#armands fear is SO palpable

[armandposting]

need a fic post qotd but pre devils minion breakup where poor armand just gets to take a nap after all the Akasha shit and maybe get held a little

[xasha777]

In the year 3024, the galaxy was a vast expanse of interstellar kingdoms and ancient dynasties, ruled by powerful warlords and enigmatic emperors. Among them was Charles IV of France, a figure whose legacy had transcended time and space. Once a king of a small terrestrial nation, he had now become the ruler of an intergalactic empire, feared and respected across the cosmos.

Charles IV, known for his strategic brilliance and unparalleled combat skills, stood in the grand hall of his flagship, the Fleur de Lys. His blonde hair flowed beneath his obsidian-black armor, each piece intricately designed and bearing the scars of countless battles. In his gloved hand, he wielded the legendary Crimson Blade, a weapon forged from the heart of a dying star, glowing with an intense, fiery red light.

The galaxy was at war. The Alliance of Free Planets, a coalition of rebel factions, sought to overthrow the ancient dynasties and establish a new order. Charles, with his vast fleet and loyal armies, had been the bulwark against their advances, maintaining the balance of power and protecting the legacy of the old empire.

As he gazed at the holographic map displaying the current state of the galaxy, his piercing blue eyes narrowed. Reports indicated that the Alliance had discovered a relic of immense power, hidden on a distant, uncharted planet. This relic, known as the Chronos Crystal, was said to have the ability to manipulate time itself—a weapon that could turn the tide of war.

"Commander Armand," Charles called, his voice resonating with authority.

A tall, armored figure stepped forward, bowing his head. "Yes, Sire?"

"Prepare the fleet. We depart for the coordinates immediately. The Chronos Crystal must not fall into the hands of the Alliance."

"As you command, Sire," Armand replied, turning to relay the orders.

The Fleur de Lys surged forward through the fabric of space, accompanied by a fleet of formidable warships. They traversed wormholes and navigated asteroid fields, driven by the urgency of their mission. Charles stood at the helm, his mind focused on the task ahead. He knew the journey would be perilous, but failure was not an option.

Upon reaching the remote planet, the fleet encountered heavy resistance. The Alliance had anticipated their arrival and fortified their positions. The ensuing battle was fierce, with laser cannons and energy shields lighting up the dark void of space. Charles led the charge, his Crimson Blade slicing through enemy defenses with precision and power.

On the planet's surface, the final confrontation took place in the ruins of an ancient temple. The Alliance's leader, a cunning strategist named Elara, awaited him. She was a formidable opponent, her dark robes contrasting with her sharp, calculating eyes.

"So, the great Charles IV comes to claim the Chronos Crystal," Elara taunted, her voice echoing through the temple.

Charles stepped forward, his blade casting a crimson glow on the ancient stone walls. "Surrender the crystal, Elara. You cannot hope to control its power."

Elara smirked, drawing her own weapon—a sleek, silver blade humming with energy. "We'll see about that."

The duel was a dance of deadly precision, their blades clashing with sparks of energy. Each strike was met with a counter, each movement calculated and deliberate. Charles's strength and skill were unmatched, but Elara's agility and cunning kept her in the fight.

As the battle reached its climax, Charles disarmed Elara, his Crimson Blade poised at her throat. "It's over," he declared.

Elara's eyes burned with defiance. "You may have won this battle, Charles, but the war is far from over."

With a swift motion, Charles incapacitated her and retrieved the Chronos Crystal. The power contained within the artifact was palpable, a shimmering blue energy that seemed to pulse with the heartbeat of the universe.

Returning to his flagship, Charles knew that the crystal's power could change the course of history. He would use it wisely, to protect his empire and ensure the survival of his people. But he also understood the weight of such power and the responsibility it carried.

As the fleet set course for home, Charles IV of France stood at the helm, his gaze fixed on the stars. The legacy of his ancestors was secure, and with the Chronos Crystal, the future was his to shape. The galaxy would remember the name Charles IV, not just as a king, but as a guardian of time and a symbol of enduring strength.

[vampyrebond]

( @ichorlet )

𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐫𝐚𝐠 𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐥. his limbs feel heavy & floppy, his chest somehow hollow and filled with a cotton-esque substance at the same time. there would be no peace, but the tidings of war quell some as he's taken into louis' loving arms. armand stares at the tv wall behind him, watching daniel. all he seems to do is keep watch, vigilant & stricken with a faint fear that their end was coming.

“ 𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬 - ” long, pale fingers grasp at him, tangling into the fabric at louis' ribs. his panic rises up again, like a cold, cruel bite and for a moment armand almost pulls away from the kiss. in his heart the matter is no closer to being settled than it is to starting, yet the fright gripped him and he tries to eat it, swallow it back down, but it's fighting it's way up his throat something terrible.

he breaks the kiss, panting, bottom lip quivering. armand rests his temple to the man's chest. in an attempt to have louis hold him tighter, armand grips him harder around the middle, shrinking into his neck.

“ 𝐈'𝐌 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐃. ” i've done reprehensible things.

“ he hates me. you should be prepared for that. ”

the tension is palpable, despite the inevitability of the actions they have delayed for so long. louis never saw this ending a different way. the love story created here was meant to last as long as they could. . . and they could only last as long as the world might allow them ( which isn't long enough ).

louis wonders for a moment if these same things happened to lovers stuck in the fall of the roman empire. as the bricks came crumbling down, walls smashing both physically and metaphorically, did lovers embrace and admit the truths they kept hidden in plain sight? armand says he's frightened and that is a truth he'd say to no one else. which may be the reason louis can look down at him as he kisses the top of his head and hold him that much tighter.

" and i love you. " that word used to be so hard for him to formulate. it got stuck in his throat for decades with lestat, never forming on his lips the way it should have. and even with armand, it took him time to understand that this too could be love. their love doesn't come from their souls, but it comes from their understanding that each moment together is more important than the next. it's simple in it's complexity. it's sad to see it end.

" i always will. "

[nosferatu-pvssy]

The more I watch the trailers, the more I'm angry about Daniel treating Louis as a particularly dumb moron who is making him loose time, a little kid who is wasting the time of the adult. Is that an attempt to make him look special? Daniel's original personality and appearance wasn't enough to make him interesting?

Oh, but I get what they're doing. This is the very typical trope of lazy writing in tv series (typically with very low budget): in a tv series where there is only one human surrounded by monsters, to make them look special and worthy of the attention of these immortal entities they make them so intellectually superior that they simply were born with the ability of handling monsters, too brave to tremble and be cautious as they should. These humans like Amc Daniel live in the "I'm not like other girls" syndrome, but in the human version. I'm not like other humans!! Who are pathetic and get scared!! Because they're dumb and plain!! While look how smart I am, a genius. I treat monsters out of this world as dumb fucks who have to keep up with me because I'm superior to them too. I, a random human who nobody will remember, am outsmarting creatures who biologically had a genetic mutation in their brains that makes them 10 times faster and therefore more efficient than mine. Creatures who have a knowledge of the world 1000 times wider than yours.

Oh, sure. All very realistic. I'm totally believing that Amc Daniel (just like all his other copies in horror movies) had such incredible experiences in their lives that now meeting a vampire is absolutely no threat. Someone to treat as if they're a nuisance. And it's absolutely not ridiculous and not pathetic the fact that Louis, a deadly monster, would make himself be treated like that while that man (who compared to him is just a child) plays the part of the Smart One in The Room.

I repeat: Daniel's original characterization wasn't enough, huh? The reverence he had in front of Louis during the interview. Not only for the true and genuine fear such a monster provokes in you, because believe me that can't be ignored by no human, but for the sheer respect a weaker creature has for an immensely stronger one. Daniel psychologically bowed down in front of Louis, Armand, Lestat, all of his new idols. Because that's what they were to him. He thought: I am weak. They are strong. They have knowledge, they teach me. They are above me. Not the contrary, with Daniel speaking to (and maybe even over) a goddamn vampire with that condescending tone, a sassy man who is even playing the part of the one doubting the words of someone who you know very well, since you've already interviewed him in the past. A fucking creature from hell that not only TOOK HIS TIME contacting YOU to have that interview a SECOND time. And you act like a fucking Ceo of some company with some particularly dumb employee that is making him loose time???

Daniel was a awesome character for his BRILLIANCE. For how REAL his reaction felt. Because if you want to have human characters that leave a sign in the audience, you have to make them as real as possible. Because that's what's hard. To put aside our pride and represent us in all of our frailty, our flaws. AND NOT CREATING A FAKE MASK OF ASININE SASSINESS TO FEEL REPRESENTED BY A ✨NOT-LIKE-THE-OTHERS✨GUY WHO BELITTLES THE INTELLIGENCE OF FUCKING VAMPIRES.

The value of Daniel, the real courage that man had, was that he managed to go on with the interview even though his hands were shaking so much in fear that Louis at some point had to help him to change the tape. He smoked a mountain of cigarettes. He was feeling on his SKIN how palpable the monstrosity of Louis was. And in the end, just like the human he is, inevitably fell in their spell. He was special for his courage in a moment of pure terror, for how he's clearly a natural at his job as a journalist since it powered his sense of curiosity. But he stayed a human for the whole time, even in his "scared bravery" and then inevitably fell under their spell. Like all humans would do. All. Even the Talamascans are. Even them, who had extraordinary lives that lead them to interact with ghosts, witches and vampires on the daily are very scared when it comes to meet them and take all the precautions they can before meeting vampire face to face. EVEN THEM. But no, amc Daniel who is mister no one, plays the sassy bitch smarter of the class part. EXCUUUUUSE US IF WE'RE DISTURBING YOU. But weren't you the one who fucked up the first interview because you were so high and drunk that you ruined your first chance to talk to a real paranormal creature?? At this point YOU were the one making Louis lose time back then, uh? And maybe even now, all things considered. Why is Louis so determined in contacting this bufoon??? Louis where is your self-respect...

And then they say that they called a team OF EXPERTS to write their interactions the best they can. Oh, I see the results already. They did such a good job, these experts.

[empressxmachina]

“The Line” |  See more from this storyline/universe - Ergo Retrograde - in its gallery here! and the related tags below.

(Stock for photo and greater context under the cut.)

***

“Well, ain’t this just fantastic!? I thought this kind of trash would’ve stopped with Candela choking everyone out, but here you are again, suffocating me like at every damn summit.”

“You’re coming at me!? You’re the scared puppy here! It’s not my fault you won’t listen to reason… or simple criticism!”

“A pot calling the kettle black, huh? Get over yourself, princess.”

To be so opposing in everything, they combated like they had been married for years. For ones so small, they were so very loud.

One couldn’t be more out of their element than being light-years away from home. That and being confined to the Conscience and with its lodgers, the ship itself only having a house’s worth of surrounding walking space, had knocked DeShawn off his rocker. In size, the house in question did fight Euphoria, the station from which the tiny team’s once-unsuspecting trip departed. However, it was nevertheless an unbounded labyrinth of mostly sunless walls. He may not have been the sole, small soul with the opinion, either, but he was the only one to vocalize or, for all he knew from his low angle, show it, exploding from cabin fever up to the heavens one morning after the first meal, unapologetically unafraid to nip at the enormous, ecru hands that just fed them.

Beige body parts controlled by a being so unfathomably large and figuratively otherworldly if the latter wasn’t already the literal case.

Nonchalantly wiping a just-used mug clean in his hand, Kolvyr’s celestial head gazed down at the less-than-cup-sized collective on the dining room table in silence, scanning over the samplings of surprise from the tinies with titles, fear from the civvies, pointed antagonism from a particular captain-companion combo, and the daring, diminutive glare up to him from DeShawn. The little lieutenant and the large lord of the house locked eyes for what felt like days – the tension building enough to make Kiyoko herself need a doctor. Like everything in the end, however, it didn’t last, but it wasn’t easy to say who, if anyone, faltered first.

Every infinitesimal astronaut caught their heart in their throats when Kolvyr glanced to his side for a moment and then suddenly walked away from his audience, footsteps reverberating past corners, down halls, and upstairs with the clink of a now-clean mug set atop a counter in the midst of them.

In the giant’s absence, a tsunami of quietness rushed over the group – dense stress too thick for a laser. Armand, the subdued beacon of wisdom, was the one to break through after a pregnant pause, divulging everyone’s variant yet aligned thoughts with a cheeky “I’m sure there was a better way to go about that.” Its simple veracity did squeak chuckles out of some, but the fatherly tone came at a price: being just like that of the mountain DeShawn just lashed out at. Another glare from the unjaded gentleman was gifted to the giggling gaggle, clamping their lips closed in an instant, except for a gasp from Gale, who was first to notice Kolvyr’s return to the table in a proper day outfit rather than the cotton separates in which he awakened.

Having smartly kept to himself the observation of how the dried streaks and stains in Kolvyr’s cup were uncomfortably close to DeShawn in more ways than one, the horror on Gale’s face was palpable when the casual Colossus raised a Laputan island of a palm up to the table top’s edge. Again, more looks of panic popped across the populace before anyone acknowledged the awkwardness, and again it was Kolvyr to make the first move.

“Did you change your mind?” he queried with softness, light in volume but heavy in heart. His eyes pointed toward DeShawn, showing nothing but patient beckoning, yet the question’s inflections, along with the vista his satellite pupils spanned, framed it for the entire group.

The offer was grand, and against how it looked, its journey was sure to be safe. But the ride was not everyone’s to take, at least not yet, even with little Lemon shaking and wagging in hopes to run to her wit’s content, pushing her handler to hold her back. With cute choruses of ‘No’ or ‘Maybe later’ floating up to Kolvyr, each returned with an understanding grin and nod, the hover-boarding-by-hand initiated and finished as a ride for one.

The fearless, puny passenger took his seat atop one of the palm’s lines, and away he and his breathing magic carpet went, swiftly gliding across the open area of the dining room with rhythmic, slightly muffled drums beating from below and behind. The border wall of blinds blocking the destination was reached in seconds, but the passage had hesitancy. At the unexpected pause and its paired pulse progression, DeShawn looked up at his wielder and found him looking behind them both. The angle of mostly under-chin and nostrils left much to be desired, but it only lasted for a moment. The fabric slats were separated, the glass barrier they hid broke its seal, and a grass jungle soon entered the fray.

***

Life finally allowed a breakaway from an involuntary shipwreck to simply be a tourist. Increased endurance made the distance ran and still running no worse than anything dealt with on a tour of duty. Observing overgrown flora in unobstructed suns’ light, overstimulated by liberation, overseen by a distant, lazy leviathan midway through a magazine on a lawn chair, DeShawn revitalized his system and reveled in his lack of regrets.

He did… until they came to him as if the Conscience crashed again in the form of his most adversarial ally approaching out of nowhere.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

DeShawn’s state of calm was immediately broken at the sound and then the sight of a shrilling silhouette in a floral headscarf. Charging through stalks of weeds at him like a bullet train, an emotionally exhausted Rana let him have it,

“For you to be so strung on getting back to your wife and son, do you actually have a death wish, Oldham!?”

“You may be a superior to some, Commander Naaji, but not me,” the junior of the pair cattily reminded her, looking past the subconscious wonder of how she got outside by recalling their unaffiliated factions. He had paused his run while doing so to wipe his blinded eyes of sweat, and he figured the factual statement was an end-all-be-all, resuming his outing in peaceful solitude. But, to his dismay, fate had another idea, and Rana followed, matching DeShawn’s pace with ease.

“I have my rank for a reason,” Rana proudly detailed through metered huffs. “I also… don’t have much to lose, but I’m not letting an innocent child lose his father if I can help it!”

“Such a drama queen; some things never change.” As much as he wanted and tried to sidewind her off his tail with jukes and dekes, DeShawn wasn’t going to leave an argument without winning, let alone give her a chance of doing so with eye contact. “Am I that much of a short-sighted bastard to you that you think I don’t know what I’m doing!?”

If each sharp verbal diss and jab they pulled toward one another was a scrupulous landscaper’s tweezer pluck, Kolvyr would’ve been kicked out of the neighborhood for developing such a barren yard. Left-and-right, up-and-down, the minute militants were moles or at least mites scrounging through the grass blades and each other’s psyches, perhaps only willing to make the verdant strips into slides or surfboards in a happier reincarnation of themselves. But, despite their smallness, their sounds carried.

Rustling, pitter-patters, and the occasional gasps, whether from DeShawn at the onset or enhanced by Rana’s delayed yet expected entrance, Kolvyr caught every exertion… and eventually every exclamation and expletive.

And then he didn’t.

There was only the fluttering aerial fauna and the flora in the breeze until a sudden ringing of his communicator at his hip joined the party, and the bang of the sliding door crashing open came right after. At a glance, neither had a directly visible source, but he could assume both their causes without having to look at his plot and check.

There’d be no point and no time to lose as they wouldn’t be there at all.

***

“Well, ain’t this just fantastic!?”

The onslaught of sass just wouldn’t stop, and it didn’t look like it was going to anytime soon. For every step and outburst Deshawn respectively took away from and through against Rana, she was right on his tail, volleying them like a gold medalist. Replacing his exhausted bits of patience, all he could see was red, and his throat and face shared the same hue.

“I thought this kind of trash would’ve stopped with Candela choking everyone out,” he asserted, “but here you are again, suffocating me like at every damn summit.”

“You’re coming at me!?” Rana fired back, having to readjust her headscarf and tighten her bag’s straps with every other sudden turn or so. “You’re the scared puppy here! It’s not my fault you won’t listen to reason… or simple criticism!”

DeShawn never claimed to be perfect, or so he said, but he quickly pointed out others’ flaws.

“A pot calling the kettle black, huh? Get over yourself, princess.”

To be so opposing in everything, they combated like they had been married for years. For ones so small, they were so very loud. So loud with so much tunnel vision, the only thing one of them saw or heard was the other. If one didn’t know any better, they’d think the pair were destined to fall in love, but there was nothing except a blend of acute hatred and chronic disappointment that only a parent could have to spew from their lips.

“Do you see!?” Rana pleaded through a nearly breaking voice. “This kind of nonsense is why you’re never getting promoted!” At long last, it was this emphasis on his subservience that finally stopped DeShawn in his tracks and made them face each other once again.

Rana jumped at his sudden pivot, not believing that those words, of all she had said, would’ve moved him to dominant submission. Seeing the heaviness behind his eyes, though, she braced herself for a tussle. Reflecting on her defense, DeShawn did the same. The two fighters were readied for battle as their friction had kept them mere seconds from killing each other at all times.

But then roared a referee, silencing them and calling the whole spar off as, “Shit like this… will get… you both… killed!”  

The verdant stalks on one side crunched and split, and a predator emerged from them, ready and waiting to pounce. The pairs of puny pupils widened at a familiar face, but it was only when the overhead light suddenly went out that hardened what it meant to see it.

The three souls’ focuses moved to the obstruction and found no cloud.

The slits in the yard’s fences were more than enough space to fit a shrunken soldier and then another, both too distracted by drama to see where they were going and that they had gone anywhere, to begin with. The area right outside of those protective planks may have been solely comfortably dull, vacant residential space to not overshadow Rana and DeShawn’s shouts at each other, but privacy was lost with the cross-country race’s worth of distance. The pair became a plentiful of persons as the duo crashed the celebration of one of the most communal days Ia-Dunn had to offer, and a hard-working custodian was simply doing their job, cleaning up the litter compiling from a sanctioned bike race.

Plucking a bottle top bigger than them with an extended grabber on one side and accidentally crushing a drink can rivaling the Conscience, it was only a matter of time before the giant janitor turned their head to dispose of or detain the diminutive, overly detailed dolls some child likely dropped in excitement… if they weren’t made into stains on their overarching treads without notice first.

The bitty beeline from general suburbia into the park was drawn just at the wrong time to inadvertently intercept the massive means of maintenance in action, though who was to say that an animal proper wouldn’t have gotten them if all the enormous audience and athletes competing weren’t around? Nonetheless, the pocket-sized lieutenant and commander were lined up to be overcome by something there or exhaustive attempts of finding their way back to one gargantuan house of many of which they had never seen the exterior.

They were, but they were instead only swept off the ground like rowdy children back through the barrier of woods they penetrated, having to have the unobstructed view of that colossal cleaner’s subsequent, unwarranted asphyxiation and then flop to catalepsy onto the grass brand itself into their brains as common conurbation greeted them on the other side.

Before either loudmouth could comment on their renewed safety or, heaven forbid, chomp at each other again, their savior abruptly dropped them at the roots of mountainous, manicured bushes edging concrete and confront them on the bigger picture. “How dare you… make me… disable an innocent!?”

When the pain and blinding stars settled from the impact enough to revitalize voices and, of everything, realized guilt, a duet of endless apologies provided Candela a corrupted serenade. Yet, all their compassioned chords rising up from below her shadow sight-read as odiferous odes on the music staff that was her mind, and she didn’t hesitate in switching the key, time, and tempo to recenter composure for everyone’s sake but mostly her own.

“You’d have a better chance of regrowing my right arm from that fucking fruit salad we had this morning than getting an apology through to me!” she hissed through her teeth and pulsating veins on her face, the latter a blend of present anger and recovery from her impromptu, extrapolated spell of paralysis. “You can try one on him, though.” The captain nudged toward a familiar titan down the sidewalk inconspicuously peeking through the trees at the race’s timeout as volunteer medics went to care for the newly collapsed next to a checkpoint, then quickly regained the two twats' attentions by adding, “if he doesn’t make an embrocation out of you first for this fucking headache we have!”

A glow in the fuchsia-locked femme's eyes came as fast as it went, and the trio of tiny souls - one in annoyed patience and two in disgraced depression - braced as slow and softened, patterned tremors approached their leafy shelter, ending there with a sigh from the sky and a simple, eclipsing kneel down to tie his yachts for shoes. Time was of the essence as not all in the vicinity were cretins, and Candela wasted none getting her fellow passengers in her arms again and them all, with another swoop, tucked into one of Kolvyr's cavernous pockets where a patient pointer with paws was waiting as he finished his knot, stood, and started his way back home.

***

They were adults – living dolls, sure, but alive and mature – adults with lives they left behind… and were taken from… somewhat literally by a briefcase that one day. They could’ve taken care of themselves enough to survive an overgrown lawn if they survived a crash landing. So it had only seemed fair to give them some freedom they no longer had.

It had.

Welcome to the Tour de Ia-Duun... or Something Like That ~Autodesk Sketchbook ~DeShawn ~Rana ~[race] Phil Roeder from Des Moines, IA, USA, Worm's Eye View (36993234410), modified, CC BY 2.0 ~treads ~foreground grass ~[grabber] Eddau, Grabber reacher IMG 0499, modified, CC0 1.0 ~can ~[bottle cap] Mikael Häggström, Sports cap (bottle) - open, modified, CC0 1.0 Photo circa January 2021; excerpt circa September 2021. Yes, seriously.

I told y'all I'm still writing. Things just happen in a weird order, okay? I'm always proofreading.

[monstersinthecosmos]

All VC of course.... characters/pairing... well that's up to you ;) 142, 95 and 65

(Prompts from this list! Feel free to send me some!)

OH BOY, RAPH. LOOK WHAT YOU WENT AND DID. 

142: “It’s just your imagination.”

Shaky fingers are clawing at the pale arms, and the whole body is curling in on itself, and there’s sweat and blood, and Armand feels something heavy sinking inside when he realizes it’s familiar.

Blonde hair this time, and the palpable, overpowering smell of human fear filling the room. He takes a step back, away, watching the way the shoulders hunch, the way the vertebrae bulge out like spikes.

“They’re in my skin, Armand,” he’s crying, and scratching, and his pathetic human nails are only raising the most fragile little white lines. Barely breaking the skin.

His throat feels dry and he takes another step back. “It���s just your imagination,” he mumbles.

And he’s cold suddenly, even in the Florida heat. In the air so humid and heavy that it enfolds you. He feels the chill and remembers the way the drafts used to cut through the tower, and how it would hover around stones as if they were ice.

His hands had still been bloody, and his forehead pressed to the heavy wood door. Whimpering beyond it, and the pitiable wet thump as he’d attempted to pound at it without the use of fists.  

“Armand,” gasping and screaming. “Please, please, they’re crawling all over me.”

Eleni’s hand, gentle and loving on his back as he froze there.

It’s just your imagination.

The sun would be up. He’d backed away from the heavy tower door, barred and sealed like a tomb. Left him there where he’d be safe from the dawn.

But this.

Daniel’s chest heaving, bones contorted into rigid, unnatural lines. And Armand had to go now.

“They’re everywhere Armand.”

Yes, everywhere. These broken things.

95: “Give it back!” 

“Give it back!” Daniel sways on his feet and his voice is tangled in his throat, slurring as he makes the demand. Armand is strung between cold worry and the creeping red heat of his impatience turning to anger.

“I didn’t take anything, Daniel,” he holds his hands up in a condescending gesture for calm.

“You took it, I know you took it.” He’s trying to glare but his eyes are filling with tears.

“What, Daniel? What did you lose?”

He pulls his shirt open so that the top buttons pop and clatter on the floor, and Armand sees. He’s rubbed his chest raw, blotches of angry pink skin over the stark lines of his bones.

“The amulet, Armand,” trying to sound angry but it ends in a sob. “Give it to me. You can’t have it back.”

65: “Did you do something different with your hair?”

Daniel is always a little envious when Armand shows up with his hair short. It’s fascinating and magical and intoxicating like everything else about him, but it seems like such a practical trick. Sometimes Armand doesn’t cut it until they’re together, and Daniel will watch from the doorway of the bathroom as the auburn curls float down into the sink. Sometimes Armand lets him do the styling. He was especially excited when Daniel showed him electric clippers, and eagerly allowed Daniel to buzz his hair down to the scalp. They both ran their hands over it and Daniel felt it aching in his chest. His wouldn’t grow back in a day. He couldn’t afford to be so wild.

But he dreams about it. He lies awake as the sun comes up and imagines what it would be like when he’d finally be turned. He pictures the way Armand will smile and comment and praise the changes every night when he sees the handiwork.  “Did you do something different with your hair?” he’ll ask.  “Do that to mine, Daniel. It’s good on you. We should do this every night.”

He reaches up and touches his own hair, and there’s the dull pain as he watches the morning light glow from behind the curtains. Somewhere in the city, Armand is concealed in the dark and his hair is growing back and he’ll be the same vital teenager that he’s always been, and Daniel will just… continue.

As he curls on his side he looks at his hand, next to his face on the pillow. The way the sunlight filters through makes his skin seem unhealthy and yellow.

He should savor this, he should. He still wants to hold onto the hope that Armand will turn him one day, that they can be together. He should cherish daylight while he still can.

But it burns already.