Summary: Roman and Virgil get into a bit of a situation...
Pairings: platonic prinixety? i suppose?
Words: 1,443
Warnings: light-hearted fluff, comedy, um. lots of fourth wall breaks.
When Virgil walked into the kitchen that morning, it was to find Patton staring blearily upward. He paused, watching the unusually still man, before shrugging and going to the fridge. “Morning, Pat’n,” he muttered, still sluggish as the last dredges of sleep fell away.
Patton did not reply. Now, Virgil was worried.
Closing the refrigerator, Virgil squinted at him, eyes gleaming suspiciously. He hadn’t moved whatsoever from his staring contest with the ceiling. “Dad?” he prompted, and when no movement followed, he traced the other’s gaze.
A dusty spiderweb, bereft of any actual spider. A barely perceptible crack. Bland, off-white paint peeling at the edges.
So, nothing, then.
Virgil was now thoroughly concerned. “Patton? Are you okay, man?” as he spoke, he moved to nudge him- only to be rudely interrupted by the unfortunately familiar sound of Roman stretching out an E note with his vocal chords.
Virgil sighed, and Roman swung into the kitchen, the brightness of his entire existence being almost unholy. His hair was brushed and pushed to the side impeccably; there was nary a wrinkle in his pristine white-and-gold garb. His sash downright shone with cleanliness. As always, the sight of him made Virgil feel suddenly very aware of himself, and he hunched further into the comfort of his hoodie.
“Good morning, darling citizens!” Roman called flamboyantly, gracing the room with a blinding flash of pearly-white teeth.
Virgil didn’t bother to return the greeting.
“Roman, Patton’s acting weird.”
And say what you would about the obnoxious, annoying, loud-mouthed, insulting, pristine, ridiculous, quick-to-judge, far-too-handsome-despite-having-the-exact-same-face, petty, and entirely empty-headed prince, but he was certainly diligent when it came to any perceived danger that Virgil brought to his attention. Immediately, his attention was on the man in question, red-brown eyes looking him up-and-down for any sign of injury.
Finding none, he shot Virgil a strange look. The latter indicated Patton’s staring with a nod, and Roman went back to inspect him.
Then, as if the seriousness had suddenly worn off, he made a small ah sound and relaxed. His lips turned back into that ever-annoying smirksmile (smirkle? smirle?) and he waved a flippant hand that Virgil ducked to avoid.
“Oh, come off it, Mr. Frowny With a Chance of Meatballs,” he laughed unconcernedly, “he’s just discovered the fourth wall, is all.”
Virgil stared. He glanced back at Patton, still entranced in whatever it was he was seeing, and then back to Roman. “The... the fourth wall,” he didn’t so much ask as he did state, voice dry and flat. It was as if someone had murdered all the inflection that could be indicative of any emotion what-so-ever, thus leaving it as nothing more than a hollow shell of it’s former sarcastic glory.
Roman nodded. “Yes. The fourth wall.”
Virgil took a deep breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbed it, and then let his hand drop to the side. “No. Just-” he held a hand out to stop Roman’s incoming protest, and shook his head. “Just. Just no. Why are we even doing a fourth-wall breaking fic right now? It’s, like-” he turned his dead glare toward the corner of the writer’s computer screen, and shot them a quick, judgmental look before returning his attention to Roman.
“It’s 1:19 am. This came out of nowhere. And where’s Logan? We need a straight man.”
Roman laughed.
“Ha! Don’t you mean a-”
Yes. Yes, Roman, I meant a gay man. Because you are all gay.
Roman pouted, joke thoroughly ruined. Virgil smiled a little. Patton stared at the ceiling. Where was Logan? Working, probably. Or, rather, simply not there because the stress of adding yet another character to this catastrophe was simply too difficult for the writer to handle.
“Would you stop that?” Virgil asked, exasperated. “I was willing to go along with this because you writers have no sense of time-” he stared, accusingly, at the various other writers in the fandom (some of which may be named Marin, Taylor, Vanna and Kat, but who’s to say), “but this is ridiculous. Too much of a good thing can be sh*t, you know!”
“Woah, slow your roll Paint Tool Sigh of Despair! This is a PG show!”
Virgil rolled his eyes. “Is that why all of your nicknames suck today?”
Roman recoiled as if physically stricken. “How dare you,” he gasped. “You know that’s not my fault. If anyone, we should blame the author’s creativity.”
Both sides turned, in unison, toward the dining table set up in the middle of the kitchen. The author’s Creativity was munching on a bagel, muttering in between bites as darkened glasses slipped down their round nose. Their hands, trembling, translucent things so clear you could see the very details of their veins, were thoroughly occupied; one was shakily rewriting a scene for the thousandth time with one, while the other crumpled up yet another drawing to start anew, and a third- a third? no- a fourth??? - shakily fidgeted with the rim of a mug full of a sludgy black liquid that could almost pass for coffee.
As if sensing their stares, one dead, sleep-lined blue eye peered up at them, and they immediately turned away.
There was silence. Then, Virgil released a shaky breath. “Roman,” he said, very quietly.
“Yes, Virgil?” the uncharacteristically solemn Roman prompted.
“I never thought I’d say this, but... I am so glad that you exist.”
“Dit-to my good sir. Dit-to.”
Unsure why Roman said ditto in such an odd way, but still reeling from the creature that continued to scribble ominously on their kitchen table, Virgil decided to let it go and turn back to the problem at hand. Which, if you would kindly consult the paragraph far, far above this one, was Patton’s worrying stillness.
“I thought he already knew about the fourth wall,” Virgil mentioned contemplatively, turning back to his (admittedly) favorite blue-clad side. Roman shrugged, clearly unconcerned, and moved to the fridge to take a carton of milk from it.
“Guess not. It doesn't really matter, though- he just needs some time," he reassured. "I mean, all we can do is just sit around and wait for him to process... well. Everything.”
Virgil was still largely unconvinced.
Roman, glancing over at him as he poured some milk in some nondescript glass, noticed and let out a breath of slight exasperation.
“Look,” he started in his best mollifying voice as he screwed the cap back on, “We’ve all been there. It took me five hours, and Mr. Roboto spent an entire three days completely out of it. It’s lucky that we’re just figments of a personality, and that food is just a thing authors use to humanize us further even in non-AU’s, or else he’d be in pretty big trouble.”
Virgil raised a brow, and Roman nodded. “Right, right. Off track, I know. But I'm just saying- don’t you remember going through this?”
Virgil’s face, which had previously been rathee blank and slightly irritated (as was it’s usual state), suddenly became impossibly blanker. His eyes lost any gleam of life, expression falling into nothing but a wooden ghost of its previous humanity.
“I have always been aware of our entirely superficial existence since the day I was made. The continuous existential horror has made it hard to form any real relationship with any of you until now. Even then, a lot of our deep bond comes from the various universes and situations that fans throw us in. Roman, right now we are making out on a rooftop in New York. I have super powers. Logan is an empath, and he’s a royal tutor. We are having this conversation right now. There is no reality for us. We just do as we’re written to do. It is an ever continual source of anxiety for me, but one that I am used to, have always been used to, and will continue to be used to. So, I suppose the answer to your question is ‘no’. I do not.”
Roman stared. Virgil stared back. Roman looked up to re-read the paragraph, and, having finally processed it, turned back to Virgil. Wordlessly, he handed him the glass of milk.
No words could be said, and a hug simply felt too awkward for them at this point in time and at this moment in this particular universe, so it was all he could offer. Virgil understood, because he could read just as well as you, and agreed with Roman’s emotions on the matter.
As he took a sip, he felt indescribably touched.
Patton, as if roused by the emotional scene, suddenly shifted. Both Roman and Virgil turned to look at him, eyes wide as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t have, but Patton was just grinning, bright and unconcerned and... normal. Not at all the expression of someone who had just discovered that they weren't real and that choice was a neverending illusion.
“It’s as I thought,” he said, and his voice sounded relieved. “There aren’t any spiders there after all.”
Virgil breathed. He thought, very seriously, about screaming. He carefully did not, instead bringing the cool glass of milk to his lips and taking a long, long drink of it.
