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Hello, hi! Hope you're doing well :D Been reading your fics with Remus in them, and skskskskskak—ANYWAY Intruality (Remus & Patton), if you have a lil spare energy for it? Just ✨them✨(no pressure to write it ofc, had them on the brain for very long frame of time and wanted to share) 💚🩵your local Intruality enjoyer🩵💚- anon
Idk if this has been asked about yet, but...one of the Sides struggling through an OCD spiral? Maybe with a not-so-common type of OCD (like with moral or harm OCD)? Maybe another Side actually knows how to help the other with not feeding the obsession & stuff. No pressure to write this, ofc! Idk if you're comfortable with this topic, but I just wanted to throw this idea out there. I wish you a wonderful timezone, Asbod <3 – anon
It isn't often that Remus well and truly startles awake, but there are exceptions to every rule. He groans, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, glancing at the glow-in-the-dark clock over the desk area and getting to his feet. Slippers on, teddy bear grabbed, he shuffles out into the hallway and starts the trek down to the Light Sides' bedrooms. As he goes, the mumblings in his ears grow louder and louder, and by the time he's knocking on a pale blue door, he's fully awake.
The mumblings halt for a moment, then resume, followed by a soft click as the door unlocks. Remus steps inside, shutting the door behind him, wincing as he catches sight of a discarded notebook with its cover bent and folded and its pages torn. Across the room, at the edge of the bed, kneels Patton, his hands folded on the sheets and his head bowed below the line of his shoulders.
"Hey, Pat-Pat," he says quietly, going over to sit next to him, "it's bad tonight, huh?"
Patton barely pauses, just nodding. Remus reaches over to grab the notebook and puts it within reach, slowly placing it where Patton can see it with his head bowed. There's a slightly choked noise as he sets it down, before Patton raises his head and Remus lets out a soft noise at his red nose and tear-stained cheeks.
"Remus," and shit, he sounds like he's been crying for hours too, "I don't know what to do. Nothing's working."
"You tried all your exercises already?"
He nods miserably. "They're not working. It's just getting worse. It won't stop."
"I'm sorry they're not helping, Pat-Pat. Has this been going on for a long time today?"
"N-no. No, I was—everything was fine and then I tried to go to bed and it—and it just started right away when I was—when I was thinking about what we're going to do about the script and it—and it—"
"Breathe, little unicorn," Remus says softly, tsking when he sees Patton go to bite his knuckles, "hey, uh-uh, here, I brought your friend."
Patton takes the teddy bear and bites one of its ears, several breaths wheezing in and out of his partially open mouth. Remus just sits next to him, quietly reminding him to keep breathing every once in a while until he slumps against the side of the bed. He reaches out and ruffles his hair.
"How come…nevermind."
"How come what? How come what," he asks again, purposefully making his voice more sing-songy to make Patton giggle, "come on, tell me, how come what?"
"…this is gonna sound bad."
"Cool. I don't care, tell me anyway."
"I just—Logan is so good at helping the others with stuff like this. Why can't…why can't he help me?" He sets his chin on the bear's head and makes the most adorable pout. "It's like I'm always able to come up with something else, like Virgil but worse—n-not that Virgil is bad!"
"I know what you meant, little unicorn. You're asking why Logic can't help you with your brain spicy the way it can help the others, right?"
"Yeah."
Remus shuffles closer, folding his arms and resting his chin on top so his face makes the little squishy pout like Patton's. "Do you want me to tell you a secret?"
"What secret?"
"The one about how Lolo helps people and why it doesn't work for you."
"Wait, you know why?"
"Yeah, I know why, that's why I help you and Lolo doesn't." Remus leans close enough to boop their noses together before he sits back. "You wanna know?"
"Yeah, I wanna know!"
"Logic is really useful for things happening in the present. Like: A is happening and B is happening, so C is true. Or A is happening and B is true so C must also happen. It's a very focused-on-the-now-with-info-you-have approach. Which is good for Virgil, especially, because his uncertainty is a lot of 'what if' and 'did we do this' sort of things." Remus knocks their heads together again. "But with you, your stuff is almost always in the future. And that means it lives in the Imagination, kinda in between Virgil and me and Roro. And so yeah, no shit you can always come up with stuff, the entire point of Lolo's approach is certainty and control and that really doesn't work for your brain spicy."
"O-oh." Patton fiddles with the bear's ear. "Is that why Logan had that conversation with me about encouraging it?"
"Yeah. I think one of the sites we looked at said it too, the thing about how if you give that, like, reassurance that you're right, or that you're in control, or that you can be certain about something, it actually feeds into it because it makes the distress when that isn't true way worse."
"…I think I knew that, somewhere, it's just…" He sighs. "You guys are so much better at talking about this stuff than I am."
"That's not your fault, Pat-Pat. Feelings are hard, emotions are messy. Sometimes you just gotta let 'em be."
"But that's hard."
"I know, but as you're very fond of reminding us, nothing worth doing is always easy."
"I don't think that's exactly what I said."
"It's close enough, though, right?"
"Yeah, it's close enough." Silence falls again. The fan turns around the room and a gust of wind flutters the edge of Patton's hair. "Remus?"
"Mhm?"
"Do you think that the script thing will turn out fine?"
He lifts one shoulder and lets it drop. "I dunno."
"You don't know?"
"Nope. Can't know, won't know, nothing to do but let things happen and then figure it out." When Patton makes a quiet, distressed noise, he flops his cheek over to lie on his arm. "You wanna know what I do know, though?"
"What's that?"
"No matter what happens, I'm gonna be here to support you. And so are the others. Even though none of us know how it's gonna go, we're gonna be there for each other. 'Cause that's how we do shit around here, yeah?"
Patton nods. He glances at the notebook and, after a long moment's hesitation, he picks it up with trembling fingers. "Will you—I wanna try one of the exercises again. Will you…stay here while I do it?"
"Yeah, little unicorn. I'll sit right here while you do it, okay?"
"Okay."
He closes his eyes as the sound of scribbling fills the room. Deep in his chest, he can feel Patton's distress start to build, swirling around and around as he works through the exercise. His breath catches a few times and he has to remind himself not to reach out, not yet, not yet, Patton has to go through the whole thing first, and he just keeps breathing. He hears the quiet rustle of Patton tightening his grip on the teddy bear and the force it takes to keep his focus on the exercise, not to give into the compulsion, to let the distress exist and refuse to engage with it. It's difficult, undoubtedly, but his little unicorn is capable of it and he's never been more proud.
When it's over, or when the swirl of distress no longer swirls as much nor is as distressed, Patton lets the notebook fall to the floor with a shaky sigh and slumps against Remus's elbow. That isn't a comfortable position at the best of times, so he lets his arm wrap around Patton's shoulders and squeeze him close enough to kiss his temple. Patton lets out a sleepy little hum and nuzzles his face into the teddy bear.
"You feel any better?"
"Yeah. I think so."
"You think you can try and sleep?"
"Can…can you stay for a little bit? Just a bit longer?"
Remus smiles, kissing his forehead. "Yeah, you wanna cuddle?"
"I was thinking we could listen to the new podcast episode. Just to kind of…" He waves his hands. "De-all of that."
"Sure, Pat-Pat. We gotta cuddle though."
Patton giggles and climbs up into the bed. Remus puts the notebook on the nightstand and crawls over him, pressing more kisses to his face and shoulders until Patton's giggling more than sniffling. They settle against the pillows and Patton offers him an earbud. The podcast into music starts playing as Patton snuggles into his chest with a sigh.
"Hey, Remus?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for coming."
"Anytime, little unicorn, anytime."