Quiet
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Please ignore the disgustingly racist review left on this story. I have reported it, but I don't know if it'll end up getting removed. I know that they are likely a troll, but it is still disgusting, and no one should be okay with what they have said. Fuck racists.
(EDIT: It seems that the review has been removed now, but I am going to leave this A/N here because seriously, fuck racists.)
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They didn't talk about it.
But Remus really thought they should.
To begin with, Remus wasn't one to keep his mouth shut about anything, but even if he was, he was pretty sure this would normally be something he should address. Because, yeah, Remus usually loved blood and gore and all sorts of terrible things, but really, nothing he did had a real impact, not even on himself. Since things like ripping his ears off were fun to him, it didn't hurt (which might be why he was able to find it fun in the first place, but whatever). And it didn't really cause any damage, either- he'd just have to pop them back on, and he was good to go.
The same didn't apply to the others, and it didn't apply to Janus.
The others, usually, felt pain when they were injured, unless they exerted a good bit of effort to turn that off temporarily. So if Roman got injured during a quest, or Patton nicked his finger in the kitchen, it would hurt at least a little. They did still benefit from healing quickly, though (being imaginary had its perks).
In Janus's case, the quick healing made it even easier for him to hide what he was doing, at least at first.
Janus was practically Remus's opposite. Where Remus was loud, Janus was quieter. Where Remus charged in, Janus snuck. Where Remus announced his every thought as loudly as he could, Janus kept his thoughts and feelings hidden away until something forced him to reveal them.
Often, that force was 'Remus kicked Janus's door down and let himself in without knocking and happened to catch Janus off-guard'. Sure, it probably wasn't the best way for him to find out about things, but really, he probably wouldn't even know Janus's name by now if he wasn't a bit pushy.
It was one of the times Remus broke in unannounced that he found out this particular secret.
He'd been mixing potions in their kitchen, and he was pretty sure he'd succeeded in making one that would force Logan to be bald for a week straight, and he'd gone to ask Janus if he wanted to help him prank the logical side. He'd bounded up to the door with a wide grin and a bottle in hand, kicking it open with ease despite the lock. And normally, Janus would start yelling at him as soon as he'd done this, but this time, the room was eerily silent.
He'd thought that, maybe, Janus wasn't in his room after all.
But then he'd lowered his foot and looked inside, and the grin froze on his face as shock flooded through him.
The thing was, it took a lot to shock Remus. When someone's idea of fun was creating unholy abominations and tearing them apart, a little bit of blood would hardly be anything to take notice of. And if that small bit of blood had been in any other context, that would have been the case. Remus's heart wouldn't have been speeding up, and he wouldn't have felt like the wind had been torn from his sails.
Except, this time, the blood was dripping down Janus's wrists, the crimson streams threatening to soak into the man's rolled sleeve.
Janus was sitting there on his bed, a look of horror on his face. For a long moment, he'd been just as frozen as Remus was, but then he scrambled to hide what Remus had already seen. He roughly pulled his sleeve back over the wounds and shoved the knife in his pocket. He also tried to wipe away the tears streaming down from his human eye, but he only ended up smearing blood on his cheek, the red being dragged down his face along with the new tears.
Remus had tried to comfort him, then. He came into the room, tried to hug him and tell him it was okay, and he'd tried to treat the wounds. And Janus didn't fight him, so Remus thought that, maybe, it would be okay. Maybe he'd just misunderstood something, and Janus was fine (well, he knew that wasn't really the case. But he could pretend long enough to help Janus without freaking out).
Janus ended up sobbing himself to sleep, and Remus spent the rest of the night sitting beside him, trying to figure out what he should do.
And then, the next day, there was nothing.
Janus just woke up and pretended like everything was fine, like Remus hadn't walked in on him tearing up his arm. He'd acted confused about Remus's presence in his bedroom, except Remus could tell that was bullshit. And so he brought up what happened, but Janus just continued to act like he didn't know what Remus was talking about. Then he'd left the room to start breakfast, and Remus followed and kept talking, and by the time the deceitful side had popped his bread into the toaster, he was flat-out ignoring Remus completely.
It took until he had eaten half a piece of toast before Janus snapped at him to shut up, saying that he didn't want to talk about it.
That had been weeks ago, and Janus still refused to even acknowledge it, let alone address it. Any of Remus's attempts to bring it up were shut down or ignored, and he couldn't force Janus to do anything. But he did know that Janus was continuing to do it, because Remus still caught him sometimes. And Janus always seemed to accept his help and comfort in those moments, but never after the fact.
Remus wasn't sure what to do.
Janus wouldn't really let him help, not beyond giving him a hug and some bandages, and he didn't seem to be willing to change his mind anytime soon. There were some brief moments where he considered telling the others in the hopes they might be able to do something, but he denied that idea almost immediately. Janus would never forgive him for something like that, and Remus couldn't exactly blame him (after all, Remus's own opinions on the Light Sides weren't exactly positive, either). He even considered talking to Thomas, but he wasn't sure he'd get very far with that, and again, betrayal. And he could try tying Janus up until he stopped, but he'd probably just sink out to get out of it like he usually did when Remus tied him up.
Which kind of left him at an impasse.
Janus could get hurt, and he was getting hurt. Over and over, Janus was inflicting pain on himself, and Remus didn't really understand why. It wasn't fun for him; it actually seemed to just make him upset, and Remus could tell he hadn't turned the pain off. It wasn't curiosity- he was just hurting himself.
But what was he supposed to do?
He didn't think there was anything else besides comforting Janus when he was allowed to, and maybe that really was all Janus wanted from him.
And, hearing the muffled sound of crying coming from down the hall, it seemed he was going to have to do just that.
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