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Logan couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d started. At first, it had just been offhand observations that he’d dismissed, Anxiety was , after all, their enemy.
But then he wasn’t. And Logan stopped dismissing his observations. In fact, he began writing them down, practically studying Virgil.
Virgil was not only the personification of Thomas’s anxiety, but he also seemed to experience it himself. He slept and ate poorly, and it was difficult to convince him to join in on group activities. His hands were frequently shaking, and he grew irritable if he didn’t get enough time to himself to recharge.
So Logan observed. He took note of specific stressors to Virgil, and tried to come up with possible solutions on how to minimize them. Things like lessening his caffeine intake, improving his diet, and perhaps having a calming tea before bed.
And the more Logan observed, the more trivial his observations were.
Like how husky his voice was after just waking up. Or the beautifully musical sound of the small chuckles he hid behind his hand whenever Patton made a pun. Or the (objectively adorable) teasing smirk on his face when he playfully provoked Roman.
Eventually, he Logan starts to realize he has a problem when each of these observations sparks a strange feeling in his chest and stomach. A feeling that he unfortunately knows the diagnosis to, despite how clueless the others believe him to be when it comes to emotions.
He never meant to start falling for Virgil.
And he never meant for it all to fall apart.
Logan had been writing plans in his notebook as usual, trying to come up with ways for Virgil to better manage his anxiety, when Patton frantically called him into the kitchen. Logan had left his notebook open on the coffee table while he went to assist (Patton had, once again, gotten multiple spoons stuck in the drain).
After fixing the issue, Patton rushed upstairs, saying something about being late for a date in the Imagination with Roman. Logan returned to the living room only to find Virgil flipping through the notebook, expression growing increasingly angrier.
“Virgil--” Logan started.
“The fuck is this,” Virgil asked, cutting him off and barely looking up from the book to glare at Logan.
“Virgil, please, let me explain, I--” Logan started again, but was cut off once more.
“Are you observing me?” Virgil’s voice rose in volume. “Am I just another experiment to you?”
“Virgil, no, you don’t understand--” Logan tried to explain
“I don’t understand?” Virgil scoffed, looking back down at the notebook.
Logan resisted the urge to growl in frustration. That would get them nowhere. If only Virgil would stop cutting him off --
“I think I understand perfectly,” Virgil said and began reading from the notebook, “‘The subject’s diet and sleeping patterns must be monitored further before an accurate routine can be created.’ What the hell , Logan?”
“I was only trying to help!”
Virgil’s scowl deepened. “Maybe I don’t need your help, ever think of that?” He shoved the notebook into Logan’s chest. “Don’t try to fix me. I’m not broken. And I’m not some experiment you can just toy with as you please.”
Logan let the notebook fall to the ground as Virgil stormed off to his room.
He’d really messed up this time.
Virgil stays in his room for days. No one even caught him coming out for food or water, which especially concerned them.
Patton had taken to sitting in front of his door for some amount of time during the day. Sometimes it was thirty minutes. Sometimes it was three hours. He rambled aimlessly at the door, tried to convince Virgil to come out, or at least eat. No one even knew if Virgil was actually listening.
Logan couldn’t sleep. He would barely eat, which only served to fuel Patton’s worry further.
It was his fault Virgil was locked in there, ignoring them all. He had betrayed Virgil’s trust (even if he still wasn’t 100% sure what had happened), and he had to fix it.
So Logan used his newly terrible sleeping schedule to his advantage. He burrowed under a blanket on the couch -- making sure to adjust it’s positioning so that it’s placement looked natural and haphazardly thrown on the cushions -- and waited.
After all those days, there was no way Virgil wasn’t hungry. Even if he had been sneaking food somehow, he’d need more. And Logan would keep doing this until he caught him.
As things were, it did take a few days before Logan caught Virgil.
He had almost fallen asleep, when a presence going by woke him up and put him on edge. Logan carefully listened to the footsteps of the presence and the resulting sounds in the kitchen.
Everything sounded too quiet, too sneaky. There was no way that wasn’t Virgil (he should know, he’d caught both Patton and Roman rustling around in the kitchen late at night enough times to know what they sounded like).
Logan listened while Virgil quietly ate some of the leftovers Patton had left in the fridge. Listened while he stuffed what was probably his coat pockets with what was probably granola bars (if the crinkling wrappers were anything to go by). Listened as he quietly made his way back through the common room to the stairs.
Then, Logan moved. Virgil wasn’t the only one who could be sneaky.
He climbed up the stairs quickly (as quickly as he could, being as exhausted as he was, which wasn’t very quickly), remembering exactly which steps not to step on because they would squeak.
Virgil was almost at the end of the hall by the time Logan made it up the stairs, so he dashed down the hallway, slipping into Virgil’s room just before Virgil finished shutting the door.
Virgil startled so badly that he stumbled backwards and the food fell from his pockets (Logan was right, granola bars).
“We need to talk,” Logan said, hands already shaking. Apparently the affects of Virgil’s room came on faster when you were tired and vulnerable.
“I don’t think I have much to say to you right now,” Virgil said, steadying himself and eyeing Logan’s hands carefully. “I think it would be better if you left.”
“No,” Logan said. “Not until you listen to me.”
“Logan, seriously--”
“No, last time you did all the talking, now it’s my turn.” Logan could feel the panic building, but he did his best to swallow it down. He had to do this. “I never meant to hurt you, Virgil.”
“Yeah, well, you did,” Virgil said, crossing his arms and looking away.
Logan ran his trembling fingers through his hair and tried to take a deep breath. It stuttered and he lost it, but he kept speaking.
“I simply wanted to help you, Virgil. I’ve noticed for a long time that you show many symptoms of anxiety yourself, and deduced that you are not just the presence of anxiety, but also the experience of it--”
“So I get nervous,” Virgil butt in, still refusing to look at Logan. “So what?”
“Stop interrupting!” All of Logan’s breath whooshed out of his lungs, and he gasped a few times trying to fill them again. “I wanted to help you, you idiot! I wanted to help you be less nervous so that you could be happy! I wanted to help you because I care and I fucked up, but please, Virgil, please stop hurting yourself because I was an idiot. You’re not broken and I don’t want to fix you, I just wanted to help .”
“Logan,” Virgil breathed out, finally looking at him. His eyes were glassy, his face vulnerable.
But Logan could hardly pay attention to that now. He was practically hyperventilating at this point, buzzing with anxiety and worry. He was worried about Virgil, worried for Virgil’s health, worried for Patton if he couldn’t get Virgil to come out again, worried for the relationship he shared with Virgil and if he’d doomed it from the start--
Logan’s eyes snapped open (when had he closed them??) when a cool hand pressed against his face, wiping away tears that Logan hadn’t even realized were there.
“Logan, it’s okay,” Virgil said gently. “We gotta get you out of here.”
Logan didn’t respond, he simply allowed Virgil to pull him closer and sink them both out, popping back up in the common room.
“I’m sorry,” Logan stuttered out over and over, still in the midst of his panic. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry--”
Virgil guided Logan to sit on the couch, wrapping the blanket that Logan had been hiding under earlier in the night around his shoulders.
“It’s okay, Logan,” Virgil said, trying to gently pry Logan’s hands away from his hair. “I’m not mad anymore. I’m not mad at you.”
“I messed up, I’m sorry--”
“It’s all okay now,” Virgil spoke soothingly. “I need you to breathe with me, can you do that?”
Logan nodded shakily, squeezing Virgil’s hands tightly as opposed to clutching at his hair.
“Four, seven, eight, remember that?”
Logan nodded again.
“Okay, do it with me now.”
The two breathed in unison for a few minutes. They breathed until Logan’s breaths no longer stuttered and neither of their hands shook. They breathed until Logan’s tears dried and Virgil’s heart slowed. They breathed until Logan finally allowed their hands to drop away from each other, embarrassed by the contact.
“I’m sorry,” Logan started to say again, looking down in shame, but Virgil held up a hand to stop the apology from going further.
“It’s okay. I’m not mad, Logan.”
Logan looked up at him again. “I find that hard to believe.”
Virgil shook his head. “I was mad for a little bit. And scared. I thought I was just another experiment to you--”
“You’re not,” Logan blurted, grabbing Virgil’s hand again.
“I know that now,” Virgil gave a small, almost imperceptible smile, “so stop apologizing.” He frowned again. “Just smile,” Virgil said, clutching Logan’s hand back. “I really need to see you smile right now.”
Logan scoffed. “You say that as if I smile normally in my day to day life.”
Virgil smirked. “Maybe you should.”
“I am a very serious man.”
“A very serious man with a very nice smile.”
“Falsehood.”
Virgil’s smirk grew into a rare grin. “Careful, Logan. You know what Patton likes to do to liars.” He took one of his hands back to squeeze Logan’s side, smiling wider when Logan tried to wiggle away.
“Stop it,” Logan said, but there was no heat behind the words and he was smiling wide.
Virgil clasped their hands together again. “See? It’s like the sun, I can’t even look at it straight on it’s so bright. Good thing we’re both gay as fuck, huh?”
Logan broke down in giggles slouching forward to lean his forehead again Virgil’s shoulder. “I think the sleep deprivation is catching up with me,” he said in-between bouts of quiet laughter.
Virgil ran a hand through Logan’s hair. “More fun for me, then,” he joked, but started to recline them against the couch anyway, adjusting Logan to lay on top of him. “Means I get to see that smile. I won.”
“Stop talking about my smile, already,” Logan whined, then mumbled into Virgil’s chest, “Just wait until I’m coherent, then I won’t be the one who’s blushing.”
Virgil sighed, fixing the blanket around Logan’s shoulder’s to cover them both entirely. “If only the room wasn’t so dim, I would’ve liked to see that.”
Logan only hummed in response, beginning to drift off.
“Hey, Lo?” Virgil murmured after a few minutes, almost asleep.
“Hmm?”
“We’re not gonna just… go back to normal in the morning and pretend this never happened, right?”
Logan, barely awake, snuggled deeper into Virgil’s chest. “Fuck that. I gotta prove that I’m the better flirt.”
Virgil giggled sleepily. “I don’t think either of us were very good flirts tonight.”
“I’ll show you,” Logan muttered, words starting to slur.
Virgil smiled down at the unruly mass of brown hair resting on his chest. “You do that,” he whispered, finally letting sleep drag him under.
And if Patton woke up to make breakfast and found those two curled together on the couch and snapped dozens of pictures? No one needed to know.
And if one of those pictures ended up as Logan’s lockscreen? No one needed to know that, either.