Accepting Duplicity, Part 2/2: Can Selfishness Be Good?
Relationships: Janus & Everyone, basically
Summary: A 'what if' scenario: what if Janus took Virgil's role as the first Dark Side to try and interact with the Light Sides? (just imagine every episode pre-AA that had Virgil in it and just imagine if Janus was there instead of Virgil)
Notes: Janus's title is Duplicity, but his nickname is Vill, short for Villain because he dresses like a disney villain (original, I know). This entire thing is just if SvS, Putting Others First, and Can Lying Be Good had a baby and it was AA Part 2
Words: 3633
Also on Ao3!
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When Janus woke up today, he was not planning on encountering the others in his room. And no, he wasn't speaking backward this time.
"Excuse me," He said with a smooth voice before appearing in his usual capelet and hat, "What are you doing in my room?" He sneered.
The others just screamed at the sight of him. Figures.
"Vill? Oh my goodness, I am so happy to see you, that's weird," Thomas said excitedly.
Janus blinked before slowly saying, "All of you just didn't scream in unison upon seeing me,"
"S-sorry," Logan stuttered out, uncharacteristically nervous, "You do this thing where you kind of just- appear ,"
"Wait, wait, wait, what is going on with my hair? Oh, come on, I just washed it like- yesterday. How did it get like this?" Thomas whined as he took off his hoodie and tried to fix his nest of a head.
Roman brightened and threw a hairbrush at him. "Welcome back, Thomas!”
"Thanks, Roman," Thomas quickly tidied up his hair and threw it back. Roman let put an 'ow' as Thomas went back to the task at hand, "Vill, you don't understand-"
"-come on-" Roman muttered.
"-for some reason, I wasn't feeling your presence at all,"
"Yes, yes, I'm well aware," Janus said idly, "It's because I wanted to- test something, you could say. Although a more proper term for my disappearance would be 'ducking out',"
"Quack," Patton mumbled.
"What- ducking out?"
"Quack, quack,"
"That's a thing you can do?" Thomas asked Logan, who muttered back: "For this video, I guess,"
"I decided to try and remove myself from the equation for the time being, since all of you seemed so adamant that my presence wasn't welcome or necessary,"
"Well, I wouldn't-" Patton started to say before he could only mouth the movements of speech. The poor dear was telling a lie.
Janus shot a sympathetic look his way, "Don't act like I'm not telling the truth, Morality,"
Patton shut his mouth.
"Well, it's because it was kind of unnecessary for you to be there during Thomas's problem solving," Roman said, a grimace set on his face.
Janus snorted, "Oh, what, I'm not allowed to be here but you, Mr. Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations himself, are?"
"We aren't the same-"
"Noooo, of course not, especially since we both encompass what Thomas's wants and needs in life. Definitely not,"
Roman frowned and began to open his mouth.
Logan interjected, anticipating another argument, "On behalf of my fellow sides, I'd like to... apologize for our negligence towards our treatment of you. I can't imagine it was pleasant,"
Janus sighed, "It comes with the job,"
"But, I truly don't think any of us anticipated how important you are, Duplicity," Logan said earnestly. Roman and Patton gave him a look but he just gave them one of his own, daring them to argue.
Roman sighed, and nodded reluctantly, "Without you, Thomas didn't want to do anything except for work and he couldn't even put on a show for the camera despite that! He just said whatever came into his head and he had a nonexistent filter for everything. It really made me feel bad because then it was like I was useless-" Roman slapped his hand on his mouth and chuckled nervously.
Logan paused before continuing for him, "Precisely, Vill, you encompass so much more than Thomas's selfishness and deceit. You exist to keep him safe,"
"I mean, self-preservation is basically the only reason I'm here," Janus mumbled, "But I'm glad you see my purpose, Logan,"
"B-but," Patton stumbled, "I mean, I get why he’s important, but he’s still not- like us..?" He tried to say in the most polite way possible.
Janus smiled at that, "And why should I, Patton?"
"Say what?"
"Why should I be like you?" Janus reiterated, "And how am I different than you or any other side?"
"O-oh, because lying isn't- it's not, uh, I mean-"
"Tell me, Patton,"
"Because lying isn't good," Patton spit out, his frustration and adamancy clear in his tone, before putting his hands on his mouth in shock, "I- I'm sorry, I don't understand what came over-"
Janus waved his gloved hand, pretending like his statement didn't hurt him, "Don't soften the truth, Patton, we both know it only makes things worse. And to answer your -to be frank- incorrect statement, I'll say this: how can you be so sure that lying isn't bad? And what makes you or any of the others ‘better’ than me?"
"Because you aren't being honest and the others aren’t- you know, bad?"
"And how is that a bad thing, and what makes the others good?"
"Because it's- it's not- it's not ethically right, first of all, and second, there’s nothing- ethically compromising about these two,"
"And how can you be so sure?"
"Well, um, look. How would you feel if someone lied to your face about something that they didn't have to lie about and you trusted that person?"
"I'd feel hurt," Janus said curtly, already understanding where this was heading.
"And that's because you trust them to tell you things that aren't lies because you trust them to not break your trust," Patton rattled off, moving his hands around aimlessly.
"Okay, those are way too many 'trust's in one sentence," Roman said, cradling his head in his palms like he was getting a headache.
Janus ignored him, "That's only one scenario, Patton. What if you had to tell the truth about a hamster's death to a child? Would you lie to them and simply say that 'your hamster ran away' or something more comforting? Or would you tell them the blunt truth? That their hamster is gone and won't ever come back to them? And you’re still not answering my question, Morality, what do the others have that I don’t that makes them ‘good’?"
"W-well-"
"Patton, just hear me out on this. What if not all actions have the same moral consequence in different situations as moral philosopher Jonathan Dancy says? I’m paraphrasing here- but he said it's truly impossible to quantify the ethical weight of moral principles since situations can be so different from each other for many different reasons. So, curiosity during a rather morbid experience and continuously probing the people who experienced it isn’t exactly ethically right in that specific situation. Or let’s say pride; you got a callback for an audition for a- um-"
“-an Alfred Hitchcoppalucas film-!”
“-yes, that, but your friend -who also auditioned- didn’t get the callback. Now, it’s fine to feel pride in your accomplishments but you don’t just shove it in their face, because that’s just needlessly cruel. It’s all in the matter of how far you go with it,”
"Yes, but that still leaves the fact that at least lying for selfish reasons isn't the most- morally decent thing to do-" Patton argued.
"That's you making your own judgment call. Surely you know when it's necessary, to tell the truth in a situation and when it isn't? That's the whole point of moral particularism. I'm just trying to say that lying isn't the most black and white thing to do. And even then, morals aren't black and white and shouldn't be perceived as such, since morality is more of a- spectrum of grays,"
Roman snorted, "Are there 50 shades-?" He was quickly shut up by Janus with a snap of his fingers.
"Those grays vary in shades of light and dark, but they're all the same color, and that's the mindset you should have as a figment of morality simply because life isn't simple. It gets more and more complicated as it goes on. People are never truly evil or good, it's only dramatization and opinions that shape people's perception of them. Sure, there are some people who are the darkest shades of gray imaginable and some who have shades that are so light they're white, but that suddenly doesn’t make them incapable of doing good or bad. And that's why I'm here,"
"To darken Thomas's shade of gray?" Patton muttered, confused, continuously shifting his eyes between Janus and Thomas.
"No," Janus quickly said, "No, definitely not. I'm here to-"
"-show that I have a capacity for deceit, among other things," Thomas finished for him.
Patton gasped, "Kiddo..."
"Patton, Vill isn't that bad. He really isn't, or at least, he really can't be. If he was, then I would've been better off without him a few hours ago,"
Patton looked at the floor, "But Thomas, he's still-"
"We're all capable of doing bad as well as good in life, Pat," Thomas said softly. "You know that, I know that, so why are we fighting it?"
"I just want you to be a good person," Patton whispered
"And I just want to keep him safe," Janus said. Patton looked up at him, a small frown on his face. "I know you don't like me, and I know you certainly won't try and do so today or tomorrow. But- but at least trust that I want what's good for Thomas as well. I'm self-preservation, for Christ sake, I'd be going against my job description,"
"Well, then why do you always act like the embodiment of a Disney Renaissance villain all the time?" Roman blurted out.
"Roman?" Thomas asked tensely, but Roman soldiered on, rambling incessantly like if he won’t get his thoughts out on Janus now, he won’t have another opportunity later.
"What? He's a creepy cookie! You're a creepy cookie, Duplicity!"
"Roman!" Thomas repeated.
"You're like an oatmeal raisin cookie that's primarily composed of raisins, no one wants that, least of all-!"
"Pump the breaks, Princey!" Thomas said.
Roman's eyes widened like he was somehow realizing, just now, that he said all of that, "I- I'm sorry," He placed his hands on his face in embarrassment.
"You pump those breaks,"
"I'm sorry, I just- I'm feeling a bit more truthful? Just getting all of my thoughts out there, I'm-"
"Take it easy, Roman," Janus warned.
Roman groaned into his palms once more. “Ye-yeah, I got that,”
"But to answer your rather blunt question, I was under Vi-" Janus halted before continuing as though he didn't pause his sentence, "-the belief that a dark persona would help you listen to me, that maybe if I played the villain, you- you'd listen to me. But gradually, I realized that perhaps it wasn't working as I anticipated," Janus said sheepishly. "So, I needed a bit of a break from that whole spiel to attempt and- reinvent myself, you could say. I wasn't planning on leaving you for so long, and I -maybe, possibly- thought you would enjoy the lack of my presence,"
Roman snorted, "Look how well that-" He quickly shut his mouth with one look from Thomas.
A silence passed. It was stifling and Janus was about to ask if he could go back up to his bedroom so he could be actually comfortable but Logan spoke up before he could do so.
"Well, that sounded monumentally unwise and incredibly out of character for you, Duplicity,"
Janus growled, "What? Is the embodiment of selfishness not allowed to take a break?"
"Vill, you are an incredibly important survival instinct, and it's astounding that you don't realize that, even with you saying you understand your purpose," Logan sighed, "I realize that we have undermined your presence more times than Roman can count-"
"-hey-!"
"-but you simply must understand that without you around, Thomas would suffer," Logan summoned a graph and marker and gestured to the title. "The relationship between selfishness and performance can be expressed on this curve, known as the Yerkes-Dodson curve. It's named after the psychologists, R. M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson. They-"
"Get on with it, Calculator Watch!"
Logan frowned, hurt flashing in his eyes as he reluctantly continued. He didn't even seem to realize it. Janus tensed. His room was beginning to take a bigger hold on them than he envisioned.
"Up here is where you want to be-" Logan gestured to the point of the parabola, "-the optimum degree of constructive tension. Yes, too much selfishness pushes us to this side of the curve, and performance is hindered, which is less than ideal. But without you at all, Thomas is not just on this more overworked, under prepared side of the graph which is also not ideal when you're trying to get things done. He's all the way down here,"
"By the horn of a unicorn, that was going somewhere! I thought I'd have to drag our attention away from that stupid graph like it's somehow more important than me because my self-worth is incredibly poor and I just want someone to-" Roman slapped his hands over his mouth, flashing Janus a grateful look.
Janus stared at him with wide eyes but turned his focus back to Logan, "So, without me, aren't you always on the other side of that- um-"
"Yerkes-Dodson curve, yes," Logan ended for him.
"I was blanking on the word 'parabola', but that works as well,"
"There are ways I can work on that, Vill. But I'd rather work on it with you than without you at all," Thomas said earnestly.
"I doubt you can guarantee that with Morality around," Janus said softly, stealing a glance at the side in question, who just looked down ashamedly.
"We can all work on that, Vill," Thomas amended. "It's important because you need to be listened to. You're an important part of me -all of you are- but I need to recognize how much you need to control for me to function well. You're kind of like Roman, in that sense,"
"Well, we're both multi-faceted and we do encompass a lot of your wants and needs," Janus muttered.
Logan added on, "You're what holds Thomas back from overworking himself, you're there as a protective instinct first-"
"-and you're there to make sure Thomas gets what he wants!" Patton exclaimed, startling Logan.
Patton noticed Logan's stiff form and wide eyes and quickly apologized. "Sorry, was that too loud? I was worried I wouldn't get another chance to speak and I wanted to share my thoughts before I forgot them if Vill went on another-" Patton shut his mouth and didn't continue, however, did shoot Janus a thankful look, who reciprocated it with a concerned look of his own.
"Duplicity," Janus looked to Thomas, "In small doses, you're what encourages me to treat myself a bit when I've gotten a lot of work done. To take extra time with my appearance so I'll like who I see in the mirror, and to know when enough is enough. I- I'm lucky to have you the way I do,"
"Agreed, constant narcissism isn't pleasant for others around you, nor is it healthy for your mental health if it continues to the point of a lack of empathy," Logan said, not noticing Patton and Janus's flinch. "Whether it's a symptom of a different issue, or a narcissistic disorder, or the unfortunate result of something someone is going through,"
"And I don't want to downplay any of that, but I think maybe I could benefit from trying to hear you more,"
"And I'm grateful for that, but that doesn't-" Patton cut Janus off.
"Vill, you're what helps make Thomas happy. You're the- encouragement he needs to go out and do something for himself, like getting a hot dog or a new Frogger game. And that small action, even if it isn't much, makes me grateful for you. I- I never truly realized how happy you made me whenever you encouraged Thomas to get something he wants or to take a break from studying or practicing. And I think that's as good a sign as any that you're willing to help Thomas, even if it's through small gestures. And that happiness, that drive, makes us... better," Patton said before bursting into tears, starting to ramble.
"I- I'm so sorry, I thought you were the worst person ever and now it’s like I’m confronting these two different versions of you and I just feel really sad all the time and it's not because of you, I just keep acting all happy and hoping that the bad thoughts'll just go away-"
"-I still think that curve is useless, Logan, I can easily just poof it away and then we can focus on something actually important like me because I have an incredibly small ego and I just think that our time would be better spent-"
"-well, first off, it's called a Yerkes-Dodson curve and second of all, this is the episode where I finally got listened to and now you're starting to complain? It's almost like no matter how hard I try, you never listen and just argue with me even if I’m trying to help-!"
The three lapsed into separate, overlapping arguments, venting about all of their issues and letting their emotions cloud their filters. Janus winced, "Uh, oh..."
"Uh, what the heck is going on?"
"These three have been in my room for far too long and now they can't handle the... effects of staying here for this amount of time,"
"And what are those effects?" Thomas practically yelled, trying to be heard over the three venting sides.
"Saying whatever is on your mind in full honesty and with all of the emotional clarity without thinking of the consequences. And in combination with that , they’re driving you far over the other end of that parabola, not realizing or caring about what the others are saying and simply caring about airing their frustrations to nobody in the hopes that someone will hear and listen to them,"
"What?!"
"Hold on. We're getting them all out of here. Thomas, do not forget what you've learned. Now, think of truths. Not facts, per se, just things you personally know to be true about yourself or the world around you,"
Thomas took a deep breath, trying to ignore the yells, insults, and crying and just focused on himself. "I like cats, the sky is blue, musical theatre is really important to me-" He continued listing things off as Janus sank the gradually quieting group back down to the living room.
The group popped back up again and Janus began to scold them, "Well, that was an incredibly idiotic thing you all did, but I wish I could say I was surprised,"
Roman looked at Janus, astonished, "You... rescued me,"
"I wouldn't say rescue, but I am self-preservation and you were airing out problems I had a feeling would be too… personal for us to discuss at the moment," Janus amended.
"Incredibly right, just as you keep Thomas away from joyless and unwanted situations, you also enable him to find an escape out of them," Logan said.
"Thanks, Vill," Patton said, his tear marks glistening on his face.
Janus felt his human side flush at the praise and waved his hand, "No big deal, Patton. But I still find it hard to believe you all went through that for- for me,"
Thomas smiled, "It was worth it to regain my good ol' self-care,"
"That's right and just like you saved us, it's the cautious people that work that hardest to save others and themselves from harm, whether it be mental or physical. Sometimes it's better for a society to preserve itself than be needlessly selfless," Logan added on.
"I'm glad to have you back, Duplicity, and I promise to make sure you feel listened to and strive for a better balance from here on out," Thomas's gaze refocused on the camera, "And to all of you out there-"
"Wait," Janus found himself saying. "Good lord, I might actually be considering it,"
"What?"
"If you truly want to strive to make me feel listened to, I- I'd like it to be halfway,"
"What do mean by that-?" Roman started but quickly cut himself off as Janus began to take off his glove.
"I know this might feel... unnecessary but I would still like to be on an even playing field with you all, even if it makes me a bit uncomfortable," Janus explained haltingly, flexing his fingers experimentally.
"Oh, Vill, you don't have to if you don't want to," Patton said, concern laced in between his words. The others nodded along with him, clearly in the same boat. But Janus lifted his bare hand, motioning them to silence.
Patton quieted, staring at him with a furrow in his brow.
He took a deep breath and held up his right hand right by his face, as though he was under oath.
"My- my name is Janus," He stated before quickly flicking his eyes at everyone's expressions and putting back on his glove, ignoring the clear shock and confusion from the others.
"J-Janice?" Roman snorted.
Patton and Logan glared at him. "Why's that so funny?" Thomas said with an edge in his voice.
"W-well-" Roman noticed the flash of hurt that passed through Janus's eyes and changed his answer, "-because, um, it's... not,"
Patton hummed, "It's not what I was expecting, to be honest, but I like it!" He commented brightly.
"The name comes from Roman mythology, correct?" Logan asked. Janus nodded, too stunned by the positivity to respond.
"It was... unexpected-" Roman said, shifting his weight on his feet, "-but it must have taken a lot of trust to tell us that... Janus."
Janus gave him a slight smile as Thomas began saying his pre-end card monologue. Something about learning new things about yourself and how the 'bad' things about yourself can have pros about them at times.
In truth, he wasn't paying much attention, he was busy being confused over the warm fuzzy feeling in his chest that came after the fact.
Oh god, did he have a lot to tell Virgil and Remus.
