Chapter Text
When Rashid (Real Rashid, Daniel still found amusing to mentally refer to him) had Daniel and Armand situated in one of the lavish guest quarters with blood bags for recovery, Daniel set to work on trying to get Armand to drink.
“Here, Boss, I’ve got you.”
“Daniel...get me out of these.”
“Louis wants you to stay in them.”
“Oh, then never mind.”
“You missed that. You’re not feeling well. Come on, drink up.”
“I feel fine. Lestat and Louis are incapable of killing people they have loved. I’ve proved it to myself.”
“Okay, but you’ve still lost a lot of blood. Your skin is so cold, Boss, please drink for me.”
“Of course,” Armand said accommodatingly and slurped from the pouch through the thick glass straw.
“Good?”
“It’s alright.”
“Rashid warmed it for you.”
“He’d always been such a devoted, if opinionated, servant. I was fond of him.”
“Really?” Daniel tried to remember what past actions of Armand’s could have revealed this alleged fondness.
“Yes. He took care of everything. Very competent, very talented.”
“So I guess we’re glossing over the fact he works with the Talamasca?”
“I’m not concerned about the Talamasca,” Armand said airily. “Louis wasn’t either.”
“So you knew about it?”
“Not about his connection to them, no. But it became obvious when you got the files you weren’t supposed to have—about the fire in the theater.”
“I’ve been afraid to ask, but why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I planned on wiping your memory and sending you away on a plane, with Louis’ desire to document and process his memories satisfied and a closed box.”
Daniel frowned. “That’s somehow worse than if you were going to kill me. Were you ever going to let me remember? And be with me?”
“I wasn’t sure. I wanted to put out Louis’ fire first.”
“I was dying of Parkinson’s, Armand.”
“I would have gotten around to it before the end.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Armand pursed his lips, thoughtfully, though as weak and tired as he appeared, it looked like he was pouting. “Well, what do you want me to say, Daniel?”
“That you’re sorry, and that if you had to do it again, you’d have chosen us, every time.”
“How would I know what I’d do if given the real choice to do it all over again? I always have hated that hypothetical.”
Daniel sighed heavily, remembering who he was talking to, and felt a small part of him chip off, detaching emotionally from the conversation. “Whatever, man.”
“‘Whatever, man?’” Armand mimicked him, with a derisive laugh. “What am I supposed to gather from that? Are you angry with me?”
“Shut up and drink your blood,” Daniel said, tapping the straw against Armand’s lips impatiently.
“Mm.” Armand drained four pouches before he picked up the conversation again. “I’ve had a very hard few nights. I don’t know why you want to have this conversation now.”
“I don’t want to have this conversation. In fact, I’m very good at not having conversations with my significant others. Hence why I’m an old man with two ex-wives and two estranged daughters, am now a blood-sucking demon, and am currently in a relationship with someone who I’ve recently found out I’ve loved since I was twenty and who has habitually fucked me and taken all memory of it happening from me because of his own abandonment issues and his fucked up idea of what giving me a good life meant. What do the mortals call that?”
“I don’t know. But Daniel—”
“You’re pissing me off. You’re tied up and naked, yet you’re still managing to piss me off.”
“Why are you angry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there anything I could do for you, Danny? Anything at all?”
Daniel wanted to tell him “no” and be passive-aggressive all night to punish him further than he’d been punished already, and for entirely unrelated reasons, but at Armand’s gentle prompting, he found his anger deflating. “Tell me you love me.”
Armand’s eyes were soft as he looked at Daniel, and it made Daniel believe his next words. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
“More than Louis?” he asked gruffly, half-jokingly because he wasn’t really worried about it.
“You’re a large part of the reason I don’t kill myself out of shame for what I’ve done to him. Or from boredom. The smaller part of it is that I have this belief that he needs my protection. It’s hard to shake, even when he’s very effectively causing me harm.”
“Yeah. He does that to people. When you two were using me as a bargaining chip, or whatever, Louis said I love him more than you. I mean, it’s true that he’s my best friend. He’s been my guiding light all my life—the only voice in my head that didn’t want me to kill myself. The love is... different. I guess I also believe I have to protect him, if only to keep his voice in my life, urging me onward. Or, let’s be completely honest, because he’s so shit at protecting himself in any meaningful capacity.”
“Yes, he is,” Armand chuckled.
Daniel was glad to see it, as well as some of the color returning to Armand’s previously so pallid skin.
“You look hot by the way.”
“I know, I didn’t think Lestat was so skilled at rope work. I thought Louis embellished his skills in every way.”
“Was he not so good when you and him...?”
Armand didn’t answer but urged him, “Hold me.”
Daniel complied willingly but also started feeding him another baggie of blood so his skin would be warmer sooner than later. “Was he better than me?”
“Are you asking for me to recall how good he was after 230 years?”
“So what if I am?”
“Are you interested in fucking him? I thought your eyes were on Louis.”
“He’s a violent sociopath, so of course I’m into it,” Daniel teased, kissing his neck before Armand could feel the sting. “Nah, I just see how you respond to him. I’m intrigued.”
“He has allure, unfortunately.”
“He’s more of a slut than I’d commit to.”
“You’re a vampire, Daniel. We’re vampires. Sex is the only thing that can be consistently interesting.”
“Hmm, yeah.” Daniel couldn’t disagree. This was true even for mortals. Commitment was never his strong suit anyway.
“Anyway, I like to watch. You remember?”
Daniel made a face, cringing at his younger malleable self, addicted to Armand’s whims. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Did you like to watch? Just now?” Armand clarified.
“It was hot when I was sure they didn’t intend to tear your head off, Twilight-style, but uh… I was worried for you. They were torturing you in your mind, huh? Talking to you?”
“Yes, but don’t worry. I was perfectly fine. I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. I knew they wouldn’t do anything to me I couldn’t prevent. Louis is soft-hearted. Even when he’s channeling his dark side, it molds around his loved ones accommodatingly. He wasn’t quite trying to ruin me. If he wanted to, I wouldn’t be quite so coherent now.”
“You’re barely that. And I think he did mean to wreak a little devastation. You were struggling there.”
“I had it under control.”
“Of course. I’m glad the blood is bringing back your inflated sense of confidence.”
“You really don’t know how powerful I am.”
“Powerful, sure, but Louis can play you like a fucking harp.”
“Mm. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You had kind of a fit of shame earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so ashamed of anything. Not even for making and abandoning me. Not for abandoning me my whole life.”
“I broke something I couldn’t put back together. Not with years to grieve or gifts or understanding or lies. I really do love Louis, you know— very much. I haven’t stopped. I really don’t think my heart is capable of putting an end to loving someone I’ve let inside it. I gave him my heart. I did. It wasn’t an offering without its blemishes, but I’ve rarely done anything of the sort. I let him know me. I let him have me: all my patience, all my morning thoughts, all my nights, all my warmth as if he were the only sunflower for whose sake my celestial star-body couldn’t bear to stop blazing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Armand answered in a mimicry of Daniel’s tone. “Stop saying that every time I’m opening up.”
“Do I do that?”
“Shh.”
Daniel hooked his chin over Armand’s shoulder and puffed out his cheeks as he sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay, though.”
Armand smiled, letting himself bask a bit in Daniel’s love for him. “Thank you.”
“So Louis’ not done with you, huh?”
“Evidently not.”
“Anything I can do to make you more comfortable in the meanwhile?”
“No, darling, I just want to sleep.”
“Alright.”
“Don’t let go of me. Warm me up.”
“Yes, Boss.” Daniel kissed him behind the ear and brought Armand closer to the head of the bed and lay him on his side, drawing thick blankets over him before shucking off his jeans and joining Armand in his cocoon of warmth.
Armand giggled and squirmed as Daniel kissed the back of his sensitive neck. “Daniel, stop it,” he said trying to sound stern to compensate for the childish sounds his fledgling was always so good at drawing out of him.
“You’re getting warmer,” Daniel noted with his ever-present parental concern, “but you need more blood.”
Armand enjoyed so many aspects of Daniel being an older man, now, with paternal instincts, but sometimes Daniel was fussy and made him feel like the fledgling between them.
But he didn’t snap. “I’ll be fine. Hold me tighter.”
Daniel obeyed, pressing his face into Armand’s shoulder and squeezing tightly.
The ancient vampire closed his eyes at last and exhaled the tension he hadn’t fully realized was still curled in his chest.
As he drifted, he kept his mind determinedly blank. He was good at this now. Behind closed eyes, he observed himself as if his body and the memories it contained were a vivisected cadaver strewn across several sterile operating tables and his consciousness was observing from several screens. No mortician or forensic scientist was operating now.
The magnetic pull of sleep let one screen flicker until it powered down, and then another. His consciousness turned away from the screens to face the dark room behind him. Then calmly he moved through the open door into the shadowy hallways lined with padlocked doors he had restricted himself from ever opening. This brutalist mind palace, much like a hospital or a monastery in its labyrinthine design and clean quiet, was not a horror to Armand. It felt enough like a home he didn’t mind returning to. He’d grown up in worse places.
He walked confidently among the shadows, ignoring the desperate cries coming from beyond the occasionally rattling doors. The residents therein would be fine, he knew. He was here to attest to that.
Suddenly, his foot, instead of meeting the floor, fell through the air and he was falling into an acid-green blaze with a pulsing black hole at its core. The flames, like ghostly fingers reached for him, and all he could feel was Louis.
Armand jerked out of his daze, heart pounding with painful irregularity.
“OW. Boss?” Daniel grimaced, jerking away from Armand. Upon looking behind him, Armand could see that the back of his head had struck Daniel in the eye.
“Danny,” Armand breathed. He tried to breathe slowly and slow his heart, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that his body recognized as fright—no...panic. Why was he panicking?
“You okay?”
“I thought I was falling.”
“Oh, yeah. That used to happen to me a lot before falling asleep,” Daniel said, blinking rapidly. “Usually means you’re anxious.”
“No, not like that—I fell into an abyss. It was unpredictable. That doesn’t happen to me. I am a lucid dreamer—my trances are in my control.”
“Nightmare?”
“Not really.”
“Are you okay? You look… scared.”
“I’m not, it’s just… this feeling.”
Louis had made him feel it earlier. Even then he couldn’t name it. It overwhelmed him entirely—blindsided him.
“What feeling?”
“If I knew, I’d be more specific, Daniel?” Armand said impatiently.
“Right, sorry.”
“It’s fine, I’m just a bit….” He strained against his binds to no avail. “These ropes. I can feel every fiber digging into my skin. I couldn’t bear to disappoint Louis, though.”
“Do you want to try going back to sleep?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Armand huffed and tried to make his head more comfortable on his pillow. “I don’t know. Tell me something good.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean amuse me with what you find interesting.”
“You want me to distract you? Bore you?” Daniel asked, flipping and fluffing Armand’s pillow for him and turning Armand to face him. “I think I can handle that. Did you know that the children’s book industry is being inundated with AI-generated illustrations and storylines?”
“I did know that, but I didn’t know you were interested in reading or writing children’s books.”
“What do you think will be the impact on all of us—I mean on humanity—when humankind is raised by facsimiles of consciousnesses?”
“I don’t know. If it’s a small comfort, since I know you care very much about the minds of the youth, there have always been those among us with a facsimile of a consciousness. I rarely glimpse a single human mind who knows with any accuracy what they want, where they’re going, and why they do what they do.”
“That’s not the point though. The point is art and storytelling and the intimacy of human creativity. The connection between the one who creates and the one who consumes it is one-sided but sacred. Don’t you feel that using AI for that kind of thing is breaking a kind of social contract? That it’s also eroding our ability to think and synthesize concepts without interference? The subjectivity of opinion and life experience is essential to anything meaningful that is created, don’t you think?”
“I know you’re asking what I think not because you think I think differently from you, but because you want me to agree with you.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not entirely. I see beauty and sincerity in the boundaries you place around validity, but the world has always been full of liars and thieves of both tangible and intangible things. Beauty is something that can be replicated and gestured at, and while we hate knowing something beautiful wasn’t wrought by hand or is an imitation, did we not think it was beautiful moments before we felt that repulsion?” Armand seemed much calmer now, absorbed in his own analysis. “It’s a kind of cognitive dissonance We only care because of our attachments to the human spirit, and our desire to feel like we have inherent, irreplaceable worth. There is no use in thinking about it.”
Daniel hated to ruin his maker’s calm, but he couldn’t help himself. “So you’d buy AI-generated art?”
On cue, Armand’s nostrils curled with disgust. “Absolutely not.”
“What if you can’t tell because it becomes that advanced?”
“I will always be able to tell.”
“Yeah, okay.”
A flash of anger crossed Armand’s face. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, I just think that the tech is getting very good, and if someone offered to sell you an alleged Picasso that had allegedly just been discovered, we’d have to consult a lot of people to rule out AI, let alone forgery.”
“I’d be able to do it. Even though it would be a pain in the ass.”
“So you agree?”
“Agree what?”
“That AI is bullshit and should be abolished?”
“That’s extreme.”
“Sorry, have we met?”
“Right, how could I forget? You are quite the activist, always campaigning for or against something, rejecting neutrality.”
“Neutrality isn’t real. Everyone has an opinion whether they’re brave enough to admit it to themselves or not.”
“Or maybe they’re above the issue entirely.”
“That’s another thing, vampirism doesn’t make you above it all. I thought I’d get there, but I think your assertions that it’s all basically a rite of passage for aging vampires are kinda bullshit. I think it’s something you tell yourself to feel better about your depression-fueled apathy.”
“I am not a vampire who suffers something as human as depression,” Armand insisted snippily.
“Right, that’s solely Louis’ occupation, huh?” Daniel said with his signature caustic smirk. “The Vampire Armand is far too evolved to feel such things, hm, even when it comes to the things he makes you feel?”
“It’s not depression I’ve felt, it has been misery and pain inflicted by another, not from any semblance of a real soul or a genuine conscience I convinced myself I might have. I had something taken from me and selfish and greedy as we all are, it created a pang inside me that I am trying to make go away with repentance. It’s a survival instinct even if it feels like a holy sorrow and compassion. If most emotions and actions exist in a gradient of sincerity and goodness, none of it is really untainted by uglier instincts.”
“You act like you don’t believe one can have an earnest or irrational feeling that isn’t motivated by something sinister.”
“I do—I believe love is something that springs from a fountain of lightbeams.”
Daniel took half a moment to admire the beautiful image Armand had conjured in his head and how sweet it sounded on his tongue before dissenting, “No you don’t.”
“I do. I believe in my love for you, especially. I never claimed to understand it, but I do believe in it. That it is otherworldly and unmotivated—irresistible, as self-conscious as it makes me feel.”
“Ah, so it’s a self-consciousness reflex that makes you claim not to care about certain existential questions. It embarrasses you.”
Armand pursed his lips. “No.”
“So you don’t believe in any of this that you’re doing? Apart from your love, this atonement or repentance thing you’re doing is, beneath it all, a subconscious ploy to get what you want so you can keep...what, keep experiencing the only real and pure thing—this love you feel?”
“Perhaps, my heart tells me I’m doing it for good reasons, not just for my own sake. If he rejects me, I have made up my mind to accept it, so logically, some part of me is acting in earnest, and I can believe in what I will do. But still I don’t trust it. I know what I’ve done is unforgivable. If I were as sorry as I’ve convinced myself I feel, I’d leave him alone.”
“But he doesn’t want that.”
“He doesn’t know what he wants.”
“That’s you and Frenchie’s fucking problem— you never fucking listen to the man! Louis knows what he wants better than either of you idiots if you two would just let him express himself properly!”
“I don’t like your tone, fledgling,” Armand said, hearing the truth in Daniel’s words.
“Shut up, you know I’m right.”
“How do you mean express himself properly? I imagine you think you’re the expert on getting him to do that.”
“Well, I know you don’t believe me, but I do know when to shut up. And how to ask the right questions. It’s why he took a shine to me. I should charge him a fee, as therapeutic as I am for him.”
Armand huffed. “Well, lucky Louis. Thank Polynesian Mary’s he found you.”
Daniel felt a little bad for badgering Armand so much when he had already been through literal torture, so he sighed to indicate he was done with the topic.
“Hey,” he said gently and kissed Armand’s nose. “I love whatever’s wrong with you. You know that, right? Like, I’m really into it.”
“Well, that makes up for it,” Armand pouted, hoping it would make Daniel kiss his nose again.
“I just wish you wouldn’t turn every thought or feeling you have into another reason why you’re a sociopathic monster and let yourself feel a little something when you have the opportunity. I wish you’d believe in your own sincerity. I probably trust you more than you trust yourself, which is a hard thing to do because the only being you trust is yourself.”
“I don’t know about that,” Armand admitted. “I’m not very good at very much beyond surviving.”
“Well, that’s not something to inherently distrust.”
“I’d rather talk about something else, you’re not going to crack my ancient maladjustments tonight and I’d rather you not try when I’m tied up under these circumstances.”
“Right, sorry, baby.” Daniel rubbed and squeezed his arm. It tingled as circulation livened within it. “Anything I can do for you other than bore you?”
“No,” Armand said with a soft and weary smile.
“You sure?” Daniel said, making sly eyes at him.
Armand chuckled. “Danny…. Well, yes. Play with my nipples.”
“Yeah, I can do that.”