Trade Mistakes - Prinxiety [COMPLETED]

Chapter XXVIII

When Virgil's hurting, he's always turned to music. When he's happy, he's expressed it through music. If he's angry, he'll scream his lyrics out with fury. There's a lot of emotions he's written through, but this was something different.

He was in pain. Beautiful, suffocating pain that radiated throughout his entire body at all times, causing a sort of numbness eventually.

When Roman had left him alone in his hotel room the night prior, he hadn't known what to do. He'd collapsed on the floor in a pitiful pile of broken boy. He'd sobbed until the tears stopped coming all together. He'd been exhausted, not even managing to climb into his bed. He'd passed out on the floor of the hotel room, twitching in his sleep as nightmares and unpleasant dreams haunted him all night.

The next morning, he didn't bother to smile. He didn't bother putting on his mask. It would practically be transparent to anyone who knew him relatively well, which was most of the crew and definitely his band mates. Virgil wasn't sure he could deal with their silent concern when putting up an act.

Of course, when he entered the bus looking like a corpse because of how dark the black circles under his red, bloodshot eyes were, they were all silently concerned.

Roman was the exception, of course being concerned, but knowing it was him who cause the pain. As soon as the singer got onto the bus, he stood from his spot on the lounge couch and retreated to the bunk, refusing to be in the same room as him. The princely man couldn't bring himself to look at the damage he'd done. It was haunting his every waking thought and every slumbering dream.

Joan was too nervous to ask what had happened, just trying their best to ignore it because it seemed Virgil was trying to do the same. The drummer, on the other hand, followed the princely man into the bunks.

"Roman, what the hell?" he said once he closed the door behind himself. He looked toward Luis with a despaired expression. "What did you do?! Virgil looks like a fucking corpse!"

The guitarist let out a shaky sigh as he slumped down onto his bunk with his face buried in his hands. "I fucked up, Luis. I fucked up so badly..." he mumbled as tears rushed to his eyes. "He... He wants to be in a relationship. He wants to... but he doesn't understand that we'll just ruin each other again! We're gonna hurt each other, worse this time!"

"So what exactly happened?" the drummer asked, feeling his heart racing.

"We were the last ones in his room last night, and he kissed me," Roman admitted, feeling his cheeks warm and his heart throb at the thought of his lips against his own. "He kissed me, and what I stopped him, he just wanted to slip back into our old habits, but more like a relationship this time, but he- he doesn't love me! He's just desperate for some kind of connection because he needs a human connection to feel normal and okay!"

Luis' eyes went wide at his words, the incident with De coming into clearer focus. "Oh god, that's why he ended up leading De on?" he gasped.

"Well, I don't know much about that, but when he doesn't have someone that he's close to in more that just friends way, his mental state deteriorates," the princely man said. He looked down with a sigh. "I should've known... but he doesn't love me, Luis."

"How can you know that?" he countered, feeling anger rise up in his chest. "You can't know he doesn't feel that way!"

Roman stood up, glaring at him with tearful eyes. "He's never even said it!" he snapped. "Even when I knew I was wrong and we were fighting after that show in New York, I admitted it! He's never said he loved me, not then and not now! And even if he does, I can't hurt him again!"

"You're hurting him now!" Luis yelled, making a wild gesture toward the lounge. "He's hurting because of you Roman, and you're just going to leave the room and treat him like shit?!"

The guitarist burst into tears but let out a frustrated sound of anger. "I KNOW! I know I'm hurting him!! I can't do anything about it, Luis!! I'm sorry I let you down, and I let him down, and I've ruined everything- but if we try to be something more again, we will hurt each other even more."

"You're such an idiot, Roman," he replied, lowering his voice as he seethed in anger. "Relationships always have problems. You always hurt your significant other at some point in your relationship. It's just how it works. You care so much about someone, and that always leads to fights and tears and slammed doors, but you still love them. You're just being a coward. He loves you. If he didn't, he wouldn't be out there looking like he's about to cry. If he didn't, you wouldn't even fucking BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

There was a stunned silence between them as Roman stared at the drummer in shock. The sinking feeling in his stomach was growing; he felt like it was going to swallow him whole. He had a point. Why had Virgil brought him into this part of his life and into his band if he didn't care?

Luis let out another frustrated sigh. "You need to seriously think about what you're going to do," he said, deathly serious. "Because if you want to be apart of his life, if you want to be able to come to our concerts, if you want to be able to even see me without getting my fist connected to that perfect fucking face of yours, you better fix this. He's my brother, it doesn't matter that we don't share blood, he's my brother. If you're going to keep hurting him, I swear to god I'll make you pay for it."

With that, he whirled around and left the princely man standing alone in the bunks with a choice of what he was going to do. He could leave them after the tour and go back to pretending he never knew Virgil Black, or he could take a leap of faith on their relationship.