#NOT final designs. very important. the final designs are a part of the fif after like chapter 14 or so.

[foxett]

Hey guys

[bat-besties]

On Impossibility - 6

Chapter 1   Chapter 2    Chapter 3    Chapter 4   Chapter 5  Chapter 7  Chapter 8 Chapter 9

A popular!Logan and loser!Roman high school AU based on @2pointomg’s idea with eventual Prinxiety. 

impossible 

ɪmˈpɒsɪb(ə)l

adjective

·       not able to occur, exist, or be done.

Eg. It is impossible to fund both the sports and drama programmes with the school’s limited budget.

·       very difficult to deal with.

Eg. The situation which Logan Sanders, Student Body President, is in after he convinced the school board to cut the unsuccessful drama programmes is impossible.

·       (of a person) very unreasonable.

Eg. Roman Prince.

To Roman, nothing is impossible. Not following his older brother Patton to acting college, not being a loser taking on the school’s popular Student Body President and definitely not writing and performing an epic school play with no money and six cast and crew members.

Edited by @alpacasarethegreenestanimal, who has an amazing fanfiction on AO3! If you like superheroes, sarcasm and Virgil angst then you’ll love this

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@whatamessofwords 

@zoalis

So close. They were so close.

‘Then this I say, oh noble knight, if you let go of your anger then you could be great. Give up the light – it is so comfortable here in the dark. Vines to hold you close, the canopy to shade you, thorns to protect you. Does the light not burn you?’

Kyle had a blanket cape round his shoulders and was jutting his chin confrontationally towards Roman. His pose was perfect, he knew his lines inside out, and his emphasis was just as Roman had imagined it when writing the speech late at night in his bedroom.

Roman suddenly broke out of character, running his hand through his hair. ‘That was great – really, really. Could we run it again? There’s just – you’ve just got to really feel it.’ Roman hated to be that guy – Kyle had been great, and their priority was to get a feel for the new set and adjust their blocking for the stage. But he had to be perfect. Roman would make him perfect no matter what it took, for although he knew the role was one which stretched his friend he had faith in him to get it right. All through workshopping a boy called Raphael had dominated Ombretto, throwing him into dramatic confrontation with Rosso and drawing him back into introspective monologues. To be honest, it had hurt Roman greatly when Raphael left ‘due to creative differences’ and Kyle had to be pulled from the role of Giallo, but he much preferred his friend’s delivery because he had learnt from Patton the importance of an actor subordinating themselves to the character.  

It was six o’clock on a Saturday night and they had been there all day assembling the set, but Kyle ran the lines again - with more feeling. It wasn’t good enough for Roman, but then again hardly anything was. They moved on and he saw Talyn give Kyle encouraging finger guns from the wings. Kyle returned a small smile. Everyone was tired, but Roman had asked them to run through the whole thing again, so they had. While Patton’s entire year would go to the moon and back for him, Roman’s few friends would paint the Kuiper belt rainbow if he asked them to.

They should have gone home and caught up on homework after putting up the set, but the beauty of the set had transported Roman into ecstasies of inspiration, and he doubted Virgil would leave until the building was shut. The boy for once in his life was not scrolling through Tumblr, listening to music or fiddling with his sweater paws. He just sat starry-eyed in the front row of the seating, hunched forward in his over-sized hoody as he tried to hide a grin behind his hands.

The set Virgil had built was amazing. Fate had finally given the theatre troupe a helping hand as Dahlia’s neighbours had spare planks of wood from a loft extension they had not technically forbidden her from taking. Virgil had understood the aesthetic of Talyn’s designs and had decided to play around with the handmade nature of the set. Basically, it looked like the child of a Victorian toy theatre and the illustrations in a book of fairy tales raised by a goth/steampunk in the hedge of thorns from Sleeping Beauty. Or that’s how Virgil had pitched it. Originally there had been a scaffolding tower, but they had to improvise with the tall metal balcony from West Side Story Patton had once sung on so happily.

Virgil was weirdly proud of himself. He tried to be self-deprecating about his set, however he couldn’t help but be happy with it. Logan had always been complimentary about his work, but he did not have a great understanding of art, and Virgil had suspected the positive feedback was a key bullet point in the Word document ‘How to Get Self-doubting Friend to Apply for College.’ In contrast his new friends had very high standards, so a single nice word from Talyn would go around his head for days and days. Roman had been extremely exacting – a picture of the cliff from the Nightmare before Christmas had literally been ripped off Virgil’s mood board because the smoothness of it ‘didn’t fit the vibe, the emotion’ of the play – and now he was playing in the set like a kid in a candy store. Virgil understood it now, Logan and Roman’s drive for perfection. Oh sure, Logan was a textbook perfectionist and Roman was slapdash and confident in his own abilities, but in his own way the actor was just as meticulous about his work. The play – not yet named because there was not something which fit it well enough – was his baby. And while the set was a part of that brainchild it was Virgil’s own – baby was a weird comparison, it was just…he just had lots of feelings about it he hadn’t had for anything else before, OK? The exercise in 3D space was interesting.  

At 22:00, a janitor finally came around. He peeked his head into the auditorium, then walked into it fully. Kyle was perched on the balcony, which was festooned with sequinned purple fabric vines, and Roman was kneeling in centre stage entreating him to come down, framed by chaotic brambles the size of tree trunks and twisted metal spider webs throwing bizarre shadows onto the wall behind him, covered with sheer green fabric donated by Mrs Damon. He looked at Virgil, who was entranced by the scene.

‘Hey kid, you part of this?’ he spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb the actors. Virgil looked up at him and nodded with a grin.

‘Good on you, kid. I told you that you shouldn’t use your drawing skills for rude caricatures. And now look at you!’

Virgil was rapidly beginning to lose his sense of mystery and magic. ‘That…that was not me. I told you, and I told the principal that that drawing wasn’t by me.’

The janitor took off his hat and sat next to Virgil in a fatherly manner. ‘If you didn’t draw that cartoon, then why was it on your locker, heh?’

Trying to be absorbed into the tear in the seat covering, Virgil gave the man an exasperated look.

‘Well, I’m here to ask you guys to leave. You need to sleep!’ replied the janitor brightly, completely unfazed by Virgil’s silence. He leaned in even closer to him. ‘How long is there left?’

‘Fif-een min’tes.’ was mumbled from behind a wall of purple hair.

‘Fine. You guys promise to look up, then you can have the time.’

‘Thks.’

‘Careful of that balcony. Bit rickety.’ With that Malcom headed into the hallway again, marvelling at the impact that simple sentence of his had made on that punk kid. Permanent sharpie and Tipp-ex on that locker as well. Sometimes kids just need a bit of self-belief.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, Roman bounded off the stage and thundered up to Virgil. Ignoring the fact that Virgil was putting into practice everything he’d learnt trying to disengage Malcom, he grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. ‘A cheer for Virgil!’ he yelled to the others.

There were scattered cheers from the cast and crew as they cleared up. ‘Visionary, visionary!’ shouted Roman, throwing his hands in the air.

Virgil blushed. ‘What does that even mean?’

Roman threw himself down on the gangway, pulling the emo down beside him. ‘One who has unique visions!’

Virgil looked at him sceptically. ‘I’m sure that’s not the exact definition.’

‘We can’t all be the calculator watch, can we?’ The annoyance entering Roman’s voice was jarring.

There was a beat of awkward silence as Virgil refused to forgive Roman or defend Logan.

Brightly, Roman grabbed Virgil’s hand and admired his nail polish. He looked up at Virgil and whispered, ‘Visionary, visionary.’ Over his knuckles.

Virgil recoiled and stood up. ‘What the ever-loving fuck was that?!’

Roman face-palmed. ‘It was meant to be…friendly.’

‘It was really weird! And not friendly! That was not in the realm of friendly!’

Roman rocketed to his feet, ‘Sorry to break it to you Virgil, but just because I’m gay, it doesn’t mean that I’m flirting with every straight guy I talk to!’

‘How is that-? It wasn’t- I didn’t even know that! Anyway, I’m not straight either.’

‘Well, fine. I’m not.’ Roman put his hands on his hips.

‘Fine!’

‘Fine!’

The two stood angrily staring at each other before dissolving into laughter.

‘How could you think I was straight?’ howled Roman, ‘And you’re not either? Yes!’ he punched the air.

Virgil was bent over, clutching his stomach. ‘I…I didn’t want to assume…’

Dahlia came up the gangway halfway, since the rest of it was blocked by two dorks rolling around on the floor. ‘We’re going to head, if you guys could lock up.’ Breathlessly, Roman waved her on.

Once the two came to they sat up, lounging against the seating.

Roman studiously didn’t look at Virgil as he spoke to him. ‘Your set – I love it.’

‘I know.’ The emo smirked at him, ‘you spent all evening playing in it.’

Roman’s hand shot to his chest as he gasped, ‘PLAYING! How dare you? I was acting!’ he made a point to gesture dramatically to signal his thespian talent. He put his hand down and turned to Virgil. ‘I do, though,’ he said earnestly, ‘it’s beautiful, and dark, and creepy, and fantastical, and better than I could ever have hoped for. We can do this – we can put on this play.’

Virgil’s insides twisted as he looked at the boy across from him, his face desaturated and pupils dilated by the dark. He wasn’t so sure of success. The costumes needed to be big and bold, and that meant lots of fabric and shiny things in elaborate designs. They had asked to use the black fabric which backed the curtain but had unsurprisingly been turned down, and money from rainbow T-shirt sales had covered enough for a dirndl for Margherita bought online and a shimmery brown and green leotard for the malevolent fairy (nicknamed Bob) after the set had been built, but for now the magnificent hoop skirts of the Evil Queen and flowing robe of Ombretto were impossible to realise.

‘Virgil?’

The emo snapped his eyes from Roman’s face. ‘Yeah. Let’s not count on…let’s not give on up this.’ He made eye contact again. ‘I believe in you. Or whatever. Dork.’

Roman smiled to himself a little. ‘And here I was thinking you were some massive edgelord.’

Virgil raised his eyebrows. ‘You saw my Nightmare before Christmas poster.’

‘True.’ Roman grinned, ‘But you were too cool for my Randy Newman impression.’

Virgil giggled. ‘You had a cowboy hat. And a pink plastic radio. And you were fifteen.’

‘I took it seriously! I wanted to be your friend.’ Roman emphasised each word.

‘Well, I wanted you to stop singing before I cringed myself a six-pack.’

They sat in silence for a while, neither wanting to suggest leaving.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with my future.’ Virgil’s head was flung back to look at the set, and his voice was soft.

Roman rolled onto his stomach, supporting his head on his hands. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘This.’

Roman put his hand on Virgil’s and smiled at him reassuringly, ‘Then do it. This is good.’

‘I…’ Virgil took a shaky breath. ‘I can’t. I’m not good enough.’

‘Virgil. I have been to four Broadway shows and twenty-three shows in other towns. I watch bootlegs like other kids watch let’s plays. I read about this stuff. I think you could easily design for a smaller show, and once you go to college…Broadway, baby.’

Virgil felt something suspiciously like hope rise to fill his chest. ‘Why would they take someone like me? From a school like this, which isn’t particularly keen on the arts, if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Virgil – you have Mrs Damon who would write a book about you, let alone a recommendation letter. You’ve got this production, which will make one hell of an essay. The school is academic, and your grades are good. Besides, Patton did it – my older brother.’

‘I guess. But wasn’t he like some genius or something?’

It was Roman’s turn to break eye contact. ‘Yeah, he is. But we don’t need to be scholarship holders like him or anything. Just good enough.’

Virgil sat up, ‘You’re worried about acting school, princey? Big brother in New York and half-a-billion extracurriculars. Please.’

‘No extracurriculars now. But yes, of course I’m worried. I want to go to the same place as Patton, when we went to check it out with him it was…magical. These past few years it’s like he’s living every single dream I have. And I’m happy for him! I am! I’m super proud, but I don’t want to apply and be rejected, and he’ll be super nice about it…you know.’

‘Do your parents compare you a lot?’

‘No, god no.’ Roman shook his head emphatically. ‘They’re incredibly proud of both of us. It’s me. I do. And I know I shouldn’t…’

He broke off and tried to hide the fact that he was crying. The emo scooted closer and awkwardly pulled him into a loose hug, at which point Roman attached himself to Virgil’s hoodie like a baby koala.

‘Aw, jeez. Come on, dude. Don’t make me give a heartfelt speech. Just like, know, that I think you’re - good.’

‘Huh! Yeah, I am pretty good! Thanks for reminding me, J-Delightful.’ Roman pulled himself up and punched Virgil in the shoulder.

‘Alright, dudebro.’

The boy slumped again. ‘Arggggg. Now you think everything is fine!’

‘You do not look like everything is fine.’

‘Well, yeah, no.’

Virgil just wanted to paint and listen to emo music and be left alone. Why the hell was he landed with looking after overachievers?

‘Wanna come to my house tonight? We could watch Disney, or whatever. My parents would be happy I have someone to invite over.’

‘I would love that! I’ll text the old parents…Odin’s eyepatch! It’s eleven already! We’d better hurry!’

That night as Roman was spread-eagled on his bedroom floor, Virgil tried not to think of the lack of money for costumes, but they joined the usual procession of Logan’s eye bags, situations in which his set would collapse and his plan for the future which marched round his head whenever he tried to sleep.

Increasingly old-school Disney songs sung in bass, a voice passionately and loudly delivering lines or unaffectedly and quietly trying to explain ideas had echoed around his darkened bedroom too, but he preferred to not think about that.