5 Times Someone Stopped Virgil From Self-Harming and 1 Time He Stopped Himself

Roman

Roman was surprised at first when he found out that Virgil's also taking dance as his minor. Then, he got to see just how amazing his contemporary skills are - for someone who sings screamo in the shower when he thinks he's the only one home and wears his makeup like it's 2012, his friends had thought that he'd be more into the hard popping style that Logan's into. Though, while Virgil can keep up with Logan, he has to admit he's not as good at those precise movements and incredible body control and it leaves him tired out or sore after just a couple of routines, watching from a corner as his friend only takes a quick drink of water and goes right into the next one.

But when it comes to contemporary dance, soft and whimsy, Virgil doesn't know when to stop.

He'll only stop when someone makes him, when he uses up all the energy he has left or when he injures himself, and all three are somewhat unfavourable. What if he's alone when he starts to go into a downward spiral of continuing to practice with no breaks until he gets hurt? Collapsing onto the varnished wooden floor is never a comfortable experience, even if there's someone to immediately pick him up and take him away, and everyone remembers the time he broke his ankle and cried every day until he could exercise again.

They'd all rather prevent that from happening again.

"It's time we get going, stormcloud." Roman already has his and Virgil's things in their respective bags, but looks over to see Virgil still going through the particularly difficult moves; he'd call the dance and the way he executes it absolutely mesmerising if it weren't for the fact that he's been doing this non-stop for nearly thirty minutes. "C'mon, Virge." He walks over and wraps his arms around Virgil's waist from behind just as he pauses the movements to catch his breath.

"Roman, I'm not done yet." Virgil whines and tries to push away, but his exhaustion has him unable to fight Roman's strong arms, and after a few seconds of struggling he gives up.

"I'm not gonna let you hurt yourself again." Pulling Virgil over to the corner of the dance studio, Roman sits on the floor with him and hands him a water bottle. "Your dance is already as perfected as can be. Why do you keep striving for what you've already achieved?"

After draining the bottle of its contents, Virgil leans back against the wall and sighs. "That's the thing, it's not the best I can do yet. I don't wanna get everything wrong when I have to perform it in front of everybody. You saw what happened the first time."

And Roman did see what happened the first time. It was a classic case of stage fright that devolved into a panic attack that Roman and Logan had eventually managed to bring Virgil out of, but even after that he was still so shaken, repeating phrases of self-deprecation, I can't do this, I'm a failure, I never should've tried to pursue dance. He didn't even want to go to class again the next day, but after some convincing he'd walked in to be told that he can try to perform again when he's not being watched by thirteen other pairs of eyes. With only the dance teacher, Logan and Roman watching, Virgil performed beautifully. He scored in the top three for the whole class!

"You scored in the top three for the whole class." Roman smiles, a look of pride in his eyes. "No one blamed you for getting nervous when you had to do it the first time, but no one doubts your talent. We've all seen you rehearse with us, and y'know what other people tell me?" Virgil finally meets Roman's eyes, looking curious now, so Roman continues. "Melody says that she wishes she could dance like you do. That your movements are as fluid as water, that you're so dedicated but you seem really hard on yourself, and that you don't need to be. By graduation, you're going to be one of the best dancers this college has ever had."

Melody. Sweet, sweet Melody. "Oh, wow." Virgil responds quietly. "But Melody's so much better than me! She's so expressive, she adds her own spin to each routine."

"Everyone has their own skills and flaws when it comes to dancing. It gives us character. If you think that you need to work on facial expressions, that's something you can work on, but you mustn't ignore the best aspects of your dancing style whilst wishing you had those of somebody else."

A silence settles over them both as Roman shuffles closer to Virgil and drapes one arm around his shoulders. They stay like that for a minute or so, leaning into each other, Virgil thinking over what he said.

But alas, Roman checks his watch again and sees that they're both long overdue to return home for the night. He removes his arm from Virgil's back so he can stand and pulls Virgil up by his hands too. "Let's take a break from dancing tomorrow, okay? Just one day."

Virgil seems reluctant to agree as they both pick up their bags and leave the studio. "Why? We've got a performance next week, we need to rehearse as much as we can."

"That's right, we do." There's a short silence, confusion from Virgil's side as Roman gives him a sad smile. "But you can't rehearse too much. We've agreed that you need to stop hurting yourself by pushing past your physical capabilities. You don't even have to stop all exercise - we can still hit the track field tomorrow, just take it easy. How does that sound?"

Even with the slight shake to his legs after so much physical exertion, even with the sweat sticking his clothes to his body, even with the slight pain he feels in his arm that's been softly pounding ever since he moved it a little too suddenly during his routine, Virgil feels like he still has improvements to make, flaws to eliminate. But, with Roman's caring gaze meeting his, he listens to the offer.

It doesn't sound so bad to miss one day.