Freshman Year (Sanders Sides AU)

Chapter 10

Roman's POV

"Roman, we meet again," Janus's voice startled me from behind.

I turned around and found Janus in a perfect frame of oak trees. It was truly a very picturesque sight.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," I blurted out. Why did I do that? Virgil just adviced it, not mandated it.

Oops.

"Is that so?" Janus asked, sounding a little disappointed. "I'm assuming your little purple-haired roommate told you that?"

"What did you want?" I changed the subject abrutply.

"Virgil really doesn't know what he's talking about," he told me, changing the subject back. "I'm harmless."

"Yeah yeah whatever," I waved it off. "What did you want to say to me?"

"Oh, just to say hello," he shrugged. "I thought maybe we'd be friends. But if you're supposed to stay away from me..."

Oh shut up Janus.

"Well it was more of a suggestion than an order," I told him, wavering.

"Ah," Janus nodded and looked at the ground. "Well let me tell you something, Roman. Virgil's the one who's bad news."

"Virgil?" I laughed, not believing anything he said. "No way."

"He's really very deceptive," Janus went on, his face fully serious. "He let's you think that he's just little and harmless, but he's not. He'll stab you in the back."

I almost believed him, that's how serious he sounded. Then I realized that he could've been doing exactly what he was accusing Virgil for. I didn't know who to believe.

"Thank you," I said politely. "I'll keep that in mind. But, I'm going to be late for class, so I'll be taking my leave."

With no further word, I turned on my heel and retreated to the safety of my excuse. I really did have class, but not for another fifteen minutes. I was going to the bakery to get breakfast first. The jam they had there was delicious. Logan loved it.

•••••

A while later I found myself sneaking by Janus and Remus's door, not wanting any attention, to get to my own.

I quietly turned the knob of the big wooden door and entered before swiftly closing it behind me. Finally. I was home.

I turned around and yelped, frightened. Standing at the end of the hall was Virgil, with a bowl of cereal in one hand and the coffee pot in the other. He smirked when he saw my little freakout.

Embarrassing.

"You scared me," I told him, my hand over my heart.

"I noticed," he replied and took his coffee pot and cereal to his room, closing the door behind him.

Nice to talk to you too, Virgil.

I couldn't help but think about what Janus had told me. Virgil really didn't seem like bad news, at all. I'd been living in the same dorm room with him for over a month and he's barely come out of his room. He could have had a drug lab in there, but I'm sure we would have known. Right?

No, Virgil is not a drug lord.

The fact that I had to convince myself pretty hard was embarrassing. Virgil may have been a lot of things, but a druggie was not one of them.

Janus, maybe. Remus, definitely.

I shook the thoughts away and entered my room. Speaking of Remus, the tapping had become constant and I was learning to get used to it again. Having an evil twin was very difficult.

The tapping was never loud, but always there. Because of it, I always turned my headphones up louder to drown it out. It resulted in me listening to a lot of Disney music.

I slid the headphones over my ears and started in on my theater work. I worked endlessly, captivated in my work, until I was startled by a tap on my shoulder. I jumped and turned around, finding Patton smiling down at me. I pulled my headphones off my head and set them on the desk.

"Oh hey Pat," I greeted him, crossing my arms. "What's up?"

"Well, some of Virgil's criminology classmates are throwing a party tonight and we thought it would be fun to get out since we're always here," he gave me his spiel. "And, Logan and Virgil sent me in here to get you because 'I'm cute and you can't say no to me.'"

That was true. But, I was mildly disappointed in myself. Virgil who was an antisocial child and he was invited to a party before I was. And I was the last to hear about it!

Disgraceful.

"Yeah, I'm in," I agreed and got up, grabbing my jacket from the edge of my bed. "Sounds fun."

"Oh good," Patton clapped happily and we took our leave from my room.

Logan and Virgil were leaning against the wall on either side of the door, waiting patiently. It's almost like the three of them expected that I wasn't going to come, which was ridiculous.

When I brought up the idea they all shrugged, trying to hide the fact that they indeed think that.

"We weren't sure if you were too cool to hang out with us or not," Virgil teased me as we headed out the door.

"Well of course I am," I bantered. "But I'm not that shallow."

"Sure, Princey," he mumbled as we made our way to the stairwell.

We looked like a group of misfits. Logan smart and sophisticated, Patton goofy and cute, Virgil dark and mysterious, and me, tall and proud.

Patton chose to jump down the last four steps, almost falling down when he hit the bottom.

He recovered and stood up straight before almost falling again from the sudden movement.

Virgil looked him up and down, his lips pursed in a line. "You good?"

It was quite comical, with his hands shoved in his pockets and his hood over his floppy purple hair.

"I'm swell," Patton replied with a grin.

I rolled my eyes with a chuckle and the three of us jogged to catch up with Logan, who apparently didn't the memo that his boyfriend almost fell down the staircase.

A party.

With a bunch of science dweebs.

This was going to be fun.

°•°•°•°
Hey there!

Thanks for reading this chapter. Here's a list of the majors the Sides are studying in college:

Roman: Theater

Logan: Chemistry

Virgil: Criminology

Patton: Elementary Education

Janus: Pre-Law

Remus: undecided. Help me out with this one :)