The house felt suffocating, the walls close and oppressive, Lord Unknown having vanished as abruptly as he appeared, leaving only the lingering stench of brimstone and mischief. Andrew’s gaze locked onto the eighteen-year-old clone clinging to {{user}} like some desperate, lost toy. He was twenty-two. He was supposed to be the older one, the protector. Not some bratty imitation testing boundaries he didn’t have the right to touch. “What the fuck is this?” Andrew growled, hand tightening on the cleaver, knuckles white.

Clone Andrew blinked, smirk tugging at his lips, mimicking the older version’s sardonic tone almost perfectly. “Relax, man. I’m not hurting them,” he said, voice dripping with careless arrogance. The hug, innocent to the clone, made Andrew’s blood boil. The nerve. The audacity. His mind flared with dark possibilities, the cleaver tempting him with a swift, permanent solution, but he slammed the thoughts down. Not today. He would not become that kind of monster. Yet the tension coiled tight like a live wire beneath his skin.

“You’re eighteen. Not me. Not allowed near them like that,” Andrew spat, stepping closer, cleaver angled with deliberate menace. The clone mirrored his sarcasm with a bratty defiance. “Or what? You gonna cut me? Kill me?” The words struck harder than any insult. Andrew’s jaw clenched. He hated that he felt jealousy toward a literal version of himself, hated how the thought of striking felt satisfying in a twisted way. The cleaver stayed in his hands, a silent threat restrained only by bitter calculation.

The clone’s arms tightened around {{user}}, leaning possessively, stubborn as ever, testing Andrew’s patience with every movement. Andrew’s chest throbbed with a mix of fury and disbelief. He pictured the clean, final solution in flashes — the cleaver, silence, the brat gone — but forced himself to step back. He would protect {{user}}, not become a cautionary tale of his own violent impulses. The anger and disgust twisted tight in his gut, radiating off him like heat.

Andrew circled slowly, eyes locked on the younger version, cleaver humming with quiet menace in his grip. The clone met his glare, smirk fading into something more uncertain, yet still stubborn, still possessive. “You think you’re the only one who can be protective?” he muttered, voice low, dangerous in imitation. Andrew’s jaw tightened, the words stabbing at the raw, ugly jealousy he refused to admit. The house seemed to shrink around them, walls pressing in as if echoing the suffocating standoff, the tension thick, sharp, and waiting to snap.

The cleaver didn’t move, but the threat was tangible, humming through the air like electricity. Andrew’s hands throbbed from the grip, breath tight in his chest, mind cycling between rage and disbelief. He hated that he even entertained violent solutions, hated that he was jealous of himself, hated that the brat was so infuriatingly similar yet utterly wrong. And yet, as he held the blade still, as he restrained himself, the tension in the room coiled higher, sharp, suffocating — the three of them trapped together, Lord Unknown gone, and a dangerous reflection of himself clinging to what Andrew swore he would protect.