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inactiive-shit · 4 years

Text

Monsters

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Prompt: monsters

Warnings: Deceit, Remus, vomit

Pairing: Romantic Dukeceit -> Anxceitmus

Words: 1,892

@sanderssidescelebrations sorry I just couldn’t think of a good title for this one. In other news, I may eventually write more off this prompt as a kind of backstory because I have a lot of ideas now. ANYWHO, here ya go!

“Are you okay, Virgil?” said Patton’s gentle voice. Virgil jumped, then groaned, then took a giant swig of his mostly espresso coffee. He gave Patton’s general direction a despondent thumbs up and carefully put his head back on the table. Patton rubbed his back soothingly, and Virgil could imagine the cooing noises he would make.

“Is he hung over?” came Roman’s deep rumble of a voice. He threw himself down at the table with them, and Virgil could feel all the way down his spine as Roman’s chair and Remus’s were pulled back from the table with a screech. He groaned again and put his arms over his head as though that would block out the noise anymore than his boxy, noise-canceling headphones already were.

“He’s not feeling well?” Patton suggested. “I’m not really sure. He’s only communicating with grunts and groans.” Patton continued rubbing Virgil’s back. Virgil wished he was hung over like Princey thought. At least then there would be an end to this eternal torment. As it was, Virgil kind of wanted to gouge out his eyes and his eardrums. That could solve the problem of the massive migraine that was currently trying to kill him. But hey, the screams of hundreds of unrested souls could do that to a person.

“Well, I don’t know why else he’d be wearing sunglasses inside and with giant headphones on if he’s not hung over,” Roman said. Virgil wished he was hung over. If he was hung over, it would stop eventually.

“Migraine,” Virgil grumbled, face smashing into the table. He could feel the rumble of sympathy coming from Patton as he said something Virgil didn’t quite catch. He sat up slightly and drained the rest of his drink. He shoved the empty cup toward Remus. “More?”

“Should you really be drinking caffeine, though, since it makes your anxiety worse?” Roman asked, clapping a hand over Remus’s mouth to stop whatever was about to come spewing out. “Wouldn’t that just, I don’t know, make your headache worse, too?”

“What about caffeine?” asked Logan, taking the seat on Virgil’s other side. Roman repeated himself and Virgil tried his best not to puke from how the world was spinning around him even with his eyes shut and hidden behind dark sunglasses he’d gotten (read: stolen) from his roommate.

“Actually,” Logan said, voice cutting through Virgil’s headphones with a precision that made Virgil wince, “caffeine is a key ingredient in many migraine medications. It is clinically proven to help. And while the unfortunate, unintended side effect of heightened anxiety does occur with Virgil, it’s fair that he get to choose whether or not that’s worth it.”

“More,” Virgil grumbled again. Remus jumped up from the table and disappeared from Virgil’s limited hearing. More talking commenced around the table, and Virgil began singing a song in his head so that he could block out any wayward stimulation that decided to provoke his already pounding head.

Another chair was pulled out from the table, with a considerable amount of grace that all the other chairs had lacked, and that is how Virgil knew that Dee was there, and also that all of his friends had managed to find him slumped in a cafe, halfway between purgatory and hell. As was the life of a clairvoyant with shit luck. Virgil preferred to take his suffering alone with a side of lonely, thank you very much.

When Remus dropped the drink down in front of Virgil, he almost cried with relief and immediately began chugging it. Maybe, if life were so kind, Virgil could subsist on a diet of solely caffeine and noodles. It hadn’t worked yet, but there was still time to try.

“Bad day?” That was Dee’s voice, smooth and barely loud enough that Virgil could hear it. He winced anyway and nodded as he carefully dropped his head back onto the table. Nothing more was said that Virgil heard, and slowly but surely, the screams died down, too. It was almost peaceful and with his eyes shut to block out any unsavory spirits he may see he could imagine he was somewhere that wasn’t crowded with spirits.

Until a loud shriek of ”Help me, Virgil!” sound next to his ear and Virgil jumped so violently that his headphones flew off. Virgil winced again as the sound of every spirit in a hundred yard radius began assaulting his eardrums. The movement was so sudden that is sent the world tilt-a-whirling again and Virgil knew without a doubt that something regrettable was going to happen.

“Virgil, are you-”

“I’m going to be sick,” he gasped and staggered from the table. He slammed the bathroom door opened and dropped to his knees in front of the first toilet. Everything he’d eaten in the last day was coming up, and there was a hand on his back which could have been anyone and Virgil couldn’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed.

When he was done, the person behind him leaned forward to peer into the toilet and said, “Do you not chew your spaghetti? I could chew it for you and feed you like a bird.” Virgil let out a hiccup of a laugh, feeling the tiniest bit better. There was only one person he knew who would say something like that.

“Shut up,” Virgil groaned. He could barely hear anything over the dead. Reality felt kind of fuzzy which was probably not what it was supposed to be doing, but who was Virgil to argue with the universe? Certainly not the person the universe had fucked over with stupid psychic-seeing-the-dead powers from the day he was born.

Oh, wait, he actually was.

“Are you okay?” Remus asked. Virgil spit up the rest of what was in his stomach. “I think that’s a no. What’s wrong, Stormcloud?”

“It’s too loud,” Virgil said without thinking about it. Then he tensed up and puked again. Now Remus would think he was crazy because it probably didn’t sound loud in an empty bathroom to him.

“What do you mean?” Remus asked, wrapping an arm around Virgil. He might be done puking, he wasn’t sure, but he could tell that Remus was worried about him now because he wasn’t saying anything repulsive.

And if he’d made Remus worried, well, he sort of owed him the truth. He knew Remus wouldn’t care anyway. He was a werewolf. There was no room to judge.

“Mm-hm,” Virgil hummed. “All the dead people are screaming and I’m going to lose my mind if it doesn’t stop because it’s so fucking loud and-” Virgil stopped abruputly as Remus pulled Virgil toward him. He put Virgil’s head on his chest right above his heart and pressed his hand over top Virgil’s other ear. Suddenly, the only sound in Virgil’s head was the abnormally slow ba-boom, ba-boom of Remus’s heart. It was so loud and it was all Virgil could focus on. There was no screaming, no threats, no begging; just the echo of Remus being alive.

Virgil went limp against him and squeezed his eyes shut. It was the most serene he had felt in his whole life.

“Why, Virgil! You see dead people! Why didn’t you tell me? We could have such a fun time,” rumbled through Remus’s chest. Virgil didn’t say anything. It was quiet for once, he was going to enjoy this until his migraine left him the fuck alone. “Did you know I was a werewolf?” Remus asked. That did, unfortunately, require an answer.

Virgil sat back. “Yeah. So’s Ro, and Dee’s a naga and Pat’s a selkie and Lo’s a fae and my roommate is a vampire who thinks he’s a whole lot better as keeping secrets than he actually is. Sorry I didn’t say anything.” With the screaming back and the nasty visions floating around him and the taste of puke in his mouth, Virgil’s words came out kind of stilted and uneven. It didn’t seem to matter to Remus, who beamed.

“Oh, Virgil, I am happy as a maggot in shit to hear that,” Remus exclaimed. “The only reason Dee and I haven’t asked you out yet was because we didn’t want you to think you were getting into a relationship with humans when we aren’t. Ruined the surprise, I think, but what can you do.”

“Remus,” Virgil said slowly. “Did you just ask me out on the bathroom floor right after I puked in the toilet?”

“I like a guy who can get a little nasty,” Remus said and shimmied his shoulders. Virgil groaned, partly because Remus was ridiculous and partly because he might puke again. “So, what do ya say, Stormcloud?”

“Yes, but not right now because there’s still puke in my mouth,” Virgil said.

“Let’s go get that handled,” Remus suggested, “and then you can come back to our apartment and we can keep all those awful noises away. And then when we wake up tomorrow, Dee can ask you out!” He was grinning manically, and Virgil couldn’t help but laugh. It sounded like a pretty solid plan. Remus helped Virgil stand up and brought him over to the sinks to rinse his mouth out. Virgil took a couple sips of water, but decided that was enough or else he’d be spitting that back up too.

When Remus tried to lead him toward the door, Virgil’s legs gave out from under him. Remus, without hesitating for even a second, scooped Virgil up like a baby. He adjusted them until Virgil’s head was on his chest and Virgil had relaxed slightly.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.” Virgil shut his eyes again as Remus carried him out of the bathroom. There was a muffled conversation at the table as somebody put his headphones and sunglasses back on for him, and he faintly heard Remus say, “Virgie’s not a normie either!” followed by exclamations and he did really want to hear what everybody thought, but the next thing he knew, he was being picked up out of a car and carried into an apartment.

“Hey, Virgil,” Dee said, plucking his headphones off for a second. Virgil winced, but it was quieter here, less to see and hear, so he hummed a hello. “Remus said you agreed to come over and I really didn’t want to have to take the headphones off to ask in the middle of the restaurant. Do you need anything? Food? Or water? Sleep?”

“Lights off?” Virgil whispered. “I don’t really sleep much like this. But I like listening to Remus’s heart. It makes all the other noises...stop.” Dee smiled in the softest way Virgil had ever seen, and then went to pull all their curtains closed. Remus sat down on the couch, still cradling Virgil, and situated them so that Virgil’s head was directly over his heart. The slow, steady ba-boom, ba-boom was taking up most of Virgil’s senses again.

“Do you need anything else?” Dee asked quietly. Virgil shook his head, and Dee sat down next to them. There was a quiet rumble as Remus said something Virgil didn’t catch, and then a softer one as Dee responded. Virgil took a deep breath and just focused on Remus’s heartbeat. It let the pain fade to background noise much better than anything else did, and Virgil finally fell asleep to the quiet ba-boom, ba-boom of Remus’s heart.

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