XXX Chapter 7: The Bridge

Well, again, I meant to update sooner, but I had a lot of family all visiting at once, and along with some mental health stuff I got overwhelmed and low-key shut down a bit for a few days (the final straw was going to Walmart in December lol, should have known better). But, well, here's the next chapter.

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"… So, that's the situation," Logan finished. "We were hoping Deceit would have woken up by now, but… he hasn't."

In the end, they had to tell Thomas. They'd waited a few days, but Deceit's wounds appeared to only be healing at a natural rate, and he didn't show any signs of waking up. Once or twice, he'd made the tiniest of movements, and Logan was almost certain he made a grunt once, but there wasn't anything to show that he was awake. None of it was intentional, and there wasn't much to begin with. Even still, they'd continued to stall until a week had passed since they found him. But still, nothing.

And so, not knowing how long it would take for Deceit to wake up, they'd decided it was time to talk to Thomas about what had happened. Remus had elected to stay in the Mindscape to keep an eye on Deceit, but Logan suspected that he also didn't want to hear all of what happened over again. He'd been distraught all week, not that anyone could blame him, and every time they brought up the fact that Deceit wasn't really getting better, Remus looked like he was either going to break something or burst into tears.

As Logan finished speaking, Thomas let his face fall into his hands, letting out a long, long breath.

"Oh my God, just…," Thomas stumbled. "Jesus Christ, I, I don't even know what to say… I mean, I barely even know him, but, that's… that's awful."

"It's okay, Thomas," Patton reassured him. "It's… it's a lot."

"Is… Is Deceit going to be okay?"

"… We really hope so, Kiddo…"

"We aren't certain about what will happen Thomas," Logan spoke truthfully. "Normally, he would have healed days ago, but he hasn't, and we are not sure of the cause. Our best hypothesis is that… he isn't healing because he didn't… want to."

Thomas looked up, but covered his mouth with one hand.

"He… He isn't going to die, is he…?"

"As of right now, it seems that he is healing at a rate that a real human would, and considering the extent of his injuries, we expect it will likely take a long time for him to heal," Logan continued. "But he doesn't seem to be in danger of dying, now that we're treating him. And if he does… Well, luckily we don't die permanently."

"You don't?"

"No."

"If we die, it takes us a few days to weeks to regenerate, depending on how we die," Virgil explained. "And during that time, our functions are inhibited, so even the stuff we don't have to do consciously… doesn't really work. It's like ducking out but worse, especially since we can't decide to come back. It takes however long it takes. But we do come back eventually."

"Well, that's a relief, I guess…," Thomas sighed before his eyes grew wide. "Wait, have you guys died before?!"

"No, no, Thomas, it's okay!" Patton reassured, putting his hands up. "That's just information we've known since we formed. We kind of have… an instruction manual, I guess…? There's just certain things we knew from the start, like our names and functions."

"… Actually, Remus has died a few times," Virgil corrected. "But you aren't affected too much by it since you have two different Creativities, and his ideas are the ones you rely on less. But…"

Virgil paused.

"If Deceit dies, it'll be pretty bad," he admitted. "Deceit… doesn't just control lies. He's also a big part of your self-preservation and a smaller part of your self-worth. And he hides things from you when you aren't ready to know them yet. Normally, he doesn't have a lot of explicit influence over you, but he does try to nudge you in certain directions. He… well, he hasn't really been doing that so much in the past year, but him still being present meant that most of his functions would just kinda happen, whether he did anything or not. That's still how it is right now. But, if he dies, the only things that will be working are the absolute minimum of what it'll take to keep you alive."

He sighed.

"… I guess I forget about those parts of him…," Virgil muttered, so quiet that Logan could only barely hear him.

Then, the anxious side shook himself.

"If… If Deceit does die…," he spoke hesitantly. "If he does, the rest of us will try to take over whichever of his jobs are most important. I would take over the rest of self-preservation, Roman would handle his parts of self-worth, and Patton can comfort you even if he can't hide things away from you. We can do enough to keep you functioning, but there's a reason why Deceit is his own side. We won't be able to do everything, and it will suck. So, honestly, we're really just hoping he gets better. Right now, his functions are mostly running on autopilot, so his influence is lessened but still present if you really need it. But it won't be if he dies."

Thomas stared at them for a long time, absorbing the information, before he nodded very slowly.

"Okay… Okay."

He turned his head toward Roman.

"You and Remus found him, right?"

Roman nodded, though he wasn't looking directly at Thomas.

"He was in my side of the Imagination, and it would have taken Remus a lot longer to search there by himself," he said.

"Thank you."

The corner of Roman's mouth tensed.

"Don't thank me, Thomas," he requested sadly. "I… I didn't even want to look for him. I thought Remus was overreacting to be annoying and that Deceit was just plotting something… I… I almost didn't look for him."

"Roman…"

The princely side shook his head, and without another word, he sank out.

XXX

He sat in a chair beside the bed, head leaning on one hand and watching Janus closely for any sign that he might wake up soon. There was nothing, just as there had been nothing, but he was going to wake up eventually, right? So, he was going to look like he was waking up eventually, and Remus wanted to be there when he did.

He knew what the others were doing. After all, they told him, and they asked if he wanted to go with them. And normally, Remus would have jumped at the chance to actually be invited to a conversation with Thomas instead of just showing up, but not with this. They were telling Thomas about what happened with Janus, and Remus just couldn't handle that right now, and not just because he didn't want to hear it all over again. Well, it wasn't like he wanted to hear it all again. Usually, Remus revelled in violence and bloodshed, but… not when it was Janus. He cared about Janus, and that was different than fighting and killing monsters that were even less real than they were. Fighting monsters was fun. This… was not fun. Far from it, really.

Looking back now, it was so painfully obvious that something was wrong with Janus. And it wasn't like he hadn't known that, but he thought Janus was getting better. He thought he was going to be okay. But he wasn't, and what had Remus done? He just let Janus hide himself away and avoid every attempt he made to figure out what was going on, every attempt to help him.

And now, the Light sides were going to go tell Thomas, but as much as Remus felt like killing something every time they talked about it, that wasn't really the reason he didn't want to go. Really, he just couldn't stand the thought of what Thomas's reaction would be. He knew that, for the most part, Thomas was a pretty decent person, and considering how horrified he was at most of Remus's ideas, it was obvious that Thomas wasn't going to be happy about Janus getting hurt. But at the same time, he thought that Thomas might be relieved (even if he didn't realize it), and without Janus actively working, that relief would be obvious. And Remus just couldn't stand it if he saw Thomas looking relieved about any of this.

So, he stayed and watched Janus lay on the bed that Roman had made for him. He was still in Logan's room, but at a certain point, Logan couldn't keep having sleepovers with Patton. The logical side wasn't exactly a huge fan of all the nostalgia in the moral side's room (which Remus could sympathize with, he supposed).

After he'd been sitting there for a while, silently staring, he heard the door to the bedroom open. He'd expected Logan, seeing as it was his room, but instead, he found Virgil standing in the doorway, hands shoved into his pockets.

Virgil.

Part of him hated Virgil, he thought. He and Virgil had always had a strange relationship. Meaning that he scared the shit out of Virgil about 80% of the time, but before Virgil left them, they had also been close. They could trust each other to a certain extent- or at least, Virgil trusted that Remus wouldn't actually go too far, and Remus trusted Virgil not to abandon him like Roman had.

And look how that turned out.

"Anything happen?" Virgil asked, sounding tired.

It was such a simple question, and yet, it almost made his blood boil. After everything that had happened, how dare Virgil pretend he cared now, when Janus couldn't even see it? Virgil leaving had destroyed Janus, forever changing the side he had been. Before, Janus had still been snarky and selfish and sneaky at times, but he hadn't internalized the bitterness he always carried around now. Now, Janus held onto the pain and turned it into an anger that just ended up hurting everyone, including himself most of all.

It wasn't just the court fiasco that brought Janus to this point. No, he had been turned to sharp edges long before he locked himself in his room.

Even still, Remus didn't feel like starting an argument. He was just as tired as Virgil was, and he just didn't see the point. It wasn't fun when Janus wouldn't be there to roll his eyes and call them idiots, hiding a smile behind his gloved hand. It wouldn't be fun for Virgil to shoot him a weak glare and then ignore him.

It wasn't fun when things were like this.

"No," he answered simply.

Virgil sighed.

"Yeah, I figured…"

Remus thought that would be the end of it. He thought Virgil would turn around and leave, now that he had checked to make sure that Janus wasn't dead, at least. But he didn't.

Instead, he came further into the room, closing the door behind him and sitting in one of the other chairs that had been conjured up.

"… It's weird seeing him like this," Virgil admitted. "I keep expecting him to sit up and tell us it was all a joke."

"Probably because you convinced yourself that everything he does is some stupid plan to fuck with you and your little friends," Remus spat out.

At that, Virgil went quiet for a long moment, but he ended up responding eventually.

"… Maybe…," he huffed softly.

Virgil fiddled with his sleeves for a while, staring into his lap.

"I'm… I'm still kinda mad at him, but…," Virgil started. "This shouldn't have happened. He can be a dick sometimes, but he doesn't deserve this."

Remus just shrugged.

Then, he looked at Janus again. Suddenly, he was hit by the realization that Janus wasn't wearing his hat. It wasn't like he could wear it while he was lying down like this, but it was weird seeing him without it, even after he hasn't been wearing it all week (and even if him not wearing his hat was the least of their problems right then). Where was his hat, anyway? He didn't think Janus had been wearing it when they found him (which unfortunately made sense), but had they just left it there? Had he been wearing it when he fell? Did it fall with him? He couldn't really remember clearly enough, though he was pretty sure he hadn't grabbed it.

Janus loved that hat, and he should probably go get it.

He didn't know if he wanted to go back to that cliff, though.

"Why do you care?"

Virgil tensed, head whipping toward Remus with a shocked expression on his face.

"What?"

"I'm actually asking, Virgil," Remus sighed. "Look, I get it, you're trying to be a 'decent person' or whatever, and you feel sorry for him. But you're acting like it's more than just pity."

"Because maybe it is? Like, what the hell, dude?"

Remus glared at him.

"Well, then else is it, then?!" Remus questioned sharply. "You can't just hate him and then pretend not to because he's hurt."

"I-what?!"

"What are you going to do when he wakes up?" Remus demanded. "'Cuz I'm telling you right now, if you treat him like shit, I'll fucking kill you. But he's also going to know if you're just being nice to him because of this. So what are you going to do?"

"I-I don't know! It's complicated!"

"Is it?"

"Yes! You know it is!" Virgil exclaimed. "You're not being fair, Remus. It's not like I just decided to hate him for no reason!"

"You decided to leave! Do you even know how much that fucked him up?!" Remus shouted. "Do you think this started because of the fucking wedding?!"

Remus really hadn't been intending to start a fight with Virgil. He didn't really have the energy for it. But at the same time, his anger toward the other man had been stewing, and with the turn the conversation had taken (and his general lack of impulse control), he found himself unable to hold back.

"Oh, so you're saying it's my fault?!" Virgil asked incredulously, his Tempest Tongue kicking in. "What, was I just supposed to put up with his bullshit forever on the off-chance he got depressed years later? I didn't even fucking know about any of this! But what about you? You fucking knew, and this still happened!"

He let out a low growl, standing up from his chair.

"At least I tried! None of you fuckers even thought you should check on him!" Remus argued. "Would any of you have ever noticed anything if I didn't beg Roman to help?!"

"You could have said something just as easily as we could have checked!"

Virgil stood from his chair as well, not backing away as Remus drew closer.

"Oh, really?!" Remus spat. "'Cuz it seems to me that when I did tell you, none of you did want to help!"

"Because you fucking suck at communication! We didn't know, Remus!"

"Because you don't fucking listen!"

"FUCK YOU!"

And with that, Virgil spun around and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Remus aggressively fell back into his chair and let out a loud growl, holding his head in his hands.

He sat like that for a long time, and no one else came into the room, likely because they didn't want to provoke him farther (after all, who knew what Remus would do if you kept pushing him?). That just left him alone with Janus to calm down, and once he did, he felt even more tired than he had before. He pulled the chair closer to the bed and slumped over so he could rest his head on the mattress while he watched Janus.

Janus, who hadn't reacted to a single thing during the entire shouting match.

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