Warnings: virgil is sad and stressed, complicated feelings, roman is hurt, virgil crying, virgil is sleep deprived, we solve that with cuddles, roman is insecure, nothing gets resolved really, they just nap about it

platonic or set before relationship, u choose <3

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Virgil was not having the absolute best day. Or week.

He was stressed and anxious, more so than normal, and today he didn't have the energy to deal with anything, meaning he had simply remained in his room the entire day, trying to distract himself with all his normal interests, tried his best to relax himself, maybe even get some much needed sleep.

Stress and anxiety and complicated feelings never really did bode well for Virgil's sleeping schedule.

And there Virgil was, sitting on his bed, wiping away persistent and annoying tears from his face when someone burst through his door without even trying to knock first.

"What the fuck do you want?" He snapped before even registering who was in his room, pissed at whoever was stupid enough not to knock first and even more pissed at himself for not having the sense to lock his door before sitting and crying on his bed like some kind of emotional wreck. (Which, to be fair, was an accurate enough description.)

"What's gotten you in such a fuss- ...are you okay?"

Roman. Of course; the other two light sides had the common courtesy to knock.

Virgil sighed and avoided Roman's worried gaze, feeling a little bad for yelling when Roman likely hadn't meant to be rude.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it. Sorry I yelled but please learn to knock." Virgil wiped his face on his hoodie, definitely not letting a single tear escape as long as he had company. It was embarrassing enough to cry about something like this in the first place, he did not want anyone to be staring at him too.

"Virgil I'm not stu- At least give me a little credit!" He said and closed Virgil's door, now inside of his room, of course having no intention of letting Virgil be an emotional wreck in peace. Roman sat down on Virgil's bed, placing a careful hand on Virgil's shoulder, making him tense all over.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Roman asked and Virgil considered for a moment to kick Roman out of his room and then apologize when he was having a better day, but that would worry his fellow side even more and Virgil really didn't want the others to get involved too.

"I'm just stressed and a bit anxious, but what's new? Just leave me alone to be a whiny little shit about it for a while and I'll be fine." Virgil said, willing his shoulders to slowly relax. His body ached from being tense for so long, he felt exhausted in every sense of the word.

"You can whine to me? After all, what are friends for?" Roman said, giving him a dazzling smile. Virgil sighed, sending Roman a small almost-smile that he hoped wasn't a grimace.

They'd come a long way, both of them. They used to hate and fear each other, but by now? Himself from a year or two ago wouldn't believe how close they had actually become.

"I don't know... it's just some complicated shit. Emotions and what not. I doubt you'd be interested to hear about it considering it's partly about your brother." Virgil muttered.

"Oh. Like what kind of feelings are we talking about?" Roman asked, sounding considerably more awkward than he had a moment ago and Virgil sent him a murderous glare.

"Get your head out of the world of Disney, if you even dare entertain the thought of me crushing on your brother I'm kicking your ass." Virgil said. This was absolutely not anything like that and it would be incredibly embarrassing if Roman thought so.

"It's just... they freak me out, Remus and Janus. I'm stressed, and I can't sleep and- fuck. Things just kind of suck right now and I'm probably not doing a great job dealing with it." He continued before Roman had the time to say anything.

"If they scare you I will make sure they stay away. I'll gladly challenge my brother to a duel." Roman offered, puffing his chest out and looking ready to draw his sword.

"Please don't. I'm not patching you up. Again." He said, giving Roman a stare that hopefully got him to think a little for himself.

"It's not that they genuinely scare me, well, a little, but I mean... they make me feel guilty and nervous and anxious just by being around me and it's stressful as fuck, and I don't know how to explain it in a way that would make sense and not just sound dumb." Virgil groaned. Everything was just too complicated, so much so that he barely understood his feelings himself.

"What do you have to feel guilty about?" Roman questioned, genuinely confused, and Virgil worried his lip between his teeth, sighing for the billionth time.

"I left them, Roman." He said finally and Roman was quiet for several seconds, obviously thinking.

"Oh. Do you- do you regret that? I'm really sorry if we've done anything to make you feel unwelcome." Roman said worriedly and Virgil stared at him.

"No, god no. Don't worry, Princey. I'd never go back, that's the last thing I want. I'm... much happier with how things are now." He admitted, despite how awkward it felt to express things like that. But his words made Roman visibly relax, Virgil could have sworn he smiled.

"That doesn't mean I don't feel guilty though, I worry what they think of me. In their eyes, am I a traitor? Did I abandon them? ...They must hate me." He continued, deciding to just let himself ramble. He'd already said so much, he might as well spill it all. Roman wouldn't be spreading his words around anyway. (And if he did then Virgil would hunt him down.)

"We might not have had the best relationship, any of us, but we were the only family we had, and I just left them. Just like that. How could they not hate me?" Virgil said, hands playing absentmindedly with the sleeves of his hoodie, pulling at them and picking on loose threads.

"I don't know how to face them and they're everywhere lately and it's stressful because I feel like I have to be on high alert constantly in case they would decide to try and talk to me because what if they corner me one day to tell me exactly how awful and cowardly I am. Every time we're near each other it's just tense and awkward and, yeah, I suppose I'm scared of what they think of me." Virgil crossed his arms over his chest. He stared at the purple lava lamp on his desk, an old gift from Patton.

"Virgil. I doubt they hate you. And not only because no one could hate someone as wonderful as you," Roman said and Virgil scoffed, rolling his eyes, "but, think of it this way. If you left us, me Patton and Logan, to go and live with the dark sides again, we wouldn't hate you. We'd be hurt because you're our family and we don't want you to leave, but none of us could ever hate you!"

"Not to sound pessimistic and like a complete downer, but how is hurt better than hate? I never wanted to hurt them and I didn't want to make them hate me, but I had to leave, for the sake of Thomas and for the sake of me."

Things hadn't necessarily been bad back when he lived with the 'dark' sides and were one of them, but it was very different from being a part of the 'light' sides family. Plus, his healthier relationships with Roman, Patton, and Logan made his own mental health better and in turn helped Thomas.

"Like, I know this was the right choice to leave, it's made a lot of things better for all of us, but I didn't want to fuck our relationship up. Clearly things between us aren't great right now." He finished.

Really, it wasn't difficult to assume that they hated him, with how all their interactions after Virgil had left were anything to go by. Then again Virgil's stress around them didn't help him be the nicest either, what with him expecting the worst. Fight or flight.

"Virgil, he might possibly be angry and hurt about how things ended between the three of you, just like you seem to be, but I don't think any of them hate you. It's like that thing Logan talked about ages ago, congnitis disportions?"

"Cognitive distortions?" Virgil offered, remembering that video fairly well. It was one of the first times one of the 'light' sides had really expressed that they didn't despise his company. At that time Virgil had assumed all the others just thought of him as a waste of space, an intrusion in their and Thomas' lives.

"Probably, I wasn't listening when he was talking about it, but yeah, that thing. I'm sure things aren't as bad as you think they are and, if you tried, I'm sure your relationship with them could be mended." Roman said, moving his hand from Virgil's shoulder to put his arm around him instead. Virgil pulled a face of doubt but rested his head on Roman's shoulder.

"And anyway, if Janus hates anyone it's me." Roman added with a shrug that did a bad job hiding his hurt. Roman was always so easy to read, wearing his heart on his sleeve, basically. (Just like Remus a few years ago, except that Remus had sowed an actual heart to his sleeve.)

"Hmh, yeah, I watched the video. You okay?" Virgil asked, carefully, angling his head up a bit to somewhat look at him. It had been a disaster, the video after the wedding, no one involved seemed to have gotten out of it unharmed. Virgil was so glad he had decided to stay out of it.

"I... guess? But we don't need to talk about that, I don't want to drag my problems into the conversation and take the focus away from you." Roman said.

"Actually I'm getting pretty tired of listening to myself whine, you go for it." Virgil said, moving off Roman to lie down on his bed, throwing his legs up on Roman's lap. The creative side gave him a mildly offended look but made no attempts to push his feet away.

"Well, you watched the video. I was being mean and he responded in the same way and... it was stupid, I was stupid and he-" Roman exhaled harshly, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. Roman flopped down on his side next to Virgil.

"I was on De- Janus' side about the call-back and everyone disagreed with me, and then I was against Janus after the wedding and everyone was still disagreeing with me. Maybe it doesn't matter who's side I am on, it's just me that's always wrong. At least that seems to be how everyone else always feels."

"I'm gonna tell you the same thing I've said to Logan. If you need someone to listen, you know where to find me. I can listen, be on your side. Well, if your side is reasonable." He said and the corners of Roman's mouth tugged into a gentle smile.

Roman's eyes shut and he was quiet for a few moments. He looked about as tired as Virgil felt. Maybe he'd struggled to sleep properly too?

Virgil poked him.

"Did you know you're actually the worst?" Roman said, giving him an offended glare as he pried his eyes open. Virgil grinned and winked, earning a scoff and a poke to his arm. Then Roman was quiet for a long while and Virgil almost thought he was done speaking, letting himself feel how tired he was from his lack of sleep.

Curse his mind for stressing him up so much about something that shouldn't affect him this much.

"...Am I evil?" Roman then asked quietly, effectively snapping Virgil out of his own thoughts.

"Wh- Of course not. First of all, 'evil' really depends on who you ask and the situation and everything. And in this situation no one is evil. We just all suck at listening to each other when it comes to literally everything. I'm pretty sure we all feel like no one else is on our side, because we can't always be the one yelling the loudest, you know?" That was what their videos felt like sometimes.

It wasn't easy for them all to have more... civil discussions. They we're working on it, of course, they were family and they loved each other. If only Virgil could help Logan get listened to, then things would probably get better. They needed logic.

"Yeah."

"Hey, Virgil? Should I apologize to Janus? Like, would he care? Or is he just going to..." Roman quieted, but it wasn't especially hard for Virgil to figure out what he was worried about.

Any dumbass could see Roman was getting more and more insecure, and Virgil knew that Janus' was incredibly good at finding the exact words that would hurt the most. Just like Roman, more often unknowingly, also excelled in saying things that hurt more than they should, like with how he'd reacted without thinking to Janus' name reveal.

Intentions weren't always that important. Virgil hadn't had any bad intentions leaving Janus and Remus. It still hurt them.

"Yeah. You should probably apologize. If you want to then I can come with you, tell Janus to shut up if he gets unnecessarily mean." Virgil offered. He did know how difficult it could be to talk to him if he was hurt.

"Maybe. Thank you." Roman said quietly, thinking to himself for a moment.

"Don't worry, Princey, you're good." Virgil said, not exactly finding the words he wanted to tell Roman that whatever Roman was it was not evil. "You're not bad, right? You're not perfect but you try your best."

"You're pretty sleep deprived, huh?" Roman said. Virgil would be offended about him insinuating that he wasn't as nice when he had slept well, but it was partly true. It was easier to be sincere when he was tired.

"Shut up." Virgil mumbled, swatting at Roman and then conjuring up his purple blanket that he'd left in the living room.

"You're just going to nap right now?" Roman questioned.

"Yeah, what about it? I don't know about you but I've gotten a nice two or three hours of sleep a night for the past week. You can leave if you wanna." Virgil said and Roman was quiet as Virgil tried to shake his blanket out over himself without opening his eyes, surely failing spectacularly. Roman pushed his hands away, taking the blanket.

"...I'll stay." He said, draping the blanket over them both. (What would past him say if he knew how good friends he and Roman were nowadays? It was a funny thought.

"This is so gay." Virgil said, Roman just laughed and put an arm around him, of course making a point of making it gayer.

"Good thing we're both gay then." Roman said and Virgil snorted.

"Go to sleep." Virgil said and they both shut up. And for once Virgil got some well deserved sleep.

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Written: 22nd, 24th, 29th, 30th & 31st January 2021
Published:
Words: 2612

Am really fighting to learn how to write roman in character lmao

Platonic prinxiety would likely be a lot of affectionate bullying and gay jokes, lets be honest