Bad Moon Rising | Sanders Sides

The Ninth

Holy fuck it's been so long since I've updated this, guys I'm so so so so sorry. I know how disappointing it is, and I won't make excuses, just have another chapter and my deepest apologies I'm so sorry.

.

"Medea."

Remus blinked, utterly thrown by his companion's sudden and inexplicable fondness of Greek Tragedies. "What?" He managed intelligently.

Deceit barely spared him a glance. "Medea. Come now, Remus, surely you see the similarities? Medea was scorned and abandoned by her husband, traded in for someone newer and shinier and better. It's not so unlike our situation with Virgil."

"Dee, I will encourage your comparison once you murder innocent children and poison some royalty."

"Your brother is a Prince, is he not?"

Remus's lips tightened, an uneasy expression flickering across his face. "You aren't poisoning Roman, no matter how tempting. Not even to get back at Virgil."

Deceit glanced at him coolly, thin strips of shadow curling around his fingers and pressing against his scale-burdened cheek. His eyes were glowing faintly, belying his agitation. "Is this brotherly love I sense, dearest Duke?" His voice was disgusted, and his mouth curled into a scornful scowl.

Remus jolted with the flush of indignation that zapped his bloodstream. "No!" He denied vehemently. He didn't care for Roman, it was the exact opposite! Remus would love for his pathetic, weak-minded brother to get taken away and locked up behind the Wall like Deceit had been so long ago, but poisoning him? Killing him?

Remus had his limits.

Deceit turned away and gathered a few pieces of the Wall in his hands. The shadows around him recoiled, tendrils of pure black scraping along his skin in an attempt to flee the eerie energy. "All of us could have been so much more," Deceit murmured gently. "We could have done so much more. We just had to let down the Wall."

Ah, Remus had a feeling he knew what was starting to change within his companion. Of course, one couldn't spend so much time by the Wall and not start to mutate within themselves. "What happened to you?" He asked casually, feigning disinterest as he sat down cross-legged and picked at his black fingernails. He'd never been able to get them the way Virgil used to. Deceit made a small questioning noise. "Well," Remus continued, "you nearly did the same thing Virgil did. We locked you behind the Wall as punishment, remember?"

"I remember," Deceit hummed softly.

Remus scratched at a piece of nail polish that was flaking off. "Well, what happened? You came back with shadows etched into your skin and blood staining your teeth. That doesn't happen from doing nothing."

Deceit turned, still crouching, and smiled.

Remus did not get afraid.

But seeing his friend, something suspiciously like terror flawed at his frozen heart.

Deceit's smile was lopsided and too-wide. There were too many teeth. Remus could almost imagine poison sliding down those barely visible fangs. This was the Deceit who had crawled out of the darkness. This was the Deceit that promised nothing but darkness and bad things.

"I sat in the darkness," almost-Deceit said, still sounding caring and soft. "I sat and I looked, and the darkness looked back. I think Virgil could benefit from an experience like that, don't you?"

Remus frowned, resting his elbows on his knees and staring up at his companion. Deceit merely gathered some more pieces of the Wall. "That sounds like..."