Fanciful Angst (Prinxiety Fanfiction)

Chapter Thirteen: Black Licorice

(Watch Thomas' new video before reading - This chapter contains a spoiler! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Pi-RAA34Q&t=646s )

*Princey's POV*

My eyelids felt as if a force greater than life, fate and the universe was lugging them down, pulling at them, coaxing them into masking my tired, sore, eyes and for a moment, I allowed for the relief, the alleviation of pressure by obeying my needs and allowing my eyes to shut, the blissful knock before opening the door towards slumber... until the weight of my head barreled down and caused my face to kiss the cold, white fluid saturating my round, grain breakfast morsels.

"Son, are you alright??" I heard a chipper voice prod at my eardrums as a hand locked around my nape to yank me up from the breakfast face wash I had chosen to cleanse my pores with this morning.

"Hm?" I mumbled groggily, the leather-clad, finger snapping gang members of sleep still trying to lure me into their gang of uninterrupted slumber.

"You fell asleep and fell into your bowl of cheerios, kiddo!" The same, bright and squeaky voice informed me. Morality. Not a doubt in my mind.

"You seem to have not collected your optimal hours for functioning properly, Roman." I heard a deeper, more distinguished voice tell me as I felt a warm,  soft linen begin to scrub my face. Logic. Definitely him.

I snorted out a most of water that had crept its way into my nose once Morality removed the washcloth from my face. I blinked my eyes a few times to rid my pupils of the presence of water, giving Morality a much-deserved glare after I did.

"Morality, I'm not a child. I am perfectly capable of rinsing my own face off." I informed him, yanking the saturated cloth from his hand and continuing to mop up the remaining milk traces that remain on my face and in my hair.

"Alright, son. You can do it yourself, just be sure not to miss a spot!" Morality chirped, lifting up his spoon to finish off his breakfast of Trix. Smart, not using it as a face mask."Why so tired, anyhow, Punkin'?" Morality asked, jamming a spoonful of brightly colored breakfast treats into his gob.

I know exactly why I'm tired, I thought as I tossed the discarded wash cloth into a small laundry bin we had nearby. That cursed terror. Every time my brain re-registered that awful trauma, I remembered how frightened I was, how alone I felt, how hopeless I was.

"I just didn't get much sleep what with that... bad dream and all." And all....yes, of course, the only thing worse than an all too vivid, seemingly endless, torturous bout of sleep illness that manifested in a cruel flick of an amalgamation of my worst fears and doubts was the horrid feeling of falsified romance. The kiss with Anxiety.

That kiss.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. No matter how much I tried, no matter how much I willed myself to forget about it, I couldn't. My brain may as well have seared that image, that feeling into my memory for good.

Each time I tasted any sort of food particle, anytime a straw passed my lips, any time my tongue darted out to offer a salvation of moisture to my chapped lips, I couldn't help but compare it to HIM. Those lips, Anxiety's lips; the sweet bit of heaven that I was cursed to taste and then sent back to earth in exile.

What could be worse than being sent to the gates of hell? Seeing a glimpse of heaven and then being denied entry. I knew the high Anxiety supplied me with and I was already addicted. That feeling, that sensation, that TASTE was something I longed for more than sir, something I absolutely HAD to have again...but I couldn't.

I wondered how on earth my imagination or subconscious was able to render such a realistic sensation, one that felt beyond any lucid dream I had ever experienced, how it was perfectly able to catch the curvature of his lips, how they melted into mine like two puzzle pieces, how his cool temperature was a perfect match to my often overheating body, how his hair felt all tangled up in my fingers, even how he tasted like black licorice.