Archduke of Demonic Cultivation

Chapter 34: Then, Remus

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When Remus opened his eyes again, it took him several long moments to understand that he was still in the hidden room in Verdant Keep. Namely, because it was crowded . The room was filled with soldiers and medics all talking over each other and rushing about. It wasn’t more than thirty people all told, but the room was not meant to hold quite so many people. 

The last thing he remembered was going down to Wrath’s claws. Now, he was laying in a medic cot with his damaged leather armor set off to the side. His bonded weapon had vanished when it left his grasp… but his left hand was still grasping something so tightly he could feel blood, warm and sticky against his palm. Slowly, he lifted his hand and willed his cramping fingers to uncurl. A few droplets of blood rolled down his arm from where the sharp edges of the ruby pendant had pierced his skin. 

The Amulet. 

Chapter 32: Interlude, Remus

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In the moment his magic was severed from his body, Remus truly believed he would die. 

It felt as if something vast and powerful reached into him and tore him open: mind, body, and soul. The very fabric of his being was pulled taught until, thread by thread, his magic slipped from his grasp and left his soul frayed and raw. 

His body felt empty. 

His mind, however, was struck by an influx of magic, ancient and wild. There were things he knew, suddenly, that he shouldn’t. 

He knew Dee’s name, his true name. Janus. He saw his life, a child loved and treasured within the boundaries of Rimefell. Hated and scorned by the rest of the world, for the bronze scales that marred his face. He saw Vee- Virgil - born to a dying mother and a father not far behind, and knew grief that he was too young to understand. Janus’ fierce love for his brother… that, Remus already knew in himself. 

He knew Roman’s desperation, the night he left Sanctum alone. He knew his grief, and his rage. He watched their parents die. Roman should have died, too. Wrath tore him to pieces, scattered his magic. Left behind only a tiny, frail spark of life behind. 

Remus lifted that spark with trembling hands. He blew gently, carefully coaxing the spark back into the vibrant flame that was his brother. And he gave it back. 

Chapter 33: Now, Remus

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Remus woke in an unfamiliar bed. He was warm and comfortable, and well-rested in a way he only ever was after a night in an inn. He and Janus rarely had the cash to spare for one of the nice inns, but when they could, they did. Janus always spend a good hour setting up protections on the room before they slept, and mornings were usually a hurried affair of putting on their disguises and leaving before the other inn patrons had begun gathering in the meal hall for breakfast. 

This morning was different. For one, Janus wasn’t even in the room. It took Remus’ drowsy brain a few minutes to remember that Janus was in the room across from his. It took his brain another few minutes to remember Logan Centauri was in the room next to his.

The Laws of Thermodynamics

An Intrulogical Fic. Written for @/sandersidesbigbang (2022) AO3 Link: [here] Check out @dystopiagnome‘s art [here]! Soundtrack by @rustic-nocturne.

Chapter 2: Law of Entropy

Logan froze in the doorway to the cafeteria. 

He, Dee, and Patton always sat at the rickety little table in the corner, as far away from the football players and the cheerleaders as they possibly could. It was always just the three of them, unless Patton sat with some of the theater kids or with the color guard, as he did on occasion. But there was never more than the three of them, so why had Remus Delgado just taken a seat right next to Dee? 

Logan’s fist clenched so hard, he heard some of the chips in his lunch bag crunch. 

“Ah, Logan,” Dee said as Logan approached. He had an amused expression on his face, which was never a good sign. Logan sat stiffly. “You know Remus, yes?” 

Remus had the gall to wave at him. Logan refused his gaze in favor of unwrapping his lunch bag. “Mm,” was all he said. 

Remus and Dee shared a look, and Logan bristled. Patton scooched closer to him and whispered, “Logan, are you ok?”

“Yeah, Logan, what’s the matter?” Remus asked, louder. He was wearing a saccharine smile as he leaned across the table, chin in his hands. “I’m just over here talking to my good friend Dee.” 

“You two don’t even know each other,” Logan snapped. “You are just here because you’re an insufferable, arrogant, entitled-”

“Logan!” Patton exclaimed. 

“For the record,” Dee drawled. “We actually have been friends for a while and that, Logan, was quite the overreaction.” 

Logan stood abruptly. His chair screeched across the linoleum floor. “I just remembered that I promised Mr. Bellari I would help set up the art room for today’s project. Please excuse me.” 

With that, Logan gathered up his lunch, and stormed out of the cafeteria. 

“Hey Jan, you awake?”

Janus shifted at the sound of Remus’ voice, soft and tentative, at the bedroom doorway. He was curled up on the bed, buried under a mountain of blankets commandeered from all over the house.  Virgil hadn’t been happy about it; but Janus intended to milk his injuries for as long as he could.

“Yes,” he said after a moment. He stuck his head out from under the blankets. Remus was standing just inside the room, having eased the door shut behind him to keep out light from the rest of the house. He was holding a tray of what smelled like chicken noodle soup. “That had better be for me.”

Remus laughed. “No, I was going it sit here and eat in front of you like a menace,” he said. “Yeah, it’s for you.”

 “I don’t get it.”

 Patton looked up from the tray of cookies he was frosting, a mix of confusion and distress on his face at Janus’ words. “You don’t get it? But didn’t you ever do this as a kid?”

 “I wasn’t a kid for very long, Patton,” Janus huffed. He was more amused than annoyed; more than one conversation had tended in this direction, with the others forgetting that Janus had been turned at such a young age. “But no, I think I’d remember a night exclusively dedicated to sweets.”

 Patton laughed, and shook his head. “It’s not all just sweets,” he said. “I mean, yeah that’s the most important part as a kid, I guess. But Hallow’s Eve is about more than that.”

 Janus stared blankly at him for a few moments. Patton gave a good-natured sigh, and beckoned him into the kitchen. Janus obeyed, making his way slowly toward one of the breakfast bar stools. He was still learning how to use the wooden cane - fashioned for him by Logan, when it became clear that the lingering damage from the poachers’ silver stake in his back would not fully heal - but already he was getting around easier. Patton pushed a tray of cookies across the already sweets-laden counter, and passed him the frosting.

 “I mean, it kind of started as a harvest festival. It’s still that!” Patton explained. He watched Janus frost a cookie and then, seeming satisfied, he turned back to the stove, where a concoction of sugar, butter, and cream was gradually transforming itself into caramel. “We’ll leave some of these as offerings to the forest spirits, and then we’ll share the rest with everyone in town. It’s kind of like… we’re telling the forest that it’s a part of our community, you know?”

 “That’s kind,” Janus said, thoughtfully. Though his territory had been too far away from the town to be aware of the going-ons, he did remember the forest often felt… almost pleased, this time of year. He wondered if it was because of this. “But why all the sweets?”

 “Well that’s just sort of a tradition now. The kids in town go to everyone’s home to get candies and sweets. It’s called trick-or-treating. And then afterwards, we have a big potluck in the town square.”

Logan hated his life.

In general, he didn’t really. He actually rather liked his life. He enjoyed his classes, he enjoyed being a Teaching Assistant- and he was damn good at it, too- and, though he would never actually admit it to any of their faces, he enjoyed the little group of friends that had more or less adopted him despite his general temperament being… well. Not exactly what most would call      friendly  

But in this moment specifically, Logan hated his life.

A number of unfortunate incidents had culminated to create this moment specifically. The first of which had been waking to the morning sun directly in his face. It was creeping in around the edges of the cheap paper blinds he kept on his east-facing window, and normally it was not a problem. Normally, Logan awoke to the sound of his phone alarm going off well before the sun had began its ascent. It wasn’t necessarily by choice, preferring to stay up late into the night whenever he could. He just had a 7AM class and a rather particular morning routine.

So when he awoke to the sun in his face, not only was it an unpleasant manner in which to be awoken, it also meant that he was late.  

Logan scrambled out of bed and reached for his phone, sat plugged in on his nightstand, as it should be. But all that greeted his press of the home button was a blank screen. Frowning, he jabbed at the button a second time. Same result.

Suspicious, Logan reached over and switched on his bedside lamp. Nothing.

 Fuck.

The realization that his apartment had lost power, likely early into the night if his phone was completely dead, also came with the realization that it was cold,   and Logan heavily considered just climbing back into his nest of warm blankets and pillows and calling it a day.

He couldn’t, of course, because Logan refused to miss class even on days where he was actually sick. So he hauled himself out of bed, and rushed through a truncated version of his morning routine. It was dissatisfying and left him feeling off-kilter. Like his entire rhythm of the day was thrown off by a bad start.

And then he got to the kitchen, and was hit by yet another awful realization. None of the appliances in his kitchen would work with no electricity. He had absolutely no means with which he could heat water for his tea.

 And that was the moment Logan decided he hated his life.

Ballad of Heart and Lies

Bad Things Happen Bingo - “I’m Fine”

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Hiya Janus! Sorry I’ve been away for so long! I’ve just been having such a good time over here, I decided to stay longer. But I’m coming home now! I’ll see you soon! :)  

Janus deleted the text with a sharp jab, practiced enough that he didn’t crack his screen this time.

(Really, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t even have one of the infernal devices. They were one of the worst things his people had come up with. But Patton had insisted … apparently the old way of miracling letters to each other just wasn’t good enough anymore.)

Shoving his phone back into his jeans pocket, Janus swallowed back the lump that rose in his throat every time he thought of Patton. Why should he care when Patton was coming home? The angel could do what he wanted. It’s not like Janus had any right to care where his... his mortal enemy was or what he was doing, or how much fun he was having with all his other angel friends-

“I barely noticed you were gone,” he hissed to the empty room. It was a lie, of course. Most words that slipped free of his tongue were lies. “I’ll see you… or I won’t. Whatever.”

The lies hung so heavily in the air that Janus almost choked on them. With a snarl, Janus grabbed his keys and stormed out of the house.