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“Is that my sweater?”
Patton blinked dumbly, before slowly looking down at the clothes he had thrown on in a hazy rush to get out of his dorm and to his 8am lecture that morning. It was an oversized dark purple sweater, with a light purple star in the middle.
“Oh… maybe?” Patton looked back up at Virgil with a sheepish smile and rosy cheeks.
Virgil was also blushing, a slightly pained look on his face as he stared at Patton for a long moment, mouth laying agape as he desperately searched for his words.
“Well… uh, that’s- um- not that I don’t like you wearing my clothes- I do- you’re very cute- but uh- Roman. He uh- if he sees you-” Virgil stammered, only to be cut off by the very thing he feared.
“If I saw what? You know it’s not very nice to make a Prince’s ears burn,” Roman strutted up to the two where they sat at a table just outside one of the campus cafes, it was the groups regular meeting spot between classes.
“What if that Prince is a Royal Pain in the ass?” Virgil snarked, moving over so his friend could sit next to him.
Roman gasped, perfectly manicured hand flying to his chest in an overdramatic offended gesture. He looked far too immaculate for this time of the morning. His strawberry blonde hair was styled to purposely messy perfection, and he wore light red and gold eye makeup, as if showing off the lack of bags under his eyes.
Patton cut in before Roman could shoot back at the insult.
“Good Morning, Roman! You look well rested!” Patton said with a sunny smile.
“Why thank you for noticing! I was rightly blessed with a well deserved beauty rest. I’ve been sleeping like Princess Aurora since doing our final performance of the semester last night,” He boasted, tussling his hair as he spoke. “You, however, do not look like you’ve had as good a time with the ol’ sandman, Padre.”
Roman wasn’t wrong there, Patton hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before, and it definitely showed. His dirty blonde hair was even more wavy and unkempt than normal and his big round glasses only helped to draw attention to the purple rings under his eyes. Not to mention his hastily pulled on sweater that was falling off of one shoulder and suddenly had all of Roman’s attention.
“Hey- hold on, isn’t that the sweater I bought you, Virgil?”
“Y-yes. Patton’s borrowing it. He was- cold?” Virgil squeaked unconvincingly, letting his purple bangs fall into his face, hopefully hiding the panic in his eyes.
Roman frowned, glancing back and forth between his two friends. “But, why didn’t you just where your cat hoodie? You love that thing?”
“I- um- I spilt tea on it! Couldn’t wear it. Virgil was kind enough to let me borrow his!” Patton scrambled to answer, sending Virgil a slightly frantic look over the table.
“Yes. That is exactly what happened,” Virgil wanted to punch himself, why were they so bad at this? At least it was just Roman, he was way more likely to buy such a terrible lie than-
“That’s totally not suspicious at all,” Came a familiar sarcastic drawl. Fuck.
Roman jumped and let out a little shriek at Dee’s sudden appearance behind Virgil.
“How did that scare you? You were facing me?” Virgil scrunched up his eyebrows judging the jumpy thespian. “I thought it would have at least been Remus who spooked you.”
“Remus-?”
Across the table, Patton preemptively blocked his ears.
“Boo!”
Roman’s shriek wasn’t little this time as his brother grabbed his shoulders from behind. He jumped so high he ended up slamming his knees into the underside of the table. Despite the loud ringing in his ear, Virgil snorted when Roman groaned and dropped his forehead onto the table.
Remus, obviously very proud of himself, sat down next to his brother, patting his back unsympathetically. Dee, swooping his long black cardigan out like a cape, took a seat next to Patton, across from Virgil.
“So, what are you guys talking about that's got Virgil acting like more of nervous wreck than normal?”
“I’m not a nervous wreck-!”
Dee arched a brow at him and Virgil sighed.
“Nevermind.”
“We’re talking about how Patton is wearing Virgil’s sweater, because he’s cold and he spilt tea on his cat hoodie,” Roman updated the two newcomers helpfully.
Dee turned to Patton, giving him once-over. Patton looked back at him with a small stressed smile, sweating under the scrutiny.
“If you’re cold, why aren’t you wearing a shirt underneath the sweater?”
“Uh…”
“When did you even get the sweater? It must have been early, since you’re not wearing a shirt and your classes start early.”
“Um… well…” Patton struggled.
“Did you go to his dorm to get it? Why didn’t you come to mine or Roman’s, our dorms are closer? Did you walk all the way there shirtless?”
“W-well no…” Patton stuttered, throwing panicked glances over to Virgil, who watched on in horror as Dee continued to poke holes in their story.
“So you already had the sweater then?”
“Um- yes- well- Oh! Hey Logan!”
“Hello, Patton. Apologies for my tardiness, I stayed behind to speak with my lecturer,” Logan took a seat on Patton’s other side, setting down a heavy stack of books on the table in front of him.
“It’s lunch, not a business meeting, Lo. You don’t need to apologise for being late,” Virgil said, happily latching onto the distraction of his friend’s arrival.
“But we did miss you!” Patton chirped, nudging Logan companionably.
Logan quirked his lips up at his friend, but then his face slowly morphed into one of confusion.
“Patton, are you aware that your neck and clavicle are bruised?” Logan asked, pointing at the two little purple marks peaking out where the sweater had fallen off Patton’s shoulder.
A moment of suffocating silence fell over the group as every pair of eyes snapped to Patton’s neck. To the hickeys Virgil suddenly very much regretted.
It would be really good if Satan spontaneously opened a trash shoot to hell under his feet right now so Virgil didn’t have to deal with this.
“THEY’RE FUCKING!” Was unfortunately the sentence that broke the silence, shouted by a delighted Remus, kicking the rest of the group into gear.
Instead of elbowing his brother in the gut like he normally would, Roman slammed one hand onto the table and the other over his heart, gasping dramatically.
“Ah, so that’s why you’re wearing Virgil’s sweater,” Dee leaned an elbow on the table and placed his chin in his palm, levelling Virgil with incredibly smug smirk. Virgil briefly considered the benefits of punching said smirk, and his glare showed as much.
Of course that only made his friend’s smirk widened.
“I believe I may be missing something,” Logan piped up.
Almost everyone at the table opened their mouth to say something, but it was Dee who got in first. “Logan, honey, how do you think Patton got those bruises?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure, but judging by the placement and the lack of other injuries my guess would be that they are ‘love bites’ or ‘hickeys’ left there by a partner during sexual relations.”
“And have you noticed Patton’s current attire? Namely the sweater that is doing such a fabulous job at hiding said ‘love bites’.”
Dee’s words flicked a switched in Patton as he suddenly remembered the very reason they were having this conversation in the first place and scrambled to pull the sweater back up over his shoulder.
“It is Virgil’s sweater that Roman gave him for Christmas last- oh. Oh, I understand.”
A shrill, long squeal broke out of Roman’s throat, his fingers suddenly fastening tightly around Virgil’s arm.
“How long?!”
“Yeah, how long is it, Patton?” Remus waggled his eyebrows.
This time, Roman did elbow him.
Patton hid his face, which was beginning to resemble a tomato, in his hands, pushing his glasses out of the way. Virgil would have probably done the same if it wasn’t for the death grip Roman still had on his forearm.
“A month…” He mumbled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?! I’ve been rooting for you guys! I was wondering why you had stopped coming to me with your episodes of pining-panic!”
Virgil threw an incredulous look at Roman, silently begging him to shut up.
“Aw, Virgil! You talked about me to Princey?” Patton all but cooed, completely forgetting his previous embarrassment.
“Talked? He would go on and on about you like a lovesick fool. Honestly, I was impressed with some of the romantic musing that came out of his mouth,” Roman continued on, oblivious to Virgil’s distress.
“Aw, don’t feel embarrassed, Virgil. It’s not like Patton would lay on my floor for hours gushing about you or anything,” Dee rolled his eyes, yet still maintained his smirk.
“Wait… really?” Virgil asked in a painfully soft, hopeful voice.
Patton offered him a bashful smile, and in an equally soft voice replied. “Well yeah, of course I did! There’s so much to gush about!”
“Since we are talking freely about it now, there were multiple occasions in which both of you came to me separately to complain about your mutual pining,” Logan added helpfully.
“Why does no one talk to me about their crushes?” Remus asked with an exaggerated pout.
“I told you about a crush I had once in middle school and I will never make that mistake again,” Roman said, a dark look passing over his face as he reminisced.
Remus giggled with evil glee.
“Oh yeah. By the way, back on topic. I never took you for the marking type Virgil!” He all but purred. “Although, you both do have that secretly kinky vibe to ya-”
“Oh, would you look at the time, Patton don’t you have a class? I’ll walk you. See you later, Assholes,” Virgil twisted his hand out Roman’s loosening grip and stood up.
“Yes! Let, uh, let’s go,” Patton quickly stood too, stumbling slightly on the chair as he rushed to make his escape. “Bye guys!” He chirped as he waved at them all, taking Virgil’s hand, who tugged him along swiftly.
“Goodbye.”
“Farewell, Dear Lovebirds!”
“Congratulations on finally getting together.”
“Don’t fuck in the halls! Or do! Live your lives!”
***
Once they were out of sight, or rather, on the other side of campus, Virgil stopped them and tugged Patton over to a little corner in the empty hallway. As soon as they stopped, Patton launched right into a rambling apology.
“Virge, I’m so sorry! I know you wanted to keep our relationship quiet for now- I didn’t even notice I was wearing it I was just so tired this morning-”
He was silenced by a pair of hands on his cheeks and lips on his own. He sighed contently into the kiss, the tension falling from his shoulders as Virgil pulled him close.
When Virgil pulled away, his cheeks were dusted with pink and he was giving Patton that adorable nervous grin he loved so much.
“Pat, it’s okay. I- as horrifically embarrassing as that all was- I’m actually kind of happy they know now. Besides, it’s sort of my fault you’re so tired anyway…”
Patton giggled at his awkward boyfriend. “It was worth it, but maybe next time we wait for a night where I don’t have an 8am lecture the next morning?”
Virgil laughed, scratching at the back of his neck. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. Speaking of- um- you don’t have any classes tomorrow, do you?”
“Nope!” Patton said, popping the ‘p’.
“Good, me neither. Come to mine tonight?”
Patton nodded enthusiastically. “Ok! Oh, um, I should probably change before my lecture-”
“No! Uh- I- mean- um, you look cute, you can- uh- keep it on for the day if you want…” Virgil scrunched up his face at his own awkwardness. He shrugged off his hoodie and gently placed it around Patton’s shoulders, who beamed brightly up at him. “Here, for the- to cover the,” Virgil gestured to his neck. “I’m going back to my dorm now anyway so I can get another jacket.”
“Aww, Virgil! Thank you!” Patton squeaked as he pulled on the hoodie properly.
“No problem. You should probably- um- don’t want to be late to your class.”
“Oh yeah! One more thing before I go-go!” Patton rocked up onto the balls of his feet and threw his arms around Virgil’s shoulders, pulling him down into another kiss.
Virgil hummed, leaning into the warmth that was Patton. He pressed his fingers into the small of Patton’s back, earning an appreciative hum in return. He was sad to pull away, but Patton really did need to get to class.
At least when he pulled away he got to watch Patton’s adorable, soft, sunshiney face, eyes still closed as he savoured the lingering feeling before fluttering them open.
“See you later, Virge,” Patton whispered, his breath brushing against Virgil's lips.
“See you, Patton-Cake.”