Chapter Text
Virgil yawned, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He sat up and forced himself onto his feet, swaying slightly as his tired muscles started to wake up. Once he felt a bit better, he walked to the bathroom to put on some eyeliner. He had showered the night before, and a warm shower was definitely not going to do him any favors with the whole being exhausted thing. Not to mention showers were a pain for Virgil, what with his wings and all.
Virgil winced as he folded them close to his back and trapped them there with his shirt and then hoodie. He zipped it up tight so it would hold them in place, they were feeling extra twitchy this morning and he wanted to be super careful with them to make up for it.
After he was done there, Virgil left his room and made his way down to the kitchen, unsurprised to see Patton already awake and cooking breakfast. He did have to do a double take upon seeing Logan sitting there, as he usually got up at 6:30, not 5:45, but then he remembered that Logan had pulled an all-nighter with Roman the night before. Indeed, the bags under his eyes gave away everything.
Logan caught Vigil's gaze, bringing his head up from where it rested on his hands. “Coffee?” he asked quietly, and Virgil hesitated, looking to Patton before nodding. “Thanks.”
Virgil maneuvered carefully around Patton, trying as hard as he could not to bump him. Patton squeezed in closer to the stove to accommodate him as he gathered the supplies for a quick pot of coffee, silencing Virgil's many quiet apologies as he bumped him or leaned too close.
“Sorry about that, Pat,” he grimaced as he caught the box of baking soda, wincing at how close it got to Patton's pan of eggs.
“It's no problem, kiddo, I mean it,” Patton smiled, trying to catch Virgil's eye as he pulled out a mug for Logan. Virgil did his best to avoid his gaze, but eventually their eyes met and Patton offered a smile. “It's really not a problem, I don't mind you being in my space.”
Virgil, nodded, the tiniest of smiles on his face as he retreated to the table to deliver Logan his coffee. “So, where's Prince Charming?”
“Imagination,” was Logan's quick answer. He brought the mug to his lips and sighed in ecstasy as he drank, downing the entire mug in a few gulps. Virgil, who was used to Logan's antics, was already there with the mostly full pot to top him off again. Logan smiled appreciatively, clapping Virgil on the back.
“Ah!” Virgil gasped as Logan's hand hit his wings. On any other body part, this would have been fine, but his wings were sensitive, and he would like to keep them out of any sort of danger. That meant the surprisingly hard hits of sleep-deprived coffee addicts too, thank you very much.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you,” Logan frowned, pulling his hand away. Unsure of what to do with it, he let it hover above Virgil's back for a moment before it dropped to his side. Virgil groaned, but stood up, offering the (once again) full coffee mug to Logan.
“Hit me again and I switch it to decaf,” was all he said as he paced the pot back in the coffee maker. Logan gasped dramatically, seemingly taking a page from Roman's book.
“You wouldn't!”
“Watch me.”
Patton smiled to himself, suppressing a laugh as the two went back and forth. He was ready to step in should things get unnecessarily heated, but for now, he could tell they were just joking.
“Patton, tell him not to make me decaf,” Logan whined playfully, setting his mug carefully on the table. He stood up and straightened his tie.
“Virgil?” Patton asked, waiting until the emo was staring him in the eye. He looked a bit afraid, and Patton wondered if he had accidentally used his dad voice to catch his attention. Oops. “I think it would be best for Logan if he were to minimize his caffeine intake, don't you?”
Virgil's face lit up in a grin, and Logan's paled. He bolted from the room, yelling something about Roman and Crofters and dragons. Virgil shook his head, a small grin still planted on his lips.
“He's ridiculous when he's tired,” Virgil yawned, sitting down backwards in the empty chair Logan had left behind. Patton chuckled, grabbing a plate for his eggs.
“You want any?” Virgil shook his head and thanked him for the offer. Patton saw how quickly his eyes fell shut and wondered briefly how much sleep he had gotten the previous night.
The answer, of course, was hardly any. Virgil almost always had a hard time getting to sleep and staying that way. Not only was he anxious like, all the time, but his wings made it very hard to find a comfortable position. Plus he had to stay up late cleaning them himself, because God knows the other sides would never want to. They were gross, and Virgil knew it.
The thought of the others seeing his wings…. He could just imagine the terror on Patton's face, the anger on Roman's, and most terrifyingly, the morning curiosity that he would find on Logan's. He loved the others with all of his heart, but he often wondered if they would love him once they learned the truth. Would Patton be afraid of him? Would Roman hate him again? Would Logan want to inspect him, tear him apart and put him back together to see just how him having wings was possible?
That was another reason he had such trouble sleeping at night, he supposed. He just didn't know.
°•°
Roman grimaced, his sword slipping from his hands as fire danced around him, swaying and swelling to the sporadic song of chaos. The dragon witch stood before him, a glowing orb hovering above her open palm. She cackled as he stepped back, taking two long strides forward, effectively cornering him against the wall of flames that was once a villager's house.
Logan had told him that trying to go adventuring after staying up for the entire night would be a bad idea. He had even agreed at the time, promising to write down his revelation and get back to his quest after he had attained a full night's sleep. But then he remembered that he made a bet against Virgil saying that he would go adventuring every day for the next three months, and he wasn't about to lose that bet by sleeping through the day and missing his chance.
So he decided to go in and complete a small quest, perhaps some puppy rescuing or troll defeating, nothing too challenging. Somewhere along the way, though, he'd gotten lost in his world of stories (as he so often did), losing himself within the endless array of quests set before him. One thing led to another, and now he was fighting the dragon witch in the ruins of his favorite village without having slept for at least 24 hours, if not more at this point.
(Time always moved strangely in the Imagination. Sometimes hours equated only to minutes, other times, minutes in this world were hours outside. Logan had once hypothesized that this was due to how imaginative or inspired Thomas was feeling at the time of questing, but they had never run any experiments to prove this.)
“You've got nowhere to go, little prince,” the witch laughed, orb bobbing menacingly above her hand. She grinned and wound her arm back, throwing the orb at Roman with all of her might. Roman gasped and raised his sword to block it, but the orb went right through the blade before hitting him square in the chest. Roman gasped and stumbled backwards, feeling what little energy he had left draining from his system. He dropped to his knees, the image of the witch above him spinning as his eyelids dropped lower and lower. He watched as a pair of boots thudded down in front of him, the sound coming through quiet and distorted.
He tried to see who had come to his rescue, but he fell into the dirt, and his eyes closed of their own volition. Roman breathed in the dust, felt the darkness enter his lungs, his blood, his brain, and then he was gone, dragged far away from the burning village and the dragon witch and his mysterious rescuer.
He let out the breath, and all of it disappeared.