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."
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.'"
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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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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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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