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An ancient vampire may not need much sleep, but old men do, and Daniel and Armand are both, in one way or another, old men. And old men know the value of a solid nap and a good night’s (day’s) sleep.
On top of being an old man, Daniel is still a fledgling, so he gets cranky if he doesn’t get his sleep. He’s a geriatric case and a toddler: Double Jeopardy, he can sleep as much as he wants. He usually sleeps through the day like a charm (took him a while to stop passing out outright at sunrise; Armand cooed and found it adorable, asshole loves to carry Daniel to bed), and more often than not Armand spends the day in bed with him. Sometimes he’ll sleep — every once in a while so deeply he forgets to breathe; Daniel likes it so much it should freak him out, but Armand told him he also likes to watch Daniel in a deep, breathless sleep, so maybe that’s a vampire thing. Or just a hereditary, Armand-to-Daniel perversion.
(Can kinks be vampire-hereditary? A question for Armand and his science buddy, Dr Bhansali.)
Usually, though, Armand will either doze or just lounge in bed, playing video games, reading, going on an online shopping spree, or just staring at the ceiling and drifting a bit. Sometimes he spends the whole daytime staring at Daniel. It’s weird. Except it’s not. Daniel loves it.
Every now and then, Armand will spend some of the day outside, tending to some mysterious Armand business (he loves being mysterious, and he’s ridiculously cute when he’s at it), his art shows (he’s taken the art scene by storm in a completely effortless way that every non-millionaire art student would kill for) or some in-person luxury shopping (one time he came home after sunset, all twinkling smiles, and announced he just got Daniel a yacht. That was, uh, something).
“You’re so beautiful on the cusp of awakening, beloved,” Armand tells him dreamily one dusk.
“Hmmmwhat,” Daniel hums, squinting out of habit and remembering he doesn’t need to any more — the new eye colour came with some serious perks. “Drooling, snoring, starfishing you off the mattress?”
Armand sighs, terse and pretending to not be charmed off his ass by Daniel’s witty repartee.
“You do not drool or snore — you were very attractively breathless just now, in fact — and even if you did, it would be charming. And you are not starfishing, as you say. Though you do often roll towards me in your sleep, which I enjoy.”
“Uh-huh,” Daniel says, wrapping an arm around Armand’s waist, hauls himself closer.
Armand gives him a teeth-grindingly patronising smile that Daniel really loves getting out of him.
“Yes, quite like that. And, most of all, you sleep as you ever did — like yourself. Loose and irrepressibly alive.”
“I’m alive in my breathless sleep, huh.”
“Yes,” Armand says, allowing Daniel’s sarcasm to almost make an audible noise as he redirects it to fly over his head.
Daniel kinda has to kiss him then. And then ride him. Just a little.
Sometimes, he does wake up alone, especially if he stays up late (or early, or whatever) the previous morning and then oversleeps. It’s fine, even if Daniel’s inner fledgling occasionally feels like throwing a tantrum when he doesn’t wake up in his maker’s arms.
(He keeps a lid on that, because Armand’s absentee maker-related self-loathing tends to go from 0 to 60 in all of 0.3 seconds. Or, rather, from 20 to 60 — there’s always a background hum of self-loathing in that beautiful brain of his. Daniel is working on it, he is. It’s just that he’s up against a good half-millennium of it. But he intends to stick around for at least a full geological age, so he likes his chances.)
Anyway, the point is, Daniel is not surprised when he wakes alone one night, well after sunset. He rubs his eyes, gropes around their bond until Armand pings on his radar: in the house, below and across the hall.
He shuffles downstairs to find it completely dark, with two gremlin eyes burning in a corner of their kitchen. That’s fine, Armand likes to lurk sometimes. Fucking adorable, in Daniel’s opinion.
He flicks on the light, comes over to the kitchen table to drop a kiss on Armand’s head, gets an elegant hand brushing his forearm, because Armand can’t resist him when he’s in a t-shirt. Ego thus boosted, Daniel goes about starting his breakfast: he selects an espresso blood-coffee pod (made in Armand’s mad scientist lab/art atelier), slots it into place and starts the machine.
Armand’s eyes follow him as he shuffles around the kitchen. They’re blood-orange, unblinking, alert, pupils mere pinpricks — he’s hunting. He hunts Daniel sometimes, like this, and Daniel won’t lie, it’s pretty hot despite being mildly ridiculous. If he plays his cards right, this might quickly lead to some spectacularly freaky evening sex.
Daniel takes a sip of his blood espresso; without moving a muscle, Armand somehow looms closer. Every line of him is sharper. Watchful. Anticipatory.
“Okay…” Daniel says slowly. “So, honey, what’s up?”
“Do you like your espresso?” Armand asks back.
“Yeah?” Daniel says slowly again. “You know I do.”
(Armand invented them; Daniel sucks him off at least once a week about it, because holy shit, they’re incredible.)
“Do you detect any additional… stimulation?”
Daniel pauses mid-swallow, mouth full of caffeinated blood. He pushes it down.
“You’re experimenting on me again, aren’t you.”
“...no.”
“Babe.”
Armand huffs. “Well, it’s not a proper scientific experiment anyway.”
“Yeah, no shit it isn’t — there’s no control group, for one thing.”
“Of course there’s no control group, don’t be absurd,” Armand says dismissively.
He gets up from his chair, stalks smoothly over to Daniel, starts fussing with his hair and his clothes, neatening and tucking everything into place. He does that a lot — self-soothing with his hands. Armand’s hands are the most transparent, most honest part of him. They move when he feels he can’t or shouldn’t, they give away his agitation or excitement, and bring him comfort when he needs it, placate his jagged nerves. These days, he also self-soothes by fussing over Daniel, those elegant fingers plucking at his curls, tugging on his clothes, smoothing out the creases. It’s pretty cute.
“There could never be a control group for an experiment involving you,” Armand tells him. “You’re unique. Truly special. Nothing or no one could ever compare.”
“Jesus, boss, I’m gonna grow up so spoiled.”
“Good,” Armand says ruthlessly.
Daniel has no option but to growl and kiss him, a hand settling on Armand’s hip. He allows a thumb to slip under the obscenely expensive bamboo henley shirt Armand sleeps in, brush back and forth over smooth skin. Daniel absolutely, endlessly and completely, loves this freak who just put something in his coffee.
“So,” he says, once the impromptu makeout session winds down; he swirls the last sip of caffeinated blood left in his tiny cup, holds Armand close with his other arm. “What’d you put in there?”
Armand sighs, and it’s like a cartoon rain cloud hovers over his head; unbelievable.
“You used to like steak,” he says, completely out of left field, but that’s Armand — he’ll take the scenic route, but he’ll get them both there in the end. Just have to be patient, that’s all. “It was… your favourite food. I once took you on a tour, back in 1982 — you had kobe steak in Japan, Argentinian beef prepared by the best chefs in Spain, award-winning recipe in England… and yet, persistently, your favourite remained an inconspicuous little steakhouse in Tribeca, of questionable adherence to the health code.”
He pauses, strokes Daniel’s cheek; his eyes come back to the present with a wistful little smile.
“It’s still in operation. I took… samples. From its customers. All carefully selected for their inadvisable feeding frequency. Timed even more carefully to hit just the right point in the digestion process, when their blood would be most saturated. I tried to—” He tails off, huffs a frustrated sigh. “Perhaps I should not have mixed it with caffeine.”
“Babe,” breathes Daniel, who is about to get choked up.
“I’ll try again,” Armand sighs. “I wanted to surprise you, but perhaps that was selfish. You…” He firmly presses his lips together, then goes on. “You’ll never taste steak again. Because of me. I wanted to fix that.”
“Jesus, babe, you’ll make me start crying, and there goes my breakfast. C’mere.” He holds Armand closer by that snatched waist. “Baby, I love being a vampire, okay? I absolutely fucking love it.”
“But—”
“Hey, no buts, all right? Armand, I don’t care about the steak or the dessert or whatever. I mean, sure, if you invent that steak-infused blood I’ll be stoked, that’s two weekly blowjobs for you. But I don’t need that, I don’t even miss it, not really. Baby, my hands no longer shake. Okay? My brain is not eating itself alive. My joints are like butter, I can sit on the floor and, more importantly, get back up. I get morning wood again, and I feel better than I ever did when I was still technically alive. And you know the best part? I get you.” He holds Armand’s face in his hands, buries his fingers in black, tousled curls. “I get to be with you, you nightmare. Forever. I get to keep you.”
“Daniel,” says Armand on a soft, awed breath, like he’s the one who just gifted with a show of absolute, unhinged devotion.
“And listen, even if one day you decided to up and leave me—”
“Never,” Armand says, quietly and threateningly, like a cresting wave, digging his claws into Daniel’s arms so hard they break skin.
“Yeah, I’m not saying you will, relax. I’m saying that I’d still be happy being a vampire. You know? I mean, sure, I’d be miserable and the most pathetically pining asshole ever, but my life would still be better for being a vampire. That’s how awesome this is for me. Okay?”
Armand mulls over the words, biting his lips together, then finally, slowly, nods.
“Okay,” he replies. “And. I hope you know that my existence is… infinitely better for keeping you in this world. With me.”
“Yeah, I know. I kinda picked up on that the, oh, let’s see, fifty-sixth time you told me, in those exact words?” he teases, rocking Armand from side to side; he gets a smile, all reluctant and with dipped eyelashes, but impossible to hide. “There he is.”
He presses an obnoxious kiss to Armand’s forehead, just to get a fake exasperated sigh, which he does. One of his favourite sounds Armand makes. It’s a very Daniel-related sound.
He downs the last of his beefed-up blood espresso, every movement tracked by Armand’s hunter-red eyes. It kinda turns him on, being Armand’s prey.
“Hey, wanna chase me around the block for a bit? Get some cardio, see where it goes from there.”
“I think we both know very well where it will go from there,” Armand replies, in his best dry tone, but Daniel can feel his fingers dig more firmly into his flesh, see his pupils dilate.
“We might get written up for public indecency, we might not, there’s an element of suspense!” Daniel argues.
Armand plucks the antique espresso cup from Daniel’s hand, sets it carefully on the counter.
“Beloved?”
“Yeah?”
“Run.”
(Armand catches him, because of course he does. In his Jimmy Choo sneakers, no less. They also do get written up for public indecency. The cop makes for a nice lunch.)