Trustfall || Sanders Sides Equestrian AU

Chapter 22 - The End of a Legend

Virgil watched as the taxi rumbled down the road out of Daybreak, turned around the corner and disappeared into the dead of night. Now that the vet was gone, every last drop of confidence regarding Cisco disintegrated into the air before he could hang onto them.

Come on, don't black out now. You know what to do.

He turned back into the stables and made his blind way down the corridor and towards Cisco's stall. His teammates were already there; Logan monitored his fluid intake carefully, Patton cuddled the horse's head, and Roman sat on top of the half-wall and told some dramatic story Virgil couldn't focus on.

They'd been tasked with staying the night at the stables with Cisco, as he needed his IV bag replaced every 10 minutes. The horse looked a bit better now, but exhausted like Virgil had never seen him before. A stain of red still hung onto his nostril, where the vet had inserted the tube to clear his intestines.

Roman looked up, and his eyes met with Virgil's and caused a weird little flip in his stomach.

"Is she gone?"

Virgil nodded. He couldn't really bring himself to talk.

"Well, that was intense. And there's a long night ahead of us, so buckle up. Oh, this reminds me of when Jasper was born, Pat, do you remember that?"

Patton glanced up from Cisco. "Yeah! We thought his mama was a goner. Stayed with her the whole night."

"If I remember correctly, you, Specs, didn't bother stay," Roman said, narrowing his eyes at Logan. "You said she had plenty of help and that you had no reason to be here. What's changed?"

Logan pursed his lips in a huff. "Neither of you could replace the IV properly."

"Ah-ha. Pretend you're not getting attached to this herd, that's fine."

"Well, if you two have got it here, Virgil and I are going to go arrange the course for tomorrow," Patton said. He kissed Cisco's forehead goodbye and let go of his head, and the horse's gaze followed him out with big, round disappointed eyes. "Coming, Virge?"

"Um- mhm."

He followed him out of the stables without asking a thing. At first Patton didn't talk, and the two walked down the path to the arena in a comfortable silence. The moon shied away behind a clump of grey clouds, and a nervous breeze stroked the backs of their necks. One of the lights by the side of the path flickered as the bulb slowly died away. Virgil wrote a mental note to himself to replace it.

"So?" Patton finally said. "Something's wrong. Talk to me, kiddo."

Virgil shrugged with barely enough energy for it to be visible. "I don't know. It's nothing."

"Come on."

He hesitated. It's not that he wanted to talk about it, but Patton had this welcoming aura that made it impossible not to vent to him. Virgil fiddled with the strings of his hoodie.

"This night's been stressful. That's it," he made himself blurt out before he can change his mind. "It just reminded me of horses I've lost and it wasn't fun."

Patton's eyes softened. "Oh. I'm sorry, Virge."

"It's fine. It's a part of the deal. You get to share your life with these animals, you have to say goodbye to them. I just hate having to constantly think of it. And I hate colic, it's terrifying."

"If it makes you feel any better, the vet did say Cisco was most likely going to make it. I'm pretty sure he's all stabilized now. If we just manage him correctly through this night, everything should be okay."