Chapter Text
Look, Patton loved his job, but he has always disliked this part of it.
See, when it comes to idioms which are, y’know, figures of speech, in the sides’ case, they were more literal than any of them would have liked. And you have no idea how many heart-related idioms there are.
Some of the other sides know of some of the idioms that he suffers through, but not all. Like Logan and Roman know about this one, but not anyone else, and vice versa. He didn’t really know much about the other’s idioms. It was kind of a… personal topic. Which is stupid in his opinion. He would like to know about the others’ idioms so that he’s prepared.
He knows that he shouldn’t be talking, he hasn’t shared his idioms either, but the others have to share theirs for him to share his. He doesn’t really know how it works, but that’s how it goes.
Anyway, Thomas and Logan were currently watching a documentary about the hardships of families in other countries, and, let's be real here, Thomas is soft. That’s Patton’s fault he’ll admit, but sometimes Patton wished that he didn’t have to feel sympathy for every person going through something hard. He knows that’s selfish, but this sucks.
Patton is standing at the bathroom sink, looking at himself in the mirror. He was dripping blood from his nose, eyes, mouth, ears, every hole of his face, and it was making a mess.
He knows he should probably tell Thomas to turn the documentary off because it’s hurting him, but Thomas is enjoying the documentary! And he knows that Logan probably is too, so he can’t bring himself to ruin their fun.
So here he was, bleeding all over his nice sink wishing that he wasn’t so soft.
This isn’t the worst idiom that he has. Actually, it is one of the mildest ones, but it certainly wasn’t fun. It doesn’t hurt really, it’s just unpleasant to be bleeding out of every hole in his face.
He was staring blankly at his reflection in the mirror when he heard someone knock on his door. This wasn’t uncommon, he was the caretaker of the group so all of the sides came to him with their problems, but he was not prepared to handle one of the other’s reactions to him bleeding out in the bathroom. Oh, he was definitely going to get scolded for this.
He was too lost in his thoughts to notice the door opening and Virgil coming in.
“Popstar are you goo-” He cut himself off when he saw Patton.
Well, shit.
Virgil was the last person that Patton wanted to come in and see him like this. He tends to think of the worst-case scenario when it comes to this type of thing, being anxiety and all.
Patton turned around to face Virgil so fast that the world went dark for a few seconds.
He may have let this go on for a little too long.
Virgil had dropped his phone and the noise made Patton flinch, “V-Virgil, i-it- 's o-ka-y,” Wow, forming a complete sentence was getting to be extremely difficult. The blood in his mouth is making it very hard to talk. Forming a coherent thought was also starting to become harder than he would have liked.
He could see Virgil’s mouth moving but he couldn’t tell what he was trying to say. His vision was getting progressively blurrier and he was starting to lean forward.
That’s funny, He thought I don’t remember moving to lay on the ground.
The last thing he saw before he blacked out was Virgil’s panicked face yelling for help.
— — —
Virgil was having a good day all things considering. Thomas and Logan were in Thomas’ living room watching a documentary, Janus was reading in the mindscape commons, and Roman and Remus were playing Uno at the table. Somehow, neither of them has killed the other yet, but there’s still time. Virgil was watching them to make sure that didn’t happen when he noticed someone was missing. That someone was usually in the kitchen making something, or playing with the twins, but Patton was nowhere to be found.
“Hey, have any of you seen Patton?” Virgil asked the room.
All of them looked up at Virgil, then around the room for Patton.
“Hey yeah, where is that loveable puffball? He’s usually down here cooking or playing with us,” Roman gestured to himself and Remus.
“Maybe he and Logan are finally gettin’ it on,” Remus waggled his eyebrows with a mischievous smirk on his face.
“Remus!” Roman smacked his brother upside the head.
Janus looked up from his book, his brows furrowed, “Virgil, can you check his room? I have not seen him since he went up after lunch.”
Virgil glared at Remus then nodded and started making his way up the stairs toward Patton’s room.
He walked up to Patton’s door and knocked on it. Something he has been doing for years. Patton is his safe person, his best friend whom he comes to if he ever is too overwhelmed, has a nightmare, or he’s in the middle of a panic attack. Patton always answers the door whether he’s sleeping, or doing something else.
He didn’t answer the door.
Ok, now Virgil is starting to panic.
“Patton? Are you okay in there?” Still no answer.
Fuck it.
“Patton, I’m coming in!”
Most of the time everyone respects each other’s privacy. You have to knock and get permission to enter someone’s room, but in cases like this, it calls for emergency measures.
He opens the door and walks into Patton’s room.
“Patton?” He looks around for Patton, eyes eventually landing on the open bathroom door.
He walks over to the bathroom, opens the door all the way, and moves to go inside.
“Popstar you goo-” Virgil looks up at Patton as he whirls around to look at Virgil.
His face is dripping with blood. It’s coming out of his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth.
Virgil drops his phone on the bathroom tile and Patton flinches. He feels a little bad for scaring him, but oh my god.
“Patton what happened?? Are you okay?! Never mind, that’s a stupid question, you’re clearly not okay!” Virgil rambled.
“V-Virgil, i-it-’s o-ka-y,” Patton was trying to tell Virgil something but was clearly struggling to make his mouth work. More blood spilled over when he tried to talk, almost spraying Virgil with some.
He was also swaying and looked dangerously close to falling face-first on the floor. Virgil launched himself at Patton to catch him, “Patton?! Oh no, oh nononono stay with me, Pat! Please, come on!” Vigil could tell he was panicking.
Not now! You have to help Patton! Call for help!
He set Patton’s head on his lap. Patton’s eyes were almost completely closed at this point.
“R-ROMAN! JANUS! REMUS! HELP, PLEASE!”
Patton’s eyes were closed. He was unresponsive.
Oh, no.. nonono!
Virgil heard thundering footsteps coming up the stairs. The sources of those footsteps came bursting into the bathroom not even a second later.
“Virgil! What– oh,” Roman looked at Patton and then at the bathroom, “Ugh, he did it again…”
Okay, now Virgil was really confused, “Um, what do you mean again? You mean this has fucking happened before??”
Janus and Remus looked at Roman with the same level of confusion, “Yeah! Why the hell is he gushing blood out of his face holes?”
“Not helpful Remus,” Janus said before he walked over to Patton whose head was currently being cradled by Virgil. He subconsciously pulled Patton a little closer to himself when Janus walked over. Patton was still oozing blood, which was making Virgil very worried. Shouldn’t it have stopped?
He could tell Janus was thinking the same thing when he touched under Patton’s eye disrupting a steady stream of blood. He stood up and faced Roman, “Explain. Now.”
Roman sighed, “It’s one of his idioms, bleeding heart. When Thomas is really sympathetic towards something or someone, Patton bleeds from every hole in his face. It’s usually not this bad, I wonder what’s causing it…”
“Whatever it is, we need to find it fast, he’s already passed out and this,” Janus gestures around the bathroom, “is too much blood.”
“Agreed.” Roman nodded as he moved to stand next to Virgil, rubbing his back comfortingly.
“Does Logan know about this?” Virgil asked shakily.
Roman sighed for a second time, “Yes. He’s the one who saw it first. He knows what to do.” He looked up at Janus confused, “Do you not know about our idioms? Don’t you know everyone’s secrets?”
Janus scoffed, “I can’t know all secrets. Then they wouldn’t be secrets. Most of them are hidden from me.”
“Oh, really? Huh…”
Janus looked at Patton with a look of extreme concern once more before turning to Virgil, “Can you stay here with him? Try to slow the bleeding at least a little.”
Virgil looked at Janus, surprised at how concerned he looked. Even Remus looked a little scared.
Virgil nodded, “Yeah… I… Thank you. For letting me stay with him.”
Janus looked surprised when Virgil thanked him, “I just figured you would kill me if I even tried to touch him,” He sounded sarcastic, but then his voice took on more sincerity than Virgil had ever heard from him, “I just don’t want anything to happen to him. I’ve grown quite fond of our dear father figure.”
Virgil smiled at that.
Remus took on a dangerously mischievous expression, “Oooo Janny! You like Pattoonnnnnnnnn…!”
“I never thought you of all the sides would have fallen for Padre. I always thought it would be Logan that would fall first!” Roman joins in the teasing.
Janus rolled his eyes, ignoring the comments as he led Roman and Remus out of the bathroom to sink out and talk to Thomas.
Virgil looked at Patton once more. He was pale, and still bleeding, starting to choke on the blood in his mouth.
Virgil sighed, repositioned him so he wasn’t choking, and got a wet cloth to start cleaning his face.
— — —
Janus might murder Patton once this was all over.
Janus, Roman, and Remus rose up (or in Janus and Remus’ case, just appeared), in Thomas’ living room finding him and Logan watching a documentary.
Thomas turned his head to look at them when they started toward him, “Oh hey guys! What are you doing here?”
Logan tore his eyes away from the TV and looked at them with one eyebrow raised.
“Bleeding heart.” Was all Roman said, but Logan immediately knew what that meant.
“Fuck.” Was all Logan said before darting to Roman and the others about to sink out, but stopped himself when Thomas spoke up.
“Woah! Wait, what’s wrong? What does that mean?” He sounded worried.
Logan looked at him frantically, “Just… Come with us, we’ll explain after we get Patton situated. And turn off that documentary.”
And with that Logan, Roman, and Remus sank out. Thomas turned off the documentary and then followed his sides into the mindscape.
— — —
Logan doesn’t panic often. No, that was Virgil’s job. But right now, he was panicking a little. When he rose into the common room he immediately bolted up the stairs. And if the footsteps behind him told him anything, the others were following him.
Once he made it to Patton’s room he ran through the door and into the bathroom, where he could see Virgil on the floor with Patton leaning on him. Virgil looked like he was trying to clean the blood off Patton’s face, but more just kept coming.
Virgil looked up at Logan, “Logan! Thank god you’re here!”
Logan heard a gasp from behind him and Thomas walked forward to Patton, “W–what happened?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was the documentary we were watching,” Logan said.
Thomas looked even more confused, “Why would watching a documentary make him bleed? Does this happen every time I watch a documentary?!” Logan could tell Thomas was starting to panic.
“No–” Logan started to defend the documentaries that he loved so much so Thomas wouldn’t stop watching them, but he was interrupted by Janus.
“Thomas,” Janus walked over to him, stood him up, grabbed his shoulders, and made Thomas look him in the eyes, “This will all be explained, but first we have to help Patton.”
Thomas looked at him with tears in his eyes, “O–okay.”
Remus, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, walked over to Patton, picked him up, and carried him out of the room.
Everyone had a look of shock on their faces. Virgil’s arms were still in the air like he was still holding Patton steady.
“Wha– REMUS!” Roman ran after Remus. Everyone else followed suit.
— — —
Remus was done with the bullshit.
Everyone is freaking out, and not solving the problem. Yes, he might not usually care about the well-being of others, but he knows that idioms really suck. His aren’t any fun, and Roman has some… odd ones. Virgil also has idioms, and some of them are dangerous. He’s starting to think Patton’s are not that pleasant either.
So, he took matters into his own hands. Sure, the others might kill him later for taking Patton, but he was still bleeding, and he had already lost quite a lot of blood. Remus would rather not find out if sides could die today. He has some experience when it comes to first aid. So, while they explained things to Thomas, Remus figured he would try to clean Patton up himself.
He didn’t really think this through though, the others just followed him downstairs. He groaned and turned around to face them, “You guys were supposed to stay upstairs and explain the situation to Thomas while I cleaned him up!”
“Well, you can’t just run off with him and expect us to not follow!” Roman yelled.
“Please calm down!” Thomas stepped between Roman and Remus, “Remus, you should have told us what you were doing, but I agree that he needs to be cleaned up. So please, tell me how we can fix this.” He was pleading at this point.
Logan sighed, and Remus turned around to put Patton on the couch and went to get a towel.
“We all have idioms,” Logan started, “which for you are figurative. But for us, they are very literal. You experienced a ‘bleeding heart’ when we were watching the documentary, which in turn made Patton bleed. A bleeding heart happens when you feel excessive sympathy for something or someone. It’s usually not this bad, but that was a heavy topic for that documentary. He also never tells you when it gets to be too much.”
Thomas looked horrified, “So… I did this?”
“Technically yes, but you didn’t mean to. If Patton had just told you to stop watching the documentary, then he would be fine.”
“Okay…” Thomas glanced at Patton, “So how do I stop the blood?”
“Stop thinking about the documentary. Think about the good things that people have, and not about the bad.” Virgil spoke up.
Thomas looked at Virgil, amazed, then he closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes, “Did it work?” He asked.
He looked at Patton, whom Remus was still cleaning. The blood seemed to have stopped.
Remus lights up, “Hey! He stopped bleeding!”
Patton started coughing. He was coughing up blood and getting all over the couch, himself, and Remus. “Wha–” He rasps.
“PATTON!” Virgil comes over and tackles Patton into a hug, not caring if he got blood on him.
“Woah!” Patton hugs Virgil back after he recovers from being tackled.
Remus joins the tackle-hug, “You scared the fuck out of me Patty-cake!”
“S-sorry…” Patton said, looking ashamed.
Janus walks up to Patton with a stern face and a raised eyebrow. “I-I know, I know. I s-shouldn’t have h-hidden this.” Patton sighed the best he could, with his throat still being more than slightly clogged up.
Janus sighs, “If you already know, then why did you do it?”
Patton looked at the ground, and coughed again, trying to clear his throat. “Cau-cause I didn’t want to r-ruin Thomas and Logan’s fun. They were watching a doc-documentary together and having fun. I didn’t want to come to them and make them stop just–” He coughed again, “because I couldn’t handle it.”
Thomas walks over, “To be honest, I wasn’t really enjoying the documentary.”
Patton looks up at him, “Really?”
Thomas chuckles, “Yeah. I thought it was really sad, and I clearly can’t handle sad things.”
Logan speaks up, “I prefer science or nature documentaries. We would have been fine if you told us to turn it off.” He walks over to the couch, sits next to Patton, and puts a hand on his shoulder, “You need to learn to take care of your needs. We will help you. You will never hurt our feelings if you need us to stop doing something if it’s hurting you.”
“Yeah! We’re here for you Padre, forever and always.” Roman walks over and joins the hug.
Patton’s eyes started watering.
“Aww, don’t cry!” Virgil wipes away his tears, getting some blood on his finger in turn.
“I just r-really love you guys…” Patton said, looking at everyone.
“We love you too Patton,” Thomas says.
Janus smiles to himself as he looks at everyone on the couch. He lets it go on for a few minutes before he breaks it up, “Ok, that’s enough sap. Come on Patton, let's get you cleaned up properly.”
Patton nods and gets up, wobbling a little on his feet, “Woah…”
Virgil steadies him, “You good?”
“Yeah, I just… I may have let myself bleed for too long,” Patton looks sheepish.
“I’m definitely forcing a spa day onto you later,” Janus almost glares at him.
Logan raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’m never gonna forget this,” Virgil chimes in.
“Don’t do that again!” Roman hugged him again.
“I was worried that you weren’t gonna make it! Which woulda sucked! I like you,” Remus got off the couch and scooped up Patton again, who squeaked, “Come on! Let’s do what Janny said!” Remus sprinted across the living room and up the stairs.
“Oh, for the love of– Remus!” Roman runs after him.
Virgil looked at the twins running upstairs, with Remus holding a giggly and still bloody Patton, “Yeeaahh… I’m gonna make sure they don’t start fighting over who gets to clean Pat up. Peace.” He saluted and then walked upstairs after them.
Thomas looked at the stairs, “Sooo… Is he going to be okay?”
Janus also looked to where he could hear arguing upstairs over who gets to clean Patton’s face, “Yeah. I think everything is going to be just fine,” He looks Thomas in the eye and his voice takes on an ominous edge, “For now.”
Thomas looks worried, “Uhh, what?”
Logan comes over and sighs, “Like I said earlier, we all have idioms, Thomas. I have a feeling this isn’t the last time we will encounter them.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Thomas says sarcastically, “Can’t you just tell them all to me now so I won’t hurt you guys again in the future?”
“It’s not that easy Thomas…” Janus said, “They don’t talk about their idioms often. Which I can’t really blame them for. I’m not going to be giving away any of mine.”
“None of us know each other's idioms. I only know this one because I have helped Patton with it before. I know a few others, but I cannot talk about them. I'm sorry Thomas. Idioms are a personal topic that can only be shared by the person who has them.” Logan said, shaking his head.
“Then why did you tell me about Patton’s?” Thomas asks.
“Because we needed to. He was bleeding out, we needed to tell you about it to make him stop bleeding. We can only tell you about the other’s idioms if they’re in immediate danger, which we are clearly not.” Janus explains.
Thomas thinks for a moment, “That doesn’t really make any sense, but okay. Will you guys be okay here?”
“Yes Thomas, we’ll make Patton take care of himself for you, don’t worry,” Janus smirks.
Thomas laughs, “Thank you. I’ll try not to get too sympathetic.”
“Probably a good idea.”
Thomas sinks out of the mindscape and into his living room.
— — —
“Does it hurt?”
They had been silent for a while, considering how difficult it was for Patton to speak. His throat was clearing out, though, making it a little easier to talk.
Patton looks up at Virgil, “Does what hurt?”
“Your bleeding heart thing.”
“Oh, no. It’s just messy and kinda annoying,” Patton looks at his clothes and then the bathroom.
Roman and Remus settled for a compromise and were both cleaning his face. Roman stopped to look him in the eyes, “You have to tell us when it gets this bad, Patton. You can’t be passing out on us. It’s scary!”
Patton sighed, “I know, I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” Remus says while still cleaning Patton’s face, “no apologies. We’ll all talk about it later and shit. What matters right now is you getting in the shower. You look like you murdered someone.”
Patton smiles and laughs at Remus when Roman and Virgil make a face, “Yeah, okay.”
He stands up as the others leave the bathroom. He takes off his bloodied shirt and looks at it.
Roman could probably snap these stains away later.
As he gets in the shower and lets the red wash off his body, he chuckles to himself.
“At least they got a tame first idiom of mine.”