Anxiety pulsed through his body and made his limp shake and his chest ache whenever he tried to breath; like someone had sat a rock on his ribcage and he was unable to move it. It was uncomfortable, yet not so much sore as it was an annoyance, but he wasn't used to the feeling of anything other than his usually bubbly happiness that came with his job.
He was confused about why he felt unlike his normal self, why his limps felt heaver and his brain more alert than normal. Until he looked in the mirror, because he wasn't.. well himself. As he gazed into the eyes of his reflection someone else stared back, Virgil - his crush! - stared back.
Patton gasped, stumbling back and tripping over a book that he was certain hadn't been there before and falling to the floor. Was this how Virgil always felt? Constantly torn between fight or flight, constantly over thinking even the simplest things?
He couldn't even handle living like that for a few minutes without wanting to break down, never mind constantly whilst having to do stuff! It exhausted him just laying on the floor, never mind filming videos and going about his daily life. But he ignored the images of Virgil, curled up and dealing with these horrible feelings alone, and pushed himself up with shaky hands connected to shaky hands.
When he was standing up again, he started walking out of the dark room that belonged to Anxiety; it was difficult, with his trembling legs, but he managed it and continued down the corridor that connected all of their rooms. He stopped outside of his room, hands poised over the door as is to knock but the thousands of thoughts and 'what ifs' running through his head caused him to doubt what normally would've been such a simple thing to do.
Eventually he knocked, and what he saw made him want to scoop the other into his arms and never let him go.
---
He was suspiciously happy, a bubbly kind of joy rushing through his veins and battling the self-deprecating thoughts that lived inside his mind, which was lacking the usual rushing thoughts and 'what ifs' that came with his job. His hands didn't tremble and his legs did not shake as he paced the length of the room he was in - it wasn't his room, it was too bright to be his room - as he tugged at his hair with an agonizing smile on his face.
He stopped pacing and walked over to the only mirror in the room - so he ruled it him being in Prince's room - before reeling backwards in shock at what he saw. Morality stood before him, moved with him, but his smile was empty and his eyes dead; just like Virgil normally looked like when in his own body.
The smile was worse - beating the normally warm eyes by a hairline fracture - because Patton, and therefore his smiles, where always so full of joy and this one was too but it was a dead sort of joy; the happiness of a man that had long since given up n finding any positive emotions at all. His eyes may have lacked Patton's usual warmth, but at least they weren't a horrifying mix of both.
A nock at his, no Morality's, door pulled him from his thoughts just as the owner of the room walked through it.
"Virge, do you know what happened?" Patton asked him gently, though his voice shook due to the anxiety that Virgil normally handled. The sight of Patton trembling nervously like a leaf burned itself into his mind and caused his previous joy to turn into a far too familiar sadness. His smile never faded.
"Not a clue," Virgil mumbled as an answer, trying to figure out his conflicting emotions. Whilst he held Patton's usual giddiness, he also struggled to comprehend the unbearable sadness that he felt as the sight of Patton dealing with.. well anxiety.
"I think.. maybe.. that we've swapped body's and jobs?" Patton said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement of fact, and Virgil found himself wondering why Patton asked when he already knew the answer.
"Like in Freaky Friday?" He blurted out, Patton's brain-to-mouth-filter, or lack thereof, obviously affecting him.
"Yeah! But it's a Freaky Tuesday," Morality said, beaming at Virgil. It looked weird seeing his own body smile when he so rarely did.
"Oh, well do you wanna talk about the Anxiety you're probably feeling right now?" Virgil said instead of replying to the others not-quiet-a-joke. He went to stuff his hands into the pocket of his hoodie only to realise that he wasn't wearing a hoodie and instead he awkwardly brushed his hands against Patton's light blue shirt.
"Only if you talk about how you feel," was the compromise, though Patton knew Virgil probably wouldn't open up to him as much as he probably should. But a little was better than nothing, right?
"Deal," he reluctantly replied as he thought about how he could describe the positive emotions that he was feeling; it was harder than it should've been.
"Okay, I feel really anxious? Like I'm wearing a too tight binder but I have no way to take it off, and its uncomfortable yet just short of being painful. I feel like a leaf, like I could be blown away by any unexpected wind yet an unexpected wind will never come because of the 'what ifs' that dance through my head. I feel like a party that I don't want to be at, crowded and about to be snuffed like a candles flame at the slightest touch; I feel like I could sleep for days but the though of even closing my eyes for more than a few seconds terrifies me. " He paused, thinking about how to explain something else before continuing, "It is like I'm being held hostage in my own mind."
Virgil stood there, shocked. He had never had someone describe what he felt like daily so easily and with so much confidence in their analogy. The emotional drive behind the speech floored him and whilst he knew that Patton was only describing Virgil's daily anxiety was breath-taking, like someone could understand what he went through.
"Uhm, I.. uh.. guess it's my turn now?"
"Yep,"
"Well don't expect anything so... poetic,"
"Just try your hardest, that's always enough!"
"Okay. Uh, its like I'm on a cloud, above the ocean, right? And I feel light, carefree and like I can do anything. But there's a storm brewing and at any moment the cloud could turn grey and the waves below me could pull be from the nor rain-cloud and into the suffocatingly dark, amd unknown, waters. But... but I stay on the cloud, just thinking about how it'll get better and it does and the cloud is white again, but there's always the possibility that I'll start drowning, that I'll give into the negativity. Yet I remain above it all."
Patton, much like Virgil had been, was floored. Whilst the analogy was imperfect, and his point had managed to sneak off a few times, the emotion behind it made Patton understand just how unusual thins positivity was. It was a perfect description of his life as the heart, the complex emotions that he felt daily where explained with such a way that Patton found himself disappointed when Virgil stopped talking.
Or maybe he just missed the sound of Virgil's voice.
But something happened that distracted them from their confessions, a fuzzy feeling spread through their bodies until it reached their heads and they found themselves at opposite ends of the bedroom. In their own body.
"Wow! I never knew how much I wanted to make you happy until I felt your pain," Patton exclaimed to break the silence that had overcame the two of them.
"Uh, I never knew how much I wanted to protect you from the brewing storm until I felt your joy," Virgil muttered, a light pink blush on his cheeks and ears. Patton found it unbearably cute.
"Uh... this may seem sudden but.. can I... kiss you?" Patton asked nervously as he gazed at the others lips, it was awkward and sudden but the moment felt right. He started walking across his bedroom, stopping just in-front of the anxious side.
"Y-yeah," Virgil said before he felt Patton's lips against his own. The kiss was soft, sweet and over before he knew it, but it was so completely right and perfect. "Could we do that again sometime?"
"Yeah," Patton breathed out before kissing him again.
