Protect You || Sanders Sides

~ Part 1 ~

A/N ~ if you would like to see the original comic then just click on the photo or follow melc5k46 on Instagram. It's well worth reading ^-^

~☆~☆~☆~☆~

I only wanted to protect you,
So I split us apart.
Now I take all the bruises,
But you can keep my heart.

As a rule, unless you're popular, have someone to sit with or are looking for someone, you don't go into the cantine at lunch. You simply don't.

If you wanted proof as to why this is the case, all you need to do is watch any movie or TV show or read any book about an outcast of society and you will soon find out that those who do not fall into any of these categories and eat in the cantine never have a good time. There was always someone there to make their life as painful as possible. Something which was going to happen to derail them mentally even more then they already were.

Yet, Virgil still remained sat on that bench, dread curling around him like a cloud of smoke.

As was the norm for a lunchtime on a school day, the cantine was packed. Bustling and yelling and the occasional peal of laughter ringing out from various corners of the room, all in unity to make the loud and generally overwhelming sound of lunch. Virgil had never been fond of sitting in the hall with hundreds of other bodies. Too crowded, too many opportunities for someone to try and talk to him. Or worse.

Looking at the tray now set down in front of him, he decided that this situation deffinetly fit into the 'worse' category.

The contents of the tray was neither a pleasant nor welcome sight. A half eaten pack of fries with who knows what stuck onto each individual wedge of potato, a burger with several bites already taken out of it that had started to grow mould at the edges and appeared disgustingly limp and an apple core that had so little actual apple left on it that the now rotting fruit was barely distinguishable from a compost heap. To top it all off - much to the amusement of the small crowd formed around where he sat - a couple of flies buzzed merrily over his food in search of an easy feast.

To say that it looked disgusting would of been an understatement. It was revolting. Literally picked out of a trashcan and thrown onto the tray just for the delight of torturing Virgil.

A sickening feeling had begun to rise in Virgil's stomach, bile already rising up his throat from simply looking at it. His eyes darted around, searching for anyone who would try to help him; extremely grateful when the person he was concerned would interrupt could not be seen.

"See? Told ya I will get you a high quality lunch."

The voice, the way it curled around Virgil's head and muffled everything else, the way it clawed into the gaps in Virgil's brain and made itself at home there in his memory. He hated it.

It took all of Virgil's self restraint not to just leave right now. His body was twitching to run. What was it Pat had always said? It was his fight or flight reflex or something similar to that. Whatever it was, that wasn't going to stop the sneering voice from behind him. It wasn't going to stop the inevitable.

Besides, Patton wasn't here. There was nothing that he could do now which would stop the people behind him, nothing he could do which wouldn't put either of them at risk. A pang hit straight into Virgil's heart as his memory went back to the words which he had spoken to the more softer man, the harsh words which had split them apart entirely and hopefully pushed him away enough to keep him safe.