king of nothing. pierce & prince blitz

[🌱 kaitlin.]

P R I N C E

Prince knows where he's supposed to be.

Priest—which, Prince would love to talk about how his father had recently suggested that he stop referring to his father by Dad—had reminded him about the gala he was meant to be attending tonight the night before, gripped him on the shoulder so hard that Prince was pretty certain that he must have a bruise there now but he was. Well, he was afraid to look. But he didn't want anyone to know he was afraid to look, so he pretended that it didn't still ache and the second he sat down on Xavier's ratty, beat up couch, he'd already had grinder in hand, papers in the other.

Only another few moments before he had joint to his lips, a grin where he knew a grimace probably belonged. It's hours before anyone comes to find him. He passes out on the couch and wakes up in yesterday's clothes, and his dopey smile is still broad when a knock comes and Xavier goes to open the door.

The face in the door is familiar, if nothing else.

"Pierce?" Prince says, coughing out smoke. "Dude, nice penguin suit!"

He's probably not going to like that, Prince knows, but he really does mean it. That life looks so good on his mere minutes older elder brother.

Far better than it'd ever look on Prince.

[cass]

P I E R C E

Pierce knows where he's supposed to be.

It's not here. That was for sure. His lip curled in disgust, he was dressed to the nines in his fanciest suit trying to figure out which house his twin brother was hauled up in. He'd been greeted at the car by his father telling him to fetch his twin like he was some dog. The initial sting from the command had been wiped away as his father's face had begun to show the telltale signs of anger.

He knew what disappointment looked like on his father's face, and so he left before his brows could furrow any deeper.

The door is opened and Pierce nodded at Xavier, moving past their classmate and into the depths of the gloomy den. The air is thick with the smell of weed and alcohol and Pierce's annoyance only increases. The smell would imbed itself into his clothes and he knew his father would have something to say about it. Once again, Prince was responsible for another slice of his misery, Pierce punished for his brother's own choices.

Speaking of the idiot, he was lying on the couch, coughing up smoke as he looked up at his twin.

Pierce scowled at the remark, folding his arms across his chest. His back and shoulders were stiff as he glared at Prince. He wanted to hit him.

"Father's pissed. You're making him look like a fool, you know how he hates that." The threat is buried within the words, the promise of repercussions for his tardiness.

"Get up, we have to go."

[🌱 kaitlin.]

P R I N C E

Pierce goes right for the root of the thing.

Prince doesn't blame him, really, for the ways in which Priest has taken to pitting them against each other, doesn't blame his brother for the things that their father has done to him. He's aware enough to recognize when he's being manipulated, enough of an empath to know that their father has no empathy, only aspirations, and two children that he's willing to step on in order to have one of them realized.

It doesn't make it string less when Pierce looks down the bridge of his nose at him, clearly uncomfortable.

"How many doors did you knock on?" Prince asks, trying to maintain his dopey grin. He can't let it falter, can't let Xavier see him crumble—worse, can't let Pierce. He tries to imagine Pierce in his pretty lapels, browsing around the beat-up and neglected homes, trying to spot Prince's bright orange bike among the overgrown grass. He's almost surprised he came to the scholarship students neighborhood in the first place, but if Priest had asked, well. Then his brother hadn't had much of a choice, Prince knows.

He tries not to bristle when Pierce still calls him father.

"He didn't ask you to start calling him Priest then?" Prince bites out, eyebrows raised in some variety of amusement. Perfect son, Prince thinks. He still claims him. "I'm surprised he even noticed I wasn't there."

[cass]

P I E R C E

Prince does his usual performance of ignoring Pierce, brushing aside his comment by proposing another question in its place. He was good at that, twisting the conversation and shaping it by leading it in a direction he was comfortable with. It had taken Pierce one too many conversations to realise that his twin liked to move the topics away from anything that might be too difficult for him to answer.

Deflection was something they were both familiar with. Pierce wielded it with weapons and emotion-fuelled training sessions. Prince preferred drugs, alcohol and twisting conversations in the directions he liked. Their father probably enjoyed it, watching the way both of them squirmed at the mention of his name. He was a dagger in their chests, each of them holding the hilt and twisting it in deeper as they tried to one-up the other. It was hardly a competition though, Pierce had been demoted to second place permanently.

He wasn’t even sure if Prince dying would help.

“Too many,” he replied stiffly, arms tightening over his chest. The longer he remained here the more likely he’d be leaving smelling like a fucking brothel. And yet again, Prince would turn up in a clean suit, Pierce smelling like his bullshit.

Pierce felt himself go cold as Prince reminded him of the mistake he had just blatantly made. He’d forgotten that their father had asked him to call him Priest. The alarm spread across his face for a fraction of second before he quickly buried it behind his scowl once more. But then, as Prince remained seated, seemingly refusing to move, Pierce sighed, running a hand through his styled hair.

“I forgot,” he said softly, the admission taking a part of his soul with it.

[🌱 kaitlin.]

P R I N C E

It's not intentional, the deflection.

It's that Prince doesn't ever fucking know how to address anything for real. He's spent so many years at this point trying to work through everything by working through absolutely none of it, but running away from it and ignoring it and just doing absolutely everything in his power to ignore the things that have plagued him. Too many, Pierce replies, and it makes something awful flip over in Prince's stomach, something that he doesn't know how to put into words so instead he flicks his lighter again, relights the joint dangling between his fingers and takes a long toke. It hits him right in the back of the throat and his eyes start to water and but then Pierce goes I forgot and it's so soft and small that Prince wishes he had done anything else and—

It's too late.

It's always too fucking late.

Absently, he wonders if it will really always be like this, if he will ever be able to look at Pierce in his suit and think that he isn't someone worth anything in comparison; wonders if there will ever be a day where it's Pierce sitting next to him on the couch, joint in hand, both of them in their suits and pretending they don't have somewhere else they need to be.

He swallows, tips his head back against the back of the couch, and huffs lightly.

"Alright boys," he says, his chest feeling somehow both heavier and lighter somehow. "Did Priest make you bring a suit or do I gotta bike home first?" Giving in makes him want to choke, sends a mountain range of shivers down his spine, but he pushes to a stand anyway, grits his teeth and knows that getting Prince to fight with Pierce is half of their father's fun and he doesn't want to give him that. "It's chill if I gotta go home, just wonderin' what level of errand boy he made you today."

You don't mind for the words to come out unkind, but—too late.

All over again.

[cass]

P I E R C E

He can’t really remember a time when the two of you weren’t constantly pitted against each other. Priest had a way of manipulating his words to make them both believe that it was a competition. To impress him meant breaking his twin’s spirit, soul, and destroying any chance of friendship they might have had.

In the end, it definitely seemed more like Pierce had been left with the scattered remains of who he was supposed to be and who he was. His hands were full of pieces he couldn’t put together, a belief that he was supposed to be the one in charge. He had spent his entire life working towards it. His father continuously shoved him into the shadows in favour of- Pierce glanced around the smoke-filled room, the trash on the floor- this.

“Your suits here.”

Pierce turned, walking towards the door, shoulders already tightening. There’s a level of sting to the words that he pushed away as harshly as he could. His stance was stiff and uncomfortable as he stood by the door, feeling like an imposter constantly pretending to be someone else. Pierce knows exactly what kind of errand boy it makes him, having brought the suit along with him. It hurts more as he shoved the door open, pushing into the chill night of the evening.

“It’s right there,” he pointed to the motorbike parked in the driveway. “Just get changed and let’s go,” I’m tired of dealing with your bullshit. He almost said it, but stopped himself, teeth digging into his tongue as he refused to look at his brother.