#also kai's dainty little look behind himself after bell pulls him up

[nerdalmighty]

That's okay.

[etherealblasphemy]

Lonely Planet Blue

Virgil is a soft pillow baby™ and I will fight anyone who disagrees

TW: self-deprecating thoughts, mentioned/referenced/implied death, panic attacks, mentioned/implied war

   Vae hadn’t returned for two months. Every night, he snuck up to the bell tower and would peer out from the little window where, at one point in time, townspeople from below could catch a glimpse of the now absent bell. It had likely been melted down for ammunitions.

   It was a night like any other. Virgil sat, back pressed against one of the corners of the little tower, his eyelids beginning to flutter close. He shook himself awake, his hazy brown eyes refocusing on the barren wasteland dotted with ruins holding all too painful memories. Silently, he cursed his best and only friend as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes, feeling the bags underneath them that were becoming more prominent as the days went by.

   He liked the midnight sky. It calmed his anxiety that Vae was likely a dead man or a deserter. Tonight, the heavens dripped neon purple and raven black as the stars blinked at him, almost mocking him. His heart was in his throat as he stood unofficial sentry, wishing his friend would come home already so he could ask her where she’d gone and what adventures- because it wasn’t Vae if it wasn’t an adventure- she’d had.

   He hugged his knees close to him, zipping his hoodie up to try and keep himself warm in the chilly night. A breeze ripped through the little tower, sending Virgil’s hair flying every which way. He grumbled as he patted it down, desperate to tame it so if on the off chance Halo came upstairs after fitful sleep, she wouldn’t tease him for looking like a girl with his shoulder-length hair, the tips dyed lavender.

  As he finally got his hair under control, he glanced outside and nearly choked on his breath. Someone was standing in the distance, holding a glowing lantern. They were still as a statue, but Virgil didn’t care. He leapt off the ground, practically throwing himself down the rickety stairs as he raced to the bottom of the bell tower. He threw open the rotting wooden door as he reached ground level, stumbling over his feet as he ran down the cobblestone streets littered with pebbles and black snow.

   At ground level, it was much harder to see the figure in the distance, but through the narrow alley between to buildings that Virgil had seen collapse in on themselves with his own eyes as the families inside screamed for help, he could spy the willowy figure that stood nearly invisible against the dark horizon of the night.

   His heart pounded with exhilaration as he felt his lungs beginning to sting, his throat growing scratchy and dry. Vae was back, Vae was back, Vae was back... He felt a grin spread across his face. His best friend was home. Finally, he wouldn’t be alone.

   Slowing down, he bent over, panting heavily. He’d never done much exercise, despite running from himself his entire life. His eyes were brimming with tears of joy and exhaustion, blurring his vision as he looked to see his vision was so poor from the salty liquid in his eyes that he saw three figures instead of one.

   He began walking, too tired to run again, wiping the tears as he called Vae’s name. Upon looking up again at the horizon, Virgil made out the outlines of three people. Not one. Three.

   What? Did Vae come back with someone? he wondered as he approached the people, apprehension taking root in his gut. Millions of possibilities flew through his mind. They’re refugees. They killed Vae. It’s Marco, Kay, and Farhana back from their mission. Vae met merchants or soldiers or something or- his heart stopped. He could clearly see the people now.

   None of them were Vae.

   Thousands of emotions flooded through him, grief being the first after the searing feeling of hope being crushed and falling to the desolate, cold ground. Virgil sank to his knees, tears of despair spilling over his eyes this time around. His heart beat rapidly, ready to tear its way through his body and escape the cage of ribs inside him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this couldn’t be happening? Why couldn’t he get a happy ending for once in his miserable life? His breath came in shallow gasps and he mentally cursed. He was having a panic attack.

  His limbs trembled as another gust of wind blew, dust and other particles hitting his face harshly. He could feel his heart racing at the same pace of his thoughts, which was firmly convinced that Vae had met some terrible fate at the hands of terrible people. He let out a sob that resembled his best friend’s name, his head hitting the hard ground as he collapsed over his knees, pounding on the cruel earth that likely covered his friend in eternal sleep.

   He felt a hand on his shoulder and screamed, throwing his head back to see who it was and falling back painfully on his behind. He saw a stoic man staring him down, tiny lights flickering behind his grey eyes. He wore a double-breasted suit ensemble with a dark blue and black color scheme, tiny navy pinstripes running up and down his tight trousers which were crammed into brown dress boots. A bolo tie wrapped around his neck, transparent beads decorating the aiguillettes. He held a lantern burning brightly in the middle of the night, blinding Virgil as he tried to calm himself down. In the firelight, he made out the shadowy faces of the two strangers behind him.

   The first thing he noticed about the pretty-boy blonde was the flower crown he wore. Lilacs the color of a sunset, roses the color of a china doll’s dainty painted blush, and teal chrysanthemums decorated his head, slightly glowing with their respective pastel colors. His bright blue eyes observed Virgil curiously, his head slightly tilted and his lips pursed with worry. Besides the flower crown, the boy was dressed elegantly, as though he was trying to convince everyone he really was a prince of some sort. He wore a copper-colored ascot tie tucked neatly into a white mandarin collar shirt. He wore red breeches and a pair of dramatic, buckled, knee-length wedge boots the color of lavender flowers accented with gold chains, giving a bit more rounded appearance to the prince wanna-be. Over his clothing, he wore some sort of jacket trailing to his knees, splatters of gold giving the otherwise white fabric the look of an ombre. A red sash attached to a little bag was slung across his body. Virgil also spotted a dark blue necklace hiding underneath his shirt, the chain just barely visible in the night. Lighting up the air around him were soft butterfly wings glowing cotton candy pink, their tips white as icing.

   The one beside him also watched with concern. His baby blue eyes, similar in color to the boy with the flower crown, narrowed as he watched Virgil gasp for breath, scared out of his mind. This one was decked with a pair of antlers that looked like crystal dripping soft pastel colors that reminded Virgil so much of his lost friend. His wispy cinnamon and dark toffee hair fell into his eyes as he pushed it back away from his face, pulling out a silver hair clip from somewhere and forcing his hair to comply. For a moment, Virgil compared him to the likes of Rin Okumura from Blue Exorcist before he remembered he was not supposed to be interested in little kids’ stuff like that. Instead of beginning another inner war, he focused of the eccentric clothing of the antlered man. He wore a bright blue waistcoat patterned with lace shaped like interlocking roses, tiny silver chains keeping it wrapped around him. Underneath, he wore a plain white shirt with small brown sleeve garters. He also wore beige breeches and black knee-length boots with bright yellow buckles. Virgil noticed a pair of black-rimmed circle glasses tucked into the breast pocket of his waistcoat.

   Virgil choked out another sob, tears running down his cheeks, ruining the black eye-shadow he always wore. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision the first time he put it on. Vae had been gone for three days back then, and he was trying to repel his loneliness by finally completing the dare Vae had given him when they were just teens, laughing beside a campfire, the thought of war and destruction far in the back of their minds. Vae had returned later that week, amused at Virgil’s new look, but now that she had truly disappeared, Virgil couldn’t keep from wearing the eye-shadow beneath his eyes, as if it were the only thing that he had left to remember her by.

   The antlered one moved suddenly, throwing his arms around him and squeezing tightly. Virgil shrieked, trying to push the man away from him with his gangly arms. Instead, the man hugged him tighter. He patted him on the back with gentle hands. Virgil froze, unsure what to do. Virgil felt himself begin to relax in the man’s grasp, though his pulse was still skyrocketing.

   “W-what are you doing?” he managed to force out of his mouth. “Who are you all?” Much quieter, he added, “Where’s Vae?” The others seemed to notice the first two inquiries. At long last, the hugger pulled away.

   He spoke in an unfamiliar language, melodic words bouncing off his tongue as he rambled phrases foreign to the scared boy. The man with steely gray eyes stepped forward, muttering to the antlered man, who glanced at Virgil and flushed.

   “I apologize,” the man with cold eyes said. “My companion forgot you do not speak our tongue. You speak a language known as English, correct?” Virgil nodded, dumbfounded. “My name is L.O.G.I.C., and these are my companions, Patton-” he gestured to the antlered man, “-and Roman,” he gestured to the prince, who waved briskly. “I know this is sudden, but you must come with us.”

   Virgil gaped at the three strangers. He pushed himself off the ground, unable to bare the feeling of being watched like a pathetic wimp. He mumbled incoherent words, still trying to process everything. “You’re… you guys are aliens?” he breathed, focusing on their more… supernatural body parts. L.O.G.I.C. blinked, apparently confused.

   “Well, not exactly. By alien, do you mean the undocumented immigrant kind or the beings from another planet kind?”

   “Of course the beings from another planet kind! I’d never use such a mean word to describe people who could easily be my friends!” Virgil cried defiantly. His eyes widened as his brain reminded him not to blurt anything, and his shrunk back, clutching the patch-covered sleeves of his hoodie.

   L.O.G.I.C reached out a hand, but drew back. “To be more specific, Patton is a shapeshifter known as a Drisine. Roman is a being who appears with one physical aspect of another creature, and can turn into that creature. He also happens to be an exiled prince, though from experience I suggest you don’t bring that up when speaking to him.”

   “W-what about you?” Virgil asked. He would be lying if he said his interest wasn’t piqued by now.

   L.O.G.I.C. smiled coldly, what Virgil assumed was the only mode his smile was set to. “I am an artificial intelligence unit set inside a capsule built to resemble that of my creator.” Virgil couldn’t process it. Mere moments ago, he had believed his best friend was coming home. And now these strangers who claimed to be beings from faraway planets had asked him to come with them. It was something straight out of a movie.

   “Why?” he asked suddenly, his eyes burning into the robot’s. “Why me?” His lifted his chin, mimicking the rebel teens in the propaganda movies he’d come to know by heart. “What makes me so important?” He bit his harshly, shoving his hands deep into the thralls of the hoodie’s pockets. He couldn’t seem weak. They wouldn’t want him then, no matter why they wanted him now.

   L.O.G.I.C.’s eyes narrowed and Virgil steeled himself, putting up the mask he always wore. After a long, worry-filled pause, L.O.G.I.C. finally responded. “According to my fellow companions, they heard a rather cryptic prophecy that they, along with two others who fit our descriptions, will defeat an age-old evil.” The robot added on in a lower tone, “We seem to be in the same boat. These two dragged me into their ship after breaking into a lab, and I’ve been travelling with them ever since.” Virgil almost chuckled at the sight of the two smaller men dragging this no-nonsense robot onto a stereotypical UFO ship.

   He shook his head, running his hand through his head. “What the hell…” he whispered, his eyes glancing across the landscape slowly brightening as time approached dawn. “Why… why me, though? Why not literally any other one of my friends holed up back in town?” he asked, jutting his thumb behind him to the ruins. “They’re the ones leading a rebellion. Me? All I can do is hide in the bell tower and wait for my friend to come home…” His voice cracked, small tears in his eyes. He blinked, looking down at the dirt as rubbed the tears away. Someone tackled him in a tight hug, making him gasp. “W-what?!” he stuttered, disliking the contact. He looked to see it was the one L.O.G.I.C. had called “Patton.”

   Patton said something, pulling away. “Patton says he hopes you feel happier soon,” the robot told him. Patton continued to talk in the strange tongue, his eyes shimmering in the fire of the robot’s lantern. Meanwhile, the robot continued to translate for the bewildered teen. “To sum up what he’s saying, most of which being what you humans call ‘fluff’, he’s asking you to come with us because it does not look like you enjoy the life you are currently living. You mentioned a person named Vae when you were approaching us, might I ask who this is?”

   Virgil snarled. “She’s my friend, dummy…” He ripped his body out of Patton’s grip, almost shoving the man away. “I’m waiting for her…” L.O.G.I.C. frowned. He mumbled something under his breath, though Virgil only caught the words “pesky emotions.” “So I can’t go with you,” he said, shaking his head and taking a step back. “I mean, I don’t even know you guys, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and… and…” He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t feel. The world around his was spinning as he fell to his knees, gasping for breath.

   He could vaguely sense someone running to him, shaking his shoulders slightly and saying something. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t breath. He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Someone else was holding his hands, running their thumbs over his knuckles. He focused on that feeling, just that feeling, the feeling of warm skin meeting his, the feeling that maybe, just maybe, somebody found him worthy. He hadn’t felt it since Vae disappeared.

   Someone was singing. He expanded his hazy focus from just the thumbs running across his knuckles to the voice that was so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. “Masae ioána tu an luüa, lavēhsea, agus tea tu rinda saänud ta. Waesa eayona rinda tä oppai-uoye-sinderūe, agus tu agus e taeyunge faero laehkona…” His breath slowed down, the words permeating his frantic mind like a sun ray bursting through a sky full of thunderclouds. His eyes wandered up to meet blue ones. He got lost in those sky blue eyes that glittered like crystals in the night. They were warm, seeming to smile, and reminded him of a clear summer day, nostalgic of a time when he and Vae were children and they hadn’t learned to be scared. He recalled running through a field of tall reeds, Vae on his tail, playing tag as they run through the small town they grew up in.

   The memory turned sour. Time jumped years, to when he was a young boy. He could clearly picture the face of his mother, smiling sweetly as she waved goodbye to her school-bound son. He came home that day to find his entire neighborhood gone, leaving just crumbled, charred ruins and trauma that wove falsehoods into his mind to make him forget the sight of his mother’s charred body, clinging to a small photograph of her son who no longer smiled.

   He choked out another sob, the tears burning his face with shame and despair and everything gone to shit. The voice grew stronger, the thumbs becoming hands that grasped his own, holding them in a gentle yet firm grip. Hands became arms that pulled him into a strong embrace, not as familiar one Patton had given him, yet still warm and calming. He looked into those eyes, searching for worth, for love, for anything to anchor him to reality.

   The person pulled him into his grasp, and he fell forward into their chest, his hands grasping silken fabric that had gone threadbare in some places. He buried his face into their warm body, staining their clothes with his tears. They smelled like smoke from campfires, like saltwater and seashells, like velvet in a thrift store.

   “Sasha tu haao meh,” they whispered, combing their soft fingers through his mousy hair. He listened to the sound of their heartbeat, his vision finally clearing as the tears began to dry. Virgil couldn’t bring himself to look at whoever it was who held him in their arms like he was their whole world. Instead, he snuggled closer to them, his ratty hoodie hardly protecting him from the bitter night.

   The person gently grasped his chin between their forefinger and thumb and coaxed him to look up. Virgil tired his best to keep his gaze averted, feeling the shame beginning to crawl up his spine, but the person moved into his eyesight.

   It was Roman.

   That alone was enough to send Virgil back into hysterical whimpering, but seeming to sense Virgil’s apprehension, Roman pulled him even closer, hugging him. “Sasha tu haao meh, lavehsea,” he repeated. Virgil’s gaze wavered, but Roman held it, staring into his eyes- and perhaps, his soul.

   Something turned on within Virgil, deep down in his heart where he stowed all precious things. He didn’t seem to be disgusted by Virgil’s weakness. He didn’t seem to think Virgil was only worth keeping around for standing guard. No. He seemed to… like Virgil. As though he meant something to the pretty boy with butterfly wings the color of cotton-candy.

   He sniffed, wiping the tears in his eyes away. He tried smiling. Roman smiled brightly at him, and Virgil realized what exactly his heart was screaming at him: Go with him. Go with them. Vae’s not coming back. They’re you’re new family, whether you like it or not. Go with him. Go.

   His eyes met the robot’s. “Forgive me for not offering any condolences. I have no desire to involve myself with complex emotions such as yours and Roman and Patton’s,” he stated, offering a hand to Virgil. He stared at it for a moment before taking it and standing up, wiping away more tears. Roman got up, too, as Patton slung a arm around his shoulder.

   “Rende hamun tu!” Patton said, causing Roman to snort and L.O.G.I.C. to crack a smile.

   “He said you’re his son now,” the robot translated. Virgil blanched, his face flushing shamefully. “You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to…” L.O.G.I.C. said softly, tilting his head to the side.

    To say he was conflicted would be an understatement. Heartstrings were being tugged at, old feelings of yearning to go on adventures being dug up and thrown about like confetti. Yet, he couldn’t leave. ...Could he? Could he leave Vae for dead, leave behind his home for the past two decades of his life, leave behind all he had left to remember of when the world was at one another’s throats, desperate to survive in a war-torn insanity? He felt his hands start shaking. He couldn’t leave. Vae was still out there. Until they found her body, she couldn’t be dead. But the little voice in his head told him different, told him to come to his senses and stop clinging like a child to all he held dear. He had nothing left here. Nobody left who loved him, no place that he could call home, no reason why he should stay.

   He made his decision.

   “Promise you won’t leave me behind,” he demanded, his fists clenching and shoulders tensing. L.O.G.I.C. seemed taken aback, but composed himself quickly.

    “Of course,” he told Virgil softly, slightly confused at the request. “We would never leave you behind…” He trailed off, probably realizing that Virgil hadn’t given up his name yet. He wasn’t ready, though.

   “Just... call me Anxiety. It’s an old nickname of mine,” he offered. L.O.G.I.C. blinked.

   “Very well, Anxiety. I am to assume you have chosen to come with us?” Virgil nodded, biting his lip. He was really doing this… “Come along, then, the Sanders Yersinia is just a little ways away.” The travelers turned away from him, beginning to head back the way they came.

   Virgil looked behind him. Looked at the town made of ruins and black snow and hate and fear and despair. Looked at the past that refused to leave him alone. He saw a glimpse of the base and the bell tower, where a tiny flicker of light continued to glow. He swallowed, turning around and joining his new companions. He was leaving this lonely planet, this heartbroken world, this desolate land, this disconsolate war. He wasn’t going to come back.

   God, he hoped he was making the right decision.

I searched up way too many fashion terms to write this. Oh well.

Thank you for you kind words (*i feel so much validation* :DDDDD)! I really appreciate each and every one of them.

So I think all that’s left to get this story actually started is Cal joining the crew. Then we get the gOoD sHiT :)

Here’s the translation for what Roman was saying:

“Masae ioána tu an luüa, lavēhsea, agus tea tu rinda saänud ta. Waesa eayona rinda tä oppai-uoye-sinderūe, agus tu agus e taeyunge faero laehkona...”:  I’ll sing you a sunset, darling, and gather you into my arms. Just let me look into your silver-lining-eyes, and you and I will dance across the sky.

“Sasha tu haao meh,” and “Sasha tu haao meh, lavehsea,”: You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay, darling.

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