Archive of Our Own

Of all the things Armand has forgotten, some things always find a way to remain, or sneak back in when he least expected it. 

He remembers ships, but not the path he must have walked to get home as a child. He remembers clients, but not family members who possibly, hopefully, had once loved him. He remembers a wooden horse. 

He remembers warm days sat with his wooden horse, under the sunlight through a window.

He thinks, it could be possible, that he builds these memories retroactively. That he remembers his wooden horse, which he is certain was real and loved, and he builds a story around it. 

In his stories, he sits on the kitchen floor. Arun then, with a horse that feels very big but in reality could not have taken up much space at all. Arun holds it out in the light towards… someone he doesn’t have a name for. They laugh, take the horse from his hand, wiggle it in the air as if it is galloping, and hand it back to him. 

Armand thinks it could have made him laugh, high pitched and childish.

He can picture crying, wailing loudly, and he can picture the boy he isn’t anymore soothed by his wooden horse. Handed it to calm down and clinging to it like a babe to its mother. He thinks the boy sucked his own thumb and turned his back to everyone so he and his horse could be alone. Away from the prying eyes that had seen his distress. 

He imagines times where Arun could have been tucked into bed, a small cot by a cool wall that helps sooth him when the sun rises and warms the room. His wooden horse in his hand and a thin blanket tucked over his legs. He thinks he may have laid awake for hours swaying his horse in the air above him as if it was riding the moonlight from the window.

“What’s your horse's name, Arun?” someone would ask.

“Horse,” Arun would respond, proudly. 

It is not a real memory, none of them probably are. Why would they speak Modern English long before it was invented, halfway across the world? But the horse was a real memory. If he thinks about it hard enough, if he pulls the memory to the forefront of his mind. He can feel the grooves of the wood under his fingers. 

When he thinks about his horse, it’s his. It does not belong to Arun alone. Shared across time, his wooden horse that had once belonged to a boy who had once been him and had been lost to time. Their horse that kept them connected through the bone deep affection he felt at any memory with his horse.

He remembers losing his horse. In a way. He remembers holding it, tight in his small hand, in a crowd of people. A large hand on his upper arm dragging him through the crowd. A man, unknown to him, lifting him up to carry him through the crowd. He clings to his horse to ignore the things he can see from his new perspective. 

There is blood, some gets on his poor horse, some gets on him. There are people, reaching for him, to save him? To go with him? To plead for help? 

For some reason, they reach for him. They never stop reaching for him, even when they fall their arms remain outstretched.

Someone falls, an arm grabs him, he is yanked away harshly enough that it hurts. And his horse, in the impact of falling and pulling and yanking, falls from his hand. It clatters to the floor, and from this height, it splinters. Breaks into a handful of pieces he doesn’t get the time to count before he is surrounded by darkness, and salt air, and rotting wood. His poor, rotting, wooden horse. Somehow lost and not. He knows where he dropped it just as much as he doesn’t. He knows what the world looked like right before it went dark. It looked like a broken wooden horse being lost among the bodies of hundreds of people pushing past and climbing over each other. He doesn’t know where he was for certain, but even if he did, he could not go back to find it anymore. Long gone by now. Trampled under feet and buried under roads and rotted away in the dirt until there would be nothing to be found. So yes, lost. In more ways than one.

Armand tries not to think of the wooden horse. He fails to avoid it at times.

-

In Venice, Amadeo is gifted a plaything. Not a wooden horse. Were he given a wooden horse, he could not guarantee he wouldn’t throw it to the ground to break and cry and wail and force his dear father to sedate him from his outburst.

He is given a poppet. It is made of fine cloth, dyed vibrant colours. 

He had earned it, Marius had said. He was doing so well, Marius had said. 

He thinks Marius simply grew tired of the crying at night. Marius had probably intended to wean him off it once he got settled into the palazzo. But perhaps Marius also grew fond. He never took it away. 

Armand recalls Amadeo, sat on his master's bed, handed his poppet. He had cherished it. Looked at it in awe, asked “Mine?” in hesitant Venetian, one of the few words he had learned under Marius so far. 

Marius, proud as any father would be, smiled, nodded, gently eased Amadeo’s hands to his chest to allow him to cradle the poppet in his arms.

Amadeo slept every night in Marius’ embrace, his poppet the only item wedged between them. He would carry it around the room, but never outside. He thinks, Armand that is, that Amadeo must have been scared of losing it as Arun had lost his horse. Scared that some terrible crowd would gather and crush it beneath them. 

When Marius saw Amadeo struggling, suffering, acting unruly and untamed, his poppet would be dangled in front of him to calm him down. 

Once, and only once, Marius had dared hide it away to curb Amadeo’s behavior. Amadeo had gone to Bianca, had cried and cried for hours until he had returned home to find his poppet in bed as if it had never been moved. 

He had been so grateful he had climbed into Marius’ lap for the night while Marius worked. He kissed his master’s face and clung to his shoulders. His eyes had stayed redrimmed and damp all night. Marius had not apologised or addressed the poppets disappearance. 

Amadeo had clung to the poppet at inappropriate times, had reached for it while Marius took his pleasure, had found it in his hand while atop his master, had held it to his chest like that first day when Marius tried to be welcomed home. 

Armand remembers that too. Waiting days or weeks for Marius to return to Amadeo. Then when Marius finally did, Amadeo would cling to his poppet and watch from too far away as if worried Marius had forgotten he existed while they were apart. Marius had had to pry the poppet from his hands, was forced to be gentle and kind to it when he placed it beside the bed, before kissing his Amadeo with love and laying them both down.

Amadeo had held it as he died, and as he awoke again undead. His poppet firm against his chest as he took his final breath and as he took his next first breath. 

Amadeo had loved his poppet, it would never be Armand’s. When Armand reflects on the memories of the poppet, it does not belong to him. It was gifted to Amadeo, was for Amadeo, the Amadeo that existed to be loved by Marius had disappeared when Marius did. 

As did his poppet. 

When the palazzo was set alight, when Marius was burnt to a crisp before Amadeo’s very eyes. He recalls vividly that Amadeo clung to his poppet with all his might, tears of blood unending as they raced down his face. Armand remembers the poppet pulled from Amadeo’s arms and tossed carelessly into the fire alongside his father. It had burned much faster than Marius did. It had not screamed. Amadeo finally tried to look away, and was not permitted to. His face clasped in the hands of someone who brought this fire to his home and turned towards the flames again to watch his poppet turn to ash. 

-

In the earliest days of the twentieth century, teddy bears gained popularity. Much like his poppet, they would be soft, cloth creatures, now modeled after bears or sometimes other animals. 

It had been centuries since Amadeo had his poppet and now, Armand felt desire for the small comfort item. There was no situation or event that brought the need on. It was just there, a sudden and agonising ache for Amadeo’s poppet, for Arun’s wooden horse, for something to be his own.

Armand stopped by a store front displaying the items, late in the night, an area he had previously not frequented as often. 

Breaking into the building was easy, looking at the craft room with fabric and buttons and needles and threads was more difficult. Picking which soft toy would become his.

There were a dozen lined on a shelf in the main sales room. 

Armand had no choice before, his toys were gifted to him, bought by someone else. Now, the choice weighs him down. Is it possible to pick the wrong one? 

They looked mostly similar. Some used different color fabrics, black, white, or brown. Armand plucked a brown one from the shelf. He turned it over in his hand, admiring the stitchings, squeezing to feel the density of its filling. He tossed it gently into the air and caught it in one hand while his eyes passed over the other options.

He just hadn’t been sure. 

Armand put it down and dragged his finger along the others trying to make a choice. His hand instinctively settled around the last on the shelf, clearly the newest made. He held it for a moment and nodded. And then, as he turned to leave and as his hand settled on the door - he stopped. 

He wasn’t sure, never figured out, what made his gut twist so uncomfortable. What had made him look down at the white bear in his hand and look back to the soft brown bear he had first picked up. He left the white bear in the shop window. He hid the brown bear in his jacket as he returned to the theatre until he could store it safely in his coffin. Hidden from view, the bear would wait for him in the dark of his coffin until he settled for the night. He had brought it to his chest when he retired for the day, and slept more soundly than he could remember since Venice.

When passing a sleepy neighbourhood in 1910, Armand saw a family returning from what must have been a family party. He saw a small boy holding a teddy bear, the same shade of brown as his own. It was in pristine condition, clearly new. The boy’s mother had asked softly, “What are you going to name it?” and Armand was suddenly hit with the realisation, he had not given his bear a name yet. He had held it nightly for nearing two years, a very short time for a vampire, a very long time for a stuffed bear. 

It had absorbed him. He poured over books, plays, letters. He walked libraries looking at authors' names. He tried to think of the name of everyone he had ever met. He toured museums reading every plaque. He visited religious houses to hear the names deemed important. He listened in on conversations as they passed him in the street. 

Otto came to him in a park. Inscribed on a tree, choppy letters and a crudely carved heart. 

It had fit. Otto. Armand did not refer to Otto aloud, but it comforted him to have a name outside of The Bear. 

When Otto’s threads had pulled from his ear, leaving it half detached years later, Armand took him to a seamstress. Had paid handsomely to have other stitching reinforced. 

When Louis arrived, Armand hesitated to bring him to the coffin that housed Otto. 

In the end it had been a strategic decision. A conscious vulnerability to appease himself to Louis. He did not give Otto’s name, perhaps over the years Louis had plucked it from his brain, but it remained unsaid. 

Louis had seen Otto, sat innocently against the wall of Armand’s coffin, and had made a soft joke. Armand had brushed it off, a silly, meaningless comfort. A gift in jest from a past member of the theatre. Louis had pretended to believe him. 

Louis did not address Otto for the rest of their seventy-seven years. Otto had lived in Armand’s coffin, name unspoken, soft as he could be after all the years he had seen. Armand would awaken from dreams that tensed every muscle in his body and Otto would be beside him to ease more than any lover or friend had ever been capable of. 

When the theatre went up in flames, Armand’s coffin had remained inside. As had Otto. 

Otto did not ever belong to some distant other from Armand’s past. He had been Armand’s through and through. Armand had missed him through the decades, but never spoke of him to Louis. Otto was burnt just like his poppet. Armand mourned the bear more than he mourned members of the coven he had clung to for far too long.

-

Following Paris, Armand did not replace Otto. A childish comfort he had not earned. Unbecoming, Louis would have thought. After all that had happened, comfort was not Armand’s need. Comfort would be earned again, eventually. 

It was not until 1975 that Armand would be gifted a comfort. Gifted again. It had felt remarkable.

It was a year into Daniel. Whatever their relationship could be called. A year of Daniel being less scared and more intrigued. The initial eighteen months of following, assessing, being a presence in Daniel’s life had softened into some form of, dare he say, companionship. 

Daniel was good at finding activities he wished to share with Armand, things to do at night. 

He had found a local carnival. 

This memory, unlike the others in Armand’s history, was easy to recall, pleasant to recall. 

There were bright stalls and rickety rides, and importantly, there were large displays of teddy bears and games to win the plush toys as prizes. 

Armand had restrained himself as much as he could. His eyes drifted back to the prizes throughout the night. Daniel had refused to grant him the gift of ignorance, he had refused to treat Armand’s obvious staring as a subtle glance. 

“Wanna try?” he had asked playfully. Armand had attempted to appear passive, for why he wasn’t sure. 

He had hummed and said “If you wish to,” and Daniel had grinned. 

“I’m great at these games, it’s all a trap to get you to spend money but I knew a guy who worked at the carnival in my hometown as a teenager. He taught me all the tricks.” 

He had been so proud to share that with Armand. 

Daniel had walked Armand around each stall, seeing which prizes were available before he could pick which Daniel would have to win for him.

Armand settled on a stall where Daniel would be expected to throw balls at a stack of milk bottles. If he knocked them all over, he could have a prize. 

The prizes varied from small tokens to oversized bears half Armand’s height. Armand had set his eyes on a blue bear. He was a regular size for a teddy bear and wore a strange, black hat.

Armand had smugly plastered himself against Daniel’s back to watch and feel his attempts for the prize.

Daniel had missed each ball the first round.

In the second round, he had hit the bottles with not enough force.

He claimed he was aware the bottles were weighted.

On his third attempt he knocked over two bottles, leaving the final bottle standing.

“Would you like some assistance, beloved?” Armand had offered sweetly.

“I got it.” 

Daniel threw with too much force. 

Daniel did not win his bear, he huffed and puffed and stormed off to get a corndog and pout.

It was much later, as everyone packed up for the night and the fairground closed down, that Daniel wandered off. He left Armand to observe the lights of the ferris wheel, and returned to Armand’s side with the blue bear. 

“Got ya’ something.” he said passively, handing it to Armand.

“You went back for him?” Armand asked, smiling softly at his darling boy. “Did you finally knock over all three?”

“Nah,” Daniel snorted crudely. “I gave the guy a twenty and he told me not to let his boss know he was giving prizes away.” 

Armand had smiled at that, eyes sparkling with glee. 

“What you gonna name him?” Daniel had asked once they got to the car. 

Armand looked at his blue bear. Otto’s name had been so private. But perhaps it wouldn’t have been, if someone had asked like Daniel did. A journalist at heart, he did always find the right questions. 

“Perhaps I could call him Daniel,” Armand had intended it as a joke, but once it was said, it fit.

“Replacing me? Already? Harsh,” Daniel turned on the car and tucked his arm around the back of Armand’s seat to reverse onto the road behind them. 

“Danny then, he’s like you but. Smaller, cuter-”

“How dare you,” Daniel had laughed so freely, shoving Armand away slightly only to catch his shirt and pull him closer again. It hadn’t mattered that they were driving, or that they were still half pulled out onto the road. The early hours of the morning left the road deserted. 

“Danny. I’ve settled on it now.” Armand said, smiling.

“Danny Bear. I guess I can be okay with it.” Daniel nodded, their faces were so close it made his nose rub against Armand’s. He had pecked Armand gently and Armand had clung to Danny Bear. He had held it to his chest like it was precious. 

Danny Bear had stayed hidden for years. As far as Armand was aware, Louis never found him. Armand would take him on his many visits to Daniel across the years.

He would appear in Daniel’s hotel room, tucking himself to Daniel’s chest with Danny Bear in the crook of his arm. Daniel would squish the bear's head softly when he felt it there. 

“Where’s Danny?” Daniel had asked the few times Armand had come to him without it. 

“I was in a rush,” Armand would reply, kissing Daniel all the more passionately for daring to ask after the bear. 

“Couldn’t wait to see me, huh? It’s been a while…” 

Armand had hummed in response, tugging Daniel up in bed to encourage him to get dressed for a night of activities.

When the morning arrived, Daniel laid with Armand as he tossed and turned. The pull of the sun wasn’t enough to ease him to sleep.

“It’s Danny,” Daniel had commented, hand gently massaging Armand’s scalp. “You can’t sleep without him.”

“I sleep without him quite often,” Armand had huffed. 

“Not when you’re with me. He’s always here.”

Daniel had yawned obnoxiously and pulled Armand closer.

When Armand had returned weeks later with Danny Bear, Daniel had smugly kissed his cheek as Armand tiptoed the edge of consciousness. Danny Bear had been pressed between them, Daniel sat up in bed reading some book with papers across his lap and the nightstand. Armand and Danny Bear both tucked into his hip to sleep through the daylight. It had been cozy.

When Armand awoke, Danny Bear was gone. Armand remembers the devastation he felt, the immediate realisation he couldn’t feel Danny Bear and couldn’t see him. 

Daniel had returned from the bathroom to Armand’s tragic expression and lifted Danny Bear off the floor, claiming he had fallen while Armand slept. 

It had been embarrassing and uncomfortable, Daniel had not commented on that at all. He had said; “You’ve never looked so human,” and returned to his work. 

Danny Bear did not get to be destroyed. 

Danny Bear was lost another way, Armand would not call it worse but it had felt it at the time.

Daniel and he had fought. It had been brutal, Armand had refused to turn Daniel yet again. Daniel had recently lost a loved one that had him pondering eternity and immortality again. Hurtful things had been said from both parties. He had packed a bag harshly, shoving Danny Bear in beside his unfolded jeans and his toiletries bag. He had then caught a flight back to America. Armand did not sleep for an extended period of time, so long he hadn’t kept count of the days passing as he sat in Daniel’s abandoned hotel room thinking the argument over. 

It was not the last time they saw each other, but Danny Bear did not come back to Armand. The break between seeing each other following that fight had been too long. It’s possible Daniel had forgotten that he was in possession of Danny Bear, that Armand had not stolen him back. Armand did not bring it up, he could have. He could have forced Daniel’s hand, taken Danny Bear without asking, he could have used the mind gift to have Daniel bring him back and regift it to Armand. It would not have held the same value. Daniel had to return Danny Bear because he wanted Armand to have it, or else it wasn’t Armand’s to keep.

-

The best places that remained open late into the night rarely sold such comfort items. That is, 364 days of the year. But on Christmas Eve, in the year 2024, shops would stay open very late for those shoppers who had failed to prepare. 

The bright fluorescent lights of the chain supermarket washed out every vibrantly colored item on the shelves of the many toy aisles. Armand paced them, back and forth, for far longer than was typical of him. He refused to linger on any item, striding back and forth between toys, and shopping carts, and customers who hadn’t the faintest clue what their loved ones' interests were. 

Finally, when the aisles clear to very few shoppers, Armand stops before a shelf. It’s tall, it’s near empty. But there is a cardboard packaging just below his eye level, with bears. They should be many colored, but only two colors remain.

A yellow bear and a green bear.

Armand does not weigh out his options so carefully as he had with Otto. He reaches for one and turns away from the shelf towards the checkout.

The store is mostly empty now, nobody else queues for the checkout. The cashier does not look up as he approaches. The single yellow bear sits on the conveyer belt while Armand weighs his decision. Perhaps he should have picked a green bear. 

“Let me get this one,” a chillingly familiar voice spoke from behind him in line. 

His boy, always quick to pick up on a new trick, had managed to get the jump on him.

“Daniel,” Armand breathed, turning slowly to face him.

“Not really the one I expected you to want,” Daniel observes the bear, taking it from the conveyer belt and holding it out in front of him. The bear's white stomach has a yellow smiling sun. “Funshine never seemed your type.”

Of course Daniel knows their names, Armand thought bitterly. 

“I thought you’d have picked one of these,” he adds, dropping his own basket onto the conveyor belt. In the basket sit two bears, much like the one Armand had picked. These were not ones available in the cardboard packaging Armand had been looking at. 

A blue bear with a white stomach, and a moon symbol embroidered into it. 

A brown bear, with a symbol of a heart with a star shape inside the heart, and a moon inside the star shape, in varying shades of red. It is dressed comically like a vampire, with fangs, and a cape, and even small bats embroidered into its cheeks. 

Armand is staring, he is aware. He’s captivated. Softened slightly by the plush, vampiric bear.

“Bedtime Bear and Tenderheart as Dracula. Pretty neat, huh?”

“You know these bears?” His voice is devastatingly soft. It gives too much away. Daniel seems shocked. 

“What happened to Danny Bear?”

“You took him back.” Daniel looks confused, like he’s plucking at threads in his mind to find the memory. It was one of the many Armand had been forced to strip away entirely in his reshaping of Daniel’s mind. The argument had been too raw, too intertwined with them to be separated from Armand. “When we parted ways, I removed your memory of it. It was not something that could survive without the memory of me. But you kept him.”

“I kept him?”

“Yes, in your attic. Until your second divorce. He got left behind when you moved out.”

“You kept an eye on him?”

“I kept an eye on you, Danny Bear was with you so in a way, yes.”

Daniel seems hesitant to touch the topic further. He hands his card over to the cashier and gestures for Armand to pick which bear will be his.

The comical vampire bear is pushed towards the cashier and Daniel smiles softly. 

As they exit the shop, Daniel asks “What are you gonna name him? Danny Bear 2.0?”

Armand looks at him bewildered. 

“It has a name. You called him Tenderheart.”

“Yeah yeah, but that’s like. That’s the brands name, you gotta give it - him a name you named him.”

“Hm.” Armand had taken so long to name Otto, had taken no time at all to name Danny Bear. 

“You don’t have to pick now.” Daniel adds, wrapping his arm across Armand’s shoulder as if scared he would bolt away. Not an unjustified fear. “Think on it.”

Armand nods. “Anton.” he says, quietly.

“Anton Bear?”

It had been a name he considered for Otto. It hadn’t fit, but it had been a name he liked at the time. 

“Just Anton.”

Daniel nods very seriously. 

A month later, Daniel comes to him looking tired and guilty. Armand is sat in the lounge, Anton is tucked against the side of the chair he rests on with his iPad.

“Oh dear,” Armand reacts, passively looking up at him. Daniel sits himself on the couch next to Armand’s chair. 

“I lost him.” Daniel sounds so fragile. It's unnerving, his confidence has only been rising since his vampiric rebirth.

“Oh? Who?” Armand moves to rest beside Daniel on the couch, reaching to smooth the crease between Daniel’s eyebrows. Anton rests in his unoccupied hand. Armand's hand wrapped around his fluffy paw as if they were holding hands.

“Your Danny Bear. I asked my ex wife, I called my daughters, I visited the new homeowners for fuck sake. Nobody knows where he is. Armand, I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t aware you were looking for him,”

“I thought- I just-” Daniel lets out a huffing sigh. “I figured you’d want him back, I wanted you to have him again.”

Armand feels sweet affection blooming in his chest. 

“I could have saved you a lot of effort Daniel, it’s gone.”

Daniel looks pitiful and confused. Armand pushes his shoulders back into the couch to relax, laying himself across Daniel’s chest.

“Danny Bear remained in your attic after you moved back to New York. Your ex wife sold it at a garage sale four years later, it was the middle of the day. Someone bought it before me.” 

This revelation seems to upset Daniel all the more. “You wanted him back, you would have bought him.”

“Of course I wanted him back,” Armand drags his fingers in a nonsensical pattern around Daniel’s chest. “I could have bought him, I wouldn’t have. He wasn’t mine anymore. I wouldn’t have wanted him until you wanted me to have him again.”

Daniel stares past him for a moment, twisting a lock of Armand’s hair between two fingers. 

“I wanted you to have it. I shouldn’t have taken it back.”

“You’re overthinking things far in the past,” Armand kisses Daniel gently, then deeper.

“Not that far for you,” Daniel murmurs against his lips.

“Over half your lifetime ago. I have Anton now.” 

As if to prove himself right he holds the small vampiric bear up for inspection. Daniel takes it gently from him.

“Did you ever have something like that before? Danny wasn’t your first teddy bear, was he? Did teddy bears exist when you were a kid?”

“Not quite, but I had my comforts.”