The Storm That's Brewing
Summary: morning in Spain, breakfast
Warnings: food/eating
(first, previous and next chapter links at end)
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Chapter 9- A Morning Of Chocolate, Charging And Charming
Waking up was always hell, Virgil thought. Waking up to the smell of burning chocolate, and the sound of faint cussing from another room, though? Virgil wasn't sure how he felt about that.
Of course he was mad about waking up, and if it were up to him he'd nestle back under the covers and sleep for another week, but he was already on his feet before the thought crossed his mind.
Out of habit he checked his phone before anything else: one message from Patton, reading 'Okay! See you tonight!' followed by a heart, cat, and tea emoji. He replied a simple 'ok' emoji and shut off his phone. Then he did what his instincts told him and followed the chocolate.
Stepping out into the hallway, Virgil pondered over why he wasn't completely freaking out right now. For once, he had plenty of reason to: he'd just discovered that his roommate could teleport, meaning that he and Patton weren't the only superpowered ones out there and there could be countless others, that his life was probably going to get a lot more complicated very quickly, and also that he was in Spain. He was sure a breakdown was inevitable. Yet, walking barefoot towards a stranger's kitchen, in a stranger's house, in borrowed clothes, he felt completely fine. Probably because of shock. Or denial. Either way, he preferred it to stressing.
As he neared the kitchen, the cursing stopped, and he noticed quiet music playing from Roman's phone on the table. Behind, Roman stood, frantically jumping between the tasks of mixing bowls, setting the table and presumably not burning the place down.
Roman hadn't noticed Virgil sit down at the table, until he went to place a cup next to him and jumped out of his skin.
"Heckedy heck! Five abs and a peck! Warn a guy before you sneak up on them."
Virgil laughed. He'd never seen Roman so disgruntled before- dressed in sweats and an oversized Disney tee, hair unbrushed and face bare, discounting the line of flour he had across his cheek. Virgil rarely caught Roman in the mornings before either of them left for work, or for social purposes in Roman's case. He liked plain Roman- he seemed less like an annoying preening peacock, and more like an annoying, cute robin. Not like Virgil had any issues with Roman looking dressed up though, both were very pleasant sights.
"Well that's... An image. But yeah, good morning to you too Princey." He said, aiming for sarcastic, but just sounding tired (which he was). He glanced behind Roman, where he could see smoke. "Uh, something's burning."
Roman quickly turned the oven off, scowling into the previously smouldering bowl. He placed it, as well as another onto the table.
Virgil peered into one of the bowls and saw a mass of clumpy, charred chocolate. He bit his lip. "This looks... Good?"
Roman sighed and flopped into the seat opposite Virgil. "I know, I know. It's burnt. It's inedible. It's unsalvageable." He draped an arm across his head. "You've found my weakness- it's chocolate."
Virgil laughed under his breath. "What were you even trying to do? Burn the house down?"
Roman titled the other bowl for Virgil to see; inside were a load of piped, yellow-y shapes.
"Churros?"
Roman nodded solemnly.
"Why is this one shaped like a deformed dinosaur?"
"I was trying to make some Mickey mouse shaped."
Virgil tried to hide his smile. <i>Of course <i/>he was. "Alright well the chocolate is salvagable. Did you make the sugar dip thingy?"
Roman perked up. "I was just about to but..." He poked the chocolate lump with a spoon. "Really?"
Virgil stood, "Is there a kettle?"
"Why, of course!"
Roman outstretched his hand and, with a slight pop, a kettle appeared.
"Dude. How do you do that?"
"I don't know, I just-" He looked suspiciously up at Virgil, "I usually can't do it with people watching."
Virgil raised an eyebrow.
"Here." Roman handed Virgil the kettle.
Virgil placed it underneath the tap and filled it. A silence fell over the cabin. Virgil realised that he and Roman hadn't actually ever spent that much time together since their first day in the apartment. He reckoned, now that some new secrets had come to light, that was going to change. Was that a bad thing?
Once the kettle was almost boiling on the stove, and Roman had (manually) found a spare bowl and several types of sugars, Roman tried to initiate a conversation. Unfortunately, it wasn't one that Virgil wanted to have so early in the- morning? Afternoon? What timezone should he even go by?
"So uh... Do you just do lightning or are you like Storm?" Roman tried.
Virgil glared at him.
Roman summoned a white flag into his hand. "Alright, alright, Lightning McQueer, we'll talk about it later."
Virgil narrowed his eyes. Did he hear Roman correctly? He huffed out a small laugh despite his best efforts not to.
Roman beamed. "Virgil smiling within an hour of waking up? What magic is this? "It's straight out of a fairytale."
Virgil shook his head. "Yeah right, as who, the villain? The evil witch?"
Roman gasped. "Of course not! You are clearly the princess. The damsel in distress." He lifted Virgil's hand and tried to spin him.
"I have a kettle full of boiling water in my hand, you dolt!"
Virgil gently pushed Roman away, careful not to
Roman chuckled. "You certainly have the distressed part of damsel in distress going on."
"Dream on Princey." Virgil poured some water into the closest mug. He looked around for a second, then at Roman, "Spoon?"
"Me?"
"Do you have a tea spoon?" Virgil asked impatiently.
Roman smirked and handed Virgil a spoon he'd gotten from seamingly nowhere. Was he creating them or bringing it from another place? If so, where? Virgil would've asked if he hadn't already waved away Roman's question about his lighting/Storm powers.
Virgil muttered a "thank you" and poured a spoonful of boiling water in the charred chocolate and began mixing.
Roman quietly mixed some sugar and then began to reheat whatever oil he'd been using to cook the churros.
It didn't take too long for Virgil to revive the chocolate.
"How did you save it?" Roman asked incredulously. He placed a plate of freshly cooked churros, and a bowl of mixed sugars, in the centre of the table. He tried to pick up one of the churros but dropped it, blowing one his fingers to try cool them down.
Virgil grabbed Roman's dropped churro. He dipped it in the sugar and stirred it idly in the chocolate.
"If you somehow hadn't noticed, Patton likes to bake cookies, like, all the time."
"Uh-huh."
"Well he doesn't like to read recipes and we both get distracted pretty easily- plus, neither of us have any sense of time- so we've burnt a lot of chocolate. And we did this one time at the apartment and Logan came out of his room for once and got all Lecture Mode and told us that when you burn it you basically remove loads of moisture or whatever so you just re-moisturize it." Virgil took a bit of the churro then reconsidered his words. "That sounds weird. But... Yeah."
"I guess the know-it-all does know some useful facts after all. Let the record show, I always had full faith in him."
"You just called him a know-it-all."
"Unimportant." Roman said, dismissing the statement with a wave of his hand. He reached for a churro but they were still steaming hot. It was possible he'd overheated the oil a bit.
To Roman's surprise, Virgil grabbed and ate another churro without issue.
"How are you not burning yourself? These churros are hotter than Hades' hair."
"They're not that hot." Virgil shrugged.
"Virgil, they're steaming hot." He poked one. "Like me but in a less fun way."
Virgil suppressed a laugh. "Drama queen."
"Emo nightmare." Roman retorted.
Virgil began to think of a witty reply but found that 'emo nightmare' was really more of a compliment. He instead replied, "Thank you."
Roman summoned a fork and stabbed a churro. He did his best to fully cover it in sugar and chocolate without dropping it and, somehow, did so successfully. It was a truly heathenly way to eat a churro, he knew, but he was hungry.
After several churros (which never seemed to cool down, by the way), Virgil finally worked up the courage to ask, "So... When are we going back to America?"
Roman wiped some chocolate off of his chin. "What's the rush? Do you have work? A date? Some emo band concert tickets?"
"Ha-ha." Virgil deadpanned. "But no. No plans. Just... You know... America?" <i>Smooth.<i/>
"Alright, My-Chemically-Imbalanced-Romance, as you wish. How about I escort you home after we both get ready?"
"Both get ready? God, we're never leaving." Virgil sniped.
"Ha-ha. I don't take that long to get ready-"
"You're the reason Logan made morning bathroom schedules."
"-<i>But<i/> I have no plans today so I have no need for makeup. Just a quick shower. I'll use the en suite in the main bedroom if you want to use the main; I know you prefer to shower at night but since you were a little busy last night..."
<i>'A little busy' was an understatement,<i/> Virgil thought, but he agreed.
-
Despite Roman's promise to be quick, Virgil was ready a whole half an hour before Roman, who sauntered in at 5:30pm (Spanish time, which Virgil didn't know how to convert to his normal time), a whole hour after breakfast.
"Dude."
"Alright, it took a smidge longer than I'd previously anticipated- outfits and all- but I'm here now. You ready to go?"
Virgil ended his conversation with Patton, who'd been texting him from work, and slipped his phone is his hoodie pocket. He stood up. Roman walked over and took him by his hands. "What are you doing?"
"We need to be touching, apparently."
Virgil recoiled. "Apparently?"
Roman laughed nervously. "I've never teleported with someone else with me."
Virgil sighed and offered Roman his hands, "Great."
Roman accepted. He held Virgil's hands tightly, which sent sparks up and down his spine (possibly literally, it was hard to tellwith him) and closed his eyes for a second, then let go. He proposed, "Why don't we for a walk first? There truly are some splendid views around here."
"Roman."
"It must be almost sunset, very picturesque-"
"Roman."
Roman collapsed onto the couch. "It didn't work."
"What do you mean 'It didn't work'?"
"I tried to take us back to the apartment, back to my room, your room, behind the apartment, backstage at the Mind Palace... Nada."
"Why?"
"I can't do it when people are watching," Virgil raised his eyebrows. "Or cameras. I guess somebody's home."
"You don't say."
"No need to fret, though, we can try again a bit later. Somewhere's got to be empty eventually."
Virgil flopped down onto the couch next to him.
"Actually," Roman turned to Virgil, "I have another solution. May take a while though. Need to send a few texts. Want to go for a walk?"
Virgil bit his lip. He hated having no control. "Okay."
"Curses, my phone's dead. Please spare me a second."
"Give it here." Virgil said, already regretting it.
Roman handed over his phone with very little hesitation. Virgil's phone was his lifeline; he doubted he could hand it over as easily as Roman had.
Virgil placed the phone between both of his palms, like a sandwich. He glanced towards Roman then back at the phone. Energy coursed through his hands, like constant static shock, although a lot less painful. He watched as the minute switched over to 17:29, and as the battery percentage steadily increased. He stopped at 20%, which took a minute, as it was 17:30 when he was done, although Virgil hadn't noticed the time passing, too focused on his task.
He could've charges the phone up fully, or a little faster but if he'd learnt anything from the seven phone batteries he'd killed within a week, it was best to take it slowly. The last thing he wanted was to ruin Roman's nice phone.
"There." Virgil handed the phone back to Roman.
Roman desperately wanted to pepper Virgil with questions about his (awesome) powers, but he'd been raised a polite gentleman and opted to only thank Virgil, no questions asked. He knew both of them were equally curious of the other's abilities, but perhaps it wasn't the right time. He'd let Virgil ask the first question.
Roman sent a series of texts and received a response almost instantly. It was technically part of her job.
Plans were made- which Virgil knew not of, for no reason other than that he didn't ask, and this wasn't something Roman paticularly wanted to be known- for an hour's time. That left plenty of time for a nice walk, and hopefully an enlightening chat, Roman thought.
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Taglist: *insert audio of the zoe 101 oOh*
Chapter 1:
Pairings: Prinxiety, Logicality (probs more I haven't planned yet lol) Warnings: None? Tell me if there are some I didn't think of Note: Thi
Chapter 8:
Summary: they're... not in the alleyway anymore?? whoop Warnings: kind of not really an argument? ---------- Chapter 8- Let's Go To The Beac
Chapter 10: in progress