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msclaritea · 1 year ago

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Amazon Studios: Big Swings Hampered by Confusion and Frustration – The Hollywood Reporter

Despite ambitious bets like 'Daisy Jones & The Six' and the upcoming 'Citadel,' insiders complain that there’s still "no vision for what an Amazon Prime show is." But chief Jen Salke says they are missing the point: "You don’t reverse-engineer true creative vision."

BY KIM MASTERS

APRIL 3, 2023 12:43PM PDT

It’s long been an open secret that Jeff Bezos has yearned for his own Game of Thrones, and that Amazon’s big swing as it reached for its own massive hit was The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, believed to be the most expensive series ever made.

Last September, the show began with a bang, delivering the biggest debut ever on the streamer in what Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke called “a very culturally defining moment” for the company. But when season one wrapped, the show was less defining than hoped, falling short of being the breakout hit that Amazon had envisioned.

While Amazon, like other streamers, provides only limited data — and internally, it held information even more closely than usual on the series — sources confirm that The Rings of Power had a 37 percent domestic completion rate (customers who watched the entire series). Overseas, it reached 45 percent. (A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders). The show has not been a major awards contender, either, overlooked by the major guilds with the exception of one SAG-AFTRA nomination for stunt ensemble.

But according to Salke, the series has worked. “This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally,” she says. The second season, currently in production, will have more dramatic story turns, she adds. “That’s a huge opportunity for us. The first season required a lot of setting up.”

Data from Nielsen on minutes watched reveals that when it comes to original shows generally, Amazon has lagged. In 2022, Netflix hoovered up the top 10 spots for original streaming series, with Amazon’s The Boys in 11th place — ahead of The Rings of Power at No. 15. Using the same measurement, none of the top 15 originals of 2021 came from Amazon. (Netflix again took all the slots except for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale in 10th place, Apple’s Ted Lasso at 12, and Disney+’s WandaVision in the 14th spot.)

Many current and former Amazon executives, as well as showrunners who have series at the streamer and agents who make deals there, believe that this is no accident. They describe Amazon Studios as a confusing and frustrating place to do business. When it comes to movies, where Amazon’s footprint is expanding following the $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM a year ago, a veteran producer says that, in recent years, “there has been no sense of what the philosophy is.”

On the series side, numerous sources say they cannot discern what kind of material Salke and head of television Vernon Sanders want to make. A showrunner with ample experience at the studio says, “There’s no vision for what an Amazon Prime show is. You can’t say, ‘They stand for this kind of storytelling.’ It’s completely random what they make and how they make it.” Another showrunner with multiple series at Amazon finds it baffling that the streamer hasn’t had more success: Amazon has “more money than God,” this person says. “If they wanted to produce unbelievable television, they certainly have the resources to do it.”

But Salke believes the studio’s approach fits Amazon’s broad remit. “I have never been one to say [to the creative community] ‘We need five action franchise shows and three workplace situation comedies.’ That’s the kiss of death,” she says. “You don’t reverse-engineer true creative vision. We are programming for over 250 million households across the entire globe. We would say we have a big, broad audience, and we are looking for content that entertains the four quadrants.” (That is, male and female, under 35 and over 35).

The question that makes many in Hollywood nervous is whether the Amazon Studios overlords in Seattle believe they are getting enough bang for their megabucks. The last thing the industry wants at a time of belt-tightening is a cutback in spending from a deep-pocketed buyer. According to Salke, that concern is misguided. “The proof exists that the giant tentpole shows are driving people to subscribe to Prime,” she says. “Do we pressure ourselves to be more disciplined, more strategic? Of course. We consistently examine if we’re producing the right amount of content at the right value to drive the most engagement across our service.”

Like Apple, Amazon is not a traditional entertainment company but a huge retailer with a side hustle in Hollywood. Amazon’s view is that the more hours you spend watching Prime Video, the more likely you are to renew your membership and the more likely you are to shop on the site. As Amazon, like Netflix, pursues overseas growth in the wake of saturation in the U.S., Salke notes that in some countries like South Africa and Argentina, Amazon’s programming is the tip of the spear, entering the territory before retail sales or fast, free shipping is even available. “International is everything,” she says. “It is our business to deliver global shows for a global audience.”

The streamer has certainly had its success stories, including buzzy shows like Transparent, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Fleabag, and popular series like The Boys, Jack Ryan, Jack Reacher and The Terminal List. But it has arguably never had a brand-defining show that is a commercial and critical juggernaut in the vein of HBO’s Game of Thrones, Netflix’s Stranger Things or Apple’s Ted Lasso. And all of those Amazon series, except Jack Reacher and The Terminal List, were launched when Salke’s predecessor, Roy Price, ran the studio. (Price departed in 2017 amid allegations of improper conduct; Salke took over in 2018.)

Jennifer Salke CHARLEY GALLAY/GETTY IMAGES

One of Salke’s first greenlights was Daisy Jones & The Six, based on the Taylor Jenkins Reid novel and co-produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Lauren Neustadter, president of film at Hello Sunshine, says she and Witherspoon had lunch with Salke just as she was starting at Amazon. “She was really clear and articulate in her vision” for what she wanted to do with the job, Neustadter says. “Reese and I both said Daisy is all the things she was talking about. The book, the show, fashion — we had big dreams for this.”

Amazon put more than $140 million into production, in part due to high COVID protocol costs. The show dropped March 3 with solid numbers and eventually topped Parrot Analytics’ weekly engagement chart. The 2-year-old novel popped back onto Amazon’s best-seller list, and the retailer is able to sell tie-in merchandise. Aurora, an album featuring songs from the fictional band, is climbing the Billboard charts. However, insiders say the show remains shy of the breakout hit the studio hoped for. (Released around the same time, Donald Glover’s Swarm is also delivering strong results for Amazon at a more modest $30 million budget.)

A far more costly and troubled production was the Russo brothers’ Citadel, which debuts on April 28. Anthony Russo says Salke first approached AGBO, the Russos’ production company, with a general concept of making a U.S. show with international foreign-language versions. AGBO came up with “a global spy show where you would have a mothership U.S. language show” alongside foreign-language versions in other countries, Russo says. The various versions are “related to one another, but they also exist independently and distinct from one another.” Some of the international shows may be set in different time periods, he adds.

Amazon has committed to three seasons of three versions of the show; so far, a local-language production is underway in Italy and in early stages in India. “We love the ability to communicate with people all over the world, and to connect people through stories,” Russo continues. “Amazon and Jen basically brought us a brand-new opportunity to do that at a scale that’s never been attempted before.”

But in December 2021, with production well underway, the Russo brothers decided to replace showrunner Josh Appelbaum. “It was clear after some audience feedback and discussion that some changes needed to be made,” says Mike Larocca, president and co-founder of AGBO. “We felt like it needed some more character work early to draw people into the show. It was that straightforward.” Appelbaum declined to comment.

David Weil took over as showrunner. When Joe Russo came on set, a “huge bunch of material” was tossed out, an insider says. Sources say the cost of the series climbed toward $300 million, making it Amazon’s second-most expensive show after LOTR. (In an onstage March 10 conversation with Salke at SXSW, Priyanka Chopra said her work on Citadel was the first time she had achieved pay parity in 22 years. That prompted some Amazon executives to joke internally that this was actually the first and second time, since she and the other leads on the show got paid significantly more than planned due to the massive reshoots.)

Joseph Russo (R) and his brother Anthony Russo

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo are executive producers on Citadel, Amazon’s high-stakes, $300 million bet on a multinational franchise. SUJIT JAISWAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

While the original plan called for eight hourlong episodes, the show that will drop on Amazon in April ended up at six, roughly 40-minute episodes. Amazon has already renewed it for a second season of six hourlong episodes. “There are a couple of relationships where I don’t really understand the bet that is being made,” says one Amazon veteran of the commitment to the project. “But Jen believes in the Russos.”

The challenges on Citadel can happen with the “best-managed creative endeavors with the highest level of talent,” Salke says. “Given the choice of making it mediocre or fucking great — we made the right call there. And at the end of the day, our customers will be the judge.”

Hunters and A League of Their Own, which is ending with a truncated season two, stand out as expensive disappointments of the Salke era. The latter cost in the ballpark of $90 million for eight episodes, including a premium paid to Sony for certain rights.

What generates some of the frustration that sources cite in dealings with Amazon is that Salke, who was previously president of NBC Entertainment, seems to be pursuing conflicting goals. Despite her assertion that Amazon is “a home for talent,” insiders say the mandate is increasingly not on finding the kind of curated hit that defines HBO, but more middle-of-the-road, meat-and-potatoes shows like Jack Reacher. “We’re so desperate right now for safe hits,” an Amazon exec says. (Netflix has also been pursuing broader material.)

But at the same time, current and former Amazon executives say Salke has a pattern of “chasing what she perceives as hot,” as one insider puts it. That person cites as examples paying a premium for Daisy Jones because of the Witherspoon connection, or making a Dead Ringers series, based on the 1988 David Cronenberg film, that came with Rachel Weisz attached. Salke makes deals with auteur talent to “deliver Jack Reacher results,” says an Amazon veteran. “But they don’t.”

Amazon recently renewed The Peripheral, a sci-fi drama from Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy that cost close to $175 million for eight episodes (sources say their final eight-episode season of Westworld at HBO cost about $140 million). Amazon has ordered six additional hours of The Peripheral despite what sources say has been lukewarm audience engagement. “It probably should have been canceled,” says an insider. “But they made a megadeal and the political capital they would lose with Lisa and Jonah would be too great. And they have other shows coming.” Fallout, the next show from Nolan and Joy, is also “extremely expensive,” says a source.

Nolan and Joy’s deal has been worth at least $20 million a year since they signed on in 2019. One insider calls the Nolan deal the worst example of Salke’s mantra that Amazon is “a home for talent.’” He adds: “We cede decisions to powerful producers. We hold the line on other producers who do great work for us.” Nolan and Joy declined to comment.

Some rich Amazon deals have failed to produce anything at all. In the wake of serving as an executive producer on Them, Lena Waithe got a two-year deal worth $8 million a year that yielded nothing; in November 2021, she moved her banner to HBO Max.

And in September 2019, Amazon announced a deal with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who had just swept up six Emmys for the second season of Fleabag. The plan was for Waller-Bridge to collaborate with Donald Glover on a Mr. and Mrs. Smith series, based on the 2005 film.

But within a few months, Waller-Bridge departed the show due to clashing creative styles. Her three-year deal, at $20 million a year, bore no fruit, yet Amazon recently renewed it, announcing that Waller-Bridge would write (but not star in) a Tomb Raider series. Some Amazon insiders have questioned how much she will contribute to the project, noting that Amazon has been seeking a showrunner to help write and oversee it.

The low-key Sanders bristles a little at the assertion. “Phoebe has not only fully embraced Tomb Raider and I think is feeling very committed to it, but she’s in a writers room right now working on it,” he says. Waller-Bridge is developing other material for the streamer as well, he adds, “She’s a perfectionist, so she absolutely wants to make sure that what she does is great and right, but she’s proven that when she does deliver, she delivers.” Waller-Bridge declined to comment.

But a showrunner with considerable experience at Amazon sees it differently: “They don’t learn from their mistakes.

They [say], ‘We can’t do any more deals like that.’ You turn around and they’re right back to — the impolite term is ‘star-fucking.'

” For creative executives at the studio, the result has been exasperation. “They say, ‘We don’t want to buy from outside studios,’” says a former Amazon exec. “Then packages come and they buy everything that comes through the door, and our development is thrown out.”

One of Salke’s early hires at Amazon was Sanders, who had worked very closely with her as head of current programming at NBC. At Amazon, Salke initially made him co-head and then sole head of television. Before coming to Amazon, Sanders was overseeing NBC shows that were already up and running rather than developing and launching shows. Some Amazon insiders complain that he doesn’t offer them enough in the way of direction.

Vernon Sanders

One of Salke’s first hires at Amazon was Vernon Sanders, now head of television for the studio. AMY SUSSMAN/GETTY IMAGES

“No one knows what he likes,” says a former executive at the streamer. In a similar vein, a producer who’s worked with Amazon says, “Vernon seems so sincere, but when you talk to him about a project, you come away not knowing where you stand. What kind of shows does he really care about making? At the end of the day, that makes it hard for talent to truly trust him.”

Sanders says his job is simply not to program for his own taste, echoing Salke’s point about the importance of international. “We have over 250 million global customers, so our goal is to program for everyone — we have a big, broad and diverse audience,” he says. “We see that as one of our strengths. We can produce global tentpoles as well as inventive, character-driven series, with plenty in between. And our customers welcome it all. That’s why Lord of the Rings and Swarm can co-exist and succeed on our service.”

Rings and Swarm can co-exist and succeed on our service.”

Another complaint is that Sanders relies heavily on feedback from focus groups, which tend to favor broad and less inclusive programming. Several Amazon insiders say the reliance on testing and data led to a clash late last summer, when an Amazon executive said in a marketing meeting for the series A League of Their Own that data showed audiences found queer stories off-putting and suggested downplaying those themes in materials promoting the show. Series co-creator Will Graham became greatly concerned about bias built into Amazon’s system for evaluating shows, which multiple sources say often ranked broad series featuring straight, white male leads above all others. One executive calls A League of Their Own “a proxy for how diverse and inclusive shows are treated.”

Graham launched into an interrogation of the system, questioning multiple executives about it. Amazon took the issue seriously and dropped the system of ranking shows based on audience scores. Insiders cite this show as one that Sanders did passionately support, but for months after it dropped, there was no word on whether it would be renewed. Ultimately, Amazon agreed to a four-episode second and final season. Still, several Amazon veterans believe the system remains too dependent on those same test scores. “All this perpetuation of white guys with guns — it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says one. And another: “Relying on data is soul crushing … There’s never, ‘I know the testing wasn’t that great, but I believe in this.'” Graham declined to comment.

One executive says it was different when Salke first took charge at Amazon. “She shot from the hip, she went with her gut, and she didn’t let data overrule her,” this person says. “But she hired a staff that was in over their heads in terms of being able to get those shows produced at a number. I think if we had [FX boss] John Landgraf or [HBO’s] Casey Bloys or somebody who had more credibility and direct interaction with the development of shows, it would be so much easier to spend less. But we kind of act like it doesn’t matter if we have deep conversations with talent. A guy like Donald Glover would think, ‘No way in hell I’m doing a deal with these guys unless they overpay me.’ I know we’re third or fourth on their priority list. Agents are direct about it: ‘You guys pay a premium for being Amazon.’ They have clients who would much rather work at other places.”

Salke responds: “If people say my gut’s been tamped down, there’s no evidence for that.”

Even some producers who have successful television projects at Amazon say its executive structure remains confusing to the point of opacity. A recent reorganization — the latest of several — does not seem to have done much to clarify things. An executive at a production company that has done repeat business with Amazon says it’s hard to know “who you should go to if you want to bring [a project] to them.” Says a showrunner who has had success at the streamer: “I couldn’t honestly tell you who reports to whom. It keeps changing.”

Some of the confusion around Amazon may arise from conflicting goals at the top. Mike Hopkins, Amazon’s senior vice president for Prime Video & Amazon Studios, is a seasoned business executive and a veteran of Sony and Hulu but does not come from the creative side. A top industry executive who dealt with him at Hulu calls him “a seemingly egoless, laid-back, efficient manager.” A former Amazon executive says Hopkins is a “very intelligent, very calm and collected leader, but all he seems to care about is the bottom line. He doesn’t understand a lot about production because he doesn’t come from that.” Hopkins declined to comment.

Salke is known as a charismatic leader who has “a great touch around talent,” says an agent. But one long-standing complaint is that she can be hard to reach and unresponsive to texts or emails. “I really like Jen,” says an executive whose company has done repeat business with Amazon. “When you get her, she’s really engaged. She’s obviously spread thin, but if you actually get her, you can get a pretty clear answer.” That issue might only be exacerbated as, in the past year, Salke has taken on responsibility for MGM’s film and television studios, as well as marketing oversight.

On the fundamental issue of money, Hopkins and Salke were destined to clash. “Her strategy is to get whatever seems hot. Mike’s vision was to cut costs on shows and get football,” says a former insider. In 2021, Amazon became the first streamer to make an exclusive deal with the NFL, signing an 11-year pact for exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football at $1 billion per season. Amazon’s sports chief, Jay Marine, told staff in a September note that the launch game produced “the biggest three hours for U.S. Prime sign ups ever in the history of Amazon.” But while the streamer had told advertisers it expected to average 12.5 million viewers per game, at the end of the season Amazon said it had 11.3 million viewers, while Nielsen calculated 9.6 million average viewers. Amazon has said it compensated advertisers for the shortfall but offered no specifics.

In recent months, current and former Amazon executives say, Salke seemed to be in a political battle with Hopkins. “Mike is a lot about budgets and that’s not something she reacts well to,” says one. But a top executive at another entertainment company says his lack of creative experience hampers his ability to limit spending on shows and movies. “That’s why he says yes when Jen says we’ve got to pay Simon Kinberg $8 million for a project,” this person says.

That’s a reference to the spy thriller Red Shirt, written by writer-producer Kinberg with Channing Tatum attached to star. The project, acquired in November based on a treatment and short video heavily featuring Tatum, had several bidders, but Amazon offered the richest overall package.

The film calls for Tatum to be paid $25 million, with a staggering $18 million for director David Leitch. Add in Kinberg’s $8 million for writing and producing services and the deal represents one of the highest, if not the highest, payment for an original pitch in Hollywood dealmaking history. Kinberg, Tatum and Leitch declined to comment.

And that’s only one of several pricey film bets that Amazon has made. Salke put in a preemptive bid for Air, the Nike movie with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Affleck says Salke was his point of contact during the making of the film and he found her to be “straightforward, and true to her word.” Salke “always had thoughtful ideas and notes,” he adds. “We took almost all of them.”

But an executive at a competitor calls the deal for Air “crazy,” claiming, “She just bought it off a pitch, went in and bought it for $160 million.” (Industry sources say it cost far less to produce.) “Matt made more money on [Air] than any other movie but Bourne. She just took it off the table,” says the executive. (Affleck and Damon declined to comment on the deal.) Another source involved with the project says he’s certain some competitor would have matched the deal. While it’s uncertain the film, which has garnered critical acclaim, will gross enough at the box office to be profitable, the value of having it to lure subscribers to the streaming service may justify the expense.

Recently, Salke has been perceived as pivoting toward film. Several Amazon sources believe there was a tug-of-war with Hopkins over who would have oversight of the MGM film studio. Initially, Hopkins intended to hire former Fox and Paramount executive Emma Watts and have her report to him. But then Watts — a seasoned but sometimes sharp-elbowed exec — was out of the picture, despite having gone through vetting. Amazon announced in November that Salke, not Hopkins, would have direct oversight of the film studio despite her very limited film experience. Amazon declined to comment on the switch.

Given Salke’s background in television, many in the film community assumed she would need to hire an executive with strong movie experience to oversee MGM films. But some Amazon insiders believe she wanted to give the job to Julie Rapaport, the executive in charge of original movies for the streamer. While Rapaport is well-liked, in the view of several outside movie execs, she lacks the experience to run MGM film.

If Salke indeed wanted Rapaport in the job, there was one big snag. MGM’s crown jewel is the James Bond franchise, which is controlled by Barbara Broccoli. Sources say Broccoli made it clear that she needed an experienced movie executive at the helm of MGM’s film division. The sources also believe that Salke put her foot wrong with Broccoli by mentioning a possible Bond TV project, which Broccoli would not want. And following the acquisition of MGM’s distribution arm, they say, Broccoli was not impressed when weeks passed during which Amazon did not communicate with the longtime marketing and distribution executives who Broccoli sees as vital to handling the Bond films, leaving them in doubt as to whether they would keep their jobs. (A source says one of those executives, the late Erik Lomis, fought to move Creed III out of a crowded November to a March release date, giving Amazon a hit that has grossed $250 million.) Salke says, “We have deep respect for Barbara and Michael” — a reference to Michael G. Wilson, her Bond producing partner. Broccoli did not respond to a request for comment.

Amazon went through a protracted who’s who of potential hires before settling on former Warner Bros. executive Courtenay Valenti. Sources say Salke was chilly to Valenti during the hiring process, which Salke denies. Valenti joins former longtime Warner Bros. executive Sue Kroll, who in October became head of marketing for Amazon Studios and MGM. Even Amazon critics say Salke made an excellent move in hiring Kroll, who brings a much-needed boost to promoting Amazon films and series. Now reunited, both Valenti and Kroll will report to Salke.

Part of what irks some Amazon entertainment executives is that, as part of a supersized tech company, the studio must contend with an idiosyncratic culture that often doesn’t mesh with traditional Hollywood practices. (In a sense, Amazon the parent is as alien to Hollywood as previous outsiders who have come and gone: Coca-Cola, Matsushita, a wave of German investors.) Amazon culture manifests itself in many ways that go beyond the well-known everyone-flies-coach rule. The compensation system caps base cash pay at $350,000 for all employees (exclusive of signing bonuses) plus stock options, which for a high-level executive will make up the bulk of pay. The base pay cash ceiling was $160,000 until last year, when the cap was increased due to the declining stock price. Over the past 12 months, the stock has been down more than 35 percent. (In contrast, at Netflix, executives can decide what percentage of their compensation they will take in stock options.)

“A lot of people there are not that incentivized to stick their necks out,” says an agent. “Everyone’s sort of marking time to get as much stock [to vest] as they can. That’s no way to run it. This is a hit-driven, risk-taking business.”

Another Amazon tradition: Only top executives have offices. Until this year, other high-level execs have worked in assigned cubicles. Since January, however, the vast majority have to contend with “agile seating,” meaning they work at unassigned cubbies in designated “neighborhoods,” and are provided with lockers for their belongings. “These things are coming from so high up [in the company],” says an Amazon Studios insider. “It just contributes to the sense of anonymity — that nobody knows where their own spaces and belongings are.” This arrangement seems to be in favor with some tech types; Jason Kilar was “adamant” about imposing a similar plan at HBO and HBO Max, according to a source, though equivalent top executives at Netflix do get offices.

Meanwhile, the broader company is now facing very public challenges: In January, Amazon announced the biggest workforce cuts in the company’s history, laying off more than 27,000 of its 1.6 million employees. So far, the studio has been spared, though a hiring freeze is in effect.

Industry executives feel it’s imperative to keep as many buyers in the game as possible, and some worry that the NFL deal has shown Amazon a way to sign up subscribers in a way that is not as unpredictable as making scripted entertainment. Says one former insider, “In bringing Mike in, they wanted to keep Jen in check. Then you add sports and in 24 hours make more progress than in eight years of TV. The whole sports launch changed the prism of how they look at the ecosystem and what role film and TV and music plays into it.”

So far, Amazon hasn’t hinted at any unhappiness with the return on its content spend, which was $7 billion on Amazon Originals, live sports and licensed third-party video content in 2022. That’s up 28 percent from the previous year, thanks in part to the cost of football and Lord of the Rings. (In comparison, Netflix spent about $18 billion.) According to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Amazon’s U.S. Prime subscribers stalled last year at 168 million, essentially flat from 2021. (The company last publicly disclosed a Prime subscriber number in 2021, when it said it had “over 200 million” globally.)

During a February earnings call, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky sounded upbeat. “We regularly evaluate the return on the spend [on content] and continue to be encouraged by what we see, as video has proven to be a strong driver of Prime member engagement and new Prime member acquisition.” Speaking at a New York Times Dealbook summit in November, CEO Andy Jassy said he could see a possible future in which Amazon’s entertainment operations could work as a stand-alone business “with very attractive economics.” He added, “All of that content is a really important ingredient in why people choose to sign up to Prime.” But Amazon watchers might have noted that he mentioned Thursday Night Football in particular. The company will continue to invest in sports, he said, “a unique asset with an unrivaled ability to drive Prime sign-ups.”

Additional reporting by Lesley Goldberg.

Maybe this will clear things up. Maybe not. Jennifer Salke is married to Bert Salke, Head of Fox 21. His reps:

Agent: United Talent Agency, 9560 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 500, Beverly Hills, CA 90212.; Office: Brancato/Salke Productions, 5300 MelroseAve., Suite 229 East, Los Angeles, CA 90038.

Some or maybe all of what's going on at Amazon Prime, frankly looks like straight up money laundering, to several outfits in Hollywood, either willingly or unwillingly. United Talent Agency has so far tried screwing over talents like Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch. A number of actors left the agency and it's because they have a longstanding, close relationship with the Church. No fucking wonder I'm staring at Tom Cruise's face every time I go on the Amazon Prime or old Simon Pegged movies, out front and center for hot picks.

While I'm not a fan a big fan of this guy, Disparu (uses the word Woke in tye negative and seems to have a soft spot for Tom Cruise) he makes some very straightforward points about the craziness of paying Phoebe Waller-Bridge $20 million per year to do fuck all. And Bridge is only big in Britain. So, I'm not the only one who's wondered at the overhyping. It could only be from powerful outfits like COS or Lavender Mafia.

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samusique-concrete · 2 years ago

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My fav albums of 2022!

I’m trying to at least squeeze in this post in January 2023, hehe :p

I’ll go from last to first. Let’s go!

10: Dawn FM - The Weeknd

I’ll be honest, i’m not in love with the entirety of this record. I think it has some of the best pop songs that’ve dropped recently (back to back even!), but after track 7 it’s not quite the same (am i alone in this?? let me know!!). It’s a shame too, because at 16 tracks total, the “great” part ends up being less than half of the album. Sooo why is it on my top 10 at all? Well, because i did still play it and replay it tons of times. Those first songs on it... man. Immaculate vibes. Though after Out of Time ends i almost always turn it off 😅

Side tangent regarding Out of Time, btw: I’ve always liked OPN, and getting the chance to listen to his production on big artists like this is kind of a treat. When i heard OoT though i was like “Damn! They arranged this?! This is really precise and detailed and far beyond the scope of what i thought they were capable of...” So then when i learned that the backing track was actually sampled from Tomoko Aran’s 1983 song Midnight Pretenders i was really disappointed (i’d even listened to that album AND song before, i just didn’t remember it). We’ll leave the discussion of how i feel about covers/sampling in general for another day though!

Fav song on it: Gasoline

09: The Ruby Cord - Richard Dawson

I’m telling you man, that Hermit song? Those 41 minutes go by reeeal quick. Don’t be scared of pure beauty! On top of it there are also some other banging tracks as well. The Fool’s soundscape is another highlight for me, for example.

Fav song on it: The Hermit

08: Fawn - Foxtails

I like heavy shit, although i’m not usually into screamo stuff... but i’m kinda slowly changing that. This record was great for me in that regard cuz it’s not all entirely sung in that style. Great entry point if you wanna get attuned with that general sound, probably. I didn’t know this band prior to hearing this, and now i can say i’m a fan! These tunes rule. They sound younger than me though, and i’m still trying to cope with that LOL

Fav song on it: Space orphan

07: Tropical Dancer - Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul

Brilliant dance/club/techno/house from these two. I would say “biting social commentary” if 1) it wasn’t the most clichéd phrase ever and 2) if it wasn’t at least the baseline """wokeness""" society should just operate at nowadays, honestly. It’s also charming and funny. And danceable AF. Great great great record; not many like it.

Fav song on it: Reappropiate

06: Super Champon - Otoboke Beaver

Punk! Heavy! Fast! Fun!

Fav song on it: First-class side-guy

05: Ants From Up There - Black Country, New Road

Lmao, speaking of musicians that’re younger than me. This album’s a certified instant classic, and you probably know that already. You don’t need to hear it from me again. You can listen to it again, though!

Fav song on it: Haldern

04: Renaissance - Beyoncé

Not much i can add to the discussion of this album, or Beyoncé in general... Well, actually, one thing that comes to mind is how this record comes off as extremely pro-capitalist and individualistic on her part. Idk i admit i don’t usually listen to her, so idk if that’s her usual spiel. It makes sense tho, with her being a gajillionare and having a completely different lifestyle than any of the people who listen to her. This album’s whole aesthetic is money. Even in the sound! It sounds like it was very expensive to make and like every single little beep and/or boop on it was analyzed and tested by a large team of specialists in order to fit perfectly in a song. I will say, though, it sounds fucking amazing. Really pristine production. Bop after bop. I’ve danced to this album a lot.

Fav song on it: Virgo’s Groove

03: Pigments - Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn

I loooove the concept of this album. It reminds me of 2021′s Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra in how a musical motif is introduced at the start and how it gets developed across the whole runtime of the record. I don’t wanna compare these two albums though; they’re very different. This one’s also really groovy at times! Love the composing, arranging, instrumentation, singing and everything else in this. And also, little details like the naming of the songs after... well, pigments, and having those pigments in order of appearance on the cover go a long way to making an album feel like a holistic, thought out experience for me. Love it!

Fav song on it: Crimson

02: Hellfire - Black Midi

Insane. Go listen to it if you haven’t already listened to it like 500 times like me. Or! Better yet, if you’ve heard it 500 times go and listen to it again. Insane! These kids really are pushing the whole jazz rock/prog rock/alt&art rock in general scene forward. I also love how each story (i.e. song) on this feels like a very different but still very tangible depiction of a hellish experience.

Fav song on it: Dangerous Liaisons

01: Motomami - Rosalía

Motomami’s an excellent record. That’s just how it is. It’s also special to me specifically because it dropped right around the time when i moved away from home, and i had it constantly on repeat on my new place. However, the real reason it’s on my #1 spot is because it kinda changed things, culturally speaking. It was a force of nature to be reckoned with, upon release. You see, i live in a natively Spanish speaking region, and over here this album was some sort of a cultural reset. I think that’s bigger than me or anyone else’s preferences, and it’s more than enough to warrant the top spot. I also just happen to love it!

Fav song on it: Diablo

Anyway. Have some honorable mentions as well, in no particular order:

Until next year!

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selfdestructivecat · 2 years ago

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(Click for better quality!)

I had the incredible honor of collaborating with @wistful-wish in this year’s @sandersidesbigbang ! You know I can’t resist a good Prinxiety fic. And set in a fantasy AU with half the cast as fae? Virgil as an all-powerful fae prince? Roman as the himbo human prince that Virgil can’t help but fall for? The choice literally made itself for me lol

Go check out Tessa’s fic! She worked SO hard on it and it’s AMAZING!!! Also, go check out the incredible art @briandthemoon did for the fic! It was so cool working alongside such a talented artist, and their art for the fic is absolutely gorgeous!

[Image 1 ID] [The first image shows Roman and Virgil. Roman is placing a hand on Virgil’s shoulder. Roman’s expression is concerned, while Virgil looks surprised. Roman has tan skin, curly auburn hair, and green eyes. He is wearing a fancier version of his canon outfit, as well as a golden circlet with red gems imbedded. Virgil has pale, light pink skin with pointy ears that are slightly curled at the end. His eyes have black sclerae and purple irises that glow slightly. He is wearing a purple and grey shirt underneath a long, dark-purple cloak with a silver clasp shaped like a star. Virgil’s cloak and Roman’s sash are billowing to canvas right. Roman and Virgil are both standing on a circle of grass against a blue background, and tiny motes of light float around the canvas. The words “Anxiety… It will be alright.” are on the right side of the canvas, italicized and slightly glowing.]

[Image 2 ID] [The second image is formatted like a comic page with six panels, the majority of the page taken up by two panels split diagonally, with four smaller triangle-shaped panels along the bottom. Black action lines spread behind the bottom four panels. The top two panels are shaded in more detail, while the bottom four panels are cel-shaded.

The top-left panel shows a headshot of Roman, who is sweating slightly and looks scared. His hand is shown recoiling. His outfit and appearance is the same as the first image. The background of this panel is a gradient of black to grey from top to bottom with vertical white lines lining the top and fading.

The top-right panel shows a headshot of Virgil, who is blushing and looks surprised/awe-struck. His blush is purple. His outfit and appearance is the same as the first image. The background of this panel is pink with light motes and sparkles surrounding Virgil.

The bottom far-left panel shows a headshot of Logan, who is clutching his head with both hands and looks incredibly distressed. He has light skin and black hair that is pushed to the side, and he is wearing rectangular glasses. His eyes are hidden by the reflection of his glasses, although his eyebrows slightly overlay the glasses. He is wearing a dark-blue suit with white cuffs over a white shirt, as well as a white cravat. The background of this panel is light indigo with white action lines shooting diagonally from bottom-left to top-right.

The bottom middle-left panel shows a headshot of Dearheart, a young girl with tan skin, long blonde hair, and brown eyes. Her hair is pulled back partially. Her eyes are simplified to dot-eyes, and her expression is confused. She is wearing a sleeveless blue dress. The background of this panel is light blue with a pattern of dark blue question marks.

The middle-right panel shows a headshot of Janus. He has long, brown hair tied in a side-ponytail, pale yellowish skin with golden scales along the left side of his face, and pointed ears pierced with hooped golden earrings. He is wearing a black cloak and a crown of yellow flowers on his head. His eyes are hidden by shadow, except for his right eye, which is simplified to a glowing yellow circle. His expression is angry, with his teeth gnarled to show one fang. The background is a gradient of black to yellow from top to bottom.

The far-right panel shows a headshot of Remus. His hair and skin-tone are identical to Roman’s, although his skin is lightly-tinged green and his ears are pointed. His right eye is a bright, radioactive-green, and his left eye is bright red and smaller than the right one. Both eyes are glowing slightly. He is wearing his canon outfit, although the eyes are absent from his sleeves. He is holding a morning star. His expression looks crazed and blood-thirsty. The background of this panel is light green with white action lines spreading outward from behind Remus.]

#sanders sides #sanders sides big bang 2022 #prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #thomas sanders sides big bang 2022 #tssbb 2022 #sanders sides au #myart #fanart

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dystopiagnome · 2 years ago

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Kinda exciting to be first group to stuff in the @sandersidesbigbang this year! Check out @talking4the1’s art piece for the story as well!

Also the exchange in paragraph 20-21 in chapter one lives rent free in my head constantly. Not any five hours go by without thinking about "with a 'goodnight,' preferably.” The story at the moment is one chapter and good god, is it a chapter!!!

Story Title: The Five Stages of Losing Roman

Author: @thecrowslullaby

Characters: Logan

[Rating: Mature

[ID:] [A digital drawing done primarily in greyscale parodying The Magician tarot card with Logan standing in place of the Magician over a light gray grave. Logan is looking to the side and he is wearing a button down with a loose tie, a coat, and a darker cloak over it as he holds a shovel that's primarily off screen. In the background there is a full moon hovering in the top left and there is a dark blue gradient coming down. Overlaying the image is undersaturated red flowers and vines. The Roman numeral for one (1) is on the very top center of the image and in the center bottom in the white cut off is “The Magician” both handwritten.]

#tss logan #Logan Sanders #Sanders Sides Big Bang 2022 #tw death mention #tw graveyard #so there’s another card I was going to post but changed my mind since it’s too much of a spoiler #and boy oh boy that twist will be an interesting one if we ever get to it #absolutely mind boggling

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purplecrayonismine · 2 years ago

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Hey guys!! We will host a sanders sides big bang again this year!!! Hope to see you there if you want to participate!!!!

Hey guys!!! Currently working on bringing you all the Thomas Sanders Sides big bang once again this summer! We will open sign ups midway thru May! Stay tuned :D!

#thomas sanders sides big bang 2022 #tssbb2022 #sanders sides big bang 2022 #sanders sides #sanders sides fanart #patton sanders #my art

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reverse-moon · 2 years ago

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How Reckless (Intruality) ═SOULMATE AU═ || Sanders Sides Big Bang 2022

By Artist_Hope; beta read by @edupunkn00b and @kaythegay2022; art by @dystopiagnome and @im-an-anxious-wreck

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

AO3 Link!!

Pairing(s): Intruality, Prinxiety, Loceit, Remile

AU: Soulmate, but extra

Chapter: 1/4

Chapter word count: 1052

Summary: In a world where soulmates are assigned through various methods, Patton Morgan gets stuck with the more annoying "wound soulmate" assignment. Anytime his Soulmate, a Remus Duke, gets hurt, he feels and receives a matching wound. And it's /very/ annoying since Remus doesn't seem to mind pain and gets hurt a lot.

Remus Duke, his brother, Roman Prince, and his best friend, Janus Drake, are all looking for their soulmates. When they get to St Louis, Missouri, they end up with the best luck, finding all three. And Remus (despite his attempts to change that) doesn't think Patton likes him. Probably because he's pretty upset about the years of pain he's endured from Remus.

✨✨TLDR: Remus visits St Louis, Missouri to find Patton, his soulmate who has dealt with over 4 years of pain from reckless Re, and has to find a way to make up for it :')✨✨

╔═════════════════════╗

『The Thomas Sanders Sides Big Bang - 2022』

╚═════════════════════╝

Patton winced as his arm flared up in a sharp slice of pain. Remus Duke had done something to his arm. This wasn't the first time. After all, his Soulmate carved his name and a greeting in his arm not long after they noticed the connection.

The Morgan had gotten used to the concept of this Remus Duke getting hurt often. However, it didn't mean he had to like it. It sucked that there wasn't any way to actually communicate other than carving an address or his cell number into his body. And despite his efforts, none of the other Remus Dukes he’d ever found (not that there were many) were as banged up as Patton was.

It had come to his knowledge that the 3 Remus Dukes with the Physical Danger connection in his town were all very careful to avoid hurting their soulmates. And just from talking to them, apparently the name Remus was rarely given to people who had the last name Duke. Something about being too mafia-like? He didn't understand it really.

Needless to say, they were not his soulmates. And his was getting him nowhere.

He looked at his arm, seeing a rather surface gash that went down most of his forearm. "Darn it, Remus..." He groaned, getting up from the garden and walking inside. He was very tempted to prick his finger on the rose bush near the door but figured it wasn't worth it. No sense in being petty.

He moved to the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit, sighing and starting to clean the wound. It would have been much easier were-

"We're back, Pat."

Oh, thank the lords of well-timed conveniences. "In the bathroom." Patton cleaned the wound as he heard the two come closer. Glancing up in the mirror, he saw Virgil and Logan Nyx come in.

"Again? Doesn't your Soulmate know the meaning of the word caution?" Virgil asked. Patton just shrugged as Logan moved to get the bandage wraps. "One time. All you gotta do is let Logan hit you once, and he'll learn."

"No! Being petty isn't gonna do anything, Virgil..." Patton really hated having this conversation. "How was your Brothers’ Day?"

Logan shrugged. "It went well. The My Chemical Romance reunion signing was actually quite fun and Virgil was quite thrilled at the Bioluminescence Exhibit at the museum." He started to wrap the wound.

"I like the natural glowy colours!" Virgil added, kind of using a defensive tone. "They're calming." He sat on the bathroom counter, grumbling. "Anyway, Pat, you're gonna have to get hurt so he learns to be more careful eventually. For all you know, you'll never meet him. And you both might get too hurt for help if he doesn't learn."

Honestly, as much as Patton hated to admit it, Virgil had a point. Remus was certainly reckless enough to get both himself and Patton killed. It wasn't unheard of. "I'll do it later when my arm isn't threatening to bleed," he said, not promising anything. "For now, I just want to finish gardening and make dinner."

“I do find it worrisome that you don’t seem as concerned as you should be about the amount of pain you receive over 3 days, Patton,” Logan said, finishing up with the dressing of the wound. “Just in the time we’ve been your housemates, you have received about 10 different wounds within 3 days as the top number. That’s at least 6,085 times in the 5 years we have been housemates if my calculations are correct.”

“Why would you calculate that?” Patton muttered, moving out of the bathroom to go back outside and at least finish his tulip gardening.

“Because I worry. We’ve known you for 13 years. Your soulmate seems to have been this reckless since you were 16 and received the connection to him, which if my math is correct and we’re using 10 wounds for every 3-day stretch as our base, equals at the very least 12,170 wounds to present. It’s a wonder you both are not dead already,” Logan said.

“You also forget he can calculate a lot of tough math in his head fast,” Virgil reminded Patton. “Besides, you don’t know anything about your soulmate. He could be a drug addict, or a dealer, or… Or some sort of mafia member!” Virgil put a hand on Patton’s shoulder. “You really should see about getting some extra protection.”

He hated this feeling the two brothers gave him. They never meant to, but it always happened. It didn’t surprise him that it happened with a wound this bad—it happened with less. But it didn’t make it any less annoying. “Thank you for the concern, Virgil, Logan. But I trust Remus to not die, even if he does worry me with how often he gets hurt. I’m sure he isn’t that reckless."

Logan and Virgil sighed, going back inside and leaving him alone. And as thankful as Patton was for that, he was very upset at the information he was given. Over 12,000 wounds within the ten years he's been connected to Remus. Hell, he didn't even know if they were compatible. It made no sense to him that he could even be… Then again, thinking back? No one thought he and the Nyx twins would work as friends.

Patton was 13 when he met Logan and Virgil for the first time. The twin brothers were quite different from what Patton had grown used to seeing. Logan was quiet and reserved—if he wasn't talking about his studies, and Virgil was timid, hardly ever seen talking unless it was through an app or his brother. It surprised everyone when the three became the best of friends. On Patton's actual 16th birthday, they were the first to help him with the carved words in his arm, not even three hours after he hit his face on a door because he didn't pay attention.

Despite all the pain and wounds he received, Logan and Virgil were always there for him and Patton was so thankful for that. They never left his side unless they had to. He had been given a place to stay, rent-free. And they were consistently willing to help him when things went wrong. They refused to let him suffer.

#Sanders Sides Big Bang 2022 #sanders sides #patton sanders #remus sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #janus sanders #intruality #prinxiety #loceit #remile #sanders sides au #sanders sides writing

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sleepless-stories · 2 years ago

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Falling Through AUs || 2

Breaking Out

AO3 Link

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

@sandersidesbigbang

Summary: Roman and Remus find themselves in a cafe, their friends are all around them but act as part of the place and don’t know them. So Roman and Remus work out how to escape, remembering times when they broke in as kids to an identical cafe.

Warnings: Death Mentioned

Beta Read By: @dragonsaphirareads

Check out the art connected to this chapter @windowsillwren art

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A soft bell chimed above Roman’s head, he felt something wood against his hand. Though everything was just so bright, he couldn’t see anything as he stepped forward.

Slowly his eyes began adjusting to the lack of light compared to before and he saw himself in a… in a cafe? The scent of coffee invaded his senses as he entered.

Virgil sat at the counter with a warm cup of tea in front of him.

Patton stood at the coffee counter about to order something.

Janus was sitting with Remus with papers between them seemingly studying.

Logan stood behind the counter looking down at the cash register.

It was only then Roman realized, everyone was wearing distinctly different clothing from the ship’s uniform of black pants and a white jacket that had black sides and black cuffs around the wrists. Even Remus was in a different outfit from his co-captain outfit that was almost like the regular uniform but with green sides and orange stripes showing his rank on his cuffs.

They were all wearing clothes that Roman could only think of as their normal civilian clothes. Virgil sat wearing black pants with a black hoodie that had some different purple plaid patches covering it, Remus was wearing dark obscenely ripped jeans with a green tank top that had rips and tears all over it. With him Janus was wearing black dress pants, a black button down, black vest, all with some gold accents. Patton was wearing khakis, a light blue shirt with a weird cat pun and a cardigan over his shoulders. Logan seemed to be wearing a white apron with a nametag on it, over black pants and shirt.

Looking down at himself, Roman saw he was also wearing a different outfit, usually his outfit was like Remus’ co-captain outfit but instead of green sides his were red. But here he was wearing some darker pants with a red shirt, the outfit was a bit more plain than anything he usually wore as a civilian.

“Are you ready to order?” Logan’s voice cut through Roman’s thoughts.

Patton stared at Logan nodding, “Just give me another moment.”

“If you’re not ready to order please step to the side so someone else can order.”

“Oh… um… ok…” Patton nodded looking up at the menu.

Roman quickly walked over to Patton, “Patton!”

“Roman!” Patton gasped hugging him.

“What’s going on?” Roman asked, pulling away after a moment.

Patton looked at him a bit sideways, “What do you mean? We’re at the Busy Bean, are you feeling ok? You said you wanted to meet me here…”

Roman shook his head stepping away from him and looked around the room, “Guys! What the fuck!”

Virgil looked up confused before looking back at his table.

Patton gasped, “You shouldn't shout such obscenities in a public place!”

Remus looked up from his table and quickly got up, going over to Roman, “Why was I just having some sort of freaking meet cute with Janus?” He asked quietly.

Roman looked at him taking a deep breath, “I have no clue… but… I don’t think they remember anything. It’s like they… they’re just blank slates or diluted versions of themselves.”

Remus shook his head, “This has to be a joke right? We were just in the ship-”

“We were about to… die… and now we’re-”

“At a freaking cafe.” Remus shook his head laughing a bit before going over to the front door to try and get out. But the door wouldn’t budge, it wouldn't move at all when he tried pushing on it… and when he reached for the door handle it was like it wasn’t there, the door was but a wall, painted to be a way out.

Remus turned quickly to Roman, panicked, “We can’t leave. The door… there is no door.” he laughed, his voice shaking a bit as he spoke.

Roman ran glaring “What are you talking about?” He asked grabbing for the door handle only to hit a flat wall. “Shit.”

Remus nodded and banged against the door trying to figure out anything, trying to escape this place, it made no sense why they were here at all.

“Where was it Patton said we are?” Roman mumbled quietly, leaning his forehead against the door.

“I don’t know! I wasn’t the one he was talking to.”

Roman nodded, taking a deep breath and closed his eyes thinking, “Busy bean.” he said after a few moments.

“Wait… busy bean? You mean the place we used to go to as kids?”

Roman looked at him confused for a moment before nodding, “Yeah? But… we were never here with the others, the place was shut down before we met them.”

“Ok…” Remus nodded thinking, “So we know we’re in a cafe, somewhere back in our hometown. Minutes ago our ship was about to collide with a black hole.”

“Inconclusive… Logan and Janus weren’t sure what it was.”

“It’s a fucking black hole… ok… ok so we just need to figure a way out, right?”

“I mean I guess, but it’s not like that means all our problems will be solved.” Roman laughed, “We could still be about to die if we make it out… or-”

“Don’t you dare suggest that.” Remus growled immediately, cutting him off, “I don’t want to think about that possibility that we already…” he sighed, shaking his head.

“Yeah whatever, so what’s the idea? We simply walk out of here?” Roman asked, standing up straight looking at Remus.

“I mean do you have any better ideas?”

“Well maybe we’re here for a reason?”

“Oh, like some sort of divine intervention shit? You’re out of your mind.”

“I mean… it is a possibility, we’re not dead after all.”

Remus shook his head stepping away from the door, he glanced out the window looking out at the dark city, the sky reminding him of being back at the ship with the stars shining brightly. He remembered when they used to go here, nothing at all really changed since then. The place looked exactly the same, so did the city outside of the shop… it was like they stepped right out of a memory. But that was where the memory ended, at their scenery.

Roman glanced around the room again before walking over to the counter that Patton was still standing by thinking of what to order.

Roman stepped in front of him and sighed, “Hello I'd like to order.” He told Logan he might as well try to get them some drinks while they were here.

“Alright what would you like?” Logan asked, looking up at him.

“Um, I’ll have a medium sweet tea and a medium chocolate Frappuccino with pineapple.” he said and checked his pockets only to pull out the exact amount from his pocket.”

“Coming right up.” Logan replied bored as he took the money and stepped away to make the drinks.

Remus walked over and looked at him, “Why are you getting drinks?”

“I just thought… might as well while we’re here.”

“We’re not going to be here for long.” Remus said quickly and glared, “We’re getting out of here.”

Roman nodded and smiled as Logan gave him their drinks, he turned and handed the Frappuccino to Remus, “I know… I know we’re going to get out of here.”

Roman went over to a table and sat with his drink, “Remember when we used to come here?”

“Yeah…” Remus nodded and sat across from him. “I used to get us kicked out all the time.”

Roman nodded sipping his drink, it tasted the same as the last time they were there. “Yeah, we started having to sneak in through the back…” he laughed.

“Because we couldn’t come through the front without them kicking us out immediately…” Remus glanced up at Roman in disbelief. “The back door.”

“The back door?” Roman asked confused before realizing what he meant and set his drink down. “The back door.”

Remus quickly got up, ignoring as his cup fell to the ground spilling everywhere. He grabbed Roman's arm, tugging him to the back.

“Hey! Wait, you can’t go that way!” Logan called out watching as they ran out of the main shop area.

Roman ran with Remus through the kitchen and employee lounge until they stood at the back door.

A plain black painted door, with old promotional posters hanging from it. An exit sign hung above it.

Remus let go of Roman and took a deep breath before reaching for the apparent handle of the door and he grabbed onto it. A sigh of relief escaped him as he gripped it and slowly opened up the door.

Roman watched him and the door as it opened up.

Remus threw the door open and stared out into the darkness that stood beyond it.

“Are you sure this is the way out?”

“We’ll never know until we go through bro.” Remus laughed, smiling. “But we can’t stay here forever.”

Roman nodded glancing back at the employee lounge of the cafe before looking back out the door. They needed to get back even if they weren’t sure what they were going back to… Roman took a deep breath before stepping through the door.

Remus watched Roman disappear into the void before following him through it.

#coffee shop au #sanders sides fic #roman sanders #ts roman #remus sanders #ts remus #tss fanfic #sanders sides #tw death mention #thomas sanders sides 2022 #tssbb 2022 #sanders sides big bang 2022

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casart · 2 years ago

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Even a Snake Cares for a Prince🌹

I had the honour of working with @asoftervirge for this year's @sandersidesbigbang

I am a total sucker for masquerade scenes♡♡ you can read her lovely fic "Even a Snake Cares for a Prince" on ao3☆

[ID] (drawing is split into two panels. In the first panel, Roman is smiling with a gloved hand over his chest, surrounded by subjects from the Imagination. The subjects are void of individual characteristics save for their smiles. Roman himself is wearing a fancy outfit comprised of white puffy sleeves, a red vest with gold trimming, a white jabot collar and a red lace masquerade mask. The words "Seething shadows, breathing lies" are written beneath the panel.)

(In the second panel, Janus is wandering through a crowd of the smiling, void subjects. He holds a glass of red wine in a gloved hand. He is also dressed in all black; a large yellow bow tied about his high collar and a yellow rose adorning his hat. He is wearing a black volto mask; the left side decorated in yellow patterns, the mouth also yellow is curled into a permanent smirk. The words "You can fool any friend who ever knew you" is written beneath the panel.)

#casart #sanders sides #roman sanders #janus sanders #roceit #tssbb 2022 #thomas sanders sides big bang 2022 #special thanks to hedgeyart for keeping me company as i worked on this♡

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fangirlwriting-stories · 2 years ago

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Hope With Me

Author’s Note: So hey! I did a Big Bang this year, run by the blog @ts-storytime! This work has been a while in the making, and I’m super proud of how it turned out! Thanks so much to @vanilla-bean-buttercream for the amazing art, and a huge thanks to @korruptbrekker for beta reading, and @hit-or-mish for being my cheerleader, this story would not exist without you.

Summary:

“Two weeks,” Patton said, holding out his hand. “And if I can’t prove to you that there’s good in humanity, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Or you could leave me alone right now,” Janus said, giving him a deadpan look.

“I could,” Patton said. “But then I’ll just go on thinking I’m right, and you’ll never have another chance to prove me wrong, now will you?” He smiled, like he thought he had him.

…And dammit, he did.

“Come on Janus,” Patton said, smiling warmly, and stretching out his hand a little more. “Come find hope with me.”

...

Janus met Patton by getting coffee spilled all over his favorite yellow jacket. He hadn’t really been having a stellar day beforehand, but it hadn’t been awful until a stranger slammed into him and spilled hot coffee all over the jacket Virgil had given him. Understandably, that made his day much worse, and what happened immediately after didn’t exactly improve things.

“Oh my goodness!” called the person who’d just spilled his coffee on him. “I’m so sorry! That was burning, oh my— come with me!”

Before Janus could protest, or ask his name, or wonder if this was an only slightly clever way to kidnap people, Patton had pulled out a key and dragged him over to a nearby cafe, opening the door and pulling Janus in after him.

“I know one of the baristas who works here, so I can get in the back,” the person said. “They have some stain remover, but we have to move fast. Hi, I’m Patton.”

“Hi, I’m incredibly annoyed,” Janus deadpanned.

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry!” Patton dragged him into the back with a quick wave at the barista who was working. He grabbed Janus’ jacket off his shoulders without asking his permission and took it over to the large sink that was probably for washing dishes.

“We’re lucky we were right here, huh,” Patton said, as he scrubbed at the stain in the jacket. “It could have been worse if we weren’t.”

“Or you could have not spilled your coffee on me,” Janus said, rolling his eyes.

“I think I’ve almost got the stain out,” Patton said as if that made up for it. “Okay, I’m gonna let it soak in the water for a minute, and then you should be good. You might still want to take it home and wash it.”

“Oh sure, no problem, it’s not like I was on the way to work or anything,” Janus said, crossing his arms. Well, he hadn’t been, but if he could make this person more guilty for inconveniencing him, he was going to do it.

Sure enough, Patton gave him a guilty smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I make it up to you? I’ll take you shopping for a new jacket.”

“You can’t replace that jacket so easily,” Janus snapped.

“Oh no, does it have sentimental value?”

“No,” Janus lied. “It just costs more than your house.”

“I didn’t realize there was a jacket that exists that costs more than a house,” Patton said in surprise. “Well, I am a pretty good thrifter. I don’t think I could get one that costs that much, but I could probably get you one that looks similar.”

“Forget it,” Janus said. “Just give it to me and get out of my hair.”

“Okay,” Patton said, pulling the sopping wet jacket out of the water and passing it over to Janus. Sure enough, the stain was pretty much gone. And if Janus took it home and put it in the wash right away, it would most likely be gone entirely.

“I’m so sorry,” Patton said.

“Whatever,” Janus said, deciding that would be that and he would like to never have to see this person ever again.

So much for a walk to try and make this day a little more bearable.

He expected the event was a freak incident, and that would be the last he’d ever see of Patton, so for the next couple days, he didn’t think of him at all.

But naturally, fate could never be so kind to him as to let that be the end of it, and as he was finishing eating at his favorite restaurant one night later that week, he heard:

“Oh, hey, you got the stain out!”

Janus took a brief moment to look up at the ceiling and curse everything in his life that had led him to this moment, before Patton walked around the side of the table and grinned down at him.

“I’m so glad,” he said.

“Great. I’m so glad you can wipe your conscience clean of that horrible event. Please go away.”

“Oh, let me do something else to make it up to you,” Patton said for some reason. “Here, I’ll buy you dinner.”

Then, as if the universe wanted to gift wrap chances for Patton to stroke his ego, Janus’ waiter approached with his check.

Patton gave Janus a look, asking permission. Well, Janus wasn’t going to turn down a chance for a moron to cover his bill just because of pride. He waved his hand at Patton.

Patton smiled and turned back to the waiter. “I’ll be taking that,” he said, and the waiter gave him a slightly surprised look before handing him the check.

Patton pulled out a debit card and handed it back to the waiter with the check, and then the waiter turned back around. This was around the time Janus realized this might have been a mistake, because Patton turned to face him like he was allowed to talk to him.

“I’m glad this all worked out,” he said with a bright smile. “I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

“I didn’t throw it,” Janus said coolly.

“Oh, I gotcha,” Patton said, apparently stupid enough to not realize Janus was trying to be rude. He apparently also had no qualms about being rude back, because he just kept smiling at Janus expectantly.

Finally, Janus sighed. “Janus,” he said.

Patton startled for a second, but before Janus could try and figure out what that meant, he went right back to smiling.

“Well it’s so lovely to meet you, Janus!” he said, beaming at him as if this was a conversation between friends and not him rudely interrupting what peace Janus had. “I’m glad things ended up working out with your jacket. So you like this restaurant, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” Janus said, full on glaring at him now. “You seem to have mistaken this for a conversation I want to be having.”

Patton’s smile faded. “Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to interrupt you. You were just sitting here all alone and I thought you might want someone to talk to.”

“Why would I want that?” Janus snapped. “I wanted to have a meal that I enjoy, alone, to try and make my evening less miserable than it would have been otherwise.”

Patton’s looked turned rather curious in the next second, and for some reason, also slightly concerned.

“Oh, well I’m sorry you weren’t having a good day,” Patton said.

“There’s no such thing. Now we’re going to sit here in silence until the waiter comes back with your card, and then you’re going to get out and leave me to try and salvage my night.”

Patton, for some reason, still didn’t look at all offended, instead just curious with that tinge of concern. But after a second, he nodded, and they both sat there in silence until the waiter came back a couple minutes later. And finally, Patton stood up and left.

And now Janus would never see him again, and he could be all the happier for it.

…

“Hi there,” came a familiar voice, and Janus groaned and dropped his head against the paperwork he’d come to the library to try to read.

He didn’t bother to look up or give any other kind of acknowledgment, but Patton sat down anyway.

“How are you, Janus?” Patton asked the top of his head.

“I’m much worse than I was three seconds ago,” Janus said into his papers.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I have a bet for you.”

That was enough to get Janus to pull his head up and stare at Patton. “What?”

“A bet,” Patton said brightly as if it was the most normal thing in the world to make a bet with a practically-stranger.

“A bet?”

“Mm-hmm. Are you able to take a vacation anytime soon?”

“Why in the world would I tell you that?”

“You don’t have to. But if it’s soon, I’d like to take you on a road trip with me.”

“Of course,” Janus said. “What a brilliant idea that will in no way get me tossed unconscious into the back of a van.”

Patton laughed, bright and clear. “I understand,” he said. “We don’t have to go immediately. You can also take a seperate car if that’ll make you feel safer. And I’d be happy to get to know you first if that will make you more comfortable.”

“Why would you want to go on a road trip with a total stranger in the first place?” Janus asked.

“You’re not a total stranger, I’ve talked to you twice,” Patton said. “And that’s where the bet comes in.”

“What bet?” Janus asked despite himself.

“I bet that if you give me two weeks, I can prove to you that there’s hope humanity has good worth fighting for,” Patton said.

Janus couldn’t help it, he laughed. “What?”

But Patton didn’t take it back, or reveal the joke, or do anything other than keep smiling at Janus.

“Wait you… you’re serious?” Janus asked, his smile fading slightly.

Patton nodded.

“You want to take me on a road trip to show me that there’s good in humanity.”

“Yes, I do,” Patton said.

“Why the hell would you want to do that?”

“You seem unhappy,” Patton said. “And I want to help.”

“What? Why? How would you know I’m unhappy, you’ve had two conversations with me.”

Patton’s smile turned warm. “You remind me of a very close friend of mine,” he said. “And he acted very similar to you when I met him. And he was in a dark place too.”

Janus stared at Patton for a second, not sure what to say to that. Patton was clearly a stupid naive man who needed to grow up and see the world for what it was. And he could potentially ask for two weeks off starting soon.

He shook his head. Now he was being stupid.

“If I win,” Patton said, like he could see Janus’ internal conflict. “You have to come meet my close friend with me.”

Janus blinked. “What? That’s what you want?”

“That’s what I want,” Patton confirmed.

“And what if I win?” Janus said.

“Well, what do you want?”

“I just want you to leave me alone,” Janus said in bafflement.

Patton smiled slightly, seeming almost amused. “Fair enough,” he said. “Then that’s what you get.”

Janus stared at him for another moment. “You’re… you’re actually serious about this.”

Patton smiled, but didn’t reply, which meant he actually was.

“I can’t believe this,” Janus said, shaking his head slightly.

Patton pulled one of Janus’ blank notebook pages over towards him and wrote down a phone number. “There you go. You can text that when you know when you’re free.” He stood back up and faced Janus with another bright smile.

“Two weeks,” Patton said, holding out his hand. “And if I can’t prove to you that there’s good in humanity, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Or you could leave me alone right now,” Janus said, giving him a deadpan look.

“I could,” Patton said. “But then I’ll just go on thinking I’m right, and you’ll never have another chance to prove me wrong, now will you?” He smiled, like he thought he had him.

…And dammit, he did.

“Come on Janus,” Patton said, smiling warmly, and stretching out his hand a little more. “Come find hope with me.”

“Never,” Janus said, but Patton didn’t move.

Finally, Janus sighed, acknowledging that he was probably being stupid, and reached out and shook Patton’s hand. “Deal.”

…

They wouldn’t go right away. For one, Janus had to ask before he took two weeks off of work. And two, he was absolutely going to meet Patton in a few more crowded well-lit places first before climbing into a car with him for two weeks.

But eventually, enough time had passed that Janus satisfied himself with the fact that Patton was just an idiot, and not an idiotic serial killer. And that meant Janus got to spend two weeks proving to him what an idiot he was, and he was starting to very much look forward to that.

They were apparently going to start by flying out west, to see some of the landscapes out there and make their first intentional stop at the Grand Canyon. And then Patton would rent a car and they’d spend the rest of the two weeks stopping at places he seemed to have in mind as they drove back.

Janus didn’t know what exactly the Grand Canyon had to do with finding good in humanity, but he still found himself sitting in a plane next to Patton and preparing to spend the next four and a half hours reading and decidedly ignoring him. At least Patton had given him a window seat.

“So, I got us a hotel there,” Patton said as they sat down. “We’ll have it for two nights, because I booked us a sunset tour around the canyon. Then we’re gonna head to Utah to visit Zion National Park and do some stargazing.”

“You know we don’t have to talk for this part, right?” Janus asked, not looking up from his book.

“I’m just explaining to you where we’re going. I figured you’d want to know,” Patton said brightly, like Janus’ blatant rudeness didn’t bother him.

“I don’t particularly care, actually. It’s not like I’ll enjoy any of them.”

“You’re sure? The Grand Canyon really lives up to the hype, you know.”

“You’ve been before?” Janus asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“A couple times.”

“How much money do you have?”

“I got some money when my Aunt Patty died. She was pretty well off.”

“So you were a rich kid then,” Janus muttered, turning back to his book.

“Did I say that?”

“I don’t really care,” Janus said, blocking out Patton’s voice so he could focus on his book. Thankfully, Patton seemed satisfied with leaving him alone. Or at least, that’s what he thought was happening, but after Janus haphazardly pulled out some gum to chew when the plane started taking off, Patton tapped his arm excitedly.

“Hey, look.”

“I’m alright.”

“You don’t want to watch us take off?”

“Not particularly.”

“It’s not much of a bet if you’re refusing to participate, you know.”

“You’re not likely to win my good will if you force me to do things I don’t want to, you know,” Janus said, but he put his book down anyway and looked out his window.

It’s not like he hadn’t ridden in a plane before, he knew there was something to be said for a view from thousands of feet in the air. But that was also just sort of common sense, or something he could watch on YouTube if he really wanted to.

Still, he supposed the view was alright.

He spent most of the flight reading, or half watching the in-flight movie that was playing. Patton spent the time writing something down, reading a book of his own, or looking out the window over Janus’ shoulder.

At one point not long before they were supposed to land, he turned to Janus. “Do you want to say anything to my friend?”

Janus stared at him. “Why in the world would I want to say anything to your friend?”

“I told him I’m going on a trip with you, and I said I was gonna write him and his little brother some letters. I want to know if you want him to know anything about you.”

“Ah, yes, as a matter of fact, let me start with where it all went wrong in my life.”

“Okay,” Patton said, smiling like for some baffling reason he thought Janus was serious.

“This is going to be a long two weeks, isn’t it,” Janus said, leaning his chin over onto his hand.

A second later the intercom came on saying they would start their descent soon. Small mercies, he supposed.

…

Janus had seen quite a few sunsets before in his life, but he’d always sort of imagined seeing one over the ocean would have a different kind of effect. And now he was wondering if it would be something like this.

Patton, not that he would ever admit it, had been right. This did live up to the hype. Janus almost couldn’t comprehend so much space, and all right in front of him.

There were a couple of clouds that the sun was setting into, which Janus actually appreciated, as they were preventing the sun from shining right in his eyes.

“I took my friend and his little brother here when I first met them,” Patton said, from his spot sitting next to Janus on the rocks they were perched on. “We make an annual trip now.”

“Why exactly do you keep bringing them up?” Janus asked, glaring over at him. “And why exactly are you talking at all?”

“Well, I figured it would be fair if you know a little about my friend before you meet him.”

“I’m not going to meet him.”

“You are if I win the bet, silly,” Patton said. “Besides, I told you. You remind me of my friend when I first met him. I brought him and his little brother here because it seemed like they both needed something to live for.”

Janus rolled his eyes and looked back out at the sunset like that was ridiculous.

But though he wouldn’t say it, he was thinking that he kind of got how this would do it.

Patton pulled out his phone after a second and took a couple pictures of the sunset. Janus wanted to ask him to send them to him. He wouldn’t, obviously.

“Does it ever get old?” he asked after a second.

“Coming back here?” Patton asked. “Nah.”

“Really?”

“I might not come as often if I lived closer,” Patton said with a shrug. “But I live in Florida, so no, I don’t think once a year will ever get old to me.”

Janus looked back out across the canyon. The sun was just about to drop below the horizon, but apparently it had decided to paint fire across the sky first. Janus crossed his arms over his chest and watched it. And for once, Patton didn’t say anything to ruin the moment.

For the next half hour or so, they sat in silence, and Janus took the time to breathe without really thinking of much. It had been a while since he’d been on a vacation. And just because this one’s premise had been so firmly rooted in stupidity didn’t mean he wasn’t going to enjoy it. The main thing was just not letting Patton know he was enjoying it.

It seemed to take forever for the sun to actually sink below the horizon, but eventually darkness began to settle in, as well as a chill with it that had been less noticeable with the sunset as a distraction.

“Alright,” Patton said, seeming to notice. “We’ll rest tonight and have a day to do whatever we want tomorrow. The bus routes are very nice, I recommend doing a couple. And then we can get some food at this Mexican place I like in town, if you like Mexican food.”

Janus shrugged. “You’re the one who’s picking all the destinations,” he said.

“The larger ones,” Patton agreed. “You still get a say in what we eat and what we do at each one, Jan.”

“Please refrain from giving me nicknames,” Janus said without any comments about the activities Patton had suggested. They both climbed up to where the guide for their tour had been watching slightly above them, and then towards the car to head back to the tour guide site. Patton, surprisingly, didn’t talk on the way, instead just writing another letter for his friend.

It was only after they’d arrived back at the site and were heading to their car that Patton spoke. “Do you want me to say anything about your thoughts?” he asked.

“Why would I want that?” Janus asked, giving Patton a look.

“Hey, just offering,” Patton said, tucking his letter and pen away. “I can drive back, unless you want to?”

“I’m just a passenger on this trip,” Janus said, pulling his phone out.

“Fair enough,” Patton said, and that was thankfully the last thing he said.

…

The bus routes were slightly less of an amazement then the sunset, but that wasn’t exactly much of a letdown. Janus’ favorite place where they stopped was called “The Abyss,” mostly because it made him think of Virgil and how much he would have loved being there just for the name.

Janus, despite himself, took quite a few pictures, but he still didn’t think they’d do it justice. It was hard to capture on camera the sensation of feeling so small.

He did make sure that Patton didn’t notice, of course. He had a reputation to uphold and, more importantly, a bet to win. He’d just be slightly blown away by the scenery in front of him while wearing a totally blank face.

It seemed to fool Patton at least, though it didn’t take away from his own enjoyment because nothing seemed to. He should probably try and come up with ways to spin this into a negative thing. He could mention the number of people who’d died by falling off the edge, or the easy murder tactic that would be difficult to prove. For some reason, though, he got the sense that Patton would be more bothered if he just pretended to be unaffected.

So, he marveled at the sight in front of him while making no commentary or showing no awe on his face whatsoever.

…And taking pictures. But you couldn’t blame him for that.

At the end of the day, Janus was thoroughly exhausted, but not at all in an unpleasant way, and he crawled into bed surprisingly satisfied with the day he’d had. And if this was the route Patton was planning on taking, Janus would win the bet for sure.

They woke up the next day with a fairly short drive ahead of them. The distance from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park, their next stop, was only about 2 hours, meaning they didn’t have to rush through anything while getting ready.

Unfortunately, the worst part was not getting ready or the distance of the drive. It was the fact that Patton hummed while he drove. He was currently in the middle of The Campfire Song Song from SpongeBob, and Janus was about at the end of his rope.

“Do you have to do that?” he snapped, and Patton glanced over at him.

“Do what?” he asked.

“The humming, for God’s sake. And SpongeBob, really?”

“I find it helps the drive pass better than sitting in silence,” Patton said brightly, turning his gaze to the road. “But my friend doesn’t like it either. You have a lot in common, you know.”

“I am simply thrilled to hear that,” Janus muttered.

“Do you want me to say anything about The Grand Canyon to my friend?” Patton asked. “Did you have a favorite stop?”

“I did not,” Janus lied, leaning against the window.

“Ah, I gotcha. It’s hard for me to choose too,” Patton said. He smiled upwards out of the windshield. “Gosh, there’s so much sky out here!”

He wasn’t wrong. There were long stretches of road with nothing blocking the sky whatsoever, and everything was so flat that you could see horizon to horizon. Janus could almost picture himself happy living out here, if he could picture himself happy living anywhere. It was just that gorgeous.

“Wow, you’re right,” he deadpanned anyway. “What is this strange thing above me, I’ve never seen it before. Look, it’s blue.”

“Oh come on, Janus,” Patton said. “You live in Florida too, I know you know what I mean. We don’t see sky like this.”

Janus sighed as if he was annoyed, but he was quiet for a few seconds afterwards.

“We don’t,” he admitted. “I imagine the stargazing will be something.”

“Well, the stargazing might actually still be a little closer to what you’re used to in regards to amounts of sky, but don’t worry, we’ll be driving plenty at night if you want to see it like this. Zion is still well worth it though.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Janus said coolly, looking at Patton out of the corner of his eye.

“Well of course you will, that’s what this whole trip is for,” Patton said cheerfully, as if Janus had just made a joke they were both in on.

Janus scoffed and looked out the window, and they both remained silent for a while after that.

…

For a second time, Patton was infuriatingly right.

Zion National Park was essentially a park full of mountains. They were technically called ‘cliffs,’ but that didn’t seem accurate. They were massive red structures that stretched into the sky above them, and there was a road through the main section of the park that they could drive through. Every now and then Janus thought he’d stopped being amazed, but then they’d turn a corner or go through a tunnel and end up facing somehow larger and more gorgeous mountains than they’d seen before.

“We should reach the welcome center at the end of this road,” Patton said, who was somehow able to say anything when faced with all this. “And that should be the area our campsite is in.”

Ah, yes, they were apparently camping for the night. Janus would normally be irritated, but if it meant waking up to this the next morning, it might honestly be worth it.

Not that he’d say that to Patton, of course. As far as he was concerned, the camping was inexcusable, which it would be 99% of the time.

This time, however, they were camping near a welcome center with indoor bathrooms and water, and also surrounded by insanely gorgeous mountains, so Janus would give it a pass. (Begrudgingly. In his head.)

They pulled into a parking lot at the end of the drive, and Patton headed to the trunk to pull the tent out.

“Would you mind helping me set up?” Patton asked. “It’s difficult to do as one person.”

Janus considered that for a minute. He could refuse just to show how little he was affected by everything they’d done so far, but that just seemed needlessly cruel, and a little petty. He wasn’t necessarily opposed to doing things that were needlessly cruel and a little petty, but at this point it might just prove he had been affected by something Patton had done. And he hadn’t been affected by any of it, of course.

So, he moved to help Patton carry the tent a short distance to a grassy area next to a stream, with other tents nearby.

It had been a very long time since Janus set up a tent, but he actually didn’t find it particularly difficult. He could either blame it on muscle memory, or the fact that Remus wasn’t standing off to the side shouting dick jokes and distracting him and Virgil both. One of those options made Janus look much better though.

“Thanks, you’re not bad at this,” Patton said, putting his hands on his hips as they both stood up to a completed tent.

“Muscle memory,” Janus said with a shrug. “I have camped before, you know.”

Patton didn’t say anything to that, just went back to the car to get the box of food for dinner. They ate a bunch of snacky foods for dinner, since neither of them were very adept at grilling and leaving to get food from a restaurant would, according to Patton at least, “ruin the mood.”

It was starting to get darker as they finished eating, and Patton grabbed a letter from the car to write to his friend as Janus grabbed one of the books he’d brought and sat down on the picnic table they’d eaten dinner at. Small chatter came from the other groups around them as some people started fires and started making s’mores.

“You want to say anything to my friend?” Patton asked as he seemed to be finishing up the letter.

“Strangely, still no,” Janus said, giving him a look. “Do you have to ask that every single time?”

“I do, and you can’t stop me,” Patton said with a bright smile. “Give me just a sec, I’ll go grab the wood and we can light a fire.”

“We’re lighting a fire?”

“What’s the point of camping without s’mores, Janus?”

Janus scowled and turned back to his book before the light was gone from the sky. Remus had a very similar outlook. Janus had never felt particularly strongly about s’mores, and had only done them because Remus had enjoyed them. He didn’t exactly care for them anymore.

It was apparently impossible to stop Patton when he’d decided on something however, because ten minutes later a fire was burning in their campfire’s pit, and Patton was laying the ingredients for s’mores out on the table.

“I don’t know about you, but personally I think the only proper way to do marshmallows for s’mores is to burn them,” Patton said, with a grin that looked slightly unsettling in the firelight.

“Sure, okay,” Janus said, raising an eyebrow and setting his book aside, as it was now too dark to read it. “Whatever you prefer.”

“Do you want a burned one?”

“I’m not eating s’mores,” Janus said, rolling his eyes and rising to put his book back in the car.

“Oh, do you not like them?” Patton asked, seeming confused by the prospect, as if this was the first time he’d ever encountered differing food preferences.

“Not especially,” Janus said coolly. “I’m sorry that ruins your plans so thoroughly.”

“Oh, it doesn’t,” Patton said, reaching to the side. “Here, I’ll make some for me and you can just have a bar of chocolate all to yourself then.”

Janus scowled but snatched the chocolate. He wasn’t going to turn it down, it was still chocolate. He took his book back to the car and pulled out a blanket he’d been going to use for sleeping in the car but that he supposed he could use in a tent as well.

He sat on the picnic table bench next to the fire and listened to the sound of guitars and singing from groups nearby.

“I didn’t bring my guitar this time,” Patton said as if he could read Janus’ mind. “Just cause we were going on such a long trip and there’s so much other stuff to bring. But if you ever want to come back just here for a while, I could bring it.”

“I’m not going to see you again after I win this bet,” Janus said, giving Patton a deadpan look.

“Aww, I hope I can change your mind about that,” Patton said, giving Janus a smile before turning back to his s’mores.

Janus sat back and started listening to the music, and the people laughing around him, and the nighttime bugs starting to come out, and the crackling of the fires. Patton sat back on the bench a second later, but didn’t say anything, just gave Janus a smile that Janus could barely see in the dark and sat back to listen to the sounds with him.

Eventually, Patton nudged him, and Janus gave him an irritated look, but Patton was looking up at the sky, so a second later Janus did the same.

The stars had started to come out, and even though they weren’t done doing so they were more stars than Janus saw unless he was out in the country.

“Wait a little bit,” Patton whispered. “We should see the milky way.”

Janus didn’t know exactly how to feel about that, so he didn’t say anything. Patton wasn’t wrong though. As the sky got darker, the milky way became visible, and Janus couldn’t think of anything else to do other than sit back and stare at it, so that’s what he did.

“It’s something else, isn’t it,” Patton said quietly.

“Patton, shut up,” Janus said. He meant it so he could keep looking, but Patton didn’t have to know that.

Patton chuckled a little bit, but said, “Okay,” and was quiet from that moment on.

Janus wasn’t sure when he went to bed that night, but he knew it was after quite a long time of just sitting and staring at the stars.

Finally though, he and Patton both headed back to the tent, and Janus was half asleep and he could tell Patton was too.

Janus got in the tent first and crawled into his sleeping bag, but Patton stayed just outside and kept looking at the sky for a second more.

“Now, I don’t know about you,” he said, glancing at Janus as he stepped inside the tent. “But I can find some good in things like this.”

Janus blinked, startled by the fact that he’d forgotten for a moment the reason they were here. He thought for a minute, but he didn’t have to think for long enough to make him nervous.

“That might be true,” he said, turning to face the other side of the tent. “But it doesn’t get you any closer to winning the bet.”

“It doesn’t?” Patton asked, sounding surprised for the first time, and Janus smirked, enjoying the slight victory. “Why not?”

Janus rolled over again to face Patton as he finished zipping up the tent and started for his sleeping bag.

“Because the point of this is supposed to involve finding good in humanity,” he said. “And looking at beautiful landscapes and spectacles of nature might be rather amazing, but it doesn’t say anything about humanity.”

“I think it says something about humanity that we’ve specifically put laws in place to protect places like this,” Patton said.

Janus scoffed. “The environment is constantly in danger from humans,” he said. “Even national parks aren’t guaranteed safety if the wrong person ends up in charge. These are only here for as long as humanity deems them worthy. And humanity definitely isn’t good enough to do that. You’re going to have to try a little harder than this.”

And with that, he turned back around and laid down again. He had almost fallen asleep when he heard Patton say, quietly, “Fair enough.”

…

They were apparently done with the national parks. Janus put on a mocking tone, but he wasn’t completely faking his disappointment. Despite himself, he had enjoyed going to see beautiful places with Patton. It was enjoyable, if obviously temporary and wholly unrelated to the bet they’d made.

But instead, the following day Patton woke him up early and said they were going to Lagoon Amusement Park on the other side of the state, which was a very hard shift in tone, at least in Janus’ opinion.

Patton seemed to at least be aware of this, so before they went there, they stopped for breakfast in a busier city, just to get used to more people around.

“We should get some ice cream too,” Patton said as they got back in the car. “You want to get some after the amusement park, or before?”

“Getting it after will be cheaper,” Janus pointed out. “Everything in amusement parks costs more than it should.”

“Maybe, but I’m handling the money so don’t worry about it,” Patton said. “Just let me know if you see something you want to try.”

They got to Lagoon Amusement Park at around 10:00, and got into the park after buying the tickets about a half hour later. At that point they still had a while before either of them would want lunch, so Janus immediately got them in line for a roller coaster called Wicked, because he had a theme to stick with here.

The line was pretty long for the time it took to ride the actual coaster, but it was fast and just as fun as riding a roller coaster usually was. Janus hadn’t really had expectations in coming here, but it seemed like they were just going to an amusement park. It was fun, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to be learning about humanity from it.

Either way, Patton seemed content to let him pick everything they were doing, so Janus picked some coasters that looked interesting and just sat back to enjoy the ride. They hadn’t ridden everything that caught his eye by the time they got lunch, but his favorites so far were two coasters called Colossal the Fire Dragon, which rode up against the ground in a very adrenaline-inducing way, and an older one that was just called Roller Coaster, which Patton spent the walk to lunch coming up with better names for.

The lunch itself was just amusement park food, in that it was ridiculously overpriced chicken strips and fries, but it fit the mood rather well, and Patton didn’t seem to mind, so Janus wasn’t going to say anything about it.

They went on a water ride called Rattlesnake Rapids after lunch, since it was starting to get hotter, and there was a waterfall at the end that Janus very decidedly ignored the “stay seated” rule to make sure he was under as they passed.

He let Patton pick what they were doing next, which he immediately recognized as a mistake when Patton wanted to go on the teacups, but it was too late to take it back now.

“This was my favorite ride as a kid,” Patton said, spinning the wheel slightly as Janus leaned back and very much did not. “It’s nice to bask in the nostalgia for a little bit, you know?”

“I can certainly understand wanting to lie to yourself by pining after an existence that no longer exists anymore,” Janus said, giving Patton a deadpan look. He expected the other to protest, or get even a little irritated and say that’s not what he meant.

Instead, Patton tipped his head slightly and smiled knowingly. “Oh, can you?”

Janus coughed slightly in surprise, staring at Patton for a second. But the latter simply turned back to spinning the wheel again. After a second, just to get rid of the awkward tension, Janus did the same.

“What’s so great about nostalgia anyway?” he muttered. “I wouldn’t think you go to amusement parks to bask in nostalgia.”

“Mm, maybe not,” Patton agreed, “but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a sad thing. I like to think that sometimes nostalgia can remind you of the good times you had. You just have to be careful to not get stuck in it.”

He sounded like that was something he was familiar with, but Janus didn’t get time to point that out, as the ride was ending.

A second after it did Patton stood up, holding his hand out to Janus. “Let’s go on the Cannibal ride. I’ve heard good things.”

“Back to coasters, are we?” Janus asked, ignoring Patton’s hand and stepped out of the car himself.

“Well, that’s the main reason we’re here, isn’t it?” Patton said with a smile.

They headed out the exit gate and Patton pointed out the sign that was leading to Cannibal, so they both headed that direction.

“You know,” Patton said as they walked. “You don’t have to try to ruin a good time.”

Janus scowled at him. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t feel at all sad about riding the teacups until you tried to make it that way,” Patton said, giving him a look.

Despite himself, Janus winced inwardly. “I… wasn’t trying to make you sad,” he admitted.

“It’s okay,” Patton said, smiling again, seeming to show it had passed. “But that can happen when you try to intentionally ruin the fun. And I think you’re missing the point of this.”

Janus scowled again, irritated by Patton thinking he’d managed to call him out on something. “And what’s the point, exactly?”

“The point is fun,” Patton said, like that should be obvious. “We’re just having fun today. It doesn’t have to be something you’re lying to yourself to achieve, and you don’t have to be repressing anything. You can just have fun, Janus.” He smiled warmly. “I mean, that’s the point of amusement parks, isn’t it? They’re a place humans made to come have fun.”

Janus didn’t know quite what to say to that. “That’s moronic,” he went with finally.

“Suit yourself,” Patton said with a look. “Just know that you’re the one ruining it for both of us, then.”

Janus huffed and crossed his arms, but infuriatingly, Patton had a point. He wasn’t going to let go of his pride that easily, but he had a point.

“Janus,” Patton said, as they approached the start line for Cannibal.

Janus turned to glare at him again, but surprisingly he didn’t find Patton smiling again. Instead, he looked slightly concerned, his brows furrowed.

“You do know that I’m not going to think less of you if you admit to enjoying yourself, right?” Patton said. A second later he smiled again, but it wasn’t his bright one. Instead, it was soft, and something in Janus… didn’t hate it, no matter how much he wanted to.

He still scowled and looked away, but by the time they actually made it to the front of the ride, he’d decided to maybe let himself enjoy it.

You know. As long as Patton didn’t see.

…

In the last half hour before the park closed, they ended up getting ice cream from a place called PV’s Ice Cream Parlor and sitting on a park bench to relax as the day came to a close.

“Tomorrow we’re going to be driving a little ways,” Patton said. “The main attraction is a dinner at this restaurant run by a friend of mine, but it’s in Kansas. It’s about a twelve hour drive.”

“We can take shifts then,” Janus said before he could think about it too much.

Patton gave him a surprised look. “You sure?”

“I’m not going to make you drive for twelve hours straight, Patton,” Janus said, giving him a look.

“Well I couldn’t even if I wanted too,” Patton said, giving Janus a teasing grin. “I could only drive twelve hours gay.”

“Nevermind, now you’re driving the full twelve hours.”

Patton laughed, and Janus scowled to cover up the sudden warmth in his chest.

“Thank you Janus,” he said with a warm smile. “I appreciate it.”

Patton finished his ice cream first, and then reached into the bag he’d brought into the park and pulled out a piece of paper that he started writing on, likely another letter to his friend.

“Do you want to say anything?” Patton asked as he wrote.

“No, Patton, I never do, and I never will,” Janus said in exasperation. “Why are you writing letters in the first place, don’t you have a phone?”

“My friend said he wanted a record to keep of my experiences with you on this trip,” Patton said.

“You… why?”

Patton laughed a little. “It’s very on brand for him, actually. I think he’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“He’s never even met me.”

“He can’t be looking forward to it?” Patton asked, giving Janus a brief look before turning back to his letter.

“I think it’s a little strange,” Janus said.

Patton just hummed thoughtfully and kept on writing.

Janus finished his ice cream around the time that the announcements came on telling people they were closing, so he and Patton both headed for the exit.

“The hotel isn’t far from here, I think,” Patton said. “But I’ve never been there before, so I might need directions.”

“What’s the address?” Janus asked, pulling out his phone. Patton gave it, and he typed it in, and a couple minutes later they were on the way there.

Patton’s habit of humming to himself as he drove was apparently a regular thing, which was incredibly annoying, obviously, but Janus was finding it surprisingly less annoying than it had been on the drive away from Zion. It must be the different tone of the day. Yeah, that was it.

But when they got to the hotel and checked in, Patton seemed like he was slowing down, and though it was probably just the exhaustion of a very long day, it still caught Janus’ attention.

Patton changed in the bathroom once they got in their room so Janus could change outside and climb into bed, and when he came out Janus set down the book he was reading and turned to face him. “Patton?”

“Yes?” Patton asked, turning to face him.

“I feel like it’s important to state that it’s also okay to be sad,” Janus said, and Patton blinked at him for a minute as he climbed under the covers of his own bed.

“I don’t mean that…” Janus paused, trying to figure out how to phrase his words in a way that would make clear that he wasn’t saying Patton was right about anything.

“I hope you know that it’s okay to be sad sometimes,” he ended on. “You don’t always have to be fine.”

Patton seemed to get what he meant, and he smiled warmly. “I know,” he said. “Really, I do. I’ve been called out on that quite a few times, actually. It’s something I’m working on. But I know it’s okay to be sad. It’s just a matter of reminding myself sometimes.”

Janus nodded, satisfied enough at that. “Okay. Well it really is. I’m not going to think any less of you for being sad. Not that—” he cleared his throat and looked away. “Not that I think highly of you, or anything. I don’t.”

Patton didn’t say anything for long enough that Janus thought the conversation ended, and picked up his book to go back to reading.

A second later Patton clicked off his lamp. “Thank you, Janus,” he said softly.

Janus didn’t respond.

…

“So it’s a restaurant your friends own?” Janus asked, turning down the street Patton pointed at.

“Yep! It’s technically a wedding cake shop, but they serve food too. They don’t technically serve dinner, but Roman likes me.”

“So is one of these people the friend you keep writing to?” Janus asked.

“Nope, they’re different ones. The friend I’m writing to lives back in Florida with us. I’ve known Roman since college, though. He was my roommate. He and Thomas have been dating almost as long.”

“Mm. They okay? Just living here and all that?”

“Oh, yeah. Things have gotten better in the years since they started their shop. It’s not like they don’t get some hateful people every now and then, but where don’t you? And they love it here.”

Janus hummed again in acknowledgement and turned again when Patton said to.

“You can park here,” he said, pointing over at the side of the road. “The shop is at the end of this street.”

Janus pulled over, turned off the car, and leaned back with a sigh.

“Oh, I know, right?” Patton said, stretching his arms over his head. “We’re gonna stay here for tomorrow too, just so we don’t have to drive anywhere.”

“Good,” Janus muttered, climbing out of the car so he could stretch too.

“We’ve got about half an hour before I told Roman we’d show up, you want to walk around for a bit?” Patton asked.

“Yes I do,” Janus said, heading over to the sidewalk and looking around for the first time without having to focus on the roads.

Hays wasn’t a major area, but there were still quite a few people around, meaning the two of them ended up sticking close together just so they wouldn’t lose each other. They were close to a lot of stores, so they ended up window shopping for fifteen minutes or so before heading back the way they came. Janus didn’t see anything he particularly liked, but the experience was enjoyable enough.

As they approached the shop Patton said was Roman’s, Patton seemed to light up, and Janus wondered for a moment if he was this excited to see all of his friends. By the time they reached the door, Patton pushed it open practically beaming.

“Roman!” he called, and the person behind the counter glanced up with a grin of his own.

“Patton!” he called, and set aside the frosting he was using in order to run around the counter and pick Patton up and spin him around.

Patton laughed as he did, and got squeezed in a hug once he was set down.

“It’s so good to see you,” Patton said, beaming up at Roman. “It’s been way too long!”

“It has,” Roman agreed, letting go with a wide smile before turning to face Janus. “So is this the famous Janus I’ve heard about?”

Janus scowled, glaring slightly at Patton. “How many of your friends have you told about me?”

“I told Roman and Thomas because we were coming here, silly,” Patton said. “I didn’t want to show up out of nowhere with someone they’d never met before.”

“And I’d watch your tone to my Patton,” Roman said, giving Janus a warning look. “If you hurt him you’re gonna have a lot of angry people to deal with.”

“Roman,” Patton said, crossing his arms. “I can handle myself.”

“I would never imply you couldn’t,” Roman said with a smile at Patton. “That’s not going to stop any of us from being angry, though.”

Janus scoffed and rolled his eyes.

Roman gave him another look, but turned to head back behind the counter. “So, Pat, Thomas is making your favorite in the back as we speak. And what is it that you would like?” he addressed the second question at Janus.

Patton had given Janus a menu to look at on the way here, so Janus already knew what he was getting, but a large part of him wanted to annoy Roman for a reason he couldn’t really pin down.

“What are your options?” he said, looking casually down at his nails.

“Here, I’ve still got the menu pulled up,” Patton said, pulling out his phone and ruining Janus’ entire plan with a pleasant smile on his face.

Janus sighed, took the phone, pretended to look at it for a minute, and then looked back up at Roman. “I’ll have pancakes with the strawberries and strawberry syrup on top, please,” he said, glancing boredly up at Roman.

“Coming right up,” Roman said with a smile, writing that down and heading back through a door.

Janus had a brief moment to hope that he’d stay there before he reappeared to pick up the frosting and start frosting the cake that he’d been working on.

“So how have you been Patton?” Roman asked, grinning at Patton, who didn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that Roman had come back out.

“I’ve been great!” Patton said happily. “Work’s been awesome lately, I’ve gotten to help a ton of people!”

Janus sighed as Patton continued to talk, and moved to go sit down at one of the tables and prepared himself for a night of being ignored while Patton caught up with his friend. Unfortunately, the second he started to move, Patton turned to face him.

“And then I met Janus!” he said happily, pulling Janus back into the conversation. “We’ve been driving across the country, like I said in my message, it’s been lovely. Don’t you think, Janus?”

“No,” Janus said, crossing his arms.

“Oh, he’s just teasing, he’s been having fun,” Patton said, with a knowing smile at Janus. “Hey Janus, Roman comes with me on the yearly Grand Canyon trip too. He and Thomas both love it.”

“That we do,” said a new voice, and they all turned to see someone else coming out of the kitchen with two plates of pancakes, the stack with strawberries for Janus, and the one with peaches for Patton. “Though we tend to drive there. Fourteen hours isn’t nothing, but we’re still much closer than you two.”

“And I would still pay for a flight for you both,” Patton said, like this was an argument they’d had many times. A second later, he confirmed this by turning to Janus and saying, “We’ve had this argument many times.”

“Good to know,” Janus said, picking up his plate of pancakes from the counter and heading back to a table.

“Oh, come sit with us!” Patton called to Thomas and Roman as he grabbed his own pancakes.

Janus gave him a look, trying to convey “Seriously?” with his eyes.

Patton seemed to pick up on it, but he just raised an eyebrow at Janus.

“This is why we’re here, Jan,” he said. “Come on, let’s sit and talk.”

Janus sighed and started cutting up his pancakes as Thomas and Roman both sat down. Janus turned to Thomas, as the less annoying of the two, and said, “So, Patton says you and Roman have been dating since college?”

“That’s right,” Thomas said, with way too sappy a smile at Roman. “We’re both theater geeks. We acted together in a ton of plays.”

Roman grinned back at him and gave Thomas a quick peck on the lips, resulting in both of them smiling at each other for another second before turning to face Patton and Janus again.

“Theater isn’t terrible,” Janus admitted, cutting another bite of his pancakes, which were actually quite good. “I prefer directing myself, but I haven’t done it since high school.”

“It’s not exactly a steady gig,” Roman said with a shrug. “Hence the cake shop. But we do some from time to time. Sometimes we get hired to do a Christmas play. We did a Christmas Carol remake last year.”

“A friend of mine had a large hand in the ghost designs,” Patton said with a wink at Janus. “He and his brother came up for the whole season, and I joined them too. We all had a ton of fun together.”

It sounded fun, though Janus wasn’t going to say it out loud. He didn’t really do a lot for Christmas anymore. He’d used to spend it with his mom, and oftentimes Virgil and Remus, but… well. It had been a long time.

Thomas said something else, and Janus shook himself out of his thoughts to realize he was asking Janus about his pancakes.

“Oh,” Janus said, glancing down at them. “Yes, they’re delicious.”

“Awesome,” Thomas said with a bright smile. “The strawberry ones are my favorite to make.”

“We’d get along well then, they’re my favorite to eat,” Janus said, putting another bite in his mouth. Thomas laughed.

The conversation lasted a while after that and spanned quite a few topics about things they’d done before, but surprisingly Janus didn’t find himself feeling left out. It was probably because any time he was about to, Patton would explain something to him or ask him a question and pull Janus right back into the loop again.

By the time they left to head back to the hotel, Janus was forced to begrudgingly admit that Thomas was lovely and Roman wasn’t the worst person he’d ever met.

“Aww, you like them!” Patton said happily on the way up to their room. He beamed at Janus as he said it, seeming ridiculously happy for some reason.

“They’re alright,” Janus said, but he’d decided on how he’d play this on the way over, so he ended with, “but I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

Patton’s smile faded into a confused look. “Relevant?”

Janus gave him a look. “Your attempt to prove that there’s good in humanity. Whether or not I like your friends doesn’t seem relevant to that argument.”

Patton sighed, sounding resigned, but after a second all he did was turn to face Janus again, and say “I disagree.”

“And why is that?” Janus said, crossing his arms.

“Well, you had fun at the amusement park yesterday. And you had fun with my friends today. Fun and friends are two very human things in my opinion,” Patton said. “They’re good things that humans have built for the sake of other humans. The sake of other humans enjoying themselves and forming relationships. And that doesn’t have to be fake, remember?”

“Oh, please,” Janus said, rolling his eyes. “What does that prove about all of humanity? You have to be rich or have connections in order to do the things we did.”

“What are you talking about?” Patton asked in confusion.

“The average person can’t just decide to go to an amusement park whenever they want to,” Janus pointed out. “And the only reason we were able to talk with your friends all night is because you already knew them. You said they don’t do dinners. It was only something we could do through nepotism. And while this may be a relatively harmless example, that doesn’t change the fact that in order to experience joys in life, you have to have money or connections. That doesn’t sound like a species that’s good overall to me.”

Patton didn’t say anything to that for a long time, and for a minute Janus almost thought he might have made some ground.

Why didn’t that feel as good as he’d thought it would?

But he was proven wrong when they reached their room and before going in, Patton turned to him with just as determined a look on his face as ever.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re gonna stay here for another day.”

“I thought we were already doing that,” Janus said, crossing his arms.

“No, we’re staying for two days now, because we’ve got something to do tomorrow.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since right now,” Patton said simply, pulling out the key and turning to face the door. He pulled the luggage cart in behind them both and handed Janus his day bag. “Alright, I’m going to take this down to the front. Sleep well, Janus.”

Janus sighed, long and irritated. “No, give me the cart,” he said, grabbing Patton’s day bag and taking the cart from him. “You pushed it up here, I’ll take it back.”

He left before Patton could protest, or thank him, or anything else. He needed to sleep for a while, today had been very long.

But not, his brain pointed out, annoyingly, very bad.

…

They went to Roman and Thomas’ shop again for breakfast the following morning, though it had other customers this time meaning they couldn’t talk to the two of them.

Janus got strawberry pancakes again because it was what he deserved, and also he didn’t think he’d ever get enough of the way Thomas made them. Patton got eggs, but Janus kept catching him casting glances at his pancakes, so he pushed the last one of his stack of three over at him.

“Here, I’m full, eat it or I’ll throw it away,” he lied.

“Oh. Thanks, Janus,” Patton said, starting to cut it up.

“I would have thrown it away anyway. You just look conveniently like a garbage can,” Janus said.

“Um, thank you?” Patton said, but after a second he ate the pancake.

Janus flipped his book open and read it as Patton finished eating, which didn’t take terribly long. Afterwards, Patton looked up at him again. “Okay,” he said. “So the plan for the day doesn’t happen until tonight. We can window shop again if you want?”

Janus set the book down for a second and looked up at Patton. They’d both driven most of the day yesterday followed by a long night of staying up talking. It was enjoyable, but that didn’t mean Janus wasn’t exhausted. And Patton didn’t look much better off.

“Do you want to do that?” he asked, keeping a casual tone in his voice as he looked back down at his book.

“We can do whatever you’d like,” Patton said, smiling at Janus brightly. It was strained though. Janus didn’t doubt he’d make it through the day if he tried, but it also seemed like it would be more enjoyable for both of them to spend a day in a hotel room.

“Patton,” Janus said, closing the book and setting it aside. “You look like you need rest.”

“Oh, I’ll be alright, Jan,” Patton said, waving it off. “We drove for a while yesterday is all. I told you that you get to pick the smaller things we do, if you want to do something out, we can do that.”

Janus gave Patton a long look and finally said, “I’d rather spend the day unwinding before tonight, actually.”

The relief in Patton’s eyes was probably only obvious since Janus was looking for it, but he still saw it. Janus decided to bring it up later, but still closed his book and grabbed his card to head up to the front and pay.

“I’ll meet you at the car,” he said, and left before Patton could protest. He paid Roman, who gave him a friendlier smile then he got yesterday.

“It was nice to meet you,” he said. “So long as you’re not mean to Patton, you’re welcome anytime.”

Janus blinked in surprise. “I… don’t imagine I’ll be coming back,” he said. “I live in Florida.”

“Hey, you never know,” Roman said with a knowing smile that Janus couldn’t quite work out. After a second, he brushed it off and headed back towards the door, where Patton had stopped to wait for him.

They headed back to the hotel room, and as they opened the door Janus spoke up. “You know,” he said, “it’s not a bad thing to admit you need some rest.”

“Oh, I’m fine Janus,” Patton said, in the casual tone one only used when they were trying to brush something off. “We’re both on a vacation, at least of sorts. It’s not like there’s a ton of stress involved.”

“Things don’t have to be stressful to be tiring,” Janus said, crossing his arms. “It’s also not a failure to admit to being tired. We’re humans, we can’t go forever. We need rest.”

“I’m okay,” Patton said, giving Janus a smile.

Janus gave him a look, trying to convey with his eyes that he wasn’t buying Patton’s bullshit.

Patton winced, clearly picking up on it. “I’m not here for me,” he said after a second. “I’ll be fine.”

“No, you’re here because of a petty bet we both made,” Janus said, rolling his eyes as he moved to sit on his bed. “And trust me, I’m not going to think any less of you if you set some boundaries and ask for some time to yourself. I’ll probably think more of you, actually. I respect that kind of thing.”

Patton didn’t say anything to that, and Janus decided to leave it there for now. But he did notice that after that Patton spent most of the day on his bed relaxing, reading, or napping. They even ordered lunch to be delivered so they wouldn’t have to drive anywhere.

In fact, the first time Patton moved was about an hour before their event that was apparently at 7:00, and he looked much less tired than he had that morning.

He sat at their desk and pulled out a piece of paper to start writing a letter to his friend, and turned to Janus as soon as he did so.

“Do you want to say anything to them?”

Janus sighed in exasperation. “If I give you something to say, will you stop asking?”

“I mean, until next time, sure,” Patton said with a smile.

Janus sighed again. “Just tell them Thomas’ strawberry pancakes are good,” he said, waving his hand and turning back to face his phone, where he was scrolling through social media.

“You got it!” Patton said brightly, turning back to his paper. True to his word, he didn’t say anything else to Janus until 6:45 when he said they had to leave to head out to Roman and Thomas’ shop again. So Janus followed Patton down to the car, and they both drove the now-familiar route, which probably shouldn’t have been so familiar after only three trips.

When they got there, however, Patton parked a street away and got out of the car like they were walking from here.

“Uh, Patton?” Janus said, stepping out of the car. “Is the other street full?”

“You can’t park there tonight,” Patton said with a smile back at Janus. “The street is closed off starting at 6:30.”

“What? Why?”

“Come see.”

Janus was too curious not to, so he followed Patton a street over, and as they got closer, he started to hear music.

When they turned the corner onto the street, Janus saw why it was closed. Tables had been moved out to the sidewalks and people were mingling there and on the street, and a band was at the other end of the street right in front of Roman and Thomas’ shop, where Janus could just make out the two of them in front of a table full of food.

“What in the world is this?” Janus asked, as he and Patton both started towards them.

“This is something Roman and Thomas started a few years ago,” Patton said. “Once a month, everyone in the area who wants to gathers for a potluck here. There’s food and music and dancing, and all of it’s free, no money or nepotism required. It’s at night after work is over, and they do their best to schedule it at a time where the most people possible can come.”

Patton turned to smile at Janus. “We’re just here to enjoy the night.”

Janus didn’t say anything, just followed Patton up to the front table where Roman and Thomas were.

“Hey, Patton, hi Janus!” Thomas said happily. “I’m glad you stuck around one more night!”

“Me too,” Patton said with a smile back. “I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to make one of these next.”

“Well I hope it’s still soon,” Thomas said. He turned to Janus next as he added, “the music starts at seven, but feel free to eat now. I recommend Mackenzie’s spaghetti, and Logan’s biscuits for dessert. He makes amazing jams.”

“Logan’s a friend of mine too,” Patton said, nudging him. “He teaches at the high school near here. I can introduce him to you later.”

“How many friends do you have?” Janus snapped, grabbing a plate as he started down the table.

“I love people,” Patton said happily. “But if you’re talking about close friends, it’s just the five.”

“That’s five too many,” Janus grumbled, stopping at the spaghetti to take some.

“Oh come on Janus,” Patton said as he followed. “I know you don’t believe that.”

“Oh, and that’s absolutely your place to say,” Janus snapped, glaring at Patton. “How do you know how I feel? If you have friends, you have to waste energy on people who aren’t you. You have to trust them, which is foolish and ultimately pointless. They make you think they’ll be there when you need them, but they’re not.”

It took Janus a second to realize that he really had snapped all of that without thinking it through. As well as the fact that Patton hadn’t said anything yet.

Janus picked up his plate and moved further down the table, trying to achieve the likely impossible task of brushing past it. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

“Did… did that happen to you, Janus?” Patton asked quietly, moving to catch up with him.

“No,” Janus snapped. “That’s just the kinds of things that can happen when you have friends.”

“Janus—”

“Oh fuck off, Patton,” Janus snapped, shooting him another glare. “It was my fault anyway.”

With that, he turned and stormed off to find a table, not bothering to search for Logan’s biscuits and jams before doing so.

He shouldn’t have said any of that, for numerous reasons. Not the least of which being that it really was his fault. It would have been completely unfair to expect Virgil to be there for him when he was dealing with… well. There was a reason he hadn’t told him anything.

That didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt, irrational as the feeling was.

Janus took a bite of his spaghetti and turned a second later as the band started playing music. Right. Patton had brought him here to have fun. He didn’t particularly feel like having fun anymore.

Patton sat down before he could really consider whether or not it was fair to ask Patton if they could go back to the room. From the look on his face, he seemed to have moved on from Janus’ accidental opening up and was smiling again. Small mercies, Janus supposed. Or maybe Patton just understood that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Do you think you’d be up for meeting Logan?” Patton asked, giving him a warm look. Definitely the second one, then. “Here, I got you a biscuit by the way. I know you left pretty fast, but these biscuits go faster.”

“Sure,” Janus said, taking the biscuits, and was surprised to find that he sort of meant it. He was rather in the mood for a distraction now.

Patton pulled out his phone and texted who was presumably Logan, and less than a minute later a man in a black polo shirt and a dark blue tie approached their table.

“Hello Patton,” the man said. “It’s lovely to see you again.”

“It’s great to see you too Lo,” Patton said, hopping up to give Logan a hug. A second later he stood back and gestured over in Janus’ direction. “And this is Janus. He’s who I’ve been traveling with for about a week now.”

“Salutations,” Logan said, giving Janus a nod and a small smile. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, Janus.”

“Yes, everyone seems to have heard quite a bit about me,” Janus said, giving Patton a glare, though it probably wasn’t as serious as he intended it to be. “The only thing I’ve heard about you is that you apparently make quite good biscuits and jams.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d say that,” Logan said, though the pride on his face was obvious. “I do quite enjoy making them, though.”

“Here, Jan,” Patton said, nudging the biscuit he’d brought him towards Janus. “Go on and try it.”

Janus picked up the biscuit and took a bite, and clearly his enjoyment must have shown on his face, because Logan started smiling proudly.

“It’s alright,” Janus grumbled, taking another bite.

“That means he thinks it’s delicious,” Patton said with a smile at Logan.

Janus hissed, and Patton turned his smile to him, looking amused.

Logan joined them while they ate, and Janus at least found him better company than Roman. Mind you, he didn’t make strawberry pancakes, but he had lower energy than Roman did, and was easy to talk to. By the time they finished eating, Janus would begrudgingly admit that he was having fun again.

Patton was having fun too, which was much less of a surprise. Then, around the time Logan stood up to go get more food, people started to finish their meals and headed out onto the street to start dancing. And here, Patton did manage to surprise him by reaching out a hand towards Janus.

“Hey Janus,” he said, eyes shining. “Come dance with me.”

Janus blinked. “What?”

“Come dance with me,” Patton repeated, like it was a perfectly normal sentence. But he was smiling, and his eyes looked hopeful, and Janus found himself taking his hand.

And suddenly, before Janus could manage to really prepare himself, Patton had pulled them both out onto the street and was spinning them around in time with the music.

Janus considered himself a very good dancer, so it was confusing when suddenly he was having to concentrate to avoid stepping on Patton’s feet. But his smile was being particularly distracting at the moment, which also didn’t make any sense, because Patton smiled all the time and it was the most annoying thing in the world.

Janus tried to focus on the music for a minute, and managed to lose himself in the rhythm being played, and the laughter of the people around him, and the way the lights were starting to shine in the darkening sky. And finally, he and Patton were dancing across the street in time with each other, and Patton was beaming up at him.

The song ended, but it was clear neither of them wanted to sit down, because the next one played and they just shifted to match the new tempo.

People on the side of the street had started clapping, and everyone was laughing and smiling. The energy was infectious, and after a second Janus started smiling too. Patton beamed at him the second he did, eyes sparkling with the light around them. Janus’ chest felt warm again.

This time though, it was easier to push the feeling away and focus on dancing with Patton. This song was faster paced than the last one, but it wasn’t difficult for either of them to keep up, and though Patton was technically leading, Janus felt like he had just as much say in where they moved and what they did next.

Finally, as presumably the song started to crescendo to the end, they moved again across the street, and Janus decided to test that theory by shifting his arm and spinning Patton in a circle. Patton didn’t fight the motion at all, and just grinned up at Janus as he did so. Janus stopped spinning him and caught him in one arm just before the song ended.

Then for a long, drawn-out second, it felt like the world narrowed to just the two of them, and both of them stared right into each other’s eyes.

Sooner than he would have liked, another song started, and Janus jerked upright, pulling Patton harsher than he’d intended if the small yelp was anything to go by.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Janus said, catching him by the arm again and steadying him.

“That’s okay,” Patton said, his cheeks tinged slightly pink. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Janus said. “I uh, I think I want a break from dancing.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good thought. Let’s go sit for a while,” Patton said, pulling them both back past other dancers towards the sidewalk. Janus held onto his arm so as not to lose him in the crowd.

They ended up at a different table than before, but thankfully with no other people there, and they both just sat for a while, watching other dancers and people talking. Janus felt the evening calming down for the two of them, even if the others around them didn’t seem to be slowing down at all.

“Janus?” Patton said after a while. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like he was deep in thought.

Janus turned to look at him, and his face matched the tone. “Yes?”

“Did you mean it when you say you respect people who set boundaries well?”

“Yes,” Janus said again, leaning back in his chair. “I appreciate people who consider themselves worthy of care and take steps to care for themselves.”

“Why?” Patton asked, sounding a little hesitant.

Janus looked at Patton for a minute. He seemed uncertain in a way that meant he was definitely thinking about how bad he’d been at that today. Janus found himself wanting to make him feel better. Unfortunately, that required the truth.

He sighed inwardly.

“Because,” he said finally, “it’s something I’ve struggled with in the past. And it didn’t end well for me.”

Patton blinked, seeming surprised at the answer. “Oh.”

“I’m not going to think any less of you for struggling with something, Patton,” Janus said softly. “But I hope you know that you’re worthy of care and rest.”

Patton didn’t seem to know quite what to say to that, but at least he didn’t disagree. Finally, he just turned to look back out at the street again, meaning the conversation was probably over.

But then Patton said, “I don’t know if I know how to let myself have that.”

Janus looked back over at him.

“Not when someone else is struggling,” Patton said.

“You’re no good to others if you’re too exhausted to help,” Janus said simply. “You can help far more people if you’re not burned out and forcing yourself to work anyway.”

From the look on Patton’s face, he knew Janus was right. He didn’t say anything else though, which was fine.

It was definitely fine when, half an hour later, Patton said he was tired, and would Janus mind if they went back to the hotel room.

…

According to Patton, they were going to Kansas City the next day to sample some of the local queer scene. It was only a four hour drive, though, and the bars didn’t open until later, so they both ate breakfast one more time with Roman and Thomas before leaving. Logan joined that time too, which meant things were a little calmer overall, which he appreciated.

Janus took the first driving shift towards Kansas City, and Patton napped for about two hours, clearly having been wiped out by all the traveling. Janus wasn’t exactly peppy himself, and slept the rest of the way after they switched.

They checked into their hotel with a couple hours to spare, so they both headed into their room and rested for a little longer. Janus woke up first, and turned off the alarm he’d set, as they had a half an hour and he could just wake Patton up when they had to go.

Patton had kind of just thrown everything haphazardly down when they got here, meaning most of his stuff was strewn about. It wasn’t that Janus had done much differently, but it did mean that his most recent letter was sitting over on the desk, partially finished and therefore not sealed in an envelope.

Janus considered going to look at it for a moment. He’d started to wonder about this friend of Patton’s. Patton mentioned them all the time, but Janus knew almost nothing about them. He didn’t even know their name. It’s not like he’d have to read the contents of the letter. “Dear Name” would probably just be the first line.

Before he could really make a decision, however, Patton grumbled and shifted from his bed, and Janus turned around to face him.

“Welcome back to the world, Patton,” he said. “We have to head out in about five minutes.”

“Mmkay. I’m up,” Patton mumbled, sitting up and stretching. “Can, um. Can we leave a little later? Maybe in fifteen minutes?”

“Of course,” Janus said, turning back to his phone. “We have all night.”

“Thanks,” Patton said through a yawn. He flopped back down on his pillow, presumably to just rest for a second, because he didn’t close his eyes.

For some reason, Janus found himself sneaking glances back at the bed. Patton looked… not hideous, with a bedhead. He was almost disappointed when he got up and the first thing he did was brush his hair.

He was ready in the fifteen minutes he said he’d be, though, and they headed on their way.

The bar they were going to was called Missie B’s, which Patton had picked because it was a karaoke bar as well as a queer bar. Janus felt at ease as soon as they got there, in the kind of way you could only feel walking into a space designated for you.

Patton grinned at him the second they walked in. “You wanna sing karaoke?”

Janus’ dislike of the idea must have shown on his face, because Patton laughed.

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Come sit and watch me.”

So Janus ordered a glass of wine and sat down to watch as Patton headed up to sing. He picked a song called Oranges, but Janus didn’t really pay much attention to the lyrics. Instead he focused on Patton’s bright smile, and the way he was clearly loving every second of being up there, despite not having a traditionally pretty voice.

Everyone clapped when he finished, as they should, and Patton smiled brightly at everyone before heading back towards Janus.

The second he spotted him, his smile brightened even more, which… huh. That felt nice.

They spent most of the time there at the table, drinking a little and filling up on the food the bar served. But Janus didn’t feel particularly like drinking a lot tonight, and he could tell Patton didn’t either.

“Tomorrow we’re heading for St. Louis,” Patton said, pulling Janus’ attention back to him. “There’s a queer cafe there that my friend suggested to me. It’s called The Queen Bean.”

Janus snorted. “I like the name.”

“I do too,” Patton said with a grin. “I wish there’d been a place like that when I was growing up. Not exactly many where I lived. And I was too young to go to bars when I came out.”

“My mother started a weekly gathering after I came out to her,” Janus said with a small smile. “She made cookies and tea. It was just me and my friends at first, but eventually we had to move to a park because so many people wanted to come.”

“Oh that sounds wonderful,” Patton said. “Your mother sounds amazing.”

Janus sighed, and his smile faded. “She really was,” he said quietly.

“Was?” Patton said in surprise. Janus wasn’t sure why he was surprised about it, but he glanced up at him and nodded.

“She died about six years ago,” Janus said, looking down at his wine glass. “Car accident. It was sudden.”

“Six years…” Patton said, sounding baffled by the statement. Janus couldn’t imagine why. It’s not like it was the world’s most unique story.

“Yes,” he said, glancing up at him. “What’s so strange about that?”

Patton seemed to shake himself. “Uh. Nothing! Sorry, I was just… thinking about… something else.”

“Um, okay,” Janus said, narrowing his eyes slightly suspiciously.

“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom,” Patton said suddenly, jumping up before Janus could say anything else and rushing off.

Janus watched him go for a second before turning back to the table. Okay, so he was hiding something. Should he push or not?

Trying to pull secrets out of people was a favorite pastime of his. But for some reason he didn’t really want to make Patton uncomfortable, and he had a feeling that would happen if he pushed.

He also didn’t particularly want to keep talking about his mother. He’d shoved all of that in a box in the back of his head for a reason. He wasn’t just going to yank it out again because Patton was way too easy to open up to.

Janus ran his hands through his hair, then stood up to get another glass of wine.

By the time Patton came back out of the bathroom, Janus was significantly more tipsy, and he’d also decided to let whatever had happened go for now, so they both spent the rest of the evening acting like that conversation hadn’t happened.

…

Patton drove them to St. Louis the following day, while Janus slept off the slight headache he had left over from the extra glass of wine the night before. He felt better when he woke up, just in time for them to pull into the hotel they were staying at in St. Louis.

“Morning sleepyhead,” Patton said, smiling at him. “You feeling better?”

Janus grunted affirmatively and climbed out of the car to stretch.

“You want to take a few hours off before heading to the cafe?” Patton asked.

“That would be nice,” Janus agreed, moving to grab his day bag out of the back of the car. He grabbed Patton’s too so he could carry them in while Patton parked the car, and waited in the lobby for Patton to arrive.

“Oh, you didn’t have to wait for me,” Patton said as he approached.

“I didn’t want to have to carry your bag the whole way,” Janus lied. From the look on Patton’s face, he didn’t buy it for a second, but he didn’t say anything.

They both stayed in the hotel room for a few hours, just like they had yesterday, and then they headed out again and Patton drove them to “The Queen Bean.”

There was an assortment of pride flags on the walls when they walked in, and pamphlets with resources by the door.

Behind the counter where a long line was standing was a man with a very distinctive pair of sunglasses, wearing a bi pride pin and trans pride pin with he/him pronouns.

“That’s Remy,” Patton said, and Janus glanced over at him. “My friend introduced me to him, he met him online. Hey, do you trust me to pick your drink for you? I know one I think you’d like.”

Janus shrugged. “Sure. I’m not waiting in line with you though.”

“Deal. Grab us a table,” Patton said with a smile, getting in line.

Janus headed back to a table by the window, sat down and pulled out his phone. They had less than a week left in the trip now, and Janus was finding himself not looking forward to the end. Despite how pointless this obviously was, and that Patton definitely hadn’t convinced him of anything, well. The spontaneous road trip was a nice break from reality, and he’d admit, rather enjoyable sometimes.

Patton showed up back at the table with two drinks called “The REM,” which was apparently a house special, and two apple turnovers.

Janus took the drinks as Patton set the pastries down, then picked up his own drink. It just looked like a black coffee, but as he took a sip, he instead tasted caramel and chocolate.

His enjoyment must have been clear, because Patton started beaming.

“I take it I picked well, then?” he asked.

“Oh not in the slightest, I despise caramel,” Janus said, with a smile at Patton so he could be sure he knew he was joking.

Patton grinned and took a sip of his own. “I prefer french vanilla myself, if I’m being honest,” he said. “But I thought it could be fun to get the same drink.” He held his drink out to Janus, who clinked his own mug against his, and then they both took another drink.

“The turnovers are to die for too,” Patton said as he picked one of them up. “The apples are my favorite.”

Janus picked one up and took a bite, and hummed in agreement. “I can understand why.”

“So,” Patton said, and Janus glanced up at him. “The point of today and yesterday is community.”

“Oh?” Janus said, raising an eyebrow.

“These places we’ve gone to are relatively cheap, so there’s fewer barriers. And they’re also places humans have created to find communities that they fit in. A specific group we both care about, in this case, but it’s something all humans do. We seek each other out, because we recognize that we’re important.”

“Or they’re just trying to find places to compartmentalize themselves because humans feel more comfortable with people like them,” Janus said, taking another bite of his apple turnover.

“Do you honestly think that’s the main reason?” Patton asked, crossing his arms.

“Absolutely,” Janus lied.

Patton didn’t look like he believed him, but he let it go, and they both went back to their food and drinks.

“Tomorrow we’re going to a local park in Tennessee,” Patton said. “It’s a little bit further, about six hours away, so we’ll look at it tomorrow and then camp there to have a day off, since we’ve been getting worn out lately. There’s a park called Rock Island Park that has some really beautiful waterfalls.”

“We’re back to nature, then,” Janus said. He didn’t particularly mind the idea.

“That’s the plan,” Patton said with a smile. “It’s really popular, so just prepare yourself for that.”

“Well, I don’t know how I’ll manage. The other stops like the Grand Canyon just had no one there at all.”

Patton chuckled. “Fair enough. We’ll be camping there for a day before we stop in Atlanta Georgia.”

“What’s in Atlanta?” Janus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“That depends on how Rock Island Park goes,” Patton said with a mischievous smile. “A lot of this has been rather on the fly, you know.”

“I figured,” Janus said with a shrug. “Do keep in mind you’ve got six days left.”

“I’m aware,” Patton said, but he didn’t seem worried. Janus couldn’t imagine why. Nothing he’d done so far had worked in the slightest, obviously.

But Patton just smiled at him like he wasn’t at all bothered. “You want to go look at some waterfalls with me, Janus?”

Janus managed to keep the smile off his face, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Patton saw it in his eyes. “If I must.”

…

Traffic was light, so it didn’t take much longer than planned to actually get to the park, and Patton was singing most of the way, which felt like it made it go faster this time for some reason. He wasn’t lying about the park being very popular, though, meaning it took a little time to get in and find a spot to park.

From the second they climbed out of the car there were quite a few people around, which wasn’t surprising. What Janus didn’t understand was how Patton still managed to make it feel like the world only included the two of them. But they spent the day looking at the waterfalls and hiking around the park, and though there were always quite a few other people there, Janus never really found them worth more attention than Patton. Patton was just… more important than them, obviously. That made sense, Janus didn’t know any of them, of course he wasn’t going to pay them any attention. And he paid attention to the nature they were there for too, obviously. Patton was just… very often in his field of vision.

Well maybe he didn’t understand it either.

They set up the tent closer to dark, and though the stargazing wasn’t quite as good as it had been in Zion, it was still breathtaking. But more often, Janus found his gaze drifting over to Patton, in a way that was starting to become very annoying.

Of course Patton was bound to notice eventually. Janus was surprised it hadn’t been sooner, honestly. But it was while they were stargazing that he finally turned and saw Janus staring at him.

“What is it?” Patton asked, narrowing his eyes slightly in concern. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, just,” Janus quickly turned his gaze back to the stars. “Admiring the view.”

“Oh,” Patton said, sounding a little confused. “Okay. Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?”

You are, whispered a tiny voice in Janus’ head, that he promptly beat back with a broom.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Janus said, trying to shake himself out of whatever this was. “I’m pretty tired.”

“Okay,” Patton said, giving him a smile. “Remember, we’re not leaving until the day after tomorrow, so feel free to sleep as long as you want.”

“Trust me, I will,” Janus said, because he really was rather exhausted, and a long sleep sounded like exactly what he needed. He headed back for the tent and curled up in his sleeping bag.

He thought Patton would be joining him before very long, but surprisingly, he didn’t show up for long enough that he fell asleep. However, annoyingly, his exhaustion wasn’t enough to stop him from waking up in the middle of the night.

He laid there for a while before sighing and rolling over, trying to bury his head back in his pillow, but something wasn’t letting him fall back asleep.

He glanced over towards where Patton was, and then realized what it was, because Patton wasn’t there.

Janus sat up and scrambled his way out of his sleeping bag, then moved quickly forward to unzip the front of the tent.

His nerves calmed the second he opened it and saw Patton right outside, leaning against a tree and looking up at the stars.

“Patton?” he asked, and Patton jumped and looked over at him. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh sorry Jan,” Patton said, wiping at his eyes and trying to cover it up with a smile. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Are you alright?”

“Just a bad dream,” Patton said, wiping his eyes again. “I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t look okay,” Janus said, moving over to sit next to him. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“I’m fine,” Patton said, waving the question off. “I’m used to this nightmare.” He sniffed and leaned his head back against the tree.

“Clearly,” Janus said, raising an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

“No, I— it’s just—” Patton took a shaky breath. Janus could tell he needed a moment, so he didn’t push again.

Patton leaned up and pressed his hands together over the bridge of his nose. He looked warily over at Janus, like he thought Janus was going to change his mind after he started talking.

“I have a friend,” Patton said finally, “who tried to kill himself once.”

Nevermind. Janus couldn’t do this.

He steeled himself and nodded. “Okay.”

“Nevermind,” Patton said, seeming to have picked up on his immediate nerves. “We won’t talk about it.”

Janus took a minute to push past his immediate gut reaction and actually try and judge his emotional state. It had been a long time. He’d probably have to talk about something similar with someone eventually. And it was probably easier to fix someone else’s issues.

“No, it’s okay,” he said, looking back over at Patton. “Go ahead.”

Patton took another moment to look at him. He seemed to be satisfied with what he saw, because he pulled his legs up, rested his chin on them, and sighed.

“I didn’t know him when it happened,” he said. “I met him afterwards. I helped with a lot of the aftermath. I just… every now and then I get nightmares that he actually… that I never got to meet him. He’s important to me. He’s important to people who are important to me.”

Janus nodded. “I can understand that,” he said. “But you know, there was quite literally nothing you could have done.” He looked down. “That would have fallen on the people who knew him before.”

“They did absolutely everything they could,” Patton said, so firmly it surprised Janus a little. But he glanced over to see just as firm a look on Patton’s face.

“You have to tell people when you’re hurting that badly,” he said. “You have to let them help you. He… he didn’t do that. He didn’t let them help.”

Janus squeezed his eyes shut. “Because letting people help is always so easy,” he said. Then he winced. “Sorry. That wasn’t helpful.”

“I didn’t say it was easy,” Patton said softly. “But it is important.”

Janus took a breath and tried to move on. “Are you talking to someone about your nightmares?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Patton wince. “I don’t want him to start hyperfocusing on that time of his life,” he said. “He’s made so much progress, I don’t want to jeopardize that.”

“That’s understandable, but I didn’t ask if you were talking to him about them,” Janus said, giving Patton a look. “I asked if you were talking to someone.”

Patton didn’t say anything.

“You should,” Janus said.

“I know,” Patton whispered.

“Hey,” Janus said. “I won’t think any less of you if you admit to needing help on this.”

Patton didn’t quite look reassured, so before he could think about it too much, Janus reached out and wrapped him in a hug. He’d blame it on the exhaustion tomorrow.

Patton turned and buried his head in Janus’ chest and took a couple deep breaths. Janus rubbed his back and held him close.

“I’m okay,” Patton mumbled into his shirt.

“You’re not,” Janus replied. “But that’s okay.”

Patton didn’t say anything. They’d go back to the tent eventually, but for a while, they both just sat there.

…

Janus woke to a feeling of dread in his chest and a realization that he was getting dangerously close to a line he didn’t want to cross.

He’d promised himself he would never care about anyone again, and caring for Patton was an even worse idea. Patton was too warm, too good. Janus would inevitably end up disappointing him, and then he’d just—

Janus rolled over in his sleeping bag so his back was facing Patton. He was being stupid. He didn’t care about Patton. What was there to care about? The man was stupid, and naïve, and irritated Janus to a degree that would be a nightmare to deal with on a regular basis. Last night was just him being tired. That was all it was.

Janus threw his sleeping bag back and got dressed as quietly as he could, making sure not to wake Patton. He headed to the front of the tent and undid the zipper just as quietly, heading out to sit as far away from last night’s tree as possible. He realized as soon as he sat down that he’d left anything that could entertain him in the tent, but he wasn’t going to go back for it now. Not when he’d have to deal with Patton, someone he despised. Someone he definitely couldn’t stand.

Janus pulled in a shaky breath, and then another, less shaky breath, and then another. He could do this. There were four days left until the end of the two-week bet, and after Patton inevitably failed to convince him that there was good in humanity, he’d never have to see him again.

And all he had to do until then was be cold, distant and rude, enough to get Patton to stop trying. That was easy enough, he was excellent at driving people away by being himself.

By the time Patton came out of the tent, Janus had been over leaning on the car for a while.

“Well?” he snapped. “Are you coming or not?”

“Geez, Jan, what’s got you in a rush this morning?” Patton said, giving him a look. “We’ve got to pack our day bags and put the tent away first.”

“I want to go get breakfast,” Janus said, giving Patton a look that hopefully conveyed this was the most inconvenienced he’d ever been by anything in his entire life. “Can we hurry this along?”

“Alright, alright,” Patton said. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

Janus ignored the twinge of regret in his chest and leaned back against the car again, looking away.

“You know, it’ll go a lot faster if you help,” Patton said, raising an eyebrow.

Janus sighed in very plain annoyance, but he headed over to the tent to help Patton get everything together.

It did, of course, go faster with the two of them working together, and about half an hour later they had all their stuff for the day in their car and were on their way to get breakfast.

They went to a Denny’s, and Janus got strawberry pancakes that were vastly inferior to Thomas’ pancakes, which was quite easy to incorporate into his bad mood.

Patton was picking up on something being wrong about that time, and it didn’t take long for him to bring it up.

“Are you alright, Janus?” he asked, giving him a concerned look. “Did you sleep well after we went back to sleep last night?”

“I slept fine,” Janus said coolly. “I’m just ready to get out of here. What other pointless thing are we doing?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Patton said, though he didn’t look like he’d bought Janus’ statement. “I thought maybe we’d go to Atlanta and see what’s there first.”

“What, run out of ways to convince me?” Janus asked.

“Oh, that’s impossible,” Patton said. “I’m just not sure what we should do yet. You know, we could just go to enjoy ourselves if you want to admit right now that I have a point.” He gave Janus a knowing smile.

“Oh, please,” Janus said, rolling his eyes. “A point about there being good in humanity? Humans are rude, unpleasant, and inherently selfish.”

Patton gave Janus a deadpan look. “Janus, we’re in the middle of a two week impromptu vacation I took with you, someone I barely knew, because I thought you needed some help.”

Janus floundered with that for a minute. “Uh… no, we’re doing this because you want me to meet your friend. That’s totally different. Still a very selfish reason.”

Patton didn’t seem particularly moved by that statement.

“Besides, the fact that you specifically aren’t selfish doesn’t mean that humanity as a whole isn’t inherently selfish,” Janus said, looking away.

“That’s exactly what it means,” Patton said plainly. “Anyone and everyone can be living proof that selflessness exists. How neat is that?”

“Oh please,” Janus said. “That’s not how it works. You can’t just change human nature all by yourself.”

“You don’t do it all by yourself,” Patton said. “You make friends. You form connections and relationships. You get help from other people. We help other people because we care about them. We try because we care about people. That’s how you change things.”

Janus scoffed and looked down at his hands. “No one wants any kind of relationship with me,” he said. It came out more bitter than he’d really intended.

“I do,” Patton said, and Janus’ breath caught.

He looked very firmly down at his half finished pancakes, then pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’m going to the car.”

“Are you alright?” Patton asked, sounding concerned.

“I’m going to the car.”

Janus turned around and walked to the car before Patton could say anything else. It was a good half hour before Patton showed up again, and he handed Janus a go box with the inferior strawberry pancakes in it.

“I know what we’re doing in Atlanta now,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Yep,” Patton said. “We just have to be there by dinnertime.”

“Sounds like you can drive the whole way then,” Janus said, leaning against the window and closing his eyes.

Patton didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then the car started, so Janus figured he wasn’t going to.

But then he felt a hand on his shoulder. “I’d love to go on knowing you, Janus,” Patton said quietly. “I would love to form a friendship with you.”

Janus said nothing. Hopefully Patton would think he was asleep.

…

They ended up serving dinner at a soup kitchen, which didn’t feel out of left field, but was a far cry different from the more enjoyable activities they’d done so far. Yet somehow, Patton still seemed to be having the time of his life.

Janus had never actually asked him what he did for a living, but this made him suspect it was something involving social work, because Patton got a genuine smile on his face when he started helping people.

They were serving roast beef sandwiches that night, with a side of mashed potatoes. Patton was put in charge of handing out the mashed potatoes, and Janus got to give people a small cup of pudding for dessert if they wanted it. None of the food looked like the best meal ever made, but it was food, and everyone here seemed grateful to get any.

Janus understood Patton’s motive in bringing them here. Proving that there were humans who helped just because they could. Everyone here had volunteered, none of them were getting paid for this.

That didn’t mean Janus was going to concede the point. He could understand the argument that some humans were doing their best to be selfless and giving, whether the trait was inherent or not.

But while Patton may be selfless, Janus most certainly was not, and he was not going to enjoy his time here feeding a bunch of people he didn’t know.

…He was going to watch Patton enjoying it instead.

“Enjoy!” he said with a beaming smile at the man he’d just given a scoop of potatoes to.

The man smiled back. “Thank you, I think I will. Mashed potatoes are my favorite.”

“You picked an excellent favorite,” Patton said. “We helped make it earlier, it’s delicious.”

“I look forward to it then,” the man said happily, turning to look at Janus. “Can I have a pudding cup please?”

Janus didn’t say anything, just handed one to him, but he smiled at him anyway before going to find a table to sit down at.

By the time he turned back around, Patton had already turned to the next person in line with just as bright of a smile, and Janus shook his head slightly and wondered how he did it.

He’d disagreed with most of Patton’s perspective throughout the trip, but he’d at least understood it. But how could anyone actually enjoy helping people as much as Patton seemed to?

Patton seemed to pick up on what he was feeling, and during a break between people, he turned to face Janus.

“I like to make people happy,” he said. “I like to see them smile. You’ve known people you like to see smile, right?”

Janus looked at Patton’s bright gaze, and swallowed. He nodded.

“It’s like that,” Patton said. “I like putting more good into the world. “Making other people happy makes me happy.”

The line started moving again after that, and Janus couldn’t ask the question that came to mind, as the next person walked up.

“Mashed potatoes?” they said, smiling widely at Patton. “Oh, that looks delicious. Can I have a second helping?”

“Sorry,” Patton said, smiling apologetically. “We have to make sure everyone gets a first helping. But if there’s some left over after the last person I will put some aside for you.”

“Oh, I appreciate that!” the person said, beaming at Patton. “Thank you!”

“Sure thing,” Patton said with a bright smile.

Janus handed them a pudding cup again without saying anything, and again the person smiled at him anyway before heading towards a table. Patton rubbing off on everyone, he supposed.

Maybe there was something to that whole putting good into the world idea.

There was another break in the line a second later, and Janus turned to Patton.

“Is that why you did all this?” Janus asked, despite himself. “Because you wanted to try and…” he paused and took a second to switch gears. He still had a reputation to uphold after all. “…force happiness on me?”

“Let’s go with I wanted to help you try and find happiness yourself,” Patton said, raising an eyebrow at him. “But yes, that was part of it.”

Janus gave him a suspicious look. “What was the other part?”

But before Patton could answer, the line picked up again.

They went through the rest of the line again before Janus could get back to Patton with his question, and immediately after they finished Patton scooped some mashed potatoes into a bowl and headed for the person who’d asked for a second helping.

Janus stayed behind the counter, but the person had sat near the line, meaning Janus could see them as Patton arrived and started talking. Patton was beaming the whole time, and the person was very thankful, and then they said something else. That something else made Patton throw his head back and laugh, easy and bright, and Janus’ chest got very warm.

Then Patton turned and smiled back at him, and as he did, his eyes somehow seemed to brighten even more.

Then, as he started back over, his smile turned knowing, as if saying ‘See?’

Oh.

Fuck.

He did.

Patton. Damn him.

He didn’t think Patton was right. He didn’t think humanity was good, or selfless. He still thought they were cruel and selfish and uncaring. He still thought life was awful and unfair and generally shitty. He still didn’t see a reason to try. He didn’t see what Patton did, he didn’t see any reason to have faith in humans, he didn’t see a reason to hope.

But Patton made him want to keep looking.

Maybe that was what trying was.

Janus took a shaky, terrified breath. He couldn’t try, not again. He couldn’t lose everything a second time. He couldn’t do it. Was he actually considering risking the pain of losing someone else?

“Janus?”

Janus jerked his head upright. Patton was standing right in front of him, looking incredibly worried.

“Janus, are you alright?”

“I, um. I have to go,” Janus said. “I don’t— I’m not— not feeling well.”

“Oh no,” Patton said. “Here, let me let the people in charge know, I’ll drive you back—”

“No,” Janus said instantly. “I’ll wait in the car. You finish here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Give me the keys.”

Janus stuck his hand out, and Patton put the keys in them. “Okay. I shouldn’t be too much longer, okay?”

Janus nodded, already heading out from behind the counter and towards the door.

He climbed into the passenger seat, slammed and locked the doors shut behind him, and dropped his head on the dashboard.

He could not do this. He could not do this. He didn’t have it in him, not again.

He had to get out of here. He couldn’t wait until the bet was over, he had to leave. Right now.

Janus took a shaky breath and started looking around the car.

He couldn’t just go. Patton would stop him, or find him again, or something. Patton had to want him to leave.

Janus looked around the car. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. It’s not like he’d find anything in here that would help him ruin his relationship with Patton. He couldn’t think of anything that would do that. He’d been an asshole, intentionally, to Patton when they’d first met, and that hadn’t stopped him. He’d attacked his beliefs and his principles countless times, and that hadn’t stopped him. The man never gave up, Janus felt like it was safe to say that at this point. But there had to be something that would make him snap.

Janus bent his neck to keep looking around the car, towards the backseat.

Patton cared deeply about everyone he loved. He greatly disliked them being hurt. For some reason, Janus had become one of those people, but Patton hadn’t known him for very long. Maybe if Janus hurt someone else he cared about?

Thomas would probably do the trick, but Janus couldn’t bear the thought of losing his strawberry pancakes, so that ruled out him and Roman. Honestly, hurting Logan would probably do it, but that might in turn anger Thomas and Roman, and thus lose him the strawberry pancakes.

Janus leaned back into the front seat and started looking in the car door pockets. Remy was the only other person they’d met that Patton knew, but he didn’t seem close enough to Patton for Patton to cut Janus out of his life if he hurt him. Patton would probably talk to him instead. But who else was there? He’d run out of options.

Janus opened the glove compartment. An unfinished letter of Patton’s was sitting there in plain sight. The tagline was there for anyone to see. It read “Dear Virgil.”

Well.

That solved that problem.

…

Janus was leaning on the car when Patton came out, and he seemed surprised to see him that way.

“Janus,” he said, stopping in front of him. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m leaving,” Janus said.

Patton blinked, seeming confused. “What?”

“I’m leaving,” Janus said. “I’m getting a bus back home.”

Patton crossed his arms, though he looked more confused than irritated. “The bet isn’t over yet.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Janus said, shoving the letter he was holding at Patton. “That your friend was Virgil.”

Patton took the letter, but he didn’t look at it at all. “You never asked his name,” he said.

“I’m leaving,” Janus said.

“The bet isn’t over.”

“You’ll want it to be.”

Patton crossed his arms. “Why’s that?”

“Your friend,” Janus said. “The one who tried to kill himself. That was Remus, right?” he gestured at the letter again. “Remus is Virgil’s little brother. I was there when that happened. We were all very close friends beforehand. I remember getting that call, and driving Virgil to the hospital. I remember sitting up with him all night. It was exhausting. I decided none of that seemed particularly worth it. So after two weeks, I left them both. I haven’t spoken to them since.”

He waited for Patton to stare at him in shock, and then disgust, and then anger. Then he’d let Janus leave, and Janus would get a bus back home and he could put this whole thing behind him and go back to being alone and miserable, the way he liked it.

But Patton didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he crossed his arms, smiling sadly. “Janus,” he said softly. “I already knew all of that.”

Janus’ breath lodged in his throat. “What?”

“Janus, who do you think the friend I’m taking you to meet is?” Patton asked. “You didn’t put that together from the letter?”

Janus stared at him. “No, but that’s— that’s impossible. They— they don’t want to see me. They don’t care anymore. They can’t.”

“Remus misses you,” Patton said.

Janus brushed past the painful ache of that idea with a scoff. “Virgil’s furious.”

Patton gave a short laugh. “Of course he is, he’s Virgil,” he said. “But he still wants to see you. That counts for something.”

“Does it really?”

“Yes, it does.”

Yes, it did.

“But that’s impossible,” Janus said. “I didn’t— I left them.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why did you leave?”

“I— I told you. Because I decided it didn’t seem worth it.”

“Bullshit.”

Janus jerked upright in shock.

“That’s not true, Janus,” Patton insisted.

“How do you know?” Janus asked weakly.

Patton moved forward and stopped right in front of Janus. He reached out and brushed against something on his cheek. “Because you’re crying.”

Oh.

How pathetic was that.

Janus looked down and scrubbed at his eyes.

“Six years… that’s when you left, right?” Patton asked, and Janus dragged his gaze back up to meet his eyes.

“That’s the time Virgil said, when he told me about you. That’s also around the time you said your mother died, isn’t it?”

Janus looked away.

“Was that before, or after Remus’ attempt?”

“After,” Janus croaked. “Two days after.”

Patton hummed sympathetically, and somehow Janus didn’t doubt the real pain he heard in it, that Patton was sharing the hurt with him, at least right now.

“And you didn’t tell them,” Patton murmured, reaching up to wipe at his cheek again.

“Of course I didn’t tell them,” Janus snapped. “As if they needed more on their plate right then.”

“Janus,” Patton whispered. “You did all three of you a disservice. You needed the help, and they would have wanted to help you.”

“They wouldn’t have had it in them,” Janus hissed. “I was helping them.”

Patton gave him a firm look. “Do you know how much harder it was for both of them to get back on their feet because they had to recover from losing you too?”

Janus looked down at his feet to hide the shame that was welling up. But Patton, of course, just reached out and nudged his chin up again.

“Janus,” he whispered. “If you keep trying to push people away, it’s going to keep working.”

“I don’t need anyone.”

“Janus,” Patton said, in a tone that said ‘Come on now.’

“I— I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You haven’t been for a very long time.”

Janus’ legs were shaking, and he was pretty sure he was going to collapse in a second.

“Hey,” Patton said, moving forward. “Hey, come here.”

He wrapped his arms around Janus, and pulled them both down onto the ground, and Janus buried his head in Patton’s shirt and cried.

He wouldn’t have exactly picked a soup kitchen parking lot as his desired place to have this breakdown, but honestly, there had never been a chance this breakdown would happen when he was ready for it. He’d been putting it off too long for that.

As a result, he sat there crying in Patton’s arms for the better part of an hour, and Patton, angel that he was, didn’t complain once, just ran his hands through Janus’ hair and politely shooed away anyone who approached.

Finally, finally, Janus managed to stop crying, though he was still leaning heavily against Patton’s chest.

“You want to go back to the hotel now?” Patton murmured, still running his hands through Janus’ hair.

Janus nodded. “I— I’m sorry I—”

“Hush. You don’t need to apologize. I was fully aware we were going to be there for a while when the conversation started.”

So Patton helped Janus stand, and get in the car, and when they got there he helped him back to the room, and then they both curled up in a bed together without changing out of anything or getting anything ready for the following day. They fell asleep pretty quickly with how exhausting the day had turned out to be.

The next morning when Janus woke up, he still didn’t want to move.

Patton was already awake, and looking at him. He smiled slightly when they met eyes.

“Good morning Janus,” he said quietly. “Feeling any better?”

“Relative to?” Janus said. His voice sounded absolutely wrecked.

“Fair enough,” Patton said. “Do you want to stay here for a couple more days? We’re not meeting Remus and Virgil until the end of the bet, and there’s three days left in that.”

“How,” Janus whispered. “Am I possibly supposed to face them?”

“With hope that things will work out,” Patton said, leaning forward to press his forehead against Janus.’ “And with me.”

…

A restaurant, it had been universally decided, was a horrible idea. There would be screaming in this conversation, and there would be anger, and there would be plenty of things that were not suited for public spaces.

They ended up meeting at Patton’s house, which was exactly as pastel colored and cheerful as Janus expected for the place where Patton lived.

They got there before Virgil and Remus, thankfully, as if Janus had been forced to jump right in the conversation would not have gone well. But instead, he sat down on Patton’s bright pastel blue couch and they both watched an episode of Parks and Recreation to get their mind off what was about to happen. Patton had said he’d be there as emotional support, but that he was going to leave most of the talking up to them, which was probably what should happen, honestly.

That didn’t mean Janus had much of an idea what to expect, not after six years. He expected Virgil to be furious, but he had no idea what that would look like. Would it be screaming and insults and everything else included in Virgil’s typical fire, or had it passed into a cold hatred that Virgil would treat as an unchangeable fact? Which would be worse? What did it mean that Remus missed him? Was he still angry? Janus wouldn’t blame him if he was. How was he supposed to approach them? Was he supposed to apologize immediately, or would that just piss them off for some reason?

Janus hadn’t figured out even the beginning of a game plan by the time he heard the front door open and a very familiar voice call from the living room, “Patton, we’re here!”

Janus’ instincts seemed to push him into action before his brain could begin to try, and before he realized what was happening, he was crouched behind the couch and Patton was staring at him.

“Janus?”

“Just tell them I’m not here,” Janus said, ducking his head down further.

Patton looked very done in the next second. “Janus, stand up.”

“Who’s she? Never heard of her.”

“Get your b-hole back up here and sit down on this couch with me.”

“Nope. Not gonna do it. Terrible idea.”

“Do it or they’re going to walk in here to find you crouching down behind the couch,” Patton said, crossing his arms.

Janus cursed whatever foolish part of him had first decided to start trusting Patton, but he pushed himself upright into a standing position just as two people he never thought he’d see again walked through the archway and into the living room.

Virgil’s hair was shorter. Back when Janus had seen him last, he’d been too stressed for too long to have time to think about getting it cut. Honestly, the first thing that caught his attention probably should have been the fact that it was dyed purple, but Janus was honed in on the length. He’d been worried about Virgil back then. He hadn’t been taking care of himself. Hopefully the short hair meant he was better at that now.

He tried to read Virgil’s face, but it seemed intentionally blank, like he was doing his best to hide whatever he was thinking. Janus could only hope his face looked similar enough.

On the other hand, someone who had never bothered to hide his expressions was Remus, though Janus still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t interpreting his look wrong. Overall, though, Remus looked much better too. He wasn’t so skinny, and there weren’t bags under his eyes, and he looked… generally happier, though Janus couldn’t name any specific thing that made that seem like the case. Well, other than his expression, because the second he saw Janus he started grinning.

“Janny!” he said. “You actually came!”

Janus winced, and tried to cover it with a weak smile. “Hi, Remus.”

Remus seemed to take that as all the permission he needed, because he ran over to the couch, clambered over the top of it, and threw himself on top of Janus, knocking them both onto the floor.

Janus blinked, trying to process what exactly had just happened. Before he could, though, Remus shifted again and pulled Janus up and into a hug.

“I missed you,” he said.

Janus tensed, and instantly regretted it, because he may not know how he wanted to handle this conversation, but he did know that he didn’t want Remus or Virgil to think for a second that he was the slightest bit unhappy to see them.

So, for Remus’ sake, Janus pushed aside his pride and wrapped his arms around him. “I missed you too,” he murmured.

Remus squeezed him tighter and didn’t reply.

Eventually, he pulled back and offered a hand out to Janus, who took it to pull himself up. “Patton said he was going to try and help you,” Remus said as he did. “He said he thought you were hurting. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine” was on the tip of Janus’ tongue before he saw Patton looking at him with crossed arms from the other side of the couch.

He sighed. “Not really,” he admitted, looking away from Remus.

Remus made a concerned noise and pulled Janus into a hug again. “Can I help?” he asked, which just about did it for Janus.

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked, wrenching himself from Remus’ grip.

“That’s a damn good question,” Virgil grumbled, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at Janus. Which was fair, but still didn’t make Janus feel exactly comfortable.

“Hey,” Remus said, turning and shooting a glare at Virgil, for some reason. “You said you wouldn’t be a dick.”

“No, you said ‘Virgil, please don’t be a dick,’ and I grunted in annoyance.”

“We both know that was an agreement grunt.”

“There’s no such thing as an agreement grunt.”

“Yes, there is. If you grunt and it goes down in tone at the end, that’s disagreement or annoyance. You’re grunt went slightly upwards in tone at the end, which is how you signify agreement. Honestly Virgil, you talk like I haven’t had decades to work out how you use your annoyed noises as a communicative language.”

“Since when did you start doing that? I don’t even know what I mean most of the time!”

Patton gave Janus a fond smile, that Janus was fighting very hard to keep off his own face. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Remus and Virgil’s bickering, of all things.

“Fine,” Remus said, drawing Janus’ attention back to the actual conversation. “Now I’m not asking. Virgil, stop being a dick.”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Janus said. “He doesn’t have to be the picture of politeness. I wouldn’t really expect that in any situation.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Virgil snapped, turning a glare on Janus.

Janus winced again. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just that you’re Virgil, I suppose, and your strengths don’t lie in politeness? Which is fine.”

“I know it’s fine, I don’t need you to tell me it’s fine.”

“Virgil,” Remus said, crossing his arms.

Virgil glared back at him in part anger and part disbelief, and it seemed his very small threshold for things he could take had been crossed, because he threw his hands up and stormed off towards the hallway.

The other three people in the room were silent for a minute, and then Remus turned again to face Janus and Patton. “So. How was your trip then? Did you think about pushing someone off the edge of the Grand Canyon too?”

Janus snorted. “No, but if I ever go back, I’ll think about it just for you.”

“I’m so moved,” Remus said, wiping a fake tear from his eye.

“We had a time,” Patton said, joining the conversation as they all moved to sit down on the couch. “There was good, and bad, and in-between.”

“That’s an accurate description,” Janus said with a small smile.

“Yeah?” Remus said, his own smile fading a little bit. “Seriously, though, are you okay?”

“Are you?” Janus asked, partly deflecting and partly actually wanting to hear. “You seem… better.”

“I… I feel better,” Remus said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know, it’s not like all the thoughts suddenly vanished, but… they’re quieter? I don’t know.” He smiled slightly lopsidedly at Janus. “I recommend therapy.”

Janus gave a short laugh. “Yeah, you bet.”

“I’m not joking, Janus,” Remus said, and Janus glanced up at him to see a sudden serious look on his face.

“I… I don’t know,” Janus muttered. “I’m fine.” He turned around, only to be met with Patton giving him one of his no-nonsense looks that Janus was somehow never expecting.

“What?” Janus asked, narrowing his eyes at him. “You expect me to be willing to spill all of my problems to some stranger right away?”

“Of course not,” Patton said softly. “But it’s not a bad thing to consider.”

“I don’t need to be fixed,” Janus hissed.

“That’s not what therapy is, Jan,” Remus said. “But we also don’t have to talk about it right now. We can just catch up.”

Janus turned to stare at him again. “You… you don’t want an explanation? Or an apology?”

Remus shrugged. “It would be nice. But you’re here. And you clearly feel like shit about it.”

“That’s not— Remus,” Janus said, because he was pretty sure he knew what Remus was doing. “Stop it.”

As he’d suspected, something in Remus’ face shifted. “Or you’ll what?” he said quietly, looking down with the slight shake to his voice that was almost always imperceptible, but meant that he was scared.

“Or I’ll nothing. But you don’t have to pretend that you’re not upset, Remus.”

“But why are you here?” Remus asked, looking up at him. “And why now? I don’t want to— I don’t know.” He looked down again. “Drive you away again.”

“Remus,” Janus said, his chest aching. “You didn’t. It wasn’t ever you. I didn’t… I just didn’t handle any of it well. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But I was what you had to handle,” Remus said, squeezing his hands into fists around his shorts. “That was me.”

Janus took a shaky breath, reached out and squeezed Remus’ hand. “Even if it was, that wouldn’t make it your fault,” he said. “But also, that’s… not entirely true, Re.”

Remus turned to look at him, seeming a little confused. “What do you mean?”

Janus sighed. “Re, I don’t know if it was just the universe’s cruel timing, but a couple days after… what happened with you, Mom died in a car crash. And I decided not to tell either of you, because I was being an idiot. But I couldn’t handle that much all at once on my own, so I just… I just decided not to. I… I’m so sorry, Re.”

Remus looked at Janus for a minute, seeming caught between disbelief and confusion. “Wait… what do you mean your mom’s dead?”

“I… I don’t know how to explain it other than that,” Janus said hesitantly.

Remus’ eyes widened slightly. “Janus,” he whispered, and before Janus could say anything in response, Remus reached over and pulled him down into his arms.

Janus blinked quickly and buried his head in Remus’ shoulder, though he imagined the shirt would be wet later.

“Janus, you should have said something dummy,” Remus whispered.

“I know,” Janus whispered back.

“You should have said something, dummy, we would have—” Remus just shook his head and held Janus closer, and Janus pulled in a shaky breath and just sat there and let him. He’d have to make plenty of time to hug Remus later, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength for it right now.

They both sat there for a while, not saying anything. When they finally did pull back, Patton, angel that he was, was just sitting there scrolling through his phone with a pleasantly neutral expression on his face. He did look over at them when they moved, though.

“You guys okay?” he said with a smile.

“Eh, you know,” Remus said with half of a shrug.

Patton gave a sad smile and reached out to squeeze Remus in a side hug. “I’m glad you two got to talk,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks for dragging his ass back here,” Remus said with a lopsided grin.

“Hey,” Janus said, giving a slightly irritated look.

“Am I wrong?”

“No, but that’s not the point.”

Remus laughed a little, and ended with a grin towards Janus. It faded a second later, and he looked down at his hands. “I might, um, need some time?” he said quietly. “Before things can be like— you know, like they were.”

“Obviously,” Janus said, crossing his arms and giving Remus a slightly concerned look. “I might not have known what to expect, but I definitely didn’t expect us to jump right back into where things were.”

Remus gave him a slightly relieved smile. “Okay,” he said.

“Hey,” Janus said, giving him another side hug. “It’s really good to know you’re doing okay. I’m happy for you.”

Remus smiled again. “I’m happy for me too. And I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Janus said with a small smile.

Remus’ gaze turned slightly mischievous, and Janus took a minute to regret any idea to ever talk to him again.

“You know,” Remus said, looking back towards the hallway. “Virgil missed you too, no matter what he says.”

“Oh, I’m not touching that right now,” Janus muttered, looking away.

“Nuh-uh. If you don’t touch it now you’ll just leave it to fester and you two won’t ever talk ever. Go on.”

“What, Remus—”

“Go on,” Remus said, raising an eyebrow.

Janus tried looking to Patton for support, even though he didn’t really expect it to work. And sure enough, Patton just gave him a deadpan look.

“He’s totally right, you know.”

Janus hissed, but pushed himself up from the couch anyway. “Let the record state that I did not go into this willingly,” he said, glaring behind them both as he started for the hallway.

“The record isn’t gonna take your shit,” Remus said with a grin.

Janus hissed again and turned back around.

He didn’t know exactly where Virgil would want to go, but he thought he heard him stomping for a while before a door opened, so he tried the last one on the left first. It opened on what looked like a guest room, and Virgil was pacing angrily back and forth across it.

The second he heard the door open he turned and saw Janus, which evidently did not help, if the way he started scowling was anything to go by.

“Get out,” he snapped.

“Can I talk to you?” Janus asked quietly.

“Why should I be interested in anything you have to say?” Virgil hissed.

“I’m trying to apologize?” Janus offered hesitantly.

Virgil scoffed, and crossed his arms. “Good luck.”

“I really am,” Janus said, stepping forward. “I am sorry. I should have done everything differently.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil snapped. “You think I’m gonna be moved by you saying everything I know already?”

“Definitely not moved, no,” Janus said. “I figured you might hear me out, though.”

“Why should I? I don’t owe you that. I don’t owe you shit.”

“Fair enough,” Janus admitted. “How about something else, then?”

“Like what?”

“Like I let you interrogate me?” Janus offered with a shrug, moving to sit down on the bed and give Virgil an upper hand.

Virgil scowled, but he did seem to be considering the idea. After a second, he walked over to stand right above Janus and crossed his arms. “Why are you here now?” he spat. “Why the suddenness of it all? What changed your mind?”

“Well, it was sort of… Patton,” Janus admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, his face warming up. “He’s just… I don’t know. Good.”

For some reason, that did not seem to pacify Virgil in the slightest.

“Oh, great,” he said. “So a lifelong friendship wasn’t enough to stop you from being such a piece of shit, but hey, I’m so glad a two-week old crush finally came along to kick you in the ass.”

Janus blinked, trying to recover from the slight stunning that had come with Virgil just saying what he’d been trying very hard to deny. But he had also missed the point entirely, which was more important.

“Virgil, it wasn’t like that,” he said. “I’m not here because I like Patton.”

“Then what the fuck was it, Janus? If you’re not doing it for him, then why are you here?”

Janus stared at Virgil. “I can’t be here for you and Remus?”

Virgil scoffed, and turned away. “As if.”

“Well… tough, because that’s why.”

“Liar. You said Patton convinced you.”

“Patton convinced me that it’s not a hopeless pursuit to search for good things,” Janus murmured, looking away.

“He took you on one of his hope-finding vacations, did he?”

Janus smiled in slight amusement. “Yes.”

“It worked?”

Janus shrugged. “More or less. It wasn’t really him so much as… the way he views the world. It’s… really something.” Janus coughed awkwardly. “And, you know. I like his laugh.”

Virgil snorted. They were both silent for a minute.

Finally, Virgil shifted and narrowed his eyes at Janus. “Patton met us, Remus and I, a month after you left,” he said. “He took us to the Grand Canyon, like he took you. But he said he took us specifically because it seemed like we needed something to live for. Why did he take you?”

Janus wasn’t sure anymore, honestly. Patton knowing all along what had happened with Virgil and Remus had thrown a wrench into Janus’ perception of him. Why would he offer to help Janus at all if he knew that Janus had so badly hurt two people he was close to? The only thing Janus really had to go on was the first conversation he’d had with him.

…The conversation where Patton had said he’d reminded him of a close friend of his.

Janus swallowed, and looked up at Virgil. “I think I reminded him of you,” he said softly.

Virgil’s face went blank, and he took a shaky breath. “No.”

Janus blinked. “No?”

“No, that’s not the reason,” Virgil said, shaking his head. “Because when I met Patton I was a wreck. And you’re fine. You’re a dick who’s fine and left us because he’s a dick. You didn’t leave because I didn’t notice something was wrong. That’s not what happened.”

Janus stood up. “Virgil,” he said. “It’s not… that’s not a fair sentiment.”

“What happened, then?” Virgil snapped. “What did I miss?”

“You didn’t miss anything. I didn’t tell you.”

“What happened?”

Janus looked at Virgil for a moment, but Virgil was glaring too harshly to back down.

“Mom got in an accident,” he said quietly. “Two days after Remus’ attempt. She didn’t make it.”

Virgil let out a harsh breath and started pacing again.

“Virgil,” Janus said, moving towards him and reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder.

Virgil smacked his hand away. “Don’t. Touch me.”

“I’m sorry,” Janus said, moving backwards.

“You could have talked to me you moron,” Virgil snapped, glaring at him.

“That’s been made very clear to me recently.”

“You asshole, you sat up with me all night, you think I wouldn’t have been willing to return the favor?”

“I’m sorry,” Janus said again.

Virgil moved over towards the wall across the room and leaned back against it. “How did I just miss you going through something like that?” he asked weakly.

Janus stared at him. “You might have had other things on your mind, Virgil,” he said. “I needed to tell you. That’s on me. You can’t protect everyone you love all alone.”

Virgil glared up at him. “That’s what you made me do you dick,” he hissed. “You just— you just left. Out of nowhere. I was still terrified I was going to lose Remus, and then I had to lose you too. Just everything all at once, do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Janus winced. “Yes,” he said quietly.

Virgil gave a short bitter laugh. Then he pressed his hands over his eyes and started crying.

Janus moved forward and wrapped his arms around Virgil, then pulled him close while still giving him plenty of time to pull away.

“I thought I was done with you,” Virgil cried, grabbing fistfuls of Janus’ yellow jacket, the very one he’d given him all those years ago. “I thought at least you couldn’t hurt me anymore, you goddamn asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” Janus murmured. “I’m sorry, Virgil.”

“No,” Virgil said. “You don’t get to be sorry. Hating you doesn’t work if you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Janus said again, which was probably a bad idea, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Virgil pulled Janus in and buried his face in his shirt, and Janus reached around and started rubbing his back.

“Virgil,” he whispered. “It’s really not your fault.”

Virgil made some kind of noise of protest.

“It isn’t. Remus and I needed to tell you these things. It would be completely unreasonable to blame you when you didn’t know what was going on or that we needed help. Besides, even if blaming yourself would have helped something, it’s far too late for that to have any effect. Please just stop it.”

Virgil snorted. “Oh yeah, I’ll just do that,” he said weakly.

Janus sighed. “Fair enough,” he murmured.

“I’m still fucking pissed off at you,” Virgil muttered after a second.

“Yeah, of course you are,” Janus said. “Like I’m going to blame you for that.”

Virgil sighed and pulled his head up slightly. His gaze landed on Janus’ jacket, and he ran his hand over the fabric for a minute. “I can’t believe you kept this,” he said.

“Of course I kept it,” Janus said. “It’s worth more than Patton’s house.”

Virgil snorted. “Janus, I bought that thing at a second hand store for no other reason than it reminded me of you.”

“I know,” Janus said, smiling slightly. “That’s why I kept it.”

Virgil smiled a little back. “Moron.” He smiled weakly at Janus. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Janus said.

Virgil pulled Janus in for another hug, and if they both melted into each other a little, well, they were also both too proud to admit it.

Janus wasn’t exactly surprised when Remus and Patton showed up a few minutes later, as they had been pretty quiet for a while. They probably both would have jumped back immediately if not for the fact that Remus let out a happy noise and threw himself into the hug with them, and after a nod from Janus, Patton joined from the other side too, and they all ended up huddled together in the middle of the room.

“Hey,” Virgil said, nudging Janus with his foot so it was clearly directed at him.

“Hmm?”

“Leave again and I’ll murder you.”

Janus gave a huff of laughter. “Oh, you’re not getting rid of me so easily a second time,” he said, as Remus squeezed him tighter too. “You’re all stuck with me now.”

For a second, Janus could have sworn Virgil murmured, “Thank god.”

But no, he was definitely just hearing things.

…

One Year Later

…

“Patton, you’re going to make us late for your own trip,” Janus said, sticking his head into Patton’s room.

“You’re the one who wanted to stay the night,” Patton called, throwing another pair of socks into his suitcase.

“I don’t want to drive myself to the airport, I’ll waste valuable gas.”

“You already drove yourself here. Just admit you like me,” Patton said grinning over his shoulder at him.

“Nope. I’m dating you for your social status.”

“What social status?” Patton asked in bafflement.

“You provide me access to Thomas’ strawberry pancakes.”

Patton laughed. “You know, I could understand that,” he said. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re stuck here until I’m ready. Or you could help, if you want it to go faster.”

“But that requires effort,” Janus groaned, even as he was already walking over to join Patton.

“Poor baby,” Patton said, patting Janus sympathetically on the head. “How dare the world force you to overexert yourself?”

“At least we’re on the same page,” Janus sighed, handing Patton the final pair of socks he’d laid aside. Patton put them in his suitcase and closed the top.

“Sit on it?” he asked Janus.

Janus flopped on top of the suitcase, with an added dramatic flair and a melodramatic sigh. “I’m exhausted after all that hard work.”

“Yeah, laugh it up, we haven’t packed the food yet.”

“Will this packing session ever end?”

In all seriousness, Janus didn’t blame him. Both him and Patton had been absolutely swamped with work this week, and Patton hadn’t been able to take yesterday off to pack like Janus had, instead having to wrap up working with the kid he’d been helping before they left. And a week-long trip wasn’t anything that you could pack for quickly, so the hour this had taken so far was actually pretty good, all things considered.

It didn’t take quite as long to pack the food, as Patton had been setting it aside as he made dinner, so about half an hour later they were on their way to the airport, where they’d be meeting Remus and Virgil. Roman, Thomas, and Logan were driving again, and had left a couple days ago.

“So,” Patton said, as they finally got in the car. “Excited to see the Grand Canyon again?”

“I am, actually,” Janus admitted, putting the car in gear and pulling backwards out of the driveway. “I’ll be glad to see it while I’m in a much better place than last year.”

“And I’m glad for that,” Patton said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek, which Janus may or may not have melted at slightly. “I still wish Thomas and Roman and Logan would let me pay for a flight, though.”

“They don’t want to take advantage of you, darling,” Janus said. “And it’s not like they’re struggling, they’ll be okay.”

“They’re not taking advantage of me, they’re my friends,” Patton said. “I’m happy to do things for my friends.”

“You’re happy to do things for anyone,” Janus said, giving Patton a look as he came to a stop at a light that had just turned red. “And they know you.”

“What’s so wrong with helping people?” Patton asked, though it sounded too lighthearted for him to actually be upset.

“Nothing, angel, except that most people are far more selfish than you and will take advantage of it. I’d be one of them if I didn’t know you.” He pulled away from the light as it turned green.

“I’m perfectly willing to get taken advantage of sometimes if it means most of the time I’m helping people who really need it,” Patton said.

“Oh?” Janus asked, recognizing Patton’s tone shift into philosophical debate mode. “Where do you draw the line? If 50% of people you help are taking advantage of you? 60%?”

“Drawing an actual line would make the helping of others conditional,” Patton said. “I don’t want to decide whether or not someone actually deserves help.”

“And if you found out that nearly everyone you helped was taking advantage of your kindness?” Janus asked. “What would you do then?”

Patton seemed to consider the question for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’d be hurt, honestly. But I also think it would say more about them than it would about me. I want people to know I’m someone they can come to if they need it. That’s more important than making sure I’m never taken advantage of.”

“I disagree,” Janus said. “It’s not necessarily just hurting you, though obviously you’re far more important.”

Janus saw Patton give a slightly amused smile out of the corner of his eye.

“But being taken advantage of, even if you’re not negatively affected, might take valuable resources away from those who actually need them, don’t you think?”

“Hmm. Valid point,” Patton admitted. “But no way of helping someone is a perfect system. If I had to start interrogating people to determine whether or not they need help before I gave it, that wouldn’t make them feel very good, and it wouldn’t make me feel very good. And that would negatively impact my mental health, which is also important, isn’t it?”

It was Janus’ turn to smile in slight amusement. “Also a valid point,” he admitted.

That seemed like a fair place to leave it for now, so Janus turned to merge onto the highway and prepared to turn on some music for the rest of the trip.

Before he could, though, he saw Patton turn to face him again out of the corner of his eye, and he seemed to have a much more serious look on his face.

“Jan,” he said. “Have you thought any more about what we talked about?”

“Ah, yes, I do think we should leave the catering to Roman and Thomas,” Janus said, keeping his gaze firmly on the road. “It’s their wedding, and they already own a cake shop—”

“Janus,” Patton said. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Janus tightened his grip around the wheel and clenched his teeth.

“Janus,” Patton said gently. “I think you really should consider the idea of talking to someone. Plenty of people go to therapy. I’ve gone to therapy. You remember how much it helped to talk to someone about my nightmares about Remus?”

“That’s different,” Janus said.

“Oh? How’s that?”

“Because you— I’m fine. I’m better than I was. You’ve seen that.”

“That doesn’t mean that talking to someone won’t still be helpful,” Patton said. “Janus, you were the one who said I should talk to someone.”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?” Patton asked again.

“Can we not talk about this while I’m driving?”

Patton hummed in acknowledgement. “Okay. But don’t think I’ve forgotten about it.”

“Trust me, I know you haven’t.”

Then Janus did turn on some music, and they both sang along to the playlist of roadtrip songs they’d picked out, that they’d be bringing along in the rental car Patton had flat out insisted on getting for the two of them and Remus and Virgil. They’d let him, since he was the only one who could afford it, really.

They made it to the airport with forty minutes to spare, and Janus parked the car in the lot Patton directed him to.

The second Janus turned off the car, Patton said, “Is it because you still think struggling is your fault?”

Janus tensed and looked firmly away.

“It isn’t.”

“I caused all of my problems when I left,” Janus insisted. “I should be able to fix them if they deserve to be fixed.”

“That’s not how hurting works, Jan,” Patton said softly, reaching over and gently squeezing Janus’ hand. “And you know I’d much prefer for you to be happy. We all would. We don’t care where your problems came from.”

“Virgil and Remus care,” Janus said, pulling his hand away and crossing his arms.

“Virgil and Remus care to the extent that it takes work to rebuild relationships with people. That is very different, and you know that. They wouldn’t want you to keep hurting.”

Janus shifted uncomfortably and didn’t say anything.

“Janus,” Patton said. “You know I won’t think any less of you if you need some help to get better.”

Janus glared weakly over at him. “Now that’s not fair.”

“It’s true, sweetheart.”

Janus sighed, and looked away again. “You really think it would help that much?”

“I really do. I think you’re underestimating how good it will feel to not be hurting about this anymore.”

“It hasn’t been too long for that?”

“No darling,” Patton said quietly, reaching out and squeezing his hand again. “It hasn’t.”

Janus was quiet for another moment. “I’ll think about it,” he said finally.

“Really think about it?”

“Really think about it,” Janus confirmed. “Just not while we’re on vacation.”

“Fair enough,” Patton said with one final squeeze, and then they both climbed out of the car.

They made their way through security, and then Janus called Remus to get directions to their gate, and they made it there with about fifteen minutes to spare overall, just before getting an announcement that their plane was going to be two hours late.

“Yeah, well, that figures,” Remus laughed. “Who wants to come up with tragic backstories of everyone that passes us for the next few hours?”

“I’m game,” Virgil said with a grin. “We talking on the run from the law after a tragic accident sad, or heading out of town for a puppy funeral sad?”

They both began to debate as they people watched, and Janus leaned back against his chair with a fond smile, finding it hard to even be irritated at the longer wait in the prospect of a week-long vacation with everyone he loved surrounding him. They were going to the Grand Canyon for a couple days to start, followed by camping at Zion, just like he and Patton had done last year. They weren’t going to as many other places as they had, mostly because the Grand Canyon was a yearly staple for everyone and sticking to places similar to that was just easy. But honestly, Janus wouldn’t have cared where they were going as long as he got to go with the people here, and maybe get some of Thomas’ strawberry pancakes.

He smiled over at Patton, who was adding sweeter aspects to the backstories Virgil and Remus were coming up with, as was in his nature.

“Hey,” he said, and Patton paused and glanced over at him.

“Yeah?”

Janus leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Patton asked with a bright smile.

“Being you,” Janus said, leaning against his side. “Helping me find reasons to hope.”

Patton leaned back against Janus’ side. “It was my pleasure, Jan,” he said.

He smiled in a way that was very Patton, the same way that had once irritated Janus to no end. Right now, however, all it meant was that he didn’t doubt Patton meant what he said. And he was all the more grateful for it.

Janus leaned back against the seat and took in Virgil and Remus starting to lightheartedly bicker again, and Patton trying half-seriously to break it up. And watching it all, he found himself looking forward to the hopeful future they were all building together. It was one he looked forward to seeing.

#sanders sides #janus sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #character thomas sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #moceit #roman x thomas #I don't think there's a ship name for that #sanders sides big bang #TS Storytime 2022 Submission #my fic

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rosepetalgold · 2 years ago

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all the silver stolen (will one day turn to gold) 1

Summary: Janus is an exceptionally good thief, if he does say so himself. Sure, his life of petty crime alongside Virgil and Remus isn’t ideal, exactly, but it’s good enough—until he tries to pickpocket the wrong person and learns three life-changing things: One, mages are terrifyingly real, go by the name of Logan, and do not appreciate being stolen from. Two, Remus has a twin brother. And three, Remus is actually the crown prince of the neighboring country, forced to start a new life after being framed for treason and left for dead in a brutal coup.

Whisked off to a new nation with Remus and Virgil, Janus struggles to adjust to high society and a life of court politics and intrigue, his inherent distrust of magic and his rocky—to put it lightly—relationship with Logan only complicating matters further. Trouble soon begins brewing in the kingdom as well, bringing with it whispers of old threats to the newly reunited princes, and when things go horribly wrong, Janus is forced to confront two questions with extraordinary consequences: How selfish is he, exactly? And just what is he prepared to sacrifice for those he loves?

Relationships: Romantic Loceit, background romantic Prinxiety, found family all around

Warnings for this chapter: Injury to a main character (for a full list of major warnings, check the tags on Ao3)

Word Count: 7316

Notes: My fic for the Thomas Sanders Big Bang 2022 (@sandersidesbigbang)! This is by far the longest fic I've ever written, and although it is responsible for me spending countless hours staring blankly at a google doc, it has definitely been a labor of love. I'm so excited to share it, and I hope you enjoy! Updates weekly!

A huge thank you to my wonderful beta readers Peregrin (@iclaimedtobethebetterbard) and Saphira (@dragonsaphirareads) for all their help wrangling the plot into something coherent and for all their feedback, as well as for not once complaining despite this beast of a fic more than doubling in length from its original estimated word count. They are truly amazing, and this story wouldn't be the same without them!

Also be sure to check out the absolutely stunning art from the two incredible artists I got to work with, Crow (@thecrowslullaby) and Hedgey (@hedgeyart)! I will link to Crow's work in the respective chapters, but in the meantime you can both dazzle your eyes and get a spoiler-free teaser of the later part of the fic by heading over to Hedgey's piece right here.

Read on Ao3 Masterpost

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Janus is an exceptionally good thief, if he does say so himself. Such a claim isn’t even bragging, not when he has the proof to back it up; he knows how to slip unnoticed through empty and crowded marketplaces alike, knows how to steal coin purses and jewelry and watches right off of any unsuspecting person and leave them none the wiser of his actions, knows how to sell what he’s acquired for a fair price on the black market. He’s had to learn such things just to survive, especially given how he’d first found himself on the streets, young and frightened and overwhelmed, a life of crime the only thing standing between himself and a long, slow death of starvation.

But more than being a talented thief, Janus is a smart thief. He knows how to select the best mark while avoiding the plainclothes guards just waiting to catch an unwary pickpocket, knows how to take advantage of a distraction or create one himself, knows how to judge which risks are worth taking and which are better left unchanced. His quick fingers may be what has granted him enough food and money to keep himself alive, but it’s his even quicker mind that has allowed him to evade the common thief’s fate of a short drop and a sudden stop for so many years.

Unfortunately, Janus is also currently a desperate thief, and desperate thieves are apt to do extraordinarily dangerous things, which is how he finds himself fumbling his lockpicks into his freezing hands as he crouches outside a fancy stone building in the middle of the night, no backup in sight and only the barest bones of a plan rattling around inside his skull. Breaking into any building, let alone an apothecary, is high-risk enough that he would normally never even consider such a thing, loath to put himself in such a perilous situation when he’s perfectly content weaving through crowds as his fingers dance in and out of pockets. But Virgil had taken a nasty fall by the run-down blacksmith’s forge a few days prior, gashing his leg open on a jagged piece of metal sticking out of a scrap pile, and the wound was now clearly infected, angrily inflamed and leaking foul-smelling pus as Virgil grew clammy and delirious.

If it were anyone else, Janus would have simply told them to hope for the best but make peace with whatever gods they believed in in the likely event of the worst, but Virgil is nothing if not an exception to all of Janus’ rules. Janus had practically raised the other man despite being only a handful of years older than him, had taken him in and tried his best to keep him clothed and fed while he’d taught him how to steal, nevermind that he’d barely been able to support himself, let alone anyone else. It had taken a lot from both of them to build trust, and even more for their wary alliance to slowly bloom into genuine friendship, but somehow, impossibly, it had, the venom in their sarcastic comments and snarky remarks mellowed save for the occasional argument.

Remus had come along a few years later and fallen in easily to make their duo a trio, more because of his uncanny ability to always be around and his refusal to leave rather than because of any official invitation to join. There had been something odd about him from the very beginning, something in the hint of an accent that sometimes slipped out and the foreign cut of his clothes and the shimmering gold necklace that he always wore against his chest and refused to take off, the sum of it all enough to give Janus pause, but he’d proven himself early by getting Janus out of a bind with some guards and his eyes had lit up with unrestrained glee when Janus had begun to plot crimes with him, so into the group he’d come. Given his own undisclosed past, Janus has never pressed Remus to lay bare his secrets, content just to take any observations he makes and tuck them away to mull over when he has a spare moment, trying to tease Remus’ life story from the scraps of details he’s collected and never getting too far because really, he has better things to worry about, like where he’ll get food for the day or how to get Virgil new boots in the middle of winter.

It’s comfortingly familiar by now, the way they work together, two of them operating in tandem to distract and pickpocket their mark while the third keeps a lookout, years of practice making the three of them a formidable team. Occasionally they’ll split up to cover more ground or one of them will find an odd job and jump at the opportunity for a few guaranteed coins, but for the most part they stick together, finding safety in numbers and taking comfort in knowing that someone they trust is watching their backs.

Tonight, though, with Virgil down for the count and Remus watching over him, it’s just Janus. The pressure of potentially having Virgil’s life in his hands is doing wonders for his nerves, truly. That churning sensation in his stomach is adding a delightful bit of excitement to what would otherwise clearly be a dreadfully boring situation.

Despite the severity of Virgil’s injury, taking him to a healer had been soundly out of the question; physicians’ rates were much too high for the three of them to afford even if they cashed out their meager savings, and even if they could have somehow found the money, they couldn’t risk a doctor getting suspicious about how a trio of obvious street urchins had managed to afford his services.

So breaking into the apothecary it is.

Virgil had always been the best lockpick out of the three of them, but Janus manages to wiggle the tiny tools into the lock, biting back a string of curses that would make even Remus blush as he struggles to to maneuver the instruments properly.

Rude of people to actually lock their doors and protect their valuables. Completely uncalled for.

Finally, after entirely too many minutes of fiddling with the picks with bated breath, there’s the tiniest of clicks and the knob turns easily under his hand when he tests it. Success, and it had only taken him three times as long as it would have Virgil. Surely stealing a bit of medicine will be child’s play in comparison.

He eases the door open, wary of any squealing hinges and ready to flee at the first sign of movement, but everything is silent and still as he slips inside. There’s enough moonlight filtering in through the windows to illuminate the space in a silvery glow, and he pauses for a moment, taking stock. Off to his right, in the back of a shop, stands a tall cabinet with a multitude of small drawers, doubtless housing fresh and dried ingredients of all sorts, but although Janus is tempted, he edges past it. He knows enough basic first aid to be able to make common ointments for minor injuries and ailments, but the drawers look like they’re liable to squeak if he so much as looks at them wrong, and he doesn’t want to risk mixing up ingredients in the dark and killing Virgil with some kind of poison on accident. The other man might be just a tad upset with him if he did that.

What he’s really after are the medicines that have already been prepared, which he assumes are significantly less likely to make him an accidental murderer, and as he creeps further into the shop on silent feet he discovers there’s a whole display of them near the front windows, colorful glass jars a washed-out rainbow in the moonbeams.

Perfect. One little snatch and he’ll be gone before anyone even knew he was here, in and out in less time than it takes to brew a proper cup of tea, his extraordinary talents once again having saved the day, except—

Except the jars are labeled with small slips of paper adorned with writing instead of pictures like the cheap medicines he’s used to, and Janus—

Janus can’t read.

Shit. Of all the times for his lack of a formal education to come back and bite him, of course it would be when Virgil’s life hung in the balance. What a lovely sense of humor the universe had.

He resists the urge to swear aloud and glares at the jars instead on the off chance doing so will magically solve his problem. The jars themselves should offer some clues, but he’s not familiar with this particular apothecary, doesn’t know how their medicines are color-coded. Is the little crimson container for burns, since red was associated with fire? Or is it to stop bleeding? Or is it neither of those, representing something else entirely? Janus doesn’t know.

Time to improvise, then. He hasn’t gotten this far only to be foiled by some inky squiggles.

Casting another wary glance around the quiet shop, he shifts closer to the display and the row of jars lined up neatly atop the shelves. Samples of some kind, perhaps, but their purpose is less important than the fact that they look infinitely easier to handle without clinking together than the jars clustered together on the shelves. He goes down the line one by one, carefully unscrewing each little container’s lid and sniffing the contents, trying to recognize the scent of any ingredients that might treat infected wounds.

Not the red, definitely not the orange, maybe the yellow?

He’s getting antsy, nerves crawling along his skin and skittering down his spine, his instincts screaming at him that he needs to get out, this is taking too long, he’s already been here for more time than he’d planned. But unless he’s suddenly been granted the ability to produce medicine out of thin air, he doesn’t have any other option than to go through the jars as quickly as possible. Taking a pot of each color and figuring out their uses later is a last resort, not only because he doesn’t have anything to wrap them in so they don’t clink together in his bag but also because he doesn’t want this to be a high-profile theft. Taking copious amounts of medicine is bound to put the guards on high alert, which is the last thing he needs when their trio is already running perilously low on food and supplies and will need to be out and about stealing to replenish them.

No, if he can only find the damn jar he wants, he’ll just take that and be gone and with any luck the apothecary owner will think they’ve simply misplaced it somewhere and not even realize they’ve been robbed.

Not the light or dark green jars, but the blue smells familiar—

A shriek splits the air, so shrill and unexpected that Janus’ whole body goes white with razor-sharp panic in an instant, his knife in his grip before he can even parse where the sound has come from or what’s happening, the purple jar he’d been holding slipping out of his hand and shattering into an incriminating pile of shards at his feet, the heady scent of lavender filling the air. No. No no no, there hadn’t been anyone else here, he was sure of it, how—who—

There’s a figure on the other side of the shop, standing in the doorway of what Janus had assumed to be nothing more than a storage closet and which he now realizes, entirely too late, is in fact a stairway to the second floor, which must serve as the healer’s residence and not an extension of the shop as he’d thought.

Apparently he needed to add ‘making correct assumptions’ to his list of innumerable talents.

He’s moving on instinct before he can even take a breath, lunging to grab the little blue jar—stars, he doesn’t even know for sure if it’s the right medicine—before he’s bolting for the exit, fear snapping in his veins, the only thought in his head run run RUN.

“No, wait! Stop!”

Right, of course he’s going to pause for the person who has just caught him stealing red-handed, just wait around to be hauled off to jail for his crimes. Why doesn’t he strike up some small talk while he’s at it?

He’s across the shop and out the back door in a heartbeat, pure adrenaline propelling him forwards as he tucks the precious jar into the safety of his bag, his footsteps echoing dully against the hard-packed dirt in the still night air as he attempts to wrangle rational thought back into his head. Getting caught by the shopkeeper was hardly ideal, but a glance over his shoulder proves they’re not coming after him, and as long as no one else has heard their shriek he should be able to make a clean getaway—

“Hey!”

His heart is pounding so hard in his own ears that he hardly hears the gruff shout, barely sees a form suddenly loom in his peripheral vision, but he certainly feels the hand that snags his cloak for a moment before he manages to wrench free. The healer, trying to cut him off? How the fuck had he managed to outpace Janus?

But when he glances backward he’s met not with the sight of pastel pajamas and blonde curls but of a dark uniform and a sword flashing as it’s drawn from its sheath.

One of the Guard. Stars, couldn’t a man just steal some medicine in peace anymore?

He forces himself to go faster, hurtling headlong down the empty street as he tries to think. He isn’t familiar with this area, doesn’t know its ins and outs like he does his own neighborhood, but if he can just find a side street he should be able to lose the guard in the labyrinth of alleys lacing the city. He veers down the first promising opening he sees, the deeper shadows welcoming him in—

—and promptly finds himself met with a dead end.

Fuck.

He whirls, his only option to backtrack to the main road before he’s cornered, only to find a broad figure already blocking his only way out, sword in hand. Janus is trapped.

Fuck.

“Come on, don’t make this hard on yourself, boy,” the guard growls, advancing forward a step, and Janus can’t help but skitter back in turn, eyes fixed on the glinting blade in the other man’s hand. He can’t get caught now, not when he still has the medicine in his bag, not when Virgil is doubtless still caught in the deadly grip of fever and infection. Janus getting thrown in jail would be nothing less than a death sentence for both of them.

And yet here he finds himself, nothing but high stone walls around him and a larger, stronger opponent he surely can’t best in a fight in front of him.

Not a physical fight, at least, but a mind game or two, a few dirty tricks thrown in to round things off? That Janus is willing to gamble on.

“Okay,” he concedes, letting his voice tremble slightly as the guard takes another stride into the alley. “Okay, just please don’t hurt me, sir.”

The man visibly preens at the honorific, sword tip lowering slightly, and Janus resists the urge to roll his eyes even as his pulse still hammers entirely too quickly in his ears. Honestly. These brutes made playing their ego entirely too easy.

“Put the knife down,” the man orders, and Janus obligingly crouches, the ground freezing even on his half-numb hands as he lays his palms flat on the dirt.

“I’m sorry, sir, please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers as he curls in on himself, the very picture of contrition.

“That’s right, you just cooperate and no one’s going to get hurt here.”

“Of course, sir,” Janus snivels as a pair of black boots come into view of his downcast gaze, followed a moment later by a sword tip. “Anything you say—”

He surges upwards, knife sweeping in front of him as he lunges past the guard, and for the barest fraction of a moment he thinks he’s made it, that his plan has actually worked, that brains have triumphed over brawn—

Pain explodes in his side, a white-hot line of fire that makes black stars burst across his vision and wrenches a strangled cry from his lips, but he has to keep moving, has to go, has to get away while he still has even a sliver of a chance, and he can’t stop, he can’t stop, he can’t stop even if it feels like he’s just been torn right in half.

He doesn’t even know how he manages to make it to the end of the alley and back onto the main road, given how blank his mind has gone with panic and adrenaline; he’s just there, in between one wave of black stars and the next, lurching for the first side street he sees and praying to all the gods he doesn’t even believe in that it’s not another dead end. If he can just make it into the twisting maze of alleyways, he should be able to lose the guard, provided he doesn’t bleed out in the process.

“Get back here, you little shit!”

The furious voice and its accompanying footfalls are far closer than Janus would like, but he doesn’t dare look behind him. If he’s going to get a sword through the spine, the last thing he wants is to see it coming.

“Guard!” Another voice splitting the air behind him. The healer? “Hey, guard!”

The guard’s steps falter, the other man clearly debating whether it’s worth it to continue pursuing a petty thief at the risk of failing to help a wealthy noble in need, and his hesitation is all the opportunity Janus needs to fling himself around a corner into another alley.

Stars above, please don’t be another dead end, please please please—

There must be some higher power after all, some deity who finally takes pity on him, or perhaps fate has simply decided to give him a fighting chance, because the narrow street tees into two at the end. He picks a direction at random, hope leaping treacherously in his chest that he’s at last found a way out of this mess, only to be dashed at the sound of footfalls picking up again behind him, the guard apparently having decided Janus is somehow more important than the healer.

Janus would be flattered if it didn’t mean he was about to either be sliced into ribbons or thrown into jail and sentenced to hang. As it is, he’s less than enthused.

Fear is biting at his heels, urging him faster, but he’s already lagging, lungs burning as he gasps for air, black and red spots encroaching on any spare sliver of vision, searing pain ripping through his body with every step as he jostles his new injury. He can’t keep going like this, not without collapsing within the next minute, and even though the guard behind him may be all brute force and no brain, Janus is pretty sure even he would notice Janus’ body sprawled in the middle of the street.

He scans around him as he flees further up the alley, searching for any place to take cover, but there’s nothing but unscalable walls around him. Nothing, nothing, nothing, until suddenly—there. A tiny gap between two buildings, cloaked in impenetrable shadows. He stumbles to a halt, blowing out whatever tiny bit of air he has left in his lungs in order to make himself as small as possible as he desperately wedges himself into the space. Even then, and despite Janus’ slim stature from years of malnutrition, it’s a tight fit, and he’s barely managed to squeeze himself all the way in before there’s heavy footsteps drawing closer, slowing to a jog and then a walk as the guard clearly tries to deduce where his victim has disappeared to.

Too late does Janus realize that if the other man had any intelligence at all, he would just go find a torch or lantern and track Janus using the bloodtrail he’s undoubtedly left in his wake, but there’s precisely nothing he can do about that now. He crams a handful of cloak into his mouth, both to muffle his pants of pain and to hide the cloud of his breath in the frigid air, turning his head away from the alleyway lest the glint of light off of his eyes give him away.

Given how his wonderful luck is going, he can only brace himself for a blade to come spearing into his ribs, easy as stabbing fish in a barrel, but the footsteps move right past him without a hitch, continuing down the street until they escape Janus’ earshot altogether. But Janus doesn’t move a muscle, despite the fact that his right foot is sinking into something squishy he does not ever want to identify and the smell of rotting food and dead animal is so heavy and cloying in his nose that he has to fight down bile.

Patience. If he can survive a sword almost making his insides be on the outside, he can survive sharing a claustrophobically small space with a few dead rats.

Sure enough, the footfalls return a few minutes later, slower this time as the guard backtracks his steps. Janus hardly dares breathe, sure his luck won’t hold a second time, but once again the other man continues past his hiding place without pause, apparently none the wiser to his quarry literally being within arm’s reach.

A flawless escape if Janus does say so himself, nevermind the fact that he’s taken a sword blade to the ribs in the process. That little detail was wholly inconsequential.

Still, it’s a long while that he bides his time, waiting until he’s satisfied the guard isn’t going to come back a third time, and even then he forces himself to wait some more, just in case. By the time he finally edges out of his little nook and back into the alley proper, his feet and hands have long since gone numb and the black spots in his vision have returned in full force, any movement that pulls at his side even the slightest bit sending ripples of agony through his ribs now that the numbing effects of his adrenaline rush have worn off.

A shame he’s neither brave enough nor stupid enough to try retuning to the apothecary, considering he could really use some painkillers right now.

He keeps his arm firmly pressed against the wound, desperate to keep as much pressure as he can stand on the injury even as a fresh line of warmth trickling down his waist informs him he hasn’t managed to stop the bleeding. He should probably check on it, he knows, try to fashion some kind of bandage from his shirt, but his stomach is already queasy enough that he doesn’t trust he’d be able to witness whatever damage has been wrought upon him without passing out, so his arm will have to suffice.

Out of sight, out of mind, he tells himself. It was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine. If he just repeats it enough times, maybe he’ll begin to believe it, despite the fact that the world tilts alarmingly when he dares a tiny step forward. He hasn’t keeled over and died yet, so the injury can’t be that bad, can it?

It doesn’t matter. Janus just needs to suck it up and get home to deliver the medicine to Virgil before the other man kicks the bucket and all of this has been in vain.

It’s a risk to return to their hideout when there’s a chance the guard chasing him might lie in wait for him to reappear and follow him back home, but it seems an equal risk to spend too much time on the streets when the other man, if not the whole of the night guard by now, is looking for him. He compromises by opting to take the long way back to the impoverished underbelly of the city, secreting himself away in the shadows of back alleys as he muffles his pants of pain into his cloak, biting down so hard on the fabric shoved into his mouth that he’s surprised he doesn’t put holes in it.

It takes him several times longer than it should to return to familiar surroundings, given that he has to pause every few steps either to listen for any guards or to wait for the world to stop spinning around him, but he never dares stop for too long, not as it grows increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to haul himself back up if he collapses on the ground like his body is begging him to.

It’s nearly dawn by the time he finally deems he isn’t being followed and crosses the final few streets to their little hovel, and he allows himself a single moment to grimace against the pain biting into every single inch of his body, gritting his teeth against the overwhelming sensation. And then he’s pulling himself upright, schooling his features into an expressionless mask as he raps their familiar passcode rhythm on the door and pushes inside.

Virgil is just where he’d left him, still unconscious on the mattress pulled up close to the fireplace, shifting restlessly in his sleep and babbling something nonsensical under his breath, and Janus can’t help a silent sigh of relief that the other man hasn’t expired in his absence.

“Did you get it?” Remus asks immediately from where he’s trying to coax some water down Virgil’s throat, and Janus digs in his bag to hold up the little jar of medicine, careful to keep his other arm pressed securely to his side to hide his injury. He knew having a cloak dark enough to hide bloodstains would come in handy one day. “Good, cause this wound is getting nastier by the second and as fun as it would be to try out a bone saw, I don’t think little Virgie would appreciate only having one leg.”

Janus wrinkles his nose at the mental image of Remus and the havoc he could wreak with such an instrument, just the thought of such carnage turning his stomach. He’s already lost enough blood tonight for the three of them. He doesn’t even want to contemplate one of them losing any more via amputation.

“Good thing he’s unconscious; he would tear you to pieces for calling him Virgie.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Remus retorts, but his face is lined with worry as he brushes a stray lock of hair off Virgil’s forehead. Shit. Things must be going from bad to worse if even Remus is this concerned.

Janus hurries to rinse his hands off in the bowl of water on the table, making a mental note to discard the now crimson liquid before Remus can see it, unceremoniously drying his hands on his pants as he crouches next to the other man. The movement pulls sharply at his wound, sending yet another wave of black spots dancing across his vision, and he has to bite back a hiss of pain as he wavers slightly. Don’t pass out now, not now, not before helping Virgil—

Remus casts him a sidelong glance, seeming to notice something is wrong.

“You okay, Janny?”

No, Janus is about to say, not unless you want to go find a guard with a sword so we can all have matching wounds.

But then he unscrews the lid off the little jar of salve and dips a finger in to find—

Nothing.

Cold panic snaps up his spine, shot nerves surging protestingly back to life. No, there’s no way he could have stolen an empty jar. He was a thoroughly accomplished thief, and thoroughly accomplished thieves simply did not make mistakes like accidentally grabbing the wrong pot of medicine.

Unless, perhaps, they were the tiniest bit distracted by the dark and the healer screaming at the sight of them and the fear turning their mind blank.

He braces himself for the worst, to have to return to the apothecary and try to steal something else, but when he tilts the jar to peer in he’s met with the sight of a cream ointment, albeit barely enough to coat the bottom of the glass. He swears viciously as he tips the container towards Remus for him to see, and the other man wrinkles his face up in annoyance at the lack of medicine.

“That sucks,” he pronounces. “Would have been nice to have had some extra in case someone gets a hand bitten off by a pack of stray dogs or something.”

“Fuck. Fuck.” Tears of frustration are suddenly pricking at the back of Janus’ eyes and he forces them back through sheer willpower, absolutely refusing to cry in front of Remus. Just because he’s exhausted and injured and absolutely nothing has gone right tonight doesn’t mean he’s going to make it anyone else’s problem. Virgil is the one who needs attention. Janus needs to pull himself together and start being useful.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Remus says, peering into the jar again. “There’s enough here for Virgil.”

But not for me, Janus thinks, but he can’t say it, can’t reveal his own injury, not when the jar is so tiny and there’s so little ointment left and all he can remember is Virgil looking up at him that morning, dark gaze so pained and vulnerable even as he’d tried to hide it as Janus had promised that he’d find him some medicine.

No. Janus is selfish about many things, has had to be just in order to survive, but he’s never been able to be selfish when it comes to Virgil and Remus. He can’t be selfish about this.

Besides, there’s a chance he won’t even need the medicine; he’s suffered plenty of injuries before that have healed on their own, nevermind that little voice in the back of his head whispering that none of those wounds had been nearly as bad as this one.

So he dips his fingers back into the jar and carefully spreads the salve on Virgil’s wound, not stopping until the container is empty of even a speck of ointment and the medicine has been rubbed gently into every inch of angry red skin. Remus fusses over rebandaging the injury and tucking Virgil back in while Janus slips the empty jar into a basket of various other small, stolen items. They won’t be able to sell it, not right away, not with the Guard looking for anything connected to the apothecary break-in, but they might be able to trade it for something down the line.

“Did you run into any trouble while you were out?” Remus asks as he slumps back onto the floor by the fireplace, fiddling with the edge of the blankets.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Janus replies smoothly, and it’s not even a lie—he had handled it, had managed to evade being caught and had made it home all (or mostly, he supposes) in one piece. What did it matter that he’d met with the business end of a sword while he was out? Give it a few months and the injury would be just another scar on Janus’ skin, one more unspoken story of a bind he’d gotten himself out of with his superior wit and talent.

Either that or he would be dead of blood loss or infection and it wouldn’t be his problem anymore. One or the other.

Remus gives him a sidelong look like he doesn’t quite believe Janus’ lie, eyes narrowing and mouth opening to no doubt ask more prying questions, and Janus hurriedly cuts in before he can get the chance.

“Will you go see what you can find for breakfast? I know Ms. Fordham at the bakery has a soft spot for Virgil, but she might give you some day-old bread for a good price if you’re there early and offer to haul in the flour deliveries.”

Remus still has that look in his eye like he’s going to push the issue, a heavy silence falling between the two of them as he locks Janus into a staring contest, an unspoken battle of wills that Janus doubts he’s going to win in his current state. The only people more stubborn than him were his own gods-damned family.

Time to play dirty, then.

“I wouldn’t want Virgil to wake up hungry with nothing to eat,” he presses.

Remus stares at him for another long moment, those clever eyes searching Janus’ for any hint of something amiss, and Janus forces himself to hold his gaze with an impassive expression. Nothing’s wrong, he tries to communicate telepathically. Nothing’s wrong, just go get breakfast and everything will be okay. I absolutely am not about to pass out from blood loss and join Virgil on the floor.

He doubts he’s giving a convincing performance of being fine, but it must be just enough, because Remus finally huffs and gives in, heaving himself up off the ground and muttering something Janus sincerely doubts is flattering as he swipes his cloak off the hook by the door.

“Don’t use the bone saw without me,” he orders, which Janus interprets as make sure Virgil doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

“Pinky promise,” Janus swears, holding out his hand, and Remus takes a moment to latch his finger around Janus’ before disappearing out the door into the dull, pre-dawn light.

Janus counts to ten, then fifty, a hundred, making sure Remus is well and truly gone, before he allows himself to double over with a strangled groan, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his thigh as the full extent of his injury finally hits him.

Fuck, this hurt. If he wanted to know what it felt like to have tongues of fire licking at his ribs, he would have just asked Remus if he wanted to practice his arson skills.

He draws in a deep breath on instinct, trying to breathe through the pain if nothing else, and the agony surges, spearing through his chest into his muscles and tendons and veins and coiling around his heart until he can barely breathe, wrenching a sound suspiciously close to a whimper from his throat, and it’s all he can do to just exist in the pain for a moment.

Okay. No deep breaths, then.

Exhaustion is dragging at him even through the pain, weighing down his eyelids and leadening his bones now that the adrenaline of being chased and tending to Virgil is wearing off, and he wants nothing more than to collapse right here on the ground next to Virgil and just sleep, slipping into sweet unconsciousness where he doesn’t have to worry about whether Virgil will get better or whether his own injury will become infected or whether the Guard will come crashing through the door at any moment to arrest all three of them.

But if he doesn’t tend to his wound before he falls into bed, he’s just going to end up in Virgil’s position in a few days when it gets infected, not to mention he’ll have to explain the bloodstains he’s leaving on the floor to Remus.

Actually, knowing Remus, he would be beyond delighted at the latter and eagerly demand to know where the blood was from, but Janus doesn’t trust his mental capacities at the moment to come up with any halfway believable lie.

“Lucky bastard,” he hisses at Virgil, who is still slumbering away pain-free and blissfully unaware of Janus’ predicament. He begins to inch himself across the floor to the table, taking tiny sips of air to try to calm the fire still battering his ribs. The world spins alarmingly around him as he uses the piece of furniture to claw himself upright, and he sways unsteadily on his feet once he gets there.

“Come on,” he mutters, some distant part of his mind whispering that he should really be alarmed that he’s devolved into talking to himself. “It’s just a little blood loss. How bad can it be?”

He keeps one hand on the wall for support as he makes his way past the curtain dividing the main living space from what serves as their bedroom. The main mattress has been moved into the other room next to the fireplace so they don’t freeze in their sleep in the colder months, but there’s a smaller bed here, salvaged off the street and put back together by Remus, and Janus eases himself onto it.

It’s a slow, agonizing process to get his shirt off, any movement or stretch pulling at his injury, and he has to stop more than once for the stars that dance in his vision, but he finally works his way free of the garment. A sharp breath hisses between his teeth as he cranes his neck down to examine the injury, nausea turning his stomach. It’s not a pretty sight, the dried blood flaking down his side disturbed by trails of fresh crimson still leaking from the wound, and Janus spits out a swear, then another, and another. If he’d known this was how things were going to go, he would have stolen everything he could carry from the apothecary instead of trying to keep a low profile by only taking one paltry jar of salve.

Next time—if he lives to see a next time—he’s taking the whole damn shelf of medicine, clinking jars be damned.

There’s a pitcher of water on the nightstand and he uses it and a rag to clean the injury as best he can, agony sparking up his spine whenever a drop of freezing water or the edge of the fabric gets too close to the jagged gash, but he forces himself to hurry, knowing Remus won’t be gone long. The bed is an absolute mess by the time he’s done, scarlet water settling into stains on the sheets, but that’s a problem for future Janus. He has bigger worries at the moment than laundry.

Between the ice-cold water and the chill in the air he’s shivering now, and he’s quick to dry off as best he can before moving on to bandaging. Their stockpile of nice bandages is almost depleted and Janus isn’t willing to take the few remaining in case Virgil needs them, so he opts for their homemade bandages instead, which is a generous term for it, considering that they’re fashioned from scraps of fabric too worn out to function as clothes anymore, but Janus isn’t in any position to be picky. As long as it stops the bleeding, it’ll do.

The pain is at least becoming familiar, if not exactly pleasant, as he winds the long, spiraling strips tightly around his ribs, even as his stomach churns at the thought that so much blood that is supposed to be inside his body is very much not. Just beet juice, he tells himself, not above lying to himself if it means not passing out on the bedroom floor. Just beet juice on your hands and the bandages and the bed, nothing more.

Almost done. He shoves his torn and bloodstained shirt under the mattress out of sight of curious eyes and forces himself up to grab another one from the pile in the corner, very nearly finding himself on the ground from the way the world tilts violently around him as he staggers upright. He’s panting with pain and exertion by the time he finally manages to get the blasted thing on, but the sense of relief that washes over him once he does is immediate. His secret is safe for now, at least. No one else needed to worry about him.

The bed is almost irresistibly tempting, but he stumbles his way back into the main room, collapsing heavily on the floor next to Virgil to sit as a guard until Remus gets back.

“You heard nothing,” he tells the other man as he scuffs at the half-dried bloodstains on the floorboards with his boot, smearing them into less incriminating streaks. “Everything is fine.”

Virgil doesn’t deign to respond beyond drooling onto his own arm, and Janus groans, tipping his head back against the wall as his eyelids drag closed of their own volition. He can’t sleep, not yet, not until Remus returns, but maybe he’ll just rest his eyes for a moment, just a few seconds…

He wakes with a heavy groan in his chest, the pain in his ribs fiercely unrelenting, and he curls in on himself instinctively, the phantom feel of a sword biting into his ribs entirely too real. Fuck, he’d really been hoping that whole apothecary debacle had been nothing more than a strikingly vivid nightmare. Apparently not.

“Nice guard job you’re doing there, Jan.”

He squints one eye open, glaring at Remus where he’s sprawled on the floor on the other side of Virgil.

“Good thing I wasn’t planning on doing anything nefarious. I could have killed both of you and you were so out of it you would’ve just floated right into the light.”

Janus scowls at him, nowhere near the mood to joke about anyone dying. The possibility hit just a little too close to home for comfort at the moment.

“Here,” Remus says, entirely unaffected by Janus’ look, offering him a slice of bread. “You were right about Ms. Fordham.”

Of course he was. Janus is always right.

He nibbles through the bread while Remus rambles on about a mishap with one of the flour bags, his stomach still roiling even though he’s ravenous. He realizes halfway through that Virgil is frighteningly still, but when he scrambles to check he realizes it’s because the other man is sleeping peacefully for the first time in days.

Last night had been worth it, then, no matter that Janus can’t breathe too deeply or move too suddenly without feeling like a knife is being twisted into his side. Janus was more than willing to be collateral damage if it meant Virgil healing.

Remus leaves before long, off in search of any other odd jobs he can do for a few coins to keep them fed, and Janus spends the afternoon on the floor, dozing on and off and trying to coax some broth down Virgil’s throat. The other wakes that evening, in pain but coherent, and Janus helps him slowly eat a real meal while Remus carefully washes and rebandages his leg.

“How kind of you to finally rejoin the waking world,” Janus tells the younger man as he checks Remus’ progress for the third time in as many minutes, making sure he’s not winding the bandages too tightly. “I’ve so enjoyed pulling your weight around here while you indulged in a little nap, you know.”

“You could use a nap,” Virgil mutters snippily. “Although I doubt any amount of beauty sleep could fix your face.”

It’s hardly a devastating response, especially given that Janus’ face is undeniably flawless if he does say so himself, but a coil of tension unwinds in his gut at the retort. If Virgil can roll his eyes and keep up a bit of banter, he must be on the mend.

That’s the important thing, nevermind that Janus’ own injury is only getting more painful, the untreated wound a recipe for disaster. Virgil is okay, and that’s all that matters. As for himself, all he can do is wait and hope things get better.

---

Fancy starting the taglist for this fic? Let me know!

#thomas sanders sides big bang 2022 #tssbb 2022 #sanders sides #ts janus #janus sanders #ts virgil #virgil sanders #ts remus #remus sanders #loceit #ts fanfic #all the silver stolen (will one day turn to gold)#my fic #rosepetal writes

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