Claws in his back, his ass, his hips. Drawing white lines, his fledgling beading blood to the surface of his skin, a scrambling desire that feels sharper for the way Armand feels so close to satisfied. Lazily turns his head to meet that kiss, gives a small hiss at where fangs catch against his lip. More blood. Only answers it by kissing Daniel back deeply, bearing down.
If there is some removed part of him, it's barely a sliver, the rest of Armand too present for the kinds of dissociative analysis that he has often made room for, retreated to. This tiny part of him, observing the side this brings out in Daniel. Clawing and demand and desire, naked desire, unmediated. Not unfamiliar. They can be so cynical, sometimes, but honest too.
But enough of that. Armand has the briefest urge to tell Daniel he's about to come, some twisted up thing that is both seeking permission and giving apology, and ultimately too far gone to do anything but sink into this role of taking he has begun, that Daniel encourages with words, with hands and teeth. Grasps a hold at the base of Daniel's throat, the curve of his shoulder, kiss breaking in the moment, mouth red and wet with blood and spit.
Claws sinking in. Doesn't pause his rutting. Even the abstract part of him looking on doesn't give him a helpful reminder to see to Daniel's pleasure.
He told Armand to have everything, and he meant it. No point in doing any of this shit halfway. Armand accepted Daniel's graceless up front refusal to play maitre, so he's holding up his end of the bargain, giving everything over. (Would he like to fuck Armand? Yes. Christ, yes. That's not the point.)
It's rough and probably more than would be comfortable for a mortal, but none of that matters, because neither of them are human. It just sends him spinning higher, dragging in labored breaths, heart hammering, everything good, good, fuck, good, better, perfect.
Armand looks demonic. Like he did when he was torturing him. Daniel thinks he might climax from feeling him this way, looking like that. Clings to him, blood boiling, shuddering, holding him tightly through it. Hands slide up Armand's back, holding him, up to cradle his head and stroke his hair. Nerves twitch all through him, still hard, still right there. But hanging on the edge feels good, and knowing he brought Armand over feels even better.
Finally slows as the last of it wrings out of him, as Daniel's arms go around him, hold him, fingers through his hair. Too tempting to collapse into it, some structural integrity giving way as he goes still on top of Daniel, clinging to him. Driftwood in choppy waves, and an endless depth beneath his feet.
The scent of blood, sweat, sex everywhere, the whole world condensed down to the tangle they have made of each other. Aware of Daniel's hardness, still, and likes that too, the feel of it against his skin, signalling mutual desire, gratification.
In a moment. He wants to be held.
He doesn't think he wishes to cry, exactly, but this fullness of feeling resembles the urge. Pressing its hands against his ribcage from within, pushing. Catches his breath. Not quite his mind. Returns his mouth to Daniel's healing bite, kissing and licking away the last of the blood drying there. "Tell me," murmured. "Tell me how you want it now."
Daniel feels pinned in place on a high crest, maddening and relaxing at once. He holds Armand, feeling strangely protective in the midst of everything else. This monster made him, hurt him, and he understands it.
A shivery sigh after that kiss, as Armand tastes lingering blood. Still pushed inside of him, even softening, makes everything light up. Armand's weight feels good, his dick feels good, his mouth, his fangs, all of it. Daniel licks blood-tinted sweat at his temple.
"My hand over yours," he answers. Nudges the side of his face, presses a kiss to half of his mouth. "Just like this."
They don't have to move. Wedge between their bodies, he just wants Armand to touch him. He'll even do the work, fingers wrapping over his maker's on his cock.
A nod, more felt than seen, Armand allowing his hand to be found, moved, wrapped around Daniel's stiff cock. Squeezing, a covetous kind of touch, before relaxing, and drawing in a breath as he feels Daniel moving them together.
Allows it, allows Daniel to do what he needs. His fingers make a narrow passage to fuck through, attentive in this way, but otherwise he settles where he is, nuzzled in against the side of Daniel's neck and face, eyes half-closed and out of focus. A very human feeling, this kind of daze. Unprofessional. Luxurious to linger in. He had always been fond of this part, the after.
Although not quite after, not yet. Lifting his head, eventually, watching Daniel now, hazily hooded but focused, burning gold. His face, first, then down, the configuration they make, the swollen-needy colour of his cock in their hands together, the press of lifted thighs, wiry silvered hair, the long line of muscle running from wrist to elbow. Every little detail, all of it, possessively collected.
The first curl of Armand's fingers around him makes his cock twitch, the edge raw and cranked. Getting fucked had felt so good, and the way Armand is staying here like this, sated and language but still seemingly present, is making it even better as much as it's making it more surreal. (Will they do this more? Will Daniel get used to it, lose the nerves, end up coming while Armand is still fucking him, get to feel him while he's hypersensitive in the immediate aftermath, everything tipping to one side of pain?)
Something about it all feels so decadent. Too rich, overwhelming. Armand fucking him and finishing first, Daniel using his hand after. Fetishizing self-indulgence. He realizes Armand is looking at him, their folded-over hands on his cock which is leaking and desperate.
Fuck, he thinks he's going to say it, but his breath catches in his throat in some shattered half-sound. It hits him like something sharp, makes him flinch, orgasm shocking him with its intensity. One more experience lost to age, brought back again in death, ten times better, a hundred times better.
"Armand," gasped, grit out, instead of swearing. Maybe his name is an obscenity, though.
After those last hot pulses, Armand's hand is still. A subtle difference, from the active desire to shape his fingers just so to wring out satisfaction, to this more settled, possessive, endeared thing of holding him as he softens, goes still. Give them a minute or two, the sound of his name in Daniel's mouth that way, and they could probably do this again.
That Armand doesn't reach for that indulgence is both that it skirts too far from his instinct to do so, but also that he wants just this. Breathing together, satisfied. Settled back down, now, head on shoulder.
He could ask, was that good? Was he good? Knows it would be childish, knows the answer already. It was good, he was good, Daniel made it all very clear. How tattered his own esteem of his performance had become, a slow and hopeless wearing down over years. Parceling out control in carefully considered portions, Louis doing nothing to him that was not pre-established, Armand doing nothing to Louis that he was not absolutely certain would be welcome, beneficial.
Daniel's mind sealed off to him. Silence that is full of the sounds of hammering hearts, stuttering lungs, churning blood. Dreadfully, he feels his eyes prickle, a deeply rare sensation, and he makes himself go still and silent, huddled in close.
Dizzying afterglow, and it feels like a shattering thing that took hours to build to; Daniel draws in steadying breaths and lets the last aftershocks spark and twitch and leave him sated and awed. It is strange being a vampire, it is strange getting fucked, it is strange that it's Armand.
Armand, who he can feel draw into himself with a stillness that wasn't there before. Something he would notice even if he couldn't feel the bond that links them, ebbing and flowing with its intensity and feeling so present right now. He wonders if Armand feels it the same way, or if the lack of telepathy makes him struggle. Could be that Daniel just pays too much attention to it, fascinated by the way he's never felt alone since changing, and not in a way that crowds him.
A shift, heedless of how everything is sticky and bloody, so that he can wrap both arms firmly around his maker and hold him fully. He tips his head so he and press a kiss to Armand's forehead, his temple, catching dark hair. He should probably ask if this is okay, if maybe he wants to get up, let him leave. But something catches in his chest and he just— hopes.
"Stay with me," he asks, hushed. A pleading note. Please stay.
The difference between telepathy and whatever this is—
Tactile, almost. Here, laying still, sinking inwards by some measure, Armand can do what feels like winding a finger around the thread that connects them, testing its tension. In answer, nearly, to the way Daniel holds him tightly, kisses him that way, says what he does—and only nearly because he is sure Daniel can't feel it. Right?
The bond between a maker and fledgling was flawed, he had said. He had believed. That they could never touch each other completely in the way two other vampires can meant that there was no true ability to trust and love and be united in the way that eternity had demanded. Another thing Lestat had disagreed about. Armand could play at vanity, and imagine his actions in New Orleans being done to prove him wrong.
"Yes," he says. Slightly movement, then, a creeping across of his hands to reset his hold on Daniel. "I'm here."
They hadn't, of course. But Daniel hadn't needed telepathy at all. Doesn't need it now, to put his arms close around Armand and bid him to stay.
He does feel it, or at least he thinks he does. Maybe because he's young and every little difference is all the more obvious, maybe Louis primed him to be on the lookout, maybe there's just something about him. All of it, none of it. A hallucination. He wouldn't be able to articulate it if he attempted to do so out loud, but this tether is ever-present, and he can tell when there's tension pressed on it, like he can tell when Armand is in the next building over compared to three hundred miles away.
Armand pulls it a little and Daniel presses into it. Does it feel like anything to him? That phantom limb he thinks he feels, holding him alongside their physical ones, trying to reach into whatever made him go to still and wrap fingers around it, hold him close.
He nods, pleased. Yes, Armand says. Daniel has to believe him. He kisses the top of his head and cradles him. They'll really have to rinse off before they fall asleep, but not yet. He just wants to keep him in his arms for now and feel, connected like a circuit by something that only exists for the two of them.
Laying here in Daniel's arms, like a much loved thing.
The ever present urge to, you know, bite him all over abated, satisfied, for having done that a little and then some. For the open display of affection, for the vocalised desire for him to stay. Soon, that great flood of feeling that had almost pushed Armand adrift, that too withdraws, and he breathe a little like a boot isn't planted on his sternum, pressing down.
Some undisclosed amount of minutes later, Armand shifts, brushes his lips against where he'd been resting his head. A matter of fact rearrangement of bodies into something less like they collapsed mid-fuck. Raises himself up a little, enough that they can see each other, if still pressed in close.
"I want to stay," sounds like reiteration, which he realises, adds, "For sometime. I want to cancel your plans for the week."
Daniel has a moment, too young for a forever-seventy-year-old, blinking up at Armand because for a second he thinks something laughable like, why, I didn't think you had a problem with any of the projects I have going. He has not spent the past lifetime locked in a loveless companionship, but he, too, has his hangups; even aside from the more shallow matters of disbelief around Armand being attracted to him, there are his divorces, his failures, his reckoning with being solitary. Passion aimed at him is fleeting. People get sick of him. That's just how it is. And so he stares at Armand, cancel your plans, a beat, and finally gets it.
Oh.
"Cool. Done."
A few nice things now and again about being this forever-seventy-year-old. A professional in his prime would have to make excuses and save face and reschedule. Daniel can just say The weather's getting to me, I have to cancel, and everyone is fine with it, because he's about to shrivel up and die anyway. Huh. A week. Locked away with Armand. Again.
He slides hands up his maker's back, along his spine, draws nails over his skin. Survived the first time. Roll the dice again.
He hadn't particularly expected resistance, but its easy lack brings about a flush of pleasure—satisfaction, a kind of floating, detached arousal that can't quite get its hooks in him just yet, and then something soothing. Maybe a mirror of whatever Daniel got out of asking him to stay, his agreement.
They are filthy and Armand doesn't care. Happy for them to smell of each other, of Daniel's blood. Feels his nerves spark eagerly under each stroke of Daniel's nails across his back, craving repetition. Settles in against him, arms insisting themselves around him, a vine-like cling.
He has no plans to cancel. Daniel has been his plans for sometime, now. No impatience in his body to find some other thing, outside the little hobbies (!) he's been encouraged to have. He can go a long time with nothing at all.
Easy, to hold him. To drift to sleep like that, and to wake up and remember, oh. Yeah. This is happening, apparently. He clears his schedule, doesn't even follow up with anything, just dumps it and pulls Armand onto the sofa while his phone slips to the floor.
Daniel exists in a strange state. It's comfortable and it feels correct, versus, the worry that it's temporary, that Armand is going to vanish when the timer's up and he won't see him for another fifty years. It makes him greedier for it, handsier, even through the jitters of getting used to being wanted. By anyone, but especially Armand. Fortunately he has little shame — done worse, humiliated himself a hundred times over, lived a life Louis called fascinating but was mostly a fucking trainwreck — and feels perfectly fine asking Can I suck your cock? and getting on his knees in the kitchen around all his sketches charcoal smudges.
Sooner are later Daniel will have to eat something. Maybe they can go out. Maybe they can play a game and see who'll show up at the back door and how drunk they'll be.
The cat carries one of Armand's slippers from room to room in clenched teeth, occasionally staring at them while holding it and then immediately scampering away when approached. Daniel has yet to decipher this behavior, though he does manage to grab Peanut later. He holds the cat up by his armpits (?) making it look far more elongated than it should, and asks it what the deal is. Peanut has no answer, and just stares back with his big, weird eyes, until Daniel sighs and cradles him in his arms instead.
He doesn't think about work. (He doesn't think about work much.) He thinks a lot about Armand.
The changing shift of his eyes, for example. He doesn't know what it means. He will ask Daniel what he thinks it does, eventually, but it's good enough to observe it just for now—what hue they turn when Armand is inside of him, or when he wakes up as the sun sets and he awakes to find himself being observed.
Thinks about his hands, wrists, forearms, the appeal Armand finds in them—has drawn focus to himself by setting his teeth against the curve of muscle, just as he'd started all of this with gentle kisses. At one stage, sketches out Daniel's hands, the dance of them on his laptop or the angle he holds the TV remote, or the loose curl of fingers when asleep. Hides these away at first, and then leaves them out to be found.
Thinks about his cat and its fetish for his slipper.
Finds it under an armchair, Armand levering the whole thing back as he retrieves and inspects it. No discernible harm or biological nastiness, so he slips it back onto his foot. Goes and finds Daniel and sees him holding the cat to his chest, and thinks—he is still in a habit of observation. Perhaps that's fine. But it does mean there lacks a natural instinct to walk over, wind his arms around Daniel's waist as if they were romantic partners in a more traditional sense.
And thinks about it instead. Arms folded around himself instead, loose, easy, chin tucking in as he observes, "You're hungry," which isn't a commentary on Peanut's presence in Daniel's arms, probably.
"Not enough to eat you, don't worry," he tells Peanut, who just continues to stare at him. If he were going to anthropomorphize the cat, he'd say that Peanut looks perpetually on the verge of tears— and now is no different, looking as though maybe Daniel is going to eat him, and is very sad about it.
A sigh. Daniel pats his furry hindquarter, and looks at Armand.
Always good at reading people, and he thinks he's steadily getting better at reading his maker. He thinks he can tell that the elder vampire wants to walk across the room and touch him. Could be a million reasons why he doesn't, from 'cat in the way' to 'hundreds of years of screwed up issues'. For now, Daniel leaves the cat where he is, and even jiggles Peanut a little in his cradled hold. Peanut endures.
"We could go out."
Because he is hungry. Daniel has come to accept he's going to have to do a murder most nights— nobody talks about how the morality of it all isn't the worst part. The worst part is definitely the pain in the ass of not being able to just order take-out or warm something up in the microwave. And maybe he could, start committing to Louis' methods, but that sucks even worse. Pizza beats the absolute shit out of a blood bag. Alas, no longer an option.
"Or we could see if anyone feels like taking a walk. I've been working on it."
Armand, currently doing the math on how efficiently he can bundle up a squirming meal and bring it home again—which is to say, quite efficiently—but his reluctance for Daniel to leave this little space they've been enjoying is equal to his reluctance to leave it himself. His mind wanders out to the psychic equivalent of fly fishing when Daniel gets there first.
A little flash of interest. Approval. An eyerolling kind of ego stroke, he thinks, for a maker to convince himself that his fledgling's gifts are some personal reflection on themselves when it's just a matter of a lottery mixed with a multi-level marketing structure—
He goes over there after all, if not to the aim he'd envisioned. A hand drifting out to stroke Peanut's ruff, although the cat is too dazed in his hold to go all squinty with pleasure.
"I'd like to see that." Eyerolling or not. "Ordering in."
Pleased, to have that greeted with interest. To have Armand slip closer. Funny how these things are a marvel even after fucking. It makes it all the more real— existing with depth, applied to daily life, and not just explosive hours and grabbing at each other.
Also: this could be fun. Daniel does think that his aptitude probably comes from Armand, anyway, though the genealogy project to research that hypothesis is a ways away. He's saving his niche vampire ideas for when Daniel Molloy is legally dead, and he has to find things to do that don't involve mortals. He likes it. Of everything to have in common, he's glad it's this; interesting, useful, in line with his preexisting strengths, and he gets to talk shop with Armand sometimes.
He watches the ancient vampire's hand at his pets the cat. He likes his fingers. Elegant, pretty. Violent, sensual. His gaze ticks back up.
"Want to get them loaded?"
He knows Armand doesn't have to feed. But would he like to? For fun?
Amusement, in that sound. Kind of. What is actually is is a pleased sound and just comes out that way, because Armand likes it when Daniel asks him to do things, like drugs, or watching a Netflix docuseries, or going for a drive somewhere, and of course, sex too, but there is a different appreciation for the things that are spending time beyond that, even if they lead to it. Drugs probably will. A bonus.
Skritches behind Peanut's ears, Armand tipping his head to study the cat's watery eyes, the positions of its ears. Now and then, he informs Daniel about Peanut's body languages and behaviours, because of course he did his homework. Here, see, the ears are alert but relaxed. The little tail flicks are, likewise, more content than agitated.
"Nothing that will have us climbing the walls," he says. "Or me climbing off the walls."
Five hundred and fourteen years doesn't beat out one professional junkie septuagenarian's constitution.
He likes it when Armand plays along— though now, he sees he probably hasn't been giving either of them enough credit. Seems to have been a bit more than playing along, and he probably should have noticed before now, with the whole... occasionally holding hands, sometimes sleeping curled up together... thing.
An odd courtship. He wonders if it'll hold. Hopes so. Or at least, hopes they can come back together after, like they do already, after arguments.
Peanut finally tips his head into the scratch, bug-eyes squinting to enjoy it and Armand's artful application of nails. A little shiver after a moment, signaling a desire to escape, and Daniel obligingly sets him down. (Where Peanut will notice Armand is wearing his slippers, and begin to stare. Betrayal.)
No cat between then. Daniel closes the distance, presses a gentle kiss to his mouth. Hey.
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."
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If there is some removed part of him, it's barely a sliver, the rest of Armand too present for the kinds of dissociative analysis that he has often made room for, retreated to. This tiny part of him, observing the side this brings out in Daniel. Clawing and demand and desire, naked desire, unmediated. Not unfamiliar. They can be so cynical, sometimes, but honest too.
But enough of that. Armand has the briefest urge to tell Daniel he's about to come, some twisted up thing that is both seeking permission and giving apology, and ultimately too far gone to do anything but sink into this role of taking he has begun, that Daniel encourages with words, with hands and teeth. Grasps a hold at the base of Daniel's throat, the curve of his shoulder, kiss breaking in the moment, mouth red and wet with blood and spit.
Claws sinking in. Doesn't pause his rutting. Even the abstract part of him looking on doesn't give him a helpful reminder to see to Daniel's pleasure.
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It's rough and probably more than would be comfortable for a mortal, but none of that matters, because neither of them are human. It just sends him spinning higher, dragging in labored breaths, heart hammering, everything good, good, fuck, good, better, perfect.
Armand looks demonic. Like he did when he was torturing him. Daniel thinks he might climax from feeling him this way, looking like that. Clings to him, blood boiling, shuddering, holding him tightly through it. Hands slide up Armand's back, holding him, up to cradle his head and stroke his hair. Nerves twitch all through him, still hard, still right there. But hanging on the edge feels good, and knowing he brought Armand over feels even better.
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The scent of blood, sweat, sex everywhere, the whole world condensed down to the tangle they have made of each other. Aware of Daniel's hardness, still, and likes that too, the feel of it against his skin, signalling mutual desire, gratification.
In a moment. He wants to be held.
He doesn't think he wishes to cry, exactly, but this fullness of feeling resembles the urge. Pressing its hands against his ribcage from within, pushing. Catches his breath. Not quite his mind. Returns his mouth to Daniel's healing bite, kissing and licking away the last of the blood drying there. "Tell me," murmured. "Tell me how you want it now."
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A shivery sigh after that kiss, as Armand tastes lingering blood. Still pushed inside of him, even softening, makes everything light up. Armand's weight feels good, his dick feels good, his mouth, his fangs, all of it. Daniel licks blood-tinted sweat at his temple.
"My hand over yours," he answers. Nudges the side of his face, presses a kiss to half of his mouth. "Just like this."
They don't have to move. Wedge between their bodies, he just wants Armand to touch him. He'll even do the work, fingers wrapping over his maker's on his cock.
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Allows it, allows Daniel to do what he needs. His fingers make a narrow passage to fuck through, attentive in this way, but otherwise he settles where he is, nuzzled in against the side of Daniel's neck and face, eyes half-closed and out of focus. A very human feeling, this kind of daze. Unprofessional. Luxurious to linger in. He had always been fond of this part, the after.
Although not quite after, not yet. Lifting his head, eventually, watching Daniel now, hazily hooded but focused, burning gold. His face, first, then down, the configuration they make, the swollen-needy colour of his cock in their hands together, the press of lifted thighs, wiry silvered hair, the long line of muscle running from wrist to elbow. Every little detail, all of it, possessively collected.
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Something about it all feels so decadent. Too rich, overwhelming. Armand fucking him and finishing first, Daniel using his hand after. Fetishizing self-indulgence. He realizes Armand is looking at him, their folded-over hands on his cock which is leaking and desperate.
Fuck, he thinks he's going to say it, but his breath catches in his throat in some shattered half-sound. It hits him like something sharp, makes him flinch, orgasm shocking him with its intensity. One more experience lost to age, brought back again in death, ten times better, a hundred times better.
"Armand," gasped, grit out, instead of swearing. Maybe his name is an obscenity, though.
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That Armand doesn't reach for that indulgence is both that it skirts too far from his instinct to do so, but also that he wants just this. Breathing together, satisfied. Settled back down, now, head on shoulder.
He could ask, was that good? Was he good? Knows it would be childish, knows the answer already. It was good, he was good, Daniel made it all very clear. How tattered his own esteem of his performance had become, a slow and hopeless wearing down over years. Parceling out control in carefully considered portions, Louis doing nothing to him that was not pre-established, Armand doing nothing to Louis that he was not absolutely certain would be welcome, beneficial.
Daniel's mind sealed off to him. Silence that is full of the sounds of hammering hearts, stuttering lungs, churning blood. Dreadfully, he feels his eyes prickle, a deeply rare sensation, and he makes himself go still and silent, huddled in close.
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Armand, who he can feel draw into himself with a stillness that wasn't there before. Something he would notice even if he couldn't feel the bond that links them, ebbing and flowing with its intensity and feeling so present right now. He wonders if Armand feels it the same way, or if the lack of telepathy makes him struggle. Could be that Daniel just pays too much attention to it, fascinated by the way he's never felt alone since changing, and not in a way that crowds him.
A shift, heedless of how everything is sticky and bloody, so that he can wrap both arms firmly around his maker and hold him fully. He tips his head so he and press a kiss to Armand's forehead, his temple, catching dark hair. He should probably ask if this is okay, if maybe he wants to get up, let him leave. But something catches in his chest and he just— hopes.
"Stay with me," he asks, hushed. A pleading note. Please stay.
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Tactile, almost. Here, laying still, sinking inwards by some measure, Armand can do what feels like winding a finger around the thread that connects them, testing its tension. In answer, nearly, to the way Daniel holds him tightly, kisses him that way, says what he does—and only nearly because he is sure Daniel can't feel it. Right?
The bond between a maker and fledgling was flawed, he had said. He had believed. That they could never touch each other completely in the way two other vampires can meant that there was no true ability to trust and love and be united in the way that eternity had demanded. Another thing Lestat had disagreed about. Armand could play at vanity, and imagine his actions in New Orleans being done to prove him wrong.
"Yes," he says. Slightly movement, then, a creeping across of his hands to reset his hold on Daniel. "I'm here."
They hadn't, of course. But Daniel hadn't needed telepathy at all. Doesn't need it now, to put his arms close around Armand and bid him to stay.
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He does feel it, or at least he thinks he does. Maybe because he's young and every little difference is all the more obvious, maybe Louis primed him to be on the lookout, maybe there's just something about him. All of it, none of it. A hallucination. He wouldn't be able to articulate it if he attempted to do so out loud, but this tether is ever-present, and he can tell when there's tension pressed on it, like he can tell when Armand is in the next building over compared to three hundred miles away.
Armand pulls it a little and Daniel presses into it. Does it feel like anything to him? That phantom limb he thinks he feels, holding him alongside their physical ones, trying to reach into whatever made him go to still and wrap fingers around it, hold him close.
He nods, pleased. Yes, Armand says. Daniel has to believe him. He kisses the top of his head and cradles him. They'll really have to rinse off before they fall asleep, but not yet. He just wants to keep him in his arms for now and feel, connected like a circuit by something that only exists for the two of them.
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The ever present urge to, you know, bite him all over abated, satisfied, for having done that a little and then some. For the open display of affection, for the vocalised desire for him to stay. Soon, that great flood of feeling that had almost pushed Armand adrift, that too withdraws, and he breathe a little like a boot isn't planted on his sternum, pressing down.
Some undisclosed amount of minutes later, Armand shifts, brushes his lips against where he'd been resting his head. A matter of fact rearrangement of bodies into something less like they collapsed mid-fuck. Raises himself up a little, enough that they can see each other, if still pressed in close.
"I want to stay," sounds like reiteration, which he realises, adds, "For sometime. I want to cancel your plans for the week."
To start with, anyway.
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Daniel has a moment, too young for a forever-seventy-year-old, blinking up at Armand because for a second he thinks something laughable like, why, I didn't think you had a problem with any of the projects I have going. He has not spent the past lifetime locked in a loveless companionship, but he, too, has his hangups; even aside from the more shallow matters of disbelief around Armand being attracted to him, there are his divorces, his failures, his reckoning with being solitary. Passion aimed at him is fleeting. People get sick of him. That's just how it is. And so he stares at Armand, cancel your plans, a beat, and finally gets it.
Oh.
"Cool. Done."
A few nice things now and again about being this forever-seventy-year-old. A professional in his prime would have to make excuses and save face and reschedule. Daniel can just say The weather's getting to me, I have to cancel, and everyone is fine with it, because he's about to shrivel up and die anyway. Huh. A week. Locked away with Armand. Again.
He slides hands up his maker's back, along his spine, draws nails over his skin. Survived the first time. Roll the dice again.
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They are filthy and Armand doesn't care. Happy for them to smell of each other, of Daniel's blood. Feels his nerves spark eagerly under each stroke of Daniel's nails across his back, craving repetition. Settles in against him, arms insisting themselves around him, a vine-like cling.
He has no plans to cancel. Daniel has been his plans for sometime, now. No impatience in his body to find some other thing, outside the little hobbies (!) he's been encouraged to have. He can go a long time with nothing at all.
A week. A week and a day.
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Daniel exists in a strange state. It's comfortable and it feels correct, versus, the worry that it's temporary, that Armand is going to vanish when the timer's up and he won't see him for another fifty years. It makes him greedier for it, handsier, even through the jitters of getting used to being wanted. By anyone, but especially Armand. Fortunately he has little shame — done worse, humiliated himself a hundred times over, lived a life Louis called fascinating but was mostly a fucking trainwreck — and feels perfectly fine asking Can I suck your cock? and getting on his knees in the kitchen around all his sketches charcoal smudges.
Sooner are later Daniel will have to eat something. Maybe they can go out. Maybe they can play a game and see who'll show up at the back door and how drunk they'll be.
The cat carries one of Armand's slippers from room to room in clenched teeth, occasionally staring at them while holding it and then immediately scampering away when approached. Daniel has yet to decipher this behavior, though he does manage to grab Peanut later. He holds the cat up by his armpits (?) making it look far more elongated than it should, and asks it what the deal is. Peanut has no answer, and just stares back with his big, weird eyes, until Daniel sighs and cradles him in his arms instead.
He doesn't think about work. (He doesn't think about work much.) He thinks a lot about Armand.
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The changing shift of his eyes, for example. He doesn't know what it means. He will ask Daniel what he thinks it does, eventually, but it's good enough to observe it just for now—what hue they turn when Armand is inside of him, or when he wakes up as the sun sets and he awakes to find himself being observed.
Thinks about his hands, wrists, forearms, the appeal Armand finds in them—has drawn focus to himself by setting his teeth against the curve of muscle, just as he'd started all of this with gentle kisses. At one stage, sketches out Daniel's hands, the dance of them on his laptop or the angle he holds the TV remote, or the loose curl of fingers when asleep. Hides these away at first, and then leaves them out to be found.
Thinks about his cat and its fetish for his slipper.
Finds it under an armchair, Armand levering the whole thing back as he retrieves and inspects it. No discernible harm or biological nastiness, so he slips it back onto his foot. Goes and finds Daniel and sees him holding the cat to his chest, and thinks—he is still in a habit of observation. Perhaps that's fine. But it does mean there lacks a natural instinct to walk over, wind his arms around Daniel's waist as if they were romantic partners in a more traditional sense.
And thinks about it instead. Arms folded around himself instead, loose, easy, chin tucking in as he observes, "You're hungry," which isn't a commentary on Peanut's presence in Daniel's arms, probably.
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A sigh. Daniel pats his furry hindquarter, and looks at Armand.
Always good at reading people, and he thinks he's steadily getting better at reading his maker. He thinks he can tell that the elder vampire wants to walk across the room and touch him. Could be a million reasons why he doesn't, from 'cat in the way' to 'hundreds of years of screwed up issues'. For now, Daniel leaves the cat where he is, and even jiggles Peanut a little in his cradled hold. Peanut endures.
"We could go out."
Because he is hungry. Daniel has come to accept he's going to have to do a murder most nights— nobody talks about how the morality of it all isn't the worst part. The worst part is definitely the pain in the ass of not being able to just order take-out or warm something up in the microwave. And maybe he could, start committing to Louis' methods, but that sucks even worse. Pizza beats the absolute shit out of a blood bag. Alas, no longer an option.
"Or we could see if anyone feels like taking a walk. I've been working on it."
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A little flash of interest. Approval. An eyerolling kind of ego stroke, he thinks, for a maker to convince himself that his fledgling's gifts are some personal reflection on themselves when it's just a matter of a lottery mixed with a multi-level marketing structure—
He goes over there after all, if not to the aim he'd envisioned. A hand drifting out to stroke Peanut's ruff, although the cat is too dazed in his hold to go all squinty with pleasure.
"I'd like to see that." Eyerolling or not. "Ordering in."
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Pleased, to have that greeted with interest. To have Armand slip closer. Funny how these things are a marvel even after fucking. It makes it all the more real— existing with depth, applied to daily life, and not just explosive hours and grabbing at each other.
Also: this could be fun. Daniel does think that his aptitude probably comes from Armand, anyway, though the genealogy project to research that hypothesis is a ways away. He's saving his niche vampire ideas for when Daniel Molloy is legally dead, and he has to find things to do that don't involve mortals. He likes it. Of everything to have in common, he's glad it's this; interesting, useful, in line with his preexisting strengths, and he gets to talk shop with Armand sometimes.
He watches the ancient vampire's hand at his pets the cat. He likes his fingers. Elegant, pretty. Violent, sensual. His gaze ticks back up.
"Want to get them loaded?"
He knows Armand doesn't have to feed. But would he like to? For fun?
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Amusement, in that sound. Kind of. What is actually is is a pleased sound and just comes out that way, because Armand likes it when Daniel asks him to do things, like drugs, or watching a Netflix docuseries, or going for a drive somewhere, and of course, sex too, but there is a different appreciation for the things that are spending time beyond that, even if they lead to it. Drugs probably will. A bonus.
Skritches behind Peanut's ears, Armand tipping his head to study the cat's watery eyes, the positions of its ears. Now and then, he informs Daniel about Peanut's body languages and behaviours, because of course he did his homework. Here, see, the ears are alert but relaxed. The little tail flicks are, likewise, more content than agitated.
"Nothing that will have us climbing the walls," he says. "Or me climbing off the walls."
Five hundred and fourteen years doesn't beat out one professional junkie septuagenarian's constitution.
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He likes it when Armand plays along— though now, he sees he probably hasn't been giving either of them enough credit. Seems to have been a bit more than playing along, and he probably should have noticed before now, with the whole... occasionally holding hands, sometimes sleeping curled up together... thing.
An odd courtship. He wonders if it'll hold. Hopes so. Or at least, hopes they can come back together after, like they do already, after arguments.
Peanut finally tips his head into the scratch, bug-eyes squinting to enjoy it and Armand's artful application of nails. A little shiver after a moment, signaling a desire to escape, and Daniel obligingly sets him down. (Where Peanut will notice Armand is wearing his slippers, and begin to stare. Betrayal.)
No cat between then. Daniel closes the distance, presses a gentle kiss to his mouth. Hey.
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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?"
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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.
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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—
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"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.
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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.
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