the flowers that you gave me (they're poisonous)

Janus was considering the events of the post-wedding discussion when Roman rose up in the center of his room.

"You could have knocked, you know," Janus said mildly, trying to disguise the anxiety that was currently threatening to drown him. Anyone hearing his thoughts could have mistaken him for Virgil. He stood up, avoiding Roman's gaze, which seemed to be locked on something just behind Janus.

"You lied to me, Deceit ," Roman's voice was harsh, but a specific kind of harsh that Janus had heard from him before. Trying to hide his desperate loneliness behind anger. Janus had tried that approach a little while ago, but it didn't go as well as he'd hoped. If Roman was able to pull it off, the creative side had far more control over his emotions than he wanted the others to know. Interesting.

"I'm talking to you," Roman snarled, sounding for all the world like he was seconds away from bursting into tears and trying to disguise it, which, of course, he was.

Right. He'd forgotten the side in question was right in front of him. Now, to play it cool and lie or be honest? He could sense that Roman was not in the right mental state to hear the honest answer and not do something he'd regret. Lying would hurt the creative side's feelings, but it would spare Janus from the too-close-to-the-truth insults Roman always managed to pull out of thin air. Honesty would lose Janus the ace up his sleeve (which was his greatest risk as well as his greatest weapon), as well as possibly Roman himself. Lying would mean breaking his promise. Lying would keep them both safe.

Deception it was.

"Of course I lied," Janus said smoothly. "I'm Deceit, that's what I do." He felt a twinge of guilt in his chest, but brushed it off. It was too late to go back now.

"You manipulated me."

"I just said I'm Deceit." Janus couldn't resist adding a little barb at the end. "If anything, you should have expected this." Roman hated the word should . A reminder of everything he was supposed to be doing, and everything he wasn't. The black-and-white thinking that he'd been trying desperately to shake off.

The princely side winced, then tried to make up for it. "You said you weren't lying!" he blustered, hoping to distract from the lapse in the composure he'd been just barely hanging on to.

Janus faked a gasp. "Lying about not lying? Now, why would I ever do that? It's not like I'm the literal embodiment of deception or anything." He was falling back into his old habits of scathing sarcasm and exaggerated but controlled reactions, just as he'd sworn never to do again. Now that he'd already broken the promise he'd made to Roman- Roman, the side he thought he'd loved, the side he really might have loved after all- nothing he did truly mattered anymore. He couldn't go back, so why not go all the way forward?

Roman seemed at a loss for words. "You are, without a doubt, the most horrible, untrustworthy side Thomas has."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Janus replied. Roman flinched. That was good, Janus had made him suspicious of the other sides. If Janus had to ruin his friendship with the princely side, he had to leave him with enough lingering distrust and reminders of his mistakes for him to be able to exploit later- What was he thinking? Trying to manipulate his only friend besides Remus? He pressed his fingernails into his palm, trying to think. Focus, Deceit. "No, I didn't mean..."

Roman's eyes narrowed. "You've just made a fatal mistake, snake. Evil always contains the seeds of its own undoing. Now I know you have an accomplice."

The creative side then left, slamming the door behind him.

Janus collapsed onto his bed. Great. He'd made everything worse. And beyond that, he and Roman both had thought Janus truly had left behind his lies. That was no longer the case, but it shouldn't have mattered. The whole fiasco in the courtroom, and then after the wedding had shown him that he was too broken, too messed up for Roman to want anything to do with him. By destroying their friendship, he'd done what was best for both of them. He shouldn't feel guilty about it, but he did anyway.

Suddenly feeling dizzy, Janus clutched the corner of his nightstand to steady himself, and his hand brushed something.

It was a red rose, perfect down to the last petal. The thorns, however, were many, but he barely felt their sting as he held the flower in his hand. He remembered exactly when Roman had given this to him. He'd met the princely side in the Imagination, and Roman had greeted him with a sweeping bow, promptly handing him the rose.

Was he imagining it, or was the flower's color darkening? It was definitely beginning to wilt as well. His hands began to burn as the thorns grew and sharpened. A few of the petals began to come loose and fall gently to the ground, shriveling up until they were nearly unrecognizable and Janus was left holding a wilted rose on a stem bristling with thorns in his now-scraped hands. That must have been what he had been concentrating so hard on when he was confronting Janus. He had to appreciate Roman's affinity for theatrics and metaphors. The message from the wilted rose was clear. Roman wanted nothing to do with him. Not anymore.

Janus rose to his feet, and collected the scattered petals from the floor, and brushed them right into the trash can. He'd made the choice to play the villain and give up everything he and Roman had worked for, the dreams they'd whispered to each other under starry skies in the Imagination at night, and he was going to have to live with it. He had no choice but to continue on the path he'd set up for himself. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Roman would mourn what could have been, the possibility of the Dark and Light sides working together as they used to, with no need for the divide between the two, but ultimately decided it didn't matter.

He considered his options. He could send Remus up to mess with the Light Sides again, and ask him to drop hints that a Light Side was working with Janus in order to feed Roman's new suspicions. Roman would be the best side to target with this new plan, considering that he would probably be too afraid to talk to Logan and Patton about what had happened between him and Janus. Virgil, however, was a different matter. The anxious side was familiar with Janus's usual tactics, and would almost certainly challenge Janus's ideas should Roman talk to him about it. The best way to counteract that would be to make sure Virgil wasn't thinking clearly by the time the conversation happened. Therefore, the most sensible course of action would be to pay Virgil a visit and confuse him as best he could. Yes, that would be the smartest thing to do.

Except for the fact that it was Roman. His closest friend, perhaps his only friend. Janus didn't think he could continue as he had before, pretending nothing had happened between them. The right thing to do would be to apologize and tell Roman the truth. That he didn't know how to not lie or manipulate. That he'd been doing both for so long that it was his default response to anything. That he knew exactly how he was hurting the other sides by manipulating them like he did, but he didn't know how to stop, even though he wanted to. And even if Roman hated him afterwards, at least Janus would know he tried.

There it was, proving exactly how much Roman had affected him during the duration of their friendship. Another reason why he should apologize.

If Janus was being honest with himself, he liked who he was when he was with Roman. Just being around his friend made him want to find other ways to accomplish his goals, ways that didn't result in causing the Light Sides to lie to each other and close themselves off emotionally. I suppose that makes it clear what I should do, then.

Janus adjusted his cape and hat, and set off to fix his mistake as best he could.