scales of justice (janus + virgil)

chapter no. 4

 Janus spent the next couple of nights trying to put a name to this disturbance. He stayed up late (for him, anyway, since he had a different sleeping schedule than everyone else in the household) for each of them, reading books about the mind and one for the behavior that corresponded to each side, and that one he'd written himself. He took notes in a notebook he'd snatched from Logan's room (because come on, he had a ton of them), and it was already filling up quickly with his theories. He got so wrapped up in his project that he jumped about a foot out of his chair when someone knocked on his door.

When he opened it, he saw Virgil standing there, holding a steaming bowl of pasta. "You haven't been out to eat in a while, so I thought you might want some of this."

"Oh, uh, thanks," stammered Janus, which was unlike him. "Is this leftover from something?"

"I made myself too much," was Virgil's explanation. "I just haven't seen you emerge from your room in a long time and wasn't sure if you were eating."

The pasta was starting to look more and more delicious the more Janus stared at it in Virgil's hand. He took it. "I'm glad you thought about me," he said with a smirk.

Virgil rolled his eyes and stalked off. "Why did I even bother?" he muttered to himself.

"Enjoy your pasta!" called Janus musically as he shut the door. Then he set the bowl of pasta down on his desk and ate it while taking notes and theorizing some more.

By the time he'd finished spitting out all his ideas on paper, he was exhausted. He'd long since finished the bowl of pasta and wished Virgil had made more because Janus didn't feel like cooking another meal for himself. Sighing, he amended to look in the fridge for something quick to grab and take back to his room. However, it was just his luck that Roman was eating in the kitchen, looking at memes on his phone. He looked up once, and the small grin on his face instantly dropped and he gave Janus a withering glare. Janus flashed his teeth in a wide smile as a response, hoping the insecurity didn't show in his eyes. He started to feel less hungry the longer he was there, but he forced himself to grab something and eat it. He found a leftover BLT in the fridge and grabbed that, but then decided that wasn't enough, so he poured himself a tall glass of milk, snatched a whole bag of Doritos out of the cabinet, and then headed back towards his room without so much as a word to Roman. He could feel the prince's eyes on his back as he left.

Janus had unwrapped his sandwich and was about to eat it when he received a text from Logan. He reached over and unlocked his phone, opening the conversation.

L: Did you take one of my notebooks?

J: what makes you think I did?

Logan always texted with perfect grammar (which pissed off Roman sometimes), unlike everyone else, but Janus liked that he was actually able to read coherent thoughts and not a bunch of loud, unnecessary emojis. On the rare occasion that they did, both Logan and Janus used them ironically, usually to make fun of the others or for the purpose of pissing them off. The only difference between them is that Janus refused to capitalize the first letter of his sentences because he specifically liked to annoy Logan with that.

L: One of my notebooks is missing.

J: i didn't touch your notebooks. why are you automatically blaming me? what makes you think it was me?

L: The only other person here who uses notebooks is Virgil, and he has his own stock. So it was you.

J: fine. it was me. but I'm using it for productive activities, I promise.