Chapter Text
Armand looked… well, he looked pathetic. Had Daniel been in a more forgiving mood, he would probably have appreciated his face card being nothing short of lethal despite being covered in dust, as he sat crumpled on the floor, back leaning heavily against the cracked wall. As he was, he only found it mildly annoying. It was satisfying knowing he had already gotten his ass kicked by his other ex, though, so there was that. Armand tried and failed, once again, to get up. Broken spine, probably. Even a vampire as ancient and well-fed as he was needed a few minutes to heal from tha t. Good, Daniel needed him unable to run for what was about to come next.
“Sorry to interrupt your wallow time or whatever, but I still have some questions.”
Armand threw him an incredulous look, but he still replied, albeit bitchilly.
“And what, pray tell, do you still want to know?”
“Where is she?”
Total stillness. The vampire froze so completely that he looked suspended in time. It brought a pang of something akin to nostalgia to Daniel’s chest.
“I am not sure what you’re talking abo-”
“Like hell you aren't.” Daniel interrupted him. He crossed what was left of the living room in two dramatic steps, dramatically grabbed his own autobiography from the couch, searched the exact page he was looking for, and started to read. Dramatically.
“A’s family was loaded. Conceptually, I knew that. Operationally, I never realized exactly how much until the divorce was finalized and she was out of the door. I got the fancy NYC brownstone and a restraining order; she got full custody of our only daughter. They boarded a private plane headed to Europe, never to be seen again, at least by me.
Even years later, no family court would take the case, no PI I threw money at would get any new leads. But there is a little sliver of hope in me still. Because as I write this, a very professional, very legal-looking letter sits on my desk, warning me against using my daughter’s full name, for the sake of her privacy. As if I needed a piece of paper to compel me to protect her and her mother from the vultures I once called my coworkers. So, if you are reading this, S. Molloy, know that your daddy is still looking for you”
Daniel closed the book with a thud. Armand looked up at him, single manly blood tear running down his cheek.
“That was…”
“Touching? Heartbreaking?”
“I was going to say dramatic.”
Daniel shrugged,
“Yeah, well, I spent the last two weeks surrounded by king of purple prose and the world’s oldest theatre kid, kinda rubs off on you”
Armand offered a magnanimous nod of his head in agreement.
“So, where is our daughter? I think I deserve to see her one last time before I kick the bucket, don’t you think?”
The vampire sighed, looking as sullen as a child whose surprised birthday party had been ruined. Daniel quickly recalled the special dinner Louis had alluded to and wondered if maybe the vampires were going to introduce the subject of his daughter themselves. After all, Louis had probably been a stepfather to her. Or at the very least, a loving, if distant, benefactor paying for whatever fancy boarding school they had sent her off to.
After the shared-boyfriend-Lestat, Daniel would never again deem anything as “too univision” for those two.
“I’ll call for her,” Armand finally agreed, “however, it will be some time before she arrives. She is not currently in the country. It would probably be best if you spent the night here, as we wait”
“If this is a ploy to keep me here longer, Armand, I swear to god-”
“I assure you, it is not.” The reply came distractedly as the ancient creature of the night typed away on his iPad (and where had that come from? He was still half lying on the floor, had he summoned the thing with his mind or something?) “Sybelle is no longer a child, she has a life and a mind of her own.” Hands raised in surrender, properly chastised, Daniel conceded.
“Alright, alright, I believe you” As a peace offering, he offered Armand a hand to help him up. The Vampire took it gratefully, leaning heavily on Daniel to get and stay upright. It was a little amusing, an old man helping another old man to get up after falling down. Yeah, Daniel’s brain was a jerk. “I mean, she's gotta be, what? Forty-four or something like that, right?”
“Something like that,” mumbled Armand, avoiding his eyes.
“Oh my god. Oh my god!” This was real. It was happening. The moment Daniel had been dreaming of for over thirty years was finally happening. He had pictured it so many times, in so many different ways. Sometimes it went like a Hallmark movie, all teary and moving and beautiful, his daughter was just as happy to see him as he was to see her. Sometimes they ran into each other on the street, and she didn't recognize him, but he recognized her . Sometimes, the most nightmarish scenario his sadistic brain loved to come up with, they ran into each other at the street, and neither recognized the other, both kept going on with their respective lives being none the wiser, ignoring how close they had come to fulfilling their most cherished wish.
Daniel realized with a start that this was probably the last time he could dream about what happened when he found his baby girl again.
“I can't believe this is finally happening. I can't believe I'm going to see her again. The last time, she was seven. Now she could have a seven-year-old of her own.” He turned to Armand, “Does she have a seven-year-old of her own? Armand, am I a grandad? Wait, no! Don't tell me, don't tell me anything. I want to learn it from her. I want to know everything about her from her. Oh my god, I can't believe it, my little girl! I'm gonna get to see her all grown up before I die. That was like, number one on my bucket list, did you know that?”
“I did not know that,” the vampire said mildly. “Listen, Daniel, before you meet her, there's something I need to tell-” Armand trailed off, his huge pumpkin eyes somehow going bigger. “She's here”
“She's here? So soon? I thought you said she wasn't in the city.” The human all but flailed his arms in alarm.
“She wasn't supposed to!” For some reason, Armand sounded just as alarmed as him, “Daniel, listen, before she gets here, I have to tell you something. But I don't know how to!”
“Just spit it out, man.”
“I can't! I don't even know where to start!”
“Just start at the beginning!”
Armand considered it for a second before shaking his head no,
“There is no time for that, let me just summarize it”
“OK, go on then”
The twink-looking eldritch horror shook his head again,
“I can't! You must know every detail or you will otherwise not understand! But there is no time!”
“Then let's go back to option número uno and just spit it out!”
There was a crash somewhere behind Daniel, sounding suspiciously like the balcony doors being blown to smithereens, but before he could turn around to see what the hell that had been, Armand yelled.
“Daniel, Daniel, please, listen to me!”
“Dude, I'm fucking listening! What??”
“... I could not prevent it”
All Daniel could do in reply was begin to squint his eyes in suspicion. Because half a second later, a blur of long limbs and bottle blonde hair crashed into him hard , stealing all his breath.
“Dad!” The comet exclaimed, and just like that, the crash, whatever Armand was saying, it didn’t matter anymore. Because even after all those years, even if it was a little different, Daniel could have recognized that voice anywhere. His long-lost daughter was finally in his arms again, cold and real and comfor- wait a minute. Cold?
Daniel leaned back to take a look at Sybelle, only to be met with the most striking, preternatural violet eyes on a still somewhat baby-faced face. He brought her into his arms again, just to make it perfectly clear he was NOT rejecting her, tucking her perfect head under his chin. Then, he turned to his ex-husband.
“Armand, DID YOU TURN OUR DAUGHTER INTO A VAMPIRE??”