Work Text:
“Beloved boy.”
Daniel shot up in a cold sweat. He was sleeping off… whatever he did last night. Blurry visions of his laptop on someone’s coffee table, open on a Word document while his head was pressed against the table. His nose was bleeding, some people were yelling, and then…
“Hey Armand,” Daniel mumbled in response. The soft lamp in the corner flickered to life, showing him that his devil was sitting at his desk with his iPad open. He reached over to his night table where, unsurprisingly, Armand had put two Tylenol and a bottle of water. Daniel took them, then looked at Armand. “Thanks for getting me last night.”
“You could have died, beloved.” Armand sounded so unfazed as he said it, but there was a bit of wetness in those bright orange eyes and his voice was sharper than normal. “You can’t keep putting yourself in danger like that.”
“I was following a story,” Daniel said half heartedly as he sat up against the chipping paint of his apartment wall. He knew he was lying, so Armand definitely knew he was too.
Armand looked unamused by the human’s words. “You were trying to get high. I have told you before that I have connections to less seedy individuals who won’t leave you passed out in their living rooms if you want to continue your habits.” When Daniel didn’t have any reaction to that he added, “You said you would come to me if you needed anything like that, beloved. You don’t even have to call using a phone. Just… think. But you didn’t.”
That got to him. Daniel sucked in through his teeth, looking down at his bed. Armand had bought the comforter, he’d bought the sheets, he’d bought Daniel’s bed frame! Living forever had made his devil quite rich, and he seemed hellbent on spending it on Daniel as much as possible. He knew Daniel could use his “connections” to make him overdose 14 times over, if not more. But Daniel, he… “I don’t want to ask you for that kind of stuff.”
“Why not?”
“Feels wrong.”
Daniel’s answers were getting shorter, so Armand pulled back from his questioning. His boy, his beautiful, intelligent, idiotic, fascinating boy, didn’t like being questioned on his idiotic actions. He did so many things that made no sense to Armand that the vampire had learned to sometimes stop questioning him unless the boy needed to answer it. This incident wasn’t something he needed to answer. Daniel would drive himself into a ditch if it meant Armand would pull him out. It was the game they played and neither of them would have it either way.
“Can I at least make it up to you, babe?” Daniel asked in that half-sarcastic, half-earnest tone that made Armand’s head spin like a plane engine. For today, the game was over. And since Dnaiel was in the wrong this time, it was now up to Daniel to make it up to Armand. If the roles were reversed, Daniel would probably ask Armand to turn him. And after he would refuse, he’d switch to something lower stakes like a trip somewhere or for Armand to ride him senseless. Armand was unpredictable though. He had his iPad though, so Daniel had some ideas. “I could… watch something with you?”
Two burning orange eyes burned into Daniel’s and he knew he hit the right words. In an instant, Armand was at his side, on the mattress, opening his iPad. “You can watch something with me,” he repeated excitedly while typing in his overly long password. Daniel’s stomach dropped into his pelvis. He’d stopped going into work regularly after he found out Armand was ‘mind gifting’ his boss to make her give him extra days off, but he was planning on going in today. Sitting in an awful plastic chair for hours honestly sounded better than watching Minecraft gameplay and not being allowed to move lest Armand remove his control over his body. Daniel was happily surprised when Armand didn’t open Youtube.
His stomach dropped even further, maybe into his kneecaps, when she saw Armand open his newest and possibly worse vice: Tiktok.
Daniel’s senses were instantly rushed by overstimulating colors paired with the blaring sounds of some trending sound. He covered his eyes with the heels of his palms and flopped back onto the mattress. “Armand, pleaseeee, I have a headache!” he whined in distress. Armand ignored his pleas and just propped up the iPad between the two of them so they could both watch his horrible For You Page.
.
.
.
A few hours in, Daniel was considering becoming Amish if they’d let him bring his vampire and laptop with him. He had always thought social media was a plague and tried not to use it daily unless he was chasing a story, but this was… this was a new level of torture. He’d listened to Armand go down multiple rabbit holes, spend at least 75 dollars on random junk he didn’t need, and was now hearing that gorgeous devil in his bed attempt to pronounce something like the guy in his video did.
Daniel finally sat up, holding his hand out. “Gimme the iPad.” Armand shot him a glare and he quickly followed with, “I’m not gonna turn it off. I just want to help.” Armand seemed perfectly fine giving him the iPad then.
Daniel’s eyes adjusted to the brutal brightness of the screen and he tried to make sense of what was going on. Some skinny white guy – pot meet kettle comparison, he knew – was standing in a sequined red blazer and sunglasses in front of a white board. On it, he’d written out the following:
Lowkey + cherry + kirk + genuine + flowstate + genuinely = ?
Daniel looked at Armand who was watching him with big doe eyes, waiting for his beloved boy to pronounce it.
“Go on.”
“No.”
“Daniel! You said you would!”
“I’m not doing that, Armand! That doesn’t make a word!”
“He was able to, and you are twice as intelligent if not more!”
“I can’t pronounce nonsense!”
“Try!”
For the next ten minutes, Daniel tried and failed to pronounce lowcherkirkenuflowstateuinely. But as they did, the previous night’s events washed away under the covers of Daniel’s bed and the sounds of Armand’s endeared laughing when his beautiful boy kept on trying.