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rubyredsparks · 3 years

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An Imposter’s Heart

Relationships: Anxceit (Platonic), everyone else is just friendships

Characters: Virgil, Janus “Deceit”, Patton, Logan, Roman, Emile, Remy, various ocs

Tags: Among Us, Video Games - Freeform, Magic, Friendships, Queerplatonic Relationships, Cursing, Platonic Relationships, Chronic Illness, Card Tricks, Mentions of Quarantine, mentions of burn scars, mentions of vitiligo

Word Count: 3175

Summary: Quarantine sucks, especially if you're a chronically ill streamer and let's player. But it's nice to have friends and partners there to support you all the way.

And to accuse of murder.

AO3

"Is this your card?" Janus smirks when he holds up an eight of hearts, his audience clearly freaking out when it inevitably becomes clear that it is in fact their card. “I thought so, goodbye.” He clicks the button that takes him to the next participant.

“Hello,” he says, tipping his hat. While it has become difficult in getting gigs booked when he’s an amatuer magician (he’s not so much amatuer but young) becoming a MeTuber actually has become a much more entertaining way of living his dream and fucking over other people’s minds with illusions.

It’s much more fun, and much more lucrative.

“You’re that— that magician snake guy. Uhh, Deceit, right?” the participant says, clearly recognizing him. “I recognize you because of your whole—” a hand waves in front, gesturing towards a cheek.

Janus has never been one to shy away from his scars or his vitiligo, embracing them as his aesthetic and as much of his character as he can. And Virgil says it reminds him of scales and he definitely plays that up with makeup, adding to the whole snake character.

Janus nods in the affirmative, “I’m just here wondering if you can guess how I do this card trick. Would you like to guess?”

“Yeah! My grandpa was a magician and really liked to do card tricks. Maybe I can guess it!” they say eagerly.

Janus chuckles, flipping a card back and forth with his fingers. He doubts it. This trick he came up with all on his own. “Wonderful,” he murmurs. He singularly flips one card between two hands, forming a diamond with his thumb. He does it a few times, making sure that his participant sees the card appear and reappear a few times.

“Oh! I know how you do that. You— you take the card and put it between your fingers on your other hand behind your palm—”

“Really?” Janus says, doing it again. He looks down at his hands, feigning looking them over, spreading his fingers wide and then turning his hands back and forth to show that no card rested behind his fingers. “How do you do that?” he scratches his head, biting down a smile when his participant gawks at him.

“No, really, how do you do that?” Janus says with a faux sincere smile.

“I cannot,” his participant says, ducking their head and logging off to show the loading screen.

He chuckles, logging off of Omagle. Turning towards his camera, he smiles mysteriously. “Thank you for watching, I hope to see you on the morrow.” With a flirtatious wave, Janus turns off his camera.

With a sigh, he slumps back into his chair, groaning at yet another video he has to edit soon if he wants to make his weekly update. Being a MeTuber, as fun as it seems and is at times, is utterly exhausting. Not to mention what his roommate and partner deals with on a constant basis.

While he has gotten a bit of a subscriber jump ever since he played a few games of Amidst Us with the Sanders Shows gang, he won’t even begin to explain the hoops and valleys that his roommate went through to get such a jump.

Virgil, or as called by his online persona Corpse Emo, has gotten a 3 million subscriber jump ever since the normies as Janus liked to call them got addicted to his deep and soothing voice. Generally anxious, Virgil had freaked out. A Lot.

But Virgil loves being a MeTuber, Janus knows. He loves reading scary stories and making conspiracy theories about cryptids and other spooky things. But Janus also knows that Virgil gets freaked out by large numbers and performing if he doesn’t have everything handled.

Which is why he’s a faceless MeTuber and just a deep, soothing voice that people love to listen to. Something that Virgil is able to handle and control, to an extent. He obviously can’t help the fact that he has an incredibly recognizable voice or hair or hands.

So he compensates by being the main source of income and stays home while Janus goes out and gets the groceries and food. The little shit is lucky that Janus cares for him.

He hears the door to Virgil’s recording room open, and he blinks lazily. Groaning, he pulls himself up and stretches on his way out, only wearing half his usual attire and layers. With a scratch to his cheek, he leaves to meet Virgil out in the hallway.

“Gamer bladder?” Janus asks dryly when he sees Virgil zip through to the bathroom. He looks much too freaked to truly be in need of the restroom, eye bags darker than usual, so Janus assumes that Virgil needs to de-stress and take a moment to himself. The needs of the people too great and demanding. Janus can sympathize, fans can be the absolute worst sometimes.

Virgil flips him off, closing the door with a sharp thud. “Go entertain my chat,” Virgil’s words come out muffled behind the door, “they keep asking when Snake-Eyed Deceit is coming back on to play. It’s so fucking annoying.”

Janus would believe the indignation if Virgil doesn’t sound so fond. “You know I’m not much of a gamer, Virge,” Janus reminds him patiently.

“Just talk to them,” Virgil mutters, and Janus imagines Virgil curling into their bathtub with his hoodie drawn tight around him, lights turned off to complete the room. “Play a game if I take too long. It’s proximity anyway.”

Janus raps on the door lightly, “Just remember to drink some water. Did you take your meds?”

“Yes, mom,” Virgil rasps out, voice scratchy. “Fuck off.”

With a sigh, Janus raps an affirmative on the wood door and meanders his way down to Virgil’s recording room. He taps out a few greetings in chat, and then moves Virgil’s character blob in game.

“Emo, you’re back!” one of Virgil’s streamer friends cheers, doing a little wiggle in game.

“Not exactly,” Janus says into the mic lowly. A glance down at the chat shows them exploding in greetings to him with which he responds back politely. Doesn’t hurt to try and get new followers.

“Oh, it’s the Snake guy,” another says, and this voice Janus knows all too well.

“Hello to you, too, Roman,” Janus purrs. “Or should I call you Valkyrome? What a particularly creative name. Combining mythologies. Tell me, did you want to be a Valkyrie as a child.”

Roman puffs up, voice flustered, “Perhaps, they are one of the greatest warriors in Norse myths.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure,” Janus says. He moves into the customization section of the game, changing from Virgil’s signature black and cat ears to yellow and a top hat. He keeps the name however, too lazy to change that. “How is everyone? It’s been a while since I’ve talked to you all. Yes, hello to you as well, chat.”

“Salutations, Snake,” Logic or Logan says monotonously in greeting. “I’m doing well.”

“HI, JAN!” Cupcake Harts, otherwise known as Patton Hart, cheers. Janus can’t help but twitch at the exorbitant cheerfulness, grating on his nerves a bit. Nothing against Patton, but the relentless sunshine can burn just a tad overwhelming sometimes.

Nevertheless, fondness tugs at his heart, “Hello again, Cupcake.”

“Is Corpse okay?” he asks, concern lacing every word. “He didn’t sound so lively last round. Is the kiddo good?”

“The Emo will be alright, but he gave me permission to play a few rounds as his little character for a bit if that would be alright.”

“Of course!” Patton says happily. “We don’t mind, do we?” Everyone else starts to overlap with words of reassurance at that, and Janus smiles. If anything, Janus is glad that Virgil was able to make friends this year. It has boosted the man’s confidence much more than it had been even if there is still some of that self-consciousness and anxiety that lingers.

“Alright, let’s start.” Logan cuts through the cacophony and the game counts down from five to begin.

---

“CUPCAKE WAS FAKING TASKS!” Roman screams when the meeting is called up, repeating it as much as he can. He clicks to vote instantly, not letting Patton explain.

Janus snickers at that, knowing for a fact that he was the imposter along with Remy.

“Roman, kiddo, do you really think that I would fake tasks with so many people in the room? I mean I could be the imposter, but I was alone so many times with Jodie.”

“He was,” Jodie confirms, “I don’t think that Cupcake is the imposter, he could’ve killed me so many times in specimen.”

“No, no Jodie, I mean I could be the imposter but that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t marinate you. I could just be playing a long game.”

“Ugh, he’s doing that double speak again,” Roman groans. “Cupcake, are you the imposter or not?”

“No, but I mean I could be,” Patton says with a mischievous tone that made Janus roll his eyes.

Janus skips his vote quickly, “Let’s just skip, there’s only one person dead.”

A murmur of agreement follows Janus’ declaration.

“Let me postulate this, but I think that the imposters are Deceit and Sleep.”

“How dare you—?” Remy immediately starts in on Logan, false offense filling up his words and making him much louder. Incessant clicking from their keyboard as rage fills their heart. “I will have you know that I was nowhere near the kill. You know what, I think it’s Specs, actually, he keeps framing me.

“Well, let’s settle down now,” Emile, otherwise known as Dr. Stitch, tries to intervene. “It’s only the first round of the game after all.”

“Uh, no can do, doc, not when my integrity is on the line.”

“What integrity,” Virgil mutters, and Janus whirled around in Virgil’s desk chair to see him leaning on the frame of the door.

“Is that Emo??” Patton squeals happily, “Hi! Are you taking over for Deceit? The game’s just started.”

Virgil shakes his head even though the only ones who can see are himself and Janus, his thick purple-brown curls falling in front of his brown eyes, “Nah, let Dee have a turn murdering everyone, I know he enjoys it.”

“Liess and slander,” Janus hisses, purposefully elongating his ‘s’ to make him seem more snake like.

“Does that mean Dee’s an imposter!?!” Roman screams as the meeting panel falls away and the little characters start running around crazily.

“I’m not the imposter, I’m not the imposter,” Janus lies reassuringly, shooting a dark glare at Virgil behind him as the taller one stifles his giggles, hiding the amusement in his eyes behind his hair.

He settles into Janus’ lap, completely obscuring the screen and his view of the game. “Emo, please let me play the game.”

“Hmm,” Virgil hums, tucking his head underneath Janus’ chin, a feat in and of itself given the height difference, “no, I’m comfortable. I’ll just sit here and talk to chat.”

With a sigh, Janus continues the arduous task of running around in the game with the much difficult challenge of having an emo in his lap. Virgil, for his part, looks very content and Janus can’t help but run his fingers through curly purple-brown hair.

“Hello, Roman.”

Roman yelps, “Who said that? How can you see me?” The lights in the game have been turned off and have been for a while, and Janus is taking advantage of the fact that Roman has been left in the far left hand corner of the map where people rarely go.

“Oh, Roman, Roman, Roman,” Janus says, tongue curling on his name with a knife. Roman screams, protesting and shouting for Janus not to do it. “Sorry about that, Ro,” Janus says with a manic giggle as he slices through Roman’s character.

“Big yikes,” Virgil murmurs. “No, chat, I’m not gonna do that, stop suggesting it. Anyway, yeah, I’m gonna be having some major collabs soon with some artists and I have so many cool projects on the way. Thank you guys so much for everything. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

“Aww, is that you, Emo? Are you talking to chat while Deceit plays?” Leslie pipes up, running close and in circles around Janus’ little blob character.

“Yup,” Virgil pops the last letter, “and guess what?”

“What?” Leslie asks just as Janus’ kill cooldown hit zero.

Janus clicks kill and Leslie screams in protest, her outrage cutting off when the body flops down onto the map. Virgil snorts out a laugh, cackling as Janus smiles indulgently, running around crazily on the map.

A new meeting is called up, this time two people have been killed, clearly shown on screen as having died: Roman and Leslie.

“Guys, guys, guys. I think Remy is the imposter,” Patton is saying. He’s the one who reported Leslie’s body“I’m pretty sure I saw him vent in electrical.”

“Excuse me, Kingdom Hearts!” Remy interrupts rudely. “I wasn’t even in electrical this round. You should get your prescription checked.”

“We needn’t vote here,” Logan interjects sagely. “We are, after all, on seven. But, need I remind you that Remy has been suspicious two rounds now and this time two bodies have been killed. I believe it would be wise to vote him off.”

“Uh uh, glasses here. I know you’re Mr. Big Brain and everything, but I am telling you that it ain’t me,” Remy takes a large sip of whatever drink he has on hand to emphasize his point.

With almost agreed silence, everyone votes and it’s an almost unanimous decision to vote off Remy, causing him to squawk.

“Oh no, you guys really voted for him? You guys voted him off?” Patton is saying as Remy starts screaming curse words and regret.

“What do you mean? You’re the one who said that you caught him venting—”

Janus starts to walk off, the conversation dying out the further he went. He walks to a secluded side of the map, making sure that no one can see as he waits for the cooldown.

“Think you can pull it off?” Virgil asks.

“Without a doubt,” Janus responds.

“What are you guys talking about?” Jodie walks up, suspicion in her question.

“Oh nothing,” Virgil starts, “except this—” and Janus clicks to kill.

Virgil starts talking to both chat and the other players as Janus starts his murder spree quietly. The two of them work as partners, Virgil talking and distracting the players as Janus offs them one by one.

Janus accidentally kills a person in front of someone else, but luckily he didn’t seem to see. “Okay, so I think this was Dragon,” Jace is saying.

Dragon immediately protests, “What do you mean? Where’s the body?”

“Emo, you just walked into admin, right? Did you see Dragon run out?” Jace asks.

“Um, maybe, I think so, yeah?” Virgil says, playing dumb.

“Then it’s Dragon. They were the one to kill, I saw them run out of admin just as the body flopped. Emo, back me up here.”

“Wait, what? I wasn’t even near—”

“AND they were sus last round, so.”

Quite easily, Dragon is voted off, but the game continues.

“I don’t get it, I thought it was Dragon and Sleep,” Jace says.

“Unless it was a self-report,” Logan posits. “You could’ve been caught by Dragon or Emo and you just reported to throw suspicion off yourself.”

Janus called up the meeting button, and Virgil got ready to speak, “Well, we could always 50/50 it. One of them has to be the imposter, right? We’re sure we got out one of them earlier with Remy and if it wasn’t Dragon, then it has to be Jace.”

“No, listen, Emo, I am begging you. I am on my knees, literally in real life right now, don’t vote for me, I am innocent. Please, I’m literally on my knees right now! It’s not me!!”

“Patton, I’m trusting you here,” Logan says. “Do you really think it’s Jace and not Emo?”

“Emo wouldn’t do that to us,” Patton says, though a bit unsurely, “and here’s the thing if Emo’s the imposter then he’ll win and get his video, but if he’s not then we win as crewmate. Either way, it’s a win-win situation!”

“What? Guys! That’s not how this works,” Jace pleads. “Please, it’s not me! I’m serious.”

But too late, the votes come in and Jace is voted out, his character yeeted out into space. And the game continues.

Logan screams in realization, “Patton, I trusted you! It’s Emo, it’s Emo. Oh my goodness. Patton, run! Run!”

“Logan, I have been waiting for this moment my entire life—” Virgil says manically as Logan starts to lose it, running around and screaming at Patton that he trusted Patton and that they voted off the wrong person.

Virgil calls a sabotage and starts to really race after Logan.

“Logan, I was right!” Patton says, slowly trailing after them just to keep up with the conversation. “That means Emo does get to have his video. And I get to be in it! Either way, it’s a win!”

Janus loses it, laughing just as hard as everyone else when Virgil finally manages to click the kill button, the victory screen loading up just as quickly as everyone’s voices come back loud and cheery.

“Good game, everybody—”

“Emo, that was hilarious—”

“Patton, I trusted you—”

“YOU GUYS VOTED ME OUT???—”

Virgil smiles up at Janus from his perch on Janus’ lap, contentment swimming in those brown eyes. Janus is helpless to smile back, even if he’s a bit overwhelmed by the noises. He nuzzles the top of Virgil’s head, burying his face in dark purple-brown curls.

“That was an amazing game, oh my gosh—”

Virgil buries himself into Janus’ warm body, a catlike grin stretching across his face. “Good job, Jan,” he whispers, making sure that chat doesn’t hear the name.

“I think you should be getting that congratulations, little Emo nerd,” Janus says dryly. “You got the final kill of the game after all.”

“Hey, Emo and Dee cheated! They worked together—!”

“We were using one character, jackass! It’s not our fault you guys didn’t think it was us!” Virgil yells back in retaliation, laughter edging on his words. More protests and compliments and whatnot continued as the gamers started arguing over each other again.

Warmth wraps around Janus like a warm hug and he wraps his own arms around Virgil as he continues heckling and joking around with friends, a new game already started. Virgil squirms in his hold to sit in his lap properly so that Virgil’s back is to Janus’ chest, moving to get comfortable.

“Alright, we won’t play together again—” Virgil is saying. Janus just holds Virgil in his lap tightly, contentment curling around him and settling into his stomach like a warm meal.

Sometimes life sucks, giving you chronic illness or vitiligo and burn scars. But sometimes life doesn’t suck so much when you have friends by your side and laughter surrounding you.

A/N: @sanderssidesgiftxchange Hi, @emo-does-things!!! I was your Secret Sanders this year and I hope I was able to fulfill your wish! I honestly couldn’t decide between the two things that I wrote, so you get two fics! Happy Winter and I hope you’re staying safe and that you enjoyed this!!!

#anxeit #anxiet #virgil sanders #janus sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #various ocs #among us #emile picani #remy sanders #sleep sanders #secret sanders gift exchange #my writing

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