Work Text:
hey, my love.
No. Scratch that.
hey, darling.
No. No.
hey, livy,
haven’t heard from you in a while now so i just decided to check up. how are u doing sweetie? how’s matt (i hope i didnt get his name wrong!)? is he treating u well? maya told me the last time we talked that u are starting at the new magazine soon? how’s it going for you? are u liking the new job? i’m sure ur doing great. uve got ur mom’s eye for art after all. still it’s nice to hear that, isnt it? did u get my last email? u never replied. im sorry i didnt call back.
actually im in dubai as i am writing this to you and i don’t know if i can ever go back home---
The voice in his head drafting the email dwindles to a halt in a screeching stutter. Daniel closes his eyes for a second and imagines what it would feel like for his daughters to find it in their inbox one day. A day, it is dawning on him more and more, that will come sooner rather than later. Their father’s last word to them- a hypothetical one, sure, but for how long? Part suicide note, part hostage testimonial. Part desperate attempt to save his own ass from humiliation in his children’s eyes.
What a selfish, selfish bastard. No wonder Liv and May don’t want anything to do with him.
Daniel tries to imagine what the headlines will say. Daniel Molloy, 70, two time Pulitzer winning journalist, found decapitated in the 50th floor Dubai penthouse of the boyfriend of the 20-something year old he was apparently fucking?
A shiver of pure, nasty shame runs down his spine. Down, down and into his left arm. It starts trembling violently. Daniel presses his arm close to his chest, grabs it with right hand, tries to quieten the electric spasms but in vain. The half-smoked cigarette slips from between his fingers and over the steel railing of the narrow balcony, dispersing into the orange tinted afternoon air in a muted spark.
He sucks in a sharp breath. “Fuck.”
“Mr. Molloy.”
A voice trickles into the colossal hall, echoing softly off the high ceiling. It cuts through the mausolean sterility of the air, smooth and cool. Smooth and cool like the blade of a sashimi knife
“I thought we were done with all that Mr. Molloy bullshit,” Daniel grumbles. He doesn’t like how the gruff, sandpaper timbre of his voice rang. Unpolished, common granite beside exquisite, flawless marble- it didn’t sound right.
“So, you’d like me to call you Danny, is that so?”
Daniel hears the mischievous smirk before he sees it. Irritation and arousal both flare behind his ribs. Fuck this shit. “What I would really like right now is for you to leave me the fuck alone.”
He hears a snort. A tiny, elegant one.
Daniel’s request gets disregarded. Expected, really. Why would his personal space be respected in this fucking undead household now ? They get off on that creepy co-dependent shit. Someone walks in and comes to stand in front of the large table in the centre of the room, where his laptop and notes are still lying scattered. Daniel doesn’t turn around to look who (or what is it), he knows. He doesn’t hear footsteps, no, he doesn’t need to. He feels the diffraction rippling through the airwaves.
“Writing to your daughters, I see. How cute. I’m sure they are worried about where Daddy has disappeared to.”
The haughty condescension digs at the soft of Daniel’s stomach like claws. He has lost this battle well before he stepped into the sparring ring, his opponent knows exactly where his wounds are still raw. “None of your business, Armand,” he spits out.
Armand glides into the balcony, then. His perfect curls and perfect topaz eyes and perfectly arched nose and perfectly sculpted decolletage displayed by his perfectly billowy shirt. His perfectly infuriating smile. Daniel doesn’t know if he wants to slap it off his face or taste it with his own mouth. The tremors in his arm start acting up again.
Armand reaches out, immediately, to take Daniel’s hand in his own. Soft algid skin enveloping quivering, gnarled fingers. It didn’t look right.
He doesn’t ask for consent, of course. Daniel grunts in disapproval, which the vampire disregards.
“Tell me about them. Your daughters. You never talk about them to me,” Armands asks him, like he genuinely wants to know. Like he wants to hear him tell stories, like he cares.
“Olivia, my eldest- she’s 36. She’s a- a designer, a graphic designer. Lives in LA with her guy- his name’s Matt. Might be Mike, I think. And Maya- turned 33 last month. She has her own cafe. In Chicago, she moved there this year. To be near her mother.”
“Her mother….?”
“Alice. Jo and I didn’t have kids,” Daniel tells him. Though the more accurate answer would be: Jo decided I was not the right choice to have kids with.
Armand says nothing more. Doesn't prod or attempt to make anymore small talk, like they are long lost friends catching up. He just has his freakish nails pressed, a tad too explicitly to the raised veins of Daniel's hand and a faintly amused quirk to his lips.
“But you knew all of that, didn't you?” It dawns on Daniel a couple of beats too late. “You already knew that.”
“No, of course not. How would I ever know such a thing.” The attempt at denial was lousy, the dramatic show of offence hid nothing. But then, Armand wasn't trying particularly hard.
“Bullshit.” Daniel lets him know. “You and your Louis have been stalking me for fucking- half a century. You probably also know where my daughter's boyfriend’s grandma is buried.”
Armand laughs, a glassy tinkling sound. “You overestimate my involvement in all these interview shenanigans, Daniel. Louis wanted this, he orchestrated this. Not me. I have nothing to do with it. In fact, I never wanted this. I told you that.”
Daniel fumes. “Look me in the eye,” he leans in towards Armand, “ Bullshit .”
The vampire laughs again. He keyed his toy up well and now it is tottering about just as he wanted it to. He is so terribly amused.
“I don’t believe that for a second. I’ll never. I will shovel all the shit that you and Louis are dumping my way- I’m here for a job, I’ll do it- but you won’t have my trust, not for one second.”
“You are breaking my heart, now, Danny, ” Armand purrs almost, and the waning light of the sun catches on the planes of his aquiline cheekbones in a way that makes Daniel’s insides lurch. It is a feeling that hits him like the phantom smell of an old lover’s perfume. “I’ve waited half a century to see you, and you are breaking my heart.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Daniel protests, but the heat gets punctured out of the words the moment Armand uses his grab on his hands to pull Daniel closer. His indignation really stands no chance when he can feel Armand’s copper-flavoured breath on his own face and his cool fingertips are leaving a trail of goosebumps along his own sides.
Daniel doesn’t remember how they get there but now he finds himself slumped on the large slate-toned couch and Armand is towering over him with a knee planted between his spread legs. He looks up at the boy (Armand is a boy to him now, a beautiful boy. A creature of ruinous eternal beauty. Flawless and untouchable for a mere human like himself. If he was a god to Daniel before, he is an angel to him now), and his perfectly enticing, perfectly indecipherable expression. Though is it more like that of a decorous society lady or a seasoned serial killer, Daniel can’t decide.
That thought does make him wonder though, if this is it. If this how he finally gets killed, sinking into a plush couch and under Armand. He hasn’t even kissed him yet. He hasn’t even finished writing the email to his daughters yet.
“What do you want?”, it tumbles out of Daniel’s mouth before he can make a choice. This is not the first time he has asked Armand this question- he asked it the night Rashid was revealed to him and then every time he woke up from a fitful nap with another ancient memory from 1973 grabbing him in a chokehold. He asked Armand last night as he had his head lying on the boy’s chest, listening to the faint drumming of his immortal heart.
Armand doesn’t answer him. He never does.
“Why don’t you answer me clearly?,” he prods again, as Armand crowds onto him more. His overgrown curls tumble like a curtain around his face, blocking everything in Daniel’s sight that is not him.
“Why don’t you ask good questions?” Daniel feels Armand’s the vibrations of the vampire’s taunting whisper before he hears him.
Daniel murmurs, “Fuck you.”
“Oh, I will.” And so Armand bends down to fully press his mouth on Daniel’s dry lips. His eyes drop close and in a split second Daniel is back to being 20, heroin coursing his bloodstream, his body not feeling his own anymore.
They kiss for a few languid minutes, unhurried and indulgent. His hands start shaking a little as he reaches to circle them around Armand’s neck and Daniel desperately wishes he doesn’t break into another fit now, that would be embarrassing. He arches up to chase the metallic taste of his tongue but Armand pins him down to the back of the sofa. “You wouldn’t like it if I told you. What I want from you. You didn’t. ”
It takes a long, slow second for Armand’s words to sink in. Daniel snickers, then. Giggles bubble out of him, ugly and harsh. “Good joke. Great joke, in fact.”
Armand pulls back from his face, his brows knot in slight incredulousness. “I am not joking.”
Daniel laughs harder. “It’s not funny… to mess around with an old man like me.” He pulls Armand back down so he can leave tiny, fluttering pecks at the corner of his mouth.
“I am not joking.” The boy repeats, firmer.
“But Louis was,” Daniel tells him, “and I get it, okay? He was playing- uh, mind games with me. He wanted to win that interview. It’s fine, I got it.”
Armand presses down on Daniel with more gusto, his hands closing on the man’s nape. His knees bracketing Daniel’s thighs, his tongue plunging deeper and deeper into his mouth. Daniel can feel nothing but Armand. Armand on every inch of him. His hands and arms and chest and mouth. He can feel the hard line of Armand’s cock pressing down on his own. He can’t get it up as fast anymore but he still feels his cock stirring.
“I am not joking, Daniel.” Armand’s lips are swollen and cherry-red, the gold of his eyes glowering madly, “I’ll give it to you. The dark gift. Just tell me you want it and it’s yours.”
Daniel pants like he just climbed up five flights of stairs. His pulse is throbbing frantically, right against Armand’s thumb. “I don’t want it.”
“Do you remember when you were young, Daniel?” Armand mumbles into ear, “I remember. You. On your knees. Begging. Clutching my collar so desperately. “Please, please, please, my love, give it to me. ””
Something hot and uncomfortable rushes under Daniel’s skin. “I was stupid. I was 20.”
Armand kisses him again, harsher, rougher now. “Don’t you want it anymore, love? Don’t you want to live forever?,” he keens against Daniel’s mouth. His voice sounds thinner now. The steely, controlled veneer of his tone sounds like it is cracking.
Daniel’s reaches to catch Armand’s fluttering, cool fingers between his own. He pulls back for a second to look into his old lover’s eyes. “What will I live forever for?”
Something crumbles inside Armand then. Daniel sees it all- in the freakish way the amber of his irises flicker, the barely perceptible twitches of his lips and brows.
“What will I live forever for, now?” Daniel mumbles, softly, “To see my friends die? My daughters get old? To see them die? My career is over. I am sick- tell me, why would I want forever?”
But what about me? He isn’t entirely sure if Armand whispers that into his mind or if he simply dreams it up. Armand must’ve said to him at some point in the past. Daniel might’ve forgotten Armand but he hasn’t been able to forget how he felt. He was inextricably tied to Daniel's soul, he realizes now, only half a century later. Armand is muscle memory to him.
“I am old, I am decrepit, really, why would you want to give me forever?”
“Oh, beloved,” Armand sighs. He then presses a kiss to Daniel’s forehead, to each of his cheeks- “You are old, you are so beautiful. Have you any idea how beautiful you are?”- he presses feathery kisses along each wrinkle, each sagged fold of skin like he is making an inventory of the trails age has left on his beloved boy. Daniel feels like he would melt. All the fight and tension is seeping out from his bones, his body feels like air. Only Armand is holding him together. Armand could hold him together forever, he thinks. He needs nor wants anything more.
“What would I have not given up for a chance to grow old, with you.”
Daniel’s heart is hammering like it would burst out of his ribs and lay itself at Armand’s feet right any second. Nothing has changed, after all these years. “Fuck, baby.”
The vampire slides a hand underneath the man’s jaw. The fine blade-like nails are pressed up ever so lightly against the point where Daniel’s pulse is throbbing under his ear. Armand clutches his chin and tilts his head up. Daniel feels there isn’t enough air in filling his lungs. He grabs onto the thin silk of Armand’s shirt in a split second of panic- is this how Armand finally ends him?
“It’s funny, you gotta admit, boss,” Daniel wheezes almost, “How the tables have turned- if you had given what I wanted back then, we wouldn’t be--”
Armand’s eyes flare up. “I had given you a gift, beloved, fifty years ago. I saved you,” his voice cuts through all the fog in Daniel’s mind like a knife blade. He is enraptured. There is no escape. “I set you free, so that you could have a life . Kids, wives, Pulitzers- you’ve had it all. Now it’s my turn, my love. Give me this gift. Come be with me. Let me take away all your pain. Let us be forever.”
“ Fuck. What about- what about- this- this fucking body huh? I'd have to lug this fucking- rickety body around fore-”, the rest of his words gets swallowed straight from Daniel's mouth, as Armand gives him a last thorough kiss before sliding down to settle between his knees.
Armand swiftly undoes Daniel's fly. "Your illness would be gone. I'd take all the pain away. But this seasoned beauty? You've earned it, Danny. Why would you not want to keep it? I shall never understand how you mortals cannot see the that. You have had the blessings to live a rich, full life. I gave it you because I never had it myself. I don't know what it feels like to grow and change. Look at me-"
"-Shut up, you look like a fucking- Renaissance painting. You don't need to coddle me."
"I'm not coddling you, beautiful boy."
Daniel whines, high and desperate, "Fuck, boss, you know- you know- I can't resist when you call me that-"
Armand nuzzles his face into the softness of Daniel's lower stomach, leaving reverential kisses on the tender skin just above the waistband, "Then don't."
"And you sure you won't get bored of me? Maybe I'm not your boy anymore, just a cranky, curmudgeonly old bitch." Daniel thought he was joking but now he isn't so sure after all. No, seriously. Why would Armand still want him?
Armand peers up from under his lashes, the picture of a worshipful angel. When he is looking at him like that what choice Daniel have but to drink up every word that falls from his lips like it's a prophet's gospel. "You are more fascinating to me now than you were all those years ago. I want to listen to every story you have to tell.
"I've never wanted you more,” Armand whispers against Daniel's inner thigh, his fangs brushing the old marks he left there delicately. And Daniel believes him. A moan tears out of his throat, his head rolls back on the headrest of the couch. The fight finally leaves his tired body.