Work Text:
Armand hovers around Daniel, after.
One might say he hovers over him like a guardian monster, an Incubus who, at night, feeds on Daniel’s confused dreams, blurry, drug-induced puzzle pieces that don’t fit anywhere except in Armand’s twisted, dead, lovesick heart.
He imposes rules on himself that he disregards with very little hesitation: no more than once in a month, not too close, watch but not talk, talk but not touch. Daniel was never the only addict between them -- Armand is addicted to loving people who ruin him and whom he wrecks in return.
Marius and Lestat. Louis. Daniel.
His Daniel is safe now but still exposed to the hazards and hindrances of human life, and so Armand lingers, like a bad dream that dissipates at dawn, a shadow that startles mortals, but when they turn, it’s not really there. He protects and observes with the supreme ataraxia of a god -- or at least that’s the lie he tells Louis, who is gracious enough to pretend to believe him.
But of course Armand never believes it himself.
San Francisco -- Amadeo
It’s a warm spring night like any other, and Daniel is in a bar.
Not the same bar where they met the first time, because, even though his memory has been covered with a thick layer of oblivion, Daniel still remembers Louis, the interview, and the half-thwarted disaster that followed; he wears the scar on his neck like a soldier might wear a battle wound, shrugging it off but always aware of it.
But still, all shoddy bars look alike: dim fluorescent lights concealing the dirt on the cheap floor, stains on the flaking walls, air thick with curls of smoke, same rock music with groovy bass and catchy lyrics. A lot of the patrons’ blood smells funny, as if their veins are rivers of barely contained euphoria, electrical wires crackling; it’s the drugs that Armand has often tasted on his victims, and on Daniel, too.
Daniel sits on a stool by the counter, sipping his pint of beer, people-watching as he likes and as he did multiple times with Armand; many men watch him in return. Armand doesn’t need to spy on their predictable fantasies to understand the nature of their not-so-furtive glances: Daniel is young, handsome, well-dressed, with polished shoes and a nice watch; he has steady work with the San Francisco Chronicle and has toned down the drinking and drugs.
Armand intercepts Daniel’s thoughts all too easily, like a fly caught on a spiderweb, used to searching his mind and dreams even from long distances; sometimes he loses himself in there for a while, sinking into a familiar maze without ever finding a trace of himself.
Daniel hasn’t set his sights on anyone yet tonight -- Armand would sense the dark twinge of his desire, and all he finds is a mild anticipation, as if Daniel is on the verge of something, ready for change, for something different in his well-rehearsed routine. It’s a vague but frequent thought Armand has caught quite often, in the countless times he has watched him from afar: the desire to settle, to find something that lasts more than a couple of fun nights, someone to wake up to, someone he can share cigarettes and books recommendations with, and then movie dates, badly home-cooked meals, bills, discussions about politics and comfortable, familiar sex.
How pathetic, Armand would have thought once, but now all he can think is we had all that, and it was too good and too terrible at the same time, and like all dreams and nightmares, it could never last, but we had that. And now Armand is the only one who remembers that for one precious, fleeting golden moment, they had it all; it should have been enough, to have had that. But it will never be enough, and the absence of Daniel will burn a hole inside Armand’s cold heart until -- well. Maybe until forever, if such an endless span of time even exists; love is brief, after all, but pain is everlasting.
A man -- no, a boy, with reddish hair and flushed cheeks, standing with his friends against the wall, has an image swirling lazily in his mind, to knock back his drink and go ask Daniel to buy him another. Armand, like a hound, can smell the desire flowing slowly from him, in the way he turns and tries to catch Daniel’s gaze, in the vague image of kissing him while being pressed against the wall of the back alley.
Armand could kill him, could easily lure the boy outside, in that very dark alley, press his back against the crumbling wall like he so desperately wants to and drink him dry; he could make all the men inside the bar crumble to the floor like grass in the wake of a blade, their internal organs reduced to pulp.
But he can’t, of course, and he won’t. It’s a night like any other, and so he will watch one of those men gather the liquid courage to approach Daniel, and maybe Daniel will laugh, and the faint lines at the corners of his eyes will crinkle attractively, and a spark of interest and lust will flare in his green eyes, and then Armand will be once again confined to his self-appointed role, the silent audience, the unseen spectator.
He used to love watching Daniel with people before; it’s all he can do now. Sometimes he sits on a bench at night and searches Daniel’s mind for flashes and impressions of his one-night stands, but other times, when he craves and longs for what he doesn’t possess anymore, Armand crawls like an insect on walls and windows to watch with his very eyes. It’s a second-hand miserable pleasure, the joy of watching Daniel, so alive, so bright, filled with light and warmth, mixed with the pain of loving but no longer being loved and not even being remembered.
The auburn-haired boy takes a tentative step towards Daniel, and Armand, as usual, will remain in the shadows, where he belongs. It’s a night like any other, until it isn’t.
The boy stumbles back, a confused frown on his face that prompts his friends to laugh at him: they think he’s too drunk.
Armand is alongside Daniel in a moment, fast but not as fast as to startle him. He can feel his own heartbeat over the music, over the chatter, over the quick pulse of everyone else’s blood.
He resolves not to talk to Daniel, establishes he’ll only linger for a moment, basking in the heat of his living body, maybe brushing against his forearm by accident, smelling his familiar cologne. Nothing more.
“Hey,” Armand says. He’s always been terrible at lying to himself.
He knew, from the start, that he could never resist, that it was a wonder that he lasted that long, excruciatingly long nights, weeks, months. Armand also knows that this is pointless, and uselessly painful, and yet here he stands, looking at the boy he loves and who looks at him for the very first time.
Daniel turns, his unknowing eyes on Armand like poisoned daggers, wide and innocent in their surprise. “Hey,” Daniel says.
For a moment, Armand is unable to speak. A sudden wave of thirst crashes through him; he wants to grab Daniel by the shoulders and slice his chest open and drink from his pulsing heart, from the very core of him, all of Daniel in Armand’s veins forever. He wants to cradle Daniel’s head between his palms, delicately, and give him back all their memories. He wants to drag Daniel back home, throw him on his bed, fuck him, try everything their bodies are capable of, and after that invent something new, something only theirs.
But Armand just stares, and for a moment too long because Daniel laughs softly, a bit embarrassed. “What, are you shy?” he asks.
Armand remembers to blink, to breathe and smile, to pretend to look human for Daniel, which he never had to do before and doesn’t come naturally to him.
“No,” Armand says, and then, after a second, he adds: “Maybe a little.” It’s a lie, of course, but this whole conversation, this whole encounter, this new life of Daniel’s is a lie, and for Armand this is all but a performance. He’s a character in his own play -- surely he remembers how to act.
“That’s alright. I’m Daniel, by the way, nice to meet you.” Daniel extends one hand that Armand shakes, thankful that he fed earlier and trimmed his nails.
“Amadeo,” Armand says. His old appointed name sounds foreign on his tongue, strange, like wearing an ill-fitting mask, but if Armand can play human, then he can play Amadeo, an innocent boy who happens to find himself taken with a handsome stranger.
“Oh, nice, an Italian name,” Daniel says. “I went there a few years ago! Can I get you a drink?”
Armand’s smile turns sour; they visited Italy together, and many other places, too, but of course Daniel remembers traveling alone. Armand pictures himself grabbing Daniel’s jaw to spit blood into his mouth, and he can almost taste the startling shock of recognition jolting his body. But he doesn’t.
Instead, Armand reaches out to place his fingers on Daniel’s wrist, and he senses a familiar kind of shiver coursing through him, quickening his pulse: Daniel finds Amadeo very attractive, and suddenly he’s thinking that settling down can wait for at least another night.
“Do you want to go somewhere else with me?” Armand has seen enough of Daniel and Louis picking up people to understand this is a bit too direct, but he also knows what Daniel likes.
Indeed, Daniel laughs his pleased throaty laugh that Armand has missed so deeply his own heart is rattled by that beloved sound.
“You’re not so shy, after all.” Daniel smiles, and his sharp features catch the fluorescent light prettily, like a modern art painting; for a moment, his eyes turn a dark violet. “Alright, let’s go somewhere else.”
They don’t go far.
The back alleyway is narrow and wedged between the bar itself and a record shop, closed at this hour; the walls are covered in graffiti, and it smells of piss and spilled alcohol. Another couple is already there, kissing under the cover of darkness, but Armand wishes them gone, so they silently leave at once, hand in hand.
The music is loud enough for Armand’s preternatural ears to distinguish the lyrics of the song that is playing, something about hitting the dancefloor heart to heart and about love being the biggest drug, and the quick beat of Daniel’s pulse is clear above the music, but the loud thrum of his own heart quickly drowns out everything else when he takes Daniel’s hand -- warm and sweaty and big and so, so familiar -- and lets his own back hit the dilapidated wall.
Daniel leans in, places his hands on Armand’s shoulders and kisses him like he did countless times before, and yet it’s nothing like it.
The hot blaze of desire is familiar, coming off of Daniel in waves as he crumples Armand’s shirt with his clever hands, as he licks Armand’s lips until the kiss is deep and messy and they’re both rutting against each other mindlessly.
Daniel’s thoughts always become a confused maze of impressions and feelings, half-formed words and fantasies, but the absence of his burning love, the fiery trust of putting all of himself in Armand’s too powerful hands is a knife twisted in Armand’s guts. If his dead heart could die again, it would.
Armand closes his eyes and lets himself be kissed and touched, wallows in this cheap version of them where he is treated like nothing but a warm, forgettable body by Daniel; Armand wants to crush him in his arms like a bird so he can’t fly away, wants to bite his tongue and glut himself, but all he does is brush his fingertips over the faint laugh lines at the corners of Daniel’s eyes. Maybe one of those lines belongs to him, maybe he put it there when he pestered Daniel with his infinite weirdo questions, as Daniel put it once.
Armand chases a ghost he’ll never catch a glimpse of, the ghost of them, the warmth of a love that has burned too fast too quick and now it’s ashes, scattered in his Daniel’s confused, quickly forgotten dreams.
When it’s over and they fix their clothes, Daniel smiles. “Thank you. That was good.” Ever the gentleman. But it’s a lie.
Armand is puzzled -- he can sense a queasiness settling deep in Daniel’s guts, a sinking feeling of discontent, of boredom, even. For someone who just came, Daniel is way too much dissatisfied: he’s tired of meaningless hook-ups, tired of one-night stands that lack any sort of genuine connection; he longs for more, wants a real relationship, wants love -- but of course he does, Daniel has always wanted that, and all Armand longs for is to tell him, you’re loved, you’re mine, you made the monster inside me feel as if I wasn’t one.
Armand throws his arms around him, kisses his neck, his cheeks, his mouth, tastes the surprise on Daniel’s tongue, and the bitter truth that Daniel is right even though he doesn’t know it: this will never be enough.
“Daniel,” Armand speaks into his mind, softly, and kisses him on the lips. “My Daniel.”
Daniel blinks once, twice, and, as Armand slips out of his loose grasp and disappears into the night, forgets him again. He wouldn’t have remembered Amadeo anyway.
Two weeks later, Daniel meets Alice when he goes out for drinks with his co-workers; they fall in love, they move in together, and they marry within months.
How mundane, how ordinary, how heartbreakingly predictable it is to witness it all from afar: the stolen glances, the shy smiles, the first awkward touches, the inside jokes, the deep conversations, the fights about bills and money and mortgages, the stress of packing and unboxing, Daniel picking a ring, Alice picking a dress, honeymooning in Paris, shopping together for a stroller.
Daniel is happy and in love, his journalist career is successful and a steady source of income; he publishes a book about the strange sickness spreading through mortals that sells a lot of copies -- both Armand and Louis read it the same day it hits the shelves -- and he’s even invited to talk about it on TV talk shows. Daniel clips his hair shorter, lets his beard grow. Sometimes he wears the leather jacket Armand bought him in Florence.
Armand sits next to him on park benches where Daniel sits reading with his daughter napping in her stroller, pretends to bump into him accidentally on the subway, follows him into bookshops to purchase the same books as he does, buys all the papers and magazines Daniel writes for, and if an article is about some fact or event Armand doesn’t know or understand, then he reads up on it.
Sometimes Daniel finds Armand’s gaze in some dark, dimly lit theater, or in the airy bright space of a half-empty museum, and his mind registers vaguely the presence of a handsome man before quickly dismissing the thought. Sometimes Armand thinks he should’ve turned Daniel, and now he wouldn’t roam the streets alone, chasing the ghost of a boy that became a man he can’t let go of.
Other times Armand thinks he should’ve let Louis finish the deed. Maybe he would know peace.
New York -- Andrei
Daniel cheats on Alice with other women -- well, other women and Armand, but of course he doesn’t remember that -- and even though he feels terrible about it after, he doesn’t stop. He drinks more, even though not as much as he did when he was younger, and starts going to bars again, but never queer bars. Sometimes, when his lawyer friend offers him a bump, he accepts, even though Alice disapproves.
Shortly before The Guardian sends Daniel to Berlin for a live reportage on the mass protests in East Berlin, Alice leaves him for another man, taking with her their little girl. Armand goes to Berlin, too, watches Daniel work and drink and fuck and string sentences in broken but improving German. After the divorce, Daniel drinks more and more, loses weight, snorts more cocaine than he should for his own safety; once, Armand is so scared he’ll have a heart attack that he drives a semi-conscious Daniel to the hospital himself, and all the drug dealers in Staten Island mysteriously drop dead the same night.
During his stay in a clinic for people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs, Daniel starts to write a memoir, the one that will earn him worldwide fame and end up being shortlisted for the Pulitzer. When Louis reads it, he smiles and observes it’s regrettable that Daniel neglected to mention vampires in the recollection of his life, since “in post-postmodernist literature, the sense of real and unreal is so tenuous.” Whatever that means.
When Armand reads it, he finally understands the mortal expression “tasting ashes”, even though he hasn’t tasted anything but blood in centuries and certainly never ate ashes when he was a boy.
Daniel talked at length about his first girlfriend in high school, about his love for Alice, for his daughter -- even though he sees her less often than he could -- for journalism, for mysteries to solve and for substances that will probably be the death of him one day: all his great loves neatly and unsparingly detailed on paper. All but one.
Armand has examined Daniel’s mind thoroughly throughout the years, diving so far that he knows even the thoughts Daniel buries deep within himself in shame or denial; but if Daniel ever loved him more than or at least as much as he loves his daughter or loved Alice -- that Armand cannot tell, for all his preternatural Mind Gift. Maybe it would be too much heartbreak to discover, one way or the other.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned, Louis once said, quoting Shakespeare. But Armand is a beggar for love, has been one for centuries. Love’s Fool.
Daniel meets his second wife during his American book tour: she works for his publishing house, and immediately, predictably, they sleep together. She has also had issues with drinking and drugs, she is also a divorcee, but their similarities end here, and Armand, with a sort of detached satisfaction, doesn’t expect this spur-of-the-moment marriage to last long, even with an unexpected baby.
Daniel cheats on her, too, and she on him; no drowning in a dark sea of guilt and self-loathing, this time, just a disenchanted acknowledgement of his own commonplace faults and flaws. Louis believes it’s a rather convenient excuse: I cheat because I’m morally corrupt, but I could be worse, so it’s all right.
Armand doesn’t disagree.
On a cold, crisp autumnal night in New York, the air inside the Jocx is stiflingly hot; in the front row, two men are kissing, and another kneels on the dirty floor, while on the screen the vulgar sound of skin slapping against skin fills the dark, half-empty space. There’s a sad-looking man, slightly hunched and white-haired, and a doe-eyed young one in a suit that are about to approach Daniel, even though they’re both scared by the sickness that is still spreading in the world, and also shy and intimidated by how handsome and confident Daniel looks, ankles crossed and back comfortable against the seat, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
Armand knows his hair is shot with gray at the temples, but one can’t see it in the dim light, and Daniel looks much younger than forty-two. For a moment, he watches the warm light from the screen flickering on Daniel’s sharp face. His eyes are calm as if he were watching a shoe commercial; he is oddly relaxed indeed, in a way he wasn’t before in places like this one.
Back then, they went to many adult movie theaters together, even though porn movies never held any interest for Armand; in fact, he found them all alike, boring and rehearsed and slightly depressing. The excitement was all in Daniel’s reaction -- and other people’s reaction to him, too -- but then again, Armand gets aroused by spilling blood and watching others fuck and debasing himself with people that can’t truly love him, so maybe he isn’t the best judge on that.
Armand slides onto the seat next to Daniel, quickly, startling him a little, so his cigarette falls on his lap as Armand turns to him, with little pretense of looking at the crude acts performed on screen, and pulls out a lighter from his denim jacket.
“Here,” he says, as Daniel leans in, cigarette placed between his lips. “Sorry I scared you.”
“It’s alright.” Daniel inhales against the little flame, the orange light highlighting his eyes and the sharp line of his jaw. For a moment, he looks like the boy that once sank to his knees in another movie theater not far from here, looking up at Armand with adoring eyes as he sucked him off in front of a rapidly growing crowd of voyeurs. Armand wants to pry his jaw open and put his fingers inside Daniel’s mouth, but he doesn’t. Yet.
“It’s not bad at all to be scared by you,” Daniel adds, after taking a good look at Armand and deciding that the stranger who sat beside him without an ounce of subtlety is very good-looking. Armand almost laughs because this Daniel has no idea how scary the creature next to him is, doesn’t know he fed ten times over to make sure he’s warm and healthy-looking for him. “Don’t you smoke?”
Armand shakes his head, his preternatural eyes noticing how nicely the lines at the corners of Daniel’s eyes fan out when he smiles, the hint of stubble on his cheeks, the familiar smell of cologne and soap and skin, the way the first buttons of his shirt are unbuttoned and sweat pools in the hollow of his throat.
He wants me. What a reassuring thought.
High, over-the-top moans are all around them, coming out of the sound system, but Armand hardly hears them over the sound of their heartbeats.
Daniel hums, takes a long drag of his cigarette, a curtain of white smoke between them. “I hope you don’t mind that I do.” He smiles, confident that Armand doesn’t mind anything right now; self-assuredness is a good look on him. “It's the only vice I have left.”
Armand plays along. “And how many vices did you have?” he asks. He puts one warm hand on Daniel’s thigh, high enough to relish in how quickly Daniel’s heartbeat picks up.
Daniel laughs a silent laugh, blows a bit of smoke in Armand’s face. “Alcohol, drugs…” His smile turns wistful for a moment; peering into his mind, Armand discovers he wants his hand to move higher, but he’s not as desperate as he used to be when he was younger. He’s much more willing to play and flirt and wait. Good. “...men.”
Armand looks at him, remembers to blink. “Are men a vice?”
Daniel’s thoughts about the topic of being attracted to men are so jumbled and complex and constantly shifting between guilt and shame and denial that Armand suspects it’s impossible to get a coherent answer from him. But he missed ambushing Daniel with difficult questions and watching the gears of his beautiful mind turn -- he missed it so much.
“A lot of people seem to think so.” A non-answer, as predicted.
Armand’s hand dances higher, mere inches from Daniel’s hard cock, his touch purposefully light, and sweat gathers in Daniel’s brow and under his armpits.
Again, the urge to taste him, his sweat, his come, his blood, is so overwhelming that Armand’s fingers twitch.
“But what do you think?” Armand asks, as Daniel crushes his cigarette under his heel, a clammy hand brushing Armand’s hair.
Armand closes his eyes for a moment, fights the instinct to tear off Daniel’s clothes and drink from his neck and bend him over the seat to fuck him under the other patrons’ eyes; Daniel let him many times in the past, but this Daniel is older -- more confident, surely, but also more guarded.
“You’re very handsome is what I think,” Daniel says, voice low. His fingers toy with the collar of Armand’s shirt.
“I’ve been told a few times,” Armand replies, trying not to let any bitterness seep into his voice. A cherub, a Filippino Lippi’s angel, Botticelli’s Mercury.
But there’s no place for bitterness when Daniel leans in and kisses him, deep and wet and dirty, his tongue in Armand’s mouth and Armand’s hand on his clothed hardness.
Daniel kisses his neck, and Armand shivers when his big hands sneak under Armand’s shirt, bunching it up. “Do you want to take it off?”
Armand doesn’t need to be asked twice: he quickly discards his denim jacket and his shirt on the empty seat behind them as Daniel undoes the buttons of his shirt and his belt.
Armand vaguely registers, at the back of his mind like flies buzzing in the background, the two men at their left moving closer to watch them, but he doesn’t give a damn; all of Times Square could come watch them for all he cares.
When Armand straddles Daniel, a man is loudly screaming to be fucked hard on the screen, but as Armand wraps a hand around Daniel’s length, he loses himself, doesn’t know if it’s the movie or the other patrons’ thoughts or his own, and he has to bury his nose in the crook of Daniel’s neck where he smells of sweat and cigarettes and simply himself, and Armand breathes him in, sniffs him, not caring if it’s weird, pressing his nose to his beating pulse. His blood is so, so sweet. Armand presses a hand on Daniel’s mouth, lets him lick and spit on his palm and then jerks him off.
“Let me look at you,” Daniel murmurs, nudging Armand up with his nose. For a moment, they just stare at each other in the dark, Daniel hard and slick and perfect in Armand’s hand, their heartbeats in synch for a single, glorious second.
Daniel grabs Armand’s ass and squeezes, kisses the warm skin of his chest.
"Tell me your name,” he asks, sounding rough and wrecked already. A bead of sweat runs on his temple, and Armand dips to lick it. “I’m Daniel. I want a name to remember you by when I touch myself and think of this.”
It’s a miracle the acoustics in this theater are so loud because otherwise Daniel might have heard Armand’s teeth grinding.
Armand kisses him hard, all spit and tongue, without any finesse; he needs to suck his cock badly, but he knows, from their previous encounter, that Daniel won’t allow it because he has become very careful with the sickness.
“What do you care about names? This is just a place where people fuck, not look for any kind of meaningful connection,” Armand says, without thinking, and then he almost freezes. It’s a slip.
He quoted what Daniel said to him the first time they went to an adult movie theater and Armand asked him what he thought of the place; of course Daniel doesn’t remember him, but his memories aren’t gone, just muddled, so Daniel might not remember saying it to Armand, but saying it to someone else? He very well could.
Daniel is puzzled for a second -- and Armand peers in his mind -- like someone who’s experiencing a déjà vu, but then he kisses Armand back, fingers slowly tracing his spine, thoughts receding to focus on the golden warmth pooling in his groin.
“I meant to say…” Armand starts. “This is inconsequential -- in the grand scheme of things I could drop dead tomorrow or you could -- I’m not sick, it’s not what I meant,” he adds, quickly, because a spike of fear and confusion courses through Daniel so suddenly that his desire starts to ebb.
Armand draws in a breath he doesn’t need to take, aware he’s ruining this in a rather humiliating way, so he tries for what little honesty he can offer during this pathetic, degrading performance. He can almost hear one of Louis’ pitying, condescending chuckles under the moans of men getting gangbanged on screen, and of course his Daniel’s voice, affectionately telling him he’s too much of a weirdo to carry on a normal conversation for long. “What I meant to say is that sometimes I go to places like this one to feel less lonely, but I end up feeling even more alone in the world after. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get all existential. And Andrei is my name.” A boy who’s been dead for a long, long time.
Unexpectedly, Daniel’s embrace gets tender, as he cradles Armand close and touches his face, kisses his mouth sweetly, unhurriedly. But maybe it’s not that unexpected, maybe Armand still knows how to draw out the softness from Daniel’s heart.
“No, don’t be sorry, Andrei…” How strange, to hear his old name after centuries, and from the lips of his beloved Daniel, so strange that Armand has to shut his eyes close for a moment. A man so vibrantly alive in his arms, calling out a dead boy’s name. “I understand you more than you might think, and I, I get lonely, too… But you’re so young, I promise you won’t be alone forever.”
Armand wants to scream. Daniel smiles. “And don’t worry, I like existentialism.”
I know, Armand almost says, but Daniel is kissing him so gently, holding him like he’s precious, like he’s seen and understood, almost like he’s --
“I want to see you again, Daniel… You don’t have to be lonely.” The sentence that actually comes out of Armand’s mouth is even worse, it’s pathetic, humiliating, and, to use Louis’ unsparing words, it’s finding some twisted erotic pleasure in your own pain, but Armand is past caring. He sits up abruptly, drops his jeans enough so Daniel can see how hard he is, picks up his pulse predictably quickening again, tenderness and desire now sparkling in a fire that burns almost similar to their lost love, almost but never the same. “Tell me you have a condom so you can fuck me.”
Armand knows Daniel carries one in his wallet, but Daniel hesitates, his body eager, but a shadow of doubt creeps in his mindful thoughts -- he’s thinking he can’t see this boy again, he can’t have a tryst with a man, he has two daughters and a wife, there’s AIDS, and Andrei is too young, he seems so lost and so eager…
Armand slides on his lap again, takes Daniel’s hand and sucks his fingers, one by one, an exercise in restraint because it would feel like heaven and hell to bite his fingertips, and stares at him, witnesses his gaze changing from hazy to intense as Armand brings his slick hand on his own cock. But he wishes them closer, as close as two beings can be in this world. “Please, you won’t hurt me at all, I do it often, I’ve done it this morning, and I want to replace that memory, just fuck me, Daniel, you’re so handsome, I’ve wanted you since I first saw you.” Armand was never above begging when it came to love and he certainly isn’t now. Love’s Fool. He can picture Louis’ compassionate smile when he comes back home.
This Daniel isn’t as adventurous as his younger self, though; he thinks before he acts, and as much as he wants it, he decides that jerking each other off is quicker and safer.
It’s still so good that, when Armand comes all over Daniel’s hand and shirt, for a moment he forgets about the pain and the abject misery of love. But then he remembers. It’s Daniel who forgets.
Dubai -- Rashid
Daniel becomes almost famous.
His books are New York Times bestsellers and heavily discussed on TV talk shows and dissected in Youtube videos. He wins a second Pulitzer and frequently gives lectures at Berkeley, his Alma Mater.
He divorces his second wife, and for a moment it seems like it might be a rough divorce, but Armand messes up the wife’s divorce attorney’s papers, and in the end Daniel doesn’t owe her that much money.
His youngest daughter worships him and resents him for being absent with the same flaming intensity; she studies Journalism at Princeton but refuses to sign articles with her famous last name. The oldest one considers Alice’s second husband her father way more than she does Daniel.
Daniel loves them, but he’s coming to terms with the fact that he failed as a father on many levels.
Armand still doesn’t understand where the issue lies since both girls are clever, popular, study what they choose in top-tier universities and have never lacked for anything in their lives. Louis explained to him, in his patient, condescending tone, that Daniel had been a terrible husband who had repeatedly cheated on both his wives, often stayed away from home, and even when he had been present, his mind had been elsewhere, focused on his articles or the state of the world of some idea he was working on; but Louis is so overly sensitive with this kind of family matters that Armand isn’t sure how much of this stems from a genuine understanding of how the human mind works and how much is simply projecting his and Lestat’s failures as parents.
What Armand never expected is that, over the years, it would become more and more difficult to be physically intimate with Daniel. Of course Armand’s appearance hasn’t changed at all, and he always makes sure to feed well and trim his nails and blink and breathe appropriately when he approaches Daniel; but when in the past his advances were met with delighted shock or pleased surprise, now Daniel gets suspicious and weary. He questions Armand's motives, doesn’t believe the honesty of his desire, challenges him with personal, unanswerable demands, and, as Armand once unfortunately discovered when he looked into his mind, Daniel finds his beauty an irritating, unfortunate detail.
On one pretty humiliating night, Armand introduced himself as a Journalism major student, and then, after talking quite competently about the flaws of the voting system in the United States, he coyly put a hand on Daniel’s knee. Daniel then coldly removed his hand, not before quickly picturing Armand on his bed, and said to him, bluntly, that this might be California but it was not Hollywood, so sleeping with a famous journalist wouldn’t help him get published, and if he had an ounce of self-respect, he would leave before Daniel was compelled to write down his name and call his university. Even the Mind Gift couldn’t help Armand save that disaster of a conversation.
Armand almost yelled, Do you know I was there when the Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien was printed for the first time, I couldn’t care less about being published, I only care about you, but he shut up, left and called those who wanted to die all night long.
Daniel forgot this mortifying incident, but Armand did not.
Once again Louis, from the height of his supposed understanding of the mortal experience, explained it to Armand. “Daniel is an old man, and of course with old age comes skepticism and cynicism -- and mark my words, our boy had those in spades even before. It’s only natural that he immediately thought someone young and beautiful must have some hidden motive to sleep with him,” Louis said, after a long, silent laugh. Quite the difficult task, to elicit a genuine laugh from Louis these days, but Armand succeeded. Love’s Fool indeed.
But for Armand, Daniel was as attractive as he was when he first met him.
After a few similarly unsuccessful tries, Armand abstained from trying to get into bed with Daniel, much to his chagrin, and resorted to playing the lost tourist, the fan asking for an autograph, the kind boy helping the elderly with groceries, the art student in museums.
When Daniel gets diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Armand disappears. He has watched this boy -- no, this man -- for fifty years, loved him in silence for the better part of his life, and now that his watch is coming to an end, Armand can’t bear it.
“You knew this day would come,” Louis said, with his kind, soft voice.
Of course Armand knew -- and he wanted this day to come only after Daniel had lived a long, fulfilling, happy life. But it will never be long enough, and how can it be fulfilling if Daniel is left alone and sick? How can it be happy if he doesn’t remember the happiness they shared together? How can he die without knowing Armand’s name?
It’s Louis who turns the tide once more. He declares he wants to deal with his own past, writes a very nice letter, and who can assist him better than his great love, Armand, and Daniel, the beloved boy who started the first interview and is now a world-renowned journalist? Louis’ mind is so complicated and contradictory that Armand doesn’t quite understand if this reenacted interview is a little delusional fantasy of Louis or the amorphous shape of a plan he made all along, the one where Daniel is brought back to Armand, at the very end, like a parting gift.
What he knows is that when Daniel meets Rashid, he gets even more suspicious than the last times Armand attempted to seduce him, and even though he hides it better, behind a mask of brisk annoyance, Daniel notices everything, from Rashid’s gloves to his accent to how frequently he changes his clothes. If he eats. If he stands in the sun. How he behaves towards Louis.
With a grim satisfaction, Armand finds out Daniel hates that he finds Rashid attractive. Serves him right. Daniel doesn’t remember him, but Armand’s closeness awakens some dormant impression, like blowing on the embers of an almost extinguished fire. He dreams of Armand and forgets about it in the morning.
What Armand predictably discovers is that, no matter his promises, he doesn’t want Daniel to die, whether he wants immortality or not, regardless of how he might react if he regains his memories.
This Daniel is so prickly, so stubborn, so set in his own beliefs, so flippant in his refusal of the Dark Gift when Louis, maybe mockingly or maybe not, offers it to him; but Louis paints vampirism a rather bleak affair, and he doesn’t love Daniel the way Armand does.
It’s perfectly clear that Daniel doesn’t trust Louis and his tale, and by extension Rashid, and a death sentence hanging over him like a sword of Damocles renders him quite impervious to fear and to Louis’ intimidating techniques.
He even starts suspecting Rashid is a vampire startlingly soon, after a couple of days, but discards the idea when he sees him standing in the sun. He slaps Louis in the face. Calls Armand a rentboy. Reads Claudia’s diaries with increasing suspicion. Clever, clever Daniel.
Even with the Mind Gift and an even bigger gift for deceitfulness, Louis can’t prevent Daniel from steering the interview in the direction he wants to, the one that ends with Louis shaking and sinking his feet into white sand and Armand levitating above the ground.
The following day, Louis keeps to his room -- meditating, he says, but more like collecting his spinning thoughts about Lestat and Claudia and letting Armand decide what to do with Daniel.
Daniel keeps to himself, too -- it’s a big penthouse, after all -- but his thoughts are whirling madly as well, so jumbled and angry and confused that even Armand struggles to keep up with him.
“Louis will not join you for dinner tonight,” Armand says.
Daniel startles so badly he almost drops his fork, but regains his composure so quickly that, if Armand couldn’t hear his racing pulse and sense the tinge of fear oozing from him, he’d think him indifferent.
“Is he still crying from not killing Lestat?” Daniel says, eating a bite of his sea bream tartare. Armand doesn’t answer because he doesn’t have an answer to this particular question; he’s half annoyed at Daniel and half proud because, even though Daniel is much more afraid of Armand than he is of Louis, he’s still brave enough -- and pissed off enough -- to tell him off.
“So are you joining me for dinner? Armand,” Daniel says, sparing a distrusting glance at him. But how good it is to hear Daniel call him by his name.
Silhouetted against the high windows and the glittering lights of Dubai, the lines in Daniel’s face look harsher, his gaze sharp, his mouth pressed in a tight line; Armand wants to give him the blood, wishing he might feel less tired, less achy all over, and then longs to kiss him and take him to bed to destroy the wall of mistrust separating them. But Daniel is old and sick, his heart is weak, his blood pressure is not good, and Armand must be very, very careful.
But he’s never been careful in his long, long life.
“No? Good to know you’re not into pretending to get in touch with humanity by eating Michelin star dishes that taste like soap.” Daniel wipes his mouth with a napkin and openly stares at Armand. He’s scared. “Since you’re into other kinds of roleplay, care to refill my glass?”
“Refill it yourself.” While Armand can appreciate and, to some extent, be aroused by Daniel’s blunt wit in spite of his fear, Rashid is dead and gone, and Armand is done playing servant.
Daniel drinks his water and turns back to Armand, both elbows on the table. “Care to tell me what the hell you did to my memory, then?”
Armand expected this question -- fully aware, from rummaging inside Daniel’s mind, that he’s the lead suspect for the missing memories. But as Daniel plainly asks him, Armand still feels utterly at loss, because Daniel, behind his curt manner, is deeply upset and worried about the memory loss. Memory is a monster indeed. But in this case the monster is a very literal one.
“What makes you think I did something to you?” Armand replies, tone flat and not at all reflecting the turmoil beneath. “You were using a lot of drugs at the time.”
This is precisely the kind of answer that enrages Daniel to no end, and even though he has become quite good at pushing it down under the surface, for a moment his anger blazes red-hot within him. Daniel’s blood smells so strange because of all the medications he takes, but Armand longs for it all the same; just a little drink, just once.
“At the time, and before, and after, but my addiction, as bad as it was, never erased people out of my head, especially a fucking vampire. I knew you’d say that.” Daniel shakes his head, takes off his glasses. His eyes are the same, but he never watched Armand with such open hostility.
“I remember that night, I remember the bar, Louis, the interview, the bite; if you saved me like you claim you did, why can’t I remember you? Why do I remember everything but you? And before you say that the love of your life did it, from what I gathered Louis’ abilities are pretty subpar for a vampire, while you’re five hundred years old, you fly, and the sun is a mediocre star to you.”
For a silent moment, they just stare at each other.
Louis’ words from last night ring clear in Armand’s ears: You might as well give him back his memories. For Louis, surely a confused, angry with Armand Daniel would be far easier to deal with than this relentless, sharp, unfazed version of him.
“And -- I dream of you,” Daniel goes on, and oh, how much this little admission costs him, how the words sound like pins stuck in his throat. His palms are clammy, his pulse quickens -- Armand always loved to see Daniel squirm, but Daniel has got better at hiding his embarrassment. “I don’t remember the details, but I know it’s you I dream about. So yes, I tend to believe you’re responsible for fucking up my memory. Why?”
It would be the easiest thing in the world to reach out to that hidden, secret place in Daniel’s mind and let the dam break, let those precious, cloaked memories flood his brain all at once; but Daniel is frail as a bird, his health rapidly declining, and the human mind is a fragile thing, easy to break and nearly impossible to fix.
No, Armand, thinks, as much as he longs for Daniel to look at him and know him, the dam can’t break -- the water must be let out carefully, a drop first, then a trickle, then a steady stream, so that his sickly body and mind can adjust, little by little.
Armand has miserably waited for fifty years -- he can wait a few more weeks because Daniel is not going anywhere, he will stay here under his watchful eye, remember bit by bit, and think of Armand all the time.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to find out by yourself,” Armand says.
Daniel lets out a disbelieving, sarcastic laugh and shakes his head again. When he sits up, slowly, his knee joints creak -- he would be stronger with Armand’s blood, and his hands wouldn’t shake so much.
“Don’t think I won’t,” Daniel replies, and then he picks up his glasses and walks away.
Armand is beside him in a second, and Daniel takes an instinctive step behind.
“Let me escort you to your room,” Armand offers. The prospect of spending the night alone, listening to Louis’ convoluted thoughts about Lestat and Daniel’s merciless reasoning is quite unbearable. He can’t feel alone in the same house with the two people he loves the most.
“I could keep you company while you work.” Armand is the same creature that begged for a scrap of attention many years ago, even though Daniel can’t know it yet. “You can ask me questions I won’t answer and get uselessly angry at me.” Love’s Fool.
I wouldn’t wish for your company if you were the only being left on this Earth is what Daniel is about to say, on the tip of his tongue, dripping with venom, but it’s not the truth, not exactly, and he doesn’t say it -- he regards Armand for a second with his beautiful clear eyes, his mind a tangled, inextricable mess of dread and curiosity and anger and attraction.
He nods, surprising himself even more than Armand.
“Alright. But you stay out of my mind,” he warns Armand. “I don’t want you there.”
Armand smiles. You will.