I'll Find You... I Promise

Chapter 6

Dinner was unlike anything Janus had ever seen before. It was nothing like the chaotic nature of dinner in the group home where it seemed like it was more survival of the fittest just to get enough food. Nor was it like some of the other houses where the groups were smaller and more controlled, but lacked emotion or interest in the conversation. It was slightly similar to his memories of dinner with his mother and father, but even that didn't quite match this.

Logan and Patton both sat at one end of the table, across from each other. Roman and Remus sat to Patton's right, closer to the kitchen. This left Virgil and Janus sitting across the twins with Janus closest to Patton and their backs to the wall. The table had been neatly set by Patton before he had come up to get them. The pasta had been served in the kitchen, but a platter of garlic bread did get passed around the table for people to take as they pleased. The same thing was done with the salad. Everyone took an appropriate amount, no one hoarded and there was still plenty left for the people at the end of the line to take from.

Logan and Patton actively engaged and encouraged conversation, asking everyone all sorts of conversation. The questions were all pretty typical, 'how was your day' 'did you get your homework done' etc etc. Except, Janus noticed, that when someone got particularly excited about a question they were asked there was no annoyed look from anyone when the person began to blabber. Like when Logan had asked Roman about his English class and the kid had gone on for at least five minutes about a story he was writing. Or when Logan started talking about work and told them a funny story about something that happened in the break room. Virgil was especially encouraged to talk, Patton always leaning in closer as if he couldn't hear him well enough out of pure, was it excitement? Happiness?

"What about you Janus?" Logan asked.

"What?" Janus asked, his name drawing him back into the conversation and out of his head.

"Tell us about school."

Janus raised an eyebrow, how unspecific, "What about school?"

Patton shrugged, "Anything will work. What classes do you take? Are you in any clubs?"

"Uhm," Janus began uncertainty, "I'm in mostly AP and honors classes, and it's pretty much all the typical stuff, English, math, you know. I...I take debate as my elective, and ASL is my language course. I'm on the JV tennis team, and I'm on the debate and journalism team."

"Wowie! You do all that?" Patton asked, seemingly shocked by Janus's workload, "That's impressive! When I was in high school I could only join one club or two clubs and I had mostly regular classes."

Janus shrugged, "Yeah, well, college doesn't pay for itself." At least, not in the U.S it doesn't, and he wasn't about to move to a whole other country even with his brother, such a large change would probably be super overwhelming.

"Ah, so you do plan on seeking a higher education," Logan commented, "What do you plan on studying?"

In all honesty? Janus didn't even know. The emancipation plan was one for emergencies, something he could fall back on if something happened. But his regular plan was to graduate at eighteen, get custody of his brother, and find a nice but relatively cheap apartment. He'd already been saving up money, by the time he graduated he should have enough saved up for at least two months' rent, a bed, and food depending on where he chose to live. "I-uh, haven't decided yet."

"He wants to help people," Virgil announced, looking at his brother with what looked to be pride as he smiled widely.

"Is that so?" Logan asked, "Help people how?"

Janus, who had turned just slightly red at his brother's comment, "I don't know."

Virgil shook his head, "Liar! You wanna help people. You wanna make things fair. You always say that, you always say that the system is broken and it stinks and you wanna fix it so it'll stop fucking people over."