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janus has never liked to be alone.
it’s to be expected, he supposes, with him being the center of thomas’s self-preservation. to be alone is to suffer, in both thomas’s case and his own.
what isn’t to be expected, however, is how easily janus falls in love. he thinks it might be a defense mechanism, a way to keep himself from being abandoned, by latching on.
what isn’t to be expected... is who he falls in love with.
he’s not sure when it happens. maybe when he imitated patton? after all, that was when he felt it. not the warmth, not the comfort, not any of that. he’d felt that for a long time.
no, what he felt now was the beginnings of thorns in his lungs.
well. imaginary thorns. in imaginary lungs.
for an imaginary prince.
it’s much to janus’s despair, realizing how deep he’s fallen for roman. after all, the light side doesn’t even care about his existence, beyond a general hatred for everything he is and stands for. as far as roman is concerned, he will always be deceit.
right?
and it’s that, that accursed questioning, that flickering hope, that fuels janus’s love, that feeds the thorns latching onto his lungs like he wishes he could to roman.
it’s only a defense mechanism, he reminds himself.
a defense mechanism that may very well kill him.
he tries. he tries so hard, in his own backhanded, back alley way, to get roman to see, to hear what he’s doing to janus. he places roman on a literal pedestal, to match the one the snake has already formed for him. gives him all the power, power he already holds in much the same way he holds janus’s heart. trusts him to do the right thing, for him, for him, for all of them, and prove that maybe janus is more than deceit, maybe there doesn’t need to be a divide, maybe-
maybe these thorns won’t kill him.
none of that happens, and janus feels petals rise up like blood-soaked silk in the back of his throat.
he tries again, later, one last time. after the wedding, roman’s sacrifice. after the metaphors, thomas’s crashing plane. after... after roman berates and questions and distrusts him.
“my name is janus.”
when roman laughs, it’s not just unshed tears that rise in janus’s throat. he swallows down roses, swallows down anger, swallows down hope.
and spits out his most vicious vitriol.
it’s like a slap to the face, for both him and roman. he sees the hurt, and he knows. he knows, he knows, this is wrong.
roman opens his mouth, maybe to retort, maybe to cry.
a sunflower petal falls.
he is self-preservation. he is more than deceit.
oh god, what has he done?