This is technically long enough to be a short story. (It's like 1800 words) but it's a bit of a vent-fic that I'm not sure makes much sense so it's going here instead!! (Also I feel guilty for not updating this book in forever.)

Anyway, here's the thing :)

Virgil is sitting alone in a Zoom call, waiting for his friends to show up for Patton's surprise birthday party. Virgil had prepared everything ahead of time, inviting all of their friend group, and finding a way to casually invite Patton to a call on his birthday without it seeming suspicious (hopefully).

Although, Virgil still feels a bit bad that they can't do this in person.

Only his own face stares back at him through the monitor for the moment. So, Virgil adjusts himself to be more central in the frame. He fixes his hair, and fidgets with his headphones nervously, as his anticipation bubbles and stirs inside him. He can't sit still.

Luckily, he doesn't have to wait too long, because Logan logs on. Exactly ten minutes early, as per usual. Virgil sees Logan's name before his face, it appears on the bottom left corner of Logan's loading icon as his computer catches itself up. Virgil's already greeting him when Logan's visual flickers to life, and his upper half settles into sharing Virgil's screen.

Logan looks a bit different than Virgil expects him to. Instead of his usual crisp-collared shirt and tie, Logan instead is wearing a simple NASA T-Shirt. For someone who is usually so sharply dressed, it's a little off-putting to see him casual. Logan's glasses sit crookedly from where they are tilted by the pressure of his over-the-head headphones. The rim of a half-full coffee cup is visible in the corner of Logan's monitor.

"Hey. How are you?" Virgil says, when Logan doesn't speak first. Virgil and Logan have texted a bit since their college classes moved online, but it's been a while since Virgil has really seen Logan's face. It's nice, actually.

"Hello, Virgil." Logan greets, in the simple, matter-of-fact way that he always has. "I'm rather excited for today." If Logan was in fact excited, his face didn't show it. But again, when did it ever?

A third person joins the call, but their name and picture hasn't loaded yet. So they remain a blank grey icon as Virgil speaks: "Yeah, Patton's going to love this. At least I hope so. He thinks it's just the two of us talking, so it's all gonna be a surprise." Virgil explains, as if Logan doesn't already know.

The grey screen's pixels begin to turn over. They reveal the face of their friend Roman. He's lying sideways on what must be his bed. His head is propped up on his hand as he lounges on resplendent red sheets, and he wears a lazy smile on his face.

"Hey, Remus can't get in, can you send him the code again?" Roman asks, and the distant shouts of his brother can be heard in the background.

"Oh, weird..." Virgil says, reaching for his cellphone, which sits face down on the table beside him. "Yeah, I'm on it. How are all you guys doing?" He asks, as he pulls up Remus' contact info.

Roman's smile widens just a little. "I'm good, actually! You, Lo?"

"Alright. I'm glad you organized this, Virgil. It's too bad that Patton can't turn twenty-one, you know, normally." Logan says, taking a sip from his coffee.

Roman drops his hand away from his head, so that his head falls to the mattress of his bed dramatically. "Oh my god, it sucks." He paused a moment, before flashing a grin at Virgil through the screen. At least, Virgil thinks it's meant for him. It's sort of hard to tell. "But, I think this is... this is good." Roman finishes.

Remus joins the chat. His video luckily loads much faster than Roman's had. Perhaps he's a bit closer to the wifi router than his brother. Everyone else greets him. Remus looks like he's just rolled out of bed, wearing a shirt that Virgil is pretty certain he wore to one of their online lectures two days before...

Almost directly following suit is Janus, who's sitting somewhere poorly lit. The light makes one half of his face look bright, and the other almost entirely unintelligible. He is wearing a grey denim jacket and a beanie, which is a bit odd considering the warm weather, but Virgil figures it compliments his new snake-bite lip piercings that he'd done himself in his bathroom maybe two months into self-isolation. He greets everyone with a silent small wave, that's more of a wiggle of the fingers in the general direction of his screen rather than anything substantial. But Virgil returns it nonetheless.

"Alright, that's everyone." Virgil says, as he checks his phone for the time. "Okay, Patton's gonna join in five. Can everyone change their backgrounds, like we planned?"

Everyone, one by one, changes their backgrounds to the virtual green screen ones that Zoom allows you to add. Each one is a piece of an image of text that should say "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" if they all line up, but of course, they don't.

Janus narrows his eyes as he tries to read the jumbled words. "...Birppy hathday."

Roman laughs a little. "Mine says... birha... thdayppy?"

Virgil bites his lip. "Shit. Okay, that's... fine, just change them back. Damn it, let's just... Okay, well, we've only got two minutes, so... he'll join soon and we'll all say 'surprise!'"

Roman nods. "And then we'll pop our party poppers! Everyone have theirs?"

"Yes." Logan says, holding up his into frame in a way that's more serious than should be allowed when talking about party poppers.

"This is going to be great. Seriously, Virge, don't worry, just the fact that we're doing this for him, that you're doing this for him—" Roman says, when he noticed how visibly nervous his friend is.

Remus nods enthusiastically. "He's going to be so happy. He's gonna lose it."

"I bet he's going to cry." Janus says, with a smirk.

"Yes, I agree. He'll greatly appreciate this, Virgil. This is very thoughtful of you, especially knowing how much Patton loves things like this." Logan affirms.

"Thanks guys." Virgil says, before taking a deep breath. "He should be here any minute now."

"I can't wait to see the look on his face!" Roman says.

Just then, Virgil's phone beeps. He's gotten a text from Patton. Virgil deflates a bit as he recites the message out loud to his friends, who watch on expectantly. "Something came up. He'll be another five minutes."

"Oh." Roman says. "That's okay."

They sit for a while in silence. Awkward smiles are shared, clearing throats are heard, all of them shifting around as they wait. Then the mood shifts. Insistant, they can't deny it anymore, no matter how much they want to.

"It's not going to be the same, is it?" Roman asks, eventually.

"No." Logan says, tone low.

Virgil sighs. "Fuck."

They sit in silence for another moment. Then another.

It's Remus who breaks the silence. "I wish we could hug Patton. I wish we could share the same cake. I wish we could give him real presents."

"He'd love that." Janus whispers.

"Your voices don't sound the same over Zoom, you know." Roman says, quietly, not looking at any of them in particular. In fact, he's not looking at his screen at all. It's like it hurts his eyes to do so.

Virgil tries to laugh. "Looking at you, Jay. Your mic sucks."

Silence.

"I've been practicing our secret handshake in the mirror because I'm afraid I'll forget it." Roman says.

A new face appears on screen as Patton suddenly joins the call. He's not prepared for a birthday party, just a casual chat with his friend. He's in a sweater, in bed, poorly lit. Everyone abruptly snaps out of Sad Mode, scrambling for their party poppers and plastering on smiles as they all shout:

"Surprise!"

Patton's eyes flicker around his screen, seeing all of them there. They go wide behind his glasses. "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Did you guys—?"

"Happy birthday!" Virgil says, feeling the nerves prick at his skin like sparks of electricity. "Alright guys, a one, two, three, four—"

They all burst into a haunting rendition of "Happy Birthday". Even Logan. The sound cuts in and out as the sounds overlap and lag. They try their best, they really do— Roman even tries to harmonize.

Patton is mildly horrified.

"Wow... you guys... did that. You did that! I'm... wow. This is..." Patton stutters, as he pushes a smile into the crinkling corners of his eyes.

But Virgil's face just falls. "You hate it, don't you?"

"What? No, I'm just surprised, but this is amazing, I didn't expect— well, anything today, really!" Patton says, hurriedly. "Virge, did you organize all this? Thank you so much!"

Virgil shakes his head, and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry."

Patton shakes his head, trying to fix this. "What? I'm mindblown right now, I think I might cry, seriously—"

"You don't have to pretend." Virgil says. "I tried, but we just talked about it. I know it isn't the same and nothing we can do can change the fact that you're turning twenty-one and you're supposed to be out partying like the world is ending. But instead the world is just, like, actually ending. I'm sorry we can't do anything to change it and I'm sorry. I tried."

"The world isn't ending!" Patton says, but his voice wavers. "And of course it won't be the same, but I don't need the same, I just want to hang out with my friends! You're enough, Virgil, all of you are more than enough, and if you could just— if you could just calm down and have a birthday party with me, I think that would be—"

"I'm sorry." Virgil mutters, before his image dies out, and he leaves the call.

Patton stares as the images of his other friends rearrange themselves to fill the space that Virgil should be in. He curses himself internally. Why couldn't he just pull it together this one time? It's obvious how much Virgil wanted him to like it, and Patton just had to go and break it. Just like the world feels like it's breaking under him.

"Perfect." Patton says, bitterly.

They all sit in silence for a while.

"Hey, Patton... are you okay? I'm sorry about that. We don't have to do this if you don't want to." Roman says, trying to sound reassuring.

Patton finds himself shaking his head again. "No, I meant what I said. I still want to have a birthday party with you guys, I just... don't know how now. And someone should probably go check on Virgil." He says, pushing his computer away from him a bit. 

"I'll text him." Logan says. "He'll be fine, Patton. Don't worry."

"Happy birthday, Pat." Remus mumbles. This isn't how this was supposed to go.

Roman raises his hands slowly and claps once, beginning a long, elaborate secret handshake that the others gradually join in on. They are sad and uncertain and can feel Virgil's absence intensely, but they're trying their best and it's a damn good secret handshake.

Just some wonky thoughts I strung together just now at... 1:30 am. Idk this time is so weird. And so bad. And so good. I have a lot of feelings about it, and this was just some of them. Idrk what this is haha. It's just something XD

Sorry my brain stopped working like half an hour ago lol