Trials, Traits and Truth

Catch 22

"...we have to do something Patton! I swear Anxiety is getting more powerful! We're losing to him far too much for it to be healthy for Thomas..."

"Oh Roman, I hope you're not seriously taking score!" Patton chided.

"'Course I'm not!-" Roman began indignantly, folding his arms.

"I am."

The two traits started, Logan had been relatively (and uncharacteristically) quiet so far. He stood in the doorway that led to the main corridor. He was stroking his chin gently, then gestured for them to follow.

Logan led the personalities in silence to a plain brown door - the second door down along the hallway.

Roman gave Patton an apprehensive look: they weren't usually very welcome in Logan's room, their strong emotions wouldn't exactly fit in well in the resting place of the embodiment of Logic after all.

Roman had expected for every inch of the walls to be covered in papers - that's how he would have decorated his room if he had been the Logic trait, by sprawling information everywhere to really put the point across. 

As it was, the room was extremely bare. Brown wallpaper...light blue carpet...no posters. One wall was completely obscured by a floor to ceiling bookcase that was positively crammed with textbooks and folders. Along another wall was a simple desk with a wall planner above it, and in the opposite corner was Logan's bed.

"It's so plain!" Roman exclaimed. Quickly registering Pattons' pointed look, he hurriedly added "I mean...It's minimalistic! Very, er..." Everything was either brown or blue. "...on trend???"

"You don't have to appreciate the organisation of it, Roman."

"No, of course I must! You are our gracious host. Yes, very organised...that's excellent Logan! Though, I would happily loan you a Big Hero 6 poster or something..."

Patton coughed loudly, cutting off the Prince. He instead looked at Logan expectantly.

"Yes, thank you Patton." Logan grabbed the open folder from his desk and held it up for them to see. The two page spread that was on display showed a series of categories, observations and calculations.

"Wow, yes, Logan. You have indeed been keeping score."

"If you direct you eyes to the right bottom corner of the left page, you'll see a summary of the data I've collected over the previous three months in the form of a pie chart - "

"Mmmmm pie..."

"Patton please..."

"What do the colours mean!?" Patton smiled in spite of himself, knowing that Logan wasn't a five colours kind of guy.

"They each represent a rank - from 1 to 5 - in the system I devised to assess the logic and validity of Anxieties... err... suggestions. For example, green indicates the portion of decisions I judged - beyond reasonable doubt - to have been successful suggestions from Anxiety that effectively kept Thomas safe and alive. Now, please do note that this is based on my learned opinion and not on..."

"Yeah, Yeah Einstein we get it, go on." Roman was growing impatient - Patton supposed the bland environment was slowly draining the creator.

Logan rolled his eyes. "My point is...red indicates definite instances when Anxiety has clearly overstepped in his duties."

Patton grimaced sadly. "That's a lot of red..."

"Correct, plus this is the third weekend in a row that Anxiety has successfully managed to convince Thomas to cancel his plans for frivolous social interaction. Now, personally I would not view this as an issue if Thomas was using the time effectively on productive matters - "

"Now Logan," Patton assumed his stock pose with his hands on his hips and leaning in. You could say it was...pattonising. "That's not fair! Thomas gets caught up on lots of important matters - "

"Steven Universe is not an important matter." 

Patton and Roman gasped, Princy fully taking a step back and stumbling as though he had been shot. 

"HOW could you allege..."

"It is incredibly important to..."

"Enough." Logan used his free hand to massage his left temple, while he put the folder down on the desk. The stakes were high, it should not be this difficult to get through to them. "How do you propose we proceed?"

Patton opened his mouth, then closed it again and sat down on Logan's bed, eliciting only a slight sigh of annoyance from Logan as the previously perfectly laid duvet was creased. The move however, suggested encouragingly to Logan that even Patton - who was definitely the rashest of them all - seemed to understand the delicacy of the situation at hand. 

"We...we could just go talk with him? Very calmly? We could show him we want to work with him..." Patton suggested optimistically.

"All three of us?" Logan replied skeptically. "He will no doubt feel cornered and likely under attack. Any calmness or sincerity displayed may be interpreted negatively."

Roman shared a half impressed, half weirded out look with Patton at Logics' rather insightful perception of emotions all of a sudden. Not missing their shock, Logan gestured to the other books on his desk. "I have been studying up." 

Roman shook his head, trying to focus again. 

"Just one of us then?" He offered grudgingly after a moment.

Logan sighed. "I doubt Anxiety will view it as an authoritative opinion or anything other than a manifestation of a perceived personal vendetta from the person selected."

"...Well how about they take your graph thingy? That could be authority enough..."

"Then he will think we are spying on him, grading him even."

"You kinda did do that Teach."

Logan clicked his tongue frustratedley at Roman.

"May I be the one to remind you Prince Roman, that you were the one who brought up the possibility of Anxiety becoming more influential. I merely gathered evidence and data before I made a judgement about this trend."

"A-And besides!" Patton interjected quickly, hands in the air as if he was casting an invisible barrier between the two annoyed traits. Things were definitely starting to get heated, he could see the angry flush in Princy's cheeks and how Logan's lips and all but disappeared he was piercing them so hard. "The last thing he needs is numbers that could potentially support his toxic views of himself...or the ones he used to think were coming from us! We've come too far to go back to square one."

The room fell silent, everyone deep in thought. Logan finally pulled his chair out from his desk and sat down, pushing his glasses up onto his eyebrows as he rubbed his eyes. He sighed. He had gone through all that, and he had progressed no further. He hated having a problem he couldn't solve, particularly about feelings...

"I asked you both here, because I do not know what to do." Logan hesitated, expecting a sly comment from Roman. For once, the royal contained himself.

"Yeah Logan," sighed Patton, leaning back on the bed more. 

"It's a real Catch 22." Roman observed, his anger abating into something that resembled hopelessness. 

"I do not see how sport could possibly come into this Roman."