XXX

Okay, so here we are at the last chapter (sort of)! But! I'm going to be adding more parts to this story (here on FFN, I'm just going to keep posting it here, but I'm thinking of the following chapters as more of sequels/bonus contenct)! I already started writing them, but I'm not sure exactly how much more I'm going to write. So, if there's something you'd want to see in this story, you can put it in the comments and I'll consider it for another part of the story (might add it in or might not, since there are already some ideas I do have).

XXX

It was a few days after Janus revealed his most embarrassing secret to the other sides, and he was slowly getting used to the feeling of not having to hide things so much. Of course, he was still Deceit, so he would always hide some things, but he didn't have to hide this, and the feeling really was quite… liberating.

As it was, Janus was watching TV in the living room- some random cooking competition- and he was holding one of his stuffed animals. This one was a purple unicorn he'd named Marshmallow. He'd used a yarn that had shiny thread interwoven with the fibers, so it was sparkly, which he found to be rather fitting, seeing as it was a unicorn. It was one of his larger animals, though nowhere near as big as his giant snake, being only about a foot and a half tall.

While he was watching his show, Roman and Virgil suddenly walked in, and he could tell from the look on their faces that they had sought him out. He almost went to hastily hide Marshmallow away, but he reminded himself that he didn't have to at the last minute.

"Hey, Lies and Dol- Janus. Can we talk for a bit?" Roman asked.

Janus could see that, for some reason, the two of them were tense, as if they were anxious about something. He wasn't quite sure why, but if they were there to yell at him or something, they would certainly look more angry.

"Very well," he replied, lifting the remote to pause the show. "Do you have something particular in mind?"

The two of them moved to sit next to him on the couch.

"Yeah, um…," spoke Virgil as he fiddled with his hoodie sleeves. "So. Remember how Thomas had trouble sleeping a while back?"

Oh. He hadn't been sure what to expect of the conversation, but that certainly hadn't been it.

"Yes?"

Virgil was avoiding his gaze.

"Okay, so, remember how you left to go clean up before letting us in your room?" Virgil continued. "That was because of the stuffed animals, right?"

Oh, so that's why they were bringing it up.

Janus also averted his eyes, gripping onto the unicorn a little tighter.

"... Yes."

"Yeah, about that…," Virgil trailed off.

"We kinda… thought you were scheming something," Roman picked up the thread. "And we wanted to apologize to you about it."

"Apologize?"

"Yes."

"For thinking I was scheming?" Janus questioned. "You always used to think I was scheming. Why are you apologizing for this time in particular?"

Roman winced, and Virgil started talking again.

"Yeah, so, this is gonna sound pretty bad," he told him. "We kinda… made a plan to try to figure out what you were up to."

At this, Janus's eyes flicked back toward them.

"... You made a scheme in an attempt to reveal my scheme."

"Kinda, yeah?" Roman confirmed.

"I'm sure you see the irony."

"... We were kinda going with a 'fight fire with fire' approach, but…," Virgil explained. "So, the scheme's kinda what we need to apologize for. Okay, so, we pretty much called the plan off way before you got sick, so, like, nothing that happened after that was part of it, okay?"

Janus lifted an eyebrow.

"Okay?" he accepted. "And what was this scheme, exactly?"

"Well, at first, the idea was to wait for Thomas to have another nightmare so we could go to your room and see if we could find any evidence," Roman said guiltily. "But then Thomas stopped having nightmares… so the plan kinda… turned into trying to get you to trust us so we could snoop?"

Janus blinked.

"... What."

Virgil frantically waved his hands, and Roman looked sheepish.

"Ah, that's… We really did decide to stop the plan a while ago," Virgil tried to explain. "It's just… While we were trying to gain your trust, I remembered how much I liked to hang out with you, and Roman realized that he likes spending time with you too, and you really didn't even do anything, so we kinda realized we were being idiots? So we're just… We're really sorry about doing that. It was a pretty dickish move."

Hearing this explanation, Janus let out a long sigh and rubbed a hand over his face.

"I assume you two realize how incredibly manipulative your plan was."

"Yeah… It… It was a… pretty bad move."

"And once again, it's a bit ironic," Deceit continued.

"...Yeah."

Janus let his hand fall back to his lap as he sat up straight and proper.

"Right. Well. Quite frankly, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information," he huffed. "That… That kind of sucks, actually…"

"I know. We're sorry."

Janus put his hands together and held them over his mouth as he breathed in deeply through his nose.

"Yeah, I don't think I'm feeling up to dealing with that mess right now," Janus said finally, lowering his hands, which began to hold tightly onto the unicorn. "I mean, on the one hand, I'm impressed, but also, like, what the actual fuck."

He ran his gloved fingers across the soft surface of the toy.

"Yeah. No. I definitely don't want to deal with this today," Janus decided. "I've had enough heart-to-heart talks lately. I just… I just want to watch TV."

"That's fair," Virgil sighed. "You want us to go?"

"I don't know," Janus replied. "I'm really not sure how I feel about this right now."

"Want us to go find Pat or Remus?"

Janus considered the offer for a moment before nodding.

The two other sides stood, with Roman hesitantly and lightly placing a hand on his shoulder for a moment before they left.

"We're really sorry. But we care about you now, so we had to tell you the truth."

XXX

Janus took a deep breath before sinking out of the mindscape and appearing in Thomas's living room. Once he appeared, standing by the staircase, he found Thomas sitting on the couch, typing something on his laptop.

"Hello, Thomas," he greeted, forcing his voice to stay level.

Thomas jumped just the slightest bit before he turned to face him and smiled.

"Oh, hey, Janus. What's up?"

The deceitful side rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment, clutching tightly onto the object he held behind his back.

Without saying anything, he stepped forward.

"I made this for you," he said quickly, shoving the item into Thomas's arms.

And Thomas looked down to see a little red bear with a bright yellow star in the center, clearly made to look like his favorite Steven Universe shirt. It was made from soft but firm yarn, and it had little black buttons for the eyes. A yellow bow had been tied around its neck.

"... You made this?"

Janus turned away, fiddling with his gloves.

"... Yes."

"For me?"

He nodded.

"Oh, wow! Janus, this- this is great!" Thomas exclaimed. "I didn't even know you could do this! Thank you!"

And as those words filled his heart with a happy warmth, Janus smiled.

"You're welcome."

And if the other sides found similar themed bears sitting in front of their bedroom doors, they knew exactly who made them

XXX

And there's the end! (Shhhhh, we're not gonna question why Janus could give Thomas a physical object that he made in the mind, it's just a cute ending)

Yeah, Virgil and Roman couldn't get out of this without apologizing to Janus for the scheme. 'Cuz it really wasn't very nice (They should probably apologize to Logan, too, since they broke into his room and all, but I guess that happens off-camera).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story! I loved writing it, since I could combine TSS and crochet and also write some really fun interactions :3!

Bye!

(Heads up, the next part will be a lot angstier than this part, but still not quite as angsty as some of my other stories get. And other parts will have some more fluff)

XXX