Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anxiety stepped silently into the kitchen looking around to make sure that no one else was in the common space. They felt almost paranoid as they checked for what had to be the fifth time, pausing to listen for noise.

The ‘house’ was suspiciously quiet, not even the sound of Romans obnoxious dancing and music reaching the shared kitchen. It really shouldn’t have been seeing as it was well past midnight but it still put Anxiety on edge.

They stopped to breathe for a moment. All they needed was a few minutes of concentration and then they could hide and the others wouldn’t be any wiser but getting themself to calm down for that was proving to be a Sisyphean task. The breathing techniques that Logan had recommended seemed to be working much to Anxiety's relief and dismay as they were able to get themself to focus for a bit.

Shaking their head to dislodge the fear that had been wrapping its sharp claws around them they moved to the upper corners of the room, pulling a shiny purple thread from their wrist. This had to be one of the things Anxiety was thankful Thomas had limited knowledge about as the spider silk came from their wrist as if they were spiderman instead of less favorable places.

They spun a simple web in the corner doing the same to many of the spots that were frequented by the sides only big enough to catch a few wisps but it was enough.

Patting themself on the back they skittered back to their room intending to sleep through the next day unless Patton came to wake them.

—

There were so many more now. Almost all the webs were tangled with wisps daily, the negative thoughts and worries getting worse by the day until Virgil could barely keep up with it. 

They’ve had to put up more webs, mostly near the stairway down to the darker parts of Thomas’ mind, just to catch most of them. And if Virgil even oversleeps by an hour or an argument goes on too long there will be wisps the webs can’t catch. 

Virgil really wants to put a few webs in each of their rooms but the fear of being caught outweighs their determination to help. Plus it wasn’t their fault no one could get along and constantly had to be in the right. Honestly Virgil had been avoiding everyone to the best of their ability, ignoring summons when there was an argument going on and only really coming out when most of the others had gone to sleep. 

It felt like back before they had been accepted, when they couldn’t get Thomas to even look at them for more than a few moments. It was suffocating.

Virgil knew they weren’t the only one being ignored though. Most of the wisps whispered about being ignored or that they weren’t wanted anymore, filling Virgil with a near crushing sadness each time.

Dissipating them had also gotten harder, the little bastards resisting the inevitable just to spite them apparently. Thrashing and getting louder was just to be expected now making it so much harder for Virgil to eat them. Yes, that’s how Virgil has to get rid of the little fucks; eating them. Every time they did so they felt more like a spider, one of the ones that eat bugs whole, over time you just get used to it they briefly wondered if Janus also ate like this seeing as he’s part snake but dismisses that thought.

There was another argument in the main space leaving the hallways empty of everyone except Remus but he already knew about the webs. 

“What you doing, Virgin?” She giggled bouncing around them with a manic grin.

“Webs are full.” They answered a silent signal for the intrusive side to leave them alone right now. Remus groaned dramatically before tensing up an indescribable look crossing their face.

They both knew what that meant, deciding to go their separate ways to deal with their own jobs. Things weren’t getting any better anytime soon, Virgil was in for a lot of missing sleep.

—

It was habit at this point to glance over at the web strung up in the corner, checking to see if there were any little wisps in it. Today it was blissfully empty letting Virgil know that they were at another calm break where their meetings with Thomas were more likely to be conversations then arguments and that hanging out in the common area wasn’t an invitation to be yelled at. Breaks like this were always very welcome and actually becoming more common as they started learning how to work together.

“Whacha looking at kiddo?” Patton asked, pulling them from their thoughts. He had caught them this time, normally they were better at staying undetected when checking on their webs but it seems they’ve been slipping in their vigilance.

“Nothing popstar.” Virgil turned their attention to the other side, setting the mug they were holding down on the counter, “So what was the plan today? Making cookies again?” Janus would be proud with how they deflected if he wasn’t so nosey.

“Someone's lying.” Speak of the devil, Janus leaned against the wall that acted as the entrance to the kitchen staring pointedly at Virgil. They sighed rubbing at their temple.

“Come on I wasn’t even hiding anything bad I just don’t want to explain right now.” Virgil groaned a little flicker in the corner of their eye catching their attention. Looking over Patton had that look on his face where he was nervous and upset but trying desperately to hide it, the little wisp floating around his head before getting lured to the web and getting trapped by the threads.

“Why’d you lie kiddo?” He sounded kinda hurt as he typically did when he finds out one of them were hiding something from him, still having some lingering issues about trust and his own function from the wedding incident.

“I just didn’t want to explain it right now Pat didn’t even really think about it before this really.” Virgil sent a glare at Janus for putting them into this situation to which the other side just shrugged.

“Figured it’s time you explain, after all you’ve lived with them for how many years now and still don’t get any recognition for the silent work you do.” Janus smirked at them pushing himself off the wall.

Virgil hissed at him, crossing their arms and walking out to the living room. “Fine but I’m doing it all at the same time so you better get the rest of them here.”

Patton looked nervously from Janus to Virgil before following the snake side out as he walked to sit on the couch, calling on the other sides with a flick of his gloved hand. 

They all arrived in their own way with Logan gracefully sitting near Janus while Roman and Remus dropped from the ceiling in the middle of a wrestling match which they quickly broke out of when they spotted Janus. He gave them an unimpressed look motioning them to sit somewhere on the couch.

Remus lept to take up as much space as possible before Roman could sit, almost ending in another wrestling match which was quickly shut down by Logan.

Virgil stood with their arms crossed, irritation clear on their face which made multiple of the others a little nervous, wisps forming and quickly getting stuck in webs while they waited for someone to explain.

“Janus you mind starting?” Virgil growled making it clear they weren’t really asking. Janus hummed, turning to the others.

“As I’m sure you’re all aware at this point some of us have tasks that are unrelated to Thomas and more about keeping each other on track like the twins being the reason we all exist in the first place and my job keeping us all truthful.” Logan nodded along as Janus spoke, the tension slowly bleeding from the others. Roman had to slap a hand over Remus’ mouth to stop him from saying something that derails the conversation.

“I have one of these regulation jobs.” Virgil sighed, rubbing their temples again as they thought of how to phrase it. “Essentially I make sure we all stay sane by keeping the subconscious out of the main space in the form of webs that catch the little wispys. I’m the only one who can see both the webs and the wisps.”

“I can’t see the wisps but I can see the freaky monster!” Remus chirped, having licked Romans hand to get it out of their face. Virgil shivered and Patton looked uncomfortable, the others completely unfazed by the information.

“What do the wisps do?” Logan leaned forward looking at Virgil from over his glasses.

“Negative thoughts unrelated to Remus, more focused on the self than anything else. Too much of them pile up and it makes you guys anxious and in severe cases paranoid to the point of insanity.” Virgil shrugged, walking over to pull one from a web bringing it over. With a shake and some focus the others could see it watching it wiggle and squirm in Virgil’s grasp.

“I wanna watch you eat it!” Remus cackled as Roman launched at her the two wrestling on the ground.

“I’m not subjecting Patton to that.” Virgil grabbed the others that had formed over the past few minutes taking them back to their room. The twins continued to wrestle much to Janus and Logan’s dismay as Patton slipped off to go bake cookies.