The Melting Pot Complex

Chapter Sixty-Seven ~ Logan

{Possible trigger warnings: swearing, minor bullying (Virgil and Roman being themselves basically)

If I miss something, I apologize and please let me know}

"You have a good afternoon, Mrs. Tulio." Logan smiled as his boyfriend's mother headed off down the hallway. She'd brought several treats and a few presents over for Roman's birthday, which had been earlier that week.

Once he saw her get into the elevator, he headed back into the apartment, closing the door behind him. Mrs. Tulio had told him there was a little something at the bottom of the stack of presents that was for him as well.

Carefully moving the wrapped boxes, Logan found a black portfolio on the counter. It had the crest that Roman had showed him at one point emblazoned across the front, and he opened it gently to peek inside.

It was a photo album.

Logan quickly moved to the couch in the living room, flicking through the pages one by one. Pictures of Roman, an identical little boy he assumed must be Roman's twin brother Remus, an older girl that Roman talked about once in a while as his older sister. There were photos from birthdays, weddings of family members, first days of school. It was all adorable.

He flipped through it slowly, enjoying each photo and watching as, picture by picture, Roman transformed from a chubby little boy to the man he knew now.

Virgil came into the room so quietly that Logan didn't realize he was looking at the photos over his shoulder, until the page flipped over revealed Roman's freshman school photo from high school.

"Holy sh*t!" Virgil grabbed for the book. Logan jumped in surprise and yanked it away on instinct.

"When did you get in here?!"

"I've been here for like, ten minutes. Flip to that photo again!"

Calming his racing heart, Logan opened the photo album back to the page he'd been on.

"Is that... is that eyeliner?" Virgil pointed to the photo. On a closer inspection of Roman's face, Logan finally nodded.

"It seems to be so..."

"Oh my god. Look at his hair!" He tapped the next picture.

The two of them flipped through three more pages and something slowly became obvious.

"He was a scene kid!" Virgil cackled, gesturing to a photo of Roman with blue fringe and a Cookie Monster snapback. "Oh my god! Those piercings have to be fake, they're way to bulky. And the rainbow sleeve socks, dear god."

"Virgil." Logan kept a finger on the page he was on, closing the photo album over it and looking up at his roommate. "Leave him alone about this."

"Hell no!" Virgil snorted. "He makes fun of me for being emo every other day. I'm getting him back for this. He even did his makeup like a scene girl in some of those photos, I bet I can find videos of him doing it if I look."

He raced out of the room and Logan sighed, opening the photo album again. 

Virgil did have a point. Roman teased him quite often for being an 'emo disaster' when they were hanging out around the house.

Logan decided to let it be, but make sure it didn't go too far. Virgil and Roman were friends now, to an extent, but their relationship was still tumultuous and he didn't want another apartment feud on his hands.

~~~Around Six PM~~~

"What are you cooking, Poppy?" Roman asked as he set down a bag of what looked like cosmetic samples on the counter. "It smells amazing."

"It's an old recipe of my mother's." Logan stirred the pasta he was cooking. "It's basic enough to be easy to make, and it will satisfy the wide range of tastes in the house, but it's still good enough that I've never heard anyone complain about it being bland."

"I can't wait to try it." Roman went over behind him and wrapped his arms around Logan's waist, resting his head on his shoulder.

"You tried on perfumes today." Logan chuckled. "I can smell them."

Roman blew a raspberry. "I know. I couldn't get all the smells to go away."

Virgil slipped into the kitchen as the two of them stood there. Logan saw the calculating glint in his eye, but let it go. No sense in ruining the gamer's fun. He'd stop it if it got ugly.

"God Roman, next thing we know you're going to be UwU nuzzling him and sh*t."

Roman tensed up for a moment, then he let go of Logan and moved over to lean against the counter. "What?"

"Yeah, I could totally see sixteen year old you Rawr XD-ing at people." Virgil snickered and held up his phone. "I found your first YouTube video by the way."

"My first YouTube video is a mauve smokey eye?" Roman frowned, sounding confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Virgil tapped through a few photos on his phone and held one up to show a fifteen-year-old Roman, bright red patches in his hair and a band shirt that looked like it was a size too small.

"What the f*ck!" Roman grabbed for the phone. Virgil held it out of reach. "How did you even find that account? How did you know?"

"Your mom dropped off a photo album today." Virgil grinned. "You still got that Cookie Monster hat? Or the one with the pink bow over the brim?"

Roman threw a dish rag at him. "No. Do you still have your fake piercings?"

"Hell yeah!" Virgil nodded. "Dressing as myself from four years ago is the easiest and scariest Halloween costume ever. I still have a black face mask with a teddy bear mouth on it."

"That's so emo oh my god."

"No sh*t Princey." Virgil snickered, throwing the dish towel back across the room. "That's literally the point."

"Wait wait wait, okay you've seen sixteen-year-old scene me, I wanna see sixteen-year-old emo you."

Virgil paused, then pulled out his phone and pointed at Roman with it. "One condition."

Logan chuckled at the series of emotions that crossed Roman's face. There was a lot of thinking going on there, that much was clear.

"What's the condition?"

"I get to make you emo for your next video."

To both Logan's and Virgil's surprise, Roman's eyes lit up. "Deal."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah!" Roman nodded. "I've had the worst creator's block this past week and I was gonna do something super unoriginal, but I've never done anything like that on my channel! Now lemme see emo teenage Virgil."

{Smosh's Emo Makeover video played heavily into this chapter ngl

Also how many of y'all actually had an emo/scene/goth phase? I never did, and it's apparently weird that I didn't}