Vamptember Day 26: Funeral Pyre

Still on vacation, the polycule spends an evening around the bonfire. But staring into the fire makes Daniel's thoughts drift in a difficult direction, evoking emotions he'd rather not like to deal with. Thinking about the future is hard - why not follow old patterns instead? Saying no to help comes easy to him, after all. Or: Hey let's watch how a normal bonfire makes Old Man Fledgling Daniel spiral into an existantial crisis, that makes him ditch his therapy goals for a moment.

archiveofourown.org

Therapy for the Polycule - Chapter 27 - colourfulshadows - Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022) [Archive of Our Own]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Excerpts under the cut. Very Daniel centered, the others are only somewhat present.

Excerpt 1: [...] So, calculating, he had maybe five to ten years left of showing his face to anyone without raising suspicion and another five to ten years of being a faceless figure. And then what?

In this modern time, he would surely need to fake his death somehow or go missing. The first would be too much effort. But if he officially went missing, he needed to do it somewhere they wouldn’t be able to find him. But where? He wasn’t ready to dig himself a hole, to hibernate underground and wait out a century. He was too young of a vampire, he wanted to experience being undead and savour everything about it. So, he would have to hide somewhere, give up his registration, an official life for what, years? Decades? A human lifespan, or two? How much time would need to pass before he could make an at least half-official reappearance into the world? With the ongoing digitalization and state surveillance, it would be difficult to do, but was it possible at all? [...]

Excerpt 2: [...] Not once, before this night, had Daniel felt even the tiniest bit of regret or grief about his human life being over. And now he didn’t feel that either, not really – but all of those implications, the uncertainty of his future was what overwhelmed him, made him think that planning his funeral instead would have been less confusing and upsetting. The thoughts turned to emotions – emotions he couldn’t deal with. No, because he refused to deal with them. As the fire slowly burned down, so did his ability to withstand letting himself glide into the familiar darkness that always waited just around the corner, luring him in.

The fire could be fixed by throwing in another branch, if one would bother to do so.

But his thoughts … Well, technically he had the tools to calm his mind, knew what he had to do to refocus on the present, climb up the walls of the dark and rotten pit of despair. If he truly wanted to. The thing is, he didn’t. [...]

Vamptember Day 26: Funeral Pyre

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