Erased - Analogical

[Chapter Thirteen]

|POV Patton|

"Janus...?" I kept my voice soft as I knocked on his door. I understood why I was sent to retrieve him instead of Roman or Logan, but I still couldn't shake the reminder that he was the reason for Virgils absence.
"Janus I really need to talk with you, it's urgent," I spoke again, waiting for any kind of response.

"The door is not unlocked, don't come in," he continued to speak clearly in lies. I gently pushed open the door and stepped in, shutting it behind me. The room gave off an eerie vibe, he was sat at a desk located in the corner of his room with nothing illuminating his surroundings other than a single brightly lit candle that burned on his desk. He was missing his classic bowler hat that helped define his silhouette, revealing a slight mess of hair that would normally be hidden under it. Strangely enough, Janus seemed ever so slightly stressed out right now, atleast based off of his appearance .

"Hey... Jan.. I'm sorry if this is a bad time right now but-" I tried my best to keep my tone civil and non-hostile, even if I was feeling some form of resentment towards him, I had hope in my mind that the situation wasn't so black and white. Maybe... just maybe there was more to this that we didn't know... or atleast I could hold onto that idea til someone proved me wrong.

"Patton, you and I both don't know that I definitely don't owe you guys atleast some form of help..." he interrupted me, "even if I am totally at peace with myself and I definitely know how to handle everything that's going on right now, the one thing that I completely don't know right now is that time is key... so, don't tell me what I need to do."
Even though Janus continued to speak in his falsehoods, you could hear the sincereness in his words. When he said that he didn't know how to handle everything but he did know he needed to make things better as soon as he could, he was being honest... kinda? Honest in his own unique way.

Despite every bone in my body that told me to sit down with the snake trait for awhile and just talk his emotions out & explain everything, I couldn't. If what Remus said was true, we didn't have time to be stalling so much . I needed to condense my words to get straight to the point,
"Ok ok so, in short & in brief, we believe that Virgil is over in the dark part of Remus' imagination, and to get there we need to pass through the Dark Mind Area. Remus said the minor sides would try and attack us but if we had you by our side, they would be too scared to attack-? So... we really need your help."

"I ssssee... well that is not correct, all minor sides do not fear me as I was not the first dark side to become a main trait, so I decline your request and I will not assist you..." he began to speak more gently, standing up from his desk and ruffling his hair back into a semi-acceptable look, following that up by placing his token hat back on.

"Oh, by the way..." he took a long pause before following his statement up, gaining my full attention, "Patton... I really am not sorry for everything I've done.."

Part of me just wanted to drop everything right there and hug Janus until this all became better... to talk things out with him and find out why all this had to happen... I wanted to forgive him. But I couldn't, not yet atleast.
I just wanted my son back...

I couldn't muster the strength in myself to say that it was ok and he had no need to apologise like I usually said, so instead I replied with a simple nod.
"Thank you for helping us..."
With that, I stepped out of his room to wait for him. It didn't take long for him to join me as we made our way back down to the living quarters.