Archive of Our Own ^beta

Over the past two centuries, Armand had observed a shift in the field of art. From the well-regimented academies that still clung to the Renaissance virtues, to the wild and lawless landscape of modern times, art transformed alongside the desires of the people who rendered it. Such a change had been inevitable once humankind fully embraced the drive to break free of imposed limitations, but Armand had always found the rapidly alternating modes of expression to be disorienting. 

Mayhaps Louis would term it ‘an inbred conservatism’ when he was in a less charitable mood, but Armand had enough class to not, in turn, point the younger vampire to the mirror for his blatantly capitalist commodification of art. They balanced on opposite sides of a scale: Armand appraised studiously, while Louis acquired boldly. An arrangement that had netted their partnership millions since they’d chosen to forgive and forget the shambles of their Parisian honeymoon. It was their later mistakes and hurts that haunted their lovenest in Dubai. 

One of those mistakes was, at this very moment, disembarking from a plane at Dubai International Airport with the express goal of reopening Louis’ old wounds. Oh, his love might have grand ideas about how he’d steer the narrative into his monument to truth and memory, but Armand knew their fascinating boy better than Louis could even dream of.  He’d forgotten that Armand had keenly felt the presence of the black hole called Daniel Molloy, that he’d found himself teetering on the edge of total exposure when he’d tossed ill-considered words and confidences at the boy’s feet before he’d caught himself. And even that had been for naught; five months later he’d found himself firmly entangled with Daniel Molloy despite his best intentions. First, as a threat meant to keep the boy silent, and later turning into a lover of sorts when the entertainment proved an excellent distraction from the bleakness of modernity. 

Death’s knock on the door had put an end to that, so Armand had fashioned himself into a friend and when that role became unbearable, he’d taken a knife to his own heart and cut his precious Danny out of his life. The wound had scabbed over, leaving no visible scars, though Armand occasionally felt the skin itch in discontent. He’d been many things to Daniel Molloy. One might say that he’d taken on too many roles for one man to keep straight, although a vampire just might manage it.

However, the problem with jumping back into acting after having spent many years in the director’s chair was that you forgot how difficult remaining an objective participant becomes when you’re part of the scene. Especially when you’d just spent the last thirty-seven years attempting to forget that your passionate affection for the villain of the piece had once far outstripped your attachment to the hero. The solution seemed easy: lean into your loyalty and dependence upon Louis, become the perfect semblance of servility, and lock all the dark and nasty impulses away in the depths of your soul. Erase the very essence of your soul if you have to. All to ensure that the villain will not recognise that which he’s lost and try to pursue it. 

A solid plan that required acting with full conviction and no detail left to fate. So, Rashid was carted off and Armand dutifully practiced the familiar expressions and behaviours of servitude, thinking back to the valuable lessons taught to Amadeo in Venice. 

Back when he’d been under the tutelage of the Maestro, every occupant of the household had a role laid out for them. Riccardo had been the leader of their troupe of boys, charismatic enough to cajole even the most contrary apprentice into action. He directed the rest of them to the tasks they’d be most suited for. Never Amadeo though, no, that honour had belonged solely to the Maestro. Amadeo’s role had been that of the lover, gentile and submissive, always open to give pleasure and listen to the Maestro’s woes when he returned from a long night’s hunt or despaired over the limits of his artistic abilities. Most beloved he’d been in those earliest years, but as Amadeo grew and developed, so did the role he was bound to. Suddenly, the Maestro required him less and their couplings dwindled into perfunctory performances. His services were extended to whoever the Maestro deemed suitable to invite into his studio, exchanging a taste of Amadeo’s flesh for a freshly painted canvas. If a muse could be a mouth, a hole, and a pair of soulful eyes, Amadeo had played his role to perfection. Even when the sickness had set in, he’d tried his best to please.

Whose desire was he seeking to sate right now? Louis made for a logical focus, his mastership transcending from the bedroom to the stage that had been set for their humble, ailing reporter. For all his hankering after truth, Louis was excited by trickery and danger most of all. It was what had drawn him to Lestat, after all. As for Daniel Molloy, Armand certainly couldn’t reshape himself to suit his desires. That would be antithetical to everything he was trying to accomplish. But he could perhaps tantalise…

Yes, he thought, studying his sober costume in the mirror with a hint of excitement. Show him just a glimpse of what he’d been missing out on. A hint of fang, nothing more.

*

Blessedly, Daniel was slated to arrive in Dubai before dawn. All the notifications about the private plane that Louis had chartered to carry his future biographer from New York to Dubai were sent straight to Armand’s iPad. Despite his resolution to treat the reporter with great reserve, he couldn’t stop refreshing the application to see the small icon move across the globe. For a couple of hours, he even entertained the notion of alerting one of Daniel’s mortal adversaries to his vulnerable situation and letting them have a shot at bringing the plane down, but dealing with Louis afterward would be too much hassle. 

And, Armand allowed himself to think privately, it would have meant a huge waste of past effort on his part. He’d spent the majority of the seventies and eighties discouraging a variety of illicit organisations from pursuing some kind of vendetta. In the following decades, he’d cooled it down but sometimes his hand had slipped … Who could say ‘no’ to a free meal?

When the plane got close enough that his mind was able to brush along the surface thoughts of its crew, Armand locked his office behind him, kissed Louis on the cheek, and donned the all-black ensemble favoured by the staff. He met the rest of the convoy down in the underground garage, presented himself to the unfamiliar guards as ‘Rashid’, Mr. du Lac’s personal assistant, and let himself be escorted to the airport with due diligence.

Under the lingering travel restrictions, Dubai International Airport suffered a downturn in passenger numbers, which had the adverse effect of security becoming even tighter across the board. No matter the privileges they held in the Emirates, the team was held up at security checks for what felt like ages. Halfway through, Armand almost laughed out loud at how his nerves had twisted his perception of time into human measurements, but he held it in, not wanting to arouse more suspicion and cause further delay. An hour was a blip in his lifetime, even if it was spent feeling like live ants were crawling under his skin.

Finally, he was permitted to access the elite lounges, although his progress was closely followed by more than a dozen watchful eyes. Armand memorised all of their faces and imagined cradling them sweetly before popping the eyeballs right in their sockets with the firm press of a thumb. Licking his lips, he felt a craving stir to life deep in his belly. If he spaced the chases out properly, they would last him for over a year. Unfortunately, that would have to wait until their guest departed either Dubai or this Earth.

As he entered the lounge indicated on the flight plan, he took a brief moment to drink in the desolate atmosphere filling the space, a near palpable hush hung in the air. It seemed like a presage of what was to come; the great silence after destruction. Armand’s gaze swept over the furniture, searching for its likely perpetrator. 

In the corner, a frail figure lay dozing in an armchair, gray curls drifting slightly with every exhale that came from the man’s open mouth. Exhaustion lined his face, even as he slept blissfully unaware of the predator in his vicinity. Armand froze for another eternity, simply drinking in the sight that he’d denied himself for so long. He recognised the proud set of his nose, the exact line of his jaw, his predilection for godawful shirts… All of it claimed by age, attesting to the great gift that Armand had once bestowed upon him. A true monument to time.

He is still so beautiful , he swallowed back tears at the thought. The backs of Daniel’s hands might be flecked with liver spots, veins laying like cords on top, but he could perceive in them all the great and terrible things that Daniel had wrought. Tonight, it would be exactly thirty-seven years since they’d last looked each other in the eye, and Armand could have imagined no greater joy or sorrow to mark the anniversary. A boy transformed into an old man with all the blessings of life embodied in him.

Somewhere behind him a piece of equipment clattered to the ground and the moment passed without any poet to immortalise it. Rubbing at his eyes with a gloved hand, Armand forced his scattered emotions back behind the wall surrounding his heart. He took a breath and finally got his stubborn feet to unstick from the floor.

‘Mr. Molloy,’ he called, reaching out to shake Daniel’s shoulder with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly necessary. (He tried not to focus on how brittle the bones and flesh felt under his touch.) Daniel stirred long enough to shift his weight away, a snore escaping him.

Armand huffed and repeated more firmly: ‘Mr. Molloy, wake up!’ He raised his voice slightly above the level that was comfortable for human ears and watched in satisfaction as Daniel startled awake. Those familiar blue eyes were hazy from sleep, but Armand could see them growing sharper by the second as they settled on him. He politely withdrew his hands behind his back and waited.

‘Do I fucking know you?’ Daniel asked gruffly, drawing himself up with the wary look of someone considering fleeing the interaction. Fear turned his scent acrid and Armand greedily drank it in. Oh glorious temper, how I missed you.  

He suppressed a grin, keeping his expression one of perfect civility. ‘Not yet, Mr. Molloy. Welcome to Dubai.’

*

Hours later, Armand wished he’d wrung Daniel’s neck when he’d had the chance. Some long-dormant specter of his boy that lived at the back of his mind sprung to life, mocking his fury as the vampire stormed through the hallways of the penthouse. Oh, how the flesh and blood man would relish knowing that the Children of the Night were fallible creatures after all. It was good then, on account of Armand’s pride and the pieces of his sanity that he was desperately holding together, that his Rashid disguise had held up to scrutiny. It took Daniel only a few hours to completely dismiss the assistant as having any relevance in the grand scheme of things. 

Exactly as Armand had wanted it, and yet here he was, nearly clawing open his skin to distract from the pure torture of being banished to the footnotes of the story he was a part of. The constant stream of Lestat Lestat Lestat falling from Louis’ mouth only served to underscore his frustration. For a moment he entertained the notion of lashing out mentally, slicing through the deteriorating connections inside Daniel’s brain and putting a permanent end to his humiliation. Again, he rejected the plan before it could bloom to fruition.

Instead, he walked into the guest bedroom prepared for the journalist’s use, grabbed one of the vases on display, and threw it against the wall. The violent urges abated to a manageable level, but he was left standing in a mosaic of shattered ceramic. What an eyesore.

Frankly not much better than the man who was already challenging the fragile peace of the household, Armand thought uncharitably. Daniel Molloy was a festering wound, literally and metaphorically. He was ruthless in his pursuit of the truth but bled inadequacy from every orifice whenever anybody tried to touch upon his past. No matter that he’d published a tell-all memoir, which Armand, for the record, had read cover to cover in a bid to refamiliarise himself with Daniel’s work. The entire thing had reeked of editorial interference: a rollercoaster worth of mistakes that could be packaged and sold to aspiring journalists who needed a false idol to revere in moments of existential dread.

Will I ever get the fixes that I need to become someone? 

Bristling, he recalled the cold disinterest on Daniel’s face, seeing right through him like he was an insignificant bug on a windshield. So ungrateful to the person who’d effectively made all of it possible. How could one be a paragon of truth if they lacked the memory to contextualise a major period of their life? How did he have the gall to come shake at the foundations of what Armand had so carefully built and maintained in his absence? Why was it always Armand who gave - blood, fortune, a long life - and always Daniel who took?

But that was about to change, wasn’t it? Armand realised with sudden clarity, the thought hitting like a bout of vertigo. Death was hounding Danny’s steps, and the grim reaper had no gifts to impart, only the eternal rest shared between the blessed and the damned.

Much help had already come too late, because Danny’s body carried the stench of the grave wherever he went, barely covered by the chemical miasma of experimental medicine. In the next few weeks and months, his body would deteriorate further, turn frailer as the disease made short work of his formidable spirit. 

Whether under his purview or not, eventually Daniel Molloy would die.

Sinking to his knees on the carpet, Armand bowed his head and began to gather the shards of the vase. Just like he’d destroyed the fragile work of art, Armand would have a front seat to the macabre spectacle of Daniel’s demise. He’d clap and laugh at the appropriate moments, hiding his secret heartbreak from the actors on stage. Then, when the curtain fell, he’d weep and moan, showing a love in death that was forbidden to him in life. A tragedy of his own making.

Wisely, he should learn how to hate Daniel now, so the ache of loss would be less when the moment arrived. Taking on Rashid’s identity was intended to be the first step but Armand could already sense the slippery slope he had moved onto. They’d barely interacted and already nostalgia was getting the better of him. 

Admittedly, he’d underestimated his hunger to be acknowledged and treated with respect. Even Louis seemed to grow more openly dismissive of his worth when in the room with Daniel. Yes, that was the role Armand had asked him to play, but it chafed all the same. Perhaps he’d perceived it wrongly: Daniel was the scabbed-over wound, unsightly but healed for the most part, and Armand was the festering wound, secreting putrid humors everywhere he went. 

His lip curled in disgust as he tossed the remains of the broken vase into the bin and paced the suite, checking if everything was in place for their guest. At least Daniel would get to spend his last few months in the very lap of luxury, enjoying all the comforts that he’d so frequently denied himself in his youth. How ironic that Armand never got a positive reaction out of spoiling his boy, while Louis had to barely bat his lashes to get Daniel to sulkily accept the privileged treatment. 

He gritted his teeth and let his growing fangs dig into the flesh of his gums; the blood that welled up tasted bitter. Hatred was too unsafe an emotion, he decided reluctantly, it bled over into passion too easily for his comfort. As his Maestro had once observed: his favourite only wreaked devastation when passion engulfed him. 

Another flash of San Francisco, Daniel’s sunken cheeks after days of malnourishment and lack of sleep. The dried blood clinging to him like a shell that Armand had to carefully wash away, so preciously fragile at the edge of oblivion. That brief taste of Daniel’s death on his tongue was what had doomed him in the end, the irresistible draw of the one victim that willingly went into his embrace only to be ripped away at the last second. He still carried the memory of that first taste on the back of his tongue, the flavour growing more complex as time went on. The beauty of that complexity could never incite hatred, but Armand had to close his eyes to the truth of what it did make him feel. 

His fury briefly turned inward like a great wave, then cooled as it met years of restraint and patience. Whatever challenge Daniel posed to him, Armand would navigate it with the knowledge that he held all the cards and his fascinating boy could never hurt him more than he’d done in the past. The spectre of death would wash away both their sins and Armand would continue to endure. 

He simply had to wait it out.