Chapter Text
They left early in the morning, after kissing their fledglings farewell. Grim-faced and gorged on an army’s worth of blood. It had taken months of planning. First, there was the conversation that this needed to be done. Then, discussions on how to do it, followed closely by who. That had been the most difficult one. Louis and Daniel had been adamant that they would not go alone. Armand had ended the argument by flinging both fledglings against the walls, effortlessly burning their clothes while not harming a hair on their body. Easy like swatting a fly. And Marius had millennia on him. Louis and Daniel still had not fully forgiven him for that display of power, but it did its job.
They flew until they found the desolated area that they scouted out beforehand. The rendezvous point that Armand had coordinated with Marius a few weeks ago. His letter had been carefully crafted to sound believable but also play on Marius’ ego enough that he would not question it too much. It had worked. Here Armand was, meeting his maker again. After being ‘abandoned’ by his fledgling. Marius had been right, he wrote. His fledgling stabbed him in the back as soon as he had learned everything Armand had to teach. He had made a poor judgement. Could Marius not come over and give him some advice?
“He is coming, mon cher.” Lestat said. “His presence is growing closer.”
Armand nodded while Lestat walked away. The first part, he had to do himself. He waited. Soon, there was a growing dot on the horizon. His maker looked good. Stern and imposing. “Father!”
Marius landed and looked at him. His deep voice reverberated in Armand’s bones. In a flash, Armand wanted to call it off and sink to the ground in front of this stately man. He let instinct take over and felt his knees hit the dry earth. “Marius!”
“I have come, fledgling, against my better judgement. What would you say to me now after the hurt you have caused?”
Armand shuffled forwards, kissing Marius’ boots. “Maestro, I entreat thee. I was wrong. My fledgling cast me aside.”
Almost lazily, Marius kicked him in the face. “What business is that of mine, Amadeo. You defied me and ran from me.”
“It was Daniel’s idea!” He cried. “He wanted to leave. I thought he loved me!” He was weeping in earnest now. His broken nose pricked up, the smell of smoke was on the air. Pathetically he crawled back to his master.
Marius seemed disgusted, but Armand recognized the cruel glint in his eyes. “What do you demand from me now Amadeo? Twice, you have scorned my care. Why would I open my home up for you again?”
“Break my legs, Maestro! Burn them. I care only for you. Do not leave me here. I will follow you. I will beg you every day for as long as my eternity lasts. Name your price and I will pay.” He grabbed for Marius’ trousers. Marius stepped neatly aside, causing Armand to lose his balance and fall face down. A foot on his back, Marius hands in his hair, tilting his head back.
“Perhaps I wish for you to die. Would you let me kill you, Amadeo?” He tugged harder. A fine line appeared on Armand’s neck, growing bigger with every second. Then, fangs in his neck, and his maker was draining him with great gulps.
Armand whimpered. Marius spoke again. “You will rend your fledgling limb for limb while I watch you. Any hesitation, and you join him in his pyre. Then, we will meet some of my esteemed colleagues, and you will prove your loyalty to me like you did in Venice. You will be my exotic beast. Perhaps in that role, you will finally learn obedience.”
The smoke was starting to prick in Armand’s eyes. It was now or never. He surged up in a twisted facsimile of a kiss. His fangs found Marius’ carotid artery and he drank like a man in the dessert. His claw dug into any veins he could find. Marius ripped him off him, and he fled with the ancient close behind him.
“Amadeo!” But Armand could not hear him over the roaring of the wildfire he ran into. The fire that Lestat had kindled. The warmth became suffocating, the smoke limiting his visibility. He had lured Marius in, now it was time to finish it. He rose up into the sky. As soon as he ascended, he felt Lestat’s power. It was pressing down on Marius so that he could not follow Armand into the air, and it was slowing him down significantly.
It had been a dry summer. Extremely dry. The earth was parched, the bushes easy kindling. He began to ignite all into a blaze as hot as hell fire. Even from high up, he could feel his skin start to blister and peel. He looked down. Marius was trying to put out the inferno. So far, he had not yet been caught. Armand willed sparks to fly up from the earth his maker was standing on. They caught on his sleeves, on his coat. Marius put them out, but he had lost focus on the fire around them. The blaze was so intense that no vampire could stop it by themselves. Armand ignored his sizzling skin, even as ashes started to rain down on the fire below. They could not fail. Once more, he made embers appear. This time they caught the parchment of Marius skin and fell on it like wild beasts. Fitting, Armand supposed. He saw his maker scream but could not hear him over the boisterous flames. Armand, get out of there!
He had to make sure. He had to watch his maker burn or be haunted by him for the rest of eternity. Never a moment peace, never a moment off guard. Marius’ face melted. His skin, fat, muscles and bones melted together in an undistinguishable clump. The clump became ashy. Soot was filling Armand’s lungs. Marius had succumbed. With a mental apology to Lestat, he dove down into the heat of it all. His skin was turning into dust. With his claws, he grabbed the ash that was left of Marius. His hair was ablaze. Down here, he could not see from the suffocating smoke. If he were to breathe, he would burn his lungs. This was death. Armand!
With one final thrust of power, Armand rose up again, aided by Lestat’s power. He released the handfuls of ash on the wind, scattering them and watching them disappear. Lestat crashed into him, and he sunk into his arms. He doused the fire in his hair. Armand, you are mad! How would I have returned to New Orleans if you had cast yourself into the fire after you maker?
They were flying away, faster than the human eye could comprehend. The air was stinging into the new skin already forming on Armand’s scalp. He could feel the tingling of his hair regrowing, though it would take hours still before his dark halo would fully return. His laugh was loud and elated, his voice carrying on the breeze like music.
Lestat only let him go once they reached their hotel room. The Frenchman strode into the bathroom and put him down in the bath. With a flick of his wrist, cool water appeared out of the tap. Armand closed his eyes and relaxed into the frigid embrace. Cold, like the water of the Adriatic Sea had been during his turning. The dark gift that his master had so graciously, reluctantly shared. How had he repaid him? Amadeo had been a brat, provoking his maker at any opportunity. Armand had first betrayed him with the children of darkness and then betrayed him again to his death. His kind maker!
“Mon cher.” Lestat wiped away his tears.
“We killed him!” Armand gasped. “Maestro, my father. What have we done?”
Lestat held him. Together, they mourned the loss of this ancient vampire. The man that had caused so much harm, but that still had their love.
The next day, they were forced to evacuate by the human authorities. Apparently, a mysterious wildfire had set the ground ablaze and was threatening the city. It took the mortals weeks to put it out, entire cities were lost in the starving flames.
XXX
Louis and Armand were walking along the banks of the Mississippi, much like they had once walked along the Seine. They had started doing this now when they needed to get out of the house. Louis had long since given up on his aloof act with his maker, but sometimes he simply needed some space. Lestat had been… at his most Lestat-ish today. Strangely enough, he did not mind if Armand joined him. In some ways, this is what had attracted him to Armand all the way back in Paris. His calm presence, his thoughtful answers. It was nice to be able to have it all.
“I can see why Mass[1] would speak to you, Armand. Morbid, catacomb-y and a bit on the nose, much like yourself.” Louis said.
“I resent that notion. It is a commentary on the cruelty of life and humanity, sized up to gargantuan size to increase the impact of the message. Besides, the skull is a a tried-and-true subject of art, depicting time again the concept of memento mori. Yet as vampires, we do not. What then does this art mean for us? A reflection on our food, or a remembrance of the feeling of mortality and our separation from it?”
Louis raised his eyebrows. “-and you think skulls are cool.”
“And” Armand said primly. “I enjoy the visual stimulus that watching a cranium provides.”
Louis was beautiful when he laughed, Armand thought, though beautiful was too simple a word to describe it. His head flown back, lines crinkling around his sparkling eyes. It was an honor and a privilege every time he managed to coax such a deep laugh out of his lover, even at his own expense.
They walked and talked. They discussed art and business and much more until they were forced to retreat back into the house again by the rising of the sun.
XXX
Lestat swirled his glass of blood around. “This must be AB+, there is a certain flair to it that the other blood types simply do not posses.”
Armand sniffed carefully. “I would disagree. This is clearly AB-. It has a slightly earthier tone that comes with the absence of the Rhesus protein. Your donor is middle-aged and slightly stressed. Did she recently have any major upheavals in her life? New job, moved to a new place?”
“Bullshit!” Daniel exclaimed. “You’re making this up as you go.”
Louis sighed. “Another point to Armand. Do we do bonus points as well? Angela did recently move to New Orleans.”
“No bonus points!” Lestat exclaimed. “The gremlin is cheating.”
“I resent that notion.” Armand said, a grin on his face. “You are so focussed on the presence that you lose the absence. You overshoot.”
Daniel groaned. “So the score is now, 87 to Armand, 69 to Lestat-”
“-nice” Lestat said.
Daniel continued. “21 to Louis and 3 to me. 88 to Armand if we do bonus points.”
Lestat shook his head. “Yet we do not do bonus points, so 87 to the little devil.”
“Lestat!” Armand exclaimed. “With or without bonus points you must concede that I have beaten you and stand firm in my lead. My taste is the superior one.”
“I will you show you a firm-” Lestat muttered as he dived to tackle Armand and kissed him aggressively. Afterwards, disheveled and bloodied, Armand could only reiterate his statement. He did have superior taste.
XXX
Living with Armand, Daniel thought, was like living with a crossover between the girl from the ring, a cryptic and a very old grandfather. He was currently scuttling around on the ceiling while reading the instruction manual of the seventh Roomba he bought this month. To be fair, Armand was in his room when Daniel knocked, so if there was any place he was allowed to be his own weird self, it was here. Louis did not even enter this place. He had muttered something about blenders, blanched and walked away when Daniel asked.
Daniel looked around to distract himself from the fact that he could very well be the first vampire to have a heart attack from fright. Embarrassing way to go. The room resembled a weird unethical lab. In one corner, Armand kept a collection of animals. Beetles, centipedes, rats, fish and different types of reptiles. Behind that was a row of Bunsen burners. There were multiple tables with a row of the infamous blenders. They contained liquids that Daniel did not look too closely at. On the floor, three Roombas strapped with knives were locked in a death match (What happened to the other four?). There were painting supplies scattered throughout the room, though no indication that Armand was actually creating something. Speaking of; Armand’s lantern eyes were staring creepily down at him. “You have returned? How was the palazzo?”
Daniel shrugged. He had wanted to see that place for one final time. To walk through the hallways with a clear mind and a brave heart. He had wanted to do so alone. “Got his laptop and paintings. Shit ton of information on there. What is all this?”
Armand hummed, floating down to the floor and neatly sidestepping the killer robot vacuum cleaners. He looked around his room. “I saw it on the Tik Tok, though they used balloons. I have altered the machines somewhat and fitted them with superior navigation skills. They track each other now. I managed to rearrange their lidar technique using a software that is also commonly used in those self-flying bombs that your country uses to kill for oil. It was quite difficult to obtain it, but I persevered.”
Daniel was not going to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole. One, the idea of Armand on another social media site was genuinely terrifying. Two, he had no desire to uncover the why behind the death match. Three, Armand hacking the fucking US military was none of his fucking business. Except… “You know, it is high time I find a new subject to write about. Vampires have gotten old.”
Armand’s eyes sparkled. “There was certainly a shit ton of information there.”
Daniel laughed, then took a nervous breath. “Actually, I got you something. You will probably hate it, but I wanted you to have it.”
He lifted up a beautiful, amber-colored model train. “Even in the depths of it, when I couldn’t remember my own name, I- I had this. The train. It reminded me of you. I want you to have it now. To know, whatever happens, I will never forget you. It’s probably stupid, but anyways…”
Daniel put it down next to the blenders and backed away. He did not get very far before Armand jumped on his back, leaving kisses down his neck. He was summarily turned around and found Armand’s cold hands cupping his cheeks. “Thank you, Daniel.”
Armand surged forward and met Daniel’s lips in a passionate kiss. The world became a whirlwind of pleasure as Armand swept away the blenders and bent Daniel over the free surface. Armand ripped of his clothes and plugged him up. They were both panting. Daniel could have stayed in that position forever, head smushed against the table, were it not for a sharp pain in his ankle. He hazily looked down. A knife protruded from his ankle, the Roomba was trying to turn around but it was stuck. In a flash, Armand threw the Roomba across the room and lifted them both up so they could continue on the ceiling. A crossover of a cryptic and a porn star Daniel thought. Then he didn’t think at all for a while.
Later, all four of them will discuss the information Daniel had found in Marius’ palazzo. Much later, they would break into the pentagon and uncover multiple conspiracies funded by the US government. They would travel to Armand’s homeland. They would laugh and cry. They would argue, they would cuddle. They would have the world’s greatest make-up sex. They would love and be loved, their fates intertwined until the heat death of the universe. But for now, they kissed and were safe in each other’s embrace.
The end
[1] Mass, 2016-2017, Ron Mueck