Chemistry - A Sander's Sides Fanfiction

- 47 -

Patton's mother was, to say the least, not thrilled to find out that her son had nearly drowned falling off of a cliff and into a pond.

"Mom, mom," Patton squeaked out through her crushing embrace, "I'm fine now. I promise." He patted her arm weakly, his fingertips barely reaching her shoulder because of the way that his arm was bent.

"I know, I know," she said quickly, wiping her eyes. Patton couldn't even see if they were really damp, but she did it anyway, perhaps to comfort herself. "I'm just so upset that I couldn't be there to help."

"There wasn't much you could have done anyway," Patton consoled, smiling at her with his eyebrows raised. He really wished she wouldn't make such a big deal of things.

Patton's mom sniffed one final time and straightened up, her blond ponytail bobbing with the sudden movement. She frowned at him, pursing her rose-painted lips in concern. "I have to tell your father." She made a move to pull up her phone.

"What, no!" Patton insisted, pushing her phone down. "You can't -- he'll come straight home."

"Well I still think he should know, even if --"

Patton hissed frustratedly. "Mom, I'm not letting him skip a work day just to see in person that I'm okay." He hated how easily worried his parents were at times. Sure, it was nice to know that they cared, but he didn't want to freak them out every time he scraped his knee! He wasn't five anymore!

And yeah, okay, maybe falling off of a cliff and into choppy lakewater isn't quite equivalent in seriousness to scraping a knee, but you get the idea.

Both of Patton's parents were easily concerned, one could say. It was not unreasonable to assume that his dad would come home as soon as he'd heard something had happened -- both of his parents were like that: very protective, just at a distance most of the time.

His dad had the interesting schedule of working Sunday to Thursday instead of Monday to Friday. He was a botanist -- an ecologist, to be more exact -- and worked at a local laboratory-office-hybrid, figuring out how to better preserve and understand ecosystems and how, specifically, certain plants play a role in them. It was all very cool but sort of went over Patton's head. He liked the animals more than the plants, and wouldn't end up being the botanist-buddy, partner-in-crime son that his dad had always dreamed of. It definitely wasn't something to tear apart the family, though; his dad had always insisted that Patton's passions and aspirations were far more important than his "silly dreams of what would be cool." Patton was thankful for that.

Luckily, Patton managed to convince his mother not to call his dad (as well as probably the hospital in the process), but was forced to compromise and stay home from school on Monday. He was, admittedly, a little relieved to not jump straight back into things, but senior year was busy and Patton wasn't exactly thrilled for more make-up work -- he was already going to have to make up Thursday and Friday. However, regardless of his workload, he would positively be staying home Monday -- no questions asked.

- - -

Patton must not have realized how tired he was -- from the camping trip in general and the momentary trauma he had faced -- for when he first blinked open his eyes and checked his phone on what he thought was Monday morning, he was very surprised to see that it was twelve eleven in the afternoon.

Patton wasn't exactly the earliest bird in the forest, however he rarely woke up anytime after nine in the morning. So, understandably, he was a bit taken aback to see four numbers staring at him from his lock screen -- he almost didn't believe it for a second and had to recheck.

After breaking out of his grogginess and letting the lateness sink in, Patton stiffly unraveled himself from his blankets and climbed out of bed. The pearly carpet was cool against his feet, which wobbled unsteadily under Patton's weight for a moment before adjusting to supporting him again. He hadn't noticed before then how much his feet ached. Though, surely Logan's feet ached more.