Saving Prince Charming

if a tree fades into a forest, and no one is around, does it make a sound?

Later came, as it does. Time always marches on, and Anxiety wasn't one to ignore something that would come 'later', as if it wasn't real, as if the time spent was meaningless. So it was with this in mind that he trudged up to the Prince's room a mere couple of days after the traits' big discussion on what they should do next. They'd decided that Anx would go up to the surface at least once a day, make sure Thomas had eaten and gotten dressed at least. There wasn't much else they could do, as even Anxiety's influence seemed to grow more and more hollow by the day.

After his duty on this particular day, he was feeling... less grim than usual. Thomas had eaten without much fuss, which was more than on average, so he was counting that as a win. He figured that now was as good a time as any to speak to the royal.

He knocked tentatively.

"Hey, Prince. S'it later yet?"

The Prince's heart jumped into his throat - oh god, he really hopes he won't fuck this up for himself.

"Uh, yeah, though I rather think that you should be the one to make that distinction."

Anx gave a little hidden grin behind the safety of the closed door and a sardonic huff.

He opened the door.

"Uh, hey." Prince smiled, but the twisting of his hands around and around each other betrayed his nerves.

That, and reminded Anxiety of a stereotypical Disney villain, and he tried not to laugh at the connection.

"Yeah, hi." They stared awkwardly for a few moments.

"...So. Anxiety, huh."

Anx grimaced. He knew what he was saying - not his name, anyway. He'd phrased it like a question, and he knew that Dad had told him, so...

"Yeah."

"...How long?"

This question was unanticipated, and Anxiety shot the royal an incredulous look.

"Always."

The Prince flinches a tad at that.

"So... all this time, when I've..."

Anxiety could feel where this conversation was going, what with how loudly the royal trait's mind was working.

All the times I've blamed you, you were going through the exact thing Thomas was?

His only response to his unasked question was a curt "Yes," and an empty room with the door tightly closed.

*

But he came back the next day, a bowl of soup clutched tightly between his hands.

*

And the next, and the next, and the next.

*

Anx grinned. He was having a pretty good day, for once. Things were stable, Thomas seemed to be improving (ever-so slowly, but still), and he and the Royal of the mindscape were on the fast track to being... pretty good friends, actually. It had been an interesting few weeks, to say the absolute least. Anx had already shared his music playlist and everything, which had been... daunting, but the secret it had revealed had been worth the baring of his soul.

The Prince laughed prettily, almost melodically. Anx's cheeks burned.

"We don't have to listen to it." he jabbed at the screen. "It was a stupid idea anyway."

"No, no, that's not it!" The royal was still giggling. "It's that- wait, I'll show you."

He reached for his own glitz-and-glam phone and turned on the screen. His music app (that was always, always on) appeared as a banner on the still-locked device, and the band that ran across it was-

"Oh my god. MyChem?"

"I really was jealous, what can I say? G Way is both a drama queen and an icon."

"Emo nightmare." Anx grinned, pushing lightly on Prince's shoulder.

"Right back at'cha, Panic! at the Everywhere."

He smiled fondly at the memory, and at how he'd animatedly relayed it to Lo afterwards. It'd gotten him one of the realest smiles from him since The Incident.

The reminiscence carried him all the way to the Prince's doorstep.

He readjusted his hold on Prince's dinner and knocked.

"Yo, meals on wheels is here."

Silence. Funny, he was usually up this time of day, always armed with a playful quip and a tired grin.

"Princey? Ya sleepin' in there?"

No answer.

"...Prince?"

N o  a n s w e r .

Oh god.

"...I'm coming in, okay?"

He pushed through the drowning fires in his chest and through the royal's doorway, and - and -

And the gasp and the shatter of the bowl slipping through thin fingers and to the ground was only heard by one set of ears, and no one was there to hear the choked scream but himself as his knees crashed to the ground and sunk into tepid leftover soup and onto jagged ceramic shards.

Oh god oh no oh god no -

*

his life force was fading...

f a  d   i    n     g . . .

gone.