XXX

Sorry it took me a while to post the next chapter.

XXX

Virgil was pacing.

It had been two weeks since Janus had locked himself away in his room, and nothing they had tried would get him to open up the door. Which, technically, wasn't the longest amount of time Janus had spent locked up in his room, but this time was definitely worse than his usual hiding away. Virgil could feel Janus's anxiety coming from the room in waves. It was starting to feel like his own room, and that was really concerning. He was Anxiety, so being anxious was normal for him, and he was getting better at coping with it. And his room was supposed to have a dark, fear-inducing aura around it. But Janus's room wasn't supposed to be like that. Janus wasn't supposed to be like that. Out of all the times over the years that Virgil had detected Janus's anxiety, recent events included, it had never been this bad before.

Further complicating the issue, Patton had also been upset the entire time. Whether it was because he felt bad about what he said or Janus's emotions were starting to influence him (though he had a feeling it was both), Patton had been jittery as well. And though Patton mostly dealt with his nerves through excessive baking and cleaning, Virgil had already witnessed him bursting into tears at least once a day since Janus hid away.

Well, really, they were all on edge. Roman was agitated, and he kept going into the imagination to let off steam. Logan- despite trying not to appear distressed- had been trying to come up with ways to get Janus to come out and ways to help him almost non-stop, and Virgil was pretty sure the logical side had barely been sleeping during all this. And Remus, once they explained the situation to him, had been ping-ponging between excessive destructive energy and sitting motionless in the corner. One minute, they had to keep Remus from trying to smash Janus's door down (though Virgil was starting to think that might end up being the only solution to this), and the next, they couldn't even get him to eat. At this point, they were just as concerned about Remus as they were about Janus, so they had been trying to keep an eye on him.

Currently, the five of them who hadn't isolated themselves were all gathered in the living room. As Virgil paced, Logan and Roman sat on the couch, with Logan slumping over with exhaustion and Roman tying knots in some rope that Logan had handed him. Remus was in the quiet, unmoving state he had been getting in, sitting in a corner in a way that was completely unlike him. Patton was hovering around everyone, completing only half-actions before flitting over to do something else.

"Virgil, perhaps you should try to sit down for a bit," Logan suggested tiredly, knowing Virgil wouldn't.

Virgil growled.

"I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place," he hissed, mostly to himself. "If I just hadn't mentioned it, this wouldn't have happened!"

"Kiddo…"

Patton tried to reach for him, but Virgil stepped away before he could.

"I just… this is bad guys. I… He's always had issues before, but not like this. I can feel his anxiety, and it's a lot more than I've ever felt from him," he continued. "What if something happens?! He won't let us in, and he still has his room locked up so Thomas can't even get in!"

Virgil flung his arms in the air before he resumed his pacing, only to be stopped again by an unexpected source.

"No. No, he has gotten like this before," Remus muttered quietly, burying his face in his hands.

Virgil whipped around to face Remus, and everyone else turned their attention as well.

"What do you mean, Remus?"

"Dee's gotten like this before," the side repeated, tugging at his own hair roughly.

"What?"

"He got like this once before you formed, a few times while you were around, and he was like this a lot after you left."

"... He… He did…?"

Remus nodded, once again burying his face in his hands.

Virgil felt his chest clench guiltily. He knew that his leaving wasn't entirely unjustified, but he hadn't even known, let alone wanted, Janus to get like this because of it. And he certainly hadn't wanted Remus to have to deal with Janus's breakdowns on his own. And how hadn't he known about the times it happened when he was still there?

"Remus," Patton spoke up, his voice small. "Do you remember if there was anything that got Janus to come out when he got like this before?"

"... By breaking his door down," Remus answered, his voice strained.

"...Oh."

"When he gets like this, he doesn't come out unless you drag him out or he gets over it," Remus explained. "But when I just let him stay in there…"

Remus trailed off, and Virgil's bad feelings about the situation only grew.

"Remus, what happened when you didn't intervene?" Logan asked.

But Remus only curled up more and shook his head. Logan stood up and went over to Remus's corner, where he knelt down.

"Remus, please. This is important."

The creative side's head shot up.

"Do you think I don't know that, asshole?!" Remus shouted before deflating again. "I… I promised Dee I wouldn't tell anyone."

"I understand that, but I believe this situation has gone past the point where that matters," Logan told him firmly. "I believe I have an idea of what may have occurred, but we need to know what happened, Remus. I don't want to jump to the wrong conclusion and make things worse."

Remus's expression shifted to look conflicted, but he still didn't answer. And then Logan spoke again, and his words made Virgil's throat close up.

"Remus," Logan said, even more firmly this time. "Is Janus a danger to himself?"

Virgil was immediately reminded of his suspicions from right before they found out about Janus's skin picking, when he thought that Janus might have been cutting himself. Back then, Janus had said he wasn't. But could he have done so in the past? Was it something other than cutting? Had Janus just been lying then, and he was too panicked to notice the signs that he wasn't being told the truth?

When tears started to build in Remus's eyes, Virgil didn't even have to hear his next words to know it was true:

"He… He might be," he choked out. "One… One of the times this happened, it was right after Virgil left, so I thought he was just sad about that. And when I kept bothering him, he got mad and yelled at me to leave him alone, so I did. But he didn't leave his room for a really long time, and when he actually let me in, there was a pill bottle, but it was empty, and I asked him about it, and at first he didn't want to tell me and then he tried to tell me it wasn't important and he just hadn't gotten around to throwing it away yet but he looked weird and so I kept asking him about it, and eventually he got mad and started yelling and crying and saying that it didn't matter anyway because it didn't work and-"

Remus cut his fast-paced words off, but they all knew what he meant, what he had been describing. Remus was fully sobbing now, something Virgil hadn't ever seen him do.

And then Roman shot off the couch.

"Don't you think you should have mentioned this earlier?!" he yelled at his brother, making Remus's sobbing grow louder. "He could be hurting himself!"

"WHY DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO BREAK DOWN THE FUCKING DOOR, DIPSHIT?!" Remus screamed back through his sobs.

"You don't think your reason for wanting to break down the door was important?!"

"L-Let's not fight now, Kiddos-"

"I PROMISED NOT TO TELL!"

At this point, Virgil was one step away from a full-blown panic attack, the twins were fighting (and Remus was still sobbing), and Patton was trying and failing to keep himself from crying. Logan, despite being exhausted, worried, and stressed himself, took a deep breath in.

"ENOUGH!" he yelled sternly, loud enough to overpower the arguing. "Now is not the right time to be fighting like this. We can't actually die, but Janus is capable of causing himself serious harm. This is potentially a very serious situation, so we need to focus on the matter at hand."

Everyone was silent now, looking toward Logan with various distressed expressions.

"Now, here's what we're going to do. Roman, you go inform Thomas of what's happening and then return here. Remus and I will go back to Janus's room, and if we still can't get him to open the door, we'll force it open. Virgil and Patton, stay here for now and try to calm down in case your assistance is needed. Does everyone understand?"

Logan waited a second for everyone to nod.

"Alright. Let's get going then, Remus."

XXX