Work Text:
Dubai, 2022
One day, Daniel Molloy, two-times Pulitzer Prize winner, might learn to not poke the fucking bear.
He groaned, scrunching his eyes against the harsh LED lights, and with one shaking hand reached up to the inelegant gash just above his collar bone. He was probably doing more harm than good, but some long-buried survival instinct still had him trying to pinch together the two sides of torn skin. His other hand weakly pressed against the marble floor below him, as he staggered – slowly, so slowly, lightheaded and dizzy and nauseous – to his feet.
One day, maybe, he’ll let murderous bears lie. But apparently not today.
Today? Tonight? He couldn’t tell you the time.
He also couldn’t quite tell why he was eschewing his ticket out of here in favor of checking on the man who had torn into his neck like so much rotisserie chicken no less than an hour ago. Some in-built desire to always figure out the ‘why’ at the cost of his own wellbeing. And, infamously, the detriment of the wellbeing of all those around him too.
He had 98% of a best-seller saved safely in the cloud, regardless of the electrical fire crackling through his laptop in the other room. And that last 2% of the story might not matter to your average hapless reader who only read it in search of some schadenfreude escapism, but it matters to Daniel.
So he followed the footprints tracked in his own blood, back through the cold concrete of the penthouse apartment.
Armand was still in the crater, the crumbling wall Louis had left him in. Again. He’d gone back there.
He’d been treating Daniel’s body like a damn pinball, to bounce and bounce from wall to wall to wall, only to retreat back to the crater Louis had left him in. Jesus, you could write a whole dissertation psychoanalyzing that choice alone.
Maybe that’s why Daniel felt safe following him back here. Even with a couple of cracked ribs, maybe a broken collarbone, and something undeniably, horrifically wrong with his left foot – Armand would always be a more broken creature than Daniel had ever been.
“You, uh,” Daniel started, before stopping, leaning heavily against the doorframe. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You okay?”
Armand looked up, disheveled hair cascading away as the fire-gold eyes looked up at Daniel with disdain and scorn. He didn’t respond.
He didn’t need to, to be fair. Daniel was fully aware how stupid a question that was.
The ebbing of his adrenaline made certain injuries suddenly painfully apparent, and Daniel hobbled across to the wall to slide down to a slightly more stable position on the floor. “Yeah, I’m not doing to great either, thanks for asking. At least two or three things are hemorrhaging. I think, I’ve never been entirely sure what that means. Some kind of bruise?”
He had a purpose in filling the silence with provocative nonsense. This wasn’t just the blood loss talking.
“Go. Away.”
There it was. Utterly predictable, utterly justified.
“I probably should,” Daniel conceded, wincing as he deepened the pressure against the wound by his neck. “The little bit of evolutionary monkey brain is telling me to run while I still can-” shattered foot notwithstanding – “and even the Talamasca told me to flee, before all this shit went down.”
Armand’s head had darted up, gaze piercing at the mention of ‘Talamasca’. Daniel just shrugged.
“What, you didn’t know they’d been in contact with me?”
Six seconds. It was six seconds before Armand looked away from him again, before he went back to trying, and failing, to ignore that Daniel was there. “No,” Armand hissed through clenched teeth, eyes fixed on one of the many cracks in the floor. “I didn’t.”
“Yeah. Well. What’s a little more betrayal between friends.”
Armand didn’t say anything else. And Daniel didn’t try to fill the silence this time.
The blood flow from his neck was starting to slow down. Daniel tried to think of that as a good sign, rather than a bad one.
He wondered if this much blood, in this close proximity, was causing Armand any problems. He remembered before, when he’d got a nosebleed, how Armand had fixated – no, wait. He hadn’t got a nosebleed here. San Francisco? Daniel couldn’t tell, his memories still a hazy amalgamation of thoughts and fears.
Daniel was lost in thought, trying to find solid memories to piece together through a haze of blood loss when Armand broke the silence. He was still staring fixedly at the floor. “I don’t want you here.”
The inherent absurdity of the statement broke Daniel’s reverie. He frowned, turning the words over in his head. “No,” he said slowly, dragging out the vowel. “I didn’t think you did – at least, not until you said that. It’s not like I’m not here because I think you want me to be.”
Armand’s head tilted, but the fire-gold eyes never wavered from where they were anchored to the floor. “Then why are you still here?”
“Because technically I didn’t finish my interview. I still had questions,” Daniel lied. He also didn’t think he could make it down the stairs without some kind of physical assistance.
Armand looked up at that, teeth- fangs bared, and in less than a second Daniel was torn back from being an investigative journalist to a mammal in the woods in the dark and goddamn, if there wasn’t something watching him from the shadows. Dead man walking. The last stutter of adrenaline shot his heart rate up and any remaining blood pooled from his face, leaving him feeling cold, and tired, and pale. A new drop of blood spilled between his fingers, tracing along his collar bone.
Daniel swallowed. “Feel like answering any last questions?” he asked.
Armand let out a deep sound, something primal, and Daniel forced himself to breathe. Poking bears. Bad idea. Right.
“I could kill you,” Armand hissed, so much more animal that human at that moment. “I would relish eating you.”
“Yeah, except you already tried that,” Daniel shot back, before self-preservation instincts could shut up him. He briefly lifted the hand holding his wound closed, baring the bloodstained hand in full display, before reapplying the pressure that he hoped would stop him from bleeding out. “Tried me. For some reason, you didn’t finish the job. What, didn’t like the taste? Is it the marinade of nicotine, ethanol, and methamphetamine I’ve been stewing in all these years? Is it like mutton, you let the animal age too long and the texture just gets all chewy?”
Daniel could have pivoted there. He could have needled Armand about how he, Daniel, was under Louis’ protection, asked him if he was scared of his lover’s retribution. He could ask if guilt was ruining Armand’s appetite, or if it was the realization that he’d only been a rebound this whole time, his only value in being a punishment for Lestat. And he wanted to, oh, he wanted to fill this man with rage until it broke him, and he could, he could do it, he deserved it -
But throughout all of this, Armand hadn’t fallen to anger once. He’d seen Daniel’s bait for what it was, avoided it at every turn like he knew it was coming.
Armand wasn’t angry. He was rudderless. It was something that, with the histories put to paper, had so clearly underlined all of Armand’s decisions.
“You’re not a butcher, Armand,” Daniel said, eventually, carefully. “Not like Louis is.” Armand tethered himself to others. “You only hunt when the victim signs a contract declaring informed consent.” He’d been told his only worth was what he could provide for others when he was too young to question it, and he’d believed it for too long to believe anything else now. “When Santiago pushed you for the throne, there was no great show of strength, no fight, no punishment, just placating and a weak attempt at scheming. Even when you were dragged back, told it was your life or Louis’, Claudia’s, you avoided any fight in favor of silver-tongued subservience.”
And Daniel wasn’t sure Armand had anyone to belong to anymore, now Daniel had so brutally torn Louis away from him.
“You’re not violent, Armand,” Daniel reiterated, forcefully, staring daggers at the man who still refused to meet his gaze. “You’re a survivor. But you’ve never avoided violence. I just took the last important thing in your life away from you, you spend a good half-hour tenderizing me, get your teeth stuck in and then, what, change your mind?”
Daniel’s disbelief was genuine, but Armand still didn’t reply. Daniel didn’t expect him to. He just watched as Armand’s arms tightened where they were wrapped around his legs, as he buried his face deeper against his own shoulder.
“Perhaps you thought by stopping before the good bit, you’d avoid Louis’ wrath,” Daniel said, as he continued to parse through his thoughts, providing prompts, options. “But you and I both know it was a pretty specific threat, terms and conditions already broken. Damage already done. So this is the question I’m left with, isn’t it? After the day you’ve had – why not finish the job?”
The silence dragged on. Daniel prided himself on being a good talker, but he liked to think, in the privacy of his mind, that he was an even better listener. He could be patient.
And again, it was rewarded, when Armand finally whispered the answer into the expectant silence. “After all I’d lost today, I couldn’t lose you too.”
*
New York, 1981
Daniel might not have been born in New York, but by now he’s spent enough time in this city that shit like this should not happen to him.
You see, a friend of a colleague of a passing acquaintance had expressed an interest in his half-baked street interviews piece, floating the idea that it would make a good paperweight book – one of those hardback non-fiction pieces designed to sit on coffee tables of pretentious people. Never to be read, only to be discussed.
And perhaps he’d been too eager to jump on the idea, when all it really was, was a vague promise of financial income and acclaim floating somewhere down a heavily, heavily polluted river, but. Those interview pieces, where you’d speak to someone in a coffee shop, subway station, AA meeting? Where you’d start with something innocuous until you found the raw humanity underneath it?
Fuck, those were the moments Daniel was built for.
Except - it has led to this moment, him flat on his back between dumpsters and absolutely lying in someone’s week-old nachos, two men standing over him and trying to teach him that it was in fact possible to ask the wrong questions of the wrong people.
“Listen,” Daniel said, wiping his bloodied chin on his sleeve, “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have pushed. I mean, you’ve got mommy issues, that much is clear from the – what even is that, is that a flaming skull? A flaming skull neck tattoo? Yeah, so when I asked what your mom thinks of your pastimes-”
Before he could finish his apology – if it could be called that – another steel-capped boot slammed into his thigh.
Fuck. If this guy wasn’t too drunk to aim, Daniel’s kneecap would be in ten tiny pieces by now.
“You shut your fucking face,” one of the men said, before spitting. A hefty globule struck Daniel in the chest. “Fucking Jew fag.”
“Again, I’m sorry, but like I said, people are going to get confused if you insist on wearing your hanky in your back pocket like that-”
Even as the foot swung towards him again, Daniel was self-aware enough to know that, yeah, the continued beating was probably partially his own fault. It didn’t help that this was, in fact, his best attempt at a genuine apology.
Call that mistake two tonight. The first was assuming a guy wearing a Ted Nugent top would respond well to a playful ass-slap, back-pocket handkerchief notwithstanding.
Luckily, this kick didn’t land. As Danield flinched, the leg – and the adjoining man – was yanked from his view, thrown backwards against the opposite alley wall with a sickening crunch. Daniel snorted with laughter, purely by reflex, looking up just in time to see the second man’s terror before his neck was snapped.
As the body collapsed to the floor, Armand wiped his hands on his trousers, a few dots of red blood staining the white fabric.
Daniel didn’t think he’d been hit in the head, but he suddenly felt dizzy, loopy, as the adrenaline crashing through his system hit the breaks. “Heyyyy, you,” he said, leaning back onto his elbows and looking up at his savior. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“I only just got here,” Armand said lightly, pushing back up the sleeves on his oversize blazer. There was blood staining up to his wrist – confused, Daniel looked back to the figure slumped across the alley.
Ah. There was a hole in the man’s chest.
Armand frowned at him. “Is that mustard or queso?”
Daniel followed his gaze down. “Y’know, if I was a bit more drunk, I might have done a taste-test,” he said, “But for now I’m going to have to guess queso, purely on the consistency.”
“Not yours, then?” Armand asked, amicably, as if he hadn’t just committed enough violence for a sizeable prison sentence.
“Nah. Don’t let that stop you, though.” Daniel gestured to the two bodies, “Help yourself to a snack.”
Armand swung one way, then the other, giving the bodies a cursory glance. “Unfortunately they’re both quite dead. I guess I was a bit… overzealous, in protecting you.”
Daniel grinned. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
He shuffled upright, stretching forward until he could just grab the bottom edge of Armand’s blazer and tug the man – the vampire – down to the dirt with him, legs interlocked. Daniel knew his weight was nothing to Armand, he’d been picked up and thrown about by Armand, one-handed, so many times, so many great times. His ability to pull Armand down to his level had nothing to do with physical strength, and everything to do with permission and control.
Another time, when he had a clearer head, Daniel would happily analyse that thought. Now, though?
“Be careful, boss,” he muttered, voice low. Armand’s lips were close, so close to Daniel’s cheek. “You’re going to ruin your nice suit.”
“Some things are worth ruining,” Armand replied quietly, the words ghosting over Daniel’s cheek.
Daniel laughed. “Pretentious asshole.”
Armand merely hummed in agreement. His hand came up, resting against Daniel’s chin, tilting his head back. “May I?”
Daniel’s heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn’t get enough breath to form the words. Instead, he just nodded frantically against Armand’s hold.
Armand smiled softly. He let his fingertips trail over Daniel’s skin, until he was cradling his face. Daniel lent into the cold palm, closing his eyes, unable to feel anything – not the thick queso soaking into his shirt, the bruises where he’d hit the concrete, nothing but the gentleness of Armand’s touch.
He knew what Armand had asked for. Daniel had a split lip that had been bleeding steadily, another gash on his cheek.
Their careful, tender ritual began with Armand by pressing his lips carefully Daniel’s bleeding cheek, cool and soothing against the inflamed flesh. He hadn’t eaten in a while, Daniel could tell, for Armand’s skin to be this cold.
Armand breathed against the wound, as he slowly, with a nurse’s care, let his tongue run along the torn skin. Long careful strokes, picking up all traces of Daniel’s blood, returning again, and again, until all taste of it was gone.
As Armand pulled away, Daniel’s eyes flickered open to find the fire-gold eyes fixed on him, flushed cheeks, soft smile, as a thumb brushed over his collar bone.
Daniel leant forwards to kiss him and Armand met him halfway, immediately pulling the split lip between his teeth and sucking as long, elegant fingers tangled into the curls at the nape of his neck. Daniel fell into him, arms wrapping around Armand’s slight waist as if they could be entangled so tightly that separation would be impossible.
Eventually – and far too soon – Armand pulled back. Daniel shamelessly trailed after him to keep contact for as long as possible.
“Patience, beloved,” Armand teased, pushing Daniel back with a hand on his chest.
As Daniel watched, pupils blown and heart thudding in his chest, Armand lightly drew a nail over the base of his palm – known as the mount of Venus in palmistry, some half-awake part of Daniel’s brain contributed. It felt particularly apt, as he watched the first few crimson droplets fall down Armand’s wrist.
Unconsciously, Daniel swayed forwards, and Armand laughed. “So eager,” he mused, raising his bleeding hand above Daniel’s head. He laughed some more as Daniel arched his back in an attempt to reach it.
He was acting like a dog chasing a treat, he knew. He didn’t care.
Some residual part of his brain remembered he was a human, with two hands, and he grabbed at Armand’s wrist. There was a second of resistance, like trying to tug at a steel railing, before – still laughing, Armand let him pull the hand down to his mouth.
The moment the sweet blood hit his tongue Daniel moaned shamelessly, collapsing forwards against Armand’s solid form. His other arm was around Daniel’s shoulders, again absently curling locks of hair around his fingers.
Was it innocent, this behavior? There was something childlike, something maternal, in the action, the iron-heavy elixir healing him, fueling him, the way he curled around the proffered bleeding hand.
On the other hand… there was nothing innocent about this at all.
Daniel couldn’t have told you how much time had passed if you held a gun to his head. Only that Armand eventually, carefully, pried his hand free of Daniel’s blunt teeth. With that first breath of air, the taste of Armand’s blood lingering on his lips, his tongue, his teeth, every sensation came flooding over him.
He’d tried autoerotic asphyxiation a few times. It wasn’t quite like that. Wasn’t quite an orgasm, either – though, hopefully, that was on the docket for the night. Describing it as a high felt the most accurate. It was spiritual, it was physical, it was emotional – it was a fucking tidal wave, and goddamn if it didn’t make him want to drown.
Daniel tried to wipe away the tears forming in the corner of his eyes as subtly as he could, but what was the point. What did he have to hide from Armand?
This time, it was him who reached up, fingers lightly brushing over Armand’s cheekbones, up his temple, carding through the soft curls. Armand moaned, eyes flickering closed as he leant into Daniel’s hand. Daniel was pleased to feel a soft warmth under Armand’s skin, his own body heat, through his consumed blood. “I missed you,” he admitted, eyes darting across Armand – his lips, his eyes, his neck, collarbones, as if to confirm he was real, he was here, he was unchanged.
“I missed you, too,” Armand replied, softly, sounding almost half-asleep, looking perfectly content to fall asleep with his head resting in Daniel’s hands.
Smiling affectionately, Daniel lightly tapped him. “Hey hey, none of that,” he said. “Don’t go dozing off on me now. I’ve got plans.”
Armand dozily looked up at him. “Plans?” he asked, eyes wide, naïve, alluring. “Still? But I-”
“Yeah, plans with you, to break another one of my fucking beds and piss off Mrs. Conroy in the flat below,” Daniel said, smirking. He didn’t know if Armand was being purposefully obtuse, or if he still had trouble believing that Daniel would put him above any prior commitments – either way, Daniel was going to fuck that notion out of him soon enough. “Or does little Armand think he needs a naptime, first?”
With a snarl, Armand suddenly pounced, teeth bared, shoving Daniel until he, once again, had his back slammed against concrete and queso. To anyone else, it might have looked like he’d pushed Armand too far. But Daniel was still laughing.
“’Naptime?’” Armand growled, sharp teeth grazing against Daniel’s exposed neck. “I wasn’t the one who fell asleep amidst the wreckage of your last bed.”
“Yeah, well, clearly I wasn’t getting enough stimulation to stay awake.”
Daniel didn’t give Armand time to protest – in a practiced maneuver, he gripped Armand’s waist and rolled them over, until he was crowding the smaller form, hands framing his head. He didn’t know what the greater rush was – knowing that Armand had, unthinkingly, given him control, or the blown pupils, open mouth and bared fangs as Armand panted like a desperate animal beneath him. “I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, let you try and do better a second time.”
*
Dubai, 2022
“Lose me too?”
Armand was avoiding meeting his gaze again.
Daniel swore – and swore again as moving tugged at the giant gash above his collar bone that Armand had left there. Armand, the same creature apparently now professing to care about him. Who was claiming that Daniel was integral to his wellbeing.
“Yeah, see, you’ve pulled this shit before,” Daniel said, remembering something that had been tugging at the back of his mind since the San Fran Fiasco had come back into the light. “You said you wouldn’t save my life this time. This time? Last time, as we now know, you were the one determined to wring every drop out of me like a paper towel. I think any debt I had to you tearing Louis off my neck was kind of balanced out, there. So why are you so certain that I owe my life to you?”
When Armand looked up this time, Daniel didn’t let him look away, holding Armand’s gaze so neither of them could run from his next question, no matter how much he – how much Daniel – wanted to avoid it. “How many of my memories are you still hiding from me, Armand?”
For a moment, Daniel thought he was going to get an honest answer. Armand’s eyes wide and desperate, lips parting and hesitating as if he was thinking of the best way to explain whatever this was, whatever it was that was left unspoken between them, why Daniel felt so instinctively compelled to comfort the creature that still had Daniel’s blood on his teeth –
But no. Seconds passed, with no answer forthcoming.
Okay. Alright. Time to dig a little deeper.
“You still can’t tell me?” Daniel asked, unconsciously shuffling forward. “Are you serious? Your inability to take responsibility for your actions really is pathological, isn’t it? You’re so allergic to the idea that any time you’re required to make a decision, to lead, to take accountability, you let passivity take over until someone else comes along you can cast in the roles of new leader and fall guy, latching onto them like a fucking parasite while you let them ruin it all for you. Killing me, ruining a relationship, the Paris coven – weaponizing the glass fucking cliff phenomenon.
“Or is it even worse than that? A survival mechanism – you’ve got so much damage around the consequences of failing that you’re reduced to being a passenger, an observer, in your own life, desperately clinging onto anyone else who can bring change because you’re incapable of enacting any of it yourself, and consequently incapable of letting them go or even blaming them when things go wrong. A 500-year-old compulsive people pleaser. I don’t know if that’s pathetic, or heartbreaking. All I know is that I’ve had about fucking enough of it.”
Daniel was all but panting when he’d finished. He didn’t think he’d taken a single breath, single pause for thought the entire time he spoke. Something in his chest hurt.
He was surprised when Armand let out a short burst of laughter, more from anger than humor. “I fail everyone,” he muttered, and for the first time Daniel noticed the French accent creeping back into his voice. “Haven’t you noticed that by now? Surely it’s in your notes somewhere.”
“Well, my notes are currently getting barbecued by an electrical fire,” Daniel pointed out, “So why don’t we start again?” He noticed he’d moved close enough that, if he wanted to, he could reach out and rest a hand on Armand’s.
“Already planning volume two?”
“Perhaps just an appendix.” Armand was watching him again. Something new was there, replacing the despair and haunted expression of someone who had, by all rights, died when he was barely more than a boy. Daniel swallowed. “Is it safe to assume,” he asked cautiously, “if I tried to leave right now, I wouldn’t make it past the stairs?”
Armand only answered with a raised eyebrow, and slight smile.
Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, I thought so. Makes me feel better about not even trying.” Not even wanting to try.
Whether he’d intended it or not, by dangling the promise of knowledge in front of Daniel, Armand had trapped him here more surely than any number of locked doors and empty threats.
“Alright then, the Vampire Armand,” Daniel asked, trying to sit cross-legged and stubbornly ignoring his broken foot, “After San Francisco, 1973, when did I next meet you?”
With the lead finally being taken by someone else, the decision no longer his, Armand finally smiled. “You’ll need to be more specific,” he said, eyes sparkling. “When did you next see me, or when did I next see you?”
*
New York, 1981
They hadn’t broken the bed this time. Armand was still adamant that that had only because the bed was already old, had been a fly-tip rescue, and probably already had several structural issues.
Daniel had just laughed and continued to bait him until Armand had pinned him back down on the bed to try again.
Now, Armand was by the kitchen corner of Daniel’s studio apartment, making him a Manhattan while completely unclothed.
Daniel lay on his side, sheet haphazardly draped across him, unabashedly enjoying the view. They were about the same age, now – biologically speaking, of course. Well, if Armand had told the truth, Daniel was physically one year his senior. 27, to 28.
It was like a piece of ice had been placed in Daniel’s heart. As much as he tried to cling onto the afterglow, onto the present moment of his absurdly hot, powerful boyfriend preparing him a drink in his birthday suit, he couldn’t deny that the smile was getting harder and harder to maintain.
No, fuck this. He wasn’t doing this tonight. He wasn’t going to be the one to ruin this night, begging for something he knew it hurt Armand to say no to. For now, at least – for another five, ten years – he could pretend that there was no deadline to their relationship.
But when would that deadline come, he wondered? His first grey hair? His crow’s feet? Signs of aging that to some could be a blessing, would have Daniel begging the love of his life to kill him, as cruel and selfish as that sounded.
If Armand asked Daniel to kill him, could he do it? If there was the slimmest chance Armand wouldn’t come back from it?
“Daniel?”
Armand, the youthful focus of all Daniel’s distress, was standing before him with a finished cocktail and a deep frown. Daniel blinked, forcing his thoughts to shut the fuck up and using all his strength to bring the smile back. He shuffled, moving his legs to give Armand space to sit down. “Why, fancy meeting you here,” he purred, sitting up to wrap one arm around Armand’s bare shoulders and press a forceful, teasing kiss against his temple.
Armand smiled, leaning into the contact. “Something’s wrong,” he said, with all the uncompromising bluntness that Daniel, unfortunately, loved about him. Armand held the drink out. “Want to talk about it?”
No, not really. “Can’t you just, sense it?” Daniel joked, deflecting the question with a poor attempt at humor.
As he knew he would, Armand sighed. He turned towards Daniel and gently rested their foreheads together. Desperate for any comfort, any reassurance to make him forget the future, Daniel leant against him with his full weight, eyes closed, just, feeling Armand’s body against his. His cool skin still had that slightest flush of warmth from Daniel’s blood. “You know I don’t like to do that,” Armand muttered. They were so close together that Daniel could feel his love’s cold breath as he spoke. “But I can, if it makes it easier?”
Daniel shook his head. But didn’t let go, didn’t move away. He held the Manhattan Armand had made, but didn’t move to drink any of it. Armand was already doing what Daniel wanted, and he knew Armand wouldn’t move away until Daniel did.
After about five minutes, Armand gently tried again. “Is it about earlier?” he asked. Daniel snuggled closer in an attempt to hide from the questioning. “You can’t think you did anything wrong. There will always be people who meet curiosity with aggression. And besides – they’re dead.”
Well, it hadn’t been about earlier. Daniel groaned, and, with a lot of effort, made himself sit back upright. “I’m not lamenting the loss of two more bigoted neanderthals, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Daniel muttered, finally taking a sip from the cocktail. The ice had all melted by now, but it was fucking ambrosia nonetheless. “It was a nice, sharp reminder how stupid the whole thing is, though.”
Armand frowned, head titling like a confused dog – puppy dog eyes and all.
Daniel sighed, and gave in. It was embarrassing, how much information Armand could get out of him without saying a word. “It’s not even original,” Daniel explained, the concerns that had been building up inside him for weeks now pouring out incoherently. “It’s a school kid’s dissertation piece. Interviewing strangers? Getting to the ‘heart of the people’, whatever the fuck that means. What exactly am I going to find? Oh, no, the housewife ran off with her tennis instructor, Wall Street traders are in debt to the Mexican cartel, the blue-collar workers pissed in their boss’s coffee – what a fucking surprise. There’s nothing new under the sun, it’s all been done before. And that’s if they’ll even talk to me,” Daniel added, waving a hand towards the split lip that had long since healed, under Armand’s administrations. “Half the time I get some variation of ‘take a hike, shithead’.”
Armand laughed, golden eyes gleaming. “From what I know of you, someone insulting you is hardly a deterrent,” he said, completely correctly. “Tell me more about the two men who insulted you tonight.”
“By insulted you mean tried to beat me to a pulp?” Daniel asked, skeptical. “Why do you want to know about them?”
Smiling slightly, Armand leant forward and pressed a kiss against Daniel’s cheek. “Humor me.”
Daniel would protest, but his brain was already whirring. “I mean, nothing too special about them,” he said. “I guess, the way they presented themselves. The dust-stained jeans and worn workman’s boots so intentionally signposting which social cliché they wanted you to pigeonhole them, even though they served no practical purpose other than tracking dirt in and causing more work for the bartender – and she was already so clearly on her last legs for the night, before they started trying to make moves on her with all the subtlety and sensual promise of the damn proverbial bull in a China shop. And then, of course, the way their overt and performative harassment of the bartender clashed with the very literal red flag of the bandana in his back pocket. Yeah, ‘performative’ really is the word. Either he had no idea what it means, and just acts the way he does because he’s so scared someone will mistake him for something other than a Hulk Hogan wannabe, or he knows exactly what it means and it’s one desperate, drunken cry for help and acceptance from a man who, otherwise, acts the way he does because he’s still so scared someone will mistake him for something other than a Hulk Hogan wannabe. It’s probably also his excuse for having so many half-naked wrestling men on his walls at home.” Daniel took a deep breath. “Ironically, all the effort he puts into his appearance only makes everyone around him think the exact opposite, right or wrong.”
Armand reached over and gently lifted Daniel’s head up, directing his gaze with three light fingers on his chin. He was watching Daniel with a soft smile and piercing eyes, and Daniel felt himself pinned.
He loved when Armand watched him like this. He felt trapped, idolized, and loved, all at once.
“And you still think that, just because they didn’t answer your questions, you didn’t get your interview?” Armand asked him. His thumb lightly stroked over Daniel’s lips.
“I – I mean, in the technical sense of the word…” Daniel trailed off as Armand raised an eyebrow.
“Anyone can ask people questions,” Armand murmured, thumb lightly pressing against Daniel’s lower lip. “Everyone who walks into a bar can stick labels and stereotypes onto the people they see. But you can look at the most ordinary person, and immediately see where they fit amidst the threads and patterns that form the fabric of society – see what makes them fascinating. After all,” he said, fighting a smirk as he threw Daniel’s own mantra back at him, “You are a bright young reporter with a point of view.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. Armand only smiled brightly, benevolently back at him, delicate fingers carding through Daniel’s curls. “I won’t tell you you’re right,” Daniel said, stubbornly. Armand laughed. “But… you’ve made some points of consideration.”
“Is that so?” Armand trailed his fingers down Daniel’s cheek, lightly cupping his face with luke-warm fingers. “What decision do you think you’ll come to?”
“Well,” Daniel mused, “I think tomorrow I might come to the conclusion that I’ve already put a good amount of work into this, and it wouldn’t hurt to do a few more interviews, look at my notes, see about changing the angle of the piece slightly.”
“Mm, tomorrow? And tonight?”
“Tonight,” Daniel said, pressing one hand against Armand’s chest to push him back down against the mattress, “Tonight, I want to see how much more you can boost my ego before you have to leave again.”
*
2026, Somewhere on the road
As is always the case with budget hotels, the key stuck a little bit before turning, and for second Daniel thought the receptionist had given him the wrong one.
But, as with all things, it caved and opened eventually.
“Hey dad, I’m home,” Daniel called out in a flat tone. He pushed the door closed and locked behind him as he looked around the place - nothing special. Daniel had stayed in hotel rooms like this a thousand times in his life. Small bathroom by the door, generic patterned carpet, desk on one side, double bed (with the bare minimum of pillows) on the other – and, yes, the coffee table and cuck chair. In this room, the one random chair was placed by a surprisingly nice large window, providing a good view of the city skyline and the encroaching sunrise.
Armand was slumped back in the chair, with a half-empty whiskey glass of blood cradled in one hand.
He didn’t respond to Daniel, but that was fine.
Daniel chucked the spare key he’d got onto the desk. The empty blood bad he expected to find there, but the red token was a surprise in more ways than one. He picked it up, rolled it between his fingers, the familiarity giving him a weird moment of nostalgia. “Are you serious, you’re actually still going to these things?” he mused, walking towards the window. “What do you even say you’re addicted to? Blood? Gaslighting? Self-sabotage?”
Armand looked up at Daniel with a dazed look that suggested that tonight’s blood donor had been partaking of something or other. Ironic. “How did you find me?”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “If you didn’t want me to be able to predict your every move,” he said, taking the glass from Armand and replacing it with the AA token, “You shouldn’t have helped me get my memories back. You really think I don’t know where you go to hide, on a night like this? I understand your decision process better than I understand my own.” He took a sip, and was assaulted by the bitter tang of a blood alcohol content so rich it was damn near curdled. “Shit, you broke into the good stuff without me?”
Armand rolled his head back, smiling up at Daniel. “Without you? But you’re here, aren’t you?”
“Well fuck, you’ve got me there.”
There wasn’t another chair in the room, and the bed was too far away. Instead, Daniel went behind Armand and leant on the back of the chair, arms draped over the elder vampire’s shoulders.
Neither of them spoke for a minute, watching as an indigo tint began to creep over the night sky. Sunrise was maybe half an hour out.
Not that it really mattered to either of them, these days.
“How is your documentary going?”
Daniel took another sip of the potent blood, before wrapping his arms back around Armand and holding the glass to his lips. Armand lifted his head, lips parting, and Daniel carefully let the thick scarlet liquid pour into his mouth. “I am counting down the minutes until we can enter post-production, and I can firmly distance myself from the ‘talent’,” he answered, putting visible quotation marks around the word.
Armand laughed, head falling back to once again be looking up at Daniel with those fire-gold eyes Daniel hadn’t even known he’d been missing for near half a century. “You need that ‘talent’,” Armand teased. “You feast on Lestat’s egotism and absurdity as much as you feast on blood. If you tried to walk away, you’d wither from the boredom before the end of the week.”
Daniel bit back laughter, pretending to look offended. He put down the now empty glass so he had both hands free to cup Armand’s face – trapping him, and cradling him. “Are you saying I can’t entertain myself? That I couldn’t find anything else to be entertained by?”
Armand, eyes still wide like a child’s, rested his hands over Daniel’s. “Like you haven’t spent your whole life seeking out ways to be entertained?” he countered.
There was no animosity in his tone. This was how it was. Jabs at each other, so close to the bone without actually cutting too deep, in a way that only works when someone knows you better than you know yourself.
The longer Daniel looked down at Armand, the harder it was for the younger man – the ancient vampire – to keep his composure. As soon as the grin split across Armand’s face Daniel shoved him to the side, straightening up and turning away to hide his own laughter.
“Thirty minutes until sunrise,” he said, walking towards the bed and taking off his jacket. “I think I can find ways to entertain myself until then.”
Gentle, powerful arms wrapped around his waist, Armand’s chin resting on his shoulder. “But wouldn’t you much rather be entertained by someone else?”
Always. Armand knew it, these days. There wasn’t any doubt in his question.
“Well,” Daniel said, pretending to think about it as he reached for his shirt buttons. “I guess. Since it’s you.”