A/N:
HOLY.
FREAKING.
CRAP.
7.8K READS?!?!?!?! AND #20 IN THE PRINXIETY TAG?!?!?!?! This is insane!!! Thank you so much for reading and enjoying this book!!!! You have no clue how much this means to me.
And now for what you've so long been waiting for...
Chapter 19!!!!!!!
|Previous chapter:
Of course. Of course, he only sees me as a friend. Why was I so stupid to think that we could maybe make things work between us?
Rolling over so that my back was towards the door, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, but not before a tear crawled down my cheek.|
Roman POV:
Once Virgil's door was closed, I waltzed down the hall to my room, intent on watching Moana for what must have been the thousandth time.
As I was about to enter, I heard someone enthusiastically shout my name from down the hall.
Turning around, I saw Patton skipping over to me from Logan's room. He looked ecstatic, which made me think that the conversation went well.
"Yes, Patton?" I inquired when he was closer to me.
I expected him to stop there, but he didn't and instead wrapped me up in a hug, almost knocking me over.
Upon regaining my balance, I returned the hug and happened to hear Patton mumble something into my shoulder.
Listening closer, I heard him repeatedly saying "thank you," and it didn't seem like he planned to stop anytime soon.
After a little while, Patton pulled away from the hug, still mumbling "thank you."
"Patton," I said, grabbing his shoulders, forcing him to stop talking. "Why do you keep saying 'thank you' to me?"
Patton looked to the ground sheepishly and rubbed his arm. "I... it's just... ifyouhadn'ttoldmetotalktoLoganIwouldhavejustkeptittomyselfandhopedourrelationshipwouldn'tfallapartbutyoutoldmetotalktohimandIdidandhelistenedandunderstoodandnowwe'regonnagototheImaginationforadatetomorrow!!!!!!!! *Gasp* That was one breath..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I exclaimed. "I was only able to understand, like, not even two words because of how fast you were talking."
"Oh, sorry kiddo," Patton giggled. "What I said was that ifyouhadn'ttoldmetotalktoLoganIwouldhavejustkeptittomyselfandhopedourrelationshipwouldn'tfallapartbutyoutoldmetotalktohimandIdidandhelistenedandunderstoodandnowwe'regonnagototheImaginationforadatetomorrow!!!!!!!!"
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose while I watched Patton try to catch his breath. "Patton, that was the exact same as the first time you said that. Could you maybe, you know, slow down and breathe every so often??"
"I'll try, kiddo," Patton said, pausing to think for a second. "I said that if you hadn't told me to talk to Logan, I would have just kept it to myself and hoped our relationship wouldn't fall apart, but you told me to talk to him, and he listened and understood, and now we're gonna go to the Imagination for a date tomorrow!!!!!!!!"
"That's wonderful news, Patton!" I exclaimed, choosing to ignore the fact that what he had just said was clearly a run-on sentence.
Dammit, I'm starting to turn into Logan.
"I'm so happy for the two of you!"
"Aww, shucks, thank's kiddo," Patton said, looking at the ground grinning. A few seconds later, he looked back up, and any trace of the grin he used to have was gone. "Are you sure you're okay taking care of Virge with De?"
"Wha- oh, yeah, it'll be fine," I responded nonchalantly. In that second I started thinking of a bunch of stuff we could all do together. "We can watch movies in Virgil's room and play games and tell stories and have a bunch of snacks and it'll be awesome!"
"That sounds like a bunch of fun, kiddo!" Patton said, his usual peppiness back. "Do ya want me to tell De that Logan and I are going out tomorrow?"
"Yeah, that'd be great," I said, still not entirely comfortable being around him after the giant lecture he gave before it happened.
"Neat!" Patton said, turning to head to Deceit's room. "Goodnight, kiddo!"
"Goodnight, Patton!" I replied and headed into my room, flopping down on my bed. "Moana here I come."
Patton POV:
After I said goodnight to Roman, I turned and skipped to De's room. His room was right next to Virgil's which made sense since they were best friends.
Stopping in front of his door, I raised my fist and knocked.
"Hey, De, it's Patton. Can I come in?"
I heard some scrambling from inside the room and then a faint, "Yes."
Placing my hand on the doorknob, I turned it only to find that it was locked.
"De, the door's locked. I can't get in."
From inside I heard what might have been a cough and the De's response of "I didn't know that."
His response puzzled me. De almost never locked his door, and he had stopped lying a long time ago.
Hesitantly, I placed my hand on the door. One question had popped into my head, but I was terrified that it would bring up unwanted memories.
"Are you lying De?" I asked gently, scared that I would upset him.
He didn't respond for a few seconds, and I was almost certain that my question had upset him.
I was about to speak again when I heard coughing. Straining my ears, I was barely able to make out De's whispered "No."
I sighed and rested my forehead on the door. I was incredibly confused about what was going on, and I wished Logan was here to help me make sense of the situation.
Not knowing what else to do, I repeated my first question.
"De, can I please come in?" I tried to keep my voice steady, but it cracked at the end of the question, allowing a tear to slide down my cheek.
I reached up to wipe the tear away and saw someone standing in the hallway.
Turning my head, I saw Logan standing there, concern etched into his features.
"Patton?" he whispered. "Are you alright?"
Hearing him say my name like that, quiet, like anything louder would ruin the moment, was enough to break down the last wall I had standing.
Shaking my head, tears streamed down my face. I pulled away from De's door and rushed over to Logan, who had opened his arms for me.
When I reached Logan, he didn't hesitate to wrap his arms around me in a tight embrace.
With Logan there, I felt safe to let everything out, and I did just that. Burying my face into his chest, I let the tears and emotions I'd been bottling up out in ugly sobs.
The whole time, Logan rubbed my back and whispered that everything would be okay. He'd seen me like this one time before, after the nostalgia videos, and he had quickly discovered that the best thing for him to do was to just be there while I let everything out.
I didn't know how long I was crying. It felt like hours, but it was probably only minutes.
Once the tears subsided, I was left hiccuping. Logan continued rubbing my back, his grip on my never faltering.
"Would you like to sit down?" he offered.
I nodded, not feeling like talking because of the hiccups.
With a little bit of work, Logan maneuvered us so that he was sitting against the wall with me sitting between his legs so that I was leaning against his chest.
After a few seconds, Logan broke the silence. "Are you alright Patton?"
I shrugged, not really sure how to put what I was feeling into words.
"I... not really???" I started. "I guess I'm just frustrated and confused and worried and I just... I don't know"
I sighed, not knowing how to continue.
Logan must have been able to sense this, as he rubbed my back and pulled me closer.
"It's okay if you don't know," he whispered quietly. "Just start with one thing, and go from there. Don't try to jumble it all together. That will just confuse you even more."
I thought about what he said and tried my best to do just that.
"I guess I'm frustrated about what's going on with Virgil. I feel like I was so useless and in the way when you were trying to help him. I mean, I baked the entire time he was unconscious, for goodness sake! There you were taking care of him, and I was just baking. And then when he woke up, I wasn't even able to make the schedule for his treatment. You ended up having to do basically all of it. And now De's locked himself in his room and I think he's lying again and I want to help him so badly but I don't know how and I just feel so pathetic."
When I finished speaking, I sighed and buried my face in Logan's chest, nervous about what he'd say.
He didn't respond for a minute or two, which only made my nerves worse, but, when he did respond, what he said was exactly what I needed to hear.
"Patton," he said calmly, lifting my chin up with his hand. "You are anything but pathetic. If anything, you are the strongest side out of all of us."
"Bu-" I started to object but was instantly cut off by Logan.
"You are. No one is mad or upset with you because you were baking. That was a hard time for all of us, and you found solace in baking. No one can blame you for that. Besides, now we have a bunch of treats for whenever you don't feel like baking anything."
He grinned down at me, and I couldn't help but smile sadly back at him.
"And, for the schedule, I'm not upset that I had to do the schedule. If anything, I was more than willing to do it for you so you could do other things. I saw how busy you were, and being able to do the schedule allowed me to take something off of the list of other chores you had to do. I would do it one hundred times over if it meant that you wouldn't have to stress about anything."
I blinked in shock at the last thing Logan said. "You... are you serious?"
"I always am. When am I not?"
I chuckled. "Fair point."
"Now, would you like some help with Deceit?" Logan offered.
"Yes, please," I said. "I wanted to tell him that we're going to the Imagination tomorrow and that it'll just be him, Roman, and Virge. I asked if I could come in and he said 'yes,' but the door was locked. And then when I told him that, he said that he didn't know. And when I asked if he was lying, he said 'no,' but I really feel like he's lying and I'm scared that something happened."
Logan looked off into the distance, and I could tell that he was thinking about something.
"Maybe," he offered, "you could have him write something instead."
"What do you mean? I inquired, not quite understanding.
"If I remember correctly," Logan mused, "when Deceit first appeared, he and Virgil were almost constantly texting each other, and-"
"Oh yeah!" I exclaimed, cutting off Logan. "I remember now! Virgil told us that De could only lie when he spoke out loud but could tell the truth in writing. Logan, you're a genius!"
I quickly kissed his cheek before running to the kitchen to grab a piece of paper and a pen. I had a feeling that De didn't have his phone, and my suspicion was confirmed when I saw it resting on the table.
When I got back to De's door, I saw Logan pacing in the hallway only to stop when he saw me.
"You okay?" I asked, worried about why he was pacing.
Walking over to me, he wrapped his arms around me in a quick hug and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
"Of course, Love," he assured me, causing me to blush at the nickname. "I was merely thinking about what we should write to Deceit. I don't wish to cause him any undue stress or anxiety."
I nodded, understanding his concerns.
Moving so that I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, I uncapped the pen and started to write.
-De
"Looogaaan," I whined, looking up to see him sitting across the hall from me. "I don't know what to saaay."
Logan sighed, but I could tell that he was trying not to laugh.
"Heeeyyy," I joked. "Don't laugh at me. This is serious work that must be taken seriously, and I'm serious about that." (A/N: Holy crap... I wrote "serious" so many times that it has lost all meaning to my brain. And it probably doesn't help that it's just past midnight right now.)
At that, Logan burst out laughing, which made me laugh too.
"Okay, okay, okay," I said after a few minutes of laughing. "We need to figure out what this letter's gonna say."
"It's 'going to,' and yes, you're right," Logan agreed, straightening his glasses. "You could always just get straight to the point and ask if he's lying and why."
"That's too short!" I protested. "It has to be heartfelt. Besides, I can't get straight to the point because-"
"Don't you dare," Logan groaned playfully.
"I'm gay!"
"You dared," Logan groaned again.
"What'd I do?" I asked innocently, even though I knew exactly what I had done.
"Nothing," Logan chuckled. "I guess another option would be to say whatever comes to mind."
"Ooohh, that's a good idea," I said.
Turning back to the paper, I wrote down whatever came to mind. Occasionally I'd be unsure of how to word something, which is where Logan stepped in to help. In the end, Logan and I ended up bouncing ideas back and forth until we agreed on what the letter was going to say.
-De
I'm sorry f I'm bothering you, kiddo, but I'm worried about you because that's what dads do.
Please understand that I'm not mad at you if you've gone back to lying. I just want to know so that there's no misunderstandings or anything like that.
I understand if you don't want to talk right now, but just know that you can always talk to me whenever you need to.
Love,
Patton
(P.S. Logan and I are going to the Imagination tomorrow, so it's just gonna be you, Virge, & Roman.)
Getting up from the floor, I knocked on De's door again and heard shuffling.
"De, it's Patton again, I started. "I remembered- well, Logan reminded me- that you can tell the truth in writing, so I wrote you a little note. You don't have to write anything right away, but just know that I'm here if you need me."
With that, I slid the note under the door. Once it was under, I turned and walked across the hall to sit next to Logan. Resting my head on his shoulder, I sighed.
"I guess we just wait now," I murmured, yawning and blinking my tired eyes.
I must have fallen asleep soon after that because the next thing I knew was Logan gently shaking me awake.
"Wake up, Love," he whispered gently. "Deceit sent a letter back."
As soon as I heard that, I was wide awake. Logan handed me the slip of paper, allowing me to read it.
-Patton
You could never bother me, and I am sorry that I worried you.
I am also sorry to say that I have, indeed, gone back to lying. I have tried telling the truth since it started, but, sadly, even the simplest of truths are impossible for me to say.
I am happy that you and Logan found the time to go to the Imagination together. From the tales Roman tells, I can only imagine (hehe) how gorgeous it is.
Unfortunately, I am feeling unwell, so I will not be able to hang out with Roman and Virgil tomorrow.
-D
I frowned when I read that he was lying, and again when he said that he wasn't feeling good, but his pun about the Imagination made me laugh.
When I finished reading, I looked over at Logan in time to see him yawn.
"What time is it?" I asked, yawning myself.
"1258 am," Logan stated after glancing at his watch.
"We should go to bed," I suggested, to which Logan nodded.
"We should," he repeated. "Would you like to sleep in my room?"
I nodded, yawning again.
After helping me stand up, Logan led me to his room seeing as I was too tired to walk straight (that's funny, 'cause I'm gay).
When we got in Logan's room, he snapped his fingers, and both of us were in our onesies.
Climbing into bed, Logan wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close so that my head was resting on his chest.
Listening to Logan's steady heartbeat, I thought about my family and just how lucky I was to have each and every one of them, and, as I fell asleep, I couldn't help the smile on my face.
A/N:
I don't know about y'all, but I'm, like, in shock almost. Like, I was totally not expecting this for this chapter.
Like, for a while, once I had finished Roman's POV, I was thinking of having the entirety of Patton's POV be chapter 20, but then I was like, naaaaahhhhhhh and just kept on writing.
But, like, what was y'all's reaction to this??? I'm really curious, because I was, like, incredibly close to crying while I was writing part of this.
Anyways, it's currently 2 am where I live and I need to be up in 5 and a half hours, so I don't know 'bout you, but I'mma go get some sleep.
Until next time,
Take it easy guys, gals, and non-binary pals!
~death_by_fanfic
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