Hello, I'm back! Sorry if it took a while. I honestly forgot when I last updated... heh. But hey, we're at the party now! And now it will become painfully clear that you're reading a story about high school parties and romance written by someone who knows little about high school (having attended mostly online) and nothing about parties and romance. Yay?

I don't think there are any warnings, particularly, but Virgil and Patton will be spending the duration of the story in a dress and a skirt respectively. (I was going to have the Sides attend dressed as their characters, but I couldn't resist a little cosplay...)

Thank you to those of you who have reviewed, it's really made my day! I hope this chapter meets expectations. :)

Stay safe, have a wonderful day, and enjoy chapter six!

...

Virgil never thought he'd see the day when he did homework to vent his stress, but he never thought he'd go to a high school party either. Or a middle school party. Or literally any party ever that wasn't either a concert or him alone in his basement-but those weren't parties. Those were concerts or him alone in his basement. He could barely remember the last party he'd been to.

He never thought he'd have a friend like Patton.

But he did. Somehow he did, and this was the least he could do for him. And if he knew Patton, there would be plenty of delicious cookies, so he knew he'd have something of quality to take a bite of to buy himself time if anyone dared to approach him and introduce themself.

The doorbell rang.

No. This can't be happening, I'm not ready!

His mother's footsteps made their way to the door.

I'll say I'm sick! I'll lock the door and climb out the window! I'll chase them into the kitchen, knock them out with a cast iron pan, and hold them hostage until no one ever tries to make me leave my room ever again!

The door creaked open.

NOOOOOOOOO!

"Patton, it's wonderful to see you!"

Patton.

Patton!

Virgil unlocked his door and cracked it open. There was Patton, in all his warm, fuzzy, cookie-scented glory.

Change of plans.

Virgil spied as his mom ushered Patton inside, rambling on about how good it would be for him to get out and meet new people, and how nice it was that he was coming out of his shell, even just a little. This got boring after about zero seconds, so Virgil took a deep breath and stuck his head through the doorway. "Hey, Pat."

Patton turned around and his face lit up. "Virge!"

His mom looked between them and smiled. "I'll leave you boys alone. Let me know when you leave. Thanks again for driving him, Patton."

"No problem!"

And she was gone. Virgil opened the door and let Patton into his room. The walls were covered in posters of bands and musicals, with the occasional sliver of violet wall peeking through. He'd made the black and purple quilt on his bed himself, and he and Patton sat on it side-by-side, Patton taking care to stay away from the spider-adorned curtains.

Patton wrapped an arm around Virgil's shoulders. He found himself leaning into the half-hug. "You're sure you're up for this?"

Nope.

But he was going with his friend. He could do this for Patton.

"Yep." Then he blinked, looking around as if he'd forgotten when he'd sat down. "Shouldn't we be going? It starts in twenty minutes, right?"

Patton shrugged. "People are going to be trickling in. It's not a hard start time, we'll be fine. Oh!"

Virgil cringed at the abrupt exclamation, hating how it was enough to make his heart flip over. "Oh what? Was it cancelled?" Let it be cancelled.

"No, no, I just almost forgot: we can wear costumes."

Virgil blinked again. "It's a costume party."

Patton's smile was frozen on his face as he nodded. "Pretty much. It's with some kids from the drama club."

Drama club meant Roman, but Virgil didn't care about that at the moment. "We're going to a costume party."

"I-Is that okay?"

"It's. PERFECT!" Virgil dove across his room and nearly ripped his closet door off the wall.

Five minutes ago he would've been dragging his feet the whole way at best.

Now he wasn't sure he could be convinced to not go.

He felt Patton's hand on his shoulder and looked up, not even distracted enough for his hands to stop searching. The first thing he registered was pure shock on Patton's face. He suddenly realized he was beaming; Patton had barely seen him smile before. After a moment, his friend smiled back at him. "I'm guessing you have an idea."

Virgil's face was starting to hurt with how hard he was grinning. He nodded. The moment Patton's words had registered in his head, he'd known, even despite the millions of possibilities racing through his mind.

At that moment, he found what he was looking for and yanked it out, holding it to himself to try to show Patton what he'd look like wearing it. "'This is my costume,'" he quoted, his smile going dead. "'I'm a homicidal maniac, they look just like everyone else.'"

Patton glanced between the black dress with the white collar and Virgil's stormy expression.

Virgil let the dress drop. "Wednesday Addams."

His face cleared. "Oh! Oh, it's perfect!"

Virgil's grin returned. He'd been waiting for an opportunity like this for as long as he could remember. From what he'd heard, theater kids were one of the least likely groups to judge a boy for wearing a dress, he could be as gloomy and even downright insulting as he wanted and people would just think he was being in character instead of hating him, he could even wear his makeup. It was perfect. He began disentangling the dress from the hanger. "Who are you going as?"

Patton shrugged, his smile turning sheepish. "I really hadn't thought of that. I mean, I don't think costumes are required or anything…"

Virgil fixed him with the most lethal stare he could muster.

"But I should probably throw something together," Patton added quickly. Virgil got the feeling he was mostly doing it to make him feel better about socializing, but it was working so well he didn't care. "Do you have any ideas?"

Virgil bit his lip, looking his friend up and down. "Do you like yellow?"

…

Logan put the finishing touches on the official schedule he'd worked out. It took into account both the ideal schedule and Roman's tendency towards procrastination and distraction, since the latter issue would make the ideal schedule useless. He'd keep the official schedule to himself, so he'd have an idea of what would actually be happening at what time. He tucked it away in his backpack and got out one of Roman's colored pencil sets; he'd long ago learned that doodling in the margins was the only way to get Roman to look at any sort of plan he drew up.

He'd already finished his homework, as well as researching the iron maiden in case he got the chance to review Remus's model, which meant it was time to find Roman and force him to get anything school-related done. He headed towards the stairs, but stopped before descending.

There were voices in the living room. Lots of voices. Ones he didn't recognize.

Roman, you idiot, what have you done now?

Logan inched down the stairs, avoiding the spots he knew would creak, and peered around the corner into the living room.

The curtains were closed and the overhead lights were off, the entire room lit only with lights strung up around the room resembling those that would go around a Christmas tree and the television, which was switching between recordings of RENT, Hamilton, and Wicked on account of a cluster of at least half a dozen teens in widely varying costumes playing tug-of-war with the remote. The unmistakable scent of Patton's cookies drifted from the kitchen and permeated the air, but there were clearly multiple kinds, only not just the ones that were Patton's, Roman's, and Logan's favorites (snickerdoodle, M&M, and thumbprint respectively; Logan had everything he knew about them in a chart he consulted in his free time to try to make sense of his eccentric study companions). The doorbell rang, barely audible over the clamouring of the group. From the back of the cluster, Roman emerged, the lights reflecting off of his plastic crown and throwing rainbows back at the wall, and tripped to the door, laughing the whole way.

Roman threw the door open to reveal two people. Logan recognized Patton almost instantly. He was dressed in an almost surprisingly good cosplay of Heather McNamara. Vibrant yellow bows were clipped into his curly hair. His black skirt stopped just above the yellow knee socks. The signature yellow jacket was partially covered by Patton's cardigan. Logan hoped no one had told Patton that Heathers was about murder.

As he stepped forward to embrace Roman, Logan was provided with a better view of his partner. Patton and Roman were almost done hugging by the time Logan realized it was Virgil, Roman's longtime crush and an old acquaintance of Logan's from lunchtime book club (though Logan suspected he only showed up to avoid the crowded cafeteria), in a Wednesday Addams dress and gloomier makeup than usual, if it was possible. His arms were crossed, his posture deplorable as usual.

Patton and Roman broke away, and Roman turned to greet Virgil. They shuffled around each other for a moment before shaking hands. Virgil still stood in the doorway, but his glower had turned to more of a deer-in-headlights expression.

Logan loved watching Roman get flustered, but Patton had started looking around and suddenly Logan didn't want to be seen there. He ducked into the kitchen on the left before Patton's eyes found him. He had to dodge Janus as he got inside; his classmate was leaving, so all he could see of whatever his costume was was a black cape and his usual bowler hat. He didn't try to initiate conversation with him again. As he'd suspected, the counter was laden with cookie sheets. He snagged a thumbprint cookie, hoping Crofter's would help him process this turn of events.

There was no study group. Roman had tricked him into attending a theater club party, and Patton had somehow convinced Virgil to show up as well. Did it have something to do with Roman's crush? Then why would Logan be here? Roman and Patton both knew he didn't care for theatrics, unless they were more clueless than he'd thought.

In any case, he'd made his distaste for useless social gatherings and frivolous art quite clear, and if he'd been ignored, he'd rather leave than find out why. This was a waste of his time.

"Watcha doin', Lo-lo?"

The abrupt voice made Logan jump, turning towards the refrigerator. In front of it stood none other than Remus Prince in a black duke costume with a green sash. In one hand he held a morning star over his shoulder; in the other was a stick of deodorant. As Logan watched, momentarily dumbstruck, he lifted the deodorant to his mouth and took an enormous bite, chewing noisily with his mouth open.

"If you eat too much of that, it'll harm your bodily functions," Logan said without thinking.

Remus snorted. "You wanna talk about my eating habits, Cookie Monster?" He nodded at Logan, who looked back at the cookie sheet and realized he'd eaten five thumbprint cookies already while he was lost in thought. What's wrong with me?

Something about the look on his face must've been amusing, because Remus was cackling. He licked the deodorant and calmed down enough to say, "Are you tech?"

"Tech?"

"Stage crew." Remus waved his morningstar to gesture to the cluster of theater kids in the other room, who had finally settled on Wicked. "Set ninjas. Logistic managers."

"I'm not in theater club."

Remus shrugged, licking the deodorant again. "Too bad, you'd be great at it. Keeping track of things, I mean. We're not exactly organized."

Logan chose not to respond to that. He didn't know why he'd rather not be in drama, other than the fact that it made very little sense to him. Instead he said, "Why did you think I was in stage crew?"

"They wear all black to blend in. That tie would be flashy by their standards."

Logan adjusted the blue tie in question. Flashy? There was nothing flashy about him. There couldn't be. Being flashy didn't make sense or do anyone any good.

He'd been there too long.

As he turned to leave, Remus yelled, "Do you want to use scary chemicals to blow things up with me?"

Logan froze in his tracks, remembering the other reason he'd come.

Remus was suddenly right behind him, spinning him around and shaking him by the shoulders. "Please please please please please? Or we could watch gruesome musicals or make fake blood or-"

Remus cut himself off. He let go of Logan and took a step back, suddenly still.

Fascinating.

"We probably shouldn't blow things up here, there are too many people so we'd get in trouble. But I wouldn't mind the rest."

Remus's bouncing resumed. "Great! My room's the one with the green door, I'll meet you up there in just a minute."

Logan nodded and left. He caught a glimpse of Patton, but hurried up the stairs before he was seen and a conversation began. Don't react. He tried to keep a straight face. But it was harder than usual. He wasn't sure what was going on. He only knew he would get to hang out with Remus.

He waited outside the green door, not wanting to intrude.

When he heard Remus coming up the stairs, he realized he was fighting back a genuine smile.

…

The moment Logan was gone, Remus took his phone out and texted Janus. Going upstairs, watch is on you now.

Janus responded instantly. Got it. V and P just arrived.

Remus grinned.

Before he followed Logan up, he took his sash off and scooped a whole tray of thumbprint cookies into it.

This was going to be great.