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pixelatedrose · 4 years

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Soulbound Part Seven

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Word Count: 2,788

Pairings: Prinxiety, Logicality, background Remile

Warnings: Uncensored swearing, nightmares, mention of implied self harm (skip from “It had been another nightmare” to the end of the paragraph.), slight self deprecation, if I missed anything at all please please tell me, and if there’s anything you’d like me to tag, don’t hesitate to ask!

Summary:

Roman Prince and Logan Rose are soulmates. They’re platonic soulmates though. They both have the same Soul mark to prove it. But they both have one other soul mark, binding them to one other person. And when they find Patton Miles, it just so happens that they’re both his soulmate. Logan being his Soulbound Soulmate, and Roman being a platonic soulmate. But something feels missing. And it feels filled, shockingly so, when they meet a certain someone a year and a half after they found each other.

Chapter 7

Logan Rose woke up with a bit of a start. He glanced around his room wildly, everything appearing fuzzy without his glasses. He calmed himself down before pulling the cord on his bedside lamp and examining his arm.

It was bare and pale as always, save for his tattoo that depicted Patton's name.

Despite everything, Logan let out a shaky breath. He knew it was illogical. And that only bothered him more.

It's just a dream, Logan. Nothing is wrong. Logan picked up a book on the ground in spite of himself and began reading. However he found- as he always did- that he was unable to read much further than a few pages.

"It's just a dream...It was nothing but amalgamated memories and images…It wasn't...It can't have been…" Logan took another deep breath to steady himself.

And once again resorted to the only method that ever seemed to work.

He flipped open a small journal and began writing down his dream with as much detail as possible.

It had been another nightmare. He had been sobbing on the floor of a foreign room before dragging himself over to an all too familiar box under the bed where he fished out a pencil sharpener blade and had-

Logan paused for a moment in his writing. He always hated writing about his nightmares. It was necessary for him to fall back asleep, but it was so hard sometimes.

Every once in a while Logan Rose had acutely vivid dreams about ordinarily mundane things that didn't seem to make sense.

Seeing people he'd never seen before at a birthday party he'd never attended.

A dark room that slowly got edgier as time wore on filled with a multitude of different events. Most of them less than savory and quite traumatic.

A kid, taller than Logan, pushing him to the ground and pulling him back up by his hair only to have someone else spit in his face.

These dreams made no sense to Logan. Dreams were supposed to be concoctions of memories, images, ideas, and emotions. Logan's brain should not be able to create such a vivid image of a house he'd never seen before. And yet Logan would have remembered if he'd ever seen the odd house with the strange yellow door that his mind so often brought up.

Logan finished writing down his nightmare in his dream journal and set it down once again, rubbing his tired eyes. He glanced over at one of his many bookcases, sighing at the vast amount of dream journals he had filled up over the years.

He had started cataloging his dreams back in fourth grade when his mother had suggested that writing about his dreams would help him remember them and even sleep better. So now Logan had nearly 6 years worth of journals filled to the brim with dream after dream after dream. Even if he could never remember what he had dreamed that night, he always wrote down that he was unable to recall any details.

Logan lay himself back down to sleep as he quietly pondered his vivid dreams and what they could possibly mean, if anything at all.

That's absolutely ludicrous. Dreams don't mean anything. They're just dreams. As he drifted off once again, Logan found himself with a ghost of doubt cast across his mind.

Just dreams…

Logan Rose fell asleep, his mind conjuring up recipes that called for memories, images, sounds, ideas, and emotions.

~~•~~

Roman woke up to his alarm which he lazily slapped, sending it snoozing. Five minutes later it started yelling again, and this time Roman reluctantly rolled himself out of bed. Quite literally in fact. He had found it always helped him wake up.

He hit the floor dramatically and lay down on the floor for a few minutes staring at his ceiling.

Roman suddenly was struck by a brilliant idea and he sat up straight and got ready for the day as quick as possible.

"Heya Ro-Bro! Sleep like a corpse?" Remus asked as Roman came down the stairs.

"Why would you phrase it like that? Like actually why??"

"Because it's interesting and you're boring so i have to be interesting for the both of us!!"

Roman watched his twin brother sprinkle poptart crumbs into the omelet he was cooking and grimaced. "Well you sure do a good job of that one…"

"Hey, Ro, have you seen the dandelions?"

Roman paused for a brief moment. "Why the fuck are you eating dandelions?"

"You absolute shitheaded moron it's for Brigit."

Roman flushed. "Oh." He had been thinking of Virgil again and his head was still mushy from sleep. "In the fridge…"

Remus turned and pulled out a small bag of dandelions before hopping over to a glass tank which contained a small tortoise. "Roman's an idiot, isn't he Brigit? Isn't he?" Remus cooed at his tortoise, dropping three of the four flowers in along with a small pile of lettuce before looking at the fourth flower and asking out loud. "Hey, dandelions are edible, right??"

And before Roman had time to violently judge his brother, Remus shoved the entire fucking flower in his mouth like the absolute heathen he was.

"Hey, not too bad." Roman's trash-man of a brother said, walking over to his slowly burning food.

"I swear to god I don't know how we're related…" Roman muttered, returning his mind to a much more savory person.

~~•~~

Roman got to school and met up with his friends. He debated skipping a few steps in his plan and looking for him right then, but decided against it. He didn't want to come off seeming like a creep.

So he waited until his third period rolled around and felt his eyes light up as they fell to the emo boy scrunched up in the back corner of the classroom. Something was definitely brighter about Virgil today. Maybe it was the new hoodie he was wearing or the fresh makeup on his face, or perhaps it was the way he looked rested or the fact that he was nodding along to his music and silently mouthing the words, but Roman was unreasonably happy to see Virgil in a good mood.

“Good morning, Hot Topic! You’re looking splendid today!” Roman bubbled, winking at the mass of emo that sat at the table.

Virgil snorted and looked up at him. “Aw, you think I’m hot!”

“On the contrary! I was talking to my reflection!”

“Ah, that makes more sense. I put too much faith in you to think you’d ever stop being self-absorbed!”

“Hey! You’ve only known me for what, two days?”

Virgil shifted in his seat, having taken out his earbuds already. “I tend to be a pretty good judge of character.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep.”

Roman took his chance to strike. “Well I bet you wouldn’t be able to judge my friend’s characters off of one glance!” Roman smiled at Virgil, missing the way the other’s shoulders relaxed when he spoke. “Want to join me with my friends at lunch?”

Roman patiently awaited the inevitable decline. It was part of his plan. He would laugh it off and be charming as ever and continue to pester him until he-

“Sure.” Virgil said casually, a hint of a smile on his face.

What.

“You seem like a cool guy, I guess. Should I meet you by the cafeteria?”

Roman’s head was a jumbled mess and where he had been planning on being charming, he had fallen end over end down the stairs of grace and was drowning in his own pool of poor planning.

“Uh, uhm, n-no I’ll just meet you outside your class!” Roman had just barely been able to save the end of that sentence. He had not expected the emo boy to accept his offer so quickly. He thought the boy was shy and reserved, didn’t like talking to people. Curiosity to know what made the emo boy trust him overtook Roman. “Would it be terribly rude of me to ask why you’d want to come and eat with a bunch of people you hardly know?”

Virgil shrugged. “I dunno. I just kinda…” He turned and pulled up his hood. “Feel like I can trust you. I also don’t really have anyone else, so I mean I don’t have many options.” he lowered his voice to the point where Roman wouldn’t have been able to hear the emo. “And if I at least look like I have friends maybe people will leave me alone this time around…”

It worked and Roman hadn’t heard his breathless whisper. “Oh! Well I’m touched! In fact I think-”

Ding!! Ding!! Ding!!

Damn that bell.

Class began and Roman didn’t get the chance to mention that he and Patton shared a class. A minor detail, but he was irrationally disappointed that he couldn’t keep talking to his newfound...Friend.

Roman thought. Friend? Am I not jumping the gun by considering us friends this early on? What would Virgil think? Would he be okay with it? Would he be disgusted? Roman’s mind filled with the image of Roman calling the boy his friend and Virgil smiling widely, happy to be his friend. Roman let himself smile too.

The period ended and Roman said his farewells to Virgil. Roman pulled out his phone between classes and brought up the group chat.

Hey I’m bringing a friend of mine to come and sit with us at lunch kk

It was just a few moments before his phone buzzed quietly in his hands.

Pat-man: OOOooooOOOooOOoo~~!!

Pat-man: A *friend* you say? *nudge nudge wink wink*

Each of his texts were signed with a series of emojis, ranging from hearts to faces.

Roman typed out a text, leaning against the wall outside his classroom.

Yes Padre, a FRIEND

Nothing more than that! I swear you rwad into things way to much

His Phone buzzed again and Roman looked at the new text.

Pocket-protector: First off, you misspelled 'Read' and second, you used the wrong 'Too'. Third, if you're speaking of the boy you have gone on about for the past two days, then-

The bell rang and Roman silently thanked it for saving him the time to read Logan's perfectly composed letter of a text filled with perfect grammar.

The hours ebbed by anguishingly slow, it seemed the more he wanted to see the pale boy the more the weights the universe attached to time's ankles.

Finally- finally- the hour struck three minutes till the bell and Roman silently excused himself knowing that the abandoned hall pass in his pocket that would free him of suspicion.

He got to Virgil’s classroom just in time for the bell to ring and for Roman to quickly lean himself up against the lockers casually.

Virgil walked out and seemed almost surprised to see Roman standing there before a ghost of a smile adorned his pale face.

“Honestly, you don’t have to skip out of class early just to wait for me.” Virgil said as he walked up to the taller boy.

“I know, but it wouldn’t be very chivalrous of me to leave my new friend wandering through the halls with no guide!” Roman smiled and the pair started walking towards the cafeteria.

“And so that would make you my knight in shining armor?” Virgil teased.

“No, I like to think of myself as more of a prince.”

Virgil snorted back his laughter. “But I thought they gave princes education! They’re doing a miserable job rearing you.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Jerky Mcjerk-face.”

“Ouch! Is that the best comeback you have for me, Princey?” Before, Virgil had called Roman by the theatrical nickname in a friendly manner, now his tone was mocking him, a soundless giggle twinkling in his blue eyes.

Roman hrumphed and crossed his arms. “Sometimes I’m not entirely on point with my words! I’m human! Even someone as flawless as me can make mistakes!”

Virgil barked out a short laugh. “Ha!! Flawless! I should bring you up on charges for false advertising!”

“Then maybe I should do the same with you, Surly-Temple! You’re not as shy as you seem, are you?”

“Who ever said I was shy? I just don’t like people.”

“Oh…” Roman internally cursed at his lack of words. He had jumped to conclusions. It was a simple mistake, but it reminded Roman of another thing he should try and fix. He shook it off easily. “Well in that case I’m sure you’ll have no problem introducing yourself to my friends!” He led Virgil through the thick of the now bustling and ever so loud cafeteria to a table in the back near one of the backdoors leading outside. It was a small circular table, like all the others in the room, perfect for a friend group to claim and have no one else intrude.

Patton and Logan were already sitting down and chatting about what sounded like the emotional and psychological repercussions of being torn from your dimension and being thrown into another. A very fascinating topic to say the least.

“Hey, Padre! Pocket protector!” Roman announced as they neared the table. Roman noticed out of the corner of his eye Virgil throwing up his hood. “I must introduce to you all, a one Virgil Sanders!” Roman theatrically bowed and gestured toward the purple haired boy next to him.

Patton stood up immediately and flounced over to the boy. “Hi!! My name’s Patton, but you can just call me Dad!!” He said with a wink as he held out his hand for Virgil to shake. Virgil seemed to relax as he took the sorter boy’s hand in his.

“Virgil. It’s nice to meet you, Patton.” He smiled lightly.

Logan had stood as well, letting Virgil come to him. “Logan Rose. A pleasure.” He said politely, extending his own hand. Vigil accepted it and the group started to settle in.

“You know, Virgil, I think I have the same second period as you!” Patton slipped in as they started taking their seats.

Virgil seemed to think for a brief second. “Oh, I guess so. I guess nice to re-meet you, then.” He slowly took off his hood and faced Patton who was seated across from him. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you, I tend to not pay attention to stuff like that.”

“It’s fine! I think it’s great we have a class together! It means less boring moments in the day!”

Logan was staring at Virgil and he started speaking. “You know, You look familiar to me as well...Do we not share a fifth class together? Ap English in Mr. Evan’s class, if I am correct?”

Virgil blinked. “Uh...Yeah...So I guess I have a class with each of you then...What are the odds?” Virgil gave a small laugh.

“Infinitesimal.” Logan replied before biting into his sandwich.

“Oh speaking of which, do you remember what was taught yesterday? I was trying to do my homework and sort of forgot what he’d said…”

“I remember absolutely nothing but I do remember he was wearing a pink shirt with a green belt and was disgusted, I mean I may not be one for fashion, but even I know that was a horrific choice.”

The table erupted into several different kinds of laughter. A loud booming one from Patton, a softer but clear one provided by Roman, and a light chuckle emitted by Virgil.

Lunch wore on and It seemed like Virgil really connected with everyone.

He was in a brighter mood for the rest of the day as he walked off with Logan, discussing fan theories about doctor who and Sherlock, and then happier still when he met up with Roman in the theater and got to have his older brother teach him for what seemed like the first actual time.

And as Virgil bid his farewells, Roman called out to him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Virge!!” He yelled across the courtyard, waving happily at his new friend.

“Cya!!” Virgil called back, feeling happy and warm inside.

Virgil had never even had friends before, and for some reason, having only just met them a few hours ago, felt like these friends were ones that were going to last. He felt so right when he was with them. It felt so right when he would hear Logan talking about one subject or another, or when Patton made a dad joke or pun, or when Roman did something charmingly stupid or funny. It felt right being with them.

And for someone who’s never felt right in their life, Virgil felt as though it was all too much to actually be real.

But for once, He didn't worry about that.

Author’s note:

Oh wow! Would you look at that! I’m way early!! I legit thought I wasn’t going to get this done in time because I stopped writing for like two days cause one: I wanted to write a special valentines day mini fic (Link here!) and then two: I was away from my computer and had very tiny motivation. Anyway I hope you guys appreciate my earliness, and note that this probably won’t happen too often. Stay fresh and minty my lovelies!!

Tag list

@anxietea-and-insanitea @ghostboi-bambi @scrunchiescrunchie @badluckkaren @ambrechandra @nadja-chamack16 @athenashipsthings @slitherynchiken @crooked-harmony-student @icequeenoriginal @just-a-hufflepuff @nerd-in-space @sammys-ghostz @nutsanddults @misterteaz @sanderssidesweirdo @dragonheart905 @hitmewiththatfanart33 @iwillsithereandtrytocontribute

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corystssides · 7 years

Text

Bottled, Part 6

Words: 3823

Summary: They’re finally free, but there’s still questions needing answering and discussions to be had.

Warnings: mild descriptions of injury care, mild verbal arguments, some yelling

Tags: @yep-another-fander, @softlogic, @tssanderssidestrash, @literallylogic, @diplomatic-arsonist, @saltequeen, @fallingineternity, @satisfied-sanders-sides, @vixenneko, @the-strange-universe-of-cake, @fangirlfiles1, @winds-and-stardust, @the-laarmy, @pfftwhatnoimhuman, @gaysaxaphone, @mira-jadeamethyst, @frustratedwaffle

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Roman had just gotten his hands on a small bottle of healing potion when Patton summoned him to his house.

“Seriously?!” he asked, stumbling into the living room--and into Anxiety.

“Wow, now that I see you in the light, you look like a trainwreck,” Anxiety said.

Roman scowled. “At least I don’t look like a Hot Topic threw up on me.” He pushed himself away from Anxiety and started walking toward the bathroom to take care of his injuries.

“You need to borrow a pair of pants?” Patton asked. “Yours are kinda ruined.”

“Thanks, Patton,” Roman said.

Patton ran off to his room to get a pair of pants while Roman headed for the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and started running the faucet in the bathtub, waiting for it to warm up. Patton knocked and then opened the door just enough to set the pants on the floor, then shut the door and walked away. Roman started undressing the wound, using the warm water to get the sticky blood to let go of the fabric. He got the sash off of his leg first, sighing as he saw its condition. He’d never get the stains out of it. He tossed it aside. The pant leg took more work, and Roman had to be more gentle with it. Finally, he got it all disconnected from his leg, and went to work with the healing potion. Once that was done, he looked himself over for any other injuries. He found several small cuts on his arms that he hadn’t noticed before, and nearly cried over the bloodstains on his white tunic. He knew it didn’t matter, he knew he had others just like it at home in the palace, but it had been a long awful day (days? He still wasn’t sure) and this was the cherry on top. Frustrated, he took off the tunic, so he was standing only in an undershirt and his soaked, ripped pants. Not only were there cuts, there were also dark, banded bruises all over his arms--and when he pulled up his undershirt, his torso, too. For a moment, he was confused, because he didn’t think he tied the ropes that tight when he was on the staircase. Then he remembered the Seed of Doubt, and everything made sense. He regretted using all of the healing potion on his leg.

With a sigh, he searched Patton’s bathroom for bandaids. The only ones he found were brightly colored Steven Universe ones, obviously meant for the kids’ enjoyment. He stuck them on to cover the cuts anyway. He thought about putting his tunic back on, but decided against it, not wanting to chance getting blood on any of Patton’s furniture. Besides, it wasn’t like Patton hadn’t seen him bruised and battered before. He changed pants and tossed his discarded clothing into the bathtub, where they would be out of the way.

Upon walking back into the living room, he saw Anxiety, sitting at the counter between the kitchen and living room and looking at him with genuine alarm. Crap. He’d forgotten about Anxiety.

“I thought you looked bad before--” Anxiety started.

“Shut up,” Roman said, flopping onto the couch, where he promptly passed out.

This did not make Anxiety any less alarmed, but Patton just covered Roman with a blanket and said, “Don’t worry, kiddo. He’s usually like this when he’s hurting.”

Before Anxiety could say anything, Logan popped up. “We’ve been gone for only twenty-two hours,” he said. “Thomas was sleeping for most of them, but not all, so it appears that he can function at least a bit without us influencing him.”

“Twenty-two hours is a bit long, but still in the range of typical time we spend in the bottles,” Patton said.

“Last time we were gone for four days, though,” Anxiety said.

“Yeah, I can’t help you there, buddy. It’s never happened before, I don’t know why it did.”

“Wait, when was this?” Logan asked.

“During the time Roman said they were in the Nightmare realm,” Patton said.

Logan looked to Anxiety for confirmation. He nodded. Logan looked confused. “Why would you two lie to us though? Do you not trust us?”

“We just spent four days in a bottle that got bigger or smaller depending on my emotional state. Seems like a pretty interesting little experiment, doesn’t it?”

It clicked. “You thought I invented the bottles...to see how you would react in them? Oh, Anxiety, I would never make anything to hurt or endanger any of you. Patton may be the one who embodies Thomas’s morals, but that does not mean that I am devoid of them!”

“Yeah, I know,” Anxiety said. “But I had no idea what was going on, and at first I thought it was Roman, so when it wasn’t, the only other options were you, Thomas, or Patton. Patton’s the most unlikely of any of us to cause harm, even unintentionally, so then it’s just you and Thomas, both of whom were right there when we got out. I panicked and Roman covered for me. Of course, now that we know that it’s not any of us, that means it’s definitely Thomas, which is almost more concerning, especially considering that he has a different trap for each of us.”

“There’s still not enough evidence to conclude that it’s ‘definitely Thomas.’ It’s possible that it’s a self-defense mechanism that created itself in order to keep any one of us from having too much influence. It might also be a result of one or more of our parts of the mindscape running amok. Perhaps the Nightmare Realm and the Fairytale Realm have a boundary where they poorly react to each other.”

“So it’s my fault?”

“I did not say that. As Patton said earlier, it might also be ‘the column in the middle of all of us,’ and serve some sort of protective function. The point is, all of this is speculation and without further evidence, such speculation is pointless.” Logan turned to Patton. “Is there any possibility that you might have written down anything related to these traps?”

“I don’t think so, but I can look,” Patton said. He hurried up the stairs to parts unknown.

“I don’t suppose you have any information about them?” Logan asked Anxiety. “Patton said you forget every time.”

Anxiety pushed his right sleeve up to expose an arm covered in notes. “I wrote down everything I know about the last couple times. Anything before that…” he shrugged. “...and if I knew anything at any point in the past and wrote it down, the Fears and Insecurities have probably eaten it by now.”

“You should take care of those things,” Logan said.

“Well I could dump them at your house,” Anxiety said back, glaring. Logan glared back, but refused to get off topic. There were more important things to do right now.

“I’m going to go get a whiteboard, so we can consolidate the data,” Logan said. He snapped out.

Anxiety sighed and rested his head on the counter. Now it was just him and the sleeping Prince.

“Heya, Cuz.”

...And Patton’s children, who he had forgotten about. “I’m not your cousin,” he said, automatically.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” the young teen said. For all he tried, he could not remember her name. She sat down next to him. “Hey guess what?”

“What?”

“Guess.”

“You and your boyfriend broke up.” Anxiety had nothing else to go on. He was rarely at Patton’s house. Her boyfriend was the only thing she’d talked about last time.

“Oh please, that was ages ago. Guess again.”

“I’m not good at guessing. Just tell me.”

She sighed. “Fiiiine. I got to go to that white room place you and Dad and the others always hang out in. Me and Jimothy got to battle a monster teacher before Princey sent us home.”

Anxiety picked his head up and looked at her in disbelief. “...What?”

“Oh yeah, it was really fun. Like, there was this shadow demon thing that was like, possessing one of the subs from school, and I got to use a sword, and Princey banished us but I know I would have won. Jimothy was useless though.”

“And why were you there, exactly?”

“Dunno. Princey said something about daydreams, but it was boring and I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Does your Dad know about this?” Anxiety asked, wondering why she was telling him this.

“No, and you’re not gonna tell him.”

“I’m not?”

“You can’t! Dad’ll never let us out of the suburbs again!” Anxiety briefly considered doing it out of spite, but shrugged that impulse off. He had no reason to cause family drama. He wasn’t even part of the family.

The kid took his silence for assent and changed the subject. “I think Professor Logan ships you and Princey.”

Logan popped in, with two large, rolling whiteboards, instead of just one. “I have returned,” he called out.

The kid smirked, and mumbled, “Speak of the devil,” then ran off. Anxiety was confused by the entire exchange. Patton’s family was weird. They got weirder every time he visited.

“Making friends?” Logan asked.

“No,” Anxiety said.

“Pity. Rebecca’s a nice girl. I would think that you two would get on like a house on fire.”

“I feel like those two statements are contradictory.”

“Not at all. You wouldn’t believe how often she talks about her ‘favorite older cousin’ in my physics class.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

Logan looked like he couldn’t believe Anxiety had just said that. “...You. She was talking about you.”

“But I’m not related.”

“Patton considers us all part of a family, and therefore so does his children.”

“Right, so, so, what? Does that make you and Patton the gay dads, and then Roman’s like, uh, the vodka aunt, and I’m the emo cousin or something?”

Logan’s cheeks flushed. “Patton and I aren’t dating,” he said.

“Really? I have several pages of evidence that say otherwise.”

Logan’s eyebrows shot up, and then he realized that Anxiety was teasing him about earlier. He threw a marker at Anxiety, who ducked, laughing. “Asshole,” Logan muttered.

“Real mature, Teach.”

“We were going to consolidate all of our available data, were we not? Let’s stay on track.”

Logan pulled out his notebook and started transferring notes to a whiteboard. Anxiety got the other whiteboard marker from where it had landed in the kitchen and started doing the same thing with the notes on his arm.

Logan glanced over at Anxiety’s writing. “Wow,” he said.

“What?”

“I can barely read that, and I’m a teacher.”

“You know what? The English language wasn’t designed for lefties.”

“I’m left-handed too, and I write perfectly legibly.”

“You write in all capital letters.”

“And it is legible, therefore your comment does not strengthen your argument. The real question is: why is your handwriting so much worse on the whiteboard than your arm?”

“I’m trying to make the letters not erase. I can’t put my hand on the board. Also, this is bigger than I ever write normally.”

“...Have you never written on a whiteboard before?”

“Why would I have?”

Logan “hmmm”ed but didn’t respond. He supposed that made sense. The Fears and Insecurities didn't seem like the type of creatures that would enjoy free body diagrams.

He left Anxiety to his notes, and on the other whiteboard, he drew a diagram of each of the other traps, with everything he had observed about them underneath. There wasn't much, though that made sense since they had only encountered the other traps for a short amount of time, and only once. Plus, the other traps only worked on one or two people, as opposed to all four of them. He also added a section for the grayspace itself.

“I'm back!” Patton said, coming down the stairs. “I didn't find anything except this paper that I can't read. It's not mine or the kids’ handwriting though, so I thought it might be important.”

Anxiety took the paper from him. “This is my handwriting,” he said, confused. He scanned through the page. “I don’t remember writing this though...it talks about the bottles...but it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know.”

“It does, though, doesn’t it?” Logan said. The other two looked at him blankly. “It tells us that at one point, Anxiety knew about the bottles and remembered what happened after he escaped.” He took the paper, reading it through. Once he was finished, he added, “Also, if you read this, it mentions that Patton was the one who broke the bottle and didn’t remember anything afterwards. Thus, it can be theorized that there is a correlation between breaking the bottle and forgetting the whole event, though without more data it will remain only a theory.”

“Wait, really?” Anxiety asked, snatching the paper back and reading it over. “...huh.”

“Patton, would you read over our notes and determine if there’s anything that we overlooked or that you noticed in addition to these?” Logan asked.

“Sure,” Patton said. He started with the whiteboard for the bottles, and immediately turned back. “I can’t read half of these notes, though.”

“It is not that bad!” Anxiety said.

“It is that bad, kiddo. Who taught you to write?” Patton asked, with actual concern.

“You could read my handwriting just fine in the bottles!”

“Yes, but it was legible in the bottles,” Patton said.

“Also, for the most part, it was me reading it,” Logan said. “Start with the other whiteboard, Patton. I’ll rewrite the notes over here.”

Patton went to the other whiteboard. “I notice you have the ‘cube’ and ‘bear trap’ sections empty except for their pictures,” he said immediately.

“That is because I know nothing about them.”

“Well the bear trap snapped at you when it got too close,” Patton said. “You didn’t even set it off, it just jumped up and tried to bite you.”

Anxiety handed Patton the other whiteboard marker. “They also went off when I put a Seed of Doubt on the trigger,” he said. “But they don’t snap around you or me. Dunno about Roman, though, since he didn’t get anywhere near them.”

“The cube things didn’t react at all,” Patton said, starting to write underneath the ‘bear trap’ category. “Of course, we didn’t really go near them, but they didn’t do anything.”

“Perhaps they aren’t traps,” Logan said. “We don’t know for certain that--”

“LOGIC!”

Logan vanished, along with his marker, called away by Thomas. Patton and Anxiety glanced at each other nervously, but only for a second.

“MORALITY!”

Patton and his marker vanished too. Anxiety sighed irritably. Now he couldn’t even carry on without them.

“ROMAN!”

Roman didn’t vanish. He barely even moved, except to stir a bit and say, “Go away, Thomas.”

There was silence for a moment, and then, “ROMAN?”

All Roman did was groan irritably.

Anxiety snapped into Thomas's living room before he was called, worried that Logan and Patton would screw things up.

“Anxiety!” Thomas said, surprised. “I was just about to call you.”

“What do you want, Sanders?” Anxiety asked irritably.

“Well, first, I would like to know where Roman is.”

“Oh, I think you've had quite enough of his influence for now. Remember yesterday?” Technically, that didn’t answer the question, but Anxiety didn’t want him to know they had all been conspiring together at Patton’s house.

“Yeah, that kinda leads me to my next question: What's been going on lately? It feels like my entire brain has been conspiring against me! What is up with you guys?”

The three traits looked at each other. Logan couldn’t lie; his existence was based on facts and logic, and lying was a direct contradiction of both of those. Patton couldn’t lie either; lying was immoral and he simply couldn’t do it. Anxiety could lie, but he was always too afraid of getting caught to focus on doing it convincingly.

“Us? Conspiring against you?” Anxiety asked.

“Yes!” Thomas said.

“Are you sure it isn’t the other way around?” Anxiety asked accusingly.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Wait, what? Why would I be conspiring against you? You’re a part of me!”

“Sure, but maybe you don’t want us anymore. Maybe we’re villains to you. Maybe you feel the need to trap us, lock us away.”

“Look, if this is about the last video--”

“Maybe you feel the need to bottle your emotions.”

“Yeah, I sure have been doing that a lot lately. Wait, why did you say it like that?”

“Why do you think, Thomas?” Anxiety asked. He was losing control of this. Gosh, he did not plan this out well. Or at all.

“Does me bottling things up affect Patton?”

“He’s not the only--” Wait. Crap. This was not what he wanted to happen. “Dammit, Sanders!”

“Wait, does it affect you too? Both of you?”

Well, so much for not confronting Thomas about this.

“It would appear that when you get upset, you literally bottle up your emotions,” Logan explained. “And sometimes the rest of us with them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was trapped in a stupid champagne bottle with Princey for four days, Thomas!” The game was up. Might as well get all his frustration out with it.

Roman finally popped in, yawning. “You called?”

Thomas looked horrified. “What happened to you?”

Roman squinted uncomprehendingly. “What?” Then it clicked. “Oh.” He popped out, and popped in moments later, wearing a stainless tunic, and still wearing Patton’s pants. “Better?”

“No, not better! You looked like you went through the apocalypse!”

“You know, my appearance has been insulted all day! Not once has anyone called me pretty or handsome, it’s all ‘disaster,’ ‘trainwreck,’ ‘apocalypse!’”

“You look pretty,” Anxiety said, and as Roman turned to him in delight, he added, “...awful.”

“I do not like you!”

“Guys! Not helpful!” Thomas said. “Roman, what happened to you?”

“I almost died in a heroic attempt to save Logic. No biggie,” Roman said.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Anxiety said. “Patton said the traps won’t kill us.”

��The bottles won’t kill you! I am made of hopes and dreams! I’m very certain that that could have killed me!”

“Boys!” Patton snapped. Both of them looked at him. “Calm down. You’re scaring Thomas.”

“Good,” Anxiety said. “After everything we’ve been through for the past few days, he deserves it.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on but I want to fix it guys!” Thomas said. “Please, just help me understand!”

“Perhaps it would be best just to show him?” Logan asked.

“But he’s not a shapeshifter!” Anxiety said. “Who knows what might happen?”

“Well, he’s managed to summon us out of the grayscape,” Roman said. “Surely we could do the same for him, especially if we all work together.”

“Besides, he’s not part of the mind,” Patton said. “He’s a real person in the real world. I don’t think he can be trapped in there.”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘trapped in your own mind?’” Anxiety said. “What if we can’t get him out? Something bad could happen!”

Roman was about to tell him how ridiculous he was being, but he saw Anxiety’s face. Genuine worry. He realized this wasn’t just idle, anxious complaining.

“You have a point,” he conceded.

“No, don’t go to his side,” Logan said. “He’s being illogical!”

“Is he?” Roman said. “We, while being the cores of Thomas, are not all of Thomas. Even combined, it’s possible that we won’t have the power to summon him back. Also, consider how many other phrases have turned literal in the grayspace. ‘Bottled emotions,’ ‘Seeds of Doubt,’ uh, ‘creative block,’ and...honestly I got nothing for the bear traps, but I’m sure it’s something. It’s not unreasonable to think that Thomas could be trapped inside his own mind within the grayspace.”

Patton made a worried noise that Logan knew meant that Roman had convinced him.

“All right,” Logan said. “What do you propose we do instead?”

There was silence for a moment. Then Anxiety said, “We could show him the whiteboards. That would work, wouldn’t it? Everything we know about everything is there already.”

Logan thought about it for a moment. “Acceptable,” he said, and snapped.

Suddenly, the five of them were in Patton’s house. “Whoa,” Thomas said. “This looks like my dream house.”

“It is your dream house,” Roman said. “Well, as far as your realistic, domestic dreams go.”

“Sit down, Thomas,” Logan said, gesturing to the couch. Thomas sat down. Logan wheeled the whiteboards in front of the TV.

Logan was the one who primarily did the talking, with all of the others--who were scattered across the living room furniture--chipping in whenever they felt necessary. Roman chipped in a lot, especially when they got to the non-bottles board. He’d been asleep during the original note-taking, but he’d experienced the most inside the grayspace, since he’d had to traverse it alone and had wandered all over trying to find them.

Once they were finally finished, Thomas said, “Okay, I see what you guys are nervous about, but I just don’t know how to fix it. Here and the mind palace that Roman created are the only actual places within my mind that I’ve ever been, and I certainly don’t know how to manipulate it. I really want to help, but I’m not sure what I can do.”

“Just try,” Roman said.

“Yeah, kiddo!” Patton said. “Just try not to bottle us up or keep us down anymore, okay?”

“Any of us,” Anxiety said forcefully.

Thomas nodded solemnly. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “I promise.”

“That is acceptable,” Logan said.

As Roman was getting ready to spar one day, he realized that he’d misplaced his shield. He looked all over the armory for it. Then he remembered where he put it.

He summoned himself into the grayspace, curious to see if it was still there. Surprisingly, it was. He picked up his shield from where it still lay against the wall, and turned around.

He saw nothing.

Curious, he walked further away from the wall, confident that he could escape from anywhere in the room. The only things he found were the bear traps. Those pointless, pointless bear traps. They were everywhere, probably the same amount as what had been when there were other traps as well, but they seemed more plentiful when compared to the absence of the other traps.

He made it to the stairs, and out of curiosity, climbed up. Once he reached the top, he looked around. Up here, there were still a few bottles, a few dandelion heads, one block trap. And so many bear traps. However, there were not as many as there had been, and none of them looked like they had been used in a long time. It seemed that Thomas really had been trying to make sure that none of them got trapped anymore.

Roman smiled, changed into Terrence, and popped out.

It was acceptable.

#roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #anxiety sanders #i'm not sure if i'm happy with this ending but idk how else to end it #let me know if you want to stay on the tag list for other stuff or if you only wanted to be there for bottled #bottled

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