#my son is traumatised

[gayregina]

The price of a soul

A fanfic by gayregina. A synopsis:

“When Armand develops a unique power amongst his kind, he is driven mad by his choices and the concept of fate. Until someone is able to conform him.” Some mentions of book lore and everything that comes with that but also not 100% canon. Enjoy:)

-

Within every curse, hides a gift. Armand had found it, at last, after he abandoned the ritualistic ways that the children of darkness deemed as sacred. At the heart of Paris and later on all around the world, he started picking up his heightened senses and used them to search for the humanity in each soul, perhaps to make up for his own. He studied the way a person’s heart raced when they looked upon a lover or how a gentle touch was appreciated through the energy that raided off of them. Apart from the various spirits Armand had grown used to witnessing, he now could see, if he focused enough, the life of each human being like a small flame, burning so brightly yet so easily extinguishable. Each time he would lure somebody into his lethal embrace, the fire would present itself again and he couldn’t help but watch it fade away accompanied by the person’s strongest memories flashing before his eyes, raw and tangible. A bittersweet blood filled smile at the nape of their neck, the aftertaste depending on the quality of each existence. The cost of mortality breathing hard down their necks before the catharsis settled in; every experience and opportunity heavy on the tip of their tongues but oh so easily gone like they were never possible at all.

Such a peculiar thing it turned out to be that Armand could have sworn he knew when he met the same souls as before. Their flame a little too familiar, standing out from the norm proudly. He followed those curiously and if they ever stumbled upon a former friend, relative or even lover, Armand could tell from the sudden intensity the fire gained that resembled the effect of fuel. The flames would dance around each other then, drawn to one another by a greater force that connected them despite the barrier of time. It was fascinating to Armand, relieving even, that souls found a way back to each other even through forgotten history and even more so that they were able to accomplish a new meaningful bond to last another century or so. If he could not have it himself, he supposed it was a gift in and of itself to see it so vividly.

One time, a strange flame caught his eye. It reminded him of his human home, both place and time. He followed the soul frantically but he hid at every turn, too afraid he was to face the past and too painful to bring back Amadeo from the grave. He called to him desperately but the human never stopped running and the flame only ever smothered. He either had found the wrong soul to terrorize or his own fire had been lost to nature, his vampiric side meant to solely destroy life.

Riccardo, Armand called to him desperately. Come to me, old friend, he kept saying in his head but he could not will the boy to recognize him. His dearest friend did not look the same, of course. His skin too pale compared to Armand’s and his features no longer emitting a sense of familiarity and safety within him. His eyes a strange violet and his brown curls sitting effortlessly on the top of his head instead of his shoulders. The boy’s lifestyle too cheap compared to Venice and the luxuries they had shared. Armand had lost him brutally that gruesome night, forced to watch as the fire hugged his body but utterly helpless and unable to do anything to stop it. His screams and cries were still ringing in his ears, an ugly sound by all means. The grief had been contagious but Armand could have him back now, just like the countless others he had watched over the course of two centuries biding their time and healing their scars. Wasn’t he allowed this one favor or would he invade his beloved’s heart like a parasite and sicken his pure soul, put out the delicate flame forever?

Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. The name sat oddly on his tongue, too far from home but he could make it work. Daniel. He heard a young girl sighing it through the lustfull bliss in the back of an alley where the boy had whisked her away. Quick and filthy. He didn’t approve but he could teach him, he could remind him. He could find Riccardo even through Daniel. Not all was lost.

-

Daniel backed Armand into the wall of his apartment, the one with the sky on the ceiling. Armand was hungry but Daniel was aching for him. He could feel it in the way he chased after his lips or his skin, always wanting more, always searching. Armand let Daniel lead him through the familiar streets, the boy charming him with the promise of drugs inhabiting the back of his mind. A poor substitute for ecstasy, Armand thought.

He appeared to be struggling more and more in finding his friend inside this stranger but he had to admit the boy had some fascinating qualities himself. Daniel’s hands sneaked under his shirt, so warm and alive they were across his deadly cold skin, and yes, it felt nice to be touched and to be wanted. His mind raced through the countless sensations attacking him and it had been a long time since he felt desire pour over his soul and body. Consumed, yes, that was the word. Those were the days of worshipping, the days of pleasure, the days of carelessness. A family, a lover and a best friend. Riccardo and the boys, they- Riccardo. No, he had lost this way. The boy was distracting him, this wasn’t right.

No. No. No. He had to do it again. He shall fix it. No, no, no. He will.

It took him a while to realize Daniel had ceased his movements, the passion had died down. Now the boy’s hands were on Armand’s face, gently cupping his cheeks and soothingly caressing them. He must have been muttering under his breath.

“Are you okay? Do you want to stop?” Such a strange question, so unfamiliar it sounded. The moon creeping through the window was illuminating Daniel’s eyes. Armand wanted to drown in their concern, so genuine it seemed. They could have been Riccardo’s eyes, they shared the same calm before the storm.

“No. No-” No point, he had meant to say but he was chocking on the words. Armand held on to Daniel’s waist and he could picture him. A beautiful boy in his arms, he had him. But he was slipping away, his face no longer as clear in his memory but faded in time. Treacherous time, vicious its wrath on Armand. Inescapable. He wanted to cry, he wanted Riccardo to take him back to Venice. No, somewhere better. He wanted to be somebody else. But again, he was back in the room and again his dear friend was reaching out to him through the haze of smoke. He could have taken his hand. Why didn’t he follow him? But Amadeo was spared and he kept on enduring. He didn’t want to endure any longer.

“Hey man, I don’t know if I am too drunk but you’re bleeding from your eyes.” He was drowning, chocking on his blood. The boy’s voice appeared as a lifeline to Armand then and he quickly grabbed it to pull himself out of the abyss.

“I am sorry. I am so sorry-“ Armand tried to turn away, to hide his shame. Perhaps it was an attempt to apologize to his friend but he wasn’t there, most likely never had been. Daniel instead was the one who wiped away his tears and comforted him.

“Shush. It’s okay.” Daniel interrupted his mumbling and led him to the couch slowly as if not to break him. A fragile thing he had become, overcome by his feelings of years. Hope was a foul’s game and yet Armand fell for it. He realised with horror that he knew more things about the stranger in front of him than he remembered about his dear friend.

Daniel had kneeled in front of him, watching him carefully from his direct line of sight and he looked now a great deal soberer than Armand had found him at the club. The boy placed his palm on the vampire’s outer thigh and squeezed sympathetically.

“Thank you.” Armand said. Lord, he sounded small. Daniel shrugged and sat next to him on the couch after he made sure he was in a better state.

“Happens to the best of us.” The ghost of a smile lingered on Armand’s lips but too many ghosts were attached to him for centuries and he wasn’t ever able to clean them off. Every sinister or loving touch, every dark thought he suppressed in the safety of his dark coffin always came back to haunt him eventually.

“Do you know what’s it like to think of everything that could have been and regret every choice, despise every outcome?” Armand felt Daniel’s eyes on him as he spoke, focused and blazing.

“What if my skin had been a shade too dark, my face wrinkled, my nose crooked? What if my eyes were an abnormal blue and my body undesirable? Would I have not been picked? If I had, was there any chance I tasted the flames or drowned in the sea, let death claim me finally? Would it feel like a warm hug instead of this cold emptiness that’s filling up my insides? This sick need of taking and taking until there is nothing left, until you have no soul. Until you look in the mirror and there are only pieces of people in the shape of you, everything that turned you into this monster but nothing resembling the human. A black hole.” He looked over to the boy and he was visibly confused but he nodded his head for him to continue. Such intrigue, such compassion. Armand could have laughed. An eager black hole, he thought. He faced the windowsill far in front of him, lost in his head, lost in his past.

“And again I find myself in Delhi. My legs too short to outrun the slavers, my body too weak to fight them off, to prevent them from-“ He closed his eyes in pain and disgust. He let out a surrendering breath. A slight touch on his hand, afraid but present. It was enough. He opened them back up.

“A young man and not a cherub. A person and not a muse. Arun and not Amadeo. Broken and irredeemable. Alive and forgettable.” The sky outside was painted a light pink, the clouds making it look like a sweet candy. He could savour this moment but he was still stuck in this body. A victim to his own choices amongst other things.

“And yet you are here.” Daniel whispered and Armand turned to face him. His eyes were glistening with tears threatening to fall and he suddenly looked a lot younger than he was. “There’s gotta be a reason for that.” The boy suggested and Armand offered him a grateful smile. A kind soul, he thought, that must’ve been it. The vampire caressed the boy’s cheek softy and he leaned into his touch.

“A rare flame.” Armand said and the boy frowned slightly. He hoped his amber eyes were welcoming then, soothing.

“Don’t ever lose it, Daniel.” Armand waited for the little chuckle and when he heard it, he brought him closer and kissed his lips softly. No consuming hunger left in him to chase after for now. A still moment, Daniel’s eyes closed in expectation. Armand leaned towards the boy’s ear in the peaceful silence and whispered just so only he could hear:

“Sleep now, beautiful boy. Let it all be a dream.” Daniel’s body went limp in his arms and Armand carried him and laid him down comfortably on his bed. In the distance, the sun was peaking through the horizon, a dangerous game it liked to play with Armand, always temping him to give up. It was the first sunrise he had seen in a long while, something to remember in the maze of his mind.

A new day, a new boy but the same old game. He thought he knew the rules by now.

He thought he could even win for once.

-

I would love to hear your thoughts!

[fatherofpuppets]

So, I read THIS, and my life will never be the same

Go and read it

Right now.

[damianbugs]

UGHHRHRRAAAH.... LITTLE DUKE THOMAS (my insane person powers explodes everything within a five mile radius)

[knivesandteeth]

Thinking about where the line between lies and storytelling sits with Garak. How trauma (especially childhood trauma) forces you to morph your life into stories to tell the truth when the facts are too all encompassing and terrible for you to face.

Thinking about the queerness inherent to Garak and Bashir's book club. The way they interrogate the subtext of their books the way only queer people can, when the realities of our lives are rendered unspeakable by homophobia.

The way they dance around each other, creating a hidden story within the story - the truth of their relationship too large and unforgivable. Queer repression as text becoming repression subtext. An ouroboros of enforced shame. It remains hidden but in doing so, reveals some new truth. Neither knows who they are without the obfuscation they have worn for so long that it has become their face.

[megamyceted]

STEVE BURNSIDE resident evil code veronica x, 2000

[estavs]

My gift for @ratbandaid in the AFTG Winter Exchange 2022 @aftgexchange

This is for a single father AU where Jean escapes from the mafia along with baby Neil and now has to figure out how to raise the little shit :)

[girafferoyalty]

When folks are sometimes talking about Princess Tutu returning as a show, I don’t generally agree with that, the show is perfect as it is. However, what I want to have is the spinoff show about Kharon. What is it like to be a dad for the most unhinged teenage boy in town? I want to know.

[eshithepetty]

Having ritsu feelings today

The fandom does him so dirty 😔

Like he doesn't have that much fan content and the content he does get is often micharacterized/flanderized, too. I feel like...

People often make him too angry and emo and overprotective, usually because they take those qualities as surface level funnies. Like hes definitely a little hater to an extent, but you dont get itttht hes not just edgy, he has layers, and hes not just mean to everyone all the time, hes actually quite polite towards people a lot of the time because he grew up as the smart good kid, and I hate HATE how overprotective they often make him of mob, like, hes certainly protective to an extent, and its an important part of him because its literally part of his issues™, but people take it too far, especially in ship fics, like - for example, its apparent in how they make him hate teru for no reason so often, even though!! That literally has no canon evidence!!! Like he even looks up to teru in canon a tiny bit i feel like! And of course once they get to know each other better theres a good chance hell clash with teru to an extent, because terus just extra and ridiculous and ritsu doesnt bode with people like that too well (as evidenced by reigen), and actually, on topic of reigen, he definitely is wary of him, but like 😭 calm down, he doesn't actually want to kill reigen, hes not that big of a hater. But what i find most disappointing is how many people just. Dont get him. Like ive heard so many people say that they dont understand the big clean up arc or that ritsu was just being edgy for no reason or that they even dislike that arc and im....

hghrhrg i am beating my pillow i love that arc, i love young characters struggling to understand their feelings, i love traumatised characters taking out their bottled feelings in unhealthy and messy ways, i love characters who get it wrong, i love characters who put themselves into narratives of good and evil to make their life make sense, i love characters who only slip deeper and deeper into despair until they are pulled back, i love the arc for how well paced it is and how well it transitioned from one story beat to the next and how gradually it revealed more about the characters and the world and its still one of my favorite arcs ever and one of the ones i think the anime did the most justice like I LOVE YOU BIG CLEAN UP ARC AND I LOVE YOU RITSU!!!!!

sorry

[padfootastic]

in a turn of events that doesn’t surprise anyone im sure, @impishtubist has caused yet another scene to be stuck in my head until i wrote it down. so, have some sexy, greying sirius; a deeply thirsty, appreciative james who won’t let him dye it; and a very-fed-up-of-his-parents-antics harry for prongsfoot wednesday!

x

Harry entered the house with ‘I’m home!’ on his lips that died an instant death as soon as he registered what he was seeing.

“Er,” he hesitated. Does he really want to—? One more look at the scene in front of him and he decided to bite the bullet. Better to clear the air now than keep stewing on it later.

“Um. Is this a—kink? A fetish? Should I leave and never come back?”

In any other scenario, the way both his parents froze and looked at him with wide eyes would’ve been comical.

If only Dad wasn’t straddling his Papa on the ground, one of his hands holding both of Papa’s above him with disturbing ease.

“Er—“

“It’s not what it looks like, Haz!” Dad yelped, cutting across Papa who’s face and neck were turning a steady pink. “I swear.”

“Then why are you still—like that?” Harry asked, deciding to play it safe and look at the boring grey couch in the living room instead. Nothing scandalous going on there.

He could hear the scrambling of feet, a few thumps, and a mini-yelp, absently wondering about the amount of noise the simple act of getting up could produce.

“Right.” Dad cleared his throat. “So, Harry, would you please tell your Papa that he is, under no circumstances, allowed to dye his hair?”

Harry blinks, turning to his other, exasperated, father in silent question.

“Harry, will you please tell your Dad that this is my hair and I can do with it as I please?”

“Not when you promised yourself to me!” Dad yelps and Harry is hit with an intense wave of regret at instigating this.

“Promised—?”

“Yes! Our wedding, you said, and I quote, ‘I give myself to you, James Potter, mind, body and soul’, don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Of course I didn’t forget,” Papa throws his hands up in the air. “But c’mon James—this is not what I meant when I said body!”

“What, you think I only wanted you for that ars—“

“Dad!” Harry, yelps, mortified. He can feel his cheeks heating in a violent blush. He can feel a similar flush creeping up Papa’s neck. Sadly, his words don’t have the deterring effect he’d intended.

“I mean, it is spectacular, don’t get me wrong, but you’re more than just a beautiful body, Si!”

“James, please, have some mercy for our child, if not me,” Papa says. Thankfully, this seems to register as Dad’s eye widened, part horror and part apology. Harry waves it away tiredly; though he’s no less embarrassed every time it happens, growing up in the Potter household with two extremely affectionate parents has exposed him to much worse. He’s accepted it as his lot in life.

“Er—yeah, anyway,” he coughs, ruffling his hair, “Bottom line—Sirius isn’t allowed to dye his hair.”

“I literally never agreed to that.”

“Too bad because you will,” Dad says, slowly moving towards Papa with a look on his face that Harry is loath to describe as predatory. If only it wasn’t so true.

“Oh?” Papa’s left eyebrow rises extraordinarily high, as it tends to do quite often. He crosses his arms over his chest in challenge. The motion makes his Dad smile.

“Mhm.” The two of them are chest-to-chest by this point, staring into each other’s eyes. Harry could probably conduct a whole rave party right here, right then, and they wouldn’t even notice. That is when he decides it’s high time he should step in—not literally, Merlin, no—before they end up doing something that makes him try to run away (again).

“So I was right—it is a kink,” Harry says dryly, once again regretting starting this entire conversation in the first place. He should’ve just turned back around and gone to the Weasleys instead.

“Harry, no—“

x

Three years later, Harry—who’s almost blissfully forgotten about the entire incident—walks into his parents’ house to an almost identical scene, just with his Papa on top this time. This time, he makes the sensible choice he still regrets not making all those years ago, and walks right back out the door.

Let those two sort it out on their own. Merlin knows his intervention hadn’t helped a bit the last time around.

[hourly-yugi]

[inexpressiblybeatiful]

Hotel Portofino be like: Bury your gays and also bury your child.

[girlitfeelsgood]

bill hader is truly sick in the head

[general-kalani]

Jacob on the dash: being a little shit to the Deputy.

John on the dash: Being himself.

Joseph: Self harm self harm self harm-

[heatsu]

and don't look at me with those eyes,

I tried to unheave the ties,

turn back the tide that drew him

[cruelsister-moved2]

i really feel like ken liu was just like oh so really bad things happen to women, especially marginalised women and sex workers, under imperialism and colonialism. so i should just like show horrible things happening to women all the time and women being pushed into sex work because of imperialism. aaaand my work here is done #realism #gender

[oatflatwhite]

when i start v*ltron posting again you know life is hitting a rough patch