Archive of Our Own

Even as a child, Armand decided he would never seek his soulmate.

It wasn't that he feared rejection from them, nor that he deemed loving one person for a lifetime nonsense - no. It was simply that the words burned into his tender skin by fate hinted at something terrible, and so he lived in fear of actually hearing them one day.

"I can't move" was written in his native language, hidden sometimes beneath a bracelet, sometimes beneath a dirty scrap of cloth. In what situation could one possibly hear something like that? Armand could think of no remotely pleasant one. People cannot move when paralyzed, bound, or dying. Sometimes - all at once. Why seek his soulmate if they would die without ever granting him the happiness fate had promised?

Then life began to change. He began to change. Arun, Amadeo, Armand. A boy in a brothel, a beauty in the hands of artists, a fledgling tasting human blood for the first time. Head of the coven in Paris. Director of his own theatre. Lover. Killer. So many masks, so many roles - and he no longer listened to the words around him, no longer tried to catch those very words in English, French, or German speech, words now hidden beneath a black ribbon forever binding his wrist, shielding him from prying eyes.

Lestat was not his soulmate, nor was Louis, nor anyone from the theatre. And it was fine.

Now Armand sat on the sofa, holding his lover's hand as he recounted their first meeting, and, inevitably, the journalist asked the question that was bound to arise sooner or later:

"So… what were the first words of the ancient vampire to the future love of his life?"

"He said-"

"I said-"

They spoke at the same time and smiled. Louis asked him to speak.

It had been difficult to fabricate those memories, but it was necessary, as Armand was sure then. Louis had to believe they were soulmates, that with Lestat it had merely been some mistake, a fate’s trick, otherwise nothing would have come of them.

"I used my powers on him before approaching. Because he was going to run, frightened of me. I made him unable to move. I stepped closer and said… Bonsoir, monsieur," and he smiled, taking Louis's hand in his.

Daniel looked at him, skeptical. "So the same thing Lestat told you when you met him".

"It's a common greeting, Daniel. Nothing remarkable. The words on my wrist were no more useless in finding the love of my life than yours," Louis said softly, smiling.

Armand watched Daniel, carefully keeping his mind closed, emotions under control.

"Ah-ha," Daniel said, then slid his gaze to the older vampire; they were looking at each other now. "And? What did he say? Does the story adds up?"

Louis chuckled softly. "I said… trembling, like a boy, I said - I can't move".

Something strange flickered across Daniel's features, and Armand felt a brief spike of panic, hastening to redirect his attention.

"Not the most ordinary phrase for a first meeting, as you may understand. In that moment, everything became beautifully obvious to me," he said, continuing to recount how he'd given Louis his card.

Daniel still looked slightly unsettled, much like he had upon hearing Alice's name. Armand massaged the inscription on his wrist in slow circles with his thumb, nervous under his cold and slightly amused facade.

His soul had torn apart during their first meeting. Wounded by Louis's words, their quarrel, the full realization that he would always be not even second, but third in Louis's heart. Louis, whom he cared for so deeply and shielded from everything that might ever hurt him; Armand that morning was frayed and utterly unprepared for his first true encounter with his soulmate to occur in a small apartment in Divisadero that was slightly leaning to the North.

"Rest," he said without turning, and the whining and trembling of the body on the floor ceased; wet eyes looked up at him in a puppy-like confusion.

There’s Louis's words on the recording. About Lestat. Even this boy is Lestat's type. But not him. Because who needed him?

"Curious," Armand had said coldly then, pressing the button before turning to the reporter. "Rise," he commanded, lifting the body with thought alone. Then stepped closer. "Armand. From Polynesian Mary. I was with Louis," he introduced himself.

"I can't move-"

"Move your body?" he finished before the words registered in his mind.

He froze, blinking, as if only now realizing where he was, whereas before it all had felt like a dream, another dirty page in his history with Louis.

"Yeah. Yeah…" a weak, quiet voice, thick with fear.

Large wet eyes fixed on Armand, hoping for mercy. He was his savior, his tormentor - both coexisted, making his heart beat disgustingly fast.

Uncertainty still fluttered its wings inside Armand's chest. He glanced into the youth's mind to see the inscription on his wrist. One useless word - "no" - and Armand first thought it a foolish coincidence, until he recalled that his own first word in Daniel's presence had actually been "no". He had been answering Louis, but looking at the boy. Could it be a coincidence?

Thoughtfully, he lowered his gaze; it fell upon the neighbor's body wrapped in plastic.

He heard Daniel's voice:

"I don't want-"

"To die?" he looked at the young man again. The reporter nodded as best he could in his current state.

His gaze was locked on Armand's face; he feared him and was mesmerized by him all at once.

And then, the vampire understood he must study him closer, determine whether this truly was the one he sensed in him. The soul that was made just for him alone.

"On that item… I think I know something you don't".

Suddenly, Louis's interest and fascination with the boy faded into the background. He needed to dig deeper beneath this youth's skin, for he might be his soulmate - and this… he did not yet know how to react to this, really. It warranted investigation.

And so he dug.

In his understanding, it wasn't quite torture. He was careful, attentive, didn’t allow his boy to dissolve into a truly panicked state. Yet he could not deny himself, could not hit the brakes when before him stood not merely a pitiful boy from Modesto with a recording device, but his soulmate, the one he had not even tried to find across nearly half a millennium. He rummaged through his mind, pulling out the most shameful memories merely to understand what made him so perfect for him, in the eyes of the stars.

By the conversation's end, Daniel trembled with his whole body, unaware why he was being tormented like this, tried to offer to kneel before him, and he wept - and he was so beautiful that Armand could not hold back and finally ceased inflicting unbearable pain, turned on the television for him, and left to dispose of the corpse.

He did not tell him they were soulmates. Not with Louis moaning in pain in the next room, still believing Armand was his - apparently dull and beige - but soulmate nonetheless. Armand simply watched him. Studied him. Fed him crackers found in the kitchen, gave him tap water.

He was not particularly skilled at handling pets back then.

He lingered in Daniel's mind almost constantly. Daniel feared him. Daniel was terrified, truly - he did not understand why he hadn't been killed yet, why he was kept here like a hostage. The boy lived in constant fear of being bitten again, drained dry, that these were his final nights on earth.

Yet sometimes he also thought perhaps it would have a different ending, his presence here. That, as always, luck would pull him from this nightmare alive - and perhaps more than alive: immortal. Louis had not given him that - but maybe Armand would?

Armand had never felt such conflicting thoughts within his own mind. The very idea of turning someone repelled him. But… his soulmate? Still, how could he curse his soulmate like this? How could he not do it, how could he simply let him die? It was a choice between two evils: betraying his own vow or enduring loneliness. And he was so lonely.

He filled Daniel with terror, yet beside that fear burned something else - curiosity. A spark that ignited his mind, a spark that set in motion the engine of creating new troubles for him. A spark that led him, on the third night, after attempts at cautious, awkward glances toward the vampire, to ask:

"So… will you tell me your story or..?"

Armand met him with silence then.

Naturally, Daniel's instinct was to fill that silence. "You said you're from Delhi. And… that's pretty much all you've told me about yourself. And you know what I did during school recesses, so… a little… uh, a little unfair, don't you think?"

Silence.

Daniel exhaled nervously. "Look, man, you're gonna kill me anyway, right? Why not talk it out, take the chance? I listened to your friend; I can listen to you. Maybe you'll feel better".

Armand did not answer. He simply watched Daniel's lips move, the pulse fluttering in his neck, the bloodstain on his skin, the mark of Louis's fangs.

The silence pressed harder than any threat. Daniel shifted, trying to catch the vampire's gaze, but Armand looked through him, as if solving some complex equation where the variables were this boy's life and death.

Finally, Molloy pressed his lips together, lowered his eyes, and turned away. His voice trembled, near tears: "Why not just get it over with if you're gonna kill me anyway? Are you letting me marinate? Does my fear make me more tasty?"

Armand blinked. Slowly, like a cat. He did not answer that question either. How could he?

How does one tell a person he is his only chance to escape a monstrous, final loneliness lasting eternity? How to say their souls were bound, yet his dwelled in hell, while the boy still had a chance - a chance to age, to see life, to reach a better place? How to explain he could not kill him, yet could not make him immortal either, and so kept him here, for all that remained was to let him go and he couldn’t master up the courage to do that yet?

Armand could find no peace for his troubled mind. Sometimes he sat in the corner, merging with shadows, silent, driving Daniel mad with anticipation. Sometimes he suddenly appeared beside him, offering water, adjusting the blanket, asking if he was cold.

This instability exhausted them both, and Armand grew angry. Angry at Daniel's fragility, at how easily that neck could snap, how easily he could be killed like hundreds, thousands of boys before him. Human life is so short! It was unbelievingly unfair.

Armand heard his thoughts, too. They buzzed in his head like radio static.

God, he's gonna kill me. This is it. He'll kill me, sink his fangs in, drain me dry, and toss my body where he threw that guy and I will rot right next to him! Oh damn, I'm next. Is he not killing me because he's not hungry yet? How long can he go without feeding? Days? Weeks? Hours? Minutes? Does he get twisted pleasure watching me like this with his eyes? His eyes. Never looks away from me. Fuck, he has beautiful eyes. And hands. Cute. Scary. Cute-scary. Am I weird for liking how he controls my body? Besides the part where my leg cramped. Damn, I need to use the bathroom. And I need food. Real food. Fuck, I want some sandwitch. And a dose. And it’s so hot in here! With a pretty killer in the corner. Serial killer. I'm held hostage by a maniac. A vampire maniac. A sexy vampire maniac? He'll give me death. I don't want to die. Did he stroke my hair last night or was that a dream? Damn, I'm losing my mind under this gaze. If I get out, I'll write a damn book about Stockholm syndrome. Ah, shit. Who am I kidding? It's not Stockholm syndrome. I'm just crazy. Did he buy these clothes or take them off a corpse? What will he do with my clothes when he's done with me? Oh shit he's looking at me again. Damn. Is he reading my thoughts? Are you reading my thoughts? Please, I don't want to die.

This cocktail of fear and fascination drove Armand mad. He wanted to keep Daniel. Forever. The thought of turning him surfaced each time he saw him shiver from cold, pain, hunger, withdrawal. But Armand only clenched his fists until claws dug into his palms. No. He had sworn. No fledglings. No more cursed souls. He could not do this to him. Not to him. Better to let go than to curse.

He tasted his blood. Altered his memory. Drove him to a dirty den on the outskirts and for a whole month managed to convince himself it was for the best.  

But he had never been good at letting people go easily.  

He followed Daniel. City after city, country after country. At first he watched from afar - a shadow in the crowd, a reflection in a shop window. But with each day, waiting grew heavier. Impatience swelled like a snowball. He saw Daniel drowning the emptiness inside with drugs, sleeping with strangers in bars for a dose, starving for days, wandering streets with his recording device in his bag and no money in his pocket. Time for Daniel was running out, and it was as clear as a day. He was extinguishing himself in a fascinating tempo, no longer remembering Armand's eyes or words, yet feeling their effect beneath his very skin.

In Paris, Armand decided it was enough hiding.

Daniel woke mid-night. His body wouldn't obey - the familiar paralysis when the mind awakens but muscles still sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, heart hammering in his throat.

When movement returned, he sat up sharply and scanned the room.

Armand sat in the chair by the window. But this was not the static, terrifying monster from that dirty apartment anymore, not quite. 

Armand twirled Daniel's lighter in his hands. Click. Flame. Click. Darkness. Noticing Daniel was awake, he rose instantly, appearing at the bed's edge with vampire speed. The boy’s eyes made it clear that he remembered him - and that he was terrified.  

Armand smiled. "Get dressed. I want to take a walk. You'll spend time with me, because I'm bored, and your life has been so sad lately that I can’t stand just following you like before anymore. This is Paris! I haven't been here in so many years - you must show me all the new things!"

Daniel blinked, catching the clothes tossed into his hands. "What?" was all he could manage, clearly having no idea how to react. The monster from his nightmares, the creature from under his bed he was so afraid of not even remembering why - it was standing here, in his hotel room, and wanted to spend some time together like they were old friends. What one should even think in a situation quite like this?

"A walk, Daniel!" Armand said, as if the problem were merely that the young man was too sleepy and slow-thinking, not that the entire situation was one grand theater of the absurd. 

The thing was, finally speaking to Daniel, Armand felt like a curious, hyperactive child who had sat too long, frightened, in a closet under the stairs, but now finally gathered courage and stepped into the light. And how good the dew and freshly mowed grass felt beneath his bare feet! How alive he felt! 

"You'll spend time with me! Get dressed!" 

Hurried along by a living monster, Daniel awkwardly, hastily began dressing. Ten minutes later, he realized he was walking Paris streets beside the vampire who had held him captive nearly a week, erased his memory, and dumped him in a drug den. Fear continued to knot his insides like ropes in his veins, yet curiosity burned an uncertain fire in his mind. He wondered what question to ask, whether to suddenly bolt into the nearest building where others might be, hoping human presence would save him. It wouldn't, and he knew it. Armand could stop time whenever he wished! Running was pointless.

Armand walked fast; Daniel barely kept pace. The vampire did not take his hand but stayed constantly near, left then right, brushing his shoulder.

"Why now?" Daniel asked, trying to steady his voice.

"Why not Bucharest, Buenos Aires, Miami, Tokyo?" Armand listed, watching him, hands in pockets. "Well. Because I watched you closely ever since you left San Francisco, and eventually realized that you, Daniel, are rushing to the gentle embrace of Death itself like I could only imagine you would when you’re old and tired of the boredness of life. All these drugs and alcohol. No, it just won't do. You must live a long life. Something must be done about your tendency toward self-destruction, and that’s why I’m here, now and not tomorrow".  

"I started drinking more because of nightmares I was having about you," an accusation, a confession - Daniel himself wasn't sure which was it. Could they even be called nightmares if each time he woke up craving more? "You erased my memory and watched it drive me mad, and now you show up calling me an idiot for using substances? I do this because of you!"  

"You use them because you miss the sensations flowing through your blood when I was looking at you," Armand exposed him, reading him like an open book. Daniel felt like jumping off the bridge they walked upon. "Now I am here, and you still fear me, and you still desire me. No drug could ever substitute for it".  

"I don't-" Daniel, flushed with outrage or shame, tried to protest but gave up, turning away with a wince. "What's in it for you? Kill me and end this torment, I’m gonna die anyway".

Armand looked at him, then lowered his gaze, continuing to walk beside his boy. "It's not that simple. You see, I do not wish to kill you".

"Why?" Daniel insisted.

Armand closed his eyes. He exhaled, stopped. Turned to face Daniel, instilling fear in the boy once more with only the gaze of his orange eyes. "Because you belong to me. I have chosen to preserve your life. Because… I have not yet decided what to do with you. And until I decide, you have no right to die. Is that clear?"

Daniel looked at him with uncertainty, pulling at his jacket tighter. It was too cold this night in Paris. "Okay…"  

The vampire smiled then. "Well, move along. There are still so many places I wish to see!"

That night became the first of many. The following years turned into a strange, feverish journey where Armand returned to him from time to time, like an addict needing his fix. He appeared suddenly: in a dirty motel in New York, in a damp apartment in Berlin, on a park bench somewhere in Barcelona. He woke Daniel in the middle of the night when the city outside fell silent, and led him to show his boy the world, to look at it through the reflection in a mortal soul. They wandered empty streets where lights reflected in puddles like in a broken mirror. Armand ordered the entire menu in expensive restaurants just for him, watching him eat, with some perverse pleasure noting every sip of wine, every piece of meat, as if he could taste the world through him. He took him to galleries closed to visitors, making guards open doors with a single glance, and demanded Daniel explain the meaning of paintings that had hung there for centuries, but which he saw differently due to his mortality and specifics of his living experience.

The eighties marched on, and Armand, eternal and frozen, suddenly discovered a thirst for the new. He asked Daniel to teach him how to use modern technology: video cameras, recorders, the first personal computers that beeped and flashed with green light. Blenders, washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, kitchen garbage disposals. Daniel grumbled, nervously, but taught him, and in these moments Armand felt not like an ancient creature, but something alive. Daniel's presence, his grumbling voice, the smell of tobacco and cheap clothes became his salvation. His personal drug which he could not refuse, even if it destroyed his centuries-old foundations.

It was 1983. They were in Chicago, in an apartment Armand rented. Daniel was ardently recounting an incident in a bar that had recently happened to him, smoking his third cigarette, pacing before the vampire.

"And then this guy tried to convince me he was my soulmate! And I was like, ha! No offense, dude, but if my real soulmate heard you trying to screw me over like this, there wouldn't be a living piece of you left. You should have seen his face, I described you as a total psycho, you would’ve loved it," Daniel laughed, falling into the armchair and taking a drag from his cigarette.

Armand froze looking at him, dropping his smile. 

He didn't even blink. Several years, and he had never once told Daniel that he was his soulmate - and had not intended to, ever. He simply hid his wrist under bandages, spent time with him once every couple of months, kissed him, had sex. Where had he given himself away? He was horrified and looked at him in utter bewilderment.

Daniel, noticing his reaction, sighed heavily. "Well, why are you looking at me like that now? Wait…” he leaned closer, “you didn't think I was that stupid, did you?" he asked, tilting his head sideways with a drunk smile. His cheeks were red from alcohol. "I mean, come on. Why else would a smoking hot vampire chase me around the world for years? Went on dates with me! Well, okay, maybe at first they were more like your little experiments you were conducting on me in that cute mad scientist style rather than dates, but still! I was confused then, sure, but - dude, it’s been, like, a decade. Of course by now I know we were made for each other, any moron would get it at this point!" he got up from the armchair only to climb onto the bed next to Armand, goofy grin all over his stupid pretty face.

"When… when did you realize… this?" Armand asked timidly, looking into his face with his fearful orange eyes.

Daniel chuckled merrily. "Remember Naples? You showed up in the middle of the night, broke my blender, the whole rental apartment smelled of rot because you were cooking a rat in the microwave? And I argued with you so desperately my voice gave out? And then you dragged me out for a walk because the apartment needed airing, and you wanted to show me a new theatre production? And I intentionally talked the whole time until you shut me up, unable to stand it? And we argued all the way home, and you rolled your eyes because I turned the whole topic to wanting to become a vampire myself again? I pissed you off so much you switched to your native language, and then threw me against the wall. And I just thought… damn, I like this guy!"

Armand looked at him as if he thought Daniel might be having a stroke. "Daniel, my beloved, you don't make any sense".

Daniel grinned, sitting even closer, almost touching his nose with his own. "Boss, I have never loved annoying someone like I love doing it to you. Pissing you off, making your eyes roll, it became the meaning of my life," he simply answered, shrugging. "And, hey - if you're not my soulmate, then I don't want a soulmate. I already have my little devil and I would never choose anyone else over him. Got it?" he asked and kissed him on the tip of his nose, looking satisfied like a cat who ate all the cream in the world.

Armand was… horrified.

Nowadays, Daniel made a bad joke, irritating Louis, forcing him to dig unpleasant memories from the man's mind in response, rummaging in his head.

"You and Alice are walking around Paris. Your palms are sweating because you're holding a velvet box with a ring in your pocket. You lead her to a restaurant-"

"The old parlor trick," Daniel said, already understanding where this was going. Armand understood too, and, holding his breath, watched him, not allowing emotions to show on his face.

"You felt freer to hold her hand in Paris, I wonder why that is?" Louis asked, and Armand, pressing his lips together, looked at Daniel's hands.

"Hitting the garage door, Louis-" Daniel tried to defend himself, feeling uncomfortable due to the raised topic. "All the crap, have at it!"

"You worked so hard to get that table right in the corner without her knowing it," Louis didn't stop. "So you could pull out the ring-"

"The ring. Yeah. That's a good one".

"-Just at the right moment so you could surprise her-"

"Which I did!”

"And what did she say when you finally asked her to marry you?"

Daniel looked at Armand all of a sudden. Armand lifted his gaze from his hands that were trembling from nerves and sickness, and looked into his eyes in response.

Louis, trying to avenge his own vulnerability, unknowingly wounded not one person in the room, but two with one arrow. 

Armand knew it wasn't Paris, and that was exactly why Daniel felt freer with him, walking a crowded street and holding a man's hand. Who could say anything to them? It was the Night Island. Theirs. His. Daniel sat at the table, took a sip of champagne for courage. Armand as usual ordered a new dish for him to get his opinion, to find out what it tasted like. Awkward speech with a smile on his face, a ring between them on the table.

"Danny?" it was Louis's voice now. "I'll ask for a third time. What did Alice say when you finally asked her to marry you?"

"Louis, perhaps we should-" Armand tried to stop this torture.

"She said no," Daniel answered.

A chuckle. It was Louis.

Daniel looked broken. A shard of that broken state he was in that very evening several decades ago.

"What do you mean, 'no'?!" he could hear it as if now. "We've been together for more than a decade! We're soulmates, damn it, Armand! How can you- why? Why? What's wrong with me- no, tell me, Armand, what do I lack for us to be together forever? Tell me!"

"Daniel, you're making a scene…" Armand tried to reason with him softly. "Perhaps we could-"

"So you love me enough to buy me a private island, tolerate me when I'm withdrawing, when I'm high, when I have inspiration and write without stopping for three nights in a row and when I don't have strength even to get out of bed, but not enough to agree to be with me forever? Daniel Molloy, just a grain of sand in the immortal existence of the vampire Armand! You'd really rather be with a guy who does nothing but complain about his ex all the time? A guy you're cheating on, Armand? Like, right now? Really? Anyone but me. Killing people and fledglings every night, lying to your boyfriend for decades, digging in other people's brains - that's no problem, we're not afraid to get our hands dirty with that, but God forbid make me a vampire! Who am I, after all? Nobody! Just your toy that you drag around everywhere for comfort! Just sex. Just a marathon rewatching the same movie together while we cuddle. Just a fun hobby. Or maybe just your fucking soulmate!"

Fights, fights, terrible fights. In previous times they ended in blows, hugs, kisses, sex. Reconciliation. Sometimes - Daniel's escape, an attempt to break up with Armand so he would understand he couldn't live without him - and Daniel would always return first. But that time?

Armand realized, looking into his eyes, that he couldn't keep doing this to him.

"She wanted to say yes, but she didn't trust you," a poor attempt to comfort, or justify himself.

Daniel looked at him, uncertain, in pain that is so cruel it becomes physical. He’s still bleeding from reopened wounds.

"You hadn't given her a reason to".

Armand took him to that island to protect him from the AIDS pandemic. When he erased his memory, replaced memories, he had to create Alice from his own scraps.

She was Daniel's soulmate, meeting him in a bar in the seventies. They got together and broke up, but were always drawn back to each other. 

She died in the eighties from AIDS. It was a convenient lie, explaining many gaps and helping Daniel treat this more cautiously.

It worked. Even considering all the collateral damage, Daniel lived longer than if he hadn't quit drugs and promiscuity. Armand made the right choice. He knows it.

The next evening, it was just the two of them, Louis was still asleep. Armand tried to apologize for him to Molloy, but he seemed not to care, cutting him off mid-sentence. "How do you hide from the cloud?"

"It was wrong of Louis, even if you were extremely rude and-"

"I can't move," he said to Armand's horror, and here the vampire caught himself, freezing, and lifted his gaze to his face. 

Did he remember? No, it couldn't be.

Did he?

But Daniel continued. "Quite an unusual phrase for a first meeting. But, then again, why not use your vampire power on everyone you meet until it matches and you hit the jackpot, right?"

So he didn't. Armand exhaled, leaning back in the chair, and smiled slightly sardonically with the corner of his lips. "I assure you, Mr. Molloy, I did not use my power for such purposes. Since childhood I made a decision not to seek my soulmate. I assumed such words could only be said to me by a dying man, or a sick man, or, well… a human. Which is essentially the same thing as the first two".

Daniel looked at him with slight suspicion in his features. Armand tried not to give himself away, to be just as indifferent and immune to his words. 

This time, he coped. But his narrative was falling apart, and he could feel it.

He did nothing about it. He could not prevent it, after all.

He leaves them for two hours. What could happen in two hours?

"... caught my ear. 'This time I won't save your life'".

"Armand saved you from me in 1973".

"Yeah, you bit me, I blacked out, he ripped you off me, dumped me in a drug den…"

"Yes".

"Five hundred years, hundreds of thousands of kills,” Daniel makes a meaningful pause. “How often has Armand spared a life?"

And just like that, Daniel begins to sink, together with Louis, into their memories of 1973, gathering scraps of information they find on the recording, in their own minds. A journey to the core of the Earth, transferred into the plane of trying to piece together a puzzle of what happened those few nights in the old apartment in San Francisco.

"He introduced himself. He…" Daniel frowns in a painful attempt to assemble events and words into one picture. "Controlled my body. Yes. I couldn't move, and so…"

"Wait," Louis interrupts him, looking at Daniel now. "Have you told him about this? Daniel?"

"I don't know, maybe, I-"

"Daniel, please, try to remember, did you tell him this?" Louis presses, desperation visible in his eyes, and Daniel genuinely doesn't understand why this is so important, until another flash of memory sparks somewhere in the corner of his consciousness, and he blinks, suddenly seeing Armand completely differently, in a different place, his bewildered gaze seems almost frightened, and isn't that strange, isn't that funny, a frightened Armand, a frightened Devil himself? "Daniel!"

Daniel blinks, the vision vanishes, he looks at Louis.

"Did you say those words to him?" the vampire asks slowly.

“I can’t move-”

“Move your body?”

"...Yes".

How could something simultaneously make so much sense and be complete nonsense? Daniel inadvertently recalls the bar at that same moment, when Armand approached them with Louis, glanced at him, answered as if to Louis. "No," he said, but looked at him at that moment. Daniel remembers this clearly, because he straightened up when he saw him, like an idiot trying to look more attractive, a fucking peacock. It was the first moment he heard Armand's voice, and he said "no". He said "no".

“No, Daniel”.

“What do you mean “no”?!”

Daniel's hands are trembling.

"O-kay," he says in the end, clenching his hand tighter on his own knee, feet in small stones like sand on a beach. "At least now I get why he spared my life".

"Seventy years," Louis doesn't look at him.

"We need to figure out what happened next".

"Seventy years, he lied to me for…" Louis says, not hearing him, rising from his seat, starting to walk around, staggering. "He lied to me for seventy years. Why? And why keep lying? Even now, even when… why would he do this?"

"Well, maybe he's a sociopath and a pathological liar, maybe he loves you and thinks soulmates are too limiting nonsense for an immortal being. It doesn't matter now, Louis, first we need to figure out what happened in San Francisco," Daniel is the one pressing the search for truth further this time. “So, let’s get back in there for a moment”.

Louis presses his lips together, looking at him. He nervously picks at the skin on his palms with his claws, bites his lips, but nods. "Alright. Fine. Then what, Daniel?"

They fall into the rabbit hole of memories. They still fail to restore everything, huge gaps remain, but the general narrative becomes clear. Interview. Louis throws himself at him, almost kills him. Armand saves him. Louis and Armand quarrel. Louis tries to kill himself. Armand speaks with Daniel. Surely realizes he is his soulmate. Still tortures him. Still keeps him locked up. Still makes Daniel fear. Then drinks his blood and gets rid of him, leaving him in a drug den. The week in San Francisco ended, but Daniel still remains with that fucking question - then what?

The door closes behind the entrant. Daniel looks at Louis. Louis looks at Daniel. 

They rise to their feet, looking at the smiling Armand, wearing dark sunglasses taken from a corpse he drained.

"How was your lunch?" Louis asks, resolve in his voice and posture contrasting with Daniel's uncertainty. 

Because Louis understands his position - he was lied to, this lie was terrible and inhumane, and he has every right to be angry, because there is no and cannot be any pretty justification for a lie lasting seven decades. But Daniel? 

He has no idea what he should think. This vampire, who tortured him in a room in San Francisco, who endlessly sneered at him since Daniel's appearance in Dubai - this beautiful, frightening, smart, lying devil - is his soulmate. Was Alice a complete fabrication? He cannot remember her face now. He cannot remember half the things about her. He remembers sand under his feet, a beach he never was on. Remembers the laughing face of this bastard, remembers the tender "beloved," remembers the taste of blood on his tongue.

"Entertaining," Armand smiles, having no idea about the revelation that occurred, approaching them in his beautiful coat. "He made it all the way to the Burj Khalifa".

He takes off his glasses, looks at those present with a snow-white smile.

"How's Paris?" an innocent question.

Louis puts his hands in his pockets, looking like a wife who caught her husband cheating and is sadistically delaying the moment of revealing the news, enjoying the show. "We paused Paris. Reminisced about San Francisco".

Silence for a couple of moments. "And?" an innocent lamb, hiding bloody fangs and stains of lies beneath white fur.

Louis enjoys what is happening. A dangerous kind, explosive pleasure. The stage of denial flew by unnoticed, acceptance came, and only now does anger approach, almost professionally hidden behind calmness. "It started with Daniel," he looks at him, before returning his gaze to Armand. "He asked why you saved him in 1973".

Daniel looks at Armand, feeling confusion in his soul. Echoes of conversations, quarrels that never happened - but that did - rise in his memory like echoes of forgotten memories.

Armand looks at him. For some reason, now Daniel seems to understand much better the emotions hidden behind his facade. He is nervous. Of course he is nervous, his almost half a century-old lie was just exposed, and he cannot not understand this - but how to stop lying when you have gone so far into these quicksands, right?

"Hmm," he tilts his head barely noticeably with a smile, but the smile quickly fades.

His orange eyes are directed only at Daniel for several long moments, and suddenly this begins to make sense. All their exchanges of long glances, all that tension, how Daniel himself couldn't look away from him. Now he saw that what pulled him toward Armand, that very feeling, because of which he was initially so straightforwardly irritable around him, every time they interacted - all of this now had a logical explanation. An explanation driving him mad. 

It would be so funny to die of a heart attack right now! Part of him smirks inside and he hears as if his own old thoughts, or fragments of a conversation with someone, in his voice. You watch me die, that's what you do! Like a plant on the windowsill that you could save, but instead you just watch! Am I only beautiful to you if I can die? When did he say that?

Armand's gaze returns to Louis. "I could see you were partial to him," the bastard doesn't even change the lyrics. "I preserve your happiness even when you don't or can't. I had a hunch-"

The last words he and Louis speak in unison.

Armand nevertheless continues, as if still hoping he can untangle himself from his own web, and this time looks at Daniel. "-Daniel might prove fruitful in later times".

Maybe he just couldn't not finish his lines, an actor he is. 

His gaze looks as if he understands this is an ambush. That it's time for him to come up with excuses. 

He tries to get out of the situation with his head held high, but Daniel looks at him and sees how his lips tremble for a moment, how his gaze shifts from Louis to him and back, as if he tries to figure out exactly how much was revealed.

Silence hangs in the room. He doesn’t say a word.

Louis's anger gradually begins to boil, steam rapidly rising from his soul, his gaze becomes filled with cruelty and resentment. "You are a liar, Armand. Seventy years of pitiful, meaningless, cruel lies-"

"I can explain-" a cautious voice, beautifully lowered eyes, a textbook example of a manipulator using beauty and new lies to escape the consequences of his previous big ones.

"What, tell even more lies?" Louis sneers.

"I did what I had to do to keep us together," Armand says, and his voice sounds with a slight tremor, a clearer accent. "You were drowning in grief, Louis. Lestat was… chaos. I offered you stability. I offered you… your new destiny".

"Destiny," Louis repeats this word as if it tastes of ash. He takes a step forward, and now Armand retreats, barely noticeably, shifting his weight to the other leg. "You stole my choice. You climbed into my head and reshaped everything so I would believe we were destined for each other. You faked my memories of our first meeting so I would think you were my soulmate while this whole time it was Lestat! All this time, it was Lestat - living Lestat, Lestat who is still somewhere out there, in New Orleans, alone!"

Louis's voice breaks into a scream, the echo spreading across the high walls of the room. 

Armand blinks, his mask cracks, revealing for a moment something childish and frightened.

"You used me," Louis continues. "You needed to be with someone so badly, to not rot, not go mad, that you decided to stage our love, even handed me a script with the scene of our first conversation! What about the theatre? What about Claudia? You made me play the role of a lover while you…" Louis falls silent, his gaze heavy, shifting to Daniel standing nearby, and returning to the vampire. "Why didn't you finish this performance when Daniel appeared, anyway? Why didn't you turn him?"

Armand looks as if he was caught red-handed, and he has no alibi. "I loved you!" Armand cries out, and there is so much despair in this cry that for a second Louis hesitates. "I loved you more than anyone! I protected you from the truth because the truth would have destroyed you! You needed me to be your soulmate! You needed me to fill the void in the shape of Lestat in your heart. Lestat was bad for you, how can you not understand?"

"I needed you to be honest!" Louis parries.

"Honesty kills!" Armand answers. "If you knew… If you knew that the words on your wrist didn't match mine… You would have left. You would have chosen Lestat again. Or no one. I couldn't let you leave, I couldn't let you stay alone. I knew… that what we had was real, regardless of the words," Armand says, and this is a half-truth, a convenient lie wrapped in silk of sincerity. "And Daniel… he was just… fate makes mistakes sometimes, we both lived long enough to know it".

Armand takes a step toward Louis, his hands trembling, although he tries his best to keep them still. He understands the ground is slipping from under his feet, but the instinct of self-preservation, honed over centuries, demands continuing to build barricades of lies.

"I chose you, Louis," Armand says, and genuine plea sounds in his voice, so easy to mistake for truth. "After San Francisco… I left him. I let him live. I understood that my destiny was you. Daniel was just… a human. I didn't return to him. I was with you. In Paris, in America, in Dubai. I chose us. What do the words of fate mean for a five-hundred-year-old vampire?"

He says this as confidently as he can, putting the power of suggestion into the words, trying to make this lie become reality right now. He wants Louis to believe, he wants Daniel to believe, but he casts a glance at the man and notices how he frowns slightly and tilts his head a bit.

Something clicks in his head. Not San Francisco. Not that apartment. Something else. Cold. Snow. Smell of alcohol.

"Chicago," Daniel's voice cuts through the silence of the room like a verdict. "1976. December, twelfth".

Armand freezes. His pupils dilate, he opens his mouth slightly. "Daniel, you don't-"

"No, let him finish. Please," Louis says caustically, tilting his head looking at Armand, before looking at Daniel. "What happened in Chicago, Daniel?"

The man doesn't take his eyes off Armand. "I was supposed to finish the chapter by next morning, but you showed up at my hotel room. You knock on the door. I open. I say, since when do you wait for an invitation? You start talking about how we should go to the scene of that maniac's crime because it's an 'amazing spectacle', and 'he makes real art out of them'. I say I need to finish the chapter, otherwise my publisher will kill me, I say get lost... You complain that Louis went to Europe for a couple of weeks and that you don't want to be alone, and that if the publisher tries to kill me, you'll drink him and find me a better one,” he pauses. “It was three years after San Francisco, Armand".

Louis frowns slightly, connecting the dots between events in his head.

Armand feels like a panther backed into a corner. Of course, he could kill those pressing him against the wall, but then why would he live on?

"December 1976, I was going to Italy for two weeks," Louis says and looks at Armand again. The expression on his face changes. Pain is replaced by icy, absolute disgust. "You lied to me even about this. You were trying to continue lying to me, right now," Louis says. This is not a question. "You told me you wanted to stay in the States because of bad memories about Italy. You just told me you didn't look for Daniel after San Francisco. You…" he laughs in pain. "Oh, fuck. You can't even stop lying! How can anyone believe a single word you say? You don't even love me. You hold me hostage, in a cage soldered from your lies and my depression and my grievances and your despair. But you know what?" he asks. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of you. I was right. You are boring. This is all… one old song, again and again. I'm sick of it!"

Louis takes a step toward the door. Armand jerks, as if he wants to rush after him, use power, stop time, do anything, but Louis's gaze stops him. It is the gaze of a man who has already decided everything, and dares anyone to try to stop him and see what happens.

"Louis," Armand says, and panic is in his voice. "I can fix it!"

"No," Louis says firmly. "You can't fix what has rotted to the foundation. What has been rotten since the very day we met".

"Louis-"

"I said no! Save it for your fascinating boy," he sneers. "Because after what you said here, if I were in his place, I wouldn't believe a single word you say anymore. You need to pray that after everything, your 'mistake of fate' forgives you or even just lets you speak at all".

The door behind Louis closed with a loud, final thud. 

Now only the two of them remained in the room. The air, recently saturated with the electricity of another's anger, became viscous, heavy with the unspoken.

Armand stood in the middle of the room, and his mask finally crumbled into dust. He trembled, and Daniel saw the tension in every line of his body, in the hunched shoulders, in the fingers clutching at the air as if trying to hold onto invisible threads that had just snapped. Tears flowed down his cheeks. Not water, but thick, dark streaks of blood, leaving gruesome marks on flawless skin. 

He didn't wipe them. He simply stared at the door with his orange eyes, in which naked horror now swirled. A child facing the consequences of his own actions for the first time. 

Daniel wonders fleetingly if Armand might decide to kill him now, just to drag his corpse to Louis's feet so he could convince him that he had loved only him all this time.

"What an ugly image, Mr. Molloy," Armand says, tension in his voice, he’s still not looking at him. Reading his thoughts in an attempt to maintain at least one thread of control.

"But very much in your MO," Daniel notes, the unexpected calm still not leaving him.

He realizes, suddenly, that he isn't afraid of Armand, even though he is capable of killing him with a snap of his fingers, or even killing them both now, starting a fire right in this library.

Armand looks at him after all. So many emotions now in his gaze, Daniel thinks he has never seen him like this. Or at least, he doesn't remember it yet. Armand was hit by the shrapnel of his own lie, but not even now, but many years ago, perhaps in San Francisco, or earlier - but now a shard was pulled from him, the wound opened, letting him bleed out right in the middle of this cold, half-empty room.

The realization that he won't be brutally killed right now definitely helps Daniel find some words for him. 

"So what was wrong with me?" his voice sounds tired. He takes a step forward, but still not close enough to the vampire. Crosses his arms over his chest.

Armand presses his lips together. The tears no longer flow, but their wet streaks still shine slightly on his skin. 

He lifts his chin, as if finding the remnants of his pride and clinging to them now. "You were human," a simple answer, an honest answer at last. 

He almost looks as if Daniel offended him somehow. Perhaps by revealing his half a century-old deception. Poor little kitten is angry that everything isn't going as he planned.

"And that’s it?" Daniel asks, raising his brows. "Too mortal for your taste? So… if someone else had turned me and we met after the fact, you would've made a different choice? Would you have dropped this spectacle and run away with me into the sunset? That’s what our problem was? You swore an oath to your maker that you would never make a vampire, and therefore decided to brainwash me? So I wouldn't hover before your eyes? Wouldn't press on a sore spot?"

"I wanted you to live a life in peace, not among monsters and shadows, and what they carry with them," Armand answers, his brows slightly furrowed in pain.

"But I wanted to live among monsters and shadows! I told you this thousands of times, Armand! You just didn't listen to me!" 

Daniel still doesn't remember half of what happened, only scraps, scenes scattered across the years. Quarrels, mostly. He assumes context awakens memories of only a certain taste. 

Irritation boils under his skin and - oh, there it is, he does feel resentment toward him, how unexpected.

He takes a step forward toward him.

Armand doesn't move. 

He yells at him.

Armand doesn't move.

"Fate makes mistakes sometimes, huh?! Fucking great! Was it a mistake in Paris, when you took me walking in the middle of the night across the city for the first time? Was it a mistake in Rome, when I gave you my blood and you gave me yours? Oh, I assume the biggest mistake was that house in Nevada, or maybe that apartment in Chicago, or dozens, hundreds of nights on the Night Island, am I right?"

"Perhaps I expressed myself in a way very unfitting my real feelings on the matter…" a weak attempt. A sakura petal against a spiked club.

"You're a liar, Armand. You've been lying so long you've gotten tangled in your own lies," Daniel says, and Armand realizes he is standing less than a step away from him, and finally timidly meets the human's gaze. "Where does the bullshit start, Armand, Amadeo, Arun?"

"I did what I did in order to protect you," Armand whispered. His voice cracked.

"Protect me?" Daniel laughed. "You sabotaged us. You sabotaged our relationship, our happiness, our love. You decided, for me, that I don't want to live forever with you. You decided I couldn't endure this life. That it's a curse, and that you are too noble to impose it on me. Serial killer, the greatest liar in the history of liars, oh that noble vampire Armand. I could die in a year, in a month, damn, I could die right now, and what will you do then? Find someone else and brainwash them into believing you're soulmates? Will you keep repeating the lie until you believe it yourself? Again?"

Armand squeezes his eyes shut. "You ruined it all. All of it. We were supposed to-"

"You wanted this interview, Armand," Daniel continues, challenge in every sound. "You arranged everything so Louis would offer it himself, pretended to be against it all this time, acted on my nerves. How did you arrange this, Armand? Whispered my name to him while he slept? Accidentally left my books in his line of sight until he voiced the idea of the interview himself?"

"I was against it," Armand insists. "I told Louis it was dangerous to invite you here. But he convinced me that we-"

"Liar," Daniel cut him off. "I'm not an idiot, Armand. If you were really against the interview, it wouldn't have happened. You would have brainwashed Louis. Come up with something, I don’t know. You are ancient, you are strong, you control everything around you. If you really wanted to stop this, I wouldn't have even crossed the threshold of Dubai. But I am here. Because you wanted this. You wanted to see me. So what was the plan, Armand? To manipulate Louis into turning me? To make it seem like it was his desire, and you just obediently agree through hatred for me, like a good boy? And then what?"

"You think I would let him?!" Armand suddenly screamed, the sound tearing through the room like glass shattering. "Do you think I would ever allow Louis near your neck again?! After he almost took you from me that night in San Francisco?!"

There it is. The control snapped.

Armand moved in a blur, slamming Daniel against the wall hard enough that the glass on the bookshelves below them shattered. His hand gripped Daniel's shirt, holding him there, pinned by sheer supernatural force, face inches away, eyes blazing with orange fire and wet with blood. "You mortal idiot! I wanted it to be beautiful! Peaceful! But you- you just had to open all the wounds and expose them for all to see! That's what you always do. This is your drug!"

Daniel chokes from Armand not letting him breathe, and suddenly, like an echo of a memory, the vampire remembers having done this before. Remembers the youth's voice in the eighties - "Don't hit me, you might kill me - you're very strong!"

The anger burned out as quickly as it had ignited, leaving only ash and devastation. 

Armand's grip loosened. He slid down the wall, taking Daniel with him until they collapsed onto the cold floor.

And then the horrible, awful ancient vampire wept.

He curled forward, burying his face against Daniel's stomach, his arms wrapping tightly around his waist, clinging as if Daniel were the only solid thing in his dissolving universe. He lay there on the floor with him, shaking with sobs that wracked his immortal frame. 

Daniel breathes heavily, his heart beating fast from how close death was to him. He isn't sure he could speak now, even if he tried - it would probably only sound like wheezing.

"The nights. The weeks. The months, the years that I spent with you," Armand chokes out, his voice muffled against the fabric of Daniel's shirt. "They were the most exciting, the most fascinating part of my life. More than five hundred years, and no one has ever made me feel so irritated, so hateful, so obsessed, so- so loved".

He tightens his hold, fingers digging into Daniel's sides.

"I wanted to leave you in peace," he whispers, the words wet and broken. "I wanted you to live your life. To be the reporter. To be an old man in Modesto. Ordinary life. I wanted you… to survive all the delight of human experience… without me. Because you could only have it without me".

Armand lifts his head slightly, though he did not let go. His face is a ruin of blood and grief.

He's trying to pull himself together and fails. "But now you are dying. And I am scared, Daniel. I have never been so scared in my life," he lets out a shaky, hysterical laugh. "I am a monster, Daniel. I am your devil and you should fear me, you should hate me with all you have. Because I am going to turn you now”.

Daniel blinks, his heart misses a bit.

Armand keeps talking in this broken voice. “And I know it is a mistake, that this is a selfish thing to do, perhaps the most selfish thing I've ever done. But I cannot let you go. Even though you're gonna hate me. Even more than you do right now. I just cannot… I cannot do that. I am a fortune's fool. It tricked me into committing the most terrible sin because of you".

Daniel lies still for a moment, the pain in his ribs fading into the background of this overwhelming confession. Immortality is so close, as close as death. This terrible, monstrous, frightening thing that clings to him, like a drowning man to a piece of branch, this deceiver and madman, this immortal idiot - is his soulmate. 

How could he not recognize him? Even with erased memory he felt that his heart belonged beside his. Probably that's why he hated him so much from the very beginning after all.

Slowly, gently, he moves his shaky hands. He slides them under Armand's chin, lifting his face from his stomach. His palms cup the vampire's cheeks, thumbs brushing away the streaks of blood.

Armand looks up at him. His orange eyes are wide, stripped of all masks, all manipulations. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, though, but at this moment, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Armand sobbed again, a raw, ugly sound, and his hands clenched into fists, gripping the fabric of Daniel's shirt so tightly the material threatened to tear. He looked like an ancient statue carved to express eternal pain, beautiful and broken. As if the silence tortures him, and he longs to hear something from Daniel. Refusal? Does he expect Daniel to fight against what he begged him for so many hundreds of times? Does Armand think Daniel will start persuading him into not doing it now? Beg to be spared, to be allowed to die human?

Come on, Daniel thinks. You know me better than that.

This makes Armand laugh through his tears with a weak, broken kind of laugh. Daniel suddenly remembers how he kissed him in their apartment in Chicago, how he watched fireworks with him in New York, how he teased him until he rolled his eyes in Brussels, or in Beijing, or in Warsaw. How once he told him, as a joke, that he could cut off his finger as a keepsake, and how he was horrified by the sincere interest in Armand's eyes, who, of course, was only mocking him - in his incredibly frightening manner, from which Daniel always trembled and tried to escape to a safe place. But what place would be safer than his other half’s embrace?

He remembers how he cut his own neck because Armand didn't pay attention to him and he was bored. Remembers how the vampire healed his wounds with his blood. How it felt on his tongue. How his fangs felt in his body. How happy he was every time he bit him, how sweetly hope tasted on his tongue!

Does he want this now? Damn it, of course he wants it! He can’t die! How can he leave Armand? How can he let this monster, this devil, this liar live without him? He is the only one capable of truly pissing him off. He is his sacred punishment and he has a sacred duty to live as long as he possibly can!

Do it, Daniel thinks, his eyes locking onto Armand's. Stop fighting it. You know I want this. Why are you crying? It's not fair. How can you cry? You've made so many mistakes in your life, what one more will do to your conscience? What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong? Just do it! Don't I deserve it, after all you've put me through? Drink from me, Armand. Take all of it before death takes it itself, you coward!

Armand stares at the exposed vein, his breath hitching in a sob that never fully formed. The conflict rages in his eyes - the noble lie versus the selfish truth, the protector versus the predator. 

But the gravity of Daniel's will is heavier than his guilt. The mortal is giving him permission to be the monster. To take what is his. What has always been his.

Slowly, trembling, Armand rises slightly over him. His hands move from Daniel's waist to his shoulders, holding him not with force this time, but with reverence. 

He lowers his head, his cold breath ghosting over the hot skin of Daniel's neck, sending a shiver down the mortal's spine that is equal parts terror and ecstasy. 

The reporter's hands move from the vampire's face, tangling in his hair. He presses him against his neck. His heart beats so fast, it almost frightens Armand.

He opens his mouth. Releases his fangs with a quiet, animalistic hiss.

Yes, you lying bastard, do it! What are you waiting for?

And Armand bites.