Sanders Sides One-shots

Smoke (BROTP - Prinxiety)

Ship: BROTP Prinxiety (vaguely)

TW: Unhealthy coping mechanisms (smoking), relatively graphic depictions of unintentional self-harm, blood, panic attacks, swearing

Word count: 3239

Human AU, where Virgil & Roman are both around the age for uni/college (tertiary education)

Mm, I see that I'm really making this out to be an uplifting story.

PLEASE NOTE: This story may appear to glorify smoking and I just want to say here and now that I DO NOT CONDONE SMOKING. It is incredibly dangerous to your health and you absolutely should not be doing it. However, if you do smoke, I will not condemn or criticise you because I understand unhealthy coping mechanisms (heck, I'm a bit of a hypocrite), and I sincerely wish you the best of luck in overcoming addiction or any hurdles with your mental health.

That being said, onto the story.

Note is at the bottom!

The great irony of smoking is that it teaches you to take deep breaths. There's an inherent requirement of taking long drags from the butt of a lit cigarette that forces calmness to breathing.

The first few times he'd made the mistake of taking shallow breaths, his diaphragm had spasmed into a coughing fit that rattled his lungs against his rib cage hard enough to feel bruising. The back of his throat had been scorched raw from the heat of smoke that never made it down to his lungs, and that was a lesson learnt.

Now, with a cigarette settled comfortably in the left corner of his lips, Virgil puffs out thick plumes of smoke from the free crook of his mouth as steady warmth meanders down into his windpipe. There's no breeze in the alleyway that he's tucked himself into, and the secondhand smoke lingers--no doubt his hoodie will reek of tobacco for at least the next month, regardless of how many wash cycles it goes through.

It's approaching sunset, but he pays it no mind when the end of his cigarette flares amber bright with every inhale as if it were a rudimentary sun. Here, with every breath he takes a slow, almost languid motion, Virgil slumps more against the wall he's leaned on, and takes the moment as the reprieve that it is. Though his phone buzzes incessantly in his pocket--though he can distantly hear the sound of car horns and yelling from the congested roads--though it turns dark and the streetlights that flicker on are much too bright, he does not stir. Simply takes a deep breath, lets smoke fill his lungs with calmness and carcinogens at the very same time, then breathes it out in dark, billowing clouds that stale the air around him.

Eventually, sometime between cloud cover and moonbreak, he reaches the end of his cigarette. Dropping it with a half-hearted huff, he stamps it out, ignoring the ash that'll cake itself into his sole. Tossing his hood over his head, he pushes off the wall and makes his way home.

By the time he's made it to his front door, he thinks he's mostly been able to scuff his shoes against enough grass that all the ash has come out, but he doesn't bother checking. He fumbles a bit with his keys, squinting in the low light and cursing under his breath when he can't seem to find the keyhole until he gets annoyed enough to bother whipping his phone out for some light. Shoving the door in when he finally gets it right, he tosses his keys in the vague direction of the bowl he and Roman have for them, then kicks off his shoes.

"I'm back," he calls out lazily, meandering into their lounge to collapse face first into their sofa. He buries his face into one of their many cushions as footsteps from the kitchen approach.