Vices and Maces

Chapter 33: Virgil Has More Common Sense Than Janus

CW: slight blood

Virgil somehow made enough time to start working on his personal project again. He finished wiring the inside, even though it took him half of the morning, and was finally putting on touch screen glass on top. It was expensive and hard to get, and when he got it, he had to cut strips off and sand the edges. But he was finally drilling it in.

All that was left to do was program it now, and pray he won't have to start over from the beginning. He has created things in the past that could project holograms, but nothing of this size. Not only that, but this will be a very difficult hologram to program.

As he was finished drilling the glass into the machine, he heard his door open. Without even looking back, he knew who it was.

"I was starting to think you took another day off," he said.

"Oh I couldn't leave the little inventor alone for long," Janus teased. "You might do something stupid and get yourself killed."

"Only when you're here." Virgil set the drill down and turned to them. "Pronouns?"

"He/they. What are you doing now?"

"Working on this control panel."

"You know, you call it a control panel, and it seems to have a bunch of buttons on the side. But what is it really?"

"Honestly, it's more like a supercomputer." Virgil pressed the start button on it, the screen going white. He grabbed a USB drive from his pocket and plugged it into the computer. "I already have a program set up."

Janus watched as the screen changed into a loading screen. There were five dots spinning around and around, until finally the screen changed and showed a downloading bar. After a few seconds, the 0% changed to 1%.

"Well, that's going to take a long time."

"It's a big program code. So," He turned to the shifter, "since we have plenty of time, what did you do yesterday? You don't normally take days off."

Janus tensed up, debating on telling the truth. "I just decided to relax. I was feeling a bit burned out."

"Uh huh, it must be so hard going from store to store with a shopping list." Virgil walked towards another table where his journal was. He picked it up and pulled a pen from one of his pockets. "Did you at least do anything interesting? Go anywhere? Worked on anything?"

"Are you calling me boring?"

"You sure seem boring." The dragon scribbled something down in his book.

Janus gasped in offense. "Rude. And for your information, I went on a date."

Virgil's hand froze and he looked up in surprise. "What?"

"That's right. Now it wasn't anything serious, I really only just met the guy not too long ago. But it wasn't too bad."

"Wait, you went on a date with someone you barely know?"

"You know, I don't remember needing to hear that from someone that has probably never gone on a date, much less has had a boyfriend."

"I do have an ex boyfriend, and we went on dates."

Janus crossed his arms. "And when was this?"

Virgil's face burned. "High school."

"So like, a decade ago? Why'd you break up?"

Virgil shrugged. "Parents. Anyway, tell me about your date."

"Oh... okay..." Janus dragged the word out, getting stuck on the reason Virgil gave for his break up. "Well we didn't really do anything. We just got some dinner, then we watched the sunset for a bit. He found a nice view."