#you fools!

Virgil’s mouth tasted like both: the dust and the blood. It coated the back of his mouth and his throat and the inside of his lungs and made every inhale burn in a way that Virgil hadn’t known was possible. He wanted to cry, did cry, had been crying for longer than he even remembered.

His eyes itched from tears, his chest ached from the bruises and the broken ribs and the knife wound that needed stitching he couldn’t get. Not here, not ever. His head hurt from where he hit the ground minsannus ago so hard that his vision blurred and all he had been able to see is that dust moving in slow motion right over him.

He could hear the cheers all around him still, the echoing violent wordless noises made from clickings and growls and gurgles and screeches and--

And it was all different and foreign and Virgil didn’t know what was going on, didn’t want to know what was happening around him. His skin was on fire, burning and bubbling and blistering under the harsh sun until his outsides felt just like his insides and he wasn’t sure which was which. He tried to blot out the noise, he tried and tried and tried but no matter how hard he pressed his hands to his ears the crowd’s voices were louder, stronger, more powerful and more roaring. 

He could feel the vibrations of the noise shaking him apart.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Virgil!” 

Another voice sliced through the chaos, sliced through the cacophony and the crowd, sharp and pleading and familiar in a way that made Virgil’s soul beg. And Virgil’s whole body writhed in agony from how quickly he uncurled himself to find the source of it. It sounded like safety, like softness and protection and something that wasn’t stained with grit and sweat and blood and dust.

“Virgil!” Patton yelled, appearing right in front of him, so small and so breakable. His eyes were so big and so weak and all it would take was just one jab and Patton would be gone forever, and Virgil would never get a hug from him again, would never get to see him dance around the kitchen again, would never get to hear him call him “kiddo” again. 

What was he doing? Was he stupid?

The dust looked wrong on his skin: it turned Patton’s pale green flush to a pasty grey. Like a Halloween Ghost, a ghoul with makeup on, like a poorly made joke that wormed around Virgil’s chest and squeezed all the scarce oxygen from them.

There wasn’t enough oxygen in the first place, Virgil knew. Never enough, not here on the planet’s surface. It was a mockery of Earth; just enough gravity to hold him down, just enough oxygen to keep him breathing, just enough distance from the sun to keep from burning him alive. Virgil could never breathe in enough, and if the fights went on too long his body boiled, and if he moved too slow he would be dead. 

“Oh kiddo,” Patton said, between cracked and drying lips and taking a step back from him. “What did you do?”

Virgil's chest lurched, like there was something inside of him trying to claw its way out. His head pounded, and every time he blinked he swore Patton got further away, like he was scrambling back, like he was afraid, like he was running and leaving Virgil there, all alone. The words rang in his head, echoing louder and louder until Virgil couldn’t hear anything else.

“Pat--!” Virgil yelled, screamed, begged. He was right there-- no, please don’t leave him, not here, not alone-- he’s sorry, so sorry, he’ll be better, do better please don’t make him--

He strained for the smaller alien, desperate and broken and hysterical. He lunged after Patton, because Patton had always meant warmth, safety, home. He threw a frenzied arm out reaching for him and--

The dust was not grey, and it didn’t look grey on his own skin. Virgil knew this because the dust was always on him. Clinging to his skin, caked on in the clots of blood and the dried up sweat and recesses of every tattered piece of fabric he’d ever tried to hold on too. He couldn’t get it off of himself no matter how much he rubbed, scraped, clawed at himself. The dust clung to him like a shadow, like a phantom, and it made his sunburn look faintly purple.

“How could you?” Patton’s voice sobbed because Virgil’s hands were not just faintly purple. 

They were red. And sticky. And dripping. 

“No,” Virgil choked. His mouth tasted like ash, like dirt, and that fucking dust. “No! Nono Nononono!” He stepped back and the solid ground that he’d been thrown against again and again and again swayed and bucked under his feet; an ocean of grit that his knees couldn’t brace against.

The crowd was cheering. He could almost hear them: even as he was screaming, even as he was pressing his drenched hands over his ears, even as he was struggling to breathe and staring at splatters of blood that weren’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t be his. There were so many voices, so many people crammed in the arena, watching him spit up blood, watching him just barely dodge blows that were going to crush his ribcage, watching him recklessly get away by any means necessary. Virgil couldn’t make out the words, it was too loud, too much, too many but he could feel the blood dripping down his face, matting his hair, pooling in his ears as he tried to drown them out.

“This isn’t real--” He yelled. “This isn’t--!”

“Vir….gil….” 

“No!” Virgil screamed, “This isn’t-- I didn’t--!”

He stumbled back again, eyes closed, and his lungs begging for air he couldn’t give them. His foot hit something, stepped on something, rolled his ankle on something and then he was hitting the ground again, driving his elbow into his gut and his head knocking the rock floor.

His eyes stung from the dust that cascaded all around him, thick and heavy and like a smog that he couldn’t ever escape. It rose up and blotted out the sky, the arena, the jeering crowd, Patton-- the dust swallowed the world and Virgil coughed trying to keep it from taking him too.

“It’s not--” Virgil croaked, gagging at the burning in the back of his throat, at the grit in his teeth.

There was a body at his feet. A body that he tripped over. A body that had pale skin, four limbs, and a face that Virgil would know even if he were blind: the dirty blond hair, the mismatched eyes, the pale lips. A body thats cut open and tore apart and bloodied and eyes that looked so scared in their last moments and--

And Virgil’s seen his hands this color, this messed up, this ruined enough times to know how that body got that way.

“Vi…” 

“NO!” Virgil shrieked. “This isn’t real. This isn’t real. THIS ISN’T REAL--!”

-- Virgil woke up to someone screaming. It took him a long moment to realize it was him, and even longer to wedge his fist in his mouth to stop it.

His room hummed with the silence, the aftermath of a storm that had left nothing but carnage in its wake: Virgil was on the floor, his legs tangled up in his blankets and himself shaking so hard that his teeth dug into his knuckles. The taste of blood made his stomach lurch, and suddenly he was scrambling up, fingers clawing at the soft rug under his feet and he was spitting his saliva out of his mouth like it was possible for him to choke on his own tongue.

It wasn’t real. 

But Virgil’s head rang from the impact and there was grit in his teeth, blood on his hands and the lack of noise was so loud that he couldn’t hear his own breathing. Was he breathing? His lungs burned like they were on fire, like he was back under the sun of the Welsor home planet and the white boils were peppering his chest until he couldn’t inhale at all.

His knees went weak right before the door and he hit the floor so heavily he didn’t feel it at all. His arms wrapped around his chest turning him into something smaller, something dismissable, something unseeable, because surely if no one and nothing could see him, then no one and nothing would bother him at all.

There was dust in his mouth, blood on his lips, aches in everything else that he owned. His toes curled in and he drove his chin directly into his collar bone.

It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t--

The oxygen felt thin, crisp and brittle as he desperately tried to coax it into his lungs and hold it there for longer than a minsannu, longer than a blink, longer than an earthly nanosecond. It was like trying to bail water out of a boat with his hands, except that the boat was the fucking Titanic and he was up to his shoulders in water already. 

The ground was cold. 

The room was dark.

So why did Virgil still feel like he was in the Welsor Fighting Rings? It had been a year, or something-- Virgil tried to think, to count the days, but time in space slipped away from him even when he was feeling good. The ship’s time cycles were wonky depending on the quadrant and Roman liked to set them to the nearest habitable planet’s cycle. But Virgil had been pretty sure, he’d thought enough time had passed that the nightmares should have stopped. He shouldn’t be dreaming of blood under his nails and dust clinging to his body.

He was happy now! He was living his best life!

He had Patton who would make up puns and swing from the rafters and make sure he ate; Roman who would drag him to their little armory and teach him how to defend himself incase something ever happened to them; he had Logan who would gladly take the time to talk to him about cultural differences between species or ramble about his new found discovery.

He had Janus. Who he thought he lost a lifetime ago, who he thought he’d never get to see again, who he hadn’t really left the side of since they had recovered both him and Remus from the Pol’turs. He had Janus whose eyes glistened with warmth so familiar it felt like being home more than Earth ever had, whose touch was featherlight and unmistakable, whose smiles alone took his breath away and he’d gladly keep giving it if it meant Janus’s kept smiling. He had Janus who could kiss him a million times and Virgil would never get tired of it.

He was happy to be here. To be in Space. To be with these three aliens and Janus and be nowhere near Earth at all. To be free and lawless and completely in control of his own destiny.

He was happy, so why couldn’t he figure out how to sleep through the night?

He felt dirty, which made no sense at all. He was on a ship in the middle of space and he had showered last night using shampoo that smelled like grape soda. Janus had commented on it too, saying he smelled nice and pecking him on the check right before he strolled off to his own room for a bit of alone time for bed. Virgil dragged his nails down his upper arms, down his forearms and feverishly rubbed, trying to get off dust and dirt and even his own skin if that would get the feeling to just go away. 

There were tears in his eyes, on his cheeks, inching their ways down his neck and irritating everywhere they touched. His lungs howled, and begged, and cried and Virgil couldn’t do anything but curl tighter in on himself.

He was happy. He was not dirty. He was alive and breathing. He was not in the Welsor Fighting Rings.

He was okay.

He was not going to tell anyone about this.

Virgil felt the coldness of the polyfurnish floor seep up into this body, crawling over him, through him, in him like a wave washing him away. He was the Big Bad Deathworlder after all, who came from the Deathworld itself, not knowing a thing about the other races that lived out in Space with a capital “S”. They called him a savage, a brute, an animal that needed to be locked up when it wasn’t being thrown into the fighting ring to win them money and prestige. He was the undefeatable champion, the one that brought the horrible old legends of Deathworlders to life, the one could kill without-- without---

He thought he had forgotten what it was like, for some reason: the way that a pulse felt under his hands, the look in a creature's eyes as they suddenly went unnaturally still, the smell of inhuman blood hanging over him because some creature’s insides were now clumped in his hair. He thought he had forgotten what it was like to take away a life.

His stomach lurched again, jumping straight through his ribcage and up his throat in such a violent motion that Virgil’s eyes rolled right back into his head and he saw white static. 

Butterfly wings, he thought. That was what Patton’s pulse was like, considering that he had two different hearts pumping so rapidly that Virgil wouldn’t have even known what the feeling was if Patton hadn’t told him. Roman’s was heavy and loud like a drum beat and protected by a very human looking ribcage. Logan’s was quick and quiet and unusually only as calm as the lights flicking through the rest of his body, like the rain back on Earth.

Janus’s was soft. It was real.

Because Janus hadn’t died. He wasn’t dead. Virgil hadn’t killed him and he was just down the other hall sleeping soundly in his own room, come on, he knew this, Janus hadn’t died-- 

Virgil had fallen asleep to the sound so many times before. Back on Earth it was a steady thrump that had lulled him from his thoughts, and Virgil had found his favorite part of their secret sleepovers was watching Janus’s chest lift and fall while the TV screen credit lights painted him in a glossy hue. It was constant, strong, undefeatable: Virgil admired that heart beat of Janus’s, admired the way that it had started so weak when they had first met and steadily gotten bolder, brighter, louder.

Janus was happy here. Virgil knew it from the curve of his lips, from the sparkle in his eyes, from the relaxation of his shoulders as he leaned back and pressed himself into Virgil’s chest when they sat together. When he walked into a new room, Virgil was the one that Janus always looked for and he always lit up when they made eye contact, like even after all this time Virgil was still something he could never get tired of looking at. Janus’s laugh was rich, his tone playful, his energy boundless and free and wonderful. Janus was happy and his heart paraded that happy tune, undaunted by anything.

And Virgil was curled up on the floor in the middle of the night, feeling like a foreigner in his own body.

They had made a promise once upon a time, once upon a star, once upon a night that both of them hadn’t wanted to remember but couldn’t ever forget: the Robotics show where Virgil had thought he had finally done something that would make his parents proud of him, but the Ekans family had shown up and Janus’s amicable smile (and a hefty wad of cash) had stolen first place from him. Second place was worthless to his parents. It always had been. 

“How’d you know?” Janus had asked and Virgil’s mouth had gone dry because he hadn’t known and he had just been saying whatever he could to hurt everyone else. “Please, Virgil, whatever you want-- You--you can’t tell anyone, please, my parents--”

Virgil had started hating Mayor Ekans and his wife for real after that.

“I am nothing,” Janus had said that night with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face that looked so terrifying Virgil wanted to do whatever he needed to do just to get him to stop. “Don’t you know that, Virgil? I’m nothing but a pile of lies.”

“They’re not even good lies,” Virgil had said. “Don’t you get tired of being everyone’s favorite person?” 

Janus had laughed, like Virgil had told a joke and the sound of it had twisted Virgil’s arteries. He had stepped back then, looked to the sky and stared up at the stars like they had some sort of answer to a questioned Janus never should have been asking in the first place. 

“I…” Janus had said so very long ago and Virgil never forgot. “I like that you’re honest, Virgil. I don’t...I don’t have to lie to you, and you don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not going to ever lie to you,” Virgil had said once upon a time when the only audience had been Janus and the twinkling stars overhead. 

“You promise?”

But the thing about promises was that...Virgil… well Virgil never had a good experience with them. His parents made a million of them and none of them had ever panned out. Sunday brunches as a family, ice cream if he did his best in school, listening to his side of the story when the teachers called home saying he was in trouble before giving him a punishment. Virgil thought maybe the only time they stuck to their word was when he had asked them if they would show up to his robotics show that last time. 

Wasn’t that funny?

Virgil had spent so long trying not to be like that. Trying so very earnestly to never lie, to never go back on his word, to be exactly what he advertised and keep every promise he made. Where had that gotten him in the long run? 

Maybe it was his genes.

Maybe it was inside of him; that thing that made it so very easy to remember that promise and still pretend that nothing had happened after Janus had disappeared. The worst part was that it had almost worked. 

It had started out slow, small, dismissible: Virgil saying his favorite color was purple and Janus blinking in surprise because three years ago it had been black (black like coal, like shadows in the night, like a funeral attire he never wore); Virgil showing Janus his work space and his mini robot assistant that didn't really do anything more than hand him a tool and Janus saying “oh you got the lift action to work!” like he hadn’t built much larger, much more complex robots since he’s been out in Space; Virgil not understanding a joke that Janus made in fucking Spanish because he had stopped bothering to practice when Janus had stopped being alive.

It had started as things Virgil barely thought about in the moment, barely thought about until they were long gone, barely thought about until it was too late.

And suddenly Virgil had turned around and realized that a lie of omission was still a lie and that if he told Janus the truth--

What would Janus think when he realizes just how messed up Virgil was? When he realizes that Virgil was a walking time bomb waiting to explode and get both of them killed? What would Janus do when he realizes that Virgil had killed people before? That Janus’s parents turned out to be right all those times the snidely said that Virgil was capable of murder, just look at him, not a hint of remorse for murdering our perfect son!?

What would Janus do when he realizes that Virgil didn’t love Space because of how cool it was, as much as how vast and distant it was from Earth and everyone he used to know?

Somewhere deep inside of Virgil, he knew that if they live long enough, they’ll return back to Earth. An inevitable ending, a cycle coming to its completion, a prophecy coming to fruition. His stomach rebelled, revolted, rioted at the idea. 

What would Janus’s parents do when they saw him alive? What would they do when they saw him with Virgil? What would they do just to get them apart again?

Back before everything, back when Virgil’s knowledge of the universe had consisted just of school, home, and second-best-at-everything, back when Janus and him had first looked at each other saw their kindred souls-- Janus’s parents had tried to keep them apart. It wasn’t right, they said, for perfect little Janus to hang out with a punk delinquent like Virgil. He would chew Janus up and spit him back out and ruin every plan the Ekans had drawn up for Janus’s future.

Virgil’s ankle had hurt for weeks after the first time they had him thrown out of their pristine mansion on the hill. Janus had been forbidden to leave his house except for school and all of his puppet friends had been gifted loads of money to drag Janus away any time Virgil happened to walk into the room he was in. Virgil’s own parents had said he wasn’t to bother the Ekans kid in school anymore all while buying a new TV for the living room with money they hadn’t had two days prior.

The separation had torn Virgil to shreds, ripped open his ribcage and stabbed his heart fifty million different ways, but that was nothing to how Janus had seemed to shatter under the weight of it; Virgil hadn’t known that life size mannequins existed until he saw Janus walk around school with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes and motions so practiced they looked robotic.

And when it came down to it, when all the cards were played, when Virgil stepped back and took a very good look at himself, well….what could he see, but the coward that he was? Virgil didn’t want to do that again, didn’t want to let anyone make them do that again. He didn’t want to see Janus empty and lifeless and he didn’t want Janus to see what his parents had done to Virgil when Janus was gone and he didn’t want to go back and prove to Janus’s parents that they were right and Virgil was completely capable of killing someone in cold blood and--

And is it still running away when no one knows that's what he’s been doing all this time?

Virgil knew how this was destined to end, because it was always destined to end. He wanted to laugh because he really had peaked in high school: the best days of his life had passed by him in a blink and he never even appreciated them as much as he should have. He and Janus were the popular TV show that had been going on too long and now the original meaning of it was lost completely. They were going to be cut from Prime TV. And then they were going to be regulated to DVD box sets where you could get all the episodes on five discs for fifty bucks or forget they had ever existed at all because not even Netflix would bother to pick them up again.

Logan would say he was being dramatic. Catastrophizing.

But Logan also didn’t know what a Wendy’s was or understand why Virgil would often cut class when there was the possibility he could learn things instead. 

Virgil had killed someone before. Multiple times. And sometimes when he gets too jumpy, Roman still places a hand on the hilt of his sword out of caution, or when he snaps too hard Patton flinches back, or when he bares his teeth Logan starts dancing with multicolored lights to calm him down by any means possible. Virgil is dangerous to be around.

Why hadn’t the Welsors gotten that memo so long ago? Why didn't they just leave him alone?

He sucked in a painful, heavy, desperate breath, holding it in his shaky pleading lungs until he thought his ears were going to pop. His mouth tasted bad; everything tasted bad, felt bad, thought bad.

Virgil squeezed his eyes closed, counting one mississippi, two mississippi, three-- until he saw bright stars on the back of his eyelids. He breathed out, and forced himself to feel his own warm exhale on his skin. Goosebumps rode down his numb arms and prickled over his shoulders. 

He counted.

The floor. The rug. His shirt. His skin. The late- night-early-morning chill of the ship. 

He opened his eyes, holding on to the steady center in the middle of his chest. His room in the ship, his private spot, the area that no one else came into unless they had permission from Virgil himself. The shadows on his ceiling that looked like demons if he stared too long. The lump of blankets that he had torn off the bed in his nightmare. The rounded dresser with a flat top where he kept half a dozen alien plants-- some of which were glowing faintly now in like nightlights to scare away the monsters under his bed.

Virgil was okay. He was safe.

It wasn’t real. 

He winced as he tried to curl in on himself and push into a sitting position. His head felt heavy, swamped with so many thoughts that the physical weight of them made him sway dangerously. His lungs protested faintly with the motion, but he was getting air in them finally, so they couldn’t complain too much. It was an improvement to the previous five minutes, right?

Right?

It hadn’t been real. 

Virgil reached out only partially blindly and grabbed the corner of his bed to haul himself onto his shaky legs. His head swam again, his knees threatened to buckle except wasn’t really a threat because they did give in a little and Virgil let out hiss of a curse as he threw out his other arm on the soft mattress to hold himself upright. The air was cooler, chillier, crisper, in a way that made Virgil’s own shallow exhales feel like the warmest thing for lightyears.

Part of him wished desperately that Janus would be there, on the other half of his bed, curled up around himself like he used to back on the best nights of their lives. Janus had always moved so little in his sleep, while Virgil sprawled out and took up as much space as he could.

“Like a liquid,” Janus had huffed once, and it had taken Virgil most of the morning to figure out that his tone had been amused, almost fond. Like they were joking. Like they were friends. And Virgil had gotten so distracted by it that he had started scribbling “Virgil Ekans” in the margins of his Chemistry notes like another brainwashed zombie that subscribed to the “Janus can do no wrong” theory.

(Which was a theory that Virgil had seen disproven so, so many times before. Janus had even told him out right that it was a lie, with dead eyes and a toneless voice.)

But Janus ran warm, and Virgil found himself unbearably cold all of a sudden. 

He wanted, randomly, surprisingly, unbelievably, to climb back into bed and inch over the tiny bit of space that might have been between them and throw an arm around Janus’s waist. He wanted to cuddle up against Janus’s back, and rest his head against his shoulder blades, pressing light sleepy kisses into Janus’s neck and maybe waking him just enough to hear his soft content sighs at the contact.

He wanted it so bad it made his eyes wet. Oh god, was he really that pathetic? A single nightmare and he wanted to go press up against another human, wake him from his sleep-- which Janus needed because God knows what he went through having been in Space for a whole year longer than Virgil ever had to be, not to mention he was still healing from the horrors of the Pol’tur ship so yeah, Janus needed sleep much more than Virgil did. Which meant that Virgil was being pathetic and selfish.

His feet planted themselves on his floor, and he reminded himself three times in a row that the rocking of the ship was familiar and manageable before he let go of his bed and stood on his own. Another shaking breath rocked his lungs and he told himself that there was no dust in the air.

His couple alien flora that resided across the room glowed faintly. Patton told him the name of them once, but he had forgotten it when Patton’s large bug eyes had gotten misty and he’d mentioned that his mother used to have them all over their home back on his planet.

((A planet that no longer exists, because one of their stars had died and it had taken out his planet and three more in the unexpected implosion.))

Virgil hated seeing the Reytin so sad so he avoided bringing up the plants, and tried to keep Patton out of his room as much as possible. 

Virgil took another breath. Then he bent down and picked up the blankets from the floor and tossed them back on his bed. There was an exhaustion in his limbs, a haggarding, wailing type of tired that Virgil recognized: so tired that he couldn’t even sleep. His body ached but it was an ache that could easily be mistaken for bruises and cuts. His skin prickled when he ran a hand over the feathered down of his blankets (there was a name for that too, but Virgil didn’t remember it either) because even though it was completely different from a sandy dirt floor, his brain kept screaming it was made of dust and get it off get it off get it off-- 

Virgil’s breath hitched for a moment when he closed his eyes, a flash of blood and limp limbs and well, Virgil decided right then and there that he probably could survive without blinking for the rest of his life, right? He nearly flopped right back to the floor, as he scoured for his boots-- or really any shoes at all, because anything was better than nothing at all.

((They had taken his shoes when they took him off Earth, which was almost silly, almost hilarious, almost comical. They sold for 450 griot-- which was more than Virgil himself had gone for. He wondered vaguely, if they were still out there, sitting in some alien collector’s hall of treasures. If they were, they were probably in better shape than Virgil was.))

Shoes on. Virgil breathed for another moment and then started towards the door again in measured calculated steps. He was okay. He was okay. He was okay.

Maybe if he told himself it enough it would become true. 

Virgil thought maybe he had read a science experiment about it. Maybe in a psychology class? Virgil barely remembered anything else from it, because he had it right after lunch and the teacher liked to play movies and spending late nights sneaking into and early mornings out of a mansion were mentally taxing.

If one repeated something often enough they started to believe it, right?

He was okay. He was safe. Everything was great. He was happy. 

But then again science wasn’t always right. After all Janus had practiced a smile in the mirror for seventeen years and told everyone who would listen how happy he was and that had turned out to be a huge fucking lie.

Virgil grabbed the handle of the door and eased it open. He never quite got used to the near silentness of the ship’s doors. The Fighting Rings had been loud all the time: the metal doors clanged and rattled when they shut or swung open and the Welsors who kept them in line were a fan of taking their metal batons to the bars as they walked by and watching their participants cower back from them. The arena gates were heavy and controlled by chains that rumbled and clanged when they moved. When they shut it was with a finality of a judge’s hammer and Virgil never stopped feeling like he was never going to see the other side of the stone walls again. 

Compared to that, the soft slide of his door was unbelievably quiet. It was just another reason, another symbol, another example of how he was here and not there and he was alright and okay and happy.

And his nightmare hadn’t been real.

The lights were dim and red, a setting that appealed to Erefrens like Roman more than Virgil, but at least it wasn’t blinding. The air was warmer here than in his room; Virgil breathed it in as he moved out of his room with unperceptive footsteps.

He was okay. They were okay.

Janus was alive and breathing and fine.

Virgil’s feet took him in that direction anyway.

Roman’s ship had always been made for more than just the four of them. Per Erefren customs they usually had… packs? Logan called it a different word but their game of charades hadn’t been as fruitful as others. It wasn’t like families because it didn’t have to be by blood, or acquaintances because they were closer than that, or teams because it wasn’t a competition-- Virgil had given up back then in a fit of frustration that came from trying to learn Common for too many hours straight. And then he had never gone back to try again. He did know that Roman considered Logan and Patton part of his “pack” and maybe Virgil too, but there was a ritual ceremony that was required and Virgil hadn’t undergone it yet for one reason or another.

The Mindscape, Roman’s beloved ship and their home, was meant to be run by an entire Erefren pack, so maybe seven aliens with bones plates and long weaponizable tails.

The extra rooms on the ship had previously been used for storage if they were used at all. Virgil felt a little bad about how he had clung to Janus when they got him and Remus back on their ship which had forced Logan and Patton to clean two rooms for their guests while Roman piloted them to the next star system and out of danger.

Virgil knew the ship like the back of his hand. Inside and out and every nook and cranny. He knew the halls like his own veins, the rooms like his own limbs. He could navigate his way through it with his eyes closed. When Logan was first teaching him to speak Common, he had called the ship "home" and Virgil had thought that was fair, that was nice, that was the most accurate name for the place they all lived and loved.

He knew all the crawl spaces on it, the hidey-holes, the moveable wall panels. He knew the layout of the floor map, that while impractical made sense with the way Roman’s personality was. He had memories stacked on top of memories of each room that grounded into him as he ran his fingers over the walls: this was where he had yawned in front of Roman and Roman had almost skewered him with his light sword, this is where Patton had first dropped down from the rafters on Virgil’s shoulders in a surprise hug and scared the living daylights out of him, this was where Virgil had found Logan stumbling around so sleep deprived he couldn’t find his own room, this was where Virgil first realized that they were serious when they said they wouldn’t force him to go back to Earth. This was where the space pirates Remus had sent after them had caught Patton and nearly killed him. This was where Roman and Virgil had wordlessly teamed up and obliterated said space pirates and Logan had to talk Virgil out of the resulting panic attack while trying to stop the blood flow from Patton’s unconscious body. 

This was where Roman first explained who the hell Remus was: his crazy, insane sibling who thought that killing each other was a fun entertainment when they were bored.

Virgil slunk down the hall like a shadow, almost quieter than one, too. Janus’s door was in the middle of the hall, nondescript, and plain. Virgil bit his lip looking at it. His hand trailed over the polyfurnish: smooth and sleek and only penetrable by one of Roman’s lazer light swords or a blaster set on high and the marks of both weapons would have been obvious on it, unmissable, unmistakable.

The door wasn’t locked, though. Part of Virgil wondered if that was a leftover habit: something Janus got from leaving his window unlocked every night while waiting for Virgil to steal his way into the house that never would have welcomed him otherwise. The other part of him was chanting about how stupid that was, how insane it was, how self destructive it was. Didn’t he know he couldn’t trust anything in Space not to try and kill him simply because he was a Deathworlder and aliens had been taught to kill first and ask questions never?

But Janus’s door was unlocked and Virgil swallowed the apprehension in his throat and let his stomach acids dissolve it. It was just a peek-- something to get his heartbeat to slow down and to make his blood soften and help his brain shut up. Even in the darkness, in the pale red light brought in from the hall, Virgil could make out Janus’s lumpy form on the bed, curled up in the smallest ball he can make and snoring softly.

At least that about him hadn’t changed. 

Virgil watched Janus’s chest rise and fall several even times, counting the infinities between each breath like he was seventeen still and they were lying on Janus’s huge ass bed and he was still trying to find a name for the feeling in his gut. He felt a bit like he slipped back in time, like if he pinched the inside of his wrist he’d wake up from this dream and they’d be back on Earth and the past two years would have been nothing but the most horrid nightmare Virgil’s brain could whip up, like if he reached out and gently brushed against Janus, he’d wake up, and he’d know exactly what to do to help Virgil forget about aliens and Space and blood under his nails and---

And then he remembered that watching people sleep was generally frowned upon, regardless of if they were... whatever they were. Virgil closed the door as quickly and quietly as he could and turned around facing the hall, forcing himself to breathe, and then to breathe again, and he didn’t dare close his eyes.

Janus was alive. He was okay.

Virgil was not, but did that really matter?

He clenched his fingers into fists and opened them again several times, and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. It was only a few feet taller than him, slated with polyfurnish grates that Patton liked to dance along when he was rushing around the ship or climb into when he was having a bad day. He half expected to see the bug eyes of the Reytin sleepily peeking down at him, summoned by his barely concealed negative emotions-- and was incredibly grateful that he didn't. Both because he didn’t want to have to even try to explain what he was doing up and wondering or why he was feeling so bad right now, and because if Patton was there Virgil knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back a terrified scream which no doubt would wake everyo--

CLA-THUNK! 

Before Virgil could even think, his body was launching itself against the doorway to Janus’s room like he could hide his entire body from someone being in the hall. The noise echoed through the interior of the ship, ringing and echoing and it almost drowned out the screech of Virgil’s mind: it was the unmistakable sound of someone dropping something on the floor. 

Something heavy, something decently big: Virgil’s brain immediately screamed that it was a body bag, a corpse, one of his friends being abducted from their rooms by a shadow ambush and he had to do something now or he was never going to see Logan/Roman/Patton/Janus again--

His breath stilled in his stone lungs, holding for a long quisannu, two, three, four, until his vision danced with spots and his knees threatened to send him down to the ground again. There was no other noise, which was more terrifying to him than anything else: no lithe footsteps that belong to Patton sneaking a late night cookie, no slithery sound of Roman’s tail slipping down the hall after him on the way to an impromptu coordinate check, so ch-tchkk of Logan’s crystalline body working the joints when he paced while doing some free reading at the late hour.

Virgil’s back pressed against the door pushing it as delicately as he could because the last thing he wanted was Janus waking up and opening the door just to have Virgil tumble back into him and then have to explain why he was pale and shaky and creeping around in the middle of the night like someone who was hiding something and keeping secrets and generally being a terrible whatever-they-were.

His heart hammered in his chest, jumping up to his throat and pounding in his ears. His brain whirled through a million different scenarios, different explanations, different excuses and all of them made his stomach attempt to revolt. Nausea welded up in his senses, burning until he was sure that his mouth was pooling with blood and there was Dust under his nails and if he opened his eyes again he’d see the fighting arena that he was beginning to think he never actually escaped.

The hall was empty.

Virgil breathed out a sigh, an exhale that was barely audible to his own ears. His heartbeat stuttered and slowed and limbs unfroze like fast melting glaciers. He pressed his shaky hands to his chest, holding them there.

It was his imagination. His brain made it up.

There was nothing out there and no one was awake other than him. And Virgil shouldn’t even be awake!

He was being paranoid. He was jumpy and nervous and a mess because of one nightmare and a little bit of guilt over some words that Virgil wasn’t sure how to put into the air yet. (It probably needed to be like a bandaid, right? Virgil should just rip it off and Janus would understand because that’s what Janus did best.) Virgil was freaking out over nothing at all and needed to chill. 

He was fine. It wasn’t real.

But then his eyes followed the dull floor lights to the junction at the left and he swore that a shadow passed in front of one, just for a minsannu, just for a blink. So quick Virgil would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking.

 And the fragile reality that Virgil built around himself practically collapsed on itself. His fingers dug into the wall, a lump in his throat made it hard to breathe again. 

There was someone awake and they weren’t Virgil and Virgil was not ready to admit that he was having nightmares like a child.

Which meant that he should sprint back down the halls back to his room before that someone found him here and he had to explain that he’s so pitiful that now his skin itched in a way he couldn’t get rid of and there was blood and dirt under his nails that no one else could see. It meant that Virgil should hide himself away and stare at his plants until the phisannu became reasonable, maybe even go back to sleep if he could convince his brain that no one was going to die in the safety of the ship right now.

It meant that Virgil shouldn’t creep out to the middle of the hall and stalk his way after the shadow. Whoever it was, was probably someone who also had a nightmare and likely they wouldn’t want company, considering they had done a great job of going unnoticed thus far. 

Goosebumps rose up all along his arms and his legs and pretty much anywhere he could get goosebumps. For a minsannu, it felt like he was in a well rendered horror video game, stumbling blindly into the jaws of an unknown horror that would devour him in a way that would splatter blood all across the walls. Virgil bit his lip so hard he tasted dust. By the time he made it to the junction he saw the shadow pass over, whoever it was had passed down another hall. Although there wasn’t much light, the movements were fluid and quiet: so very different from even Patton’s most subdued frog like hops. 

Virgil darted after it again.

Maybe it was Roman, although Roman didn’t tend to leave his room when he was upset; he spent so little time in his room as compared to everywhere else, it made sense to stay there when he wasn’t feeling 100%. Or it could have been Logan, whose calmness could only be broken by a particularly bad spiral of thoughts and he would seek out the observation deck.

But if that was the case why was he heading for the Transport room?

Virgil stuttered in his step at the realization, freezing all the way down to his fragile bones. Janus was in his room. Patton didn't move like that. Roman and Logan had no reason to skulk their way to the Transport room in the middle of the night.

But Virgil, ever the idiot, had forgotten one tiny, itty bitty detail about this ship: there were six people on it. 

Six people, because Remus was on the ship as well. 

The same Remus who had a longstanding habit of trying to kill Roman and his friends, which now included Logan, Patton, and Virgil. The same Remus who had put together an ambush not too long ago that nearly got Patton stabbed through both his hearts and his eyes, the same Remus who delighted in bloodshed so much that he had been grinning all those weeks ago when he had sent the SOS to Roman for help. The same Remus who Virgil hadn't seen more than a glimpse of the entire time because he hadn't stayed in the medical bay for more than five minutes and had since been causing trouble for Roman everywhere else in the ship. 

The same Remus who Virgil had an extremely hard time believing was wandering around in the night for any benevolent reason.

What was in the Transport room? Virgil bit on his lip as he walked forward, light on his toes and making barely a sound. There were the transport watches that Logan treated with utmost care. A few escape pods for emergencies on that point of the ship. The computer interface that was linked to the bridge so that the coordinates of the ship could be shared free--

Wait.

Virgil sucked in a breath, trying not to curse out loud. The last thing he wanted to do was tell Remus he was there. Virgil's not an idiot--or at least not an idiot about this. Remus was dangerous and chaotic and cared about less than nothing. Roman said once that Remus wasn't happy unless he was covered in blood and that it didn't matter whose blood it was.

In a fight, there was no way that Virgil could take on Remus by himself. Erefrens were raised in a war based society that prided themselves on fighting techniques. If Remus was anything like Roman he'd always have a one up on Virgil, regardless of his deathworlder status and flight-or-flight instincts.

And Remus likes to fight dirty, messy, cruelly. From what Roman said.

In a Transport room late at night? With no one to supervise him?

The number of things he could be doing outnumbered the stars in all the galaxies, and Virgil was decently sure he wasn't exaggerating this time. If Remus was hanging out in the Transport room he'd know their coordinates and directions and it would be incredibly easy for him to contact any number of upsetting individuals to intercept them: pirates, mercenaries, species collectors that were never satisfied, serial killers with a taste for something new, government officials who would declare Virgil and Janus too dangerous to live or worse, send them back to Earth. 

Virgil moved slowly, dreading every step as he crept closer to the Transport room. He hugged the wall as he moved, carefully keeping his ears open for literally any noise that might give him a warning to what might be coming.

At first glance the Transport room door was closed. If Virgil had been walking around mostly sleep deprived and not on the lookout for anything out of place he wouldn’t have even noticed it. But there was a slim crack where it was open. Just enough for Virgil’s slim fingers to fit through it, just enough for Erefren claws, just enough for it to look closed and for it to be opened silently. 

There was no noise coming from inside: no soft voices, no evil laughter that Virgil had always imagined Remus liked to do. There wasn’t even the hum of the computer mainframe running, or footsteps that said someone was walking around.

Just a peek, Virgil told himself. To prove that Remus really was awake and had gone in there. To make sure that his family was safe. To show himself he wasn’t crazy.

He took another breath and slid the door open another inch.

The room was empty. Virgil hovered just to the right of the crack for a quisannu, with his heart beating in his throat. His eyes darted around the soft red lit room, and he tried his best not to think of all the horror movies where the crewmate that walked into the room alone died a horrible gruesome death and the flesh eating alien devoured his corpse. Air was silent and unmoving he watched the deepened maroon shadows for a sign that something was in them, something watching him, something biding time, something just a few breaths from fixing all of Virgil’s issues with a clean swipe of a bone plate across his throat.

It was…actually empty?

Virgil wedged his fingers in the crack more and slid the door all the way to the right, wincing when it rumbled slightly. In the thunderous quiet of the night, it sounded like a scream to his brain, and Virgil grit his teeth and rubbed the blood on his hand on his thigh because it wasn’t real and he needed to get a grip.

Virgil took a cautious step into the room, carefully keeping his feet light and the sound imaginary. He knew someone came in here, right? He didn’t just imagine the shadows skulking down the hall and disappearing in here, didn’t just misremember this door being usually closed, didn’t lose his mind while standing outside the door of his-- of Janus’s room. 

He, himself, hadn’t been in here since they had gotten back from the Pol’tur ship, bleeding and overwhelmed with emotions beyond the human capabilities of actually feeling them. The console that Logan usually manned hummed with low level power, still in stand-by mode until they needed it again, their watches were in their charging pads, the closet of their armored clothes was closed. The emergency escape pods were still locked in place. 

There was no sign of what could have made the noise, no sign of anyone having come in here, no sign of anything out of place. Virgil blew out a breath from his mouth, untensing his shoulders. There was nothing in here, certainly nothing that shouldn’t be there. 

He was just on edge from his nightmare. Seeing things. Letting his paranoid thoughts take over and drive him to acting impulsively.

Yeah. That.

But other than that he was fine!

Everything was fine. 

Virgil rocked on his heels, and wiped his sweating, clammy hands on his thighs. He gave the room one more look and then turned around because it was far too late to be up and his heart was still beating too loud and if he hung around here for much longer he was going to lose his min---

Wait.

Virgil froze and swiveled back on his heel towards the corner where they kept some various travel bags-- to go bags for if they needed to abandon ship, raid bags for when they needed to teleport onto other ships and take back something that was stolen, day bags for when they landed on a planet and needed to go get supplies. 

Virgil had been the one to suggest the ready made bags. He was the one who put them together and set them up and organized them-- it had given him something productive to do before he could articulate in Common to the others that he had hobbies. Logan had helped him, in the beginning, when Virgil was unfamiliar with a Skrad healing pad and how it worked, or with the ration packs, or what the hell a griot looked like. 

Virgil had made and maintained all the bags.

So why was there an extra one there?

Virgil took a tentative step towards it, then another, and another until he was right beside the extra bag. It wasn’t anything super fancy. In fact, it looked like one of Roman’s older bags. Lost and forgotten in the mess that was the Erefren’s room.

((Virgil had found, funnily enough, that Roman collected bags almost as much as swords. He had a bag for every occasion, bedazzled and personalized and made to fit around his bone plates while keeping up with the latest fashion trends from every solar system they visited. When Logan had explained that Virgil was attempting to put together prepared travel bags he had been hesitant, but then had gotten excited to show off his amazing collection. Virgil had never seen so many bags before in his life-- and that included the time Janus shoved him into his mother’s walk in closet to hide him for a minsannu when they were stealing blue grey towels to dry themselves off after an impromptu late night swimming lesson.))

The bag itself was worn and a deep blue, like a gym duffle bag but made out of some fabric that felt to Virgil’s fingers like a heavy flannel. It was filled, nearly bulging and the awkward shape of it had made the shadow that caught Virgil’s eye in the first place. He cautiously kicked it with his foot, skidding back a step in case whatever was inside it was actually alive and going to eat him and oh god that would be the worst way to go-- he could see it already, the lumpy creature being some type of Sblorp and it would sink its crosshair fangs directly into Virgil’s throat, cutting off a scream before it could get out and his blood would splatter all over the walls, the floor the ceiling and the last thing he’d see before he died would be the creepy eyes of it staring down at him, not a hint of remorse and it would probably be fitting because that was how six other aliens had died under Virgil’s shaky han--

The bag did not move. Virgil reached up his left hand and rubbed his neck, trying to get rid of the phantom feeling of blood and pain and didn’t actually exist because he was fine and it wasn’t real.

He took another breath and he was mostly certain the copper taste on his tongue was only in his head.

“I’m going to regret this,” Virgil said, as softly as he could.

And then he snuck back to the bag and knelt down beside it. He took another breath and then he grabbed the zipper and yanked it back.

The bag had… a lot of things. Virgil frowned as he took a mental inventory and shifted through the items with careful hands. He thought he vaguely recognized the stuff in it from around the ship: an interspace nook that they normally kept in the Comms room, a pocket light knife that must have wandered away from Roman’s collection, rations from the kitchen that probably wouldn’t be missed on account of how old they were, one of the throw blankets from the common area that Virgil actually had noticed was missing but thought Patton had just taken it to be cleaned again, a bottle of some alien drink that Virgil had seen stuffed away in the back of Logan’s lab which Virgil had never seen him actually drink from and had never asked what it was. There were clothes, too, although in the darkness Virgil couldn’t make out if they Roman’s or Logan’s or his own. 

It was… Virgil sat back on his haunches for a moment. 

Oh. He knew what this was.

He’d had one before. 

It wasn’t an emergency bag like he thought. It was a Go bag. As in “escape and never look back” bag, as in “I don’t feel safe here” bag, as in “you won’t notice I’ve stolen anything until I’m gone and by then you’ll never find me again” bag.

Which meant that Virgil needed to go now because he really didn’t want to know what would happen if he got caught all by himself in the middle of the night, in an area of the ship that no one ever comes to unless necessary and poking at a bag he most likely shouldn’t know exists because people who have this type of bag tended to--

And just as he had the thought, something heavy and powerful wrapped around his throat and dragged him up into the air. Virgil’s mouth opened for a scream, but there was a quick jab to his gut and all the air in his lungs escaped and left him frantically gasping. His feet swung violently in the void but there was nothing to kick against and his fingers clawed at the tail squeezing around his windpipe but the leathery skin was thicker than his nails and the jagged bone plates threatened to break skin along with his neck and fix that breathing problem he had permanently. 

"Oh?" said an all-too-calm voice from above him, hiding in the fucking rafters like a Reytin.

Virgil gasped desperately for air, as black dots danced in his vision, panic stealing all rational thought from him. His lungs screamed almost as loudly as his brain was: pleading and crying and screeching for help that wasn't going to come because he was the idiot that didn't bother to wake any of the others. "Wait! P-please!”

The tail around his neck felt like a noose, tightening and he wasn’t sure if his neck was going to be able to remain unbroken for much longer against the gravity of the ship. 

“Re...mus!” Virgil begged.

Remus Prince, the Erefren who was responsible for setting several ambushes on them, for sending space pirates to nearly kill them, for stealing and pillaging and murdering most of the way through this galaxy and the next, just smiled down at him from where he was lounging completely unconcerned. "Why, hello there! The other Deathworlder! I've been meaning to get you all alone!"

His grin was filled with sharp teeth and Virgil kicked his feet harder for something, anything that would give him purchase.

“Now,” Remus continued. “Why don’t we have a nice, friendly chat!”