Chapter Text
On the eve of change, the spider calls for him.
The serpent answers.
Braving the open forest, silent with the promise of upheaval, Deceit weaves his undulating form through the cover of the trees. The crisp edges of senescent leaves break against the surface of his scales like water against stone and the serpent tastes the air on the length of his tongue. The flickering pink of forked muscle reads of unnatural stillness, the weight of anticipation. But at least they are alone.
The unobtrusive body of a garter snake allows Deceit a measure of anonymity as he approaches the spider, perched on the apex of a stone. Paranoia appears well-recovered. The grey shirt clothed over Thomas Sanders’ torso is whole, absent of the bloodied tear where Rage had run the spider through. Deceit slides the length of his serpentine form against the bark of a well-grown cypress tree to announce his presence. And when purple eyes cut in his direction, the serpent retakes his more human shape.
As scales pull away to the soft caress of human flesh, something inside him screams. His essence tears and Deceit traps a whimper behind the strength of needle-like fangs as scattered bits of himself fail to conform. Scaled fingers cup the left side of his face, stiff and broken where there is not strength enough to change. It aches and the flesh of his cheek cracks to accommodate an unhinging jaw.
For a breathless moment Deceit relives the feel of Loneliness’ ursine paw upon his second head. The weight of endless solitude and despair sinking in its claws and crushing before the spider could tear him free. Paranoia had torn the bear asunder where before they had hoped to grant the side at least a modicum of mercy.
The serpent survived, ferried to his burrow coiled against the spider’s chest, but the wounds have not healed. In all likelihood they never truly will. Deceit knows in the way his aspect urges him not to tell, that he will wear the scars forever.
Paranoia stands as the serpent lifts himself on two feet. Dismounting from the stone, the spider moves towards Deceit. “You came,” he says, and there is a note of deep relief there that sits wrong on the serpent’s flickering tongue.
“Of course I did.” Deceit carefully sets his palm behind Paranoia’s elbow and pulls him forward, guiding them both under the shadow the cypress tree. The smell of pine will mask their scent and the dense branches above hide them from view. The wolf has not yet left the sanctuary of his den but if he does, they are as hidden as they can be.
The spider is trembling in his touch. He is stronger now. Deceit can feel it, a black abyss churning just beneath the surface of the spider’s skin. It yearns to spread its reach. He can tell it is agony beyond words to keep the spider down, hold it at bay, but Paranoia must. They’ve kept their hand against their chest for this long, they must not falter now.
Hands brush the scale of his brow, tracing down the serpent-half of Deceit’s face in quiet benediction. “I’m so sorry,” says the spider. There are shadows beneath Paranoia’s eyes, deep and black and bleeding into twisting veins of grey fog along the spider’s cheeks. The tips of black claws trace the cracked line of the serpent’s jaw. “Deceit, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, no.” He catches Paranoia’s hand and pulls it down, tucking the flat of the smooth palm against his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispers. He wants to pull the spider close and wrap him in his coils, trap the warmth he exudes between them and use it to grant each other a deep and needed comfort, but he does not dare. The day must pass and the night to follow before their war is over. He will not leave his scent upon Paranoia for Malice to find.
“I don’t blame you,” he says instead.
Paranoia’s hands tremble and a chill bleeds into the air. Grey clouds in the sky above start to churn. “You should,” he says.
“I don’t.” Deceit curls his reptilian hand around the back of Paranoia’s hand and makes himself smile. It’s a hard thing, and the sensation of his tongue sliding through the unnaturally wide gap in his left side is one that makes his spine crawl. Still, he holds to the hope that has taken them this far. “It’ll be worth it. Trussst me.” How odd a thing for a snake to say, but it remains true all the same. “This will be over soon,” he says. “And we’ll be free.”
Paranoia shakes his head. The spider’s eyes glow a bright and shimmering purple and in response the branches of the canopy begin to thrash in an unnatural wind. A peal of thunder rolls from the shadow of the towering mountain and Deceit’s heart pounds in his chest. It’s a remarkable display of power, one that they have fought to build for Paranoia for so long, he almost cannot remember what it felt like before the conspiracy first began. It makes the unstable shuddering of the spider’s shoulders all the more alarming as panic begins to build.
“I can’t do this. Deceit, I can’t- this was a mistake.”
There is a moaning in the wind, like the cry of a banshee and the serpent flinches as cold air whips at his cheeks. He steps forward and takes Paranoia’s face between his hands. “Yes, you can.”
Paranoia shakes his head against Deceit’s palms. “I can’t.”
“One more day,” he reminds the spider. “One more, and Malice will be gone.”
Paranoia lifts his hands to the serpent’s forearms, claws tearing through the fabric of the Deceit's long-sleeved shirt to prickle at his scales. He says, “It’s not Malice I’m afraid of.”
Deceit blinks. “What?” For a moment the wind and thunder cease. Then, in the vacuum of silence, a droplet of rain splits itself upon the razor surface of a blade of grass. The serpent asks, “What are you talking about?”
A trembling hand goes to Paranoia’s chest and grips the grey fabric of his shirt. The spider’s eyes shut. “I-It’s me,” he says. “I can feel it, Deceit. It’s doing things to me, CHANGING me. I hate it!” The spider’s free hand grips the side of his head and his shoulders bow. “It’s too much. The others, their voices. They’re getting louder and they won’t SHUT UP!”
Lighting flashes above their heads and rain begins to pour in earnest, icy and thick. Deceit crowds in closer to avoid the wet and the chill and the motion brings Paranoia retreating back against the fibrous surface of the cypress trunk. He urges the spider’s head up with the tip of a single, clawed finger and waits for the other side’s eyes to find his. He gives Paranoia a sad smile. “Listen to me. You can do this.”
Paranoia holds his gaze for a moment, something new and fragile hidden in his eyes. And then, moving much too quickly for the serpent to appropriately respond, he takes Deceit’s face in both hands and crashes their mouths together.
It is a clumsy thing. All fumbling and teeth and desperation and it is over before either of them really know what it is they’ve just done. Given hindsight, they might even be embarrassed at their dismal performance but for the moment, neither can think or move beyond the tingling of their lips and the rush of water pouring down around them in their little alcove of green.
While Deceit is left blinking, it is Paranoia who manages to compose himself first. “I-I’m sorry. I just… I had to.”
Deceit shakes his head. “No, it’s… it’s okay.” The serpent touches the pad of a scaled finger to his lower lip and stares at the flush of pink on Paranoia’s pale cheeks.
“Really?”
A quick succession of nods. “Um, yeah.” Beyond, Thomas Sanders is barely cresting the age of adolescence. Hormones have barely begun their tumultuous cycle but in the Dark side of the mind, those who wish to survive have aged quickly.
Paranoia licks his lips. “Good,” and with all the strength they’ve gathered, he pulls the serpent down again. They stand there and experiment with things they have no context for but the vague instinctive knowledge that this is how to show affection. Nothing but the feeling of right to guide them. This time, it is Deceit who pulls away.
“Wait,” he says. In the sky, the storm abruptly halts.
Paranoia swipes a hand across his mouth, eyes snapping open and unsure. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re not-” Deceit’s not sure if he wants to ask. This feels good, this feels right, and he doesn’t want to risk it. But… Paranoia had sounded so frightened before. “You’re not doing this because you’re scared, are you?” He begs a negative response, but in his aspect, the truth is already etched in stone.
The silence that falls but for the lingering droplets of water descending from the trees is answer enough. Deceit buries his hands in his hair and turns away. “Paranoia…”
“I like you, okay!” A hand bunches itself in the back of his shirt, refusing to let him move any further away. “Deceit, I really, really do, but I’m scared that- I’m scared that if I can beat Malice tomorrow, I won’t anymore.” Paranoia’s voice is trembling and broken but Deceit doesn’t look back. He doesn’t want the spider to see him fighting away his own stinging corneas. When at last he feels that nothing is pouring down his serpent half, that is the part of his face he turns over his shoulder.
“I like you too,” he admits. “But I don’t… I don’t want to do this just because you’re scared we won’t get another chance.”
“You don’t understand.” Paranoia drops Deceit’s shirt and his hands bury themselves in the bark against his back. “Every. Time. Everytime I take another Dark side it’s like I lose a part of myself to the power.” The spider sniffs and Deceit can see the edge of a fang burying itself in his lower lip. “What if the last part I lose is you?”
Steeling himself, the serpent turns around and takes the spider by the hands. “You won’t. Ever.” He runs the tips of pale claws through the curtain of Paranoia’s drifting bangs. “Listen, we are going to win tomorrow. We’ll beat Malice, and you’ll be stronger than ANYONE.” Deceit grins through the discordant vision of his mismatched eyes. “Then we’ll figure out what this is.”
The spider does not look comforted. “But what if we don’t? O-Or what if we do, and I’m not me anymore?” Paranoia throws himself around Deceit and buries his face in the other side’s chest. He holds Deceit tight enough that the serpent's ribs creak. “I don’t want to stop feeling this way about you.”
The serpent holds the spider back as much as he can. “That won’t happen. And even if it does, I promise I’ll still be here.” He wiggles himself free of Paranoia’s arms and drags his pinky in an ‘x’ across the left side of his chest. “Remember, I’ll follow you through the pit of Darkness or the heart of Light.” he swears. “No matter what, okay?”
Paranoia does not look entirely eased. There is still a tremble to his fingers and a nervous light to his eyes, but he does seem better. Courage shines, deep under the fear, and Deceit can see it getting ever closer to the surface. “Okay,” he says. “Tomorrow, then.” It’s a promise.
Deceit nods. “Tomorrow. Now, go.”
They’ve lingered too long already. Malice will have seen the storm and know that something has stirred Paranoia’s power. The wolf will come sniffing before the hour is done and they must be long gone before that happens. They need to scatter and hide until it is time for their trap to spring. Both of them have come too far, risked too much to falter now.
The spider goes first. Legs sliding free from his back and disappearing up into the canopy with the occasional aid of bolting webbing. Deceit watches him go, preparing to leave the moment he knows the other safe. His hesitance is what lets him hear the fibrous snap of a twig somewhere at his back.
“Ten bucks say you regret that, two-face.”
The serpent snarls, rounding on his heel and scales spreading as he comes face to face with the Duke. The Dark half of Creativity is leaning on one shoulder against the chafing bark of a deadened tree. Ink bleeds stark and black against the pale surface of the petrified wood from the point of contact down to gather in a pool at Dark Creativity’s feet.
The Duke looks unmoved by the serpent’s posture of aggression and twists his lips in a smirk that nearly unseats the wilted paper crown upon his head and smears the clumsily stenciled mustache drawn over his upper lip with what looks like blue pen.
Deceit hisses. “How much of that did you see?”
Dark Creativity shrugs. “Enough.” A giggle bubbles in the octopus’ throat and the press of fingertips against his lips is a poor attempt to hold it back. “Malice won’t be happy.”
The serpent narrows his eyes and debates the speed with which he can shift forms and strangle the Duke in his coils. “Is that why you crawled out of whatever hole you were hiding in all this time?” he asks. Deceit chances a step forward, but a silver morningstar manifests in the Duke’s hands before he even takes the first.
“Ah-ah,” he lifts the finger of his empty hand, eyes wide with manic chastisement. “Let’s not push our luck, hm? Wouldn’t want to bring unwanted attention.” The wind is swift and silent without Paranoia’s influence to stir it into frenzy. Whatever noise they make, will travel far. The serpent retreats.
“Why are you here, Duke?” Deceit grits behind clenched teeth.
“Just curious.” The octopus’ nimble fingers twist the morningstar in his grip. “I take a quick trip to visit my better half, wreak a little havoc in the Light, and what do you know, when I come back,” the Duke quirks his head and lifts his shoulders. “All my friends are dead!” Dark Creativity laughs, bellowing and mad. “And lo and behold, I find YOU, and the twink, snogging it under a tree while standing on a mountain of their corpses!”
The morningstar melts away like black ice as tentacles slip from the octopus’ back. Deceit recoils, mind racing to calculate a retreat. He cannot face the Duke like this, not when his injuries have left him little better than crippled.
The serpent goes stiff. “Are you going to tell him? Malice?”
Aggression leaks out of Dark Creativity’s stance and he shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just sit back and wait for the fireworks.” Slow, deliberate strides bring the Duke within range of Deceit and he lifts the fluttering tip of a tentacle to trace the underside of the serpent’s neck. “Your boy will NEVER beat Malice.”
Deceit glares out the corner of his human eye, but does not dare try to move. “You’re wrong.”
Dark Creativity leans right in over the curve of Deceit’s ear. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, eh? Either way, you’re an idiot.” The hot breath of the Duke is foul against the serpent’s nose and Deceit grimaces. Dark Creativity blows a kiss. “That, my slippery friend, is what we call, letting the one get away,” he says, fingers dancing in the space between them.
“I don’t need advice from you.” Deceit growls and jerks away. “Some things are more important than instant gratification.”
The Duke laughs and glides away, giving the serpent back his space. “Whatever you say, prude. Just remember that I told you so.” The octopus grins, dark and dangerous, and disperses himself in a splatter of oil and sludge that pools in the underbrush. Deceit follows suit soon after, whisking himself away in a flurry of sand and heat. He tries very hard to forget what the Duke has said.
The next day, the serpent will lead the wolf on a winding chase. One that will end with the spider descending from the trees to bring down the last and greatest of its prey. And on the blackest part of night, christening a new age, Paranoia will ascend its throne of blood and bone, the serpent standing ever dutifully in the spider’s devouring shadow.
It will not descend for many years. And when it does, the spider will have long forgotten its promise.
Fifteen Years Later…
The memory stirs like an ancient covenant. One that the serpent has folded away, set aside, and chosen to forfeit. And yet-
In the breadth of time it takes for Roman and Virgil’s kiss to linger, Deceit finds himself adrift. The cool touch of drywall against his back is all that seems to ground the serpent in reality as the rest of the world floats by like motes of sand. His trembling hands are clasped together as he presses them against his brow and in the shadow of the hall, there is no one to see him shake, or notice the blood dripping from where his fangs pierce his lip. He tries very hard not to think about the sides sitting beside each other just on the other side of plaster and wood.
He should be relieved, really. He should be cheering and pumping his fist in the air for even the chance at such a clean and easy fix. Things always seem to happen that way for the Light side. Such simple solutions to solve the messiest of problems.
Just one kiss.
So, why? Deceit lifts his head, all but forces himself to turn in witness, and tries to make sense of why the breathless silence of the room beyond tears at the foundation of his soul.
He should be relieved, because Deceit may have lost his chance with Virgil, -lost it to power and circumstance and too much time- but Roman… He knows the prince will take every advantage of his. He's earned the right to try. Earned it by helping to guide back the heart Deceit had let slip from Paranoia's chest over the last two years. His love is true, Deceit has no need for proof of that. It is self-evident, in the way Roman holds himself back even now. How he resists with an iron will from pushing deeper into the press of lips. The way the serpent can see the Light side’s face twist not with satisfaction or pleasure, but a determined sort of desperation.
Please. Please. Deceit can almost hear the mantra in Creativity’s mind. Please, work.
This is the best possible outcome. All loose ends tied, victory assured. So, why is it that Deceit cannot watch without feeling like a hand is clutching at his heart? Why is it that he can hear the part of himself that once called itself Loneliness cry out above all the other clamouring voices to echo in his head?
This is fine, he tells himself. Deceit lifts a finger to trace the length of unmarred skin along the left side of his face. I’m okay with this.
Roman twitches as if to end the kiss and, as if pulled by gravity, Virgil follows. For a brief instant it is the spider maintaining the kiss and not the prince. Paranoia leans forward and while the contact of their lips breaks, both sides remain in close proximity, their foreheads pressed against one another and eyes hooded, unseeing. They’ve all but forgotten their audience lingering in the shadows.
Snakes are not meant to be social creatures. A rattling hiss stirs in the back of Deceit’s throat that never touches air. It’s time to move on, he thinks. He no longer needs the spider’s protection, and the spider has found itself a prince.
But I don’t want to.
He’s my friend. I have to let him go.
He’s all I’ve ever had. I can’t.
“Virgil?” The sound of Roman’s voice pulls Deceit from his mental spiral. He jerks and steps from the shadow of the hall, entering into the main part of the room just as the prince manages to pull his focus from the part in Virgil’s lips. Roman has one hand resting at the crook of Paranoia’s elbow while the other brushes a thumb over a raised line of scar tissue cutting across the side of the spider’s face.
Virgil licks his lips and leans into the prince’s hand. “Well,” he says, voice slightly hoarse with apprehension. “I didn’t hate that.” Under other circumstances, perhaps not the best of first words to say, but there is an uncertain spark of levity in Paranoia’s eyes that speaks of deflective humor rather than shallow praise.
The tension breaks as Roman’s face opens up in a smile. “I guess I’ll take that as a win.” There is a softer grin that spreads on the prince’s face and he dips forward to deliver a quick press of lips to the corner of the Dark side’s mouth before shifting further back. Brown eyes scan Virgil’s face for signs of change and Deceit holds his breath.
“Anything?” Virgil asks, and his eyes dart over Roman’s shoulder to Deceit, dragging the prince’s focus right along with him. Suddenly there are too many eyes on him and the serpent crosses his arms, schooling his face in careful neutrality.
Deceit meets the shimmering purple eye he’s known all of Thomas’ life and wonders why now of all times, a conceivable lie dances out of his reach. Emerald green and the twisting black of infection mock the serpent and all his efforts.
“No,” he says, and he will forever blame Patton for why the crestfallen looks Paranoia and Creativity send him wrack Deceit with guilt. It’s not as if this is his fault.
The memory of that night of rebellion sparks unbidden, and Deceit shoves it back down with all his might. Crushes it under a dragon’s weight and ignores the way the shade of Jealousy gathers it close to gloat. Memories of rain. Of pine needles in his hair and thunder in the sky. He remembers the smell of cypress and the softest taste of lavender on his lips. How the air had been heavy with the promise of lightning and how it had made his scales itch.
That wasn’t… that was different. They had been different.
Virgil lifts a hand to clasp over the mass of red and black and blue on his neck. Deceit tries not to think about the way the shadows hug at the lines of his jaw. Of how gaunt the spider seems, fighting the creeping shadow of the Duke lurking in his own veins. Roman leans forward and pulls Paranoia deep into an embrace, wrapping his arms around the spider’s shoulders and holding him close.
“I’m sorry,” the prince whispers, and Deceit is unsure whether or not he was supposed to hear. “God, Virgil, I’m so sorry.”
So much for believing in love conquers all, friendship is magic type bullshit. Fire sparks in his chest and Deceit may not have a right to feel bitter about the prince's failure, but it doesn't change that he does.
“It’s not your fault,” says Virgil, and out of Roman’s sights he casts another look to Deceit. Through some harsh deficit of luck, the angle is such that it is the green eye that finds him and the serpent has to suppress a shudder.
He supposes there was only ever one way this was going to end.
“Roman, listen. I don’t care if it didn’t work.” Virgil clutches the prince tight and says, “It means everything to me that you tried.”
Something prickles at Deceit’s senses. He holds Virgil’s gaze and flexes the fingers of his hand. The spider’s eyes track to the beating pulse point of Deceit's wrist, then slide shut, and he turns instead into Roman’s neck. Deceit feels as if a door has been shut in his face.
“I’ll survive, it’s the one thing I'm good at.” A claw-tipped hand traces up the side of Roman’s head and tangles itself in the prince’s hair.
“What are you going to do?” asks Roman.
Virgil’s eyes cut to Deceit and the serpent dutifully rolls up his sleeve. He offers the spider his wrist. This time, Paranoia nods, releasing his breath in a sigh. “What I have to.”