The Aberrations of S.I.D.E.

No. 31: Darkness Hidden

Virgil grinned. "All right, now I get which side of the family all the nicknames come from."

Vanessa gave him a friendly punch on the arm. "Oh, I like you."

Sir Dapper Fancypants? Janus mouthed.

"Hey, is Nina around?" Remus asked. "I wanted to congratulate her on her and Jose's engagement."

"What, no comment on 'Garbage Man McGee?'" Vanessa said.

"Eh, you've called me that before."

"I have?" She stopped, thinking. "Oh, yeah, I have. Huh. Gotta brush up on my material."

"You do," Roman agreed.

"Anyways, Nina the Machina's over by the Christmas tree," she continued, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "She'll most likely be sucking face with Jose under the mistletoe."

Remus smirked. "Well, guess I'd better go break that up, then."

"While you do that, I'm going to hit the snack bar," Janus said. "The one good thing about these parties is the fruit punch." He patted Virgil on the shoulder. "You have a lovely night dancing with your beau, and don't let any of these arseholes get you down."

Virgil gave him a mock salute. "Yessir."

Janus rolled his eyes and walked off as Vanessa started to pull Remus over to the Christmas tree.

"Seriously, though, he's right," Roman said, turning back to Virgil. "We should give this 'dancing' business a shot."

"Yeah, don't think I've ever tried it before," Virgil mused. "Definitely never asked out a cute guy a year and a day ago while doing it, that's for sure."

Roman let out a fake gasp. "Well, then we have to rectify that instantly." He held out his hand. "Care to dance, stranger?"

Virgil laughed and took it. "Sure thing, stranger."

................

Janus refilled his cup for the third time and took another swig, being careful not to spill anything on his suit. He'd unfortunately made that mistake the first time he tried it, and he was dead set against it happening again.

"Hi, Janus."

He choked mid-sip and spun around, giving the slim, wavy-haired girl a disgusted look. "Isabelle."

"That's me." Isabelle smoothed down her dress. "It's nice to see you again."

"Wish I could say the feeling was mutual, but sadly, it isn't." Janus set his cup down and brushed past her. "Now, if you'll kindly do me the favor of leaving me be, I have a dance to---"

"I wanted to apologize."

Janus paused, then slowly turned back around. "Excuse me?"

"I shouldn't have kissed you like that," Isabelle said quietly, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. "If I'd known that you were... well, um... not into girls, I would've left you alone."

Yeah, sure you would've... wait.

He'd fully expected the bitter taste to come, but it didn't. Which meant that Isabelle really wasn't lying.

"You know, you don't have to avoid saying the world," Janus said, relaxing a little---but only a little. "I'm gay, Isabelle. It's not a big deal." He arched an eyebrow. "And it's not contagious, by the way, just in case you were worried."

"I wasn't worried about that," she said, giving him a look. "Do you really think that little of me?"

Janus looked her up and down. "Yes."

Isabelle opened her mouth, then let out a sigh. "I guess I haven't given you reason to think otherwise."

He shook his head.

"I swear, I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking at her feet. "I really did think that you liked me back."

Janus folded his arms. "Even if I was capable of having feelings for you, you still should've asked before jamming your tongue down my throat. 'Consent' isn't just a word that men need to learn."

"Y-yeah." Isabelle twisted her lips. "That was bitchy of me."

"Good, you're admitting it."

She glared at him. "Hey, I'm trying to apologize here!"

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Look, Izzy, as much as I appreciate you doing this, I have very low patience for you on a normal day, and right now, all I want from tonight is to be able to properly spend time with my boyfriend. So, I'm asking you again---leave me be."

"But I---"

"But you what? Can't you find someone else to---"

Isabelle reached out and took his arm, a worried expression filling her face. "I really need to talk to you about something," she whispered. "Something important."

Janus started to tug his arm away, but faltered at the look on her face. "What... what is it?"

She looked around. "I don't want to talk about this here. Someone might overhear."

"Oooooooookay," Janus said, gently detaching his arm. "Do you want to go out into the hall or something?"

"Yes."

He sighed, not knowing what else to do. "All right, in that case, follow me."

Janus led Isabelle through the crowd and out the doors of the ballroom, hoping to just get this over with. The sooner he let this girl cry on his shoulder, the sooner he could get back to Remus.

"Right, here we go," he finally said, stopping at a small hallway off to the left. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Isabelle gave him her telltale smirk. "I lied."

A/N: Due to the cliffhanger, I will be debuting the Calvin Candid tradition on this chapter. Let's kick things off with the first picture I took of him on my new phone:

Here is The Boy. Ignore the messy coffee table.

And there will definitely be more to come...