No Control

Virgil was in the side's common room, just laying in the couch, listening to some Disney music that Roman had obsessed over for the last week. Even though he didn't like to admit it, he liked Disney music.

He was having trouble choosing between "Poor Unfortunate Souls" or "Hellfire": For some reason, he had a soft spot for dark and villains' themed music.

Virgil didn't have the chance to choose the music, since he heard a screaming voice behind him.

"Are you listening to Disney music? Choose Poor Unfortunate Souls. I admit in the past I've been a nasty. They weren't kidding when they called me, well, a witch"

It was no surprise to Virgil when he turned around and saw Roman there, singing the whole song.

"Pump the breaks, Princey. I'll just play the song without my headphones. But I'll choose the next song"

"Can we act the song? I claim Ariel!" Roman smiled, looking just like a child on Christmas.

"You really aren't affected by anything that's happening, are you? I don't have the energy to—"

"It's not that I don't care! Of course I do!" Roman said as his face fell "But acting and singing makes me feel… good, better than how I'm feeling"

Virgil sighed and played the music. Roman wasn't expecting anything, but his expression changed as Virgil started to sing.

Roman at first was shocked. He didn't expect Virgil’s singing and the acting in his voice to be so good. 'Yes, I do have some complaints with his almost decent acting, but of the whole he is doing his best.' was his thought as he smiled and started to act as Ariel.

And with that, other songs followed: Hellfire, Hakuna Matata, Someday my prince will come, Mother knows best, Gaston, Beauty and the Prince, and, even a mashup Thomas had made of some Disney songs with friends.

After a solid hour of singing, Roman stopped the music and took a deep breath.

"Ok, I think that's enough acting and singing for me until I get some rest" he could barely breathe.

"Are you saying you are tired from acting? YOU? Is this a dream?" said Virgil with a very sarcastic voice and a smile on his face, which was rare.

"If it is, you can say I am the price of your dreams!" said Roman, jokingly.

"Ha… Patton makes them better"

"What-e-ver, I'm out of here" said Roman as he left vocalizing and Virgil just stayed with a smile, as he put on his headphones and played "Once upon a Dream".

Meanwhile, Patton was sitting in front of the Mind Controls, watching the screen, when Logan came in to check in on him.

"Patton, can you stop looking at the screen? There's absolutely nothing there." asked Logan, since that’s what Patton had been doing since the incident.

On screen was the view of a white and cold roof. Some outside noises could be heard from the speakers from the Mind Controls. A constant "beep beep beep", voices from strangers, far away screams and footsteps.

"Logan, I know you claim not to understand or feel emotions, but…" his voice cracked "I'm scared and confused. This has never happened before and I don't know… I don't know what will happen after. The only thing that lets me see what's going on with Thomas is this screen... and even that doesn't tell me anything" Patton sighed "So please Logan, understand, I want to stay here until I know what's wrong with Thomas… What's wrong with us…"

Logan thought and thought again until he found himself saying this.

"...Okay. I can't understand what you're...feeling, but I'll leave you alone so you can process"

"Thank you Logan".

Logan, after some minutes, left Patton alone. At first, he decided that maybe he should go see how others were doing, but then thought it would be better, and less feelingsy, to try to find out what was really happening. But, on his way there, he saw Deceit about to approach Virgil. He knew it was wrong to listen to others without their knowledge. If it was him, he would be very angry if he found out someone did that, but, decided to eardrop anyway.

Deceit got to Virgil from behind and snatched his headphones from him

"Smiles are so common on you Virgil" said Deceit as he smirked and laughed. "Now what's the occasion?"

"Classy of you to interrupt me while I’m listening to music" answered Virgil.

"As I said, that's my second name. Look it up"

"Of course it's not— What are you doing here?"

Deceit laughed and listened to the music playing in the headphones.

"All at once, everything looks different. 'I see the light' Virgil? This definitely isn't the type of music only Roman would listen to. I wonder what made you choose this music" Deceit laughed again.

"Okay, seriously, what is your problem? Yes, I am listening to this kind of songs today, big fucking deal. It's normal for someone to try to have a change when something is going horribly." shouted Virgil.

"Is it now? Really?"

"Yes. It is." Virgil was clearly trying to end the conversation and get back his headphones.

"I don't remember you ever dancing with me or anyone, was that also part of a change? How evolved" said Deceit, clearly trying to get something from Virgil.

"You know what? Yes I have evolved, I'm no longer that depressed mess you made me."

"Oh yes, because I haven't suffered at all" he was losing his normal attitude.

"It doesn't seem like you did or like you are suffering right now either. It just looks like you think I'm your fucking puppet. Well surprise! I'm not anymore." Deceit was about to talk again, but was instantly interrupted. "No, don't even try to manipulate me into thinking something else. I've already been through that toxicity once, I refuse to go through it again."

And with that said, Virgil grabbed his headphones and stormed out of the room, not noticing Logan was still there.

Deceit sat down in the couch and dropped his act. Logan couldn't recognize him.

He was shaking and whispering things to himself, lies, blaming things on Virgil, blaming things on himself. The only thing that Logan could understand clearly was "Of course I'm affected by this, we're probably gonna die, I'm not that heartless". And, after more mumbling, Deceit got up, sighed, went back to his normal attitude and left the room in the blink of an eye.

Logan was left alone with his thoughts, trying to understand feelings and the way they worked. After a debate with himself, he believed the best idea was to check in on Patton again, just to see if he was still there. And indeed, he was.

"Patton… Can I sit next to you?" Logan said as he walked up to him.

"Sure…" he responded "Are you… Are you ok?" Patton's voice sounded worried.

"Okay in regards to what?" he asked in response.

"In regards to everything"

"... I'm not certain" Logan looked confused.

Patton, without thinking it twice, gave him a warm and welcoming hug.

"It's not necessary—" Logan complained.

"Yes it is." responded Patton.

They both stayed quiet, staring at the screen, for hours on end, in their own worlds, until Logan had a thought.

"We haven't interrogated Roman about what happened yesterday, have we Patton?"

"No… But wh—" Patton gasped with happiness at the realization of the situation. "Don't tell me we are going to—"

Patton turned around and found Logan with a scarf on and a weird expression.

"Indeed my dear daddy— no, I need to stop attempting to say that."

"But I lost my scarf…" Said Patton as he frowned in, ironically, the most childish way possible. Logan sighed.

"You can borrow my cognitive cap"

And, with only a strange movement of his hand, the Cognitive Cap appeared on Patton's head.

"Yay!" exclaimed Patton.

"I'll call Roman to the table, you call Virgil, since he was the first one to check on Roman when everything happened" ordered Logan.

And with that, they both went different ways to do what they had to.

The first one to be found was Virgil, who was in his room, petting a spider .

"Hey kidd— SPIDER" Patton started screaming with a horrified face.

"Oh, hey, Patton" said Virgil as he left the spider in a cage "I was petting Angus"

"Angus? Is that spider… your pet?"

Patton was clearly trying to support Virgil and not freak out at the same time.

"Yes, what do you want Patton?" asked Virgil as Patton took a step back.

“Oh! True! Familiar meeting!” his fear instantly changed to happiness.

“Who is included in this ‘Familiar meeting’?” he was clearly serious

“Logan, Roman, you and me!”

“... Yeah, whatever” said Virgil as he got up.

Both went to the common room, where they waited for some minutes until Logan arrived, dragging Roman along, who was wearing a red t-shirt and the pants of a pijama full of little crowns.

“This better be important, I was about to have my beauty rest” complained Roman

“Oh, don’t worry Roman. You are already our Sleeping Beauty!” joked Patton

“And I believed your dad jokes couldn’t get w—” started saying Logan, but was interrupted by Roman.

“I love that nickname!” he exclaimed.

“Of course you would love it.” remarked Virgil

“Enough distracting. Do you know why you were called here?” Logan put his hands on the table.

“I don’t know what you heard, but whatever it is, E… Deceit started it” said Virgil

“Was that a Hamilton reference? From you?” Roman seemed surprised

“No… I just…. I didn’t… I have been spending WAY too much time with you” Virgil was clearly trying to leave behind what he just said.

“So you say” replied Roman

“Well kiddos, we called you here because we want to know what happened yesterday. Roman, you were there when it happened, Virgil, you were the second to get there” explained Patton, with a smile on his face. “Roman, you can start!"

"Oh… me?" said Roman as he started to laugh nervously "I… Well… Umm… It happened… It happened like" all that could be heard was mumbling.

"C'mon! You can say it kiddo!" said Patton trying to encourage Roman

"Don't tell me you don't know" Virgil said

"Of course I know I just… um…" Roman made a pause "Ok, fine, I don't know. There was a small blackout and the rest before Virgil was a blur!"

"So, as always, you don't have any useful information." remarked Logan

"Logan, there's no need to be mean!"

Patton put his hand on Roman's shoulder and gave Logan a disappointed dad look. Logan just turned to Virgil, seeming unaffected, yet feeling a little bit guilty, which was rare of him.

"Virgil, do you have anything that could be useful?" asked Logan

"There was something fishy about the Mind Controls" answered Virgil

Everyone raised their eyebrows and were filled with curiosity. Virgil became the center of attention, which made him, unsurprisingly, anxious.

"Was there a fish?" said Logan very confused.

"No, Logan, that's not— SOMETHING was wrong with it… other than it being stuck" corrected Virgil and made a pause.

"Tell already! I'm all for suspense, but please, speak" Roman seemed very uneasy and impatient.

"Fine. I thought you already noticed it, but the Mind Controls look… desaturated and rusty"

"Like a zombie or a haunted old mansion!" said Roman interrupting Virgil, who rolled his eyes.

“Sure, whatever.” Virgil replied, already getting up “That’s all I know. That’s it. I’ll go do whatever, you should too”

“Finally, my beauty sleep! It’s not easy to maintain this beauty, you know?” proudly established Roman

“What beauty?” added Virgil, already making his way to his room.

“We have the same exact face and body.” Logan corrected.

“Exactly” said Virgil as he put his headphones on and left the room.

“I’M GOING TO PHYSICALLY FIGHT YOU” shouted Patton.

“How dare him call me ugly!” Roman stormed off the room dramatically.

There was silence between Logan and Patton for minutes. Looks going back and forth, as if they were hoping to say something, but nothing could come out of the river of thoughts they both had in their heads. Finally, the silence was broken by Patton.

“Logan, I’m going back to the Mind Controls.”

Patton stood up and was about to leave when Logan put his hand on the other’s shoulder.

“I am aware that you are concerned about the situation we are going through, I am too. Still, I don’t believe it is necessary to stay in that place all day, at least not in this circumstances. It would best for you if you leave that place for some little time” Logan was clearly struggling to talk.

“I’ll be fine Lo, I just need to have something to hold on to.” Patton began to explain, when a smile appeared on his face “Still… you deserve a Patt-on the back for caring!”

“Are you implying that I have feelings AND doing a dad joke you’ve already done? That’s it, I’m outie fifty thousand” and that said, he stormed out of the room.

Patton laughed a little and at the moment Logan left the door his face dropped and made his way to the Mind Controls. Joke after joke, sad laugh after another, and, finally, Patton had got to where he was going to. However, there was already someone there, waiting and ready to have a conversation.