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emoprincey · 1 year

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Becoming Brothers chapter 2 - School and Scheming

Chapter 1 | This is chapter 2!

Fic summary: Everyone knew Roman and Remus were twins – at least, that was what they told anyone who’d listen. In fact, the only people who knew they weren’t related at all were Roman and Remus themselves, and of course their single dads, Logan and Virgil. But when the boys realise their dads are falling for each other, they might have a chance to become real brothers, if only the grown-ups would stop being so oblivious. It looks like some matchmaking is in order…

Relationships: Platonic/familial Creativitwins, romantic analogical.

Also posted on my ao3: stormofstarlight

Word count: 4019

Taglist for this fic: @iclaimedtobethebetterbard @star-crossed-shipper @theblackcatscratchpost

Author’s note: Hello again! It’s been exactly a year since I posted the first chapter of this fic, which wasn’t planned at all. This is kind of a beast of a chapter so it took a while, but I’m really happy with how it turned out XD

“Dad, you can let go. I’ll be fine!” Remus insisted, trying to pull away from Virgil, who’d pulled him into a hug just as they got out of the car in the high school car park.

Virgil sighed, and gave him one last squeeze before he pulled away. “I know,” he said softly. “I know you will, really. Have fun, okay? High school is big, and it might seem scary, but I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Remus said, craning his neck to look around. He’d been here on the open day last year, but the school looked so different when it was full of people milling about. Most of them were bigger than him, and he could see groups of boys jostling each other, and gaggles of girls with identical haircuts and far more makeup than the rules on the website said was allowed. And now he was going to be one of them. In a black blazer and tie identical to everyone else, he was a high school kid now. And that wasn’t scary. At all.

The knot in his chest relaxed a little when he saw a familiar blue car pull into a nearby spot in the busy car park.

“Roman!” Remus called, waving when he saw Roman get out of one of the doors in the back.

“Remus!” Roman called back, dashing over to him with his backpack still hanging off one shoulder. He looked smart in his new blazer, and Logan must have done his hair this morning because his light brown locks were styled into a neat quiff. He probably looked smarter than Remus did with an untucked shirt – because even though Virgil had told him to tuck it in this morning he’d found that uncomfortable – and hair that got messed up the second the wind touched it.

“We’re in high school now!” Roman exclaimed, as if Remus didn’t already know that. “I can’t wait to start! I’m going to be in all the school plays, and I’m going to do guitar lessons – because they have those here – and maybe trumpet as well, and piano, and-”

“And before you do any of that, you need to go to assembly,” Logan cut in, with a fond smile. “You don’t want to be late on your first day, do you?”

He bent down to adjust Roman’s tie as he spoke, though Remus thought it already looked perfectly neat.

“Remember, you’re, getting the number fifteen bus home. The number will be on the front,” Virgil reminded the two of them, “and you’re both going to Logan’s house.”

“I know,” Remus said. “You’ve only told me fifty times today.”

“Just want to make sure you know,” Virgil chuckled, wrapping one arm around Remus’ shoulder in a little side hug, which Remus didn’t mind so much because it was just starting to sink in that he was going to be in a new place without his dad all day.

“You both have your water bottles, don’t you?” Logan asked, and the boys nodded. “Remember to actually drink from them, it’s a big day and you’ll need to stay hydrated.”

“I feel like we’re in class already,” Remus whispered to Roman, who giggled.

Logan furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance, but Virgil elbowed him playfully and he seemed to relax.

“You’ll never win against them,” Virgil said, with a small laugh.

“They are quite the double act,” Logan admitted. “Anyway, you two really should get to assembly now, I’ll see you both when I finish work.”

He patted Roman on the shoulder, kind of stiff and formal like he always was, but Roman surged forward and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“See you later, Dad,” Roman mumbled into the front of Logan’s shirt.

“Yes, I’ll… I’ll see you later, Roman.” Logan’s eyes glistened a little, and he wrapped his arms around Roman as well.

Virgil pulled Remus close again, and Remus didn’t try to pull away this time.

“I’m so proud of you, you know that?” Virgil said quietly.

“I know,” Remus said thickly, because he did. No matter what his teachers had said at parent’s evening in primary school, or how long it took Remus to do his homework, or how many times he said the wrong thing in the wrong situation, Virgil always made sure to tell Remus how proud he was of him, and how well he was doing by just being himself.

“Have a good day, kid,” Virgil said, and he ruffled Remus’ hair one final time, then tutted at how he’d messed it up and tried to smooth it down again.

For a moment, Remus considered asking Virgil not to make him go. Maybe if he begged enough, he’d be able to stay home instead of going to a school full of loud kids who would probably make fun of him, and teachers who would say he didn’t try hard enough. But he knew Virgil had work. He’d stick it out, just for one day. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he was expecting.

So instead, he gave his dad the bravest smile he could, and nodded before he walked off with Roman.

“Remus, tuck your shirt in!” Virgil called after him.

Remus sighed – he’d been so close to getting away with it – but he did as he was told before he and Roman joined the busy crowd of people entering the building. The crowd was a lot bigger than Remus was used to. Even Roman looked a little apprehensive, and Roman always said he wasn’t scared of anything. Remus squeezed Roman’s hand as they walked through the doors, and Roman squeezed back.

The assembly hall wasn’t hard to find – it was just inside the main doors, and Remus had sat in there for a talk on the open day, so he remembered the way. It was already packed when they got there, and the first few rows of benches in front of the stage were already filled. Remus didn’t mind, though – he didn’t like sitting near the front anyway, because the teachers would always see him fidgeting and tell him off. He immediately made for the cool tiered seating at the back, but a teacher blocked his path and ushered him and Roman towards the fourth row back of benches.

“So, what are we going to do?” Remus asked Roman once they sat down. The hall was slowly filling with buzzing chatter as more students entered behind them.

“About our dads?”

Remus nodded.

“Well, we need to figure out how to set them up,” Roman said. “We can draw up a plan in the treehouse after school.”

Remus opened his mouth to say something else, but a teacher shushed him as a woman walked onto the stage. He recognised her as the headmistress from the pictures all over the website and the speech she’d given at the open day. She was definitely breaking the make-up rules, with bright red lipstick that matched her polka-dot blouse, but the rules never seemed to apply to teachers.

Remus tried to whisper to Roman throughout the assembly, but he kept getting looks from the teachers stood at the side of the hall. After a while, even Roman started to look annoyed with him, because the teachers probably thought he was being disruptive too, so Remus was quiet after that.

At the end of assembly, the headmistress called each student’s name, and directed them to a form tutor. Remus and Roman were both in 7C, and were pointed over to a smiley man called Dr Picani. Remus hadn’t thought that doctors could be teachers too, but Virgil had worked two jobs in the past, so he supposed it made sense.

Dr Picani made a show of counting the students’ heads before he led them down the corridor. The assembly hall was attached to what Remus vaguely remembered as the humanities building, and their form room was on the second floor. The walls were covered in brightly coloured displays, and graphics with cartoon characters – a few of which Remus recognised. He didn’t really understand what much of the writing in the displays meant, but there were a few diagrams of brains, which Remus thought were pretty cool. There was even a model brain on Dr Picani’s desk, cut open to show sections inside highlighted with different colours.

“This is a psychology classroom,” Dr Picani explained, when one of the students asked. “None of you will be able to take psychology until GSCE, but I do teach some history classes as well, so some of you might still have me as a teacher!”

Remus grabbed a seat at the front of the classroom right next to Roman – mostly so he could get a better look at the model brain, but also because Dr Picani actually seemed alright.

Dr Picani handed out the timetables, and Remus was relieved to see that his history teacher was listed as Dr E Picani.

“Hey, we have mostly the same classes,” Roman said, leaning over to compare his timetable to Remus’.

“You will do for this term at least,” Dr Picani told him, sitting down at his desk. “You’ll be in your form groups for all your classes, then after Christmas you might get split up into sets.”

Remus privately hoped that wouldn’t happen, but before he could voice that thought his attention was once again captured by the model brain. “If you’re a doctor, do you cut open people’s brains?” he asked.

He heard Roman make a grossed out noise beside him, but Dr Picani just chuckled.

“No, I’m not a surgeon. I have my Doctorate in psychology; I’m more interested in what people are thinking than how their brains physically work,” he said.

“I’d like to be a brain doctor when I grow up,” Remus declared.

-----

Since form time had taken place during first period, their first actual lesson of the day was English. The school seemed difficult to navigate, but fortunately their English class was on the same floor as their form room.

Remus knew the teacher would be strict as soon as he saw her. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun, grey streaks in uniform lines as if even they had been placed there purposely. She surveyed the class from behind glasses that balanced halfway down her nose, her stony expression not shifting at all until a boy pulled out a chair from one of the desks.

“Ah-ah!” She called, her voice icy. “I don’t know how things worked at your primary schools, but in my classroom, we have a seating plan.”

And that was when Remus knew for certain that this class would be his worst nightmare.

The teacher picked up a sheet of paper from her desk, and began assigning students to their seats. The tables were set out in neat rows, with only room for two people at each desk. Remus hoped he’d get a seat next to Roman, but the teacher was clearly assigning the seating in alphabetical order, and their surnames were nowhere near each other in the register. It also meant that Remus’ name was one of the first ones to be called.

“Remus Blake; Remy Chen.” The teacher pointed to the desk right in front of hers.

That was just Remus’ luck. He had a sneaking suspicion that this teacher wouldn’t turn out to be as nice as Dr Picani.

“Miss, can’t I sit next to Roman?” Remus piped up hopefully. “We’re twins.”

The teacher pursed her lips, giving Remus a disapproving look. “That’s Ms Driscoll, to you. And surely if you’re twins, you’ll see enough of each other at home. It’ll be good for you to socialise with other people.”

“But we don’t live together!” Remus objected.

“I see,” Ms Driscoll pushed her glasses up her nose. “Mr Blake, are you and Mr Sanders over here really twins?”

Remus shrank back a little under her gaze. Nobody had ever called him Mr Blake – that title was for his dad. “Not yet...” he mumbled. “But we will be soon!”

Ms Driscoll laughed shortly, but she didn’t really sound amused. “Mr Blake, take your seat. You can stay behind at break for lying.”

Remus huffed as he sat down. Of course he’d gotten in trouble on his first day, and he’d really tried to behave himself.

The boy Ms Driscoll had reprimanded at the start of class – who must be Remy – sat down next to him.

“Is he really going to be your brother?” Remy whispered, leaning over to Remus with a curious expression.

“Yeah! We’re going to make our dads get married,” Remus answered proudly.

“That’s so cool!” Remy said, opening his backpack to take out a pencil case patterned with sunglasses. “I have a baby sister, but she mostly sleeps and cries. It would be cool to have a twin.”

“It will be,” Remus assured him.

“Mr Blake, Mr Chen,” Ms Driscoll snapped. “Did I give you permission to talk?”

Remus sucked in a breath. That was one of the questions teachers asked that he’d get into more trouble for answering out loud, so he shook his head.

Ms Driscoll nodded firmly. “Be quiet, both of you. Or you’ll be staying behind at lunch as well.”

Once Ms Driscoll had turned away from them again, Remy rolled his eyes towards Remus, and Remus suppressed a smirk at that.

The lesson dragged on, with Ms Driscoll scolding Remus every time he fidgeted. Roman ended up on the other side of the classroom, near the back, and when Remus turned around to meet his eyes Ms Driscoll tapped on his desk as if she was trying to draw his attention back to his worksheet.

His detention was just as boring as the lesson, perhaps even more so because he couldn’t listen to his classmates working, and all of Ms Driscoll’s attention was on him because he was the only one in the room.

-----

Remus hoped he’d be able to scheme with Roman later in the day, but the class after break was a double lesson of biology, which ended up being just as interesting as Remus hoped, and he it was all he wanted to talk about at lunch. And after lunch they had another assembly.

By the time they got on the bus after school, Remus was exhausted. He’d taken the bus before with Virgil, but he’d never used a bus pass. The driver showed him where to scan it, and he managed to get a seat near the back with Roman.

The whole way back, he watched for their stop, even though he knew it was about twenty minutes away.

Roman’s house had a neatly mowed lawn and a dark blue garage door. They walked down the empty driveway to the front door, and Roman got out his key. He’d been proud when he told Remus that he’d gotten his own key to the house, because Logan wouldn’t be back until half past four and Roman would need to let himself and Remus in. That meant they’d be alone for an hour, but it was better than Remus going back to his flat by himself and waiting for Virgil to get home. Virgil usually finished work at seven, but he’d switched around his shifts so he could take Remus to school this morning, and he wouldn’t be done until after eight.

When Roman opened the door, the two of them dumped their bags by the sofa and headed out to the treehouse in the back garden. This treehouse had been their favourite hangout spot since they were kids. It almost felt like they had their own house, away from the grown-ups, where they could make their own rules. It even had proper windows and a door with a latch, which opened onto the small fenced balcony that the sturdy wooden ladder led to.

“Race you!” Remus called as soon as he entered the back garden, already taking off across the lawn.

“No fair, you had a head-start!” Roman whined as he chased after him, though they both knew that Remus was the fastest out of the two of them anyway.

Remus stuck his tongue out, then he climbed the ladder and hauled himself onto the balcony, with Roman just behind him.

The walls inside the treehouse were covered in drawings that the two of them had done over the years, from indecipherable crayon scribbles to more recent pencil drawings of castles and dragons. The chalkboard was still filled with plans for one of their stories – which they’d been struggling with, because Roman wanted the main character, a prince, to go on a daring quest and save his kingdom, while Remus thought it should be taken over by dragons.

As soon as they were inside, Roman made straight for the toybox, shaped and decorated to look like a treasure chest. “We can’t write about this on the chalkboard, Dad would definitely see it,” he said as he pulled out a stack of notebooks. After a moment of consideration, he selected a thick book with a pretty marbled rainbow cover, which the two of them had been saving to write something special in.

Remus pulled his green chair out from the small table in the middle of the room, and reached for the box of pens in the middle.

“You do the writing, I’m no good at it,” he said, shoving a few gel pens in Roman’s direction.

Roman pulled a face at that, but he took the glittery pens anyway and uncapped a red one, securing the lid neatly on the back end of the pen. “Now, we need a plan to make them realise they like each other. I think we should get them to go on a date.”

Remus wrinkled his forehead. “Wait, don’t people need to realise they like each other before they go on a date?”

“Not if we’re clever about it,” Roman said, with a conspiratorial smile. “Trust me, I saw this on Disney Channel. We just need to get them to go somewhere that people go on dates, leave them alone, and boom! They’re on a date!”

“Huh,” Remus said, watching as Roman scribbled something down in the notebook.

“Now, we just need date ideas,” Roman said.

“Ooh, how’s about a haunted house?” Remus suggested immediately. “Dad likes haunted houses, and it’s Halloween soon.”

“Not for a date.” Roman wrinkled his nose. “Dates have to be somewhere romantic... like a restaurant, or a ball!”

“Where are we going to find a ball around here?” Remus asked.

Roman chewed on the end of the pen for a second. “Maybe we’ll leave that one for later,” he said, making a note of it in the book.

They spent a while jotting down more ideas in the notebook, until they heard the sound of the back door opening.

“Boys? Are you out here?” Logan called from the garden.

Roman shot up from his seat and raced out of the treehouse, Remus following quickly behind him.

“Dad!” Roman grinned, launching himself at Logan and wrapping his arms around his waist in a hug.

“Did you have a good day at school?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, but our English teacher is horrible,” Roman complained. “She wouldn’t let us sit together, and she’s given us homework already, even though we’ve only had one lesson!”

“Have you done the homework?” Logan asked.

Roman paused. “No...”

Logan sighed. “Go into the dining room and work on it while I make dinner. You too, Remus,” he said, then he led them into the house.

“I can’t believe you told him, now we have to do homework!” Remus grumbled, but he was glad Roman hadn’t let slip about his detention. There was no way Logan would keep that a secret from Virgil, and Remus really didn’t want Virgil to have to worry about him getting in trouble on his first day of school.

-----

Roman was done with the homework in no time, since it was mostly things they’d learnt in year six, but Remus struggled with some of it. He hadn’t quite gotten the material when they’d covered it last year.

“How are you boys getting on?” Logan asked after about half an hour, coming out of the kitchen wearing a plain blue apron, with a tea towel slung over his shoulder that he seemed to have forgotten about.

“Done!” Roman announced proudly.

Remus hummed. “I’m stuck on question five.”

Logan came over to take a look at his worksheet, and Remus angled it towards him.

“I don’t get the difference between a simile and a metaphor. They’re both saying a thing is something it isn’t, aren’t they?” Remus asked.

Logan considered that for a moment, then he sat down next to Remus. “I suppose they are, but try to think of it this way...”

By the time Logan had explained that and a few other questions Remus couldn’t get the hang of, the lasagne was ready, but Remus felt like he understood a lot better.

Roman and Remus put their schoolwork away, and set the table while Logan got the lasagne out of the oven. Remus noticed that when he dished it up he left one portion to the side.

-----

By the time Virgil arrived, it was almost nine o’clock. Remus tackled him with a hug as soon as he got through the door.

“Hey, kid,” Virgil said tiredly, and he squeezed Remus tightly. “Thanks so much for looking after him,” he said to Logan.

As Remus pulled away, he saw Logan smile. “Don’t worry about it. He was no bother at all, I even got him to do his homework,” he said, sounding mildly pleased with himself.

Virgil pulled a face. “What kind of teacher gives you homework on the first day of school?”

“That’s what I said!” Roman exclaimed, and Virgil ruffled his hair.

“Anyway, sorry to dash off so soon, but I need to get Remus home before bedtime, and get some tea,” Virgil said.

“Ah, I thought you might be hungry, so I left a portion of lasagne for you,” Logan said.

“What?” Virgil blinked, looking at Logan with something between surprise and awe. “Lo, you didn’t have to do that.”

Logan shrugged. “It was no trouble. The recipe serves four anyway, I’ll go and warm it up for you,” he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Virgil continued watching the doorway Logan had gone through, a distant look and a small smile on his face, until Remus tugged on his hand.

“Dad, I need to tell you about my day,” he said. Well, he’d tell Virgil almost everything. He didn’t want the detention brigning up.

They relocated to the sofa, so Remus and Roman could tell Virgil all about the big school. After a few minutes, Logan came through with a plate of lasagne which he passed to Virgil to balance on his knee. Virgil gave him a big grin, and he kept smiling when he looked down at his lasagne and Logan went to sit down himself.

Remus knew Logan didn’t usually let anyone eat meals in the living room, but maybe he’d seen how tired Virgil was and decided to make an exception.

“This is really good,” Virgil said through a mouthful of lasagne. “Thanks so much, Lo.”

Logan smiled, but he raised an eyebrow. “Virgil, table manners.”

“I’m not sat at a table. Checkmate,” Virgil smirked, but he didn’t talk with food in his mouth for the rest of the evening.

When it was finally time for them to leave, Remus gave Roman a big hug.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

Virgil and Logan were standing a bit awkwardly by the door when Virgil cleared his throat.

“Thanks again. Um, you know, for dinner,” he said, rubbing his arm.

“I told you, it was no trouble,” Logan said. He patted Virgil’s arm and nodded.

Virgil nodded back, and put an arm around Remus. “Right then kid, let’s go.”

For the whole drive back to their flat, Remus thought about how nice it would be to never have to leave Roman for the evening.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #creativitwins #analogical #ts remus #ts roman #ts virgil #ts logan #sanders sides fanfiction

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cg29fics · 1 year

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Countdown to the final chapter - 5 - left to go.

Previous. Chapter 49, Visitor.

Chapter 50. Goodbyes.

Previously.

“… Someone out there could lose a family member… I don’t need rescuing anymore but others still do… The world needs International Rescue!”

… …

Everyone contemplated what Virgil had said. They all knew that he was right, if a disaster did occur and someone were to die because International Rescue had not been available, then each one of them would feel personally responsible. After another five minutes of silence, Scott spoke. “I hate to admit it but Virgil’s right. I just hate the thought of returning to duty without you, especially when you are needing our emotional support.”

Virgil reached out and held Scott’s hand, gripping it tightly. “I know I’ve been struggling and yes, I know it’s going to take me a long time to process everything. I also know it’s going to be several months before I can even contemplate returning to work… But, the world won’t stop turning while I recuperate. Disasters will happen, people will get hurt, and they will need our unique services to help them… Look, I’m not suggesting that all of you go home, if you’re that worried about me one of you could stay here.”

“Okay, so we’re all in agreement that International Rescue does need to continue?” Jeff questioned.

“Yes,” everyone replied.

“Okay, then my suggestion is that mother, you and all the boys return home tomorrow, while I will stay here with Virgil. Does everyone agree?”

Even though they were all still reluctant to leave, everyone nodded their agreement, knowing that what had been said was really for the best.

… …

The following afternoon:

Penelope entered the ward room and smiled at Jeff who was quietly reading a magazine, while Virgil dosed in the big chair which the nurses had propped him up in. “How is he?”

Jeff placed his magazine down and returned Penny’s warm smile. “He’s okay, they gave him some pain medication about an hour ago.”

“How did the scans go?”

“Good, they will be starting him on some light physio on his shoulder in a day or two. They also did some scans on his ribs and everything’s healing as it should.”

“That’s good, any chance he’ll be able to come home soon?”

“Not while he’s still getting his pain meds through the IV. As soon as that does change, I plan to speak to Gerry and see what can be arranged.” Jeff glanced towards the doorway. “Where’s everyone else, still packing?”

“They were just finishing,” Penny explained, “I have no idea how your sons have amassed so much stuff over such a short space of time and how they’ve managed to lose half of it.”

Jeff frowned. “They’ve not destroyed the hotel suite looking for everything, have they?”

“Don’t worry, your mother and Parker were making sure they cleared up their mess.”

Jeff grinned. “I can imagine my mother and Parker are quite a team.”

“Oh, they certainly are!” Penny laughed.

“You should wake him up before you go,” Jeff suggested, noticing Penny was now watching Virgil sleeping.

“Are you sure?” Penny questioned. “He seems to be sleeping quite soundly.”

“Yes!” Jeff replied, standing up. “Look, I’m going to head to the canteen for a coffee. Wake him, I know he will be disappointed if he doesn’t get to say goodbye.”

Penny smiled and nodded. Once Jeff had left she quietly made her way over to Virgil, sat herself down and gently took his hand in hers. “Virgil.”

Virgil slowly opened his eyes, a natural smile falling across his face. “Hey.”

“Sorry to wake you, I just wanted to make sure that I managed to say goodbye.”

“That’s okay, when are you and Parker leaving?” Virgil questioned.

“As soon as Parker finishes helping your grandmother keep your brothers in line.”

Virgil smirked. “Are they causing trouble?”

“Something like that.”

Virgil squeezed her hand. “Do you really have to go so soon?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Penny replied, “I have a few business functions that I simply cannot put off any longer.”

“That’s a shame, I really would have enjoyed your company,” he replied with a cheeky grin.

“And in what way would you have enjoyed my company?” Penelope asked, her eyes twinkling.

“I’m sure we could have figured something out!”

“You’re incapacitated!”

“That wouldn’t stop me,” he responded, beckoning her to come closer and then kissing her softly on her lips.

“Well, I will hold you to that when you come and visit.”

“Will I see you before then?”

“Yes, I will definitely be on the island for your homecoming.”

Virgil released a despondent sigh. “Whenever that may be.”

“I’m sure that you will be strong enough to return soon.”

“I hope so!”

“And as I said, I will be there,” Penelope raised her eyebrow, “I’m sure if you keep that in mind it will help you to feel better.”

“Oh, it certainly does!” Virgil grinned, pulling her in for another kiss.

“Busted!” A voice laughed from the doorway.

Virgil and Penelope looked up, both sighing when they saw Scott, Alan, John and Gordon grinning back at them, with the shocked expressions of Jeff, Ruth and Parker standing closely behind.

“How long have you been standing there?” Virgil questioned.

“Oh, long enough!” Gordon giggled.

“Err… M’Lady, we need to be making a move,” Parker informed her, stepping in front of the boys.

“Of course, Parker,” Penny replied, before turning her attention back to Virgil, “I’ll see you soon.”

Virgil nodded and not caring what the others thought, pulled her in for another kiss. “Yes, soon!”

Penelope smiled, then standing up she turned towards the doorway. “Boys.”

“Bye Penny,” they all chorused, giving her a quick hug.

“Ruth, Jeff,” she added, “it’s always a pleasure.”

“Of course, Penny,” Ruth and Jeff both responded, returning the handshake and hug she offered.

Parker coughed to gain Penelope’s attention. “Are you ready M’Lady.”

“Yes, of course Parker,” Penny answered, making her way outside.

“Bye Parker,” Virgil called.

“Yes, bye Master Virgil... Feel better soon!” Parker responded, shooting him a very concerned look before leaving the room.

“So, Virgil, how are you feeling?” Scott questioned, sitting himself in the chair that Penny had vacated.

“I’m okay, pain’s not too bad.”

“That’s good, anything interesting to tell us?” Scott asked, smirking at him.

“Nope!” Virgil retorted with a giant grin.

“Oh, come on bro,” Gordon and Alan both chirped bouncing over to Virgil. “It’s you and Penny!”

“Yes, come on Virg, you can’t hold out on us!” John added.

“Now come on boys, leave your brother alone,” Ruth warned them, “I’m sure he will give us the details when he’s good and ready!”

“Thank you, grandma.”

“That’s okay sweetie,” She replied, ruffling his hair, “whatever the situation, I’m just pleased to see you happy.”

“I don’t think Parker feels the same,” Gordon laughed, “he’s very protective of Penelope and judging from his reaction I would say you have to watch yourself there.”

“Gordon, stop teasing your brother!” Ruth scolded, when she noticed a look of worry spread across Virgil’s face.

“But grandma it’s so much fun!” Gordon whined.

“Then tease one of your other brothers!” She suggested.

“Hey!” The others protested.

“Grandma, you’re not meant to have a favourite!” Alan complained.

“I don’t, I love you all equally,” Ruth stated, “It’s just Virgil’s been through enough and shouldn’t have to deal with you lot mocking him!”

“Exactly!” Virgil replied, with a big grin, while his brothers all playfully scowled at him.

Ruth laughed at them all, then noticing Jeff had not joined them she turned and glanced at her son who was still standing in the doorway looking shocked. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am,” Jeff answered, shaking the look of surprise away, “oh, and don’t worry,” he whispered in Virgil’s ear, “Parker will come around!”

“Thanks dad,” Virgil replied, before focusing on his brothers and grandma. “So, how long before you’re all due to fly out?”

“I want to get us back before nightfall,” Scott answered, “we’ll probably head to the airfield in an hour.”

“Why are you trying to get rid of us already?” Gordon questioned, feigning his disappointment in a very over the top way.

Virgil released a hearty laugh. “Gordon, you’re so dramatic! You really missed your calling as a movie star.”

Gordon grinned, coughed to clear his throat, and then held himself in a theatrical pose. “Oh Romeo, Romeo…”

“That’s the girls part!” Alan squawked with amusement.

“Yes, I knew that!” Gordon stated, turning a royal red from his brothers, fathers and grandmothers’ laughter. “Err… So Virg, we all got you presents,” he added, trying desperately to change everybody’s focus onto something else.

“Presents?” Virgil said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Yeah, I got you this,” Alan chirped, pulling a box out of a bag that his grandma had passed him.

Virgil eagerly opened the box and smiled when he found a small furry bear inside. “Aww, this is cute!”

“It’s because you always give the best bear hugs ever,” Alan explained, “also, press his tummy.”

Virgil pressed the bears tummy and chuckled when the bear growled. “Thank you, Alan, I love him. Now, come here and give me a cuddle.”

Alan happily skipped over and carefully hugged his brother.

Once Virgil had released Alan, Ruth stepped forwards. “Here you go sweetie, I got you this.”

Virgil took the small bag from her and pulled out the gift. “A jar of coffee?”

Ruth nodded. “It’s the one we use on the island, I’ve talked the nurses and caterers here to give you this instead of the drivel they serve.”

Virgil thanked her and gave her a quick hug before focussing on John who was now stepping forwards.

“My gift comes with an apology.” John explained, passing Virgil a box. “You see, when you were missing I accidently broke your favourite cup. I’m really sorry, I found a replacement and I really hope you like it.”

Virgil opened the box revealing a shimmering green mug. “Cool! Thanks bro, I love it.”

“Are you sure?” John asked nervously.

“Yes of course,” Virgil confirmed, “this one seems to be sparkling... Plus, you’ve given it to me, so that makes it one hundred times better!”

Scott grinned at Virgil when he had finished hugging John. “Here’s mine. Hopefully, it will help with the boredom when you’ve only got our old man for company.”

“Hey!” Jeff protested, with a slight smirk at Scott’s jibe.

“Art pad and pencils!” Virgil beamed, when he’d opened the bag.

“Oh, I also added some more of your favourite tracks on to this for you.” Scott explained, pulling out a small music player and headphones from an inner pocket.

“Thank you!”

“No problem!” Scott said, excepting the cuddle from his brother.

“Me next,” Gordon sang.

Virgil looked at him quizzically when he was passed a suspicious looking box. “Is this safe to open?”

“Of course!” Gordon stated innocently.

“Don’t look at us,” John said, “he’s refused to tell any of us what he was getting you.”

Virgil frowned and slowly opened the box, jumping when a jack in the box popped out. “Jeez, Gordon!”

Gordon chuckled at Virgil’s surprise, “Now pull out the small drawer at the bottom.”

“Do I really want too?” Virgil asked.

Gordon nodded. “Seriously, your real gift is inside.”

Virgil carefully opened the drawer. “My chain?”

“When Alan gave you your chain back you hadn’t noticed that the clasp was damaged and the chain itself was scuffed. So, I got it fixed for you.”

Virgil grabbed his brother’s hand and pulled him into the biggest squeeze he could manage. “Wow, Gordon. This was really sweet of you, thank you so much!”

“You’re worth it Virg,” Gordon said, breathing in the hug, “now, let me go before Scott starts blubbering.”

“I’m not crying!” Scott exclaimed, quickly wiping away his tears.

Taking a small box out of his pocket, Jeff stepped forwards. “Even though I’m staying with you, I’ve also got you a little something.”

Virgil opened the box and grinned when he saw what was inside. “A new watch.”

Jeff picked up the watch and fastened it to Virgil’s left wrist. “It’s to replace your old one as it was broken.”

“How did you get it here?” Virgil enquired.

“I brought it with me when we left the island to come here, I wanted you to have a new one as soon as possible.”

Virgil embraced his father. “Thanks dad.”

Jeff returned the hug and then pulled away looking in his son’s eyes. “I want you to remember that even though you’re going to be out of action for a long time, you’re are still an important part of International Rescue!”

Virgil nodded. “I will!”

“Good,” Jeff replied, ruffling Virgil’s hair before checking his own watch, “I think it’s time you lot made a move.”

“I guess you are right dad,” Scott sighed when he also saw what time it was.

After another 15 minutes of warm hugs followed by goodbyes, everyone finally left for Tracy one, leaving just Virgil and his father in the ward room.

“Well, I guess it’s just you and me kiddo.”

“Yeah,” Virgil sighed.

“Don’t worry, as soon as we get the all clear, we will get you home!”

“Yep, definitely!” Virgil nodded, a look of determination creeping on his face. “Oh, and dad…”

“Yes son?”

“Don’t call me kiddo!”

#thunderbirds fanfiction #cg29fics #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds original series #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #thunderbirds fandom #tagficgone #virgil tracy

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poisonedapples · 3 years

Text

Patton’s Home for Traumatized Kids

Chapter One: The New Kid

Story Summary: Roman has to have a completely new start. New school, new town, new home and a new family. As a kid in his first foster home, Roman isn’t prepared to trust these people and get hurt again, but he’s not the only kid in the house recovering from past issues. Regardless, their foster father Patton is ready to be the dad they’ve always needed, and traumatized kids learn to lean on each other for support.

Story Warnings: Past abuse of all types, trauma, and anxiety

Pairings: Familial LAMP

Chapter Summary: Roman moves into his new foster home. He is not having a good time.

Chapter Warnings: Anxiety, panic, implied past abuse, food, one vomiting mention, and talk of hidden cameras

Word Count: 6778

Notes: First chapter of a story I’ve wanted to make for my foster au! Thanks to Cornybird on Ao3 for beta-ing this one <3

“Logan, Virgil?” Patton called out from downstairs. “Can you come down here? I wanna talk about something with you!”

Virgil and Logan gave each other curious looks from their sitting places on the same bed. Virgil placed his phone on the nightstand beside him as Logan set his book down at the foot of the bed, both standing up to exit Virgil’s bedroom and head downstairs. At the dining room table was their foster father, Patton, smiling wide with a laptop and notepad in front of him.

“What’s up?” Virgil asked after he and Logan glanced at each other.

Patton giggled to himself, “Sit down for a second and I’ll tell you! Nothing bad, promise. I think it’s very exciting.”

They quickly sat at the table on the other side of Patton. “So,” Patton joked, “I bet you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today!”

Logan and Virgil spoke in unison. “You’re getting another foster kid.”

Patton blinked. “…How’d you guess it?”

“You’ve been really happy recently, but also very quiet about why you were so happy. You only get like this when you’re bringing another foster kid into the mix. You did the same thing when Logan came along.” Virgil said.

Logan nodded. “Virgil told me about his suspicions due to your behavior, and I agreed with him. I think we both expected you’d make the announcement soon.”

“Oh.” Patton rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I didn’t think it was that easy to tell. Well, you guessed right! The new kiddo is moving in on Sunday!”

Logan leaned closer. “What’s their name?”

“His name is Roman Goldsberry. He’s fifteen, and he’s only been in the system for about five months. Though, before this, he was in kinship care with his aunt, so living here is going to be very strange for him. So just be patient with him at first, okay?”

“Yeah yeah, we will be.” Virgil smirked. “But you said he was fifteen?”

“Yup! He’ll be a sophomore in high school this year.”

“Aw, that means Logan’s still the baby in the family.”

Logan blushed. “I’m a teenager. I am not the so-called ‘baby’ of the family.”

“Sounds like something the baby of the family would say.”

“Falsehood!”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” Patton tried not to laugh. He knew how much Logan hated being the youngest, but it was hard to act like his reaction wasn’t funny. “Remember, Roman will be here Sunday, so be on your best behavior when he gets here. No spooking him.”

“Got it, got it.” Virgil slouched in his chair and thought. “One more question though. How fucked up is he?”

“Virgil, language.” Patton warned.

“Sorry! It’s just a question. We know you have a soft spot for the most effed up kids you can find.”

“I would have to say I’m curious as well.” Logan agreed. “It’s become a pattern.”

Patton sighed. “He’s not messed up, he’s a kid who’s struggling and needs support. If he wants to tell you two about his past, then he will.”

Virgil groaned. “Fine, fine. Can we go back upstairs now?”

Patton smiled. “Yes, you can go.”

“Great! I’m stealing your book, Logan.”

“Wait, you can’t do that!”

Virgil darted back upstairs with a maniacal laugh as Logan chased him, the sound of bickering teenagers traveling back up the stairs. Patton shook his head in amusement, still listening to the ruckus in case it got out of hand and he needed to step in, but Patton knew his kids. They may tease, but they’re not mean.

Patton continued working on his laptop once the noise quieted down again.

***

“I hate this.”

“I know you do, Roman, but I’m certain you can persevere and find happiness in this new home!” Roman’s social worker, Mr. Picani, smiled hopefully as he continued to drive him to his foster home. Roman was scooted as close to the window as he could possibly get, his legs crossed and clamped together so tight his thighs were getting sore. He didn’t trust Picani, and he sure as hell didn’t trust this new house. No matter what anyone told him.

“I already had a home! Living with my aunt was so much better than whatever could happen here.” Roman’s hands shook just thinking about it. He didn’t know anything about this new person, and the idea of being in a house full of strangers was enabling the more gruesome side of his imagination. He trusted his aunt, at least, but now he was going to a family who could be anyone.

Roman didn’t like the idea of that.

Picani frowned. “You know why your aunt couldn’t house you anymore, Roman. I know it’s not easy, but I think you’ll like this new place! It’s more up north in Foley County, and the area is nice. He also has two other foster children if that helps.”

“How old are the other kids?”

“Fourteen and sixteen, I think. You’ll get to know them more during your time there.”

Roman hummed, looking out the window and digging his nails into his shirt sleeve. He really hoped this foster dad hadn’t touched them before. Even forgetting about himself, a fourteen year old kid having to deal with abuse? Even after getting away from bad parents? He didn’t wish that on anyone.

“And if you ever feel unsafe,” Picani added, “you can always contact me, ‘kay?”

I already feel unsafe. “Okay. How much longer until we’re there?”

“About twenty more minutes. Just enough time to finish the rest of the Tangled movie soundtrack!”

Roman didn’t respond. Normally, he’d love to have a Disney soundtrack he could burst into song with, but he wasn’t feeling it today. And probably wouldn’t be feeling it for a long time.

He just wanted to feel safe. He felt safe with his aunt, but she couldn’t afford to keep him long after the trial since she gave birth to the twins. His aunt was always one of his favorite relatives, one of the few adults he genuinely trusted, now he was going to the house of some random guy named Patton, who he’d only heard of yesterday, and expected to be okay near him. Well, he wasn’t okay. And he wasn’t going to be, ever.

Roman leaned his head on the window and closed his eyes. His hands still shook a little and his chest felt weird, but fighting it now was pointless. Roman just hoped that if this guardian did try something, he’d do it quickly. The sooner Roman told on him to save himself and the other kids, the better.

Though, Roman still felt his hands tingle at the thought. The idea of “getting it over with” made him want to scream and cry. He wrapped his legs tighter together.

After a long time of trying to fight against his own anxious thoughts, Picani pulled into a driveway and stopped the car and Roman opened his eyes to take a look at where they were. He didn’t know the neighborhood, but it seemed like Picani was telling the truth when he said the neighborhood was nice. The house seemed huge, big bushes and flower patches in the front yard and a nice outside paint job. It looked like a house that a functional nuclear family would have, where the dad is a doctor and the mom stays at home with the kids.

Well, looks can be deceiving. Roman thought. Don’t get your hopes up.

“Here we are!” Picani unbuckled his seatbelt with a wide smile. “Grab your suitcases in the back, I’ll knock on the door.”

Roman nodded and got out of the car as Picani popped the trunk. He grabbed two red suitcases and a backpack, closing the car and wheeling it all up to the front door. Picani was there talking to a guy who Roman assumed must be Patton Sanders, and by taking just one look at him…Roman had never seen a person look so much like a dad.

He was wearing khaki shorts and a light blue polo with tennis shoes and knee socks, thick-rimmed glasses sitting on his face to finish off the dorky look. Patton managed to pull it off, sure, but Roman felt a primal urge from binge-watching Queer Eye to fix that mess of an outfit.

Before Roman could truly take in the fact that Patton’s knee socks also had kittens on them, Patton smiled wide once he saw Roman in the corner of his eye. “Hello, Roman! It’s so nice to have you, come on in you two!”

Patton stepped aside to hold out the door as Picani and Roman both walked in. Roman scraped his arm on the door frame trying to keep a reasonable distance from Patton, but neither of the adults seemed to notice how Roman was acting. Patton kept smiling away, and Roman tried to see how real that smile truly was. “So, Mr. Picani, I know I have some things to go over with you, so how would you feel if the other kiddos showed you around the house, Roman?”

…Kiddos? “That sounds fine to me.”

“Perfect!” Patton walked over to the staircase and called upstairs. “Logan, Virgil! Can you come down here please?”

Patton’s request was quickly followed by the sound of doors opening and closing. Two kids walked down the stairs; a boy in a black and purple hoodie, and another boy with thick glasses almost the same as Patton’s. They both stared at Roman curiously, and Roman wanted to sink into the floor.

Patton placed an arm over Logan and Virgil’s shoulders and Roman winced at the sight. “So, kiddos, this is Roman! And Roman, this is Logan,” Patton pointed to the kid in glasses. “And Virgil!” He pointed to the kid with the hoodie. The boys didn’t react much besides an awkward half smile directed Roman’s way. “How about you both show him around while I talk to Mr. Picani?”

Virgil shrugged. “Come upstairs, dude.”

Patton let go of both of the boys and walked off into the kitchen with Picani. Roman watched them from the living room for a moment, but he could feel two pairs of eyes staring at him from behind, so he turned around and followed the kids upstairs, bringing his luggage with him.

At the top of the stairs, a long hallway connected six doors on the second floor. Four of the doors were plain, brown doors, but two of them had very distinct personalities shown on the outside. One was covered in stars and planets, the door covered in a starry piece of wallpaper with a metal planet popping out of the background. The other was covered in caution tape saying keep out, with emo band posters poking out from under the tape. Two very different personalities.

“Your room will be this one at the very end of the hallway.” Logan opened the door to the room, turning on the light as Roman peeked inside. “You can place your luggage in here in the meantime.”

Roman nodded and walked inside to throw his luggage onto the floor. The room was very bare, with brown sheets on a twin bed and not much other furniture besides a desk and a dresser. There was a lamp on the desk and a floor lamp next to a door, and one of the opened closet doors showed that the top was covered in random boxes. Some newer-looking stuffed animals were also sitting on the bed; a soft bear and one of those squishy stuffed chickens Roman always saw in stores. It looked like an attempt at a welcoming gift, but new stuffed animals always put Roman on edge. He looked around the room, and the idea of sleeping here made Roman’s heart start to pound. He needed to check this place before he went to sleep that night.

Virgil smirked, taking Roman away from his anxious thoughts. “Damn, you’ve got suitcases? Living the fancy life I see.”

“…What?” Roman reeled.

Logan adjusted his glasses and crossed his arms. “Most foster children move their things using garbage bags. It’s rare we use actual suitcases.”

Roman looked down at his luggage. Suddenly, he felt guilty. “Oh, well…my aunt gave them to me before I moved out, so…”

Virgil shrugged. “What do you wanna see up here first?”

“We could show him our rooms. Or possibly the attic?”

“The attic is cooler.”

“What’s in the attic?” Roman asked.

“It essentially acts as a playroom.” Logan explained. “Board games and a…random assortment of items are all piled up there. It’s quite entertaining to search through, actually.”

“And it’s in the best place ever, come here.” Virgil motioned for Roman and Logan to follow him. He stopped at one of the doors, opening it and letting Roman peek over his shoulder to look inside. It looked like a normal walk-in closet, first aid and toilet paper on one side with batteries and rows of shampoo on the other. Virgil walked in with a smirk, “Now, check this shit out.”

Virgil jumped and pulled on a string dangling from the roof, unraveling a steep staircase through the closet leading up to a hole in the roof. Virgil started to climb the stairs as Logan followed suit, so Roman climbed right after them.

When Roman made it to the top, his eyes widened with wonder. Granted, it wasn’t anything too spectacular, surely not like something in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but the fact that this hidden space existed made Roman feel excited. At his old house, he barely even had his own room to himself, so a place like this was paradise.

The walls were painted white with a giant window above a sitting area on the other side of the room. Shelves of items scattered the walls, and the rug on the floor was so clean Roman wondered how they even got a vacuum up here. It wasn’t anything like his old attic, stuffed with random items from over the years and covered in spiderwebs. Roman felt like he could spend most of his day here.

“We have a lot of various toys up here.” Logan said. He gestured to the boxes on one of the shelves. “Pokémon cards, a chess set, Magic the Gathering, lots of Lego sets, craft supplies, most of our toys make their way up here.”

Roman’s head perked up. “…Craft supplies?”

Logan nodded. “I believe we have paints and drawing utensils.”

Roman looked at the bottom of the shelf Logan gestured toward. There was a box of small painting canvases with paints and brushes, and though they definitely looked cheap, Roman saw them and grew excited as he took out a canvas and the paints in wonder.

“Kiddos!” A voice yelled from the staircase. Logan and Roman walked over to the stairs to look down, but Virgil stayed in his place on a beanbag near the window. Patton and Picani stood at the bottom, and Patton smiled. “Now, what are you all doing up there?”

“We’re showing him around the house.” Logan said matter-of-factly.

“You are, huh?” Patton crossed his arms. “Does he know where the bathroom is?”

Logan blinked. Virgil called out from behind both of them. “He knows where the important things are!”

Patton tried not to smile, but he lost that battle quickly. “Well, Mr. Picani is leaving right now, Roman.”

“How ‘bout you come down here and I talk to you in private for a sec?” Picani asked.

“Uh, alright!” Roman climbed down the stairs and followed Picani out of the closet, while Patton climbed up the stairs into the attic. They both stepped away to the other side of the hallway, and suddenly Picani’s face became very serious.

“Do you feel safe in this house, Roman?” He asked.

Roman clenched his fist and bit his cheek. No, he didn’t, actually. He didn’t know what Patton would do once the coast was clear from guests, and the idea of what could happen was freezing him from the inside out. The only place Roman would feel truly safe was if he was back in the hospital.

But Roman knew that wasn’t possible, and he couldn’t keep bothering Picani all the time for fears that couldn't be helped. He had to be on his own. Alone.

“I think I do. They…seem like good people.” Roman lied. He’d have to find another way to survive.

Picani smiled, not noticing Roman’s unease. He always was a great actor. “Amazing! Let me know if anything comes up, bucko, and I’ll talk to ya again soon! But until then…so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodnight!”

Picani walked downstairs and waved behind him, laughing at his own reference as he walked out the door. Roman watched him from the staircase until he could see the car leaving the driveway through the window, and Roman felt truly hopeless. This was a nightmare.

He stood frozen on the staircase for a while, staring through the window with a hope of Picani turning back and saving him. But no car came into the driveway, and Roman didn’t know what to do with himself anymore. What do you even do when living in a house full of strangers?

“Heya, kiddo!” Roman jumped at the voice coming from behind him, jerking his head back and pushing his back up against the wall. It was Patton, smiling wide with a concerned look in his eyes at Roman’s reaction. “I’m sorry, Roman, I didn’t mean to scare you! I just wanted to ask if you wanted me to give you the rest of the tour. I’ll show you everything you need this time!”

Patton laughed at himself, but Roman felt the need to vomit. Patton was close, way too close, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t want to be roaming around the house with him, vulnerable and nowhere to hide. He needed to be somewhere safe.

“Uh, no, I’m fine! I’ll figure it out myself!” Patton raised an eyebrow at him, but Roman didn’t care. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Patton’s voice became softer. He pointed to the left of him, down the opposite direction of Roman’s room. “It’s over there. Are you sure you’re alright? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine!” Roman darted past Patton quickly and out of reach, rushing into the bathroom and locking it behind him. He pressed his back against the door and sat down, pressing his feet against the sink, ready to fight against the door if someone tried to open it. He wrapped his arms around himself tightly, trying to even out his scattered breathing. He knew Patton was outside of the door, he could feel it. He just needed to be somewhere safe.

Roman didn’t move from his spot on the floor, eventually curling into himself and resting his head on his knees. He was so tired, the whole day his heart had been pounding with anxiety and he was sick of it. What did it take to feel safe? Was it even possible for Roman to feel safe anymore?

He didn’t want an answer to that. He was just so tired.

Roman closed his eyes and leaned his body against the bathroom wall, ignoring all his aches from the strange position and trying to give himself some comfort. His body was exhausted but his mind kept racing, thinking of all the things that could go wrong while living here. He tried to fight the anxious thoughts, but Roman figured it wasn’t that big of a deal. If he threw up in the toilet maybe they’d leave him alone for the day.

But Roman never got to that point. He rested on the floor and let his body shake, taking some deep breaths at times to feel less like he was suffocating. Eventually, a knock came to the bathroom door, and it took everything in Roman not to yelp.

“Are you still in there, Roman?” Roman could tell the voice was Logan, and that helped him relax a little more. He took in a big breath and tried to act normal.

“Yes, sorry. Do you need it?” He asked.

“I’m alright. I simply wanted to ask if you wanted to come downstairs and use the paints you seemed so interested in.”

Roman’s ears perked up at that. He forgot all about the paints, and it would be something that could ease his mind a little. But Roman wasn’t that dumb. He knew this was a plan to get him out of the bathroom. Though…he might not mind that much if he wasn’t alone.

“…Would you sit with me?” Roman asked. He doubted Patton would try anything so long as they weren’t alone together, and if he pleased them enough, maybe they’d leave him alone.

Logan was slow to respond. “I suppose I can if you wish for me to.”

Roman rolled his eyes at that sentence. What a nerd, he thought, standing up and slowly unlocking the door to the bathroom before opening it. He looked through the crack to check if Patton was standing behind Logan, but no one else was there. Logan stood there patiently with his hands clasped behind his back, and Roman fully exited the bathroom.

“I set the box on the dining room table. However, Patton is also there making a pizza for dinner.”

Roman froze. The same room as Patton? “… I’ll go, but you have to stay near me.”

Logan nodded. He led the way down the stairs while Roman followed, entering the dining room through the connected area in the living room. On the table was the box of painting supplies, and Roman ran toward them to start taking them out, trying to ignore the fact that he could see Patton in the corner of his eye. He grabbed a canvas and the cheap paints, as well as a plastic pallet and all the brushes. All that he needed was a cup of water, but…the sink was right next to where Patton was.

Roman drummed his fingers on the table. “…Logan, can you get me a cup of water?”

“Alright.” Logan stood up and grabbed a cup from the cupboard, filling it with water and handing it to Roman. Roman murmured a thank you, and Logan sat back down at his seat. He was grateful that Logan didn’t ask why Roman couldn’t get it himself.

“So, Roman,” Roman stiffened at the sound of Patton’s voice. “Are you an artsy kid?”

Roman gripped hard onto his paints, squirting out a lot more orange than he meant to. “I guess, yeah. I like art.”

“Do you like to paint, or are you more of a sketchy kinda guy?”

“Uh…all of it. Painting, drawing, coloring, I used to make a lot of stuffed animals too.”

“Awww, that sounds adorable!” The oven beeped and Patton put on his oven gloves and pulled out the pizza. “It’s probably best I don’t know how to make stuffed animals though. If I did, this house would be full of little stuffed puppies!”

Roman didn’t respond. He focused completely on mixing red and orange for a perfect sunset color, attempting to get a good gradient with the lack of shade variety. Once he filled in his sunset and blended it with a dark night sky, he mixed his white with a dot of gray and made darker clouds, dotting them above his rough-looking hill. He wanted to add more texture to the bottom of the canvas, maybe some trees, but he didn’t know how to make good ones without a fan brush. Maybe he could add some grass…

“Alright, the pizza is cooled down and ready!” Roman noticed Patton put a plate next to his painting, so he pushed all his supplies out of the way so he could eat. Patton set down more plates around the table as Virgil walked in. “It was a real pizza work if I do say so myself!”

Logan rolled his eyes and Virgil held back a snort, but Roman didn’t quite know how to react. He might have found the dad joke more amusing if he wasn’t so on edge.

Roman took a bite of the pizza. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a store-bought one that you heat up in the oven and serve, but Roman didn’t realize he was so hungry until now. He had skipped lunch because his nerves about coming here were making his stomach churn, but finally having food near him was bringing back that hunger. Roman’s foot was still tapping violently under the table, but it was progress.

Everyone ate their pizza in silence. It was incredibly awkward on Roman’s end, no stories to tell as this table full of strangers kept making glances at him. Patton was the worst with it. He seemed to want to say something to Roman, continuously making eye contact with him until Roman looked away, but still not saying a word. He couldn’t take it. He hated it, but he hated this silence even more. Roman swallowed the pizza bite he was chewing and opened his mouth.

“So,” Roman started, “what do I…call you anyway?”

“Me?” Patton asked, his eyes lighting up. Why would his eyes light up at that?

“Yeah. Do I say Mr. Sanders, or…?”

“Oh, Patton works just fine! I hear Mr. Sanders way too often at work to wanna hear it at home too!”

“Oh, where- where do you work?” At least it wasn’t so quiet anymore.

“I’m a nurse practitioner for a clinic. It’s a lot of fun, just a lot of work. At least my hours aren’t as crazy as most nurses.”

“Oh that’s…cool.” Roman didn’t know how to continue off of that.

“It is! Is there anything else you wanna ask me, though? Maybe about the house, routines, anything?”

“Well…what are the rules here?” That seemed like a very safe question to have. It could save Roman a lot of trouble, and it could give him more of a read on the kind of parent Patton was.

“Oh, it’s not that much. You’re old enough to clean up after yourself, so make it a habit to pick up your own things and not put that stuff on other people. Be kind to everyone else, and the only rule I’m very strict about is no yelling. You can be loud sometimes, but no angry yelling at anybody here. The last one is to respect others’ privacy. Always knock on someone’s bedroom door before entering. But that’s really it, I think!”

How often do you break that last rule? “That seems reasonable, I suppose.”

Patton smiled. “I think you’ll do just fine here, kiddo. I know it’s hard to start over, but you won’t be alone during it!”

“…Thank you.”

“And I’m sure Virgil and Logan could help out a little bit, since they’ve been in the same situation! Right, you two?”

Virgil was halfway through trying to stick a whole piece of crust in his mouth. “…Uh huh.”

“…Virgil, chew your food.”

“Lo’an ‘old me I cou’ do it!”

“Do not drag me into this.”

Virgil hid his mouth behind his hand as he chewed for a long period of time. “You’re just avoiding your responsibility.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m finished, so try not to choke now.”

“Now I’m gonna choke just to spite you.”

“Please do not start a choking contest, Virge.”

Virgil groaned before swallowing the last of his crust. He followed Logan to the dishwasher and put his plate in, closing it and scurrying away back upstairs. Logan hesitated leaving the dining room, looking between Patton and Roman. Roman couldn’t tell if Patton noticed Logan’s hesitation or if it was just perfect timing, because he also got up and put his plate in the dishwasher.

“When you finish, Roman, just put your dishes away.”

“I can do that.”

Patton smiled and walked off into the living room, sitting on the couch to watch some TV show seemingly about cute puppies and kittens. Logan glanced at Roman again.

“Do you still want me to stay?” Logan asked.

Roman ate the last of his pizza and pushed his plate to the side, grabbing his painting again to put in front of him. It was the most effective thing at calming him down. “…No, I should be okay.”

Logan nodded and walked upstairs. Roman tried to fully immerse himself in his painting, focusing on every last detail and how he could make it better without over-detailing it. Roman put more green on his brush and started to dot at his hill on the bottom, trying to add little blades of textured grass. It was a long process, just enough to take the majority of his focus and calm his hands.

…Roman felt really weird here. It didn’t feel like he lived in this house, now. It felt like he was spending the day with some friends, and his aunt would come pick him up before the sun went down. But no, these new kids were his foster brothers and the adult he was terrified of was expected to act as his new dad. There was no one coming to save him, he was expected to sleep here and eat here and live here. This was supposed to be his safe space.

Roman rubbed at his eyes and shook his head. Don’t focus on that now, he thought. Focus on the painting.

So he did focus. He focused on monotonous texture additions and watching the paint dry on his canvas as he went along, letting the repetitive action calm his mind just a little bit. His calming method seemed to be working too well, actually, as the more details he added and stared at the paint, Roman realized that his constant panic today had completely exhausted him. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet and Roman could feel his eyelids get heavier. He rubbed at his eyes again and tried to focus.

Roman yawned once. He yawned twice and rubbed his eyes as he kept adding minor details to his painting. Then, after a while, Roman scooted his painting to the side and laid his head down on the table.

***

“…Roman, wake up, please.”

Roman buried his head deeper in his arms. “Come on Roman, it’s late.”

Roman groggily lifted his head up. Patton was sitting in the chair across from him, the lights were all off except for the one light above the dining table. Roman looked around him, and noticed that it was dark outside now. Shit.

“You fell asleep, but that’s okay. It’s bedtime now, and the other two are already in bed, so how about you go get ready and sleep in your bed? I bet it’s comfier than the table.”

Roman dug his palm into his eye. “…What time is it…?”

“About 10:20. You all have bedtime at ten.”

“…But I’m fifteen?” Roman gave Patton a confused and sleepy look. He hasn’t had a bedtime since he was twelve, especially one that was so early. His mom only told him to be in bed by midnight.

Patton smiled. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Logan is the only one who needs a bedtime, but I don’t want him to feel left out because he’s the only one asleep. So, how about you get ready for bed?”

Roman nodded and got out of his chair. The more he walked, the more he woke up, and he could tell by the time he went back upstairs that he wasn’t going to go back to sleep for a while since he could feel his heartbeat in his chest again. Patton followed him upstairs, turning off the dining room light as they went. Roman got his bathroom bag out from his smaller suitcase and a cotton shirt with sweatpants for pajamas, bringing it all with him to the bathroom. He closed the door as he brushed his teeth for the night, placing his bag in the bottom drawer after he did. He changed into his pajamas carefully, taking the towel on one of the racks to hide his lower half under as he switched pants, taking his other clothes and throwing them into a laundry basket.

When Roman stepped out of the bathroom, Patton was leaning against a wall waiting for him. He smiled at Roman, but Roman still ran past him to get as far away as he could get. Patton didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t care. Roman shifted on his feet awkwardly before closing his door.

“Um…goodnight.” He finally said. Patton seemed satisfied with this.

“Goodnight, Roman.”

Roman finally closed the door to his bedroom, waiting until he heard the door on the other end of the hallway open and close. Almost immediately after, as if another force was controlling him, Roman started to tear the place apart.

He checked the charging ports in the walls, the lamp, under the bed’s covers and behind every piece of furniture. He stood on top of his suitcase to check the vents and took out all the drawers in the dresser. He punched the stuffed animals to see if he could feel wires, but he still couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find it.

Roman felt himself start to pant. He refused to go to bed until he found it. No matter how well hidden it was, Roman knew there was a camera in here. He couldn’t stop until he found it.

Roman grabbed the boxes at the top of the closet and tossed everything out of them, checking every spare blanket and binder before throwing them across the room when he found nothing. He took the hangers out of the closet and threw them on the floor, shining his phone light on the wall of the closet to find a hole. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Tears sprung into Roman’s eyes as he choked on his own breath. “Where the hell is it!?” He whispered, slamming the closet door closed and moving to check the bed. He tore the bedsheets off and checked the mattress, lifting it up as well to check the bed frame for anything that could be used to record. Nothing.

“Come on, please-” Roman took out the drawer from the bedside table. Nothing. He unscrewed the lightbulb from the lamp, almost shattering it from his tight grip. Nothing. He threw the lamp onto the bed and kicked the nightstand over. Nothing.

Roman choked out a sob as his whole body started to shake. This wasn’t fair, he spent all that time trying to get away from his dad only to end up in a place that hid cameras better than him. Roman gripped the covers he’d thrown and punched the floor next to them, the ache being an almost pleasant distraction from his own head. But his mind continued to race and his crying didn’t let up. The only thing Roman could manage to get out of his mouth was “No, no!”

Then, between Roman’s sobbing, he heard a knock at the door.

Roman froze in place. A feeling of dread spread through his chest and made his fingers go numb. For a second, Roman forgot to breathe as he remembered he forgot to lock the door.

Roman’s body was stiff, but his mind was going a mile a minute in a desperate attempt to save himself. He could hide in the closet, but since he tore everything out of there, if someone opened the door they’d immediately find him. He could hide under the bed, but without the covers to reach the floor it was easy to see he was under there. Roman choked on his own breath when he realized there was nowhere to hide-

“Roman?” The knock came back to the door, gentler than the first time. It wasn’t Patton’s voice like Roman feared, it was Virgil. Raspy and tired-sounding, but without a doubt Virgil.

“Y-yeah?” Roman squeaked out.

“Uh, can I…can I come in?”

Roman’s death grip on the covers loosened up slightly. “Yes…”

Virgil slowly turned the doorknob and opened it, slipping in through the smallest crack and closing the door slowly so it wouldn’t click. Once he was inside, Virgil’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of the destroyed room. “…Holy shit dude.”

Roman tried to dodge the situation, “What do you want?”

“I was gonna come in here and make a joke, like, ‘quiet down it sounds like a tornado is going through here’, but now I think I predicted the fucking future.” Roman put his head down as Virgil looked around in shock. “What the fuck happened?”

Roman wiped away his tears with the palm of his hands, digging into his eyes so hard he saw stars for a moment. “…There’s a camera in here.”

Virgil backed up more towards the door. “Wait, there is?” He darted his eyes around the room looking for what Roman was talking about. Roman let out a shaky breath.

“I haven’t found it yet, but I know it’s in here somewhere!” More tears went down Roman’s face as he hugged himself. Virgil seemed to realize what Roman was babbling on about. “I know Patton put a camera in here for me and I’m freaking out because I can’t find it!”

Virgil looked around at the mess again. He sighed. “I’m not good at this shit…you’re certain it’s in here?”

“Yes!”

“Hey, hey, don’t yell.” Virgil warned. “Pat and Logan are still asleep and I don’t think you’d like all that extra attention right now.”

He was right. If Logan and Patton came in here, Roman didn’t know what he’d do about it. It was the last thing he wanted, so Roman obeyed. “I just…I don’t know what to do…I can’t sleep until I find it.”

Virgil seemed to be thinking. He tugged on the neck of his pajama shirt before speaking. “How about we both make a deal?”

Roman lifted his head up to look at Virgil. “…Deal?”

“We’ll trade rooms for the night. There wouldn’t be a camera in my room if he’s trying to watch you, right?”

Roman paused. “…What if he’s watching you too?”

“I’ve lived here for two years. You think I wouldn’t have noticed a camera in my room by now?”

Roman thought about it. He did have a point, it was hard to go that long without finding the camera. Or at least, have your guardian have it slip that they’ve been watching you. And anything was better than staying in this place.

“…We can trade. Thanks.”

Virgil shrugged. “You know where my room is. Just slip in and don’t wreck all my shit.”

Roman laughed a little bit at that one. Virgil grabbed the sheets and covers off the floor and began to remake the bed as Roman grabbed his backpack and started to slowly open the door. But before he left, Roman had to say one more thing for his own piece of mind. “…Don’t touch my suitcases. I-I’ll know if you do.”

Virgil raised an eyebrow at him. “…I won’t.”

Roman opened the door and softly closed it behind him, slipping into the room next door covered in caution tape. He turned on the light and set his backpack down on the floor, looking around him at all the things that showed Virgil’s personality. Emo band posters covered the walls that were painted a dark purple, with dark wood furniture and Hot Topic decorations all over the place. Just looking at this room told him how angsty this kid was.

Roman shook it off and unzipped his backpack. He could deal with angsty decorations for the night, so long as this place could be safe from creeps. He took out his secret weapon from his backpack, something he secretly bought behind his aunt’s back with his babysitting money, the one item that made him feel secure in a home. He pulled out the security bar, locked Virgil’s door, and placed it under the door handle. Even if someone undid the lock, they wouldn’t be able to sneak inside while he was sleeping.

Roman’s heart calmed down a little for the first time in weeks. Even if it wasn’t much, he felt safe, maybe even safe enough to get some rest for once. Roman crawled into Virgil’s bed, covering himself in his very tasteful Jack Skellington covers, and tried to rest.

Roman’s hands still shook, and his head felt funny, but he eventually drifted off into a light sleep full of anxiety and nightmares.

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snowdice · 2 years

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Little Kestrel (Part 42) [Birds of Different Feathers Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan & Patton & Virgil (future Virgil/Patton but not in this story)

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton, Virgil

Appear: Thomas

Mentioned: Janus

Summary:

It was supposed to be a quick job either way. Either Virgil would assassinate King Thomas of Prijaznia or he’d be caught and get executed. Yet, when Virgil gets the wrong bedroom and gets caught by Prince Logan and his future royal advisor, Patton, the job ends up getting way more complicated for the 14-year-old. He also ends up sleeping in a (actually pretty comfortable) closet for a few weeks…

Notes: Implied/referenced child abuse, assassination attempt, knives, torture mentioned, captivity, teenagers being really dumb, sexual coercion of minors implied, a minor offering sexual favors

This is a prequel to Kill Dear. I wrote it 100 words at a time on my blog, but this is the edited version. If you want to see how it was crafted (and possibly some future content), look at the tag proofread stories.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41

“Come on,” Patton urged. “You’re already all dressed up.”

Virgil made a dissatisfied noise like a cat that had just been picked up from its spot on a heated blanket.

“We’ll barely be outside five minutes,” Patton said. “You won’t even notice the cold.”

“Will so,” Virgil argued back.

Virgil’s return to the castle proper had been relieving. Everyone had been content to let him curl up on the floor near the fireplace and sleep for the past couple of weeks, but life did move on, and Patton and Logan had talked. They had agreed that Virgil’s constant anxiety about the weather probably wasn’t good for him. It had played a major part in making him stressed out enough to hit Logan which had caused the entire mess with him disappearing.

They’d brought it up to Virgil gently and, while they’d had to dial it back on requests like actually playing in the snow, the suggestion that they take the short trip from the castle to the horse stables was met with some interest. However, now that the time had come to make the trek, he seemed to be having doubts.

“Honestly,” Logan said. “I don’t think you’ll even feel the cold in that get up.”

They had, indeed covered the boy from head to toe. He currently looked a couple of inches taller and wider than he actually was bundled up with every piece of extra snow gear they could find.

He looked adorable with only his eyes uncovered even if said eyes were glaring at them both. However, Patton was a little worried he’d overheat if they didn’t leave soon.

“I don’t like snow,” Virgil said.

“We know, Virgil,” Logan said. That was the problem. They were hoping that a little minimal exposure would help him calm down just a bit. “The path’s been cleared of snow and ice though and it isn’t that much of a walk. You’ll be fine and then we’ll be able to look at all of the horses.”

Virgil still looked unconvinced.

“Just half an hour, Virgil, please,” Logan said.

“…Fine,” Virgil relented.

“Great,” said Patton, grabbing his coat sleeve and tugging him towards the door. Logan followed behind and Princess Marisol seeing they were going somewhere, got up and padded after them.

They made it all the way to the door nearest the stable. Patton could see when he opened it that the path they were to take was well cleared. Virgil still did not appear enthused. He glared at the outside like it had a knife.

Princess Marisol, for her part, saw Patton open the door, hissed, and abandoned them to strut off towards the kitchen.

“She knows what she’s talking about,” mumbled Virgil.

Patton sighed.

“Come on Virgil, I promise it won’t be that bad.” Patton offered a gloved hand. “You can hold my hand the whole way.”

Virgil was still frowning up a storm that would rival the one that had caused the snow in the first place, but he did take Patton’s hand. Patton used his grip on the hand to pull him forward through the door. It was still very chilly, Patton thought as they walked outside. Patton had chosen a coat that was a bit lighter since they were only walking to the stable and the wind bit him through it. He really hoped Virgil’s outfit was warm enough to keep him from freaking out.

Luckily, it did seem to be keeping him warm enough because, while he was tense, he still let Patton lead him forward.

They made it to the stable faster than usual since all three of them were quickening their pace. Patton gave a sigh of relief when he entered the stable and the warmer air inside of it. The stable wasn’t as warm as the castle, but it was warm enough that most of the stable hands only worked in light coats most of the winter. At least, they did inside the stable.

The head stable hand had already been warned about their visit beforehand and was waiting for the three of them at the door. “Good morning,” she greeted them, and… Virgil was already hiding himself behind Patton’s back.

“Hi!” Patton said cheerfully. He stepped to the side, so Virgil was no longer hidden. Virgil glared, reaching out to grab the edge of Patton’s sleeve and tugging on it in discontent. “This is Loraine, Virgil,” Patton said, nodding at her. When he glanced her way, he became a lot shyer, looking down at her feet instead of at her face. “She takes care of the horses. Say hello.”

“…Hello,” Virgil said quietly.

“Hi,” she said. “I hear you wanted to see the horses.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, we have plenty for you to meet and they’re mostly all inside because of the cold. Usually in the summer most want to spend a lot of time in the pasture. Let me show you around.”

Loraine showed them around the stable a bit even though Patton and Logan already knew where everything was. Virgil slowly got a little bit more comfortable, even asking a couple of questions unprompted. Surprisingly, there weren’t many basic questions about horses like Patton had expected. On the contrary, he seemed to know a good amount about horses already.

“Have you worked with horses before?” Loraine asked a bit into the tour after Virgil expressed interest in what they were feeding some of the older horses.

“I used to help take care of horses sometimes when people came to visit the orphanage,” he said. “They’re nice.”

“Do you ride?” Loraine asked.

Virgil shook his head. “I just fed them and cleaned up after them,” he said.

“Well, maybe you can try to learn when it gets a bit warmer,” she offered. “It’s a lot of fun.”

He nodded. “That would be nice,” he said.

After that, she mostly let them wander around looking at different horses in the stalls. She even let them feed some of the gentler ones who didn’t have a specific diet.

It was about 25 minutes into their adventure and while Virgil obviously liked the horses, Patton could already tell his anxiety was rising every time he took his glove off to feed a horse and it hit the chilly air. Patton glanced at Logan.

“Right,” Logan said. “We should probably be heading back inside, but I would like to stop by and see Mr. Apples before leaving. Otherwise, he will be cross with me.”

“Mr. Apples?” Virgil asked.

“He’s one of the horses,” Logan explained, moving to where the different treats were kept for the horses.

“Why do you need to see him in particular?”

Logan paused, his hand hovering briefly over the container of red apples before reaching in to grab one. “He was my Pa’s horse,” he said. “He likes when I visit him.”

“Logan’s the only one he likes visiting him,” Loraine added as she started to lead them towards where Mr. Apples’ stall was.

Patton had learned long ago that Mr. Apples could be a bit crabby. He wasn’t as mean to Patton as he was to some people, but he wasn’t exactly nice either. Patton tended to keep his distance whenever Logan went to visit.

Now, he stood on the other side of the hall from where Mr. Apples was as Logan stepped forward to greet him.

Logan spoke to him softly for a bit and he nuzzled his face against Logan’s shoulder with a huff. Eventually, he offered a piece of apple which Mr. Apple happily took.

“Can I say hello to him?” Virgil asked.

Logan glanced back at him. “Sure,” he said, “though be careful. He doesn’t like… anyone besides me.”

Virgil nodded and stepped forward cautiously. “Hello,” Virgil said. Mr. Apples turned his head to look at Virgil. There were a couple of seconds of silence and then Mr. Apple’s snorted softly. Virgil took that as permission to stretch out a hand.

“Wait,” Logan said. “He bites actually and…” Mr. Apples pressed his nose to Virgil’s hand softly and Virgil gently stroked it a couple of times.

“Huh,” said Loraine. “You’re officially the third person he’s ever liked, and you could say Prince Logan was cheating since he was grandfathered in as a baby.”

“Really?” Virgil asked. “He seems nice enough.”

Loraine rolled her eyes. Patton noticed she was standing a good distance away from the stall herself. “Oh no,” she said. “Trust me. He’s a bastard to everyone else.”

Virgil just frowned and pet the horse’s nose again. Mr. Apples leaned forward to nibble at his hair a bit.

Logan smiled at him and handed him one of the apple pieces to feed Mr. Apples which Virgil offered to the horse on a flat hand. “Red apples are his favorite,” he told Virgil. “He refuses to eat green.”

Logan and Virgil finished feeding Mr. Apples his treat and then it was time for Virgil to face the cold once again to return to the castle. Patton hoped this positive experience of going outside would make him more open to it in the future.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 43

Birds of Different Feathers Master Post

My Masterpost

#sanders sides #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #character thomas sanders #adriana writes #little kestrel #birds of different feathers #implied/referenced child abuse #assassination attempt #past torture #captivity

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 3 years

Text

Nobody Left Behind

Prompt: So I don't know if you're taking requests? But I just watched Lilo and Stitch for the first time since I got into TSS and I've adopted the headcanon that it is Remus's *favorite* movie (and he's memorized the script) and I love your writing and I'd love to see something angsty involving Remus feeling lonely/unloved by his brother, and maybe Lilo and Stitch is involved somehow. IDK, go wild. (and feel free to ignore this if you aren't taking requests) <3 - anon

it is Le Fluff™ hours my good bitches

Read on Ao3

Warnings: Remus has some abandonment issues, but it’s not too much

Pairings: it is platonic all the way down, babes

Word Count: 2935

Ohana means family.

Family.

FamILY.

What a weird word.

Sometimes it’s the people you’re born with. Well, not ‘with,’ not necessarily, but the people you are born to. A mother, a father, a sister, a brother. Sometimes two mothers, sometimes two fathers, sometimes a different parent. Sometimes two sisters, sometimes two brothers, sometimes a different sibling. Sometimes a mess of assorted people that all share the same blood. A family.

Remus wasn’t born.

He was made though, crafted and shaped and born out of the swirling chaos of a child’s mind that didn’t understand the world well enough without other people to help. He remembers getting cobbled together from scraps of thoughts and feelings and morphing them into limbs, into features, into something that vaguely resembled the body of the child he was made to fit. Not the ‘fitting’ was ever his job.

Just his brother’s.

Is his brother his family?

By all accounts he should be, right? A brother is one of those people that are traditionally part of the ‘family’ group, right, someone to laugh with, cry with, fight with, live with. But is Roman really his…brother?

That’s what they decided to call themselves because nothing else worked. They weren’t really brothers, they were halves. But they weren’t really halves because there was never a whole to begin with.

The King wasn’t a ‘whole,’ he was…well, he was the King. Half of a king is not a prince. Half of a king is not a duke.

Half of a king is a mess of blood and bones and viscera dripping off of the end of a Morningstar in the middle of the night when only a destroyed facsimile makes the insanity bleed away just enough to breathe again.

The closest thing to twins, is what they decided on eventually. They’re twins. One light, one dark. One that marches boldly into danger to confront the wickedness of the world, one that dwells in the shadows and cackles with the demons nipping at his heels. One that loves, one that isn’t loved.

Sure, they had some things in common. They both loved to fight, hence the scars and the bruises and the wounds that would never, ever heal, the distrust that would never be fixed ever, because the urge to sink their teeth into each other’s necks and rip never went away. They both loved to make, Roman the peaceful lies he tells himself to make up for the gaping wounds Remus leaves as he carves his perfectly tailored destruction. They both love Disney.

Roman’s made it part of his whole deal as the Prince, he loves Disney. He bursts into song every chance he gets, drags the others in until the Mindscape rings with joyful song and there’s nowhere left for any sadness or darkness. He takes his lessons from it, models himself using the traits of the characters he admires most. Cultivates his art of storytelling, perfect to a tee.

Remus loves Disney too. Loves how easy it is to twist the lens to distort the image just enough to let the darker parts of the Imagination run wild. What is the real implication of never growing old, never understanding what it means to die? What kind of person curses a ten-year-old boy for being cautious about who he answers the door to? What could the story have been if the prince never comes to save the day?

When they were smaller it was fine. When they were still getting used to the fact that they weren’t King anymore, they used to sit and watch so many Disney movies. Roman’s favorite was always changing, one week it was Beauty and the Beast, then it was Mulan, then it was Cinderella, it never stayed the same.

Remus’s was always Lilo and Stitch.

Roman never understood it, said it was boring, there wasn’t a prince, there wasn’t anything exciting. Remus said that aliens were plenty exciting, thank you very much.

But they would always watch it. The King wasn’t there anymore, but the prince and the Duke were.

…when they were smaller, there was one time where the prince wasn’t there at all.

Remus remembers waking up one day and feeling like he was being Split all over again. The maggots in his bones reached their awful little mouths into his heart and pulled, yanking him all the way across the bed and to the door, howling and screaming for his twin.

Only to be met with a blank wall.

He remembers howling at the top of his lungs until Janus had rushed to his side, kneeling down next to him and telling him shh, be quiet, hush now, you’re alright, you’re not hurt. And when he couldn’t explain that he was hurt, half of him was missing, Remus needed to go find him, Janus’s mouth had hardened into a thin line and told him that there wasn’t anything to worry about.

He remembers thinking that was a lie.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a lie.

Roman was fine.

Roman was more than fine, because Roman had a family.

Roman had Patton, who is the actual manifestation of sunshine and rainbows and loved so much it almost burns. The darkness that wrapped around Remus’s corner of the Imagination screeched and hissed at the very idea of being loved that much, even as part of him strained with all its might to get to it. But Patton would never set foot near this side of the Mindscape.

Roman had Logan, who represents everything true about the Mindscape, about Thomas, about the world. The reality of things that would never let anything Remus created make it anywhere close to anything important because it was dangerous, it was hurtful, and it was wrong. Logan wouldn’t want anything to do with something so useless.

And that was okay. Because Roman may have been gone but Remus wasn’t alone. Remus had Virgil, who lived with fear soaking every fiber of his being. Remus had Janus, who wrapped himself in darkness and obscurity and laughed.

But then Virgil left. And now Roman had Virgil, who used Thomas’s anxieties to keep him safe, to help Roman and the others figure out what to do, how to take care of everybody, and how to make the darkness go away. And Virgil would never willingly sink himself back into the darkness when he’d spent so long clawing himself out of it.

But that was okay, because Remus had Janus. Janus, who plotted and schemed and smirked at how easily the others were pulled along by his strings, luring them deeper and deeper as Remus readied his Morningstar for the trap to be sprung.

But then they sprung the trap and everything went wrong.

Roman didn’t want to fight. He just…he let Remus knock him out and didn’t show up again except to scoff and say he didn’t like him.

And that was…wrong.

Because Roman wasn’t supposed to like him but he was never only supposed to not like him. Roman was supposed to declare that he wasn’t welcome and try and slash him with his sword. Roman was supposed to try and banish him from the Mindscape and spit insults at him until he left, cackling all the while. Roman was supposed to hate him.

But Roman didn’t hate him, he just…he just said he didn’t like him.

But that was okay, because Janus could just come up with a better plan with him this time. They could do it properly, and Roman would hate him again and it would be back to normal.

But then Janus left. And now Roman has Janus, who keeps his eyes where the prince’s aren’t, when he can’t see what’s happening or he can’t bear to look, to help Roman figure out what to do when what seems to be happening isn’t anything that the prince is used to dealing with. And Janus would never willingly step away from a place that finally accepted him.

Roman has them now. Roman has people that chose him. Roman’s family chose him. He chose them. They chose each other.

Remus’s grip on his Morningstar slackens and the thing falls to the ground with a heavy clunk. He moves numbly through his room until he can fall to his knees on his bed.

He just came from the living room. They were all there. Roman was talking with Logan, ranting about some new show they were both watching. Janus was in the kitchen with Patton, making something for dinner that everyone—well, almost everyone—could eat. Virgil was on the back of the couch, reaching out for Roman’s shoulder every once in a while.

Remus had waited behind the couch. For someone to sit down, for someone to see him and shriek, or even maybe—just maybe—for someone to ask where he was.

But no.

Patton had come over and gently ruffled Virgil’s hair, saying that dinner was ready. Logan and Roman had moved into the kitchen, demanding Janus’s attention and pulling him into their conversation. Virgil had murmured a quiet thank you and Roman had asked him for what?

“Y’know,” Virgil had said, “for…this.”

“Of course,” Roman had laughed, the soft rustle of fabric as he probably pulled the emo in for a hug—what did those feel like?— “I should be thanking you?”

“What for, kiddo?”

“I dunno, it just…feels like it’s been forever since we’ve all sat down for dinner together.”

Remus’s chest had started to hurt.

“The whole family.”

The whole family.

Remus’s eyes well up with stubborn tears and he angrily swipes them away, baring his teeth at the memory and focusing intently on the things on the bed. Each hand-stitched, each carefully kept clean.

His family.

He reaches out with a shaking hand and tucks the blue frog plushie into the crook of his arm, crawling into the middle of the bed and balancing the purple spider on his shoulder. His hands keep shaking as he wraps the long yellow snake securely around his neck, clutching the head under his chin and nuzzling it protectively. The dark blue cat he holds in his other hand, careful not to tear its tie as he scrunches in on himself.

Wait.

Where is it?

No, no, no, no—

Remus growls, placing all of his family gently on the floor before all but tearing at his sheets. Where is it, where is it, where is it—his heartbeat starts to rise as his search grows more frantic, where is it, where is it—

The slightest little puff of red hair and he howls, lunging for it and sweeping it into his lap. He pauses to make sure the lion’s crown didn’t fall off and sighs when he sees it still in place. He sets the lion between his legs and leans over, adjusting everyone back into place and scrunching himself into a ball again. He rubs his nose against the lion’s fur and nuzzles into the soft fabric.

He’d never be able to forgive himself if he lost them.

Because Ohana means family.

Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.

——————————————————

There’s a knock on his door.

Why is someone knocking on his door?

They knock again.

Remus looks up, carefully butting the spider out of the way with his head and sitting up. The snake hangs off his shoulder and he lets it, only missing its warmth once the knock sounds again.

The frog and the cat watch him warily as he climbs out of bed, the lion clutched in his hand.

The door squeaks slightly as he opens it.

“So, I’ve got popcorn, I found the weird gummy snakes, and they had this chocolate-covered bacon which we have to try—Remus?”

Roman?

Roman stands there, his arms full of snacks and blankets, his head tilted. He glances behind Remus—probably to check something or other—and then back at him.

“Remus? Are you okay?”

“Why are you here?” Roman doesn’t like him.

“It’s movie night, Re, of course, I’m here.” Roman chuckles nervously before taking in his tear-stained face. “Hey, Re, what’s going on? Are you okay? Can I come in?”

Why is Roman here? Roman has his family, what is he doing here? With Remus?

“Remus—“ oh, right, Roman’s talking to him—why is Roman talking to him?—in a soft voice now— “Remus, hey, look at me.”

Remus blinks. Oh. Roman looks concerned now, he’s reaching for him.

“Hey,” he murmurs as he ruffles Remus’s hair, “what’s going on? Have you been crying?”

Remus nods dumbly.

“I’m sorry, Re, can I help?”

Help? Why does Roman want to help?

Oh, he’s waiting for an answer.

“…sure.”

“Thank you,” Roman says softly, “can I come in?”

Remus steps aside wordlessly and Roman walks in, pausing when he sees the rest of Remus’s family on the bed.

“Did you make them?”

Something dark twists in Remus’s chest as he sees Roman reach for the spider.

“Don’t.”

Roman backs off, stepping back as Remus snatches up his family and cradles them in his lap, glaring at Roman and curling up on the bed.

“I won’t, Re, I’m sorry,” Roman says, still speaking softly, “can I sit?”

“…floor.”

Roman sits on the floor, setting aside the blankets and snacks, looking up at him. He still looks concerned. Why? Roman doesn’t like him.

“Why weren’t you at dinner,” he asks gently, “I was worried.”

Worried? About him? Remus snorts.

“You had your whole family there,” he spits, “why would you worry?”

“But you weren’t there,” Roman says like that makes any difference, “so I was worried.”

Remus shakes his head. Roman doesn’t get it. Roman doesn’t worry about him, he worries about other things. But if Roman wants to know why he wasn’t at dinner, he’ll tell him.

“I was with my family.”

Roman’s brow furrows as he glances around again. “…your family?”

Remus huddles protectively around his family. “Yes. My family.”

Roman’s eyes widen as he takes in Remus’s posture and how he reacted when Roman asked about them earlier.

“…are they your family, Remus?”

“Yes.” He holds them tighter. “I chose them. They won’t leave me. They won’t forget me. That’s what family means.”

Something crosses Roman’s face and he lets out a wounded noise. Wait. Are they fighting?

“Wait, Remus,” he murmurs, rising up to his knees, “did you—did you think we forgot you?”

“You did forget me.”

“I’m sorry, Remus, I would’ve come to look for you, but I thought—“ Roman shakes his head— “no, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I should’ve come got you, Re, I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean to leave you behind.”

Oh.

“…you didn’t?”

Roman shakes his head furiously. “No, Remus, I promise. I never meant to leave you.”

“But everybody leaves me.”

If possible, Roman’s eyes are now wider and he scrambles for the edge of the bed. “What do you mean, Remus, what do you mean everybody leaves you?”

“You left. Virgil left. Janus left. Everybody left.” The lion’s mane brushes against his lips as he bows his head. “But not them. They won’t leave me.”

“Oh, Remus—“

Something big lunges at him and Remus whimpers, he doesn’t have his Morningstar, he doesn’t want to fight, he doesn’t—he doesn’t—

What’s happening? He feels warm and he’s being squished and Roman is pressing himself against him and what—what—

“What’re you doing?”

“It’s a hug, Remus,” comes Roman’s voice, slightly muffled, from over his shoulder, “I’m hugging you.”

Oh.

“R-Ro?”

“Yeah, Re, I’m here, I’m right here, I won’t forget you, I won’t leave you behind, you’re my brother, you’re my family, I choose you.” Roman’s grip tightens on him and Remus just about gasps. “I choose you and I want you and I like you.”

Roman…Roman likes him?

Roman chooses him?

Roman won’t…leave?

“No, Remus,” Roman promises as he cautiously asks, “I won’t leave. Not unless you want me to.”

“No.”

“Then I’m not going anywhere.”

That’s it.

Remus throws his arms around his twin and sobs, cries an entire ocean of tears into his brother’s shoulder because he’s here and he cares and he chose Remus. The darkness shudders as that small part of him surges forward, into Roman’s chest, finding a home in the prince’s heart and languishing in the warmth there.

“I’m right here, Re,” Roman murmurs, stroking up and down his back, “right here, I’ve got you.”

The snake drapes itself cautiously over Roman’s shoulder, the spider taking up watch on his knee. The cat and the frog stare at him, making sure he isn’t lying, that he won’t change his mind. The lion, sandwiched between them, feels the reassuring rumble from Roman’s chest and purrs.

After a long, long time, Remus pulls back a little and scuffs a hand over his nose.

“…did you say something about chocolate-covered bacon?”

Roman’s smile lights up.

“Let’s put on Lilo and Stitch and we’ll try it.”

Ohana means family.

Family means no one gets left behind.

Or forgotten.

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#dragonbabbles #sanders sides #fic #remus sanders #roman sanders #they're the main focus #creativitwins

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brain-deadx0 · 3 years

Text

Blood in the Water

Summary: Virgil is kidnapped for ransom, but when his captors don't get what they want they decide to get rid of him.

Characters: human Virgil, mer Logan, oc villain

Warnings: Kidnapping, restraints, hostage, injury of a main character, implied torture, attempted murder, drowning mention, near drowning, noncon kissing(?)/mouth to mouth, knife, uh… let me know?

Virgil had never given much thought to his father. Sure as a kid he thought the man was cool as hell. But he was more like that rich uncle you never see who sends you cool toys on Christmas and your birthday.

As he got older he came to realize this but didn't care all that much. Sure he thought he would've liked to have an actual relationship with the guy, until he got old enough to realize his mom was the only one who was actually supporting him and paying the bills. So he decided the guy wasn't worth it anyway since despite all the money he seemed to have he never tried to help out.

Virgil knew his father was a bastard.

Virgil thought he was simply a rich yet deadbeat dad up until his mom got sick. The two had never once asked him for anything, but when Virgil was a broke college student who couldn't afford the growing medical bills he reached out. Hoping that if nothing else the man would help pay for her treatment.

He didn't even go to the funeral.

So yes. Virgil knew his father was a bastard. He just didn't realize how much of one he actually was.

Virgil was currently tied to a chair on what he could only assume was a boat. Or at least he hoped it was a boat or else his concussion was worse than he thought.

He didn't bother testing the restraints. He was too tired at this point and every attempt before had ended in pain.

He didn't even know why these people had suddenly grabbed him off the street and shoved him into a trunk. Sure his estranged father was rich or something but it's not like either of them had been in contact for years. Virgil didn't even get gifts anymore since his mom died and he told the man to not even bother.

He really hoped these people didn't actually know who he was because if they tried to ransom him he was definitely going to die.

The sound of the door slamming open startled him from his thoughts.

Virgil glared despite the new ball of anxiety sitting heavy in his stomach.

"So," a man in a pristine white suit said as he walked through the door, "You must be Virgil."

"Who's asking?" Virgil growled.

He almost regretted it as one of the guards made a move for him, only to be stopped by the man holding up a hand.

"You can call me John."

"Because that's totally not a made up name."

'John' just smirked, "Remind me: what was your father's name again?"

Virgil cursed, "Look man, if you're looking for money you kidnapped the wrong guy. I haven't had contact with that bastard in years. He didn't even pay child support!"

"I asked for his name, not your life story."

Virgil huffed, "George Storm," he ground out, "why are you even asking me? You obviously know already."

"Just wondering which alias he used on you."

"What?"

"Now Mr. Storm-"

"It's Sanders. I got rid of his name when I told him to fuck off."

"Fair enough," the man said, "regardless of your name the fact remains that you're still his son and that means you're worth something."

Virgil couldn't help but laugh at that, "Didn't you hear me? He won't give you any money. He probably forgot I even existed by now."

"Then let's remind him shall we?"

Virgil couldn't help but flinch at the sudden sound of ducktape.

…

"- and if you don't? Well your little boy might just have a little accident."

Virgil's screams came out muffled as the cattleprod was once again jammed into his side.

"Enough."

Virgil shook as he tried to recatch his breath.

"Well Mr. Sanders, you played your roll quite well." John told him.

Virgil just glared back.

...

Virgil wasn't sure how long he had been in the small room. It had to have been a couple of days at least. They had taken a few more videos after his fathers response or lack thereof. Each time Virgil was beaten or tortured just shy of unconsciousness.

He wasn't restrained anymore at least. It's not like anyone thought he could do anything at this point.

He laid on the cold metal floor hoping it might somehow make his body feel less like a puddle of pain, but if it did it wasn't noticeable.

He flinched and curled into himself when he heard the door open. Several sets of heavy foot steps made their way towards him. He tried to curl up tighter in a meager attempt to protect himself but inevitably failed as a rough hand pulled him into a sitting position. A bright flash let him know they were taking another photo before the hand in his hair began pulling him towards the door.

"Hello again Mr. Sanders." John greeted pleasantly as Virgil was thrown to the deck.

Virgil coughed as he pushed himself to his knees, "I'm guessing he won't give you anything?"

"No." John hummed, "I guess you were right. He really doesn't give a shit about you."

"Will you let me go now?" He couldn't help but ask.

John smirked again in the way Virgil had unfortunately become familiar with over the last however long, "Seeing as you aren't worth any monetary value I see no reason to keep you."

For a brief moment there was a flicker of hope in his chest.

"But I've wanted to kill that father of yours for a long time now. And you do bare quite the resemblance."

Virgil screamed as a heavy net was suddenly thrown over him. He tried to fight off the men surrounding him as they began to wrap rope around the mess he was quickly getting tangled in.

"Any last words for your father?" John asked as he stood over him with a camera.

"I hope you both burn in hell!" Virgil hissed.

"I suppose we'll just have to meet you there." The man told him before nodding to one of his goons.

Virgil screamed out a slew of curses as he was dragged the short distance to the side of the boat. He managed to suck in a breath as he felt himself be hoisted over the side and tried not to lose it as he hit the freezing water.

Logan's nose twitched as the faint scent of blood traveled on the weak current around him. Normally this would be a sign of an easy meal. A struggling seal, perhaps a fish that made a narrow escape, the occasional whale injured by human vessels.

He knew there was a boat in this area. He had been following it of course. Humans were dangerous but they were interesting and it was rare for them to be in this area.

Unable to resist his curiosity he quickly followed the scent to the boat.

The surface churned as the boat sped away but Logan barely paid it any mind as his eyes caught on something heavily tangled in one of the cursed human nets.

Logan knew humans used them to catch large amounts of fish. He wasn't sure why they needed so many all at once but that was one of life's great mysteries. He also knew that other creatures often got caught in them. If they were lucky the humans would let them out. If they weren't they often drowned.

He swam closer to the poor creature that was still struggling in the net. Whatever it was had obviously been left for dead.

I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die…

Virgil struggled as the net seemed to get tighter around him and his lungs screamed for air.

Oh god I'm gonna die!

He had to get out he had to get out of the net.

Despite his mind telling him to struggle and get out so he could breathe, his limbs started to fail him as he sank deeper into the cold water.

He barely felt the nudge of panic that shot through him as a shadowy figure that looked too close to a shark came closer.

'Sharks are cool…' he thought as his vision turned dark.

Logan wasn't sure what he expected to be in the net, but he knew 'human' wasn't on his list.

The human's unfocused eyes landed on him for only a moment before closing. Small bubbles of air began to escape from their face as they went limp.

That was… not good.

He quickly grabbed the net and tried to pull it upwards to the surface but barely slowed the descent caused by the heavy weights.

Logan looked up to the sky that grew farther and farther away. He needed to cut the weights off but the human would surely die before they would make it to the surface. There was only one thing to do if he intended to save them.

He hesitated a moment before leaning forward and pressing his lips to the humans.

When he pulled back the human drew in a sharp breath followed by a short coughing fit. Logan was a bit concerned they didn't wake up but at least they weren't about to drown.

Logan reached into his bag and pulled out his knife before moving to cut the ropes. The heavy weights quickly disappeared into the dark below and Logan began pulling the human back to the warmer water near the surface.

…

Virgil woke up cold. It took him a moment to realize he was soaking wet. Another moment passed and he realized he wasn't alone.

There was someone next to him, humming in an odd tone, and seeming to be messing with something covering him.

He managed to crack one of his eyes open just in time to see a blurry flash of what looked like a knife. He quickly closed his eyes and curled into himself causing the person above him to stop humming.

Logan knew he should've fled back to the water as soon as the human showed signs of waking. He was only part way through cutting the human out of the net when the human's eyes opened. Only for them to immediately close again and for the human to retreat into themself.

Logically this would be the next perfect opportunity to leave.

"It's alright," he said instead, "You're safe now."

The human flinched at the sound of his voice but made no move to look at him.

After a minute Logan realized he wasn't going to get an answer, "You're stuck in a net," he told them, "I was in the process of removing it when you woke up. May I continue to use my knife to get it off?"

The humans eyes remained screwed shut but after a moment they nodded.

"Alright, I'm going to start near your abdomen is that acceptable?"

Another nod and Logan began to cut through the plastic ropes once more. As he worked the human gradually began to relax slightly. By the time he finished the human was only marginally as tense as they had been when they woke up.

Logan stored his knife back in his bag, "You should be able to get out now."

Once again the human flinched at his voice but thankfully didn't seem as scared as before. After a few seconds, the human began to shift cautiously.

By the time the other person had spoken again Virgil was pretty sure they didn't intend to murder him. But he was still confused. The last thing he remembered was being thrown overboard and left to drown.

Had another boat just happened to be near enough to see it and help him? It wasn't likely but that was all he could think of.

Until he finally got the courage to sit up and open his eyes.

The human gasped as their eyes locked onto the sharkmers tail. They seemed to freeze for a moment before their eyes rolled back and Logan lunged forward to try and catch them.

"Oh dear," Logan said as he looked down at the once again unconscious human.

He looked around the area, unsure of what to do next. The sky was beginning to shift to a morning grey and more humans would undoubtedly start making their way to the currently empty beach. Logically he should leave now and let the other humans deal with it.

Logan was feeling very illogical today.

He gently laid the human back down and waited.

It was a bit concerning how long the human remained unconscious a second time. Logan knew it was likely due to their injuries, both seen and unseen, but for some reason he couldn't help but hope they would wake up soon.

Logan kept a sharp eye on the beach. Just as the sound of voices started to travel down from the cliffs the human began to show signs of waking.

Logan hesitated longer than he probably should have before quickly making his way back to the safety of the ocean.

He hid some nearby rocks and watched as the small group of arriving humans seemed to notice the figure in the sand. When they got close the group picked up speed and surrounded the injured human.

It wasn't long before humans in matching dark clothing appeared and took the first away.

Logan took that as his queue to leave as well.

...some time later…

Virgil stared out at the ocean as the sun slowly sank below the horizon.

He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to come back to the beach so often. Honestly you'd think the almost drowning in it would make him more wary of the ocean. And while there were many things he'd rather forget, and a few he probably had, he couldn't help but think about the person he saw.

He had met the people who found him on the beach, how he got there was still a mystery, and while they were nice people, none of them were the one he'd first seen. The one who he was pretty sure saved him and cut the net.

So here he was, sitting on the dock, waiting for something to happen.

As the sun finished sinking into the ocean he almost swore he saw a large fin break the water.

#brain dead writes #blood in the water #tw kidnapping #tw torture #tw knife #tw restraints #sanders sides fan fic

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oneletteredwondered · 4 years

Text

One of the Boys

Virgil is a new tenant to an apartment complex and his landlord seems real nice. He told Virgil that should he ever need anything fixed to just give a call. He managed to get over the anxiety of calling someone for help, now he needs to get over the gay panic he experiences every time his landlord sends ‘one of the boys’ over.

Pairing: Everyone has a crush on Virgil who is also gay for everyone.

Warnings: panic descriptions from talking over the phone/to new people. Possible second hand embarrassment, swearing

Prompt pic at the end.

In all fairness, Virgil loves his new place. Way more than the old place he used to live at least. At least here the walls weren’t cracked and seemed sturdy enough that he wouldn’t be able to hear his neighbors through them. While he does his sweep of the place, writing down anything that might be wrong so the landlord can’t blame them on him, there’s barely anything broken or messed up. A clear step up from his old apartment.

“What you say Oogies?” Virgil nods to the black cat lounging on the cat tower after he’s finished his walk through. The cat stares at him, he stares back. They blink slowly at the same time and Virgil puffs out a breath. OogieBoogie wasn’t fond of the move. Complaining loudly at every jostle of the cat carrier. Virgil wanted to let her out but couldn’t until all his stuff was moved in for her safety. Seems like he’s forgiven.

“Come on lazy bones,” He finagles the cat out of the tower and she curls over his shoulders, paws dipping into the hood of his hoodie, and purrs. He smiles and scratches at her chin. For the most part she blends into the patterned fabric, her grey stripes the only thing that pop out, and even then only barely.

Virgil locks the apartment door, cat on his shoulders, and walk-through papers in hand. They walk their way around the complex and to the main office building. Virgil almost hesitates, thinking maybe he should go tomorrow morning at a better time, but OggieBoogie nuzzles his head encouragingly.

“Yeah okay,” He whispers to the animal, knowing she’s smug as he opens the door. It’s fluorescently bright. There’s no one at the front desk. Virgil takes two steps, and nearly backs out, when a friendly face pops out of one of the offices.

“Oh Virgil!” Virgil lets out a sigh of relief. He recognizes the elderly face

“Hey Mr Sanders,” He gives an awkward wave. The cheery man laughs.

“You may call me Thomas you know,” He says smiling at his cat and waving to the animal. She blinks at him.

“Right, yeah, course, Mr. Thomas yeah,” Virgil says. Thomas gives him a fond smile but doesn’t correct him. Thank god. Thomas helped him fill out lease papers when he first came to check out new apartments. Honestly a blessing as Virgil had no idea what he was doing. Bonus that Thomas professed the place to be queer friendly as well. Virgil hung up his rainbow flag in the window the moment he found it.

“Oh I brought the walk through papers back,” He hands them over and Thomas takes them happily.

“Everything good so far?” He asks. Virgil nods, nothing on there that he thought needed fixing, at least right away.

“Oh,” Thomas says softly. Virgil tenses and Oogie starts purring on his shoulder to comfort him.

“Are you having problems with the lights?” Thomas asks, very sincerely. Virgil shrugs a little and Oogie shifts to accommodate his motions.

“Not really, nothing serious,” He tries to play it off. Thomas pouts at his papers.

“Some of the plugs not screwed in properly, not working, a light out in the laundry area,” Thomas ‘tsks’ as he reads off Virgil’s writing. He perks up and offers Virgil a bright smile.

“No worries at all! I’ll send one of the boys over to fix it.” He offers Virgil a wink and riffles through his pockets. He pulls out his wallet and inside it a business card for the office that he promptly hands over.

“You ever need anything fixed, do not be afraid to call ya hear?” Virgil just nods, taking the card with him.

“Wait the boys?” He finds himself questioning. Thomas smiles again with a flippant wave of his hand.

“It’s the name of the contractor company I have hired here for the apartments. Someone should be over in about an hour to help you with the lights.” And with that Thomas is walking away to his own office, leaving Virgil to go back to his new home.

“Shit,” He mutters as he now realizes. Company coming over, and his new home is a mess. He walks quicker than he normally does to try and clean a little before ‘one of the boys’ makes it over. Oogie is not as impressed.

Virgil does well distracting himself. He organizes the boxes and even rearranges the hazardously brought in furniture to his liking. Oogie is lounging in her cat tower again, watching him try not to be frantic. He’s in the middle of putting some tupperware containers in the cabinets when there’s a knock on the door.

He wipes his hands on his jeans to make sure they’re not sweaty, and opens the door. Somewhere in the back of his mind he debates slamming it shut but in the end remains frozen with the front door wide open. Cause there in front of him is an absolutely gorgeous guy, hair slicked back and a cunning smile.

“Good afternoon, my name is Damien. Mr. Sanders said you needed help with some of your lights?” His voice sounds like silk and though there’s a long scar across side of his face, it takes nothing away from his beauty.

“Uh yeah.” Virgil says awkwardly.

“Yeah, yeah,” He says even more awkwardly and moves to the side to let the guy in.

“Much appreciated,” The guy, Damien says. Virgil can’t tell if the dude is cheeky or not, but damn is he flustered trying not to stare at his arms and the way he moves in those white jeans. Who wears white jeans to fix things? Virgil should send them a thank you note.

“Which plugs were having issues?” Damien asks then and Virgil decides words are not needed just this moment and deigns to gesture as best he can. Damien smiles at him and sets to work straightening some of the plugs out and replacing one in the corner when he notices a crack in the casing.

“Excuse me, miss.” He hears Damien say and peeks over his kitchen counter to see Damien gently nudging Oogie away from some of his tools. Virgil whines.

“Oogies come on let the man do his job,” Virgil goes over and scoops the cat up, petting her head to keep her from getting annoyed that she couldn’t continue with her curiosity. Damien laughs though and stands, now taking out the walk through Virgil so diligently wrote not 2 hours ago.

“You said that some of the plugs don’t work and that some of the switches don’t lead to anything?” He glances at Virgil with just a hint of a smirk. Virgil hugs Oogie a little tighter to keep his gay panic from spiraling.

“Yeah just seemed weird? I didn’t know if it was something wrong or what,” He says with a shrug, trying to seem nonchalant. Damien lets out a small laugh and waves Virgil to follow. He pulls out a small plug in light and pushes into one of the sockets Virgil said wasn’t working. He flicks the switch on the wall and the light pops on.

“Oh,” Virgil says and wants to die of embarrassment.

“Well now I feel stupid as fuck,” He says. Damien lets out another laugh, flicking the light twice more to demonstrate.

“It’s to save power that some of the switches lead to the plugs. Nothing broken there. You’re not stupid because you didn’t know.” He takes back his light and once more gives Virgil that sly smile. The worst is he smiles in a way that makes it seem like he knows what he’s doing to Virgil, which is just rude. Except he’s not, Damien is insanely polite which does not help Virgil in the slightest.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Damien asks as he puts the last of his tools back in the case.

“Nah. I’m good, thank you,” Virgil says, determined not to make a fool of himself this time. Damien nods his head.

“Have a good rest of your day then. It was a pleasure meeting you,” And this smug bastard winks at him and closes the door behind him. Virgil lets Oogie fall to the floor, picks up the nearest pillow, and screams into it. At least he can do it with proper working lights.

Virgil is freaking out. There’s no other way to put it. He is freaking out. So he got a little lazy and didn’t do his dishes. He’s been working so often and never found the energy to keep up. He decided he had a dishwasher for a reason, and even though he felt bad because the machine wasn’t even full, he ran it, and now there is water over the floor. Shit.

He sits on the couch, legs bouncing, with his phone in his hands. Thomas’s number is on the screen, ready to be dialed at the press of a button. Virgil still isn’t sure if this counts as a proper emergency. He managed to clean up most the water with some of his towels, but water is still coming out. Maybe if he just keeps rinsing out the towels and waits for the cycle to be done, he can pretend it never happened.

OogieBoogie jumps into his lap. She kneeds at his leg and is put out when he doesn’t move right away to pet her or give her proper access to his lap. She bumps her head against him and pushes her way to his chest, knocking his phone with her foot in the process.Virgil hisses at the action and ruffles her face in revenge.

“Hello?” A very faint voice calls out. Virgil swears softly and picks up his phone.

“Uh Mr Sanders Thomas?” He says into the receiver, then pulls it away to stare at the ceiling to briefly wonder what is wrong with himself.

“Yes?” Thomas says on the other line.

“It’s Virgil from Unit 16 B.”

“Virgil! How are you?” Thomas doesn’t sound put out that Virgil is calling him, which is a good sign so far. Virgil takes a deep breath, hands working methodically though Oogie’s fur.

“Doing okay yeah, how are you?” He says, it’s important to be polite. Thomas laughs.

“Doing good over here. What can I help you with?”

“Uhm, my dishwasher is leaking? And there’s water on the floor and I don’t know how to fix it. You said I could call if something is wrong and I just, yeah.” Virgil shrugs to himself. Thomas gasps on the other end.

“Oh no! That won’t do. I’ll send one of the boys over to help clean it up.” And Thomas hangs up. Virgil stares at the phone, then at his cat, then back at the dishwasher. He really doesn’t want Damien to see him embarrassed like this again. He buries his face in Oogie’s side and lets her purr calm him down. He must be there for a while because soon enough there’s a knock on the door.

Thankfully, it’s not Damien on the other end. However, it’s another incredibly attractive guy with a wild smile and even wilder hair that makes Virgil tense up because how. This one wears a shirt with the sleeves ripped off to show how ripped their arms are, and again, white jeans, though this time, the jeans are not as white as they once were, evidence of the work that has been done in them.

“Afternoodle! I’m Remus. The Sander’s Man said something was wishy-washy with your dishy-washy?” His smile in untamed and Virgil stares at him dumbly trying to understand what the hell just came out of his mouth.

“Yes?” He ends up asking more than saying, and moves over so Remus can come inside.

“Much appreciated, now what is gong on here?” Remus smirks down at the mess of the kitchen with his hands on his hips.

“I just ran the dishwasher and water started coming out. I was in the kitchen when I felt it on my foot.” Virgil explains as Remus moves some of the soaked towels over. He finagles the machine to open, something Virgil was too scared to try.

“Oh boy, I see. Give me one hot second here hot tamale, and I’ll get this all cleaned up.” Virgil isn’t sure what he should be more flustered by. Being called hot by a hot guy, or the fact the dude flexed while talking and there is some serious definition in his arms. So Virgil just nods as Remus skips out to the maintenance golf cart outside the door, and brings back in a tool box.

Virgil watches from over the counter as Remus pulls out the racks and practically crawls his way into the dishwasher. Virgil decides it’s a good time to walk away so he doesn’t end up staring at Remus’s ass while he works. That’s not proper behavior for someone who is trying to help.

It’s a few minutes, one colorful yet not quite a swear, and a victory noise later that Virgil feels okay going back to the kitchen area.

“Oh! Hello~ pusspuss!” Virgil gets to watch the exact moment Remus looks up to see Oogie staring at him working. Virgil scoops the cat up.

“Sorry she’s really into strangers.” He says. Though really, she hides from everyone. Remus lets out a cackle of a laugh.

“That’s fine, I’m into strangers too. So I fixed the problem here, no more soggy floors for you. Make sure to run it every so often so it keeps things going clean and unclogged.” Remus says far too quickly for Virgil to respond properly. He picks up his tools and returns them to the case. Virgil does a half-assed job of not staring at his back which is now water soaked.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Remus asks at the door. Virgil shakes his head.

“As long as it works I think I’m good,” He says. Remus smiles openly.

“Have a good rest of your day then!” He says and closes the door behind him. There was really no reason for him to flex as he said that but Virgil enjoyed it and no one else has to know.

“Shit shit shit,” Virgil is fumbling. He had to go grocery shopping and get some cat food for OogieBoogieBaby. And no self respecting trash panda such as himself would dream of carrying it back inside in more than one trip. So he’s fumbling with his arms lined with bags that would be cutting into his skin if not for his hoodie sleeves, but even then, those are falling and he wishes it wasn't so hot out.

He manages to make it to his door, shift some bags around so he can get his key out, when the bag of cat food starts slipping. Virgil can see it now, cat food all over the front porch to either collect ants, or other cats, or any other large animal. He wouldn’t feed it to Oogie, to afraid of what is on the ground and if it’ll upset her stomach. He braces for impact and for another quick trip to the store.

“Whoa!” Virgil feels the weight leave him but not the crash. He blinks at the ground, then at a pair of white jeans, then at the bag of cat food in someone else’s arms, then up to the face of a bespectacled stranger with brilliant blue eyes.

“Are you alright?” Stranger asks calmly and takes another bag from Virgil that looks ready to topple at a second’s notice. Virgil snaps out of it once it’s out of his hands.

“Shit yeah thanks,” He breathes out in a rush, thankful as all hell as he manages to finally get the door open. He pushes it with his hip and Oogie is waiting at the door for him, meowing up at him. He coos a greeting to her and sets the bags down in the kitchen, the stranger follows only to the inside door and puts the bags down there to not intrude.

“Thank you so much,” Virgil says once he’s done pretending he can carry that much. The stranger just offers him a small smile, kneeling down to let Oogie sniff his gardening glove covered hands.

“It was my pleasure to help you. My name is Logan, I’m one of the workers on site.” He says and stands. His voice is low and calming, it would make for a great audio book, and Virgil is not going to spend the rest of the day thinking about that.

“Though I do apologize for suddenly grabbing your things, I know that can come across as ‘creepy’ and I do not wish for that to be my first impression.” He pries a glove off and holds out his hand. Virgil takes it and gives it a small shake.

“I’m Virgil, and this is OogieBoogie,” He introduces himself and his cat who has deigned to jump on the counter and sniff at the contraption on Logan’s back. He gently pushes the cat away with a soft look in his eyes.

“Pleasure to meet both of you. None for you I’m afraid,” He chides Oogie gently. Virgil swallows because damn, someone interacting gently with his cat more of a heart throb than originally intended. And Logan is nothing if not simply scholarly stunning.

“My apologies again, be sure to let someone know if there’s anything we can help you with. Have a wonderful rest of your day,” Logan nods his head softly and there is just the smallest crinkle around his eyes hidden under his glasses and Virgil is so weak as he closes the door to his apartment. He’s come into contact with one too many pretty people at this complex and it will be the death of him. Still, it is nice to wave to Logan every so often as he preens the landscaping around the buildings.

Virgil watches as water drips down the window. It started the other day after some rains. He put a towel under it to keep some of the water from ruining anything, but it’s still going the next day. Virgil sighs and looks at his phone, Thomas’s number on the screen. He takes a deep breath and presses call.

“Hello?” Thomas answers.

“Hey Mr. Thomas it’s Virgil, from Unit 16 B.” A practiced line. Thomas gives a happy gasp.

“Virgil how are you?” Thomas always sounds excited to speak to him. It helps.

“Doing okay, how are you?” He asks, absently petting Oogie’s back.

“Good good! How can I help you?” Thomas asks in turn. Virgil looks at the window.

“Something’s up with my window? It’s like.. leaking.” He explains but not really. Thomas hums.

“Did this start up with the rain?”

“Yeah, I’ve tried cleaning it with towels but it keeps going.” Virgil says. Thomas makes another hum noise.

“Sounds like a problem with the roof. I’ll send one of the boys over.” And Thomas hangs up. Virgil isn’t as put off with the abrupt ending, expecting it this time around. He glares at the window and goes to wait for ‘one of the boys’. Oogie follows over and demands pets. It a decent distraction till a loud knock comes from the door.

Virgil opens it and it's just unbelievable how down right beautiful this guy is. His hair in perfect waves and a charming smile on his face. His sleeves are also cut like Remus's were, but far less frayed.

"Wonderful morning, my name is Roman. Our dear Mr. Sanders told me there were some ill issues with the roof is that right?" He speaks with such confident flamboyance Virgil is a loss for words.

"Yeah," Is all he manages to say. He's pretty. Way too pretty for this.

"Yeah, sorry it's over here," He turns and leaves the door open for Roman to follow. Roman laughs loud and proud and does just that. Virgil shows him the window and does not bit his lip as Roman jostles the frame showing off muscles that are illegal.

"The panes seems closed but I'll check outside as well." He turns and heads out the door. Virgil follows.

"And the roof?" He asks. Roman offers him a dashing smile, checking his tools that he attaches to his belt, holding up pristine white jeans.

"You may hear some noises for a while as I'm up there, but fear not, I'll find the problem." He gives Virgil a wink and with ease, he finds a ledge on the building and hoists himself up. Virgil does not squeak. Certainly not cause he's scared that Roman will fall, and certainly not cause he rolls his shoulders and Virgil can see his body move and god damn it he’s so not straight.

So he goes inside and pretends there’s not a real attractive guy fixing his roof. The noises of fixing continue for an hour or so, Virgil keeping busy with cleaning and some mild work emails. Then the noises stop. Virgil glances at his ceiling curiously.

"Uh, Roman?" He calls from his front door, making sure the dude didn't fall off and die.

"Be down in a moment fair tenant!" He hears. Virgil rolls his eyes and barely turns when Roman suddenly lands in front of him.

"Roof is all set. There were a few shingles out of-"

"Did you just jump off the roof?!" Virgil interrupts. Roman blinks at him and has the nerve to smiling so dashingly again.

"I dare say I did," he says as if it's no big deal. Virgil sputters at the reckless, careless, brash attitude. Roman is far too entertained by it.

"I'm honored by the concern, dearest. Just one more moment to check the window from the other side." He winks again and is walking around the building before Virgil can say anything.

He grabs Oogie and plants his face in her fur. Too gay to function. He talks to her plainly about how unfair it is that pretty boys plague his life, only to find out he can absolutely be heard through the window by Roman asking in a muffled voice.

"You think I'm pretty?" Virgil screams and hides in his room, hearing Roman laugh through the wall. This is how he dies, he decides. This is even worse than the time Damien had to tell him his lights weren’t broken, he just didn’t know how to use them. This is so much worse.

He groans loud and dramatically when there’s a knock on his front door. He doesn’t want to open it. But he does, cause it’s rude other wise.Roman stands there, smug expression and a bright smile.

“Checked everything and cleaned up some water. A few shingles out of place and a loose vent, got those all patched down. If it continues to leak it might be a bigger issue so be sure to call if it does. Anything else I can help you with?” He asks. Virgil takes a steady breath to say no.

“I think I’ve dug my own grave enough for today,” He says, further digging his own embarrassment grave. Roman gives another laugh.

“Enchanted to meet you pretty boy, have an amazing rest of your day.” And then Roman honest to goodness bows and drives off in the golf cart. Virgil closes his door softly and looks at Oogie who stares back from her perch on the counter.

“Don’t even start,” He tells the cat. She looks away like she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

“Boogs! No!” Virgil does not like shouting at his cat. He doesn’t like shouting in general. But it gets OogieBoogieBitchBaby away from the wall she is using as a scratching post. She scampers off as he approaches, fingers going over the claw marks in the wall. He groans to himself.

He moved her cat tower because she kept getting onto his work papers. In revenge for disposing her from her favorite perch and sights of the room, she clawed at the wall instead, leaving a few nasty scratches behind.

“How am I supposed to fix this?” He asks where she’s run off, hearing her run around. He bangs his head on the wall. This is not how he wanted his night to go. In the end, he has Thomas’s number on his phone and piece of paper he tore to shreds in worry over what he could possibly say.

“Hello?” Thomas answers.

“Hey Mr. Sanders, it’s Virgil. I-”

“Virgil! How are you?” Thomas asks. Virgil takes a deep breath.

“I’m- I’m so sorry Mr. Sanders. It was an accident I swear.” He needs to apologize, cause if Mr. Sanders kicks him out, he’ll have to go hunting for places to live again, and who is going to take him with a cat who destroys things, and then because no one will take him, he’ll die on the streets and Oogie will eat his toes.

“My cat Oogie she got upset with me and she clawed the wall and I’m so sorry,” He says in a rush.

“Hey, hey Virgil it’s okay. It happens, our furry friends do funny things. I’ll send one of the boys over to help fix it right up, okay?” Virgil swallows a lump in his throat at Thomas’s easy solution.

“Okay,” He croaks out and then hears the click of someone hanging up. He lets his phone drop and then puts his head in his hands. He doesn’t want to be kicked out his apartment, or to have Mr. Sanders think bad of him as a tenant, or as a bad pet owner. He throws himself back on his couch. He feels so dumb.

Thankfully, there’s a gentle knock to his door. Hopefully his savior in this mess. He opens it to bubbly boy in round glasses, giving him the most cheerful smile Virgil’s ever seen.

“Hey there, evening to you, my name is Patton. Mr. Sanders said we have some kitty claws on the walls?” He asks. Virgil lets his shoulders drop.

“Yeah, I’m so sorry about it.” He says Patton waves his hand.

“It’s not a cat-astrophe, it happens. Can you show me where it is?” He asks. Virgil nods and steps back to let the boy in white jeans in, then pauses.

“Did you just make a pun?” He deadpans. And Patton giggles.

“Sorry, sorry, just slipped out. I’m pawfully bad at them.” He says with a bright smile. Virgil stares at him, then snorts into his hand.

“That was really bad,” He says but Patton just beams at him.

“Got you to laugh though.” And Patton should not sound so proud of making a stranger laugh. Virgil coughs to cover his awkward and shows him where Oogie got to the wall and Patton ‘tuts’ in response, putting down a bag of tools on the floor.

“I have just the thing to get this back in purr-fect conditions.” Patton opens his bag and pulls out some paint and calking. Virgil steps back to let him do his job, very aware that Oogie is hiding somewhere away from him. It makes him nervous to not see his cat in the area. Sure Oogie isn’t a registered therapy animal, but she does a good job of keeping him calm.

“There, al-meow-st done!” Patton smiles at him over his shoulder and adds another coat of paint to the wall, looking good as new. Maybe it’s the puns or the cute, but Virgil does relax.

“Thanks for that.” Virgil says as Patton cleans up. He giggles once more and waves Virgil’s concern off again.

“It’s no big deal, it’s what we’re here for.” He reassures. Virgil sighs and turns to the small meow behind him. Oogie is on the table staring at him. Patton lets out a squeal of happiness.

“Oh she’s precious!” He says in syrupy sweet voice. Virgil snorts again and looks between the two.

“Wanna pet her?” He asks and before he finishes Patton is shaking his head.

“Un-fur-tunately I’m allergic. But she is paws-itively adorable.” Patton coos and waves to the cat, Oogie does nothing in return but that’s to be expected. Virgil rolls his eyes at the both of them.

“Thanks again for your help,” He says. Patton beams and there are freckles on his cheeks. Freckles, too cute, not allowed.

“Of course! Anything else I can help you with?” He asks. Virgil’s turn to shake his head.

“I think we’re good now,” He says. Patton giggles once more.

“Have a claw-some rest of your night,” And that shouldn’t be funny but Virgil snorts again and Patton is proudly walking off.

What the fuck, what the fuck. Virgil stares at the door knob in his hand. He just went for a late walk to get his mail, Oogie joining him on his shoulders. Something rattled in the door knob when he opened it, having to actually shove the door open to get back inside after unlocking it. When he went to close the door, the handle came off in his hand before he could close it proper.

What the fuck.

He stares at the space where the door knob was and his open door. His mind immediately races to all the creepy people who can break in and steal things or kidnap his cat. Or even all the bugs that will make home in his food and hair. Nope. None of that.

“Hey Mr Sanders?” Virgil says first, his anxiety over the open door he can not close for fear it won’t open again overriding his normal fear of calling his land lord.

“Virgil! How are you? It’s very late,” Thomas yawns on the other end. Virgil winces. He probably should have thought this through considering the time.

“I’m okay, so sorry to wake you, it’s just. My door handle uh, fell off?” There’s a pause.

“Well that’s not good.” Thomas says.

“I’ll send one of the boys over.” He hangs up plainly. Virgil has enough time to worry if he made Thomas upset by calling so late, and worry Oogie somehow got out only to find her cuddled in her tower, when the bad lights from the maintenance golf cart shine through the crack in the door.

There’s an awkward knock and Virgil pulls the door open. He’s not sure who in their right mind has sunglasses on this late, but at least this gorgeous person isn’t using them to hide their bright eyes. They give him a quirky smile.

“Well this isn’t something you see every day.” They remark and Virgil has to huff out a laugh, some of his panic subsiding.

“Evening babes, I’m Remy. What happened?” He asks and goes about unscrewing the rest of the door knob, kneeling down and scuffing his white jeans that nearly glow in the darkness. Virgil tells him the lead up and Remy scoffs out a laugh of their own, giving Virgil a glance, that turns into a once over, that shakes him to the core.

“No worries, I can see the broken piece. Easy fix.” He winks at Virgil and gets a spare doorknob from the golf cart. Virgil stand idly by as he fixes it, keeping Oogie from getting too close.

“Wassup cat?” Remy asks and gently puts his knuckles to her head in greeting. She makes a noise and then trots off, satisfied with the attention.

“What’s their name?” Remy asks while he screws things back together.

“That OogieBoogie, Oogie for short, though she’s been more of an OogieBoogieBastard lately.” She meows at Virgil from the top of her tower. He hisses back at her. Remy snorts.

“Nice, I have an orange cat named Pumpkin.”

“Nice,” Virgil says back. Remy smirks at his response and keeps working. Vigil pretends the look on Remy’s face didn’t give him reckless night vibes, that he would take Remy up on if he asked, cause damn, the dude’s hot.

“May I borrow your key for a second babes?” Remy twists the knob a few times and with Virgil’s borrowed key, closes, locks, and opens the door with no problems.

“All good to go, anything else I can help you with?” He asks as he hands back the key. Virgil shakes his head.

“Nah, I’m good, thanks for that,” He says. Remy gives him a wink.

“Have a good night babes.” Another wicked smirk and Virgil does his best to close his door at a proper speed. His heart is pounding and these pretty boys will be the end of him.

“Hi! Welcome in, how can I help you?” Cute, is all Virgil can think when he enters the office. Pastel, is second. There’s a new receptionist at the desk, freckles and a mega-watt smile.

“Hi uh, I got a notification I have a package?” He stammers out. Oogie purrs at his shoulder, reminding him it’s okay.

“Sure! What apartment number?” Virgil rattles off his numbers as the receptionist looks in the package closet.

“For Virgil?” They ask. He nods and takes his box, keeping it away from Oogie as it’s a surprise for her birthday.

“Oh! I’m Emile by the way. I’m working in the office now so if you need anything just give us a call okay?” They’re so earnest. Virgil ends up just nodding his head, only speaking when Oogie bumps her head to his.

“Yeah, thanks,” He says and before he can make an exit Thomas appears from inside one of the offices.

“I thought I head you! Virgil, how are you?” He asks. Virgil gives him a soft smile.

“Good, and you?” It’s only polite. Thomas lets out a laugh.

“Good here too. Say, the staff is hosting a tenant party here, some games and some food, you should join us if you’re not busy.” Thomas hands Virgil a flyer with some gaudy colors. Virgil does a good job of not letting his dislike of the idea show.

“You should totally come!” Emile beams at him and it does something gay to Virgil’s heart. Virgil glances at the two of them smiling at him.

“I could stop by?” He offers not waiting to make them mad at him. They cheer and turn back to their jobs. Virgil walks back to his apartment, petting Oogie as he does.

“What did I just get myself into?” He asks her. She bumps her head to his hand in response.

It’s not a bad turnout for an apartment complex party. Virgil does show up, Oogie situated on his shoulders. Even though its closer to summer, He’s still wearing his hoodie if not just to give her a place to put her paws should she wish to.

There’s those plastic cheap tables lining around the pool area, boxes of pizza and some crinkly plastic containers of mini sub sandwiches sit on top. There’s a section for drinks and cups right next to. Virgil gets himself a cup of lemonade.

He glances about. Some people are playing some bean bag toss game, others are playing on the mini putt putt area Virgil didn’t even know they had. Lots of people are in the pool, messing around and splashing water at each other. He sticks to the sidelines.

“Virgil!” Or maybe not. He looks to who called his name and though he’s happy Logan called for him so he doesn’t have to be alone, he’s lamenting the fact that not only is it Logan, he’s also with Patton, Damien, and Remy. Fuck. Virgil goes bug eyed, giving himself a pep talk, helped along by Oogie making a ‘mrrp’ noise in his ear, and walks to his doom.

“Hey Logan,” Virgil says once he’s close. Patton waves as best he can with hands full of pizza.

“Sup babes?” Remy asks with damn smirk, sunglasses appropriate now. Virgil rolls his eyes.

“Damien, if you don’t remember,” Damien holds out his hand. Virgil of course remembers embarrassing himself in front of freaking sleek attractive Damien, but he isn't about to say that. Virgil takes his hand to shake and Damien flips it to bring a kiss to the back of Virgil’s hand. Virgil’s jaw drops as Patton giggles helplessly.

“Dee don’t do that!” He says but there’s not force behind it. Damien just smiles like the cat that got the cream.

“I didn’t know you two were familiar?” Damien turns the attention to Logan now. Logan just pushes up his glasses.

“I admit to helping Virgil carry in groceries more than once.” Logan says, giving Damien a look that Virgil doesn’t have the power to decipher. Patton whines.

“Kiddo you could have asked for more help,” He says. Virgil shrugs.

“Two trips are for the weak.” He and Remy tap their glasses together in a cheers.

“Yes and I’m sure dropping your groceries is also for the weak.” Logan chides and it does hit a little harder, but still Virgil taps his glass to Remy’s again in a cheers.

“Virgil!” Someone calls and Virgil is blinded by the force of Emile’s smile so suddenly in his face.

“You came!” He’s excited. Virgil nods and takes a step back. Oogie murmurs upset on his shoulder.

“Yep, I said I would and hey, free food.” He ignores the looks the others give each other and Emile just bounces.

“Well I’m glad you’re here. Me and Patton were gunna play corn-hole later, you should join us!” Patton gives an equally excited gasp as Emile gestures to the bean bag toss.

“Uh sure,” Virgil says. Emile bounces and waves, and is off to say hi to other residents as soon as he came. Virgil is reeling from the interaction and it only gets worse.

“Is that pretty boy??” Virgil hears the splash before he sees anyone but then Remus is there in his face, shirtless and in swim trunks and dear god, he has a tramp stamp.

“Hello again stranger~” He coos. Virgil musters up a hi when suddenly another shirtless person is standing next to Remus.

“It is pretty boy! How are you darling?” Roman says. Virgil has officially hit gay panic mode. If the earlier mix of suave and cute wasn’t enough to do him in, the pure amount of muscle now is going to do him in.

“Fine,” He chokes out. Remus and Roman both laugh at his answer. Great. If he hoped for any kind of saving from the others, it’s surely a dashed hope by the amused looks on their faces.

“Are you joining us in the pool?” Remus asks excited. Oogie hisses from his shoulders. Vigil raises a hand to calm her and she nuzzles his knuckles.

“Uh not today.” He says, which is the wrong thing to say.

“But another day?” Remus asks all wild excited. Roman shoves him.

“Like he wants to spend time with your gross ass!” Roman shouts playfully. Patton huffs and calls him for his language but he is ignored. Remus gasps offended with a wild smirk on his face.

“Sure he does, can’t keep his eyes off these guns,” And Remus flexes. Virgil smacks a hand to his face. Oogie dips to hide in his hood. Roman lets out a laugh and firmly shoves Remus back into the pool.

“The only gun he needs is a glock to the face.” Roman puts a fist in his hand, flexing as well. The pun does get Patton to giggle though and Damien rolls his eyes.

“Virgil I am going to get some food, would you like to accompany me?” Logan asks finally done with the nonsense.

“How do you know his name!?” Roman screeches.

“I asked.” Roman let's out an outright offended gasp for whatever reason. He doesn’t get to say another word as Remus from out of no where, runs and tackles Roman back into the pool with no such boundaries.

“Food sounds good,” Virgil says. Logan smiles softly at him.

“I think I shall join you,” Damien says looking into his cup which doesn’t look empty but who is Virgil to judge.

“Come find me and Emile when you’re done okay?” Patton interjects before they can leave. Virgil offers him a two finger salute, and then leaves Patton and Remy to go find Emile, while he finds food.

“Idiots,” Logan mutters once they are away from the pool. Damien hums in thought.

“But not wrong,” He says.

“They aren’t right either.” Logan snaps back.

“Should I go?” Virgil asks as they are clearly not talking to him. Both Damien and Logan look at him scandalized.

“Certainly not!” Damien says and gives him a slick smile. Virgil swallows down his lemonade to keep his throat from clogging up. He spends some time talking to the two of them, making sarcastic comments and opening up. Oogie pops out to lick his hair at one point.

At that, Virgil finds Emile somewhere, letting them know he’ll be right back, wanting to drop Oogie off at home. He’s comfortable enough here to not need her reassurances, besides, she’s tired from napping and needs to go home to sleep. With some ‘hurry back’ wishes, he’s off back to his place.

He makes sure Oogie is comfy and goes to leave, finding Thomas waiting in one of the golf carts outside his door.

“Need a ride?” He offers. Virgil laughs and joins him in the small vehicle.

“Virgil if I may, I have a favor to ask of you?” Thomas says seriously. Virgil nods his head as his lungs refuse to let him breathe for fear of the favor.

“Please be kind to my grand kids yeah?” Thomas asks, an earnest look in his eyes. Virgil isn’t sure what he’s talking about, but then he looks up. All of the boys who have been coming in and out of his life to fix his home are there staring and waiting for him to get back with the same look in their eyes.

Oh. Virgil thinks.

Oh no.

AN: Lol that multiship life

Edit: now with a part 2

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gumnut-logic · 2 years

Photo

Food in the Tracy household is a fugitive thing.

It has been known to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. It has been known to be squirrelled away as if a billionaire or six may suddenly run into famine. It has been known to be spooned gently into a sick family member.

It has been known to be wrapped in decorative paper and handed over as gifts.

Yes, food is very popular in the Tracy household.

Well, all the food that wasn’t cooked by Grandma that is.

Why does Grandma continues to cook ghastly concoctions even though everyone in the building, including the many appropriately positioned pot plants, knows that it is a major failing on her part? Only Grandma knows.

Virgil suspects it is simply out of love and a need to show how much she truly cares.

Alan secretly suspects it is a long term plan to summon a demon.

In any case, it is highly recommended to all guests that their grandmother’s cooking be avoided.

Or exorcised, according to Alan.

Each of the boys has their favourite foods of course and each their own quirks at consuming them.

Scott is efficient. That is the only word that can really be applied. He’s a busy man. Food is necessary. It gets eaten. His tastes are simple and easy. It’s food, he’s hungry, get out of my way, Gordon.

He can knock some eggs up, a good sandwich…don’t let him near the barbecue unless you desire charcoal for your meal. Seared steak apparently comes in shades of black.

Virgil, on the other hand, loves a good meal. Sure, he’s a busy man too, but there is a lot of him needing feeding and he has been known to take those few extra minutes over a meal just to enjoy it. A snooze afterwards never hurts. Digestion is something one’s body should enjoy.

Never get between Virgil and his meal. You may be bulldozed. Politely bulldozed, but flattened nonetheless. He’s a busy man. This is his time with his food, don’t interrupt, Gordon, shut up.

Virgil can cook. As long as it is steak.

There have been wars fought over the barbecue between the two eldest brothers.

Do not touch Virgil’s steak.

Particularly if you are Scott.

John appreciates a fine meal. Of the five brothers, he is the one who will know about the wine. He’ll know which region it came from, what it should be eaten with and which year grew the plant it was made from. This, of course, means he is the most likely culprit to steal Scott’s boutique beers out of the fridge…to the point that one of the first signs of the middle brother being back on Earth is the sudden missing bottles from said refrigerator.

Virgil thinks it is hilarious.

Scott’s worried his brother is a secret alcoholic and keeps monitoring his intake.

Alan keeps messing with Scott’s head by pinching extra bottles to ‘up John’s intake’.

Gordon messes with everyone by refilling the bottles with apple juice.

But yes, John is the one to appreciate a good meal, most likely because he has to eat all that space crap eighty percent of the time.

Virgil likes to make sure his brother gets a treat from time to time.

So John gets gifted lots of steak.

Alan is fed and watered regularly. With four older brothers, a sister and a grandmother, it is not like he has any choice. The appropriate quantities of vegetables and fruit are provided daily and his consumption noted. Any diversion from the menu is queried thoroughly and a health assessment performed, usually by a pair of stern blue eyes that take their responsibility ever so seriously.

Too bad those eyes have yet to work out that quite a bit of that food is delivered to the two pet hamsters he has stashed in his room. Also Buddy and Ellie consume a diet not recommended by any vet on Planet Earth.

Buddy and Ellie have been eyeing the hamsters for quite some time and are happy Alan is fattening them up.

The hamsters agree with Alan regarding Grandma’s cooking and often mistake Gordon for the demon she is apparently attempting to summon.

Alan doesn’t mind his diet too much. He knows his brothers just love him to death and the feeling is mutual. Plus Kayo slips him junk food on a regular basis. How she got hot churros to the Island still hot, he has yet to work out…Shadow is fast, but really?

As for Kayo, she eats what she wants to eat. No one is going to argue with her. Hey, you want the last pancake, be my guest, here have the maple syrup. After all, she did get her nickname from the big blowout of 2049. One cupcake, five skittle brothers and a very hungry young female bowling ball. Hey, you try growing up in a house full of men and boys. It is either kick ass or have yours handed to you. Gordon, touch that and you die.

Don’t mess with Kayo. Regarding food, or any topic for that matter. Just don’t mess with her. Take her name as a warning and stand back.

No one is quite sure what Grandma eats. Alan is pretty sure it isn’t her own cooking otherwise how could she have possibly lived this long? Virgil keeps an eye on her, makes sure she is happy and content and has everything she needs. Gordon once tried scientific method on his grandmother and her food consumption, leaving several tempting tidbits around the place fixed with sensors to see which would take her fancy. Results were inconclusive since Alan ate half the experiment.

Virgil poured pink dye in the pool and the hypothesis was abandoned.

Brains is the trash can of the Island. He will eat anything put within arm’s reach. The engineer finds food an inconvenient bodily function and often won’t stop working to fulfil his body’s needs. Food appears beside him, the one neuron not focussed on whatever he is doing declares the food his and it is consumed efficiently.

Virgil quickly learnt to keep his lunch out of Brains’ reach when they are working together. One too many instances of going hungry because of grabby food hands taught him quickly.

Gordon, of course, thinks it is hilarious. The aquanaut once sat quietly beside the working engineer and managed to feed him an entire cheesecake piece by piece.

Scott was not impressed when Brains threw up on his shoes fifteen minutes later during his maintenance report. Gordon, go to my office, now!

And that leaves Gordon.

Gordon is a seagull. If you’ve got it, he wants it, and he will nag you until you give it to him.

Of course, this doesn’t prevent him from acquiring his own. Seagulls are scavengers after all. Then he will sit at the table with his plate or bowl of whatever and quite calmly sit there pinching things off your plate.

Whether he does this to amuse himself, or he has a psychological disorder, none of the brothers have bothered to investigate. It’s just Gordon, slap his fingers as needed. Of course, Kayo doesn’t have a problem. No one would dare steal from her plate.

Well, he did try once. Most people think the scar on his hand is just one of those from the hydrofoil accident.

It isn’t.

Of course, there was the time where he ate the steak Scott and Virgil were arguing over. They didn’t realise it until a full ten minutes later, by which time Gordon was no longer in the room, taking the digesting steak with him.

Grandma got to bake him a cake for that one.

But yes, in general, food in the Tracy household is a little chaotic. There have been death threats, mild bruising, profanity, theft, slander, the occasional all out war and sometimes a whole pile of mischief. But honestly, under it all? There is a whole pile of love. Because push comes to shove, each and every Tracy, by name or not, will give their all to help another.

And that includes food.

Though Grandma’s cookies have been declared lethal weaponry and throwing one results in mandatory dish duty for a month. Gordon, for the love of everything, put that down now!

-o-o-o-

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds #nuttyfic reblog #I did write today #a whole page #but distractions rule and yeah still not there #sorry

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quarantinevibes2020 · 3 years

Text

LoveDrug

Summary: That trope where someone's eyes dilate when they see someone they love. That's it. That's the whole fic. OR Virgil and his accomplice play matchmakers for some literal star-crossed lovers.

Word count: 2198

Pairing: Romantic Roman/ Logan (college AU)

Warnings: drinking (not underage), other drugs mentioned but no one uses any

Yes this happened to me. Hush and let me project

AO3 Link

Roman was going to murder his roommate. Or at least shave an eyebrow off in his sleep.

He had been trying to navigate a small apartment decorated in polaroids and newspaper paintings, crowded with people he didn’t know. He had done his best flitting around from group to group: parties weren’t exactly a foreign entity to him and usually he would relish in the chance to make new friends. However, he had been looking for a particularly stormy visage among the sea of people.

He locked eyes with his target: Virgil Kross, aforementioned roommate who had dragged him here in the beginning of the night and told him to stay close before uncharacteristically darting off.

The get together was for everyone in Virgil’s physics class and when Roman found him, Virgil was propped up against a wall and sitting on some steps, swirling around a cider and talking to someone in square glasses and an almost comically over-formal button down.

Virgil caught his eye and lifted an eyebrow. Roman shook his head in a restrained don’t you dare Virgil I swear sort of way. Virgil either didn’t see it or outright ignored him. He waved Roman over, made some sort of excuse that Roman didn’t hear, and left the two alone.

Roman was going to fill Virgil’s pillowcase with popcorn kernels. He was going to tape his toothbrush to the ceiling. He was going to hide his socks in the freezer. He was going to-

“Roman?”

Roman sucked in a breath, litany of threats against his horrible, no good roommate suddenly coming to a halt.

In front of him sat Logan Nova, Virgil’s study partner from when he had taken astronomy a semester ago and also, less important, the person Roman had been pining for ever since Virgil had dragged them on their fieldtrip in September. The class was supposed to map out the stars they saw, identify them, and measure their distances or something. Roman didn’t really keep track of the details. He wasn’t even too interested in looking at the stars, coming from a city where they were mostly blocked out by the light pollution.

And sure, they were pretty in the open sky, but not prettier than the wide eyes that drank them in, than the elated expression that same face had when Roman asked him a question about the class since Virgil was off probably shotgunning a beer with their professor and Roman was bored out of his mind. Logan had shown Roman his star maps and pulled out a worn out textbook with tenderly placed bookmarks of his favorite constellations. Roman had been fascinated by the stories behind them and the two spent the night going through the book, cover to cover.

By the end, Roman was sure he never thought the stars were beautiful until he saw them reflected in Logan’s eyes.

Virgil continued to bring Logan over, even after their astronomy classes had ended, sometimes completely unannounced, before flouncing off to run some errands with his art major friends (how Virgil managed to double major never ceased to amaze Roman, especially given that both those majors were so hard). And for the past six months, Roman had gone from crushing to something close to besotted. It wasn’t something very easy to hide so the next time Roman caught that spider he was going to put ice down his back and-

“Um, there aren’t anymore seats. I can move if you’d like?”

Logan’s voice brought Roman back to the present. He took an extra swig of his drink, hoping that Logan wouldn’t notice how he almost downed it for the courage, and shook his head.

“Scooch on over, Specs, we can share,” Roman said, the burn behind his sternum fueling his words.

Logan laughed, a little bubbly and Roman guessed that his cup was full of something with a similar texture, and moved for Roman to balance on half the seat.

Roman took another sip, looking out over the room of people.

“So this is what you physics people do on a Friday night, huh?” Roman asked, a little teasingly, “not bad.”

Logan bumped him and Roman barely kept his heart from fluttering out of his chest like a frantic dove.

“Did you see how drunk half the class got at the Meteor Fields?”

Roman snorted, “Fair. We almost had to carry Virgil back to the room.”

“You almost had to carry him. I did carry him.”

Roman made a noise of offense, “Excuse me! I am a knight in shining armor! Not a carriage!”

Logan laughed and Roman finally turned to look at him, startling when his face was much closer than he had anticipated.

“I don’t appreciate that I am the carriage in this metaphor,” Logan said with a faux-pout. Roman wanted to quip something back, but he had something of an elephant-sized lump in his throat. Logan tilted his head before leaning in. Roman just barely managed not to squeak.

“Goodness,” Logan said, “your eyes are so dilated!”

Roman blinked, taking another sip of his drink and trying to will a blush down.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah!” Logan exclaimed back, leaning in even more and woo-boy was he close.

Roman looked to his drink slightly, not able to hold Logan’s wide eyes for a second without turning cherry-red.

“It’s pretty bright in here, they shouldn’t be,” Roman said, trying to ‘science it out’ like Logan loved to do. Logan, mercifully to Roman’s thundering pulse, sat back a bit: considering.

“Well. Quite a few things can cause one’s pupils to dilate. Lack of light. Opiate withdrawal. Looking at someone you’re attracted to. Love. Parasympathetic activat-”

“Coke,” Roman nearly choked out. Logan paused in the list he was rattling off and blinked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Coke. I did coke. Just- whole line of cocaine all in one gulp.”

Logan furrowed his eyebrows. “You don’t drink cocaine, Roman. Furthermore-”

Roman didn’t hear the rest of Logan’s sentence. He pushed off the wire seating, sputtering out something about refilling his drink, and made a beeline for the back exit.

When he got to the balcony, he nearly slammed his head into the corner of the railing.

Well Roman thought miserably better for him to think you’re on drugs than hopelessly in love with him. Really dodged a bullet there.

The thought didn’t help. Roman let out a groan and let himself slump. He poked his legs between the columns of the balcony and swung his feet. Above him, the sky was hazy. The moon was barely visible as it peeked through a curtain of clouds. Not a star in the sky. A part of Roman thought that was rather fitting given how royally he had just messed up.

A door opened and closed behind him. For a moment, Roman thought it was Virgil from how quiet the footsteps were and was about to get up and tell him he was heading out when he turned around.

Logan Nova, adorable wavy black hair and now slightly-crumpled but still endearing button down, was staring back at him. Clutching his drink a little as he moved to sit next to Roman. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then-

“Whoever your dealer is, I don’t think they gave you cocaine,” he finally said.

Roman swiveled around to meet his eyes. Logan’s eyebrows furrowed even further.

“Your eyes are dilated again. And while that is a symptom of its ingestion, your behavior otherwise does not indicate its use.”

Something bubbled out of Roman’s throat. For a horrifying moment, Roman thought it was his drink trying to take revenge, but no- it was laughter. Croaky at first, but rapidly devolving into full-bellied howling.

“Perhaps I misjudged?” Logan said after Roman’s guffaws continued, Roman shook his head, trying to stop the shake in his shoulders as Logan, obviously more than a little concerned at Roman’s ‘illicit drug use’, got more and more worried by the minute.

“I didn’t do any drugs, Logan,” Roman finally got out between heaving breaths. Logan stuck out his bottom lip a little.

“But you said..?”

Roman waved at him, he must have misjudged the distance because his hand caught Logan’s shoulder but Roman didn’t feel like moving it.

“I know what I said,” Roman said, laughter trickling, “I know, it was stupid, I promise though. I haven’t had anything besides this crappy beer and,” Roman took in a breath, now or never he guessed, “maybe a little love,” he finished quietly, not sure whether he should thank the alcohol or curse it for letting him say it.

Logan’s eyebrows shot up, “Lovedrug? Like ecstacy?!”

“What?!” Roman shot back, looking incredulous before rubbing his face, “NO, not- not lovedrug you-UGH- how are you smart but so dense??”

Logan only blinked in return. Roman supposed he deserved that.

“Lo,” Roman said, taking his legs out of the balcony and setting them in a lazy kneel, “what were the things you listed off for making someone’s eyes dilate?”

Logan’s nose scrunched, “Em. Parasympathetic activation?”

“Keep going,” Roman said, exasperated but woefully fond.

“Ecstasy would certainly be on the list.”

“Logan.”

Logan huffed, “Ah. I believe I also said looking at someone you’re attract-”

Logan stopped. His expression almost sent Roman into hysterics again but he didn’t give in because if he did he might have ended up crying.

“Oh,” Logan said in a small voice.

“Yeah, oh” Roman echoed softly, “sorry I lied, I kind of just. Panicked. A little.”

“So you led me to believe you had taken a bad strain of cocaine?” Logan replied, voice strained but still shocked out of emotion.

Roman squirmed. “Yee. My bad, you don’t- you know. Have to say anything though. I know you don’t- I just wanted you to know since you seemed a little freaked that I was having a bad drug reaction.”

“You know I don’t what?” Logan asked suddenly as he spun to face Roman. Roman looked down and scratched his nose.

“You don’t-ugh. Don’t make me say it dude, you know what I mean.”

“Roman, look at me.”

Boy, Logan was not making it easy. But he supposed if he was going to get rejected, he should look at him straight in the eyes. At least he’d retain some of his dignity then. Roman lifted his chin.

“What color are my eyes?”

Roman blinked, a little caught off-guard from the question. Was it that obvious that Roman had been waxing poetic about Logan’s eyes in his own mind from the moment he had met him? How they caught the light and sucked it in, like two galaxies swirling in his irises. How his lashes curled naturally, almost touching his brow bone when they were alight with wonder. How it didn’t even matter now that he couldn’t see a star in the sky because they were all caught in Logan’s eyes. They were a force of gravity pulling him in and everything else with them.

“…black?” Roman said, tamping down on his raging thoughts. Logan cocked his head.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

Roman almost would have been offended if Logan hadn’t chosen that moment to tug Roman’s chin towards him.

“Look closer,” Logan said.

Breathe, dumbass Roman’s brain said. He listened to both as he squinted.

There were still the swirling galaxies in the middle. The soft gaze did nothing to curb that, but there- Roman tilted his head as he saw something else. Like the sun brimming over the earth, a honey brown at the very edges. Logan must have seen Roman’s expression as he realized it.

“My eyes are amber, Roman.”

There was something in Logan’s voice, it was the same one he used when he was helping Roman with his GenEd calc class. Like he was trying to lead him somewhere. If Logan’s eyes were amber, then his pupils must have been massive because they took up the majority of the…oh.

“But-I-I don’t,” Roman stuttered.

“What were the reasons for someone’s eyes to dilate?” Logan pushed.

“Didn’t take you for a coke guy,” Roman said, trying for cool but bordering on watery. Logan huffed, his face was so close that Roman could feel the breath.

Then, Logan’s lips were on his own and suddenly Roman could care less about eyes.

“Logan,” Roman breathed, smiling when he pulled him forward into another kiss. He turned to pepper more along his jaw bone. Logan giggled. Roman tried to stamp the sound into his brain.

“You’re amazing, you know. Amazing, smart, beautiful, so beautiful,” Roman whispered, half out of his mind as he tugged on the hair at the nape of Logan’s neck.

“Are you sure that’s not the alcohol talking?” Logan managed, though it came out a bit garbled.

“Nothing can addle my brain more than your beauty already has,” Roman replied instantly, pulling Logan in again.

Behind the window of the balcony, a blue sweater clad boy adjusted his round glasses and gleefully took a five dollar bill from a pouting spider.

“I told you all they needed was a little push,” whispered the glasses boy.

“Fucking finally,” replied the spider, not missing his five dollars all that much.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfic #logince #ts roman #ts logan #fluff #all the fluff #only fluff #I did my boy Logan dirty in the last fic so #I wrote this

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ferretbitexo-fic-den · 4 years

Text

So cold that your stare's 'bout to kill me (Nicomas)

"I'm surprised when you kiss me"

Synopsis: Nico and Thomas's first date couldn't have gone better in Thomas's opinion.

Warning: Swearing, Spoilers for Flirting with Social Anxiety, gay-mess Thomas.

...

“Which reminds me; Sanders, you’ve been holding out on me!” Nico pointed his fry at Thomas, smirking accusingly.

The two were on their first date, and everything had been going real smooth, and Janus would call him out if Thomas denied how hard he was falling.

“Oh?” Thomas smiled and arched his brows. “Really?”

(“Shit , holy shit, what did we do? Oh God, what did we do?”)

(“Relax emo, he's teasing. We're fine!” Roman reassured.)

“When you said you made YouTube videos for a living, I didn’t think you had about 3 million subscribers!” Nico exclaimed, and Thomas could’ve sworn he saw his date's pupils dilate immensely.

(“Try not to flex, Thomas.” Janus smirked, clearly teasing Roman.)

(“Oh you know he won’t!” Patton nudged the snake side. Janus let out a hearty chuckle.)

“Well, I…” Thomas stammered, finding himself in a tizzy trying to figure out how to respond to that.

(“Virgil!” Roman scolded.)

(“Here, allow me.” Logan suggested, scooting closer to Roman.”)

“It didn’t really matter how big my subscription count was, I love each and everyone of my viewers and every single letter on the comments.” Thomas scratched the back of his head looking down on his burger.

(“Aww, Logan!” Patton and Roman cooed as Virgil and Janus smirked warmly. Logan denied the claims on his red meta-physical face.)

Nico smiled at Thomas, causing a flood of euphoria to come crashing down on him.

“Well, that's really sweet.” Nico said, placing his hand on Thomas’s.

He could hear the distinct screams of Patton and Roman in his head.

“Yeah, they mean a ton to me.” Thomas answered with a very sweet sigh.

There was silence between them for a while, but Thomas knew Nico had something to say, so they waited.

(“Shit, did we do something wrong? Fuck, is he mad?”)

(“Virgil, it's quite unlikely that he's mad at Thomas for not mentioning his subscriber count.”)

(“But what if he is?”)

(“Let's ask him shall we?” Janus said, scooting beside Roman.)

“What is it?” Thomas asked, biting his lower lip.

Nico looked him in the eyes, almost embarrassed. He mirrored Thomas' lip bite and intertwined his hand with Thomas’s own.

“Is this okay?” Nico asked.

Thomas gave up on trying to hide his smile hours ago. “Absolutely.” He echoed Janus’s words

(“This is… actually going great.” Janus remarked. Sarcasm and cynicism were absent from his statement.)

Nico exhaled. “Can I ask you something?”

(“Can I panic now?” Virgil asked, fingernails in between his lips.)

“Anything.” Roman made Thomas say.

Nico pursed his lips. “About Sanders Sides.”

Thomas could hear the simultaneous screams in his head, short-circuited by his date’s question.

“Oh jeez! Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.” Nico stammered, redder than Roman's sashn fearing that he might have crossed a line.

“No, it’s fine!” Thomas said under Virgil’s influence.

(All the sides looked at their anxiety in awe.)

“The sides, well, they’re, sorta like, I guess,” Thomas stammered as Virgil looked to Roman and Janus for help.

“Sanders Sides is kind of my way of discussing my emotional issues and mental turmoil in a light, sort-of gentle way.”

(“Thanks, Logan.” Virgil relaxed a bit.)

“Are they…” Nico prompted, motioning to Thomas's head.

“Yeah, they are.” Thomas replied sheepishly.

“Cool…” Nico said breathlessly. “I love them.” Nico leaned in to pressed a kiss on Thomas’s lips.

Thomas let out a dignified squeak which Nico laughed at. He buried his face in his hands, hiding his embarrassment from his endeared datemate.

(“FIRST DATE AND WE ALREADY GOT A KISS!” Roman yelled. Virgil froze right where he sat. Patton got up and began running around the room.)

(“He said, the L-word…” Virgil muttered, causing everyone to stop. )

The screams in his head made Thomas flinch.

…

“Can I please sleep now?” Thomas groaned.

“Hun, his smile was so perfect, how did you get so lucky?” Remy sat at the foot of his bed legs crossed and day(night) dreaming.

Thomas buried his face in his pillow with a groan.

“And his voice! It was so dreamy! Boy, you can not let go of him!”

“Let me sleep! It's 2 am!”

Remy was right. Thomas just can’t let a boy like Nico go.

TAGLIST❤

@shadowjag , @wigsnatchedhoteltrivago , @arsonenthusiast , @i-love-my-dark-strange-sons @phantom-moonfire , @lostonehero , @awkward-child-of-satan , @deetheimposter , @ashtonbby2 , @lokiamorstuffs , @janus-the-sassy-snek-boi , @eeveeeclair246 @enragedbees , @franthehorsegir

Ask to be added or removed. Ilyasm!!!!

#logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #thomas sanders #nico flores #character!thomas #remy sanders #sanders sides #sanders asides #ts spoilers #tw swearing #pintroverts #karrot kings #flirting with social anxiety #nicomas

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snowdice · 2 years

Text

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 93]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Part 30 Part 31 Part 32 Part 33 Part 34 Part 35 Part 36 Part 37 Part 38 Part 39 Part 40 Part 41

Going to work a bit this afternoon. Getting stuff ready for my summer class.

Chapter 42 (Patton)

“Come on,” Patton urged. “You’re already all dressed up.”

Virgil made a dissatisfied noise like a cat that had just been picked up from its spot on a heated blanket.

“We’ll barely be outside five minutes,” Patton said. “You won’t even notice the cold.”

“Will so,” Virgil argued back.

“Honestly,” Logan said. “I don’t think you’ll even feel the cold in that get up.”

They had, indeed covered the boy from head to toe. He currently looked a couple of inches taller and wider than he actually was bundled up with every piece of extra snow gear they could find.

He looked adorable with only his eyes uncovered even if said eyes were glaring at them both. However, Patton was a little worried he’d overheat if they didn’t leave soon.

“I don’t like snow,” Virgil said.

Virgil still looked unconvinced.

“Just half an hour, Virgil, please,” Logan said.

“…Fine,” Virgil relented.

“Great,” said Patton, grabbing his coat sleeve and tugging him towards the door. Logan followed behind and Princess Marisol seeing they were going somewhere, got up and padded after them.

Princess Marisol, for her part, saw Patton open the door, hissed, and abandoned them to strut off towards the kitchen.

“She knows what she’s talking about,” mumbled Virgil.

Patton sighed.

“Come on Virgil, I promise it won’t be that bad.” Patton offered a gloved hand. “You can hold my hand the whole way.”

Luckily, it did seem to be keeping him warm enough because, while he was tense, he still let Patton lead him forward.

“…Hello,” Virgil said quietly.

“Hi,” she said. “I hear you wanted to see the horses.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, we have plenty for you to meet and they’re mostly all inside because of the cold. Usually in the summer most want to spend a lot of time in the pasture. Let me show you around.”

“Have you worked with horses before?” Loraine asked a bit into the tour after Virgil expressed interest in what they were feeding some of the older horses.

“I used to help take care of horses sometimes when people came to visit the orphanage,” he said. “They’re nice.”

“Do you ride?” Loraine asked.

Virgil shook his head. “I just fed them and cleaned up after them,” he said.

“Well, maybe you can try to learn when it gets a bit warmer,” she offered. “It’s a lot of fun.”

He nodded. “That would be nice,” he said.

After that, she mostly let them wander around looking at different horses in the stalls. She even let them feed some of the gentler ones who didn’t have a specific diet.

“Right,” Logan said. “We should probably be heading back inside, but I would like to stop by and see Mr. Apples before leaving. Otherwise, he will be cross with me.”

“Mr. Apples?” Virgil asked.

“He’s one of the horses,” Logan explained, moving to where the different treats were kept for the horses.

“Why do you need to see him in particular?”

Logan paused, his hand hovering briefly over the container of red apples before reaching in to grab one. “He was my Pa’s horse,” he said. “He likes when I visit him.”

“Logan’s the only one he likes visiting him,” Loraine added as she started to lead them towards where Mr. Apples’ stall was.

Now, he stood on the other side of the hall from where Mr. Apples was as Logan stepped forward to greet him.

Logan spoke to him softly for a bit and he nuzzled his face against Logan’s shoulder with a huff. Eventually, he offered a piece of apple which Mr. Apple happily took.

“Can I say hello to him?” Virgil asked.

Logan glanced back at him. “Sure,” he said, “though be careful. He doesn’t like… anyone besides me.”

“Wait,” Logan said. “He bites actually and…” Mr. Apples pressed his nose to Virgil’s hand softly and Virgil gently stroked it a couple of times.

“Huh,” said Loraine. “You’re officially the third person he’s ever liked, and you could say Prince Logan was cheating since he was grandfathered in as a baby.”

“Really?” Virgil asked. “He seems nice enough.”

Loraine rolled her eyes. Patton noticed she was standing a good distance away from the stall herself. “Oh no,” she said. “Trust me. He’s a bastard to everyone else.”

Virgil just frowned and pet the horse’s nose again. Mr. Apples leaned forward to nibble at his hair a bit.

Chapter 43 (Logan)

Logan woke once again being strangled by an assassin. He sighed and attempted to squirm away. Virgil made an unhappy grumbling noise at the movement and squeezed him tighter. “I am just,” Logan said, shoving at the arm around him, “trying to get into a position where I can breathe.”

Unfortunately, there was no reasoning with an unconscious Virgil. Getting into an upright position was a battle and the boy was laying across his lap by the time he managed it, clutching one of Logan’s arms.

Logan huffed at his sleeping form, reaching over with his free arm to switch on his bedside lamp.

Despite how warm the room was, Logan assumed the temperature outside was extremely cold today. Virgil seemed to have some internal thermostat that seemed to know how cold it was outside even while snug in Logan’s bedroom. The tighter the boy clung in his sleep, the colder Logan knew it must be. Logan looked down at Virgil’s face. He and Patton had wanted to convince Virgil to spend a bit of time outside today, but if it was as cold as Virgil’s behavior indicated, perhaps they should wait for another day.

Logan reached over for the book on his nightstand that he’d learned to keep there for this exact reason. His reading speed had actually increased since Virgil’s arrival at the castle which was impressive. He’d only gotten this book two days before and was worried he’d finish it before Virgil woke this morning.

Luckily, he was incorrect, and Virgil began to stir a bit earlier than he usually did. Logan glanced down from his book when he felt Virgil shift only to find his eyes were open and staring at Logan.

“Good morning,” Logan greeted. Virgil’s fingers squeezed Logan’s arms lightly much like one would expect the cat currently sleeping soundly on Virgil’s pillow to knead its paws into its chosen person.

“Hi,” Virgil said, groggily. “Book?”

“It’s a book about various trade agreements that happened in the last 500 years,” Logan said, knowing what he was asking.

“Interesting?” Virgil asked.

Logan smiled a bit. “You would likely not be particularly interested since you do not already have knowledge of the players nor the politics of trade agreements in general.”

“Oh, okay,” Virgil said with a yawn.

Logan felt fondness warm his chest. “I can read you a different book if you would like,” he offered.

Virgil eyed the book in Logan’s hand. “You’re almost done with that one,” he pointed out. “You can finish it first.”

“You just want an excuse to continue to lay in bed,” Logan accused fondly.

Virgil did not even bother arguing, shifting a bit so he was laying with his head on his own pillow, but curling into Logan’s side. He was calm this morning which was honestly an odd thing. He was rarely truly calm while awake and even in sleep his face was sometimes pinched in tension. Logan and Patton’s plans for exposure therapy to cold weather seemed to help his resting anxiety level a bit, but it was still much higher than it was for normal people. Right now, though, he seemed fully content.

Logan was glad he could feel this comfortable near him, perhaps even comfortable because Logan was near. It was a striking contrast to how he’d been when he’d come here or even how he’d been when he’d accidently slapped Logan. He felt a surge of… something more than the standard sympathy one might feel for someone when he thought of Virgil’s fear and what had transpired to cause it. It was a bit like anger, but not quite. He could not quite put a name to it, but he did know it made him want to make sure nothing bad ever happened to him again. He would ensure nothing bad ever happened to him again no matter what it took.

Logan read for a little while longer. Virgil was still and calm most of the time, but Logan was pretty sure he didn’t go back to sleep. He shifted to look up at Logan when he set the book on the nightstand.

“Would you like to go to the library with me this morning?” Logan asked. “I need a new book and perhaps we could get you something too for your reading lessons. I was thinking we could go to the main library.” He had never taken Virgil there yet as there did tend to be a few more people than the more secluded library Logan favored. Yet, he’d been getting marginally more comfortable in small crowds, and Logan thought he might like to see it.

“Sure,” Virgil agreed easily. “After breakfast though?”

“Of course,” Logan agreed. “We don’t want Ms. Heart to get on us about your eating schedule again.”

Virgil nodded in agreement and climbed out of bed to get dressed. They had a short meal in the dining hall. Virgil was still adamant that Logan did not eat any of the muffins set out on the table, and with Patton still reportedly in bed, Logan did not have nearly enough social prowess on his side to argue with him this morning. Instead, they only ate things straight from the kitchen. Virgil still got a card with his meal which Logan had to fill out for him at the end. As always, he ranked everything on the plate a ‘5/5.’

The library wasn’t too far from the main dining hall. It was in the opposite direction of the way they would go if they were going back to the royal wing past the ballroom and through the entryway. In the summer, they would have gone through the courtyard. In fact, if it had been just Logan, he would have ran across the open area quickly despite not having a coat, but with Virgil in tow, he chose to walk all the way around. Though honestly, since it was Virgil’s first time entering the library, it would be more impressive entering it from its main entrance than from the side one that castle residents in a hurry would use.

He looked over at Virgil as he pushed open the library doors to see his reaction. Virgil’s eyes widened a bit as he saw the huge room with the many bookshelves.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Logan asked with a smile.

“You have two stories of books?” Virgil asked, looking at the spiral staircase that led to the second floor, awed. “I didn’t even… There are more books than I’ve ever seen in my life in this one room.

“And these are just the things available to the general public. There are also record rooms only used by certain people and rooms with restricted book access based on skill, like some magic books.”

“That’s a lot…” Virgil said. What was maybe insecurity flashed through his eyes.

“It’s an overwhelming amount of knowledge, but different people can find what they need,” Logan said, pulling him out of the doorway and towards where they keep the children’s books. “Here, let’s go get books you can try to read yourself and then we’ll find some books you would be interested in that I can read to you.” They stopped at a shelf. “These would be perhaps just a bit beyond your current reading level, but they would be a good challenge, I believe. Pick whichever you like.”

Virgil took a moment to stare at the pictures on the books. He squinted at the titles for a bit longer and asked Logan what a few said before choosing some from the shelf. Two of them were about different crops and one was about a family of foxes.

“Are those three enough?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Virgil replied.

“Do you want to explore the library a bit or just get a book for me to read you and leave?” Logan asked, not wanting to overwhelm him.

“I’d like to look around a bit,” Virgil replied.

“Okay.”

Logan had frequented the main library when he’d been younger. Though he often spent his time now in the smaller library that had been tailored to his specific interests, he still came to the main library fairly frequently. He knew many good places to sit with a book. There were nice window seats that looked out into the courtyard and a corner near a small fireplace. Logan showed him the door that led to the courtyard and where the door to the more restricted books were, though they didn’t go into any of them right now.

Virgil seemed to like the library well enough, following Logan around willingly. Logan did have to pull him away from a few places when he looked a bit too intently at some high, but sturdy bookshelves. And the chandelier.

He did look like he was constantly straddling the line between being in awe of and being overwhelmed by the size of the library, so Logan decided to end the tour after a bit and work on picking out a book.

“What type of book would you like to read?” Logan asked.

Virgil shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Whatever you think is best is fine. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“But I’ve chosen every book I’ve read to you so far,” Logan said with a frown. “We should get something tailored to your interests.”

“I don’t have interests, Logan,” Virgil said with an eyeroll.

“You have some interests,” Logan said.

Virgil raised an eyebrow.

“You like climbing,” Logan said, “and… horses. You and Mr. Deknis seem to get along.”

“Are there books about climbing?” Virgil asked.

“There are books about everything,” Logan claimed.

“Bullshit.”

Logan narrowed his eyes. “Careful with that language. Just because Patton isn’t here doesn’t mean you get to be crude.”

Virgil rolled his eyes.

“I will tattle.”

“Fuck,” said Virgil.

Logan shook his head in exasperation but couldn’t help but smile a bit. There was something about Virgil when he felt comfortable enough to be slightly unruly that made Logan happy. It felt like a glimpse of the actual Virgil beneath his usual caution towards the world.

“How about we ask the librarian if there are any books on climbing,” Logan suggested. “Dr. Macey knows where all of the books would be. I can introduce you to them.”

Virgil didn’t look particularly pleased about meeting a new person, but he also didn’t seem overly distressed by the thought, so Logan tugged him along to the librarian’s small office where Logan had seen them disappear a few minutes ago. He knocked on the door.

It swung open a few seconds later and Dr. Macey’s head poked out. “Good morning, Prince Logan,” they said. They glanced at Virgil, “and, Virgil, I would assume.”

“I’ve mentioned you,” Logan said because he saw Virgil immediately start to freak out about a random person knowing his name. Though, honestly, he was sure Dr. Macey had heard about him from other sources as well. He turned back to the librarian. “I was wondering if you could help Virgil pick out a book. He hasn’t gotten many chances to read in his life and isn’t sure what type of thing he’d like. Also, if it could somehow involve climbing to prove a point, that would be appreciated.”

“Climbing, eh?” Dr. Macey asked, thinking for a couple of seconds. “I think I can probably find something.”

Dr. Macey spent a bit of time looking through the shelves. They made small talk with Virgil, and while Virgil seemed a bit guarded (likely because Dr. Macey was asking questions about him trying to figure out more about what type of book he liked), he seemed fairly calm. Logan was pleased to think he liked the library. Maybe when he was a bit better at reading and he’d adjusted more to the size of the room and the concept that other castle residents could come around, he’d want to spend some time down here.

Eventually, Dr. Macey picked out three options and let Virgil choose which one he wanted. There was a fantasy book, an adventure story, and a mystery story.

“All of these have to do with climbing?” Virgil asked skeptically.

“There’s at least one good long climb in each,” Dr. Macey promised with a smile.

Virgil studied the books for a long moment. Eventually, he pointed to one that had the title, “Into the Mist,” which was the fantasy book.

“Good choice,” Dr. Macey said. Logan was certain they would have said that regardless of which Virgil chose, but Virgil still lit up slightly at the praise. The librarian handed the book to Virgil and set the other two aside to reshelve later.

“Thank you, Dr. Macey,” Logan said.

“If you need anything else, let me know,” they said.

“I think that’s it for today,” Logan said. “Let’s go back upstairs Virgil.”

Virgil nodded, clutching his chosen book as they left the library.

Chapter 44 (Thomas)

Loraine had called Thomas down to the stables to talk about a concern that had cropped up about their grain stores. They’d found mold in one of the grain bins which had, of course, soiled everything stored there. Luckily it ended up being one of the smaller grain bins, but it still provided some concern for getting through the winter. As it was, they would be able to make it through, but a lot less comfortably.

Thomas mostly trusted the three who ran the animal husbandry on the castle’s lands to deal with it, but he still provided his opinion when asked.

The meeting had taken a few hours. When he’d come down, the sun had been shining. It had been still cold, but not as freezing the last few days, though he was under no illusion that winter was anywhere near over. A point which was emphasized when he stepped out of Loraine’s office and glanced out of a window only to see what appeared to be a blizzard happening outside.

Great. He wasn’t exactly enthused about walking back to the castle in that. Wanting to delay it as long as possible, he turned away from the window and walked towards the other end of the stable.

He grabbed an apple along the way, intending to feed it to Mr. Apples while convincing himself to make the jaunt back up to the castle. To his surprise, Mr. Apple’s head didn’t pop into the hall upon hearing someone enter his domain (aka the hall outside of his stall). This was odd as Mr. Apples was a territorial bastard who was always sure to be prepared to confront anyone who came within range or eat an apple if the person invading his space happened to be one of the few he wouldn’t attempt to bite on sight. Yet, no white nose popped into sight.

When Thomas approached the stall, he figured out why. There was someone in the stall, but unlike most instances of someone being in a stall with Mr. Apples, the person was not being bitten, spit at, or anything else. Instead, Mr. Apples was standing there calm as day as Virgil ran a brush over his flank.

Thomas stared at them for a moment. He found himself wondering if Mr. Apples had died and someone had replaced him with another white horse so the royal family didn’t get upset like one might replace a child’s dead goldfish if it dies while they’re away.

However, then, Mr. Apples realized he was there. The disdain in his expression upon catching sight of Thomas told him this was no imposter. He apparently by some miracle had just found another person he liked. Which… did pose an issue for Thomas.

Virgil had calmed down around his presence a bit ever since Thomas had found him hiding in the castle, but Thomas wasn’t sure how he would feel about being confronted by Thomas’s presence without warning. In the past, he’d been rather jumpy. If Thomas startled a person Mr. Apples liked in front of Mr. Apples, the tentative peace between Thomas and the horse would surely be over.

He debated simply walking away like Mr. Apples’ expression was insisting, but before he could, Virgil glanced up at him. Thankfully, he didn’t jump. He looked at Thomas for a second, seeming a bit unsure. They hadn’t been alone since he’d stopped being completely terrified of Thomas’s existence after all, but eventually settled on saying, “Uh, hello your majesty.”

“Hello Virgil,” Thomas replied with a small smile. “You can just call me Thomas if you’d like.”

Virgil didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Thomas dropped it for now.

“Mr. Apples seems to like you,” he said.

“He’s a good horse,” Virgil said, patting Mr. Apples’ side. Mr. Apples sent Thomas a smug look. Well, this… was a very familiar conversation.

Having learned long ago not to bother arguing his case, Thomas just said, “He doesn’t like many people.”

“Logan said that,” Virgil said.

“Where is Logan?” Thomas asked, curious. Usually, Virgil wasn’t too far from him or Patton, but Thomas hadn’t seen a sign of them in the stable.

“He’s studying in his library,” Virgil said, “but I wanted to come to the stable since the weather was slightly nicer.”

“And Patton?”

“He had a meeting with your advisor.”

“Makes sense,” Thomas said. He was glad Virgil was apparently comfortable enough now to go places without one of the other boys. He reluctantly supposed he had Mr. Apples to thank for that. “I brought him and apple. Would you like to feed it to him?”

“Sure,” Virgil said.

Thomas smiled and handed over one of the apple slices over the stall gate to Virgil who fed it to Mr. Apples. Once the horse was finished with that slice, Thomas handed him another.

“Don’t you want to feed it some to him?” Virgil asked.

“He’ll enjoy it much more from you,” Thomas replied.

Virgil frowned, but Mr. Apples threw his head in agreement. Virgil ended up feeding the rest of the apple to the horse.

“Would you like to walk back to the castle with me?” Thomas asked once the horse was busy chowing down on his last slice.

“Sure,” Virgil replied. Thomas smiled at him and helped him put away the brush and other supplies he’d been using on Mr. Apples.

Everything went smoothly until he and Virgil moved to leave the stable. The second that Virgil’s eyes saw the weather conditions outside he paused. Thomas did have to admit that he also wasn’t a fan of what was going on outside. The castle was only a dark blob in the distance when the snow was falling that fast.

Yet, there was something different about Virgil’s expression. It didn’t just seem like reluctance to get cold and wet. Thomas had unfortunately seen Virgil terrified a few times before and it was definitely fear flashing in his eyes right now.

“Are you alright?” Thomas asked softly. Virgil jumped at his voice, but for once Thomas didn’t think he had himself to blame for that.

“I…” Virgil hesitated. “I’m just going to stay here for a while.”

Thomas looked at him and then at the snow outside. “You don’t like the snow, I assume?”

Virgil curled one arm around his waist, gripping the opposite wrist. He shrugged one shoulder. “Bad experience.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, “I see.” The child was looking away from Thomas as well as from the snow outside. His eyes were fixed on a bale of hay. “I guess we’ll just stay out here for a bit.”

Virgil’s eyes shot back to him. “You don’t have to stay,” he said. “It’s fine.”

Thomas shrugged. “I didn’t really want to go out in that anyway.”

Virgil bit his lip. “You’re king,” he said. “You have important things to do. You don’t need to sit out in a horse stable with me because of my issues.”

“You’ll be amazed how much time I’ve spent sitting in a horse stable in my life, king or not,” Thomas said with a rueful smile.

Virgil still seemed unsure. “You don’t have to,” he said. There was no way Thomas was going to leave a child who was afraid of snowstorms for whatever reason alone in a horse stable even if he wouldn’t technically be alone with all of the workers.

“It’s fine,” said Thomas. “I’m sure the stable hands would be willing to share some of the tea in their breakroom with us. We’ll wait for a bit and then see if the storm decides to let up later.”

“If you’re sure,” Virgil said.

“I am,” Thomas said with a smile before leading him towards the staff breakroom and away from the sight of the snow falling outside.

Chapter 45 (Virgil)

The king took him a little room in the center of the stables. There were two people sitting in the room when they entered. They looked up at their entrance, but didn’t spare them a second glance, going back to playing a game with cards. This both made sense because the king should be able to go wherever he wanted without question and didn’t make sense because Virgil had assumed most people working for the castle would jump into asking if the king needed anything when he entered a room.

Instead, the king walked over to a small counter at the side of the room.

If Virgil did not know that he was the king, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell. He’d dressed to be in a horse stable today. There was no crown or any jewelry really in sight except for a necklace. His clothing was perhaps of better quality than most who worked in a stable would wear every day, but not by a large margin. He could have just been a stable manager or something if Virgil did not know better.

He glanced back at Virgil once he’d grabbed a few clean cups. “What would you like to drink?” he asked.

“I don’t care,” Virgil said.

“Have you tried hot apple cider before?” the king asked.

Virgil shook his head.

“Well, it looks like they have some cider being kept warm here,” he said touching a small barrel that was sitting on the counter. There was a slight glow to the barrel that Virgil recognized as a heating enchantment.

“Sure,” Virgil said. “I like apples.”

The king smiled and turned to pour out a glass of the drink through a spigot on the side of the barrel. He offered it to Virgil. The king was serving Virgil a drink. That was… really weird. He was a weird king.

He took the cup. It was warm from the drink and Virgil felt some of the tension that had been in his shoulders since he’d seen the amount of snow outside release as his fingers warmed up.

“It has more spices than things like apple juice,” the king said. “Mostly cinnamon, but also things like cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.”

Virgil didn’t really know what any of those things tasted like off of the top of his head other than cinnamon and, of course, apples. He took a cautious sip anyway.

“Like it?” the king asked, a smile growing on his face quickly in response to whatever face Virgil was making.

Virgil nodded vigorously.

“Good,” the king said with a chuckle. He turned to get another glass of the apple cider for himself. “Let’s sit,” he said motioning with his head to a couch. It was the only free seating available other than one extra chair at the table where the two stable hands were playing cards.

Virgil did as he said, walking over to the couch and taking a seat. It was an old, but comfortable couch. Most of the things in this room seemed pretty old, though all in good condition. It made sense that they wouldn’t want to have a bunch of new furniture when people were just using it to take a break between cleaning horse stalls.

It was a nice little room all the same and warmer than the rest of the building. The two stable hands had slung their light coats over the backs of their chairs and the king also took his off before sitting. Virgil kept his on.

There were a few hooks where it looked like the workers kept their heavier winter coats for when they left the stable as well as some bags and a couple of paintings.

“That one looks like Mr. Apples,” Virgil pointed out.

The king glanced at the painting. “It is Mr. Apples actually,” he told Virgil.

“He was absolutely impossible to keep still for it. He went back in forth from trying to bite the artist to trying to show off for his owner. I’m pretty sure the artist made his eyes red if you look close enough just to express his displeasure somehow.”

“Logan?” Virgil asked.

“Oh, no,” said the king. “That was when my husband was alive.”

Virgil immediately internally cringed. Externally he said a quick “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” said the king. “He’s not a taboo topic to me.”

Virgil searched his face, but he really didn’t seem mad. There was maybe a bit of sadness around his expression, but he wasn’t angry.

“Logan always seems upset when he mentions him.”

“He’s mentioned him to you?” the king asked, sounding surprised.

“A few times,” Virgil said. “He said the headpiece was his favorite and, when he realized I didn’t like the snow, he tried to convince me it wasn’t all bad by telling me how they used to play in the snow when he was little.

“Logan doesn’t usually talk about him much,” the king said. “He was just a child when he died. It hit him very hard.”

Virgil had noticed that himself.

“It’s good he’s talking about him at least a bit.” The king mused, taking a sip of his drink. “He was the son of a stable hand here.”

“You married a stable hand’s son?” Virgil asked and something about his tone made the king laugh.

“I did,” he confirmed. “We met when we were teenagers about your age. His father had come to work at the castle, and they lived in one of the houses out back. There weren’t many kids in the castle at the time and we both liked the gardens and the orchard, so we ended up friends.”

This knowledge just reaffirmed to Virgil that Logan’s dad was an odd king. From what little Virgil knew of princes, they were not supposed to befriend the children of stable hands they met in the gardens and kings were certainly not supposed to marry them. Then again, Logan was also a prince and he had befriended an assassin he found in his bedroom. In fact, now that he thought about it, Patton was now a royal advisor in training, but even he was just the son of a chef.

Perhaps the royalty of Prijaznia were just like that. He was once again glad he hadn’t managed to kill the king.

He’d been glad for a while now. At first it had been because he’d gotten to know Logan and knew killing his dad would have made him sad. Now, though, he thought it was a good thing he didn’t kill the king because the king didn’t deserve to die from what Virgil had seen. He was nice.

He even got up and got Virgil more of the apple cider when he finished his first cup of it. He continued to sit with him and talk to him about different things like what he, Logan, and Patton had been doing in the past few days.

Eventually, the king went to go check if the weather was any better, leaving Virgil to finish his third glass of cider.

“It’s snowing less hard now,” the king told him when he got back, “but it’s still snowing. It’s also going to start to get dark soon. Do you want to try to go back?”

Virgil didn’t really. He didn’t want to be outside when it was snowing at all, but he also really wanted to be back at the castle before it was night. He’d much prefer to sleep in a bed or even in his closet than somewhere in the stable.

“Yeah, we can try to go back,” Virgil replied.

“Alright,” the king said. He grabbed his coat off of the couch from where he’d set it. Virgil had also taken off his coat eventually, so he grabbed his as well. Once they were both dressed, they walked back to the stable door.

Virgil hesitated when he saw the snow. It was better than it had been earlier, but it still was falling fairly hard. He shifted nervously. That was going to be cold.

At least now he could see the castle clearly, so he didn’t have to worry about getting lost in the snow and dying… probably.

“Here,” said the king. He reached for Virgil slowly and Virgil tensed but allowed it. The king took off the hood Virgil had put up and readjusted the cloth hat under it so it was over his ears before putting the hood back up. He pulled on some strings that Virgil hadn’t realized until right then tightened the hood so it wouldn’t fall off his head in the wind. Then, the king took off the scarf around his own neck and wrapped it twice around Virgil, so it covered his mouth and nose. The only exposed area of his face was now his eyes.

“Now will get the least amount of snow on you as possible,” the king said.

“Thanks,” Virgil said. It came out a little muffled.

He smiled at him. “Do you,” he asked, sounding a bit awkward, “want to hold my hand?”

He didn’t particularly. He’d held hands with Logan and Patton before, but that was different. This was the king. Then again… he looked out at the snow. He really didn’t want to risk getting lost in the snow and he was less likely to get lost in the snow if he was holding on to someone, especially someone who knew his way around the castle grounds very well.

Biting his lip behind the borrowed scarf, he decided he’d already taken way too many liberties when it came to the king. He shook his head no. “No thank you.”

“Alright,” said the king. “Offer is open if you change your mind. Ready to go?”

Virgil nodded, grimacing as he stepped out into the cold, the king at his side. Even with the nice winter coat from Logan and the king’s scarf, it was still noticeably cold. Still, he was not cold enough to justify the icy chill that went down his spine and the way his lungs felt frozen solid causing him to pant trying to take in air. It shouldn’t be this way. He’d been in much colder weather for much longer and with a lot less.

“Are you alright?” the king asked when Virgil couldn’t help but slow down to a stop, shivering.

Virgil looked up at him. Unlike Virgil’s face, he had no scarf to protect him from the weather, but he didn’t seem concerned about that. He seemed much more concerned about Virgil. His reddening face was pinched, and he didn’t look like a man as powerful as a king. He looked like… well, he looked like a concerned father, like Logan’s father.

“Can…” Virgil choked out. He held out his hand.

“Of course,” he said. “Like I said, the offer is open.” He reached forward and wrapped his fingers around Virgil’s. Virgil immediately felt the warmth of them, though it may have been more in his head. There were two pairs of thick gloves between their skin.

Logan’s dad led him by the hand all the way back to the castle.

Chapter 46 (Patton)

Patton hadn’t been aware until Virgil came along what Mr. Deknis did in the winter. Most of his staff had gone home for the winter or had winter tasks to do, but Mr. Deknis and a few choice members of his staff still apparently did a lot despite not being able to plant anything. He frequently invited Virgil to join in on these tasks, and Virgil often accepted. Patton wasn’t sure why he seemed to enjoy things like deep cleaning gardening tools and checking over equipment, but he did, so Patton was glad.

“Alright, that’s enough of that for today,” Mr. Deknis said once Virgil finished brushing off the paste that had been applied to remove rust from a hoe.

“Are you sure?” Virgil asked. “I have more time to work. Even if you need to go, I can still work on something. Unless you don’t want me messing with things without supervision…”

“I’m not telling you to leave, Virgil,” Mr. Deknis said with a half-smile. “I just thought you might want to help me out with something else today.”

“Oh, okay. Sure,” Virgil agreed, sounding just a touch excited.

“Let’s put all of this away,” Mr. Deknis said.

Virgil and Patton helped him put things away, though Patton felt more like a hindrance as both Mr. Deknis and Virgil seemed to know exactly where everything in the room went whereas Patton wasn’t sure about some things.

Patton didn’t always come with Virgil when he was helping out Mr. Deknis. Sometimes Logan would come instead, and Virgil had been coming alone with increasing frequency over the last month or so.

He seemed to like it. He always seemed to look forward to spending time with Mr. Deknis and not only because Mr. Deknis often bribed him with snacks of dried or pickled fruits and vegetables.

Once all of the tools and cleaning equipment were stored away, Mr. Deknis led them down the hall. Mr. Deknis had an entire hall to himself on the first floor of the castle which included his bedroom as well as places to dry and can things.

Where he was leading them to now was a small study next to his bedroom. Patton had never been there before and by the way Virgil was curiously looking around, neither had he. It was a cute little area with a small desk and a bookshelf full of books that seemed to all be on plants.

“I’m starting to think about what I want to grow in the gardens next year,” Mr. Deknis explained as they crammed into the small office. He pointed to a large piece of paper on his desk. “This is the plan at the moment though it’s nowhere near finalized.”

He pointed at a sketched out square on the large paper. “I was thinking I wanted to plant something new here, but I don’t know what. It’s just a small patch between the vegetable and flower garden. It’s sort of by the one three teared fountain. I usually use that patch for newer plants, so it could be a vegetable or a flower. I was thinking you could help me pick out something to put there.”

Virgil looked up at him eyes wide.

Mr. Deknis smiled at him. “Would you like to?”

“I…” Virgil said. “I wouldn’t have any idea what to put.”

“Well, I have a few different books of plants you can flip through,” he said. “Any idea what kind of plant you’d like to grow?”

Virgil shrugged.

“I’ll just give you a few for now,” Mr. Deknis said, selecting three different books. “If you can’t find anything you like, just let me know and I’ll give you another book. There are plenty of different types of things to grow. This is just a start.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said, eyes staring down at the field of flowers drawn on the cover of the book on the top of the stack in his arms.

They spent the afternoon on the floor of Mr. Deknis’ living room. The gardener made them some lavender tea and let them eat some candied walnuts and then retreated to an armchair to read his own book about plants. Patton and Virgil laid on the floor flipping through the different books. Virgil still wasn’t very good at reading, so Patton would read the descriptions of the plants that caught his eye to him. One of the books was about different vegetables and one was about herbs, which of course, did catch Virgil’s attention a bit because of his love for edible things, yet the pictures of flowers seemed to interest him the most.

They ended up eventually looking only in the flower book. A while after that, it became clear that he preferred flowers in the orchid family verses composite flowers because he liked the shape of their petals better. So, then they focused more on looking at the different types of orchids that existed.

“There are a lot more types of orchids than I knew there were,” Patton said.

“It’s the second largest family of flowers,” Mr. Deknis told them from his chair. “There’s a lot of different kinds, over 28,000 species at least. Vanilla comes from an orchid plant. If there are none in that book you especially want, I could get a book specifically on orchids.”

Virgil, having already flipped through the book multiple times looking at the orchids, looked up at him with a bit of excitement in his eyes. “I would like that,” he said. “Yes, please.”

Mr. Deknis’ eyes softened on him and he got to his feet. “I’ll go see what I have in the office.”

“Getting to grow something in the garden is exciting,” Patton said once Mr. Deknis left.

“Yeah,” Virgil replied. “It is.”

It was very nice of Mr. Deknis too, Patton thought. He didn’t have to offer to let Virgil plant something, in fact, him happening to have an empty patch in his plans was probably a little bit of a fib, but it was a nice one.

Virgil liked plants and it would give him something to look forward to over the winter and then something to do in the spring and summer. Honestly, Patton could wait to see him experience the castle in the spring. He’d already loved it in the fall, let alone when things started to grow. Patton had a feeling he’d be spending a lot more time outside this summer.

Mr. Deknis came back with a good sized book filled with pictures of flowers. “Why don’t you take this with you for tonight,” he suggested. “It’s almost dinner time. We can talk about it more when you come to help me again on Saturday.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said, taking the book. “I will see you Saturday then.”

“See you Saturday, Virgil,” he said with a smile.

Chapter 47 (Logan)

Logan and Virgil had gotten into the habit of having reading lessons in the afternoons 3 times a week. They would sit in the small library near the royal wing for an hour or two and do different things. Logan had started with just teaching him letters, but he’d memorized those long ago at this point. Now, Logan would spend most of the time having him read simpler books out loud and correcting any mistakes he made along the way. Improvement was surprisingly fast, though in truth, Logan hadn’t had any measure for how long it would take a teenager to learn to read and Virgil was quite dedicated.

Usually, their lessons ended with Logan reading a more complicated book while letting him follow along. The last week, they had been reading the library book Virgil had chosen for himself, Into the Mist. It was an interesting book to read to Virgil, though Logan was unsure if it would be as interesting if he were to read it on his own. In truth, it was a good, but rather ordinary fantasy book. Virgil, however, seemed incredibly fascinated by it. He had never heard a high fantasy story before in his life and he was constantly comparing and contrasting things in the book to things he understood in real life as well as asking Logan about them.

It also became clear that Virgil did not quite understand real life fully. He attributed the same amount of awe to hearing the ocean being described as he did to the main character’s climb up the sky to a cloud city in hopes of saving his love interest’s life. In fact, he seemed more in awe of Logan’s explanation of the ocean since it actually existed. Logan had a sudden intense urge to plan a trip to see an ocean at some point in the future. Lamir was a costal country and its castle sat on top of a cliff that overlooked the sea.

It would be easy enough to take a trip to their ally’s country at some point.

“So, cloud mites don’t exist?” Virgil confirmed yet again.

“No,” Logan said. “They don’t. In fact, their existence would go against all magical laws since they are sentient without being alive.”

“But crabs do?” Virgil asked.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Crabs do not go against the natural order of things,” Logan said.

“But why?” Virgil asked.

“I… don’t understand the question.”

“They don’t have the right number of legs.”

“W-what do you mean by that?” Logan asked, confused.

“Animals can only have an even number of legs on either side.”

“No,” Logan said. Virgil nodded vigorously. “What about beetles? Those have 6 legs. Three on each side.”

“But beetles are bug,” Virgil pointed out.

“Bugs are animals,” Logan argued.

“No, they’re not.”

His face was so serious, and he was so sure, that it was funny. “Bugs are animals,” Logan said.

Virgil seemed confused by this. “But they have 6 legs.”

Logan couldn’t help but laughing at that. “Virgil, what do you think and animal is?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Virgil said, pouting slightly at being laughed at. Logan leaned over to bump their shoulder together which seemed to pacify him. “Cows. Birds. Frogs.”

“I think we need to get you a tutor. You are missing some fundamental building blocks in your education.”

He huffed, peering at the book.

“It’s no fault of your own,” Logan assured. “You are not born with information like that. People were just negligent in teaching you these things.”

Virgil nodded. “That actually reminds me of something.”

“Mmm?” Logan asked.

“There’s something I need to teach you.”

“And what would that be?” Logan asked.

“Survival instincts.”

“What?”

Virgil slammed his hand down on Logan’s desk. “You have no survival instincts,” he declared. “I bet you don’t even know what hemlock tastes like.”

“Isn’t that poisonous.”

“Yes,” Virgil said.

“Then of course I don’t know what it tastes like.”

“Exactly! That’s the problem.”

“I don’t need to know what poison tastes like, Virgil,” Logan said.

“Yes, you do,” Virgil argued. “It’s an important skill.”

“I think your view of what constitutes as an ‘important skill may be skewed,” Logan said.

“You’re a prince,” Virgil said. “Knowing about poisons is an important skill for you.”

“It’s really not though.”

“You’re at war,” Virgil reminded, “and they already tried to assassinate your father. Do you think they’re not going to send someone else when your father is alive at winter’s end and they’ve heard no word from their assassin? Do you think if they realize you’re not easily manipulatable, they won’t come for you too?”

“Well, I mean…” Logan said. “You do have a point there.”

“And you need to learn how to climb things and catch things.”

“Why do I need to know how to catch things?”

“We’ve already had this discussion,” Virgil said. “In case someone throws a knife at you.”

Wait. When had they had that conversation?

“And while we’re on the topic of knives, you need to know how to use a knife effectively.”

“I know how to use a knife,” Logan climbed even though he knew he didn’t know how to use a knife in the way Virgil was talking about.

Virgil, despite having no concept of taxonomic classification, was no fool. “Chopping things for potions doesn’t count,” Virgil said. “I’m talking stabbing lessons. For you and Patton, though to be honest, Patton has an advantage already over you when it comes to using weapons.”

“Why does he…” Logan thought. “Because he managed to get a hit on you with a cookie sheet one time?”

“His reflexes are better,” Virgil said, “as well as his ability to use his environment to his advantage. You’re always completely oblivious about what’s going on around you.”

“Excuse me. I am incredibly observant,” said Logan.

“How many chairs are in the dinning room we walked through to get here two hours ago?” Virgil asked.

Logan thought for a moment. “I’m not sure.”

“Exactly! You walk by them every day and you don’t even know how many chairs there are in that room.”

“I have no idea what that has to do with anything.”

“How would you know if someone tampered with the chairs if you don’t know how many of them there are or their positions.”

“Tamper with the chairs?” Logan asked. “What are you talking about? I filter out unnecessary information. That doesn’t mean I’m not observant.”

“Yes, it does,” Virgil said. “Plus, half the time you don’t even know where I am when you know I’m in the same room as you,” Virgil said.

“Well, that’s because you climb on top of things and hide in walls!” Logan said. “That’s hardly fair.”

“You mean I’m quiet and good at hiding like… an assassin might be.”

Logan pursed his lips. Virgil tilted his head and smiled at him. “I am plenty observant,” Logan insisted once again.

“Prove it,” Virgil said.

“And how should I do that?” Logan asked. “Beyond simply memorizing the furniture arrangements?”

Virgil shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll get an opportunity soon.”

Chapter 48 (Thomas)

Thomas was leaving his office when he ran into his son. Or more accurately, his son almost ran into him. “Is everything alright?” Thomas asked.

“I…” Logan said. His hand came out to grasp Thomas’s shirt sleeve, odd behavior for him at least at this age. He used to do such things when he was very small. “Yes,” he said anyway. “Everything is perfectly fine.” He glanced behind himself down the hall.

Thomas looked at him and then looked down the hallway, concerned by his strange behavior. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” Logan said, but he wasn’t letting go of Thomas’s shirt.

“You seem a bit anxious, Logan,” Thomas said.

“I am not,” Logan denied, releasing his shirt. Thomas caught a glimpse of something moving above their heads. The hallway Thomas’s office was in had large pillars along the outer wall that really no one should be able to scale despite there technically being grooves in them. Yet, there Virgil clung to the chapiter of one of them. Even more bewildering, he was gripping a pouch of some kind in his teeth.

The met eyes briefly. Virgil tilted his head at Thomas. Then, he removed one hand from the pillar. How was he up there? He made a motion with his hand that seemed to be telling Thomas to step back.

��Thomas looked back at his son. Logan hadn’t noticed Virgil, too busy glancing behind him and not looking up. Thomas looked back up at Virgil and took a big step back. The moment he did, Virgil grabbed the bottom of the pouch with his free hand and let go with his teeth. The pouch flipped upside down dropping its contents right onto Logan’s head.

Logan gave a high-pitched shriek that Thomas didn’t think he’d ever heard from him before. “Virgil!” he yelled, now absolutely soaked.

“Learn to look up,” Virgil said seriously, still clinging to the pillar.

“I hate you,” Logan replied.

“Don’t say things you don’t mean in anger,” Thomas reminded. He was a bit worried Virgil may overreact to Logan saying things like that to him, though he seemed perfectly calm at the moment.

Logan scowled at Thomas. “You’re on his side?! He just dumped water on my head!”

“He needs to be trained to be more observant!” Virgil said.

Logan turned his scowl to Virgil. “Come down here, you intolerable creature! I’m done with your so called training!”

“And what would you do if I did come down?” Virgil said arching an eyebrow, wholly unconcerned. “Quote facts about animals at me?”

Thomas was unsure what about that comment angered Logan, but it apparently did.

“You little…”

“Boys,” Thomas interrupted. “What’s going on here?”

They both immediately started speaking at once, doing their best to talk over each other. Thomas didn’t catch much of either rants except something about ‘training’ and Virgil ‘stalking the halls’ and an exploding muffin.

“Okay, okay,” Thomas putting a hand up to tell both of them to be quiet. “One at a time. Virgil first.”

“Really?” Logan asked.

“Logan,” Thomas scolded.

He mumbled something under his breath, but he did quiet down.

“Virgil,” Thomas started again. “What’s going on?”

“I’m training him,” Virgil said.

“Training him?” Thomas asked. “Training him for what?”

“For life,” Virgil answered. “He isn’t observant enough.”

“Ah,” Thomas said, still fairly confused. “And how are you training him?”

“Right now, we’re doing situational awareness training,” Virgil said.

“And how does that translate to you dumping water on his head?” Thomas asked.

“He wouldn’t have gotten water on his head if he’d noticed me,” Virgil answered, seriously. Thomas tried not to laugh at the look on his face.

“That is, perhaps true,” Thomas said. “However, dumping water on people’s heads is not nice. Perhaps there is a nicer way to do this training?”

“People trying to kill them won’t be nice,” Virgil said.

“No one is trying to kill Logan,” Thomas said.

Virgil just pursed his lips. “Maybe,” Virgil said. “Not yet.”

Thomas was unsure where this fear had come from. Perhaps he had heard about the successful assassination of Lamir’s late queen. Thomas hadn’t exactly publicized the fact that the queen had been killed and not simply died when he’d returned, but he had told certain people including Logan and Patton. It was possible one of them had let it slip and Virgil had freaked out about it.

“Well,” Thomas said. “It still isn’t nice to ruin someone’s day over a threat that doesn’t exist yet.”

#proofread stories #not writing

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i-am-bitterly-jittery · 4 years

Text

Simply Meant To Be (pt 1)

An expansion on this soulmate blurb (no Virgil in this one though)

[part 2]

Rating: teen

Word Count: 2130

Pairings: Roceit, Intrulogical

Warnings: minor swearing

~~~START~~~

Roman is a romantic, that’s just a fact. He loves love. Any day he gets to watch two soulmates meet each other is automatically a good day. The second best day of his life was getting to watch Remus meet their soulmate when they were sixteen. The best day of his life is reserved for when he meets his own soulmate.

It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. One day.

For now, Roman is content with being colorblind (well not content, but he’s learned to not let it bother him too much). Remus and Logan are actually a huge help with that. Logan has even gone as far as to make a list of all of Roman’s clothing and includes a chart of what pieces do and do not go together based on Remus’ (admittedly professional) opinions, and Remus actually went through and labeled all of Roman’s makeup with what color it is and what kind of look it should go with.

Anyone who vaguely knew the twins might think that Remus would use this opportunity to mess with Roman, but Remus knows how much Roman hates being colorblind; they would never lie to Roman about colors — about other things? Sure, but not colors.

Remus and Logan met when Logan moved to their school from Georgia. One day Remus had claimed that there was a trail of color — they would later learn that it was navy blue, Logan’s soon-to-be favorite color — leading from the parking lot, to the main office, to the east wing. They’d chosen to skip first period in order to follow it, having never seen the trail before, and Roman, being unwilling to miss the opportunity to watch his brother meet their soulmate, followed him. Remus had walked right into a physics classroom, and straight for a boy with short curls and thick glasses that Roman had never seen before and declared him their soulmate.

Roman got detention for skipping first period, Remus got a pass on account of meeting their soulmate.

Most people met their soulmates before they turned twenty-five, after all, how difficult can it be when all you have to do is find the trail of color they leave behind them everywhere they go and follow it?

Well, as Roman has learned in his thirty-five years of being alive, it can be pretty freaking difficult.

As children, Roman and Remus had wandered their town far and wide looking for colorful trails, and even after they met Logan, Remus continued to go with Roman as he searched, even if they couldn’t see Roman’s soulmate’s trail themself. As soon as Roman graduated from high school, he took the customary gap year that most everybody who hadn’t met their soulmates yet takes to search for their soulmates.

He never caught a glimpse of anything.

“What if I missed them somehow? What if I saw their trail and just didn’t realize it?” Roman whines one day at his usual Saturday brunch — because they’re adults goddammit — with Remus and Logan.

“You wouldn’t have missed them, Ro bro,” Remus assures him as they do every time Roman starts lamenting about having not met his soulmate yet. “Colors are so unmistakable that there’s no way you’ll miss them.”

“And even if you are genetically colorblind — which is unlikely considering Remus is not,” Logan continues before Roman has a chance to respond. “I have read multiple papers that state that soultrails will still make themselves distinct. There are multiple accounts of the trails emitting light, absorbing light, or even emitting sound. All of that is, of course, on top of the translucent cloud that follows your soulmate’s every move. I find it improbable that you, of all people, would not have noticed a soultrail.”

“Yeah, I know you guys are right,” Roman sighs. “I just want to meet them! I’ve travelled all over the place looking for them, where are they?”

Remus says nothing, which Roman is grateful for because Remus has a habit of saying dark jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood, and Roman really doesn’t need to hear them suggest that his soulmate died in a car crash or something right now. Besides, the question is rhetorical. If Remus could see Roman’s soulmate’s trail, then he’s sure they would have spent the last nineteen years looking for them too.

“Sorry, I guess I brought the mood down,” Roman apologizes. “How are you guys?”

Remus opens their mouth.

“The PG version, please!” Roman rushes to say before Remus can mentally scar him. Again.

Remus closes their mouth again.

Logan rolls his eyes fondly and proceeds to get Roman up to date on all the high school gossip.

“- and of course the middle school’s robotics instructor left suddenly to follow her soulmate to England, so I have taken over as their advisor until a suitable replacement can be hired.”

“How is that?” Roman asks, cringing at the thought of having to deal with middle schoolers. Kids in general kind of freak him out, but middle schoolers especially.

“It has been fine, they are not as adept as my high school students, but of course for many of them this is their introduction to such things, so I’m trying to be patient and supportive.”

Roman snorts at that. He’s sure Logan is a good teacher, but his brother-in-law can be a bit short tempered, and has a habit of talking down to people who don’t understand what he’s trying to tell them.

“Don’t laugh at him!” Remus jumps in to defend their soulmate. “Logan’s great with kids, it’s adults he has a problem with.”

“They are much too old to be as ignorant as they are,” Logan defends himself resolutely.

“Of course they are, Sugar Butt.” Logan cringes slightly at the pet name, which is really all Remus is ever looking for with their pet names.

“Anyway,” Logan says, somewhat forcefully. “There is one student who seems to know what he is doing, but he doubts himself at every turn. I have tried telling him that he is doing everything correctly, but he is… reluctant to trust himself.”

“Maybe as the year goes on he’ll gain confidence,” Remus suggests. Logan hums in acknowledgment, and Roman takes that as the end of talking about Logan’s students. “Oh! Ro bro! Did you hear the theater got a new makeup artist?”

“Finally!” Roman groans, thinking back on their last makeup artist. “I swear Lisa was trying to poke my eyes out every time she did my eyeliner!”

“Oh she probably was,” Remus comments offhandedly. “I told her — back when she first started with the theater — that you thought that makeup artisting was a waste of time.”

“WHAT!?” Roman screeches, gaining the attention of the staff and other patrons.

“Roman,” Logan warns, growing uncomfortable under the curious stares.

“How could you do that to me?” Roman hisses at a much quieter volume. “I never said that! She hated me for five years because of you!”

Remus shrugs, slurping the end of their drink through their straw loudly.

“You better not make the new artist hate me!”

“I would never!” Remus gasps, clutching their heart dramatically.

Roman glares.

“Cross my heart!” Remus insists with a much too innocent expression.

“I hate you.”

Remus just gasps again before dissolving into uncontrollable giggles.

~~~

There isn’t rehearsal on Sunday, so Roman doesn’t have to go in to work. Unfortunately, he is saddled by the knowledge that Remus — as the theater’s costume designer — does have to go in today, and therefore has a whole day to lie to the new makeup artist about him.

Come Monday, all Roman can do is hope that Remus hasn’t done irreparable damage.

“Calm down,” Remus orders when they come to pick Roman up. “They weren’t even in yesterday; I haven’t met them yet.”

“I’m not letting you ruin my relationship with the makeup artist again,” Roman pouts.

“Just try and stop me!” Remus cackles.

Once they reach the theater, Roman practically jumps from the car before Remus has even parked.

“REAL MATURE!” Remus yells after him as he sprints for the theater door.

“THIS ONE IS GOING TO LIKE ME!” Roman yells back.

“NOT IF I MEET THEM FIRST!”

Roman skids to a stop as soon as he reaches the lobby. Not expecting their twin to just be standing there, Remus slams into his back, throwing them both to the ground.

“The fuck, Ro Bro?” Remus demands as they flop off their brother and onto their back.

“I-I see it,” Roman whispers, voice filled with wonder.

“See what?” Remus demands. “The lobby? You’ve seen the lobby bef-oh!”

The awestruck look on Roman’s face finally clicks, and Remus bounces excitedly.

“You see it? Like it it?” Remus scrambles to their feet, dragging Roman up with them. “Where? Which way does it go?”

“It looks like how the sun feels,” Roman says instead of answering. “All light and warm and good.”

“Roman Kingsley you tell me which way your soulmate went this instant!” Remus demands loudly. This is important dammit!

“It goes from there,” Roman points to the side door that’s usually used by staff that take the bus to work. “To there,” the door leading backstage.

“Excellent!” Remus cheers dragging Roman forward. “Time for your date with destiny!”

Remus throws the backstage door open dramatically, but Roman groans as he realizes that his soulmate’s trail is going in literally every direction, making it impossible to know which way they went last.

“Well?” Remus asks expectantly.

“Either my soulmate is familiarizing themself to the theater, or they knew I’d be here and are trying to spite me,” Roman answers somewhat dejectedly. “I can’t tell which trail is freshest.”

“Well shit.” Remus scans each entry as though Roman’s soulmate will just happen to wander in (plausible, considering they’ve trailed all over the theater).

“Hey guys!” A voice calls from by the dressing rooms. The brothers turn to find Thomas, the owner of the theater and their boss.

“Thomas!” Remus cries gleefully. “My absolute favoritest person in the world behind my incredibly sexy soulmate!”

“Okay, so you want something,” Thomas answers with an amused grin. Remus always piles on the compliments when they want something.

“Who’s new today?” Roman asks, more to the point.

“Like, in the theater?” Thomas asks. “Just Janus, the new makeup artist. Why?” Thomas’s eyes widen as if he’s just had a realization. “You’re not going to prank him or something, are you? He’s very talented, I can’t have you scaring him away already!”

“Roman’s soulmate is the new makeup artist? Lame,” Remus pouts. “How am I supposed to trick him into hating Roman?”

“Soulmate?”

“My soulmate is in the building, Thomas!” Roman declares, striking a dashing pose before deflating a little. “Except his trail leads all over the place, I don’t know where he went!”

“Oh… well,” Thomas looks to each direction Janus could have gone, but he clearly doesn’t know which way Janus would have gone. “He said he wanted to get a lay of the land before everyone got here…”

“I got this!” Remus pipes up suddenly before cupping their hands around their mouth like a megaphone and screaming at the top of their lungs. “JANUS!”

“What?” A faint, far-off voice calls back, followed but the sound of hurried footsteps. “Thomas?”

“Dressing rooms!” Thomas calls back.

Footsteps thunder down the stairs, and all too soon a man appears on them.

The first time you lay eyes on your soulmate, you begin to see the world in color. Everyone’s experience is different: Remus said that as soon as he laid eyes on Logan, the world exploded violently into vibrant shades. Logan said that colors appeared one at time, quickly, but slow enough for him to notice. Roman’s mom said that her soulmate’s trail swelled to fill the space before things slowly began to take on their proper color, and his mama said that it was almost like everything had always had color, she just hadn’t bothered to notice before.

For Roman, the man before him is painted in vibrant shades while the background remains in grayscale, but as soon as the man makes eye contact, his colors begin to slowly bleed throughout the space.

The man’s eyes widen as he stares, slack-jawed at Roman — no doubt mirroring Roman’s own expression.

“I’m Roman,” Roman says quickly, before Remus can forever ruin his first meeting with his soulmate by making a dick joke or something.

The man smiles and Roman immediately decides that his favorite color is whatever this guy’s eyes are — they’re hazel, but Roman will later change his favorite color to red after realizing how stunning and bold the color is when it isn’t just another shade of gray.

“Janus.”

~~~TO BE CONTINUED~~~

General Taglist:

@royalty-of-all-things-snuggly

@pixelated-pineapple

#ts sanders sides #sanders sides #roceit #intrulogical #roman sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #Janus Sanders #character thomas #My writing #thursday writes #fanfiction #fanfic #creativitwins #princeit #soulmate au #simply meant to be au

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emoprincey · 3 years

Text

Two Truths and a Liar

For the @loceitweek2021 prompt: Aftermath

Author’s note: I’ve had this idea in my head for ages but I just wrote it down this afternoon. I really enjoyed writing this, and I’m looking forward to doing more stuff for this week!

Summary: After accidentally messing things up with Logan in the courtroom, Janus goes to Remus for help, and takes his advice of being a little more honest

Parings: Romantic Loceit, platonic Dukeceit

Also posted on my ao3: stormofstarlight

Word count: 2021

“You can’t just avoid Logan forever.”

“Watch me,” Janus mumbled, his voice muffled by the cushion he’d collapsed onto the moment he entered Remus’ room. The cushion smelled vaguely of something disgusting, but then the whole room did, and Janus had long since become desensitised to it. Still, having the stench so close to his nose was unpleasant by any standards, so he lifted his head. That was a mistake, because now he could see his best friend looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You were the one who was harping on about being accepted. You’d have to work with him,” Remus reasoned. And when Remus was being the reasonable one, well, that meant circumstances were very dire indeed.

“Yes, but you weren’t there, Re! I could barely talk to him in the courtroom!” Janus wailed. Logan could be distracting at the best of times, with his charming smiles and witty quips, but even when he was sat at the back of the courtroom, Janus could feel eyes boring into the back of his neck, ready to pick up on any flaw in his reasoning. There was also the inconvenient matter of Logan looking incredibly dashing, and Janus couldn’t help stealing glances at him while the others were talking. It was no wonder he’d lost the case.

“If you knew you’d be nervous, why did you even invite him?” Remus asked, leaning his elbows on his knees. “You know nobody would have been bothered about him not being there.”

“I didn’t want him to feel left out,” Janus said. He’d noticed how little attention the other Light Sides paid to Logan, and though it didn’t seem to bother him outwardly, Janus could feel the denial of dejected and dismayed feelings. It broke his heart to see the side he cared for so much feeling so down.

“So, you tried to make him feel included by shoving to the back of the room before he’d even finished saying his piece?” Remus raised an eyebrow again.

Janus groaned, flopping onto the pillow again. “I wasn’t thinking straight. In my defence, if I’d had to debate with him for a minute longer I might have actually combusted.”

“That would’ve been cool,” Remus said sagely. “But seriously, you should just tell him how you feel!”

“Easy for you to say!” Janus snapped, sitting up again to glare at Remus. “You just say everything that comes into you head. I… can’t. I just push everything down, and I don’t know how to stop doing that.”

“Hmm…” Remus knitted his eyebrows in thought. Janus was a little surprised by how much effort he was putting into helping him, though perhaps he shouldn’t have been – the two of them had been closer to each other than anyone else in the mindscape for several years, and had clung to one another like lifelines when Virgil left. More times than he could count, Janus had felt like Remus was all he had. “Just… be spontaneous!” Remus decided eventually. “Don’t think before you speak, just let the words flow!”

Janus bit his lip. He didn’t really do spontaneity; everything he did was meticulously planned out, no detail unaccounted for. “What if I say something stupid?”

Remus smirked. “Well, you do that even when you think about what you say.”

“Hey!” Janus lightly batted at his shoulder, but a laugh escaped his throat. “That’s rich coming from you.”

Remus let out an exaggerated gasp, clutching his heart as if Janus had committed the worst betrayal possible. “Oh, it’s on, snakey boy. Wanna settle this in Mario Kart?”

Janus grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

-----

Several weeks later, Janus practically broke Remus’ door down as he burst into the room. “Remus, I need your help.”

Remus jumped, almost dropping the viscous ball of slime he was moulding at his desk. “Where’s the fire?”

Janus groaned, immediately marching over to the bed and burying himself in the numerous cushions and blankets. “I asked Logan out.”

“You what?” Remus jumped up from his desk, dropping the slime with a squelching noise, and dashed over to the bed. “Tell me everything.”

Janus took a few breaths to collect himself, and actually answer rather than letting out the garbled scream that was building in his throat. “I didn’t really mean to. We were just… we were in the kitchen and Roman was going on about something to do with romance or dating, and Logan mentioned that nobody would want to date him. I don’t think he meant it seriously, but I could feel all the sadness he was suppressing, and so I… just said that I would.”

Remus squealed, the noise so high Janus was surprised he could hear it and even more surprised he didn’t immediately go deaf. “See? I told you it would work!” He gabbled, grinning from ear to ear.

Janus was getting closer to screaming by the second. “No, this is terrible. I have a date with the hottest Side in the mindscape tonight, and I have nothing to wear!”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Remus said immediately, grabbing Janus arm and pulling him to stand up. “I’ll make something for you! What do you wanna wear? You want super formal or something a bit more casual? What’s the date?”

“We’re- um, just going to dinner,” Janus said faintly, a little taken aback by his friend’s enthusiasm. Remus almost seemed more excited about this date than he was.

“Okay, so I’m thinking a suit,” Remus rambled, holding Janus’ arm out as if he was going to start tailoring it at that instant. “You like skirts, don’t you, so maybe… yeah, I can think something up…”

-----

Five hours later, Janus stood outside Logan’s room in a black dress shirt and a dark grey waistcoat embellished with a swirling gold pattern that upon close inspection resembled snakes. By far his favourite part of the outfit was the black pleated chiffon skirt which came down to his ankles, showing his gold high heels. He knocked clearly five times, and the door opened almost immediately.

Logan blinked as he stared at Janus, his mouth open with a greeting paused on the tip of his tongue. “I, uh- you look… you look nice,” he said eventually, his voice slightly strained.

Janus smiled graciously, hoping his cheeks didn’t look as red as they felt. “And you look absolutely stunning, my dear,” he replied. And Logan truly did look stunning, in a black three piece suit with a deep blue tie.

“Thank you,” Logan murmured, clearly trying to suppress a grin as he glanced away from Janus.

“Shall we go?” Janus asked, offering Logan his arm.

Logan stared for another moment, before placing his hand on Janus’ elbow. “We shall.”

It took all of Janus’ self-restraint to hide a giddy grin as they walked down the stairs. Any doubt he had about Logan’s feelings for him were quelled by the soft expression on his face, the quick glances he stole when he thought Janus wasn’t looking. For the first time in months, Logan actually looked happy. Janus felt a warm swelling in his chest at the thought that he’d cause that. He had made Logan happy.

The dining table was set with a nice white tablecloth, with cutlery and a wine glass on each side. A candle sat in the middle, and it flickered into life as Logan waved a hand. Logan had offered to take care of the arrangements for the night, and Janus thought he couldn’t have done a better job. The setup was understated, but there was a romantic atmosphere to it. Although, maybe that had more to do with the man taking a seat across from him than the arrangement itself.

“I thought we could start with some soup,” Logan said, fiddling with a button on his blazer.

“That sounds wonderful,” Janus said, though his response surely would have been the same even if Logan had suggested eating fried pickles for their first course.

Despite the obvious nerves from both parties, they fell into an easy conversation, about Agatha Christie novels and constellations, philosophy and music. Janus was careful to steer the conversation away from anything that could cause an argument, but was surprised to find they had much more common ground on many subjects than he’d previously thought. By the time they had finished their soup, Janus had settled to resting his chin on his hand as he watched Logan ramble about the moons of Jupiter. He didn’t take in a tremendous amount of information, focusing instead on how Logan’s eyes lit up as he talked, how his eyebrows knitted as he quoted any factoid which he thought had dubious evidence, how the candlelight caught his cheekbones.

Logan must have been silent for at least a few seconds before Janus noticed he had stopped talking. He was fidgeting again, looking down at his hands clasped in front of him.

When Logan looked up, Janus raised a questioning eyebrow.

“I need to ask you something…” Logan murmured, his voice heavy and reluctant. “And I would like you to be honest with me.”

Janus swallowed, feeling a sense of foreboding wash over him. “Okay, what do you want to ask?”

“I…” Logan silently moved his lips, as if testing out the question before he spoke. “This evening is very pleasant, but I need to know… are you doing this because you feel sorry for me?”

Janus gaped, shocked into stunned silence.

Logan seemed to take this as affirmation. “It’s alright, I would not expect you to reciprocate my feelings. I know that I must have sounded quite pitiful in our conversation earlier, you’re very kind-”

His voice was only wobbling a little, but Janus could feel all the sadness Logan was pushing down. It was almost overwhelming, and he found himself having to blink back his own tears in response to it. Without hesitation, he reached out and rested a hand over Logan’s.

Logan looked up at him, the quiet hope only just visible in his downcast expression.

“Logan,” Janus began, and he had to clear his through to speak clearly. “I promise that I didn’t ask you out because of pity. In truth, I have had feelings for you for a long time. I was too nervous to tell you, but today I couldn’t hold back.” It felt a little strange to tell the truth so much, but if there was one thing that could compel him to go against his nature it was alleviating Logan’s sadness. “You are absolutely wonderful Logan, I mean that. So handsome, and smart, and a brilliant debater.”

Logan’s eyes were wide, searching Janus’ face. “Oh,” he eventually whispered. He took Janus’s hand in both of his, and smiled so brightly Janus thought he was more spectacular than any star in the universe. He spoke slowly, but with a conviction Janus had rarely heard even during debates. “In that case, I feel I should tell you that I think you’re incredible. You amaze me with how carefully you plan, and your knowledge and desire to learn. And you are also… ah, um, very attractive.”

Janus felt a smile spread across his own face, his cheeks feeling as warm as his heart did. His head was spinning as he tried to take everything in… Logan thought he was incredible, Logan was opening up to him, Logan was happy in his presence and flustered when Janus wasn’t even trying. “So, you do have feelings?” he blurted, which may have been the worst possible response, and he began to regret ever taking Remus’ suggestion about not thinking before he spoke.

Logan looked at him for a moment, but then his lips curved into a smirk. “For you? More than I thought was possible.”

Janus wasn’t sure how he managed to remain calm, but after taking a few moments he lifted one of Logan’s hands to his lips. “And I could say the same about you. Now, shall we continue with our dinner?”

Logan smiled as he retracted his hand, leaving it clasped with Janus’ in the middle of the table. “We shall.”

#loceitweek2021 #sanders sides #janus sanders #logan sanders #loceit #ts janus #ts logan #remus sanders #ts remus #sanders sides fanfiction

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fdd700 · 4 years

Text

Remus wasn’t a very romantic person. He didn’t see the appeal in the fancy dinners or candle lit nights. He just couldn’t understand why people loved them.

Virgil, no matter how hard he tried to hide it, both understood and loved the romantic nights. And, despite his attempts at hiding it, Remus quickly noticed. But Remus knew that Virgil loved him, impulses and all.

“Hey trash panda, have you talked to your brother recently?” Virgil asked as he sat on his phone on the couch across from Remus’ design computer.

“Normally, my dark and stormy night, I do my best to avoid the repulsive royal, so that would be a no.” Remus didn’t look up from his project - some horror anime/cartoon he was acting hush-hush on. Virgil knew it was because it was a trial piece and Remus didn’t want jinx himself.

“He and Jan are going to Morocco.” This caused Remus to spin around in his chair, looking at his boyfriend with a raised eyebrow. “Jan just texted me to let me know he couldn’t come us to that horror convention next month. Apparently Roman got a promotion so he bought the tickets as a surprise.” Remus nodded.

“Why Morocco?” Remus said, about to turn back around.

“I think he’s going to propose.” Remus froze before looking at his boyfriend who was frantically typing on his phone.

“How-”

“Jan has always wanted to get engaged on a foreign holiday. Plus, Lolo and I saw Roman talking to Cindy, you know Patton’s friend, one from the jewellery store downtown,” Virgil explained. “I’m texting him now to ask.” Remus nodded but didn’t say anything. there was silence, except for Virgil’s tapping.

“Not gonna lie,” Remus stated. “I always thought Janus would propose.” Virgil paused before gasping, followed by him chuckling.

“Bet you twenty dollars Janus is also planning to propose.” Remus laughed.

“That’s such a rigged bet, they’re both definitely gonna propose.”

Sure enough, a month later, both boys returned home with engagement rings. The gang - Patton, Logan, Virgil, Remus, Emilie, Remy, Janus and Roman - were all in Logan and Patton’s house for Sunday dinner (a long-standing tradition). Virgil was locked into conversation with Janus, Emilie and Patton, who were both showing off their rings. Virgil was laughing with them. Remus’ eyes were glued to him.

“What's got you so distracted? Worried Virgil-”

“Dude, not funny,” Roman said, cutting Remy off. Remy took a sip from his cup but was otherwise silent. “Remus, what’s up?”

“do you think Virgil is waiting for me to propose?”

“I mean, maybe? Have you talked about marriage?” Remus was silent, thinking.

“Yes and no. We talked about it ages ago but he hasn’t said anything since.”

“Has he dropped hints?” Remy asked. “That’s what Emilie did.”

“Virgil should know I wouldn’t pick up on them.”

“Hey, don’t stress, Rem, Virgil loves you and you love him, that's all that matters,” Roman said.

“That is correct. Maybe Virgil will propose. Patton knew I wouldn’t be able to pick up signs so he just asked me to my face.”

Remus tried to believe them, and he mostly did. Until later that night, when they were playing truth or dare. Logan and Patton were sharing the two-seater. Not quite cuddling but in each other’s personal space. Emilie had his head on Remy’s shoulder on the long couch, with Roman on Janus’ lap at the other end of the couch. Virgil was tucked into Remus’ side as the room turned their attention to him.

“So,” Janus said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Virgil truth or dare?”

“Considering you dared Remy to kiss Patton, I think I’ll go with truth,” Virgil said.

“Well, you wouldn’t tell us earlier, so... what was your dream proposal as a kid?” Virgil turned red.

“Can’t let that one go, no?” Virgil asked and Janus chuckled, shaking his head. “Uhm, pretty sure it was like a candle-lit dinner or something. Probably something cheesy and romantic.” Virgil then quickly moved on, asking Remy something but Remus tuned out again. Was Virgil disappoint with the lack of romance in their relationship? He’s never said anything directly, but why would he bring us Roman proposing on a romantic holiday if not to tell Remus that's what he wanted? Were there any other hints? Was there-

“Remus.” Remus snapped up to Janus’ gleaming eyes. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth. I think my boyfriend was in the right vein,” Remus responded. Janus simply waved dismissively as he went silent, thinking. Almost a moment later, a light bulb flipped on above his head.

“Do you plan on proposing to Virgil?”

“Janus!” Roman said, looking to his fiancé in exasperation.

“It’s a harmless question!” The two bickered slightly, nothing heated but a simply back and forth.

“You don’t have to answer,” Virgil said in a low tone. He had been trying to catch Remus’ eyes, who was just as determined to avoid Virgil’s. Eventually, the smaller man grabbed his chin so they could look into his eyes. “I’m serious. I don’t want you to feel pressured. I love you, okay?”

“I love you too.”

Despite Virgil’s reassurance, Remus was deeply fixated on the thoughts of marriage and if he was enough for Virgil. Virgil liked romance and dancing in the rain and visiting fancy restaurants. Remus liked staying inside and horror films and going to graveyards to adopt ghosts (which scared Virgil so much he learnt how to banish spirits from the house). Remus couldn’t help but feel like maybe, just maybe, Virgil was better off without him?

He spun in his chair. He was unable to focus on the novel he was writing anymore. Virgil was at work and wouldn’t be back for ages. Despite trying to work, Remus was now fixated on rings. The truth was, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Virgil but he didn’t see why he needed to buy him a ring or spend thousands of dollars on a wedding to prove his devotion. They bought an apartment together, they had three pissy spirits that they took care of together, and the stray cat that would jump in their window. But if Virgil wanted it, well, who was Remus to say no?

Engagement ring shopping sucked. Plain and simple, it sucked. There were so many different cuts but they all looked so basic. Virgil wasn’t the type to wear flashy jewellery unless it meant something, like the dangly gold earring Remus bough him when he got his masters in psychology. Remus wanted something classy, but all something showed how much Remus knew Virgil, right down to his core. He thought about going to a jewellery shop or hiring someone but how on earth would he be able to explain that to Virgil? In the end, he chose the least expensive route; his brother.

“How do you pick an engagement ring?” Roman choked on his coffee. “What?”

“Try and maybe start a conversation with hello and maybe not something you have never mentioned before now,” Roman said. “But also, why the change in pace?” Remus didn’t say anything. “Is it Janus? he was only messing. He just doesn’t get it sometimes but I told him he need to respect your boundaries-”

“It’s not that.” Roman went quiet, letting his brother speak when comfortable. “I don’t want Virgil to regret being with me. I know that he doesn’t say it but he really likes all the romantic garbage you and Janus do.”

“Remus, Virgil may like romance but he loves you. Plain and simple. But I am your brother and I will support you, so if you need help finding a ring, I will help you,” Roman said sincerely.

“Ugh, you’re so boring and regal. Lighten up. Walk on the gory side.” Roman chuckled.

“I’ll tune it down, but just because you’re my baby brother.”

“Two MINUTES. I AM TWO MINUTES-” Roman burst into laughter, meaning anyone in the cafe who wasn’t staring due to Remus’ screeching, was now looking due to roman’s cackling.

“Come, little wittle Remus, let’s go ring shopping.”

Remus paid for the ring in cash. He had been taking money out of the account for weeks in preparation. Well, a week. Still, he had it all planned out. He could suck it up for a night.

He was spreading flowers on the floor when he noticed the dull ache in his chest. Tell-tale signs of a panic attack. Remus paused before moving to sit down. He closed his eyes and repeated his breathing exercises. He could do this. It’s what Virgil wanted. He stood up again, the dull ache turning into a slight pressure. He lit the candles, checked on the food and cleaned up. It was about half six when he realised, he was struggling to breath. Almost as soon as he noticed, the elephant on his chest returned. He backed up, sliding down the wall.

“no... no... not tonight...” He muttered under his breath. He tried to breath but he realised he was struggling. Why tonight. why was he getting a panic attack tonight? it was just one dinner!

“Re- REMUS!” Virgil said, coming in and sitting in front of his boyfriend. “Can I touch you?” Remus shook his head frantically. “Okay, it’s okay, breath with me okay?” Virgil took his boyfriend through his breathing exercises. “Okay, Rem, I need you to name five things you can see.”

“Chair, lights... uh... you, the table... uh, uhm-” Remus swallowed. “And tiles...”

“Okay, four things you can hear.”

“My breathing, your breathing, the neighbours... the oven?” Virgil reached behind him, switching off the oven.

“Okay, three things you can feel.”

“The floor, my shirt... uhm... sweat?”

“Okay, two things you can taste.”

“Impending doom.” Virgil gave him a look. “Uh, tea and sugar.”

“Okay, finally, one thing you can smell.”

“The candles.” Virgil stood up, switching on the light and blowing out the candles. He finally took in the scene of the room. Remus tried to stand up but was quickly placed down in one of their dining chairs.

“Remus, do you wanna talk about it?” Remus sighed.

“I just... I wanted to plan this big romantic night and I know you like romance but it's just so icky that I must of have been panicked and-” Remus paused, meeting his boyfriend’s eyes. “Look, I know you like romance and I’m sure you’re disappointed I’m not.”

“Remus. I like romance, but I love you.” Remus blinked at him. “I knew what I was getting into when we entered this relationship. You never, ever have to change your boundaries to suit me. Remus, I love you, for you. I know you don’t like romance or pda, but I know that you love me.” Remus didn’t notice he was crying till Virgil wiped the tears from his face. He pressed their foreheads together. “I love you. So much. Romance or not.” Remus held onto his boyfriend. “But I need you to promise to never break your own boundaries for me. I respect the boundaries you put up, and I need you to do the same.”

“I promise.” Virgil smiled and Remus was hit with how overwhelmingly lucky he was to have gotten someone like Virgil to love him. “Ugh,” he groaned. Virgil chuckled.

“What’s up buttercup?”

“Roman was right. I don’t like this timeline.” Virgil just tossed his head back and laughed as Remus whined.

Remus did end up proposing that night. They were watching a horror film and Virgil was critiquing the characters decision when Remus suddenly turned to him.

“I’m just saying, choosing to go down to the creepy basement when you know there’s a serial killer on the loose-”

“Marry me.” Virgil stopped, looking over at his boyfriend. He wasn’t down on one knee but there was a ring in his hands. Virgil’s hand flew to his mouth. “marry me.” Remus sat up.

“You’re not just doing this for me?” he asked, still in a state of shock.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and if this is the next step? then I’m going for it.” Virgil jumped up, wrapping his arms around Remus, already crying.

“Yes, yes, yes! Oh my god, yes!” He pulled back, letting Remus slip on the ring before launching himself and his boyfriend and smashing their lips together. It was here that Virgil, admiring his ring with awe filled eyes, also realised how lucky he was for getting someone like Remus to love him too.

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