Chapter Text
Virgil is woken by his alarm and has never once in his entire life been less interested in getting out of bed.
He's comfortable. The bed is soft, the blankets are warm, and Virgil is sleepy and wants nothing more than to just lie here forever.
He snoozes the alarm and drifts back off.
Five minutes later, of course, he's dragged back out of sleep by the insistent melody.
Virgil seriously considers quitting his job so he doesn't have to ever leave this bed, but he does actually need money to buy groceries and pay his rent, and also his hosts have been real gracious but even their patience would surely wear thin if Virgil never left.
So, regrettably, Virgil sits up. He yawns. He longingly contemplates lying back down, but forces himself instead to get out of bed.
At some point in the night, someone—Patton, presumably—had returned his cleaned clothes, which are now sitting folded on the floor by the foot of the bed. Virgil dresses. He folds the borrowed pajamas and sets them on the foot of the bed. He doesn't usually fold his pajamas, but it seems like the polite thing to do in this case. After a moment, he makes the bed too.
And then he goes downstairs.
They're all in the dining room again, and they give him breakfast, and this time he's calm enough to appreciate it.
Princey drives him to work, and he has an otherwise normal day. He borrows a clean apron, and he makes a lot of coffee. He eats lunch at the shop, he takes the bus home, he has leftover spaghetti for dinner, and he does that load of laundry.
His bed seems even harder and lumpier than usual, contrasted with the memory of the bed—no, the actual literal cotton candy cloud—he'd slept on last night.
At least it makes it easier to get out of bed in the morning, when staying isn't bliss. If only by a little. Virgil is not and has never been a morning person. Still, he manages to actually catch the bus for the first time this week, so that's good.
Their newbie’s here for her second day of training, which means that Virgil splits his time between his usual duties and showing her the ropes. She's wary of the fancy coffee machines, and looks attentive but intimidated when Virgil walks her through one of the more simple brews.
She does better with the register. Its layout is also unfamiliar, but at least the potential worst-case consequences of pressing the wrong button are much less severe than “breaking an expensive machine” or “third degree burns and coffee everywhere.”
Several hours into Virgil’s shift, his manager joins him in the back while he's on break.
“There's someone out front looking for you,” Morgan tells him.
“Who?” Virgil asks.
“Nobody I recognized,” Morgan says with a bit of a frown. “Said he was a friend of yours though.”
“Did he give you a name?” Virgil asks, and Morgan's frown deepens.
“No, and I asked,” she says. “I said to him, ‘and you are?’ and he said ‘oh I'm roamin’ like that's an answer, so I prompts him, ‘yer name?’ and he just says ‘yeah’. So seeing as he's decided to just be evasive I told him he could order something or he could leave, but he couldn't hold up the line any longer, so he bought a coffee. Paid in cash, too, so I didn't get to see his name on the card neither.”
“He said he was roaming?” Virgil asks, gears turning.
“Yeah, ’cept he ain't, he sat down with his coffee,” Morgan answers.
“Brown hair?” Virgil asks, fighting back a rising laugh. “Maybe bout this tall, looks a bit like Remus if he ever shaved and combed his hair?”
Morgan nods. “Do you want me to get rid of him?”
Virgil pinches his lips together and shakes his head. Morgan squints at him.
“And what exactly is so funny?” she asks.
The laugh spills out of him. “Sor– sorry, Morgue,” he says. “I think you misheard him. His name’s Roman.”
“What, like Greeks and Romans?”
“I think so,” Virgil says, still grinning. “He's Remus’s brother.”
“I see,” Morgan says. “Well, if you don't want me to get rid of him, do you want to talk to him, or stay back here til he leaves? Lexi and I can handle the customers for a while yet if you don't wanna see him.”
“Nah, I'll go see what he wants.”
Roman is sitting in one of the booths, sipping a coffee and staring dramatically out the window. He turns as Virgil approaches, and then perks up. “Finding Emo!” he says. “Your coworkers said they had never heard of you in their lives. I was starting to think I’d gone to the wrong coffee shop.”
“Nah, just being protective,” Virgil says, sliding into the booth across the table from Roman. “We don’t give that kind of information to customers.” They’d had problems with stalkers trying to get information on employees before, and one bewildering man who’d kept coming round looking for someone Virgil had genuinely never heard of, til Morgan banned him from the shop. “What’s up?”
“So we realized your bike is still at our house,” Roman says. “I wanted to see if you’d like a ride over to get it back. Also if you would be interested in watching more Unfortunate Events, because we left off at a really climactic bit, and I know I already know what happens next, but I want to know what happens next, you know?”
“I definitely want my bike back,” Virgil says. He glances at the clock. “I don’t get off for a while yet today, but if you want to come back around five?”
Roman nods. “And movies?” he asks eagerly.
“Maybe just a little bit,” Virgil says. “I don’t want to bike home in the dark.”
“Oh of course,” Roman says. “I'd never force you to do that.”
Virgil glances back toward Morgan and Lexi at the counter. They’re busy with customers, but the line isn’t very long. Lexi catches his glance and grins at him with a little wave.
“Do you need to get back to work?” Roman asks.
“Not yet,” Virgil decides, settling more comfortably into his seat. “I’ve got a few minutes left before my break ends.”
~
Roman returns just before five, as Virgil’s getting ready to hand off the machines to the next shift. He orders three coffees to go “and whatever Virgil would like,” with a wink in Virgil’s direction.
Virgil rolls his eyes and makes himself a hot chocolate, which he sips on the drive back to Roman’s house. The sun is already dipping toward the horizon, so it looks like there isn't going to be time for tv before he has to bike home. It's a shame, because he really was looking forward to it.
“We’re home!” Roman calls as he opens the door from the garage into the rest of the house to lead Virgil in. As they cross the threshold, Virgil is hit with a nearly tangible wall of scent, stopping him in his tracks. The air smells rich and warm and delicious. He can smell fresh bread, and roasted meat, and something sweet, all mingled together into a tantalizing aroma that makes his mouth water and his stomach perk up eagerly.
“Oh good!” someone Virgil can’t see calls back. “Great timing!”
Roman pulls his jacket off and hangs it on a hook by the door. “It smells great in here!” he says brightly, heading deeper into the house. Virgil manages to unglue his feet from the floor and finally closes the door behind himself and follows Roman.
Calico is putting a steaming dish onto the table when they enter the dining room. “Welcome home,” he says fondly. “Dinner's just about ready.”
“Oh good, I'm hungry,” Roman says. “It smells fabulous, darling.”
Calico beams, eyes scrunching up with it. “Thank you,” he says.
“We brought coffee,” Roman adds, and hands Patton one of the to-go cups. “Your Chemical Romance made this just for you.”
“Aww,” Patton says, smiling heart-meltingly at Virgil. “Thank you.”
Virgil finger-guns awkwardly back at him with his free hand. “No problem.” Making coffee is literally his job. Roman was the one who had paid for it, and picked the flavor.
Then Patton notices what Virgil had put on the side of the cup instead of his name. “Aww!” he exclaims. “You drew me a kitty!”
“Yeah, I figured– you like cats, right?”
Patton looks up at him with shining eyes. “That is paws-itively precious. Thank you so much!”
“Please do not keep the empty cup just because there is a cute cat on it,” Logan says. Roman hands him his own coffee, on which Virgil had drawn a robot face and a triangle science beaker. “Thank you. We do not need additional clutter in our home, Patton.”
Patton pouts at him. “But look, it's so sweet!” he says. “Look at this precious little kitten drawn specifically for me and tell me that you want to throw her in the trash!”
Logan sighs. “At least cut the picture out of the cup instead of keeping the entire thing,” he says.
“Deal!” Patton agrees cheerfully.
“Sorry,” Virgil says. He had not expected Calico to appreciate the art to quite that extreme. He might've put more effort into it if he had.
“No need,” Logan replies. “This is hardly the first time something like this has occurred, and I hold no illusions that it will be the last.”
“Sure won't!” Patton agrees shamelessly.
“Um, so where's my bike at?” Virgil asks after a moment.
“By the door still,” Roman says, taking a seat at the table. “Do you wanna sit next to me again?”
Virgil just now notices that the table is set with four plates. “You… want me to stay for dinner?” he asks hesitantly.
“Of course,” Roman says, now looking puzzled himself. “Why would I bring you to dinner and then not want you to stay and eat?”
They hadn't discussed him coming to dinner. They had planned for him to retrieve his bike, and perhaps watch tv with Roman, but the topic of dinner hadn't come up.
Virgil means to say no, that he had better get going, but it does smell so very good, and they did set a spot for him, and he is hungry, and if he goes home now he'll have to figure out some other meal and honestly it's not going to be anything fancier than frozen pizza and fries, or maybe just ramen since that would be faster.
“Okay,” Virgil says, and sits next to Roman.