scales of justice (janus + virgil)

chapter no. 6

 For the first time in what felt like forever, Janus felt true panic.

As Virgil and Roman started to go back and forth about how to get Remus out of the pile of sludge on the ground, Janus stood there, a vacant look in his eyes. The sight of Morticus' influence while he was awake really shook him, for some reason, and he found himself frozen in place.

That is, until Virgil reached out and shook his shoulders. "Janus! What the hell is going on? Is it... him?"

Faintly, Janus nodded. "He's here now."

"Who?" asked Roman, who didn't appreciate Janus and Virgil playing the pronoun game in addition to the fact that his twin was unconscious and face down in sludge that had somehow ended up on their kitchen floor. "What are you guys talking about?"

Virgil looked to Janus to explain, which only made him freeze up. He couldn't exactly hide what was going on now, especially since it was right in front of him, but... he couldn't really bring himself to say anything. Finally he managed, "I-It's one of Remus' issues that he's been struggling with."

Roman looked at him, bewildered, but Virgil's scathing glare caught his attention first. "Stop lying, Janus," he snapped accusingly.

"I'm not lying!" Janus shot back, which was most definitely a lie. The truth was, he was caught in an internal conflict-- he didn't want to say anything about Morticus because he didn't want to be accused of lying, but he knew that if he just kept his mouth shut, everything would end much worse than if he'd just spoken up in the first place.

Deception feeding into insanity is the most dangerous combination.

In that moment, his blood went cold. The defensiveness he'd felt when Virgil called him out dissipated, replaced with the awful sinking feeling in his stomach.

Shit.

The fear must have showed on his face, because Roman's eyes widened and he said, "You look like you just saw a ghost... obviously it's much more than just 'one of Remus' issues.'"

Janus knelt down beside Remus and rolled him over, only to see that his eyes and mouth had been forcefully shut by the same thick spiderwebs that had bound his wrists and ankles. The snake boy began smacking him furiously, trying to wake him up. When that proved to be fruitless, he ran to the kitchen to grab a knife in order to saw through the bonds as he had done earlier, but an even voice from across the room stopped him in his tracks.

"There's an easier way to go about that, Janus," said Logan in a chilling tone.

Janus whirled around. "Why don't you tell me then, smartass, instead of just standing there?"

"Janus," muttered Virgil then, voice unsteady. "Look."

At first he didn't see what Virgil was alluding to, but when he studied Logan a bit more, he noticed something strange. There was a stiffness in his posture that hadn't been there before, and his face looked more cold and less calculating than it was normally. Janus scowled in thought, stepping over Remus' unconscious form and approaching Logan slowly. "What's gotten into you?"

"What are you talking about?" replied Logan.

And then it happened.

It was just for a second, but Janus saw it.

He took an alarmed step backwards and nearly crashed into Roman. He knew for a fact that it wasn't Morticus, but that made it ten times worse. And that was excluding his eyes.

His eyes, whose pupils narrowed like a snake's for a fraction of a second.

And Morticus didn't have those eyes.