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“Daniel.”
No.
“Daniel. Beloved, wake up.”
No, Daniel’s mind supplied again as it was dragged slowly and painfully into a fully awake state. Emphasis on the painfully part. Hating waking up was nothing out of the ordinary for him, but the feeling of being ineffectually impaled between the eyes over and over again with a dull pair of craft scissors was new. Well, not really, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t been drinking last night. Had he? As his addled brain struggled to recall anything about the day before, he gradually became aware of the damp, cold sheets tangled hopelessly around his limbs and the dry sensation that seemed to spread from his mouth all the way down his throat. He shivered as night air hit his sweaty face and used all his meagre strength to pry his uncooperative eyes open.
Oh God, seeing felt terrible. He closed his eyes for a second against a sudden onslaught of nausea, then forced them back open and attempted to focus on anything in his blurry room. He squinted at the glowing red numbers on the clock on his bedside table. 1:09AM. Wait, why the hell was he awake again? As his stinging eyes began to adjust to the dark, he noticed another light in his bedroom. Two reflective, orange ones, to be precise, which were attached to a spindly, ill-defined figure lurking in a shadowy corner. Oh, right. That would explain the cold air that was currently assaulting him. Look, he got the whole creepy, undead creature of the night thing, he really did, and he could appreciate it, but would it kill Armand to have the courtesy to at least shut the window behind him once in a while? It was January, for God’s sake.
He jumped when the window suddenly slammed shut in response to his thoughts, his heart still hammering when the latch on it quietly and politely clicked itself back into place a moment later.
“Daniel, I want you to show me how to use the new, small oven you’ve procured for your kitchen. The variety of dials is compelling, but it did not seem to respond regardless of which way I turned them.”
Daniel made a pained noise, the prospect of getting out of bed and showing Armand how to plug in a toaster oven sounding about as achievable as climbing Mount Everest in his current state. “No,” he groaned, or at least tried to, but the voice that came out of his scratchy throat sounded like it belonged to some kind of ghoul. Not the stylish kind of ghoul that smelled amazing and spoke with a smooth, unplaceable accent and extensive vocabulary, though. More like the decrepit, decades-old Halloween decoration variety of ghoul. Those shiny orange lights narrowed at him in suspicion and suddenly the shadowy figure was looming over Daniel’s bedside. The slender hand that pressed against his forehead somehow seemed even icier than usual despite the fact that Daniel already felt freezing cold, and he tried in vain to burrow further into the tangled mess of bedding he was trapped in.
After a few moments of expectant silence, he registered the fact that Armand had just said something to him. He was probably supposed to respond to that, but he had been too distracted thinking about how nice and soothing the sound of Armand’s voice was to actually pay attention to what was said.
“Hmm?”
“Are you ill?” Armand repeated, and despite his fuzzy mind, Daniel was able to pick up on the note of anxiety in his quiet voice this time. Daniel managed to partially free one of his arms from the increasingly entangled web of sheets and blankets and clumsily grabbed ahold of Armand’s hand, which was still on Daniel’s forehead. The coldness of it was actually kind of like a soothing ice pack right against where Daniel’s head was pounding, so he held it there.
“‘M fine,” he mumbled, still sounding absolutely terrible. Was he ill? Foggily, the events of the day before began to return to him. He remembered getting home from work last night and not having the energy to reheat the leftover pizza in his fridge with his new toaster oven, instead opting to take a couple painkillers for his mounting headache before passing out in bed around 6:30pm. “Guess I am sick, though. Prob’ly just the flu or something,” he muttered into his pillow.
“The flu.” Armand didn’t sound at all calmed by Daniel’s explanation. In fact, he sounded worse. “Alright,” he said after a long exhale he didn’t need, sounding far from it. “I’ll find a doctor for you. I don’t know any in San Francisco, but a good one shouldn’t be too difficult to find at a hospital. I can compel them to–”
“Wha? No, don’t go,” Daniel whined, holding onto Armand’s wrist as hard as he could to prevent him from leaving, which wasn’t very hard at all, but Armand still stopped. “Don’ need to kidnap a doctor. Said I’m fine.” Armand stared at him with big, wet-looking yellow eyes.
“Daniel, you don’t seem to grasp how fragile your life is. If I allow this disease to go untreated, you could…”
Daniel scoffed and tried to roll his eyes, which he immediately regretted as the room started spinning worse than ever and the pain in his head increased tenfold. Still, he squeezed his eyes shut and powered through. “Yeah, in the fuckin’ dark ages maybe.” He ignored Armand scoffing back at him. Medicine exists now. If you’re really that concerned about treating me, you could just go get me the bottle of flu medicine in my bathroom cabinet. He thought the rest of what he had to say loudly at Armand, finding that speaking out loud was quickly becoming too taxing and nauseating. The answering intrusion of Armand rooting around in his head for the exact appearance and location of the bottle didn’t exactly help his vertigo, but at least having a specific task seemed to help Armand calm down a bit as he left the room with unnatural speed.
Armand was gone for a little longer than Daniel expected, and he was just beginning to wonder whether their entire exchange had been a fever-induced hallucination when Armand rematerialized with the medicine, a spoon, and a large glass of water in hand as well as a bag of saltine crackers Daniel hadn’t known he owned tucked under his arm. He sat down on Daniel’s bed and gingerly pulled him into a sitting position against the headboard, then poured out a spoonful of medicine, all without a word. He proceeded to grab the side of Daniel’s head with one hand, tilting his chin back as he held the spoon up to his mouth with the other.
Daniel tried half-heartedly to escape from Armand’s grip, though he knew that trying to overpower Armand and pretending he objected to Armand manhandling him were both pointless endeavours. “Can do it myself,” he groused.
“Shhh,” Armand soothed as the thumb that was holding Daniel’s chin began to stroke his jaw gently, the sharp fingernail raking over his stubble. “You said I could look after you.” Daniel’s head might not have been all there at the moment, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t said that. Whatever. He didn’t have the fortitude to keep pretending he didn’t enjoy Armand doting on him. He opened his mouth for Armand, who stared back at him with those slightly unsettling eyes as he softly thanked him and fed the spoon into his mouth.
Daniel grimaced as the thick, bitter liquid hit his tongue, swallowing it down as quickly as he could to get it out of his mouth. Armand released his head from his vise grip but kept his hand on the side of Daniel’s face, stroking his forehead and hair as he whispered words of praise and comfort at him before holding the glass of water up to his lips and telling him to drink. Daniel was still shivering all over but was starting to feel too hot now, and the cool water was a relief as it washed the remaining traces of the foul taste away.
“Very good,” Armand told him, voice still quiet. He was practically sitting on top of him now, face only a few inches away from Daniel’s. “Keep drinking. I can tell you’re dehydrated.” Daniel dutifully swallowed the water until the glass was empty as he wondered which of Armand’s supernatural abilities informed him of Daniel’s hydration level. Armand kept petting his hair, his eyes fixed on Daniel’s face with an almost expectant expression.
What? Daniel thought.
“Do you feel better yet?” Armand asked earnestly, and Daniel could have burst out into laughter at the innocence being displayed by his half-millennium old killing machine if he didn’t feel like the force of it would cause his head to explode.
I think the medicine takes a little longer than two minutes to kick in, boss. The water did help my throat a little, though, he added, feeling a pang of guilt at the worried, wide-eyed look Armand was giving him.
“Well, that’s good, I suppose,” Armand sighed before producing the bag of saltines. “I want you to eat these as well. You’ll need strength if you’re going to recover further.”
Where did you even find those?
“Inside your pantry. I saw you eating these in your memories of being ill and taking flu medication. Eat them, please, Daniel,” Armand pleaded, already holding one of the crackers up to Daniel’s mouth. Daniel sighed in defeat, accepting his fate of being pet and handfed like some kind of pony for the foreseeable future, and bit down on the cracker. Unsurprisingly, it was stale. Daniel decided that eating the crackers anyway was the best course of action, since refusing risked working Armand into a frenzy and Daniel having to deal with doctors being held hostage in his apartment.
Armand relented after feeding Daniel what he apparently felt was a satisfactory amount of stale crackers, which was at least a dozen. He probably would have liked to feed him the entire bag, but Daniel’s pathetic body was starting to get physically exhausted from the exertion of chewing, drinking, talking, and thinking. He yawned, leaning forward and burying his face into that comfortable place between Armand’s neck and shoulder. He tucked his nose under the collar of Armand’s expensive-feeling shirt. “Tired,” he mumbled into the soft, cool skin there.
Armand wrapped an arm around Daniel’s back, setting down the crinkly bag of crackers somewhere unseen as he resumed his petting, this time on the back of Daniel’s neck. “That’s alright, beloved. You can sleep now. Just rest.”
Thankfully, Armand didn’t physically compel Daniel to rest this time. Or maybe Daniel wasn’t thankful about that. A nice little magic-induced coma almost sounded relaxing right about now. Daniel didn’t stay awake long enough to decide either way, drifting almost immediately into a heavy sleep filled with bizarre dreams of orange lights and flaming kitchen appliances.
Daniel woke up on his back with a strange weight on his chest. It took him a few moments to remember what had happened during the night, and when he cracked an eye open, he saw a well-manicured hand pressed flat against his sternum. Glancing to the side, he was met with large, yellowish eyes staring unblinkingly at him from only a few centimetres away. He might have startled if he’d had more energy, but as it was, he just stared back at Armand, who was kneeling on the floor at his bedside.
“Hi.”
“Good morning, Daniel. Are you well?”
Taking stock of his current state, Daniel definitely wasn’t feeling his best, but speaking just now hadn’t been overly painful and he didn’t have the chills anymore. His head still hurt a little and he felt and most likely looked disgusting, but that was about it.
“Think I’m okay, boss.”
“That is a relief.”
It was silent for a while. Armand still didn’t seem to move or blink. Daniel glanced at his clock again and saw that it was a little past eight in the morning. Pale sunlight was starting to filter in through the window and Daniel glanced back at Armand nervously.
“Are you, uh… gonna be okay?”
“Me? Of course I’m alright. You are the one who is ill.” Armand didn’t really look alright. His hair was kind of frazzled, which was very out of the ordinary, and he had a somewhat harrowed look in his eyes. Still, he didn’t seem to be burning up, which was a good sign. Daniel was under the impression that sunlight wasn’t good for vampires, but what did he know? He’d never seen Armand scale a wall or turn into a bat or command a pack of wolves, either. Not that he’d be surprised if he could, the secretive little shit.
“It’s just that you don’t normally stick around this late. Early.”
“Oh. Well, I was merely making sure that you were alright. That you were breathing well.” Armand tried to surreptitiously remove his hand from where it was pressed against Daniel’s chest, but Daniel caught it and laced their fingers together there instead.
“Baby, I’m okay, I promise. I might not be immortal, but I’m not gonna conk out that easily.” Armand still looked pretty rattled, so Daniel kept going. “Besides, it wasn’t all bad. No one’s cared that much about me being sick since I was in grade school.”
Armand was quiet for a few moments, averting his gaze to their intertwined hands. He started worrying his thumb back and forth against the back of Daniel’s hand. “I was ill quite often, while I was alive. It’s a wonder I survived as long as I did without the invention of your influenza medicine.”
“Did anybody ever look after you?” It was quiet again, which was enough of an answer for Daniel, though he didn’t like it very much. Armand almost never talked about his past, let alone his life as a human, so Daniel really needed to not screw up this conversation and make him clam up even tighter. “Y’know, if you ever got sick, I’d take such good care of you.”
Armand huffed the ghost of a laugh. “I can’t get sick anymore, Daniel.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But if you did, I’d be amazing. Nurse of the year. I’d wrap you up in so many blankets, and I’d brush your hair and bring you warm mugs of… uh… blood.”
Armand started laughing for real, though it came out quiet and breathy, and finally looked at Daniel again. The way he giggled was endearing in an odd way, as though he hadn’t done it in decades and had almost forgotten how, and it made him seem so young.
“I’m serious! You could just pretend to be sick, if you wanted, and I could pay you back for last night. Could be fun.”
“There won’t be any repayment necessary, but the sentiment is appreciated,” said Armand, still smiling widely, although it looked like he was trying unsuccessfully to school his expression. He glanced at the window and his smile did fade a little. “I suppose I should be leaving soon, if you really are recovered. I’ll come back tonight to be certain you’re still doing well.”
“Hold on. I said I’m better, not recovered,” retorted Daniel, squeezing Armand’s hand tighter and forcing a cough for good measure. Armand didn’t look very impressed by it. “Listen, if you stay for the day, you can watch me reheat my pizza in the toaster oven for lunch.”
That did seem to pique Armand’s interest. “Alright, I’ll stay until nightfall. Just for today.”
Daniel grinned victoriously and weakly yanked on Armand’s arm, which he humoured, crawling into bed with Daniel and holding him as he fell back asleep. He didn’t allow him to sleep past lunchtime, though. He really wanted to know how all those dials worked.