Sander Sides High School Oneshots

Found pt2

The atmosphere is tense after Virgil leaves. The remaining seated Andrews continue their meal in silence.

It's clear to Logan that they want to continue the conversation about college, but he's truly not interested. It's the second semester of his Junior Year. He knows he needs to start thinking about colleges and looking into grants, but he wishes his parents would show any amount of care for his and Virgil's other interests.

Virgil especially.

Virgil isn't stupid. Logan would even argue he's of above-average intelligence. He's always gotten good grades, much like Logan himself. Virgil has never shown any signs of struggling in school.

However, while Virgil gets good grades in all of his classes, he seems to excel in English and philosophy.

Logan is also very similar in that regard, however, Logan leans more than math and science.

Virgil explained once to him that he prefers the openness of literature interpretation. He loves reading a book or a poem and getting to come up with all of the potential meanings. It made sense to Logan, but he has found he is the opposite. He prefers the backed-up facts and concrete answers of math to the open-ended nature of philosophy.

Virgil's real strong point, however, is art. He's always loved to doodle and paint. He's always been quite decent at it too, but in the past couple of years, he's really put his effort into it and has improved tremendously.

Moving schools certainly helped with stroking his love for art as well. Their previous art teacher was a baseball coach who was required to teach a class in order to coach in their hometown. Since moving to Florida, however, things have been better for him.

The art teacher at their new school is an older lady who, according to Virgil, is working on a doctorate in art history and is the sweetest person in the world. She's been one of the only teachers who's been understanding of Virgil and his needs. As much as it saddens Logan that it's taken fifteen years, he's glad Virgil has found someone else who understands him and his interests.

Unfortunately, their parents aren't as understanding. They think his love of literature is great but aren't so supportive of his artistic side. They had been fine with it when it was just a hobby, but since Virgil had made it known that he wanted to pursue a career in art, they've taken issue with it. They take any chance to belittle him and attempt to change his mind.

It's clear to Logan that they think that since he's still a freshman, they will be able to change his mind before he graduates. Logan secretly hopes that they aren't able to.

Logan's mom opens her mouth. Logan isn't sure what she's going to say, but he knows he likely doesn't want to hear it.

"May I be excused?" He speaks before she has the chance to.

His mom purses her lips but nods tensely.

Logan stands from the table and walks into the kitchen. He dumps what food is left on his plate into the trash and washes it, quickly doing the same with Virgil's before placing them both in the drying rack. He walks past his parents, ignoring their attempts at making eye contact with him.

Logan walks down the same hallway Virgil did, to their rooms. When he passes Virgil's room he pauses. He hears a soft voice through the door.

"I don't know..." It's Virgil, his voice sad and hesitant. "Maybe they're right about the whole...Art thing."

"Virgil. Just ignore them. They're assholes. They'll come around eventually, and if they don't then they don't deserve you anyways."

Logan vaguely recognized the voice as Roman's. He sounds deeply upset on Virgil's behalf.

"Well, what if they're right? Art isn't exactly the most practical of degrees. It's stupid for me to throw away the potential to have a stable future to pursue a hobby."

"By that logic, I'm just as stupid as you are."

"Wha- What?" Virgil questions, sputtering.

"I mean, acting is arguably just as impractical a degree as art."

"Well, that's different!"

"How is it any different?" Roman laughs incredulously.

Logan walks away, feeling content with the knowledge that Virgil is being well taken care of.

—

The next week moves by quickly. He has three more tests. He passes all of them with flying colors.

He spends most of his lunch breaks in Mr.Picani's room, helping him finish the last of the paperwork they need done for their competition. When he's not in there, he's in the auditorium.

He dedicates one day to going over light cues with Janus. It's not all shocking to Logan that he's got all of them memorized perfectly. They even offer to run all of the lights without any sound or verbal cues at all, just based on timing. As much as it intrigues Logan, he determines that their lunch period isn't long enough for it.

On a different day, he does the same thing with Remus. Logan does find it surprising how well Remus knows the sound cues. He doesn't mean to sound judgemental, but Remus just didn't seem like the type to be able to memorize things super well. However, Remus is on par with Janus with his que memorization.

The other days he spends helping Virgil.

Well, sort of.

Turns out Virgil doesn't trust him to draw or paint the large set pieces that need to be done. Because of this, he spends most of his time painting one of the "walls" from the set a light brown. It's large and rectangular and it takes him three lunch periods to finish painting.

He spends his afternoons with the rest of the crew. They run the show probably a hundred times. Logan thinks that if he wasn't able to repeat the whole show in his sleep before, he certainly could now.

When their practices are over, they clamber into Janus's car and tend to end up in the Ramirez household. There they help Thomas, Roman, and Patton go over lines.

Logan and Virgil usually don't make it home until right before dinner time. The two of them have a mutual, and silent, agreement to spend as little time at home as possible.

After dinner they both go to bed and the cycle repeats. It's not bad. Logan finds himself enjoying the routine he falls into, and Virgil is visibly overjoyed to be taken out of class to paint and draw all day every day.

When competition day finally comes they're all vibrating with excitement. They've been working towards this competition for months now, and having it be just barely out of their grasp is as nerve-wracking as it is exciting.

It's barely seven in the morning and they've all been up and in the auditorium for nearly an hour now. They've already loaded the trailer with all of their props and set pieces and are now waiting for Mr.Picani to give them to go-ahead to load onto the bus.

Logan is standing next to Patton, Thomas, and Janus. The four of them are discussing the order of the performances. Their group pulled the short straw and have to first. It's not truly a problem, Thomas says he actually prefers going first because he gets the chance to watch the rest of the shows. The issue is, however, that their performance slot is at nine in the morning. Meaning in order to make it in time they have to be ready to go before the school even opens its doors to students.

Across the stage, Virgil is sitting on the floor between the twins. The three of them are staring intently at his phone, no doubt watching videos about Disney conspiracy theories. Logan doesn't personally get the appeal, but the three of them seem to enjoy them so he's not going to judge.

"Alright!" Mr.Picani's voice rings out in the auditorium as he claps his hands.

They all go silent, looking up and giving him their full attention.

"Everyone go ahead and load onto the bus!"

They all let out a collective cheer as they gather their things and begin walking outside to where the bus is parked.

A/N: I thought about finishing this story in this part but couldn't figure out a way to continue it from here :') I do have an ending for the overall story planned so look out for that!