"Remus, it's been four and a half hours," Virgil said, gently tugging at his friend's sleeve. "You gotta move."
Remus pulled away. "It's only seven-fifteen. I don't have to go to bed yet."
"You can't stay here forev---"
"I am not leaving until he wakes up."
Virgil let out a sigh. "Suit yourself, big guy."
Janus had been taken to the medical wing almost immediately after he'd passed out. Surprisingly, not a lot of the med staff were super worried---they assured Virgil that he'd be fine once he woke up, and he just needed to rest. In Remus-speak, that apparently meant "he's in serious danger and I need to stay with him just to make sure he doesn't die."
Love did weird things to your brain, apparently.
Nox still hadn't shown up again. Probably because he was too scared to deal with Virgil's anger.
Persephone stuck her head into the room. "He awake yet?"
"Not yet," Virgil responded.
"Pog." She walked in and sat down next to Remus. "Well, by the looks of it, he'll probably be up soon."
"Let's hope," Remus mumbled.
Virgil cleared his throat. "Um, I don't wanna sound insensitive, but what the hell was that?"
Persephone looked up. "What was what?"
"That."
"I wasn't there, Hayashi," she reminded him. "I got evacuated, remember?"
He exhaled. "Okay, well, your brother turned into a gazillion fanged mouths with tentacled tongues collected into a ten-foot-tall mass, and he scared the Circle agents so badly that they ran without even putting up a fight."
"Huh." She furrowed her brow. "Guess he was serious about saving that one for a special occasion."
"I'm sorry?"
Persephone looked over at Remus. "Do you want to explain, or should I?"
"You do it," Remus told her. "You do a better job."
"Right." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "So... you know that me and Jan share an ability, right?"
Virgil nodded. "Yeah. You're one of the only Aberration siblings that do, right?"
"I think we might be the only. I haven't been able to find any evidence of others, at least."
"Okay, but what does that have to do with---"
Persephone rolled her eyes and did a little hand motion in the air. Virgil instantly covered his mouth.
"Don't interrupt me, okay?" she said, sounding kind of tired. "I've had a long day."
Virgil gestured to Janus.
Persephone exhaled. "Okay, so... me and Jan have, like, levels to our shapeshifting. The first one is altering our appearance in little ways---making ourselves taller or shorter, stretching our limbs, that kind of stuff. Jan used it to hide his vitiligo when it first started showing up. That kind of shapeshifting? Super easy for us. We barely even have to try."
"And thank God for that," Remus muttered, smirking slightly.
She elbowed him in the ribs. "Shut it."
"What? I didn't say anything---"
"I am not in the mood to hear details about what you and Jan get up to in the bedroom, okay?"
Remus hunched his shoulders. "Whatever."
Persephone turned back to Virgil. "Second one is altering our appearance entirely---like, making ourselves look like other people. That's easy for Janus, but it's a little trickier for me. I need to be totally calm, and I need to focus a little harder than I usually do."
"Mmm-hmm," Virgil mumbled.
"Level three is turning into animals," she continued. "For Jan, he's either got to be concentrating really hard, or his emotions have to be high. It doesn't take that much out of him, but he is a little dizzy afterwards. For me, I have to put my all into it, and I get really, really tired afterwards."
"It's just 'cause you're younger, though, right?" Remus said. "When you're sixteen, you'll be at his level?"
"One more word and I'm not going to let you talk for a fucking hour, Sanchez."
Remus looked down at his lap.
Persephone scratched the back of her neck. "As I was saying... level four is what me and Jan call 'horror forms.' It's hard to really describe them, but they're meant to inspire fear---and they probably do a lot of damage, but neither of us can hold them together for long enough at the moment. They take a lot out of us." She bit her lip. "I've only done one once, and it wasn't even that complicated---I was just mimicking Venom, if I'm being honest---but the energy required to hold it together for a minute knocked me out for three days. Granted, that was when I was in seventh grade, but..."
Virgil raised his hand.
"Yes, fine, you can talk now," Persephone sighed, doing the hand motion again.
"So that thing he turned into---that was one of his horror forms?" Virgil said, uncovering his mouth.
She nodded. "We started coming up with ideas once we figured out we could do them---though we'd save them for when we were older and had more control. I actually have some old sketches that I did---hang on." She dug out a sketchbook from her bag and handed it to Virgil. "They're not that far in."
"You keep these with you?" he questioned, thumbing through it.
"We need references."
Virgil stopped when he found the sketch of the mouth thing next to one of a being that looked like it was made of pure fire. Both sketches dated back to almost three years ago.
"Oh---that one was my idea," Persephone said, pointing at the fire one with a grin. "I'd been reading up on Norse mythology a lot, and the fire giants sounded so cool, I just had to model a horror form off of that."
Virgil looked up from the sketchbook. "You two are freaky as hell."
"We try to be." She looked a little bit smug at that.
"Were you really out for three days?"
"Again, I was twelve," Persephone reminded him. "Jan's sixteen, and he's done this before."
Remus cleared his throat. "That's, um... that's what Augustass kept pushing him to do. Horror forms are useful for interrogation. And when you're fighting, even though Janus doesn't usually have the energy to actively fight."
"So, wait," Virgil said, furrowing his brow. "He couldn't have actually hurt anyone when he was like that? He was just spouting empty threats?"
"Yeah, but nine times out of ten, people see freakish huge monster and are pretty sure they're gonna get killed if they don't skedaddle," Remus said, waving a hand around. "He'll be able to do damage eventually. We think."
Persephone let out a sharp inhale and leaned forward. "Jan just blinked."
"What?" Remus scooted closer, eyes widening. "Ohmigosh, you're right! He's waking up!"
Virgil craned his neck towards the bed as a low groan sounded. Janus pushed himself up on his elbow, rubbing his eyes.
"Oh, thank the fucking gods," he sighed. "I was worried for a second that I'd be back in that cell."
"You're fine, you little git," Persephone said, giving him a hug. "But the next time you break that thing out, I had better be there."
"Yes, of course, I'll notify the Circle to schedule their next attack so my little sister can see the form that we drew up together in action," Janus muttered.
Remus pushed Persephone out of the way and wrapped Janus in a bear hug. "Don't ever do that again," he said, voice muffled. "I'm the one who makes the impulsive decisions in this relationship, not you."
Janus gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I can't let you have all the fun, darling, now can I?"
"Hi, I'm here, the guy whose life you saved," Virgil called, waving his hand.
"All right, Remus, off for now, the emo wants my attention." Janus detached himself from his boyfriend and waved Virgil over. "Feeling okay?"
"Eh." Virgil shrugged. "Nox still hasn't shown up again."
Janus frowned slightly. "I thought he was only planning on ditching you for a few hours."
"I still can't believe that your shadow can ditch you," Remus said. "Surprised you even have a shadow right now."
"Light still can't pass through my body, Remus."
"Well, I'm sure he'll turn up soon," Janus said, shrugging. "And in the meantime..." He pulled Remus back in with a grin. "I think I've got my energy back now."
"Perfect," Remus murmured.
"And that's our cue to leave," Persephone announced, springing to her feet. "Come on, Virgil, out we go!" She pushed Virgil out of the medbay and slammed the door behind her.
"I was gonna take a picture for my future best-man speech," Virgil told her.
"Keep dreaming, Hayashi." Persephone took off her cat beanie and scratched her head. It was then that Virgil noticed that she'd shaved off some of her hair on the right side.
"When did that happen?" he asked, pointing to it.
She blinked. "When did what happen?"
"Your hair."
"Oh. Did it last week. Pam and I were playing Truth or Dare." Persephone made a slight face. "Not the biggest fan of it, if I'm being honest, but everyone else loves it."
Virgil shrugged. "I think it looks cool."
"Yeah, 'course you do."
"Why don't you like it?"
Persephone paused. "I dunno. The asymmetrical thing kinda throws me off, I guess."
"I get you," Virgil said. "I get bugged by little things like that, too."
"Mm-hmm." She put her hat back on, pulling it down over the shaved part of her head. "I'm gonna go hit the hay early. Evacuation is exhausting as hell."
"Night," he called as she walked down the hall.
Virgil let out a whoosh of breath and leaned against the wall. Maybe I should turn in early, too.
"That was pretty badass."
He nearly leaped five feet into the air as soon as he spotted Nox's familiar grin on the ground. "YOU!"
"What, you didn't think I'd clock out forever, right?" Nox said. "I told you, only for a few hours."
"That was a lot more than a few hours, asshole!" Virgil shouted, stabbing his finger at him. "You clocked out for half the fucking DAY!"
"Chill out, dude, I was just trying to figure out how to clock back in---"
"YOU LEFT ME DURING A GODDAMNED ATTACK!" he roared. "I ALMOST GOT KIDNAPPED BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE!"
Nox let out a growl. "Well, I'm sorry, but you can't always depend on me to get you out of trouble! Besides, here you are, clearly not kidnapped, so leave me---"
"I didn't have access to shadows at the time! I got cut off right as I was about to reach one! If you were there, I wouldn't have had to separate from the group!"
"Yeah, I know, okay?" Nox snapped. "Even if I'm not your shadow, I'm still a part of you! I know what happened back there!"
"And you're not sorry?" Virgil demanded. "You're not sorry for ditching me in a serious situation?"
"Hey, I tried to get back into shadow form as soon as you got cut off, but I didn't know how! This was the first time I did that! It took me literal hours to figure out how to get back here!"
Virgil stopped. "Seriously?"
"Yes!" Nox exclaimed. "You really think I don't care about your wellbeing? I exist to look out for you!"
"Right, yeah, I know that, but... never mind." Virgil sighed. "Just---just come in here so I can give you a hug."
Nox peeled off of the floor and practically tackled Virgil.
"Ow," he grunted. "Ribs. Ow."
"You wanted this," Nox reminded him.