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Armand had only ever wanted to be loved, to be handled with gentleness, with hands that sought his pleasure instead of his agony or his wrath. He wanted someone to smooth down the harsh jaggedness of his edges, soften his cut-glass ego with songs of praise and devotion. He wanted to be an altar that someone worshiped at, a vessel for filthy piousness, a giver of absolution if there ever was such a thing. He wanted hot breath and silent conversations and fingers that scratched followed by a tongue that soothed.
He thought he had found something close to it in Louis.
But the self-destructive cycle was always bound to repeat itself. It didn’t matter what his name was, Armand was always going to find himself right back here with blood leaking down the side of his face and an old wound reopening in the center of his chest as Louis walked out of their home, his footsteps echoing long after he had left.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, his mind whirring with thoughts too loud to hang on to one for long. Half-baked lies that would get Louis to forgive him or, at the very least, see reason. But that was quickly shoved to the side in favor of absolute anguish, disbelief, and disgust because he knew—as loathe as he was to admit—that it was really over this time. This had been the final fight. Louis was not coming back after the dust settled, and Armand knew.
He could taste it in the metallic sorrow welling up behind his eyes and in the back of his throat.
Seventy-seven years.
But Armand had never been an altar as much as he had tried to convince himself he was. Louis had never worshipped him or softened him in the way he craved. If anything, Louis made him sharper, quicker to anger, reactionary. He’d said things to Louis, cruel things that he hadn’t thought himself capable of before. Louis tended to bring out the worst parts of him, but Gods, Armand had loved him. He had adored him. He had craved him and controlled him and submitted to him, but none of it had been enough.
It was never enough.
“How were you so sure Lestat wouldn’t say anything?” Armand startled, his head jerking up, dust and drywall flying from his hair at the suddenness of the movement. “That night in Magnus’ layer. Why go if you weren’t absolutely positive he wouldn’t rat you out—?”
And Armand let out a bitter laugh when he saw Daniel Molloy still standing amongst the wreckage, eyes wide as he took in the damage around him. If he was smart, he would’ve left the second Armand’s back hit the wall, but then again, if Daniel Molloy was smart, he never would’ve stepped foot into Dubai.
He appeared in front of the boy in a second, the blink of an eye, the speed of it causing Daniel to flinch backward, but he did not back down. “And he’s still asking questions,” Armand whispered in a breath, his sharpness cutting the skin of his cheeks and spewing vitriol as soon as he opened his mouth. “Will his curiosity never be quelled, or is there more you wish to destroy. ”
Daniel scoffed, and Armand had never felt more fury in his life. “ ‘Destroy?’ Please. It was always going to end this way one way or another. You know that.”
“Maybe it would’ve happened back in San Francisco,” Armand replied with what he hopes is a dazzling smile, but if it looked half as deranged as it felt, then he buried any hope of success. “Maybe if you hadn’t been an addict selling his mouth for a fix, you would’ve had enough of a brain to see through me back then.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed then, and Armand’s mouth snapped shut at the sight of it. He didn’t like when Daniel narrowed his eyes because that meant he was looking. He was seeing Armand in all of his virtues and his flaws, his shrouds of the ages past and the sins that bear down on his shoulders with every passing morning. Somehow, Daniel could see all of it when he narrowed his eyes like that.
The boy didn’t flinch under Armand’s sharp glare. In fact, he took a step closer, effectively invading the vampire’s personal space. “Oh, but I see you now, though. Don’t I? In all your brooding, self-pitying glory. All your lies catching up to you now, aren’t they? You don’t scare me anymore.”
He looked so self-satisfied that Armand had to hold his breath and lock his muscles so that he didn’t snap his pretty, scarred neck right there. Daniel must’ve noticed the unnatural stillness because that infuriating smirk slipped a bit, the realization of what kind of monster he was in the room with finally dawning on him.
“Maybe I should. Scare you, that is.” Armand’s voice was gentle, a perfect mimicry of what it was that day in the apartment that slanted a little to the north. If he focused hard enough, he could still taste Daniel’s thick sweetness in the back of his throat.
The flavor reminds Arun of his sorrow. So much love to give, so much hope. All of it sent bleeding across the floor.
But Armand had been explicitly told not to harm him—nay even touch the boy this time, so he released a breath, his body rippling back to life with an enraged shudder.
“I’m not who I was back then,” Daniel replied, and there was a firm set to his face, a brave determination that Armand had always found striking, breath-stealing.
“I know,” Armand said because he didn’t know what else there was to fight with anymore. He could run around in these circles with Daniel one more time, but he had just lost what he thought was his forever. It had just walked out the door, and it was all his fault.
Daniel was right. He knew that it was always going to end up here.
He was in a daze when he stumbled back toward the armchair, somehow obtaining a glass of brandy, drywall crunching under his shoes as he simply walked over the mess, pretended that it wasn’t even there. He gestured vaguely to the seat that Daniel had taken up his entire stay at the penthouse.
“I know your laptop is rather… beyond our help, but if you want your question answered, then take a seat, Mr. Molloy.”
Daniel eyed him again, his lips turning down into a frown. “No more bullshit.”
“And what would be the point of that?”
There’s a moment where the two of them consider each other, but Daniel must see something in his face that he hadn’t before because he stepped further into the room, inching toward his seat. “So? How could you have known Lestat wouldn’t say anything.”
Armand smiled ruefully in response. “If there’s one thing I could count on in the whole world, it’s Lestat’s pride. It was wounded already, and walking into his creator’s torture chamber hand-in-hand with Louis was the final nail in his coffin. Forgive the turn of phrase.”
Daniel didn’t seem amused with his clever wordplay. “Uh-huh. You just… figured he wouldn’t say anything because… his ego was too big?”
Armand blinked. “Does this sound out of character to you?”
“You really loved him, didn’t you?”
Every muscle went still more. Of course, Daniel Molloy would see him. He was always digging up the things that Armand didn’t want anyone to see. That’s how they had found themselves in this fucking mess to begin with, and why was he even doing this? He hadn’t ripped Daniel’s spine out through his arse yet because Louis had told him not to, and he was so used to doing everything to make Louis happy—
Everything was for Louis’ happiness.
The interview, the theatre, Paris, San Francisco, Claudia, Lestat, Daniel —
He released a breath. The surges and waves of incomprehensible rage and desperation and loneliness were getting harder to keep at bay. “You presume too much.”
“Do I?” Daniel stepped closer to Armand rather than his own seat. The vampire couldn’t help but tense, a coiled spring ready to strike, a live wire, a ticking time bomb, but how could Daniel know that?
“You know,” Daniel started, taking another step closer as his hand reached out toward Armand, settling gently on his shoulder.
It wasn’t—awful.
“You don’t need to punish yourself anymore. Louis is gone, but that doesn’t mean you have to be alone.” And Armand didn’t know what he had been expecting from the reporter, but it wasn’t a tentative offer of comradery.
Sour regret and putrid acrimony crawled into his throat after a brief moment of hope. “Is this the bright, young reporter with a point of view trying to seek eternal life once more? I’d sooner spit on everything I have ever loved than want you.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes again, and Armand let his grip on his shoulder tighten. “That would make this simpler for you, wouldn’t it? If I was just using you for the Dark Gift. It would make everything fit into those neat little boxes for you, right, Arun?”
Armand kept silent, held his breath, trembled under his touch because he could almost be convinced they could be gentle.
“Let me in, Armand,” Daniel whispered, the hand slipping from Armand’s shoulder to his neck, calloused hands gently cradling Armand’s skin, touch almost reverent. “You told me the beginning once. Tell me the rest of it. I’m trying to—to see you, but you’ve always been hiding. First with the Rashid disguise, and then a lie that took seventy-seven years to unravel. Who are you, Armand?”
Slowly, Armand turned. There was blood in his eyes. He didn’t remember them welling up before they were already sliding down his cheeks. “I’m not sure I can answer that question.”
“Let me find your angle.”
“To be fascinating…” Armand wondered wistfully. Since Louis was gone, Armand would need something to pass the time, to stave off the loneliness and rage that was lingering just under his skin. It would get out eventually, and hopefully, Daniel would be far away when the bomb finally reached the last second, the gremlin come out to play once more as Louis would say.
“I suppose it all started with Marius…”