OPEN RP POST

[loyalless]

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[halfdozenoftheother]

He doesn't like it.

Of course he doesn't fucking like it.

It's fucking unconscionable.

All of this anger - this agitation (this discomfort) - and nowhere to direct it. At some point he sits, because he has to do something, because if he stands he's half an impulse away from exiting the room and strangling the shit-spitting bastard, never mind the consequences or who fucking sees. It'd spell the end of this problem.

(It'd keep Enri protected.)

(It'd keep everything in line.)

He shouldn't do that. Death can't be the answer here; there'd be more trouble to follow. He needs to— Clear his senses. He wants to reach for Lydia, gesture for Lydia, but the problem's impacted her too, she's seen something, she's communicating something. She called the boy 'Puppy.' (Why.) She doesn't like this, either. The situation and all the world's a fucking mess, and there can be no ease for anyone until a solution's found.

He sits, and he seethes, letting Custis speak anger for the both of them. Trying to heed Lydia and hearing, vaguely, Alice's interjections, but what Morgan remembers is Enri snarling, and Enri fighting, and Enri strange. (There's a reason. Lydia knows the reason. Morgan can't calm himself enough to understand, and every glance at the bedroom door sparks his vision red again.)

Alice enters Enri's room to talk, to check on the boy, and the sound of Alice through the door incites him again - this shouldn't be happening, none of this should fucking be happening - and Morgan stands abruptly. Kicks a table, heavy fucking thing that thuds out of place and leaves his foot distantly aching, then stalks to the next room. Fingers flexing, fist clenching. Not looking at Lydia, but setting his shoulders to suggest an attempt at self-control, at removing himself in order to guard against further damage.

He paces. He paces. And when Alice emerges, he moves like a shot to stand in the doorway, eyes focused, seeking signs of what transpired.

"Well?"

[plantdaddy]

Alice bypasses Lydia and Custis without sparing either of them a glance; the problem ("problem") here is Morgan, whom Alice suspects is being aggravated further by his twin's snarling and his wife's.

...Lydia-ness.

He doesn't understand, and Lydia's efforts at explanation keep falling lame and uncomfortable. (He's never seen her like this. It's strange, to know there's something she can't rise to. It's strange, and beyond his comprehension.) (She said something about bruises on Darius's throat, of course. And she said, weakly, that it ought to be considered, but the statement came with a question mark at the end, and was quickly trampled by her brother-in-law.)

(What the fuck is going on, is what Alice would like to know. All this uproar over some cousin from Iowa?)

He approaches Morgan, then halts abruptly, staring at his (mentor) (somewhat-idol) brother-in-law-to-be. There's something familiar about the way the other man looks, and it's not because he has a twin, and it's not because Alice has worked closely with Morgan for almost a year.

That's the same fucking look Enri just gave him before the kid snatched the phone.

And come to think of it.

Come to think of it.

His head turns, and from the corner of his eye he takes in the other two in the room, and the door leading to the bedroom. He opens his mouth as though he means to speak. (Custis said he's older than his father. Not he's old enough to be his father.) He closes his mouth and fixes Morgan with a look, his head cocked, lips pressed thin as he exhales through his nose.

Fuck's sake, Morgan.

And.

Tell me this isn't what I think it is.

He doesn't think that's going to happen.

Instead of waiting for a miracle, he gestures vaguely toward the room behind the other man - let's talk in there - and if Morgan doesn't immediately go he slides past to let himself in, then waits with his hands crammed in his pockets until he hears Lydia herding Custis out.

(Not a new trick. Her idea, unspoken months ago: divide and conquer. They can't egg one another on this way.)

And, after a moment, he offers what clarity he can. "You and Lydia have the woods, together. He has - whatever he has with Darius."

And then, he raises his eyes from his examination of an end table, and fixes them on Morgan. Ventures softly, "Like father, like son?"