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When Roman and Virgil woke up in opposite rooms in each other's bodies, they immediately ran to their own rooms to see what happened. They bumped into each other halfway.
There was something very strange about looking back at yourself. A mirror would never compare to seeing the real live you standing in front of you. Virgil looked at his body staring back at him with an expression of confidence and annoyance that could only be one side that he knew. “Roman?”
Roman-that-looked-like-Virgil blew his bangs out of his face in an annoyed puff. “Well, not really! I look like you, Worry Wart.”
Virgil rolled his (Roman's?) eyes. “No dip, Sherlock. I'm not exactly myself either.”
“What are we going to do about it?” Roman cried dramatically. “I can't be you forever!”
Roman threw himself against the was and posed their to exaggerate his anguish, but instantly winced upon contact with the wall. “You bruise like a peach,” he muttered, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a smallish bruise developing right above his elbow.
Virgil winced at Roman getting hurt, but quickly shifted his attention back to the task at hand. “You mean you don't know what happened?” Virgil was kind of banking on the fact that Roman had something to go with this. He didn't even consider that it could have not been Roman. “You can't fix it?”
Roman slapped his hand over his eyes and sighed, exasperated. “No! If I could fix it don't you think I would have? I don't want this just as much as you.”
Virgil combed his fingers through his hair nervously. His hand came back sticky with product Roman must have put in the night before. Gross. “If you didn't do it and you can't fix it and I can't fix this, then what are we going to do?” Virgil's voice had been rising in pitch and he was looking thoroughly anxious by now.
Roman grimaced when he saw his own face contort into a look of fear. It was something he tried to avoid at all costs when he was him. “Hun, stress is not a good look on me. Quit it.”
Virgil didn't know what Roman was thinking, just what he said. And to him it sounded like Roman had forgotten the lengthy conversations Virgil had with him on multiple occasions. “Oh my god. We've been over this many, many times! I can't just not stress out! I am anxiety!” All of a sudden, Virgil's face shifted from anger to fearful confusion.
“What is it.” Roman whispered, looking behind him in case Virgil saw something dangerous. There was nothing.
“I… I can't do the echo voice.” Virgil sounded so small and delicate. And frightened.
Roman hated this. As much as he picked on Virgil and didn't understand him most of the time, he was family. And whenever his family was afraid it was Roman's job to protect them all.
Looking down at his shoes, Roman couldn't think of anything to remedy the situation accept, “I'm sorry. You're- you're right. It's not something you can prevent.”
Virgil didn't exactly smile, but he definitely looked less hurt. Score. Roman continued, “I'm equally as sorry that I can't change us back. I don't know what happened, truly!” Roman tapped his chin in thought. “Honestly, the only entity in Thomas strong enough to something like this is the Dragon Witch. We probably have to consult them.”
On cue, a puff of smoke beside the two sides displayed the Dragon Witch in all their magic glory. They both started, although Roman recovered quickly and leveled the witch with a glare.
“You called?” They crooned. “I thought you might.”
Virgil was shaking slightly now. Whether it was from anger or fear, even Virgil wasn't quite sure. “What the hell did you do,” he spat.
They cackled and tweaked Roman's-but-what-looked-like-Virgil's ear. “You two have some issues you need to resolve. And things won't be right until tension dissolves. If each of you live a day in swapped shoes, I'll switch you right back and this’ll all be old news.”
Roman cocked an eyebrow. “We have to stay like this for one day. Nothing else?” He’s worked with the Dragon Witch too often to think they would let then go without a catch.
“Oh! Silly old me. I almost forgot! You two are both doomed if either gets caught. If Patton or Logan find out what I've done, the curse will not lift and I will have won.”
And as startling as they appeared, they left with another puff. Leaving a puddle of bad emotions behind.
After a good half a minute of nervous contemplation about the day ahead of them, Roman noticed that Virgil had sunk to the floor in a panic. “Shit.” He whispered, falling to his knees to assist.
“We're go- going to be stuck like th- this forever,” said Virgil through chattering teeth.
“No we won't. We can do it, I know we can.” Roman did everything he was told to help Virgil an an anxiety attack, but it took much longer for Virgil to recover than if Logan or Patton would have been there. That's always how it's been with Roman. Maybe he wasn't a particularly comforting person.
-
After coaxing Virgil to breathe a little more normally, Roman apologized for the second or third time that day. “I'm not sure what I did to deserve such a question from the Dragon Witch. Usually, they at least have a good reason to antagonize me!”
Virgil looked at Roman like he was stupid. “Did you even listen? They said that we fight too much or something.”
“We don't do that.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No! We don- oh.”
“But it doesn't even matter!” Virgil cried. “What matters is that we are stuck like this for-frEAKING-EVER if we can't hide it from Patton and Logan. You know how much Logan pays attention! And how much Patton cares about us! Between the two of them, they’ll totally figure it out.”
“Okay. Okay. I might have a plan. Get in my room.” Roman scampered down the hall with Virgil hot on his heels. Any ideas were good one's at this point.
-
After a fair amount of time, the swapped sides had taken a crash course in each other. How to walk, what to say. When to go to Thomas. How to divide Patton and Logan so they can't conspire throughout the day and figure it out.
By the middle of the day, Roman and Virgil were equally exhausted.
Virgil was lying on his bed, talking up at the ceiling. “How are you so boisterous and creative all the time? A different nickname every conversation is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure Logan got suspicious when I called him calculator because you've used something like that before. And Thomas called me up for the strangest stuff. Like, who cares how you phrase your tweet about the next video! Not me, that's for sure.”
“How dare you!” Roman quipped, grinning from the spin chair. “I put my heart and soul into those tweets!”
“Then you need a different direction. Try sleeping the days away. Works for me.” Virgil said with a tired smile. Roman's personality wasn't only draining to be around, it was draining to keep up.
“You're under-exaggerating, which is the wort kind of exaggerating!” Roman said as he applied more eye shadow to his already shadowed undereyes. “I had to constantly check in on Thomas for every little thing! ‘Did you lock your door, Thomas.’ ‘Are those leftovers really still good, Thomas.’ Honestly, he was actually contemplating eating raspberries that had started to go bad. Like, really? That is dangerous!”
Virgil smiled, despite himself. “I know, right? Someone has to do it or else Thomas would do dumb shit like that all the livelong day.”
As the day went on, their annoyance and fear about being stuck in each other's bodies was all but forgotten. Instead, they were enjoying halfheartedly complaining about what each other did. By the end of the day, Logan and Patton had definitely noticed something was going on, but they kept to themselves. Whatever it was, it was allowing Virgil and Roman to get along and that was a first.
All of the sides went to bed at the same time so Roman and Virgil went to each other's rooms to sleep to avoid suspicion.
That night, Virgil slept like a baby. Without the anxiety dreams keeping him up and the unbelievably soft bed that positively engulfed him when he sank into it, Virgil wasn't waking up for anything.
In Virgil's room, Roman decided that the dark and dreary atmosphere wasn't so bad when he couldn't feel the effects of the room. Plus side to being in Virgil's body, less panic in his room than normal!The only thing he had to complain about the room was the bed. It was so hard and didn't even have a bed frame to support it. Unlike Virgil, it took Roman ages to fall asleep and he vowed to create a better one for Virgil when they were switched back.
-
Apparently, Logan and Patton didn't put to much more thought into what had gotten into Roman and Virgil because the two swapped sides woke up as themselves once again. Virgil celebrated by falling back to sleep.
Roman, on the other hand, had lost a whole day of his pamper routine. He had apply his face cream trice today and shower for extra long to make up for it.
After an extra hour of exfoliation and rejuvenating, Roman snuck over to Virgil's room, who was still sleeping. It was a frightening task (an awoken Virgil is not a happy Virgil) but Roman was able to create a much softer and more appropriate bed for him.
It was so great to be able to create things again!
Though neither would admit it, being swapped for a day was the best thing that could have happened to them. After that day, they were closer than ever. They even started to work together rather than against each other on projects for Thomas. Thomas was certainty pleased.
-
One night, about a month after the side swap (so Roman had dubbed it), Virgil was having trouble sleeping. He loved the new bed that Roman whipped up for him, but it just wasn't doing the job.Gathering up all the courage he had at the moment, Virgil grabbed his comforter, wrapped it around his shoulders like a comfy cape, and padded to Romans room.
Maybe he's sleeping by now. Maybe it would be best to just stay in his own room like always. It probably would be better, thought Virgil, if I just left him alone.
Before Virgil could worry his way out of knocking, the door was thrown open. There stood Roman with a sword cutting Virgil's view of him in half.
Scampering back, Virgil yelped, “Hey! It's just me!”
Roman, upon seeing Virgil, un-summoned his sword and stepped back. “Terribly sorry. I heard something outside and I was sure the Dragon Witch was back. They like to show up in the middle of the night you know. Anyway, come in!”
Virgil slowly crept into the room as if another sword-bearing-Roman was around the corner. “What a way to welcome a guy,” he muttered to himself while calming his thrumming heartbeat.
Roman, still a little on edge as well, shoved piles of papers into drawers with a nervous laugh. “Sorry about the mess. I would have cleaned up a little if I thought you'd be over.”
“Don't worry about it, Romano.”
And just like that, the tension was broken. Roman cracked a smile and pushed Virgil lightly. “No! That's such a bad nickname!”
Virgil smiled shyly in return. “I don't know what you're talking about, Romano.”
Roman walked over to his bed and plopped down, patting the bed as an invitation. “So what's up?”
“Um,” Virgil began eloquently as he fiddled with a loose string as he sat next to Roman gently. “I guess I couldn't sleep? And I remember sleeping when I was you and it was really great… Not in a creepy way! I just slept through the night and I don't always do that so what I guess what I'm trying to say is-”
“You can sleep with me if you want to, Virgil.”
“Really?”
Roman nodded and shimmied under the covers. Virgil got in on the other side and sighed happily. He fell asleep not long after Roman clapped the lights off.
-
The next morning, Patton went up to check on Roman only to find him curled protectively around a little bundle of content. It was just too adorable for him to handle by himself so he ran downstairs to fetch Logan to show him what he happened to stumble across, dragging him back up the stairs in excitement.
“Aren't they just the cutest, Lo?” Patton said once they made it to the cracked open door, wrapping his arms around Logan.
Logan blushed and sputtered in the affirmative. It was a good day for all.