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all the fofofics

You can find all of my writing in my tag fofofics. My profile on AO3 is fofoqueira. I'm a darkfic writer, and I love gore/violent/taboo themes in fiction, so please tread carefully with my writing and be mindful of pairings/tags.

about the fofoarts

You can find all of my drawings under my tag fofoart. If you don't like the stuff I draw be sure to block my tag on top of my blog and save us both the trouble of interaction 🤙

some fofo things

I'm a book fan. I have loved this franchise for a long time, and I grew up with them. I'm very attached to some characters. If you see me talking about Anne Rice's intelectual property — its concerning her book characters. I don't really know anything about the series at this point 😅

Oração

It starts with black.

It starts with black-stained fingertips, smudging ebony in dust and powder that barely sticks to his marble skin and transfers to the paper with every movement.

It starts with blackened coal because, it seems, Marius must always end in fire.

Armand’s hand glides across the paper idly, almost blindly. He barely pays attention to what he’s doing. 

Did I ever buy a sketchpad?

He can’t recall when or who placed the sketchpad before him — if it was a peacekeeping gift from Gregory after Armand cursed Lestat the other night; or if it was Bianca when she finally turned up screaming and shouting at him for letting Marius out of his sight, for letting Marius step into Rhoshamandes’ trap, for letting Marius die protecting him again. Bianca throwing the pad at him and ordering him to honor his father’s dream that he’d paint again even if he’ll never see it because Marius died wishing Andrei would be a painter once more; then she collapsed into uncontrollable, teary screams and was dragged away by a sombre, fugue Pandora.

Black glides on the page leaving out the white from the paper showing in odd places.

And where did this coal come from?

Suddenly, he remembers.

Armand had picked up the coal piece he’s using from the fireplace while it was burning right after Bianca left. He remembers the horrifying screech of dread and panic that came out of Sybelle’s mouth when he came close to the burning hearth. He remembers her begging for him to drop the burning coal and how he stepped away from the fireplace holding the ember until it finally cooled off. She collapsed at her piano stool and just wept silently over her keys, whispering words of sweetness, of being there for him. And Benji cried in the corner while all of this happened, yes, speaking in his mother tongue like he never did since leaving his homeland. That’s right. That’s how Armand got his hands on the piece of coal he now draws dumb lines on page with.

He stops and studies the piece of coal for the first time, despite having held it in his hands for nights on end now.

It is a charred, shapeless, black lump. Exactly what his treacherous mind imagined had been made of his master in Venice, and most likely what has been made of him now, after a five or whatever thousand old ancient vampire abducted him.

Marius is dead, he thinks. This time he is truly dead.

Yet the words materialise on the sketchpad show: Lord, I love him so much.

Then, he blinks, noticing the precision of the lines, the richness of tone and value in the numb clouds of black and greys. He realises every mass of white has been masterfully left out to form skin. The lines of black have become wise lines of expression — they have become a forgiving crinkle by an almost imperceptible smile, and a line between brows that conveys patience.

And much like it had been in the caves, He has come to Armand once more — through his hands, through his unconscious mind and a medium which translated into paper what he has never been able to convey in words.

Transubstantiated from his deepest devotion onto paper, page after page after page, God smiles at him.

Armand drops the coal and the pad falls from his lap. He covers his mouth with both his hands and feels it. He feels the uncontrollable scream and the deluge of tears which Bianca let out and fights the desire to let it out himself. Women are allowed to mourn like that, but not men, never men.

Armand stands, looking out the window to the snow covering the mountains of Auvergne, then back to the pad. It is as if abandoned in the soft turkish carpet was the ikon he held in his hands when he was taken from God.

He picks it up and neatly, gently places it on the coffee table in front of the sofa he has spent the last weeks sitting upon. He opens on the page where he wrote his first confession in five hundred years and wets the painting of God with tears.

It is a war to silence the voice in his head that insists he’s being disillusioned, and which sounds so much like brother Joseph, and Santino, and himself.

But devotion wins over and he silences it.Andrei kneels, and does what Armand might have thought impossible.

He prays.

He prays from his heart that the Lord might forgive him and grant him this one, selfish, request: that Marius might be alive. That he might do the impossible again, and come back to him, even if it takes another five hundred years. Andrei prays that his father might have survived, and that they might meet again, in His grace.

Insensatez

He tries to contain his speeding heart, knowing too well the two thousand years make each thrum echo like madness. Marius has too-often fallen prey to the passionate and emotive side of his mother’s blood. He might bemoan it later that he didn’t inherit his senator father’s penchant for composed reason, but right now, all he can do is fight the fight of trying to seem “non-chalant” about Armand’s invitation. Marius needs to convey indifference and deny passion.

“This is the space I have saved for your crypt,” His fledgling declares, perfectly nailing it.

Marius looks around the reformed wine cellar which his child is renovating into a sealed crypt. A wide chamber he will most likely separate into private rooms for his loved ones and perhaps a shared morgue with shelves for visitors, lined with coffins. His theatre was fabled for its practicality in housing the dead. He wonders if it'll use candles... Or electric candles.

The roman gulps, hoping the sound wasn’t audible. But it most definitely was. “Is it deep enough? I am not sure New York basements are safely sealed off from the living and there’s plenty of them in Manhattan.”

“Well it’s not exactly six-feet under, master, but,” he opens his arms and they slap back at the side of his trousers before crossing at his chest. “That’s as deep as my team can get them.”

Marius shivers, feeling something akin to nervously sweating when he hasn’t sweat in eons. That was obviously the wrong question.He collects himself for a minute so he does not stammer. Not in front of his son.

“I do not doubt your engineers for a minute.”

Armand sighs, “I appreciate your concerns. But this is as best as one can get in Manhattan, master. I did what could be done.”

His tone is comprehending so this is a net positive. Marius nods, refusing to overthink. He has saved this conversation. 

The roman paces around what Armand has just said will be his crypt. That means he’s getting one of his own. Which means he’s still counted among Armand’s loved ones. Obviously, thus, he can afford to be excited about this. A part of him almost wishes to joke that he isn’t an elderly man to need a room in his son’s home, and that he might occupy one of the guest coffins, but he cannot. Not with the veil between them and not after all that has trespassed and which is known. But neither does he want to be reduced to a guest in his child’s home. He wants a crypt of his own. Marius’ crypt in Armand’s home. This is everything. This is proof that maybe someday, their coffins will be side by side like it was in Venice. Having his own chamber is a prelude to matching coffins.“I love it, I much prefer west facing rooms.”

He hears Armand mutter a quiet “I know you do. ‘As if I could catch a glimpse of the sun if I stepped outside fast enough.’” His fledgling fixes himself up. “I will finish the wall linings and framing for your coffin. Any specific material you want?”

“You know what I like.”

Armand nods, “Solid gold with red velvet lining, then?”

“Ah, so you do know what I like.” Marius says, flirty on purpose.

His child looks so lovely when he blushes it drives Marius mad. How can a boy this lovely exist and how can a vampire blush at five centuries old? He watches his little lover pace around the room as if planning his designs, taking wide steps as if measuring and confirming he has saved enough space for Marius’ crypt. How charming he pouts once done, facing Marius before timidly looking away.

“I’ll finish preparations and make sure your door is heavy enough that nobody can move it. Or maybe only you can move it. Maybe. It will be the safest room in the house.”

What wonder! “Why?”

“So I can lock you up and make sure you never escape or leave me again,” he rapidly fires back before rolling his eyes so fast it doesn’t give Marius time to feel a sliver of hope. “I don’t want you in harm’s way in case of an attack.”

“I appreciate it, but I worry about you.”

“How new.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for your room to be the safest?”

“No.”

A mild, bubbling rage besieges Marius. How condescending of Armand to think he needs protection, as if Marius needed a reminder that he failed to keep his fledgling out of harm. It should not be the fledgling’s role to keep its master safe. He will not be called out on his failure when it has cost him everything and when he’s been enduring its penance for centuries now — five hundred years thinking his Amadeo is lost, and half a millennia waiting in foolish hope that it could ever be otherwise.

“Your room will have the best security in the house.” Marius declares.

“So passionate about my safety all of a sudden, master,” His son squints, scoffing. “Make it so in your house. The safest crypt in my Trinity Gate will be yours, Marius.”

Fury makes the cellar red. He turns from Armand and his frustration to look at the cold, damp and empty chamber, and the red is so scarlet that Marius boils.

“Well, I see my advice is unwarranted, and my wisdom, dismissable. I am happy to take the west facing crypt. You may do as you please with your security,” he says, turning to leave.

“I’ll make sure I can also open your crypt, albeit it will be with some effort. That way I can hide in it in case of an intruder, or lock the bastard up until reinforcements arrive…”

Marius faces Armand again, crossing his arms. His first instinct is to reiterate how right he is that Armand should be kept safe. That Armand has been abducted once. And that Armand’s theatre has been under attack and destroyed by an outsider, even if with his grace.

But something about what his child said fills Marius with a different type of warmth. The idea of Armand finding safety within Marius’ chambers fills him with something worse than keltoi passion — giddiness. Marius almost wants to giggle. But giggling is for children, not fathers.

“A wise decision,” he praises.Armand almost rolls his eyes. “I will hide here if worse comes to pass.”

Marius’ memories flash hooded figures dragging a screaming Amadeo away while Marius is surrounded by fire and he blinks, not noticing he’s taken a step towards Armand involuntarily. It does take him by surprise that his son has done the same so the space between them has basically vanished.

“I’d rather you fled. I’d rather you ran away in the advent of an intruder. I’d rather you didn’t try to fight and just saved yourself, child…”

“I can’t do that. I am the oldest vampire in Trinity Gate.”

“Still…”

“Your crypt will be safe. It will be a place for me to hide, or for me to put my children in, should I have to fight.”

Suddenly the fire within transforms heartbeats in palpitations and now Marius is absolutely sure the loud thrums of his speeding heart can be heard. He remembers the absolute terror Lestat felt near the parents and dreads the night his Amadeo might find his own heart a sounding horror.

Marius pulls his fledgling to an embrace, holding him as close to his heart as flesh will allow before merging. He kisses Amadeo’s vagrant curls that have been trimmed short tonight, kissing his earlobes and clavicle, then each of his eyelashes. His fingertips trace Amadeo’s gently masculine jaw, finely sculpted with his youthful, almost genderless manliness. His lips are as soft as his porcelain, marblesque skin that always feels warm to a vampire as old as Marius. He reminds himself that they are here, now, in the present, safe and a phone call’s distance from one another, even if it feels like the time is never right. Marius could summon Armand to his hearing with Maharet just as easily as his fledgling called on him for opinions on his new house. Marius permits himself to wholly enjoy the presence of Amadeo in his arms and life. How rare and delightful that Amadeo lets him, even if for a little while.

However, eventually his fledgling separates himself, taking two careful steps back and resuming his effortless, non-chalant pose, both hands in pockets and mildly vacant, indifferent stare. 

“I will get preparations underway,” Armand says, and his voice conveys a desperation for pretending the brief moment of weakness displayed by both never happened.

“Alright, great,” Marius replies, just as eager to keep up the façade of distance. 

“It will be ready by the next time you visit.”

“Call me and I’ll come,” Marius says wholeheartedly, once again failing in being more composed than detached.

Armand looks at him for a very long minute that makes it clear he won’t be calling anytime soon. The maddening, lovely blush is the only proof of their embrace, seconds ago, and the only evidence of their long, complicated lifestory.

But for now, it seems, they’ll both keep trying  to convey indifference and deny passion.

Dead sun

It religiously begins around March, when mortals notice that, for the first time in months, the nights only start after 6pm, but it only picks up when summer comes, around June. 

The dead sleep, waiting for mortals to return home, and for the sun to cross the horizon line for another night.

Pandora jolts awake when it’s finally set. Summers are the worst. Summer always leaves her feeling fatigued, as if sleeping shorter hours did not offer her enough rest. As if their “death sleep” wasn’t just a brief unlifting of the veil of vampirism to reveal that she is just an animated corpse and has been for a long time. 

They should chase the night along Europe as soon as possible. Before this melancholy becomes too strong. She needs to survive this night, instead of succumbing to her own ennui and chasing the sun instead of the moon. For her father, she must. She rises, fugue, but seeking a specific type of escape that will see her through one more night — just one more at time. If she stops and thinks of how much she resents the sun, she’ll go mad like so many vampires do.

Leaving Arjun to his crypt, she wears one of his frocks, her shape thus neither male nor female once she’s done trimming down her brown hair.

Pandora steps into the streets of Dresden to find sunlight in any way she can.

***🌛🌜***

She prowls beastlike and birdlike. Her short, jaw-length hair flutters with the soft breeze, but her bare feet barely touch the paved streets. 

The sky is tinted a very dark blue, but it's somehow very purple. She dances under the pale moonlight, goddess and divine, until she feels more than hears the gaze of a woman falling on her. 

The woman smells pungent and tangy like a rich merlot. Her hair is dusty and stinky, but her hands bring forth the waft of the flowers in her basket. Pandora muses, briefly, if there’s any meaning to the flowers she sells: daisies, forget-me-nots, orchids and lilac hydrangeas; but quickly abandons such foolishness. There’s never been any meaning to anything. The variety of flowers in the girl’s basket is blissfully chaotic but easily deciphered: she steals flowers from tombstones at night and sells them for cheap to visitors in the morning. She’s a carrion of a different type and that is all there is to it. They’re the most mundane type of goddesses, and that’s comforting, somehow.

Her victim is blonde, and beautiful, bringing forth the seduction of a ripe cherry. Summer comes fast with its joys, like sangria and watermelons. Pandora dreams of a night with a victim whose breath smells like strawberries.

But for tonight, the sky is cabernet, and this lady of flowers will do. She leads the girl from her equals and from life, to the gentle embrace of death. How convenient that this girl isn’t scared of walking into a cemetery in the dead of night. The girl’s mind is a waltz of confusion. She isn’t sure if Pandora is real, if she’s a ghostly apparition or if she’s dreaming of a genderless ghoul leading her deeper and deeper through rows of memorials. But who wouldn’t follow a creature this divine? They walk until they’re far — far from other humans, and amidst the dead. Communion must always happen in the privacy of Pandora’s embrace. The ritual begins with the girl’s petal-like fingers threading Pandora’s cold, monstrous flesh. The wicker basket falls to their feet. The girl licks her neck, her jaw, her earlobe, indifferent to every proof of preternatural texture. Her hands seem desperate to find out whether Pandora is a man or a woman. She palms breasts, traces the rock-hard nipples and her heartbeat accelerates when she touches uncertain fingertips to the middle of the brunette’s legs. Desire mucks up the flowergirl’s reason and lust mistakes rigour mortis for iced wine when their lips meet.

The entrance between her legs is shut, but Pandora lets the flowergirl play with its bushy outsides and with her clitoris for as long as the sky retains some tinted red. She licks the girl's neck, listens to her moans and entertains her kisses, hearing thoughts of excitement. She giggles and waits for any evidence of there ever having been sunlight to fade from the night sky before she finds it in the girl’s blood. Let the poor thing have nice things.

Dark blue with a blush of red gradients into royal purple before its final metamorphosis. The night is black, and the stars sparkle.

Her fangs itch, and she sings from her mind.

Show me the sun, my nymph. Show me the first sunset of summer, and I might let you live, she lies.

Pandora’s mouth opens like a gaping maw so fast the girl never catches a glimpse of the sharp fangs before they disappear inside her body. Her embrace is no longer lascivious or tender. She crushes the girl’s chest, collapsing ribs into lungs, crunching bones into fragments, exploding stomach onto belly. The joy of expiring under the jaws of such a gentle monster overwhelms the girl, dulling pain and whatever sense of fight or flight she has in her. Her dull screams cease amidst wheezing gasps, desperate for air while her respiratory system collapses. The flower girl knows she’s dying, but she cannot find the strength to oppose it. All she can do is let her mind succumb to the vampire’s curiosity.

And then, Pandora sees it.

Hidden behind clouds that have become purple with golden linings, framed by violet and purpura hovering above a horizon of sienna. The sun gently bows down like a halo of fire. The sun is as indifferent as ever. In two thousand years, she has never once found it gentle and caring as it had been on that fateful afternoon, when it peered through the windows in Marius’ house, to warm up his settee in his absence. She sighs as she draws one final gulp, watching it closely, or as closely as she can through the eyes of a woman whose life evades her — a girl who foolishly thought she’d see a thousand more sunsets, and thus never bothered to look at any of them, to truly see the spectacle and worship the splendor of the sun as it becomes twilight. She never truly witnessed the divine miracle of living through a festival of colours and an endless palette of hues. The flower girl dies without ever worshipping the setting sun she always took for granted.

And as she falls down from Pandora’s lips to her embrace, she drops like Christ at the arms of the pieta. Cradling her, the vampire fixes her hair. Her anatomy is monstrous, hourglass, and her belly protruding, herniated, with lung pieces and scrambled guts merging into burst ovaries. It is surprising how clean Pandora is, despite wanting to finish the night with a bloody face. She turns the girl in her lap, slashing her midsection and hearing more than seeing her innards splatter out. The night is painted red, but it widens the chasm inside her heart that has only ever grown in her many centuries of wandering. The red of blood cannot tint the sky purple for her to pretend the sun has only just set, and the nights will get shorter and longer, but they will never end.Pandora wonders if it was truly sunny that final afternoon before a vampire poured death down her throat, or if she dreamt it like the living dream of goddesses to chase.