From Fluff to Angst | Sanders Sides One Shots

19 - It Hurt More Than He Thought It Would

TW: Self-harm, sadness, this is very much projection, also hurt/comfort, blood/blood mention

It hurt more than he thought it would. Virgil had always been the kind of guy to hide his problems and help others with theirs instead (if he could manage it with his anxiety). He enjoyed it and saw no problem in putting other people's happiness first. That... Helping people kept him sane most of the time. So, when you take away the people part of the equation the sane part also isn't really there.

Honestly, Virgil isn't sure exactly what happened that got him to this point. Roman and Remus had been working hard in the imagination to keep their respective kingdoms up and running. Janus and Logan had been really working on making sure Thomas took care of himself. And, last but not least, his closest friend/father figure Patton seemed further away than ever even though he still stayed at the light mind palace most of the time.

Sure, technically Emile and Remy were still around... but it wasn't the same. They were all so busy and didn't really come to visit him. It's not that big of a deal. Well, technically it is. Whatever.

So that's how Virgil ended up sitting on his bathroom floor, knife in hand at 11:50pm. He wasn't going to end himself. The pain of being alone wasn't that bad. It just hurt a little bit and he needed to relieve it. 

It was a lot harder to cut through the skin than he remembered. Maybe his sword wasn't sharp enough, or maybe it was just actually tougher than he remembered it to be. He had to apply a lot of pressure and go at the same spot on his arm ten or-so times before he actually saw blood. Hence why he only really did it twice. Well, he reached blood once, got overwhelming pain another time, and had just three dents in his skin from before he actually decided to go til he bled.

He knew it wasn't a healthy coping mechanism and he really should have tried drawing, or listening to music, or writing first. Though he couldn't bring himself to and those took longer to get the pain out. So instead he just brought the knife to his arm. Laughing at himself in the mirror for how weak he had become. Not even able to last a night without contact from anyone? Pathetic.

What time was it? He must have left his watch in his room. Oh well. He pushed himself up off the ground, knife still in his hand, and opened the door. What he wasn't expecting to see Janus sitting on his desk? "Um..." Virgil shifted his arm a little bit to make sure that the sleeve was all the way down and covering the bandages. It was.. "Janus, what are you doing here?"

Janus stared at him, a knowing look in his eyes. "Well, I came to check in on you, of course! You're not  one of my friends after all." The look on Janus's face said that he knew, but at the same time maybe he didn't know. It could just be Virgil's brain making him overthink it. "I let myself into your room because I wanted to talk, and I didn't hear you crying in the bathroom so I came closer. Virgil, do you need to talk to someone?" There it was.

Virgil laughed. Fucking humor as a coping mechanism, man. "I'm fine, man." He lied. He twirled his knife in his hand as if he was just casually holding onto it. There was no way in hell that Janus was going to believe that shit excuse, but he could always try. Why admit you aren't okay when you can hide it behind layers of humor and repression?

"Where's your first aid kit?" Janus asked, sliding off of the desk and walking over so he was next to Virgil. Virgil told him, seeing no reason to argue. Janus floated off to grab it before coming back and lightly dragging Virgil over to the bed. Before he knew it, Janus was treating the cuts. "So, how did this actually happen?"

Nope. "Well, I wasn't originally planning to get hurt. I went into the imagination because I wanted to visit Roman and when I had barely stepped outside the door one of the night creatures there attacked me." Lies. Virgil knew that he wasn't going to get very far with lying to literal deceit. He could try though.