Love is Dead—Chapter 8
MY SANDERS SIDES WRITING HAS RETURNED
Summary: Janus possesses Remus to try and speak to Patton. When that doesn't work, he moves on to Roman.
Word Count: 1,570
Warnings: Possession, Manipulation, Doll Decapitation
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Patton came back from college at eight that night, yawning as he entered the house. Janus waited for him to eat whatever dinner his father had made before following him up to his bedroom to enact his plan. Virgil noticed him following and sighed, grabbing the chocolate bar from his room and walking reluctantly after him.
Patton went to sit on his bed as Virgil stood outside of his room, waving the chocolate bar around to get Janus’s attention. The ghost took a deep breath, holding out a hand and allowing the candy to leave Virgil’s hand, floating over to be right before Patton’s eyes.
Patton looked up, staring blankly with a glazed-over look at the bar of candy. A smile grew on Janus’s lips; Patton must believe that he exists now! But then the human yawned, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, then lied down and pulled his blankets over him. Janus allowed the candy to drop to the ground.
“My gods, does he think he’s hallucinating?”
“Yeah, probably.” Virgil mumbled, pulling out his phone as if bored.
“What the hell?”
“Hey, he had a long day at college, you’d probably think you were hallucinating too.” Janus had the chocolate float into the air, debating which of the brothers to throw it at for a moment, before chucking it at Virgil’s head. Virgil cursed, grabbing it and preparing to chuck it back, before remembering who exactly had thrown it.
“Fuck you.” Janus ignored him.
“We’ll try again tomorrow, when his mind is more awake.”
As it turned out, that didn’t work out either.
After giving up on the floating candy Janus moved on to more drastic measures, completely against Virgil’s will. After the kids came back from kindergarten one day he floated over to Remus, who was happily cutting off the head of one of Roman’s dolls. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Can you help me guillotine all these dolls first?” He didn’t even want to know where an eight-year old had learned that word, simply taking a seat in front of the child and telekinetically ripping the head off of a doll. Remus giggled excitedly, working at the doll in his hands faster with his safety scissors.
“I’d like to possess you.”
“Like in a scary movie?”
“Yes, like in a scary movie. I figured it would be the easiest way to get Patton to recognize that I exist. Would you be willing to go through with that?” Remus nodded far too eagerly.
“Would you be able to bully Ro in my body? Because then you’ll get in trouble and not me!”
“I’m not entirely sure that’s how your parents will see it, but alright.” Remus hummed at that.
“Okay! You can possess me after we kill all the dolls!” The safety scissors managed to make a small cut in the neck of Remus’s doll, encouraging him to cut at it harder. Janus sighed, preparing to have to stay there for another few hours.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had possessed a living person, but he knew it had been a while. Yes, quite a while. And he had definitely never possessed a child before, but rather an adult. He rubbed at his eyes, looking around as the world came into focus. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Remus singing the same chorus of a children’s song on repeat. He had to make this quick, before that kid drove him insane.
He raced up the stairs, knocking on Patton’s door before entering quietly and politely, trying to make it obvious that he wasn’t Remus. “Good afternoon Patton.” Patton looked him up and down, eyebrows scrunched together.
“Heya kiddo, what’s up?”
“I am not a “kiddo,” Patton.” Janus said, the high-pitched squeakiness of Remus’s voice making him want to pound his head into the wall. “My name is Janus. You’ve heard of me, haven’t you?”
Patton nodded, laughing awkwardly. “Sure have. It’s, uh, good to meet you, Janus.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Ah, well...you’ve kinda done this before, Remus kiddo. It’s not really all that weird.” Janus blinked, mentally turning to the five-year-old, who had finally moved on to repeating the next verse of his song.
“You’ve done this before?” The thought came out almost as a screech. Remus went silent.
“I can get away with a lotta stuff if I pretend to be possessed.”
“And how did you find that out?”
“Back in one of our other houses a ghost possessed me.”
“Fuck!” Janus shouted, leaving Remus’s body and storming up to his attic. Every time, every time he makes an attempt, it always fails! What on earth was he supposed to do? He let out a huff, running a hand through his hair.
The other kid. He didn’t seem like the type to fake being possessed. Perhaps he could be of some use, if Janus could just get him to trust him enough to possess him. He flew back downstairs, searching every room.
Roman was drawing while lying on the floor of the living room. He had luckily not walked in on the carnage that was his doll collection just yet; if he knew of Janus’s involvement in that he may be a bit less willing to hand over his body.
“Good afternoon, Roman.” The kid jumped, eyes flicking around before landing on Janus. He scooted away, brandishing a crayon at the spirit shouting “Get away! Evil! Demon!”
“You are so threatening. I am absolutely terrified of your pink crayon.”
“As you should be! I’ll call Virgil in and he’ll exorcise you right outta here!”
“Are you done yet? I’d like to ask a favor of you.” Roman squinted his eyes, not lowering his crayon.
“What kinda favor?”
“A simple one. It’ll only take a few moments. Just a simple possession, for only five minutes or so.”
“Possession?” Roman shrieked. “No! I won’t let you!” He threw his crayon at Janus, saw it pass through him, then threw a second, then a third, giving up only when a fourth of his crayons were lying on the floor behind Janus.
“A simple “no” would’ve been enough.” Janus floated back, giving Roman plenty of room to pick up all his thrown crayons. He huffed. This would be difficult, though. How could he get a kid like Roman to trust him, especially since his twin seemed to have a hobby of pretending to be possessed to get his way? He watched as Roman got back to drawing, warily glancing up at Janus every once in a while.
“You like to draw?” Janus asked. Roman nodded, picking up a green crayon and scribbling out what the spirit could only assume was a dragon. “You’re very good for your age.” Roman glanced up at him skeptically, before nodding again. “I’m gonna be the next Mona Lisa.”
“You mean the next Da Vinci? Mona Lisa was the painting, not the artist.”
“Yeah.” He clearly didn’t care about the difference. Janus hummed, thinking for a moment.
“Say, Roman, I’ll be perfectly honest here. There’s a reason why I’d like to possess you.” The kid made a resolute “mhm” sound, saying “To do evil stuff!”
“No, not to do “evil stuff.” Rather to find...love.” That seemed to get his attention. Roman looked up curiously.
“Like true love? Do you need a true love’s kiss to not be evil anymore?”
“Ah, you could say that.” Roman leaned closer, his body seeming to bounce a bit with excitement.
“Really? So you’re cursed with the evilness and need a true love’s kiss to take it away?”
“Sure.” He lied. “And you can think of Patton as...a knight in shining armor of sorts.”
“Patty gets to be a knight?!” He yelled happily. Janus quickly shushed him, worried that his parents would end up interrupting. “He sure does, Roman. Which is why I would like your assistance in getting his attention. Because he can’t see me, Roman, and that makes it quite difficult to get this...true love’s kiss from him.”
Roman nodded dutifully, seeming to have forgotten all of his fear in the name of making one of his fairy tale stories come to life. He picked up one of his crayons and a new sheet of paper and began scribbling out a new drawing. Based on the splotches of yellow, red, and black Janus realized with dread that the child was trying to draw him.
He finished proudly, holding it up for Janus to see. “There! Now Patton’ll be able to know what you look like so he can fall in love with you! What do you think?” The drawing was awful, a mess of splotches with a yellow smiley face where his head was. But he couldn’t tell him that, he wasn’t enough of a monster to tell a child their drawing was the worst image he had ever laid eyes upon.
“It’s lovely.” He said bluntly. Roman cheered, racing up the stairs screaming for Patton faster than Janus could blink. “Wait, don’t—fuck.”
And that’s how a child’s drawing of him ended up stuck to the fridge. Virgil laughed for a good five minutes when he saw it, making sure to take a picture just in case the spirit got mad enough to rip it up. “It’s pretty accurate, don’t ya think?”
“Shut up, Cain.”
“He captured your face perfectly.”
“I despise you.”
Tagging: @rebelrewriter @arodynamic-enby @bullet-tothefeels
