Hi all! This chapter is slightly shorter than the first, but I'm trying to keep them more or less consistent in length. Another thing I forgot to mention in the first A/N: I'm trying to portray all the sides as sympathetic. If you have any advice on how to do a better job of this, please leave a review and I'll do my best. Or just review anyway. I'm lonely.

Stay safe, and enjoy chapter two!

...

Janus supposed it said a lot about their friendship that he wasn't at all surprised when Remus climbed in through his window with a maniacal toothy grin plastered across his face. Sure, he hadn't been expecting him to come back so soon; they'd spent their usual hour holed up in Janus's room, and then Remus had to go home before his parents got there and began wondering if the zanier twin was dead in a ditch somewhere, and more often than not they wouldn't talk in person until school the next day. Sometimes, though, Remus came back, and when he did, he used the window.

He closed his textbook and tossed it aside as Remus crashed to the floor, rolled onto his back, and looked up. "Hi." Remus's flat tone said it all; something was wrong.

Janus moved over and patted the spot next to him on his bed. Remus began talking at light speed before he started getting up to join him. "You know I was going home, but I like to go in through the window, because that way I can scare Roman-plus the knife rack is right there and I haven't added to my scrapbook of Roman's hilariously stupid face of terror in forever-so I was under the window and I heard him talking to that friend of his. The boring nice one?" He paused just long enough to look up at Janus.

"Patton, I believe," he filled in.

Remus shrugged. "Patton, then. And Patton said Roman should throw a party, and Roman said that Virgil doesn't like parties. And then Patton said he'd get Virgil to come, and Roman started talking about how he wanted to ask Virgil out at the party and all that stupid mushy stuff he's obsessed with-honestly, he's making this way more complicated than it needs to be-and then they went on talking through details and all that-party details, not juicy romance, because Roman's still boring. I think they said Friday, at our house, and a whole lot of theater kids, and a date with Virgil."

Janus took a moment to process the speech. He noticed Remus balling his fists on his lap and put a hand over his. Slowly, it unclenched. "Well then," he finally said. "Do you think Roman knows whose friend Virgil used to be?" It took more effort than he'd ever admit to keep his voice level and smooth. If he hadn't been doing it for so long, he wasn't sure he would've been able to pull it off.

Remus snorted. "No! He makes a point of not knowing anything about me. Including my friends. If he ever knew about Virge, he's forgotten." He yanked off his backpack and dug through it until he pulled out a stick of deodorant. "Want any?"

"I'll pass, thanks." He waited for Remus to say something else, but for once, his friend was quiet. "Do you want to do something about it?"

A long moment passed in uncharacteristic silence. Janus found himself scratching at his wrists, a habit he'd somehow developed and never understood.

Just as Remus opened his mouth to respond, someone began banging on the door. "Janus, I know you're in there!"

They exchanged an eyeroll. "Megan, what do you want?"

"You stole my deodorant again, and I want it back!" She pounded the door again, as if punctuating her accusation.

Remus stifled a giggle by nibbling at said deodorant. Janus cleared his throat, hoping he sounded convincing when he spoke. "I have no idea what you're talking about-"

"I saw you, Janus. Tell your creepy friend he can get his own, or steal someone else's."

Janus clamped a hand over Remus's mouth before he could shout back that Megan's tasted better than Lily's; not that he was wrong, but it wouldn't exactly help his case. "Tell Mom you need a better lock on your door."

Through the door, he could hear his flustered little sister stumble through a half-baked comeback before she weakly shouted, "You're an idiot," and stormed off.

Janus looked back at Remus, who was staring at him. "You're an idiot," he mimicked.

Janus bit back a snicker. "So? Do you want to thwart your brother's love life, or should we let him fail on his own?" He didn't want to say it aloud, but he figured Virgil wouldn't be too keen on a relationship when he inevitably met his date's family. And Virgil has a habit of leaving people anyway. Not that he took it personally. Of course not.

A slow grin spread across Remus's face. "We're obligated to do something, aren't we? After all, we both have reputations to uphold."

Janus nodded. He liked where this was going. "And we can hardly disappoint anyone by not living up to their standards of chaos and interference."

"Then it's decided: we're going to ruin my brother's love life." Remus held his hand out, and Janus shook it. "Alright, what's the plan?"

He thought for a moment, biting his lip. "You said Roman was inviting the theater kids?"

"And Patton and Virgil." He twisted the bottom of the deodorant stick and took another bite.

"Then tomorrow at lunch we'll divide and conquer," Janus decided. "I'll sit with the drama club and hopefully get an invitation-and any details they added after you left. We'll both keep an eye on Virgil whenever we can, so we'll know for sure whether or not Patton can get him to come. And then at the party we meet up and…" And he definitely didn't start that sentence without knowing how he planned to finish it.

"WREAK HAVOC!" Remus leaped onto the bed and hit his head on the ceiling.

"Wreak havoc," Janus agreed, "and embarrassment, I hope."

"Obviously, embarrassing havoc." Remus jumped down to the floor. "I'll start brainstorming prank ideas, you get that invitation!" He downed the last of the deodorant, threw the empty stick into his backpack, and began climbing out of the window again. "See you tomorrow, Dee!" Janus didn't have a chance to respond before Remus dropped out of sight.

When he was gone, Janus retrieved his textbook and flipped back to the page he'd left off on, but he couldn't focus. He'd seen Virgil in the hallways a few times, but they hadn't spoken in years. Whatever. It wasn't like he missed Virgil. He wasn't even angry. He didn't care if Virgil hated him, or if he wasn't a good enough friend, or if Remus might agree with him someday. He didn't care.

He didn't care.

But maybe this party would be the perfect opportunity to mess with the missing third of their trio.

Or maybe get him back.

…

Virgil locked the door to his room even though he knew his mom would give him a hard time for it later. Then again, he might as well add to the list of people who hated him.

He still couldn't believe he'd actually spoken to Roman. It never would've happened it Roman hadn't left his car unlocked, but he had, and Virgil knew it would've bothered him all day if he hadn't mentioned it; and then there was the small fact that he'd been looking for an excuse to talk to Roman all year. He hadn't thought he would hear him, but he did, and suddenly Virgil had found himself with the undivided attention of the most talented, popular, handsome actor in the school.

So he said Roman hadn't locked his car. Only a creep who was watching his every move would've noticed something like that. But Roman locked it, and for a moment he thought he'd done something right.

And then Roman mentioned the three locks on his bike. Was he joking? Was he making fun of him? He was making fun of him. He hated him.

And like the socially awkward idiot he was, Virgil had just stammered over the lamest excuse in all of history and put his earbuds in to pretend he could drown out his self-deprecating thoughts. That was rude, he knew it was. He was an unapproachable, paranoid stalker, or at least, that was what Roman must think of him. He'd tried to take a chance and step out of his shell, and he'd blown it, and now one of the few people whose opinion he valued-for whatever reason-hated him. So he hated himself; in fact, he'd been so busy hating himself all day that he hadn't been able to concentrate in any of his classes. It was just his luck that he had three tests that day. He hadn't even been able to talk to Patton about it because English was one of them-but maybe that was better because if he kept on turning to Patton with his problems when Patton never had any problems that Virgil could help with Patton would start hating him too.

Then at the end of the day, he'd seen Roman sitting in his car right by his bike, and like the coward he was, he ran and hid in the library for an hour so he wouldn't have to face him. Was Roman waiting to tell him off for not minding his own business? He was probably right, but Virgil didn't think he could take it right then. He was planning on listening to an audiobook to distract himself-he knew from experience that reading a book while listening to music was just a good way to confuse himself-but the only audiobook in stock was The Hunger Games, and that always reminded him of his old friend Remus, who looked so much like Roman that it made Virgil more than a bit uncomfortable, and then he was thinking of Roman again. For the whole hour. While listening to a nasally voice he'd named Larry describe teenagers killing each other in vivid, gruesome detail.

Apparently it was too much to ask for one thing to go right in his life.

He knew he should do his homework, but he just wasn't in the mood.

He should go for a run to clear his head, but once he'd sat at his desk, he couldn't bring himself to get up again.

He could call someone or write online, but for once he wanted to prove he could work things out on his own. Even if he had no idea where to begin.

He probably shouldn't care what Roman thought of him, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. Of course his crush had to be unapproachably, well, better than him in every way. But Virgil was pretty sure that was just how crushes worked, especially since he could barely approach anyone in the first place.

Roman would probably forget all about it. Virgil wasn't the sort of person who people really noticed and remembered.

So why had Roman known his name?