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fanders-fic-awards · 6 years

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A Thousand Dragons (Summer Fic Comp 18)

Summary: Roman and Virgil are camp counselors at Sanders’ Summer Soulmate Camp for soulmates who don’t get along when Roman makes it his mission to rescue Virgil in some kind of heroic act before the day is up. However, his efforts succeeding may not be worth their consequences.

TW: Cussing/swearing, fighting (verbally and a smidge physically), slight angst but mainly fluff

WC: 3875

Ballot

Virgil snorts awake, eyelashes fluttering open as his eyes slowly take in the peaceful atmosphere around him, burning only slightly with sleep. The room is in a soft state taking place just after the sunrise that has golden light pouring through the window, bringing a glow to the cluttered objects surrounding the visible floors and space that is as homey as it is comforting. Virgil sighs and snuggles into his pillow a bit more, mind fuzzy still with sleep but content because right now this moment is full of quiet, ease, and-

An arm is flung across Virgil’s face who doesn’t even yelp with surprise, just frowns deeply at the reminder it serves. And Roman. Roman and his many long limbs being flailed across Virgil including his legs that are tangled with his and his other arm that is snaked around his waist.

For some reason when Roman and Virgil became camp counselors at Sanders’ Soulmate Summer Camp they were immediately thrown into a small cabin together and told they had to share. Virgil supposed it was because of the lack of room the camp had considering the limited options to hold employees in and it did make somewhat sense to pair them together since they were actual soulmates…

But still.

Virgil is allowed to be bitter about whatever he wants and since this particular instance deprives him of having a summer full of silent mornings where he can wake up blissful and alone, then it more than qualifies for a victim of his hatred.

With a light groan, Virgil shifts Roman off of him, earning a growl from the latter as he begrudgingly awakens. Virgil scoffs as he stands, listening to the sounds of Roman yawning and wiping his eyes clear of sleep while he walks over to the coat-hanger by the door of the tiny room and grabs one of the caps there, the one with the purple trim.

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” Virgil says as he slips on the hat, making Roman groan. “Work starts at 8 o’clock on the dot and it’s already half past seven.”

“Babe,” Roman whines, only to get his own cap with red trim thrown at his face.

“Don’t ‘babe’ me, Princey.” Virgil gets to work on getting out of his sleepwear and into his counselor uniform with purple decals. “As of now we’re professional partners and it stays that way until eight tonight.” Roman cries again at that, despite this being the routine they’ve had for a whole month now.

“But our jobs are literally to bring soulmates together,” Roman argues for about the millionth time that summer. “Would it be so bad to be all lovey dove-y around each other so the kids get an idea of what it’s like to be in love?”

Virgil shakes his head as he ties his shoelaces. “Roman, how many times do I have to remind you that not all the kids are romantic soulmates and that any displays of affection done by you are definitely not PG or child appropriate?” Roman blows a raspberry at that, still too tired to think of a witty response to his boyfriend and climbs out of their shared bed to get ready.

Indeed, Sanders’ Soulmate Summer Camp, like so many other soulmate camps, is made to bring two (or more) rivaling soulmates together or simply create a fun experience to soulmates who already enjoyed one another’s company, be it platonically or romantically. This isn’t exactly Roman and Virgil’s first year at the camp, but it is their first year working there as counselors. Thankfully, the owner of the camp, the lovable ray of sunshine known as Thomas Sanders, is still in charge so the camp is still as eccentric and fun as ever. Though Virgil would never admit it.

Eventually Roman fully wakes up and gets into his own uniform that matched his cap with all its red decals whilst continuing to complain about his job as Virgil shrugged on his hoodie on top of his uniform.

“I don’t know how you can stand to wear that thing in July, Charlie Frown,” Roman huffs as he slips on his knee-high socks. “It’s Florida. It’s boiling out there and that thing is thick and black.”

“And I don’t understand how you take so long to get ready,” Virgil grumbles under his humming of a My Chemical Romance song. “Seriously, how much product does a guy need in his hair for his stupid counseling job?”

“Some of us have standards, my Emo Nightmare,” Roman says before pecking Virgil’s cheek, who scowls in response. “What? Someone has to keep this relationship exciting.” Virgil doesn’t know what to make of the wink Roman tossed his way afterwards, but he simply mutters some curse under his breath and swung open the door that lead to the outdoors. It was going to be a long day.

Roman squeezes the syrup bottle in between his hands until it’s whining and letting loose of all the gooey goodness it has left inside it.

“Careful, Ro,” Virgil says, wolfing down his own pancakes, “you’re gonna murder the thing.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll teach it a lesson,” Roman grunts, finally releasing the bottle of its torture and placing it back on the wooden tabletop. “Besides, I kill only for you, J.D-elightful.” Virgil snickers despite himself as Roman hums “Seventeen” under his breath until a scream bursts out from somewhere across the Mess Hall.

Both counselors look up to see a kid throwing their pancakes at the one sitting next to them, no doubt their soulmate. Virgil snickers as their fellow counselors, Logan and Patton, run to separate the two and try and clean the poor crying kid with pancake smeared all around their face. In full honesty, Logan and Patton didn’t need to come to a summer camp together. They got along just fine, at least on Patton’s behalf, with Logan being the only one a bit resentful of their relationship but he got over it soon enough. They were perfect for each other. Yuck.

Roman, taking full advantage of the situation, screams out, “FOOD FIGHT!” Virgil jumps a little at his boyfriend’s exclamation, turning his head to see Roman already shoveling pancakes into his hands and throwing it across the room right into Logan’s face. Virgil has to admit it, he has pretty good aim if the cheering kids’ approval was any indication, but Logan doesn’t seem to appreciate this fact.

“Roman, that was highly uncalled for-“ Logan says through gritted teeth, trying desperately to wipe off the syrup from his face with his hands but to no avail until another pancake hits him, this time from his own boyfriend. Everyone either gasps or laughs louder as Patton makes an apologetic face and licks some syrup off of his hand.

“Sorry, Lo, I couldn’t help it,” Patton giggles making his soulmate scoff.

“Very well. I just hope you have realized your decision will lead to some undesirable consequences.”

“Like wha-“

A pancake flies to Patton’s face and Logan smirks at the image of his boyfriend peeling it off of himself.

“Oh it is on.”

The whole room practically erupts with action. Campers are throwing pancakes at each other, rounds of laughter were being traded harmoniously, and soon the place is very obviously divided into two halves. On one side is Patton and Logan, throwing (or as Virgil liked to say, “yeeting”) their breakfasts to the other that held Roman and poor Virgil who is trying to hide and avoid getting hit during the gigantic mess.

Eventually, Roman looks down at him with a charming smile and says something, but Virgil’s stupid ears can’t hear him over the stupid angel singing he was hearing while looking at Roman’s stupidly handsome face. And yelling. Yeah, that too.

“What?” Virgil cries over the madness.

“Can you help me?” Roman repeats while flinging a pancake to a small kid’s face—Joan, Virgil believes their name is.

“Yeah, okay.” Virgil rises up from his hunched over position, grabbing a flimsy pancake and aiming for Joan’s soulmate, Talyn, but missing by… a lot. It’s too embarrassing to even try to estimate the distance he was off by, but Roman just sends him a sympathetic smile.

“It’s okay, Virge,” he says in a sing-song voice. “I suppose I’ll just have to protect you like a real Prince Charming. You just hide behind me, my little damsel-forever-in-distress.”

Virgil’s face wrinkles up at that and he shakes his head, more motivated now as he angrily grabs a pancake and properly flings it at Talyn’s face in an act of what could best be described as pure impulse. He wipes his hands clean of syrup and smirks at his boyfriend.

“I need no one’s help,” he says simply. Roman just gapes at him and—his stillness making him an easy target—gets hit right on his beautiful cheek. He shrieks out in horror making Virgil laugh. Roman scoffs and shakes himself off of the pancake and watches Virgil with a semi-angry glare.

How could he just reject his offer to protect him? Roman is upset now, but no longer at the kids throwing their breakfasts at his face. He mentally makes it his mission in that moment to save Virgil to get him back to the point where he was swooning in his arms before the day ended. Yeah. That was a good plan. The swooning may be uncharacteristic of his soulmate, admittedly, but Roman’s imagination is a hopeful one…

Even when he is hit by another pancake, setting Virgil into a new fit of laughter.

The food fight came and went and Roman still didn’t have any luck. His idea to rescue Virgil at one point or another was slowly growing more and more attached to him as the minutes went by from breakfast and cleaning himself up a bit and soon he was convinced completing his mission was at the top of his priorities list. But with the food fight done and over with, what danger could Virgil possibly get himself into now?

Roman realized his question was answered fairly fast when they arrived near the camp lake, Lake Dreamscape (Roman named it himself), and found Thomas with a bunch of canoes.

“Alright, everybody!” he cried excitedly as the campers all gathered around him. “Grab your soulmate and hop into one of these bad boys! We’re all going for a little boating adventure!”

“Does that include counselors?” Logan asked from where he was standing beside Patton.

“Absolutely!” Thomas said with a bright smile, already hopping into his own canoe. Thomas—despite founding a literal summer camp for soulmates—had yet to find his own soulmate, but the man was so full of love and joy he fact was easily overlooked by most. Virgil grumbled something incoherent beside Roman, who saw his opportunity and perked up.

“Hey, now! It’ll be okay! I’ll be right there with you the entire time and I’ll be there to save you should any foul lake beast come to steal you away from me,” Roman assured Virgil, who rolled his eyes at his antics and grabbed an oar.

“Yeah, sure,” he said sarcastically, “sounds like fun.”

Roman just frowned and soon both were in the water with their canoe, paddling slowly from somewhere in the middle of the group. Virgil’s eyes were everywhere, anxiously watching the kids around them to make sure none of them had fallen into the deep water yet when Roman suddenly grabbed his hand.

“Virge, you’re getting yourself worked up again. We’re fine,” Roman soothed him. “You know what? Music always makes everything better. What song do you want me to sing? ‘Maybe’ from Annie? ‘So This Is Love’ form Cinderella?” Roman’s eyebrows wiggles a bit at that suggestion and Virgil pushed his shoulder playfully.

“Please don’t sing. I don’t need you making this worse right now.”

Roman gasped, offended, but was quickly composed again as he began to sing along to “It’s Over, Isn’t It?” from Steven Universe. It was one of Virgil’s favorites because of the angst but he also had a soft spot for Pearl’s graceful dancing, secretly. It was one of his favorite scenes from the show.

Roman smiled as he watched Virgil slowly calm down, but stopped when he heard the noise of heavy splashing. Just as he turned in the direction of the sound a large splash of fresh lake water was smacked into his face, reminding him of the pancakes from that morning.

He screamed, using his hands to rid his eyes of water before looking up at Joan’s laughing face. “That’s for the pancake his morning, Roman!” they yelled.

“That’s Mr. Prince to you! And you already got me back for that! Twice!”

Joan just blew a raspberry to his face and continued rowing and Virgil took the chance to lean close to his boyfriend and wipe off the wetness with his sleeve.

“My hair… my beautiful hair…” Roman whined, leaning into Virgil’s touch absentmindedly.

Virgil snorted and shushed him. “I know, Ro. I know. I told you not to spend so much time on it.”

“Not even the pancakes hit it, but now-!”

“Roman,” Virgil said sternly, cradling his face carefully in his hands. “God, I love you, you self-obsessed jerk. You’re okay. You’re fine. I’m going to take care of you.” And with that, Virgil took away the last of the water around Roman’s sticky face. And he took away a bit of his ego, it seemed, when he realized that Virgil had yet again not allowed Roman to save him—and now it seemed it was the their way around.

Roman growled a bit internally. This would do. This would not do at all.

Virgil stuffed his hands in his pockets, stomping around the campgrounds in a way that showed his obvious anger. It was their break time, and instead of getting some time alone in peace like he had planned to have, Roman had just texted him he needed him. With Roman, Virgil could never be too sure if there was a real emergency present, but being the worried—and angered—boyfriend he was, he made his way to where Roman told him he was.

Before he was even near where Roman told him to go, however, he saw the tall object standing over a few of the campers’ cabins, eyes widening before narrowing. “Roman, goddamnit, what did you do now?” Virgil said to himself, rushing a bit faster to where the giant inflatable dragon was standing.

He finally got to its base, looking down at its air-filled purple feet with a frown. Roman wasn’t here and neither were any campers. Come to think of it, he couldn’t hear any sounds at all, which was highly unlike his soulmate and the kids.

“Roman!” Virgil called out, already fed up. “Logan! Patton? Guys, come on! What did you need?! And what’s with the ginormous dragon-?”

Virgil’s yelling stopped, though, when he realized the dragon was tipping over, and his direction. He couldn’t help it, he screamed. Frozen with fear, he didn’t move, not even when he heard a sudden rush of laughing and screaming coming from the campers all hidden around him.

Virgil just stared up at shock at the thing as it neared closer and closer to him, barely able to make out the campers climbing its neck and pushing it down on him. What the fuck? Were they trying to kill him? For what?! Was this punishment for something? Virgil knew he’d done plenty of bad things in his life but was this really necessary, God?

Just as it seemed the inflatable beast was about to squash him flat, Roman came out of nowhere and stood in front of him. Virgil blinked at his boyfriend as he held up a sword made of wood with a small point, smiling heroically.

“I shall save you, my love! Down with the dragon!” he cried, and with that jabbed the sword into the dragon’s approaching chest. Air started sleeping out immediately and Roman threw his sword to the ground and grabbed Virgil, carrying him princess style out of the way. They both watched as the dragon fell to the ground, already nearly flat as the kids that were on top of it laughed and jumped off of it.

Virgil was still breathing hard as Roman let him down, and he turned to him with confused and terrified eyes. “Do… do I want to know what just happened?” he croaked out and Roman simply pecked his lips in response. “Hey!” Virgil slapped him away.

“I saved you, obviously, my love!” Roman announced happily, so full of pride he was practically glowing, chin tilted to the sun and basking in its heat. Instead of praising him and thanking him whilst showering him with hugs and kisses like he expected, however, Virgil just slapped him again.

“Wha-“ Roman started, looking at his soulmate with a dumbfound face and Virgil almost wanted to laugh.

“That’s for almost killing me with a stupid inflatable!” Virgil howled, pure anger boiling in his veins, then he stepped on Roman’s foot. “And that’s for assuming I’m a petty princess that always needs saving!”

Virgil stomped over to Roman’s sword and picked it up, then threw it at the boy’s feet. “Because I’m not, Ro. And I thought you understood that.” His voice wavered as if he was crying, and maybe he was but he ran away too soon for Roman to see.

What had he done?

Virgil sat near the campfire, watching the sparks and embers carefully through his steady breaths. It was past nine so the campers were already in their beds, so they wouldn’t be able to see the tears dropping down his face. In reality the things that happened that day didn’t really unsettle him. He was just sensitive over the fact that Roman still thought he was helpless to him. It was stupid, but he hated feeling useless.

Back when Virgil and Roman had first discovered they were soulmates they didn’t get along at all. Roman was a stuck-up rich kid and Virgil was a goth twelve year old introvert who was waiting for a soulmate that was just like him so they could understand him. Both of the were, really. But they got each other.

That summer Roman and Virgil became close friends thanks to Thomas Sanders’ many bonding activities, and not long after that they began dating. In the midst of all this it became very clear to Virgil that Roman was deeply in love with him while he himself was still getting used to the relationship, but he didn’t necessarily mind.

When they were thirteen Virgil made Roman promise him something, though. He knew Roman was aching to give him affection every second of every day and he knew of his obsession of acting like a Disney prince, but sometimes—okay, most of the time—Virgil didn’t want to be pampered or worshipped like he couldn’t handle himself. He had a reputation and he didn’t want to always give into Roman too easily.

So Roman promised to never treat him like was useless. Like he wasn’t strong. Like he was worthless. But now, five years later, he did anyways.

Virgil sniffled a bit more until he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching and soon someone was sitting on the log beside him. Virgil slowly turned to see Roman’s crestfallen face, chestnut eyes trained on the swirling flames of the fire before him, mouth set in a deep frown. He must have remembered.

Virgil looked up at the midnight blue sky as Roman took a deep breath, ready to apologize but Virgil shushed him. “Don’t,” he said.

“Virgil?” Roman whispered.

“Just don’t. You don’t need to apologize. What’s done is done, Princey,” Virgil elaborated, but Roman still wasn’t satisfied.

“Virgil, stop it,” he ordered, shifting his whole body to face his soulmate. “I- I know what I’ve done is horrible. I know you’re gonna probably never forgive me for all of this. But- I’m sorry. I really, really am. I’m sorry I broke the promise. I’m sorry for forgetting the promise in the first place. I’m sorry for using your credit card to get a giant inflatable dragon delivered here in the middle of nowhere.”

“You what-“

“But what I’m most sorry for is for making you feel like you’re nothing.” Virgil looked at him, and Roman’s heart broke at the wounded look he gave him. “Virgil, I love you more than anything. You know that. What I did today was a bit unnecessary-“

“A bit?”

“-but think about it! What if something really did happen to you and you were too scared to do anything? I want to be there for you, Virge. Do you know why?”

“…Why?”

“Because of this,” Roman said and without further warning, shoved Virgil’s hoodie sleeve up to his elbow and unmasked the words marked there since the day he was born. “You know what those words say? They say, ‘What do you want?’”

“I know how to read, Roman.”

“Don’t give me that look. I know you fretted about those words for most of your life and thought about what they could possibly mean. I know I’m the reason you have anxiety and depression and you were stuck in a shell for all of your childhood. And then I said those exact words when you accidentally bumped into me in the hall. And I’m sorry.” Roman’s voice broke as he let out a small sob.

“I’m sorry because I love you so much and I’ve hurt you so much and I don’t deserve you in the slightest,” Roman continued. “Don’t you think I know that? Do you know how much it hurts everyday to see those words on your arm, to know they’re there for forever because of me? All I want to do is make it up to you, Virgil. To save you again and again so you will no longer doubt how much I care for you.”

“Ro-“

Roman shook his head and looked down at his own arm. “What do these words on my arm say?”

“‘Someone to understand me,’” Virgil said without even looking.

“You wanted someone to understand you all those years ago. Well, this is me finally saying I understand you now,” Roman said, taking his hands in his and squeezing them firmly. “I swear on my life that I will never again put you in danger or hurt you purposefully, Virgil Storm. You are my soulmate, you are my love, but more than that you’re my friend. Up to now I have always believed the best thing I could do for you was slay a thousand dragons for you, but now I realize… I realize we should instead focus on slaying a thousand dragons together.”

“Metaphorical dragons?” Virgil asked quietly.

“Why not?” Roman answered with a soft smile.

Virgil chuckled and shook his head. “You’re so lucky I love you.” Virgil then opened up his arms, grinning stupidly at the love of his life.

“Believe me, I know,” Roman said before settling into Virgil’s warm embrace.

@rosesandstuff

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