XXX

Welp, here I go again. I had finals, so even though I have some stuff to begin posting, I haven't done it yet. Until now. Here's another story.

XXX

It was another argument.

Of course it was another argument- it's not like they could go more than a few days without one.

This time, it was Logan and Roman. Again. They had long ago worked on their relationship with each other- hell, Thomas even had a video about that- but they had been having difficulties with each other again, so they argued just like everyone else argued. And new arguments brought back old wounds- wounds that everyone believed to be healed, but they weren't, not completely- and those wounds led the two to spit at each other with bitter animosity.

At this point, Janus wasn't even sure what the argument was about anymore. At first, it- it hadn't even been about them. It began with him sarcastically disagreeing with Patton because, well, he was already in a bad mood himself and sarcasm was kind of his thing. He hadn't meant it in a particularly malicious way- it was just hard not to be annoyed when Thomas's Morality still couldn't fully accept that Thomas needed to put himself first sometimes. Sure, he said he understood, but his standpoints on many of their arguments made it very clear that his beliefs remained relatively unchanged when he really said what he thought. But that hadn't even been the problem- no, the problem came when Virgil hissed out a scathing retort, which led to Logan chiming in that he actually agreed with Janus (which was a nice feeling for all of three seconds), which then led to Roman saying that Logan only agreed with Janus because he was an emotionless robot who didn't care if manipulation hurt someone.

Ironically, Janus could see how much the accusation hurt Logan's very-much-present feelings, and Logan certainly proved he had emotions easily enough once the angered shouting began.

And from there, the argument had strayed to all sorts of past mistakes and arguments, and as far as he could tell, they were arguing about the callback again, which- Janus had really been hoping that wouldn't be brought into it because they hadn't even been talking about that, and Janus was barely even involved in this argument- but here they were anyway. Or, that's where they were, last he could tell. They might have moved on by now, but Janus couldn't quite tell anymore. He could still hear the conversation- no matter how much he wished he couldn't- but it was like the words just flowed over him. He didn't retain them for any longer than he heard them, and had anyone asked him to repeat what they'd just finished saying, he very much doubted he'd be able to do it.

Actually, even if he could remember, he didn't think he'd be able to tell them, anyway. His mouth was frozen shut, and his chest was empty, and his throat was being constricted by an invisible hand that pressed just hard enough to keep him from speaking but not enough to stop him from breathing (yet). It was as if he'd used his silencing powers on himself, but his hands were at his sides or hidden away, and there wasn't really anything around his throat, but it certainly felt like there was.

He wished he could use his silencing powers- just hold up his hand and clench his fist and make the argument stop- but his body was almost as frozen as his mouth was. If he forced himself to concentrate- really concentrate, which was nearly impossible right now- he could get his fingers to twitch a little, but that was it. And even that was ridiculously hard. The thought of moving his fingers had to whirl around his head for five, ten, twenty minutes before he finally managed it, and it felt like the longer the thought was there, the harder it was for him to actually carry out the action. And even once he actually got his fingers to move, that was all he was capable of for a while, and he couldn't move again. His fingers were made of lead, his body was made of lead, and every tiny movement sapped him of whatever meager energy he had left.

It was hard to even hold onto the thought of action long enough to get himself that far. His thoughts were flowing inside of him, just like the voices were flowing outside of him. He felt like holding onto any one thought for longer than a moment was like gripping onto the tiniest edge of a piece of paper and trying to pull it closer, only to have that little corner rip away from him. His feet were surrounded by little bits of torn-up confetti, and if his feet could move, he would trample over them.

He felt almost like he was outside of his body, but that wasn't quite it. He was- he was still there, to an extent. His senses picked up on what was going on around him; he just couldn't react or interact in any way. And he could sort of tell what his body felt- the tight chest, the fast heartbeat, the clenched jaw- but he wasn't currently a part of that. It was more like he was split into layers. There was the layer that was experiencing things- the layer that acted as his physical self- and the layer that watched- or, watched as well as it could while it was in this state. He was standing within himself and above himself, and he knew that they connected somewhere, but he didn't know where, and he had neither the energy nor the motivation to look for it at the moment.

Suddenly there was something in front of him, and someone was saying something, but he didn't know what it was or what it was saying, and so he remained still, unwaveringly blank and frozen.

When something touched him, lightly gripping him by the shoulders, he came back just long enough to jerk away and fall to the floor before he floated away again.

There were more voices now, and they were closer to him, so he didn't even try to fight the drifting. It was better like this- safer like this, when he didn't have to actually understand what anyone said or did, and he didn't have to feel the things his body felt- didn't have to feel the panic welling up. So long as he was disconnected, he could keep the anxiety under control. If he came back now, he would end up having a panic attack, he was sure, so there was no good reason to fight to return.

And so, he just drifted.

XXX

Thomas didn't notice that there was anything particularly wrong with Janus until Roman and Logan had both angrily sunk out, thereby ending the argument without actually resolving anything. He had noticed Virgil getting increasingly anxious and Patton getting increasingly upset, but Janus had just been standing there watching, so he seemed fine. He only noticed that something was off when Patton softly called out to the deceitful side, perhaps hoping that they could quickly resolve their own tiny dispute that started the whole mess, and Janus didn't respond.

And it wasn't just that he didn't respond, he didn't react at all, as if he hadn't even heard Patton.

Thinking that Janus maybe hadn't heard Patton's soft tone, he called out to him, louder, only to get the same response- which was to say, nothing.

Virgil was the closest one to Janus, since Janus had started standing at the bottom of the stairs when the five of them were all present, and with a look from Thomas, the anxious side took some deep breaths and tried as well.

"Hey, Snake, you with us?" he tried.

Still nothing.

Virgil's eyebrows crinkled in confusion, and he stood up, going down the few stairs needed to get to the bottom. It was as if Janus didn't even see him standing in front of him, as he just continued to stare forward, unmoving. Intending to try to shake Janus out of whatever state he was in, Virgil reached out and lightly grasped his shoulder. This, however, only made Janus jerk out of the grip and fall to the floor, sliding against the wall.

"Oh!" Patton gasped.

"Um… guys?" Virgil spoke, clearly at a loss.

The two of them came closer and knelt down beside Janus.

"Hey, Janus, buddy, you good?" Thomas asked.

"Is something wrong, Kiddo?"

But Janus didn't answer them.

"Hey, dude, this isn't funny!" Virgil hissed, his voice betraying how anxious he really was. "Cut it out!"

But Janus just stayed like that.

Thomas could feel his own heart beating faster. He didn't know what to do. Janus wasn't talking or moving or really even doing anything that indicated that he could see or hear them. It was like he was in a deep, deep sleep while awake.

"What… What should we do…?" Thomas questioned. "Do you guys know what's going on?"

The two sides shook their heads, with Virgil muttering something about how now was a really bad time for Logic to storm out.

"Okay… um…"

Thomas took out his phone and opened Google to try to figure out what was going on, but the first thing to come up was 'persistent vegetative state', which… he was pretty sure was not what was going on here. He tried a couple things, but he wasn't sure what search terms to use to describe what was going on, and everything that came up didn't seem to have anything to do with whatever was going on with Janus.

Until Virgil suddenly tensed up.

"Oh, shit," he cursed.

"What?" Thomas questioned. "Did you figure something out?"

"I think… I think he, um… might be dissociating?" Virgil offered. "Just, um, you know how he's like, not reacting?"

"Oh," Thomas gasped. "Oh. Yeah. Um. That makes sense. Do you know how we can, uh, help him?"

Virgil rifled with his sleeve.

"Mostly helping him get grounded, I guess?" Virgil offered. "Uh, like maybe get him to hold an ice pack or smell something strong? I don't know, a lot of grounding techniques kinda need the person to cooperate with it, but I don't know if he can even hear us, so that's all I can think of that we can do without him helping."

"I'll get an ice pack," Patton announced, standing up.

"I'll go get some cologne or something?" Thomas added.

That left Virgil alone with Janus for a moment. The man hadn't moved since he fell to the floor, and he was positioned strangely, with his head tilted down and his body partially curled up. Virgil debated about trying to shift him to a new position when Patton returned from the kitchen.

The fatherly side knelt down and pressed the ice pack, wrapped in a paper towel, into Janus's gloved hands. It was then that Virgil remembered the gloves and thought that Janus might not actually be able to feel the cold.

"Um, Pat, maybe we should actually try holding it onto his forehead?" Virgil suggested. "I don't think he can feel the cold through his gloves, and putting an ice pack on the forehead can help with, um. Anxiety."

With a nod, Patton gently removed Janus's bowler hat and moved the ice pack to the man's forehead. This time, Janus didn't flinch at the contact, but he did blink a few times. Virgil hoped that was a good sign. Then, Thomas returned with a washcloth soaked in a little bit of cologne, and he held it toward Janus, close enough that he'd be able to smell it.

They waited for a few minutes, but Janus's state didn't seem to change, so Virgil, being the only one with free hands, somewhat begrudgingly took one of Janus's hands. He held it firmly, despite Janus's small flinch, and began tapping a pattern onto his hand.

It was only after more than forty minutes and having to give Janus a few breaks from the ice pack that he finally started to move.

XXX

Janus returned to himself slowly. At some point, he started recognizing that something cold was pressed against his forehead. Then it was gone, and then it was back. A while later, he noticed the smell, lavender, like a scented candle. Some time after that, though he wasn't quite sure of how long time was when he was like this, he felt something tapping his hand.

Even then, he still wasn't quite back yet. He felt the sensations just like how he felt his heart thundering in his chest- he was aware of it to some extent, but it was happening to the physical layer of Janus, not the observing layer.

The layers didn't want to connect, but they eventually began to reluctantly phase back together. First, he managed to twitch his hand, the one being tapped, and this time, it didn't take quite as much energy as before. A while later, he managed to curl his fingers. Then, he tried it with his other hand, and then his toes in his boots. He felt the way his toes moved against the fabric of his socks and the way his socks rubbed against the inside of the shoe. He felt his chest, expanding and deflating in time with his breaths. He shifted his arms, and that was maybe too much right then because he found they layers pull back from each other again, but after waiting a while longer, he shifted them again and the layers stayed put.

He blinked a few times, trying to let his eyes focus on something. There was a shirt in front of him with a floral pattern, and his eyes locked onto it, tracing the pattern in his mind. Around the petals, through the stems, and over the leaves.

Finally, when he felt he was ready, he moved his neck, bringing his head back to an upright position. He continued blinking and breathing and carefully shifting his body until he felt the layers set themselves back into place, back into each other, and he was in Thomas's living room now, sitting on the floor. Thomas was there, and so were Patton and Virgil. At the sight of Virgil, he almost wished that he could disconnect again, but it wasn't like he controlled it, so he couldn't.

"Hey, buddy, are you back with us?" Thomas asked.

Deceit still wasn't quite able to speak. The hand was looser now, but it wasn't gone. He could hum though, and that's what he did.

"Okay. That's okay," Thomas continued. "Just keep listening to my voice for a while, okay?"

And Thomas chattered on about things, happy things, silly things, inconsequential things, letting Janus focus on the words without falling back into the anxiety that caused this whole episode.

He listened for a while, and he slowly became more and more aware, until he was eventually present enough to stand and go over to Thomas's couch, where he was led to sit.

"Hey, Kiddo, do you want some tea? I can go make some," Patton offered.

Janus could only hum in response, and he knew Patton couldn't tell what the hum was meant to convey. Janus himself wasn't actually sure what the hum was meant to convey. He didn't really know what he wanted, but he was suddenly hit with the desire to get them to understand.

He gestured his hands, making an X with his fingers and pointing at his mouth.

It wasn't real sign language. Janus didn't know much actual sign language, and Thomas and the other sides didn't know any at all, so learning more of it would have been rather pointless without anyone to understand. He had some of his own made-up hand gestures that he used with Remus sometimes, but it was clear that Patton didn't get the message.

"You… don't want tea…?"

Frustrated now, Janus changed his gesturing, emphasizing the X before bringing a hand to his mouth, moving it forward, and making the X again.

But Patton still clearly didn't get it, so Janus tried one final time to write out the words in the air. To him, he could see the letters he wrote, slowly, with his finger, but he knew that this method was often the least clear of them all.

"Janus, can you talk right now?" Virgil piped up.

Turning his attention to Virgil, he shook his head, relieved that they finally understood.

"Oh," Patton spoke softly before conjuring a small notepad and a pen. "Here, you can write to us."

Janus took the items carefully, as if he was afraid of them biting him. Slowly, he wrote, though the pencil felt large in his hands, and his handwriting looked rough and jagged, so unlike his usual neat script.

He turned the paper toward Patton so he could read it:

'I don't know.'

Patton blinked in confusion again for a second before a soft, caring smile took over his face.

"That's alright, Jan. How 'bout I make it, and if you want it, you can drink it, but you don't have to?"

Janus paused for a moment before nodding, and Patton left to go to the kitchen. At this, Thomas shifted closer.

"Are you feeling okay now, bud?"

Janus lightly tapped his previous answer in the notepad.

"Okay, that's fair," Thomas accepted. "Do you need anything? Like, is there something we can do to help?"

This time, Janus shrugged.

It was quiet for a while while Patton made the tea.

"Does… Does this happen a lot?" Thomas asked eventually.

Janus hummed again, testing his voice. He thought that the hand had maybe loosed up enough that he could respond verbally.

He wanted to say: "Sometimes, but usually not this bad."

What he actually said was:

"Time. Not. Bad."

He almost cringed at the way his voice sounded. It was strangely pitched and shortly-clipped, sounding almost childlike. It was a far cry from his usual drawls and sneering sarcasm.

"It's okay if you need to write out the answer."

And, yes, he could write out the answer- after all, Patton had summoned it for him- but he didn't want to. He wanted to talk- just talk like he usually could, like they could.

"This… This… Time. Bad. Not… al-ways… Happ-ens," he tried again.

"This… doesn't usually happen?" Thomas spoke questioningly, trying to understand.

"Not bad. This."

Janus pursed his lips as his words still refused to cooperate with him.

"Worse," he eventually managed.

"Okay, this is worse than usual?" Thomas concluded.

At this Janus nodded.

"Alright," Thomas replied. "But does this happen a lot? Even if it's not this bad?"

Janus thought for a moment? What counted as a lot? It certainly happened to him more than it did the average person, if you were counting him as a person, but it wasn't like it happened every day. Hell, he could go a few weeks without anything setting him off bad enough to push him down the spiral. He didn't want his host to think there was something wrong with him, but Thomas had already seen him at one of his worst points when it came to this.

"Dun-no," he decided on. "Some. Time. Sss."

And then Patton came in with a tray of mugs, setting them down on Thomas's coffee table. The fatherly side sat next to him on the couch, on the side not already occupied by Thomas. Virgil leaned over and whispered something to Thomas that Janus didn't catch, but the man nodded.

"Let's watch some TV for a while," he suggested. "Maybe that'll help?"

Janus didn't particularly care what they did at the moment, so he nodded.

"'Kay."

And Thomas started up Netflix and put on some kind of cartoon, something clearly meant for young children, but he didn't care. Thomas loved cartoons, and that love extended to his sides for the most part, and Janus wasn't sure watching anything particularly exciting would be good right now anyway. So, he just stared at the screen for a while and let the fog dissipate out of his brain as he slowly settled back into his usual persona- Deceit, Lord of the Lies. Confident. Cool. Collected. Sarcastic.

Once he felt he was ready, he let out a sigh and tried to stand.

"I think it's about time I should be going," he announced.

But a hand on his wrist stopped him, and he saw it was Patton.

"Uh, I kinda think we need to talk about this, Buddy," said Thomas.

Deceit tensed. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want them to think he was crazy or broken or- god forbid they thought he was faking that whole thing for attention or something, because if they accused him of that, he would start crying, and he really couldn't deal with any of that right now, even if he was himself again.

"Do we?" he asked, trying to put the drawl into his voice.

He wasn't so sure he succeeded.

"Sit back down, Snakey," Virgil ordered with a huff. "Because we do."

He pulled his wrist out of Patton's grasp, more gently than he might usually, and crossed his arms.

"And since when do you decide that, Anxiety?"

Virgil shot him a slight glare.

"Dude, Thomas is literally the one who said we should talk about it. I'm just agreeing with him."

Janus felt his own eyes narrow.

"There's nothing to talk about," he hissed. "It happened. It's over. End of story."

"I… I don't think it is, Janus," Thomas pointed out. "This has happened before, right? So it could happen again. Just… can you please sit down and talk to us?"

Janus growled but did as he was asked, silently cursing his host.

"I don't want to," he gritted out.

"Janus, you dissociated. Like, pretty badly."

"Yes, I know what the word is; thank you."

"Do you have to be so antagonistic?" Virgil asked, annoyed. "We're trying to help you!"

Janus opened his mouth to retort, but Patton started talking instead.

"Let's not fight. I think we've all had enough fighting for the day, haven't we?" Patton told them, before laying a hand over one of Janus's. "Kiddo, I know that was a very stressful situation. There was a lot of screaming and arguing, and it was pretty scary. But dissociating like this isn't a healthy coping mechanism, and we want to help you with it."

"Oh, like you're one to talk about 'healthy coping mechanisms', Morality," he snapped, rolling his eyes.

"This isn't about me, Janus," Patton spoke firmly. "This is about you and what we can do to help you. We're not letting you deflect or antagonize your way out of this."

"Honey, I'm Deceit, remember?"

"Yes, you are, but you're also Self Preservation," Patton pointed out. "Part of self care is accepting help when you need it, you know."

Janus let out a loud huff.

"I don't need help," he growled in exasperation. "It's just something that happens, and it gets me through whatever bullshit's going on, and then I come out of it at some point. It's. Fine."

"I'm not so sure it is, Jan," Thomas pointed out. "It's… You were like that for a long time, and you were probably like that during most of the argument, too. It's just… spending over two hour like that doesn't seem very helpful. And then you couldn't really communicate. And that's not even getting into the fact that you were upset enough for it to happen in the first place."

"I wasn't upset!"

"You were, and that's okay."

"What, so now you get to tell me how I feel?"

"Janus…"

"Oh my god," Virgil growled. "Dude, I get it, deception and lying is your fucking thing, but now is not the time for you to be all secretive! That whole situation was fucking scary, but the scarier part was watching you fucking staring off into space like you weren't even there and fall onto the floor and we could barely even do anything about it! We're worried about you, you idiot! So maybe instead of hiding away by yourself, you can let us actually help?"

Janus felt his chest squeeze.

"Oh, come off it, Virgil, like you give a shit."

He gritted his teeth

"Jan-"

"No!" Janus yelled. "You don't- You don't get to hate me for years and then waltz on in and say you're worried about me because of the way I cope with your idiot friends' arguing! It's none of your business!"

His heartbeat sped up.

"I'm Anxiety, dipshit! This is the kind of thing I deal with! And Patton is in charge of Emotions! And don't you think this affects Thomas?! Don't you think it fucking affects him when his sense of self-preservation fucking freezes?!" Virgil roared.

He clenched his fists.

"Shut. Up!" Janus roared back. "Just shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

He was shaking now, and he hated it. This- this is what dissociating prevented. It stopped him from yelling back, from lashing out, from panicking. It kept things under control, even if it controlled him as well. It kept him from making things worse. And now, he wasn't dissociating and he had to deal with whatever happened without that control.

Janus curled in on himself and reached his hands up toward his head, pulling his hair a bit- not enough to hurt, but enough to feel it.

"Guys, maybe… maybe leave for a bit?" he heard Thomas suggest. "We're all stressed, and yelling at each other more isn't helping."

A sigh.

"Fine. Whatever."

"Alright, Kiddo. Call us if you need us."

And then Janus was alone with Thomas, who reached out to try to move Janus's hands away from his head.

"Janus, can you stop pulling your hair?"

He didn't stop gripping onto the strands, but he wasn't even really pulling it as much as holding onto it tightly.

"Janus, please?"

Janus sighed angrily.

"I'm not pulling it. It doesn't hurt."

A pause.

"... Alright… Alright."

Yet again, there was silence for a while as Thomas waited for Janus to calm himself down. After about ten minutes, the deceitful side removed his hands from his head and sat up, trying to make himself look more presentable, though that was practically a lost cause at this point.

"I'm sorry, Janus," Thomas apologized. "The arguing got way out of hand today, and we didn't mean to stress you out any more than you already were. We really do just want to help."

Janus looked away.

"The thing that would help is if we didn't fucking argue all the time," he growled lowly. "But I guess that just makes me a hypocrite."

"None of us like the arguing, Jan," Thomas told him. "Sometimes, it's hard for you guys to get along because you have a lot of opposite opinions and priorities, but I really don't think anyone's starting the arguments on purpose."

He felt his eyes watering, and though he kept any tears from falling, he couldn't quite keep the wobble out of his voice when he spoke:

"I can't keep doing this, Thomas…," he admitted. "All I wanted was to have a say in things, but it just. Never. Stops."

Thomas leaned against him, a motion as close to a hug as he thought Janus would allow.

"I know. And I'm sorry that I can't just make the arguing stop," Thomas apologizes. "But we can try to find ways to make our conversations more productive, and in the meantime, I really think we should try to figure out some ways to help you when it gets like this. You don't like dissociating, do you?"

"...No…," Janus responded. "No, but… it's better than the alternative."

"Well, why don't we at least come up with some ways to help bring you back after it's over, for now?" Thomas suggested. "Why don't we start there?"

Janus mulled it over for a while before deciding.

"... Okay…"

"Great," Thomas smiled at him. "Are there any things you know help right now?"

He crossed his arms again, this time in uncertainty, before replying.

"I… I mostly have to just let it run its course…," he said. "But sometimes Remus helps. If he does something funny, sometimes it can make me laugh and that snaps me out of it somehow. And he just… doesn't try to force me or anything when I get like that… When it's not as bad, I try to trace things I see, I guess…"

"Okay, that's a great start," Thomas told the side. "Maybe we can do some research and see what else will help. Did anything we did earlier help? Like, the ice pack and cologne?"

"I… I think the ice pack might have? I… noticed it, at least…"

"Okay. That's good to know," said Thomas as he went to hold one of Janus's hands in a comforting grasp. "It'll be okay, Jan. We're here for you, even if it doesn't always seem like it."

Janus wanted to point out that, though that might be true of Thomas, it wasn't really true of the others, excepting Remus and maybe Patton, though the latter would likely comfort him more out of pity than anything else. Virgil, despite what he said, clearly still didn't even want him around and just worried that he would mess Thomas up with his own issues, and Roman just plain hated him now, which was something he hadn't actually expected, considering the fact that he had actively tried to be on Roman's side with things. And Logan wasn't particularly hostile toward him, but he had no illusion that the logical side particularly cared about his mental health.

But that's just how things were, and the arguing was unlikely to stop any time soon. Maybe it never would, and the rest of their lives would be filled with pointless bickering. Maybe, one day, they'd all get tired of each other and just stay in their rooms alone. Maybe Thomas would decide that having sides wasn't worth it, and he'd destroy them and the mind palace and just have his internal battles with himself.

He didn't know.

But he did know that, right now, he was there, and Thomas was there, and no one was arguing. He could have a brief reprieve, at least, before the next argument began.

He tried not to grasp too much onto the hope that things would change, because the chances of that happening to any appreciable extent were low, but he could pretend he believed it for now, even if just to make Thomas happy.

It was fine.

XXX