Warnings: swearing, virgil feeling hopeless, but nah not much bad stuff in this

3+1 fic

important summary: Three times Virgil unknowingly went on a date with Logan and Roman and the one time he realized it was, in fact, a DATE

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[1]

There was a knock on Virgil's open door and he looked up over his laptop that was on his stomach. He didn't know how long he had been lying on his couch watching youtube, but his neck ached slightly from the angle it had been for the past fifteen-something videos.

"Hey, L. What's up?" He said, spotting the logical side in his doorway. He closed his laptop as Logan stepped inside, sitting up and setting it aside on the couch.

"Greetings, Virgil." He said, bending his head forwards just a little bit in a nod, a hand coming up to smooth his tie.

They were both silent then, and no matter how much Virgil liked Logan's calm company he despised awkward silences and it was fairly obvious that Logan had visited to say something. Otherwise he would have just popped up with a book or entered rambling about whatever it was he wanted to share, not standing hesitantly in the middle of Virgil's room and making him nervous.

"Anything I can help you with?" He wondered, urging Logan on because otherwise he would have the time to overthink and decide that something horrible had happened and Logan had been sent to inform him. Logan's uncharacteristic hesitate was not exactly making him relax in his presence like he usually did.

"Yes, actually, Roman and I were wondering if you would like to accompany us on an outing. We were planning on having a picnic in the imagination and we would both love it if you would accompany us." Logan said, pushing his glasses up ever so slightly before clasping his hands behind his back in the wait of Virgil's answer.

That wasn't anything bad at all, except maybe the 'going outside' part. He didn't really understand why Logan was nervous. But maybe he was just misunderstanding Logan. He wouldn't trust himself to read someone's emotions anyway.

Virgil quickly considered his words and had to face the fact that it really was about time he got his imaginary self some made up sunshine and pretend fresh air. Even as sides they needed to go outside now and again to feel good, it was beneficial for his stupid mental health as Logan had once spent about thirty minutes explaining.

Also, a picnic sounded pretty good, he was hungry.

"Yeah, okay. I'd like that." He said, nodding, and his answer had Logan smiling unusually bright. Virgil tried not to stare at that smile but it was difficult as it was not that often he got to see it. Although with how they had grown closer over the past year Virgil got to see it more often, which he secretly delighted over.

"Wonderful. I will tell Roman. We were planning on leaving in thirty minutes. Meet you at the door to the imagination at five thirty?" He said and they agreed on that time as it sounded perfectly fine to Virgil.

Logan disappeared after that, likely to tell Roman and to put together the picnic basket. Virgil assumed he didn't have to help with that as Logan had specifically told him to meet them in thirty minutes. He wondered if the others would join them too or if it would just be the tree of them.

Logan had only mentioned himself and Roman, but maybe Virgil was the first they asked? He didn't know, but the idea of spending an entire picnic alone with Logan and Roman had him feeling pretty nervous.

Not only were the two of them a couple, which had Virgil feeling a bit of a third wheel sometimes, he was also kind of a little bit in love with them both.

That made him feel like a third wheel even more, and not to mention a bit awkward and kind of jealous and sometimes unhappy because it was pretty discouraging to have managed to fall for both of the two people in the mindscape that were already in a happy relationship.

But he really valued the friendship he had with them both, he loved listening to Roman rambling about his latest idea and hear Logan explain whatever nerdy and complicated thing he had been reading about, and it was fun to play Smash Bros with Roman even if he was a sore loser and chess with Logan even if the logical side won every single time.

He lied back down on the couch, staring up at his ceiling that lacked the constellations that Logan had painted in his own room, adding every constellation that he learnt about. It was the calmest room Virgil had ever been in, as soon as he stepped inside he could feel some of his worries mellowing out.

Sometimes when they were both up late together, reading or watching the show that they were currently going through, Virgil would fall asleep right there with Logan and they'd wake up cuddling in the morning when Logan's unforgiving seven AM alarm rang.

Logan never made a big deal out of it or seemed upset about it at all, though that didn't stop Virgil from blushing and stuttering any time it happened, feeling as if Logan could see right through him and knew exactly how much Virgil wanted to wake up with Logan in his arms every day, and also feeling really guilty for even wanting that when Logan was not single.

It was similar to when Roman would watch horror movies with him, despite not liking horror, spending the entire movie clinging to Virgil and pretending as if he wasn't terrified, hiding his face against Virgil's arm every time something especially horrifying was shown on screen.

It felt wrong of him, but any time Roman asked to watch a scary movie with him he couldn't refuse, and sometimes he intentionally stayed in Logan's room even if he knew he was close to falling asleep. Sometimes it made him feel like a terrible friend, creepy and desperate and disrespectful of their relationship.

It helped marginally that Logan and Roman both continued to be eager to spend time with him. Clearly they didn't find him creepy and weird. But then again they didn't know that Virgil wanted both of them to be his boyfriends.

He tried not to think about his feelings, always hoping that they would go away if ignored, spending a while watching more youtube, but as soon as Logan and Roman met him by the door to the imagination (Virgil had been ten minutes early and spent all of those wondering if they were even going to show) he was very much faced by those feelings.

Logan was dressed in black slacks rather than his usual jeans, and dark blue button up with the sleeves rolled up and for once he wasn't wearing a tie, the top two buttons left unbuttoned. And Roman was wearing the same outfit he had for his sides-in-skirts photoshoot.

They were trying to kill him. This was a direct attempt on his life.

"Hey, Verge!" Roman said happily, dragging Logan along towards him and grinning. Before Virgil had the time to do much else than to raise a hand in a little wave Roman had pulled him into a one armed hug, then quickly let go of him to throw the door to the imagination up.

Hugging was not a thing that Virgil often did and he was pretty sure his face had gone a bit red, but neither of the other two seemed to focus on that, thankfully.

"I'm so looking forward to this, we're going to have an amazing evening!" Roman said, glancing back at Virgil to flash him his brilliantly bright grin, and before Virgil knew it Roman had grabbed a hold of his hand to pull him with him just as he did with Logan. He could hear the imagination door click quietly as it shut behind them and Logan looked over at him.

Virgil was suddenly hyper aware that he was literally holding hands with Logan's boyfriend, not that he was the one who had initiated it, but still, though all Logan did was smile slightly and roll his eyes as if to apologize for Roman's enthusiasm.

He let Roman hold his hand the few minutes they walked, not having the strength to deny himself this little thing because when would he ever have the chance to hold Roman's hand again? He also thought that maybe Roman would be a bit offended if he pulled his hand back, though that was mostly a worry he was entertaining to keep himself from feeling too bad about it.

He could already tell that he would be too warm in his hoodie, the imagination was hot as any summer day unlike the rainy and chilly November weather that Thomas was currently experiencing.

Luckily for Virgil's sanity Roman let go of his hand a while later, taking the picnic basket from Logan and setting it down, opening it to pull a blanket out. He spread it out over the grass, making sure that part of it was in the shadow of a massive oak that grew nearby.

Logan seated himself in the shadow and Virgil followed his example, thinking that it would be just his luck to get a sunburn even if he was imaginary. The sun he had gotten during their short walk would have to be enough for now.

Roman, unsurprisingly, sat down in the sunshine and reached for the basket again, pulling out a plate with fancy looking sandwiches under cling wrap and a tupperware with strawberries and blueberries and grapes and cut up slices of mango.

Virgil ignored how hungry he was, not wanting to be the first one to take something, instead taking a deep breath, inhaling the flowery scent in the air and admiring the scenery that Roman had created. They were sitting in some kind of flowery meadow that stretched out for as far as Virgil could see.

In some places trees grew, big and ancient looking, and a slow river was floating by not very far away. Damn, it was gorgeous, Roman really knew what he was doing and he wondered how long it took the creative side to create something like this.

He had never seen Roman in action in the imagination, but he would like to. What did the imagination look like when a clean slate? Some kind of void? Blank like an untouched canvas? He had no idea.

Maybe he could ask to see Roman create in the imagination sometime.

"Here." Logan said and Virgil looked down from the perfectly fluffy clouds in the sky that conveniently enough never covered the sun. Logan was holding the plate with sandwiches, offering him one.

"Thanks." He said, taking one, looking over at Roman who was taking a bite out of a big strawberry and watching the river. Then he looked over at Virgil, their eyes meeting, and he smiled. Bright, beautiful. Virgil had to look away, ducking his head and focusing on his sandwich instead.

Why did they have to be so pretty all the time? It didn't even make sense, they almost looked the same. Sure, there were differences, and the more they had developed into their own 'person' over the years the more different they all looked, but they were still just altered copies of the same person.

God two of those altered copies were attractive, though.

Virgil took another bite of his sandwich, trying to avoid thinking too much about his feelings for Logan and Roman. He had a picnic to enjoy, there was nice food, nice company, and Roman was pouring drinks into plastic wine glasses.

"Wine for you." He said, handing his boyfriend a glass and Logan accepted it with a smile.

"And chocolate milk for you." He said, handing another wine glass to Virgil.

"Sweet." Virgil took the wine glass, sipping on his chocolate milk. No offense to Logan's tastes, but pretty much anything with alcohol in it tasted gross.

"And strawberry soda for me." Roman said. He had similar opinions on alcohol as Virgil. But if Logan wanted someone to appreciate wine with he could always hang out with Janus.

"We've got some cupcakes and cheesecake for dessert. The cheesecake is courtesy of Patton and Janus who actually know how to bake, and Roman and I made the cupcakes." Logan said, taking a sip of wine and reaching for another sandwich.

"Oh, nice." He said. "Bet the cupcakes will be great."

"I hope so." Logan said, sounding unsure.

He had never been very confident baking, though cooking he and Roman were both amazing at, which had always been great for Virgil when it fell upon him and Logan or him and Roman to make lunch or dinner, because he didn't like activities where he was the most competent one, because of course his self confidence wasn't great, always afraid to mess things up.

"Oh, shush, darling. We did great." Roman said, waving away Logan's worry. The certainty in Roman's voice made Logan's expression soften and he looked down at the glass he was holding and smiled.

Virgil was... so gone for Logan's smile.

It shocked him sometimes how bad he wanted to kiss Logan, and he looked away from him, eyes instead falling on Roman who was sitting with his eyes closed and face turned towards the sun, basking in the warmth and, fuck, Virgil desperately wanted to kiss him too.

He took a big gulp of his drink and wondered how he was going to survive the rest of this outing without accidentally blurting out how in love with them he was and ruining the entire picnic and his friendships with them.

He tried to find somewhere he could put his glass down without it tipping over, not doing very well, but Roman reached out to hold it for him and he took the opportunity to tug his hoodie off. It was way too warm for it, despite how the heavy fabric felt like a protective layer against all his anxieties.

(Maybe he should look into this whole weighted blanket thing that Logan had suggested, it sounded cozy.)

He took his wine glass again, emptying it of the chocolate milk in another gulp. Roman refilled it before he could ask.

"So, how are you?" Roman asked, smiling at Virgil over his wine glass of strawberry soda. Virgil tapped his fingers against the plastic of his glass.

"I'm good. Pretty sure I'm not overly anxious about anything right now. The picnic is good. Nice to get some fresh air, I guess." He said and shrugged. "How about you guys?"

"Oh, I'm feeling fantastic, I've got everything I ever wanted." Roman said happily, lovingly glancing at his boyfriend.

"Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves but, yes, we are both doing fairly great." Logan said, looking at Roman as he spoke, the lovesick expression still on his face as he turned to face Virgil.

"That's nice." Virgil said, for a moment seriously worried that his answer would have Janus popping up.

He was happy for them, he was, but if Roman had everything he wanted then, well, he had already known that they were happy just the two of them, but he was an idiot and it was impossible not to wish that there would be room for him too.

But why would they ever want him in their relationship? They had each other, what else was there to want?

Virgil had to admit he didn't think he would find it very tempting to add someone who spent most of their time being anxious to his relationship if he was in one.

"We hope you would like to join us for something like this again." Roman said, popping a blueberry into his mouth.

"I... yeah, that would be nice." He said, which was not a lie, although maybe not the entire truth. He loved to spend time with them. The occasional painful jealousy was kind of a downer, though. He could live without that.

The two of them shared an elated look and Virgil felt his self deprecation call it a day. He couldn't understand why Roman and Logan enjoyed his company so much, but he didn't know what he would do with himself if their friendship somehow got screwed.

Which was a huge reason why he was absolutely not ever going to let them know about his feelings. Sure, his whole unrequited love thing sucked, but he would never recover from losing the friendships he had with them.

"Roman, stop hogging the fruit." Logan said, reaching for the tupperware. Roman held it out of his reach.

"You should try a strawberry." He said, fishing one out of the box and holding it up. Logan tried taking it but Roman pouted and moved the strawberry away.

"Roman, come on." Logan said. Virgil thought that he tried to show annoyance, but his expression came out looking way too fond.

"You come on. Let me be the romantic I'm supposed to be." Roman said, prodding Logan's lips with the strawberry and Logan rolled his eyes but let Roman feed him the strawberry. Disgustingly sappy of them, Virgil thought, ignoring the achy feeling in his chest and the fact that he couldn't take his eyes off them.

"Here, Verge, you try one too." Roman said, finding another strawberry and extending his offering towards Virgil who snatched it from his hand.

"Thanks, I can feed myself, though." He said, making a joke out of it in the hopes that the two had not noticed nor would bring up how he had just stared at them. It was probably an unnecessary thing to do when they only really had eyes for each other.

"Aw, boring." Roman said, pouting again, and Virgil wondered how Logan, who was allowed to, managed to restrain himself from kissing Roman's every pout away.

Actually, why weren't they just constantly kissing? If Virgil was allowed to kiss either one of them he would probably never stop.

He pulled the little bit of stem away from the top, popping the whole strawberry into his mouth and admitting that Roman was right, those were some great strawberries.

They ate the rest of the berries and the fruit, talking about nothing and a bit of everything and he shared skeptical looks with Logan as Roman took his shoes off and bunched up his skirt and waded out into the river, both agreeing that it would be a bit fun if Roman slipped and fell into the water.

He didn't, though, soon joining them again and pulling out the desserts.

The cheesecake was amazing and so were the cupcakes and he was sure to let them know that he thought so, just to get to see how Logan shyly smiled at the praise, and that prideful glint in Roman's eyes.

"You should join us sometime, we can bake something fun, like jam cookies with Crofters." Roman suggested.

"I like the sound of that." Logan said, as always perking up at the idea of anything involving Crofters.

"I don't see that going very well." Virgil said with a snort.

"Why not? We'll both be there helping out, so if anything would go wrong then we are all to blame. Trust me, we are probably worse in the kitchen than you." Roman said with a shrug.

"No, I'm not worried about that, I just mean that I'm like a hundred percent sure that I'll turn around and you'll both have eaten all of the Crofters before we can put any of it in the cookies."

"Ah." Logan's hand came up to brush where he usually had his tie, grasping at nothing. "Well, that... I can't dispute that."

"Yeah, I got nothing." Roman said, and Virgil smiled into the frosting of the cupcake he was enjoying.

He didn't understand their obsession with the jam, sure it tasted pretty good, but he wouldn't rather eat Crofters than dinner, and he could never stomach eating an entire jar of the stuff, like Logan would.

"Mhm, maybe we leave the jam cookies for Patton to make while I keep you both busy so you don't end up in the kitchen eating all the jam." Virgil said with a grin. He had done it before, on Patton's request, hanging out with either of them or both of them to keep them away from the kitchen until Patton was done secretly baking the cookies.

"Sounds like fun." Roman joked, wiggling his eyebrows, and Logan busied himself by taking a big sip of his wine, tips of his ears going red.

Virgil forgot how to breathe for a moment, failing to process what Roman had just said because there was no way he had made a joke like that when he was sitting right next to his boyfriend, right?

"Not what I meant. You're spending too much time with your brother." Virgil said, sure his face had gone red but hoping that the other two would somehow not notice it. Roman just laughed and took another slice of cheesecake.

"Don't mind him." Logan said, shaking his head. "He thinks he's funny."

"I think I'm hilarious, thank you very much." Roman tilted his head up pridefully.

Virgil tried hard to come up with another suggestion for something they could bake, something not involving Crofters, to change the subject, but thankfully Logan brought up something else entirely and Virgil happily entertained the new topic of conversation.

They stayed in the imagination for what was probably another hour, talking and eating some more, and despite Virgil's many moments of gay panic he had a really great time, wishing they could have stayed longer when they eventually started packing their things up and making it back towards the mindscape.

As soon as they returned they got roped into the boardgame evening that Patton had somehow convinced Janus and Remus to join him for.

Mostly they just played bluff, the card game, which was a mess because Janus was far too talented at making the cards disappear and no one could ever tell if he was lying (except for Patton who was scary good at it), and Remus kept eating his cards to make them disappear.

Afterwards he went and hid in his room, curling up with his hoodie and a blanket and trying to distract himself with youtube and games on his phone to keep from accidentally daydreaming about Logan and Roman and what it would be like to join them for whatever evening routines they might have together.

Virgil told himself to shut up about his stupid feelings and tried to force himself to focus on the conspiracy theory video he was watching.

He tried to convince himself that it wasn't terribly sad of him to be cuddling a pillow to his chest and falling asleep next to his laptop, but next to the mental image of Roman and Logan curling up together and having a murmuring conversation until they fell asleep together it wasn't very convincing.

Fuck, he hoped those two knew how lucky they were.

--

[2]

"Virgil!" Someone exclaimed loudly and Virgil flinched, spilling tea leaves all over the kitchen counter.

"Whoops, sorry." Roman slid up next to him, waving his hand to make the mess disappear and ignoring Virgil's glare.

"What do you want, Ro?" He asked, making another attempt at filling his tea strainer with the tea leaves, putting it in his empty cup.

"Well, I was wondering if you would like to join me and Logan for our weekly movie night tonight?" Roman said, just as the electric kettle clicked to let Virgil know the water was boiling. He grabbed it, careful to not let any drop of the boiling water spill outside his cup as he filled it.

He knew the two of them had weekly movie nights, the two of them together in Logan's or Roman's room with snacks and a lot of cuddles, Logan had talked about it with him sometimes, saying that he wasn't all that excited about the Disney movies but failing very much to sound upset about how cuddly Roman was.

He had always assumed those movie nights were like a date night for the two of them, though he couldn't remember hearing Logan outright call them that, so maybe he had just jumped to conclusions.

He supposed that a lot of activities between two people who were dating just looked like dates to an outsider, but Logan liked his movie nights with Roman a lot, never letting anything interfere with it, and Virgil really didn't want to intrude.

"Uh, is- is Logan okay with that?" He wondered, still a little unsure, because if it was something that was special for the two of them then he wasn't going to come between.

"Of course, he sent me to ask you." Roman said, giving him a look as if the question he had asked was absurd.

"Well, in that case." He said, stirring the strainer in his cup for a few moments until he judged his tea to be finished.

"So, you'd like to join us?" Roman said, looking so childishly hopeful and Virgil couldn't do anything else than smiling and nodding.

"Fantastic!" Roman hugged him tightly and Virgil had to quickly move his hand from his cup to not accidentally nudge it. "I'll go tell Logan the lovely news"

He let go of Virgil as quickly as he had grabbed him, radiating joy. "Come to my room at seven?"

"Okay." Virgil said, voice coming out a bit choked, but Roman didn't seem to notice, just grinning brilliantly before disappearing out of the room and leaving Virgil to shakily remove the tea strainer from his cup, trying not to feel so gay about how warm and wonderful Roman's quick hug had been.

Sometimes he had the thought to isolate himself for a month or so until his feelings went away, but the thought of not spending any time with Roman or Logan for more than a week was too off putting for him to seriously consider. It would be awfully nice not to be so hopelessly in love with them both, though.

He carried his cup into the living room of the mindscape, sitting down on the couch and trying to sip his tea without burning his mouth, wondering how he was going to survive a movie night with the two sides he was in love with.

He had barely recovered from their picnic last Monday, and now he was spending Saturday evening watching movies with both of them in Roman's room?

Okay, honestly, he spent a lot of time watching tv shows and movies with them, but not both of them, and he could barely focus over his gay panic around both of them lately.

And with how staying up watching movies with them sometimes turned kind of cuddly, well, he was a bit terrified (and maybe a bit hopeful) that it would this time too.

Man, he was setting himself up for heartbreak. They had to notice how flustered and weird he got around them sometimes. It wasn't as if he was good at hiding his feelings. And then they would be uncomfortable around him and he would lose his two closest friends.

Virgil sighed loudly, summoning up the weighted blanket he had conjured himself a few days before, and a puzzle book that Logan had gotten him since the two of them both enjoyed solving crosswords and sudokus and word searches and the likes.

He solved some puzzles and drank his tea, curled up under his weighted blanket and and listening to music, which entertained him ever until he was interrupted by Remus who wanted someone to discuss gruesome murders with.

It was fun as long as Remus didn't get too excited and got into close detail about bodily stuff, which he thankfully didn't as often anymore as he had learnt that then he would have to find someone else to discuss serial killers and interesting murders with. He didn't always remember though.

"And the guy took the gouged out eyes and-" Remus said, more enthusiastically than anyone should be able to, and Virgil held a hand up to stop him.

"No, that's enough. I'm not gonna be able to eat dinner." He shivered, not needing to hear how any more body parts were extracted or eaten.

"Oh, right. It's our turn to make dinner! Patton reminded me." Remus said, which was an unwelcome reminder as Virgil really didn't like having that kind of responsibility. Especially not paired with Remus, who certainly didn't make it easier to put something edible on their table.

"Boo." He said.

"I think we should make-" Remus started but Virgil shook his head immediately, already knowing that Remus' suggestions were kind of terrible and gross ninety percent of the time.

"We're not eating any kind of animal's testicles." Virgil stated firmly. Neither were anything with any kinds of bugs and larvae acceptable.

"You're all so boring. Someday we're at least eating snails. It's a known delicacy!" Remus said, though Virgil didn't like the look on his face very much.

"You're never going to make me eat a snail." Virgil shook his head. If Remus wanted to eat gross things he could, but he wasn't going to drag Virgil into it. Neither did he want Remus to drag Logan or Roman into it, he didn't know if he could bring himself to kiss someone who had eaten that cheese full of larvae or bull's testicles.

...Not that he would ever get to kiss them, so that didn't matter. Actually, maybe it was good if either of them took one of Remus' dares to eat something gross. Then maybe Virgil wouldn't want to kiss them so bad.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the mental image of kissing Roman or Logan. He had a movie night that he needed to stay cool during, he might as well start now. And then hopefully stay cool and calm forever.

"We should probably make dinner soon. Gotta have eaten by like six or six thirty so I have a while to be anxious about joining Roman and Logan's movie night. Who know how I might fuck that up?" He said with a snort, pretending as if that had not been a very serious thought in the back of his head ever since Roman invited him.

"You're joining their movie night? I thought 'movie night' was just a code word for them getting together and fu-"

"Remus, please shut the fuck up." He interrupted him again, because there were many things that he did not want to discuss with Remus but that was up in the top ten.

"Bet they've switched out the Disney for some dirty movies now and then." Remus said, cackling as Virgil pulled an uncomfortable face.

"Let's just be quiet for a while, how about that?" He suggested, already knowing that it was futile (he had lived with Remus for a long time before his room moved to the light sides, usually there was no shutting him up) but still having to try.

"No thanks! Oh, hey, do you think we can make meatballs and pasta but we shape the meatballs into little penises?" He said, lighting up with excitement at the idea and Virgil sighed.

He ended up agreeing with that idea purely to keep Remus' mind focused on something that only made him a little uncomfortable, unlike their previous topics of conversation which had made him a lot uncomfortable.

Virgil needed no help having thoughts about Logan and Roman that he shouldn't have, thank you very much.

He allowed Remus to drag him into the kitchen to get their cooking done with, though Remus got to be the one to form the meatballs while Virgil watched over the spaghetti and set the table, unreasonably nervous about the dinner, not because of the questionable shape of the meatballs but because of having to see the two people he had such stupid feelings about.

He didn't really know why he was nervous, but that was the fun thing about anxiety, it just showed up now and then and focused on the wrong thing.

It wasn't as if Roman or Logan were likely to, in the middle of dinner, tell him that they definitely didn't want him there for their movie night and had just been joking and also they knew about his feelings for them and thought he was gross.

But he was the embodiment of anxiety and could not help worrying about stupid stuff.

"Whatcha thinkin 'bout?" Remus said from right behind him and he whirled around, coming face to face with Remus who was standing on the ceiling as if it was the floor, crouching slightly to stare Virgil right in his face.

"Nothing, and haven't I told you to please not do that?" He took a large step back

"You all tell me to not do so many things, how am I supposed to remember?" Remus took a step back too and sat down on the ceiling, his shirt still affected by gravity and nearly falling down over his face. "Anyway, you're worrying, I can tell, you're always more irritable then."

"So, like, always?" He said, unimpressed with Remus' deduction skills.

"Yeah, pretty much! But don't worry Verge, I'm sure they didn't invite you for a threesome. Oh, except if that's what you want then I'm sure they invited you for a threesome." He said, and Virgil could tell that he was actually trying to be helpful for once, which did not help much at all.

"Oh my god, shut up." Virgil pulled his hood up, trying to hide that Remus' words made him flustered because letting him know that his words got to him without hurting him meant to Remus that he was free to use it to annoy him for the rest of their existence.

"That's an interesting idea for a movie night, Remus. However," Logan said and both of them turned towards the doorway really quick to see the logical side who was standing there looking fairly amused by their conversation, "I'll have you know that our only plans for tonight are to watch movies and, if I know Roman as well as I think I do, eat a truly atrocious amount of sweets."

Remus fell onto the floor, landing on his neck but standing up unharmed, and based on the cracking noise Remus' spine had made Virgil was really happy that they were imaginary.

"Boo, your movie nights sound lame. Maybe I will invite Janus and Patton and we can have the fun kind of movie night." Remus said, seeming to think it over a little too seriously for it to just be a joke or an intrusive thought. Virgil placed a hand on Remus' shoulder.

"Hey, Ree, new rule, and this one it's really important that you remember. If you, Janus, and Patton ever have a movie night you will not tell me under any circumstances, thank you." He said. If Remus had any kind of sex life then Virgil absolutely did not want to know about it.

"We'll see." Remus said happily and stirred the meatballs in the pan, which didn't sound promising.

The unattended pasta boiled over, scalding hot water sloshing over onto the stove and Virgil took a small step backwards, pulling his hands close to his body.

They might not actually be physically hurt by things like putting their hands in boiling water, but to be fair that actually only applied when the one being hurt fully believed it wouldn't harm them as an embodiment of a personality rather than a real human. Virgil did not.

Logan walked up to him, reaching out and calmly pulling the pot to the side, sparing Virgil the scary task, though he rested his other hand on Virgil's lower back and he could feel his heart rate spike.

"There you go." Logan said and Virgil took a shaky breath that he hoped Logan mistook as anxious.

"Thanks." He said, voice cracking just slightly.

"You're welcome." Logan moved away, opening a cabinet and taking out two glasses that he filled with water before disappearing out into the hallway. Virgil could hear his steps fade as he walked upstairs.

He would bet that he was going to Roman's room. The two of them had probably been hanging out all day, maybe cuddling and talking about what movies to watch during their movie night.

Virgil turned towards the pot of pasta again, thinking that he should probably stir it soon again, looking at Remus who was suspiciously looking towards where Logan had disappeared and then at Virgil, and Virgil really didn't like to see the look of understanding that appeared on his face.

"Ew, you actually like them, don't you?" He said, cackling as if it was the greatest joke he had ever heard.

"No! Shut up!" He said, reacting in a way that was far too obvious, but he panicked, okay?

"Can't believe both you and Logan have the hots for my brother. You've both got such bad taste." Remus pulled a face of disgust. "Like, why would anyone choose him and his boring sword when you've got this hot piece of ass right here?"

Remus gestured at himself, seeming entirely confused as to why Virgil wasn't jumping him right where he was standing. Virgil didn't dignify that with a response. Remus used and ate deodorant that both smelled and tasted of pickles. That was not exactly what Virgil was looking for in a boyfriend.

"We don't need to talk about this. Not even for a second. Feelings are stupid and I'm taking them to the grave. Same goes for you, I will bury both this secret and you if I have to." Virgil threatened, feeling pretty unsurprised when Remus wiggled his eyebrows.

"Sounds sexy."

"Yeah, okay, we're listening to a true crime podcast now." Virgil said and quickly found one that he was pretty sure he and Remus hadn't heard before. Those were one of the few things that would distract and shut Remus up.

Then Remus shut up, luckily, seeing to understand that this really wasn't a topic that Virgil wanted anyone to joke about or bring up at all.

Thankfully Remus wasn't as annoying for the rest of the time they cooked, and he didn't even make that many dick jokes during dinner, which everyone was happy about. He did however giggle a lot while he was eating and it was difficult not to have a general idea what kind of things he was thinking, and he was the only one who did not mash or cut the 'meatballs' into something that didn't look how they were supposed to.

After dinner there was about an hour left until seven and Virgil, true to his word, spent it anxiously pacing his room and overthinking how he might mess up and let the others know about his feelings or just be too obvious about what kind of relationship he really wanted with them.

He dressed in his skeleton onesie as he always did for his and Logan's evenings of debates and crime shows and puzzle solving. Lately Logan had been wearing his unicorn onesie too, which made Virgil want to cuddle him embarrassingly much.

After a bit of hesitation he wore his hoodie over the onesie, as always feeling a bit naked without it.

When the time showed a quarter to seven he sat down on his bed and tried to distract himself with his phone for a few minutes, which felt like an eternity but when he checked it had only been three minutes.

He gave up waiting and left his room, worrying that he would be late despite the fact that it only took him, at most, a minute to leave his room and walk to Roman's door.

Yep, about thirty seconds later he was outside by Roman's ruby red door with golden swirls painted around it and his name written in fancy-looking golden calligraphy in eye-height.

There were still about eleven minutes until seven so obviously it was way too early to knock.

He leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. The exhale sounded more like a sigh than anything else. If he had somehow gotten the time or day wrong then he could just knock and if it looked like he wasn't wanted then he could pretend he came there to borrow a book or something.

He felt a bit pathetic to make plans like that, but there were so many things to feel mildly pathetic about as the embodiment of anxiety that it didn't matter much.

"Hello, Verge."

Virgil flinched, eyes flying open and he stood up straight. It was Logan, walking from the other end of the hallway where his room was, wearing his unicorn onesie.

"You guys are really making a habit of sneaking up on me, huh?" He said, hoping that they would both ignore Virgil's flinch.

"Apologies. I did not intend to." Logan said. Virgil shrugged.

"Is there something you're waiting for?" Logan looked between Virgil and the red door.

"Uhh, I was just- there's still like six minutes left until seven." He said, feeling flustered to be caught worrying about something so insignificant.

"Ah, I understand. I'm certain we are both welcome inside, though. Our presence will likely only keep Roman from spending a few more minutes trying to perfect everything. Honestly, I've tried telling him that things do not need to be perfect, but he struggles with it." Logan said, knocking on the door.

"Sounds like Roman." Virgil agreed. "And like you."

"You're not wrong." Logan admitted, and then they were both interrupted by Roman's door being thrown open to reveal Roman himself.

"What a welcome sight, come in, come in." He said, moving aside. Logan gestured for him to enter first and he did, Logan following and closing the door behind them.

Roman came up to Virgil, swooping in to kiss Virgil's cheek and leaving him frozen in place as he continued to Logan, watching with wide eyes as he left a kiss right on Logan's lips.

Virgil was already doubting that he was going to make it through the evening. God, they can't just do that to him. He was far too gay for any kind of affection, no matter if it was intended as platonic.

"So, we got a bunch of movie suggestions." Roman said, holding Logan's hand and hooking his arm with Virgil's, pulling them towards his bedroom.

It looked pretty much the same as always, huge bed with lots and lots of pillows and blankets in red and white and gold, Disney posters on the wall, fairy lights strung up over the bed and the tv, shrouding the room in a soft glow, a desk in a corner that was spilling over with papers and notebooks and pens and art supplies.

On his nightstand he had a framed picture of himself and Logan.

He averted his eyes, instead ending up looking at the other night stand. There was a pile of books on it that Virgil knew Roman would never read, and an alarm clock, and just like in Logan's room there were several signs to be found that someone else lived in the room too.

He was literally there spending time with them, but he felt so... apart from them. Which was so stupid to feel upset about because they were apart. He was not part of their relationship.

"Here, we got these Disney movies, of course, and there's these horror movies I've heard you mention before, and Logan suggested some murder mystery movies." Roman said, turning towards his tv that was on the wall opposite of the bed, showing a list of movies.

"Oh, okay." Virgil said, not sure what else they wanted from him, but the way they were looking at him felt very expectant.

"We were thinking that you can choose the movies for tonight." Logan elaborated and Virgil blinked, wondering how on earth he was supposed to explain that that was far too much responsibility for him to feel comfortable with.

"How about we all choose one movie each, to start?" Virgil said instead, fidgeting with the zipper of his hoodie. He met Logan's eyes briefly, which seemed enough to wordlessly communicate that him making all the choices was not something he was comfortable with.

"If that's what you would like." He said. "You could choose the horror movie then, as you know horror better than Roman and I."

"Alright." Virgil said, looking over the horror movie options again and noticing that it was in fact only movies he had mentioned to Roman but hadn't seen with him yet. It was strangely sweet that he had remembered all of those.

"Dibs on choosing the Disney movie." Roman said quickly, to no one's surprise.

"Fine then, I will choose the murder mystery." Logan said, not seeming upset about that at all.

"I think we should watch the horror movie first, and then the murder mystery, and then the Disney movie so I can sleep tonight. Need something wholesome and cute fresh in my mind, you know?" Roman said.

Virgil was not surprised at that suggestion, Roman really wasn't much for watching horror movies. He still couldn't figure out why Roman wanted to watch scary movies with him when they obviously terrified him.

"That sounds like a good order." Logan said.

It didn't take them all long to choose the movies, Roman taking the longest, spending a few minutes hesitating between two movies before settling on one.

Logan sat down on the bed, gesturing for Virgil to join him, and Roman brought the snacks, a bag of candy that he handed to Logan and a bowl of chips that Virgil got to hold for the time being, and a bowl of popcorn that he held himself as he climbed into bed.

There were about a million soft pillows to lean back against, positioned in such a way that they found themselves in the middle ground of sitting up and lying down, still seeing the tv without having to bend their heads uncomfortably.

Virgil wasn't sure how it had happened, but he had ended up sitting between Logan and Roman, which was confusing and distracting enough that he didn't follow the movie at all for the first few minutes, busy trying to figure out why Logan and Roman wouldn't rather sit next to each other.

Then they could cuddle, or lean against each other, or share a blanket, or easily hold hands. All of those things that Virgil wished he could do with them so badly. How could they resist?

Then again the two of them had been boyfriends for more than half a year, maybe they weren't as desperate as he was since they could actually get any affection they craved at pretty much any time.

It didn't take long until Roman was, as every other time, clinging to Virgil's arm, watching the screen with wide eyes as the movie played. Several times Virgil glanced towards Logan, who was watching the movie without too much trouble though flinching at some of the jumpscares.

He wished he could know what he was thinking. Had he noticed that Roman was holding onto Virgil instead of him? Did he care? Was Virgil unintentionally getting in the way?

He took a deep breath, sticking the hand not belonging to the arm that Roman was grabbing into the bag of candy that was resting on Logan's thigh, finding a chewy candy and trying not to think too much about any jealousy he might be causing.

It was unlikely that Logan would stay quiet about something like that anyway. He was blunt, even about his feelings nowadays that he wasn't pretending that he did not have them anymore.

Roman drew a sharp breath as the serial killer appeared on the screen by popping up and driving his weapon into his victim, and Virgil felt him press his face into his shoulder, spreading warmth through his entire body.

Logan reached across Virgil, offering Roman a hand which he took and squeezed tightly and Virgil was suddenly hyper aware of the fact that he was stuck between them, practically cuddled by Roman and with their clasped together hands resting in his lap.

That was... a lot, and he spent almost the entire movie distracted by the warmth of their touch.

Somehow he made it through the movie without suffering from spontaneous combustion or too much gay panic, which was impressive as any time he spent with Logan or Roman lately just made him feel even more gay for them.

The movie ended, revealing the serial killer to be one of the main characters that had survived so far, ending the movie with brutally axing down the two remaining survivors and then killing himself. Far from the best horror movie Virgil had seen, and not bad enough for it to be only funny.

Roman and Logan seemed to have thought it was definitely scary enough, though.

"In theory I understand why people enjoy horror, but in practice, not so much." Logan said, shaking his head slowly at the credits that rolled.

"Horror's fun." Virgil said simply and Roman scoffed from his position pressed to Virgil's side.

"It's terrifying is what it is." He said.

"Then why do you keep watching horror with me? Honestly, we could watch other movies, Ro." Virgil shook his head.

"No reason." Roman mumbled into the fabric of his hoodie. Virgil wanted to roll his eyes at how unnecessarily stubborn Roman was but restrained himself. "Just start the next movie."

Logan pressed play on the next movie, the murder mystery of his choice. Virgil moved the empty chips bowl from his lap, Logan taking it and setting it down next to the bed to be dealt with later.

This movie wasn't very scary at all, though certain moments had Roman tensing and he was still holding Logan's hand and sitting curled up to Virgil, free hand with a firm grasp to his arm. It was an interesting movie, engaging enough to not have Virgil lose focus, at least not until nearing the end when he felt something heavy rest against his left shoulder.

He glanced to the side to see Logan having slumped against him, breathing deeply and rhythmically. He sat there unsure for a moment, then turned towards Roman.

"Hey, um, Logan's asleep." He whispered.

"Typical. He always manages to fall asleep before finding out who the murderer is." Roman murmured with a fond shake of his head, summoning up the remote to lower the volume.

He shifted slightly, leaning forward to be able to look past Virgil at his boyfriend and Virgil could see his entire expression soften at the sight and Roman sighed, looking up at Virgil and smiling before leaning back into all the pillows.

"Isn't he just so pretty?" He wondered dreamily, and Virgil had to take a moment to figure out if that was meant as a statement or a question, but he still wasn't sure and ended up giving a noncommittal hum as response.

He was. They both were. They were so pretty that it ached in Virgil sometimes when he saw them. Somehow it was always worse in moments like these. Maybe it was because of how tauntingly close he was to having all he wanted, and yet so impossibly far.

They finished the movie in silence, Virgil making sure to memorize the ending so he could give Logan an accurate retelling if he wanted to know how it had ended.

'Maybe I should go, Logan seems to need some sleep." He offered, not thinking that it was really right that he was the one Logan was asleep on and not sure that he was comfortable constantly finding himself between Roman and Logan like this.

"Nah, stay. It's barely eleven, and we still got a movie left to watch. Besides, if you leave you'll just wake Logan up." Roman said, seeming really satisfied about it, for whatever reason.

"Though could you take his glasses off? Puts him in a bad mood if he wakes up to realize he's been sleeping on his glasses because he always manages to break them. Happens more often than you'd think." Roman said, chuckling quietly.

"Um, okay." Virgil looked over at Logan again, reaching out of the glasses and then hesitating.

"I don't... wanna risk waking him up." He looked at Roman again who raised his eyebrows in amusement and did a little wave with his hand to have Logan's glasses disappear.

"Oh, right. Forgot we could do that." Virgil said, shaking his head at himself.

"Maybe you're the one that needs some sleep." Roman scoffed, which Virgil couldn't argue with.

"I'll be up until two in the morning regardless if I'm here or in my room." Virgil promised. He was always up late, watching some youtube or being anxious or reading books that Logan or Roman had suggested to him, or finding himself daydreaming about the kind of relationship he wanted with the two of them.

"Might as well stay here to watch this Disney movie with me, then." Roman said, snapping with his fingers to change the movie.

"Fine, you're so stubborn." He relaxed back against the abundance of pillows, agreeing that it would not be possible for him to leave without waking Logan up. And there was only one movie left anyway before they would all call it a night.

He could stay a little bit longer.

Virgil didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke up a few hours later, his half asleep brain unsure why he had woken up and unsure what it was about his surroundings that were so strange.

He blinked to clear his vision and it soon dawned upon him that the soft light of fairy lights and the many pillows and the person with an arm wrapped around Virgil's midsection meant that he was not in his own bed, but in Roman's.

He could hear soft breaths from the other two, Roman on the verge of snoring behind him, and it was his arm that was around Virgil. Oh god, Roman was cuddling him.

He felt wide awake as that realization hit him and he lay there not entirely daring to breathe, eyes on Logan who was fast asleep in front of him, a blanket snugly pulled around him, and his hand was resting close to Virgil's.

Virgil carefully shifted onto his back, somehow not waking Roman up, though he stirred slightly, arm around Virgil tightening.

Fuck.

He shouldn't have stayed long enough to fall asleep, he should have learnt from how his and Logan's late evenings together sometimes ended.

He couldn't stay, no matter how incredibly comfortable his current spot was. It didn't feel right, he shouldn't be there no matter how much he wanted to.

He grasped Roman's arm, moving it off of himself and slowly sitting up, conjuring up his phone and squinting at it to keep himself from being as blinded as he usually was when checking the time.

It was only three thirty in the morning, which meant that it was too early for him to give up on sleep or he would spend the rest of the day feeling anywhere from mildly to a lot nauseous from sleep deprivation (a real fun thing to combine with being the embodiment of anxiety).

He stuffed his phone into his hoodie pocket and peeled off the blanket that he was under, ever so carefully scooting off the bed.

He took a deep breath as he put his feet on the floor and stood up, internally cursing out the part of himself that was selfish and begged to stay no matter how awkward things might be when they all woke up in the morning.

He heard quiet shuffling, and turned back towards the bed to see Roman slowly sitting up, blinking tiredly and squinting at him.

"Where 're you going?" He mumbled, rubbing at his eye and yawning.

"Just... bathroom." Virgil said and Roman nodded sleepily before plopping back down onto the bed and burying his face into the pillow he had been sleeping on. Virgil hurried out of the room, closing the door carefully and then actually going to the bathroom, mostly to be able to tell himself that he hadn't lied to Roman.

Then he returned to his own room, crawling into his bed and rolling himself up in a blanket that was a lot colder than the ones he had shared with Roman and Logan.

Fuck.

Maybe he should just get a grip and force his feelings away, because he was really tired of how their mere touch would have him flustered and stuttering and a huge mess.

It wasn't any fun going around constantly pining after them, and these feelings weren't worth it. All they did was complicate things between them and Virgil was sick of feeling bad about his feelings.

--

[3]

Not being around Logan and Roman was far easier said than done. They insisted on being everywhere in the mindscape, no matter where he turned he would see them.

He had just entered the kitchen and stopped dead in his tracks, eyes immediately drawn to the two sides that he had hoped not to run into.

Logan was standing by the counter, bracing his hands on the edge of it behind himself, Roman with his hands cupping Logan's face as he kissed him thoroughly. He watched as Roman's hands slid down Logan's chest, settling on his waist to pull him closer, and Logan gasped into the kiss.

Virgil realized that he was staring and shook his head to clear his gay thoughts, then clearing his throat to make his presence known. The two of them parted quickly, color blooming on their cheeks.

"In the kitchen, really?" He said, teasing them to distract from the fact that he felt as flustered as they looked.

"Well, in our defense the other three are out in the imagination because Patton somehow convinced them to let him teach them to make flower crowns, and Logan is just so kissable." Roman said, his hands giving Logan's waist a squeeze that made him jump and push his boyfriend's hands away.

"Get a room." Virgil said, ignoring the part of him that wanted to respond that, yeah, he really was.

He walked past them, reaching behind Logan for the coffee pot that at least already had warm coffee in it. Judging by the empty cups next to it the coffee had been what they had been making before getting distracted.

"Good idea." Roman said, and he could see the creative side winking at him in the corner of his eye, which he immediately decided to pretend he hadn't.

Why were they doing this to him?

He poured coffee into his cup, handing the pot to Logan who had given his boyfriend a peck and freed himself from him, once again focusing on coffee. Virgil added some cream and two sugar cubes to make it drinkable, watching as Roman grabbed the cup that Logan filled for him, dumping cream and sugar and sprinkles and some syrup.

Logan gave Roman's drink a judging glance, shaking his head and taking a sip of his own plain, bitter coffee that Virgil didn't know how he could drink.

"I think I'm gonna write down some video ideas, and then I'm gonna have a nice relaxing bath. Rose petals and bath bombs and face masks, you know. Some self care." Roman said to no one in particular, sipping his coffee.

"Sounds like a good plan, have a nice time, love." Logan said and Roman nodded and pressed a kiss to his cheek, then taking a step to the side and kissing Virgil's cheek, making him choke on his coffee as Roman sank out of the room, trying to cough into his mug somewhat discreetly.

What the fuck?

"If he's ever a bit much, let me know and I will tell him to tone it down." Logan said, eyeing him, and Virgil tried to will himself not to be such a flustered mess. "He can be rather enthusiastic."

"Uh, right." Virgil said, already knowing that he wouldn't do so because he couldn't explain why Roman was 'too much' without letting him know how many gay feelings he had about Roman. Which was stupid as Logan would most likely not ask why, but what if?

And of course there was that traitorous part of him that didn't want Roman to stop at all. As much as he complained about the increase in affection as of late... he would take anything he could get. Even if that was incredibly selfish of him.

"So... what are your plans for the morning?" He asked, sitting on a chair by the kitchen table, wanting to change the topic.

"It is almost twelve, the morning ended hours ago," Logan pointed out, setting his cup down on the table and sitting too, "but to answer your question... I do not really have a plan. I'm done with my work for the week. There's this book I've been meaning to read."

"Sounds nice." He said, fingers tapping against his mug.

"How about you?" Logan asked politely, sipping his coffee.

"Oh, uh, I'm gonna... watch youtube, maybe?" He said. He had only woken up thirty minutes ago, he hadn't had time to think of how to spend the day yet.

"Oh, wait," Logan put his cup down, "I have this puzzle I have been saving for when you had time. We could piece that together, I have the book as an audio book, too."

"That sounds nice." Virgil said despite knowing better, because god damn it he had only been trying to avoid them for two days, not counting today, and he already missed them so much, and Logan was looking so hopeful.

"Great." Logan said, standing up and extending Virgil the hand that was not holding his coffee.

He took Logan's hand to allow him to help him up, though Logan then didn't let go of his hand, simply holding it and pulling Virgil along out of the kitchen and up the stairs, towards Logan's room.

He stared at their entwined fingers the entire time, trying to wrap his head around why Logan and Roman were so insistent on trying to kill him via an overdose of affection.

They settled on Logan's couch, Logan finally letting go of him so Virgil could think clearly, watching as Logan found the puzzle and cleaning off his coffee table with a wave of his hand.

They began picking out the edge pieces from the box, trying to put together the border of the puzzle. For a while they were both quiet, no audiobook playing yet. It was nice to spend time with Logan, he knew there was no pressure to keep a conversation going, they were good at enjoying each other's company silently.

It was nice to have someone to spend time with, no pressure. Although ever since he had realized that he was in love with both Logan and Roman it had made things a bit less easy. That was months ago, he realized, a small sigh escaping him at the thought of how long he had been pining for them. Were these feelings ever just going to give up?

"Bringing back our earlier conversations about plans for the day..." Logan began, glancing at him.

"Yeah?"

"Roman and I have had a few of these kinds of... video game dates? It's mainly him talking me into playing a bunch of video games he likes which, well, it is fun and I do appreciate those gaming dates, although saying 'gaming date' sounds atrocious." Logan grimaced lightly.

"Uh huh?" Virgil said, wondering why Logan was telling him this.

"Right, yes, the point is that we were wondering if you would like to join us to play some video games this evening? Roman has gotten me interested in a bunch of them and they are rather fun." Logan said, turning a puzzle piece over and over in his hand and looking up at Virgil.

"Oh. Yeah, sounds fun." He said, having completely abandoned his attempt at distancing himself from Logan and Roman. It was impossible anyway, they all lived in the same mindscape, sharing meals together and working together and spending any time outside their rooms together.

"So, you will join us for the evening?"

"Yes." Virgil said, not thinking he could have made himself decline.

"Splendid." Logan put the puzzle piece down, looking through the box for other pieces with red on them. Virgil was collecting all the light blue and white pieces, planning on putting together the sky. It was the part Logan liked the least, but Virgil found it fun.

"I'm going to need your help beating Roman in Mario Kart, he keeps winning and it's getting to his head." Logan said and Virgil snorted.

"Oh, I bet it is."

They continued in silence, Logan eventually remembering to play the audio book he had been talking about. It only took them a bit over an hour to piece together the five hundred piece puzzle that Logan had chosen for them.

Virgil knew that Logan could easily put together a thousand piece puzzle, but they kind of overwhelmed Virgil and he got bored with them, and Logan was considerate enough to cater to Virgil.

Once the puzzle was complete Logan and Virgil admired it for a moment until Virgil made the mistake of looking up at Logan. Their eyes met and Logan smiled at him, his stupidly small and wonderful smile, and Virgil wanted to find out so bad exactly what kissing Logan was like.

He blinked and looked away, grasping his empty coffee cup. He had to get a grip. He really had to stop fantasizing about kissing another man's boyfriend.

"This was fun but, um, gonna go hang out in my room for a bit." He said, taking Logan's empty coffee cup too as he stood up.

"I agree, this was fun." Logan said, still watching him.

"I'll put our cups in the dishwasher." He said, gesturing with them.

"Yes, please, that would be very nice of you." Logan said and Virgil was about to move but hesitated for a second.

"Oh, by the way, uh, dresscode for gaming night?" Virgil wondered, having to ask before he forgot, guessing it had to be casual, like pajamas or something. If he didn't ask he would definitely end up worrying about what to wear later.

"Comfortable." Was all that Logan said. "I will text you the time and place once Roman and I have decided it."

"Okay." Virgil said, then giving an awkward little wave before sinking out and popping up in his own room. Comfortable he could do. He would just wear his pajamas and his hoodie.

The rest of the day passed pretty quickly, after hiding out in his room for a while he helped Patton bake some cookies, listened to Janus and Remus struggle to make an edible dinner, and then suddenly later he was sitting on the couch of the mindscape, alone, waiting for Roman and Logan.

Logan had texted him to say that that was where they were going to spend the evening, as he had said he would, and despite knowing that he was there early he double checked the message about ten times to make sure that he hadn't read it wrong.

Somehow, despite the very clear words telling him where and when to meet, Virgil still wasn't convinced he hadn't gotten the day and activity and place wrong, somehow.

Soon enough he heard someone walk down the stairs, looking up to see Roman appearing, wearing white sweatpants and a red t-shirt with his golden emblem on it. He was also wearing lion slippers, which was unnecessarily cute.

"Hello there, emo knightmare." He said, sitting down right next to Virgil and putting an arm around his shoulders.

"He- hey, Ro." He said, voice cracking just slightly and he slipped his phone into his pocket, clearing his throat.

"Our dear nerd is just gonna be a minute." Roman said, giving him a sort of half hug before mercifully letting go of Virgil and standing up to open the drawer in the tv-furniture that had all the games.

"We were thinking that we would start with Mario Kart, classic Mario Kart Wii, you know. And then some Minecraft and, I dunno, whatever we want to play." Roman said, pulling out the wiimotes and nunchucks that they would need.

"Sounds good." Virgil said, dragging his zipper up slightly and then down again, repeatedly, having nothing better to do with his hands.

Roman started up the game and handed Virgil a wiimote, rambling about how nice his self care day had been, then talking about some complicated skin care routine and his favorite face masks and Virgil nodded along and pretended that he understood any of the words Roman was saying.

Luckily Logan joined them then, walking down the stairs and smiling as he saw them. He was wearing pajama pants with a star pattern and a loose white t-shirt that Virgil would swear was actually Roman's, which was his usual pajamas but he was also wearing unicorn slippers that seemed to be the same style as Roman's.

"Do you guys have, like, matching slippers?" He asked, raising an eyebrow and Logan flushed a pretty pink.

"No." He said unconvincingly.

"Oh, shush. It was Roman who gave them to me." He said, sitting down next to Virgil but not looking at him.

"Yeah, I did. And you wear them all the time, often pairing them up with your unicorn onesie. It's adorable." Roman said, walking over to him and kissing the top of his head, and Logan mumbled something under his breath but looked a little too close to pleased to actually be upset.

Virgil could imagine Logan wearing his unicorn onesie with his unicorn slippers pretty easily and agreed that the sight definitely had to be adorable. Maybe he would pitch the idea of giving Logan a unicorn coffee cup to Roman. Virgil would bet that Logan would cherish anything unicorn-related that he was given.

"Anyway, choose your characters. Dibs on Princess Peach." Roman said. Neither Virgil nor Logan had any problem with that. Logan chose to play as his Mii while Virgil chose Dry Bones, because he wasn't boring.

"You can choose the first track." Roman offered and Virgil internally groaned and wondered why they kept expecting so much of him.

"Uhh." Virgil said, frantically looking through the tracks to find which track he would like to start with. He chose Yoshi Falls because it was easy to start with and he remembered it to be a pretty fun track.

The cutscenes of the track played and the game counted down from three, and Virgil could see Roman smirk in the corner of his eye.

"Oh, you guys are going down." He said, overly confidently, just as the game started.

Turned out that Virgil was definitely not going down, winning over Logan and Roman and the AI players by miles. He snickered at the truly affronted look on Roman's face as he passed the finish line as fifth. Logan looked rather pleased to be seventh.

"Aw, you both suck. This might be really fun." Virgil said, grinning at Roman who made noises of offense.

"I'm not sure I wanna play." He mumbled.

"Don't be a sore loser, dear." Logan said, patting Roman's arm sympathetically.

"How are you so good at this game?" Roman exclaimed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You underestimate how much I played this game by myself a few years ago." He said. Back before he was accepted by the light sides he had had a period where he had played the game every day for hours.

"Sometimes I played with Remus but he spent too much time biting and eating the plastic from the nunchuck cables." He added, glancing at Roman who grimaced.

"That... sounds like him." He agreed and Logan frowned.

"Is that why I found bite marks on the cables behind the tv?" He said, glancing towards the mess of cables that they could just barely see sticking out from the back of the tv furniture.

"Anyway, let's play again, I need to win back my honor." Roman said and Virgil tried to contain his snort, somewhat succeeding.

"What honor?" He asked, because it was just impossible to resist making fun of Roman. He was always so

"You're mean. Lo, Virgil's being mean." Roman said and pouted, making his boyfriend roll his eyes.

"How about you choose the next track while I go get the chips and soda that we forgot to bring out?" Logan suggested and Roman immediately perked up at that, looking through all the different tracks with great care as Logan got up.

Logan soon returned holding a bowl of chips and a bottle of soda that he set down on the table, then conjuring up three glasses for them to drink from.

"I've chosen the perfect track." Roman told them, taking a handful of chips that he stuffed into his mouth.

"Alright, show us what you've got." Virgil told him and they began.

Yet again he ended up winning. It had gone pretty badly towards the end, but then he had thrown a blue shell at Roman and taken out the three people in front of him, to Roman's horror and despair.

Virgil then proceeded to win the other two tracks they played too, earning himself the cup and a sulking Roman who comforted himself with getting a kiss from Logan, which definitely made Roman the real winner in Virgil's eyes, though unlike Roman he was very careful not to show any jealousy.

After that they played in teams, all of them in the same team, which Roman seemed to find a lot more fun because even if he was not the first to cross the finish line his team was winning.

"Maybe we have played enough Mario Kart for now. I would like to play some Minecraft." Logan said after their team won their third cup.

"Oh, good idea! We can start a new world together." Roman said, clasping his hands together.

"Sounds fun." Virgil said, loosening the wiimote wrist band and freeing himself from it. Playing the Xbox version of Minecraft wasn't his favorite, but it was still fun if he had company.

He emptied his glass of soda, refilling it himself before Roman noticed and decided to be a gentleman. Soon he was handed an Xbox controller.

"By the way, what are the others doing?" Virgil wondered. "You're usually not left alone this long in the living room."

"Oh, Patton went to bed early because he is planning on getting up early tomorrow to make a special breakfast, for whatever reason. Janus is taking a self care evening, following my advice. And Remus I bribed to keep away until tomorrow, instead he's hunting monsters in the imagination." Roman said as he fixed the settings for their world.

"Oh, okay. Nice."

"Yeah, I had no choice. Remus would for sure be dropping spiders from the ceiling otherwise. And yes, I'm speaking from experience." Roman said, grimacing.

"We have had most of our gaming dates in one of our rooms since then." Logan added. "Remus thinks other people's dates are much more fun if he gets to try to ruin them."

"I bet." Virgil said, having pretty fun imagining Roman's reaction to being bombarded by spiders during some romantic evening with Logan. Yeah, privacy was needed for a date. Virgil would feel really awkward being on a date with an audience.

Virgil remembered walking in on one of Logan and Roman's date ages ago, the two of them had had a late candle lit dinner, holding hands as they ate and talked. Rather than throwing spiders at them Virgil had instead stood frozen in the doorway and watched them, realizing that he was terribly jealous of the both of them.

Then as soon as he had realized that he was in fact jealous, and not only of one of them, he had skedaddled to his room to hide and suppress that thought.

That had been the beginning of the end though, after being made aware of those feelings it was very hard to ignore the way he had been starting to feel around them.

"Alright, if anyone sees a dog, dibs." Roman said as the game loaded.

Virgil quickly set off to break some logs and gather some resources while Roman dug into the ground as soon as he had a crafting table, some sticks, and a wooden pickaxe.

Logan and Virgil started the task of building a house, Virgil mostly gathering some resources as Logan built a pretty impressive house in about an hour. Roman returned to empty his inventory a few times, showing up wearing full diamond armour and giving the both of them some leftover diamonds from his adventures.

He also filled a chest with redstone, which Logan seemed to delight in, and he disappeared into the basement of their house for a while as Virgil decorated the house, lamenting the fact that they were playing without cheats and Virgil couldn't just quickly switch to creative mode to grab a stack or so of bookshelves.

Those bastards took way too long to gather the resources to craft, and they were essential for house decorating. He hit Roman with the flower he had been holding when he broke one of them because it was in the way.

That immediately resulted in him being eaten alive by an army of dogs that Roman had apparently gotten since Virgil had glanced at his part of the screen last, and he looked over at Roman to glare at him as his character was dying.

"You better be sleeping with one eye open." He said. Roman moved his bed to another room of the house as Virgil was running around collecting his inventory that had exploded over the bedroom that he had been decorating with flower pots and lanterns.

"A stack of leather and we call it even?" Roman bargained.

"Deal." Virgil said and Roman went out to hunt down cows. He turned around in the game, looking for Logan's nametag and finding it somewhere under the house where their basement was and he looked at Logan's screen to see him doing something with redstone that seemed insanely complicated.

Virgil went outside and explored the world for a while, finding a village and the seeds and crops he had wanted, returning to their home to make them a farm.

Logan yawned, pausing his screen.

"It's nearly two in the morning." He told them after having glanced at his wristwatch and Virgil double checked with his phone to confirm that it really was so late already.

"Oh, oops. We'll have to keep playing later. I fear we should really get to bed soon, especially if Patton is going to make a special breakfast." Roman said. Virgil had to reluctantly agree and they saved and turned the game off before getting up from the comfortable couch.

It had been a really nice evening, Virgil was glad they had invited him. Even if the hugs they had given him before bed had kept him awake for far longer than two hugs had the right to.

--

[+1]

Virgil stumbled out of his room, squinting at the hall light that someone had left on.

He didn't know what time it was, but there was currently a lot he would do for some water, including leaving his bed to refill his water bottle that was, for some reason, empty. (Well, the reason was that he was lazy and put off refilling it.)

The lights were on in the kitchen and he heard voices, which made him pause in the doorway and squint. He had only fallen asleep around five in the morning and it was entirely possible that it had been long enough for people to already be up.

It was Logan and Roman who were sitting by the kitchen table, of course, and Virgil inwardly groaned before stepping into the room, wondering if they would be able to make him have a moment of gay panic during the time it took him to fill his bottle.

"Hello there, gorgeous!" Roman called through the kitchen, immediately proving that, yes, they were able to do that.

"Good morning, Virgil." Logan said as Virgil turned the tap on. "You're up early."

"What time is it?" He wondered, looking towards them, watching Logan spread an impressively thick layer of Crofters on his toast.

"Like half past seven." Roman said, grimacing slightly.

"Ew, I'm not up yet, then. Only been two hours since I fell asleep." Virgil said, feeling cold water run over his hand and he looked back at his overfilled bottle and turned the tap off again.

"That's not very healthy, Virgil. You should try to sleep earlier than that." Logan said, frowning with concern.

"It wasn't by choice." He said, probably sounding grumpier than he should have, but he wasn't staying up until five or later for fun. Actually, it had been Logan and Roman's fault, giving him those stupidly warm and comforting hugs right before bed.

How did they expect him not to lay awake thinking about them and his stupid feelings for them for hours afterward?

"Apologies, I did not mean to insinuate that it was. Do let me know if there's something I could do to help, I have done a lot of research on the subject of sleep deprivation, insomnia, and other problems with sleeping." Logan said and took a bite out of his toast as Virgil drank half his bottle of water.

"Not right now, L. I'm going back to bed." He said, filling the bottle up again before making an attempt to leave.

"Oh, before you go, Logan and I were discussing having a dinner, the three of us." Roman said and Virgil blinked and tried to fully understand what he was saying.

"Uh huh?" He wondered, thinking that he hadn't gotten enough sleep for properly holding a conversation.

"So, would you like to have dinner with us?" Logan asked, clarifying what it was they wanted.

"Oh. Sure, when?" He said, not currently possessing the energy to convince himself why it would be a bad idea to have dinner with them. Not that the past proved that he was able to resist spending time with them.

"We were thinking in a few days, though we haven't decided anything yet. I will tell you or text you once we know. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let us know." Logan said.

"Oh, it can be a fancy dinner! I want a reason to dress up and feel pretty." Roman exclaimed, seeming to wake up a bit at that prospect.

"As if you need a reason, just a few days ago you showed up to my room wearing a skirt and a crop top to work on Thomas' schedule with me." Logan said, shaking his head but looking at his boyfriend oh so fondly.

"Maybe you just don't understand what a good reason to dress up is, and also I'm not sure you know what dressing fancy means." Roman said, scoffing.

"Right, sure, we can do fancy." Virgil said, not at all needing the mental image of Roman wearing a skirt and crop top because, seriously, how was he supposed to survive during these conditions? He was already a pining mess and it didn't help at all that they were both so hot all the time.

Virgil immediately regretted agreeing to do a fancy dinner. Had he really just signed himself up for an evening surrounded by two incredibly pretty men that constantly made him flustered? Ugh. And he didn't even know if he owned any clothes that counted as fancy.

"Oh, sweet. Logan let me dress you up, pretty please?" Roman turned towards Logan again, pressing his hands together and looking at him with puppy-dog eyes that he must have been taking classes from Patton to master.

Or Virgil was just a sappy sucker and would probably do anything for Roman if he looked at him that way.

"We will see." Logan said, showing incredible self restraint. Or maybe it was just the fact that he had been Roman's boyfriend for months and months and maybe he was immune. Lucky bastard.

"Right, um, goodnight. See y'all in like five more hours." Virgil said, taking his water bottle and leaving the two loves of his life to continue their breakfast.

He left the water bottle on his nightstand as he crawled into bed, passing back out as soon as he curled up under his covers.

Then he spent the next few days worrying, because would he really be the embodiment of anxiety if he didn't?

The day of the dinner he found himself in front of his mirror a few hours before the dinner, trying to decide what to wear.

He had washed his hair and looked through all of his clothes to see if there was anything that felt fancy. What counted as fancy? Virgil wasn't entirely sure.

He had that purple button up that he had worn to the trial video, which he tried on with a pair of tastefully ripped jeans which worked quite well with it. He had painted his nails black and found that tie that matched his hoodie.

Then he found a pair of dangly spider earrings and spent way too much time doing his makeup, going so far as to putting on black lipstick and just a little bit of eyeliner.

Seeing the final product he felt pretty fancy, mostly because of the makeup, but still a bit insecure and he decided to wear his hoodie too. If they expected him to spend an entire dinner without his hoodie then they were hoping for too much.

He still stood in front of the mirror doubtfully for a while, wanting to face plant right into bed and wallow but not being able to unless he wanted to ruin the makeup he had so carefully applied.

He ended up adding a black suit vest over the button up and the tie nearing the time that he would have to leave, because that left him no time to stare at himself until he hated what he saw. He had to remind himself time and time again that he was not getting dressed to impress Roman and Logan so it didn't matter how they would think he looked.

The only point was to look fancy, and this was probably the fanciest Virgil had ever looked, even if his clothes choice wouldn't impress an awful lot of people who actually knew something about fancy dress.

He walked downstairs, thanking the universe that he didn't pass anyone who would ask why he was dressed that way. He would have been a bit surprised if they met anyone, actually, because they had chosen this evening specifically because the other three sides had plans already.

He stepped into the kitchen, eyes immediately falling on Roman who was standing by the set table and smelling a candle. Then he must have seen Virgil in the corner of his eye because he turned towards him, setting the candle back down in the middle of the table.

He looked unfairly hot, dressed in a white button-up, black pants, and a red suit vest that was embroidered with flowers in silver and gold. His nails were painted golden and he had golden eyeshadow on his eyelids and Virgil could swear that Roman must have used some sort of glittery hairspray.

He was staring, he knew he was, but he didn't have the willpower to look away.

"Wow, Verge, you look amazing!" Roman said, and if he had noticed Virgil looking him up and down he did not say anything about it.

"Thanks. You too." Virgil said, feeling his face warm at the compliment and trying not to feel too excited about the fact that Roman thought he looked good.

"Just wait until you see Logan, though." He said, smiling widely. It made Virgil think that Logan had caved and let Roman dress him up. And if Logan looked as pretty as Roman, how was he going to make it through the evening? How much could he stare at them before they realized he was feeling gay things about them?

"Okay, what do you think of these candles? They smell like lavender." Roman said, handing Virgil one of the candles. He stared at it and then smelled it carefully, handing it back to Roman.

"Seems fine. I like lavender." He said and Roman nodded and put it back next to the other two candles before conjuring up a box of matches. Logan entered the kitchen as Roman lit the candles.

"Hello, Virgil. You look nice." Logan said, smiling, and Virgil kind of choked on his words, instead staring at Logan. The tip of Logan's ears went a bit red at the attention, which didn't help at all.

"I let Roman dress me." He said, as if to excuse the clothes he was wearing.

Virgil didn't currently possess the ability to use words and instead continued to look at Logan and the glittery space-themed dress that he was wearing. The dress was dark blue and black and a little purple-ish in places, with silvery stars dotted all over it, making it look like one of those pretty space photos of nebulas.

He was wearing a pair of clip-on earrings with stars and Roman must have convinced him to let him put makeup on him too because there was silver by the corner of his eyes and silvery dots like freckles or stars across his pink cheeks.

Yeah, Virgil doubted he would make it through the evening alive. And if he did and they asked him to have dinner with them again he would suggest they all wear sweatpants and hoodies or anything that was as far from fancy as possible.

Or maybe burlap sacks, they couldn't look good in burlap sacks, right? No, they would probably pull a Marilyn Monroe on him, wouldn't they?

"See, I told you this outfit would leave anyone that saw you speechless!" Roman said, seeming incredibly proud of himself.

Virgil forced his brain to remember some words and how to use them, because at the moment he was being gay for Logan far too visibly, but Logan was wearing a dress and he looked so incredibly good and Virgil was oh so gay.

"It looks- you look great. Didn't know you could make a dress work, L." He said, hoping that that was a somewhat normal response. Then he sat down at the kitchen table, by the seat that had a purple wine glass as the spot was obviously meant for him.

"Ah, thank you, neither did I." Logan said and joined him. "Roman did a rather good job, I have to admit."

"I did an amazing job, thank you very much. You look absolutely ravishing." Roman said, placing a hand on his chest in mock horror at not being properly praised for his work.

"Well... thank you." Logan said, looking away in an attempt to either hide that he was flustered or that he was smiling. Virgil forced himself to stare at something that wasn't Logan.

"I'm sure I could put you in a dress and make you look gorgeous, too." Roman said, looking at Virgil, and he shifted nervously, hoping that Roman was not going to ask to let him dress Virgil up sometime because he wouldn't know how to say no.

Evidently it was not something he was good at.

"You've got no obligation to agree to that." Logan reminded him kindly. Virgil just shrugged.

This dinner had been an incredibly bad idea, he had known he would be surrounded by pretty men but not how pretty those men would really turn out to be.

Once they were all sitting Logan gestured with his hand to make the food appear. They, or someone, must have cooked earlier, food couldn't be conjured from nothing. The meal looked very nice, for what they claimed to lack when it came to baking the two had many times proved to make up for when it came to cooking.

"This looks really great. Did the two of you cook?" He asked to make some polite conversation before it was quiet for too long and he felt stared at.

"Yep! Patton made the desert though, he walked in when we were trying to make it and decided that it would be for the best if he stepped in. And he was right." Roman said, pushing the lasagna form towards Virgil to urge him to put food on his plate.

"Maybe I'll take you up on that idea to bake together, would be kind of fun to see the two of you struggle with it." He said, smiling a little and putting several slices of garlic bread on the empty part of his plate. There was salad too and he would probably eat some of it to be polite later.

"We could use your help." Logan said, then smiling at Roman as he poured soda into his glass for him.

Virgil realized he was staring at Logan again and looked away, only to see Roman who noticed his gaze and winked at him, and then Virgil was caught off guard by how pretty he was too. Fuck, fuckfuckfuck. There were too many people in this room that Virgil had feelings for and who were looking incredibly attractive right now.

"What was it the others were doing?" Virgil wondered, mostly to keep the conversation going, not having listened when Remus had mentioned it earlier, having been too focused on how he had somehow managed to make his feet leave footprints of burnt grass where he had been walking in the garden as they talked.

"Oh, Remus dragged them out on an adventure in the imagination." Roman said with a shrug.

"Yikes, hope he won't scare Patton with his stuff. Wouldn't surprise me if there's lots of giant spiders in his part of the imagination." Virgil said.

He had avoided going to Remus part of the imagination even back when he lived with only the 'dark' sides. Remus came back talking about way too many creepy things for him to want to ever go there.

"Yeah. There is." Roman said, paling slightly at the memory. "Think Aragog from Harry Potter."

"Patton wouldn't like that." Logan said. Virgil avoided mentioning that he would absolutely love to meet a couple of giant spiders, as long as they were friendly. Spiders were great, he loved spiders.

"No, but Janus is with them and I'd trust him to keep Remus from taking them somewhere actually dangerous." Roman said. That was probably true. Remus could be scary and was pretty into scary things, but he very rarely did anything to hurt the people he cared about.

"Alright, we all got food and drinks? Great. How about a little toast?" Roman said, checking that they all had everything.

"A toast to what?" Virgil wondered, grasping his wine glass, and Roman paused for a moment.

"A toast to being hot!" He then said, gesturing to himself and then Logan and Virgil. Virgil snorted, glancing at Logan who shook his head with a fond expression as he raised his glass. They carefully clinked their glasses together and then sipped their soda.

"Let's eat now, I'm starving." Logan said and as soon as the other two began eating Virgil grabbed one of his pieces of garlic bread. The food really looked amazing and he soon discovered that it tasted just as good.

For a moment they were all quiet, distracted by the good food, Virgil watching the flickering flames of the candles. He glanced at Logan, who of course met his eyes and then smiled at him. Virgil sent him a small smile back, refocusing his eyes on his food and cutting up his lasagna, picturing himself beating back the butterflies he felt with a broom.

"So, Vee, what have you been up to today?" Roman wondered, trying to pierce a piece of lettuce on his fork, frowning as it kept falling off.

"Not much. Did some gardening with Patton. Tried to figure out what counts as fancy clothes." He said, trying to keep away the smile that tugged at his lips as the lettuce piece fell into Roman's lap.

"Oh, yes I saw the new plants in the flowerbed when I went outside to bask in the sun with Janus." Roman said enthusiastically, picking the lettuce up with his fingers and inspecting it before putting it in his mouth.

"You bask in the sun with Janus?" He wondered. He had never seen the two of them do that together, but they would all regularly find Janus in sunny spots outside or inside, often shirtless. It was because of him being cold-blooded, he was pretty sure, but Virgil had never really learnt entirely what that meant except for the fact that Janus got cold a lot.

"Yeah! It's really nice. Makes me want to create a beach in the imagination. We could all go together and swim and build sandcastles and tan. Would be fun!" Roman said.

"Unless Remus makes a game out of dragging people down under the surface." Virgil suggested. He knew Remus well enough to know that he would do that, especially targeting Roman and trying to annoy him.

"You're probably right." He said. Virgil doubted that the threat of Remus would stop him.

"So, what have you guys done today?" Virgil said, returning the question, glancing at Roman. "Except for basking in the sun with Janus."

"Well, we cooked, and I let Roman dress me and do my makeup, which took a surprisingly long time. Before that I did some work, until Roman persuaded me for some cuddles." Logan said.

"I'm sure it was really hard to persuade you." Virgil said, huffing out a laugh as he looked at Logan, remembering all those times when Logan had been talking about how nice it was to cuddle Roman. He tried not to feel too jealous about it, but it was pretty difficult not to. Having Roman's strong arms around him sounded pretty wonderful.

And he knew from his several accidental cuddles with Logan that having him pressed close was warm and comfortable and just felt safe. He was sure cuddling with Roman was the same, though he only had that one time after the movie night to go from, and he had been a bit too worried at that moment to really think about that.

"Admittedly, it was not." Logan said, grasping his blue glass. He took a big sip, scrunching his nose a little in a very cute way.

"Bit too carbonated." He said, poking the tip of his finger to the surface of the drink, probably to un-carbonate it or something. Logan was a bit weird that way, not liking any drink that was carbonated. In his opinion the bubbles were painful.

"Sorry, love. I forgot." Roman said. Logan only shrugged, wiping his finger on a napkin. The petname made that confusing little mix of feelings arise in Virgil, jealousy but also fondness for their relationship and their love.

"Speaking of today's activities, we were thinking of moving to my room and watching a movie after dinner. Would you like to join us?" Roman asked, chin resting in his hand as he gazed at him.

Virgil sipped his own soda to give himself a moment to think over the question, thinking far too much of their last evening watching movies and how it had ended up with him asleep between them both, Roman's arm around him, and he felt himself blush.

"Um, I dunno." He said nervously. The two of them tended to be just a little bit too cuddly for his ability to not be overcome with gay panic.

"Well, there's no pressure. It's a standing invite, so let us know whenever you would like to join us or not." Roman said, reaching out to rest his hand on top of Virgil's, giving him a small squeeze before letting go.

Virgil's breath caught in his throat and he looked away, tingles running through his entire arm from the brief touch, and he felt so very uselessly gay.

"Okay." He said, hoping they didn't pick up on the slight shake in his voice. The two of them were so unnecessarily affectionate, how was he supposed to function?

He took a bite from his garlic bread, chewing slowly and watching the other two. Logan was smiling about something that Roman had said while Virgil had been too busy feeling gay, looking at his boyfriend in the most lovesick way.

Then he looked over at Virgil, his expression not changing in the slightest as their eyes met, and Virgil looked away, his heart beating hard as he tried to figure out why Logan would look at him that way.

He stared at the candle lit table, for the first time really thinking about how very similar this dinner was to the date he had once walked in on, and how Roman and Logan had been behaving around him lately, and how the way they were looking at him sometimes made butterflies swarm inside of him, and oh, oh, he was stupid.

"This is a date." He said before at all thinking further than that. Roman and Logan both fixed their eyes on him and Virgil pressed his hands to his face.

"Of course it is? But seeing your surprise I also want to let it be known that so was the gaming night and the movie night and the picnic." Roman said, seeming entirely confused by their conversation.

"Yeah, I'm just realizing that." Virgil mumbled, peeking out from between his fingers and seeing the two of them exchanging looks.

"Why didn't you tell me these were dates?" He exclaimed, dropping his hands and giving them what he hoped was more of an accusing look than an embarrassed one.

"We thought you were aware." Logan said with an expression as confused as Roman's.

"How was I supposed to know?" He wondered, starting to feel a bit exasperated because if they had ever told him that any of these were dates then he would have remembered it incredibly well.

"I've kissed your cheek and held your hand! We invited you to our weekly movie night date?" Roman said, then gesturing at the table. "We're literally having a fancy candle lit dinner."

"Yeah, but neither of you ever said that any of these were dates, you really think I'd just assume that the two of you would willingly date me?" He said, scoffing.

Please, as if he was capable of believing good things would ever happen. That was literally going against his very function as a side.

Wait. They were dating him.

He looked up, just staring at the two of them for a moment as he found his words.

"You want to date me?" He said, struggling to grasp the reality of his previous realization. They blinked at him.

"You asked me on dates. You want to date me? Me?" He continued. Roman looked close to affronted at that question and Logan had the same expression as when Virgil would say something bad about himself.

"Yeah? Obviously we do. But apparently the important and un-established question is, do you want to date us?" Roman said, which was just about the stupidest question Virgil had ever heard.

He had been feeling this way for them for close to half a year. He had been so sure that they wouldn't ever feel the same way that he hadn't even let himself entertain the possibility of a relationship with them, but he had been pining so much for so long that Virgil almost wanted to tell them about it to erase any doubt that he wanted them in literally any way they would offer him.

"Yeah. Course I do." Was all he said and Roman smiled widely, looking over at Logan with so much joy that Virgil's chest ached with fondness and the unusual amount of happiness that he was feeling.

He was so, so gone for these two.

"Did we really not outright call any of these instances dates?" Logan wondered, a cute little frown on his face as he tried to figure out the answer to his own question.

"No. Believe me, I would have remembered it if you had told me it was a date. For the picnic you just asked if I wanted to join the two of you for an outing and that doesn't mean it's a date, right?" Virgil said, thinking back.

"Ah, well, that communication error is my mistake then. Roman and I call a lot of our outdoor dates 'outings'. I did not think of it." Logan said.

"Honestly, you should've realized I wasn't aware it was a date when I responded that calmly when you asked me out." Virgil said, face heating slightly because they had asked him out. Several times! The nervous and excited feeling was a tad late but he was still amazed at the fact that Logan and Roman wanted to date him and probably always would be.

"Okay, but movie night then, I know Logan gushes to you about our dates sometimes, you had to know those were dates." Roman said, which was a fair point. Logan looked like he wanted to argue that he absolutely does not gush, but all three of them knew there would be no use.

"Yeah, I thought those were dates, right about until you asked me to join you." Virgil said, then shaking his head slightly and chuckling because this situation was so weird that it was actually funny. They were dating him? That was a little bit too surreal for Virgil to fully comprehend it.

"I do remember telling you that Roman and I have had gaming dates right before I asked you to join us for a gaming night." Logan said and, thinking back on that conversation, he had been pretty stupid not to read into that a bit more.

"Yeah, that one's on me, I guess. But I was about a hundred and ten percent sure that I had no chance with the two of you so of course I wouldn't believe you actually like me without very solid proof." Virgil explained.

"First of all, you're oblivious as hell. Second of all, guess we just got to give you lots of proof, then." Roman said, practically smirking at him. Virgil considered straight up passing out at that implication of future affection and other things that would give him bouts of gay panic but settled on going a bit red instead and looking down at his food.

"Now that this is all clarified, would you like to continue this date or would you rather call it a night and start over with a date that you are fully aware is a date?" Logan wondered, using his fork to scrape a bit of lasagna onto his piece of garlic bread.

"I'm fine with continuing." Virgil decided, his delight to find himself on an actual date with Logan and Roman out-weighing the part of him that wanted to go hide in embarrassment over his blunder, even if he didn't think it was his fault.

Based on both of their small smiles he guessed that he had chosen what was their preferred option.

They finished their food, Logan getting up to take their dessert from the fridge. Virgil watched him the entire time, not feeling as ashamed of it as he usually would, partly because of knowing that they had to be returning his feelings, but mostly because Roman was also very obviously staring at him with an affectionate expression.

Logan turned around holding a tray with three glass bowls that looked somewhat similar to goblets. He caught their gazes and shook his head as he returned to the table.

"You really like the dress that much?" He said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

"Yes." Roman said outright while Virgil just averted his eyes and tried to keep himself from looking flustered. Logan set the tray onto an open space on the table, handing them a bowl each.

"It's Panna Cotta with a layer of raspberry crofters on top, and since Patton made it I'm sure it's delicious." Logan said, seating himself again.

"Yeah, it looks great. I'm just wondering how you fuck this dessert up enough to need someone else to step in?" Virgil wondered.

"We don't need to discuss that." Logan said, putting his teaspoon in his dessert, and Virgil tried not to laugh, now wondering even more what they could have possibly done wrong in their attempt.

Roman put a spoonful of the dessert into his mouth, humming in delight. Logan moved his hand towards Virgil's that was resting on the table, carefully slipping his fingers between his. It was enough to have Virgil's heart beating hard and his chest full of butterflies.

"So, how about that movie after dinner?" Roman wondered, scraping off the layers of crofters to eat that first.

"I-" Virgil began, realizing that there was actually no reason to keep himself away from them or any situation that might end up affectionate, "yeah, okay, I'd like that."

"Great." Roman said and Logan gave his hand a squeeze.

They finished their dessert, talking and smiling. They all helped to clean up after their dinner, discussing movie options and if the fancy theme should extend to their pajama choice or not before retreating towards Roman's room.

Virgil wasn't sure he had fully processed the fact that the two people that he had always thought were so impossibly far from his reach both wanted to date him, he would for sure take plenty of time to freak out and celebrate and worry about it later, but for now he was only feeling carefully optimistic as Roman and Logan held his hands and walked him towards Roman's room.

--

Written: 2nd, 3rd, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th
Published: 28th April 2022
Words: 18421

This was so fun to write, so obsessed with 5+1 fics and the likes lately!

Anyway wanna write more for this au but we'll see

Bought a nintendo switch and animal crossing today :)