Liar | Dukeceit

Chapter 26

Twenty-four hours earlier

"The stars are beautiful tonight," says the snakelike side, turning his head to look down at his lover, who was staring back up at him with bright eyes.

"Not really, they look the exact same as they always do, silly!" Remus replied with a grin.

Deceit smiled softly, gently running his fingers through Remus'
(surprisingly soft), hair as he looked back to the starlit sky again.

"Well, I mean... I was going to say that they weren't as pretty as you, but if you're implying something else then..."

He trailed off; in response, Remus quickly sat up, sharply turning his head to Deceit, who had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

"Darling, clearly, I am the most beautiful of the sides. There's no one that can match my exquisiteness, not even a Dragon Witch."

Deceit rolled his eyes at his lover's exaggerated tone, and lightly shook his head.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that, babe." He shot back, snickering at the gasp that came from his boyfriend.

"Dee Dee, you should consider yourself lucky that I can't be bothered to summon my morning star."

Deceit shuffled further back up against the tree that the couple were sat under, and once he was comfortable, he pulled Remus up against him again.

The Duke raised an eyebrow and glared, but accepted the invitation nonetheless; making sure that his head was close enough to Deceit's face so that his hair would tickle his nose.

There was a long and calm
moment of silence, where they took in their surroundings, and enjoyed the soft breeze that carried throughout imagination.

Remus smiled as he inhaled the fresh air; out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something watching him from a tree afar.

Thinking that it must've been one of his strange creations, he mentally shook it off. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head so that it was resting in the crook of Deceit's neck.

Remus fell asleep to hands massaging his scalp.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now

"Wakey-wakey, sleepyhead!" Madison called as she snapped her fingers, causing the cell door to swing open and hit the wall behind with a great bang.

Deceit jolted, and the Dragon Witch snapped her fingers again, however, this time, the chains around his limbs suddenly dropped, hitting the concrete with a clang: the sound,
reverberating throughout the dismal cell.

"Uh... what are you doing?"

A small moment of silence.

"Well... I've decided that I'm going to take you back to your boyfriend. So, c'mon, let's go."

Hesitantly, the dark side slowly stood up, his knees shaking as he tried to steady himself; his bones, creaked and popped.

"Did something happen? Is Remus okay?! Did he-"

"He's fine!" She cut him short. "Well, not really I-" She paused, giving herself a moment to collect her thoughts.

"Look, what I'm doing to you, it isn't me, and it isn't what Bonnie would've wanted either."

Deceit was silent as he rubbed at his sore wrists.

"It isn't right to bring you into this when it's between Remus and I. Um... I-I also lied when I said that your boyfriend is fine. The truth is... he isn't. As a matter of fact, he's far from it."

A great deal of panic settled upon the side's features. As he opened his mouth to protest, Madison once again spoke before he could.

"I've been watching him," she started. "He's made himself sick with worry; since the moment that he noticed you were gone, he hasn't stopped looking for you."

With a look of discomfort, Deceit said nothing, not knowing what to think.

"Something happened between him and that darkly dressed side. The one with the eyeshadow? I didn't see what happened exactly, but that other side was crying, hard. If I'm honest, it was quite funny to see his makeup run everywhere!" She said, a jovial kink in her tone.

"Wait, pump the breaks a second: Virgil was upset? Seriously?"

Madison nodded, and said: "Well, I don't know much more about that, so you'll have to find out more yourself,"

The Dragon Witch smiled and stood to the side. "Right, should we get going then?"

Deceit looked at her, unsure of what to respond with. A short moment later, he replied:

"Y-Yes, please."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To say that Remus was scared, was a great understatement. He was fucking petrified.

He didn't know where his boyfriend was, how he was, or if he was even safe.

He remembered the night before, where he was having a nice evening in imagination. He knew that he had fell asleep in his lover's arms, but when he woke up a few hours later, Deceit was no where to be found.

He tried looking for him everywhere. However, when he told the others, they weren't really much help as they didn't see it as a big deal soon as he's 'always disappearing to places'.

Well, that was until they saw how much of a frantic panic he was in.

In the end, they couldn't find him, and it wasn't until a worrying amount of time later, that he suddenly showed up.

That very night, Remus was in his bed, snuggled under the covers, and was crying, heavily.

Every negative thought was hitting him like a giant tsunami: he felt useless, he felt weak, and he felt utterly powerless.

As quick as he had received only the greatest feelings of happiness, it was taken away. Remus' heart was fucking heavy, and there was not a single thing that he could do about it.

It was around nine in the evening when he felt an all-too-familiar tug in the back of his mind, to which only meant one thing:

Thomas was trying to summon him.

As quick as he could, he wiped his tears with his sleeve, and sniffled as he untangled himself from his bedsheets, before sinking down to Thomas' living room.

"What?" Said Remus as he rose up, exhaustion clear in his voice. "What could y-you guys possibly want? I-" Remus froze, releasing a quiet gasp.

There, right there, in the middle of the room, everyone was gathered around a figure, a very familiar one.

The two sides, (Logan and Virgil), who had their backs to Remus, moved to the side, allowing the darker version of creativity to finally see who was standing in the middle of the gathering.

This time though, Remus gasped, loudly.

Without thinking, he said, "Janus?"