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Really, Armand didn’t even know why he’d put the Stein in with Louis’ photos. There was a common thread when he was forced to confront his own actions, and it was that his reasoning usually boiled down to I thought it was right at the time. The children of darkness, the coven, Claudia. Panic, preserve. It’s a rather suffocating way to live but it’d been 514 years, why stop now? How could he stop now, really? Silly. Silly thoughts about change and evolution, ideals so naively human he couldn’t help but scoff quietly to himself. He had a formula, he followed it. One doesn’t have time to change when all you could think about was making it to the next night without laying down in the sun and accepting defeat. And now he couldn’t even do that. Didn’t burn anymore, just tingled. But maybe if he sat out long enough—
No. He had been called a coward, by Louis and by Daniel, and really most other people who managed to stay in his life for more than a year, and he refused to let them be right now. So he would… what was it that Claudia had told Louis? Endure. Yes, that would be fine.
He rolled over on their couch, to which he’d been sent after his spat with Louis, and thought about Daniel. Daniel, who talked to Louis like he believed in him. Armand tsk-ed. Daniel who knew nothing. Daniel who was nothing, really. A boy he’d been admittedly, just a little entranced with for a decade in the seventies, now a man with his clever little quips and observations, and who was sleeping at the moment in their guest bedroom. I could kill him, Armand mused, rolling the idea around in his head. Not a new one, by any means, but it was one he always came back to. I could kill him now, while he slept. Or I could wake him up, make him look me in my eyes while I drank the life out of his body. Suppose I could wave my disdain for eye contact, just for a minute.
Would Daniel be surprised, if he woke up to Armand’s teeth latched into his throat? No, probably not. His thoughts were so loud, it was excruciating. All the time. Which one of these two is gonna end up eating me, huh? Louis wouldn’t, Armand knew that. In some respects he thought Daniel knew too, because the boy seemed to have hedged his bets squarely in favor of Armand. Louis had gotten better at shielding his thoughts, especially since the seventies. But Armand could feel, nebulously and inexplicably, that Louis was rather fond of Daniel. Still more fascinating than me. It was pounding around in his head, relentless. It made him want to vomit on the rug.
That week in ‘73 hadn’t been enough to figure out exactly what made Daniel so accursedly interesting. So Armand had chased. For years, he’d chased. Around the world, through essentially every continent and city their fascinating boy could conjure up in his mind. And he’d always caught up to him, of course. Watched Daniel relapse, withdrawal, fall in love with other people and somewhere along the way, absurdly, as if the boy had no sense of self-preservation at all, fall in love with Armand. That made him want to vomit too. And that, really, was what was fascinating. Finally something Armand couldn’t rationalize, no matter how hard he’d tried. It was insane. It was insane and stupid and ridiculous, to love a creature so devoted to tormenting you.
After they’d parted, sometime around 2010, Armand had been thinking about it, and it had come to him suddenly. He’d been in his and Louis’ apartment, —they’d been in Egypt at the time, if he recalled correctly. Sometimes memory really was a monster, even without the machinations of more corporeal, Armand-shaped forces.— and Louis was out for the night. His companion had killed without thought in the seventies and eighties, killed with remorse in the nineties and early two-thousands but killed nonetheless, and then he killed once a month. Rats or dogs the rest of the time. Well, it had been his night, and Armand was left alone with his thoughts. And the realization had hit him so hard he recalled quite literally having to sit down on the couch.
Somewhere along the way, likely in similar step with Daniel, he’d stopped being devoted to tormenting Daniel, and started being devoted to Daniel himself. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. It was good that Louis didn’t ask anymore when he came home to Armand crying. It happened often enough that Armand figured he rather melted into their sad, beige wallpaper in Louis’ eyes.
Armand had sworn to himself that he would not think about Daniel again, until he couldn’t. And in 2022, in his and Louis’ living (ha!) room in Dubai, he couldn’t. He couldn’t not think about Daniel, snoring softly in their guest bedroom. The whole interview, when he was masquerading as Rashid and now, everything rushed back. He’d loved Louis, in many ways he still loved Louis, and would likely love him until the sun exploded. Every now and then Louis would look at him and he allowed himself to believe that sometimes Louis loved him too, still. That, or it was Stockholm syndrome, and he didn’t want to think about which one was more likely.
He was deluding himself, to believe that it was anything other than Stockholm with Daniel either. Louis could leave, if he wanted. They both knew that. In the seventies, if Daniel had tried to leave, Armand would have eaten him alive. They both knew that then, too. But sometimes, Armand liked to pretend. He liked to remember Daniel begging him not to leave, begging him not to take his memories, to turn me, Armand, please, I love you. You must know that, you goddamn immortal idiot. You must know that I love you. Armand had almost said it back, almost. But he’d turned on his heel and left, taking Daniel’s memories with him, cradled in the soft part of his decaying, ancient brain. For the better, really. Louis would have hurled himself into the fire by now without Armand. When he’d left him, Armand thought Daniel might too.
He hadn’t. Because Daniel insisted on baffling him at every turn, Daniel had lived. He’d come close a few times, sure, gotten shot once during an interview with a Texas cult leader, back in 2002. And survived. Nearly overdosed on laced coke in ‘98. And survived. Like he was waiting for Armand to come kill him. Romantic.
Life suited Daniel, though Armand did think that vampirism would too. Not when he was young, of course, but now. Full of life, even when every day he sat dying. He had slapped Louis in the face, for God’s sake. Right in front of at-the-time-Rashid, who had felt his cock stiffen at the sight, and who had sat on the shower floor in his shared bathroom, fingers shoved into his own mouth to smother his whining. Armand figured, at that point, that it might be over for him and his oath to never think of Daniel ever again. He’d thought that as he felt his come dribble down his hand and thighs, after he’d come with an embarrassing whimper of Daniel’s name on the tip of his tongue.
Generally speaking, Armand didn’t find his own sexual desires humiliating anymore. In that regard at least, he knew what he wanted. And at the moment, unfortunately for him, he really, really wanted Daniel. Well, he was on the couch, alone and awake. Louis was mad at him. He supposed he was doing this. His pajama set was a silky red, and he reached up under the shirt to tease at his own chest. He was going to take this slow. If he couldn’t kill Daniel —Louis would be upset.—, he was at least going to enjoy this. Armand filed through his mental rolodex, going over his memories of Daniel for the first time in decades. He knew what Daniel was like in bed in his youth, frantic and submissive, fueled by drugs, terror, and entirely unintentional charisma. But what, Armand mused, would Daniel be like now?
Daniel now, with his pretty silver curls and his bigger body, not cocaine skinny and lithe like he was in his twenties. His glasses fit his face so well, sculpted with the lines of age. The sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows as he typed, his body hair in thick swirls down his forearms. Armand pinched his own nipple and gasped. Would Daniel take him, now? He had, sometimes, when he was young, but always with Armand directing from his lap. Touch my cock, beloved. Move your hips. Ah— yes, like that. Would the Daniel of today bend Armand over the back of the couch, playing with him until Armand’s body was limp and begging? Oh, wasn’t that a thought? Would Armand let him? Yes, he thought, he probably would.
Would Daniel have him on his back? Not inside him yet, just playing with his chest like Armand was now, making the vampire twitch and squirm. Armand could feel himself tenting in his pants. Daniel’s voice, a little gravelly, calling Armand easy. Oh, Armand wanted.
And what, Armand wondered, was Daniel thinking about right now? He was awake, his heartbeat out of the soft regulation of sleep. Armand could hear it. And suddenly, he could hear Daniel’s thoughts too. Surprisingly quiet, for the human. Usually, he screamed them. Armand stopped, straining a little to hear.
The first thing Armand comprehended, was his own name. Oh. In the middle of the day, when vampires were supposed to be asleep, Armand heard his name. Armand seriously considered praying that Daniel’s mind would wander in a similar direction as his. He could make it so, of course, implant some ideas in Daniel’s head, but he was pleased to find that he didn’t have to. Daniel wanted, too.
Daniel was thinking of having Armand pressed face down into his cozy guest-bed right now. Armand had to physically hold himself back from making a mad dash to Daniel’s bed and offering himself just like that. Oh, he was aching for it. In Daniel’s mind, he was soothing a hand over Armand’s ass and teasing a calloused fingertip around his rim. In the living room, Armand did the same. But he could have this! He thought as he sank a finger into his own hole with a light hiss. What Louis didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, or at least it hadn’t yet. And had his companion not done the same, over the years? The boys, every night in San Francisco. Could Armand have this, maybe?
He sank another finger inside himself, in a rapidly failing attempt to stop himself from going to the guest room and settling naked and shameless on his knees. Somehow, it seemed that thought may have transferred from him to Daniel, because the fantasy had changed. Daniel was at his desk, typing notes with Armand at his feet warming his cock. In the scene, Daniel had been typing for an hour and a half, and Armand was restless. Canting his hips subtly against the floor and receiving nothing in return aside from a little kick to his cock with the toe of Daniel’s shoe. He realized, suddenly, that Daniel was typing notes about him, because the journalist glanced down with a little grin and said “Disobedient. Needy. Oh, this is so going in the book. You’d like that, yeah? And I’d get descriptive, too. The vampire Armand, 514, on the floor at my feet with my cock aaaallll the way down his throat, because I told him maybe I’d fuck him if he was good.” Daniel hummed, carding a hand through Armand’s hair and tugging a little. The vampire keened around his cock, and Daniel laughed at him. “Yeah. You’d like it.”
The Armand of the living room had three fingers in himself now, and two in his mouth. A pillow between his thighs like he could only imagine a teenager might do. A teenager who hadn’t been him. He was moaning, a little wanton, listening to Daniel, who was listening to the sound. Thinking he might be crazy. God, Armand was pathetic. Oh please, let that little investigative journalists be taken over by his instincts and come fucking investigate. Armand laid his head on an elbow, shoving another finger between his lips and pressing back between the pillow and the hand at his ass. Footsteps. Footsteps, footsteps, footsteps— And then Daniel was in the doorway.
“Really feel like I should be more surprised. Louis not fuckin’ you like you need lately?”
Armand raised his head from his resting place, locking eyes with Daniel and slowly, removing his fingers from his mouth with a wet pop, a string of saliva still holding in between his lips and his hand. He gave a deliberate thrust into the pillow. Daniel seemed unimpressed.
”You were in my head.” He deadpanned. Armand nodded, sweet catlike smile. “And, Armand, you weren’t being careful.” The vampire’s eyes widened, beginning to remove his fingers from his hole, but Daniel shook his head. “Nope. Keep ‘em in.” Armand hastened to obey, whining when he shoved his fingers into himself so hard they pressed directly into his prostate. “Armand, I’m old. I spent half my life in drug dens. I am a deep sleeper. So why, do you think, did I wake up in the middle of the night? I woke up, because you are fucking noisy.”
Armand’s unnecessary breath hitched, and he blinked, slow and genuinely surprised. He had been trying to be quiet, but he supposed he had been lost in thought.
“I was confused, for a sec, but putting pieces together is my job, isn’t it? You and Louis got in a fight about the photos, probably not the fun kind where he fucks you til you can’t think afterwards, so likely not feeling particularly sexy after that. You listen, for whatever reason, to what Louis says. You’re sleeping on the couch. I can’t hear you and Louis in your bedroom, thank fuck, but the guest room is just down the hall from the living room. Your walls are thick, but your doors aren’t. And I hear you whining. Yeah. Whatever. Thinkin’ about some crazy makeup sex with Louis tomorrow night. So you can imagine my surprise when I hear my name.”
“I would apologize, Daniel, but—“
”No. Hush. Not done talking. It was just a pitchy little whisper, so I shouldn’t have heard it. Were you projecting it into my mind on purpose, Armand?”
Armand shook his head frantically. “Not til the end there. That was, ah, a little bit intentional on my part.”
Daniel did not look convinced. “Still being smart, huh? Well neither of us need that. Sit up. I’m gonna fuck you, yeah?”
Armand should have definitely stopped the babbling that flowed from his lips at the offer, but the impulse-control part of his brain seemed to be out of commission at the moment. “Yeah, yeah.”
Daniel chuckled at him, a little mean. He sat across from Armand with the pillow between them, idly sliding a thumb across the case and then looking up at Armand’s cock. “Christ, you’re dripping. Filthy.” He punctuated the —really very obvious, some journalist you are Daniel Molloy— observation with a torturous little drag of his index finger up Armand’s dick. Armand made a punched out little mewling sound. “C’mon, Armand, on my lap. I don’t have all day.” Armand scrambled to obey, settling down on Daniel’s thighs and pressing their cocks together, grinding a little frantically. “He really hasn’t been taking care of you, has he? When was the last time you two fucked?” Armand’s thoughts were floaty and incoherent with the feeling of Daniel’s body against his, and Daniel had to grip his hips to bring him back to earth. Not that Daniel could even dream of controlling Armand’s movements, but the sentiment had him dripping precome against their stomachs anyway. “Asked you a question.”
”Two— two weeks ago, I think.”
“Poor baby. Two weeks without getting fucked and he’s humping a pillow thinking of the houseguest. You’re on the record now, Armand. Rather unprofessional of you, no?” Daniel slid a hand up the vampire’s side, squeezing his pec and flicking a nipple with his thumbnail. Armand’s hips jolted involuntarily. “Sensitive tits. Good to know.” Armand dropped his head to Daniel’s shoulder and whimpered. Daniel focused his attention on Armand’s chest, leaning down to suck and bite on Armand’s left nipple, circling the other teasingly. Every tap against the sensitive bud made Armand shiver like he’d never been touched. “If you want me inside, you’re gonna have to ride. I don’t have the twink back I used to, human aging and all.” Armand didn’t need to be told twice, lifting his hips and sinking a little too fast onto Daniel’s cock. Daniel groaned, petting Armand’s hair as he adjusted to the stretch. Daniel was so big, he’d forgotten, somehow, but he was recovering his memory quick and he gave an experimental lift of his hips and sank back down into Daniel’s lap.
“Two weeks, you sure you ever done this before at all, babe? You’re tight like it’s your first time.” Armand gasped, sharper than he’d expected. He ground back onto Daniel, a little weak. “Oh, you like that? Like the idea that this is all new to you?” Daniel thrust his hips up into Armand.
“Yes, I— please?”
Daniel hummed. “Well, I have heard that it’s comfortable for virgins to ride, so ride for me baby.” And God, Armand did. Snapping his hips up and down on Daniel, sometimes swiveling a little, letting Daniel stroke his hair and help lift up his hips. Armand was taking huge, heaving breaths that he didn’t need, Daniel was taking soft, little gasps that he did need, and Armand knew he should be embarrassed, but he was so close.
“Daniel, I’m gonna come, please, Daniel…”
“Are you now? It’s your first time, so that’s normal. You can come, but you aren’t gonna stop until I do too, hm?”
”Yes. yesyesyesyes.”
It didn’t take long, with the two of them grinding in time, and with Daniel’s hands pressing down on his nipples, for Armand to come with a pitchy little whine, at which point he slapped a hand over his mouth.
“You want it inside, Armand?”
Armand gave him a frantic nod, hips still stuttering on Daniel’s cock.
“Ask for it.”
Armand literally collapsed onto Daniel at that, and he could feel himself hardening a little again already. Fucking vampire stamina, vampire sensitivity, getting hard at being told to beg. The cynical Armand of this evening would be cursing the Armand of right now for doing any of this. Well, Armand supposed, with a crassness rarely heard in his own inner monologue, fuck that guy.
”Please, Daniel please, fill me, please!”
”I dunno, baby, you seem pretty full already.” Daniel replies in an impressive show of will and evenness. “Might have to get more specific.”
Armand grips Daniel’s shoulders, claws pricking hard into soft human flesh. Daniel doesn’t seem to mind.
“Come, oh!, inside me, please, I need to feel it in me, please.”
”That’s good, babe.”
And with that Daniel spilled inside of Armand, deep in the vampire’s belly, and when Armand lifted himself slowly off Daniel’s lap, Daniel pressed two fingers to Armand’s hole, plugging his come inside him. Armand squirmed. “C’mon, you want it to take, don’t you?” Armand nodded, whining. He let himself be shoved back onto the couch, let Daniel lift his hips so his seed didn’t leak out. Daniel poked Armand on the tip of his nose, and stood to put on his t-shirt and boxers with a grin.
“Clean up your mess, yeah? Wouldn’t want the love of your life to know what we did, would you?”
Armand thought, suddenly and before he could shove it back down, that the love of his life did know what they did, because he was the one doing it. No. Not touching that right now. He responded with a faraway “Mhm”, which seemed to satisfy Daniel, who turned on his bare heel and walked out of the room.