Queer 'n Crazy (Sanders Sides Human! Au)

Chapter 52

Virgil was slightly worried for Patton, if he was being honest. As daylight hours lessened Patton's mood seemed to go with them. He was still hanging out with them for the most part, but there were days where Roman would show up without him, saying something about Patton being tired.

When he did join them Virgil found his eyes catching on the way his clothes were slightly more ruffled than usual, and the inward-slouching posture that was so different from the pictures of Patton from the beginning of the year.

Today seemed to be one of his more high-energy days. He was smiling more, and while the pigmentation under his eyes remained, they were no longer accompanied by bags. Virgil felt something inside him soften at the thought of it.

The way this school made him think was strange. It was making him... passive would be a good way to describe it. Passive when it came to other people's illnesses.

His anxiety often had him worrying about things outside his control. Things like cyclones, earthquakes that the area he lived in never seemed to get, serial killers, less fortunate people who were probably in horrible situations right now. Things that weren't normal to worry about.

But nobody questioned it when he obsessed over people's illnesses. He remembered once in middle school a girl in his class collapsed during gym. Her parents ended up being called in and there was a huge scene made over it. He'd forgotten about it, having his own issues to deal with but he remembers a few weeks later overhearing someone talking to her in the corner, asking her questions about why did you let yourself get that bad? and why can't you just do it? For me?

It was normal for people to obsess over other people's disorders. They weren't natural after all. But the more time Virgil spent at Queren the less obligated he felt to get involved.

He didn't know whether to be concerned or not.

"Oh my god this is heavenly," moaned Patton. "Do you reckon they'll give me the recipe if I beg hard enough?"
"I doubt it, it's one of their bestsellers," Virgil sat back up and rolled his neck, receiving a satisfying crick! for his efforts. "Besides, you can always get Anita's."
"Yeah, but that just seems mean."

He sat down and raised an eyebrow at Virgil.

"Are you asking me to take advantage of an old lady, Virgil?"
"Woah, where did this sass come from?" he replied snarkily, taking a sip of his iced tea.

"It was always there, I just know when to share my opinion."
"...I'm going to ignore the fact you said that,"
"Much appreciated."

Virgil turned his attention to the textbook splayed open on the table displaying something about quadratics. Despite the fact it was supposed to be revision material it all looked like jargon to Virgil, who was starting to dislike his math teacher more and more.

He glanced over at Patton, who was still playing with the cats. He wasn't taking the subject this year but he had mentioned being quite good at it.

"Hey, Patton,"
"Hm?"
"Do you know how to do this shit cause I sure as hell don't."

Patton looked up at him with a slightly constipated look that screamed 'I want to say something about your language but also know that it's pointless.'

"What do you need help with?"
"This thingy."

Patton sent him an unimpressed look.

"Very helpful, thank you, Virgil."

He stood up anyway, and peered over Virgil's shoulder at the sea of numbers.

"Oh, okay. So basically you wanna find the equation for this, right? It's gonna be pretty simple seeing as you have the vertex, so-"

He then proceeded to explain the entire thing as if it were basic facts. Virgil watched as he left pencil marks and little arrows pointed to different points on the graph, writing down all of his working in the small margin on the left of the workbook.

Virgil was half-following earlier, but by the time Patton was on his third line of working he was gone. He glanced up at Patton's face, and the boy was talking calmly but slowly, occasionally batting away the tail of the siamese, which was now on the table.

"Pretty basic stuff, really. Do you get it now?" Virgil snapped back to attention, and curled inward slightly as Patton blinked at him expectantly.

Patton sighed, before saying, "You weren't listening, were you."
"You're really good at this." said Virgil bluntly, as if that had any chance of salvaging the situation. Patton inhaled and pulled up a chair, scooting it closer to Virgil and shooing away the siamese.

"Alright, what do you not get,"
"I kinda followed the first part, but by the time you got here ya lost me."
"I can work with that."

Virgil's usual panic voice was still there in the back of his head, whisper-screaming things about how he'd annoyed Patton, and how he was so terrible for not listening the first time. But like it always was with Patton, he was easily able to ignore it.

++++

"No I'm being serious, he was all like, 'It's pretty simple stuff.' like it wasn't something to be struggling about, and I asked him about it and it turns out he accelerated last year."

Virgil was currently sitting cross-legged on the floor scrolling through tumblr while Logan studied, although he wasn't really getting much done.

"And it turns out he was really into academic comps and stuff, like really into them,"
"I'm not surprised, Patton is rather good at literature,"
"Yeah, but I didn't know he was good at math-y stuff too! Dude's been holding out on me!"

Logan sighed and closed his notebook, knowing by this point that he wasn't going to get any work done if Virgil was in the room and talking.

"Patton's always been clever, it's not like he was intentionally withholding information, although I do want to know what kind of competitions he was in."

"All kinds -- he mentioned something about a lit-quiz and some kind of math race thingy?"
"Never heard of them."

Virgil's head fell back onto his bed and his phone-hand fell down onto his lap. He fixed his hair with the other before turning back to Logan and asking, "Do you know why he stopped?"

Logan raised an eyebrow. "It's not like he needs to tell us everything, you know."
Virgil scoffed and sat up. "I know that, but I'm still curious. He seems so devoted to stuff he enjoys though, why would he stop?"

Logan turned back around to his desk, and re-opened his book.

"Maybe he doesn't enjoy it anymore."