Imagine: Omegaverse AU where Ghost had his scent gland cut out by Roba.
Ghost barely survived it, and now he doesn’t have a scent of his own. He’s never tried, but it’s a logical assumption that he won’t be able to sustain a mating bond, either. He can usually pass his lack of scent off as just using the scent suppressants military members almost always use on missions, but it’s harder during downtime when there’s not such a need for them.
Ghost is close to Soap, flirting and bantering with him constantly, *likes* him, but he never outright tells him. He likes Soap’s scent, too, an odd but alluring combination of citrus and a hint of gunpowder—one would think the two scents together would be disgusting, but when it’s Soap, it’s not.
Ghost keeps the mask on to hide, and doesn’t lift it even to eat when others are around. It’s kind of a pain sometimes, really, and he’s considered being done with all the bullshit and just taking it off, but then Soap would know. He wants the bond and affection between them to last. It’s fucked up to lie to him, but Soap won’t want him when he finds out Ghost can’t actually bond with him, and Soap is the closest he’s been to someone in years.
Soap, while slightly skeptical of Ghost’s unwillingness to take off the mask, doesn’t entirely connect the dots and just thinks Ghost’s scent suppressants work amazingly.
Until the day Ghost sustains a head injury on a mission, that is. He’s losing blood fast and Soap can’t see a thing with the mask on, and he just barely convinces Ghost to take it off so he can staunch the blood flow better. Soap gets him patched up enough that he won’t bleed out on the way to exfil, but with the danger now past, he notices the deep, unmistakable scar of a botched scent gland removal on Ghost’s neck.
After Ghost is treated in medical, he makes an effort to avoid Soap, simply not wanting to bother with his pity or disgust.
He knows Soap liked him back at one point, but if they had ever gotten that far, they’d never be able to actually bond. Soap deserves a real mate.
Soap catches on by the end of the first day that Ghost is avoiding him, but Ghost is elusive if he wants to be, and Soap doesn’t catch him in the man’s favorite smoking spot on the roof until a week later.
Ghost hears him coming, but doesn’t pull his mask back down. Soap’s seen the scar anyways, so it doesn’t really matter.
“Long time no see, Lt,” Soap says.
Ghost doesn’t reply and takes a drag from his cigarette. He shouldn’t have let himself get so close to Soap, because he knew it’d go to shit once he found out about the scar. People usually date to bond. Ghost can’t do that.
Soap stands next to Ghost.
“Care to share?” Soap asks. Ghost hums and gives the cigarette to Soap, and they silently pass it back and forth until it’s a stub.
“Gonna tell me why you were avoiding me?” Soap asks, blowing out the last puff of smoke. “Kinda rude to vanish on someone like that.”
“Figured you’d know that one,” Ghost replies.
“If it’s about—“
Ghost cuts him off. “It is.”
“So you’ve been flirting with me and didn’t think to mention it? I’ve been wanting to fuck you for the past six fuckin’ months,” Soap says, sounding irritated. “Kiss would’ve been nice, too.”
“I didn’t because I knew you’d act like this,” Ghost says, pointedly ignoring the fact that Soap just admitted that he likes Ghost—or that he did at one point, anyway.
“So you like me?”
“Yes,” Ghost says, “but I think you can find someone that’ll be able to keep a bond.”
“It doesn’t make a difference,” Soap says resolutely. “I want you anyway.”
Ghost doesn’t scoff, but he sort of wants to. Of course it makes a difference.
“Just drop it, Soap,” Ghost says.
Soap does, for about ten seconds. Then he grabs Ghost by the collar and kisses him hard, smashing their lips together and biting at Ghost’s lips. Ghost kisses back just as hard, savoring how their bodies feel pressed together, hands gripping at each other’s clothes and skin.
This won’t last, but Ghost will take what he can get.
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Louis' "You're boring!" Could mean so many things, but I think what's most apparent about that line is that Armand takes no initiative just for himself. He's not really anybody, because he never goes out and finds himself or gets attached to anyone but Louis. Without Louis as his guide he's literally just sitting on a couch picking lint! That's the thing.
He orbits constantly around what would make Louis happy, and never really fully going what would make me happy? Ultimately that drive to please Louis is what drives him to torturing Daniel, not so much that he'd care to just do it. Ultimately, not giving proper care to Louis is just a way to make sure Louis knows he has to orbit around him as well, with shoving Lestat onto him just that other nail on the coffin. So, even if he fails to figure out how to make Louis happy with him, he still knows what Armand is good for, and better than.
That dependency is what drives Armand's abuse. It really just comes down to that. Armand doesn't even realize how suffocated he is by his own dependency. This is just how life is to him. (It shouldn't be lost either that dependency is a theme considering this episode also deals with addiction).
Daniel's fascinating because he's just so driven to be somebody. He's largely independent, he seeks things because he wants them. It's his drug to poke and prod at all the things that he shouldn't. Daniel's exciting because he lets Louis in to something different, lets him in to all this potential in another person that he can also do the same with for himself. It's a real connection. A two way street. It's easy to tell how Armand can be smothering then because he's never introducing him to anything really new, and most the ways both of them connect are all painful and traumatic. It's never just fun because there's always that layer of that pain. Fun died with Claudia.
50 years on they've gotten to a lot better place, both of them, but it's still that same shit. No seriously, "How is this any different from last time, Louis?"
Well... Because Armand's going to be, at the very least, making one [1] decision only for himself - and that's to hold power over Daniel's life. Fucking sick foreshadowing.
They aren't driving each other to the brink anymore but "The vampire is bored" STILL. Maybe it's even worse, despite being in better places, because Louis' sort of just been defeated by it. (I mean, can he even really leave this either?). He's accepting the dependancy cause he kind of has to. He'd literally ended up letting all the enjoyment be up where he can't reach [The book shelves]. Armand so desperately wants Louis happiness but what really ends up happening is that Louis ends up having to give Armand all his own. He's got no one or anything else to get it from. But like an iPad and an over the top eating ritual. Two extremes of what's just more lint picking.
This whole relationship is one I find just tragic inside and out. You have to just pity it, really. There's ways in which you can find yourself feeling bad for both of them. But you can only really be mad at Armand for any of it. Armand, who isn't even 'free' in any sense, having so little concept of his own independence, but is at the same time so controlling over other's. It's a tragic cycle. It's an infuriating one.
Louis at least has the mind to know when enough is enough. If just needing that extra push to get there. Armand's too scared of it being over to even try.
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