#depression sanders

[casart]

..•Perception Distorted•..

[sandersontheside]

My hot take is that if Roman were to "duck out" the way Virgil did in Accepting Anxiety, the result would be something akin to clinical depression. Roman has always been more than Thomas's creativity, he's also Thomas's drive, his passion, his desire. The motivation and ability to make art, or work, or even build relationships. All of that is wrapped up in Roman.

Sure, there are other motivating factors as we've seen in the videos on the topic. Logan motivates with the knowledge that work puts food on the table, Virgil motivates through fear. But Roman is the only one who motivates through love and joy, through hopes and dreams. Because while Patton is driven by emotion, he's more impulsive, more driven by what will make Thomas feel good in the moment, as opposed to Roman who while fanciful and emotional, is ultimately driven by plans and goals for the future.

Therefore, without Roman, Thomas would have no drive. No passion. No desire to make or do anything beyond base necessities for staying alive. No ability to see past immediate survival or imagine a possible happier future. No hopes and dreams. No spark. I don't even think Virgil's strongest panic could override a complete lack of passion for anything. Thomas would feel anxious and awful, but he still wouldn't be able to do anything.

And that's basically what clinical depression is. It's not just being sad--it's being exhausted, and numb, and unable to get out of bed in the morning because you just don't care about anything anymore. It's not finding joy in the things you used to love the most. It's feeling paralyzed because there are so many things you should be doing or you want to do, but you simply can't. Depression is, at its core, a lack of passion, joy, and drive.

[halfhissandwich]

I was thinking about this: Logan implies that only feeling-based sides are able to duck out when he explains to Thomas that he, as logic, can’t duck out like Virgil did. And in the EXACT SAME EPISODE, Patton is described as the “core of a lot of Thomas’ feelings.” I THINK that Patton is the only other side that can duck out, and if he did, c!Thomas would experience what is essentially depression (apathy, a loss of interest in previous interests, etc)

(Bonus headcanon: If the orange side does turn out to be Rage, he will also be capable of ducking out.)

[delimeful]

failed bounties and fresh bonds (3)

G/T July Day 14: Instrument

warnings: dehumanization, mild blood, threats, captivity, child endangerment, lmk if i missed any

-

Roman was in the midst of perusing the brightly-colored wares at a market stall when he overheard the quiet conversation.

He hadn’t actually planned to stay in town for so long, but the innkeeper had mentioned the weekly market and he’d found himself wondering if maybe there were any toys or other entertaining items being sold there.

He’d be a poor excuse for an uncle if he didn’t even bring back any gifts for his treasured nephew, after all!

(And maybe if he picked the perfect one, he’d make some actual progress on getting in Virgil’s good graces. Or at least having the kid be even a little less terrified of him!)

It was at least worth looking, he decided, even if such a detour was a bit of a distraction from his journey. He would be in and out, easy as that.

Except one stall had pointed out another, which had led to another and so on, and before he knew it, half the morning had gone by. And he still hadn’t picked out a gift!

Before he could commit one way or the other, hurried whispering from the nearby corner caught his ear. He was a knight, which meant all his senses were keenly trained to pick up trouble. And mutterings about a monster? That most certainly sounded like trouble.

“Pardon me,” he started, cutting into the hushed argument with a dazzling smile. “As a knight of the realm, I’d be happy to help you out with your little monster problem! No bounty hunters necessary.”

“It’s not a little problem,” one of the townsfolk grumbled, while the other eyed Roman speculatively.

“You’ll get rid of it without charging us?” she asked bluntly, earning a glare from her companion.

Roman nodded, used to the question. “Such is the responsibility of a knight of these lands.”

“It’s not something we need to get rid of!” the first stranger interrupted with a scowl. “It’s powerful, it could be devastating on a battlefield. Your king should be buying it from us.”

“Oh, shut it,” the woman snapped. “You can’t get that beast to do anything but growl and hide away, and I want it out of here before the town becomes its next casualty!”

The man wheeled around to face her, his face purpling, but before they could start bickering again, Roman stepped forward.

“Why don’t you take me to where the monster is, first?” he said, patting the hilt of his sword reassuringly. “I won’t be able to decide anything without seeing it.”

The pair subsided with matching grumbles, and before long, they were walking down a small, overgrown path outside of the town, one that slowly curved into the rockier forest area that surrounded it.

It was interesting that he couldn’t find a trace of fear on either of his guides, even as they grew closer to where the alleged beast was. Wariness and irritation, sure, but none of the true terror that so often came with seeing one of the monsters of this land.

Roman didn’t think it was an ambush or trap, either. Perhaps they’d simply caught a particularly large wolfdog and gotten overexcited?

“Here we are,” the man said, his vexed expression fading away in favor of excitement, like a child showing off a new toy.

They’d reached the wide mouth of a cave, one that was squat and shallow, but still deep enough to house something large. There was nothing in sight.

“Are we supposed to venture inside…?” Roman hazarded, not too keen on the idea. His dislike of dark spaces aside, cramped quarters were the worst place for his favored style of combat.

The woman snorted. “Not unless you want to be bitten in half. Just wake it up already.”

The latter sentence was directed at the man, who scowled darkly at her before pulling an engraved bit of metal from his pocket. From a single glance at the intricate symbols and embedded stones, Roman assumed it was an enchanted magical instrument of some kind.

The woman shot him an assessing glance, as though to see if he had any negative response to the item, but he only met her gaze evenly, unperturbed.

His brother had wrangled the magic of his curse into its own kind of witchcraft at ten years old. Roman would be a hypocrite to believe that all forms of enchantment were designed to harm.

He had something of a bad feeling in his gut, though, and it only worsened as he watched the man press a thumb down against the sharp edge of the tool, pricking his finger to activate the device with his blood.

There was a pause as the man waited expectantly, and then frowned, before tightening his grip on the tool and yanking it through the air, as though pulling at an invisible cord.

With a muffled cry, something huge tumbled out of the cave into the light. Roman took a step back, feeling the color drain from his face.

That was not a wolfdog.

His attention caught on the identifying details first— the horns, the scales, the horizontal pupils, the wings— and he knew that this was a dragon, shifted into a more humanoid form (if admittedly one that was still dragon-sized).

In the next moment, Roman’s eyes settled onto the face beneath the mythical features, and his heart dropped like a stone. That was a child’s face, round-cheeked and crumpled up in distress.

Sure, it was a child big enough to grind his bones to a paste in one swat, but that didn’t change the fact that he was seeing a kid in tears. A kid that happened to be awfully similar to his recently acquired nephew.

They were alike in more ways than one, he realized as his gaze dropped down to the thick metal cuffs that were wrapped around all four of the child’s limbs. They had no chains binding them together— or rather, no visible chains. The engravings visible on the metal were telling enough as to just what that enchanted instrument was connected to.

“Where did you get that tool?” he asked, dizzy with the shock of such a scene.

The man preened, mistaking Roman’s alarm for interest. “Impressive, isn’t it? Some idiot sold it to me for cheap.”

The only ones skilled enough to get cuffs like these on a dragon shifter were mercenaries, who were known for being demanding barterers. More likely than not, that ‘idiot’ had been pawning off a stolen good, hoping to pass on the consequences of crossing a mercenary guild to an unlucky buyer.

Roman remembered the faded scars on Virgil, and felt a boiling hot fury bubbling up in him. He took a step forward, expression dark, and the kid flinched away and huddled down. The motion was enough to send a shock of horror down his spine, dousing the worst of his impulsive anger.

Right. Get the kid out safe first, deal with scumbags later.

“This is certainly a dangerous creature,” he lied through grit teeth, and then held out a hand. “You were right to take me up on my services. I can take it from here.”

The man recoiled, holding the tool tighter. “I know something valuable when I see it, and clearly, so do you. It would be stupid of me to part with it without getting something for my time.”

Roman turned to look at the child again, trying to repress the hot anger bubbling in his chest. The kid wasn’t even watching them discuss their fate, eyes scrunched up tightly and hands twitching like they would have covered their ears, too, if their wrists weren’t still locked in place.

He had left to avoid inflicting more distress on a traumatized child, and yet here he stood, doing exactly that yet again. Roman grimaced, and then asked himself a question that almost never led him anywhere good: What would Remus do?

Turning slowly, he met the man’s eyes, set a hand on the pommel of his sword, and grinned.

“It would be stupider,” he said, slow and menacing, “to demand anything from me when I’m the one fixing your little problem in the first place.”

The man lost some of his confidence, wavering.

“If you’d prefer to lose a hand along with it, by all means keep hanging on,” Roman added, almost conversationally. “I’m sure even the bite of my blade would feel like tender mercy compared to the wrath that will fall upon you if the mercenaries that caught this beast find out you’re the one who stole that key.”

“Give it to him,” the woman snapped, expression hard and hunted.

Knowing what terror she’d sat by and abided, Roman couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad.

“Fine!” the man spat, throwing the tool at his feet. “Take it and go!”

The woman, keener on the uptake, grabbed him by the crook of his arm the moment the key hit the dirt, and yanked him back down the path from where they’d come.

Roman obviously wasn’t actually going to use the tool to make the kid attack them, for a very large range of reasons, but he wasn’t going to correct the misconception if it got them away from him and the kid quicker.

He leaned down to scoop the key up, grimacing at the glint of blood still visible on it, and then turned to look at the kid.

They quickly shuttered the eye they’d been peeking out of back closed, immediately curling in tighter and bracing themself.

“Dear child,” Roman said, sorrow heavy in his heart. “Can you look at me for a moment?”

There was a pause, the kid twitching in surprise, and then a slow reappearance of those big blue eyes.

“Hello there,” he greeted, keeping his voice soft. “I don’t know you, but I have a nephew that you remind me very much of. I’m sorry for speaking so harshly before, but I’d like to help you, if you’ll let me.”

“Help me?” the kid echoed in a large whisper, and then winced as though waiting for a strike to land.

“Yes,” Roman replied, once he was confident that he’d ironed the last traces of the fury he felt out of his voice. “Do you know how I could remove these cuffs from you?”

The kid’s eyes went impossibly wider. “Really?” they whispered.

Roman nodded firmly. “Really, truly.”

Their bottom lip wobbled, and Roman felt a sense of despair at what was turning out to be a month that proved him extremely inept with children, only for them to blink back the tears and keep speaking in that hushed voice.

“I don’t know how to remove ‘em, but I— I know if you get all the blood off, I can move my hands around normal again," they offered, watching him with an unsettling intensity, eyes lit with the tentative hope of a starved dog.

Roman pulled his canteen from his hip immediately, untwisting the lid with his teeth and promptly dumping the contents over the metal’s surface. The worst of the blood was washed away, and he dragged out a part of his undershirt to wipe off the remaining stain.

He couldn't deny a bit of apprehension, but rather than try and attack him or otherwise lash out, the kid only pulled their hands to their chest and curled over them protectively, the mingled stress and relief so visible on their face that Roman felt his own chest ache in sympathy.

“May I know your name, dear child?” he asked, pushing away his automatic nervousness as they shifted to sit up to their full height.

“Oh!” the child gasped, seemingly shocked that they’d only just recalled their manners despite the situation. “M’name is Patton, nice to meet you!”

“Well, Patton Nicetomeetyou,” Roman responded in jest, relief sweeping over him when the kid smiled, “You may call me Roman.”

He swept into a dramatic bow, adding the silliest flourishes in his repertoire, and Patton laughed, a soft, watery chuckle. The longer they spoke without being punished, the more they uncurled, slowly, like a flower blooming.

“If I may?” Roman asked, reaching a hand out.

He thought for a moment that the child would refuse— Virgil certainly refused any and all direct contact with him— but Patton only hesitated for a moment before slowly reaching out, hovering their considerably larger hand in front of him.

“For you,” he vowed, and set the instrument on Patton’s fingertips. “Until we find a way to get those accursed cuffs off, you should be the only one to possess that device.”

Patton’s fingers drew back the moment they recognized the tool, inhaling sharply as they curled their fist around it. They sniffled slightly, but they were smiling again, as though they couldn’t help the surprised delight, so Roman didn’t feel entirely useless.

“My brother, Remus, knows much more about magecraft than I do. I would be honored if you would accompany me to his home. He may be strange,” Roman paused, and then emphasized, “very, very strange, but he’ll do what he can to help.”

Patton was nodding almost before he’d finished speaking, eyes still red-rimmed. “I can’t go home until I know nobody can make me hurt anyone,” they said firmly. “I wanna meet your weird brother, please.”

Now there was a sentence he almost never heard. With any luck, Remus would know what to do, or even Virgil, though Roman would be loath to ask anything that reminded his nephew of whatever horrors lurked in his past.

“Then meet him you shall! I’ll retrieve my horse from town, and we can be off!” Roman replied heartily, his own spirits lifted by Patton’s determination.

He wouldn’t have time to pick up a gift for Virgil, but that was alright. Roman got the feeling that his current endeavor was something his nephew would have valued more, anyhow.

[blossom-arts]

🎈🧁 Balloons & Buttercream 🧁🎈

Happy (belated, since his birthday was May 29th, whoops-) birthday to this little guy!! Or- getting to not be so little guy, however you like to headcanon him! My favourite child of unspecified age (with a special return of the bestest monkey ever, Curious George)!

And happy Pride Month to y'all!! Unfortunately, I don't have any art for today, but the balloons are the bi flag..... so I hope that counts as something??? /hj

Also, Tumblr killed the quality, so please make sure to tap/click to view the art properly!

(Taglist, no text and close-ups under cut!)

~taglist: feel free to ask if you want to be added or removed! let me know if you had a blog change too!~

@thatsthat24 @seven-lonely-souls @xoxolosergirl @definitely-a-living-human @c-h-pictures @discordzero @eating-sunshine-blog @after-nine-at-the-oasis @whyiask

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper: Book 2 (Chapter 2: Spoiler Soup) [Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sander Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, Logan/Virgil, Roman & Patton & Logan

Characters: Janus, Patton, Emile, Remus, Roman, Logan, Virgil, Remy

Summary: Janus is trying. After spending months trapped in time with his enemy turned… something else, Janus is trying to find meaning in a world where he or anyone else could rewrite history with one simple mistake.

During his leave from the Time Preservation Initiative, the time distortions that have been causing disastrous ripples in time have not gone anywhere. His partner’s past is more mysterious than ever and old and new alliances are shifting. Can Janus figure out what is going wrong with time before that time is up?

The problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12.

Chapter Summary:

Janus moves back to his own place… He did not leave his house like this.

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol, sexual innuendo, character with depression, character with ptsd

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted).

Previous Book(s)

Book 2: Part 1

Today Janus was moving into his house in 24th century for the second time in his life, and honestly, the house wasn’t going to look much different than it had when he’d first moved in. Janus had unpacked his things more at Emile’s house in the past almost 6 months than he had in the two and a half years living in his house. His house held clothes, bare bone furniture, and exactly one skillet from when he’d decided to be daring and tried to cook himself an egg. All he’d really customized for himself were the settings on the LXC device which controlled the lights, media across the home, and prepackaged food ordering and prepare.

He almost felt embarrassed that his house was so empty. Emile, of course, knew that his mental health had been fucked, but the blankness of his house was a physical reminder of this fact especially considering how he used to keep house before all of this. He’d warned Emile about the fact that his house was empty, and he had said he understood, but still.

They gathered all of the luggage in a pile in Emile’s guest room. They’d had to get permissions from the TPI to allow Emile to travel to his house, and Janus went ahead and filed to give him permanent permission to travel there.

The decision felt far too hopeful for someone who hadn’t had that conversation with his brother yet, but it had made Emile smile in the moment.

Emile took three of the bags and Janus took the rest. He waved his arm and selected the third saved location on the device. In a moment, he was standing in the living room of his dark, empty house.

…

His supposed to be dark and empty house. More of the lights were on than Janus had ever switched on himself, and half of the windows were open. (He didn’t even know some of those windows opened.)

They were letting in the sounds of birds that made the lakeside their home as well as a cool late fall breeze. There was also a racket coming from the kitchen. Emile was beside him a second after he himself had appeared. He looked around for a moment. “Did you leave it like this?”

“No,” Janus replied.

“Do you have squatters?” He had a security system from 2 millennia in the future on his house. He highly doubted it.

“I’m going to go check the kitchen,” Janus said, moving towards the noises coming from the other room.

He stopped in the doorway to his kitchen only to see Patton standing at his kitchen counter cutting up a carrot on a cutting board Janus surely did not own, and if he did, it was buried in a box somewhere.

“What are you doing?” Janus asked.

“Cooking!” was the immediate reply.

“In my house?” Janus asked. “How do you even know where my house is?”

“I may be just a little bit ahead of you,” Patton said with a wink while tapping the side of his nose.

Janus sputtered. “This is my house!”

“I know!” He said it so cheerfully while being a purposefully obtuse asshole. Janus could help but crack a smile and shake his head. He’d missed him after spending so long alone with him though he wasn’t going to admit that to him when he’d broken into Janus’s house to…

“Again, what are you doing?”

“I’m making you soup.”

“Why?” Janus asked.

“Well,” Patton said. “I know it’s a bit of a rough time for you, so I thought I’d give you a nice welcome home present and what better present than food!” He smiled at him widely.

Janus looked closer at what he was making. “You’re trying to prove to me you can cook.” Patton frowned at him. “Have you considered I have had enough fish stew for a lifetime?”

“Nope!” he said. “It’s entirely different this time anyway. I have carrots!”

“I don’t like carrots,” Janus lied blandly.

“Liar!” Patton declared.

“No, I’m not,” Janus continued to lie.

“I mean, that was definitely a lie,” Emile interjected from behind Janus. He was looking at them curiously. “Er, hello, who are you?”

“This is Pat,” Janus said.

“The illegal time traveler you’ve been tracking?” Emile asked with a questioning lilt to his tone.

“Ah, yes, well,” Janus said with a cough. “We came to an understanding when stuck in pre-history.”

“And now he is cooking soup for you? In your house?” Emile asked.

“I’ve long since stopped trying to make sense of him,” Janus grumbled.

“Well,” Emile said. “Hello Pat.”

“You can call me Patton,” he said easily. “I hope it’s nice to meet me, because I’ve already met you.”

“We haven’t been meeting in the correct order,” Janus informed Emile. “So, he’s apparently already met you which will happen in your future. It is also something he shouldn’t be talking about,” he scolded. Patton took that with a shrug.

“I hate time travel,” Emile said, his nose scrunching up. “Isn’t life already confusing enough.”

Janus winced, not relishing the upcoming conversation with him about how confusing his life was now because of time travel.

“Don’t you work with the TPI too?” Patton asked.

“That doesn’t mean I like time travel,” Emile said. “I’m a stationary agent and I like that just fine.”

“Time travel can be a bit complicated sometimes,” Patton acknowledged, “but I don’t think it’s all bad.” He finished chopping up the carrot and turned to put it in the self-regulating soup pot. Janus squinted at it. It was certainly not something Patton had in the 21st century. So, the question was… had he gone out and bought time appropriate cookware before breaking into Janus’s house or had he gone through Janus’s storage to find it?

“You’re a free agent time traveler, right?” Emile asked.

“Depends on what you mean by free agent,” Patton said. “I have always worked with a group of people, and we have rules and procedures. It’s basically a time agency itself, just not the TPI.”

“And you’ve met me before?”

“I have,” Patton confirmed, “but Janus is right in that I can’t say much more than that about it. In fact,” he said wiping off his hands on a towel hanging from his apron. (The apron was covered in cartoon squirrels and totted the phrase ‘I’m a nut for baking.’) “I should probably be getting out of here.”

“You’ve never been worried about us meeting out of order before,” Janus pointed out with a frown. He didn’t particularly want Patton to go even though the man had broken into his house and possibly went through his boxes of kitchen equipment.

“Well,” Patton said. “There’s meeting wildly out of order, there’s meeting in order, and then there’s what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?” Janus asked, alarmed.

Patton just shrugged with a smile.

“No, Patton, what are you doing?”

“Soup should be done in about an hour, but you can leave it on all day. I got a pot that’s fridge safe, so just shut it off and stick it in there before going to sleep.”

“Patton.”

“See you later! Bye!” He said and disappeared into thin air.

Janus sighed and rubbed the bridge of his brow. “Why is he like this?”

“Janus,” Emile asked. “Why did your self-declared mortal enemy make you soup?”

“Because he’s an asshole, that’s why.”

“Uh huh,” Emile said, looking at him oddly.

“What?” Janus asked.

“What exactly happened when you were stuck in the past?” Emile asked.

Janus sighed. “A lot happened. A lot.” He glanced at the soup pot happily performing its function on his kitchen counter. ‘I hope it’s nice to meet me, because I’ve already met you,’ rang in his ears. Fucking Patton with his little hints about the future. It gave Janus just a bit of courage though knowing that Emile at least didn’t flee the continent after the conversation they had to have. He was at least around enough to meet Patton. “In fact,” Janus said. “It’s probably time I told you what happened. Everything that happened.”

[manybrokenquills]

To the poor people who followed me for my two sander sides posts and checking my profile and just seeing me vent...

SORRYYYYY

[casart]

Remus with A2 for the expression meme?

It's like the >:D face and it suits him so well!

[halfhissandwich]

“Expressing an unhealthy amount of concern.”

[wolfprincesszola]

Porch Tears (Sanders Sides)

I'm not good at titles I know I'm sorry. i try to be lighthearted, but I thought it'd be nice to hear how much this story means to me as an author because i've always struggled voicing how my depression feels and I managed to accurately portray a part of it in here. everyone's version of depression looks different. i hope that anyone reading this that resonates with what logan and patton feel know that you are special and that these feelings do not define how to live your life <3

Masterlist ——————– Summary: After Logan has too much to drink, he goes outside to cry. Patton notices him outside on the porch and decides to ask him why he was crying and comfort him in his time of need.

Trigger Warnings: Talks of Depression, Anxiety, Loneliness

Content Warnings: Swearing, Drinking ——————–

Logan was sad. He was always sad. It would've been abnormal if he wasn't sad. What was abnormal though was being so sad that he was crying. He never cried. It was always numb. He didn't even know what had gotten him to feel the way he was feeling. Maybe it was the fact that he was drunk. Maybe it was the fact that he was at a party with all of his friends, and yet he felt really lonely. Maybe it was because despite everything he had tried, he saw how happy Patton was with all their friends and felt like he could've never been good enough for him. He was always so happy and he looks so beautiful that way. He looked like he never even needed Logan and that made Logan feel even more lonely.

Logan stopped crying after a few minutes. There was no point in crying over a silly admiration of his friend. Patton was just his friend, nothing else. Of course Patton wouldn't think more of him. Of course Patton wouldn't feel happy around him the way Patton did with the other people. Patton was Patton and Logan was just Logan.

Logan forced himself to wipe his tears and stop sniffling. He forced himself to ignore how much his heart hurt. He forced himself to ignore the pain and instead tried to smile.

Then, there it was. The familiar, cruel, cold numbness. At least it was something he could deal with because he knew how to. He had been doing it all his life.

Logan sighed, leaning against the doorway. The good thing about being forgotten was that he could sit outside for as long as he wanted to and no one would notice. He breathed in the outside air and convinced himself to be happy. He could fake a smile, even if it was for a couple more hours. He could do this.

Then, he heard the door open behind his back and Logan shifted so the person could get out onto the porch.

"Sorry." Logan's voice croaked. Dammit, why did it have to show now? Don't let anyone know that he was crying. He couldn't let them know. Everyone would come out asking him what was wrong, why he was crying. Logan didn't know how he could explain how lonely he always felt, even in a crowd packed with people. He didn't know how to explain how heavy his heart always was, even when he was smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt. He didn't know how to explain how even when he was around his friends happy, there was always a part of him that was sad and always would be. There were no words to describe the reasons behind his crying and behind his sadness because there was no way to describe the solitude prison he forced himself into.

"Logan? Is that you?" Patton's voice was laced with worry as he fully stepped out to see the man. His face melted into relief as he knelt down beside him. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

Logan couldn't explain how happy that made him feel, but how sad his heart was to know that all of Patton's concern was just a social cue. That maybe, his worry was only because Logan was a part of the mind, a part of his friends. Maybe, Patton was only worried, but not concerned because Logan wasn't special to him the way others were. He saw the way Patton loved others and Logan felt that maybe he wasn't worthy of getting that. Patton didn't treat him the same way he treated the others and when he did, Logan always managed to ruin it by pushing him away. God, everything was his fault all of the time all at once.

"Sorry, I stepped outside for some fresh air. Did you need me?" Logan forced a chuckle out.

"Not really. I was just worried." Patton spoke up, "I lost track of where you were and wanted to make sure you were okay. You said you wanted fresh air. Did you want me to leave?"

He didn't want Patton to leave him alone because with Patton around, he always managed to make the numbness a little more bearable. With Patton around, he could forget that he felt the way he felt. But Logan wanted to be alone in his thoughts. He wanted to sit in the numbness because he was sure he deserved it. There had to be a reason he felt that way, that he was punished with feeling this way for eternity.

"I don't know." Logan admitted.

"Alright then." Patton stood up, "I'll be back in a few minutes to check on you then, okay?"

Logan nodded and watched as he left. Then, the tears fell again. Logan didn't know why he was crying. Was it because Patton left him there? How pathetic of Logan.

Wiping tear after tear falling, he stood up, coughing and trying to stop sniffling. Walking down the porch, he stumbled towards the tree before coughing and trying to stop his sniffles.

"Shit!" Logan swore, wiping away his tears. This sight of display was almost pitiful, if it wasn't horrible to explain. "Fuck!"

Why was his life this way? Why did he always have to feel this way?

Logan stumbled back towards the porch once he had stopped his crying, sitting back on the porch.

There was a knock on the inside of the door before Patton stepped back out, holding two small ice packs individually wrapped in towels. He motioned to the spot next to Logan, asking if he could sit there. When Logan nodded numbly, he was quick to sit down, holding the ice packs for the man.

Logan raised an eyebrow as he took both of them. "What are these for?"

"Your eyes." Patton stated, "I heard they're good to keep the swelling down."

Logan was more confused now. "What?"

"For your crying."

Oh. He knew? Fuck, Logan was humiliated and mortified. How could he have let Patton see him like that? Would Patton call the rest of the mind to come and comfort him? He couldn't deal with that.

"I didn't know you knew." Logan mumbled.

Patton stared outside towards the garden that Roman and Virgil had started to plant in. "I'm not good at that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?"

"Noticing, especially with people crying. I can't tell if someone's eyes are red or if they had just stopped sniffling. I can't tell if people are sad by their expressions. I can't catch the vibes of people and often I make a mess of situations because I don't understand what other people are feeling. I make people feel awful without knowing and I'm just overall bad at picking up cues for anything." Patton started before turning to Logan to cup the right side of his face and wipe his damp cheek away of any leftover tears, "But I'm not blind and I'm not deaf. I saw you huddled outside crying through the window. I heard you gasping so hard for breaths because you were crying so hard. And I want to tell you that I wish you didn't have to feel like you couldn't cry in front of me. Anyone in the mind even."

Great. Now he was crying again.

"What happened?" Patton asked, concern laced in his voice, "Why are you crying?"

"Just crying. Some people aren't built happy, you know?" Logan sniffled.

Patton gave a small laugh at that, "Yeah, I get that. And you know what? It's okay to feel like that. Come here."

He held his arms out and Logan took it, shifting to wrap his arms around Patton's waist, squeezing as tight as he possibly could. Patton held him in his arms tightly too, not letting go of the hug. God, Logan needed that. He didn't even know why.

"I feel lonely." Logan murmured, his face buried in the crook of Patton's neck. He choked back a sob as more tears streamed down his face. He was sure Patton's skin and clothes were stained with his tears, but Patton didn't comment about it, instead letting him cry it out.

"Oh, Logan. Everyone feels lonely. Hell, even I do. It's a normal thing. It's okay to feel lonely. I hope you know that in those times though, you'll always have me and the rest of the mind." Patton reassured him, petting the back of his hair. It was soothing.

Logan separated from the hug to look at Patton with his tear-streaked face, "You do? I didn't think anything fazed you. You're just so happy all the time."

"To be honest, I'm just as guilty of you of not really telling people when I'm sad, but it gets kinda easy not to talk to people about it when you're always sad. It's just easier to be happy because no one asks you why you're happy. They only ask you why you're sad." Patton admitted, "And maybe, as hard as it is to say it, it's easy to pretend that no one cares about you than try to explain this feeling within you about how you're always going to feel as if no one cares even if you know you're someone's entire world."

Logan didn't know if he was glad that Patton understood what he was feeling, or if he was upset that he understood. As he looked at Patton still smiling through what he presumed was a similar numbness to the one he experienced every day, he wihed that Patton didn't have to suffer with him.

"I wish you didn't understand. Then you wouldn't have to pretend to be happy. I wish I could take away all the pain from you, so only I would have to feel it." Logan spoke.

"That's very kind of you, Logan." Patton let out a laugh, "But it's okay. I think it'd be harder for me to be able to talk to you if I didn't understand."

"How do you deal with it?" Logan's voice was hoarse again. He had stopped sobbing by this point. He had stopped sniffling and hiccuping. He had stopped choking on his tears. Instead, now silent tears were the only thing streaming down his face. "It hurts so much."

"It does." Patton admitted, "But people like you make it better. You see, the problem with my mind is that it's whirling all the time at a thousand miles per hour, yelling at me with all sorts of thoughts. But then I'm around you and the thoughts quiet and suddenly, the numbness doesn't feel so noticable. My heart feels less heavy when I'm around you."

"You mean around the mind. Not me."

"No, I mean you." Patton admitted, "I care about you a lot more than you realize. The other members of the mind help calm my mind in different ways, but you're just as special as the rest of them. I hope you remember that."

Logan's heart warmed at what he said and suddenly, it was like the fog of darkness had cleared. His heart didn't feel so heavy and his numbness had cleared. His sadness had lifted and Logan felt okay for the first time in a long time.

Patton sighed, tsking as he saw the untouched warm ice packs, "Looks like I'm going to have to get more of those. I'll be back in a little bit."

"No, you don't have to." Logan stumbled on his words. "It's okay."

"I want to." Patton wiped the remaining tears from Logan's face before standing up. "Give me one minute."

He was back with new ice packs wrapped in new undamp towels before he sat down next to Logan and held them against his eyes.

Logan sighed in defeat as he let the coldness of the ice packs infect the warmness of his eyes and cheeks after having cried for a long time.

"You can go back in if you want to. I know it's not really fun sitting outside with a sad drunk."

"It's always fun when I'm with you, Logan. Don't you worry at all." Patton hummed.

Logan hoped that the ice pack was covering his flush and the tears that were starting to fall from his eyes. God, it was starting to get old. there was no reason for him to cry over him realizing that maybe all of his thoughts were just thoughts and that the truth was really in front of him all along.

"Are you crying again?" Patton giggled at Logan.

"Shut up!" Logan let out a laugh, playfully nudging his shoulder that was touching his. "I'm in a completely vulnerable spot right now!"

"Seriously though, Logan. I really hope that you never feel the need to hide the fact that you're crying from me ever again."

"...thanks, Patton."

That was all he could say. Those were all the words he could even think that would fathom to express how much Patton meant to him.

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper: Book 2 (Chapter 1: Reprieve) [Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sander Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, Logan/Virgil, Roman & Patton & Logan

Characters: Janus, Patton, Emile, Remus, Roman, Logan, Virgil, Remy

Summary: Janus is trying. After spending months trapped in time with his enemy turned... something else, Janus is trying to find meaning in a world where he or anyone else could rewrite history with one simple mistake.

During his leave from the Time Preservation Initiative, the time distortions that have been causing disastrous ripples in time have not gone anywhere. His partner's past is more mysterious than ever and old and new alliances are shifting. Can Janus figure out what is going wrong with time before that time is up?

The problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12.

Chapter Summary:

Things are harder, better, but harder.

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol, sexual innuendo, character with depression, character with ptsd

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted).

This is Book 2, Check out Book 1 and the other part of this series here.

“What’s this?” Janus asked when a giant bowl was set on the coffee table in front of him.

“We’re eating on the couch tonight,” Emile said cheerfully.

Janus raised an eyebrow and switched off the tablet he’d been using. “Why?” he asked, setting the device aside.

Emile shrugged and set a second huge bowl down next to Janus’s. “For fun,” Emile said. He turned back towards the kitchen and Janus leaned forward to look in the bowl. It was spaghetti with some sort of creamy sauce and a few different vegetables mixed in along with some shrimp.

“I made green tea too,” Emile said, coming back into the room with two mugs.

“Thanks,” Janus said, taking one of the mugs with a small smile.

“What were you doing?” Emile asked as he took a seat beside Janus. He nodded at the deactivated screen now sitting on the end table.

“Just playing some puzzle games,” Janus said.

“That sounds fun,” Emile said with a smile.

“Head doctor said they might be a good thing to do to pass the time when I told him to fuck off after suggesting reading.”

Emile sighed. “Dr. Figueroa is my colleague. You could try to be polite.”

“I thought I was supposed to be my authentic self in therapy,” Janus replied.

Emile just huffed and rolled his eyes. Janus couldn’t help but smile as he picked up his mug of green tea.

The last few months had been…different. In a lot of ways, Janus’s life had become harder than it had been before. It had been easy to do nothing but eat pre-prepared meals, go to work, and pass out in his empty house every day. It wasn’t good for him. He’d known it even then, but it had been easy. This was not.

Emile had offered, insisted really, that Janus move into his house for a bit just to get back on his feet. He’d taken time off of the TPI which would have been given to him anyway since he’d spent so long trapped in the past. He’d had to give a report of what had happened, and he’d mentioned Patton, but he hadn’t mentioned everything. They’d offered him a shrink when he’d asked.

Janus had told Emile he needed to tell him something about why he’d been distant, so he wouldn’t end up chickening out, but he’d asked for a bit of time to figure out what to say. He’d finally worked up the courage to talk about it with Dr. Figueroa two weeks ago. Much like with Patton, it was easier to talk to someone who hadn’t been involved in Janus’s mistake, but it still wasn’t easy.

He was running up on the deadline he’d given Emile for having that talk. It had to happen soon, and they both knew it, but Emile was just patiently waiting for him to suck it up. It felt… wrong to use his kindness without him knowing the truth, but it was also nice to get to spend time with his brother. He didn’t even dare to hope that he’d still have the chance once he told him.

He was moving back into his own house in less than a week. He’d tell him then so if Emile ended up kicking him out of his life, he wouldn’t have to kick him out of his home too.

For now though, everything was fine. Harder, more complicated, and in threat of imploding at any moment, but fine. Fine wasn’t something he’d really felt in a long time. Or at least, fine while in his own time wasn’t something he’d felt in a long time. There’d been a few moments with Patton sitting next to the fire outside the hole in the ground they’d slept in for those few months where the man would turn to look at him and he’d felt fine. Yet, Patton had been right. Those moments were unsustainable with how Janus was actually feeling deep down.

“This is good,” Janus said, after taking a couple of bites of the pasta in front of him.

“Well, I always was the only one in the house that could cook,” Emile said, and that was true. “It was either learn to fend for myself or eat a cheeseburger for every meal.”

“Hey, I had a good burger seasoning.”

“Not for every meal, Janus.”

“Meat, dairy, bread. What more could you want?”

“Vegetables, Janus.”

“You could have put pickles on them!”

“I don’t like pickles.”

“That sounds like your problem, not mine,” Janus argued.

Emile shook his head, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “How have you been surviving on your own?”

“Well, I mean,” Janus said. “Badly.”

“Right…” Emile said. He leaned over to bump their shoulders together. Janus flashed him a smile.

“Speaking of,” said Janus. “Could you physically force me to pack tonight? I meant to do it today and instead I ended up playing puzzles games.”

Emile chucked. “Sure, I’ll help you after dinner.”

“You don’t have to help me,” said Janus. “Just make me do it.”

“Maybe I want to help,” said Emile.

“Oh, yes, packing. The most entertaining of Thursday night activities.”

Emile hummed and then glanced at him. “Remember when you helped me pack for college?” he asked.

“Mmm, I do,” Janus replied.

“I was so stressed about going somewhere new,” Emile said, “that I avoided packing for weeks. Every time Mom would ask me how packing was going, I’d tell her it was going fine but in reality, I hadn’t even started. You came home two days before I had to leave because you were going to help me move into my dorm. It’s like you could sense no packing had been done the moment you stepped through the front door.”

“You were doing your ‘hiding the broken horse statue from mom’ shuffle,” Janus said with a smirk.

“Well, you walked me straight to my room and we packed everything up in those two days,” Emile said. “You made it so much easier.”

“Yeah, because I hovered over you until you did it and did half of it for you,” Janus snorted.

“It wasn’t just that,” Emile said. “You also found the music streaming station run by the university and put that on and talked about what your freshman year was like. You also had tips on what things I should and shouldn’t pack when moving into the dorm.”

“You still took all of the cartoon character stuffed animals despite my advice.”

“I thought there’d be more space on the bed,” Emile frowned.

Janus snorted.

“But anyway, just having someone else around made me happier. It wasn’t just about the workload being halved either. You being there made me feel less lonely and reminded me I’d always have someone to come back to.”

Janus internally winced. He was sure Emile hadn’t meant to make him feel guilty in any way. In fact, he probably was trying to do the opposite, but him saying that just reminded Janus that it hadn’t been true. Janus had abandoned him for literal years and hadn’t been someone he could always come back to.

The last few months, Emile had proven himself to be at least close to who he was before Janus had messed with time. There were a couple of differences here and there, and Janus could not be sure if they were from him changing time or from him avoiding his brother for the past three years and him naturally changing. Most memories they shared that Janus cautiously brought up or Emile mentioned on his own were consistent with what Janus remembered, but he hadn’t pushed too hard or dug too deep. It just made him feel more guilty about avoiding the man for so long.

It made him want to ignore the man more, because it seemed every choice Janus ever made only hurt him.

…

Well, perhaps not the college radio station when helping an anxious 18-year-old pack up his childhood bedroom.

He should probably tell Emile that his words made him feel guilty because that was obviously not the intention and he’d want to know. He should probably apologize properly for leaving him alone for three years without an explanation. He should probably provide an explanation for those three years.

He should probably go see the head doctor again soon.

(He should probably stop calling Emile’s colleague who was in the same field as him a head doctor derogatorily in his head.)

For now, he just glanced at Emile. “You’re trying to bully me into letting you help pack with logic, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Emile confirmed without remorse.

“Fine,” Janus sighed, “but only if you let me do the dishes for you.”

Emile took a long moment to consider the offer. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said, “but okay.”

“And no doing anything sneaky like getting bags ready for me on your own while I’m doing it or the deal is off,” Janus said.

“You always think of all possible loopholes, Janus,” Emile sighed.

There was a long silence.

“Agree, you prick,” said Janus.

“No promises,” Emile replied cheekily with laughter in his eyes, and things were good for a moment more.

[chillykitty]

concept art for an amv idea i had

[asksanderssides]

(Percy again)

The young looking side looked down at the ground. "....I should've known. Patton always said I wasn't wanted." He glanced up at Patton again. "I remember it like it was yesterday, brother. We were kids. We were playing hide and seek. I hid inside the imagintion...and got trapped in one of the original creativity's traps. It's how I got this scar. A bird attacked me. And you left me behind."

Patton: I'd never leave you behind on purpose!

[fancyfade]

statistically, given infant mortality thruout history, a non-zero portion of hawkman and hawkgirls past lives has got to be dying anticlimactically as babies or children

[sleepyacelin]

[snowdice]

Folds in Paper: Book 2 (Chapter 3: Peel It Up and See What's Underneath) [Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sander Sides

Relationships: Janus/Patton, Remus & Roman, Logan/Virgil, Roman & Patton & Logan

Characters: Janus, Patton, Emile, Remus, Roman, Logan, Virgil, Remy

Summary: Janus is trying. After spending months trapped in time with his enemy turned... something else, Janus is trying to find meaning in a world where he or anyone else could rewrite history with one simple mistake.

During his leave from the Time Preservation Initiative, the time distortions that have been causing disastrous ripples in time have not gone anywhere. His partner's past is more mysterious than ever and old and new alliances are shifting. Can Janus figure out what is going wrong with time before that time is up?

The problem with time travel… you never how long you have before the clock strikes 12.

Chapter Summary:

Things are harder, better, but harder.

Notes: Time travel AU, mystery, enemies to lovers, alcohol, sexual innuendo, character with depression, character with ptsd

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted).

Previous Book(s)

Book 2: Part 1 Part 2

They sat down in the living room. Janus let Emile have the entire couch and sat on one of the matching armchairs himself. There was a squeaky sound when he sat. The plastic covering the chair had been delivered in was still on it.

Emile had a pleasant, open but curious expression on his face and Janus suddenly had an idea what it felt like to be his patient.

“I,” Janus began after a moment, shifting uncomfortably on the squeaky chair. “I don’t know how to start this conversation. I talked about what I wanted to say and possible ways to say it with Dr. Figueroa, but I… I still don’t know. I guess I should start by saying that I did something horrible that I need to apologize for, and I’m not sure if apologizing will even be enough. The problem is you don’t even know what that horrible thing is.” Janus stared at his feet. “So, first, I should probably explain what I did. I just don’t know where to start.”

“Maybe start with what happened before it,” Emile suggested. “Just lead up to it. It might help explain why whatever it was happened too.”

Janus took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “That day was just like most. We both woke up early. I was going to the TPI and you were going to where you worked your residency. We ate leftover pizza for breakfast because both of us were exhausted. You because it sucks to be a resident and me because I’d been working on a big case. I was getting…frustrated with the case. That was my first mistake: being impatient and angry. It was just a thief, but a slippery one. She’d stolen a half-broken time piece and was using it to rob banks within about a 50-year time frame. I had an idea of where she might go, but no one would listen to me. Or at least,” Janus quirked a half smile, “that’s how I interpreted it. They said they’d look into my idea, but they were being extra cautious because of how close in the timestream her actions were to most of the agents’ lives. I was so tired of the case and so egotistical. I decided to check it out on my own without being cleared by the TPI. I went back in time without thinking of the consequences.”

Janus took a breath. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever done,” he continued. “I’m not sure how, but somewhere in the course of my self-appointed mission…” He trailed off. He didn’t know how to say it. He really didn’t

“What happened?” Emile asked when he didn’t continue.

“I…” and his next words probably sounded like crackly nonsense to Emile’s ears because he couldn’t get his thoughts straight. His tongue tangled around the shape of the words. “I don’t even remember living in that town or the fact that Mom used to work at that bank,” he choked out. “I didn’t think, and I didn’t check and…” There was a long silence. “I erased you,” he finally managed to say in a whisper, but in the quiet of his barely lived in house, the words were loud.

There was more silence. “But I…” Emile said after a moment.

“I went back and fixed it,” Janus said, “but I… didn’t do a perfect job. I don’t even know how much I messed things up. It would have been one thing if it’d just been me. If it had just impacted my life, but I did it to you and I don’t even know how to start to apologize.”

Nothing was said for a long moment. Janus didn’t look at him.

“…Huh,” Emile finally said.

Janus risked a glance at him. He didn’t look irate, but he did still look confused which was probably the reason for that.

“I’m sorry,” Janus said. It was really the only thing he could say at this point.

Emile tilted his head to the side. He took off his glasses and cleaned them with the edge of his shirt with slow circles. Since he was 15, Emile only cleaned his glasses with specially designed wipes, but he’d held onto the habit of cleaning his glasses with his shirt anytime he needed a moment to think. Janus wasn’t sure if Emile even realized he was doing it, but he knew it was a signal for Janus to be quiet for a few seconds.

The glasses were perched back on Emile’s nose after a few seconds. “I think I remember that,” he said contemplatively.

“…What?” Janus asked, and he was no longer avoiding looking at Emile. He was now blatantly staring at him.

“Well, I didn’t know what it was,” Emile said, “but I did have a very odd dream on the day you mentioned and suspiciously I had said dream in the middle of the day and woke standing up.”

“A dream?” Janus asked.

“A very vivid dream,” Emile said. “I don’t believe you actually erased me completely from existence. My life was simply shifted slightly. I was someone else working as a social worker someplace else for about 5 hours and then I was suddenly back in my appropriate place.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that?” Janus asked, but then immediately winced at his own hypocrisy. “Er… never mind.”

“I didn’t know it was possibly real,” Emile said. “Honestly, I thought I was just really tired. I’d been overworking myself a lot. I took the rest of the day off after that.”

“You shifted reality for a few hours, and you didn’t realize it?” Janus asked.

“Like I said, I was really tired and nothing seemed to be wrong…”

“Wait, but things were different,” Janus said. “Didn’t you notice things were different.”

“Not… really,” Emile said. “Like what?”

“Like…” Janus said. “Like a whole bunch of things!”

“Like…?”

“Like you had a different job title and you worked different hours.”

“I thought I’d fallen asleep standing up or had a vivid audio-visual hallucination at work from stress. I asked for a switch a couple of weeks later.”

“You used to hate time travel, but then you took a job at the TPI.”

Emile gave him a droll look. “I still hate time travel,” he said. “I literally just said that not 5 minutes ago.”

“Well then why would you work for the TPI?”

“Because time travel is so confusing and distressing that people doing it on a regular basis as a career need psychological support. Plus, Lia asked for my consultation when developing the mental health part of the Agent Management Office,” Emile continued. “Considering I already knew quite a bit about time travel from being around you, she knew me personally, and I’d finished my residency, she decided to give me a job offer when my advice panned out.”

“W-well,” Janus said. “You were allergic to pineapples.”

“You mean my childhood allergy?” Emile asked. “That has since resolved itself in my adult life?”

“It has?” Janus asked.

“Janus have you considered,” Emile asked, “that some if not all of the inconsistencies you were seeing in my life had to do with the fact that you hadn’t spoken to me in 3 years?”

“I… uh… hadn’t considered that,” Janus admitted honestly.

“You were unconsciously looking for information to support your incorrect world view,” Emile said sounding very much like a head doctor and not like a brother, “and you found some.” He sighed. “It makes sense that after having faced a traumatic event where you essentially thought you’d killed a loved one that you weren’t thinking clearly.” The head doctor analysis voice slipped just a bit. “I just wish you’d talked about it with someone.”

“Sorry,” Janus said, because no matter which way this conversation had gone and no matter the revelations, the point was an apology. “I’m sorry.”

Emile sighed. “I would have forgiven you even if you had erased me,” Emile said. “You didn’t mean to, and you did your best to fix it. You did fix it even if you were an idiot about it.”

“What about for being an idiot and not talking to you for three years?” Janus asked.

“I already did forgive you for that Janus,” Emile said pointedly. “What did you think the last 6 months were?”

“Pity?”

Emile gave him his disappointed and exasperated headshake. “Promise to never do anything like that to me again,” he said, “and I’ll forgive you.”

“I promise,” Janus said immediately.

“And in the future, you’ll talk to me if you have any issue even if you think it’s horrible.”

“I think I’ve learned by lesson on that one.”

“And that goes for other people too,” Emile said. “If anything goes wrong with someone, you talk to them or if that’s too hard you talk to someone so they can convince you to talk to that person.”

Janus nodded.

“Great!” Emile said. “Then you’re officially forgiven for everything. Though I expect you to go to therapy and keep working on making yourself feel better, so these things don’t happen again.”

And Janus… didn’t know how to feel about that. He should probably feel happy and thankful or at least relieved, but if he was being honest, he just felt kind of empty in that moment like an old well that had finally run dry.

Fuck his head doctor and fuck Patton. Wasn’t this supposed to make him feel better? Everything was fine. He hadn’t actually erased Emile permanently from the timeline, in fact, he’d apparently still existed in some form in the alternate timeline Janus had temporarily made. Emile had forgiven him both for erasing him and ignoring him even though that was far more than Janus deserved. This was something he’d never even dared dream would happen, but it had been exactly what he’d wanted.

Yet, he still didn’t feel good, not really, not like how he remembered feeling before all of this happened.

Though was that really a surprise? Things were not like how they were before. He and Emile were no longer close. There was love and affection there, but they didn’t really know each other. The last six months had been nice. He’d been able to pretend for a bit that everything was back to normal, but in the moments he hadn’t been able to pretend that, it’d been a bit stilted and awkward speaking to his brother.

Beyond that, Janus was just used to misery at this point. It was his default state. Not being miserable took effort and energy he didn’t always have. He felt himself slipping into sadness or numbness even during times he should be feeling good. He’d noticed himself experiencing a sense of desolation when Emile cooked his favorite meal or in the middle of watching a ballet performance Emile had suggested they go to and which he’d been looking forward to in the days before. Even now when he should be so happy, so ecstatic, the emotions did not come. Everything should be okay, but it wasn’t.

“You doing alright over there?” Emile asked, and Janus didn’t know how long he’d been silent.

Instinct said to say yes and force himself to move on, but he wasn’t going to break his promise that fast. “Not really, no,” he admitted.

“That’s okay,” Emile said. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Why don’t we go taste the soup your arch nemesis,” there was a light teasing tone to his voice, “made for you. Some of the vegetables won’t be completely cooked yet, but I’m sure it’s already good.”

“Yeah,” Janus agreed. “Yeah, okay,” he got to his feet, the chair making that plastic squeaking sound again. “Maybe we could unwrap the furniture in here before you go home.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Emile said with a smile.