Chapter Text
Armand stumbled backwards, uncharacteristically clumsy and almost tripping over the chair, but he didn’t leave.
His shoulders are hunched and his eyes downcast, retreating back into himself. For his part, Daniel would have walked right out of the room and away from it all, but for the cramp twitching down his right leg. He is not prepared to risk standing and faltering on his way out, not in front of Armand.
But he does need to get out. He can’t stand to see the expression on Armand’s face, how lost and hurt he looks. It’s painful and it’s too evocative of a dawning horror Daniel knows first-hand, the tight pain of it flaring in his chest at seeing its twin. It’s the way Daniel felt when he first heard the words ‘progressive neurodegenerative’- when he’d been presented with the bleakest possible vision of his future and one where he loses the things most precious to him.
It gives Daniel an intimate insight into the place Armand is now occupying. Daniel knows a shitty coping strategy when he sees one. He even knows this specific one. Intimately. How often had young Daniel crudely swapped being lost in his head for being driven roughly back into his body? He’d always been able to find someone willing to help, and when he couldn’t, there had been other intoxicants.
As an old man, whose shaking hands couldn’t operate those same pressure valves, he’d started to struggle, started to find himself tipping into rage more often. He couldn’t even fuck it out thanks to lockdown, had turned in desperation to baiting right wing assholes on Twitter just to get the frustration out, like some goddamn geriatric incel. But then he came here and he’d found another cathartic way to lash out.
And hadn’t that been so awfully reckless? It’s get on a plane in a pandemic reckless. It’s deliberately pissing off a vampire who can kill you reckless. It’s so many bad coping strategies, he kind of wrote the book on it.
But let this be a line drawn in the Emirati sand, because Daniel has had enough of just letting bad shit happen to him and waiting for things to get worse. He’d rather press the red button himself and face it head on.
He replaces his glasses and makes himself look at the mess he made.
Something of that movement must make its way through to Armand, who straightens, his amber eyes alert and fixing on Daniel. The switch is flipped and it’s instant, the way he brightens visibly under the renewed attention, replenished with it, basking in the warmth of it, his body going long and lithe. It’s preening, displaying himself with the full knowledge of what he’s doing and how he looks. Daniel is fascinated, captivated by the process and equally the result. Armand is beautiful, he’s alluring and he’s so so tempting.
Now that Daniel knows what he’s looking at, knows what Armand wants, it feels unmissable. The way he’s been craving Daniel’s attention, the way he’s been hanging on his words, this whole time, performing for him. Daniel realizes he’s missed that, the game of it; being chased, the seduction and foreplay. To effect someone like this, to see it so crudely on their body, well, it’s been a while. So much of his life has been sex and desire, chase and danger and Armand is all of that wrapped into one tantalizingly complex package.
And Armand looks so good on it too, looks like he’s enjoying it, luxuriating in his body. He looks like he feels good – good with the potential for amazing – just the way sex works. Daniel knows and he craves it for himself.
Armand’s doing that self-soothing thing he does. Daniel had noted it very early on and found that once you see it, you can’t stop noticing those constant rhythmic movements. It stands out all the more in contrast to the otherwise inhuman stillness of his carefully curated body.
And so maybe Daniel had thought a lot about it. Wondered what it does for Armand, how it addresses some compulsion for soothing or self-stimulation. He wonders if vampires are especially sensitive to touch – quite possible considering their enhanced hearing – or is it just an Armand thing? For some reason, Daniel really wants it to be just an Armand thing.
Imagine how much fun you could have getting your hands on someone who craves touch as much as this. If it does this much for him, even from his own hands, it must be overpowering to receive it from the hands of another – so easy to overwhelm with sensory pleasure. But then Daniel recalls the other way he has seen Armand touch – today, with his sharp nail – the way he’d shuddered at it. Armand wants that kind of touch too. Daniel wonders how much he could take. How much does he want?
“All of it,” Armand answers, directly into Daniel’s mind.
Daniel jolts physically with the shock of it, the hairs on his neck rising, at being spoken to so intimately; no actual words, only projection. He knew vampires could do it, yes, but experiencing it directly is overwhelming. The discovery of it is so novel and intense that he instantly wants more. He wants to know what it would be like to open and be opened completely like that, so intimately and honestly.
But that’s not who he’s become and it’s not what this is. It’s not who they are to each other.
“Get out,” Daniel says for the second time, no longer mean and cruel, just sad sounding. It hurts them both. “Please.”
Armand studies Daniel’s face for a long moment and leaves.
Daniel sinks into the chair. He rubs at his forehead, trying to understand why Armand has done this to both of them. Everything about him is frustrating and ultimately self-defeating. Trying to understand him, even to communicate with him, is torture. It’s impossible. Every exchange feels like having several conversations at once. There’s what he’s saying, but also what he’s implying in the spaces between the words. It’s what he’s saying, but also what he leaves deliberately unsaid. It’s being conscious not just of what you are saying in return, but also what you’re thinking. Even more than that, it’s the way Armand is always saying something with his body too, with the way he chooses to present himself, controlling the way he is looked at. That says something too. Something without words, almost subliminal.
It puts Daniel in mind of that gin ad from the eighties. The one with the frosty glass of gin with ice. The ice cubes spell out the word ‘sex’, but it’s hidden, so you don’t consciously know you’re seeing it. You think you’re just looking at a nice G&T. Except suddenly, now you really want that drink. For the whole next week, you can think of nothing but that drink. You don’t even know why. It had been one of the highlights of his early career actually, seeing one of his articles printed opposite that ad. He’d felt thrilled to know people were reading his words with sex on the brain.
So yeah, that’s what it feels like to talk to Armand, to look at Armand.
Daniel sensed it from the first glance. Back then, it was subtle and it was Rashid; the way his eyes lingered, the way he watched, the way he provoked. Today the subtlety had eroded, one barb at a time, transforming under Armand’s overwrought attentions into some elaborate seduction. And then this. He thinks he prefers it like this. A hard dick in your face is a lot easier to parse than endless meandering diatribes of heavy metaphor and innuendo.
It had felt – it had been a lot to see that. To see the dirty proof of Armand’s desire for him. Everyone wants to feel wanted and Daniel more than most. It’s no small part of why he’s in Dubai after all. It had been knowing that Louis still thought of him all these years later, that he wanted to see Daniel again. Something about that stroked Daniel’s ego just right. To know that as much as Daniel had thought about that bite over the years, someone else was thinking of it too. And once he arrived, there’d been the way these vampires indulged him, treating him like their little house pet, that in spite of his pride – maybe even because of it – felt enticing. And now, to learn that however much Daniel had been cataloging and studying Armand, Armand had been looking – had been obsessing – right back.
It’s validating that Armand finds him worthy of such scrutiny, like they match, like they’re on the same level. Maybe even more-so, because they haven’t just been matching bets, they’ve been raising them. Raising and raising. Daniel couldn’t stop it if he tried. He doesn’t want to anyway. Why should he at this point? Why should he deny himself the things he wants? Especially the secret things he wants, that he keeps locked in a box. There’s no reason at all because there is no such thing as a locked box in this company. And isn’t that the most liberating feeling? To let it all out and let himself have it.
Because he could have it. Armand has made that clear. Whatever his own convoluted and withheld motivations, he is offering, he is wanting. It’s flattering because for Daniel specifically, sex isn’t just wanting the other person, it’s knowing how much they want you in return. That’s what really ignites him.
He’d developed a secret taste for it in his younger years, because while there had been girlfriends where the sex was good – sex is always good – sometimes it felt a bit rote, like a script. Flirting, going on a date or two, followed by sex, because it’s expected by both of you. And that’s fine, great even, but its not – it’s not the other very different type of sex he used to seek. The type he’d find in The Castro.
Young Daniel discovered that dating, dining and flowers will get you sex -yeah – but anonymous, no-strings cruising got you fucked.
And sometimes he needed to get fucked. He’d told himself at the time that he was there for the drug or story hook-up. But if he’s truthful, what kept him coming back after a point was how those men made him feel about himself. He hadn’t had anything to offer in return for a line other than his body, but that had been enough. More than enough. Because they wanted it. They wanted and wanted and Daniel got addicted to feeling desired that way. The way they’d push him to his knees and pull on his hair, all whilst running their mouth about blow job lips and just how good he was.
It was so validating to get it like that, to know he wasn’t getting laid because of some obligation a nice girl felt towards him, that he wasn’t getting laid because of his brain nor for his humor, but for him and him only. For his body and because he was a good screw. Because he was a desperate boy eager for someone to fuck him out of his mind.
He wants that again, needs it more now than he did then. He needs it one more time before the end, to be wanted like that, to feel truly alive before he isn’t. And who better than Armand? Daniel had given his body plenty, sure, but Armand doesn’t just want his body, he wants everything, his whole life and his death too.
Maybe that should freak him out, but it doesn’t, just like this turn of events should probably freak him out, yet doesn’t. Because in some sense, there has been an undeniable and increasing sense of inevitability, like it was always going to come to this. Daniel knows how the story goes. He knows his white whale has fangs. Fangs took a bite out of him way back when and now they’ll finish the job. It relief that it’s finally happening. It’s relief and something more, because it’s all so tantalizingly tailor made for him. Armand was right, it’s not just sex, it’s sex and fear. It’s not just death, it’s sex and death together. They both know what it means. Armand doesn’t just want him as a lover might, he’s going to consume him entirely.
It’s there in how he looks at Daniel, like he wants to crack Daniel’s ribs and examine him from the inside too. And for Daniel, being on the receiving end of that feels thrilling and singular. Not just because of the taboo, and not in a shitty abstract 50 Shades/BDSM fantasy way. No, this is a killer who can do exactly that, who no doubt has done exactly that on multiple occasions, who probably spent the night Daniel called him a rent boy fantasizing about extracting Daniel’s organs one by one and licking them.
There’s probably a lot of depraved shit Armand wants to do to him. Things that would draw him irresistibly probably, against all rhyme or reason, because Daniel has never encountered a forbidden thing he doesn’t want to possess and understand. He’s never been able to resist that very specific type of proposition, that while guaranteeing danger, also holds the potential for the greatest high of his life.
It feels like he and Armand could shatter the glass ceiling on all those highs, because the potential of what they could be together feels immense. Daniel heard his younger self tell Louis that he thought they had an energy together. But that kid knew nothing because it turns out there was this. Maybe it’s what he’s been building towards all these years. Maybe that’s what has been crackling between him and Armand these last days; the energy of untapped potential.
It had been evident today, how keenly they can feed from each other. He’s seen how they can use it to tear strips off and use it to make each other hurt. But he’s also had a taste of how they can use it to make each other feel good. He further suspects there’s a hell of a Venn diagram between those two things that, to put it mildly, he’d be curious to explore.
The questions are endless and his mind races with the prospect of how exciting it would be with someone like this, who could lift it all from your head – everything you want – and just give it to you in the perfect way, at the perfect time, piece by piece. Or maybe they choose not to give it at all, for their own amusement, and use it to torture you instead.
What a way to die.
It puts him in mind of Freud – that coked out cretin – and whatever he’d been getting at with the twinned sex and death drives. Maybe a vampire is the ultimate manifestation of that. Or it’s all bullshit and Freud was a misogynist hack, so fuck him and the subconscious cock he rode in on. Daniel doesn’t need Freud to talk himself into a bad idea. He was doing fine on his own.
But forgive him for being preoccupied. Death has been breathing down his neck for months. At least in Dubai, it turns out he has a pretty face. In the States, it was more likely to come hacked up direct from the lungs of some unmasked unvaxed red state moron. He’ll take fangs over that shit any day.
And it feels more fitting too, because Daniel likes to consider himself a certain type of man. A man who would rather meet his maker staring him direct in the flaming eyes, rather than cowering in a lonely apartment or hospital bed.
And what a death this will be, so seductively poetic, the gothic melodrama of it – which, yeah, maybe it’s a bit on the nose – but it writes itself! The thing he sought all his life finally kills him.. finally being consumed by the thing that has consumed him.. Poe would have given his right tit to go out like this!
If Daniel gets a say in his death, let it be like this. Let him have some agency in how it happens. He’s sick of being careful, sick of swallowing down his anger and frustration, sick of keeping a ‘positive mental attitude’, of drinking less, of taking his medicine, and for what? To eke out another fifteen years in pain while his brain withers to nothing, so he can die alone forgotten by his family, forgotten by himself?
Fuck that.
He’s sick of making sensible long-sighted decisions. He wants to make some dumb short-sighted ones instead. He wants to remember what it feels like to feel powerful in your body. He wants to remember all the ways his body can feel pleasure instead of pain.
He knows what he wants.
He gets up, limbs steadier now, and makes his way to the guest room. He knows what he’s going to find there.
-
Armand is waiting.
Daniel doesn’t say anything. There is no need. Instead he strides right into his space, encouraging Armand back until he’s flush to the wall. The vampire allows himself be led.
“I’m not the help Armand. I’m doing this for me.”
“Yes, that’s what – yes.”
Back in Armand’s intoxicating proximity, Daniel is doubly aware of all the ways he’s slippery. The way it’s unwise to take anything that comes out of his perfect little mouth at face value. But Daniel has something more reliable than words now, because Armand’s body is broken open, raw exposed nerves straining to be pinched, his body humming wild with it.
Daniel recalls the way Armand offered up his hard dick when he’d leered over Daniel at the table. Armand’s mouth lies but that didn’t. There’s a brief fantasy now of cupping his hand over that same erection. Gripping him hard where he’s probably starting to ache and hurt. Of making him say it again. Again and again. Making him spell out exactly what he wants. The way Daniel would not only hear the words but simultaneously feel the truth of them too.
But it’s not – he doesn’t know if he’s ready to touch. Not yet. Talking though, that's easy.
“You need me for this.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been needing this for a while haven’t you? Someone who won’t cow to you, who isn’t scared of you, who you can’t control.”
“Yes.”
“Someone who sees you.”
“Yes.”
“I see you Armand.”
Armand moans at that, bites his lip against it too late.
“Yeah, you like that? You like that someone paid enough attention to you, that they saw through you at last. You’ve been trying so hard for me to notice you, but you wanted more than just my attention, didn’t you? I think you want someone to take care of you for a change, huh? It must be hard being his keeper, planning your chess moves years in advance. It must be exhausting. You must want to let all of that go, get out of your head, actually feel and not just observe from high above. And what greater fall than taking a roll in the dirt with a mere mortal? What better way to debase yourself?”
Daniel makes himself pause. It’s coming so quick he has a head-rush.
“You like to do that Armand, don’t you? To make yourself cheap? Look at what you’ve got..”
Daniel allows himself one finger to trace Armand’s face while he speaks. He brushes it delicately across the arch of his eyebrows, over his cheekbones, along the edge of his jaw. Armand sighs, leans into it and murmurs something indecipherable.
“You’ve got all this, yet all you want to do it cheapen it, hurt it, ruin yourself.” Daniel withdraws the touch, pulls back for a moment. “Do you think I’m going to ruin you? Do you think I’m capable of that?”
“Yes,” Armand gasps, “You've already-”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I think I got close, yeah. I think I took a knife – not some blunt thing like you said – but a scalpel – I think I cut you almost to the quick. But, here’s the thing with someone like you – someone who looks like you. However much someone breaks you down, strips away the layers you’ve wrapped yourself in, you’ve still got this face and this body to fall back on. One last manipulative tool to use.”
Armand receives it with wide eyes. His mouth is open.
“Say something Armand. I’m talking to you.”
It takes a moment, but Armand snaps himself out of it, visibly shaking his body and licking his lips like some horny cartoon character. It’s pathetic and Daniel loves it. Armand manages to scramble together some semblance of composure, adopts the well practiced airs of one of his sly faces. He meets Daniel’s eyes with relish.
“It sounds, Daniel, like you may know something of that.”
“Oh darling, you should have seen me in my twenties, how do you think I know?”
“Fuck,” Armand says simply and with vehemence, dropping the facade like he was sucker punched. Daniel thrills at the response – at the word too – the quality of vulgarity on Armand’s lips. It feels satisfying to slice off another piece of Armand’s composure. “Oh, Daniel. You.. I can only imagine you like that.”
“You should Armand, you should imagine. I want you to. Hey, how about when I’ve gone – when you’ve done whatever you’re going to do with me – imagine it, yeah? Keep yourself warm with it for those endless nights to come.”
There’s a moment of silence, that they both breathe into heavily, while they think about that.
“I wish I could remember more of it myself, you know?” Daniel continues conversationally. “How it felt back then. I took it for granted, being able to use my body like that – how much fun you can have making it bend but not break-”
“Do it to me instead,” Armand interrupts greedily, “you can – you could do anything.. bend and break.. you are unable to hurt me.”
“But you like it to hurt, don’t you? And maybe I want to hurt you too. But I think you know that, huh? Because you made me this way. All those words, all that effort, all that projection about how much I was into it, how much I like pain.. when really it was you that was desperate. Isn’t that right?”
“No more questions Daniel, please.”
“Yeah, you’re right. You just want to be told now, not asked. That’s okay, I can tell you what to do. You’re not the only one who can do it Armand. Words are kinda my thing and I know how to play a part, to use it to get what I want. You want a taste of your own medicine? I’m going to drip feed it back to you, okay? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking about what I want too.. You wanted a taste of me? This is it.”
Armand moans, tries to push his body against Daniel’s. Daniel lets him get almost all the way there before he pushes him back gently with a palm on his chest and Armand goes easily. Daniel lets his gaze prowl lazily over Armand’s body, before bringing his head to rest in the dip between Armand’s neck and shoulder, almost touching but not quite. His voice is quiet and close when he continues.
“You hurt me and now I’m going to use you to make myself feel better. You made me feel weak and now I’m going to use you to feel strong. You get it? You humiliated me, so now I’m going to humiliate you back. I told you Armand, it’s all transaction.”
Armand rolls his head, seeking Daniel’s face, he’s inching forward, eyes focused on Daniel’s mouth, drawing closer and closer. Daniel leans away and out of his reach.
“What? You want me to kiss you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I’m going to give you that?”
Armand is silent and Daniel wonders if he’s trying to lift the answer from his mind, knows he’ll draw a blank, because Daniel doesn’t have the answer himself. He can’t decide, because it feels so good to have the power to give Armand something he needs this badly, but it feels even better to deny it. He remembers Armand’s words to him, ‘you like to feel strong Daniel?’ Apparently he does.
But then it hits like a thousand volts; he wonders if Armand could just take it.
“Can you make me – my body-”
“Yes,” Armand hisses.
Daniel groans involuntarily at the thought, because apparently he likes that too. He’s lost in his own head for a while.
“I could compel your body to do anything, but you said this was for you. I want that more. I want to be as you desire – anything Daniel – you can have it – please, just tell me.”
Daniel considers it.
“You don’t know who you are, do you, without someone else to tell you? You want to fit yourself around the shape of me.”
Armand’s gaze falters, lowers to the floor, and then Daniel loses track because.. because Armand is projecting an image directly into his mind – and okay, fuck – because that is another new experience for Daniel. And the content of it is -
It’s a literal interpretation of Daniel’s words – fitting around the shape of each other. It’s a flood of possibilities, all the ways they could. It’s utterly obscene. It’s easily the most intensely arousing thing Daniel has ever experienced. He shivers with it. And then the image is changing. It moves from easy fucking to precise kissing. It’s a visualization of Armand holding Daniel’s jaw, taking the kiss he was just denied. Being slow about it, his movements meticulous and lingering. He trails from Daniel’s lips, down his neck, until he’s kissing and licking at his pulse point. He’s repeatedly brushing his lips over the sensitive skin there. It changes again, this time to Daniel prone, Armand’s body atop him, covering him in frantic kisses, everywhere he can reach, pinning Daniel with the weight of his body while he presses them into his chest, down his arms, his ribs..
Daniel pulls himself away from the sight of it, refocuses his eyes on the room around him, because it’s too much, because he could feel the phantom weight of it, of Armand’s body moving against him like that, drawing out his pleasure and bringing it pricking to the surface. Daniel’s skin is alive with it. He longs for it, the feel of him, skin to skin, body solid against his own.
He longs for that and more still, because Daniel likes when it transforms from solid bodies to the part of sex where you open to each other instead. Where you stop being solid and start being malleable. When you get your hands on each other to squeeze and grope and spread apart. When you push inside with your tongue or fingers. He pictures it now, the two of them doing that, makes it rich and detailed and focuses it back at Armand.
It works. Judging from the sound Armand makes and the way he trembles, it works. Lightening fast, Armand projects back the way he’d spread Daniel’s body in turn, stretching out his arms and his legs, exploring all of him, shows him the way he would push between Daniel’s thighs. But then it’s blending, morphing into Armand spread wide, it’s Armand pulling Daniel’s fingers into his tight body, opening up beautifully, crying out with the joy of it.
Daniel wants it. And still more. He opens his mind entirely and encourages Armand to take it all. Let’s him see exactly how Daniel wants. How he has pictured it. How, at the moment where Armand would pull Daniel’s body into his, Daniel would bear his throat to be claimed. So that it’s both of them at once, taking and being taken.
Armand shudders with it, thuds his head back against the wall and then, unable to wait any longer, hooks his long fingers into Daniel’s belt loops and pulls their bodies flush with a snarl.
But, even after everything they just shared, the real physical touch when it comes – the shocking press of Armand’s cold body – wrenches a reflex from Daniel and he pulls away. He’s suddenly horribly aware that everywhere their bodies touched, Armand was firm and hard whilst he was soft. Soft where he used to be firm and soft where he should be hard. It's a part of all this he's been determined to ignore.
It quickly spirals, latching on to something vaguely wrong in Armand’s first vision. Something slightly off that Daniel had corrected. Because it had been the two of them, sure, but it wasn’t quite Daniel, at least not as he is now. But Daniel won’t let himself walk down that path. He doesn’t do inadequate and self-loathing. There is nothing there that he wants.
He does want this. He wants it more than anything, but he needs to do it on his own terms.
“Go sit down,” he says to Armand, who, sensing a change in tone, searches Daniel’s face, then opens his mouth to speak before thinking better of it. He nods, slips out from between them and heads for the bed.
“No, not there,” Daniel interjects quickly, because that had been another thing wrong about their fantasy. Beds are for lovers, for couples who lay luxuriating in each other, relaxed in their nakedness, wrapping around each other with open sincerity. And that’s also not what this is. Not even nearly.
“Go-” Daniel looks around the room, “- sit in the chair.”
Armand arranges himself at the desk chair, turning it so it faces towards Daniel. It makes him look small the way he perches on the seat. Daniel follows, sitting on the end of the bed, so they’re facing each other, on the same level, but with a safe couple of feet between them.
“What don’t I know?” Daniel says again, “What are you keeping from me?” Armand looks away. “Are you ever going to tell me?”
“No.”
Daniel shakes his head then lashes out, grasping the seat of Armand’s chair and yanking. Armand gasps as he’s pulled roughly closer to Daniel, lets out a high-pitched needy cry.
“Locked up tight, but oh so easy aren’t you?”
Armand breathes deeply, blinking slowly as the mask reforms around his features. He is truly beautiful. Indescribably so. Against the blank expression, the eyes remain infinite. Daniel knows they contain the truth of who this man is if only he could understand it. They’re luminous and shimmering, but not in the warm tones of earlier. It’s hard to describe how they look now and the colors aren’t right for it, but it’s like looking into cold rushing water, at tiny gold flecks tossed by the current. They look – they look like so much, but they feel like sadness.
Daniel is desperate to understand, wants to shake something or break something until the truth falls out, or until the two of them are rattled and rearranged into a different configuration, one that falls together in a different way.
If he had the years, he thinks he could spend a lifetime trying to understand Armand and never solve the mystery, never get bored, never stop wanting to delve deeper, because honestly he’s infuriating, yes, but he’s fascinating too.
Another deep inhale from Armand. When his gaze falls again to the floor a red tear follows.
Daniel watches it run, disturbed by the sight – not at the blood – but at the way it looks, the perversion of splitting such a delicate face so crudely. What had seemed carved from solid marble looks now as fragile as porcelain, the stress cracks threatening to splinter.
As close as they are, Daniel is hit with the distinctive smell of the blood. His nostrils flare as he recalls vague recollections of fights, a split lip, cold words. He recalls the sting of the needle, the euphoria of its poison and so many bruises, discoloring from age. It claws at the dark urge inside him that always grasps for more. It’s so strong he can see himself clearly; pinching Armand’s face firm between his fingers, holding him steady while he slowly leans in and extends his tongue to taste.
Daniel moves fast as if deliberately outpacing sense. He’s almost almost there when Armand jerks away, the panic radiating from him. His own hand quickly wipes the tear away. And the moment is lost. Daniel’s hungry anticipation tips easily to rage; rage at Armand’s cowardice, rage at being denied, rage at Armand still withholding.
The force of it shakes something loose and once it starts to tumble, the whole thing crashes together in his brain finally; why he’s here, why Armand is in the penthouse’s guest bedroom offering himself up so easily, sad but desperate.
“You want it to be over,” Daniel says, “you’re using me to break what’s left between you and him.” Finally, he thinks bitterly, the third act reveal, what Armand wants from the transaction. “You brought me here to destroy it all. Not a band-aid for a shitty marriage this time, but a hand grenade.” He shakes his head. “You really think this is enough, that he’ll even care? ‘Cause I’m not sure Armand, even if you are doing it with ‘his boy’.”
“You are not, nor have you ever been, Louis’s boy.”
“That’s what he calls me.. but hey, you know what.. it doesn’t fucking matter any more – his, yours, both – it’s all bullshit. I’m nobody’s boy, okay, I’m just.. convenient.”
“Daniel-”
“Just stop. Can you.. just-” Daniel composes himself, harshly and rapidly re-assesses some things.
“Okay, yeah..” He shakes out his hands. “Yeah. Come on Armand! What have I got to lose at this point?” He snorts, “Although naturally, I’m in a rapidly diminishing time window here, so let’s see what you wanted to show me.”
“I don’t-”
“Yeah.. I mean-” Daniel laughs, the sound of it tinny even to his own ears, “fuck.. it’s been a while, not sure I can remember what his looked like, you know? Despite how often I’ve thought of it, the ways I’ve fantasized over the years, so many times..” - The truth is Daniel doesn’t know if he even got his hands on Louis’s dick back then, but Armand doesn’t need to know that, and even if he does now, fuck it, the rest of it is true. Daniel gives an impatient shrug of expectation, does he really need to spell this out? Apparently yes. “So.. you wanna remind me what vamp dick looks like honey? Of course, my own inadequate human one got super unreliable around the time some other shit went down – sure you’ve clocked that too, huh? – so I’m quite the captive audience for getting hard on another fucker’s blood. So what do you say Armand? Show me how you use people to get off.”
Armand is frozen.
Daniel sets his jaw, injects authority into his voice and demands; “Show. Me.”
Armand convulses, his breath caught, body swaying forward almost like its compelled, like he’s moving independent of thought. It’s kind of mesmerizing in a disturbing way. His movements are frantic; spider fingers scrambling at his belt blindly, tugging it through the loops. His eyes are fixed ahead, unfocused, and the color has changed again to something paler. They’re docile but they’re determined.
Daniel leans back to give him space, gratified to witness the undignified shuffle Armand does to pull down his pants and underwear. He pushes them down both at once, just to the mid-thigh. Eager, desperate, cheap. Daniel’s eyes flit down coolly – nothing special, just a dick – he’s seen a few and knows how to handle it. Daniel spits into his hand, making it as loud and vulgar as he can.
He’s rushing to get there, wanting to get his hands on Armand at last, to break him, to unleash everything – all this anger, all this frustration – everything from this last week, last year, last however fucking long, all of it is coursing through his fingers as he reaches out and surges for it.
He’s going to wrap those fingers around Armand’s cock and make a painfully tight fist – tells his brain to do it loud and clear – but what his body actually delivers is a muscle clench which locks his fingers rigid. For a moment he’s too stunned to think, just lets the forward momentum carry him until he falls heavy into Armand’s chest, right hand dropping uselessly into Armand’s lap.
The torrent of frantic energy evaporates instantly and he folds into its wake limply. There is the horrifying hot, scratchy threat of tears pricking at his eyes, and so he burrows his face in Armand’s shirt, desperate to hide yet more of his humiliation, but he’s powerless against the sob wrenching from his chest. He’s hollowed out, spinning in space, not a thing to grasp onto and pull himself back..
Armand inhales deeply and Daniel’s head moves with him. He hears the air move through Armand’s lungs alongside the sound of his impossible heartbeat. Daniel focuses his attention on it while he tries to calm down, waiting for his traitorous body to reset.
As awareness filters back in, Daniel becomes aware of the twin sensations of one of Armand’s hands on his upper back, holding them firmly together, while the other strokes gently through his hair. Daniel tries to shake his head to dislodge it, knowing that this is not what he needs right now, that softness in this moment will break him, hinge him open in a way he might never recover from.
Armand’s fingers stop moving. There’s a pause and his body shifts awkwardly in the chair. Daniel looks down to follow the movement, getting a face full of his own useless hand splayed against Armand’s wilted dick. Something like hysteria bubbles up Daniel’s throat. He doesn’t know if it will turn to crying or laughing. Armand shuffles again and Daniel feels the hand leave his hair, sees it come into sight and then watches it curl gently under Daniel’s own. Instantly Daniel regains control of the hand, the spasm relaxing. “Please don’t,” Daniel thinks, “please don’t – I can’t – I’d rather you stick your claws in, anything but this.”
Lifting both their hands, his own firm around the outside, Armand curls their fingers and fits them around his prick. Daniel gasps in shock and then groans at the sight of it. Armand flexes his hand and Daniel’s mouth falls open because he isn’t just seeing this up close, he’s feeling it too – feeling it from Armand’s perspective.
He can’t – he doesn’t know how to process what is happening. How to understand it or what he should do, how to react. But then Armand brings his thumb to rub over the head, soft little circles, and Daniel stops thinking. There is only feeling. He’s moaning at the intensity of it with not a single care for how he sounds. He doesn’t really know he’s doing it – which one of them is – because he’s sure they’re both being loud. Armand’s hand continues to move – not hurriedly like he’s trying to get off – just a slow indulgent exploration of touch and sensation.
It’s exhilarating and overwhelming. Any distinction that may have existed between what is being sent and what is being received fades into one endless fusion of shared pleasure. It’s blindingly disorientating, unclear whose feelings and sensations are whose. The way they’re reflecting, like two facing mirrors, creates an endless stretch of time and memory, running indefinitely in both directions.
There is the probing sensation of Armand’s immortal strength and resilience nudging against the weathered edges of Daniel’s own tired body and he opens to it, drinking deep. It carries away the deep ache in muscle and bone leaving euphoria in its place.
He’s teetering on the edge of drifting somewhere blissfully out of reach when he feels the scratch of long nails across his scalp. He cries out at the feeling, the sharp lick of the sting layering with the steadily increasing sexual pleasure, so that it encircles them both entirely. It makes him think of the blood; the blood he watched spill from Armand, the blood he wants Armand to pull from him, the blood he wants to taste in return. All of it connected. Let the blood flow into his body and knit together the places that are worn, broken or missing. Let it take up home inside. As the urgency of impending orgasm increases, he wants it all; the taste of the blood, the taste of the orgasm, the essence of Armand, of everything that he is. He wants to swallow it all down, hold it tight and precious in his body forever.
The orgasm comes fast and hard, accompanied by twin ecstatic outcries. Daniel’s tongue darts greedily for the red splash that reaches his cheek. Sucking it into his mouth, he is shattered by a second even stronger wave of pleasure, biting at the heels of the still receding orgasm. He can do nothing but yield to the power of it, closing his eyes tight. It expands white hot, irradiating the malaise, grief and anger that was festering inside. It is replaced by a rush of pure joy, a feeling of limitless energy. He feels immense, like he can do anything – everything – like he could live forever.
He runs a tongue over his gums, chasing more of it only for it to hit him hard.
The singular power of taste memory.
He bolts upright to stare at Armand because he knows this taste. Knows it exactly.
Armand looks utterly wrecked, shell-shocked in turn, realization dawning over his face, eyes widening, as he lifts the thought direct from Daniel’s mind;
“This isn’t – oh my god – we’ve done this before..”