Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Remus fell off his bed in shock with a loud thump when his bedroom door was thrown open and he spotted his brother in the doorway.

"Ever heard of knocking? I could have been busy..." Remus's inappropriate comment cut off as he noticed the tears and distraught expression on Romans face.

"Ro? You ok there buddy?" Remus asked, his voice hesitant as he scrambled to his feet and stepped closer, taking in the way Roman seemed to be trembling.

Roman sniffed, his shoulders shaking as he managed to raise his head and lock eyes with his twin. "I just feel so useless." He gasped out and it was like the last string on a marionette had been cut as he fell apart in front of Remus.

Instinctively Remus rushed forwards, wrapping his arms around Roman and whispering words of comfort, while trying to figure out what the fuck was going on and who had turned his brother into such a wreck.

"I can't do it anymore. So many fake smiles and pretending I'm ok when I'm not, I'm really really not."

Remus rubbed a hand across Romans back as he gasped and sobbed, his brain whirling with different thoughts and ideas about how he could make things better.

"Hey, if maintaining your happy mask is so difficult how about I cover for you? Let me take some of the burden and you can have some down time to yourself, does that sound alright?"

Puffy, teary eyes opened blearily to lock with the usually wild ones of Remus's but there was a softness to them that very rarely anyone saw. "Won't they know? They'll be able to tell."

"shhhh, no they won't, trust me, I'll be acting exactly like you, don't you remember how long it took for anyone to notice we'd swapped clothes when we were kids? It'll be like that but I'll try even harder to keep them from being suspicious. That way you can have as much time as you need to recover and just chill for a bit. In fact when did you last get any sleep?"

Roman shifted awkwardly and Remus frowned as he realised his brother probably didn't remember which was definitely not good.

"Ok, you are going to actually take care of yourself from now on or I'll fill all your socks with slime and glitter."

Roman let out a small watery chuckle at the threat and Remus grinned, pleased he'd at least managed to get that from Roman while he was in such a state.

Remus lead Roman over to his bed and pushed him into a laying position, giving him a stern look when he tried to protest.

"If I'm covering for you then you can't hide in your room. That's the first place they'd go to find you, so from now on you're taking my room until you feel up to interacting with everyone else. No ifs, ands, or bootys about it!"

Roman stared at Remus for a few seconds before another small smile flickered across his face at his brothers antics. It had been a long time since he'd last had a proper one on one interaction with his brother and he had to admit that he'd missed him. At least when he wasn't trying to knock him out anyway.

"Now go to sleep or I'll have to get out my sleepy time stick." Remus said with a smile that made Roman shudder and quickly burrow under the blankets.

Surprisingly Remus's bed was incredibly comfortable and Roman was out in seconds as his exhaustion caught up to him.

Remus sighed quietly and shook his head before turning to look in the cracked mirror on his wall. If he was going to do this right, he'd have to pull out all the stops and make sure he didn't slip up when it came to responding to his brothers name instead.

He grimaced as he set about disguising himself as Roman, white really wasn't a colour that suited Remus in his opinion and without his moustache he felt oddly naked but not in the way he liked. He fussed over his hair for a while, pouting at how unlike himself he looked in the reflection but he reminded himself that he was doing this for a good reason and swiftly finished up his disguise, forcing himself to smile normally instead of the feral way he usually would.

All finished Remus took a few breaths before sinking down to his brothers room, pushing down his own disgust at the bright colours and insane amount of Disney posters and other crap that was dotted about.

He would put up with it for as long as it took Roman to feel better though, fuck knows when the last time he took proper care of himself was.

He took a deep breath and stepped out of Romans room into the mindspace, already prepared for someone to be outside. Luckily for him the hallway was empty but he could hear noise from a room down the hall.

With an uncharacteristically bright and pleasant smile on his face he strode down the hallway and burst into the living room, beaming at everyone who was present.

"Greetings! Anyone up for a Disney marathon?" He asked, his reasoning being it would be easier to pretend to be Roman if everyone was mostly distracted by films.

Patton was of course fully on board and after a little while where Remus did his impression of Romans hopeful pleading smile Virgil caved and agreed to join but Logan announced he had other things to do and left.

Remus fell easily into Romans usual role and things were going great until Patton spoke up.

"I know neither of you will like this but I think we should invite De... I mean um... Janus."

Virgil scowled and grumbled under his breath but didn't disagree loud enough for Patton to be discouraged and Remus felt his heart race slightly as he realised he'd overlooked the one side who'd know in seconds he wasn't really Roman.

"No!" He exclaimed a bit too forcefully and felt his face flush slightly as both Patton and Virgil looked at him strangely.

"I mean... He probably doesn't even like Disney that much and I don't... I don't really want to be around him after..." He trailed off and looked down, hoping he was conveying Roman feeling uncomfortable in the right way.

"I mean, if that's really how you feel kiddo, I won't invite him." Patton said in a soft voice, walking closer and putting a hand on Remus's shoulder in a comforting way.

"Thanks Padré." He replied, glancing up and sending the moral side a grateful smile.

"I have no problems with not inviting him, so which one first?" Virgil asked sending Roman a knowing look and a smile.

Remus again fell back into being Roman and the marathon continued without another hitch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remus remained acting as Roman for a good week with no issue until they were summoned by Thomas and Remus knew immediately he was in trouble when he noticed Janus had been summoned too.

"What's he doing here?" Virgil growled, glaring daggers at the scaled trait who was just smirking at him infuriatingly.

"He's here because I asked him to be here and if any of you have an issue with it then you're just going to have to deal with it." Thomas said, sending Virgil a warning look and seemingly for good measure sending the same look to Roman.

Remus frowned and crossed his arms with a huff and looked away, imitating the way Roman always acted when being told off.

He remained huffy and sulky for a few minutes before tuning into what was being discussed while trying to avoid getting any attention from Janus just in case he picked up on some sort of discrepancy.

"Look you guys, I really feel like we need to sort out any of the issues you seem to have with each other. It makes figuring out problems so much harder and..."

Remus stared at Thomas in stunned horror. Of course Thomas chose now of all things to stage some sort of intervention to resolve all the drama. The way Thomas kept shooting him and Virgil looks made it clear that one of the things he was hoping to fix was the drama surrounding Janus's contributions.

Remus would usually have thought the idea was good but not right now. he wasn't about to speak for Roman when it came to this and any speaking he did was likely to be paid attention to by Janus so there was a big chance he'd be exposed as Remus and the situation would be made worse for both him and Roman.

The only real way out of the situation he could see was to express outrage and sink down back to his own room and make it seem like Roman pulled a disappearing act.

With that in mind he waited for the right moment to dramatically announce he wasn't taking part in a fashion that would only be called a complete Roman move.

"I'm not doing this Thomas, least of all in front of him. I refuse to have any sort of important discussion with him around."

"Virgil please, why are you so against this? Patton and Logan are on board, surely it will lessen the stress if everyone is on the same page?"

"I'm with Virgil on this one Thomas. I'm not spending time around Sneaky McCreepy unless I have to. In fact there are a thousand and one things I'd rather be doing right now so if this was just an attempt to get us all buddy buddy with the snake-face then I'll be going."

"Roman wait no!" Thomas exclaimed but Remus ignored him, sinking down as quickly as he could and trying to forget the look on Janus's face as he did so.

He reappeared in his own room to the startled reaction of his brother.

"Wha..?"

"It's me, don't worry." Remus quickly said, returning to his original form with a wave of his hand and sighing in relief.

"What happened? You looked stressed." Roman asked, seeming to be much better since he'd first arrived in Remus's room a week ago.

"Oh well Thomas summoned everyone to try and resolve the situation involving Janus, Virgil and you. obviously I couldn't stay because it didn't feel right to be you in that situation and because Janus is the only one who would be able to tell I'm not you and I doubt either of us would want to deal with the crap that would come our way if everyone realised what was going on. Although you could get out of it pretty easily by saying I kidnapped you I guess..."

Remus trailed off, lost in thought as he considered the possibilities of such an excuse and Roman was able to speak up.

"Wait, don't you and Janus get along though?"

"hmm? Oh yeah we do, very well in fact but I was being you." Remus said and Roman looked at him incredulously.

"So you refused to be around him despite being good friends because you were being me?"

"No, I refused to be around him despite being good friends because the whole point of me being you was to give you a much needed break and I wasn't going to risk him blowing my cover in case you weren't up to facing everyone yet."

Roman stared at Remus again, eyes shining as he realised how poorly he'd judged his brother over the years and he launched himself at him, wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug.

Remus returned the hug just as enthusiastically, all the tension and stress melting away as the two brothers found comfort in each other for the first time in a long while.

After a while they pulled away and sat facing each other on Remus's bed, the side in question frowning and picking at his bedsheets as he tried to think of a solution to their current dilemma.

Roman was also lost in thought, he'd been doing a lot of thinking during the time he'd been in Remus's room and he'd reached a conclusion of his own.

"I think I'm ready to go back."

Remus's head snapped up at that and he tilted his head to the side, a half frown on his face.

"You sure? I can keep being you if you're still not up to it you know, that's not an issue, I'll just need to be more careful when it comes to Jan..."

"Oi, Tentacled Terror! let me finish before you start imitating Virgil's overthinking ways."

Remus grinned sheepishly at the comparison and gestured for Roman to continue.

"I've done a lot of thinking while I've been here and I reached the conclusion that maybe I don't need to pretend so hard that I'm happy. I'm allowed to have other emotions and even if the others treat me differently because of that, it won't matter because I still have you."

Roman opened his mouth to perhaps add more but was cut off as he was pulled into another hug by Remus who squeezed him so tight he lost feeling in his arms.

"aw RoRo! Who knew you could get so mushy and sappy over little old me?"

"Get off me you smelly sock!" Roman exclaimed indignantly but he was beaming the entire time so it didn't have much of an effect.

Remus pulled away and grinned as he ruffled Romans hair, cackling at the horrified squawk that he let out.

"So, you feeling up to going back now or did you still need some time down here?"

Roman sighed and ran a hand through his hair, fixing it from where Remus had messed it up, while considering his options for a few seconds.

"I think I'm ready to go back but I need to do something first."

Remus frowned in confusion as Roman suddenly scrunched up his face, his skin flushing bright red as he appeared to be concentrating on something really hard.

"You look like you're having a really difficult shi... whoa!"

His inappropriate comment was cut off as his room shifted and nearly knocked him off the bed.

"What the hell just happened?" Remus demanded as Roman let out a huge sigh of relief and beamed at him tiredly.

"take a look outside." Roman said, a softness in his tone that Remus hadn't been expecting so he did as he said without any comments.

Remus stuck his head out of the door and his jaw dropped, a couple tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as he recognised the corridor, a familiar door right across from his.

"You brought me up to the main hall?" He asked in a very uncharacteristically quiet gentle voice.

"Of course." Roman said, letting out a small oof sound as Remus tackled him with a big bear hug of gratitude.

"Thank you." Remus said sincerely, pointedly ignoring the happy tears that were starting to leak from the corners of his eyes.

"I wasn't going to leave you down there when you've shown me just how much I need you around."

Remus tightened his hug for a split second and then let go, wiping his eyes hurriedly and clearing his throat.

He gestured to the door and asked "Ready to go Broman? ready to face the music?"

Roman grimaced slightly at the idea of facing everyone so soon but took a calming breath and slung an arm around Remus's shoulders. "Sure, as long as you're ready to face them with me?"

"Abso-fucking-lutley!" Remus exclaimed, summoning his morningstar with a grin and snorting at Romans unimpressed face.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding, lighten up a bit Bro."

Roman sighed and shook his head but smiled in spite of himself as the two of them walked towards the door that would bring them out of the relatively safety of Remus's room and towards the inevitable clusterfuck that would occur once it was common knowledge that Remus was now a part of the main mindspace.

Chapter Text

Frustration was evident on Thomas's face after Roman left and he threw up his hands in exasperation as he shouted. "Why is this so difficult?!"

Janus winced slightly, trying to push away the hurt he'd felt at how adamant Virgil and Roman were about not including him and tried to figure out how to answer Thomas's question.

"Perhaps we should do this another time." He suggested after a few moments.

"No! I'm not going to put this off any longer, the constant clashes are causing nothing but problems and this needs sorting now. I know if I let this go that it'll end up yet another thing that I'll 'get around to' but won't actually get done." Thomas said firmly, looking around at all his sides with a frown.

"Roman's already gone so..." Virgil started but shrunk back as Thomas cut him off.

"Enough! Yes Roman left but that doesn't mean we can't still have this conversation. I'll just have to talk to him later. You're not getting out of this Virgil. Why are you so against this?"

Virgil's eyes darted between Thomas and Janus a few times before he huffed and instead glared at the floor, pulling on his sleeves out of habit and refraining from answering.

"I have to agree with Thomas on this one. We've seen how arguments and clashes effect things before and it's imperative we figure this situation out before it starts causing any major issues." Logan said with his arms crossed as he levelled a meaningful look at Virgil.

"Janus is just trying to help and wants what's best for Thomas, surely you can see that?" Patton asked, his voice gentle as he too looked at Virgil.

Glancing up and seeing everyone looking at him Virgil scowled. "He's literally Deceit! He's a massive liar and clearly he's got you all fooled with this scheme of his. This whole thing is just an act to get you to lower your guard and before you even realise what's happening he'll have taken over and you won't even think twice about lying to people!"

"Why are you so determined to only see him as a villain?" Patton blurted out in confusion.

"Because he is! That's all he'll ever be! Someone who lies and manipulates others to get what he wants and then discards them when they're no longer useful!" Virgil shouted. "The only reason he's playing nice right now is so he can have more control over what Thomas does! That's all he cares about! Control!"

Silence followed Virgil's outburst and Janus struggled to maintain his neutral expression, Virgil's accusations ringing in his ears and chipping away at the unbothered façade he was trying to keep up.

"Janus, do you have a response to that?" Thomas asked, eyeing the scaled trait expectantly.

"I don't want control. That has never been my goal and I won't deny that, yes I've lied to get things to go a certain way before, but my intentions have never been malicious." Janus said, keeping his voice even, despite the clear hatred on Virgil's face.

"Bullshit!"

"Virgil, language!" Patton exclaimed.

"What? He's clearly lying!"

"Virgil, I'm not..." Janus started but Virgil cut him off.

"Yes you are! You're only ever looking out for yourself! You're selfish and a user!"

The mask Janus was maintaining cracked slightly as the genuine hurt he felt over Virgil's words showed in his eyes and he had to take a deep breath to fix his mask back into place. "I may be selfish at times but I'm not a user! As hard as it might be for you to believe I do actually care about others, I just don't show it in obvious ways."

Patton eyed Janus with a sad smile, having noticed the small slip up and sensing the turmoil of emotions due to his own role in regards to feelings.

"I don't know why you expect me to believe a single thing you say, we all know you're a good liar and I don't trust a thing out of your mouth." Virgil replied.

"Virgil, do you not think you're being a bit of a hypocrite right now?" Logan said with a small frown.

"Excuse me?"

"I understand your reluctance but it's worth factoring that perceptions of intentions have been wrong in the past and have nearly cost us greatly. You yourself were trying to help and yet we misunderstood your intentions. Is it not possible you're doing the same now with Janus?"

Virgil stared at Logan with his mouth open slightly in shock before spluttering "I was actually being helpful! I keep Thomas vigilant and careful! He's just a lying snake!"

"I'm sure he..." Logan started to reply but suddenly cut himself off as a weird shudder ran over him.

Everyone else seemed to experience it too and Thomas frowned as he put a hand to his head, a small ache becoming present.

"What did you do?" Virgil immediately demanded of Janus.

"Me? I've not done anything."

"Yeah right, what was that?"

"I truly had nothing to do with whatever that was! How could I? I'm standing right here with all of you."

"Virgil, be reasonable, he couldn't have done anything without us knowing." Patton said.

Logan thought for a moment, trying to work out what the weird sensation was, but before he could do more than open his mouth Roman appeared.

"Roman? You're back?" Thomas asked in surprise.

Roman nodded, pushing down the urge to try and put on his usual front.

"He's not the only one!" A voice cried and suddenly Remus appeared right next to Roman with a grin.

"Why are you here?" Virgil asked. "Did the snake put you up to this?"

"Actually he's here because I wanted him to be." Roman said loudly before anyone else could reply.

Janus eyed them both carefully before blinking in surprise as he put together what had happened. "Congratulations Remus."

"Huh? What scheme did you pull this time?" Virgil instantly asked, quick to blame Janus.

"Janny boy over there has nothing to do with anything! He just knows what Roman did and is happy for me finally being where I'm supposed to be." Remus blurted out, smiling at Janus and then glaring at Virgil.

"You've been moved up with us." Logan stated, having worked out what had happened as well.

"What?!"

"How did that happen?" Patton asked with a confused expression.

"I moved him." Roman admitted but before he could explain he was interrupted.

"If we're just going to be inviting people to the main mindspace then fuck it! While we're at it why not just invite..." Virgil's flippant comment was cut off as Janus quickly waved a hand and caused his own hand to silence him.

"Virgil, enough!" Janus snapped. "If you spent more time listening instead of speaking perhaps you'd actually understand things better. As you were saying Roman?"

"I brought him up to the main mindspace because... Because I need him." Roman looked over at Remus and sent him a small smile.

"What's brought this on exactly? It wasn't too long ago that you seemed to despise him or at least that's the impression I got." Thomas asked, looking between the twins with a frown.

Roman sighed. "To explain properly I'm going to have to confess something."

"You sure you want to do this Broman?" Remus asked.

"They'd probably find out eventually. This past week Remus was pretending to be me because I needed a break."

Gasps erupted from everyone other than Virgil, who was still silenced, and Janus who was doing some quick thinking.

"So when you left earlier?" Thomas asked.

"Yeah, that was me! I am obviously fully for this whole discussion, but I wasn't going to speak for Roman and needed to get out of the situation quickly. Sorry Jan." Remus said, sending an apologetic look towards Janus.

"I understand committing to the role. Staying in character is important." Janus replied, waving off the apology.

"Why did you need a break?" Logan asked.

Roman sighed heavily. "I've been struggling a lot with some stuff and it got a bit much for me. The result was I went to Remus and had a bit of a breakdown."

"Understatement much, you were more of a wreck than the titanic." Remus blurted out. "I suggested he actually take it easy for once while I maintain his usual appearances. White is really not my colour. Unless of course it's all over my face from where I..."

"Are you feeling better now?" Thomas asked, quickly cutting off what Remus had been about to say, as he had a feeling he knew what it was going to be by the smirk on his face.

"Not really but I'm doing better than I was. Enough that I feel alright to come back but without the usual energy and flair I know is expected of me." Roman answered.

"You don't need to put on a front to be capable of performing your role." Janus said quietly.

A grimace crossed Roman's face for a moment as he eyed the deceitful trait. He still wasn't exactly fond of the side, but having spent a week thinking things over he could recognise his attitude towards him hadn't really been fair.

Sure Deceit had made that hurtful comment, but Roman had made fun of his name so it was to be expected. Plus being compared to Remus wasn't as hurtful now as it had been back then since he'd re-evaluated everything.

"Deceit..." Roman hesitated for a moment. "Janus, I'm sorry I mocked your name."

Janus's eyes widened in surprise at the genuine apology and blinked a few times at Roman using his actual name.

"I..." He started to say but was cut off by Virgil who he'd released by accident in his shock.

"This whole thing is ridiculous! He's a lying snake who's clearly trying to convince everyone he's trustworthy just so he can make things worse! I bet this whole thing with Remus is all part of his plan and his manipulations are even affecting Roman! He doesn't belong here!"

Virgil's words had been hurtful and harsh this whole time and Janus had managed to ignore them fairly well, but this was the final straw and the collected mask he'd been wearing shattered.

Painful sobs burst from him as his whole body shook and he would have slumped to the floor if two sets of arms hadn't caught him.

Patton and Remus were holding him, both trying their best to comfort him but Remus was also wrestling with his anger as he sent a fierce glare at Virgil.

Logan and Thomas were looking between Janus and Virgil with frowns, neither quite sure how to react to the outburst from Virgil or the breakdown Janus was having.

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that I made this decision myself? Why can't you accept that people are capable of changing or that perhaps you're wrong about someone?" Roman asked, eyeing Virgil with confusion and annoyance.

Virgil tore his wide eyes away from Janus and looked at Roman in confusion. "You hate Remus and Deceit, it just makes sense that Deceit's meddled and manipulated things for his own selfish gain and purposes."

"I don't hate them. I don't necessarily get along with Janus but that's very different from hate. He's not manipulated anything. I've been feeling like utter crap for ages and sought out my brother for comfort on my own. Every decision I've made has been my own and you can't stand there and tell me you think he's capable of masterminding everything. Or that he's such a good liar that he's capable of faking his emotions like that?"

Roman gestured to where Janus was still sobbing, slightly muffled from where Patton had him held against his chest.

"Maybe, he is Deceit after all." Virgil muttered, pointedly avoiding looking at Janus crying.

"Shut your fucking mouth you pathetic little pimple before I shut it for you by bursting you!" Remus suddenly yelled, his eyes glinting dangerously as he took a step towards Virgil. "Aren't you satisfied yet?! With your constant complaining and whining over how unfairly you were treated by everyone to the point where you wanted to leave, and yet here you are hurling abuse and venom at someone to actively try to get them to leave!"

Logan and Roman carefully stepped forwards, ready to grab Remus in case he lunged for Virgil.

"You act so high and mighty standing among the so called light sides, playing the role of protector and trying to save Thomas from the evil 'dark' sides who clearly can't be trusted and only have bad intentions. It's like you've forgotten where you came from. Who you used to be." Remus continued, his voice low and threatening as his eyes remained fixed on Virgil.

"I..."

"I thought I told you to shut up!" Remus hissed as Virgil tried to speak. "You've so conveniently forgotten who it was who first helped you, who had your back when things got bad, who reassured you when your own thoughts got too much! This idiotic idea you have of Janus somehow orchestrating some big plan, just to get back at you is fucking ridiculous and shows just how much you haven't changed! No one was happy that you left us the second you had a chance to, but none of us were so petty as to try and seek some twisted revenge. You're being Paranoid!"

Virgil flinched backwards violently as if Remus had hit him, stumbling into the wall with a horrified gasp and clutching his chest, his eyes brimming with tears.

Roman gently put a hand on Remus's shoulder and pulled him back, trying to deescalate the situation as best he could while Logan approached Virgil.

Thomas stood watching all this in stunned silence, looking between all his sides with no real idea how to react. He'd just wanted to get everyone to get along or at least be civil towards each other and now things seemed worse off than if he'd left it alone.