Six Times Janus Dropped and Six People Who Took Care of Him

Patton

Despite Janus's earlier reservations, Remus helped make everything so much better. Now that he was back on the drop schedule he'd had with King (once every two weeks,) his unexpected drops dropped, and so did his anxiety. so much less worrying now that an unexpected drop was both less likely to happen and, if it did happen, Remus knew what to look for and could drag him off before the others noticed, rambling about some grand idea he had. Soon, regressions became the stress relief they were supposed to be.

However, no system was without its flaws. Even though Remus could normally drag him away before he shifted into his baby form, Remus wasn't always around. In the few months following Remus finding out, there thankfully weren't any unexpected drops when Remus wasn't around. He wanted to hope it wouldn't happen, but he had a feeling it would eventually. Hopefully, he would have time to figure out what to do if that happened.

Unfortunately, he didn't.

-

Janus didn't like eating with the others. Roman and Remus argued constantly, Patton was a bit too peppy for his taste, and Virgil still hated him for literally no reason, so he often made himself breakfast after they'd all left to do whatever.

On this particular day, he wanted pancakes. He mixed eggs and water into the pre-made mix, then, deciding to treat himself, dropped a few blueberries into the batter after he poured into onto the skillet. Unintentionally, the berries made a kind of open parathesis shape, almost like a smile...

King had made pancakes like that for when Janus was both adult and regressed. Pancakes with blueberry smiley faces on them. He missed King. Papa, he missed papa-

Janus stood there, staring at the pancake as it began to burn, tears in his eyes. He didn't even realize he was regressing until it was too late to do anything about it.

Oh no.

And instead of doing anything about it, he stood there like an idiot, watching his pancake burn and hanging into his adult headspace by his fingernails. Part of him registered that he needed to sink out, to find Remus or go to the nursery, to do something- but he was frozen. He couldn't move.

And, just when he thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, someone appeared in the kitchen doorway and gasped.

Oh no.

-

In the few weeks after Janus was accepted, Patton made an extra effort to include him (he always had, but he was hoping Roman and Virgil would get a clue,) but Jay was still... nervous. Patton didn't miss how he never made eye contact, never let them touch him, never ate with them, and how he would occasionally get really tense and sign something- Logan told him it was sign language for "help"- at Remus, and Remus would drag him out of the room. He hoped Janus would learn to loosen up with them, but the lack of progress was disheartening. He tried not to take it personally. He couldn't expect years of cutting remarks from Virgil and Roman and general coldness from himself to be erased because of a few movie nights.

On that particular day, Patton was heading to the kitchen to make cookies- snickerdoodle, which he remembered were Jay's favourites before the split- when he smelled something burning. He'd turned into the kitchen to see Janus standing by the stove, spatula in hand, staring at something that was smoking in the skillet.

He rushed forward and turned off the fire. Janus cringed away, almost like he expected to be struck, and his hand flew to his mouth. Patton was horrified to see tears in his eyes.

"Janus?" He reached out gently, grabbing the snake sides free hand. "Hey, kiddo. What's wrong?"

Janus didn't reply. He looked back towards the charred remains of his pancake and started scraping at it.