Sunsets in Paradise (Sanders Side's Simulation AU)

Glitch in the matrix.

Virgil stumbled as he ran to the exit. The last part of his school day had been filled with him mostly staring at Princey onstage, which didn't help because it meant that he missed a lot of stage work he should have been doing.

"Hey, Pat," Virgil said, catching up with Patton and Remy. "Who're we waiting for?"

"Picani, Prince, and Logan," Remy moves his arms to adjust his jacket. "They all had to rush to get stuff from Drama again. Picani forgot his damn notebook."

"And Roman and Logan went to help him get a notebook?" Virgil said, raising his eyebrows.

"No," Patton smiled. "They went to get their stuff. Roman needs a script and Logan needs the stage overview, he's writing up what props are for what scenes."

Virgil nodded. "Ah," he said. "Cool. So, what're your plans for tonight?"

"Sleep," Remy said, lowering his glasses to look at Virgil over the edge of them. "Duh."

"I'm having Logan over," Patton hummed. "We're going to work on English together. I'm helping him with narrative writing and he's helping me with formal writing."

"And you?" Remy asked.

"Probably sleep," he says. "Maybe I'll check out tumblr. Sounds weird if you have Logan over again tonight, Patton, didn't you have him over last night?"

"Yep!" Patton smiles. "But we didn't get much English done yesterday." He mumbles.

"What, too busy making out?" Remy chuckles. "With the way he was looking at you after that round of truth or dare it's the only thing that could have happened."

Patton flushes bright red. "Guys..." he says. "He's just my friend."

Virgil couldn't imagine how much that sentence hurt Patton, especially when it was so clear Patton had feelings for him. "Pat," Virgil sighed. "The dude loves you. Just get married at this point, it'll be easier."

Patton swallowed a little. "Haha," he sarcastically said, even if his whole body was screaming 'please be right'. "What about you and Princey? You were pretty close last night."

"Uh, close?" Remy interrupted. "More like literally-on-each-other's-laps-staring-into-their-eyes-like-a-romance-movie. I mean seriously, who even does that platonically?"

"Me and Roman, apparently," Virgil shrugged. "I just had a breakup, give me a break too."

Patton chuckles. "Fair enough," he says. "But you never really loved De, did you?"

That was difficult to answer.

Virgil didn't know. That's what made it difficult. Sure it made him lie awake, and stare at his rooftop, wishing life held some sort of distraction for him, but he didn't know if that was because he loved De or because he missed the idea of loving him.

Was he touch starved, or did he love De?

"I don't know," Virgil mumbled. "It's a little blurry on that front."

Patton gave him that smile that Virgil loved to see. "That's okay, kiddo," he said. "You can feel whatever you want."

Virgil sighed. "Yeah," he says. "Gotta figure out what they are first."

"Labels are like fruit," Remy profoundly stated. "You eat it up, finish it, and move on. Don't get stuck trying to label the fruit, dude, trust me. It's just difficult."

"Easy for you to say, you've got everything figured out!" Virgil couldn't help but let his shoulders slump. He knew he was overreacting, that's what De would say. "I don't. I'm a mess."