scales of justice (janus + virgil)

chapter no. 1

 It was a bright, sunny day outside, and Virgil never would have known if Roman hadn't thrown open his door at nine a.m. sharp, singing, "Good morning, Virgil! It's time to wake up! We're having a discussion and it would be magnificent if you would come out to join us!"

Virgil groaned and rolled over, shielding his eyes from the light in the hallway, as his room was completely dark. "I couldn't fall asleep until 3 a.m., Roman, let me sleep," he mumbled, pulling the blanket over his head.

Roman rolled his eyes, turning on the light. "Virgil, come on. Quit being ridiculous and get your sad, emo self out of bed. We have to discuss some important matters." And with that, he left the room, walking down the hallway and leaving the door wide open.

Virgil walked over to the light switch, with the blanket still on his head, and turned the lights back off before closing the door and returning to bed.

The door opened again a minute later, but this time it was more quiet. "C'mon, kiddo, wake up," came Patton's soft voice. "Please come into the living room for just a little bit. Then you can go back to bed if you want to."

Virgil sighed. "Fine. Give me five minutes."

Sure enough, as promised, he emerged from his room five minutes later to find Thomas' living room filled with Patton, Roman, and Logan. "Hi, Virgil," Patton greeted him, to which he simply flashed a peace sign and tucked his hand into his pocket again.

"Okay," Roman began. "Now that Virgil has finished grumbling about getting out of bed on a beautiful day such as this one, let us begin. As some of you know, there was a disturbance in Thomas' subconscious last night. It seemed to disturb Patton the most, despite his calm facade at the moment, and none of us are quite sure what it means."

"Wait, wait, wait," Virgil interrupted, scowling. "If we're talking about a disturbance in Thomas' mind, why isn't he here right now? Shouldn't we let him know about this? Heck, shouldn't he already know?"

Patton's expression soured. "Um... he's currently asleep being tortured by Remus' nightmares, and Roman tried to help that situation, but he wasn't successful, and it was wise to let him sleep anyway. We don't want him to be disturbed AND sleep deprived."

"Also, we can't tell him anything that he doesn't give us permission to tell him," Logan added.

"Sounds like BS," muttered Virgil to himself. "So what exactly is this disturbance?"

Roman winced. "Uhh, we don't know. Patton says he doesn't remember much from last night--"

"Then how is this helping anyone?" Virgil cut him off. "You tell me we're having a discussion, and all you want to tell me is just that there's a disturbance-- that I didn't sense, by the way--and that no one has a solution?"

"Well, that's... the problem," said Roman. "It's the fact that you didn't sense it."

Virgil rolled his eyes, but alarm bells started going off in his head. "So what? What if I was just tired? I was in a very deep sleep, at least until you woke me up."

"Virgil, being bitter isn't going to get us anywhere." Logan adjusted his glasses. "We're guessing that it's another one of Janus and Remus'... tactics."

"That's putting it lightly," Roman said irritably. "The way Patton described how he felt..."

Virgil looked to Patton, who confirmed this with a quick nodding of the head. "It was like someone put me in a pot of boiling water and chained me to the bottom. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe, and worst of all, I felt... enraged. Like I wanted to hit something."