Re: [Carriage House: Steve, Janus, Atticus]
[This final assault seemed to work. Janus, whose eyes were nearly closed, lashes hovering over an eclipse of white, blinked hard suddenly. He tipped his head and winced, like someone waking up on a plane, and then aligned his spine. He was wearing clothes that didn't quite fit him, the aesthetic an 80's teenager living in 2005. It didn't go with the overgrown pepper-and-salt beard stubble and the tired eyes.
Janus opened his eyes, focused, and did something new: he exhaled ash. It spit and flared out of his lungs in tiny motes on eddies of gray, like a cigarette gone down deep. He blinked orange out of his eyes and stood abruptly up, as if he heard a fire drill. He was totally alert.]
Atticus? [Looked.] Steve! [He went that man's way and put two arms around him.]