Chapter Text
As did many things when it came to the vampire Armand…it all started with a fucking painting.
“…What the hell is that?”
Daniel’s maker froze for a split second before he glanced over his shoulder, his amber eyes flickering in a way they only did when he was…affected by something…which contrasted quite starkly with the rest of his calm demeanor. But such was the duality of the vampire Armand. “It’s a painting, Daniel.”
And Daniel, who was just about fucking done with the vampire Armand, responded in kind. “All right, fuck you too then.”
Armand snorted lightly, his expression remaining exactly the same because it never changed. He never changed. Why the hell did Daniel ever think he would? Why the fuck did Daniel accept his invite down to his villa in the Azores, believe him serious about repairing the relationship between maker and fledgling?
I left you dead on my floor in Dubai because that’s what was best for you, Daniel. I wiped your memory and ruined your life in the ‘80s because I know you, and you needed it, Daniel. You should thank me for how I’m still trying to control you even though I made you and then fucking abandoned you…beloved.
Daniel had broken Armand’s nose when he said that, beloved, how fucking dare you….but he still hadn’t left, had he.
He told himself it was because he wouldn’t make it back to dry land before the sun rose. As if Armand would let him burn if he truly wanted to leave.
The thought pissed him off even more.
Daniel sighed, curiosity winning out. “…What is it a painting of?”
Armand turned back to the painting in question, his eyes flickering again. “…You tell me.”
Goddamnit…
“I’m a writer, not an artist. Never really got the whole abstract thing.”
Armand hummed softly, his eyes fixed on the painting. “It’s hardly abstract. It very clearly depicts what it is.”
“And what is it that it’s very clearly depicting?”
“You tell me.”
Swallowing down a swell of irritation, Daniel lifted his gaze to the painting, letting his own now-much-improved vision trace over the straight lines connecting at strange angles where they lay over an almost celestial or perhaps tie-dyed background—
“Tie-dyed?!”
And Daniel might have said that out loud, just to fuck with him. He could remember now how much 1970s Armand had hated the concept of tie-dye.
At least he could remember now.
With a withering glare, Armand continued off down the hall, leaving Daniel behind with the painting.
“Aren’t you gonna tell me what it is?” he called after Armand’s retreating form.
“You tell me,” his maker threw over his shoulder.
*
While that particular journey ended it absolute disaster, devolving into a screaming match (on par with the one between Armand and Louis on those damnable tapes) that ended with Daniel walking out approximately 30 minutes before sunrise just to scare his insufferable maker—
(He’d been right, Armand would never let him burn…and his actions had scared his maker, scared him badly enough that he ran out and bodily dragged Daniel back inside, collapsing them both to the floor as he slammed the shutters shut with his power, clutching Daniel to him like a lifeline as he half-sobbed his apologies into Daniel’s hair, begging him never to do that again, he would do anything, anything…
…Of course it only occurred to Daniel after the fact that Louis had done the exact same thing immediately after their fight about fifty years prior, only he hadn’t been bluffing.
“…I knew you wouldn’t let me burn,” he might’ve said, feeling just the slightest bit guilty, which had Armand shaking his head, his fingers combing through Daniel’s grey curls as he caged him in with his arms and his legs, gently rocking them back and forth, bloody tears staining Daniel’s hair…
…and then he understood what Daniel had said.
Yeah. As soon as night fell again, Armand locked him in a coffin and shipped him back to New York via DHL).
—that hardly stopped either of them from continuing to end up in each other’s presence, Armand in Daniel’s more so than the other way around.
After leaving the Azores and eventually arriving back home in New York in the belly of a cargo plane, Daniel had gone right back to his life, one that really hadn’t changed all that much since he’d been turned. The City That Never Sleeps was a remarkably easy place to adjust to living as a vampire. An old man suddenly becoming nocturnal was not nearly the most interesting thing to have happened on any given city block on any given day. Neither was an ethereal South Asian man suddenly spending quite a bit of time with said 70-year-old fuck.
Because Armand did spend a lot of time with him, didn’t he, and Daniel fucking let him. Every goddamn time, if it was Armand standing outside his door, his window, on the street corner across from his formerly-favorite coffee shop…he’d let the fucker in.
If, of course, Armand waited long enough to be let in.
“…Are you fucking kidding me?” Daniel groused, rubbing the top of his head where he’d whacked it on the lid of his coffin, having woken up ‘early’ for no good reason, planning on milling about his curtain-dark apartment until the sun went down, trying not to burn himself on the light getting in around the edges, only to find every single one of those curtains open.
“No need to be frightened, Daniel,” Armand said smoothly where he was sitting at Daniel’s kitchen table —you guessed it— playing on his ipad. “I had your windows replaced today.”
Daniel’s head ached. “Who the fuck let you in?”
Armand kept swiping on his ipad. “It’s not my fault your security is so lacking.”
“I swear to fucking God, if you ate the security guard—“
“Josué is still very much alive, we had a lovely chat earlier this morning.”
Daniel bristled. “I’m sure you did, Rashid.”
“I introduced myself as Armand, though I might’ve played up the French accent a bit.” Armand made a face, glaring down at his ipad. “Louis paid you $10 million and you continue to —how did I hear it put?— rake in the cash from the suicide note you published, but your wifi is still this terrible?” He shook his head. “I’ll have fiber optic brought up here tomorrow.”
Daniel shut the lid of his coffin, locking it from the inside.
But he didn’t kick Armand out, did he?
No, he didn’t. And so Armand stayed.
*
The biggest question Daniel would ask if he were interviewing himself right then was how the fuck did you end up here. Where even was ‘here’? Was it the two of them spending day after day (…night after night, speech patterns and all that) needling each other, Armand either willfully missing every social cue Daniel directed his way or proving himself to be every bit as autistic as Daniel always thought he was while Daniel did what he did best: comported himself like the massive asshole he had never claimed to be anything but. Was it how they would bicker —argue, really— all fucking night, Daniel pissed about the years Armand had wiped from his memory and scraped raw from when Armand had ripped off the theoretical bandaid and dumped those memories back into his head when he turned him (and left him), and Armand still sore (both metaphorically and literally) from Daniel breaking up his 77-year sham marriage.
Was it how they’d somehow settled, as they always seemed to? Was it how Armand was now sitting on on Daniel’s window sill, one leg drawn up to his chest, the other resting out on the fire escape as he looked out over the city, dressed in a simple t-shirt and soft linen pants, looking so shockingly human that…
…Or was it how Daniel wished he could draw or that he was better with a camera?
Fucking hell.
The duality of that was almost funny.
But you know what was even funnier? How Louis had apologized to him for leaving him alone with Armand. You know, after Louis bodily threw his now-ex into a foot-thick concrete wall so hard that he dented it. Daniel was the one who got himself fucking turned after that. He was the one who had stood there for entirely too long after Louis left, had let himself be drawn in by the sobbing vampire with the broken back on the floor, his fucking conscience finally killing him…
Armand hadn’t even manipulated him over there. His back had been broken so badly, he couldn’t move his body from the waist down. And his tears had been very, very real. Daniel had been in enough disaster zones in his life to pick out the raw edge to the sound that only came from genuine grief.
…Daniel still couldn’t explain what drew him over there. In hindsight, he would guess muscle memory. His mind hadn’t remembered those twelve years, but his body…from the very moment he laid eyes on ‘Rashid’, swamped by a confusing mix of fury, irritation, desire (that part wasn’t confusing) and grief…he would guess his body never forgot.
Who fucking knew. All that mattered was that he went over there, blew right past every instinct screaming in his head, every warning pinging at his phone. He went over there, pulled Armand out of the rubble, the bed he had quite literally made for himself, and Armand had melted into his arms the second he touched him with an ease only familiarity could explain…
“I’m sorry,” the vampire sobbed into his shirt. “I’m sorry—“
“It’s a bit too late for that,” Daniel had said, very unsure of what the fuck he was going to do with the sobbing, grievously injured vampire in his arms, and completely missed what Armand was actually apologizing for.
“I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I can’t bear it, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”
Honestly, in that moment Daniel thought he had a suicidal vampire on his hands and what the fuck was he supposed to do with that…but what Armand had actually been saying…
He figured part of it out the second he felt fangs in his neck, and the rest came after he lay dead on the floor, the taste of Armand’s blood in his mouth (it really did taste like honey and fucking pineapples) and his fucking maker’s forehead pressed to his own.
“I’ve…done a v-very selfish thing. Two things. Taking it all from you…and giving it all back….I’m sorry…”
Yeah, Daniel thought, run through by the misery that was dying and becoming undead, and completely overrun by the memories suddenly flooding him, overwriting his concept of everything, everything he ever believed his life and his past to be—
’Sorry’ hadn’t fucking cut it.
In a very in-character move, despite everything he said —especially his meaningless apologies— Armand made a real hat trick of betrayal when he left Daniel there, recovering with a belly full of Daniel’s blood far faster than a fledgling vampire could rise, and Daniel swore up and down that he would never forgive this, he would never suffer that bastard’s presence again—
…But when he eventually showed up again on Daniel’s doorstep…Daniel understood what Louis meant when he talked about the pull between him and Lestat…even if he did slam the door in Armand’s face. Then the fucker had somehow gotten into his living room and shoved eight different blood bags —one of each blood group and Rh factor— into his arms, saying I didn’t know which one you like best so I got you all of them…
…It was the memories that triggered more so than anything else. Not Armand’s beauty, not the gift he had brought, but the memory…of…
Of Armand doing the exact same thing in a restaurant in Miami back in the late ‘70s, the first time Daniel ever heard him laugh…
…He let him stay. On the couch. Then kicked him out the next day. Then he met him in Chicago on his book tour and left him after an hour, turning off his phone as Armand furiously texted him (how the hell had the little gremlin even gotten his number)… Saw him again in Miami and spent the entire night hunting on the beach with him before Armand fucked right off with an Irish goodbye at four in the morning for absolutely no fucking reason…
Over and over again until he accepted the invite to the Azores…how that ended…and then Armand ended up here. Again.
“I want to fix this…” Armand had said not twenty minutes before, standing there in that t-shirt and soft linen pants like he was planning on staying the night, just like he’d stayed the night every night for the past week on the couch…but not Daniel’s couch, at least not after the first night, rather on the much nicer and arguably much more comfortable couch that had appeared in place of Daniel’s couch the very next day… “I want to fix this, but I don’t know how…”
And that…was probably the most honest thing Armand had ever said to him.
Now here they were, Armand sitting on the window sill looking more human than he probably looked even when he was human…
…‘Fixing this’ would require starting over…all the way over…so what the hell, right? The fuck did Daniel have to lose.
Daniel was no artist, but he was a writer, and a damn good one. He couldn’t draw the picture of the vampire Armand sitting on his window sill and he was absolute shit with a camera…but he could still document it, in a way.
He sat down in his armchair. “Armand?”
The man in question turned his head, resting his cheek on his knee with a soft smile. “Hmm?”
God…
Daniel swallowed. “…You once asked me if I wanted to hear your story. Is that offer still on the table?”
Armand lifted his head a faint, genuine but guarded smile flickering over his face. “What part of that sentence —said in the circumstance it was— did you not regard as predatory, Daniel?”
Bartering with desire, is that what makes you fascinating? An instinct to self-efface, is that what makes you fascinating?! Louis thinks I’m boring, do you find me boring?….Do you want to hear my story?
“Oh, no part of it,” Daniel quipped in reply, remembering the desperate, strung-out look on Armand’s face like it was yesterday. “But you already fucking killed me, so I figured I’d ask again.”
Armand snorted softly. “Hungry for another book, are you?”
Daniel shrugged, leaning back into the comfort of his chair. “I can be, if that’s what you want.”
“What makes you think that’s what I want?”
“Nothing, which is why I don’t have my equipment out. Merely making conversation.”
“Conversation,” Armand echoed, his gaze sharpening as he sat up straighter. “This is Daniel Malloy, reporter. The date is May-whatever, 2020-something—“
“I don’t sound like that—“ Daniel cut in, attempting to silence what he would never admit was a fairly impressive imitation of him—
“I don’t sound like that,” Armand echoed back to him in exactly his voice with a perfectly straight face.
—and failing.
“So is that a no?”
Armand…did not shoot him down. “For what reason do you bring this up?”
Daniel gestured vaguely. “You just said you wanted to ‘fix it’ —the beautiful maker/fledgling relationship— but you didn’t know how. Now, myself and my two divorces are no experts on fixing broken relationships, but I would guess that to fix this dumpster fire you made, we’d have to start over. All the way over. First meeting, who are you, what’s your story.”
“…Hmm.”
“Hmm?”
Armand leaned back against the window frame, the line of his shoulders just a bit tenser than normal but not entirely resisting him. “…Fine. Ask me whatever you want. But I promise you nothing when it comes to my answers.”
“Fair enough,” Daniel answered, resting an arm over the back of the chair. “At least you’re up front about planning to lie to me. Told me you’d be more honest, I guess that’s one way to go about it.”
Armand’s mouth twitched. “I thought we were simply making conversation. Like one would at a first meeting.”
“We are.” Crossing his legs, Daniel settled in. “So. Your story.”
Armand was quiet for a long moment. “…My story.”
“The floor is yours.”
“Reporter that you are, you must have questions.”
Of course he fucking did. “Well, you certainly had an idea of what you wanted to say and how you wanted to say it the first time you offered…or perhaps ‘threatened’ is a better word there.”
Armand merely turned his head, staring out over the street.
So Daniel prompted him. “If you hadn’t cut yourself off, what you have said?”
“Many things I realized I would regret, hence why I silenced myself.”
…Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start, Daniel thought belatedly, the memory of what Armand had said back then and how he had said it crawling sluggishly to the front of his mind.
My first memory…I’m being run down by slavers in Delhi… My second…
…Even with his legs cramping, his back in agony, hunger gnawing at his insides, and terror clawing at his heart, Daniel had still managed to feel a pang of sympathy for his captor, seeing the light go out of his eyes, watching them unfocus as he remembered whatever it was that second memory contained. Daniel had tried to imagine, predict what he might have to say, each possibility even more horrific than the last…
What happens after being run down by slavers in Delhi…
Armand had of course cut himself off there with nothing but a flat, toneless hum that somehow made it all even worse. If Daniel could have moved, maybe he would have hugged him. Maybe he would’ve said something like I’m sorry that happened to you or you didn’t deserve that, mass murdering kidnapper that you are, no one deserves that…and maybe that show of…empathy would’ve bought him his life…but terrified out of his goddamn mind and unable to move anyway, he did none of those things.
…Armand still spared him. Had he read the thoughts right out of Daniel’s mind?
…That would have been his first question. Not the second memory. He would have said ‘maybe start with why, out of 128 boys, you spared me’…had Armand not spoken first. Or snapped first.
“Go on,” the vampire hissed, his voice suddenly trembling as white hot rage flooded every line of his body. “Ask me. What was that second memory, Armand? Why don’t you spill all of your filthy little secrets so I can expose them to the world for my own personal gain? Why don’t you tell me about all the things they did to you in the brothel, Arun? About what happened to little Amadeo even when he thought he was safe? Tell me everything.”
Well, this is going poorly.
Naturally, Daniel went and made it even worse. “Calm the fuck down—“
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Armand snarled, shifting into a crouched position, like he was about to pounce. “If you ever tell me to calm down again—“
“Well calm the fuck down anyway—“
…Yeah. By the time the sun rose, Daniel was chewing on a rat in his coffin, hoping his wounds would heal by dusk, and Armand had vanished out that window, gone to lick his own.