amnesia rewrite! (chapter 5)
setting the dynamics
ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 6 | ch 7 | ch 8 |
original fic
words: 2839
ao3
contents and warnings: amnesia, deaged Janus, food, baking, fluff, Janus is master thief, virgil is the cool older family member
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Janus quietly snuck into the living room as he saw Logic reading, trying to be unnoticed so he could walk behind the couch and see what he was reading without bothering him, he discovered he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought however when halfway to the couch Logic just abruptly went “you can sit on the couch you know.” Without even lifting his gaze, Janus startled before just nodding and hesitantly reaching the couch, now facing the problem of not knowing if Logic just didn’t want him hovering and he should just leave or if he actually wanted him to know he could sit with him.
Once he stood in front of the couch though Logic patted the spot beside him, still not looking up, and Janus brightened a little because that was an obvious invitation, which meant Logic was okay with him there, so he quickly sat down next to him, immediately leaning over him to see what the book was about, he can’t really make it out though because it all just looks like overwhelming blocks of texts that he wouldn’t even know where to start reading.
He doesn’t like it when it’s like that, it’s why reading Wikipedia is so hard, just huge blocks of text that look more like blobs than stuff he can actually read.
He wants to read with Logic, Logic is cool, so he must have cool books too, and it would be fun to read with him, so he found this very frustrating.
Logic seemed to notice him struggling or he just got annoyed at Janus leaning on his shoulder to look at his book, regardless he captures Janus’s attention from the book abruptly as he speaks up “are you alright? Do you need anything?” He asks.
Janus decided he might as well ask, the worst that can happen is he can say no, so he quietly goes “you don’t have to.. but, can you read to me?” and He doesn’t know quite what he expected because Logic has always been really nice but he still finds himself completely bewildered when Logic just smiled softly and nodded before going back to the first page and making the move to actually read aloud.
Janus, despite the weird out-of-place confusion, still managed to grin and pump his fist in victory before moving and getting comfortable against Logic’s side as he began to read.
Less than twenty minutes later his eyes were drooping and after snapping them open a couple of times because he wanted to know where the book was going he just couldn’t fight the lull of sleep.
After a bit He decided he’d just rest his eyes for a moment so they wouldn’t be tired, after all, he didn’t need his eyes to listen to him read.
Yeah Just a moment, he’d open his eyes in just a moment.
Just.. a moment…
———
He’s more confident, if only by a little when he approaches Roman’s door, a book of fairy tales held closely and securely to his chest.
He considers backing out briefly, which he’s still unsure of why because all he remembers of them is them being nice to him so he shouldn’t be nervous around them.
He sighs quietly before deciding if he doesn’t do it now he probably won’t get the courage up again so he quickly knocks on Roman’s door, receiving a crashing sound in return before Roman opens the door with a big smile on his face that immediately puts Janus’s nerves at ease.
Roman appears to notice the book in his arms and smiles brighter somehow before whisking him into his room.
Janus gives a hopeful smile as he asks “do you like fairy tales?”
Roman smiles again “of course! What prince would I be if I didn’t? No prince at all! That's what prince!” He mocked looking offended at the sheer idea of not liking a fairytale.
The sheer silliness of the reply surprised a couple of giggles out of Janus before he could stop it, and after a second he looked up with a big smile “do you wanna read one?”
Roman hums in thought before exaggeratedly gasping “what about we create one! our own little story!” He proposes the idea with a flare.
Janus grinned and nodded excitedly, already completely stoked for just the idea of making his own fairytale, and hey the people in the book wrote stories so they couldn’t be too hard!
Roman hopped onto his bed (it had a canopy! It looked like a cool fort! Maybe he’d be able to get Roman to make a proper one with him,) and Janus followed, jumping on right next to Roman happily,
“Okay so what do you think the character's name should be?..-”
Roman continued asking general questions about the world of the story until he started telling it, occasionally stopping only to let Janus put his own little bit in there, and when it was clear Janus was happy with Roman continuing he would continue making it up out of his head, gesturing wildly to get the point across at certain points. Janus couldn’t keep himself from smiling the whole time, excitedly listening to this brand-new story and adding his own bit into the story when called on.
As Roman made up another particularly goofy character he couldn’t help but begin giggling till he couldn’t breathe, absolutely exulted, after a moment of gaining his composure he looked up and looked at Roman with what can only be described as pure delight.
He wondered if Roman would ever make another story with him.
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Janus was instantly lured in when he smelled something sweet, and when he noticed Morality in the kitchen, looking inland of the counter mixing something in a bowl, he instantly got excited because normally that meant cookies which meant he could sneak in and grab some of the dough or by the looks of it, already mixed wet ingredients that weren’t being watched and were just right there on the island.
He grinned to himself before silently sneaking in, making sure to soften his step on the tiled floor so the noise wouldn’t alert Morality.
It was only when he took the small bit from the side and readily tasted it, immediately making a happy noise at how sweet it was, was his cover blown, Morality practically spun around to face the cause of the noise. In the process, having a lot of what he assumes to be flour, go everywhere in a big puff.
If Janus didn’t feel like a deer caught in headlights with how still he was he probably would’ve laughed because Morality looked so confused and it was funny to watch Morality’s expression change ever so slowly from stunned and confused to realizing it’s just Janus to more confusion before just somehow getting to him grinning widely, all while covered in flour “oh hey there kiddo!! You startled ol’ pat” he chuckled good naturally, obviously still very much happy and not upset about the new, considerably big, mess.
Janus’s shoulders sagged In relief before he slowly went “can I help?” Because one; then he would be helpful and he could bake and two; then he can sneak a lot more cookie dough like the master thief he was.
Luckily for his cookie dough plot, Morality grinned brightly before going “of course buddy!” And Janus swore he could hear the suppressed squeal just from Morality’s voice and he swore he would pout so hard, he was not a baby! No one should squeal at anything he does!! No one!
Despite his internal not-wanting-to-be-babied rant, Morality was still smiling so bright he was pretty sure he would blind someone before he went to fix the dry ingredient stuff so that there was enough to keep the wet ingredients from getting all sad in the oven and looking like cookie crackers.
And once Morality had busied himself up with that Janus was distracted from what he had been thinking previously and now didn’t know what to do, because he couldn’t mix dry and wet ingredients yet and he didn’t know if he was supposed to clean up the mess or wait till the cookies were in the oven, and he was bored-
The decision of what he should do was quickly solved though so he didn't have to worry, as Morality twirled around quickly (this time with only a little flour spilling out of the bowl) before going “what about we add the dry ingredients?” And at Janus’s nod, handing him the whisk and holding up the dry ingredients bowl a little above the other bowl, just simply going “add slowly” as the instructions.
So Janus did and when he finished with that and they finished making the dough Morality set up the baking sheet, leaving the two to be able to make cool shapes with the newly noticed cookie cutters as well as normal round cookies.
Which.. was a mess, to say the least, it was a complete and utter mess, especially when Morality had the brilliant idea to put a little bit of dough on Janus’s nose and Janus was instantly out of his shell and so offended, which Morality seemed to of found funny as he was just grinning and occasionally just trying desperately not to show he was laughing which made him stop being all puffy and instead he just started pouting, “this is so mean I need Cookie dough to ease the pain.”
Morality couldn't resist the urge to chuckle at that before going “you do, do you?” He asked back fondly.
Janus just nodded seriously “of course, it is the only reasonable option!”
Morality smiled again “of course,” he said fondly before continuing “what about we get this batch in the oven and you can have some from the whisk?” He asked.
Janus hummed aloud in thought before going “I guess that would be acceptable..” he nodded and Morality just chuckled again before ruffling Janus’s hair, covering it partially in some of the dough that was sticking to Morality’s hands, and going to put the dough onto the sheet, Janus after a moment more of just pouting at him followed him and began helping make the shapes, secretly evil plotting to splash him with water when he would go to wash dishes.
The rest of the evening was a little less climatic, washing the leftover dishes and counter, morality getting soaked while washing the dishes and counter, not even with tampering but because he forgot he was washing dishes or that his arms were in the sink. Morality beaming at him with proud smiles Janus whenever he did anything. the cookies being taken out and both Morality and Janus immediately trying to grab one only to be stopped by Logic who both of them hadn’t even realized was in the kitchen, them getting lectured about how they’ll burn themselves if they have one straight out of the oven. and them both outwardly ignoring whenever Janus began giggling or full-blown laughing at something, especially whenever his hair was mussed with cookie dough. and just generally a very pleasant evening.
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He Immediately got pulled out of his bored stupor and was quickly filled with excitement when, while resting on the couch, he briefly noticed Anxiety’s jacket from the corner of his eye before it disappeared just out of view, leading him to quickly hop up and run to follow him around the corner he disappeared behind and when he finally got caught up he gently tugged his jacket as to alert he was there.
Anxiety quickly snapped his head around to see Janus, startled at first but then only seeming confused, but not in a bad way like Janus probably would’ve thought a week or so ago “can we play again?” He asked.
Anxiety still seemed confused for a moment longer but fortunately soon seemed to process everything and after his face settled on a small subtle smirk he just went “sure kid.” And Janus grinned before detaching his hand from Anxiety’s jacket, an action he realizes he probably should’ve done as soon as Anxiety noticed him, and not a minute later. After another moment Anxiety hummed before going “do you wanna hang out in the living room or hang out in my room?”
Janus didn’t care particularly but he knew if he went to Anxiety's room they could probably listen to the loud music again and that was entertaining and he decided he liked Anxiety’s music “‘room!” He decided aloud, only making the wording (or lack thereof) slightly less confusing by pointing at Anxiety, as to indicate his.
Anxiety gave a small chuckle before just nodding with a smile, Janus latched his hand onto Anxiety's forearm sleeve before they started walking just so Janus was holding on, though he would later deny he ever did it because that’s just embarrassing-
And soon they got to Anxiety's room once again, the big dark purple door with black accents and a sign that read Anxiety’s name welcoming them.
Janus waited for Anxiety to open the door and when he did he was instantly surprised to see a couple of stuffed animals he hadn’t seen previously, stacked on Anxiety’s bed, he gasped before running over to them excitedly, quickly hopping onto Anxiety's bed to get comfy and see the stuffies better, he heard a small chuckle from across the room and he looked over to see Anxiety with an almost fond look.
“I thought you might like them, they were just gathering dust in the back of the closet so if you want you can have a couple,” he told him and Janus nodded taking another look at the stuffies, they were all really cool and definitely Anxiety’s taste, as most of them were in palettes of black and purples, the only exception was a dark blue bat with constellations on it, maybe Logic gave it to him? Janus remembers seeing a couple of books about space stacked on his desk so he must be interested in it, so if that's the case he doesn’t think Anxiety meant to bring it out with the others.
After a while of thinking about this very important and crucial decision in silence Janus decided on a small cat stuffie that looked like Jiji from kiki's delivery service, he mostly chose it because it was really really soft, but also because all the others looked like they belonged together and were friends and he couldn’t take them away from each other!
After he made the important decision, Anxiety chuckled again before moving to sit down next to him, “so you’ve made your choice?” Janus nodded.
“The others are all friends and they’d be sad if any of them got taken, but this one can explore with me!” He told him with a grin before pausing and quietly going “thank you for letting me have a stuffie’” because thanking people was polite.
Anxiety gathered a small soft smile before nodding “of course.”
The semi-peacefulness of the moment was soon destroyed though as Janus jumped down off the bed with the plush cat in his arms before kinda just fast walking around because he had a lot of energy and he wanted to get rid of it, after a couple of minutes of this with anxiety just staring in confusion he stopped to look over at him “do you have any more cool music?” He asked.
Anxiety chuckled “kid I have a never-ending supply, trust me on that, but are you sure you wanna just listen to music again?”
Janus hummed “I’m fine doing whatever you want to do, it’s the cool sibling’s rule, whatever you do is bound to be fun and cool!” He told him, he just decided on music because he knew Anxiety did that before so he already knew it was cool.
There were a couple of indistinguishable emotions that went across Anxiety’s face In a single instant but after a moment he just breathed out a laugh before nodding “what about we both think of something cool to do?”
Janus nodded and that led to the rest of the day ending up consisting of him following around Anxiety as they walked around the house doing fun stuff, stealing from the cookie jar, accidentally making tar candy, that kind of stuff.
by the end of the day, they had stolen all of the pillows and cushions off the couch to make a fort where they did in fact end up listen to Anxiety music, not for very long though as not twenty minutes in his eyes started getting droopy and he didn’t even have enough energy to try and resist the long do call of sleep, the only thing he had enough energy to do was hold the gifted black cat tightly to his chest before he finally fell asleep.
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By the end of all their interactions with him, all of them shared a single thought,
How could this have ever been Janus?