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prince-rowan-of-the-forest · 1 year

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Mine is a World of Rooftops and Love Songs

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Virgil is invited to a New Years' party and without an excuse not to go he can't turn it down. Who knew that all it takes to make friends is bad punctuality and sensory issues? Honestly, Virgil wished someone had told him sooner.

AKA: Virgil goes to a party, freaks out and ends up on a rooftop with his best friend's brother. Alls well that ends well, I guess?

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| Ao3 |

Warnings:

-Referenced underage drinking.

-A lot of alcohol mentions.

-Referenced sexual content (literally one line)

-Referenced homophobia/transphobia (also just one or two lines)

I think that's it but if you notice anything else please let me know.

Pairings: Prinxiety, referenced Logicality, referenced Dukeceit.

Word Count: 4843

Notes:

Title taken from a quote by Roman Payne

I thought I should make a fic for new years :D

I honestly believe that with enough money and determination teenagers can do anything they set their minds to.

I'm gonna make another post about this in a bit because this became an au as I wrote it so. (Most of what I plan to post is in the end notes on ao3)

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Virgil had been invited to a New Years party.

Usually living right on the outskirts of their little town paired with being standoffish and sometimes outright rude got him out of being invited to get-togethers held by the other people his age. Usually they neglected to invite him to birthdays or conveniently forgot his invitation to homecoming parties or other, stupid, highschool events. Which was great for him, he was way too anxious and antisocial for a party where he’d be expected to drink alcohol and dance weirdly in front of actual real people to shitty music he didn’t even like.

But for some reason, in his senior year, he had been invited to a ‘New Year’s Gathering’. The invitation promised booze galore, fireworks, music, dancing, cocktails, party games, you name it. It seemed to be a huge party, too. He’d heard someone mention that both the seniors and juniors had all been invited and someone had somehow apparently gotten permission to hold the ‘gathering’ in the big old mansion house that had been vacant since the last residents moved out a few years ago on the border of the town and forest, surprisingly close to where Virgil lived.

According to hallway gossip, the party committee (he had no idea who that consisted of, but he assumed it was fellow students) and gotten free roam of the house and it’s grounds for two days, new years eve and the day after. It was already being talked about as the biggest school-wide event in two decades which didn’t make Virgil want to go any more than the glitter soaked invitation had. Which, to be clear, meant that he didn’t want to go one bit.

But then again, his parents had left him home alone over the week of New Years, they had gone to visit some family a few states away to celebrate with them and Virgil had adamantly protested to stay home (He hated how his grandparents poked at him for being gay and his aunts conveniently forgot his was a boy and not a girl despite him reminding them every time he saw them), so they had eventually relented and let him stay by himself. That meant that he wouldn’t be doing anything over New Years, which meant he had no excuse not to go to this party.

And the whole school knew it, because of course they did. Gossip spread like a forest fire in their school, no-one had secrets, not for very long. Not attending without an excuse would be social suicide, especailly for a big event like this. Especially when he’d actually been invited for once.

That’s how Virgil found himself standing outside of the house, wearing a leather jacket (it was the only thing he had that was smarter than his hoodies) ripped jeans and his big platform boots. He’d gone all out on makeup and he looked like something plucked straight from the 2000’s emo era, complimented by the sheer amount of piercings he was wearing. Usually he didn’t wear his snakebites and nose ring in school, the teachers tended to get upset over it. He also chose to wear one of his chokers and another necklace on top of that, as well as a pair of cuff bracelets. He knew he’d overdone the emo look just a little bit, but to be honest, he looked absolutely epic in his opinion and he needed every tiny ounce of confidnce he could get to get through this party. Not to mention, maybe the whole look would scare some people off too.

After taking a few deep, steadying breaths to calm his racing heart, Virgil finally looked up at the house. He was a little late, granted, but he hadn’t quite expected this many bikes (and the occasional car) to be littering the driveway of the mansion house, The lights on the first floor were on, illuminating the grounds with flashing colours and light from nearly every window. Upstairs most of the curtains were drawn and Virgil could almost guarantee that at least one pair were already getting it on in one of the bedrooms- what? This was a mansion house full of seventeen and eighteen year olds with access to too much alcohol. What did you expect to happen? Heaven knows it was probably his- only- friend, Remus and his boyfriend Janus.

Which by extension meant he was likely alone in a sea of teenagers who all either chose to ignore him or hated him. Lovely, brilliant, thanks Remus.

The tired looking girl sat in the front hallway of the mansion checked his invitation (because apparently, despite every youth of age being invited, people sneaking in was still a worry?) and offered to take his jacket. He gave her a look and she shrugged, waving him off.

He followed the helpful but kind of unnecessary signs to the mansion’s banquet hall turned nightclub where the DJ- was that the cool non-binary person from his class?- was blasting music so loudly that the bass shook the floor. They were up front on a makeshift stage with mixers that they’d gotten from who knows where, wearing headphones and mixing vinyl records like this was the eighties. Virgil shrugged, he respected their committment to the aesthetic at least.

There were bright lights, too, the flashing colours and pounding music were already making his head hurt, nevermind the crowd of sweaty teenagers dancing in the centre of the room, most of them talking to their friends or yelling to someone across the hall. A bunch more people lingered around the edges of the space. He could see a bar had been set up using foldable tables behind which two people were haphazardly throwing alcohol together into cocktails without following any real recipe. Virgil suspected that they tasted disgusting and decided to steer away from that table. Cocktails were nice enough, but only when he knew what was going into them so he knew he wouldn’t black out immediately after drinking one. Those things could be dangerous.

There was another table set up with snacks, bags of crisps, chocolate bars, nut packets, some of those mixed fruit bags you could get from McDonalds instead of a Mcflurry or a cookie if you really hated yourself (Virgil had no idea how they’d gotten so many). On one side of the table he could see that they were giving out glow bands and a few of the weird hippie girls- who lived somewhere off in the forest and Virgil was half suspicious that they were actually fae in disguise but that’s irrelevant- were doing facepainting with glow in the dark facepaint if you paid a dollar.

So much was going on at once, on the other side of the snack table there was a giant bowl of punch that you could scoop into a glass that Virgil was certain had already been spiked. Two brothers who’s parents owned the brewery and vineyards on the opposite side of town were selling homemade wine for five dollars a glass, which was a steal even if Virgil wasn’t interested. A lot of people seemed to be either giving out or selling things, which Virgil must have missed on the invite. Maybe that’s why so many people were invited, this wasn’t just a highschool party. A more accurate way to describe it was: imagine a highschool house party, a school faire, a nightclub and the regency aesthetic had a baby together and then that baby was raised by irresponsible teenagers with terrible fashion choices. That’s what this was.

Virgil flinched when someone bumped into him, turning on the intruder to his personal space only to find that they’d already disappeared into the crowd.

He took another deep breath, folding his arms and stuffing his hands under his jacket where his fingers clung to the soft black turtleneck he wore underneath. Hunching over a little in an attempt to make himself smaller and thus hopefully make it easier to avoid people, he started to skulk around the side of the room, looking up at the crowd every now and again but trying to avoid eye contact. He had to find someone that he could ask where the closest exit was, it was so hard to see where he was going in this room with the crowds and lights and so much noise.

The closest table to him happened to be the facepainting, and thank goodness for that because at least the hippie girls seemed to be chill around everyone. He was sure they’d be able to point him to an exit. As he approached- slowly enough that he wouldn’t bump into anyone- one of the girls noticed him and stood up, waving him over.

“Hey!” She said, her curly white hair bobbing with her head as she spoke, her silver framed glasses reflected the light in a rainbow of colours- how interesting- “Are you alright, sweetheart? You look a little frazzled.”

“Yeah- I-” Virgil forced out, trying to explain, he wasn’t even sure if she could hear him over the swelling noise of the party and besides, the words stopped coming out after a second, they wouldn’t go past his throat. His eyes darted around, looking at the encroaching crowd and then back at the girl in front of him. It was too much, everywhere, all at once-

“Hey, hey, look at me, ok?” She said to him, bringing his attention back to her, “May I have your hands?”

Not sure what she wanted, but somehow reassured by her tone, Virgil pulled his hands from their positions curled around his torso and held them out to her. She gripped them with just the right amount of pressure to keep him focused.

“Ok, I’m gonna ask you to try and breath for a second, okay?” She asked, tilting her head a little, Virgil’s eyes followed the slight movement and he nodded, “Okay, in… out… in… and out, you got it! Now keep doing that for me, okay?”

All Virgil could do was nod, as she turned to the friend closest to her, “Hey, Indie, I’ll be right back, kay? Just gonna get this sweetheart somewhere quiet.”

Her friend nodded and gave a one handed thumbs up as she continued to paint some other kid’s face with her other hand. The girl turned back to him with a smile.

“Alrighty, I’m gonna bring you to the kitchen, ok? I was in there earlier and it’s super nice, I’m pretty sure they’re hoarding food there too, but don’t tell anyone,” She said with a wink as she leaned close and whispered the last part to him, she let go of one of his hands but kept hold of the other, “I’m going to keep hold of you so we don’t get separated, okay?”

“Mhm,” Virgil hummed in response and she smiled before beginning to lead him off.

The hallway outside of the banquet hall was just as grand as the rest of the mansion, but so much quieter compared to the main party room. There were still people out here. Smaller groups of friends who had left the room and sat down together in the hallways to chat or play stupid games where they could actually hear eachother talk. The girl lead him past these people and he followed her almost on autopilot after she let go of his hand.

“There is a door straight from the kitchen to the banquet hall,” The girl explained as she lead him along the hallway until eventually they arrived at a large old looking wooden door, “This is the long way round, but I thought it might be better than having to push through all those people.”

“Definitely,” Virgil huffed, his voice quiet, but now that he could breath in cooler air and he wasn’t being bombarded with noise on all sides he found his ability to form coherent sentences coming back to him. The girl pushed open the kitchen door, which creaked as it was opened and Virgil flinched, those hinges really need oiling.

“Hey Buttercup!” She called into the open space, “I’ve got someone for you!”

“Sel?” Someone else called back, before a boy appeared from around the corner wearing round glasses and a cat hoodie. Virgil’s eyes widened slightly because he definitely recognised this guy, his dirty blond hair that seemed to bounce, endless freckles, bright blue eyes that always seemed to sparkle with happiness. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he remembered his face quite well.

He had been in the same class as Virgil in the sixth grade, right when Virgil had first figured out that he might be trans and started trying to change his appearence little by little. The bullying and rumours had really started off when he cut off most of his much longer hair. It was awful (he was eleven years old and didn’t know how to cut hair, give him some credit) and this guy had been the only one in the class to stand up for him and somehow get (almost) everyone to leave him the hell alone. Virgil had never actually talked to him, because he barely talked at all during those few years, but he had appreciated everything this other boy did. He didn’t even know if he would remember Virgil, it had been so long- almost six years- and Virgil’s look had changed a lot in that time.

“Oh! Hi!” He smiled at Virgil, “You’re… sorry I um- I know you changed your name-?”

“Virgil,” He answered with an awkward half smile, it was interesting to note that he was about a foot taller than this guy now, he used to be shorter.

“Right! That’s it, hi Virgil, welcome to the kitchen,” He grinned, “I’m Patton, I don’t know if you remember, it’s been a while.”

“Yeah- um- it has…” Virgil mumbled, rubbing his arm, “Sorry I-”

“It’s ok, I kinda sprung that on you, kiddo, don’t worry!” Patton smiled, “The kitchen’s currently being used as a secret safe space, so feel free to hang around as long as you like! We’re keeping it secret so we don’t get flooded with people coming in here for the hell of it, but we’ve had a few people show up to escape from all the noise,”

“Oh, neat,” Virgil nodded, glancing around.

“Alrighty! Well I better head back, I left Indie in charge of the face painting,” ‘Sel’ told them, her voice chipper. Patton made a face and she laughed, “Have fun boys!”

With that, she darted back out of the door and left them alone, Virgil coughed awkwardly.

“Are- are you two- um?” Virgil asked, raising an eyebrow and hoping he got the point of his question across to Patton. He looked confused for a second before gasping.

“Oh no!” He laughed, “We aren’t dating, if that’s what you mean, last I heard she was in a poly relationship with a couple of her friends! We just go hiking in the forest together sometimes.”

“Right- I- sorry for assuming,” Virgil mumbled, fiddling with the silver zip on his jacket and looking down, goddamnit why did he even say anything, now he’d just made this whole thing way more awkward than it already was.

“It’s totally fine!” Patton reassured, still smiling, “Don’t worry, oh! Would you like a cupcake? We’ve got a few back here.”

“Um- sure?” Virgil said, narrowing his eyes a little in confusion, Patton just smiled wider and waved him over, around the corner of the kitchen where they had a couple plates of food on the counter. Behind said counter stood someone else Virgil recognised. One of the more popular kids in his grade and also Remus’ brother; Roman.

Although Virgil knew Roman by name and through the many stories Remus had told him, they had never actually interacted in person. Remus tried his best to spend every possible second out of his house, so whenever they hung out it was either at Virgil’s house or the forest or somewhere more public like the park or coffee shop. As a result, Virgil had never actually talked to Roman.

“Hey!” Roman said with a grin, “You’re the emo kid from class C, right? Aren’t you dating my brother?”

If Virgil had been drinking something he would have done a genuine cartoon spit-take. Unfortunately he wasn’t drinking anything so instead he just ended up choking on his own breath.

“No. absolutely not, one-hundred percent nope.” Virgil said, fake gagging once he had recovered, “He’s my friend yes, but he’s also a fucking bastard and I would not date him even it somehow paid for my top surgery.”

“Oh thank god,” Roman sighed in relief, “Him holding the fact that he got a boyfriend before I did over me was getting infuriating. Now I know he was lying.”

“I-” Virgil stopped, “Remus does have a boyfriend.”

“Wait what.”

“Yeah- he’s dating Janus, you know- the guy who’s always wearing that weird bowler hat?” Virgil said, raising an eyebrow. Roman spluttered.

“Goddamnit,” He mumbled, “I can’t believe that asshole actually got a date before I did.”

“Awwee how sad for you,” Virgil said, tone dripping with sarcasm.

“Hey! Don’t you make fun of me!” Roman pointed at him, “I bet you don’t have a date either!”

“Well- no- but-” Virgil shook his head, “I’m not whining about it, and I also don’t care. Not having a romantic partner isn’t the be-all-and-end-all, you know.”

“Now kiddos, let’s not be mean to eachother, ok?” Patton called.

“You can talk! Mr. I’m Dating Logan Favian And I’m Gonna Make Sure Everyone Knows It By Making Out With Him In The School Parking Lot,” Roman said, turning his accusing finger on Patton. Virgil couldn’t help but snicker as Patton went beet red and started spluttering.

“That was one time!” Patton yelped, “And only because some girl was hitting on him and wouldn’t take no as an answer!”

“Yass queen protect your mans,” Virgil said with an exaggerated gasp as he flapped his hands around. Roman burst out laughing and Patton just shook his head and turned away with a smile.

“It’s almost midnight,” Patton said, “Are you guys going to come back to the party for the countdown?”

“Probably not,” Virgil said with a shrug, “I didn’t even want to be here in the first place, I definitely don’t want to go back into that room.”

“Yeah I uh- I think I’m gonna stay here too,” Roman shrugged, “I’m not sure I’d be up for standing in a mass of screaming people at the moment.”

“Fair enough,” Patton said, picking up one of the large platters that sat on the counter. On it were hundreds of cheese and pineapple sticks, one of which Roman swiped as Patton went past, “Just- try not to kill each other until I get back, kay?”

“I think I can manage that,” Virgil said, Roman nodded, “Maybe.”

“Huh!?” Roman yelped, “Maybe??”

“Depends how annoying you are,” Virgil said with a smile.

“I bet I could take you,”

“Oh really? Wanna bet?”

“Hey!” Patton called, just as he was about to leave the door, “No. Fighting.”

“Fine,” Both of them said through gritted teeth.

“Cupcake?” Roman asked, gesturing to one of the remaining platters. It only had two cupcakes left on it. Both of them were decorated with pastel pink and purple icing with rainbow sprinkles. What relevance did these even have to New Years? Oh well.

“Sure, why not?” Virgil said after a moment, taking one. Roman grinned and took the other.

“You wanna watch the fireworks?” Roman asked, Virgil turned on him with a glare.

“If I wanted to watch the fireworks I would’ve gone outside to watch them,” Virgil told him, “Fireworks are too loud and so are people,”

“I know somewhere we could go to watch them without anyone around, if you want to?” Roman suggested, leaning forward and wiggling his eyebrows at Virgil.

“Don’t be gross about it,” Virgil groaned, pushing Roman away, “I get enough of that from your brother. Where is this ‘somewhere’ you know?”

“It’s a surprise!” Roman called with a grin, “If you want to see, that is?”

Virgil sighed and shook his head. Well, he didn’t exactly have anything better to do, and watching the fireworks from somewhere peaceful might be nice… “Ok fine, lead the way,”

Roman grinned like a child who’d just been given candy and hurried out of the kitchen. Virgil followed closely behind, back past the banquet hall, around a corner back to the entrance hall, up the half carpeted marble stairs, up another flight of stairs, along a much narrower corridore that seemed to lead right to the back of the house, through a door that both Virgil and Roman had to duck under to get through and up another staircase, this one winding and steep and much less fancy than the main stairways and through another tiny little door at the top.

The room they emerged in was enormous. It must have been the size of the entire house, with no walls or partitions aside from the wall separating them from the staircase and another on the very opposite side of the building that Virgil could barely see. The room would have been pitch black if it werent for the massive dormer windows on each side of the pointed ceiling letting in rays of moonlight. They were in the roof of the house, the attic.

“Are we watching from in here?” Virgil asked, raising an eyebrow as Roman lead them forward. As he stepped he stirred up dust. It was far too silent up here compared to the blasting music downstairs. Surely they should still be able to hear it? He didn’t want to think about that.

“It’s creepier up here at night,” Roman commented idly, climbing up on top of a large wooden crate that was placed conveniently right in front of one of the windows.

“Oh really? I never would’ve expected that,” Virgil said, rolling his eyes as Roman floundered with the old latchs on the window. They looked old and like they’d rusted over with exposure and disuse, but eventually Roman managed to yank them open and push open one of the windows.

And then he started to climb out of it onto the large sill.

“Oh no, no, absolutely not,” Virgil shook his head, holding up his hands, “I am not climbing up onto the roof of a three story mansion.”

Roman sighed and leaned back in through the window, bracing himself on the frame with one hand while he extended the other to Virgil.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, meeting Virgil’s eyes. Virgil narrowed his own eyes in suspicion.

“Are you trying to do a Disney bit right now? Seriously?” Virgil asked, glaring at him.

Roman laughed, “Sorry! I simply saw the opportunity and had to, but seriously, I won’t let you fall, I promise,”

Virgil hesitated, just for a moment, before climbing up onto the box and reaching to take Roman’s hand in a feat of confidence that he didn’t know he had. Roman grinned the entire time he was helping Virgil climb out of the window and then kept grinning the entire time it took them to scramble up the roof to the wide decorative ridge next to one of the chimney stacks.

“Best view of the house,” Roman told him once they were both sat side by side on the ridge, letting their feet rest against the shingles of the roof. Virgil was comforted, a little, by the fact that the ridge was flat so he could sit comfortably and not worry about sliding off. Not to mention it was wide enough that if Virgil were to lay down backwards only his head and shoulders would fall over the other side. That meant he was pretty safe from falling backwards off the roof.

He still held onto Roman’s arm for good measure, though. No matter how embarrassing that was, he thought it would probably be more embarrassing to fall from the roof.

Roman pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time whilst Virgil looked down at the gathering crowd on the sweeping front lawn. People were pouring from the house now and while he couldn’t pick out individual people from this height in the darkness, he was sure Patton and Sel were both down there somewhere, probably enjoying themselves. It was nice, he thought. Somehow he’d managed to make more friends today than he’d made over his whole six years of highschool. Funny that all he’d needed to do was come to a party half an hour before midnight and immediately shut down because of sensory overload to make friends. Maybe he should’ve tried it sooner.

“Two minutes till midnight!” Roman cheered, though he kept his voice at a reasonable level for the lack of crowd up on the roof. Virgil offered a tentative smile and half hearted fist pump.

“Hurray!” Virgil said, voice pretty much flat, “Another year of torture awaits.”

“No need to be such a downer!” Roman smiled, before glancing at his phone and gasping, “One minute! Oh! Should we kiss?”

“What?” Virgil yelped, “No! I literally met you like twenty minutes ago- what the fuck dude?”

“Woah ok chill I didn’t mean like-” Roman huffed, looking away, “I wasn’t about to like- kiss kiss someone I just met.”

“Then what did you mean,” Virgil said, glaring at him.

“Just like- on the cheek or something! Isn’t it tradition?” Roman asked, face red. Virgil sighed.

“Fine,” He huffed, “Only once, on the cheek.”

“Yes!” Roman cheered, just as the crowd below started counting down from ten. Virgil saw a couple people break from the crowd to head towards where they must have set up the fireworks.

“Five!” Roman yelled, joining in, before elbowing Virgil.

“Four,” They both said together, though one was much more enthusiastic than the other.

“Three!” They cheered, in unison with the crowd.

“Two!”

“One!”

Right on cue, Virgil heard the bells in the nearby church begin to ring for midnight. He turned to Roman who leant forward and kissed his cheek, just like he had asked to. Though both of them turned away, bright red afterwards.

The fireworks were lit and began to fly into the air and burst into bright balls of coloured light with bang after bang, they were beautiful, red, blue, green and gold- and surprisingly high quality for a highschooler’s party. Virgil found that he didn’t mind them so much when he was away from the crowd. Granted the noise was still horrible and he wished to all hell that he’d thought to bring his noise cancelling headphones, but being up here on the roof? Definitely better than being down there on the grass.

The fireworks only lasted for two minutes in reality. For Virgil it felt like a lifetime. Maybe it was because of the noise and light, maybe it was because Roman’s arm has slipped around Virgil’s shoulders, maybe it was because he was still feeling warm and fuzzy from the kiss.

Fireworks in the town were still going off further away, people in their gardens lighting off one after another. The courtyard of the mansion was slowly being covered with a thin veil of smoke and everyone was already going back inside to continue partying. Virgil sighed, content.

“Would you like to go back inside?” Roman asked, “It’s kinda cold out here, isn’t it?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Virgil said with a shrug, “It’s- actually really nice out here- thanks for getting me to come up.”

“You’re welcome!” Roman said, grinning at him from ear to ear once again. For some reason, Virgil felt that same fluttery feeling in his stomach again. Gross.

“Here’s to another year of being forced to exist in a capitalistic world that doesn’t value or care for us little people in the slightest?” Virgil said, offering Roman a fist bump.

“Hear hear,” Roman said, raising a fist to bump his, “But… something tells me that this year is going to be a good one.”

Roman turned to look back out over the town. He still had that dopey smile on his face and for some, terrible reason, Virgil found himself agreeing. Maybe this year really might not be so bad.

As the melody of Auld Lang Syne began playing from downstairs, accompanied by the broken singing of two hundred teenagers who didn’t really know the words nor the meaning of the song, Roman and Virgil looked up at the stars.

And then Roman laughed, laughed at nothing but the stars, free and open and bright as any sun and hey, there was that fluttery feeling again. And by no choice of his own he found himself laughing along with Roman. He didn’t feel judged, or fake or trapped. He was just happy, for once, really happy.

Aw fuck. He had a crush on Roman, didn’t he.

Well… shit.

What a way to start the new year, huh.