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It was cold in the mindscape.
It wasn’t cold in
reality;
Thomas lived in Florida, after all. But the inside of his mind worked a little differently, and mindscape conditions didn’t necessarily reflect the weather outside: in this case, he’d been thinking a lot about Christmas, and snow, and now here they were. It was sort of like how the sides weren’t identical to Thomas or to each other. Two of them needed glasses, Virgil was taller than any of the others- something about “heightened anxiety”- Deceit was part
snake,
for crying out loud…
and Patton was the warmest. (He claimed it had to do with Thomas being so warm-hearted, to which Logan just rolled his eyes.) That was the important part as far as Deceit was concerned, especially today. See, he wasn’t
technically
cold-blooded, but his ability to regulate his own temperature was definitely worse than any normal person’s. None of the sides were especially happy about the chill- Virgil, for example, had made himself into a blanket burrito and refused to leave his bed- but Deceit was
miserable.
He was shivering by the time he admitted he couldn’t stay in his room, in the even colder “dark side” of the mindscape, and sidled awkwardly into the kitchen. It was
hard
interacting with the others without antagonizing them, and he was going to have to since he didn’t have the energy for his usual over-the-top villain act today; he really just wanted to find a warm spot and take a nap without being bothered, but the chances of that second part went down considerably if everyone thought he was up to something.
Fortunately, the only one out of his room at the moment was Patton, who was almost ridiculously easy to get along with. He didn’t seem much bothered by the temperature, and had taken the opportunity to wear his Christmas sweater and a fluffy grey infinity scarf. Humming to himself as he made pasta on the stove in hopes of luring the others out to eat it with him, he didn’t notice Deceit creeping up behind him until he felt his cold hands on the back of his neck. He squeaked, dropping his wooden spoon into the sauce he was warming up, and spun around. His face quickly lit up with a smile.
“Deceit! I didn’t expect you to come out of your room today, this is a nice surprise!”
See, that was exactly what he was talking about, Patton thought it was
nice
to see him unexpectedly. Ridiculous.
“I should have stayed there longer,” Deceit said, pulling his gloves back on. “It’s so much warmer than out here.”
Patton frowned. “Then why did you- wait, no, I get it now… Aw, that’s terrible! Wanna hang out here for a while and have some spaghetti?”
“Sounds awful.”
Deceit leaned over Patton’s shoulder to watch as he finished cooking, and may have remained there a little longer than he’d first intended, not that he would admit it. Soon, Patton nudged him away so he could have full use of his arm to scoop some of the pasta into bowls for them. Deceit made a noise that could possibly be interpreted to mean “thank you” as a substitute for actually trying to say it and having it come out all wrong- which Patton luckily seemed to understand- and went through the noodles almost disconcertingly quickly. First of all, no one could possibly blame him, because Patton’s cooking was delicious. Secondly, he wanted to be out of the kitchen before, say, Roman came to get some and took offense to his being there. Roman’s version of taking offense tended to involve brandishing a sword.
Patton was about to call the others when he saw Deceit’s reaction to the idea. As soon as Patton rose to go to the stairs and shout for them, he stood as well, opening his mouth to make an excuse for why he was leaving. Patton turned and stopped him in the doorway.
“Hey, where are you going, don’t you want to hang around a little longer?”
Deceit squinted suspiciously. That sounded like a pun, but-
Patton held his hand out and bounced on his toes a couple times. “Be a scarf for me, pleeeease?”
Deceit couldn’t help a chuckle. “Only because you
insist.”
He took Patton’s hand, and a second later, he was a yellow snake climbing up Patton’s arm. He coiled loosely around his neck, draped over his shoulders beneath Patton’s sweater and the
real
scarf he was wearing. Completely hidden from sight, and very warm. Patton giggled helplessly at the weird feeling of movement until his new “garment” finally stopped squirming around and settled in one place.
“Comfy now?”
While Deceit
could
speak in this form, he tended to have a pretty strong… accent… and it was embarrassing, so he responded by simply lifting his head up a bit to nudge Patton’s face before retreating under his scarf again.
“Aww! I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s go get the others for lunch!”
Patton went upstairs and knocked on each of the others’ doors in succession, cheerfully asking if they wanted some of his spaghetti, but the answers he got were a little disheartening. Logan and Roman were engrossed in their joint effort to figure out how to get the weather in the mindscape back to normal, and Virgil appeared to be serious about not emerging from his pile of blankets until they succeeded- at the moment, actually, he was napping in there, and snapped at Patton for waking him up before quickly apologizing. Patton went back downstairs and leaned against the counter with a sigh, looking downcast. For a brief, terrifying moment, Deceit thought he was going to have to
comfort
him. Then he brightened up again.
“Well, I guess that means I have to eat all the rest of it myself!”
Deceit was not at all sure that was what it meant, but he was already dumping all the remaining pasta into one big bowl and covering it with sauce. There was no way Patton wouldn’t regret it greatly if he ate all that at once. He panicked a little and hissed, “Do you really think that’sss a good idea?”
He could
feel
Patton freeze upon hearing him pronounce an S sound as a snake for the first time. Dammit, he should have chosen his words more carefully. He rolled his eyes- well, insofar as it was currently possible for him to do so- and sank down under Patton’s sweater, preparing to be laughed at for the next few minutes, since fleeing the situation wasn’t worth the loss of his comfortable position.
“Oh my gosh, that was
adorable!”
Wait, really?
“I didn’t know you could still talk when you’re like this! You are the cutest scarf
ever,”
Patton enthused. Deceit was surprised enough to forget what he’d been saying until Patton had already sat down in a spot he could see the TV from and started digging in to his massive bowl of spaghetti. He gave up; sometimes there was just no saving people from themselves. Anyway, he found it difficult to care very much about anything right now, what with the cold having sapped his energy, and his spot under Patton’s scarf now being so warm. He may have just found that nice place to nap he’d been hoping for.
He was jolted out of a doze some time later when Patton flopped down onto his side, careful not to squish him as he stretched out on the couch and groaned. Deceit poked his head out to investigate and had to do a double take. The pasta bowl was completely empty.
He twisted so he was practically right in Patton’s face. “Did you actually jussst-?”
Patton whined and curled up a little. “I made a
mistake…”
“You don’t sssay.”
“Why would spaghetti hurt me like this, Dee?”
He would have blinked at the nickname if he’d had eyelids at the moment.
“You’re the only noodle I can trust anymore…”
He wished even more strongly than before for the proper anatomy to express his bewilderment. First of all, what on
earth
made Patton think it was a good idea to
trust him?
Secondly…
“I am certainly a noodle. That makes perfect senssse.”Patton grinned and booped his nose with a finger. “Yeah, you’re a cute little danger noodle!”
Deceit looked as affronted as a snake could and retreated, pressing himself into the warmth of Patton’s skin. “I’m
not
going back to s- to my nap.” Ha, he’d finally made it through a sentence without messing up a word! He chose not to closely examine the sense of disappointment he felt at the corresponding absence of Patton’s delighted reaction.
“Good idea.” Patton yawned. “Maybe I’ll take one too… sleep this off…” He pulled the throw blanket over himself and conjured a pillow to tuck under his head, making sure there was still plenty of space for Deceit, and vaguely watched the TV as they both drifted off.
It was several hours later and beginning to get dark outside when Patton woke up. He shifted, struggled to wake up enough to figure out what was weird, and finally opened his eyes when he realized he couldn’t really move. He looked down and laughed quietly. Deceit had changed back to normal in his sleep and ended up nearly on top of Patton, wrapped around him like a koala under the blanket. His head was tucked against Patton’s neck. Trying to rouse him only made him cling tighter, and besides, Patton didn’t really want to- an affectionate Deceit was a sight never before seen, by
anyone.
So he didn’t try to fight it. Instead, he simply made himself a little more comfortable, set Deceit’s hat a bit further down the couch to help
him
be more comfortable, and settled in to continue their nap.