experimenstation | we've gathered all the sinners

we've gathered all the sinners

Several days pass. And those observant might notice that after the few first, Ardyn has settled into what seems to be a slightly question-raising routine.

He spends almost all of the 'night' - based upon the dimmed lights in the common area, as the outside is set to 'night' all the time - in the common areas, and appears to vanish into the individual room to sleep during the day, mostly while Aerith is out working the gardens. This by itself - a nocturnal schedule and a preference for sleeping when his roommate isn't around - isn't that odd. But there's two other things that add up to questions that someone observant might notice;

The first is that Ardyn rarely appears in the cafeteria, and when he does, it's never to eat anything. He can be caught sipping water occasionally, but that is the extent of what he consumes.

The second is that the bit of stubble on his face is always exactly the same, neither more grown in nor shaved off.

----

Small oddities aside, though, he behaves much like any other person. For the time being, he's usually to be caught paging through medical textbooks of all sorts, yellow eyes narrowed and intent. In particular, the encyclopedia of medications seems to be giving him trouble, and he can frequently be caught muttering the complex chemical names of various drugs to himself in varying tones of annoyance. There's a pair of notebooks that rapidly fill with cramped, scrawling notes.

You might also catch him, ahem, buzzing with a product test or two as he works. It's just to check the battery life, honest.

Alternatively, you might catch him rolling a handful of dice to himself and stopping to shake his head before recording his thoughts in another notebook. "Honestly," drawls the deep voice, loudly enough for passerby to hear. "Who thought that it was a good idea to arrange these in such a way that 'suck hair' is a possible outcome?"

And then there's the fact that a few days into the week, he picks up a phone - which he seems to mostly use to play games on - and a well-cut lavender vest that doesn't really cover much of interest, but is quite flattering to his waist. It even has pockets! It's too bad that it clashes terrifically with the multicolored scarf around his neck. (Those who actually know Ardyn are likely not surprised.)

----

Closed to Ignis

And one evening, there's a knock at a particular door - or more accurately, a use of a door buzzer, but it all works the same. Ardyn stands slightly at a tilt, vest and scarf neatly arranged, as he waits for an answer to the door - hopefully, getting the man he wants to speak to instead of whoever it is Ignis is rooming with.

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There is a moment of hesitation before the door is answered and the reason why is made clear when it does. Ignis was obviously thinking of either bed or a shower when Ardyn stopped by because he's bare to the waist and his hair's a lot more ruffled than he generally lets people see it. He's not replaced the glasses that went missing when he was brought here either, the station apparently not deeming them a medical necessity, which in all honesty, they aren't. At the time of Noctis' coronation, he was hardly wearing them at all.

Surprise flickers in Ignis' eyes for just a moment before it's hidden by the wary look he usually wears around Ardyn, "And to what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Chancellor? No insult intended, but you're the last person I expected to seek me out."

"Truly? And your skill at predicting outcomes is usually so much better than that." From the tone alone, you'd certainly think Ardyn flirting, and his expression does nothing to dispel the assumption. Just in case anyone should be listening, of course. "I was wondering if I might trouble you for an evening about town? Dinner, my treat, though of course I'd appreciate it if you didn't break the bank."

And he takes a step closer, dropping his voice in such a way that it would be an indistinct mumble to any listening ears, one easily taken for more targeted flirtation instead of what it is. "I imagine you have things you want to discuss now that things are a bit more settled around here, no? Because that makes two of us."

There is a refusal on Ignis' lips before Ardyn is halfway through the invitation, but it remains there, unspoken when the redhead leans forward and gives the real reason for his request. Green eyes flick to meet Ardyn's for a moment before he sighs, stepping back and crossing his arms loosely over his chest.

"Can you imagine what everyone back home would think if they saw this? You propositioning me as I stand half-naked in my bedroom doorway. What is the world coming to? Your flirting game needs some serious work if you truly wish to get my attention." There's interest clouded by mischief in his eyes now as he rests his hand on the door, "Give me five minutes."

And then the door is shut. Enjoy standing in the hall alone for exactly five minutes, good chancellor.

"...And yours is impeccable," Ardyn mutters once the door is securely closed. When Ignis does return, he'll find that Ardyn has adopted a familiar propped-up-by-wall posture, hands on his hips, to wait. It'd be an all-too-familiar scene were it not for the fact that he still has no more clothes than a scarf, a lavender vest, and a pair of elegant boots that go two-thirds of the way to his knees.

Building a new wardrobe is such a trial, is about what he's thinking to himself when Ignis comes back out. And then it's settling immediately into the delicate dance of acting, pretending to work seduction into the whole thing. His bow is smooth and calculated and only a little showy.

For the time being, he doesn't offer a hand. Ignis, at least, is wise enough to be unsettled by his touch, or so he expects. "You look an equal degree of ravishing in any amount of dress. Shall we?"

Ignis had been surprised enough by Ardyn's appearance at his door that he really hadn't taken the time to look at what the redhead was wearing at the time. When he appears back in the hallway, though, he corrects that, and from the puzzled look on his face, perhaps he wishes he had not.

"And you are looking exceptionally...colorful tonight." It's the boots that throw him, really. Wouldn't pants have been a better choice?

Not that he really has room to talk. Aside from adjusting the collar of his suit down to allow him to wear a necklace very similar in looks to the one he had back home and adding a pair of gloves, he's done nothing to improve his wardrobe at all. There have been more important things on his mind.

"Do the boots make you feel taller?"

Because, really? REALLY?

"They've hardly any heel at all, actually. I'm rather out of practice with anything beyond an inch - it would be terribly embarrassing to lose my footing trying to sweep you off your feet, wouldn't it?"

The banter is practically just noise. Look, Ignis. Pants are next on the agenda, don't judge him. He's better dressed than you, for possibly the only time in either of your lives.

But Ardyn's all smiles as he peels away from the wall. "Lead the way if you so desire - I have a few places in mind but it is, ultimately, your choice."

"Well then, perhaps it's me who should do the sweeping as I have no fear of heels." And feel free to make of that whatever you would like, Ardyn. Ignis is just going to start making his way down the hall, though he only gets a few steps before pausing at the question.

"I'm afraid I haven't had as much time to check out the eateries here as I would like," and oh, how he hates to admit that, but there's this whole issue of Noctis' roommate being a pain and that has to be dealt with, even if all Noct will allow him to do is offer his bathroom and bed every so often.

"What places do you have in mind?"

"Oh, I have little fear of anything," Ardyn practically purrs in return. It's always wonderful when an act isn't entirely an act and he can indulge like this.

His expression doesn't so much as flicker at the admission. "The closest handful are a noodle shop, a vegetarian grill, one of those obnoxious sorts of twenty-four hour diners - apparently they're quite universal - and pizza. Of what I recognize myself, at any rate."

A dimmer section of the hall makes the gleam in Ardyn's eyes, just before he shifts his expression to a mockery of apologetic. "And a pair of bars that I imagine have something edible, if that's what you'd prefer."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" The words are muttered under Ignis' breath before he brings his focus to the really horrifying part of this conversation.

"Goodness, what kind of choices are those?" Ignis actually sounds insulted by the selection. It's terrible when a bar is the lesser of a group of evils, "Will I have to open a restaurant just to show these people what real food is?" He'd do it too. Of that, have no doubt.

With a sign, he meets Ardyn's golden gaze, ignoring the mocking apology he sees there, "Bars are a rather traditional dating location. Am I going to want a drink before this conversation of ours is over?"

"For all the expense no doubt incurred in bringing us here, we seem to be positioned in one of the poorer parts of town," Ardyn offers, with a shrug. "No doubt as encouragement to go find ourselves some source of income or another for improved lodgings. A task likely a good bit easier on my reduced expenses than it is for the rest of you."

How has Ardyn afforded as many clothes as he already has, plus a cell phone? It helps that he doesn't eat.

"And I've no idea, but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather prefer the one with dimmer lighting." Again, no real need to explain why. And it's a surprisingly comfortable thing, to not have to make up an excuse about sensitive eyes or what have you as regards his preference for dim settings. "The rest, I leave up to you, though I would prefer at least an initial bit of sobriety. However, you are very much an adult, and capable of managing your own limits without my help."

"A bar then. Whichever is the first we come to. Dim lighting is suppose to be part of their charm or so I am told."

Location decided, Ignis begins walking again. Looking for the first bar is a good way to distract himself from the fact that--bad drinking joke aside--he had been leaning toward the bar because of the dim lighting. Since when does he so instinctively consider Ardyn's preferences?

"You needn't worry about that. The last thing I'm planning on doing is getting drunk. There are too many unknowns in this place."

Not the least of which is walking right next to him.

"Let's be off, then."

It's really not that far to the bar, so Ardyn leads the way in his usual sweeping style. Somehow, he manages to give the impression to outside observers that they're arm-in-arm without actually touching Ignis, his gestures frequently stopping just shy.

It is, after all, a date, but that's no reason to touch someone who he knows will react in the 'right' way to the uncanniness of brushing against him.

"I confess there's little point in it for me - the regenerative nature of my metabolism prevents alcohol from having any effect. The same with most substances, actually."

And upon reaching the bar -

"Shame all the doors here have sliding seals. I can't hold it open for you."

Is this, perhaps, part of the reason that he's already started to instinctively consider Ardyn's preferences? Ignis is well are of the effort the redhead is putting into projecting the image of them actually being close while never quite making contact, almost as if he is respecting the fact that Ignis will react uneasily to such a touch.

Ignis is grateful, even if he can't bring himself to say it.

"Nearly as large a shame as the fact you can't really enjoy a drink. And here I was wondering what kind of drunk you would be. Now I'll never know," Ignis actually makes a semi-decent attempt at sounding disappointed as they enter the bar, and once the host has greeted them, sees to it they are taken to a small table in one of the darker corners of the establishment. The host gives him a rather knowing look as he leaves the drink lists for their perusal.

"Hopefully, this little corner is dark enough to meet with your approval."

"A quite amicable one, to my vague recollection. Though I can only recall getting impressively out of my senses twice at this point, and that is less a recollection of what actually happened and more awareness that it did."

He slides into the seat with a smile and requests a water with ice and a colorful straw from the host as he goes. Something to do with his hands would be quite fine.

"It's much better. You Lucians and your brightly lit diners, how is a man supposed to be friendly yet ominous in such an environment?" It's said in the tone of a shared joke, though once their waitstaff is clear, Ardyn closes his eyes and makes a slight gesture, summoning up once more an illusion for their privacy, the rest of the bar sealed off by a faint fog. He drops some, but not all of the amicable act, his shoulders dipping in something a little too dignified to be called a slump as he leans back.

"Now, then, if I might be blunt - you are the first person to have known the truth of my condition for anything more than the last handful of minutes of your life since my brother erased me from the record, save Verstael Besithia and obviously that situation isn't going to be comparable. It is... very much an unusual circumstance."

Edited (fingerguns while whispering god damn it at the episode ardyn trailer) 2018-11-12 01:56 (UTC)

"I realize that it might be hard for you to see this point of view considering well, everything, but did you ever stop to think maybe that was the whole idea?" Ignis folds his hands together, resting them on the table in front of him. As Ardyn hides their meeting from any who may wish to listen uninvited, the advisor's eyes momentarily drift to the fog before returning to the redhead who's the source.

"Besithia knew?" Ignis raises an eyebrow at that. It's curious that Ardyn had allowed any of his 'allies' in the Empire to know even a fraction of his true nature, though he finds himself torn between if he really wants to know why that was or if it is safer for his sanity not to know.

"'Unusual' is one way to put it, but I've already agreed to not mentioning it to anyone. I have no intention of breaking that word, so why bring it up now?"

"Considering that he's the one who pulled me out of the hole in the ground on Angelgard that I spent most of the last unimaginable age in, yes, of course he knew."

There's no fondness for Verstael in the tone, not even the oddly twisted attachment Ardyn seems to have for Noctis - but there's an edge in it, as well. He doesn't like to talk about Angelgard. He is all too happy to immediately change the subject away from Angelgard and back to the present.

Even immortals who claim to not experience pain, it seems, have things that have hurt them enough to cause fear.

"I bring it up because, quite simply, exactly what this scenario is going to lead to is a mystery to me. Sometimes the unknown is a point of interest, but in this particular case I find it rather annoying."

Annoying, by which he means unsettling in the emotional range of someone who wasn't consumed by Starscourge in the dark for untold ages.

That statement causes Ignis' eyebrow to raise even higher. It's a classic example of an answer that raises more questions than it clears up. For a moment, Ignis' mind is overrun with questions, but the tone of Ardyn's words cuts through them sending them fluttering back into the recesses of the advisor's mind where they originally came from. A polite man knows there are some questions you don't ask--some pains you don't prod--not even when the person you would be asking is the immortal cause of the near-complete destruction of your world.

Perhaps, especially then.

Ignis tightens his fingers slightly, the only outward sign he gives of his own uncertainty. Joking and deflecting only buy him time to attempt to process things that he never thought he would need to process. Not about Ardyn certainly.

"That seems a rather long-winded way to go about calling me 'annoying,'" Ignis' words, on the surface, seem to be meant as one such joke, but there is no trace of of it in his tone or expression. He's too caught up in the processing attempt to really put any effort into it.

Ardyn's just as unsettled about all this as Ignis himself is, isn't he? How does he even begin to deal with that when it clashes so much with the self-assured and over-confident man he's used to?

"Do you want us to set up some kind of guidelines for this...relationship?" Is that even the right word? Who knows, but Ignis can't think of another, so he goes with it. "Something to make it less of an unknown, and therefore, less annoying?"

"Guidelines are often made to be broken." Ardyn says it with a shrug that says that he isn't even specifically intending to break them, he just expects that it will happen eventually. It's just a fact of life. "Expectations might be a better word."

It's semantics, perhaps, but reasonably important semantics. Not ground rules, because Ignis would, quite reasonably, not expect Ardyn to keep to those unless it suited him, and should he be honest, Ardyn knows no amount of ground rules would serve to discourage Ignis from doing whatever he might think needs to be done. Instead -

"Think of it as establishing a baseline before a negotiation." Politics, a language they can both speak well enough. It's a language that's more comfortable for Ardyn than one of intimacy and emotion, even if the subject matter is ultimately the same. "And while there are plenty of other negotiations that can be saved for later times, getting a sense of each others' priorities makes the whole thing go more smoothly, doesn't it?"

He smiles, then, and it's his nice politics smile, almost no predator in it. "Though your main priority is, of course, Noctis' safety. I am - forgive me - not blind to that." Okay, no predator, but perhaps a touch of shit-eating. (Once upon a time, Ardyn Izunia was an older brother.) "However, your exact intentions on ensuring that safety are an unknown, as are your intentions regarding yourself."

And there, a touch of the predator again, but more an expression of testing the waters than it is preparation to pounce. Like any good hunter, Ardyn spends plenty of time assessing his prey before he strikes.

Ardyn's barely gotten passed his little semantic argument, and Ignis already finds himself loosening the tightness in his grip so one finger can tap out his irritation against the back of his hand. If he doesn't think on it too hard, he can convince himself that the irritation is caused not by the fact he's being forced to agree with the man again, but because the redhead is taking so long to get to the point. Once he finally does get to the point, Ignis can't help but feel irritated all over again.

"I'd think of all people, you would know exactly what my intentions are and how much I will give to protect Noctis." Even if they are from different worlds--which seems like it must be--Ardyn's Ignis had still stepped over the line into the realm of the forbidden to protect his friend and prince. Here it will be no different. What is the point of even ask--

He suddenly stills as a thought crosses his mind, jaw tightening, gaze becoming dangerous.

"Are you asking if I'm planning on starting an intimate relationship with Noct in order to protect him?" Ignis' question comes out in a low hiss. He doesn't even bother to address his intentions regarding himself. In his mind, the answer is obvious, but he's not quite shifting his thinking enough to realized what that may mean for him here specifically.

"That is certainly an option you could pursue," Ardyn responds almost immediately, milking the ambiguity of the words for all they're worth. Under the table, he crosses his leg over his other knee, booted foot bobbing up and down absently.

"After all, he does have complete trust in you, and there are certainly far worse options around."

Save mentioning Noctis' apparent taste for older men for a trump card for later, if he should need it.

"But my concern is, genuinely, not for our dear prince alone. After all, as dedicated as you have always been, is it all that off-target to guess that you have not much experience in such matters yourself?"

Ignis' hands shift to tightly grip the edge of the table. He realizes it's a dead give away to how much the question bothers him, but it's either that or he reaches across the table to slap the casual look from the redhead's face.

"My level of experience is no business of yours," Ignis' voice is low, more tightly controlled than his actions at the moment. Even so, there is an odd bit of challenge in that statement. Almost as if he wants Ardyn to give him a good reason to answer the question; almost as if he wants something to help him understand what is going on in the man's mind that makes him think he would get an answer to such a question.

There is something else too. A slow realization starting in the back of his mind, one he's fighting against because he honesty has no idea what to think of it and the vague tightening in his stomach isn't helping matters any. Perhaps, whatever answer Ardyn gives will derail that realization completely. Perhaps, it won't.

He's not sure really which he wants. He just needs to know if he's right or not.

"So, not enough to be comfortable talking about it." Oh, yes, the 'cat got a mouse under one paw' grin is in full force now, as Ardyn casually leans forward to prop an elbow on the table and rest his chin on it, tilting his head at just enough of an angle to be obvious. "How disappointing. We're all in this together, after all."

It's hard indeed to tell if he's being serious about what he's implying, or just trying to get a rise now that he's found the way to make Ignis uncomfortable. Knowing Ardyn, he might not know himself.

It's kind of odd what happened in Ignis' mind right then. Usually such a taunt, especially combined with Ardyn being so obvious about what he is doing, would just push his buttons more, however, instead of finding himself further upset, Ignis instead finds his discomfort and irritation fading away.

Oh, Ardyn is so sure he's right. So very, very sure. And he's not.

It's hard not to laugh, but Ignis doesn't. Instead, he just takes a deep breath and settles back into his seat, finger tapping at his chin, right below the small smirk pulling on his lips.

"After two thousand years, I would think you'd know better than to assume anything. What a disappointment indeed."

"Care to prove me wrong, then?" Ardyn asks, reaching for one of the glasses recently deposited on the table to swirl it idly. It's nothing more than water and ice, so it makes a great deal of noise. "Because you know, I'm not without background as a man of science. One must actually present evidence to disprove a hypothesis."

In other words: Yes, Ignis, you walked right into his trap there. Now are you going to back down from the challenge, or step up to the plate?

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we've gathered all the sinners

Closed to Ignis

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episode ardyn trailer spoilers and a prayer to not get jossed

I think you're going to need a LOT more than a prayer. shakes fist at SE

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smacks a dead ass tag into your inbox

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we've gathered all the sinners

Closed to Ignis

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episode ardyn trailer spoilers and a prayer to not get jossed

I think you're going to need a LOT more than a prayer. *shakes fist at SE*

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smacks a dead ass tag into your inbox

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I think you're going to need a LOT more than a prayer. shakes fist at SE