Chapter Text
The sun is going down over Night Island.
It makes all the marble kitchen counters glow orange, glints off the knife as Daniel plucks a ripe peach from the fruit bowl and makes a cut that goes all around the seam. He takes the fruit in both hands, twists to separate flesh from stone and-
“Ow!”
Somehow, with his turning motion, a sharp, woody part of the peach pit managed to slice an actual gash into Daniel’s hand, right at the base of his thumb. There’s some blood coming out. So of course Armand appears right beside him out of nowhere, wide eyes already locked in on the superficial wound.
“How did you hurt yourself?”
Daniel feels his cheeks flush. Armand genuinely worrying about a little scratch like that is not in the least surprising, but it still makes Daniel feel like a clumsy child. There’s no use fighting the inevitable, though. He holds up his bleeding palm for Armand to see better.
“I might be the first person stupid enough to draw blood while pitting a peach.” Daniel can’t help but laugh at himself, a little bitter. Armand will think he’s pathetic, hopeless, never let him touch so much as a butter knife again…
But instead of delving into yet another fussy lecture, Armand just lifts his own hand into the light.
“A blade that slipped while coring an apple, some time around 1520, I think.”
He points to a pale line running through the webbing between his left thumb and index finger. Daniel has noticed it, kissed it, but never thought to ask.
“Fruit is highly perilous to prepare in every century, it seems.” There’s a sparkle in Armand’s eye and, once again, Daniel has no idea if he talks that way to fuck with him or if that’s just what he’s like, even when nobody’s around to see. Then - “Give me your hand, Daniel. We don’t want it to scar.”
How often has Daniel heard him say that? How often has he watched Armand prick open his own lip or fingertip and felt the hot-cold-sweet sting of vampire blood stitching his skin back together?
The newest scar Daniel has is actually that gnarly one on his neck. The place where two pairs of vampire fangs tore into him to suck him dry in San Francisco. Well - it was mostly Louis, probably, and Armand still insists he never even got a proper latch. But Daniel likes to imagine it was maybe a little bit of Armand too, leaving him forever marked like that.
Otherwise, though… the cuts on his forehead when he drunkenly tripped on so many curbs, the burns from when he fell asleep with a blunt between his lips, his arms - shit, he’s seen what other users’ arms can look like - all unblemished. Like Daniel has been leading the most uneventful life.
“You won’t ever let me get any new ones, will you? Why?” Daniel can’t help it when his journalistic instincts light up like blips on a radar. “Normally, my body’s basically your personal science project, so…?”
It’s not a fear of change, that much Daniel can say, even when Armand is staying silent, bloody mouth still pressed to Daniel’s hand. Armand has always welcomed Daniel changing - the softness developing around his hips after he started cutting back on the coke, the way his facial hair has finally come in properly over the past couple of years. It all fascinates Armand to the point of giddiness. There’s a binder of charts and graphs with all sorts of details about his body somewhere in this villa, Daniel’s pretty sure.
“They would be reminders of your suffering,” Armand says after releasing Daniel’s hand, now fully healed. “I do not wish you to suffer. Unless… you would prefer to keep them?”
“Nah. If anything, it makes me feel like we’re more similar, like I’m halfway to being-”
“Daniel, please-” There’s so much pain in Armand’s expression suddenly, and fear of getting back into their old argument again so soon, Daniel knows. He reaches over to take Armand’s hand in his, a feeble apology for weeks and weeks of absence.
“No, no, I didn’t wanna… I just meant that you guys can’t get any new scars either, right?” It’s something Daniel has actually been wondering about, because it does seem that way. Even Louis healed up eventually, after his fateful trip to the roof - not a single mark left, though the recovery was pretty rough, to hear Armand tell it.
“If we can, I have yet to see whatever could leave such lasting impacts.” Armand looks through the window, across the ocean, his thumb idly stroking the back of Daniel’s hand. “Though, there are stories. Ancient powers that would destroy even vampiric flesh and never allow it to fully mend again.”
“Scary shit!” It comes out too flippant and juvenile. Daniel can’t even imagine the sort of force necessary to permanently harm someone as strong as Armand. He’s not sure he wants to.
Instead, he turns back to his abandoned peach, starts cutting around the pit again - very carefully and under Armand’s watchful eyes now. He manages without hurting himself this time, takes the plate out to the terrace, settling on his usual chair with his face towards the sunset. Armand sits down next to him.
“Thanks for telling me about the apple,” Daniel says. “You didn’t have to.”
Almost eight years they’ve known each other now. But while Armand knows everything from Daniel’s blood type to the nightmares he had as a child, Armand’s life outside their bubble is like a high-security bank vault. Daniel is sure there are reasons for that and he’s promised not to pry. He knows better than to ask about the larger, far more obvious scars on Armand’s wrists and ankles and back. This little, innocent one, though… It makes Daniel feel all warm and glowy inside, knowing one small tidbit about Armand as a human boy now.
“You asked to hear more about my life as a mortal.” Armand nods, mostly to himself, and there’s something wistful about it. “It’s only fair, I suppose.” Then he tugs up the right leg of his slacks, points at a small, indented spot on his shin.
“I was climbing a derelict old tower with a friend. A loose brick tumbled down the stairs, right toward her, and my first instinct was to stop it with my bare leg. She called me a heroic idiot.”
Armand smiles, kind of far-away looking, then undoes the button on his right sleeve, pushes it up. There’s a tiny, raised dot on the inside of his wrist.
“An alley cat who lived near the studio. Tabby with white feet, like she was wearing stockings. I would bring her small bits of fish and she would let me pet her. Until, one day, she would not. Her fang missed the tendon by a hair.”
Daniel can see it’s a lot for Armand, sharing all of this now. He’s doing the thing he sometimes does with his body - sinking into the chair, making himself look impossibly tiny and frail even though he’s got a good inch on Daniel - plus, the whole mind-bending, murderous vampire thing. His sleeve has fallen down again, palms pressed together between his own knees.
Daniel finishes the last bit of peach, licks the juice off his fingers, but there’s a bitter aftertaste to it now. He doesn’t want to make Armand feel like this - unsure and curled in on himself, like he’s waiting for something bad to happen. Sharing painful bits of his past only to keep Daniel from leaving again. No, he wants him giggling like a maniac while taking apart the toaster, smiling proudly as he buys Daniel another ridiculously expensive suit. But Daniel just had to go and ruin that for both of them. He knows he’s been horrible to Armand lately. Not taking no for an answer. Running off to pout for months at a time. He’s been so hung up on the one thing he can’t have, he’s started losing sight of everything else Armand has given him.
“I could never think of you as horrible, beloved,” Armand says, making a visible effort to look tall and happy again. Daniel isn’t buying it for a second. He needs to do something to fix this, something Armand enjoys.
“Come swimming with me, boss?” He stands, extends a hand to Armand and his beautiful monster goes along willingly, long limbs unfolding themselves from the chair.
They walk across the terrace, down the steps and to the secluded little section of beach that’s theirs alone. When they shed their clothing, Daniel thinks he can already see Armand relaxing a little, the sunset glowing in his eyes, bare feet digging into the damp sand at the water’s edge
The ocean is warm, soft waves lapping up at their bodies as they wade inside. Armand stops walking when the water level reaches his chest and just looks at Daniel.
“Beautiful boy,” he says, smiling. And Daniel just has to wrap his arms around him then, pull him close, feel that cool, solid creature go pliant against him.
“Let me try something,” Daniel says, the idea suddenly bright in his mind. He tightens his grip around Armand’s waist, lifts, and then - with the help of the saltwater or maybe Armand himself - Daniel is holding him.
They’ve never done this. They should have done this forever ago.
Armand is all over Daniel’s body - legs crossed behind his back, arms around his shoulders, sighing deeply into his hair, like some of that high-strung energy is draining out of him for the first time in ages. It leaves him draped against Daniel like a wrung-out rag.
“Did you sleep at all, while I was gone?” Daniel asks, half afraid to know. Armand’s reply is a quiet mumble.
“You were away for six weeks, Daniel.”
“That’s not an answer…” But it is. Daniel knows it is.
“Mmh,” Armand hums, like that’s unimportant now. His hands do something quick and elegant behind Daniel’s back, and then there’s an open wrist next to Daniel’s mouth. The tips of fangs resting just below his ear. A change of subject, a peace offering.
A shared comfort, Armand says in Daniel’s mind.
And Daniel turns his head, kisses the old knife mark on Armand’s hand before closing his mouth around the wound. Armand bites down and there’s barely any pain. He’s holding Daniel between his fangs like Daniel is holding Armand in his arms, like the ocean is holding both of them. Every mouthful of blood tastes like coming home.
And Daniel wants so badly to kiss all the other scars on Armand’s body, even if he’ll never know the stories behind them, wants to share his own, even if Armand already knows them all by heart…
After, sweet boy.
Yeah. After.
Now there is only the ocean, the sunset, Armand’s weight in his arms and the warm blood rushing between them. In and out like the tides.