*another prompt from tumblr, y'all I suck at writting short things lol*

"Hey, hey, calm down. They can't hurt you anymore"

Of course this would happen to him. Bad things always happened to him and today was nothing different.

----

It started when he woke up late.

He had stayed up until the sun itself was starting to rise, a mixture of nightmares and insomnia had kept him up with out mercy. Honestly, he wasn't planning on sleeping at all, instead he was going to watch the sun rise from the edge of his window pane, he'd watch it for the remaining three hours scince he'd have to wake Thomas soon anyway-

Groaning, he lifted his head from the odd position it was in - why the heck was he leaning on the window? He grimaced at the soreness of his neck and at the string of saliva that connected from his lips to a tiny puddle on the black pane.

Wiping his face with his sleeve, he groggily moved his exhausted body towards his bed, but just before he could flop down on it, something told him to check his phone.

He picked it up and turned on the screen, squinting a bit at the brightness, he checked the time- he dropped the phone with a yelp.

When he woke up it was almost 9am.

He forgot to wake Thomas, meaning that his host was late because of him.

Quickly, he popped into the manifestor's room, not caring at all about his disheveled appearance, only to find his host pouting disappointedly at him.

"Verge, what the heck man? You were supposed to wake me at 7:30! We were supposed to start planning the next script at 8:00. You knew my alarm clock wasn't working!"

"Thomas I-", he tried to explain but the host cut him off.

"No, nevermind, don't worry about it", he shook his head exasparatedly while  making an odd hand gesture, "I'll just call Joan and see if they have can stay longer to make up for the hour we missed"

"...sorry", he sunk down with out another word

----

Breakfast was another mess.

Seeing that he already screwed up with his host and his usual spiraling thoughts wouldn't let him go back to sleep, Virgil decided to eat away his worries.

He made himself a sandwich and placed it on the table before moving to make some coffee. Dad wasn't in the kitchen or anywhere in sight for that matter. Figuring that he should check if the other had also over slept, the Youngest trait grabbed his freshly made mug of brown gold and headed down the corridor to find Pat.

Only problem was, the moment he turned the corner he ran straight into Logan. Coffee went flying everywhere, even more so on a certain Teacher.

"Ack! Virgil really?! I do generally enjoy coffee but not when it's on me, now if you'll excuse me, I need to take another shower and hope me new tie won't stain"

The dark persona could do no more than stare numbly as Logic picked himself up and retreated back to his room.

He screwed up again.

After shakily picking himself up and cleaning his mess, Anxiety retreated to his room aswell, the food on the table was left untouched.

----

Lunch was just great.

He was afraid to look at Logan, Dad looked as exhausted as he felt and Roman wasn't even there.

It could have only been discribed as awkward at best. Frowning, Verge quickly finished his meal, wanting nothing more than to escape the odd atmosphere in the room.

He thanked Patton for the lunch and went to place his plate into the sink, only for a particular eight legged creature to scurry across the counter.

With a gasp he drew back...
And accidentally dropped the plate.

With a loud crash it splintered into peices upon impact with the floor. Virgil flinched at the sound and tears pricked at his eyes.

"S-sorry!"

He quickly began picking up the pieces, a few of them managed to cut them due to his shaky hands but he didn't stop until he picked up all he could and then he grabbed the broom and dustbin.

Dad was saying something to him but he couldn't really hear it, the sound of the plate smashing was still ringing in his ears. The moment his dumped the dirt into the garbage bin was when Patton finally managed to grab him, removing the cleaning items from out of his hand.
He turned over the younger's palm, it was red.

"Oh, Verge-"

Virgil shook his head and pulled away, teleporting straight into his room.

He messed up again.

----

That evening things didn't get any better either.

He had carefully picked out the pieces of glass from his fingers with a tweezer. It was a good thing those came with his makeup kit. His hands stung and he didn't have any bandages and he most definitely wasn't going to go outside to get some. So he stayed in his room scrolling on his for and ignoring the burning sensations he felt whenever his fingers tapped the screen.

Soon enough he found his vision going blurry and try as he might Virgil just couldn't clear the fog that was covering his eyes. The phone had also began feeling heavily in his hands as it slowly began sliding out of his palm. He let it fall on his chest with a small 'thud', it hurt to hold onto it anyway. His head had already lolled to the side and stared tiredly at his cat plush with half lidded eyes, all was left was for him to close them.

But as soon as he did...
He was summoned.

He landed hard on the stairs, back colliding onto wood with a thud.

"Ow, f*ck!"

"Anxiety!"

That was the sound of his host, it was...chatizing? Why-

Oh, shit! He cursed out loud and Thomas was filmimg, great, that would mean they'd have to do the scene over again.

"Sorry", he winced.

"Are you ok, kiddo?"

Patton was holding his hand out to him, he took it and stood up, injured back cracking in protest.

All in the room winced at the sound.

"Yeah, dude, you ok-"

" 'M fine Joan"

"You sur-"

"Yess, Thomas"

His voice was a borderline hiss, his back hurt and the day was already shitty, he didn't need everyone worried about him anyway. He wasn't worth the time.

Thankfully the others dropped it and moved on, the filming continued.

Until he messed up... again.

It was getting increasingly difficult to read the lines given that his vision had become all forms of blury. He became unsure of what exactly he was supposed to say and because of that he started stuttering, which lead to more than a couple scene re-do's than anyone wanted to admit.

"H-hardly, it's n-not-"

"CUT!"

Virgil jumped, he had foot ten how loud Talyn could be. The short multi color haired friend had stopped by with some snacks for the crew since they know Joan and Thomas had to stay later than planned.

Thomas sighed.

"Verge, do you wanna maybe take a break? We've been having trouble with the same scene for the past hour-"

The dark trait ducked his head and held his eyes downcast, "sorry"

"It's fine, we'll just film your scenes tommorow-"

Virgil sank down before he finished, the Host's dissapointed tone felt like a scathing shout.

----

Dinner, well, that's what got him into this mess.

After spending a couple hours starring at the ceiling thinking of his failures, Virgil decided to venture out of his room. He had just come downstairs and walked into the kitchen to see Pat over the stove making Dinner.

"Hey kiddo!"

The dark trait  jumped, Dad didn't even turn, how did he know it was him?

"Can you go get Roman for me Champ?"

He gave the father a nod and went back up stairs, he could atleast do this right....right?

Wrong.

He knocked on Roman's exquisite door, there was no answer, he tried again, nothing.

Bitting his lip, he turned the knob and entered the room...

He messed up.

Roman was embodiment of Creativity, with the ability to create anything that comes to mind, what was to say that he room didn't do the same?

The moment he stepped foot in the room the bright atmosphere turned dark. Shadows bled and oozed from the walls, locking him in and pulling him closer.

Virgil fought back but ended up cornered by thick shadows that seemed to be rising. He could do nothing but watch, frozen un terror as they shifted around, somehow simultaneously sounding like liquid sloshing and sand grating on the floor tiles. Eventually the shifting shadows formed into four figures, four very familiar figures.

And they spoke.

"Roman" shouted at him.

"Thomas" glared at him.

"Logan" didn't bother looking at him.

And Patton.... "Patton" had the most dissapointed look of them all.

He wanted to apologize but that only made it worse.

Everything he did, everything he said, everything he thought was shouted at him.

Virgil couldn't even tell you which one of the shadows were yelling at him, the voices-sloshing and grating-were getting to him.

The shadows started to move, they came closer and closer- he screamed.

"Back! Back you foul beasts! Begone this instant!"

He didn't even hear when Roman came in to the room but once the shadows were gone he lunged for the Royal and held onto him like he was a life line. Every fiber of his being was telling him to stop and let go of the Prince but he couldn't-

"Hey, hey, calm down. They can't hurt you anymore"

He messed up.

He didn't let go.

----

Roman held on to Virgil for a good while, hoping to settle the terrified trait. His sobs and sniffles were heart breaking but even more so was what those shadows were telling him.

The other two had entered the room the same moment as he, Virgil's scream had rang throughout the mindscape. Patton and Logan without a weapon could do nothing more than watch as he destroyed the shadows.

They couldn't enter the room and by the time the coast was clear, Virgil was already clinging to him.

----
Bonus:

He was going to say something to both Virgil and the other two when he felt it, the tug of a summons. A quick glance showed that it wasn't only him being called by Thomas.

"Guys what was th- Virgil?"

Said trait in response, curled up and clutched tighter onto Roman's shirt but his sobs did not cease.

The host was very confused and worried but the looks from Patton and Logan told him not to question it.

Gently Thomas helped move Prince and Anxiety towards the couch, where he proceeded to recite Virgil's breathing techniques while rubbing the younger trait's back.

Soon enough, Verge's sniffles stopped and though his breath would hitch every second or so, he wasn't really crying anymore.

"There you go Verge, feeling any better?"

Virgil didn't verbally answer the host, instead he gave a small nod before lifting his head up and wiping his face.

"Good, uh...do you want a hug?"

The eyes of all the sided widened, Thomas didn't usually offer physical contact with them much, something about hugging "himself" didn't sit right with him.

The anxious side didn't know what to do, so he shrugged, instead it came out as a small fragile thing.

Thomas wordlessly pulled him into a hug, but because of their position on the couch, Verge ended up sprawled on top of his chest, "is this better?"

The youngest trait hid his face in the crook of his neck and nodded, practically melting in the rare display of contact. The host gave him a small smile and just held him.

----

Thomas holding Virgil had two purposes, the first was to calm the younger of course and the second was to subtly ask the other three just what the heck was going on.

They whispered, mouthed and signed whatever they could to silently convey what they saw to their host. Mostly understanding what happened, Thomas wanted to hear Virgil's side, but when he tilted his head to get a look at the darker trait, he found couldn't move much but he could feel Virgil's warm breath on his neck.

"Verge?"

No reply.

Patton was the one who carefully walked by the arm of the chair to check only to barely stifle a small "aww"

Roman and Logan soon followed but they did nothing more than smile.

"Guys?", whispered Thomas.

Prince handed him his phone, showing  him a picture he just took. Thomas couldn't help but smile aswell.

Apparently the day had caught up to the younger.

Virgil was sound asleep in his host's arms.