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greenninjagal-blog · 11 months

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Here Comes the Sun (pt5)

Contrary to popular belief, I do occasionally still write apparently. Can you believe it? Anyway! If you want a refresher on what’s been going on [click right here] or if you want to read from the beginning [click right here]!

Summary: After the second worst day of his life, Virgil wakes up and goes to find out where his best friend and the guy he tried to kidnap ended up. For some reason all of this feels like the calm before a storm.

Words: 15469 (ask me why its taken forever to get this one out)

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Chapter Five: Flood Warning

The Rules had been a mostly drunk joke between them. It had happened a few weeks into them travelling together: they had come to stupid little town in the middle of nowhere and all the people were hateful to them even after Remus had taken care of their Vulcan infestation and returned both a kidnapped teenage girl and an older guy that had gotten taken host by the creatures Take Over Magic to the village.

Remus had threatened to destroy a few of their buildings and that at least had sent most of them scurrying for cover in their own houses with the thunder warning them to not come back out. The bar owner in particular had been a nasty fellow, so Remus and Virgil unanimously agreed that they would raid his place, get drunk, and then skip town before the Magic council was called on them or an actually sanctioned guild showed.

That was the night that Remus had told him Everyone Leaves.

And Virgil had responded with What if I didn’t? Because he’d been drunk and an idiot and Remus was the safest place he had ever known.

“We need a set of rules,” Virgil had said, washing himself over the counter, nearly placing his face into the interesting patterned wood grooves.

“I like breaking rules,” Remus had said, draining the last of his barrel of wine. Virgil had laughed at his face when he tossed the empty barrel to the side, woozy at the idea of how his liver was still functioning. He had been so glad that he hadn’t taken Remus up on that drinking bet earlier.

“No,” Virgil said. “No, I mean like… our rules. Rules for us. We make them and keep them and stuff.”

“Sounds boring, Virgie.”

“Your face sounds boring.”

Remus grinned with all his teeth on display and Virgil had flicked wine-flavored water at him because his clothes had just started drying out from the fight and that was illegal or something.

“You pick the first one,” Virgil said. “I’ll make the second.”

“Hmmmmm,” Remus leaned back on the bar stool so far Virgil thought he’d fall. He thought about lunging to catch him if he did fall, but the world was pleasantly swimming and Virgil figured if he stood up he’d condense himself into a puddle and forget how to turn back to a human.

“Rule Number One!” Remus said. “No Killing Each Other!”

“You couldn’t kill me even if you tried,” Virgil said. “Fine. Rule Number Two! No Killing Anyone Else!”

Very Sensible. Killing people would get them arrested and stuff. Remus was laughing at him, but it didn’t sound mean. Remus was never really mean to Virgil.

“Rule Three! No Talking About Shit The Other Doesn’t Like!” Remus says. “No askin ‘bout my brother, no forcing you to talk about your parents, nothing about from before we met unless we wanna. And other things too, if we think of ‘em.”

Virgil nodded along with it, nearly sliding off the bar counter.

“Rule Four! Never Go Where the Other Can’t Follow!”

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

A great one actually. He’d been so fucking proud of it; everyone leaves, but not Virgil. Everyone gets tired of the rain, but not Remus.

He wouldn’t need anyone to actually love him; if they both just followed the rules and pretended like it, one day Virgil might be able to trick himself into believing it and that stormcloud over his head would go away.

***

Virgil wakes up in cold water, his human form diluted off and the bottom of the basin covered in mud and minerals. He’s decently surprised: both him and Remus must have been in bad enough moods that Remus didn’t even attempt to come in here and unplug the drain and send him sloshing out of the pipes for shits and giggles.

It doesn't bode well. There’s a distinct difference between The Lack of Remus (curious, entertaining, possibly amusing) and The Lack of Remus (VERY FUCKING BAD). Virgil likes to think that he’s familiar enough with his best friend and their whole situation to know which one this is, not that it takes more than a few seconds of struggling to form a thought to also remember the previous… everything.

Virgil's head is still throbbing with the tell tale feeling of a headache even before he manages to convince the water that makes up his body to come back together to form his head. Honestly, he's beginning to think that Logan's "Evil Orb" attack hurt him a lot more than previously suggested-- which considering that Virgil’s pain index is on another scale entirely... well it certainly says something about that fight. Pure magic attacks always were finicky when interacting with him: whatever elements made up "evil" probably dissolved into water really well.

Virgil chose not to even consider if Logan knew or didn’t know about that. Targeted attack or not, the fact was that Virgil was feeling the aftereffects of it and wasn’t a fan and it was impeding his ability to go find Remus and….

And do something.

What a pain.

Instead he draws his form back together, careful to keep the minerals and mud off his form as he painstakingly adds drop by drop into himself. A leg, an arm, ten fingers, ten toes, mouth, eyes, nose, heart-- He focuses for a moment on the poison, prodding it to see if he might be able to convince it to drop into the mud as well, but in the end he backs off. Much better to be alive with the curse on him, than have whatever's left of his body discovered by Remus whenever he decides to come looking because the sun appeared in the sky and…. Did whatever the sun does.

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for his clothes to form again after he has most of the standard human look back in the right order; the black material traces the edges of his preferred form, wrapping around his limbs to secure the shapes of each so he didn’t have to waste 90% of his focus on remembering to keep the heights of his kneecaps the same so he could walk. It had been a pain to get it made and it had cost a fortune, which had made the other kids at the orphanage upset-- something about it not being fair that Virgil got new clothes when they didn’t just because he was a freak-- and the orphanage leader had picked out the color herself without his input, citing that black went with everything.

It had been his one gift throughout the years.

Virgil had thought about picking up a ColorS just to change the color of it, but the devices were never programmed with a shade of purple that he liked (too dark, too red, too pink…). He’d have much better luck reaching out to the developer in Clover City and with a swatch of the color he wanted and just paying for a second suit.

But like. Money.

His head pounds. It’s too early to be thinking about money problems. Or any problems. Or just… thinking in general.

Light streams in from the windows, a hazy gray that's accompanied by a light sprinkle, that feels more like being sprayed with a squirt gun than actual rain. Virgil watches it start to get harder as his body and brain wakes back up more and more. An inverse relationship: the more Virgil is awake, the further away the mythical sun is from sight.

The good news is that it’s day again. The bad news is he’s not sure what day.

His leftover pocket materials are still where he left them on the floor, along with a tipped over bottle of soap he doesn’t remember dropping anymore than he remembers not dropping. It doesn’t seem like Remus had been in here; nothing’s too out of place from what he remembers. But that also doesn’t mean shit: Remus sometimes went whole weeks without proper hygiene because he just didn’t care enough, until Virgil physically forced him to take care of his body before he killed someone from the stench alone.

((Remus, of course, had thought that was an excellent attack ability to add to his repertoire. Virgil had strictly vetoed it by drenching him with water every three hours until he promised to take his own showers.))

Virgil shifts around slightly, testing tentatively his weight on his legs again, as he gathers up what was left of his supplies. The paper money hadn’t been touched-- still the same measly amount that he’d brought on his adventure yesterday that had come right out of his savings-- the multitool he spends a few seconds checking the springs and hinges to see if the rain or mud had gotten to it. He crumples up the map of Magnolia and specifically that nice little townhouse in the hope that maybe ruining the picture would ruin the memory too.

But then he shifts too far and the minimal lighting catches on a bit of silver on the sink counter.

Out of all the things, the spoons look the most sadly pathetic and out of place in their bathroom. Virgil’s hands hesitate before he picks one up, the pad of his thumb tracing over the simple pattern on them. He tries to imagine the faces of those Star Burst members when they realized that Virgil had made off with their spoons.

Daydream-Logan is endlessly baffled by it, theorizing on the hundreds of things that Virgil might have needed spoons for in the middle of a kidnapping, going as far as to wonder if the kidnapping was a cover up for the theft, and daydream- Roman is fuming throwing out insults that daydream- Patton tells him aren’t nice, to which there’s the snapped reply that Virgil isn’t nice. It’s amusing right up until daydream-Envy and daydream-Malice burst in through the windows and destroy the entire daydream-apartment and kill daydream-Roman and daydream- Logan and kidnap a still crying daydream-Patton.

He shoves the spoons into his pockets with a clatter; It’s too early to be thinking about that, too.

He creeps out of the bathroom, but doesn’t mean much. Remus isn't in the room and there’s no sign that he had been there for a while. His bed is untouched from where Virgil remembered him lounging yesterday when he’d come back, the hilt of that sword he’d been snacking on was still tossed carelessly by the door, Remus’s boots and his leather jacket were gone from the sad pile of dirty laundry Remus liked to keep in the corner to scare Virgil at 2am.

Virgil's stomach twists at the memory of his face last night: both his dragon force coming out and the idea that he'd rather not talk about one day escaping than risk hoping for it before finishing with the final blow of the casual, painful way he had implied that Thomas Sanders would never want him.

Normally they would pretend it never happened; Remus would make a clever insulting remark about Virgil's generally terrible deposition and Virgil would snark back something about stupid looking outfits and ride along with the conversation from there because it was as close as either of them could get to apologies without breaking into hives. If it was super bad, there would be food based bribery involved.

It's not like Remus to run away first.

Which means something bad is going on and Virgil slept through Act I of it.

His poncho is hanging over the heater, dried and cleaned from the mud that had been on it yesterday-- he checks the clock by his bed, and yep, it’s been nearly twelve hours. Remus must have really felt bad if he went ahead and washed it himself even though Virgil has other ponchos he can wear, and Remus doesn’t even know what a washing machine is.

Well. Virgil isn’t going to make a man grovel.

He grabs it off the hanger and slips it on relishing in the buzzing feeling he calls warmth, as close to a hug from Remus as he’ll get for now. It smells like Vanilla, aka Virgil’s personally preferred detergent that Remus doesn’t even like, much less keep in stock.

Oh.

Oh, he really felt bad.

Virgil feels bad for how much Remus feels bad about this. Honestly it wasn’t even like Remus was wrong. Virgil had been overreacting and acting like a brat; Remus had just revealed that his entire childhood had been wiped out by murderers who got away with it and his brother was alive and fine and apparently never really considered that Remus might have survived at all and all Virgil could think about is that he was sad that the greatest good mage in the world wouldn’t like him after he kidnapped and nearly drowned three of the man’s guild members.

It’s so stupid. He owes Remus an apology, and he’s not sure spoons are enough for it.

He wrings his hands through his poncho and promises himself that he’ll buy Remus some like rusted tire irons or something next time he’s able to. Remus liked rusted things from what Virgil remembered; it added flavor or texture or something to the metal that he liked to gnaw. Sometimes if Virgil brought him back a big enough metal item, he’d turn it into something else like mini statues that fit in the palm of Virgil’s hand with remarkable details down to the folds in the fabrics that left Virgil particularly confused about where he learned to do that and why are these so well made?

((Remus’s answer always is just a grin and him asking if Virgil wants to find out what else his tongue is good at.))

He laces his shoes, hanks up his hood, and takes a deep breath.

The door was still damaged from last night; in fact it’s in a worse shape now, considering it looked like Remus forwent trying to keep the hinges intact. There’s a solid inch gap between the wall and the door now and two noticeable boot sized prints in the poor metal door. Honestly, Virgil is a little surprised the noise of Remus leaving hadn’t woken the dead back up, much less woken up Virgil from his nice little coma-nap.

Virgil tries not to think too hard about it all. He dodges through the gap and reforms on the other side of the door, stretching out his watery form and testing his control as he walks towards the common areas.

As much as Virgil hates the idea…if Remus is answering a call from Guildmaster Clay, then Virgil should probably position himself somewhere to find out where Remus was. It wasn’t often that Clay went to the trouble of separating them: the fact that Virgil stayed instead of running that first night, the fact that Virgil had gone a one on one with Greed for Remus’s contract, the fact that Virgil and Remus had did everything together had alerted even the Guildmaster to the idea that they worked better together than apart.

((Honestly, it was really the fact that Clay separated them for this that spelled Virgil’s own loss against Roman, Patton, and Logan. If Remus had been there…. Well it wouldn’t have been quiet, but it sure as hell would have been quick and successful.

Together they could get anything done. And if Virgil was ever in the mood for a terrible, agonizing death, he’d even tell that to the Guildmaster himself.))

For most of Remus’s missions and jobs it was understood that Virgil would be right along next to him, lurking like a shadow, covering all his blindspots. It wasn’t like anyone else the Guildmaster sent to supervise Remus would do it. As such, Virgil’s place was generally beside Remus. If he wasn’t there it was because he was given orders to do something else and it was better to stay out of his way until he got it done.

But Virgil highly doubted that the Guildmaster would be even remotely pleased to see Virgil’s face. At best he’d be interrupting a plan, at worst Virgil would be inviting his own murder to happen and Remus would live on thinking forever that Virgil was upset at him. So that’s a no.

It was likely that by now Malice and Envy were back. They were always generally in decent moods if Virgil entertained their need to boast about how they won their battles, and probably wouldn’t be against sending Virgil towards Remus (most likely with a jovial threat to deliver like Virgil is Remus’s errand boy). But Virgil didn’t know if he could stomach listening politely to whatever Malice did to Logan--embellished or not-- and he definitely wouldn’t be able to keep cool with Envy started showing off her crystals of concentrated Dragon Slayer Magic she pulled out of Roman before he could even manifest a candle light. So no to both of them.

Pride wasn’t the type of person that Virgil trusted himself to be around. If Virgil moved too fast he could still feel the buzz of electricity coursing through him, boiling him inside and without someone to tell him that Virgil was necessary for whatever grand big plan, Pride wouldn’t bother stopping an attempt to kill him.

That leaves…. Greed.

Well. The bright side is at least Virgil always knows where Greed likes to lurk.

***

Virgil hears the raspy wet coughing laugh long before he actually sees Greed.

The script mage looks unextraordinary compared to other members of the guild: he has none of the flashy bejeweled outfits that Envy likes to flaunt around to make people look and remember, none of Malice’s warped scars that speak of how little he cares about keeping his enemies in one piece, and none of Pride’s pretentious, precocious aura which maintains a fifteen foot radius of personal space around him at all times. What Greed does have is a gnarled spine that causes him to slump over nearly half his height and walk with a cane, and a long overcoat riddled with age and which trails after him by nearly a whole foot, making him appear like just another old man who is still in denial that his prime had long passed. His skin is graying out, spotted in strange places, and clinging to his bones so loosely that Virgil always gets the impression that the flabs are seconds away from dripping right off him. His hair had been white and wispy since before the founding of the Magic Council and very clearly it hasn’t gotten any more flushed. He squints very hard when he first meets someone new as if he can’t see them all that well, and can hear them even less well.

He looks like a man who is desperately alone, desperately sad without grandchildren to take care of him; a man whom the gracious guildmaster had offered to take into his business to give him a bit of purpose in what remained of his sad, lonely life.

That had been Virgil’s first impression of him (back when he and Remus were eighteen and giddy with disbelief that a guild might actually want them) and he still gets furious with his younger self for having felt pity for the guy who looked like a stiff breeze might have knocked him over directly into a grave.

“Still alive, are you?” The man croaks out, part of a cough wet and raspy and Virgil finds himself wishing that it would develop into an incurable disease already. “The guildmaster is going soft in his old age. In my day, your kind wouldn’t have made it back from your first job, much less survived long enough to screw up as much as you do.”

“Do you practice these lines in the mirror?” Virgil asks, doing his best to keep his hands out of sight in his poncho lest Greed see how much he’s actually shaking. “Or does being an asshole that no one likes just something you know how to do naturally?”

The man wallows out a wet laugh again, leaning on his cane and showing off his yellowed teeth. “Careful, Boy. You better be sure this guild won’t miss you before you start throwing around challenges like that.”

Virgil’s decently sure that no one would miss Greed too terribly much either. Vastly over assuming his value to the Guildmaster is a hobby that Virgil thinks the man would enjoy. Right along with trapping teenagers in unbreakable contracts and haunting a library of tomes detailing forgotten magics he didn’t think anyone else was worthy of even looking at. Virgil managed to sneak into the library only once, searching for Remus’s contract that Greed kept behind layers and layers of traps, but in the end the thing that had fucked him the most was Guildmaster Clay putting a hand on Virgil’s collarbone and saying “You know better than to try that again now, don’t you? You can keep this as a reminder, Virgil.”

Virgil shakes off the memory, pretending like he doesn’t notice the rain rapping against the windows in a very telling way. Based on Greed’s gurgle, it doesn’t get past him either.

“Do you know where Remus is?” Virgil grinds out.

“Yes.”

Virgil waits for more and the man continues with his uneven pace right by Virgil as if he hadn’t said anything at all. For a moment Virgil considers throwing the full force of his Water Cane at his hobbling weak form and seeing if the ancient protection runes magic carved into his limbs under his cloak could protect him from being torn apart at point blank range.

((Of course if it had been that easy, Remus never would have been stuck here in the first place.))

“Where,” Virgil says, between his teeth, “can I find Remus?”

“One day you aren’t going to be able to keep mooching off that boy,” Greed spits. “Although I supposed that’s the only way your kind survives in these ages, isn’t it? Those damned Magic Counsel fools writing those laws declaring you creatures humans, making it a crime to send you back to the elements you came from! If it were up to me--”

“We don’t have to do the whole song and dance every time--”

”--You hover over that boy’s shoulder, taking credit for the good work he does for the guildmaster, siphoning off his potential, and pitifully whining at the guildmaster until he gives you another chance, just to disappoint--”

“Will you just tell me!” Virgil says.

“--mannerless, talentless--”

“Why did I even bother!” Virgil hisses out. Thunder rumbles outside the castle, and Virgil spins on his heel away from that asshole of an old man, mentally hoping that the guy drops dead in an hour or two. He supposes it's also thoughts like that, that would make him a terrible Star Burst mage.

“It’s your fault!” Greed adds. “That Malice and Envy ended up getting as hurt as they did! Those damn brats were supposed to be your problem but then you went and screwed that up and now both of them are in the infirmary--”

Virgil freezes. “What?”

Because it sounds like Greed is saying that Malice and Envy lost. He makes it sound like Roman and Patton and Logan managed to fend off two of Shadow Force with less than no warning and no real powers thanks to Envy’s magic. He makes it sound like the Star Burst’s Mages were still alive and that Virgil failing his task hadn’t signed their death warrants.

“Wipe that look off your face, Boy,” Greed says. “They still completed the mission you should have done, you useless, waste of--”

“Greed.”

The old man stops immediately in what he’s saying, but Virgil knows better than to be relieved at that. From the shadows (like an asshole with too much time on his hands), Pride strolls out, eyes narrowed and unimpressed with the situation. The air seems to tense around them, charged with electricity that triggers all of Virgil’s fight-or-flight instincts and the scent of burning flesh wafts between all three of them for a second.

“The Guildmaster requests your presence, Greed,” Pride says, with a sneer that speaks to volumes about how Pride feels about being used as a messenger, when he’s… well, Pride. Lightning flickers over his shoulder, tastefully suggesting all the terrible things he could do with it and Virgil and a dark hallway that everyone avoids.

Greed humphs, shifting his grip on his walking stick. He turns away from Virgil, cloak trailing after him like a snake and Virgil considers stepping on it and watching the man choke and fall over. Pride, however, is watching him, and Virgil knows better than to move without permission.

The rain batters the windows, distant lightning briefly illuminating the sky to the rhythm of Virgil’s heartbeat. It’s a long moment, where Virgil balances on the precipice of throwing himself through the floorboards and hoping he can make it to the room underneath them without too much trouble before Pride decides to eliminate him entirely for his own entertainment.

It wouldn’t take much. Barely a twitch of Pride’s fingers, and Virgil is fast but even he’s not faster than light. The energy would hum in his body, stiffening his limbs until he turned into a doll and then Pride could simply tilt his head and send all that racing towards that poison in Virgil’s chest. Virgil would feel the excruciating pain, maybe even get a chance to scream before he exploded into thousands of droplets of watered down poison and his consciousness had nothing to cling to at all.

Remus would know he was gone by the way that sun glittered on the dew drops, by the way that he realizes that he hasn’t heard the sound of rain in a while, by the way he turns around and there’s no annoying rain witch standing in his blind spot like a shadow he can’t get rid of--

“Remus is downstairs in the cellars,” Pride says. “Go.”

And then he turns away heading back down the halls as if the interaction had never happened and Virgil wasn’t worth his time and Virgil hadn’t been certain that his own death was about to occur.

Virgil pretends the tremble in his hands is from the rush of knowing where to find Remus.

***

Honestly, Virgil isn’t sure the cellars in Chimera Tongue’s castle-shaped Guildhall had a truly thought out purpose. They were nearly always damp and cold due to the fact that Virgil keeps the entire region decently flooded and miserable with his storm, and the fact that the stones used to build the castle and its foundations were about as good at insulation as Virgil was at turning off his storm.

Thus, guild members don’t tend to like going into them very often. The cellars hadn’t housed alcohol since before Virgil had first arrived, and he highly doubted that it would after Virgil’s mysteriously unimportant disappearance and other than having empty cavernous rooms with little light, there weren’t any upsides to going down there.

Remus and Virgil had been together a few times, looking for a place to spar when they weren’t on a job and didn’t want to deal with other people. But as their ability to read each other had grown, the need for space to utilize more moves or create new ones had also grown, and Remus had gotten a taste for kicking people out of the way when he wanted to use a space in the upstairs gym areas.

Virgil skips using the doors to check which of the cellars Remus is in. It’s far easier to borrow the pipes and slip through the unsealed cracks in the walls without having to worry about anyone else asking what he’s doing wandering around in the dark and possibly doing something about it.

And well…Virgil doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he’s also not going to tempt fate into making him a believer by just… waltzing around in a possibly haunted basement. Of all places to be haunted, Chimera Tongue’s Guildhall would surprise Virgil the least.

The first two cellars are empty, without dust even being remotely disturbed. It’s quiet as a tomb in all of them, and Virgil is about to suspect that Pride sent him on a wild goblin chase when he plops into the third and finds it surprisingly halfway full of people loitering around like it was a funeral wake.

Bewildered, Virgil shifts back into his human form, settling on a support beam over their heads encased in shadows that make the prospects of spiders clinging increase tenfold. All at once dozens of more human senses come back: the murky scent of perpetually wet earth, the faint taste of rain and a distinct lack of any type of tingling that might suggest warmth. If Virgil was a creature that actually breathed in the sense of taking in oxygen from the air and pushing it back out, he would have expected his breath to condense as he searched through the heads of guild members for Remus.

It’s not even remotely hard to find him.

Remus is wearing mostly black today, with green accents and silver chains whose ringing are the only noise this far beneath the castle. The cut of his shirt is jagged and harsh and leaves enough skin showing for his guildmark to be on full display to everyone even with his leather jacket on, which Virgil knows Remus hates people being able to see. He’s sitting on a long forgotten and abandoned table, one foot up on the flat surface, next to a brown paper bag that seems to have been untouched for a while. He’s looking bored out of his mind and angry about it as he swings his free foot back and forth and causes the slight tingtingting of his metal laced laces to make contact with one another.

At each cling the entire room seems to hold its breath, waiting to see if Remus is going to pounce on the nearest person and start giving them free dental work to solve the apparent lack of entertainment.

Nearby Remus, just out of reach, is a smaller form sitting against the side of the table curled into a ball and slightly shaking. It takes Virgil far too long to recognize him.

Patton doesn’t look good, not that Virgil expected him to. He was familiar enough with Malice and Envy’s particularly sadistic form of hospitality to be surprised that Patton has all of his fingers.

From his vantage point above, he’s able to see that Patton is covered in bumps and bruises so dense that Virgil can’t tell where one starts and others ends. There’s a shallow scrape along his cheek, something too deliberate to have been a battle accident: Virgil has a sneaking suspicion that if he got close enough he’d be able to see what freckles Malice was playing dot-to-dot with on Patton’s face.

His arms are bound at the wrists with coarse rope behind his back, tight enough to leave uncomfortable marks digging into his skin every time he twitches. He is sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest, and although his ankles weren’t tied, his head is bent in a way that suggests he realized that running wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Virgil can make out the cracks in his glasses where some not-so-gentle force had been applied in order to get him from his safe and cozy Star Burst home to their damp and dark and miserable castle.

It seems like Malice and Envy didn’t give Patton a chance to activate one of his tracking cards.

Or simply, there was no one to come for him anymore. Like a phone call that will never be answered.

Virgil wonders if Remus had realized that Roman might be dead, or if he cared at all. He isn’t sure how he himself felt other than very super awfully terribly bad.

He didn’t like Roman, and didn’t like him even more after knowing that he chose himself over Remus, chose Patton over Remus, chose and acted like Remus should have still been grateful to call him “brother”, but part of him thought about the pure grief in Remus’s body, about all the words that Remus deserved a chance to say to Roman, about how closure was a lot harder to get when you wanted it from ghosts.

Also he kinda liked Logan-- annoyance about his assumption that Virgil didn’t try to control his power aside. He was intimidating and strange in the same way that Remus was intimidating and strange, even if his intimidation came from being far smarter than Virgil, where as Remus’s was from being far stronger and a lot more insane at times.

There are a few other guys around, none that Virgil recognizes enough by name. He thinks he saw one of them use gun magic once, and another picto magic, but honestly…they're grunts. The guildmaster probably doesn't even know their faces and he probably would toss them into a losing battle as fodder for fun.

((The grunts don't know that of course. They think they're powerful, part of an elite force, something to be feared. They've never been invited to a fancy study and been handed a contract and watched their best friend try to carve off his skin after he signed his name…))

“Jeez,” Virgil says, letting his voice echo in the otherwise silent room and forcing the weakness out of his mind for now. “Remind me never to let you babysit again.”

Most of the grunts startle, which is somewhat amusing to see in the corner of his vision: sparks of light, a few curses, that break the tenuous silence, and the jerky movements of them trying to get back into their intimidating dick measuring stances while still looking around for the source of the disembodied voice. Virgil’s been making people jump at shadows since he was seven but there’s something magical about seeing grown men suddenly fear for their lives.

The only two people who look up are Remus and Patton.

Patton’s clearly been on edge for far longer than his rich heir or his Star Burst mage body knows how to manage, but also he seems to relax a bit when he recognizes that the newcomer is someone he’s met before. Virgil does not think too long about that-- he doesn’t think about it at all actually. Nope. No thinking. He doesn’t even know what he would do with the realization that maybe Patton felt a modicum of safety in Virgil’s presence, like Virgil was likely to be a wall between him and all the bad people down below and it wouldn’t end with both of them dead.

Remus tilts his head just enough to let Virgil know that he also picked up on the way that Patton’s shoulders had shifted down just a bit and his breathing had hitched and then evened out. But beyond that, in atypical-for-Remus fashion he doesn’t make a move to acknowledge it.

Virgil thinks he might be too busy trying to wipe the relief of seeing Virgil wearing the hoodie he painstakingly cleaned before any of the grunts noticed.

“Oh, hello there, Bath Water,” Remus says cheerily, dropping his foot to the ground and shooting to his feet with an excited maniac energy that definitely causes the grunts to look nervous and back up. Most of them have enough common sense to learn from past mistakes of getting caught in Remus's bad moods. The few that don’t…well they don't usually survive for round two. “I thought you were dead!”

“Unfortunately for us both, I still draw breath on this wretched plane of existence.” Virgil says, stretching as he teeters on the beam above them, watching Remus’s hands for any sign of metal expanding over them. “How long was I out for?”

“Twelve hours, give or take,” Remus waves a hand theatrically in the air as if he hasn’t been worried about him, hasn’t been counting the minutes down, hasn’t been missing Virgil at all. “I would have woken you, but I was enjoying the sunshine, shithead.”

There’s a fierceness to Remus’s grin. His tongue piercing rolls over his teeth with a clink clink clink, but Virgil can get the underlying message easily without it. Clay had called him with an order to assign him to this babysitting job, and Remus had complied.

At least there aren’t any bleeding marks on his arms from what Virgil can see. Virgil counts his blessings, if that could even be counted as a blessing. It seemed that more and more, Remus stopped fighting back and that knowledge paired with their unfinished conversation from last night doesn’t bode well for his mental state.

Virgil doesn’t know what he’ll do if Remus gives up. He doesn’t know what he can do. Hope the Magic Council arrests them both and puts them in a cell together, pretty please?

“Yeah, well, hope you enjoyed the sun while it was here,” Virgil says, boredly because he’s heard every variation of the sun is better than your company and Remus doesn’t actually mean it. Probably. “I’m here to ruin everyone’s lives now. Whoop-de-doo.”

“Aw, and you don’t even try.”

Patton makes a sharp wounded noise. Virgil tells himself that it's because Patton breathed too deep and a broken rib caused a pinch of pain, rather than entertain the idea that Patton had almost just defended Virgil against a Metal Dragon Slayer who put rebars through people on a whim sometimes.

“Got something to add, Ace?” Remus snarls at the card mage and Patton shakes his head. “That’s what I thought. Go back to pretending like you have Roman’s dick in your mouth.”

“Now that was crossing a line,” Virgil sighs, as fury so white hot crossed over Patton’s face that even some of the grunts inched backwards. Remus, however, doesn’t look even remotely intimidated: arms behind his head, each of his metal rings clink, clink, clinking together as he flexes his hands like he’s imagining gripping Virgil’s neck and squeezing.

“If he didn’t want me to say it, he wouldn’t act like the sun shines out of Roman’s ass,” Remus snaps.

“If you were jealous of your twin's ass, you could have just asked me for an affirmation,” Virgil says. “I’d let you know that yours is flatter any day.”

"If you wanted me to paint the walls with your insides, you just had to say the word, Virgin! Three more days of sunshine coming right-fucking-up.”

“It doesn’t feel like it would be enough,” Virgil comments with part of a yawn to show just how impressed by the threat he is. Virgil leans against the supporting beam, making sure that Remus can see his bored expression from down there. “I need like three more decades of straight sleep.”

“I can arrange that. I would be fucking peachy to arrange that,” Remus says, cracking his knuckles so loudly that the sound echoes in the room. His black nail polish glints in the low light. “Though I should warn you that no amount of beauty sleep is going to fix your face when I’m done with it.”

“Careful, Remus, or people are going to start assuming you have standards.”

He grins with all his pointed teeth, metal creeping over his neck, shiny and unbreakable even against Virgil’s strongest pressurized water attack. “What exactly are you doing here, other than being extremely punchable, Wastewater? Don’t you have somewhere else to be where you can disappoint your dead parents a bit more?”

“Ouch,” Virgil comments blandly. “Are we at the dead parents' jokes, already?”

He pretends he doesn’t notice how their large audience is quietly watching their back and forth with very little variety of expressions on their faces. Most of them are taking steps back, carving out an arena that Remus looks far too hungry to see, to feel, to use. The tension along Remus’s shoulders reads like a fucking book: the bumbling, brash, bubbling need to destroy something whether it be someone else or himself. Patton looks too soft, too worried, too nervous and Virgil forces himself not to glance at him and ask why do you look worried for me? Why do you care what happens to me? Why do I make you feel safer after everything I did to you?

Virgil swallows and tugs the brim of his hood higher over his head. “Came to see what you were up to, Loser. Heard there was a guest and I’ve never known you to be a good party host.”

Remus barks out a laugh that could have been confused with something gargling glass fragments. Patton jumps slightly at the sound of it, squeezing his eyes shut and letting out a shuddering breath.

“Oh! I know how to throw a great fucking party! Me, Patty, and all our friends here are playing a fun party game called no one says shit and I don’t break anyone's face again. Several people have already lost. You can join in if you want, and shut the fuck up before I put you in the ground where you belong.”

Virgil snorts. “Me? in the ground? Please. You couldn’t beat me if you actually tried.”

“I definitely could, spritz.”

“You seem to be misremembering how our last fight ended.”

“What makes you think it ended?” Remus growls out. “Come on down here, Virgie. Unless you’re too much of a coward.”

“I can take you down in forty-five seconds.”

“I’m counting.”

They stare at each other for a second, two, three… and it’s just that Remus looks so ridiculous looking up at Virgil for the first time. He’s a foot taller than him, and had so many times plopped his arm on Virgil’s head as a rest, or accidentally put a fist through Virgil’s face when telling a story because he forgot Virgil’s short. From this angle, he has to crane his neck, nearly breaking it, to get a good idea of where all of Virgil’s limbs are, and it almost looks like he’s just glaring at the sky about to fight the rain for making Virgil sad.

Virgil just can’t help it. His lips twitch upwards.

Thankfully that's all Remus needs to see for him to throw his head back and laugh his booming laughter that nearly shakes the whole castle at its foundations. Virgil’s chest hums with the warmth of the sound, the familiarness of it, the way that it can curl into a threat when it chooses but Virgil has never heard it threaten him even after Virgil got his bike destroyed.

The grunts lose their formations; a scattered mess of nameless people all laughing it off with a type of lightness that only comes from desperately trying not to show how nervous they were. Remus made sure everyone knew that Virgil and him had leveled towns in their fights when they were serious and the only people who ever knew when they were serious were the two of them.

((Patton lets out a nearly inaudible sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping forward like a puppet with his strings cut, and Virgil pretends he doesn’t see it even when Remus’s eyes flick over to their captive guest and something dark passes over his expression.))

He lets himself drop down from the rafters, tracing the metal beams like a raindrop, just to pool back into his human form at the floor level, where he bounces with his landing with ease. The Chimera Tongue mages around him all give him a healthy bit of personal space, and Virgil ignores them entirely.

Divines, it’s good to have some of his energy back. He feels like a new man-- He’s sure that if it weren’t for the crippling weight of Remus’s contract, possibly being arrested in the near future, the bomb in his chest, the dull thudding of the headache, and the fact that he participated in a kidnapping, he’d actually be enjoying himself right now.

There’s not much in the room, which Virgil can’t decide if it's a blessing or a curse. On the bright side if a fight does break out there’s less things to damage or have thrown at them, which means less things they’re going to have to pay Guildmaster Clay back for, even though the engraving on that table alone is making Virgil’s imaginary wallet weep. On the totally bad side, that means there’s less things for Remus to have been distracting himself with that wasn’t putting his knuckles through people’s teeth.

There’s a bit of blood on the ground not too far away. Virgil pretends he doesn’t see it.

"Hey," Virgil snaps his fingers at the nearest guild member, who definitely flinches back at being addressed. Virgil thinks he might have been the one that called him Window Washer yesterday; crazy how when there’s a Dragon Slayer in the vicinity people get much nicer to Virgil. "Get lost."

"Uh," the guy says nervously, glancing between Virgil and Remus, "the guildmaster said--"

"If the guildmaster has a problem with it you’re welcome to tell him to come talk to me directly. Of course, he would have to, considering that you’d be a stain on the ground for bothering him….” Virgil trails off and then shrugging. “And really, do you think that you have a better shot in a fight with the Metal Dragon Slayer than I do?”

Remus curls his fingers into a fist and all of his bones make a resounding, disturbing, horrible cracking noise that almost makes Virgil glance back at him in terror. The grunt’s eyes widen in fear and he stutters a step back and honestly? Same.

“Don't make me repeat myself,” Virgil suggests trying to recover without losing his intimidation factor. “Your body is made up of about 40 liters of water. I only need 4 milliliters to drown you where you're standing. And it wouldn’t even cause a mess!"

Probably wouldn’t make a mess. Virgil’s not sure and he doesn’t really want to find out. But you know what? There’s something satisfying about watching grown men turn tail and run.

Most of them are out the door in seconds; the rest of them are scrambling up from where they were shoved out of the way and following after. The doorway isn’t big enough for more than one of them to fit through at a time and the frantic clambering of them struggling to get through is probably the loudest that the whole room had been in a while. Part of Virgil trills at the sight of it, that sliver of power that he wouldn’t get anywhere else. If only he’d been this bold with the bullies at this orphanage instead of playing hide-and-seek until the Orphanage Leader tossed him out.

Remus laughs as the door slams closed leaving just the two of them and Patton and a room too big for just the three of them. "Ah shit, they think you would do that, still?"

Virgil lets himself sit on the table, pausing only to nod in the direction of Patton without waiting to see if he would or could nod back. "Having a brain isn't exactly a requirement for recruitment around here."

He doesn’t think about the two of them, just eighteen years old, stumbling into the guild hall, grins of nervous laughter and looking for a fight. He doesn’t think about how the guildmaster smiled at them and offered them free lodging for a week while they decided if they wanted to stay. He doesn't think about how having a brain isn't synonymous with not being an idiot, and that a smarter, better, more powerful water mage wouldn’t have just stood there in horror when the red lines of magic tore into Remus’s skin.

And mercifully, Remus doesn’t think about it either.

“Strange bag of unknown origins that hasn’t been touched….Is this for me?” Virgil says, poking at the paper bag of questionable origin on the table. Something in it is sweating, making the paper outside threaten to rip at his touch. “What is it?”

“A severed human head.” Remus waves a hand towards it, in as much of a dismissive gesture as a permissive one. He turns his back to him, stretching his arms over his head in a way that showed off his very impressive arm muscles. His metal toed boots clack-ed on the ground, with the faint jingle of his extra stash of metal bits that he’d no doubt been snacking on. "Muffins, but warning: I only take payment in the form of super sexual favors. You should get on your knees now."

Patton’s ears turn red at the statement and there's a hitch in his breathing that makes Remus grin wider and Virgil rolls his eyes. He doesn’t even want to know what Remus has convinced Patton their relationship is by now, if Remus had even been talking about him at all to Patton.

"Is that so?" Virgil says, helping himself to the bag where there are, indeed, muffins. Three, to be exact, and all blueberry with crystalized sugar on top, as per Virgil’s preferred muffin specifications. He’d gone on a rant once about it a month after they had first month and he hadn’t thought Remus had been listening or cared, but well… here they were, and Remus was doing that thing that he does where he acts like the far wall is extremely interesting.

There's also a bottle of an energy drink that Virgil likes in there, still covered in condensation from where Remus has stored it to keep it cool. Virgil does his best not to look accusingly at Remus, because those were pricey and they both agree it was frivolous expense Virgil could do without.

"Actually, fuck you,” Virgil says, making sure that Remus can hear the guilt that put a strangle hold on his lungs. “You know what? I'm really considering it this time. Where's my debt at, right now?"

"Depends," Remus says, bulldozing straight through what anyone else would call an almost-apology. “What did you grab me from Magnolia?”

((It's easier like this, Virgil thinks. Remus gets him his favorite foods, Virgil finds a new piece of metal to feed him and see what type of mineral upgrades it could give his scale armor for the next thirty minutes. They remember that they're in this together, however hopeless, however dangerous, however draining and miserable and terrible. It's them against the world: Rule One and Rule Four working in tandem so neither of them have to utter the words I'm sorry for the situation I got us both in; If I was slightly less useless, we’d be traveling the countryside without a care in the world right now instead of participating in illegal activities.))

Virgil picks up a muffin and shoves it in his mouth, uncaring for the paper wrapper before he carefully digs through his pockets until he finds the collection of spoons he swiped from Patton’s house and pulls one out to wave at him.

Remus lights up like lightning in the sky, shining so brightly Virgil almost thought he might have been that mystical sun he’s always heard about. His eyes lock onto the metal with an intensity that comes only from being distinctly more-than-human and Remus’s limbs still in a way that reads as preparing to lunge. Virgil flicks the spoon in the air and Remus dives for it like some type of animal, skidding across the cement floor away from Patton. He catches the spoon in his mouth, letting his teeth shatter the handle and gratefully swallowing it in a way that still unnerves Virgil after all these years--He’s seen snakes that don’t look so horrible eating things whole.

But it doesn’t matter much because Remus spits it out in the next breath with a dramatic whine.

“Wet Dream, how could you!” He gags. “Sterling silver?! Couldn’t you have at least bought the stainless steel kind?!”

“You’re lucky it's not plastic!” Virgil says around his bite of muffin and very deliberately does not look at Patton because oh god he thought those were normal ass spoons, he just fed a mostly silver spoon to a trash compactor, the other spoons in his pocket were probably worth more than he had saved up from all his time of working as a wizard.

Actually no, he is looking at Patton because why does he have sterling silver spoons? No one has sterling silver spoons. Those things are expensive as all fuck.

Remus reads his expression like a billboard in the middle of Hargeon Port, though. The delighted look he’d gotten on his face at the prospect of a new metal is nothing compared to the euphoria that he gets at the sight of Virgil’s distress. He theatrically gasps, grinning all the way as he languidly rolls out his shoulders. “Effluent! Did you steal these spoons? Did you steal these spoons from the guy you were hired to kidnap? How low could you get!”

“Please don’t try to talk to me about morally correct actions,” Virgil says, peeling the wrapper off the muffin while trying to catch all the crumbs before they hit the floor.

“You’ve been officially converted!” Remus continues. “Wittle Wirgil is growing up! Entering his evil phase! Next thing you know he’ll be--”

“I’ll pay you in sexual favors to shut up at this point.”

“--jaywalking! Or blasting his emo music too loud after 10pm! Or littering! Perhaps even waving a vulgar hand sign at a middle class elder woman--”

“Do you want these spoons or not?!” Virgil snaps, ignoring the blush on his cheeks that should not be there because he’s not embarrassed by Remus’s stupid impression of him that’s not even close to being accurate. Virgil hates littering, and you only get splattered across a windshield one time before you decide that jaywalking as a nearly see-through entity in a black outfit while it's raining is a hazard.

“No wait, I’ll be quiet!” Remus’s grin doesn’t completely disappear, but he does stop talking finally-- a monumental task for him-- and they say to reward even the little victories so Virgil tosses the rest over and watches Remus catch most of them with little difficulty.

Virgil stuffs the rest of his muffin in his mouth and glances towards Patton. “Uh, sorry.” He swallows, “About your spoons. I hope they weren’t an heirloom.”

Patton shifts uncomfortably glancing between Virgil and Remus, with his mouth opening and closing.

Virgil waves a dismissive hand towards Remus, who is thoroughly enthralled with his new meal. His eyes hold a faint green glow to them as he digests the metal, clocking the strength of it against his usual steel and deciding if he likes the taste more when it comes as an apology gift from Virgil’s rare side crimes. He checks the scales on his forearm in the minimal light, tapping his nails against as part of his usual new-metal-check routine or whatever.

“He doesn’t really care if you speak or not,” Virgil says by way of explanation to the Star Burst mage. “He didn’t want the others making small talk with him. They try to cozy up to him because he’s one of the strongest in the guild.”

“Oh,” Patton says in a small voice that’s nearly overshadowed by Remus crunching on metal carelessly. “Uhm… no the spoons were, uhm, they weren’t really mine.”

Virgil blinks. “I’m going to regret asking this, but whose were they? No offense but I don’t think Roman or Logan can afford silver spoons.”

Could. Oh fuck why did he open his mouth?

Patton half laughs, more like a sigh, more like he can’t believe that his kidnappers are discussing ownership of spoons which are being actively demolished. And well, in his defense, Virgil also can’t believe he’s trying to have a conversation like that. “Uhm… You know about my dad?”

“Hart enterprises,” Virgil says neutrally. “Uh trains? I think.”

Patton looks down at his scraped knees, with an expression that reads somewhere between I wish I was being run over by a train and I wish you were being run over by a train.

“Yeah, it’s trains,” Patton says. “My great grandfather started the company generations ago before Magic guilds were a thing. My grandfather made a bad investment when my dad was a kid and it nearly cost the entire company…my dad swore to never let that happen again. That silverware was one of the first things he bought my mother after they got married and he promised her she’d live like a princess.”

Virgil stares at him with muted horror. “Did you just let me feed your dead mother’s sterling silver spoons to a garbage can?”

“That’s mean,” Patton protests. “Remus isn’t a garbage can--”

“Patton!” Virgil says, tugging on his poncho wishing it could choke him. “Are those spoons your mother’s?”

The card mage shrugs as if it's that simple. “Yeah, but don’t worry about it! I’m glad they’re getting, uhm, use! I don’t even think Dad noticed they were missing and I haven’t been able to make myself use them since I unpacked them. All they’d been doing is reminding me of how life used to be before my mom died.”

Patton takes a deep breath and lets it out and Virgil considers slamming his own head against the table.

“He used to…uhm. He used to be a good person. People liked working for him and with him. He smiled a lot.” Patton glances back up at Virgil. “But after my mom died he kinda lost himself in the company and doing the most to earn profits regardless of workers rights…People started to complain and my dad didn’t want those complaints to reach “people who mattered” so he, uhm. He paid some dark mages to go visit the people who were complaining.”

Virgil isn’t a stranger to those types of jobs. Actually, Virgil had been on more than one of those for Guildmaster Clay’s business. Remus and Virgil were very effective at intimidation and since they weren’t as valued as the other members of Shadow Force it was usually them sent to do it. It always left Virgil feeling a little slimy afterwards, and put Remus in the type of mood that was only solved with copious amounts of alcohol and a good sparring match.

“It got worse after that,” Patton continues. “Ignoring safety regulations, understaffing, paying off people when lawsuits popped up or finding scapegoats to pin the blame on. All while making a fortune at the estate as if he could buy my mother back from death! He forced me to stop practicing magic around the house and forbid me from leaving without his permission and--”

“He sounds like an ass,” Remus says, causing Patton to flinch and squeak as if he had forgotten the Dragon Slayer was there. Virgil doesn’t necessarily blame him: Remus had this ability to look like he was completely absorbed in something else, and yet still be completely aware of what was going on. Remus juggles the last spoon over his knuckles, flipping it into the air one last time before catching it in his mouth and snapping it clear in half and then he lets his silver scales fade back into his skin without looking at either of them.

Patton laughs in a way that comes out as more hysterical than pleased. “Uh yep! Yeah. He’s uhm, not great. He cashed in a favor with Guildmaster Clay to get me brought back to the estate so he can, uhm, marry me off… as part of a business negotiation...”

Virgil feels his stomach drop a little further. “Marry you off? What, like you’re a piece of property?”

“Yep,” He pops the ‘p’ as he says it and offers a watery, wilting smile that makes the cracks in his glasses seem larger and Virgil’s heart hurt a bit stronger and hate himself a little more. “I, uhm, guess I was pretty stupid to think running away would actually get me away from there.”

“What about Roman,” Remus asks, very unknindly. Virgil stares at him, and Remus ignores him in favor of glowering at Patton with all the sympathy of a feral demon looking for its next meal. “You don’t think that Fire Fucker will come save you? He ditched his dead twin brother for you.”

“Remus,” Virgil says.

“I don’t… I didn’t know he would come for me!” Patton says, apologetically. Virgil almost wants to reach out and shake him for it. “I didn’t think he kept the card after I gave it to him and then when everything happened I panicked and pulled a random card--”

“Do you have any idea what the fuck he did to me?”

“No! But--” Patton cuts back, shedding the cover of the scared little card mage and morphing into the kind guy who could go toe-to-toe with Guildmaster Clay without breaking a sweat and holy shit, that’s kinda terrifying; is this what all little business children learn to do? “But the Roman I know is a good person who makes mistakes sometimes! You don’t have to give him another chance, Remus, you don’t ever have to see him again if you don’t want to! But you don’t get to tell me the man I know isn’t real because you’re hurting!”

“You are talking yourself into a fucking hopsital bed,” Remus warns.

“Guys!” Virgil says, but both of them ignore him.

“And it doesn’t matter! Roman won’t come for me again anyway!” Patton shouts, and Remus freezes. “My dad has too much magic around the house-- Roman wouldn’t be able to come even if he did find a real dragon--”

Virgil isn’t sure if it was the glowing green magic circle appearing under Remus’s feet, or the claws, or the horns twisting out of his hair, but Patton clamps his mouth shut nearly immediately. Virgil stands up, a step away, a little too far, and his insides swirl like a tidal wave trying to convince him to throw himself between Remus and his prey.

“What do you mean find a real dragon?” Remus snarls.

Patton squeaks something that is not a response, although even Virgil can’t think of a response that’s both a decent one and also doesn’t end with more blood on the floor.

"You're telling me," Remus says, eyes narrowing into slits, and teeth sharpening. “That dickwad has the audacity to call himself a dragon slayer, after the stories of the bravest heroes who were chosen for their heroic acts, from our hometown that was destroyed completely leaving us as the only ones who even remember those stories, after he left me to fucking die at the hands of cultists, and he never even met a real fucking dragon?"

Patton makes a squeak that sounds a bit like a dying chew toy, his complexion matching the toneless ashen color of the walls around them and that determined persona evaporating faster than Virgil’s insides when he starts to panic. Remus’s tail swings behind him dangerously, metal scales scraping the concrete.

"Uhm," Patton stutters, shaking, wilting so far back that Remus’s shadow completely covers him. "I don’t--We don't…talk about it!"

Remus reaches out a hand and yanks Patton up by his shirt collar, pulling him completely off the ground with barely any trouble. “You fuckers don’t talk about it--”

“Remus, Rule Three,” Virgil cuts in even though he is not part of this conversation what’s-so-ever.

Remus blinks, caught off guard, and so is Patton Hart; they both jolt out of their…positions, and it's like watching street actors slip out of the roles they’re performing. The room stings with the silence, heavy and biting and Virgil stares at the blank space between Remus and Patton as if it held some answers. It doesn’t fool Remus who for sure is listening to his heartbeat with a beady, suspicious look that borders on being offended that Virgil isn’t encouraging him pummeling Patton into the concrete floor, isn’t outraged on his behalf, isn’t showing just how loyal Virgil is to Remus because loyalty is the only thing that Virgil has that worth keeping him around for--

Remus takes a deep breath, blows it out through his nose, and then lets go of Patton’s shirt. Patton hits the floor with a soft, pathetic oof, and Remus turns his back to him completely as if manifesting the “out of sight out of mind” concept. The green circle under his boots hums for a second and fades, and at the same time his tail disappears and his claws even out back to regular fingers.

“Alright, Virgin,” he says, dragging the metal piercing of his tongue along his teeth to draw out a clinkclinkclink. Then he says, “Ratings of the tea cakes in Magnolia. Start with the worst.”

“I didn’t have any,” Virgil says. “You know I didn’t have any. I wasn’t gone long enough to try any tea cakes.”

“Four out of ten,” Remus decides, hopping up on the table next to where Virgil was eating his muffins, his ragged curls bouncing lightly. “I ate like thirty of them and I’m still hungry! They had no metal razors in them at all!”

“Normal people can’t eat razors, you freak of nature,” Virgil rolls his eyes.

“If they weren’t cowards they could,” Remus counters. “SlapPat back me up: Are Magnolia tea cakes better with razors in them or without?”

For someone who lives (lived?) with Roman and Logan, he looks utterly bewildered by Remus’s change in tone and actions. Virgil isn’t sure why: he can’t imagine that living in a house that has to have a microwave with a sign reading “No Science in this one, LOGAN” is any more quirky than watching Remus forcefully drop a subject and pretend it doesn’t weigh heavily on his mind. Roman probably does something similar, too.

Did. Probably “did” something similar.

Because Malice probably killed both Roman and Logan and then dragged Patton here by his hair. There’s a part of Virgil that doesn’t believe what Greed said about Malice being in the infirmary; there’s a part of Virgil that shakes from his knees thinking about Malice’s barrage of knives striking through Remus’s skin when his back was turned. He can’t imagine any of the Star Burst Mages managing to counter it.

But would Roman and Logan die to Malice like that? Roman broke out of Virgil’s waterlock from pure rage alone. Wouldn’t that translate to him having enough spite to defy death? But if Virgil was able to almost wipe them out by himself, what true chance did Star Burst’s Strongest Team really have against someone who actually wanted to kill them?

Knives in flesh. Screaming. Blood pouring from Logan’s back. Envy’s laugh.

He needs to stop thinking about this. He really needs to stop thinking about it.

“--them so, please don’t hit me,” Patton is saying, tensing slightly.

Remus scoffs, “It’s your opinion, dipshit. I’m not going to be offended that you’ve got awful tastes. Who do you think I am?”

Patton shifts entirely to face Virgil, lightyears beyond being distressed.

Virgil sighs. “Remus, we are currently holding him against his will, and literally seconds ago you almost put him through the wall.”

“Yes, and?”

“Divines, why am I even trying to explain this? How are you the one that got landed with this job? The guildmaster doesn't trust you as far as he can throw you." And probably further than that. There’s a reason why Remus isn’t allowed off the property unless with explicit instructions on who he can talk to and what he can do.

((Virgil is reminded for a second that if he had run after that first night, after he had patched together Remus’s bleeding forearms and stayed awake for thirty six hours straight to make sure Remus didn’t try to peel through legal binding magic in with his own claws again-- if he had run that first time and told everyone what the guildmaster had done maybe something about all this would have changed.

But Virgil hadn’t been able to take the chance that the guild wouldn’t disappear overnight and that he’d never find them again. It had been the right call, in hour thirty seven, Guildmaster Clay had come to the room to teleport Remus to their new secret guildhall, merely raising an eye, “interesting,” at how Virgil was still there, stubborn and resentful and already attempting to plan how he was going to steal that contract and tear it apart himself.))

Remus snorts. "Well he doesn’t exactly have a choice now does he? Didn’t anyone tell you Envy’s in the infirmary and Malice needed stitching on every single limb of his? Both of them are nursing grudges so large they’re liable to kill out of spite. Pride and Greed are Pride and Greed, and Clay likes fucking with us so...."

"Wait, wait, wait, seriously? Malice is actually in the infirmary? Who landed a hit on Malice?" Virgil turns to look at Patton. "Which one of them?"

Patton hesitates before offering up a soft, "uh... me?"

Virgil blinks, suddenly thinking back to their interactions previously: how Patton went limp as a doll when Virgil drowned him, how when he woke up mostly confused and leaned into Virgil's back to avoid the rain, how even when he attacked he had stopped when Virgil was down and talked kindly to him and told Roman to back down and--

Obviously Remus is also stunned for a moment at the new information. He’s quiet for a moment, disbelieving as he stares at Patton, half a scoff on his lips which dies when he zeroes in on what Virgil can only assume Patton’s unsteady heartbeat and decides that No, Patton is not lying about having nearly completely taken out a member of Shadow Force by himself.

“The kitten has claws!” He says towering over their captive hostage, so that his shadow swamps him. “I thought you were a card mage?”

“I am,” Patton says nervously, twisting his hands in their bindings like he was reaching for a card that isn’t there.

Remus is reassessing Patton again: comparing his previous assumptions of him with the new information and coming to conclusions that probably lean more towards the side of things that Virgil doesn’t actually want to know about. It was likely that Remus had been there when Malice and Envy had apparently dragged themselves back to the guildhall and had heard that version of events-- which Virgil seriously doubted involved Malice admitting he’d been bested by a handful of tarot cards and a guy in cat socks.

"No wonder he took offense to your face," Remus says. "I’m almost impressed."

Virgil leans back against the table chewing thoughtfully on his second muffin. "I wish I could have seen it."

"Uhm," Patton stutters. "Aren't you guys friends?"

The bite of muffin lodges in Virgil's throat, rock hard and sharp and Virgil doesn’t need to breathe but he finds himself doubled over hacking it back up at the same time as Remus laughs.

"I have dreams about shoving Malice's cocky ass face into a wood chipper," Remus says grandly. "I want to be there when that asshole dies just so I can kick his corpse around like a soccer ball until his limbs pop off and his brains are splattered across the whole place and his skull caves in!"

Patton jerks back at the tone and the imagery, but honestly that's pretty tame for Remus. Virgil's heard a lot of worse things spewing from Remus's mouth post a fight with Malice specifically. Virgil is kinda surprised that Patton hadn’t realized that the name wasn’t a joke; Malice didn’t exactly get his name from his benevolent acts of goodwill.

"He controls metal," Virgil explains, raspily. "And he's an asshole. So when they fight, Malice's first move is to always rip out all of Remus's piercings in one go."

Virgil had tried convincing Remus to get rid of his piercings after that first time he’d been on the floor bleeding from sixteen locations, but Remus was a glutton for danger and the second time Malice did it Remus gave him sixteen piercings on the spot and then stood over Malice’s writhing body and spat, “There now we’re matchies, Mal!” He probably would have done worse, but the guildmaster had stepped in and called Remus back like he was a misbehaving dog that had bitten a child at the playground.

"Why would anyone do that?!" Patton yelps. "That's so….horrible!"

Virgil and Remus chorus together, "It's Chimera Tongue."

"A guild is supposed to be your family. Your friends! A safe place that you can always come back to without worrying about anything! The people in your guild are supposed to be closer than anyone else--"

“Are you crying?” Remus asks, squinting at him in confusion.

Patton sniffles, looking like he would wipe his eyes if it weren’t for his wrists being held behind his back. Virgil squeezes his muffin in his hand, feeling the absurd need to make him stop because it's not even that bad! Surely Star Burst is at least a little like this, right?

“A guild is supposed to be your family,” Patton says again. “You’re supposed to be able to rely on them!”

“You rely on my brother?”

The sharpness of Remus’s tone is like putting a blade to Patton’s throat, and Remus’s grin is about as reassuring as a cliff drop into an open grave.

“Yes-- No-- Wait!” Patton curls up on himself. “That’s different! He can rely on me! But I’m not-- I am--”

“You’re not what? One of Roman’s bitchboys?”

Virgil makes a sharp noise. “Remus. Knock it off. He’s already been Rule Three-d today.”

“No, I want to know what it is that this bitch thinks makes my brother so great!” Remus swishes back around to Patton. “He can rely on you, but you can’t rely on him? That’s bullshit. That’s not a “family”. That’s not even a fucking friend! That sounds like he takes advantage of you and you let him because your dumb ass thinks that’s better than going home and letting daddy take advantage of you instead!”

“Remus!”

Remus ignores him, staring down Patton. There’s a long tense moment where neither Remus nor Patton says a thing and Virgil thinks that maybe he doesn’t need to worry about the poison in his chest because the tension in the room was going to explode him instead.

The tattoo on Remus’s neck rolls slightly as Remus swallows and Virgil wonders if he’s the only one smelling bleach all of the sudden, if he’s the only one remembering the taste of wine infused promises all of a sudden, if he’s the only one remembering “There’s nothing different about me with a collar and me without one!” all of a sudden.

“And while we’re on the topic,” Remus adds hard and biting. “You’ve gotta have some pretty big balls to go around assuming that either of us are part of this fucking guild of our own fucking free will. Family, my fucking ass-- If I ever got the chance to burn this place to the ground with everyone inside it, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Patton’s face looks like Remus shoved a whole lemon in his mouth, the cuts on his cheek sluggishly reopening with the puckered expression. His wide blue eyes latch onto Remus’s collar bone as if he would see the same orange handprint on Remus’s chest as Virgil had inside him.

Remus offers him a light sneer when it becomes clear that Patton would not be responding. “I’m sure by the time you’re done thinking about all that, Roman will be here to save your ass anyway.”

“He’s not coming for me.”

Remus rolls his eyes. “Did Malice and Envy leave him alive?”

“...uhm. Yes, I think?”

Remus’s face does a silly little thing where he tries not to break Rule 2 before it's even been lunch time. “Then he’s coming for you. Mazel tov, asshole.”

The silence burns for a moment, making Virgil jittery from nerves and unused adrenaline and stubborn relief he should not be having. The urge to do something, say something is coursing through his limbs, but all he can manage to do is wring the empty plastic bottle of the energy drink between his hands and wish that the muffin he’d eaten had been a little less sweet.

Roman was alive. Probably. Virgil isn’t sure why that makes him… feel things. He’s not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing and Remus’s expression is so complex Virgil doesn’t think he knows how to feel about it either.

How to feel about Roman choosing Patton over him, about Roman leaving him behind twice now, about how likely it is that Roman would do it a third time if Remus doesn’t win their next fight and get the chance to walk away first.

But if Roman was able to break from Virgil’s Waterlock and Patton managed to land several devastating hits on Malice, what was that chance that they didn’t have some other trick up their sleeves that would be enough to tip the scales against Remus?

Virgil can't help but imagine how pissed off both Malice and Envy must be about all this, too. He’s doubly grateful, suddenly, that he’d gone to Greed instead of them to find Remus’s whereabouts; he doesn’t think Malice or Envy had ever been beaten by anyone other than other Shadow Force members but he gets the distinct feeling that they were sore losers and Virgil’s face would have been a great stress reliever.

The untouchables, being nearly decimated by a handful of idiots. It was one thing for Virgil to come back so dense with mud that he was practically a walking pottery attempt; it was something else entirely to make Guildmaster Clay have to trust Remus with not breaking something.

The dozens of grunts made sense now. They must have been the best assurance the Guildmaster had that Patton wouldn’t get too roughed up if Remus decided to attempt to sabotage the whole plan. They certainly wouldn’t have actually done any damage to Remus but they probably could have slowed him down enough to allow time for another member of Shadow Force, regardless of how injured, to get there.

Actually with Pride being busy with whatever the next phase of the scheme Clay's working on is, Malice in the infirmary, and Envy off cooling off, really only Greed and Remus remain of the elite tier of Shadow Force--

Oh.

"Virgil," Remus says, because even out of the corner of his eyes he can recognize certain body languages and Virgil had not been fast enough hiding it. "No."

"What?" Virgil lies. "I wasn't thinking about anything!"

"Dumbass, I can hear your heartbeat," Remus snarls. "Read my fucking lips before put a rebar in you myself: No."

"When are we gonna get another chance like this?!"

"Your death wish stopped being cute twenty seconds ago," Remus says. "Drop. It."

"Your resignation stopped being cute four months ago," Virgil shoots back. "When are you gonna be done throwing your pity party and wake the fuck up and do something about all this?" Virgil motions to Patton, "You said it yourself! We need another type of magic, and wow! Look! A card mage, the most versatile magic type that you can get--"

"Shut up.”

“--and he even took out Malice by himself! He’s plenty capable. Part of the strongest team of wizards at Star Burst!"

"Do you know what the number one killer of card mages is?" Remus asks. "Their flimsy little bodies! Look at him! It would barely take anything at all to break his scrawny little neck!"

And yeah, okay, honestly, Virgil can agree. Especially with him already so beat up from Malice, he's barely more than a cheap counterfeit version of his own pictures and certainly not something that Virgil thinks would stand a decent chance against Greed or Pride. Not to mention the semi obvious lack of magic cards in their vicinity, although if Virgil can go collect the deck of cards from wherever they ended up, Patton probably had something that could heal himself! Probably!

"He's got plot armor!" Virgil says. "Scheme armor! They can't hurt him!"

Remus stares at him. Virgil thinks that's his you're-actually-an-idiot look. "Just because Clay doesn't want him fucking dead doesn't mean that Clay can't make his life miserable. He's fucking creative like that."

Remus’s eyes flick towards Virgil's collarbone, and even though everyone in the room is aware of it, Virgil feels the urge to make sure it's not visible. He scowls and pulls on the collar of his poncho.

“And also Clay gave me the specific order to make sure he stays tied up,” Remus yawns, stretching an arm out and then thumping Virgil on his head, in the way that would probably give most other people a concussion but merely sends ripples through Virgil's body.

"Stop," Remus advises in all the sage wisdom of someone who absolutely needs to get the shit kicked out of him in order to feel something again.

"Fuck you," Virgil says.

"If you're a good boy I'll let you suck me off later."

"You are actually the worst."

"What, you'll do it for Janus Ekans but not for me?"

"Leave him out of this!" Virgil snaps, shoving Remus’s arm off his head. "I'm Rule Three-ing Janus Ekans too!"

Remus squints. "The concept of him or just his name? I can't make fun of your crush if I can't bring up the topic."

"Y-you know Janus?" Patton stutters out and then immediately looks like he wishes he hadn't when Remus and Virgil both turn towards him. He wilts back like he can steal the words right back out of the air if he looks guilty enough.

Unfortunately, Remus is already clinging to them with his iron grip, a smile so wide it's nearly threatening as he stares down at the card mage. For all his posturing about wanting it to be silent, Remus laughs pretty loudly at Patton’s question and Virgil mostly wants to turn into a puddle and seep into the foundation and never be heard from again.

With one hand he drags Patton into a standing position and sinks his arm around his neck, ignoring the way that the smaller boy pales and panics and probably thinks that Remus is about to enact some horrible physical punishment on him. Remus however points Patton in the right direction and with a nightmarish flourish he presents Virgil in all his half boiled glory.

"Virgil heard him talk once and nearly evaporated!"

"Will you let it go!" Virgil hisses tugging on the drawstrings of his hood.

Patton, despite the mortal terror he must be feeling, lets out a shaky smile, and a partial laugh. His freckles seem to shimmer when he does, as if he finds this utterly humiliating revelation to be amusing.

"It was one time!" Virgil says.

"And it wasn't enough!" Remus croons. "He dreams of golden hair glistening with raindrops, hands brushing when they both reach for the same umbrella, then he leans down and whispers--"

"Stop making it weird!"

"That's a weird thing to hope he says in your ear."

"He likes the rain," Virgil says hopelessly without looking at either of them, because they can't possibly understand what it's like to see someone who doesn’t wish for the sun that Virgil will never be able to give them.

Patton bites the inside of his lip thoughtfully. “It makes sense,” he says. “Janus’s magic is stronger in the rain. If you guys teamed up, you could probably do some really cool things.”

“Well it's not happening!” Virgil says quickly. “He doesn’t even know I exist and I’d like to keep it that way because I tend to ruin everyone’s lives when I enter them!”

“Hey!” Patton snaps out before even Remus can say anything, sway on his feet. “You can’t talk bad about my friend! I’ll fight you!”

Remus frowns, “What, Janus?”

“No! Virgil!” Patton says. “Virgil’s my friend! No one talks bad about my friends! Not even themselves!”

There’s something about the way that he says it-- the certainty and the boldness-- that makes Virgil’s insides churn hard with guilt. Remus’s face goes blank for a long moment, clear of any emotion that Virgil can read and that’s nearly more terrifying than the idea of facing off one-on-one with Guildmaster Clay.

“The same type of friend who can rely on you but whom you can’t rely on?” Remus asks. “Virgil ain’t interested in that vulcanshit.”

“I can speak for myself actually,” Virgil cuts in blandly, and then he turns to Patton before he can witness the clear skepticism on Remus’s face. Patton has this light in his eyes, soft and gentle that reminds Virgil of how Patton’s knee jerk reaction to someone breaking into his house was to offer them food. Virgil steels himself regardless and shoves the guilty feeling away.

“But he is right. Aside from the part where we are literally on the opposite sides of the law here, and if we get our way, you’re going to be married off and never see us again and that I have almost drowned you like three times--”

“--only two,” Patton says.

“--It’s still bad,” Virgil finishes lamely. “You can’t trust me, I mean. I don’t trust me. If you aren’t going to value yourself as a person worthy of self preservation enough to not try to make friends with someone who very obviously would follow through with an order to kill you, then what the fuck am I supposed to do? Constantly, be on the lookout for you? I can’t do that. I physically cannot do that. My surface tension would get so strong I would explode; It’s a wonder I haven’t already--”

“Virge,” Remus says.

“--If we are going to be friends, you have to rely on me,” Virgil sums up. “You have to trust me as much as you want me to trust you.”

“Oh isn’t that adorable!” A voice sings from the front of the room, and both Virgil and Remus freeze where they are. Neither of them have to turn to know who it is: Remus because he’s unwillingly cataloged the heartbeat, breathing pattern, and gait of every member of the Shadow Force, and Virgil because Envy when she’s really pissed off has enough power to take away his magic and if that happens he’s pretty sure he’ll lose his actual consciousness forever.

((There was a wind mage not too long ago, made completely of air, who dated Envy and broke it off after the seventh red flag got waved in the other girl’s face. She didn’t get more than three steps away before Envy was sucking the very life force out of her and vengefully watched as the mage dissipated into nothing in the middle of the mess hall for everyone to see. The only thing that had been left of her was a palm sized opal crystal, and even that Envy had smashed to the floor and stomped on the shards until the last of the magic had dissipated.

…Virgil had spent the next seven hours staring at the same spot waiting, wishing, hoping that the breeze would tighten and weave back into being, before Remus had hauled him back to their room.))

Remus, on instinct, shoves Patton into Virgil’s arms and then stands in front of them both blocking Envy’s view of them, and growling very animalistically. Patton must have recognized her voice too, because he goes extremely quiet, fingers twisting in his bonds to get a card that isn’t there and Virgil gets about a dozen internal alarms ringing in his head about this whole thing.

“Take a hike, bitch,” Remus snarls.

“Why are you always so mean to me, Gluttony?” Envy whines, with all the childish charm of a girl who practiced setting her dolls on fire at age four.

“The fuck did you just call me?!” Remus says green light flickering under his feet as a clear warning.

Virgil dares to peek around Remus’s broad form to glance at Envy. She’s always been petite; making up for her height with sheer ruthlessness and disdain for anyone with a flashy power and platform boots. She still had to look up to meet Remus’s gaze but she did it with the smugness of someone who had several tricks up their sleeve and liked to make babies cry. For someone who should have been in the infirmary she was remarkably present down here, bandages wrapped around her arms and her leg and a patch on her cheek that barely hid the discolored bruises and burns.

In her hands is a large sparkling pink crystal, like a jagged cut of rose quartz nearly the size of new lacrima and practically glowing with energy. She grins in a way that does not bode well.

“Glut-ton-y,” Envy repeats, slower. “I mean, that’s the name you’re going to have soon, right? Might as well get used to being called it now. See, it fits the theme! Pride, Envy, Greed, Malice-- Gluttony!”

“Call me it again and I will make what happened to Malice look like a fucking dream,” Remus says.

Envy sticks her tongue out at him. “You’re so lame. Is this because of Virgil? You know you can do better than him. All he does is hold you back and make you feel guilty about having fun.”

Virgil feels himself boil slightly, but it's nothing compared to how Remus’s green circle explodes from under him and metal wraps around his limbs like armor, as sleek and unbreakable as a sword. His tail curls to the side, and Virgil distantly recognizes its hooking his ankle as if to make sure he doesn’t move into danger.

“Oh,” Patton breathes shakily into Virgil’s side suddenly.

“Oh, come on,” Envy says. “You know I’m right! If it weren’t for him hovering around you wouldn’t have a problem with the contract! In a year or two once you stop making everything so difficult for yourself, Greed would even hand it over and let you rip it up yourself!”

“You’re under the mistaken understanding that my contract stops me from killing you right here,” Remus says.

“Look, just because the two of you are fucking on the weekends--”

Remus swings his arm and a rebar of galvanized steel sweeps barely to the left of her face, shaving off three inches of her hair on that side of her face. She stumbles back, hand coming up to tap her cheek and coming away with a long thin line of blood across her cheek bone.

“You’re out of warnings,” Remus growls. “Get lost Or I send you to join Malice in morphine hell.”

She snorts in disbelief, swaying on her feet and then she smiles again and zeroes in on Virgil, despite Remus very obviously stepping in front again. “Hey, Virgie! Patty! It’s been so long! Do you guys know what this is?”

She holds up the crystal, letting it shimmer in the low light, like something valuable, like something irreplaceable, like something fragile and breakable. For a moment Virgil is thinking about it; about his quick water whip slicing under Remus’s arm, clearing him entirely and knocking that gem fifteen feet beyond all of them, shattering it against the concrete floors and letting the sound ring out infinitely in all the cellars.

He could picture it: the magic housed in the crystal exploding apart wafting up into the air like colored smoke before it disappears entirely already heading back to the person it came from. Suddenly, all Virgil can remember is Logan saying “...a trap was set up by what I believe is a null-magic user” and “Thomas is okay. For now.”

Suddenly Virgil has a very bad feeling about Envy being down here.

“This is all the magic power of Thomas Sanders!” Envy says proudly, and Patton’s breath hitches. “I think this is the biggest one I’ve ever collected! Makes sense since that old man couldn’t even when I was done! I probably could have finished him off entirely if the Guildmaster hadn’t stopped me.”

She shifts it between her hands. “Mal and I were talking, and, you know, the guildmaster went to a lot of trouble to make a plan that would get Thomas out of the way like this! If it breaks, he’ll probably kill the person who’s annoyed him the most recently…Isn’t that you, Virge? He was real pissed that you messed up as bad as you did. Not only did you set his schedule off, but you made him send Mal and me, and now Mal is in recovery so he can’t do the next part of the plan and my nails have been ruined…The guildmaster will probably be mad enough to just…. Poof you out of existence without me needing to do anything!”

She smiles with absolutely no friendliness in it. “Hey, hey, Virgil! You know what would be really funny? Catch!”

And then she tosses that crystal over her own fucking shoulder towards the ground.

[Next Chapter]

#Virgil is a water mage #Fairy tail crossover #Remus is not having a good time #But then again #neither is Patton #nor Virgil #Everyone probably could do with some therapy #dragon slayer Remus #Card Mage Virgil #sanders sides #virgil sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #Remus and Virgil are best friends

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