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Roman couldn’t deny the fact that he’d found Patton’s seemingly unjustified concern to be somewhat endearing at first. Despite his well-sown fear of appearing both feeble and childish, there was just something about the dad Side’s ever-blossoming kindness that chipped away at the prince’s protective thorns until he was nothing more than a delicate collection of crimson rose petals in the botanist’s careful hands.
Perhaps to Patton, Roman was little more than a single clipped rose, powerless to fight off the tender love and care that he had deemed the prince beautiful enough to be deserving of. Still, Roman had enjoyed every last moment he’d spent simply being a part of his friend’s heavenly garden. Every day he’d let his roots embed themselves further and further into the soil until there was seemingly no moving him, and every day his friend would come by to perform his routine check-up.
“It’s always a pleasure to see you flourishing, kiddo!” his friend would chirp with a carefree smile.
But even the most attentive of botanists will one day see their flowers wilt.
Even the most well-tended gardens can become victims of disease.
And when this happens, perhaps one of the worst things you can possibly do for an already suffering rose is overwater it.
In the beginning, the whole thing had seemed as innocent as a timid field mouse cautiously poking its head up to greet the cold evening breeze. True, you typically wouldn’t want to see any type of rodent rummaging around in your garden, but there had just been something so careful and genuine in Patton’s eyes that had made the man seem far sweeter than any succulent berry he could possibly steal away.
Besides, Patton had been Roman’s faithful botanist, not some common thief. The prince knew there was nothing in this world that his friend would intentionally deprive him of. However, the intention doesn’t always match the outcome, and one simple observation was all it took to set off a rather unfortunate series of events.
~ ~ ~
“Oh, kiddo… you’re sick,” Patton had commented, concern dripping from his voice like melted ice-cream.
“Oh, Padre, you’re too kind,” Roman had joked back, hoping against all odds that he could bury the dad Side’s concern with his quick wit.
But Patton’s heart was not so easily satisfied.
“What in Thomas’ name do you think you’re doing out of bed? You should be resting.”
The prince sighed before answering, “It’s just a passing cold, Patty-cakes. There’s no need for you to be getting your buns in such a twist.”
“You leave my buns out of this, little mister,” Patton countered, taking a step forward and gently placing his hand on the ill man’s already damp forehead.
Looking back, perhaps the moment Roman instinctively let himself melt into the touch of the moral Side’s cool hand was the moment he’d sealed his fate.
The botanist’s persistent supervision began not long after that.
~ ~ ~
It had all started with a humble offering of chicken soup.
“Now you just lie here, Roman, and I’ll serve you up one of my very own Patton-patented pawsitively palatable poultry plates in just one moment!”
“Now look who’s paid a visit to the alliteration station!”
Then came the many cutesy looking coffee mugs, almost all of which contained some different variation of Healthline’s ‘Top 10 Healthiest Herbal Teas You Just Have to Try!’
“As the wise Uncle Iroh once said: Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life’s true delights!”
“Padre… we’ve known each other for almost thirty years.”
“And yet this dashing prince simply never fails to fascinate me!”
And who could forget all of those simple yet tedious everyday tasks that Patton had offered to fulfil in Roman’s steed?
“Oh, most sweet and noble knight of mine… are you absolutely certain that this quest I have assigned to you won’t prove itself far too time-consuming or demanding?”
The moral Side chuckled faintly at that.
“My liege, I can assure you there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll see to it that Master Thomas gets his chance to rehearse this afternoon, and that the last of the required props are picked up from Ye Olde Hobby Lobby in plenty of time for supper!”
“You have my eternal gratitude.”
“And you, my tissues.”
One could easily argue that the feverish prince had been entirely too willing to comply with the botanist’s generous wishes during those first two days, but how was he to know just how overbearing his friend would become over the course of the next seventy-two hours?
It had all started with Patton’s refusal to let Roman prepare his own toast.
“It’s just a simple slice of toast, Doctor Ramsay,” Roman bantered, “And if it’s any consolation I’ll promise not to cut the bread with my sword this time – Prince’s Honour!”
“Kiddo, you shouldn’t be handling food at all while you’re not well; that’s how you end up spreading germs.”
“To whom? Myself?”
“You never know, Roman. Please… just leave all of the cooking to me for now. I can have everything done within five minutes.”
Then came the many unnecessary yet incessant visits to Roman’s room that Patton would make throughout the day.
“Knock, knock!”
“Oh, I wonder who could possibly be there?” Roman drawled.
Patton giggled weakly at that.
“Just your happy-chappy pappy checking up on someone sappy!”
“Somehow I don’t think I’m the sappy one here, Patton.”
And how could Roman ever overlook the fact that he’d practically been put on strict bedrest for multiple days when there were so many other things he’d rather be doing to elevate his growing boredom?
“Listen, nurse… I understand you’re just trying to look out for me, but I can’t see any good reason as to why I shouldn’t be allowed to go and play ‘Mario Kart’ with the court jester. I feel like I’ve done nothing these past few days, and besides, my temperature barely even meets the criteria for a fever anymore.”
“First of all, we’ve already spoken about you referring to Virgil as the ‘court jester.’ Second of all, the reason your health has been improving is because you’ve taken the time to do nothing. Thirdly, Roman you’re far too competitive to be playing videogames right now. You’ll just end up psyching yourself up too much and making your headache so much worse.”
The prince had done his best to tolerate this sort of treatment for five whole days before allowing himself to finally admit the obvious: Patton wasn’t his knight in shining armour; he was the dragon-witch responsible for keeping him locked up in a tower.
He knew confrontation was inevitable if he wanted to see the outside world again anytime soon - Too long now had he been kept inside of a restrictive vase as opposed to an open flowerbed. Still, going into the discussion, Roman had downright dreaded dealing with the resistance he would surely be met with from his fellow Side. Of course, he knew the moral Side would never be mad at him for standing his ground, but if he didn’t want his friend to worry then he felt he’d still have to prepare a solid rebuttal.
The creative Side had braced himself for his moral counterpart’s troubling frown.
He’d fully anticipated his friend’s most frequently recycled justifications and prepared what he considered to be an adequate counterargument for each.
Heck, the prince had even taken the liberty of preparing an evidence casefile should the dad Side ever demand to see proof of his ongoing recovery.
“Behold! The piece of evidence that clearly contradicts the witness’ testimony!” Roman rehearsed, finger pointing rather dramatically at his bedroom mirror, “If you take a good look at this thermometer, you’ll see that my temperature read as 98.6F this morning. Mr Sanders, you claimed I couldn’t leave the room for as long as I have a fever, but this device clearly shows I now have a perfectly normal body temperature!”
Undoubtedly Roman had done enough preparation to ensure that even a man as tight-lipped as Logan couldn’t help but feel proud of his work. If only history had been kind enough to repeat itself, then perhaps the creative Side could have even found himself standing in the middle of another ‘Sherlock Holmes Fan-Fic’ type situation.
However, there had been one rather unfortunate series of developments that the prince had not fully fortified himself for – one that had proven itself to be far more regrettable than unlikely, and one that the prince would have no choice but to embrace as he failed to sway the conversation back in his favour.
For within mere minutes of opening his carefully planned, well-constructed and adequately researched argument, both the poor over-watered wilting rose, and his apparently not-so-attentive botanist had completely abandoned their cool demeanours in exchange for a far more contentious persona.
“Roman, please, just be reasonable,” the dad Side pleaded, arms outstretched in a halting motion as he took yet another step back towards Roman’s doorway.
“Oh, my stars!” the aforementioned Side proclaimed incredulously, “Do my ears deceive me? Or is that truly ‘The Hypocrite of the West Coast’ sincerely asking me to be more reasonable?”
Had the man standing before the prince been anyone but his favourite fatherly figure, then surely he would have pressed him on the long sigh he just let out.
“Kiddo, I understand why you’re upset, but you know I’d never try to deter you like this if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary. I hate seeing you cooped up in here just as much as you do!”
“Then why won’t you set me free?”
“Because I believe-”
“Oh yes, because you believe it’s the right thing to do, don’t you? That’s always what it seems to come down to at the end of the day! Everything in the entire Thomas-sphere has to revolve around what Morality thinks is right and wrong! Honestly, what have the rest of us ever done to deserve a seat at the table?”
The moral Side’s entire body seemed to tense at that, his breath hitching as though he were trying to force some unsavoury words back down his own agitated throat. Tears were now threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes, yet his gaze remained almost perfectly fixed.
“Roman…”
“No! I don’t want to hear it, Pat! I’m sick and tired of listening to what you have to say!”
“You’re sick and tired, full stop, Roman! Please, you should really just go back to bed while I-”
“While you do what, Patton? Are you planning on tucking me back into bed again? Perhaps you could infantilise me even further by reading me another bedtime story, or- Oh! I know! Why don’t you go and prepare me yet another bowl of your infamous chicken soup? I’m not sure the first couple-hundred bowls have made me entirely anti-poultry yet!”
Undoubtedly, hunched up shoulders and pointedly narrowed eyes weren’t a particularly good look on the usually oh-so-cheery dad Side, but he simply couldn’t help the fact that his composure was shrivelling up so fast.
“If you really want to get me out of your hair so badly, then why won’t you just let me take care of you? The sooner I can get you healthy again, the sooner I can leave you to your own devices!”
“Because it’s not your job to take care of me, padre!” the prince snapped back, this time sounding utterly exasperated. “I’m not some delicate little flower that you should feel obligated to attend to! You’re not my designated botanist! You… You know what you are? What you really are, Pat? You’re just some aggravating little mealybug that’s latched onto my leaves that now adamantly refuses to let go! You’re sucking the life out of me, Pat, and it’s causing me to wilt! How on Earth do you expect me to stand it?”
With those words, the last of the moral Side’s composure finally slipped away.
“I don’t know, Roman! How do you expect me to cope with losing Creativity again?”
The words had come barrelling out of his mouth before he could even think to stop himself, and the tears don’t fall too far behind.
The room fell completely silent in an instant, bar the sound of the dad Side’s sombre hiccups.
Try as Patton might, he genuinely couldn’t help the feeling that he was being cruelly suffocated and torn apart from the inside. It felt as though someone had forced him to swallow an entire packet of dandelion seeds, and now the unwelcome plant was blooming, stems sprouting painfully from the pit of his stomach before forcing its way up through his throat, and finally bursting out dramatically from his silently screaming mouth. It seemed that no matter how hard the botanist had tried to suppress this unruly weed, the truth was always destined to come to light in some horrific way.
“Patton…?” Roman hesitantly asked, his previous shouting voice having been replaced by an almost-whisper.
The man in question only let a single choked sob escape before continuing to speak…
“…He was just like you, you know…” he blurted out, voice sounding unnaturally strained from trying to suppress his own emotions. His eyes were now utterly transfixed on the floor, almost as if he were willing it to magically open up and swallow him whole.
The prince audibly gulped as he mentally prepared himself for the question he’d inevitably have to ask, regardless of whether or not he already knew the answer.
“Who was, Pat?”
Another choked sob escaped; this time followed by a long, shaky, uneven breath. The question seemed to hang in the air far too uncomfortably for far too long as one Side watched the other pathetically curl in on himself.
“The King,” Patton eventually rasped out, words slicing through the tension in the air so swiftly and so grotesquely they almost seemed to mimic the actions of a rusty lawn mower blade.
Roman could practically hear the machine whirring around inside his head.
“He told us all it was just a cold – That he’d be perfectly fine if we just left him alone for a few hours…”
“Patton…”
“He told us all to just go out and play… He promised us he’d come and join us as soon as he was feeling better… At the time none of us even realised that would be our last chance to run around in the garden together… Our last chance to marvel at the early Spring flowers together… Our last chance to weave intricate little flower crowns together with the King… and so we missed it… We missed our final chance to say ‘goodbye’ and then he was just… gone…”
As the well finally overflooded, allowing for two long streams to suddenly pour down the older Side’s fiercely flushed face, the young prince swore he could feel his own still beating heart immediately split in two.
“Patton,” he tried again, “Surely you don’t blame yourself for any of that. I highly doubt there’s anything you could have done to prevent such a fate from befalling the old Creativity – and even if there had have been, you couldn’t have possibly known any better!”
“I could have been by his side!” Patton snapped back, punctuating his words by gripping his upper arms even tighter. “I knew one of my friends was sick and I did nothing to help him! Worse than that, Roman, I left him alone to play hopscotch.”
“Darling, it’s not your fault for having such faith in an old friend. He was the one who told you to give him some space! You were only doing what was asked of you!”
A sudden wave of realisation swiftly struck down the prince’s confidence the moment he heard those words aloud.
“Oh, my dear little heart…” he cooed as he watched his shaking friend visibly shrink. “I’m so sorry, Pat… I didn’t mean to-”
“No… No, you don’t have anything to apologise for…” Patton sniffled as he tried to stand up properly. “I… I understand I may have been a bit… overbearing these past few days, but I…” He was getting choked up again. “I… I just couldn’t risk losing Creativity again… I couldn’t risk losing you. I love you so much, kiddo, and I genuinely don’t know what I would do if I ever-”
Roman decided to silence that oncoming tangent by abruptly pulling his spiralling friend into a warm embrace. Perhaps the experience would have been a little more pleasant had his own body not decided to start trembling mere moments ago, but none of that seemed to matter as the dad Side slowly melted into his soothing touch.
“Do you want me to let you in on a special little secret, padre?”
The dad Side merely nodded his response into the crook of the prince’s neck, causing the slightly calmer man to let out a faint chuckle.
“The truth is… when I first appeared here in the mindscape, I really didn’t know much at all about… well… anything! Sure, I had a decent enough hold on what sort of things inspired Thomas, what stories he wanted to tell and how he wanted to go about telling them… but when it came to Thomas’ internal ‘Breakfast Club’ I was almost completely at a loss! By all accounts your quizzical looks should have made me feel like a Roman gladiator thrown haphazardly into a colosseum without so much as a broken stick to defend myself!”
“I’m sorry if any of us startled you…” came a muffled response.
“But that’s the thing, Pat,” Roman recounted with a kind smile, “None of you ever did… In fact, from the very first moment I ever laid my dazzling eyes upon all of your startled yet adorable – if not slightly nerdy – faces, I honestly never felt anything but… safe, secure… welcome, even! Now I know that may not make much sense at first given how little I actually knew you all at the time, but I happen to have my own little working theory as to why I felt that way. Would you like me to share it with you?”
That question was apparently enough to make the dad Side look up from where he had been nuzzling his tear-soaked face into his friend’s now admittedly rather damp shoulder. The sight of his puffy eyes alone was enough to make Roman want to tear off his own crimson rose petals and use them as an overly extravagant tissue on the botanist’s grief-stricken visage.
Alas, a small piece of his velvety sash would have to suffice for now.
“Please,” Patton tentatively begged as the prince carefully wiped away at his cheeks.
“I reckon it’s because the Creativity you once knew never truly left. Even if I didn’t maintain the vast majority of his memories, I vehemently believe that all of those otherwise inexplicable feelings were the by-product of him having once loved all of you. He never felt betrayed… He never felt lonely… He never felt as though you let him down, padre, because it’s abundantly clear didn’t.”
“But how can you be so sure his feelings never changed?”
“I don’t know, my own little Patton-ted Piglet… How can you be so sure they ever did?”
Something in the moral Side’s expression seemed to change in that moment… Something subtle yet unmistakable that let Roman know he’d finally gotten through to the man.
It was only a matter of time before a contented smile had taken place on both of their blushing faces.
“I suppose I never really thought of it that way…” Patton sheepishly admitted.
“Yet you’d dare to entertain the thought that your dashing prince would ever leave you?”
The creative Side had fully intended for his sentiment to come across as light-hearted. Rather unfortunately for him, it appeared his words only served to make the dad Side feel more guilty.
“I’m sorry for blowing up at you like that earlier, kiddo… and I’m sorry if my paranoia ever made me act unfairly towards you… I guess I just let my parental instincts get the better of me sometimes…”
“I’ll consider it all water under the bridge so long as you promise not to tell Teach I had to take a leaf out of his book today,” Roman joked, earning a stifled burst of heartfelt giggling from his now slightly more chipper and upbeat friend.
When the laughter eventually subsided, the dad Side decided to take a step back and get a better look at Roman, consequently breaking the embrace as he did so.
“I can’t tell if you acting all logical is supposed to be a sign that your health is improving or deteriorating,” he playfully teased.
“Well whichever one of the two it is, I just hope all of this exposure you’ve had to my sorry-self over these past few days hasn’t been enough to infect you.”
“Oh, Roman, I hate to tell you this, but I was already sick,” Patton merrily admitted after only a brief pause.
“What?” the prince dramatically exclaimed, voice suddenly sounding perturbed. “Oh, padre… Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well? We need to get you tucked into bed with some medicine and a bowl of chicken soup right away!”
Although Morality had tried to contain their mildly inappropriate giggling, he simply couldn’t help but be amused by the irony behind Creativity’s words.
“I’m afraid there won’t be any need for that,” he giddily reassured, “After all, doctors say there’s still no known cure for love-sickness!”