True Love (and other lies) - WyvernQuill (2024)

Chapter 1: In Which Armand Tells A Lie

Chapter Text

“Hah. No,” says Daniel Molloy, 70, newly-turned vampire, and investigative journalist famed for an ability to smell bullsh*t from miles upwind. Or, he was, before publishing Louis’ memoir and tanking his journalistic career. Whatever. Point is, he's still got it, and trying to feed him this story is insulting whatever he has left of professional pride.

“...no?” Blinks the Vampire Armand de Lie-and-Manipulate, looking, for all intents and purposes, like the very picture of apologetic remorse, raw affection, and tremulous hope. Daniel appreciates that he's at least getting a better performance than Louis did. Mental note for the next book: contritely acknowledge that Armand's acting talents may be valued above a Golden Raspberry, after all. “I fail to catch your meaning, beloved.”

“No, I'm not buying it.” Daniel leans back, pulls his hand out from under Armand's, folds his arms. “Nice try, really. I like the angle, it's bold, kind of impressed you had the balls to go for it. But if you're gonna try to lie to my face, AGAIN, you gotta try a bit harder.”

“But I am not lying,” lies Armand, like a liar.

“Sure.” Daniel chuckles. It was already a hoot to unravel Armand's lies when he still thought the guy was probably going to pick his vertebrae out of his back one by one for it, now that he no longer has mortal death to fear and can (maybe, probably, hopefully) hold his own in a potential fight, it's downright hilarious. “Pull the other one, why don't you.”

“You are being very trying, Daniel my love,” Armand sighs, and somehow manages to communicate that he thinks Daniel is also being a giant dick even without the help of the Mind Gift.

Well, f*ck him very much, too. It's not like Daniel started any of this. This is Armand's game, and it's not his fault the asshole is a sore loser.

He was hoping for better, is the thing. For something real.

It goes like this: Daniel gets invited to re-interview a vampire. Daniel goes and does. Daniel finds out that the vampire's Stockholm-syndrome-bait of a husband tortured him and erased his memories of it 50 years ago. Daniel decides, f*ck it, I'm going to ruin that guy's whole fake construct of a happy home life, see how he likes that. He destroys a marriage that was older than him, and just as doomed from the start. Louis leaves, and Armand’s orange eyes, trembling as much as the rest of his body, turn to the architect of his destruction.

sh*t, thinks Daniel.

The bite and the turning and the first 48 hours after are about as hazy as most of Daniel's memories of the 70s - and being a vampire, well, that's just as good a high as the very best he had then, too, except it lasts eternally. Daniel loves it. Armand might've done it out of spite, or as some kind of f*cked-up revenge, but Daniel doesn't care, not really. He loves it.

He writes a book.

And then, after months, a year of radio silence, his absentee Maker finally deigns to show his false-angelic face in front of Daniel again, looking like a kicked kitten, and says that he couldn't bear to stay away any longer; and that he owes Daniel an explanation.

Which! He sure as hell does! He owes Daniel a good number of things, honestly, abandoning him as a newly-made fledgling. If not for what Louis told him during the interview - and later, too, because Daniel's mere vampiric existence was one big guilt trip to him, and he took responsibility - and the distanced assistance of the Talamasca, he wouldn't have known the first thing about surviving as a vampire.

But Daniel was ready to… not forgive, but move on. He thought he'd get an explanation that might or might not be just an excuse, perhaps an apology Armand most definitely wouldn't actually mean, and then they could see how the f*cked-up maker-fledgling bond would continue to manifest between the two of them.

That's what Daniel thought would happen.

Instead, Armand sits down, watches him silently for five minutes with those freaky fiery eyes of him, and then lies through his fanged teeth. Which, yeah. Figures. Figures! Daniel doesn't know why he ever expected anything else.

This is the story, according to Armand: Armand loves Daniel. Loved him. Loves him. In the 70s and part of the 80s, nestled in those blank spots in Daniel's memory, they had some kind of completely f*cked-in-the-head codependency romance thing going, which started messy, continued twisted, and ended catastrophically when Armand kept refusing to give Daniel the Dark Gift, and Daniel retaliated by hurtling with full force towards a pitiful junkie's/drunkard’s death by overdose or liver failure, whichever would come first. Armand eventually decided to salvage the situation by wiping/editing Daniel's memories, tossing him into rehab, and letting him have a normal human life afterwards, which, at the time, seemed like the most effective method of damage control.

(Armand calls this “the worst mistake of my undying life, akin to clawing my own beating heart out of my chest and throwing it into the fires of hell”.

Daniel calls it bullsh*t.)

Until the 2020s, Dubai, Louis wanting to give an interview. Wanting to give an interview to Daniel Molloy, specifically, and no other. Armand did not like it, but sick with yearning both for a version of Louis that no longer existed and maybe never did, and sick with longing for the beautiful, lovely boy he willingly abandoned and who will soon die of old age and/or Parkinson's, he eventually agreed. Under the condition that he could play Rashid, and attend to Daniel without the risk of jogging locked-away memories.

Then it all went off the rails. Armand lost Louis.

Armand claims that the thought of losing Daniel, too, his clever, astute, vicious boy, had suddenly become unbearable; a worse horror than the disgust that the procedure of turning had always inspired in him.

So, Armand's fangs in Daniel's neck. Armand's blood in Daniel's mouth.

And then Armand fleeing, mortified by his actions, by the consequences of them. Hiding, for as long as he can bear it.

Returning, to lay out the whole sorry tale before Daniel, in the hope that they might recover something from the wreckage of their ill-fated affair, after all, now that they have eternity to share and Armand's loneliness is eating away at him.

He claims to have come to Daniel as a penitent devil, offering the truth and all of himself, in the hope that he will receive a scrap of love in return.

That's the story.

According to Armand, who tried to convince Louis that the script annotated in his own hand was an obscure decades-old ploy of Santiago's to ruin him. Somehow.

So, yeah.

No.

“I'm being ‘trying’?” Daniel scoffs, points an accusing finger at Armand. The sharp white fingernails still throw him off a bit when he glimpses them out of the corner of his eye. “You know what you're being, pal? Predictable.”

He says the word like it's an insult. Armand clearly also receives it as one. Good.

“This is just your practised M.O. all over again.” Daniel explains, counting each point off his fingers one by one. “One, you find yourself at loose ends. Two, you find a hole in someone's recollection, and three, you get busy manipulating in order to make it fit your shape enough so you can bury yourself in it for the next few decades. Bonus points if it can turn a guy who has good reason to hate you into your loyal boyfriend. You pulled this on Louis when he had no idea who saved him, now you're pulling it on me because you know that I don't remember sh*t from most of the 70s.”

“But-” begins Armand. Daniel gestures for him to shut up, like he did during the interview, and ploughs on. Disregard.

“Ah, there's my opening, thinks Armand, professional opportunist - betcha you factored in how pervy I got over Rashid, too. You-Rashid, mind, not Real-Rashid. You knew I wanted you, because neither you nor Louis could ever stay out of my goddamn head for longer than five minutes, and now you're making that work for you.”

“You wanted me, even disguised, because despite it all, your body recalled mine and hungered for it! Still, after all these years,” argues Armand, heatedly, and not entirely convincing, “as mine has never stopped hungering for yours! Had you propositioned ‘Rashid’, had you accepted what I never ceased offering, I would have been on my knees, on my back, in any position you would take me-”

“Hm-hm. Really making those hypotheticals work for you, aren't you.” Daniel rolls his eyes. “Easy to claim these things now. Armand, seriously, why are you doing this!?”

“Because I love you,” Armand points out, quietly, though it's starting to be the sort of quiet that comes before a storm. He's pissed Daniel's not falling for it, clearly.

“No, you don’t,” Daniel shoots back. It’s not calming the thunder behind those orange-red eyes any, no.

(They stare at each other. Daniel kind of wishes Armand hadn't said the bit about ‘Rashid’ being willing to let Daniel hit it, because if there's one thing he learned from two marriages going to sh*t, then it's that angry sex can be really f*cking hot. And now he's thinking about it. Wondering if he should see how far Armand is willing to go for this little failing scheme of his. Whether…

But no. He won't repeat Louis’ mistakes. Or his own, come to think of it. Hands off, Molloy!)

“Look, it's flattering,” he says, because, hey, it is. It really is. This 500-year-old creature has chosen him, out of all people, to gaslight and parasitically attach himself to. Daniel's been hit on by worse guys, for worse reasons - and has done the hitting on, too - and in a really perverse sort of way, it strokes his ego. It must be humiliating for Armand, to debase himself to gain the favour of someone who was just a pathetic, insignificant human so very recently. Daniel's kinda pleased that Armand considers him worth the indignity. “But I don't mind that you turned me out of spite, I don't care-”

“Spite!” Armand gasps, indignant with rage.

“Or whatever else you’d call it. It’s fine. You did me a favour, man, regardless of the reason. So you really don’t need to do… this.”

“On the contrary. For the sake of my heart, I must,” insists Armand, sharply, though it’s starting to sound like he really actually wishes he’d never even tried.

Well, hindsight’s a bitch, alright! Daniel vaguely wonders when, if ever, he seriously regretted what he did to Louis, over those 77 years. But if there’s one thing Daniel Molloy is good at, then it’s triggering buyer’s remorse early.

“Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at ni- well. Day.” Daniel shrugs. Grins. Grins harder when Armand frowns. “But quit trying to bullsh*t me, Armand. I’m not falling for it, I’m not gonna fall for it, and honestly I’m getting a bit of second-hand embarrassment from you even trying to- hey, what’s with that face?”

“I am attempting,” Armand says, strained, face scrunched up in utmost concentration, “to remind myself of the reasons for which I adore you, beloved.”

“Are you now.”

“Yes. They are… not coming as easily to me as they once did, at the moment. I am-” a sharp glare through narrowed eyes “-struggling.”

That was probably meant to sting. Daniel honestly just thinks it’s f*cking hilarious.

“Cute,” Daniel says, and then, “you’re insane” since Armand really is an expert at being both at once, “and still lying,” because that never stops, apparently.

Armand’s scrunched up trying-to-remember-why-I-’love’-you expression hardens.

He draws in a deep, shaking breath. Entirely for effect, obviously. Drama queen.

“Yes, Daniel. I have lied to you. Many times. I admit that freely, and regret all instances, even those I once thought necessary.” His voice trembles. It’s a nice touch. “But hear me now, most beloved. Hear my heart cry out to you in these words!”

Armand leans forward. Daniel leans back.

“I am not lying now. I swear it on my mortal birth and the years of a youth I barely remember. I swear it on every star lighting the sky on the first night I spent as a vampire. I swear it-” his voice cracks, wet now like blood seeping out around a fractured bone piercing the skin “-on every beat of your mortal heart, measuring out a life that has, for many decades, been more precious to me than my own. I am not lying. We loved each other, Daniel. I denied you the Gift many times, but when I at last gave it to you, I gave it out of love. And even though you do not remember, even if you never will - I love you, still and always.”

A long, drawn-out moment of silence.

“You really thought that would work, huh,” says Daniel, finally. “Swearing on all those things that are dead and over and gone. No, for the last f*cking time. Go try this routine on some other poor sucker, why don’t you.”

Armand’s face does not fall, it crumbles, like an ancient ruin collapsing in on itself. It’s kind of horrifying to watch.

“...they are correct. Your former colleagues, who now decry you.” He finally says, standing to tower over Daniel, all of him subtly trembling with fury. Here comes the tantrum. “You have become a paranoid conspiracy theorist in your old age, Daniel Molloy!”

“Yeah?” Daniel says, because he can't help himself, and because ‘oh, you’ve been following the news about me?’ would probably be worse.

“Yeah,” Armand hisses back. The welling of blood-tears at his lower lids is a really nice touch, Daniel notes distantly.

And without another word, Armand whirls around, and stalks out with a look on his face Daniel thinks he very vaguely remembers from his SanFran Saw Trap Experience Extravaganza back in ‘73. Someone’s about to be psychologically and physically tortured, but, hey, at least it’s not him this time.

‘Good riddance’, thinks Daniel Molloy, and tries not to feel disappointed.

(It’s just. He’d really, really hoped for something better. Something truer.

He’d hoped.)

Less than six hours later, Armand is back, sitting on Daniel’s favourite armchair with his legs drawn up and folded, and a messenger bag tucked between his side and the armrest. He is holding one of those tablet thingies again, and seems to be playing a surprisingly colourful game on it.

Daniel swears, loudly. Armand looks up.

“What- you here- why- WHAT!?” Daniel splutters, which more or less translates to ‘what the hell, why are you back, didn’t you give up, what fresh hell is this’.

Armand sniffs. Pauses his game.

“True Love,” he says very seriously, and that’s already quite the upgrade, isn’t it, true love, “is the sort of thing that endures in the face of hardship. Your rejection does not deter me, beloved.”

“Does this deter you,” Daniel snaps, and makes the sort of rude gesture you really shouldn’t direct at a 500-year-old apex predator.

Armand, the bastard, smiles. He almost manages to make it look convincingly besotted, though he’s showing a few too many teeth for that.

“No,” says Armand, sweetly, the way rot smells sweet, and looks back down, unpausing his game.

Daniel has the distinct feeling that he will one day look back and identify this moment as the beginning of the end.

Chapter 2: In Which Louis Isn't Helpful

Chapter Text

“The door is that way.”

“I know,” hums Armand. At the moment he is checking his emails.

“I can also do you windows. There’s one. Right there.”

Armand cranes his long neck to follow the line drawn by Daniel’s index finger without getting up from his perch on the armchair.

“It looks rather dirty,” he points out, evenly. “Shall I hire a window cleaner? You’ve got the money for it now, but it can be my treat, if you’d prefer.”

“I’d prefer it if you got lost.” Daniel’s calm. Daniel’s at peace with the world. Daniel’s just gorged himself on the blood of an investment banker, he’s full and happy and content. Daniel’s not going to try and punch his Maker in the face, an action he will no doubt quickly regret.

“I’m afraid I could not possibly bear to be parted from you again, beloved.” Armand turns back to his inbox. Sends one mail into the spam folder. “So I will stay.”

“Fine. I’ll leave then.”

Armand looks up. His eyes glow, intense and just a little manic.

“So I will chase you.” He says. “To the ends of the earth, for however many years, and into hell itself. Until you let yourself be caught, because you have at last grown to love me again.”

“Oh god.” Daniel can’t help it, he laughs. “You think that’s what romance is?”

A shrug. “It worked the last time.”

“There was no last time, you bastard, and you know it.”

Armand shrugs again, all angelic innocence. Like blood-butter wouldn’t melt in his lying little mouth. Still not budging from that story, then.

“Leave.”

“No.” Armand co*cks his head, and then adds “I love you” as if the phrase is a dagger he’s slipping in between Daniel’s shoulder blades, oh so gently.

“No you don’t. f*ck off,” Daniel retorts. He’s 70, he’s had many people tell him they love him. He’s also had many people tell him they hate him. Sometimes - often - the same people. These words don’t have much of an effect on him anymore, especially when he knows they’re not said in earnest.

Armand can sit in his home, Armand can stalk and chase him, but he’ll never get Daniel to believe his lies. Not ever.

And that, as far as Daniel is concerned, is his own victory right there.

“Louis. Louis. Louis de Pointe du Lac. Louis. Louis, don’t leave me on read. Louis. This is Daniel Molloy, paging you. Louis. I need to talk to you about something. Lou-”

This better be damn important, Danny.

“Well, finally.” Daniel lets out a little breath of relief. And then, because he’s a bit of an asshole even at the best of times, adds “what took you so long?”

I was busy. In the middle of something.

“Yeah? In the middle of what?”

(Me,) interrupts a voice that, even telepathically, sounds very French, and very pissed off. (Louis, tell the infant to cease bothering you.)

Shh, shh, mon coeur. Une minute, une minute. They are speaking directly to each other here, they must be, but Daniel can still ‘hear’ their conversation echo in their thoughts. Louis sounds very fond, which probably means the relationship is going well - it wasn’t when he and Daniel last talked, but, hey, that’s Louis and Lestat for you. He’d frankly be more worried if they stopped fighting for longer than a few days. God, now he’s feeling bad for Claudia all over again.

Right. What’s this about now?

“Armand.”

Ain’t it always. Still looking for him?

“Not exactly.” Daniel is no longer looking for Armand. Daniel is only too aware of where Armand is now, and has been for the last few nights. Unfortunately.

You found him?

“He found me. And started telling lies almost immediately.”

Yeah, that sounds like him.

“I’m trying to figure out what his game plan is.” Daniel starts pacing. He went out on the street, is pretending to speak into his smartphone, because he didn’t trust Armand to not eavesdrop on him from what was once Daniel’s favourite armchair, and has since been commandeered as Armand’s new throne. “He’s trying to gain my trust, I think. Pull a- well, the same thing he pulled on you. For 77 years.”

He lets that sink in.

Jesus, says Louis, as the penny drops. Don’t let him.

“What, do you think I’m an idiot?” Daniel snorts. “Of course not. I know he’s lying through his stupid pointy teeth.”

You’ll still have to be on your guard. He has the vampire bond between Maker and fledgling on his side, and whatever he might think about it all turning to hatred in the end, until then it can be… powerful. Seductive. Don’t underestimate that. Louis sounds genuinely troubled. His re-strengthened New Orleans accent drops away again sometimes, when they talk about Armand, and his speech gets more formal. Daniel’s starting to recognise that as a sign of distress. Be very careful, Daniel. Do you need help? I can get on a plane and-

“Ah, it’ll be fine.” Daniel doesn’t think it’ll be fine. But he also thinks that Louis already has one insane vampire to deal with - two, counting Louis himself - and burdening him with the mess that is Armand all over again seems… uncharitable. Never mind that Louis has an unfortunate track record of making things worse when he gets involved. Thanks, but no thanks. “And if push comes to shove, I can always throw him into a concrete wall myself, right?”

Sure. The vague impression of a laugh. You’re a big vampire boy now.

(They both know Daniel can’t. That Armand could overpower him easily.

But then again, he could’ve overpowered Louis, too, in that penthouse in Dubai. It’s not Armand’s style, that. His violence is subtler, and rarely physical - and all the crueller for it.)

“It’s only - I told him I wasn’t buying it. That I know what he’s doing. And yet, he keeps doing it. He doubles down. I don’t get why he’s not even changing his angle, here.” Daniel would, if it were him. He’s long learned that, if your conversation partner clams up on you, digs their heels in, you don’t mindlessly push harder. You don’t force it. You let it be, you regroup, you try again with a different strategy. “I thought you might know why he does this sh*t.”

A pause.

A telepathic sigh.

He does it because he’s Armand. He thrives on this, manipulation, deceit, clever little games. I found it endearing, once. And, to be honest, hot. But the truth of it is, he no longer knows how to exist in any other way, and somewhere under the anger I’m going to continue feeling for a long while yet, I already pity him. There is such joy, such happiness, in being honest with one another. With oneself, most of all. It took me a very long time to start understanding this, and I think that, perhaps, Armand never will. A bitter, bitter laugh. The poor thing!

(It occurs to Daniel that, maybe, it’s all still a bit too soon to be asking Louis for rational, unbiased evaluations of Armand’s motivations, after all.)

“What about you, Blondie?” Daniel tries. Changing tactics, see. “Got any ideas?”

(Do NOT make me think of that insolent little Louis-stealing wretch for a moment longer than I need to,) Lestat snaps back, and, yeah. Yeah. Too soon, too.

“...right. Great. Huge help, guys. Thanks.” Maybe Daniel shouldn’t have called Louis in the first place. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really know many other vampires who aren’t out for his blood right now, and who also have some Armand-wrangling experiences. It’s Daniel’s weird interviewee-slash-almost-friend and his combination ex and rebound, or nobody. “So, what? I just let him carry on scheming?”

You foil his schemes. Whenever you can. Don’t let him get away with any of it. Louis responds immediately. You’re good at that, aren’t you? Better than I ever cared to be, certainly.

“Your theory being that he’ll lose interest and give up eventually?”

Maybe, says Louis, vaguely, which is really not the answer Daniel wants to hear. You think I know? I never truly knew him, Daniel. Not once in 70 years. You came to our home, and at the end of one single interview, you saw him more clearly than I ever did.

“I wouldn’t say-”

Use that. f*cking use that, you hear me? Louis’ voice is cold now, and serious. He sounds every single one of his 150 or so years, and all the hardships they were filled with - and the cruelties that were all his own work. And maybe it’ll be what saves your life.

Daniel doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t think anyone could know.

(The minute is over, mon cher,) Lestat points out, quietly, which is either indicative of more empathy and social grace than Daniel would’ve thought him capable of, or just him growing bored of this conversation and wanting Louis’ full attention on him again. Could be both.

Right. Sure.

A pause.

Good luck, Danny.

And that’s that.

After some contemplation, walking the darkened streets in silence, Daniel comes to the conclusion that Louis might have the right idea, this time.

Armand kills by suffocation. He curls around his victims like a boa constrictor, and slowly, slowly chokes them to death, until they’re a husk that will willingly crawl into his jaws. He doesn’t seem like he would like it when his prey struggles too much, when they fight back. Certainly seemed to make him furious as all hell, whenever Daniel was being his most charming, obstinate self during the interview - furious enough to turn him in the end.

He won’t keep this ruse up forever. He can’t.

And some part of Daniel is, admittedly, curious how long it’ll take until he breaks. How far he’ll bluff, how long Armand will pretend to be in love with the fledgling whose mere existence must repulse him, and how much of the past record he’ll try to falsify. Daniel loves stories, loves to hear them, loves to weave them together himself, and whatever else Armand may be, he’s certainly a storyteller. For better or worse.

Maybe Daniel would like to see how hard Armand will attempt to seduce him with his false tale, his pretty lie - yeah, he’s nosy like that. Sue him, why don’t you.

So he’ll let it happen. He’ll let it go on. He won’t try to run away, or throw Armand out. He’ll let him try, and shut him down every time. He won’t fall for the fake love confessions, or all the other bullsh*t.

And who knows, maybe it’ll even be fun. The end of the interview, dismantling Armand’s manipulations bit by bit, was more fun than Daniel’s had in years; and while everything afterwards, the book and the vampirism and all, has certainly been entertaining in its own right, he thinks he’s ready for another go at the guy with poisonous amber eyes and a lie so grand and fantastical and stupid you might almost start believing it, despite your better judgement.

…ah, f*ck it. Daniel is a vampire, he’s richer than he’d ever thought he could be, and Louis did have a point about the goddamn vampire bond - some part of him thrills at Armand’s presence alone. He’ll play the game, if just to beat the bastard at it. This’ll be fine, and fun, and fine.

(Yeah, right, deadpans a more reasonable corner of Daniel’s mind. This’ll end in disaster and you know it.

But he’s had plenty of experience with not listening to Reasonable Daniel’s prudent advice in his 20s and beyond, so he pushes the thought aside, and heads back home.

Where his Maker is already waiting.)

Chapter 3: In Which There Is Only One Coffin

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“I was hoping you might be gallant and allow me to use your room,” Armand says, standing in Daniel's bedroom in the sort of silk sleepwear that probably cost more than anything else in the room. Hell, in the entire flat.

“Well, you hoped wrong.” Daniel rolls his eyes. Give the bastard an ‘I guess I won’t physically throw you out tonight’ inch, and of course he’ll take an ‘I’ll just invite myself into your bedroom shall I’ mile. “I showed you where the guest room is, right? Need me to bring you there again? Draw a treasure-hunting map with a big red X on it? Program the directions into your little tablet?”

“There is,” Armand says, with great dignity, though a brief glint in his eyes indicates that he rather enjoys the treasure map idea in particular, “no coffin in your guest room.”

“There is a bed. You'll just have to slum it human-style for a night until you can get your coffin express-delivered.” Daniel shudders a bit at what the neighbours will say when he gets a suspiciously large box carried up to his flat again, but oh well. He can always say it's for a story he's doing. “Or, hey! Here's a thought! Get a hotel room! Get a flat of your own! You're rich, aren't you, you don't have to do the whole crashing-on-someone's-couch-after-Louis-dumps-you experience.”

Armand, unsurprisingly, ignores that last bit entirely. “But, my love-” oh god, here we go again “-surely you would not deprive me of the safety, of the comfort, of a coffin? Would you honestly deny me true rest? Can you be so merciless, that you would break my heart and restless spirit both in one night?”

“Oh, f*ck all the way off with that. I'm not your love, Louis is the one who broke your heart - and was fully within his rights to do it - and the sun doesn't bother you anymore. You don't need a coffin.” Daniel scoffs. “And if you're about to pull Maker-rank on me to commandeer mine, I'll punch you hard enough that you’ll need to gum your next victim to death.”

“You are, and will always be, my love, Daniel,” Armand says, like it's a threat.

Then, softer, “...and I do not wish to sleep alone in the guest room.” A fidgeting of his fingers. Maybe a tell of his, maybe carefully practised and deliberately faked. “Beds are far too large without a companion to share them with.”

“Yeah, divorced life sucks, right?” Daniel grins, cruelly. But hey, if Armand's gonna continue his little games, then it's only fair that Daniel makes full use of his own turn. “If only you could've done something to prevent it. Like, oh, I don't know… not build the whole relationship on a seventy-year-old betrayal and then lie about it at every opportunity? I know it takes two to divorce-tango, but you sure did the heavy lifting on that one!”

“You are saying very unkind things to me, beloved.”

“Uh-huh. Know where you wouldn’t have to listen to them? The guest room. ”

Armand does not take the hint. Daniel adds “shoo!”, complete with vigorous shooing motion. Armand only gives him the sort of half-amused, half-disgusted “you are small and insignificant and should be grateful I even sully my eyes by observing your antics” look he used to give Daniel all the time during the interview sessions he participated in. It almost makes Daniel wish he could ruin the bastard’s marriage all over again.

“A compromise in the name of fairness, perhaps,” Armand says at last, faux-generous, with the gentle smile of a sweet young man, and the dead predator eyes of a shark. “The solution is obvious: why don’t we share your bed?”

“My bed.”

“Yes, beloved. It is big enough for two.”

Daniel ignores the ‘beloved’. As he always does, and always will. “So neither of us gets the coffin, huh? We both lose.”

“I would not consider it a loss.” Armand sits down at the foot end of the bed, perches there, really, leaning back slightly as if to put himself on display. He hasn’t buttoned his shirt all the way up, Daniel notices. “You may not recall it, but we often shared a bed, Daniel, and I have missed resting in your arms. Or, of course…” His hand crawls up his chest, to undo another button and press his fingernail in just above his collarbone until blood beads there, which yeah. Yeah. That’s the game he’s playing now, the little f*cker. Figures. “...not resting much at all.”

Well, Daniel has only just been wondering how far Armand would go for his little scheme. Now, with Armand giving him pointed and mildly impatient come-hither eyes, he has a clear answer.

(He tries not to make too much of a connection to “Amadeo had a skill”. Even the mere flash of a thought turns his stomach a little, and he firmly pushes it away. Just one more reason not to fall for it, on a heap of at least a dozen others, really.)

“Right. Real cute, this, points for trying.” Daniel gestures at the spectacle Armand is making out of himself. It’s not not working, but at this point in his (un-)life, Daniel really does know better. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not that constantly horny 20-year-old you met once in 1973, anymore, and I’ve actually got an upper brain to think with, too. And right now it’s thinking of that age-old saying, Do Not Stick Your Dick Into Manipulative-Evil-Lying-Vampire-Squatting-In-Your-Home Crazy.”

“What a very specific saying,” Armand says mildly. His claws are digging into Daniel’s duvet, betraying his simmering anger. “I must, however, point out that you have, quite frequently… not to mention the reverse…”

“Hah. In your delusional little dreams, sunshin-” Daniel pauses. “Wait. Is that a vampire insult, ‘sunshine’? It feels like it should be. I certainly mean it as one, for the record.”

(There’s a tear in the duvet now. Daniel’s oddly pleased with himself because of it. He’s going to drive that 500-year-old vampire even more insane than he already is, just watch him.)

“Anyway, I’m going to sleep in my coffin now.” Daniel kicks open the lid, and settles inside. He felt weird about it at the start - it’s just different if you’re a senior citizen and the undertaker you bought the thing from says “good on you to plan ahead, sir” with a pitying smile - but with a few extra pillows and a blanket to cocoon himself in, it’s actually pretty comfy. “And you can figure out what you’ll be doing by yourself.”

Daniel calculates the odds as follows: 60% chance Armand will go back to the living room and spend the day sulking and possibly- no, scratch that, definitely rifling through Daniel’s possessions. 20% chance he’ll mind-force Daniel to get up and leave the coffin to him in a little reprise of their San Francisco first date. 19% chance he’ll try to push the former lover narrative and try to climb into the coffin, too. 1% chance he’ll actually use the guest room, and 100% chance that there will be some sort of petty revenge sooner or later.

He closes the lid, and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

The bed creaks. The duvet shifts. No footsteps. No sudden inability to feel or control his body. Hm.

Daniel waits some more. Then he lifts the lid again, and sits up.

Armand has curled up on Daniel’s bed, on top of the covers, knees tucked up to his chest. An oddly child-like position, and no doubt another calculated tableau.

“Thought beds made you feel lonely,” Daniel says, the ‘you little liar’ accusation plenty audible in his tone. Of course any hint at vulnerability would be deliberate and false, too. That’s just Armand. Never even a shred of honesty in the guy.

“They do. But your presence in the same room makes it bearable.” Armand’s voice is muffled, his face pushed into one of the pillows. “And the fabric has retained your scent, beloved. It soothes me. It is…”

“Creepy. The word you’re looking for is creepy.”

“...enough,” Armand finishes, pointedly. “Good night, Daniel.”

And then, because he really will not drop this act, “I love you.”

Which, sure. Whatever.

Daniel’s too tired to argue, anyway.

Armand does not make arrangements to have his own coffin express-delivered the next night, and at dawn he takes over Daniel’s unused bed again. A power play, a mind game, that’s all it is, and Armand doesn’t want to concede defeat so easily.

Well, Daniel never really expected him to.

So he gets his laptop. He goes on Craigslist. He finds A Guy, the sort of Guy you really can’t find anywhere else (and thank god for that), and messages back and forth a little. He pays for extraordinarily quick delivery across two state lines, and tips the Guy extra because honestly, what he receives is a thing of beauty.

The ‘coffin’ is made of particularly splinter-y planks of cheap particleboard shoddily nailed together into a box shape, with scratchy off-white linen stapled to the inside. The hinges creak, the lid doesn’t really line up or close properly, and the whole thing is at least 7 inches too short for a vampire of Armand’s height to fit into. It’s personalised, too, the name “Armand” scratched into the lid with a knife, and Daniel is extremely pleased to find that the Guy put two spelling mistakes in without Daniel even prompting him to do so. This is true customer service, this is.

He proudly presents the new ‘coffin’ - of course located in the guest room - to Armand, who looks, for a split second, like he’s torn between screaming, throwing up, or shoving Daniel into the nearest tanning bed and un-fledgling-ing himself.

After about five seconds of utter and complete stillness, he does manage to pull himself together enough to thank Daniel through gritted teeth for this lovely gift, and Daniel - who is having the time of his un-life, honestly - even lets him kiss his cheek, just this once. If Armand wants to add insult to his own injury, hey, why stop him?

When Daniel wakes up at dusk the next evening, Armand’s own coffin has been delivered and put into the guest room, with the ‘coffin’ nowhere to be seen. So:

Daniel Molloy - 1

Armand de Loser - 0

He likes that score. He really does.

(Armand retaliates by selecting and reading out all the worst and most painfully accurate reviews of Daniel’s books - not Interview, the proper books, and his own memoir - and making it a point to explain how much he agrees with them.

It shouldn’t be effective. Daniel has heard it all before; has distinct memories of reading out some of the horrible early ones to Alice and the two of them laughing about it, joking that they ought to hire a hitman to take the reviewer out, or just buy the newspaper in question and fire them; had a truly vitriolic one pinned to his fridge for half of the nineties; and is getting much, much worse for Interview at the moment. He doesn’t give a single flying f*ck about reviews.

…

…he maybe gives a little f*ck.

It’s the way Armand pretends to be nice about it, he thinks. How sweetly he says “oh, beloved, disregard the truth in their words! You have done your best, you still have time to improve, and the quality of your assistants’ additional research balances out those obvious flaws in your writing,” taking Daniel’s hand in an iron grip to press a light kiss to the knuckles in a way definitely intended to incense rather than mollify. It’s patronising, it’s insulting, and Daniel catches himself wondering how much it would cost to fix the south-facing wall after throwing Armand straight through it.

It’s not evening out the score, but. 0.5 points to Armand, maybe.)

Oh, and, of course, Armand does try the seduction tactic a few more times, in those earliest of days.

He wears particularly low-cut loose shirts, he sits in ways that make Daniel’s spine ache just looking at him, and of course he makes offers. Repeatedly. In quite some detail. Usually disguised as “reminiscing about the intimacies of our past, my dearest love” because of course they are. Daniel’s frankly impressed with Armand’s imagination, though he suspects some of it is based on him rooting around in Daniel’s brain back when he was still human, since there’s a suspicious amount of overlap with Daniel’s hazy memories of particularly adventurous anonymous hookups he f*cked around with in his late twenties.

Ah, good times.

Daniel shoots him down every time, of course. He’s not uninterested in Armand, he’s self-aware enough to admit as much (and blames it mostly on weird psychosexual trauma from ‘73, and the fledgling-Maker sh*t), but actually taking him up on it would be inadvisable and f*cked up on at least five different levels, so he’s got to disimbue Armand of the notion that he’ll ever have success with it real quick.

He finds that distracting him works quite well. Daniel at first hoped that telling boring or overly-detailed work stories would be a turn-off - which certainly was the case with the short-lived girlfriend he had in-between his two wives, who had negative interest in journalism or politics - but of course Armand has Opinions about Interview, too, and the press tour, and the talk show hosts (he has been Watching, the little stalker) and quickly gives up on looking vaguely seductive and pointedly available in favour of a heated argument or two. At least he doesn’t agree with those reviewers. Small mercies.

Daniel is fully prepared to apply this tactic indefinitely, at most changing up conversation prompts when necessary; but surprisingly, Armand gives up first.

2 - 0(.5) for Molloy, he supposes.

Oh, of course Armand delivers a pretty speech about loving Daniel deeply and accepting it if he would like to take it slow and make their rekindled romance a chaste one to start with, at least until Daniel’s memories return, only wishing for his company above all other things; but of course that’s complete bullsh*t.

If you ask Daniel, his money is on Armand just growing tired of pretending he wants Daniel to f*ck him, and deciding to focus his energy instead on more of those saccharinely sweet endearments, hollow love confessions, and manufactured domesticity.

And, of course, constructing increasingly more elaborate and detailed stories about a past relationship that never existed, and then making a show out of getting upset whenever Daniel continues not to ‘remember’. If there’s one thing Armand seems truly dedicated to, it’s that.

Daniel continues to insist to himself that this is funny, because if he didn’t, it would be kind of frustrating. Or even oddly sad. And the last thing Daniel wants to do is pity the Vampire f*cking Armand.

(Not least because, judging from all those obviously-calculated displays of abject misery and false yearning, being pitied is precisely what Armand is aiming for.

And he’ll be damned if he gives the asshole what he wants.)

Chapter 4: In Which Treatment Options Are Considered

Chapter Text

Daniel’s daughters have been reaching out to him again, after a fashion, and for wildly different reasons.

His oldest clearly thinks that the end is near, that all the vampire sh*t means he’s mentally decaying and this is a last hurrah before the final croak - gee, thanks, honey - and is, with the sort of gentle grace Daniel really doesn’t deserve, and which she certainly didn’t learn from him, hinting that she wouldn’t mind meeting up, should some book tour take him anywhere near her corner of the country. (Is it safe for him to travel so much, with the virus? Is that new treatment really working? …does it have any sort of side effects on the mind…?)

Daniel’s been carefully declining specific invitations precisely to avoid that eventuality.

Her little sister - ‘little’, the woman’s in her thirties, come on Daniel - on the other hand, thinks the vampire stuff is amazing. Nobody’s more surprised than Daniel, but there it is. Seems she comes after him in some ways, after all, and one of those ways is a fascination with undead bloodsuckers and the urge to learn more about them. She loves the book, and after thirty years of Daniel thinking he has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with this other human he’d helped making (which had very much been a mutual assumption), they suddenly have things to talk about. It’s dizzying and unexpected. He responded to the mail containing her first volley of questions with a “wait for the next book for the answers” on autopilot, thinking it was some sort of fan mail or interview inquiry, and only registered what happened half an hour after he’d sent it off, when she wrote back “come on, dad, I’ll even sign an NDA if you want”.

He wouldn’t have responded if he’d realised it sooner. He’s keeping up some mail contact now, answers some of her questions, but is careful to seem… disinterested. And never takes her up on the suggestion to meet in person, either.

It was the same right after his diagnosis, the two of them making half-hearted attempts to reach out. Daniel made it clear he didn’t want any of that hollow sentimentality, told them in no uncertain terms that if they wouldn’t have contacted him a week ago, then they shouldn’t f*cking bother now just because they felt obligated to. It’d been harsh and cruel enough to do the trick.

In truth, he just hadn’t wanted his little girls to watch him decay and die. Wanted them to remember him as… well, he’d always been an asshole, and the up-and-down of addiction, recovery, addiction again, only made it worse; but he’d still rather have them remember him that way. Let them never know the crumbling ruin of a man he is now, and maybe it won’t even really hurt them when their sh*thead dad finally dies.

But now the shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it.

Now, he doesn’t want to see them age and die. Wants to remember the girls they were, love the daughters that haven’t really existed for decades and carry them in his heart for the rest of vampiric eternity - and when two old women finally die in a hospital somewhere, they’ll be strangers to Daniel. It’ll be easier that way twice over, now. For them, but most of all for him.

(Hah. Father of the f*cking year, right?)

Still, he hasn’t really gotten around to really pushing them away, just yet. He could do it, theoretically. Wouldn’t take more than a few messages. Burn that bridge so badly they wouldn’t even dream of ever exchanging another word with him. There’s a few damn good reasons why neither of his exes have reached out, after all. Didn’t for the diagnosis, either. He’s pretty sure Alice decided somewhere around the new millennium that reading Daniel’s obituary in the paper would already be too much contact, and she’s waiting for some random acquaintance to pass the happy news on to her when the time comes.

(God, he really f*cked that up, didn’t he.)

He’ll have to do it eventually. Maybe even quite soon, before one of them decides to spring a surprise visit on him, and he has to explain what the otherworldly beautiful young man is doing in his armchair, calling Daniel “beloved”, and playing around with various appliances in the flat when he gets bored. He really doesn’t want to have that conversation with either of them.

Not least because Armand will abso-f*cking-lutely feed them some #BookTok tropey romance novel bullsh*t about how he and Daniel have ‘reconnected’ and are ‘trying love for a second time’. And without the context of knowing full well that Armand gaslights at a rate that is rapidly depleting the nation’s natural gas reserves, he might even manage to sell it.

Oh, and of course he might just kill the girls. Armand’s track record with daughters isn’t great, after all.

Best not to take chances.

Overall, living with Armand is…

Well, it’s what Daniel always imagined having a cat would be like. He never got one, of course - couldn’t be trusted with taking care of himself, most times, never mind a pet, never mind a family and children, honestly - but he hears the stories. Weird little thing comes up to you, refuses to leave, takes over your home, pretends to be all sweet and cuddly and loving but secretly hates you and would kill and eat you the moment you no longer provide the kibbles and entertainment which are all the little sh*t wants from you.

Which, yeah, that’s Armand all over. Substitute kibbles for access to Daniel’s streaming subscriptions - could’ve just bought them himself, but nooo, of course he needs to f*ck up the recommendations on Daniel’s accounts - and the only remaining difference is that Armand doesn’t shed as much.

He’s free-roaming at least, to continue the metaphor. After more than half a century of picking lint off of sofas and sitting around in a depressing concrete flat a la prison chic, Armand clearly has a hankering for being close to the rapid pulse of New York’s beating heart. Who can blame him, really.

(Well, Daniel and Louis are both pretty good at blaming Armand for a variety of things, but that’s beside the point.)

He’s been trying to drag Daniel along into his sojourns through nightlife, all “please, lover, grant me the pleasure of your company” and “we shall make a lovely date out of it” and “but Daniel, you always loved the ballet when we attended a performance before. Yes you did. No, I am not lying, and I resent your usage of ‘again’. …you are making us dreadfully late with your stubbornness, you know, you did just the same back in the 80s”, which of course means that Daniel has to consistently and pointedly say “no” (and sometimes “f*ck off”) to every single invitation.

(If Armand would just ask like a normal person, without playing pretend, Daniel would probably say yes. He really does actually like ballet, and all the other artsy events or venues he can finally attend again without having to worry about f*cking Covid. At his age, he doesn’t really fit into the more underground part of the scene anymore, but he’d love to give that a try, too. Go clubbing a bit, why the hell not. Thanks to vampirism, peepaw can still party with the best of ‘em. A little hunt to round off the night after, maybe… might be great fun, that.

But unless Armand drops the act, they’ll never find out, will they?)

Tonight, Armand asks if Daniel will accompany him to the library.

Daniel likes the library. Used to go to public libraries to sit and write all the time, when he was younger, to save on heating bills if nothing else. He’d love to go.

Unfortunately, the request arrives in the wake of Armand once more trying to convince him that his uncanny knowledge of Daniel’s life in the late 70s comes from having been there to stalk/accompany him through it, which continues to be patently absurd. A third of the nonsense Armand spouts is stuff any chump could read in Daniel’s memoir, another third could just be the result of a really damn good research team, and the last third is information that is news to Daniel as well. Maybe those memories drowned in the soup he made out of his brain in those days, maybe Armand just made sh*t up that sounds halfway plausible. No real way to tell, except Daniel’s keen awareness of Armand’s impressive commitment to general bullsh*ttery.

So, he says no.

(Well, actually he says “you asshole”, but he’s pretty sure the implied “no” gets across, anyway.)

Armand briefly closes his eyes, and then takes up his tablet. After his struggles to recall any during their first proper conversation post-turning, he has created a slide presentation titled “Daniel Molloy’s Loveable Traits” and will occasionally consult it with a frown of utmost concentration on his face after Daniel annoys him too much. Usually he calms down somewhere between slides 6 and 11, but once Daniel got him up to 19. This one ends up being only an 8th-slide argument, but Daniel hopes to one day pester Armand all the way to the final one. If just to see what happens.

By the time Daniel returns from the night’s hunt - Louis has ensured he has access to more ethically-harvested blood, and he does make use of that frequently, but at the same time New York is never short on assholes that could do with being enlisted in a spontaneous blood drive, and the fledgling instincts in Daniel still itch to stalk the night and bring down his own prey - Armand has spread out on the sofa, surrounded by stacks of borrowed medical books and journals he is flipping through one by one at impressive speed, only slowed down by what appears to be meticulous note-taking.

Daniel shrugs off his leather jacket, makes sure there’s no visible blood stains anywhere, and then saunters over to the sofa, leaning over the back of it for a better look at the titles of Armand’s reading material. There’s a lot of “neurobiology” and “cerebral anatomy” and “psychology” in there. The article Armand is currently pouring over is titled “Modern Treatment Approaches to Systematized Amnesia”, he notes, and his tablet is balanced on the armrest, the screen showing something or other about brain damage and memory.

Armand’s so focused on it all that he hasn’t even looked up to acknowledge Daniel’s presence, so he allows himself a moment, just a moment, to smile and be genuinely amused. Oh, Armand. It’s really goddamn obvious he’s led a theatre coven for over a century and was a real fan of method-acting. Made his underlings speak “in English!”, made Claudia run around in that stupid costume, and now he’s making himself read through endless dry medical texts in a futile attempt to prop up an obvious lie that will never convince anyone, and Daniel least of all.

Still, he can respect the dedication. The commitment to the bit. Probably good for Armand to have a hobby, even if that hobby is lying to Daniel. He’s really taking one for the overall vampire community’s team, here, isn’t he.

“Setting aside the fact that any remaining memory gaps I’ve got are obviously the irreparable result of long-term substance abuse,” he says, resting his folded arms on the back of the couch, “I really don’t think that the New England Journal of Medicine has much to say about Mind-Gift-induced amnesia cases, boss.”

“I thought the essentials might be transferable,” Armand hums, absentmindedly, and reaches up with one hand to brush the back of it against Daniel’s wrinkled cheek in greeting. It comes across as such a distracted, casual gesture that one could almost believe the affection in it is real. Yeah, he’s really getting into the method acting now. “Or some treatments might be more universally applicable. I now have a better understanding of this ‘EMDR’ you recommended to Louis.”

“Uh-huh.” Daniel peeks at Armand’s notes. They’re a messy mix of mostly English, a scattering of French, a little bit Arabic, and some words in languages Daniel can’t immediately identify. His handwriting is surprisingly sh*tty here, nothing like Louis’ elegant cursive or Daniel’s own practical blocky letters - barely even like Daniel’s vague recollection of red-pencil notes in the margins of an old script. Must’ve gotten too used to typing things on keyboards and touchscreens, so the neat handwriting faded away like the French accent did. Ever in flux, is Armand. All lies and constructs and performance, nothing there that’s constant, that’s really and truly him.

“Do not fear, beloved.” Armand flips a page, scribbles something new. “Soon, I will have a way to restore the memories I took from you.”

“Uh-huh,” Daniel says again. “You might want to go a bit further back, then. Read up on long-term effects of lobotomies.”

“How very funny,” Armand sighs, in a tone indicating that it is anything but. “I already regret the repercussions of my then-well-intended actions deeply. No need to salt the wound.”

“The open head wound? From when you stuck your telepathic fingers into my brain and scrambled-”

Armand grimaces. “My love, please.”

“-which I already un-scrambled. With Louis. Remember? You cut out six nights, I more or less got them back, reconstructed the rest, end of story. Still haven’t really forgiven you, by the way, but whatever. It’s over and done with, and we’re moving past it. Okay?”

“No.” Armand tears his gaze from his reading material, finally, turns his frantic orange eyes on Daniel. “I took years from you, Daniel. In messy chunks and pieces, blacking out some moments, perverting and recontextualising others. You know I can. You know I’ve done it once, six nights in San Francisco. Why do you so stubbornly refuse to believe I would do it again, on a larger scale? Would that, too, not be in accordance with what you believe to be my Modus Operandi?”

His eyes burn into Daniel’s. Daniel hears but Daniel you already know who you’ll be and come, I’ll hold you, you rest now and you woke up in a drug den he bit you you blacked out you woke up in a-

“I was too violent, I realise that now. Too hurt, too afraid, too caught up in the agony of my own heartbreak to be as slow and gentle as such an incision should have warranted.” Armand’s face twists, grimaces, always so beautiful in every expression it almost bends around to a grotesque ugliness again. “Perhaps that is why you so adamantly and irrationally insist on not even entertaining the possibility that I am speaking the truth. A scab, a scar, with which your mind attempted, and still attempts, to cover a near-terminal wound.” His voice shakes, faint with sorrow, perhaps even with shame. “I cut into your mind too deeply. Now I pay the price for it.”

“Oh, gimme a break!” Daniel snaps. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth because you aren’t! And that’s what I’m making you pay for. Nothing more, nothing less. Now drop the remorse act already, it doesn’t suit you.”

Armand’s gaze is wet and miserable, but there’s a stiffening at the edges now. A sharpness. Is his patience for this game finally running dry?

“You would not recognise the truth if it bit you in the neck, Daniel Molloy,” he finally says, softly, coldly, with audible contempt. “But you will. I will make sure of it. With the right treatment-”

“No.” Daniel cuts him off, his own patience at its limit. “No f*cking treatments, you hear me? I’m sick of those. Had enough in my life, in the last five years of my life, for at least the rest of the century. Apples taste like dust to me now, but I’d eat any number of them to keep goddamn doctors away! You got that, Armand? You got it?”

“No doctors. No clinical treatments,” Armand inclines his head. His gaze does not stray from Daniel’s face. “I got that. But if you would permit me, only me… if I could find a way to circumvent the obstacle that is a fledgling’s natural defence against their Maker, it would be a matter of mere minutes to return to you what I-”

“To implant fake memories?” Daniel laughs, bitterly. “Yeah, no. The ‘stay out of my head’ refrain is starting to get stale, but I’ll stress it one more time, for old time’s sake. And if-” Daniel raises his voice before Armand can open his mouth and protest, “-IF you f*ck with my brain and some memory ‘suddenly’ pops up now, you gotta know I’ll never trust it, right? No matter what you put in there, I won’t believe it.”

“So I am to lose you either way. Damned if you never remember what we were to each other, and damned if you do.” Armand’s hand fidgets with the pencil he’s still holding, the wood creaking under the merciless touch of his delicate fingers, nails scraping gouges into it. “If I believed you could find it in yourself to trust any vow I might make, I would swear that I will never again attempt to touch your mind if you do not wish it. But, beloved, I ask, I must ask…”

He drops the pencil, sets the journal and notepad aside, to reach for Daniel, worms his hands into where he still has his arms firmly crossed.

“Is there truly nothing?” A strange desperation. Daniel doesn’t believe it’s real for even a second. “Is there no trace left? No odd attraction you felt towards me? No lingering inconsistencies in your memories of the twelve years after we first met? Nothing that gave you pause, that might make you entertain the notion that I speak the truth?” His nails dig into the skin of Daniel’s arms, still soft and worn with age even as a vampire. “Have you never woken in the night and wept stupidly when you found you were alone? You told me you did, years ago, that you missed me so terribly that all your dreams would be of me.”

Then, soft as a confession: “...I dream of you, now. Of the man you were, and the one you are. I dream of you, and to wake has something of dying, a sudden loss, an empty craving, a loneliness too vast to name. And then, yes. Then I, too, weep.”

Daniel unfolds his arms. Armand’s hands move along with him, sliding down to worm into his palms. He doesn’t move to properly hold them, so after a moment Armand folds his bird-bone, insect-leg fingers around Daniel’s instead.

“...there’s one thing I think I remember,” Daniel says, slowly. “About you.”

“Yes?” Armand leans forward. He plays ravenous hope so prettily. Daniel has to fight down the instinct to applaud, give the horrible little thespian the standing ovations he deserves for that soliloquy.

“I remember…” And it would be cruel, wouldn’t it, what he’s doing, if Armand were telling the truth. How fortunate for Daniel, then, that he isn’t. “...that you are, were, and always will be, a whiny little lying bitch!”

If Daniel were still mortal, Armand would have crushed his finger bones to pulp in that moment. His face contorts, cracks, and what spills out from under the mask is dead blood, poisonous and tinged with bile-yellow rage in its purest form.

It takes Daniel’s breath away a little bit. It makes his dead heart skip. It paralyses him.

…it’s not the only thing that paralyses him, he realises, as Armand bares his fangs, and his eyes start to shake, Daniel’s body suddenly a distant, unreachable not-presence.

Oh great, Daniel thinks, a familiar giddy panic from fifty years ago welling up inside him. Mamma mia, here we go again.

Armand snarls, and Daniel finds himself thrown backwards, toppling a table on his way, the wood of a bookcase caving against his spine. Books cascade around him and onto the floor from the broken shelves. His feet are still an inch or two off the ground, leaving him pinned against the cracked wood. Daniel cries out, more out of surprise than any genuine pain, and if Armand didn’t make his jaw snap shut halfway through, he would spit “well, I’m not the one who’s gonna clean that up!” at him.

Armand stalks towards him, his face tight with an expression Daniel can only describe as rigor mortis.

“You will regret your insolence, once you remember,” he rasps, a hunched-over little dead thing itching to eviscerate and drench itself in blood. He doesn’t move quite like a human, like all his joints bend an inch removed from where they should. “You will regret every word you spoke in your wilful ignorance. Once you remember our love you will regret hurting me, you will, you WILL!”

A rattling intake of breath. Daniel thinks he can hear Louis moan in pain, just in the other room and half a century ago.

Over the clamour of deja vu, Armand rants on. “As I so sorely regret hurting you, my beloved, my dearest one, my beautiful boy-”

“Haven’t been a f*cking boy since 1971 at the latest,” Daniel manages to force out against the resistance of Armand’s powers wiring his mouth shut, feeling like a dumb kid all over again, on his knees (up against the wall) in front of a monster and terminally unable to keep his stupid mouth shut even when an easeful (violent) death is staring him in the face with cruel glowing eyes. “Haven’t been beautiful since I hit the tail end of my 30s, and I sure as hell am not goddamn YOURS in any way!”

Armand flashes forward the last few steps separating them, his hand on Daniel’s throat, high up, just under the jaw. Nails pressing a bleeding necklace into his skin.

“If I did not love you,” he whispers, seemingly impassive but for his trembling eyes, regarding Daniel like a cat with its claws around a twitching bird, “if I did not consider you mine, you would be dead, Daniel. My love for you is all that keeps you alive.”

There is the predator. There is the monster. There is the man that tortured Daniel for six nights with detached cruelty and coaxed him to rest with honey-sweet words afterwards, who was able to smile and laugh and flirt in a little Parisian cafe with the lover whose death he was at that very moment orchestrating. There is Armand, cruel and spiteful and entirely himself, all his lies hanging tattered about him.

(Daniel thinks, for a single mad moment, that he has never seen anything more overwhelmingly attractive.)

“Perhaps,” Armand leans in, his fangs glinting, his slender hand capable of tearing Daniel’s heads straight off his shoulders, tightening as if he really will, “under these circ*mstances, you would do well not to dismiss the truth of our love so easily, yes?”

Daniel laughs, breathless, terrified, and, yeah, as humiliatingly and pitifully aroused by it all as he remembers being in that little room that slants to the north on Divisadero. A voice in the back of his head whispers oh, get it together, Molloy! You’re a handful of decades too old for that sh*t now. He doesn’t listen.

“Are you killing me finally? For good this time?” He gasps, grinning helplessly. Being a vampire is a constant high, but this is on a whole other level. f*ck. This is so stupid of him. He can’t stop. Still and always an addict. “Do it, yes!”

Armand’s hand releases his throat as if burnt. His face is caught in a strange rictus all over again, and his flickering eyes still as red pools in them.

They both wait. Daniel waits for death, sudden and violent. He doesn’t know what Armand waits for. He wouldn’t presume to guess.

Then, finally, Armand turns sharply away, back to the couch, his nest of pointless medical knowledge. He takes up his notepad, his pen, another journal, head bent down and curls hiding his face, and continues scribbling notes, as if nothing at all had happened.

Daniel is released, almost as an afterthought. He’s pretty damn proud of managing to stop his shaky legs from folding the moment his feet touch the ground again, though he’ll acknowledge that the broken carcass of his bookcase at his back helps a great deal.

He does perhaps the first sensible thing since this whole sh*tshow started and just leaves Armand be, stumbling back to his bedroom, knowing it’s half a miracle that Armand even lets him. That he still has legs to stumble with. sh*t.

Once there, he sits on the bed, and spends about ten minutes just staring at the wall, waiting for his hands to stop shaking in a way that has to be adrenaline, surely, but feels a lot worse in a very familiar way.

He gets his laptop only when he thinks he can do it without breaking something, starts it up, types. Two mails, addressed to his daughters, different wording but with the same content: I might be in the area soon. Want to meet at a cafe somewhere? Can probably only do evenings, sorry. Love you.

At this rate, he’s going to be dead within the year, anyway. Armand will grow bored of playing at love, and if he wants to wipe his first-and-once-too-many fledgling off the record, nobody will be able to stop him. Not Daniel, not Louis either. Nobody. And the fact that Daniel, still such an idiot, is practically asking for it…

Might as well make good use of however much time he has left. Why not.

So Daniel hits send on the mails, and resolves to give the reconnecting a proper try. Why the hell not. Whatever he’s so scared of, it can’t possibly be worse than the terror-creature sitting on his couch at this very moment, playing his f*cked-up memory mind games.

(If you live with the Vampire Armand, even immortal life can feel really damn short - and there’s a dumb, reckless, near-suicidal part of Daniel that almost thinks he likes it that way.)

Chapter 5: In Which There Is A Little Forgiveness

Chapter Text

Book signings are probably the best sort of promotional event, in Daniel’s opinion.

Or, well. Maybe “the least worst” would be a better way to put it. The interviews are an absolute pain, usually highly insulting, and he’s getting real tired of having to constantly reiterate that the f*cking book isn’t goddamn fiction over and over again. And the readings - oh god, the readings. Daniel hates them. It just doesn’t feel right. He has to sit there and parrot Louis’ words in his own voice, and never gets anywhere close to the raw emotion that they had when he first heard them. He doesn’t think Louis always told the truth - whether he himself knew it or not - but there was a truth of its own in that rawness. That was something real. And reading the words out again makes him feel oddly like he’s dumbly repeating another man’s wedding vows, or maybe his last dying words. It’s intimate and uncomfortable, and the Q&As afterwards treating it like fiction, like his own creation, make it worse.

(Somehow, even the weird, invasive questions he got on his own memoir, back in the day, were more bearable.)

He tries to avoid reading scenes in which Claudia has dialogue. Those are even worse, and he always imagines her ghost, small and fiercely proud in the yellow dress her companion made for her, baring her fangs and hissing and laughing at him when he does it.

But, hey, he can do book signings alright. Especially now that his hands are much better at keeping steady, and can hold a pen for hours without his poor old man knuckles starting to cramp. And yeah, he does really like it when the fans stroke his ego, sue him why don’t you.

He’s been on a sort of tour for two weeks now. Met his daughters, which was awkward and stilted and uncomfortable, but less disastrous than he feared it might be. It probably helps that, despite both their concerns, he actually isn’t using again. Drained a junkie or two at the start just to see what it’s like, yeah, but he tries not to make a habit out of it. Vampirism is enough of a high by itself, and he learned somewhere over the past 50 years that he doesn’t really like the guy he turns into when he’s on drugs, actually. It’s easier, now, to resist the craving for another hit - though, in exchange, it’s really damn difficult to control his hunger when people are running around with their blood sloshing about so deliciously in their veins. Maybe he just exchanged one drug for another. Eh. Blood, without additives, ironically makes him into less of a monster than the cocaine (or all the other stuff) did.

So he’s been keeping up contact, and travelling around the country, doing events for the book, and trying not to think about the fact that, sooner or later, he’ll have to go back to his flat.

Back to Armand.

He’s not running away, he’s not, but he’s… he needed a break. Needed to get away from god-knows-what-that-was, from Armand’s wrath and Daniel’s own worst impulses working together towards disaster. He was about to do something really, really stupid - what exactly not even he himself knows - and he needed the distance to put things back into perspective. Oddly, talking about the book has helped with that. Reminded him of who Armand really is, when he isn’t playing the strange old-lover character he came up with just for Daniel’s benefit, and why you shouldn’t let him pull you into his web of lies even a little.

Maybe he’ll be lucky, and he’ll return to an empty flat. The aching void-pain of missing one’s Maker isn’t pleasant, but Daniel firmly tells himself it’s better than the alternative.

(Oh, look how he’s lying to himself - he really does come after Armand, doesn’t he.)

Daniel signs another book. Mutters “yeah, thanks” when someone tells him they love Interview. Signs. Genuinely thanks an older woman who liberally compliments his ‘older’ non-fiction and investigative work, and is polite enough not to say aloud that she’s on the fence about this new direction, even though she’s thinking it. Signs. Thinks about eating one of the more annoying clerks here at this bookstore - he won’t, he won’t, but he likes thinking about it more than he should. Signs. Signs. Signs…

No new book is shoved in front of him for a conspicuously long interval. He pauses.

Looks up.

Sighs.

Looks down again.

“There’s already a signed copy set aside for you somewhere at my agent’s,” he says, fiddling with his pen. “I think I wrote ‘To Armand: you’re a total dickbag. f*ck you’, which I now acknowledge was a bit childish. But in my defence I hadn’t heard of you in months and was going through the really weird experience of developing childhood abandonment issues at the ripe old age of 70, so I think I can be forgiven for that.”

“I am not here to acquire a signed copy of your book,” says Armand, stating the glaringly obvious, while also managing to make “your book” sound like a dirty word.

A smile tugs at Daniel’s lips. Fortunately, it’s covered by the mask he’s wearing, half to appease the fretting of his eldest, half to set an example to the general public. UNfortunately, he has to acknowledge that he has missed Armand. As terrified as he is of the bastard, something about his strange habits just makes him feel fond. Must be the vampire bond, if he had to guess.

He looks up again. Armand has one hand raised, fingers curled as if holding on to some invisible fabric. Around the two of them, the world is still, frozen, time captured in Armand’s delicate grasp.

“Then what are you here for?” He asks, brazenly.

“Your absence has troubled me.” Armand steps closer to Daniel’s table. “Simply waiting for your return has become unbearable.”

“Yeah, well. I’m on tour for the book.” Daniel gestures to the stacks arranged around him. “Five more stops in three states.”

“You left because of our fight.” Armand angles his head, gaze sharp and intense and deliberately blank. “You asked your agent to make arrangements in the wake of-”

“Sure did.” Daniel tugs the mask off, shoves his sunglasses up into his hair. “Also, stop tracking my f*cking email.”

“I did not mean to chase you away, beloved.”

“Mh-hm.” Daniel folds his arms, leans back, making clear how f*cking unimpressed he is by the contrite act. Something deep in him is shaking, trembling, in anticipation of something, but he squashes it down. He’s a big boy, he’s tough, he’s not going to let Armand get his hooks into him again.

“You upset me. But I should not have lashed out. I am the elder, I am your Maker, and ought to act as such.”

Daniel snorts. Armand’s eyes, subtly oscillating, narrow.

“You are not to blame for the state of ignorance I myself inflicted on you,” he continues, stiffly. “I love you, and so I forgive you for it, and for all the hurtful things you spear my heart with. And I hope that, if- once you remember, you will forgive yourself for them as well.”

“Jesus Christ,” Daniel mutters under his breath. He really can’t turn it off, can he.

“And you need not evade me out of fear, if that is why you left. I will restrain myself. I will not-”

“Oh, spare me!” Daniel interrupts, sharply. “And save your flimsy ‘I will not harm you’ for Louis. Though I guess he won’t buy it either, now.”

Armand breathes, once, pointedly. Then, “and I apologise for my words, my actions. You are sparing with your forgiveness, I know, so I will not make a bid for it. But I was hoping to take you up on the offer I rejected last we spoke. To move past what has happened, and let it be. May we? Please, Daniel?”

Daniel considers it. Some part of him really wants to say “f*ck off” just to be an asshole, and to see Armand go all apocalypse again. Wants to really pull this not-apology apart, vivisect it, throw its ugly little innards back into Armand’s face, and then laugh at him for thinking Daniel would swallow any part of it.

But then Armand says “please” again, quiet, defeated, as if expecting Daniel to refuse him. It’s so strange that it throws Daniel right out of his revenge fantasies, stifles the predator instincts to bury his fangs in a vulnerable creature’s throat and tear.

He looks at Armand. Armand, who looks gaunt, and starved, and achingly lonely. It’s almost certainly deliberate, but just that Armand chose to present himself this way before Daniel means something, too, doesn’t it.

“Fine,” he says, before the anger can set in again. “What the hell, sure. We move on. Might even do you one better and say that I forgive you - for that fight, at least. We’re even.”

Armand blinks. Those goddamn vibrating Bambi eyes.

“Thank you, beloved.” He reaches out across the table, cups Daniel’s cheek. “You are so very good to me, my lovely boy. My Daniel. Will you return to our home now?”

OUR home!? What the f*ck, Armand, Daniel thinks. Also, not a boy, not yours. How many times?

Out loud, he says, “sorry, boss, gotta finish the tour. My agent will shove me into the dawn if I don’t.”

“May I stay, then.” He doesn’t really make it sound like a question, even though it’s technically phrased as one. More of a ‘I will stay, and you can’t do f*ck-all about it’. Typical.

“Fine,” Daniel sighs, as if it matters. Armand’s hand is still on his cheek. He’s trying really hard not to lean into it, like a f*cking cat. “Stay.”

Armand nods once, then smoothly slides around the table, taking a clipboard from one of the still-frozen store clerks (the really annoying one). Something curious happens to his face as he does it, a softening - it’s a fake-Rashid sort of look, Daniel realises. The sort of thing that would require brown contact lenses to fully pull off, but gets worryingly close nonetheless. Makes him look servile in a professional sort of way, younger and smaller than he really is, almost human.

It’s freaking Daniel out a bit, the uncanny valley of it all. He fumbles his mask back on, pulls his glasses back down, and tries to ignore the Rashidesque presence looming beside him.

A wave of Armand’s hand, a release of something insubstantial he has tightly held on to, and time resumes around them. The clerk he stole the clipboard from stares in bafflement at empty air, before her eyes go a little glassy, and she simply walks off to do something else. Good riddance, Daniel thinks.

He keeps signing the goddamn books, as exhausting as it’s starting to get. Armand keeps hovering at his side and politely addresses him as “Mr. Molloy” once or twice, which pisses Daniel off to no end.

Not that he’s the only one getting progressively more annoyed. Sadly, none of the people thinking ‘wow, great Armand cosplay, love the contacts’ have the balls to say it out loud - might have something to do with Armand’s resting serial killer face - but if they’re projecting loud enough for Daniel to pick up on it, then Armand definitely does, which might explain why he’s looking increasingly like someone who bit into a juicy neck and found out it was actually a rotten lemon as the evening goes on.

(It’s all worth it for the moment Armand sets eyes on an honest-to-god Lestat cosplayer in the queue. His face is priceless. It’s one of the best moments of Daniel’s life, and he’ll cherish it forever - and of course send a mental snapshot of it to Louis. He owes the guy that much.)

It’s a long evening. By the time they return to the hotel - Armand’s, which is much nicer because Daniel still has the instinct to budget even with a cool ten mil in his bank account, and into which Daniel’s belonging have already been transferred because Armand is a presumptuous little sh*t - Daniel is dead on his feet.

(Yeah, yeah, he technically always is, very funny, laugh it up.)

He barely makes it to a sort of large chaise lounge in the middle of the room - no, scratch that, it’s multiple rooms, this is a goddamn suite - before he collapses with a groan.

Armand, behind him, flicks on the light switch. Daniel groans louder. Armand hesitates, then flicks it off again.

“...are you unwell, beloved?” He says, quietly. There’s something to the lilt of his voice, some measure of uncertainty. He’s wrong-footed. This is throwing him off.

Well. Good for him. Daniel would be enjoying it more, under normal circ*mstances.

“S’fine,” he mutters, pressing his face into one of the pillows. This is the third time it happened during this book tour, he’ll deal with it. “Just… migraines, I guess.”

“Migraines.” Armand echoes blankly. “You are a vampire, Daniel. You should not be having-!”

“Shhhh,” Daniel interrupts, waving one hand vaguely. Armand’s voice has been rising in alarm, and he really does not need that right now. “It happens sometimes. The world is bright, and much, and, the people, their thoughts…” sh*t, words are hard right now. Embarrassing position to be in, as a writer. This sucks. “Lots. Ow.”

Silence.

“I see.” Rustling, as Armand removes his coat. Footsteps, heavy curtains being pulled closed against the streetlights outside. Dawn is still some hours away.

“S’something to worry about?” It would be easier if Daniel could speak directly into Armand’s mind. But that door is closed forever. “Louis said not.”

“Louis says many things.” Footsteps, closer. Armand’s presence, settling over him like a weighted blanket. Daniel’s in enough of a state to freely admit that it’s soothing. “But I cannot judge it, either. As you know, the Great Laws have not left much space for turning humans with degenerative diseases, so there is little frame of reference. It may be related to your mortal condition and remain with you, or it may only be a temporary difficulty.”

A pause.

“Some do not take well to the Gift. This may be your curse, and it might worsen.”

“It can’t kill me. Nothing much can.” Daniel scoffs, rolls onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. “Calm down, boss. It’ll-”

“Why do you call me that?” Armand interrupts suddenly.

“Hn?”

“‘Boss’.”

Daniel pauses. It feels like his brain is sloshing around his skull with every thought. His hands don’t shake, but it’s taking real effort to make sure they don’t. sh*t, maybe this is a parting gift of the Parkinson’s. Hard to tell.

“Should I not? You’re… Maker, and…” He groans. “Can we have this talk another night? Now’s a bad time.”

“Of course. Beloved.” Armand sinks to his knees at his side. One of his hands settles onto Daniel’s forehead, a soft, cool weight, the other pets through his curls. Daniel thinks, for a brief hysterical moment, of Louis snarling is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight. God, he’s glad Armand can’t root through his many ridiculous thoughts anymore. He’d look hot in a skimpy nurse outfit though. Yeah, see, exactly his point. “I would take this pain from you, if I could.”

“No. Don’t even. Stay out of my head.” Daniel swats weakly in his direction. “Leave it.”

“I do not like to see you suffer.” Armand sighs heavily. “I never did.”

Daniel laughs. He thinks he says something acerbic about six nights of torture p*rn, but it gets mangled beyond recognition by the time it leaves his mouth. Whatever.

Armand is shushing him, pressing a dry kiss to his temple, and Daniel could cry with how much he missed him over the last two weeks, wants to melt into those cool hands and just let his mangled brain seep out through his eyes. Armand will hold him through it. Armand came to find him and bring him home. Armand is here now, and he will stay. He always comes when Daniel wants him to. Always, always. Oh, isn’t that lovely. Isn’t that wonderful. He really might cry.

Bony arms lift him, cradle him against a thin, strong chest. Armand is taking him home. Their home. Yes. He feels so old and fragile, and yet so young again. He feels like he wants to ask for something, but it’s silly, he already has that, doesn’t he? Oh, his head hurts. Oh, his hands are shaking now. He feels ageless, and like sh*t. He grasps for Armand like a child in the dark, and is held in return.

(Someone whispers “I love you”. He hopes to god it’s Armand.)

Then there’s a coffin, and “rest”, and nothingness, and all the pain is swallowed up in the oblivion of sleep.

When Daniel wakes, it’s dark - nighttime, something in him can tell there’s no sun even behind the heavy blackout curtains - though he’s not certain if still or again.

“Good morning, beloved. You slept for 18 hours,” Armand’s crisp voice answers that question. “I have fielded two calls from your agent, who, I’m afraid to say, somewhat assumes you got high and/or drunk and are hungover now. Also, that I am someone you either pulled or purchased for the night. Do not fear, I admonished him for cheapening our bond in such a manner and he will not disrespect our love ever again. Drink.”

A glassful of blood is shoved into Daniel’s face before he can formulate an appropriately outraged response to that. His head is better, that overstimulated tremor gone from his limbs - but some weird dehydrated ache still lingers, so he grabs the glass and knocks it back while still sitting in the coffin. Does the trick.

“Yeah, I feel much better,” he rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “thanks for asking, Armand.”

“I did not ask,” corrects Armand, perching majestically above him on a chair he clearly pulled over here for this very purpose, tapping away on his tablet. He looks healthier now, radiant, well-fed - he got Daniel’s forgiveness, no need to keep putting on a show of misery. “You have by now missed the night train you intended to take, how very quaint and impractical-”

“Hey, don’t knock Amtrak. Sure, it’s in a f*cking state, but it gets me from A to B overnight in more comfort than any airline.” Daniel grumbles. “First class isn’t even worth it anymore when you can’t taste the complimentary champagne.”

“-so of course my private plane is at your disposal. We may leave whenever you’re ready.” Armand looks up, meets Daniel’s eyes. “...I would recommend consulting with Dr. Fareed Bhansali regarding your migraine spells.”

(Daniel would bet good money that Armand already has consulted behind his back, the horrid little control freak. Boundaries? What boundaries?)

“No doctors, no treatments,” he reminds Armand pointedly. “I’ll manage it. A darker pair of sunglasses, some earplugs, and more practice at mental shielding in public will fix me, don’t you worry.”

Armand’s brows draw together. He will go right on worrying, Daniel knows. Probably thought vampire turning removed the unpredictable element of Daniel’s continuously failing health, and doesn’t like the thought of something still not being under his control.

“You know what I was always wondering,” Daniel says to distract him, looking around the room until he finds his suitcase, and his clothes in the wardrobe. Why did Armand even unpack his stuff when they’ll be on their way again soon? “About you.”

“I do not know.” Armand’s tone is careful, wary. “But I am reassured in the certainty that you will elucidate momentarily.”

“Oh, f*ck off with your Scrabble-winning bullsh*t. I’m a writer, I own a thesaurus too, I’ve got Merriam-Webster’s site bookmarked in my browser, big whoop.”

Armand smiles, in that way he has that practically screams ‘I choose to be amused because the alternative would be an overwhelming urge to throw you out the window’. Daniel used to see it all the time during the interview. Almost makes him feel nostalgic.

“It’s the whole…” Daniel gestures with one hand, the other pulling a shirt out of his wardrobe and tossing it into the open suitcase. Armand visibly twitches at all his neat folding getting ruined. “...iPad kid thing. You’re pretty adept at using modern technology, aren’t you?”

“Fairly, yes.” Armand inclines his head with false modesty. “I… get by.”

“Yeah, yeah, bit of coding, bit of engineering, and on weekends you hack the Pentagon for fun. Anyway, I was wondering how all that worked, for a 500-year-old.” Daniel hesitates, then pulls his own shirt off, shucks it into the suitcase. He soaked it a bit with blood-sweat during his migraine delirium. He feels Armand’s eyes burning into his bare back, and hopes the little sh*t enjoys the free peep show of Daniel’s flabby old man body. “See, I’m a senior citizen myself, and I was actively trying to stay up to date with all this sh*t. Did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself, but it gets more difficult with every year. What was the learning curve like for a guy who was born only a generation or two after the printing press?” He pulls on another t-shirt from an old concert he was too high or drunk at to still remember the details of. At least he has the shirt to remind him he was there. “Were you always keeping up with new inventions, or did you sit down and decide to update yourself at some specific point? Does it come easy to you? Is this just your special talent, Armand the techno-savant vampire?”

Armand huffs a laugh. “You flatter me. I am better at it than many who struggle with the wheel of time’s merciless turn - the 20th century has ground countless ancients into dust, who found the alienation of modernity too terrible to bear. I expect the 21st to do worse. But no, I was not always following the latest trend, and often I lagged behind considerably. …though I did have a brief, shall we say, love affair, with the projector we used at the Theatre.” His voice goes soft and syrupy, all nostalgic fondness. “It was such a lovely thing, light and colours born from metal. The tiny little film images, so large, so grand, on the big stage-screen! I adored it, though I did not quite know what made it go, in those days. I was Maître, and Maître was not to bother with such petty details of our productions. I directed, and demanded that Tuan and Quang Pham work their magic to bring my - and Sam’s, I suppose - vision to life, that was all. Vampires do not have hobbies, and my work as coven leader consumed me, in either case. I knew so little of the world then, really, and less of all those marvellous little human innovations that were so strongly influencing its course.”

“So what changed?” Daniel prompts, tossing his socks into the suitcase. Jesus, Armand even folded those, too. “What got you from luddite to erudite?” See? Writer. Thesaurus.

“I had a most adept guide into the world of modern technology.” Still that sugar-sweet, wistful nostalgia, seeping into Armand’s tone. Old love, a little stale and dusty around the edges, but still held close, held tight. It’d be cute, if Armand weren’t… Armand. “Who took it upon himself to initiate me.”

“Louis, right?” Daniel throws over his shoulder. “He was getting pretty modern, avant-garde, photography-hobby-ish back in Paris. Guess he dragged your ass into the 20th century at some point.”

“No. Not Louis.” Armand grimaces lightly. “He did not care overly much to update me. In fairness, I initially refused any attempt he would make, and by the time my mind had changed, so had his.” A sigh. “And he did not care anymore.”

A pause.

“How is he? Louis?”

There are many things Daniel could answer. “Still really pissed at you” ranks high, as does “kind-of-maybe-not-really-but-still back together with Lestat” and “none of your f*cking business, pal”. There’s also “constantly telling me you’re bad news and that I should kick you to the curb already”. Maybe “more reliable and trustworthy than you ever were, and there for me in my hours of need” if he really wants to go low.

In an impressive diplomatic effort, he manages to only say “he’s fine. Doing well for himself” and nothing else. They should give him a goddamn medal for that.

Armand nods.

Looks down at his tablet.

Up at Daniel again.

“It was a human boy. My guide.” He continues, as if Louis never came up at all. “All the splendours of humanity and modern technology revealed themselves to me at his side. And when… when he was no longer there to teach me, I knew how to learn on my own, and that there was no earthly reason I should not. And after so many centuries of ignorance, my enthusiasm for new knowledge ensured that I was able to follow the advent of home computers, mobile technology, and the rise of the internet every step of the way. It brings me great joy, still, and I will indulge for as long as I am able to keep pace.”

“Huh. Good for you. I think hobbies are pretty good for vampires to have, honestly.” Daniel kneels down by the suitcase, starts wrangling the zipper closed. “What happened to the guy, by the way? Your tech teacher?”

Silence behind him. Armand does not answer.

“Ah, why am I even asking.” Daniel chuckles to himself. The answer’s obvious, to vampires. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

Another long silence.

Then, “...yes,” Armand says, as if this shocks him. As if he has only realised it just now, and instantly regrets it. As if he hasn’t killed thousands, ten-thousands, more, in the many years of his life. “Yes. I think, perhaps, I did.”

“Hah! That’s vampire gratitude for ya.” At least Armand didn’t unpack his laptop bag, so Daniel can just pick that up and sling it over his shoulder. “Right. Ready to head out, boss!”

Armand blinks at him, startled. He looks a bit like he’s seen a ghost, for a moment. Got too lost in memories, probably. Daniel wonders what he was like, that long-dead boy Armand sees as he looks at him now.

(Some really stupid, petty, childish part of him is crowing “well, f*ck you, mentor boy, he might be seeing your ghost but I’m the one he kept! Jealous much? Huh!?”

He does his best to ignore it. That sort of behaviour really is beneath him. The guy’s dead, for f*ck’s sake, and Daniel should not feel at all possessive over Armand besides.)

“Of course, Daniel,” Armand finally says, rising from his chair. “Let us go.”

And so they go. Five more stops, and then back home.

Armand keeps playing personal assistant, pulling Daniel out of events precisely on time and doing something to the crowds to quiet their thoughts; and, what do you know, Daniel doesn’t have another migraine for the rest of the book tour. It’s definitely the Good Nurse he’s getting at the moment.

(Armand also seems to have severely traumatised Daniel’s agent within the span of those two fielded phone calls, and obviously given him entirely the wrong idea about Armand and Daniel’s relationship.

But oh well. Omelettes and eggs and all that.)

Chapter 6: In Which They Go Sightseeing

Chapter Text

Once night falls, they walk the streets of Naples together.

The weekend trip was Armand’s idea, which he insisted on very forcefully, arguing that a holiday was in order after the exhaustions of the book tour. Daniel wasn’t too fussed about it, would’ve preferred a… god, what do they call it these days, a “staycation”. But Naples isn’t as much of an overrated sh*thole as Paris is, and some part of him is fascinated by the history of the place, of the re-excavated Pompeii. Something about the thought that countless people died right where they’re standing, suffocating on burning ash, a long-past apocalyptic tableau of human suffering. Morbid of him, yeah, more than a bit f*cked up, but Daniel’s always been a bit fascinated with death. He’s been wondering if that was always the case, or if seeing Louis’ coffin and hoping they’d f*ck in it in ‘73 (and everything that followed) crossed some wires. He really can’t tell anymore.

And, well, a free trip’s a free trip. Armand has that swanky private jet, and booked another suite in a luxury hotel, and the one time Daniel was in Naples years ago is as fuzzy as most of his city trips in the 70s are. So, hey, why not come along, just this once?

Armand is currently dragging him by the wrist - he’d brazenly interlaced their fingers at the start, but after Daniel lagged behind a bit too much, idling at the sights, he transferred his iron grip to the wrist for better dragability.

“You’re really not doing this tourist thing right,” Daniel points out, starting to get a bit pissed off when he nearly gets yanked off his feet for the third time. “C’mon, Armand, don’t tell me you don’t know the value of enjoying the moment! You and Louis, weren’t you wasting away weeks at a time breaking into the same place every night, and-”

“Beloved, if I might request that, instead of running your mouth, you merely run?” Armand’s nails dig deep into Daniel’s old skin. His smile is characteristically poisonous and strained. He’s obviously impatient. “You’re dawdling. Chop chop.”

“What’s got you in such a hurry, anyway?” Daniel grumbles. If he still had his old man knees, he would’ve tapped out already. Would’ve gnawed his own arm off and let Armand make off with it. His legs are perfectly fine now, of course, he could run a marathon, but he’s still… considering it. “You wouldn’t even let me hunt first. I’m actually famished.”

“Later.” They reach a pedestrian crossing. Instead of waiting for green, Armand waves his hand, and the cars all freeze in place, so they can wind their way through. “Afterwards.”

“Where are we going?”

“Not much further.”

“But where are we going!?”

Armand turns large, hurt eyes on him. “...do you not trust me, my love?” he asks, tremulously.

Daniel laughs so hard that he has to sit down right there on the street, wrist still held in Armand’s punishingly-tight grip. Him! Trusting Armand! Oh god, stop, he can’t breathe!

“You,” he finally gasps, beaming up at Armand’s rigid unamused corpse face, “are so funny. Christ, how could Louis ever call you boring!? You’re hilarious, Armand, I swear. How do you say this sh*t with a straight face?”

(Mental note for the next book: put in a lot of footnotes like “it sounds funny the way he says it, trust me”.)

Armand blinks, very slowly. That’s a three-quarters-apocalyptic look, right there. He looks close to an eruption that will make Mt. Vesuvius look like a f*cking hiccup. Oh, every day’s a hoot with this lunatic.

“Right. That cheered me up to no end, actually.” Daniel jumps back to his feet in one smooth motion, and allows himself a moment to enjoy the fact that he can do that again. God, vampirism is such a blessing. He’ll really have to try to finally make Armand understand how grateful he is for this, regardless of all the other bullsh*t. It truly is a Dark Gift. “Oh, fine, fine, stop looking at me like that. I’m in a great mood now, so we’ll go wherever you want to go, and we’ll go quickly.” He grins. Armand’s face does nothing at all. “Just lead the way, boss!”

Another beat of unresponsive stillness - and then Armand turns sharply, and hurries on. Daniel, sighing in a way he immediately firmly tells himself is not fondly, follows him.

Their destination turns out to be the Villa dei Misteri. A treat, to be sure - if Daniel saw it during his last visit, then he has absolutely zero memory of it - but not really justifying Armand’s strange urgency. It’s an old ruin. It’s been here for millenia, it won’t just grow legs and run off in the next half hour.

“You want to come into this house?” Armand asks, softly, breathily, caught between urgency and something almost giddy and eager. Hopeful. Daniel can’t make sense of it. It’s just a house.

“Oh, you’re asking me, now?” Daniel grins. “Wasn’t getting the impression that I had much choice in the matter so far.”

Armand’s expression tightens, the look of an actor whose scene partner has just completely flubbed their line, of a director watching their artistic vision be trampled on. Christ, the little theatre freak that he is - and Daniel doesn’t even get a script. Which, not that he’d follow it, realistically, but he’d appreciate the heads-up.

“Come, then,” he says, curtly, and puts one arm around Daniel’s back in a gesture that would theoretically seem quite gallant, but in practice amounts to being shoved towards the entrance.

Well, at least his wrist is getting a break, Daniel thinks, and indulgently lets Armand manoeuvre him inside.

And it’s, well.

It’s a house.

An old house, yes, old wealth in the painted walls and carved columns and paved floors, and old death in the worn stone, the traces of century-old destruction, the pseudo-smell of old ash Daniel can almost imagine tasting on the air. A beautiful house, too, but it seems like Armand cares very little for the intricate details of the murals, or the moonlight-drenched courtyards. He acts like a dog straining at the leash- like a panther straining at the leash, pursuing some frightened wildebeest only he can see. In the messed-up reverse psychology dynamic they’ve got going on, it only tempts Daniel more to linger.

“Daniel!” Armand hisses from a doorway on the other side of the hall. Daniel ignores him, stepping over a flimsy rope intended to keep the crowds away from the glass cases glinting in the moonlight. There are two body casts exhibited here, plaster poured into the hollow dead bodies left in the ash. The smaller one looks strange, almost silly, more like a twisted doll than a human where it rests in its glass coffin; but this one…

Daniel leans in closer, towards the half bare, half ash-and-plaster-clogged skull of the figure. Inspects the thin arms, the jaw stretched into a final choked scream, bare teeth - oddly blunt, now, to a vampire’s eye - exposed. The eye sockets, filled in with grey, their unseeing gaze meeting Daniel’s own orange-glowing eyes. A dead thing looking at a dead thing. Daniel almost feels a morbid sort of corpse kinship.

What would it have been like, standing in one of these pretty courtyards, and seeing the world end in fire and soot-black clouds? What would’ve killed first, the ash, the heat, the noxious gases? Did it hurt? Daniel’s own ‘death’ is a blur - and here he is now, a sort of cast, too, an imprint on the world in the shape of his corpse. Except he’s on this side of the glass case, and gets to wander about, alive even after death, while his plaster-skeleton comrade in there-

“Daniel!” Armand snaps, hand clamped around his upper arm, the leather of Daniel’s jacket creaking under his palm. “You will come when I call you!”

“Will I?” Daniel raises one eyebrow. “Calm down, Armand, we’ve got all night to explore. Here, take look at this guy, you can even see the imprint of his clothes right-”

“My love, I do not care.” Armand cuts him off, exasperated. “That thing is not why we’re here.”

“Then what the hell is?”

“So impatient,” Armand murmurs, dragging him towards the next doorway, and Daniel laughs again at the hypocrisy of it. “So wilful. You used to be such a malleable, obedient thing, once.”

“Yeah, when I was twenty and terrified.” Daniel rolls his eyes. “I’ve grown some balls since then.”

“Hush,” Armand says, and they both pretend that his eyes didn’t flicker down to Daniel’s crotch for a moment there.

Finally, they step across one last threshold, and Armand settles from one moment to the next - or, well, not quite. He slows, stops, but is still vibrating, that harried anticipation without clear direction now.

“Oh, hey!” Daniel walks further into the middle of the room. “I know this place!”

“Do you?” Armand is at his side again in an instant. Daniel turns in a circle, gaze tracing along the intricate frescoes on their blood-red background.

“Yep. Helped my daughter with a school project once, and she got an A+. One of my admittedly few parenting successes, I’m pretty proud of it.” Daniel points to one of the walls, ignoring how disappointment flickers over Armand’s face for what-f*cking-ever reason. “Uh, let’s see how much I still remember… main scholarly assumption is that it represents some sort of initiation ritual, possibly for a young bride. That’s Dionysus, and that over there is Eros, and that section had me struggling to remember how to spell ‘flagellation’, and then I obviously had to explain the concept to-”

“I.” Armand says, strained, “do. not. care.”

“...right.” Daniel blinks. “Okay.”

He falls silent. They stand together, side by side. Daniel looks at the frescoes. Armand looks at Daniel.

It’s in the top ten most awkward moments of Daniel’s whole life, easily. Top five if it drags on any longer.

“Have you been here before?” He asks, finally, when the silence gets too much.

“Once.” Armand’s arm is at Daniel’s back again. It’s not an affectionate gesture. Daniel’s pretty sure he can feel sharp nails dig through his leather jacket.

“...unpleasant memory?”

Armand shakes his head, once, sharply. His curls look unfairly gorgeous, flying through the moonlight. “In all the many years of my life, I have rarely been happier than I was then.”

“Uh-huh.” Daniel shifts from one foot to the other, increasingly uneasy. Armand is honestly starting to freak him out a little. And he really is very hungry. “If you… if you’d like to bask in those happy memories alone, just say the word, I can… leave, or wait outside, or-”

“Alone!” Armand’s eyes blaze with unnatural light, as his head snaps around to glare at Daniel. “I do not wish to be alone, you sweet little fool! What vampire would!? I wish, I want-!”

A pause. Armand collects himself. Daniel looks at the frescoes and wonders if he’s about to become a blood sacrifice to whichever god Armand believes in.

“I want you,” Armand says, tearing the words out of himself. His tone is almost gruesome to listen to. “My beautiful boy, my Daniel, my one and only fledgling, I want you to remember.”

“There’s nothing to remember,” Daniel says, instantly, almost reflexively, and pulls away from Armand’s touch, puts a step’s distance between them. “Armand, don’t start with that bullsh*t again. You want to call me cutesy little pet names, good, okay, fine, I’m arranging myself with it. You want to sit in my living room, tag along on my book tours, take me on a little trip to Europe, yeah, sure, fine. We can do that. But don’t make this into something it isn't. Alright?”

“Something it isn’t!? Our love was everything to me, Daniel. Everything!” Armand takes a step forward, except he’s no longer standing, he’s floating, looming over Daniel with an extra ten, twenty inches of empty air under the soles of his elegant shoes. His voice resonates in the hall, and Daniel thinks he can hear the echoes of humans screaming as they die in fire and ash. There’s all that pent-up tension, bursting out of him like volcanic ash, sliding into Daniel’s lungs and trying ineffectively to suffocate a dead man. “I loved you to the point of self-sacrifice, and then I loved you even more into selfishness, and I demand that you honour that! Try, you must at least try to remember! We were here, you and I, as the 1970s drew to a close, we were here, and you understood at last that I would not kill you, so I said-”

“Yeahhhhh. I’m gonna go.” Daniel stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, sticks his chin out. He probably looks like a total dickhe*d like this. Whatever. He’s sick of this sh*t. He wishes he and Armand could’ve just wandered into a different villa and looked at traces of life the volcano snuffed out centuries ago. He wishes Armand would just give up on this stupid, stupid game, and just let whatever-they-are be what it is. He wishes he had mastered the Cloud Gift, too, so he wouldn’t have to crane his neck up and feel so pitiful and small. “I’m too hungry to stick around while you recite lies at me, okay? It’s a cute story, really, I like the setting you picked, but Armand, honey, if you want to write fanfiction, do it on the internet. The fans in the Interview forums will lap it up, trust me.”

“You would leave me now?” Armand’s eyes widen. They’re big enough to swallow Daniel whole, twin moons eclipsing the night sky, so he digs his heels in and takes another step back. His shoes squeak on ancient tiling. “You accompanied Louis on his odyssey of recollection! Every step of the way, you followed him! Will you not grant me the same courtesy as we travel among my, your, our memories!?”

“I guess I should. But you know what the odyssey is, at the end of the day? Nothing more than a long, fancy, made-up story.” Daniel steels his spine. He’s not twenty and terrified anymore. He’s got balls. He needs Armand to understand this, goddamnit. “I want- f*cking hell, Armand. You pathologically-lying lunatic. You complete bastard. I want something real, okay, asshole? I don’t want a story, I don’t want a lie, I don’t want to play pretend. I only want the real thing. And whenever you want to join me in reality, I’ll be…” sh*t. sh*t sh*t sh*t. “...I’ll be right there. Waiting. Okay?”

Armand blinks at him. He’s losing height, not settling back on the ground entirely, just a little dip.

And then he says, calmly, coldly, “the past you decry as fiction was more real than this-” a dismissive flick of an elegant and cruel hand towards Daniel “-faded remnant could ever be. If you have no intention of ever even trying to remember, if you would continue to dismiss the love we shared, the love for which I turned you, if you wish to remain an ignorant, clueless boy forever - then you are no longer the one I would call my beloved. You are the last traces of an insignificant mortal turned into an insolent wretch of a fledgling, Daniel Molloy, and I have no need for such!”

“Oh,” says Daniel. He wants it to be mocking. It comes out broken. Trick of acoustics, nothing more.

“Go and hunt. Drain a mortal, enjoy the sights. Live the eternal life I granted you in error,” Armand hisses. His fangs glint in the moonlight. “And we shall never see each other again after tonight.”

“Oh,” Daniel says again. Armand hovers above him, a cruel angel casting him out of paradise, a wrathful Roman god raining destruction upon the world, beautiful and glorious in terror and damnation.

For a moment, Daniel thinks he will fall to his knees and weep and beg, no, pray for mercy.

But then, the sudden grainy hurt in his chest crystallises into diamantine anger, and ‘no, no, please, I’ll do anything’ turns into ‘well, f*ck HIM!’ - and in the end, he has strength enough to spit out a curse and direct a rude gesture at Armand before he stomps off. Out of the room, out of the Villa, out into the world.

(The two corpse casts watch him go with their plaster faces. How it must look to them! Daniel’s an old man, but really Daniel’s a newly-born vampire; and after something perilously close to a lover’s spat, the beautiful young man who brought him here, who is really an ancient vampire, has now dismissed him. Dismissed his entire continued existence, called it a mistake.

Maybe it would’ve been an easier death after all, ash and plaster and glass cases and gawking tourists. Maybe the ancient dead pity him, now.

Maybe they’re right to do so.)

And Daniel does not look back at Armand. Not even once.

Chapter 7: In Which The Stars Are Still There

Chapter Text

sh*t. Goddamn it. No, no, no.

Daniel stepped out of the Villa dei Misteri that still-early evening fully intending to spite Armand in any way he can. Their weird game has run its course, Armand has grown bored of Daniel and rejected him just for not playing the role he wanted Daniel to play - well, so what?

Yeah! So what!

f*ck. He’s not fast enough. He’s not.

Daniel was going to live forever - at least Armand had granted him that much, hadn’t terminated him like a failed experiment - and he was going to thrive. And if he never sees his Maker again… well. It’ll be just like the year before Armand finally showed up at his doorstep. Daniel’s managed on his own before, he’ll manage again.

(At least he has some measure of closure now. That’s good, right? That’s enough. Right.)

sh*t!

And he was certain he’d be fine.

Which, well, yeah…

No.

Now, in the early morning hours, Daniel is decidedly not fine. Great work, dumbass! Barely ten hours of being abandoned by his Maker, and already he's f*cking it all up. Oh, Daniel could kick himself.

He won’t, though. His legs are needed for running. Pretty fast running, the sort of running that really shouldn’t be possible at his age, yeah, but not… not that vampire nyooom thing that gets you from one side of the room to the other in the blink of an eye and whose main purpose seemingly is giving people heart attacks. He tries, but he can’t manage more than a few aborted steps before his head starts spinning, and the ground jerks oddly under his feet, and his legs tangle, and he has to stop before he faceplants. Armand has told him to practise his Gifts more, and Daniel said something mean about trying too hard to make up for absent Makerhood, and then not done it.

f*ck.

f*cking Armand. Telling him, saying- and then-

It’s late. It’s too late. It’s early again, is what it is, and Daniel can feel the sun creep up behind him. Can feel it in the push-and-pull of morning exhaustion, paired with sheer instinctive panic screaming for the safety of a coffin. God, he’s so stupid. So dumb. He’s trying to outrun the f*cking sun, and he’s doing a predictably piss-poor job of it.

Where’s the f*cking hotel!? It should be somewhere here, it should, he could pull up Google Maps on his phone but he really doesn’t have time for that.

(He was stupid, he was careless, he was hurt and it screwed with his brain, and now it’s morning and he’s f*cked.

The many vampires whispering on Bloodsucker Broadband how much they hate him and his book will love that. Or maybe not. They all seemed pretty eager to get him themselves, wouldn’t want UV light to steal their kill in the end.)

Daniel can feel it, can see the way the sky brightens, shadows starting to take solid shape, the prickling on his skin that is going to turn into burning agony pretty soon. In the early days, he stuck a hand into the sun just so he’d know what it would be like, and let’s just say he’s not looking forward to getting a full-body fifth-degree burn. And where the hell is that goddamn hotel!

…okay. sh*t. This won’t work. Plan B, plan B, come on Molloy, keep it together!

Daniel skitters to a stop in the middle of the street. Passersby are watching him with confused frowns. He doesn’t pant, he doesn’t need to breathe, but he shakes, trembles with an instinctive fear. He won’t make it to the hotel. He needs somewhere else out of the sun, a dark and safe place to curl up and uneasily sleep through the day. Hide in one of the houses lining the street? Or, or the sewers, he could- where’s the next- (god he’s so exhausted…) where-

The hot prickling on Daniel’s left cheek suddenly sharpens into the molten-hot air-heat of an open furnace. Daniel cries out, jerks his head away, throws his arms out as if to shield himself, it hurts, it hurts, it HURTS, HURTSPAINHURTSHURTSBURNING-

And then. Suddenly.

The pain, still, but not hot. Not searing.

(God, the smell. Not like meat. Just ash.)

Darkness, cloth, wrapped around him. Safety?

Hands, arms, touch, wrangling him as he instinctively, clumsily tries to fight, to shy away. Firm grip like metal bands around him.

Movement, rapid, almost weightless, no ground under his feet. Up, maybe? So hard to tell.

The abnormal heat of the sun presses up against his clothes and whatever he’s been wrapped in, like a squirming kitten in a towel, beckoning him towards rest, towards death - and then, suddenly, it’s gone. Shadow-darkness washes over him like blessedly cool water.

His captor’s grip tightens, and then he’s thrown, as if Daniel weighs nothing, tossed to the floor. He lies there, twists, fights his way out of the- what is this, a blanket, a bedsheet? Tears it to shreds with his claw-nails, disoriented and panicked. Did one of the vamps who hate him for Interview take their chance when he was disoriented? Is he in any shape to fight? His hands ache, ash-grey spreading over his wrinkles and liver-spots, and the whole left side of his face feels stiff and immobile the way skin really should not feel. He’s in no condition for battle, no.

Carpet under his hands. Hotel carpet. Nice hotel carpet. Daniel’s woken up on enough floors feeling like death to be a bit of a connoisseur.

He stills.

Looks up.

Armand.

Armand is standing there, backlit by the sun falling through the open balcony door, a dark shadow Daniel would still know the outline of anywhere.

(Thank god, Daniel thinks, and well, that didn’t last, did it? All those melodramatics, and here you are again already, and then thank god, thank god, THANK GOD all over again.)

Armand’s shadow raises one hand, brings it down violently, and the shutters crash into place, no trace of sunlight in the room even before the curtains follow suit, almost torn from their fastenings by an invisible hand.

Daniel opens his mouth. He genuinely doesn’t know what will come out of it - and he doesn’t get to find out.

Armand pounces, a single ripple of his predator body, throwing Daniel onto his back, kneeling on his chest.

“Arma-” Daniel begins, gasps, but then Armand’s fingers, thin and bird-boned and firm as steel, clamp around his jaw, force his mouth open.

“You will not,” Armand snarls, and brings his free hand up to his mouth, tears into his flesh and spits red to the side, “you will NOT, I do not permit it, you will not!”

The wrist is shoved into Daniel’s mouth, coppery blood running down his throat, almost choking him. Armand’s fingers are on his neck, running up and down with punishing strength, forcing him to swallow.

He does.

Gulps Armand’s blood down eagerly, the sweet and heady taste of it washing away the fire-ash-burn lingering on his tongue, soothing the sharp bite of agony. The burns are mostly superficial, weak early morning light scorching his skin, but nowhere as bad as the state he vaguely remembers Louis being in, in San Francisco. With Armand’s powerful blood spreading through him, there’ll be barely any trace in a day or two.

(The last time something like this happened must have been Dubai. The turning. Daniel hasn’t tasted another vampire’s blood except then, except that one time. And, oh god, it’s good. So good. He’s aching, exhausted, confused, but with Armand’s torn flesh between his teeth, tongue lapping at shredded, already-healing skin, nothing else matters.)

“I will not let you,” Armand is hissing above him, raving, his usually so soft and melodious voice a breathless throaty half-gurgle, “this act of ultimate defiance, this foolishness- no! No, Daniel, no, you will not, I cannot allow this! Not this, never, never!”

Daniel wants to ask “...what?” but his mouth is full, his fangs scraping over the delicate bones of Armand’s wrist, and it really is inconvenient, that they can’t speak mind-to-mind anymore.

…but there’s something else happening instead, Daniel realises, as Armand finally tears himself free again, stands like a marionette pulled upright, and stares down at him with wide, burning eyes.

Armand always keeps himself shut off. Always. There’s a barrier between them, which Daniel initially figured was due to so much time spent apart. Early separation, bit of postpartum depression, and now they’re both numb to that stupid fabled bond.

That wasn’t it though, that clearly wasn’t it, because the barrier is gone now, and a nauseating wave of foreign feeling presses in on Daniel from Armand’s direction. Fear, raw and sharp and acid-sour, the same fear that is contorting Armand’s lovely face into something primal and snarling, his own blood dripping down his chin.

“Hey,” Daniel rasps, pushing himself up onto his elbows. Armand’s raw terror is making his head swim, makes him dizzy and sick. Especially mixed with his own relief - “never” turned out to be no longer than ten hours, and that was already too long for Daniel’s taste. “Thanks for-”

“By any means necessary,” Armand continues, unseeing, unhearing, and jerks into motion, pacing in that not-right way he has when some overwhelming emotion grips him and he can’t be bothered to appear human. It’s like his skeleton is moving on its own, and the rest of him is lagging behind. “I will not let you, Daniel Molloy. Never! You are mine, boy, mine, my fledgling, and no fledgling of mine will incinerate himself!”

“Uh,” Daniel blinks, holds up one hand. “Wait. Wait, I-”

“Underground, maybe. Yes, underground, you’ll be safe,” Armand babbles on, his arms curling around his torso, fingers twitching, nails clawing holes into his fine shirt. He looks as helpless as he looks monstrous in his terror. “That’s how I’ll keep you from the sun. A stone cellar, steel walls, impenetrable, chain you into your coffin and feed you myself each night, and you’ll hate me, oh, I know you’ll hate me for it, but I can bear the hate as long as you’ll be safe, and in a hundred years, two hundred, when my blood’s power has grown strong enough in you-”

“Armand, listen-”

“-then I can release you, and you can stand in the sun all you wish then, you’ll not escape me that way! You’ll not defy me through death! You try to hurt me that way, you do, you and Louis both, but you will not-!”

“ARMAND!” Daniel snaps, staggers to his feet. “Shut- shut up for a second, will you? It was not like- f*cking hell, it wasn’t what you think!”

(Goddamn vampires and their goddamn astronomical suicide rate! Raglan James made such a fuss about the ‘Great Conversion’, but considering nobody seems to expect new vampires to actually last, Daniel can’t see why it’d be such a problem.)

“Look, man,” he continues on, rubbing at his still-aching cheek. The skin under the ash-scabs feels raw and wet, and he knows, if he weren’t a vampire, it would scar horrifically. “I lost track of time, that’s all. I went out and drained some drunk tourist that was probably going to choke to death in some gutter before morning anyway, and then I wandered around and- and I didn’t realise how far I got, and how close the dawn was, until it was already too late. I was careless, yeah, I was stupid, I was the closest to drunk I can get nowadays. But not- what you think was happening, what happened with Louis in ‘73, that wasn’t happening. Okay?”

Armand blinks at him. His face is still contorted, a rabid grimace, but his gaze is uncomprehending. Blank.

“So, as appealing as this whole attic wife - cellar fledgling? - idea sounds, which it doesn’t, by the way, 0/10, not a fan, there’s no need for it. Really. I don’t want to die, and I definitely wouldn’t die just to spite you. It might be difficult to understand for the sort of egomaniacal asshole you are, but not everything is about you.” Daniel barks out a harsh laugh he doesn’t mean. “Wild, I know. I’m perfectly capable of living a long and happy un-life in which I never see you again.”

(But I don’t think I really want to. Please don’t make me.)

“And, in case that’s what’ll happen, before you leave you should know… you have to understand…” Daniel runs a hand through his hair, winces at the way it scrapes over his burns. Yeah, not gonna do that again. He probably got blood and ash into his hair, too. “I’m so, so incredibly f*cking grateful to you. Did you know that?”

“No,” says Armand. It looks like remembering how to speak, to put meaning to words, is intensely difficult for him at the moment.

“Well, I am. You saved my life… what is it now, three times?” Daniel counts on his blackened fingers. “Once in San Francisco, though that was really more incidental, and considering everything that happened afterwards, I think I’m giving Louis more credit for saving me from you. But, uh. Yeah, once. Twice, with Dubai. You’ve made pretty clear how you feel about that one, but I… I can’t put into words how grateful I am. You think all fledglings grow to despise their makers for turning them? Well, watch me, pal. Some part of me will thank you every night for the rest of eternity, every night I don’t feel my body and mind slowly fall apart, every night I don’t rot six feet under the earth, every night I get to live. I love being a vampire! I love it so goddamn much, I think I could write for the next hundred years and never manage to express the full extent of it.”

Armand’s face does something strange and endlessly complicated at that. Daniel can feel the co*cktail of volatile emotions over their bond, too, flitting by too fast to pick any single one out from the mix.

“And, well. Three times, now. Even after you said… yeah. Even after that.” Daniel looks down. Shuffles his feet, toes at the torn bedsheet Armand wrapped him up in. Wonders when Armand realised Daniel wasn’t going to get back to the hotel room in time, if he was only alerted by Daniel’s raw fear once dawn crept too close. Imagines, just briefly, how it must’ve looked to Armand, when Daniel stopped running. “Thank you. I won’t let it go to waste, this life you gave me thrice over. And whatever else happens between us, I’ll go on living… and be grateful to you for it.”

A single tremor runs through Armand, makes him shake just once, all over, before that statue-stillness sets back in. Christ. He looks like he’s about to tear Daniel’s heart out and eat it. He looks like he’s going to shatter into pieces if somebody looks at him wrong. Like he'll lock Daniel up anyway, and like he’ll evaporate, dissipate, if nobody holds him together.

(Daniel wants to touch him. It would be a terrible idea. So he doesn’t.)

And then Armand calms, gradually, in increments. Slowly pulls the tatters of his composure around himself, smooths out all the ugly breaks where something horrid was peeking through the unblemished skin of a gentle young man he wears like a coat, until he is fully in control of himself again, beautiful and untouchable. Their bond-connection goes numb and dull and distant again.

Daniel, because he’s a bit of a sick f*ck, finds that he liked Armand better as a terrified creature-wretch, raw and feral and helpless when confronted with the possibility of losing his one and only fledgling to the sun.

(Because, god help him, that was real. That is real. Something deep in Daniel is giddy with joy over it, satisfied in a way that only the blood of a fresh kill can accomplish these days.

That it was also really hot is beside the point.)

“...I see,” Armand murmurs, as calm and reserved as if they just had a meaningless discussion about the weather. “I’ve misread the situation, haven’t I.”

“I’ll say.” Daniel smiles weakly.

A long pause. Armand watches him, looking far too small and lost for the sort of monster he is, that Daniel knows he is.

“You’re welcome, Daniel,” he says at last, an uncertain little phrase he clearly only picked because he doesn’t know how else to respond to gratitude. It’s endearing in its clumsiness, the way he says it like he’s not quite sure of the right inflection. “But how do I know you aren’t lying? That you will not throw yourself into the fire the moment my back is turned?”

“You really think I’d do that!?” The thought is absurd to Daniel. “f*ck no. Also, I’m not the type for lies and mind games, actually. That’s all you. The fledgling apple does fall a bit further from the tree, here.”

“Nevertheless. It might perhaps be better if I stay with you awhile. To make sure that-”

Daniel laughs. “Christ, Armand! You want to backpedal on ‘never seeing each other again’, just say so. We’ll forget about it, yeah? We’ll forget about all of it. It’ll be like we never went to the goddamn Villa dei Misteri at all.”

“Forget,” Armand repeats on an exhale, a little sigh. “Never.”

“Deal?” Daniel prompts.

A grimace.

“...deal,” Armand says, in that snobbish tone he keeps reserved specifically for using modern slang.

“Great.” They should probably have talked about it. But Daniel really doesn’t want to, and especially not today. “Can I go to coffin, then? Kind of close to passing out here, boss.”

Armand gives a tight nod, and then watches over him like a hawk while Daniel kicks off his shoes and pulls off his jacket, too tired for the rest, and crawls into his coffin, struggling a bit to close the lid with his burnt fingers. Armand promptly swoops in, and does it for him. Regular gentlevamp, this one.

As Daniel lets himself be pulled down into slumber, he can hear shuffling, scraping on the outside of the coffin, and he realises, drowsily, that Armand is sitting next to it, maybe slumped against it. Maybe half draped over it, like sentimental pre-Raphaelite beauties captured on oil and canvas in their grief, keeping vigil over the coffin of their departed lover as they sob dramatically and wretchedly into their arms.

It’s ridiculous, it’s theatrical, and it’s completely unnecessary, Jesus. Daniel told him there's no need for a suicide watch. Repeatedly.

It’s, Daniel thinks as he starts to nod off, all very Armand.

They actually do the tourist-y sightseeing thing properly, the next night.

Armand, perhaps as a sort of apology, procures dinner for Daniel, and once that is enjoyed and disposed of, takes possession of the Vespa their victim has no need of any longer. It must look like a toy in comparison to whatever metal beast he was riding back in Paris - none of Louis’ photos that Daniel saw show Armand on his bike, and, oh boy, the things he could read into that - but Armand seems entirely unbothered by the discrepancy, inspecting the little machine with a sharp appreciative eye before taking a seat and beckoning for Daniel to join him and hold on tightly.

He was not kidding about that. In actual traffic, Armand drives like someone who knows he’ll walk away unscathed from any crash, and also has a very low opinion of all the humans he is forced to reluctantly share the street with.

The part of Daniel that was only very recently mortal is sh*tting his pants at the speed with which Armand winds their way in-between various cars, thinking of burning wrecks and metal in uncomfortable places - but the part of him that’s always been an adrenaline junkie and only got worse with immortality whoops in delight at another sharp turn, and even dares to take his hand off of Armand’s barely-there waist on occasion to flip off any driver cursing them out.

They drive into the heart of Naples, and eventually find themselves in an old castle perched high up on a hill, with a breathtaking view of the city and the bay, and Mt. Vesuvius in the distance. It would probably be a wonderful place to watch sunrises and sunsets from, but, well. Until Daniel’s toughened up a bit over the course of a handful of centuries, he’s probably seen the last of those. Right now, with his hands and face still sore and visibly charred, he misses them less than he thought. f*ck the sun. He’d rather take the moon any night.

There’s a museum in the castle they can break into, art installations to look at. They probably will, later. For now, Daniel and Armand are still standing outside together, enjoying the view in a much less awkward silence than the night before.

“There used to be stars in the sky over Italy,” Armand finally says, his head thrown back, face turned towards the endless expanse of greyish, uniform night above them, instead of the twinkling lights of Naples. “Countless stars, illuminating the evening hours. Now, there are none I can see. Humanity, the passage of time, has erased them.”

“Don’t get poetic on me now. It’s f*cking light pollution, call it what it is,” Daniel mutters, rolling his eyes. “Pretentious son of a bitch.”

(That came out altogether too fond. Damnit.)

“And yet, the stars remain,” Armand continues on, pointedly ignoring Daniel. “Out of reach, out of sight.” Gaze flickering down from the heavens, towards Daniel. “Out of mind. And yet, they remain. They are there. Whether we choose to acknowledge the hidden truth of them or not.”

“Sure,” Daniel vaguely agrees. He can guess what Armand is trying to get at here, he’s a writer, he knows a goddamn metaphor when he hears one as heavy-handed as this. Doesn’t mean he’ll acknowledge any of it. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Armand fidgets. Thumb rubbing along his index finger, a gesture Daniel has started to associate with Armand even when other people do it. He waits. Most important thing he learned in his journalistic career: know when to shut up and wait for the other person to work up the courage to say what they really want to tell you.

And in Armand’s case, that turns out to be “I lied.”

“I know,” Daniel says, simply. If there’s one thing that has never been in doubt about Armand, it’s that.

“What I said to you in the Villa dei Misteri, as I sent you away - it was all lies, Daniel.”

“Uh-huh.” He’s tempted to add ‘thought we agreed to forget about all that’, but doesn’t.

“I spoke in anger, with the intent to hurt. There was no truth in it. Please believe me when I say that I do not consider your turning an error, and do not regret it.”

Daniel says nothing. It’s funny, isn’t it, language. ‘Please believe me when I say’ - what a nice phrase to put in front of a lie. And Daniel knows it’s a lie. Making another vampire is a process that repulses Armand, has always repulsed him, and you know what? That’s fine. Daniel knew that Armand regretted whatever impulse pushed him towards it in Dubai, knew it all along. He’s made his peace with being the vampiric equivalent of an unplanned and fiercely unwanted pregnancy, months ago, while Armand was still doing his disappearing act. In Louis’ words, he doesn’t need to be coddled or lied to. Some part of Armand will always regret that Daniel is a vampire now, they both know that, even if Armand might not acknowledge it. But as long as he tries not to let it show, as long as he sticks around, doesn’t try to undo that mistake - it’s alright. It’s okay. No skin off Daniel’s fangs.

“And you are not… you are no remnant, beloved. You are still my fascinating boy, only moreso than you were when I released you into a normal, mortal life. The years have enriched you, completed you, not diminished your perfection in any way. Even without your memories, you are still my whole heart, still so beautiful and enchanting and dear to me. It was nothing but churlish to pretend otherwise.” A sigh. “This, I regret. Taking your memories, and then acting ungrateful in the face of the great gift I have been given - to have you now, as you are, and to have all of eternity with you, when I once thought I was giving you up forever. I was… I was so terribly afraid, when I thought I might have wasted that chance, that you would go the way I have seen so many of our young go, and flee beyond my reach.”

A touch, feather-light, tracing over Daniel’s burnt knuckles.

“You must understand, Daniel, how dearly I love you. Have loved you, for decades now. And if you believe no other words I tell you - believe these.”

And something in Daniel clicks. Some glimmer of understanding.

Armand is already falling back into the act, back into the game. Going on about the fictional past again. How he ‘regrets’ his made-up wrongs, which are perhaps easier to stomach than the truth - that he broke a half-millennium streak of fledglingless existence for petty, spiteful, pointless reasons.

But a past romance would imbue the act with meaning, rewrite the narrative into one Armand likes better, that he prefers his role in. Gives him a blueprint for how to feel - act like he feels - about Daniel that isn’t complicated and full of instinctive revulsion.

He’s beginning to think that all this is more for Armand’s own sake than him genuinely thinking he’ll ever convince Daniel. He’s all too familiar with those pretty stories we all tell ourselves when the truth is too bitter to swallow, and Armand has basically patented the approach. This must be so much easier for Armand, pretending according to a script, rather than really being the way he truly feels.

f*cked up, this, but maybe Daniel can let it slide, this once, in exchange for a life thrice saved. Does it matter what delusional nonsense Armand spouts, as long as his actions belie his words? Does it matter what sort of endearments he’s called, as long as he gets snatched away from the dawn, as long as Armand goes completely out of his mind at the mere thought of losing Daniel?

…well. It does sting. Daniel doesn’t think he can live like that, being just a prop for a lie Armand is telling himself, even if there’s precious truth underneath. Not in the long run. He will need Armand to give up on it eventually.

But… maybe not tonight.

Maybe, for tonight, the memory of Armand’s genuine feral distress will be truth enough for Daniel to sustain himself on.

“I would give you anything you desire. And yet, I must emphasise that there is one thing I am not able to grant you, for all that you have made your wish for it more than clear.” Armand bites his lip, doing a very good job of pretending to look contrite for something he is obviously not in the least ashamed of withholding. Gold-star-worthy, truly. “I cannot pretend that you mean less to me than you do, treasure of my soul, companion of my heart. I will not act as if there is no history of love between us.”

“Right. Well.” Daniel’s still a bit disappointed, but it’s fine. It’s enough, for now. “I won’t act as if there is.”

Armand smiles, and Daniel wants to say he smiles like the spider smiles at the fly, but… no.

No, not quite.

“Oh, lover,” Armand whispers, tenderly, reaching out, winding one of Daniel’s curls around his elegant finger, rubbing the pad of his thumb along his neck where a pulse no longer beats, where the skin is still raw and half-blackened from Daniel’s recent run-in with UV rays. “Turn your face towards the heavens, see beyond the chaos and noise and blinding light - and you’ll find that the stars are still there.”

A sigh, and he leans into Daniel, almost sags against him, deceptively pliant. A great cat sheathing its talons and attempting to purr through a throat that can only growl. Daniel tries very hard not to think the word ‘cute’, and is once more relieved his thoughts are safe from Armand’s prying mind.

“And that will be enough.” Cold breath and cold words, murmured against Daniel’s burnt neck. “For now.”

‘For now’. Two very dangerous words, coming from Armand - never mind that Daniel is thinking them, too, yeah, he knows he’s a filthy hypocrite. Whatever.

He hasn’t heard the end of this, he knows. He dreads what will come next, a little. He is already bracing himself for shooting down the next transparent attempt at roping him into Armand’s little game.

But he also wraps one arm around Armand’s still ribcage, and presses his face into his hair, soft and smelling faintly of the night air that rushed through it during their ride here.

He doesn’t look up.

f*ck the ever-present stars. Daniel’s always been a down-to-earth sort of guy, and he’s beginning to think that he has everything he needs or wants right down here, in his arms.

And, for now, it’ll be enough.

Chapter 8: In Which There Is Proof

Chapter Text

Some weeks later, Daniel comes back from a meeting with his agent that could and should have been a f*cking email, and finds Armand waiting for him by the door, looking almost giddy and holding something behind his back.

Well, f*ck. That certainly doesn’t bode well.

“Welcome home, honey,” Armand says, beaming, because of course he does. Never misses a chance, these days. He always says it the way wives in mediocre cable sitcoms say it, like foreign words he’s so proud of having learned to use correctly - and it would almost be cute if it weren’t so utterly deranged.

“Hi, boss. What’s up?” Daniel tries to keep his tone light as he locks the door. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe Armand just found Daniel’s dusty old gameboy that he wasted time with in the early 90s and proceeded to utterly crush his Tetris high score, or - slightly worse, but still manageable - he’s about to escalate this really weird game of gay chicken they’ve been playing with a ring box. Daniel dreads the reveal, but at the same time he’s absolutely burning to know. Curiosity killed the Bright Young Reporter, but Armand’s blood brought him back - not quite how the saying goes, but good enough.

“I have found something for you. Come, come.” Armand removes one hand from behind his back to take Daniel by the arm and draw him into the living room. He looks radiant in his… it’s joy, Daniel realises. True joy. Not the unconvincing attempt at cheerful bliss he and Louis presented during the interview. This is how genuine happiness looks on Armand’s face, and honestly it suits him well.

…it’ll probably be the f*cking Tetris high score, then. His glee would be more wicked if this were all for the benefit of throwing a sham proposal at Daniel just to see how he’ll react.

Armand makes him sit in the armchair they’ve been quietly feuding over (Daniel is losing, that’s the Armandchair now); and then, like a cat presenting a bloody headless corpse with utmost pride, he produces the object he was hiding with a flourish, and sets it down on Daniel's lap.

It’s a camcorder - an old camcorder which Daniel immediately recognises as the Sony CCD-V8AF, the bulky, more professional sibling to the Handycam that Daniel dreamed of owning back in the 80s, but obviously never managed to save up for. He would’ve killed to get his hands on one of these babies, to upgrade from his tape recorders, but when he had money, it usually went into drugs - and his employers were not going to give him expensive equipment to play with, in those days. That was the tail end of the worst of his addictions, those years he barely remembers and which Armand so unconvincingly claims he stole.

(What was it he said, during the interview? “The drugs did more damage to your mind than five nights in San Francisco ever did.” Never a good tactic, going back on your statements like that, even months, years later. Daniel’s got a memory like an elephant for things like that.)

It’s an original, as far as Daniel can tell, though someone’s tinkered with it, grafted a modern screen to the side of it, presumably so footage can be played back and looked over without having to press your eye to the viewfinder. Which seems like an unnecessary waste of time and money, considering the wide availability of those modern handheld things with a screen built in.

Or, y’know. Literally any smartphone.

“...right.” Daniel lifts the camcorder up, feels its weight - negligible to him, now, as a vampire - and inspects the buttons, the features. He has vague, extremely vague memories of being obsessed with this model specifically, wanting one for himself, pouring over magazines advertising the latest tech as if he even remotely had the cash to pick one out for purchase. If this is meant to be a present, it’s a damn good one, only Armand’s 40 years too late in giving it. “And what do you call this?”

Armand laughs, sweetly, perches on the armrest, and leans over to tenderly, playfully whisper into Daniel’s ear:

“Proof, my love.”

And then he starts the tape.

This is what’s on the tape:

It’s dark, nighttime. Light snow is falling. The camcorder struggles with these less-than-optimal lighting conditions, but the streetlamps bathe the scene in enough of a glow to make out the figures being filmed.

One of them is Armand. Armand, captured in the imperfect, blurry, washed-out colours of the dead, and the long-gone, and all which has been given over to history; and yet he is indistinguishable from the imp perching next to Daniel, except for his clothes, which seem just a little too thin for the weather. They’re stylish, but in a distinctly 80s way that has at best wrapped around to being en-vogue again for hipsters and vintage enthusiasts who never wear them quite right. Even his hair falls the same way, and his eyes show up on film like discs of reflected lightning, cat-like.

The other is a woman. A normal woman, human, her eyes don’t shine the same way. Armand is watching her intently yet dispassionately, like a sated panther watching a gazelle he’s not interested in eating. She is talking - says some last words Daniel can’t quite catch - into the microphone he is holding out to her.

It’s an interview.

Armand responds, but it can’t be heard over the yawn of whoever is holding the camcorder. It shakes, a hand passes only barely past the lens to stifle the sound, though not quite fast enough. Armand’s light-eyes flash over, displeased. He dismisses the woman with a flick of his wrist, and like an automaton, she turns and she goes.

“Am I boring you?” The camcorder’s microphone in the past and its aged speakers in the present distort Armand’s voice, but his tone is still unmistakable.

“Nah, boss. Just tired,” comes the response from the cameraman. “Can we go home already?”

(Daniel recognises this one, too. He’s heard the voice of his younger self on enough old tapes, old recordings, old broadcasts, to know it instantly now. Sometimes he can’t listen to it, because the slurring or stammering in his obviously-high-or-drunk voice makes him feel faintly sick. It’s steady enough here, though. Probably sober-ish. At most it’s weighed down by exhaustion.)

“No. The night is still young, Daniel, and we will make more use of it.” Armand whirls around, and stalks off. Young Daniel hurries after him. The camcorder shakes.

“Oh, c’mon!” He whines. “I have a day job I’m trying to keep, too, in case you’ve forgotten! They’re gonna kick me to the curb if I take one more nap at my desk, and where will I be then?”

Armand glances over his shoulder. His grin, flashing only for a second across the shaking screen, is bright and playful and horrid. “On the curb, I suppose.”

“Not funny - slow down, will you? - and, seriously, can we go home? I’m beat, I’m freezing my ass off, I’ve been lugging this f*cking thing around with me on my shoulder for an hour-”

“But you like the camera-recorder, Daniel. You said it would be the best for our purposes. You-”

“-and you’ve done enough trying-to-steal-my-job for a night, okay?” Young Daniel really sounds wretched. At the end of his tether. Daniel remembers that tone, too. He can hear the creeping tendrils of withdrawal in it. “Yeah, yeah, you can do interviews too, nicely done, great work, we’ve had such fun - now let’s go home already, goddamnit!”

Armand blinks. His smile is gone.

“Come,” he orders. A tantrum threatens.

Young Daniel lets out a shuddering, helpless breath… and follows.

The camera skips and rattles. Daniel tries to recognise the city from the shaky glimpses of signage, the skyline, the buildings, but comes up short. Armand’s slender back in his too-thin coat is the main point of the camcorder’s focus, seeming to almost pulsate with the glow of reflected lamplight as he moves from light to shadow to light again.

Armand leads the way into a narrow side street, more of an alleyway, and then, suddenly, stops under the flickering light of a neon sign.

Turns.

“My lovely boy,” he murmurs, one hand reaching past the camcorder’s lens, to stroke something there. “I do run you ragged, don’t I? And after you have been so good to me all night. Here. Let me have that.”

The hand moves, then all of the screen, angles all over the place as the camcorder is lifted off of a shoulder, and held in Armand’s much steadier - unsettlingly steady - hand.

The lens swerves.

And there he is.

Younger Daniel looks awful. That’s what makes him look accurate to older Daniel’s eye. The book blurb pictures were 70s/80s Daniel at his very best, and he rarely actually kept that state up. This freezing, shaking, wild-haired and wild-eyed creature, this drugged-out husk - yeah, that’s mid-80s Daniel the way he actually was.

Christ, he looked like sh*t back then. Remembers, in rare snippets, that he almost always felt like it, too. He doesn’t know when this is supposed to be, but it can’t be much more than a few months before that nebulous day something in Daniel finally cracks and he realises it’ll be rehab, or the grave. That deathly-grey shadow of his past certainly looks like he won’t make it much longer than that.

“I would like to stay out a little longer,” Armand continues. His voice is soft, but closer to the mic now, and Daniel feels the softness settle over his shoulders like a lead blanket. “But in exchange, I suppose you must have a little reward.”

“Yeah…?” Young Daniel blinks. His eyes skitter downward. Widen.

At the lower edge of the screen, Armand is holding out his hand, a gash torn by one sharp nail drawn across the palm, blood pooling in the soft creases.

“Something of a pick-me-up. Drink, beloved, and you will surely feel better.”

Young Daniel grins, grateful, eager, relieved. He reaches for Armand’s hand with both of his-

And Armand pulls it back.

Pointedly angles the camera down, to where he is holding his palm open close to his body, at hip level, as if he’s offering a treat to a large dog…

(…because he is, Daniel realises in the present day, something molten-hot bursting in his stomach at the thought. f*ck.)

“What.” A weak laugh. The camcorder pans - smoothly, steadily - back up to young Daniel’s face. He looks stunned. “Are you serious!?”

“Deadly, my love.”

“Oh, hah. Funny.” Young Daniel shuffles his feet, almost shyly. His cheeks are so red, and his smile is stretching all the way across them. “You gonna film it, too, boss? Film me while I’m…” he gestures, vaguely, in the direction of Armand’s hand.

“Yes.” Said so innocently, so pleasantly. “Is that a problem, Daniel?”

“You’re sick, man,” young Daniel breathes. He sounds like Armand’s answer has made him happier than anything else in the world could. Like he loves it. Like he loves hi- “Twisted. Holy sh*t.”

And then, like a puppet getting its strings cut, he drops to his knees, thin layer of dirty snow-melt splashing and soaking into the jeans he’s wearing. The camcorder’s lens unerringly follows him.

(The hard impact of bone on asphalt makes Daniel wince in sympathy. His knees are perfect, now, every joint in his body butter-smooth, but before the Dark Gift he had one hell of a knee problem. Mostly because he really did do that on-my-knees-in-a-second sh*t quite a bit, in his youth…)

“Then you will sicken too, my beautiful, obedient, hungry boy.” Armand’s voice is a low, breathy purr, as he brings his hand closer, only barely strokes the tip of a finger along young Daniel’s chin. “If there is rot in my flesh, in my blood, then I will feed it to you, and we shall share our illness and our sickbed and our grave.”

“And you’re f*cking insane, you son of a bitch,” young Daniel mutters, staring up at Armand, at the camera, like a man reared in a cave and setting eyes on the stars for the first time. “May I? Please. Please.”

A soft laugh. Not mocking, as it should be. Only fond. “Of course. Gorge yourself on your reward.”

And young Daniel’s head jerks forward like an invisible hand has released his collar.

He laps at the blood pooling in Armand’s palm eagerly, hungrily, big, flat-tongued licks from the root of the fingers to the wrist; and once he has some in his mouth, he hastily gulps it down, throat working furiously. One hand shoots up to cling to Armand’s lower arm, fisted into his sleeve to tug it out of the way, the other comes up to Armand’s thigh, grasping for purchase there. Armand, magnanimous, allows this.

It’s a frenzy at first, animalistic, undignified, messy. Young Daniel clearly cares for nothing except the blood before him. And then, the shaking shoulders of the long-time junkie settle, his gasping breaths even out, and he glances up from under his lashes at Armand, at the camera.

It’s a look of adoration, alright, of worship - but older Daniel sees the blown pupils, clear as day. The unfocused gaze. The slack set of his younger self’s features, messy with smears of blood-saliva mixture all over his lower face.

That’s an addict who just received a hit. A guy who was given a delirious high from what might as well have been cocaine, licked out of a cupped hand. Sick was right, after all.

(The camcorder’s mic catches a deep, shuddering breath-sigh Armand would not have needed to take at all, and for the first time since it changed hands, the screen shakes for a brief moment.

In the present day, though Daniel does not fully register this, glued as he is to the screen, Armand looks away from younger Daniel’s blank, drugged-up, black-hole eyes as if he cannot bear to meet their gaze.)

Now, with the initial hunger, the initial need sated, young Daniel clearly intends to make a show out of the rest of his meal, really playing it up. The sort of show Daniel put on often enough in dirty club bathrooms and wet back alleys just like this one, and mostly for the purpose of getting his next hit, too, or thanking a guy for one. Jesus.

He’s fastidious now, slow, methodical. His tongue runs along the side of Armand’s palm, teasing, catching drops of blood clinging to the edge there; then he moves on to the fingers, taking each in his mouth individually, sucking on them. Glancing up and winking saucily like he’s starring in an amateur p*rno - and, again, in a way, he is.

Then, over the palm again, towards Armand’s slender wrist, for the blood that has been pushed up there in the first frenzy, a crimson bracelet standing out dark on brown skin that young Daniel eagerly mouths at.

(At the same time, Armand’s wet fingers curl, petting gently, almost reverently, along Daniel’s sunken cheek. Daniel, too intent on chasing a drop of blood with his tongue along the bones of Armand’s wrist, barely seems to notice.)

Finally, young Daniel returns to the wound on the palm itself, pressing sloppy, sucking kisses to it, tonguing the already-healing gash to tease out more blood. He presses his entire face trustingly into Armand’s hand, which never moves as much as an inch, and moans against the wet skin, half for show, half out of genuine arousal and delirium.

“More, please,” he gasps when the wound has closed fully, voice wrecked, eyes and face wet when he gazes up. “Can I- more-”

“You’ve had enough, darling boy.” Armand’s voice is firm, raw, even as his hand moves to run through Daniel’s hair with quiet affection, brushing the snowflakes out. They’re fat dots of white now, falling quicker and quicker around them. “Enough, now.”

“Stingy asshole,” young Daniel whispers, though his red-wet lips curl into a shaky smile. Adoring. Loyal. Helplessly besotted. High as a kite. “Love you.”

“And I you, beloved.”

The camcorder moves again. Armand has set it down on something nearby, maybe a low wall, maybe a trash can. At the very edge of the screen, Armand can be seen leaning down, both hands cupping young Daniel’s face and turning it upwards.

Their lips meet in a kiss. Another. Armand’s hair falls from where it was tucked behind his ear, the dark locks glinting in the neon light.

Young Daniel is coaxed to stand. Armand draws him closer, against him, out of the view of the camcorder. The mic still picks up the wet sound of open-mouthed kisses, Daniel’s loud breathing, the rustling of clothes and the shuffling of shoes on wet asphalt. A soft chuckle from Armand, ending in a breathy moan.

“You know,” says young Daniel’s voice suddenly, crackling and distant, echoing in the narrow alleyway, “I could keep up with you, actually keep up with you, every night, if I, too, were-”

“Beloved, no.” Armand cuts him off. This is an old, weary argument. He sounds tired all of a sudden, in a way vampires should never get tired. “Don’t ask me that again. Not now. Not ever. Enough.”

A pause.

“But, boss-”

(Yeah, that was Daniel in his youth. Never knew when to leave well enough alone. Always pushing, rehashing old fights. He was the same with his ex-wives. Never learned to just shut up. Probably still hasn’t.)

“Hush. Let’s not speak.” Desperation now. Something almost like preemptive grief. “Kiss me instead. Kiss me, Daniel, my love. I like your kisses so very much.”

And the rest of the tape is all snow falling onto a neon-lit alleyway, the occasional glimpse of a shadow at the edge of the screen, and the crackling, distorted sounds of long-forgotten love.

That’s the end of it. There’s nothing else.

“This video was recorded five weeks and three days before the end,” Armand says, quietly, in the present day, as he reaches out to pause the tape. “You were… not well, beloved. My blood, copious amounts of alcohol, and whatever else you partook in, was breaking you down. I feared for you. I feared what your imminent early death would do to me. And to feel such things over a mortal… oh, I feared that the most. I was such a coward, then, and I thought it meant I would have to let you go.”

Armand slides off the armrest, to kneel before Daniel, a reversal of their positions from the video. He settles his slender, smooth hands on Daniel’s, still clutching the camcorder.

“But I did not show you this recording to relive the tragedies of the past, in any case. You see now, don’t you, beloved? Here is proof!” Armand laughs, breathless and overjoyed, and Daniel’s nerves are already tingling at the ends from the bizarre experience of seeing himself acting out f*cked-up vampire p*rn, but this laugh feels like it races up and down his spine, electrifying him. “Proof! From your own blood-stained lips - you may not remember, you may have denied it a dozen times, but you loved me! See? See? I told you the truth all along! What do you say to that, Daniel?”

Daniel stares down at the paused screen. Wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. Avoids Armand’s glowing, wide-open eyes, expectantly, hopefully, smugly fixed on him.

“I say,” he deadpans, “that it’s really f*cking impressive what people can deepfake these days.”

“What,” says Armand, softly. The (fake, obviously) hope in his eyes fizzles out.

“I mean, yeah, it’ll cost you an arm and a leg to get the end product to look this good,” Daniel continues on, mercilessly. “But you’ve got the funds for it, don’t you? The authentic-ish camcorder prop is a really nice touch, gotta commend you for really going the extra mile.”

“...you still think I am lying.” Armand says, without inflection. “You still think that- that I did not show you the truth. That I staged, falsified, this video.”

“Well, you’re good at that. Staging.” Daniel shrugs, deliberately nonchalant, silently boiling with anger. This video affected him. It nearly got him. It’s so close, so accurate, to the wreck he was in those days, what he can remember of them. Whoever Armand hired for this, they’re real artists, and they did their research. Daniel hates that they knew enough to get it so close to right, hates Armand for going so low. He thought they were long past this. Evidently not. It hurts more than Daniel expected it to. “Tell me, is there another script somewhere out there which has your stage directions annotated in red pencil, too?”

“You-” says Armand, then stops. His face is blank. His eyes are all blank, no apocalypse. He does not breathe. He looks empty. There is nothing there, not even the scorching-hot, betrayed-disappointed fury Daniel would’ve expected, the one he remembers from the end of the interview in Dubai.

And then, a single blood-red tear slips out from Armand’s left eye. It’s the first Daniel has ever seen him cry, the first that has ever actually spilled over.

“Right,” he says, so quietly, barely more than a movement of lips.

Without another word, Armand stands, wrenches the camcorder out of Daniel’s hands, and stalks out of the room with it.

Daniel doesn’t feel guilty. He didn’t in Dubai, either. Unveiling the truth, tearing apart lies, is what he does, and no guilt-tripping or crocodile tears will make him think he did wrong doing so.

Only-

Daniel closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. f*cking hell.

He gets up, and follows.

Armand is sitting in the guest room he has made his own, on the floor next to his coffin. The only light in the room is the screen of the modified camcorder that he is cradling, crouched over, illuminating his face in flickering old-video colours.

The distorted chatter of voices. Wet kissing sounds.

Armand’s hand moves. A click. The whirring of tape being rewound.

Another click.

-ingy asshole. Love you. And I you, belov-

Click. Whir. Whir. Whir. Click.

-m I boring you? Nah, boss. Just tired.

Click. Fast-forwarding now. Whirrrrrr. Click.

-sick, man. Twiste-

Click. Armand has paused on Daniel, young and grinning, delighted by the devilish sickness in him, in them both. He lingers on the image.

(His cheeks are dark with fluid. He is crying, silently, impassively, but uncontrollably. The open collar of his loose white shirt is already soaked red.)

“...hey,” says Daniel, from the doorway.

“What,” says Armand, flat, voice devoid of any emotion. He’s not looking up.

Daniel considers commenting on the perfect tableau of faux misery Armand has put together here, and how impressive it is that he can cry like that on command. That he’s not surprised Armand is rewatching the video to really get his money’s worth out of it, after all. To drop the act already, because it’s starting to get really goddamn embarrassing, and Daniel is so tired of being asked to play a role when he just wants to do this as himself.

Somehow, Daniel manages not to say any of that. Maybe at some point after his wild and misspent youth, he’s learned to just shut up and leave things well enough alone, after all.

“I was thinking of going out and hunting dinner.” He says instead, hands stuffed into his pockets. “You coming?”

“I am not hungry at the moment.”

“Yeah, but. I was thinking, you could show me some tricks. Critique my style. Tell me what sort of rookie mistakes I’m still making. Bet you’d love that, huh?”

“You have previously made it very clear that you do not require my instructions anymore. That Louis has offered enough advice, and you have grown adept on your own.” Armand is still not looking up. “That I should, as you so succinctly put it, f*ck off with that sh*t.”

“Yeah.” Daniel winces. It’s true, of course, and he meant it, too. And yet. “Still. Guess I changed my mind on that. Can’t let you hide from your Maker responsibilities forever, eh, boss?”

Armand looks up at him with his unnerving eyes. At least the waterworks - bloodworks? - have stopped.

“I hear hunting with your fledgling is a fun vampire-bonding activity,” Daniel says lamely. Goddamnit, he’s feeling like he’s trying to coax his teenage grandson out of a sulk, and that’s really not the sort of relationship he and Armand have. That he wants them to have. Ugh.

Armand angles his head. Considers it.

Turns the camcorder off, and sets it carefully down on the satin lining of his coffin.

“Fine,” he says curtly, standing, wiping his sleeve over his face. The shirt is ruined, but he barely seems to care. “Let us go, then. I choose the hunting grounds, you demonstrate your approach.”

He breezes past Daniel, his face a mask of perfect calm, his stride light and unbothered. It’s as if the little child-creature curled up in the dark and rewinding over and over again never existed.

(Daniel wonders, for a moment, if this is Armand dropping his act, or putting one on. Logic tells him one thing, and yet he still feels like he can’t tell for the un-life of him.)

Armand turns, glances back over his shoulder. Daniel thinks of the fakery in the video, his horrid, bright, playful grin towards the camera.

“Come,” Armand beckons, tonelessly.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t think you can order me around,” Daniel mutters… but just like the haunting facsimile of a helplessly smitten and stupid young man that some skilled animators imprisoned on that tape, he follows him all over again.

Chapter 9: In Which There Is Nothing To Remember

Chapter Text

Things are calm for a little while, after the camcorder story. The way things are calm in the eye of a storm, though.

Armand returns to what passes for his normal, spending most days in the Armandchair and occupying himself with his tablet while Daniel sleeps, and doing weird sh*t during the nights. Sometimes he tries to drag Daniel into it, and now Daniel lets himself be dragged more often than not - they go see concerts and plays and movie screenings, they walk around the city for hours and make a competition out of reading people’s minds, once Armand was unreasonably insistent on playing Crazy Golf together (though he sulked when Daniel beat him by a whopping 37 shots, mental note for the next book, ancient vampires are sore losers) - and other times he does them by himself at Daniel’s periphery.

At one point he discovers the collection of puzzles pre-interview Daniel wasted his time with, throws all the pieces of every puzzle together into one big heap in the middle of the living room, and then proceeds to assemble them all at once while letting his tablet play weird podcasts about the most outlandish topics under the sun- uh, moon.

One night he leaves the tablet off, and tells Daniel stories from random points in his 500 years of life - not personal ones, of course. Not stories about himself. Only about the people he met, the cities he was in, the clothes he wore, the things he saw and lived through before they would become only history. Daniel finds himself reluctantly but inevitably mesmerised by the soft lilt of Armand’s voice, taking on stray accents here and there from the places he’s been to, and he doesn’t interrupt - not even to ask “and then what”.

It’s a strange night. Quiet. Intimate. In an odd way, Daniel feels like he knows Armand better thanks to those few hours than anything he learned during the interview, the stuff Armand told Louis among the paintings in Paris.

The next evening, Armand goes back to playing his peculiar podcasts, and Daniel can be honest with himself here, it’s kind of a shame.

Of course, he’s still treating Daniel like they’re boyfriends, companions, partners, whatevers, still keeps up the old I-adore-you-my-beloved-et-cetera-et-cetera act, still pretends that they’ve spent a good chunk of the 70s and 80s together, being very much in love… but Daniel watches, Daniel observes, Daniel pays attention.

Armand is lying in a different way, now.

There’s an undercurrent of desperation in it, and of resignation. Helplessness. Sometimes he will spend an hour rambling and raving at Daniel, describing some fictional escapade of theirs in obsessive detail and treat it as evidence; other times he will start referencing something and then simply fall quiet mid-sentence, as if he does not have the energy to go on lying, and then watches him with large, grief-filled eyes.

Daniel firmly ignores both tactics, doesn’t even deign to acknowledge or disprove the elaborate constructed stories anymore. He’s getting so goddamn tired of it, and it’s getting almost depressing, the way Armand clings to this pretence instead of the reality which is… all sorts of messy, but Daniel is really starting to like it. Him and Armand, fledgling and Maker, bound together for eternity whether they like it or not.

Daniel thought he was leaning on the ‘not’ side of that, once. But now… ah, he doesn’t know anymore.

That’s a demon, a monster, squatting in his home. There’s blood on those delicate hands, and not just that of the sort of men and women Daniel’s busy bloodying himself with, too. He orchestrated Claudia’s death, and Madeleine’s too, the death of two women that were, each in their own way, Louis’ daughters.

(Daniel has two daughters, too. Not for much longer, sooner or later he will have to fake his death and leave them behind, but for now he still has them and loves them, regardless of how his clumsy reconnecting efforts will pan out.

Would Armand kill them, too, if they were in the way of his favoured story? Daniel’s willing to bet good money on the answer to that being “yes”, and the thought doesn’t sit well with him.)

And yet, Daniel likes him. Likes his strangeness and his tantrums, likes his annoying habits, likes to watch him hunt, a master at work, an inhuman predatory creature that is already long dead and only ever pretends otherwise. Sometimes, he even likes his false softness, too, for all that it can piss him off, too, and the way Armand purrs “beloved” or “my fascinating boy” and almost seems to mean it.

He likes not being alone in his flat. Likes Armand’s presence amidst the clutter of a life he’ll leave behind soon enough, but is still enjoying for now. Likes the company.

He likes Armand. He thinks there’s something there, that something could be there…

And he hates that Armand’s still trying to bullsh*t him despite it all.

The calm doesn’t last. It never does. Armand inevitably escalates.

And it happens like this:

Daniel is sitting on his couch - a new purchase, comfier than the rickety old thing he had B.I., Before Interview - and typing away at his laptop, in the middle of an increasingly heated email chain about the movie rights to Interview with the Vampire. He’s swearing under his breath, trying to compose a response that is threatening and personally hurtful enough to really convey the depths of f*ck NO he’s feeling at the thought of a movie adaptation, not least because Lestat would absolutely try to get cast as himself and sulk when they inevitably pick some guy who looks like a younger Tom Cruise instead.

One minute, Armand is watching him intently from his armchair, tablet forgotten in his lap and fingers fidgeting and rubbing against each other, as is his habit. The next, he is in front of Daniel, almost on Daniel, laptop shoved aside carelessly, hands trembling with tension as they crawl into Daniel’s hair, over his face, down along his neck.

“What,” says Daniel, baffled, hands raised because he suddenly doesn’t know where to put them, because nothing in the world seems to exist except Armand in front of him, and taking ahold of him seems like he might regret it.

Armand makes a sound like a wounded, starving animal, and kisses him.

Daniel hasn’t been kissed in… a very long time. Even longer for a kiss with someone who actually means something to him. He’s had a one-night-stand or two (or five) shortly after his turning because if life dark-gifts you intact hips at 70, you damn well use them, but before that…

It’s been a very long time.

He kisses back without even thinking about it. His hands settle on Armand’s ribs. He kisses back.

(He thinks, for a moment, of Alice, his first kiss with Alice, hazy with alcohol and probably also worse substances, how love for her clawed at his throat, gnawed at his heart, how he felt almost as if he might faint into it. How she was holding him up, the little quirk of her lips as she smirked into the kiss.

It’s been so very long since he has kissed like that.

Like this.)

Armand bites at Daniel’s lips, catches his own in his fangs as well. The taste of their mingling blood is so familiar, too.

Their lips part. Armand sits back. Searches his face for… something. Who cares.

“...what are you doing,” Daniel asks, breathless, shaken to his core. What the f*ck are we doing!? Now? Really? What set you off!?

“What I have wanted for so long - forgive me, beloved, I could no longer resist. And I am hoping,” Armand murmurs sweetly, seductively, desperately, his hand sliding down, down, down until he is pressing the heel of his palm to the front of Daniel’s pants, “that your body might remember what your mind does not.”

Daniel groans. And it’s not only because of the pressure, the gentle but insistent petting. This again? He thought Armand gave up on that. What a f*cking asshole.

“If that’s your main reason, then no thanks.” He spits, pushing Armand’s hand away. “I’m not interested in getting f*cked just to prove a point.”

“That is NOT why!” Armand snaps back, his hand shooting up to twist itself into the collar of Daniel’s shirt, face contorting into a predator’s snarl. “How often must I repeat it until it finally registers in your fool head, idiot boy? I love you!”

And in that moment, Daniel finally realises, finally understands, that Armand is telling the truth.

Oh, he’s still lying about the ‘lost memories’, obviously. But it’s the horrible, horrible truth that Armand loves him.

He’s susceptible to that, isn’t he, Armand. Love. It f*cks him up, then he f*cks up the people he loves, plus some collateral damage for good measure - but he loves to start with. Loves too deeply to be even remotely normal about it, loves the men who make a ruin out of his life, loves obsessively and suffocatingly and genuinely.

Armand started a game he’s played before, and lost like all the other times; he’s fallen in love. Screw his fiction of their happy relationship in the 70s, screw the web he has so unsuccessfully been trying to spin around Daniel - Armand has only tied himself up in it, and cannot escape anymore. It’s almost heartbreaking, almost pitiful, almost sad, if Daniel didn’t know that the little sh*t started it and everything that happened since is his own damn fault.

And now here they are.

Armand’s fallen in love with Daniel. Not then, but now. Daniel has the love of the Vampire Armand.

(Holy sh*t.)

And, let’s be real, Armand doesn’t want to f*ck Daniel to jog his memories. The only memories to come back here are generic and faceless, the countless flings and quick encounters Daniel had back when he was young and horny and his body always wanted more. It’s a feeble pretence, and Armand knows that Daniel knows that. He just can’t admit that he simply… wants to have sex with Daniel, because he’s weird and f*cked up in a dozen different ways, so he’s playing pretend instead. Acting out love and desire, to cover up real love and desire underneath.

If Daniel were a better man, he would push Armand off him and book him a therapist’s appointment. And if the word “Maître” falls at any point, he will, just f*cking watch him.

But at the end of the day - or, well, the night, now - Daniel really isn’t a particularly good man, and never was.

“Yeah. Okay.” He pulls Armand close. Daniel’s eaten earlier in the evening, so under the thin fabric of his shirt, Armand’s skin is cold in comparison to his own. In a weird way he likes that. “Let’s do this, then.”

“Let’s, my love,” Armand agrees, and kisses him again.

They get the erotic mutual-biting-and-bloodsharing ticked off the list while still there on the couch, which now has stains that will never wash out, and afterwards they f*ck in Armand’s coffin.

(Armand asks, in a fervent whisper, if this ‘brings back memories’, as he pushes Daniel down into the fine old satin. Daniel rolls his eyes, calls him a stubborn son of a bitch, and then gets distracted by how very difficult it is to take off your pants while lying in a coffin with 138 pounds of horny vampire writhing on top of you.

Armand doesn’t ask a second time.)

And the sex is good. Scratch that, the sex is great, some of the best Daniel’s ever had, and god knows he’s had a lot. Armand is more forceful, more demanding, more dominant than Louis made it sound - closer to the version in the fake camcorder tape, it occurs to Daniel - and yet he’s gentle, too. Attentive. Adoring.

After the first explosive round, he spends fifteen minutes just touching Daniel, without sexual intent this time, maybe not even with romantic intent, more like a scientist inspecting a specimen. His fingers trace over Daniel, mapping each wrinkle, each mole, each inch of well-aged, liver-spotted skin, old scars, grey hairs. He seems fascinated by the signs of age, now preserved for all eternity, mesmerised by traces of the life Daniel has led since he and Louis dumped Daniel at a drug den in 1973. He asks about a large scar on Daniel’s thigh, and hums when Daniel tells him about a car accident he had in ‘96, thankfully when he was alone in the car, and surprisingly while sober. Then he makes Daniel turn over onto his front, and repeats the process all over again, meticulous. Daniel waits to be asked about the scar where a lunatic stabbed him in the back sometime in ‘79 for asking questions that got a bit too close to the truth, but Armand makes no mention of it.

“I adore your body, my love,” Armand murmurs eventually, leaning down to press a kiss to Daniel’s spine, scraping his fangs along the edge of a shoulder blade. “When I first set sight on you in Dubai, after all these years…” another kiss “...I could not believe my eyes. Louis spoke in my head, sensing my awe,” a gentle nip, teeth only barely breaking the skin, “and said ‘he’s grown so handsome, hasn’t he, our boy’. I chided him for understating the truth. For selling short your beauty. He teased me all throughout the first interview session for my wandering eyes, for the intensity of my emotions.” A moment of hesitation. Armand’s nail is running across one of Daniel’s ribs, digging deep enough to draw blood. “That night, in the bedroom, both of us still reeling from the vivid memories of our respective pasts, I was Lestat to him, and he Daniel to me. Not an unusual occurrence, in hindsight, but for once we acknowledged and mutually encouraged it.” A lick over the wound, Armand not letting the blood go to waste. Then, a soft laugh. “The next night we spun fantasies, or perhaps made plans, to invite you to bed with us. I cherish those memories, a few final moments of happiness with dear Louis before the end.”

If this were an interview, Daniel would make a mental note to verify this. To ask Louis if he can confirm these rather wild claims. See if there’s a crumb of truth to this pillow… uh, coffin-padding talk.

But it’s not an interview, is it, and Armand’s mouth has descended again, to gather up just enough loose skin to properly bite down on; and so, Daniel, a disgrace to his (former-ish?) profession, doesn’t think for even a second about finding other sources to corroborate the story.

“I didn’t know you were such a flatterer,” he says instead, and then “bite harder, more”, and then round two happens, and after that… suffice to say that he loses track of events for a bit.

The sex with Armand is, to reiterate, really f*cking great.

(“Do you remember?” Armand pleads, another org*sm or two later and just before another, his skin glowing reddish-brown with blood-sweat, eyes rimmed with red as he forces out the words between gasps. “Daniel, oh Daniel, my dearest love, won’t you remember me? I miss you, ah, I miss you s-so terribly much…”

He throws his head back, hair flying, face contorting in pleasure, in pain. Like a falling angel taking his first dive into pools of boiling tar and sulphur, gorgeous in agony, resplendent in destruction.

His arms give out and he collapses onto Daniel’s chest, shuddering, nails clawing red lines into whichever skin they almost-feebly grasp for. The devil-monster with his charred wings, lost and broken, feeling so keenly that he is barred from salvation.

Daniel puts his arms around him, gathers him up and close, strokes his back and his hair.

“You idiot,” he tells him, unsteadily - it’s been a good number of rounds, now - but fond, too. He’s grown fond of the Vampire Armand, of his fragility, of his monstrousness, of all of him. Who could’ve guessed. “Hey. Forget the memories. Forget about remembering. I’m right here, aren’t I? Armand. I’m waiting for you, right here. Why’re you missing someone who’s right there?”

Armand is silent.

Then he shakes. Soundlessly at first, and then audibly, he giggles. He laughs . Laughs atop Daniel’s chest, in his arms, harder and harder, a high, horrible, deranged, shrieking laughter - he’s never seemed so inhuman before. Laughter like animal cries, like demon screams. Seemingly without reason, without purpose, without even a shred of humour or joy. Tears stream from his eyes.

Daniel holds him through it, holds him tight, and just…

Waits it out. Until it’s done.)

When all is said and done, done, and done all over again, they lie together in Armand’s coffin, in darkness, the lid closed and bare cold limbs entwined. Somewhere outside, the sun is on its way towards rising, and Daniel feels the dawn hours calling him to rest.

Armand is watching him in the dark-that-isn’t-so-dark-for-vampires-anyway, fidgeting as always, only now he does it by fiddling with a patch of Daniel’s mostly-white chest hair.

“You will never remember,” he finally says, oddly resigned, and hushed in the cramped silence of the coffin. “Will you?”

“There’s nothing to remember,” Daniel points out once more, not entirely unkindly. Sometimes he wonders if Armand has forgotten that. If Louis can hallucinate a whole Lestat, then no doubt Armand can delude himself into mistaking his own fictions for reality.

“No.” Armand’s hand wanders up, touching Daniel’s lips, fingertips slipping into his mouth to feel his fangs, running along his eyelids, his temples, finally settling to cradle his cheek. “I suppose there isn’t, anymore.”

“There doesn’t need to be, I think.”

“No,” Armand says again, but his voice is thready here. Faint.

“We’ll just start anew. Start over. Make - oh, this sounds cheesy of me - new memories. Make something real.”

“Yes. If that is what you desire. I shall grant your every wish.”

Armand’s thumb rubs forth and back, forth and back, across Daniel’s cheek.

“I love you,” he finally says. Daniel’s heard this quite often since Armand’s surprise arrival, these little words sharpened into daggers to drive steadily into him, handcrafted needles under his skin. Armand’s been trying to stab him with this three-word phrase for quite a while now…

Except this time, it sounds more like he’s steadily, defeatedly, pushing the knife through his own ribs, piercing the confession right into his own heart. Quoted Romeo to Louis, once upon a time, and now he’s taken up the metaphorical dagger of Juliet.

“...yeah,” Daniel responds. He can’t think of anything better. He’s so tired. He knows Armand’s telling the truth and he doesn’t know how the hell to respond to it. “Yeah.”

A smile, faint in the dark.

“The sun rises, beloved. You are worn out. Sleep now.” A little shuffling, a kiss to Daniel’s forehead. “Rest now. Rest.”

Daniel obeys, half-instinctively; and in the coffin and arms of his Maker, his lover, his, he rests.

Chapter 10: In Which Daniel Is Certain

Chapter Text

Things actually get better from that point on, which Daniel acknowledges as the goddamn miracle it is, considering Armand’s involved. Armand’s all stagnation and entropy and sometimes escalation, judging from previous evidence - improvement’s not really his style.

And yet, here they are. Improving.

Armand’s fiction of the past is no longer looming over them both. At times he will mention experiences they most definitely never shared, reference a past that exists only in his head, but he doesn’t insist or throw tantrums when Daniel points out he has no idea what the f*ck he’s talking about. He’s letting go of the fantasy, inch by inch.

And it’s enough. It’s alright. It’s fine. Still a bit weird and mildly disconcerting, and frankly Daniel feels pretty insulted whenever Armand demurs with a rather patronising-indulgent “as you say, beloved”, but overall it works. Might be the honeymoon phase talking, but it does.

They go on as they already have for months, living together, hunting together, attending events together, travelling together, enjoying immortal life together - with some minor new additions. The sex, obviously, is new and breathtaking and a bunch of other fun adjectives the writer in Daniel wants to spend at least an hour carefully selecting and arranging. (Mental note for the next book: allow yourself at least three pages to write about how f*cking phenomenal vampire sex is.) But it’s not just that.

It’s stuff like Armand’s weird new habit of pawing at him in entirely non-sexual ways at random times of the night, sometimes even in public, looking content with himself and calmly slapping Daniel’s hands away whenever he tries to return the favour. Daniel has no idea what the f*ck that is about beyond vague assumptions in the direction of ownership and control, but also doesn’t feel like he really needs to know. It’s sleeping curled up together in the same coffin. It’s asking each other if they’re hungry, and sharing their meals. It’s tasting the other’s blood so often it becomes as familiar as one’s own, and tenderly caressing every wound closed after drinking.

And, of course, it’s things like making plans together for the future.

Daniel knows that even with unrealistically effective ‘treatments’ halting the Parkinson’s disease his family still thinks he will die from - Armand said he took care of his old doctor, and Daniel doesn’t care to inquire further - and a life stretching far beyond average expectancy for a man with his past, he’ll have to disappear in a decade or so. Hole up somewhere until the world has definitely forgotten about Daniel Molloy the prize-winning journalist, Daniel Molloy the vampire novel whackjob, and he’ll see where he goes from there.

Armand is making suggestions about a private island, and blinks confusedly for a while when Daniel points out that even ten million might not be quite enough for that sort of purchase, depending on location and size of the island, and he does actually want to leave most of the money to his daughters, anyway.

“I will make a gift of it to you, then,” Armand says, very seriously, and then they get into an argument over the hypothetical interior decoration of their hypothetical future home on a hypothetical island-gift, because Daniel calls the Dubai apartment’s interior “ugly as f*ck”, which Armand takes considerable offence at.

Well, they’ve still got a decade to either reach a compromise, or to grow sick of each other and break up. Daniel’s been through this twice before already, and while he imagines this third divorce would be infinitely messier (mental note for the next book: emphasise that vampire bonds are really no joke), he knows life doesn’t end - really, really doesn’t, now, for him - when a relationship does.

He hopes it will work out, with Armand. He’ll try his best to make sure it will.

He knows that there’s still and always a chance that it won’t.

He’ll see where it goes. And Armand can have one room of concrete walls and minimalist-brutalist architecture and ‘tasteful’ design in their hypothetical future island mansion, he supposes. If he really wants it.

(Louis thinks Daniel is Making A f*cking Mistake, but also acknowledges that he’s sitting in a Lestat-shaped glasshouse; so after the initial telepathic screaming match during which unkind things are said on both sides, they both decide to let it be and not bring the matter up again.

Life’s all f*cking mistakes, anyway, one after another, inevitably strung together - Daniel’s own Making was probably a mistake, initially, let’s be real - and he wants to continue enjoying this particular one for as long as he can.)

And some things are just the same, except now he knows that some part of Armand really does mean it, really does love Daniel and is genuinely courting him.

Being flirted with and adoringly stared-at by Armand’s unsettling eyes (that are now also Daniel’s unsettling eyes, yay for vampiric trait inheritance) was goddamn infuriating when it was all a weird manipulation tactic. Now that it’s real, Daniel feels… different about it. About being Armand’s “beloved”, about being spoiled and teased and treated as if they’re… “immortal companions”, with all the f*ckton of implications that carries.

Armand’s still infuriating in different ways, of course. Demanding and controlling and obsessive, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. But Daniel hasn’t felt so loved in years, has missed it more than he will ever admit, and he’s ravenous for more. For however much Armand will give him, and then some.

And for however long it lasts.

(Still an eager black hole, huh. Armand will be pleased to know that he really did get Daniel exactly right, back then.)

And when he finally says it back, why, it’s as natural as breathing once was.

“I will see you later tonight, Daniel. I love you,” Armand says one evening, quickly but never, never carelessly, on his way out the door. He’s on his way to some errand, some indulgence, or maybe just to soak up a bit of moonlight. Daniel doesn’t quite remember, and it doesn’t matter anyway because Armand clearly forgets too, the very instance Daniel calls “love you too!” after him.

Armand freezes, stands in the half-open doorway with unnatural, inhuman predator stillness.

Then, in a flash, he stands before Daniel, eyes wide and unseeing, an emptiness piloting a corpse, and frankly not doing it very proficiently.

“What,” he says, softly, faintly, as if something inside of him is speaking from a great distance, “did you say?”

And Daniel could deflect. Could claim that, after two marriages, he’s just used to throwing that at the back of whoever shares his bed (or coffin-shaped equivalent) regularly when they hurry out the door, and that it was pure reflex. Nothing more. That he didn’t mean to say it, which would even be half true, and they can forget about it.

Daniel could do that.

Instead, he folds his arms, and says “you heard me. I love you.”

Armand does not blink. Says, immediately, sharply, “Are you certain?”

Daniel laughs.

“Am I- I just said it twice, didn’t I!?” He snorts. “Seriously, Armand? I was expecting one of your flowery romance novel bullsh*t speeches, or, I dunno, a kiss? Quickie on the couch, if we’re being real optimistic. Not this whole Who Wants To Be A Millionaire style, are you certain? Do you really want to lock that answer in? I mean, I’d use my telepathic phone joker, but I think Louis would just try to talk me into changing my mind-”

“Beloved?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Shutting up, boss,” Daniel says, and then, miraculously, actually manages to follow through on it.

For a moment, Armand stares at him, face utterly unreadable.

“I will ask you again, Daniel,” he finally says, carefully, “and would have you think before you answer.”

“Oh, I get to un-shut up, then?”

“Beloved,” Armand sighs, looking like he would very much like to pinch his nose in exasperation but can’t take his eyes off Daniel just yet. “Are you certain?”

Daniel thinks.

Shrugs.

“Yeah. I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You might stop loving me,” Armand says, and it’s almost impressive how small he can make his voice sound, all folded up and tucked away. “You have… you have already stopped once before.”

“Twice,” Daniel corrects, “if you’re referring to my ex-wives?”

(He probably isn’t, poor delusional thing. Daniel would point out that he - made-up he, that is - only ever stopped loving Armand because the asshole wiped his memories, but that seems dangerously close to suggesting that Daniel supports that whole fictional backstory, and it wouldn’t do to feed into Armand’s beliefs just as he’s finally letting go of them.)

Armand blinks. “That was not my intended argument, no, albeit a valuable one in its own right,” he says, slowly. “Are you certain it is love you feel? And are you certain it will not falter?” He is shaking, Daniel notices. Tiny little tremors of muscle tension. “I can bear it if you never return my love fully. I can. But,” his voices rises, angry and terrified, “if you give me hope now, and then take it away again-!”

“That’s not- Jesus.” Daniel shakes his head. He has to say something here. It’s important he say something before Armand can twist things up into his own false narrative again. “Armand. Listen. I can’t promise you forever, even though, you know…” he makes a vague gesture he hopes is suggestive of General Vampire f*ckery, and forever theoretically being on the table. “Call me old and jaded, but sometimes love just cools, and there’s nothing either party can do about that. It just happens, it’s natural, and letting go is better than the alternative. My first divorce happened at least three years later than it should have, and, god, that was hell on earth. So, I can’t in good conscience promise I’ll love you forever. That’s the sort of declaration you can get from a vampire who’s already forgotten what time and love during their too-short mortal life felt like, who might not be 20 and stupid anymore, but really acts like it - I’m not gonna write you a cheque that might bounce at some distant point in the future. That’s not the kinda guy I am, anymore. Okay? But, Armand, honey…”

He reaches out. Takes Armand’s hands in his. He hopes to god these are the right words to say. He was always so good at asking just the right thing in interviews, writing the perfect turn of phrase, but this... this sort of thing has always eluded him.

“I want to give you forever. I hope I can. I’ll even try my very best, and, uh, if you ask my ex-wives - don’t, please don’t, I mean this rhetorically, for the love of god never contact them - then I never really did that for them, so I don’t think my failed marriages are relevant precedent here. And I sure as f*ck won’t take anything away willingly, what the hell!?”

Armand considers him.

“You are certain,” he finally says. Ironically, he sounds very uncertain about it.

“Certain enough to lock it in, yeah.” Daniel grins. “So - have I got the million?”

“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is an inferior quiz-game show,” Armand huffs. “I much prefer The Price Is Right. Say you love me again, my darling boy.”

“I love you,” Daniel repeats. It feels good to say. Easy. It feels right, and yet also so raw and barren it can only be the naked truth. More words, equally true, tumble out after these three. “You’re the monster under and in my bed, you’re the bane of my existence, you’re my bastard of a Maker and you’re the devil himself - and you weren’t the love of my life, but it’s really looking like you’ll be the love of my death, and that, frankly, is the better deal.”

“I am the love of all of you,” Armand insists, petulantly. “Again.”

“I love you,” Daniel says again, obediently. “How many more times until you believe me?”

“A thousand and one, and then another million, and an infinity to round it off.” Armand is beginning to look almost dazed, overwhelmed with a myriad of emotions. He watches Daniel’s lips with something approaching wonder. “Just once more, please, beloved. I have so yearned to hear these words from your mouth.”

“I love you. And I’d offer to bodily demonstrate it too, but,” Daniel chuckles, “ever since you brought it up, you’ve been in the mood to watch The Price Is Right, haven’t you?”

“You know me so well, my love,” Armand sighs, adoring and besotted, raising Daniel’s hands to his lips and pressing a kiss to the knuckles. “We shall multi-task.”

They have sex - make love, Armand corrects pointedly and somewhat smugly - on the living room floor with the TV playing an old The Price Is Right episode from sometime in the 90s, because Armand prefers Bob Barker over Drew Carey. At the Showdown, they take a break to guess along, and Armand gets in a huff when his estimate is terribly off and Daniel makes a number of very witty quips about out-of-touch multi-millionaire vampires who don’t know the real value of money or household appliances.

Unsurprisingly, neither of them remembers at any point what Armand was heading outside for, and nor do they care.

At some point later in the night, about five-and-a-half episodes later, Armand gets his tablet, trains the camera on Daniel, and orders him to say “I love you” again so that Armand can have a recording to play over and over at his leisure. He’s characteristically domineering and pushy about it, so of course Daniel needs to flip off the camera on principle alone.

“You don’t need a recording, do you?” He tells the sharp amber glare directed at him over the tablet’s edge. “Yeah, I was being an asshole about it before, but I will say it whenever and however often you like. You can get it live, anytime. That’s better, right?”

Armand lowers the tablet. For a moment, as they are both illuminated in the old technicolor glow of game show tapings long past, Daniel thinks of the camcorder still resting on the dresser in Armand’s room, next to the magnolia tree cutting he’s cultivating all over again. Thinks of the (fake, fake, but maybe worryingly real to Armand) tape he kept rewinding, over and over again, to make that Daniel say very similar words.

Thinks about what can remain, when - if - love is gone.

“Oh, yes. Preferable by far,” Armand agrees suddenly, with a shrug, and tosses the tablet (gently) onto the couch. Even now, with Armand relenting more often, it’s too easy a victory. It makes Daniel suspicious. “Now, tell me, lover, what do you think the price is for that microwave oven? Surely it cannot be above two-hundred dollars!”

The following day - yes, day, f*ck - Daniel gets woken up at noon by Armand crouching over him like the loveliest little sleep paralysis demon and innocently murmuring “you said anytime, my most-cherished one” around a fiendish grin.

Which. Yeah. Shoulda seen that one coming, huh.

Daniel lets him make his f*cking recording ‘for daytime use’ after that. Sometimes, love means picking your battles, too, doesn’t it.

Chapter 11: In Which They Go On Dinner Dates

Chapter Text

“And what,” says Daniel, cautiously, because, god, it really is a new thing with Armand every night, and he can’t even convincingly tell himself he doesn’t love it, anymore, “do you call that?”

“This is Marc Evans Burkley. Now-retired politician, the zenith of his career was taking office as governor of Minnesota for a modest number of years.” Armand primly recites, smile serene and angelic, one delicate thread of his will all that holds the elderly man at his side up in a standing position. “Widowed, two children, one grandchild, a dog. His independent wealth has allowed him to live a comfortable retirement, and his connections to certain corporate entities still lend him the ear of various members of congress and senators. To those in the know, he has remained one of the more powerful influences on the political landscape. Shall I list his hobbies and passions as well?”

“...I know him,” Daniel says, slowly. Armand’s smile widens.

“Indeed you do, my love. Early in his career, this was around 1984, as he was running for a far more minor position in local government, you attempted to expose where exactly his independent wealth came from.”

The man groans. His eyes are glassy, his features slack. He is wearing a very nice suit, though it’s the sort you wear to a funeral. Armand turns to shush him, gently, sweetly.

“You hated this man,” he continues, in that same tender voice. “You despised every word that came out of his mouth, everything he stood for, everything he promised his voters.”

“He was a sh*tstain then, and only got worse.” Daniel interrupts, an old anger rising up in him. “His policies ruined lives and got people killed, and the shady backroom deals did worse, sure I hated him! But I couldn’t-”

“-find tangible evidence,” Armand nods, folds his long fingers together. “Despite your best attempts, you were unable to ever pin him down on anything specific. That infuriated you. I considered offering to kill him for you, when you would rant for hours about the matter, but that felt…” a delicate shrug “...impolite. He was your quarry, and yours to hunt down. I did not wish to overstep, so I said nothing.”

Yeah, and also you weren’t even around in 1984, so any gentlemanly offers of homicide are all in your head anyway, Daniel thinks, but doesn’t say.

“But the years went by, and his career propelled him into ever more untouchable heights, and he cleaned up all traces of his dirtier work. Meticulously so. There was nothing you could do, and you hated him, hated yourself, for decades, because he got away from you.” Armand sounds amused by this, fond at the mention of one of Daniel’s bigger professional regrets. “As Ahab had his White Whale, I always had the impression that you possessed, well, your Governor Marc E. Burkley. So, to answer your initial question, Daniel…”

A flash of Armand’s eyes over to him, so playful, so self-satisfied, so full of naked affection, so dangerous.

“...I think I would call it ‘dinner’.”

Daniel laughs. He can’t help it.

“Seriously?” He chortles. “You researched- and you- seriously!?”

“Are you not pleased with my offering, beloved?” Armand co*cks his head to the side, as if he doesn’t know exactly how perfect it is. “I assumed my pick of the menu would be to your taste. Such a rare delicacy I procured for you.”

“You lunatic.” Daniel is unbearably delighted by all this. Oh, Armand. “This, this-” he gestures to the limp doll-body of the governor, “-is your idea of a dinner date, isn’t it? You’re romancing me! This is the most thoughtful, personalised wooing gift you could think of! Am I right? You’re trying to do something nice for me, so you bring a guy I hate, all dressed up, for me to murder and suck dry. Gosh, babe, you shouldn’t have.”

“Are you,” Armand reiterates, calmly, pointedly, “not pleased?”

“I’m pleased. I’m so f*cking pleased, Jesus Christ. God, I love you so much.” Daniel is beaming. This is the most f*cked-up thing anyone’s ever done for him, and yet it’s also incredibly romantic, in a vampire-monster-murderer sort of way. If Armand had led with this instead of the deranged “we’re actually old exes” story, Daniel would’ve offered to be on his knees in a second all over again. “Do you know he taunted me, once? I mentioned him in my autobiography, and that f*cker joked about it in a speech, looked at the camera and said ‘Mr. Molloy, if you’re listening, as I’m sure you always are’- god, I wanted to rip his head off!”

“If that is still where your desires lie, beloved…” Armand’s eyes flicker over to the governor, and the man makes a weak whining sound as he involuntarily bares his fragile, tear-able neck further. “It will make a mess of the carpet, but perhaps that is part of the appeal. I would suggest sampling him first, however.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Mr. Burkley here doubles as the wine selection. You were never terribly discerning in your pick of spirits, of course, so I took the liberty of choosing for you - you spoke so highly of my martinis during the interview, I assumed you would not be disinclined to sample them once more. And so,” Armand concludes, looking almost schoolboyish in his mischievous glee, “I had him drink fifteen of them in quick succession to make very certain that the taste transfers into his blood. Bite quickly, Daniel my love, before alcohol poisoning takes your vengeance from you.”

And, oh, Daniel can imagine it. Can imagine Armand standing there like the worst of sleep paralysis demons, standing in the home of ex-governor Marc E. Burkley, cruelly tugging his body around like a marionette on a string to make him dress himself in his nice funeral suit, and then making over a dozen martinis in practised, perfect motions so he can watch with detached disinterest as Burkley downs one after the other against his will. All to prepare him for Daniel to feast on.

He should feel sympathy. 50 years ago, it was him being puppeteered by the unblinking gaze of glowing embers in the dark. 50 years ago, Daniel was the helpless plaything of a mildly bored vampire-cat who was only bothering with him for the sake of his lover. 50 years ago, he was being physically and psychologically tortured.

(Daniel does not feel sympathy. He hopes Armand didn’t coax his victim into ‘rest’ early on, hopes his mind was screaming and wailing in fear for a long time until the alcohol finally pulled him under. Hopes he suffered.)

He should at the very least not find the whole scenario insanely, stupefyingly hot, but, well. Daniel’s dick has always had an opinion of his own on such matters.

“Trying to get me drunk now, are we?” Daniel grins, stalking forward, meeting Marc E. Burkley’s glassy eyes, pushing himself into what remains of his booze-soaked brain. Yeah, it’s me, asshole. Surprise. I said I’ll get you one day, and that day is now. “Hoping you can get me out of my pants tonight if I’m buzzed enough?”

“Beloved, you and I both know it takes far less than that.” Armand points out. He’s not wrong.

“And now he’s calling me easy.” He gives the slack, unresponsive face of the governor an exaggerated ‘are you hearing this sh*t’ look. “Some date this is.” The best one he’s ever been taken on, if he’s entirely honest. Daniel leans in, eyeing the sluggish pulse at the governor’s neck. His fangs extend behind his lips.

“I assure you, in my estimation you’ve never been anything but exceedingly difficult.” Armand has not set a finger on the main course before, but now he places one hand at the side of Burkley’s face to angle his head away from where Daniel will bite. “It is one of the many things I so helplessly adore about you.”

Daniel misses his cue to mumble something vaguely cantankerous back. He’s hungry, and Armand brought him a delicacy. He’s hungry. He hated that man for half his life. He’s so hungry.

He bites.

“Bon appétit, my love,” Armand murmurs tenderly, a shadow of French seeping into the vowels of the endearment as well, that note of an accent Daniel sometimes caught during the interview when he spoke of Paris. His hand twists through Daniel’s hair, strokes the curls back, and settles proudly, possessively, encouragingly, at the back of his head as he watches Daniel drink. An indulgent Maker, an admiring lover. It’s everything Daniel dreamed vampirism could be.

Governor Marc E. Burkley tastes like sweet, sweet revenge - and, amazingly, the taste of Armand’s perfect martinis really does come through. Vermouth and adoration.

When he’s done, when Burkley is drained, he kisses the last mouthful of his meal onto Armand’s tongue; and that is surely sweeter than any dessert course he’s ever had.

In the following days, Daniel does a little collage of his favourite articles about Burkley’s “disappearance”, and once the body - well, parts of it - is found, his favourite obits. Armand contributes a print-out of a tweet in which someone jokes that “guys i think daniel molloy just finally snapped and killed the guy with his new totally real vampire powers, trust me” and that gets pride of place in the very centre.

It’s f*cked up. It is, right? It’s serial killer sh*t. Not just “oh, vampires need to kill to survive, it’s in their nature, there’s no evil in that, peace and love on planet Transilvania” - there’s abso-f*cking-lutely evil in the glee with which Daniel tore that man apart, and he’s not even ashamed of it. That kill was a thing of beauty, and he’s pretty sure that the emotion Armand glowed with for days afterwards was pure Makerly pride, which Daniel’s very pleased to have (finally?) inspired. He’s definitely going to hell after this… or he would. If he could still die.

(Maybe he’s in hell already. Sartre - or, as Armand will fondly refer to him, Jean-Paul - did write that other people are where hell really lies, in one of his plays. There’s certainly hell in Armand, the deceitful little devil. But Daniel loves him so terribly that he doesn’t mind hell so much as long as they’re in it together.

And they are. God help them - or not - they are.)

But then again, Daniel’s always been a morbid little f*ck, and sometimes he thinks that it wasn’t any nebulous ‘humanity’ keeping him from doing any of this sh*t before - nah, just the fear of suffering the consequences for the rest of his mortal life. Not a pretty thought, but the truth rarely is.

He and Armand sometimes discuss the philosophical implications of such ideas, like a f*cked-up little re-staging of the conversation in Paris which Louis mostly tuned out in favour of hallucinating Lestat singing him an obscene little serenade. Daniel’s not doing that, thank you very much - he’s already hearing to much of blondie’s singing these days, the radio stations love him and sometimes it feels like every second person he passes in the street has his f*cking single stuck in their head, projecting it straight into Daniel’s psychic eardrums - and besides, it’s way too much fun to play devil’s advocate (or, well, devil’s prosecutor) against whatever position Armand chooses to take up.

He’s pretty sure Armand can tell that all he really wants is verbally eviscerate, not defend a genuine position - but considering the glee with which Armand argues back, the feeling might be mutual.

“...we shall continue this discussion later, beloved,” Armand says to conclude another round of verbal sparring, in the sort of tone firmly implying that if this is the hill Daniel wishes to die on, Armand will gladly hold him down and laugh as the sun burns him to a crisp before scattering the ashes all over the hillside. It’s an adorable tone, one of Daniel’s favourites, only rivalled by the contented throaty purr he gets out during sex or after feeding. “After our date.”

It’s Armand’s latest passion project, dating. After what Daniel said about the perfect weirdness of a governor as an at-home dinner date, Armand has gone full David Attenborough on modern human dating behaviour, and how it could be modified for vampiric enjoyment. Daniel’s made a joke or two about how this isn’t even about courting Daniel specifically anymore, Armand just wants to do experiments with a guinea pig partner, which Armand received… poorly. The less said about that, or the random guy Armand “dated” for one evening just to spite Daniel, the better.

Tonight, Armand is taking him on a romantic date to a swanky restaurant that Daniel could not be more inappropriately dressed for if he’d arrived wearing a potato sack. That’s part of the point, actually - if Armand wanted it, then Daniel would be outfitted perfectly in a bespoke suit modern enough to dazzle, but still entirely tasteful. It’s a little extra challenge, and Daniel is determined to live up to it, poking at the minds of the entrance staff, sensing any thoughts they may or may not have about turning inappropriately attired guests away, and gently muddling them until their blank-eyed gazes slide right over Daniel’s vintage leather jacket and shirt reading “BITE ME” in blood-dripping font and framed by vampire fangs (he thought it’d be funny. Which it objectively is. Hell yeah.)

This is the “modified for vampires” part of the whole thing. There’s little point to fancy restaurant dinners for people who get no enjoyment out of human food, which is a damn shame - good food was just about the one indulgence Daniel could still allow himself without having to worry about sliding right back into crippling addiction, and he misses it. Armand could probably get his kicks just out of the roleplay, the performance of it all, play-acting a normal human couple having a good dinner, but Daniel would get horrifically bored. Accordingly, they’ve decided on combining Armand’s newfound interest in romantic outings with Armand’s long-standing interest in Daniel practising his Gifts properly, in order to keep him occupied.

While picking away at a dinner that tastes like nothing, holding hands atop the tablecloth (as per Armand’s pre-date briefing, he was quite insistent on this part), Daniel will be expected to dip deep into the minds of the other guests, and, based on what he finds, pick one of the rich bastards to eat later. Maybe Armand will make him try to compel their body, too, or stop time for a few seconds, which Daniel hates - it feels like trying to hold a handful of wet snakes in your grip, except the snakes are also incredibly heavy and get heavier the longer this goes on. He doesn’t know how Armand can stand it, only that, allegedly, it gets easier after a century or so. Daniel hasn’t really made any breakthroughs in the Fire or Cloud Gifts he could practise yet, but Armand seems very insistent that it’s merely a matter of time, embellishing quite prettily with lengthy rambles about how Armand would expect no less of his one and only fledgling, his perfect creation, gifted and talented and so on and so forth.

(Daniel thinks he’s trying to talk himself into it a little too hard, but the effort is appreciated.)

Armand snakes an arm around Daniel’s waist as they enter the restaurant and walk up to the host, because of course he does. Big on casual gestures of possession, is Armand.

“I have reserved a table,” he says, while Daniel is already peeking through into the grand main room, casting a loose net across, skimming surface thoughts. “Names? Ah, naturally. Daniel and Armand Molloy.”

Daniel blinks, concentration wavering. The net breaks apart. He looks back at Armand.

“Daniel and Armand Molloy. M-o-l-l-o-y,” Armand repeats patiently, one of his sweeter, human, ‘Rashid’-y smiles affixed on his face.

The host’s mind, perhaps a bit insultingly, first jumps to “...father and son? Step-son?”, which of course means that Armand’s smile sharpens and he adds “it’s our anniversary” with the perfect ease of the practised liar.

(Daniel snorts, and Armand’s grip on his waist tightens in punishment. This wasn’t in the pre-date briefing, and he wonders when Armand decided on these roles - must be pretty spontaneous, or he would’ve gotten them rings to wear. He’s meticulous like that.)

The host thinks “good for you, dig all the gold you can get out of that old man, buddy” very loudly, but outwardly smiles and congratulates them on the happy occasion with bland professionalism before leading them to their table.

“When is our anniversary, actually?” Daniel asks when they’ve been left alone with the menu. He decides not to bring up ‘Armand Molloy’ unless Armand does.

“Today, beloved. Did you not hear me say so?” Armand takes up the wine list, and pointedly places one of his hands on the table.

“Yeah, yeah. That was very funny of you.” Daniel rolls his eyes, and places his own hand in the waiting palm. “I mean, the real one. I should probably know that, for future reference.”

“Hm.” Armand angles his head, pondering the question. “Depends on what exactly we would consider the beginning of the relationship, I suppose.”

“I’d be disgustingly romantic and say we should count the first time we met, in San Francisco, but frankly, that was the sh*ttiest meet-cute one could imagine, so I’d rather not.”

Armand smiles. “‘Disregard’?”

Daniel digs the sharp points of his nails into the back of Armand’s hand, who gasps, soft and delighted, and squeezes back hard enough for Daniel’s bones to creak. They might leave blood stains on that nice white tablecloth. Oh well.

“We could count from when you turned me, I guess,” Daniel thinks aloud. “Or is that more of a birthday equivalent for vampires? We could also say that re-meeting in Dubai- no, wait, that’s ambiguous all over again, because I met the Vampire Armand about a week and change after I met Rashid. Maybe the day you showed up in my flat and effectively moved in?”

“I would offer our first kiss, our first mutual exchange of blood,” Armand throws in, “but unfortunately we have differing perspectives on those as well.”

“Do we?”

“Mine are a good forty years before yours.”

“Oh,” Daniel scoffs, “that again.”

“Yes, my love. That again.” Armand taps the fingers of his free hand on the table. “But I suppose I could deign to count by your reckoning. The first kiss we both remember.”

“Ehhh…” Daniel grimaces. “How did you and Louis count?”

“We didn’t,” Armand shrugs. “Our firsts were… tainted, in various ways, because of what else transpired in Paris. He had no wish to celebrate anniversaries. I counted the 77 years from the night he massacred my coven, and Louis… made rough note of how many decades it had been. If that.” A pause. “Though I believe he could tell you how long it has been since Claudia’s death, down to the very hour.”

“...yeah.” Daniel should change the topic. Daniel should stop poking at That Mess even with a ten-foot pole. Daniel’s an idiot. “And, what, you never actually got married when it was finally legal, and made that your anniversary? I mean, not in Dubai, obviously not in Dubai, but-”

“We didn’t,” Armand says again. He sounds calm, unbothered, but Daniel wonders. “Vampires by and large do not hold much stock by such things. A companionship is all that and more, requires no formalities, and could be undertaken by vampires of the same gender since long before this became an option among mortal marriages. Humans marry. Vampires take companions. We have no need for the sort of flimsy bonds with which mortals attempt to chain themselves to each other. Or to mark the day at which such bonds were undertaken.”

“Right,” Daniel says, but he’s thinking ‘you say that as if I hadn’t just heard the words Armand Molloy come out of your lying little mouth’ and ‘just like we have no need for stupid little human courting rituals like dinner dates, huh, boss?’ It really is a blessing that Armand can’t read his mind anymore.

“Well, maybe that’s for the better, with my track record,” he adds, to change the topic, or maybe to even the playing field a little. They can both be sad divorced f*cks reminiscing about past mistakes, together. “I was pretty sh*t at the wedding anniversary stuff with my ex-wives. Alice and I tied the knot on… uh… f*ck.” Daniel sighs. “Yeah, you see my point. It was a spring wedding, in any case. I could never remember the date, and for three years, three years in a row, for some godforsaken reason I made anniversary plans on an entirely wrong date in late summer, on-”

“The twenty-third of August,” Armand says, instantly.

“-the twen-… uh. Yeah.” Daniel blinks, startled. “Good guess?”

Armand opens his mouth. Closes it again.

“For us, I have always considered Pompeii a beginning of sorts,” he finally murmurs something of a non-sequitur, looking down at their still-joined hands.

“Really? Seemed more like an almost-end to me, boss.” Daniel will admit the second night of their holiday went better, but still. Not the milestone he’d pick.

“Nevertheless.” A bittersweet smile. He’s often in bittersweet moods these days. Better than the desperation, at least. “And it does not matter to me when we celebrate our anniversary, or if we do so at all, Daniel, beloved. You may choose at will whichever date would suit - choose a new one each year, if you want. We shall love each other on any and all days of the calendar, and I need not keep count beyond that. You are mine, and will remain mine for countless nights. The precise number does not matter to me.”

Daniel hums, thinks of the quiet smug satisfaction in Armand’s eyes when pointing out that Louis had been with him longer than with Lestat, and thinks yeah sure. Says, “maybe I should pick August 23rd then. At least I know for sure I’ll be able to remember that.”

Armand laughs, light and cheerful, but… not immediately. For a split second, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick, he looks lost. Disoriented. Almost pained.

Daniel is frantically trying to remember when Louis burned that f*cking theatre down, if it might not have been in late-ish August, and whether this might make it a pretty unfortunate anniversary date to choose because of its prior context; but then Armand squeezes his hand, purrs “ah, but, recall, I only just told the host that our anniversary is tonight, meaning it must be so, at least for the time being, or you shall make a liar out of me” and then turns back to the menu as Daniel makes a number of cutting comments about how Armand certainly doesn’t need any outside help to be a liar.

The rest of the dinner date - an anniversary celebration now, he supposes - goes quite well.

Daniel spends much of it in other people’s heads, knowing that Armand is ready to shield and soothe him if he feels even the first twinge of a migraine.

On his smoke break, the host googles “Daniel Molloy”, and then Daniel has to quickly scramble up the guy’s mind before he posts something or other on social media that would have his daughters very upset with him for learning about it via Twitter, no matter if it’s necessarily true or not. Armand praises him for the neat work he did on it, the elegance of not removing the entire memory, but simply swapping out Daniel’s own name and face for those of some random celebrity that will surely be able to weather a little secret marriage scandal. Daniel tells him he really doesn’t want Armand to compliment him on his inherited skill at f*cking with people’s minds, but preens a little nonetheless.

Their food is bland and tasteless as ever, but there’s some nice textures Daniel can appreciate, even as he fights to deflect Armand’s attempts at feeding him bites from his fork, the newest certifiably romantic gesture he’s wanted to try.

While they eat, while Daniel is snooping in the minds of the mortals around them, they continue their discussion on vampirism and evil, because Armand has thought of a clever counterargument and clearly can’t wait until the official end of the date to throw it onto the table. Daniel grins, and sets out to take it apart.

Eventually, Daniel selects a total sh*thead to lure out of the restaurant and drain on their way home; and after this ‘real’ meal and a characteristically phenomenal session of ceiling sex - Armand is of the opinion that practical demonstrations of the Cloud Gift will encourage its development in his fledgling, and who is Daniel to disagree - he should by all rights fall asleep in their coffin sated and satisfied, Armand curled up atop him like a particularly lethal cat, and consider it a night well-spent.

But the thing is-

He’s still wondering…

The 23rd of August.

He can’t for the life of him remember what exactly is so f*cking special about the 23rd of August, only that there is something. There must be. There is. He just can’t quite grasp it, right now. Couldn’t grasp it back then either, with Alice, why he got so antsy that time of year, why those days mattered so much.

(sh*t feeling, really. Knowing you’ve forgotten something important, but not what.)

He’s forgotten anniversaries, he’s forgotten work deadlines, hell, at his worst he was forgetting his daughters’ goddamn birthdays in a drugged haze - but every year, he’d be strangely aware of the 23rd of August. It used to freak him out a bit, to tell the truth.

And the thing is, the goddamn thing is, this is all so very familiar. This is the little stab of hey, hey, look at this, isn’t this odd, investigate, pick apart, report that sent him towards all his most successful journalistic endeavours. The weird instinct that there’s a story there, and the story’s important, and he needs to pursue it right now.

But what is there to pursue? What could it possibly lead him to? It’s only a date. A weird coincidence. Armand making a lucky guess and then acting weird about it - or, hey, maybe he picked some memory out of Daniel’s brain back when it was still open to him, and remembered it now. God, Daniel hopes his own memory will be even half as good when he’s Armand’s age, he really does.

So, it’s probably nothing.

He just- he just can’t stop wondering.

Chapter 12: In Which The Questions Pile Up

Chapter Text

The 23rd of August is where it starts. A beginning. A seed.

And Daniel doesn’t… he doesn’t give in to it. Not at first. He knows what the facts are, he knows his goddamn facts, he does, f*ck, he does-

…

He knows what’s real and what can't be. He thinks. He hopes. He’s pretty sure.

But questions keep popping up in his mind. Questions with no answers. With impossible answers. In the weirdest moments, something or other doesn’t add up.

And doubt takes root.

“You could’ve just asked me out, you know,” Daniel says, halfway through licking tonight’s (for once ethically-donated) blood bag off Armand’s chest, which is frankly an even better experience than that memorable time he snorted cocaine out of someone’s belly button back in the early seventies. God, he loves being a vampire.

“Finish your meal, fledgling,” Armand admonishes, catching a puddle of blood with one palm before it can slide along the dip between two ribs and onto the bed sheets. “How uncouth, to talk while eating!”

“Oh, shut up. You were mumbling endearments into my wrist last night while suckling on it, don’t think I didn’t hear you do it, you old hypocrite.” Still, Daniel obediently dips his head to lap at the puddle, at Armand’s hand, until most of it is gone. “I just- no, don’t pour more, I want to say this- just thought I’d tell you that you could’ve simply asked me out.”

Armand shoots him a blank look, which Daniel thinks translates to ‘you are rather fortunate your fangs are so large and sexually gratifying, or I would not put up with the nonsense you insist on babbling at me’.

“Instead of… you know, all that stupid sh*t you pulled. It wasn’t necessary,” Daniel goes on explaining. Tries not to get distracted by the way Armand’s hair curls against his lovely, biteable neck. “I know you think that an elaborate scheme or manipulation tactic or a f*cking torture chamber is the only way the cute boy you’ve got your eye on will ever like you back, but it really isn’t. At least, it wasn’t with me. I’m easy.”

“You are really, really not, beloved,” Armand smirks, sharp and just a little bitter. “And never have been.”

“So you’ve said. I was a done deal, I mean.” Daniel thumbs at that smirk, until it softens, marginally. “I wouldn’t’ve admitted it then, but I was. You could’ve come up to me, taken me to some sh*tty dive bar and flirted with me for five seconds, and I would’ve been ready to give something more a try. You know, do it like humans do. I was just waiting for you to show up and give me something, anything I could work with.” He loves the press of Armand’s fang against his thumb, the danger lurking in his hooded eyes. God, didn’t he get lucky. “I mean, it’s weird, because I really had no goddamn reason to want that. To want you. After everything. But I think I did, even then. Even before that. I can’t… can’t remember when I really started loving you, actually. Feels a little bit like I always did.”

“I know,” says Armand, on a sigh, “that you can’t remember when.”

“Still, made you work for it, didn’t I?” Daniel grins and ignores that. “I did also really hate your guts and wanted to make your life difficult. No matter what else was going on, that was a bit of a universal truth.”

“Hm,” Armand agrees vaguely, bites gently at Daniel’s thumb, licks droplets of blood from it.

“But so is… this.” With his free hand, Daniel gestures at them, in the bed. In love. “That was an inevitability. At least since you turned me, maybe even before that. You didn’t need to make up a backstory or play a role for that. I would’ve taken you whichever way you came, okay, Armand? I might’ve even made less of a fuss if you’d just asked me out for blood-coffee. Not no fuss, I know myself better than that, but… yeah. Yeah.”

Armand blinks at him, all big doe eyes and calm reptile stare.

“Your point?” He asks.

“Just that I love you, I guess.” Daniel shrugs. He doesn’t say it as often as Armand, doesn’t use constant endearments, but the love’s there, always.

“And that it feels like you always did,” Armand adds. One elegant hand comes up, draping itself over Daniel’s shoulder, pulling him in for a light kiss. “I know that too, lover. Better, perhaps, than you.”

“So, why the act? Why the lie? I mean, seriously, why pull all that sh*t?” Daniel presses. “If you can even remember that, and didn’t gaslight it straight outta your brain. I would’ve been game for anything. You couldn’t read my mind anymore but, god, I know myself, and desperation must’ve come out of my pores. Why the whole past relationship story, if a text reading ‘u up’ would’ve done the trick? I’d like to know the truth, please, if you’ve still got that rattling about in that pretty head of yours.”

“I’ve told you the truth, Daniel. Many times. It was no act, and no lie. I simply laid bare the facts of our past.”

“Armand. Please.”

A pause.

A sigh.

“Fine. The truth, then,” Armand says, coldly, and quickly, as if he just wants these words out and done with, turning his head half into the pillow, away from Daniel’s keen gaze. “You crave attachment, Daniel. Once divorced speaks of love that faded, of making a mistake once and then knowing better, but twice divorced, that is the mark of a foolish romantic who cannot simply date, who needs to feel tied down or he will drift away into the next high, or, worse, into a low I once called the unnamed malaise of your Sunday afternoons, and which the vampiric vulnerability for loneliness will no doubt soon carve into a bottomless pit in your heart. You want always, you want forever, and you want the bonds between you and your lover to hold tight. And it is a lover you want - as a father of two estranged daughters, and yourself the son of emotionally-distant parents, you would not have taken it nearly so well had I offered myself only as your Maker. So I set out to give you what I thought would fulfil that desire, and more: a lover, faithful, devoted, who had been there to love you even as addiction brought you low, who invited you into eternity out of continuous love, who would give you everything you ever wished for. And in turn you would give me your love, your trust, all that is owed between Maker and fledgling, and the cure to the loneliness that was starting to suffocate me. Evidently, I miscalculated. In various ways. But there it is, the truth, as it once was. Are you pleased with it?”

And that, that, is when Daniel is actually given pause, proper pause, for the first time. That, after everything else.

Because, what Armand said, it’s cutting. It’s accurate. It’s observant, it’s realistic, it’s- god knows, it’s not a surprise.

Honestly, it’s what he suspected the truth to be, from the very start.

But also, Daniel knows, just knows simply from looking at Armand’s face, his large, angry, challenging eyes - and he would stake what’s left of his journalistic reputation on this - that it’s a big fat lie.

And, sh*t, he really doesn’t know what to make of that, now. He thought he knew what it felt like, to hear Armand lie to him. He thought he knew.

For the first time, he’s beginning to question that assumption.

“Let us speak no more of it tonight,” Armand decides, with some finality, while Daniel is still blinking at him, trying to make sense of that bone-deep feeling that this is the lie, moreso than the other story ever was. “It is the past, beloved. I no longer care to dwell upon the past.”

(Lie. That, too. But a lesser one, which he’s trying so very hard to turn into truth.)

“Now, if you will not continue drinking your fill, will you let me have a taste?” Armand reaches for the half-full bag of blood again, eyeing Daniel contemplatively. “The way you gorged yourself has built up a matching appetite in me. I should like to sip it from the cradle of your hips, I think.”

“Oh, f*ck yeah. Sure,” Daniel says instantly, because forget what Armand may think, he really is very easy, and that’s the sort of offer that still has the power to instantly blank his brain out, no matter what else might be buzzing around inside there. Still, “we’re not done talking about this, though. I have, uh. Follow-up questions, now.”

“You always do, curious boy,” Armand mutters, in that indulgent, patronising tone that should by all rights really rub Daniel the wrong way, but instead just. rubs. in a way that isn’t the right one, not really, but feels a whole lot better than it should. “Put your legs close together, now. Tighter. Yes, just so…”

Daniel’s a horny idiot. Daniel should have at least one of his Pulitzers taken away for utter stupidity. Daniel’s… frightened, maybe.

Daniel doesn’t bring it up again later. Tells himself it was a weird moment, tells himself it was nothing. Tells Armand he loves him, knows that the soft “and I, you” he gets back is the truth, and thinks nothing else matters, really.

Yes. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Daniel dreams, sometimes. More as a vampire than he did as a human, honestly. Strange, nonsensical scenes that are so f*cking symbolical Freud would cream his pants over them.

Dreams of Louis in a concrete-gravel-bed void much like his penthouse but worse, dancing with an empty yellow dress in an impossible beam of sunlight. Dreams of Lestat, indistinct and smudged in Daniel’s mind, cobbled-together from grainy photographs and his imagination more than anything else, sitting on a grand and empty stage, singing that f*cking earworm of his to an audience of nobody but Daniel alone. Way to make a girl feel special.

He dreams of angry vampires with ever-changing faces, their bitter resentment scorching-hot like his one run-in with the sun, echoing through the aether. He dreams of red-haired twins, sometimes. He dreams of mundane things he’ll never do again, like standing in the supermarket and trying to mediate between the length of his grocery list and the emptiness of his wallet, like waiting at the doctor’s office and wondering if it’ll be bad news or worse news, like promising to pick one of his daughters up from somewhere and then forgetting about it. Dreams of past stories he pursued, dreams of faraway places and interviewees from decades ago.

(His worst nightmares are of a reality in which he stayed human. Where he’s rotting away in a care home somewhere, or down in a grave. God, he’s still so grateful for the Gift. Still and always.)

And of course, he dreams of Armand. Always, he dreams of Armand. Sometimes, he thinks he dreams of Armand even when he’s wide awake.

In the dreams, Armand is strange. Untouchable, even in the hot, sweaty sex dreams (and there are many of those). An otherworldly, divine-hellish creature that makes Daniel feel awash with awe and adoration in a way he only rarely experiences when awake. He won’t let himself. They’re almost-equals in the blood, and he’s seen Armand brought low, has dismantled his lies with his own still-mortal hands. He loves Armand, and yes, sometimes he worships Armand, but not with that distance that lingers between them in his dreams. In those, Armand is always floating, always taller, never has his feet on the ground where Daniel is forever stuck, crawling on his knees.

In his dreams, Daniel begs for something, every time. He doesn’t know what, only that he already has it. Still, he begs. And Armand, who has vowed to grant his every wish, who has given Daniel second life and anything else he could ever ask for, who has given in and resigned himself to that strange, bittersweet melancholy he often sits with, passing control of the narrative into Daniel’s hands, Armand, who has never truly refused him anything…

Armand fixes him with his cold, fiery eyes, and tells him, mercilessly, no, never, I would sooner die.

Daniel used to think the dreams meant nothing. Why would they, after all? Why would they? Unless vampires have some weird dream-vision powers, that’s just his mangled brain throwing old memories into a blender and spitting out a colourful circus of associations and images. There’s no real meaning to that.

He’s doubting that, too, now. He’s doubting everything.

Daniel wakes to Armand’s laughter, breathless, helpless, inelegant giggles.

“Morning,” he mutters, rubbing red gunk out of his eyes, pushing the coffin lid open. “...no, wait, f*ck. Evening. I’ll never get used to that.”

“Oh, did I wake you?” Armand is sitting in his own coffin, which has long since migrated into the master bedroom. Most nights, they share it, anyway, except when Armand feels restless and intends to stay up during daytime. “I apologise, my love. It is very early still. If you wish to rest an hour more, I can-”

“It’s fine. Don’t even think about leaving.” Daniel heaves himself slightly more upright, sluggish with lingering tiredness. The sun hasn’t quite gone down yet, and he can’t even have coffee to give him that early bird boost, anymore. “What’s so funny? Is it the… uh, the scene where the dwarves sing the song, again?”

“I did not much like Disney’s Snow White,” Armand sniffs. “Overrated. Sanitised. I wished to see a lung and liver being eaten, even just those of a young boar, and for the evil queen to dance to her death in hot iron shoes. Such a disappointment.”

“Not Snow White. It was… Time Bandits. Right. You liked that one.”

Armand looks at him, strangely stricken. Red tears of laughter are still hanging in the corners of his eyes, suspended.

“It’s a rather old series, Daniel,” he says, finally, carefully. “I have not watched it in a very long time, though, yes, I quite adored it then. I am amazed that you remember as much.”

“Mind like a steel trap, me,” Daniel half-sleepily grins his most charming smile, the lopsided one that still makes him look boyish even after he hit the wrong side of 35. Armand’s not immune to it, Daniel can tell, even with his face in blank corpse face mode. “For the important things at least. Which I count you to be, so we’re clear. I’m trying to be romantic. Is it working?”

“It is. You are very sweet when sleep-drunk,” Armand reassures him. “It is not Time Bandits, in fact. I am watching an illegal recording of a German-language musical from the late 1990s.”

“And that’s funny?”

“The musical is about vampires,” Armand says, eyes alight with glee. “And, my love, it is hilarious.”

Daniel’s not surprised. Once you’re a certified bloodsucker yourself, all the clumsy mortal attempts to tell stories about them get about ten times funnier, and the effect seems to stack for older vampires. Armand laughed until he shook over From Dusk Till Dawn, and can’t watch more than one episode of the old Dark Shadows show per night because it amuses him too much. One day, Daniel wants to show him Twilight, but he’s genuinely afraid it might succeed where 500 years, the sun, and Claudia’s vengeful spirit have all failed, and actually kill Armand via death by laughter.

Daniel makes a noise indicating vague interest, and Armand takes off his airpods, turns up the volume on his tablet, and angles it so Daniel can rest his head on one of the pillows spilling out the side of his comfortably overstuffed coffin and watch along.

Daniel gets about five minutes through the shaky bootleg recording of a guy in an admittedly nice cloak prancing about on stage and singing very dramatically in German, until something clicks around a yawn, and he says “hey, I saw that live, once.”

Armand glances over at him. “Did you?”

“Yeah. 1998. I was en-route to do a report on the Kosovo War, planned a stopover in Austria to talk to a diplomat, but the asshole flaked on me. So I had two days in Vienna, saw a billboard with vampires on it and thought, hey, why not? It’d been 25 years since I met Louis, by then, and I was feeling nostalgic.”

“And was it enjoyable to you?”

“You’re watching it right now, you decide if it’s good.”

“That is not what I was asking, Daniel,” Armand admonishes gently. “Your opinion. Now.”

Well, Armand’s never issued a command that didn’t 100% do it for Daniel, and this one is no exception. He pushes through the drowsiness, clumsily grasping for memories from a quarter century ago, because his Maker told him to.

“Well, my German’s only good enough for getting directions to the nearest train station and asking pointedly invasive questions about life in the GDR, so that was an obstacle. No anal-retentive director insisting on English-language performances there.” Armand shoots him a glare. Daniel’s so pleased that he can still piss him off, he really is. Wouldn’t be the same otherwise. “Music was good, though. Lots of familiar tunes. They played Total Eclipse of the Heart at one point.”

Armand nods, brow a little furrowed, like an attentive young TA, and Daniel actually did teach, sort of, so that association is really more of a turn-off generally - but from Armand, it kind of works. Daniel likes being the centre of Armand’s attention, being made to feel as if whatever stupid sh*t he’s saying is the most important and insightful thing ever. Yeah, alright, he’s a vain old creep, noted.

“But I didn’t enjoy it, no,” Daniel says. It’s the truth, though it surprises him a little bit as he says it, too. “I’d always… y’know, gone to plays and musicals and whatever with someone. Usually with Alice, actually, before we got married we’d be out almost every night, catching some show. I missed it pretty bad, in that moment, sitting there alone with nobody to talk to afterwards. Missed her pretty bad, even though I think both of us would’ve rather walked over hot coals than ever try again, at that point, and we hadn’t been to the theatre together in years even before it all went to sh*t.”

(They fought about that, actually. More than once. Alice spat that she was sick of the plays Daniel tried to drag her to, and he’d been so angry, because she was the one who liked that sh*t first, who used to drag him, and he was trying here, man, he was really trying to make time so they could do things they loved together, and what was her damage, accusing him of that now!?

His second divorce was calm, mutual, the relationship ending with a whimper more than a shout. The first one though? Awful. Which Daniel was far from blameless for. By the end he was using again, all the work he put in to get his act clean going out the window; and yet, like the asshole he is, to this day he thinks that Alice is the one who was unrecognisable to him as the woman he fell in love with, by the end.)

“Still, it’s not fun, going on your own. It’s-”

“Lonely,” Armand finishes for him, nodding. “Achingly lonely. I apologise, beloved. If there is one pain I can understand, it is that.”

“What’re you apologising for? It wasn’t you who divorced me,” Daniel snorts, and then yawns again. “Besides, I don’t think you’ll let me see a single movie, concert, musical, play, whatever, by myself for the rest of my existence, huh?”

“No,” Armand agrees, and that should feel suffocating. That should feel exhausting, unpleasant, codependent to a degree Daniel should chafe against. Couples need to exist separately sometimes, goddamnit. Maybe it’s a vampire-loneliness thing, or the f*cking bond again, that makes it feel reassuring instead.

“Lover?”

“Hm?” Daniel thinks he dozed off again. Having a circadian rhythm so firmly based on the sun is actually a pain in the ass. He really does feel dead still during these early dusk hours, or, more humiliating, like the tired old man he should by all rights be.

“Will you grant me something?” Armand’s tablet is off again, musical paused or finished, his whole attention on Daniel.

“Hm,” Daniel nods vaguely against his pillow. Armand gives him so much, he’ll at least try to repay the favour.

“I did not realise you retained awareness of my preferences.” Armand’s voice is honey-soft, though his hand in Daniel’s hair is too firm, petting hard enough that it feels almost like Armand is trying to crack open Daniel’s skull, press his whole hand into his brain. In that treacle-sweet state between sleeping and waking, the thought of such a complete invasion isn’t half as unsettling to Daniel as it should be. “Would you make me a list, beloved? Of the things you remember I enjoyed?”

“What?” Daniel blinks. “Why? You gonna quiz me on it? See how much I get wrong?”

“It would merely serve to satisfy my idle curiosity. A selfish whim, perhaps. There is no point to it, other than that I may look at such a list and know you love me.” Armand’s tone is 99% light and airy, and 1% not. It’s too early in the night for Daniel to deal with that 1%. “Please?”

“Sure. Whatever.” He’s learned his lesson with the ‘I love you’ video. Armand has the weirdest relationship needs, and Daniel doesn’t exactly mind fulfilling them. And Armand does like lists. There’s still a 20, 25% chance that this is some kinda trap he's being coaxed into, but if so, Daniel will deal with it when the time comes for it to snap shut. “Anything for you, babe.”

“Good.” Armand’s hand gentles in his curls, and cold lips come down to brush over his forehead. “Now rest until the sun is gone, but no longer - there is a conference I wish to attend.”

“Where?”

“Budapest.”

“Christ. Alright. Your plane trips are really f*cking up my carbon footprint, you know. Bad for the environment.”

“My love,” Armand says, like speaking to a child, “we kill people.”

Daniel chucks a pillow at him. He figures it’s the least the smug bastard deserves.

They’re on Armand’s private plane when it happens this time. That strange moment of uncertainty.

Daniel is sitting in a comfortable lounge seat, little notepad propped up against his knee, and has been scribbling away since take-off. Armand has left him to it, speed-reading digital journals in preparation for that conference he’s so interested in. Daniel didn’t even ask what field. He supposes he’ll find out.

Daniel pauses for a moment, to read back what he’s written - old habit, he can write a lot of sh*t when he’s high on something or other, and without forcing himself to check over his work every hour or two, he might end up with a cramp in his hand, severe sleep deprivation, and only pages upon pages of useless drivel to show for it.

And there’s… there’s a lot, already. If there’s one thing vampirism is really good for, then it's riding the productive high much more effectively than he used to - he got Interview done so quickly, it almost scared him. And now here he is, with multiple pages of Things Armand Likes, arranged without rhyme or reason, just written down as they were coming to himl.

Armand likes Daniel himself, obviously, that one’s a no-brainer. Being a manipulative little sh*t, too, but he mostly put that one on there to mess with him. His tablet, video games, Minecraft and stupid exploitative app sh*t. Plane rides. Puzzles with staggeringly many pieces. A whole list of movies, shows, plays, art pieces, whatever, underlined if they’re particular favourites, like Time Bandits. Household electronics, especially anything that can blend, dice, shred, or fry. The magnolia tree. Standing in a crowded street and whispering into an unsuspecting mortal’s mind, suppressing giggles when the person gets increasingly panicked. Fine clothes, only moreso when stolen off the cooling body of a victim. Summer-warm coastal air. Being loved.

It’s not even a comprehensive list just yet. Simply while looking at it, another composer Armand has a fondness for pops into Daniel’s head, and two more movies. Oh, the Italian night sky. Add that.

Daniel scans the list again. Lots of media from the 80s and earlier. And the strange thing is, he can remember most of the newer, recent stuff so vividly. Can recall exactly when Armand first dug his fangs into the new thing of the night, whether he succeeded in dragging Daniel along. For instance, he knows Armand liked building model kits well enough, but not painting them - Daniel got to do that, and that was kinda fun. He might get more, one of those days, really lean into the senior citizen stereotype at long last and build a model train set in the basem*nt or something.

He has less context for most of the older stuff. There are facts, pages of facts, that Daniel knows about Armand with bone-deep confidence, but there’s no specific experiences he can name that would prove it. None.

It gets really weird when he reads “telephones (loves fiddling with the cord while talking for hours)” and knows with absolute certainty that he can’t possibly have seen Armand do that, ever. The phone in the Divisadero apartment was disconnected - one night, Daniel managed to find strength enough to crawl towards it while Armand was feeding Louis - and nowadays it’s all handhelds and smartphones and Zoom and sh*t.

And yet. And yet, Daniel thinks he remembers a black spiral being wound around delicate brown fingers, and Armand murmuring something in French into a phone speaker. The odyssey of f*cking recollection strikes again, impossible, anachronistic memories crowding his head.

(He knows what this… what this could mean. He’s not an idiot. He can put 2 and 2 together, thank you very much.

It doesn’t mean that , though.

Goddamnit, it can’t.)

“Hey, Armand?” Daniel flips the notepad shut, tosses it onto a table. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t really want to think about anything. “This plane has a bedroom. Right?”

“Yes.” Armand’s eyes flicker up, towards the door at the tail end of the cabin. Daniel walks over to it, peers through - yep, room check, bed check. Bit outdated, and judging from the only half washed-out red-brownish stains on the pillow, Armand once devoured a long-dead meal in here… but serviceable, overall.

“Wanna…?” He gestures towards the open door. Smooth, Molloy. Real smooth. “I’m kinda in the mood to rejoin the mile-high club.”

Armand’s eyes widen. They flicker from Daniel to the bed with an expression that… uh…

f*ck. Not a good expression. Daniel can tell that much.

“Or not!” He adds, quickly. “I can behave myself, for you.” A beat. “…actually, hold on, that’s pretty hot. Tell me to sit back down and be patient for the rest of the flight, and I’ll probably get off on that alone. Better?”

Something in Armand’s features relaxes - and something in Daniel’s chest alongside it.

“A compromise, maybe,” he purrs, voice all silk and hidden angler-fish teeth underneath, setting his tablet aside. “I will not have you on the bed tonight, but… come here, beloved. On your knees before me.”

And, yeah. Yeah, Daniel can work with that. He’s grown pretty fond of compromises, since figuring out this Thing with Armand. Since falling in love with him. Whenever that happened.

For the rest of the flight, Daniel doesn’t do much thinking. Not about the list. Not about anything that isn’t Armand’s body, hands, eyes, fangs. Nothing.

It keeps the doubts at bay. But they’re still there, alright. They’re still there…

Daniel can hear the whispers.

Most of the time he tunes them out, the voices of the larger vampire community sharing all the hot gossip in a hundred languages, that constant stream of background mumbling - it would probably drive him mad otherwise. But sometimes, now and then, when a voice gets louder, when he’s bored, when he’s curious, he listens for a bit.

Most of it, predictably, is curses and death threats, at the moment. Louis is real unpopular, obviously, though the angry muttering has gotten quieter since he laid down the law of the land and essentially broadcasted TRY ME, COWARDS across the globe.

(Not many did. All bark, no bite.)

Lestat has also been amassing a dedicated haterbase among the vampires at about the same rate he’s building a mortal fanbase; and then, naturally, there’s Armand, and Daniel himself.

And. Boy. Daniel’s no stranger to public backlash. There’s always been people who f*cking hated his guts, and that number has quadrupled with Interview, easily - but there are unmoderated online message boards out there that are havens of tranquillity and sensible discussion in comparison to Vampire Radio. Daniel’s learning a lot of new words in a variety of languages, and he’s pretty sure all of them are swears.

Sometimes, one voice rises from among the many, getting louder, closer, angrier. More personal, ranting about Armand, about Daniel, or them both.

Armand deals with them. Slips out of the flat without a word, and about an hour later at most, the other vampire’s voice just… cuts off. And Daniel never hears those voices again. He doesn’t need to launch a full investigation to figure out what generally happens there, does he?

It’s only… he used to think very little of it, when those vengeful, soon-to-be-killed vampires hissed poisonous words about the interview boy, Louis’ pet, the devil’s fledgling, Armand’s mortal, Armand’s companion, Armand’s human boy, Armand’s mistake, and so on and so forth. Another popular one for him is the violation, considering his mere existence breaks basically all the Great Laws. Accordingly, francophone vampires, who still remember his coven’s reign of terror over Paris, just loooove calling Armand l’hypocrite. Deserved, if Daniel’s being honest.

Anyway, he was never really listening to the mad rambling.

Now, he listens. Sometimes.

And he hears them whisper, you can’t protect that boy forever, Armand the Hypocrite. Not even now that you finally turned him, or he hears 50 years of broken laws, Armand. A human lover, sharing our secrets! You are overdue for punishment, or you still keep that boywhor*, do you? He was prettier in the 80s, which makes Armand so angry that Daniel can feel it in the pit of his own stomach. That voice screams for a while, wordless in their agony, before it cuts off.

It’s entirely possible that Armand can make them broadcast these things. Theoretically. If he’d picked up on this stuff before that first kiss and the night that followed, Daniel would’ve immediately assumed that and not given it a second thought. Dramatic little stagings, getting his victims to corroborate his lies before he wipes them out. Yeah, that’s Armand’s style all over.

Now, though.

Why would he still be doing it now? Just got into the habit, and doesn’t want to stop?

…why would…

…

Daniel ignores it. Shuts the voices out all over again.

But the doubt remains, more insistent than ever.

And one by one, the questions pile up, higher and higher. Impossible to ignore. Sowing uncertainty into Daniel’s mind.

What’s so special about the 23rd of August?

When did Daniel fall in love? When!? It can’t have been more than a few months. Why does it feel like half a century ago?

Why does the truth, when Armand finally voices it, sound so much more like a lie than anything he ever said before?

What does it mean, that touching Armand feels so natural, that even the first time felt like coming home, like the thousandth time rather than the first?

What is it that Armand refuses him in his dreams?

Did Alice ever have a fondness for the stage to begin with?

Why does he know so many things about Armand, which, by rights, he should have no way of knowing?

Why would the other vampires tell Armand’s lies?

Why did Armand, Armand who was repulsed by the mere concept, Armand who was going to let Louis burn for the audacity of asking him to turn Madeleine, Armand who swore never to turn another vampire, not even out of bitterest spite - why did Armand really turn him?

And, actually, why did Daniel start calling Armand “boss”, anyway!?

Chapter 13: In Which Daniel Follows Up

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Obviously, for all that f*cking doubt is gnawing at Daniel’s mind now, he knows - he knows, he knows, HE KNOWS - what the truth is. He won’t waver.

(He can’t.)

So he tells himself any steps he’ll take to confirm his own version of events is only to set his mind at ease. Never mind that it’s fiendishly difficult to ever truly prove a negative. He’ll try, goddamnit. He’ll try.

He thinks about contacting Alice, first of all. Almost instantly, he thinks better of it; no, absolutely not, he’s not doing that to her. She doesn’t want to hear from him, she’s taken deliberate steps to prevent it, and at the end of the day, Daniel doesn’t think that asking her to rehash what is essentially the Greatest Hits of their big fights will lead to very reliable statements. Old anger, old resentment, old spite has a way of warping memories, and god knows it’ll just end up sounding like he wants to continue arguing instead of, for the first time in, f*ck, decades, actually listen to her. No. No, he won’t contact Alice.

(His inner journalist is screaming at him not to ignore a primary source - but f*ck that guy, honestly. It’s exactly that sort of single-minded nothing-matters-except-the-story thinking that ruined almost every meaningful relationship he ever had in his life - he appreciates Louis giving him that pep talk, he really does, but it had a few really sh*tty side effects, too - and he’s trying to turn over a new leaf in death.)

Unfortunately, he hasn’t got many other people to ask about that period of his life. It was forty-something years ago, all his older colleagues and superiors from work are dead or hardly able to string coherent sentences together, stuck in the sort of care home he only barely escaped thanks to vampirism. Covid took out a good number of ‘em, too. And as for similarly-aged friends, roommates, the crowds he used to hang with… well. He doesn’t remember many names, after so many years. A good chunk never even gave their names, certainly not real ones. And on top of that, most of them were using, gay, or a combination of the two, and the AIDS pandemic made quick work of them.

Daniel’s own survival is a f*cking statistical anomaly, an undeserved miracle, and he feels it more keenly in that moment than he ever did before. He still tries, digs up the old sources from back when he wrote Hate and Ashbury, follows up on the handful of names that seem halfway promising. Nothing. Nada. Dead ends all around.

(At this point - and, miraculously, no other - Armand asks what he’s working on. Daniel tells a half-truth, that he’s making a list of the people who knew him in life, for the purpose of knowing how many he’s already outlived. Armand nods at this as if it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do - which, to him, it probably is - and he approves of this as a worthwhile endeavour to spend one’s eternal time on.

Which, again, he probably does - Armand really does like his lists. Loves the one of his own preferences that Daniel wrote up for him, in particular. Daniel adores that little weirdo so much.)

Daniel turns to other sources. Material sources. His old work, scattered across various newspapers, articles that are sometimes brilliant in their artless wit, and sometimes absolute sh*t. He wishes he could say that those are the ones he wrote just to pay the bills, probably high on something, but he knows himself well enough to admit there’s really no way of telling. He was young then, and admittedly talented, but the real mark of a good, experienced writer isn’t necessarily works of outstanding quality, but consistency. He didn’t have that, back then, and knows full well that for every article he can find published somewhere, even the sh*t ones, there’s five rejected drafts that were even worse.

There’s not much to glean from those, really. An erratic path, maybe. A timeline. Where he was and when, which stories he was chasing after. Daniel always thought that every interview, every article, had more of the writer in it than you’d think; but not really enough to reconstruct what he really wants to know. Not enough to prove Armand’s presence - or, well. Absence, more likely. Daniel kind of wishes he could take the dumb kid who wrote these by his collar and shake him, read the truth out of his mind with the same ease he can go through every mortal’s brain, nowadays. It would make things much easier.

He gets out his old passport, cross-checks the faded stamps against the stuff he wrote during his time in Europe, bouncing from one country to the next, more or less backpacking on an ever-dwindling budget, financed more by odd jobs than any journalistic work he did. It’s so difficult to tell now why he was doing that in the first place. Plenty of stories in the old U.S. of A., and easier to sell those as relevant to the English-speaking public. But he’d felt so frightened then. Untethered. Might’ve been the residual trauma from the first interview, Armand’s half-erased spectre chasing him across the globe - or just his own wanderlust, that craving for new experiences, new people, new sex, new drugs, and of course new stories, which were, to Daniel, a drug of their own.

He studies one article longer than the others, a little piece in a local British newspaper about a fire at an inn - thank god for increasing digitisation of newspaper archives, he’d hate to have to peer at some microfiche at a library somewhere across the ocean for this. One dead, employee of the inn. Cause of fire unclear at the time, suspected arson. A black-and-white photo of the burning building, his own picture, he knows. Because he was there. He slept at this inn. Something pulled him out of bed, some strange panic - bad trip, probably - and that must’ve saved his life. Gave him one hell of an inside scoop, too.

Afterwards, he spent a few nights sleeping in a hookup’s bed. He doesn’t remember any more details than that. The picture of the burning inn, blurry and indistinct as it is, is clearer than his actual recollection of the events. Useless.

He went back to the States eventually. Threw himself into chasing the stories that would one day get cobbled together into his first book. Took even more drugs, remembers flashes of wild parties, independent artists, those countercultures he’d always been into embracing him in turn. He thinks he was happy, then. Or maybe he was just constantly high enough to ignore the misery. It’s shockingly hard to tell, in retrospect.

(Still, no traces of Armand anywhere he can see. That should be reassuring. That is reassuring.

If only there weren’t so many empty spaces, too.)

There were personal notes, of course. Article drafts. Endless tapes, transcriptions so he could re-use the tapes. Photographs. Stuff that would come in real useful for reconstructing that particular decade of his life, if only he still had it.

But, see, his asshole landlord didn’t think being first in hospital, then in rehab, was a good enough reason to miss out on rent payments, so by the time he got out, he came ‘home’ to changed locks and a stranger’s name on the doorbell. All his stuff got sold, thrown out. He had to start his life completely from scratch, and in a way that felt fitting. He’d been a husk, then, an emptiness with all the drugs scraped out of him, the clarity of sobriety cold and unpleasant and pounding in his skull - he’d been rebuilt from the ground up, only right that he’d have to do the same with most of his earthly possessions. He had the clothes on his back, a few pieces of ID - the passport, for instance - and a mostly-empty wallet with a few old pictures of his family inside, and one or two business cards from journalism industry contacts with more phone numbers scribbled onto them. That was all, really.

The only reason he survived beyond this point was… some charity, Daniel remembers. Paying the hospital and rehab bills, funding him until he got his feet under himself again, until he got steady enough work to support both himself and what was soon to become his family, Alice, their first daughter.

With no other leads to pursue - he checked the hospital records, but there’s no indication that someone else checked him in, and he doubts anyone who worked there back in the day would remember now - Daniel looks deeper into that charity. No online presence to speak of, very little indicating that it kept operating beyond the 80s, no way to contact them. Some anonymous philanthropist funded the whole thing, real old-fashioned benefactor of the arts and more, funding musicians, athletes, young thinkers, almost at random. There’s one name Daniel recognises, a former dancer who later choreographed for the New York City Ballet, who said in some interview that this charity paid his bills throughout school, that his benefactors were very kind to him, implying he’s actually met them. Daniel googles feverishly for contact details, only to find that the guy died - far too young, honestly - in 2011. So that’s that trail run cold, too. He manages to reach a few of the other individuals who got financed through the charity, but it seems like they were hands-off cases, just like him.

On that note, his old bank got shut down during the global financial crisis. No way to trace whether or not a wealthy vampire was bankrolling him at some point. Goddamnit. He knows how to pursue a story even decades later, he does, it's possible, but he was just some nobody reporter wannabe activelytrying to live under the radar, off the grid. There's just not much to work with.

So he hits dead end after dead end. Daniel’s so f*cking frustrated by now. There’s no real way to fill the blank patches in his recollection - and there are blank patches, the article timelines make this obvious, not just days but whole months all swallowed up in-between that he barely remembers - and no way to prove that the spectre of Armand isn’t lurking in them. That he might not actually have erased-

No.

No, stop, f*ck no. That’s not- he can’t start believing that. It was the drugs. The withdrawal. He’s read studies, he knows how that kind of thing can mess with the mind. He was pickling his brain in chemicals for years, it’s frankly a wonder it didn’t turn into mush before now. And it was 40 years ago. It’s normal to forget things after so much time. Armand’s just getting into his head. Delayed reaction, now that Daniel lowered his defences slightly. He lost his footing and got sucked down, he’s spiralling into a whirlpool of conspiracy, losing sight of reality. Get a goddamn grip, Molloy!

So, Daniel changes tracks.

Maybe he just needs something to knock him out of this spiral he’s hurtling downwards on. A reality check - yeah, that’s what he needs. Someone to tell him he’s being ridiculous, to remind him not to let Armand’s delusions get their claws into him, to dismiss the whole idea so soundly that Daniel won’t continue masoch*stically prodding at it.

Right. That’ll fix him.

So he waits until Armand leaves one early evening - for an all-night video gaming event that Daniel begs out of because he doesn’t want to be called “gramps” by the mortal attendants, which is only partially an excuse - and then he gets up on the roof, breathes in the clear, crisp night air for a few minutes, and finally calls Louis.

Daniel, hey.

“Hi, Louis.” Daniel smiles. Maybe it’s the lingering aftereffects of having Louis’ words echo in the back of his mind whenever he thought he was at the end of his tether, spurring him on, but just mind-hearing his voice puts something in Daniel at ease. “How’s it going?”

Oh, business is going well. I acquired a Modigliani nude, and a prospective buyer that will pay far in excess of what it cost me.

“I’d make an ‘eat the rich’ joke here, but unfortunately you’re on top of the food chain any way I slice it.” Daniel leans over the edge of the roof, watches the people mill about on the street. “‘Acquired’ and ‘what it cost me’ are interesting phrasing choices, by the way.”

Are they now.

“Yeah. Did you steal the thing? Fake it? Bit high-profile for that, Modigliani.”

And you really think I’d be telling a member of the press if I did? C’mon now, Danny. Louis’ telepathic amusem*nt is warm and fond. Did you call only to insult my honour as a businessman and slander my impeccable reputation as a dealer of fine art, or do I have a reminder to read your book to look forward to, as well?

“Have you read it yet?”

On the top of my pile, Louis responds instantly. It’s become a shared joke. Some part of Daniel knows Louis will never as much as crack the cover open. Any other reason?

“How’s Lestat?” Daniel says, scraping at a bit of bird sh*t with one of his nails. He knows that isn’t the question he reached out to ask, and Louis probably knows it, too. He needs to work up to it, okay?

Lestat is composing. Preparing enough songs to fill a whole album, and a concert set. For the world tour, you know.

“Oh, Jesus!” Daniel laughs. “He was serious about that!?”

Seems so. Nothing less will do. You know how he is.

“Only second-hand. Think he’ll want someone to document his rise to fame? If you won’t give me that sequel-”

Down, boy! Louis is laughing too, now. Daniel likes making him laugh, likes it even more for Armand, likes breaking these miserable old vampires out of their eternal moping and putting smiles on their faces.

“And are things good? Between him and you?” This, too, is a frequently-repeated question. It’s half the concern of a friend, half Daniel’s insatiable thirst for gossip - nothing provides a good soap opera plotline like the Louis And Lestat Show.

Sure they are. We’re on a mutually-agreed break, at the moment, and it’s doing us both a world of good. He has time to work on his songs without getting distracted, I have a bit of space to attend to my business. I think it’s good. I think it’s healthy.

“Hm-hm,” says Daniel, and wonders how mutual that agreement really was. He wouldn’t put it past Louis to just get royally fed up with Lestat’s rockstar theatrics, swan off, and then tell himself it’s best for them both. “And he thinks that, too, yeah?”

I was given no reason to believe otherwise.

Uh-oh. Daniel would bet good money that Lestat is currently halfway through a breakdown over this. He can just tell. “You sure things are good?”

They are. It’s only a break, Daniel. Oh god, here we go. That’s Louis’ lying-to-others-and-himself soothing drawl. We parted on good terms. I told him to develop his music, to focus on himself, as I focus on myself, and I will come see him after he’s finished the album. And I will. I look forward to it already.

Daniel waits. Looks up at the sky. He can see the blinking lights of a plane cut across the greyish, star-less darkness. Projects a raised eyebrow at Louis.

I also warned him in no uncertain terms that, if he writes another song about me, he better sing it himself, ‘cause if he gets some two-bit hussy to do it AGAIN, I’m gonna swim the whole goddamn Atlantic and tear his voice box outta his throat with my bare hands right before the first concert of his f*cking world tour, and make him EAT IT, Louis adds in a very calm, pleasant tone, and Daniel exhales heavily. Yup, there it is. But he took that pretty gracefully, for his standards. Appreciated the reminder, even. It’s fine, Daniel, it really is. Never mind me, now. How’s Armand?

If Daniel were a better friend, he’d call out that attempt to deflect, refuse to change the topic, insist on a second round of therapy (couples’ edition, this time) that Louis will owe him another ten million for, and prevent whatever new nuclear meltdown the du Lac-Lioncourt relationship is rapidly hurtling towards.

Daniel, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, is a f*cking terrible friend.

“Oh, he’s doing alright. We are, too. He’s pretty much given up on lying to me, so I think he’s accepted defeat, finally.” He knows Louis doesn’t really want to know more details than that about Armand, not yet. Daniel rubs a palm over his face. Sighs. Feels like an asshole, in various ways. This is only barely a step up from calling Alice, making Louis talk about his piece-of-sh*t ex-husband instead of her. “But, uh. Louis?”

Daniel?

“You know those lies he gave up on? I’m just, uh. Trying to tie up some loose ends here. It’s the journalist’s in me, you know,” he says, like he said ‘it’s my job’ at the end of the interview, and he swears he can hear Armand’s voice hiss ‘it’s in your nature, Mr. Molloy!’ in response. “I’m trying to figure out just how far the lies went, maybe even where they came from - lies always come from somewhere, you know. Especially the elaborate ones like that. It’s easier to feed a bit of truth into them, just change the angle, change the spin, hey presto, totally fictional story that’ll still sound more believable than most. Sometimes, as an interviewer, you learn more from what your subject is lying to you about, than the truths they’re telling you.”

I’m sure, Louis says, half-amused, half-intrigued. You’ve got some follow-up questions, I take it?

“Yeah. Do you… do you mind, if I…?”

Soft, indulgent, Go ahead, Danny.

“Right. Um. During the interview, did you and Armand… did you plan to have some sorta threesome with me?”

Louis laughs again, clearly surprised by this line of questioning. Yeah? Yeah, ‘course we did. By vampire standards, we went through with it when I fed on him in front of you. And you more or less knew that, at the time. I saw as much in your mind.

“Which you should have stayed out of.” Daniel wets his lips. Okay. Okay, that part was true. Could mean nothing. Armand loves his semi-sexual power plays. That he’d want to f*ck with Daniel in yet another way during the interview shouldn’t come as a surprise. “And did he- okay, that sounds like I’m just a vain, insecure asshole, I swear it’s not about that, but did he… did he want me? Think I was attractive? Even then, at the start, before anything-”

Oh, immensely. Did you know, the original plan was for him to leave the room long before any interview sessions, and only monitor the situation from a distance? He took one look at how beautifully you’d matured, and changed his mind on it. Not much of a surprise, to me. He said he didn’t want the interview, didn’t want you to see him, and I guess that should’ve tipped me off that he had something to hide - but it wasn’t that he wanted you. Our fascinating boy. He never was capable of hiding that. And I watched him cave, bit by bit, with something I will freely admit was amusem*nt on my part.

Daniel swallows. Curls his hands together in his lap, before they start shaking for purely psychosomatic reasons. Right. Yeah. Maybe he really is hot sh*t to ancient vampires, a guy closer to their own age, or Armand had 50 years to really think about Daniel’s offer to get on his knees, and to decide he wants it, after all. Attraction at second sight, why not. He can accept that this bit is the truth, too. All the best lies have some truth in them, after all.

“Does… does the 23rd of August mean anything to you?” He makes himself ask.

No. Should it?

That answers nothing. Great.

“One more.” This’ll set his mind at ease. It will. It has to. “Bit out of left field, I know. Jumping back and forth again. But Armand, he- did he and I ever- was I his, uh, his side piece? During the, should be about late 70s, early 80s? And then he erased my memories of it? I mean, I know I wasn’t. It’s dumb. Just, um, making sure, here.”

Silence on the other side of the connection.

Daniel listens to the noise of New York at night, strains his ears even though they’re not really what he’s listening with, waits for Louis to get over the shock that this preposterous suggestion has clearly caused. Any second now, any second, he’s gonna laugh again and ask what the hell brought this on, what kind of nonsense Armand told him, and obviously it’s not true, Daniel, obviously it isn’t, did you believe him for a second there? Don’t you know Armand is a liar, Daniel? Don’t you know you can’t trust him? Forget about it now, Danny. Forget about it. And every time doubt creeps in, you’ll remember these words, and know not to trust a goddamn thing Armand says.

Daniel waits. His dead heart is fluttering in his throat.

Then Louis says, softly, dangerously, I’m gonna f*cking kill him.

Daniel breathes a sigh of relief. Good. Good, yes. That’s about the reaction he expected Louis to have, more or less. Outrage at what sort of lie Armand was telling, was trying to ensnare Daniel with. How the hell did he ever get so close to believing it could’ve been the truth?

He told you that? Louis’ voice, harsh and angry, pushes into his mind again. Daniel. He said that to you?

“Heh, yeah.” Daniel doesn’t know why he feels so dizzy-sick all of a sudden. Must be the relief. “He-”

He said you weren't?

“Uh,” says Daniel. No. Nope. It’s certainly not relief anymore. “No, he-”

I’ll kill him. He even- ‘side piece,’ were those his words or yours? Can’t believe this sh*t, Louis goes on ranting, clearly and genuinely furious. Daniel’s tentative hope that Louis is just f*cking with him slowly makes its way down the drain. Danny, you listen to me: whatever he tells you, whatever he says to deceive you, it really happened. Do not doubt that. And you weren’t no f*cking side piece, either. Goddamn, sometimes it felt like I was, like he was finally going to free us both and just stay with you - he f*cked with my recollection of that, too, pretty sure, but some part of me never, NEVER forgot you were more to him than just a bit of fun on the side. Cling to that certainty like I did. Don’t let him win.

“Oh,” says Daniel. “...wait, what? Louis, I had- I had no idea he- I don’t remember any-”

You don’t? Why the hell did you let him f*ck you then, huh, boy!? Thought you got weak over memories of how good the dick was, no other way you’d let him- didn’t I tell you it was a sh*t idea to take him BACK?! Didn’t I tell you?

…Louis did say something like that, didn’t he, during their big telepathic shouting match. Daniel thought he was projecting his own situation with Lestat on them, at the time, little Freudian slip like that.

Well. f*ck.

Never mind. I’ll kill him. I’ll f*cking kill him! Louis spits, only getting angrier with every second. Daniel would appreciate the protective quasi-familial posturing a lot more if he weren’t still reeling. Tell me where he is, boy, and I will come and do to him what I should’ve done all along in Paris, shoulda finished the job in Dubai, I’ll-

“Don’t. Don’t do that.” Daniel interrupts. His voice sounds shrill and panicked to his own ears. Also distant. He might be having a bit of an out-of-body experience. sh*t, having a panic attack while being a vampire is even worse than having one during a bad trip. “He told me! Alright? He told me many times! I just, uh. For all the very obvious reasons, I didn’t exactly believe-”

-find him myself and figure out some way to kill him for good, I will, just you wait, Danny! It doesn’t seem like Louis really heard him. In his explosive anger, the mental connection is growing unstable. That little liar, I’ll get him, I’ll get him and I’ll tear-

“Louis! Louis, goddamnit, listen to me, I don’t want him dead! Also, for the record, is there any solid evidence you’ve got that can confirm that he and I really, definitely did-”

-from limb to limb, and-

“Louis!”

The connection breaks.

Daniel is alone on the roof. The night presses down on him, heavy and suffocating, louder than ever.

(It shouldn’t be possible, with metropolitan light pollution, but he could swear that, when he looks up, he can see the stars - f*cking stars, still and always there - twinkling down at him, alight with cosmic schadenfreude.)

Right. Okay, that-

Yeah.

Not the result he was hoping for, no.

Daniel doesn’t entirely remember getting down from the roof, or anything else between the end of his conversation with Louis, and the moment he sits in front of his laptop in the flat, typing. Like a cinematic jump-cut, there’s nothing in-between. He has hit send on the message before he even properly processed what he wrote.

Pulitzerootwo: hey, just verifying something, hear me out... did Armand continue stalking me after ‘73? I’ve heard some reports, but I need hard evidence before I believe anything. Thanks.

He waits. Not for long. The typing dots appear almost instantly.

RJ: You really didn’t look through all the folders, did you.

Pulitzerootwo: what?

RJ: We gave you all the information you might want or need, Mr. Molloy. We even provided it again, after the tragic destruction of your laptop. Your loss if you don’t do your research.

Pulitzerootwo: what the f*ck

RJ: A bit of friendly advice: take a good long look at the Vampire Armand’s “paramours” folder, Daniel.

Daniel swallows.

Opens the Talamasca files. Clicks on the little folder labelled “paramours”. Types “Molloy” into the search bar with unsteady fingers. Hits enter.

Stares at the screen.

Says, softly, “...f*ck.”

Louis’ words alone cannot be trusted, obviously.

Armand’s had his grubby little fingers in Louis’ brain for decades, twisting memories into whichever shape will suit him, the guy’s mind is practically Swiss cheese on the verge of becoming fondue. If there’s anything that Daniel has learned during the second interview, then it’s that Louis de Pointe du Lac is not a reliable source, and his recollection of the past isn’t worth sh*t, in the end.

But, the Talamasca.

Photographs can be faked. Anything can be faked. Daniel wouldn’t trust any of these files if Armand were the one who put them into his hands, still isn’t quite sure if he should.

But Armand cannot possibly be in control of the Talamasca. This is a step above even his manipulative pay grade, to go so far on the off-chance that Daniel would follow up one day. It’s of course possible, it’s always possible, that Armand took precautions against who and what ruined his schemes last time. It’s hypothetically possible that Armand semi-infiltrated the Talamasca to plant fake files, that he messed with Louis’ mind some more, that he went to truly ridiculous lengths to back his story up and then simply waited for Daniel to maybe discover his fabricated evidence years down the line.

It’s possible, and it’s either that, or all of the evidence is real, and the only thing Armand messed with - viciously, clumsily, like a child breaking his toy against the floor and then crying over the pieces - is Daniel’s memory. What’s more likely, in the end?

(Occam’s razor is cutting deep into Daniel’s flesh now.)

Something in Daniel’s head is creaking, a door bending inwards. Pressure is mounting behind his eyes as that certainty he leaned on this whole time, the firm knowledge that Armand is lying, starts to waver. There’s too much pushing up against it from behind, too much the truth would change.

(Is this how Louis felt? Is this pounding, suffocating, terrifying pressure what he inflicted on Louis with his stupid f*cking follow-up questions?

Forget telling Armand not to hurt Daniel. Louis was already doing him an undeserved favour by not using his ribs as a chew toy himself.)

One thought trickles through. Daniel clings to it, wraps himself up in it, before the rest flood his mind.

He stands.

Down the hallway, to the closet. He dug out the cassette player from here, too, a lifetime and a death ago.

He’s breathing, even though he doesn’t need to, deep shaking breaths that can only placebo-calm him now. Oh god, his head hurts. Feels like it’ll explode. Worst migraine of his un-life. Stress’ll do that to him.

Boxes clattering to the ground, contents spilling, breaking. Daniel tears them from their shelves carelessly, with more strength than he would need, not caring where they fall, only that they’re out of the way.

One box, at the back. Old. Labelled “Alice”. Daniel reaches for it, his hands shaking as badly as they ever did when Parkinson’s was still eating through him. This happens, sometimes. Even his vampiric body can still betray him.

He sets the box down. Old books she left behind. A scarf. A bottle of perfume he bought her for their anniversary, and which he couldn’t bear to throw away when divorce came before it. Little reminders, things she didn’t want to take when they split, and which Daniel threw into a box and forgot. A set of hair pins. A letter she wrote to him, so old-fashioned, so romantic, when she was on a business trip.

And there, at the very bottom of the box, there it is.

A gift from her, very early on in their relationship, Daniel remembers. Thought he remembered. He’d worn it always, for a good long while, during their dating period, so long it sometimes felt like he’d worn it since before they even met each other; but less after they’d married, and in the end, when the divorce papers were signed, he’d dug it up and tried giving it back to her. f*cking symbolic, he’d thought. She’d given him her heart’s blood to wear on a chain once, and now she was going to take it back.

Alice had wrinkled her nose, disgusted, and thrown the thing onto the table between them. Said that it wasn’t hers, that it’d never been hers, and that she had no interest in taking Daniel’s morbid, f*cked-up, ugly jewellery with her.

And then Armand, more recently, during one of his extended rants before he gave up on those, telling Daniel about protecting him, even in his absence, through his blood. Telling him about an amulet.

Daniel pointedly ignored him, then. But part of him was still listening. Paying attention. Hating Armand a little, a lot, for telling a story clearly inspired by something he and Louis must’ve pulled out of Daniel’s head while rooting around there for traces of Alice.

Daniel takes the locket-

(“It’s an amulet, beloved. To keep you safe.”

“‘Amulet’, you’re so pretentious - it’s a f*cking locket, man.”

“Don’t be crude. It’s an amulet, and I will not repeat myself on the matter.”)

-the locket out of the box. It’s gold. Heavy. Beautiful and horrifying. There is the letter “A” carved on it. Daniel always thought it stood for “Alice”. He no longer thinks so.

Daniel cracks it open. He wills his fingers into impossible stillness around the little glass vial containing red, dark red, blood red, liquid. There’s very little of it, but it never dried out. Never in over 50 years.

He has to know, and know now.

He breaks the vial open. A shudder goes through him.

(A shudder goes through almost every vampire in the city.)

He catches the drop of liquid on the tip of his finger, brings it to his mouth.

Armand’s blood is what gave him new life. Armand’s blood is what he tastes near every night, mixing into hungry kisses and sucked in great heaving gulps from Armand’s slender neck.

He would know the taste everywhere, even in blood that has had half a century to grow stale.

Oh god. Oh sh*t. Oh, Armand, oh, please, I’m sorry, come save me, Armand, oh Armand-

An instinct, to cry for Armand in his mind, to call him to come get him - but he can’t, not anymore, Armand made him a vampire and lost access to his mind, Armand abandoned him and did not speak to him for thirty-seven years, Armand left him with a neck scar and an amulet and no memories, Armand told the truth-

(Mental note for the next book: contritely acknowledge that Armand is capable of stringing together more than three words without sneaking a falsehood in there, after all.)

Memory is a monster, but truth, truth is the real demon lurking in the minds of men. And now its jaws close around Daniel, biting down, down, down unto the very marrow of him. It feels like dying, like a long, slow, drawn-out death that never ends. And it never will, because now the truth is out there, and it’s in here too, in Daniel’s head, filling every crevice with shock and grief and pain.

And nobody, nobody will ever scrape it out of his head again.

Chapter 14: The Past (I): Burning

Chapter Text

Many years ago, a bright young reporter, a fascinating boy, is saved from Louis’ fangs by Armand, and then from Armand’s fangs by Louis. His memories are manipulated, he is dropped off at a drug den, and the vampires are free to forget about him.

They don’t.

Daniel runs, Armand follows. So it begins.

And years pass…

“Holy sh*t,” Daniel swears loudly, breathlessly, gaping at the sight before him. “Holy f*cking sh*tballs!”

The fire caught quick, spread quicker. Daniel watches the flames lick around the window frame of what was, up until a quarter of an hour ago, the room he was peacefully sleeping in, and feels panic well up in his chest. He fumbles for his camera, snaps a quick picture - the journalist in him - and then stuffs it back into his bag.

Guests and staff alike are screaming, shouting, clustered around the burning inn, doing frantic headcounts of startled, shivering people standing in the streets in their pyjamas. Daniel sees someone run off to the nearest red phone booth, probably to call a fire engine. Daniel’s the only guest in proper clothes, clutching his messenger bag to his chest, watching the spectacle from a bench in the little park across the street.

He’s shivering, too. It has nothing to do with the midnight cold.

“sh*t!” He gasps again.

“Indeed,” a soft voice murmurs behind him, the accent mostly British but a little not, and Daniel only barely stops himself from an undignified high-pitched scream by stuffing his knuckles in his mouth.

The monster that calls himself Armand co*cks his head at him, his eyes glowing like embers in the dark. With perfect grace, he slides around to Daniel’s side of the bench and takes a seat at his side.

“f*ck, man! You nearly gave me a heart attack,” Daniel pants, wiping his hand on his trousers. “Was it not enough for you to, to shout into my head at 1am in the morning, now you gotta- and-”

“I called out to you so you would be able to save yourself.” Armand’s eyes flicker over to the inn. As if on cue, the roof caves in with a thunderous crack, and Daniel’s former window frame disappears under burning rubble. More screams. Daniel stares, and thinks f*ck f*ck f*ck over and over, an endless panicked loop in his head. He’s halfway sober at the moment, but the fact that it’s only half is not helping him. “I must admit, I expected more gratitude from you, boy. You would not be alive now, if not for me.”

“I almost wasn’t. I mean. I n-nearly didn’t believe you,” Daniel croaks. His eyes are still on the flames, the buckling walls, the clouds of smoke. Someone is sobbing. “I almost- I thought it was a nightmare. Your voice in my head, I, I get those sometimes. I was about to- t-turn over, and go back to sleep, and-”

He trails off. Armand watches him shiver and sweat, face perfectly impassive. He glows, in the reflected light of the fire. A hellish demon, except he came and saved Daniel from the fiery pit of the Great Downstairs instead of shoving him into it. Daniel imagines Armand carrying a pitchfork and wearing little horns on his head, and he lets out a half-hysterical giggle. What the f*ck. What the actual f*ck!

“I do not see why that imagery would amuse you,” Armand says sourly, and, yeah, mind-reading powers. f*ck. At least Daniel’s imagination kept the visuals PG- whoops. Not anymore. Double f*ck. Time to think of something else real quick.

“Uh. Uh, that. I nearly- why did you even-” decide to save me, instead of letting me burn, Daniel means to say, but then the journalist in him jerks awake, and instead he says, “h-how did you know? About the fire? In advance?”

Armand looks at him, and says nothing.

“Oh sh*t!” Daniel gasps. “You set the fire, didn’t you!?”

“What?” Armand blinks. He goes corpse-still when he startles, Daniel learns. “No.”

“Yes. Yes you did. Oh my god. An arsonist vampire! Aren’t you guys vulnerable to fire?”

“We are. And I did not set the fire, Daniel!” Armand protests, looking almost human in his surprise. A little boy, sounding like a liar regardless of whether he really did steal from the cookie jar, or not. “Why would you even assume-”

“Well, it only makes sense! I get your vampiric wake-up call, all-” he puts on a British accent “-Daniel, Daniel, there is danger, this establishment shall be consumed by the flames within the hour, rise, quickly-” Armand pulls a face, clearly not of the opinion that imitation is the purest form of flattery “-and the moment I get myself dressed and hurry out, boom!”

He waves a hand at the burning inn. There’s a fire engine’s siren howling in the distance now.

“What else am I supposed to think, huh!? Do vampires get prophetic visions?”

“Some,” Armand says, quietly. “Occasionally.”

“Really?” Daniel pauses. “...well, I still think it’s more likely you’d burn down a house on purpose.”

“I’m afraid Louis is the arsonist in the relationship,” Armand half-smiles, recovering with predatory grace from the shock of the initial accusation. “I can only reiterate: I did not set the fire, Daniel.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I have zero reason to believe you, actually,” Daniel says, inching a little further away from Armand. There’s not much bench left. Maybe he should get up and run, or something. “So, uh. I’ll be waiting for the official press release on cause of fire, actually.”

Armand laughs. It’s utterly, devastatingly charming, the way old movie stars laugh, rich and fully, but also somehow boyish. Daniel doesn’t think anyone can laugh like that naturally, that has to be a practised, polished laugh. How long did it take, to hone it so well?

“And you think it possible that the report will identify the cause as vampiric powers?” Armand shakes his head, that perfect laugh still lingering on his lips. “Ridiculous boy!”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh at the stupid humans.” Daniel hugs his bag harder, doing something he fears might be pouting. “You vampires are all stuck-up assholes, I swear.”

“And yet, you would be one of us. You asked Louis to give you the Gift.” Armand leans in closer, tries to catch his gaze. “Should I laugh at that, too?”

“Don’t. You’re freaking me out, man.” Understatement of the year. “Anyway, uh. Why’d you warn me?”

“Why do you think, Daniel?” Armand folds his legs. f*ck, there’s a lot of ‘em. All the way to the ground, and then some.

“f*ck if I know. Answer the damn question!” Daniel snaps, and then, remembering he’s talking to an apex predator who is probably gonna kill him soon, adds “um, please…?”

“Perhaps I did not want you to die in flames, when I had reserved you for my fangs. Perhaps I did not wish our game to end just yet, so anticlimactically. Or, perhaps,” a debonair shrug, “I simply had further points to make in regards to our conversation in Frankfurt, on whether or not we should regard history as a long line of falsehoods strung together to fashion a mere facsimile of truth. I recall we parted without having reached mutual agreement, and it would have bothered me ever so much if you had died still holding the wrong opinion.”

“Lotta perhapses there. You wanna give me a hint which one is true, boss?”

“Ah!” Armand’s eyes brighten further, impossibly so. “So eager to jump straight back into the argument, I see.”

“Oh, f*ck off.”

“You are a journalist, Daniel Molloy,” Armand continues, unperturbed. “You ought to know that many things can be true, and none, and anything in-between.”

“Oh yeah? And you’re a guy who’s trying to blow smoke into my eyes, Armand… d’you have a last name? Did you take Louis’?” He waves the thought away. “Never mind, not important. I’m starting to think it’s none of those, or, like, not fully. You said I’m fascinating.”

“I never said that,” Armand mockingly parrots his own words from ‘73 back at him, cold, playful. Like a great cat with a fragile little bird in its clawed paws.

“Right, Louis did. But you’ve started to think it, too. Haven’t you? You decided to save me because I am still interesting to you.”

“And why would you assume that? How would you know my thoughts? My opinion of you?”

“I wouldn’t. But I know you,” says Daniel, cheerfully.

(It’s a lie. He doesn’t know f*ck-all about Armand… but maybe he’d like to.)

Another thought pops into his mind. Well, in for a penny. Armand probably sees these as soon as he has them, anyway. “Hey, if I really had rolled over and gone back to sleep, would you have come to drag me out yourself? I bet you would have. Couldn’t let your plaything burn.”

“You presume so very much, Daniel,” Armand says, a hint more dangerously. “There are thousands of boys just like you in the world. Empty vessels, ravenous to be filled in whichever way they can achieve, drugs and sex and validation, carrion birds picking clean the carcasses of other people’s lives. Countless boys out there, starving like you.”

“Sure,” Daniel snorts, with a recklessness, an arrogant overconfidence, that he will surely regret in a second or two, “thousands like me, yeah. But only one actual me.”

“Hm.” Armand inspects him, like the butcher appreciating the value of a hunk of meat, gaze dragging almost tangibly over Daniel’s skin. He shivers all over again. “That, I suppose, is indisputable. And perhaps, for the world at large, fortunate.”

Daniel blinks.

“...did you just make a joke!?” He blurts out, baffled- no, awed might be the better word.

Armand preens at him, smiles with the tiniest little pleased quirk of a lip, and says nothing.

In front of the inn, the fire engine arrives. For a minute or two, they both watch the commotion, the frantic coordinated movement to subdue the fire. There’s something almost beautiful in it, watching the firefighters in action. Great clouds of steam billow up into the night sky. Armand sits at his side, a monster, death personified, wrapped up so carefully in the guise of a handsome young man. So calm, so quiet, so placid. He could kill Daniel with half a thought. Maybe less.

(…that’s kinda hot.)

“Why haven’t you killed me yet,” Daniel asks, at last, quietly, seriously. “Am I really that fascinating? And if so, in which ways? I’d like to carry on doing it just right.”

“That is for me to know,” Armand says, almost gently, and insufferably cryptically, that son of a bitch, “and for you yet to realise. I shall wait until you do.”

“M‘kay. Be like that.” Daniel sighs, and looks up at the sky. Smoke and steam are covering up even the few visible stars, and the moon is half-covered by a few wispy clouds. “Goddamnit, I gotta figure out where to sleep tonight. That was the cheapest inn in town, and I paid for the week in advance, like a chump, so I don’t think I have the budget for other rooms until they reimburse me or something. Which I sure hope they will. But…” He glances over at the shivering crowd huddled together under emergency blankets. Someone’s still crying. “Right now’s probably not a good time to bring it up, huh?”

“Indeed not,” Armand agrees amicably. “The elderly proprietress lost most of her worldly possessions in this fire. And, of course,” he says this as if it’s an addition that hardly bears mentioning, “her son. You did not warn anyone about the fire, Daniel. You could have.”

“I thought I just had a nightmare,” Daniel defends himself, uneasily. “Until I saw the smoke I really thought I’d run out into the night for no goddamn reason. You could’ve warned the other people, too.”

“So I could have.” Armand inclines his head. “We are both complicit, then, you and I.”

Silence settles over them again. Daniel thinks - not about that last exchange, he’s pushing that wayyyy to the back of his head, but about where to stay the night. He considers it. Carefully weighs his options.

Well. The best course of action is obvious.

He turns to the side. “Hey, Armand…?”

“Yes?” Armand watches him, unblinkingly. God, it’s like getting into a staring contest with a shark.

“Would you…”

“Yes?” A hungry shark. Who’s smelling your blood in the water. Is he sliding closer on the bench? Daniel would re-establish some more distance before Armand crawls into his lap, but there’s no more bench left on the other side of him.

“W-would you be able to tell me where the nearest, uh, bar or, or club is?” Daniel carries on, bravely stammering his way through his request. “Somewhere I can go to score, y’know? Find somebody whose bedroom I can flirt my way into.”

Armand is very still. Daniel’s eyes burn in sympathy because he still hasn’t blinked.

“I’d try to find a place on my own,” Daniel draws up his shoulders reflexively, even though Armand’s gaze isn’t even on his neck. On the scar he and Louis put there, together. Sometimes Daniel presses his fingernails into it when he’s trying to get himself off. Oh, he really should not be thinking about that right now. “But it’s already pretty late, and I don’t really know the city, so if you and your freaky vampire powers can make things easier for me, I’d… well, I’d really appreciate it, man.”

“...that is your solution? How very enterprising of you,” Armand murmurs. His face is perfectly blank. “A bed for a f*ck.” His voice goes so sharp when he says it, mouth shaping the profanity with care. Holy sh*t. Daniel will be thinking of that for a while. “Rather mercenary.”

“Hey, pal, at least I don’t kill ‘em after I’m done,” Daniel shoots back, because he never could resist saying the worst possible thing at any time. “Unlike you and your boyfriend. So, you gonna help me out here, or not?”

Armand suddenly leans back, his tight, attentive pose dissolving into something almost close to a sprawl. “Why, of course, Daniel. I would be happy to assist in this fashion, if that is your wish.”

He closes his eyes, cranes his elegant neck, as if listening far into the night. Daniel suddenly wonders if he has a bite scar, too, somewhere under the cover of the dark turtleneck he is wearing. He’d have to, right? From getting turned, at least?

“Two options. A dance club, five to ten minute’s walk this way,” Armand murmurs, absently, pointing down one of the streets leading away from the park. “The atmosphere is electric, even at this hour, and there are four… five young women in attendance hopeful to find a partner for the night. One in particular is rather receptive to American accents, as she enjoys Marlon Brando’s cinematic performances a great deal. Or,” a slight change in the angle of Armand’s head, “if you find your way back towards the train station you arrived at, there is a more… discreet club in that area. The gentlemen in attendance are not particularly discerning, and you, a dashing young newcomer - you could likely have your pick.”

“Right. Yeah.” The train station is at last half an hour’s walk away. He should head to the dance club, try his luck with the Brando fan. “Thanks, Armand.” He pauses. Looks once more at the remains of the inn, which are still faintly smoking. “Seriously. Thank you.”

Armand does not open his eyes. A dismissive wave of his hand is all the acknowledgement Daniel gets.

When he reaches the edge of the park and looks back, the bench is empty.

Daniel ends up in the club at the train station, after all, and spends the rest of the night - and the next one, and the one after that, too - in the bed of a young man with dark curls and large, sad eyes, who lets himself be interviewed and tells Daniel about how he and his sister fled Bangladesh during the recent War of Independence.

And in the right light, the guy does look a bit like-

…but let’s not read too much into that. Yeah? Yeah.

Years pass. Daniel finally realises why Armand hasn’t killed him, amidst the ruins of Pompeii.

(This happens on the night between the 23rd and 24th of August. Daniel will call it their anniversary in the years to come, and Armand will bemusedly agree, though the concept is human and foreign to him.)

They kiss. Daniel tastes heaven and hell in Armand’s blood for the first time. They are in love.

Years pass.

Chapter 15: The Past (II): Raining

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Armand is sitting at the foot end of their well-used bed, gazing out the rain-splattered window and watching with some fascination as the latest tropical storm (“they named it Danielle, my love. Is that not funny?” - “Hilarious, Armand”) does its best at drowning the city. Not as successful as hurricane Allen a month ago, according to the weather service, but Daniel wasn’t in the country at the time so he wouldn’t know. And thank god for that - his bosses might’ve gotten it into their heads that they should send Daniel Molloy out to wade through waist-deep water for a little hurricane report. No thanks.

Usually, they would spend the night out on the town, Armand dragging Daniel to some event or artist or location, but the weather makes this impractical and unpleasant, so here they are, instead. They’re having a night in, just the two of them in Daniel’s bedroom, making their own entertainment. There’s takeout and beer in the fridge, and a bag of blood, and neither of them are planning to leave the flat until the storm lets up.

Armand is enjoying a cigarette while he watches the rain, as he often does after a good f*cking. Daniel idly wonders when he started doing that (and with whom), if it’s as pleasant to vampires as it is for humans, or if he just likes having something to do during the afterglow. It can’t be old habit from his human days, Daniel doesn’t think - he’s pretty sure Armand predates tobacco coming to Europe.

Not that it matters. Not that anything matters except how gorgeous he looks, how elegant, something horribly Old World about the way he smokes, fingers delicately pinching the cigarette, blowing out smoke that glitters silver in the light from the streetlamps outside. He doesn’t look naked, even though his skin is bare everywhere but for the sheets pooled in his lap - no, he looks nude, something artful about the way he holds himself. A model waiting for a painter to immortalise him.

Well, bullsh*t to that. Armand’s already immortal, he doesn’t need some f*cking painter to do it for him, and Daniel’s fingers are itching to ruin that pretty picture of well-arranged solitary elegance.

Am I allowed to touch? He thinks in Armand’s direction. Even in his mind, his voice sounds pathetically eager. Well, fine. Let Armand know how much he’s gagging for it. He’s never minded Daniel’s eagerness before.

Armand’s lips curl, very slightly, around the cigarette’s filter. His eyes flicker over towards him, half-hidden under dark lashes.

Beg, comes the order.

“Please,” Daniel says so quickly the word comes out slurred, his tongue barely keeping up. “Please, boss, may I, please-”

Armand crooks one finger, and Daniel jumps forward like a dog let off the leash, desperate to get his mouth onto the curve of Armand’s shoulder, press sloppy kisses to his dark skin, gnaw at his neck as if it would ever yield to Daniel’s pitifully blunt teeth. He does it mostly for the way it makes Armand chuckle, warm and amused, the sound reverberating through them both. He said once that it amuses him, delights him, the way some people are delighted by something utterly crass and vulgar, or the way they revel in blasphemy, in absurdity. How ridiculous, a human biting a vampire!

It bruises Daniel’s ego a bit, and his genuine wish to have the sort of teeth needed to actually pierce Armand’s perfect skin hangs heavy over this harmless little game, but, oh, he’s so eager to please Armand, see his smile, hear his rich laugh, that he’ll debase himself readily for it anyway.

Armand is indulgent tonight, letting Daniel slobber all over him, sully him with pawing hands and drying spit, press their bodies together in the hope that some of the sweat and barely-dried blood covering Daniel will rub off. If Armand won’t let Daniel ascend to vampirism, then he will try his best to drag Armand down into the dirt with his worthless, filthy, mortal hands. His grasping, clumsy fingers stroke over the hair on Armand’s chest, and suddenly he is straddling one of Armand’s folded legs, humping helplessly against it.

“Already, again?” Armand murmurs, acting put-upon without much conviction. He doesn’t even manage to sound annoyed, eyes alight with appreciation. “Have you no patience, beloved? I’ve not even finished this cigarette.”

“I don’t care- or, wait. Put it out on me,” Daniel offers readily, leaning back just to make sure Armand has access to all of him, spreads his arms and sticks his chest out. It’s a nice chest, Daniel knows what he’s got there, and he’ll make use of it. “Anywhere you like.”

Armand’s brow creases lightly. “I do not like. Fire and burns are rarely sexually gratifying in the estimate of vampires.” A pause. Armand is in his brain now, and Daniel readily invites him in. He’d have him in there 24/7 if it were up to him - it’s almost impressive how many aspects of Armand he can get hopelessly and destructively addicted to. “But you crave it. The sting of it, the humiliation. The permanent mark. A slow, deep pain that lasts. You have wanted it since you were 17, and saw a man, at a disreputable bar where they never checked ID, who used his willing companion’s palm to extinguish a cigar. You wanted to go and offer your hand for the next, and imagined excitedly how painful it would be to pleasure yourself with the burn still on your palm afterwards. You did not dare, then. You always regretted that.”

“Ooooh, yeah, dig into my brain some more, psychoanalyse me,” Daniel moan-drawls, grinning. “That’s so hot, babe. Talk dirty to me, tell me what, uh…” His brain is mostly relocating to his groin, but he gropes for vague memories of the books Armand had him read, the topics they discussed. “...what Freud would say about vampires and phallic fang symbolism. Hey, does that mean I have some form of penis envy, because I want to have-”

Hush, lover. Armand kisses him, nips at his cheek with those fangs Daniel envies so much, and draws him down to the sheets. He doesn’t know where the cigarette went, and doesn’t mourn for long that it wasn’t ‘onto his body’. Maybe he can convince Armand to do that next time, even if it does nothing for him. Hell, that might make it hotter, Armand disinterested and distantly indulgent while Daniel gets his rocks off.

Next time, then. Next time.

Now, tonight, this time, Armand drags Daniel’s body to rest on top of him - he likes that, sometimes, Daniel’s probably-negligible weight pressing down on him - with almost frightening ease, and they kiss, and kiss, and-

Armand stills.

“Hm?” Daniel draws back. “Armand? Is something…”

He trails off. Armand is stiff as a board - not like that, unfortunately - under him, head turned in the direction of the street outside, eyes wide and alert. He’s startled by something, that much is clear.

“Arma-” Daniel tries again, and he doesn’t know what he can do, what he should do, he has no f*cking clue what’s going on, he’s just a little mortal and if there’s something or someone out there that distresses Armand, there’s no way he-

“Rest,” Armand interrupts him without even meeting his eyes, and his voice is like a steel wall slamming into Daniel’s face.

His body goes limp, his arms buckle, he collapses. Armand pushes Daniel off him, as if he weighed no more than the sheets tangled around him. He rises, dresses quickly and efficiently, and stalks out the door.

And Daniel rests…

Or, well.

Not entirely.

There’s a voice in the back of his head, and it speaks to him in Louis’ gentle New Orleans drawl, no, boy, come on. You don’t want to rest, do you? That’s right. You don’t. Up, now. Keep your wits about you. That’s it, and even though his body won’t obey his commands, his mind is slowly dragging itself out of the artificial stupor Armand has put it into with a single word.

(It’s not so difficult, really. He thinks he was able to do this back in San Francisco, too, push back inch by careful inch against Armand’s hypnotic suggestions. He really, truly, never wanted to rest, not really, not fully, and that makes it easier to cling to consciousness, for all that Armand exerts such easy, casual control over his body.)

What are you, asks the voice in Daniel’s mind, say it, boy, and Daniel thinks back, a bright young reporter, yeah, that’s what I am. And I want to see whatever happens next from MY point of view.

(He wonders if Armand can tell it didn’t work. If he knows that Daniel can fight back like this. If it even matters to him.)

Daniel lies there, aware but unable to move, and strains to hear. The rattling of raindrops against the window and the fire escape just outside it is drowning out everything. He counts his breaths, tries to keep them even. Don’t panic, Danny. Don’t get drowsy, either. In, out. In, out.

Voices. Voices, in the apartment. Talking. One is Armand, he thinks. Well, duh, obviously it must be. Not raised in anger, though, and nothing’s breaking, so that’s… good? Probably?

God, some part of Daniel wishes he could move, throw on some clothes and do a runner, scamper out on the fire escape and take his chances with the storm. f*cking coward, is what he is, but, hey, he’s mortal and fragile and currently scared sh*tless, he thinks he can be excused just this once.

Footsteps. Approaching. Daniel slows his breathing further, resists the urge to see if he can get his eyelids to budge. Even then, he can smell the fresh-wet rain, the aroma of the storm someone brought inside with them.

“There,” Armand says. His voice sounds dull, tight. It scratches at shoddily-recovered memories in a distant corner of Daniel’s mind, the ones Armand shoved back in there almost roughly when he decided he wanted to hunt Daniel down for a bit, after San Francisco. “Does that satisfy you? Have you appeased your conscience merely by seeing him alive, or is there more I need to do to dispel your suspicions? Would you like to inspect his living conditions? Medical records? Credit score?”

“Calm down, Armand,” responds another voice, and for a moment Daniel thinks it’s in his head, until he realises, no. No, it isn’t. He’s here. He’s really here.

“I’m not here to do an… an inspection, or anything of the like,” Louis continues, evenly, in that pacifying tone he’s got, which makes you want to trust him even though the chances are 50-50 he’s boiling with anger underneath and is just about to snap. Daniel remembers that tone from the interview. There’s really no telling which way he’ll swing, until it’s too late. “I just wanted to drop in, now that I’m feeling better, make sure you’re treating our boy right. Can’t fault me for that, after the first time. And,” now the tone lightens, Daniel can hear that devastatingly handsome grin in it, “I’m mighty pleased to see just how right you’re treating him.”

“Do not act like-!”

“Not an accusation. And I ought to offer my apologies, for clearly having arrived at a bad time. Or during a very good time, maybe.”

“You are always welcome wherever I am, Maître,” Armand says. And then, softer, “I have missed you, Louis. I am glad to see you better.”

“Missed you, too.”

Daniel decides to risk it all, and, with considerable effort, manages to get his eyelids just a sliver apart. Just barely enough to see through.

They stand there by the bed, towering above him, Louis and Armand, their heads tucked against each other, sharing a quiet kiss - and, f*ck, Daniel would be lying if he said he didn’t have a wet dream or two (or a dozen) that started just like this.

Louis is dressed like a businessman, his strict, impeccable suit mostly dry, but carrying the distinct aroma of petrichor into the room. He looks like the sort of guy who takes careful note of the stock exchange and dines with politicians, a far cry from the hom*ophile honeypot act Daniel first fell for at Polynesian Mary’s - but maybe not so different from the vampire he interviewed that first night. And, hey, there’s still a few patches of uneven skin along the side of his face - the sun really got him good, if even vampiric healing in near-death sleep is taking its sweet time fixing that up.

Daniel watches them part, sway back together for another brief kiss. Maybe he should feel jealous, being the mortal side piece to Louis’ faithful vampiric companion, but, f*ck, most of all he just wants to be sandwiched between them. Real classy thoughts there, Molloy. Project them a bit louder, why don’t you.

“So, you’ve been keeping pretty busy with our Danny then?” Louis pulls back to ask, playful.

“I have. He is indeed as endlessly fascinating as you once said.” Armand smiles faintly. “Do not say ‘I told you so’.”

“I wasn’t gonna!” Louis defends himself with a laugh, holding his hands up. “I’m glad about this.”

Armand’s brows draw together. “Are you?”

“Well, you don’t have to sit at home alone and pick lint off the sofa, anymore.” Louis shrugs, careless. “I’ve had my boys, I’ve had plenty of ‘em, only seems fair you get to enjoy one, too.”

“Those boys meant nothing to you. He-” Armand begins, and then breaks off so sharply his teeth clack together.

“He?”

“You said he is a testament of… of our companionship.” Armand says stiffly. “You even demanded that he should live, and remember what you are, in direct violation of the Great Laws. He means something to you.”

“Ah. To me, huh.” Louis laughs. It’s a dangerous laugh. “And what does he mean to you, Armand?”

“Nothing,” Armand says. It’s too quick. He’s not looking at either Louis, nor Daniel, as he says it. Still, Daniel’s heart seizes a little. Stupid of him. This is how it goes. Like the married guys at the gay bars, who lie to their lovers, their wives, and themselves, over and over again. Even vampires aren’t exempt from being that sort of asshole, huh.

f*ck. And Armand knows Daniel is hearing this, he must know… but either he wanted Daniel to know his place, here, or he doesn’t care one way or another. Wonderful.

Suddenly, Louis’ eyes flicker over to him.

He’s lying. If that helps, Daniel hears, murmured into his mind. And he doesn’t know you’re awake and listening. I’m blocking your thoughts off from him.

What? Daniel thinks back, startled. His breath hitches. Why!?

Because he really doesn’t want you to hear this conversation, which, to me, is all the more reason you should. And, you know, it’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? You can’t keep even a single thought secret from him, and, Danny, I might not have known the full extent of it at the time, but I do remember what that was like. With… him. You know. A secret smile, while Armand is still very focused on avoiding Louis’ gaze. So, consider this a little bit of payback, hm? He gets all your secrets. Seems only fair that I should give you access to one of his.

Hey, man, thanks, Daniel would shift awkwardly if he could, but I don’t know about-

Shh-shh-sh. Accept the gift I’m offering. I think this could be good for both of you.

“Nothing, huh.” Louis says at last, out loud, raising one brow. “That right?”

Armand’s gaze snaps back to him. “What do you think I am hiding, Louis? Why the surprise visit? Why this suspicion?” He asks sharply. “Do you begrudge me my boy, in truth? Do you? I know you never liked it when he-”

He breaks off. The spectre of Lestat, this man Daniel has never met but has heard plenty of, is in the room with them, as tangible as if he were perched on the bed at Daniel’s side.

“He is a mortal boy. That is all. What could he mean to me? What could one of his ilk ever mean, to a vampire such as me?” Armand is clearly aiming for dismissive. It comes out desperate. “Louis, I have chosen you, in Paris, and every day since. You are my companion. I love you, Louis. I love you!”

“I know,” Louis sighs.

“So, ask me to leave him! Ask me to go with you tonight and never return,” Armand says, almost pleads, his voice raw. “Ask me, and I will.”

“I’m not asking you to do that,” Louis responds, in a tone he probably thinks is kind. “And neither am I telling you.”

“Louis-”

“Are you happy with him, Armand? Do you love him? The truth, now.”

A long pause. Then, reluctantly, drawn out of him with pliers, “...yes.”

“To which?”

“To both.”

“Then keep him. Our cursed existence is miserable enough as it is, don’t deprive yourself of him if he brings you joy.” A pause. “Does he love you, too?”

“He believes so. Loves what I give him, at least. But, ah, you know the love of mortals.” A light laugh, brittle to the point of breaking. “Fickle, and impermanent. It will last but a lifetime. Likely less. Barely the blink of an eye, to me.”

“Then keep him,” Louis repeats, more sharply, pointed.

Three words. This time, they suck all the air out of the room, and of Daniel’s lungs.

“No,” Armand says, horror in his tone. He takes a step back. “That- no. No, you know I have never- that I will never!”

“And you know that he wants it,” Louis points out, calmly. Daniel would nod if he could.

“A mortal’s wants! He is clueless as to what he asks for!” Armand spits out a bitter, high laugh. “He wants heroin too, and cocaine, and his body weight in alcohol, and to never sober up at all. Shall I give him that, as well? He wants to be f*cked until he’s bloody and broken, he wants to be bitten and drained dry, he wants to kill like we do, and he wants, deep down, to die - oh, by all means, let us indulge him!”

“I’m not saying any of that, Armand. I’m only saying, you should turn him. Keep him.”

“As what?” The laugh is wetter now. Helpless. “A fledgling who will only grow to resent me?”

“I was thinking, as a companion.”

“I have a companion,” Armand says immediately. “You’re my companion.”

Louis shrugs. His excellent suit accentuates the motion. He says nothing.

“Louis,” Armand gasps, pained; and, oh, Daniel is starting to think he really should not be awake for this after all. It’s worse than what he half-bore witness to, barely alive, in the apartment on Divisadero - that was a marital spat. This is a mercy killing.

“Hey, no, no.” Louis catches Armand’s chin in his hand, draws a soothing thumb over his lips. “It’s not like that. But you’re happy with him, right? I want to give you the option to be happy, if you want to take it. The door’s open. You can walk out anytime you want.”

“How chivalrous of you!” Armand wrenches his face away, angry. “Spare me your false concern, Louis. Spare me this pretence at generosity. You want to rid yourself of me, say so plainly.”

“I want only what’s best for us both-”

Armand scoffs. “You want what’s best for you.”

Undeterred, “-and for our boy.” A pause. “ Your boy, now, I think.”

Armand says nothing. At his side, his fingers are rubbing uneasily together.

“If that means a rearrangement of relations, I’d be open to that. Is all I’m saying.” Louis finishes, soothingly. “Okay?”

“Noted.” Armand’s voice is clipped, distant. “And irrelevant.”

“Oh, Armand-”

“I will not see him become a vampire, Louis. I would rather die than turn him. That is how much I love him. How much he means to me.” Another laugh, weak and tired. “I would never curse him so.”

“You sure? He’ll die. Soon, perhaps.”

“So he will.” Armand inclines his head, expression blank. “Will you grant me leave to… enjoy him, until then? It won’t last. He’s mortal, and he will remain mortal, and he will die a mortal’s death soon enough. But can I trust that I will have you to return to, when it’s over? That you will call for me, should you want me before that? Maître?”

Louis’ eyes flicker over to Daniel’s still form again. He looks conflicted, now.

“Enjoy him,” he finally says, “for as long as you’re able. Be in love. Be happy. I think you could deserve that much.”

(He isn’t saying this just to Armand, Daniel realises. Maybe even not to Armand at all.)

“But be careful,” says Louis, frowning. “I think you’re setting yourself up for a great deal of pain, and I don’t want to see you hurt. Really, I don’t.”

He leans in, kisses Armand, gently. Armand lets him. It’s a kiss goodbye, for an indeterminate time - but, very pointedly, not forever.

Good luck, Danny, Louis whispers into Daniel’s mind as he goes. I’m sorry I couldn’t get any further than this. He’s stubborn.

Hey, don’t wear mourning colours just yet, Daniel sends back, a little shakily. His heart is still in his throat. He doesn’t know how to feel, what to think. Honestly, he’s just quietly glad that Louis doesn’t seem to be as prone to jealousy over what his companion gets up to with sh*tty little kids from Modesto as Armand was. Maybe I’ll manage to convince him, one of these days. Maybe I’ll have fangs in no time.

Maybe, Louis agrees, almost fondly.

The rustle of a raincoat, the opening and closing of a door - and then he’s gone.

A minute or so passes.

Then, Armand returns. Sits down at the edge of the bed, almost falls down onto it like a ventriloquist puppet discarded after a performance, motionless limbs hanging off his torso haphazardly. He looks oddly lost like this, forlorn, as if something has spun far out of his control and he doesn’t really understand where he went wrong, so he’s simply… shutting off.

Daniel reaches for him.

It takes him… minutes, at least, to move his hand far enough to catch the hem of Armand’s shirt and tug at it. But he manages. ‘Rest’-ing is for suckers.

Tug. Tug.

On the third, Armand reactivates somewhat. The ventriloquist doll is possessed now, half-turning to face him with its blank, haunted eyes, and Daniel can already feel Armand in his head, searching.

He’s not afraid. He lets Armand brush Louis’ flimsy defences around his memories of the overheard conversation away, like so many cobwebs. It doesn’t matter. Let Armand know that he heard, what he thought about it all. Let him be angry, if he wants to be.

Armand isn’t. A sigh, a soft, frustrated “Louis,” and a grimace, yes, but no real anger. Daniel can’t quite decide if he’s disappointed or relieved.

Then, a hand crawls over Daniel’s, still clutching the shirt hem, and to his wrist, around his pulse, holding on tight. Armand is waiting, Daniel realises, for him to speak. And Daniel will speak. He has to. He can feel the words forming, pressing up against his vocal chords, filling his mouth, almost suffocating him.

So he speaks.

“Will you turn me?” is what Daniel asks, softly. He has never asked before. Armand knew he wanted it, they both acknowledged the desire, the thoughts, on occasion even joked about it - but this is the first time he has asked, out loud. “Please.”

Armand pulls his hand back, and looks at him as if Daniel has stabbed him in the back, thrown him to the wolves, torn his heart out of his chest, and tossed it out into the torrential rain. It’s still better than the blankness that came before.

“No,” he mouths, barely audible. His still lungs have not drawn in breath enough to speak. Then, louder now, shaking, “no, Daniel. I will not. I will never.”

“Oh,” Daniel says. His own heart is feeling pretty rained-on now, too. “...so you’ll watch me die, then. Probably smile as I go, you sick bastard.”

“No.” Armand only looks more stricken. “Your death will break me, beloved. I feel this, in my soul, in my bones, the keen anticipatory edge of future agony. I am not the same now as I was, before you. After you, I will be changed again. For a mortal, to mark an immortal so - you have such power over me, my Daniel. Don’t you know that you will die, and I will be shattered?”

“Shattered. Hah. You’ll just go back to Louis,” Daniel murmurs, unhappy, petulant. Squeezes his eyes shut, would roll over if he had more control over his body. Like a pouting boy, but he feels so young, and so rejected. Armand does not want him. Not as a companion. Not forever. He knew this, and yet it hurts.

“I will, yes. If I did not have him, if he had not allowed me to return to him… you must understand, my heart, you are a gift to me from Louis. Permitting me this love, this happiness, and the pain I will feel at their loss - that is Louis’ very own brand of cruelty, masked as kindness, even in his own eyes. There are things he will never forgive me for, and I think, perhaps, that I in turn will not forgive him this.” A cold hand settles against Daniel’s neck, over his pulse. The old scar, Armand and Louis layering bites over each other. “And yet, I need Louis, as he needs me; so I will return to him, eventually.”

When I’m dead, Daniel thinks, bitterly. When you’ve had your fill of me. Like a pet you take care of for a few years, but which will only ever occupy a fraction of your life.

“But he will receive only shards,” Armand continues somberly, ignoring Daniel’s thoughts that must be ringing in his head as loudly as if he were shouting. “Perhaps he will put them together again - I would trust him to do so in the right shape. Perhaps he will leave me broken.” A heavy sigh. “I… will find out, I suppose.”

The storm outside rattles the window in its old frame. The plinkplinkplink of rain on the fire escape is almost deafening.

“Why won’t you,” Daniel finally bursts out, despair bubbling up his throat. “I want it. f*ck, I want it more than anything! Being like you, like Louis, I’d be great at it, and I want it, I want it, I want it, why-”

“Because I do not trust you.” Daniel opens his eyes. Armand is not looking at him, he’s turned towards the window again. Lighting flashes across his lovely, monstrous face, and for a moment he looks old. Ancient. The light and shadow around his large eyes look like a spiderweb of wrinkles, or perhaps simply cracks. “I cannot trust that you will not grow to resent me.”

“I will not,” Daniel echoes Armand’s own words back at him, helplessly. “I will never!”

Armand laughs. “You are an infant,” he murmurs, fondly, to the window. His hand moves blindly to settle over Daniel’s heart. “What does a boy of less than thirty years know of the sort of resentment eternity breeds? Nothing! Nothing at all.” Fingernails, sharp, claw-like, digging into the meat of his chest. “And I will ensure that it remains that way. I will never Make you a vampire, my sweet, naive boy.”

Armand looks down. His eyes are rimmed with red, swimming with blood tears.

“And if you truly love me, you will not ask me again.”

Daniel fights to move his arm again, put his hand over Armand’s. It seems to surprise them both that he manages.

“I love you,” he tells the monster keeping him pinned with nothing but a stray thought, who could dig his claws into Daniel’s flesh and pry out his ribs one by one. Who already holds his heart, still-beating, in the palm of his hand, and always will. “And that’s why I’ll keep asking. If you don’t want that, kill me and have done with.”

Armand closes his eyes, pained, tired. A drop of red falls, like the millions of raindrops outside, and lands on the sheets to leave a stain there. A tear. The Vampire Armand has wept for a human. For Daniel Molloy. Fancy that.

“And that, I suppose, is your brand of cruelty, Daniel my love,” he says, and his tone is so brittle, so cold, that Daniel thinks he can hear some of the eternity-fueled resentment Armand spoke of in it, clear as day.

There’s no more talking that night. No more f*cking, either, more’s the pity. Armand just crawls up onto the bed, still-clothed, draws the blanket over Daniel’s half-paralysed naked body, kisses his forehead, and then lies down facing him. Watching him. They are not touching anywhere except for Armand’s palm over his heart, but Daniel feels him all over, still. So close, almost as one, yet always apart.

And Armand wants to keep it like that.

In silence, they wait out the storm together.

(Some years later, Armand and Daniel will fight viciously over the matter of vampire turning. Again. Daniel will run. Armand will return to Louis, though he knows, they all know, that Daniel’s fugue state will not last. It will seem almost like Armand hopes it would.

And still he will be miserable, a broken husk without a heart in his chest; and finally, Louis will step out of the shower in their home in Sausalito, see Armand curled up in misery on the sofa and say “oh, f*ck this sh*t. You won’t turn him? That’s fine. I’ll turn him, and make a gift of him to you.”

Armand will look at him, with wide, blank eyes, inscrutable thoughts racing behind them.

And then he will say, softly, “you will not touch him. You will not do this to him.”

“Why not? He is ours, both of ours.” There will be an appearance of that smile of Louis’, so beautiful, so cruel. Monstrous and charming. “One could even point out that I saw him first. When I wanted the boy to live, to endure, in ‘73, you obeyed me. Why should you have an objection now, Arun? I’ll turn him if I want to. And I do. Someday, you’ll thank me for it.”

Armand will be silent, boiling with helpless rage, shaking with sheer terror.

Until he will rise, and step forward, and meet Louis’ eyes, and slip into his head - easy as that.

“The boy means little to you,” he will murmur, soft, hypnotic, tremulous. “An amusing night’s diversion, nothing more. Fascinating, oh yes, but at the end of the night, you did not particularly care if he lived or died. You remember none of what happened in San Francisco after you bit him and blacked out. I was not there. I found him again afterwards, because I could see you were partial to him, and had a hunch Daniel might prove fruitful in later times. Eventually, I took him as a lover out of idle curiosity; and you let me have my fun, as uncaring of how I spend my free time as ever you were. You will not seek him out again.”

“I will not seek him out again,” Louis will repeat, his face slack. There will be a spark of anger, of resistance in his eyes… but only a spark. Armand will snuff it out easily.

“He means little to you.”

“He means little to me.”

“You do not care if he lives or dies.”

“I do not care if he lives or dies.”

“In ‘73, you bit him, and blacked out. I was not there. You remember nothing else.”

“In ‘73, I bit him, and blacked out. You were not there. I remember nothing else.”

And for 40 years, this act of cowardice will keep Louis disinterested, and the matter settled.

Until the second interview.

Until it doesn’t.)

Years pass. They are still so terribly, horribly in love. But that’s not enough, anymore. Armand keeps saying no. He does not trust Daniel. Possibly, Daniel does not give him much reason to.

And the years pass…

Chapter 16: The Past (III): Flying

Chapter Text

They fight.

Daniel runs.

Daniel calls out.

He is brought home.

They fight again. Daniel runs. Daniel calls out. He is brought home.

(They are in love. Still, and always. And yet...)

Fight. Run. Call. Home. Fight. Run. Call. Home. Over and over.

Years pass.

Another fight. More running. Daniel calls for Armand,come get me, please, please, find me, I need you, Armand, without you I feel... god, I feel... I...

And everything goes dark.

I’m cold, thinks Daniel. sh*t, I’m so cold.

He feels arms drape a blanket around him. He tries, weakly, to catch one of them, draw them around him to warm him, but the skin he feebly brushes against is ice-cold. Dead.

Soon, he’ll be, too.

Daniel? Beloved, please. Open your eyes. Look at me.

Daniel does. Daniel tries. His vision goes a bit blurry, but there’s a smudge of brown with specks of orange in front of him, and he finds that he’s really attracted to that smudge, so it must be Armand.

“Hey, beautiful,” he croaks with a smile, reaching out again. “Wh’s vampire like you doing inna place like… like… where are we?”

“The plane, the one with the bedroom. You ran away, you called for me, you collapsed in the street before I could find you.” Cold hands catch his, cold lips press a kiss to his palm. They tremble slightly against Daniel’s skin. “Do you remember?”

“Nah.” He manages to tangle some fingers in Armand’s curls, tugs at them, until that sexy smudge leans closer. “I ‘member that I missed you.”

“And I you, lover,” Armand responds with a sigh. “Why do you leave? Why do you run, and then do not eat and do not sleep, and wander around in the cold?”

“I-” I can’t eat or sleep or feel the temperature when I’m not with you. You did that to me, you old bastard. I can only think of you, of kissing you, holding you, drinking your blood, because you drew me into your web like some sorta vampire spider, and I can never get farther than the furthest edges of that web while you still have your claws in me. Do spiders have claws? Don’t care, you do. And, oh, Armand, they’ve pierced all the way through me.

“I did nothing to you,” Armand responds to his unspoken words, wretchedly. “I did nothing, I- I did not intend for it to-”

And I run because I can’t bear it. Being with you, but not being like you. Turn me, damn you, or kill me - or let me die. I know it won’t be long now.

“Mere days.” A broken whisper. “If you go on as before.”

If YOU go on as before. Turn me. Come on.

“No.”

Please.

“I can’t.” A wetness on Daniel’s cheek. Might be Armand’s tears. Might be his own. “I would sooner die. I would sooner-”

“Let me die,” Daniel finishes. He’s still so cold. Everything hurts. He doesn’t care anymore, none of it matters. Armand’s amulet is so heavy where it rests on his sternum, makes it feel like he can barely expand his chest to breathe. “‘Kay. S’fine.” He only wants Armand to hold him. To touch him. He wants a lot of things his body is in no state for. He thinks of the breathless high that is Armand’s blood, better than any other upper he’s ever had, which would give him a few hours’ reprieve from feeling like death warmed over - but Armand's mental presence, wrapped so tightly around his brainstem, bats the thought away almost viciously.

Okay. Alright. Message received, boss.

“...hold me?” He asks instead. That’ll be enough for now.

Armand holds him. Slips under the blanket with him, peels off Daniel’s sweat-sodden clothes with gentle hands, then his own. Holds him. Cold skin to fever-hot skin.

They do something that is slow and quiet and might be making love. It’s good. It feels nice. Not much has felt nice to Daniel, lately.

Armand tells him he loves him, kisses him, gently, deeply, helplessly. Holds him. Daniel’s so cold, but it’s still nice, to be kissed and touched all over by those frigid corpse hands, as if Armand is trying to memorise the shape of him. He’s pretty sure that it’s definitely Armand crying now. Daniel’s too tired to cry, and it all hurts too much.

Finally, Armand slides into Daniel’s mind again. Curls into the burrow he made himself there, presses his gentle clawed hands into Daniel’s thoughts. Red tears are staining the pillow. That’ll never wash out.

“When you were five years old, you found a newborn bird by the side of the road. Perhaps a finch, perhaps a sparrow,” Armand murmurs, and he speaks inside and outside Daniel at the same time, voice soft and hypnotic and melodious, “and you brought it home, for you loved it so. You fed it from your own plate, and it returned your love. But love could not keep it from sickening. Love could not teach it to spread its crippled wings and at last escape you. You loved it so, and you could tell it was in pain. Little chirping cries of agony, sweetly-sung death rattles. You loved it so, and it was dying.”

Drip-drip-drip, tears onto the pillow. A hand cradling Daniel’s caved-in cheek, thumb rubbing over sallow skin.

“It died in your hands, cupped in your palms, your beloved little bird. And as it lay there, still at last, you wept, and wished you had never found this fragile little thing, wished that you had never grown to love each other, so that you both might have lived ignorant of temporary bliss, and eternal agony. Your father said you could have stuffed it, had you been quick enough; but it had already all rotted away in your fingers, tiny little bones and broken feathers, and you did not want it stuffed anyway. Did not want it to watch you, for all eternity, with its dead eyes, and hate you for loving it so.”

“Nah. Never had a bird,” Daniel mumbles, distantly. “Hate the little sh*ts. Stupid chirps. None of that ever happened. Y’r lying.”

“Yes. Yes, my beloved boy. My Daniel.”

A sadness, vast as the endless expanse of space, deep as the sea. Loss, amplified a thousandfold by love.

“You are correct. I am lying.”

Armand’s grief is filling out Daniel’s brain. He’s everywhere. He’s further than he ever went before. He’s the whole world to him now, his whole life, Armand in San Francisco, Armand in Pompeii, Armand in Paris, Armand, Armand, Armand-

“And none of that ever happened.”

And then, suddenly:

Nothing.

Chapter 17: In Which The Truth Comes To Light (I)

Chapter Text

The flat is quiet.

Well, it’s as quiet as a flat in New York ever gets, even in the middle of the night, which is ‘not very’. Especially not for a vampire’s hearing. The traffic outside, the pacing of the insomniac on the second floor, the cooing of pigeons nesting on a nearby balcony, drunken laughter, someone crying into a pillow, the humming of electronics…

(Whispers, neverending whispers, spitting resentment straight into Daniel’s brain, insults, mockery, a thousand voices except the one Daniel wants to hear.)

It’s so loud. It hurts- no. No, it’s beyond pain, it’s empty. Numb. Daniel’s pounding head has cracked open like an eggshell, like the broken vial clutched against the locket in his shaking hand, brain and pain and blood seeping out, leaving a husk. The glass is digging into his skin, vampire healing trying to close the wounds around the sharp edges. That doesn’t hurt, either.

It’s all just noise. Noise, everywhere, under his skin, in his blood. Deafening.

(The world is shaking, the hum of nonexistent plane engines roaring around him, decades-old rain battering the windows, fire engine sirens howling at him from his memories. His own voice, begging, begging, begging. Armand’s cold, hard refusal. Armand’s hitching sobs. Armand, Armand, come to me, come, please, where are you, why have you made yourself deaf to me, I am home and you are not here, it’s wrong, it’s all wrong, Armand-!)

Someone on the street, coughing. Footsteps up the stairs, tap tap creak on the bad third step tap tap tap. Familiar. The sharp clack of the bolt getting forced back, without the jangling of keys before it.

“Daniel!”

The front door, thrust open. Banging against the wall. Daniel makes a sound at the noise, halfway between hiss and whine, pained and animalistic.

“Daniel, fledgling, hear me! An outrage has been done! An injustice!”

Shoes, kicked off, but still arranged with obsessive neatness by the door.

“Louis has- oh, how dare he! Louis has contacted me, and this I did not mind, no, I was surprised and occupied with my event, but what are diversions shared with mortals against vampire matters, what is anything against the rare chance to hear my former companion’s cherished voice again - no, that I found no issue with!”

A messenger bag dropped to the ground. A coat, almost torn off, lining sliding against the silk of Armand’s nice shirts.

“Louis was most wroth, directing cruel words against me - again, he is well within his rights to do so! I thought it long overdue!”

Coat onto the hook.

“He raged against me for the Trial, for Claudia, even for Madeleine, and I accepted his fury as well-deserved - I have always known there will be no forgiveness from him, and I hope only that in condemning me thoroughly at last he may find some measure of peace - but then, Daniel! Then he came to speak of you!”

Footsteps, down the corridor. Kicking away the boxes Daniel scattered there, contents crushed under Armand’s firm tread. He does not seem to even notice the mess.

“And how he condemned me! How he accused me! He said that I did not know your value, that I mistreat you, that I lie and manipulate to keep you locked in misery, that I neglect my responsibilities as a companion and Maker both!”

Armand in the living room now. The lights are off, but he is radiant in his anger, eyes flashing in the darkness. Filling the room. His presence is deafening.

“Louis said,” Armand spits, face contorted in a demonic mask, the epitome of immortal beauty, “that I am the most neglectful, careless, and emotionally damaging lover on this earth, which, he reminded me, also holds Lestat - and,” his voice rises into a shriek that cuts Daniel to the marrow, “I DID NOT CARE FOR THIS COMPARISON!”

Those glowing eyes skitter across the room, searching for Daniel’s form. They oscillate. The movement is noisy to watch, too.

“So you will correct him, Daniel! You will clarify that I attend to your needs to the very best of my ability! You will vouch for my genuine efforts to make you feel as deeply loved as you deserve! You will not let this slander against my person-”

Armand’s eyes settle on Daniel’s form, slumped in the armchair - he tried tucking himself into a corner to shield himself from the noise, but that didn’t do sh*t - and he falls silent. His snarl softens as he tastes the air, tastes Daniel’s blood on it.

Alarm, now. From one second to another. The single-minded fury melts away as if it was never there.

“...Daniel?” A step forward. Hands outstretched. Oh, those hands, those claws. How they pierced through him. How they still do. “Beloved! Are you unwell? Why did you not call-”

Daniel raises his head. Even though it is all cracked open and hollow, this takes implausible effort. Whatever shows on his face - he doesn’t know, he doesn’t, he’s not in his body anymore, it has nothing to do with him - silences Armand all over again.

“Thirty-seven years,” Daniel croaks, in a voice that sounds hoarse, alien, to him. He thinks he screamed, after tasting the blood in the amulet. That’s far away, too, and there was so, so much noise, anyway. He can’t tell which part was him, anymore. His face feels like it’s cracking apart as he speaks, but maybe that’s just the thin layer of dried blood-tears crumbling along the lines of his wrinkles. “You left me. Alone. For thirty-f*cking-seven years.”

“Thir-?” Armand’s head makes as if to angle into his usual mien of polite confusion, but halts midway.

His radiant eyes widen. So big they could swallow Daniel whole, twin pits of fire to burn him up. He understands. He knows. He meets Daniel’s gaze, and he sees, he must see, the dying young man staring out of the immortal old man’s eyes, both blending together in their terror, dissolving hand in hand in the sea of noise.

(Armand goes corpse-still when he startles. Daniel remembers now when he learned this fact, the crystal-clear memory cutting into his frontal lobe like the broken glass vial into his palm. He can smell fire, smoke, and Armand was right - then, back then, he was right - it is a singularly unappealing smell to vampires.)

“Daniel,” Armand says, a gasp of a name, like that first spark of un-life after a turning, like a dawn vampires shouldn’t get to see, like the first drop of blood hitting your tongue, “you remember.”

“Yeah,” Daniel spits out. The word tears itself out of his chest, and it doesn’t even hurt. He feels so numb all over.

But then Armand echoes it, a “yes” so full of disbelieving glee, his face ugly with how much his raw joy contorts it - and one emotion bubbles up from the empty depths of Daniel’s being.

And he realises: he’s so f*cking pissed off, actually.

Armand jolts forward to embrace him, and Daniel doesn’t think, he doesn’t, it’s just raw feeling bursting out of him - slamming into Armand - “get the hell away from me!” - throwing him back - must have surprised him, normally Armand can bat away Daniel’s powers like an annoying gnat - like a puppet he goes flying - the wood of the old table breaking, splintering on impact - smell of more blood in the air, metallic and fresh and so full of memory that Daniel nearly chokes on it…

Silence. For a moment.

Then, creaking, shifting, and Armand rises. There is no fury in his expression, no pain - he barely seems to have registered the attack. There’s only an almost-manic smile bisecting Armand’s face, more disfiguring than any scar could ever be, and he is giggling with delight.

“You remember!” He laughs, laughs, and the sound goes through the very core of Daniel. He doesn’t feel numb anymore. He feels raw.

And then, in the blink of an eye, Armand’s by the armchair again, crouched over Daniel, practically in his lap, still laughing, so noisy, unbearable really. Daniel needs it to stop.

His arms snap up. Shaking hands - broken locket clattering to the floor - on Armand’s throat, thumbs digging into his windpipe. No pulse. The laugh tapers off into a wheeze, but the monstrous smile stays.

“Thirty-seven years,” Daniel hisses, his eyes burning all over again, forcing Armand back by the neck, “you f*cking asshole, you took it all, you left me to age and die, you abandoned me-”

“I know, I know, I was a despicable coward, I apologise, I am sorry,” Armand gasps, no, purrs, sinking into Daniel’s grip on his throat as if there is no greater bliss on this world than being strangled by him. He’s pressing into it, eyes briefly closing in ecstasy, before flickering open again, fixing on Daniel. As if he can’t bear to not look at him. “Oh, Daniel, Daniel, my beloved boy, there you are, there you are!” Armand’s fingers ghost over Daniel’s face, tracing its contours, and Daniel snarls, snapping at them. “Finally you know, you know how we have loved one another!”

“Loved! I hate you!” Daniel spits, helpless, panicked, skin burning everywhere they’re touching, wanting Armand closer, wanting him to disappear, wanting everything and nothing. Oh, what has this monster done to him. “What you did to me- I hate you, you little- f*cking- lying bitch-”

“Yes, ” Armand gasps, high and breathy and half-delirious. “Yes, Daniel, hate me, resent me, despise me for what I did - you know it now, you know it all, and how I have longed to hear you curse me for it!”

“You sick- twisted-”

“Sick with love for you, my heart, my soul, my life’s blood, only ever you,” Armand babbles, almost feverishly, his hands crawling over Daniel’s body, grasping aimlessly at his flesh. It’s not gentle. Daniel’s back arches as he pushes eagerly, mindlessly, into it. “Dieu merci- I thank Allah, I thank God, I thank Satan, I thank all the gracious ones who heard my prayers and granted me this gift! Oh, Daniel! My Daniel!”

And then, with perfect ease, as if Daniel isn’t using every bit of strength in his immortal body to keep him at distance, Armand leans forward and kisses him.

Daniel bites. It’s almost instinctive, the way he snaps his jaw shut on Armand’s still-grinning lips - and regrets it, the moment blood fills his mouth. It’s so sweet. It’s so sickening. It’s full, noise and memory and Armand, a thousand times worse than the smell alone, and he gags almost instantly, overcome with it.

“My wild fledgling, how I adore you,” Armand laughs at him through a mangled mouth that is already knitting itself together again. “Hush, Daniel, calm now, you are only hurting yourself - don’t you see, all is well now!”

Daniel laughs, too, broken and horrid. “Nothing’s well, you b-bastard, you took my f*cking memories, stop smiling, stop smiling, stop-”

He rears up, and Armand- well, Armand obviously lets him, lets Daniel throw them both into the wall - pictures and a shelf fall, cracks in the paint, plaster crumbling - and simply catches him in the cradle of his limbs, tangling himself around Daniel’s form, a choking vine of affection curling around his trembling bones.

(He’s hard. So is Daniel. That doesn’t seem to matter at all. For maybe the first time in Daniel’s life and un-life, his dick is barely more than a distant afterthought.)

A tear slips out of Daniel’s eyes, another, as he shudders, pinning Armand against the crumbling wall, feeling slender ribs creak under the superhuman force he’s exerting. His neighbours heard the impact. They’re debating whether to call the police. Daniel can feel the moment Armand reaches out and almost casually plucks the thought out of their heads.

“I hate what you did to me,” Daniel whimpers - there’s no other word for it, how high and helpless his voice has gone - and a red tear falls onto Armand’s already-stained shirt. “You took everything, thirty-seven years without you, it was unbearable, Armand, unbearable, and I never even knew- you sh*thead, I was alone, alone, without even memories of you-”

“And you think it was any easier, to remember and always yearn? I assure you that we both suffered equally if differently under the separation, most beloved,” Armand sighs, so tenderly. Daniel wants to bury his teeth in Armand’s throat and bite the sound out of him. “But I am here now, and so are you, all of you - shh, no weeping now, look, here I am. Look at me, Daniel, fledgling, lover, with your beautiful eyes that mirror mine. Look.”

Daniel looks.

It doesn’t help. Armand’s eyes burn with utterly infuriating joy, and Daniel can’t breathe - doesn’t need to breathe, but still - transfixed by his gaze, which has nothing to do with the Gifts and everything to do with the maelstrom of memory and feelings churning inside him.

Another horrible impulse; he can’t stand those eyes, his eyes now, can’t stand Armand looking at him like he’s Lazarus newly-risen, can’t bear it - he wants to gouge them out, it’s not like they won’t heal, he just can’t have those little amber searchlights fixed on him right now, he needs to make the happiness in those eyes stop-

Armand catches his wrists, delicate lashes brushing against Daniel’s fingernails when he blinks. Of course. Armand cannot bear to not look at him right now, can’t allow Daniel to take that ability away. And yet, there is no accusation or betrayal in his steady gaze, and maybe that makes it worse. Only warmth, affection, and that unforgivable joy. Daniel hates it. He hates it!

(And he hates himself.)

Daniel hisses, snarls, struggles, and they crash to the ground together. More blood in Daniel’s mouth as he snaps at whichever parts of Armand he can reach, his restrained hands flailing, scratching the air, Armand’s cheek, tangling and tearing at his hair, scraping along the floor. It’s feral and vicious and almost childish, the way they wrestle on the ground, Armand always staring at him with such fondness, such delight. Daniel can tell he is being humoured with this, is reminded of a nature documentary he saw years ago, in another lifetime, a lioness letting her cub wrestle her to the ground, as if its dull little teeth and fangs could ever overpower her.

(A memory stabs into his head, Armand’s neck tightening under Daniel’s blunt human gnawing as he chuckles, amused by the absurdity. A human biting a vampire! A fledgling, fighting his Maker! How droll! How laughable!)

“f*ck you,” Daniel means to growl, but his voice cracks and breaks over ‘you’, and it comes out as half a wretched moan, “I f*cking hate- the whole time, the whole time, I didn’t know, I thought it was all lies-”

“Only the truth, my heart.” Armand finally takes pity and rolls them over, pressing Daniel’s wrists to the floor, keeping him down with ease. “I only ever wanted you to know the truth.”

“A-and I hurt you,” Daniel gasps, pinned, more blood-tears slipping out of his eyes. “I- you deserved every second of it, all that and more, but I still- Armand-”

“It is forgiven, my love, oh, my love,” Armand murmurs, leaning over Daniel to kiss his tears away, to gaze down at him like a benevolent god offering absolution. Regardless of if Daniel even really wants it, or not. “You are forgiven. Whatever wounds your words tore in me, you have stitched them closed with the thread of your renewed love, and any lingering scars and aches fled my heart the moment I realised that the boy that had been erased had at last returned to me, so that I may love you whole and as all of you. I am so full of joy, you cannot imagine. I had so feared I would be forever denied the privilege.”

“Would be denied,” Daniel echoes, half-laughing, half-sobbing. His chest shakes with it, and Armand releases one of his wrists to run a soothing hand along his ribs. “That had been erased - textbook use of the passive voice there, boss! Who erased me, huh? Who denied himself that f*cking privilege!? Answer me, you son-of-a-!”

“Hush, no, hush.” Armand cradles Daniel’s head in his arms, rubs his face into his hair like an affectionate kitten, head lowering further and tongue darting out now and then to lick a new gush of tears away. He is unbothered by Daniel’s impotent fists glancing off of the curve of his curled shoulders. “Rage and flail however much you wish, accuse me - rightfully, yes, I admit it - as much as your heart desires. You cannot hurt me tonight, my treasure most-beloved. I have never felt such happiness in all my existence. The world could end in fire and flames this very minute, and I would meet the apocalyptic riders with laughter on my lips, and offer my chest readily to be pierced with their weaponry - there is no pain that could ever penetrate the joy that the recovery of your memories has enshrouded my soul in. You remember - oh, Daniel, mine, my own!” Renewed laughter, like the peal of bells. Daniel’s heart sings with it. He still wants to drive his fist into Armand’s bloodied mouth to make it stop. “You remember, and I feel I could die happy!”

“Asshole,” Daniel croaks, and, “your fault, your own f*cking fault,” and “stop being happy, I’m so angry at you, I’m so goddamn angry, f*ck you, f*ck-” and then also “hold me, just hold me, hold me” and “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a jerk, not that much of one, never leave me again, not ever, please please please,” because he’s still in love with the lying little bastard, he was then, he is now, he always will be, and love has a way of making him stupid. Make them all stupid, maybe.

“Never, I will never leave,” Armand vows, rocking back and forth with Daniel in his arms, cradling his squirming, thrashing fledgling like a maternal saint, like the Pietà herself, with unnatural strength and impossible gentleness. “I will be by your side always. Hate me, send me away, lash out - I will not leave you again, Daniel. Never.”

Daniel sobs again, half furious that Armand has the f*cking gall to just announce this sh*t, and half relieved beyond words that he did. Oh, he’s all in pieces, he’s shattering in Armand’s arms, and he can’t help but try to cut into the bastard with all his sharp and broken edges.

(He knows he could slice Armand to ribbons, pierce him down to the marrow, and Armand would still keep holding him. He means that promise; he’ll never leave; and that’s the truth.

This really only makes everything worse.)

The fight isn’t over, at that point. It won’t be for several hours yet, hours of clawing, biting, and hissing, of helpless tears met with equally helpless adoration and awe. Daniel can’t even tell who is which, after a while. The heavenly stench of blood is everywhere, and the past clouds his mind, and, oh, it feels like drowning, like horns honking at an intersection and he can’t move, like plane engines and a made-up story about a bird, like rest, rest, rest…

But he knows, he knows that Armand keeps holding him. And this fact alone, this truth, in its simplicity and magnitude both, is enough of a lifeline to cling to.