#human Patton

[5am-the-foxing-hour]

Fey Remus and Fey Roman: *in a competition to see who can chop up their pile of wood into firewood the fastest* Patton *gathering the thrown about firewood into baskets so Janus can carry them to the woodshed*: Oh! Virgil, where are you going? Vampire Virgil *dressed up in a black cape and more vampire aesthetic look, compared to his more relaxed everyday wear*: Coven meeting. Shouldn't take longer than a week... Ugh I hate when the whole family get together. Too many people. Werewolf Janus: Good luck. Vampire Virgil: Thanks. I'm glad it only happens once every century. Patton: I keep forgetting you're really old, Virgil. Vampire Virgil: I'm younger than those two idiots *gestures towards Remus and Roman who are now hurling insults at each other*. Werewolf Janus: ... how old are they exactly? Witch Logan *basket of mushrooms at his hip*: The two of them are about as old as this forest, so a millennia give or take, but who knows really. They never give me a good answer. I'm starting to suspect they don't know it themselves.

#Sanders Sides #Janus #Remus #Logan #Roman #Patton #Virgil #Werewolf Janus #Fey Remus #Fey Roman #Witch Logan #Vampire Virgil #human Patton #incorrect quotes #shitpost #Wolfsbane au

[ashs-random-writing]

A Haunted Home

~~~~~

Virgil had been in the house for a few years. Of course he had, he had died there, he couldn't leave. What he really didn't like was people in his house. He would do quite a lot to get them out, but one thing he would not do was hurt them. He wasn't a monster.

Patton, Logan and Roman were just looking for a nice new house to live in, but they found a new-ish mansion-sized house that came with a friend. Of course, they moved in

~~~~~

Virgil floated aimlessly as the fifth group that month was touring his house to buy. He didn’t really care anymore, most didn’t buy it, and even if they did, he could just scare them out.

Might as well start early, he supposed, starting to mess with things in the room the humans were about to tour, which happened to be the kitchen. He picked up some of the knives from a drawer, wondering how easy it would be to spontaneously start practicing knife throwing. It wasn’t like he could get hurt..

He put the knives down, concluding that he might hurt someone living. He may not want them in his house, but he wouldn’t hurt them. He started looking through the cabinets for something, only finding pots and pans. He sighed

“I guess these’d work” he mused to himself quietly, starting to bang them together and throw them around. He heard the real estate agent sigh loudly from the next room

“Pay no mind to those noises, it’s nothing really” They stated, pretty convincingly

The real estate agents had figured out that the place was haunted pretty early on, so Virgil had lots of fun messing with them whilst they were looking through the house, or showing people around. They weren’t too bad, really

When Virgil was alive, he had built a fake wall into the house, to make it easier to not get murdered in his sleep, so his bedroom was pretty well hidden. The real estate agents found it and left it alone, not wanting to upset the ghost. Virgil was happy for that, it wouldn’t feel like home if his room was gone. He needed his things. Different was always bad.

And, the agents never showed it to potential buyers, which Virgil was sure could get them fired if their higher-ups ever found out, so he was grateful for that. It was still fun to mess with them, but never the same extent that he did to people who tried to get him out, or perform an exorcism or something

The exorcisms had never worked of course, but they were still unpleasant and annoying.

He zoned back in to listen to the humans question the noise again

“It’s just the ghost, don’t worry. He tends to try chase people away, but it’s mostly just throwing things at walls like a toddler” The last part was louder than the rest of it, obviously aimed to lightly insult him, before continuing “All the people who have lived here only move because they’re freaked out, he never hurts anyone, so you’d be safe, don't worry”

He rolled his eyes, sent them the middle finger, and threw one more pan at the wall before floating off to his room. He could still hear the humans-

He paused his thinking for a second, instead mulling over the fact that his brain kept referring to them as ‘the humans’. Was he not human anymore? His subconscious didn’t seem to think so. He could barely remember what solidity felt like.. He never really felt human to begin with, honestly, so it wasn’t that much of a change

Virgil shook his head, returning to his thought. He could still hear them in the other room, conversing, mostly about him. The real estate agent (Jamie, he remembered) had gone into the kitchen to clean up the mess he had made.

Virgil listened to the humans conversation idly, chuckling at one of their insistences that ghosts weren’t real

There were three humans in total touring the house, each of them being very different from each other. The one who was denying seemed extremely serious, for no particular reason, almost reminding Virgil of his old teacher. The next was rather loud and kept making Disney references, to the point that Virgil had started mentally calling him Princey, and claiming that there couldn’t be a ghost because ‘Ghosts are evil, except for Moana’s grandmother’

Virgil rolled his eyes at that one, still listening to them through the wall

The third seemed rather cheerful, almost too cheerful for Virgil’s tastes. He kept saying how “if there is a ghost, it’s like the house comes with a friend! Besides, I’m just dying to meet them”

He could almost imagine the sunny grin on his face when he said that, and he heard one of the other two humans groan at the pun. Virgil laughed

“Patton, was there really any need to make a pun for the supposed ghost? We’re the only ones who would be living here if we bought the house, you wouldn’t be meeting anyone except maybe a few neighbours”

Virgil rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time, still laughing

“Come on, Lo, I know you don’t like puns, but hearing a few ghost puns won’t.. kill.. you” Another groan was heard behind two people’s laughter

“Besides, how do you explain what happened earlier if there’s no ghost?” ‘Patton’ asked

The serious one sighed “Perhaps something simply fell out of a cabinet and Jamie made something up to make the house seem more interesting? Regardless, I do think it would be a good investment to buy this house, it is large enough for all of us to live comfortably, and still is in budget” Virgil froze at that, they were gonna buy the house?

He needed to start planning how to chase them away right that very second. He liked living alone, and these humans seemed interesting now, but Virgil knew they’d hate him after a while. They all did eventually, even when he was living

He wasn’t the type to talk a lot, or look people in the eyes, but he was good at listening, contrary to what people believed, and he stored everything he was told in the back of his mind for future reference, but everyone always left

He couldn’t get attached to these humans, they were gonna hate him and leave, so he should save them the effort and make them leave immediately.

He stayed in his room a while until they left, only coming out when he was sure the only person still there was Jamie

Jamie was sat in the kitchen on her phone, and laughing quietly at some video. Virgil decided he should probably apologise for causing a mess and throwing stuff around.

He couldn’t exactly talk to them, so maybe just giving them something would work. He had a small rock collection in his room, and he had seen Jamie looking at them sometimes, and he figured that she would appreciate one of them.

He picked up one of them, shaped vaguely like a dinosaur of some kind, before floating out of his room to give it to the human. He held it out to them, and they smiled

“Is this for me?” He held it out more persistently and she took it, grinning.

“Thank you, it’s very cool. Is this because of earlier?” They held it to their chest whilst asking. Virgil didn’t know how to respond, so he just stayed floating there for a while, until Jamie eventually left

---

Logan looked back at the house as he and his friends drove away, thinking. He definitely did not believe the talk of a supposed ‘ghost’, noises be damned, but the house was interesting, and a reasonable price.

He watched the road ahead steadily, as the others conversed about how fun the house would be once they bought it, and how they would decorate it. Logan pitched in on a few points, mainly how he would decorate his space, and mentioning how nonsensical it was to argue about who gets what room in a house that they might not even buy.

He rolled his eyes fondly, before opening his book from the backseat of their car. Soon, they arrived at their current apartment, which was much too cramped to fit them all comfortably, hence why they were house hunting.

They had been saving up for quite a while, so it was quite a relief to find a nice house that was actually in budget for once. It was a few weeks later when they actually managed to buy it, and a few weeks after that when they managed to finish moving in.

He started moving his things into his room, listening to Roman and Patton’s Disney discussions. Once he had gotten every piece of furniture in place, he started organizing his books on his shelf, and getting his better stuff in place. Once he had everything perfectly placed, he went into the kitchen area to help Roman and Patton with the food, which was a lot easier when there was more room to move around then a tiny room in a tiny apartment.

After they’d all eaten, a few hours later, they all went back to their respective rooms, until a loud shriek sounded from Roman. Logan and Patton both went to investigate, only to find all of the louder man’s Disney merchandise strewn about the room as if it had been thrown (which, of course, it had not been, Roman would never do such a thing and ghosts didn’t exist).

“That damn ghost! He couldn’t just leave my precious Disney stuff alone, could he?” Roman crossed his arms, glaring at one of his many figurines on the floor

Logan sighed “Roman, is it not at all possible that they merely fell off of the shelf? I have already explained the statistical improbability of a ghost residing here”

Roman glared at him “Oh, yes, because all of my Disney stuff, and only my Disney stuff, would just randomly fall and end up on the complete opposite side of the room, how is that more logical than a ghost?” He looked away angrily, starting to pick up the fallen figures (because, yes, they merely fell, there was not a ghost, Logan thought to himself)

Logan and Patton both started helping and it took, at most, two minutes to put everything in the correct places, but Roman still seemed unhappy

“Something’s missing..” He looked over the figures slowly. Suddenly, he gasped

“My Jack Skellington figure! He must’ve taken it! I was right, ghosts are evil!” he pouted

Logan rolled his eyes, the figurine had likely just rolled under a bed or dressing table. The imaginary ghost wouldn’t have taken it, anyway. He walked back to his own room, only to find that whilst he and Patton were helping Roman, someone had thrown all of his stuff all over the room

He took a deep breath, his things had merely fallen. He looked around and- there! The window was open. A perfectly logical answer to his conundrum. Ghosts didn’t exist, so he needed to reason away from them and towards logic

His room’s door slammed shut and locked. It was fine, just the wind, that he… couldn’t feel at all…

He attempted to pull the latch on the door, but instead of being the easy feat it was an hour ago, it now felt as though someone was holding it shut, which, of course, was preposterous, no one but him was in his room, and the latch could not be touched or even seen from the outside

He eventually managed to open it, and leave, only to reconsider his stance on ghosts. Perhaps… maybe.. ghosts could exist. Theoretically.

---

Virgil found it hilarious how easy it was to annoy these humans. The loud one, Roman, had so much Disney stuff, and it was too easy to make a mess in there. Besides, the dude had a pretty cool Nightmare Before Christmas figurine that Virgil decided would look amazing underneath his posters.

Despite everything, the more serious one still denied that Virgil existed, so he decided that a little prank whilst he was helping Roman sort his stuff out was a little necessity

He had seen him painstakingly place each and every thing to perfection, and decided that that’s where he’d start. He threw everything quietly, before waiting for the nerd to reappear.

When Logan arrived, he looked around quickly, before his eyes settled on the window and he nodded to himself. Virgil groaned, he had spent a while on that, so to have it written off as the wind was pretty annoying

He slammed the door loudly and closed the latch

“Good luck blaming that on the wind, nerd” he glared at Logan, as the latter turned around warily, looking a little bit shaken

He walked closer and tried the latch, which Virgil was holding shut, laughing to himself. He shivered slightly as the human’s hand went through his when he was messing with the mechanism

Eventually, Virgil let go, watching as Logan walked through and started breathing mildly more intensely than when he was inside. Virgil closed the door behind him and closed the latch once again, before floating down to his own room and fixing his Nightmare Before Christmas display and his new addition.

It didn’t bother him very much that the figure was technically stolen, it wasn’t the first time he had illegally acquired a new item. Most of the time when that happened it was when he was more down on his luck, needing to.. borrow.. food and drinks from a store, but Karma seemed to think that was bad enough to punish him

He had gotten a large inheritance from his great uncle, and had managed to buy a big-ish house, get a fake wall built in, before the burglar arrived.

He was binging some Netflix show on his couch, in the middle of the night, and the robber probably assumed he’d be asleep. He probably should’ve been, maybe then he wouldn’t still be floating around. The thief might’ve not found him, might’ve assumed he wasn’t home and left with just some stuff, not his body. He had watched the body be carried out, presumably to the river half a mile south

His murder was never solved as far as he knew, so that could explain why he was still here, floating around and just annoying everyone. He sighed, looking around his room, specifically at the signs of no one living there

He looked at the cobwebs that had shown up just about everywhere, the spiders that lived in them, the thick layers of dust that was settled over most of his belongings, apart from his new figurine.

He could hear the voices of the humans conversing directly above him, and he rolled his eyes, starting to reread one of his few books. He knew what was going to happen in it, so it was comforting. He had annotated it when he was alive so he would find it more amusing on future reads. Now, it surely helped him not go insane at least, but it had gotten pretty boring pretty quickly

He started listening to the noise above him, what the humans were discussing. He decided that they were probably discussing the door he had locked from the inside, if the declarations of being correct from Roman was any indication. Patton had started trying to mediate the situation, trying to stop the bubbling argument between them. Virgil felt tempted to go up there and stop it himself, they were getting annoying, how did Patton put up with that? Hell, how did any of them live with each other if this was how often they argued?

He acted on the temptation with minimal hesitation, throwing a small object at the wall between the humans

Patton reached out to catch it, fumbling with it a bit, before dropping it, albeit gentler than Virgil did

“Hey, uh, Ghost, could you not throw that, please? It’s made of glass, and pretty fragile, so, uh.. Anyway, I’m Patton, what’s your name?” Patton asked, usual sunny grin on his face. Virgil kinda felt bad that he couldn’t answer in a way that Patton could hear.

He answered anyway, just so he could say he tried

“Virgil.. My name’s Virgil”

Quite predictably, they didn’t hear him. He frowned, he had kinda wanted that to work.. He shook his head rapidly. No, he didn’t want that to work, he wanted the humans to leave, he didn’t want to be their friend. Not when he knew they’d have to leave him at some point. Ghosts were eternal, humans were not

Patton’s grin dimmed slightly at the perceived silence

“Are you still there? If you are, would you be able to hold something, so we’ll know?” Virgil nodded, mostly to himself, picking up another small object

Before Patton could reply, Roman jumped in, pointing at his general direction

“Aha, fiend! Tell me where you’ve taken my figure!” Virgil rolled his eyes and threw the thing in his hand at him. Roman gasped in offence, as Virgil started floating away

He went down to his room, going back to his book boredly. The nerd had some pretty cool looking books, maybe he could take one of them. Virgil sighed to himself, deciding that everything would just be miserable for eternity if this was what got him excited. He didn’t know how it wouldn’t be.

He could still hear them talking but he stopped listening. Let them talk, he thought, let them talk about him, he couldn’t stop it either way. They weren’t arguing this time, so he just concentrated on reading again. He got bored pretty quickly and started concentrating on his ghost abilities a little bit more.

If he really concentrated he could keep a visible form, but not well. He could be seen, but he was still mostly invisible, you’d still be able to see the wall behind him before you’d notice him, really. He looked at himself in the mirror sadly, specifically the blood covering his chest. He wondered what he would be doing if he hadn’t died. Probably binging Netflix again, honestly. He could hear the humans again, this time a little closer than before.

Virgil, once again, paid it no mind, instead going into what he called ‘ghost sleep mode’

It wasn’t really sleeping, it was more disappearing from the plane of existence he was currently on for a few hours, and replaying memories from life, the happiest ones specifically. There wasn’t really a lot to play for him, he hadn’t had a very happy life

He was shown bits and pieces from childhood, that time a nice old woman paid for all his groceries when his card declined, the time he bought his house. When he started decorating his room, the first time his hair was cut short, the time the neighbour’s kids invited him to play with them, memories of his old friends before they left him, fractions of bittersweet memories.

It was a while before he reformed in the living world, and as usual he was accompanied by a small flash of light. He rubbed at his eyes, and looked at the clock. He’d been in the in-between for five hours just about, making it 11:30 pm.

The humans should be asleep by then, right? Well, maybe not Logan, since Virgil had locked him out of his room, but the others probably were. Maybe. He wasn’t really one to judge other people’s sleeping habits, since his own messed up one was what had gotten him killed in the first place

He floated up to where their bedrooms were, checking on them, making sure they were safe. He didn’t like them, but for now, they were sorta like guests, so he had to keep them safe. Logan was asleep next to his door, and Virgil finally gave in, unlocking the door for him. Logan needed to sleep in his bed, if he didn’t then Virgil would be worrying that what happened to him would become a shared experience

The door swung open, but Logan still didn’t stir from his sleep. Virgil looked at him a while before sighing and grabbing the back of his shirt and dragging him towards his bed. If that’s what it took to make them be a little bit more safe, then sure, he’d do it

Logan finally woke up, starting to struggle against his grip. Virgil let go, dropping him unceremoniously on the floor

Logan looked around a bit, before talking quietly “Were you- were you trying to make me go to bed?”

Virgil would be blushing in embarrassment if he had any moving blood, but instead, he threw something at the human and flew back to his bedroom as quickly as possible. He buried his face in his hands

He didn’t care about the humans, he wanted them to leave, he didn’t care about them. He didn’t care for them, he couldn’t care for them. He- he just couldn’t. They’d leave, they’d move out, they’d hate him, if they died, they wouldn’t be ghosts with him, they would just die, they’d go to the afterlife and he wouldn’t be able to follow. No matter what, they’d leave him eventually.

---

Patton didn’t really know what to think of the ghost, really. He seemed to keep to himself a lot, only throwing stuff around, just like Jamie had said.

He seemed to have calmed down after a while. Patton noticed that he left them alone for a while until they started arguing, which was when he showed up. When Patton had tried talking to him, he had seemed content to chill until Roman provoked him..

He went to sleep with these thoughts in mind.

It wasn’t long ‘til he woke up. He went down to the kitchen groggily, intent on fixing up some breakfast for everyone. A few minutes after his first batch of pancakes, Logan walked in, looking a bit bewildered

“The ghost was trying to drag me into my bed last night” was the first thing he said

Patton looked up “Uh, could you explain that more, Logan? What do you mean”

Logan looked at him with wide eyes, seemingly trying to also make sense of what happened “well, the ghost had locked my door, as you know, so I had fallen asleep on the corridor next to my room, but I woke up to something invisible dragging me into my room, towards my bed. I asked the ghost if that’s what he was doing, but he just threw something at me. I- I think he might’ve been embarrassed..” Logan sat at the table as he was given a plate of pancakes and some jam

Patton thought for a moment “Well, let’s be glad that he’s such a thoughtful ghost and not an ‘I’m gonna make the walls bleed and stuff’ type ghost”

Roman soon came bounding down the stairs with all the energy of a toddler on a sugar high

“Good morning, Patton, Nerd” He nodded to them happily, grabbing a plate of pancakes and sitting diagonal to Logan at the table, “I am happy to report that the ghost was not tormenting me or committing thievery against me last night!” he exclaimed loudly

Patton smiled “That’s great, kiddo! Logan says that the ghost was trying to drag him into his bed last night when he was sleeping in the corridor, so I think he might not be as bad as you seem to think,” He smiled, making more pancakes

Roman scoffed “For nefarious, evil purposes probably” He mumbled, crossing his arms and looking away

“Name one ‘nefarious and evil’ thing that he could’ve been doing that for” Logan countered

“Uh, he could’ve been trying to get you in another room so he could make a ginormous mess” Roman stated matter-of-factly, a smug look adorning his face

Patton spoke up “Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it? He’s not done anything when he’s been left alone, so I personally don’t think he’s all that bad” he shrugged, sitting down with his pancakes

Roman scoffed “He stole from me!”

Logan shook his head “You don’t have any proof of that, besides, even if he did, he only took one small figurine, that hardly qualifies as robbery”

“One small figurine that I bought! And he just took it!” Roman crossed his arms, glaring at his nearly empty plate

“Well, we are living in his house, so its kinda fair” Patton pointed out, trying to stop the argument that was brewing.

Roman simply stormed off, muttering angrily to himself, and Logan shook his head, making a comment about ‘childish behaviour’. Patton didn’t really hear what was being said, he was too busy feeling guilty. He didn’t want to make Roman upset..

He walked upstairs to his room, almost in a trance, before collapsing into the bed, crying. He just had to get involved in the argument, didn’t he? He couldn’t leave it alone, could he? He felt a small chill go through him, but he paid it no mind, instead just hugging a stuffed cat to his chest as tight as humanly possible

He wiped his eyes, or tried to at least. He should’ve been happy, they had a new house, his own room, he should’ve been happy, not upset. He could feel someone looking at him, but he hadn’t heard the door open. He turned around warily, only to see a floating stuffed bat that he had never seen before

The ghost, he realised suddenly. He looked at the plushie for a few moments before asking “Is that for me?”

The plushie was set on his bed next to him, as a paper and pen started writing with what seemed like no one holding them. He read the note that was handed to him and started smiling

‘its for you, her name is Trylla, take good care of her and please don’t be sad

-V’

The rest of the name was scribbled out, but Patton didn’t mind. If he didn’t want to share his name he didn’t have to

“Thank you, Vee, she’s very cute, I love her!” he hugged Trylla to his chest protectively. Another thought popped into his head

“Oh! Uh, Roman is pretty convinced that you took something from him, so, um, if you did, would you be able to give it back? He’s really upset about it” There was no response, but he decided to hope that the ghost was listening

He started re-watching one of his comfort shows on Netflix, still hugging the bat to his chest. A few episodes later, Roman came bursting in, figurine in hand

“Patton, look! The ghost returned my figure! This proves that he took it” he had a smug look on his face, and Patton sighed

“Yes, but it also proves that he was nice enough to return it when I asked him, and look, he gave me something. I think you’re wrong about him, honestly. He doesn’t seem very evil to me” He held up the purple bat to him as proof, before hugging it again

Roman rolled his eyes “Fine, I guess I can admit he’s not too bad, but you gotta admit, it’s pretty interesting. Where is his storage space? All the rooms were cleaned out, so where did he get that bat thing? Where did he take my figure? I think we should try find it” Roman seemed to be getting excited at the idea

Patton was less excited “Wouldn’t that be an invasion of privacy?”

“It would be an adventure, that’s what it would be! Besides, we own the house, not him, we can go wherever we want”

Patton frowned slightly, he didn’t quite know why invading someone’s privacy would be an adventure, but there was lots that he didn’t know, so he kept quiet

---

Virgil was panicking. Why’d he have to do that? If he hadn’t of given that stuffed animal to Patton, he wouldn’t have given Roman his figure back, meaning that they wouldn’t get the idea to try find his room

What was he supposed to do, though? He saw one of the humans crying, he gave them a stuffed animal, simple, right? Wrong. Apparently, he couldn’t do anything nice for the people he was letting stay in his house, without them deciding to try find the one place in the house that still felt like it was his.

Of course.

In his panic, he couldn’t even work up the energy to make himself tangible enough to throw something at Roman, instead floating down to his room and sitting on his bed. How bad would it actually be if they found him? He was foolish to believe his space would last long, but he was still reluctant to imagine that they could take it from him.

If he was able to touch breathing things, he could probably push them out, fight them, but he couldn’t. He could touch their clothes, but even that took more effort than other things. He grabbed a comfort item and held it to his chest as tightly as possible.

It wasn’t the same as when he was living, instead of him feeling its warmth, it was hard for him to even work up the strength to feel it at all. He cried into it, like he had countless times in life. It still wasn’t the same, his tears evaporated when they touched things that were solid.

It was one of the reasons he gave Patton his stuffed toy, Patton could use it more, it wouldn’t be different for him. That turned on him though, the humans were trying to find his safe space, and they would probably take it from him.

He gave up. They were gonna find it eventually, there was nothing he could do, instead he started ‘sleeping’, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

It showed the usual stream of happiness for a few hours, but this time, along with living memories, it showed him giving Trylla to Patton and watching the other’s face light up. He teared up at that. He really didn’t hate these humans, which made it all the worse for him. What was he going to do when they left him?

After a few minutes of crying in the in-between as the memories ended, he was shoved back into his room. The humans were gathered there already it seemed. They immediately looked in his direction at the flash of light, and he uncurled from the foetal position that he always spawned in.

He knew that he would be visible for a few moments, before fading, but he just stared at them, feeling oddly hurt at them invading his space. God, why did he have to go and get attached to people so easily?

They stared back at him, seeming almost in shock. Virgil could feel himself fading, and he glared at them in his final visible moments, before going to sit on his bed, facing away from them. He didn’t want to look at them in that moment, he knew that this would happen, but still, it felt like a betrayal coming from them.

He could hear the sound of hushed whispering, but he couldn’t make out the words. He thought about how easy it would be to go and listen in without them noticing, but he decided against it. He wasn’t rude enough to invade someone else’s privacy.

He looked back at them sadly, before curling in on himself slightly. They were all friends, they cared about each other, and they just took Roman’s suggestion straight away. It just showed that they didn’t care about him. He cared enough about them to try keep them safe and happy, but they were just wandering into his safe space with what seemed like no remorse

He grabbed a stuffed spider and made himself as touchable as possible, to try replicate the feeling of warmth cuddling it gave him when he was alive. It wasn’t the best, but it was all he could do.

One of the humans cleared his throat, and Virgil looked back at them

“Um, Virgil?” He stiffened at that, putting the spider on the bed next to him

How-

“If you’re wondering how we found your name, its in the front of most of your books” Virgil scoffed, picking up a book looking at the inside of the cover (which, as expected, had his full name written out: Virgil Pierce. He ignored the scribble of a previous name of his) before throwing it at the human that had spoken, Logan.

So they weren’t just going into his room without permission, they were looking through his stuff as well. Good to know.

Logan looked down at the book, before looking in Virgil’s general direction

“What was that for?”

He didn’t bother responding, they couldn’t hear him, so he should just save his non-existent breath for something else. Besides, they should be able to figure out why he was upset, it was pretty obvious.

More whispering was heard, but this time he could make out some words. An uneasy feeling spread through his chest. They obviously didn’t want him to hear them, but would it really be so wrong to listen in? He sighed, deciding to take the moral high road, if only to help his chances to get into heaven if he ever passed through the in-between, to the other side.

Roman cleared his throat a few minutes later, looking around the room, presumably for Virgil

“Um, we’re-” Logan nudged him, staring pointedly, which made Virgil laugh a little. They were treating this like siblings having to apologise to their parents after a fight

“Fine, *I’m* sorry for invading your privacy without permission, and for dragging these two into it as well,” He turned to look at the other two, seeming like he was annoyed “There, I apologised, happy?”

Virgil fully laughed out loud at that, before covering his mouth. He didn’t quite know why, they couldn’t hear him either way, but its what he always did when he was alive.

He watched Patton press on for more of the apology

“Fine, I’m sorry for calling you evil and creepy, but in my defence, you did steal from me” Roman pointed a finger at where Virgil was floating, getting just a bit off

Virgil rolled his eyes once more, grabbing some scrap paper and a pen from his desk

‘youre in my house, i can do what i want. now get out of my room’

He passed the paper to them, and retreated back to his bed, still watching them. The whispering started up again, this time only a few seconds, before they nodded

Patton smiled at him “That’s fine, we can go. You have a really cool name by the way!”

The humans left, closing the door behind them, and Virgil felt a swell of pride grow in his chest at the compliment. That was one of the first times people had complimented his name and not called it weird.

He pushed it down, he would rather not have anything growing in his chest other than a new set of unpunctured lungs, thank you very much, especially not affection for the people who were invading his privacy and living in his house.

He gave a sigh, running a hand over his face. It was gonna be very hard on him when they eventually left. He stayed in his room for a few more hours, until it was past late night and into the early early hours of the morning, one am to be precise.

He went to check on the humans, knowing that it was very likely that they’d be asleep, but he needed to know for sure.

He was about to float to their bedrooms, but instead heard the sound of talking and the Netflix opening sound coming from the living room. He froze. They needed to go to bed, he needed them to go to bed. He didn’t want them to die..

He flew into the room as quickly as possible, before seeing a pillow fort built out of the couch, and feeling breath that he didn’t have catch in his throat. Everything was just like the night it had happened.

He sunk to the ground, wrapped in his memories. Hearing the kitchen window smash, being too afraid to even move. Making eye contact with the robber and feeling the cold metal of a gun being pressed to his chest. It all had happened so fast, he had woken up to the sight of his body being dragged outside and he had screamed.

His show was still playing as the crime scene was being rid of evidence, it was still on the ‘are you still watching?’ screen when his house was being looked through by detectives. It had been switched off by the time the investigation was half way through.

He didn’t remember much about those few days, he figured that he must’ve been in shock. He remembered them finding his room, looking through his stuff, taking a few pictures and then leaving everything alone. All physical evidence from outside of his room that his room even existed was probably still sat in a box somewhere, never touched.

He remembered the day he was announced officially missing, posters with a name that wasn’t his plastered around the town, and people desperately searching for him. He clutched at his head, like he was in pain.

He didn’t want to relive this again, he had gotten over it, he was dead, he wasn’t gonna come back to life, so why was he always longing to? What would life even give him? More pain, more heartbreak, more people calling him a name that he wasn’t?

He had been declared legally dead, after his body was found, though the murderer roamed free. Virgil could only imagine what was written on his grave

‘Here lies [REDACTED], she was a loyal daughter, sister and friend. She will be missed’

He shook his head. It wouldn’t do to think of his gravestone as if it could be changed. He was Virgil now, he wasn’t a girl, no matter what was said of him. He was Virgil, he was himself.

He could feel sobs wracking his body, and he was back to thinking about when it happened. The murderer pressing the gun to his heart, which was beating frantically, because of course it was! He could see the blurry silhouette of someone getting closer and he panicked, too deep in his own mind to remember that he wasn’t there anymore, that he wasn’t still being threatened at gunpoint.

He pressed himself into the wall, as far as he could, before stuttering out a plea

“D-don’t- don’t get any closer- please- I’ll do anything, just please don’t kill me- I can’t- I can’t die yet” He was getting thoughts of déjà vu, but he wasn’t sure why. Had this happened before? He was about to get shot, wasn’t he? He didn’t dare open his eyes, he couldn’t stare death in the face. Not again, a small voice in the back of his head reminded him.

He could feel himself shaking, and he curled up more, desperately trying to protect himself. The unknown person got closer, he could feel it. He whimpered, squeezing his eyes tighter

---

Roman was trying to have a shitty Netflix movie marathon with his friends, but he couldn’t focus on that anymore. After he had found the ghost- Virgil’s- room, all he could think of was the glare he had given them all. He could swear that the ghostly figure almost looked sad.

Another thing was that he had been expecting was something less human looking. Maybe a deathly pale figure in robes and hundreds of chains, but instead what he saw was a person only twenty or so years, old, with blood soaking through his patchwork hoodie.

Roman kept thinking back to that for hours, through each crappy movie he watched, until it got to one o’clock. He forced himself to watch the beginning of another movie from his pillow fort, curled up in a mess of blankets, his friends next to him, Patton hugging the stuffed bat that Virgil had gifted him.

A few minutes later, the lights started flickering, and the tv was glitching. At first he was annoyed, but then he noticed the faint glow against the wall. He looked closer and noticed the ghost curled up next to the wall, only appearing when the lights were out, and looking extremely distressed and his eyes focused on something in the distance. He was clutching at his head desperately, as if he were trying to force something out

Roman hesitantly got closer, and the lights stopped flickering, going completely dark. He could see the ghost faintly, outlined with a purple glow

The ghost’s eyes went wide before they squeezed shut, and he started shaking

“D-don’t- don’t get any closer- please- I’ll do anything, just please don’t kill me- I can’t- I can’t die yet” Roman froze. Logan placed a hand on his shoulder, which startled him. When had Logan even gotten up?

“I don’t think he’s in the right frame of mind right now, Roman. That sounds like what could’ve been his last words.. I don’t think he’s seeing you as you, I think he may be seeing.. someone else” Logan was also staring at the apparition with what seemed like sympathy

Patton looked down at the bat in his hands before at the ghost. He walked closer to the ghost, momentarily stopping at the pained whimper that escaped him. He set the stuffed toy down before walking back to the group

“He needed it more than me, it’s his anyway” He shrugged, sitting on the floor, getting ready to comfort the ghost if need be. Roman joined him, he may not have particularly liked the ghost, but being able to see the ghost had changed his perception somewhat

It was no longer that all ghosts were evil, because now that he had a face to attribute to him, a name, it reminded him that.. ghost stories are just tragedies told from another perspective. He couldn’t imagine begging for his life against someone who had presumably broken into his house.

Roman started realising that something must’ve triggered this, and he looked around the room. The only thing that seemed out of place was the pillow fort. He shuddered

Your house could be broken into at any moment, even when you’re just sat in a pillow fort watching a movie. Maybe that’s what had happened to Virgil... He stared at the ghost, upset at the thought

He couldn’t even think how traumatic that would be, something meant to make you feel comfortable and safe to be the place where you were killed? He couldn’t bare to watch the apparition in pain any longer, and he got closer, determined to help somehow

One of the floorboards creaked under his weight and Virgil started shaking more, his form flickering, and the lights starting to do the same again. Roman stopped, before starting to approach again, this time avoiding any creaky-looking floorboards, and going considerably slower. He gently pushed the stuffed bat closer, and sat opposite the ghost

“Virgil, you’re not there, okay? I know it probably feels really real, and I understand that, but can you open your eyes please? I want you to name five things you can see, can you do that for me?”

Virgil shook his head, still with his eyes shut as tightly as ever, and Roman wracked his brain to remember other techniques to calm down someone with PTSD and other such disorders. He nodded to himself once he remembered. Man, that Mental Health Awareness course really turned out useful

“Okay, can you breathe in for four seconds for me? That’s it, you’re doing really well, now hold for a while, that’s great, you’re doing perfectly, now breathe out for eight seconds. You’re doing really well, now can you repeat that for me?” Virgil still wouldn’t open his eyes, but he wasn’t flickering as much anymore. He was getting gradually less visible, but he was definitely calming down

“That’s it, you’re doing great, keep going!” He gently encouraged, vaguely aware of his friends watching him. He ignored them in favour of coaxing Virgil into a healthier state of mind

Soon, when the ghost was just barely visible, and nothing was flickering anymore, Virgil opened his eyes

Roman smiled as warmly as he could manage, and the Ghost’s lips moved in a soundless word of gratitude, before fading. Trylla the stuffed bat was given to Patton. Roman got some paper and a pen out

“Virgil, if you’re still there, can you tell me what caused that episode, so we can avoid it, or give you a warning so that you can avoid it?” The pen was picked up from the table and Roman read the note

‘its a few things, long story’ Roman nodded

“We have time, if you’d like to explain?” He offered. The pen hovered above the page for a few moments before scribbling something down

‘no, you guys need to go to bed. I don’t like thinking that you’re down here when anyone could break in’ Roman read aloud, he nodded

That seemed pretty valid, he decided.

He knew he was acting pretty differently than he was a few hours earlier, but he was not going to be rude to someone going through a trauma induced episode. He didn’t want to stress him out any more than he already was

Patton spoke up for the first time in a while “Hey! Do you think we should buy some whiteboards so we can talk without having to get paper and a pen out every time?”

The pen scribbled something down and Roman once again read it aloud

“‘Sure, you should buy the big ones and stand them up in each room’ Great idea, my superb, stupendous spirit!”

He could practically feel the eye roll that nickname was greeted with, though he couldn’t see it

‘dont call me that’

Roman laughed at the quick response

“Would you prefer if I called you ‘Emo nightmare’ for the rest of my life?” He suggested, crossing his arms in a joking manner

‘You probably won’t live here the rest of your life, so in the very little time you’re gonna live here, you can call me whatever you want, just not that’

---

Virgil had fun with the humans. Even Roman didn’t seem to dislike him anymore. He tried to ignore the fact that it was probably just because he had just relived a traumatic experience, and they had to help him through it, and so far that was working.

After he had convinced them to go to bed, he started cleaning up the living room, folding blankets, putting pillows and cushions where they were meant to go, making sure everything was in place, before floating through each room a few times, checking for intruders, checking for things out of place, making sure the house was safe

He floated up to the bedrooms, checking on Logan first, then Patton, then Roman. He sat down in the corridor between their rooms, staying there until they woke up. They needed to be safe. They didn’t seem to be leaving any time soon, so he needed to protect them whilst they stayed

He waited, sometimes looking out of the window, looking into their bedrooms, making sure nothing was wrong.

Soon enough, Logan’s alarm rung, and the human was starting to get ready. Virgil followed him as far as he could, watching through a window as he drove away, presumably to his job. Virgil had overheard at some point that he was a teaching assistant

He vaguely wondered which school he worked at, before floating back upstairs to stay with the others. It was a few more hours before they woke up, but Virgil stayed alert the entire time. Intruders could show up at any point, he had let his guard down for one night, not going to his hidden room, and- well you already know what happened

Roman awakened first, walking down to the kitchen whilst rubbing his eyes. Virgil watched him intently as he started cooking. He was always extra cautious around fire, even in life. Such an intense power of destruction at the disposal of a person felt wrong to him

He flinched as the stove turned on, watching Roman prepare his breakfast. God, he missed eating. After he was sure that a fire wasn’t gonna consume the entire house, he went back upstairs to check on the still sleeping human.

He felt a small tug in his chest when he noticed Patton holding Trylla. He smiled, sitting down on the floor and messing with something. He waited for just about half an hour before Patton woke up

He grinned, starting to follow the human around. He knew that he wasn’t helping himself by doing this, it would just make everything harder on himself, but for once, he could feel like a part of something. He could pretend to be one of them

Roman greeted Patton good morning, before starting up a conversation

“Oh, just so you know, Remus said he’d be coming up to see me today with his partner, so he’s probably gonna burst in here at the most inconvenient time ever” Virgil listened, before humming in thought

Nice to know there’d be more people in his house. He sat on the table cross-legged and hummed a song to himself

“Oh, we should probably tell Virgil then”

He listened to Patton’s response and laughed

He wrote on some paper that was on the table with him

‘Im right here :)’

Patton walked over to read it “Oh, hi Virgil!” He exclaimed once he had. Virgil smiled at that, writing out a greeting. Roman walked over as well, looking to be thinking

“Wait- were you spying on us? Why are you just here?”

Virgil laughed again whilst writing his response

‘not spying, im just hanging out in my house and making sure you dont burn it down’ Roman made an offended noise upon reading it

“Excuse you, I am amazing at cooking and I am not dumb enough to burn down the house!” Virgil smiled at that as Patton made a small noise of disagreement

“Patton, you’re supposed to be on my side!” he complained, making a pouting face

Virgil sat there a while, content to just watch them and answer any questions they asked

After maybe ten minutes, Roman’s phone buzzed, and he nodded to himself

“Remus says he’ll be here soon, so we should probably get ready. Oh, and, Virgil, I’ve told him about you so if you decide to do any ghost stuff, he won’t be freaked out, just so you know”

Virgil smirked to himself before writing his response ‘well now im not gonna do anything, im gonna make you look crazy’

Roman gasped dramatically, placing a hand on his chest and staggering backwards

“How dare you betray me so? Once, I may have trusted you with my life but now you have taken your sharpest blade to my back and I don’t think I can forgive you for that” He placed the back of his hand to his forehead like a damsel in distress. Virgil laughed at that, writing down something telling the human to stop being so dramatic

‘dont be dramatic, what if i want to have a nap?’

Roman paused his woeful sorrowing to think for a moment “Do ghosts even need sleep? Can ghosts even sleep, actually?”

‘meh, we cant really sleep but i like to call it sleeping. its more like i disappear for a while and it shows me my happiest memories for a few hours’ He wrote, feeling like it was an inadequate explanation

Both humans nodded at that, before there was a knock on the door. Roman started grumbling about not even having enough time to do his hair before Remus showed up.

Whilst Roman was greeting his brother and his brother’s partner, Virgil got an idea

‘do you wanna team up with me to make roman look crazy? all you have to do is deny that i exist or that you know me’

Patton read what he had written and nodded, a mischievous smile on his face. Virgil also grinned, going to hide the note to get rid of evidence

Once he had done that, Roman walked in, with what looked like a clone of him but with a moustache and a tall, pale person wearing a they/it pronoun badge. Virgil nodded at that, committing it to memory before going to float in a corner and watch the events unfold

Patton walked over to the other humans happily “Hi Remus! Hi Janus! What are you guys talking about?”

Roman looked at him “Oh, I was just telling them about Virgil!”

Patton looked at him with an innocent face “Who’s Virgil?”

Virgil, meanwhile, was laughing extremely hard in the corner, Roman’s face was just priceless. The human sputtered and stammered a few times

“Did you team up with him to make me look crazy?” he pouted, crossing his arms.

Virgil took the time whilst Roman was sulking to look at the guests. He didn’t much like new people, but in this instance, as long as they didn’t find his room, he’d be fine. There wasn’t much need for scaring them out, since they were only visiting, and since that would blow his cover

Remus looked almost completely identical to Roman except with different make-up and a moustache. He was wearing a dark green leather jacket adorned with spikes on the shoulders and back, with a brighter green shirt on underneath. Virgil started to suspect a possible favourite colour, with the outfit choice and green and purple makeup. Virgil started looking at the other person

Janus was tall, about 6’1 to Virgil’s 5’6. That immediately filled him with irrational rage. He start looking at its outfit. They had a few piercings, and tattoos. Virgil could admit they definitely had style, begrudgingly. Still didn’t make up for the tall thing. It was also wearing some fingerless gloves, and a black and yellow shirt on top of a white vest. The outfit certainly matched their two-tone black and yellow hair, which was a half/half style.

He sat on the countertop, almost wishing he could have some popcorn for the high-quality acting Patton was pumping out at pretending he didn’t exist. Janus was narrowing its eyes at the act though, like they almost didn’t believe him. Huh, it was smarter than it looked, he noted, before floating off to his room.

The act lasted for a few hours, until Remus and Janus left to go to their apartment. The minute they drove away, both Patton and Virgil burst out laughing

Roman pouted at them, well, really only at Patton, but Virgil was floating behind him.

“Patton, why’d you do that? You betrayed me! I would expect this from Virgil, yeah, but how’d he get you to team up with him?” He had his hand on his heart, as if extremely emotionally wounded, but it was very obviously joking. He paused for a moment “Logan is now my favourite roommate, you two have officially betrayed me, and therefore have plummeted to the bottom of the list!”

Virgil touched a hand to his heart. He was classed as a roommate? He thought for sure he’d just be ‘annoying ghost that lived there too’ (well, he didn’t really live there but that was just a technicality). He was touched by the notion, and he grew more and more attached to them. He winced. It was so gonna hurt when they left him

---

It was a few months later when anything exciting happened. And by exciting, Virgil just meant different. Life got pretty boring when you’re confined purely to 10 rooms in the world. 

He floated into the living room boredly, scrawling a greeting on the dry-erase board in that room. Roman (the only person currently in that room) looked up at him distractedly

“Oh, uh, hi Virgil. Uh, Remus and Janus are getting kicked out of their apartment ‘cause their landlord wants to sell the house, so would they be able to stay here for a while?”

Virgil groaned. He was gonna let them, of course he was, but the problem was that he’d have to give up his act that he didn’t exist. He had been perfecting it for months, he had even managed to convince Logan to get in on it. Months of hard work down the drain. He didn’t actually care that much, but he liked to pretend he did, picking up the dramatic tendencies from Roman

‘sure i guess. Why not’ he wrote out, waiting for Roman’s response

The human smiled “Thanks Vee”

Virgil smiled back. It was gonna be different but, different didn’t seem to be all that bad sometimes

~~~~~

Taglist: @a-chilly-pepper

#ghost virgil #human logan #human patton #human roman #human remus #human janus #sanders side fic #sanders sides au #sanders sides human au #sanders sides human #sanders sides ghost #sanders sides angst #virgil sanders #virgil angst #thomas sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #sanders sides one shot #patton sanders #janus sanders

[stormclouds-makeraine]

hi tumblr <3

#patton sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides fanart #fanart #my art ^u^ #my human AU. too #he’s my muse

[justdlightful]

Very first post, and of course it had to be Sanders Sides. Patton, Roman, and Logan all found a spider, and have varying reactions. The spider may or may not have been Virgil’s.

#sanders sides #patton sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #my art #artists on tumblr #digital art #mini comic #first post #fanart #human au #ts patton #ts roman #ts logan #virgil sanders #ts virgil

[delimeful]

the end of being alone (6)

remember how this installment was mostly fluff up until this point? we'll get back to that! 

... just not this chapter <3

part 2: how does a kid end up stranded in space, anyhow?

warnings: bad self care, illness, panic, child in distress, minor injury, non-consensual drug use, trafficking, unethical imprisonment and treatment of prisoners, child endangerment, implied offscreen minor character death, ambiguous character fates, this is a heavy tearjerker chapter but it does have a hopeful ending, lmk if i missed any

-

Virgil’s condition hadn’t improved.

They’d tried as many non-medicinal techniques as they could, struggling to figure out what would help and what would harm an unpredictable biological system that they barely understood.

Nothing had helped. Nothing was working.

And each time Virgil woke up to the sight of the ship around him, he wept and struggled and shouted, burning through his meager energy and only worsening his health.

He didn’t respond to heartfelt pleas from any of them, rarely even seeming to understand they were in the room with him. His stare was distant and terrified, his mind somewhere else, and each time it happened, Logan wanted to understand how to help so badly.

So, after several cycles without sleep and with the pressure of increasing desperation weighing heavy on his head, he finally succumbed to the deeply unwise impulse to start a Vidi.

He’d only wanted to understand what Virgil was yelling, try and grasp the reason behind his fear in the hopes that they could abate it, even slightly.

The moment he’d made contact, however, his mind had been dragged into a memory with intense force, the metaphorical handles of the Vidi ripped away, leaving him unable to steer and barely able to move.

His fingers twitched with the urge to pull away, but he stopped himself. It could hurt Virgil, and he’d endured plenty of traumatic memories before. He could handle this.

With a blink, he was looking through a much younger set of eyes.

—

The ship came during the summer.

Virgil remembered, because he’d been reviewing holidays and important events with his class before the break, and his half-birthday was coming up in a week!

His birthday was in winter, so his half birthday was in the opposite season, summer! He’d said as much before trying to debate his way into a trip to the park with his friends, and failing miserably.

So, he’d snuck out. And gotten himself lost between one turn of the neighborhood and the next.

He’d run into one of his neighbors, who’d been more than a little concerned to see him wandering around alone, especially because there had apparently been some people disappearing lately.

“Where did they go?” he’d asked, and gotten an uncomfortable reassurance, which definitely wasn’t an answer.

He’d frowned, tried to ask again, but his neighbor had gone quiet and grey-faced, staring at something over his shoulder. Before he could turn to see, there was a sharp thunk, and a bright bolt of pain in his shoulder.

There was a high, crackling scream, which was bad, but Virgil couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to figure out where it came from. A pair of warm hands caught him when he staggered, and then he was out.

He barely recalled what happened next, the memories fragmented like someone had taken a hammer to them. He didn’t want to think about them, but he kept the pieces close and tucked away anyhow, knowing they were important even though they hurt.

He felt flickers of awareness, the sensation of eyes rolling against heavy eyelids, a rapid pulse pounding away in his ears like a big drum, angry and fearful shouting barely audible beyond the clamor.

And then: the barest glimpse of the docking port of a ship from the inside, the entrance ramp folding up and sealing away the green trees and blue sky on the other side. Replacing the brief vision of home with cold metal and unearthly lights.

There weren’t any warm hands holding him, now.

His whimper turned nearly soundless on the way up his throat, but it drew the attention of his captors regardless.

A rush of unfamiliar language above him, another flood of numbness spreading through him, but even from that one fragmented moment, Virgil understood that they were taking him away.

Another blank period, like dipping one's head briefly underwater, and then he was waking up again.

“Easy, baby,” a familiar voice said, a hand stroking through his hair, slow and gentle. “You’re okay, you’re alright.”

“Miss Susan?” Virgil asked, and his voice came out small and crackling. He coughed, trying to force his crusted over eyelashes apart with a growing sense of panic.

“Hey, I need some water for the kid!” Miss Susan called lowly, before setting a hand against his back and helping him shuffle upright. “Take it slow, baby, don’t choke. There we go.”

Virgil opened his eyes and got his first look at the room he’d be stuck in for the next several months.

It was dimly lit, and smelled bad. The floor was metal, with a few thin stripes of grating, like a shower drain. The walls were made of tinted plastic and covered with sharp-edged wire netting, and there were a whole bunch of people inside with him and Miss Susan.

They all spoke to him at one point or another, but he only remembered some of their names. The thought made his stomach twist painfully, and he clamped down on the sensation.

He couldn’t be sick. Being sick was bad.

The time shifted, Miss Susan still at his side but her hair longer and her skin sallower. They were all seated, tired from the cold and the dark and the gross food that he wasn’t allowed to throw up.

Mister Ben was coughing, hard and rasping and wet, one after another. A few people were crouched near him, talking to him in hushed voices as they tried to coax him into stopping, but his body curled in and convulsed like he couldn’t control the coughs at all.

Before long, there was a clang, and a spraying sound like that time a fire hydrant down the road had been busted open. A few people stood between the door and Mister Ben, but the room grew more and more hazy with the thick air that made his legs go all numb, and they were swaying with the effort of staying upright.

Virgil knew by now what happened next. He turned and pressed his face against Miss Susan’s side, and she drew him close and held him tightly as the suits came in.

The aliens were always wearing them when they came into sight. Thick rubbery suits with dark-tinted visors, each with an electric zapper in hand. They’d drag the sick one out, and Virgil would never see them again.

“Leave him alone!” Miss Susan cried, joined by the rising voices of the rest of their roommates. “Don’t touch him, you leave him the fuck alone!”

Virgil kept not looking, but he said it too, into the worn fabric of Miss Susan’s blouse. “Leave him alone, don’t touch him, leave him alone, don’t touch him, leave him alone…,”

It didn’t work. It never did. The aliens didn’t listen to them, and they made them weak and floaty if they tried to intervene.

His voice cracked as he kept repeating it, even as the door clanged again and the hiss of air stopped. If he didn’t look up, he could pretend that Mister Ben was still there, only quiet because he was all better from his cough.

"It's okay. I know. It's alright, honey." Miss Susan’s hands shook as they stroked carefully through his hair, soothing him to sleep through the last of his hiccuped sobs.

Everyone who spoke to him was kind, even when they were unhappy. When Miss Susan slept but he was awake, Mister Aaron would invent word games to play or Miss Kelsey would challenge him to push up contests, and they would all take turns trying to think of the worst possible combinations of foods to compare to their mush food.

The best was Miss Susan, though. When he was bored, she would tell him stories about her nieces and nephews, and the farm she grew up on, and silly people at her job before they got taken. When he couldn’t sleep, she would hum whichever parts of lullabies she could remember.

Even when he got sad and didn’t want to move or talk at all, she would hold him close and poke at his side and gasp about seeing the firefly that had snuck onboard with them, until he had no choice but to wiggle free and inspect every corner for its light.

The other adults would spot it every once in a while, too, and try to point it out to him. He never saw it, which he would report back to Miss Susan every time.

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” she’d tell him, waving at the dark ceiling of the room. “Glowbugs can’t be bright all the time.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they’d get too hot and sweaty. They’d have to go swim in the ocean, and then they’d probably all turn into anglerfish,” Miss Susan said, even though she hadn’t known what an anglerfish was until Virgil had told her everything he could remember about them.

“No way,” he said, laughing despite himself. “Bugs can’t turn into fish!”

“Maybe they just get too tired, then,” Miss Susan said, ruffling his hair. “It must be exhausting, being so bright.”

She went quiet for a moment, and Virgil leaned into her touch, squinting at the dark corners and willing the bug to show itself.

“Even when they’re blending in with the dark, though, they’re still there,” Miss Susan finally continued. “So don’t give up. You’ve just gotta trust in it, and eventually, you’ll spot it.”

“I want eventually to be now,” Virgil had responded, petulant as he flopped against her side, eyes growing heavy.

Miss Susan pet his head, humming quietly until he was almost asleep. She let out a big sigh, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet. “You and me both, kid.”

And then it was the last day.

He knew because Miss Susan’s hands were carefully cupping his face, coaxing him into waking up with a careful tap to the nose. They never woke him up on purpose, because 'growing kids needed their rest', except for the last day.

Virgil felt his brow scrunch with confusion even before his eyelids started fluttering, and Miss Susan chuckled and pressed her lips to the crown of his head for a moment.

“Come on, baby, wake up. It’s important, okay?”

He forced himself to open his eyes and keep them open, a little unease running down his spine.

Everyone had been scared, lately. Their group had shrunk in number, their room had been moved onto a bigger ship, and there were distant sounds of crowds at all hours, making his skin prickle with nerves when he was trying to sleep.

Some of their roommates were really smart, and they’d started puzzling out the words of the alien language from the ship directions that were given over the intercom and the overheard conversations of those passing by or rudely peeking in at them.

They’d taught Virgil some of them, whenever he was awake enough to remember. The words they whispered now weren’t ones he’d learned yet, though.

‘Transfer’ and ‘auction’. Everyone disliked them, felt too upset or angry about them to explain, even Miss Susan. Or maybe they just didn’t want to explain them to him, like they wouldn’t tell him what the aliens did with people when they got taken away. There had been a lot of arguing and shouting in low voices, trying to keep him from overhearing.

But now, they were waking him up.

Virgil let himself be coaxed to his feet, following Miss Susan over to the corner where everyone stood in a huddle, the tallest of them on the outside.

“Okay, sweetie. I need you to listen to me very closely, alright?” she told him, turning him to face the corner where they usually kept extra clothes in a pile. “You’re going to have to be very brave for me, okay?”

The clothes had been moved. There was a hole in the wall, where the netting had been peeled back. The edges of it were rough and curved like they’d been made with fingernails, like it had been painstakingly carved through one scratch at a time.

It was a small hole, barely the size of a vent, or a cat flap. Virgil could probably fit through it, but he was the only one.

“No,” Virgil shook his head immediately. “I don’t want to! I’m scared.”

Miss Susan squatted to be level with him, holding his hand in hers. “I know, honey. But it’s important, okay? We’re going to get out and find you, but you have to go first and stay safe until we do. I’ll send our little glowbug with you, and it’ll light the way in the dark.”

“What about your dark?” Virgil asked, rubbing harshly at his stinging eyes.

Miss Susan softened, pulled his hand away and smoothed a thumb over his cheekbone. “Oh, baby. I’ve seen that glowbug a hundred times, here with you. I’ll be okay without it for a little while.”

Virgil turned to look at the hole again, imagining a little firefly crawling through with him so he wouldn’t be alone.

“Do you promise?” he asked, and Miss Susan pulled him into a hug so tight, it felt like it squished all the air from him.

“I promise,” she said, and her hands shook a little but her voice was steady. Virgil smushed his face against her shoulder for the last time.

“Okay. I’ll— I’ll go.”

The barrier of bodies around them seemed to relax, just slightly, though it still took Miss Susan a few moments longer to release him.

They told him everything he needed to know, everyone chiming in. That he had to run, as fast and as far as he could, and be sneaky and quiet when he was too tired to run. That he should find hiding places and hole up in them, wait until nobody was around to keep running.

That he should always hide from aliens, even if they weren't wearing the suits. That he should never let them see him, because they hated humans. That if they did grab him, he could do whatever he needed to do to get away.

“Just like stranger danger, right, buddy? You can bite, kick, scream, whatever you need to do.”

Virgil nodded, trying to push down the sick, stressed feeling in his gut, and when there was finally no advice left to give, he turned to the gash in the wall.

Wiggling through it was hard, because there were still sharp, poky bits that scratched at his skin and the inside of the wall was dark and stifling, but every time he wanted to stop, he could hear the encouragement of everyone else, who was still stuck inside.

There was a little bug with him, he reminded himself. If he closed his eyes and froze up, he wouldn’t ever be able to see it glow.

Finally, he squirmed free of the last few inches, dropping onto the floor of a very small dark room with shelves in it, like a linen closet. He turned back to face the hole, calling out, and Miss Susan reached an arm through.

He grabbed for her hand and pressed his face to it, clung to her for a long moment, his breaths stuttering as she cradled him the best she could.

There was a muffled clang, and Miss Susan ran her wavering thumb over his cheekbone one more time before pulling away.

“Run, Virgil. Now. Run!”

So he did.

He ran and hid, just like they told him, but he picked the wrong place to hide because it was part of another ship, and it took him far away. He kept running, pulled himself into tiny little nooks on spaceship after spaceship, snuck food wherever he could get it and only ever whispered to his invisible firefly.

Eventually, he left a ship and there were no other ships around to board, only the wide landscape of a different planet, full of weird trees and weird animals and a weird town that he fled from. No more ships came, and that was fine because he didn’t want to run anymore. He wanted to stay and wait for them to find him.

He laid on his back and faced the sky, searching for a sign that they were coming. He was hungry and tired and lonely.

The stars above looked just like fireflies, hundreds of them. Enough for all of them to watch together. Except there wasn’t a ‘them’. It was only him.

Virgil felt his face growing hot, his throat closing up at the thought. It was too frightening to be alone.

No, he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t. He had their firefly with him, somewhere next to him in the grass.

“Just because I can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there,” Virgil said to himself sternly, and rolled back to his feet.

He would find something to eat, somewhere to sleep, and he would wait. They would find him. They would find him. They would…

—

When Logan finally eased the mental connection closed and pulled himself free, he found there was a low, buzzing keen building in the back of his throat. The sort of sound he hadn’t made since he himself was a child.

Virgil still lay there unconscious, but his cheeks were shiny and damp with tears. Logan reached out, ignoring the heat radiating from the pupa’s skin, and gently smoothed a narrow finger over his cheek, wiping the wetness away as best he could.

It didn’t do much, but the crinkle in Virgil’s brow seemed to ease just slightly at the sensation.

Roman paced by again, pausing at the sight. “Specs? Is the kid alright? …Are you alright?”

Logan wondered what Roman would think about the fact that Humans and Crav’n had more in common culturally than he would have ever guessed. That an entire group of Humans had given up their only boon for the slim chance of getting the only child present to safety.

No time to waste, now. That conversation would have to wait until they’d launched.

“Let Patton know we’re leaving, and meet me in the navigation area,” he instructed, already turning to leave. “I’m going to clear our landing area for departure.”

“What— I thought we agreed it was a bad idea to actually leave?” Roman asked, glancing between Logan and Virgil with visible worry.

“It’s a worse idea to sit here and wait,” he replied firmly, and then he was down the hall and out the hanger door, ignoring the shiver of secondhand trepidation that Virgil’s mind had left in his.

He circled the ship, placing the warding discs that would keep their launch area organism-free down one by one, and then paused at the sight of a familiar creature standing by the main entrance hatch.

It was a Humlilt, one with a distinct little white splotch on its head. Logan was fairly certain that it was the one who had stood between them and Virgil during their second meeting, the most loyal of the bunch, only proved further by the way it had been waiting outside the ship since Virgil had been taken aboard.

Logan was also fairly certain that Virgil had named this one Susan, after his neighbor. The Human who’d taken care of him, in those memories.

“You’ve taken care of him, too, haven’t you?” he asked, still far too affected by the painful sympathy that had washed over him post-Vidi.

The Humlilt stamped a hoof and trumpeted at him warningly as he neared, still obviously holding a grudge at them for stealing Virgil away.

Logan attempted to rationalize himself out of the decision he was about to make, and utterly failed.

—

It took some digging and reaching out to a few of Logan’s less savory contacts, but the ship was on its way to a waypoint station that was rumored to have a Human expert in residence. It could have been a trap, a lie meant to lure interested parties into an attack, but they were going to have to risk it.

The three of them had all agreed to the plan. They wouldn’t be able to live with themselves otherwise.

Now that they were in transit, Logan sat down with his two closest friends, and began to explain just what he’d learned about their kid.

A few rooms down in the medical bay, a half-conscious Human reached out a feverish hand and found a small, fluffy presence curled up at his side.

The Humlilt crooned a few notes, sounding just like the aimless lullabies its namesake used to hum.

For the first time since boarding the ship, Virgil breathed a little easier.

#wibar #ts logan #ts virgil #ts patton #ts roman #space au #humans are deathworlders #teoba #the end of being alone #mind the warnings #writing #my writing

[sleepyvirgilprompts]

In a human AU, Virgil is a five-year-old and Patton is his dad. Patton works from home a lot, and since Virgil is good at sit-quietly-while-Dad-is-busy as long as he's fairly content, Patton lets him sit on his lap while he works if Virgil wants to. Virgil likes cuddling and often ends up dozing off in Patton's lap.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #ts virgil #sanders sides prompts #fanfiction prompt #patton sanders #ts patton #human au #kid virgil

[art-crumbs-main]

Tried my hand at some genderbent, human AU moceit! Patton is Patricia (Patty,) and Janus is Janice. 💀

#moceit #sanders sides au #sanders sides #sanders sides patton #sanders sides janus #janus sanders #patton sanders #i love they #human au

[typically-untypical]

Lucky

AU: Soulmate Human AU

CW: Remus Angst

WC: 3703

Date: 12/7/2023

There were few people in the world who were as lucky as Remus. He had been born with four soulmates, four people he could pour all of his love and admiration onto and have it be reciprocated. Even if he was a little weird, even if he was a bit reckless, there were going to be four people who loved him through it all.

There were few people in the world who were as lucky as Remus. When he was in middle school he had made two new friends only to find out pretty quickly that they were his soulmates. He had found two of his forever people before he even turned 13 and he knew he was going to have a life full of happiness and love with the two of them. When they found their other two soulmates, Remus was going to be the happiest person in the world.

Remus had a run of bad luck. It could happen to anyone. A few teachers who didn't like him, a few gossipy students who wanted to ruin him, and two parents who didn't believe him. It was a recipe for disaster. Remus was sent away, but he had already met two of his soulmates and his brother, so it was okay.

Remus' bad luck continued. His brother was isolated from him, apparently a bad influence isn't worth talking to. His soulmates were isolated from him. Janus' parents were convinced Remus was the devil and Virgil's own family was chaos. Between the drama in their lives and the restrictions in Remus' their communication faltered and failed more and more until it was basically non-existent. 

There were few people in the world who were as unlucky as Remus. He had finally gotten out of his crappy high school his parents had shipped him to. He had his freedom, but he had no one. Virgil's phone was disconnected, Janus' father picked up when Remus tried to call, and Roman wanted nothing to do with him. Remus was alone but he didn't need luck. He could be strong. He could fight. Not to mention, he had hope. Remus still had two soulmates who might want to see him.

There were few people in the world who were as unlucky as Remus. He stared down at his phone, looking at his brother's instagram. He was home for the summer break, his first semester of college over with, and he had brought home two friends. At first Remus couldn't believe his eyes, two men, two soulmarks, both matching his missing pieces. His brother had to have known. He had to have understood what it meant becoming friends with those two people, those two specifically. Remus threw his phone at the wall of his apartment. It was drafty and poorly maintained but it was his. He had learned how to do most of the repairs himself. He had gotten into a job himself, and damn it was exhausting, but he had done it all for the hope that one day his luck would turn around, one day he could be loved again. Sinking to the floor, Remus put his head in his knees, closing his eyes and fighting the tears that threatened to well up from inside of him. It had all been a rumor, a stupid rumor his parents and teachers took as truth. Yes he liked the macabre, but that didn't make him a monster, and even if he was, what of it. He wasn't hurting anyone. Remus ran a hand through his hair, looking at the dent in his wall. He was going to have to fix that. He could get all the supplies and then maybe get himself something cheap to eat from a fast food place. It was so hard to cook cheaply for one person especially when he didn't have proper storage space for leftover or bulk cooking. 

Pushing himself to his feet, Remus walked over and picked up his phone, quickly closing the Instagram app so he wasn't able to focus on what he lost. He had wanted to go back home after high school, to return to his hometown and find Janus and Virgil. However, being completely cut off from financial help, it wasn't necessarily easy for him to make it back home. He might be able to now that it was a year later, but his finances still weren't completely secure. Maybe he should start posting on Instagram rather than just stalking his brother, then Janus and Virgil could find him easier, but honestly, Remus was nervous. So much had gone wrong in his life, he was afraid of trying to reach out again, of watching it all blow up in his face. He had an account, but it was blank, and he wasn't following anyone, not even Roman. Remus hadn't wanted to give his brother the chance to block him. He couldn't handle being anymore disconnected then he already was. 

Slipping his phone into his pocket, Remus ruffled his long hair. He had started dying it green ever since he got out of that stupid boarding school. Maybe he should post that, he could dye his hair again, it was getting a bit faded and he could buy box dye and a steak quesadilla and just do something for himself today. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Remus went to check his bank account. He had enough money for it, especially if he wasn't going to try and go back to his hometown. He needed to find another word for it. That place hadn't been home in a really long time. 

True to his word, Remus spent the rest of his night dying his hair a bright green, he even trimmed it up and made it look nice before taking a picture and posting it. He wasn't trying to get famous or anything, just trying to throw out a line. He wasn't the type to sit by helplessly. If Janus and Virgil didn't find him, then it wasn't actually meant to be. If they did and didn't want him... well he could continue deluding himself. 

After seeing his last two soulmates with Roman, he wasn't expecting to ever have them by his side. He was sure his brother had already told them a million awful things about the type of person he was. He was going to cling to what he knew, who he knew. Virgil and Janus had been such wonderful soulmates. They had just been kids when they met, and that's all they wanted to be back then. The three of them would sneak onto the school at night, they would play harmless pranks on each other and when things were really hard for Virgil at home, they would all come together and just exist. That's what Remus wanted, he wanted someone he could exist with, someone he could go home to. He wasn't sure what that was going to mean for any of them in a future, if they even had one together, but he imagined Halloweens spent in graveyards, Christmases spent in the forest. He imagined so much while he was separated from them. Now he just hoped to have them in his house one day. 

[Section Break]

Virgil sat on Janus' couch, curled up against him as he scrolled through tumblr. Janus had just gotten back for summer break and Virgil wasn't intending on leaving his side if it could be helped. He had gotten super clingy after they lost Remus, and it really was their fault. The two of them should have tried harder to keep in contact with him, but he hadn't had a cell phone when he was sent to that stupid boarding school and Virgil's home life had gotten so much worse. Remus had been so isolated, but so had Virgil up until the day he turned eighteen and ran away. Janus was the one who had helped him out, hiding most of it from his parents. The two of them were all each other had and even now they could only cuddle like this because both of his parents were out on a cruise. Their only son came back from college and they were gone. Virgil didn't know how they could stand to be separated from him.

"You're squishing me again, I can't breathe," Janus chuckled, shifting so he could pull Virgil a bit closer. "How is it you are a guest in this house and yet taking up my entire couch?"

"It's not my fault your couch is so small," Virgil stretched as if to make a point and Janus rolled his eyes before leaning down to kiss him.

"It's not my fault you're so tall."

"You're just short, even Remus-" Virgil cut himself off, they weren't supposed to talk about Remus, it hurt too much, but sometimes he couldn't help it.

"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Janus put down his phone, running a hand over Virgil's eyes to hide him from the world. They had had to stop thinking about Remus, stop dwelling on him. It was tearing both of them apart. Virgil blamed himself for not reaching out more and Janus worried about whether or not Remus was doing alright. Everything had gone from perfect to falling apart in such a short time, and they had just been kids. 

"I can't help it. I keep thinking if I had written him letters, or if I had done literally anything at all, maybe I could have kept in touch with him, maybe he and I could be working to support you through what you want to do and not what your parents want you to do."

"A third income would help," Janus teased, rubbing his thumb across Virgil's temple, watching as his boyfriend wrapped his fingers around Janus' hand, holding him closer. "But it's not your fault. It's not either of our faults. If anything, we can blame Roman."

Virgil snorted but didn't argue. The two of them both had a bone to pick with Roman who had truly gone to the dark side in high school. He had perpetuated the rumors about his brother and started using Remus as his tragic backstory. Senior year Virgil had decked Roman for his lies. He had gotten suspended for three days but it had been worth it.

"Do you want to jump onto instagram and make fun of him?" Janus asked and Virgil pouted. It wasn't fair for him to be so well known. He was supposed to be mysterious.

"Yeah," He finally relented, slowly pulling down Janus ‘hand so he could see once again. "After, do you want to go to the mall and see if we can scope out soulmates? More people means more eyes looking for Remus."

"I guess if we have to leave the comfort of my home the mall is acceptable." Virgil poked Janus in the side and they both laughed a bit, settling back into their silence. It was hard to keep themselves smiling and happy, but they did their best. They fought to keep and hold each other, not willing to lose one another again. Janus opened up Roman's instagram and immediately shot up almost pushing Virgil off the couch.

"What? What happened?"

"Look at this!" He held his phone out. Virgil and Janus were both looking at Roman with two men they had never seen before, two men who had their soulmarks.

"We should break into the house," Janus said quietly but seriously and Virgil shot up. It was so like Remus and for a moment it almost felt like he was here, but then the moment faded and Virgil was very aware that this was an awful idea.

"We should not, we can't break into Remus' childhood home. Especially not with Roman there. The two probably aren't even with him, they're probably in a hotel or something."

Janus lifted his eyebrow, standing up as well. "Come on Virgil, think about it. They have so many bedrooms, and the Prince parents are so concerned about status. They would never have their guests stay in a hotel. They are probably in the media room watching some stupid movie. Also, this is something Remus would do, and if they can't see past it, then they won't accept Remus, and I won't accept them."

Virgil wrung his hands together. "This… this is a really bad idea, but I'll follow you anywhere."

A look of love and adoration crossed Janus' face as he pulled Virgil in for a kiss. He wasn't the type for sudden affection, he preferred to be more mysterious than that, but sometimes, he had too much love to keep held in his chest. When they finally separated he smirked softly. "Let's go break into a house."

It wasn't really breaking into a house if they had a key, right? Technically they didn't break anything. Virgil still looked terrified about the whole thing, but he was doing his best to keep on a neutral face. Janus was proud, but also knew he would have to do almost all of the talking with this. He made his way to the media room, which was actually empty but then he heard laughing from the living room and Janus tilted his head that direction. Part of him felt the need to be dramatic, to flicker the lights and scare all of them, the other part of him did want to impress his soulmates. He would just have to wait for the right moment.

"Alright, Roman, what's your greatest fear?" The curly haired one asked and that was Janus' moment.

"Oh I can answer that," He walked in, leaning against the door frame with a smirk. "He's afraid he'll turn out to be like his brother, or at least, what he imagines his brother is."

The room was silent for a moment before the taller one went for his phone. It looked like he was dialing someone when Roman sighed and rolled his eyes. 

"What are you doing here, Janus?" His tone was flat and Janus would have been offended if he wasn't more focused on the importance of what was in front of him.

"Coming to meet my soulmates, since you decided to hide the two of them from us."

"I wasn't hiding anything from them or you," Roman stated and at the same time Logan and Patton spoke.

"Us?"

Virgil slowly walked around the corner. "Sorry to disturb you, I thought it was a bad idea, but also, we didn't want to miss an opportunity to meet you." He looked over at the two men. "I'm Virgil, and this is Janus."

"How cruel of you to not let me introduce myself, but I guess Princy already broke that for me. Yes, my name is Janus and if you'd like me to unrobe, I can prove that the two of us are your soulmates. However, that might offend poor Roman's delicate sensibilities."

"Now see here," Roman shot up, making his way toward Janus but was stopped by Logan.

"Allow me to make sure I have all of the information correct. You know these two men?"

Roman nodded.

"And you were aware that we shared soulmarks."

Roman nodded again. "But, I just realized it today, when we were all in the pool."

Logan hummed and sighed, looking up at Roman. "What else are you hiding?"

Janus smirked at that. "Oh you haven't told them have you?" 

"Quiet," Logan said standing up, "We could very well have you arrested for trespassing. Simply because I am irritated at Roman doesn't mean you are off the hook." He swiveled back to Roman. "What else haven't you told us?"

Patton stood up slowly, putting a hand on Logan's arm. "Hey, love, deep breath. I'm sure Roman has a reason, and isn't it just a bit romantic that they came running to find us as soon as they knew where we were?" He asked with a softness that melted some of Logan's ire. He took in a slow deep breath and turned back to Roman expectantly.

"Do you remember the brother I've told you about?"

"The brother who bullied someone until they left school?"

"You fucking liar!" Virgil hissed, stepping forward. "Is that what you told them about him? You know that was a stupid rumor. Jenna moved because her parents were relocated. The two of them barely interacted." It was Janus' turn to reach out and reign his love in. Patton looked a bit surprised. Logan looked suspicious.

"What about your brother?" Logan asked.

"He's your fourth soulmate." The room was deathly silent for a bit, none of them dared to breathe. "I didn't know, I swear I didn't know until today, and I didn't know how to tell you. Remus really was awful, he was always trying to be in the spotlight, always attempting to do weird things just to get other people's attention. He didn't understand how to behave and he stepped all over people's boundaries. He wasn't a good person, and I wasn't sure how to tell you that the universe decided you should be with someone like that. I was going to tell you eventually, but I just... I didn't know how."

Patton pulled Roman in for a hug. "We know the soulmate subject is tricky for you, but this is a decision you should have let us make." 

Logan rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I agree, especially since you have no idea where your brother is." Logan turned to Janus and Virgil, "My name is Logan, would you two happen to know where Remus is?"

They both immediately turned somber and Logan sighed. "Very well, now that we know what we're dealing with. I think it's probably best if you two head home as you weren't invited and you are currently trespassing. Roman, we are going to have a very frank discussion about your brother." He pulled out his phone, opening it up and handing it to Janus. "Please put your phone number in, I shall call you in the morning and we can discuss things further." Janus raised his eyebrow and said nothing as he put his name and number in the phone, adding a heart emoji just for flair.

[Section Break]

After they had left, Logan sighed and rubbed his face. "Roman, I have always been aware that your disdain for your brother might be more than you were willing to admit, however, hiding our soulmate from us is reprehensible at best and an intentional betrayal of our friendship at worst."

Roman's face soured but Logan continued. He didn't want this to turn into an argument, he just wanted to understand. "Tell us about Remus, not your opinions, but what he has actually done."

They had a conversation, a long one, a hard one. It went several hours into the night and at the end of it Patton and Roman, who weren't used to all nighter study sessions, were both exhausted. Logan, on the other hand, wanted to reach out to Janus first. He had gotten as much information as he could from Roman, including Remus' disownment and the location of Remus' boarding school he had been sent to. Logan had a job now. He didn't think Remus would be far from where the boarding school was, especially if he hadn't had the money to leave. Which meant he could construct a radius, and maybe they could go on a field trip. He wanted a chance to meet his soulmate. He wanted to be able to decide for himself whether or not Remus was too much. Logan didn't like being told what he could and couldn't do, what he could and couldn't have. He made the decisions for himself, and he would judge Remus for himself.

He and Patton spent the rest of the night coming up with a plan, Roman consistently sulking in the corner. In the morning the two of them spoke to Remus and Janus again. It was decided, they were going to go on a road trip, not only to try and find Remus, but also in order to get to know one another better. That's what led Patton here, standing with Janus in a coffee shop almost a full state away. The drive had been hard, but fun and they had decided to split up into unfamiliar pairs. Patton was getting to know Janus and the ways he had with words. He was currently sweet talking a barista, acting calm and collected, yet Patton had also seen him go on rants about injustice as he and Logan debated. There were so many sides to Janus and Patton was utterly fascinated.

"Can you tell us anymore about this patron, like what areas he frequents?" The barista shook her head, but then her eyes lit up.

"I don't know where he is, but I think that's him." She was pointing to a figure walking past the coffee shop, shuffling about in a daze. He looked so tired and in need of such care. Patton was moving on his own, quickly making his way to the man with bright green hair, a thunderbolt tattoo on his arm that matched the one of Patton's. As soon as he got to Remus' side, the man faltered and fell into Patton's arms. He must have been exhausted. 

"Angel?" He asked quietly, and Patton couldn't help the smile that lit up his face. He was already starting to like Janus, so of course he was willing to jump into this feet first.

"I'm sorry kiddo, I'm not an Angel, but I think I could fall for you like Lucifer." 

Remus snorted, slowly pushing himself up. "Cute," he muttered, yawning. "Thanks for catching me-"

It seemed like he had more to say, but didn't get a chance as Janus flung himself at Remus. "You're here."

"Jay?" He asked, trepidation and nervousness in his voice before he scooped up Janus, both of them inevitably falling on their asses. It didn't matter, not as Remus continued to call out Janus' nickname, and not as Patton sent a picture to Virgil and Logan. 

Patton could tell, they were going to be the luckiest group ever.

@tsspromptmonth

#Untypical Creations #Sanders Sides #Sanders Side fic #Fanfic #Remus Sanders #Patton Sanders #Virgil Sanders #Janus Sanders #Logan Sanders #Roman Sanders #soulmate au #human au

[grandtimetravelchaos]

Adding to my sanders sides office au!

Roman has his own desk but mostly just chills in Logan's office

He also accompanies Logan to all the big important meetings and networking events

Virgil still finds ways to dress emo in the office

Patton's mum's own a cute bakery so sometimes when they host office events they can book that venue for free

Virgil hates working at the office because of corporate culture and constantly wants to fight the man

Logan always makes sure all his employees leave the minute the clock hits five. He refuses to contribute to an unhealthy work life balance.

Logan inherited the company from his dad

Patton has two young kids who he sometimes brings to work if he can't find a baby sitter

No one minds at all, they all try their best to keep them happy and entertained which is fairly easy. A few Disney songs, colouring books and vending machine snacks do the trick

The older one (5) follows Logan around like a baby duck, always trying to see what he's doing and nodding very seriously when Logan explains. Their also very intent on convincing him he should give them a sip of his coffee

Patton's mortified by his kid disrupting Logan's work and apologises profusely but Logan's very endeared by his tiny apprentice

"Do you like frogs Mr Jam" (Logan's last name is crofter and being five and unable to rember the name they call him mr jam cause crofters is jam) "I do like frogs their very interesting" "me to! I wish I were a frog cause they get to live in ponds with lily pads and dragon flies. And if I were a frog I wouldn't let any princesses kiss me" they shake their head with absolute conviction. "Cause then I couldn't be a frog anymore and that'd be very silly" "very silly indeed" Logan agrees unable to hide the smile growing on his face

There's a tiny "desk" (a small coffee table with a pencil case full of glitter pens and a note book) beside Logan's desk for them to sit at

The younger kid has an inexplicable affinity for Remy. Remy does not like kids but this three year old has inhuman amounts of sass and doesn't understand the concept of privacy yet so is great at sharing gossip. They also have a great no fucks to give attitude so Remy genuinely enjoys talking to this kid

"My friend said fairys were stupid so I pushed her and put on another four sets of fairy wings" "yasss queen,that bitch deserved it"

Roman thinks patton's kids are the most adorable things to ever walk the earth but he has zero clue how to interact with children

Sometimes when he stressed Logan smokes but Patton absolutely refuses to kiss him when he does

Logan and Patton only go on dates outta town because janus is just waiting to catch them on a romantic outing

Roman has passed out at work exactly nine times for various reasons (exhaustion, hunger, sickness, shock)

Logan's actshally kinda clumsy and bad with time management hence him needing Roman so bad. But he's really good at his job

Some of the investors hate Logan for being a nepo baby despite him being good at his job. They formally extend the hatred to Roman as well

Both are very protective of the others reputation. Logan once broke an investor's nose after he called Roman a useless boy toy

#logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #logicality #platonic logince #parental Patton #human au

[ascenari0]

This is an au I’ve had for a while I just never shared it, if you wanna see designs I’ll prob share them, but Jake and Johnnies friendship remind me of Roman and Virgil in this au. (Beta Designs)

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #my art #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #sanders sides art #sanders sides au #johnnie guilbert #jake webber #jake and johnnie #sanders sides human au

[loganslowdown4]

Help why is this so funny to meeeeeee

Patton & Remus being all dog and Thomas being all human it just… it knows IT KNOWS

Link!

They didn’t have Janus the god spelling, I had to make due shhhhh

#way too funny #what is your name? dog or human? #mine is human #thomas sanders #sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #ts roman #patton sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #ts logan #ts janus #ts patton #ts remus #ts virgil

[d-c-it]

I cant belive i never finished these

I guess ill have to start again sigh.

#human au #Sanders sides #deceit sanders #roman sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #fem sides

[ashs-random-writing]

Dancing with Death

Chapter 1~ laughter

Ao3

Reblogs>>>>likes

--

Virgil has been the God of Death since the dawn of time. He had earned many titles from the mortals, though his favourite was 'The Grim Reaper'. Once in the afterlife, most know him as King Virgil

Patton, as the recently deceased, gets led into the afterlife by a cloaked, masked figure. He wants to know more about them

--

When Patton died, it was a bit of a shock. He was a young adult, he was pretty normal, and then suddenly... all of that was gone. Some of the people he had known in life may have been upset

Patton wouldn’t know. He was escorted to the afterlife pretty much immediately. He hadn’t slept in about a week, which Patton realised was probably the cause of his death. 

Could you blame him, though? His friends needed help! They needed comfort and advice for matters that were more pressing than any of his, and he may have not slept as much as he could’ve, but he couldn’t stop helping them. He only stopped for a small nap before waking up untethered from his body

He looked at the person guiding him. They were tall (maybe seven foot), with a dark purple cloak, almost black in colour. They had grey skin, and sunken cheeks, but he could barely see that due to the skeletal mask they wore.

It had cracks in the design, and was a muted gold colour. The person didn’t speak, not when Patton asked where they were going. They didn’t even seem to react. Patton tried to make light of the situation, and looked at the skeletal figure with a small smile

“With how tired I was, I guess you could say I was... dead on my feet” He watched their reaction carefully, noting how the corners of their lips quirked up into an amused smile before falling into the same emotionless face again.

They walked into the afterlife and Patton watched as they grew and grew into an ethereal giant, and Patton joined crowds of other souls. 

The afterlife was vast, infinite even, but he could get wherever he wanted to go if he walked for a while. It would come to him.

The afterlife was an always shifting, always changing paradise, but what never changed was that in the middle of it all was a giant castle made of dark bricks. It was like something you’d see in a Halloween movie, Patton thought.

He had asked who lived there (lived being a relative term), and an older soul explained that was where the god of the dead resided.

King Virgil, apparently. He was the one who guided the souls, according to the person he was talking to. Patton thought about his journey to the afterlife; it was quick, but Patton would never forget it. 

According to everyone else, the king never spoke, and almost never left his castle, except to collect the recently deceased. Most people seemed scared of him, which Patton could understand. When they were in the afterlife, he was over 90 feet tall, and with the not-talking thing, and spooky castle, and death theme, he seemed rather intimidating.

Patton thought about the smile he had seen on the kings face when he had made a joke. Was the king really that scary?

He spent a year or two after that simply exploring. Time worked different in the afterlife; he didn’t know how he knew that but he did. A year there could be a minute to the outside world

The afterlife was large, and he found himself connecting with a few old friends, and he found himself staring at the king every time he left the castle. Patton found out that his majesty wasn’t supposed to be guiding the souls himself

He was supposed to have an apprentice like the other gods. Patton never even knew there were other gods. Virgil was only supposed to be ruling over the dead while the apprentice/apprentices collected the souls

No one had decided to become apprentice to the Death God, even when the Gods were worshipped widely. Apparently, it was seen as bad luck to devote your life to death, even if you couldn’t actually start working until you died. It was said to be like a curse upon those closest to the apprentice, to always die soon after choosing. 

Patton doubted that. He had never believed much in superstition, not since it made people hate little black cats. He applied.

That’s not to say he wasn’t nervous, he definitely was, but the god was probably lonely, no one to teach and no one in that truly ginormous castle with him

He had spoken with a few people who had applied and almost immediately quit because the whole thing was too off-putting for them, and King Virgil still never took the mask off and was ‘staring at them with the empty black eyes of the mask’

Patton didn’t mind if he kept the mask on or off. The people who had been in the afterlife for over a thousand earth years didn’t seem to be as scared, but as soon as the god got anywhere near any ‘villages’, they would avoid.

Some claimed that they had once heard his voice, and never wanted to hear it again, that it sounded like a thousand damned souls calling out to them to join them, that it hurt if you thought about it too much

Patton was sceptical of that, but he recognised that they were scared nonetheless and didn’t push it.

He knew immediately when his application was accepted, as he felt something connecting him to the castle, to the king himself. He shivered, but he didn’t back down. A letter came through his door a few minutes later, on black paper with golden ink.

It was detailing what exactly the apprenticeship would entail, a few months of training, shadowing the reaper as he collected souls, and eventually doing the collecting on his own.

The letter also stated that he was free to back out at any time. He was to start the next morning

He walked up to the castle doors, noting that he was barely the size of a single brick. At exactly the time he was scheduled to start, the large wooden doors opened and the king was stood there at his giant, towering height. Patton was led inside, and Virgil still didn’t speak to him or take his mask off

Patton worked through training for the next few months, which seemed to surprise Virgil. The training was partly how to open the veil between the living realm and the realm of the dead, partly how to make the souls follow you, partly how to wield time magic to make sure you manage to collect each soul on time. Patton had even got a matching cloak to Virgil’s! Though his was blue, not purple

Virgil still never spoke. Patton got his instructions from slips of paper and gestures the king made. Though, he did laugh at one of Patton’s jokes, which was most certainly a win.

It was time to learn how to collect the souls. He followed Virgil through a curtained door

-

Virgil hadn’t expected his new apprentice to stick around long enough to actually learn something. None of the others had.

He didn’t mean to scare people, but it was so hard not to. They were scared when he was silent, they were scared when he spoke, they were scared of the mask, they were scared when he took the mask off. He just couldn’t win with them

Patton didn’t seem to mind very much. Patton seemed the most promising of everyone. He could remember collecting Patton’s soul. He had caught him off guard with a joke of all things

Virgil usually never reacted to the recently deceased’s jokes, especially never when it was about their deaths, but this one came right out of the blue and surprised him, and he had smiled. 

Patton was a cheerful dude, a little too eager to be helpful if the way he died was any indication. Virgil may have to take the mortal to a therapist if Patton kept putting himself last. Virgil wasn't the best model of mental health but even he knew that wasn't healthy

Virgil taught Patton how to separate the veil, and Patton followed him with an eagerness to learn, to help guide people

It was refreshing from the usual fearful apprehension he was met with. Mortals always wanted to try to escape death, the very thing Virgil represented. They hated the idea of death, the idea of Virgil

And, Virgil would be lying if he said that didn’t make him at least a little bit upset. Patton hadn’t tried to run, or evade. He hadn’t tried to seek out death either, and Virgil admitted that was a good course to take.

As much as Virgil valued his domain, he knew that it was better for mortals to live out their full, short lives as they were supposed to before joining him.

Patton almost always had a smile on his face, and he just kept making jokes. Virgil actually laughed at one of them, instead of just smiling. He guided the apprentice towards the living realm for collection training.

When they went through the curtain, they evened out to roughly the same height, though Virgil was still taller by quite a bit. 

The first victim was a middle aged woman who had unfortunately gotten into a car crash. Her body was still in the driver’s seat. She was crying. 

Virgil looked at Patton, who was starting to move forward to comfort her. Virgil didn’t hear what was being said, but she soon let them lead her to the after life.

There were many souls to collect, and Patton didn’t drop his cheerful, friendly demeaner at all. Except when they got into Virgil’s castle again and he looked up at Virgil, looking sad. Virgil could almost hear the tears that he could tell were being held in

“How? How do you manage it? Having to guide everyone, when they’re so upset about something that can’t be fixed?” 

Virgil sighed sadly, conjuring another note

‘it is hard,’ was what was written ‘but it must be done’

Patton nodded up at him, and Virgil let a small smile down.

---

Taglist: @a-chilly-pepper​

#sanders side fic #sanders sides story #sanders sides fic #sanders sides #sanders sides gt #sanders sides g/t #sanders sides ghost #grim reaper #death #death virgil #human patton #deity virgil #my writing

[decent0distraction]

Hi! You may know me as the person who does all of those Our Flag Means Death AUs, theories, and posts that either ruin your day, make you laugh, or both. Mostly both.

But I have something else for you.

My take on family!Sanders Sides - based off of the whole family roles the Sides gave themselves in the Five Years video.

To refresh your memory, Patton labeled himself as the dad, Logan as the mom, Roman as the son (the hotshot), Virgil as the (gay, emo) cousin, Janus as the (sassy) aunt (who talks shit about everyone), and Remus as the (fresh out of jail) uncle.

BUT

This AU of mine is… messed up.

Ok ok ok SO

We begin with Janus Duke, who has just moved back to the town of Sanders Bay, a lovely seaside community.

Janus has spent the last 10 years raising their son (Janus uses they/them pronouns bc I said so), moving from place to place for reasons that Virgil doesn’t know about yet that we’ll get into later. Stay with me.

Virgil is 16 and on his first day at Sanders Bay Secondary Academy (what a name, huh?), his dad, Remus, is getting out of jail.

When Virgil was about 6, Janus and Remus had decided to walk from their house into town to pick up their son from the babysitter. They were about halfway there when someone attacked Janus, cutting his face (resulting in scars on one side of his mouth, eye, and cheek, resembling a snake like face). Remus reacted violently towards the person who just hurt his spouse, the cops are called, and it’s made out to look like Remus had hurt Janus, who was unconscious.

When Janus finally came to, they were in a hospital, being told that their husband had been arrested and arranged.

Cut to present day, Virgil’s first day is met with a slight complication when an idiot threatre-jock hybrid accidentally knocks into him, causing him to hit his head.

Roman Hart insists that Virgil allow him to escort him to the nurse, who just so happens to be his dad, Patton Hart.

Roman’s other dad is their home room and history teacher, Logan Hart.

By the end of the school day, Roman and Virgil are sort of friends. But when Roman asks Virgil if they’d want to hang out or something, Virgil explains that he has to get home because his dad is finally home.

Roman just assumes that Virgil’s dad is in the military. He doesn’t even actually get to ask, because Virgil is too busy running out to Janus’s car.

Everything is going fine for a little while. Virgil studies with Roman after school, or they go to the mall, eventually going to Roman’s house.

The Harts are the nicest people in town, and Patton simply adores having Virgil around.

Janus, one day, is waiting with Remus in the school pick up lane for Virgil. The two of them are having a nice, causal conversation that is interrupted by Janus seeing their son talking to them.

“Oh, my God!” Janus slammed his foot on the break and put the car in park. “It’s them! It’s them!”

Remus looked to see their son standing with another boy, while the boy’s parents talked to Virgil.

They were Patton and Logan Hart, two people the Duke parents were happy to never see again.

When Patton put his hand on Virgil’s shoulder, Janus struggled to rush out of the car. Remus followed.

“Virgil!”

The anxious teen turned to watch his mom run to him and pull him away from the Harts.

“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

Virgil was beyond confused. “What? No! I’m fine. What are you-“ He stopped when Remus started to approach.

“Dad? Dad, I don’t know what’s happening, but nothing happened. Dad!”

But the man ignored his son in favor of getting in Logan’s face. “You’d do right by you and your family to stay the fuck away from mine.”

Logan didn’t even flinch. “And it would be correct for you to avoid threatening my family.”

Virgil was ready to try to defuse the situation before Janus began to have a panic attack. “Mom?”

Remus is then distracted by his spouse needing his help. He gets his little family in the car and they get home, where the parents sit down and finally tell Virgil the truth.

The truth is, Patton Hart and Janus Duke were friends. When they were 20, and Janus had a child and Patton didn’t, he got upset. And when he saw baby Virgil, he decided that he needed that child.

He acted like everything was fine. He offered to babysit Virgil so the new parents could have some time to themselves. He paid for Janus to be attacked, for Remus to be framed.

But when Janus woke up, he called Patton, screaming, begging. He knew Patton had the baby.

And Patton knew that if he kept Virgil, everything could be traced back to him eventually.

So he returned Virgil, acting like he was just watching the child for his friend.

But Janus moved away, moving from place to place so that they couldn’t be found.

Janus was so desperate to have their husband and their son’s father back that they believed Patton and Logan had moved on.

But to see that man anywhere their baby, Janus couldn’t handle it.

Virgil knows the truth now. How can anything be the same?

Before they can try to figure it out, the doorbell rings.

Janus flinches and Virgil is still busy hugging his Mom to bother with the door.

“I got it,” Remus tells them, answering the door to a man in all black and sunglasses.

“Look, whatever you’re selling, we’re not interested. Try the neighbors across the street. A lot of packages. Maybe they like sunglasses, or whatever you’re situation is-“

“-I’m not selling anything, sir. I’m looking for Remus Duke.”

Turns out, this guy isn’t a salesman. He’s Detective Remy Dormir (idk, I got the name from a human!AU fanart), hired by Roman Hart to find his birth family. (He arranged for this a year before the Dukes moved back to Sanders Bay)

This eventually leads to the discovery that Remus Duke’s father, Romulus King, got a woman pregnant before his passing. By this time, his son Remus had moved far away and changed his name, never successful at pleasing the man.

So yeah, Roman and Remus are half brothers. Which means Virgil’s only friend in Sanders Bay is his half uncle, since Virgil is the biological son of Janus and Remus Duke.

Yeah, there’s no romance between Roman and Virgil. Sorry to disappoint you Roman/Virgil shippers. There’s nothing wrong with that ship, it just doesn’t work for this AU.

That’s all I have so far. If I find that I missed something, I’ll add it later.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #remy sanders #I’m probably forgetting something #sanders sides au #sanders side fic #human au #family au

[justdlightful]

Janus has bad seasonal allergies, and spends October to March sneezing and speaking with a stuffy nose. Virgil thinks it’s hilarious, and Patton likes to compare Janus’ sneezes to him dabbing because of his obsolete dad humor. Heavily inspired by a post by @sandersidess .

#sanders sides #human au #ts janus #janus sanders #ts patton #patton sanders #ts virgil #virgil sanders #artists on tumblr #artwork #digital art #fanart #my art #mini comic

[delimeful]

to know that song (and all its words) (10)

just like virgil, it's time we get to look at the raiders' attack from a few different perspectives :)

warnings: violence, blood and injury, implied minor character death, guilt, fear, lmk if i missed any

-

CAMERA LOG SF 7

DESIGNATION: LOADING BAY

20:34:27

“You hurt him,” Patton said, and he barely even recognized the sound that came out of him as his own voice.

The crowd of aliens was frightening, the way all aliens were to him, but there were some advantages to being monsters, and one of them was that aliens were scared of him back. They parted before him like leaves scattered by a leafblower, his steps unimpeded as he made his way to where a bundle of familiar feathers and fuzz laid. Unnatural, twitching movements spasmed through them, but they hadn’t gone deathly still– not yet.

Whatever the leader alien was saying was lost to the distant buzzing in Patton’s head. Logan’s response made it through, just barely. His voice had dropped into that icy pitch that meant he was well and truly angry, an ominous tone that made something primal and hunted in the back of Patton’s mind shiver to life.

Be ready, it said. We’ll have to fight soon.

He hated fighting more than anything else in space, even the tests. He hated seeing the fear set in, with bristling spines or flinching spikes or rolling, panicked eyes. He hated the way alien bones and bug shells gave way so easily, like they were made of hollow styrofoam or old eggshell.

Feathers’ arm was broken, snapped with a nasty, jutting-out bit of bone that made him feel sick to even see. Patton remembered the chalky taste of shock when he broke his wrist as a kid, the way the hurt had overwhelmed everything, the cautionary tales about grabbing little creatures or bothering baby birds, because they would die from the shock and the stress sometimes.

Aliens were so much more delicate than the little beings back home.

There’s a sob, somewhere in the back of Patton’s throat. He folded it down carefully, because he was surrounded by danger and because Feathers was still alive, and so he couldn’t just give up or break down, not even with all his fear and dread mixing into a horrible, pulsing mess in his gut.

Feathers had always been spirited, from the first moment the three of them snuck onto the little guy’s ship. Patton repeated this to himself like a mantra as he crouched next to them, feeling his lips wobble a little at the sight of their little head craning slightly to see him.

Their eyes narrowed into little crescents, and they made a small, warbling chirp that seemed to get a little tangled halfway through the sound. Feathers had made a lot of sounds, but none of them had ever sounded like this. The high pitched whistling breaths sounded a lot like almost-whines, like a hurt dog begging for help, but Feathers didn’t even seem to know that they were making them.

The alien leader kept speaking as Patton carefully slotted his hands under Feathers’ small, too-light form. The cadence of the words was songlike and mocking, and Patton could practically feel the way Logan’s ire sharpened to a honed point, aimed directly at them like the tip of a saber. Whatever the stranger had said, it hadn’t helped their case at all.

And that was saying something, considering that they’d already dug the hole pretty deep by hurting Feathers, who they’d all grown attached to despite Logan’s best efforts.

Patton has to blink back the automatic tears when he sees Feathers’ arm up close, trying his absolute hardest to lift them into his arms without jarring the injury. He had to hurry; the last thing they needed was for Patton to be stuck on the wrong side of the room with precious cargo during their plan.

Feathers was still conscious as Patton made his way back over to Logan’s side, the hair on the back of his neck prickling in nervous anticipation all the way. They seemed… out of it, their antenna flicking in strange little circles and their feathers puffing up and smoothing back down as waves of trembling pain seemed to work through their little body.

Patton clutched them a little closer, exchanged a brief look with Logan, and scrunched his eyes closed, knowing that he’d need the advantage once Roman flipped the switch. Next to him, Logan would be doing the same, only keeping the slightest sliver of vision to make sure they weren’t ambushed.

Even knowing it was coming, he still flinched away from the burst of noise when Logan whistled the signal.

The final whistle had barely faded into silence when the orange-pink of the back of his eyelids flicked to an unmistakable pitch black.

For a moment, Patton was back in the labs. He moved to grasp for Roman in the dark, knowing that the only way he could help him through these punishments was to grab on and hold tightly, prove that he wasn’t alone in the dark through whispered words and interlaced fingers.

The only thing his hand found was empty air, and next to him, the silhouette of Logan moved.

Right. He had a different friend to look after this time, and if he didn’t hurry, he’d be leaving Logan to deal with an entire ship’s worth of armed aliens on his own. The moment of disorientation would serve as an effective distraction for a few moments– but only that.

He twisted on his heel, ignoring the sicking crunch of impact from a few feet away to lunge back through the doors they’d come in through, turning and sprinting down the hall for onetwothreefourfivesix long steps and turn again, reach out and there was the little open shelf area built into the wall for storage.

This was where he tucked Feathers, the lowest part of the shelf, pushed to the back corner, his heart breaking a little at the pain they were so obviously in.

He left them there with a whispered promise to return, his heart pumping rapidly as he bolted back to where he could hear shouting and the beginnings of screaming, steeling himself as he picked up the heavy section of pipe Logan had left leaning against the wall outside.

They were in this together. No matter how much he hated it, he hated the idea of not standing between his best friends and death– or worse– more.

With a shuddering inhale, he plunged into the fight.

–

CAMERA LOG SF 9

DESIGNATION: CONNECTOR HALL 3

20:40:56

When the sudden darkness hit, Logan’s eyes had been slightly cracked, and so his vision was still partially impaired.

So, for the first few seconds of the fight, he worked off memory alone.

While the pointless, infuriating conversation he’d had with the raiders’ apparent boss had done their opponents absolutely no favors, Logan had never been one to waste an opportunity. He’d spent the duration of it scanning the room, taking in the aliens closest to him, the ones between him and the boss, and the ones with long-range weaponry held ready.

He went for the ones with paralyzing guns first, because the risk of being hit by a stray shot outweighed the potential of letting them fire off their weapons blindly in a panic, and because it gave him higher odds of hitting targets that weren’t immediately lethal, like hands or arms or even tails.

In his experience, flight was a much stronger impulse than fight for most aliens. Seeing as they had far less adrenaline to numb the pain of an injury and allow them to keep fighting through it, Logan understood why.

He also understood that it made diving into the middle of a herd of opponents much less dangerous. The moment the first few cries of pain and crunches of wrenched limbs rang out, there was a frantic scattering away from the center of the room, like a bowl of marbles dropped on the floor.

Good. The less casualties between him and his goal, the quicker this would be over with.

Even as he twisted around the attempted strike of a heavy, lumbering alien, his thoughts still felt like a looping record, dragged back again and again to those moments before they walked in.

He’d been the one to hold up their sign for wait, paused as though he was assessing the situation even though he knew from the cameras that the Ampen had already been taken hostage.

It had been to satisfy his own curiosity, to justify his own paranoia when it came to their surprisingly resilient impromptu pilot.

The other two hadn’t been in space as long as he had, hadn’t been exposed to the depths that aliens would sink to when it came to humans. He’d taken pains to try and keep it that way, though it sometimes felt as though they were undermining his efforts with how friendly they were, even after everything.

He knew why. Roman and Patton both had far more sociable natures than him, and a willingness to believe the best of others that had been stamped out of him. It was only natural that they would be curious about the first alien they’d met that didn’t hold any sort of power over them.

Logan had attempted to warn them— an attack could stem just as easily from fear and ignorance as it could malice and greed. Feathers, as Roman had so creatively dubbed him, certainly seemed terrified and spiteful enough from the very start.

And yet, even he’d started growing lax in the face of the unexpected kindnesses that the Ampen had granted them. Guidance on the food stocks they had, explanations on the facilities, and a slow but steady easing of tensions the longer both parties went without hurting each other.

They certainly seemed to alarm and bewilder the little alien at every opportunity, that much Logan was more than practiced enough in alien body language to pick up on, but there was understanding there, too.

And it certainly wasn’t greed that motivated Feathers. They’d balked at the Dren canister as though he’d been offering them a severed head on a plate, rather than a rare resource that many aliens were willing to commit atrocities to obtain.

It was the best outcome Logan could have asked for.

It was too good to be true.

So, he’d heard the leader offer Feathers a way out, coaxing them with promises of pest removal, and he’d waited.

Because he wanted proof that he’d been right to keep his distance. Because he’d been so sure that this was it, this was the moment that he was betrayed again, except now it wasn’t only his life at risk, but that of the other two, as well.

Because nobody in space cared what happened to a few humans. Not when ‘human’ was synonymous with ‘monster’.

“I don’t… give starscourge pirates shit,” Feathers had spat, words vehement even as their body refused to do more than dangle limply from their captor’s grasp. “Nobody on this ship… ‘cept me, anyhow.”

For the first time since he’d left Earth’s atmosphere, Logan realized that his worst fears were unfounded.

He’d been stunned. Almost too dumbfounded to think, let alone move.

And somewhere in that unforgivable moment of hesitation, Feathers stalwart refusal to give them up made them expendable.

“Useless,” the leader had hissed, the vitriol dragging Logan’s mind back online just in time to hear a splintering crunch.

The high-pitched shriek of pain only lasted for a handful of seconds before it cut off, and Logan had forced himself to move before his lapse in judgement cost their smallest crewmember any more than it already had.

Only half of his mind was on the conversation, the other half spinning wildly out of control as he watched Patton retrieve Feathers and knew from his tremulous expression alone that it was bad.

‘Bad’ for a human was fatal for an alien, more often than not.

“Logan, eight o'clock!” Patton’s familiar voice snapped him back into the present, and Logan stuck a hand out to smoothly receive the pipe Patton tossed his way.

He forced himself to focus, grounding himself with the sensation of his fingers around the cool metal of the makeshift weapon. Patton was at his side. Feathers had been safely removed from the situation.

There was only one matter he could afford to worry about now, and it was ensuring that he and his companions remained free and safe.

Logan stepped forward and swung, aiming to win.

—

CAMERA LOG SF 3

DESIGNATION: MAINFRAME ROOM

20:49:16

Waiting for the all-clear signal had been one of the most painful things Roman had ever had to do.

Up until now, every battle they’d faced, from their daring escape to boarding Feathers’ ship, had been with all three of them fighting together.

To sit in the dim red glow of the emergency light, holding a sharp twisted bit of scrap metal and his heart in his throat, ears straining for any sign that his only friends in the whole of space were alright— it was torture.

Even so, he sat.

Roman would be less than useless in the darkness that played such an instrumental role in their plan, his body responding to the threat and locking down regardless of what his mind had to say. He would become a liability, and the absolute last thing he wanted was to be used against them.

When the whistle finally came— one long call, and then two short bursts— he wasted no time before flicking the lights back on and sprinting down the halls.

Something tight and terrified in his chest loosened the moment the lighting fixtures flickered back to life, but it didn’t fully release its grip on him until he turned a corner and saw Logan, whole and unharmed.

Only Logan.

“Patton—?” he started the moment Logan turned fully to face him.

“Still in the bay,” Logan replied immediately, and for once Roman was grateful for his utter lack of any sense of drama. “He’s helping some of the more critically wounded with tourniquets and the like. They surrendered after I dispatched their leader and the more stringent bodyguards.”

Looking at the way he was splattered heavily with blood, one hand still white-knuckled around the equally-splattered pipe, Roman could imagine why.

“That’s Padre for you,” he replied, trying to remain upbeat even as he detected something distinctly wrong with Logan’s expression. “Is Feathers with him?”

Logan’s face closed off even more, and it felt like an invisible hand was squeezing all the air out of Roman’s lungs.

“They were injured. The severity is…,” he stopped, looking pained. “I need you to guard the main door so I can retrieve them and assess the damage.”

“Go,” Roman said immediately, reaching out and tugging the pipe from his grasp. “Don’t just give up, Specs. I mean, we don’t just have our resources now, right? There’s an entire ship full of supplies right here, and another connected to it. How often do you want to bet space pirates get injured on the job?”

Logan nodded, jerky at first and then smoothing into something more determined. “Right.”

Without another word, he headed down the hall, and Roman took a few deep breaths. He could keep it together for everyone. It didn’t matter if the composure was fake, so long as he acted it out well enough.

By the time Logan returned, he was put-together enough not to balk at the sight of Feathers cradled in his arms like a corpse.

The first thing Feathers had negotiated for was the right to walk for themself. They hadn’t let anyone else hold them since then, still snapped at fingers if Roman tried to pet them even a little.

There was a faint chirping, interspersed with a few nonsense syllables that might have been trying to be words, and Logan drew to a stop immediately, peering down at his passenger.

“Are you with us?” Logan asked, carefully moving a hand to hover over Feathers in an attempt to keep the bright overhead lights from blinding them.

They flinched a little, and then opened their eyes a little further and slowly moved their gaze to stare at Logan.

“You’re badly injured,” Logan told them bluntly in Common, a frantic edge to his voice. “We need to know what sort of treatment will work for you, what kind of medicine— and what amount, as well— is safe for Ampens. It’s very important, Feathers. Can you tell me?”

Roman couldn’t even find it in himself to tease Logan for giving in and using their nickname, too caught up in scanning Feathers’ tiny face for any signs of comprehension, any hope that they would be able to properly treat their wound.

After a few long seconds of blank staring, Feathers straightened up slightly and pushed their head up to butt against the palm of Logan’s hand, like an affectionate cat seeking attention.

Logan went still, like he was being held at gunpoint, and exchanged a desperate, pained look with Roman.

Feathers made a few tiny peeps, more vulnerable that they’d ever let themself be around them before, and Roman struggled not to be overcome by the feeling of his heart sinking right through the floor.

Hesitant and desolate, Logan smoothed his hand over their feathers as carefully as he could. Feathers crooned quietly and slowly settled back into unconsciousness, tiny muscle spasms still rolling through them every so often.

“Find their medic,” Logan said, and when Roman looked up, he found that his friend had settled into the harsh, sharp-edged version of himself, the one he used to harden himself to what they needed to do if they wanted to survive.

They’d all found a little of that in themselves, over the months spent in captivity. Logan had tried to use it to keep a protective shell between himself and their fluffy, stressed out pilot, but Roman was more than willing to use it on Feathers’ behalf.

“I’ll have Patton bring the first one we find to the medical room,” he agreed with a nod, already turning to head into the bay. “Once we’ve got the other ship locked down, we’ll meet you there. Take good care of them until then?”

Logan’s expression twisted the slightest amount, before firming into something determined. “I will.”

#sanders sides fic #alien au #humans are deathworlders #ts patton #ts roman #ts logan #ts virgil #tktsaaiw #to know that song and all its words #my writing #writing