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And here I am with yet another Janus-centric fic because I continue to get obsessive over things, and Janus happens to be one of them.

This one is partly inspired by Hot Vanilla's animatic for 'The Record Player Song' over on YouTube. I love that animatic.

Honestly, I low-key confuse myself at points with this fanfic. I think I should point out that I kind of see the sides as being equivalent to imaginary friends who represent aspects of C!Thomas's personality. So I find it kind of hard to draw the line between 'person' and not in the context of this story. I guess it's a case where you just shouldn't think about it too hard? I wrote most of this over a year ago, and I probably would have written it differently if I did it now, but eh.

Anyway, here's the story:

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Thomas didn't know what he was supposed to do.

Lately, he'd noticed that something was… off about Deceit, about Janus. It wasn't anything big, really, just little things that stood out to him and set off little alarm bells in the back of his mind.

To start with, now that he had accepted Janus and the deceitful side was spending more time with him like the others, he was noticing that Janus seemed to almost… shut down(?) whenever he wasn't being directly involved in something. He would just sit there and stare off into space, his face blank, until someone caught his attention. Then, he would blink and just start acting normally again, as if he hadn't just been staring at Thomas's wall for twenty minutes straight. And beyond the staring, which was the most obvious, Thomas noticed that Janus had also been altering his behavior around him.

First, now that he was officially 'accepted', Janus had suddenly dropped his antagonistic behaviors, which was great and all, but it seemed like the change was too jarring. Sure, he was still sarcastic sometimes, but it only appeared to be when Thomas questioned him about it. It was just… how did someone go from acting like a 'Scooby Doo Villain' to suddenly acting like he and the others never had any issues with each other, even when the other sides got mad at him? He didn't even rise up to anyone else's antagonism- unless Thomas somehow indicated that he expected him to (or sometimes, even when he just thought about it, and he would see Janus do that strange blink again before suddenly responding with more hostility).

And it wasn't just that. There were other, more specific, changes as well. For example, Thomas had mentioned something about snakes being cold-blooded to him, and ever since then, Janus had started to act cold all the time. He'd started wearing more layers (in addition to those he usually wore) and using heated blankets and even sitting in patches of sunlight. Which wasn't a problem in itself, but Janus hadn't done any of that before he mentioned it. And then, when Thomas made a comment about how he thought Janus was warm-blooded, he suddenly stopped.

Then there was the time Thomas asked Janus to cook with him, and for a whole week afterward, Janus showed up and tried to help every time he cooked- up until Thomas told him he didn't have to.

Altogether, it was making a picture that Thomas didn't like.

Did Janus really think that his acceptance was so conditional that he couldn't act like himself anymore? That he couldn't defend himself when the others were being (admittedly) mean, or that he couldn't warm himself up when he was cold, or that he had to help Thomas cook in order to be useful? And the staring thing… He didn't really know how concerned he should be about that.

Thomas knew that it would take time to gain Janus's trust, just like it had with Virgil, but this seemed like a bit much. He understood why Janus would be uncertain, but it had been months, and the only things that seemed to change were the behaviors that Thomas said something about- or (again) sometimes, even some things he only thought about, which made him think that Janus must have some way of (kinda?) knowing what Thomas thought, at least in regards to himself, which was a whole other can of worms that he didn't feel like digging into too deeply right now.

And now, Janus wasn't responding to a summoning.

Thomas had wanted to discuss this with Janus and reassure him that it was okay for him to act like himself, but Janus just wasn't appearing. And maybe Janus really did know what Thomas was thinking and was avoiding him intentionally so they didn't have to have this discussion, but if that was the case, shouldn't he know that he didn't have to pretend?

He really didn't know how it worked, but he did know that he had to talk to Janus.

But, since Janus wasn't responding, he decided to summon the others.

The five other sides rose up, with Virgil on the stairs, Logan to the side, Patton by the blinds, and the twins standing in front of the TV. They all appeared surprised, and they probably were, because Thomas didn't have anything planned for today, and they likely hadn't expected to all be randomly summoned like this.

"Ooooh, are we having a slumber party?" Remus exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Here's a reminder that I sleep in the buff!"

Roman rolled his eyes

"Remus, it's 2 in the afternoon, so I doubt that this has anything to do with sleep," Logan reasoned.

"And literally no one wants to see you naked, so," Virgil chimed in.

"Technically, we do have the same body, though, Virgil."

"Don't… remind me, Lo."

"Is something wrong, Kiddo?" Patton questioned, seeing Thomas's more serious expression.

"Well," Thomas started. "Do you guys know if something's wrong with Janus?"

He saw the others briefly exchange a glance.

"I don't believe so. Why?" Logan replied.

"He's been acting weird for a while now, and I want to talk to him, but he isn't responding to my summoning," Thomas explained.

"Really?" spoke Roman. "That's weird. Hey, Snakeface, are you taking a nap?"

But when Roman gestured to summon Deceit, it didn't do anything more than when Thomas tried.

"Huh. That's weird."

"You... don't think he… ducked out, do you?" Patton asked, his voice sounding concerned, but really, more confused than anything else.

"I mean, I can still lie, so I don't think it's that," Thomas told them. "I just think he's avoiding talking to me, which kinda just confirms that something's up. So I wanted to ask if you guys knew anything."

"Hm, I doubt that, Thomas," said Logan. "If you want to talk to him, I don't think Deceit would disob-"

"Logan," Virgil hissed.

"Oh. Right."

"Wait, wait," Thomas spoke, holding up a hand. "What was that? Do you guys know something?"

Everyone looked between each other.

"... Should we tell him?" Roman questioned.

Virgil sighed.

"Look, Thomas, if you really want to know something, you can, but…," he said. "I don't know if you really want to know this one."

"Know what?"

And then Remus raised his hand up in the air.

"Oooooooo, I'll tell him!" he declared. "Janus is like a puppet or something, so he does what you want, so it's really weird that he isn't responding to you summoning him!"

"Huh?"

"Remus!" Virgil exclaimed.

"What? He asked! Didn't you, Tommy?"

"Hold on, what does that mean?" Thomas asked. "What do you mean, 'Janus is a puppet'?"

At this, Virgil ran a hand through his hair, messing up his bangs.

"Wanna take this one, Lo?"

"Certainly," Logan replied, his tone sounding matter-of-fact, though his expression showed he was a bit uncomfortable. "I wouldn't say that calling him a 'puppet' is entirely accurate. Janus has… some degree of free will, but… not quite as much as you currently believe."

For a moment, it felt as if time had stopped.

"What?"

"What Specs is saying is…," Roman clarified, looking away from his host. "Is that Deceit is… different from us."

"But what does that mean?"

"Well, Kiddo," Patton started. "You know how Janus pretends to be us sometimes?"

"Yes?"

"He's Deceit, so a big part of what he does is act in different roles," Patton continued. "It's... kind of like how you might have slightly different roles as a son or a performer or a friend. They're all different, but they're still you. In Janus's case, he's… Well, he's a bit more malleable."

"'Malleable'?"

Patton nodded.

"When you switch roles, there's still a core sense of something that's you," Patton told him. "You're a continuous person. And even though we're aspects of your personality, we're pretty continuous, too, unless something like the split of Creativity happens."

"Haha, yeah, that sucked."

"But Janus… Isn't like that. He fulfills whatever role he thinks you need him to be, and when you don't need him, he… just doesn't have one," Patton continued, voice becoming increasingly uncertain. "It's like… if you had a doll that could move on its own? You know how you can use the same doll for different things? One day, you might want to play house, so they're the dad, but the next day, you want to play doctor, so they're a patient. And they can act differently each time, and when you're done playing, whoever they were during the game disappears because the doll was only that person for the sake of the game. The difference is mostly that Janus will do things without you directly controlling him."

"Yes, that's about right, though I don't think referring to him as a doll is much better than a puppet," Logan intercepted. "Before his appearance for the show, Janus rarely left his room or acted outside of his job as Deceit. He's… not quite the same as a function because he has a form, but he's not the same as us other sides, either."

"And he has less of a personality than the shorts characters, so," Roman pointed out.

"He just… He acts how you want him to, Thomas," Patton picked up. "And we're not even entirely sure how much of… well, of a 'person' he is. He doesn't really interact with us… or, most of us, when we're in the mindscape, so it's hard to tell if he actually thinks on his own or not. Whenever he isn't doing his job, he mostly just sits there and doesn't talk, so…"

Thomas wasn't sure he could believe this, even though it was his sides telling him. Surely, they had to be wrong about this, right?

"But… If he acts the way I want him to, why was he being all villainous when he was introduced?" Thomas asked. "I mean, I didn't want him to do all that, and I definitely didn't tell him to."

"You did, though, Thomas," Virgil denied. "You needed a villain for the show, so he slipped into that role. Even if you didn't tell him to, or you didn't direct every little thing he did, your mind directed him to the role you wanted… Ugh, this… this is why I can't get along with him, you know? Sometimes I think there's a person behind the role, and then he just does something to show that none of it was real!"

Choosing to ignore Virgil's mumbling at the end for the time being, Thomas continued his questioning.

"So, I made him act like that?"

"Yup!" Remus confirmed. "And then, when you wanted him to act like a fluffy little marshmallow bunny, that's what he did! No more villainy, which is kinda boring."

"But that's…," Thomas stumbled. "He… He talks to us, spends time with us. How… How can all of it be fake? I don't think I can believe that, guys. Sure, he acts kinda weird sometimes, but…"

Patton sighed.

"I know it's hard to think of him that way, Kiddo," he spoke softly. "And maybe he does have something underneath the roles, and he's just lost. But for as long as we've known him, he hasn't ever really done anything without some kind of direction from you."

"...Oh."

"Really, the bigger issue at hand is why he didn't appear to your summons," Logan pointed out. "He shouldn't really be able to do that. It's hard enough for one of us to resist it, and he's practically certain to respond if you want him to. Something might be wrong."

"Wrong?" Thomas questioned. "Like, beyond the stuff I noticed."

"Yes. Though I don't know what."

"Maybe we should go check on him?" Patton suggested. "He does sleep, so maybe he just hadn't noticed. And if something's up, we'll figure it out."

"Sleepover!"

"No, Remus."

"Okay, so, I guess we're going to Deceit's room, then?" Thomas asked for confirmation. "I just need to think about lies, right?"

"That should suffice, yes."

And so, Thomas closed his eyes and prepared to enter the mindscape.

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