil. These lines are connected to you and me, it’s clear as to why. This line connecting both of us is the fake dating one. Here on your name is one that’s connected to Roman cuz he loves you. But then Patton loves him, but Virgil loves Patton. Don’t you see! You’re all connected in a happy little square and I’m out here ! I’m barely included so I barely have a chance- the math doesn't work!”

“Remus seems to think you're cute. He was checking you out all afternoon.”

Logan didn’t even seem to be in the mood for jokes, “He just enjoys making me uncomfortable.”

Dee gave a sigh, “If it makes you feel better because of this insanity shape-”

“Insanity shape?”

“Well what is it?”

“An irregular pentagon given our relationship is a false one.”

“Whatever, the point is no one is going to end up in a happy relationship!”

“That is... a tad comforting.”

“Can we go home now?”

Dee had gotten Logan to continue moving but the words he had given had a reverse effect on him. Because he may have comforted Logan, but his own chances of love seemed to get smaller due to this irregular pentagon... Or perhaps he was finally seeing things clearly after they had been written down. Either way he gave a sigh.  “If we are fake dating we should have some fake dates,” he announced to change his line of thought. “Buy me dinner.”

“You caused this mess, you owe me food.”

“Sure. You want a candy bar?”

“C-candy bar? Are my feelings and humiliation nothing to you?”

Dee gave a slight laugh as he looked to see Logan’s lips dip into a frown. With it Logan’s posture straightened as that usual stuffy attitude began to seep back into him. Good, Dee certainly preferred when Logan was in a good mood. But when he was smiling was certainly best, but he hadn’t done that much lately... Maybe two candy bars would bring it back.

Dee gave himself a mental shake at his thoughts. He must be going soft.

After getting home Patton had quickly busied himself with helping his mom with the shop and watching over his younger siblings. And after that came dinner and homework so it wasn’t until far later than he had intended that he clicked on the small lamp beside his bed and his phone began to ring.  The moment the phone connected Patton quickly sat up as straight as he could. “Heya Ro!” He said loudly before remembering his sleeping brother and quickly lowered his volume and repeated his greeting.

Roman gave a yawn on the other side, “Aren't you usually asleep by now?”

Patton glanced at the clock before he shrugged, “I had lots of work to get done and I’m finally free. And I assumed you’d be awake.”

“You’d assume correctly,” Roman replied. “I actually tried to sleep early tonight, but I just can’t.”

“Is- is it because of today?”

“Today?”

“You know, with Janus? I- I called because I wanted to know how you’re feeling.” The silence that followed after Patton’s words seemed to echo for a lifetime. It was a strange position, he didn’t want Roman to be upset over this afternoon and if he was, Patton wanted Roman to lean on him for it. But at the same time, he never exactly liked to hear Roman gush about his crush. At least in person he could see Roman’s excited face and watch his childlike personality emerge, but on the phone there was far less to distract him from the context. The context of Roman would only ever see him as a friend. But as a good friend he stayed on and listened to every word. Because at least Roman could distract him from his regular life.

~~~~

Virgil gave a content sigh as he sunk in his usual seat in the club room. The comfort it gave him was a large amount as he knew things were about to become uncomfortable. The other members had gone to their other clubs first and would arrive later to discuss the details of filming their pilot episode this weekend, but until then Virgil was alone. It was something he both loved and hated. He enjoyed the quiet comforting peace of it, but there were times that it pained him more. Times when he would just spend his time wondering what he had done wrong to his classmates, and how exactly he had ended being by himself all the time. A soft sigh escaped his lips as he laid out on the couch, he had time to kill and a nap always made him feel better- or at the very least it would push the negative thoughts away for now.

The sound of thunder jolted Virgil awake as his heart drummed in his chest. He took a few quick short breaths and took in the situation being nothing more than a sudden storm outside, and then he realized  he was no longer alone in the room. Dee was sitting across from him, with what looked like his math homework spread between them on the coffee table, watching Virgil with a mixture of a surprised and concerned expression. He said nothing at first before he reached for a water bottle and offered it, but Virgil shook his head and grabbed his own from his backpack. “Have you been waiting long?”

“N-no. I’ve only been here for about ten minutes or so. I… I didn’t want to wake you," he shrugged looking back down to a notebook in his lap and marking something.

“Why not? I asked you here early to talk.”

“What about?”

Virgil gave a sigh, “I wanted to apologize to you... and also to thank you.”

“Apologize? You have nothing to be sorry for. And I shouldn’t be-”

“The Roman situation,” Virgil clarified, causing Dee to swallow and set down the notebook and pen. “While I don’t like you lying to my best friend- and even though I know you weren’t trying to do anything in particular- I think this is easier on him then the truth would be. So for that I thank you, even if I’ve put you and Logan in a tough spot. And I took advantage of you to get your help with the club… So I’m sorry.”

A beat passed. Then another. And finally Dee gave a scoff followed by a laugh of disbelief. “You know I always dreamed of the day you would acknowledge my feelings rather than just ignoring them, but I never thought about it in this sort of context… I always hoped it would end in a date.”

Virgil focused on the bottle in his hands rather than on the other boy's face, “Thought you were going to say you hoped for the chance to laugh in Logan’s face.”

“I wouldn’t do that until after the date. I have some class.”

Virgil gave a slight laugh, but he didn’t say anything more. He was being selfish and greedy to keep as many people around him as possible, he didn't deserve to take further advantage- to say anything more.

“I take it there’s no way I can compete with Hart?” Dee asked.

Virgil chose to give an answer with some honesty, Dee deserved that much. “You could turn back time I suppose, I considered it now and then. But you never exactly asked me out.”

“That was my fault, yeah... I spent far too much time enjoying the chase of it,” Dee sighed, leaning back in his seat. “But its your fault too. You look so pretty when you-”

The attempt at shameless flirting was cut short as the club room door opened to reveal a shocked looking Roman and Patton and their expressions of shock and frustration were enough for Virgil's heart to plummet to the pit of his stomach.  His childhood friend- his best friend- Roman looked betrayed. His gaze was on the ground, but his hands shook in their fists, and Virgil knew Roman well enough to know that he was on the brink of tears and the reason he wouldn't move or speak is because he was afraid they would fall. Beside Roman stood a flushed Patton. His hands covered his mouth as his eyes flickered between everyone but they seemed to linger on Virgil the least as if he was too suprised to look Virgil in the eye anymore. Virgil wanted to say or do something, but the third person who had apparently been outside- Remus- walked in the room (after apparently having opened the door) and pulled out his earbuds that were blaring something similar to circus music as he moved to look out the storm outside seemingly unaware of the one he had stumbled into.

“Sorry I’m late!” Came Logan’s voice from the hall. “Why are you two st-”

His sentence wasn’t finished as Roman was shocked into being and he took off running down the hall. Virgil was quick to move to the door, but Roman was already rounding the corner. He was going to go after, but Patton held up a hand freezing Virgil in place, but he still wouldn't meet Virgil's eye “I...I think he might need a minute kiddo.”

Virgil gave a hard swallow as heard the sounds of his best friend running off, and he focused on Patton’s seemingly embarrassed state before dropping his gaze and moving past Patton anyway- he could almost laugh at himself. When was the last time he hadn't done exactly as Patton asked? Since meeting Patton Virgil had done his best to keep his feelings a secret and not to ruin anything with his friends since they were all he had. But now if he had the chance to keep one person by his side he owed it to himself to try. He opened his mouth to speak to Patton, but when no words came out Virgil found himself sprinting off down the hall. Thankfully no one attempted to stop him, so now all he could do was hope that he still had a best friend after all of this.

~~~~

Previous Parts - Part Five

Whoooops! I did more @kingcreativityau nonsense I hope the quality’s alright, I’m trying hard to make something decent on Paint x’D

Hope you like it!

Totally Just Friends

Just another story for Analogical week! (Hosted by @analogicalweek )

Today I chose the song prompt!

There is a little bit of Cursing in this so caution when reading. But other than that, it’s Logan gay panicking.

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When Patton had asked for someone to go check on Virgil, Logan was the first one to volunteer. They are fairly good friends, maybe a little bit closer than normal but who doesn’t imagine kissing their best friend from time to time? Yeah, that’s a totally normal thing to do. So what if he wants to cuddle and hold hands and go on dates and-

He was spiraling again, wasn’t he?

Logan sighs as he stands up from the couch, taking the path up to Virgil’s room. Truth is, he had hopelessly fallen for Virgil so long ago, emphasis on the “hopelessly” part. There is no way in hell Virgil would look at him in a romantic kind of way. They are just friends, and Logan seems to think that is for the best.

Once he had made it up to the anxious trait’s door, he knocked lightly. A few seconds passed and no response, so he knocked again. Once again, no answer. He sighs as he puts his ear up to the door, fully expecting to hear muffled crying or another sign showing Virgil was having a panic attack, but there was no sobs, no uncontrolled breathing or whimpers… just Virgil’s voice, singing a tune that sounded familiar but it was far too quiet to hear. Curse you, soundproof rooms.

Eager to figure out what song Virgil was singing, Logan twisted the doorknob and was genuinely surprised when the door opened. He peeked into the room and there was Virgil, standing in the middle of his room, paying no attention to the world around him as music was blasting from his headphones.

Logan quickly hid behind the door frame so he wouldn’t get caught if Virgil happened to turn around. He slid down the wall, sitting down as he tried to tune into what Virgil was singing. That plan backfired. Apparently when is comes to his crush singing, all Logan’s gay brain could gather was that Virgil’s voice is… well, he couldn’t think of a word that could accentuate how heavenly it sounded.

The logical trait lets his head rest against the wall as he starts unconsciously mumbling the words along with Virgil. And then realization hits him. That song is on Logan’s playlist... Virgil is listening to Logan’s playlist!

A blush spread over Logan’s face as he put a hand over his mouth to keep any gay panic noises from escaping and alerting Virgil as to where he is. Virgil is listening to his! playlist! And he is singing along to it! That has to mean he has listened to it more than once right? You can’t sing along to a song that you’ve never heard before. Virgil likes his music, oh my god, Virgil. Likes. His. Music!!

“Uhm… Lo?”

Logan snaps out of his thoughts and looks up, only to see the cause of his gay panic standing in front of him. Shit-

“Oh, um.. Hello Virgil…”

“Whatcha… Whatcha doing there?” Virgil raised an eyebrow and Logan could have sworn he felt himself start to blush more.

“Well, originally I came up here to check on you. Patton was worried, you know how Patton can be sometimes.” He smiles somewhat nervously as he glances away.

“Yeah, okay. But that doesn’t explain why you are sitting outside my door.” Shit, shit, shit!

Logan felt his air get caught in his throat as he tries to explain. “Well, you see, I- I tried to knock on your door but you didn’t answer so I opened your door and heard you singing along to my playlist and…” The rest of that sentence was mumbled so low even Logan didn’t know what he was trying to say.

At this point, Virgil was smiling at him with that fucking smile that makes Logan melt into putty. “I’m sorry, I missed the last bit of that Lo..”

“Your singing voice is absolutely spectacular..” Logan says with a face that is just about as red as Roman’s sash.

A small giggle could be heard from Virgil. “Lo, if I didn’t know better I would say you have a little bit of a crush on me.”

Logan stood up, crossing his arms and looking away. “I- If you are referring to the childish term for having romantic feelings, I most certainly do not.”

Virgil chuckles softly as he takes a step or two closer to him. “So you are all red in the face for nothing? Lo, I’m smarter than that.”

“W-what..? I’m not red.”

The grin on Virgil’s face was clear proof that he wasn’t buying any of his bullshit. “You know, if it makes you feel any better, I like you back.”

“...huh?” Logan replied with wide eyes, sounding very intelligent.

“I like you too, Logan. Thought I was making that pretty obvious…”

Virgil though he was being obvious? Thinking back on it, Virgil had offered to stay up with him a few times, and one of them falling asleep propped up on the other’s shoulder was something that happened at least once a week, and all the comments they had made about the other standing a bit too close.… that's not just friend things? Wait, of course it’s not! Logan facepalmed, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. “I’m an idiot-”

Virgil laughs softly. “I would say you are more oblivious than idiotic. Say, how about we steal the imagination away from Roman tonight and go stargazing? I think that would give us plenty of opportunity to talk about what this means for us.”

A date. Virgil is asking him on a date. Holy shit! “Yes! Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” He nods, maybe a bit too eagerly as he straightens his tie, trying to not seem as excited as he felt.

But man, did Virgil’s smile make everything worth it. “I’ll see you later, then.” With a swift movement, Virgil had leaned in and gently placed a kiss on Logan’s cheek and walked back into his room.

He froze, gently grazing his fingertips over the spot Virgil’s lips had been seconds ago. A deep red blush washes across his face as he realized that had been a kiss. Virgil had kissed him!

It takes him a minute to clear his thoughts before he walks over to his room, absolutely swooning over what had just happened. Not only does Virgil like him back, they are going on a date! A happy sigh escapes him as he flops backward onto his bed, not being able to shake the feeling that tonight is going to be a life changing one.

What about our favorite emo hockey player experiences with gay panic? Love your work💕

ofc, this team is a lovely disaster

one time, when they were both drunk at Virgil’s home over the summer, Roman earnestly and affectionately told Virgil that he was one of the best friends that Roman had ever had, prompting Virgil to both sputter out a flustered “Shut Up!” and bury his face in his hands

along a similar vein, Virgil and Roman once played a drunken game of truth or dare where Roman, in a moment of vulnerability, asked if Virgil had ever thought about kissing him. (the answer was yes, not that Virgil could actually find the words to say so)

although Virgil will roast Roman to hell and back until his dying breath, he can’t deny that he lost Every Ounce of Coherency when he saw Roman come out onto the stage dressed as JD when the team went to see him in the musical Heathers 

once, immediately following his concussion, Logan very calmly and very seriously informed Virgil that his eyes were “beautiful,” which. (that memory still makes Virgil blush over a month later)

Logan was always subtle about it, but Virgil never missed the way that the goaltender would hover around him whenever interviewers approached in case Virgil was too spent to talk and Logan needed to get a particular pushy reporter to back off; (and god if that ongoing protective streak doesn’t make Virgil absolutely MELT inside)

every once in a while, when Virgil would blare music in the apartment prior to Logan’s concussion, Logan would set himself up at the keyboard in the living room in order to casually play along with whatever song was on, eyes closed as he leaned into the music. it was such a small thing, but it made Virgil feel so incredibly warm inside, and he misses it horribly now that Logan’s oftentimes in too much pain to do much else than sleep