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In the beginning, there were three.
Three dark sides, laughing in the shadows.
“Poor little thing,” Remus sneered. “Trying to figure out the monsters in his head.”
“Pretty boy needs to figure out we're not so easy to shine a light on,” Anxiety chuckled.
“Oh, come now,” Deceit hissed, and the others snapped to attention, heads swiveling towards him. “He doesn't need to know us, does he?” He grinned, fangs pushing out over his lower lip. “Just to listen.”
“God knows he’s not going to get anywhere listening to my brother,” Remus scoffed. “We should just storm up and rip their heads off.”
“Not yet.” Deceit’s scales glimmered sickly in the half-light of the subconscious. “But you might be onto something there, Green.”
Remus began to grin, and Anxiety shifted, leaning forward.
“Virgil,” Deceit purred, a wicked gleam in his mismatched eyes. “Why don't you go up there and make some trouble?”
He bared his teeth, almost smiling. “My pleasure.”
Thomas screamed when the dark side popped up with a casual ‘hey.’
Anxiety was made of darkness - dark coat, dark makeup, dark, gleaming eyes. Unless you were his family, standing too close to him rose goosebumps on your arms, ran a shiver down your spine, made you swallow hard and avert your eyes. Something wicked shone in his smile.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Virgil grinned, eyes gleaming as he loomed forward. “Was I not wanted at this exact second?”
“Stop it, stop it!” Thomas shouted, shying away.
“Sorry, kid.” Virgil lounged backwards, smug. “But this is what I do.”
Deceit was going to be so proud of him.
The next time Thomas was gathered with his sides, the three dark sides looked up, considering.
“They look like they’re having just a bit too much fun,” Deceit hissed.
Remus brightened up, wiggling in his seat, but Deceit calmed him with a soft touch. “Virgil, how about you go knock some sense into them?”
“Lying about resolutions?” Virgil arched an eyebrow, smirking. “Sure this one shouldn’t be your job, boss?”
Deceit smirked back. “They’re not ready for me yet.”
“I could go!” Remus chittered, almost vibrating. “I want to go! I haven’t killed my brother in forever.”
Deceit chuckled, smoothing the other side’s blood-matted hair back from his forehead. “Darling, loathe as I am to admit it, Virgil is the most presentable of us all. We want Thomas to listen to us, remember?”
“Don’t worry, buddy.” Virgil flashed a wicked grin at Remus. “You and I will be dethroning that snobby prince before you know it.”
“I know you will,” Deceit purred.
“Later, then.” With a smirk and a two-fingered salute, Virgil disappeared.
It became routine – the tugging at the edge of Virgil’s consciousness that meant Thomas was anxious, the grin he flashed at his family, the way he lifted his head towards the light to go join the others.
At first, it was the most fantastic sort of deviance. Virgil would come home shining with wicked delight, all too ready to tell his family how he had gotten under the skin of those infernal light sides.
“I hissed at Logic,” he laughed, bumping his shoulder against Deceit’s. “I think you’re rubbing off on me.”
“I told your brother his ideas were unoriginal,” he told a grinning Remus. “You should’ve seen him flipping out.”
“Morality tried to get us to talk about our feelings.” He rolled his eyes at them. “Yeah, I shut that one down real quick.”
But soon enough, Deceit noticed something new – just the smallest deviances from the normal. Virgil’s descriptions of his time with the light sides became less enthusiastic, more and more route, until he was skimming over details he had once relished. Even Remus’s wide-eyed fascination couldn’t cajole him back to animation.
Most times, Virgil was almost smiling when he came home.
“You know,” he once mused, patting Remus on the shoulder, “your brother isn’t all that bad. He’d almost be fun if he took that mega stick out of his-”
“-butthole!” Remus cheered, giggling.
“Yeah, that.” Virgil rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Thanks, buddy.”
“How’d it go?” Deceit tilted his head, serpentine. “Remus wasn’t driving me crazy while you were gone.”
“Tell us all the gory details.” Remus grabbed Virgil and threw them both down on the couch. He sat on his knees, facing Virgil and wriggling in excitement. “Emphasis on the gore. Did you hit him like I told you to?!”
“Nah,” Virgil snorted. “Just got his royal panties in a twist ‘besmirching the good name of Disney’.”
Remus pouted as Virgil continued, a soft look crossing his face for half of a second. “It was kinda fun.”
A chill settled in Deceit’s chest, and he stood, frozen for a moment, looking at that smile Virgil usually reserved for the two of them.
“It’d be more fun with blood,” Remus sulked.
“Because I just adore it when you make the living room messy,” Deceit drawled, shaking himself. It was nothing. Virgil could smile; Virgil was allowed to smile.
He was being ridiculous.
He settled on the couch next to Virgil, pushing down that ice in his blood. Taking Virgil’s hand in his own, he let mischief take over his face. “Now,” he purred, squeezing Virgil’s hand. “Tell us everything.”
They piled onto the couch afterwards, letting Virgil put on The Black Cauldron for his troubles. Remus and Virgil fell asleep quickly, slumped against each other, but Deceit stayed up, mismatched eyes unblinking. He couldn’t stop thinking about Virgil’s smile, about the shine in his eyes, about everything the light sides could give him that Deceit couldn’t.
So he stayed awake and gathered the other two close to his chest, dropping a kiss on their foreheads. He wanted to, while he could.
Something told him things couldn’t stay like this.
“Valentines day!” Remus yelped as soon as Virgil popped back into their home. “Did you see a bloody heart? Did you wreck my brother?”
“No, it was, uh…” Virgil rubbed at the back of his neck and shrugged. “Boring, to be honest. Nothing important, really.”
Deceit’s forked tongue flickered out. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, I mean, Patto– Morality was a stammering idiot, and that was hilarious, but…” Virgil shook his head. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Booo,” Remus yelled, hanging over the back of the couch. “No porn? No juicy stuff?”
Virgil’s laugh came out hushed. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Remus grunted unintelligibly and went back to dissecting something that looked like a chimera-bear.
“Why so tense, darling?” Deceit slithered up to Virgil’s side. “We don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to.”
Virgil startled. “It really is nothing.”
Deceit just stood there, silently taking in the man that had been at his side for their entire existences, waiting.
“Thomas made us all say that we… uh,” Virgil fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. “We love each other or whatever.”
“I see.” Deceit took a breath and pushed away that icy chill. “I’m shocked you didn’t need me there to lie for you.”
“Nah,” Virgil said with a thin smile. “It was no big deal.”
“Right.” Deceit said, balling a hand into a fist under his cloak.
“I’m exhausted after dealing with them though.” Virgil stretched out. “Probably just going to hit the hay.”
He turned and walked off, and Deceit spoke before he even gave himself permission to.
“I do love you, Virgil,” Deceit said, softly. “We both do.”
“Yeah.” Virgil didn’t turn around. “I know you do.”
The last time Virgil came home, he was fuming.
Deceit couldn’t have been happier.
“What’s wrong, Anxiety?” He hissed, coiling around the other side.
Virgil groaned, relaxing into his touch. “Thomas decided it would be a great idea for us to all become – get this – cartoons.”
Remus gasped, eyes wide. “I love cartoons! Remember when I tried to press myself into a cheese grater like on Tom and Jerry?”
As much as he wanted to rally with Virgil against anything to do with the light sides, like they used to do, Deceit really couldn’t see the problem here.
“Why, exactly, was that a bad thing?” His mind immediately started racing, envisioning all the terrible situations they could’ve put Virgil in. it was bad enough they had changed his form so many times when Thomas was struggling with missing his friends, but this could be–
“There was a superhero sequence, and…” Virgil rolled his tongue across his teeth and shrugged, looking at the ground. “They made me be the bad guy.”
“That’s it?” Deceit sagged with relief as Remus snickered. “Darling, you had me worried.”
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?” Virgil started. “Even after everything, they still see me as the villain!”
Deceit tilted his head, a hesitant smile on his lips. “Yes, Virgil, because we’ve always been the epitome of heroic nobility in the past.”
“I know, I just–” Virgil threw up his hands, frustrated. “I’m so sick of them thinking I’m the bad guy.”
Remus frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
A cold chill ran down Deceit’s spine. “You are the bad guy, Virgil,” he said lowly. “We’re the bad guys to them because we don’t subscribe to their idiotic policies.”
“Like what?” Virgil demanded. “You always tell us that they’re the worst, that we oppose them, but what are we fighting against?”
“You’ve been up there,” Deceit said, trying to keep his voice slick and cool. “You’ve seen how they torment Thomas with indecision.”
“They’re doing their best.”
“It’s not good enough.”
“They’re my friends,” Virgil snapped.
“No!” Deceit snarled, breaking. “Did you forget what I sent you up there to do?! You’re not there to make friends with them, Virgil. You’re there to fight them, for us.” He grabbed Virgil’s hands, pressing them to his chest. “For your family.”
“They’re not bad,” Virgil argued. “They just do things a little differently. It’s fine!”
Deceit could see everything slipping away, sliding between his gloved fingers. “Virgil, look at what they’re having Thomas do! He’s miserable. They’re so wrapped up in making him a ‘good person’ that he can barely-”
“What’s wrong with that?” Virgil snapped, taking a step forward.
Remus whimpered, slinking back behind the couch.
“Well, nothing, in theory,” Deceit conceded, “but he’s doing it at his own expense! They keep us shoved down-”
“Last time I checked, repression was your job,” Virgil hissed. “So who’s really to blame here?”
Deceit startled back, eyes wide before they narrowed. “What exactly are you accusing me of, Anxiety?”
“Doing what you’ve been doing since the beginning, Deceit,” Virgil snapped. “Keeping us down here with you.”
“All I ever did was take care of you! Watch out for you!” Deceit jabbed a finger into his chest. “Remus and I are your family, and what, you’re going to throw that away because now Thomas can look at you with your shiny new friends without screaming?!” He pushed his face into Virgil’s, snarling.
The other dark side looked at him, eyes shining with something Deceit must’ve been deluded to ever think was love.
“I’m leaving,” Virgil backed away, wrenching the door open.
“Virgil, don’t-” Remus reached out helplessly, but Virgil shrugged his hand off.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said, softly, before turning to look Deceit in the eye. “But I can’t stay.”
“Virgil, please–”
“You’d leave too if you knew what was good for you, Remus,” Virgil said, turning back to the Duke. His voice softened, hand reaching out to touch Remus’s. “You can come-”
White-hot fury scorched Deceit. He was seizing his hand into a fist before he even knew what he was doing.
Virgil’s hand wrenched away from Remus’s and clamped over his mouth; his eyes widened.
Deceit chuckled, low and threatening. “Oh, Virgil, darling.” His eyes snapped up, deadly. “You always did have the best sense of humor.” He slithered forward, wrapping an arm around Remus, whose eyes darted frantically between the two of them.
“Dee,” he murmured lowly, voice trembling. “What are you doing?”
Deceit pressed a kiss to his temple, unruffled. “Oh, just making sure everyone knows where they stand.”
Virgil yelled something indiscernible into his hand.
“It’ll be alright, Remus.” Deceit wrapped him in a hug. “Just go to sleep. I promise everything will be fine in the morning.”
“I don’t, I…” Remus wavered, looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Go to bed,” Deceit said again, firmly.
With a slow nod, the Duke disappeared.
Deceit, his back turned to Virgil, took a moment to compose himself; taking a shaky breath, he smoothed his face into a mask of nonchalance.
“You might as well leave,” he drawled, “but don’t go and take the one I actually like.”
Virgil’s eyes widened.
“You should feel lucky I didn’t cast you out years ago,” Deceit sighed, examining his gloves. “I’m the only one who cares, Virgil. They don’t want you. They never did. You think they’re just going to accept anxiety?” He scoffed. “You’re an even bigger fool than I took you for.” He leaned forward, hissing directly into Virgil’s ear. “It’d be better for everyone if you just… ducked out.”
Virgil flinched back, eyes furious and wet over his muffled mouth.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Deceit purred. “Snake got your tongue?”
Virgil shouted something indiscernible.
“That’s what I thought.” Deceit smirked and slammed the door in Virgil’s face.
He crumpled against the door, shaking, as soon as no one could see him.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, running his gloved hands through his hair and pulling just enough to make it hurt. “Fuck. Virgil, damn it. I…” His breath hitched and he scrubbed at his eyes, drying at them.
It was fine.
He’d be back, eventually.
Surely, he had to be.
He wasn’t.
In the middle, there were two.
Two dark sides, scheming in the shadows.
“I still don’t get it,” Remus said, waking up to an incomplete home.
“He’s just confused,” Deceit purred, lacing his hands together under his cloak. Remus didn’t need to see the way they shook. “He’ll be back. I promise.”
Deceit always had been a liar.
Christmas comes and goes with only two presents under the tree.
Deceit’s chance came in the strangest of ways: a eight-word text.
Where were you last night F word face?
He could feel Thomas’s fear, his need to lie, pulsing in the air, heavy and thick.
He stared at himself in the mirror until his scales melted away, replaced by freckles. He slid on a pair of empty glasses and practiced a smile. Now, what was it Virgil always said Morality called him?
Something that looked enough like Patton popped into the living room, barely fighting back a wince at the abundance of light. “Hiya, friendo!”
Everything went well, until Thomas’s handsome knight in shining armor had to go and lose his nerve.
They showed back in Thomas’s apartment, Roman’s face tense and pale.
Slowly, they all turned against who they thought was Patton, Virgil’s dark eyes taking it all in.
“Virgil, it’s me,” Deceit said, softly. Far too much of his real voice slipped through. “Aren’t we friends?”
Virgil’s face was cold, closed off. Deceit’s eyes scanned it, looking for traces of the side he had loved, he had spent his whole life with.
“I’m not so sure we are.”
Deceit had always held out a smidgeon of hope. Hope that he wasn’t lying to Remus.
Hope that Virgil still loved them.
He looked into the eyes of someone he used to know and felt that hope die.
The court case was even more of a disaster.
Virgil spewed vitriol at him at every opportunity, Patton shot him down relentlessly, and even Roman proved to be no help.
After he sunk out, Deceit was shaking, hands clenched into fists. Thomas wanted to be honest with himself? He wanted to be real? He wanted to stop lying?
Fine.
Fucking fine by Deceit.
His jaw worked, fangs elongating and pushing over his lips as his blood roared in his ears.
He slammed open the door to the subconscious, storming down the long, winding staircase, his cape fluttering behind him. Dangerous things lurked in the depths of Thomas’s mind, and he didn’t have the fucking gall to be grateful to Deceit for hiding them. For working in the shadows for years to protect him.
Thomas didn’t care about him.
If he did, he wouldn’t have taken Virgil.
He wouldn't have ripped Deceit’s family apart.
“Duke,” Deceit snapped, stalking into Dark Creativity’s room. “I need-” He drew up short.
Remus was sitting, waist-deep in a pile of bodies. Humming happily to himself, he drew a scalpel down one, pulling out the intestines like tissue paper out of a gift bag. Experimentally, he sniffed the organ and made to bite it before he spotted Deceit.
“Hiya, Boss!” He chirped. With two blinks, the bodies were gone, only a red sheen, coating the floor and Remus’s skin. “How’d it go? I’m so excited for the audition! I’m going to tell Thomas to pants himself right up on stage and show everyone his dic-”
“I’m angry,” Deceit said lowly. Remus could hardly ever tell from body language. “But not at you.”
If Thomas wanted to be honest, fine.
Remus paused, mustache twitching as he tried to take in Deceit. “Oh,” he said slowly, hesitantly. He licked his lips, perhaps searching for an assurance, before switching tactics. “I’m sorry about the blood. I’ll wipe it up, promise.”
Then Thomas would get to see just how ugly he really was.
“Remus,” he hissed. “Why don’t you go up and introduce yourself?”
“What the hell did you do that for?” Virgil snarled. His eyes were red but his gaze was dark, firmly fixed on Deceit.
Remus had sunk out a long time ago and was working off his excess excitement in his room, but when Virgil sunk out, he kept going, kept falling into the place he used to call home.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Anxiety.” Deceit’s eyes briefly flickered up from his book. “What Remus does is his own concern.”
“You two outed me!” Virgil snapped. “I had to tell him, Deceit. He knows!”
“Knows what?” Deceit turned a page. “That you left your family behind?”
The book was smacked out of his hands, and his face was wrenched up, forced to look into furious, dark eyes.
“He knows,” Virgil said lowly, “that I used to be stuck down here with you.”
Deceit shoved Virgil away and slowly stood, working his jaw. “‘Stuck down here’? Oh, poor darling, is that what happened to you?”
Virgil didn’t back down. “Yes.”
“My goodness!” Deceit threw a hand over his forehead. “I never knew my memory was so faulty! And here I was, dreaming up some insane fantasy where you were happy here! Guess I’m just pretending I remember watching The Black Cauldron with you, and laughing at the light sides, and shaking our heads at Remus’s messes, and arguing over whose turn it was to do the dishes, and throwing Halloween parties, and letting you be as scary as you wanted to be–”
“Shut up!” Virgil snarled, shaking. “Just shut up!”
“Tell me I’m lying then,” Deceit hissed. “Tell me that I’m making everything up, and I’ll leave you alone. Tell me you don’t remember that this used to be your home. Tell me you don’t remember that I loved you.”
Virgil flinched back and Deceit pressed closer, eyes flashing. “Come on then, Virgil. If I’m such a liar, tell me I’m making it up. Wasn’t it all in my head?”
“I… I don’t…” Virgil shook his head and wrenched himself away. “I don’t need this. I’m just passing through. I need to get to Remus’s room and hide out for a bit.”
“No,” Deceit snapped, grabbing his arm. “You don’t get to come back here after walking out on us.”
“You’re the one who pushed me out,” Virgil snarled, jerking away. “Which one of us slammed that door shut, Deceit?”
“You think I wanted to? You were trying to take Remus!” Deceit cried. “I couldn’t– I couldn’t lose him too.” His voice faltered; he swallowed. “Not when I could see myself losing you.”
Virgil was quiet for a long moment, looking at Deceit with those dark eyes. Something shifted behind them, and if Deceit didn’t know better, he would say it was regret.
“I’m sorry,” Virgil said, eventually, “but I was never yours to keep.”
Virgil pushed open the door to Remus’s room, and they both drew up short.
Inside, Remus was back-to-back with his brother, swords flashing against conjured enemies; they were laughing, shouting, smiling.
“He isn’t either,” Virgil said, softly.
Deceit clenched his hand into a fist until it bled.
In the end, there was one.
One dark side, alone in the shadows.
Once Roman was willing to vouch for his brother, to tame his wilder edges, the other light sides were quick to envelope him in the fold, especially when some of his more provocative ideas resonated well with Thomas’s audience.
It was quiet. No emo music drifting out from under a chipped black door, no happy rambling and the sound of limbs hitting the floor, no laughing, no bickering, no others.
No Virgil.
No Remus.
Just Deceit.
It made sense, he supposed. He was the only side who Thomas didn’t know the first thing about, not even his name.
It made sense that he would be the only one left behind.
The first time he was summoned after Remus left turned out to also be the last.
Patton turned to him, a dower twist to his mouth. “And what do you think you’re doing here, mister?”
“Just minding my own business,” Deceit purred, examining the stitching in his gloves casually. “I am a part of Thomas, after all.”
“Dee! Dee!” Remus bounced in his now-typical place next to Roman. “Dee, look, I got a new costume! I can put my deodorant here, and I can flash everyone if I pull on this-”
“I believe we are all far too accustomed with that particular functionality of your costume, Remus,” Logan cut in hastily.
Deceit tore his eyes away from Remus’s green and grey clothing, refocusing on his core. Nighttimes full of worries and empty of dreams had etched themselves on Thomas’s face, stamping shadows under his eyes and draining the color from his skin.
“I see there wasn’t a reason for me to pop up after all,” Deceit hissed, looking across the room to Virgil. “Everything seems to be going just fine.”
“That’s right!” Roman proclaimed grandly. “No offense, Dr. Trickle and Mr. Lied, but we do have a handle on everything here.”
“Is that right?” Deceit tilted his head. “I suppose Remus called me here for nothing, then.”
“Actually, um.” Virgil coughed, averting his eyes. “I am. As in, I’m the one who… you know.”
“What?” Deceit and Patton asked in sync.
Virgil shrugged, scratching at the back of his head. “Thomas is trying to decide if he should post some pretty hard-hitting stuff to his channel. Seems like Mr. Society-is-evil’s domain to me.”
Something jerked in Deceit’s chest, just short of painful.
“I say go for it!” Remus wiggled. “Shock them all and make a compilation of their disgusted faces to the tune of Wonderwall!”
“Well, what’s the potential gain to Thomas?” Deceit hissed, contemplative.
“Not much from a logistical standpoint,” Logan said, tapping a T-chart labeled ‘potential outcomes’. “This type of message would prove taxing and could possibly alienate some of the viewers who subscribe for Thomas’s… fluffier content, shall we say.”
“It could help a lot of people,” Thomas countered, then sighed, “but I’m not sure that it’s something that I have the capacity to deal with right now.”
“Then why would you do it?” Deceit arched an eyebrow. “The choice seems clear.”
“Because it’s the right thing to do!” Patton declared.
“There are other, similar messages out there,” Virgil chimed in.
“But that’s no reason that our Thomas can’t put his own creative spin on it!” Roman laughed, twirling Remus.
“Not you too,” Logan groaned, face buried in his hands.
“You two,” Patton giggled.
Something curdled in Deceit’s stomach at their easy, natural banter, but he shook it off.
“The hypothetical viewers aren’t more important than Thomas himself,” he hissed, waving a hand when Patton made to cut in, frowning. “Yes, yes, they’re all important and special and wonderful in their own ways, whatever. But that doesn’t mean some hypothetical person who may or may not be moved by the video is worth whatever mental strain it will put on Thomas.”
“But it’s the right thing to do,” Patton emphasized.
“The majority of Thomas’s more solemn videos have been well received in the past,” Logan acknowledged, “especially with the addition of Remus’s input.”
Remus blew him a kiss. Logan dodged.
“Thomas,” Patton said, turning to him, “you really don't have to if you don’t want to, but-”
“No, I get it,” Thomas sighed, running a hand down his gaunt face. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Virgil was the only one who noticed when Deceit sunk out.
After that, he ignored summons. It was easier to do his job remotely. More efficient.
Besides, he didn’t need to intrude on Virgil and Remus’s happily ever after.
He didn’t bother putting up a Christmas tree that year.
He kept busy, or at least he tried to. He cooked. Cleaned. Kept tabs on Thomas. Read.
There were always too many leftovers. There wasn’t nearly as much to put away. Thomas was fine. He’d read everything down there a million times over.
Remus visited, occasionally, chattering on about some grand adventure or plot he and the other sides had cooked up. Deceit was always happy to see him, of course, but it was a bittersweet sort of ache, having to hear about the lives his old family now lead, so far from him.
He started ignoring Remus’s knocks. First just every few. Then every two.
Then all of them.
If he was always drowning in silence, the struggle to breathe every time Remus left wouldn’t be so painful.
Remus was knocking again, but it sounded different. A tentative, subdued sort of tap, tap, tapping on Deceit’s door.
He intended on ignoring it, as he had ignored Remus for months now, but still, he went to stand by the door, to just be a little closer to him.
The tapping didn’t stop, and Deceit huffed out a half-laugh.
“Please, keep knocking until your hand breaks,” he drawled, letting his forehead fall against the cool wood of the door. “I’m sure Morality will love patching you up after that.”
“No,” a soft voice replied, “I really wouldn’t.”
Deceit startled, yanking open the door.
Morality stood on the other side, looking small and tired and nearly apologetic.
“I think I may be missing something,” Morality said, quietly enough that he could almost ignore his own words. “I did everything right, but Thomas is still… he's still not happy.”
“I know,” Deceit said, hand clenching in the door frame. He wanted to slam the door in Morality’s face. He wanted to punch him. He wanted to scream at him and demand what made Morality so worthy of Virgil’s love, what he had done to lure Remus to his side.
Instead, he stepped out of the way.
“Sit down,” Deceit said. “I’ll make us some tea.”
They worked it out.
Patton started dropping by more and more often, until time wore away the brittle edges on their words.
“Thanks,” Deceit said, absentmindedly, taking the mug of tea Patton slid across the counter.
Patton beamed. “What are friends for?”
Deceit didn’t notice he dropped the mug until shattered on the floor, fracturing into tiny glass shards. He jumped, cursing under his breath as he stooped down to pick them up.
“We’re not friends,” he said lowly, trying to keep his hands steady.
Aren’t we friends?
I’m not so sure we are.
“I don’t make friends, Morality. You of all people should know that.” He smiled, letting his fangs push out. “Monsters under the bed don’t need friends.”
Patton snorted. “I’ve seen you start crying because you couldn’t find your favorite cloak. Don’t even try that with me.”
“It’s an important cloak,” Deceit muttered, sullenly throwing out the shards of mug as Patton sponged up the spilled tea.
“They all look the same.”
“The buttons are shinier!”
“Fine then,” Patton conceded, “we can drape over that part of the conversation, but if we aren’t friends, then what are we?”
“Enemies,” Deceit shot back, somewhat mulishly.
“Fine then.” Patton smiled. “Enemies.” He sat back beside Deceit at the kitchen counter, knees knocking together. His eyes shone, like he knew a secret he wasn’t keen on letting anyone else know.
“You’re my best enemy, you know,” he told Deceit, taking another sip of tea.
Deceit snorted and tried not to let the warm feeling in his chest last. “I suppose I could have worse adversaries.”
After that, Deceit started leaving the door unlocked.
Logan wandered in next.
Well, he didn’t wander in so much as barge his way in, eyes burning, demanding to know if Deceit had a strangely specific translation of Max Scheler’s papers on liberal individualism.
“So glad you received my invitation to come over,” Deceit drawled vitriolically, recovering from his surprise. “I was concerned you were going to be late.”
Logan waved a hand dismissively, snooping through Deceit’s bookshelf. “No time for falsehoods today. Remus just tried to tell me that the only reason people listen to the government is because they’re controlling us due to hivemind technology. Also something about lizard genitals.”
“I see he’s matured.” Deceit hid a smile. “And who’s to say he’s wrong? Haven’t you heard of the FBI’s experiments with ESP in the eighties?”
Logan turned on him, face already flushing with rage. “Basic knowledge of Stranger Things does not make an argument!”
And the debate began.
After that one came another, and another, until the debate part slipped away and all that was left was Deceit and Logan – talking, reading, relaxing.
The walls in the subconscious were getting lighter and lighter, bit by bit.
It took Deceit a long time to even notice, but after he looked up to flash a smile at Logan as he wandered in, looking for a book on human behavioral patterns, Deceit realized with a start that he hadn’t had to turn on a lamp to read.
“Does it look… brighter in here to you?” He asked Logan, once the side had settled beside him on the couch.
Logan glanced up, shrugged. “Not particularly.”
Roman was the last, somehow.
He also barged in without preamble, already talking as he strode through the door like he owned the place. “So about that evil laugh of yours, do you do diaphragm exercises for breath control, or is it about lung capacity? I’ve been thinking of trying the sandbag technique, but if you have something better–”
Deceit startled, letting the sound his home had been missing for so long wash over him like the warm, soft waves of the ocean.
“Hello? How to snake it in America, are you with us?” Roman looked at him, a playfully haughty twist to his mouth. “What could possibly be more interesting to think about than the handsome prince before you?”
Deceit resigned himself to the knowledge that this was his life now.
“You can’t blame me for being stunned by such a vision of beauty,” he purred, smirking when Roman flushed, just the slightest bit. “Now, for the evil laugh, you’re going to want to…”
“I’m surprised your royal highness elected to join the lowly snakes, all the way down here,” Deceit said later, at perhaps their fifth acting lesson.
Roman looked up and shrugged, smiling just a little. “It’s not as far as you think.”
It happened when Deceit tried to rise up, to see Thomas again.
Now that some of the light sides could tolerate him, perhaps Thomas would be more amenable to his input. It was worth a shot, at least.
He closed his eyes and arose.
Except for the part where he didn’t.
Deceit startled, laughed a little. He was rusty. He hadn’t left this no-longer-so dark place in a while, after all.
He shook his head, concentrated, and rose up.
Except he still didn’t.
Panic seized Deceit’s chest, crushing him. He clamped his eyes shut, hands fisting at his sides, and strained, trying desperately to go up, to join the other sides.
Still, nothing.
Deceit laughed, trembling. He was stuck down here. He was trapped.
After exiling himself for so long, he had formed his own shackles to this place.
He shook himself, fighting to muster up some determination. “Fine,” he hissed, “I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”
He slammed open the door to the subconscious, the door he hadn’t touched in so, so long, intent on climbing up all those steep, twisting stairs, but he drew up short.
“Oh!” Patton chirped, bustling into the light side’s living room with a plate of apple slices. “Hey there, kiddo!”
And it was the light side’s living room, except not quite as he remembered it. It was pleasantly darker, no longer painfully bright.
Roman’s eyes flicked up from his sketchpad, and he smiled. “Took you long enough, Falsettos.”
Deceit blinked. Took a step back. His living room.
He took a step forward. The light side’s living room.
Except they looked almost identical.
“What…” Deceit floundered. “What?!”
“Ah, Deceit, I see you’ve made it.” Logan strode in, greeting the other side with a nod. “To address your apparent confusion, well…” He adjusted his tie, smiling just the slightest bit. “Let’s say that, after everything, we thought it was only fair to meet you in the middle.”
“Ngh,” Deceit said, eloquently, still stepping back and forth between the two rooms, halfway convinced that one would disappear any moment now.
As he stepped forward again, however, he found himself bowled over by a blur of gray and green.
“Dee!” Remus cried, clinging to his chest and showing no signs of letting go. “You made it! Finally! I thought I was going to have to detach your eyeballs and drag them out here to show you what was happening!”
They had left him, one by one. But, after everything, they had come back with more.
Deceit, slightly crushed, wheezed out a laugh and struggled to his feet, Remus still wrapped around him. “Guess I’m just not as quick on the uptake as you, Duke.”
Remus hummed, pleased, and snuck a glance over his shoulder. “I think there’s someone who wants to talk to you,” he said, sing-song, and flitted away to put ants on the snacks.
Virgil.
Virgil stood there, like a deer in the headlights, face cycling though so many emotions Deceit could hardly catch one before it flicked away.
Anxiety was made of darkness - dark coat, dark makeup, dark, gleaming eyes. Unless you were his family, standing too close to him rose goosebumps on your arms, ran a shiver down your spine, made you swallow hard and avert your eyes. Something wicked shone in his smile.
Virgil was different. There was darkness surrounding him, yes, but patches of color shone through, purple gleaming on his jacket and in his hair. He wasn’t scary, but, then again, he never had been to Deceit. Instead, standing too close to him made you feel warm. Safe. Comforted.
Virgil walked up to him, a hesitant sort of smile on his face. “Hey,” he said, softly.
Deceit swallowed hard, giving the barest nod. “Virgil.”
He looked around at the others, the sides Virgil had left him for.
“I think I get it now. Why you left.”
Virgil’s brow creased. “I know it wasn’t fair–”
“I never said it was,” Deceit said, sharply, then softened. “But… I understand it.”
“I, uh… I’m glad you’re here.” Virgil scuffed his shoe against the ground, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I kinda missed you.”
“Yeah,” Deceit said, voice breaking just the slightest bit, “I kinda missed you too.”
And then there were none.