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mostofthingsmostofthetime · 7 hours ago

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K-pop Idol Armand AU!

Before we get started though I just want to say a few things.

This AU deals with a lot of dark stuff and while I like to think I did my best to come at things in a sensitive way I am in no way an expert in such topics & truthfully did very little research on them (I obviously would go about things differently if I were to turn this into an actual fic though) so please read at your own discretion & if there’s anything that’s incorrect or you think could be handled better then, I am open to hearing your thoughts.

The plot was purely so I could combine my interest in the genre + my issues with the industry & project that onto my current favourite character. I am in no way trying to make light of any real life scandals.

Also if there is anything that seems to be phrased in a delibratelty problematic way I want you to know that, that is just my attempt at embodying the different character’s mindsets & is no way how I actually think (which is probably obvious but I don’t wanna cause offence so thought I should explain, just in case)

Now onto the plot:

I would keep Armand’s background similar to the books & show. With him being trafficked at a young age. But I’d have him meet Marius at around twelve instead of fifteen.

Marius is a wealthy man with his fingers in a lot of pies which has led to him also playing at being a philanthropist and one of the organisations he helps run just happens to deal with victims of human trafficking.

Arun (if the scant records are to be believed) is soon taken in by Marius. There are some who can't help but wonder at the man’s intentions, obviously, but they are quick to avert their eyes & hold their tongue. That sort of money & influence is powerful after all.

Arun was strange, to put it mildly. Though Marius knows he shouldn’t be surprised.

The child is thin as a rake with, at first, all the strength of a baby bird, yet the speed of a cheetah (from what the nurses have described). Those eyes however, focused at all times on even the most seemingly insignificant of details. Taking in the world as if he has never seen it till now and has already decided not to trust it.

He also doesn’t speak. Even when having a nightmare (Marius has monitored him long enough to be sure his not faking). He's aware most people found the constant silence unnerving but for all his deficiencies the boy does have something (outside of just obedience) going for him. Tragically ethereal even with all the grime & injuries, the medical staff had worked hard to erase.

Flash forward a few years & Amadeo, the child had been in need of a new name & this one suited him much better Marius thought, was now fourteen.

Excitedly rambling (long visits to top child phycologists/speech therapists & the finest tutors money could buy, had eventually fixed the speaking issue) as he showed him an interview of fifteen year old actor Lestat (who had stayed with them last summer along with his mother, a family friend, during his parent’s divorce) where he spoke about his desire to become a musician due, in part, to his violinist boyfriend, Niki (though Marius knows things aren’t always so “closed” between them due to Lestat’s often wandering eye).

Amadeo, fascinated by the first yet completely dismissive of the other (ah puppy love, Marius thought & not too surprising as he, himself had always found the blonde captivating & was, privately, confused by his attachment to such a weak & plain individual as the De Lenfent boy) begged Marius to learn music so that he to, could become an artist.

Marius wasn’t sure at first. Truthfully, he found most modern music distasteful & he knew little about the entertainment industry (now if Amadeo had wanted to go into painting, Marius would have had no issues training him & later setting up connections for him) so his a little daunted at making such a change to the established routine of their life together, as if Amadeo insisted on taking up something so time consuming & expensive it would have to be in the utmost professional capacity (Marius wasn’t exactly as young as he’d once been after all & he worried about how Amadeo would survive once he was gone if he had no skills of his own to stand on).

Then there was the matter of what kind of musician Amadeo would be. No child of his would disgrace the family name by spewing some ghastly rap over a ukulele beat. It needed to be polished, controlled, respected, an almost guaranteed success & after some research he decided that K-pop star, it was.

He would have to get Amadeo trained by a well known talent agency which meant moving to Korea. But that could be a surprise for now. He’d been travelling the world for business for years. He was sure his son would be pleased to be coming along this time. As for the language barrier, well the boy had already proven himself capable of learning Italian & French (another attempt at impressing Lestat, no doubt) so he was sure an Oriental language wouldn’t be too difficult.

After several years of training, under the strict rule of Santino, Marius decides that his son is almost ready but that he needs to get him away from certain “contaminating” influences. So he fires Santino & creates a company of his own in which to debut Amadeo. Appointing Santiago as his manager & hiring Riccardo, a former art student from one of his “help the less fortunate” programmes a few years back who had quickly become a friend of the family, to be the boy’s assistant. He also has his personal companion, he’s sure that children now days would refer to her as something classless like “secret girlfriend” but he insists to Amadeo that there’s nothing wrong with his father wanting privacy especially when the world would no doubt judge their relationship due to their large age gap, Bianca become Amado’s designated hair & makeup artist.

Finally Amadeo debuts at age 17 & does, to no one’s surprise, amazingly. A dedicated fan base seemingly sprouting overnight & his first ever official album, titled Angel Child, expected to become No.1 on sevral charts around Asia before it even comes out.

But cut to a few years later and things aren’t going so well.

Amadeo is not as young as he used to be & several health problems both physical & mental have started cropping up again (standard for this industry + someone with his background) but he can’t have others, especially the competition & the public, knowing.

In that way, things had been easier as a teenager. Just one gif of him smiling had millions rushing to buy tickets for his concert but at 27 his no longer the precious ingénue he used to be. With people who’d once worshiped him just for breathing, now picking apart his every move (only some very loyal people online insisting that the sudden lacklustre performances were purely down to overwork & therefore not his fault).

An insistence from both the public, critics & the industry at large, that he was a one trick pony simply coasting on his looks, (clips of him stuttering through interviews or falling asleep on various sets, once fawned over, now deemed a clear sign of unprofessionalism) was growing.

His manager, Santiago, once seemingly ok with Amado’s privately more bratty attitude, was getting more & more fed up with his apparent declining interest in performing. Leading to a much stricter & hostile work environment for everyone.

Then there was his personal life.

A crush on his father’s companion leading to an ill advised kiss, at 18, followed by her sudden departure from their lives after he, angry at her supposed rejection, cruelly tells her that Marius is still in love with his ex wife.

He’d begged Marius to tell him what the two had discussed, father did not like the term argue but Amadeo privately thought that was more likely what had occurred, before Bianca left but he’d dismissed the topic so vehemently that Amadeo gave up trying to get answers from him.

He’d still tried to investigate himself, however. It led no where though. She must have changed her name, contact details, maybe even her face (some might find that hard to believe but he himself had underwent surgery on his nose for “health related reasons” before his debut even though there had been nothing wrong with his nasal passages as far as he could tell) so wherever she was, she must not want to be found.

Then came the failed confession from Riccardo, a year later, as he'd begged Amadeo to come forward about the more unpleasant side of the job, that Marius insisted he perform, resulting in an intense fight & Ricardo leaving in tears only to later end up dying in a drink driving accident (he'd been hit as he was most likely walking to the star's home resports suggested).

Amadeo didn’t know what to do. What could he do. All the fanciest food in the world, at his finger tips & it was like his stomach had shrivelled up to nothing. He lost weight. He started feeling weak but he noticed the weaker he got the less his mind bothered him & he couldn't help growing addicted to that feeling. Maybe he could die from this. What a relief a secret little part of himself thought. But Marius had other plans. A tube was acquired, along with a man to hold him down while the liquid was forced down his throat. Another man always appearing soon after to make sure he wasn’t throwing it up where Marius couldn’t see (pointless in Amadeo’s opinion as he’d known about the cameras in their home, for years). He promised to eat again if the men were sent away, he hated being watched, and Marius conceded, with a promise that he would have them return if Amadeo didn’t improve soon on his own. He takes a bite of his first proper meal in weeks & gags slightly at the phantom feel of the tube in his throat. Marius gives him a look, he could never abide bad table manners. So Amadeo does his best to force it down. It tastes like chalk & makes his stomach twist painfully but, as with every aspect of Amadeo’s life, father knew best, so he kept eating.

A night of passion with Lestat, at 20, briefly reinvigorating him only to slam him almost back to rock bottom upon realising that the chaotic French man viewed their meetups as purely casual & was in fact still dragging around his whiney boyfriend.

Still things didn’t turn truly unsalvageable until one particular industry party.

Lestat was off somewhere, probably having sex with that old woman with the cliché French name (Amadeo could never wrap his head around the blonde’s type). Leaving him & a sour faced Nicholas, stuck on the sofa of some obnoxious club for the evening.

Amadeo had made up his mind to simply ignore the other man, when the drugs started coming out.

Amadeo usually abstains from such vulgar behaviour, only ever taking the occasional bit of speed (purely for performance enhancing reasons or to starve off jetlag, of course). However he couldn’t help himself, from goading the naive musician into trying some LSD, insisting that his recent artistic struggles & Lestat’s continued wandering eye, was likely due to him refusing to fully embrace the two’s change in lifestyle.

Amadeo had only meant to annoy him into making a fool of himself where everyone, Lestat wanted to make a good impression on, could see, but shouts of the devil, one almost severed hand & a trip to the ER later & Lestat was on a flight back to Auvergne, an almost catatonic Nicholas held protectively at his side, without a backward glance.

It takes months of increasingly frantic attempts at contacting him for Amadeo to finally get a response. It was an email from Lestat’s mother simply stating that her son no longer wishes to engage with Amadeo and if he continues to try to do so then they will have no choice but to get the law involved. Amadeo gives up after that.

Marius is at a loss at what to do with him at this point so graciously allows him time off to rest, much to his manager’s annoyance. Amado finds that rather funny as if anyone asked him what he was doing during that time he would not have described it as restful.

The show must go on however so he soon goes back to work.

His fans enthusiasm had waned slightly in his absence but that’s fine Marius insists, just have to make sure to impress them extra hard with the new album.

The only problem is that he hasn’t got anything new to sing about (Marius had hoped that him & Lestat would eventually collaborate but that was obviously off the table now). Well no he had, it just wasn’t anything the people he worked for wanted to hear (this is too macabre, for you child, your supposed to be an ideal, the world wants to hear how grateful you are for the opportunities you have been given, not lamenting over life & death like some weary philosopher). In the end Amadeo plays what he is told to. He’d signed a contract, after all.

Then at 23, during a trip to America, Amadeo met aspiring photographer, Louis.

They’d gone on a few dates where they found out that they’d both been with Lestat & very much wanted to complain about it and then suddenly what Amadeo had told himself would be fine as a “casual” affair escalated into a need to finally “out do” the French man.

Louis had been calm & sweet at first (so unlike the men he was usually forced to interact with. More similar to dear Ricardo, though not so naive, Amadeo thought guiltily).

Then came the drinking & staying out late (while Amadeo was forced to keep Marius’s guests company).

Leading to more & more slip ups. What? He’d totally been awake during that dress rehearsal. No he hadn’t rolled his eyes when Amadeo had started crying over a painting during their visit to that gallery (he’d just had something in his eye ok). Yes he was obviously only thinking about Amadeo when he’d asked him to speak French in bed. No he hadn’t said Lestat’s name in his sleep again last night & it was ridiculous of Amadeo to suggest otherwise.

But the most egregious by far was when he’d talked some wannabe journalist they’d met that night, at a gay bar, into interviewing him, supposedly about his complex family history, coming out as gay & his new found career. Only for Armand to arrive at Louis’s home earlier then planned (expecting the two to already be naked & in bed together) to discover them instead coked up & sitting around a tape recorder & typewriter (who even used those things anymore Amadeo had thought, back at the bar, but the idiot had insisted that he was “old school” which Amadeo had quickly gathered was just a nice way of saying poor) as Louis ranted passionately about Lestat.

Amadeo saw red & before he knew it louis & him were shouting, stuff they had never said to eachother. One barb of Louis’s, hitting a particular nerve, suddenly making him grab the kettle from the counter (more his than Louis as the American had never understood his preference for tea over coffee) & throw it across the room. Only realising his error when Louis started screaming in pain.

That’s when Amadeo was reminded of their unwelcome guest, as the scruffy boy (he didn’t care that he was apparently 2 years older then them the guy clearly had all the maturity of a toddler) lurched over to them, like a badly animated doll, in concern.

Amadeo quickly throws him out to try to deal with Louis’s injuries (thank god the man had been smart enough to buy a penthouse apartment, if any noise did make it to the lower floors his neighbours would thankfully still know better than to make a fuss about it).

Amadeo ends up having to take Louis to his personal Doctor, Mr Bhansali (who always travelled with him & father whenever they went abroad) and once the medicine kicked in, Amadeo decided to read what his partner had felt so comfortable telling a practical stranger (the idiot had managed to grab the tape recorder on his way out but hadn’t been so lucky when it came to the type writer) over his own boyfriend.

It was just more Lestat. Oh sure there was a bit about his mum, his dead brother & his younger cousin Claudia in there (Amadeo wonders why in all their conversations Louis had never really spoken about them that much or maybe, he’d realised Louis wasn’t the only one who’d stopped paying attention at some point) but mainly the topic being discussed was of the aggravating blonde. It seemed that even when Louis claimed to hate him, the man still managed to take up space in his mind, in a way that Amadeo never could.

He made sure to burn the pages before going to check on his boyfriend, who could barely lift his head yet still managed to ask if Daniel had made it back to his hotel ok, before passing out again.

Anger was not new to Amadeo. Even when he’d made an effort not to remember his past, he was certain he’d been angry at all the supposed gods out there for never helping him & at the younger children who cried the whole night, ruining what little reprieve he had (even though he knows he must have been the same when he’d first been taken to that awful place). It had been a while since it had consumed him so thoroughly though, usually it was easy to handle, something simmering in the background he could pretend wasn’t real by just not looking too closely at it. Right now, however, it was more like a black hole, that he was sure, if he was not careful, would collapse inward & take the little he had left, with it.

No he had to be stronger than this. He WAS stronger than this. But he still couldn’t stop the cold fury burning him from the inside.

He couldn’t take it out on Louis anymore, obviously, Amadeo had been neglecting him before, he could see that now. Nor could he lash out at Lestat (no matter how badly he wanted to), as he was probably still laying low in France with his bitch of a mother (he’d made sure to block any mention of the man from his devices after him & Louis officially got together).

That only left one person.

Amadeo made sure to contact the guy anonymously, of course, & ask for the interaction to be recorded, in order to see that the job was done to his satisfaction.

Some people might think he’d gone a little too far this time (not that he was going to let anyone know about this of course) but it’s not like he’d put out a hit on the guy, Amadeo reasons with himself. It was just some roughing up (ok so the broken arm might have been a bit excessive on the thug’s end but that was hardly his fault) to retrieve the tapes and he was thinking about Louis who, once he was healed, would realise that he didn’t want the world hearing his pathetic ramblings (it would ruin the reputation he’d been trying so hard to build). Plus Daniel would have probably stood a better chance of defending himself if he hadn’t been coked up to his eyeballs & Amadeo is not going to feel guilty for a stranger’s poor life choices.

Things don’t go exactly back to normal after that (obviously) but they do quiet down.

He takes some time off work (Santiago is pissed but Amadeo doesn’t care) to look after Louis.

He managed to make Louis think it was self defence that made him throw the kettle (the power of a lot of drugs, Amadeo thinks, is their habit of scrambling the mind & lucky for him he’d had as much experience faking tears as he’d had hiding them). Amadeo knows its bad on his end (especially with how afraid Louis is of the “darker” parts of himself) but how else was he supposed to make him stay?

This of course makes Louis feel immensely guilty & Amadeo can’t deny that its nice to get the gentle boyfriend experience back (even if their sex life seemed to have wilted quite a bit in exchange).

Even better news, that loathsome “journalist” seems to have completely fallen off the face of the Earth after their last encounter.

Things were definitely looking up for Amadeo, which is exactly when he, of course, makes the fatal flaw of getting used to this new found devotion (I mean was how Louis got the injuries even that important when Amadeo tended to him so sweetly now?). He’d become complacent, convinced he’s lies would remain buried forever. Never thinking that his lover might start to question the things Amadeo told him about that night or the stranger they met at the bar.

Louis gets better (which is good, as while Amadeo could play doting with the best of them, it was starting to feel just slightest bit claustrophobic) & his first port of call was apparently to track down that fascinating journalist (all behind Amado’s back, of course).

So it is on one random day, that Amadeo gets a shock as he strolls in on the pair, casually discussing the oh so very random mugging that befell Daniel soon after he was thrown out of Louis’s home that fateful night.

Amadeo tried his best to keep cool. There was always room to twist the truth to something people would except, so that everything could be good again. Or there would have been if Daniel hadn’t been there. Whispering in Louis’s ear (well more like yelling indignantly). Poisoning him against Amadeo until he was turning away from him, muttering something that sounded far too much like ‘we’re done’ before heading towards the door, without a second glance. Just like Lestat and Bianca. Just like Riccardo and the men who’d left him on that boat, uninterested now that their pockets were full.

No, it can’t end like this, he won’t let it. Without thinking he ran to the kitchen. He refused to be thrown away again.

Molloy quivers like a dog, as he advances. Pathetic, thinks Amadeo, near rabid with a need to hurt that he’d once naively thought could be erased by fancy soaps & fine clothing.

Someone nearby is shouting but he can’t focus on what it is. Just have to get rid of the interloper, some broken part of his mind insists, do that and everything would be good again. He goes to swing but a hand suddenly grabs his wrist.

He opens his mouth to snarl at the man or maybe rip his throat out, he isn’t sure anymore, but stops when he catches sight of those eyes.

Green, luminous, beautiful. Louis, staring at him. Not with affection or attraction or even anger anymore, but instead a bone deep fear.

Like how Bianca had looked when he’d told started shouting about Lydia. How Lestat had looked when he’d seen the blood on Niki’s wrist. How Riccardo had looked after he’d told him to grow up. How the younger children had looked when they knew men were about to enter the room.

And that was what Amadeo had really been trying to hide all this time, wasn’t it? He had never been someone to save, he was the thing people should run from.

It’s why he had to be tied down wasn’t it? Why he had to be gagged. Whipped. He deserved this pain because he’d been born bad. Something inside of him so fundamentally wrong that even his own parents couldn’t love him (if they had he would have surely remembered them by now or they would have come looking for him at some point).

A pungent smell suddenly hit him, reminding him of the other’s presence again. Daniel was openly crying now, like a child Amadeo thought, and there was a wet patch on the front of his jeans.

Amadeo started shaking.

Louis’s mouth was moving, probably trying to say something in that gentle but slightly panicked way he’d used only once, when Amadeo had made the mistake of falling asleep first (forgetting to go home after they’d made love for the first time) leading to Louis witnessing one of his nightmares, but Amadeo couldn’t hear it above the pounding in his ears.

Naive Louis, kind even now, tried reaching out, gently this time, but Amadeo still couldn’t help flinching & backing away.

He had to go. It was clear now, there was nothing left for him here & he was tired of chasing something he would never be able to keep.

He wonders when the sirens started before realising that the sound is coming from him. He tries to shut himself up, suddenly painfully aware of how humiliating this all is, but it seems that no matter how much he tries to swallow, his vocal chords won’t cooperate.

His body aches for rest. He lifts the blade to his throat but only feels the tiniest of nicks before someone is knocking him to the ground & grabbing hold of his wrists.

Tight so tight, he struggled to breath. He continues to fight though. Screaming in earnest now. Starting with threats only to quickly descend into pleading. Italian, French, Korean, English, what little remains of his native tongue. It doesn’t matter. No language gets through to the man on top of him. It never did.

Suddenly another man is kneeling by the side of his face. Panic in his eyes, as he goes to grab his jaw. Arun tries his best to bite him but the man is faster. Still Arun isn’t a dog (no matter what the captain says) & will not submit. He shakes his head & keeps his mouth firmly closed, trying to get away from the hand.

The body above him suddenly stiffens. Then the dark skinned man is asking him something, a look of shock spreading across his face, but Arun doesn’t understand. All he knows is that the smell, he’d almost forgotten about it, is back& worse than ever & his trousers are soaked.

He opens his mouth to scream again in humiliated fury and that’s when the white man shoves something horrible down his throat, & squeezes his mouth closed so he can’t spit it out.

When Amadeo wakes, he has a terrible headache & an even worse sore throat (like he sometimes gets when one of master’s guests are particularly enthusiastic). He goes to touch his neck. His fingers meet bandaging, which he thinks is kind of overkill, but it is nice that father can still get so protective over him even after all these years. He opens his eyes. He’s alone in a hospital room.

He finds out later that the three of them had struck a “deal”, though everyone must have known who was really in control.

Daniel & Louis could do their little interview if they wished but it could in no way reference Amadeo or Marius, as the boy’s father & employer, would sue for defamation of character. Which as Louis, though born rich, had been left with a big debt by his gambler of a father + was cut off by most of his family when he came out as gay & Molloy was so far down the corporate ladder he may as well be the mud underneath it, would clearly be a big deal to them.

And of course no mention of what may/may not have transpired on either of those fateful nights at any other point, anywhere other parties could find out about it. For their or Amado’s sake. Keep their end of the deal and they’d get to leave here right away with a sizeable amount of money. Don’t and be ready to deal with years of legal hell as well as having every possible bit of their dirty laundry (which there clearly was a lot of) dragged out for the world to poke and prod at.

So Amadeo guesses that’s that. All that time together meant nothing, once people saw the real him. He’d hoped Louis might be different, considering his brother’s history, that at least this time he might be offered some kind of goodbye, how foolish love always made him.

Marius is preoccupied for a while, but time means little to him at the moment (he wonders if it ever really did). His father doesn’t explain why and Amadeo doesn’t ask. But he eventually returns with good news. Amadeo is ready to go back to work. How great is that? Isn’t it fantastic that this “little incident” barely left a scar (& that could easily be covered by makeup + would soon fade with time anyway).

He had their cover story for Amado’s recent absence as well as his previous odd behaviour. They’ll simply say Amadeo had been struggling due to an anxiety disorder (never forget, garnering sympathy despite your failure of duty is key, Amadeo).

So he went back to rehearsals, under the spiteful eye of Santiago. And the industry & the fans he had left, took pity on him. As sure, he wasn’t as beautiful as he’d once been or as talented as they’d longed for, but some leniency could be allowed, now that they knew of his medical circumstance (& really it’s probably not that far off from the truth Amadeo thinks bitterly, he’d grown so much since being taken in but there was still a part of him that panicked when Marius introduced him to a new guest).

Two years later & Amadeo wakes to discover that Louis & Lestat are definitely on speaking terms again, thanks to a photo of them making out during one of the blonde’s concerts. He calls him crying. When Louis doesn’t pick up he smashes a whole through the wall then gets very drunk. The next time he wakes up, his hand is in a cast & Marius tells him that he has blocked Louis’s name from all of Amado’s devices. He thanks his father & tries not to cry anymore.

It never occurs to them to block mention of Daniel’s name until a few months later while visiting Australia with his father & he sees an advert on TV for Lestat’s up coming documentary featuring none other than Amado’s least favourite member of the press.

Now at 27 his mind & body seem to have finally started shutting down on him. He begins forgetting things. Missing cues during rehearsals (irritating his manager to no end). Responding to questions during interviews in the wrong language and that’s when he can manage to talk at all or leave his room for fear that the world will end if someone points another camera at him & demand that he smile.

Father said it was just tiredness but Amadeo didn’t think his lack of sleep was the only reason.

Amadeo would have just thrown in the towel. Practically 30 didn’t seem like such a bad age to retire, in this business, and surely he’d made enough money by now to be comfortable? But he couldn’t stop the fear of losing his place by his father’s side if he were to come out and say those things, consume him. After all, without Marius who would he be? Amadeo might not have always liked the things his father asked of him but how could he ever be without him when the man had given him everything. Turned him from a savage animal to a boy worthy of envy and it’s not like anyone else could love him, his unrelenting need for control & venomous jealousy, had seen to that.

So Daniel had his first brief glimpse into the entertainment industry. The drinks had been good, the drugs even better, and Louis was a sight for the eyes, if you happened to walk that side of the tracks (& Daniel, when he wasn’t being a total hypocrite, could admit that he sometimes liked such detours) but the crazy boyfriend, getting his arm broken & his tapes stolen then almost getting stabbed only for the whole mess to be forced under the rug by the world’s most pretentious old man had definitely soured his already not so great view of the often intellectually vapid & culturally inauthentic business. Still he took the money and managed to get the fuck out of there, this time with a friend (which if he really thought about it Daniel didn't think he’d had since high school & that bond had mostly just been built on who had the most drugs/tell the dirtiest hookup stories, regardless of if they were true or not).

So that was the end of that. Or so he had thought. Soon he was introduced to the infamous Lestat (who annoyingly was, like everyone had warned him, as hot as he was ridiculous) & ended up being pushed into going on the world’s most hedonistic tour to make a so called documentary (which was purely a vanity project in Daniel’s view but then wasn’t that the case for everyone in this game).

The tour ended and other than a stint in rehab (thank you Louis & Lestat’s wallets) he’s career was actually maybe starting to go somewhere, work did significantly better when people could actually know about it who knew?, But he wanted to write about things that mattered. He’d never had the luxury in the past to be very picky about what kind of story he was selling (drugs & too many late rent bills will do that to you) but now that he was relatively sober, not like the occasional beer or bit of weed with friends was gonna kill him, and might actually have an audience who were interested in what he had to say.

There was still the occasional nightmare, of course.

Those men emerging from the dark. The light from a phone blinding him as the sickening snap of bone made his stomach roll & his brain flood with pain & confusion.

The drunken yelling of his father from the other room.

The beginnings of a sob from beneath a paper bag.

Louis skin melting off like plastic.

A too tight grip on his shoulder as he’s mother hissed that he better not embarrass them during temple again.

Alice pulling up to the curb with a little girl he’d never seen before, laughing as she tells him that she hadn’t got the abortion after all so he needed to pay an insane amount of child support right now or he’d go to jail, only for ex girlfriend number two to join them with an identical little girl on her hip, to point out that he’d be fine, after all being on his knees for randos just so he could get a different kind of blow, was the only thing he’d ever excelled at.

Amadeo coming at him with the knife. Amadeo laughing as Louis screamed. Amadeo watching him get beaten into the ground, tapes laying broken at his feet. Amadeo on the ground, himself, his trousers soaked with piss & face twisted up in a snarl. Head rocking from side to side. Shrieking for mercy in, presumably, every language he knew.

Daniel was afraid of Amadeo. Wanted to hate him. Was so ready to be smug & condescending as Louis tore the snobby little phyco to shreds; until he’d started trembling & his previously doll like face had gone somehow both blank & dark, like he’s soul had left his body & the man before them was nothing more than a corpse frozen in place. Daniel had wanted to believe it was a trick at first, an over the top performance to try to guilt trip Louis into staying (what would he say after, oh I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my random black outs that make me extremely violent but it’s ya know a "medical" thing so obviously you can’t blame me for any of the fucked up shit I do or you're actually the one who's abusive) but then the man had opened his mouth & let out a wheezing, gasping sob that turned into a screaming that was so unrelenting, even as he pulled the blade to his own throat, that it reminded Daniel of the first (& only) time his child self had thought it'd be fun to shake a hornets nest.

Daniel often called up Louis for support after having nightmares (turned out a new career as an art dealer & reinvigorated sex life with his old flame hadn’t magically erased his old traumas either) but he never mentioned the ones involving Amadeo. Knew Louis wouldn't want to talk about him & really what was there to say after what they’d witnessed. It was one thing to hate your ex for being a manipulative lying snake. It was an entirely different matter to find out they were so mentally fucked up that they probably should have never even been having sex with you in the first place.

Mr Romanus hadn’t given them many details about his son’s past before he came to live with him but it was clear the level of trauma was immense & unlikely to ever truly go away.

Amadeo could not be trusted. An obvious danger to himself and others but there was a part of Daniel, probably the part that still longed for a needle in his arm & a line of coke up his nose, that couldn’t help but pity him. Say what you want about his childhood but he'd chosen to barter his body in exchange for his vices. He didn't think Amadeo could say the same.

Then at 29, Daniel is contacted out of the blue by a mysterious informant called Bee. He doesn’t know what to make of them at first. Could just be a cracked up conspiracy theorist desperate for validation or a random sicko getting off on their own porn fuelled fantasise but the more he & Bee correspond & the more independent research he, himself, attempts to do (fishy how little information there is available about certain people who, at various points in their lives, seemed to be at the top of their careers) the more intrigued he becomes. Until eventually he decides, fuck it, he will travel to Korea even if it is just to snoop around the K-pop scene a bit, try to see if he can find any proof of what Bee has been suggesting.

He wonders if he’s made a mistake at first but the more he digs and the more time he spends around a certain performer, the more sure he feels that he’s on the right track & that scares him. Especially when one of Amado’s admirers starts getting more intense in their affections

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