A/N: 
Alright, y'all, first chapter, and it's already incredibly angsty. 

TW: emotional abuse, crying, shouting, swearing, nightmare, anxiety attack

"You really thought you could do this?" Virgil's father paced around him as the young boy sat in a chair in the office.

"Father, I... I thought it through," Virgil explained desperately, tears falling down his cheeks. "I told Deceit, and he said it sounded goo-"

Virgil's father flicked his wrist, and Virgil's hand clamped against his mouth. The young boy cried harder, knowing what awaited him.

"You, a child, thought you could do this?" Virgil's father halted his pacing, staring down the young boy. "You are young. You know nothing about how things like this work. Get that into your tiny little brain now before you make an even bigger mistake. Do you understand?"

Virgil nodded, tears still falling down his face as his hand remained clamped over his mouth.

"Do you understand?!?!" Virgil's father shouted again, releasing the boy's hand from his mouth. "Answer me, boy."

"I-I u-understand, F-Father," Virgil whispered, trying not to sob.

"What did you say??" the man demanded, getting in Virgil's face.

"I-I understand, F-Father," he said, slightly louder. It was enough for his father, though, who walked away to look out the window on the other side of the room.

Virgil's father stood there for a few minutes, watching the landscape surrounding the small castle they lived in. From where he was, Virgil could see his mother, Gretel, playing with his siblings; his twin brother, Deceit, and his older brother, Remus, who represented what his parents called "Dark Creativity." While his father's back was turned, Virgil hastily reached up to wipe the tears from his face.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Virgil's father sighed as he still faced the window, causing Virgil to flinch. "I always thought you were better than this, Virgil. Going behind my back to do something foolish."

He turned away from the window, and Virgil instinctively bowed his head, looking at the worn carpet.

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you!" Virgil's father scolded, slamming his hand on his desk. Virgil flinched, but he reluctantly looked up at his father, whose face was red with anger. "I have raised you to be better than this, to come to me when you need something. Not to go out and try to clumsily do it yourself!"

Virgil nodded, his eyes starting to look towards the floor as tears polled in them.

"LOOK AT ME, GODDAMNIT!" Virgil's father shouted, marching closer to his son. "I have not raised you to be a coward. Is it really that hard to look me in the goddamn eyes?"

Virgil shook his head wordlessly as he struggled to blink back the tears that threatened to further smudge his eyeshadow.

"Then prove it!" his father yelled, and Virgil looked up at his father.

Looking at his father's miss-matched eyes, one brown and the other a dark red, he thought of how quickly they could go from kind and compassionate to cold and manipulating.

Lost in his thoughts, he never noticed his father ask him if he was listening. Never noticed the hand raised to strike him at his lack of a response. Never noticed the pain of the strike before falling unconscious from the force of the blow. Never...

Virgil jolted awake, gasping for breath as violent sobs tried to steal them away.

"Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream," he whispered to himself as he curled into a ball on his side. "It was just a dream."

"But was that really 'Just a dream'?" a voice whispered in the back of Virgil's mind, causing a sob to rip from his throat.

Prying his eyes open, Virgil looked out upon his room. Being the middle of the night, the room was already dark, but the shadows pressing in from all sides only added to that darkness.

Virgil grimaced in between sobs, knowing that the shadows were a result of his sudden spike in anxiety. Knowing what he needed to do, Virgil closed his eyes again, squeezing his legs even closer to his chest as he focused on absorbing all the anxiety from the room and the Mind Space.

All the added anxiety piled in Virgil's stomach, jumbling together to create a knot of fear that he knew wouldn't leave. But Virgil knew it was worth it, having learned long ago that, if left alone, the shadows would eventually find their way to Thomas, causing him to have an anxiety attack of his own.

Knowing that Thomas was safe, Virgil allowed for the anxiety to flood him, sobs and whimpers escaping his lips as the nightmare kept replaying in his mind in an endless loop.

A/N:
Hehe... y'all have no clue what's coming in this series...
Y'all are not ready...