Archive of Our Own ^beta

Prince sweeps into Anxiety’s room with manilla folder and a DVD in one hand and pizza box in the other.  “My darling, my dearest, my love—”

“What did you do?”

Prince gasps, affronted. “Whatever makes you think that I’ve done anything?”

Anxiety looks pointedly at the pizza box and DVD, then at Prince’s sweater (which is not his, technically; he’d borrowed it from Morality because it smells nice and always seems to make his boyfriends relax) and lastly at the folder.

“Fine,” Prince says, sighing and setting his things on Anxiety’s dresser before flinging himself to sprawl dramatically across the bed. “You’ve caught me.”

Anxiety snorts and reaches out to playfully tug on Prince’s hair. “What do you want, Princey?”

“I want to eat pizza—I even put pineapple on your half, you have no idea how disgusted I was with myself for like two seconds—and I want to watch a movie and I want to talk.”

“Okay.”

Prince lifts his face from the blankets to look at Anxiety. “What, really?”

“Yeah.”

“You hate talking.”

“I’ve been getting better at it,” Anxiety says, his mouth pulling down into a small frown.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Prince says, scrambling to reassure him. “Of course you’ve been getting better, you’ve been doing just excellently, darling. I only meant that—oh, I meant that I thought I might upset you.”

“By asking to talk with me?”

“No, by—by—you know.” Prince flaps a hand in the direction of the manilla folder.

Anxiety crawls over Prince to grab the folder off of the dresser and doesn’t even bother to move back when he’s done. He simply flops down, his stomach pressed across the small of Prince’s back, and opens the folder. “These are your ideas for the next video?”

Prince, once he gets done wheezing because Anxiety might actually be suffocating him, says, “Yeah.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re about—um, well. They’re about—”

“They’re about panic attacks.”

“Yeah. That.”

“And, um, you guys defeating them.”

“Anxiety—Virgil, love, scoot.” Prince squirms and Anxiety rolls off of him. He sits up and urges Anxiety to do the same, then reaches out and laces their fingers together. “It’s not about defeating you, we would never want to defeat you — ”

“But I’m going to be the bad guy.” Anxiety looks down at his lap. “Again.”

“No, no, no, not at all. Listen, picture this: we start the video dramatically. Thomas is in the middle of a panic attack but he doesn’t know it—”

“I’ve never given Thomas a panic attack.”

“Of course not, hence the fact that he doesn’t know he’s having a panic attack. Logic comes in and does his expository thing and then summons Morality and I and the three of us attempt to determine what could be causing the problem and how to solve it. My character, naturally, will blame you—my character, you understand. I personally would never ever blame you for something like that.”

“Yeah,” Anxiety says, and for a moment Prince’s heart drops because Anxiety—Anxiety doesn’t sound convinced at all. But then he takes a deep breath and meets Prince’s eyes and smiles that tiny, crooked smile of his and Prince thinks that melting and/or spontaneous combustion might be in his near future. “Yeah, I know you wouldn’t. It’s okay. So, your character is an asshole and he blames me.”

“Yes, so I blame you and decide to summon you because if you’ve started this attack you can probably finish it. You’re panicking, of course, because Thomas is, and then Logic and Morality have to calm you down before you can get rid of Thomas’ panic attack—but that’s what you do! You’re the one who explains what’s gone wrong and you help Thomas through his attack. You’re the hero!”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. If that’s—I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

Anxiety looks at him contemplatively, head tilted. The seconds stretch in silence, and Prince feels his shoulders begin to slump—Anxiety must hate his idea. What was he even thinking? It was probably rude and offensive and thoughtless, just like him. It was—

“I love you,” Anxiety says, leaning forward to kiss Prince’s cheek. “You know that, right?”

“Right,” Prince says, breathless with relief and a sudden, overwhelming surge of affection. “Right, so—yeah? It’s okay?”

“It’s great. I mean, a little rough around the edges, but we can work on that together. Have you shown Logic and Morality yet?”

Prince shakes his head. “No. I was waiting until you said I could.”

“You’re such a sap, jeez.” Anxiety reaches over to grab the pizza and set it between them.

“That’s not sappy. In fact, it’s generally considered considerate to obtain someone’s permission before doing something that could potentially unsettle them.”

Anxiety’s eyes flicker to the pizza, then to the DVD— The Black Cauldron suddenly seems like a very cliché choice—and then to Prince’s face where, he assumes, there is a growing blush. “Sap,” Anxiety says decisively, picking up a slice of his nasty pineapple pizza.

Prince grumbles and nibbles on a slice of his own, careful not to get sauce or cheese on his clothes because gross. “Yeah, well, so are you.”

“So is everyone in this mindscape. We’re all just a bunch of saps.” Anxiety sighs happily and flicks his hand, transporting The Black Cauldron into the DVD player and conjuring up the remote. “That’s falling in love for you.”

Prince smiles at that—yes, they are in love, aren’t they?—and loops his arm over Anxiety’s shoulders, settling in for the movie.

They finish filming at five in the morning, and each of them is bleary-eyed and exhausted. Morality is curled up with Logic in the armchair, attempting to coordinate kisses and yawns.

Prince stands next to them, running his fingers through Logic’s hair and savoring the way Logic relaxes under his touch. His eyes, however, are all for one person—and he would wager that the same could be said for Logic and Morality.

Anxiety is standing apart from them, reviewing some of the footage before they put up the equipment for the night. And sure, that’s important, but Prince sees the act for what it is—a distraction. Anxiety’s fingers are trembling as they move over the laptop’s trackpad, and his breathing is too steady. Prince can count the seconds of each inhale and each exhale and the nervous pause between them. 4, 7, 8, 4, 7, 8.

“Roman?” Morality asks.

Prince glances down at him. “Yes?”

“Are you going to check on him or do you want me to?”

Prince looks back at Anxiety, then at the lapful of Logic that Morality has. “I will.”

He crosses the room in a few slow strides, and Anxiety doesn’t look up until Prince sets a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” he says. “I’m almost done here. You guys can go to bed and I’ll finish cleaning up.”

“Are you okay?” Prince asks.

There are times when beating around the bush soothes Anxiety—it allows him to indulge in their routine, in their banter, and it seems to calm him down before they begin to address issues. Then there are times when beating around the bush only gives Anxiety more time to worry, when even arguing can’t pull him out of his own head, and Prince believes that this is one of those times. He’s not entirely certain he’s right—he never is, until they’ve spoken for a minute or two—but he’s beginning to have an innate sense for when to joke and when to be upfront.

Still, it seems to startle Anxiety every time he jumps straight for the problem. “What? Yeah, I’m—fine, I’m great. The footage is actually okay-ish.”

“It must have been hard, pretending to have a panic attack. I thought you were very convincing. Did it make you uncomfortable, though?”

“I—I mean, I didn’t—I dunno, it wasn’t—”

“Virgil, dearheart, it’s alright. Take your time. May I hold you?”

Anxiety hesitates, then nods, and Prince is quick to reach out and bundle him up in a hug. He rocks them on their feet, humming a Disney song under his breath and pressing kisses to the nape of Anxiety’s neck.

“I, um—it was weird. I know it wasn’t real, I know it was just acting, but seeing Thomas like that made me nervous, I guess. And—and I didn’t like you yelling at me. I know that was acting too, but with the whole panic attack thing I just sort of—yeah, I dunno. It made me feel bad. Which is stupid, I know, but—”

“No, it’s not stupid at all,” Prince says, nuzzling Anxiety’s hair. He has to admit that he’s surprised—Anxiety usually doesn’t volunteer so much information. “Thank you for telling me. That was very brave.”

Anxiety scoffs. “Yeah, sure.”

“No, really. It was incredibly brave. It was super-duper brave. It was like Marlin encountering the sharks from Finding Nemo brave. It was—”

“Okay, I get it. Shut your face.”

“—like Miranda from Brave brave, you have no idea. Hey, guys, guys—” Prince wraps his arms more firmly around Anxiety’s waist and lifts him, spinning them around and setting him down in front of Morality and Logic. “Look how brave Virgil is, look at him.”

Logic’s eyes scan him from head to toe, and he nods sagely. “Yes. He is the epitome of courage.”

“Oh, of course he is,” Morality says, beaming. “He’s our brave lil’ guy, aren’t you, Verge? Aw, is he blushing? Come over here, Ro.”

Anxiety is, indeed, blushing fiercely—the tips of his ears are bright red when Prince looks, and he’s hiding his face in his hands. There’s the tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth, though, and that’s all the encouragement Prince needs. He scoops Anxiety up and drops him into Morality’s lap next to Logic.

Morality immediately presses into Anxiety, peppering kisses over his face—and over his hands, where they cover his face. “Sweetheart, I’m so proud of you, goodness gracious. You—what did he do, Roman?”

“You don’t even know what I did, so you can’t say I’m brave,” Anxiety says, dropping his hands and scowling. Logic immediately leans forward and kisses his nose, which leaves him adorably flustered.

“We certainly can, as your courage is merely a fact of your personality,” Logic says. “Whatever you have or have not done is but a reflection of that.”

“He told me that the script negatively affected him.” Roman runs a hand through Anxiety’s hair, smoothing it down and scratching gently at the nape of his neck until he shivers.

“Oh, honey,” Morality croons, running his hands over Anxiety’s back. “I’m sorry to hear that. What do you need to feel better?”

“No, I’m fine, it wasn’t—it wasn’t that bad, it was just weird,” Anxiety mutters, ducking his head.

Prince gently cups his hand beneath Anxiety’s chin and nudges it up, careful not to push too hard in case Anxiety really, truly doesn’t want to look at them. He allows Prince to move him, though, and when their eyes meet Prince smiles and says, “Darling-dear, you’ve been wonderfully brave tonight, but I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to be brave for a bit longer. Would you mind telling us what you would like—what would make you feel less uneasy? We would truly like to know.”

Anxiety frowns and, if the jumping muscle in his cheek is any indication, grinds his teeth. Logic rests his hand on the corner of Anxiety’s jaw and massages it until it loosens and Anxiety sighs, defeated. “I guess, just, maybe—can we all just go to bed and like, watch a movie or something? Together? I mean if you don’t want to that’s totally—”

“I would like nothing more,” Prince says. “Patton? Logan?”

“That seems enjoyable.”

“Oh my goodness of course, that would be wonderful!”

“Very well.” Prince lifts Anxiety again and heads for the stairs, Logic and Morality on his heels. As they enter their room, Prince adds to Anxiety, “Thank you, again, truly, for telling me that filming made you uncomfortable. I do appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well.” Anxiety curls his fingers nervously into Prince’s sash. “Thanks for—thanks for caring.”

“Of course. I love you, dearheart.”

A smile flickers across Anxiety’s mouth and he leans up to kiss Prince. “Love you too, you sap.”