Sanders Sides One Shots

We'll make it together.

SPOILERS FOR THE SANDERS SIDES EPISODE 'PUTTING OTHERS FIRST'. GO WATCH THAT VIDEO FIRST IF YOU HAVE NOT YET, AS THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Warnings: Mention of wounds, mention of breakdown, sort of angst? Not sure, but if I missed anything let me know.

Roman and I had just about made it back to the camp before it became too dark. Sure, there were quite a few of us, but we all have known each other since childhood, and have always had a good team dynamic. That's the only way we justify having six of us together. But that's besides the point. After we make our may in past the several security precautions we have in place, Roman and I split ways, him going to the sick bay to check on how Logan was doing.

Logan had been out scavenging with Patton about five days ago, but the two of them returned prematurely, Logan having a gash on their forearm. It's been a few days, and so far the injury is showing very few signs of healing, neither of the two who were out wanting to admit exactly how he got it. Me and Janus have our guesses, but we're just really hoping we aren't correct in our morbid presumptions. I also have reasons to believe that my darling emo has jumped to his own conclusion, seeing as he is going back to his reclusive and anti-social behaviours he adopted back when all this started...

Based on this line of thought, I elected to go check on our not-so-friendly neighbourhood spider-man. Taking a quick survey around the camp, it was easy to tell that he was obviously not in the very small outside area, but knowing the man as well as I did, I knew he would want to be able to see mine and brother dearest's return, which left only two other locations that I know of. His room, and the living room, both of which had a window out to the main area. Now, if you had just met him on a few occasions, or made presumptions about him based on his personality, you'd most likely guess that he'd be in his room, to which I will tell you: that's correct. He is in his room usually like 80% of the time that I'm not here. Though I am able to sometimes coax him out of his room, it's only normally with the promise of my presence being there.

With this in mind, I head over to the dark pit Virgil dwelled in, shared only by myself on the rare occasion if I'm lucky. He finds it hard to let others in ever since what we can only refer to as 'The Incident', and it even took me a while to get Virgil to let down his walls for me. The fact that he was willing to allow us all back into his life again truly speaks volumes for just how strong he is emotionally. Or rather, what I'm beginning to suspect, how well he can put up a front that says he can move past issues. His sudden distrust of almost all of us has become very apparent ever since he was told that neither Patton nor Logan are willing to give up how Logan got the scratch, and really does just show how much he... hasn't been able to move past The Incident. And, don't get me wrong, he has good reason to, but it can't be healthy for him to lock us out completely.

Fucking hell I let my thoughts run there for a bit. Eh, whatever, we're at the frightful Bat's cave now, so time to knock on the door in an annoying fashion until he lets me in! And after five minutes of non-stop knocking, along with some back and fourth shouting, the door opens just enough to let me in, and closes before anybody else would've been able to spare a glance in it's general direction. Though, after looking around at the state of it, I can understand why Virgil wouldn't want anyone else to see the state he's let it get to. The room was an absolute mess, but in all honesty the thing that looked messiest in the room was Virgil. He had dark bags under his eyes that gave away how little sleep he had been getting, and his hair stuck up in every which direction. His clothes were in such a state that you could tell he hadn't bothered to attempt to change them in a fair few days, despite my daily check-ups on him.

This whole time I've been analysing him though, he's just kept his head down, refusing to make any sort of eye contact with me in fear of what he might find. I can only imagine what he must've seen that first night... However, that's beside the point, as there's nothing we can do to change the past. We need to look towards the future, and all try to help each other live as full a life as we can in this situation. Which is why I gently grabbed his chin and guided his face up to look at mine. As we make eye contact, I give a gently smile, simply to reassure him that I was right here, right now, and not a rotting walking corpse in the outside world. This seemed to somewhat work, as his eyes filled with tears and he lunged forward to hug me tightly. His iron grip was unfaltering as he opened the floodgates. I suppose he's been holding it back for, what... basically eight years now? Yeah I was like 15 when this all went down, and he's about a year older, so roughly eight years we've been out in this wasteland all relaying on one another.

Eventually he loosened his grip slightly, but made sure to keep some sort of contact with me, and we settled on holding hands. By this point he had mostly calmed himself back down and only let out the occasional sniffle here and there. I reached my hand up to cheeks and wipe a few stray tears still lingering on his face.

Looking outside again, we could see how late it had become. I knew it was my turn to be out on post, and Virgil certainly wasn't going to be getting any sleep, and with that information in mind I formed a little plan to hopefully lighten his mood, even if it's only by a little bit. Smiling with satisfaction at my idea, I gently pull at his hand to have him follow me out the room, and he hesitantly followed. Once outside, I pull him over to where those of us on watch out were based, smiling and nodding to Janus who had covered for me while I was in with Virgil. As he trudged off to try and get some sleep, Virge and I make our way over there. While he still looks fairly confused, he seemed less so than when I invited him to join me on watch out.

Upon reaching the area, I release Virgil's hand from my own. He looks mildly disappointed, which turned to shock and diffidence when I used my arm to bow deeply in front of him. I stand back up and offer my hand to him once again, this time accompanying the gesture with the words, "May I have this dance, my chemically imbalanced romance?" That got a giggle out of Virgil, as he took my hand and we began to sway back and forth under the midnight sky.

"Did you really just use one of Roman's old insults in a somewhat endearing way?" He was smiling like a doofus, which was infectious, so I gave him a dopey grin as I nodded my head yes. Another giggle. "I thought that sounded familiar. But, thanks for this Remus. This is... Really nice." He leans his head onto my chest and I hold him closer, the two of still gently moving to and fro to the music nobody can hear.

This was a nice moment we both needed more of. We may not be able to live proper lives now, but I'll be damned if I don't try to sprinkle in these little moments that got taken away from us that fateful night.

Words: 1339.

Day six of collabor-may-tion! Posted a day late, but eh. Hope you enjoyed this little bit of dukexiety. Bye all!