Archive of Our Own ^beta

The group managed to make it to the inn, shuffling into the room sopping wet and tracking mud everywhere. This seemed to annoy the receptionist at the desk, but she let them rent out three rooms for the night anyways. It was supposed to be the twins in one room, Logan and Patton in another, and Janus and Virgil in the third one. However, no one wanted to share a room with Remus, and so after various sneaking from room to room hijinks, they spent the night with Roman and Logan in one room, Janus and Patton and Virgil crammed into a tense second room, and Remus with the final room all to himself.

Everyone managed to get a good night's sleep in, and by the next morning it was finally bright and sunny outside. After calling Remus into putting on clothes, everybody prepared to leave when suddenly they were hit with an ugly realization;

"Our supplies are totally ruined," groaned Virgil as he pulled a moldy loaf of bread out of one of their sopping wet sacks.

"They must have spoiled in the harsh conditions of yesterday's weather," Logan cursed himself. "I'm a fool for not taking this into account."

"No, this is on me," Virgil told him. "I'm Thomas' anxiety, I should've seen in coming. But instead I got distracted last night."

"Aww, hey! That wasn't your fault, kiddo!" soothed Patton as he piled up the ruined food.

"Surely we can simply acquire more food from a merchant," suggested Roman as he put minimal effort into the clean up process.

"If you can find a merchant somewhere in this wretched hovel, go ahead," said Janus, putting in even less effort than Roman. "I'm sure they'll be glad to trade with you, as long as Logan over here conjures enough counterfeit for you to work with."

"Whoa whoa whoa, slow down there!" said Patton. "What Logan makes isn't counterfeit money, it's just money that he made by himself without official government permission...." Janus stared at him, waiting for him to connect the dots. "Oh my gosh, we really are dangerous criminals! Somebody put me under arrest right now before I hurt anyone again!" he shrieked as he flopped to the ground and held out his arms to be handcuffed.

"Seriously?" asked Roman. "We become actual criminals, and it's for counterfeiting? That's the most boring crime in the world! What's next, jaywalking and loitering?"

"Ahem, I already beat up those guards, so don't get all jealous of me when we all get thrown in jail," Remus reminded his brother.

"Oh spit, I forgot about Terrence," cussed Virgil. "Great, now I'm an even more terrible person."

"Ethical crisis aside, if you could acquire supplies for us from a merchant before we leave, Roman, that would be ideal," Logan told the prince as he handed him a newly conjured purse of coins.

Alas, no such luck. The desk manager told Roman that no merchant-looking people had checked in, and their next shipment of supplies wasn't due for another couple of weeks.

"Anyways, what's someone like you doing out here?" she asked, wrinkling her nose. "Shouldn't a royal like you be loaded?"

"Oh, you know, the storm yesterday ruined our stuff," he replied nervously. "Hey, what's that?" The prince pointed behind the desk manger and then scrammed outside of the hotel after dumping the room keys on her desk. She was unfazed by the entire incident and shrugged it off before continuing to blankly stare at stuff and be bored.

"Oh, hey Roman, that was fast!" said Patton, who was waiting outside the inn with the rest of the group. "Didja get the supplies that fast?"

"Yeah, the supplies," the prince rubbed the back of his neck and hoped nobody would notice how much he was sweating. "About that-"

"Fine, you didn't get them. Whatever," Virgil rolled his eyes. "It's not like you could control who stayed here last night. That'd be messing with a system of uncontrollable chaos and decisions we could never really understand or make any real impact on that we could fully predict predict or control...." He trailed off as everyone stared at him. "Whatever. It's not your fault anyways."

"You're right, it isn't his fault in any way," said Janus. "Guess we'll just have to starve 'till we reach Broadway."

"Hey! We still have some food left!" Patton piped up as he turned around to show the sack he was carrying on his back.

"Besides, we can always forage our own meals in the wilderness, like our ancestors of what!" declared Roman boldly.

"Your what?" asked Patton, grinning obliviously.

"Your butt!!" giggled Remus.

"Could you not?" Logan turned around to glare at Patton. For most of the conversation, he'd been facing away from the group, looking through his map and flipping through his notes, trying to readjust his plans to the newest developments. "These meaningless distractions are detracting us from our true goal. In fact, we should be moving on right now."

And with that, he coldly turned around and started leading the others down the muddy pathway, a certain priestly pal doing his best to hide his hurt.