Can I?- Sander Sides AU

Chapter 5- Roman

*During the events of the previous chapter*

I'm worried. Patton's been acting weird. I can hear him leaving his room nearly every night. He always leaves and doesn't come back until sunrise. And lately, he's been hiding in his room more often. He comes out to make food, make sure we eat, then goes back to his room. We call him for a movie night, he joins and nearly imminently leaves after the movie finishes. That happened the first week.

The second week, he started wearing his cat hoodie. Just out of nowhere. I didn't question it though. Then he would make food, then imminently leaves. He hides in his room and rarely comes to movie night. I noticed he stopped eating as much as he did. This week, I haven't seen him at all. I bring food to his brightly coloured door, knock, wait and after about ten minutes, I leave the food there. Whenever I pass his door, the food hasn't been touched. I try to get him out of his room, but he doesn't answer. Logan's been trying to as well. 

"Logan? You okay?" I look at Logan's tired eyes. He's been sleeping in front of Patton's door to make sure if he does leave, he'll know. "Yes Roman, I am fine." He grumbles and leans against the wall, "Goodnight Roman." "Night Logan." I sigh and go to the couch. I didn't feel like going to my room. I sleep until I hear a thud upstairs. I jolt up and notice the front door is open. Didn't I close that? I rush upstairs to Patton's room. Where the noise came from. 

"Patton!" Someone's on the other side of the door. 

"Logan! Have you tried the door yet?" I ask cautiously. If there was someone else on the other side of the door than he should know. The door hasn't opened for any of us, so how can someone else get in there? The only way to get in there is if the door isn't locked or if the room's owner lets them in. Subconsciously or not. "Logan, wake up!"

"No, I have not tried opening the door yet." He replies in his usual emotionless voice. 

"Well try it! He's been acting weird for a month now. Something's wrong." I say with a voice full of concern. Logan sighs and tries to open the door. To his surprise, it opens. As soon as it does, we both rush in, calling his name in hope we can find him. I notice that the bathroom door is open. And someone is over Patton?  Before I can think of what I'm doing, I've lifted the hoodied boy by his collar and I'm ready to punch him. I have a vague idea of who he is, but that was over two months ago. Remus asked me to make him headphones because whenever Thomas has been stressed or has a studying block. 

We knew he would be anxiety because his room and book showed up in the dark mind palace. Or Remus told me the door showed up. He brought the book to one of our little adventures and showed me. He couldn't actually open the book though. Or enter the room. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't open the new looking, leather book titled 'anxiety'. 

"What were you doing to Patton?" He braced himself for any hit I may give like he had done the exact same thing millions of times over. "Let go of me!" He yelled, trying to hit me, but I held him too far out of reach. "Roman put him down." Logan said sternly. I didn't break eye contact with the short, thin, squirming boy that was doing who knows what to Patton. 

In the corner of my eye, I notice Patton starting to stir. His eyes widen and within a second he has managed to pull Anxiety out of my grip and both he and Patton fall back. I rush to help Patton up and I hug him tight. "oh my, Disney! I'm so glad you're okay!" Patton limply pushes away from me, which is strange, to say the least, he never refuses hugs. Instead, he goes to Anxiety and cries into his shoulder?

 "I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to! I'm s-s-sorry." Patton chokes out. I've never seen him in this state before. Just now, I realise that his arms are bandaged up and there are red stains randomly placed along the arm. Is it blood? DID HE CUT HIMSELF? WHY? oh god, I feel so guilty. It's probably my fault. I'll talk to him about it later. I flash Logan a look and he notices the bandages as well. After a while, Anxiety starts to mumble mutter nonsense. I can't hear what he's saying, but it seems to be calming him down. Once Patton has calmed down, he hands Patton his cat hoodie. He hastily puts it on and Logan and I silently leave. We didn't know what to do. 

"Did he cut himself?" I whisper to Logan. He nods ever so slightly and didn't look at me. We walked down the stairs and Logan started to make breakfast. "Patton! Would you like me to assist in cooking breakfast?" Logan tried to make Patton happier by spending time with him, and by cooking as well. Anxiety and Patton walked down, holding onto Anxiety's arm very tightly. "You okay?" Anxiety asked Patton quietly. He nodded ever so slightly.  Patton then said in a very loud energetic voice, "Sure Logan! Let's make pancakes."  Anxiety looked at Patton nervous, but Patton just looked at him with an 'I'll be fine' look. Does Anxiety not trust us? What does he know? 

He must have noticed that I was staring at him because he promptly followed Patton to the kitchen and avoided me the whole time he stayed before he went back to where ever he came from. Where DID he come from? Is he one of the dark sides? He just seems... off. In general. He made sure Patton was okay. A lot. Like, nearly every minute he asked Patton if he was okay. Every time Patton said he was okay. And every time Anxiety would eye him suspiciously and keep following Patton around. 

Hot topic left around midday and that left Logan, Patton and I. We approach Patton steadily as if he was a rabid raccoon, unpredictable of what might set him off, "Hey Patton, I know Edge Lord asked you this, but are you okay?" Patton just puts in his signature smile and says, "Of course I'm fine!" I see a glint of fear in his eyes. Is he afraid of us? What did we do? 

"Patton, from the state you were in this morning and the past couple of weeks, I would speculate that you are, indeed, not okay," Logan says with a hint of concern. Patton looks like he's about to break down in tears but is trying to keep himself composed. "I'm fine. I promise." That's just a flat out lie. Logan and I raise an eyebrow. "If you say so," Patton  starts to walk up the stairs, "But before you leave," Patton turns his attention to Logan and his eyes look hopeful for a second, "Who was that calming you down?" All hope in Patton's eyes diminishes. He has an obvious crush on Logan. Was he hoping Logan would ask about his wellbeing? I mean, he already asked, and he did push the question away, but mabey if we push a bit more, he will break and tell us what is going on in his head. 

"Oh, that was A-Anxiety. I met him a few months back." Patton has tears welling up in his eyes, but Logan didn't notice. He looks up at us and shares the same features as a kid with disapproving parents. I know Anxiety, but that would be the first encounter for Logan. I wonder why he looks so scared to tell us who he was. It might be because I physically threated him. "How did you meet Anxiety?" Logan doesn't seem to pick up how scared Patton looked. "Umm, I-I met him when I was going for a walk." Patton stutters and quickly walks back up the stairs. 

logan looked at me with an emotionless face, "Well, that went rather badly." I am surprised he even picked that up. We both go back to our rooms and I practice for an upcoming play. As I take a break, I hear someone leave their room. I look out and see Patton leave his room. He walks downstairs as there is a knock on the door. I follow Patton downstairs, stopping behind the banister. He opens the door to see Hot Topic. "What are you doing here?" Patton whisper shouts and Anxiety replys, "I-I came to make sure you were okay." He pants between breaths.  "Aw, kiddo, you didn't need to do that." Anxiety raised an eyebrow,"Are you sure about that." Patton sighed and asked, "Do you wanna go for a walk?". Anxiety nods and soon the two are out the door. 

Who is this Anxiety? Where did he come from? Where does he go? Is he with the darker sides? If he hurts dear Patton, then I shall destroy him. Though now I think about it, it's was probably my fault. That he cut himself, that he seems scared of our questions, that he's scared of us. That's he's scared of me. It's my fault. All my fault.

No. It's not. I'm going to find out what Anxiety has done to Patton. I'm going to save Patton.

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Word count 1637

Well, my lovely readers, that makes a wrap! for this chapter. Thank you all for reading so much and thanks for 133 views!

Love ya

-An Aussie Unicorn <3