Sanders Sides One Shots

Medicine

I made the video attached to this chapter (it's only 9 seconds long), and it's relevant to the chapter.

I tried to make this sorta fluffy since I've been writing a lot of angst as of late.

...

"Come on, Virgil." Patton smiled gently and held out the bottle for the anxious Side to grab. "You only have to take one."

Virgil just glared at the bottle as if it were poison. He made no move to reach out for it and instead slumped further into the couch. "I don't want to."

"Statistically," Logan added. "It would help you fall asleep better and make you feel more at ease."

"But I don't want to fall asleep."

Roman gave him a deadpanned look. "We know, and that's why it's come to this. You need to sleep, or else Thomas won't be able to relax."

"I don't need sleep."

"Yes you do," Logan countered. "We all do, and you not sleeping is really damaging yourself and Thomas."

Virgil just pouted angrily and crossed his arms, still not making a move to grab the bottle that Patton still held out for him.

Patton sighed. "Can't you just try it for one night? If it doesn't work-"

"Or if the effects aren't as we expect," Logan interrupted.

"- then we won't ask again." Roman finished.

Not responding, Virgil just stared at the pill bottle, reading the label and all the information about it he could see from where it sat in Patton's hand. 'Helps Support Sleep', it said right on the front. Virgil grabbed the bottle and turned it around, reading over the other effects. 'Melatonin is a hormone produced in the pineal gland, which helps to regulate sleep and wake cycles' it read.

'Okay,' Virgil thought. 'That doesn't sound too bad...'

Virgil set the bottle on the coffee table and stared at it awkwardly. "Okay, well I've never been all drugged up, so I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Logan grabbed the bottle and adjusted his glasses to read it. "It says to take one an hour before going to sleep, so we'll go ahead and do it now."

"Now?" Virgil paled. "It's only like, eight o'clock. Can't we wait until later?"

Patton sat next to him and placed his hand between his own. "Virge, you haven't been getting any sleep for days. I think it would best if you went ahead and tried."

"Yeah," Roman snorted. "You already look like a walking corpse anyway." Patton gave him a disapproving look. Roman shrugged. "In a good way."

Virgil stared at the bottle in Logan's hands while he continued to read over the warnings and instructions, making sure there wasn't anything else they should know. "You guys have already convinced me to try it, so how about I'll just take the bottle with me and have one later, when I'm ready to go to bed."

"You'll forgive me if I don't want to trust you with the whole bottle, kiddo." Patton gave small side-smile, showing the sadness he felt over having to have that concern. He didn't know what he could and couldn't leave in Virgil's control, seeing as how he'd betrayed that trust before.

Frowning, Virgil blinked slowly, understanding the refusal but understanding why. He knew they were just looking out for him and that they cared, but sometimes he just wished they wouldn't.

Roman walked back into the room, Virgil having not even noticed he'd left, with a glass of apple juice. "I'd recommend juice. Considering this is your first time swallowing medicine, water can sometimes be too thin, which has made me uncomfortable before."

Logan looked like he wanted to argue it, but he didn't. He knew better than to argue with Roman when he just wanted to help. Virgil accepted the juice and cracked a weak smile to try and ease the tension in the room. "Can't I have like, a Mountain Dew or something?"

"Wouldn't recommend that, kiddo." Patton patted his hand and gently pushed the glass closer to his lips. Logan opened the bottle and took out a single pill, handing the small, white tablet to Virgil. He closed to bottle and left the room, obviously to hide it where Virgil wouldn't find it, just in case.

Virgil stared at the pill in the palm of his hands for a while, trying to get it through his mind that it would help, and that if the experience was awful, the other has promised not to pressure him into trying it again. "So... how do I take it?"

"Just pop it in your mouth," Roman explained. "And take a swig of the drink."

"Oh is that all?" Virgil sarcastically asked but got no answer. He prepped himself for several long moments before finally bringing his hand to his lips and popped the pill in. It sat uncomfortably on his tongue as he brought the cup to his lips.

He tried to drink like he normally would, but the feeling of the tablet in his mouth psyched him out. He swallowed a sip of the drink but accidentally spit the medicine into the cup. Gagging in the process, Virgil lowered the drink, flicking his tongue around his mouth in discomfort, still feeling like the pill was there.

Roman looked at the dissolving medicine in the cup and left to dump it out in the sink, bringing back a fresh cup. "Okay let's try something different. This time, take a mouthful of drink and pop the medicine in that, swallowing as normal."

Logan returned into the room and left shortly after to go retrieve another pill. When he returned, he gave it to Virgil and sat next to him on the couch. Patton kept a hand on Virgil's vigorously bouncing knee to try and calm his nerves.

Although discourage from his last failed attempt, in which he nearly traumatized himself, Virgil opted to try again. Well, that was a dramatization, but still discouraging. Virgil took a swig of the juice and popped the medicine in the liquid swirling in his mouth. He swallowed before he even felt it was in there.

When he opened his squinted eyes, Virgil saw the others all staring at him. He felt his throat in worry. "I... I think it went down?"

Patton smiled and gave him a big hug, exclaiming how proud he was. Virgil tried his best not to push him off, but certainly didn't feel comfortable in the embrace. The three of them dispersed while Virgil continued to occupy the couch. He scrolled through Tumblr on his phone while Roman put on a Disney movie, which he would listen to in the background.

As the movie played, Roman couldn't help but glance over to where Virgil was stretched along the couch. For a while, the anxious Side didn't look any more sleepy than he always did. But later on, when Roman looked over, Virgil's phone lay limply in his hand as he tried to keep his eyes open. Roman considered telling him to just let the medicine do its job and fall asleep, but he figured any conversation would wake him right back up.

By the end of the movie, Virgil's eyes were closed and his whole body relaxed into the couch. Roman smiled at his soft breathing and peaceful expression. He removed his phone as gently as he could from his hand, plugging it into a charger for him, as he would be angry when he woke up to it nearly dead.

Roman draped the blanket they always hung on the couch over him, letting out one last smile, happy he was finally going to get some well-deserved rest.

...

Yes, I threw just a tiny bit of angst in there, but it probably wouldn't be my writing without little hints of it.

Although I really wanted to write some more Roman-centric stuff, especially with that very obvious nod to it in the Crofters video (OMG AMAZING THOUGH), but it's been a while since I've written about Virgil. I'll get back to our regularly scheduled Roman-angst soon, don't worry.

I really want to write about Patton, since I rarely do, but I do such a bad job thinking of something for him.

This is my 50th part in this book, which is absolutely absurd to me, but anyways. Thank you guys for reading, commenting, voting... etc. I never would have thought I'd get over 4,500 views.