A Collection Of Various One Shots Depicting Thomas Sanders's Characters

[No Ship] ~ Gravestone

FanGirl2023 challenged me, and I will never decline a challenge. You will regret this. This one shot is officially the first one shot that I've ever written that has brought literal tears to my eyes while writing it. That's how you know it's sad. So... good luck.

Warning: reflecting on a past suicide, depression, mourning a death of a family member

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Patton blinked. He felt like there should be tears in his eyes, but there weren't. He strangely wanted his eyes to fill with tears, he wanted to feel the water drop down his cheeks and bury his face in his hands and curse life for playing out the way it did, but... None of that happened.

The name was printed on in formal font. It was a name that Patton knew too well, a name that he had called, a name that he had laughed, a name that he had shouted, a name that he had used a countless amount of times in his life. He couldn't remember a time when he didn't know the name like the back of his hand, but now that name was nothing more than a faint ghost of a memory, a whisper that was hardly holding on. Of course Patton would always remember the person behind it, but now, in their absence, the name seemed almost foreign.

Virgil Ethan Sanders
December 19, 2004—July 10, 2017
Beloved by all that knew him

Patton stared at the lettering.

"Beloved by all that knew him." Patton muttered. "Well, he certainly didn't feel that way, did he?"

Patton wanted to scream. He wanted to kick something, throw a fit, burst into tears and fall to the ground, consumed in his depression after having lost his only brother.

But Patton was fresh out of tears. He spent them all the day he died, with nothing left except a feeling of dread and grief, and an eerie feeling of emptiness every time Patton walked by the room that used to be his, the bedroom down the hall.

He missed Virgil. He missed Virgil so much. He missed the times they would play together as kids, he missed the times they would joke around, he missed the times they would study together. He missed the way Virgil dressed, he missed his edgy makeup and his dyed hair. He missed coming into Virgil's room to tell him to turn down the emo music, and getting caught up and spending half an hour talking instead. He regretted all the times they fought, he regretted all the times Patton called Virgil annoying. He regretted wishing he was an only child. He would give anything to have his annoying younger brother back now.

The text on the gravestone would forever haunt Patton. Patton would come by and stare at it each day, just to torture himself.

"I'm sorry." Patton whispered to the grave. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you— I'm sorry I didn't. I... I knew you were depressed, I didn't do anything... It's my fault. I'm sorry I assumed it wasn't as bad as it was. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you more when our parents got divorced. That's when it started, right? You just wanted them to get back together, thinking that things could go back to the way they were, thinking things could be normal, but they couldn't. Mom and Dad never got back together, and you... never got better. So you... Gave up."

Patton looked away and bit his lip, hard. The pain was sharp, but it wasn't anything compared to the emotional pain.

"I'm not going to blame you, Virgil. I'm not going to yell, ask why you did it, why you threw your life away, knowing the state it would leave your family in." Patton hesitated. "It really hurt, seeing... you, on the floor, the day it happened, with the empty pill bottle, and putting two and two together. You never heard Mom's scream, but I did, and I heard the tears in her voice when she called 911, and I heard her struggle to speak when she called Dad. She had to tell him that the son that they loved so much was... dead. Dad came over as fast as he could, and so did 911, but it was too late. We knew it was. There was nothing we could do."