#i support the freckle virgil agenda even if i only show it in small bits

[the-sunshine-dims]

amnesia rewrite! (chapter 4)

ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 5 | ch 6 | ch 7 | ch 8 |

original fic

words: 2043

ao3

contents and warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, amnesia, kid!janus, Janus finally gets a hug himself, fluff,

____

Roman couldn’t help but exhale a breath as he finished up explaining the situation to Remus and Virgil, “Any questions?” 

To his relief, no one said anything, Virgil just shrugging at the question. He counted that as a small victory, especially since he was awful at explaining the answers to most questions, actually, why did he keep getting posted at the task of telling people when he was so bad at it? both Patton and Logan would be better at it than him, he was sure of it.

His train of thought came to a halt when Remus spoke up abruptly, his voice both more steady and more serious than Roman’s ever heard it “if that’s the situation then I think I need to stay away from him if J-J started sobbing when he found out the old king-y dude was all-'' he made a slicing of his neck motion along with the noise to go with it -“then I can’t imagine what his reaction would be if my thoughts voiced themselves like they usually do, while around him. So unless he actually asks for me,  which I don’t think’ll happen, I’ll just hang out in the dark side, ooh! and I can experiment with the stuff that got banned for melting the floors! I wonder what would happen if I put it in cupcakes-“ he giggled maniacally to himself at the realization no one would be there to supervise him.

Roman cut him off, “I think for the most part your right, I don’t know how much he can handle right now, and we don’t want to overwhelm him, so yeah okay, Though I’ll make sure they’ll be someone to check on you so your not completely to your own devices because I imagine Janus wouldn’t want his room smelling like chemicals and.. whatever else you use for your... art projects.” He told him, ignoring the last bit of what Remus said. Honestly Roman was kind of proud of his brother, he was a lot more caring and considerate than he let on.

he gave him a small smile before quietly going “I’m glad Janus has you as a friend, you care about him.”

Remus rolled his eyes like a petulant teenager, it wasn’t like he was doing something super amazing for Janus Afterall, he was just being a generally decent person, he knew his presence might hurt Janus currently so he wasn’t actively going to be around him for a minute and sure yeah he cared about him but he cared for the sentiment slime goop in his room too so it wasn’t that big a deal.

As Roman and Remus continued their conversation Virgil slipped out of the room silently, unnoticed. not offering a reason for leaving.

____

Janus walked down the corridor, fingers brushing against the walls, feeling the textures, every now and then the paint changed into a different color, he would guess it was Morality and Roman’s doing since it often went from soft light blues to vibrant reds, making only small breaks to show swirly designs in purples and dark blues. he liked to feel how the different paint changed the texture, even ever so slightly, it was kinda cool to him, and it was something to do while Roman and the others were busy-

Ow

he reeled back immediately as soon as he felt his face slam into someone, luckily it didn't hurt much as the crash was cushioned with soft fabric, regardless though embarrassment still curled up and made itself at home in the pit of his stomach as the realization of he ran into someone finally dawned on him.

After the initial shock subsided, he just started apologizing profusely “I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry!! I didn’t mean to run into you! Are you- are you okay?” He asked as he finally looked up to see who the side he ran into was,

Their face was pale and freckle-clad and.. he knew him!

He gasped excitedly as he began giddily clapping his hands “wait! Hi!! Anxiety I remember you!” He grinned, ignoring how anxiety still hadn’t spoken up, he used to be very quiet so maybe he’s just still like that, either way, he continued “actually Wait- I remember you with a different jacket.. but! I like this one. It's cool!! I like the purple patches!- oh!! Also, guess what! morality and Logic have names! Isn’t that cool?” 

Virgil shrugged and Janus took that as an invitation to continue. 

“Do you have a name too? I bet if you do it’s cool! Like Ummm… uh- what’s a cool name?” He pondered aloud, not able to think of anything besides names like thor-Bonecrusher or other stuff of that variety.

Anxiety once again shrugged and Janus accepted that well enough; maybe anxiety just didn’t have a name, so Janus didn’t push, but he did continue chattering on happily enough. 

At some point, Virgil started to continue walking, if slowly, down the hallway, to where he was trying to go originally, Janus immediately following him like an excited golden retriever puppy as he talked about.. hell knows what, Virgil couldn’t keep track. But regardless of that, honestly, Virgil didn’t think he minded Janus’s presence as much as he thought he would, he was fully willing to just avoid him when He left the conversation with Roman and Remus, not because he would accidentally harm Janus like Remus- well he might Virgil.. tended to be way to blunt but sometimes with things that annoy him, and earlier he was pretty certain Janus would only annoy him, hell, earlier all he wanted to do was avoid Janus because he knew he was still Janus and quite honestly he didn’t want to deal with Janus.

Though honestly Janus himself, while kind of annoying and overdramatic, wasn’t.. awful, like Virgil pretended he was, he inwardly sighed before just ignoring that specific train of thought, something he was actually pretty accustomed and successful at doing.  

As he got around to tuning back into what Janus was doing all he heard silence, which given any other time he may have been happy for But this silence is almost.. somber? He looked over quickly and found Janus looking at the floor as he walked, though much slower than before, hell now he was actually walking a distance behind Virgil.

He was already looking at Janus but he could only double-take as he heard a small voice go “I’m sorry…” it trailing off after a minute before continuing, obviously unsure of what it had done wrong but assuming it’d done something “I- I don’t know what I did but I’m sorry! I don’t wanna be mean I promise! If you just tell me what I did I won’t do it again I promise! I’ll be nice! I- ‘m sorry.. ’m sorry..” his voice cracked and got smaller as he wrung his hands nervously.

And Virgil could only quietly go “shit I messed up.” because he could recognize the signs as much as anyone that Janus was halfway to spiraling, and honestly, Virgil couldn’t blame him after all they were walking a very long 15 minutes because somehow the hallway went on forever, and Virgil doesn’t know 90% of what Janus said because he just stopped listening and on top of that he hadn’t even spoken a word to the kid-  and that was weird to think of him as a kid, but he was, he was an impressionable, anxious kid who desperately wanted other people to like him, and that on top of anything meant he probably thought Virgil was just ignoring him for something he didn’t even remember doing.

And he could only panic quickly as Janus’s eyes remained dead set on the floor, and he didn’t know if Janus was trying to disappear into it or if it was him trying to hide the fact his eyes were starting to get glossy with unshed tears because he wholeheartedly thought Virgil hated him- and oh fuck he really did fuck up. 

He tried to think of what Patton did to comfort him and in an act of pure panic brain, he scooped him up in a secure hug and hoped that would help. 

The result was Janus going almost limp before starting to dry hiccup as he tried to force the tears away after a moment he just confusedly went “but- but you didn’t wanna talk to me And you were ignoring me and you looked really annoyed and-“ he started wiggling from Virgil’s hold “no- wait don’t worry you don’t have to be nice to me if you don’t like me- I promise you don’t have to!” He rushed in telling him, trying to scramble so he wasn’t leaning on Virgil and Jesus this was almost as bad as when they all went to Virgil’s room with how anxious Janus was, he could practically feel the anxiety radiating off.

And he realized he really did have to actually talk to Janus, he wasn’t gonna get less anxious just by getting a hug, Virgil wasn’t Patton he didn’t have that magical ability, so he loosened his hold on Janus just enough to get Janus to stop trying to accidentally on purpose fall onto the floor before just going “I don’t dislike you,” and just those words alone made Janus go completely still, so Virgil continued “and I didn’t mean to Ignore you I just got lost in thought, though that’s definitely not an excuse, because even if I didn’t mean to I did, but the important part is i- I like you,” he told him, not confidently, because while he knew he would be lying if he said he disliked him he didn’t have enough time to sort through his emotions to confidently say he liked him.

But regardless of how uncertain Virgil sounded, Janus still looked up at him with eyes so filled with hesitance but also soft gentle hope as he shakily went “promise? No lies?”

Virgil offered a small smile, “promise, no lies.”  He repeated and Janus barreled into him in a hug, 

And As Virgil wrapped his arms around the shortest side for the second time in five minutes which has got to be some kind of record- he realized hey he was a lot better at this whole comforting thing than he thought he would be, which wasn’t really saying a lot but hey. 

After a while of just standing there, the awkwardness and strain of standing still in a random hallway motivated Janus to unwrap his arms from around Virgil and retrieve his face from his being buried in Virgil’s chest. 

And that only made it more awkward because now they were both just standing in the hallway literally just staring at each other.

So Janus, deciding he hated when stuff was awkward just went “do you know anything fun to do? I’m bored and morality and Logic and Roman are all busy.”

Virgil visibly thought to himself about options before going “are you in a movie mood or music mood? Or if you’re in none of them we might just have to kidnap Roman and see if he has ideas.”

Janus hummed before just happily going “I like music!” practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Virgil smiled before he got an idea, “do you like my chemical romance?” He asked and Janus seemed confused at what that was but eventually decided if Virgil liked it then Janus will like it too, so Janus just nodded in reply and just Virgil grinned.

——

Later Logan had to ask them to quiet down because he needed to work and couldn’t focus and he was almost certain that they were gonna damage their eardrums since he could hear the loud shouts of the lyrics coming from the speakers while in the kitchen, though, even if he failed at getting them to turn it down he was glad they were getting along, Janus was practically bouncing with how gleeful he was, even Virgil had a small smile on his face, so logan supposed even if later they had headaches from the blasting music as long as they were still happy it would be okay in the long run.