#i tried to fucking kill myself

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.4

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.8] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

Danny was sitting in the back, his backpack obnoxiously taking up the seat next to him, when the door to the lecture hall creaked open near silently.

“What are you in here for?” Danny asked the guy who crept into class. He sympathetically took his backpack off the Seat of Shame and allowed the guy to sit down. Funnily enough, they had the same hair and eye color.

“Gen Ed. Undecided. You?” The guy grunted quietly back.

“Environmental studies. I’m Danny.”

“Tim.”

With the implicit understanding of two people in a required class they could not give less than two fucks about, Tim and Danny tuned back into the lecture. When the class was assigned group work, Danny looked over to see Tim softly snoring, head slammed down on the table.

“Tim. Wake up, dude.” Danny poked his shoulder.

“Huh? Class over?”

“Nah, we got group work. Discussion board.”

“Oh shit, thanks for waking me up. Wanna team up?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. We should aim to post it in the middle so the professor doesn’t read our answers to the class.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Any idea what we’re talking about?”

“Kind of?”

“Good enough for me.”

——

Tim Drake kept seeing Danny Fenton around on campus.

“Danny! Dude, what are you doing?”

Danny turned, gloved hands full of crumpled trash. “Picking up after the student population, apparently.”

“Didn’t think environmental studies was that serious.”

“Global warming is very serious, you jerk,” Danny smirked at him, crossing the grass to put the trash into the trash can. “Reduce, reuse, oil shouldn’t be spilled in water and all that.”

“Basic stuff,” Tim grinned. Nice, he basically had a friend past Bernard now!

They were friends, right?

“And yet humanity fails to comprehend it. Incredible. Incredibly stupid that is.”

“They get it. Major corporations just don’t care.”

Danny sighed. “True that. You on your way to your next class?” He took off his biodegradable gloves off (nitrile and nylon, baby!) and chucked them into the trash.

“I’ve got free time, actually. Prof cancelled for his daughter’s surgery.”

“Oh, shit, that’s rough! You wanna go downtown and join the strike?”

“A strike? What for?” Even as he asked, Tim hiked his bag higher onto his shoulder, ready to go. They fell into step as the two left campus.

“Apparently, Quillan Pharma was doing some shady shit at their manufacturing plants. I think it’s like killing kids, and pouring toxins into the ground.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. Oh! Poison Ivy’s gonna be there!”

Tim blinked. He casted a sideways look at Danny. Sure he’s been here long enough to know… but it couldn’t hurt to check. “You know she’s an eco-terrorist, right?”

“Okay, but like… people suck sometimes. And all she’s asking for is like don’t kill the planet. And she doesn’t do that whole mind control thing too much anymore! The Sirens are so cool. Plus, one of my best friends at home might actually kill me if I don’t try to get her autograph. Poison Ivy is like, Sam’s personal hero.”

Tim snickered. “Yeah, okay. Mind if one of my friends join? His name’s Bernard.”

“The more the merrier,” Danny nodded. “Ooo! Hot chocolate. Want some?”

Danny bought three drinks as Tim trailed behind, texting Bernard.

“He said yes.”

“Cool! We should meet up somewhere before the drinks get cold.”

Well, Danny got the autograph. Tim got a new friend, and Bernard got a drink from his crush.

——

“Oh, you’re the glowing dude that Batman always talks about!”

Danny blinked, eyes scanning the wing-like cape and the yellow emblem on the hero’s suit. Danny was indeed glowing, stars and nebulas freckling across neon green skin, and glowing hair the color of a white dwarf star, tinged with the blue from his ice core.

“I… have absolutely no idea who you are,” Danny lied, like a liar. He’s found a surprising niche of entertainment in messing with the local vigilantes and he’ll be damned if he missed this opportunity.

He heard a snicker from the comm lines as Red Robin visibly brushes it off.

“I’m Red Robin. Why are you picking up trash?”

“Picking up after you humans, apparently.”

The both of them blink, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu. A moment of awkward silence passed before they both shook it off.

“Are you here to help? No offense, but the track record for you people is terrible.” Danny strode over and grabbed a bag. He opened it, and shook it at Red Robin’s face. “See? Batarangs, these odd bird looking ones, the R’s. Seriously, pick up after yourselves!”

“Oh, woah, can we have these back?”

Danny yanked the bag back before Red Robin could get close. “Pay me. These were incredibly tedious to pick up. Especially the batarangs. I mean, I even found a whole bunch of old rusted ones in the middle of the bay. What did you do, dump an entire bag in there from the air?”

Red Robin sighed and took out a wad of cash, with tracking fluid all over it. Danny grimaced, smelling the odd scent on the money. “That’s not real cash. It smells off. Are you trying to give me counterfeits because you’re broke?”

Red Robin gaped, oddly offended. “No! They’re real!”

“Doesn’t smell like it. It’s stinkier than the trash. Go get the one with the money, the litterer. Tell him I’ll be back the next full moon. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Danny grumbled, disappearing on the spot to watch Red Robin flounder with the stack of cash and the piles of dead bodies on the shore.

“What the fuck even is my life these days?” Red Robin wondered out loud, stuffing the cash back into his pocket. He looked over the plastic wrapped bodies and slumped, sighing.

Oddly enough, Danny felt a sense of sympathy. Well, he’s not getting paid for sympathy. He’s not getting paid at all tonight, actually. Danny flew off, plunging once more into the depths of the significantly cleaner waters, and used his ice to scoop out oil stains.

Danny glanced around and sighed. He had a lot of work to do.

——

“So you’re saying he’s like a werewolf mermaid fae child immortal god thing, right?”

Bruce grunted.

“B, what the hell are you smoking these days? You know drugs are bad, right? Do we need Superman to give you that PSA?” Jason snickered.

Tim, massaging his arms from having to haul an ungodly amount of dead bodies, grunted. He’s so similar to Bruce that it gave the people currently in the cave hives.

“He said full moon. I don’t think we can track him with regular stuff. The bugs kept shorting out.”

“Oh boy,” Dick sighed. “Don’t fall off the spiral cliff, Tim. You’ve got midterms to think about so no stalking the guy.”

“Yet,” Tim shot back, changing out of his suit.

Bruce grunted, setting aside a huge stack of cash.

[pictureday2005]

DONT REPOST THIS thanks

[fffanii]

09.23.24

this is so dumb

[neodiekido]

it's a little funny to me ouma revealed maki's real talent in front of everyone and then deliberately continued to antagonize her throughout the game, finally claiming to be the mastermind and taking the one person maki would definitely kill to protect hostage and then when she tried to kill him he was like "owww what the fuck is your problem dude"

[s0fter-sin]

thinking about the way ghost doesn't hesitate to start killing shadows when graves betrays them but soap only takes one hostage

you can almost hear the voice in his head telling him it doesn't have to be this way; they can still talk it out

"i'm calling shepherd"

his first instinct when confronted with betrayal is to play it by the books; to go up the chain and sort it out democratically. that goes against everything we've seen him do; he’s quick to drop his enemies and bucks authority at every chance except for the one time he's confronted with the barrels of his allies' guns

he wants a peaceful resolution; for the first time we've ever seen, he doesn't want violence to be the answer

there has to be another fix, a solution that doesn't end with him killing the same men he's been working with; his friends

nothing's happened yet

it doesn't have to go this way

but ghost has been betrayed before. he knows the way this ends; either with him six feet under or his enemy

he doesn't hesitate

it's only when they knock alejandro out that soap shoots; when they spill the first blood and cross a line they can never come back from

only when ghost orders him to run and he has to cover his retreat

and somewhere along the line, between civilians’ screams and taunting voices, between his shaking breath and ghost steady in his ear, that naivety is stripped away; his trust turned to teeth that he uses to sink into throats of men he'd have given his life for

"be careful who you trust, sergeant; people you know can hurt you the most"

he's learned the price of trust

just like ghost did

but unlike ghost, he has someone to guide him through the aftermath

"good advice, It"

[mueritos]

a big brain dump about autism, life, being indigenous, and whatever else is going on

so the past few months I made it a personal journey to understand my autism more (and maybe a possible ptsd diagnosis but whatever whatever whatever). and that's what i'm calling it--the autism--because no other thing makes sense for me, and while i'm parsing through childhood memories and experiences, it's definitely...a bittersweet conclusion? bitter because in a lot of ways, i dont relate to the stereotypical autistic experience because every autistic person who has clocked me was usually a White Queer. It's probably why it's taken so long to get to this point of concluding Autism is what it is. I grew up in an immigrant family as a girl, and for that reason I was expected to not be disabled and to be a completely normal and high achieving Mexican catholic girl who went to college and became a doctor or whatever. Now i'm a fag of a man doing none of those things haha.

My older brother was supposed to be assessed for ASD in his youth, and like most immigrant dads, mine decided that nothing was wrong with him and the rest is history. Except my older brother is a man riddled with childhood trauma, shame, and so much autism. Absolutely uncharted rates of autism, and while he gets some sort of pity from my parents for him ("it's all out fault" "he never got the help he needed" "cut him some slack he doesnt understand"), I can never let my own parents know about how much I struggle. Hell, I can barely show it to my own friends because even they don't understand the extent of my autistic struggles. it's actually caused continuous miscommunications, people mad at me, me mad at myself, meltdowns, shutdowns, and a lot of crying. And shame. (a peer recently even demeaned my habit of keeping to myself, despite the fact that I had actually been trying to put myself out there more)

so i'm at a point in my life where I've accepted that I can only take responsibility over how I communicate, and I take ownership over that. Accepting this responsibility allows me to keep myself safe, as I've essentially lived over 2 decades of my life feeling like I was responsible for not just my communication, but everyone else's, including all of the judgements, missed cues, failures, miscommunications, and whatever else came from it. It's definitely double empathy. Last time I truly took on everyone's communication, it nearly killed me (cue over a year of suicidality). But, in a lot of ways it's very freeing. I'm sort of detaching myself from this neurotypical/White need to socially interact with others on their terms. In other ways, it's restricting. I uh. Don't really talk to a lot of people nowadays, and there used to be days where I wouldn't say a single word out loud. But because I don't talk to as many people, I'm able to put energy into the quality of my connections and not just the quantity. Which unfortunately a lot of people take personally. They dont like you admitting that you only see them as an acquittance, or as a classmate, or something like a friend but not quite there. I find comfort knowing how people feel about me, even if its that they actually dont feel close to me. Great! Now I know! Knowing makes me feel safe! But I'm finding that people actually really fucking hate when you admit that to them, the how you actually slot them in ur brain in terms of social levels. I can understand why, but I also don't get it.

Another thing that's helped is I've changed how I do eye contact. I used to make eye contact with professors or classmates while I spoke up in class because I thought that was important. Now I've found I can actually focus more on what I'm trying to say when I don't make eye contact. My god how freeing that has been. I don't have the same anxiety as I used to before, nor do I experience all of the involuntary blushing as I did for many years of my life. It didn't matter how confident or how prepared I felt, I would just blush furiously and I fucking hate it. Now my blushing is almost nonexistent, and I say what I mean with the flat ass tone that I love speaking in because it makes me feel safe. Sure, I miss the real-time non-verbal reactions to my words in class, but it's an okay trade-off for feeling more safe in myself and more confident in the classroom.

another thing is my internship. I work with majority neurodivergent students, and many of my clients have autism, adhd, or both, and are sometimes BIPOC, trans, or children of immigrants. Man, I've been having a blast. Sure, I'm learning how to be a therapist and best practices, but screw everyone in my life who has called me "cold" "emotionless" or "heartless". I have connected with so many people on such a human level, and I have sat there and helped them hold their pain in that tiny gay office for 45 minutes every week, and even though it's only 45 minutes, i'm showing them that they're allowed to ask for help holding that pain. I have had challenging sessions, difficult conversations, and times where I wasn't sure I would know what to say. But at it's core, I know that I'm capable of connecting with the person in front of me because my autism brain is automatically in tune with the person in front of me. It is so wonderful, and overwhelming, and so confusing all at once. When people start crying in front of me, I feel tears well up in my eyes, even if I'm not actually sad with them. It shows me that I'm capable of this empathy that so many people over my life have questioned, which they questioned all because I processed things slowly, or made quick decisions, or because I was honest about how I felt.

on to being mixed indigenous. Phew. I've been trying to build more connections with other Native folk, and I have a couple who I can thankfully call friends and who have never disrespected my detribalized experience. but recently I was interviewed a few times for a fellow indigenous researcher's dissertation, and I did not expect to be chosen on account that I am detribalized. But it had been a lovely experience and I finished my final interview today. It really left me with a lot of emotions that are hard to put into words. Mourning would be one of them, as I likely won't ever know what my tribal affiliation is. Never knowing who my people were, what language they spoke, the land they lived on...I can't describe just how much it destroys me. It feels like literal death, because that's what it is. A disgusting colonial death. And it's why I abhor that of all my identities, being autistic and being mixed indigenous has been met with the most vitriol online. like i guess people can only handle the trans fag mexican dude when hes not autistic and mixed indigenous, because now I am far too ambigious for anyone else's good. though i do know better than to listen to what random people online have to say about me and my path toward reconnection/neurodivergency.

beside's that, i'm trying to find neurodivergent spaces that feel safe, and I'm trying to find ways to keep myself safe. stimming, carrying stuffed animals around, using fidget toys, engaging in my interests, listening to the same songs, eating the same foods. I've had coffee with bagel and chive+onion cream cheese for over a year now. I've listening to almost only Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains for nearly a year now. I rewatch the same youtube videos over and over again. I wear the same few outfits. I wear the same shoes everyday. I walk the same way to and from campus everyday. I try to be in nature as much as I can, and really see it. I imagine nature where it isn't, and I get emotional thinking about the life that used to be on it. I wish so badly that I was a cat, a horse, a bunny, a deer, all so I could experience life through their eyes. i'm putting trust into people, into the universe, and into myself. safety is hard to come by, but im doing my best to accept the risks of life, trying to be flexible, and learn how to sustain myself for the good of the world. I deserve to be here too.

that's about it. besides that, i'm moving to philly once i'm done with grad school ^-^

[3-aem]

if u have been wondering geez where did three fuck off to ive been here

[pinkfey]

let’s go game breaking bugs 😍

[mars-ipan]

I JUST WANNA MAKE THE WHOLE EARTH SMILE

[rapidhighway]

stressed

I have to fight family again

[unfinishedslurs]

LOUMAND EPIC DIVORCE FIGHT PT.3

if loumand has 1 million fans I am one of them if loumand has 5 fans I am one of them if loumand has 1 fan it is me if loumand has 0 fans I have been removed from this mortal plane if the world is against loumand I am against the world. failmarriage enjoyers come get y’all’s juice

“What happened to those ‘Great Laws,’ Armand?” He asked, fury rising in him again. “You know, the ones you killed my daughter for?”

“What do you want me to say? Would you have me apologize again so you can refuse it? To tell you that if I could go back and change it, I would? To turn back the wheel of time itself and undo it all? I cannot.”

Louis wanted to strangle him. Would, if he didn’t know that Armand would just sit there and let him, not feeling a damn thing. “I want you to feel fucking sorry!”

Armand rolled his eyes, but Louis had spent over seventy years sleeping next to the monster under the bed. Had decades to learn his tricks and tells. Not all of them, like he might have thought once, but enough to spot the minuscule shift in his expression. The brief twitch of his mouth and the shuttered blink before his face flattened.

There he is, he thought triumphantly. A reaction, a real one. Something that alluded to the man beneath the mask he always wore, not nearly as impenetrable as he thought it was.

“‘Sorry,’” he scoffed, lifting his chin haughtily. “Sorrow is for mortals. We are vampires, Louis. We do not have the time to waste on regrets and what-if’s.”

As if he hadn’t seen into Armand’s mind countless times. As if he had not held him through a thousand nights of wishing he could go back and save his Maker, save Riccardo, save his brothers. As if he had not once confessed to Louis that he sometimes wished he could go back and die a human death in Marius’ arms. The audacity of the lie was almost like a slap in the face of their entire companionship. Or was Armand telling the truth, and those memories the lie? How much did Louis know him, really?

He couldn’t be sure anymore, but he was confident that it was better than any living being on this earth. Enough to get through the lies and rip into the man underneath, the fragile heart in the photograph. If Armand owed him anything, it was this.

“No time? We got nothing but time! You really expect me to believe that when your fledgling is flaunting himself in front of millions with no Maker in sight? You telling me you’re a deadbeat ‘cuz you don’t feel regret?”

Armand’s mouth pursed before he stepped back. “Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he warned, eyes darting back and forth. Settling on the closest window like he was thinking about an escape.

Louis didn’t give him one. “Oh, I understand plenty,” he scoffed. “I probably understand better than you. What, you thought you’d make our ‘symbol of love’ immortal for shits and giggles?”

That finally got a visible reaction out of him, swiveling his head back to look at Louis with wide eyes. “I didn’t—“

“You let your coven fucking lynch me because of my fledgling, but eight decades later you’re doing the same damn thing! To the ill and infirmed, no less.”

“What do you want from me?” Armand finally burst out, whirling around on him in an incandescent rage. Louis felt himself smile, could feel his lip splitting as his fangs dropped. “I have apologized time and time again—“

“Only ‘cuz you thought it would fix things!”

“—spent years throwing myself at your feet for your mercy—“

“Mercy? Did you show my daughter—“

“Will it ever be enough? Over seventy years devoted to you—“

“A drop in a bucket compared to the fact that it was over half my life—“

“I don’t know what else I can do!”

“Say sorry and fucking mean it this time!” He roared. “Feel fucking sorry for lying to me throughout our entire companionship! Say something real for once!”

They both fell silent at that, chests heaving through some faded muscle memory. Puppets just going through the motions yet again. What was it that Armand said? Mark it on the calendar, align it with Ursa Major. Louis and Armand’s tri-annual blow-up fight to kingdom come.

Louis’ voice trembled as he said, “I want to know why. None of that ‘I could not prevent it’ shit. I want you to tell me why you let them kill my daughter.”

Armand sank down on the couch, shoulders slumping. Submission and acceptance coloring every inch of him. “Why?” He murmured, staring at his knees. “It will not change anything.”

Louis sat on the other end, keeping as much distance between them as he could. “Humor me.”

“…it is true, that it was because of Madeleine,” he finally admitted. “She was somewhat of a last straw. I had told you before, the creation of more creatures like us was something I could not condone. If you did not love me enough to understand and accept that, how could I trust you over the people in my coven? How could I believe you would not leave me to whatever caught your fancy next?”

“And saving me?”

“Lestat—“

“I don’t mean on stage. Why didn’t you let me die in the coffin? I was almost gone. It would have been over, and then you would have had your coven and spent the rest of eternity directing plays, fooling an audience, listening to Santiago blabbering on…”

“So you’d submit me to a punishment worse than death,” Armand said dryly.

He almost cracked a smile before he remembered himself. “I’m not in the mood to be funny right now.”

Armand sighed, as if Louis was some insufferable child he was humoring. It pissed him off, but yelling wouldn’t get him what he wanted right now. Even if it would be cathartic and incredibly deserved. “The coven wasn’t the same, after,” he said. “They had lost respect for me. In part, I suspect, because they could sense the regret you seem so insistent on. Santiago had never liked me much—“

“He wanted to fuck you.”

“He got off on forcing me to submit. He knew the name I had told you. I don’t know how, whether he heard you say it or if he plucked it out of your head through the appalling shields Lestat had not trained you on—“

“Don’t talk about him. This is about us.”

He looked briefly incensed at that, and he could almost hear the retort, “But you can speak about Daniel?” He didn’t say it, though, because Daniel was different. Daniel had been theirs, in a way that Louis couldn’t put to words.

Armand must have known that too, because he moved on without comment. “The coven could sense my guilt, my regret, and they closed in on me. Is that what you wished to hear? That I saved you to save my own skin?”

“Okay.”

Armand looked at him in surprise, frowning. “Okay?” He echoed.

“That was about what I expected to hear.” He learned back against the couch, letting the cushion swallow him and his regrets. It stung, but he was still too angry to really feel it. What was one more betrayal? What was one more petty grievance eighty years in the past?

Armand considered him for a moment. “It was also because I love you,” he said softly. “I do not want you to doubt that. The coven was only part of it. I found I could not bear the thought of your death.”

Found out too late, but hindsight is 20/20. What did it matter that Louis still had stones rattling around in his ankles? The constant reminder weighing him down, never as badly as the memories that came with them. If Armand had decided to wipe the trial from his mind, would he have removed them as well, or left them? Would Louis know why his footsteps felt so strange, what the aching in his heels heart meant when it echoed in his heart? He wished they were back in Dubai, so he could feel the comfort of his rock garden beneath his feet.

“Okay,” he said again. “Now pause the bullshit for a minute.”

Pause. Blink. Head tilt. He could see the cogs turning in Armand’s head like clockwork. For a master manipulator, he was always incredibly predictable. Or maybe Louis had spent too much time with him. “I’m not lying to you.”

“No,” he agreed, “but we’re going around the real problem. You said Madeleine was the last straw, but that was me. Let’s go back to that. Why did you kill my daughter?”

“The Great Laws—“

“I didn’t ask about them.”

Armand fell silent, studiously not looking at him. Louis settled back and waited him out.

Finally he spoke, very quietly. If they weren’t vampires he wouldn’t even have heard him. “I fear that if I tell you the truth, I will forsake the last bit of affection you may still hold for me.”

“If you don’t tell me, you’re gonna get the exact same result,” he said. “So I don’t think it matters.”

The blow struck. Armand swayed as if taking a physical hit, taking a deep breath he didn’t need. When he looked at Louis, his eyes were lined red with tears he didn’t let fall. Truth, or another tactic for sympathy? It didn’t matter. He had plenty of experience ignoring Armand’s tears in the bedroom, he couldn’t let himself falter when it mattered most.

“She reminded me of myself. Of the youth I once had.” It came out of him in a rush, as if he’d been holding the words back for centuries. “Amadeo begged his master to turn him for over a decade, and each refusal battered his very soul. As he grew older, taller, as hair began to grow on his face and chest and between his legs, as his master took him to his bed less and less. Amadeo was loved, yes, yet it was not until I was nearly thirty and dying that my master saw fit to give me the gift. I was jealous, Louis, is that what you wanted to hear? She had everything Amadeo had ever wanted, yet she cursed her own fortune with every breath she took. I forced her to reckon with it, quietly delighted in watching her perform a song that made her more miserable with every note. I thought she was a spoiled, inconsequential flea who would not make it another fifty years. I believed her to be the reason you refused my companionship. A hundred reasons, each of them more petty than the last. What does it matter? You will hate me no matter what.”

Louis thought he might be sick.

Armand closed his eyes, drawing back into himself. “If that was the only reason,” he said almost gently, “I would not have done it. But I had seen dozens like her over the centuries. Children are not meant for the gift. Either madness takes them, or they cannot bear the constant infantilization, or something else, it doesn’t matter. One by one they walk into the sun. The absence of choice can be a mercy.”

He clearly believed what he was saying, which just made it even worse. How much “mercy” had Armand offered over the years?

Even deeper down, Louis wondered if he was right. The first vampire they ever met in Europe had cast herself into the flames before their eyes. Louis himself had run headfirst into the sun and nearly succeeded. How many others had destroyed themselves because they could not bear the Gift they were given?

“Not Claudia. She was strong.” Stronger than Louis had ever been, certainly.

“They all say that, and yet they all succumb eventually.”

“She wouldn’t have”

Armand sighed. “I supposed we’ll never know,” he acquiesced. Louis could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

He let it slide this time. At least the words were true. “No, we won’t.”

They sat in silence for a time, not looking at each other. The only sound from the cars driving outside. They did not need to breathe, to blink, to move at all. As still as the pictures Louis used to take, back when things seemed like they might turn out okay.

Finally, Louis exhaled slowly. Armand turned toward him, but said nothing.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I don’t forgive you.”

Armand didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just stared at him motionless, as if he was waiting for something.

“I don’t forgive you,” he repeated pointedly. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Of course he didn’t. Hadn’t that been what he was aiming for when he turned Daniel? If you touch him, Louis had said, and Armand had given his fascinating boy the worst curse he could imagine as soon as his back was turned. 500 years passively yearning for an end no one would provide. Louis wouldn’t be the one to grant him mercy.

His final gift to Armand, or maybe his final “fuck you.” A long life. An eternity at his fingertips, exactly as Amadeo had once begged for. The chance to grow even more powerful until little Arun could never be hurt again. A chance to torture himself for the rest of time in a hell of his own making. A chance to better himself, if Louis was feeling generous.

He wasn’t sure, but after seventy-seven years of standing hand in hand with this man, this monster, this little boy trembling in the midst of all the power he held, he thought it was a kind of salvation. For both of them.

Besides, Daniel was thriving better than either of them in the throes of the Gift. Armand had to have known he would.

“I don’t either,” he said. “You’d deserve it. But I’m tired, Armand, and I loved you once. I think that counts for something.”

Armand’s eyes widened. He stood quickly, putting distance between them, but not before Louis saw a bloody tear slip down his cheek. “Don’t say that to me when you don’t mean it. I cannot bear it.”

He looked as pained as Louis had ever seen him, despair twisting his features at the words Louis had never afforded him when they were together. He was beautiful in his misery, as beautiful as he was in anything. He hated him for it as much as he’d loved him once. The Temptation of Amadeo, rendered in flesh and blood and the viscera of honesty.

“I do. I did,” he said, twisting the knife just to be cruel. “Guess it doesn’t matter now.”

Armand shook his head. Opened his mouth, then froze, caught between words. Still as a painting in the low lamplight. Louis could see the brush strokes on his face, see every piece of art he had shown him overlaid with the real man in front of him.

“Right,” Louis said, when enough time had passed that he was certain Armand wouldn’t say anything. “Glad we had this talk.”

“Are you?”

Louis surprised himself when he answered, “Yeah, actually. I am. You?”

“I don’t know.” He looked frail, sad, tired, but no closer to walking into the fire than he had been when Louis had cornered him.

He thought that deep down, he was probably relieved by it. The confirmation that Louis wouldn’t kill him, that the love between them hadn’t been a complete lie. Still, how would he know? His lack of understanding of Armand’s innermost thoughts had been made abruptly clear to him with a script marked in red ink.

“Anything else we should talk about?” He asked. “Any other lies? Any other Danny’s knocking around in my brain, waiting for me to remember them?”

“No. No, there was only one. Daniel Malloy is not an experience you can replicate, I suspect.”

“Thank God for that.”

He almost smiled at that. “Indeed.”

“Speaking of Daniel Malloy,” Louis said, standing up. “For fucks sake, pick up the damn phone. Give our boy a call.”

Our boy. A slip he hated himself for instantly. It was too easy to fall into their old patterns, something that was probably by design. Shock flashed over Armand’s face before it was replaced by humor. “He hates it when you call him that,” he pointed out.

“I’ve had to deal with that shit for a century, he can handle it.”

“He finds it arousing.”

“You’re not the only one who can read minds around here, you know.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

As if Armand still had any right to know who was in his bed. “Are you? Don’t think I didn’t pick up on his thoughts about ‘Rashid.’ You feeding him your blood was probably a dream come true for him. Did you get to pick his brain about it before it was closed to you forever? What did he think of the taste?”

Armand’s lips thinned, and he turned away.

Louis didn’t let him leave without a final blow. “You gonna tell him about the other memories you erased?”

He stiffened. “You have no right—“

“I have every right, and you know it.”

“If you must know, the answer is no. What difference would it make?”

A pretty damn big one, if you asked Louis. He felt it every time he talked to Daniel, the yawning cavern of curiosity surrounding the blank afterimages in his memory, the way he could clearly sense something wasn’t right. Searching the globe for Armand, chasing him in some kind of fucked up role reversal only one of them was aware of. And then Armand, clearly punishing himself with every echoed heartbeat, every kill Daniel took to like a shark in a reef. Only making them both miserable as he hid in solitude.

“Honesty, Arun,” Louis snapped.

They both froze. Fuck. Fuck. Falling into old habits indeed, the world's most ill-timed Freudian Slip. He’d tried so hard to stay away from it, to wrangle Armand’s honesty from him in a way that didn’t depend on the command of his submission. He’d finally gotten what he wanted, and then he had to go and screw it up.

“I am not Arun to you, anymore.” Armand’s voice trembled. “I would prefer you did not use it.”

Louis nodded, even though Armand couldn’t see him. Bit back the instinctive apology on his tongue.

“I do not see the use in continuing this pointless conversation. Is there anything else you want of me, anything else you require?”

Yes. He wanted to shake him, tell him that they weren’t done here. He still had questions. He wanted to strip Armand down to the bone, rip his flesh off piece by piece and expose the skeleton underneath. Would that finally reveal the truth, or would he have to go deeper? Into bone marrow, the stem cells, his DNA. Would that allow Louis to know him?

It didn’t matter. The mask had gone up, and Louis didn’t have the energy to pull it back down again.

“No.”

Armand nodded once, his back still to Louis, before walking to the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “I have always been a coward, Louis,” he confessed, still staring straight ahead. Louis could see the set of his shoulders, the clench of his fist, but not his face. “There is your truth.” He twisted the knob, opened the door. “You will not see me again, if you do not wish.”

Before Louis could reply, he was gone.

[plasterhound]

.

[mushed-kid]

i need to stop speaking forever.

[causalityparadoxes]

If i had a penny for every time I saw the most braindead, authoritarian ass kissing, take on Home Education? I'd be so rich

Some of yall looooove to preach anarchism, socialism, general anti capitalist 'takes a village' non-nuclear family social concepts.

But the MOMENT someone mentions that hey isn't state/public school is kind of fucked up and literally designed to keep the poors off the streets and funnled into low income work? Maybe I'll try something else with my kids? Right back to fascist ass kissing.

Like god forbid we allow alternate forms of education. God forbid we allow social protest. God forbid theres an option to take children out of abusive school enviroments without being thrown in prison. God forbid there's alternate options for disabled children that don't force them into 'special classes' if the state thinks they're too disabled or given no accommodations if it thinks they're not disabled enough.

The moment it comes to a kid's autonomy and not being forced into actively harmful environments? Its right back to 'think of the children 😱' conservative bullshit and workhouse apologism. Its not based on facts, because that would show Home Ed kids achieve just as well in the end. Its based on rightwing style emotional politics. Get fucked honestly.

I am not your little victim. I am not a brainwashed religous nut. I am a leftwing socialist BECAUSE i was raised in an anti-authoritarian style of education which focused on my autonomy and interests.

[binch-i-might-be]

alright that's it I'm bringing up my stupid unspecified vagina trauma in my next therapy session

[sentientsky]

“gender critical” bbg you’re just transphobic scum u can’t hide it behind pseudo-academic jargon and pretend that makes you anything more than a fucking piece of shit