the-pastel-peach:

What Once Was, and What Now Is

hey so, like, i haven’t written fanfiction in forever but i was so inspired by everyone’s fics based on my animatic, so i decided to throw my own thoughts into the broil! sorry if it aint the best, seriously this thing tried to go in like, seven different directions. anyway, enjoy!

Virgil lands with a huff, groaning around the air rushing into his lungs to replace the breath just knocked out of them. His backside hurts from the impact and he can already feel bruises forming on his pale skin where he wasn’t quick enough to deflect the blows.

Sensing movement in front of him he cracks open his eyes, having previously squeezed them shut in anticipation for the fall. A sword glints just below his chin, the sharp tip inches from his throat, and he follows the blade up to glare at the one wielding it.

Roman smirks back, his normally impeccable chestnut hair and uniform awry. His chest heaves with exhaustion, a thin layer of sweat gleaming on his forehead, but his warm brown eyes are alight with mischief and amusement. Said amusement boils into chuckles as he lowers his sword, replacing it instead with an olive branch in the form of an offered hand.

“If it makes you feel better Ol’ Fearful, you almost posed a challenge this time around.”

Virgil scoffs bitterly, but allows the knight to pull him to his feet, “What an achievement, a knight beating a simple messenger boy. You must be so proud of yourself, Sir-Sucks-A-Lot.”

Roman just laughs louder at the venom dripping from his words, knowing full well there’s no actual heat behind them. Virgil busies himself with dusting the dirt from his clothes and retrieving his own sword- a duller practice sword that pales in comparison to Roman’s intricately crafted one- to hide the flush that usually comes to his cheeks upon hearing the knight’s laugh.

“Come now Virgil,” Roman says, sheathing his sword and approaching the other man with a hearty clap on the back, “to still think of yourself as a lowly messenger boy after all this time would be an insult to my excellent tutelage!”

Virgil allows himself a moment to soak in the physical contact before shrugging him off with a huff and an exaggerated eye roll, “You praise yourself as if you’re actually training me to be an knight. Sorry to burst your bubble Princey, but I’m no one’s squire, let alone yours. Remember, we agreed you’d teach me the bare minimum on how to defend myself, nothing more.”

He notices the way Roman usually preens at that particular nickname, but doesn’t comment on it as the knight quickly barrels the conversation forward, “Well of course I know you’re not an actual knight-in-training, but if you’d only apply yourself more I’m positive that would be a possibility for the future!”

Virgil’s catches the laugh in his throat, disguising it as another scoff, “Thanks, but I think I’ll save the heroics for the more-” he gives Roman a pointed look “brashful and annoying.”

“I’ll have you eating those words soon enough, my Dark and Stormy Knight!” Roman proclaims with his usual dramatic flare, drawing his sword again with a flourish and a set grin.

Virgil groans, but drops down into a defensive stance regardless. He’d really rather not go for another- what was it at this point? Forth? Fifth?- round, but he finds he has trouble saying no to the fanciful knight when he looks so eager and happy to just be around Virgil.

So when he rushes forward with a louder than necessary battle cry, Virgil just grins and raises his sword to prepare for the oncoming blow.

There’s a loud metallic echo of steel on steel followed quickly by the sounds of a sword scraping along tile. Virgil barely has the time to register his weapon being knocked from his hands before he’s being kicked to the ground, landing on his back with a sharp cry of pain.

He struggles to push himself up on his hands, his entire body aches and the blood dripping from the cut above his eye causes the cracked floor to blur below him. Or maybe it’s the pain in his broken ribs that’s causing his head to spin, it would certainly explain why it’s suddenly extremely difficult to breath.

Regardless of the cause, he does manage to sort through his scrambled thoughts enough to hear the click click click of heels on tile growing closer. He keeps his head bowed, still unable to look him in the eye, even after having spent what seemed like hours getting his ass kicked by him.

He chuckles above him, a dark and twisted sound that causes Virgil’s stomach to tie itself into knots for entirely different reasons then it used to. Virgil fights the urge to curl in on himself, partly because he doesn’t want to appear weak(or, well weaker) and partly cause he’s not sure he even can without passing out from the pain of moving.

He, however, sees through him and tsks almost in disappointment, “Giving up already, Virgil? I can’t say I’m surprised, you never were very good at sparring, despite my best efforts to teach you. It would seem even I can’t fix every failure.”

The words cut deep, deeper than any wound he’s been inflicted on this battlefield, and Virgil silently curses the burning behind his eyes. Virgil hadn’t ever realized how much the truth could truly hurt. In the end Virgil had failed. Failed to lead the people when they truly needed him, as evident by the cries of pain, for help, he can hear even from inside the deserted castle foyer. Failed to protect his friends, his king. He can almost see them now, Logan and Patton clinging desperately to each other as they navigate a crumbling palace in search for their monarch and friend.

Worst of all, as he finally looks up into the eyes of the man looming over him, he realizes he’s failed the one he loves the most.

Roman, his Roman with the perfect chestnut hair and white uniform and warm brown eyes, does not stare back. Instead it’s a creature who bares his face, which is covered in dirt and blood, and speaks in a broken, twisted version of his voice.

His usual white knightly attire has been replaced with a more regal uniform composed of blacks and greys, now coated in a thick layer of dust and ash. The scarf still secured around Virgil’s neck suddenly weighs ten times heavier.

A flower crown rests uptop his head, the petals of each rose a dark, consuming black. Thick thorns dig into into his scalp, thin dark veins branching out across his skin from the point of contact. Virgil notes that they seem longer and thicker than when he first saw them.

Apparently tired of his appraising, Roman raises the tip of his sword under Virgil’s chin -the cool metal causing him to flinch- and tilts his head up to finally meet his eyes, the one place Virgil was trying his best to avoid.

To starve off the inevitable, Virgil squeezes his eyes firmly shut and can practically feel Roman’s frustrated growl in his own chest, “Look at me Virgil.”

He refuses and for his disobedience is rewarded with a thin slit to the underside of his jaw as Roman slides the edge of his weapon along his skin, “Look at me, look at your king.”

Shaking and fearful of the sword inching dangerously closer to his throat, Virgil obeys. The tears he’s been trying so desperately to keep at bay rush down his cheeks, leaving tracks in the grime, as he looks into glowing yellow eyes. There’s nothing behind them, no warmth or chivalry or dumb pet names, and Virgil sobs.

The cold of the sword disappears, quickly being replaced by equally cold fingers as Roman kneels down to coo softly at him, those empty yellow eyes now unbearably close, “Now now my precious pet, there’s no need for that. I do so hate seeing you in pain.”

His fingers tighten into a vice like grip around his bruised cheek and Virgil screams at the white hot flash of pain that shoots through him. Roman laughs over his whimpers, wrenching his hand away and wiping it on his shirt as he stands back up with a flourish that, in any other situation, would have Virgil fondly rolling his eyes.

Now he just keeps his head bowed, defeated and completely broken. He had already failed, whatever came next he would deserve.

He hears as Roman drags his sword across the floor, feels rather than sees him settles the blade against the back of his neck briefly before raising it above his head, recognizes the sounds of it cutting through the air.

Virgil just closes his eyes and braces for the oncoming blow.