Chapter Text
Make it easy, make it quick, open up without a- “Janus!!”
Janus’s hand tensed, the pen stalling on his sheet of paper. He looked up from his writing, unamusedly staring at the source of the noise. “Yes, Remus?” Remus grinned. He was climbing up the living room wall, reaching for the railing of the balcony that overlooked it. “Mal and your mum are having one of their staring contests again!” Janus scoffed. “And?” His sister and mother arguing was hardly an exciting occurrence, and one Janus could care less about. Remus squirmed from his spot, hanging from the balcony and manhandling the railing. He glared Janus in the eyes. “Go find out what it’s about! All her friends are down there too, it’s gotta be something fun! Maybe she finally got rid of the competition.” Janus raised an eyebrow, and Remus whined. “Please, Snakey? I’ll suck you off if you do!”
“As tempting as that sounds, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.” Remus pouted, properly hauling himself onto the balcony and landing with a thud. He shuffled to his knees, crawling towards Janus and clasping his hands together. “Come on!! Today’s been as boring as shit!” Janus closed his legs, snapping up his paper as soon as Remus got close enough to read it. “Do it yourself if you’re so desperate to figure out what it is. I’m going to go find Virgil.” Before he could stand up, Remus latched onto his legs. “But I can’t read what they’re arguing about! I’ll just pass out from her stupid will..” He was promptly kicked in the face. “That’s hardly my problem.”
Remus huffed, loosening his grip and sinking to the ground. Janus shook off his arms, stepping out of his clutches and turning away from him. He folded his paper, moving to put it into his back pocket. He didn’t get the chance to, Remus had already ripped it out of his hands. He whirled back around. If Remus decided to be a brat and rip it up, he’d have to start all over again. Janus forced his panic not to show on his face, instead opting for annoyance. “Really, Remus? You think stealing my cursive practice will get me to do what you want?” Remus giggled. “Pretty much!” Janus rolled his eyes. “Unlucky for you, I’m not particularly fond of scraps.” Remus tightened his grip on the paper, raising an eyebrow. “Fine then.” In a flash, the paper was shoved into his mouth. Janus tensed. “Get that out!” Just as quick as he’d shoved it in there, Remus had the paper out again. It had spit dripping from the corner, and had been crumpled up, but remained undamaged. “So you do care.” He waved the folded up piece of paper around like a flag, grinning as Janus contemplated what to do.
He could easily just let Remus get away with it and save himself from the ordeal of having to talk with his mother and sister, but then he’d have to memorize the contents of the paper. He looked to the group down below. Mother was standing on the raised floor as she usually did to seem foreboding. She was leaning down, staring straight into Mals’s eyes. Even from here Janus could see the glow of green. Mal was standing with her back to Janus, and so were her cluster of friends standing behind her in a semi-circle. Around the room, The Evil Queen, Cruella, and his- Jafar were all also turned to face the action. Remus might have been right, this did seem that a rather bigger audience that was usually warranted for these disciplinings. He turned back to Remus, who was snarling triumphantly at him. “If I must to get you off my back.” He snatched his paper back from Remus, wiping it off on Remus’s shoulder before carefully putting it into his back pocket.
The fact that the staring contest was still going on as Janus approached the two of them was probably reason enough to believe it was something worth looking into. Mal had usually lost by now. He slipped past Mal’s friends, who were all too focused on her to notice him. Janus stood to the side. It was hard to read what they were projecting at each other. Both because they weren’t projecting it at him and because it wasn’t exactly a science. But if he stared at the space between them hard enough, he could siphon some of their will towards him.
Almost instantly he was hit with it. He was a lot better now than he was when he was younger, stumbling around trying to figure out why they were both standing still glaring. There was conflict between them, obviously. They were clashing on something. Strongly. It would take more concentration to figure out what. It wasn’t as if they were projecting words into each other's heads, or if they were Janus couldn’t pick up on it, but there still had to be direct motivation behind their glares. He could hone in on it. He was certainly being given an interestingly long amount of time to do so. He urged closer, divulging more of their will to flake off to him. Something about… moving? Or going somewhere? Did Mother want Mal to take more turf? She’d never cared much before outside of having enough no one would dare cross her, as if anyone would in the first place.
Before he got the chance to dig deeper, the green in Mal’s eyes faded, and she stumbled backwards, clutching her head. “Ugh, fine.” Out of her stupor, she noticed Janus standing there. She growled, slapping him on the arm. “Mind your own business, Snake.” She spat the nickname with malice, but Janus just rolled his eyes. Their mother tutted disapprovingly. “Now, now, Mal. If you can let your will be manipulated by half-fae, then that’s on you. Besides, your brother deserves to know what’s happening.” Mal rolled her eyes, but she stayed silent. Maleficent was the highest authority. Their mother turned to Janus. “Mal and her friends are being transferred to Auradon.”
Janus froze. What. As far as he’d been aware, that wasn’t exactly an option. Not for them, or the actual documented villains, or anyone. Was this a test? Was his mother trying to figure out how gullible he was? He blinked his surprise off, raising an eyebrow. “How?” His mother exhaled, her smile falling. Questioning her wasn’t to be done, but Janus wasn’t about to simply accept that answer and march back upstairs like she undoubtedly wanted him to. “The new king, beasts brat, he made a decree about bringing the children born on the isle over to the mainland. These four are their little test drive.” Janus nodded. He still had questions, many of them. The four of them deserved to go to a fancy private school much less than Janus did. They didn’t deserve it. By Auradon’s rules, Janus doubted he did either, but he was a much better actor than three of them combined. “I… understand. It doesn’t surprise me an Auridian would let their savior complex get to their head. But, I must admit. I don’t see why they’re going. What’s the point of shipping them off to a school filled with goody-too shoes royalty?”
His mother laughed, poking him on the forehead. “You both think too small. This isn’t about the school, it’s about our freedom! Mal will retrieve Fairy Godmother's wand, set us free, and then I’ll break free of this heap and rule the world!” “‘We’ll’ rule the world!” Shouted the voice of Cruella from behind them. Mother nodded, waving her hands. “Yes, yes, we’ve already clarified that.” Janus sensed his time to negotiate. Mal would be naturally stronger with magic than him on the first try, but she wasn’t nearly as good as him at scheming off the top of her head. Sure, she could use Evie and Carlos for that, Janus was aware not all of her friends were idiots, but his mother hardly knew about them. She couldn’t be bothered to know that. “How do you know she’ll find Fairy Godmother and her wand? Isn’t Auradon the biggest continent there is?”
Behind him, Mal scoffed, but their mother just raised a hand to her direction. “She’s the principal. It says so right here. ‘We at Auradon Prep invite the children of Maleficent, Cruella Deville, Grimhelde the Evil queen, and Jafar to attend immediately for the rest of the semester…’ Blah, Blah, Blah, code of honor and all that. ‘Signed, Headmistress Fairy Godmother.’ She’ll be right there for her to find.”
“It’ll be better if you send me.” His mother froze, she took a step towards him. “Excuse me?” “Along with them. It’ll be better if you send me along with them.” Before any of the group behind him had time to protest, Janus spewed as much bullshit as he could. “The invite says ‘we invite the children of Maleficent’ so they wouldn’t be able to call it treason for us interpreting it wrong. Not to mention, they’ll be expecting four instead of five, so you’ll catch them off guard.” His mother hummed, tilting her head to the side. She didn’t look particularly convinced of his plan, and Janus got the vague idea she could tell he wasn’t doing this out of devotion to her. But there was still one card he could play, even if he despised. “Best of all, I’m physically villainous. Look at me. If anything goes awry, they can blame me. No one would question it. I’ll either sit in a jail cell or get carted back here, we wait a couple weeks while they have their do over.”
Mother raised an eyebrow, considering it. Then she cackled. “You certainly know what you’re useful for. Alright then, you will attend Auradon Prep with your sister and the others under the strict instructions that if things get hairy, you throw yourself under the bus. Understood?” Janus nodded. “Of course, Mother.”
With that, she waved him off, turning back to Mal. Janus walked away, ignoring the glare of his older sister. He walked up the stairs to the balcony, grabbed a vibrating Remus by the arm and dragged him into his bedroom, locking the door shut. Janus had absolutely no intention of throwing himself under the bus whenever they messed up their plan. They could deal with their own messes. All he needed was to get off of this island. The slightly pressing issue with this plan was that even if he refused to take any blame, those other four would still point the finger at him. He needed back-up, his own group who would defend him. That wasn’t an issue though. It wasn’t as if Auradon had each and every child born on the isle documented, they couldn’t. Anyone could walk up to one of them and claim to be a child of Maleficent, or one of the other three.
And that was precisely what Remus and Virgil were going to do.