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The apartment smelled of vanilla and cinnamon by the time Virgil realized he could no longer feel his feet.
It was a slow, ambient sort of fading. First, the dull ache in his heels had gone numb, then the prickle of pins and needles along his arches, until finally, his lower limbs felt entirely theoretical. He didn't shift his weight. He didn't lean against the counter. To adjust would be to draw attention to the fact that he was standing at all, and Virgil had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of being a ghost who only materialized when someone needed a hand.
Across the kitchen island, Patton stood with a dusting of white flour coating the front of his favorite cardigan like frost, looking down at a mixing bowl with an expression of absolute, theatrical betrayal.
“I think,” Patton announced solemnly, lifting a plastic piping bag with the gravity of a prosecutor presenting a smoking gun, “that the frosting has won.”
Virgil snorted, the sound dry and small against the hum of the refrigerator. “It’s frosting, Pat. It doesn't have an army.”
“It’s evil, Virgil. It’s malicious.”
“It’s buttercream.”
“Same difference.” Patton sighed, a puff of air that sent a tiny cloud of powdered sugar drifting into the air between them. He looked genuinely distressed, his shoulders drooping under the weight of thirty-six un-iced cupcakes meant for the elementary school bake sale the next morning.
Virgil didn't think about the shift he had just finished at the café. He didn't think about the lingering scent of stale espresso grounds clinging to his skin, or the fact that his eyes felt like they had been scrubbed with sandpaper. He simply reached out, his fingers wrapping around the cold glass of the mixing bowl.
“Give it here,” Virgil murmured. “You’re over-whipping it. It’s breaking.”
The clock above the stove blinked a neon green 11:43 PM.
When Virgil had walked through the front door at four, Patton had only needed "a little help". But "a little help" was a slippery slope. A little help became measuring out flour. Then it became rolling out sugar cookies. Then it became a secondary batch of cupcakes because the first didn't rise properly. Then, around ten o'clock, Patton had decided that half of the baked goods looked "emotionally unsupported" and required a complete aesthetic overhaul.
Virgil hadn't sat down once. He hadn't even taken off his boots.
Patton bumped his shoulder against Virgil’s, a soft, familiar gesture that smelled of sugar and domestic warmth. “You can head to bed, you know. I can handle the rest of the army.”
Virgil didn't look up from the piping bag, his hand steady as he swirled a perfect rosette onto a chocolate square. “It’s fine.”
“You worked today, kiddo.”
“I always work.”
“That doesn’t mean you should be pulling double duty as a pastry chef.”
“It’s okay,” Virgil repeated. It was his mantra. The shield he threw up to prevent anyone from looking too closely at the cracks in the foundation. “Really. I’ve got it.”
Patton opened his mouth, the instinct to mother clearly warring with the sheer exhaustion rolling off his own frame. He looked at Virgil—really looked at him—but Virgil gave him the smile he always gave. The quick, practiced up-turn of his lips that signaled functional, capable, safe.
It worked. It always worked. Patton’s expression softened into immense relief. “Thanks, Virgil. Seriously. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Course,” Virgil said.
And that was that. Because it always was. Virgil existed in the spaces where things were breaking down, a human buttress keeping the walls from collapsing on the people he loved, never realizing that he was burying himself in the brickwork to do it.
— ✦ —
The next morning arrived with the subtle violence of a five-thirty alarm.
Virgil woke up with his teeth grit, his joints aching with a deep, liquid fatigue that sleep hadn't even begun to touch. Four hours. It was a standard number.
He moved through the apartment like an automaton. Coffee, black, scalding enough to force his eyes open. A piece of toast he toasted, buttered, and then entirely forgot on the kitchen counter because his brain was already calculating the bus schedule. Shoes on. Keys in pocket. Door locking behind him.
Work. Shift. Grind. Repeat.
By the time the sun dipped low enough to turn the city streets into long, gray shadows, Virgil was dragging his feet back up the apartment stairs. His shoulders were hunched, his jacket zipped up to his chin like armor.
When he pushed the door open, Logan was seated at the dining table, surrounded by a meticulous spread of glossy pamphlets and museum brochures. The overhead light caught the edge of Logan's glasses, turning them into sharp white squares.
Virgil blinked, dropping his keys into the bowl by the door with a dull clatter. “Going somewhere?”
Logan didn't look up immediately, his fountain pen scratching a precise note onto a legal pad. “The modern gallery downtown has opened its new temporary exhibition on mid-century brutalism. I intended to visit tomorrow morning before the weekend crowds render the space unnavigable.”
Virgil’s eyes burned. Tomorrow was his only day off in a nine-day stretch. He had planned on spending it staring at the ceiling until his brain stopped vibrating.
But Logan was looking at the brochures with that quiet, intense focus he only had when he was genuinely excited about something—and Logan rarely asked anyone to accompany him to things like this, knowing the others found his lecture-style museum tours tedious.
Virgil let go of his jacket zipper. “Tomorrow’s my day off,” he said, his voice a little rougher than he intended. “I’ll go with you.”
Logan’s pen paused. He looked up, his gaze analytical, sweeping over Virgil’s slumped posture. “You are under no obligation to do so, Virgil. Tomorrow’s your only day off because you’ve been covering other people’s shifts”
Virgil shrugged, a jerky, careless motion. “I’ll survive. Besides, you shouldn't have to look at concrete alone.”
Logan studied him. It was a long, heavy silence—the kind that usually made Virgil want to crawl out of his skin—but then Logan simply nodded once, a precise concession. “If you are certain. I would appreciate the company.”
Virgil forced the smile back onto his face. “Yeah. Sure.”
— ✦ —
The afternoon sun inside the gallery gift shop was too bright, bouncing off white laminate and glass cases until Virgil’s head throbbed in time with his pulse.
Logan was currently three rooms back, presumably reading the copyright data on the wall text because he had already exhausted the actual descriptions. Virgil had retreated to the shop, leaning heavily against a display shelf filled with overpriced art books, his fingers curled around a paper cup of lukewarm espresso.
“You two ditched me for art? Modern art?”
Virgil didn't need to turn around to recognize the crisp, theatrical cadence of Roman’s voice. Roman appeared at his elbow, a bright splash of red denim and perfectly styled hair that felt entirely too loud for the sterile quiet of the gallery.
“Logan said you had rehearsal,” Virgil murmured, keeping his eyes on his coffee.
“A rehearsal for a community theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest does not justify a total embargo on communication,” Roman declared, though his tone lacked its usual bite. He stepped closer, his theatrical posture dropping slightly as he looked at Virgil.
Really looked at him.
From this distance, the details Roman usually overlooked became impossible to ignore. Virgil wasn't sick—not in the traditional sense. He didn't have a fever or a cough. But he looked thin. Not in weight, but in presence. Like a pencil sketch that had been rubbed too many times with an eraser, the lines blurring at the edges until he threatened to merge with the background. The shadows under his eyes weren't just dark; they looked bruised, a deep violet that contrasted sharply with his pale skin.
Roman’s brow furrowed, a rare expression of genuine, unscripted concern crossing his face. “Hey. Are you—?”
“Speaking of rehearsal,” Virgil interrupted, his voice dropping into that automatic, self-sacrificing rhythm before Roman could finish the thought. “You need someone to run lines with you tomorrow, right? I can do it after my morning shift.”
Roman blinked, the question caught in his throat. He looked at Virgil’s face, then down at the coffee cup Virgil was gripping so tightly his knuckles were white.
“Right,” Roman said slowly, his usual boisterous energy faltering. “Yeah. That would be… perfect.”
From across the room, Logan emerged from the exhibition hall, his eyes immediately locking onto the third espresso cup Virgil had purchased in the span of two hours. He didn't say anything, but his mouth thinned into a straight, hard line.
— ✦ —
The collapse happened on a Tuesday night.
It was movie night—Roman’s idea of a peace offering for a stressful week. Patton was stuck in an evening seminar, and Logan was barricaded in his room behind a wall of mid-term essays, leaving the living room uncharacteristically quiet.
Virgil came through the front door exactly fifteen minutes before the opening credits. His apron was shoved carelessly into his backpack, his hair a tangled, greasy mess where his cap had been sitting all day.
Roman, sprawled across the couch with a bowl of popcorn, looked up and winced. “You look like death.”
“Rude,” Virgil muttered, dropping his bag by the door with a wet thud.
“Correction: you look like tired death. Death after a long-haul flight with no complimentary snacks.”
Virgil didn't fight back. He didn't even have the energy for a sarcastic retort. He simply dropped onto the opposite end of the couch, his body sinking into the cushions like a stone falling into water. “Better?”
“Not even slightly,” Roman said, his voice softening as he slid the popcorn bowl down the middle of the sofa. “Long shift?”
“Mm.”
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
The response was instantaneous. It was too fast, too smooth, a reflex honed by years of avoiding interference. Roman’s hand paused on the remote. He looked at Virgil’s profile—the tense set of his jaw, the way he wasn't looking at the food at all.
He’s lying, Roman thought with a sudden, cold clarity.
Before he could challenge it, the movie started. Roman had picked an old animated feature—something light, something that didn't require anyone to think. For the first twenty minutes, the only sound was the symphonic swell of the television and the occasional crunch of popcorn.
Then, the silence from Virgil’s end of the couch became heavy.
Roman glanced over.
Virgil was asleep. Not slumped over comfortably, but fallen out—his head tilted back against the wall at an angle that looked painful, his mouth slightly open, one hand still half-curled near the edge of the cushions as if he had drifted off mid-gesture.
He didn't move. He didn't twitch when the volume on the screen spiked during a musical number. He looked less like he was resting and more like someone had unplugged his power source.
Roman stared at him, the remote heavy in his hand.
Virgil doesn't sleep during movies. It was a rule of the apartment. Virgil was the one who threw popcorn at the screen, who pointed out plot holes with vicious glee, who stayed up until two in the morning arguing about character arcs.
Roman lowered the volume until it was nothing but a low murmur.
In the dimmed light of the television, a sudden, horrifying montage of the past two weeks began to play out in Roman’s mind. A cascade of small, insignificant moments clicking together like pieces of a terrible puzzle.
The bake sale. Patton’s kitchen covered in flour at midnight, and Virgil standing there, his legs shaking.
The gallery. Logan reading placards while Virgil drank three shots of espresso just to keep his eyes from closing.
The line practice. Virgil sitting on the floor of Roman’s room for two hours, reading the part of Lady Bracknell while his voice cracked with exhaustion, never once asking to stop.
“Already ate.” “I’m fine.” “I can help.” “Don’t worry about it.”
Roman’s stomach twisted into a hard, painful knot.
Every single time someone in this apartment had a need, Virgil was the fluid that filled the gap. He was the default volunteer. And because he did it with a shrug and a smirk, they had let him. They had taken his presence for granted because Virgil made arriving look like an instinct rather than a choice.
When was the last time anyone showed up for him?
Roman tried to think of an instance—a time when they had cleaned Virgil’s room, or made him dinner without him asking, or told him to stay on the couch while they took care of the chores.
The silence of the room provided no answers.
Quietly, so he wouldn't disturb the fragile peace of Virgil’s exhaustion, Roman reached for the knit blanket draped over the back of the sofa. He uncurled it and leaned across the space between them, pulling the wool up over Virgil’s shoulders.
The moment the warmth touched his skin, Virgil didn't wake—instead, he leaned into it, his head shifting down until his cheek pressed against the soft fabric with a small, shuddering sigh. He looked incredibly small.
Roman froze, his hand still hovering over the edge of the blanket.
“Oh,” Roman whispered to the empty room.
It wasn't a realization of pity; it was a realization of failure. Virgil was disappearing right in front of them, burning himself down to the wick to keep their world lit, and they had just kept asking him for a light.
— ✦ —
The next morning, Roman woke up with the kind of intense, single-minded focus usually reserved for opening nights. It was a plan born of guilt and bad theater logic, but it was all he had.
He found Virgil exactly where he had left him at midnight. The blanket was still tangled around his waist, but his face was pressed straight into the couch cushion.
The apartment clock read 8:12 AM.
Panic flared in Roman’s chest. Virgil’s shift started at seven. He was never late. He would rather walk through fire than face the anxiety of being late.
“Virgil?” Roman called, stepping closer and shaking Virgil’s shoulder. “Hey, storm cloud. Wake up. Your alarm didn't go off.”
A muffled, gravelly sound came from the cushion. Virgil didn't uncurl. He didn't even lift his head.
“Called in,” the voice was barely audible, thick with sleep and something that sounded dangerously like defeat.
Roman blinked. “You what?”
“Sick day,” Virgil muttered, pulling the blanket higher until it covered his ears. “Told 'em… can’t do it.”
Roman stood over him, his heart doing a strange, irregular dance. Virgil taking a sick day was a statistical anomaly on par with a solar eclipse. If Virgil was calling out, it meant the engine had officially seized.
“Okay,” Roman said, his voice dropping out of its usual theatrical register into something functional. “Okay. Go back to sleep.”
A small grunt of affirmation was his only reply.
Roman marched into the kitchen with the energy of a man intending to storm a castle. He opened the cabinets. Half a loaf of stale bread. Two eggs. An entire shelf dedicated to various roasts of coffee beans. Three packs of instant ramen.
“Absolutely not,” Roman muttered to himself, grabbing his jacket from the hook. “We are not living like goblins today.”
Before noon, the kitchen was a war zone.
Patton walked through the front door carrying two bags of groceries from his morning run, only to freeze on the threshold. Roman was standing over the stove, a wooden spoon in one hand and a light dusting of flour across his cheekbone that made him look like a very dramatic baker’s apprentice.
“Roman?” Patton asked, his voice hesitant. “Why does the apartment smell like burning butter?”
Roman turned around, his expression deadpan. “Excellent. You’re back. Help me with this pan before I ruin the structural integrity of the eggs.”
Patton set the groceries down slowly, his eyes wide. “What is happening? Are we being attacked?”
“Worse. We are treating our roommates like human beings.” Roman set the spoon down, his dramatic facade dropping as he looked at Patton. “Patton. When was the last time Virgil ate a meal that required a fork?”
Patton frowned, his brow wrinkling. “What do you mean? He eats at the café all the time.”
“He drinks coffee at the café. He brings home old pastries that are ninety percent sugar. When was the last time he sat down and ate dinner with us without his phone vibrating or his coat still on?”
The silence that followed was heavy. Patton’s gaze drifted past Roman’s shoulder toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. The cheerful, easygoing expression he usually wore began to crumble, replaced by a realization that looked remarkably like grief.
“Oh,” Patton whispered.
“He fell asleep on the couch at twenty minutes into the movie last night,” Roman said, his voice tight. “He looked like he’d been run over by a truck. And then he called out today.”
“I asked him to help with the cookies,” Patton said, his voice small, his fingers twisting into the fabric of his grocery bags. “I didn't—I didn't think, Roman. He just said yes so fast.”
“Because he always says yes,” Roman said, leaning back against the counter. “You didn't know. None of us did. But he’s done.”
— ✦ —
The strategy was clumsy at first. Roman had no middle ground between "indifferent" and "obsessive," so he chose the latter.
When Logan walked into the living room that evening with a thick manila folder under his arm, looking for Virgil to help him proofread an abstract for an academic journal, Roman intercepted him at the corridor.
“He’s asleep,” Roman said, blocking the path with his arms crossed.
Logan paused, adjusting his glasses. “I merely required twenty minutes of his time to ensure my syntax remains accessible to a non-specialist audience.”
“I’ll do it,” Roman stated.
Logan looked at him for a long, silent three seconds. “You? The individual who recently spelled ‘character’ with a ‘k’ on the chore chart?”
“It was a stylistic choice for the role,” Roman snapped, though he didn't lower his arms. “Give me the papers, Logan. I can read English.”
Logan hesitated, but there was something in Roman’s stance—an aggressive sort of protectiveness—that made him relent. He handed over the folder. “Very well. Though I expect you to maintain a degree of academic rigor.”
As Roman turned to take them to the table, Logan spoke again, his voice dropping its sharp, intellectual edge. “How long has he been resting?”
“Since yesterday,” Roman said without looking back.
“He slept during our excursion to the gallery,” Logan said quietly.
Roman stopped, his back turning stiff. “What?”
“He believed I was too engrossed in the exhibit to notice, but he fell asleep on a bench in the third pavilion for approximately fourteen minutes,” Logan explained, his voice flat but tinged with a rare undercurrent of self-reproach. “He purchased two separate caffeinated beverages within the hour. I assumed… I assumed he was simply having a temporary bout of insomnia.”
“It’s not temporary,” Roman said, his chest aching. “It’s permanent until he breaks.”
— ✦ —
By day four, the system had become an undeniable presence in the apartment, and Virgil was too smart not to notice the sudden shift in gravity.
Roman came home from his late rehearsal to find Virgil standing in the center of the kitchen. He wasn't cooking; he was just standing there, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his face pale and set into a hard, defensive line.
He didn't look angry. He looked hurt—the kind of look someone gives you when they think you’re playing a joke at their expense.
Roman stopped near the entryway, dropping his bag. “Uh oh. The dark prince has arisen.”
Virgil didn't rise to the bait. “What are you doing, Roman?”
“Existing? Keeping the apartment from burning down?”
“Roman.” Virgil’s voice was flat. “Stop.”
Roman’s posture shifted, the humor draining out of him. “Stop what?”
“Patton told me you took over his kitchen shift for the community center dinner. Logan said you spent three hours correcting his bibliography. And my manager at the café said someone called in for me yesterday claiming I had laryngitis.” Virgil stepped forward, his knuckles white where his arms crossed. “What is this? Some kind of weird bit?”
“It’s not a bit,” Roman said, his own voice rising. “It’s called helping.”
“I don’t need your help!” Virgil’s voice cracked, a sharp, ragged sound in the quiet kitchen. “I’m the one who does those things. That’s my—that’s what I do here.”
“Why?” Roman demanded, taking a step closer until the island was the only thing separating them. “Why do you have to be the only one who bleeds for this place? You’re exhausted, Virgil. You’re literally falling apart and you won't let anyone touch you.”
“Because it’s different for me!”
“How?” Roman’s hands slammed down onto the counter, his chest heaving. “How is it different? You show up for every single person in this house. Patton asks for cookies, you’re there. Logan wants an audience, you’re there. I need an ego stroke, you’re there. You don't sleep, Virgil. You pass out.”
Virgil flinched as if he’d been struck. The defensive anger evaporated from his face, leaving behind something so raw and hollow that Roman immediately wished he could pull the words back into his throat.
The kitchen went dead quiet. The ancient refrigerator clicked on, its low, hum fills the space between them like static.
Virgil looked down at the counter. His shoulders hunched, his head dropping until his hair fell forward, obscuring his face. He looked smaller than Roman had ever seen him. Like a child caught in a storm they couldn't control.
“You always show up for everyone else,” Roman said, his voice dropping into something quiet, almost pleading. “Why won't you let us show up for you?”
Virgil didn't answer for a long time. His fingers twitched against the sleeve of his hoodie. When he finally spoke, the words were so thin they sounded like they were made of paper.
“Because nobody shows up for me.”
The universe seemed to tilt on its axis.
Roman opened his mouth to argue—to throw out examples, to defend their friendship, to name a time or a place—but the words died on his tongue. Because Virgil wasn't saying it to be cruel. He wasn't saying it to hurt Roman or accuse him of being a bad roommate.
He said it like an unchangeable law of physics. Like the sky was blue, like water was wet, like Virgil was always the one who stayed awake because no one else would think to watch the door. It was an old, deep-seated truth he had learned long before he ever met them, and they had spent two years proving him right.
Virgil exhaled a shaky breath, his shoulders dropping. “I didn't mean… forget it. Just—forget it.”
He turned toward the hallway, his posture completely closed off.
Roman moved before his brain could give him permission. He reached across the counter, his hand catching Virgil’s wrist. He didn't grip it tightly; he just let his fingers rest against the cool skin above the pulse point—a gentle, grounding weight.
Virgil froze, his back still turned.
“Don't,” Roman said. His voice was lower than usual, stripped of all its theatrical vibrato. “Don't go.”
Virgil didn't move away, but he didn't turn around either. “Roman, I don't want to talk about this.”
“Then don't,” Roman said softly. He let his hand slide down until his thumb brushed the back of Virgil’s knuckles. “Just… sit with me. On the couch. No talking. No favors. Just sit.”
A long, agonizing beat passed. Then, Virgil’s shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
It was the smallest concession, but to Roman, it felt like being handed something made of glass.
— ✦ —
The couch became a sanctuary after that.
It wasn't a sudden, loud transformation. They didn't talk about the kitchen or the words they had exchanged. But the rules of the apartment had shifted, their orbits decaying until they crashed into the same space every evening.
Sometimes Roman would read through a script, his lips moving silently as he memorized lines, while Virgil sat at the other end with his knees pulled to his chest, scrolling mindlessly through his phone. Sometimes the television was on; sometimes it was dark. But Roman was always there, an anchor in the living room that kept Virgil from drifting back to his chores.
On Saturday morning, Virgil woke up to the sound of quiet whispering from the kitchen.
He bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs as he looked at the microwave clock: 9:26 AM.
“Shit,” Virgil muttered, his feet hitting the cold floorboards before his brain could catch up. “I’m late, I missed the open—”
“You’re not late for anything.”
Roman was standing in the doorway of the living room, holding a ceramic plate with two perfectly fried eggs and two slices of thick, buttered toast. He was wearing his terrible silk bathrobe, his hair sticking up in every direction.
Virgil blinked, his hands still trembling slightly from the sudden adrenaline spike. “What? My shift started at eight.”
“I checked your schedule,” Roman said, stepping into the room and offering the plate. “You muttered your rotation in your sleep two nights ago. You have today off.”
Virgil stared at the food. His stomach rumbled, a sharp, reminder that he hadn't eaten since noon the previous day. “You checked my schedule? That’s creepy, Roman. That’s boundary-crossing behavior.”
“I am an artist; boundaries are merely suggestions,” Roman said, entirely unapologetic as he sat down on the edge of the coffee table, pushing the plate into Virgil’s hands. “Eat.”
“I can make my own breakfast.”
“I know you can.” Roman leaned forward, his eyes steady and unblinking. “But I made this one. So eat it.”
Virgil looked down at the eggs. The yolk was still runny, exactly the way he liked it—a detail he didn't remember ever telling Roman. The knot in his chest returned, but it wasn't the tight, cold knot of anxiety. It was something warm, thick, and deeply uncomfortable. It felt dangerous. It felt like an expectation he didn't know how to fulfill.
He took a bite anyway. It tasted like butter and salt and quiet safety.
— ✦ —
The change rippled outward through the rest of the apartment in small, non-linear waves.
Patton stopped asking Virgil to help with the heavy lifting after six o'clock. Instead, whenever Virgil would wander into the kitchen with his shoulders hunched, Patton would point a wooden spoon at him and say, “You rest first, kiddo. The dishes aren't going anywhere.”
Logan rearranged his entire schedule without making a grand declaration. Virgil found a sticky note on the bathroom mirror three days later:
Gallery excursion rescheduled for Sunday afternoon. Coffee consumption limited to one beverage prior to entry. Your presence is requested, not required.
But Roman was the absolute worst. Roman became an absolute nuisance.
“Eat the sandwich, Virgil.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You haven't eaten since ten AM. It is now four PM. That is six hours of metabolic neglect. Eat the ham, or I will feed it to you like a baby bird.”
Virgil glared at the foil-wrapped package on the counter. “I can buy something at the theater later.”
“You won't. You’ll buy a large coffee and a bag of nuts.” Roman crossed his arms, matching Virgil’s glare with a stubbornness that could move mountains.
From the dining table, Patton watched them with an expression of pure, unadulterated delight, his hands clasped under his chin. “Oh my gosh, this is so adorable. Look at them, Logan. It’s like a tiny, angry nature documentary.”
“It is not adorable,” Virgil growled, his face turning a furious shade of pink. “It’s harassment.”
Logan looked up from his book, his expression entirely clinical. “Statistically speaking, Roman’s behavior has shifted from general neglect to an attentive level of care that borders on the obsessive. It is an interesting psychological adjustment.”
Roman’s face flushed an identical shade of crimson to Virgil’s. “I am merely ensuring our roommate does not expire from malnutrition on our carpet! It would ruin the aesthetic!”
“LOGAN!” Patton gasped, slapping the table. “You can’t just say things like that out loud!”
“I am only stating observable data,” Logan said, entirely unmoved.
Virgil snatched the sandwich off the counter, his eyes darting away from Roman’s face. “I’m going to work. You’re all insufferable.”
Roman’s expression softened, the aggressive bossiness dropping away into something small and hopeful. “Please eat it?”
Virgil stopped at the door, his throat tightening. That was the problem with Roman—he could go from an obnoxious king to a vulnerable boy in the span of a syllable, and Virgil had absolutely no defense against the latter.
“Fine,” Virgil muttered, shoving the sandwich into his bag. “I’ll eat the stupid ham.”
Roman’s smile was small, but it lit up his entire face. Traitor.
— ✦ —
Three days later, Virgil came home to an empty apartment.
The silence was absolute, the kind of quiet that usually filled him with relief. His shift had run an hour late because someone had spilled a gallon of milk in the walk-in fridge, and his hands still smelled of industrial soap and dairy. He was tired in a way that felt older than his bones.
He dropped his backpack by the door and sank onto the couch, intending to just close his eyes for five minutes before he went to wash his face. Just five minutes.
When he woke up, the light in the room had completely changed.
The bright, harsh afternoon sun was gone, replaced by the deep, indigo shadows of eight o'clock. He could hear voices from the kitchen—the quiet clink of silverware, Patton’s soft laughter, the low rumble of Logan’s voice explaining something academic.
Panic, instant and familiar, surged in Virgil’s chest. He sat up too fast, his heart racing. I slept through dinner. I didn't help clean. I didn't do the trash.
As he moved, a soft weight slid down his chest.
He looked down. A thick, blue wool blanket had been tucked carefully around his shoulders, pinned beneath his chin so it wouldn't slip while he slept.
“There you are,” a voice said from the darkness.
Virgil jumped slightly. Roman was sitting in the armchair across from the couch, his book open in his lap, the small reading lamp behind him casting a warm, golden halo around his shoulders.
“What time is it?” Virgil asked, his voice rough with sleep.
“Almost eight,” Roman said gently, setting the book down.
“I didn't mean to pass out,” Virgil said, his hands immediately tightening around the edges of the blanket. “I was supposed to help Patton with the grocery unloading today, I forgot, I—”
“Virgil.”
The word was small, but it cut through the rising spiral of his anxiety like a knife through paper. Roman stood up, walking over to the edge of the couch. He didn't have his usual swagger; his movements were quiet, deliberate, his eyes fixed entirely on Virgil’s face.
“You don't have to apologize for sleeping,” Roman said.
Virgil looked down at the blanket. The words didn't fit right. They felt like a coat that was three sizes too big, heavy and awkward on his shoulders. “I’m supposed to be… I’m supposed to help.”
Roman looked at him for a long moment, then reached out, his fingers catching the edge of the blanket and pulling it back into place where it had slipped off Virgil’s shoulder. His touch was brief, but the warmth of it lingered through the wool.
“Come eat with us?” Roman asked softly.
He didn't say we saved you a plate. He didn't say you missed dinner. He didn't say we’ve been waiting for you to do your chores.
It was an invitation. A simple, unconditional space at the table that didn't require him to earn it first.
Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat, his fingers curling into the blue wool. “Okay.”
— ✦ —
Later that night, the apartment settled into its final, quiet rhythm.
Patton had gone to bed early, and Logan had retreated to his study, leaving the living room in that dark, warm twilight they had grown accustomed to. The television was playing a documentary about deep-sea creatures on mute, the blue light flickering across the walls.
Virgil sat on his end of the couch, his legs tucked up under the blanket. At the other end, Roman had his legs stretched out, his back against the armrest, a thick anthology of poetry open in his lap. Every few minutes, the crisp sound of a turning page would break the silence.
It was safe. It was steady. Virgil hated how much he had come to depend on it.
“You know,” Virgil said suddenly, his voice small against the quiet.
Roman didn't look up immediately, but his thumb stopped tracing the edge of the page. “Hmm?”
“I don't remember the last time someone told me to rest,” Virgil said. He wasn't looking at Roman; his eyes were fixed on a glowing jellyfish on the television screen. “Before I moved here. Before… anything. People usually only called me when they needed a shift covered, or when something was broken.”
The room was silent for a long moment.
“I didn't mind it,” Virgil added quickly, the old defense mechanism kicking in. “It made me useful. It meant I had a place.”
Roman closed the book with a soft, definitive thud. He turned his head, his dark eyes catching the blue light of the screen. “You know what I think?”
Virgil didn't look at him. “What?”
“I think you got used to being needed,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that serious, unscripted register that always made Virgil’s ribs feel too tight. “And somewhere along the line, you decided that being needed was the only reason you were allowed to stay.”
Virgil’s breath hitched. His fingers tightened into the blanket until his nails bit into his palms. “I didn't—”
“You did,” Roman insisted softly. “You still do. Every time you try to apologize for being tired, or every time you think you have to buy your way into this house with favors. You don't have to earn your room here, Virgil. You’re already in it.”
Virgil didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat felt like it was full of sand, his eyes burning as he stared at the floorboards between them.
Roman didn't press him. He stood up from the couch, and for a second, Virgil’s chest dropped—a sudden, sharp pang of abandonment that made him want to reach out and pull him back. But Roman didn't leave the room. He walked into the kitchen, his soft footsteps receding and then returning two minutes later.
He set a fresh bottle of water and a granola bar down on the coffee table right in front of Virgil’s knees.
“For later,” Roman said simply.
He sat back down in his spot at the other end of the couch, reopened his book, and found his place on the page as if nothing extraordinary had happened. As if giving someone something without being asked was just a normal thing people did.
Virgil looked at the water bottle. He looked at the little silver wrapper of the snack. Then he looked at the space beside him—the space that Roman had returned to without hesitation, closing the distance between them without requiring a single word of explanation.
The warm, dangerous thing in his chest settled deeper, its roots spreading until it felt less like a threat and more like a foundation. He didn't have a name for it yet. He didn't think he wanted one. So he just let it stay.
— ✦ —
Virgil woke up sometime after midnight.
The television had gone into its sleep mode, the screen dark and silent. The only illumination in the living room was the small reading lamp by the armchair, throwing long, amber shadows across the carpet.
He felt warm. The blue blanket was still tucked around his waist, keeping the chill of the early morning air at bay.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes, shifting his head against the cushion, and then he froze.
Roman hadn't gone to bed.
He was still there, curled awkwardly into the corner of the opposite armrest. His head had fallen back against the wall, his glasses slightly crooked on the bridge of his nose, his mouth parted in a soft, rhythmic breath. The anthology of poetry was still open in his lap, his thumb resting near the bottom of a page as if he had fallen asleep mid-sentence.
Virgil stared at him.
There was no emergency. There was no bake sale to finish, no essay to proofread, no lines to memorize. There was no reason for Roman to be sleeping on a lumpy couch in a cold living room when his own bed was thirty feet away.
But he hadn't left. He had stayed through the dark, through the silence, through the hours where Virgil’s mind usually spun into spirals of isolation. He had simply remained.
A boy who has spent years showing up for everyone else discovers someone else showed up.
The thought went through Virgil’s mind with the weight of a revelation.
Very quietly, so as not to disturb the fragile peace of the room, Virgil reached down and picked up the leather bookmark that had fallen onto the cushion between them. He slid it carefully between the pages of Roman’s book, then lifted the volume from his lap and set it on the coffee table.
Roman stirred, a soft murmur escaping him, but he didn't wake.
Virgil hesitated, his hand hovering over the spare knit blanket draped across the back of the sofa. He pulled it down, unfolding it with practiced, quiet care, and leaned across the small distance between them. He draped the wool over Roman’s shoulders, tucking it gently around his neck to protect him from the draft.
The moment the warmth touched him, Roman shifted, his head dropping down until his cheek pressed into the knit fabric with a small, contented sigh. He didn't wake up. He just leaned into the care as if he expected it.
Virgil sat back down on his end of the couch.
The room felt impossibly quiet, the silence no longer a heavy, vacant space, but something full—something weighted with the presence of another person who didn't want anything from him.
He looked at Roman’s crooked glasses in the amber light. He looked at the water bottle on the table. He looked at the seat that had not been vacated.
Virgil rested his head back against the cushion, pulling his own blanket up to his chin. And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he didn't feel the need to move. He didn't feel the need to fix anything.
He just let himself stay too.