XXX Chapter 25: The Breakdown

Howdy y'all (Feel free to skip the first paragraph of this note, I'm rambling; second paragraph is relevant to this fic).

So, I didn't want to leave y'all with the ending for the last chapter too long 'cuz it cuts off in the middle of the conversation. That being said, though, I am having a pretty rough time rn. There was a really bad fire near my house today, and there's still smoke and stuff everywhere, though thankfully it seems like no one was injured. But I have a lot of fire-related paranoia, so the smoke is driving me nuts. It also seems like my dog is going to have to be put down soon, I need to get blood work this week, and I have surgery next week (and I have severe medical phobias), amongst some other problems. So. Yeah. It feels like everything is kinda terrible right now.

That last part is really the only bit relevant to you guys because I don't really know when I'll be able to update again after surgery. I might post another chapter after this before surgery, but I kind of don't know how I'll be feeling after. I probably won't be able to do much for at least a week, but it could be longer. Which might mean that I'll be bored and decide to post more chapters, or it could mean that I won't be able to or won't want to post. I pretty much won't know until after the fact. The surgery is to fix an old injury, and I will most likely have a very hard time sitting up, so I anticipate that I'll mostly have to lie down for at least that first week, and posting is kinda hard if I can't sit at my computer. Point is, if I don't update for a while after this chapter, that's why. Figured I'd notify y'all in case I don't get around to posting another chapter before then.

So yeah, onto the chapter:

XXX

Deceit should feel happy.

Thomas was trying to reassure him, trying to tell him that he was wrong and keep him from spiraling any further down his path of self-deprecation that this conversation had become.

But he didn't feel happy.

He wasn't happy because he knew Thomas was lying.

"Don't lie to me Thomas. I'm Deceit, remember?"

"I'm not lying!" Thomas insisted. "I just- I don't know you that well. You've only shown up a few times, and…"

"Yes, and I acted like a villain," Deceit accepted. "I'm not faulting you for how you feel about me, Thomas. I just…"

He just wanted Thomas to understand.

Thomas sighed sadly, trying to get Deceit to meet his eyes.

"I know that things are complicated, Deceit," Thomas told him. "I don't know how I feel about a lot of things that happened. But I am worried about you, and so are the others."

Suddenly, a spike of anger resurrected itself from the pain in his chest.

"No."

Thomas blinked, surprise etching itself onto his features.

"Huh?"

"They aren't worried about me, Thomas. They're worried about you," Deceit explained. "They care about how what I do affects you. They care that my death put you through hell. They care that my issues make yours worse. But they do not care about what actually happens to me."

Thomas looked taken aback.

"I… don't think that's all it is, buddy."

He almost laughed.

"Really, Thomas?" Deceit asked in exasperation. "I'm sure you've noticed that the others aren't exactly fond of me."

"But that doesn't mean they don't care if you get hurt…"

"So?" Deceit questioned. "I'm not saying that the others are all terrible people, Thomas. I understand that they aren't happy I got hurt. But that still doesn't mean that they care about what happens to me."

Thomas shifted slightly closer, though he still made sure to maintain a fair distance away.

"I think they care a lot more than you think they do."

He still didn't understand. Deceit knew he wouldn't, but he had hoped.

Maybe he should have realized by now that hoping was pointless.

"Well, I think that you don't know yourself as well as you think you do," Deceit shot back, unable to stop himself. "You may not have known me directly, but the others have. We've known each other since we first formed, and that's been more than enough time for me to figure out how they feel about me."

Without noticing it, Deceit began to curl inward, hands gripping onto his arms and squeezing tightly.

"Patton's been scared of me since we were children, and now that we're older, he gets on a high horse about how he's such a 'nice' and good person! Logan has always acted like my presence didn't matter and treats me the same way he treats Remus- if you ignore us enough, we'll have to go away eventually!" Deceit yelled. "Even when I was in Roman's 'good graces', he still tried to pretend that he wasn't talking to me! Because how could the hero ever deign to talk to the villain, especially since he's the one who started calling me that! And don't even get me started on Virgil- he outright despises me!"

He took a gasping breath in, not having taken one since he'd started ranting.

"Out of all your sides, the only one who actually likes me is Remus, and guess what? He's the other side you don't like!" Deceit started again after he caught his breath. "So what do you think that says about how you view me and my functions?"

It was then that Deceit stopped, actually wanting to know what Thomas's answer was. Did he realize just how influential he was? He knew that they were all parts of him, of course, but had he thought about the implications of what that meant?

Thomas stared at him for a long moment, mouth opening and shutting again, and Deceit thought he was just going to tell him that he was wrong again.

Instead, he got nothing:

"I… I don't… know."

Thomas looked distraught.

Deceit could feel his heart sink.

Perhaps he shouldn't tell him, but he'd already said too much to turn back now, hadn't he?

"… It means you don't like me, Thomas," he whispered as the prickling tears began to build. "Even before we met, you had opinions on the things that make me up. Why do you think we're split up into different halves in your mind? We influence you, but you have much more of an influence on us. You think things like lying and selfishness are wrong, and those views transfer onto us. And the others don't like me on a personal level, so even though it's not as strong, that still… predisposes you to feel the same."

He breathed again, but this time, the air entered his lungs much more shakily.

"Hey, Deceit-"

"And that's not- That doesn't matter," he gasped. "Y-You don't have to like me, or want me around."

His lip wobbled.

"I get it," Deceit continued. "You'd be having a much easier time now if you never found out about me. I-I just- I need to be here, as a part of you, to keep you alive. I-I'm a tool for survival, but nobody wants me, and it's not like the others actually enjoy my presence."

And a broken tool was better than nothing- a dull knife still cut better than a spoon, and a loose hammer was still heavy enough to drive a nail into a board. And maybe a dull knife might slip and cut your hand, and maybe a loose hammer might fly from its handle right as you swing it, but you'd still be able to use them for a while longer before disaster struck. Because you wouldn't have been able to cut or nail anything if you let the risk dissuade you from using them at all.

"Deceit-"

It was then that the first tear fell.

"I know that. And I'm sorry."

More tears quickly joined the first, rolling down the side of his human cheek in a display that Janus would have never allowed anyone to see only a few years ago. Even now, he didn't want Thomas to see him like this, but he couldn't stop himself. Not anymore.

"I'm sorry that I can't just disappear," he continued apologizing. "And I'm sorry that I can't be replaced by a different side."

A gasp forced its way out from his lips. He was flat-out ugly-crying at this point, the tears escalating too quickly for anything to be done about it, but he was digging his nails into his arms too hard to cover his face.

"I'm sorry that I'm mean and cynical, and I'm sorry that I make you feel like a bad person. I'm sorry."

"DECEIT, just- can you hold on for-"

"I just don't know what to do!" he exclaimed, not wanting to hear Thomas lie again. "If I don't do my job, it hurts you, but when I do my job, I make things worse! You haven't been okay, Thomas, and I wanted to make things better, but all I did was fuck everything up more!"

His heartbeat stuttered in his chest.

"I-I should have just left you alone!"

He really should have. He never should have impersonated Patton that day. He should have just let the others figure out what to tell Joan and kept his nose out of it. He never should have let Thomas suspect that he existed. Maybe then, Thomas would have been able to live his life without the constant fear that he was secretly some evil, selfish, villain.

"You didn't 'fuck anything up,' Deceit," Thomas said softly, his voice closer. "This isn't- sometimes, you have to pull everything out of the closet to organize it, and that makes a bigger mess, but if you don't do it, the problem doesn't go away. I think… That's part of what happened, after the courtroom. For both of us."

Deceit let out a sob, barely even hearing what Thomas was saying as his heart continued to thump in his chest.

"I didn't want things to end up like this!" he shouted past the tightness in his throat. "I'm sorry!"

Breathing was getting harder now, a mixture of gasps and sobs breaking out from between his lips in a garbled mess. He wanted to melt into the couch and sink back into his room and lock the door behind him. He wanted to hide himself away, somehow convince Thomas that he was never there in the first place.

He wanted to disappear.

"I know. I know, Deceit, and it's okay. It's okay."

Suddenly, Deceit felt half-hesitant arms wrap around him, and he distantly recognized that the only other person in the room was Thomas.

Thomas was hugging him.

But he was too far-gone for that to be enough to snap him out of the state he had fallen into. And so, the words continued to fall from his lips.

"I-I don't want to hurt you! But I keep doing it anyway!"

He should have fought the hold, but he couldn't. As much as he should, he didn't want to. And he was selfish, so selfish, that he just couldn't help himself.

"Hey, hey, take a deep breath-"

"I'M SORRY! I'm sorry!"

The air was rattling in his lungs.

"I know, bud, but you need to breathe, okay? Can you try to follow my breathing?"

"I don't want to be like this! I-I-I can't- I can't do this anymore!"

He gasped again.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO DO!"

The arms released him for a moment, but he quickly found hands gripping at his shoulders instead.

"DECEIT."

"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry-"

He felt himself get lightly shaken, but it wasn't enough to snap him out of the state he'd gotten himself into. And soon after, the hands on his shoulders left as well.

He heard a sigh.

"Um, guys, I think I might need a little help here?"

XXX

Thomas hadn't thought this conversation was going to go this badly. He knew that the likelihood of that was high, but he thought Deceit would just end up leaving or yelling at him. According to the others, Deceit had been fighting with most of them ever since waking up, so Thomas had expected to be faced with sadness masked in anger, not sadness wrapped in self-loathing.

Really, the things Deceit was saying were scaring him. He kept insisting that his job was important, insinuating if not flat-out stating that he himself didn't matter. And then he kept apologizing and insisting he was terrible over and over, which all came to a head as Deceit began apologizing for existing.

And now, Deceit was sitting on his couch, sobbing and hyperventilating as he continued spitting out a jumbled string of apologies and squeezed the life out of his arms.

This wasn't good. He knew it wasn't. But his attempts to catch the man's attention, or even to shake him out of it, didn't work.

So, he called on the others for help, knowing he was way too out of his depth here. And in the brief time it took for them to rise up, he pried Deceit's hands away from his arms and pulled him back into a hug. He hadn't struggled against him earlier, so maybe it was helping, at least a little? He felt a small relief when he felt Deceit's hands grab the front of his shirt instead of going back to squeezing his arms again.

He felt a much greater relief as the others appeared in the room.

XXX

When the others felt the tug, they knew that Thomas's discussion with Deceit had gone south. But they hadn't really expected it to go well, so no one was exactly surprised when it happened. What was unexpected, however, was that, upon rising up in the real world, they found Janus in a state of such intense panic that Virgil was surprised he hadn't been summoned automatically (or that he hadn't sensed it).

Thomas was practically cradling Janus in his arms, and the man was gripping onto Thomas's shirt so tightly that it would have ripped if they were real. And Janus was panicking, badly. The man's face was mostly hidden in Thomas's chest, but part of his human eye was still visible, and Virgil didn't like what he saw. Dark eyeshadow that matched his own was streaking along with the tears gliding down his cheeks. His breath was fast, and he was sobbing, but even still, Janus was spewing out apologies for something- begging- but Virgil wasn't even sure what it was that he was apologizing for. He was pretty sure that the desperate apologies weren't specific to any one thing, though. It was almost mindless- just a desperate repetition, forcing its way out of his lips as if it was the only thing allowing him to breathe.

It was then that Virgil realized with a heavy weight falling over him that, maybe, Janus did feel some kind of remorse for some of what he'd done in the past. And now, that remorse was torturing him with a guilt that was further fueling his mental breakdown.

Remus shot forward and tried to comfort him, but it didn't seem to be working. Janus didn't seem to be hearing or seeing him. Instead, he was just descending deeper and deeper, and before long, he suddenly pushed himself away from Thomas and half-crawled off the couch and across the carpet so his back was against Thomas's dresser. Virgil flinched at the sudden movement, while the others seemed to be mentally debating about what they should do. He sounded like he was choking now, the words no longer able to pass his lips, and Virgil knew that Janus's panic attack had reached its peak.

What should they do? He wasn't going to listen to them, and he'd pushed Thomas away, so he probably wouldn't want them to touch him anymore. They were far past the point where things like mindfulness or pointing out items in the room would help. A heavy blanket might not be accepted any more than touching him would, and Virgil was pretty sure that if they gave him a sour candy, Janus would actually start choking.

"Dee…," Remus tried again, to no avail.

They were probably going to have to wait for him to start calming down on his own. Honestly, Virgil knew from experience that, once a panic attack got this bad, it was hard to do anything about it until it ran its course. The interventions he knew were more helpful before reaching this point, and it would probably start to abate soon- after all, these things usually didn't last that long- but that didn't mean he wanted to just stand there staring at him until it did.

Janus was digging his fingertips into his arms, and Virgil felt a sudden gratefulness for Deceit's tendency to wear gloves and long sleeves because, otherwise, the man would have broken skin by now. Even still, he guessed that there would be bruises there later.

He tried to sift through his mind to think of something that might help, something that they could do, and finally, he got an idea. Patton told him that playing music had helped when Janus was dissociating, so maybe it would help when he was panicking as well. He took his phone out of his pocket and opened his music app. Then, he clicked on his playlists and scrolled all the way to the bottom of the list, finding one he hadn't dared to open in a long time:

Deceit's playlist.

Back then, before Virgil had left the Dark Side, he'd made playlists for Janus and Remus, adding songs that they liked. He usually played them while they were hanging out, but they'd also come in handy for cheering them up when needed.

Maybe it could help here? Deceit's playlist was mostly filled with jazz, classical, and Broadway songs, and they might give him something to ground himself without him needing to focus too much.

"Hey, I'm gonna try playing some music, okay?" Virgil announced to the room.

He scrolled down the list quickly, selecting a soft classical song that Janus once described as 'relaxing'. The smooth sound of a violin emerged from his phone speaker, and everyone stared at Janus while they waited to see if it helped at all.

At first, it didn't seem to do anything. Janus was still panicking, and he didn't even seem to notice. Just as Virgil was going to try to think of something else, though, Janus's breathing began to slow the smallest bit, and one of his fingers started tapping to the tempo of the song.

Virgil let out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding. Janus was calming down, albeit slowly, and the music seemed to be helping.

And so, they waited while Janus slowly tapped and breathed.

Tap.

Breath.

Tap.

Breath.

Tap.

XXX

Yeah. So. Things are still going badly…

This isn't a great place to leave off, either, so I do want to post another chapter before my surgery, but I'm not gonna guarantee it, because I do have other stuff going on. Sorry.

XXX