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Well, sharing ideas with Thomas was a terrible thing to do. It lead to things like this.
They had planned to go talk to Joan that Saturday in order to figure out the details of the summer workshops they were pretty sure they were doing. And Roman had been so sure he’d set an alarm. 100% sure!
Okay, 80% sure.
…60%.
They overslept.
Logan gave him one of the glares that didn’t usually affect him so much when he realized Thomas had woken up past 10 AM. They’d been supposed to meet Joan at 8:00. Joan had already texted Thomas several times asking where he was, and eventually they said it had been too long and they’d have to reschedule.
Thomas was now freaking out enough that Roman half expected Virgil to show up, pacing back and forth in the middle of the living room and spouting things out every now and then to Roman and Remus, who were the first sides he’d called when he realized how late it was.
Remus wasn’t in much of a better state, trying to figure out it Joan hated Thomas now or if the chances of Thomas doing these workshops were totally gone, and usually ending up answering something along the lines of “yes, absolutely, everything is ruined because we forgot about the stupid alarm.”
Roman tried to stay a little calmer and come up with some way they could improve the situation, because getting worked up like them was definitely not going to help.
However, he couldn’t really seem to get a word in edgewise over both of their panicking, and eventually Patton and then Logan showed up, probably when neither him nor Remus showed up for breakfast.
Roman filled them in on what was happening as Thomas and Remus continued to panic in the background, which was when Logan gave him the glare and reminded him that he had been in charge of the alarm.
Roman chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, mumbling an apology.
“Well, that’s a start,” Logan said with a sigh.
“Logan,” Patton said, putting a hand on his arm. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. I’m sure Roman is much more bothered by this than you are in the first place, he and Remus were really excited about this.”
Roman sighed. “I just wish we had a valid reason for missing this. It’s not like we can just tell Joan we overslept.”
“Maybe they would accept that?” Patton asked hesitantly. “Besides, it’s not like we could lie.”
Roman held back a wince.
“Wait,” Remus said suddenly, cutting Patton off before he continued. “Why not?”
Patton’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Yeah, what if we just lied?” Remus asked. “We could say that a family member ended up in the hospital! Joan would totally be okay with him missing this because of something like that!”
Roman was about to try and come up with a desperate list of reasons as to why lying was a horrible idea. It wasn’t, not really, but he didn’t want to have a conversation with Thomas about lying when it might end up bringing around … an expert on the subject. He looked over at Patton, surprised the moral side hadn’t immediately objected to the idea. He found Patton looking thoughtful and hesitant.
“Patton?” he called. Patton jumped a little. “Do you maybe have something to say? You are Thomas’ morality.”
Patton bit his lip. “Well,” he said slowly. “I can think of some philosophers that might have some different views on honesty. Immanuel Kant was one who believed that you should never lie, no matter what.”
“Ah,” Roman said, nodding in relief. “So lying isn’t a good idea then. Maybe we could—”
“Well—” Patton started, then stopped. Roman looked back over at him. “Someone did once pose a dilemma to him, essentially what if a known murderer came to your house asking where your friend was so they could kill them? Would you tell the truth then?”
“What? No!” Thomas exclaimed.
“See, look!” Remus called, loud enough to draw everyone’s attention to him. “Lying isn’t always a bad idea! And if it would be okay in that case, it could be okay in other cases too! Let’s just tell Joan that an emergency came up! Like a relative ended up in the hospital, they’d be willing to reschedule for something like that!”
“Well, how do you know that Joan wouldn’t still be willing to reschedule if Thomas just told them the truth?” Roman said quickly. “Their texts didn’t seem very angry.”
“Well, it is fairly difficult to interpret tone through texts,” Logan said.
“And we did miss something pretty important to them,” Patton muttered, seemingly to himself. “It’s not always possible to predict exactly how someone will react to things.”
“Sure it is!” Remus called, drawing everyone’s attention back to him again. “I have an idea!” He snapped his fingers and the living room around them vanished.
When Roman opened his eyes again, they were standing in their classroom in front of a table of various chemicals.
“Okay! Logan, Logan, come here!” Remus called, grabbing the logical side by his arm and dragging him over to stand in front of the table. “These chemicals are going to represent various lies we could tell to Joan, and the base will represent Joan’s reaction to them! So this way we could try and tell what would happen! And Logan, since you’re the most objective side here, you get to pick the chemicals that cause the reactions!”
“Remus, did you… make this just now?” Roman asked, looking around.
“Yeah!” Remus called, jumping up in excitement. “I’m getting better at it, don’t you think?”
“Yeah… you are,” Roman said, now trying to figure his way out of an entirely different dilemma. He didn’t want to start talking about lying to Joan as if it was already decided. But Remus looked incredibly happy with what he’d managed to accomplish, and Roman couldn’t object to using it in the first place. Helping Remus was still a huge part of his job, after all.
He’d just… have to be on guard. He could do this.
“Well, I think that sounds like a great idea, kiddo!” Patton called with a smile.
Roman shot him a look. “What? It does? I would have thought you would have more objections to this, padre.”
“I… well,” Patton said hesitantly. “If Joan really will be hurt more by the truth than a lie, maybe it’s worth exploring? I mean, we don’t want Thomas to hurt his new friend.”
“I suppose,” Roman muttered, giving Patton a suspicious look.
“I mean, I’m willing to give it a shot I guess,” Thomas said, though he still looked a little uncomfortable. “So Logan, are you going to—”
“Yep!” Remus called, cutting off any remark Logan might have made. “And I’ll be his assistant! Roman, you can provide suggestions for different lies we tell them, Thomas, you observe the reactions as the one doing the lying, and Patton, you can tell us how the lie squares up morally or whatever. Okay, let’s do this!” Remus pulled the first set of chemicals forward, and Logan started looking over them as everyone else watched.
Roman blinked and looked around, trying to process how they’d gotten here so quickly. How exactly had they agreed to lie just like that and were now deciding which lie to tell? He glanced over at Patton, who was now pulling out three chairs along with Thomas for them to sit in. It probably would have been a lot more of a discussion if Patton had objected to lying like he’d expected him to—
“Ro-bro, you got an idea?”
Roman turned to face Remus. “What?”
“A lie! You’re coming up with the lies we’re potentially telling, remember?”
“Oh. Um…” Roman shifted uncomfortably. After a moment, he walked over and sat down. “I suppose we could actually tell them that a relative ended up in the hospital?”
“Alright,” Logan said, pulling out a couple of chemicals. “If we look at the likelihood of that excuse placating Joan, it seems fairly likely.” He squeezed a couple of drops into one of the base chemicals, showing almost no change to the liquid.
“Woah, hey!” Roman called. “That’s a pretty big lie. Won’t Joan be mad if we tell this one and they find out?”
“That’s a good point,” Thomas muttered, scratching the back of his neck. “We should look at different ways that Joan would react if they found out I lied.”
“Well,” Logan said. “Since Joan is still a newer friend and we don’t know too much about them, it would be difficult to determine exactly how they would react to discovering Thomas’ lies. But the size of the lie is something to take into consideration, and if Joan discovered the lie after we told this one…” He squeezed a couple drops of a different chemical into the mixture, and the base chemical started boiling until it exploded.
Thomas yelped and flinched backwards until Roman put a hand on his arm. “Remember, it’s imaginary, Thomas, it can’t hurt you.”
Thomas nodded and shook off his nerves. “Right. Okay.”
“So maybe that lie isn’t the one to go for,” Patton said from Thomas’ other side. “Should we try a different one?”
“Yeah, that might be best,” Remus said, rubbing at the chemicals on the table without any kind of safety equipment or even a rag. “Roman, you got another lie?”
“Um… I don’t know, give me a minute,” Roman said. Why was he the one coming up with all the lies when Remus could easily do the same? “We could tell them we accidentally hit a dog on the way there and had to take it to an animal hospital?”
“Hmm,” Logan said, taking out two of chemicals with a couple of droppers. He dropped the chemicals into another test tube with base chemicals, and the chemical started to boil again, though it didn’t explode or overflow this time. “Well, while the excuse would likely get Joan to agree to reschedule, you would also end up telling them that you hit a dog, which is not something that generally endears you to people.”
“Okay, um, what if we just found the dog instead?” Roman amended.
Logan pulled out just one of the chemicals from before, and the liquid had much less of a reaction. “That would seem to go over better. However, since you also wanted to see what would happen if they discover your deception for whatever reason…”
Roman furrowed his brow.
Logan pulled out another chemical and dropped it in the test tube, and the substance started to boil over again. “This lie would also cause a very negative reaction if it was discovered.” Logan glanced up at him. “You might be being too dramatic with these lies, Roman. Try for a smaller one, perhaps.”
“Okay, look, give me a second, you’re all kind of putting me on the spot here!” Roman exclaimed. “Can’t Remus come up with a couple to try, he’s Creativity too.”
“Oh, uh…” Remus looked over the chemicals on the table, seeming like he was trying to think of something. “I dunno, you used mine the first time…”
“Is…” Thomas hesitated. “Is there a reason we couldn’t just tell them we overslept? Logan, let’s see what that looks like.”
“Of course.” Logan picked up a couple of droppers and added some chemicals to a new base test tube. The test tube quickly boiled over. “There seems to be a high chance that they’ll think you’re irresponsible.”
“Hmm,” Patton said, sounding hesitant. “So the truth doesn’t seem to be an option.”
“But that went better than the relative in the hospital excuse!” Roman exclaimed, gesturing to the first test tube. “Logan already pointed out that we don’t know Joan that well, who’s to say this isn’t an exaggeration, or just how Thomas is scared Joan will react?”
“What if Thomas tells them his phone died?” Remus asked, looking up from the chemicals. Roman turned back to face him. “So he missed their texts?”
Logan turned back to the chemicals and dropped just one in this time. The base chemical had a small reaction. “Joan would definitely believe it and understand,” Logan said. “But Thomas would also need an excuse as to why he didn’t realize what time it was, and that might be difficult.”
“Why would he need another excuse?” Remus asked. “I mean, who has clocks anymore anyways? Doesn’t everyone just use their phone?”
“Thomas has several clocks,” Logan pointed out. “And Joan has been to his house several times and will no doubt come again at some point. That lie will be easily discovered.”
“Uh, yeah…” Thomas muttered.
“Let’s just throw out all of his clocks, then!” Remus called.
Roman raised an eyebrow. “That sounds kind of like an unreasonable length to go to,” he said.
Remus threw his hands up in the air. “Well, why don’t you come up with something then?”
“That’s what I’ve been doing!”
“Okay, woah, hang on,” Patton said, holding his hands out. “Let’s all take a breath, kiddos.”
“Oh, like you’re being helpful,” Roman snapped, glaring at him. “Since when do you have zero issues with lying, Moralityfying Glass?”
“I’m just trying to—” Patton started.
“Okay, woah,” Thomas said, standing. “Everyone calm down. None of this fighting is going to get us anywhere.”
Roman sighed. “I’m sorry, Thomas,” he said. “I just…” He bit his lip. “I don’t think lying is the best option. Or at least, it’s not our only option. We all jumped into this quickly without considering any other ones.”
“I’m… kind of with you on that, Roman,” Thomas admitted. “I don’t know if I feel good about the idea of lying to my friend. I don’t lie to any of my older friends, I should give Joan the same respect. It doesn’t matter if I’ve just met them, I want to start out on the right foot.”
Roman nodded a little in relief, and stood up to look around Thomas and down at Patton, who looked like he was about to burst. “Anything to say, Padre?”
“I…” Patton hesitated another second, and finally sighed. “Yeah. I’m with you guys. I don’t want to lie either.”
“Why not just say that?” Thomas asked.
“Well, I was trying to—”
“Hang on,” Remus said suddenly. “So we’re throwing out the lying thing just like that?”
“I think we all might be blowing this a little out of proportion, kiddo,” Patton said with a small smile. “Joan has seemed pretty understanding so far. Thomas just made a mistake. The best thing to do is admit it and hope for the best.”
“But people don’t forgive you if you make mistakes!” Remus exclaimed.
“Sure they do,” Thomas said. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Well none of you ever forgave me when I screwed up!” Remus cried. A second later he froze. “I mean— I—” he stopped again. Everyone was silent for a minute.
“Remus,” Patton started hesitantly, standing himself.
“That is something to note, I suppose,” Logan said, and everyone who wasn’t Roman looked at him in disbelief.
Roman, on the other hand, was pretty pissed.
“There’s plenty of other reasons as well,” Logan continued. “Maybe the mistake involved something very important to them. Maybe the person is having a bad day and your mistake is the last push to send them over the edge. Maybe they’re not a very patient or understanding person. Maybe all three.”
“Logan!” Patton exclaimed.
Roman glanced over at Remus, who was suddenly looking much more anxious, then back at Logan, who looked like he was still trying to come up with reasons that would freak Remus out.
Roman grit his teeth. “Yes,” he said, the fury in his voice coming through more clearly than he’d really intended it to. “But we already addressed that Joan is an understanding person. This happened in the beginning of the day, and so it’s highly unlikely this pushed them over any edge. And Joan is aware that this opportunity is also very important to Thomas. That’s probably exactly why they mentioned rescheduling at all. Got any other claims that I can easily dispute, Logan, or should you just shut up?”
“Woah, Roman, easy,” Thomas said, finally standing too. “And Logan, I don’t think this is really the best time to keep going with this topic, okay? We all need to take a minute and calm down.”
“Thomas, if we take a break now we may not ever come back to this topic. And time with Joan is running out, so we need to make a decision. Remus agrees with me, don’t you?” he turned to Remus expectantly.
Remus jumped a little and took a step backwards. “Um, I— I don’t—”
Roman took a couple steps forward. “Enough, Logan,” he spat. “That’s enough.”
Janus turned and gave Roman a casually curious look. “Why? I am merely trying to explore all the options, like you say you’re trying to do.”
“No, what you’re trying to do is force Thomas into the decision you want and being a piece of shit to get there.”
“Roman!” Thomas exclaimed. “Okay, enough, both of you!” Thomas snapped his fingers, and they ended up back in their places at his apartment. “What the heck is going on here? Did you two have a fight I’m not aware of?”
“Yes,” Janus said.
“Not with Logan,” Roman muttered.
“Well, I hate to break it to ya, bud, but Logan is the one you’ve been snapping at for ten minutes,” Thomas said, crossing his arms.
“Oh, is he?” Roman muttered. Janus shot him a glare and waved his hand, and Roman smacked his own hand over his mouth even as he glared back.
“Oh,” Patton said, folding his hands and looking down awkwardly. “Okay, I get it now.”
“What?” Thomas asked, looking over. “Get what?”
“You’ve kinda gotta give permission,” Remus said, fidgeting with his sash. “We can’t tell you unless you do.”
“You’re in charge, kiddo,” Patton said. “If you want to know anything you can. You just have to be willing to learn something new about yourself.”
Roman looked over at Janus, who had now thoroughly dropped the Logan act and was all but smirking at Thomas in a way that Logan never did.
“Uh…” Thomas looked over at Logan.
“It’s your choice, Thomas,” Janus said. “But just so you know, you might not like what you find.”
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Alright, tell me.”
Roman ripped his hand away from his mouth at the same time Patton called “Deceit!”
And Janus dropped the last layer of his disguise as Logan and was standing there in his cape and hat.
He looked over at Roman through narrow eyes, and Roman glared right back. He managed to stop looking at Janus when Thomas started freaking out, meaning explanations had to be given.
“Deceit? Why do I have a side for Deceit?” Thomas asked, looking back towards Patton. “Why haven’t I known about him until just now?”
“Well kiddo,” Patton said. “Deceit’s job sort of involves that. If there’s something you don’t want to know, he can keep us from telling you.”
“He convinced you that you’re an honest person,” Roman said, shooting another glare at Janus. “And in doing so he could make sure you weren’t aware of him.”
“But— I am an honest person,” Thomas said.
“Oh you are Thomas,” Janus said. “You are a good person, everybody says so.”
Roman sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re not necessarily a completely honest person, Thomas,” he said. “And that’s—”
“Completely and totally okay? I agree,” Janus said, smirking at him.
Roman took a breath and tried to ignore Janus and focus on Thomas.
“You are capable of lying,” Patton said. “Just like everybody else. But you choose to strive to be an honest person, and that’s admirable, Thomas.”
“It’s just not always as achievable as you want to think,” Remus muttered. Roman glanced over in concern and saw Remus fidgeting with his sash again.
“I can’t believe I fooled myself like that,” Thomas muttered, glancing over at Janus.
“You don’t want to believe it,” Roman said. “That’s where he gets his power. Things you wish are and aren’t true.”
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” Janus said, looking back at Thomas.
“Falsehood!” came a familiar voice. Roman brightened, and a second later Logan popped up next to Janus.
“Logan!” Thomas called.
“Thomas,” Logan said, nodding at him. “I see I have been absent for a while longer than I should have been.”
“I’m sorry, Logan, I thought you were here already,” Thomas said.
“It is quite alright, Thomas,” Logan said with a nod. “Though I think I would prefer for it to be less crowded,” he glanced at Janus. “Over here.”
Janus looked very uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Well, this all went according to plan,” he said, folding his hands together.
“Surely it didn’t,” Logan said.
“Hey,” Roman said, leaning a little closer. “Hey Lord of the Lies. How about you get out?”
Janus shot one last glare at him. “Why, thank you, Roman, how polite of you.” He turned back to face Thomas. “Alright, but mark my words, you’ve seen the last of me.” And with that, he finally sunk out.
Thomas shook his head, looking after him as he did so. “Well, he’s delightful.”
“Isn’t he just,” Roman muttered, rolling his eyes.
“Deceit is in fact wrong about quite a few things,” Logan said, giving Thomas a small smile. “But I don’t think it would be a good idea to dwell on such things for too long. Especially considering you’ve already decided to tell the truth this time.”
Thomas nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I need to tell Joan what really happened. But, um, first one more question. Are there any other sides Deceit has hidden away from me?”
Roman winced and tried not to look too obvious.
“Um… yes,” Patton said hesitantly, thankfully not looking over at him.
“Yeah,” Remus muttered about the same time. He still didn’t look too good. Roman was going to have to talk to him later.
“Well,” Thomas said. “That’s honestly… not the answer I wanted.”
“It’s going to be alright, Thomas,” Roman said quietly. Thomas glanced up at him, and he gave as reassuring a smile as he could manage.
Thankfully, Thomas smiled back. “Thanks, Roman,” he said. He paused and took a deep breath. “Okay. I need to go call Joan and explain what happened. Thanks, you guys. Glad you’re back, Logan.”
Logan nodded at Thomas before sinking out, followed by Patton waving and going after him.
Roman looked over at Remus, intended to ask if he was alright, but found him already gone. He sighed worriedly and sunk out to where he’d most likely be.
Sure enough, he found Remus in the Imagination, taking down his classroom. “Hey.”
Remus jumped and spun around. “Oh. Roman. Hi,” he mumbled, turning back around and finishing waving away the last of the classroom.
“You alright?” Roman asked.
“Oh, yeah, fine,” Remus said, sounding more than a little bitter. “Just thinking about the way that I tried so hard to get to this point and yet I’m still just a huge failure.”
“Hey, woah.” Roman walked forward and grabbed Remus’ hand, pulling him to face him. “You’re not a failure.”
“No, I just let myself get easily manipulated into doing exactly what Janus wants.”
“Hey, Janus can be a dick. That’s in no way your fault.”
“I thought… I thought he was willing to help me at first,” Remus muttered, looking down. “When did that change? What did I screw up?”
“You didn’t screw anything up,” Roman said, grabbing Remus by the shoulders. “If this is anyone’s fault— okay, well it is someone’s fault, and it’s Janus.’ But I don’t think he was really thinking about how it would affect you, Remus. He’s just goal oriented to a fault, he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. I’m sorry you got in the way this time. It’s not going to happen again.”
“And you’re sure of that how?” Remus asked.
“Just trust me.”
Remus sighed. “Okay. I do.”
“And hey. Despite the circumstances, I’m still really proud of you for being able to make that whole classroom. It looked really good.”
Remus finally started to smile a bit. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Remus nodded. “Yeah, okay. I… thanks, Roman.”
“Anytime,” Roman said. “I mean it. Now come on, let’s go have a movie night. We all need a distraction.”
“I’ll… meet you there,” Remus said. “I want a little time to myself.”
Roman nodded. “Okay.” He gave Remus’ shoulders one last squeeze and sunk out to his own room. He checked on Thomas while he was thinking of it, and sure enough, Joan wasn’t angry. Thomas said he wasn’t used to having anything to do other than grading on a Saturday and accidentally slept in, they said they understood, and they rescheduled for the next week, which Thomas then went to make an alarm for as soon as he hung up.
Roman smiled a little in relief as he leaned back on his bed. He was glad Joan didn’t react in any kind of way that would validate Janus’ “lying is the best plan” stance, not that he would have blamed them for being a little irritated.
Roman thought for a minute, and sunk out again, ending up back in the dark side commons. “Hey!” he snapped to the empty air. “Janus! Get your ass out here!”
Janus opened his door over in the hallway, looking very annoyed at Roman’s appearance. “Ah, Roman. What a pleasant surprise.”
“We’re going to get some things straight.”
“Sounds like that will be rather difficult.”
“Oh, shut up. If you’re going to be coming upstairs, there’s some ground rules.”
Janus narrowed his eyes to slits. “Forgive me,” he hissed. “But since when do you get to make that kind of decision?”
“Since you decided fucking with my brother was the best way to go about this. Look, Janus, I understand that Thomas is going to need you. And I’ll help you convince the others of that—”
“Oh, will you?” Janus asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, Janus, dammit—” Roman paused, and took a deep breath. “I will help you if you want it,” he said. “But Remus is off limits, do you understand?”
Janus kept glaring at him for another couple seconds, but Roman knew him well enough to know that he was considering what he’d said. Finally, he sighed, harsh but also resigned.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll leave your brother alone. As long as you agree to help when I ask you.”
Roman bristled, and let out a harsh sigh of his own. “Fine. Deal.” He spun around and started back for the other commons without giving Janus a chance to shake his hand or something stupid like that.
“Shall I give your regards to Virgil then?” Janus called.
“Fuck you!” Roman snapped over his shoulder. He yanked open the door to what was now his home and slammed it shut behind him. He needed a movie night too now.