Chapter Text
Daniel last remembers dozing off on a business class Emirates Airline seat, high on the success of interviewing two vampires and walking out unbitten. So when he wakes in the plush bed of a certain Dubai penthouse once more, he blearily thinks, Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve lost it.
He pushes himself up and shoves on his glasses, blinking hard to shake the lingering fog from his brain. The last time he had such vivid dreams was when he was reminiscing about ol’ Polynesian Mary’s. Strange. He chalks it up to his medication.
His phone buzzes, and he automatically checks it as he makes his way to the bathroom. A missed call from his editor, an automated text from his hospital that he could’ve sworn he remembered swiping away yesterday, and a spam email from a news site he’s subscribed to.
They all read exactly as he remembered in the dream.
Daniel has to try three times before he finally wrestles the cap off his toothpaste, hands trembling violently. Are vivid dreams a side-effect of Parkinson’s? What about hallucinations? Sub-realities? Or is it all just an aftermath of vampire mindfuckery?
He braces his hands against the sink, breathing deeply. The man in the mirror doesn’t look like a bright young reporter with a point of view. He looks like a strong gust of wind could blow him over.
The day follows with increasingly alarming deja vu: Rashid serves him the exact same breakfast he had yesterday, and Daniel is too off-kilter to needle at him like he does. He anxiously clicks around his computer, searching for any evidence of Louis’ last session, but everything has either been deleted or never recorded at all.
Please let it be vampire mindfuckery, he prays. Parkinson’s can take everything, but it can’t take his mind. Not yet.
Louis and Armand emerge for the final interview, just barely clinging onto the facade of a happy couple. A migraine spikes at Daniel’s temple. He swallows dryly, flipping open his notepad, which is similarly void of any proof yesterday existed. “...Sleep well?” he leads, half-begging Louis to throw him a bone.
Louis looks down at his hands, a quiet pain on his face. “We left off at the trial. We can start the session now.”
Armand’s mouth tightens, but he says nothing.
Daniel stares at Louis for another beat, but when it’s clear neither of them have any recollection of the past day, he taps play on his recording software. The oscillating line wavers as he motions for Louis to speak. Perhaps he really is just losing it, and whatever trial dream-Louis recounted was just Daniel’s half-baked subconscious concocting his own vampire telenovela.
Then, with steadily growing horror, he listens as Louis begins to recite precisely what he had said yesterday.
Daniel’s hand slackens on his pen, and it clatters out of his hand. He fumbles to grab it, and only drops it again.
Louis pauses mid-sentence. “Daniel?”
Daniel takes a deep breath in. Lets it out. Picks up the pen solidly. “Tremors,” he grits out. “Continue on.”
Armand tilts his head, frowning slightly. Daniel resolutely ignores him. “Where were we…Lestat is backstage, yeah?”
“I haven’t told you that yet,” Louis says hesitantly, but he doesn’t push any further. He, too, is consumed by his own thoughts.
Daniel scribbles absent-minded notes and prompts Louis with half-hearted questions, distracted by his own increasing nausea. Partway through the session, Rashid once again delivers him a newspaper, and Daniel doesn’t have to double-check to know the script lies perfectly under it, complete with Armand’s red, loopy handwriting. Louis, as he did once before, wraps up the remaining years he spent with Armand with a measly few sentences, and waits patiently for Daniel to call the session to an end.
God, does Daniel want this to end.
He doesn’t bother with the leading questions this time—the high would never feel as good as the first time—and instead cuts into the two vampires brutal and quick, with the precision of a surgeon and the care of a particularly lazy butcher. Louis storms out with the script in hand while Armand stares at Daniel with such fierce betrayal and hurt, that Daniel’s half-convinced he’ll rip out his throat this time.
“Always one final bomb,” Armand finally manages. “Always the last word with you.”
“Go chase after him,” Daniel spits and Armand’s eyes quiver murderously, before he wrenches himself away and runs after his soon-to-be ex.
There's no waiting for Louis this time. Hurriedly, he gathers his laptop—Louis can’t burn it this time, hah—and already has a cab called by the time he’s out the door. A last minute flight had been secured during the interview: outrageously expensive, but he needs some reassurance he’s not insane, and he can only grasp that when his feet touch down in Brooklyn.
His flight from Dubai is fourteen hours. He sits ramrod-straight in his seat and counts down the hours until the day turns.
Midnight strikes, the world tilts sideways, and he wakes up once more in the Dubai penthouse.
Daniel isn’t stupid.
Learning vampires are real in his twenties really did wonders to prime his mind to the possibility of anything and everything, so he pieces it together quite quickly, regardless of how far-fetched it seems. He’s trapped in a time loop. And if this actually is just some mass hallucination, with his physical body comatose somewhere while Dr. Fareed prods at it, then, well. He can’t really do anything about that.
He can, however, try to bust his way out.
His new goal shakes yesterday’s (today’s? The other today’s?) fear from his bones, giving him a mystery to gnaw on. He spends the next four loops experimenting. He has until midnight in Dubai before it resets, he finds, even when he boards an early flight and passes through time zones. Neither Louis nor Armand are aware of the loop, and their staff isn’t either (that was embarrassing; Armand had to tell him to stop terrorizing the outside security guards). He scours the penthouse and comes up empty-handed, he has Louis send feelers out for any vampires in their vicinity (there are none, Armand ate them all), and he bombards the Talamasca with questions about time travel (Raglan unhelpfully sends him a Reddit thread of deluded internet theorists).
After that, the following three cycles are grueling. Suspecting Louis to be the key, Daniel tests his luck: dissuading him against returning to New Orleans (he hadn’t taken the advice well), comforting him about Claudia (they both walk away more traumatized), and suffering through the heartbreak of trashing all his notes and cloud files for good (clearly, the time loop doesn’t care if he publishes the book or not). He even calls his daughters and ex-wives and apologizes to them in teeth-pulling honesty, in case this is some A Christmas Carol morality bullshit. After sitting through his eldest daughter’s tears and his second ex-wife’s anger, he’s almost relieved when the cycle begins again.
By the ninth cycle, the monotony has become suffocating. There’s no point trying to escape Dubai, and the thought of sitting in an airplane gives him PTSD worse than Armand’s San Francisco torture funhouse. Louis and his unchanging story grates, so he pushes harder and harder until his cruelty has Louis worsening his Parkinson's so severely, Daniel swears he can still feel it in the ensuing cycle.
By the tenth loop, he’s already starting to fray.
“Useless,” Daniel mutters, shoving his belongings in his suitcase. Leaving makes no difference, but he’ll blow his brains out if he has to hear about the trial once more. Maybe he can sit at Kite Beach and let the sun cook him. He’s going to be stuck here forever at this rate.
He has his suitcase in hand and bag slung over his shoulder when Armand appears in the doorway. “Get out of the way,” Daniel bites out. He’s sick of him too—making the same pathetic pleas at Louis every damn cycle.
“Mr. Molloy—” Armand begins.
“Oh, fuck off,” Daniel snaps and walks out the door.
Or, he at least tries to. Armand is a gracious enough host to let him get in five steps before he’s materializing in front of him, still cool and collected. “You have an interview to conduct, Mr. Molloy.” The way he says his name is all clipped syllables. “We have an agreement.”
“Keep your ten million.” Daniel tries to push past him, but Armand swiftly steps in front of him once more. “I’m not interested in vampiric sob stories anymore.”
Something flares in Armand, low and dangerous. “You will stay.”
Daniel frowns. This is…new. Armand’s never been so adversarial before. He’s never stuck around in the aftermath of the interview either, he realizes. There’d always been some lead he’d tried to explore, or some corner of Dubai he had attempted to escape to. One more go, then, and after that he’s committed to staying in bed for the entirety of the next loop.
“Real ironic what you’re asking for here,” he says sardonically and drops his bag. “But if you’re committed to ruining your own life, fine. Makes no difference to me.”
Armand lets out a breath he definitely does not need. “Good. I will bring Louis to you when he wakes.”
The trial, of course, is nothing new, but Daniel behaves and plays along. He ends the session, and slides the script to Louis. “Armand directed the play,” Daniel says boredly. “77 years, seismic lie, whatever.”
This time, when books and plaster rains down on him, Daniel doesn't flinch.
Louis leaves. Daniel had gotten into the habit of stowing away his laptop early, so his physical notes go up in flames instead. He watches Louis’ retreating back, wonders if he should run after him, beg to be taken to New Orleans. Maybe the elusive Lestat holds all the answers, but he knows the plane won’t make it to America before the cycle begins again.
Cautiously, he returns to Armand.
The vampire remains slumped against the wall, a near-pitiful thing. Like this, there’s no distinguishing him from a corpse: cold, lifeless, perfectly still and staring.
Armand raises his head, slow and deliberate. “Here to gloat, Mr. Molloy?” His voice is flat, cut slightly by an undercurrent of bitterness.
Unwise to rile up an ancient monster going through a break-up, but Daniel’s tired, impatient, and bored. A bored Daniel Molloy is a dangerous thing. “Five hundred years old,” he replies instead. “Powerful enough to rule a coven for two-hundred years. You could’ve read my mind. Hell, you could’ve killed me before it even got this far. Why spare an insignificant mortal?”
Armand does not scoff, but he does a close thing, lips twisting cruelly. “You are insolent, even now.” His words are clipped. “I could rectify that, if you are so eager to kiss death.”
He still makes no attempt to move. Something tugs at Daniel, a fishing line knotted around his lungs, and he takes an unwitting step forward.
Armand’s eyes drift over to him, a startling hypnotic orange. Their emptiness shifts, replaced with something deeper, darker. Feral. Hungry.
Self-preservation is rather beyond Daniel, at this point. “Finish the job, then. Don’t tell me your lingering love for Louis is keeping me alive. We both know that maitre shit doesn’t hold any real ground.”
Armand’s muscles tense, and in a mere half-second, he’s pressing Daniel against the opposite wall, fangs peeking out from under his top lip. He has his arm jutted at the soft part of Daniel’s throat as Daniel gasps for a breath. “Do not presume to know my love for him,” he hisses. “You will not poison my devotion, too.”
Daniel waits for the killing blow. Some perverse part of him is eager for it, even, out of sheer curiosity for what would happen next. Instead, the fight drains out of Armand and he lets Daniel go, who stumbles.
Armand steps back and adjusts his cuffs like he isn’t bleeding from his temple and covered in dust. “Ten million dollars richer and a book to write, Mr. Molloy. I’m surprised you are not eager to return to the comfort of your home.”
“And you’ll let me,” Daniel hedges. “Even though you have me right here.”
“What would you have me do? What difference would it make?”
The open question gives Daniel pause. “All good stories need a villain,” he finally settles on. “When this book is published, do you think you'll be spared? You don’t want to tell your side of the story while you still can?”
“To you?” Armand huffs. “To preserve my dignity before humans? I don’t owe them anything.”
“...Right.” It’s tempting to crack into Armand. He’s the most unstable Daniel has ever seen him be, and his skin jumps eagerly at the thought of pushing him so hard, the devil from San Francisco emerges once more. There’s more story here, burning to be told.
Louis, despite how much he lashed back at Daniel, wanted to uncover his story. There’s a part of Louis that desires that dissection, that truth, and Daniel was the only one willing to serve it to him. It’s what has let Daniel push and push and push, even if it meant toying with death.
Armand fears the truth. It’s the one thing he can possibly fear about Daniel. And yet here he is, this apex predator, letting Daniel push. It’s a rare, tempting opportunity, one that Daniel would jump on any other day of the week. Yet after ten cycles, it all just feels futile.
“No follow-up questions?” Armand sneers, when the fight drains out of Daniel.
“Nah,” Daniel says, and it’s the first time Armand looks caught off-guard. Nothing but dead-ends and repeated conversations. He just wants to curl up and wait for it all to start over once more.
He wanders back to the reading room and fetches his laptop. Ignoring Armand resolutely, he settles on the living room couch and opens up his notes. With nothing better to do, he begins transcribing some relevant historical documents from the Talamasca, a welcome, mindless task to distract from the cotton in his brain.
Armand glides in a few minutes later and deposits himself in front of Daniel, legs crossed like a child. Daniel eyes him, and Armand simply stares back, unblinking. Not one to back down, Daniel snaps his attention back to his laptop screen as Armand’s stare fades to the background, until he feels less like a predator and more like an inquisitive cat.
“There’s still time to stop me.” Daniel finally breaks the silence. “Burn my laptop, cloud my mind, worsen my Parkinson’s. You don’t need to kill me to ruin me.”
“You’re already ruined,” Armand replies softly, “by virtue of sitting here. What more would you have me do?”
Daniel doesn’t have a response, so Armand continues, fingers absentmindedly picking at the loose threads of the throw pillows. “It will not only be Louis under the bitter wrath of the vampire community. The ones too cowardly to take on a vampire will punish his favored mortal, should you publish this book.”
“Won’t be the first time someone wants a hit on me,” Daniel mutters. “Comes with the field.” He halts his typing mid-sentence, suddenly very aware that every word he has written will be erased come the next loop. Fuck, how irritating. Giving up, he shuts his laptop. “You’re not gonna give me anything, huh?”
Armand smiles, thin-lipped. “I have no desire to kill you, Mr. Molloy, however incessant your pleas are. And blood laced with levodopa is far from appetizing.”
Breaking into this guy is like whaling on a brick wall with a butter knife. “For Louis’ sake, yeah?” Daniel says shortly.
Armand tilts his head. It seems like an acquiescence.
It’s late evening now; there isn’t much to do but whittle away the hours until the next loop starts. The pulsing in his head starts up again; it always does when midnight nears.
At some point, Daniel drifts off, and when he wakes, Armand is still there, shrouded in shadows. The whites of his eyes gleam in the dimmed light from the city below. He’s prettier like this, Daniel muses absentmindedly, when he’s not juggling some pretense. In the same way a minnow would find an anglerfish alluring, right before it’s eaten.
The clock reads a minute away from midnight now. “Is this how you’re planning to spend your post-divorce days? Watching some old guy sleep?”
“Yes,” Armand says simply. His gaze flickers over Daniel’s face. A simple movement, but its intensity feels invasive. Intimate. “I have no wish to know what the breaking sun will bring.”
You won’t have to, Daniel thinks bitterly, staring down at his useless notes, at his laptop that may-or-may-not be burned the next tomorrow-today. “Yeah, well. Great to know that an eldritch abomination can get a kick out of watching my slow crawl to mortality.”
“I see him,” Armand murmurs. His eyes go caramel-soft. “My beautiful boy.”
The clock ticks midnight, and the loop begins once more.
Daniel enters the eleventh time loop unsettled. He wakes with Armand’s amber eyes still seared into his mind, coupled with a strange longing that has his chest tight and pained. Rashid serves him the same breakfast, and he’s so sick of it that he makes him take back the plate and return with something else.
Part of him still wants to sleep the day away but he finds himself emerging for the interview anyways.
He’s sloppy as he navigates through the loop. Armand’s meek silence is sickening. Louis’ naive ignorance is infuriating. He wants it all to just break.
So, he pushes. He gets messy. A derisive and then what? sits heavily on the tip of his tongue. He swings and hits, too hard and too soon, while Louis is still fresh off the grief of Claudia’s death and his recollection of Lestat.
Predictably, it all tunnels into Louis lunging for Armand with Daniel still trapped in between them.
Something stupid and reckless possesses Daniel to scramble in front of Louis in an attempt to wrestle back control of the interview. Louis, still locked in on Armand, snarls and whips a hand out, pushing Daniel away. Vampiric strength is nothing against the frail mortal body of an old man.
Daniel’s head cracks into the concrete wall, and everything starts moving slow and syrupy. There’s Louis, rushing towards him. His lips are moving, but Daniel can’t make anything out over the ringing. Over his shoulder stands Armand: Half-blank, half-apocalyptic, and rapidly careening into something worse.
Daniel’s vision blurs with blood. Coherent thought is a struggle, but six nights in San Francisco, decades of drug use, and the rapid descent of death is not enough to dull his wit:
Armand, despite every piece of evidence pointing otherwise, looks devastated.
Death, Daniel finds out, isn’t too bad when it’s instantaneous.
As soon as his vision goes black, he winds up back in his bed. There’s a dull ache lingering at the base of his neck, but other than that, he can sit up and stretch just fine. Or at least, as fine as he usually can, with all the regular pops and cracks. Swinging his legs out from under the covers, he exhales out slowly. Waking never gets easier.
He pulls the covers back up in a lazy attempt at making the bed, then freezes. There’s a slight divot on the other side of the bed, the second pillow unusually crumpled. He runs a hand along the duvet. No body warmth. Maybe he had tossed and turned in his sleep just before waking.
He runs through his morning routine mechanically. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Louis dealt a killing blow first. Really, what did Daniel expect, prodding at an apex predator, just as he had done in San Francisco. Maybe that explains Armand’s reluctance to end him. What had Louis called him? A testament to our companionship. He’s their attempt at a Claudia, in the form of a bumbling mortal boy turned cynical mortal man.
Beautiful boy, Armand had said.
Daniel shivers, and begins the day again.
During the day, Louis sleeps, leaving Daniel to his own devices. Armand is nowhere to be found, which is odd—the ancient vampire similarly sleeps through the mornings, but Daniel’s quite certain that most cycles have him puttering around his library around noon. He flags down Rashid, who doesn’t seem that thrilled to see him, given that Daniel’s new favorite hobby each time loop is requesting increasingly elaborate breakfasts.
“He went out,” Rashid replies, when Daniel asks where his master is. “They do have a life beyond this penthouse, if you’ll believe it.”
“Hunting?” Daniel guesses. He really needs that diet and exercise follow-up.
“Or simply people-watching.” Rashid lifts his shoulders in what could be an infinitesimal shrug. “He is known to do so.”
He sometimes lingers when boats are at harbor, Louis had said. Time for some old-fashioned tracking.
Armand, in his six-foot glory, is easy to spot. Daniel finds him at a pedestrian bridge crossing over the canal, serenely watching as boats drift below him. A cigarette rests delicately in his hands and the smoke lazily curls in the late afternoon air. The vampire must have sensed him from hundreds of yards back, but he makes no move to acknowledge him.
Unperturbed, Daniel sidles up next to him and rests his arms on the railing. “How long have you been in Dubai. Ten years? Twenty? Bored yet?”
It’s novel to see Armand lit under the sun, but his face looks older, drawn. His delicate undereye skin is red-rimmed, from tears or tiredness or both. Daniel doesn’t remember ever seeing him look so rough in previous cycles.
“Louis mentioned you liked to watch the harbor,” he finally settles on.
“Yes,” Armand replies quietly. “The boats here are…modern. I find myself missing the grandeur of Venetian sailing ships. Their triple masts.” He offers Daniel a cigarette, then sparks it with his mind when Daniel takes it. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
“Hm.” Daniel takes a drag of his cigarette. His doctor’s gonna kill him. “Worried I’m gonna take a dive off the side?” he drawls. “Rich coming from the guy who suicide-baited me back in ‘73.”
When Armand doesn’t reply, just continues to inspect Daniel as if he’s gonna bolt, he scoffs. “You’re right here next to me, I’m sure your vamp-strength will keep me from running away.” Like his knees could even handle running if he tried.
Armand looks down at his hands. He must have been picking at his fingers—Daniel catches its skin and nail reknitting itself together. “You’d be surprised,” he murmurs, “at how little we can prevent.”
Daniel’s jaw clicks. I could not prevent it. Shameless. “I know it was you,” he snaps. “I know you directed the play. I know you failed Louis. I know it has always been Lestat.”
Armand remains fixated on the water below. “I never understood how galleys could be propelled by oars back then. I used to watch them set sail. The rowers…almost antlike as they filed on board.” His eyes go distant. “Staying on shore is a better fate, I think.”
“I’m gonna tell him, and he’s gonna leave you. You know he will.”
Armand stills. Daniel waits. Nothing happens. He blows out smoke. “And you let me. You let me destroy it every time, even though you cling on ‘til the very end.”
Armand closes his eyes, jaw tensing like his fangs are about to pop out. “What are you trying to say, Mr. Molloy?”
“I don’t fucking know.” Daniel drops his cigarette and snuffs it out with his shoe, because he really shouldn’t be smoking anyways. Then, he reluctantly picks it up and shoves it into his pocket. He wrote a book on environmentalism, and maybe the time loop is trying to punish his hypocrisy. “Sue me for wanting to find at least some sort of justification for why you’re like…” He waves a useless hand. “This.”
“You never stop digging,” Armand replies, but he sounds resigned. “Always stubborn, always impudent, always asking questions.”
Wistful. Strange. Daniel takes a leap, because why the fuck not? “For a five hundred year old vampire protective of his past, you sure like to reminisce.” He peers at Armand over his glasses. “I didn’t do any digging on you back in San Francisco. I was drugged up and agreeing with whatever my torturer was saying.”
Armand smiles. It doesn’t reach the rest of his face. “I only meant it’s in your nature, Mr. Molloy.”
“You’re a shit liar.” Daniel narrows his eyes. “You’re hiding something from me. About me.” There’s an unearned familiarity in the way Armand speaks, hidden loosely in a sea of Mr. Molloy’s and forced politeness.
“Louis wakes in a few hours.” Armand gracefully steps back, and incinerates the rest of his cigarette. “Come. We can see if he will forgive me.”
Armand lets it all crumble, lets Louis hurl him into the wall, and stares at Daniel glassily as he stands over him. Angry and confused why, Daniel leaves the penthouse to sit harborside until the time loop restarts.
The feet-in-rocks shtick didn't really work last time, so Daniel doesn't quite know what brings him to the small courtyard this time around. Rocks that, Daniel now knows, are a reminder of Armand's greatest betrayal. Macabre. He steps, bare-footed, on them anyways.
Louis finds him like this, sitting on the floor’s edge, and lowers himself down to join him. "A rare moment of introspection, Daniel?" he guesses, burying his own feet in the rocks. Now that Daniel knows what still lies nestled under his flesh, the action feels invasive to watch.
He considers Louis for a second: loose-limbed, his face easy and open. Perhaps the last time Daniel will see him like this. "I'm stuck in a time loop," he confesses.
His chest lightens the moment he says it, even if Louis is currently looking at him as though he's gone crazy. But he doesn't outright laugh or brush him off, and instead mirrors the words Daniel once said, in a shitty apartment on Divisadero Street. "I’m really interested to know why you believe that."
Daniel half-shrugs. "I know how it sounds. Not really looking for affirmations here." The thought of explaining it exhausts him, in all honesty. "I never tried telling someone before, so…why the hell not? It might as well be to you."
A complicated expression settles on Louis' face. He studies Daniel for a moment, before asking, "Is it Armand again?"
It's telling that Louis' first thought goes to implicating the supposed love-of-his-life. Sure, Armand doesn't have a trustworthy track record, but one would think the pieces would start clicking together, at this point.
Daniel takes mercy on him and doesn’t press that thought. “Doubtful. He's as clueless to the loops as you are. It might be..." He bites the inside of his cheek. "There’s always a narrative element to these stories, right? What are time loops but a character motif the author repeatedly clobbers over your head?”
“...Right,” Louis says.
“I know there’s something and it’s here, but my brain can’t—" He grits his teeth, sinking his feet further into the rocks. “I can’t figure it out.”
Louis nods. It's nice that he's taking this so well, but Daniel supposes that with age comes the ability to just roll with any punch thrown at you. Either that, or he's humoring an old man. "You’ve already found the thread, haven’t you?” he says. “Take it. Pull it.”
A particularly stubborn stone digs into the pad of Daniel’s toe. He withdraws his feet and unsteadily stands up. “Yeah. Yeah, I really should, shouldn’t I?”
Louis looks up at him, from where he’s still sitting on the floor. “How many days?”
“Thirteen? I think.”
Louis stands, and nudges his feet back into his shoes. “A lifetime,” he offers and Daniel sucks in a breath. Immortality and the malaise of grief. Days so meaningless and repetitive, they might as well loop over and over again.
“Feels like that, sometimes.” Footsteps sound from behind them and Daniel immediately knows who it is. Fun’s over.
"Louis," Armand interrupts, voice clipped. “You should eat before we begin the interview.”
Louis’ jaw clenches, brief but noticeable, but he stands up and leans in to kiss Armand's cheek. He's stiff with it, clearly still resentful from the past week of dredged up memories. Armand is cracked porcelain as it happens, waiting for the tension to break and be shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Good luck,” Louis tells Daniel. “Tell me the full story sometime, if you ever do figure it out.” He does not look back at Armand when he leaves the room.
Armand watches Louis’ retreating back, lips pursed. Then, he steps forward until he’s towering in front of Daniel. "You confide in him." There's something twisted and ugly in Armand's voice.
Daniel flinches back. "Stop digging around in my brain."
Armand's lip curls. "Did you think it would help? That he could alleviate your pain? Would you feel special, Mr. Molloy, if it were him that pieced together the failures of your life?”
"Christ.” Daniel vaguely feels like he needs to just press pause on this conversation and grab a pen to write this all down. “You are hiding something.”
Armand’s eyes flash. “You confide in him,” he says again.
“Jealous?” Daniel says derisively. “Gonna string me up because your boyfriend no longer has the patience to play along with that Stepford wife act?” That one does land, because Armand goes expressionless and cold. Whatever. He won’t remember a thing tomorrow. “Got no rush in figuring you out, sweetheart. Don’t go showing your cards too quickly.”
Armand levels him. His eyes glitter—resentment, betrayal, hunger, and something else: thrill?
Fascinating. The thought enters his head unhindered. He doesn’t know whose it is.
Time loop be damned, Daniel has another pressing matter on his hands. To say Armand, liar of all liars, is hiding something is a bit redundant but, hey, he’s got a personal investment here.
Most of the Talamasca's files sit, untouched, on his laptop drive. He’s never done a true deep dive, but now he has nothing but time. When Louis is once more asleep and Armand is fucking off somewhere, Daniel cracks open his laptop at the reading room and starts investigating Armand’s files.
His cursor hovers over the PARAMOURS folder, but it gives him a terrible sense of foreboding, so he ignores it against all his journalistic instincts. Instead, he clicks around the other folders. The victim list is largely nondescript, a bunch of names he can’t recognize. Covens, vampiric gifts, Theatre de Vampires scripts…all fascinating but none relevant.
The Talamasca also has a detailed listing of past properties, majority of which are under Louis’ name. Their apartment on Divisadero has been long sold, he notes, probably by Armand. The Dubai penthouse is nothing of note: just the date it was bought, and a smattering of photos. Frustratingly, there’s nothing on the farm. He has half a mind to pull up his chats to Raglan and tell him what a shit job his organization does.
Louis and Armand own a few properties in New York as well, and Daniel clicks through them, curious to see if he recognizes any of them. Strangely, the majority of these are under Armand’s name. A highrise in SoHo, a night club in lower Manhattan, an apartment building in Brooklyn—
His apartment building.
Daniel rereads the address thrice, just to make sure he isn’t losing it. There’s no way, he thinks in horror, that he’s been paying rent to Armand? Bought and refurbished by Armand, the file states, a year after Daniel himself started living there. It wasn’t that they had connections to Daniel’s mailman, they just owned his fucking home.
Daniel closes his eyes. He can remember when it happened, now that he thinks about it. The building had been bought out, and he was instructed to stay at a hotel while renovations were finished. When Daniel had returned, his locks had all been replaced and his ceiling was repainted to mimic a resplendent blue sky.
The interior designer hired, Armand-as-Rashid had told him, after Daniel had inquired about the magnolia tree, was a sentimentalist.
Daniel had thought that, too, when he first gazed up at the painted gold-tinged clouds.
The very last file is titled NIGHT ISLAND. Daniel’s eyes nearly roll into the back of his head. Fucking oligarch vampires. Photos populate the folder when he opens it, along with a text document. He scans through it quickly. Purchased in the 1970s, located off the coast of Miami—
Bought by THE VAMPIRE ARMAND in the name of DANIEL MOLLOY.
“Huh,” Daniel said, then exits out of all his tabs, closes his laptop, and massages his temples in an attempt to assuage an oncoming headache.
Pulitzerootwo: Care to explain why I have an ISLAND under my name?
RJ: Perhaps the Vampire Armand wanted a bubble for his favorite hamster.
RJ: Any agent that came close to setting foot on Night Island has been killed. It’s an exclusive resort for vampires. We’ve never been able to gather more information than that.
Pulitzerootwo: Then why the hell was I roped into it?
RJ: I’ve already given you our only guess.
Pulitzerootwo: A favorite hamster? Thanks.
RJ: That’s what we had hoped.
RJ: Far worse to be something more.
Armand’s been haunting him since the 1970s. Great. He wants to believe it was just Louis who was keen to keep an eye out for his “boy”, but that’s an easy answer, and vampires are never easy. Maybe Armand truly did buy an island in an attempt to cage him, but the plan never came into fruition and it was revamped into a resort instead. Or maybe Daniel, the too-nosy journalist he’s always been, did set foot on an island off of Miami, and he was lobotomized to never remember.
If that’s the case, then Armand could’ve at least lobotomized his other memories of Miami, while he was at it.
Regardless of vampire mind-tricks, there’s still hard evidence from the 70’s he can pull. Sucking in a breath, Daniel opens up his phone and scrolls through his contacts. How long has it been since he last called? Christmas? He’ll reset the loop after this. It’s fine.
Kate picks up on the third ring. “What happened?” she asks, tongue sharp. Always down to business, his Kate. Lenora would at least mask her distaste with pleasantries, but Kate’s his only family in New York City.
Daniel grimaces. “I need a favor. Can you check in on my apartment real quick?”
Daniel can practically hear her scowl. “Now? Why aren’t you there?” A pause. “Don’t tell me you’re out of state right now. Dad! Covid hasn’t gone away, you’re not supposed to be traveling.”
“Out of country, actually.” Daniel sighs, and keeps talking before she can process that. “I wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important.” Talking to Kate is like getting eviscerated from the inside out. “I’m…working on a piece and I can’t remember some of my 70’s work. Memory’s starting to go a little, that’s all. There’s a closet that has some memorabilia from back then. I just need you to take some pictures and send them to me.”
“Yeah,” Kate finally says, in a soft, resigned voice that Daniel barely recognizes. Great, his daughter definitely thinks he’s developing dementia. “Yeah, okay, Dad. I’ll call when I’m there.”
Two calls to father-of-the-year Daniel Molloy in one day seems to be too much for Kate, because she instead ends up texting him a photo of his closet and its mess of boxes. What should I go through? Then: You still have our old toys? Jesus.
Daniel probably deserves that. Take pictures of everything. Especially anything from the 70s-80s.
A barrage of photos load, and he swipes through each one of them. A stack of his worn journals, old photos from graduation, a box of Alice’s belongings that she never bothered taking back. Nothing immediately stands out to him as vampiric in nature.
A new text comes through. Is this Mom’s? It has an A on it.
Then: It’s creepy. Not Mom’s style.
The photo loads of a locket, dangling from Kate’s fingers. Daniel squints at his screen. The imagery engraved in it is horrific—twisted figures of humans, writhing in agony. The carved A seems to have been added afterwards, delicately done, but by a non-artisan’s hand.
A third text: Should I open it?
Every bone in Daniel’s body quivers. He shouldn’t have looped Kate into this. No, he texts back quickly. Thanks, Kate, I have everything I need.
Three dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. Finally, Kate responds, Ok. Have a safe flight back.
He could text back an I love you, just to see how she’d respond. It’d have no lasting consequence. He chooses not to.
His fingers quiver as he sets his phone down on the table. The locket could be anyone’s. It could’ve been a forgotten trinket a young Daniel had picked up at a nondescript flea market. And yet he can feel the phantom-chill of metal on his skin, the endearing attempt of undead skin to heat the locket for when it rests Daniel’s warm-blooded chest.
His pulsing headache returns, and when it cedes, the metallic-sweet of blood lingers heavy on his tongue.
“I have some follow-up questions,” Daniel begins, before he destroys Louis and Armand’s relationship once more. At this point, he really doesn’t have to keep doing so every time, but he’s too petty and vindictive to let Armand get off scot-free each cycle. “Housekeeping stuff, you get the drill. Readers rip historical inaccuracies to shreds. When did you two move to Dubai?”
“Not too long ago,” Louis answers, then gives the date. “Before that, we lived in Sausalito.”
“Right, right.” Matches up with the Talamasca’s files. “And both are under Louis’ name?” He glances at Armand. “Not into real estate, huh?”
“Louis takes care of our properties,” Armand replies airily. “I have a handful of apartments in my name, yes, but they are collecting dust by now.”
Daniel rattles off the addresses he had jotted down. “Those ring a bell?”
“Hm.” Armand tilts his head. “I had forgotten I bought those.” Distressingly, he seems to be telling the truth.
“It’s funny,” Daniel says. “One of these New York apartments is actually mine.”
Louis looks amused. “Armand had bought it under my instruction,” he admits. “A repeat of the interview had been on my mind for a few years, and it was…more discreet than sending the tapes through mail.”
“A few years,” Daniel says slowly. “Meaning, you only had this idea recently. I was of the idea that Armand bought my place back when I first moved in.” Why was it Armand who kept track of me, and not you?
Armand half-rises from his chair. “Where did you find this information?” he asks dangerously.
“Property records are public,” Daniel shoots back, even though Armand isn’t mollified in the slightest.
“It makes no difference when he bought it.” Louis looks frustrated. “Was that all?”
He isn’t getting anywhere with Armand on edge and Louis in the room. Fuck it. Daniel tosses Louis the original script. “Break up with your boyfriend and call Lestat. I’m gonna turn in.”
The impact of Louis’ anger rattles the walls even from the guest bedroom. He sits on his bed for a little while, waiting until he’s sure Louis is gone, before heading out to find Armand.
Normally, he’s splayed against the wall, with that thinly-restrained anger brewing just beneath the surface, but tonight he’s even more vacant than usual. His head is bared back against the crumbling wall, staring emptily up at the ceiling as if he’s waiting for Daniel, too.
“It wasn’t just the apartment.” Daniel crosses his arms, looking down at him. “There’s an island, too. Purchased in my name. Want to explain what that’s about?”
An odd brightness returns to Armand as he sits up, hands braced against the floor. “What do you know of Night Island?”
Always games and never answers. Briefly, Daniel contemplates grabbing the nearest vase and braining Armand’s head. A slight huff of breath tells him that Armand’s read that thought. “It exists. That’s all.”
Armand’s fingers flex. He blows a curl from his face, and a puff of dust flutters with it. “You don’t remember after all.”
“I knew it!” Daniel snaps. “More holes in my brain!”
“Good night, Mr. Molloy,” Armand says shortly. “Come tomorrow, you can destroy it all again.”
Daniel might actually lose it if he really does have to try again tomorrow. “You gotta throw me a bone here, man,” he says, and it comes out a bit more honest than he would have liked, “I really will keep giving you chances to explain yourself. More chances than you’ll ever know.”
Armand’s eyes go big and pensive, the same expression fake-Rashid would make. “Good night, Mr. Molloy,” he repeats, softer this time.
The energy is odd between them, now. Daniel wants to push, but he’s also too fascinated to shatter it. He ends up cracking first, leaving Armand sprawled against the wall as he retreats back to his room. Futilely, he attempts to knock back the hours until midnight by sleeping and lies in the silence of his room numbly, mind simultaneously worn out and overactive. Just as drowsiness tugs at him, the door creaks open and orange irises pierce through the moonlight.
Daniel’s too tired for this. “Make yourself comfortable, at least,” he mumbles, shifting so he’s curled away from the door. “You look like a sleep paralysis demon.”
Silence. Daniel figures he’s scared him off until the mattress dips slightly. The ghost of a touch grazes his side, light but still scorching through the layers of blanket. Daniel pretends to sleep, and Armand pretends not to stare.
Louis and Armand recount the trial once more. Daniel plays Solitaire on his laptop until he can get Armand alone.
Although Daniel hasn’t switched much up this time, Armand is yet again in a different position, leaned up against the wall. His legs are drawn up to his chest, looking rather bored. “You haven’t run off yet?” he asks Daniel, and there’s a strange eager energy to it. “More follow-up questions?”
“What, you already need a new toy to play with?” When Armand doesn’t respond, just continues to look up at Daniel doe-eyed, he sighs. “Go make me a drink and maybe I’ll stick around long enough to play personal jester. ”
The expected pushback never comes. Instead, Armand gracefully rises and floats towards Rashid’s abandoned bar table. Bewildered, Daniel follows.
“Here’s a question for you.” Daniel watches as Armand examines each bottle, then proceeds to make a cocktail. “Why is a vampire so adept at bartending? Don’t tell me you studied up for your little fake Rashid stunt.”
“Could it not be that I simply find it fun?” Armand blinks at him. “Humanity’s most fascinating technology can be found in the kitchen. You are not so different from vampires in that sense: we all like to toy with our food.”
“Blenders,” Daniel says, and Armand stills with a glass in hand. “You mentioned them before.”
“Ah.” Armand continues pouring. “I did, yes.” He slides the drink over to Daniel who takes a sip. Better than Rashid’s. “I enjoy microwaves too,” he adds, then gives Daniel that strange look, like he’s an English professor trying to prompt his students towards an answer.
“Great detail for your own book,” Daniel says dryly. “Readers love a slice-of-life chapter.”
Armand huffs, but the revelation does give Daniel more room for poking. “It’s been five hundred years, you’re still talking about 16th century galleys. How does an immortal keep up with technology, much less pop culture? I mean, I don’t even see a TV around here.”
“How do we keep up? We don’t.” Armand looks amused. “While I may be adept with technology, I’m sorely out of date with popular culture.” He worries a curl between his fingers, contemplating Daniel. “Teach me.”
“Teach you?” Daniel balks. “I’m nearly seventy, I don’t know shit.”
“You have your laptop,” Armand says airily. “Put something on for me.”
Daniel waits, because this all seems like some elaborate joke, but Armand just arches his eyebrow. “Sure,” he finally concedes. At least this is something new. “Fine. Okay. Go sit on the couch.”
Armand deposits himself on the couch and stares at Daniel challengingly until he follows suit (not before downing the entire cocktail—he’s going to need it.) Ignoring Armand’s curious eyes (cat-like, Daniel thinks again), he navigates to a streaming website and, because he doesn't want to give Armand anything good, puts on a random Twilight movie. Let Armand suffer through its inaccuracies, in the name of pop culture.
And Armand does suffer at first, scoffing especially at the notion of vegetarian vampires, but slowly he’s rendered pin-drop silent, utterly enraptured in their story. At some point, Daniel gives up on watching the movie and just watches Armand instead, because this is the most animated he’s ever seen the vampire: he points at the screen, he smiles at any gore, he nudges Daniel if he thinks he isn’t paying attention.
“She wishes to be turned,” Blood tears prick the corners of Armand’s eyes, “because she believes Edward will not love her as she ages.” A slender finger reaches up to delicately wick away a tear. “How can she not see that staying mortal is proof of his devotion?”
“Let’s switch to something else,” Daniel decides, and snatches the laptop. Armand wrestles it back, but his vampiric strength sends his thumb crushing straight through the trackpad, leaving the cursor glitching out frantically. “My warranty just expired,” Daniel complains, even though it’ll be perfectly fixed tomorrow.
Armand stills as the cursor spasms across the screen, then exits itself out of the browser and sporadically opens up folders. His lips curl back, his eyes scrunch up, and he lets out a pretty peal of laughter, shoulders shaking. The sound sends a rush of heat to Daniel’s face, like he’s just been caught watching something he shouldn’t.
“Shame,” Armand says, and unceremoniously dumps the laptop on the ground. “I was curious about the vampire baby.”
Mirth still lingers on his face as he draws back, and it’s only then that Daniel realizes how close they’ve gotten. One of Armand’s knees is pressing into Daniel’s leg, a cool weight. How much of Daniel’s blood would it take to warm him?
“Would you like to find out?” Armand purrs.
Daniel shoves him away and Armand falls back into the cushions, even though Daniel barely put any force into it. “Stay out of my head.”
“Hard not to, when it’s so loud.” Armand rolls his head back, giving Daniel a terrible view of the stretch of his throat. “Much like your obnoxious typing.”
“It was purposefully obnoxious,” Daniel shoots back. “Then the habit just stuck.”
That earns him another huff of laughter, before silence settles between them. It’s not awkward; it never has been. A familiarity burns in the back of Daniel’s throat.
“This is,” Daniel’s mouth feels dry. “This is weird, y’know that, right? What do you want from me? I’m asking plainly here. What’s changed?” And he doesn’t mean just now.
“You’re the journalist.” Armand’s voice is just shy of mocking. “Go on, then. Tell me your clever deductions.”
Daniel scrutinizes him. He’s further away now, sprawled back on the couch, but a foot is resting on Daniel’s thigh, just shy of his lap. All vampires are one thing, he realizes. “You’re lonely. You’ve been lonely for seventy-seven years and you’re just now realizing it.”
A complicated expression flits across Armand’s face. He parts his lips, then closes them again, deliberate and thinking. “You’re off by twenty,” Armand finally says. “It’s been thirty-seven years, not seventy-seven.”
1985. His mind, unwittingly, flits to Paris. Clever boy, Armand whispers into his mind and Daniel doesn’t fix him a glare this time, too preoccupied chewing the date over. He was in Paris in the 80s, wasn’t he? He remembers leading Alice around, he remembers knocking out chapters of his book as she tried to catch his attention. And he remembers a prickling at his spine, the blur of streetlights, muddying from white to gold to orange orange orange…
Almost absentmindedly, he rubs at the sliver of skin at Armand's ankle. Armand shivers and stretches his leg into the touch. Slow, Daniel runs his hand up, skimming under the fabric of Armand's pants, until he halts at the soft underside right before the knee.
Armand's tongue darts out to wet his lips, eyes dark and hooded. Daniel swallows dryly and retreats.
"I used to have this nightmare," he starts, voice unsteady, "where I’m alone in the streets, or riding a taxi, or at a restaurant. My body seizes up. I can’t move, but my eyes can. There’s something at my back, I can feel its—breath? Nails, maybe—on my neck. And then I remember nothing else, but eyes. Big and orange and blinding, like those shitty LEDs cars have nowadays.” He curls his fingers into the fabric of the couch, trying to clamp down his trembling fingers. “I always called it a nightmare, but I was never scared during it. Or–I was scared, but that felt good, too.”
Armand hums. "Romantic." And it’s there again—that odd familiarity, washing over Daniel in waves.
The pulsing headache returns as midnight strokes closer. Daniel rubs at his temple, eyelids fluttering shut as it migrates to the back of his pupils. Armand prods him until he opens them again. “You can’t fall asleep,” he admonishes. “It isn’t midnight yet.”
“Relax, I still got a few all-nighters in me.” Daniel mutters. He jerks up as Armand roughly takes his wrist in hand and holds it up, staring at the watch Daniel’s taken to wearing every cycle now. He leans forward, eyes locked on the minute hand as it ticks forward.
“Are you sure you’re not in a time loop?” Daniel asks.
Armand looks at him like he’s a particularly amusing mouse. “Hush, beloved,” he says, and it all resets once more.