XXX Chapter 17: The Interlude

In the end, Janus's nap was less of a nap and more like passing out. The other man didn't even bother changing his clothes; instead, he just got under the covers and fell asleep almost immediately. And then he just… kept sleeping.

Remus stayed to watch him, and for the first hour or so (?), watching him helped to settle his own anxiety. Seeing Janus let his mind be convinced that he was really there, that he was really back and okay (or, as okay as he could be). But even after that, Janus kept sleeping, and the longer he slept, the more worried Remus got.

What if Janus wasn't just asleep? What if he was unconscious again, and he wasn't going to wake up, and they had to go through everything a second time? What if Janus never woke up and never came back? What if Janus was still hurt, and his internal organs were bleeding and his abdomen was being filled with blood, and kept filling until he popped, or he got an infection and died from septic shock or something, or what if Janus was lying and he took something before Remus got here, or what if the Mindscape decided that Janus didn't have to be there anymore because Janus didn't want to be, and he faded away and never came back.

Resisting the urge to wake him up was getting harder and harder with every minute that passed. He wanted to make sure that Janus was okay, that he could wake up, but at the same time, he knew he shouldn't wake him up. Janus was tired, and Remus couldn't blame him.

Despite that, though, and despite his attempts to ignore his increasingly gruesome thoughts, Remus was about half a second from shaking the other man awake anyway. However, Janus apparently made that choice for him, as he suddenly shot up with a gasp. He was clenching a hand to his chest and breathing hard, his eyes darting back and forth but not appearing to actually take anything in, and Remus could see that he was trembling slightly.

Nightmare.

"Hey, Jan, it's okay," Remus reassured him. "You were just having a nightmare, okay?"

Janus blinked a few times, and then his eyes shifted to look at him. Remus watched him as he forced his breathing to steady, putting up a facade of being fine, even though Remus could still see the way his hands shook.

"Right," Janus exhaled, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. "What time is it?"

Remus actually didn't know, but a quick glance at the clock gave him the answer.

"8:17."

"AM or PM?"

"Uuuuuh…"

Janus sighed.

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter."

"Do you wanna go back to sleep?"

Janus shook his head, standing up to make it clear that his answer was final.

"No, I've slept long enough," he huffed. "I think I should go make some coffee. I never really did get to drink much of what I made earlier."

"Well, okay…"

With that, Janus went to leave the room, and Remus followed behind. He hoped that the others had enough common sense to have left by now, since he wasn't sure how Janus would react to seeing them still there in the living room- not that Janus could avoid them forever, but he did still need some more time.

As soon as they entered the kitchen, Janus got to work on making the coffee, his hands moving on practiced autopilot. Remus watched him, and as Janus passed by their knife block, a sharp spike of fear drilled itself into Remus's lungs, even though Janus didn't even look at them. They'd removed all the knives and sharp objects from Janus's room already, but they hadn't removed every possible sharp thing from the entire Dark Side (and Remus had, in fact, been using the knives himself, even if not always for cooking), let alone the Mindscape. And part of that was because, since Janus could more-or-less conjure up a knife whenever he wanted, it would have been practically pointless, but still. He didn't like how close Janus was to the knives, especially considering their conversation earlier. Just because Janus hadn't killed himself on purpose didn't mean he hadn't thought about it, and it didn't mean he wasn't going to hurt himself.

But he also knew that he couldn't keep Janus from ever hurting himself. If he wanted to do it, he was going to find a way to. All they could do was try to minimize the damage and try to help him feel better so he didn't want to hurt himself anymore.

But Remus barely even knew where to start.

(Maybe he'd hide those knives after all.)

XXX

He was stupid.

He was so damn stupid.

He'd told Remus far too much, told him things he'd sworn to himself that he'd never tell anyone, and even if he trusted Remus more than the others, that still didn't mean he should have told him any of that. At the very least, he'd pretty much failed at lessening the amount of worry Remus felt for him, and he didn't even know what the worst possible outcome of admitting all of that would be. His only saving grace was that the others hadn't been there to hear all of it, but even then, they were likely still convinced that the narrative they created was the truth.

The coffee began to brew, and he watched the dark liquid start to drip into the pot below.

What was wrong with him? Once he'd started talking, he just kept talking and asking questions and answering questions, and none of this was fair to Remus. Remus hadn't caused any of this, hadn't even really contributed to it. And yet, Remus had been forced to deal with it- forced to deal with him. He was just ten kinds of fucked up, and the others knew that even before all of this started. No wonder they all hated him.

After all, he hated himself too.

XXX

Roman spun the hat around on his finger as he laid back in his blankets, sinking into the soft mattress. He'd developed the habit sometime after they'd found Deceit, after he'd remembered that he'd taken the man's hat back with them to the Mind Palace. The bowler hat was simple, just black on black without anything to really differentiate it from any other hat of the same style, and yet, the item was so distinctly Deceit that its lack of individuality didn't really matter. Granted, he thought of Deceit just about every time he saw any kind of bowler hat.

Deceit hadn't been wearing a bowler hat during their conversation earlier. Perhaps this was the only one he had (or perhaps he just hadn't been able to conjure up a new one).

That conversation…, Well, it certainly could have gone better.

He really hadn't meant to argue with Deceit. He hadn't. But Deceit was just so easy to argue with. In the man's long absence, Roman had forgotten just how antagonistic the man was capable of being. He'd forgotten how easily Deceit could wriggle his way under one's skin, either to butter them up or to tear them down, to soothe aching wounds with bandaid lies or prod at pin pricks until they turned into gaping holes in the flesh.

Roman shook his head. His thoughts were becoming a little too much like Remus's for his taste.

As he redirected his thoughts back to the conversation, though, he could see that, perhaps, Deceit really wasn't being all that antagonistic this time, even if he was fully capable of being so. Deceit hadn't really insulted anyone or anything. Really, Roman had just been set off by Deceit's denial about what he'd done. They'd found him at the bottom of a cliff he shouldn't have even been at, with self-inflicted wounds and scars that evidenced that Deceit was not okay. They'd all seen some angle of the horrifying situation, and they all knew that the situation was serious and real. Deceit couldn't just deny it and brush it off, because a situation like this just became more dangerous if people pretended it wasn't real.

Was it possible that Deceit wasn't denying it as much as being in denial? Maybe Deceit was trying to convince himself that he hadn't tried to kill himself because it was scary. Maybe he regretted it, and the thought of what would have happened if they didn't essentially have a reset button was too much to contend with at the time. Maybe he'd felt a sense of losing control as his mental illness convinced him to do something that went against one of his core functions, and labeling it an accident gave him the ability to take 'precautions' to get that control back.

But Roman wasn't so sure that Deceit had just convinced himself it had been an accident. He thought it far more likely that the man just didn't want to tell them the truth of what happened. Maybe he didn't want help, or maybe his pride was in the way, or maybe he just wanted to lash out at them (or maybe he didn't trust them).

He knew that Deceit did better with lies than the truth. That didn't shock anyone. And sure, Roman had gotten angry with Deceit for a good number of his lies over the years, but this was different. Deceit couldn't lie his way out of mental illness. He couldn't sweep it under the rug or force it to hide in the shadows. He had to confront it, but even with as antagonistic as Deceit could be, he wasn't confrontational. He'd avoid and avoid until he believed stopping suited his interests. Except Roman was pretty sure Deceit's sense of his own interests was skewed at the moment, even if he wasn't entirely sure how.

But what was he supposed to do? Remus was right- Deceit had no idea how worried they'd been about him, and even if they told him, he would probably be rather hesitant to believe them. Other than Remus, none of them really had a good relationship with Deceit before this all started. He and Deceit had partially gotten along for a little while, but that all ended with that mess of a courtroom. Would things have gotten so bad if Roman had ruled differently that day? He didn't want Thomas to be a selfish person, but would choosing the selfish option that one time, siding with the villain that one time, have saved Deceit and the others from all of this?

He didn't know, and he hated it. He hated not knowing how to do what was right, not knowing what was right, and he hated that he hadn't been able to stop all of this. He was supposed to be a hero. It was his responsibility to save people, no matter what he thought about them or how noble (or not) they themselves were, and he'd failed. He'd failed Thomas, he'd failed his friends, and now, he'd failed Deceit and his brother as well.

How many times could a hero fail before they weren't a hero anymore?

The constant failures ate at him, and he just knew that he couldn't fail again, not with this.

He sighed and looked at the hat again. Deceit would want it back, most likely. And he did intend to return it. Maybe the return of the hat could serve as a sort of peace offering, a way to let Deceit know that they really had watched over him all those months.

But maybe the attempt would just blow up in his face.

XXX