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Alright, I SWEAR this one's not gonna be angst! I deny the angst this time! I WILL write the sides being HAPPY.

This next section is Titled "Patton and Dad Jokes", and it will include both this chapter and the next chapter.

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"~Julio, please! Things don't have to be this way! We can still stop this war!~"

"~Are you kidding me?! You're the one who did this!~" Remus squeaked, acting as Julio. "~You've been cheating on me for months, and now you're blaming me for the war my parents started?!~"

"~Julio, I'm sorry!~"

"~No you're not! You're just sorry you got caught!~"

"Meanwhile, while the two ex-fiancés fought each other verbally, the two ex-colleagues fought in a much more literal way," Janus narrated.

"~Join me, Librarian Marmalade! Just think of what we could do together!~"

Lord Murder's tentacles were waved around.

"~Why do you always put my job in front of my name like a title? It's weird and inconvenient, and we all already know I'm a librarian by now.~"

Marmalade hopped to the side before Janus threw a balled-up piece of paper toward the octopus.

"~Well, I'm used to calling you DOCTOR Marmalade, but if you're not a doctor, I can't call you that anymore! It leaves a hole!~"

Remus tossed the toy into the air, letting it's tentacles land haphazardly so that one of them bonked Marmalade on the head.

"~I don't know, then call me Mister Marmalade?~"

"~Ew, alliteration!~"

"~HOW DARE YOU INSULT ALLITERATION IN FRONT OF A LIBRARIAN?!~"

And then, there was a knock at the door of Janus's room, interrupting their game. Janus stood up and opened the door, finding Patton standing there, as he had many times by now.

"What is it, Patton?" Janus asked, his voice slightly impatient but not harsh.

"Hiya!" Patton replied. "Just wanted to get you two for lunch. Virgil made it today!"

"Lunch? Patton, it's only- oh."

"Yeah, it's almost 1 o'clock, Jan," Patton told him. "Don't worry, though! We all lose track of thyme."

Along with his words, Patton held up a small bundle of herbs. Janus sighed.

"Patton, those are bay leaves."

"Oh. Well, darn. I guess I should have seen that cumin," Patton replied with a grin.

"I can't be-leaf you'd make a mistake like that, Patty-cakes!" Remus chimed in from within the room.

Silently, Janus mused that Patton would absolutely make a mistake like that, since the man could barely cook, and herbs weren't typically found in cookies.

Then, Janus realized it was also a pun.

"You two are unbelievable," Janus sighed, though he exaggerated.

"Don't you mean un-bee-lievable?"

Janus blinked at the new jar Patton pulled out of his pocket.

"Wait, where did you get the honey; there's no way you knew I would say that-"

"I'm always pre-bear-ed!" Patton exclaimed, suddenly holding the bear Janus made him.

"…"

Janus was left speechless, while Remus started laughing and rolling around on the floor.

(It was only then that Janus remembered that, since they were more-or-less imaginary, they could pretty much conjure up whatever they wanted.)

Patton patiently waited, grinning brightly, until Remus calmed down and started working again.

"Well, we should mosey on down to the kitchen now, don't you think?" Patton suggested. "Don't want lunch getting cold!"

"What did the emo nightmare make for lunch, anyway?" Remus asked.

"Sandwiches!"

"…"

XXX

Lunch had been a weird-but-practically-normal-at-this-point affair. Janus had been getting along with everyone, including Roman, rather well recently, so there weren't really any fights he had to worry about on his own account. The others were getting along generally well, too. Remus had even started getting along with Logan, Virgil, and- to everyone's shock- even Patton, so he had started joining them for meals more often. Any problems that arose were typically the result of Roman getting fed up with Remus. Even still, their relationship had improved enough for them to be in the same room without attempting to maim each other on a good day- that didn't mean they no longer got into semi-frequent fights, though. Luckily, those fights tended to get ended by someone else essentially separating the two of them before it could get too ugly.

Personally, Janus thought that the two of them 'duking it out' might actually get the two of them to talk to each other for once, but he also didn't really want to be there when that whole mess happened. He imagined it would involve a lot of weaponry and violence, and Janus did more-or-less want to keep his head where it was meant to be.

He supposed the weirdness of the situation was, really, how well things seemed to be going? He still hadn't entirely gotten used to the two of them being welcome yet. Even once he himself had been invited to sit at both the literal and metaphorical tables, Remus was still usually left out of it. Janus usually had to make choices about who he spent his time with because he couldn't spend time with both Remus and the others. But now, he actually could. Even if Roman was still being a jerk about his brother being there, everyone else didn't object to Remus's presence.

And that allowed him to see some particularly strange interactions, such as Remus and Patton swapping recipes.

"Okay, so, if you add Cheez-its to the cake mix before you bake it, it tastes really good," Remus insisted.

"Really? Maybe I should try that sometime!"

"Heeeeeeey, Popstar, maybe you could just stick to, like, vanilla or chocolate? Maybe lemon if you're feeling adventurous?" Virgil suggested, knowing he would likely be forced to eat some of whatever cake Patton would end up baking and just hoping to get the lesser of two baked evils.

"But, Virgil, Cheez-its are awesome!"

"… They sure are, Pat," said Virgil, his voice tight with dread. "They sure are…"

Sometimes, Janus wondered how Virgil managed to eat Patton's food. Everyone else had long-since received the memo to avoid Patton's cooking like a wildfire, with the ONLY exception being the man's cookies (and INCLUDING any other baked good he made, since his skills with cookies oddly didn't seem to translate to literally ANYTHING else).

But, regardless of the influence on Patton's cooking, Janus was glad that Remus was starting to get along with the others better now. Sure, Janus tried to spend time with Remus, but he got busy sometimes, and he couldn't always give Remus as much attention as he needed. He knew Remus got lonely, which caused the man a whole host of other issues. Now that he was spending some time with the others, though, some of that could be avoided, or at least mitigated.

He didn't exactly know all the details on how they got to this point, though. A while back, Virgil had told him that most of them (read: everyone except Roman, who was still hesitant to accept his brother) had used their experience with Janus to realize that they shouldn't be excluding Remus like they had been. Virgil, of course, had once been on friendlier terms with Remus than the others, so it was a little easier for him. Most of the fighting from before Virgil left had been between him and Janus, after all, so when Remus wasn't actively trying to be horrifying, the two of them could get along well enough. It seemed like Remus had managed to bond with Logan over gross science facts and with Patton over their almost equally-disgusting cooking (with Patton sometimes winning in how terrible their food was). He knew there was more to it than that, but he also knew it wasn't really his right to pry- if Remus wanted to discuss what happened with him, fine, but if he didn't, he wasn't going to press for details.

Eventually, everyone finished eating and lunch ended. Logan declared that he would do the dishes that day, so Janus and Remus got up, intending to return to their game.

However, Patton stopped them.

"Hey, wait!" he called out. "Um. Well… I was wondering… if maybe I could join your game for today…?"

Janus froze, staring at Patton for a moment in shock. Patton wanted to join them?

"I mean, it's okay if you don't want me to!" Patton assured, putting his hands up. "I just thought… Well, you guys seem to have fun with it, so I thought I'd ask!"

Janus blinked, then turned to Remus, who only shrugged and grinned at him. Having received Remus's blessing (which seemed necessary now, since the game had long-since transformed from Janus's game into their game), Janus pondered. He… had been hoping that Patton would one day want to play with him. It was one of his silly little hopes he'd come up with while he played alone in his room for so many years. It was also a hope he'd given up on, first because of not wanting to admit to anyone what he liked to do, and secondly because Patton had never asked to join them in all the months it had been since his hobbies had been revealed.

But now, Patton was asking. And Janus wanted to say yes.

Except Patton probably wouldn't have a lot of fun at the point their game was at just then- they were about to start a bloody war, and with Remus, Janus assumed the blood part would be somewhat literal.

He rocked on his heels.

"Well," he started. "Our game is at a point where it would be a bit… difficult to add another person…"

He saw Patton's grin falter, so he quickly finished his thought.

"But maybe we could start another game?" Janus suggested. "If that's alright with you, Remus?"

"Sure. I'm down with whatever."

"Oh! Okay!" Patton exclaimed, his smile returning with a vengeance. "Well, I brought my bear, so maybe I can use him?"

And sure enough, Patton held up the bear Janus made him again.

"That works."

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