Sanders School of Magic (Analogical)

29: Virgil and his Cognitive Distortions

*Virgil POV*

I'm being carried outside against my will. Janus says I need to go outside and that he and Remus are bored.

"I already told you! I don't want to go outside! Don't you know the midterms are soon?!" I shout.

I don't care about the midterms at all. But it's an excuse.

"You always ace them, so don't worry about it," Janus says.

"Heh, like me!" Remus says.

"Remus, make another pun and I throttle you. But hell yeah you are!" Janus says.

To clarify, Remus has never aced anything other than his sexuality. Sure, he makes dirty jokes all the time, but they're just that. 

We walk outside and I immediately feel a wave of icy wind hit me right in the face. Remus breathes out, creating little puffs of steam.

"I'm a train!" he says, "And I'm going to go run everyone over!"

"Go get that annoying kid," Janus says.

"Which one?" I ask.

"The one that acts like they're a gift to the world," Janus says.

"Jannie, that narrows it down to about a seventh of the school," Remus says.

"True," Janus murmurs, "So go run over that seventh."

Remus beams. He starts to run.

"Remus, no! We are not running anyone over," I say.

I'm friends with idiots, aren't I?

"Now can you put me down?" I ask.

"Nope," Janus says.

He continues walking, making his way off the pavement and into the snow. We reach the edge of the Snow War field, where I see a couple of people on the white side. I squint and faintly recognize two of them. They're on top of each other, and one helps the other up.

My eyes stay glued to them as they walk off the field. My vision sucks, but is that Logan? Holding Patton's hand?!

"Oh look, it's the nerdy boy and the cat boy," Remus says.

That confirms it.

"Please never refer to anyone as a cat boy, Remus," Janus says.

I feel a wave of jealousy rush over me. I thought maybe Logan and I had a chance. Maybe I was just lying to myself. I mean, I did kiss him on the cheek- maybe I went too far.

I feel my face redden with embarrassment. I definitely screwed up. And now I'm going to be thinking about it for the rest of my life as I try to fall asleep.

Janus dumps me on the snow once after a few more feet and I'm thankful I'm wearing my hoodie.

"Ow! You bitch!" I shout.

"Oh boohoo. Get up and let's go finish our snow fort," Remus says.

"It's about to be dark out. And dinner is in a few minutes," I say.

"So? We can steal from the kitchens later. Plus, I want to see if we can find any monsters or serial killers out here!" Remus says.

"Remus is right. At least about the food part. Plus, you know the fundamentals of light manipulation, right? We'll be fine," Janus says.

"Well-" I try to say.

Remus grabs my hand and sprints over to where I assume their sorry excuse for a snow fort is. And that's not an exaggeration, its walls are thin, short, and terrible.

"You were out here for hours yesterday," I say, looking at the fort.

"Yeah, well, someone decided to test out their temperature manipulation skills, even though we haven't even looked at the topic yet," Janus says. "And as it turns out, he can only heat things to the point of near explosion, so he melted the entire fort."

I roll my eyes.

"Figures. Well, I'm freezing and don't want Remus to explode my blood, so can I go inside?" I ask.

"No! We just got out here! Are you really gonna give up on this that quick?" Janus asks.

"Yes," I say.

Janus stares at me.

"Remus put the snowball down. Virgil, what's up with you? You're acting weird," he says.

Crap.

"Why why why do you think that?" I ask.

"It's that fight! You're afraid one of them will hurt you next!" Janus says, snapping his fingers.

Not even close. How do neither of them realize that I know their real feelings about me? They KNOW I don't like fake friends.

"It's ok, Virge. We'll make sure nobody hurts you," Janus says.

Physically, maybe.

I look down at my feet. Then I feel a snowball hit me in the back.

"Remus! I told you to put that down!" Janus hisses.

I smirk and slump down to the ground.

"Virgil! Are you ok!" Janus asks.

I quickly form a snowball and launch it at Remus' face. He bursts out laughing and throws another back, but I duck and it hits Janus.

Which is how we got into a snowball fight.

It takes my mind off Logan for a bit, but the second he comes back into my head I get nailed in the face and fall down. This time I just lay in the snow. There's only one kind of thought running through my head, and it's the anxiety-inducing kind.

"I'm tired," I say.

"Yeah, me too," Janus says, "Let's go back inside. If we're lucky we won't miss dinner."

Oh, so now it's bad if we miss dinner? I'm hungry and grumpy and anxious right now. Not to mention freezing. But does it really matter?

"I wonder if they have those frozen fruit snacks again," Remus says, brushing the snow off himself.

"Please don't chuck those at me again," I say.

"Nah, I want to crunch on them!" Remus says.

"Somehow worse. Let's go," Janus says.

*Logan POV*

After dinner and an hour of cooking in the kitchens- Patton begged me to- we go back to the dorm.

Patton opens the door and skips in. He stops almost immediately.

"Who are you?" he asks.

I walk in the dorm too, and see Vick, sitting on Roman's lap.

"Victor. And I told him to get off my lap three times already," Roman says, flicking Vick in the ear.

"Victor, please get out. You and Roman are over, and you need to get over it. Now please stop harassing him," Patton says, with a tone too calm to match his glare.

"Ugh, you still won't even hang out with me? I stood up for you during that fight, does that not mean anything?" Vick asks.

"You didn't do anything other than shout that I was in the right. Now get out," Roman growls.

Vick stands up.

"Fine! Go back to Virgil then, 'cause I know you're still a lovesick puppy!" he shouts, storming out.

I know y'all called it, but there's a lot more you don't know :). This actually came out earlier than I expected, so I'm going to continue with more one-shots. Also, a Logan Angst fic is on the horizon! Be prepared! I hope you enjoyed reading, feel free to leave any thoughts or feedback in the comments, and have a terrific day/night you magnificent peep!