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Patton sighed sadly as he looked down at the blanket. He hadn't been able to get the stain out, especially since he couldn't really scrub it without ruining the stitches, and now there was a big pinkish-orange splotch in one corner.

"Drats. I was really hoping I'd be able to get the stain out," Patton mumbled to himself.

As it was, this was already the third time he'd washed it, and he didn't really think it was a good idea to continue aggressively-cleaning an item like this. Maybe he would have been able to get the stain out better if he'd been able to wash it immediately, but he hadn't exactly been able to interrupt the arguing to start doing spontaneous laundry.

It was unfortunate, but this was probably about as good as it was going to get.

And so, he folded it up and started padding down the hall, making his way to the Dark Side of the mind palace. Silently, he really wished that Janus would move his room over to their side. This side was dark and gloomy and much colder than the other side, and Patton was pretty sure that Janus hated the cold, at least. At the same time, though, Patton did recognize that Janus didn't want to abandon Remus (and Patton wasn't foolish- no one really freaked out about Remus appearing anymore, but he doubted things would go well if Remus was around all the time. Even to begin with, Roman still didn't exactly like his brother, and Patton could admit to himself that Remus still freaked him out. He would be willing to set that aside, since he was starting to get the sense that Remus was a lot more upset about how they acted toward him than he let on, but he didn't really feel like now was a good time to get into all of that).

Before long, he was in front of Janus's door, raising a hand to knock.

It took a while for the door to open, and when it did, he found Janus looking disheveled on the other side, now wearing his pajamas. It was then that Patton realized it was pretty late by now, and Janus had probably been in bed.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," Patton apologized.

Janus sighed.

"What do you want, Patton?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Well," he started, holding up the bundle in his arms. "I washed your blanket. Um… Sorry, I couldn't get the stain out. It won't be sticky, though…"

He shuffled awkwardly before holding the blanket out toward Janus, but surprisingly, the other man didn't reach out to take it.

Janus looked away, glaring at the floor.

"… I don't want it."

Patton blinked.

"What?"

"I don't want it anymore. It's ruined."

"Jan, I know it's stained, but isn't it important to you?"

"It is, but now it's ruined."

At this, Patton's frown deepened, his eyebrows crinkling in confused concern.

"But if it's that important, is a stain really that big of a deal?"

Janus then glared at him, his hands tightening.

"Yes, Patton, it is," he hissed.

"Jan-"

"What? Want to tell me to stop being upset again?"

"… No, Janus, I…," Patton stumbled. "Just… Janus, is the blanket really the thing you're upset about?"

Janus continued to glare at him quietly for a bit before responding.

"… I can very well be upset about multiple things, Patton."

Patton shifted his hold on the blanket, his shoulders falling.

"I… I know…," he sighed. "Jan, I'm really sorry about what happened earlier. I was just trying to keep the peace and stop the arguing, but I didn't mean to lecture you about it. I just thought it would be easier to get you to end the argument than Roman. But it wasn't fair of me to sweep your feelings under the rug or to treat you like a child. I know that it bothers you, and I've been trying to work on it, but I screwed up. And I'm sorry."

He took a deep breath in, trying to hold back his guilt.

"And I can't speak for Roman, but I am sorry that I couldn't get the stain out of your blanket," Patton continued. "I know it isn't the same anymore, but you can still use it. And maybe we can dye it a darker color so you don't see the stain anymore? You don't have to let it be ruined just because someone else made a mistake."

He half-expected Janus to get angry and start yelling, but that isn't what happened. Instead, Janus seemed to deflate as his expression fell.

"Patton, it's…I'm upset about the stain, and I don't want it to be a different color. I liked it how it was," Janus replied. "But now it's messed up because Roman was being careless, and he didn't. Apologize. Not really. He ruined my blanket, and then everyone got mad at me for being upset, as if I didn't have any right to be."

"I know, and that was wrong," Patton agreed solemnly. "And I do think Roman should apologize. I just thought he would need to calm down first."

"Well, I don't exactly see him. I see you," Janus sighed. "Which I do appreciate, I suppose. At least you're trying, I guess."

Janus was running his fingers through his hair, messing it up more than laying against a pillow had.

"I talked to Remus earlier," he announced quietly. "And he said I should tell you all how I feel if I want to keep being friends with you. And the thing, Patton, is that I do. You don't have any idea how much I wanted that for so long, and… it feels like we finally stopped hating each other, and then Roman and Virgil tell me that they were just pretending for some unspecified amount of time, and they apologized, but Roman still acts like I'm the villain sometimes, and sometimes he's just… really mean, and it hurts, and it certainly doesn't help when you start backing him up, even when he's in the wrong. I feel like I don't know what to expect anymore. Before, I knew that Roman didn't like me, and I expected him to get mad if I showed up- but now, I have no way of knowing what I'm dealing with. One day, he's nice and the next he isn't! How exactly am I supposed to know how he really thinks of me, if he keeps switching it around?!"

Patton understood what Janus was talking about, to an extent. Roman was, for example, pretty nice about the whole 'stuffed animal reveal' thing. He'd even praised Janus for his creativity. But Roman was also prone to lashing out, and since Janus was a villain to him until recently and Remus wasn't usually around, Janus often became the scapegoat for Roman's problems, even those that had nothing to do with him.

He, however, didn't quite know what Janus was talking about for part of his rant.

"Wait, Janus, can you go back to the part about Roman and Virgil?" he asked. "What did you mean about pretending?"

Janus blinked, his eyebrows creasing inwards.

"What, you didn't know about that?" he questioned, seeming genuinely surprised rather than sarcastic.

Patton shook his head.

"Well, apparently, the two of them were suspicious of me and thought I had a scheme to hurt Thomas," Janus huffed. "And they thought the best way to go about handling that was to pretend they were making friends with me so I would trust them and reveal what I was up to. According to them, they eventually 'called it off', but they didn't exactly specify when exactly they stopped pretending. And to be honest, I'm starting to wonder whether Roman ever really did stop."

Hearing this, Patton couldn't help but stare at Janus in shock.

"They did what?!"

Janus shifted.

"I thought you knew about it," he shrugged, his tone solemn. "At least, that you maybe knew about it afterward or something. I guess they didn't want to tell you."

Patton raised a hand to his mouth, having a hard time believing it. Even still, though, he didn't want to question Janus's honesty here. After what happened this morning and what Janus just told him, he didn't want to try to call the man's integrity into question at the moment, knowing it would ignite a whole different set of issues.

"Oh, geez," Patton gasped. "I'm really sorry, Janus. That's- That's not a very nice thing to do."

He thought he was starting to understand why it seemed like Janus got so upset so quickly in his arguments with Roman. It wasn't just the current argument or even past wrongs- there was something very big and very recent that was making Janus question whether he could even trust them.

"Yes, well, you'd think I'd be better at catching onto lies, but apparently not," Janus remarked dryly. "Though, I was suspicious of it at first. I suppose I should have held onto that suspicion, but I told myself I was being paranoid. Apparently not, though."

"I-I really didn't know that happened," Patton repeated. "If I did, I wouldn't have let it go on."

Janus sighed.

"The sentiment is appreciated, Patton."

"Do you… Do you want me to talk to him? And Virgil?"

Janus shrugged.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Right now, I just want to go back to bed. But do you understand my point now?"

Slowly, Patton nodded.

"I think I do."

"Alright. Good night, then, Patton."

And with that, Janus closed the door, leaving his blanket in Patton's arms.

XXX

Janus: Yeah, Roman and Virgil pretended to be my friends so they could spy on me, and it was pretty fricked up.

Patton: THEY DID WHAT-

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