Sanders Sides One-shots

When he loved me ~ Slight Dukeceit

TW: Angst

Word count: 1250

A/N:

So, I listened to the song… and dang being a fander really has its perks doesn’t it. I just couldn’t help but link the lyrics of this song to how Remus could be feeling right now since he lost Virgil, and now presumably Janus because he’s been accepted by c!Thomas.

Also, I found a Dream SMP animatic of this song and holy moly I really got hit in the feels tonight. Hope you enjoy this fanfic and please, let me know what you think, I’d love to receive comments.

~ Bre
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Remus sat by himself on his bed, fiddling with his morning star. The air was empty and a pall of silence blanketed the room, muffling the outside sounds and everyone and everything else out there. The Duke was alone, once more, and yet again one of his old friends had left him for… them.

How Remus wished he could join them. How Remus wished he could reunite with his brother, and Virgil and make amends with Patton and Logan and how he wished they would see that, though he was a demented being, he desired to be accepted too just as much as they all did.

But he wasn’t surprised that no one considered him. Heck, why would they even dare to think about such an absurd idea of allowing the side that embodies intrusive thoughts to be an equal among them?

What good did he do for Thomas?

And besides, if someone did somehow manage to find some aspect of him that was beneficial to his host, Remus still wouldn’t be viewed as important as the others. He was just a nuisance, there to cause Thomas discomfort. But he knew that already.

At first, he didn’t mind being the darker creativity. In fact, he didn’t actually care about it for many years, and he didn’t think he needed to. Until the day Virgil suddenly departed.

He left, angry and without an explanation. Nothing was said to Remus about the situation, but he managed to scavenge bits and pieces from the path Virgil was on before he fully exited the door. Remus noticed too much in too little time and it was so much to process.

For one thing, Janus and Virgil had all of a sudden become incredibly bitter towards each other. Sure, they’re friendship seemed to be on the rocks the couple days prior but Remus would have never guessed that they hated each other that much to abruptly turn their backs on one another so coldly.

The Duke assumed that there must have been some huge argument between them because Virgil never did anything spontaneous. Everything the emo did was powered by reason so whatever that reason was had to have really angered him, as well as the deceitful side because one moment he remembered all too well from the dreaded, vivid memory was how hard the door slammed that day.

It stunned even Janus, who was always composed and never phased by anything, or so he thought. Remus remembered just standing there, staring in shock at the door as he heard the snake’s laboured breathing and noticed his gloved hands clenched into firm fists.

He had never seen Janus so troubled before and he knew that there was a deeper answer to the millions of shallow questions he had spinning in his head. But then wasn’t the time to ask.

So he waited. And waited. And waited until Janus seemed to be back on his feet again. Remus knew the recovery wouldn’t happen overnight and he didn’t expect it to; he had seen how close the two sides once were and he knew how they used to be each other’s support shoulders.

Remus would be lying if he said that he wasn’t upset about the whole mess of a situation, but it didn’t phase him as much as it did his friend. Most days from that moment on, Janus would spend in his room, gazing out the window from across their darker place in the Imagination to where the now core four resided, and no doubt thinking about Virgil.

Remus tried his absolute best to help Janus, trying to get him to smile even the slightest bit at least once a day and do anything to make him feel better. Though he didn’t make it extremely obvious, Janus was grateful for Remus’ attempts to lift his spirits and others would probably resent Remus for the ways he tried to cheer him up, but the snake knew that there were good, genuinely pure intentions behind the Duke’s twisted actions.

And it honestly did help, a lot. Slowly but surely, Janus started to come out of his room more and Remus could tell that his normal, sassy, sly personality was making its way back to him. His normal gestures started returning as well as the sultry, velvety tone of his voice and soon, the regular Janus had finally come back.

Remus thought he had found a way to patch up the empty hole Virgil left in him. Sure, Janus didn’t completely fit its shape, but two different cutters can’t cut the same outline of a cake. Still, life began to brighten for them again and Janus found a closer buddy in Remus. 

With their old friend gone, they only had each other, but that was all they needed. Everything was beautiful and everything was as it was meant to be. Virgil’s departure still stained Janus like red wine on a white shirt, but, with the help of Remus it gradually started to fade away, because whenever he was sad, Remus was always there to dry his tears.

Their friendship was most unusual and none would have ever believed that they could have been compatible together, yet there they were, laughing and joking together as they strolled through the woods of the forest in their half of The Imagination. Through the summer and the fall, life was perfect. Everything seemed to be harmonious and if Remus were given the chance to experience all those sweet, warm moments again, he would unhesitantly instantly take it.

He thought Janus loved him, whether it be platonic or otherwise. He thought he would stay and be there by his side through thick and thin and rough and smooth, because they needed each other, right? And Remus was the only other person who could relate to the way he felt.

But unfortunately, he was wrong. Janus turned his back on him, just like Virgil had and Remus didn’t know why he was so surprised when his old friend suddenly departed. He didn’t leave as bitterly as Virgil did; he was a lot more quiet and solemn about it but somehow the lack of anger had no effect on the agonizing sting that had been inflicted on Remus.

I have no choice, he said. 

It’s for Thomas, he said.

I’m sorry, he said.

***

As the years went by, Remus stayed the same. Still chaotically crazy and when he finally was revealed to Thomas, there was no denying he had a blast making a lasting impression on his host and his companions. However seeing Virgl again only tore open new wounds. And Janus never returned. None of them did.

He tried to grip onto hope, but after he learned that Janus had revealed his name to Roman, Patton and Thomas, all of his pointless faith dissipated. He was alone. He always was before and now he always would be.

That was just who Remus was, and he could never change that.

But he still continued to cling onto the memories of him, and Janus, and Virgil. How simple life was back then and how he desperately wished to return to that time. Every hour they spent together lives within his heart and as he gazed out the window from across his darker place in the Imagination to where the core four resided, and no doubt thinking about his old friends, Remus reminisced about back then.

Oh, what a sunny time it was… ‘when he loved me’.