#ghost patton sanders
…
He was trying.
He really, really was, trying.
But he couldn’t get Roman’s words out of his head.
And he’d heard the others, talking to the air, talking to him, they probably thought he didn’t, but he’d always been good at lurking in shadows, in pretending to not exist, he wasn’t surprised, he was able to mask his presence well enough no one could sense him near.
He’d heard Patton and Janus’s pleas. He’d heard Logan’s well reasoned arguments. He’d heard Roman’s apologies. He knew Roman was blaming himself, that it was tearing all of them up inside, but the thing was, Roman was right.
There were too many things, that could go wrong. Too many ways he could hurt them, too many ways he could destroy them, and he refused, he refused to drag them into his self-destructive spiral.
So, he stuck to the shadows, where no one could find him. He hid in the corners and under the couches and under the beds. He didn’t use his room, not since then they’d know where he was, and he stayed away as much as he could. He was exhausted and unfocused and half even deader than he already was, but he couldn’t let himself rest or he’d fizzle into view.
The closest he’d gotten was that night, with Patton. Everyone else had already been in their own rooms, and he felt guilty, Patton was staying out there for him, after all, and the least he could do is make sure he was comfortable. And now Patton’s words were rattling around in his skull, too, fighting against Roman’s, and he felt torn in two entirely different directions.
Maybe that’s why he found himself here, lurking in the shadows of Patton’s room, melted into the ones in the corner of the room. He heard the door open, and he took a deep breath as Patton came in, flopping face first onto the bed, slightly alarmed to hear sniffling emerging from the pillow his face was shoved into.
Slowly, he emerged from the wall, his inky, tarlike form slowly forming into something more solid, something that almost felt right, though it had been so long since he’d been anything other than a blob of darkness or a splotch of shadow. But as his form settles, it feels more and more… right.
“Pa… Patton?” He asked, voice rusty and hoarse, barely above a whisper, but it’s enough. Patton gasped, shooting upwards, and all at once Patton’s eyes were on him.
“Virgil!” he flinched back at the volume, form already destabilizing, it was harder to hold now, that he hadn’t in months. “sorry, sorry. I’m just… I’m glad to see you, kiddo. We’ve been worried.” He said softer, wanting to lunge, pull Virgil into a hug, but knowing he’d run if he did.
“so-rry. I-“ he flinched, a strange feeling coming over him, an almost nausea, almost vertigo, and he found himself on the ground, gasping as cold washed over him.
“Virgil!” he could tell Patton had yelled his name several times, but he couldn’t seem to hear right, the world was blurring and going fuzzy. Not just the world, he was blurring, his form bleeding away like a water color painting. He felt Patton’s hand on his arm, trying to say something, then the world shifted out from under him, Patton’s hand swiping through empty air as he vanished.
…
He stumbled hard, shoulder ramming into the wall, as he heaved in several deep breaths, trying to keep from full out panicking.
He felt weird. Solid. His body had weight, his form wasn’t flickering, he was leaning against the wall, but it wasn’t their wall. The house, he was in the house.
His breath sped again, remembering, shaking, crying, pulling at his hair as he screamed into a pillow, His words echoing in his head, he hasn’t been back here, not in the living room, since then, since he’d done it. He could feel the shadows darkening, starting to move of their own accord, starting to whisper.
“What the fwuh?” His eyes snapped open at the question, frantically taking in the scene.
Staring at him were two guys, both wearing twin expressions of shock and fear. Around his feet was a star in a circle outlined in chalk, a candle at each nexus.
“Summoning circle? What amateur fucking shit is this? Watched full metal alchemist a few too many times?” He choked out, biting sarcasm masking his fear and panic, trying to get the shifting tendrils of shadow slowly climbing the wall under control, succeeding in at least halting their growth.
“We… we were trying to summon Patton.” The shorter one said. He huffed, vision spinning.
“Well good job, dipshit, you summoned the literal opposite of that ray of sunshine. Now get me out of here!” He demanded, teeth grit against the strange cold seeping into his bones, the dark tiredness starting to fill him.
“Um. We don’t actually know how.” The taller one admitted sheepishly.
“Who are you, anyway? We only knew Patton and Roman.”
“Uh, no. You don’t get to interrogate me after practically kidnapping me.”
“Kidnapping… you showed up!” the short one, who seemed to have an attitude.
“oh yes, because I looove getting dragged to the physical plane of existence and talking to two idiots who think the funnest thing to do is harass people who probably don’t want to have memories of their recent demise brought back to the surface!” He shouted, breathing picking up again, hands clenched into fists, shadows wavering and breaking over the room, though he kept it in enough it didn’t attack, claws and glowing eyes and teeth ready to bite.
“You’re… Virgil, aren’t you?” He flinched back at that, shaking harder. “Oh shit, dude, I’m-”
“What? Sorry? Yeah, me too, now let me out!” he snarled, eyes flashing dark voids of shadow, his shadows writhing, and he found he had the anger to control them, and he hissed as one swiped through the chalk, releasing him from its hold as he struggled to stay standing, the circle giving him a truly physical form, draining his own energy to do so.
“We aren’t fucking toys. We’re people. We all died horrifically, at our hand or at others’. So next time, leave me the hell alone.” He snapped, his shadows encasing him as the solidness faded from his limbs, as his form fell to shreds, as the last of his energy was sucked from him, realizing the circle draining him dry, the crackling electric backlash of breaking the spell hit him full force, sending him reeling.
…
He fell, unceremoniously, crashing down from the ceiling and landing hard on the floor, crying out at the pain that shot through him, his vision flickering. He felt cold, icily cold, exhausted, drained, empty, barely, barely there.
“-il…-ear me? Virgil!” Roman’s panicked voice cut through his haze, though he found he couldn’t answer, couldn’t even nod. He was so purely exhausted, he was barely staying together at all. “Oh, love… it’s ok, I’ve got you.” He felt Janus lifting him up, and realized he must have landed in the living room. He thought he should be worried about that, for some reason, but his mind was already hazing over with fog. “Logan! Patton!” He called, the spirits appearing after a moment, any reprimand at being disturbed vanishing as Logan took in the state of Virgil, unconscious and form flickering, not the usual black, but a soft, faded gray. The same kind of gray that he’d seen on the others, on himself, when the wraith was draining them of their soul’s essence. Something had very badly damaged Virgil.
“What happened?” he demanded, trying to be steady, to keep Patton beside him from panicking.
“I don’t know. He… he showed up, in my room, then vanished, like he got pulled away, I tried to hold on, but I fell right through him!”
“Then he fell from the ceiling and crashed to the ground.” Roman finished, lacking his usual bravado.
“Lo, is he-“
“No, he’s not fading. Whatever started the drain has stopped, he’s stable, if very weak. An attempt at summoning, if I had to guess. Likely, they didn’t use anything to power the spell itself, so it used Virgil himself. He’s lucky he was able to break out, as he must have, for it to hit him this hard. Otherwise…” Logan trailed off, unwilling to finish that sentence, knowing from the silence the others knew his meaning.
“He was going to talk to me.” Patton said softly, tucking back a strand of Virgil’s hair, who didn’t seem to register the motion at all, lying still and pale as stone.
“He still may. He just needs to rest and recuperate, Patton. He will be all right.” Logan reassured, resting a hand on Patton’s shoulder for a moment, before turning away, trying to hide his fondness behind a frown. “Though we should figure out what exactly they did, and stop them from doing it again.”
No one noticed the green eyes glowing in the corner, alight with anger, at the state of his friend, because Virgil was a friend, whether he liked it or not. It was long past time the humans take notice of him, after all, and this would be a much needed… learning opportunity.
…
“well that could have gone better.” Thomas muttered, shivering slightly. The darkly moving shadows had vanished along with the ghost, the circle now smudged beyond recognition, the icy cold temperature of the room slowly returning to normal.
“No kidding. How’d you know that one’s name?” Joan asked, still staring at the spot he’d vanished.
“He… the real estate agent. He had to tell me, the previous tenant, Virgil… died, here. To suicide.” Joan let out a low breath, collapsing back onto the couch, grabbing a pillow to hug to their chest.
“shit. No wonder he wasn’t happy to be here.”
“It looked like it was hurting him.” Thomas murmured, remembering how Virgil was clinging to the wall, barely staying upright.
“That’s what happens when you do your research through google search, you silly billies.” They both stared at the glowing green eyes floating above them, the slow Cheshire grin forming out of nothingness to accompany it. “Someone gets hurt.” The voice growled, and suddenly it wasn’t a single pair of eyes, it was thousands, a towering mass of writhing tentacles and blindingly black light, a cavernous maw and a million gnashing, reeking tooth beaked mouths screaming.
They both gasped for air as the vision vanished just as quick as it came, a few mere seconds, a glance at the clock revealed, though it had felt like they had been trapped with that Lovecraftian creation for hours. Thomas could still feel the vibrations of the clacking beaks, hear the echoes of distant screams, and he could tell from Joan’s horrified expression, they had seen it too.
“I’m not exactly a fan, of people hurting my friends. Especially when they can’t do much in way of defense or… retaliation-“
“We didn’t mean to!” Thomas blurted, before the sinister presence could throw them into another nightmare. “We didn’t… we didn’t mean to hurt anyone. We just… Patton seemed lonely. So we were trying to find a way to actually see him, and… and we obviously didn’t do it right. And I’m sorry, for hurting him… Virgil.” He finished, a frown on his lips, thinking of the pain on the ghost’s face. “Is he… is he ok?” He asked, heart pounding a thousand beats a second, terror racing through him.
“Well, well, well, isn’t that interesting. The human has a conscience.” The voice echoed from every direction, bouncing around the room in the most disorienting pattern, one moment directly in his ear, the next all the way in the kitchen, the next above them near the ceiling, those green eyes and grin always in the corner of their eyes, always vanishing as soon as they turned to look.
“And what about you, short stack? Got anything to say for yourself, before I decide what to do with the two of you?” Joan gulped, holding the pillow tighter, knuckles white.
“Uh. He was right. Virgil. It’s not… we shouldn’t treat this like a game. You’re people. Not entertainment. But we do really want to get to know you all… to help, if we can. Even though we’re generally pretty shitty at showing it, that’s what we were trying to do. Help.” They managed, wincing as a dark chuckle rang through the room.
“Help, huh?” They yelped as they felt something cold wrap around their ankles, suddenly yanking them off the couch, dragging them across the floor, across the kitchen, to the basement door. Blinking their vision clear, adrenaline racing, they both practically held their breath as they watched a shimmering outline form, cringing as it was filled in with bones, then veins and arteries, pulsating flesh and decaying organs, finally a layer of skin growing over it all, putting a face to that Cheshire grin, the electric green eyes, as the being towered over them, smile wild and manic, eyes ablaze, a morningstar resting over his shoulder, his outfit some weird mix of sparkling satin and menacing velvet. They both flinched back as he leaned down, examining them, before extending a hand.
“Seems like you two can use all the help you can get. Now, if you’re gonna go full in on this, you gotta learn the basics, and if you abuse what I teach you…”
They shivered, seeing crimson blood splash across their hands, teeth ripping into their jugulars, shadowy creatures clawing them to shreds, screaming though no one else could hear, unable to move their bodies as inch by inch, their skin was stripped from their flesh, ants eating them from the inside out.
“And it’ll be twice as bad if you harm any of them ever again. There won’t be anywhere you can hide, that I won’t find you, and believe me, it’ll be a pleasure.” Their vision cleared, the images wiped away like fog on a bathroom mirror, forgotten nearly instantly, though the feeling of dread and terror lingered. “So. You in, or are you pussies?” Joan snorted despite themselves, earning an eye roll from Thomas, and a slight upturn of the lips from the being, though he still glared daggers at them. Thomas took a deep breath, accepting the outstretched hand, surprised as he made contact, and it helped pull him to his feet, solid, though it didn’t feel quite… real. Joan followed suit a moment later.
“Ok. I want to learn.” He answered solemnly, Joan nodding in agreement, gaze serious in a way it rarely was.
“Me too. If we’re gonna be the crazy ghost house people, we might as well really go for it.”
“It’s been a while, since I had such willing students. Oh, this’ll be fun!” He clapped, eyes swirling, teeth slightly too sharp.
“So… when do we start?” Joan asked, and Remus tsked.
“Patience. I have to get back before they wonder where I’ve went, and you have to start living like a normal person and not staying up until two scrolling tumblr!”
“What does that have to do with ghost summoning?”
“Nothing, just good life advice. Take from me, who’s never actually been alive!” Thomas and Joan exchanged a puzzled look.
“Aren’t you a ghost?” He cackled, a wild, howling sound, that sent shivers down their spines, as he wiped away tears from his eyes, floating on his back in midair.
“Oh, sweet summer children, you naive innocent fools, you’re lucky I’m in a good mood, otherwise it would be so very easy to break you. No, no, no, I’m not a ghost at all. I am a poltergeist!” He declared, suddenly close to Thomas’s face, gently booping his nose, those swirling eyes far too close for comfort as they stared into his. “And you may call me Remus.”
Next
TW for past abuse, emotional manipulation
…
He slipped into awareness slowly. He was warm, comfortable, he felt… safe. The ever present haze of dread and fear and exhaustion was gone. He could hear voices, speaking, but he couldn’t make out the words. He realized he was hearing them through a door, and managed to crack open his eyes.
A room. Not his. A bed. Also not his. The blanket was a soft baby blue color, fluffy and warm. The walls were a light cream, the ceiling painted with clouds that seemed to move slowly across it, and the whole space gave off an aura of soothing calm. He sat up, pulling the blanket tight around his shoulders, wondering if he should get up, when the door opened.
He flinched at the noise, curling in on himself, tense as he heard footsteps across the floor, recoiling slightly at a touch of his shoulders.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, feeling himself shaking. “I t-told you to stay a-away. I’m sorry I-“
“Shhh. It’s okay, baby.”
“It’s not! It’s not. I j-just want it to end, why can’t it just end? Why…” he trailed off, feeling Patton shift closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, which he let stay, leaning slightly into it.
“Because some part of you wants to keep going. Some part of you wants to believe in yourself. I’m so proud of you, kiddo. I know it was hard, to stop that darkness. But you did, and I’m so proud.”
“What was that? Th-that th-thing? It w-was me, w-wasn’t it? I’m J-just a m-monster.”
“No. Honey, no, you aren’t a monster. The people who made that darkness, who fed it, who nurtured it until you believed every word it said, they are the monsters. Not you. Everyone’s ok. Everyone’s alright. We just… we need to work on some things, so that doesn’t happen again.”
“what would have happened? If I h-had let it, what would it have done?” Patton hesitated, and Virgil looked up at him, dark eyes burning with something almost akin to pain. “please. I need to know. I… need to understand, I don’t know anything about this, b-being this, and I c-can’t…”
“Ok. Logan might be better at explaining this, but I’ll try. So, there are different types of spirits. We’re ghosts. We’re human souls that, for some reason or another, haven’t moved on. We’re sentient and, with effort, can influence the physical world. Remus is a poltergeist. He’s not human, never has been. He’s a result of wild energies all swirling together, a manifestation of the universe’s chaos come to life. He can influence things in the physical world more easily, and isn’t bound to this location. He can go wherever he likes. There are also ghosts that appear on a schedule, same routine every time they appear. A woman walking down the stairs, vanishing around a corner at the stroke of ten, that kind of thing. Those are memories, impressions made on a space by some kind of high impact event. They aren’t sentient or aware, it’s just like watching a home video, a snapshot of a different time. Then… then there are corrupted souls.” Virgil was uncurling slightly, looking at him curiously now, listening intently.
“Corrupted souls?”
“Darkness takes over. They lose who they are. All they know is that they’re hurt and angry and someone needs to pay for it. It doesn’t matter who. They can drain the energy of other ghosts, effectively erasing their existences, they grow uncontrollably, destroying everything in their paths, until they burn themselves out. Usually, it takes years, decades, even, for a spirit to become so lost, to give themselves over to that darkness completely. And usually only then when they don’t have any other spirits around to keep them company. It’s when they start going mad from being alone for so long. But you… we were seconds away from losing you to it, kiddo. That’s what has us scared. That you already had so much of that darkness instilled in you.” Virgil shuddered, pulling away, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself
“I was doing that, to you. T-to all of you. Wasn’t I? Draining you all. I almost… I could’ve…” panic climbed his throat, choking him once more, and he could barely hold himself together.
“But you didn’t. That’s what matters, kiddo. You didn’t let it. Coming back from that, stopping that, is incredibly hard, but you did. You did, and that’s all that matters.” Virgil shook his head, shoving back his hair.
“what if it happens again? What… what if I can’t stop it?” He whispered.
“that’s not gonna happen. But you have to let us in, Virgil. You have to let us help, and be there for you, ok? That’s all I want. Is to be able to be there for you.” Patton held his nonexistent breath, pleading, praying, begging for Virgil to say yes, to let him help, because otherwise…
Otherwise they would lose him. Sooner or later, they would lose him.
“please?” he asked again, quietly, watching as Virgil slowly nodded.
“ok.” Then Virgil folded against him with a soft wail, and Patton embraced him, rocking him softly until he cried himself out, falling back asleep.
…
He felt more… himself, when he woke up next. The panic and fear were gone, his chest loose and not tangled up in knots. He felt… almost relaxed. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt any kind of unstressed or untensed.
He realized part of that might be because he could feel someone massaging his scalp, a kind of gentle touch he hadn’t felt in years, the kind he could barely remember feeling at all. It made him want to fall back asleep, to stay here in this warm, soft, bliss.
“mmm… Patton?” He murmured sleepily, blinking his eyes open. Usually, this much touch would make him afraid, set him on edge, but it felt… safe, coming from Patton, who was curled around him like a mother cat with her kitten.
“Hey, kiddo. Feeling better?” Patton asked, not stopping his gentle scritching.
“yeah. I… I think so.” He mumbled, moving to sit up, pulling away from Patton a bit, pulling his knees to his chest, biting his lip.
“That’s good. I want to talk to you, about something. But I don’t want you to get upset, and run away again.” Virgil tensed, but didn’t move, shaking as he pushed back his hair. “Virgil. It’s nothing bad, nothing to do with you. It’s… you remember, what I said that made you run, when Janus found you?” He asked softly, Virgil wincing, curling a bit tighter.
“yeah.” He mumbled, not offering more, refusing to look up at Patton.
“Did you ever tell Him no?” That was not the question he was expecting, and he chewed on his lip. He didn’t know where Patton was taking this, just thinking about Him made him shake, but he somehow knew this was important.
“no. I never… I never could. He did so much for me. I had to, I… I owed him!” Patton hummed, nodding, not disagreeing.
“Okay. Did he ever tell you no?” He furrowed his brows, thinking.
“Well… yeah. I always asked for too much. I didn’t contribute, so I didn’t get a say, and that was… was fine, I guess.”
“Did he ever tell you yes?” Patton continued, forcing him to answer without any room for obfuscation.
“no.” He whispered.
“Okay. Did he let you go out with friends? Did he let you go out alone?”
“N-no. But that was to protect me. I’m always afraid, of getting jumped or something. He always wanted to know where I was, that I was safe.”
“Would he get mad, if he didn’t know?”
“yeah.”
“Did you know where he was, all of the time? Were you allowed to ask what he was doing, who he was with, who he was seeing, where he was spending time, anything at all?” Virgil hesitated again, clearly thinking, and Patton was hoping, praying this nonconfrontational approach would help Virgil start to understand.
“no.”
“Would he get mad, if you asked?” Virgil looked up at him, for the first time since the start of this, eyes confused and dark, as he nodded.
“so. Can I summarize? You were not allowed to refuse him anything. You were not allowed to anywhere without him. You were not allowed to see anyone without him. you were not allowed to have friends. You were not allowed to do things for yourself.” Virgil nodded again, foccused on Patton. “He was allowed to say no, said no to anything you asked for, for yourself. He was allowed to go out, and tell you nothing of where he’d been, or who he’d been with. He was allowed all the freedoms you were denied, and would get angry if you questioned him. Because that was asking why. And if you started asking why, you would see how unbalanced the scales were tipped. He would start to lose control. So he cut you off from friends, took away your hobbies, forced you to be completely dependent on him, until you believed his reasoning as to why, so you would stop asking that of yourself. That was manipulation. That was abuse.
Virgil, someone who loved you would never, not even jokingly, tell you to kill yourself. Not when they knew you were in a fragile enough mental state that you might actually do it. Someone who loved you wouldn’t have stopped you from doing the things you love. They would have enjoyed watching you do them, been happy because you were happy. Someone who loved you would have never said no without a reason. Would have some give and take, wouldn’t get furious to the point it scared you, for simply asking where they’d been that day. A person who loved you wouldn’t make you a prisoner of your own home, wouldn’t prey on your fears, wouldn’t take your freedom and self esteem away to make his own ego larger.
I know you might not believe me, at first. I know you might not believe me, ever, but just… just think about it, ok? Think about everything he demanded of you, then think of everything he ever denied you, and weigh them against each other. You’ll find the scales completely unbalanced. That is abuse. Manipulating you into hurting yourself? That is abuse. Okay?” He asked softly, surprised as Virgil barreled into him, easily accepting his hug, swaying him back and forth gently.
“ok.” Was the oh so quiet reply, too quiet, but Virgil hadn’t run, hadn’t left, was still there in his arms, shaking silently, and he rested his head atop Virgil’s, gently shushing him, rubbing his back, relief coursing through him. Virgil was thinking it over, at least, was willing to do that much, willing to listen, and hopefully, soon, he’d be willing to talk, as well. But it was a start. A very, very good start.
