"Alright," he pants. "Alright." Shivery and heated. With you is like lightning. It occurs to him that they shouldn't be doing this, that his hate and resentment should be too much, but he looks at this fact the same way he looks at the morality of killing mortals. Differently than before. Maybe he's just insane now, maybe Armand passed more to him than immortality. But maybe, instead of all that, he'd have fucking killed to get this kind of intensity from any other relationship. What if one of his wives tried to kill him for leaving. What if one tried to throw herself out of a window, burned the house down, left one of the kids at an orphanage. Wouldn't he have liked it.
Sweat and precome make it easier, the heat off the both of them too much for two people who are dead, Daniel keeps pressing messy badly-aimed kisses against him as he strokes them both, somehow falling easily back into muscle memory he'd tried to make himself forget. Years of I'm not, and now it feels like I was just waiting. He rasps nonsense out, that it feels good, that Armand feels so good, all of him, his hands, mouth, his teeth, he says please, please, and he doesn't know why.
There is a shivering, frantic energy to Daniel beneath him that Armand thinks he would enjoy evoking again when he is in a more right mind than he is currently. He can at least instill a measure of control in himself, keeping Daniel caged between the set of his legs, arms, the pressing down of his body, even as Armand can't stop the needful sounds leaving his own chest, the jerking forwards of his hips, the sheen of blood-tinged perspiration rising on his skin.
Good, murmured. Nonsensical. Good and like that and keep going as if Daniel were in need of instruction and praise, and perhaps he is. Either way, Armand gives it between short breaths.
Then, inevitable: fangs again, pressing into Daniel's shoulder. Not a deep draw of blood, just a sharp clench of pressure and a louder groan, maybe as loud as Daniel has ever heard Armand when he isn't yelling, muffled there, pressed into skin and muscle as he comes in hot pulses. Doesn't freeze through it, wringing every bit of pleasure out of the feeling of Daniel's palm, his cock, low against his stomach.
A gut-punch. Teeth again, soaring pleasure from it even though it's superficial, in tandem with Armand coming between them, into his hand, onto his skin, his own cock, everything scorching hot there. The smell of him is like blood and sweat and more and overwhelming— and there's something else, an echo that he can feel, winding him tighter and tighter, he thinks of static on an old TV, particles made out of euphoria.
Same mind, same blood, maybe it's supposed to feel like this when they fuck. (Does this count as fucking?) (Yeah.)
He feels his fangs in his mouth, a spiral of hunger getting its hooks into him with the rush getting his maker off brings, but he doesn't bite down anywhere because he doesn't have permission to, and inspecting why he needs to figure that out first is too difficult right now. Instead he touches himself, quicker, more desperate, using Armand's come to make everything slicker and easier and faster as everything winds tighter until he fractures and follows him off the ledge with a choked sound.
A moment of distance, but only extremely relatively speaking—Armand still stupid from his own wrench pleasure, with blood in his mouth and muscles still clenched taut, but lifting away by very little indeed. Still feels Daniel's hand working himself, but with enough room to look down between them. They will have to do this again sometime,
which is a hilariously human thought to have, acting as if there is any limit to that 'sometime', a finite amount of sex acts they might perform before the heat death of the universe
so he can remember to admire them when they're held together and thick with want. But half an aftermath and watching Daniel attend to himself is gratifying too, lifting his focus up in the moment that the other vampire begins to come to then observe his face. Armand's eyes go hooded, and he ducks down to kiss at those choked sounds, almost sweet.
A deep unspooling and brilliant fireworks of aftershocks, shivers and twitches that go through him, and soft-mouthed kisses as his brain completely whites out. A mess as coordination leaves him, and too-sharp fangs in his mouth, unbidden.
Armand, Armand, Armand. His weight on him still feels good. Daniel still isn't thinking exactly clearly - though it's still done purposefully - when he raises his hand to his mouth to lick it. Bloody, like he's almost gotten used to, which feels free of anxiety in this moment and tastes better than a human's. By miles.
This little gesture observed, absorbed, ribbons heat through him despite the relief that has made Armand rest heavy on top of Daniel. The flash of fang in his mouth, wet tongue, that Daniel has stolen a taste of him in return. He lets out a breathed sound that seems to concur with this assessment.
Settles against him, head resting on his chest as if they were still watching cartoons or settling in to sleep, although Armand isn't certain he feels tired.
Satiated. Rare that a vampire ever knows that sensation. His mind feels heavy, like a sponge, like it might be impossible to second guess, to fret, synapses too sluggish.
And pleased, that's also what he feels. Experience a marriage of the better part of a century in which all love, romance, gratification slowly drained from the bed, watch your companion fuck a thousand men and dream of his former lover while sleeping a foot away from you, and it doesn't matter how much you have done before: you may start to believe you could never elicit this response from a person again. Shivering and desperate and choking and gasping.
No. Too much reflection. Too much past. Armand wishes to be present. Draws Daniel's hand to him, and tastes their mingling as well with a touch of his tongue to the heel of his palm.
Different, because he doesn't feel like he's going to pass right out (even though they're well into the day by now), because he doesn't need to extricate himself before things get too weird. Sated and content and still elated, a new kind of experience, brought on by something as simple as scrambling at each other to rut and pet. Inelegant, but it feels so profound.
More, somehow, when Armand licks his hand too. Daniel lets him have it, splaying fingers for him, once more captured, everything laid out and permissive. Diamond nails, exposed wrist. He still feels shivery from climax and from the blood drained from him. He wonders if Armand likes the way he tastes, or if it was just an instinct at the height of sensation.
He tucks his other arm around him, encouraging him to settle like he so often does. No pajamas or blankets between them this time, and staying still will be disgusting when it all cools down, but Daniel's never been particularly put off by that sort of thing. Bodies and their mechanics are an interesting part of existence, living and undead. He pets over Armand's hair, his shoulder, down his spine. Covetous, a little greedy still. Who knows. His maker might decide this was a bad idea and bolt, abandon Daniel to a dark chamber he can't leave for fear of being immolated if he ran after. He'll enjoy what he can.
Daniel's hand opens to him, glint of sharp, hard nails, the blue veins in his wrist, the sheen of blood and come. Instinct and pleasure both, driving Armand to lick him clean. Shivers beneath the taste of Daniel against his tongue and the feeling of his other hand petting through his hair, down his back.
Bolting is not off the table, but the spark of that impulse doesn't surface, not while they attend each other in this way, not while it feels there is nowhere else for Armand to be.
Eventually, a kiss to inner wrist, to forearm, and then settling again. They will need to get clean, but the animal in him doesn't particularly care, nor the vampire, nor the figment of a person caught between these extremes. Silence, then, and Armand says, "Say something," as he rests his chin on Daniel's chest.
Those kisses are sweet in a way he wasn't sure Armand was capable of. At least not aimed at him— but no, he knew that, he thinks. They've held each other before, and Armand has stroked his hair before and coaxed him into the dark. Daniel pets over his hair and looks at him, fuzzy up close, but well enough to see the colored rings of his eyes.
Like sunset in fall. The only sun he gets.
"That was really good," is what he says. He slips Armand's hair back and trails his touch down his neck, his shoulder, then back up again. "A pretty big change, for us."
This isn't the first time it occurs to Armand that in spite of his inability to read Daniel's mind, he is certain that he will never be lied to. Not to flatter or to deceive or any number of things that petty insecurity may otherwise encourage. He has thought it before, and believed it already, or else there would have been very little cuddling, held hands, even arguments.
There would likely be no The Vampire Daniel to begin with, but he needn't venture all that far back. Reflects that Daniel likely does not have this same reassurance, but then, he has never possessed the ability to read his mind to miss it. And has never really needed it.
"Yes," Armand says. It was really good. It is a pretty big change. "I hadn't intended it." He shifts so that they can speak a little easier, less cross-eyed blurriness, and he can also bring around a clean hand that can do its share of petting, laying on the cushion beside Daniel's head, toying with grey-white curls behind his ear. "There's been very little intentionality throughout."
Obviously. But this, too, is different. Perhaps he should apologise for the way that if Daniel is caught in some labyrinthine scheme after all, it's currently under construction, building itself from the centre as they explore it.
A cozy shuffle, onto his side. Daniel continues to touch him, his uncannily beautiful face, down to the chest hair he likes a whole lot, finding a place to hold at his side and draw circles with his thumb. He contemplates all the ways Armand has stared at him, and files this away as a new favorite.
"Mm." An amused sound. "We do seem to have been a series of land mines and trip wires for each other the whole length of this thing."
Life-altering explosions, one to fuck Daniel's head completely in San Fransisco, one to destroy Armand's relationship in Dubai. All the other smaller blowups and bloody stumbles in between. A very twisty pipeline from trying to hook up with Louis in 1973 to now laying in bed naked with Armand. Dead, bonded for eternity.
"Though that's a kind of wanting. The kind that takes over when something suddenly looks like it's within reach."
Be it blowing up Armand's web of manipulation, or bringing Daniel into the blood. Or a kiss.
Onto his side, then, facing one another, clear-eyed and sober. Armand wanders his fingertips from Daniel's shoulder, over his chest. The evidence of bite marks, the wounds themselves faded, but traces of dried blood smeared with sweat and movement. It catches up to him that he sank his fangs into his fledgling at least three times and once in earnest, and that he'd been relatively restrained even then.
Something to think about. Daniel, so free and willing with his permission. Armand, who doesn't know what he is doing or will do at any time, these days. Land mines and trip wires.
The revulsion he had spoken of. The connection that tethers creator and created, the eternal imbalance of power. He doesn't feel revulsion now, that isn't the word any longer, not when he has now admitted to wanting something of it for himself. His fingernails play along pale skin, coarse hair, lines defined by bone and muscle.
"Is there any part of you that wonders at it?" His eyes, ticking back up to study Daniel's. "If what we are to one another creates the wanting."
Impossible not to think about. It is so present between them. So much that Daniel thinks Louis was underselling it during the interview, and in turn, sometimes finds Claudia's actions to be repulsive and alien. (He might take that one to his grave.)
And yet,
"Kind of a moot point, though. Without it there's nothing to want, because I was dying. I could branch off from that, and think what if it was someone else, what if it was Louis, is there still this. Is there still any of the things before this."
He looks at Armand, and thinks of the way they would look at each other in Dubai. He thinks of the way that Armand held him in San Fransisco.
"I think it had to be you. I think it was always going to be you. Or not at all."
The present, is what he wishes to focus on. The cord, the invisible cord, that binds them together. He doesn't want to consider, for the countless time, what he'd felt when it ran the other way. What he was even capable of feeling when flayed open raw in the presence of a vampire whose origins predate the son of God. Of course he had worshipped. Continued to worship.
Daniel is saying—things. This moment of resistance, failing to resist, is only a flicker, and he tunes back in in time for because I was dying and Armand slides his arm around him, over his side, fingertips trailing up along his back.
"I wasn't lying," he says. "When I said that we had planned to offer it. That Louis was going to be the one to give it to you, had you agreed."
Close their minds off forever from each other. This, Armand had told himself, would be his silver-lining. The interview would be written, it would forever immortalise the story in cement and steel, and then—
Grand plans that don't bear thinking about. Now, laying here, the idea of Louis having Daniel is enough to make his fangs itch. His.
He can tell when Armand is lying. He was just mad at him, then, and various self-esteem issues have caused him to shy away from Louis whenever he's reinforced that the offer was going to be real. It's just a mess to think about, and he doesn't like doing it— he'd have said no. Trip wires, land mines. Does Louis accept 'no'? Does Armand make him say 'yes'? Doesn't matter.
Daniel slides a hand up over Armand's chest, his throat, so he can cradle his face and ghost a thumb over his mouth, thinking about the fangs in there, and how good it felt when he bit into him each time. Different, teasing at first, then serious, then in the throes of it. He wants to feel more of it.
"I just think you were going to be the one to kill me, one way or another."
Maybe he was going to lose his temper there at dinner. Explode his head then turn Louis into a shell. Or maybe: always this, always his maker. Maybe farther back. Maybe Louis never gets up out of the coffin in San Fransisco. One way or another, his heart was always going to stop under Armand's bite.
Editor's note, Daniel could probably stand to sound a little less like he thinks that's hot? Or not. Could be fine, considering they just did what they did.
Author's aside, Armand could stand to feel a little less self-satisfied in response to this assertion. Has no right to the twinge of smugness he knows in belated reflex to Louis' plans and intentions to acquire this fledgling for himself, and even less right to the rattlesnake coil of possessiveness, even more belated, for the kill that he had claimed for himself in 1973, and was denied. He does not actually want Daniel dead fifty years ago, but all the same, an itch scratched.
Daniel's hand at his face. Being admired, being wanted. His eyes don't go huge, as established, but gleam what may become a familiar shade of wanting amber. And so it all probably reads perfectly clear in Armand's expression, and made all the plainer when Armand settles in closer to nudge past Daniel's hand and kiss him again.
He could worry at it more. Would he have said 'no' to Louis? What would he have said, if Armand had allowed him the choice? Moot point, to use his parlance. And besides, it isn't as though Armand was fully conscious as to why he was doing any of it. He remembers, after, thinking of it like: it had given him something to do. A new, pleasing dimension to that turn of phrase, suddenly.
Telling on each other, maybe, when Armand's kiss insists itself a little more, warming up to it, and when the probability of him being thrown out of bed is low.
Once, Daniel had pitched a theory to Louis, that Armand was going to make Daniel say yes, so that he could control the both of them. But maybe there's a grotesque gothic romance option where Armand loses it last second, and does it himself. An absurd thought. Fanfic level delusion.
(But maybe.)
Armand's eyes looks so beautiful. Alien, unlike anything else in this world living or dead. Daniel can see them in the dark, and he knows his own mirror their color. Amber-orange-smoldering fire of interest, a thing he used to think was about him being angry, and that being angry just happened to overlap quite often with thinking about Armand.
Daniel kisses him back. Lets him into his mouth, curls his tongue against his, presses one hand flat against his chest so he can pet him, uses the other to slide around his side and encourage him to press even closer. No, not about to kick him out. If he's honest with himself — and this seems like the day for it — he's wanted this for too long to let it fade into sleep so soon. He wants to taste the satisfaction he saw in Armand's eyes, and gloat to himself about being the one to put it there.
Armand, eager for that bare line of contact, knees to chests, pressing in as urged. It will be gratifying when sleep does take Daniel from him to feel like he might join him there, and if not, enjoy the fucked out relaxation of holding him and listening to him sink into that deep, vulnerable sleep. Long minutes, then, of returning to kissing, friction, the mess they've made between them on their skin, on the sheets.
His hand at Daniel's cheek, thumb stroking along against soft skin, and then around to his chin to force the kiss to break as he pulls back a crucial half-inch.
"Say what you would like," he bids. "And I may give it to you."
Will give it to him, of course. But what's wrong with flirting.
Making out and warming up again, free from stereotypical post-coital male helplessness; being a vampire is fucking great. Daniel's going to go insane if Armand decides this was just a one-day thing, even aside from the earth-shattering profound emotional impact of this.
A shuddering breath, with that instruction. His hand flexes where it's clutching at Armand's side, venting restless energy in the face of flirting. What a fucking tease. But he had to know that was in there, surely. He did the same thing torturing him. Meticulously unspooling him.
"I'd like—" Fuck. "I'd like you to bite me again."
Shy? A smidge. He also wants the reverse, but he's keeping in mind Armand's boundaries.
"You're the only one who's ever done that, you know. I mean, since way back then. I never expected it to feel this way."
No blood sharing on the disaster road trip, at least not with Daniel. Armand, and only Armand, after Louis gored his neck.
Armand opens his mouth like he might say something, but he doesn't. Lured, more like, as if tasting the air when he breathes in.
Thumb trailing down from chin to throat, gentle down the centre of it. A fond and gluttonous memory, as if the velvet texture of throatfuls of blood surpassed how extremely horrible everything else was about that moment—which, well, it did. This biting would not be the indulgence of that taking.
But it would be an indulgence. "You're going to be hungry tomorrow," he says.
No one else. Louis, briefly, but the taste muddied with drugs and poor memory. He's not sure he would have been capable of rending either of the other two apart for daring, what with his long habit of watching helplessly as the things he wants are scattered apart, but he can enjoy the fierce gladness of a thing that had scarcely even occurred to him.
"That's only a problem if you don't intend to let me out of the house," he notes. Flirtatious if you squint. (Please squint.)
No blood bags in the fridge. Gross. NYC has an overpopulation problem, Daniel has no problem killing. Armand knows that. Daniel palms over his chest, his belly, slides fingers over the curve of his hip. Considers.
Decides that there's no reason to buck the trend on honesty.
"You've never indicated an openness to sharing your blood. I wouldn't want something that you're not comfortable with." A squeeze, where his hand is laying on his side again, obviously reluctant to stop touching him. Knees bumping, close enough to be oh-so-quiet. "I liked that you did it. I mean it: Everything's yours."
Important that Armand knows he has blanket permission to do what he wants to Daniel. And besides, nobody talks about fledgling blood like it's a tool to be bartered with and used as some kind of video game level-up, the way ancient blood is talked about. He doesn't want Armand to feel like some ... commodity. He'd want him to enjoy it.
It's what he wants. What he expressed wanting. There is no specific change to Armand's expression as Daniel talks, save for the flickered emergence of flirtation, and then stillness again. The telltale shift of eyes at close proximity reading the other set in front of them, and then a deeper breath in.
A mirror, almost, of the feeling of—no, not exactly after Dubai, when he'd found himself slingshotting himself around the world in search of nothing, too much freedom. More like that one last night in Paris, when Louis had taken his hand and proposed they fuck off to Africa, and the anxiety and the fear abated, momentarily, in favour of something hopeful. A blank canvas of a future.
"That's," he says, and then the sentence fails, and his eyes flick down. He should speak of where he stands on bloodgiving, but this sober reiteration is so consuming that he forgets about that for the moment.
Hands on Daniel, tightening, bodies pressed firmly together, insistent, still.
"That's a relief," he manages, finally. That Daniel liked it. (That everything is his.)
Is this is a good reaction? He hopes so. Armand doesn't seem to be withdrawing, rather, he seems like he's seeing something past this basement. But then his maker clutches a little tighter, and Daniel thinks: maybe it is a good reaction, and he hasn't pushed too far. He could try to make excuses for himself, that he's just trying to be transparent, and sure, he is. But there's also greed in him, he can't deny that. A part of him wants it all to be too fucking much.
Because it's Armand, and Armand is out of his goddamn mind, and as much as Daniel wants to help him, he just wants him authentically, too.
Which is insane.
Daniel nudges forward, bumping noses and pressing foreheads together. Here we fucking are, together.
His eyes hood as Daniel settles in closer, feeling that sense of his, his, his like his own pulse. He could ask, maybe, if this means Daniel trusts him—but what does that mean? Trusts him not to abuse the privilege? Perhaps. Does Armand trust himself? This, perhaps, the part that overwhelms him.
The concrete wall, cracking behind his back. Louis had never looked at him that way, not even in Paris. It was not the same way Lestat had looked at him, not the same way Marius had as well, but they all had some flicker, towards the end, that indicated to Armand that they found him lacking, or too much, or—
His nails, dimpling into Daniel's skin. Maybe this is why the past feels so close. Louis, a part of it, and it has barely been months.
Armand angles his head, kisses him. Sweet, brief. Back on task.
"I would like it," once he is sure his voice will come out level, "for you to take from me, sometimes. Perhaps if you ask for it. And don't mind if I tell you no."
Boundaries. Important. Very important, if they're going to do this. Daniel had been mocking in Dubai, during the interview, maitre in the bedroom, maitre when it's hot or convenient, and it was deliberately unkind. He knew what he was doing, at least potentially, as he'd yet to be fully convinced of anything the odd vampire had asserted about himself. He was angry at Armand, he knew it would hurt if it landed. (Honesty is not a tactic.)
And so he's got the potential for it. He realizes that Armand is handing him yet more potential, and whether or not he trusts Daniel, he's trusting him with that. Boundaries that have been pushed. Daniel, with fingers laid on them.
"Think I'm clever enough to figure out when you'd like me to ask?"
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Sweat and precome make it easier, the heat off the both of them too much for two people who are dead, Daniel keeps pressing messy badly-aimed kisses against him as he strokes them both, somehow falling easily back into muscle memory he'd tried to make himself forget. Years of I'm not, and now it feels like I was just waiting. He rasps nonsense out, that it feels good, that Armand feels so good, all of him, his hands, mouth, his teeth, he says please, please, and he doesn't know why.
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Good, murmured. Nonsensical. Good and like that and keep going as if Daniel were in need of instruction and praise, and perhaps he is. Either way, Armand gives it between short breaths.
Then, inevitable: fangs again, pressing into Daniel's shoulder. Not a deep draw of blood, just a sharp clench of pressure and a louder groan, maybe as loud as Daniel has ever heard Armand when he isn't yelling, muffled there, pressed into skin and muscle as he comes in hot pulses. Doesn't freeze through it, wringing every bit of pleasure out of the feeling of Daniel's palm, his cock, low against his stomach.
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Same mind, same blood, maybe it's supposed to feel like this when they fuck. (Does this count as fucking?) (Yeah.)
He feels his fangs in his mouth, a spiral of hunger getting its hooks into him with the rush getting his maker off brings, but he doesn't bite down anywhere because he doesn't have permission to, and inspecting why he needs to figure that out first is too difficult right now. Instead he touches himself, quicker, more desperate, using Armand's come to make everything slicker and easier and faster as everything winds tighter until he fractures and follows him off the ledge with a choked sound.
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which is a hilariously human thought to have, acting as if there is any limit to that 'sometime', a finite amount of sex acts they might perform before the heat death of the universe
so he can remember to admire them when they're held together and thick with want. But half an aftermath and watching Daniel attend to himself is gratifying too, lifting his focus up in the moment that the other vampire begins to come to then observe his face. Armand's eyes go hooded, and he ducks down to kiss at those choked sounds, almost sweet.
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Armand, Armand, Armand. His weight on him still feels good. Daniel still isn't thinking exactly clearly - though it's still done purposefully - when he raises his hand to his mouth to lick it. Bloody, like he's almost gotten used to, which feels free of anxiety in this moment and tastes better than a human's. By miles.
Fuck.
He repeats it, out loud.
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Settles against him, head resting on his chest as if they were still watching cartoons or settling in to sleep, although Armand isn't certain he feels tired.
Satiated. Rare that a vampire ever knows that sensation. His mind feels heavy, like a sponge, like it might be impossible to second guess, to fret, synapses too sluggish.
And pleased, that's also what he feels. Experience a marriage of the better part of a century in which all love, romance, gratification slowly drained from the bed, watch your companion fuck a thousand men and dream of his former lover while sleeping a foot away from you, and it doesn't matter how much you have done before: you may start to believe you could never elicit this response from a person again. Shivering and desperate and choking and gasping.
No. Too much reflection. Too much past. Armand wishes to be present. Draws Daniel's hand to him, and tastes their mingling as well with a touch of his tongue to the heel of his palm.
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More, somehow, when Armand licks his hand too. Daniel lets him have it, splaying fingers for him, once more captured, everything laid out and permissive. Diamond nails, exposed wrist. He still feels shivery from climax and from the blood drained from him. He wonders if Armand likes the way he tastes, or if it was just an instinct at the height of sensation.
He tucks his other arm around him, encouraging him to settle like he so often does. No pajamas or blankets between them this time, and staying still will be disgusting when it all cools down, but Daniel's never been particularly put off by that sort of thing. Bodies and their mechanics are an interesting part of existence, living and undead. He pets over Armand's hair, his shoulder, down his spine. Covetous, a little greedy still. Who knows. His maker might decide this was a bad idea and bolt, abandon Daniel to a dark chamber he can't leave for fear of being immolated if he ran after. He'll enjoy what he can.
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Bolting is not off the table, but the spark of that impulse doesn't surface, not while they attend each other in this way, not while it feels there is nowhere else for Armand to be.
Eventually, a kiss to inner wrist, to forearm, and then settling again. They will need to get clean, but the animal in him doesn't particularly care, nor the vampire, nor the figment of a person caught between these extremes. Silence, then, and Armand says, "Say something," as he rests his chin on Daniel's chest.
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Like sunset in fall. The only sun he gets.
"That was really good," is what he says. He slips Armand's hair back and trails his touch down his neck, his shoulder, then back up again. "A pretty big change, for us."
One that feels easy, despite the danger.
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There would likely be no The Vampire Daniel to begin with, but he needn't venture all that far back. Reflects that Daniel likely does not have this same reassurance, but then, he has never possessed the ability to read his mind to miss it. And has never really needed it.
"Yes," Armand says. It was really good. It is a pretty big change. "I hadn't intended it." He shifts so that they can speak a little easier, less cross-eyed blurriness, and he can also bring around a clean hand that can do its share of petting, laying on the cushion beside Daniel's head, toying with grey-white curls behind his ear. "There's been very little intentionality throughout."
Obviously. But this, too, is different. Perhaps he should apologise for the way that if Daniel is caught in some labyrinthine scheme after all, it's currently under construction, building itself from the centre as they explore it.
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"Mm." An amused sound. "We do seem to have been a series of land mines and trip wires for each other the whole length of this thing."
Life-altering explosions, one to fuck Daniel's head completely in San Fransisco, one to destroy Armand's relationship in Dubai. All the other smaller blowups and bloody stumbles in between. A very twisty pipeline from trying to hook up with Louis in 1973 to now laying in bed naked with Armand. Dead, bonded for eternity.
"Though that's a kind of wanting. The kind that takes over when something suddenly looks like it's within reach."
Be it blowing up Armand's web of manipulation, or bringing Daniel into the blood. Or a kiss.
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Something to think about. Daniel, so free and willing with his permission. Armand, who doesn't know what he is doing or will do at any time, these days. Land mines and trip wires.
The revulsion he had spoken of. The connection that tethers creator and created, the eternal imbalance of power. He doesn't feel revulsion now, that isn't the word any longer, not when he has now admitted to wanting something of it for himself. His fingernails play along pale skin, coarse hair, lines defined by bone and muscle.
"Is there any part of you that wonders at it?" His eyes, ticking back up to study Daniel's. "If what we are to one another creates the wanting."
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Impossible not to think about. It is so present between them. So much that Daniel thinks Louis was underselling it during the interview, and in turn, sometimes finds Claudia's actions to be repulsive and alien. (He might take that one to his grave.)
And yet,
"Kind of a moot point, though. Without it there's nothing to want, because I was dying. I could branch off from that, and think what if it was someone else, what if it was Louis, is there still this. Is there still any of the things before this."
He looks at Armand, and thinks of the way they would look at each other in Dubai. He thinks of the way that Armand held him in San Fransisco.
"I think it had to be you. I think it was always going to be you. Or not at all."
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Daniel is saying—things. This moment of resistance, failing to resist, is only a flicker, and he tunes back in in time for because I was dying and Armand slides his arm around him, over his side, fingertips trailing up along his back.
"I wasn't lying," he says. "When I said that we had planned to offer it. That Louis was going to be the one to give it to you, had you agreed."
Close their minds off forever from each other. This, Armand had told himself, would be his silver-lining. The interview would be written, it would forever immortalise the story in cement and steel, and then—
Grand plans that don't bear thinking about. Now, laying here, the idea of Louis having Daniel is enough to make his fangs itch. His.
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He can tell when Armand is lying. He was just mad at him, then, and various self-esteem issues have caused him to shy away from Louis whenever he's reinforced that the offer was going to be real. It's just a mess to think about, and he doesn't like doing it— he'd have said no. Trip wires, land mines. Does Louis accept 'no'? Does Armand make him say 'yes'? Doesn't matter.
Daniel slides a hand up over Armand's chest, his throat, so he can cradle his face and ghost a thumb over his mouth, thinking about the fangs in there, and how good it felt when he bit into him each time. Different, teasing at first, then serious, then in the throes of it. He wants to feel more of it.
"I just think you were going to be the one to kill me, one way or another."
Maybe he was going to lose his temper there at dinner. Explode his head then turn Louis into a shell. Or maybe: always this, always his maker. Maybe farther back. Maybe Louis never gets up out of the coffin in San Fransisco. One way or another, his heart was always going to stop under Armand's bite.
Editor's note, Daniel could probably stand to sound a little less like he thinks that's hot? Or not. Could be fine, considering they just did what they did.
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Daniel's hand at his face. Being admired, being wanted. His eyes don't go huge, as established, but gleam what may become a familiar shade of wanting amber. And so it all probably reads perfectly clear in Armand's expression, and made all the plainer when Armand settles in closer to nudge past Daniel's hand and kiss him again.
He could worry at it more. Would he have said 'no' to Louis? What would he have said, if Armand had allowed him the choice? Moot point, to use his parlance. And besides, it isn't as though Armand was fully conscious as to why he was doing any of it. He remembers, after, thinking of it like: it had given him something to do. A new, pleasing dimension to that turn of phrase, suddenly.
Telling on each other, maybe, when Armand's kiss insists itself a little more, warming up to it, and when the probability of him being thrown out of bed is low.
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(But maybe.)
Armand's eyes looks so beautiful. Alien, unlike anything else in this world living or dead. Daniel can see them in the dark, and he knows his own mirror their color. Amber-orange-smoldering fire of interest, a thing he used to think was about him being angry, and that being angry just happened to overlap quite often with thinking about Armand.
Daniel kisses him back. Lets him into his mouth, curls his tongue against his, presses one hand flat against his chest so he can pet him, uses the other to slide around his side and encourage him to press even closer. No, not about to kick him out. If he's honest with himself — and this seems like the day for it — he's wanted this for too long to let it fade into sleep so soon. He wants to taste the satisfaction he saw in Armand's eyes, and gloat to himself about being the one to put it there.
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His hand at Daniel's cheek, thumb stroking along against soft skin, and then around to his chin to force the kiss to break as he pulls back a crucial half-inch.
"Say what you would like," he bids. "And I may give it to you."
Will give it to him, of course. But what's wrong with flirting.
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A shuddering breath, with that instruction. His hand flexes where it's clutching at Armand's side, venting restless energy in the face of flirting. What a fucking tease. But he had to know that was in there, surely. He did the same thing torturing him. Meticulously unspooling him.
"I'd like—" Fuck. "I'd like you to bite me again."
Shy? A smidge. He also wants the reverse, but he's keeping in mind Armand's boundaries.
"You're the only one who's ever done that, you know. I mean, since way back then. I never expected it to feel this way."
No blood sharing on the disaster road trip, at least not with Daniel. Armand, and only Armand, after Louis gored his neck.
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Thumb trailing down from chin to throat, gentle down the centre of it. A fond and gluttonous memory, as if the velvet texture of throatfuls of blood surpassed how extremely horrible everything else was about that moment—which, well, it did. This biting would not be the indulgence of that taking.
But it would be an indulgence. "You're going to be hungry tomorrow," he says.
No one else. Louis, briefly, but the taste muddied with drugs and poor memory. He's not sure he would have been capable of rending either of the other two apart for daring, what with his long habit of watching helplessly as the things he wants are scattered apart, but he can enjoy the fierce gladness of a thing that had scarcely even occurred to him.
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No blood bags in the fridge. Gross. NYC has an overpopulation problem, Daniel has no problem killing. Armand knows that. Daniel palms over his chest, his belly, slides fingers over the curve of his hip. Considers.
Decides that there's no reason to buck the trend on honesty.
"You've never indicated an openness to sharing your blood. I wouldn't want something that you're not comfortable with." A squeeze, where his hand is laying on his side again, obviously reluctant to stop touching him. Knees bumping, close enough to be oh-so-quiet. "I liked that you did it. I mean it: Everything's yours."
Important that Armand knows he has blanket permission to do what he wants to Daniel. And besides, nobody talks about fledgling blood like it's a tool to be bartered with and used as some kind of video game level-up, the way ancient blood is talked about. He doesn't want Armand to feel like some ... commodity. He'd want him to enjoy it.
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A mirror, almost, of the feeling of—no, not exactly after Dubai, when he'd found himself slingshotting himself around the world in search of nothing, too much freedom. More like that one last night in Paris, when Louis had taken his hand and proposed they fuck off to Africa, and the anxiety and the fear abated, momentarily, in favour of something hopeful. A blank canvas of a future.
"That's," he says, and then the sentence fails, and his eyes flick down. He should speak of where he stands on bloodgiving, but this sober reiteration is so consuming that he forgets about that for the moment.
Hands on Daniel, tightening, bodies pressed firmly together, insistent, still.
"That's a relief," he manages, finally. That Daniel liked it. (That everything is his.)
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Because it's Armand, and Armand is out of his goddamn mind, and as much as Daniel wants to help him, he just wants him authentically, too.
Which is insane.
Daniel nudges forward, bumping noses and pressing foreheads together. Here we fucking are, together.
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The concrete wall, cracking behind his back. Louis had never looked at him that way, not even in Paris. It was not the same way Lestat had looked at him, not the same way Marius had as well, but they all had some flicker, towards the end, that indicated to Armand that they found him lacking, or too much, or—
His nails, dimpling into Daniel's skin. Maybe this is why the past feels so close. Louis, a part of it, and it has barely been months.
Armand angles his head, kisses him. Sweet, brief. Back on task.
"I would like it," once he is sure his voice will come out level, "for you to take from me, sometimes. Perhaps if you ask for it. And don't mind if I tell you no."
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Boundaries. Important. Very important, if they're going to do this. Daniel had been mocking in Dubai, during the interview, maitre in the bedroom, maitre when it's hot or convenient, and it was deliberately unkind. He knew what he was doing, at least potentially, as he'd yet to be fully convinced of anything the odd vampire had asserted about himself. He was angry at Armand, he knew it would hurt if it landed. (Honesty is not a tactic.)
And so he's got the potential for it. He realizes that Armand is handing him yet more potential, and whether or not he trusts Daniel, he's trusting him with that. Boundaries that have been pushed. Daniel, with fingers laid on them.
"Think I'm clever enough to figure out when you'd like me to ask?"
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