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Janus' claws are blunt at this point from how much they've rolled about their bed and scratched at the sheets. Hopefully, they haven't ripped anything up too bad, as their body shudders from another terrible coil of discomfort that spreads across every single limb.
Cats don't typically get sick and only really begin having problems when they're older, especially for an indoor-prone kitty like them. Yet that's the thing… they're not fully cat nor human.
Being a catfolk is weird.
They walk upon their toes as their digitigrade anatomy demands, yet their arms and hands are plantigrade. Their body temperature is usually smoldering-furnace hot, cats have higher natural temperatures after all. Yet when they hit over a certain number on a thermometer (40ºC in this case) they'll be sent right over to the hospital wing, because that's how humans figure out they're sick too.
And by God, are humans right. The urge to throw themselves into the nearest basin of cold water and drink from it battled against their closed eyes just begging to fall asleep, only to come to the conclusion that they're feeling much too awful to do either every time.
Evidence of their sickness is everywhere. Overflowing from the trashcan nearby or left on their bed are used tissues. Their feet catches on a blanket that's just about to slip onto the floor, and the fur they've sort of just been shedding all day hasn't been accounted for either. Everything's a mess, from outside to the insides.
It's been a couple hours since they first woke up, tried to get ready for today and collapsed on the bathroom floor. Maybe two hours since someone checked in and found them slumped against the sink. There's a brief memory of the long, loopy way back to bed with one of their arms around supporting shoulders. Barely making out their temporary caregivers' little speech on how in this state, they'd be entirely unable to stay upright during prayer. Letalone attend worship that day.
Her voice continues to ring through their head. You could've told at least another student, yes? This is exactly what happens when you're entire diet consists on only fruits! You know better than this. Why do you do this to yourself, child?
Why do you do this to yourself, child?
The words sound different each time they think back on it, until they can no longer recognize the voice, or who the person even was.
Had it really been an hour…? Or did it just feel like that? Is time refusing to pass? Making every second drag longer than is necessary? It's hard to form much of a thought outside how dim and far away light was. This sickness is really getting to them.
…which is the last thing they process before they sleep out of exhaustion.
It's a voiding experience, to sleep.
The warm hands of darkness envelops them. Their eyes are closed, their muscles are lax, and it as if they were dead. Peacefully unconscious in a warm coffin, six feet under dirt, while the world continues to move on without them. They'll know nothing. They'll see nothing. Such is the odd fascination.
It's a rousing experience, to wake up.
There is a parade happening inside of Janus' head. It feelas as though they've been in the midst of feeling too much at once, finally getting the rest, then all of those sensations rushing back in an incoherent mess. Different thoughts shove against each other, dancing, unorganized.
Janus sits up, feeling how sore their body still was from the motion of rubbing their eyes alone. Their shirt hadn't been changed. Their room is still just as cluttered as it was before. The only thing that had changed was the darkness outside, trees ruffling in cold night gales…
They don't bother taking their mask as they roll out from under sheets and saunter out the door.
The tiled flooring of church's sanctuary is nothing short of refreshing. It's cold to their bare, fervered paws. The whole place is elegantly white to the eyes, ever so large, so all encompassing. A window to the left still open, creaking and shivering with the wind.
On the floor, there is a boy.
Janus doesn't really know who this boy is, but he's in the church at night quite a lot. Sometimes they'll find him fallen asleep there. His face is covered in freckles, his eyes are sharp even in their blissful state of sleep. His hair is unkempt, long just past the shoulder. He snores a little, and his chest rises and falls in the shirt which he doesn't button properly.
They don't notice they were staring until shrill ringings in their ears weeded into their mind and replaced all thoughts of the boy.
It continues to ring, as Janus carefully steps around the slumbering boy's body, making for the very end of the room.
Where a set of steps, 31 in all, lead up, up, upwards to nothing but a wall.
And on that wall, a brilliant, singular, impossible mask. As usual, they'll lay themselves on the very bottom step.
And they'll listen.
It takes a moment, but Janus is always patient. Always patient for It. Time ticks by.
"Tick, child."
Their ears perk upwards as they listen to the echo. The voice everywhere. In the air, in the walls, right in their ear, at the other end of the room, muffled behind church windows as It stares at them from every corner of the universe, "And so time finds itself restless."
"Of course," is the natural response they whisper. They know that if they look through those windows, they'll see nothing.
"You are restless too," says the all knowing, "And not just from the illness."
"I am," No matter how many times It visits, they'll never be able to stop the way their body curls in on itself, the furs standing on its end.
"Your time will come soon, dear."
Janus hesitates, "I… know not to ask questions."
"You wish to know when it shall be."
"I do. Please."
"It is all planned. You have been all too waiting, darling."
Would it be right, to be so disappointed? At not the result, but the answer itself? To feel their heart clutch in such a sorrowed squeeze. They would be selfish to ask for a reward, or even another question. Selfish to harbor such a thought. Yet It takes them by the tongue, reads their thoughts as clear as scripture and responds,
"Deceit, deceit, deceit, do you recognize, child, that the largest shadow is the one standing right beneath your feet? My moonflower, the night draws to a close. How long until your happiness?"
Sudden as It came, It leaves, taking with It all the tension in Janus' body, all the ringing from their ears, all the twitches in their tail. A shaking gasp is torn from their lungs. There will be no more communication between the two for the night.
Winding up here. How sore their body is.