Mahogany and Teakwood

Chapter 12: Tamarisk

ever felt away with me

just once that all i need

On his last day of fall semester classes, Virgil was dragged from sleep; not by his alarm, but by the sound of someone banging around the kitchen and belting at the top of their lungs.

He grouchily dressed, threw on his hoodie and backpack, and stalked into the living room, stopping short at the sight of Charming dancing around a pan of bacon and eggs. The clod was clad in nothing but Toy Story boxers and sported the worst case of bed head Virgil had ever seen.

More annoyingly, Virgil was almost used to it.

November and most of December had passed in a blaze of unseasonable heat, and Prince Charming became an irritatingly permanent fixture in Logan's living room. Over the course of two months, he managed to barrel his way through Virgil's peaceful existence with the grace of an over-eager lion cub in a candle shop, making messes and starting little fires everywhere.

He kept his alias name long after Virgil was sick of hearing it, despite seeming to otherwise trust them. This meant neither Logan nor Virgil could use their real names until someone decided to let their guard down.

Virgil hated it. His alias, 'Anxiety', was everything he never wanted to be and everything he feared he was. Hearing Logan address him as such felt like a splinter to the gut every time, making him surly and sour...well, more so than usual.

Charming caught sight of him. "Good morning, my chemically imbalanced romance!"

Virgil scowled and crossed his arms. He was too gay not to notice those perfectly huge pecs on that deep caramel chest, not to mention those defined abs...

"Princey, what the hell," Virgil sputtered. "You couldn't at least put on a shirt?"

"Breakfast!" the ridiculous man proclaimed, turning off the stove. "To celebrate your last day of class! The Cool Cucumber took the dog out for a run." He ladled food onto plates and gestured at the table. "Quit ogling my beautiful physique and sit your mopey dopey ass down."

"I'm not ogling!" Virgil's face flamed. "How many of those stupid nicknames have you got?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, Marilyn Mon-rose?" Charming waggled his eyebrows.

Virgil rubbed his face.

The worst part was that, objectively, Charming wasn't a terrible housemate. He folded up the sofa every morning and kept his stuff in a neat, out of the way pile. Without asking and without complaint, he took up most of the cooking and cleaning around the apartment, a gesture Virgil knew Logan appreciated. He sang incessantly, Disney songs and Broadway tunes and whatever popular abomination was on the radio, and although it was annoying to listen to Wait For It for the fifteenth and a half time at 7am when Virgil wanted to sleep, he had to admit the guy had a hell of a voice.

Virgil was also loath to admit that Charming managed to get him hooked on Hamilton. The music was catchy, okay?

"Look," Virgil said. "I have class in an hour, and I really don't have the energy for your trollshit right now."

Charming's lip stuck out in an exaggerated pout. "Ugh, so rude. Maybe I won't share my eggs with you after all!"

Virgil was saved from having to comment by Logan and Nic arriving from their morning jog. Charming immediately turned his noisy charm on the half-faery. "Ah, my Benevolent Blizzardly Benefactor, how was your run?"

Logan breezed past with his usual cool demeanor. Virgil's ears burned when he returned from his room still shirtless, a towel draped over his shoulders. There was, in Virgil's very gay opinion, an unnecessary excess of naked male flesh in this room. But as he watched Logan move through the kitchen, answering Charming's loud quips with his own dry sense of humor, Virgil also ached.