The Prince, The Gangster, The Teacher, And The Poet (Sander Sides Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty Two-The Tavern

TW: The plan for this chapter has turned out to be almost completely different from what actually ended up happening, so... enjoy? Harassment of staff that is used to it, fear of storms, taking care of someone who got panicked during both of these events, threats of violence, and having to step in and save someone.

Virgil supposed they had been lucky it hadn't rained up until this point. The night before, when he and Patton had heard Logan and Roman talking about stars as they were falling asleep, it had been a little cloudy, but when it had started raining when they woke up that morning, they thought it would stop quickly.

It hadn't.

As the group walked, they were surprisingly cheery for the weather. Even though it was dark, the thick clouds covering the sky and the rain pelting their clothing enough so even under Virgil's jacket, he was uncomfortably wet, but Patton was skipping along with a huge grin on his face. Logan didn't look particularly comfortable, but Roman was holding his hand and swinging their arms together. Virgil himself would normally want to be as far away from the rain as possible, with rain would sometimes come storms and with storms would sometimes come-

Virgil jumped as a crack pierced the air, light flickering around the group for a millisecond. A few moments passed and there was a comforting rumbling noise as if the sky were apologizing for scaring him. Virgil hadn't noticed that he had whimpered until Logan's hand was on his shoulders.

"Are you alright, Virgil?" Virgil shifted, not shrugging off Logan's hand, but he hoped that the other boy had gotten the idea that it wasn't really necessary.

"Yeah, sorry. Just..." He shivered a little, not because it was cold, but because of a memory, he had thought he gotten rid of. "I don't really love storms." He could feel a different hand on his shoulder, this one just a ghost of a touch.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't help you those days, Virgil." Virgil relaxed a little. While he and Darius hadn't really talked since that day in town, the day before they realized Patton was a werewolf, there was a sort of mutual understanding that Darius wasn't going anywhere, so Virgil had to learn how to manage.

"Any particular reason why?" Roman asked, looking back at him. "Sometimes talking about stuff makes it feel better! I feel better about what I talked to you guys about yesterday." He offered, and Virgil smiled.

"When... when I didn't have a place to live... it rained a lot?" Virgil tried. "I was younger and scared and there was a lot of lightning and rain and it was cold, and I was always scared I would freeze." He looked at the ground. He wasn't sure why he had said that. It was the truth, of course, but still. Roman wasn't pressuring him, no one had been pressuring him, and he hated giving out information about the in-between place after the fire and before Janus had found him. Janus didn't even know all that much.

To be honest, he didn't have a lot of memories from that time, so there wasn't much to tell.

"Virgil-" Roman's eyes were wide and worried, and another crack of lightning flashed around them. This time was worse, Virgil didn't' know why. It might have been the fact that he most defiantly wasn't prepared for this flash of light, or that he was distracted, or that he was reliving some of those memories, but however you spun it, Virgil yelped, curling in on himself. The rumble of thunder came again, but it wasn't nearly as comforting as it used to be. Instead of apologizing, it was laughing.

"-It's okay," Patton carefully touched Virgil's arm. Instead of pulling away, which he would have done with almost anyone else almost anywhere else, Virgil melted into Patton's touch, almost collapsing into his arms. Patton didn't hesitate, pulling him in for a soft and comforting hug. Virgil buried his face in Patton's chest. "Hey, hey, it's alright. We won't let anything hurt you, okay? You're safe now."