So I Tried

Vigilance

This fic is set before the series “Sanders Sides” takes place!

Warnings: Deceit

Summary: Anxiety just wanted a name.

MasterPost

Anxiety was tense as he tiptoed through the Dark Sides’ house. If anyone saw him and found out what he was doing he would be in so much trouble. Deceit would be disappointed with him and Anxiety didn’t want to have to look into his eyes and swallow that bitter pill.

But, he really needed to do this.

He looked around the Commons’. Finding no one there, he raced across the room to the door leading to the dusty, old library. Carefully he opened the door. As the hinges creaked, Anxiety winced and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming to investigate the noise. He was alone.

He closed the door behind him as he entered the library. It wasn’t very big. Nothing like the libraries Thomas got to go to. Those were huge. Even bigger than the Dark Sides’ Commons. In the Dark Side’s part of the mindscape, the library was about the size of a broom closet. There were a few stacks of books lining the walls. The books were mainly memories of Thomas’ or facts that he had learnt at one point or another. Anxiety asked why there were so few books once and Deceit had sighed sadly.

“Well, my young shadow,” he said. “these were all the books that we were able to save from the Light Sides. Logic hoards them you see. Refuses to let us Dark Sides even look at them. So, the ones we do have we keep in that room. It’s one of the last places Logic would look, a simple room!”

Anxiety wasn’t allowed in here. The others were afraid that he would mess something up or ruin the books. Anxiety tried to tell them that he would take good care of them but no one seemed to believe him. They said that he had no reason to read books, let alone those special books that held some of Thomas’ memories. But he was interested.

And one book interested Anxiety more than all the others.

He slid to the floor and nestled into a corner. He grabbed the biggest book there and placed it on his lap. A bookmark stuck out near the middle. Anxiety opened it to that page. He found the place he’d left off.

The book he was reading was a list of all the names Thomas had heard in the fifteen years he had been alive. Next to some of the names were a little blurb on what Thomas knew about the name. The book seemed to expand every time Anxiety opened it up, which just annoyed the hell out of him.

How would Anxiety ever be able to pick a name if he had to keep going back to reread the entire damn thing?

“Tabatha… no.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. He kept his commentary down to a whisper. Anxiety couldn’t risk anyone hearing him. “Talia? No. Talon, nope.”

It took Anxiety close to an hour to get through the T section, though that had more to do with Anxiety pausing every few seconds to listen to every sound he picked up on. Not one name he had read felt right.

Anxiety glared at the book and closed it. He had been going through this book for years now and still haven’t been able to find a name that felt, right.

He had gone to Deceit once to ask for help with finding a name and Deceit had only laughed.

“And, why do you think you need a name, little shadow?” He had asked. “You’re Anxiety. Names are for things of importance. I’m sorry, Anxiety, but you are hardly important.”

Anxiety felt awful going against Deceit and picking a name. Deceit was right, Anxiety wasn’t important. But, maybe if he had a name, he could be important. He wouldn’t tell anyone, he didn’t want Deceit to know and be disappointed in him. But, Anxiety would know.

He just wished he could find it.

Tears burned in Anxiety’s eyes and he stood up and put the book back on its stack, shame and anger swirling in him. He just wanted to find a name, was that too much to ask!?

He turned on his heel but his bottom of his hoodie caught on the cover of the book of names and sent it falling to the ground. It landed with a crash and sent dust rising up. Anxiety froze.

Thoughts raced through his head. ‘What if someone heard, someone had to have heard. They’re gonna find out. I screwed up, fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to know!’ His breathing quickened. He desperately tried to block these feelings from Thomas. He was sleeping, Anxiety couldn’t bother him now!

He listened intently for anyone coming. Slowly, each second passed. Continued silence indicated his safety. He was able to resume his preparations to leave.

He knelt to pick up the book. It was opened to one of the last pages. The spine was cracked and Anxiety couldn’t see the bookmark he had placed in it. He hoped no one did an inspection of the books. No one ever had but, you never knew.

He picked up the book and blew off some dust off on the page. Curiously, he looked down. The V section? Never before had Anxiety been this far into the book. There were only a few names listed.

Valentin, Valerie, Victor, Virgil, Vivian-

Anxiety stopped.

Virgil?

He ran his finger across the name. The ink was black and shiny, obviously a new addition. Thomas had probably only heard the name in the past few months. There was a small blurb next to it.

Means Vigilance. There was a famous poet named Virgil.

Anxiety bit his lip. Virgil was a really dorky name. Nerdy and weird. Deceit and the other’s names weren’t like that. Theirs were cool names! Nothing like Virgil. Virgil was a stupid name.

Anxiety read the blurb again. Means Vigilance.

The blurb might not be true. Thomas may have gotten the wrong information. Maybe Virgil didn’t actually mean vigilance, maybe Thomas just believed it meant vigilance.

But, maybe the blurb was right and it did mean vigilance. And, didn’t Anxiety stand vigil over Thomas? His job was to keep him safe. To make sure nothing happened to him. That meant Anxiety had to be vigilant.

“Virgil.” Anxiety whispered. He coughed and looked over his shoulder. The door was still closed and the room outside was quiet. He spoke a little louder “Hello. My name is Virgil.” A warm feeling spread inside of him. He liked this name.

But, what if someone found out and made fun of him for it? Virgil was a really nerdy name. But who could be nerdy when their name meant vigilance? And vigilance was something important. You couldn’t be unimportant when you were protecting someone and trying to get them away from danger.

A smile graced Anxiety’s lips and stretched into a grin. Virgil. Virgil, Virgil, Virgil. Anxiety’s name was Virgil.

Virgil closed the book and laid it back on the stack. Making sure he wasn’t going to have a repeat of books on the floor he backed away to the door.  He opened it a crack and looked out.

Silence continued. Carefully, he stepped outside. Closing the door to the library, he turned and quickly made his escape.

Virgil wasn’t going to tell anyone his name. He would wait until he was important, like something with a name should be! No matter how long that took. But, damn, having a name felt good.

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Keep reading

So Virgil’s eyeshadow turns purple when he’s happy/excited, which is adorable, but does something similar happen with the other dark sides?

Janus and Logan are talking about some old poet or something and he just gets super into the whole thing and Logan is super confused because Janus’ scales are suddenly a lot brighter yellow.

Roman and Remus are hanging out in the imagination and Roman laughs at one of Remus’ darker jokes, and he’s so happy that the white tuft in his hair turns bright green, and Roman gets a bit happy because he knows it means his brother is happy.

no one asked for this, but i feel like i need to add a bit more onto this:

don’t attack Remrom shippers. don’t spread hate. don’t threaten them. don’t bully them. don’t think that they are automatically bad people who don’t deserve to be in this fandom.

you disagree with the ship? me too. so, block those people if you don’t agree with them. block them and move on. don’t intentionally engage in their stuff just to harass them.

the same principle literally goes to everything else:

don’t like a certain ship? block the tag, block the people who ship it & make you feel uncomfortable AND MOVE ON.

don’t like a certain side? block the tag, block the people who like that side a lot & make you uncomfortable AND MOVE ON.

that’s literally how easy it is. please, don’t be a jerk. blocking things you’re uncomfortable with is healthy and important; harassing and bullying isn’t.

I have no excuse, @rondoel was talking about King and Janus over at @kingcreativityau  and I kept thinking about punishments and the cold-blooded snek boy being left in an icy cave for the sole purpose of keeping him in a state of brumation and just general sluggish uselessness. Basically just an excuse to make an intimate pose coupled with tears turning to icicles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways enjoy the angst and giftart Rondo!

Janus but,,,, actually snake from the Waist up

I definetly fucking read this wrong and I made a whole drawing no one asked me to do because I cANT READ FUCK

welcome back to me loving this dork

bonus:

Palette Sides!!

No.22 Remus x Logan please if you want.❤️ Love your writing

22. “Scoot over.  I wanna sit next to you.”

---

Logan was used to eating his lunch alone. It wasn’t quite that anyone had ever told him that he couldn’t sit with them, but he chose to avoid the awkward glances and shifty excuses he’d likely get if asked to join a group. He was perfectly content to spend lunch with his sandwhich and his thoughts, thank you very much. 

“Scoot over. I wanna sit next to you.” 

Logan glanced up from his book, frowning. He barely had time to register the mess of brown curls and toothy grin that filled his vision before the boy they belonged to plopped his tray down on the table and wormed his way onto the bench next to Logan. 

Logan recognized him, of course, everyone in school knew the Crowne twins. Despite not quite fitting into a traditionally popular, masculine mold, Roman Crowne had a large group of friends and was generally well liked by people. Meanwhile, all sorts of rumors about the younger twin, Remus, circulated through the student body, including a particularly gruesome tale about what he’d done to Eric Stone, a student who’d apparently called Roman some...less than savory names. Logan was sure that the details were mostly exaggerated, but it didn’t stop most people, himself included, from being just a little afraid of Remus.

So of course, it was Remus who had decided to invade the solitude of Logan’s lunchtime. He flashed Logan a smile before taking a massive bite of his own sandwich, and Logan swallowed, turning back to his book with the hope that Remus wouldn’t intrude further. 

“Whatcha reading?” 

".....a book.”

“Yeah, I got that, Nerdy Wolverine, what’s it about?” 

“Nerdy Wolverine?” 

“Yeah! Ya know, cuz your name’s Logan, and you’re totally fierce, but you’ve got this total Nerd thing going on. Nerdy Wolverine.” 

Logan blinked. 

“I...must admit I’m not sure why you think I’m ‘fierce,’ as you put it.” Hell, he hadnt realized Remus knew his name, much less noticed anything about his disposition. 

"Uh, maybe because you completely destroyed that bitch Amy Shellenberger earlier in biology when she tried to say that chromosomes prove that there are only two genders? In front of the whole class?” 

“Oh.” Logan felt heat rising in his face as he recalled the heated encounter with the popular girl in that day’s science class. It wasn’t like him to cause a scene, but he’d spotted Elliot staring in their lap with shiny eyes while Amy prattled on, and had found himself on his feet spouting off a counter argument before he knew what he was doing. “I didn’t mean to...that is, I-” 

“Hey, no need to freak out,” Remus said, popping a french fry in his mouth. “It was hella cool. And if anyone gives you shit for it, let me know, alright? I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.” 

Logan looked up, and found Remus giving him an uncharacteristically serious look. Perhaps the stories of what he’d done to Eric Stone had more truth in them than Logan had initially realized.

“I...appreciate that,” he said eventually, and Remus smiled.

“For sure, man.” 

The two sat in silence for a moment, then Remus nudged Logan’s book. 

“So, you gonna answer my question, or?” 

“Oh,” Logan said, looking down. He’d nearly forgotten that Remus had even asked. “It’s a book about the likely origin of the legends of sea monsters, giant squid and things like that.”

Remus’s eyes lit up, and Logan suddenly felt brave. 

“Would you like to hear about the origins of the legend of the kraken?” he asked. 

“Hell yes I would,” Remus said, placing his chin on his fist and staring at Logan with rapt attention. 

As Logan began explaining, flipping through the book as he went to showcase the illustrations, he allowed himself a small smile. 

Perhaps from here on out, lunch wouldn’t be quite so lonely. 

Virgil is the most highly advanced android ever made by humans in history. He is bought by an incredibly rich scientist named Logan, who he soon learns is trying to set all robots free and is fighting for their rights. Logan gets hurt some way and it's the push Virgil needs to become self aware and gain emotions. He helps Logan get to a safe place and heal from his injury. Logan is mesmerized by Virgil now, and they fall in love.