Saving Prince Charming

Falling Inside the Black.

Anxiety took immediate action, grabbing Logic's arm and sprinting toward the door.

God, they shouldn't have come here. They weren't even allowed to be there anyway, but Anxiety hadn't stopped to listen to reason, no, he rushed straight into things without pondering the consequences. And now look where they were, Logic was paying the price for his actions— his most illogical actions— he had even warned him—

It was quiet. God, it was so quiet—

Okay. He had to keep calm, if not for his own sake then for Logic's. He could do that.

Tears were running down Logic's face, he had slumped to the floor and he was trying to say something, but he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't; he was shaking oh god what do I do—

Or maybe he couldn't.

"Um," he gasped, a sharp thing. Tugged at his lungs. Every breath felt like burning flame, the back of his throat felt like the sixth circle of hell: forever entombed in burning inferno, writhing, twitching. Ironically, this was caused by the water creeping past his defenses and onto his face. "Um— can you sink?"

Logic was holding his head in his hands, teardrops cutting rivers down his cheeks, eyes wide and breathing erratic. His glasses lay long forgotten on the ground beside him. He looked to Anxiety, opening his mouth before snapping it shut again. He shook his head quickly, once, twice, and then buried his face in his hands once more. He was not even remotely okay enough to transport himself anywhere right now.

He wasn't used to such emotion overwhelming him, flooding him. He wasn't used to the feeling of complete and utter lack of control, he wasn't used to feeling... useless.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to do.

"Logic... Logic, look at me."

...Oh. Oh, okay, he could manage that. He slowly peeked from between his fingers at Anxiety. Anxiety's heart gave a twinge, this was... this was horrible. [How did Logic deal with this all the time, when it was him?] He gently pried Logic's hands from his face, holding them and giving him a soft smile.

"It's alright. It's okay, I don't think even I can sink down right now, it's fine." His mind was racing— he hadn't really processed the fact that Logic's voice had been stolen yet, and now he had to make decisions for the both of them, and his thoughts were jumbled, tripping over each other and running disjointedly through his head— "How about we walk to the Commons. We can get to anywhere we need to go from there!" he tried to force a grin, but it faltered quickly, falling from his lips like snow on a winter's day.

He knew Logic well enough to know that having a goal in mind would help him to focus. Help distract him from the situation, to distract him from whatever and wherever his thoughts were spiraling to. [(And he knew from experience, but that was beside the point.)]

Okay—

Logic flinched when his efforts at language made no sound, but began to stand up. Anxiety was quick to his side, helping him up and supporting almost his full weight— Logic's knees just seemed to not be working right at the moment— and together, they began the trek to the Commons.

But when they arrived, they realized that they had made a mistake. A horrible, horrible mistake.

They had forgotten something.

Or, rather, someone.

Prince.

Logic and Anxiety locked eyes, nonverbally agreeing to try and skirt around the room unnoticed. Neither of them needed a confrontation with the irritable royal right now.

But it was too late.

"Oh, there you two are." He gave a tired quirk of his lips, but soon he fully took in the sight of the two of them. And what a pair they made: leaning against each other so heavily, hair and clothes mussed, saltwater drenching both their faces.

"...Logic? What happened?"

And with the state Logic was in, his mouth worked faster than his brain, a true indicator of how wrong he felt, how out of his element was. Because he knows that if he tried to say something right now, he would fail; and he also knows what Prince would likely think if he found out just then. He knows all of this, but his tongue didn't seem to register this.

There's something in The Room.

He slapped his hand over his mouth, covering a sob, realizing too late what he had done. Prince's eyes widened, confused at first. But then the lightning of realization struck him, and he knew. His eyes narrowed, sharpened like daggers. Slowly, deadly, the Prince turned the weapons to Anxiety, who flinched. The blades in the 'lighter' traits eyes were already slicing through his sanity, his walls, his control. He had already been teetering over the edge of his own personal pit, but this was already herding him closer and closer to the blackness of his own thoughts.

"What have you done?"

And with that, Anxiety crumpled to the floor weeping, sobbing into his hands. It was his fault, after all. He was the one to cause such hurt in his best friend, he was the reason he was feeling so helpless because god he could feel it rolling off of him in waves—

Prince took this as the most obvious admission of guilt he'd ever seen, and naturally, began to scream vitriol at the prone characteristic.

"How could you—

"You're a monster—

"I wish you'd never existed—

"How could you do this to us?"

And Logic had promised Anxiety so, so many times that he wouldn't confront the brighter, warmer traits on how he was treated, but. But he was already exhausted, and this was going too far, and he had never been this angry, frustrated, panicked in his whole life, and—

And his usually immaculate (but fraying) control snapped, and he leaped between Anx and the Prince, screaming at him to stop, shut up, he's so much more than that, this isn't his fault, it isn't anyone's, shut up shut up shut up—

But this only served to remind him how absolutely useless he was, or felt he was, because of course Prince couldn't hear him, of course, and now his sight was blurred entirely by tears and not just the fact that they had left his glasses somewhere near The Room, and he was trembling, and and and—

And it was in exactly that moment Anxiety decided to risk a glance up at the Prince, trying to gauge how much longer he had to endure this, or how angry he was, and his eyes instead found Logic. And in his addled head, he was shouting at him too. And honestly, he had expected this day would come. He had probably finally figured out that he was nothing but a disease, a menace, that the Prince was right about him, that he was a horrible friend, that he wished he'd never met him. And Anx curled up even tighter on the floor, and his gasped sobs felt like claws in his stomach with their intensity, and his eyes were screwed shut so as to block out the sight because maybe if he couldn't see it, it wasn't real, maybe if he couldn't see it, it wasn't real—

And Logic, seeing this, finally couldn't take it anymore: he latched onto Anxiety's arm and took them... somewhere, and all he cared about was that it wasn't there.