Work Text:
He hadn’t heard his alarm. Virgil didn’t think he had the headspace for that type of sensation.
Yet, there was nothing on his mind. His headspace, one would think, should have had plenty of room - for his doubts, for the urgency of life, speeding off without him, for the day to start, again and again and again-
Usually, his brain shot off at rapid fire. It was inclined to reminding him that he always had to be going, always had to be on the move, or he’d get left behind, or he’d get caught by some unknown danger. Moving moving moving- that was who Virgil was. Hacking through assignments, losing sleep over grades, fleeing his terror, his classes the moment they let out, class group chats.
Today, his brain was empty. Well, not empty maybe...
In his head, there was a box. That box was empty, hollow like his chest, like his breaths, like his wind-battered lungs, but the object itself took up too much space in his mind. The corners of this box touched each part of his cranium, cramping the space, contorting to a strange mold. Each surface of the box felt like a wall, not trapping, but locking everything else out. There was nothing inside to trap.
Thought, feeling, they tried to get inside. Virgil, he tried to get inside. He was stranded, though, unable to reach in, to move himself to action.
He didn’t feel apart of his own head, and, yet, he was unforgivably trapped in his body.
The box was stiff and unbearable. You could knock on the outside a bit, but, the inside, the empty empty inside, remained inaccessible. If only he could get in, then maybe he could think again. Maybe he could feel. Maybe he could move.
Virgil sort of remembered when Patton had come in. A soft reminder that Virgil would be late soon. He had looked at the time and frowned. He’d thanked Patton, of course, curling his fingers beneath a pillow. When the door had shut, Virgil had thought to himself “I have to get up.”
He’d thought it to himself over and over, and, yet, he didn’t budge. Virgil lay flat, head smooshed into his pillow, and told himself to just get up, that he couldn’t afford to miss another class, that he had to stop doing this.
He couldn’t reach in, couldn’t convince his own head. His head couldn’t hear from its soundproofed walls.
Hours.
Hours passed.
Virgil missed two of his classes. His grade would be marked down for all the absences. His head was not moved.
But he absolutely had to be at his class at the end of the day. He might survive all the markdowns from absences - he hadn’t been keeping track, of the absences or his grades - but he would definitely fail if he didn’t present his project in his last class.
A part of what was left inside the box latched onto this, and, for a moment, Virgil was in control. He pulled himself from bed, changed his pants. Deodorant and his bag slung around his shoulder- it would have to do. He didn’t have the energy for the rest. Control was starting to slip again, so he let autopilot take over.
Car. Seatbelt. Drive drive drive. Parking lot. Class.
He got to campus in time to grab a coffee, hoping the caffeine would shake him enough to be cognizant, then went to his third class. As he wandered across the green to the English building, he stuffed headphones into his ears and blasted the loudest thing he had. Something had to jog his brain into place. He felt like he was sleepwalking, and he just had to find the right thing to wake him up. The loud music made him feel like a teenager again.
He’d never really left that stage of his life. Like hell he was an adult. He just wished he could figure it out. Any of it.
Something sick slithered along his heart. Just momentarily, and Virgil recoiled at it.
Maybe the numbness wasn’t so bad.
There was so much fear to be had in the future. What was a little numbness now?
Virgil turned up the volume, heart attempting to react to the caffeine, head persistent to keep him out. He sat down in class with five minutes to spare. Eyes locked onto a wall for a second.
The professor was talking. Take out headphones. The lesson had started. When? Virgil wished he could pay attention.
Time slipped by. Virgil couldn’t think. Autopilot autopilot. The next class went, his presentation might have been alright. It was approaching evening and he was driving again. He played happy music and smiled a bit. The music was nice. For a moment, he could pretend he felt it- the harmony sliding across his soul, the lyrics casting sunny light on the bleak December evening. How stereotypical- Virgil was feeling dreary on a dreary day. He wanted what the weather had. He copied it and danced to its tune. It was probably mocking him in return. How predictable; Virgil changed with the weather.
Patton and Logan were curled up in the living room watching some movie when he got home. They asked how his day was and he smiled, nodded, told them it was alright. Without a stitch, Virgil disappeared to his room. He liked it that way. Sometimes, he wanted nothing more than for them to notice when he was off, when he was angry or hurt. Right now, he didn’t feel anything, and they didn’t need to know.
Virgil locked the door to his room and his bookbag slid to the floor. He glanced at the bed, and was tempted, but he resisted the pull. Instead, he walked to the center of the room and laid on the floor. The bed would entrap him, melting him into its surface like quicksand, chaining him through comfort and covers. The sense of security did too much good for his psyche to be good for him at all. Where he was safe, he would never leave.
His room was safe to him, but laying on the floor left him feeling exposed, in a sense, and he wouldn't sink from existence. He pulled up his hood and looked at the ceiling. It was odd how he didn't become bored, restless. He didn't daydream, as he was prone to do, either. The ceiling was blank, and, maybe he was a broken record at this point, but his mind was blank blank blank-
He thought about the little sound that records made when they skipped. Vmp... vmp... vmp…
Virgil sighed a bit and felt a mild guilty feeling for just laying there, doing nothing. There was so much to do - the semester was almost over, after all - yet the drive to get there was obsolete. The growing possibility that he would fail just because he didn’t complete his finals felt inevitable. Maybe he could throw something shitty together at the last minute. Goodbye GPA.
That would have scared the shit out of Virgil if he was in the right mind. His GPA used to matter a lot to him. He used to try so hard; he wasn’t sure why.
A knock on the door made his heart seize in his chest and, for perhaps the first time that day, Virgil felt something for more than a brief moment. Mild panic engulfed him, making him spring up and adjust himself quickly, trying to maintain the appearance that he hadn’t been laying on the floor in the dark. He shook the mouse at his desk, waking his computer from its slumber, and opened a random document, before heading to the door.
“Roman,” he greeted, eyes squinting into the brightness of the hallway. Roman smirked at him, something flirty, as always. It warmed Virgil’s heart a little.
“Hiya, Hot Topic,” Roman said. “Whatcha up to in here?”
Virgil should have known Roman would come around. He found any reason to see Virgil. Ever since Virgil had moved in with the three at the beginning of the semester, he and Roman had been flirting around each other, toeing a fine line between “I like you” and “I’m not telling you I like you.” It was fun, and it was thrilling in a way that Virgil didn’t experience often, but it also made him more seen among his roommates, in a way that the dorms last year hadn’t. Last year, Virgil could sleep all day and no one would notice.
It wasn’t only Roman, though. Patton enjoyed talking to him, and Logan was a great study help and odd questioner. They wouldn’t let Virgil disappear into the background of their odd friend group. As soon as he’d moved in, they’d latched onto him, and, in return, Virgil had felt himself do the same. It was strange, having friends, but it was one of the best things he’d ever experienced too.
At times like now, though, it could be inconvenient. When he didn’t feel like himself. When he wanted to disappear into their apartment walls because that was all he felt he could do. He didn’t want to be seen like this, and, so he really wished Roman would go away.
“Working on a paper,” Virgil responded shortly, hoping the vague screen he’d pulled up at his desk would be enough evidence.
“In the dark?” Roman asked, looking around his room. Virgil shrugged. He did a lot of things in the dark. It actually wasn’t that odd. Roman’s eyes swept over him, zoning in on something Virgil couldn’t understand. If his paranoia was working properly, he would have tried to. “Can I hang out while you do?”
They had done work in the same room before. Silent but the taps of their keyboards. Apparently, it helped Roman to focus if the room wasn’t empty, and Virgil wasn’t good at saying no to his new friends. He was tempted to now.
“I’ll be quiet,” Roman promised, eyes alight at the possibility. Virgil broke and nodded. Oh boy. “Great,” Roman said, giving a pleasant smile. It wasn’t like his other ones, excitable or flirty or full of mirth, but it was just as comforting. It was calm and his eyes were soft and Virgil would never forget what yet another part of Roman Prince looked like, a new piece in the mosaic that was the man. “I’ll be right back with my laptop.”
Roman sprinted off to his room and Virgil was faced with what he had done. By the time Roman was back, Virgil was sat at his desk, pretending to do schoolwork. Maybe this was the push he needed to get some actual work done.
Roman settled on the floor - as he loved to do for some reason - leaning against the side of Virgil’s bed. He fidgeted with his laptop and Virgil opened a couple of tabs to help with his research. His eyes darted across one article, but it may as well have been a blur. He zoned out into the same empty space he had occupied the entire day, eyes fixated on a small smudge towards the top of the screen.
The sound of humming broke Virgil out of his trance, and he looked over towards the guy who had promised to stay quiet. Despite this, Virgil didn't scold Roman, but latched onto the new sensation, the simple, low sound that flowed through his ears and into his head. It knocked politely on the box and a door appeared. An entrance, still shut tight, but a possibility. A hope.
Virgil stood from his desk and walked over, Roman sensing the movement and looking up. Virgil sat next to him, hands threading through the carpet and leaning back in a mirrored position to Roman's.
"Sorry," Roman whispered. The humming didn't seem to surprise him, and Virgil was certain he was doing it on purpose. Somehow, Roman knew he needed a distraction.
So Virgil shook his head. "You don't have to stop," he said. It wasn't what he meant. Roman seemed to understand.
Roman tapped a few more keys on his computer, and hummed a few more bars. Virgil looked over, watching large, blocky letters fill Roman’s screen in equally large, spacy intervals. Some sort of script.
“Mind if I read?” Virgil asked, and Roman paused his typing for a moment, processed the words, then waved him silent permission, resuming his typing without a word. Virgil scooted a little closer and read over Roman’s shoulder, something that would have bugged the everloving shit out of him, but that Roman didn’t seem to mind. Despite being interested, the words still went through his eyes and couldn’t even touch his brain. The script sounded good, but Virgil still couldn’t quite tell.
As he absently read, Virgil leaned in closer, and their arms brushed accidentally. It shocked him for a second. The short touch felt big enough to frighten a hurricane. It felt equal parts foreign and welcome, and Virgil didn’t know what to do with that.
So he broke the contact immediately, as subtly as he could.
It was almost humiliating how devoid he felt without the warmth. It was certainly weird that contact of all things was the thing to shake him. It wasn’t as if he and Roman had never touched before. Holding on to each others’ arms when they laughed. Clutching each others’ hands in huge crowds. Even hugging when the situation called for it. They weren’t weird about contact, not even in the ever-present knowledge that they very much liked each other. So why was Virgil being weird about it now?
It felt weird. It felt like something he didn’t want, but needed- or wanted, but couldn’t have. What any of that meant, well, who was to say? Virgil sure as hell couldn’t understand a damn thing right now.
“Do you…” oh God. Virgil wasn’t going to say it. “Do you mind if I lean on you?” So he was.
Roman looked up, snapped from his zone, type ceasing mid-sentence. Virgil felt caught, he felt like he was interrupting. Where was all this caring coming from suddenly? The box still wasn’t letting him in.
Then, Roman smiled. “Sure, go ahead.”
So, slowly, experimentally, Virgil leaned again, touching their arms just the slightest bit. The warmth passed over again, and Virgil felt something like contentment settle somewhere too deep to move him too thoroughly. Still, it was something.
He leaned more, and soon, he was able to rest his head along Roman’s shoulder, body sagging in some sort of relief. It was safe, like hiding in his bed, but less secluded, less empty. Roman hadn’t gone back to his typing quite yet, remaining unusually quiet.
“Do you want to talk?” he eventually asked, voice a volume only they could hear, passed along a wind of their own making. Virgil’s eyes were on the wall opposite them, unfocused, but, for the first time that day, he didn’t feel lost.
Still locked outside the box, still unable to reach into his own mind, but not alone. He could wait outside the door now together with Roman. They could wait this out, side-by-side.
“No,” Virgil said softly, and it was okay. Maybe, one day, there would be something to talk about, but right then, it was okay to be silent, to just be together.
Roman nodded. For a moment, Virgil thought that would be it, and Roman would go about his business as usual. It would be a relief to just be normal, while having this comfort. But Roman did something better.
He reached up, smoothing a hand along Virgil’s hair, leaning his head against Virgil’s own. In one simple motion, Roman showed that he understood, and that he cared.
Then, he placed his hands back along the keyboard, and the sounds of typing and humming snuck past the cracks of the door, into the box.
Some things could get in now. Virgil would get in eventually.