Work Text:
Step 1: Study.
Anxiety’s eyes flicker across her notebook paper with an ever-growing urgency. The room is dark, but the various nightlights hung in Fear’s sleeping area reach hers with a glow just intense enough to see the outline of her words on the page. Her trivial, unhelpful words. She lets out a frustrated huff, scribbling across them stiffly.
They haven't reviewed as much as they need to for Riley’s upcoming biology test, falling gradually behind the schedule that Anxiety usually employs in such situations. Chapter 20, Viruses and Prokaryotes, is a familiar source of torment by now, but it is still Riley's weakest point. Anxiety should have mentioned it to the others, yet it slipped her mind amidst a chaotic week of final projects, potential—as Joy reminded her, because it had yet to actually arise—high school drama, and the two exams that they’d dealt with the day prior.
She gnaws on the end of her pen.
Step 1: Skip tomorrow’s hockey practice to study.
That plan is an immediate write-off. Anxiety can already feel the dirty looks she would get from the others for proposing it, underlain with repulsion and distress. Worse, the looks that Riley would get from her coach, her teammates, and Val if she were to go through with it. Anxiety crosses it out desperately, as if to destroy the evidence of having even considered it.
The pads of her fingers brush over the side of the notebook, practically begging for a papercut. She puts down the pen, picks it up, puts it down, picks it back up–
Step 1:—Anxiety writes, again—Do better.
She clicks her pen rapidly, the rest of the paper in front of her agonizingly blank. The zebra-print lines across it dance in her vision, and Anxiety holds back a groan of frustration as she scribbles harshly over it, if only to remove them from her view. She tears the paper out once more, crumpling it as tightly into a ball as she can manage and tossing it into the growing pile by her feet.
"Anxiety?"
She muffles her squeal, scrambling to pull her sheets up to her nose. The newfound yellow glow across the room stretches across her sheets, basking them in a warm haze and disrupting the cool, dim lighting that her eyes had adjusted to. She doesn’t need to look to know who it is, but she peers across the room anyway. Joy catches her gaze with half-lidded eyes.
"Why are you still awake?" Joy asks, voice hushed.
Guilt works its way into the nervous storm brewing in her stomach. Joy is a lighter sleeper than most of the others, capable of sleeping through Embarrassment’s bed-rattling snores—which no one will admit to him out of fear that the humiliation might lead to him becoming a permanent insomniac—but sensitive to any kind of instability in Riley’s mind. Especially, it seems, when Anxiety is involved.
Before she has a chance to respond, Joy is pulling off her covers, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she swings her legs over the side of the bed. Anxiety tenses.
"It's nothing! No reason for you to get up, Joy." The attempt at stability in her tone fails as her voice wavers pitifully. In lieu of that, Anxiety tugs her sheets up until they are nearly covering her eyes and rolls to face the wall. "Goodnight!"
Silence falls across the space once more, briefly. If Anxiety squeezes her eyes shut tight enough, she can imagine that her plan has succeeded flawlessly. That Joy has gone back to sleep as quickly as she had awoken, once again drowning the room in stillness, and leaving Anxiety to chip away at her own ideas until she finally stumbles upon what can be considered a semblance of a good plan. But she knows Joy’s determination—stubbornness, some might say—too well to truly believe it. The sound of approaching footsteps only proves her correct. At Anxiety’s feet, the mattress shifts under a new weight.
"No?" Joy leans over to meet her eyes, disbelief apparent through her drowsiness. "Not even Riley's biology final?"
Anxiety balls her fists in her sheets. She sits up, avoiding Joy’s scathing look. Her notebook sits atop the blanket beside her, haphazardly torn-out pages leaving jagged edges below the spiral coil binding. Joy, carefully perched on the edge of her bed, had brushed aside the balled-up notes before sitting. As if, despite Anxiety having discarded them so unquestionably, she didn’t want to ruin them. Something in her chest stirs funnily.
"Maybe, maybe. It's just–" Anxiety sucks in a breath. "Riley isn't totally as familiar as she should be with the material, and we should have studied yesterday, but we didn't get a chance to because we spent time with Bree and Grace before hockey practice." She waves her hand flippantly. "Which is obviously important, but maybe we shouldn't have prioritized it, because if we fail this test, then–"
Her voice falls short when Envy, from the bunk above them, rolls over with an awed mumble. Anxiety bites her lip. She feels at the blanket between her fingers in an attempt to silently release some of the energy boiling inside of her. It only serves to make her more agitated. An agonizingly long moment passes before the mattress shifts again. Joy's hand lands atop Anxiety's balled fists in a wordless gesture of encouragement.
She nods towards the door. "C'mon."
Joy slips off of her bed, pacing ahead before Anxiety can finish processing the command. Blinking dazedly, she tosses aside the blanket to patter after her. Anxiety’s eyes skim over each of the others as they pass, watching for any signs of disturbance. She toes a pair of fuzzy, white slippers out of her path, before following the gleam of Joy’s figure into the console room.
The control chair, usually occupied by whichever emotion has been scheduled for dream duty, is empty tonight. With Riley having passed out so quickly after hockey practice earlier, there was no real need for it. There is less of a need for it altogether as Riley creeps further and further away from the child they once knew her as, relying on them less for such routine tasks. She occasionally catches a longing expression flicker across Joy’s face, paired with increased offers to take over dream duty shifts as their frequency dwindles.
Anxiety, on the other hand, will pass along her shifts at any chance she gets. Her relationship with the console is still a fragile one, comprised of strictly necessary button-pushes and shying away from the temptation to seize control again, an attempt to ease her ever-worrying mind. It’s tantalizing . Before coming to headquarters, Anxiety prided herself on her knowledge of the system. Each manual had been read front-to-back-to-front and back again, important sections highlighted and annotated with mindless scribbles and ideas on how to best utilize them— improve them, even. Now, she feels as though she has to shrug the guilt off of herself each time she so much as rests her hands upon the console.
Besides, she doesn’t need dream duty for an excuse to stay awake all night worrying—she does that plenty as is.
When Joy passes by the panel without a glance, beginning to circle back around the room, Anxiety shakes her head to dispel the train of thought.
"So, uh– what– what exactly are we doing out here?"
Joy shoots a backward glance in acknowledgement, a tired smile still poised on her lips, but says nothing. Anxiety quickens her pace to keep up.
"I don't think the usual stuff is gonna be much help right now," she stresses. Usually she can get by with a cup of tea and a moment away from the control room, maybe a yoga routine and a couple of craft projects on less-fortunate days. "I can't– I don't think I can sit still."
"I know," Joy replies plainly.
"You..."
Anxiety scans her expression, searching for some kind of implication. Her gaze must linger for a moment too long, because Joy meets it with a soft awareness, eyebrow raised. She tears her eyes away hurriedly.
"Sometimes I can't sleep either." Joy admits. "When there's something exciting coming up, like Riley's dad buying her tickets to a hockey game, or the night before her middle school graduation."
Anxiety wasn’t there for that one, still knee-deep in preparations for their arrival to headquarters, yet a pang of secondhand nervous excitement hits her at the thought.
"So"—Joy gestures to the room—"I come out here!"
Anxiety waits with bated breath, fists balled at her chest. When Joy doesn't continue, she prompts, "And– and do what?"
Joy falls silent once more, simply looking down at their feet in explanation. They've probably paced three laps around the room by now, enough that Anxiety's legs are just starting to feel the wear.
"Sometimes the only thing you can do is try to tire yourself out some other way. You know, run your body so your mind can't go so fast."
Anxiety considers the sentiment. She is a pacer, naturally. It is a wonder that she hasn't worn a hole in the floor of headquarters yet, feet dragging her around the control room at so much as the thought of getting Riley prepared for school each morning. Her mind tends to run just as fast as her body most of the time, as if the energy simply feeds into itself in an alarmingly infinite cycle. Now, with Joy's footsteps pattering beside her, it seems slower—if only slightly.
"Talk to me."
"Huh?" Anxiety's gaze snaps from the movement of their feet to meet Joy's eyes.
She gestures encouragingly. "Let me know what's going on in that quick-witted little brain of yours. Run me by whatever scenario you've mapped out."
Joy knows her too well, enough that Anxiety should probably feel a bit ashamed that her spiraling is both so common and apparent that it is second nature for her to ask about it. Instead, she is doused with a subtle sense of fondness, a mostly unfamiliar sensation of being known . It is shaken off just as quickly as she grounds herself with the circumstances of her worries once more.
Anxiety sucks in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut as she runs through the scenario in her head for the nth time today. "Riley fails her biology final; it drops her grades enough that the counselors get involved, and she gets kicked off the hockey team. Then, because we failed the class, we can’t graduate, and Riley gets so put down by it that she drops out permanently , doesn’t get a job, and gets kicked out of the house as soon as she turns eighteen!” Panting, Anxiety's eyes snap open. "So we wind up on the streets alone, and cold, and–”
"Woah, woah, woah." Joy interrupts. She pauses mid-step, holding her hands out in front of Anxiety to bring her to an abrupt stop as well. "Let's take a few steps back. Take a breather.”
Obediently, Anxiety takes three strides backwards. She inhales loudly, surely, until she can't anymore, and then lets herself deflate. She repeats the process once more with less urgency.
"Alright,” Joy starts, once Anxiety has reaccustomed herself to a normal breathing pattern, “what makes you think Riley's going to fail her exam?"
Anxiety tugs at her sleeves. "We didn't review chapter twenty enough– or chapters thirty-two and thirty-four. Riley's flashcards are fine, passable , but what if we drop them into a puddle on the way to school? Or if someone steals them out of her bag before she gets a chance to go through them?"
“Then we’ll borrow someone else’s notes.” Joy counters.
“What if we lose those ones too? And– and then no one trusts us with anything ever again?”
"Alright, alright. But, even if she fails this exam—utterly bombs it—that isn't going to leave her with a failing grade for the whole class." Joy reasons. "Riley has an A-minus, and–"
"An A-minus." Anxiety emphasizes.
"An A-minus." Joy reiterates. "Which is, like, really good considering how much she hates science.” Her eyes trail to the screen above the console habitually. “I'm proud of her."
Anxiety shifts her weight from foot to foot, gaze rooted to the floor. "Me too."
“Besides, Riley's parents aren't just going to kick her out. They care about her. If she was struggling, they would want to help.”
The way that Joy lays it out is direct, yet Anxiety’s mind cannot quite latch on to the concept. She knows, logically, that it’s true. Her mind falls back to Riley’s dad picking her up from a rough practice with an offer to stop by her favourite ice cream place on the drive home, even though it is fifteen minutes out of the way; her mom sitting down with her to go over math worksheets, despite being admittedly terrible at algebra. The little things—hugs, “I love yous,” and unquestionably accepted apologies—only serve to solidify it more.
It doesn't make sense, but–
"But she'll be letting them down. What if they can't handle another disappointment? What if– what if that's just it?"
Joy's brow furrows. She opens her mouth to speak, but Anxiety continues frantically.
"Her whole future is riding on this, on every single decision that she makes. Whether it’s a test, or a hockey game, or– or a stupid party. If every part of it isn’t perfect, that just means it’s more likely to crumble further down the line.” Her voice cracks. “It's so much pressure. I– she can't–"
Anxiety drops to her knees, pressing her palms against her eyelids in a combination of exhaustion and will to keep any tears from falling. Joy crouches down and places a hand on her shoulder. It feels like it’s burning her—through the fabric of her nightgown and layers of self to brand her at her core. She grits her teeth, every other part of her body suddenly feeling cold in comparison.
"Anxiety, I know you can put too much pressure on Riley, and it’s easy for one of us to step in when that happens." Joy says. “But I think you put too much pressure on yourself too."
"But–" Anxiety shakes her hands out, as though it will discharge some of the staticky nervousness clinging to her. "This is Riley's life we're talking about, and– and I don't want to let her down—I don't want to let all of you down. Not again."
Joy pauses. Her hand pulls away from Anxiety's shoulder, and she suppresses a shiver at the sudden loss of contact.
"Yeah," Joy agrees, "you messed up big time."
Anxiety feels a pang in her chest. They don't talk about the ordeal often, cloaked in unclear memories and too many layers of shame to easily unveil. When they do, it is handled with a measured nuance that she can barely stand to hear—conversations built upon delicately chosen words and hand-waving. A nuance that Joy has, just now, completely gutted. Anxiety can't tell how she feels about the blunt honesty in comparison. Her head reels.
"I don't know where we would be if not for that."
Anxiety blinks, tearing herself from her thoughts. "Huh?"
Posture uncharacteristically weighted, Joy settles onto her knees. Her shoulders creep up to her ears in a manner that Anxiety is all too familiar with—apprehension, guilt.
"I messed up too, remember? I tried to change Riley into what I wanted her to be. I was trying so hard to hold onto the girl that I knew for so long that I couldn’t recognize that she wasn’t the same girl anymore, she didn’t want to be the same girl anymore." She winces, a self-conscious edge to her smile. "I don't know how long it would have taken me to understand that if not for you."
Her glossy eyes meet Anxiety’s. “We both hurt Riley because we thought we knew what was best for her. But you know what we did when we realized we were wrong?”
She can't think right now, her mind clouded with wisps of confusion and vulnerability. Joy takes Anxiety's hands in her own.
“We let her go. Even though it hurt, even though we knew that things wouldn’t totally be in our control anymore. We let her go because we knew it was the right thing to do.” Joy continues, “And, hey, things have been going pretty well so far, haven’t they?”
Tentatively, Anxiety nods.
“So try to keep in mind that none of us are going to ditch you over imperfect planning, or a failed test, or some other trivial mistake."
"What if it's a big mistake?" Anxiety poses.
Joy clutches her hands more firmly. "Then we'll figure it out together."
Together. The word soothes a particularly unnerved storm in her gut, taming it from a vicious tempest to a drizzle. The invisible barrier that Anxiety had subconsciously placed between herself and the other emotions seems to wane concertedly. She squeezes Joy’s hands back in appreciation.
"And don't hold yourself to such high standards, or else I'll have to do that for myself too." Joy adds, teasingly.
Anxiety lets out a clipped laugh. She rubs her eyes against her sleeve to relieve some of the dampness.
"Yeah,” she agrees, “I'll try."
Joy opens her arms invitingly, and Anxiety leans into the embrace with an eagerness that she cannot be bothered to rein in. The former tightness in her chest, wound like a snarled ball of yawn, loosens into light, fluttery strands. Joy’s hand presses into her back soothingly. The amused hum that she lets out as Anxiety buries her face into the crook of her neck reverberates through her. Moments pass, feeling simultaneously like forever and not-quite-long-enough, before the grip on Anxiety’s sides loosens. She has the restraint not to selfishly hold on for longer.
Joy's hair is still mussed from when she got out of bed. Anxiety wants nothing more than to reach up and smooth down the rogue strands, to soothe it like Joy had so easily done for her. She settles for awkwardly cradling her own hands in her lap instead.
"Ready to get back to bed?" Joy asks.
She pushes herself up, then turns and holds out a hand to Anxiety. The exhaustion hits her rather suddenly as she stands up, leaning into Joy's grasp as she stabilizes her legs. She must look like a baby giraffe right now, stilted and unsteady, but the faint tiredness overwhelms any embarrassment she might have felt. As does the light giggle that Joy lets slip when Anxiety nearly trips over the skirt of her own nightgown.
The stillness of the sleeping quarters hasn't changed when they get back, yet somehow the suffocating feeling that once came with it is gone, replaced with a quiet contentment. Anxiety slumps as it washes over her, eyelids heavy. Joy guides her to her bed with a hand against the small of her back.
The mattress is softer than it seemed earlier, Anxiety feels practically enveloped by it as she sinks in. Joy pulls the sheets up to her neck, smoothing out the creases beneath her palms. She leans in closer for a moment, an unreadable look on her face, but hesitates before pulling back. As she is about to turn away, Anxiety reaches for her wrist. Her fingers cradle it in a gentle, tender hold.
"Thank you, Joy."
Joy looks down at her, a soft glow like the morning sun beaming through a window.
She smiles. "Anytime."