Sanders Sides One Shots: Volume 2 [COMPLETED]

Starving For A Savior (Prinxiety)

January 27th, 2019
Requested by Buried_In_Fandom
Trigger Warning: talk of self harm, self starving

You'd think that being in pain hurts the most. Well, Virgil begs to differ. Being able to tell when someone else is in pain and not being able to help hurts far worse.

He thinks this every time he hears the voices. You see, while there are good parts to the Mind Palace, like the fact that you can make your wildest dreams come true in the Imagination, or learn anything in the Library of Infinite Knowledge, there were bad parts. The current example was the effects of Self Doubt.

When a Side experienced Self Doubt that went unresolved, they began to experience voices. Said voices would whisper in the ear of the doubtful Side to enhance the insecurities, they could corse them into doing things to themselves that were far from good.

They used to make Virgil cut himself until the other Side's had accepted him; they told him that he was worthless and a monster that felt nothing for anyone, so he'd cut himself to feel something, until he started feeling things around the others. They'd saved him from them without even realizing it.

The voices could only be heard by the affected Side... and Anxiety.

As the embodiment of anxiety, Virgil could hear the voices when they talked to the other Sides. It pained him when he heard one of them tell Patton his opinion was stupid. It was horrible to have to act like he knew nothing when another told Logan he was just a joke. It killed him when he heard them tell Roman he wasn't enough.

Logan and Patton rarely had the voices in their heads from what Virgil could hear, which he figured was because of their relative optimism and rational thinking. The logical Side could use facts to beat them, and the moral Side was just too much optimism and love to be brought down.

Roman was a different story. He was the creative Side, the prideful Side. He was emotionally vulnerable because he wanted, needed everything to be perfect to feel good. So when the voices began to tell him he wasn't and would never be perfect, he crumbled.

Virgil wasn't stupid. He would've figured it out without being able to hear the voices and their incessant reminders to the creative Side that he was too fat, not muscular enough, not working hard enough. He could see the way the prince turned his head when one of the others were eating. He could see the way his suit hung off of him more loosely than usual. He could see the bags beneath his eyes he was desperately trying to hide that came from late nights spent working.

He could see it all. He felt it all.

The anxious Side tried to help him without giving away how much he knew. He made his favorite foods and just so happened to make enough for both of them. He'd offer to watch Disney movies with him to try and distract him from work a little. He'd offer to be his sparring partner so that he could keep an eye on him while he was exercising, but it was never enough to counteract the damage the voices had done and continued to do.

He felt useless, which ironically got him a few of his own voices. They didn't work anymore, just annoyed him.

Virgil laid in bed one night, staring at the ceiling as he thought about Princey. He wished he could fix it. He wished he could do more to help him, but he just... didn't know how to without making him feel weak, which would just make it worse.

As he laid in silence he began to hear the familiar raspy, low voices of Self Doubt. They were coming from Roman's room as they often did this late.

"You know you had too much to eat today, what have we told you?" they hissed.

Virgil couldn't hear Roman's response, but he could hear the voices as they continued their assault on the creative Side. "You're so naive," they growled, almost chuckling. "Virgil doesn't like you, why would he? After all you did to him? You were horrible to him, Roman, and you're a horrible friend to the other Sides. You're so useless."