Bad Guy

Three

I walked up the stairs, my pace slightly quicker than usual, with the knowledge that something terrible was happening. The amount of fear coming from Anxiety's room was worrying, and I knew that he was having a nightmare. It was 1am after all, so he had to be asleep by now. I didn't, however, expect the nightmare to be as bad as it was. Anxiety was thrashing around on his bed, dangerously close to falling off, whilst his covers bound him tightly, he was whimpering something in his sleep and I wish that I hadn't been able to decipher what he was saying.

"Please, please no. I'm sorry, I'll be good. Sorry sorrysorry," his mumblings trailed off into vague 'sorry's and mumblings that even I couldn't understand. I did not try to shake him awake, knowing that wouldn't work, and instead lay my hands on his shoulder and focused on sending him positive emotions. It seemed to work as a few minutes later Anxiety woke up, flinching back briefly when he saw me before relaxing.

"M-Patton?" He asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes and staring at me in mild confusion.

"You had a nightmare. Wanna talk about it?" I asked, and I could practically hear the way Logan would correct me 'It's want to not wanna' he would say and I would smile. I didn't smile now, now wasn't the time for smiling.

"I.... I can't remember what it was about," Anxiety answered, looking lost and n the verge of tears. Loosing your memories, loosing everything, had to be hard.

"That's okay, want me to give you a tour of the house?" I asked and by the way I saw his eyes light up immediately, I assumed that was a yes.

"If it wont bother you too much," he muttered much to my surprise. This, he, was nothing like the cocky villain that we had been fighting for years. I looked outside the window as he got up from his bed, noticing the fact that there was still no snow on the ground and it was near Christmas! I guess it was going to be a warm, dry, Christmas this year. Again. I was secretly hoping for it to snow at least a little, I hadn't seen the snow in ages... not at Christmas time anyway.

I was pulled from my thoughts by a hand hesitantly touching my shoulder, like the owner was afraid to do so, and turned around only to find Anxiety ready and waiting for the tour. I smiled at him before motioning for him to follow me and leaving his room, I decided to let him see all of the upstairs first since it was mostly bedrooms and a small room full of flowers. Surprisingly, it was Logic that insisted that we owned house plants. We tried to stay as quiet as possible and Anxiety was, admittedly, much better at that than I was. Where as I struggled to hold in my laughter after nearly falling down the stairs, Anxiety was calm and collected - although I could see and feel the amusement that he felt.

It was an odd balance; yet it felt strongly perfect.

"You've already seen the kitchen, but we can go again if you want," I said, not worried about waking the others up now that we where downstairs. He smiled briefly, that little smile he always did when happy but it also always left his face far too soon. He should smile more, he looked pretty when he smiled.

"Okay," he whispered somewhat nervously and I tried to give off as calm of an aura as I could, throwing a little confidence and happiness in there to. I didn't, however, try and interfere with his personal emotions, people don't take kindly to being manipulated like that and I hated manipulating people. Unless it was an emergency, like Anx's nightmare.

I showed him the kitchen, although it really wasn't anything impressive and I was the only one that actually cooked in there.

"Since you don't remember anything, do you want me to teach you how to cook?" I asked suddenly, he seemed surprised by my question before thinking about it. I could see the gears turning in his head as he weighed out the pros and cons, analysing every out come.

The very skill that had made him a formidable enemy was now being used to decide if he wants to learn to cook or not.

"Okay, sure," he said with a confidence that was somehow both real and fake at the same time. His emotions where all over the place, so I couldn't get a clear reading on them but that didn't matter because I could clearly see the hope and joy in his eyes.

"Ahhhh, I cant wait! But first, the living room," I declared and he laughed at my childish antics.

The living room was, once again, nothing special. We had a big house, but everything inside it was as simple as possible. The living room contained two couches, an arm chair, a TV, the complete Disney collection, and hideous canary yellow wallpaper that everyone seemed to like except me...

"Ew, your wall paper is disgusting."

... and apparently Anxiety.

"I know right! The others seem to thinks its amazing but every time I see it, I feel like a banana threw up on our walls," I laughed a little, glad that I could finally criticise this horrible choice of wallpaper with someone.

"What where they thinking?" He said as I carefully lead him to the couch. The tour had lasted longer than I thought and it was now 2am, almost an hour since I found Anx having a nightmare and his mood had certainly improved since then. But now that his blood-freezing terror was gone, nothing was keeping me awake and I felt like I would pass-out from exhaustion any second.

We continued talking about nothing and everything and anything in-between, but my eyes slowly started to betray me and I was beginning to fall asleep on the couch. Anxiety smiled a little before carefully laying me down in a position that wouldn't hurt my back when I awoke and I smiled at him gratefully.

When I finally fell asleep the last thing I remembered was someone draping the blanket we always leave on the couch over me.