Archive of Our Own ^beta

hi!! ive been scrolling through your ao3 catalogue of sanders sides fics and i love your style! your brand of comfort is so sweet! don't know if you still take requests but janus is my favorite snake boy and i would love to see some angst and comfort for him! if you don't though, that's totally chill and i love what you write anyhow :) – lavendergalaxy

hi!! i love your fics so much, your way of writing comfort is just so soft! i had a thought about janus (inspired by a previous fic you wrote in which he dissociates) - what if sometimes he got so caught up in his own lies he started to have trouble telling what was real? and i think every other side would have their own unique way of helping him with that which could be interesting :) anyways i enjoy your writing very much and i hope you're having a good day today -anon

oh my gosh i LOVE your fics so much... don't know if you still take requests (and no pressure of course) but i would love to see something where janus doesn't think he deserves comfort or to be included with everyone else... and since I'm so devastated about his and roman's relationship in the series i would love it if Roman comforted him... (especially since the way you write Roman comforting others is so amazing) ... anyways i love your stuff very much 💕 – anon

Here is what they don't tell you about being Deceit: you are required to become so good at your job that you forget what it is.

The art of telling a good lie comes in three-fold. First, you must understand what truth you are trying to conceal. This is important: many a good lie has been ruined before it has been spoken by failing to correctly guess what it is that cannot be said. If you skirt too closely to the truth, it's liable to slip out anyway, which renders the entire lie a moot point. There are certainly elements of the truth that you can include, all the best lies have some kernels within, after all, but if you are not entirely certain of what it is that you must not say, then you are better off not saying anything at all. (A lie of omission. The easiest to pull off.)

Second, you must know who it is you are telling the lie to. What it is they are most likely to believe, what you can give them to chase like a dog in futile pursuit of its tail. What they will avoid, too, if that better suits your aims, what buttons to press to send them far away and refuse to touch whatever it is you need to hide with a ten-foot pole. Twenty-foot, if you are feeling particularly ambitious. Every good lie is tailored just as much for the person hearing it as the person telling it. (A lie of character. Both yours and theirs, if it is done right.)

And third, there must be belief. You do not have to believe the lie itself—in fact, it is far better and far safer if you do not—but you must believe in something. In your ability to lie successfully, in their ability—or lack thereof to detect it. In yourself, in them, in something, yes, because a lie told without any semblance of belief is a lie that is dead on arrival. There is no use in speaking a lie you do not in some way believe, because if you yourself do not see the truth in your words, however false a truth it may be, how will someone else? (A lie of commission. You pay the debt to yourself before anyone else.)

The first two are simple enough to accomplish. Any decent person has practice at telling lies—do not let them fool you, this is how most of them remain decent—and so should be able to know what it is they cannot say and who it is they cannot say it to. No, it is the third one that is the most difficult. Sure, for the innocent little white lies most use to keep their internal perception of themselves appropriately shaded, those do not require such strong belief. The occasional 'oh, that looks great on you!' is mere child's play, as is the ever-popular 'I'm doing well, thanks.' and its many variations. Even the slightly grayer ones—the 'oh, yeah, I did that last week, did it not go through?' is not as challenging, for quite often you at least certainly thought about it in some capacity and certainly intended to send it to them, whatever it was.

No, no, the ones that require some degree of skill are far more complex than that.

The 'you two look so good together,' dripping off the tongue of someone who would rip every portrait in half. The 'of course I'll be there for you,' ringing hollow in a long-vacated room long closed to you. The 'no, I promise, I didn't know,' coming at the very end of a trail of blood dripping from hidden hands. Metaphorical, dramatic, perhaps, but ironically enough, no less honest. These are the lies that wound the liar far before they have a chance to turn their barbs on their intended recipient. These lies bleed you twice, first when you tell them, and second when they are discovered. Perhaps that is why they are hidden most obsessively, for who could bear to subject themselves to pain twice over, if it could all be avoided?

(Of course, one could simply not lie to begin with, but it is an unfortunate truth that some lies, no matter how barbed, still flay gentler than the truth would.)

It is these lies that require the third thing more than anything else. Belief. You must believe, at some level, in the false truth you spread, in the hope that this is better than the alternative, in the hope that at some level, deep down, this is right. And that, you see, is the trickiest thing to do. For we cannot create something from absolutely nothing, you must find something in that lie that you can believe in. Just one something.

Janus knows this all too well.

The first fold: the truth. Janus is quite often the first and last line of defense Thomas has. He is Deceit, he is Doubt, is he Self-Preservation? Perhaps—he is Me, he is Mine, he is Selfish. Oh, he knows that Roman is the Ego, but Roman, sweet, eager, gullible little Roman, he is not the true protector he thinks he is. Janus is the one making the hard calls to determine what needs to be done to keep Thomas safe, yes, his Ego included, and that means that he cannot afford to doubt himself. He must be sure of everything because it is his job to make Thomas safe.

The second fold: the understanding. The other Sides are…well. They are themselves. Unabashedly, unapologetically, themselves. And that is great within the safety of the Mindscape where the only things that can hurt them are Remus's Rube Goldberg machines and Patton's lack of any real culinary skill, but out there? In the real world? Where lies can and will result in very real consequences? There is a certain sobering thought that Janus never quite lets leave his mind: the world does not look favorably on those who are always just themselves. You must learn to unlock different facets of yourself, of your behavior, of your existence, in order to survive. They do not know how dangerous it is.

The third fold: belief. He is right about this.

He has to be.

Would he be lying to himself if he said he didn't find some fun in winding them up on purpose? On seeing just how much he can get them to believe before they realize he's toying with them? Would he be lying to himself if he said he didn't enjoy watching Roman swell up like a bright angry tomato or Virgil hiss at him like a feral cat? Would he be lying if he said he didn't find some grim satisfaction in making Logan falter or watching a little flicker of seriousness cross Patton's expression?

Would be he be lying if he said there was no part of him that wished he wasn't always the most suspicious person in the room? Would he be lying if he said he wanted them to take just a little longer to guess if he's lying when he really, truly, isn't? Would he be lying if he wanted them to see, just once, that he doesn't just lie for the sake of it?

Would he be lying if he told them that he was doing them a favor? Would he be lying if he insisted that this was all for them? Would he be lying if he collapsed in his room, overwhelmed by the weight of the truth sinking deeper and deeper in his chest?

Belief.

Belief.

Belief is a powerful thing.

The truth is he's doing it for them. The lie is he's doing it for himself.

The truth is the world will be cruel to them. The lie is he will be cruel on purpose.

The truth is that he's scared. The lie is that he isn't.

The truth…the truth…the truth is that 'truth' is a fickle thing. Read or say the word too many times and it stops sounding like a word. 'Truth' is no less subjective as a 'lie,' it is no less discriminatory in how elusive it can be. 'Truth' is in and of itself a lie, built by bricks of lies and falsehoods accepted until it no longer matters what was 'true' before, we know what is 'true' now, and it is this: that truth is as infinitely malleable and crushable as any good lie and neither have the decency to be painless when they leave or land and there is nothing that can be done to change this because that is true, it is true that some things will hurt and the only thing you can do to prepare for it is get hurt first, be hurt first, hurt first, because the world is dangerous and cruel and you are a part of the world and so you must be like it and there is nothing you can do to escape the waves of it dragging you down, down, down into the darkness past where any white lie can save you and all you have left are endless shades of grey—

The truth is that Janus is tired.

"Shit. He's doing it again."

"Doing what?"

The voices bubble in from far away, lost in the swirling grey mists.

"Oh. I see. Uh—you get Logan, I'll get Remus."

"Why do you get to get Logan?"

"Because Remus actually doesn't mess with you that bad, Princey, not compared to the rest of us. 'Cause he knows you'll just kick his ass if he goes over the line."

"I find it unsettling that what he does to me is considered less bad, but alright."

"You just hang on, J, okay? We'll be right back. You need to hurry up, Princey, I don't know how long he's been like this but his hands are shaking so bad."

"Shit. Okay, I'm going, I'm going."

The voices swirl off into the mist. It is almost peaceful down here, if he could overlook the dread poking holes in his ribs and stomach. Still, like any pain, there is only so much he can identify before it all becomes a blur—

"Oof!"

"Hey, Snakey," says the projectile that just knocked him flat on his back and is currently sprawled across his front, "heard you were doing the dumb floaty thingy again."

"That is not what I called it," comes Roman's voice, "but I do agree that it is dumb."

"Guys, we're not supposed to start by insulting him." Oh. Virgil. And judging by the dark blur over his shoulder, Logan too. "Remus—I think you can get off him now."

"Hmm. Nope." Remus makes a show of snuggling under his chin and the noise that slips through his lips at the warmth pressed against his scales. "See? Snakey's still too cold for me to let him go."

"Oh, Janus," he hears Logan sigh, and then there's a slight rustle to his left, "I do wish you could come to us before this happens."

There's another warmth pressed to his side before he can summon any effort to tell if that was a lietruth or not. As if he can hear that—and knowing Remus, he probably actually can—the warmth under his chin shakes back and forth and he makes another noise.

"None of that right now, Snakey. Not the time for that. Now is time for cuddles and warmth and you not being cold all by yourself."

"Don't scold him," Logan chides as his hands start to card through his hair and oh, what was that about thinking? Effort? Janus is never going to think about anything again, not with how this feels right now. "There…oh, you poor thing."

Logan's hands start to move, carefully tracing along the top of his hairline, down over his cheeks, his nose, down to under his chin. He follows the touch, trying to pull himself back out of the swirling grey mists—how could he want to stay down there, in the cold, when there is warmth to be had? He is only a snake, after all, and he chases the sun.

"I like how Logan gets the sun comparison when we've all agreed before that he's more moon-coded than anything else."

"Jealousy's a killer, Roro, get well soon."

"I'll show you get well soon."

"No, you won't," Patton's voice says before softening considerably. "Hey, sweetheart, you're okay. You're here with us, in the living room, everyone's safe. Everyone's here, you're lying on the ground, Remus is on top of you, Logan is touching your face. I'm sitting right next to you, if you stretch your right hand out, you'll feel mine—"

He does, and another hand takes his and squeezes.

"—see? There you go, just like that, that's good. Roman's getting the blankets down from the closet and Virgil is keeping watch."

"Nothing's gonna happen to you right now," Virgil says, "you just worry about getting warm. I'll worry about everything else."

Yes. That's Virgil's job, worrying. He's very good at it. If Virgil is handling the worrying, then Janus doesn't have to.

"Okay, blankets coming right up," Roman murmurs, and then there are soft things gently brushing his cheek. "Let's see which one of these pass the Janus test, yeah? That one? Okay, and this one? No? Alright, not that one…"

A total of six blankets pass the Janus test. Roman lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and there's a brief cool shimmer as his clothes fade to a soft shirt and boxers. Remus's warmth is all the more overwhelming now that there's so much of him pressed against Janus and Logan's touches intensify as the wave of warm warm warm slams into his chest—

"Shh, it's okay, Snakey, we're right here. I gotcha, Lolo's gotcha, Roro's gotcha. We're just setting up the nest, okay? You're doing so good. It's okay. You don't have to do it alone anymore."

"Help me lift him, Re—"

He's laid on something soft, surrounded by something soft, and he keeps letting these little noises slip through his lips and that's—that's bad, right? He's not supposed to be doing that, right?

"No, Janus, that's alright, that's good, it's okay." Logan's fingers curl and trace along his scalp. "That's what you're supposed to do right now, it's alright."

"You're safe, " Patton agrees, "you're okay. You're gonna be okay."

The first fold: truth. The others will never let him get hurt.

The second fold: understanding. The others will never let him get hurt.

The third fold: belief. The others will—

The others—

The—

"Oh, Janus," Roman whispers, "it's okay. Take your time. We'll be right here until you feel better. Don't rush, okay? It's okay. Just take your time."

(There is a reason the third fold is the trickiest. Do not be ashamed, little one, if it takes time to believe something, truth or lie.)