A Breakdown

A Dose of Insanity

(Patton POV)

Virgil's breathing finally started calming down, his crying quieting. When I found him, he was in a bad way. I could barely stand the sight of him all curled up, shaking like he was in the middle of an earthquake. Honestly, I was so shocked that I just stood there for a minute. I remember saying his name, kinda like I was asking a question. He started whimpering, and I lunged forward, snapped out of my trance by that horribly defenseless sound. It took me screaming his name and shaking his shoulders to get him to finally wake up. He tensed beyond what I thought possible, but quickly melted, throwing himself at me. I don't even think he knew it was me, he was just that desperate for comfort. That was a really saddening sentence...

But yeah, right now he was stabilizing. I squeezed him one more time, peeling him away from my shoulder.

"Pat..?" God, his voice. It was so... sad. It hurt my heart, but I tried for a smile.

"Hey kiddo. Feeling better?"

He moved to sit beside me, snuggling back into my side. I was very happy he trusted me to comfort him. Despite everyone's complaints, I did think of them all as, well, my kids.

"Mmmm. Yeah, I guess so."

"What happened? Wanna talk about it?"

He flinched a bit. "Bad dream. Real bad dream."

I wasn't gonna push him any further, he looked really shaken up by whatever happened. I knew the pain of nightmares. They were different for us. Humans, they forget nightmares. But we live in their minds. We can't forget.

"It's okay. You're awake now, this is what's real, okay?"

"Okay."

All I wanted to do was stay there until he felt okay again, but we had to go. Something was severely wrong with Thomas, and somehow Virgil wasn't the cause. I don't think Virgil was going to get any better when Thomas was out of sorts.

"Hey Verge? I hate to ask this of you, but we gotta go. Thomas is-"

"Yeah, I know." He blew out a breath, "There's something up. There has been for a while. I think- I think it's got something to do with why I've been seeing stuff from my past more often." His voice dropped to a whisper. "They're coming back."

"They? Who do yo-" My stomach dropped, a sick feeling taking over. "You don't mean? The Dir-"

Virgil clapped his hand over my mouth, eyes wide. "Don't say their names!"

You know, when you're freaking out, and somebody yells at you with a demonic layered voice and the power to increase said freaking-outedness, something really interesting happens. You freak out more! Who knew?!

He realized what he had done almost immediately, not that it was that hard to see that I wasn't exactly okay. I mean, generally when somebody is breathing rapidly, shaking, drawing into themselves, and have eyes that look so wide they could be in an anime, that means they're freaking out.

"I- oh my god. I'm sorry Patton. I did- I didn't mean to- Here. I'll help."

He grabbed my arm, and closed his eyes. I knew what he was doing, and I really didn't want him to, but I also wanted to get a hold of myself. So I let him draw all of my panic into himself, take it away from me, and didn't say anything to stop him. Not gonna lie, that isn't something I'm exactly proud of. Virgil sucked in a breath, and I saw him bite the inside of his cheek. He let go, and I relaxed. I was gonna say thank you, but he still hadn't opened his eyes, and his fists were clenched. The room flickered like it had yesterday.