Chapter Text
“So that’s it?”
The voice surprised Virgil. He had thought he was alone in the dark living room, all the others long since gone to sleep, but he whirled around to find Janus standing a few feet behind him. He blinked, trying and failing to make sense of what Janus had asked. “What?”
“I said, so that’s it?” Janus’s gaze narrowed. “You can stand across from me, in front of your friends, in front of Thomas, and you can just pretend that you don’t know me, that I mean nothing to you?”
Outrage flared in Virgil’s chest. “I don’t have to pretend,” he spat, watching Janus shrink back at his words. “You do mean nothing to me.”
Something pained crossed Janus’s face, almost too fast for him to catch. It was quickly replaced by anger and a sneer. “Well, I’m glad you found your precious light sides. What a picture-perfect little family you all make.”
He couldn’t understand what Janus wanted, what Janus was hoping to accomplish by being here and confronting him. Showing up in the video and stealing Patton’s face had been bad enough, but now he was attacking Virgil in his home.
He cast a hasty glance up towards the stairs, hoping one of the others would appear to come to his aid, yet desperately wanting them to stay away, far away, so they couldn’t be tainted by Janus and his lies and the hidden truth about Virgil’s past. Guilt tugged at his heart, knowing his friends deserved to know who he truly was and where he had come from, the things he had done, the people he had associated with… but he had finally earned his chance at a new start. He couldn’t risk jeopardizing that.
So he squared his shoulders and put on a brave face and demanded, “What do you want?”
Hatred bubbled in Janus’s eyes, poisoning his expression, twisting the knife in Virgil’s heart just a little more. “Oh Anxiety,” he purred, all broken promises and hollow words and empty smiles, “I’m here to congratulate you.”
Virgil said nothing, knowing anything he did say would only be adding fuel to the fire.
“I’m proud, you know. You stood up for yourself. You saw what you wanted and you took it, consequences be damned. Never mind who you wronged and used and walked all over to get there. Because you got your happy ending, and that’s all that matters, right?”
Virgil’s blood boiled at the accusation. “I didn’t do this for me. I did this for Thomas.”
Janus was in front of his face in half a second, jabbing a finger into his chest and snarling, “Don’t you dare lie to me! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten so much that you think you can lie to my face and get away with it!”
“This isn’t on me!” Virgil grabbed Janus’s wrist and pulled it down and away from him, holding him in place. If Janus wanted to play it like this, Virgil wasn’t afraid to fight just as dirty. He leaned closer, getting in Janus’s face. “You can’t manipulate me, not this time! I’m not your puppet anymore! I’m not the bad guy here!”
Janus flinched back, ripping his arm from Virgil’s hold. “Not the bad–” he repeated, aghast, before a saccharine smile spread across his face. “Of course.” He looked up at the ceiling, harsh laughter spilling past his lips. “How could I forget? I’m the villain in this story. I’m always the villain.” His expression turned sharp and eager. “You did such a good job, painting us in black and white, solidifying your place here, making me the monster. I must have taught you too well how to lie, because your idiotic companions eat up whatever nonsense you tell them.”
Something squeezed painfully inside Virgil’s chest, and he pressed his lips together, looking away.
“What did you tell them, I wonder?”
Janus started to walk around him, like a predator stalking prey, circling ever closer, waiting for the right moment to strike and take the kill. It made Virgil’s skin crawl, but he resisted the urge to hide in his hoodie, knowing Janus would relish any visible reaction.
“No, really, I’m curious – what was it? What tale did you spin? It must have been a good one, it had to be, for them to care about you as much as they do.” Janus gestured as he spoke and circled him, all the while watching with a calculating gaze, looking for any crack in Virgil’s carefully guarded expression, searching for any weakness to exploit. He started probing:
“Did you tell them you were forced to do the things you did?”
“Did you tell them I pulled your strings, that I made you my puppet?”
“Did you tell them it was awful, living with the dark sides? That we hurt you, that we controlled you?”
“Did you let them think that they were heroes, that they rescued you from the big bad Deceit?”
Virgil couldn’t help but flinch. Janus’s constant questions were making his guilt worsen and grow, because he hadn’t told the light sides anything.
Janus froze in his pacing for a moment, a wide sinister grin pulling at his lips as he misread Virgil’s flinch for acknowledgement that he had guessed correctly. He held his gaze for a long moment before looking away, oozing malicious smugness as he disappeared from Virgil’s sight, continuing in his circle around him.
“They would just love that, wouldn’t they, getting to perpetuate their self-aggrandizing narrative. Oh, I can practically see their faces now, the way they reassure each other of their righteousness and virtue, taking the poor, injured, baby Anxiety under their wings. Thank god, they rescued you from the influences of evil.”
Virgil waited, tense and apprehensive, for Janus to walk around from behind him and continue his vindictive monologue. But Janus didn’t show. He weighed his options and eventually gave in and turned around to see Janus staring at him in mock-contemplation, one hand on his other elbow, the other hand at his chin.
“I’m not surprised you didn’t tell them the truth.”
He grit his teeth and purposely did not ask, what truth?, knowing all too well that Janus was going to tell him anyway.
“After all,” Janus’s sharp smile dropped from his face in one fluid motion, making room for something darker and layered, “How could you tell them that you were one of us? How could you tell them that you used to be involved in all our schemes?” Gloved hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. “What would they say, if they knew exactly just how friendly you were with me? With us both?"
Virgil’s eyes widened at the last word, knowing exactly where Janus was steering the conversation, but he found himself unable to say anything at all to stop it.
“Lest you forget, it’s not only my past that yours is intertwined with. I wonder, in the eyes of your idiotically pious friends, which crime is worse: fraternizing with the snake or the Duke?”
“Stop,” Virgil choked out. He was surprised when Janus fell silent, watching him, waiting. “Don’t bring him into this.”
After a moment, revulsion flashed across Janus’s face. “You can’t even say his name,” he realized aloud, and the clear disdain in his voice made shame constrict around Virgil’s lungs.
The unspoken name hovered in the air between them: Remus.
Janus tilted his head, working his jaw before finally asking, “Can you bring yourself to say mine?”
Virgil’s silence damned him.
Stumbling back a step, Janus opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked away from Virgil as if he couldn’t stand to see him a second longer. His expression was cold, eyes tracing the floor in front of him, but Virgil knew calculations he could never hope to understand were racing through Janus’s mind.
“What would they say?” Janus asked, barely above a whisper, something determined in the slant of his mouth as he looked back up and pinned Virgil in place with a look. “What would they say if they knew?”
“Don’t –”
Janus ignored him and continued speaking, and Virgil couldn’t do anything but fall quiet and listen. “You and Remus were inseparable. What would Roman say? Would he be jealous? Angry? Disgusted?”
The eye shadow under Virgil’s eyes darkened and the shadows in the dim room inched ever closer to the two of them, but neither paid any attention.
“What would they say, if they knew the things you did with Remus in the Imagination? If they knew the things the two of you discussed? If they knew about the things that you helped him create?”
“And what about you? You think you were innocent?” The second the words left his mouth, Virgil knew they had been a mistake, but it was too late to take them back.
“And what about me,” Janus repeated the words slowly, in a sick gleeful lilt. “Where should I start? What would I tell them first? How well we worked together? How you helped me with my disguises? How you taught me that we should stand up to the others? Should I tell them that? Is that what you want?”
Virgil shook his head, trying to block out Janus’s voice, wishing the floor would swallow him whole.
“They always assumed I was the ringleader of our little circus, the mastermind behind every mishap. But you and I both know that wasn’t true, don’t we?”
“Don’t –”
“Should I tell them that I was the first person you told your name? That I was the one who taught you that your role is important? That I was the one you trusted, confided in, shared your fears and thoughts and hopes and –”
“Stop! You–”
“That I was the one you always ran to, when you had nightmares and panic attacks and breakdowns, in the middle of the night, when you were crying and broken and –”
“ENOUGH!”
Janus fell silent, sucking in a sharp breath, watching Virgil with wide eyes.
Chest heaving, Virgil counted endlessly in his head, trying and failing to hold himself together at the seams. He closed his eyes, uncaring about Janus anymore, knowing there wasn’t much more that could be done to him. A million emotions raced through his heart, each one more acerbic and crushing than the previous. Tears built behind his eyes and in the back of his throat, but he carefully held them back, not daring to do anything but take purposefully measured breaths until he felt like his legs were steady underneath him again.
When he opened his eyes, Janus was waiting, an unspoken question written across his face, and for one single dangerously innocent moment, Virgil started to reassure him, I’m okay, before remembering that things had been irreparably changed from the time when Janus would have asked, are you alright?
Janus looked away, pain coloring his expression, sorrow sitting heavy on his shoulders. His voice lost its angry edge, quieter in volume, turning bitter and accusing. “I’m sorry you found your old life so difficult. You’ll have to excuse my flaws – I’m only a dark side after all. Can you really expect more from me?”
Virgil’s fingers wound their way into his hair without him noticing, pulling until he winced. “Stop manipulating me! You made your choices! I grew and changed, and you could have too!” The question he didn’t dare ask burned in the back of his throat: why didn’t you? He forced himself to hold Janus’s gaze, forced himself to be firm and unafraid and unbothered. “I won’t stand here and let you play with my feelings.”
Janus froze. “Your feelings?” He ducked his head, looking down at the floor, and it took Virgil a moment to place the strange noise he heard coming from him. It was laughter – the deranged, unhinged kind of laughter that only came from Remus. Janus’s shoulders shook, all the tense anger gone from his body now, replaced by apathetic easiness. “Your feelings? And what about mine?” His eyes glinted, his one golden eye seeming to glow in the dark room. “I can’t bring up my feelings or suddenly I’m manipulating you? Is that how this works? Is that fair?”
“I –” Virgil didn’t know what to say to that. His heart skipped a beat, a voice whispering doubts in the back of his head, asking if Janus was right, if he was the bad guy here.
“All this time, I never knew why you left. Was it me? Remus? Did you really hate us that much? Did you hate us all along? Did we never notice?”
The words were crystalline, fragile, and they didn’t seem rehearsed, as the rest of Janus’s big speech had felt. In fact, Virgil wasn’t sure if these words were even meant for him at all.
“Was it all a lie? Were you ever happy with us?”
It was an accusation, but it wasn’t, and it felt more like Janus was pleading with him. Virgil was terrified to realize that Janus was crying.
“Did you ever regret leaving? Did you ever have any doubts?”
Sorrow-filled desperation clouded Janus’s voice as he searched Virgil’s face, looking for what, Virgil couldn’t say. Janus had taken a step closer to him at some point, looking for all the world like he wanted to reach out, grasping at any kind of explanation, any shred of affection that Virgil might offer him.
“Do you – could you –” Janus cut himself off, pressing a hand over his mouth, smothering a sob. Then he took a deep breath and held it for a long time. Slowly, oh so slowly, he lowered the hand that was in front of his mouth. The tension eased bit by bit from his frame, and then he stood up straighter and squared his shoulders. The tears on his face were wiped away. His cape was smoothed out along his shoulders and down his front. He touched the clasp between his collarbones. He sniffled. “Ah.” A tiny smiled appeared, gone before it was ever really there, full of polite sadness. “I won’t manipulate you any longer.”
Janus reached out, like he was going to strike him, like he was going to put a gentle hand to Virgil’s cheek, and Virgil didn’t know which would have been worse. Needless to say, he nearly tripped over his feet as he flinched away. Janus winced and stepped back, keeping his hands firmly at his sides. The regret was so painfully obvious, Virgil could almost taste it in the air.
Virgil’s vision blurred, and with a startled noise and a hand to his own cheek, he realized he was crying now too. (Something shattered inside him as he belatedly understood that Janus was reaching to wipe the tears from his cheek.)
A noise left Janus’s mouth, as if he started to say something and changed his mind as he was saying it. He looked away, his gloved hands disappearing behind his back.
Over the static of emotion roaring in his ears, in his mind, in his heart, Virgil could barely string together a coherent thought. “I…”
“It’s fine.” Janus stepped backward, and when Virgil took a step towards him, Janus took two more away. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Fear seized him when he realized Janus was going to leave. He tensed, ready to lunge and grab him, but Janus shook his head and took another step backward.
“You got what you always wanted.” Janus’s voice was soft and tired and melancholic, hoarse from crying, tears still shimmering in his eyes. He offered Virgil a broken smile. “Good for you.”