#amethystdarkwrites

Toya’s eyes fell to the barely illuminated pavement below him. The street lights had come on some time ago signalling that he probably was supposed to go back inside. Despite that, he remained sitting on the top of the building, letting the blue flames dance along his fingers. This was the routine, if that damn man was on the news then Toya would be up here. 

He had arrested some infamous villain within hours of his agency being tasked with the cases. His popularity in the polls was rising because of it, the reporter had gone on and on about how amazing he was, praising him for almost the entire time slot. 

Toya only felt sick to his stomach. No one knew, of course, no one knew that the man they were praising was a selfish, abusive man. Who harmed his own family just for the sake of some damn ranking. 

“Hey…” A raspy voice came from behind him. 

Well, Almost no one knew that. 

Toya glanced over his shoulder and killed the flame in his hands, “That reporter done yapping?”

Tenko sighed and made his way closer to the other. “Yeah, finally. I’m surprised they didn’t cut her off early. Praising the flaming asshole must be more important than timeslots.” 

The ebony-haired boy sat down beside him, having his legs dangling from the edge. This was also routine. Tenko was the one to come check on him, he was really the only one who knew why he came out here anyway. The others in the class only figured he was embarrassed. That was true, but not nearly for the same reason. 

He was embarrassed to have that man’s blood flowing through his veins, to know that no matter how much he did to be a hero in his own right, everyone would only see Endeavor’s oldest son. The oldest son that he had rejected, the one that he had deemed too weak. If one is hurt by his own quirk then there was no chance he’d be as strong as his father made him to be.

The words of that night echoed in Toya’s mind every time he saw him on television, or heard his name. He hadn’t been back home, he had run away and was determined to prove the man wrong. Now he was here at UA, and despite his attempts to keep his connection a secret, his last name was still evidence of what family he came from. 

A gloved hand holding a can of soda entered his vision and pulled him from his thoughts. He took it with a small ‘thanks.’ 

Tenko had his own soda by the sounds of the can opening to his right. Though, Toya’s eyes remained fixated on the pavement. 

“You can’t take revenge against him if you jump.” 

It was so abrupt and nonchalant that it forced a laugh out of Toya, as well as the sip of the soda he had just taken. “The hell Tenko?” He said through a mix of coughs and quiet laughs. 

Tenko was laughing himself, as he wiped off the residuals of Toya’s spit take that ended up on his sleeve. “Just sayin. It got you to stop looking at the damn ground didn’t it?” He stated with a sly grin. 

Toya rolled his eyes, but Tenko was right. He wasn’t sure if he was really contemplating jumping, but it wasn’t like the thought had never crossed his mind. This Tenko also knew. His goal of sticking it to his father felt hopeless. It wasn’t like he’d be believed if he did go public with the information. 

He sighed and got off the ledge onto the pavement of the roof, only to lay down on his back again. The cool cement felt nice on his burns. The nighttime wind was beginning to pick up as well, the breeze reminding him that winter was going to set in soon. “Not gonna jump.” He muttered, more to himself than to Tenko. 

“Good. It’d be sad if your last game of smash bros was you getting your ass kicked.” Tenko joked as he followed Toya’s movements, and laid down beside him. 

Toya only laughed but kept silent, he had let Tenko win that time anyway. However, that wasn’t the point of Tenko’s statement and he knew that. 

The two laid in silence for what felt like hours, holding space for each other. Tenko wasn’t always outright about what was bothering him, that was something they both shared. Toya wasn’t any good at comforting but he knew that it was helping the other to just be here, with him. If he had to admit it, it did the same for him. Every time. 

Toya’s mind was once again filled with words and memories, but instead of them being ones of his father, it was ones he shared with Tenko. Nights like this that were too frequent to count, days where neither spoke, but were together the entire time, training sessions that ended in gaming too late into the night. The common thread was the feeling these memories brought up. 

Safe. 

Tenko felt safe. 

It wasn’t just because Tenko was training alongside him to be a pro hero, or that he was in the care of the number one hero and presumably getting more training tips from him, frankly Toya was sure he was stronger than the other when it came to fighting. It was because they could do this, and sit in silence whenever the other needed it. Hold the space while they process whatever traumatic memories decide to rear their heads. 

It wasn’t something he wanted to let go of, ever. 

“Let’s make our own agency when we graduate.” 

The silence that followed Toya’s statement was the first time that safety was gone. He wasn’t what one would call anxious, he always just kept his walls up, his fangs bared at anyone who tried to get close. He told himself that he was content with being alone all of his life.

He knew that was a lie when Tenko had first sat up on the roof with him. 

“Yeah… Let’s do it. We’ll be our own heroes.”

Toya could hear the grin in Tenko’s voice. That almost crazed smile he got when he was really excited about something. 

It was infectious. 

“Thomas, you can’t go. You really don’t know what would happen! You know only one person if you would be going! And to a place like that you need to go with a group, there are so many things that could-”  Virgil was cut off, Patton interrupting him. 

“Virgil it’ll be okay! We know what we’re doing and how to be careful, and plus we promised! It’s their birthday after all!”  Patton tried to explain, they were safe, everything would be okay. But Virgil was having none of it. He went off listing danger after danger, while Patton tried to reassure him that those wouldn’t happen. Both completely ignoring Roman, Logan and Thomas, every suggestion they gave was immediately ignored as if they weren’t even there. 

Until Patton snapped. 

“Virgil! That’s Enough!!!” He shouted, almost loud enough to echo across the apartment’s walls. He balled his hands into tight fists, shutting his eyes closed as he put his arms down forcefully to his sides, separated. 

He heard the sound of screaming for a moment, painful, blood-curdling screaming. But it stopped as soon as it started, rendering the room completely silent. 

When his eyes opened, he was made just as speechless. In Virgil’s spot, stood two versions of him. One that was leaning against the wall, clearly exhausted, having a white hoodie on with small blue patches residing on it. While the other was leaning against the banister, in a way that resembled him as scared of the other as he clung to it like a lifetime, having a dark gray hoodie with faded red stripes. Similar looking to Virgil’s old hoodie. They both had logos as well. The first had a light grey cloud with cobalt blue stitching around it. While the other had a black lighting bolt with crimson red stitching around it. 

There was only silence for a few seconds as Patton and the others stared at the two new sides in front of them. “Virgil?” Patton asked breaking the dead silence. Both of the two new sides looked up at Patton in response. 

“Dad? What did you do to me?” The white and blue clothed side asked. “Us.” The second new side corrected, his voice in Tempest Tongue. “What did you do to us? To Virgil?!” The red and dark grey side growled at Patton.

Patton was speechless he had no idea what he had done to his dark strange son. He glanced quickly at the others. Thomas looked like he was about to start to panic, Logan was just frozen and Roman… Roman, he had a look of horror on his face. A look of horror that showed he knew exactly what Patton did.

“Patton… You- you split Virgil into two just like you did with me and Remus…” Roman paused for a second to compose himself, now wasn’t the time for him to start crying. “We may never see our stormcloud again…”

“But there has to be a way to get him back! Virgil can’t just be gone forever!” Thomas replied.

“The only example we have to go off of is Roman and Remus and they never re-fused. So, unfortunately, it’s a safe assumption to say that it’s not possible for these two halves of Virgil to refuse.” Logan answered visibly troubled by this answer. 

Patton can only stare in horror at Logan with what he said. Did he really get rid of Virgil for good?

“Patton… this is… what you’ve done to Virgil… it's so bad I don’t even have a word to describe it.” Roman refuses to look at Patton while saying this.

“That was messed up even for me.” Remus said after he appeared next to Roman.

Tears began to well up in his eyes. He really messed up and he had no way to fix what he did. “Are you happy now?” Deceit asked as he appeared to Patton. He started crying no he didn’t want this. He would never want this. He just wanted Virgil back, he wanted his best friend back.

“Deceit?” The black and red Virgil whispered. Deceit looks up at him. “Yeah, V?”

“Are we gonna be like this forever?”

“I honestly don’t know.” He glared at Patton as he said that.

“Well… If they’re gonna be here possibly forever do they have names? We can’t really call them Virgil or Anxiety.” Thomas interrupts.

“We don’t have a name beside Virgil…”  The side against the wall replied.

“Well, we can give you names!” Roman said and points to the white and blue side. “Your name can be Vito.” 

“Vito… Ok, I’m fine with it.” 

“Ok and you!” Roman says pointing to the other side. “Your name can be Viho.”

“Ok yeah, I’m not letting my name be picked by you princey. That names fudging stupid.” He growls at Roman.”

“Ok wow, no need to be so mean we’re friends.”

“Who said we are friends?!” He shouts at Roman.

The room falls into a shocked silence. Tears well up in Roman’s eyes but he quickly wipes them away like nothing happened.

“How bout Volt?” Remus says changing the topic.

“I like that, Remus. My names Volt.” Volt says with a smirk. Roman just stares at Volt shocked and hurt. Volt only glanced over to Patton, who was still in tears, but instead of having any kind of remorse in his expression, there was a glare. 

Patton tried to speak, tried to apologize, but his sobs muffled his words. “Virgil- I-I mean, Vito, Volt. I didn’t want this… I didn’t mean for this to happen! I-” He was cut off as Volt interrupted him, “Well obviously you did! Because we’re here! The good and the bad! Just like Roman and Remus” He huffed, “What are you going to do, huh?” 

Logan sighed, “Volt-” 

“Split Logan next time he disagrees with you??” 

“Volt! Enough.” Logan snapped, causing silence to fall across the room. “I understand  your frustrations-” 

“No you don’t, you robot.” 

Logan took a deep breath to not let that get to him, “You are upset, but we all are to some degree, you have to try to focus so that we can properly fix the issue. We are unsure if you can be fused again, but we will try to do what we can if you cooperate with us.”  

Volt leaned against the banister once again, “I don’t see the point.” he muttered harshly. “I mean, again if Patton had wanted Virgil here, he’d still be here. He banished Virgil to the dark side so what’s to say he wouldn’t do it again with me or if we did get back together.”

Vito glances at Volt, “Patton won’t do that, I won’t let him.”

“You can’t stop him he always gets what he wants!”

Thomas covers his face with his hands, his breathing slightly beginning to pick up, “So he’s never coming back?” He asked, his voice having the slightest quiver to it. “But he’s my anxiety!” His hands shook as he ran them through his hair, “And-and Patton- you’re my morality! Why would you want to do that?!” He could barely keep up with all that was happening, quickly becoming overwhelmed and spiraling into a panic attack. 

Vito looks at Thomas concerned, “Thomas, remember to breathe.” He turns to Volt. “Volt stop! Your making Thomas have a panic attack!”

“Why should I? You’ll listen to me better this way and Thomas will forgive me anyways.” 

“Volt! Please!” Vito begged as he went over to his half, “This isn’t the way to handle this!” 

“Why? Because he’s feeling bad? Guess what he feels bad almost all the time thanks to how strict Patton is! And ya know what? In some cases he deserves it!”

“He didn’t know that this would happen? Volt, please Virgil wouldn’t want this!”

“Maybe your part of him wouldn’t but mine does! How are you not hurt by what he did?! How are you not feeling betrayed?!”

Vito is silent for a second before looking at his other half in the eyes. “I am hurt and I do feel betrayed but revenge isn’t the answer.”

“I’m not after revenge! I just don’t want to be hurt anymore! I don’t want him to be hurt anymore!” 

“We aren’t going to be hurt-” 

“How do you know that??” 

Finally, Logan snapped, “Volt, this is not the way to handle this situation… Thomas himself had nothing to do with this, causing him to have a panic attack will only delay our time to get this back in order. You are now only harming Thomas. None of us... Take a deep breath and we can figure this out.” 

Volt went quiet for a moment, but then just crossed his arms as he leaned against the banister, refusing to look at anyone directly as he muttered out, “Fine.” 

Vito took a deep breath and walked a bit closer to Thomas, “Thomas, remember what you’ve learned, breath in for four seconds,” he tried to keep his voice a lot softer and calmer than it had been, especially in comparison to his other half. 

He slowly guided Thomas through a few breathing exercises, glancing to Patton every once in a while as he did so to make sure he was following along to. The other sides were finally able to find their calm as well, even if Roman, Remus, and Deceit were furious with Patton over what had happened. They were able to calm down at least. 

“Rem, c’mon get up, we both have to go to work…” Emile murmured to his boyfriend as he pretended to still be asleep. Remy made a small groan of annoyance and only clung onto Emile tighter, “Five more minuuutessss” Emile rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the smile on his face, “You said that ten minutes ago.”

“Hmm, Ten more minutes then”

“Remy no.”

Emile sighed, “Okay, that’s it,” and despite the whines from his boyfriend, pryed Remy’s arms off of him. Remy luckily gave up and sat up, rubbing at his eyes, “You’re so mean to me, gemstone.” he playfully whined. Emile only shook his head, his boyfriend was ridiculous, but, of course, he loved him more than anything. They traded a few more murmurs of playful teasing, and smaller, quicker, and sweeter kisses before beginning to get ready for their day.

“Sugar, please.”

“Are you talking about me or the coffee?”

“I’m asking my sugar to pass me the sugar for my coffee so, yes.”

Remy snorted at Emile’s response, handing him the sugar before putting his bag over his shoulder, he grabbed his own coffee and placed a small quick kiss to Emile’s cheek, “I’m headin’ out, talk to you later, gemstone.” Emile smiled, “Goodbye, love.” Remy only looked at Emile with a look of adoration before putting on his sunglasses and leaving.  Emile had a patient in an hour so he headed out not too long after Remy. Deciding to stop for some breakfast on the way there.

When Emile got home, Remy wasn’t there. This was a bit unusual for him, normally Remy is home a bit before him. He tried not to think anything of it, and just began working on dinner for the two of them, normally Remy does it, but again, normally Remy is home earlier. Remy hates his job, always going off about how miserable it is, which is fair, he isn’t given much off-time. Last year he didn’t have any. So he wouldn’t stay late…

Emile had dinner completely finished once Remy got home. It was about two hours since he would have normally gotten home. Emile asked, not accusingly of course since there was nothing to accuse him of. Remy blamed it on a wreck that had happened on the highway that caused a whole bunch of back up and such. No one was hurt luckily. Though Emile was slightly suspicious of how he knew that…

A little later that night, Remy was quiet for a moment, before asking, “Hey babe, wanna go out to eat on Saturday?” Today was Thursday. Emile thought for a second, and glanced at his phone to double check he didn’t have any patients that day before nodding, “Yeah, where?” Remy grinned, “I’ll let you know when we go.”

“Wait how am I gonna know if I can afford it if-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

And that was the end of the conversation, it was not brought up again until Saturday. Luckily, Remy somehow managed to get off of work that day. Remy explained that they were going somewhere kind of fancy so, he may wanna dress up a bit. Which Emile was surprised about, Remy was not the one to dress up or go places fancy, but his current outfit was much more sophisticated than his normal attire.

Emile had decided to just go along with it. Remy seemed to have something on his mind, as he was driving he kept drumming his fingers on the wheel. When Emile asked if he was upset or nervous, he got a very quick, “Nah, I’m good! You okay?” Deflecting and redirecting the question… Hmm. Emile said nothing about it but paid attention to his mannerisms. Mentally nothing a few nervous habits he seemed to be displaying.

When they got to the restaurant, Emile was awed, not only was it fancy it was an almost five-star level restaurant. People holding the doors open, tall ceilings lined with shimmering chandeliers. “Rem, I can’t affor-” He was cut off, “Gemstone, don’t worry about it…” Remy spoke softly, taking his hand as they walked in. Remy apparently had a reservation. Which Emile didn’t remember him making.

They were seated at one of the upper levels of restaurant, filled with proper looking families and older couples who gave them odd looks due to them both being males presumably. Or it could be the fact that Remy had a bit of a darker skin tone than Emile, or both, who knows? They had gotten their appetizers, and were waiting on their meals when Emile asked, “What is this all for Rem?”

Remy drummed his fingers against the table again and shook his head, “I’ll tell you once we finish eating, Em.” before switching the topic. They discussed other things as they ate, old stories they had not yet told, reliving memories from when they first got together a few years ago, and things not pertaining to memories. Though Emile’s question lingered, unanswered and barely acknowledged.

Once they had finished eating, Emile looked at Remy expectantly. Emile rarely forgets things, and Remy was well aware of this. So Remy took a deep breath, again drumming his fingers against the table for a second.

“I’ve been, lying a bit to you, Em…”

Emile paused a bit shocked about that considering the circumstances, “Okay…? What about, babe?”

“I can get a hell of a lot more time off than I have been. But I’ve just been saving up.”

Emile looked at him confused, “For this?” he asked, gesturing around. Remy shrugged, a small grin creeping on his face, “Well, yeah, but more specifically,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box, and handed it to Emile, “For this.” Emile felt his heart stop, he slowly opened the box and gasped, feeling tears invade his eyes.

The box contained a beautiful rose gold ring diamonds lining the band about halfway around, leading up to a large circular diamond in the center. Small circles of the rose gold intertwining some of the diamonds on the side and circling the one in the middle, which had a few smaller diamonds around it as well. “Emile Picani, will you marry me?” Remy asked.

And of course, with tears falling down his face and his hands shaking, Emile said yes.

Logan was different than the others suffering from unhealthy coping mechanisms, or maybe he wasn't and just never reached out to see if anyone was like him or not.

Everything for him was a punishment, a punishment for not being perfect or up to standard. Someone pointing out how tender headed he was when his hair got on something and made him tear up? His solution was to pull and pull at his own hair until he was numb to it. Too much of a picky eater? Forcing himself to eat everything that he'd normally despised when served it. Grades not up entirely to his own standards? That's his only focus until they are, nothing else matters. Not eating, not sleeping.

He feels trapped with this mindset, nothing could help. Well, he believed that nothing could help. He didn't need help. He needed to be fixed. He could fix himself. He began keeping journals. Journals describing what all he was doing in detail to fix himself.

A comment he made causing the conversation to either drop or turn awkward? He has a push-pin in his pocket to prick himself with. A minor dose of pain to correct the mistake and learn not to do it again.

Overslept causing lateness to class? Don't sleep for a day or two.

Burned something while cooking? He burned himself with hot water.

Dropped and broke a glass? Press a shard into his palm, if questioned, say that he dropped a glass. Not incorrect.

But then they only grew, seeping into parts of his personality. Too emotionless one day, too emotional the next day. Too loud, too quiet. Too childish, too mature. The journals filled up with comments like that, their 'solutions' often times conflicting.

Too emotionless? Razor blade to feel pain.

Too emotional? Repress everything. Repeat cycle.

Too loud? Don't speak for a week.

Too quiet? Barely stop talking for an equal amount of time. Repeat cycle.

Too childish? Hideaway old possessions such as stuffed animals and forget them.

Too mature? Frantically look for those stuffed animals again. If failed, see 'Too emotional'. Repeat cycle.

It took him too long to realize how trapped he truly was, and break the cycles himself. Every day a constant battle not to give in to the solutions listed in those journals. He couldn't bring himself to throw them away. So he hid them in a box at the back of his closet, buried deep under books, other boxes with childhood items, kept for sentimental value, and a tarp to hide it even further.

Years have passed since then. The memories that those journals held not forgotten but repressed. Their marks are barely visible now. His husband, of course, makes no comment on them. Either because he couldn't see them or because he didn't want to know, he was not aware of. Either way, he was incredibly grateful for this, as this helped him even more to repress them.

Though, of course, they had to resurface.

Virgil and Logan were in the little storage unit that they had rented out, deciding to clean it out, most of it had just been things left over from when they moved in together. There were things hidden in similar boxes, some with hastily written sharpie sprawled across them labeling them 'storge' and no other specifications. They couldn't remember which one wrote it like that, but it was most likely Virgil.

In the middle of their quips and small stories, they had forgotten to tell surrounding the old items they found. Virgil stopped mid-sentence as he examined the contents in the box. Logan glanced over to him questioningly, "Virgil?" he asked walking over to him. Virgil did not answer, he was focused, reading... Logan's eyes widened when he saw what Virgil was reading. Years of repressed memories came back in an instant as he saw the box that filled with small journals. One of them Virgil was reading.

Virgil looked up at him, his eyes watering, "Logan...? Was all this what, what was going on in high school?" The two had known each other for years prior to even dating, gone both to high school and college together. "I always could tell something was up, but you never said anything." Virgil's voice was shaky, he immediately stood up and hugged him tightly. "You never told me, not me, not Patton, not Roman... Why didn't you say something?"

Normally Virgil would understand, it's difficult to talk about these things, but Logan often stated everything directly. Direct, to the point, no secrets. Lying only caused misinformation. That was what he went by. Logan slowly came back to himself, wrapping his arms around Virgil. Allowing him to cling to him. "Babe... Please..." Virgil murmured.

Logan took a deep breath, pressing back tears that formed in his own eyes. Too emotional. His mind snapped at him, he only held Virgil tighter. Trying his best to ignore the words in his head as he had all those years ago. The echoes of his unhealthy coping mechanisms came back, but he knew better now. He was able to ward them away easier now. Not that it was the easiest thing to do, but it wasn't as difficult as it used to be.

Logan eventually got himself under control, not pulling away from Virgil, but loosening his grip, silently saying that he was okay. Virgil was the one to pull away, only slightly, however, just to look Logan in the face, he was wanting an answer for his question still, but he wasn't going to pester him for it exactly again. If Logan didn't want to say it, he didn't have to. Logan pulled away from Virgil fully, glancing down at the ground instead. The words hesitated on his lips.

"My thought process then was unhealthy, it described the world in nothing but black and white, problem-solution. So when I began noticing things about myself that did not seem to fit well with whatever I needed to be at the moment. It was just a problem. A problem that needed to be fixed. I needed to fix myself." Logan took in a shaky breath as a few tears fell, "by any means necessary."

“Happy birthday, Dee!” Patton chirped happily as he handed Deceit a little cupcake with golden frosting. “Happy birthday, Kaa.” Roman muttered begrudgingly, more out of ‘keeping up appearances’  than actual malice. “Happy birthday, Deceit,” Logan said, quickly and in passing, again, out of expectations than wanting to care about what he was saying. He was far too interested in his book anyway. “Happy birthday,” Virgil mumbled, his focus divided much like Logan’s, Tumblr must be intriguing.

Deceit sighed, it wasn’t often he did this. This realm wasn’t his. It was Roman’s. He was forbidden to enter it due to his place as a dark side. Today, however, he couldn’t help himself. No one cared. Not even to know it was his birthday, they would think he was lying anyway, and then shoo him away if he told them. He was never going to risk that humiliation.

It didn’t matter to him that this all was fake, it didn’t matter that he’d never get this from them in real life. He can just pretend. Lie to himself. The cupcake provided nothing, it was just a poof of air the second he touched it. He could never get things to properly appear in this realm, mostly because he did not know how to use it. He was never going to ask for Roman’s help, however, that would only lead to embarrassment and taunting from the regal side.

Because of this fact, he was not able to get a hug from Patton. That would have poofed the fake Patton out of existence, and he would have to try again. He could have them do whatever he wanted them to do, but he tried to mirror their real-life equivalents. Thinking that maybe if he does so, maybe he’d find some kind of peace today.

Someone can only stay and hide in their room so often.

He had heard the four whispering this morning, well, not whispering, but they were talking quietly and he could barely hear them through the walls, about how none of them had anything to do today. Nothing important was going on, just another routine day. He knows that they don’t know… Or maybe they do and they just don’t care.

He’s been evil, hasn’t he? He doesn’t deserve this anyway. Before he could get rid of the harsher negative thoughts, more came, then more, and more. Spitting insults at him, ones he could swear were in the other’s voices. Calling him evil, an abuser, hateful, worthless, useless. The list went on and on. His mind was unable to distinguish the truths from the lies.

Before he knew it, tears were falling down his face, and he was collapsing onto the ground. The scene he had created in the imagination disappeared, leaving him in an empty black room. He curled up trying to do everything in his power to just stop! Stop crying! Stop being pathetic! But he couldn’t. He wasn’t able to fake it, that was his job and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

That’s when he heard it. More talking. This time just outside of the room. On the other side of the door, and his heart sunk.

“Like I was saying, dear heart, I have spent months constructing this just for you! I certainly hope you’ll enjoy it!”

Roman.

“Awww!! Thank you, Roman!! You know I’m going to love it! You didn’t have to do this!!”

Patton.

Before he could scramble up and run, before he could sink out to his room, the door opened. The light hitting him in his left eye, causing him to hiss as he had adjusted to the darkness. He quickly got up on his feet, trying desperately not to show he was just crying.

“Deceit!” Roman snapped, marching over to him. The prince grabbed at Deceit’s cloak making him face him. Of course, he was furious, he was never allowed here. He was never allowed anywhere. Deceit winced at the loudness before he could reply the prince was talking again.

“What on earth were you doing in here? Were you destroying my creations? My kingdom? The scene I had made for Patton?” He yelled. Deceit shook his head, “No- I-I mean yes! I totally did!” His lies didn’t help him in the slightest.

Roman threw him down to the cold ground again. Pressing a foot firmly to his chest to keep him trapped, “You listen here. Never come around here. Never even think of coming to the light sides half again. Or I will see to it that your scales will be made into a belt.” A small choked sob came from Deceit, he was unable to stop it. Patton didn’t even bat an eye, he was unsure of Deceit’s true motives, so remained quiet.

Roman only gained a twisted grin, “Oh? I see now, you were most likely trying to fight with some of the monsters I’ve made in my realm. They aren’t so easy to tackle now, are they? Gives you all the more reason to stay out.” Deceit just stayed silent, nothing he said would make a difference anymore. Roman pressed his foot down again, a silent warning, before pulling away from him, allowing him to stand up.

“Get. Out.” He spat. Deceit did as told. Quickly sinking out to his room. The second he got there, he broke down into more sobs. “I’m fine. I’m totally fine.” He murmured through his sobs. “Everything is fine, it doesn’t hurt, nothing hurts. If I stay alone no one can hurt me.” His lies would protect him, they have in the past so what would be any different now?

After almost an hour of mumbling lies to himself, he finally calmed down. He conjured a small cupcake, with golden frosting. One he could actually eat this time. This way he could still pretend, still lie to himself, still fake like someone actually cared.

“Happy birthday to me… Happy birthday to me, I’m hurting and lonely, Happy birthday to me…”