#AcidentsHappenAU

[and-it-freezes-me]

Accidents Happen - To Pieces

Summary: Roman, feeling himself coming undone at the edges, continues to dig. Almost everything that could go wrong, does.

Content: Discussion of drugs, fainting, (brief) discussion of disordered eating, alcohol use, discussions of bad parenting

Word count: 7,188

{Part 3} {Part 5}

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Three days. They were going to meet outside Janus’ house at around four on Friday, and it was now eight on Wednesday morning. So… Forty-eight hours until eight on Friday, and then eight hours until they met up, and add another hour to actually put his plan into motion… Fifty-seven hours was almost too long for Roman to wait to get to the truth.

But he did it anyway, because this was the plan he had made, and because he couldn’t risk Janus getting suspicious and hurting Remus again.

When he got to school on Wednesday, Janus was waiting outside his locker for him, and Roman had to fight down the urge to sink his fist into his jaw. He’d aim for the scarred side, knowing it would hurt more, watch Janus stumble back, hands flying to his face… He didn’t. Instead he greeted him, smiled at him, and went over a few flashcards for their calculus exam that afternoon.

He begged off their lunchtime revision session, though.

Instead of going to the library, he went to find Virgil. There had to be more he could find out about Janus, about whatever he had on Remus, and the odds were that the caffeine-fueled senior would know more than he had told Roman in the first place. It would be hard to keep his reputation as the all-knowing man of mystery if he just gave away all of his secrets as soon as somebody said please.

Virgil was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of one of the benches outside the back of the school when Roman found him, his head in Patton’s lap, allowing the other boy to braid small plaits into his dress-code-breaking purple hair. They were both giggling, and Roman almost felt bad about interrupting their private bubble of sunlight with his approach - then he realised that there was so much bad inside of him already that he couldn’t fit any more in. He stopped in front of Virgil, waited until his dark eyes broke away from Patton’s broad grin, and then cleared his throat. Virgil raised an eyebrow at him. “How can you possibly want more from me? I gave you everything I had on Janus…”

Patton made a scandalised noise, and tugged sharply on the plait he was working on. “Verge! You said you’d stop dealing secrets!”

“Ow, Pat, I lied, alright? Lay off…” Virgil winced and rubbed the side of his head, and a look that Roman couldn’t decipher passed between them. Then Patton sighed, nodded, and returned to playing with Virgil’s hair. There were three flowers in it, and Roman was certain that Virgil didn’t know they were there.

He cleared his throat again, licked his lower lip, and debated joining Virgil on the floor. “I think you have more.”

“Do you.” It wasn’t a question, and Virgil’s voice was flat. Patton’s eyes moved slowly between the two of them.

“You know everything about everyone.”

“I’m flattered, but we all know that’s not entirely true,” Virgil responded, sounding almost bored. He was doing a very good impersonation of his elder brother - and Roman hoped, for the hundredth time, that he didn’t know that Remy was dealing again.

“Fine. Tell me about Remus.”

Roman hadn’t realised that it was an order until Patton frowned up at him, his golden curls falling into his uncomfortably inquisitive blue eyes. “Manners, Roman. If you can’t be polite, you’re not getting anything.” Virgil just shrugged when Roman looked at him.

Roman resisted the urge to snap at Patton to shut up, to mock Virgil for letting his bit on the side try to run business for him, and wondered when he had become villainous enough to think like that. He swallowed and nodded once. “Sorry, Patton, Virgil. Please, tell me about Remus?”

They both considered him for a long second. Finally Patton nodded, apparently satisfied, and pushed his glasses back up his button nose before returning to Virgil’s hair. The information broker, on the other hand, gave no such quarter. “No.”

“I… I beg your pardon?”

“No. I’m not informing on your brother to you.” Roman felt as though he had been reduced to merely staring at people in mute shock more times in the last week than ever before. Virgil rolled his eyes and leaned his head back into Patton’s lap again. “You could have asked him anything you wanted, any time you wanted, and you didn’t.”

“Then…” Roman cast around desperately. He should just cut to the chase. Shifting from one foot to the other, he licked his lower lip, struggling to meet Virgil’s gaze. “Then… Tell me what Janus has been blackmailing him with. ...Please,” he added, because Patton’s stern gaze was on him again.

The expression on Virgil’s face was something like pity, but moved his head a tiny distance from left to right and then back again, as much as a shake as he could manage with Patton curling his hair around his fingers. “No. If you’d have given a shit about Remus before he ended up in prison, you’d have spoken to him before. I’m not telling you anything else. Patton, are you braiding flowers in-”

“I’ll tell Logan you’re cheating on them.”

A haze of anger had descended on Roman’s vision, and he had blurted the words out before he had properly thought them through, before he could jerk them back into his skull and bury them with the rest of his mealy, maggoty, un-Prince-like thoughts.

It felt as though time had stopped. Virgil had paused mid-sentence, Patton’s hands had frozen mid-way through trying to sneak a daisy into the plait he was working on. The sound of shouting from the front of the school had stopped; even the wind had ceased to blow. The couple in front of him looked very briefly confused - and then Virgil’s expression changed to one of absolute disgust, whilst Patton’s became merely disappointed. Very disappointed. Roman discovered that he could manage to feel bad about something else, after all.

He was stepping backward, already trying to find a hole in which to curl up and die, when Virgil’s hand shot out and fastened around his lucky red sash, dragging Roman down so that they were face to face.

“For your information,” Virgil began, drawing the words out so that Roman could feel the disdain and anger in every syllable, “Logan is fully involved in our relationship with Patton.”

Another second of horrible, itching silence. Roman risked a glance at Patton, and found that he was refusing to meet his eyes. Then Virgil shook him once and, when he was sure that he had his attention again, continued speaking, his words deliberate, furious, cold.

“I never thought you would stoop this low. Remus might be unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, but you’re even worse, aren’t you?”

Roman shook his head desperately. “I - no! I -”

“No? Nothing gets in the way of your goals, Roman. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed. Not your friendships, not your morals, not even your own twin about whom you care so very much. Do you want to know the difference between you and Remus, Roman?”

Roman shook his head faster, and Virgil tugged him close enough that he could feel his breath on his cheek.

“Remus hurts people. You don’t even see your victims as people - you see them as obstacles in the way of your perfect, shining life. Remus knows what he’s done, what he does, and you? You have no idea what you do to the people around you. You pretend to be the hero, you’ve managed to delude yourself into believing that you’re the hero - Remus accepts that he’s human, while you think you’re some kind of god. You’re not.” Virgil was surprisingly strong. Roman was trying frantically to tug his sash out of his black-nailed grip but to no avail. “You’re so full of self-righteousness you can’t even see that people can make mistakes without being monsters - and you can’t see yourself turning into one, either.”

He released him with the air of one dropping a particularly filthy sock into a laundry basket, and Roman stumbled backward, panting. “Hasn’t your family hurt me and my dates enough? Get out of here.”

Roman didn’t need telling twice.

-

He considered saying he was sick to get out of school on Thursday. It wasn’t entirely untrue: after his confrontation with Virgil, Roman had found himself hurling what little lunch he had managed to eat into one of the toilets near the sports hall; a similar thing had occurred later, after dinner, when he had started trying to think through what Virgil had said. Skipping breakfast seemed like the safest thing to do in light of all of that.

In the end, he knew he couldn’t skip. Not really. He had two more exams that day, and if he missed them his grades would tank. He couldn’t let that happen. Not on top of everything else going on.

Roman had thought that he and Virgil were still friends, even if they didn’t talk much anymore. Well, obviously they weren’t now, but… He hadn’t realised that he had hurt Virgil that much. He had thought they had just drifted apart halfway through middle school the way people do, because they have different interests - but apparently that had not been the case from Virgil’s point of view. So what if he had missed a few calls from him, skipped a few invitations to hang out? They had stopped talking properly some time after Virgil came back to school - he had been off for a few weeks toward the start of eighth grade. Virgil had always passed it off as no big deal. 

Remus had always passed everything off as no big deal, too.

This time it was only bile that rose in Roman’s throat, and he swallowed it away. He could fix the mess between him and Virgil once he had figured out how to save Remus and ensured that Janus met his downfall.

He tried to speak to Logan as they filed out of their history exam that morning, but they just scowled at him. Clearly, Virgil had told them what had happened.

Janus was happy to talk to him, though. Janus was happy to talk to him, to sit with him, to talk and talk and talk at him, until Roman wanted to wring his stupidly graceful neck. Instead he just smiled, nodded, gave absent half-answers where he thought they were appropriate.

“There was a greater focus on The Great Depression in that exam than I was expecting, you know?” Janus asked as they sat down on the grass outside.

“I guess so,” Roman murmured, pulling out his lunchbox and his revision notes.

“Depressing, if you’ll excuse the easy pun.” Roman didn’t chuckle.

“You don’t eat much lately,” Janus commented, putting a gloved hand on Roman’s wrist as he closed the lid on his practically untouched egg rolls.

“Not hungry,” Roman muttered.

“Hm,” Janus responded. He squeezed Roman’s forearm briefly before pulling away.

“You seem distracted today. Everything alright?” Janus pressed. They were packing up to go to their afternoon exam.

“Yeah, just stressed,” was Roman’s automatic answer.

“We still good for tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes.” It was the most emphatic answer Roman had given all day, and Janus looked pleased.

Snake.

Roman passed out halfway through his biology exam on Friday morning.

It had been hot in the exam hall, even more so than it had been on Monday, and Roman found that he had emptied his water bottle within half an hour of the exam starting. The words on the paper before him had blurred again, had straightened out when he had blinked, and then blurred again. It took until his pen caught on the paper and sent a spray of ink over his desk that he realised that his hands were shaking, and once he noticed, he couldn’t make them stop. He couldn’t control his own handwriting, either: no matter how many times he blinked at it, how many times he rubbed a hand over his face and pressed his knuckles into his eyes until he saw stars, it seemed determined to quiver in place before scuttling over the lines of his paper, their spider-like scurrying taking on Virgil’s voice. Monster, they said, villain.

His throat felt like a desert, tumbleweeds blowing across his tongue, and his water bottle was empty. Roman’s chair made an unnaturally loud scraping sound as he pushed it back; he could feel eyes turning toward him, burning holes in the back of his neck. Small black spots appeared in his vision as he stood to walk to the water cooler at the front of the hall, and although he squeezed his eyes shut tight before taking a step, they didn’t go away. They danced around the corners of his vision as he started moving between desks, keeping his eyes fixed on the clock on the front wall. How much time was he wasting here?

He didn’t realise he had stopped walking until his professor’s face swam into focus in front of him, her mouth moving. Roman had no idea what she was saying - it was as though he was underwater, with her swaying in front of him, sound bubbling past his ears in unintelligible blobs. Raising his hands, he tried to show her his water bottle, hoping he could get his message across, and then realised that his hands were empty. Had he dropped it? Or was it still back at his desk?

Roman tried to turn around to check, and that was when he felt his legs give out beneath him. He didn’t have time to worry about the ground rushing up toward him, though: it disappeared into a dark fog before it got too close.

-

The next thing he saw was Janus, haloed in a soft, bronze light and gazing at him in concern. Roman’s head throbbed dully: he went to raise a hand to rub it, and realised that he was lying on his back, head resting on something soft.

Janus was saying something, but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was. It looked as though he was arguing with someone: he was waving one hand the way he did when he was talking passionately about something. Where was his other hand? Usually both were involved in this dance - oh. There it was, running through Roman’s hair. He could feel his fingertips pressing lightly against his scalp.

Roman suddenly realised that his head was in Janus’ lap.

That was when sound returned to his surroundings.

“- be his choice!” That was Janus.

“He could have a concussion! This isn’t up for debate, Mr. Sinclaire.” Who was that? A teacher?

“He doesn’t have a concussion, Ma’am -” The emphasis in Janus’ voice said that he was seconds away from calling the teacher something far less complimentary. “- and you know that because you saw me catch him. He just needs to get outside.”

Roman blinked, and Janus’ fingers hesitated in his hair, then rubbed a gentle circle just behind one ear.

“His parents need to be called, at least. I don’t know if you missed it, Sinclaire, but Mr. Wang just collapsed.”

Roman sat up slowly, feeling the room swim around him, and was braced by an arm slipping under his shoulders to support him.

The irritation was even clearer in Janus’ voice now. “How could I have missed it? I caught him, while you just stood there and watched. Roman is an adult, meaning that it is his decision who should or should not be informed, and given that he recovered consciousness within five minutes, basic health training states that he should only be taken to hospital if he faints again, or begins acting unusually. So how about we ask him, hm?”

It was Janus’ arm supporting him, Roman realised. Their teacher was just staring at him, and it occurred to him that he was supposed to say something now. He licked his lower lip anxiously. “I… I’m fine. Don’t call them. Just need to finish my paper…” Roman tried to pull away from Janus to stand up, stumbled, and found himself grateful for the fact that Janus rose with him and caught him again.

Both he and the teacher were shaking their heads now. “Ro, don’t be stupid. You need a-”

“Mr. Wang, don’t worry about the paper. ”

“Come on. We’re heading outside, Ro. We can come back to discuss making up the paper later.” Janus was draping one of Roman’s arms over his own shoulders to help himself support him.

Roman nodded slowly. He didn’t really feel good about walking out, but the idea of going back to his paper wasn’t a particularly pleasant one either. Besides, he had a feeling that neither Janus nor Miss Fox were about to let him do that.

It wasn’t until Janus started guiding him toward the fire door that he realised that everybody else was still sat in their seats, most of them staring at him. Janus appeared to notice him noticing, because the arm around his waist squeezed his side briefly and he murmured, “Hey. Focus on getting out of here, alright? Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“Okay,” he muttered back.

Janus guided him out of the sports hall, grabbing both Roman’s backpack and his satchel from the heap by the door. Roman blinked in the bright morning sunlight. It felt as though he had been in the exam hall for hours, days, through the heat-death of the universe - not less than an hour, assuming Janus had been right about him only passing out for a few minutes.

A thought occurred to Roman then, and he frowned. Having checked the seating arrangements earlier that morning, he knew for a fact that Janus’ seat had been somewhere behind his: it didn’t make any sense for him to have caught him. He’d have had to practically teleport across half the hall to be there on time. He said as much. “Did you really catch me? How were you right there? You should’a been on the other side of the hall.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Janus’ mouth. “After you got up and stumbled halfway up to the front, then just stood and swayed at Fox? There was obviously something wrong. And all she could do was ask you what you were doing and if you could return to your seat. You could have been seriously injured if she’d have just let you fall and crack your head on a desk on the way down. The incompetence.” He scoffed, and Roman’s mind boggled at the fact that he had just been rescued by the villain he was trying to bring down. Janus seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because as he maneuvered the two of them around the bins at the back of the sports hall, he commented, “Always thought it would be you catching me as I swooned, not the other way around. Funny how these things work out, huh?”

“So you abandoned your paper because I walked across a room? Where are we going, anyway?” Roman was fairly sure that he could walk on his own now, but there was something comforting about leaning against Janus. It was the physical contact, of course - Roman wasn’t entirely sure of the last time he had hugged somebody - not the fact that it was Janus with an arm around his waist.

“The bench behind the science block. That alright?” Janus waited until Roman had nodded before continuing. “And no, not just because of that. Virgil texted me on Wednesday, said all the evidence pointed toward you having a slow-mo breakdown - his words - and that I should keep an eye on you. Sit.”

Roman sat. What else had Virgil said? Did Janus know he was onto him? He wouldn’t blame Virgil if he had gone and spilled all the beans - a spider couldn’t be expected to keep its secrets for long. What good was an intricately crafted web with nobody there to marvel at it?

But Janus didn’t look mad. He was digging through his  backpack, and after a second he tossed something into Roman’s lap before sitting down beside him. “Eat.”

“What?” Roman picked up the thing Janus had thrown at him. It was a sandwich, sealed in a reusable plastic bag. Red jam was oozing out from its edges. He swallowed. “This is your lunch. I’m not eating your lunch.”

“Well, you’re not eating your lunch, so you’re going to eat this.” The response had been immediate, brisk; Janus looked a little guilty, and took a deep breath before continuing in a much more gentle tone. “And it’s not my lunch. I’ve been making an extra sandwich every day in case you needed it. And you obviously do.”

Roman considered arguing, but decided against it. There was probably poison hidden between the brown bread. He opened the bag and pulled out the sandwich, then nibbled quietly at one corner.

Janus wasn’t touching him anymore. Roman wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or frustrated. No, he was - he should be grateful. He didn’t want to touch his nemesis any more than he had to to keep up the act. The little thing inside that was begging for Janus to hug him again was just the part of him that was so desperate for affection that even a monster would do.

“Roman, are you… Alright?” The brunet sounded tentative, as though he were afraid to upset him by asking, but as though the question really mattered to him. Yet again, Roman reflected upon how good an actor Janus had turned out to be.

He swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Fine. Tip-top. Never better. Why’d you ask?”

Janus gave him what could only be described as a look, and started counting on his fingers. “Let’s see… You just passed out halfway through an exam, Virgil’s concerned enough about you to actually ask me to keep an eye on you; unnecessary because I was doing that already because, oh yes, your twin brother is in prison for grievous bodily harm, and you’ve gone from being slender to being positively skin and bones in less than two months.” It looked as though Janus wanted to say more, but he stopped himself.

There was jam on his fingers. It was sticking to his skin in stains almost the colour of blood, and Roman stared at the last bite of sandwich in his hand for a few seconds before popping into his mouth and sucking his fingers. Demons and monsters drank blood as though it were lemonade, right? And according to his inner compass, he was well on the way to becoming one of them. According to Virgil, he was already a monster.

“Drink.” Janus handed him a water bottle, and Roman obeyed. “I’m just worried about you, Princey. I’m your friend - possibly your only friend, given the fact that I’ve never seen you actually hang out with anybody else - and I don’t want to watch you burn away.”

“I’m… Just stressed.” Roman offered finally. Janus just looked at him, face open, and Roman was struck by the urge to tell him everything. He didn’t. “It’s been rough not having Remus around. I mean, I know he’s a monster, ‘n all,” he hurried to clarify, eyes landing on the burn tissue around Janus’ bad eye, “but… Home’s different without him.”

It looked as though Janus wanted to say something. He opened his mouth, his throat bobbed as he swallowed and winced, but in the end he just rested a hand on Roman’s knee and squeezed it. “I think you should go home. Get some rest. Sitting Geometry this afternoon isn’t going to-”

“I’m not going home. I - It’s just one more exam, plus whatever I need to do to make up Bio. I’m not failing just because-”

“Just because you worked yourself to the point of collapse?” Janus took his empty bottle back from Roman and returned it to his backpack, ignoring the scowl Roman gave him. “Fine. But only if you eat lunch today. I’m sitting with you, and if you don’t finish, I’m skipping this afternoon to take you home.”

“My dad will be home. It’s his day off.”

“I never specified whose home.”

Roman let out a grunt of frustration and pressed his face into his hands, and Janus squeezed his knee again. Roman wished he would stop. Not the knee-squeezing in particular - all of it. The lying. The pretending to be Roman’s friend when he had blackmailed Remus into prison. The pretending to care when he was just looking for a way into Roman’s head, a way to destroy him as well. It was difficult to believe that the boy sitting next to him, the one that had helped him out of the exam hall and had had a panic attack because his sleeve had caught fire, was the same person as the man that Remus was so clearly scared of.

If Janus kept this up, Roman was scared that he’d forget who the villain was altogether. He needed to finish this, and soon.

“Okay. Deal, whatever. Can we still hang out this afternoon?”

Janus looked incredulous, and the expression brought a faint smile to Roman’s wan face. “You still want to hike through the woods after this?”

“Yes. I’ve been looking forward to it all week.” It wasn’t a lie.

“I… Okay. But only if you eat everything, and you don’t pass out again in Geometry. And if you start getting dizzy while we’re walking, we’re going back to mine to watch TV. My parents are going out of town for the weekend.”

Roman opened his mouth to argue, but the firm stare Janus gave him clearly said that there was no point. He stared him down until Roman finally nodded.

He ate his lunch while Janus quizzed him on formulae for the exam that afternoon. When he was done, Janus handed him a raisin biscuit; when he looked at him in askance, the other shrugged and said, “I heard that squashed flies are lucky in some parts of the world.”

-

They met outside Roman’s house at four, Roman squinting in the summer sun, Janus sporting a large pair of sunglasses. Janus was also carrying his satchel, and when Roman asked what was in it, he opened it to reveal two bottles of water and another blood sandwich. Smart.

The clear plastic bag that had gotten Remus kicked out of the house was in Roman’s back pocket, but he didn’t mention it yet.

Roman tried to ignore the anxious glances Janus gave him every few minutes as they walked into the trees, as though he was expecting him to just keel over any second. He withstood a full ten minutes of silence and furtive looks before finally speaking up. “I’m not going to, you know.”

Janus noticeably startled - or pretended to, at any rate - and then gave Roman a thoroughly unconvincing look of surprised innocence. “Not going to what?”

“Collapse again. I’m not going to, so you can quit watching me like I will.” Roman picked up the pace a little.

“I’m not watching you as though you’re about to collapse,” Janus protested, walking faster to keep up with Roman. How annoying.

“You are. You keep looking at me, and your forehead goes all scrunched, like somebody’s planning on planting root vegetables in it.”

Janus made an exasperated noise, and Roman glanced briefly over his shoulder to see him tugging at the cuffs of his gloves and then adjusting his beanie. Why was he still wearing that thing? Wasn’t he roasting?

“Fine, I was watching you. It’s scary, alright? Watching someone you care about just crumple up like that.” Roman deliberately ignored the fact that Janus was trying to imply that he cared about him. Actually, he internally scoffed at the words. Janus had been rather heavy-handed with the beguiling today, first stroking his hair and saying they were friends, and now saying he cared about him. Not at all up to his usual subtle standard.

The repeatedly exaggerated care was making Roman irritable and snappy. "It won't happen again. I'm not fragile."

"I know you're not, R- Roman." Janus sighed. "Sorry." And that managed to make Roman feel even worse, even though he knew that Janus was just trying to manipulate him further.

"Whatever," he snapped, speeding up again until he was moving at a run.

Janus kept pace with him without complaint, even though Roman could hear his breathing becoming more and more laboured as they headed deeper into the forest. By the time they stopped in a small clearing by a stream, he was gasping for breath.

"It's nice here," Roman said gruffly, and Janus doubled over, his ragged inhalations the only sound in the quiet space.

It took approximately three seconds for Roman to stop feeling some perverse satisfaction over having managed to make Janus suffer, and to start feeling guilty. He didn’t want to feel guilty, of course - but it wasn’t something he could help.

Taking the three steps back toward him, he took Janus gently by the arm and guided him to a large rock, where he sat, wheezing. “Sorry,” Roman murmured. Flipping Janus’ satchel open, he pulled out one of the water bottles and opened it, then handed it over and watched Janus take a few small sips.

It was a few minutes before Roman was able to hear birdsong over Janus’ gradually slowing breaths, and a while after that before Janus cleared his throat - it sounded painful - and returned the water bottle to his bag. He offered Roman a nervous smile. “If you were trying to turn my lungs to mush, Princey, you’ve had quite a good go…”

“Sorry,” Roman muttered again, and this time he accepted the apology with a nod and a wave of one gloved hand.

“You’re forgiven. It’s not your fault, really.”

“It’s Remus’?” Maybe Roman sounded a little overeager in pushing for more information, because Janus gave him an undecipherable look.

“I was going to say that it was mine. I could have just stayed walking at a sustainable pace.”

“Well, I’m flattered you tried to keep up,” Roman made himself chuckle, pressing one hand against his chest. Janus wouldn’t have let him run off on his own: the other had made it quite clear that he thought he was about to faint in the middle of the forest and be eaten by rats if he wasn’t around.

This time, the look Janus gave him was like the surface of a hot spring: placid on the surface, but Roman could tell that there was something simmering below.

The thought occurred to him that maybe Janus had allowed himself to be dragged into the middle of the woods because the trees and lack of witnesses would give him ample opportunity to reveal whatever heinous thing he had done to Remus, and that he had enough material to blackmail Roman into driving a second car into a pole if he wanted him to. Clearing his throat, Roman took a step back (he had been hovering in front of Janus like a wrong-doing child waiting for a telling-off) and then waved a hand at the trees. “You know, I come out here a lot.”

“You do, huh?” A slightly teasing tone had entered Janus’ voice, and he was smirking despite still being red in the face. Some strands of his brown hair had fallen across his eyes, and he reached up to tuck them under his hat. “Never would have guessed, what with the way you were so tentative about bringing us out to this charming clearing.”

Roman allowed himself to pause, tilt his head, chuckle as natural a chuckle as he could manage, and then continued. “Yeah. It’s peaceful out here, y’know? Relaxing.”

He glanced back at Janus to see that he had stretched out with his back against the rock - like a snake, basking in the sun, waiting for its moment to strike. “It’s certainly very calm when I’m not puffing like a steam train…”

“It’s pretty private, too.” Roman moved closer to him and, ignoring every instinct that warned him that getting closer to a viper was a horrible idea, sat down to lean against the rock as well. “A good place to think, or spend some time alone, or…”

“Yeah?” There was a nervous, softly excited note in his companion’s voice now (how was Janus so good at controlling himself? It just wasn’t fair), and when Roman looked at him out of the corner of his eye he saw that the late-afternoon sunlight was turning Janus’ tanned skin golden. He should be framed and hung in an art gallery, he mused privately.

Or framed and hung for as punishment for his crimes.

“It’s a nice place to smoke a bit.”

Surprise flickered over Janus’ features - genuine surprise, cracking through the carefully built mask. “You smoke?”

“Ah! No,” Roman pulled the bag from his pocket and waved it, hurrying to clear up the misunderstanding. “It’s just weed. Not cigarettes. Those things kill. And smell gross.”

“Yeah. My dad smokes. It’s a disgusting habit…” Janus closed his eyes briefly, tilting his face to the sky. From where he was sitting, on Janus’ right, Roman couldn’t see the scarred side of his face. It was possible to believe that Janus had never gotten involved in the crash that had ignited his life as though it were a field of grass.

“Mine used to,” he agreed, hands already working to roll two joints into shape and pulling Remus’ keychain from his other pocket. He offered one to Janus, who raised an eyebrow slowly at him.

“Are you actively trying to kill me, Wang?” Roman blinked, and Janus waved an exasperated hand in the direction of his throat. “Given the smoke damage, I don’t plan on inhaling anything other than oxygen for a very long time.”

Roman blinked again. He hadn’t thought of that. His dumbfounded expression must show on his face, because Janus’ expression softened again. “Don’t worry. I had a feeling you’d be planning something like this, so I came prepared with my own refreshments.” He reached into his satchel and pulled out a metal flask that Roman hadn’t seen when he had grabbed the water bottle.

“A proper boy scout,” Roman commented, and they both chuckled, Janus out of amusement, Roman out of relief. If Janus was going to help, then getting him to talk was going to be even easier than he had expected. He returned both joints to the ziploc bag and stuffed it back into his pocket, but didn’t put the keys and their attached lighter away.

“Well, cheers.” Janus raised the flask to his lips and took a large gulp, then offered it to Roman, who accepted. The metal was cool, and he could feel rough lines on one side. Flipping it over, he saw that the shape of an octopus had been roughly scratched into the face of the otherwise smooth flask. He smiled absently at it. It reminded him of the doodles Remus had used to do, back when they were still a family, back when he was still friends with Virgil. Roman would find a piece of paper and use an orange felt-tip to draw a four-legged shape, and then scribble around its head in red in a rough approximation of a lion. Both his best friend and his brother would draw blobs with eight legs, one in green and one in purple. The green octopus would have curly legs, often spreading over the entire page and wrapping Roman’s lion in its grip; the spider would sit quietly on the edge of the page, and they’d look away, and when they looked back Virgil would have added half a dozen more. The three of them had gotten in so much trouble when their drawings had made their way first onto the floor and then the wall of the kitchen.

He seemed to remember that being his idea, but now that he thought about it, Roman was certain that Remus and Virgil had taken the brunt of the punishment for it.

Roman raised the flask to his mouth and swallowed as much as he could in one go, using the burn of whatever Janus had brought - was it tequila? He couldn’t tell - to jerk himself back to the present. Then he took another, because it didn’t taste bad.

That, of course, was when he regretted taking such a huge mouthful. Roman already knew he was a lightweight, and he needed his wits around him for what he was about to do. Janus smiled at him, took the flask back, and took another sip. “It’s bourbon,” he supplied.

“Whiskey? Isn’t that stuff expensive?”

“Came out of my parents’ liquor cabinet. They won’t notice it’s missing.” Janus shrugged and took another sip, then handed it back to Roman.

Which was good, because Roman wasn’t sure what to say to that.

They sat there in a sleepy sort of silence for a while, passing the flask between them. After his mistake with his first mouthful, Roman was careful not to drink any more, only tilting the thing until the whisky touched his lips and then lowering it again, pretending to swallow.

He wasn’t sure whether Janus was drinking any. It certainly looked as though he was, but Roman wasn’t sure if the flask was getting any lighter or not.

That would be amusing, wouldn’t it? Both of them sitting there, pretending to drink in the hopes of getting the other to get sloppy and reveal some secret or other.

Eventually, Roman came to the conclusion that he was going to have to say something. Otherwise, they would just sit here until it got dark, and then they’d go home, and the entire day would have been an unprecedented disaster. He cleared his throat, and Janus lowered the flask to look at him.

“I… Wanted to talk to you.” He started, and was surprised when his words were met with a broad smile.

“Me too. Do you mind if I go first?” Well, that wasn’t what Roman had expected at all. He shrugged, wiggled a hand in the air in a ‘go ahead’ motion, and then watched Janus take another gulp of whiskey. What was Janus about to say? Was he about to confess?

No, he wouldn’t be confessing. He was about to open with an easy request, for Roman to stop digging for the truth and to become his little puppet, and close with blackmail. Roman sat up a little straighter, the warmth in his stomach partially sunlight, partially alcohol, partially triumph.

“Roman, I…” Janus hesitated. Wow - he was putting a lot of unnecessary work into this. “I… It’s my fault, Princey. I blackmailed Remus until he believed the only way to free himself was to drive both of us to a fiery end. I don’t regret it. And now I’m going to blackmail you, because I still need a pawn in my evil plans for world domination. I don’t care if you never want to talk to me again - you’re my minion now.”

Only maybe that wasn’t what Janus had said. Maybe what Janus had actually said was, “I… I like you, Princey. A lot. I have for ages now, and I… Well, I was hoping that with us becoming friends, maybe you’d be open to… I don’t know, trying something. You - You don’t have to, of course. I won’t pressure you. And I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk to me ever again.”

Roman gaped at him, the words refusing to sink into his brain. “... What?” He was saying that a lot at the moment, it seemed.

Janus chuckled nervously and pressed the flask into his hand. “I have a crush on you, Roman. I’m asking if you want to try dating, or something.”

Roman looked down at the flask, wondering if he had somehow drunk enough to be hallucinating. Sure, a couple of weeks ago he had suspected that maybe Janus might like him, but he had ruled that out as an option. It was all just… Acting. Manipulation. Janus wasn’t being sincere.

“Roman? Ro? You okay?” A yellow hand was waving back and forth before his eyes, and Roman brought his focus back to the man sitting next to him. It was a trick, right? It had to be. Janus had been hurting Remus, he was using this as a way to get closer to Roman to hurt him as well. It was the only thing that made sense.

“I’d… I’d appreciate it if you said something now, Ro.”

Janus was playing with the cuffs of his gloves again. Roman just kept staring, waiting for the catch, for the trap to spring shut around his ankle.

“Anything. Yes. No. I hate you. I like you too. You disgust me. Anything, Ro, just stop staring at me like that.”

It was taking a considerable amount of effort to make words come out of his mouth, and Roman bought himself a few extra seconds by lifting the flask to his mouth and taking another mouthful. It burned on the way down - again - and helped bring him back to himself. Again.

Janus looked almost afraid now.

Janus looked almost afraid, and Roman didn’t like it.

“Is this… Is this a trick? Some sort of sick joke?”

Now Janus looked offended - no, he looked hurt, and that was worse. Taking the flask back from him, Janus shoved it into his bag and stood up. “I… Take it you don’t feel anything, after all. That’s… Alright. I won’t bother you again, Roman. It’s been nice knowing you.”

No - no, Roman couldn’t let him leave! He had to ask him - had to ask him - pushing himself to his feet, Roman grabbed at Janus’ sleeve, missed, and found that he was squeezing his hand. There was a vulnerable look on Janus’ face when he turned, so raw that something inside of Roman cracked painfully open, and the maggots within him writhed, although they were more sluggish than usual. Maybe that was the effect of the alcohol.

“Roman?” Janus asked, voice hopeful.

Roman spoke at the same time, the words tearing themselves from his chest in a torrent of anger and fear, blood and worms and guilt, vengeful wrath and desperate plea, alive. He just wanted Janus to stop lying, just wanted to stop feeling like the villain in this stupid, stupid tale, just wanted fix everything Janus had broken, that he had broken, and stop feeling bad about doing what needed to be done. “Why’re you hurting Remus?” He didn’t want the words to come out like that, faintly slurred and all at once, but he couldn’t stop now that he had started. “Why’s he scared’a you? Why’d you have to hurt him - what d’you want from us?!”

The apprehensive, excited look on Janus’ face slipped away, taking the world around them with it and smashing into fragments at their feet.

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