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I meant to post this sooner, but frankly, I forgot. Oops.
Also, it's my birthday tomorrow, so yaaaaaaay :3 (turning 23).
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A few days later, Janus found himself sitting in the living room with the Light Sides. This had, surprisingly, become somewhat common in the recent past. Somehow, around everything going on, they'd managed to start working out some of their issues, and now Janus and Remus were invited to things with the others from time to time. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't enjoying it on some level (which is why he would protest if anyone ever tried to make him admit it). Regardless, it was… nice to be able to spend time with everyone without someone starting an argument or trying to kill anyone else (most of the time, at least).
And so, Janus and Remus had joined the Lights for a movie night, though Janus wasn't actually interested in the movie itself and was instead attempting to read a book while in the same room.
There was an emphasis on attempting, though, since he couldn't quite get himself to really focus on the book. And it wasn't because the movie was distracting him or anything- he just didn't feel like keeping his eyes open. And, well, it's a bit hard to read with your eyes closed.
Eventually, he closed the book and set it down on the coffee table, resigning himself to watching whatever Roman had rigged for them to watch this time.
As expected, the movie bored him, which only further encouraged him to close his eyes. It was getting late, and he'd actually gotten an almost-normal amount of work done that day. Which was good, maybe he was finally coming out of this exhausted state, but he still clearly didn't have the energy for late-night tomfoolery with everyone else.
He was shaken from a brief doze by someone's hand landing on his shoulder.
"Hey, Janus, Kiddo, do you want to go to bed?" Patton asked.
Janus blinked himself awake and focused on Patton.
"Huh? No, I'm fine. It's not that late."
The thing was, despite his relationships with the others improving, he still hadn't told them about any of his health issues. At this point, though, rather than being because he didn't trust them enough to tell them or thinking that they'd say he deserved it or something, now it just felt like telling them would be awkward. What was he supposed to say? 'Oh, by the way, back when you all still mostly hated me a few months ago, I had cancer and now I'm too tired to function half the time'? It wasn't exactly something he could bring up in casual conversation. Plus, there was a small part of him that felt bad for not at least telling Patton, since the two of them had already started making up a bit back then. They'd already moved past hate by the time he had to get his surgery, but Deceit just hadn't really trusted the whole thing enough yet to disclose his medical information to the other man.
And so, no one else knew besides Remus, who was giving him a pointed look.
"Are you sure, Kiddo?" Patton asked again. "It's fine if you're tired. None of us mind if you leave early."
"Well, maybe I mind!" Roman exclaimed. "The movie isn't even halfway over! How am I supposed to argue with him about it later if he doesn't see the ending?!"
Roman's protestation was, of course, a joke, and it almost made Janus smile. He'd thought that he completely burned his bridge with Roman after the wedding debacle, but apparently, some long-overdue conversations and apologies were enough to start mending those bridges.
Remus lightly punched Roman at the same time Virgil snorted.
"Dude, he hasn't been paying attention the entire time," Virgil informed him. "Pretty sure you're not gonna get any good arguments on this one anyway."
Roman made a fake offended noise. Janus crossed his arms in response, raising an eyebrow.
"Janus, you do seem tired, so perhaps it would be best for you to get some sleep if you don't like this movie anyway," Logan suggested.
Janus opened his mouth to protest. Not because he wanted to watch the movie, but more because he somewhat-secretly wanted to spend more time with the others.
And then Remus tossed a throw pillow at him.
"DeeDee, go to bed before I kick your scaley ass into it," Remus threatened.
Janus rolled his eyes and stood up.
"Very well. Goodnight, everyone."
And then Janus sunk out of the room.
XXX
The next time Janus and Remus were invited to join the others, it was to eat breakfast with them. Remus, however, had refused, since he already had plans to do 'something he shouldn't ask about' in the imagination. Janus decided to go regardless of that, though, and just pushed any thought of what Remus might be up to the very back of his mind. That was something he was good at, after all.
Janus didn't feel too tired that morning, so that was good. He and Roman were going to be helping Thomas with his acting later, so he would need energy for that.
"Hello, Janus," Logan greeted him as he entered the kitchen. "Where's Remus?"
"Doing something none of us want to know."
"Ah. So I assume he isn't coming, then."
"I'm afraid not."
Not-so-secretly, Janus found it somewhat amusing that Logan and Remus had formed a strange sort of friendship. You'd think that wouldn't go well considering that Logan 'defeated' Remus before, and they didn't exactly get along then, but that wasn't the case now. The thing was that Logan had never meant any of it to be malicious (he was just helping Thomas deal with the side effects of Remus's antics), and Remus had never really been offended. And now, the two of them had realized they coincidentally had quite a few overlapping interests.
"Alright, then."
"Where's Roman?" Janus asked back.
"Dragging Virgil out of bed," Patton chimed in. "He stayed up late watching conspiracy videos, so he didn't want to get up when I tried."
"I see."
"Anyway, come sit down, Kiddo," Patton instructed. "The pancakes are almost done, and the two of them should be down soon."
Sure enough, Roman came in pulling a dead-on-his-feet Virgil behind him a few minutes later. The princely side pushed Virgil into a chair and swiped some of the chocolate chips Patton had been using for the pancakes.
"Roman!" Patton scolded lightly. "No chocolate before breakfast!"
"But it's literally going in breakfast!" Roman argued. "How does sticking them inside a pancake make it better?!"
"Roman does have a point, Patton," Logan added.
Patton pouted for a second before sighing.
"Oh, alright, but that's it. We need the rest for the actual pancakes, Ro."
Then, it was Roman's turn to pout, though that didn't last much longer than Patton's. After sneakily swiping one more chocolate chip while Patton wasn't looking, Roman went to take a seat, ruffling Janus's hair as he passed. The action made Janus sputter.
"Whu?!"
"That's what you get for not wearing your hat," Roman teased, sticking out his tongue.
Janus grumbled, but it was cut off by Patton announcing the completion of the pancakes as he plopped them onto the table.
"Alright, let's eat, everyone!"
And so everyone started plating up their pancakes and eating. Halfway through eating one of his own pancakes, Janus decided that he actually wanted to put something on them, and so, he opened his mouth.
"Logan, can you pass the…," he trailed off.
He'd forgotten the word. Fuck.
Logan looked at him, and he waved his hand in the air, as if that would somehow materialize the word he was looking for. It didn't.
"What is it you want me to pass, Janus?"
"The… The red. Jar thing."
That was the best he could come up with. Why was the right word escaping him? It didn't make a lot of sense, but that was something else that had been happening a lot more lately. He chalked it up to the tiredness messing with his brain somehow, but it was still inconvenient when he suddenly forgot a word as he needed it. Especially when it made him look like an idiot.
"… Are you referring to the strawberry jam?"
Ah. Strawberry. That was the word.
"Um. Yes."
He couldn't hold back the blush that tinted the human half of his face. He'd forgotten the word 'strawberry' and called strawberry jam 'the red jar thing'. But, at least Logan passed him the jam, so.
"Um… Are you feeling okay, Janus?" Patton inquired. "It's not really like you to forget words like that. And, well, you aren't looking so great, either, to be honest."
Janus grimaced.
"Not in a bad way! Kinda! Er… I mean…," Patton stumbled. "Are you sick or something? You have bags under your eyes, and you just seem kind of… off."
Well, Patton noticed. Fuck.
"I'm fine," Janus replied.
"Your eye bags are as bad as mine, ya know," Virgil pointed out.
"Well, maybe you're not the only one who stays up late on occasion, Virgil."
That was a lie. Or, a misdirection, at least. Janus hadn't particularly gone to bed all that late or anything last night. But it's not like he was going to tell them the real reason he looked like crap.
"… Haven't you been sleeping a lot recently, though?" Virgil asked. "I mean, half the time one of us goes to talk to you, Remus tells us you're sleeping."
Well. Fuck.
He didn't know about that. Apparently, Remus hadn't seen fit to tell him when the others sought him out during his naps. Instead, he decided to just tell them he was asleep.
"Are you having trouble sleeping or something?" Roman asked.
Janus wasn't actually sure what was true for that one. On the one hand, he often did sleep excessively nowadays. On the other hand, though, he did also sometimes have a hard time sleeping when he was supposed to, he woke up a lot during the night, and usually woke up feeling tired. Perhaps the poor quality of his sleep was actually the direct cause of his exhaustion, aside from the health issues that most likely contributed to the sleeping problems. He didn't really know.
"I just didn't sleep so well last night," Deceit waved them off. "Remus was being noisy, and it kept me up more than it usually does."
He felt a little bad about throwing Remus under the bus, but he kind of thought of it as revenge for telling the others about his naps. And Remus had been noisy last night (he was noisy every night)- it just didn't actually keep Janus up at this point since he was so used to it.
"Well, okay… I hope you'll sleep better tonight, then…"
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