theairlock | week 7

You're not gonna trick me into calling you dad with your fatherly lessons. [Because then he'd have to kinkshame. One...one...one-two-three, there we go, he's got it again.]

[you made it weird, church.]

I would certainly hope not.

[damn it usually it's jumpy that makes it weird THIS IS STILL JUMPY'S FAULT THO]

Maybe you'd prefer to think of it as kingly advice. Sage advice. From a sage.

[He made it weird and his attempt at recovery is not so helpful. ...He's just gonna dance, okay, and try to get better at this speed. There's totally not a thing on his mind. Nope. How does he even broach the subject now? Ruined moment. What kind of dumb question is that anyway. Focus. Focusssssss.]

You're falling out of step again. [Ardyn glanced to the floor to make sure Church wasn't about to step directly on his feet, thank you very much.]

[...Something was starting to seem just a little off about this.]

What's wrong? Can't you concentrate?

I'm concentrating just fine.

[He could just ask, but it feels like the words dry up in his mouth every time.]

Just thinking. I'll try to stop that. Spin me again, you fuck.

I'm sure that you are.

[he said, not believing that in the slightest but spinning church around anyway.]

God, Donut would flip if he saw me fucking ballroom dancing. He'd never let me live down my terrible form. He'd insist I get it right. [A good spin. No dip, but a good spin.] Tex would definitely call me a nerdy fuck, but she'd dig it. Secretly. I'd know. Tucker might find it funny and insist that club dancing is the best way to pick up chicks. Caboose would try. Bless his stupid oxygen-deprived heart, he'd try. Sarge probably line dances. Simmons would do the robot because he's a geeky shit who I in no way can imagine dancing. Grif wouldn't, because that involves getting up and moving. Doc might do a cute shuffle, I dunno. Lopez might salsa. I don't know. That might be racist? That might be racist to assume he can salsa. He sure can't fucking sing, that's for sure.

[He might be babbling again. This is a distraction.]

...

[Ardyn brought them both to a stop somewhere in that incoherent mess he barely kept up with--Luscinia paused in her singing and tilted her head at the two of them.]

What happened to 'I want to know everything about you'? That's hardly fair, if you're to be the only one saying such a thing.

What is it that's bothering you?

[He's being called out, and he doesn't like it. This is a deer in the headlights. Looks to the door, to make sure no one's coming. Looks at the floor, looks anywhere but at Ardyn. This past almost two months has sure been testing him on sharing his feelings in a way that manly yet deeply insecure dudes in the army are definitely not supposed to do.

And what if it's better to not know, to never know, to keep playing this game, before he loses Ardyn for good?

He's not good with words. Even when it counts. Maybe especially when it counts.]

When, uh. Wh-when we're... Di--fuck. Okay. Fuck. This is stupid, this is stupid, this is so stupid.

Don't. laugh. I'm serious, don't even think about laughing.

...

[It's a big bubble in his chest, and he holds his breath as if he can keep it inflated for a few seconds more while he blankly tries to find the words. And then he lets it out, shoulders sinking but body still tense.]

Every time we've kissed, it's been under the pretense of a challenge. 'cept for that time I--y'know. So is-that--is that just what it, uh, is it just a challenge, is what it is, a fun little...way to...is th--is that what it is, when you kiss me, a challenge met?

[...Oh.]

[This was not exactly the stress test of human emotions he wanted or planned for, and yet here it was. That was actually an excellent question, and Ardyn wasn't sure he even had an answer for it.]

[He opened his mouth to answer. Closed it when nothing came out--the career politician and former master manipulator, left entirely speechless. He'd never given a single thought to why from the beginning, and it was only now that he actually realized it.]

...I want to answer your question with one of my own, before anything else.

[Was it stalling for time? Probably. But it was also something else.]

Why did you take that so seriously? When I joked about my Kingsglaive and called you my Shield. What made you commit to fighting so hard for someone who only pushed most of you away?

...It was--it was kinda fun, at first. I mean, the joke of--'s a good joke, but I figured if you're gonna commit to the joke then--

...It wasn't serious, at first. It was just...banter. But it became...more when I...realized how much you actually needed someone to keep you grounded.

I'm used to assholes. [He points to himself emphatically.] Asshole number one, right here! I dated an asshole, my friends are assholes, my army's run by assholes, so guess what, you being an asshole? Didn't fucking faze me, dude. And maybe I don't have a shadow plague of daemons in my world, but I've seen some scary shit, so even your fuckface couldn't scare me off. Even if it's scary. Which it...is, yeah.

You were a good man. You started out so...nice to us all. You did! You were someone who went around and made sure people were okay, before anyone knew there was some dark shit in you--maybe even before you knew. Because remember? You didn't want to acknowledge it at all. But you were one of the people who, like it or not, made a point of keeping us stable. And then you deteriorated from there.

Meant someone had to make a point of keeping you stable, too.

And I guess I took to the...the 'job' because that's the job I'd had before. In a way. Not like a big fancy title, by I...I'm a shield to my team. And a leader, and a planner. Even when things looked impossible, it took even more than impossible to make me give up. It gave me something to do, gave me...like, a purpose. Instead of just being some schmuck sitting around cracking jokes and being horrified by accidental-on-purpose deaths that have no point other than to horrify, I could at least make a point to make sure my roomie wasn't turning into a monster if I could help it.

And I helped it. I know I did. I know there were a few times when I don't know what you would've done, what you would've become if I hadn't done something, said something, if I wasn't there for you. Maybe that's partly trying to help everyone else.

...I don't know if you're looking for me to pinpoint one specific moment, because I don't think there was. Not just one moment. A lot of moments. Big moments, sometimes. But also little moments. That showed that for whatever you were convinced you were, there was just enough humanity left that was worth it. A series of moments that morphed it from a joke to realizing that maybe you really did need a Shield. I've seen you, and I knew there was something to protect in there.

Pushing us, pushing me away only made me fight that much harder. Because you needed it. And...maybe I needed it, too. Someth--someone. To fight for.

I told all of you that...none of that was a lie. Even back then, I wanted to care about all of you. Ardyn Lucis Caelum wanted to care about you, without realizing he was just an echo seeing the light of day again through nothing but forgotten memories. Even if it was nothing but going through the motions with the barest sentiment behind it he didn't know any other way to live other than by helping those who needed it.

...And I didn't lie to you when I said that friends weren't exactly something I had ever had before. No one cared about the Accursed once I started to become something inhuman, and the healer was forgotten so quickly that Izunia could erase my name from history with barely an objection heard. So I didn't understand--perhaps I still fail to understand--why the same didn't happen here. Why so few of you turned on me, when people I'd known--people I'd loved did so without a second thought.

[Ardyn looked briefly to the ring on his hand, silent for a few seconds; he was trying to stay grounded in what he was saying, rather than slipping backwards into the words and curses of people that had been dead for ages.]

This place...all of this resurrected someone that died alone and forgotten. And this time, that deterioration came so much more quickly that I may have ended up even worse than Chancellor Izunia had I been left alone with it.

[Ardyn raised both hands to Church's face once he was sure he was focused on where he was, in some godsforsaken station in the middle of the vast expanse of space. Not Lucis, not Tenebrae, not Niflheim, not Accordo. Here, now, with his Kingsglaive--with his friends. Friends who would help him carry the weight of the horrific things Ardyn Izunia had committed, undeserved as that help would be.]

[He'd done nothing worth any of them, and he knew it. But his voice was determined now, sharp as any sword he had ever held.]

You made every difference that led to this moment. You're right; I needed you, but all of us have, from the very beginning.

Right now, I'm not completely sure what I am. I don't know if I'll completely snap the instant we escape here or if I may hold out longer than that. But I know that right now I am neither the Accursed nor the king of Lucis--'before my coronation, before I was the Chosen'.

['Swear to me that you'll remember that. That I wanted the best for every last one of you, and would sooner die than see a single one of you hurt.']

My first order to you is to burn these next two facts into your memory for however long we may yet live:

Who and whatever stands before you now cares about you.

And no matter who or what I am, whether king or monster or some shades of both...my name is Ardyn.

[His face nearly burned at the touch for how intensely they both felt, something that the Ardyn of before had lacked. Feeling, to such a degree. Church could barely blink, locked in this moment, not wanting to dare to miss anything.

The man in front of him right now in this room in this moment cares about him.

His name is Ardyn.

These are the facts of his life here before anything else that could happen.

There's a vulnerable part of him that wants to, wants to point out that it doesn't answer the question. Ardyn cares about him, yes, but that doesn't...there are different levels of care, and he shouldn't have asked, shouldn't have bothered. Should have just let the moment and the momentum carry him.

He trails his hands flat up Ardyn's chest, to rest on his shoulders, swallows thickly. Nods. Of course. He's a soldier in the end, following orders.]

Yes sir. Yes, Ardyn.

...

[He knew it didn't answer the question--it answered several more, but not the most pressing one at hand. The hardened determination on Ardyn's face softened just a little; he sighed, trying to figure out what the answer even was.]

It wasn't just a careless game. No--perhaps it was the first time, but I wouldn't have kept doing it if it had meant nothing whatsoever. Whatever part of me was still human wanted that contact, wanted-...

[-something. Ardyn didn't really know. He trailed off, leaning his forehead against Church's and closing his eyes.]

...If you wanted me to stop, all you had to do was say so.

[There was no pulling, nothing sharp or dreadfully desperate, no surge forward, quick and frightened, not this time. Just a hand tracing up Ardyn's neck, resting along his jaw, a tilt of his head, a closing of the gap. Church would argue that there's nothing soft about himself, but here he is, proving himself wrong again.

Nothing so lustful or sordid, not a playful challenge, not need or want or the awful attempt at expressing himself. No, all he wants to impress upon Ardyn with this kiss is...too much to put into words, but something that they're avoiding, something even now they're dancing around.

Please.]

Since when have I ever given you the impression that I wanted you to stop?

[There was quite possibly the edge of a smirk once the distance closed between them; he answered with his own hands dropping to Church's shoulders.]

[Don't leave. You got me to trust you, so don't you dare leave now.]

[Whatever this was, he'd break if it stopped. The cracking crystal shard that was the remnants of his sanity would splinter and there would be no recovering them this time.]

My, your tenacity does deserve commending. Most people wouldn't be so interested in kissing a walking corpse made of daemons.

Most walking corpses made of daemons aren't stupid handsome kings who somehow worked their way under my skin. To be fair. [Mm nah he needs another quick smooch. There, that's better.] And as I recall, [one more for the road?] you're usually the one that kisses me first.

It has been implied to me that I am excellent at getting under someone's skin.

['You know, for an imperial chancellor, you're one sick son of a bitch.']

[No--none of that, not right now. When this was over, he could sort through that looming haze of all that had happened and sort out what should be done with what remained of Ardyn himself. Later, once they'd escaped this. His right hand curled into Church's shirt like it was the one thing keeping him grounded, despite the smirk that hadn't left his face yet.]

You're the fool who keeps challenging me to shut you up. I don't know what else you expect.

I like to be challenging and contrary. And it's a very nice and pleasant way of shutting me up. [His arms drop so they can circle Ardyn's waist.] You could always try to find other ways if you so chose.

That sounds less like a challenge than it is an offer.

Maybe I mean it to sound like an offer this time.

...[church no] I mean, unless you're really out of ideas for anything else to shut me up, then I guess we'll just have to deal with kissing. I suppose.

Perhaps just once, I may be inclined to listen to you instead.

I think we've got time for another dance, one that needs a little less thinking and a lot more kissin'. Because I am all for that. Like I said, man, we have physical affection on lockdown. [Now that's a cheek kiss instead.

And then he looks over at the silent bird friend.] I'm gonna need something slow and smooth. Feel free to make it as sappy and cliched as you like.

[Who's up for a slow dance, because Church will totally lead that, a nice slow sway around the floor. And a nice slow kiss.

And a couple pecks of kisses along Ardyn's jaw. And maybe even a few down his neck--listen, it doesn't have to be Ardyn doing the kissing, his mouth just needs to be occupied to shut up for a few seconds.]

[Luscinia tilted her head as if considering it, then eventually fluttered her wings in what might have passed for a shrug and started with another melody entirely.]

[Close enough.]

You're a terribly insistent flirt.

[Against his neck:] Mmmmmmhm.

[He looks incredibly pleased with himself when he pulls back enough to look.] Sorry, is it proper decorum to let his majesty do all the flirting?

week 7

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