The Deaths Of The Protector

The Deaths of the Protector

Summary: Virgil would do anything to keep his family safe. Even if it meant dying a little. Or, in his case, a lot.

Warnings: Temporary Death & swearing.

This was edited by @forever1show @lilcutedagger & @gaypowersunite ! Thanks, you guys!

Virgil would do anything to keep his family safe.

Even before he was accepted, he would’ve cut off all of his limbs if it meant that the Light Sides and Thomas didn’t get hurt. He would’ve jumped off of a cliff into a sea of lava if it meant they all remained untouched. He protected them, it was his one and only job.

It definitely got easier when he was accepted though. He didn’t have to watch for threats from the sidelines anymore. He could go down into the common rooms without getting suspicious looks from Roman and Logan or Patton trying to get him to open up about where he was all the time or what his name was.

He wasn’t Anxiety anymore. He was Virgil, Thomas’ Anxieties yeah, but he wasn’t the villain. He was part of the family. He could protect his family without them thinking he was evil incarnate.

But, sometimes protecting his family meant that he got hurt. Sometimes, it meant that he died for a little bit.

None of the Sides could actually die. They weren’t people, they were constructs of Thomas’ mind, personality, and instincts. Yes, they could “die”, but they would always come back eventually.

To Virgil’s knowledge, none of the other Light Sides had ever died. He would’ve known if any of the Dark Sides had so much as gotten near the Light Sides living area. He was sure that the others knew that they could come back, but never gone through that process themselves.

Virgil’s death count had gotten so long that he had long forgotten the actual number.

He did remember the first time he died. It had been when Thomas was fourteen. Virgil had never fit in anywhere, with the other Light Sides or the Dark Sides. At the time, his and Roman’s relationship was just short of hate on both sides. Their jobs just clashed the most and it led to so many fights.

Yet, when Virgil had found Malice trying to get into Roman’s room with a knife, he didn’t hesitate to tackle him to the ground and sink the two of them into the subconscious.

It ended with Malice running off to hide in his room and Virgil gasping for breath and coughing up blood. The knife that Malice had tried to stick into Roman was stuck in Virgil’s stomach. He cried ugly tears, screaming for the others to save him. He wasn’t ready to die. He needed to be there to protect Thomas.

He did die that day. He bled out in the subconscious and, after hours of crying and trying to sink out only to fail, everything faded to black.

Death hadn’t been like he expected. He felt like every single speck of him was torn apart and he had to stitch every part of his body and his mind back together. It hurt more than anything he had had ever felt in his life. It was his longest time regenerating ever. By the time he had woken up in his room, it had been two weeks since Malice had killed him. He had stumbled out of his room to find Roman in the commons. Roman had rolled his eyes and asked where the hell he’d been for so long. Virgil just stared at him, taking him in. Malice hadn’t touched him.

After that, death didn’t seem so terrible if it meant that the others never knew how it felt.

He learnt how to sense if the Dark Sides came too close to Virgil and the others’ living area, though he never learnt how they got in. When they did get in, he would immediately confront them and fight if necessary.

Needless to say, he died a lot in those first few years.

But, he got better. He learned how to dodge and how to scare the Dark Sides away. He got better at sinking into the subconscious faster while restraining a struggling Dark Side. He learned how to strike first and how to strike fast. He never landed a hit good enough to kill them, but he didn’t need to kill them. He just needed to make sure that he hit them enough that they couldn’t continue on with whatever they intended.

The process of coming back to life never got easier though. It always hurt the same amount that it did the first time. But, it was worth it.

As long as Logan, Roman, and Patton remained safe, it would always be worth it.

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