lazybox | izunia lucis callout

[you rang]

Leonard, darling, Yuuri's looking for you. I think she wants input on what we're cooking to...night...

[Ardyn trailed off midsentence, yellow eyes drifting to the man nearby--and in a fraction of an instant he'd positioned himself between the two just short of falling into a fighting stance, voice dangerously low and with a furious snarl to it that rarely if ever came out these days.]

You. Get the hell away from him, what are you doing here?

[It happens so fast, he barely has time to react. What he does do is wrap his arms around Ardyn's middle as if he could have any hope of actually holding him back if he wants to fight. Maybe don't fight in the middle of the mall?]

Whoa, hey, whoa, calm down, what the hell! We were just talking, it's fine!

[Izunia, meanwhile, is still holding one of their bags. Luckily, it's one of those obscenely tall paper mall bags, so he can just. Gently. Set it down.

While biting back the familiar impulse to tell Ardyn not to cause a scene. Familiar, and useless, because Ardyn pretty much is a scene, wherever he goes.

Think of the devil and he shall appear, truly.

Ardyn's first impulse is to fight - Izunia's is to run, cover blown wide open anyway, and it's a bad crowd for running but a great one for warping away, lots of space streetlights and signs that he could use to just go over the crowd. He fights it down, but not before there's a blue flash between his fingers that will tell all that needs to be told, though the dagger is there only briefly.

He almost can't address Ardyn, so Church, instead, gets eye contact and a small nod.]

It really was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you, for taking care of him.

[By his estimate he's got about fifteen seconds before he's got to run - ]

Take one step and I’ll eviscerate you in broad fucking daylight. You don’t get to run from this, coward.

[The gravelly snarl hadn’t left Ardyn’s voice, but he made no move to pull away or fight out of Church’s grasp. His right hand—wearing a familiar black ring—wrapped light around his arm as if to silently ground himself even as he fought down the brief glow of magenta that came with the pounding of his heart and tremor in his hands.]

You have already stolen everything else from me, I’ll kill you long before you replace me in this family as you did ours. I’m not going to stand here and just let you ignore me to leave as if you’ve done nothing, Izunia.

[It's the imposter that makes him slacken his grip first, dumbfounded, but Ardyn drives the spike of doubt the rest of the way. The jealous king, the brother who stole the throne, stolen last namesake Ardyn had used for who knows how long--Izunia.

He'd seen...glimpses, before. Ardyn playing around with projection, never satisfied with his own flawed and extremely long memory. But this man looked like a damn double.

Holy shit. Twins.]

I kinda thought you'd be...bluer. [Church half remembers himself, moving to Ardyn's side instead of behind him, grabbing his hand--tightly.] Hey. It's fine, I just mistook him for you and told him to put that stupid outfit back. You wandered off, dumbass. If you get the cops on us in the middle of the mall, it's every man for himself. [Because leave it to Church to try and diffuse a situation with mild humor.]

[...Bluer? That's not a description he's ever gotten, especially given that he normally is the blue twin - blue Armiger and scarf to Ardyn's warmer colors.

He still wants to run. But he can't really deny Ardyn anything, not at this point, even without the threat of being gutted in the middle of the mall.

At least the creeping feeling of the Starscourge, barely contained, isn't there.]

...Fine, but let's at least get off the street. I doubt any of us wants that kind of attention.

[Because Church really isn't wrong about the whole bringing the cops down on their heads thing. Also, the woman who runs the overpriced cheese shop not far from here is way too nosy and probably already posting photos of her double-Ardyn sighting to SpaceBook.]

I've got a shop a few down from here. Just give me a minute's head start to send the part-timer home early.

... [Dumb humor or not it still got Ardyn to relax however slightly; there was still homicidal fury in yellow eyes fixed on the brother that was a mirror of what Ardyn had looked like as a human.]

Fine. But one wrong step and you’re bound to regret it.

Are we seriously doing this? Are we seriously doing this now? I know the holiday season is for airing out family dirty laundry and getting drunk and fighting each other, that's just tradition, but are we genuinely going to have a knock down drag out brotherly fight that's been building a couple years?

Are whole stores gonna collapse? Is there gonna be a crater here in an hour? Should I go put something on to keep blood from staining my clothes, or should I just grab popcorn instead?

I hope not, my insurance policy doesn't cover damage from angry relatives.

[Did he just...?

Anyway, Izunia makes it a point to stay in sight as he heads into - Well, exactly the shop they might be expecting him to head into, given that it's some kind of horrible "fake swords and possibly real antiques" kzitch place, the sort of one that you have no idea how it manages to support itself because the only customers are three teenage boys who clearly aren't buying anything.

They go out, and then Ardyn and Church will hear Izunia's voice, slightly raised - "Just go, Al, and take Caravaggio with you, I'll pay you the full shift anyway." - before one more person leaves. He's probably not quite human, from the faint gold shimmer of his skin, but he's maybe twenty-four and clearly the part-timer if only because he wears the "fashionable hobo" look nearly as well as Ardyn and Izunia. (Also, he's carrying a rather unhappy looking saber-toothed tortoise.)

When they enter, Izunia is triggering the close-up-shop blinds with a switch to give them privacy. Once that's down, he - rather blatantly - discards his mock-Ardyn outfit by directly swapping it to the Armiger in favor of a black dress shirt.]

Flip the sign and lock the door, would you?

I'm so thrilled you two find this funny. [Ardyn snapped that as he left Church to the matter of the door, not once taking his eyes off his brother like he expected a knife pulled at any second.]

Who the hell do you think you are, parading around as if all this is normal?!

Y'know, most people thought the humor thing was a point in my favor. [He huffs as he attends to the matter, and then leans his back against the door, arms crossed. Watching.]

I'm probably gonna punch you like at least once. [Fair warning.]

[Well, yeah, Church, he expects no less. Izunia turns his attention to Ardyn with a sigh -

Something in his expression changes, and much as he might be Ardyn's physical double, there's a weight to him then that shows all the thousands of years he's been putting this off.]

What would you have me do? Everything about this is so far past normal that we don't exactly have an etiquette book.

[He sighs and leans forward, his elbows on the high counter.]

I'm sorry. I know that it will never be enough, but I am.

[Ardyn scowled and bristled like an enraged coeurl, standing between his brother and Church like he was the latter's Shield instead of the reverse.]

I don't care. We're well past apologies even if I was inclined to accept such a thing.

Then the fuck do you want from him, you want him dead?

[For all Ardyn's bristling, Izunia doesn't move and doesn't seem to have any intention of doing so. He stays right where he is, hands folded over the glass counter, weight on his elbows.

If that is what Ardyn wants, no one can blame him. Even Izunia thinks he probably deserves it.

Instead, he answers an earlier comment - ]

I have no intention of taking them away from you, Ardyn. I wouldn't want to even if I could.

You are not helping. [The hand he gestured to Church with was shaking, however slightly. Once again, Ardyn was covering an emotion he didn't understand with the anger that he did; in this case, a deep-seated fear and uncertainty that had been abruptly uprooted.]

And you'll excuse me, dear brother, if I don't believe you. Of course you could, you did it once already.

I'm trying to make this not last three agonizingly tense hours, because Yuuri's gonna fucking smash in every window to find us if she thinks we're missing. He's not stealing shit. It was an honest mistake. You didn't tell me you were fucking twins.

[Ardyn needs something to ground him, though, and Church, as ever, is willing to be that. He pushes away from the door and nudges Ardyn's side, slipping an arm around his waist.] Hot, by the way.

With help and a careful arrangement of schedules to avoid ever having to spend too long with anyone who would be able to tell the difference, except Gil.

[Izunia looks, almost pointedly, at where Church's hand is wrapping around Ardyn's waist. It's not at all a jealous look; if anything, he seems comforted by it.]

Obviously, not going to work here, even if I wanted to.

You didn't ask. And you, don't you dare call him-

[The muttered comment turned to vicious snarling in an instant upon hearing the fond nickname, Ardyn halfway to taking a step forward and holding his hand out for a sword that hadn't been pulled from the Armiger yet--]

[--but the arm around his waist stopped him, arm gradually lowered back to his side. Still tense, still furious, but just...so tired of all of this.]

...not again. I can't just...let you take everything I love again. And how am I ever to trust you when you say that you won't? How am I to trust anything you say to me again?

[He's going to stand firmly right the fuck here unless something happens. Which has a high risk, honestly. If he's about to say something, he actually bites it back to let this play out. It's absolutely his concern, but maybe he should verbally butt the hell out of it before Ardyn snaps at him, and then it'll just turn into something incredibly ugly.]

[It's not the direction he expected this conversation to take. Not that he had any idea what this conversation would be like, really, but of all the possibilities Izunia's mind has played out in the past anyway, this isn't one.]

I don't know, Ardyn. I can't make you trust the words out of my mouth again. Trying would only make it worse.

[Forced trust is no trust at all and they both know it.]

...I don't want to fight you. [He leaned against Church's side, his own arm finding its way around his shoulders--seeking out silent comfort in the way that was uniquely Ardyn's touch-starved lack of subtlety.]

You aren't worth the trouble.

Then are we just gonna do this staredown while you both quietly have total fucking breakdowns and pretend that you're not?

Please, I've been trying to not hyperventilate for half an hour, don't remind me.

[There is nothing quiet about his attempt to not have a total fucking breakdown, here.]

I don't want to fight you, either. I never have.

You had me fucking crucified and now you expect me to believe that, you little-

[...Deep breath.]

...So what, then? I live in paranoia that a traitorous coward is walking around wearing my face, and you just go about your life as you ever have?

hi

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