#cookiecrumbles

As he finished catching his breath, Roman quickly summoned a towel to soak up the blood running down his arm before pressing it to his chest in place of his now-dripping sash. He briefly considered trying to salvage the crimson fabric but quickly decided against it, instead tossing it to the side where it vanished into the air. He would have to dispose of his entire outfit, so there was no point in saving that one piece. Besides, he didn’t want to risk forgetting about it and giving Patton a heart attack next laundry day.

After double checking that his plush carpet hadn’t acquired any stains, Roman quickly headed towards the adjoining bathroom to begin cleaning his wound.

Something was off. Virgil wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but as soon as he left his room, he could tell there something was different about the mindscape. Maybe it was just the sudden absence of Evanescence blasting through his headphones, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that things seemed…a little too quiet.

Virgil quickly ran through a mental checklist of the light sides. He could faintly hear singing and the occasional clang of pots downstairs, so he knew Patton was most likely making lunch. Virgil’s mouth quirked momentarily into a small smile as he thought about the moral side’s enthusiasm for taking care of everyone before returning his attention to his checklist. He couldn’t hear anything from Logan’s room, but that wasn’t unusual. Lo had been pretty busy lately helping Thomas research Roman’s ideas for the next video; the logical side was probably wrapping up some “light” reading in silence before lunch.

That left Princey.

Virgil couldn’t hear anyone singing alongside Pat downstairs, nor could he hear any Disney or Broadway music through the creative side’s door. Frowning, he tip-toed a little closer to the doorway framed by decorative red curtains. Roman’s room was never quiet – not unless he was out in the imagination, but Roman rarely stayed out so close to lunch. He claimed that a prince should never be late to dinner, but Virgil knew he just couldn’t resist Patton’s cooking. Virgil glanced back to Logan’s door to make sure he was alone before pressing his ear to the white wood. He didn’t want Lo to think he was snooping (even though he technically was, but it was for good reason!). From his place by the door, he could just make out the sound of running water.

Virgil let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Of course, Princey had just come back from the imagination, so he was washing up before lunch. That made sense; Virgil was just being… overly cautious.

Still, as much as he wanted to believe it and as logical as it was, Virgil wasn’t Logan. He specialized in worrying, and he hadn’t yet managed to convince himself of Roman’s safety.

Inside, the stream of water subsided, and Virgil froze. Had Roman heard him? After a tense moment of silence, a sharp string of expletives, muffled only by the wooden door between them, jolted Virgil to his feet. His anxiety over Roman’s safety skyrocketed, quickly overriding any apprehension he would have typically felt over intruding on another side’s privacy, and he immediately yanked open the pristine white door by its gleaming, golden handle.

Roman’s room looked relatively normal. Only his bed was slightly disheveled, but his bathroom door stood ajar, snapping Virgil’s attention to the panicked reflection staring back at him from the bathroom mirror. What alarmed him most, however, were the three, bleeding gashes across the creative side’s chest.

The two sides stood paralyzed for a moment, stunned by each other’s appearance. Virgil swallowed past the fear bubbling up in his chest and broke the silence.

“Roman…?” the anxious side started tentatively. He cleared his throat before continuing, voice strained with the effort not to waver. “Why… what happened to you, Roman?”

Roman didn’t respond, but Virgil’s question seemed to shake him from his stupor as he suddenly let out a strangled cry and scrambled to shut his door, all while holding his arm over his chest as if that one gesture could cover the damage and erase it from where it had been seared into Virgil’s memory.

When Roman’s bathroom door slammed shut, Virgil felt his lungs close off as well. The one thing worse for Virgil than seeing Ro hurt was knowing the prince was hurt and not being able to help. Virgil clenched his fists as he fought for control over his rising panic. He could clearly see that there was something wrong, so he could do without the screeching alarm system sounding off inside him this time, please and thank you.

Every cell of his body trembled with the need to move, to run towards the prince, to sprint out of the room and get Patton and Logan, to hunt down whatever – or whoever – had hurt the prince and make sure it never got anywhere near Roman again. But, like his lungs, Virgil couldn’t seem to make the rest of his body move no matter how hard he tried.

Through the whirlwind of thoughts spinning through his mind, Virgil grasped for and clung to one: Roman needed help, so Virgil could either let his anxiety overwhelm him, or he could use it to sharpen his focus and help the creative side. With that thought, Virgil slowly unclenched one of his fists and began to tap out a somewhat shaky beat against his leg.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Repeat. One, two, three, four…

On the other side of the bathroom door, Roman stood with his back pressed against the wood, gasping for air and wincing as the movement pulled at his wounds. He still held his arm to his chest, but now it felt more like he was trying to hold himself together rather than trying to hide his injuries – and it was proving to be just as futile an attempt as hiding had been.

The others couldn’t know. They just couldn’t. How could he have been so careless? Why had he left his bathroom door open? Why had Virgil burst in, anyways? And why did it have to be Virgil instead of Logan? Roman had seen the way Virgil had frozen, and he knew the anxious side was probably frozen just outside the door and suffering from a terrible panic attack as well and it was all Roman’s fault and – wait, as well? No, Roman wasn’t having an panic attack. He didn’t get panic attacks…right? His lungs seemed to disagree.

Just how broken was he…?

No, no, no! These were exactly the kind of thoughts he had been trying to avoid when he fought the dragon witch. He couldn’t face them because to face them would mean admitting once and for all that he wasn’t good enough, and Roman knew that he wouldn’t be able to handle that reality.

But the more Roman tried to avoid his thoughts, the more tenaciously they seemed to grip him, and this time even the dragon witch hadn’t been enough to loosen their hold.

In the bedroom, Virgil slowly but surely managed to calm himself, but in the absence of his own anxiety, he could feel an additional undertone of uneasiness. He was all too familiar with underlying anxiety, but this felt different – as if he was experiencing someone else’s fear beneath his own.

Now wasn’t the time to figure it out, though. He had cleared his mind enough to help Roman, and that was exactly what he was going to do. However, when Virgil glanced towards the bathroom door, that undertone of uneasiness surged into an undercurrent of panic. Although unnerving, it didn’t affect Virgil’s ability to think. The panic was certainly present, but it was as if it was somehow trapped by a thin film within him. Even so, Virgil closed his eyes and shook his head a little, dispelling it. It didn’t retreat entirely, but its presence became less notable. As soon as he looked towards the bathroom door again, however, it returned full force.

Virgil’s eyes widened as realization hit him. Of course! He was sensing Roman’s fear. As quickly as this epiphany occurred, however, Virgil felt (his own) dread gather in the pit of his stomach. For the creative side’s fear to be that palpable, that intense, the prince had to be experiencing a panic attack, and Virgil – the literal embodiment of anxiety and thus well-versed in coping methods – had yet to do anything to help.

Rushing forward, Virgil grimaced as he felt the subdued panic continue to rise within him. “Ro?” he called out gently as he slowed to a stop outside the bathroom door. No response. Virgil sighed and paused for a moment to think. He needed to help ground Roman before he could ever hope to gain entrance to the bathroom to help tend to Roman’s wounds – and most importantly, find out who or what had hurt him so that he could make sure it never happened again.

The five senses technique Logan had shown him would allow Virgil to hear Roman’s voice, but it ran the risk of being a little…too grounded in reality for the fanciful side. The four-seven-eight technique wouldn’t allow Virgil to see or hear Roman’s reaction, but with his newfound ability to feel Roman’s anxiety, he would still be able to gauge its effectiveness. Besides, Virgil knew firsthand how crucial breath control was for calming down and how trying to speak too soon could be more detrimental than beneficial.

“Roman, I need you to listen to me, okay? You don’t have to respond. I’m going to guide you through a breathing exercise. To start, I’m going to count to four while tapping the door, and I need you to breathe in for me, okay? I’m starting now: one…” Virgil spoke softly but loud enough for the prince to hear and rapped one knuckle quietly on the doorframe in a steady beat.

“That’s it, you’re doing great Princey. One more time now, you’ve got this. One, two…” Roman drew in another breath slowly but surely so as not to pull at his wounds too much, held it, and let it out shakily to Virgil’s count. The creative side knew that despite his prickly exterior, Virgil cared for everyone in his own way, but he had rarely heard the anxious side’s voice sound so…soothing. Then again, he had never been in a situation like this before either. If anything, it was usually the other way around with Logan or sometimes Patton helping Virgil calm down; Roman usually just tried to stay out of their way when things got that bad.

“Roman,” Virgil’s voice drifted through the door, an anchor despite the terror Roman had felt upon his initial appearance. “I know you’re scared right now, and that’s okay, but you’re also injured, and from what I saw, it’s bad. I need you to let me in, so I can help treat your wounds, Ro…please.”

Rationally, the creative side knew that the damage had already been done – literally as well as metaphorically – and that he would have difficulty bandaging his chest alone, but that thought didn’t stop the panic from rising within him again. If he let Virgil in now, the other side would see firsthand how he couldn’t even do this right severely he was injured, which would only make him see how useless he was worry more and invite more questions.

Just as Roman felt his thoughts begin to spiral and his anxiety begin to spike once more, Virgil continued hurriedly, as if trying to catch the prince before he descended further into his fears. “You don’t have to explain what happened yet. I know you don’t want me to see you like this, and I know it’s nerve-wracking – believe me, I understand – but you can’t and shouldn’t try to do this alone. I’m here, Ro. Let me help you.”

Hands trembling slightly, Roman pushed himself up from the now blood-stained tiles (when had he slid to the ground anyways?) and off the door. He reached for the doorknob, hesitating when he saw the smear of crimson where he had slammed and locked the door shut earlier. Closing his eyes and breathing in to steady himself (why had he let a bit of blood bother him so? It wasn’t like he wasn’t covered in it), he gripped the handle tightly so as not to slip and slowly turned it to the right.

Virgil stepped back as the door in front of him cracked open, the bright light spilling out and momentarily blinding his view inside. The creative side continued to ease the door open – slowly, cautiously, an action so unlike his boisterous and at times impulsive self – and soon, Virgil could once again make out the battered prince’s reflection. Conflicting emotions flickered across the other’s face with no trace of his usual confidence in either expression or stance. His eyes were glued resolutely to the white wood partially obscuring his face and frame, as if by refusing to visually acknowledge Virgil’s presence, the past ten minutes would magically erase themselves.

Instead, Virgil stared back at him from across the threshold, frozen in place by the other side’s appearance. From across the bedroom, he’d only noticed the bloody gashes marring the prince’s chest. Up close, he could see the way Roman seemed to curl into himself, one arm still wrapped around his torso despite the wounds crossing it. He could see the way his body trembled, which Virgil suspected had more to do with the icy waves of fear emanating from him than the cool air. He could see the way his hair – always oh-so-carefully styled – stuck out in every direction and clung to his forehead, which shone with sweat. Beneath his bangs – oh god, Princey – Virgil could see storm clouds brewing in his eyes, but even those seemed half-hearted, filled only with raindrops and lacking the lightning spirit that usually lit his irises.

“Princey…” Virgil trailed off, voice catching when Roman finally tore his gaze from the door, dull eyes pleading with the anxious side to not make this any harder than it already was. Virgil felt his heart and throat constrict upon seeing his friend – his exuberant, passionate, brave friend – reduced to such a state. Remembering his purpose and earlier promise to the prince, however, he forced himself to step forward into the grand bathroom, past the door still partially obscuring the other’s wounds.

He had steeled himself for what he would see, but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that awaited him. Virgil felt his stomach lurch and had to steady himself against the marble countertop as he finally took in the extent of Roman’s injuries. The other had obviously already started cleaning them, but the half-cleaned state only revealed how deep the gashes ran, only highlighted the red stains against his pale and clammy skin.

Virgil forced himself to swallow past the knot of fear and anguish tightening in his throat and grabbed a white and red embroidered washcloth from the marble countertop.