When Things Get Rough Chapter 2
Warning: Suicide mention, panic attack mention, and some bullying and low key hints at abuse to Virgil, i.e. my headcannons. Overall could be triggering. mild ly bad language
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Headcannons/ Prologue / <Previous / Next>
Sometimes, the darkest night can get darker.
It took Virgil a while to process. By the end of the day, it still seemed surreal to him. To Virgil, Patton would be there on Tumblr awaiting new jokes and memes or fan theories he loved, but Virgil knew better than to believe it. As he was walking from the school to the busses, a teacher walked over and pulled him aside.
“Are you Virgil Williams?” she said, a pained look in her eyes.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked. She shook her head and began to explain.
She talked about the letters specifically. She mentioned how there was one was for him, one for Roman, one for Logan, and one for his family and everyone else. She talked about how Patton had said that he hated how Roman and Virgil fought, splitting him onto two separate teams both run by his closest friends. Patton had even stated how close he and Virgil actually were and how he “had to keep it from his best friend, Roman".
Virgil's thoughts wandered to his own letter as the teacher rambled on about the public one. His letter was still sealed and barely touched. Virgil couldn't open it until his brain caught up with what was happening.
“So please, come with me Virgil.” She wrapped her arm around his and pulled his arm.
Virgil winced from the pain. Underneath his dark sleeves was a fresh bruise from the night before. “Okay,” he said, following after her to try not cause more pain. At least this would give him an excuse to get home later. On their way to her final destination, they stopped and grabbed Roman Prince. She pulled Roman as Virgil silently followed after.
She forced the two into a classroom and blocked the doorway. “Okay, you boys get along. I'll be right next door so if you need anything I’m right here. You have to leave around 7 because students aren't allowed on grounds after 7. Stay as long as you need to finish this!” she smiled, her voice dripping with false enthusiasm. She dropped a small collection of colored pens and pencils atop an even smaller set of note cards on a nearby desk and stepped back and closed the door.
Why the fuck did it have to be the classroom with no windows. Virgil’s mind raced with memories and thoughts too fast for him to keep up. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck…” Virgil trailed, feeling his body starting to shake. He looked around and found a cleared corner that he ran to. He tried grounding himself, using his legs to push him further into the corner as he closed his eyes. Memories flooded through and making him tear up and in front of his nemesis nonetheless.
“Hey, are you okay? Any more of a chemically imbalanced romance than normal?” Roman gave a small laugh at his own joke and smiled, then got on his knees to meet Virgil’s shining, dark eyes. Roman reached for Virgil's knees and sighed.
Virgil tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling and took several quick shaky breaths. Virgil trembled as his eyes opened and he closed them again, desperate for this horrible nightmare to end.
Roman spoke again, this time calm and collected to the point where it was almost peaceful. “Breathe in four seconds.”
Virgil took a shaky breath and counted to four.
Virgil's breath was smoother than it had been.
Virgil continued, his breathing gradually moving back to normal.
“Can you tell me what's wrong?” Roman asked.
“I hate being locked in a room, especially with no second way out,” Virgil mumbled, concealing a stutter.
“Okay, what about,” Roman pause, thinking of ways to help, “you close your eyes and imagine Patton's room.”
“What if while my eyes are closed you punch me or ditch me?” Virgil asked, a slight joke-like tone to his voice, though a shocking sense of honesty filled majority of it.
“I'd never!” Roman acting out fake shock with his hand on his chest and a gasp, though his lips were turned up in a smile as his lips moved back together.
“Okay, okay,” Virgil conceded. He closed his eyes. “I've never been in his room… and I guess I'll never be.” He sighed.
“What do you mean Mr. Darkest Knight?” Roman cocked his head and made a face of confusion.
“Did nobody tell you?” Virgil opened his eyes, brows furrowed.
“Tell me what? What's happened to Patton?” Roman spoke, an edge of insecurity and of fear in his voice.
“Patton's dead. He died last night,” Virgil stated, looking down to Roman's white, grass and paint stained pants. Roman always ate outside in the grass with his large group of friends.
Tears threatened to fall down Roman’s face. He had just seen Patton the day before. He was acting like he normally did on every other day. He was smiled and joked around with his stupid puns that everyone pretended to hate but secretly loved. Roman wasn’t ready to lose that. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the endless sun that Patton gave away. The support of his best friends. A friend who he hadn’t even noticed was struggling. This couldn’t be real. This had to be a joke or something! Patton would never do this.
“You’ve got to be playing some mean-ass prank, right?” Roman asked, desperation and tears welling up in his sparkling blue eyes. His unnaturally perfect hair fell unceremoniously in front of his eyes.
“I wouldn’t. Not with Patton and definitely not with his death...” Virgil kept his eyes on Roman’s knees, studying every color and stain that challenged the once perfect white.
“Sure you wouldn’t, not even to hurt me. To use my emotions against me.” Roman couldn’t accept this. It wasn’t true.
“No,” Virgil breathed. Virgil thought how he was the one that should’ve died, it’s what they were all expecting from him one day anyways. Why had Patton, a bubbly boy who was born with a smile on his face died but not Virgil, a stone cold jerk who had walls built strong and tall enough to lock even himself out. Virgil wanted it to be over. He didn’t want to say it any more. He didn’t want to think it anymore. He just wanted to be left alone to grieve.
Roman responded with silence. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the situation and could only do one thing. He pulled a book from his red and gold satchel. The book itself had a sharpied on treble clef on the front and small doodles of vines on the spine. The back had floods of color from Patton’s daily doodles, ranging from a dragon witch to a platalopeconda (mix of a platypus, jackalope and anaconda). He pulled a pen from his pocket and began to scribble words down, letting his emotions pour through his calloused hands.
“So, if he texted me, were those his last words?” Roman muttered through his writing.
Virgil gave a sardonic laugh, and shrugged. “It depends, he texted me too.” Virgil knew it was bad, laughing at a time like this, laughing when he felt his worst, laughing when nothing was funny. Virgil was the kind of person to find some way to cope, even if someone were to take the first away.
His family never helped with this. His aunt beat him because he laughed when nothing was funny nor should it if he was in trouble or if someone was in pain. Being locked in the shed or a closet were usually the worst. She'd forget about him or even pass out for long enough that he was nearly starved to death but she saw it a beautiful thing. She thought she was teaching him to be normal and good. To her, a person’s figure was the most important thing in the world. She always ended up complaining how much he eats, making him weary of food all together.
“Do you have any idea why we’re here?” asked Roman after an extended silence.
Virgil shrugged. “Likely to write something for or about Patton since we were close to him.”
“You were close to him?” Roman asked as Virgil retreated, sinking further into the calming depths of his dark hood.
“Kinda, I sent him Tumblr memes and pets…” Virgil spoke softly, nearly muffled by his hoodie.
“Patton loves- er, loved them!” Roman caught himself.
“Yeah, I made sure to do it daily.” Virgil paused and sighed. “Maybe I didn't do it enough… I did, after all, get the hint pretty early on. I should've done something…” Virgil trailed into deep thought.
“It's okay. Nobody could've done anything more,” Roman comforted, thinking about those blaring signs he extenuated time and time again, and how he could've, should've done much better.
“Lets stop reflecting and finish this fucking thing so we don't have to get stuck in here again,” Virgil said gaining his voice back.
“Truce then? For Patton?” Roman said, holding out his hand.
“For Patton.” Virgil nodded, shaking Roman's reluctantly and quickly before pulling his hand back and into his sleeve.
“Now let's finish this,” Roman paused before continuing his sentence, “shit.” Roman smiled, earning a laugh from the dark boy seated in a corner in front of him.
After another hour of coming up with some stories and a speech for them to share, the two were finally let out. It was nice, Virgil may have set aside all resentment towards the pop star Roman and had finally made himself a friend. His night was great, at least until he reached the inevitable fall of any positivity, going home. Logan still had a ride offer up since there weren't any more busses running from the school.
“Where were you Virgil?” He was greeted, stepping out the school's double doors.
“Locked in a fucking room and I left my phone in my locker Just got your stupid-ass spam.” Virgil groaned, the aftermath of his panic attack finally reaching him through all his efforts.
“Well at least you said something. I came back for you after you sent the text. Do you need to stay the night?” Logan's face softened. Virgil took a quick glance at his messages, finding many angered texts and unread voicemails.
“I think that would be a great idea.” Virgil shrugged, a numbness slowly overwhelming him as the after-storm gliding began to take control.
“We will be having a potluck at our house though, so many of our neighbors will be there,” Logan said, hinting at how Virgil was looking worse than ever and how he could likely eat anything and everything he wanted.
Logan had been friends with Virgil since Virgil first moved to the district. After their much unfortunate meeting, Logan kept an eye on the boy. Once Virgil had become fed up with being watched from afar, he forced himself to befriend such an odd boy. Somehow, he had Roman to thank for it all.
It had been a long night and Virgil took all of the food he wanted and more so he could keep some leftovers for lunch the next day. It was always shocking to Virgil just what a normal family would have in standards, baths more often than once every ten days, piles and piles of food, and gentle sibling rivalries. With Logan, fights were conducted by word association games and alliteration games, sometimes the calm average family games and once, a game of Exploding Kittens to spice things up. Logan always won and Virgil took second place whenever he stayed. Virgil always enjoyed himself, loving the light competitions and games. The hardest truth to him was he had to be faced that they weren’t his family and had to go back to his bitterly dark reality.
His school life had gotten dramatically worse. Students talked in small whispers to one another down the halls as he entered them. Nobody dared to talk to him, and when they did it was all the same low, dull whisper, ringing time after time in his ear, “It should've been you.” only showing how they expected it from him rather than the happy social kid. Virgil, his voice, forever left unheard.
@fearfilledvirgil @isaysolanumlycopersicum @keeshy-ekho
