#file under: wants: virgil

[knotfodder]

name: Virgil Thrall-Thane nicknames: Vi, V dob. age: November 13 (37) gender: Male pronouns: (he/him/his) secondary gender: Omega occupation: mechanic species: werefox fc: Chris Evans

+obscene, flirty, himbo.+ -obscene, pessimist, self-centered.-

[wingedshadowfan]

Darlington’s fate is highkey terrible… he’s half demon and leashed to a girl forever. Maybe deep down he wants that in a kinky way but 💀

for real, darlington is such a tragic character.

searching for the arcane ever since he was a kid, training for something more that he can't even see, the parents who literally didn't want to parent him and tried to freeze him out of black elm, the conservative and kinda abusive grandpa who turned sick and paranoid and asked an underage danny to mercy kill him (and he did it), living by himself and scraping by until he made the hiram elixir without any knowledge of or guidance by the societies and was found passed out hours later by a mailman on the stairs of the house he'd fought with his everything to keep.

sandow appears at his hospital bed, offers him the key to everything he's ever wanted, and danny becomes darlington. he becomes dante. then he becomes virgil. somewhere inbetween he embodies lethe. he'd been going through the dante applications when sandow called in and basically said, "hey, we went ahead and recruited someone who was born able to do what you've always wanted to do and almost died trying. here's her file."

and we know alex's history - that file is incredibly fucking concerning to say the least. and darlington tries, he really tries to make her feel at ease, to make everything easy and digestible for her, and what does he get? the aurelian ritual blows up in his face and he has to lie to defend the lethe delegation. he learns why and begins to understand alex, but he's still ill-equipped to deal with someone like her, someone who's been through so much. then the halloween party at manuscript, a complete shitshow of getting drugged, practically assaulting his dante under the influence, but also seeing himself as a knight in the mirror with a sword in his back, seeing alex as queen mab. understanding it and yet not knowing what it means throws him in for a loop. he starts to figure alex's mysterious past out, but even more than that, he incidentally starts to figure the nexuses out, and sandow can't afford him to. getting swallowed by the hellmouth while alex lets it happen is one thing, blaming himself for it all is another.

a whole year of rebuilding black elm in hell, torturing and getting tortured, and crying out to alex, because no one else can hear him (and who could know his soul?) and he's somehow connected to her of all people, the puzzles and the games, the murders, being spat out both man and monster . having killed his parents and trying to come to terms with not being able to not love them despite all they've done. now also being chained to alex for life in servitude, finding out his virgil didn't even like him, going back to hell with the intention to surrender himself, escaping but accidentally indirectly propping the door to hell open, his grandpa's gray still talking about legacy after everything he's sacrificed, finding said virgil's body in his car trunk. GOD.

this guy has never caught a damn break. he's 23. his future is already fucked up, he's a beast on a leash and a beast of a different kind seems to be holding the other end of it. and he doesn't mind, of course he doesn't: alex is his gentle ruler, his monstrous queen, a horrid girl who carried his soul out of hell. and now they're going to send back everything that slipped out. together.

[icepoptroll]

So I'm seeing some folks are interested in my nurse Karnak AU! I've been filling in on a lot of day shifts lately so I haven't had as much time to sit down and draw but here are some ideas I've had because yes I do intend to write this, I feel it would be too fun to pass up:

Penny is in really bad shape. Ricky, now very much attached to her, wants to see her but knows he's likely to get shooed away if seen entering her room. Mischa causes a big scene to create a distraction so Ricky can visit with Penny because Mischa is a total bro (Ricky resolves he'll just be super super careful)

I've been asked what the deal with Virgil is and quite honestly I'm not sure I'm imaginative enough to think of some role for him here that isn't pure unadulterated nonsense. However my experience as a nurse is that many of us can't stand our companies' charting software so like what if "Virgil" is the name of the hospital's documentation system. Noel hears Karnak mutter "you're killing me, Virgil" under his breath when his computer crashes yet again, goes completely apeshit and tells all the others. This incident is then recorded in the "this nurse is the robot genie looking guy from purgatory" evidence files

Karnak is giving me seasoned RN vibes like he freaking runs this place

Gotta research roller coaster injuries for this, unsure what exactly would have happened to everyone

Here's some fast and messy doodles to show I really am working on it lol (ACTUALLY quite proud of the Dinamap lol)

[tagsecretsanta]

From @coco9728

From @coco9728 to @pareidoliaonthemove

Secret

Virgil stood in his father’s… (Virgil mentally cursed himself) Scott’s! office.

It was a sort of foreign place…he felt like he knew the room like the back of his hand, yet at the same time it was a complete mystery. He didn’t know how Scott could spend so much time in here, he practically lives in here when not out on any missions. He himself could only count on one hand the number of times he’d been in here since…7 years now since Dad had gone missing. Virgil mentally shook himself to stop his mind from going down that dark tunnel of thoughts, again…

Why was he here again?...Oh yeah! Virgil walked behind the desk and opened several draws. Since Scott had badly cut his leg open on some debris from a flood when out on a mission two days ago and didn’t seek medical attention straight away…the flood water had gotten into the cut and caused a severe infection, taking the pilot down hard…So now, whilst Scott’s in the infirmary with both Alan and Gordon babysitting him just in case, though It would be a miracle if Scott had enough strength to sit up in bed, let along walk out the door.

John had sent him to Dad’s (arrrgh not again) Scott’s! office, to fetch some Tracy Industries paperwork needed for the next TI meeting this afternoon. He was thankful for John’s sacrifice in going into all these meetings in place of Scott. He definitely wouldn’t want to go.

Virgil sighed as he continued to rummage through the papers in the draws. Secretly, he was kind of glad that Scott had ended up in the infirmary. He desperately needs the rest after back-to-back missions all week and endless TI business to attend to. It seems that the only way he will ever let himself rest is if he’s forced to. A.k.a. the infected leg at the moment. Virgil muttered under his breath, ‘’Irresponsible brother, why can’t you see how not looking after yourself is not only affecting you, but everyone else as well!’’

Sighing and giving up on his search for now, Virgil took a seat in the office chair behind the desk. If Dad and Scott could find comfort in this chair then maybe he could too. Virgil lent back in the chair. ‘’Woah, Oof!’’ and accidentally tipped the chair backwards in the process, causing both him and the chair to end up on the floor… ‘’I guess the chair wasn’t designed for someone with broad shoulders like me.’’ He sighed.

From his new position on the floor, Virgil began to survey the room…it just seemed like too much effort to get up right at this moment…Everything in the room was neatly organized, not a single sheet of paper on the desk or book on the shelf was out of place. ‘’Wow, and I thought I was bad for being organized.’’ he mused.

He continued to survey the room, mentally counting the endless number of books, folders and papers that would be hiding in the many cabinets and shelves around the room. Though paper is a rare sight these days. Everything is usually stored digitally in holoprojector files. However, for important papers and documents about TI and IR, physical copies rather than digital are still safer with the number of hackers and AI around these days.

Sighing tiredly, he let his eyes roam around the room once more. He started tracing the textured lines of the wooden shelf, he always liked the look of oak wood…Then he noticed the amount of dust adorning each shelf. ‘’Damn.’’ Looking around the room all the furniture was dusty from this angle. Grandma would not be pleased. He really should bring a duster in here next time…

Suddenly, a small glint of light coming from somewhere under Scott’s desk in the middle of the room caught his eye. Getting up onto his hands and knees, Virgil crawled under the desk until he found what had caught his attention…On the underside of the desk in the far back corner was a small round silver button.

‘’That’s odd, I didn’t know that was there.’’ Virgil said in surprise. He thought for a minute…It must be IR related for a start because it’s hidden…but what for?...’’hmmm.’’ It probably just activates an emergency shut down procedure of some sort…though I really can’t think what for, we made it a rule that everyone knows and memorises where all emergency activation buttons, codes, switches, panels (the lot) are located around the island…so why don’t I know about this particular button if that’s the case…maybe it doesn’t do anything important…it must just activate something boring like a pop up cup holder on top of the desk…but then why hide the button under the desk where it’s hard to reach…

Thinking, what’s the worst that could happen. Eventually curiosity took the better of him and Virgil quickly pressed the button.

…

Nothing happened.

A beat of silence.

Another.

Then finally the button changed colour from silver to red. With tiny writing appearing on its surface saying, ‘Access Denied’. Then a couple of seconds later, it changed back to silver.

 ‘’Oh!’’ Virgil said in surprise. Why does the button have our standard IR recognition software?...It must do something fairly important then…but then, why didn’t anyone tell me about it?...and why don’t I have access…who does?...

‘’Ah Ha!’’ suddenly Virgil new what to do…

Crawling out from under the desk and standing up, he looked on top of the desk and found what he was looking for. The old holoprojector attached to the desktop. Now thinking of Parker’s old trick, Virgil reached into the desks top draw and pulled out the packet of gum he knew Scott liked to keep there. Opening the packet, he popped one into his mouth. ‘’Bleh!’’ It took all of Virgil’s self-control not to spit it back out again. ‘’Apple pie flavour, ewe!’’

Taking a minute to chew the gum he then popped it back out of his mouth and carefully proceeded to lift Scott’s fingerprints of the holoprojector by pressing the gum against its activation panel…However. What he didn’t account for, was to accidentally activate the projector. He only had a second’s warning to throw the gum back into the open draw before John appeared in front of him.

…

After a few moments of silence John was the first to talk. ‘’Are you alright Virgil?’’

Virgil brushed down his shirt to give himself a second to compose himself…A sudden remembrance as to why he was in the office in the first place. ‘’Ummm yep I’m fine, was just wondering where exactly the paperwork is in here, I uh can’t find it.’’

John rose a questioning eyebrow. ‘’It should be in the bottom right draw, that’s what Scott said earlier…’’

Virgil quickly bent down and opened said drawer to take a look. ‘’Ah yes, here it is…ummm thankyou John…’’ He put the papers on the desk.

John frowned at him but didn’t say anything. ‘’No problem…I’m down in the hangers now prepping Tracy Two for flight, I’ll see you down here in a minute.’’ And with that John cut the call.

‘’Few!’’ Virgil wiped the non-existent sweat of his forehead. ‘’That was close.’’ Then he paused…wait…why am I hiding this from John?...It’s just a small button...I could ask him what it does!...but then, does John know about it?...and If he does, then why hasn’t he told me about it?...

Wanting answers to his ever-growing list of questions. Virgil proceeded to grab the gum and got back down on his hands and knees before crawling under the desk once again. Placing the gum over his own finger with the copied fingerprinted side facing outwards. He then stretched his hand towards the button. Before pausing centimetres away…Why did he feel so stupid all of a sudden…Virgil outwardly laughed at himself. Here he was sitting under a desk, gum on his finger as he stared at a simple small button…It’s probably just some dumb prank Gordon had come up with…though it is clever Virgil would give him that…but then…Gordon hasn’t been in the office since…Actually, I can’t remember the last time Gordon had ever been in here…so…unlikely to be prank…but then…what is it doing here?…and why do I need to know what it does so badly?...

Then before he could think twice he had pressed the button.

…

To Virgil, the silence seemed to last a lifetime. Though in reality it was only seconds.

Then something happened.

It worked; the button lit up green before its entire cover flipped up to reveal a small silver control switch hidden underneath.

‘’Oh, come on!’’ he groaned…Now this is odd…Virgil stared at the switch suddenly fearful of its existence…First fingerprint recognition, then a protective cover for a hidden control switch…and don’t forget the fact that this is hidden on the underside of the desk…in the office of all places…What does this switch do to need so much protection?…It must be still active…I mean I got this far…Though that was using Scott’s fingerprints…And why does Scott have access using the fingerprint recognition, but I don’t?…But before Virgil could make another thought the holoprojector on top of the desk connected again.

‘’Virgil?’’

Oh no, it was John again.

‘’Virgil, where are you?’’

Virgil got out from under the desk and stood up to get back into viewing range of the holoprojector. ‘’Here John...just ummm…checking the desks legs…I thought one may be wobbly or something.’’ God he hated lying, and he knew he wasn’t good at it either.

John looked sceptical. ‘’Oooook…well I have to go within the next ten minutes so…can you bring me the papers now…I kind of need them.’’

Virgil mentally cursed himself, of course! How had he forgotten about John and his TI meeting in New York. That’s why he was in the office in the first place, to get the paperwork John needed. ‘’Yep, I’ll be right there bro.’’ And with that Virgil quickly cut the call. Ok so John was definitely going to have questions now. Quickly going about putting everything in the office back to the way it was before he came in. Virgil then grabbed the desired paperwork off the desk and raced out of the room to meet John. The hidden mystery under the desk completely forgotten.

[edutainer2022]

@janetm74, I did a little thing for this prompt:

"I'll come quietly. Just don't hurt them."

***

Scott didn't know about coding and cybersecurity nowhere nearly as much as John or Brains did (or Alan, for that matter), but he knew enough to understand John didn't know about these files. The folder miraculously slipped past Eos, John approved and Kayo vetted firewalls, and materialized on the desktop in his private study. He used it far less frequently than Dad's desk or even Dad's old office, but sometimes insomnia struck when his batteries were running low and going down to get some work done was too much effort.

That meant he couldn't really know how long the folder had been there, which made his insides run cold. What made his hands numb, to boot, were the latest photos in the unnamed folder - pictures of his brothers on the latest rescue. Up close and from a distance. The pictures were not scrambled by their tech. Another batch were from Alan’s recent school trip to Melbourne. From Virgil and Gordon's night on the town. Maybe most unnerving of all - from INSIDE Five and a training hangar on Gran Roca. 

Scott swallowed hard, though his throat went instantly dry, and clicked on the last file - a candid photo of himself in the Tracy Tower penthouse, tying a tie, smiling at a hologram off screen, likely talking to a brother before a day of meetings. The file was uncharacteristically heavy so, just as he suspected, there was a hidden attachment, riding on it. Several more files popped up. Realistically, he should have gotten Kayo and John on the case by then, middle of the night or not, but Scott was frozen in place by the sheer magnitude of morbid implications.

One of the files featured four DNA sequences, neatly labeled Virgil through Allie. Nothing more, nothing less. Scott's vision swam. The threat was as conspicuous as it was cruel - spanning anything from customized targeted neurotoxins or viruses, nanobots masked in a bloodstream, carrying explosives to heart or brain, to a smart bullet, programmed to follow the target DNA like a bloodhound.

Their family had access to almost unlimited research resources and brainpower to counter even something that sophisticated, but Scott wouldn't ever take a chance the assault on his brothers wouldn't have an instant lethal effect. Since his own DNA was not on the list of targets, Scott had a pretty good idea what could be in the next file. It wasn't a sum - of course it wouldn't be that easy. When was it ever! It wasn't even a list of Tracy Industries or IR tech they wanted specs for. It was an instruction he needed to follow on his way. The destination he'd receive upon confirmation of being... cooperative. Whoever they were - wanted him to show up in person.

The next file was a cloaked, heavily encrypted chatbot where Scott typed in his response. Kayo would have his head for going through with it, heavily backed up by John and Penelope, but he couldn't risk his... everything. The only life he would willingly ever give up was his own. He typed in a quick message.

The response, likely pregenerated and tracable, biped almost immediately. No sarcastic niceties or eery foreboding of the consequences of Scott sharing any details of this arrangement with anyone, least of all his family or the GDF. Just a geotag. Scott had to catch himself from slumping sideways on the edge of the desk, as his vision went black for a moment.

The next thing he did after getting his breathing under control and passably certain not to keel over in the middle of his bedroom, was a beeline to his walk-in closet, the palm print activated safe in the far nook of it. His fingers hovered briefly over the cold shape of the gun he kept there, but moved on. Weapons, comms and trackers would be the first things stripped off of him, before he'd be moved to a different location, no doubt. He reached for a secure, strictly offline tablet, stashed in the safe. It held his will - updated frequently to include the ever expanding assets and charities he personally oversaw, in his line of work and lifestyle he left little to chance. He wouldn't have his family go through the same legal hoops Dad's unforeseen demise put himself through. Joint guardianship documents for Alan and Gordon. Gordie was turning 20 in several months, but Allie was still firmly a minor in any jurisdiction, and Grandma wasn't getting any younger since they had to do it the first time around. The consensus, Scott knew nobody wanted to think about ever since the first draft of his will after IR went operational again, was to name Virgil as Alan’s next-in-line guardian. Virgil, his trusted SIC and deputy biggest brother  - Allie would be taken care of. They all would. Scott could see deep brown eyes darken with pain and betrayal in the shadows of the closet - Scott trusted Virgil with his life and with absolutely everything important in his life, but not with THIS. He couldn't.

The tablet also hosted security codes and off the books protocols for IR operations and the island. That was for John. Some of them Casey, Lord Hugh and Kyrano read him into, no other family members present, after the search for Dad had been called off. Some were on an encrypted thumb drive kept in an indefinitely rented deposit box in the bowels of a Swiss bank, with instructions from Dad to transfer to him exclusively or to destroy. The instructions were clearly devised to be put in action decades later than they were and it hurt like hell to touch that thought. Some of the directives not even John knew about by now. That was about to change, soon. If Scott knew his ginger brother, he could be sure at least Virgil or the Tinies would never know.

His whole being ached to make one last round of the villa and check up on his loved ones - he harbored no illusions of ever seeing them again. But he couldn't risk missing the window of John's sleep cycle and not slipping out at least somewhat undetected. Eos and Kayo's sensors would flag him leaving the island in a private jet, not One, but he knew enough to not raise alarm and cover his tracks with a bogus errand in Warsaw at one of TI recent acquisitions. That was as far as he could take the traceable jet. But with Brains' reinforced engines, hopefully, he'd touch down and be on his way, before his absence would be noticed around Gordon's morning swim. As late as breakfast on the island, if he were lucky and they thought he were working some issues out on a long run.

***

A ring of lights changed from default white to orange - something John had come to recognize as a perplexed frown. A hurricane he had been keeping tabs on shifted from yellow to red and the alert woke him up earlier than he estimated. But the hurricane wasn't the source of confusion for his protégé.

"What is it, Eos?"

"I'm detecting a discrepancy in Scott Tracy's schedule and itinerary. He hadn't been due at any of the Tracy Industries subsidiaries this week or the next."

It was John's turn to frown. Scott business meetings and engagements schedule was guarded with what John was sure his PA's life and strictly need to know with any on site security teams. Unbeknownst to Scott himself, since his recent loosing round with exhaustion, hypoglycemia and dehydration, about two thirds of the "matters that urgently required Mr. Tracy's attention", be it Tracy Industries or GDF, hell or high water, were rerouted through Five and screened first by John himself, then Virgil, Grandma or Kayo, depending on the occasion. An ad hoc meeting at a new, fairly minor, Eastern European subsidiary would certainly NEVER slip past the carefully erected firewall around their favorite overworked idiot. Yet the lit up line on the holomap clearly outlined the flight path of Tracy S - Scott's personal jet, almost as fast as Shadow, but rarely taken out for a spin these past years.

John moved to enhance the map and shuddered. He'd probably faint if he were not in zero G already - the destination dot flashed over an abandoned airfield in Poland, in the grey zone now, 5 miles of a forest track shy of the Bereznik border.

A red alert clackson blared over the still sleepy island...

TBC?

[perfectwitchcrown]

I've accidentally left this post sit in my drafts for awhile, so here is my meta (mostly) about File #71 (with some updated sections since I first wrote it). More under the cut.

CW: References to homophobia, references to suicide and suicidal ideation

I had suspected that Abbott Nicholas didn't think Dante was gay, and this file more or less confirmed my suspicion. I feel it is more likely that he really did say something cruel in the scene we've only seen snippets of where Vergilius left. Especially since he brings up the idea of "influence" in this file. As closeted as Dante was, all of the other children seemed to be aware that he was gay. Abbott Nicholas seems to have not broached the topic with Dante, largely because he doesn't believe Dante is gay. I wonder if Abbott Nicholas not addressing the rumors with Dante might have been in some way reassuring to a young Dante. I don't at all mean that he thought Abbott Nicholas was supportive of him being gay, because I think the extent to which he was trying to prove he was straight to him makes it clear he didn't. But Abbott Nicholas not broaching the subject and continuing to be perceived as favoring him might have allowed for a little bit of hope. Which is part of where my mind goes with Comedy 2's presentation of Dante and Vergilius's separation, where Dante just looks absolutely crushed while he's looking back at Abbott Nicholas. If Abbott Nicholas connected Dante's relationship to Vergilius as having some relationship to the rumors he'd heard from the children and said something, the limbo in which Dante doesn't have to let his sexuality impact his relationship with someone who was likely his parental figure would've been over. If Dante goes with Vergilius, then he would have to confirm he is gay and he would now be faced with evidence of that meaning rejection from his parental figure. If Abbott Nicholas identified Vergilius as the source of the rumors that Dante was gay, and Dante didn't go with Vergilius, then he can continue being the favored student of his parental figure, but with the knowledge that he's betrayed the one he loves and cannot ever reveal the truth without losing all of it.

This is mostly just complete speculation over Dante backstory though and motivations though. Ultimately, I don't know whether we even will get a concrete explanation of what exactly happened that day, or whether it'll always be kept vague. Frankly, I could see it going either way, but this is just where my mind goes to what might have happened.

I do want to also mention though how I did not notice at first that this separation occurred in the forest. The forest shows up a couple of times in the Inferno: the first is at the very beginning in Canto I, when Dante is lost, and the second is in Canto XIII, where Dante encounters "The Wood of the Self-Murderers," where those who have taken their own lives have turned into trees. Some scholars have connected similarities in some of the phrases of these two sections as indicating the depth of Dante's despair at the beginning of the poem. At the end of Canto I, after Dante has wandered lost in the woods and been chased by wild animals, Virgil appears and the Canto ends with Dante following behind Virgil: "Then he moved on, and I behind him followed" in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation, which is publicly available online. It feels significant then that MTEFIL's Dante came across Vergilius in the woods, was also offered an opportunity to follow behind him, and failed to do so. Vergilius naming himself that also then feels like a really cutting decision.

Back to the file, I'm also curious to see that we received more information about Dante's mentor/mentee relationship with Mother Rosa. I had assumed he hadn't started working with her until after these events, but I was completely incorrect. Abbott Nicholas blames her for Dante's attitude getting worse which is super fascinating. I'm really curious about what her relationship with him at this period looked like. I've mentioned in previous meta, but Dante has reused her advice she gave him in a way that suggests to me he genuinely respected her. That he repeats Mother Rosa's advice she gave to Priest after recognizing Priest's mentality as a result of Abbott Nicholas's influence suggests to me that he felt she helped him as well with some of the baggage Abbott Nicholas gave him. That it's so connected to the idea of sexuality also makes me wonder the extent to which she was aware that Dante was gay. I'm really hoping we get more of her, especially since we know she was the prior strongest exorcist. She was also the previous strongest exorcist pleaseee I wanna see more of her....

There's also the performance of heterosexuality. Ekuoto Dante's expression of internalized homophobia reminded me of some sections from real Dante's Vita Nuova. Idk how intentional this is, it could just be an interesting coincidence but I just thought I might share.

Towards the beginning of Dante's Vita Nuova, he writes about how on one occasion he was staring at Beatrice, who was near another woman. The other woman, and other people around them, thought he was staring at her, rather than Beatrice. He decides to make use of it:

"Therefore I was reassured, and knew that for that day my secret had not become manifest. Then immediately it came into my mind that I might make use of this lady as a screen to the truth: and so well did I play my part that the most of those who had hitherto watched and wondered at me, now imagined they had found me out."

Later on, he further decides to "screen" his love of Beatrice by doing this:

"I took the resolution to set down the name of this most gracious creature accompanied with many other women’s names, and especially with hers whom I spake of. And to this end I put together the names of sixty of the most beautiful ladies in that city where God had placed mine own lady"

So he masks his love for one woman by writing poetry about how beautiful sixty different women were. Why he does this, idk. There's a section not long after this that I personally find funny where Dante describes how this actually pisses Beatrice off because he's stringing along various women and she doesn't say hi to him when they come across each other so he sobs himself to sleep.

Anyways, back to MTEFIL. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but I really hope we see more of the in-between moments that caused Dante's personality to change so drastically. The period where I would argue he seems to have been the most emotionally stable and confident, the first chapter of the series, comes after Vergilius left sometime in either their late preteen or early teen years, and the subsequent death of Mother Rosa in 2011. How the hell did this guy bounce back so well from all of that, and then what possibly could've happened that was worse than both of those events to make him as more or less hopeless as he is now??

I'm also no where near the first person to say this, but I agree with the assessment that he might've reunited with Vergilius at some point prior to the first chapter, after their separation in childhood. I suspect there is a second break up we don't know about that really crushed him. Dante talks about love not being able to save people while thinking about Vergilius in one of his "my advice to Priest was shitty" monologues, which is so distinctly at odds with his thought process in the first chapter. I wonder if he tried to "save" Vergilius sometime in those seven years.

As always, if anyone has any different takes or feels I missed something, I'd love to hear what u think on it!

[idontknowreallywhy]

WIP Wednesday

Some John and Virgil pondering…

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

“But what has this to do with Scott?”

“One of the tenets of friendship EOS has clung to quite strongly is the desirableness of honesty. She considers Scott to be her friend and it is… bothering her… that she has information she thinks he should be aware of and isn’t providing it to him.”

“What information?”

“What do you think? The circumstances of Estera’s arrival and the aftermath. The fact she still can’t get past some of the redaction on her file.”

“Is she still trying? John! I thought we agreed to stop?”

“I agreed we wouldn’t look for more documents.”

Virgil huffed. “Way to loophole your way out of it, brother.”

John had the good grace to look a little guilty under his glare. Virgil suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired.

“Why?”

“Because… he likes her. You like her. Damnit… I like her and you know I was entirely prepared not to. She seems to be good for him and I do want him to have friends, Virgil. I’m not his floating probation officer trying to control his life from up here!”

“Right. So… WHY, John? Can’t we accept it for a stroke of good luck for once and let it be?”

“Because there’s something odd about it. I need to know why. If it’s going to blow up in his face I need to be ready.”

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

[sassenashsworld]

Nick stuck in his office

(mew?)

The List

It’s been a while. It’s been a long time since things have changed.

Things.

Nick leans on the back of his chair, gazing out in the void. He remembers when the first change occurred in his life. The first moment he felt something... abnormal. It was the very moment when the door to vault 114 opened, not on a thug but on a vault dweller. A vault dweller in a vault has something funny in itself in the situation he was in. Then he find that this very person, as they went out of their way to get his poor little synth ass out of his dead end, was also getting the Minutemen out of the dust of their oblivion.

They had come a long way. On the trail of Kellogg, Virgil... the Institute... And some detours along the way to help all the poor lost souls they encounter.

"Nick, did you finish with the Fyfe file?" suddenly asks his secretary, Ellie.

Nick quickly returns to the present, startled from his reverie.

“Uh, yeah..yeah.” He stands up from his chair and crosses the office to Ellie, placing some sheets of paper onto her desk. “Sorry for that; I wasn’t paying attention.”

"Obviously. But, eh, that's my job to keep you back on track. What do you think?"

“Yeah, yeah, I know...” Nick shakes his head and sighs, “Just thinkin’...” He glances at the file on Ellie’s desk. “...the Fyfes are a real piece of work, huh?”

“Yes.” She looks down at his notes. “They had what they were seeking—never listening to their son.”

“Damn fools for not listenin' to the damn kid,” Nick mutters under his breath, leaning against Ellie’s desk.

"But what a chance they fall on the Great Synth Detective and his assistant," she remarks, a thin smile on her face. “Where is Sole anyway?”

Nick tries to keep his voice unwavering.

“Sole’s gone to meet with Preston about something. Didn’t tell me much, but somethin’ about a missing persons case, I think?”

"And they didn't ask you to tag along?" Is surprise Ellie.

And Nick, as well. He was surprised that Sole didn't ask him. Sole always asks him since... since they first met and teamed up. Never seems to be a day since when Nick doesn't travel with Sole. Or Sole works with Nick.

Nick frowns, feeling a tinge of confusion and worry in his heart.

“Yeah… Guess they didn’t... thought... it's... odd.”

Usually, Sole always wants him to tag along if they���re going off on some sort of case, especially if it was a missing persons case. They’d always ask him to join them if that was the case. Why didn't they invite him this time?

“Maybe they wanted to just chat with the Garvey man alone...” Nick tries to offer as an explanation to Ellie’s words, but he can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right.

Why hadn’t Sole asked him to come along?

Nick tries to shake off the resentment that is trying to make room in his core. Or his processor. He still has difficulty locating his emotions in a... synthetic body... with a human mind.

One soul?

Sole seems adamant on the subject. Since they and Nick closed the case of Eddie Winter, Sole no longer lets Nick down talk himself. Nick can hardly use self-mockery without the General riding on their big horse about it.

Nick lets a small chuckle escape his lips as he thinks of the many times Sole had reprimanded him for speaking down upon himself. He can practically hear their voice scolding him, their hand on their hip, their eyebrow raised, disapproving of his cynical tongue.

Ellie raises an eyebrow at his chuckle.

"Some funny though?"

Nick shakes his head, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Just remembering some of the times I’ve been scolded by the Sole Survivor for my cynical tongue. Always gettin’ on my ass for my bad habits.”

"Just good they do," she answers, getting her attention back on the paper to classify. "At least, you listen to them."

Yes. Nick can't deny it. He listens to them. He is even surprising himself. He never really listens since... since he wakes up as a synth. How could a human relate to him? He even attempted to reason with Sole a few times, but his friend held a completely different perspective on the situation. Nick had really a hard time wrapping his mind around the stubbornness of Sole on this matter.

"I don't need to be a synth with the long-lost memory of a man to know you ARE your own man and a good one. And that you deserve all the better."

He closes his eyes and sighs; he can hear Sole’s voice in his mind, their words echoing around his programming.

“Damn stubborn bastard,” he mumbles quietly, but he has a small smile on his face as the memories of his friend and all the things they’ve done together flood his mind.

The case of Jack Cabot... The Institute... The Railroad... Nick and Sole had been through so much together; he’d grown so accustomed to their presence... He wondered if his friend was doing alright.

Ellie returns her gaze to him.

"You are worse than ever, you know? I am accustomed to your zone-out and your self-mumbling. But today, you really appear elsewhere. You sure are alright?"

Nick doesn’t answer for a few seconds, silently contemplating Ellie’s question. Was he alright? He couldn’t be sure of that for himself.

“Yeah, yeah… everything’s fine.  Just... ah... somethin’ on my mind,” he responds after a while, still remaining leaned against her desk.

His secretary frowns, but Nick shakes his head and returns to his own desk, looking in his drawer for a pack of cigarettes.

“It’s dinnertime. You should get something to eat,” he recommends to his secretary.

"Is there another elegant method to request solitude for your menacing thoughts?"

Nick grimace. He could not say that his thoughts are dark. Just... strange... almost nostalgic.

“Oh, shut up, I don’t need you fussin’ and prying into my thoughts,” Nick mutters, half jokingly.

He fishes a cigarette out of his pack, places it between his lips, and lights it. His eyes wander around the room, not focusing on or even really looking at anything in particular.

The young woman sighs and gets up.

“Need anything? A schedule with Arturo for a tune-up?”

Arturo no longer regularly performs Nick's tune-ups. Sole is so much a hell of an engineer. Arturo has made it, but Sole is just... a high class over.

Nick shakes his head, taking a long drag from his cigarette, letting the smoke billow from his mouth.

“No, no. I’m fine.”

His eyes wander back over to the door, as if expecting it to burst open and for his friend to stride in, a smile on their face. But there was no such thing. Nick tries not to feel disappointed. He had no reason to. He glances at the clock above the door. When would they be back?

Ellie finally leaves the office, letting Nick all alone. Why did the detective feel like that? What is he feeling exactly? When did it really have begun? He is really puzzled about himself just now.

Being alone with his thoughts was not a beneficial thing in the end. He couldn’t keep his mind from going over the times he and Sole have spent together; he couldn’t stop wondering why they hadn’t asked him to come along on their trip to the Commonwealth, and he kept worrying something terrible was going to happen to them.

Nick lets out a heavy, frustrated sigh. He’d probably just sit here worrying his ass off until they return.

Nick sighs again and takes a seat in his chair. He takes another drag from his cigarette; the smoke plumes out of his mouth.

He should be used to being alone. He’d been alone for the most of his existence, only really having Ellie and the occasional client to talk to.

He’d gotten used to having Sole around, though, he’d gotten so used to having them near and always around.

Damn it, why did he feel so worried and weird about them leaving?

The door opens again, and Nick doesn't even bother to look in it's direction at first.

“Forget somethin', Ellie?” He asks, taking another drag from his cigarette before finally looking up towards the door.

He quickly stops himself before his next sentence when he sees that it’s not Ellie who has returned.

“Sole...” Nick mutters, feeling slightly surprised and confused.

His coolant as his processor speed up slightly, which he tried to ignore. He didn’t understand why it did that, but it usually does in situations like this. He places his cigarette down.

“Nick, sorry. I know you should have worried, but I will explain you all,” they swiftly tell him with a smile.

Nick can’t help but smile back at them, their smile brightening his entire world. The strange anxiety, worry, and confusion he was feeling just a few minutes ago seems to melt away. His circuits warm up at the sight of his friend; his core is almost leaping, his fans drifting up faster and faster. Damn it, why did they always have this effect on him?

Why did they make him feel like this?

Nick clears his throat after a few seconds.

“Ah… welcome back. Thought you were Ellie for a minute, heh…”

He stands up from his chair and approaches them, stuffing his hands into his trench coat pockets.

And Sole is just eager to tell him all they’ve gone through, as always. And Nick is just eager to hear it all.

As Always.

And as Nick stands in front of them, he realizes just how much he’s missed them, how much he’s missed spending time with them and talking with them just like this.

Their smile, their laugh, their eyes...

Damn it. He missed them more than he liked to admit.

And as his friend brightly smiles up at him, Nick finally understands.

Everything falls into place.

All his questioning finds an answer.

As the smile of Sole warms up all his old, beaten-up circuits, Nick understands that the reason why he is so trouble lately is because Sole has finally given something to his synth life he never had before.

Nick is happy.

[clownboymcchucklefuck]

Virgil Evans Analysis

Analysis under the cut hehehe

Virgil is definitely one of my favorite yanderes just because of how deep his character is. Something about the mix of trauma and also just pure obsession and desperation go together perfectly. So first off, trauma and this man has been through some shit especially since his trauma is what makes him a yandere.

-Virgil’s Backstory:

First of all, a few days before Virgil’s tenth birthday he had an argument with his father who then had to go and visit his sister whose husband had passed away from another country and went on a plane. There was a malfunction during the flight which sadly killed Thomas. It’s pretty clear that this had a hard impact on Virgil and his childhood considering that he had to go to therapy due to his mom noticing that he coped by playing the games his father had bought him before he died in his alone time. 

In highschool he joined a track team and was the second fastest runner but then later quit since he figured that wasn't what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, his sister Sarah introduced him to theater and all this ends up showing a lot in his yandere behavior but right now we talking about traumatic backstory so shhhhhhh. He started a band with a few of his friends and it was going pretty well for him until one of his band mates started a rumor about him ‘sleeping around’ just because Virgil politely declined their love confession. Virgil got so mad that the bandmate couldn't handle the rejection that bro literally whooped their ass.

During college Virgil spent most of his time hanging out with his younger siblings and helping his mom with the house when she wasn't able to be home. He was doing very well mentally and was even considering getting himself back out there to start dating again. But one day as he sat in his house he started to question the state of his reality, That's when everything around him had started to glitch. Virgil could only watch and cry as he watched his family and everything he thought was home disintegrate and fade away in front of him. 

Leaving only him. All alone. 

-Virgil’s Yandere Behavior:

Oh dear.

Okay but as sweet and fluffy Virgil he is not one to fuck around with. I say this because I have literally asked so many questions, done so much research to say that escaping Virgil might as well be impossible. 

In that case that you do run away Virgil can 1, track you down using technology (Your phone plus other people's devices around you.) 2, will crossdress and mimic a woman's voice using his theatrical talents to gain your trust before revealing his identity and taking you back. Keep in mind that getting caught by Virgil after trying to escape also gets you the bye bye leg movement treatment where he puts you to sleep before paralyzing your legs. Also just running away period is difficult too, mf taking morning jogs and being the second faster runner in track is definitely catching my iron deficient ass.

Also you can’t hide anything from elf boy. I did send an ask because I saw some people trying to trick Virgil by revealing their plan in Spanish but since Spanish is one of the three languages Virgil speaks it didn't work. I tried the same thing but instead I used dutch. But surprise surprise even if you don't speak his languages they still go through his code and translate it for him. Also in Yoshi’s words, “he has your ip, your home address too, your government files say alot about you”. 

Virgil is always watching you. He watches everywhere you go. It doesn't matter if you're in his world or your world he can watch you. I innately thought that he could only do this through devices but no. Devices or not he always finds a way. He can also crawl through devices and you can’t stop him either. (Throw shit at him anyways though.) and this also means he can drag you back to his dimension too. 

Watches you sleep and steals your shit (Clothes) kjasnjkcnask-

He's a fae. That's a danger in itself. He can put curses and hexes on people if they have feelings for MC. But that's usually after he stalks your friend for any information to blackmail them about to get them away from MC. Same thing goes for if say a roommate is hurting MC then he’ll blackmail them to get them away from you but if they don't then he’s not afraid to take matters into his own hands. 

It is also impossible to get away from him by fighting. It’s been talked about a few times but Virgil was in alot of fights during highschool with different types of species so he definitely knows what he's doing when it comes to fighting. Virgil also doesn't feel normal pain like a human, throwback to when a ask stabbed him and he just casually said ow and pulled the knife out. He feels pain but nearly as much as a human does.

Now doing research for this theory and reading through all the WYS posts I found something and I'm shocked how much people forgot about it:

Even after death, he still knows who you are when you are a different identity.

-Overall Analysis: 

Virgil is very patient, calm and gentle with MC but at the same time he’s clearly not one to fuck with. If MC pushes the right buttons it can push him to curse MC and basically ruin their life. But that's extremely rare. He is a fae and despite being gentle and caring he can be dangerous. Whenever he paralyzes MC’s legs he doesn't know what he's done until it's already been done. A trait that is in Virgil whether it be yandere or OG he is always a caretaker, yandere Virgil however tends to have more twisted ways/delusional ways however. But at the same time he does prefer to take the more patient routes and kidnapping MC is a last resort.

Virgil is very family oriented, we can see that from his childhood, how he kept his dads necklace and how he treats his siblings. Virgil misses his family dearly and he’s clearly traumatized from the event. Something I find terrifying is that Virgil doesn't care if MC wants a relationship with him or just wants a roommate type of thing. He just doesn't want to be alone. Don’t leave him alone. You’re the only person that exists besides him. You can’t leave.

D̸͚͍̜̠͈̘͈͖̈̌̎͘Ǫ̶͕͓̻̝̺̺̗̩͉͠N̸̢̖̪͈̻̺̈́̋̓̎̅͠T̷̟̘̮̣͓̤̤͓̎̎̕ ̷̨̧̗̺̮͕̘̫͖̆͂̃͋͗̐̌͑͛́L̶̨̢̢͙̲̥̠̞͆̂̿͆̒̚͜E̷̡͔͖̞̤̮͚̬̰̐́͆̃̐̋̇̆̄̿͂́͜Ä̵̛͇̱̣̩͚̯̖̞̥̭́̽̓͗͊́̄̀ͅV̶͚́͊̓̀͘E̵̦̯͔͖̼͎͓̻̰͐̈́̐̕̕͠͝ ̸̘̤̥̳̆̅̆̃͋̏̔͠ͅH̴̼͖̉Ȉ̴͉̀̓͌͌̈̏̋͑̈́͘M̵̗̯̭͇̏͂̀̈́̿̽̄́͜ ̵̨͇̥̫͉̦̳̘̓͛̄̈́̎͒͘͜��ͅA̶̼̯̞̔̅́̐͝L̵̻̠͖̜̥̊̈́O̵̯̘͂͐̅̎́̇͋͒̕N̷̨̢̯̦̙̜̙͉͍̽̑͒͑͘͜Ę̴̹̣̼͔͍̰̱̝̭́̽́̇͂̏̾.̴̨̣͍̙͖̯͈̜̂̀̈́ ̵̡̱̩͇̹͔̠̩̲̏̄̉̀H̵̡̬̰͕̖̻͇̳̬̓̓Ė̵̞̿̚ ̷̢̢̺̜̥̮͖̝̝̫̺̪̆̔̆̊̅̍̒͋̈́͘͝͝H̵͓̰̓͗A̴͈͓̓͛͒̾͋̔̃̕͝͝T̶̨̳̩̲̫̹̫̻̖̅͗̂̆̿͑͜͠Ę̵̗̗̰͍͎͖̰͂͘Ṣ̶̰͕͉̫͍̞̩͙̫̈́̉̐̔̂͒̎ ̵̟̦̙̳͚̗̦͇̊͑̉̍ͅỊ̵̢̞͚̥͇̺͖͔̣̹̈̿̉̀T̸̗̆̈̂́̊̕͝ ̸̨̡̳̮̼̮̥̔̏̏̅̂̀͝͝ͅḦ̵̱̘̌̈́̐͑̽́̀͒͋͘͝E̸͉̋̽ͅŖ̶̞̭͉͙͈̙̹͒̃͋̀̍̎̀̋̑͜͠Ę̶̟̣̝̮̰̺̹̙̻̼̐̂̏̋̂͆̅͋͘.̶͍̤̠̹̙̖̜͓͂̅͂̽͝ ̵̖̫̣̹̻̖̭̑̀͌̔H̸̺͔̳̤̥̞̬̊E̴̢̺̹̻̗̱̞͚̬̱̐͑̏̅̈́̓̈́͘͜'̵̣̞͔̼̈́̓̏̄̽̈͒͛̒̀̕Š̸̢̧̩̥͉͔͎̩̮̦̽̀́́͊̀̑̀̓ ̵̨͓̜̑̀̎͗͗̑̈́̔Ś̷͔͈̖̳̦̖̝̫͕̩̑́͌̐̀̌̅̓̃̚͘O̵͚͉̞̽̿̚Ȓ̵̛̹͚̤̃͋́͛͗̾̒͗Ŕ̶̨͚͈̹͚̮͂͗͛͜͝Y̴̪͍̪̼͖͇̋͂̓́̃̄̈́͘ ̵̨̯̳̫͖̞̬̦̌̉̒̿̒̇̽̂̂̚͘͝Ì̵̡̝͔̠̭̊̅̀́͘T̷̲̜͕̩͛̃̀̈́̀͌̇͌͗͘ ̶͇̦̠͉̭͕̯̏̍͌͂H̶̘̰̙̖̠̜̅͂A̷̮̩̝͖̗̿̐̐́̇̂͠͝S̸̢̞̤͛̀̊ ̷̢̺̮̘͍̬̥͙̦̃̋̽̿͛̈̀̅̓͜T̶̡̺͕̟̻͉̞͂̓̈́̓̇ͅÓ̴̜̝̬͎̍̑ ̴̢̛̞̤̥̯̩͖̳̝͉̱̂́̑̀̔͒͊̕B̶̨̧̙̘̬͖̱̙̗͕͌͑͆͊̌͛̒̆̉̆̓̕Ȩ̴͖̥͆̕ ̴̦̗͉͚̱̟͖͎̀͊̃̃͜͝T̸̡͎͓̥̝̘͕̪͚̖͙͌̂͐̍͜H̴̻͓̫̘̬͎͓͎̾̏̉͌̔I̸̙̒S̸͖̩͙̺̩͍̖͔̠̘̎̊̓̎̍̒̎͐̍̌̔̄ ̷̨̡̪̖̖̼͙͙̭̣̳̔̈́̒́̿W̸̛͖̙̪͎̄̓͐͆̑̀̾̕̚̚Å̷̧̜͈Ỳ̸͎̫̃̃͌͝.̷̙͍͉̣̤̈́̂͆̇́ ̶͚̻̫̟̘̺̗̋̈́̌̉́͋͋͗̕͠Y̶̭̜̘̭͕͖̱̆̂̆̏͜͜Ò̸̡͍̖̲̮̬̻̗̊̂̽U̴̧͔̗͓̻̥͚͓̙̒͠'̴̢͎̝͍͕̪̈́Ṟ̴͓͝Ẽ̷̢̯̰̞̳͉̬̻̠̻͗́̈̋̃̆̓̅̏̆̄ ̴̻̃̿͗̃̾̏͘T̶̨͇̖̖̰͚̺̠̪͈̙̟͒̿͊̆͝Ḧ̴̹̝̘́͆È̴̱̤̬͉͛̋͗͛͒̈͝ ̴̢̠̖̺̘͓̲̻̹͎̆̄̇̓͗́̈́̒́̽͝͝O̵̙̫̼̼̜̠͖̾̓͛͆N̷̺̑̌̑̏̿̃̚L̸̨̻̞͓͑̌͠Ÿ̷̘̰̮̹͇̗̺́̎̌ͅ ̸̹͈̟͕̹̣͛͋̕ͅƠ̶̛̛̰̙̪̝̠̦̫̑̈́̑͛͑́͜Ņ̸̢͈��̤̲̠̣͍̻͓̂̅̎̓͜͝͝È̷̞͇̩̯̥͚ ̶̧̩̜̤̬̣͇̠͇̻͙͑̀̃͊̀͌͒̇̔͘̚̕H̶͕͖̪͎͉͊̓́̍̀̿͗́̑̕̚͜E̷̞̿̐͊̌̾͑̇́̇̐͝ ̴͎̙̬̀̐̀͐͋́͊̈̎̈͜C̶̛̜͕̘̙͓̞̗̮̬̽̍͑͋́̾̉͠͝ͅA̸̘͉͕̺̪̦͙̬̰͛͐́̊̂̊͘N̶̫̻̖̜̳̤͚̣̱̜̙͗̾̀̔̊̐̚ ̶̛̺̤͍̠̭͕̅̂͋̆̕̕͠T̷̠̣̿̎͂̽̔̈̚͝Ắ̴̧̢̠̞͈̩̣͚̱̭̄͐̑̐̔̽̉͊̕͜L̵͔̯̱͎̭͑̓̋̾̉̅̃̒̀̾̂͝K̶̮̫̙̻̪͆̓̐̊͒̅̊ ̴̧̻̖̈̽̈̽̾́̓́̕͘͝͝T̷̢̡̨̤͉̤̟̠́̉̓̈̇͗Ő̷͔̦̤̜̒͂̒̀̓̉̔.̸̪͐ ̸̩͒͆̾͐̓̓̎̉͝P̵̧̧̭͚̥̺̟̝͉̹̯͛Ļ̸̖̖͝E̶͍̯̰̭͈͕̥̭̦̮͍̗͌̽̈́̕͠A̷̡̟͕͌̎̅͛̽͋̎̊̕S̵̡̧̲̟̣̱̤͕̗͙̈́̀́̈́̈́͋̈́͆̏E̸͔̞͖͑̓̽͛̌̐̈̏̇̕ ̴̨̝̺̰̦̫̦̮̬̌̿́̐̏ͅͅD̸̫̱͔̰̦̯̠̘̩́̈́̀͆̀̈́̈́̀͌͝Ơ̷̧̫͍̟̿͌͛̐Ń̸̡̛͎̠̞̇͂̕'̵̨̢̢̦̩͙̰̻̹̗͛͗͆̓̋̾̔̐͠T̴̼̘́̇̌̀̈̏͝ ̶̥̪̲͚̮̟͑͐̈L̴̰̂͌̏̉͒E̸̡̟̦̺͙͓̙̖͑͂͌̅͛̒̕͝ͅA̵̭͗͗͛̾̽V̵̥͚̯͙̐͊̓͐̽͝Ë̷̝̩̞̺̟̓̌̈̂͗̎̎͝.̸̡̟͕̮͉̱̪̱͐̄̀̒̾̅̒͐̽̊͗̚ ̵̢̧͍̩̯̱͒̽͐̌̏̇̿̾̚͜͝I̶̹̤͝T̴̥͎̱̝̫̬̘̗̬̱̰̆͛̂ͅ'̸̢̺͈̦̥̱̳̻͕͕̦͉̆͑̋̾Ŝ̶̲̤̀̊̓̀ ̴̢̛͎̲̟̜̹͓͍͋̆̉̽̔̚S̶̢̪̩̞̦͓̳̟͇͉̽̐̓̉͆́̀͐̎̾̑͜͝Ơ̴̢͉͚̏͆̃̓̋̀͆ ̶͔̎̉̓̏̾L̷̫̖̮̮̪̋͋͆͋̍͘͝͝Ơ̵̡̢̝͕̲̫̜̝͉̿́̔̄͛̎͛̃̋͘N̶̢̫̝͎̩̻̻͋̈́͛͋̓̈́̍̔́͌͝͝Ȩ̸̰̼̉̔̅͋̂̉͛̾Ḻ̴̨̢̦̫͔̼̥͉̲̗̼̓́͐̔̚Y̸̡̳̊.̶̨͔̰͉̬̳̤̹͎̹͕̗̾̒̾́͛̄̋̅͑̅͗͠

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101001 01101101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101001 01100100 00101100 00100000 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00111111

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Word count: 1.2k

Virgil belongs to @wouldyoustayvn/@turquoisesea01

Tags for my pookies 🤭

@dont-wannadothis-anymore @mysticnebula @mr-ritza

[hebuiltfive]

The Mouse

This has been sitting in my drafts since last October. I never got around to finishing and posting it. Until today. It's still a little messy but I'm throwing it out there regardless.

Prompted by this post here.

Gordon faces his worst adversary yet!

--------------------------------------------------

“Penny! Help!”

Gordon’s shrills echoed throughout the house.

At first, Penelope had thought the worst; maybe he’d come across an intruder and ended up in an unfortunate situation, or that he’d injured himself trying to slide down the bannisters to one of the many staircases in her manor… again. Both options seemed plausible and neither filled her with much hope.

With those panicked thoughts she rushed out of the library and followed Gordon’s constant calls for help. Eventually she found him.

In the pantry.

On an old wooden chair.

With a broom in his hands.

“Gordon, what on earth—?”

“Be careful! It’s just gone under that cabinet there and it… There it is!”

His yell made Penny jump out of her skin.

Her eyes followed Gordon’s pointing finger until she came upon the little grey mouse, scurrying across the floor.

“Gordon.” Penelope breathed a sigh of relief, her attention back on the blonde on the chair. “I thought something terrible had happened to you. Don’t scare me like that again unless—”

“What do you mean?” His voice was a higher pitch than normal, fear laced every word he shrieked. “Something terrible did happen! I was attacked!”

“By a mouse?”

“Yes!”

Penny’s features hardened into a worried frown. “Did it bite you?”

“… No.”

Another fond, if exasperated, sigh. “Then you were hardly attacked, Gordon.”

“I thought you were rich, Pen.” He grumbled. “If you’re rich, why do you have mice scurrying around the place. Ah!”

His broom rose as the mouse darted around the legs of the chair.

“Because,” Penelope began to explain, taking the broom from Gordon and using it to hurry the mouse along and out of sight. “Old houses like these are prone to the little creatures. It’s just how it is. It will move on when it realises there’s no food for it here, which reminds me I must inform Parker so he can check the other larders and— Oh, Gordon, do get down from there before you fall and break your neck!”

Penelope stood the broom up against one of the pantry’s cupboards and offered her hand out to assist Gordon off the chair. He still seemed tense and Penelope tried not to chuckle.

“Are you sure it’s gone?”

“Quite sure, Gordon.”

His hand squeezed hers gently as he stepped onto the floor. He shivered. “Good.”

“What were you doing in here anyway?”

Gordon had one last quick look into the pantry as they exited. Satisfied he was now safe from the furry little invader, he relaxed and slung his arm over Penelope’s shoulder. “Duh, finding snacks!”

“We just had breakfast—”

“That did not count as breakfast. Geez, Pen, I know you were entertaining some uppity posh people,” his attempt at an old English accent had Penelope yet again biting back a chuckle, “but there was hardly anything on those plates! A guy’s got to eat.”

“So you thought you’d help yourself to the pantry food?”

“I thought there’d be something worthwhile in there, and I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for that dastardly rat!”

“Mouse, Gordon. It was only a mouse.”

“I could have died!”

“That’s a little overdramatic, don’t you think?”

Gordon shook his head adamantly. “Nu-uh. I could have died!”

“I’ll be sure to tell Virgil all about it.” With a gentle pat on his back, Penelope smiled a conspirator’s smile.

To which Gordon gasped, betrayed. “Don’t you dare!” 

“If you ‘almost died’ I should think they’d want to know about it.”

“Do not tell Virgil…”

“I could tell John? He’d probably be better. Yes, John would be able to file it away in the systems.”

“Penny…”

“It might be important to keep on file. Heaven knows I won’t always be there to rescue you from the menaces and—!”

The rest of her playful teasing was cut off when Gordon halted midway down the hallway, pulled Penelope into him and caught her lips with his. It was a surprising move, yet one she found she’d been hopefully anticipating. 

With his palms resting on her cheeks, Gordon eyes met hers when he pulled back. They were pleading. “How about we just keep it a little secret between the two of us?”

Penelope purposefully took her time to answer. His thumb swept across her cheek as he waited, surprisingly patiently.

In the end, she smiled softly. “Of course it can stay our secret.”

Gordon appeared pleased to hear her agreement.

“But, if you try to steal from my pantry again, Gordon Tracy,” Penelope continued, “I may be inclined to inform someone.”

His relief fell from his features. He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. He arched a brow. “What if I was stealing something to bring to you?”

“Then that’s hardly stealing.”

“Noted.”

“Gordon—”

“No more talking.” He placed a finger on her lips. “I almost died and my life flashed before my eyes. so, if it’s alright with you, m’lady, I’d like to spend the rest of the morning with my favourite person.”

“I’ll be sure to fetch Sherbet for you right away.” Penelope joked once his finger released her lips.

Gordon chuckled. “You’re killing me here, Pen.”

“Funny, I thought that was the mouse…”

Their lips clashed again, effectively ending any further conversation for the foreseeable future.

[knotfodder]

-

[snowdice]

Unplanned Consequences (Part 4: Virgil) [Sometimes Labels Shift Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Virgil & Logan

Characters: Virgil, Logan (mentioned)

Summary: Virgil picks up some things from Logan's office.

Notes: This takes place after Best Laid Plans

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Virgil found himself pausing in front of Logan’s office door. He felt the need to knock even though he had the keys in his pocket, and rarely ever knocked before anyway. He couldn’t help but stare at Logan’s name on the door.

That seemed silly. That was the sort of thing you did when someone was dead. It wasn’t like Logan was dead.

As though to check the validity of the thought, Virgil pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. The list was in Logan’s notoriously neat handwriting, written not an hour ago.

Virgil had been tasked with picking some things up from Logan’s office, since Logan wasn’t coming back for the rest of the semester. He was on medical leave after his “car accident.”

The list was suddenly shaking in front of Virgil’s eyes.

“Hey,” a familiar voice said, startling Virgil.

Virgil shoved the list back into his pocket and turned.

“Hey Cas,” Virgil said to Logan’s TA. Or, well, ex-TA. Virgil wondered idly if he was out of a job or if another professor would use him for grading. Maybe the professors who were taking over Logan’s classes would have him continue grading for the classes he already was.

Cas seemed to pause. Despite having started the conversation, he did not seem to know where to take it next. He stood a few feet away from Virgil and shifted nervously in place.

“I’m just picking some stuff up for my dad,” Virgil said, aware as he said it that he’d probably never used the title of ‘dad’ in front of Cass.

“Yeah, uh, I heard,” Cas said. “Car accident, right?”

“Yeah, uh, yeah.”

“How is he…?”

“He’s…” Virgil wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Fine’ or ‘alright’ seemed like a lie, but he wasn’t sure how to explain that. “He’s recovering,” Virgil finally decided on. “Plus, he’s in good hands.”

“Right,” Cas said, “your other dad’s a doctor.”

“Yeah.”

The conversation awkwardly died then. Cas shifted a few more times and then cleared his throat.

“Uh,” Cas said, looking at his hands. He was holding a newspaper or something. “I picked up a copy of the Underhall Gazette,” Cas said.

“Cool,” Virgil said for a lack of other things to say.

“I, uh, don’t know why. I’ve already read it since I’m the editor. I usually bring a copy to Professor Sanders to read, so maybe it was just habit…”

He looked up at Virgil.

“Er, I don’t know if he actually cares or if he just reads it because he knows I work on it, but,” Cas offered the paper out, “let him know I’m thinking about him?”

Virgil gave him a half smile. “Of course,” he said, taking the paper.

“Thanks,” Cas said. “Uh, need any help carrying things?”

“Nah, I got it,” Virgil said, “but thanks for the offer.”

Cas seemed to take that as the dismissal it was and nodded. “Okay, see you then,” he said, and turned around to walk back the way he’d come.

With a sigh, Virgil put the paper under his arm and turned back to Logan’s office door. Instead of letting himself think too hard, he pulled out the keys and unlocked the door.

The lights were off, of course, and so Virgil reached over to flip them on. It looked exactly the same as it always did. Logan’s pens and paper were all in order. The filing cabinet was closed and locked. The water bottle Logan used every day was clean and sat in its usual spot when not in use.

Logan’s office was always clean, but it seemed too clean right now even though he knew it was just how Logan always left it at the end of the day. Virgil wasn’t used to being here without Logan’s coat on the rack or his messenger bag near the window. Usually, there was a stack of grading or notebooks out on the table. It looked weird like this.

He took out Logan’s list. For any other person, it would probably take Virgil a bit of work to find everything they wanted, but Logan knew exactly where everything was and had written out the locations in perfect detail.

Virgil went to work. He grabbed Logan’s work laptop as well as his most recent research notes. He also grabbed the ungraded and graded but unreturned papers (though he would take those to the math office instead of home). He shoved the emergency energy bars and soup cans into his backpack since they’d be bad before the office was in use again. Logan had very specific pens and highlighters he wanted as well as a book he’d been reading, so Virgil grabbed those too.

He was done within only a couple of minutes.

He found himself pausing when he was done. He looked around the office. Only a month ago, Virgil had walked in here, stressed about a couple of papers and Logan had sat him down in that chair and told him his office was always open to Virgil. Virgil supposed that was still true. Only Logan wasn’t here.

Irrationally, he felt tears prickle at his eyes. He’d done his best not to cry after Logan was let out of the hospital but suppressing that caught up to him now. He lowered himself into Logan’s desk chair and let himself cry.

He wasn’t sure how long he took to calm down. He’d put his head on Logan’s desk at some point and his face stuck to a piece of scrap paper when he lifted it up. It fell off, fluttering back to the desk.

He managed to choke out a laugh at that.

When he looked back up, his eyes caught on three framed photos on Logan’s desk. He’d seen them before, of course. In fact, he’d felt obliged to complain when he’d seen two pictures of himself looking rather silly. He found his heart warm at the sight of them now.

He contemplated taking the three photographs home, but then discarded the thought. Their being here made Logan’s office feel just a bit less empty. It made Virgil taking things from it feel more temporary. Logan would come back here someday. This was all just temporary. Everything would be okay.

[pursedogfag]

welcome to da SHIP-SPACE

hi ! i'm cam, and i use he/it pronouns ! this is my selfshipping blog where i store all the (highly bisexual) crushes i have on fictional characters and general selfship stuff !

main blog here :]

please keep in mind: i post/reblog for myself and ONLY myself ! however i do tag triggers and characters accordingly, and each have a custom tag if you want to block any!

list of f/o's and specific tags below!

F/O's

Nick Valentine (Fallout 4) - Primary - #knight in shining power armor

Jill Valentine (Resident Evil) - #bloody stars above

Doomguy (Doom) - #hell and high water

Jason Vourhees (Friday 13th) - #from the bottom of the lake

Yautja (any of em) (Predator) - #a war most perfect

PREVIOUS CRUSHES aka HONORARY F/O's (THE BISEXUAL AWAKENING)

Virgil (Portal Stories: Mel) - #dante laboratories

Monika (Doki Doki Literature Club) - #how to write a romance

OTHER TAGS

All scary imagery is filed under #cams spooks !

If there's anything in particular you'd like tagged, don't be afraid to shoot me an ask or dm! ^_^

[nerdgatehobbit]

"Bent Out of Shape" starts with Virgil, Richie, Daisy, and Sharon all wanting to attend a concert by the upcoming musician Stringer. Despite Virgil's snarky reaction here, it turns out that Sharon does have an 'in' to get them to the concert.

It turns out she and Stringer recently started dating.

Virgil is bewildered by this; unfortunately for him, this is only the beginning of the night's troubles.

Before the concert starts, a crew member expresses his concerns that this stage is too small for their usual fireworks, but Stringer insists on wanting to give the audience the standard experience. Nearby, Virgil and Richie were helping themselves to the craft table snacks, so they overheard this.

I do like how this episode balanced this: Stringer is wrong, but it's understandable why he acted the way he did. He wants to give his smaller audiences the same experience as his larger ones, which would be a better sentiment if it weren't for the fact that safety regulations exist for a reason.

The fireworks cause a fire to break out, leading Static to intervene by creating an exit so that the audience can exit in larger quantities at a time.

... Hopefully the auditorium people either can file this under 'fire damage' or they got superpowered incident insurance following the Big Bang.

When Static goes to confront Stringer about what happened, he ends up grabbing his arm in an effort to make him stay, only for his arm to stretch out. It turns out that Stringer is an alias for the escaped Rubberband Man, who then evades Static.

[whatgaviiformes]

Fic: Variegated

Summary: They shared a craft, but approached it differently. Crafty!FishTank

Characters: Gordon, Virgil

Words: 3,300

A/N: This is what happens when you start to explore what kind of crafters these two are. Let's be honest, I wrote this completely self-indulgently, but if for some reason this inspires you, 1) please enjoy the image of Gordon and Virgil with bags of yarn and 2) know there's absolutely no right way to craft. The most fun thing to do is to do what makes you happiest.

Single day write, so be warned.

I'll do an AO3 post eventually, but for now just for you, tumblr.

****

Variegated

“You know you want to.” 

“No, Gordon. Not right now.” His brother was incessant. Though they were busy finishing up a rescue, he wouldn’t leave Virgil alone about the strip of stores across the street from where they’d parked Two. International Rescue was known to occasionally take a detour to collect takeout after a mission, but it was not time to shop. They still had work to do, and Gordon was the worst distraction. 

They were finishing a rescue at a mall complex, which for entirely avoidable reasons had been about to collapse with two thousand occupants inside. The design flaw in its foundations frustrated Virgil to no end. The lack of safety protocols was enough to rival Fischler. Except there were tried and true blueprints for super structures like the one they’d just evacuated, so there was no excuse. Fischler was annoyingly careless; this was just deliberately built to be unsafe. 

Even though they’d saved all of the families inside, Virgil’s blood boiled knowing just how many people had been put in danger. And, for what! Nothing but a money-saver. 

Scott had been amazing coordinating with the local emergency services, while John and Eos had worked on comparing their scans of the building to the final designs that were filed, identifying the weak spots for them to secure. Gordon and Alan had made quick work of that at Virgil’s direction, and once the three of them were done they joined Scott for the evacuation efforts. The seals would only give them more time, not hold the building forever, so time was of the essence still. 

His brothers were awesome today. Yet, Virgil couldn’t find it in himself to be happy over the job well done. Not when people like that were still out in the world, making irresponsible decisions, making it just that much harder to be available for the unavoidable whims of the planet. 

“You know John’s going to find them, right?” Gordon slid up beside him, wiping his hands on a rag before wiggling his way into Virgil’s space at the pod controls. He selected the disassembly button, and turned towards him, knowingly. “I’d be surprised if their license isn’t already revoked.”

Virgil grunted, but it was swallowed all too quickly by the thundering shriek of metal as the building gave in to its final shudder. Onlookers were taking video in awe, shop owners whose wares were still inside were watching with fear and horror, emergency services were turned away to keep the crowd back but still jumped in surprise at the sound, and the International Rescue operatives observed solemnly from their positions at the inevitable. 

Virgil closed his eyes at the echo. No one had been hurt. 

“Al, do me a favor and go shadow Scott in One.” Gordon’s voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. 

“F-A-B.” Alan’s footsteps faded away quickly.

And they were alone. Not only that, but Virgil also realized, once he opened his eyes, that he felt the floor of Two’s cargo-pod under his backside. His legs must’ve given out on him. 

“Are you ok?” Gordon, sitting beside him with his arms extended behind him to prop himself up, nudged his shoulder lightly. “Talk to me, big guy.”

“Yes,” he said honestly. “I’m angry.” 

“I can tell.”

“People are terrible.”

“Oh, come on now, V. You know you don’t believe that.” His gaze was locked away from him, and Virgil followed it towards the crowd of people hugging each other after their ordeal and comforting the shop owners whose livelihoods had been devastated. 

He breathed deeply, feeling the dust settle in his heart as it fell towards the ground safely away from them. “No, I know,” he sighed. 

“I think we’ve both seen enough destruction for one day.” He hopped back onto his feet and offered Virgil a hand up. “What do you say?”

Virgil accepted it. “About what?”

Gordon waggled his eyebrows at him. “You know. Creating.” The blond pointed across the street towards the row of shops where patrons were starting to head back inside after the excitement outside. “I’ve been trying to get you to go with me, but you kept blowing me off. You know you need it.”  

He shook his head. They couldn’t just shop after a rescue. There was debrief; he needed to get the dust off his girl. “Gordon, I don’t think-”

“I need it too, Virg.” Gordon bounced on his feet. It was the lack of begging puppy-dog-eyes that convinced him of the sincerity, the sigh of relief when Gordon noticed Virgil’s expression soften. 

Twist my arm, he thought. The frown that had forged creased into his forehead eased as his smile lifted into a grin at his brother’s enthusiasm.  “Fine.” Virgil uncrossed his arms while Gordon whooped. “We can go to the yarn store.”

~*~

They drew everyone’s gaze when they entered, the little bell above the door chiming to herald their arrival. They still had the return journey ahead of them, so though they had washed up from the rescue, they changed back into one of their spare uniforms. Virgil was regretting that decision as the cashier’s eyes took in their iR blues, the baldrics that really had no sense being brought into a place of retail. 

“Maybe we should change,” he mused. It would’ve been more time changing back and forth, but for the sake of everyone’s comfort level, it might have been better off. John was the one that encouraged uniforms until everyone was home. That was the official end of any mission by his and Scott’s definition. No sooner. 

Virgil pulled at his collar from the scrutiny. But his little brother, unaffected in the slightest by the staring, bounded in and hadn’t heard Virgil’s discomfort. 

“Uh - Hi, how can I help you today?” One of the saleswomen asked, grabbing Gordon’s attention on the way towards the wall of variegated skeins. She’d gathered her composure quickly, Virgil had to give her that. Gordon eased the tension in the room with his most winning smile. Once the employees realized they weren’t there for danger reasons, they returned back to what they were doing before the two rescuers had entered. A few patrons were sat around a circular table working on their WIPs - works in progress. The man who had halted in caking up a skein for a customer slowly began winding again to rotate the wooden swift that held the threads of bright pink. Virgil felt their eyes watching them still though, the curiosity in the space so strong he could taste it. 

Gordon had long since abandoned him to discuss colorways with a sales person, so Virgil shifted on his feet and focused on taking in the display.

The store was sorted by yarn weight, brand, and then finally to Virgil’s great pleasure, color. The display itself evoked the threads of inspiration, of artwork that explored shades and spectrums. Where he’d been tightly swirling on the grays and metallics of unsafe structures, the array of blue-into-green-into-yellow and on, was just what he needed to loosen that coil around his mind. To dissipate the stress of his anger with the grand possibilities of color.

Art supplies always gave him the same boost of inspiration, but there was just something about the yarn store with its colors prominent that immersed him fully into his ideas. 

They’d been meaning to go anyway. That was one of the reasons Gordon had been so determined to drag him in here. Though they both needed supplies for their holiday gifts, the number of rescues had kept them both busy with no down time anticipated for a few more weeks. Of course, they had time until Christmas - but depending on the project, they would need most of that time. Often, Virgil started in the winter - months ahead - to prepare for Christmas summer. Gordon was a bit more rebellious with deadlines. 

At the back wall, he was holding up a speckled blue against a variegated orange. Gordon was a bit more rebellious about a lot of things. 

Virgil shook his head, and scanned the store for worsted weight, then approached, eyeing up the different greens that had caught his attention.   

He and Gordon had an arrangement when it came to homemade yarn gifts. Both were aware of their own inspirational whims, so it was nothing too organized or controlled. But if either of them had an idea for one of their family members, they would always share so as not to overlap their gifts too much during the season. And their family members saw how involved the homemade gifts were, so they didn’t press or make requests. Virgil was grateful their family members were so understanding and grateful. Last year, Virgil had made Kayo a cashmere scarf in a shimmery peridot that matched her eyes, and Gordon had made Alan a chevron pillow cover. 

He didn’t know yet what Gordon was planning for this year, or who for; this early on Gordon probably didn’t even know. Where Virgil planned in advance and had his patterns in mind when he went to the shop, Gordon would find a color that grabbed his attention first, then plan. 

This year, Virgil was far in his pattern design for a cable sweater for John. When out of uniform it could get cold up on Five, and even when he was home, his body temperature would fluctuate as part of readjusting to Earth. The length of his stay often made him prone to colds, so even though the Island was a bit on the warmer side, John gave Virgil an excuse to explore winter garments. 

With winter on the mind, he picked up and admired a dark gray that, upon closer inspection, danced with subtle blues and greens. It was stormy and evocative, and oh, so soft. Though Virgil felt it pull him into the depths of a lakeside forest, it wasn’t the kind of green he was looking for. He replaced it back on its hook.

If he admitted it, he’d been looking online at various greens for a while, though no holo screen would replace getting the chance to squeeze the fibers. 

“Gordon?” he called, looking around for his brother, a few hanks held close to his chest. He’d selected a scattering of greens he thought would be good for John’s sweater. One was a more olive green, similar to the peridot he’d gotten last year for Kayo just with more brown; one was a teal - maybe not as much John’s style with how bright it was, but it would match his eyes; and the last was a pine green with just enough blue undertone to complement the red of John’s hair. Though they were all the same weight they all were different brands. “Can you come feel these?” 

He knew which one he favored based on color alone, but he valued Gordon’s opinion. John was as sensitive to certain textures as Gordon. For John, it was due to how quickly he could bruise, and the softer the fabric the better, especially since the cables would make his piece more rigid by nature. For Gordon, certain types of cotton reminded him too much of the gritty texture of the blankets at the hospital. During that time, touch became the most important sensation to ground him, and those preferences he carried with him long after he’d healed. If Gordon was going to spend a length of time with a yarn, he wanted to enjoy the way it felt in his hands or else it wasn’t worth the suffering. 

“Gimme, gimme,” Gordon agreed. In the time that Virgil was comparing greens, Gordon had managed to procure and fill a shopping basket with an array of chaotic colorways which he slid into the crook of his arm while he reached for the options Virgil had found. 

The olive green was quickly set to the side once he squeezed at it, but the other two Gordon squished in each of his hands for a few moments to compare.

“What do you think?”

“The turquoise is softer,” - Virgil knew better than to correct him on the colors as he handed it back to him - “but you like this spruce-y green better for him, don’t you?” 

He did. It was a softer shade, and as soon as he saw it he knew just how dreamy it would look against the cable pattern he’d designed. Virgil nodded, “I was afraid of that. Is it it too rough, you think?” 

Gordon was looking away further down the wall, then grabbed his arm to pull him away from the display. Virgil barely had time to replace the olive green back on the wall, following with the teal while Gordon lifted the darker color against another display. “Can you adjust your pattern down to DK?” he asked, triumphantly pushing into his hands a skein only slightly darker than his preferred color, but in the brand of the softer yarn. 

“Yeah, of course.” The new yarn was soft against his fingertips. He was already mentally calculating the math involved, while the image in his mind immediately started to take shape with the new shade. “I’ll need more yarn.” 

Gordon flagged down the saleswoman he’d befriended earlier, then grabbed the teal from him to return the medium weights back where they found them. Gordon already had a much more complete picture of the store it seemed. The worsted weights must’ve kept his attention far longer than Virgil realized.

“Any chance you have a sweater quantity of this?” he inquired once the shopkeeper approached and asked how she could help. She smiled warmly at him, much more comfortable with their presence this time around. 

She took his selection away to look in the back at their stock.

“Wanna see what I found?” Gordon enthused while they waited. He led them to the table, nodding in greeting to the women at the table as they sat. One of them was crocheting up what looked like a granny stripe shawl with a color-changing yarn, and the other was knitting a baby-sized cardigan in a soft yellow. Both smiled at them, then turned back towards their projects. 

Gordon plopped the basket on the floor between them, and chose first a mostly purple colorway. But in true Gordon-fashion, the violet also had flashes of yellow and pink interspersed along the twisted hank. “I’ve got a few of these for a shawl for Grandma.”  

Virgil wiggled his finger between one of the strands, observing the way the colors fell. The purple wasn’t exactly solid either, and the yellow especially looked splashed in. It was definitely eye-catching in the display, but there was no way to imagine exactly what it would look like worked up, he admitted. 

“That’s the fun of it,” Gordon beamed, admiring the second skein of the color. 

“Are you going to knit or crochet it?” Virgil asked, handing the yarn back. He laughed fondly at just how much fun Gordon had with color, and in a way that was entirely different than his own style. Random would have driven him crazy, while Gordon thrived in the color journey. 

“Crochet. I think I’m going to lean into the granny of it all.” He nodded towards the woman making exactly that, who likely inspired the idea. 

 Gordon’s version of the shawl was going to look like chaos.

 Grandma was going to love it. 

“What’s this one?” Virgil leaned over to select a much more muted blue. There was only one of it in his basket. 

“It screams Scott, don’t you think?” The main tone was cobalt, heathered with gray. 

“What are you going to make with it?”

“Dunno yet,” he shrugged. “Something small. Fingerless mitts maybe. For the next time he goes spelunking in a radioactive mine.”

Virgil snorted. 

“Right.” It hadn’t been funny at the time; Scott would’ve been sick as a dog if not for Brains’ ingenuity. Still it hadn’t dissuaded him from wearing the fingers free version of their uniform. The idea was very Scott. Pleased, Gordon returned it to his basket. 

Virgil was nervous the shopkeeper hadn’t yet returned from the back. If they didn’t have the sweater quantity he needed, he probably could just order it. But now, with the excitement of finding the right yarn for his pattern, he desperately wanted to be able to bring it all home with him. 

Although he didn’t have a pattern in mind for anything else, Gordon sent him off to explore the fingering weight yarn anyway for the sake of keeping his mind busy. Virgil hadn’t had the chance to see the rest of the store the way Gordon had, and as he ambled from wall to wall, he saw a few of the colorways that had taken Gordon’s fancy. 

This was such a special hobby to share between the two. Although Virgil had learned yarn crafts early in his life, Gordon hadn’t picked up a crochet hook (or knitting needle) until he was an adult. There was a part of Virgil that would always feel a sense of pride in anything his brother created, knowing that he’d given him the bare bones to learn the craft. The rest had been him, and having the ability to create something had given Gordon a world of possibility when the colors of the world seemed muted and stalled. He made his own sunlight with golden yellow, covered white walls with rainbows.

The shopkeeper was successful at finding more of his yarn in the back, and she graciously offered to keep it behind the counter while they continued looking around the store. 

The subject of his thoughts himself had discovered the stickers among the notions at the front of the store, laughing fully at the puns that only really made sense to others in the craft. 

It had been a while since they’d made anything for each other, he realized. John’s sweater would have to be his primary focus, but in the moments of Gordon cackling, Virgil found himself inspired to capture his exuberance for him this season. Even if it meant working in a way that was outside his comfort zone. 

“Gordon!” He waved him over again. “Pick out a skein,” Virgil offered, gesturing towards the fingering weight. No matter Gordon’s selection, he’d be able to work out a sock pattern - and Gordon loved a good chaos sock or five.

“Ohh! Yes!” 

Unsurprisingly, Gordon returned quickly with a self-striping swirl of neon yellow with coral orange and soft cyan. Virgil tucked it under his arm, and once Gordon returned to the notions section, he also selected a complementary blue for the offsetting heel, toe, and cuff. 

Figuring they’d been at it long enough, Virgil finished up at check out and waited for Gordon by the front once all his yarns had been purchased and bagged up. The blond glanced up for him and practically skipped over to him to show him a sticker with a hen wearing a sweater. “It’s a yarn chicken!” 

“Yeah, you’re getting that,” Virgil demanded, taking it from his hand and placing it carefully in the shopping basket. As he did so, he noticed the stormy green he’d been eyeing for himself earlier, clashing with the purples of Grandma’s shawl-to-be. They’d had a similar idea, and Gordon, seeing him catch sight of it, tapped the side of nose purposefully. 

Virgil fielded Scott’s anxious call while Gordon finished purchasing his selections, exchanging his shopping basket for his own bag of yarn goodies.  The little bell rang as they left the building, and they walked back to the lot across the street where Thunderbird Two was parked amidst flashing sirens, caution tape, and collapsed metal. 

Gordon wiggled his way under his arm, beaming and bouncing. “Better, right?” 

Virgil ruffled his hair. “Yeah,” he admitted. “This whole thing is less under my skein.” 

A beat. Virgil grinned at himself.

“Oh my GOD, stop.” 

The End

End Note: I've written Virgil teaching Gordon yarn crafts in "In Stitches" if you are interested. Angst.

[paramoira]

@everythingheard cont from x

as ariadne sits on devin's couch, what feels an ocean between them and question of 'is there something i should know?' hangs between them, ari wonders what had prompted her agreement to come there in the first place. there used to be an ease by which two forces had existed, orbiting each other as if it took no effort at all. their desks would face each other, files splayed out in a kind of organized chaos only they understood. thomas would frown, sigh, and then hold out a file for devin to take, the man’s other hand passing her a tea as she moved around him to take her own file. a symphony in harmony, having grown together through their shared experiences. other times, like the train crash they’d attended during her second year working at the centre, their ease had been felt through the simple gesture of a hand pressed upon a shoulder, a preemptive comfort to strengthen before the horror.  

there had been little sense of ease since the day she'd come face to face with devin again; only the mirror of ghosts believed left behind an ocean away and no thomas to yank them out of their own choppy waters. 

she still remembers that first case a few hours after the shock of seeing him and her avoiding him had come in a week ago.

'we both have been requested at a scene. the detective is on site waiting for us.' her legal pad with the location of the crime scene had been slapped unceremoniously upon his desk, tension in her jaw the only immediate response to accompany it. 'they insisted on two of us. multiple causalities.' she'd continued, clearly unhappy with the set of circumstances as she'd gathered her phone and tossed him his keys which had been hiding under a file on his desk (just like old times). or, more specifically, having had to try to hold herself up in the wake of everything boiling within every cell of her body. 

she had wanted to scream at him. she had wanted to hug him. she had wanted to slap him. she had wanted to know why. 

she wanted to know why.

there it was. why she'd agreed. because no matter how much tension had been present, once they'd begun to work together shards of muscle and mental memories had returned. even at their worst, they still worked well together when it mattered. even when she'd been cold and sharp with him, he'd still managed to get her to smile before she could catch herself. she wants to reach out for him, as if she can sense the chaos in him and how he wants to fidget. she doesn't, yet perhaps it's not until this moment that she understands just how badly she misses it. misses him. that's why she's there. because there has to be more to it, more variables that she hadn't seen or been willing to see before. the way he'd left (her), the quickness and how everything had transpired.. it wasn't like the devin she knew. not unless there was more too it.

please let there be more to it.

 'ari, you need to know — '

there it is, whatever was coming it would be some kind of answer. it would be the truth. it would be real. she knows it, knows him, even now. can see it in his face as his eyes connect with hers. she holds her breath for a moment, unconscious of it and jumps slightly when the door bangs open a moment later, startled and distracted. she remembers a door banging open once before, a long time ago now and all the blood on the floor. her own blood. she lets out a breath, mind catching up.

virgil. virgil was there. no threat. just virgil.

"who else would i be? jack the ripper?" she quips, dark hues connecting with devin's over virgil's shoulder as he hugs her. their conversation is delayed, but not over. "sorry to disappoint you virgil but i live here, in new jersey i mean, and i didn't even know you were here." there's a pause for a moment as it occurs to her, there's now even more complications than before. regardless to why devin left and came back to the states, now that he was here and she was here, there were things she'd have to tell him too. "-- not that i'm not glad to see you, of course."