Archive of Our Own ^beta

Everyone already knew they were soulmates. It all started when Logan lost the notebook he always carried around, and began writing notes on the back of his hand. Patton was the first to notice, and immediately went to find Logan in the mindscape. He held out his hand, which displayed the neat, rounded handwriting that belonged to the serious side. This then turned into Romulus noticing, who of course told the others as soon as he realised. The others would write to each other all over their bodies, and it was getting harder for the dark sides to hide it. One day, Logan was talking to Janus about something. Romulus, who was in the next room along, decided he wanted to prank Logan (and the others, but only Logan would be affected straight away). He summoned a mirror in front of him, grabbed a pen and started trying to write on his face. The look on Logan's and Janus' face when they saw "dickhead" starting to creep across each other's forehead was priceless. Virgil had obviously noticed by now, but he was denying this for as long as possible. It eventually got too hard to hide, so he told the others. The others had already guessed, but they were still happy nonetheless. Everything was fine for a while.

Then the split happened. 

It was unexpected, that's for sure. Nobody knows what caused it. Logan woke up first at 7am to start working for the day, and Romulus had requested him to wake him up early, as he had a new project he had been working on. Logan knocked on his door at 8am, and got no response.

"Romulus? You wanted me to awaken you so you could get back to your creative work." Nothing. "Hello? I'm going to have to enter soon to make sure you're ok." He waited another minute, then sighed. "You leave me no choice." Logan turned the handle and gently pushed the door, only to reveal an empty room. If you asked him now he would deny it, but in that moment, Logan felt fearful. He wrote a note on his hand to tell the others that he needed to talk to all of them. A yellow line appeared almost instantly, asking if he should wake the others or wait a couple of hours for them to wake up naturally. Logan wrote back to wake them up now, as this situation was serious.

"Romulus is missing. I checked his room and it was empty." There was a moment of silence, then Patton spoke up.

"You're joking, right? Janus, tell me he's lying." The snake-faced side let out a small sigh, then answered Patton.

"I'm sorry, honey, but it seems he is telling the truth."

"...But why would he leave? He loves us, doesn't he? He was always the most affectionate out of all of us, always craving physical attention, why would he just up and leave? It makes no sense!" Virgil went on a mini tangent, but Logan interrupted him.

"Virgil, we should be focusing on finding him and getting him back. We can ask him all these questions when we get him back, is that satisfactory?" Logan gave a reassuring look towards Virgil.

"...I guess." His cheeks were tinted a light pink.

"Ok, so what's the plan?" Janus fiddled with his capelet.

"He spends a lot of time in the imagination, especially Rapunzel's tower! Maybe we should look there first!" Patton exclaimed.

"Hey, that's... actually really good thinking. Well done, Pat." Virgil gave a small smile to him, which Patton accepted and smiled back. They all gave a nod to each other, and sank out to go to the main imagination. 

They all rose inside the tower. No sign of him, anywhere.

"Maybe we should split up, to cover more ground." 

"That's a terrible idea- no, ugh, that's a good idea, Logan." Janus was still working on the lying thing. He wanted to be a bit more truthful around his boyfriends, even when they assured him it's ok. They began organising a way to cover more ground. After 20 minutes, the sides had a plan. 

"Ok, is everyone clear on where they need to go?" Everyone nodded. "And remember, just write something if you need help where you are. See you all soon."

This wasn't the first time Romulus had left. But normally he would write something to tell the others he was safe. This time, the only thing left was Patton and Virgil's discussion from earlier. They had talked about something to do with Thomas, and how the lack of his creativity could affect him. Most of the conversation had been rubbed off, but you could tell a few things from the remains. Everyone was worried about Romulus, but they were so focused on him that they hadn't thought about Thomas. Luckily today was his day off, and he did not have to do anything that would require Romulus today. Let's hope they find him before tomorrow.

(4am, the day the main story starts)

The two sides stared at each other. 

"...Hello?" The one dressed in red spoke first. He was wearing ragged light grey trousers, with a scrappy red T-shirt, and a ripped red jumper to top it all off.

"Who are you?" The green one replied to the other. He was wearing a similar outfit, but instead of red and light grey, it was green and black.

"I... I was Romulus. But... I am not anymore."

"Wait, I was-" The green one looked shocked. He then began to tremble slightly. "We're both Romulus."

"What? No, that isn't true! It can't be! Splits are just fictional!"

"Apparently not. So, we can't both be Romulus. We need to pick new names."

"We can decide on that later. For now, we should figure out what to do! We can't let the other sides see us like this!" The red side exclaimed, perhaps a little bit too loud.

"Oh my god, shut up! You just said that we can't let the others see us, then you go ahead and screech like a fucking dinosaur!"

"Fiiiiine. Let's get out of here before the others wake up. We need to avoid them until we figure out how to get back to Romulus."

"Let's go out far into the imagination." With that, both sides sank out and appeared in what seemed to be an abandoned village. 

"Hey-o, this doesn't look good." 

"What is that?" The green side stared at a person, leaving one of the buildings. Upon closer inspection, their face was rotting. "Go somewhere else."

"Hey, wait-" Before the red one could object, the green one had summoned a morning star and was yelling to draw attention to himself.

"OI, YOU FAT ZOMBIE BITCHES! COME AND GET ME!" He screeched.

"What the f-" The red one sank out before he could finish his sentence.

The green one rose up in front of his red lookalike. "Why did we create that and leave it there?" The red one ignored his question.

"I know what we can call each other. I, the brilliant, strong, and powerful one, shall be called Roman!"

"...and me?"

"Well, you can be Remus. The name is similar and I think it suits you."

"...Thank you? Now, are you sure you don't want the others to find us?"

"Yes, I've told you this before, have you already forgotten?"

"Ugh. Anyway, we should split up, and whoever they find first, pretends to be Romulus."

"That's not a bad idea. I'll go back to wherever that village was, you head somewhere else. Ok?"

"I mean, yeah, but when will we see each other?"

"I don't know. It shouldn't be too long." Remus rest his hand on Roman's shoulder, in an attempt to be reassuring. "It will be ok." Remus sank out, leaving Roman alone in the blank room.

(Back to the present)

'Has anyone had any signs of him?' The light blue writing crept across everyone's hand. There were various forms of 'not yet' written back, except from Virgil.

'Actually yeah, I saw 2 sets of footprints in the deep imagination. I took some pictures so I can show y'all later. Hope that helps.' Janus paused. Two sets of footprints? They're looking for one, Romulus. New side? That could potentially be fun to deal with. Anyway, back to looking for Romulus and... whoever the other side is. 

Patton thought about the news. A new side? Hopefully they'll be nice. Thomas hadn't had a new side in years, so having someone else around could be fun! Patton jumped and danced around, overly excited over a new side. Yes, Patton loved the current sides who were here, but a brand new side meant he had another person to give his love to!

Logan thought about the presence of a new side. What would he represent? Does Thomas even need a new side? Logan was somewhat intrigued by the idea of a new side, one whose function is not known.

Remus stared at the penmanship on his hand. Despite the fact that they had split, it seems that he was still soulmates with the others. If he was, that probably means Roman is too. But what to do with this information?

Roman noticed the writing. So he's still soulmates with them? What would happen to Remus? Would he have the soulmates too? Roman managed to draw the conclusion that only one of them could be soulmates with the others, and he was the lucky one. 

It's been days since Romulus went missing. Some of the others had stopped looking, but Patton and Janus had stayed in the deep imagination looking for him. The disappearance was starting to impact Thomas, so the sides were starting to worry a lot more. Whenever he had left before he was always back soon, as he was aware of the affect his absence could have on Thomas. Just when Patton was starting to lose hope, he saw a footprint. 

'Janus!' he wrote on his hand. The yellow ink replied quickly, with a simple question mark. 'I found a footprint! A fresh one! Come over here to where I am!' Then the snake was standing in front of him. Patton simply pointed at the mark on the ground. Despite his best efforts to hide it, Janus started smiling. They hadn't seen him in what feels like forever, and everything had been so different with him not there. Things could finally go back to normal- is what he would've said if he had been greeted by Romulus. Not whoever he saw in front of him. Patton opened his mouth to speak, but Janus drew his staff from the air and spoke first.

"Who ae you and what is your purpose in Thomas' mind?" The staff was pointed at Remus. He tried to back up, but he hit a wall quickly. The glare in Janus' eyes and fear in Patton's, was enough to make Remus start to worry. "I said. Who. Are. You?" He repeated the question, stepping forward and holding the staff close to Remus' neck. Remus tried to talk, but no sound came out. All of a sudden, the staff hooked around his neck and pulled him forward, making him stumble and fall forwards. Janus pulled him up by his collar, watching as Remus struggled to get him to let go. "So-" "Janus, stop! Look at him, he's terrified!" Patton tugged at his arm, making Janus jump and turn to look at his partner. "Come on, we can take him back to the others and let him speak up in his own time." He turned to the new side. "Is that ok?" But Remus had run away, and a new side was chasing them.

"STAY AWAY FROM HIM!" Roman came charging forward, wielding what looked to be a katana.

"What the f-" Janus had no time to finish his sentence, as the side he didn't know brought the sword down on him. He put his staff up to block it, and they tussled for a few minutes, then Patton stood in. 

"You two! Stop it! Now!" Patton forced the two of them apart, and sent Janus back to the others. He turned to someone who's katana looked familiar, and started to talk. "Hi, I'm Patton! And you are?" 

"...before I say this, you have to promise not to do anything. Ok?"

"Yes, that's fine! You can tell me anything!"

"...Ok, if you say so. I guess I'll say this in the easiest way. Long story short, Romulus is no longer here and me and someone else are what's left. We have his memories, and we remember all of you. This won't affect our relationship, right?" Patton paused before responding.

"Of course it wouldn't! Are you still soulmates with us?" 

"Actually I am! Look!" He drew back his sleeve a bit to reveal the writing of the others. "I don't know about... the other one. Also, my name is Roman now!"

"Well, Roman, it's nice to see you! Should we go to the others?"

"Yeah, let's go!!"

"Everyone, this is Roman. He is a part of Romulus, and still has all of Romulus' old memories. We finally got him back!!" There were various replies of positive things, and everyone seemed generally happy he was there. But Janus was confused. What happened to the other side they saw? He tried to ask Patton, but he got ignored. Janus decided he would look for the other side himself, and sank out. He popped up in the deep imagination, way further out than where they had been previously. According to his senses, this is roughly where the side in green was. He walked around for a bit, occasionally calling out nothing in particular. After around forty minutes, he saw something in the distance. His face lit up as he started to run over to the figure. 

"Hello?" He started talking as he got closer. "Is it you from earlier?" Much to Janus' disappointment, the 'figure' was just a dead tree. He did a double take and realised where he has ran to. Everything was dead, and the tree was just in front of a dense forest full of darkness. He was about to turn back, but then a thought crossed his mind. What if the new side was in there? He took a deep breath, braced himself, and walked straight into the forest.

"Hello? New side?" He called out, hoping for a reply. Every now and then he heard rustling, but there was never anything there. He swallowed nervously and continued on, but then someone popped up in front of him and Janus let out a little scream.

"What the fuck Janus? Why are you in this part of the imagination? Romulus said multiple times that it's dangerous!-" The raccoon ranted at him before Janus gave him a kiss, partly to shut him up. "...Don't do this again. Something could happen to you."

"I'm safe, Vivi. If anything happened I would go right over to Logan and get it fixed up. Happy?" 

"It's probably the best I'm gonna get from you. Let's head back to the others." And with that, Virgil sank out, followed by Janus.

Remus stretched his entire body out. Staying curled up in a tree without moving is hard work, you know. He looked around, making sure nobody was there, then jumped down and ran even further into the forest. He had to stay away from the others at all costs.

"Hey guys, I got Jan." Virgil turned to Janus. "What the fuck was that? You could've gotten hurt, really bad. Please, don't do it again. It's so dangerous, you could've hurt yourself, you could've found that place we found where you can't sink out and then you wouldn't be able to leave, you could've..." He trailed off, and slumped onto the sofa with the other sides. "Just be careful, please." He mumbled the last bit. 

"Janus, may you tell us why you went there?" Logan inquired, pretending to not care too much, which would've been believable if it wasn't for the extremely worried look on his face.

"...It's nothing. It's fine. Everything is fine, we're all here." He bit his tongue, hoping the others wouldn't catch the lie. But he spoke too soon. Virgil looked him in the eyes.

"He's lying." Virgil looked him in the eyes. "Janus, why were you there?"

"I-" Janus tries to tell them, but stumbles on his words. He sighed, then tried again. "Another side. In the deep imagination. We need to find him." The others gasped at this. They had all forgotten about the other set of footprints. 

"Well we can't leave him in there. We better go and get this new side. Janus, you can lead the way."

"Let's go."

"Shit." Remus muttered under his breath as he felt the presence of the others getting stronger. He could tell they were coming by the writing all over his arms. Some of the ink seemed to be replying to nothing, though. He would question that later, right now he had to focus on hiding from the others. Remus wasn't stupid, he knew that they had split for a reason. Thomas was starting to create content that didn't need the darker parts of creativity, and they had split to help Thomas to keep his content for the right audience. Roman was representing the nicer side of it, while he represented the dark, twisted side. He wasn't meant to be here. His entire existence is just Thomas blocking him out. He couldn't stop the intrusive thoughts on his own, but hiding away in this forest seemed to make them easier on Thomas. So Remus was planning to stay here and just conjure anything he would need. After all, Thomas was his best interest. But how he longed to be with the others and get treated as an equal, and to get sweet romantic gestures towards him. He wanted it so badly but he would always need to put Thomas before himself. Suddenly, his train of thought was cut off by someone calling out.

"Hello? New side? We need you!" Patton called out to nothing in particular. "Hello???"

"I know you're here, come on out." Virgil decided to join Patton in calling out.

"Guys, I don't think this is working. Maybe we should split up. It worked out ok last time for you, didn't it?" Roman interrupted the calling.

"But what if one of us gets hurt? Or maybe Thomas gets hurt? After all, having all of us hiding out here can't be good for him."

"We'll go back in time, before he has to do anything. Maybe we could send a couple of us back. We don't want to cause Thomas too much tro-" Roman stopped in his tracks. "Oh no."

"What is it?" Logan asked.

"Is Thomas aware of our split? The last time he summoned us was before it happened, so-"

"Oh sweet mother of fucks." Virgil talked over Roman, and began pacing up and down. "So he doesn't know. How do we even explain this to him?" He backed up against a tree, dropped down, and curled up into a ball. "H-how will he respond? What if he gets angry?" Virgil started to breathe faster than he usually does, then Logan realized what was happening.

"Everyone, he's having an anxiety attack. Please keep a distance from him." Logan slowly approached Virgil, making sure he was quiet but not too quiet, so he doesn't scare him when he gets a little bit closer. 

Virgil had began to shake and started to talk. "No, no, no. We can't let him find out. He might react really bad. He'll try and do something to us. What if he-"

"Virgil." The soft voice cut through the anxious side's thoughts. "Thomas is going to be fine. You are going to be fine. Now, can you look up at me, please?" Virgil rose his head slightly, and Logan started talking again. "Ok, could you please breathe in for four seconds?" He obliged. "Hold for seven?" He did so again. "And now out for eight." Logan repeated this a few more times, and Virgil looked more and more settled. 

"...sorry everyone. Just one of those moments, huh?" He tried to reassure everyone, saying "It's fine," and "This happens all the time." Once everyone was certain he was ok, they split up into two groups: Janus and Logan, and the other three. 

Logan and Janus were walking along in a comfortable silence, holding each others hand and looking out for any signs of the new side. You'd think that finding someone in a dead forest would be easy, but it was dense. Combined with all the fog, you could barely see in front of you. They carried on down a narrow path, then decided to go off the path in hopes of finding him deeper into the woods. Then, Logan stopped walking and turned to face Janus.

"It appears I'm needed by Thomas at the moment. Will you be ok on your own?"

"I'll be fine, Lo. Go and help him." And Logan sank out. The snake continued to walk into the forest, but he was slightly uncomfortable. Walking alone in a dense dead forest wasn't exactly pleasant to most people. Or snakes. He summoned some earbuds, put one in and listened to his playlist.

As he was walking, a branch tripped him up. He got up and looked above him and was greeted with a giant beast that towered above him from his perspective. It looked like a mix between a lion, octopus, and demon. Janus froze where he was, unable to get up. Even if the sides couldn't die, they could still feel pain and this monster looked like he was about to do his worst. He braced himself for a hit from this mythical creature, but what he braced for would never compare to what actually happened. The claws, stronger than a regular lion's, ripped through his clothes and left a huge cut that went from the top of his shoulder right down to his lower back. He screamed in pain, then started to feel dizzy. He fell unconscious before he even realized. 

The yellow one just fainted. Remus thought about what to do. He couldn't just leave him there, but he also didn't want to reveal himself. Maybe he could just take down the creature and leave? It would probably be the best thing for him to do. He jumped down from the sky, summoning his Morningstar. He yelled at it to get it's attention. The beast turned it's ugly eyes towards Remus, and growled at him. While he battled with it, he gained some minor injuries over his entire body, but none as severe as what the snake had gotten. As he delivered the final blow to the monster's head, he looked over to Janus and saw that he was awake. And had seen him. And was still staring. Fuck. He slowly walked over to him, and put on a smile as he began to talk. 

"You didn't see anything. This is all a-"

"JANUS??" A familiar voice yelled. Can Remus ever get a break? The others would be here any time now, he could tell by Roman's voice. He wouldn't have time to get away unseen, and once they got a look at him they would not relent. He had to quickly decide, and he ended up staying with Janus. He saw them come from behind a tree, and Patton spotted him first. Virgil and Roman were too busy arguing over Thomas' next video. Virgil looked away from Roman for a second, then his eyes grew wide. This would happen to most people if you saw one of your boyfriends injured and almost unconscious next to a complete stranger with no context. Virgil ran up to Janus and looked at his back, to Remus, to his back, and to Remus again. Remus then realized he was covered in blood from the monster. Which had red blood. The same colour as a human's blood. Which was the same colour that Janus was bleeding. Ah.

"Wait, I know this looks bad, just let me explain-"

"Please do. I would love to know why you are covered in blood that just so happens to be the same shade as my boyfriend's, and- is that a Morningstar?!" Virgil raised his voice at the last bit.

"I promise there's a good explanation for this, if you just let me-"

"Janus? Is he ok? Who did this? Is he even conscious? Can he talk? Janus, p-" Patton ran over, dragging Roman with him.

"He'll be ok, just let me finish t-" It turned into a jumble of everyone talking over each other, then they were all interrupted by another one

"I'm back from helping Thomas-" Logan rose up in front of them and looked around. "Ah. Let's go back to the front of the mind and we'll treat him there. Patton and Virgil, you carry him. Roman, you know your way around here probably the best, so you can lead the way. I'll talk to him." The others walked ahead a little bit, then he turned to Remus. "Let's go, shall we? I'm Logan, it's a pleasure to meet you. And you are?" Remus was taken aback.

"A pleasure... to meet... me?" Remus grinned. "I'm Remus, let's catch up with the others, Specs!" He dragged Logan to the others, both with a slight blush that had fallen onto their face.

Just as Logan had finished treating Janus, he was fully conscious again. He turned his head towards Logan and said, "Can I meet the new one?"

"Remus? I'll see if I can get his attention. Do you want the others too?"

"N- Actually, that'd be pleasant." Logan quickly scribbled on his hand. He got replies from a blue, purple, red, and green pen. Just minutes later, the room had all six of them inside. Virgil looked over at Remus and angrily asked him, 

"Care to tell us why we found Jan injured and you covered in his blood?" Remus looked taken aback by this.

"I-it wasn't his blood, I didn't do anything!" 

"He's right, it wasn't him. Quite the opposite in fact, he saved me from a... demon, octopus, lion... thing. What was that, anyway?"

"It's a manifestation. Of Thomas'... unwelcome thoughts. That's what I am. I represent the unneeded creativity, or dark creativity." There was a murmur around the room, which was interrupted by a small scream from Remus. Everyone looked over at him and saw that his face was bright red. It turned out that Janus had grabbed his hand so suddenly it scared Remus. They all laughed, and once it died down Logan asked Roman and Remus something.

"May I check something with you two, if that's ok?" They agreed. "Thank you. Now, can you both write something on your hands?" They obliged, and just doodled on their hands. The red and green ink showed up on everyone's hands, except each others. "Hm. Interesting." He pulled his notebook out of his pocket, wrote something down, then snapped it shut and put it back in his pocket. 

"Uh... What was that about, Teach?"

"Well, I was testing how we're all connected. It appears you two aren't connected, so I want to see if the rest of us are connected or not. Thank you for your co-operation." He went around the room and got them to doodle somewhere on their arm. "How strange. I guess it makes sense."

"What makes sense?" Roman asked.

"We're all connected, except you and Remus. It confused me initially, but considering you two are technically related, it does make sense. That's the difference between when we fuse and when you two were fused. You two were made as one person, while the rest of us were made as individuals. When we fuse, it's a symbol of our romantic affection. We can choose when we fuse and unfuse. To my knowledge, you two can't, correct?"

"Yeah, that's correct." Roman sighed then walked over to Logan and hugged him. "You're so smart and amazing, you know that?"

"I- Uh-" He stammered for a bit, his face getting redder and redder, before Patton yelled,

"HUG ATTACK!!" and then he was surrounded by four of his boyfriends. Janus tried to stand up to join in, but Remus gently pushed him back down. 

"Hey, don't want you to bleed out even more! Even if we can't die, we can still feel pain, Snake Boy!" Janus let out a small laugh at the nickname, then lay down in a more comfortable position. 

"I'm not able to have cuddles tonight, so I expect to have extra tomorrow. Deal?" They all smiled and said of course, then gave him a small kiss before heading to bed. They all slept between two beds, with Logan, Patton and Roman on one, and Virgil and Remus on the other. The sleeping arrangements changed almost nightly, so they'd all have a chance to cuddle one another. 

Janus woke up first and checked the time on his phone. 7:41am. He'd been out for a little over eight hours. His back was feeling much better than the day before, and he could get up much easier. He summoned his staff to help him walk, and made his way to the kitchen. He started to cook a breakfast for the others, and once he had done, the others had woken up. He asked Patton to set the table for him, and then served them his cooking. Everyone expressed their love for his cooking, and he blushed. Janus didn't cook very often, but maybe he should. He seemed to be pretty good at it, and the others seemed to enjoy it a lot. Just as they had finished, Roman and Remus started chasing each other around, and Virgil joined in. Soon it turned into everyone chasing each other and landing in a huge pile of laughter on the floor. Things may be different now with two creativities, but everything will be fine.