XXX

Here's the second half of this part!

No one asked, but it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm excited! (I'm turning 22, so it's two twos)

XXX

Patton followed Janus and Remus back to Janus's room so they could play (he'd learned that the two of them usually played in Janus's room so they didn't have to cart a bunch of stuffed animals around the mindscape).

He was happy that Janus and Remus agreed to let him join, but he also felt a bit bad about it- because, well, he hadn't been entirely upfront about what he was really doing, and he didn't want Janus to feel like he was doing something like Virgil and Roman's scheme. Which he wasn't! Patton wasn't trying to do anything mean or bad- he just didn't want to hurt Janus's feelings.

The truth was that Patton didn't especially want to join in their game. It wasn't that he didn't like stuffed animals or childish things- he did! It was just that he preferred cuddling with stuffed animals over playing with them. They were like extra-cute pillows! Or decorations! He hadn't really played with them in a long time (though he certainly didn't judge the two of them for doing so- it just wasn't something he himself really did).

The reason he asked to join their game, though, had a few different points. First, he wanted to spend time with them- with both of them. He'd recently seen a new side of Remus, and he was trying to make the man feel more welcome, something he hadn't done in the past, even after he'd tried to do so with Janus. He realized that Remus wasn't the monster he'd once seen him as, and even that the man could be fun to talk to sometimes (though he did get the feeling that Remus was holding himself back for Patton's sake at times). He'd also realized that it wasn't really fair to Janus to make him choose between friends, either. So he wanted to spend time with them both.

Second, Patton wanted to get to know the side of Janus (and Remus) that they displayed when they played. He would sometimes see Janus holding a stuffed animal now, but he never saw him play outside of his room. The most he experienced was muffled words and laughter from beyond a door. But Patton wanted to know Janus- really know him- and if this was a part of who Janus was, he wanted to know that part, too.

The last part of it was that Patton wanted to make sure that Janus knew they accepted him as he was. He didn't want Janus to get it in his mind that they were okay with his hobbies as long as they didn't have to see or hear about it. He wanted Janus to be free to play in, say, the living room if he and Remus wanted to, or be free to talk about the toys and his yarn and everything with them when he wanted. Janus was a lot more open about it all now, but even still, he sometimes cut himself off or hesitated when he told them about something he made or what he and Remus were up to.

So, Patton didn't particularly want to play with stuffed animals, but he did want to play with them. And if this was the form that took, that's what he would do.

As Patton was lost in thought, they arrived in front of Janus's room, and Janus led them inside, where there was a bunch of stuffed animals and balls of paper spread across the floor. Patton almost stepped on one, but avoided doing so with a quick hop to the side.

"Right, we should probably clean this up before we start a new game," Janus mused, more to himself than them.

"You wanna save the balls for later, or can I eat them?" Remus asked.

"Eh, it's just scrap paper, so if you're still hungry, go for it," Janus shrugged.

Before Patton could protest, Remus started chomping down on the paper balls, swallowing them like they were the best candy he'd ever eaten. Silently, Patton reminded himself that they still needed to have that talk with Remus about what was and was not edible, though he did recognize that Remus never seemed to be adversely affected by eating things like that. It must be because they were imaginary.

Well. It was certainly one way to clean things up.

While Remus was potentially causing himself intestinal problems, Janus had started picking up the stuffed animals. He seemed to be separating them into piles, and Patton quickly figured out why- one pile was Janus's, with a lot more traditionally-cute toys, while the other was Remus's, with more of the animals being covered in blood or full of stitches or missing a limb or two. When he was done separating them, he put Remus's in a basket, while his own got dumped onto the couch.

"Alright, now that that's done with," Janus spoke, rocking on his heels. "What kind of game are we playing?"

"What do you mean?" Patton asked. "I thought we just… played?"

"Nah, we gotta get an idea of what we're doing first so it doesn't turn out to be a mess," Remus denied. "I mean, the game me and Jan are playing right now was already started when I joined in, but he had to tell me the basics of what was going on, ya know?"

"It just… makes things go smoother if we're all mostly on the same page…," Janus told him.

Patton could see that Janus's cheeks were a little pink.

"Oh, okay!" Patton accepted. "But where do we start?"

"… I usually start with a genre," Janus informed quietly.

"I like doing horror!" Remus announced. "But I don't want to traumatize you, Daddy-o, so we can pick a different genre if you want."

"…What genre do you usually do, Jan?" Patton asked.

"… Political drama…," Janus answered awkwardly.

"Emphasis on the drama!"

Patton blinked.

He didn't know why he was so surprised. That seemed like something that would totally be Janus's kind of thing. Patton had seen Janus debate with Logan often enough to know he had an interest in politics, along with philosophy.

He just hadn't entirely expected that particular interest to cross over with this one?

"Oh… um…"

"We don't have to do that, either, Patton," Janus offered, his cheeks growing redder.

"No, no, there's nothing wrong with that genre-"

"Maybe just pick a genre, Dolly Patton," Remus interrupted. "Me and Jan already have some games started in the genres we like, so you can choose this one."

Patton hummed, mentally debating whether he should insist that they pick the genre. Truthfully, he wasn't too keen on political drama, and he really wasn't keen on horror, but he was also trying to play what they wanted. That was the point.

But. It would also be easier if he just picked something, especially if he picked something they could all enjoy to some extent.

"Okay then…," Patton agreed, pausing to think. "Well, maybe we can do an adventure story!"

Patton figured that they could all enjoy an adventure story well enough. It would be easy to add in some danger and monsters for Remus, and a lot of Roman's adventure stories included royalty. That could work for politics and stuff, right? Plus, Patton had helped Roman with his stories enough that he had picked up a little, and Roman did write a lot of adventure stories.

"Alright," Janus agreed. "Do you have anything in particular in mind?"

"Uuuuh… Not really?"

"Well then, next we need to come up with the basic premise," Janus told him. "Like, when I started the game Remus and I were playing earlier, the basic premise was 'a prince stuck in an arranged political marriage', and I went from there."

"Okay…," Patton nodded. "Well, a lot of adventure stories are about finding something, right? Like, a magic item that can save the kingdom or something?"

"Ha, you've been hanging out with Ro-Bro, huh, Patty?" Remus snickered. "But that's cool. Let's do that."

"Fine with me," Janus agreed with a shrug.

"So, what do we do next?"

"Then, we pick some characters and…," Janus trailed off.

"Then we pretty much Madlib it!" Remus finished.

"Yes, that does more-or-less describe it."

Patton nodded.

"I guess my character can be little old Bearemy here, then!" Patton decided.

"… Bearemy as in Jeremy?"

"Yup!"

"…"

"Well, I'm gonna pick Jason!" Remus declared as he dug a hand into his basket and pulled out a dog with X's for eyes and an extra arm.

Janus went over to his own pile and grabbed a frog. After a second, Janus seemed to hesitate and put it back down, picking up a giraffe instead.

"… This is August."

Then, the three of them sat down in a circle on the floor (with Janus grabbing a few extra animals, probably to act as side characters), and the game began.

"Once upon a time, in a land plagued by…," Janus trailed off and looked toward Remus expectantly.

"An annual zombie apocalypse!" Remus declared without missing a beat.

"An annual zombie apocalypse, there was an old king," Janus continued, placing a stuffed lion in the center of the circle. "The king had decided his people had been plagued long enough, and he was going to put a stop to it. Or, he was going to get someone else to put a stop to it."

"And so he summoned the protagonists!" Remus interjected.

"When the protagonists arrived in the king's throne room, the king declared:"

This time, Janus looked toward him, and it took Patton a moment to realize that Janus wanted him to fill in the line for the story.

"Oh, um… He declared that they had to find the magic thing?"

"No, you gotta do a voice!" Remus told him.

"A voice?"

"Like this!" Remus said before switching to a comically-gruff wheeze. "~Greetings, heroes! Kneel before me so that I may force you to do my bidding! I hereby declare that you three shall find the Magic Scepter of HyperDeath so that our kingdom may be saved!~ Heh, do you think Roman sounds like that when he's playing prince in the imagination?"

"Maybe," Janus replied. "But, Patton, you don't have to do voices if you don't want to."

"Awe, but it's more fun if you do voices!"

"I can… I can try?"

Patton figured that he probably could do voices. Thomas was an actor, after all, so even if his sides had differing talents, they all had aspects that helped with his acting. Patton could certainly do a silly voice or two.

"And so the first of the protagonists stepped forward, bowing their head to the king and said:"

Janus looked at him again, so Patton moved his bear so it sat in front of the lion.

"~I will accept your quest!~" Patton spoke, making his voice squeaky.

"~Very well!~" exclaimed Remus. "~Then may the next hero step forth!~"

Remus then placed his dog next to the bear.

"~I will accept your quest if you let me bash some zombie skulls in!~" Remus spoke again, using a British (?) accent before switching back to the gruff voice. "~I care not what you do with the zombies, so long as you somehow yeet them. Now, may our final hero come forward!~"

Janus didn't move his giraffe. Instead, he made the giraffe move its arm to tap its chin.

"~Excuse me, but aren't there supposed to be three of you?~"

"~I am here, Your Highness,~" Janus spoke, his voice pitched high, though not as high as Patton sometimes heard Janus's voice get when he heard him through the door. "~But I'm afraid my brother has been turned into one of the zombies, so I'm not very inclined to harm them.~"

So Janus was trying to add in a moral dilemma. Should the hero protect their family or their kingdom? It was certainly a twist that Janus would add.

"~ But what if I offered you a slice of leftover pizza?~"

Janus grinned.

"~You drive a hard bargain,~" he said. "~make it two pieces of pizza, and I'm in.~"

… Or maybe Janus wasn't trying to add in a moral dilemma, and it was the set up for a joke? Now Patton was a little confused, because he'd thought Janus was trying to steer the story in a particular direction.

"~Oh, fine. Two pieces of pizza!~"

"~Wonderful. Let's go find the scepter, then~"

Janus started making his giraffe walk away from the king, and Remus's dog followed. Patton didn't react quickly enough, so he still hadn't moved his bear by the time Janus picked up the lion and took it out of the circle.

"Now that the protagonists had been given their quest," Janus narrated again. "They began their journey. And this beginning began with a lot of walking. A lot of walking. So much walking, in fact, that they regretted not investing in more comfortable shoes. But then, finally, they came across their first obstacle…"

"LORD MURDER DESTRUCTION IV!" Remus yelled as he suddenly threw an octopus into the circle.

"Remus, it's not a twist if the twist is always Lord Murder," Janus huffed, though the corners of his lips tilted up a bit.

"It is a twist because Pattycakes hasn't ever experienced a Lord Murder Twist!"

"I suppose you're right."

"… Lord Murder?" Patton questioned. "That's… the octopus, right?"

"Yep! First stuffed animal Janus showed me how to crochet! He made me do a potholder first, though, which was super boring, but then I got to make this cool little dude!"

"You had to learn the stitches first, Remus."

"Details, details!"

"Anyway," said Janus. "The protagonists were unfortunately faced with the terrible villain known as Lord Murder Destuction IV, or Lord Murder to his frenemies."

"~MWAHAHAHAHA!~" Remus cackled. "YES! IT IS I, LORD MURDER! BETWEEN ALL MY OTHER EVIL SCHEMES, I HAVE ALSO DECIDED TO PLAGUE THIS KINGDOM WITH ZOMBIES! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, hold on! Who is this?~"

Remus moved the octopus so it was standing in front of Patton's bear.

"~ Well, aren't you adorable? You know, I was gonna try to get back with my ex after I killed their ex-fiancé and boyfriend, but I would totally go out with you.~"

"Remus, if you want to use Lord Murder, you can't keep referencing our other game," Janus lightly scolded. "Patton won't know what's going on."

"Awe, but Patton knows Lord Murder is flirting with Bearemy, right? You get it, don't ya, Patty?"

"I… I think so?"

"~So, what say you?~"

"~Unfortunately, I have a loving husband and children at home.~" Patton squeaked.

"~Oh. Well that sucks.~"

And so they played on, with Janus and Remus doing most of the story. Patton didn't really mind, since he was mostly just trying to spend time with them, though he did notice that the two of them seemed to have gotten into a groove- which made sense since they usually played together and were likely used to taking turns between the two of them at this point.

Patton was also, honestly, having a bit of trouble following along with the game. Remus hadn't really been kidding about most of the game being 'Madlibbed'. A lot of it was Janus doing narration and Remus (or sometimes Patton) filling in the bits he left out, interspersed with long dialogues between the characters. It was as if they were writing a story between them without having any particular end goal in mind, so they were just going along with whatever weird twists and such they decided to throw into the mix.

Now that Patton thought about it, it seemed a lot like a combination of Madlibs and DnD. Patton knew about Madlibs from Thomas's videos, and some of those stories ended up taking weird turns in the same way. He'd also learned about DND because Roman and Logan had had a strange common interest in the game years ago (though Logan lost interest because the game was too fanciful and Roman lost interest because the game had too much math). Janus was a bit like the DM, and everyone was a player. They just weren't using dice or character sheets or… really a lot of rules? The extent of the rules pretty much seemed to be 'try not to confuse or traumatize Patton too much', so he didn't think they had any official constraints on what they did.

By the end of the game, during which August the Giraffe ended up turning on them because of the promise of three pizza slices from Lord Murder, Patton had also come to another realization. The both of them had lied about their favorite genres.

Because, by the end of it, Patton was almost certain that they both actually preferred comedies.

XXX

And there's the end of this piece of the story. I think I'm gonna do a Patton and Remus thing that kinda explains better why they're getting along now, but it'll probably be angsty. 'Cuz I tried to have Patton slowly warming up to Remus, but even in the last piece of this story, Patton was still wary of him. I'm afraid it might have been too jarring, but I essentially wanted to introduce it as 'Janus doesn't exactly know what happened either, but it happened' and then explain it to the readers afterward?

Idk, thanks for reading!