Chemistry - A Sander's Sides Fanfiction

- 34 -

Virgil was anxious about the dance, to say the least. No surprise there, right? Even he saw it coming. He'd been dreading the arrival of the dance all week -- not because he was actually nervous about it, but because he knew he'd be nervous about it...

Well that doesn't make much sense.

And Virgil knew this -- he'd told himself about a million times, staring in the mirror as though looking at himself would help to get the idea through his head. "It's just a dance," he stated, glaring at his reflection. "It's just Roman." And then he took a deep breath and walked over to his dresser.

Virgil didn't own much fancy clothing. Actually, he owned a grand total of one nice shirt. It was a charcoal gray -- almost black (surprise surprise) -- button-up with shiny plastic black buttons. His family wasn't very financially stable all of the time, with all of the moving and job changes Virgil's mom had to go through, and Virgil himself rarely got spending money that went into anything other than new music and new things to listen to music with. So fancy clothes weren't the top priority -- especially considering that Virgil never went to parties.

So Virgil settled for his cheap button-up and some black pants. He would've put on a tie if he'd owned one. But he didn't, so plain gray shirt is was. Then he brushed his hair, brushed his teeth, and walked out the door to begin the short journey to Roman's house.

Roman only lived two blocks down from Virgil -- which, Virgil had learned, was coincidentally one block up from Patton's -- so the walk didn't take very long. The air was cold and Virgil nearly wanted to go back home and throw on his hoodie, but he knew that the walk would be the coldest part of the dance; he'd most likely be too warm the rest of the time.

It took Roman a mere couple of seconds to answer the door once Virgil hit the knocker. He was wearing something quite eye-catching, of course, which consisted of a crimson red button up -- sleeves rolled up a bit to reveal that the inside fabric was a faint white and gold zig zag pattern -- a burgundy-brown vest (yes, a vest) that was embroidered with a sort of spiraling, flowery-looking pattern, and all of that was topped off by a golden tie.

"Wow," Virgil said after a moment, "you really do have to be extra all the time, don't you?"

The smile which Roman had greeted Virgil at the door with slipped into a stern, annoyed line. He rolled his eyes. "Try again, Nightmare Before Everything."

Virgil humphed, pausing for a moment and clicking his tongue. "You look nice," he finally mumbled.

"You do as well," Roman smiled charmingly, stepping out of the doorway and closing the scarlet red door behind him. "Do try not to be too unpleasant on the ride there," he teased. "I don't want to throw myself out of a car tonight."

Virgil smirked, following Roman to the sidewalk. "Only for you, Princey."

When the two arrived to the parking lot, Virgil could already feel the music pulsing out from the gym. A bout of anxiety welled up in his stomach as an image of a huge, claustrophobia-inducing crowd of people popped into his head. He managed to mask his nervous facial expression just as Roman looked over at him.

The boy took in a deep breath. "Are you excited?" he asked brightly. "This is your first school dance, isn't it?"

Virgil nodded. "Yup. First dance... ever..."

"It'll be fun," Roman assured him without hesitation, turning -- oblivious to the tension in Virgil's stomach -- to open the car door and walk out into the electric winter air.

Virgil followed suit and hesitantly walked after Roman, up the concrete steps of the gym and through the ticket line. Roman had -- much like the driving -- insisted on buying tickets for both he and Virgil, no questions asked.