#unsympathetic deceit
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Discoveries
Prompt: “We can work this out, okay? Just come back here, it’s not safe there. You know that too.” (Credit to @me-writes-prompts for this prompt!!)
Ship: romantic Prinxiety
CW/TW: slight self harm, panic attacks, swearing, unsympathetic Virgil, unsympathetic Janus
Summary: Finally deciding to leave the “Dark Sides” Virgil leaves Janus after a heated argument, leaving him begging for him to come back.
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Virgils glare burned a hole into Janus’ irises, face hot and wet with incessant tears, voice hoarse and unbearably scratchy from the yelling that echoed off of the walls of Janus and his room.
Janus looked back, expression tender and begging, sincere. He stepped closer to him. “Virgil, please. I know we have our differences but I think if we just talked it out we could—“
Virgil’s shoulders were up to his neck, his entire body felt like it was burning from the unforgiving rage boiling inside of him. “Save the shit Deceit, I don’t wanna hear it.”
Janus’ expression changed in the blink of an eye, going from pleading to stone cold anger. “Yknow what? Maybe Thomas was right about not wanting you around, after all, Paranoia isn’t very healthy…” he said, seething pain and irritation dripping off his tongue.
Virgil wrapped his arms around himself tightly, knowing from past experience that the grip would leave bruises, but the pain grounded him enough to help him leave his expression the same, not letting Janus have the satisfaction of knowing he got to him.
“You’re nothing but a manipulative sack of shit. I can’t believe I trusted you.” Virgil growled. The statement was only half true; Of course Janus had his moments—all of them did, inevitably, although some more than others.—but he and Remus were the first to accept him with open arms, although recent events said otherwise.
Janus scoffed at the statement, not saying anything else in response.
Virgil let go of himself, summoning a bag and shoving whatever that was nearest to him into it; A blanket, headphones, his phone, his poetry collection that consisted of Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, and Emily Dickinson.
Janus watched silently as Virgil sunk out, not bothering to give him a second glance.
———————————————————————
Virgil walked through the border between the light and dark mind palace, feeling his emotions shift from completely enraged with no ending in sight to mildly irritated. His body relaxed, the released tension leaving him fatigued. His jaw unclenched and his nails found their way out of his palms.
He sighed before twisting the knob and letting himself into a world of new possibilities. He stepped one foot into the common area and all noise was stripped from the room. He found Logan on the couch, Patton asleep next to him. He heard Roman singing Hamilton from his bedroom. Logan was the first to notice his presence.
“Anxiety? It’s odd seeing you here, is there an issue?” Logan looked at him the way he looked at every other side, an impassive expression all over his face.
Virgil sat on the floor facing the couch where Logan was sitting, flipping through a “History Of NASA” magazine.
He shook his head. “I might need to stay here a while..I don’t know.” He said faintly, taking his headphones and phone out of his bag, not wanting to make eye contact.
“For what reason in particular?” Logan responded, bookmarking the page he was on and setting it down next to him.
“Deceit. He..” his voice trailed off as he stared at his phone, searching through multiple different playlists for a certain song to match his mood.
“He what?” Logan prompted, confusion in his voice.
Virgil looked up, “We got into an argument, an extremely heated one, that’s it. I don’t want to be there anymore. Can we please drop this?”
Logan nodded “Yes, Of course. I suppose I should let the others know you’re here then?” He asked.
Virgil blinked in surprise at the compliance with dropping the subject before slowly nodding a “yes”.
Logan disappeared for a minute into the hallway, leaving Virgil to his music, letting the words sink in and calm his nerves.
He reappeared once again, Virgil taking out his headphones, noticing Roman had stopped singing.
“I have let him know. I am sure that Patton is fine with you being here, so no need to worry.” Logan said.
Virgil nodded, getting up and sitting on the couch next to Logan.
———————————————————————
Hours passed before Roman finally left his room, coming into the common area where Patton and Virgil were watching Lion King.
“Hiya, Kiddo! Wanna join us?, we’re binge watching Disney movies” Patton said giddily, the TV illuminating his a multitude of different colors.
Roman looked to the TV, watching as Scar let go of Mufasa, and nodded. “That sounds delightful Pat, sure.” He seemed a little hesitant before sitting down beside Patton.
“Logan’s working on some big project in his room so if you’re wondering where he is that’s where” Patton clarified, hoping to ease his confusion a bit; luckily, it worked, and Roman settled into the sofa. “He also doesn’t like Disney movies” he added, giggling a bit.
Virgil stayed silent, staring at the TV; trying to make it seem as if he was focused on the movie when in reality his mind was elsewhere. Guilt coursed through his bloodstream, leaving him feeling hollow. His phone buzzed and he picked it up, the screen practically blinding him due to the darkness of the room.
It was a message from Janus. He hadn’t even been gone a day and Janus was already begging for him to come back.
“We can work this out, okay? Just come back here, it’s not safe there. You know that too.” He had written.
Virgil tried ignoring him, acting as if he’d never seen the message, god how he tried, but within seconds he found the lack of response too anxiety inducing to ignore.
He stood up, walking into the nearest room absentmindedly, and closing the door, calling Janus.
He listened to the phone ring and ring and ring until it went to voicemail. He texted Janus back, fingers flying over the screen.
“It’s a lot safer here, actually. You were wrong Janus, you have to let it go. I’m not coming back, and I don’t want to work anything out, give it up already.”
The message was a lot nicer than intended, but he sent it anyway.
Janus left him on read.
He was about to leave the room before he was struck with the sight in front of him. Silky red curtains, star decals everywhere, Disney characters plastered on the door— shit. He was in Romans room.
He would’ve laughed at the decor of the room had he not been so tense.
A knock at the door made him jump, and he opened it quickly, coming face to face with Roman.
“Do you wanna explain why you’re in my room?” He said, confusion and Irritation apparent with every word.
Suddenly, the room was spinning and nausea hit him like a truck. Too many things were happening at once. The control once ever so present in his life was slowly crumbling like sand in his hands.
Roman caught him before he fell, holding up all of his weight with ease. “Woah, hey.” he said, taken off guard. Virgil didn’t respond, couldn’t respond.
“Breathe, take deep breaths, can you do that?” Roman said
Virgil took a breath and exhaled a shuddery one, leaning against Roman, the knowledge that Princey was seeing him like this only made it worse.
“Good, that’s good. Can you do a couple more for me?” Roman cooed
Virgil repeated the cycle a few times before the room became less and less blurry and the nausea subsided slightly.
Roman led him to his bed, both of them sitting down next to eachother.
“What is going on? You just…showed up here suddenly” Roman looked away from the side next to him, his eyes fixated on the floor. He was hesitant to speak; apart from his usual cockiness, truth be told he was really afraid to say the wrong thing.
“Ja— Deceit…I left the others.”
“You..oh okay..” he said softly
“So does this mean…”
“That I’m one of you?” Virgil finished the sentence for him.
Roman nodded, looking up at him.
“I doubt you guys would want me to be.” Virgil mumbled, messing with the loose seams of his jacket.
“Hey, no. You do a great deal for us and Thomas. You mean a lot, Anxiety.” Roman responded sweetly.
“Virgil.” Virgil corrected.
“Virgil..?” Roman parroted, eyes widening a bit.
“My name, it’s Virgil.” He repeated.
While he was still weary about trusting the Others, he didn’t see the pain in telling atleast one of them his name; if he made fun of it, then so be it.
“I think that’s wonderful.” Roman said, slowly taking the other sides hand in his.
Virgil’s face heat up with surprise and happiness and he immediately hid it with his hoodie sleeve “thanks, I guess” came the muffled reply.
“You’re one of us, I’ve deemed you so, right here, right now, and if anyone has a problem with it they can talk to me” Roman said confidently, taking Virgil’s hand away from his face and kissing it.
Virgil couldn’t stop smiling and Roman loved it.
“You have a beautiful smile, Virge” Roman said, hoping to egg on the side infront of him.
Virgil practically fell apart, pulling Roman close and kissing him, smiling into it.
Roman returned the passion, holding Virgil gently as their teeth accidentally knocked together from the uncontrollable smiles.
Roman pulled them apart, forehead pressed against Virgils.
“You can stay here for as long as you need, alright?” Roman whispered.
“I could stay here forever.” Virgil responded.
‘and I will’ he thought to himself.
#I like to think that Virgil and Janus trusted eachother enough to give eachother their names idk why#I feel like it’s an emotionally intimate gesture in a way and I felt like it added onto the angst#I’m in love with writing Prinxiety sorry not sorry /lh#wanted to change how Virgil shared his name cause in canon I feel like Roman could’ve been a lot nicer soooooo#unsympathetic deceit#unsympathetic janus#unsympathetic virgil#unsympathetic anxiety#ts logan#ts logic#ts roman#ts remus#ts deceit#ts virgil#ts creativity#ts morality#ts patton#ts anxiety#sanders sides#thomas sanders#virgil sanders#logan sanders#patton sanders#roman sanders#janus sanders
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Alone? Not Anymore
Logan is belittled, ignored, and discarded by the light sides, but until Janus and Remus help him find a new side of himself he didn’t think there was anything he could do about it. They help him make a very difficult choice suddenly very easy.
#thomas sanders#roman sanders#remus sanders#ts logan#ts sides#janus sanders#ts roman#ts remus#logan sanders#patton sanders#ts patton#virgil sanders#ts virgil#the orange side#Logan is the orange side#unsympathetic patton#unsympathetic Roman#sympathetic remus#sympathetic deceit#intruloceit#referenced past Virgil x Janus x Remus#Remus x Janus x Logan
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A nice combination of craving angst and not feeling like sleeping resulted in a random sidestory of something I haven't done in a while
[Masterpost]
#idk i was bored and needed some quick angst#sanders sides#unsympathetic patton#u!patton#u!patt#unsympathetic patton au#u!patton au#long post#comic#roman sanders#ts roman#deceit sanders#ts deceit#remus sanders#ts remus#patton sanders#ts patton#janus sanders#ts janus#doodlem8#tw angst#tw gaslighting#tw crying#tw knives#tw knife#tw caps#tw food
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Cold Comforts: Cracking Ice
I imagine that you get a lot of asks so apologies if this one adds to an endless list of them. I have this sanders sides concept in mind where Patton was not the one who caused the original creativity to split nor was Patton morality during this time and it was Logan; but because Janus had left before it occured and Virgil, Remus, and Roman didnt really exist yet, no one knows about this. But because Janus can pick up on lies (including lies of omission), he quickly pieces together the truth. No idea how you'd work that into a story of any kind (if that was something you would want to do), just thought it would be neat to at least share. ax3-e0n
hey !! i don't have a super specific request, but i'd love some qpr content from you if you don't mind !! any ship is fine, but i love qpr dukeceit, analogical, and moxiety ^^ - anon
I really loved Cold Comforts (that fight did break me but in the best way possible) and I would love to know what happens in the aftermath. Like how do they actually reconcile and make up for what was said? - anon
Read on Ao3 Part 1
Warnings: self-esteem issues, implied/referenced rsd
Pairings: none
Word Count: 3293
At first, there is elation.
Roman blinks awake in the ruined corpse of a dying tower, covered in cobwebs and layers of dust. He blinks, bits of it falling into his eyes. A phantom warmth rests on his cheeks and in his befuddled state, he thinks it might be the sun.
"Shh, little one," he hears from eons away, "it's alright. I'm here now."
He blinks again and the phantom warmth grows stronger, coalescing itself into hands on his face, thumbs gently stroking his tears away. He's still crying, lips still trying to form comforts from nothing. He blinks again and the blob in front of him focuses.
"L-Logan?"
"Hello, little one," Logan whispers, "it's okay. I'm here now."
Here.
Hands. Warm hands. Warm hands on his face, cupping it like it's something precious, like he's something precious. Warm hands that brush away his tears and a warmer voice that says it's okay. I'm here now.
"You're here?" His voice, cracked and dusty from overuse. "Y-you're really here?"
"Yes," says Logan, smiling and reaching up to run his fingers through Roman's hair, "I'm here. I'm really here. And so are you."
"Don't do that, Princey," comes another voice, one that appears over the edge of the shell too, "you scared the shit out of us."
"Language, mister," comes yet another, "but he's right, kiddo. You really scared us, there."
"Being scary is my schtick, Ro-Bro," says yet another, "don't do it without me."
And, just when Roman's heart feels fit to burst, the last voice sighs and reaches into the shell too. "Not that this isn't very touching, but I think we'd all be better off outside this very scary tower with no stairs."
He blinks dumbly as yellow-gloved hands reach for him, fitting carefully around his shoulders and gently pulling him to sit upright. Logan's hands shift down to his elbows, helping to get him out of the dust-caked blankets. His head pounds. He feels dizzy.
"Slow, you jerks," Virgil's voice mutters, "he's just been like that for who knows how long and he's been crying."
"Here," Logan says softly, only for Roman's ears, "lean on me. I've got you."
And oh, isn't that surreal, to have Logan's arms wrap around him and be leaned against a broad chest, to have another set of hands at his back and to be helped down from his dusty perch. His limbs feel discombobulated, disconnected, and he flails a few times before he figures out how to hold on too. Logan is patient with him, though, and helps him over to a chair that Remus conjures and sits him to face the sun.
"Here," says Patton, handing him a glass of water, "try and drink that, okay, sweetheart?"
Oh, he realizes belatedly, I'm being taken care of.
At first, there is elation.
They came. They actually came. They wanted to find him and so they searched for him, they found their way up a tower that he did not design to be found. They sought after him because they noticed he was gone and so they chose to come and find him. They are here because he was not there.
At first, there is elation.
Then, there is only dread.
They're going to want to know what happened. He's going to have to explain what happened. They're going to want to know what happened and why he ran so far away and why he started to fade and all of this is going to go away. He's going to have to tell them about the argument and all of the horrible things he said and he's going to watch all of this care fade away into disappointment.
Because they will be. Disappointed.
Roman, you never learn.
Roman, we've been over this.
Roman, you know better.
Roman, how could you be so cruel? Roman, you should think about the things you say before you say them. Roman, I expected better from you. Roman, you're supposed to be better than this. Roman, Roman, Roman, will you ever stop being a disappointment?
This, right now, this is the last he will be able to have this comfort with no strings attached. It will be the last time he's able to ask for something and have it be given, the last time he can feel as though they're doing it because they want to.
And even now, he can hear their voices.
That's such a mean way to think about it, Roman. I wish you wouldn't think we don't know what we're doing when we comfort you. What, did you think it was just something we did?
And, how selfish of you, Roman, that you wouldn't tell us what happened because you thought we wouldn't want to comfort you after we knew what you'd done. Maybe you should have told us right away, then we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Logan was right.
And, this is emotionally abusive, Roman, you know that, right? Being so dramatic and playing the victim and guilt-tripping like this even though you did something wrong too. Manipulating us like this is wrong. You know it's wrong. We'd be more inclined to forgive you if you weren't being so awful about admitting that you're hurt by something.
They're here and they came and Roman wants nothing more than to run away again.
"Whatever you're thinking," Remus's voice cuts in, "stop it. Stop being mean to my brother."
Roman startles and a moment later, he has a lapful of Remus. Remus buries his nose in the crook of his neck and squeezes tightly, their hearts pressed against each other's ribcages. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, and Roman loves it.
"I was so scared," comes the whispered confession, "when you started Fading. I thought I was gonna lose you again."
"I'm sorry, Re, I didn't mean to, I swear—"
"I know, Roro, I know."
"I just—I had to go—"
"Easy," Virgil's low voice rumbles, a hand settling on his shoulder, "breathe, bud. It's okay. You're okay. Remus isn't mad at you."
"Y-you're not?"
"No, Roro, I'm not mad at you."
The part of Roman's brain that isn't screaming softwarmsafebrothercomfort shies away at the way Remus says you.
Right.
In the way a soldier dons his armor before a fatal fight, Roman takes a deep breath and carefully pats Remus's thigh. Remus lets him go, confusion written on his features as Roman stands up and begins to lower the tower's room to the ground. It settles on the earth with a low rumble and one of the walls finally caves, leading out into a familiar field of rolling grass. He walks out into the sunshine, the warmth settling over him like boulders. He allows himself one more moment to clutch his hand to his side before he turns and faces his executioners.
"I'm sorry," he begins, "for being so dramatic. I didn't mean to Fade and while I know that doesn't change anything, and I'm not trying to use it as an excuse, I hope that the knowledge that it wasn't done purposefully makes it a little better. It might be wrong of me to hope that, but…I do. I didn't mean to affect the videos or Thomas or anything of that nature, and you have my deepest and sincerest apologies that I let my—my tantrum get this bad."
He looks at Logan. His hands twinge in pain.
"Logan, I apologize for wasting your time. I apologize for being unreasonable and bull-headed and ignorant. I didn't mean it when I said you weren't useful and I didn't mean to imply that you don't know what you're doing. I know I can come off as arrogant and overconfident and I'm sorry. I've been trying to work on it but clearly, I haven't been trying hard enough. I'll do better. I promise."
With a heavy heart, he glances over at Remus.
"And I know…I know you weren't there, but I'm sorry to you too. I—at one point during the argument, I called you a menace and nothing but a problem to be vanquished. I'm sorry."
Remus stares at him. "Ro, you don't have to apologize to me for shit. I know I'm a menace, that's my whole fucking point. And you definitely don't have to apologize for being hurt. You just said you didn't do any of this shit on purpose and I know you. I know you'd—well, you'd rather kill yourself than destroy Thomas's videos and the Imagination. Don't apologize for being hurt, okay?"
"But I—"
"But nothing," Janus says smoothly, "you were hurt, sweetie. And we didn't make you feel like you could come to us. That's not your fault."
"None of us were there for the argument," Patton adds, "so we can't judge that part of it, but you don't have to apologize to us for the rest. You're—you're okay, sweetheart."
"You're dramatic," Virgil says, hands in his pockets, "but at least you're honest about it."
Janus scoffs something that sounds suspiciously like honesty's overrated but Roman's focused on Logan.
Logan, who's watching him carefully, so carefully, slowly reaches up and adjusts his glasses. "Roman, I…"
He trails off before he can finish his sentence. A lump appears in Roman's throat and he swallows, bowing his head and waiting for the blows to strike. He'll take them, he will, whatever comes with what Logan will say. He'll do it right this time, just accept them and nod and try to move on with it. He'll lick his wounds on his own in his room like a reasonable person and everything will be fine.
"Wow," he hears Remus scoff, "you really made him fucking perfect, didn't you? Bowing his head waiting for absolution and everything."
"What? What the heck are you on about, Remus?"
"This. This, his whole 'Good Creativity' thing."
"Yeah, I got that much, why're you saying we did it?"
"The Split. The whole get-the-bad-out, leave-the-good deal. The reason Thomas has two Creativities. I'm all the stuff you didn't want and so there he is with all the stuff you do."
There's a pause. Part of Roman wants to raise his head and see what's going on but he forces himself to wait.
"Remus," Janus rebukes with a gentleness reserved for only his partners, "the Split wasn't done so neatly. It wasn't like parts were selected for each of you."
"Yeah," Patton says, "and also, I didn't happen until after the Split. I think Thomas's whole Morality thing started in the aftermath of it. I wasn't around when it happened."
"I remember it," Virgil says, "but that's only 'cause J brought you and me in when we were all really little and he'd, like, just left. It was me, you, and J trying to figure stuff out and then Logan had Patton and Roman."
"Oh. Shit. Sorry, I, uh…"
"No, it's okay. We don't really know a lot about the Split anyways."
"You're all good, bud. Hey, whoa, c'mere."
There's the telltale rustling of someone being pulled into a hug and Roman knows Janus and Virgil have wrapped their arms around Remus. His heart screams for a moment in envious rage before he stamps it out with equal fervor. He's thankful Remus has two attentive and supportive partners, and he'd sooner fall on his sword than take it away from him.
He knows what that's like.
"Roman," Logan's voice comes from in front of him, much closer in front of him, "Roman, I'm sorry."
He raises his head, heart in his throat, as Logan reaches out and cups his face again.
"I'm sorry too," he says again, "I didn't—I shouldn't have said that you were unwanted. Or that you weren't capable of seeing reason. Or any of it, none of it's true. I just—I was so angry. I wanted to hurt you."
He swallows. "You did."
"I know. I know I did, Roman, I know I hurt you, little one. I—I'm sorry I hurt you. You're not unwanted, I promise. I want you. I want you quite badly."
The earnest way Logan says it threatens tears at the corners of his eyes. "I'm sorry too."
Logan smiles, his own eyes slightly wet. "I forgive you, little one, I forgive you."
Relief sags through him and his legs almost buckle, smile breathless as he stares at Logan. It's okay, it's okay, it's all okay. Logan chuckles, letting him go, a familiar teasing grin taking shape as he ruffles Roman's hair.
The sudden release of the dread is almost strong enough to make him miss the way Janus is squinting at Logan's back.
"J-Janus? What's wrong?"
Janus's mouth presses into a thin line and he carefully extricates himself from Remus and Virgil, not taking his eyes off of Logan. "There are three types of lies."
Logan stiffens.
"Lies of commission, which are outright fabrications," he continues, walking closer, "lies of character, and lies of omission."
"Uh, okay?"
"Logan," and Roman wants to flinch at how cold Janus sounds right now, "you're lying."
Virgil scoffs. "What, he's lying about being sorry?"
"No, he's lying about the Split."
"He didn't say anything about the—oh, I see. I get where you're going now."
"Roman," Logan says, looking back up at him, "Roman, it's okay. We're okay, now, I'm sorry."
He reaches for him but Roman edges back. "What is Janus talking about?"
"Roman, I'm sorry—"
"What is he talking about?"
"Yeah, Logan," Remus says, making Logan whirl around, "what is he talking about?"
"Our dear darling Logan," Janus says, taking a step closer, "is withholding what he knows about the Split. Which is interesting, because as you'll recall, the Split happened after I'd left, before Virgil was formed enough to have sentience, and before Patton manifested. And, of course, before either of the twins existed."
Virgil frowns. "Wait, but that means that Logan, you…"
He trails off and his eyes widen as the implications of what Janus is saying sink in.
"…Logan?" Patton sounds small. "What do you know about the Split?"
"I—" Logan turns around and faces Roman again— "I didn't mean it, I'm sorry, it wasn't—I didn't—please, just listen to me—"
"Oh, we're all listening," Remus growls, "and why're you only talking to Roman? Did you forget I got Split too? Or are you all too happy that happened?"
"That's not what I meant, I didn't—no, that's not why I—" Logan glances frantically at Remus then back to Roman— "just hear me out—"
"You've said that a few times," Virgil says, voice hardening, "and you've yet to actually say anything."
"Roman—"
"Don't fucking talk to him!"
Logan flinches at the force of Remus's shout. Remus forces Logan to turn around, getting right into his face.
"Talk to me," he roars, "tell me what you thought you were doing, tell me why you won't look at me!"
"Because it worked with you!"
Silence.
Remus staggers back from Logan like he's been stabbed, Virgil already standing between them.
"I…I didn't know it would Split," Logan says shakily, "I—I just talked to Creativity and I—I said—"
He swallows.
"I said that there were parts of him that were liked and parts that weren't. And that it…it made sense for them to be…be…"
"Be what," Virgil asks when Logan doesn't finish.
"…be separated," he says weakly, "but I just meant that he should know the difference! Not that he should Split!"
"Oh, Logan," Patton mumbles, "what did you do?"
"What did you mean," Janus asks sharply, "when you said it 'worked' with Remus?"
"Creativity asked what—what the bad parts of him were and so I said that people didn't like when he was loud and messy and scary and then when I—when I came back the next day, there was a—"
Logan's breath catches and he swallows.
"I was only a child, I didn't know that this would mean—"
"There was a what?"
"…a baby. A baby Side on a rock that had been wrapped in a black and green blanket."
Janus's breath catches next. His hand finds its way to Remus. "That's how I found you. You still have that blanket."
"He—Creativity was still there when I got there but he was—he was Fading. He was almost completely transparent, and he asked me if—what I would do with the parts of him I didn't want."
"So you just fucking left me?"
"I was a child! I was panicking, I didn't know what to do, I told him I didn't know what to do, but then he kept on getting more and more frantic, asking me what I was going to do with you and he—he fell apart!" Logan's hands fly up to tangle in his hair. "He fell apart and shimmered and—and when it was over…"
His hands slowly leave his hair as he turns to look over his shoulder.
"Roman," Patton finishes, "when it was over, there was Roman. You Split Creativity into Bad and Not Bad and what was left of Creativity when he removed all that he could label Bad was…Roman."
"No fucking wonder Princey's got so many issues."
"Roman," Logan says, turning fully to face him again, "Roman, please, I didn't know, I was—I was a child, I didn't mean it, I didn't know this was going to happen."
He reaches out, almost stumbling towards him.
"You're wanted, you're wanted, I promise, you're wanted," he rambles, "I want you, I want you, do you hear me? I want you Roman, it's okay, I want you—"
A low rumble and a thunderous crash as the remains of the tower collapse to the ground. The earth shudders.
Over Roman's shoulder, a doorway appears. The door swings open to reveal the Mindscape. Janus muffles a quiet curse as Virgil stands taller.
"C'mon," he says, urging Patton and Janus toward the door, "we gotta go."
"Just let me—"
"The Imagination is ours," comes Remus's voice, low and dangerous, "and it is somewhere you do not want to be right now."
"Logan, come on," Patton says—they've already made it through the door, "just—give them space for now."
But Logan stubbornly reaches for Roman one more time. "Roman, please. Please, little one."
Roman silently opens his arm and gestures toward the door with a blank expression.
The earth rumbles again and a deep cracking sound echoes off of distant cliffs.
Logan swallows and goes to the door. Roman doesn't turn to watch him. His gaze doesn't move from the middle distance until the door shuts and vanishes.
Then he opens his mouth and screams.
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#dragonbabbles#sanders sides#roman sanders#roman angst#roman sanders angst#remus sanders#sympathetic remus#logan sanders#possibly unsympathetic logan#patton sanders#virgil sanders#deceit sanders#sympathetic deceit#janus sanders#fic
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Small rant
could people please PLEASE tag for unsympathetic deceit/janus? I get it, you see him as naturally unsympathetic or whatever and unsympathetic is a long word and you don’t want to type it out. But I am TIRED of scrolling through sanders side fics when every 1/10 is a fic where deceit is some villain that’s emotionally and physically abused Virgil. I am TIRED of reading through tags so carefully because odds are if there’s manipulation and deceit sanders in the tags the two are tied. Please, please tag your fics when you have an unsympathetic character, I love Janus and it hurts me to see him being talked bad about so that’s why I filter the tag! So, from a very tired Janus fan, please tag your fics. I’m begging you
-Tal
(okay that wasn’t a small rant but 🤷♀️)
#tag your fics#ao3#Tag for deceit#Tag for unsympathetic characters#Movement for tagging unsympathetic characters even if you think they’re unsympathetic in the cannon material#janus sanders#i love Janus sanders#Please#a desperate plea#Or at least add abuse in front of the relationship tag#i’m too tired for this#i can’t do this mental gymnastics#small rant
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even death (bows before my feet)
vernon x reader
11k words
supernatural au
violence and death warning
You sigh, the puff of air visible as it leaves your mouth in the chill evening. The sun hangs low on the sky, a burning, orange orb hiding behind vibrant, green trees. Your heels clack against the concrete beneath your feet. Had your body been able to still feel the bites and nips of cold, you’re sure you would be freezing right now. As it is, it doesn’t matter. It’s only a matter of time before the boy is bound to show up.
Infamous softie Joshua Hong shows up in a loud car and with a jacket he almost seems to drown in. He stops a few feet away from where you’re standing, closes his car door with a lot more force than necessary when he exits his vehicle. You’ve heard rumors about him, about the man who rescues people and demons alike, who only kills in self-defense. Even your people hold some distant, quiet sort of respect for him. Leaving him alone is an unwritten rule.
Not so much for his companion. There’s not a lot of softness left on Joshua’s face now.
“You want to resurrect your friend,” you say by way of greeting. Small talk doesn’t seem like much of a necessity. You both know the purpose of your meeting. You both know how many rules you’re breaking.
“Can you do it?” He asks, sees as little a point in dawdling as you do. His hands are clenched at his sides, the syllables that drift out of his mouth stiff and tense. It’s a wonder, really, how much humans seem to care about mortality, considering their short, insignificant lives.
“No,” you tell him earnestly. Well– mostly earnestly. You can, of course, if you pull the right strings and make the right deals. You’ve made some sort of preparations, so to speak; found the dead boy’s location and made sure the wrong creatures do not sink their claws in him. You’d rather leave the rest up to someone else. Joshua opens his mouth, probably to complain about deceit and waste of time, but you silence him with a swift palm raised in his direction. “But I know someone who can.”
~~
“And you’re sure this Hoseok guy is going to help?” Joshua asks, for the third time in as many hours. You tap a long finger impatiently against the fogged up window to you right, try not to let it show that you’re uncomfortable in your seat. You can’t really remember the last time you rode in a car, but you remember – quite vividly – where your reluctance to do so came from. Your whole body feels off-kilter, shaken and rattled by every hole in the road and by the ever present thrum of the motor.
“I’ve already told you,” you mutter, struggle with how thick and clumsy your own tongue feels in your mouth; nausea pushing at the back of your throat. The man’s fast and careless driving does little to alleviate your motion sickness. “He owes me one. He’s going to help.” The memory of a city in flames drift to the forefront of your mind, an unwanted sort of nostalgia tickling at your bones and pulling the edges of your lips down just a fraction.
Joshua hums. There’s something discordant and unpleasant about the sound, despite the man’s soft, low tones. “And you demons sure do love your debts, huh.”
There’s a sort of bite to his words that you deem wholly unnecessary, that makes you want to bite right back. For centuries, you’ve been content with letting the war between demons and hunters wage on without getting involved, only stepping in when it was asked of you and retreating as soon as your tasks were done. Somehow, you had not imagined that your re-entering into that feud would be on the side of the weak, temperamental humans.
“You should be grateful,” you tell him, try to keep the poison out of your tone. You might not be human, might not be bound by the same emotional whims as the man next to you in the car, but you still remember the sting off losses of your own, and despite your reputation you’re not an emotionless, unsympathetic creature. To some extent, you do feel sorry for the guy. “Our love of debts is in your favor this time, after all.” You hope the air-quotes you can’t find the energy to physically make is visible enough in your voice.
Joshua doesn’t respond, but when he glances over at your stiff form, his gaze has softened. You smooth your thumb over the scar along your thigh, and you swear you can feel the bumps of hastily done stitches that left protruding, circular scars on both sides of a thick, ugly line even through the fabric of your pants.
“We’ll see,” Joshua says, and you suppose you will.
~~
“Well, isn’t this an unlikely duo?”
There’s something about Hoseok that never fails to make the back of your neck tingle. His voice might be pleasant and his expression might be bright, but there’s a distinct sense of mockery that never strays too far away from his lines and his octaves, and even as far as crossroad demons go, he might be the one who makes you the most uneasy.
The demon in question claps his hands together over his chest, red eyes glowing almost ominously in the pale light of the morning. The hints of a sunrise peeking through the trees gives his tangerine hair a glow that reminds you, uncomfortably, of flames.
“It’s been a while, Hoseok,” you curtly reply, keep your distance as you step out of the car on wobbly legs. Joshua follows suit, stands at your side. You wonder how the demon-friendly boy is feeling now, stuck between two red-eyed monsters. “I hear you’ve been keeping yourself busy.”
A grin spreads on Hoseok’s lips, slowly and sharply and with the distinct feel of threat reflected in his sparkling row of teeth. You remember when Hoseok was nothing but a simple deal-maker, when his antics were limited to fooling desperate humans. It’s apparent, by his square shoulders and his confident stance, that he enjoys his newfound infamy.
He waves his hand in your direction, a low, rolling chuckle slipping past his lips. “Oh please,” he says, without an ounce of humility. “We’re not here to talk about me, I hope.” Joshua shifts, takes a step forward. You quickly put a hand on his shoulder, try not to cringe at the way his entire body seems to stiffen. You can’t really blame him, you suppose.
“I’m here to cash in on that favor you owe me,” you tell the crossroad demon, taking great care not to let the uncertainty slip through your teeth and into the tones of your voice. Hoseok’s eyes seem to grow in intensity, and the air seems to crack as he disappears, reappearing right in front of you. His breaths fall against your nose, and somehow the demon smells like death.
“Ain’t that interesting,” he tall man whispers, leveling you with a searching gaze that feels heavy against your skin. “I don’t suppose that favor has anything to do with this charming young man’s deceased companion?” There’s a glowing glint to his eyes that makes it blatantly obvious that Hoseok already knows about your recent visits to the underworld. Your jaw tightens, and you have to force yourself not to fold under his glare.
“How do you know about that?” Joshua pipes up from your side, suspicion dripping from his soft voice. Your hand is still on his shoulder, fingernails digging into the fabric of his thick jacket. You hope he doesn’t notice the way your fingers twitch.
“He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies,” you mutter, not without disdain. Hoseok takes it in stride, of course, a sort of wicked pride tugging at the edges of his mouth.
“I do love pie,” he supplies with a jovial shrug. He takes a step back, and your stance relaxes a fraction. You never liked Hoseok much, even before he got chummy with the scum of the underworld. “I’m surprised, though,” he continues, tilting his head to the side. “That you’d use your get out of jail free-card on this human boy.”
He’s fishing, you know, trying to dig into your head in that twisted way he does. Hoseok doesn’t just peddle in deals, and he is not above using your secrets against you if need be. You’re not about to give him any freebies, so you keep your mouth shut and in a thin line.
“But then,” he murmurs, his voice gentle in a way that makes you feel profoundly uncomfortable. “You always had an affinity for humans, didn’t you?”
You feel Joshua’s eyes on you. You ignore it. There’s complete silence dominates Hoseok’s crossroad, and it feels like the loudest thing you’ve ever heard. The crossroad demon’s lip twitches.
“Not in the mood for catching up, I see,” he says with a sort of sharp intake of breath through his teeth, as if to just accentuate the awkwardness of the silence. With a crack, he’s disappeared and reappeared back in the middle of his crossroad. A waterfall of flow-y smoke falls from between his long, pale fingers, and he produces an intimidating silver knife. He drags the steel across his own palm, flicks dark, almost black blood in your direction. It splatters across the ground, sizzles and burns holes in the asphalt.
“Twenty-four hours,” he tells you, dropping all of his playful pretenses and letting his true, low tones slip through his teeth instead. Somehow, Hoseok scares you less like this; seems far less threatening in his husky voice than in his fake pleasantries. “I hope you know what you’re doing, sweetheart.”
And, well– that makes two of you.
~~
“I told you,” you sigh, breath fogging up the window as you lean your forehead against it, hands gripping at the plush of the passenger seat. “Twenty-three hours and you’ll have your boy back.” Joshua breathes harshly through his nose, keeps his eyes on the road. His hands grip at the steering wheel.
“Yes,” he observes, with considerably less enthusiasm than you’d expected. “You’ve certainly made some powerful friends since the last time I saw you.”
He addresses you as if he’s your father; as if he’s disapproving of your boyfriend or your new circle of friends. It’s strangely intimate for acquaintances, and you don’t really know how to respond to the accusation, such as it is. “I wouldn’t go that far,” you settle on, shifting your legs awkwardly in the cramped space of the car. “Anyways, I hope you didn’t have your friend cremated, otherwise this trip is completely wasted.”
You think about the few hunter customs that you know of, of funeral pyres and of drowning your sorrows in revenge and booze. Joshua seems to have forgone all of that, but then, he’s not really a hunter, is he? He taps his fingers along the rubber of the steering wheel, eyes squinting as if he’s looking beyond the landscape rushing by and into some distant memory.
“It was my fault we were at that river in the first place,” he says, as if he totally missed your jokey comment about cremation (which, to be fair, might have been for the best). You feel an emotional story coming, and you brace yourself. Joshua Hong might not be your least favorite human, but this trait that humans seem to all possess, this need to share, you could be without. “We were on our way to visit his sister, and I just had to stop and look for fucking rocks.”
You blink at that, mystified by the nonsensical notion of stopping by a river to look for rocks, until you remember that the boy had, the last time the two of you met, had a collection of small, colorful stones in the pocket of his jacket. He had told you at the time, with a needle sticking into the skin of your thigh and a bottle of vodka on the ground next to him, that he needed something to collect, something to keep him grounded in all the crazy he was surrounded by.
“He was gone before I even managed to pull him out of the water,” he says it with the sort of detachment that only someone who has spent too much time agonizing over a tragedy can manage. No wonder he looks like he hasn’t slept since; you’ve seen river spirits before, know how violent and ravenous they can get. People give demons and vampires flack for killing without a reason; water spirits kill for sport, feed on the look of pain and fear in their victims eyes.
Truth be told, you’re not sure what to say. You’re not sure why you’re even still with the boy, why you’re enduring yet another horrid ride in his vehicle from hell. The young man had given you a sort of glare that seemed to tell you to get in the car when Hoseok had disappeared from the crossroad, and for some reason you’d just followed along. He’s lonely, you figure; desperate for interaction after the loss of his friend.
“There’s no use in obsessing over it now,” you tell him, for lack of a more comforting thing to say. Joshua hums, as if that’s just what he expected you to say. His hands grip a bit tighter around the wheel, but his face remains unchanged. “It’s fixed now anyways, isn’t it? You corrected whatever mistake you think you made.”
Joshua hesitates, looks like he wants to argue, but ultimately he settles on chewing on his bottom lip and muttering a sort of quiet and demure ‘thank you’, and the rest of the ride passes in silence.
You’ve never seen anyone awaken from the dead before, though you have heard the horror stories. Most of the time, they involve vampires, and their semi-barbaric ritual of making their ‘newborns’ claw themselves out of their graves as sort of a test to see if they’re strong enough to be accepted into the coven.
The graveyard is quiet, bathed in a soft, orange light that illuminates on top of shimmering gravestones. Birds hum in the distance and despite your inability to feel cold, goosebumps erupt along your forearms. Then again, maybe that’s just the tension from what’s about to happen.
‘Hansol Vernon Chwe’ the gravestone reads; elegant, golden letters against smooth, grey stone. The sound of dirt being shoveled distracts you from being too caught up in the solemn mood of the place, and when you level your eyes squarely on the growing hole in front of you, you see that Joshua seems to have finally hit the casket.
“Fancy funeral for a hunter,” you remark, forget to even take into consideration that humans tend to be a lot touchier about death than demons are. Joshua stops digging, gazes up at you from his deep hole. It’s actually a bit impressive, how competent of a grave robber the pretty boy would’ve been, had he not had such a spotless moral compass. He squints up at you, and you grimace. “Sorry. Graveyards make me uncomfortable.”
“His parents didn’t know,” he supplies, kneeling down to dust dirt and pebbles off of the surface of the casket. You take a step closer to the edge of the hole to look down. Even the wood of the casket looks expensive, you muse. “They think it was some freak accident.”
You wonder if that’s really true, or if it’s just another case of humans pretending to believe things because it’s more convenient. Whatever the case, you choose not to voice that suspicion, deciding to instead address an equally important question. “What’re you gonna tell ‘em now, then?”
Joshua exhales through his nose. It’s a long and exhausted sound, the kind of elongated sigh that sounds like it strains the lungs. When he looks up at you, a thin layer of sweat covers his forehead. “Well, you’re called the memory stealer, aren’t you?”
A muscle in your jaw twitches, and you have to fight back the urge to bite your own tongue just to keep yourself from coming with a scathing remark. You hate that name, hate the implications of it, hate that someone as soft and careful as Joshua Hong knows about it. Most of all, you hate that you can’t deny it. You don’t respond. It seems he doesn’t need you to. He pushes back up into a standing position, massages his own neck with a dirty hand and glances at the watch strapped around his wrist. It looks almost like he’s regained some gusto you didn’t know he possessed, his movements more energized, more confident.
Humans tend to need some sort of purpose, you suppose, some goal to work towards. No wonder he’s been so obsessive in his quest to revive this ‘Hansol’.
“I need you to help me open up the casket.”
~~
A lot of things seem to happen at once. You take hold of the roof of the casket, feel the wood resist against your pull. The clock is ticking, and by the time you get the top of the casket off, the wood creaking in pain at the forceful handling, twenty-four hours have passed.
The boy emerges from the soft, plush inside of his not-so-final resting bed like an abused animal from a cage that’s just been opened. He flings himself over you with a force you’d be impressed with had you not been so caught surprised by it. He brings his fingers – bony and stiff with inactivity – around your neck, knocks his long, skinny body against you and makes you fall over against the walls of the hole. Dirt and grime drizzles down your face, your body, and once you’ve got your head straight again, you raise your hand to blast him back.
“Vernon,” Joshua half-whispers, half-yells from somewhere in front of you, his voice coated in something that sounds like a bizarre mix of relief and panic. You spot the man as he puts his hands on your attacker’s shoulders, his knuckles whitening with the forcefulness of his grip. “Stop, you’re safe. You’re back.”
His grip loosens, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, fingertips still digging into the base of your neck. That, at least, is a good sign; that he at least still have some semblance of sanity left. He stares you down, breathes so rapidly and loudly that it sounds like it must hurt his throat. Recognition flashes in his eyes. His hair falls down his forehead, pale brown and greasy against his skin.
“I know you,” he says, and his voice feels like being hit in the face; too low for his pretty face and too raspy for his smooth features. He lets his arms fall from your neck to hang stiffly at his sides. Joshua shoots you a suspicious glare. “You were there.”
He doesn’t even call it by name, doesn’t need to. The mere mention is enough to send shivers down your spine. It runs through your body, makes you feel the flames lick at your skin and the screams of pain echo in your head. At least he doesn’t look as ragged as he had done down there. You wonder if that sense of victory that blooms in the pit of your stomach is anything like whatever possesses Joshua to keep doing what he does.
“What the fuck is going on, Josh?” Vernon twists his head and upper body to face his friend, the detached, almost angry tone of his voice making the other man frown. There’s a stiffness to his body that you don’t think comes from having been dead, and you think back to the stories you’ve been told about people being brought back to life. About the man who lost his daughter, who sold his soul to get her back, only to discover it had been to late, that her sanity had been broken months ago and all that was left was a body. Not even a demon, or a ‘zombie’. Just a rabid, scared little girl.
Hansol – or Vernon, as Joshua had called him – doesn’t seem to be quite there, but he does seem to have lost something, still. There’s a lack of an inflection when he speaks, a robotic sort of tenseness to his movements, small as they are. You wonder if, if you strip him of his black blazer and his neat, white shirt, you can still make out the wounds and scars from the razor sharp, metallic whip that the demons of the underworld seem to favor.
“I’ll explain everything,” Joshua promises, puts his hand securely around Vernon’s upper arm. “But not here. Not right now.” His voice is hard, echoes with authority. You’re starting to realize that Joshua’s reputation as a soft, peace loving pacifist might not be completely accurate.
He did, after all, just disobey one of the most basic laws of nature.
Joshua clumsily helps Vernon out of the hole, both of their outfits getting smeared in filth in the process. The sun is starting to rise dangerously, and the time until they’re undoubtedly caught digging up graves is closing in on you all. Usually, you’d take this risk as your cue to leave, but somehow the blank, disinterested look on Vernon’s face and the low, terrified tones of Joshua’s voice has you hesitating.
“Go back to the car,” you tell them both, cracking the muscles in your fingers as if to warm yourself up. The art of manipulating time and space is not an easy thing, never a pleasant experience even for you, who has all the practice in the world at it. “I’ll take care of this mess.”
It seems to dawn on Joshua, then, that he had not thought things completely through, that he didn’t really have a plan for covering up this particular mess. You try not to roll your eyes, settle instead for a raised brow and a knowing look. Cleaning up after humans seems to be a byproduct of dealing with the species. Joshua nods, and you turn back to look at the mess. You inhale. And then you work.
Getting the dirt and the soil back in it’s original place is no task at all, truly. Just a matter of some levitation and a bit of willpower; even the newest, less experienced demons with an ambition in time and memory work could do something as simple, something that basically comes down to gardening. The fact that the grave was new, fresh to begin with works to your advantage, no need for grass to sprout on top of the soil once it’s put back in it’s spot.
Changing the inscriptions on the tombstone is a bit harder, makes the back of your eyes prickle as if someone’s poking you with needles. You replace the name with the first name that comes to mind, a name that never got a proper tombstone or a proper burial. You pretend to convince yourself that the sting in your chest comes from exhaustion.
The last part of the spell – as people has called it – the part that fills your mouth with a coppery taste and that has blood dripping out of your mouth, is the lingering, long lasting field of manipulation around the grave. You can’t completely erase Vernon’s existence, nor the actuality of his death, but you can confuse people coming to his grave enough to distract from it.
“Neat trick,” you hear from behind you, the voice so unexpected it makes you jump. You’re faced, unsurprisingly, with Vernon’s distinct features and tired eyes, his gaze not focused on you but on the tombstone behind you. “So do I just not exist anymore or what?”
You frown, twist your hands around to loosen the tension in your wrists. “Don’t be silly,” you tell him, more than a little bit uncomfortable with being alone with the dead boy walking. “For that I’d have to eat the heart of a newborn.”
Vernon blinks, but his face remains otherwise blank. For a moment you’re not even sure that he’s caught on to the fact that you were joking, and you suppose that’s on you for trying to crack jokes over the grave of a boy who’s been alive again for a whopping ten minutes. “Funny,” he supplies at last, but his voice is devoid of emotion. He shifts on his feet in clunky steps, looks back as if to make sure no one’s listening in on your conversation.
“Are you going to do that to my family as well?” He asks, and normally you’d be able to gauge what response someone was looking for by the way they asked the question. Having lived as long as you have, human behavior becomes sort of predictable, after all, but Vernon doesn’t move, doesn’t raise his voice, and all you really manage to do is nod. “Good,” he mutters, and that’s that. You wonder if he’ll have the same opinion on the matter once his emotions return – if they ever do.
“Did you tell Joshua? About Hell, I mean,” He goes on, surprisingly talkative for someone so dull and rough around the edges. There’s a raspy quality to his voice that you doubt is supposed to be there, and when you tell him that no, you haven’t talked to Joshua about Hell at all, Vernon looks the most relieved that he’s done since coming back to life. “Don’t. He doesn’t need to know.”
You don’t tell Vernon that you hadn’t intended to anyways, that you’d rather not talk or think about the underworld ever again. That’s not their business, just like Vernon’s decision is not yours. Vernon turns back to retreat towards Joshua’s car, and after one lingering glance back at the masked tombstone, you follow. You swipe your hand at the drying blood right above your lip, and you brace yourself for phase two.
(The mind is a fragile thing, vulnerable to impressions and attacks in all forms. This is true for all sentient beings, even those who dabble in memory curses and manipulation. For as easy it is to shape the mind as you want with your skills, it’s dangerous, not to mention draining, taking much more energy out of you than connecting made up memories to a place or an object. It’s a risk every time you do it, and you suppose that is how it has to be.
Which is why you tell Joshua to join you as you stop the car in front of Vernon’s parents’ house, why reluctance bites at your skin as you get out of the car. When you turn to look back, Vernon himself is staring unblinkingly at you from his seat.
His family is just what you’d expect from someone with such a bright and warm home, from someone who cared enough to put so much money into their son’s funeral. They greet Joshua like he’s one of their own, gentle hands and tight hugs making the both of you uncomfortable. They do not ask questions, do not put you on the spot, and for the first time in many years, you feel a pang of genuine guilt at what you’re about to do.
Stealing memories from a person feels sort of like sucking all of the air out of the room and into your own mouth. There’s a taste to it, in a way, a flavor of longing and love and pain tickling the roof of your mouth with each emotion, each thought that fills your body and occupies the space in your head. You can’t remove Vernon’s existence completely, not when there are so many objects that tell of his presence in his family’s life, but you can remove the hurt, the death and the funeral. That doesn’t make it un-happen, doesn’t make the pain erased from the world, only moves it somewhere else.
Your heart is heavy with each thought, with the memories of black clothes and high pitches crying that forces itself into your mind, and though you do not know the boy more than you know of his presence in the car right outside, you mourn his passing as if you’ve known him since birth. You want to cry, you want to yell and throw things around, and distantly you feel a sort of self-loathing for things unsaid, words that aren’t even your own but that feels undeniably true in your heart.
The last thing you recall before the spell is complete and you fade into unconsciousness is a strong, overwhelming thought of ‘why couldn’t it have been me instead’. And then everything goes black.)
~~
When you wake up, you’re in an unfamiliar room, lying in an unfamiliar bed. The remnants of emotions and memories that aren’t yours linger in the back of your mind, makes the hair at the back of your neck stand. Your vision is foggy, your body hot and cold all at once.
”You’re awake,” comes the easily recognizable, raspy sound of Vernon’s voice from next to you, and when you twist your body around to follow the sound, you’re met with red cheeks and plump lips, pale brown curls that look a lot less lifeless after – you assume – a thorough shower. He looks down at you, looks considerable more alive than he did when you first un-buried him, but his gaze is still, for the most part, blank. That much is to be expected, but somehow, with the new surge of memories connected to the boy, it hurts to look at him.
”Joshua’s grocery shopping,” he explains, rolls his shoulders almost as if he’s uncomfortable. You hum, let your gaze follow the lines of his face and the arch of his neck before you sit up and stretch. Outside, the sun is high on the sky; you must have been out for at least a few hours. “We’re at a motel. He said you needed rest.”
”So you’ve just been creepily staring at me while I was sleeping, then?” you mutter, fingers clutching at your tense shoulder, nails digging into skin. Vernon exhales through his nose, drags a hand through his hair. He leans back in his chair, head slightly tilted as he watches your movements.
”Joshua’s acting like I’m gonna burst into flames any moment,” Vernon says without really looking at you, seems to fall further into the plush of his chair. “It’s driving me crazy.” Somehow, you’re not sure if he really understands how unsettling that sentence is, considering. “Besides,” he continues, leaning a fraction closer to your spot on the bed. You feel strangely exposed, put on the spot by the sudden closeness. “I feel less dead when you’re here. Why is that?”
The confession, blunt and careless as it is, sends a shiver through your body, makes you feel off-kilter in a way that’s both completely too familiar and strange all at once. It makes you mourn for him, in a sense, to know that he still feels dead after being resurrected. It’s one of the prices you have to pay, you suppose, when you play around with something as important as life and death. It’s unfair, really, that he had to pay it, as little as he had to do with the resurrection itself.
”I don’t know,” you tell him, leaning back on your arms for support. Your shoulders feel heavy, weighed down by the intensity of Vernon’s glare. It’s apparent that the boy’s not as easily swayed and endeared to dark creatures as his companion is. “I’m sure it’ll pass.”
Vernon hums, a surprisingly soft sound that vibrates through his closed lips as he turns his gaze to the open window at the end of the tiny bedroom. “Isn’t it kind of funny? You’re the demon, but I’m the one who seems less human.”
He doesn’t sound like he finds it funny at all. The inexplicable need to ease up the lines of tension in the lines of his face makes your fingers itch.
”If it makes you feel any better,” you start with uncertainty coating your tongue and making it feel awkward in your mouth. You’ve never really been good at comfort, never been put in a position where you’ve felt like you have to consider your words and mind your tones. Vernon looks fierce, looks strong; his jawline sharp and his features more defined with the hours he’s spent back above the earth, but somehow his presence feels fragile, like a string pulled too thin. “I ripped open a casket and defiled a tombstone. As far as humanity goes, I think you’re still in the lead.”
Vernon’s lip twitches, tells in low whispers of a secret sort of smile that almost breaks out on his face. It’s a start, if nothing else. “It doesn’t,” he murmurs, with a distant sort of warmth to his low tones. “But thank you for trying.”
The floorboards creak in the hallway, and when you snap your gaze in the direction of the barely open door, you see the flash of a figure disappearing from the opening.
It’s hard to care about the fact that Joshua’s been eavesdropping when Vernon’s eyes shine as bright as you’ve seen them.
(The third night of your stay at the motel, you hear a garbled sort of scream coming from one of the connecting rooms. You jolt up in your own bed, sit up with your hands clutching at the sheets and your eyes squinted in an attempt at looking around the room. Your first thought is that someone’s found you, someone who does not approve of Joshua’s attempts at playing God.
The aforementioned man himself appears in the doorway to your room, hair sticking out in every direction and face coated in a mixture of sleep and panic.
“He’s having a nightmare,” he explains, and the organ in your chest relaxes a fraction; at least that means no demons or monsters are knocking down your doors yet. “I can’t–” he cuts himself off, a layer of shame taking over his expression. “I can’t wake him up.”
There’s a tinge of resentment there, but underneath it you can hear the underlying tint of a question he’s reluctant to ask. You inhale, drag yourself out of the bed. Inexplicably, embarrassment burns at the back of your throat as you follow Joshua out into the hallway, the screams increasing in volume, it seems, with every step you take. Joshua pushes open the door to what you assume to be Vernon’s bedroom.
The boy lies in his bed, knuckles as white as the sheets his fists are clutching to, and his skin shimmers brightly with a thin layer of sweat. You shoot Joshua an uncertain look, only moving into the bedroom when the man nods, presses a gentle hand to your shoulder blade. You chew on your bottom lip, approach the screaming boy and put your hands on his face. His skin feels like fire.
“Vernon,” you murmur, realizing only after the fact that it’s the first time you’ve said his name out loud. He tries to wrestle his face out of your grip, but even in his sleeping panic, he’s got nothing on your inhuman strength. You dig your fingernails into his cheeks, force his face in your direction. You repeat his name, louder this time, more authoritative and with the barest tint of persuasive power slipping through your lips. “Wake up,” you tell him, more a command than anything else.
When he obeys, it’s with a sharp intake of breath and a jolt as if he’s been struck by lightning. He stares at you as if he doesn’t quite recognize you, and for a moment you worry he’s about to start hyperventilating; his chest rising and falling a tad too rapidly. When at last he murmurs your name, it’s with a softness that makes you feel off-kilter and strange; not entirely an unpleasant feeling. You hear the door close behind you, and then it’s just the two of you in the darkness.
“It was just a nightmare,” you tell him. A presumptuous statement, considering you know first hand how real dreams can turn out to be. Vernon grimaces, and when you make a move to remove your hands from his face, he moves quickly, hand coming up to grip at your wrist, keep your hand there.
“Was it, though?” He asks, eyes hooded. You feel the vibrations of his voice against your palm, and it almost makes your breath hitch.
An affinity for humans, Hoseok had said. You thought you’d ridden yourself of that quality ages ago. The warmth that spreads through your body as Vernon sleepily leans against your palm tells another story.
“You should sleep more,” you tell him, opting to ignore his question. He lets the hand that’s holding onto you fall, but does not loosen his grip, making your own arm fall against the mattress with it. “It’s still dark outside.” You hope he doesn’t notice the uneven quality of your voice. He falls back against his pillow. When you try to push yourself back up from your kneeling position next to the bed, his grasp around your wrist tightens, nails digging crescents into your skin.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t say anything, but somehow his eyes tell you everything you need to know; fear and shame battling for domination in his expression. You sit back down against the cold floor, lean your back against the side of the bed, and only then does he let go of your wrist.
You spend the rest of the night listening to the discordant song of your heart beating in your chest, almost, sort of in tune with Vernon’s breath as it evens out and he falls back asleep.)
~~
A long time ago, when you had a companion of your own, you were often told of how you carried yourself as if you were a cold, cynic being of the underworld, but that underneath you hid a myriad of too strong emotions. You used to vehemently deny this accusation, scrunch up your nose and make some sort of scathing remark.
But now, weeks into your new companionship with a makeshift doctor for demons and humans alike and a recently dead boy, you can’t really find it in you to deny it anymore.
Vernon is starting to act more like a human being again, chuckles at your throwaway jokes and chides Joshua for his hovering with true emotion coated in his voice. He still has nightmares, still clutches at your skin after every one of them. You’ve started renting only two bedrooms at the motels you stay at. Joshua looks at you with suspicion in his otherwise gentle face, but he says nothing.
“Sometimes I still feel the lashes across my back,” Vernon whispers, his breaths hitting your face with each syllable. Joshua might keep quiet, might keep his emotions masked and his true thoughts unheard, but Vernon– Vernon talks like he’ll cease to exist if he doesn’t. He tells you about his nightmares, about how he can’t be sure whether they’re just that– dreams, or if they’re suppressed memories from his time in the underworld. You want to assure him that they’re the former, want to reach out and smooth out the wrinkles of stress on his face, but somehow the sight of him steals away your ability to move and all you can do is listen.
You’re not sure if he even notices how touchy he becomes once he’s grown used to your presence next to him; his fingers running absentminded lines and shapes over your exposed skin, pressing into your flesh when he recalls something especially uncomfortable. It’s a strange shift, when he goes from that unintentionally restrained nonchalance that drifts over him sometimes during the day, emotions seemingly not the default setting in his brain, to that wide open, vulnerable and genuine being he is when the sun disappears behind the trees.
You think Joshua might be jealous that Vernon somehow feels more comfortable opening up to you than he feels towards his oldest friend. You want to tell him it’s just because he wants to spare him of the gruesome details. It’s easy to think, with just one glance, that Joshua is the protective one out of the two; the truth is that the boys seem to share a bond that’s so genuine and so fiercely loyal that nothing even comes close, least of all you, the newcomer.
So maybe, then, you’re the jealous one.
“I want to try something,” Vernon says quietly, voice barely above a whisper and almost not loud enough to pull you out of your train of thought. When you focus your gaze back up at his face, there’s open hesitation visible in the soft lines of his face. His fingers stop at the edge of your shoulder, plays with the hem of your t-shirt. You can’t be sure if the way his gaze drops for a moment, seemingly lingering at the bottom of your face, is a trick of the light or an actual thing. Whatever the case, it makes you heart do a weird sort of jump in your chest. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” you whisper, try to keep your voice steady. The exhale that leaves Vernon’s mouth if nothing if not relieved. And then he’s shifting on the bed, his hands coming up to rest against your cheekbones in a scene at almost perfectly mirrors the one that had started your shared living situation in the first place. At first you think that might be all he wants to do, to press his fingertips into the flesh of your cheeks and rub his fingers along the edges of your lips, but then he’s leaning closer, his eyes falling shut, and you forget how to breathe.
You’ve been kissed before, of course; by multiple people and in multiple circumstances. Some of them were slow and meaningful, others just a means to seal a deal. None of them felt quite like this. Vernon clutches at your face as if his own actions terrifies him, as if he’s not wholly sure that he should be doing what he’s doing. He breathes through his nose, sharp huffs of air against your skin, and for a moment all there is to it is a press of lips against lips. It’s nothing, all things considered, but somehow it feels like it’s everything. His pulse feels like a drum against your skin.
Somewhere between the tenth and the fifteenth beat of your heart, he seems to gain confidence, pulling at your face as if he wants to consume you, lips moving just enough to make your own hands grasp at the front of his shirt. Every inch of your body feels like it’s on fire; the feeling too much, too overwhelming, too pleasant for you even to consider what that means. When Vernon pulls his face away from yours, something that sounds partly like an exhale and partly like a giggle escapes his mouth, and your heart literally soars.
“Did you figure it out?” you ask breathlessly, head swimming and skin itching. Your lips feel cold, wet without his own pressed against them, and an impulse you barely manage to fight back urges you to lean after him. Vernon swallows thickly, his hands not leaving your face.
“I’m not sure,” he says with a sort of wonder coating the tones of his voice. He sounds more like himself, like the image of him that you stole from his parents, than he has ever done before. His gaze falls back down to your lips and he murmurs, “I think I should try again.”
You put your fingers gingerly at the back of his ears and you pull. You let him try again. And again. And again and again until you can’t even remember what the purpose of it all was in the first place.
~~
More weeks pass, and somehow you fall into a routine. The routine consists of you telling yourself to withdraw yourself from the previous duo of two human boys, to leave before things get messy, followed by doing the exact opposite. You let Vernon tangle his fingers with your own in quiet, unnoticed moments, let him trail kisses along your jawline and press his fingernails into your hips, and you pretend that you’re not getting completely swallowed up by a boy who’s still learning how to feel again.
(Joshua, on the other hand, does not pretend not to notice, though that would’ve been the – in your opinion – more polite, less annoying thing to do.)
When two weeks pass without incident, without nightmares, you tell yourself you’re going to stop sleeping in the same bed as him. Joshua squints, glares intensely at you when you interrupt him at the counter of the next motel and tell the manager that you’ll need three bedrooms rather than two. Vernon almost doesn’t look nonchalant.
He comes into your room later that night, whispered words of apologies and worries eager to tumble out of his mouth. Has he done something wrong, he wonders. Has he made you uncomfortable, forced his intimacy on you without caring about your wishes? He’s careful not to speak of feelings, but there’s a distinct undercurrent of the thing, nonetheless.
(”Listen,” Joshua says, pulling you out of your clouded mind and troubled thoughts. When you look up to meet his gaze, there’s a sort of hardness to his expression that makes you feel oddly put in place, even before he’s opened his mouth. “We need to talk about you and Vernon.”)
“No,” you tell him, truthfully, with a heart that hammers too hard, feels to exposed. “I just thought, you haven’t had any nightmares lately. Figured you’d want to try sleeping on your own again.” You’re careful not to talk about your own wants, or your own wishes, scared of something you’re not ready to voice slipping through your gritted teeth.
“And if I don’t?” He asks, as if it’s a challenge, as if he’s revealing his cards just by virtue of the question. “Will you keep sleeping with me, then?” The phrasing catches you off guard, makes your skin feel hot and your palms sweaty. His own eyes widen, his face clearly reddened even in the darkness. He mutters, almost reluctantly, “You know what I mean.”
(”What about me and Vernon?” You ask, as if the notion of the two of you put together in a sentence is absolutely ludicrous. Joshua’s gaze sharpens, and somehow you think you’ve said the wrong thing. Unfortunately for you both, you’re not known for folding against a challenge. You put your chin in the palm of your hand, stare back at him with venom that mirrors his own harsh expression.
“Vernon’s still learning how to be alive again, he doesn’t need you confusing him,” Joshua says, and at least you can give him credit for putting it bluntly and not beating around the bush. The accusation stings, more than you expected it to, and for a moment you can’t muster up any sort of response. “I don’t mind having you here, but if you’re just playing games, you should leave.”
There’s finality in his tone, and for a second you entertain the idea. He’s right, of course, in that you should leave. Hanging around humans clearly isn’t good for your mental health, and certainly not for your reputation. But the sight of Vernon’s smile, still awkward and kind of uncertain, drifts to the forefront of your mind, and makes your breath come out as a shudder.
“You have to stop babying him, Joshua,” you murmur, attempt to make your voice as soft and smooth as possible. “Vernon’s more resilient than you think.”)
The smart thing to do, you think, is to tell Vernon to go back to his room, to get used to sleeping alone. There’s no need, really, for the two of you to share quarters anymore, and you’re sure that the reason he’s so reluctant to do so is that he’s gotten used to the shared warmth of two bodies in one bed. You tell yourself this, force yourself to believe it, because any other line of thinking undoubtedly only leads to heartbreak. But the mind; the mind is such a treacherous thing, and the thing that comes out of your mouth instead is:
“Of course.”
You move over, make space from him on the mattress, and when Vernon climbs in with something that sounds too much like a relieved sigh, lies down and pulls you against his chest, you can’t do anything but chastise yourself for letting yourself so wrapped up in the boy that refusing him seems like such an impossibility. His arm feels heavy over your waist, his feet cold as they tangle up in your own, but somehow, sleep has never come more easily.
~~
The first time you sleep with Vernon, it’s an accident. Sort of.
You’re both more than a little buzzed, empty cans of beer littered over the floor and air hot with tension. Joshua has disappeared off to god knows where – something, you notice, he seems to do a lot these days – and the two of you are, more than ever, alone.
Vernon’s eyes are hooded, but his gaze is full of intent as he stares in you direction on the other side of the table. You try not to feel scrutinized, busy yourself with finishing off your beer. He reaches for your free hand where it lies with fingers spread over the brown wood of the table, intertwines his digits with your own and pulls. “Come here,” he murmurs, voice laced with the uneven notes of someone who’s had a tad too much to drink to be completely sharp in their pronunciations.
You comply, pushing yourself to your feet and walking around the small table to stand in front of his own seated form. He stares up at you with a sort of twinkle you can’t be sure if comes from the dim lights in the roof of the room or from something else entirely. He snakes an arm around your waist and pulls, wraps his legs around yours and presses the side of his face to your stomach.
It’s somehow both an oddly innocent and intimate action all at once, his fingertips slipping past the hem of your shirt to lightly skim over the skin of your back. He exhales, the sound stutter-y. When he speaks, the words vibrate against your stomach and you place your hands at his shoulders, if only because you think your feet might give out if you don’t.
“I somehow imagined a demon to have cold skin,” he tells you, affection blatantly present in his voice as he presses his fingertips along your spine. He twists his head, his nose poking against your ribcage. The feeling makes you squirm, but it’s not wholly unpleasant. “You’re warm,” he whispers, voice muffled by the fabric of your shirt. “You have a heartbeat, too.”
You clutch at his sweater, try to stop yourself from shivering as you look down into his mess of curls. You could tell yourself it’s the alcohol that makes your heart rate speed up, that makes you want to press your thumb against the pulse in his neck and lean down to hide your face in his hair. But in this; in this honest and semi-drunken moment of intimacy, you allow yourself to be candid, if only to yourself.
You really are falling for this silly, strange human.
“It’s just the benefits of a human host,” you murmur, not without humor, tangle your fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp in a show of affection you’ll probably berate yourself for later. Vernon hums, and you feel the upwards curve of his lips against your stomach even with the layer of fabric between your skin and his mouth. You wonder how it looks, feels a bizarre need to see how each and every sort of smile paints his face. “There’s still a scary, dark creature hiding underneath my skin.”
“Interesting,” he muses. Then he’s staring up at you, chin pressing into your stomach. His fingers inches upwards along your back, scrunching up your shirt as he goes.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m taking advantage of you,” he confesses, cheeks red with more than just alcohol. The moment feels heavy, life-changing, somehow. His fingers inch higher, plays with the strap of your bra. “Like you’re just indulging me because of the whole… being dead thing.”
You feel like if you were ever going to admit that you often feel the same way, that you fear that you’re abusing the soothing effect your presence seems to have on him, it would be now. That if you were going to confess that your heart seems to skip a beat every time he as much as looked your way, this would be the opportune moment.
But you never were the most courageous of demons, so instead you tell him;
“As if a weak human boy could take advantage of a powerful demon like me.”
Vernon laughs at that; a true laugh, a laugh that starts in his stomach and erupts out of his mouth as if it can’t help itself. It makes his mouth spread in a smile that is too wide, that makes his upper lip nothing but a thin line and that shows off a beautiful row of white teeth. That makes your heart do a strange wallop and that makes unbidden words curl your tongue in your mouth.
Vernon stands up, his face light with humor and your shirt inch even further up your body. He takes a few steps, his face tilting slightly to angle itself against yours. “Is this okay?” He asks, pulls at your shirt as if to emphasize. You take hold of the bottom of your own shirt, pull it off in one swift movement, and once the garment is discarded, you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him into perhaps the first kiss between the two of you that you’ve initiated.
He exhales through his nose, digs his fingers into your skin and blindly guides you in the general direction of the bed in the other end of the room. You both fall down on the hard mattress, the air knocked out of you for more reasons than the impact, and when Vernon situates himself between your legs, grounds his pelvis against yours in such a forceful, needy motion that it makes your breath catch, you can’t even muster up the will to feel bad about your choices.
(The pendant you always wear around your neck – a gift from a friend from a long, long time ago – is nowhere to be seen when you wake up to an empty bed the next day. It reappears, though, around Vernon’s neck when you find him outside chatting with Joshua. He looks at you like you’ve hung the bright, yellow sun in the sky and you can’t make yourself ask for the piece of jewelry back.)
~~
“I want to apologize to you,” Joshua says, seemingly out of nowhere, while the two of you raid the dairy aisle at the local 24 hours mart near the newest motel. The sincerity in his voice makes you pause, squinting in his direction as if you could decipher what he’s talking about if only you stared hard enough.
“What for?” you relent at last, unable to summon up some sort of mind reader abilities out of nowhere. Joshua shrugs, grabs a carton of milk from the nearest shelf, looks around as if he’s about to reveal some big secret.
“For what I said about your thing with Vernon,” he tells you, and the mere mention of your… ‘thing with Vernon’ makes your face heat up. Suddenly, the laces on your shoes become intensely interesting, and you can’t quite look up from the floor.
“Yes,” you reply, dragging out the vowel and making your tone carefully blank. You take care not to play into the confession you can tell he’s trying to drag out of you, responding instead with your natural instinct; to make a joke out of it. “I was sort of offended that you doubted my nanny-ing abilities.” Even to your own ears, the quip falls flat, and you grimace, grateful that you can’t see the look on the man’s face. Joshua hums, as he so often does whenever you’ve said something he finds interesting or telling for some reason.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” he allows, a sort of playful edge to his voice letting you know that he does not fall for your attempts at dodging the subject. He clears his throat, shuffles on his feet, and you can tell, without even looking at him, that he’s about to spout some typical human sincerities at you. “I see how the two of you look at each other. I’m sorry for misjudging you, that’s all.”
You’re about to reply, to follow up with another obviously dodgy joke, when Vernon appears from somewhere behind you, carrying a basket full of beer and snacks. He stops just a step too close for comfort following the conversation you’ve just had with Joshua, and when he presses a hand to the small of your back your neck tingles almost uncomfortably. “What’re you guys talking about?”
Joshua, to his credit, seems to catch quite quickly that you’re not wholly inclined to indulge more into the subject and lifts up the carton of milk instead, shaking it lightly with a pleasant smile on his face. “Milk,” he says, his tone so ridiculously bright that it must be the most obvious lie in the world.
“Riveting,” Vernon replies, his thumb traveling along your spine in a slow, almost tantalizing line. Joshua rolls his eyes, strides past the both of you with a knowing look sent in your direction.
“Let’s get back to the motel,” he says, and then he’s walking towards the cashier as if he can’t get out of the store quickly enough. Once he’s out of sight, Vernon stares you down for a moment, before pressing a quick, casual kiss to your lips. It’s the sort of kiss you imagine couples must share; an afterthought more than a statement, but meaningful nonetheless. It makes you think about Vernon’s worries about taking advantage, about your own thoughts in that direction.
You’ve dawdled too long, you conclude, watching the two men’s backs as you all retreat out of the store and back to the car. You barely even feel sick when you ride it anymore. Unease grips at your bones as you make a decision.
It’s time to go back to your job as the memory stealer. Somehow you didn’t imagine you’d ever be your own client.
~~
You find Vernon at the top of a hill a few days later, head tilted back and with a beer in his hand. Once you step closer, you see stars reflected in his wide open eyes, his expression relaxed and neutral as he taps absentmindedly against the metal of the beer can. Your heart feels heavy, head buzzing with exhaustion and pulling at the frayed edges of reality; it’s already hard to distinguish what is real and what isn’t.
“I need to tell you something,” you say by way of greeting, stopping right next to him and making yourself comfortable on the grass. The vibrant, green strands tickle against your skin, but somehow the feeling just makes you heavier. Vernon turns his head to the side, looks at you with worry in the creases between his brows.
“Something wrong?” he asks, and not for the first time you’re impressed with how far he’s come in terms of reading the mood. It’s easy to forget that just a mere two months ago, he barely even knew what a joke was, could not sleep without being overwhelmed by night terrors. You shrug.
“There was a boy once,” you start, deciding to just jump right into it. You try remembering when you told this story last, when you muttered the name that now resides on a gravestone that used to read ‘Hansol Vernon Chwe’, but you come up empty. “His name was Jihoon. He was a human, too.”
Vernon watches, his mouth pulled into a tight, carefully blank line. He does not speak.
“We were kinda like you and Joshua, I guess; companions on the road. He hated me at first,” there’s some nostalgia there, some fondness hidden beneath all the hurt. It had been an unfortunate – not to mention ridiculous – curse that had brought you together at first, that had forced you and the temperamental, small human to travel together. By the time you found the cause of it, a bond had already formed. You tell Vernon this, explain your whole history in short, stunted sentences.
Your words start cracking once you get to the part with the vampires, with Jihoon begging you to let him die, to make sure he didn’t turn. To the part where you disregarded your friend’s – because you do not call Jihoon your lover, even if that might have been the more accurate term – wishes out of your own selfishness. “I haven’t seen him since.”
“Sounds like you cared about him a lot,” Vernon says, his voice somewhere between understanding and something far less pleasant. He brushes his fingers along your knuckles, seems to hesitate with really touching you. “Where’s this going?” You frown, take a deep breath. No point in stalling the inevitable, you suppose.
“I’m a curse,” you tell him, fingers grasping for strands of grass as if you need something to keep you grounded. Vernon makes a joke about being surprised that demons are superstitious, and had the mood not been so somber, you might have been proud that he seems to have adopted your penchant for cracking jokes when things get too serious. You take hold of his face, make sure to keep eye contact. “I’ll just get to the point. I’ve made Joshua forget about me.”
Vernon’s already large eyes widen almost comically. He tries to wrestle his face out from between your hands. It’s a futile attempt, of course, but you applaud him for his effort. “What the fuck?” He sputters, his fingernails digging into your wrists forcefully enough to hurt. You wince.
“You don’t need me anymore,” you tell him, and suddenly you wish you had some sort of pre-rehearsed speech ready. The absolutely horrified look on Vernon’s face makes you feel sick, makes you want to disappear. “And I wasn’t supposed to stick around this long in the first place.”
It’s a lie, of course; nothing but a shallow, selfish excuse. The truth is that you’re scared. That you haven’t felt something as strong as whatever it is you’re feeling for Vernon since Jihoon, decades and decades ago. And at this point, you’re not sure if it would be worse if he reciprocated those feelings, or if he didn’t.
“What the fuck does need matter?” Vernon hisses, his voice almost poisonous in his growing anger. He tries, once again, to force your hands away from their steel grip on his face. “I want you here. Joshua wanted you here. You have no right to fuck with our memories.” Your eyes feel wet, and you ponder at how long it has been since you last cried. This part, you prepared for; this part you have a response to, cruel as it might be.
“Just like I had no right to fuck with your parents’ memories?” you bite back, every word feeling like a dagger to your own chest. The scandalized look on Vernon’s face does little to help the situation. But still, you keep going. “There’s no moral high ground in these matters. This is my job.” There’s heartbreak open and visible in the lines of Vernon’s face, so genuine and so real that you almost believe in it.
“I’m so stupidly, irrationally in love with you,” you tell him, press a dry, simple but undoubtedly meaningful kiss to his down-turned lips. You feel a strip of something wet run down your cheeks, feel the taste of salt at your bottom lip. “And I can’t stand it. I have to go.”
Vernon’s eyes turn blank, and you know that the continuous force of energy you’ve forced upon him has finally taken effect. You give him simple instructions, enough to make him get back to Joshua and the motel, but not enough to make his brain go haywire.
And then you leave, disappearing in a cloud of smoke. For the first time in decades, you feel the taste of ashes on your tongue.
(The necklace Jihoon gave you used to be that one thing that anchored you, that made you feel real when memories tried to overtake you. The only thing you feel now when you put your hand up towards your neck is the bone at your collar and the distinct feel of loss. I love you I love you I love you echoes in your head, forceful as a punch to the face.
It doesn’t echo in your own tone of voice.)
~~
Six months later, you get your first customer since your prolonged leave of absence.
At least, you assume it’s a customer, because only someone who comes to your new house with the right code in the form of four precise presses of the doorbell knows who you really are; The Memory Stealer.
You’re sleepy, dizzy as you push yourself off of the couch and take the mandatory steps towards the front door. Your back complains in the form of a stinging pain with the less than ideal position you’ve been sleeping in these past few months; somehow you can’t quite get yourself to sleep in a bed.
All of that is completely forgotten when you open up the door, a familiar face greeting you on the porch. There’s something more human about his features than you’ve ever seen before, something more innocent and questioning, but the person standing in front of you is undoubtedly, heartbreakingly none other than Vernon Hansol Chwe.
“Hiya,” he says, his voice light and airy and unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. He smiles in that way you’ve preferred to remember him; his lips stretched too thin and his teeth almost blinding. For a moment, you falter, stuck in your own lingering emotions. But then he says; “You’re the one they call the memory stealer, right?” and the bile in your throat seems to soothe, the pain in your chest lingering, but not overwhelming. ‘Right’ you murmur in response, and then he’s pushing past you, entering your home with all the gusto of someone who doesn’t know what fear feels like. It’s as heartwarming as it it frustrating.
Vernon twists his head from side to side, takes in the empty walls and the non-decorated home you live in. He turns back to look at you, tilts his head in a way that reminds you of precise kisses and whispered words.
“You sure took a long way to track down,” he tells you, fiddling with the hem of his own jacket. You try not to lean into the pleasant tones of his voice, try not to remember how much you’ve missed Vernon and his soft, plump mouth.
“Is that so?” you reply, the question detached and not really a question. “What did you come for?”
Vernon stares at you, sizes you up and down as if he wants to fight. Then he’s grasping at a thread around his neck, and a pendant you recognize all to well appears from underneath the neck of his sweater. “Do your recognize this?” he asks, and all at once your body seems to shut down; your legs wobbling and your breath hitching so loudly and so quickly it rasps against the walls of your throat.
“I’m so mad at you,” he says, taking a few measured steps to end up right in front of you, staring you down. He cups your face, and only then do you realize that your cheeks are wet. Vernon’s thumbs rub against the innermost parts of your cheekbones, and you feel so holy, so heavenly that you fear you might actually burst into flames.
“You’re lucky I’m so stupidly, irrationally in love with you,” Vernon says, and his smile is wide enough, bright enough to put the sun itself to shame.
#svt fanfic#seventeen fanfic#svt imagines#seventeen imagines#svt x reader#seventeen x reader#seventeen scenarios#svt scenarios
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question for you, if you're interested: with all the usual caveats that we can never truly know authorial intent, do you think 04x21 was intended to inspire sympathy for sam? dean? both? neither? i've been wrestling with it but i'm conflicted. would love to hear any thoughts you have :)
Oooh interesting question!
The TL;DR would be that I think it's supposed to help us understand both Sam and Dean's perspective, and absolutely—Sera Gamble wants us to feel sympathy for Sam. However, I also don't think the implication is intended to be that Sam is actually doing something he should be doing or that Dean is mean and unfair. It's just supposed to help us make sense of where Sam's head is, because he's been lying to everyone (including himself) all season.
In terms of Sam's season 4 motivations, 4.21 is a firehose. It fleshes out a huge tangled web of motivations Sam has for his actions, some of which are much more sympathetic than others. In that sense, I would say Gamble's primary goal in 4.21 is to make us understand and feel sympathy for Sam. We also get some of Dean's perspective (especially during his conversation with Cas and Bobby), but I think the primary focus is Sam, and that's timely, because the episodes leading up to this one show a lot of Sam's arrogance. We're repeatedly reminded from 4.14 to 4.20 that Sam absolutely thinks Dean is weak because of Hell (despite claiming "it was just the siren talking"), that Sam is a liar (and isn't even good at it), that Sam has an inflated (and growing) ego, and that Sam is self-deceived about his intentions (Pam and Chuck both point to it). We also see him scathingly compared to John in 4.19 (and while the episode gives us insights into some of Sam's driving motivations as well, it ultimately paints him in a fairly unsympathetic light imo). 4.21 formally lays out a variety of Sam's motivations that were touched on during the season, through his hallucinations in the panic room. Many of them involve a warped perception of events:
Sam can't fight destiny. Sam was never going to be normal. There was never any point in fighting. This is his destiny (4.04, 4.08, 4.19).
Sam is a monster. Monstrosity is inescapable and innate to Sam's nature, and the only way to fix his self-image is to prove that that monstrosity (represented by demon blood) doesn't make him evil and can be used for good (i.e., stopping the apocalypse). (4.04, 4.05).
Sam is just doing what needs to be done. His actions are ruthless, but he's the only one who can save the world. He needs to do this even if it kills him (4.14, 4.16, 4.18)
Dean can't do what needs to be done. Dean is weak (4.14, 4.16, 4.18).
Dean needs Sam to save him (4.18).
Sam wants revenge on Lilith (4.09, 4.18).
Sam wants justice against Lilith (4.21 only).
Mary and Jess's deaths are Sam's fault (1.05, 1.21), and he has to make their deaths mean something by using the demon blood (to which their deaths are connected) to do something good and make their deaths "worth it" (4.04).
The demon blood makes him feel better for being different. It makes him feel stronger and better than everybody else. A part of him likes it. Sam feels intense shame about this and it's the number one thing he hasn't been able to confront (4.15, 4.18).
More generally, the hallucinations show that Sam's motivations are incredibly varied, and that Sam fights within himself about whether the things he thinks about himself and everyone else are really true. The internal battle also indicates Sam's incredible uncertainty despite his bravado from 4.12 to 4.20. Deep down, Sam is not actually sure he's doing the right thing. He also questions whether he's actually strong enough to stop the apocalypse and whether Dean might be right that the demon blood is making him weak.
All of these bits of context feature oodles of self-deceit, and some of the motivations he denies, because he's talking to people he's hallucinating, but they are all ultimately Sam's thoughts. The motivation that gets called out as deceitful the most directly is when Sam hallucinates Dean telling him he's already a monster and always has been one, that Dean pretends to love him like a brother, but that they aren't even the same species. This is both a reflection of Sam's feelings about himself and Sam's beliefs about Dean's feelings, and while it's all being said, Dean is upstairs contradicting the conversation Sam is having in his head.
Dean is upstairs telling Bobby he'd die for Sam, and he's willing to become the shady-AF angels apocalypse-stopping bitch boy if it'll keep Sam from having to turn himself into a monster to achieve the same goal. Dean actually asks Cas if Sam could stop the apocalypse with his demon blood powers in this episode as well, proving it's something he was actually willing to consider, contrary to the dogmatic lens some fans view him through on the issue. Cas tells Dean that it's possible Sam could stop the apocalypse, but that Sam would have to consume so much blood he'd never be able to come back from it. This is what pushes Dean to commit to serving the angels. This is a decision Dean makes even though he explicitly does not want to. He doesn't trust the angels (4.02, 4.07, 4.09, 4.10, 4.15, 4.16, 4.17, 4.20), and previous episodes highlight Dean's growing discomfort with their sense of entitlement to him (4.15, 4.16, 4.17). He agrees to give himself over to them anyway.
Sam's repeated acts of deceit (and the outright cruelty of his views in 4.14 that he reiterates to Dean at the end of 4.21) reinforce Dean's belief that the demon blood is turning Sam into something he isn't. I'm also sure Sam getting slammed into walls by the force of his own powers in this episode did not exactly assuage Dean's concerns. Neither did him going into withdrawal and growing so desperate for a hit (during Ruby's 100% intentional absence) that he completely ruined an entire season of secrecy about consuming demon blood to drink the blood of a demon right in front of Dean and Cas in 4.20, blood all over his mouth and everything. He totally lost control.
Basically, I think we're supposed to see two different perspectives, and feel sympathy for Sam, while also understanding that Sam is deceived about what he's doing and his own identity. He hallucinates his own mother telling him he's evil and that he should die to make her death mean something ffs—it isn't that what Sam feels is the truth—it's that he believes it is.
Unfortunately, Dean reinforces one of Sam's broken beliefs at the end of the episode by saying that if Sam doesn't realize what he's doing is wrong and stop, it means not his actions, but his inner nature might actually be the problem. However, this line isn't supposed to uniquely demonize Dean. It comes right after Sam reiterates his statements about Dean's trauma making him weak, and acting entitled to trust after over a season of secrets and lies. What's so fascinating and tragic, is that both Sam and Dean, on the apocalypse issue, are at some level placing a hope for redemption in being the one to end the apocalypse. Dean hopes that stopping the apocalypse will make up for what he did in Hell (4.05, 4.15). Sam hopes that stopping the apocalypse will prove he isn't a monster. Each of them is also contending with their brother's image of them not being what they want it to be. At the end of 4.21, Dean knows that Sam truly believes Dean is weak for being traumatized by decades of torture, and Sam knows that Dean thinks he might be a monster beyond saving. The end of 4.21 is them each digging into the other's most terrible wounds. While I think there's a tendency for some fans to focus in on what Dean says to Sam (partly because of the incredibly emotional reaction it produces from Sam, and then later Bobby), I think the mutual harm here is plain (and we know from my multiple bitchy posts today and yesterday that Sam entirely loses my sympathy in the last few scenes of the episode ofc). But I do think that final fight is supposed to feel balanced as it separates the brothers through mutual harm.
That's the main response, but if you're interested... a word on Sera Gamble as a writer and some of the larger themes in play here:
4.21 is a Sera Gamble episode, and Gamble likes both of the brothers a lot I think. She wrote "Houses of the Holy", and "Nightmare" which are heavily focused on Sam's fears about his monstrous destiny. However, her first episode was "Dead In The Water". She wrote "Faith", "Salvation", "Heart", "Dream A Little Dream Of Me", "Jus In Bello", "Time Is On My Side", etc.
If I had to form the episodes she'd written into a sort of Gamble thesis on the brothers up to 4.21, I'd have to say she definitely sees Dean as the heart of the family and the moral center.
She writes Sam disinterested in helping someone in the absence of leads on their father (1.03). She writes "Faith" where Dean feels horrible about someone dying in his place and Sam quickly lets it go, just happy to have his brother alive. She writes "Bloodlust" where at the end of the episode, Dean reflects back on all of their past actions with monsters and how John raised them and wonders if they killed monsters that didn't deserve it, while Sam has no such qualms and lends sympathy for their father's emotional state instead. She writes Sam wanting to turn himself and Dean into immortals (3.15), and considering human sacrifice in "Jus In Bello". She writes Sam insisting on entering Dean's dreams in "Dream A Little Dream Of Me" despite Dean's protests about his privacy. She writes him instantly leaping to toss aside Dean's dying wishes so he can get revenge against Lilith in Dean's name (4.09).
All of this suggests a Sam who is desperate to keep his family alive (with a side of John's "losing sight of the actual family in the face of revenge for the family"). She writes a Sam who will jump to extremely morally dubious plays to keep Dean alive or save him and won't feel bad about it. Season 3 features a lot of Dean trying to be the person who curbs those impulses, and Sam (usually) ultimately conceding. I think there is an element of this dynamic in 4.21 when she writes Sam to say, "You [Dean] take the wheel. You call the shots". I think Gamble's really talking about Sam letting go of some of his most morally dubious plans to save Dean because of Dean insisting on it—within her own episodes (3.12, 3.15) and others (ex: 3.16).
I've written about how one of Sam's motivations in season 4 is that from his perspective, Dean's relatively more inflexible morals got Dean killed, and Dean getting killed then sent Sam into a suicidally depressed tailspin. Dean would rather die in 3.16 than sacrifice his moral principles, and Sam would rather have sacrificed both of their moral principles than see Dean die. This fundamental difference between the brothers runs through their entire season 4 conflict, from Sam calling Dean weak for being traumatized by Hell, to Sam lying to Dean all season, to Dean risking Sam's death to detox him from demon blood in 4.21, to Sam conflating a moral clash with loyalty and trust.
#writer disk horse#mail#monstermoviedean#4.21#season 4#the flannel business#sams motivations#i wanted so badly to believe i could be saved#i carved you into a new animal#gamble
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How did the fandom allow 'sympathetic' and 'unsympathetic' tags to even happen. Like I suppose the dark sides do come across as scary in their initial appearances, I know Janus got me good pretending to be Patton but... They were both very clearly hurting and hidden parts of Thomas who had been stifled and locked away for a while. Their methods are flashy but both Remus and Janus believe they're benefiting Thomas.
As a DID system, it reminds me of the system role persecutor-protector - the dark sides believe what they're doing will benefit Thomas, whether Deceit through lies or The Duke through extreme honesty or Anxiety by being too scary to ignore, but the ways that they protect Thomas cause him distress and/or fear. Janus was unveiled to be self-preservation as much as he is dishonesty, implying that Thomas learned to lie early on as part of his survival. And Remus, while we don't know much about him yet, is repressed imagination and religious trauma as much as he is intrusive thoughts. He has ideas and thoughts about Thomas's content that are very valid, as far as the slight babying of his audience and unwillingness to confront the dark parts of himself. They have good traits that are genuinely helpful, but their aggressive ways of attempting to help and express themselves are instead making the "good" parts of Thomas feel like he's a bad person.
Calling them unsympathetic feels so counterproductive to the story and the lessons being taught. You're doing exactly what the light sides do to them by declaring them too scary to look at, and worthy of being repressed and shunned. I feel like this won't ever be understood by the fanbase until the other dark sides get an equivalent of 'Accepting Anxiety'. But that shouldn't have to happen. It's a total lack of sympathy to look at the survival mechanisms and intrusive thoughts of a mentally ill character and declare them 'unsympathetic' as though they're cartoon villains. It may be fiction, but the thoughts and opinions you express about those parts of Thomas are heard and internalized by people like me, who are sick in the same ways as character!Thomas. OCD is a blight on my life, but the portrayal of methods to work through your intrusive thoughts and the reassurances Logan gave to let Thomas know that he is not a bad person for having them? That meant so much to me. Remus means so much to me. Seeing people turn around and do exactly what Patton, Virgil, and Roman do to them, labeling them as "wrong" somehow and pushing them to a place you don't have to see them, it hurts. It has real world effects on how people talk about people like me with 'dark' parts of themself.
Every part of Thomas has the ability to be both bad and good, because Thomas is not perfect. No one is perfect, and someone appearing dark or aggressive in their self expression doesn't always make them unworthy of empathy or understanding. Those parts of Thomas never deserved to be deemed as 'wrong' in the first place, and the story is about unpacking that thinking, slowly and painfully as it may go.
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How Janus got his scars.
Tw: abuse, graphic depictions of violence, unsympathetic!Virgil, blood and gore.
(Fic under the cut)
The argument had started off so small.
Janus had been telling Virgil he wanted Virgil to stop drinking, and to put the bottle of bourbon down.
"You fucking slut!" Virgil screamed, smashing the bottle against the wall. He stared at Janus, face flushed from drinking, vision blurry.
Janus flinched when the bottle shattered, and put his hands up, palms out, to show he meant no harm. "Virgil, my love, please- you've burned through three bottlessss alrea-"
"Shut up!" Virgil screamed, grabbing Janus by the hair and forcing him to come closer, a clump of Janus's hair falling after he slammed the broken end of the bottle into Janus's eye.
Janus stumbled back, hands touching his face. Cold blood began to pour from around his eye, and the side of his mouth. He breathing shakily and looked up at Virgil. "Virgil, I'm ssssorry! But you can't keep doing thissss!"
Virgil grabbed Janus by the neck.
"Virgil, ssstop!" Janus cried, as Virgil sliced open his human cheek with the end of the broken bottle.
"You don't fucking talk to me like that, you whore." Virgil threw Janus to the ground and kicked him. "Don't get blood on my fucking carpet." He spat on Janus, and walked off.
Laying there, hands pressed to the wounds on his face, Janus began crying. But only from his human eye. Snakes can't cry, after all. He slowly sits up, taking a shuddering breath and using his extra hands to push himself up. The young deceitful side felt his way to the bathroom, turned on the sink, and splashed his face with water.
Dark crimson blood stained the marble countertop and the steel inside of the sink. Janus placed his gloved hands, now stained with blood, on the counter and looked in the mirror, eyes still wide. He was met with the sight of blood pouring down his face, his hair ruined from Virgil pulling out a massive clump of it.
He felt frozen, staring at his reflection. His vision began to grow spotty, and he quickly finished cleaning the blood off his face. He searched the cabinets for a healing plant or potion or something- he found a bundle of the plant Remus had discovered in the imagination that would heal wounds. He untied the bundle and ate the plants quickly, slowly starting to calm down.
He checked his phone. Another apology text from Virgil. Janus wiped the tears off his cheeks and cleaned the sink and countertop.
#💛#sanders sides#sanders sides fandom#thomas sanders fandom#sanders sides fanfiction#janus sanders#virgil sanders#ts virgil#ts janus#u!virgil#unsympathetic virgil#tw unsympathetic side#abuse#graphic depictions of violence#tw graphic violence#tw domestic violence#domestic violence#cw blood#cw gore#cw eye injury#cw abuse#fandom#cavalrys adhd strikes again#artistry
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Soooo... guess who got really nostolgic while having a cold and binge-watched all of Sanders Sides again after almost a year?
For the last few days I have been sucked down a rabbit-hole of Fandercontent, and let me just say... while this fandom is so creative, there are just a few things I wish people utilized more in fics, you know?
(Disclaimer, I live on angst and the Dark Sides are my three favourite characters, so most of these are about both of those subjects. Also not a huge fan of non-mindscape au's, so these are all about canon-adjacent fanfiction. My only AU is Sympathetic Dark Sides where they all coexist. Yes, even Remus.)
First and foremost, and this is what inspired this post until I found more things after, why do I see so few fics that include Virgil's Dark Side Voice™? It happens whenever he get's too stressed in canon, and from how he reacts whenever it happens, it seems to be a bit of an insecurity for him. Why aren't angst authors jumping on that?
Guys. We... we all saw the end-card of Flirt or Flight, right? How come so few do anything regarding Virgil's colour-changing eyeshadow? It's adorable, it's gorgeous, talk about it, please!
When Janus takes off the gloves in order to show himself to be truthful about his name... why??? He did that for a reason. If it was just about the typical "Cross my heart" pose, there was nothing stopping him from leaving on the gloves unless their was a reason to take them off! Theorize, go nuts! (I personally believe that his scales fluctuate in their coverage of his skin, and his hands being completely human shows that he's being honest. He wears gloves to make his lies less obvious.)
And on the subject of Janus' lies, has anybody else realized that for the embodiment of Thomas' Deceitfulness... he's actually kind of a terrible liar? While disguised as other sides, he always drops some pretty obvious hints that he's not the real Patton or Logan. And whenever he does his whole "speaking in lies" thing, he has this tone about him that makes it clear to... almost everyone, (Cough cough except Roman apparently), that he's lying, or atleast just being sarcastic?
In the Five Year Anniversary special, Virgil, Remus, and Janus refer to themselves as the Cousin, Uncle, and Aunt respectively. And I know that there actually is a fair amount of content about the Dark Sides being a seperate but related family, but I just feel like not many people talk about the low-key confirmation of that as a reality, ya know?
More.👏 Protective.👏 Dark Sides.👏 They've known eachother for so long, no matter how close the whole family is, Virgil, Remus and Janus would naturally know eachother better than any of the others.
If we are to assume that Janus even just unstably co-exists with the Light Sides, (like pre-redemption Virgil), post-Redux, but Remus doesn't... Well, that's the third person that Remus actually has a connection to that just... left him. First Roman, then Virgil, now Janus. (I personally believe that the Orange side will just be an Unsympathetic Dick, so he doesn't count, but that's just me.)
I am a "Former Paranoia Virgil" Truther, as are many others in the fandom. However, something I wish I saw more of is others not catching themselves when calling Virgil paranoid. Even better, the Dark Sides not realising how much thinking of that part of his past affects him, thinking nothing of it and then feeling really guilty.
And that's all the canon-supported stuff, but just... one last thing. Consider the following:
The Orange Side is a relatively new "Relevant" or "Consious" Side, his existance only needed when suddenly there were only two Dark Sides and still three Light Sides
Janus is Patton's foil because he represents an "immoral" side to Thomas, and Remus is Roman's foil as a flip-side to one, single concept. Virgil used to be Logan's foil before his redemption, because senseless overthinking and paranoia defies logic.
This need for a foil doesn't apply to Virgil, because he is no longer a Dark Side, but he isn't really a Light Side either. A Grey Side, if you will.
Virgil encompasses both the good and bad aspects of Anxiety, and is even capable of representing more of an excitement or sense of anticipation, hence the purple eyeshadow seen in Fight or Flirt. He is his own foil in the same way that Roman and Remus are eachother's. They're the good and bad of creativity, Virgil is the good and bad of anxiety.
I am most likely not the first person to come up with this, but this is just my specific take.
Anyway, I am probably going to go write atleast half of these prompts myself, so if any of these concepts interest you... maybe stick around?
#sanders sides#dark sides#fanfic ideas#virgil sanders#janus sanders#remus sanders#idk just a thought#fine ill do it myself#sympathetic remus#sympathetic deceit#sympathetic dark sides
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Burned Bridges
Summary: Virgil runs into a wasted Janus at a party that his best friend, Roman, is throwing on Halloween night. A locked door forces them to confront their heavy past.
Ships: past analogical, present prinxiety
CW/TW: Alcohol, smoking, homophobia and bullying, Human!Virgil, Human!Remus (mentioned), Human!Roman, Human!Remy (mentioned), Human!Janus, Human!Logan (mentioned), unsympathetic Virgil, unsympathetic Janus, sympathetic Roman
It was October 31st and instead of binge watching horror movies by himself in the dark of his room, Virgil found himself standing in the corner of his childhood bestfriends house, early 2000’s pop music blasting in the background. He hadn’t dressed up and hundreds of people were bobbing up and down in a sea of red plastic cups, costumes, and glow stick bracelets, screaming the lyrics that came out of the speakers Roman had bought. He’d forced Virgil to go with him to buy them after begging him to come to the party because, in his words, “you never get out of the house, it’ll be fun! Especially if you meet a cute guy”
Virgil laughed after he said this, only responded with “yeah, whatever you say, Roman.”
Tequila suffocated anything that represented a pleasant smell out of the room. He was holding a drink himself, taking sips of it occasionally; not because it tasted good—at all—but because he had a hunch he wouldn’t want to remember the events of tonight.
His throat burned. He knew he wasn’t supposed to sip Tequila, normally he chugged it, but he liked the distraction of the pain and the warmth that filled him after every taste.
He desperately looked around for a familiar face. Last he saw Roman was when the party had started four hours earlier. It was now 2 AM and he had done nothing but drink, take shots with Remus and a few of his friends, be forced to dance by Remy, and stand in the corner waiting for it all to be over.
He chugged the rest of his drink and stood there for a moment, sinking in the environment around him, ultimately deciding to hide in the bathroom until the party was over. He took a few shaky steps into the crowd of people, shoving past drunks and the occasional stoner. He never really understood why Roman hung out with these kind of people, he honestly doubted that he knew most of the people in his house anyway.
He found his way to the bathroom and shoved it open, quickly closing and locking it, sitting on the cold tile floor.
In his rush, he hadn’t noticed Janus, wearing a Harry Potter costume, who was also sitting on the floor.
“Fuck, Sorry I didn’t know you were—“
Janus cuts him off “Vrrrrrrgggllll” he laughs, the name on his tongue slurring together.
“Look I didn’t know you were in here, I’ll just leave.” He states bluntly, getting up to open the door, wishing he still had his drink, he really didn’t want to remember this. He tried to force down his unresolved anger but it came out sharp in his voice.
“Vir-gil,” Janus hiccups “can I tell youuuu a secret?”
Virgil tries to unlock the door but it’s jammed, no matter how hard he pulls or twists the knob, it won’t budge. He sinks back down to the floor, annoyed. “Whatever Janus, sure” he says
“I think you’re still angry at me” he blurts out, giggling a bit, eyes drooping.
“Yeah, I am. You fucked me over, really bad. Who wouldn’t be.” he spits. He had his knees to his chest, his back to the door, trying to stay as far away from Janus as he could.
Janus struggled to stand up, grabbing onto the shower curtain and slipping, falling back down, pulling the curtain and rod down with him. Janus just giggled. “Oops.” was all he said.
Virgil rolled his eyes. “Fucking hell, Janus. Can you stop being a nuisance for two minutes?” He screams.
Janus looks at him for a moment before registering what he said, mumbling a “sorry”
With anyone else, Virgil would’ve felt sorry for yelling, but Janus was the exception. He deserved it, worse than that even.
“You ruined the one good thing I had and you expect me to feel fucking sorry for you?” He snaps.
“I-“ Janus hiccups “I didn’t mean to” the light and carelessness in his eyes from earlier, gone. Now replaced with only a hint of it behind dull pupils.
“Yeah?, well you did. You think ganging up on me and Logan didn’t fucking ruin our relationship? You think the constant harassment inside and outside of Uni wasn’t fucking enough for me to have atleast a little bit of anger towards you?” he was practically screeching but he didn’t care, the music would cover it anyway.
Janus was staring at him, almost emotionless apart from the look in his eyes, which were starting to water.
Virgil got up to try the door again when Roman suddenly opened it, looking from Virgil to Janus and then Virgil again. He gave him a “what the actual hell is going on????” look and Virgil just shook his head, shoved past Roman and into the crowd.
Roman stared at Janus for a minute, taking notice of the curtain and curtain rod astray on the floor. He didn’t say anything, just closed the door and ran after Virgil.
———————————————————————
After a few minutes of searching inside, he found Virgil in his front yard, sitting on the stairs, smoking a cigarette.
He sat down next to him and a thick silence hung between them. Virgil blew out smoke into the cold air before clearing his throat. “He was acting like we were best friends again, can you believe it?” He laughed in exasperation.
Roman could believe it, Janus had always been an asshole in College and even before that, that was kinda his thing, which was why he was surprised when Virgil had suddenly decided to become friends with him one day.
“He’s so funny dude, like literally one of the best people I’ve ever met” he had said
Roman had just smiled and laughed in return, knowing how awful he was to his other friends.
Roman didn’t say anything this time either, just shook his head.
“I hate him so much, Ro. He’s awful. He ruined everything. Logan hasn’t spoken to me in almost a year because of the shit he pulled before we graduated.”
Roman sighed, “I know, Virg…but he’s not necessarily known for being a good person, I thought you knew that” he says softly.
Virgil took a drag of his cigarette and breathed out, “obviously not.” He said a little annoyed.
Immediately he regretted it. “Sorry” he said, tapping his cigarette and letting the ashes fall.
Roman gave him a reassuring smile, “it’s okay”
Virgil put his cigarette on the concrete step they were sat on, getting rid of its light and throwing the butt into the grass. He put his head in his hands. “Life’s rough, man. I don’t even miss him anymore I’m just upset because he made me really, really happy. Sometimes…I feel like it’s my fault? for introducing him to Janus.”
“It’s not your fault at all. It’s his. Honestly? I don’t even know why he’s here. I didn’t invite him, someone else probably did.“ Roman says the last part sheepishly, a little ashamed that he let Janus in his house with his best friend that he hurt irreversibly.
Virgil turns to Roman, staring at him longingly in the eyes. They were beautiful. Hazel with green specks around the edges. Maybe it was the tequila, or his exhaustion, or his desperation to feel loved by someone, but he slowly moved a hand to Romans face.
“Can I?” He whispered
Roman looked at him for a moment, weighing his options. He did like Virgil, but what if he was doing this in a drunken haze? What if he was just using him to get over Logan? He didn’t believe he was truly over their relationship just yet.
Despite these fears, Roman shook his head and their lips locked. He let himself melt into it, let himself enjoy the moment. He tasted of alcohol, honey lavender tea, and Marlboro Reds.
After a moment, Virgil pulled away; A look of blissful happiness on his face.
Roman was still holding onto the moment, staring through Virgil.
He looked at him, worried. “oh god I’m so sorry did you not want—“
Roman interrupted him, “No! no I did..I really, really did.” He smiled, genuinely.
Virgil returned it, “That’s good.”
Roman paused for a second “so…does this mean we’re dating?..” he asked “cause you’re drunk and I just don’t want-“
Virgil took Romans hands in his. “I’m just a little tipsy, Honey, but I know what I want, and what I want is this.” he says gently.
“Okay.” Roman responds, hopeful.
“I’m gonna head home, alright? Text me, I’ll respond as soon as I can” Virgil says
“I will, love” he says. The nickname feels odd leaving his lips, especially being used on someone who’s been his friend for 22 years, but he says it anyway.
Virgil gets in his car and pauses.
Romans phone dings after a minute or two and he takes it out of his pocket, reading the message before watching Virgil’s car leave his driveway.
Virgil<3: “I promise I want this, and I want you. Some tequila and a little heartbreak doesn’t change that. 💜”
Roman smiles, puts his phone back in his pocket, and goes back inside.
#sanders sides#thomas sanders#ts virgil#virgil sanders#logan sanders#ts logan#ts patton#patton sanders#roman sanders#ts remus#ts janus#janus sanders#unsympathetic virgil#sanders sides fanfiction#ts roman#virgil sanders angst#ts deceit#ts anxiety#prinxiety#analogical#remy sanders#ts remy#unsympathetic janus#sympathetic Roman#Spotify
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The towering and mighty Hound, as fearsome a warrior as he is a stalwart companion. A jolly green giant who's just as likely to give you a pat on the back as he is to slap you upside the head. I wanted to design him akin to Bulkhead's body shape, but with slightly different proportions! I just feel like we need more bulky (no pun intended) transformers, and I wanted to make him hefty without quite making him the same as Prime!Bulkhead or Bayverse!Hound.
Lore and backstory below!
Once a high-ranking officer of the Autobots, Hound was an indomitable force during the Cybertronian Civil War. Before that he'd been a simple security guard, rotated between such locations as the gladiator ring of Kaon, or the archives of Iacon. He was drafted into the military when the war broke out, as Sentinel Prime desperately tried to accrue as many soldiers as possible to stamp out the "deceitful revolt".
Hound, however, despite his loyal nature purposefully neglected his duties to spite Sentinel's unsympathetic ideology. Hound may have disagreed with the Decepticons' methods, but he understood and appreciated the core of their intentions. At least, until their methods only grew more extreme, and that core Hound valued was drowned in blood. Caught between Decepticon brutality and Sentinel's cruelty, Hound found himself adrift in his despair.
He was one day found by the newly ascended Optimus Prime, and like a fire he burned away the soldier's fear and sorrow. Hound gladly joined Prime's Autobot resistance, and together they fended off Decepticon incursions whilst saving innocents from Sentinel's regime. In time, when the war was ended and the two factions united to fell Unicron, Hound answered the call to rediscover the lost Khadracon faction.
He found the planet of semi-cyber humanoids to be a fascinating place, and watched them with intrigue. Centuries later would find Hound stumbling across a cyberkin named Jeralt Eisner on the run with his infant child. He immediately returned to his age old guardian ways to protect the pair. When Jeralt later founded his mercenary band—named after his moniker of Blade Beaker—Hound was proudly his first member.
#Hound#transformers#fire emblem: three houses#fire emblem#fire emblem au#transformers au#fusion au#alternate universe#my art#cyber emblem#tf au#maccadams#transformers art
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What is your Rebecca's Crazy Sides AU?
I don't want to reveal too much lore as I plan to make it a show or something one day but basically in the first act Logic and Creativity call Morality out on their bullshit cuz Morality is manipulative (stolen from unsympathetic!patton lol), Rebecca learns that the other sides aren't that bad, and Morality tries to be a better side. in arc 2 Rebecca learns how to calm their anxiety, while Anxiety learns to not be so protective all the time. in arc 3 depression appears and tries to take out all the sides but Morality and Logic work together to take down depression and with all the sides they imprison depression.
the sides personalities:
Logic: a emo that is very edgy but barely knows anything and has beef with Morality cuz of past trauma.
Creativity: is kinda like Patton personality wise but is more like a younger sibling than a parental figure, and has a great relationship with their sibling Intrusive Thoughts.
Intrusive Thoughts: is very chaotic but deeply cares for everyone, especially Creativity, but also has a "don't give a shit" attitude for most other things.
Morality: is the boss of everyone but is kinda very manipulative and negatively criticizes Rebecca too much to where Rebecca has a lot of self doubt, has beef with Logic.
Anxiety: is a bit skittish and deeply cares for Rebecca's well being, to the point they over think everything that Rebecca does wrong, is also the parental figure of the sides, and has a great relationship with Creativity.
Deceit: is very sceptical about everything, believes that Rebecca should listen to all the sides instead of a selected few, and is also a parental figure to the sides, has a great relationship with Logic and Intrusive Thoughts
a little bit more lore:
Logic was at first an accepted side but turned into a other side bcuz of Morality.
Anxiety basically adopted Creativity as their own cuz Creativity was all they had besides Morality and Anxiety felt the need to take care of something that wasn't Rebecca.
Intrusive Thoughts is kinda like a bimbo cuz my intrusive thoughts are more sexual than creepy so therefore the side that represents intrusive thoughts should too
this is what everyone looks like, from left to right: Rebecca, Anxiety, Deceit, Logic, Creativity, Intrusive Thoughts, and Morality
sorry it took me forever to answer, I had to collect my thoughts first lol
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Been thinking about the first Sanders Sides AU I ever saw that got me into the fandom after hearing the song Evelyn Evelyn for the first time in a while
It was a Gacha Life AU by this one old Sasi Gacha creator that was a light side zombie AU. I’m pretty sure it was titled Zombie Sides if anyone remembers it. It’s no longer available because it got deleted with the channel of the person who made it. I don’t think there were any ships between the light sides but I do remember there being some Demus and maybe some Prinxiety.
Plot recap under cutoff (TW for death mention, murder mention, unsympathetic C!Thomas, zombies, violence, and argument mention)
The basic plot as far as I remember was that Roman and Remus got into an argument to the song Evelyn Evelyn (Roman as male voice, Remus as female voice), so the light sides go on a day out together to cheer Roman up. On that day out together, the lights are killed. They’re eventually brought back as zombies, which leads to the start of a zombie apocalypse. Remus and Janus (who was referred to as Deceit since it was made before his name reveal) end up getting attacked by the zombie lights and end up escaping and ganging up with a group of random people (that I’m pretty sure were the creator’s ocs) to try to find a cure.
I’m forget most of what happened after Remus and Janus teamed up with that group but pretty sure that Remus and Janus ended up figuring out that C!Thomas had started the apocalypse and Remus ends up killing C!Thomas when they confronted him and the sides are revived and turned back from zombies to humans, and Roman and Remus make up. This was literally my favorite AU, and I wish it wasn’t deleted.
The AU was actually pretty good and coherent and I miss it. I also think having C!Thomas as the twist villain was interesting because not a lot of Gacha AUs were using C!Thomas for anything and was more side focused so having the twist villain be C!Thomas instead of some random person was actually pretty cool.
Honestly, I should just remake the AU as a fanfic-
#thatonelesbianfander#sanders sides#thomas sanders#thatsthat24#tss#sasi#sanders sides au#remus sanders#roman sanders#janus sanders#logan sanders#patton sanders#virgil sanders#c!thomas sanders#tw death mention#tw murder mention#tw zombies#tw violence mention#tw argument mention
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𝐧𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐠 —
tagged by @pinkyjulien @katsigian and @noirapocalypto 🖤🩶 thank youu
▶ RULES: bold what always or almost always applies, italicize occasional or situational, strikethrough never applies.
𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐄. 𝐕𝐚𝐡𝐧
aggressive | arrogant | authoritarian | bitter | brutal | callous | cannibal | careless | cold/cold-hearted | compulsive | controlling | corrects others constantly | cowardly | critical | cruel | demanding | disillusioned | domineering | envious | emotionally stunted | greedy | grim | guarded | hardened | harsh | hypocritical | impatient | impolite | intimidating | irritable | kidnapper | lazy | liar | lustful | materialistic | mean | merciless | messianic | mistrusting | narrow-minded | obsessive | opinionated | over-bearing | over-critical | over-emotional | over-thinking | patronizing | proud | remote | repressed | rigid | rules with an iron fist | ruthless | sarcastic | self-righteous | self-indulgent | taciturn | torturer | touchy | traitorous | unsympathetic | unpredictable | uptight | vain | vengeful
i’m not gonna sit here and try to excuse any of Vincent’s bad traits or explain them with his tragic past, because he’s just a genuinely bad person who gradually got worse overtime. so when i say he’s a walking red flag i really mean it.
unresolved rage from the very early age, the powerlessness behind it turned him into a very angry and bitter man; he sees things for what they are – a realist – who lives in a really angry and brutal world and so he acts accordingly, assimilates, naturally picks up the characteristics of the cruel city and nasty people living in it.
not saying he’s easily manipulated or influenced, it’s just his ability to adapt, find balance, a solution to living in such harsh conditions.
and the longer he lived, the more desensitized, emotionally-stunned and cold his mind and heart became, the more irritated and impatient he was with people.
his brutal nature fully surfaced in his late 20s while in the army, where he’s been praised and encouraged, congratulated for a slaughter well-done.
years of lies, deceit, secret military operations and shady dirty work only gave him trust issues, caused him to become more guarded, mistrusting; but on the other hand forced him to vow never to lie himself, deeming liars the worst sort of humanity.
proud and controlling – traits he developed as a way to feel in control of his own feelings, of the things and people around him.
while envious of other people's happiness, achievements greater than his he never let money get to his head. he does not kill for monetary value, sees it rather as any other job just much more risky than a regular 9-5. he lives rather humbly, spending his earnings on his job – to better himself, his equipment, his work.
while he allows himself to splurge on expensive items he values the quality of the product or service over the price tag and the right to brag about it.
years of mercenary work turned him very critical and patronizing towards young mercs – kids, as he calls them – especially those who foolishly try and follow in his footsteps, too blinded by the glory and fame that comes after.
truth be told he’s scared of losing his position on the top of the food chain, fears being forgotten and thrown into the gutter, dying of old age with no memory of him imprinted anywhere. he hates the idea of all his hardships, years of gruesome work going to waste.
not that he aimed to change anything in this world, but he doesn’t want to be a Mr. Nobody, not in a city where being Somebody means dying satisfied, without regrets.
tagging (if you haven't done this yet or wanna do this for another character); @spicyraeman @a-pirate @ne0n-rust @hydrasshole @arczism
no pressure tho ✌️
#tagging new people i don't usually tag 😎 lets fucking go#oh boy strap in#red flag vincent 🚩🚩🚩🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️#i could write a whole scientific paper on this man and his red flags and negative traits#would be more like a self-discovery essay but hhhh#i feel like im not giving you everything that i have in mind coz it very specific and hard to explain#like it all makes sense and reason to me but writing everything in detail would be too long and too rambly 😩#and the cannibal part; definitely ate a corpse of his fallen comrade#he’s not above mutualizing a human carcass when he risks starvation#tough citisations call for tough measures 🤷♂️#also definitely bought some human meat in some fancy backrooms restaurant to try because he was curious how good you can actually make it#he kills people no problem why would he have a problem utilizing the corpse after y’know#killing is a job for him sure but when you do it for so long you just stop caring at some point#his morality is questionable#not tryna justify him murdering people but y’know if you take the universe and the city he lives in then to consideration#people do worse things#oc: vincent elijah vahn#lore: vincent e. vahn
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man you just awoke something in me bc i was a sanders sides watcher from like day 1 and i vividly remember the ‘unsympathetic sides’ shit. like wow. it was literally either ‘this characters can’t have flaws ever’ or ‘this character is an abuser’. no inbetween. one of the most deranged fandom experiences of all time.
LITERALLY like I'll be thinking about the TW Sympathetic Deceit shit until the day I die. The fandom got a menacing villainous character who they didn't see again for two YEARS and spent those two years building themselves a story space in which Deceit was a perpetrator of every kind of abuse possible, a one-size-fits-all villain for all your needs, and then we DID see him again and surprise surprise, he WASN'T that! But the fanon perception of him was so batshit skewed that people were uncomfortable to see him be treated as anything less than reprehensible (even as canon showed him as more and more sympathetic) that the community began to trigger tag it when he was... sympathetic. Not good, not the holy saviour that could do no wrong, just sympathetic. If you portrayed him as anything other than a mindless progenitor of hurt, then that was TW Sympathetic Deceit.
The fandom got themselves so worked up about a character that if you made him, like, a character, as the show itself was doing, it was trigger tagged. Shit was BANANAS.
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