Chapter Text
Logan had been surprised when Janus visited him in prison for the first time, a few months after the incriminating week.
Logan had been shocked when Janus kept visiting him, and eventually convinced the others to join him.
And Logan had been quite honestly flabbergasted when, at the end of his two-year sentence and carrying a five-thousand dollar fine, the group had offered him a place to live.
Or that was what Patton had told Janus, anyways. In all honesty Janus was quite inclined to believe him- an empath who's brain was altered to make him even more of an empath tends to be quite perceptive when it comes to these things. Not to mention that Janus was slowly learning how to trust again, after the Procedures had all but torn that ability away from him, and Patton had been one of the first to receive the honor (he'd almost cried the first time Janus had allowed him to take care of his snakes for an entire week while visiting family. The snakes had also been unreasonably happy, those traiterous bastards).
Speaking of which- they all lived together now. It hadn't been the original plan, but when Virgil brought it up in the midst of a debate about how the reward money should be split there seemed like no better option. Janus' home had burned down (two years in prison for Logan and the strange assistant for arson), Virgil had already been living in an ungodly hellhole of a dorm for college, and Roman and Remus were just happy to get out of their car. Not too far from the university, yet still ironically near the mountains, the place had immediately felt like home.
But about Logan- Janus could still see the shock etched on his face like it was two seconds ago. The sheer hope, that seemed so new to the man.
"Sincerely? You are offering me a place in your home?" For once, Logan was fumbling for words. "But I- I pointed a gun at you. I helped inject you, I tricked you, I-"
Janus laid a hand on his shoulder. "This was a group descision, Logan. We cannot achieve closure until you do." He wrinkled his nose. "To be honest, me and Virgil were all for letting you struggle for a few weeks before swooping in like scaled angels from heaven, but Patton said that would be cruel." He picked at the tip of his glove, raising one eyebrow towards the sky. "Not that I'm especially opposed to cruel- that actually made me want to do it more, but you've seen Pat's puppy dog eyes. They should be outlawed by the Geneva convention, really. Biological weapons at the least."
Logan was still looking a bit shell-shocked, and Janus realized he'd been moving too quickly. While the group of five had already had the chance to come to terms with the descision, this was coming out of nowhere for Logan. He'd probably envisioned himelf starving, living the twins' old life, Janus realized with a shiver. His expression softened. "Look, Logan. You've already gone through enough for what you did. With Em-Picani," Logan visibly flinched "And your years in here, you would have to have a heart of steel to not have changed.
"And don't even try to tell me that you do. You know I'll know that you're lying."
And that was it. Well, not really- none of them ever changed back. Janus was still a pathological liar, Roman took months to even be able to type without beginning to shake, and Remus woke up screaming more nights than not from imagined horrors that Janus couldn't even start to process. Didn't want to process, because Remus' frantic mumbling deep into the night was descriptive enough. Patton would sometimes start sobbing or panicking in public, because of the combined forces of so many people's often negative emotions. Virgil's panic attacks were devastating, to say the least. The medication helped, but sometimes they would come back, and Janus' heart would break all over again. Because Virgil looked so torn apart, so terrified, so lacerated with anxiety every time, and Janus did kind of want to murder Logan then. Nobody got to put his friend through that. Patton had learned to push his own calm into Virgil, but sometimes he wasn't there, or it wasn't enough.
But if Virgil could forgive, then so could Janus. Not that he didn't purposefully step on Logan's toes, or never fully close his door, or almost 'accidently' push him down their flight of stairs the first few weeks after Logan moved in, but Patton had eventually caught on and forced him to stop. Janus had seen Patton's little grin when Janus described some of his more nefarious plots, but chose not to bring it up out of kindness.
Because the fact was that Logan was just as much of a victim as the rest of them. It had taken a while, but there was one night when Logan truly opened up.
Janus had been on their tiny excuse for a porch, staring at the stars. Some days his inner, amplified voice of self-preservation would keep him awake for hours, making him that much closer to the animal Picani had wanted him to be. Somehow he wasn't surprised or startled when he heard the clearing of a throat. He turned around and gave a slight, dry smile.
"Logan. Fancy seeing you around these parts."
"We live together, Janus- oh, you are being sarcastic. I see." Logan hung back a moment, but eventually relented and came to rest next to Janus on the railing. He stared up at the stars for a few minutes before opening his mouth to speak again.
"I think I owe you an explanation."
Janus scoffed. "You owe all of us an explanation. We may tolerate you, maybe even like you-" Logans' surprise was almost laughable "but being an endearing nerd doesn't mean you're off the hook. One day I'm going to set Pretty Patricia loose in your room so she can dismantle the unjust hierarchy that is your bookshelves."
"Yes, I suppose putting a soulist snake in my bedroom is something that I.." Logan scrunched up his face in thought "...Have coming. I am almost certain that that is the correct usage, though Remus keeps giggling whenever I say it."
"No, you're right, Remus' mind just has ancestral roots in the gutter. I did think you had something to tell me?"
Logan had the decency to look a little bashful. "I did. I shall start from the beginning, if that is acceptable." Janus nodded and fully faced Logan, side-sprawling against the railing.
"As I've told you in the past, I used to work with the mechanics of the brain. How it worked, why it worked, where it worked in different areas. It was my passion, and still is. I think." He cleared his throat. "But I went too far. I wanted to not just document and fix, but improve the human brain. I did some things that I will always regret, and was found out. The people I hurt... I deserved my prison time. When I lost my job, I didn't know where to go except to my old friends' house in the mountains."
"Picani, I assume?"
"Yes, me and Emile have known each other for a very long time. He was kind enough to take me in, or that's how I interpreted it in the moment. He seemed to share my passion for improving the brain, and I suppose I fell in love with him, for a time." Janus could easily believe that, reflecting on the familliar way they had interacted on the fateful day with the gun. "We shared an obsession, a home, an expulsion from society. It was almost inevitable."
Something occured to Janus, that probably should have been clear to him much earlier. "You must be livid with us. We all had an instrumental role in his death."
Logan looked at him with an unusually vulnerable expression. "I am not sure if I am, really. My brain tells me it is for the best, for me and you all, but" He looked down "I cannot deny that my heart still hurts thinking about it. I cannot pretend to be unfeeling on the subject."
"And you shouldn't. Now," Janus gestured impatiently, "continue?"
"Yes, of course. We figured out a way to enhance the specific traits that you experience- anxiety, a more animalistic version of self-preservation, emotional receptivity, and creativity. I'm not sure why Roman and Remus had such different reactions, but that is just another factor that condemns the safety and intelligence of the experiment. Again, I am sorry."
Janus sighed. Logan had been continually sprinkling apologies into everyday conversation for a while now, and it was starting to get old. Not that he didn't enjoy hearing the man grovel. "You are forgiven. Mostly. You'll know when you are fully forgiven, though it may be startling and possibly painful."
"Fair. In any case, he- I- we wanted to see which ones were the best. Which would improve us, and the world, the most. Before you stopped us, Emile was talking most fondly of your and Patton's traits. I believe one of you would have recieved the reward, if everything had gone to plan."
Janus absorbed all this for a moment, trying to think of something to say. "Hey- you never mentioned if you got changed at all. Were you spared?"
A flicker of something- pain -etched itself onto Logans' face. "You deserve to know." That said, it took Logan a while to continue.
"You have to understand, my job meant everything to me at that point. It was my passion, my energy, my reason to get up in the morning. I didn't see at the time how unhealthy it was, but what's done is, as they say, done. Losing it, as well as my status, all but destroyed me. I wasn't faking my turmoil when you first saw me."
Janus nodded. It would be difficult to fake the amount of devastation that had been written onto Logan's entire form when they had first met.
"I couldn't take it. I didn't want to take it. So I begged Emile for an escape, and he gave me one.
"I've spent much of my life pretending not to have emotions. In that moment, that seemed like bliss. And there I was, with the power to do something. So, like I always have, I took the opportunity. The procedures greatly enhanced my logical thinking, as you may have noticed, but they also removed some from me."
Janus breathed in suddenly. "Logan- you didn't."
He gave him a wry smile, so obviously forced it was painful. "I did. I took away a large part of my emotions, my emotional intelligence, and my ability to percieve those things in others. My intelligence has increased, but I do believe I broke something in me forever."
Fuck it. Sadist and mad scientist be damned, Janus knew when somebody needed a hug. Logan was stiff when he first embraced him, but gradually melted into the hug. And if Janus felt a dampness on his shoulder, there was no reason to bring it up. Not even as the minutes passed, and the stairs creaked as the others came outside, sleepy-eyed and confused. Janus was ready to explain, but shut his mouth when he felt Patton's arms join his. Slowly, more bodies were added into the group hug.
The sun rose on the group, outshining the surrounding stars and filling the sky. Everything would be okay, for now.
~
Months passed before Janus found himself at a restraunt table with Roman. They had waited years, but it felt inevitable, really. The six would always be the only ones to really understand each other, after what they had gone through together. Janus and Roman had gone from partners in crime, to best friends, to a hurried date at the movies and dinner while grinning like idiots at each other.
It was perfect.
Knuckles brushing Roman's, Janus wondered whether answering that ad in the newspaper had really been such a bad idea.
Yes, yes it had. But it had been the best bad idea of his life, and that what was counted. Roman would giggle at that, years later when Janus murmered it to him while lightly intoxicated. He never disagreed, however, and the sound of their rings clinking together as they kissed was answer enough.