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Patton was escaping. After being locked away in a school lab for years with an evil scientist of a professor he was escaping. He didn't know how he would escape but he would.
Even with blurry vision and a headache to rival the giant footsteps he would escape. He had to make it. Along the bookshelf he crawled, carefully avoiding the line of sight of any human.
These humans were all bad, they were science people, they did experiments. Patton shuddered at the thought. His hand slipped and he had to quickly catch himself.
“Don't think, just crawl,” Patton instructed himself under his breath. It would be silent to the figures below him. “Just keep moving.”
Just as Patton was about to slide down the bookshelf the bell rang causing the tiny to jump. His hands sailed through the air for a minute, trying to locate safety, before they just gave up and went limp as Patton sailed towards the ground.
Patton was expecting to land on the concrete tiled floor and feel his body break into pieces. That's what he would prefer. He didn't want to go back to being in a cage. Never again.
When Patton roughly landed on a soft mound of fabric he felt panic over take him. He was either going to escape or going to die. He would not be stuck here.
He quickly sat up and attempted to take in his surroundings, he had landed on a piled up navy blue jacket inside of a case if some sort. Before the small man could make any moves a textbook was thrown beside him, nearly crushing him.
Patton drew in a deep breath. “Okay, I can get out of here. I just have to wait,” Patton reassured himself as darkness swarmed around him. He watched the last little streak of light vanish with the metal clinking of a zipper closing.
“Just have to wait until the bag opens again. I'm fine.” Patton curled his knees up to his chest so that he could rest his face against them. “It'll be okay. I won't go back, never go back.”
Patton found it hard to resist the urge to rest. Curling up on a thick fabric such as the jacket piled at the bottom of the back would be a luxury, compared to the harsh metal crate of cage flooring he had been subjected to for years.
There was no threat of the professor coming to drag him out and under the scalpel. There was no test to see how fragile his bones were or how easy it would be to squish him. There was just a stranger, a student of the professor, a human. A human who would hurt him again.
If it wasn't so miraculously dark in here Patton would be awake, kept up by the fear of what was to come, but for now he couldn't tell the back of his eyelids from his surroundings. He let his eyes drift close and finally gave in to the primal urge that told him to give in.
The jostling of the bag was soft and almost rhythmic, as the person who held must be very elegant, and Patton heard the lullaby his mother sang him in his head as he drifted off.
Bed is too small for my tiredness;
Give me a hillside with trees.
Tuck a cloud up under my chin.
Lord, blow the moon out, please!
Rock me to sleep in a cradle of dreams;
So that I may slumber in peace.
Tuck a cloud up under my chin.
Lord, blow the moon out, please!
When Patton woke up he immediately noticed two things, it was brighter than it was when he fell asleep and he was still wrapped into the jacket, his hand subconsciously clutching the zipper.
His eyes darted around the room he was in to take in his surroundings. It was a simply decorated room, it held a few pieces of white furniture, a small tv, and a coffee table. Patton was currently sitting on the coffee table with the jacket piled up around him.
A navy blue pot stood next to him, holding the first flowers he had seen since being locked in the lab. A beautiful green color adorned with simple white blossoms. He could smell the scent from where he sat and it reminded him of his home and the years he had sat and waited to experience the sunlight once more.
His breathing came to a stand still as he realised the situation. He had come so close and now he sat here beside a product of nature and accepted that the outside world was still so far.
The human knew he was here, there was no other way for him to have been so carefully nestled on top of the jacket mound unless he had been placed strategically. Whoever had him now was going to have him at their whim. Patton couldn't escape.
Even if he made the jump from the table there was no guarantee there would be an exit. A proper borrower would be able to escape, would have a plan, or even the will to move, but Patton hadn't thought of himself as a borrower in years. He was just a lab rat, an experiment.
He was fated to be stuck as nothing more than a caged creature his whole life. For now he could enjoy the freedom of having a soft surface and the nice smell of nature.
A throat clearing made him shoot up from where he was tangled in the jacket. A human male stood in the doorway, a pair of thick glasses on his face and a professional black polo and dark blue tie covering his torso.
“Hello, I would like to announce my approach as to not startle you,” he announced in a voice that rivaled the professor's in terms of emotion. None at all.
Patton didn't answer, he stared at the human in fear. He may not have a chance of being free but he couldn't do any experiments anymore. He couldn't. “Pl-please, let me go,” Patton sobbed out.
Logan's eyes widened in confusion. The begging was unexpected, although the fear was a natural response. However this person seemed to be specifically scared of being held against his will and Logan felt dread at why that was his first thought.
“I won't hold you here if you wish to go elsewhere.”
Patton crossed his arms to hide the shaking. He didn't believe the human, not at all, but he knew better than to argue. “Thank you,” he whispered softly.
Logan tried to give him a reassuring smile. “You are most welcome. Do you feel up to telling me how you ended up in my bookbag?”
Patton swallowed hard. He was going to tell this human. The human would return him once he found out he belonged to the professor. Patton didn't want to go back, but he didn't want to be caught lying. He drew in a shaky breath and began to tell the story, the real story.
Logan felt his blood boil. A living creature was not a science experiment, ever. It didn't matter that there were no laws put in place protecting this species, they clearly showed enough brain capacity to understand pain and fear.
The way the man in front of Logan kept trembling and had tears dripping off his face proved that he was human. It didn't matter to Logan that he was small, he was a person, a sentient person and Logan would protect him against anyone who said otherwise. If Patton let him, of course.
Patton glanced up once he finished talking, expecting to be grabbed and transported back to the professor immediately. The human was giving him a soft look, it didn't feel even remotely threatening.
“I...I would feel more comfortable if you were to remain here with to keep you safe,” Logan began. He quickly went on to clarify his intentions before Patton could react with panic. “We would not have to be in contact and you could leave anytime you would like. I am just offering a shelter space for your comfort.”
Patton looked at Logan, searching for any sign of deceit in the giant. When he found none he relaxed. He had been carefully removed from the bag and left in a soft, warm jacket. He hadn't been restrained or stuck. The human announced his presence before entering, to avoid startling him.
This human seemed much better than the others. Having a shelter that wasn't a cage sounded nice. Patton looked away from Logan, down at the table. He shuffled nervously as he answered.
“I think I'd like that.”