XXX Chapter 38: The Intentions

Patton decided to enact his plan a few days after Deceit had his movie night with Remus and Virgil. After all, it would be strange to have a movie night right after a movie night. He sought Deceit out while he was reading in the living room, seeming to have much more success with focusing on it than he had even a few weeks ago. Which made it a shame that Patton was going to break his concentration, but it would only be for a minute.

"Heya, Deceit," he greeted cheerfully.

The other man glanced up from his book to look at him, not responding to his greeting or particularly responding at all. Even still, Patton didn't let himself be deterred. Improving beyond this point was the entire reason he was doing this, after all.

"Soooo, I was wondering if you wanted to watch something with me?" he asked. "We could watch the ending of Amphibia if you want?"

Patton hadn't actually seen the ending himself yet, and he knew Deceit had stopped watching it before because it was making him sad, but he seemed pretty invested up until that point, so maybe he'd want to know how it ended now that he was a little better.

Deceit grimaced slightly, not setting his book down or even closing it.

"No, thank you," he denied simply.

"We can watch something else," Patton offered. "That was just a suggestion."

"I'm afraid I'm not quite in the mood to watch TV right now," Deceit denied again. "I'm reading at the moment."

Momentarily, Patton brightened.

"Oh, it doesn't have to be right now! We can watch something a little later, or on a different day if you're busy!"

But Deceit continued to shoot him down.

"No thanks."

This time, he didn't offer any explanation or excuse.

"Why?" Patton asked accordingly.

He could hear Deceit take a deep breath in, clenching his book tighter.

"… Because I don't want to," he answered flatly.

Patton frowned.

"But why, though?"

Deceit sighed, finally setting his book down.

"Patton, I believe we've had a similar conversation about board games, and it's a bit redundant to have it again over TV, isn't it?"

"… But things were different then."

Deceit blinked at him.

"Were they?" he questioned, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Perhaps, but not in a way that would change how that conversation would go, I don't think."

Patton could feel his shoulders fall. This wasn't going anywhere close to how well he'd (perhaps over-optimistically) hoped it would.

"Deceit, I'm really trying here," Patton told him, dropping his cheerfulness.

"Are you?"

"Yes!" Patton shouted, quickly lowering his voice back down before saying anything else. "I don't want to fight with you anymore, and I think the two of us could be friends if we tried."

Deceit gave him a long, searching look, eventually sighing again and looking away.

"I believe you do think that," he accepted. "But that doesn't mean it's actually going to happen the way you think it will."

"But what does that mean, Deceit?" Patton asked in return. "Are you saying you don't believe we can be friends?"

Deceit took a few moments to think his answer over, and though Patton hoped he would decide that they could be friends after all, he had a feeling Deceit would deny him flat-out.

Instead, however, he once again received a much more confusing answer than either scenario he'd imagined:

"I'm saying that I don't think we're going to ever be friends in the way that you think will happen," the man said eventually. "Even if we, at some point, start getting along, it's not going to be some kind of thing where we just start spending time together and magically become 'best buddies'. And frankly, since I know you just love honesty, I don't know if we will ever get along much better than we do now."

"I know it's not going to happen suddenly, Deceit…," Patton told him. "But I do think we can do better than this."

"Can we, though?" Deceit asked back, almost laughing. "Tell me, have you ever even figured out why our arguments are different from the ones I have with everyone else? I didn't think Virgil and I would ever make up, either, but even having done that impossible task, I still don't have a lot of hopes for the same happening between us. Why do you think that is?"

"I-I don't know, Deceit…"

Deceit sighed.

"Can you at least take a minute to actually think about it before you say you don't know?"

And Patton could tell he'd made a mistake there. He'd thought Deceit would just tell him, that the question had been rhetorical for the sake of making his point, but he was wrong about that again. Now, Deceit clearly wanted some kind of an answer without having to spell it out for him. But Patton wasn't quite sure what the correct answer was. Really, the two of them didn't argue as much in recent years as Deceit and Virgil had argued. And the same went for Roman, but Deceit had more-or-less made up with both of them. He was getting along with Logan, too, though that was less surprising, since the two of them hadn't had a particularly bad relationship to start with. But what was it that made their arguments so bad? It wasn't like Patton screamed at him or anything- really, he rarely raised his voice, and between the two of them, Deceit was much more likely to start yelling. Patton tried not to be too insulting with what he said, either. Sure, he argued his points and disagreed with him, but it wasn't like he was trying to be a jerk when he did.

Was it because of how frequently they'd argued when they were younger? They'd never had any one big falling-out- it had just been a long string of smaller disagreements. Was it too difficult to sort through that many little things from so long ago? But if that were the case, shouldn't it be easier for them to get over it, if neither of them even kept track of the individual issues? Or was just the remembered impression left over from those arguments enough?

He wasn't sure, but he knew he was expected to actually give Deceit an answer. Remaining silent for too long would probably just make him get more annoyed, and not answering at all would just be repeating the same mistake yet again.

"I mean, I know we used to argue a lot?" Patton offered, hoping he had gotten at least part of it correct.

Apparently he hadn't, though, since Deceit looked… disappointed, actually. His expression went from slightly antagonistic to crestfallen, his shoulders dipping with the weight of unfulfilled expectations.

"That's exactly it," he said, tone indecipherable. "The fact that you don't know. That's why, Patton."

Except Patton really didn't get it even still, and he couldn't keep the confusion out of his expression.

Deceit sighed before elaborating:

"One of the biggest reasons I think it won't work is that you don't even realize when you've done something," Deceit explained. "You 'don't know'. I may be an asshole, but I'm usually aware of it. And in a lot of ways, that makes me worse. But at least being aware of it gives me the ability to realize that I hurt someone and try to fix it. Not that I always do or that it always works, but I can try. And it's the same with the others: even if they don't always realize that they've done something wrong, they can usually figure out the important things, at least."

He shook his head.

"But you don't," he continued. "You're so busy being Morality and thinking that you're always sweet and nice that you don't even realize when you aren't. And I know that it's not even intentional most of the time, but that doesn't make it any less hurtful. You don't realize that some of things you say make people feel like shit, and you don't realize that you're unconsciously making judgements about what others do. You don't realize that the way you put on this show of always being the kind, good person is a silent way of telling people that behaving differently is wrong. You don't realize that your beliefs on what will make something better aren't always correct. You don't realize that different people can do the same thing in multiple ways, and that neither way is wrong, but that some ways work better for different people."

Deceit took a quick break from his rant to take a breath in.

"You don't get it," he said. "When we were children, you'd just cry whenever I didn't agree with you, and then the others would always believe that I had done something, whether I did or not. So, eventually, it became that I had always done something, which meant that everything I do must be wrong, especially if it differs from what you do."

Another breath.

"And then we got older, and instead of crying, you just started being insufferably positive and happy all the time, whether you were or not. And your moral judgments started getting more subtle. Of course, you still said some of them explicitly, but there are always so many that you don't say. You don't say it's wrong for Thomas to take care of himself, but you tell him that helping someone else instead is a better use of his time. You make him feel guilty for it, and guilt is supposed to be felt when you've done something wrong, so the lesson is supposed to be that you wouldn't feel this way if you'd done the right thing. You don't say that someone's food is disgusting, but you tell them how to do it better next time, or ironically, just flat-out lie about it and say it was good. Because you're not being mean if you're trying to help someone 'improve' according to your tastes, and it's not wrong to lie if you're doing it because you just don't want to hurt someone's feelings. You don't say that you hate me, and maybe you don't, but you certainly don't seem to like me much, either."

Patton wanted to interject that he, in fact, did not hate Deceit, but the man kept going before he had the chance to.

"Like I said before, you're only trying to spend time with me because of what happened. I talked with Virgil and Roman before all of this, but you've never tried to even do that before now. And with Logan, I feel like he just didn't mind much either way, but with you, it feels like you've always preferred we didn't talk. Talking to me is difficult for you, so you didn't want to do it."

Deceit pressed a hand into his thigh, gloved fingernails trying to subtly dig into his skin as much as they could.

"You don't really want to be friends, Patton," he spoke heavily. "You pity me, you feel bad about what happened, part of you probably feels guilty or something. You don't want to dislike someone who's having a hard time because it makes you feel bad and wrong. But you don't even like me."

By now, he could see the slightest beginnings of tears building up in the other man's eyes, but Deceit was keeping them held there for the moment. The sight was making him feel bad, as he knew that Deceit was clearly upset. At the same time, though, he didn't want to just mindlessly agree with Deceit's perception of him- he didn't entirely agree with it- and really, he didn't think Deceit wanted that, either. It was becoming pretty clear to him that one of the big things Deceit wanted from him was to think about what he said and actually consider it. He wanted Patton to question himself.

"I don't necessarily think I do all of that, Deceit," Patton started.

"Yes, you do," Deceit shot back before he could explain further.

"Can I talk for a bit?" Patton requested, trying to keep his voice even. "I'm not trying to say that I don't do anything you're talking about, I just don't agree with all of it."

He looked to Deceit for his answer, and when he received a silent gaze, he decided he could continue.

"I know I used to cry a lot when we were children," Patton told him. "But I wasn't doing it on purpose. It wasn't some manipulation tactic to get the others to listen to me. I just had a hard time keeping my emotions inside when we were younger, and things used to upset me a lot more easily than they do now. I wasn't trying to make the others think you were purposefully making me cry."

"I know that," Deceit huffed, crossing his arms. "I know it wasn't on purpose. But that doesn't change that it still turned out that way. No matter what the actual reason for your crying was, I still got blamed for it. Because ultimately, even if it wasn't on purpose, a lot of your crying was because I disagreed with you."

Patton nodded.

"I know it doesn't necessarily change everything. But I do think that intentions matter, Deceit. As much as it hurt you, wouldn't it be worse if I was scheming to get everyone to hate you? You clearly don't like it that I'm unaware of certain things, but I really feel like doing things on purpose is worse than doing them accidentally."

"So, what? People never have to take responsibility for anything they do as long as they don't realize they've done it? There's a big difference between someone who genuinely doesn't know and someone who refuses to listen."

"Yeah, I think you're right about that," Patton agreed. "And I guess I haven't always listened, have I? But even if it doesn't seem like it, I am trying. I just don't always understand."

"But why do I have to be the one to make you understand?" Deceit hissed. "Why is it my responsibility to make you think about what you do when you're the one doing it?"

Now, Patton sighed.

"Well, I think that's just part of open communication, Kiddo. Maybe in a perfect world, everyone would automatically know everything, but I don't. The best I can do is try to understand and fix it, you know?"

Deceit didn't answer him for a while, so Patton decided to continue on to his next point.

"I do realize now that crying to get what I want isn't the most effective way to do things. I grew up and learned how to have discussions and debates, even if they don't always go well."

He looked down toward Deceit, who was still sitting on the couch in front of him.

"I know I'm biased, Deceit. We're all biased. And in my case, being Morality, it's hard to not have my moral biases show up, whether it's on purpose or not. Just like Logan is biased toward solving things based on logic rather than emotions. If I think something is morally right or wrong, you're probably going to be able to tell, even if I'm not saying it."

"Believe me, I definitely notice."

Patton nodded again.

"Yeah," he said. "I know."

He let out a somewhat shaky breath.

"And about trying to be your friend… I'm really sorry that you feel like I'm just pitying you. I-I'm sorry, but I do kind of pity you. I feel bad about what you're going through, and I wish that you weren't going through any of it. And I get that you don't like me feeling this way toward you, but I don't understand why. Why is it wrong to feel pity for someone? I just wish that you were doing better than you are because I don't think you deserve to feel so terrible. Why is that bad?"

Patton truly did want to know. He didn't understand why people always acted like pity was such a belittling emotion. Pity was compassion, empathy. Feeling bad for others was a motivator for trying to help them. What was so wrong about that?

Deceit didn't answer him immediately, but just as Deceit waited for Patton to give his answer, Patton waited for Deceit.

"… Because I feel like you're looking down on me Patton," Deceit answered, voice almost toneless.

It was at that moment that Deceit pointedly looked up at him, emphasizing the fact that, even physically, Patton was literally looking down on him. Which hadn't been intentional, either- Patton just hadn't been sure if Deceit would want him to sit next to him or not, and he'd already been standing when their conversation began.

"I feel like you think that you can just 'fix' me like you'd fix any of the issues you and the others discuss, even though it's really not that simple," Deceit continued. "And I feel like there's nothing really behind the pity. I feel like you're motivated more by feeling bad than actually caring about why I got to that point. Or whether anything changes, as long as I go back to the way I was."

A single tear fell from the man's eye, and Deceit seemed to be intentionally ignoring it, doing nothing to wipe it away.

"… I don't want things to go back to how they were, not anymore," Deceit admitted. "I was miserable, Patton. I had to lie to myself every minute of every day that it was fine, that I was fine, and in the end, it just fell apart because I couldn't keep the fucking lie together anymore. I thought I had to for Thomas's sake, that I didn't have any other choice, but that didn't mean I was okay! I just- I didn't think I had any other choice…"

Patton could feel the weight of Deceit's despair weighing on him, and he wished so deeply that he could reach out and hug Deceit, comfort him so he would feel better, comfort him like he would do with just about anyone else.

But Deceit wouldn't want that from him now, especially not during a discussion like this.

"I don't want that, either, Deceit," Patton insisted. "I don't want things to go back to the way things were, especially not if that's how you feel."

Deceit fell quiet for a moment, and in those seconds, Patton thought that, maybe, he'd gotten through to the other man. Maybe Deceit would accept that, even if he made mistakes, he was trying.

But his defeated posture didn't change.

"Maybe not, Patton, but I really don't think you want the same kind of changes that I do," he replied. "I'm not going to turn into some goody two-shoes who always does the 'right' thing. I'm not going to stop lying or being selfish, and I'm not going to stop telling Thomas to lie or be selfish. I'm not going to stop being me."

"I don't want you to!"

Deceit let out a dry chuckle, obviously not believing him.

"Don't you, though?" he questioned. "Can you, in full honesty, sit here and tell me that you think that my functions aren't wrong? Would you actually be just fine with me getting Thomas to lie more, be selfish more, put himself before others more? Because if not, then you either want to go back to the way things were and have Thomas not listen to me, or you want me to not try to convince him to do those things. There's really only three paths here, Morality."

Patton frowned. Of course, he didn't want Thomas to be dishonest or selfish- he didn't want Thomas to hurt people- but he didn't want Deceit to go back to suffering the way he was before. Deceit was presenting him with three possibilities: Deceit suffers, Deceit changes, or Patton allows Thomas to change. Or, Deceit goes back to the shadows, Deceit has to become someone else, or Patton has to let Deceit lead Thomas down a path he doesn't necessarily agree with. And when he puts it like that, he can immediately cross out the option where Deceit goes back into hiding and isolating himself and slowly breaking down- he wasn't going to try to make Deceit go through that again, he couldn't- but he didn't know if he liked the other options, either. Forcing Deceit to change to suit Patton's perspective didn't even seem possible, and it was really only slightly less cruel than driving him away. Functionally, it would be practically the same, and ultimately, it would most likely do about the same amount of damage.

But could Patton really be okay with letting Deceit have more influence over Thomas and his actions? Sure, his opinion wouldn't be the only one- everyone else would still have a say- but would Patton be okay with it if the others (if Thomas) ended up agreeing with Deceit?

He wished that there was another option, but he couldn't think of one, and he wasn't even sure there was.

XXX

Here we go…

XXX