lime just telling stories :)

What were you supposed to say to someone who’d tormented you regularly for ages, the two of you practically always at each other’s throats, only for it to be revealed that they’re also the very same creature that you adore? The same being that defended your life and dignity on more than one occasion? 

It felt like an impossibility, the sort of contrived, ludicrous plot twist that Roman never would have come up with for a story of his own. How was he supposed to reconcile keen, kind, protective Puff with the Side who sneered and scowled and shot down Roman’s most exhaustive efforts without care? 

‘You always come up with something better, don’t you?’ The memory of Anxiety’s voice echoed in the back of his mind, and he groaned. 

He’d wasted nearly an hour arguing with Logan the previous day about precisely how long Deceit had been playing them all for fools, but even then, he hadn’t truly believed his own wild theories. Not when the truth had been laid out so undeniably. 

With the gift of hindsight, he could see all the little instances that lined up to create the full picture: The constant disappearance and reappearance of Puff into places unknown, sneaking off into the mindscape and yet always returning before they got too worried. The way Anxiety had hardly even blinked in surprise at the sight of a doll-sized Roman, had treated it like such an unremarkable occurrence that he’d almost forgotten to feel self conscious. The sudden increase in the number of times Anxiety was willing to join them at breakfasts and meetings, as though the usually-reticent Side had found new value in spending time with them. 

Or maybe, Roman thought with a pit in his stomach, he’d just had new hope that they might tolerate his presence. 

He remembered the way Puff had trembled and hunched in on himself during their disastrous first meeting, shying away from Roman’s touch as though he thought Roman wouldn’t hesitate to slice his head cleanly from his shoulders. When he’d settled a hand on the tiny dragon’s head, he remembered feeling struck by Puff’s wide-eyed look of utter surprise, as though Roman’s offering of peace was incomprehensible. 

And really, why wouldn’t he think that? Had it not been Roman who always faced Anxiety with hackles raised and sword drawn? Was he not the one who had flown into a rage and personally threatened to kill Anxiety, only a week or two before the Side had chosen to use Roman’s invention to quietly and unobtrusively disappear from existence? 

From the beginning, Anxiety had assumed the worst of them, the same way he assumed the worst of the entire world. The most unbearable thing was that Roman had never bothered to prove him wrong. 

No. No, the most unbearable thing would be losing the chance to fix this, all because Roman couldn’t come up with the cure to one measly little spell. If things continued on like this, Anxiety would discorporate in the most unstable state any of them had ever been in, with no guarantee that he would reform the same— or reform at all. 

That couldn’t be allowed to happen. 

Roman could waste time wallowing about his own personal failings later. For now, he forcibly dragged himself free of his mire of self-pity, shoving the sleeves of his formal jacket up to his elbows without any care for how foolish it might look. 

There wasn’t a second to lose; he had a curse to break. 

—

The first attempt was simple: for a fairytale enchantment, one needed a fairytale cure. 

Roman was more than familiar with the old reliable stopgap measures for curses, having fallen prey to a fair few hexes himself over the years. Rare elixirs, magical combs, and sacred fruits were standard fare, working often enough that he almost always tried those first. 

Kisses were his personal favorite, because he was always a sucker for romance, but those weren’t applicable here for a number of reasons, including the fact that Anxiety had openly disdained that solution in a recent video. 

(Of course, there were also the more antiquated stories, which frequently involved cutting off a beast’s head or tail in order to return them to their original human form. Roman had taken one look at the very Puff-esque tail that kept swishing happily behind Anxiety and firmly decided not to mention that particular solution except as a last resort.)

The only problem was that coaxing Anxiety to eat and drink meant waking Anxiety from his content dozing, and Roman couldn’t help but feel a nauseating mix of worry and apprehension every time the other Side was conscious. Patton was doing his best, but none of them had full faith that the Side’s oddly docile state would last much longer. 

(What was he truly afraid of, a nasty little voice in the back of his mind wondered. That Anxiety might grow fearful and the curse would worsen? Or that Anxiety would regain full lucidity and hate him for what he’d done, and he would be left helpless in the face of it, unable to answer for the pit of guilt stewing in his stomach?) 

He stalled by procuring as many potential cures as possible, flitting back and forth from the Imagination and his own room to pile flasks, apples, enchanted tools, and other odds and ends upon the living room table. Logan had swept his stack of books up and fled within the first half hour, and it ultimately took Patton losing patience and throwing a pillow at him to finally get him to settle tentatively on the last free cushion of their couch. 

Of course, he then promptly got distracted staring at Anxiety’s lax sleeping face and wondering at how similar it looked to Thomas, minus the dragon-y bits, obviously. Somehow, he’d never seriously contemplated Anxiety as a part of Thomas just like them, rather than an opponent to challenge him and inevitably be defeated. The nauseous feeling grew.

“It’s your turn to look after him,” Patton told him, apparently unwilling to let Roman remain paralyzed by his own inadequacies any longer. Without a single further instruction, he hefted Anxiety up by the shoulders and reversed the angle of his lean so he was settled against Roman, instead. 

“Padre—!” he hissed, only to shut his mouth with a click as Anxiety shuffled a bit further into his side, face only crinkling for a moment before sinking back into peaceful sleep. 

Patton did at least have the decency to scoot the table close enough for Roman to reach the items without jostling his unexpected burden too much, but he still felt far too underprepared by the time the other Side departed to scour his own room for anything that could help. 

There was a still, fraught silence as Roman contemplated the paths in life that had led him here, and then— a quiet snore. He glanced down at the source and found Anxiety making a truly ridiculous face, mouth slightly open and cheek squished against his shoulder. 

His phone was in his hand and his camera app opened within seconds, his reflexes honed from years of prank wars, and he paused, guilt swelling for a moment. What if…

No, he finally decided. If he knew anything about Anxiety, he knew that the last thing he would want was to be treated like some delicate, blown-glass sculpture, prone to breakage. Kindness and pity were two very different things, and Roman certainly wouldn’t be the one to look down on Anxiety. 

The other Side had faith in him, and Roman would return the sentiment. 

Anxiety was more than strong enough to survive this trial, and once he did, Roman would tease him about his ungraceful sleep habits just as he needled Logan for always sorting his paints alphabetically after borrowing them and poked fun at Patton for manifesting kittens despite his allergies. 

(Just… perhaps more gently. Their past exchanges hadn’t exactly been playful, and he certainly didn’t want Anxiety to feel targeted and bite back. Particularly not with his new, much sharper fangs.)

He lifted his phone up to angle it at the both of them, grimacing slightly at his bedraggled state but taking the selfie anyhow. They looked exhausted, he reflected as he checked that the photo hadn’t come out blurry. Once Anxiety was cured, they were all overdue for a very long nap. 

Setting his phone aside, Roman reached out and swiped the nearest tangle of jewelry from the table, muffling the clinking of metal as best he could. These would be simple enough to slip onto Anxiety’s person without waking him, though he doubted that even ten times the amount of trinkets would be able to put a dent in one of the Dragon Witch’s spells. 

Anxiety didn’t stir as Roman carefully slotted one ring after another onto his limp fingers, half of them ostentatiously golden and oversized, the other half overly intricate and mystical. Bracelets with inscribed sigils and necklaces with heavy jeweled pendants, tiaras so varied in size that Roman fit four of them on Anxiety’s head, and even a few clip-on earrings, for good measure. 

It was this last element that finally woke the other, not that Roman noticed immediately; he was preoccupied with attempting to attach the clips to Anxiety’s oversized deer-like ears, fumbling over and over when they wouldn’t stop twitching reflexively away from his touch like a cat’s. 

“Why do I look like a jewelry store threw up on me?” a raspy voice asked with genuine bewilderment. 

“Gah!” Roman nearly jumped out of his skin, and was abruptly grateful that he hadn’t been trying to put any actual piercings in. The clip on he’d been holding had flown somewhere across the room, never to be seen again. “You’re awake!” 

Despite still being visibly befuddled, Anxiety found the clarity to snark at him. “You don’t say. Someone better tell Logan that you’re stealing his detective title.” 

It had never felt so heartening to hear sarcastic banter. Roman grinned a little despite himself, easing back to give the other some space. “Come on, now, Paramoan, cut me some slack. I was focusing!” 

The beginnings of a frown were edging into Anxiety’s expression as he took in his surroundings, as though he was realizing he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. “On what? Making me into a display mannequin for a Claire’s?” 

He shifted as though to lift his arms to gesture to all the bling, only for a sudden jolt to stop him short, a pained flinch rolling through his frame. More of the haze left his eyes, panic beginning to bloom in its place. 

The dark marks that were creeping out from under Anxiety’s bandages began to twitch, and the Side was surely mere seconds away from turning and noticing the disastrous-looking curse.

“Oh, hey, thatremindsme—!” Roman half-shouted, hurriedly reaching out and swiping for the first thing within arm’s length. He promptly held it out. “Do you want to try some… marshmallow creme?” 

Anxiety raised an eyebrow at the jar that Roman had practically shoved under his nose. “It’s glowing.” 

“One of its many undeniable selling points?” Roman tried, wishing he’d grabbed one of the elaborate glass bottles or metallic-toned fruits instead, something more professionally fairytale. Who’d ever even heard of enchanted marshmallow creme?! 

“Princey, if you’re trying to poison me, there are easier, less stupid-looking ways,” Anxiety said dryly. 

“I wouldn’t poison you!” Roman replied, unable to prevent the offended slant in his voice. “I simply— I simply need a second opinion to help me test these items, and I know the others won’t give me the… constructive criticism that you will, that’s all.” 

(Internally, he congratulated himself. Anxiety loved criticizing things, this was sure to distract him.)

Anxiety continued to look dubious, and Roman sighed before grabbing a spoon and taking a heaping bite of the marshmallow fluff himself. “Shee?” he said, and then nearly choked on how thick it was. 

“So far, it’s mostly seeming like a very ignoble way to die,” Anxiety snorted, but still reached out to take the jar and a spoon of his own. “…I’ve never heard you call anything of mine constructive before.”

Roman inhaled sharply and then devolved into a coughing fit, fumbling around for one of the bottled liquids on the table. The one he finally grabbed and uncorked tasted strongly of orange juice, but was at least pulp-free. He took a few extra sips, trying to formulate a response that wouldn’t trod all over this tentative peace.

“That would be because you’re sort of terrible at it,” he said, and then immediately winced. “Wait, I don’t mean it like that!”

Anxiety’s face had already flattened out, but luckily, he had taken a bite of the marshmallow fluff and thus his mouth was temporarily glued shut.

“I mean, your criticism is always very… pointed,” Roman tried. “You tell me what’s wrong with things, and don’t offer any suggestions on what to do instead— because I don’t let you.” 

Anxiety’s expression had been slowly darkening into a scowl, ears flattening, but at Roman’s last few words, surprise flitted across his face. The lashing of his tail eased.

“I suppose one could say I am a mite bit… sensitive, when it comes to my creative endeavors,” Roman managed to force out, graciously ignoring Anxiety’s snort. “I was biased against you from the start, and it only increased my unwillingness to hear you out on even the simplest matters. There’s no critique you want to hear less than one from someone you think of as your enemy. Even if that’s not the reality.”

Anxiety’s head jerked up slightly, staring at Roman more intently. His ears were perked up, sitting at attention. “What are you even talking about? I’m the antagonist, the— the villain. I am your enemy, remember?”

“You’re willingly helping me taste test foods from the Imagination,” Roman pointed out, passing over another bottle with elaborate gilded wiring wrapped around the neck of it. “Doesn’t seem particularly villainous to me.” 

“I’m just hungry,” Anxiety defended, knee-jerk. Then, frowning deeper, “You think everything I do is villainous. What’s going on?” 

“Is it that suspicious that I would hold a civil conversation with you?” Roman asked helplessly. 

“Yes,” Anxiety said flatly. “Especially when I can’t figure out how I got here, or why my body feels so terrible. So. Spill it.”

Roman chewed on the inside of his cheek for a long moment, still able to see the curse marks from the corner of his eye, and then sighed. He reached out and lifted up a small vial that he’d left under the table, so as to not get mixed up with the rest of the bunch. He set it on the couch cushion between them, and the shimmering silver liquid inside swirled idly. 

“This is a calming tonic,” he stated plainly. “I’ll explain, but I want you to promise that if you begin to panic, you’ll take it.” 

“That doesn’t really make me feel not panicked,” Anxiety replied, glancing between Roman and the vial with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t think this could get more suspicious, but you’re really outdoing yourself.” 

“I need you to promise,” Roman repeated, trying to convey his sincerity through eye contact alone. “I’ll answer whatever questions you have, but I need to be sure it’ll be safe.”

Something in Anxiety’s body language went tight and coiled. “Ha, I get it.” he practically snarled, lip curling. “You think whatever you’ve got to say to me is going to make me hurt someone. No wonder you were playing nice. You want me under control.”

His show of anger would have been more convincing if the dragon parts of him weren’t drawing in like a dog preparing to be hit. The mark pulsed visibly, and Roman choked down the terror in his throat, forcing himself to answer. 

“Anxiety, you hurting someone else is the last thing I’m worried about,” he said, entirely honestly. “If you can’t trust that, trust that if I thought of you as an enemy or a danger, I wouldn’t resort to underhanded means like trickery. Historically, haven’t I challenged you to enough duels to prove that much?” 

An idea struck Roman like a hammer, and he raised his hand like a knight swearing an oath. “On my honor, I shall not seek to hurt, imprison, or manipulate you. If you do need to drink the tonic, I won’t let anything happen to you while you’re under the effects.” 

The promise had been enough of an olive branch for Puff, back during their first meeting, and though Anxiety still looked a little too hunted for his liking, he had at least paused to consider Roman’s words. 

“Fine. If you aren’t lying, I promise,” he finally grit out. “Now, tell me what’s going on.” 

“You got cursed rescuing us,” Roman explained, sacrificing his usual dramatic flair in favor of imparting the most important information first. “The curse feeds off fear, and so we’ve been trying to find ways to keep you from panicking before we break it, hence all the caution.”

Already, Anxiety was staring at him with wide eyes. “I’m going to freak out.” 

“Do not freak out,” Roman replied immediately, and then cleared his throat unconvincingly. “I mean. There’s no need to worry, Edgar Allen Woe. We’re all working on it, so surely you’ll soon be as right as rain once more!” 

“Why?” Anxiety asked, the question bursting free as though it had sat on the back of his tongue for a while now. “It’s none of your business, so why are you guys suddenly interested in me? You people have hobbies to indulge in and pets to pamper and family dinners to eat. I’m— I’m not your problem.” 

The tirade had started vehement, but by the end, Anxiety’s voice had died down into something quiet and bitter. Roman felt another one of those miserable little pangs in his chest, and swallowed thickly.  

“Anxiety, you saved our lives, and you… well.” He paused, trying not to stare too obviously at Anxiety’s new reptilian features. “We learned something important about you. Don’t you remember?” 

“If I did, do you think I’d be asking—,” Anxiety started, only to stop dead as movement seemed to catch his eye. Slowly, he turned his head incrementally to face the purple tail lashing at his side. 

Roman could see the moment the penny dropped; Anxiety’s ears went so flat against his head they almost vanished, his shoulders hunched and his hands came up defensively, and his breathing instantly grew erratic. 

“You know?” he asked, the words coming out strangled, and then doubled over as the curse instantly began to pulse anew, much quicker than before. “Aggh—!” 

“Anxiety!” Roman reached out, only to freeze, stricken, as Anxiety ducked away from his hand like he thought Roman was about to attack him. His hands hovered uselessly in the air, and he resisted the urge to cry for help, for someone more qualified to help. “Anxiety, the— the vial! The calming tonic, it’ll help stop the curse!” 

Anxiety lifted his head enough to meet Roman’s eyes, scouring his expression, looking for something. His gaze dipped for a moment to the belt at Roman’s hip, and then he reached out and snagged the vial as another wave of pain wracked its way through his body. 

“You swore,” Anxiety reminded him in a croak, and before Roman could respond, he flicked the lid free and tipped the concoction down his throat. 

It took a few bracing seconds, but the nice thing about magic was that it worked a lot faster than pain medication. Roman didn’t realize just how much tension he’d been wound up with until Anxiety’s posture eased, and he let out a long sigh, practically going lax with the sudden relief. 

“Sir Gawain’s trousers, that was stressful,” Roman complained, slumping against the couch. “The Dragon Witch’s curses are the worst.” 

Anxiety’s hand had gone loose enough that the empty vial tipped out of it and tumbled right off the couch entirely, hitting the carpet with a small thunk. Roman felt a measure of nerves ratchet back up at the sight. “Anxiety? Are you alright?”  

(Goodness, was this how Anxiety felt all the time? No wonder he perpetually looked two steps from death.) 

Anxiety slowly uncurled from his previous pose, which could have been best described as “crumpled paper ball of agony.” His movements weren’t nearly as loose or unregulated as they had been while he’d been super out of it previously, but he wasn’t trembling or strung up like a musician’s bow, either. When he finally lifted his head, his expression wasn’t relaxed or fearful— just oddly… blank. 

Roman remembered their whispered conversations about the anti-Anxiety bracelet and what it had done, what it could do. He’d destroyed the remnants of the invention, haunted by imaginings of what could have happened, but the lingering image of always-expressive Anxiety being reduced to an empty shell was still present enough to make his stomach lurch at the sight. 

“Are… are you alright?” he asked, searching Anxiety’s face for any sign of what he was thinking. 

The other Side’s face twitched briefly before smoothing out again. “The curse stopped.” 

That wasn’t exactly an answer to his question, but before Roman could press, Anxiety had continued.

“What happened?” 

It had only been a day or two since everything had happened. A question like that shouldn’t have felt so insurmountable to answer, and yet… “What do you remember?” he hedged, still half-expecting that the curse would kick back in any second.

Anxiety frowned, his eyes slowly shifting to the side in apparent recollection. “He— I— Puff was following a noise. It was… a trap? You were all there, in the Imagination, and things were dangerous enough that I woke up. I got hit by something, and it hurt— why am I not discorporated?” 

“We managed to make it out of the Imagination thanks to Logic’s interference,” Roman explained, sort of wishing the Side in question was here to help now. “It’s been about a day since then, but I’m not surprised you don’t recall the last few times you woke up, you were fairly out of it.”

Anxiety just kept staring at him, as though he was still waiting for a proper answer to his question. 

“We couldn’t— I mean, we weren’t going to just let you discorporate. Especially since we aren’t sure whether or not the curse could interfere with your reformation if you succumbed to it,” Roman tried, though honestly he found it hard to believe that Anxiety would prefer to discorporate and come back anew. It wasn’t exactly a speedy process, and going by his chronic eavesdropping habits, Anxiety hated being left out of the loop for any length of time. 

“Oh.” Anxiety nodded slowly, processing. Then, he shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that.” 

Roman paused, thrown off by the apparent certainty. “Really? No side effects at all? Have you dealt with a curse like this before, then?” 

None of them had thought to ask Anxiety himself, though it seemed obvious in retrospect. Roman felt a little bubble of excitement growing in his chest at the possibility of a solid lead on breaking this curse. 

Anxiety frowned a little harder. “No. I mean… reforming. It won’t happen. There’s not enough of me left.”

“What?” The individual words were clear enough, but put together in that order, Roman couldn’t seem to make sense of them. “Anxiety, what are you—?” 

“I’m weak. I can’t do anything dangerous to anyone now,” Anxiety elaborated with a mild sort of impatience. “And I can’t reform, so you don’t have to worry about me coming back as an even bigger monster. There’s no reason to wait.” 

“I’m not— I’m not worried about you being dangerous,” Roman spluttered, half of his mind still stuck on the gut-wrenching knowledge that if he didn’t fix this, Anxiety would be gone, “or monstrous, or—!”

Anxiety reached out and seized Roman’s hand, guided it down to touch the sword hanging from his belt. 

“Listen, I want you to do it now,” he spoke quietly, without a single waver in his voice. “Whatever you gave me, it’s working. Like this, I’m not scared at all. I won’t make it difficult. I’ll keep still, okay? I’ll make it easy.”

Realization struck like a physical blow, and Roman flinched back, pressing his hand down on the hilt of his sword like it might somehow unsheathe itself. “No! What are you— No!” 

“You swore,” Anxiety grit out, a sudden bitter anger steeping in each word. “You said you wouldn’t make it hurt. I don’t want to feel afraid while it’s happening. I just want it to be over with. Please, I know I lied, I know it was wrong— I’m sorry. Don’t drag it out. Please.” 

Even now, the tonic did its work. There weren't any shuddered breaths or shaking hands, and the curse mark remained silent and stagnant where it curled over Anxiety’s shoulders. The fear and panic had been muffled down into nothing, leaving Anxiety hollowed-out, like a cored apple. 

“I swore I wouldn’t hurt you!” Roman half-shouted, his heart racing in his ears as though it was trying to make up for the blank, exhausted way Anxiety was pleading for a quick execution. “Killing you counts as hurting you! Why would you— Do you want to die?!” 

Anxiety blinked steadily at him, as though want had never factored into the equation. “I’m going to.”

“You’re NOT.” Unable to bear it, Roman stood up, tearing his sword from his belt and pitching it across the room like a javelin, ignoring the resulting crash. He wheeled around to point at Anxiety. “You’re going to stay here with us and drink strange glowing concoctions and wear gaudy jewelry and kiss even the ugliest of frogs for as long as it takes for us to figure out how to break this curse, and then you’re going to keep staying here with us until we can make up for everything that’s happened, and nobody is giving anybody any sort of death! Have I made myself clear?”

Anxiety looked back at him with wide eyes, and Roman realized quite abruptly that his face had gone all blotchy and hot. He reached up and found that his cheeks were distinctly wet.

Oh. How embarrassing.

“You aren’t allowed to give up,” he tried, even as his voice cracked and spilled into something much wetter, like a dropped egg. “You’re not allowed to convince us to give up, either.” 

And then, because he’d already lost any possible pretext of pride, he lunged forward to latch onto Anxiety and squeeze, as though he could hold all of the other Side’s pieces together through sheer force of will. 

Slowly, Anxiety’s hands came up to clutch at the front of Roman’s outfit, fingers digging in hard enough to leave permanent wrinkles. 

“I don’t understand,” he admitted into Roman’s shoulder, muffled and hopeless. “I don’t know why the three of you are doing this. You hate me. …You’re supposed to hate me.” 

“As if.” Roman clung tighter, stubbornly pretending he wasn’t leaving a growing wet patch on Anxiety’s own shoulder. “Since when were you one to follow such traditional narratives, anyhow? What kind of story would this be, if a dragon rescued the dashing adventurers from peril and got slain for it?” 

“A tragedy,” Anxiety offered. “Or a parody, maybe. One big, stupid joke.”

“It can’t be a joke,” Roman told him. “Nobody would laugh at something like that.”

Anxiety hummed dubiously. “It’s an aesop, then. No good deed goes unpunished. Monsters should stay monsters, because pretending otherwise just gets people hurt.” 

“Or maybe,” Roman suggested pointedly, “it’s a fable about not judging a book by its cover. Maybe the intrepid heroes assumed the worst of someone with good intentions, someone who was just a little rough around the edges. Maybe the heroes weren’t actually as valorous and noble as they thought they were, and… and someone innocent got hurt because of it.”

There was only a halfhearted mumble in response, and Roman realized that Anxiety was drooping to the side, nearly asleep once more. He wouldn’t be able to try any more of the edible items unless he was awake, and yet… 

With a sigh, Roman reached out and snagged a burnished comb from the table, leaning back so that the two of them were stretched out on the couch, side by side. He hummed softly as he began to run the comb through Anxiety’s hair, an old, half-forgotten melody from Thomas’s childhood. 

There was no miraculous change, no sudden burst of light to show that a random enchanted comb had saved them, and Roman wasn’t foolish enough to believe that any of the trinkets he’d brought would be any different. This wasn’t a simple ailment or minor hex. 

Anxiety’s curse fed on fear, the terror that was wound down into the very bones of his being, and only an equally dedicated answer would be able to pry its vicious teeth free. 

It was a daunting thought, especially now that he knew how important their effort was. Anxiety had been fading for weeks, and Deceit stepping in to patch over the holes had only distanced him further from his role as a Side. If they failed, if Anxiety was torn apart by the blow he’d taken on their behalf— that was it. They would lose him forever.

And he was fine with it. He’d accepted it with the same tired resignation that he’d worn when he’d offered to put the bracelet back on, to go back to that empty half-existence. He earnestly believed they wanted him gone. 

The mere thought made his gut twist with horror, and Roman forced a shaky inhale through his teeth before continuing to hum. If they could just convince Anxiety that they truly wanted to help him, that a chance was all they needed to do everything in their power to fix this— 

Except they didn’t have a single clue as to what was going on in Anxiety’s head, not really. If this disaster had shown Roman one thing, it was that willingness to help meant nothing if they didn’t know what Anxiety really needed. 

The thought caught on something like a flint on stone, sparking a sudden idea. Unfortunately, it was one that immediately made him want to groan. Still, he’d meant what he’d said about not giving up. 

This whole mess— all of them were entangled in it, and he suspected it would take all of them together to undo the knots that held them there. As much as Roman disliked it, there was undoubtedly someone who knew more about Anxiety than the rest of them. He probably had a better chance of convincing the emo to hear them out, too.

There had been a curious moment of hesitation before the creature had approached him in stuttering intervals, but Janus’s exhausted brain only barely had the wherewithal to send a bolt of instinctual terror down his spine at the sight of giant arachnid legs scuttling toward him. A proper analysis of the body language of the huge spider monster about to kill him was simply beyond his current capabilities. 

As it stood, his current capabilities were nothing to write home about, mostly consisting of a furious, unfocused glare and curling in on himself tightly, like a trapped viper about to snap. He’d thought himself clever by nature, but apparently cleverness didn’t linger after a full night of bleeding sluggishly in the freezing darkness. 

The monster moved closer, and the primal terror spiked into a surge of energy that let Janus thrash and kick as clawed fingers grabbed at him and lifted. His body put up a struggle as best it could, even as his fever-fogged mind strained to spin a plot that could get him away, but between one blurry wriggle and the next, he found himself securely held aloft by the startlingly humanoid upper half of the creature. 

He braced himself for the sting of fangs in his throat, claws in his gut, some sort of pain that would signal his final moments as a human sacrifice had arrived. Instead, there was a slight pang of pressure along his wounded leg, and then the monster began moving, still carrying him along like an oddly-shaped knapsack. 

The forward motion was abrupt enough that darkness clouded around the edges of his vision, and the passing surroundings were almost entirely lost to him. Every time he shifted, blood rushed in his ears, and he couldn’t seem to parse sound properly even in the moments when this sensation eased— a few times, it almost seemed as though he caught snatches of words, but who could possibly be speaking to him now, actively caught in the grasp of a monster? 

His consciousness went fuzzy and indistinct at that point, with barely any distinct impressions beyond the bleary confusion of fever and the vague reflexive feeling of occasionally trying to bite at a threat. 

Time seemed to jump every time he blinked, and each time he opened his eyes again, there was some new element before him that didn’t make the slightest lick of sense. 

A blink, and he was laid out at an unfamiliar campsite, damp cloth growing warm on his forehead, with human silhouettes moving around a nearby campfire and human voices bickering or chattering with no trace of fear. His mouth was blocked by something uncomfortable, and then suddenly it wasn’t, and his throat worked as water was delicately tipped into his dry mouth.

Another blink, and then he was under the curve of a cavern wall instead, the air musty but pleasantly cool on his skin, and the only sound was a whispery pattering that made unease roil in the back of his mind. There was soft fabric protecting him from the bare ground, a water canteen periodically pressed to the edge of his lips, and he caught the beginning of a low, pleasant hummed tune as another of those too-long blinks dragged him back under. 

And then there were soft human fingertips prying an eyelid up, a clinical-sounding voice decreeing improvement. In the corner of his vision, something inhuman shifted slightly— but his attention was drawn away by the cool press of a palm against his torched skin, far more soothing than expected. The hand remained even as he whispered senseless pleas for the heat to relent. 

At one point, he held a full conversation that must have been dreamed up, for all he remembered of it was that the concerned hands attending him were now accompanied by a face that was just a few features off from entirely human. Sort of like his own face, he mused, shortly before finally letting his head tip down into sleep.

When his fever finally broke, the first thing he noticed was how disgusting the sweat-drenched padding under him felt. 

The second thing he noticed was that the spider creature was seated on the ground only a few armlengths away, its dark glittering eyes focused on what seemed to be a bundle of webbing it was fiddling with. 

Janus spent several moments frozen in place, trying to understand why his body was splayed out in a makeshift nest of fabric and woven blankets, rather than shredded to bits with the choicest bits devoured. The few fuzzy fever memories he could scrounge up proved generally unhelpful, and there was no logical sequence of steps he could imagine would land him in such a predicament. 

Confounded thusly, he still had no plan of action when the creature finally glanced up at him and then away, a couple of seconds passing before its head whipped back around in a surprised double take. 

Several of its legs twitched as though preparing to lift that bulbous lower body up, which was absolutely not allowed. Fueled by the fear of getting attacked in such a helpless position, Janus scrambled as upright as he could manage, shaking blankets free as he got to his hands and knees and crawled backwards gracelessly to put some space between them. 

His head swam, a punishing pressure on his temples as his body tried to acclimate to suddenly being vertical, but he refused to tear his gaze away from the creature before him for even a moment. He immediately hated the way it had gone still, only watching him with those dark eyes and an expression that would have been apprehension on a human. 

“You’re awake,” it said, because Janus had the worst luck in the world and had apparently gotten sacrificed to one of the few monsters out there advanced enough to talk in human tongues. “Uh… How are you feeling?” 

“I’m poisonous,” Janus announced, because he wasn’t answering faux-polite questions from a beast playing with its food, and also because he needed to establish himself quickly as unappetizing as possible. “Extremely, exceedingly poisonous.” 

“O…kay?” The drider blinked at him, appearing nonplussed. “That seems more like a state of being than an emotion.” 

Moving with an oddly purposeful slowness, it drew its legs in and rose to a ‘standing’ position, tucking the project it had been messing with away in a belted bag along its upper torso. It wore a concerning number of human artifacts for a monster in the woods, and Janus tried not to identify any of the items as things that could have belonged to previous sacrifices. At least none of his own clothing had been nabbed… yet. 

“Did your fever break?” the drider asked, remaining where it was but tilting its head slightly in a mimicry of curiosity. “You’ve spoken some before, but it seems like this time you actually know where you are.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” His current estimation of his surroundings was “ominous cave”. The creature asking about his lucidity levels was a concerning line of interrogation to begin with, one that Janus struggled not to get distracted by. (Why did it want him lucid? How did it even know about fever delirium? Did spiders catch colds? What about half-spider monsters?) He stretched a shaky arm out to the nearby cavern wall, using it to propel himself up to a standing position, because the creature was looming far taller than he was comfortable with. 

“Wait, don’t—,” the monster started, and lunged forward just as Janus staggered, his vision graying out and legs going numb under the onslaught of rising too quickly. 

Arms caught him by the shoulders, barely preventing him from smashing his face against the stone wall. Unable to process anything but the urge to survive, Janus didn’t hesitate to twist around and unthinkingly sink his teeth into his would-be captor. 

There was a sharp inhale, but the hands didn’t recede and the flesh under his teeth wasn’t yanked away the way it should have been. Slowly, he was guided back to a seated position on the floor. 

“Ow,” the monster’s voice intoned above him, distinctly aggrieved. Because this time, Janus had bit a creature that was surely more than capable of biting back, with much more lethal fangs. 

He jerked back, his curved teeth popping free. 

The drider clapped a hand over the line of bleeding punctures Janus had left behind, an eyebrow twitching in irritation. “Ow, again. You’re lucky I’m not poisonous.” 

Janus waited, braced for a return strike or some other, more creative punishment, but the creature simply stared at him with that strangely accurate replica of a bewildered glare for a moment, and then turned its attention to inspecting the bite mark. 

Maybe its nerves were dulled from a previous injury, or driders simply had a less sensitive sense of touch on the human-looking upper part of their bodies. Janus knew that the appearance of the bite would alarm it; the venom wasn’t lethal, but it caused the surrounding skin to flush with a sickening yellow-green tinge, near impossible to ignore. The sight was much worse than the actual pain, a useful bluff that was now working against him.

Already, the drider’s face had begun to cloud with dismay. Janus was sitting upright, a few handbreadths from its nearest leg, but currently unbound. Now was the best and possibly only chance he’d get to escape, weakened body or no. 

He wasn’t the sort to miss an opportunity. The moment the creature seemed more distracted with prodding the wound than watching him, he twisted to push off the floor and bolt away. 

There was an ominous clicking from behind him, one that echoed off the cave walls in an utterly spine-chilling manner, but no distinct footsteps. Spider legs, Janus recalled, and resisted the urge to crane his head and check if the drider was sneaking up on him from above. Either he made it or he didn’t; looking behind would only slow him down. 

The cave wasn’t nearly as deep or labyrinthine as he’d feared. The natural light grew stronger with each step he took, until he could see the mouth of the cave ahead. A few more steps and he’d be out. Hope spiked in him, hot like an iron from the forge– 

And then there was a grip twisted in the back of his shirt, lifting him clear off the ground, and that hope was doused as though plunged into a vat of ice water. He didn’t bother shouting, refusing to entertain the monster with futile cries for help. Instead, he threw his everything into twisting and thrashing, snapping his teeth loudly in case he could make the beast flinch for even a moment. 

“Stop– freaking– out,” the creature instructed between huffs, wrangling his flailing arms to his sides. “You’re gonna tear your stitches!”  

“Let me go,” Janus hissed, “or you’ll perish before you can find the antidote to my lethal venom.”

“If I die because I tried to help you out, I’m going to be so pissed off about it,” the creature responded with equal vitriol, before suddenly raising its voice. “Logan! I need a tourniquet, if you’re not busy. I might be dying, though, so please don’t be busy.” 

“Dying?!” Three alarmed, uncannily human-sounding voices echoed back. Janus felt the blood draining from his face. If he was to be split between four monsters, he wished they’d done it while he’d been unconscious. 

Meanwhile, the hands holding him aloft had tightened, as though surprised. “What the– That’s not what I was trying to say. I’m not–,” the sentence died out with a gurgle. “I’m completely– That’s not– I didn’t mean to say that, because I thought it’d alarm you guys!” 

A pause, and then the sound of rapid footsteps growing closer. “Being possibly-dying is a good reason to alarm us, say that first next time!” one of the voices called.

“I didn’t mean to say it at all,” the creature grumbled, sounding an awful lot like most victims of Janus’s truth-inducing venom. Before he could follow that logic to its conclusion, Janus’s attention was swiftly diverted by the appearance of startlingly normal silhouettes at the mouth of the cave. Those certainly didn’t look like more driders. 

“Oh, our guest is awake!” The shortest of the three enthused, features barely discernible from behind the others.

“You’d think that would make one less bitey, but apparently not,” another replied, looking for all the world like a standard adventurer, the kind that Janus used to dupe out of their coin thrice a week. “How does it feel to be on the other side of the fangs, Black Widork?” 

“Pretty sure I’ve gotten bitten by tougher squirrels.” The drider shifted slightly. “Can we focus on the bite? It didn’t hurt that badly but it looks bad and I don’t know what the venom does but I’ve been moving and sort of panicking, so it's definitely circulating around and it could be reaching my heart right now–”

“This will hurt,” the final stranger interjected, before sharply tightening a leather belt around the drider’s arm above the bite mark. The creature hissed sharply but didn’t attack at all, its grip on Janus remaining firm but not painful. “You should put him down, elevating your arms like that isn’t helping your circulation concerns.”

“I don’t even know if I’m going to survive this, and I’m a big scary spider monster with way more mass,” the creature argued. “There’s no way he’s getting within biting distance of you guys. You’re delicate.”

The adventurer gasped in dramatic offense. The one applying the tourniquet paused to raise an eyebrow. Meanwhile, the shortest one had sidled over to face Janus directly, head tipped back to make eye contact. 

“You don’t need to run away,” he said, offering a sympathetic smile. “Virgil isn’t going to hurt you, and neither are we. We’re only trying to help you.” 

Janus stared at him with the most poisonous disbelief he could manage, not even deigning to come up with a response to such inane, boldfaced lies. 

“Well, I mean, we did agree that this technically qualified as an abduction,” the adventurer chimed in. “A benign abduction, out of goodwill, but still.” 

The short one puffed out his cheeks petulantly. “Even so, that’s still no reason to bite Virgil!” 

“By definition, fear of an abductor would qualify as a reason,” the third stranger added. “Though the decision was still an irrational one, based primarily in fear.” 

“Irrational?!” Janus spat, gaze flicking between the three of them as he sought out some hint as to what kind of creatures they were. The hands holding him had drooped slightly, his feet closer to the ground. If he could just stall… 

 “You guys are biased,” the drider spoke again, unintentionally aiding Janus’s plot. “It’s normal to be afraid of monsters. It’s you three who are the abnormal ones.” Then, blurted quicker: “That’s why I’m so grateful to have met you all.” 

The conversation stalled for a moment, before the strangers burst into sound, most of it consisting of delighted cooing.

“Careful, King of Spidarkness, that almost sounded like sentiment,” the adventurer snarked, his mockery undercut by his genuine grin. 

The short one was practically bouncing in place. “Aww, Virge, we love you too!”  

“I’m not– I don’t– That isn’t–,” the creature was practically gargling, unable to downplay the truth with Janus’s venom in his system. His, because apparently this monster was enough of a person that the enchantment of Janus’s cursed venom actually worked on him.

“I am grateful to have met you as well,” the third faux human (?) added, sealing the drider’s fate. “If this confession is prompted by a belief that you are about to die, please rest assured that the venom doesn’t appear to be causing necrosis or any serious damage to the surrounding tissues, and so the chances of lethality are slim to none.”

“I hate that necrosis is a real word. Are you sure? Nevermind, of course you’re sure, you’re Logan.” The drider switched to scruffing Janus by one hand again, turning him so that they could make eye contact properly. “You said it was lethal!” 

“You– I–,” Janus couldn’t quite wrangle his dumbfounded expression into something more composed, but he forced the words out anyhow, unwilling to miss the chance to confirm for himself. “What color is the sky? How many legs do you have? What’s your biggest fear?”

“Blue, eight, killing a loved one,” the drider answered, barely having to think about it, the words flowing like water. The moment the last answer left his mouth, his eyes went wide and stunned, as though he’d just been sucker punched in the gut.  

There were assorted concerned sounds from the other three, as well, but Janus didn’t have time for them to hash out the implications of that little tidbit. “Are you going to kill, torture, or eat me? Or any combination of the aforementioned options?”

“No!” the creature denied immediately, recoiling with disgust but no real surprise. “I don’t eat humans. Or things that can talk back to me in general.”

“Was the sight of three humans conversing casually and safely in his presence not proof enough for you?” the third human asked, a sharpness to his tone that hadn’t been present before. 

Janus took a long moment to survey the lot of them, and then turned back to… ‘Virgil’.

“Are the three of them actually human?” he asked plainly. 

The drider blinked rapidly in apparent disorientation, but his answer came just as swiftly as the others. “Yeah, as far as I know. Patton might have some extremely diluted fae blood in his ancestry, though.”

“What, really?” the adventurer asked. 

“Me?” The short apparently-real-human tilted his head curiously. “I’m a-fae-raid I don’t know about that one!” 

“I wasn’t planning on mentioning it,” Virgil muttered, and then shot Janus a look of desperation and apprehension in equal parts. “Why am I saying all of this? What did you do to me?” 

Janus pretended to deliberate for a moment, giving himself the time to smooth all his raised hackles back into place. “Nothing permanent, I assure you. I believe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Release me, and I would be more than happy to peaceably explain the effects and duration of my venom.”

He pretended not to notice the suspicion on the drider’s face as he was slowly lowered so his feet settled solidly on the ground once more. People were more complicated than monsters, but they also happened to be his area of expertise. One couldn’t hold a persuasive conversation with a feral manticore, but a drider competent enough to trick three humans into believing him harmless? That, Janus could parlay with. 

It wasn’t just about the scar, either. The clear and damning evidence of torture, a calculated and possessive torture to boot, was only the most obvious sign. The fact that it had taken them this long to notice it was embarrassing, but to be fair to Remus, he’d been preoccupied noticing a whole lot of the other signs. 

The littler, less obtrusive ones, like the way he retired to his room at the same time every night, even though the Prince of Paranoia had eased up on his guard dog duties to the point that none of them would have blinked twice at Patton taking a midnight walk or grabbing a glass of water. The way he had quietly and discreetly taken over all the household chores that Janus loathed the most, and seemed almost uncomfortable at the idea of sitting down and relaxing with them on the rare days that they weren’t out in the city. The way he lived in an undecorated guest room in borrowed clothing and with not a single pair of civilian shoes to his name, like a prisoner, without a qualm.  

Remus knew what it looked like when someone tried to make themself smaller in the hopes of avoiding bad attention. It had never worked for him– he was the type to drag the attention in regardless, revel in the looks and shouts even if they were full of hatred– but he’d seen it enough that it was easy to recognize the picture Patton painted with all these quiet habits.

What was harder to puzzle out was why. 

Lightshow had been a solid, towering bastion of a villain, reciting his monologues and launching his attacks without hesitation. What array of memories could have been taken away to uncover Patton, like the soft, chewy core to a particularly sanctimonious-flavored Tootsie Pop?

… Or maybe, the real question was: what exactly had been done to Patton to force him into the role of Lightshow? And most importantly, who had done it, and how quickly could Remus get his hands on them? 

“The previous incidents have been subtle. Without Lightshow’s presence as an indicator, I haven’t been able to narrow down when or where our opponent has been striking, not amidst all the other criminal activity that occurs daily,” Janus admitted as his expression darkened into something thunderous. “It wasn’t my highest priority, before. It most certainly will be now.”

Remus grinned in satisfaction, the edges of his mouth splitting further than humanly possible. Having the full force of Janus’s attention lock onto one goal was a surefire way to get a proper lead on this guy, and he was looking forward to hunting the fucker down. 

Normally, he’d be too antsy to sit around while Janus did all his fancy info-gathering and investigating, but luckily he had the perfect task to occupy himself for the duration: retail therapy!

“I’ll leave all the boring stuff to you, Janabanana,” he announced with a sloppy salute. “And in the meantime, the rest of us will go shopping!” 

Sure enough, that was enough to drag Janus’s attention away from the meticulous plotting he was about to sink into and get forever lost in, bog-style. His head snapped up to glare narrowly at Remus. “Not with my wallet, you won’t.” 

“Don’t be so cold-blooded, snakeboy,” Remus shot back brightly, “it’s for a good cause. Glowbug needs a real wardrobe, as much as I’m sure you like seeing him in our pajamas.”

“You—!” Janus smacked Remus’s arm, ignoring the meaty thwack of it detaching and tumbling onto the floor between them. Truly, Remus’s genius comedic gags were wasted in this household. 

“I’ll sue you for libel,” Janus finally managed, which meant he was flustered enough to resort to legalese, and thus Remus automatically won the banter. “Put those eyebrows away before I tell Virgil who ate the last of his special edition Halloween poptarts and he shaves them off in your sleep again.” 

Remus obediently stopped wiggling his eyebrows. 

After a brief pause to sigh extensively and pretend to massage away a headache he absolutely didn’t have, Janus conceded. “Clothes only. Do not bring back any more exotic animals or repossessed organ coolers, I cannot emphasize enough how troublesome the paperwork gets.” 

“I don’t choose to find the kidneys, the kidneys find me,” Remus intoned solemnly, before snatching one of Janus’s wallets off his desk and hightailing it out of his bedroom. “No promises!” 

Janus flicked his fingers, telekinetically hurling Remus’s abandoned arm out the door after him. “Bring home a box of my usual tea or I’ll change the locks while you’re out!”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time!” Remus called back over his shoulder, and then proceeded to skid directly into Virgil’s door at the end of the hall. The thud of impact was loud enough to rattle windows, because he was a professional. 

When this move garnered no immediate results, he dragged his phone out of his pocket and spammed the group chat with the same extremely low quality gif from Mean Girls, about 37 times. 

After a truly apathetic amount of time had passed, their resident emo pulled the door open, looking as ghoulish as ever. He glanced down at Remus, who was crumpled in a heap upon his doorstep, and then stepped over him to walk down the hall. “No.”

“Gasp!” Remus pointed his detached arm at Virgil in not-so-silent accusation. “Party foul! Nobody can deny the power of Regina George’s summons to shop!” 

Virgil didn’t even turn to look. “You won’t catch me in pink on Wednesday, either.” 

Patton, bless his little heart, had already poked his head out of his own doorway shortly after the original wall-shaking thump of impact, and now visibly brightened at the approach. “Oh, are you guys going shopping?” 

There it was. As always, he assumed that any outdoor ventures were off-limits, because they’d never clarified that he wasn’t actually a prisoner in so many words. They hadn’t really thought that they’d needed to, that investigating the circumstances of his past and providing him a home in the present was enough to show him that he was someone they wanted to protect, not trap.

Even if his teammates, suspicious creatures that they were, were still watching out for some larger plot, it didn’t change the fact that Patton had wormed his way into their hearts like an alien parasite nestling into an astronaut’s chest cavity. 

Besides, even if they had rescued a less charming and pun-oriented individual, they wouldn’t have sentenced them to indeterminate confinement in one of their safehouses. Patton was effectively a civilian at the moment, their shared history of superpowered murder matches set aside, and didn’t pose a threat to anything but the potted plant he kept overwatering. For civilians, there were official channels one could reach out to for aiding those suffering from superpower aftereffects, multiple organizations that would provide resources and housing to a victim of mind manipulation. This much should have been part of the general knowledge that Glowbug still had, but instead, he walked around like one wrong step would get him locked into a medieval torture device and slowly disemboweled. 

Despite his cheerful demeanor, it was obvious that Patton always expected the worst, and even more concerningly, he seemed to accept it as his due without complaint or protest. Remus couldn’t even be irritated about the misunderstanding, because it had become abundantly clear that someone had used torture to rewire Glowbug’s brain into a minefield, and brains did what they had to survive when it came to that kind of thing. 

Patton didn’t have to make himself small to survive anymore. Not here. The three of them just had to make sure he understood that, too.

Thus decided, Remus made meaningful eye contact with Virgil, attempting to convey his very subtle and lowkey plan: namely, to convince Patton of their affection and his permanence in their household by drowning him in material possessions. 

Blissfully unaware of his own role in Remus’s machinations, Patton tilted his head slightly, blinking curiously. Really, who could resist that face?

As expected, Virgil folded like a soggy piece of bread in the face of their combined psychological pressure. “Alright, fine. But I’m driving.” 

—

Virgil drove exceedingly carefully for someone with that strong of a death grip on the steering wheel, which meant that Remus had plenty of time and attention to dedicate to reassuring Patton that everything was fine.

Which was good, because Patton took a lot of reassuring. He’d practically had to be coaxed out of the apartment in the first place, and the whole drive there was filled with increasingly antsy questions.

By the time they reached the mall’s parking lot, Remus was half-convinced that he should have brought Janus along after all, if only so that Patton would finally be sure that they weren’t sneaking out under his nose. 

“Are you sure—,” Glowbug started, and Remus began to wonder if picking him up and shaking him would help the words sink in faster.

“Relax,” Virgil finally cut in, grimacing as though even just the word tasted hypocritical in his mouth. “We’re going shopping for clothes so you don’t have to wear dusty hand-me-downs all the time.”

“You really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Patton tried weakly. “I don’t have any money—,”

“Money, schmoney!” Remus flapped a hand casually. “We do this all the time, Deedee’s got us covered.”

“It’s part of the contract between us and the city. We have a monthly stipend for victim care,” Virgil elaborated, adjusting his hood around his shoulders as Remus gallantly opened the passenger-side door for Patton to climb out. “It would just go to waste if we didn’t use it for stuff like this.” 

Patton stared at the mostly-vacant parking lot as though the ground was covered in poisonous vipers. “What if it’s not safe?” 

Virgil turned to scan the parking lot as though the mall was going to come to life and eat them, because he was twitchy about questions like that. Remus knew exactly what sort of ‘unsafe’ circumstances Glowbug was worried about, and leaned down to meet his gaze. 

“We’ll be right beside you,” he promised, grinning wholeheartedly. “There’s probably not a more secure place in the whole city than wedged between the two of us, no matter what kind of power someone’s packing.” 

Remus had run the gamut of having unstable powers himself, he was more than familiar with the terror of not being able to trust in oneself. So, this was his promise: if Patton somehow snapped right back to the supervillain they used to battle so often, the two of them would make sure he couldn’t hurt any civilians. 

Patton swallowed thickly, and Remus didn’t miss the way his hand twitched up to graze a spot just under his collarbones, as though seeking reassurance. 

(He’d noticed the locket the previous night, though he wasn’t sure Patton had noticed him notice it. It certainly hadn’t come up before in any of the conversations they’d had about Patton’s missing memories, but Remus had picked up on several little motions like this, ones that seemed habitual and well-worn. Like he was brushing a hand over a treasured gift. 

Remus hadn’t asked, not yet. But he had a feeling that once Patton was ready to go seeking out more answers about his past, that locket would be the first place to look.) 

“Okay,” Patton managed after a few more moments. “Do I still get to keep the hand-me-downs? I’m pretty loon-y about those duck pajamas.” 

“You bet my bottom you can!” Remus answered, extending an elbow for Patton to hold onto as they made their way to the main entrance. 

“I don’t think a loon is a kind of duck,” Virgil contributed, because he was a hater. 

“You’re probably right,” Patton said. “I guess when it comes to identifying birds… I ran outta duck.” 

Remus cheered obnoxiously, and then course-corrected when Virgil started veering a little too close to the Hot Topic. “Let’s put a quack in our finances!” 

“Or we could not do that,” Patton laughed nervously, but the longer they went without earning a second glance from the other patrons around them, the more he began to relax. 

Remus was killing this whole ‘re-socializing your supervillain’ thing. He should write a book.

He let Virgil take over once they actually reached a department store, because his idea of fashionable and/or comfortable was often deeply contradictory to the general public’s, and they were trying to find clothes that Patton could wear outside without getting gawked at. So, not really Remus’s area of expertise.

After an extensive period of offering Patton different fabric types and then different types of tops and bottoms (of the clothing kind), and scrutinizing his reactions with the sort of focused intensity one might perform open heart surgery with, Virgil successfully narrowed their options down to a pretty solid selection of outfits. There was also a surplus of graphic tees, because Patton kept smiling at the jokes on them and then they mysteriously ended up stuffed in the shopping cart the moment he looked away. 

Through a brief series of glances and hand motions usually used in the field, the two of them mutually decided that Virgil would go buy the clothes on his lonesome, thus ensuring Patton wouldn’t have to witness whatever ridiculous number Macy’s was charging for pants in this day and age. 

While Virgil departed for the checkout, Remus steered Patton towards the furniture section with plenty of promises that it was only to take a little look-see, they weren’t going to buy anything else today, really! 

(He wasn’t lying, of course. Furnishing Patton’s room would just have to be a tomorrow project. Hooray for technical truths!) 

The trip had been going swimmingly, to the point that Glowbug was finally chattering on with his usual level of confidence, so Remus probably should have expected that it wouldn’t last. 

As it was, he only had a heartbeat to notice the sudden reddish tinge to all the lights before the skylight above exploded into a billion razor-sharp glass shards. 

Remus shoved Patton under the sturdiest-looking desk in reach with a yelp, and paid for his moment of inattention by getting nearly bowled over by the charge of a mechanical knight, all of its deceivingly delicate-looking plating painted a bright, firetruck red. 

His brother always had had the worst sense of timing. 

Remus twisted his body in half just in time to avoid being decapitated by a swing of the contruct’s gleaming broadsword, and retaliated by kicking it in the groin, hard enough to knock it into the perfume display across the aisle. Someone screamed shrilly nearby. 

If you don’t piss off right now I’m telling mom about our eighth birthday party, Remus thought very intently in the general direction of the automatons descending dramatically through the ceiling. Absolutely nothing about the scene changed, which meant that twin telepathy really was a scam, and Remus wanted a refund. 

“Stay put, Glowbug, Umbra will be here in a snap,” he promised, certain that Virgil had heard the cacophony and was on his way. “I need to go re-enact that one scene from the Old Testament, you know, the one with the rock. It’ll only take me a minute!” 

Flashing Patton a thumbs up, he spun around and punched the head right off of another automaton, stomping on the chest of it until it caved in, utterly ruining the intricate latticework. It began to self-repair immediately, one of the bitchier enchantments Roman had managed to work into his craft, but Remus was quick enough to yank the glowing crystal out of its torso and return the construct to inert metal. He tucked the energy source into a pocket so Roman couldn’t salvage it from the remains later, just to add a little insult to injury. 

(Roman had tried making them self-destruct when removed at one point, but that charming quirk had quickly been redacted after a battle where Remus had destroyed twenty-three constructs in one go by lobbing a freshly-removed energy crystal directly at the biggest group and starting a chain reaction. These days, his brother knew better than to offer grenade-adjacent opportunities on a platter.)

He heard Patton trying to say something to him, concern evident in his tone, but the words were drowned out by another nearby scream, and a quick once-over of the store showed that the place was being swarmed by medieval warriors and mythical beasts, all of them made from that shining red metal. 

“Just hang on!” There wasn’t any time for conversation, not with this many civilians in imminent danger and no Janus at hand to help with evac. “I’ll be back in two shakes of a duck’s tail, Glowbug, I swear!” 

Patton nodded from under the desk, face still crinkled with worry, and Remus checked one last time that there weren’t any other constructs nearby before he sprinted off, snatching the black cylindrical handle from his belt and flicking its switch as he went. The energy weapon buzzed into its usual form, a morning star made of neon green light, and he immediately swung it full force at the chimera lunging at him. 

Remus bared his teeth in a grin, relishing the earsplitting crunch of mangled machinery, and pressed on towards the next opponent. 

Roman couldn’t help the dark thoughts that stirred at the back of his mind; he was well aware that this was the perfect setup for a trap, and they had no backup to rely on if the encounter took a turn for the worse. Humans were dangerous, but they were also profitable, enough that more unsavory types wouldn’t hesitate to take the risk if it meant obtaining one.

His armor had long since been strapped on, and now he took the trouble to arm himself with one of his more durable blades. He didn’t typically need more than his own claws and scales to deter his opponents, but the current situation certainly warranted the extra precaution. 

Logan and Patton had listened to his orders and waited for him to take the lead, but they were both visibly antsy as he stepped past. He felt the same worried impatience that gripped his shipmates, but forced himself to move slowly as he disembarked with his ears pricked and his scales half-spiked. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake, not with so much on the line.

If Logan’s contact was seeking out rumors of Humans to sell them off to the highest bidder, they needed to know before they said anything that might give away Virgil’s presence on their ship. 

Roman might not be as clever with words or people as Logan or Patton, but he was the strongest of the three of them, with reflexes honed by years of all sorts of battle. If things seemed off, he would have the best chance of making it back to the ship so they could flee. 

In theory, anyhow.

He couldn’t see anyone else laying in wait, but Logan’s contact hadn’t approached the ship or even walked out onto the open dock itself. Instead, he had to make the trek across to the inner hatch to get close enough to speak with them. His sword remained sheathed at his side, ready to draw at a moment’s notice. 

The contact was a Meeska, a mammalian species that was identified most obviously by the long stripe of wiry pink fur that ran from their long snout down their back all the way to the tip of their branch-like tail. They took a single step forward, nose tipping up and down as they made a whuffling noise that Roman wasn’t versed enough in their body language to interpret.

“Are you… ‘Disneyland’?” Roman asked, trying not to struggle too visibly with the pronunciation. Logan had warned that it was undoubtedly an alias, likely one from a different culture entirely since it used phonetic combinations that didn’t exist in most Meeska native languages. 

The stranger bobbed their head in his direction for a moment longer before actually deigning to answer. “Depends.” 

Not precisely the promising start Roman had hoped for. “On what?” 

“On you,” the stranger answered promptly, leaning to the side a bit to peer down the open entry bay to the Mindscape. “And what your little crew has come for.” 

“We’re seeking information,” Roman replied, struggling to keep a wary growl from escaping as he stepped pointedly in front of their line of sight. “If you can’t provide it, kindly don’t waste any more of our time.” 

Another whuffle, this one distinctly unimpressed. “Never said I can’t provide it.” They continued before Roman could bite out a retort, their words rapidfire. “The message spoke of Humans. What kind of information are you seeking about Deathworlders? How they kill things? What sedatives have a chance of working? Where to find one? Or maybe where to find the highest bidder for one?”

With each increasingly horrifying question, Roman’s scales ruffled up further and further, until he resembled a living pincushion. He was showing too much, getting riled too easily, he knew, but he couldn’t help the flare of fury. 

After half a lifetime of being seen as ‘rare’, Roman had already known just how easy it was for someone to be reduced from a person to a prize in the darker corners of the galaxy. It was bad enough having to hear such speculation about himself or his crewmates. But being forced to think about phrases like ‘the highest bidder’ in conjunction with the bright-eyed child they’d grown so attached to? That was truly intolerable. 

They would find somewhere else, someone else who knew how to help their kid. There had to be some soul out there that could see a Human without thinking of all the best ways to hurt them for profit. 

“You don’t have anything we want,” he grit out, taking a step back with a threatening rattle of his scales. “Coming here was a mistake.” 

“You can say that again!” a voice agreed cheerfully from behind him. 

Roman felt dread ripple down his spine as he began to twist around, only for something hard to swing against the side of his head with enough force to make his vision instantly go white with pain. He barely registered crashing to the ground through the agony, clutching at his head as though he could hold what felt like the fragments of his skull together. 

“Huh, the horns really do wire straight into the nerves on this one!” that voice continued, the words nothing more than gibberish in Roman’s ears. “Dibs on keeping the skull when we kill this guy!” 

—

Logan had never been so grateful for having two sets of arms as he was now, forced to wrangle his crewmate into staying put with one pair of arms even as he used the other pair to rapidly navigate the emergency signal broadcast settings on his comm. 

Patton was furious and terrified in equal measure, his struggling only held back by an unwillingness to hurt Logan’s delicate exoskeleton in the process.

Logan couldn’t blame him, not with the horrific scene that had just unfolded before their eyes. 

They could only see a fraction of the dock from their position on the very top of the ship’s entry ramp, and so neither of them had spotted the new Human in time. It was only the horrible animal cry that Roman had made that warned them, prompting them to lunge a few more steps forward, far enough to spot the original contact quickly slipping away, replaced by a new figure towering over their friend’s collapsed body. 

The stranger was like a warped reflection of the kid they’d grown to love, endowed with the same long bipedal limbs, fleshy skin, and uncanny eyes. The instinctive horror took a moment to wrangle down, but the longer Logan looked, the more differences he spotted, until his mind accepted that the two Humans didn’t resemble each other much at all. 

The stranger was much paler, with more hair in different places, and had strange metal tokens embedded in several different places along their face. They stood upright at a much taller height than Virgil, wore bright green clothing splattered with what Logan could only hope was paint, and currently had a heavy metal sewage pipe slung casually over their shoulder. Most unnerving of all was their vicious grin, stretching wide across their face as though to split it in half. 

At their feet, Roman was still down, grounded by the blow in a way they’d never seen before. His body was curling in on itself in a reflexive protective gesture that Logan only recognized from once witnessing Roman tossing and turning in the midst of a nightmare. 

Unfortunately for the three of them, the current predicament was all too real. 

The Human observed Roman’s fallen form with their head tilted at a painful-looking angle, never losing that unsettling smile. “Dibs on keeping the skull when we kill this guy!” 

Logan wasn’t catching every word, since the Human apparently only bothered to translate every other sentence, but he’d understood the threat in their last eager announcement just fine. 

“‘If we kill this guy’is the phrase you’re looking for there,” a new voice replied in flawless Common, their tone dry as desert stone. “A slip of the tongue, I’m sure. After all, our guests are innocent until proven guilty, as they say back home.” 

Logan clutched Patton tighter, and even the Ampen paused his desperate wriggling upon hearing how close that other voice was. Roman had clearly checked the area as he’d left the ship— how had not one, but two hostilestrangers managed to corner them like this?

All those times Virgil had managed to sneak up on them, and Logan had only ever noted the instances as another example of a child’s harmless mischief. Suddenly, it felt like a horrendous oversight that he hadn’t thought twice about the implications of a Human displaying the behavior of an ambush predator.

There was a nasally hum as the green Human rocked back on their heels. “If we’re going by back home rules, they also sometimes say ‘forget a trial, let’s round up all these rich nobles and chop their heads off for treason’!” 

“Oh, please. That’s all ancient history,” the second voice countered, smooth as polished amber. “These days, we have a corrupt system to neatly disappear those who inconvenience those in power. Much more convenient that way, hmm?” 

The green Human nodded in sudden understanding. “Dibs on the skull after we disappear this guy with the power of incredible violence!” 

At the lip of the entry ramp, another figure stepped into view with a sigh. “Yes, Remus, I understood you the first time.” 

This Human was shorter, with shorter hair and a large, deep red mark that spilled across one side of their face like a stain. Nearly all of their body was concealed by dark clothing, but unlike Virgil’s own attempts at camouflage, there were several bright yellow accents along the hems and fasteners of the outfit. Logan couldn’t help be reminded of warning coloration, though Humans weren’t poisonous, of course. 

Probably. 

If fate was kind. 

(Stars, he hoped Humans weren’t poisonous.) 

The Human turned their head. Logan held perfectly still as that sharp-edged gaze peered up into the ship, hoping that their vision wasn’t keen enough to spot the two of them there. There was no point in trying to flee now. Some Humans apparently had worse vision than others, but he knew that Virgil’s attention could be drawn by even the smallest twitches of movement.

“We know you’re in there,” the shorter Human called out, their gaze settled so firmly in their direction that Logan suspected they’d already been spotted. “Why don’t you come out and speak properly with us? We do happen to know a thing or two about Humans, after all.” 

“Ooh, are we doing fun facts?” The green Human— Remus?— perked up. “I heard Humans regenerate all the cells in their stomach lining over every three to four days to avoid being dissolved from the inside out by stomach acid strong enough to corrode metal!”

Logan firmly resisted the habitual urge to start mindweaving the information, deeply perturbing as it might be. 

“The second half of that fun fact is that yours truly can vomit on command,” Remus continued in a faux-informative tone. “What say you, Deedee, do we want a demonstration?” 

The last thread of Patton’s tenuous restraint snapped, and he twisted far enough in Logan’s arms that there was no holding on to him any longer. He landed with an Ampen’s standard soft impact and immediately barreled down the ramp to streak towards Roman, emitting a whistle-shriek so shrill that even the Humans winced at the noise. 

Logan tried to follow, but he was by far the slowest of the crew. By the time he’d reached the bottom of the ship’s entry ramp, Patton had already scurried well within reach of both Humans on his way to Roman. 

The shorter human only watched the Ampen scurry by, blinking idly as though the sight didn’t concern them at all. 

Remus, on the other hand, immediately bent their knees and adopted a slightly hunched posture, their arms crooked at either side of them, their eyes locking on Patton’s approach like a death hound about to pounce. 

Logan felt fear sweep through him like a flood, seeping in to fill every corner of his body. “Patton, stop!” 

Patton didn’t so much as hesitate, and neither did Remus. The moment Patton got near enough, the Human darted forward and feinted as though they were about to stomp right on top of him. 

Patton swerved away from the motion right into range of Remus’s waiting arm, and a hand clamped onto his scruff and hoisted him into the air with ease. He was forced to hold still, the discomfort threatening to turn into feather-shredding pain the moment he started struggling.

“Let me go!” he shouted, still not nearly as scared as he should have been. “Roman! Roman?!” 

“P’tn...?” Roman mumbled, limbs twitching briefly as though that was all they could manage. He didn’t seem to be entirely conscious. 

“Roman!” Patton sounded close to tears, reaching out as though he wanted to check that Roman really was still breathing. He’d clearly been fearing the worst. 

“Damn, Teakettle.” Remus hefted Patton up higher, inspecting him curiously. “You’re pretty bold for someone the size of a Furby.” 

Patton fluffed up even further, looking utterly furious, and Logan hurriedly lifted the hand with his comm in a silent bid for attention.

To the shorter Human, who was only a few lengths away, the gesture was near impossible to miss. He met their stare directly, one tap away from sending an emergency beacon out. 

“Don’t hurt them,” Logan said, forcing his voice calm and even, “or I will be forced to reveal this location to the nearest Council-ordained authorities.” 

Remus shouted something that sounded like, “boo, you narc,” but Logan kept his focus on the far more immediate threat. They watched him back with a calculating glint in their narrowed eyes. 

“Now, now. I don’t think there’s any need for such extreme measures,” the shorter Human said, lifting their hands in a gesture Logan didn’t recognize. “None of us would enjoy the aftermath of a signal like that going out.” 

Logan didn’t doubt that. If he really did give away their location, he suspected that the three of them were as good as dead where they stood. Not because all Humans were inherently murderous, but because when one was forced to live as a fugitive, witnesses were liabilities. 

“Eh, I’d probably still have some fun,” Remus offered, easily confirming that potential outcome. “New skulls for the skull collection!” 

Which was why it was all the more strange that the two had revealed themselves in the first place. 

“Did you intend to kill us from the beginning?” Logan asked outright, blatantly ignoring Remus’s proclamation. He didn’t move his finger from the comm interface. “If we are doomed either way, I would prefer to make life harder for those who committed our senseless murders.”

Something about the Human’s expression seemed to sharpen, focus intensifying as though their attention had caught on an interesting puzzle. 

“Senseless?” they echoed, tone deceptively light. “Would it really be senseless? Do you truly believe that we wouldn’t have a very compelling reason to make this little crew disappear? Or are you claiming that we wouldn’t find some particularly valuable cargo on board that little ship of yours?”

“That is exactly what I’m claiming,” Logan retorted, because there was no world in which it would be acceptable to refer to Virgil as cargo. 

Then, he paused, processing the implications of the accusations being hurled at them. As though looking at a webweave from a new angle, the entangled strings of the situation before him began to take on a different shape entirely.

Logan had chosen to reveal a few key details about Humans when he’d reached out to this contact, in the hopes of proving they weren’t chasing rumors about cryptids or trying out some practical joke. It seemed that he’d ended up in trouble of the opposite kind; these two were taking things all too seriously. 

“In that case,” the Human spoke with a voice like the steel of a trap snapping shut, “you’ll have nothing to worry about while I take a little tour.” 

Patton made a sharp warble of alarm, and Logan couldn’t disagree with the sentiment. The urge to stop them, to keep them away from Virgil no matter the cost, was nearly overwhelming. Their kid was the most vulnerable he’d ever been, and these two were both total unknowns and opponents they couldn’t hope to defeat. Rational thinking couldn’t provide its usual relief in circumstances like these. 

Still, he forced himself to keep still as the Human approached, bypassing him and beginning to trek up the entry ramp. If he refused to allow them to see Virgil, they would have every reason to fear that the Mindscape crew was just another band of smugglers looking to get rich off of a captured Human’s suffering. He had to take this risk, or else—

“Wait,” Logan spoke before the thought had even fully settled in his mind. He turned around to see the Human had stopped and turned to face him with an air of smugness, as though they had known he would stop them and now anticipated him revealing they were right and trying to bargain. 

Of course, that wasn’t why Logan had changed his tune. There was simply another important factor that he needed to be honest about.

After a moment of hesitation, he finally forced the words out. “Virgil is sick with an illness we can’t identify. I don’t know if it is transmissible. If you go in without taking precautions, your lives could be at risk as well.” 

This was one factor the crew hadn’t had to worry about. The chances of a virus being able to adapt across species were extremely low even for those born in the same star system. For a Deathworlder species disconnected to the galaxy, infecting aliens from other quadrants was practically impossible. 

A Human infecting another Human, on the other three hands, was entirely plausible. 

The Human’s eyebrows lifted slightly. It seemed that they hadn’t expected that. 

“Ohoho, I’ve always wanted to catch a plague!” Remus announced, somehow having crossed the floor to reach their ship without Logan hearing. They shoved Patton directly into the other Human‘s arms and mimed rolling up their non-existent sleeves. “Permission to call their bluff, Cap’n Janabanana?” 

The unnamed Human visibly fumbled for a moment, struggling to find a way to hang onto Patton, who had only squawked distractedly at the sudden transfer. He was still paying more attention to Roman’s continued breathing than his current position as hostage. 

“Fine,” the other Human— Janabanana…?— bit out, irritated. “Feel free to run into an obvious trap and get yourself killed.”

The words were scathing, borderline cruel, but Remus only cackled excitedly as they bounded up into the ship. “I always do!” 

Up close, Logan realized that despite being far taller and less scrawny than Virgil, the two of them actually didn’t fully resemble the adult Humans he had seen when sharing memories with Virgil. The hallmark traits of youth that they’d identified on Virgil were fading but visible on the Human before him, particularly when their calculating composure had slipped. 

The awkward but not malicious way they held onto Patton was oddly disarming, after how threatened Logan had felt throughout this entire encounter. Remus’s rambunctiousness, too, strongly reminded him of an Ampen fledgling’s endless energy and enthusiasm. 

…Was it possible that their fates were currently in the hands of a pair of Human adolescents, only somewhat older than Virgil himself? 

Logan spent a few moments attempting to formulate a subtle but probing question that might confirm or contradict his suspicions, but before he finished, Remus reappeared at the top of the hatch. For the first time, the Human wasn’t smiling.

“Janus, you’re gonna wanna come in here,” they said, brow furrowed. “There’s a kid.” 

The other Human’s face did something strange before smoothing out again. “Janus” didn’t ask for any further explanation before striding up the ramp to go see for themself. 

Logan cast one more glance back at Roman, who was beginning to stir, before hurrying to follow. “If the illness is contagious—,”

Remus snorted obnoxiously, a sound that Logan had only heard Virgil make while laughing. “The kid has a fever and a whole lotta mucus, not the bubonic plague,” they answered scornfully. “It won’t kill us to catch a bug.” 

Logan’s spines flushed with poison, a reflexive response to the sudden jump in his blood pressure, the bubble of desperate hope that swelled in his abdomen.

“It won’t kill him?” he echoed urgently, speeding up his steps further in an attempt to catch up and read Remus’s expression, figure out if they were joking or not. “You’re absolutely sure? He’ll recover from this?” 

Janus cast a cold glance at him from the corner of their eye. “If treated properly, most viral illnesses aren’t fatal to us. No need to worry overly much about the state of your merchandise.” 

Logan jolted as though struck, but Patton was the one who snapped back from where he was still held aloft. 

“Don’t call him that!” he shrilled, feathers ruffling and bristling up even more expansively. 

“Patton,” Logan managed through his apprehension, because screaming at the Deathworlder that currently had one’s easily-shattered rib cage between their hands was one of the worse ideas out there. 

Patton refused to back down, but Janus didn’t snap back or even tighten their grip. They only switched their gaze between the two of them as if trying to measure something by their expressions alone.

They reached the medbay, and Logan felt that familiar flare of dread in his spine as he passed through the entryway, the lurking fear that the next time he checked on their kid, Virgil would have succumbed. The other Humans’ heads both turned to stare at him when he bustled forward, body language shifting into something tense, but he didn’t have the attention to spare as he checked Virgil’s vitals and adjusted the bedding that had been pushed away by his tossing and turning. 

The Humlilt against his side snuffled slightly, and Logan moved the blanket over it, hoping it would remain asleep for this particular encounter. The creature had proven itself defensive over Virgil even at the best of times, and Logan didn’t want to see what would happen if it attacked either of the new Humans.  

“You claim it isn’t fatal, but he’s been like this for longer than any of us would be able to survive,” he said, turning to face the newcomers but unable to prevent his lower arms from repetitively smoothing Virgil’s hair down behind him. “We came seeking information on Human biology. If you are willing to tell us what we need to do to save him, we would offer anything we have.” 

“What, he didn’t come with an instruction manual?” Remus asked, their earlier amusement shifted into something darker, more antagonistic. “Maybe you should have found a more reputable seller for your little exotic pet. They had all sorts of creative recommendations for restraints and punishments in my pamphlet. Not that any of them worked!” They punctuated the words with a cackle. 

Patton inhaled visibly, but before he could retort, Janus dropped him onto a nearby seat. 

“Tell me more about these theoretically offers,” they instructed, still far more reserved than their companion. “What is the knowledge worth to you?” 

“I don’t know what you want,” Logan started, his mind quickly spinning up possibilities, “but there are multiple options. In terms of value, we have savings, and enough personal valuables on board that could be sold off. Our occupations aren’t particularly lucrative, but we do turn a profit. If you’re willing to accept payments made over time, a considerably higher price could be set.”

He paused for a moment, before deciding that secrecy would prove useless here. There was no point in hiding trump cards that wouldn't work. If the Humans wanted to kill them, they would die. “My blood is also highly valued as a poison on many black markets. I am not opposed to providing you with as much as I can part with and still survive.” 

“If all four of us end up alive, it doesn’t matter what we have to pay,” Patton chimed in, climbing up the frame of the medbay bed to settle defensively between Virgil and the rest of the room. “Objects are replaceable, lives are not. Especially not the life of a fledgling.”

Both Humans were uncharacteristically quiet for a long moment.

“Well, Janny?” Remus finally asked, earning a sour glance. “You’re the expert, Lord of the Lies.”

The shorter Human considered them with those sharp eyes for a little while longer, before closing them with an airy sigh.

“Fine, fine. I suppose we'll try. Go grab the one you battered and pay Mi’khii for the tipoff,” they instructed briskly, turning on their heel. “I’ll collect our things.” 

Remus skipped out of the room without asking any questions, and Patton and Logan shared a worried glance. 

“We’re commandeering your ship. Make whatever preparations necessary for takeoff,” Janus commanded, before pausing to look over their shoulder. “And if your intentions aren’t as charitable as they seem, consider doing us all a favor by confessing before we leave. I’m afraid those who endanger our home aren’t granted the mercy of a quick death, and I do so hate to clean up the mess afterwards.” 

Logan’s lower arms began to weave back and forth, a nervous tic he hadn’t done in ages. “We only require information to help restore Virgil’s health. Revealing your home to us isn’t necessary.” 

Janus smiled without teeth, the expression devoid of warmth. “Oh, this trip isn’t for you. In fact, if you prefer, we would be happy to take ‘Virgil’ by himself, and you’ll never have to see him again. But if you are as attached as you claim, you’ll have to do more than talk to prove your intentions. Are you really giving up already?”

“No, no.” “Of course not!” Logan and Patton insisted at the same time. 

Janus hummed dubiously, but didn’t ask again. Even if he had, their answer wouldn’t change.