Work Text:
When I look at him, this emaciated and burned corpse who still refuses to really die and yet is not really alive neither, I know he chose me because of the way I look, and I resent him for that.
How could I not? He took everything from me, he sent his mindless minion to take me, he reminds me, with every broken breath he takes and every noise he makes - the noise of a dying animal, too stubborn to let it go - he reminds me of how I look.
I am Roman, and yet I look nothing like the children of the City that shines above all others. Blonde and they are brunettes, with the skin of snow while they have the healthy olive color that speaks of strength and days spent in the sun.
I always was different, and this man in front of me, who claims his name is Teskhamen, reminds me of that with every second I am forced to spend in his presence.
I look like my mother, I was told. I never knew my mother. She died so that I could live. Someone put me on the ground, at my father’s feet, and for whatever reason he took me in his arms, accepting me.
If he didn’t I would have died that day and I wouldn’t be here today. I have loved my life, but now I don’t know if I would change that with eternal nothingness. If I died that day I wouldn’t have to be here now. I wouldn’t have to remember, every moment of my nights, that I was chosen because of the way I look, because of my beauty.
Beautiful they called me. Too many to remember their names or their faces. Exotic someone dared to utter the word in my presence, like I was a piece of meat during a banquet, something to consume.
Oh don’t get me wrong. Growing up I was aware of my look, of the effect I had over others, both men and women, and I never cared. It was just something every young boy was used to, in my case their affection came from their curiosity.
However it was only when I left Rome to study in Greece that I realized how strange my look was for those who saw Rome as a child still toddling around on unsteady legs, while they looked upon it from above, from the height of their history and knowledge.
Now, under his gaze, I feel like that child all over again. The years I spent studying and becoming a man are nothing under his scrutiny. I am nothing but a fading moment in the long life of this creature who refuses to die.
Would I be free if he dies? Would I be strong enough to end his suffering and free myself? So many questions swirl in my mind, and for the first I don’t have any answer. He’s the only one who could tell me the truth, and yet I know he would lie, just to play with me.
That’s what I am now, a plaything, a mouse to play with until exhausted and to kill at the end of its efforts to get free.
There came a rasping laugh from across the small space, and Teskhamen’s teeth stood out, eerily perfect in contrast to his otherwise ruined appearance, “You will be as free as I am if I were to die this night. Whether you become a slave to these people, or to another cause, I am afraid that is all eternity has to offer, much the same as mortal life.” After a pause, he added, “Someone of your beauty ought to know that by now, no?”
At his eerie words a fear like nothing I felt before took me and blindly I tried to scoot away from him, until my fingers bled against the hard soil and my back was pressed against something hard. The smell of decay and wet air burned my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t do anything but to endure a fate that was worse than death itself.
His body, like a skeleton, was upon me without that my senses could even perceive he moved. The smell of burned flesh and putrid blood choked me and I screamed. Even now, after so long, I am ashamed of the way I reacted to my last moments alive on this earth and yet there was nothing I could have done differently.
Even now I know that, but it doesn’t change the way I feel about my turning. I never asked for the dark gift. I never wanted it, and here I am, two thousands years later, looking the same as that night.
When I look in the mirror all I can see is my beauty, the reason for my fall. The look of a mother who I never knew. When I look in the mirror I know Rome, my beloved Rome, the mother I would have died for, wouldn’t accept me, not even now. She abandoned me because of my colors while he loved me because of them.
When I look in the mirror all I see is the man he loves. My Armand, who came back to me with his heart finally open to me again, and then all the regrets and hate I felt for the way life was stolen from me, quiet down and my troubled heart rest assured of his love.
And if he loves me because of my beauty, then it is his to take and command. I belong to him and he belongs to me, and while I hate the way I was created into the darkness and abandoned soon after, this time I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Without his actions I wouldn’t have found my Amadeo. Without my actions I wouldn’t have found my Armand. I am at peace with the night and its dark gifts. I have hated my beauty and now I worship Armand’s.
All is well this night, we are at peace.