Assistance Required

Spring Plans

TW anxiety

Wed Feb 17

Virgil groaned as he sat down. It was a long day of classes and his geology lab was really boring today. If that wasn't bad enough, he had homework to do. Why couldn't he just relax after a long stressful day? Why did they make them do extra work? Couldn't he just do the class thing and go to bed? It wasn't like the real world expected you to do extra work when you leave your job.

He asked Roman to help him a little with his Spanish. He wanted to get it out of the way so he could focus on other things, but Spanish was hard. Why was it so hard to learn other languages? If he was better at languages he'd probably be able to skip all of this from what he handed in high school. At least Roman seemed to understand what he was doing.

Virgil looked up and noticed Remus blush a little as Janus' hand brushed his. Virgil leaned back in his seat and looked to see if anyone else noticed what he did. Everyone else seemed wrapped up in what they were doing. Virgil bit his tongue as he returned to his work. This wasn't exactly the first time he noticed this, but it could be his imagination. Could Remus have a crush on Janus?

Virgil waited until everyone decided to go for dinner before pulling Roman aside.

"Is something wrong?" Roman asked.

"Do you think your brother has a crush on Janus?"

"Oh... I-" Roman bit his lip nervously. He glanced at Remus and shook his head. "If he does I don't think he'll pursue it."

"Why not?" Virgil asked.

Roman just shook his head.

"It's not my story to tell. And please, don't ask him. Just... trust me. It's not good. And don't try to get in the way. It'll just make things worse."

Virgil nodded.

"If you think I should stay out of it, I won't do anything."

"Thank you."

Roman kissed Virgil's forehead and walked off to get a plate. Virgil looked at Remus who was busy dipping a roll in mashed potatoes. He had to admit, he was curious about what Roman was talking about, but he knew he should just respect Remus' privacy and keep out of it. He grabbed himself a plate and got some food before sitting down. He tried to ignore everything until Logan caught his attention.

"Virgil?"

"Hm?" Virgil said as he looked around. He realized everyone was looking at him.

"Do you have plans for Spring Break?" Thomas asked.

"Oh, no. I never make plans."

"Well, I was talking to my aunt the other day and she told me she had a lake house we could stay at over break," Logan said.

"Your aunt has a lake house?" Roman asked excitedly.

"Apparently," Logan shrugged. "I haven't really talked to her for years. I don't know much about her. She called when my stuff showed up at her house a few days ago. She said she's happy to let me stay as long as I need and offered to let us go to her lake house. She usually stays for the summer when the water's warmer. So I don't know if it'll be warm enough for swimming yet, but it'll be nice to get away from the city for a while."

"It beats sitting around here doing nothing," Joan said.

"I think it'll be fun!" Patton said. "Even if it's still too cold for swimming, we can still have fun!"

"I'm sure we can get a lot of pretty pictures of the water and such! Maybe I can finally learn how to skip rocks," Thomas said.

"Ooh! I love throwing rocks!" Remus said. "And digging up worms. It's really cool throwing them in the water and seeing the fish come up for them. It makes a lot of bubbles."

"Dad used to take us fishing when we were little... Remus might be the reason we stopped," Roman said.

"I was bored!"

"Ooh! We could bake cookies!" Patton said excitedly.

"Oh that sounds fun!" Thomas said.

"My mom has a good recipe," Janus said. "We used to make it all the time. I think you guys would like it!"

"So, you guys are interested?" Logan asked.

"Well, I think that's almost everyone. Virgil? Would you want to come?" Patton asked.

"Um... sure," Virgil said. "It sounds like it'd be fun."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic," Thomas said. "It's fine if you aren't interested."

"No! No! It's fine! It does sound like fun. I'm just a little tired, sorry," Virgil said.

"You're fine. I just want to make sure you're actually interested."

Virgil nodded and took a bite of his food. If he was being entirely honest, he wasn't too thrilled about the lake. His dad used to rent a lake house every summer and take him on a week-long fishing trip. He hated it and never wanted to go, but he could never get out of it. He hated the lake, water made him nervous. He never learned how to swim. His dad knew he all this but still made him go out on the water in a tiny little boat and throw a hook in the water with no way to escape. But his friends wouldn't make him get in the water. The closest they planned to get was right on the edge.

He wanted to be with his friends and he didn't want to make them change their minds because of him. He'd offer to let them go while he stayed, but he didn't really want to be alone. And he knew they didn't trust him to be alone still. He didn't want to make them worry. It was rather kind of Logan's aunt to give them a place to vacation for Spring Break. They could be together somewhere other than school. He was sure it'd be fine. He could stay inside for the most part. It'd be fine.