Patton noticed it, right after the video with deceit.

Well of course he would, he was the one being trailed.

It started off subtly, just a brush on his arm and a nod. Quite usual for Logan but something was different. Maybe because the Logical side was sticking around more? He was in the mindscape living room with a book instead of relaxing in his room.

He had gotten a pat on the back and a smile from Roman. The Prince was now playing on his phone in the chair opposite to Logan. Usually he’d be questing or learning lyrics to new songs in his room.

And Virgil… well Virgil’s Anxiety, anything but subtle. The emo had followed him into the kitchen to help him pull out the freshly made batch of cookies. Which was what he had been making since he wasn’t summoned- now the both of them were on the center couch watching Steven Universe and munching on chocolate chips. Virgil was sitting about a hair’s breath away from him, so close and yet not touching.

This was the way his family showed they cared, gentle enough not to be overwhelming but present enough to simply provide comfort. It was all he would ever need. Patton chuckled internally, though his eyes may have visibly watered a bit-

“Hey Pat, you ok?”

The father figure scanned their faces, each one of them had stopped doing their activities to look at him with various degrees of concern. It warmed his heart.

“Yeah, Virge, I’m good”, with a gentle smile he leaned his on the emo’s shoulders. “I’m good”

In all honesty, he expected Virgil to tense up under him at first, but was pleasantly surprised when the dark trait all but relaxed at the contact.

He gave the younger a beaming smile, to which he received a small one back and with little to no hesitation he gently drew the younger in for a half hug. From his angle Virgil couldn’t see it but Patton could see the twin quirks of both Logan and Roman, a subtle smile at the edge of their lips.

The father figure was happy, sure they had a scare today but his family would be alright.

—-

Virgil sighed sleepily.

Roman was playing on his phone, Logan was well into his book and he was leaning comfortably on Patton watching cartoons. His family was all in close veiw, they were safe…maybe that’s why he felt so relaxed? With all things considered, he should feel threatened, he should be preparing to give a certain snake a piece of his mind, he should be doing something to make sure Deceit didn’t sneak his way in again,  he should be-*yawn*

“Tired kiddo?”

He looked up at Patton, “Uh,  yeah, just a little bit, Princey had me playing techie and running around looking for a friggin’ sippy cup-”

“Hey, you found it in time!”

“Yeah after you moved it! Why did you give me that job anyway?”

“Well if I gave you any other you’d probably point out all the flaws-”

“I still did that-”

“True, but you got the curtains up, the light on and the props out in record time, who else could I have trusted to work all that with the most efficiency?”

“Huh, didn’t think of that, thanks Princey”

“Anytime fruit-of-the-gloom!”

The sides laughed good naturedly before easily lapsing into a peaceful silence.

—-

“Hey, hey Virge, lie down buddy”

“Hrm-?”

Virgil had been slowly drifting off, somewhere between the third and fourth season of Pokemon. Patton had only noticed when the younger’s head had started drooping forward.

“It’ll be far more comfortable this way" 

"Wha-?”, mumbled the emo, voice sleep thick and drowsy.

“Shh, I got ya champ”

Patton gently lowered the tired trait onto the pillow in his lap, Virgil all too pliantly relaxed, even more so when the Parental began carding his fingers through his faded purple locks.

Logan snickered, “seems that he was more tired than he let on”

“Looks like Teach”

“Here Padre”, whispered Roman from his chair as he conjured a blanket to hand to the father.

“Aww, thank you Roman, that’s very sweet of you!”

“It’s no problem, ‘bout time he actually got some sleep”, smirked the Prince.

The other two couldn’t agree more.

—–

It started subtly.

A small shift.

A twitch of the eyelids.

A small groan.

Then all three…with the addition of tears.

“Virgil! Virgil wake up!”

The aforementioned side shot up, gasping into a sitting position.

Panting and shaking, Virgil’s eye shadow went running down his chin.

“You ok kiddo?”

Swallowing down some much needed air, the dark trait nodded. He could see all three of their worried faces. Trying to get a hold of himself he faced the curtain on the far wall as he scrubbed the running make up off his face.

“Y-yeah, yeah Pat I’m-”, the emo suddenly paused and growled.

The low, gravelley sound caused the other three to jump, Roman even ended up accidentally summoning his sword. Virgil’s voice was borderline demonic.

“Uh, Virge?”

Virgil took a quick glance from the curtains he was glaring at to see the others with blatantly terrified expressions. As if they couldn’t see what he saw.

He glanced back at the curtains but the smirking figure of Deciet was gone.

Did-did he imagine it?

Out of the corner of his eye, Virgil saw a movement and pointed at it before even realizing that he did.

Out of pure reflex Roman rushed in front of the curtain, prepared to attack the foe that the youngest trait was apparently seeing. Of course he didn’t see anything but it was so quite in the living room that he did manage to hear something.

A soft familiar hiss.

Blindly the Prince struck out with the back end of his blade, it would not do well to destroy the curtains after all. Instead of colliding with the wall a sharp pained hiss was heard and a Yellow Viper slithered out.

The Snake rose, elevating itself to look Virgil dead in the eye.

It gave a false strike and then slithered through the wall disappearing from sight.

All four sides turned to each other, terror etched on their faces.

—–

Bonus:

It took all of three seconds for all of them to snap out of it.

Virgil being the first.

“That son of a-”, and he was springing out of the couch and heading for the curtains.

“Virgil where are you going?!” That was Patton, but even the worried Parental’s voice didn’t deter the Emo.

“I’m fight or flight”, he grit out as he began drawing up the sleeve of his hoodie, “and I don’t exactly got any wings”

With that he literally walked through the curtained wall.

Roman, who was still there poked the wall in alarmed curiosity, it was solid.

But before any of them could worry-

“Hello Virgil~”

“Deciet”

“My, my aren’t we angry- wait, wait what are you doing?! Hey, hey Virgil-waitwaitwait! No! Not the face! Not the face!”

….

When Virgil returned to the others, he was sporting a bleeding nose, a swollen cheek and some bruised and bloody fists. Though, a particularly victorious smirk was well plastered on his reddened lips.

“Hey Princey, got you a souvenir!”

A certain bowler hat was avidly held by two bent fingers.

—-

AN:// I feel like Virge would in fact kick deceit’s scaley behind. Most avid liars lie to protect themselves against getting physically hurt. I’m thinking Deceit is all silver tongue with nothing to back that up. Virgil on the other hand may be a bit jittery when it comes to fighting but if he has to, damn right he’s gonna pummel somebody.