After slamming the door shut in Morality's face I decided to take Anxiety somewhere; anywhere other than the school would have been good enough. According to my artificial memories my house is on a nearby street called Privet Drive, so that's where I chose to bring us.
Anxiety said that his house is on 'Sesame street'. I'm starting to think that Thomas' brain is quite unoriginal.
My house is big, painted white and red with a front yard full of flowers. It's not a bad home, it's just not... Mine. The feeling of familiarity despite my knowledge that I've never been here are making for an uncomfortable experience, but I force myself to pull the key out of my front pocket and unlock the door.
It seems that no one is currently here, but I make sure of that before I start talking.
"... Anxiety? Are you- are you okay?" The walk here had been spent in silence, but he hadn't looked this afraid before. Now that we're the only ones around he's freaking out, and that isn't helping my own anxious state at all.
As anyone decent would, I put my efforts into calming him down. It takes some time, it always does. This time I choose to not comment on or think about the tears that I can feel staining my shirt. It would do nothing good.
"Why is this happening?" He whispers. "Why is this happening to us?" Then "this is all my fault..."
"I already told you that it isn't, now stop it." I say, speaking with a voice as reassuring as I can currently make it. "Dwelling on the past won't help, anyway. We need to figure out what this is before we can do anything about it, so let's... Let's..."
What can we even do?
Anxiety bursts into tears again.
-
We spend the remaining afternoon exploring this house, trying to figure out the identities of its inhabitants. We eventually find some photos in a nightstand, pictures of me and another boy and two adults. The image triggers some more memories in my head, and I remember.
"The boy is... My brother- Rain. That's Missy. That's... Hope." I whisper, stroking my thumb over the photo.
"I don't remember... Anni's parents." Anxiety whispers. He didn't get to keep his name, but I did. He thinks that's unfair, I think it's funny that my nickname for him is canon in this world.
We sit down on the bed in my room, not really knowing what else to be doing. We go from sitting to laying down to holding each other (cuddling, as people say) within the hour, and then stay that way until five PM when the front door opens.
Anxiety immediately jumps up from the bed, hugging himself, wide-eyed. I sit up on the bed, no more than a sliver of fear making itself known in my chest. I mean, it must be my family, right?
Still, I'm not sure that I shouldn't fear them.
There's no voice announcing the identity of the person downstairs, so I grab the alarm clock on my nightstand and quietly step toward the bedroom door. Anxiety whispers something but he's stuttering a bit too much for me to actually distinguish it, so I continue despite him.
"I'll keep you safe. It's probably no one dangerous." I try to assure the figure behind me, but I don't think he's taking any of it to heart.
There's noise coming from the kitchen, which is almost right by the stairs I'm currently sneaking down. I hear someone shuffle around in the next room and jump into the doorway of it, ready to attack.
"Oh my god!" Rain exclaims, clutching his chest. "Prince, don't scare me like that."
"Sorry." I lower the alarm clock, one which receives a confused look by my supposed brother, and take a step into the kitchen. "Didn't know it was you."
"Who else would it be?" He mumbles.
"Well, that's what I didn't know. Which is why I decided to arm myself." I watch Rain place the block of instant noodles into boiled water, an action that Thomas performed nearly every single day in his real life. The familiarity of the dish is reassuring, and somehow the thought of Morality's disdain about it is as well.
"Oh hi Anni." Rain's gaze falls on something behind me, and I turn around. Anxiety's standing there, hands clenched and feet close together. I resist the urge to grab his hand, pull his fingers loose, smooth over the nail marks left behind on his palms with the pad of my thumb...
"Hi..." Anxiety murmurs. Both of them have silent voices, soft and hesitant. The thought makes me realize the contrast between Anxiety's voice now and how it used to be; more confident, sarcastic, sardonic. It's nothing like now.
Anxiety's changed in my eyes, but I feel like he really hasn't changed at all. It's all about perception... All about what he forces himself to hide.
"I'm going to my room now..." Rain mutters, sliding past Anxiety and I with his noodles in hand. Anxiety gives the bowl a soft twitch of the corners of his mouth, probably also thinking about Thomas' breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Finally some familiarity that I know I have a reason for.
-
"Noodles? Again? Are you a starving college student or something?" Morality sighs, leaning against the kitchen counter.
"If you keep eating this unhealthily your organs are going to weaken and you'll die by fourty." Anxiety mumbles under his breath. I roll my eyes. Thomas seems to disregard the thought.
"He would be a starving college student, but currently he's a starving college student dropout because SOMEONE decided that his dreams were much more achieveable without a higher education." Logic says, an obvious jab at me.
"You say that to me again when he gets hired by a touring play team and isn't tied down by an unnecessary higher education." I say.
"As if that's ever going to happen."
"Since when are you a part of this conversation?" I growl. Anxiety's eyes widen. He moves back and hunches over, face turned down, but I simply roll my eyes at his reaction and focus back on Logan.
"Can you at the very least cut up some vegetables to go with that?" Morality pleads.
"If you're going to talk, at least try to say something useful." Logic mutters. Anxiety hunches over even more.
"I don't think he can." I say to Logic, who shrugs, shifting his attention to Morality's desperate pleas for bell pepper and some protein, just, please.
Then I wake up in a nightmare.
---
Feel free to email dadultery@gmail.com about any problems you have in your life, and receive a reply in the character of Morality. Some people in my gc and I made it, it's great. The website/blog can be found at https://dadultery.wixsite.com/dadvice.
This chapter is about 1000 words long, and I think that some of them will be. There may also be more chapters of Fancible Fear than Noble Angst.
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(sequel) FANCIFUL FEAR -prinxiety-
Fanfiction-read Noble Angst before you start this- A coma dream. Thomas wakes up in a coma dream. So do Anxiety and Prince... But how can Thomas see them? How can he talk to them, look at them, touch them as if they're real..? And why... Why are their lives...
