Do or Die

A Padre's Pain

"What!?" he screeched sadness and disbelief mingling in his distraught tone.

Roman and Logan had caught him up of the morning's events, from when he had passed out to now, all while struggling to remain calm.

At one point Logan had squeezed the first thing he got his hands on which ended up being Patton's pajamas. However he barely felt it.

"He- he gave himself up, went to- to him and you let him?"

Once it was out of his mouth he felt twice as horrible. He knew it hadn't been their fault, it wasn't fair to say they should have done more.

If anything this was his doing. If only he had just stopped for a second and actually looked at himself. How could he have missed something so obvious?

Even now the bite on his wrist left behind the imprint of stressed veins and penetrating fangs.

"It's alright Patton however laying blame won't help us," Logan reminded them both. "Not only will we prevent this from happening again-"

"And chew the emo out," Roman added trying to be his spirited self. Still Patton's smile was sad telling him that he didn't have to pretend. It wouldn't do well for them to strain themselves repressing either.

"Yes certainly chide Virgil for this, but we're going to get him back first and foremost. However before that we should bandage that just in case."

The living room was silent as Logan did the deed. Despite never doing such a thing before he was quite skillful. Before long Patton had a long length of heavyish bandages at his wrist. It still throbbed or maybe that was phantom pain or that psych- syco-somatic pain Logan had once talked about.

"Alright so what's our plan from here?" Patton wondered looking to his two best friends. Both looked so defeated as if Deceit had already won.

Roman shrugged. "Honestly guys I dunno whether I'm more angry or tired. Either way I think I might need to duck out for a bit."

"I get it," Patton agreed, "so we save this for lunch time or-?"

"Actually a longer rest might be necessary, especially for you," Logan said, "we've all had a taxing day."

"A whole day?" Patton whimpered, "but what if it's too late by then? And I don't know if I could take it."

"Stop," Roman said voice ragged, "just- just breathe Padre like you're always, like you told him to." Roman looked to be struggling to breathe at all. "Deceit wouldn't have- gone through so much trouble just to do something even more insidious."

"Yeah and- Virgil did used to be a part of his-"

Family? Patton didn't know if that word was quite right. After all his shadowling had left for a reason in the first place right?

Too soon Logan and Roman were absent having gone to their rooms.

Patton looked on at the half finished breakfast; pancakes having gone cold, glasses of juice and coffee mugs neglected.

Even he didn't have much of an appetite and he could expect neither would feel like eating cold food. Especially Logan who was always confused at waffle dinners or the concept of brunch.

After throwing out the scraps he didn't really have the energy to go up the stairs and sat on the couch staring at the floor.

'However you are kiddo, I just hope you're well.'