Bad Moon Rising | Sanders Sides

The Eleventh

Deceit was spinning.

He was twirling, twisting and contorting in a way that made his bones crunch and grind together, made his skin pull taunt and then stretch further. It wasn't possible, but he was twisting and twisting, spinning and spinning, his core tightening and tightening until there was a snap and the piece of the Wall that he'd been clutching fell to the ground and broke into smaller pieces.

Remus swore colourfully, jumping back. His green stitch flailed limply in the air before dissolving into small green speckles. "What the hell, Dee?" Remus snapped. "We don't have time for this!"

Deceit heard him - of course he did, why wouldn't he? It was hard to ignore someone when there was no other sounds. The shadows around him hung over his shoulders, tired and worn and oh so hollow. Something had shifted, something had changed.

"Listen," he hissed, lowering into a shallow crouch. His skin prickled. His left pinkie twitched. The shadows stirred weakly and tapped at his scales, pressed in the scabs from where they had drawn blood. Deceit didn't brush them off. 

Remus gave him a strange look, leaning on his club and picking at his teeth. "You've got a couple of screws loose, dear."

Deceit bared his teeth. A stray, thin strand of darkness cooed in his ear, pressing against the line of his cheek. Something cold pooled at the base of his spine. "Something's  wrong," he murmured quietly. Remus grunted dismissively. 

"Whatever man. Can we go back to what we're supposed to be doing? We've got a countdown, remember?"

"Forget the countdown. Something is wrong."

"Deceit!" Remus snapped, and Deceit startled, because Remus didn't like to address him like that. Remus teased and taunted and thought up crude nicknames. He glared at his companion. Remus glared right back. "You're a crazy son of a bitch," Remus snarled, keeping his voice low. "I know what you're trying to achieve by doing this, but it won't work if we don't hurry. The others-"

"-are already here, Duke," a cool voice interrupted.

Remus bristled, lifting his weapon as though it would do any good. Deceit raised his chin and settled his face into something calm and disinterested. The shadows that were draped over his shoulders moved in unease. 

Something skittered past them, invisible and fast. Deceit ignored the feeling that raked through his veins.

"I see we've all gathered here today." He twitched his mouth into a crescent-moon smirk. "Celebrating something are we?" 

"Or perhaps mourning," the same cool voice said, the tone edged with something dangerously close to displeasure. "After all, this is the second time you have decided to betray us, Deceit, and we do not take lightly to deserters."

"You took well to Virgil, and he left first."

"Virgil made some...interesting choices, but we did not banish him beyond the Wall. It is a shame, Deciet, how quickly you forgot the lessons you learned during your time in exile."

Deceit's blood strained under his skin, the shadows around him warping and hissing with outrage. He'd made friends with them during his exile. They...felt rather strongly about what had happened there. What Deceit had faced. What Deceit had...had touched and known. 

He shouldn't have survived being thrust into the unforgiving darkness. That much concentrated dark energy should have torn him apart, shredded him into nothing. It hadn't.

Deceit had absorbed.

When he'd emerged, passing through the Wall with ease now that he was made of the same hatred and darkness, he'd twisted his shadows around Remus's neck and forced that same ugly, twisted essence under his skin. "Betrayal does not equal favour, Duke."