Chapter Text
“Come here, beloved,” Armand beckons him. It’s the first words either one has said to the other in nearly five hours.
Earlier this evening Daniel had asked again, in his most extravagant and emotional attempt yet. He had asked before, had begged in the beginning, until he picked up that it pissed Armand off on levels hitherto unknown in immortal creatures of the night. But the last time was years ago– ‘79, maybe?– and since then Daniel hadn’t tried to ask again, after Armand had thrown their new Canon against a wall and smashed it into a million shards of plastic and metal.
The spot, a little cafè on Rue Palatine, was perfect, the soft light from the moon sublime, the patrons not too rowdy but not quiet enough to overhear anything. Everything in place for Armand to finally acquiesce and make Daniel his companion.
Armand had said no.
Now, there’s something in the way Armand is holding himself as he calls Daniel to him. His hand tucked into the opposite shoulder, stroking slowly as if he’s caressing a wound, sets Daniel on edge. He worries like he hasn’t worried in nearly ten years.
“Daniel.” Armand’s voice is strong and powerful. “It’s time.”
“For what?” Daniel looks at him, confusion written all over his aging face. For a moment, Armand wonders which will appear first: worry-marked elevens or deep smile lines? He is grateful for the opportunity to wait and see.
“We have continued this game for too long, beloved. I see that now. You will never stop asking me for the dark gift, and I will never stop denying you. We must end this.”
“The hell does that mean, end this? Armand, this is, you know, we’re us. Ending things has never been either of our fortes. We tend to beat the horse until after it’s long gone, it’s our thing. How do you think this is going to end?”
“Daniel…”
“You’re just going to leave? That’s it?”
Armand inhales, stiffens. The truth is, if Armand had been smart, if he’d used any sensible part of his brain, he would never have grown so fond of a mortal. But Daniel had a way about him, an undeniable presence that spurred him into devotion for a living thing, and now as a consequence Armand’s whole body aches with the impending loss. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
Daniel takes this about as well as anybody might. “Alright. So, first of all,” he says calmly, “fuck you. Twelve years of, of this, and one simple request makes you say ‘screw this’, makes you pack it up and leave?”
“Twelve years of what, Daniel? Easy access to the best drug you’ve ever had, maybe? Twelve years of the chase, of you chasing death? Why do you wish for death, beloved?”
“I don’t. I want you, Armand. But if you don’t want me—“
“You know I do.”
“But you don’t want me to be your ‘companion.’” Daniel pitches his voice in a reflection of Armand’s, but with an added flair meant to hurt. Daniel can see his shot hit dead center when Armand’s chin dips low, a sure sign he is trying to keep his fangs from dropping.
“I want to be your companion, Daniel—“
“Sure,” Daniel says, rolling his eyes.
“—but it is not so easy.”
Daniel laughs, harsh, remembering the elephant in the room. “Right. How could I forget? You already have a companion. Where’s Louis tonight, Armand?”
“Do not go there,” Armand says dangerously.
He continues. “You want something you can own. And I, I wanted to be owned, obviously. But your marriage is a sham, you know that? Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t want you!”
“Enough!”
“I do– I want you, and what do I get? Cut off like a dead appendage.” Daniel can feel his father’s ire coming out, but he’s too caught up in the moment to do anything about it. “Fuck you,” he shouts. “Fuck you!”
“I am not cutting you off, Daniel. I am giving you life. You can’t see how this is for the best?”
“I hate you.”
“More than anything in this world?”
Twelve years ago Armand had said those words to Daniel, when their paths had crossed for the first time after San Francisco, Armand chasing the fascinating boy and secretly reveling in it, and Daniel running across the world for his life while similarly basking in the feeling of being chased. “I hate you,” Armand had spit to a terrified, slightly turned-on twenty-one year old Daniel, “more than anything in the world.” And then Armand had kissed him.
“No. Fuck you,” Daniel hisses.
“Daniel—“
“Use the gift on me.”
“What?”
“The, the mind gift. If you’re going to leave, then I don’t want to remember you.”
And there’s the look— like an eraser over a chalkboard, dark and blank. Good, Daniel thinks. Now we can both hurt.
“Take the memories away, or I’ll find some other vampire who’s willing to turn me.”
“No!” Armand begs, an ironic twist of their usual relationship.
“Then wipe me away and get the hell out of here.”
For a long time neither of them can do anything but stand silently and look at the other, the hurt passing between them, back and forth. Daniel is breathing deeply but steadily, angry beyond measure. Armand is noticeably not breathing, no doubt forgetting that little farce at the moment.
Then Armand huffs a pitiful laugh. “There is that splinter of coldness,” he says. “You would really ask this of me?”
Daniel counters back— “Do you love me?”
“No,” Armand lies.
“So you won’t do it.”
Armand scans the hotel room they’ve been staying in, a veritable shithole. There’s rats in the walls two doors down— well. There were rats in the walls, but Armand has significantly lowered the rodent population of this establishment over the past two weeks. But overall, a shithole with no meaning. The room means nothing. The time, 1:47 in the morning, holds no significance. It is only a place; it is merely a time.
Armand feels sick to his stomach.
“Come to me,” he asks Daniel.
“Why?”
“Come to me, Daniel.”
Daniel comes.
Armand kisses him, savoring the flavor, cutting off any more of Daniel’s snarks or demands. Daniel returns it, despite their argument, opening his mouth as he always does, his arms coming to wrap around Armand’s back in a sick mirror of their first encounter, when Armand was ready to drain Daniel dry without remorse.
Armand has not needed an invitation to enter him in years; inside Daniel’s mind, he finds the amalgamation of Daniel’s memories, thoughts, and feelings tied with him, with their relationship. He looks around mentally– over there are his memories of Lisbon, the first time Armand put his mouth on Daniel. Then Pompeii ‘79, the last time Daniel had asked for the gift and Armand had refused him, angry and unused to such relentless prodding. Then the older memories, back when Armand was… what is that word Daniel had said? Oh, yes. When Armand was the boogeyman hiding under Daniel’s beds, from room to room, country to country. Armand rifles through them, all twelve years of memories, the good and the bad, then gathers them in his own mind’s arms. He holds the images in Daniel’s head softly, presses his face against them like the precious gifts they are.
In a quick move, Armand bites down on his mind and takes a chunk out of Daniel, stripping years’ worth of memories away in the same way a nurse rips a band-aid off a young child. The devotion is there in the quickness, in the desire to not prolong the pain.
Outside of their conjoined minds, Armand cries bloody tears that track down his cheeks like rivers. It’s funny, he thinks. Armand is a well-trained predator; by the end of the chase, he always has his victims begging for the end. Yet here is Daniel, desperate for this little death, and Armand desperate not to give it to him. It’s funny.
A day later Daniel will wake up in New York City, with no idea how he had gotten there from Paris without remembering any of the trip and with more money in his wallet than he’d had in a long time. He will head back to his apartment to collect himself, and along the way he will pass by all the unknowns that fill the city that never sleeps. When he crosses paths with a tall, young man with dark skin and dark hair, he won’t bother to look up to notice how the boy’s eyes are a bright, gleaming orange. He will keep walking, eyes on the ground or the shops or the skyscrapers, everything else around him more fascinating than a random nobody on the street.
Although he doesn’t know it, Daniel will have died and his life will begin anew.