Armand will continue to be surprised by this, but he has, over the past few days, managed to school himself into not looking it. His hands drift to gently place on Daniel's elbows, tips his chin down to receive the kiss, meets expected gentleness with an equal answer. Armand will continue, too, to want to grip harder, press such a gesture into something more aggressive and demanding—
Does not, and doesn't feel like a missed opportunity. Look, he can be normal, at least until the next hard reset. Hey back, instead.
Peanut is not so brave as to try to get his slippers while Armand is wearing them, only barely manages it if Armand is not wearing them but insists on being in the same room, so there is a trill and a silent exit when the situation doesn't resolve itself. Off to do his own hunting.
Raises a hand, a touch that plays with curls behind Daniel's ear by the time the kiss breaks. "How do you intend to go about it?"
This is good. Like demanding is good. Daniel likes both, and there is certainly a part of him that wants to coax Armand's more extreme responses to the surface, feel proverbial bruises be squeezed, choke on intensity. But they can't just spend every turn clawing at each other.
Well—
No, no, come on. Things to do. Dinner, at the very least. Hand find Armand's sides, casually linking form to form. A strange ancient demon making himself comfortable in his house, his life, his chest cavity. Daniel wants to fuck him. He wants Armand to bite him again. He wants to watch him loosen into technicolor strands and spiral into relief and understanding of the universe.
"By giving it a go and then letting you take over if I fuck it up."
:)?
Daniel's not half bad. Better at identification and mind-reading than he is at control, he's found himself adept at picking out targets, but getting them to comply as artfully as Armand is a big ask. Tricky, sometimes, to make sure they land on the same target, unable to just sift it from the other's mind, but that, too, is something he's getting better at. Following a trajectory from an angled outside perspective instead of a point of view one. Good at angles, he makes it work.
There is a pleasing lack of anxiety about killing that is nice to be around. Not that the mindless glee of the coven back when, and of most vampires today, is exactly a virtue, or really what is present when Daniel hunts—but it's one less thing. Daniel is no sadist, does not revel in violence, which might speak to personal preference as much as it does a settling moral barometer.
More than enough time to learn its limits. To pick at it curiously, see what's tender, what's calcified. In these early days, it's certainly enough that his fledgling eats, and is willing to enjoy himself.
"Ah," he says, fingertips mapping down along Daniel's nape, his other arm finding a closer place to settle around his waist. "So I shouldn't distract you while you work, given my role as contingency."
At some point, the ease of banter is going to flip on him, and he will convince himself that this is all playing pretend, and someone is going to say keep selling it, and he may need to set the house on fire, but until then—
Philosophers can argue about it. Is sadism worse then apathy? Daniel can't say he doesn't care— he's selective, he tries to pick people he thinks the world would be better off without, but he no longer feels guilt, just as he no longer lets himself randomly grab people for no reason other than hunger. He had meal preferences as a mortal. He would spend extra on fair trade coffee and chocolate, sometimes, when he could. What's so different?
"Your whole deal is being distracting," Daniel accuses, though there's no heat in it. Just banter, playing along, swaying a little as Armand knits them closer.
Until then, until then. Daniel kisses him, and it's more than Hey.
What's the rush.
But eventually, they're sitting on the back deck, and Daniel is sitting with his elbows on his knees and thinking.
Positioned off several feet, neatly bundled into outdoor furniture made of cosy wicker and a cosier blanket. It isn't a detailed sketch with the intent to complete a piece of art, and it's rare that any of what he does on paper is that, but little scribbly practice things. Hands, shoulder, light from the windows, darkness beyond. Details in the midst of abstraction, renderings in charcoal.
And patient. He has gotten being a distraction out of his system—somewhat. Likely, the occasional flickered glance up of an intent look is distracting.
"Don't think of them like puppets," he says, after a moment, "controlling every little movement. Particularly if they're in a moving vehicle. They can fill in the blanks themselves with enough motivation."
A little absent, but better than silence; he knows Armand dislikes being ignored. He caught one, or he thinks he did— currently trying to ascertain the success of his bait, finding it slippery so far away with so many people. The city's dense population is helpful in one way, murders and disappearances happening all the fucking time, but challenging in another, diffusing targets and making it challenging to be precise.
For him, anyway, Armand seems to have little trouble. Letting him do it would save some time, Daniel will only improve through practice, and he likes hearing the little scratchy sounds of his maker doodling, and the way Armand feeling comfortable enough to be doing that makes him feel.
"I think..."
Squint.
"I think I got one. Yeah."
Maybe?? ... Medium confident. Fairly confident. Seeing clearer now, he thinks his struggle was primarily around instinctively avoiding the initial best candidate, who he has returned to. A woman in her early fifties— he still tends to prey on mostly men, trying to pretend he's too good to stoop to every mortal murderer's usual fare, but like the rest of his guilt, this, too, has ebbed away. The cutthroat executive heads to her car, following a sudden blooming instinct. Daniel isn't the Come to me type, it'll never flow correctly for him. Instead, I have the answer.
"A trade off. Less humans inclined to wander than they would on a nice summer's evening. But more time for us."
A figurative 'us', clearly, given the mediocrity of the local sun and all, but maybe also us as in them, as in more hours in which Daniel is not groggily lured away from him. Looking down at his page, there is a moment of considering what he's done to it, and a familiar lurch—dimensionless, rambling markings, little hints of skill and no imagination, a waste of material, too much effort for too much simplicity, the opposite of sprezzatura, and none of this brings about dramatic artistic ennui so much as it reaffirms what he knows.
Still. He will continue. Later, perhaps, sketchpad and charcoal set aside, and reaches for the little packet of wipes he'd brought out to clean his fingers.
Armand looked angelic in the sun, which is funny - and fitting - in retrospect. Biblically accurate horrors joke. Daniel is glad he got to see it when he did, because it'll be a while before he'll see it again. If ever.
But he looks good in the dark, too.
An itching distraction, when he hears the sounds of sketching being given up on. Daniel always wants to see, even when Armand bristles. He's sure his approval is not exactly flattering, given his less than expert eye, but still. Whatever perfection Armand searches for is beyond him; Daniel thinks all of it is compelling.
"Investment company manager," he says. "Formerly in real estate, churning into tech startups now. She lies about being progressive, hangs out with a diverse group of people in her spare time because she's been rejected everywhere else, but she self-harms by listening to nothing but alpha male podcasts and voting Republican. She blames her mother."
You've got it figured out, Daniel threads into her mind. It's right here. Down the turnpike. Just one more.
"Would the 24 hour cycle still be a drain, in like, Greenland, or Alaska?"
This workaholic does not need to go be someplace where he can get away with never sleeping, for the record. At least not for the rest of Daniel Molloy's legally recognized lifespan.
A creak of furniture, and noiseless footfalls. Armand approaching, touching Daniel's shoulder when he nears. "But I've heard stories of vampires driven mad by an eternal night, and go into hibernation for the summer. I can't say the thought appeals to me."
How fortunate, to be kidnapped by a Satanic-Catholic cult, rather than some moon worshiping pagans from snowy wastelands. Without asking, he takes a seat in Daniel's lap, shifting just so that even his long legs only barely let his feet brush the ground in their slippers. Leans into him, a lean arm around his shoulders.
Would enjoy following along, so he does the second best thing, expanding his focus, seeing how quickly he can detect which glinting glow of a mind out there in the dark is the one that Daniel is reeling in for them.
Though none is on the menu tonight— Daniel has selected mostly psilocybin mushrooms, a strain he knows to be reliably potent and stable for relaxation and mind expansion, and supplementary MDMA. The kind of cocktail that in fifty years may end up offered as utterly ordinary therapy, but is worth a lifetime in prison today.
A smile, as Armand situates himself in Daniel's space, on his person. He accommodates this and winds his arms around his maker's torso, lets him get comfortable. A mortal Daniel would have complained about being squashed, a Parkinson's-riddled Daniel wouldn't have been able to tolerate it. Being dead is fucking great, actually. Daniel noses near the arch of his shoulder. Pleased, as he keeps most of his attention on the fish he's caught, carefully reeling.
She is overwhelmingly bitter and desperate. Self-righteous and self-loathing. She wants her world to make sense, even if it means her world being over. She drives too fast, not because Daniel encourages her too, but because she's impatient and being angry at other drivers scratches at the itch that never goes away in her heart. She wants the answer, though whether it's because she wants a resolution or she wants it to shut up, is difficult to ascertain.
The welcome feels precious. Earned. How good, to have Daniel's arms settle around him, for his fledgling to be pleased, transmit this pleasure in sweet gesture. All things can be ripped away, shattered apart, burned, some form of annihilation dependent on the material it is made of, and Armand is capable of enjoying it while it lasts.
And he can close his eyes, focus. Ah. There she is.
There's no cheating the veil that divides them. No ability to wave hello from within a third party's brain. The closest they get is the sharing of blood, blood being the substance that forms their connection. Armand just listens, and can guess at a sense of Daniel twisting around a neurotic kind of anxiety, hateful and quick to spark, exploiting synaptic pathways that already exist in pursuit of that answer.
Yes, good. He plays with the hair at the nape of Daniel's neck, feeling this flush of approval. "I'll entertain the idea of a vacation," he says, meanwhile. "I don't think the population of Greenland can sustain a vampire for more than a week or two, without that vampire going noticed."
Armand's ease against him, the little touches, inspire Daniel to drop a kiss against his collarbone. Too much threatens to be sickly, and he second-guesses himself now and again with the reminder of New relationships are always like this, he'll stop thinking it's cute sooner than you want. Might as well indulge while he can.
Terrifying word, by the way. The R Word. Relationship. A mundane, yet daunting, tag on something that's been deeper (and worse) (and better) since its inception. Since they looked at each other in a bar for less than sixty seconds, with somebody else between them.
"Yeah, smart money probably picks off tourists in Iceland."
Vacation— someday. There's temptation to do everything soon, before it fizzles out, before Daniel fucks it up. But you can't rush when you can't die.
This woman should also quit rushing, and he encourages her, which sort of works. She parks in a commuter lot and heads to a rail stop, buys a hat (with cash) from a vendor that's starting to pack up for the night. Her phone is in her car, she drops her keys into a trash bin. Vanishing into anonymity, as she begins to draw closer to this neighborhood, where one of them will have to start precise control to avoid her being caught on anyone's ring door cams.
"I like this, though. Millennials call it a 'staycation.'"
He watches all her movements like a cat peering at a bird through the window, his fingers in Daniel's hair still toying with more of an absent minded fidget now. Watches the actions she takes at, Armand is sure, Daniel's instruction, smiles a little at the art of hiding the body before the body has stopped moving.
Foolish for him to give instructions. Daniel scarcely needs them. This could be an opportunity to feel redundant, but it doesn't turn into one. There is much more appeal for him personally in watching this fledgling he has made act upon the world, as he wishes.
"Millennials would," he says. "Justifying an absence of disposable income and a nice time spent at home in terms of capitalist productivity, or the willful lack thereof."
Eating rich people, finding everyone else tiring, reacting to an annihilated prime by making horrendous observations about older and younger generations alike. Mentally ill and kind of hot about it, kind of horrible. (Daniel has been fired from several newspapers before.)
In the not-quite-end, Daniel does need Armand's help with more finite control— he knows where she needs to go, how to path, but making her do it with precision is tough. He's not quite figured out how to get those intricate controls without either slipping or causing more damage than he'd like. Only a little annoying, meanwhile, because of course Daniel is the actual irritating distraction between them, but he can't lurk in Armand's head while he does it, so he wants pointers. Easier than ever to ask for them when Armand has foolishly arranged himself right in Daniel's grasp.
Deana, her name is, and she does eventually make her way to a hidden gate in the tall fence that separates their back yard from a neighbor's back yard — having a borderline Luddite neighbor who rejects all modern security and goes to sleep at 8pm is handy for smuggling in food without being tracked. Walks over grass, stops before them, has a funny contradiction on her face of a frown knitting her eyebrows over blank eyes.
Daniel kisses Armand's throat, just under the line of his jaw where he can feel his pulse, before they get up.
He gives his pointers. The way one can shape their commands to resemble the sorts of things a human tells themselves: stop, duck, faster, go. A light touch that still takes a preternatural amount of concentration and care to maintain. When Daniel truly explores the untapped potential of all a vampiric mind is capable of, the amount of plates that can be spun in one moment, then there will be trouble.
And Armand is not yet tired of sweet little kisses. Of cloying behaviour. Eventually, maybe something will turn, curdle, and Daniel will kiss him in that way and he might feel like e has been set on fire or needs to remove his skin to escape whatever deception it feels like, from either of them, but for now—
A pleased hum, a reluctance to stand. But he does.
"Please, be welcome," he tells Deana, who doesn't respond to that like he actually said it, but some part of her brain receiving it, soothed by it. She moves inside, this known quantity who has turned herself into a corpse already, a missing person report filed in, let's be generous, twelve hours or so.
He picks up his drawings things, and goes to put them away. Does the rounds, ensuring curtains are drawn.
Deana walks to the living room, and does not look up at the ceiling; painted like the sky, but shifting like sunset (or sunrise?) — broader and higher than Daniel's apartment, it took some time to coax the painter into finding the right balance of not too fiddly and detailed but not too blobby, blue into violet with clouds kissed with greys or pinks. (Maybe should have done the basement instead, but the ceiling is so much lower, and he's really only in there to sleep or fuss around during the day.)
She sits down on a sofa, slightly off-center, and waits. Passive thanks to mind-control, but still eager thanks to the part of her brain that Daniel hooked into when he decided on her. I'll understand soon. I'll know soon. Soon. Soon. Soon.
He encourages this, as he gets a glass of water. You're almost there. On second thought, he tries the fridge, and lucks out with a can of soda as well.
Mushrooms first. Nothing glamorous about it, eating spindly, gilled plants, sipping Diet Coke in between; she has done pills, a little bit of coke in university, but this is very hippy-dippy and her subconscious mind is at first riled in a bad way by the idea of raw dogging shrooms. Aspartame and carbonation help. There's no rushing this bit, it has to sink into her before Daniel decides to feed her more or stop, so he just sits back in a chair and looks over to Armand, hand extended. Luring.
Lured, Armand takes that hand. Doesn't resettle in Daniel's lap again, maybe to be contrary, or not too predictable. Stays close, stays intimate, shifting around behind him, to comfortably drape his arms over his shoulders, smooth hands down his chest. Knows there would have been the chance he'd deny himself if Daniel hadn't beckoned. Knows there are times when this feels like performance.
Content, tonight, to simply do as he wants. Within reason. For instance, he could play with their prey's mind like a cat with a yarn ball, but instead he says,
"Would a bad trip transfer, do you think, during the blood drinking?"
Less in the tone that he actively desires to fuck with their meal so much as speculative, and a little assumptive that Daniel will be informed on the topic.
Still learning each other, like this. Daniel has no qualms about being greedy, especially not when he has every reason to believe that this is on a timer. He banishes potential anxiety and digs both hands into enjoy it for now.
One hand, a literal one not a metaphorical one, slips up Armand's forearm to touch him, and slide fingers along veins, to the pulse point in the ditch of his elbow, and down again to his hand. Elegant artist's fingers, against his own broad ones. The predator nails look a little funny on Daniel, but on Armand, it looks like he was always meant to have them. Beautiful like the full spread of teeth in a tiger is beautiful.
"A 'bad' trip happens in the brain," he notes. "So maybe, but it wouldn't be about substance contamination in the blood, it'd be a psychological reaction to whatever you might end up exposed to while drinking from them. Depends on if freakouts during dinner unsettle you, I guess."
He tips his head back to look at his maker, curious about his thoughts. Deana is staring at her soda can. Slowly, she reaches for another little mushroom, and as she eats it, she begins pushing the tab on the can back and forth to weaken it, transfixed.
Armand easily rocks that little bit aside to meet Daniel's eye. Happy to engage. It's still a little like playing with their food, just less aggressively. Talking about it in front of her. Sensing the way her mind has to skitter aside or bend or shape itself around the words.
"Separate things," agreeable, "the chemical we are taking in through the blood and our own physiological response to it, and our psychic sense of the person producing that blood, their feelings, their memories, their emotional state."
Turns his hand, tangling fingers with Daniel. "But I wouldn't be surprised if there's interference between the two. I'm given to understand that psychedelics produce powerful spiritual awakenings."
"They can." Fingers laced, all contrasts. "Peyote's been used for thousands of years in religious practices for a reason. But you can also just see funny colors and fall asleep."
Deana might be seeing some funny colors right now. She's noticed the ceiling.
"It'd be an interesting experiment. See if a vampire's reaction can be deliberately curated by selecting a donor experiencing what they'd like to experience in turn."
An interesting experiment that would require a truly staggering amount of drugs and worrying number of vanished mortals. Daniel's pretty sure he could easily get volunteers if they thought they'd live - people are freaks, he's one of them - but asking an impaired monster to refrain from draining a victim to the point of death isn't practical.
"You know, for the vampire scientific digest I'm eventually going to publish."
Imagine.
The woman ends up consuming all of the mushrooms left to her with little prompting— much less effort than it had taken to direct her here. She's eager to sever herself from her own mind and turn off the torrent of stress. There's an answer in here. Daniel eventually sits next to her, and she asks quietly what the pills are. He tells her, and she takes them without prompting. There is a serenity to her that wasn't there when she arrived. She fantasizes that she'll wake up on the other side of this as someone completely different, and the drugs tell her that she will. She'll understand any minute now.
No peer reviewed, control tested, exhaustive study required, mock assurance before Armand is letting Daniel up. Stands where he is, a partial lean on the back of the chair. Watches Daniel and his prey, listens to her mind, the circling the drain rationalisation that is keeping her fixed on the couch.
Fingers wandering along the arm of it as he moves in closer, coming to settle on her other side. The spell might break if he intervenes too much, but also, it's too late for her. Riding high, now, spiralling into coloured streamers of consciousness. He strokes her hair back away from her ear. Her neck.
"Who will you be, Deana?" he asks.
She shakes her head. Doesn't know. But there are little flickers of notions. Herself, with more money. A man, with a wife. Her teenage self, running a marathon, never stopping.
A kaleidoscoping interior, between drugs, and vampire hypnosis. Daniel watches her mind and lets it fracture into different observable parts— gracefully, like ripples in a pond, watching distorted shapes of koi fish and reflections of flowers and stars.
"It can be a surprise," he tells her, nudging this and that in her head. Lacking in Armand's light touch, centuries of experience, and so he compensates by being conservative with his moves. Makes sure she doesn't realize she's in some stranger's house, flanked my men she's never seen before, being plied with drugs and told that she'll be reborn in just a second.
The intoxicants make it easier. She wants to be someone else, and as the flush of sensation overtakes her, she mentally reaches out to take the hand guiding her towards the door at the top of a hill. All she has to do is open it.
"Do you want to go first?" Daniel asks Armand, quiet. Away from the woman's attention. "I can keep an eye on you if you don't like it."
Armand can flex his power in subtle and precise ways, centuries of practice, a certain talent for it to begin with. But he watches her, and watches Daniel with her, and takes pleasure in drawing together the ways a journalist is a hunter, kiting a resistance subject around, provocation, silent spaces, lures.
A pause, which is a drawing back, lifting his eyes to consider Daniel across her, eyes violent orange already. Pupils normal, naturally. "Yes," he says, an agreement.
Maybe he won't like it. He is willing to experience that too.
He settles his hand on the back of her head, and Deana falls her skull back against his palm without much coaxing. When he parts his mouth, shows his teeth, it is both the mechanics of the thing as well as wanting Daniel to watch him, see his fangs drop and sharpen. (Fun fact, the cat with the biggest kill rate is the black-footed cat, which is an especially diminutive predator, little teeth and big eyes.)
"Soon," he promises her, before leaning in, and setting his teeth to her neck, sinking them in.
Deana will open the door and fall into the rainbow rainfall of a euphoric high when her blood begins to leave her. She just wants to know what she'll be like tomorrow. It'll be better than today, better than everything, and it feels so good, so indescribably good to get there, that she's now fully committed. Holding still pliantly as she's fed from, her eyes unfocused, seeing only multicolor clouds and stars as they form the next stage of her existence.
Armand looks incredible. His eyes, his fangs. Daniel gets to watch unabashed— not that he didn't stare before, now and then when he was actually able to observe his maker drinking, but it's different now. Now, he can raise a hand and stroke over the ancient vampire's hair to make sure he can see all points of contact. Now, he can cradle him gently, and silently encourage him to take as much or as little as he likes. They've had the Don't just keep doing more if you don't feel the high right away talk before about the substances Daniel fucks around with, so he trusts him to make an appropriate call on when to stop.
It's erotic. He had thought so before (so long ago?) in Dubai. He'd thought so as he learned to do it himself, though he rarely allowed himself to look at it that way. He has the freedom to, now. It's safe to watch Armand, the flex of his throat as he swallows, the seal of his mouth to the mortal's flesh, and think: it's just fucking beautiful.
He can feel Daniel look at him. The bond, perhaps, or just a more base awareness, knowing that the cradling touch to his head was motivated by wanting to touch his hair, motivated by his fledgling drinking in the sight of him. In this century, he has decided to welcome back the enjoyment of being looked at, instead of expressly finding comfort in the wings.
Long and slow and tender, his swallowing down of poisoned blood. It had hit her quickly, he'd noticed, which means the blood will be close to instant. As soon as he begins to feel something a little like a warm undercurrent flow beneath his thoughts, a sense of floating, Armand retracts his fangs, keeps his mouth sealed just to stem the precious flow.
She is not dead, but she is not lucid, she is gone from this realm, a limp thing on the sofa with a stubbornly beating heart.
Armand lifts his head, a glimmer of blood-stained teeth. Tips head, eyes opening to slivers as he presses his cheek to Daniel's hand.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Does not, and doesn't feel like a missed opportunity. Look, he can be normal, at least until the next hard reset. Hey back, instead.
Peanut is not so brave as to try to get his slippers while Armand is wearing them, only barely manages it if Armand is not wearing them but insists on being in the same room, so there is a trill and a silent exit when the situation doesn't resolve itself. Off to do his own hunting.
Raises a hand, a touch that plays with curls behind Daniel's ear by the time the kiss breaks. "How do you intend to go about it?"
no subject
Well—
No, no, come on. Things to do. Dinner, at the very least. Hand find Armand's sides, casually linking form to form. A strange ancient demon making himself comfortable in his house, his life, his chest cavity. Daniel wants to fuck him. He wants Armand to bite him again. He wants to watch him loosen into technicolor strands and spiral into relief and understanding of the universe.
"By giving it a go and then letting you take over if I fuck it up."
:)?
Daniel's not half bad. Better at identification and mind-reading than he is at control, he's found himself adept at picking out targets, but getting them to comply as artfully as Armand is a big ask. Tricky, sometimes, to make sure they land on the same target, unable to just sift it from the other's mind, but that, too, is something he's getting better at. Following a trajectory from an angled outside perspective instead of a point of view one. Good at angles, he makes it work.
no subject
More than enough time to learn its limits. To pick at it curiously, see what's tender, what's calcified. In these early days, it's certainly enough that his fledgling eats, and is willing to enjoy himself.
"Ah," he says, fingertips mapping down along Daniel's nape, his other arm finding a closer place to settle around his waist. "So I shouldn't distract you while you work, given my role as contingency."
At some point, the ease of banter is going to flip on him, and he will convince himself that this is all playing pretend, and someone is going to say keep selling it, and he may need to set the house on fire, but until then—
no subject
"Your whole deal is being distracting," Daniel accuses, though there's no heat in it. Just banter, playing along, swaying a little as Armand knits them closer.
Until then, until then. Daniel kisses him, and it's more than Hey.
What's the rush.
But eventually, they're sitting on the back deck, and Daniel is sitting with his elbows on his knees and thinking.
no subject
Positioned off several feet, neatly bundled into outdoor furniture made of cosy wicker and a cosier blanket. It isn't a detailed sketch with the intent to complete a piece of art, and it's rare that any of what he does on paper is that, but little scribbly practice things. Hands, shoulder, light from the windows, darkness beyond. Details in the midst of abstraction, renderings in charcoal.
And patient. He has gotten being a distraction out of his system—somewhat. Likely, the occasional flickered glance up of an intent look is distracting.
"Don't think of them like puppets," he says, after a moment, "controlling every little movement. Particularly if they're in a moving vehicle. They can fill in the blanks themselves with enough motivation."
In case Daniel is struggling over there.
no subject
A little absent, but better than silence; he knows Armand dislikes being ignored. He caught one, or he thinks he did— currently trying to ascertain the success of his bait, finding it slippery so far away with so many people. The city's dense population is helpful in one way, murders and disappearances happening all the fucking time, but challenging in another, diffusing targets and making it challenging to be precise.
For him, anyway, Armand seems to have little trouble. Letting him do it would save some time, Daniel will only improve through practice, and he likes hearing the little scratchy sounds of his maker doodling, and the way Armand feeling comfortable enough to be doing that makes him feel.
"I think..."
Squint.
"I think I got one. Yeah."
Maybe?? ... Medium confident. Fairly confident. Seeing clearer now, he thinks his struggle was primarily around instinctively avoiding the initial best candidate, who he has returned to. A woman in her early fifties— he still tends to prey on mostly men, trying to pretend he's too good to stoop to every mortal murderer's usual fare, but like the rest of his guilt, this, too, has ebbed away. The cutthroat executive heads to her car, following a sudden blooming instinct. Daniel isn't the Come to me type, it'll never flow correctly for him. Instead, I have the answer.
"It's nice, these winter hours."
Long nights.
no subject
A figurative 'us', clearly, given the mediocrity of the local sun and all, but maybe also us as in them, as in more hours in which Daniel is not groggily lured away from him. Looking down at his page, there is a moment of considering what he's done to it, and a familiar lurch—dimensionless, rambling markings, little hints of skill and no imagination, a waste of material, too much effort for too much simplicity, the opposite of sprezzatura, and none of this brings about dramatic artistic ennui so much as it reaffirms what he knows.
Still. He will continue. Later, perhaps, sketchpad and charcoal set aside, and reaches for the little packet of wipes he'd brought out to clean his fingers.
"Tell me about them."
no subject
But he looks good in the dark, too.
An itching distraction, when he hears the sounds of sketching being given up on. Daniel always wants to see, even when Armand bristles. He's sure his approval is not exactly flattering, given his less than expert eye, but still. Whatever perfection Armand searches for is beyond him; Daniel thinks all of it is compelling.
"Investment company manager," he says. "Formerly in real estate, churning into tech startups now. She lies about being progressive, hangs out with a diverse group of people in her spare time because she's been rejected everywhere else, but she self-harms by listening to nothing but alpha male podcasts and voting Republican. She blames her mother."
You've got it figured out, Daniel threads into her mind. It's right here. Down the turnpike. Just one more.
"Would the 24 hour cycle still be a drain, in like, Greenland, or Alaska?"
This workaholic does not need to go be someplace where he can get away with never sleeping, for the record. At least not for the rest of Daniel Molloy's legally recognized lifespan.
no subject
A creak of furniture, and noiseless footfalls. Armand approaching, touching Daniel's shoulder when he nears. "But I've heard stories of vampires driven mad by an eternal night, and go into hibernation for the summer. I can't say the thought appeals to me."
How fortunate, to be kidnapped by a Satanic-Catholic cult, rather than some moon worshiping pagans from snowy wastelands. Without asking, he takes a seat in Daniel's lap, shifting just so that even his long legs only barely let his feet brush the ground in their slippers. Leans into him, a lean arm around his shoulders.
Would enjoy following along, so he does the second best thing, expanding his focus, seeing how quickly he can detect which glinting glow of a mind out there in the dark is the one that Daniel is reeling in for them.
no subject
All roads, alive and dead, lead back to cocaine.
Though none is on the menu tonight— Daniel has selected mostly psilocybin mushrooms, a strain he knows to be reliably potent and stable for relaxation and mind expansion, and supplementary MDMA. The kind of cocktail that in fifty years may end up offered as utterly ordinary therapy, but is worth a lifetime in prison today.
A smile, as Armand situates himself in Daniel's space, on his person. He accommodates this and winds his arms around his maker's torso, lets him get comfortable. A mortal Daniel would have complained about being squashed, a Parkinson's-riddled Daniel wouldn't have been able to tolerate it. Being dead is fucking great, actually. Daniel noses near the arch of his shoulder. Pleased, as he keeps most of his attention on the fish he's caught, carefully reeling.
She is overwhelmingly bitter and desperate. Self-righteous and self-loathing. She wants her world to make sense, even if it means her world being over. She drives too fast, not because Daniel encourages her too, but because she's impatient and being angry at other drivers scratches at the itch that never goes away in her heart. She wants the answer, though whether it's because she wants a resolution or she wants it to shut up, is difficult to ascertain.
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And he can close his eyes, focus. Ah. There she is.
There's no cheating the veil that divides them. No ability to wave hello from within a third party's brain. The closest they get is the sharing of blood, blood being the substance that forms their connection. Armand just listens, and can guess at a sense of Daniel twisting around a neurotic kind of anxiety, hateful and quick to spark, exploiting synaptic pathways that already exist in pursuit of that answer.
Yes, good. He plays with the hair at the nape of Daniel's neck, feeling this flush of approval. "I'll entertain the idea of a vacation," he says, meanwhile. "I don't think the population of Greenland can sustain a vampire for more than a week or two, without that vampire going noticed."
He understands your tricks.
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Terrifying word, by the way. The R Word. Relationship. A mundane, yet daunting, tag on something that's been deeper (and worse) (and better) since its inception. Since they looked at each other in a bar for less than sixty seconds, with somebody else between them.
"Yeah, smart money probably picks off tourists in Iceland."
Vacation— someday. There's temptation to do everything soon, before it fizzles out, before Daniel fucks it up. But you can't rush when you can't die.
This woman should also quit rushing, and he encourages her, which sort of works. She parks in a commuter lot and heads to a rail stop, buys a hat (with cash) from a vendor that's starting to pack up for the night. Her phone is in her car, she drops her keys into a trash bin. Vanishing into anonymity, as she begins to draw closer to this neighborhood, where one of them will have to start precise control to avoid her being caught on anyone's ring door cams.
"I like this, though. Millennials call it a 'staycation.'"
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Foolish for him to give instructions. Daniel scarcely needs them. This could be an opportunity to feel redundant, but it doesn't turn into one. There is much more appeal for him personally in watching this fledgling he has made act upon the world, as he wishes.
"Millennials would," he says. "Justifying an absence of disposable income and a nice time spent at home in terms of capitalist productivity, or the willful lack thereof."
But, for the record, "I also like it."
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Eating rich people, finding everyone else tiring, reacting to an annihilated prime by making horrendous observations about older and younger generations alike. Mentally ill and kind of hot about it, kind of horrible. (Daniel has been fired from several newspapers before.)
In the not-quite-end, Daniel does need Armand's help with more finite control— he knows where she needs to go, how to path, but making her do it with precision is tough. He's not quite figured out how to get those intricate controls without either slipping or causing more damage than he'd like. Only a little annoying, meanwhile, because of course Daniel is the actual irritating distraction between them, but he can't lurk in Armand's head while he does it, so he wants pointers. Easier than ever to ask for them when Armand has foolishly arranged himself right in Daniel's grasp.
Deana, her name is, and she does eventually make her way to a hidden gate in the tall fence that separates their back yard from a neighbor's back yard — having a borderline Luddite neighbor who rejects all modern security and goes to sleep at 8pm is handy for smuggling in food without being tracked. Walks over grass, stops before them, has a funny contradiction on her face of a frown knitting her eyebrows over blank eyes.
Daniel kisses Armand's throat, just under the line of his jaw where he can feel his pulse, before they get up.
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And Armand is not yet tired of sweet little kisses. Of cloying behaviour. Eventually, maybe something will turn, curdle, and Daniel will kiss him in that way and he might feel like e has been set on fire or needs to remove his skin to escape whatever deception it feels like, from either of them, but for now—
A pleased hum, a reluctance to stand. But he does.
"Please, be welcome," he tells Deana, who doesn't respond to that like he actually said it, but some part of her brain receiving it, soothed by it. She moves inside, this known quantity who has turned herself into a corpse already, a missing person report filed in, let's be generous, twelve hours or so.
He picks up his drawings things, and goes to put them away. Does the rounds, ensuring curtains are drawn.
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She sits down on a sofa, slightly off-center, and waits. Passive thanks to mind-control, but still eager thanks to the part of her brain that Daniel hooked into when he decided on her. I'll understand soon. I'll know soon. Soon. Soon. Soon.
He encourages this, as he gets a glass of water. You're almost there. On second thought, he tries the fridge, and lucks out with a can of soda as well.
Mushrooms first. Nothing glamorous about it, eating spindly, gilled plants, sipping Diet Coke in between; she has done pills, a little bit of coke in university, but this is very hippy-dippy and her subconscious mind is at first riled in a bad way by the idea of raw dogging shrooms. Aspartame and carbonation help. There's no rushing this bit, it has to sink into her before Daniel decides to feed her more or stop, so he just sits back in a chair and looks over to Armand, hand extended. Luring.
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Content, tonight, to simply do as he wants. Within reason. For instance, he could play with their prey's mind like a cat with a yarn ball, but instead he says,
"Would a bad trip transfer, do you think, during the blood drinking?"
Less in the tone that he actively desires to fuck with their meal so much as speculative, and a little assumptive that Daniel will be informed on the topic.
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One hand, a literal one not a metaphorical one, slips up Armand's forearm to touch him, and slide fingers along veins, to the pulse point in the ditch of his elbow, and down again to his hand. Elegant artist's fingers, against his own broad ones. The predator nails look a little funny on Daniel, but on Armand, it looks like he was always meant to have them. Beautiful like the full spread of teeth in a tiger is beautiful.
"A 'bad' trip happens in the brain," he notes. "So maybe, but it wouldn't be about substance contamination in the blood, it'd be a psychological reaction to whatever you might end up exposed to while drinking from them. Depends on if freakouts during dinner unsettle you, I guess."
He tips his head back to look at his maker, curious about his thoughts. Deana is staring at her soda can. Slowly, she reaches for another little mushroom, and as she eats it, she begins pushing the tab on the can back and forth to weaken it, transfixed.
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"Separate things," agreeable, "the chemical we are taking in through the blood and our own physiological response to it, and our psychic sense of the person producing that blood, their feelings, their memories, their emotional state."
Turns his hand, tangling fingers with Daniel. "But I wouldn't be surprised if there's interference between the two. I'm given to understand that psychedelics produce powerful spiritual awakenings."
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Deana might be seeing some funny colors right now. She's noticed the ceiling.
"It'd be an interesting experiment. See if a vampire's reaction can be deliberately curated by selecting a donor experiencing what they'd like to experience in turn."
An interesting experiment that would require a truly staggering amount of drugs and worrying number of vanished mortals. Daniel's pretty sure he could easily get volunteers if they thought they'd live - people are freaks, he's one of them - but asking an impaired monster to refrain from draining a victim to the point of death isn't practical.
"You know, for the vampire scientific digest I'm eventually going to publish."
Imagine.
The woman ends up consuming all of the mushrooms left to her with little prompting— much less effort than it had taken to direct her here. She's eager to sever herself from her own mind and turn off the torrent of stress. There's an answer in here. Daniel eventually sits next to her, and she asks quietly what the pills are. He tells her, and she takes them without prompting. There is a serenity to her that wasn't there when she arrived. She fantasizes that she'll wake up on the other side of this as someone completely different, and the drugs tell her that she will. She'll understand any minute now.
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No peer reviewed, control tested, exhaustive study required, mock assurance before Armand is letting Daniel up. Stands where he is, a partial lean on the back of the chair. Watches Daniel and his prey, listens to her mind, the circling the drain rationalisation that is keeping her fixed on the couch.
Fingers wandering along the arm of it as he moves in closer, coming to settle on her other side. The spell might break if he intervenes too much, but also, it's too late for her. Riding high, now, spiralling into coloured streamers of consciousness. He strokes her hair back away from her ear. Her neck.
"Who will you be, Deana?" he asks.
She shakes her head. Doesn't know. But there are little flickers of notions. Herself, with more money. A man, with a wife. Her teenage self, running a marathon, never stopping.
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"It can be a surprise," he tells her, nudging this and that in her head. Lacking in Armand's light touch, centuries of experience, and so he compensates by being conservative with his moves. Makes sure she doesn't realize she's in some stranger's house, flanked my men she's never seen before, being plied with drugs and told that she'll be reborn in just a second.
The intoxicants make it easier. She wants to be someone else, and as the flush of sensation overtakes her, she mentally reaches out to take the hand guiding her towards the door at the top of a hill. All she has to do is open it.
"Do you want to go first?" Daniel asks Armand, quiet. Away from the woman's attention. "I can keep an eye on you if you don't like it."
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A pause, which is a drawing back, lifting his eyes to consider Daniel across her, eyes violent orange already. Pupils normal, naturally. "Yes," he says, an agreement.
Maybe he won't like it. He is willing to experience that too.
He settles his hand on the back of her head, and Deana falls her skull back against his palm without much coaxing. When he parts his mouth, shows his teeth, it is both the mechanics of the thing as well as wanting Daniel to watch him, see his fangs drop and sharpen. (Fun fact, the cat with the biggest kill rate is the black-footed cat, which is an especially diminutive predator, little teeth and big eyes.)
"Soon," he promises her, before leaning in, and setting his teeth to her neck, sinking them in.
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Armand looks incredible. His eyes, his fangs. Daniel gets to watch unabashed— not that he didn't stare before, now and then when he was actually able to observe his maker drinking, but it's different now. Now, he can raise a hand and stroke over the ancient vampire's hair to make sure he can see all points of contact. Now, he can cradle him gently, and silently encourage him to take as much or as little as he likes. They've had the Don't just keep doing more if you don't feel the high right away talk before about the substances Daniel fucks around with, so he trusts him to make an appropriate call on when to stop.
It's erotic. He had thought so before (so long ago?) in Dubai. He'd thought so as he learned to do it himself, though he rarely allowed himself to look at it that way. He has the freedom to, now. It's safe to watch Armand, the flex of his throat as he swallows, the seal of his mouth to the mortal's flesh, and think: it's just fucking beautiful.
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Long and slow and tender, his swallowing down of poisoned blood. It had hit her quickly, he'd noticed, which means the blood will be close to instant. As soon as he begins to feel something a little like a warm undercurrent flow beneath his thoughts, a sense of floating, Armand retracts his fangs, keeps his mouth sealed just to stem the precious flow.
She is not dead, but she is not lucid, she is gone from this realm, a limp thing on the sofa with a stubbornly beating heart.
Armand lifts his head, a glimmer of blood-stained teeth. Tips head, eyes opening to slivers as he presses his cheek to Daniel's hand.
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