N didn't often visit the fallen castle.
While it had become a sort of habitual battling area for him and Rosa, the air of broken dreams about the place was often heady enough to keep him away.
Which was why N was able to curse his luck tenfold as he recognised the kneeling figure in the centre of the throne room.
Ghetsis.
An instinctual fear of the madman briefly gripped him, but N was better than that. He may have been somewhat naive(even to this day), but he was no coward.
"What are you doing here?" N asked levelly, not quite expecting Ghetsis to laugh, nor for the sound of it to chill him to his core.
"Are you really asking me why I'm in my own castle?" Ghetsis replied softly, eerily so. N tentatively stepped closer, a little more confident that his 'father' was...lucid.
"It's not your-"
"Shut up," Ghetsis interjected, and N obeyed without even thinking. He hadn't been Ghetsis' king for some time now(if ever, in reality), and as such he daren't risk inciting another verbal onslaught.
"If you must know," Ghetsis said, getting to his feet a lot more laboriously than he used to, "I was exploring the ruins of my childhood ambitions."
"I-I see..." N murmured - of all the things he'd been expectung, this manner of calm, poison-flecked honesty was not among them.
"I'm sure you do," Ghetsis muttered, straightening his black, patterned robes out of habit before turning to face N at last, disgust only briefly dominating his features as crimson eyes met blue. He smiled, as if to compensate. "I could ask you the same question, incidentally."
"What?" N asked, uncertain as to what Ghetsis was referring to, and unwilling to misspeak(as if Ghetsis could hate him any more).
"What possessed you to set foot in this place? How dare you come here, in fact, after being directly responsible for its downfall."
"Maybe it's because I was raised here, after someone stole me away from my home," N retorted, narrowing his eyes at his adoptive father.
"Oh, and how you've suffered since…" Ghetsis purred, stepping uncomfortably close to his 'son' – an old routine from his first takeover attempt, but still effective.
"It hasn't all been bad, Father. Since your first plan failed spectacularly, I've learned how real humans treat each other," N dared to say, too agitated by this wicked man to think better of it.
It only led to more surprise for the young man anyway, as Ghetsis just chuckled to himself in response, brilliant red eyes failing to reflect his mirth. N was starkly reminded how angering the utter dissonance in Ghetsis' every reaction could be, and more venomous words were on the tip of his tongue when Ghetsis stepped in even closer, the click of boot heels and cane on the stone tiles echoing through the desolate room, a gloved hand tilting up his chin ever so gently.
Ghetsis leaned in slowly - much to N's horror - with a crass mockery of fondness for his adopted child in his eyes.
"If you died tomorrow, I wouldn't so much as blink," Ghetsis whispered, punctuating the statement with a soft kiss to N's cheek and remorseless smile.
He didn't bother waiting for N to come up with a retort – that look in his eyes(the look that Ghetsis so adored seeing in anyone) said enough.
Ghetsis left without another word, and the air of broken dreams grew pleasingly thicker.