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When Janus was sixteen, his parents kicked him out of the house.
It didn’t happen suddenly. He knew where it came from. He had been aware of the slow descent towards the break in their familial bond. He hadn’t thought ‘what did I do, how can I fix it, I love them, I want them to love me’ when it happened. He had already had those thoughts, in his bedroom with the door locked from the outside, face buried in his pillow, the tacky feeling of salt on his cheeks stinging, his breaths shallow and as quiet as he could get them to be.
He had thought it all unfair, and unlucky, and unjust. He’d shed his tears and he’d grown from the salty water, turning bitter and jaded and horrible.
When they had kicked him out, he had been ready. He’d gotten money squirreled away, he had had friends’ houses open to him where he couch surfed. He hadn’t gone back until a month later, out of a desperate longing for family during Christmas, but he’d found out that they had moved, not leaving a follow up address. Out of a sick sense of need to know, he’d dialed his parents and his brother’s phone number, only to get a dial tone. He tried it from a phone booth, but he got the same results. They hadn’t blocked him; they’d gotten new numbers.
The year before, he’d had his accident that left him scarred. His parents were nitpicky, in love with their own image, desperate for the acceptance of others, wanting to fit into the image of beauty that society showed.
Janus hadn’t hated it, when he had been growing up. He’d thought he was largely unaffected by it, until he saw a man walk by with a bowed back, or saw older kids with acne or ungroomed hair. He’d turned up his nose at the way people wore unfitted clothes, baggy shirts, hoodies. He had sneered at how people couldn’t coordinate colors in their outfits, had rolled his eyes and made fun of the people who didn’t look pretty.
He had fitted outfits, suits, polished shoes, perfectly cut hair - everything matched, everything looked good . He loved the feeling of crisp pants, the smell of leather being taken care of. He’d made sure everything he owned didn’t have a thread out of place. His books never had a cracked spine, and no watermarks existed on any tables. He color-coordinated his phone cases with his outfits. He took care of his hair, he made sure to cover his face with foundation if something unsavory had popped up.
But he hadn’t really cared, not the way his parents had. He liked taking care of himself with his masks and nail polish and creams. He had made fun of other people because he had been taught they were different, and ugly and to be made fun of. He hadn’t meant it.
But then he’d been scarred, and his cheek had needed stitches, but they came out badly and he had the reminder on his face.
He’d covered it up at first, and everyone had been happy. His parents didn’t grimace when they looked at him and he didn’t have to be reminded that he looked blemished and scarred and awful now. His brother didn’t flinch away from looking at him.
It had been good, fine, alright, perfectly okay. He hadn’t been scarred; he only remembered when he took a shower, or brushed his teeth, or touched his face or had dreams about the accident.
Then one day, as he was putting on his cover-up, he looked at himself and didn’t recognize who he was. The plain skin on his cheek mocked him. He had changed, on the night of his accident and on the days that went by. He’d learned what it felt like to lack love and affection after a frightening, life-altering, horrible accident.
A void had opened up in him, and he was angry.
So he carefully took a pad and cleared his face. He went and sat at the breakfast table, face lacking any sort of make-up; the first time since he was seven.
His mother had gasped, eyes widening, hand to her chest, other hand on her mouth. “Janus…”
His brother stared at the table, hand tight around his fork as their father stared at Janus with disapproval. “Cover that up! Do you want to hurt your mother by reminding her of that?”
“I will not cover it up,” Janus had said. It had been the start of their end. The days had passed. Janus had put on eyeshadow and he’d put on blush and he’d put on nail-polish and glitter and eyeliner and everything else. He’d never covered up his scars, a furious determined desire to prove himself and a desperate begging for his family to care.
They never did, not really. And then they had told him to pack and leave and never talk to them again because they didn’t want to be seen as a family with someone who looked like him.
So he’d gone away and he’d only looked back once, until he was [age] and his brother found him on instagram and asked to meet up. He’d sounded genuine and he had only been a kid, when Janus had been scarred. Janus went to therapy, he knew the pressures of their parents’ desire for perfection would have affected them both differently, and he’d long since lost the bitter hurt he carried with himself.
So he’d met up with his brother, and it had been fine, but then it suddenly hadn’t. He hadn’t been able to meet up with his brother for more than a few times a year; his brother contacted him each time, begging to hang out, to meet up, to chat, to rebuild their relationship and Janus always caved in. His friends had lost all goodwill towards Damien, and last time Patton had put his foot down and demanded Janus cut him out of his life. Janus said he would. He had it planned out – three more times, third time’s the charm, all that stuff. If Damien continued on being a douchebag, then Janus would block him .
Some part of him had been hopeful though. He knew the way the two of them had grown up had fucked them up. He thought if anyone could get through to Damien it would be him. Janus had thought that, even if his brother had blatantly stared at his scar, then sneered at the pictures of Remus and Roman that Janus had posted, rolling his eyes about the brightly colored hair and Remus’s terrible coordination that Janus found endearing and charming, there was still hope.
Then he’d seen how Virgil had paled, how he’d gone white and how he’d frozen and he’d known he was never going to forgive Damien.
He took Virgil home.
“What does your shield do?” Virgil asked Janus, when he thought his words wouldn’t shake. Janus looked up from brewing the second pot of tea. There was green glitter on his cheeks, bringing out the dark lines of his scars. Virgil understood now, on a more personal level, about why Janus took so much care to draw eyes to his cheeks.
‘If you want to be with me, you have to look good, you can’t let yourself go. I won’t be seen with someone who looks like you. Get your shit together, Virgil. You’re lucky I care enough to tell you. No one else could bear to look at you, much less help.’
Janus lowered the heat of the stove and sat at the table next to Virgil. “It stings something awful if you touch it.”
“Can you spread it over others?”
“No, it’s a personal shield.”
“Useful?”
“Not much,” Janus said. “It does stop physical things as well, so it helps me when Remus wants to have an impromptu pillow-fight, but besides that, not really.”
“Good for intimidation,” Virgil said and Janus nodded in acknowledgement. They both went silent, the elephant in the room noticed. Janus hooked a finger through the handle of his mug and twisted it left and right slowly.
Virgil drank his own tea, enjoying the way the warmth of the drink spread through his chest.
“So.” Janus said. “Damien. That’s who I looked like.”
“Just a bit.” Virgil bit the inside of his cheek, letting it go when the pain got too bad. “At first glance.”
“Not much beyond that?”
“Not really.” Virgil sighed. “Just mild family resemblance.” And wasn’t that a thing; Janus’s estranged dick of a brother was Virgil’s dick of an ex.
“Virgil…”
“I can’t believe they’re the same person!” Virgil suddenly burst out. “He’s- I convinced him to reach out to you!” he suddenly remembered.
“What?”
Virgil groaned, pressing his palms to his eyes. “We became friends when I moved to his school in the middle of the year.” Virgil moved his hands and looked at Janus, finding nothing more than compassion and friendship. He swallowed the lump in his throat with a sip of tea and continued. “He said he knew what it felt like to be the new student, since he’d moved that year, too, so he sort of made himself my friend. I wasn’t lacking friends, honestly. I made friends with the theater nerds, and a few of the literary wannabes. I was both of those, so had people to talk to. But Damien… he was… he made me feel like we were best friends. Then he made me feel guilty for spending time with others. Then we were dating and he controlled the people I spoke to because he ‘felt insecure and didn’t trust the others’ or some shit like that. Then I was only friends with him and his lot and they were all so awful.”
“Was there any…” Janus hesitated. “Anything about your looks?”
“You mean how you should look perfect?” Virgil asked dryly. “I always blamed Damien’s parents for making him so insecure because you can never look perfect. But then, well, he wasn’t really insecure. He only wanted some way to break me down to pieces.”
Janus sighed.
“I- he was shit to me. He made me hate myself. I had to get skinny, I had to look a certain way. He picked my clothes because ‘you don’t even care about your clothes’. He got angry if I did something he didn’t like. He hated so much of everything I did and he told me it was because he cared. And I believed him.”
“He was wrong, V,” Janus said. “About all of it.”
“I know,” Virgil said despite the fact that he still felt shaky and unsure. He still couldn’t get himself to eat as much as he wanted. He was better with clothes. He looked at the hoodie he was wearing now; it was Patton’s, pink and blue with paw prints. It was cutesy, not at all anything Virgil liked, but he liked that it was Patton’s and he liked wearing it because Patton had lent it to him.
“Want more tea?” Janus asked, already standing up.
“Roman and Remus have ruined me,” Virgil complained, holding out his mug. “I can’t go a day without tea anymore.”
“They’re terrible,” Janus said with infinite fondness. Virgil hid his smile into his steaming drink and thought that they were the best sort of terrible to ever happen to him.