Sander Sides Oneshots, B****

The Trade of Space (7-8)

Chapter Seven: Oh no, It's All Coming Together

Content Warnings: swearing, miscommunication, brief fantasy racism, food mention, manipulation,

Virgil woke up with xir ears ringing uncomfortably. Xe opened their eyes slowly, blinking away the tears that came with having bright lights in the area. The room was small and xe found xirself chained to the wall next to the others. And immediately Virgil knew what was about to happen. Xe scrunched xir toes in xir shoes, happy to feel that xe still had useful supplies stuffed underneath the soles. Hopefully that will be used soon enough but first... "Patton? Roman? Janus? Wake up!"

They all groaned and looked around. This wasn't the most appealing area in the world, and for most they all looked at the unfamiliar location. Roman grumbled, "What exactly happened? I mean this for sure isn't our ship. Where are we?"

Janus rolled their eyes. "We got a new ship and decided to try out all the cool new equipment obviously." After a pause of Roman looked as if vaey wanted to murder them, Janus actually told the truth. "Someone hacked the ship so we got everyone in the same room to try and figure out what to do which probably made the same person to cause us to fall asleep with a gas or something. And I'm assuming that means we got captured. Yay."

"But let's look on the bright side! We're not dead!" Patton ignored the various 'yet's said by his friends and continued on. "Aaand, we're going to figure out what's going on and get out of this still not dead. Because they just kidnapped the Onyx Whale Tooth crew and we're pretty smart sons of guns! Sorry for the language, I'm just feeling pretty passionate about this."

No one responded to what was clearly intended to be a rally cry. Patton sighed and readjusted their hands in the cuffs of the chains. Virgil frowned. This was definitely xir fault, so xe should at least try and fix this. Xe tried to maneuver a position to reach xir shoes but it wasn't very successful or comfortable. Before Virgil properly gave up, the door slammed open. All the prisoners looked up at someone that Virgil didn't recognize. But it seemed that Roman and Patton did. He had clunky boots, formal looking pants that were very ripped and covered in paint of various colors, a crop top with a middle finger on it, and a curly mustache with hair the same color. This person seemed like a mess, and also responsible for Patton beginning to cry.

"Remus?" Roman whispered. "What, why are you here?"

The person, Remus, turned and faced Roman with a wild grin that turned sour. Virgil looked between the two filled with utter confusion as he began to speak. "Hey Pissy! I have no fucking idea what you bastards were doing but now you're absolutely fucked!"

Patton wiped their tears best they could. "Did you um, did you come to free us? We, we missed you." There was so much hope in his voice, and Virgil hated seeing it crushed when Remus shook its head. Patton nodded to himself, sniffling lightly. "Okay. We, Roman and I, were looking for you for years! Why are you here? Working with people who probably want us dead? What happened?"

This seemed to quiet Remus for a second before he smiled again, nothing held in its eyes. "I am not someone you're taking care of. I can do what I want and what I WANT is to say that Lytta is going to kill you all and I'm going to enjoy watching it!"

"Lytta?" Janus asked, seeming apprehensive.

"Lytta." Virgil responded, already trying to accept doom.

Remus slammed the door shut again, and the room fell silent for a moment. If Lytta was responsible for this, then it was already too late for Virgil. They were all going to die and this was absolutely Virgil's fault. For one, one of them was already supposed to die and because xe didn't follow through with that or abandon the ship... Now everything was going wrong. Virgil could've changed what had happened but xe didn't so this was going badly because of xir. It wasn't fair. Xe just felt so wanted and needed by these people and their stupid family meals, fashion shows, and just... They were nice. Virgil wasn't used to it. Even if Janus was the notorious Deceit, they seemed nicer than xe was told. Was no longer a hacker that stole money from everyone disappearing with nothing but a snake icon on your electronics. What happened to that Janus? Why were they now just a chef and a botanist? None of them deserved this did they?