Reptile - Janus Angst

Twenty Four

Janus felt himself starting to wake up and feeling returning to his body.

It hurt. Everything hurt.

Oh good God! I thought that was just inside my head!

He then became aware of a familiar sensation. Someone was running their hand through his hair.

He groaned tiredly and opened his eyes to see who it was. He immediately recognised the orange T-shirt and dark hair of the one sat next to him who sounded like they were in the middle of a conversation.

"Argus?" he mumbled.

Pain froze, mid-sentence, in shock and turned to look down at Janus, knowing he was the only one aware of his name. He was surprised to see the snake-like side looking up at him with tired eyes and a small grin.

"D-Dee?" he mumbled as his lips quirked into a smile.

The others heard him and looked down at Janus to see him awake and scanning the room before his eyes rested on their surprised faces.

"Hello, everyone," he said casually as he tried to sit up.

He then had the air knocked out of him as Patton pulled him into an excruciatingly tight hug.

"Ohmygodohmygod,Janus,areyouok?Youhadussoworried!Youwereoutcoldfortwodays!Twodays!"

"P-Patton, please slow down," Janus said as he tried to get the fatherly side off of him.

Thankfully, Virgil came over and pulled Patton off so Janus could catch his breath.

"I'm sorry!" Patton told him sheepishly as a fresh stream of tears started to flow. "I'm just so so so happy you're back."

"You had us worried for a minute there, Jan," Virgil said with a grin.

"You, worried? Never!" Janus said with mock surprise as he grinned back at him.

Virgil rolled his eyes at the snake.

"So what happened while you were in there?" Logan asked, reaching for his notepad.

Janus rubbed his head. It hurt just trying to take in and comprehend everything that had happened with Blü.

"If you don't mind, I'd rather save that for later," he told Logan apologetically.

Logan nodded and put his notepad away.

"Understandable."

"So do you have control over how snakey you are now?" Roman asked as he leaned over the back of the sofa.

Janus looked at him for a moment then down at his hands which were still covered in scales.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate for a moment. Tried to imagine them going away.

A weird sensation danced through his hands and down his arms. He opened his eyes to see that some of the scales had started to disappear, retreating back under his skin, revealing his knuckles.

"Ohh wowza!" Remus said with interest as he watched.

"Have fun learning to control that," Virgil laughed.

Janus shot him a glance but he knew the anxious side was probably right. This would take a while to get used to.

"What happened to 'I'll have control over the snake abilities?'"

"Did I say you wouldn't have to work for it?"

He felt an arm around his shoulder and looked up to see Pain grinning at him.

"I'll help ya, Dee, like you did for me all those years ago."

Janus smiled.

"I'd like that."

Over the next few weeks, Janus would go to Pain's room to learn how to properly control his new abilities.

Patton and Logan would come too. Patton for moral support and Logan so he could write down everything to add to his books on Side knowledge.

It was a slow and annoying process but, eventually, Janus reached the point where he could comfortably bring out his scales and tail and then retract them almost as seamlessly.

"Lets see you walk," Pain had said one of the days.

Janus had promptly stiffened up and claimed that he was still aching and that they should maybe wait.

Pain had forced him to bring his tail out and laughed as Janus could barely move without losing balance until Patton scolded him for being mean, reminding him he'd gone through this too.

He'd shut right up and helped Janus get accustomed to walking.

By week three, Janus could walk with his tail almost as well as he could without, though he was still a little slower and stairs were a pain.

Virgil just found it funny and used any opportunity to accidentally nudge into him and almost send him flying.

By the end of a month, Janus had absolute control over his abilities. His body temperature had gone back up so he only felt a slight chill, his talons were gone, the only scales he had were the ones that covered the left side of his face. He was the sassy snek he'd been before all of this had taken place.

It was a fine Tuesday morning when Thomas was sat waiting for all of the sides to pop up for a day of recording - even Remus was joining in this time.

The sides arrived a few minutes later. Thomas was surprised to see Pain at the back.

"Pain? Why are you here?" he asked with a confused smile.

Pain grinned at him.

"One, call me Argus. Two, just for fun," he said casually.

Thomas nodded at him then turned his attention to the others.

"So who's ready to get started?" he asked, his voice super chipper.

"What are we doing today, kiddo?" Patton returned.

Thomas grinned.

"Well a certain snake and prince woke me up at 2am this morning with an idea. An idea we'd planned that had to be put on hold due to er... everything," he said, looking at Janus and Roman.

A light bulb clicked on in Patton's head.

"Are we doing...?"

"Yep."

Janus pulled his hands from behind his back. In them, folded oh so neatly, was the caplet Roman had made him. He smiled, a bright twinkle in his mismatched eyes.

"Lets do an outfit reveal, shall we?"

I hope you enjoyed this story!

Hopefully I'll keep this writing motivation streak going and start planning out more projects for you all to read. I have ideas and I want to bring them into fruition.

Until then, so long!