The Deal || Sanders Sides

4. The Cure

Whoops, my fingers slipped.

TW: swearing, talk of suicide, talk of poison, basically everything that was in the last chapter,

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"Holy shit," Virgil muttered, walking forward to grab the vial. "He went down fast. He's not going to have much time left, and I think he planned it that way."

"Roman don't-" Remus ran into the room, but cut off when he saw Roman lying on the floor. "Shit he did it."

"He has ten minutes at the most," Virgil stated. "Show me where he keeps his poison. You may not know where the antidote is, but if I can see the rest of his poison I can most likely make one."

"And how do we know you won't just make sure he dies?" King Sanders asked suspiciously.

"If I were going to do that I'd just let him die," Virgil deadpanned. "None of you will be able to figure this out in time if no one knows where the antidote is. I know poison. This isn't going to end well if we don't cure him now, so stop arguing and let me help him."

"Follow me," Remus said. He quickly led Virgil to Roman's room, where he opened one drawer of his dresser to pull out the poison. There were vials upon vials of poison, each one a different color and type. There were some duplicates, but not many. "He created all of these from already existing poisons. I'm not sure which kind he used."

"This will be enough," Virgil said quietly. He looked at the vial in his hand and quickly grabbed one that looked similar. It was a pale pink color, and looked to be the exact same as what Roman had drank. "Shit, why'd he have to take this one? Out of all the combinations, of course it was this one."

"What are you doing?" Remus asked. Virgil had grabbed an empty vial and poured some of the poison into it, and then grabbed another type. That one was a pale blue color, and was quite clearly one of the base poisons. He poured some of it in the vial before grabbing a different one and doing the exact same thing. "Isn't that just going to create a highly strong poison?"

"I'm putting together poisons that will contradict each other," Virgil explained. "There are parts of each poison that have healing abilities if you can draw them out, but to do it correctly I need more time. This way is more dangerous and a shot in the dark if I'm being honest, but it's better than nothing. Antidote takes time to make, but we have mere minutes. It may not work, but at least there's a chance."

"How much time do you think he has left?" Remus asked quietly.

"I'm not sure, but not long," Virgil murmured. He added one last thing before closing the bottle and shaking it. "This should hopefully work. We need to hurry, though."

They rushed back to the throne room as quickly as possibly, and everyone watched with bated breath as Virgil tipped the antidote into Roman's mouth, forcing him to drink it. He grabbed his wrist and started feeling his pulse, watching for any reaction to the liquid. After a few minutes, Virgil sighed quietly.

"It worked," Virgil murmured. "He should be alright now, as long as you let him rest."

"Thank you so much for saving our son," Queen Violet said quietly.

"It's your fault this happened in the first place," Virgil said, glaring at them. "If you wouldn't have tried to get me to marry someone who I said repeatedly I would not marry, and if you wouldn't have constantly tried to get him to marry people when he told you he would do this, then this wouldn't have happened. The blame is on you and you alone."

"We just wanted peace," King Sanders stated. "Sometimes the good of the kingdom is above even our wants."

"Oh really?" Virgil stood up, a dark look on his face. "He is your child, no matter what he wishes that is still true. And you ignored him, quite clearly, since this even got to this point. I'll make myself clear when I say this. You could've stopped long before now, since based on the amount of poison he has I'm sure this isn't the first time he's done this. You could've, but you didn't.  The blame is on you, no matter if you're the king and queen or not. This peace treaty was an awful idea."

"But- but you can't just call it off," Queen Violet protested.

"I can do whatever I want," Virgil stated. "And there's only one way I'll do your stupid little treaty. How old is Roman?"

"We're both nineteen," Remus said quietly.

"Wonderful," Virgil said. "I'll do your dumb peace exchange if, and only if, Roman is the one who I marry. And you can't agree to it for him. He has to agree himself or the deal is also off."

"Fine," King Sanders muttered.

"But if something happens to-" The King cut the Queen off with a sigh.

"Nothing will happen to him," he said. "I'm afraid the pirate is right. It's our fault this has gotten this far. Next time we may not be able to save him. It's better to let him make the choice than risk this happening again. We accept your terms. If he agrees to it, Prince Roman will be the one you marry in exchange for peace."

919 words.