XXX

A while later, Patton rejoined Virgil in the kitchen. By then, the cookies were out of the oven and waiting on a cooling rack, and Patton had made a pot of tea. The two present sides waited for Janus to come back, but even by the time the cookies had completely cooled, he still hadn't returned.

"Hmm, Janus sure is taking a while…," Patton mumbled. "You don't think he ditched us, do you?"

"No," Virgil sighed. "He just always spends a really long time in the bathroom. He'll probably slither back eventually."

"Oh, okay…"

A momentary awkward silence fell between them, and Patton noticed that Virgil was fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie.

"Something on your mind, kiddo?" he asked.

Virgil looked up at him, uncurling himself from the slightly hunched position he had slumped into. He took a deep breath in.

"... About Janus…," he started. "I think something might be bothering him or something? I mean, you know I can kinda sense anxiety, since, well…"

Virgil gestured at himself.

"And he's been pretty anxious for a while?" Virgil continued. "At first, I thought it was just because he wasn't sure what to expect with being included, and it lessened for a while after we stopped arguing so much, so I thought it was okay. But lately, it's been increasing again, and now it seems like it's worse than before? And, I don't know, he just seems kind of… off. Have you noticed anything?"

Ah, so Virgil was worried about Janus. Which, on the one hand, was good because it showed that Virgil and Janus were really repairing their relationship, but on the other hand, it was pretty bad because something was probably wrong with Janus, and Virgil was anxious now, too.

"I have, actually… That's why I suggested baking cookies in the first place. I thought it might help him see that we're there for him if he needs to talk, you know," Patton responded, playing with his cardigan. "I mean, I didn't really know him as well as you did before, but he doesn't seem to be acting like the Janus I do know. He's just not being as confident or dramatic as usual, I think? I'm not really sure how much of it was acting in the first place, though…"

Virgil frowned.

"No, you're right," Virgil confirmed. "Some of it was acting, yeah- I mean he is Deceit- but a lot of it is just how he is. Usually, at least. But this whole shruggy-don't-care-apathetic thing he's been doing lately isn't really him. I don't know, it seems like he's just going along with things, which is weird for him. And like I said, his anxiety has been getting kinda bad."

He fidgeted in his chair, and Patton wasn't sure if Virgil's own anxiety was from being worried about Janus, being unsure of what he was saying, worrying Janus would walk in and hear them, or residual effects of Janus's anxiety getting to him. Maybe it was a bit of everything.

Patton placed a hopefully-reassuring hand on Virgil's shoulder.

"Don't worry, kiddo. We'll figure it out," Patton told him. "Maybe we can talk to Janus when he comes back. It's probably something we can solve, okay?"

Virgil looked into his eyes and was apparently satisfied by the earnestness he found.

"Okay," Virgil agreed, letting out a breath. "Not sure how much he'll actually tell us, though."

"Well, it shouldn't hurt to try, and even if Janus doesn't want to talk, it might help him just to know that he can talk if he needs to," said Patton.

"I guess so."

XXX

Janus knew he had been gone too long, which was ridiculous because he had already showered today and he didn't even need to fully wash himself again. He just needed to wash the flour out of his hair. But of course, actually showering wasn't what took so much time.

Nonetheless, he eventually made his way back to the kitchen, unsure if Virgil and Patton would still be there, or if they would have grown tired of waiting for him by now. He shouldn't have taken so long when he knew people would be waiting for him, and he knew it. But he shouldn't have such a hard time looking at his skin without picking at it, and yet here he was.

To his surprise, both Patton and Virgil were still in the kitchen, sitting at the table. Virgil looked at him as he entered the room but quickly glanced away, and Patton smiled at him, but he could tell it was tense- a fake smile, a lie. Yes, they were definitely mad at him. Or at least annoyed.

"Well, kiddos, it looks like the cookies turned out great!" Patton told them. "We should try them!"

As Patton reached out to hand him and Virgil a cookie, Janus felt his chest tighten a bit. Patton was definitely faking his emotions right now. Which, yes, he did rather often, but Janus just knew that he was annoyed with Janus. He probably wouldn't yell at him- this Patton was far calmer than the Patton of their childhood, and even when they fought, he rarely so much as raised his voice- but that didn't mean he wasn't angry. It didn't mean he wasn't regretting letting Janus help bake the cookies, and it didn't mean that he didn't regret trying to include Janus in the first place.

Virgil turned toward him, and Deceit wasn't entirely sure what his expression meant, but it just sent his mind spinning deeper down into thoughts about how annoyed the others must be with him and how they didn't want him around. Virgil sighed.

"Hey, Jan, are you okay?"

Deceit's eyes darted quickly to focus on Virgil, and he noticed that he had been slumping in his chair. He quickly straightened himself out, sitting up taller and mustering up as much false confidence as he could.

"Why wouldn't I be?" he replied, moving his arm so the elbow rested on the table and he could rest his face onto one of them, assuming a casual posture.

Virgil raised an eyebrow at him.

"Janus, maybe don't try to deflect my question when I can feel your anxiety," he suggested. "I know something's up with you, and we want to help. But we can't help if you don't talk to us."

"It's not important," Janus lied. "Nothing you need to worry about."

"So, we should be worried then?"

Janus mentally cursed his deceitful speech pattern for revealing his believable lies as the lies they were.

"No, I was telling the truth," Janus responded, trying to keep himself from stressing the syllables the way he usually would."

Virgil gave him a look that told Janus he wasn't buying it.

"Janus, what color is the sky?"

Deceit moved his tongue around in his mouth, preparing to switch over to the truth.

"It's blue."

"No, put it in the same sentence," Virgil denied, knowing that switching between lies and truth in the same sentence, while possible, tended to be very difficult for him. "Say that the sky is blue and that you're okay."

Janus tried, but he couldn't get his mouth to quite do what he wanted.

"The sky is g-," he cut himself off, grimacing.

"See, you can't say it, can you?" Virgil questioned before taking a deep breath in. "Look, we already know that something is wrong. We were just going to see if you wanted to talk, but you essentially just told us that, whatever's wrong, we should be worried about it."

The lying side felt a spike of anger rise in his chest. He felt trapped, and he hated feeling trapped. So, he shifted himself so he would look even taller and, he hoped, slightly intimidating.

"It'ssss none of your busssinesss!" he hissed.

Patton held a hand up to Virgil, silently telling him to be quiet, and then he reached a hand out toward Janus. He rested it on top of Janus's other hand, the one that hadn't been supporting his head until a moment ago.

"Now, kiddo, we just want to make sure you're okay," Patton cut in. "Sometimes, problems are easier to solve if you have help."

Deceit ignored the truth he heard in those words. He didn't want to hear it.

"I don't need your help!"

XXX

Virgil had thought that something was wrong before they started the conversation, but now that they were having it, he knew something was wrong, and whatever it was, they had reason to be concerned. Just as Janus declared he didn't need help (meaning that he did), Virgil's eyes caught on a spot of color on the sleeve of Janus's shirt.

It was just a small dot of red, something that he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been trying to observe Janus more closely. But it was there. A small dot of red that looked like blood.

And suddenly, he felt his stomach sink to the floor as his mind offered a conclusion he sincerely hoped to be wrong about.

Patton was in the middle of a sentence, but he didn't care as he interrupted.

"Janus, why is there blood on your arm?"

XXX

As soon as Janus heard Virgil's question, he felt cold spread through his body faster than an avalanche. His eyes moved to look at his arm, and sure enough, there was a small droplet of blood. Not a lot, certainly not something that should make Virgil sound the way he did when asking that question, but it was apparently enough for Virgil to notice. He should have put a band-aid on it. He usually didn't bother, even though his skin picking often left him bleeding a bit, because it usually stopped bleeding pretty quickly, and his typically-dark clothes would hide any small droplets of blood that got onto them. But this shirt was a light yellow, and it seemed like his shower had kept the tiny wound from scabbing over.

He gritted his teeth. It's fine. This wasn't a big deal. It was just a tiny drop of blood. One little drop of blood shouldn't tip Virgil, or Patton for that matter, off about his bad habit.

"Is there?" he spoke eventually, the pause beforehand being a bit too long to not be suspicious, but he couldn't change that now.

"Janus, are you hurt?" Patton asked. "I'll go get the first-aid kit, and then we can take a look, okay?"

Patton went to get up, but Janus put up a hand, telling him not to.

"Don't, Patton. I'm not seriously injured… and the sky is blue," he told the other side, begrudgingly adding the last part so the two of them didn't immediately jump to the idea that he was seriously injured and start panicking.

"Then why is there blood on your arm?" Virgil questioned.

Janus shrugged.

"It's just a little drop, Virgil," Janus replied. "We all get little incidental injuries from time to time."

Janus, of course, knew that the wound wasn't incidental, but he did know that it wasn't serious. People got worse wounds from tripping on the sidewalk. Making all this fuss over the tiniest drop of blood was ridiculous. Yes, he didn't want to reveal his bad habit, but it wasn't like he was in any danger from it. He just didn't want the others to think he was gross and judge him.

"You aren't overreacting," Janus continued, exaggerating his stress far more than necessary to get his intentions across.

He saw Virgil take a deep breath in, his shoulders relaxing just the smallest bit.

"Okay, but if we're overreacting, why are you so anxious lately?" he prodded. "I know you have been."

Janus shrugged. He hadn't actually realized that his recent feelings were anxiety. If he had, he would have been more worried about Virgil calling him out on them. But, he supposed, maybe it should have been obvious that worrying about what the others were thinking all the time was a form of anxious thought.

"I don't wish to discuss it," Janus finally sighed, going for the truth in the hope it would make them leave him alone. "I really don't. I appreciate your concern, but you two really are blowing this out of proportion. The sky is blue, and I really am telling the truth here."

Virgil gave him a long, observant look before sighing yet again.

"Fine. We'll drop it for now," he muttered.

"But if you need to talk, or if you need help, we're here, Janus," Patton added. "Whatever's going on, you don't have to deal with it alone."

Janus nodded, in acknowledgement more than agreement, before he stood up.

"I'm not going to be in my room for a bit."

And then he sunk out.

XXX