Chapter Text
From where he was sitting on the ground, his back to the wall, Thomas had a perfect view of the rest of the party. The crowd of dozens upon dozens of people he barely knew, the flashing lights, the bodies writhing and bouncing in time to a thumping bassline that was so loud and distorted it could hardly even be called music anymore. The contents of the plastic cup in his hand – some kind of sugary soda liquid that he couldn’t have named if he tried – had long since gone flat, but he was still taking intermittent sips out of it, like the extremely petty masochist he apparently was.
“I told you this was a bad idea.”
Thomas shut his eyes, took a very deep breath, and sighed. “You did,” he said, and took another sip of the flat soda as Virgil slid down the wall to sit right next to him, close enough that their arms were nearly bumping. “And, like usual, I didn’t listen.”
“Yeah, well.” Virgil pulled his legs up to his chest, curling his arms around them. He looked paler than usual – the dark shadows under his eyes were even more distinct in the wild, flashing lighting of the party. “I’m kinda used to it. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”
Thomas winced. “Still. Sorry, Virge.”
“Well, we’re both stuck here until your friend decides it’s the right time to leave, so it’s not like I’m the only one suffering the consequences of your actions.” Virgil smiled, a touch darkly. “Result.”
Thomas sighed, and gulped down another mouthful of soda. “Well, at least I’ve got someone to talk to,” he said. “That does help a bit, honestly.”
Virgil blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “What – you mean me?”
Thomas glanced over, mirroring his look of confusion. “Yeah, I mean you – who else is here that’s going to keep me company when I’m feeling like this?”
“Thomas, I am literally the reason you’re feeling like this.”
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage of your presence. Your fun, awesome presence!”
Virgil sighed. “You know I’m not fun.”
Thomas smiled. “You’re very fun to be around.”
“Lies.”
“You’re the life of the party.”
“I’m the death of the party. I murder parties for fun. It’s my cool hobby. I’m the party-killer.”
“You light up my life, Virgil!”
“Like a gas fire lights up the kitchen it’s about to consume. Speaking of which, are you sure you remembered to turn the stove off before you left the house?”
“Yes, I triple checked because you wouldn’t stop bugging me about it – don’t dodge the point of this! You work hard at keeping me alive and safe, and you’re doing your best at that, and Virgil I appreciate you a whole lot!”
“I’d appreciate it a whole lot if you’d listen to me when I tell you not to go to parties you aren’t going to enjoy.”
“You know I’m not going to listen, right?”
“I do, and yet for some reason I keep on trying. It’s ridiculous.”
“You’re ridiculous,” said Thomas instinctively.
“I thought I was the life of the party?”
“That too.”
They grinned at each other for a moment, and then Thomas laughed softly. “It’s strange,” he said thoughtfully. “Of all the things I feel anxious about right now, the fact that people might think I’m weird for sitting here in the corner and talking to thin air isn’t one of them.”
“Mm, yeah. I’m weird like that.” Virgil bounced his leg up and down a bit.
They sat in silence for a minute or two. The music switched, somehow becoming even louder than before. Thomas bit his lip, and then stood up – reflexively offering Virgil a hand to help him get up, before belatedly realizing that he, being a literal figment of his imagination and therefore incorporeal, couldn’t actually take said hand. Virgil smirked slightly at this as he got up, but seemed genuinely pleased about the gesture anyway.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Gonna find somewhere a bit quieter,” said Thomas, already scanning the area for a suitable spot.
“Oh, thank god,” said Virgil, obviously relieved. “This noise is absolutely wrecking my ear drums. I’m all for loud, depressing music but this is barely even music anymore. What’s the point if you can’t even hear the lyrics?”
“I couldn’t agree more – ”
They ended up in the corridor right outside the bathrooms – hardly the most glamorous place to wait out the rest of a party, but definitely a lot quieter than where Thomas had previously been sitting. Not many people were there, either, which kind of made it the perfect place for the two of them to sit down, facing each other, walls at their respective backs, and carry on chatting aimlessly. The only partygoers who were there at all were mostly drunk, and if any of them found it weird that Thomas was carrying on an animated discussion with himself, nobody commented. Maybe they assumed that he was drunk, too.
“Any thoughts?” Thomas asked, curling his legs to one side.
“On stuff to do?”
“Yeah.”
“You could scroll through Tumblr for a bit,” he suggested half-heartedly.
Thomas shook his head ruefully. “Phone battery’s dead.”
“...which is why you can’t call Joan or anyone else to come pick you up. Right.”
“Uh huh.” Thomas scrubbed a hand roughly through his hair. “I mean. Hypothetically speaking. I could just ask someone to borrow their phone?”
“But you’re not going to do that,” said Virgil, rolling his eyes.
“Correct, because talking to strangers is stressful and if I do that and they say no, I will straight-up die on the spot.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
“Honestly?” Thomas slid a bit further down the wall. “Going home is definitely a priority, but – right now, I’d just really rather be talking to you.”
“Talking to yourself’s one of the first signs of madness, you know,” Virgil said. “Might want to get that checked out.”
“Very funny. Where are the others?” Thomas idly crinkled the top of the plastic cup between his fingers, stressing it back and forth – trying to see how much pressure he could apply without snapping the plastic. “Some more company might be nice.”
Virgil sighed, raised three fingers into the air. “Logan refuses to come anywhere near this mess of a social disaster zone, because apparently logic isn’t needed here since you were allegedly completely out of your mind to come here in the first place.”
Thomas cracked a tiny smile. “‘Out of my mind’? That doesn’t sound like Logan.”
“I – look, I was paraphrasing.” Two fingers, now. “Same goes for Roman – who needs creativity when you’re sitting alone in a corner, talking to nobody except yourself?”
“Talking to strangers is stressful,” Thomas muttered. The plastic cup went crack-crinkle in his hands.
“No arguments here, bud,” Virgil said, and regarded his one remaining raised finger. “Patton’s – well, he’s asleep. I guess I could go wake him up if you really want to talk to someone else?”
“No, it’s – ” Thomas sighed. “Don’t. It’s fine. He probably needs the rest, you know, after – everything. All these moral dilemmas I’ve been having recently. Ugh.” The plastic finally gave, cracking and splitting the cup open along the edges. He scowled at it briefly, and then set about methodically and systematically ripping it into ragged, transparent strips. “Remind me why I thought this was a good idea, again?”
“You didn’t,” said Virgil rather bluntly.
“Ah, yes. Agreeing to something I don’t want to actually do because of peer pressure. I remember now.” Thomas stared blankly at nothing for a moment. “Isn’t it weird how peer pressure works even when you’re aware of it?”
“Yeah, it’s wild.” Virgil regarded the patterns the flashing lights from beyond the corridor were casting with an expression of complete distaste. “You know, if Logan was here, he’d say something like, uh,” he wrinkled up his nose, and then waved a hand, conjuring a familiar pair of glasses up onto his face from nowhere. “The influence of the desire to conform on an individual is actually quite fascinating, when you think about it,” he said, affecting a slightly louder, more confident voice than usual. “Insert some detailed, meticulously researched evidence here. And then,” he added, raising the glasses briefly from his nose, “Patton makes a pun based off that evidence –”
“And Roman calls someone an inventive, possibly slightly insulting nickname based off a fictional character,” Thomas added, a faint smile playing at his lips.
“And I say something sarcastic and pointed to interrupt the brewing argument, because everybody’s ignoring the most important thing at hand, and then,” Virgil lowered the glasses again, and adopted the Logan-voice again, “here’s something very important that will change the direction of this video entirely! Now it’s time to wrap everything up and solve our emotional problems in a neat, orderly manner.”
“And then we proceed to actually solve those problems.”
“And then apologize to each other for everything we’ve done in our lives, ever.”
“And then you all sink out, and I turn to the camera,” Thomas said, nodding, “and say something heartfelt and touching to the audience, and then I go, take-it-easy-guys-gals-and-nonbinary-pals –” he made the standard closing gesture with his hands, grinning into an imaginary camera, “peace out!, and cut to the end card! Roll credits!”
“We did it,” said Virgil. “We boiled all of our interactions with each other down to a thirty second skit.”
“Yeah, and it’s great,” Thomas said.
Virgil looked like he was about to argue for a moment, then he just sighed and relented. “Yeah, it’s... not awful.”
Thomas shook his head, grinning. “I can’t wait to do another video with you guys. The last one was, what, three months ago? That’s far too long. I miss having complete mental breakdowns on camera while you guys make ridiculous jokes and break into song at random points in the conversation around me, which – come to think of it, it’s kind of a bizarre thing to miss.” He sighed. “But it’s hard work to make the Sides videos. The scripting, and the costumes and the filming and the,” he grimaced, “editing, it’s all just – a lot.”
“Trust me, I get it,” said Virgil. “I’m getting anxious just thinking about it.”
They lapsed back into a thoughtful sort of silence.
“Good Logan impression,” Thomas added offhandedly, after a few moments of consideration. “You had the glasses-adjusting bit down perfectly. Have you been practicing that?”
“Maaaaaybe.” Virgil was perfectly still for a second, and then he said, with the tone of voice of someone trying to deflect away from the fact that he had been practicing a mimicry of his friend for reasons that may or may not have been related to winning arguments over the breakfast table, “I bet you could do better?”
“What, a better Logan impression?”
“Yep.”
“Really?” Thomas laughed. “Nah. No. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why not?”
He blinked, momentarily thrown off by this. “Well, because... it almost feels like cheating?”
“You think you’d be too good at impersonating us?” Virgil asked, giving Thomas a sardonic sideways glance. “Because that’s not egotistical at all.”
Thomas huffed out a laugh, shrugged out his shoulders, and then very purposefully straightened himself up, keeping his entire body carefully controlled, even as he remained sitting down. He blinked once, adjusted an imaginary pair of glasses, and then raised his eyebrows pointedly at Virgil. “Falsehood,” he said, tone suddenly clipped and precise. “At least, partially so. Although there may be some amount of narcissism to Thomas’s claim, the fact remains that he is all of us, in more ways than one. It logically follows that he would be able to impersonate us to a fairly accurate degree.”
Virgil’s eyes widened, and he leaned closer, as if trying to inspect Thomas to make sure he was the same person. “Damn, that’s downright uncanny.”
Thomas frowned, inclining his head to one side. “I have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about. How could the way I’m behaving be comparable in any way to tinned food? It’s not – “ He cut himself off, throwing his head back in a sudden burst of laughter. “Ha! – sorry, that – that was not great. He wouldn’t say that. Logan’s hard to do. He’s so much smarter than I am, honestly. I can barely string two words together without a script most days.”
“Okay, now that’s not true,” Virgil said. “By definition, Logan’s only as smart as you are.”
Thomas shrugged and made a so-so motion with his hand. “He’s the one who ended up with most of my brain cells, I think.”
Virgil visibly hesitated, and then began, “so, can you-?” before abruptly shaking his hand. “Never mind.”
“No, go on,” Thomas said. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”
“...can you do Pat?” Virgil said.
Thomas blinked, and then wriggled his fingers energetically, frowning. A sudden change seemed to come over him. His entire body seemed to loosen up dramatically, and a radiant, goofy smile spilled over his face. “Sure thing, kiddo!” he chirped. “Doing impressions of people isn’t exactly my forte, but I’ll do my best to impress-h you with my skills!”
The side of Virgil’s mouth curled upwards slightly. “Was that meant to be a pun?”
“What?” Thomas clapped his hands to the sides of his face in abject horror. “No, definitely not! C’mon, Virge – identity theft is no joke!”
Virgil snorted quietly, and then hid his face in his arms to hide the fact that he was smiling.
“Patton’s definitely better at puns than I am,” Thomas said, dropping the act and sinking back into a more comfortable, less energetic stance – although he was still grinning slightly.
“Again, going by definition, he’s only as good at it as you are,” Virgil said, lifting his head out of his arms. A tiny smile remained on his face, barely there. “But for real? Yeah. He’s better than all of us at the puns.”
“So – got any requests?” Thomas asked, eyes bright and fingers bouncing happily against the ground. “As long as we’re doing this, I mean.”
Virgil shrugged. “Sure. Do me?”
“Ooh, tough one. Okay, hm.” He frowned, and tapped a finger against his lips, apparently deep in thought.
“I don’t know if I should be pleased or offended that you apparently find me hard to play,” Virgil said, lightly amused.
“Maybe neither? It’s mainly because you’re right here in front of me. There’s a lot to live up to.” Thomas nodded to himself, and then said, “all right,” and brushed his hair over his face before slouching, dramatically, and glaring out through his fringe at Virgil. He held that for a second or two, before shrugging and straightening up again with a sheepish grin. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s all I have.”
Virgil rolled his eyes. “Really? You didn’t even try, man.”
“All right – uh, I’ll try again. Just, give me something to say, I guess? A line, or – you know, whatever. Something you’d usually say.”
“Capitalism is an unsustainable, resource-consuming system that needs to be overthrown as quickly as possible for the benefit of all humanity,” Virgil said blandly. “Eat the rich.”
Thomas stared at Virgil for a long second. “When have you ever said that?”
“Technically never, but I’m always thinking it.”
Thomas shrugged out his shoulders, shook his hair so his fringe was falling over his eyes again, and fell back into the slouch. “Capitalism is unsustainable and ultimately destructive for all of us,” he said acidly, the tone of his voice lower and far more intense than usual. "Also, we’re all going to die. Have you remembered to turn off your stove?”
Virgil’s face brightened, and then he frowned. “Did you really need to make me sound like a government informercial about gas safety at the end there?”
“Eat the rich,” Thomas said after a long moment, and then he sang, in a surprisingly clear voice, despite remaining in-character, “when I was – a young man – my father took me into the city – to see a marching band – ” before breaking off into a giggle fit again. “Sorry! Okay, how’d I do?”
Virgil nodded, almost approvingly. “Well, I’d never start randomly singing like that, but... not bad. You could give Deceit a run for his money.”
Thomas grimaced. “Man, I sure hope not. Actually – come to think of it – ” He frowned for a second, and then tilted his face away from the lights of the party so half of his face was in shadow. He flexed his fingers again, and then steepled them carefully in front of his face, drumming them against each other, before shooting Virgil a distinctly un-Thomas-like smug smirk. “Insert pretentious incorrect philosophy position here,” he intoned. “Lies. Lies, lies, lies, lies. Lies! Ssssss.”
Virgil stiffened noticeably, no longer quite so amused. “Thomas...”
“I’m a slimy boi!” Thomas continued, somewhat gleefully, tapping a finger against his lower lip, and then he caught sight of Virgil’s expression, and dropped the Deceit impression immediately. “Oh no. Was that-?”
“Extremely uncomfortable? Uh, yeah.” Virgil shuddered. He had started to inch away from Thomas, but had stopped when he had stopped speaking. “You are far too good an actor.”
Thomas’s face crumpled, and he scrubbed a hand across his face, looking completely horrified and more than a little distraught. “Oh my gosh. Virgil, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think. Well – I did think, but I – I thought that since I wasn’t actually being serious about it – ”
Virgil was shaking his head. “It was like he’d taken over your body or something – for a second there, I thought – like, obviously it’s impossible, there’s no way, and there’d be no point to it, anyway, but I thought –” His voice cracked and warped slightly, as he broke off.
Thomas’s breathing was starting to become a bit ragged. “Hey. Hey, Virge? Can you, uh – calm down a bit? I’m feeling, kinda, sort of, you know – hh –”
Virgil’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening, and he closed his eyes as he made a concerted effort to calm down – inhaling, holding a breath deeply, then exhaling, all in a regular, even pattern. After a few cycles of this, he opened his eyes and regarded Thomas warily.
“You good?” he asked.
“Think so,” said Thomas, who had crushed the remains of his long-since shredded plastic cup tightly in one hand so forcefully that the palm of his hand was bleeding a bit. He looked down at it, and winced, pressing it to the fabric of his jeans. “I can’t believe I managed to make you anxious. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
“It’s a two-way sort of thing,” said Virgil, looking kind of guilty that anything of the sort had even happened in the first place. “Uh, Logan would be able to phrase it better, but – your current state affects mine, and vice versa?”
“That makes sense, I guess.” Thomas checked his palm again. The wound wasn’t deep – just a few scratches, really. “Seriously. I’m sorry. I should’ve guessed that was going too far – I just thought it might be fun to – you know, make fun of him a bit?”
“Yeah,” said Virgil, clearly exhausted. “Yeah, no – I get it. Don’t worry about it.”
That brief, uncomfortable interlude had kind of killed the mood, and neither of them really felt like going back to their diversion of impersonating their friends. So they returned to their time-honoured tradition of sitting and not talking to each other at all.
“You know what?” said Thomas, after a few minutes of this awkward silence. “I’m gonna get something else to drink.”
“Your mouth is pretty dry,” Virgil said grudgingly, because of course he’d know about that.
Thomas smiled and stood up, a hand to the wall for balance. He hesitated, and then asked, almost tentatively ,“you coming?”
“Well, it’s not like I can stay behind without you,” said Virgil, without any real protest present in his voice. He uncoiled himself from his position on the ground and also stood up, a halfway smile slanting its way across his face. “Besides, who else is going to warn you about your freshly-poured cup of Spite, which is almost certainly poisoned and going to kill you messily and painfully if you even think about drinking it?”
“Don’t forget the hundreds of people who are definitely staring at me and judging everything I do,” Thomas said, relaxing – they were back to normal. Everything was fine.
Virgil raised an eyebrow. “Exactly. Careful, Thomas. You’re gonna put me out of a job.”
“Gosh, I sure hope not,” said Thomas. “I’d be lost without my anxiety.” He grinned over at Vigil fondly, and Virgil returned the smile as he fell into step next to Thomas – heading back towards the noise and chaos of the party.