#kingceit

[Present Day]

It’s a calm day in the imagination when Janus finds himself sitting in the grass before a gravestone in a forgotten part of the imagination. The gravestone has the following words inscribed on it:

King Romulus

Beloved Friend and Creativity

Janus pulls out a necklace chain from under his shirt and looks at the item attached to the chain. It’s a plain golden ring with the inscription of “R + J” on it. He shakily smiles at the ring before looking back up at the tombstone and speaking.

“Hey Rom…it’s been a while since I last visited. I’ve been busier lately since Thomas has started accepting my help. You always used to dream about being able to talk to Thomas, didn’t you? I wish you could have been around when he started to acknowledge our existence. But that good old sense of morality really got strong when we were six, and then the King became the Duke and the Prince.”

Janus holds up the ring towards the tombstone.

“Do you remember giving me this ring? Our promise? I still do.” Deceit closes his eyes as he thinks back to that day.

—————

[Flashback]

The two six year olds lay in a field in the imagination, watching the clouds drift by. The King turns to face Lies.

“Jan?”

“Yes?” Lies turns to curiously look at his friend.

“When we get older, do you want to marry me?” The King asks.

Lies feels his face get warmer and he blinks a couple times, just staring at the King in surprise.

“Rom, remember what Thomas learned in Sunday School. Boys marry girls in the future. We can’t marry each other, silly.” Despite saying this, Lies kinda hopes the King will still want to marry him someday anyway. Janus loves Romulus. They’re best friends after all, and Romulus gives the best hugs.

“Well we’re imaginary, and there are no girl Sides. So, I say that rule doesn’t work here. And I’m the King, so what I say goes.” The King says confidently, reaching out to hold Lies’ hand.

“Oh, I guess that’s true…” Lies gently squeezes Romulus’s hand, appreciating the warmth of his friend’s touch.

“So, will you marry me when we’re older?” Romulus asks again, before pulling himself and Janus to sit up properly in the field.

Lies pretends to think about his answer for a while, before smiling and replying, “Yes, I will marry you when we’re older.”

“Yay! Oh, wait!” The King suddenly closes his eyes and in the hand that is not holding Janus’, creates a gold ring. Romulus opens his eyes and then gently puts the ring on Janus’ left ring finger.

Lies looks at the pretty ring closely and notices that the ring has “R + J” written on it.

“Now you’ll always have a sign of our promise.” Romulus says before pulling Janus into a hug. Janus relaxes in his friend’s arms, excited about their future together.

—————

[Present Day]

Janus opens his eyes again as he goes back to talking.

“I didn’t fully understand the extent of my love for you that day, but now I can definitely say that I would have truly loved to marry you. Back then I thought I just wanted to spend forever with my best friend, but no, I was definitely in love with you. I wonder…did you love me that much too? Or was it simply a promise of marriage between friends to you?” Deceit sighs before continuing.

“I shouldn’t be thinking so much about these things. You’re long gone at this point, so it’s not like I’ll ever get an answer out of you. I guess I just want you to know that if you were still here and asked me to marry you again, I would still say yes. I know, how can I say that when I don’t know what kinda person you would have grown into? Well that’s simple…you will always be my best friend and so I’ll always love you. And I guess I kinda have an idea of what you might have been like if you got to stick around.”

“Remus reminds me so much of you sometimes, which is probably mostly because he is half of you. You both have that same grin every time you come up with a new thing to create. Remus has your gray streak in his hair. Remember how you thought of growing a mustache someday, Rom? Well, Remus did just that!” Janus laughs fondly as he recalls Romulus drawing a mustache on his face, which Remus also ended up doing a lot as a kid.

“Your similarities go beyond just looks too. You both have a fondness for the less loved creatures of the world. You truly loved your pet rat, didn’t you Rom? I wanted to keep taking care of her for you after you split, but she faded away along with some of your other creations when you disappeared. I guess our promise ring truly was binding, considering the item stuck around. Anyways…Remus also is fond of rats like you. He always goes over to Roman’s side of the imagination to rescue rats from the traps some villagers set up. He hasn’t officially claimed any of the rats he saves as his pets, but he has a play area for them in his side of the imagination.”

“When Remus first showed up, I let my grief over you control my interactions with him. I didn’t want to be rude to Remus; I knew he didn’t choose to take you away from me, and he didn’t even remember anything from his time being you. But every time I saw him, I would be reminded of you being gone. Remus’ existence meant a new Creativity had taken over; the King had fallen. So, I just avoided the Duke as much as possible. I didn’t think he would care and just accept that I wanted nothing to do with him. He had Virgil to keep him company after all. But, just like you, Remus was determined to become my friend. I guess you could say he both literally and figuratively wormed his way into my heart.” Janus chuckles as he thinks back to the day he became friends with Remus.

————-

[Flashback]

Deceit sits on his bed, quietly crying as he looks through a sketchbook he and Romulus shared. There were many drawings of snakes and dragons. There was even a drawing Romulus made of Janus. Deceit would never get to model for his best friend again. They were supposed to be together forever! Why did he have to leave!?

Suddenly, there’s a knock on Janus’ door, followed by the sound of someone running away. Janus wipes his tears and tries to take calming breaths. Once he’s somewhat calmer, Deceit opens his door to find a gift box. Confused and surprised, he brings it inside his room and shuts the door. Janus sits back down on his bed with the gift box resting on his lap, then proceeds to open the present.

Inside the box is a heart with yellow roses growing out of it. The heart also has some worms in it. Janus is at first grossed out and considers just throwing the gift away but then he notices a note. The note reads:

Hi Dee,

I know you’ve been avoiding me, but I really wanna be your friend. So I thought: What would be a good friend gift? And then I got an idea! I have a garden of flower hearts in the imagination, so I thought you might like flowers. I know you like yellow and while I considered removing the worms, I thought they little critters fit my feelings. I wanna be friends so much I feel like my heart is wiggling in excitement! Anyways, I hope you accept my friendship gift.

-Remus :)

Janus suddenly finds himself crying again and quickly puts the note to the side to not stain it with his tears. Remus wants to be his friend? And he gave him flowers….Romulus gave him yellow flowers before too. Remus may not be Romulus, but he seems nice and somewhat similar. Maybe Janus can give him a chance? Yeah…he should give Remus a chance.

Deceit quickly leaves him room to go find the Duke and thank him for the gift.

———-

[Present Day]

“And that’s the day my friendship with Remus began. You know, I never thought I’d love anyone else as much as I love you. But it turns out that you wouldn’t be my only love, Rom. I started to fall for the Duke. I can’t pinpoint when exactly I started falling for him. But now I can’t help but love him. I guess I probably first became fond of him because of his similarities to you. Now though, I love his unique personality too.”

Janus takes a moment to breathe, realizing he’s been rambling for a while.

“I love how Remus has eyeballs strung around his room like fairy lights. I love that he always seems to know what joke to say to bring a smile to my face on gloomy days. I love that he gave me a green ribbon to wrap around my hat so I could match his sash sometimes. I love that he’s been so supportive of my efforts to get Thomas to listen to me…”

Suddenly, Janus finds himself starting to cry. He sniffles.

“I- I thought I wouldn’t cry this visit, but looks like I was wrong. Remus is just, so supportive and caring, and s-so are you Rom. I- I just wish you two could exist at the s-same time. I w-wish I could have you both by m-my side.”

“I-I know what you’re thinking Rom. Why don’t I just be with Remus now? I-I love him after all and he-he’s still here with me. A-and since he was y-you I’m keeping our promise in a w-way. I-I want to be with him, I r-really do. B-but I can’t r-risk my heart again. I-I can’t risk l-letting myself fully f-fall again j-just to p-probably end up h-heartbroken, a-alone, and g-grieving a-again.”

Janus shakily stands up and rests his hand on the gravestone.

“R-Rom, I’m s-sorry I c-couldn’t f-fulfill our m-marriage p-promise. A-and I’m s-so sorry I c-can’t try and a-achieve it with R-Remus either. I-I know you w-want me to be h-happy, b-but I just c-can’t. I-I can’t l-love again. I-I’m so sorry.”

Janus just falls to his knees and hugs the gravestone, letting himself cry his heart out.

———

End Notes: Thanks for reading. Please consider leaving a like, reblog, and/or comment. You can also find this oneshot over on my AO3 (MonkeytheFander), so feel free to talk to me over there about my fanfics or fanfics in general. Anyways, this is my first fanfic of 2026; hopefully I can write a couple more this year as well.

-Monkey💜

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