Finding The Write Words

Chapter Eleven

Patton woke up to his phone ringing. He sat up in bed, rubbing the rest of the sleep from his eyes. The dark circles had been especially dark lately, and he had to wonder which of his soulmates wasn't getting sleep. But he didn't have time for that.

He grasped for his phone blindly with one hand, grabbing for his glasses with the other. Settling the round lenses in their place on his face, he looked at the screen of his phone. He had three missed calls and a voicemail from Logan as well as two texts from Roman. He read the texts first, knowing that if he listened to the voicemail first he wouldn't end up reading the texts.

Roman's texts were simple good morning texts.

Patton smiled, reading them, and replied in a couple swipes of his finger.

The voicemail was more important.

Logan's voice was frantic. In the few days that he had known him, he had been a very put-together person. Never at a loss for words. Never stuttering. A calm, even pitch in his voice.

But as Patton listened to the voicemail from him, panic fluttered in his chest as he heard his tone of voice. Logan was stuttering, repeating sentences and altering one word or another. Logan's voice was high and shrill in some words and cracking in others.

The general message from him was telling Patton to meet him at his dorm. He said it was important and that Roman was on his way, too.

Patton called Roman, climbing out of bed and opening his closet door in search of some clothes. Roman picked up on the second ring.

"Yes, my sweet?" Roman greeted him, making Patton duck his head with a smile, even though he knew Roman couldn't see him.

He must have made a small squeaking noise of surprise, because Roman chuckled.

"Can you give me a ride to Logan's dorm? I just got his voicemail."

As he said the words, a car horn honked outside his apartment building, and he could hear the smile in Roman's voice. "I'm parked outside. Whenever you're ready, come on down. We can grab breakfast on the way over."

Patton voiced his assent and hung up the phone before getting dressed as quickly as he could manage, throwing on a light blue graphic tee and khakis before running down the stairwell. He jumped down the last two stairs, his stomach fluttering at the shock that went up his legs when he hit the ground.

Roman was standing outside his car, leaning against the side of it with the door open. When he saw Patton, he grinned and approached him, meeting him at the front of the vehicle. He pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and opened the passenger side door for him.

"Such a gentleman," Patton mused jokingly, to which Roman rolled his eyes, snorting quietly. He closed the door once Patton was seated and he moved around to the other side, getting into the vehicle himself.

They arrived at Logan's dorm room within the half-hour, breakfast in hand, and when they sat down in the small space, Logan was nearly bouncing in his excitement.

From what Patton and Roman had seen of him so far, Logan wasn't the type of person to show his excitement too much on the outside. He seemed more guarded than that. But it was obvious that he was physically restraining himself from bouncing where he sat at the foot of his bed.

Patton was the one to break the silence.

"What happened?"

Logan grabbed his phone and unlocked it with frantic fingers, opening up his gallery and turning the phone around to show them the screen.

There, right in front of them, was a picture of what appeared to be Logan's arm, but there was writing on it. Black ink in Logan's handwriting, and then purple ink in a new handwriting.

Signed V.

Was V their fourth?

Patton finished reading it first and he squeaked in his excitement, grabbing hold of Roman's arm and sitting up as straight as he could. He waited patiently for another minute as Roman read over it once, twice, a third time before he understood fully what he was seeing.

His eyes widened and he looked up from the phone, looking from Logan to Patton and back.

"Did they...?"

Logan nodded, smiling slightly, his glasses slipping down his nose and his usually perfectly neat hair falling in front of his face. "I washed it off afterwards, and I'm assuming they did the same. I didn't want to spoil the surprise."

Patton was already scrambling into his pocket for his gel pen, tossing the cap aside carelessly. Roman grabbed his hand before he could write on his skin, and Patton looked up at him.

"Pat, we have to be careful about this. I mean, they've been ignoring us for how long now? What makes you think they're going to want anything to do with us?"

"But... he wrote to us." Patton's shoulders slumped.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Roman," Logan said with a sigh, his smile having faded. It seemed he was back to being the composed figure they knew and loved. "While it's a good thing that they've written to us, I want you to take another look at the picture."

He held the phone out to him again and Patton took it in his hands, zooming in on the purple ink. It was smudged as if someone had dripped water on it, the words blurring together slightly in the middle.

"Is that... was he crying?"

His brows pulled together and he handed the phone back to Logan, who shrugged and nodded at the same time.

"I believe so, though I can't say for certain."

"Well, I don't want to hurt the poor guy."

"We're going to have to be really careful about how we approach any conversation with him."

"Maybe just saying hi?" Roman suggested with a shrug. "It's a start."

"But they didn't respond when you said hello when we first started talking. What makes you think they would this time?"

"Well we have to say something. We can't just let them sit wherever they are, sad and lonely."

Patton was sitting in silence, his mind racing. He recalled the week previously when the nice, anxious emo boy had brought that kitten into the shelter.

He'd had dark circles under his eyes.

And a cat allergy.

Something Patton had learned all of his soulmates had.

And he had been wearing purple... something. A shirt, maybe.

The memory was fuzzy.

It couldn't be that simple.

No way would it be that simple.

But... the way he had reacted when he had mentioned his soulmate having a cat allergy...

What had his name been?

Heck, what was his name?

"Logan, what did he sign with last night?" He asked suddenly, perking up as his thoughts connected together.

"Just the letter V. Why do you ask?"

"I think I know who he is."