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It's only been a few hours since Daniel's mortal life came to a screeching, violent end and his new immortal life began. Daniel is sure he'll look back on this moment in the future and feel all the anger and trauma that naturally follows this kind of thing, especially since his turning was nothing gentle or romantic and the asshole who bestowed this upon him went running for the hills as soon as it was over, but he can't properly process any of it right now. He's so, so tired. The sun must be coming up by now, and it's pulling on his mind and soul—If he even still has one—like an anchor.
Mustering the last of his energy, he drags his feet down the halls of the now empty penthouse, entering the first bedroom he comes across. He collapses onto the bed not caring if this is his room, if his blood-soaked clothes are staining the sheets, or if he should really be trying to hunt down a coffin in this godforsaken place instead. The cold blood bags he found in the fridge were not enough to sustain him anymore without rest, and he's out like a light before his head even hits the pillows.
The next thing he knows, he's standing in the middle of a busy street, people bustling past as if they don't even see him. Okay, weird. He's not sure how he got here, or even where here is exactly.
It doesn't take him long to figure it out. Looking at the buildings and scenery surrounding him he knows exactly where he is. As if he could ever forget. The corner of Rue Palatine and Servandoni. It looks exactly as it did back in 1985, completely unchanged even down to the clothes people are wearing.
He must be dreaming, he decides. He might be crazy enough to consider he has some kind of vampire time travel gift if it not for the fact that no one the street ever acknowledges his presence. One person even walks straight through him like he's made of mist. Why his subconscious decided to dream of this particular memory, he has no idea. Just another twist of the knife in an already painful and exhausting day.
Suddenly, he sees himself coming up the street in the distance. It's him as a thirty-two year old man, currently holding hands with a very pregnant Alice. Him as the man who has no idea of the shame, embarrassment and heartbreak he's about to experience. He can see Alice, too, just the top of her head and her shiny black hair. The rest of her figure is obscured by a person of similar height walking in front of her.
He considers running away, or trying to control the dream and force himself out of it, but something stops him. It tells him to stay, to watch. So he does.
It's strange to see himself in the third-person like this. He wonders why, if this is a memory, he isn't reliving it from his own point of view. Not that he'd rather that be the case. Seeing it in this way gives him least some emotional and physical distance from the heartache.
The younger version of himself is still approaching. He has a big, goofy smile on his face. When was the last time he'd smiled that big and genuinely meant it? He's talking to Alice, who current Daniel still can't see all that well from his current place on the street. He can't remember what they were talking about.
They both stop, Alice glancing behind her. The gum. Current Daniel moves in closer to see the scene better. What he finds when he makes his way through the sea of people makes his heart sink.
It's not Alice. It's him.
Armand.
"Could you help me get it off?" He asks younger Daniel, referring to the sticky wad of pink gum on the heel of his shoe. He's wearing—Fuck. That short, purple dress that reaches just below his mid-thigh. How the fuck did he even get away with wearing that in public in 1985?
He should have known. He should have started suspecting more of his memories might not be what they seem the second he'd woken up from that first dream of his and Louis' first meeting in the bar where 'Rashid' had shown up out of nowhere. He really should have started suspecting it when more, brand new memories of Armand started cropping up, conveniently at the exact moment this very memory had been mentioned.
Alice did—Does—exist, he's sure of that. His daughters are proof enough. They didn't just spawn out of thin air. And they are his daughters. His and Alice's. That DNA genealogy test thingy Lenora had got for him, Katie, and Alice a few Christmases ago when she'd been on a family history kick confirmed it. She showed him her results in person, both Alice and Daniel were, indeed, her and Katie's biological parents.
With that out of the way, he has confront the reality of what this is. He doesn't wonder if this is just his subconscious replacing Alice with Armand, no. He knows this is real, and he's not going to repeat his past mistakes by assuming this could all be innocently explained away. This event happened with Armand, and Alice had never been there at all. It was probably so easy for Armand to go in and fuck with his head and replace himself with Alice, who he happens to bear a remarkable resemblance to, in this god knows how many other memories. He feels sick.
The next question he's confronted with; Why? Why had Armand done this? Not just that, but why had he been in Paris with Armand more than a decade after San Francisco? It doesn't make any sense.
"You're almost 500 years old and you can't get gum off your own shoe?" Younger Daniel scoffs. Current Daniel focuses back in on the dream and puts his spiraling on the back corner. He doesn't want to miss a second of this.
Armand gives younger Daniel those big pouty eyes he'd seen a few times in Dubai when he was trying to appear coy and innocent. All an act. "It'd be easier if you did it."
"Fine," Younger Daniel relents, but he isn't actually irritated. Current Daniel can tell. He's experiencing his emotions from the time as well as the visuals. If anything, his younger self endeared by Armand's feigned helplessness. He pulls a credit card, not a library card, out of his wallet. Closer inspection from current Daniel reveals that it has Armand's name on it. Of course it does.
Younger Daniel scrapes the gum off Armand's shoe. Armand is charmed by his willingness to do such a thing for him, despite his age and all his power. How does current Daniel know that? Isn't this is his memory? Of course he knows his own feelings, but Armand's?
After flicking the gum off the card, he shoves it back into the wallet. Younger Daniel then retakes Armand's hand and they continue walking. Retakes his hand… They were holding hands. They were holding hands? Why was he holding hands with—
Oh. They were…
Current Daniel holds stock still, letting younger Daniel and Armand go on their merry way. Their enjoined hands pass right through the center his incorporeal figure.
Tears well in his eyes. The revelation is unearthing feelings he didn't even know were there, barely knows they're there even now. They call to him from a place deep within himself that he can't seem to access entirely. No doubt Armand's doing, but there's one thing he does know for certain.
They had been in love, and Armand made him forget it all.
When had it started? How long had it gone on for? Why did Armand so neatly and precisely cut himself out of Daniel's memories? Why is this only resurfacing now that Armand is gone and he can't confront him about it? He suspects that at least one of these questions might be answered if he follows his younger self and Armand through this memory, so he snaps himself out of his shock and makes his way down the street.
He catches up easily enough. He follows them to the end of Rue Servandoni to that little cafe, the one he thought he had proposed to Alice in. Now, he doesn't know what's about to happen. He knows it's probably nothing good. What was it Armand said? When Louis dug this memory up in the first place?
'She wanted to say yes, but she didn't trust you. You hadn't given her a reason to.'
Daniel asked Armand… Something. Something that Armand wanted to say yes to but didn't because Daniel had given him no reason to trust him. Admittedly, it makes sense. Even with his swiss cheese memory he knows he wasn't exactly the most trustworthy or reliable back then. This was at the tail-end of his drug addiction, right around when he was getting sober. Alice, even though she apparently wasn't actually present for this, was still out there somewhere, nine months pregnant and ready to burst. She and the baby were why he got sober in the first place. At least, that's what he thought for the last thirty-seven years. Who knows if it's actually true.
He continues following younger Daniel and Armand into the tiny little cafe at the end of the street. They sit in the corner, right in front of the window. Daniel pulls Armand's seat out for him, looking both excited and nervous. Poor kid, current Daniel thinks. He might not know exactly what's coming, but he definitely has a better idea than his thirty-two year old self.
Younger Daniel orders a ton of food, all fancy and expensive and delicious looking. Armand orders just a glass of red wine, but never sips it. He watches younger Daniel throughout the dinner with a sincere and adoring look, like a man completely and totally smitten. Like a man in love. Current Daniel can feel the love Armand has for him in this moment. It's so large and all-encompassing it almost physically hurts. Armand had loved him.
After dinner, their plates are cleared and Daniel orders himself dessert. When the waiter leaves, Daniel clears his throat to draw Armand's attention. God, here it comes.
"So, um, I have something to ask you."
"Yes?" Armand seems to genuinely have no idea what's coming. Not that current Daniel does either, but Mr. Mind Reader should know. He remembers something Armand said during the interview, unrelated to him, about why he hadn't seen the coven's betrayal coming if he could read their minds. 'I was in love.'
"Well, um…" Younger Daniel chuckles awkwardly. "So... You know Alice is due any day now."
"I do."
"And… And you're really just okay with that? Me having a girlfriend and a kid while I'm still with you?"
Armand hesitates. "It's not ideal, of course, but yes. I'm okay with it. After all, I have Louis."
"Well… I'm not okay with it. I want you. Just you. I want it to just be us… Forever."
Armand's face hardens. "Daniel—"
"Please, let me finish," Younger Daniel pleads.
Armand shuts his jaw, clenching it tightly.
"I would give it all up in a second for you. You know that, don't you? I'd leave her, I'd leave the baby, I'd give up my career. I'd leave it all behind for you. If you would just give it to me, we could finally be together like we're meant to be."
"You already know my answer, Daniel. You don't truly understand what it is you ask for," Armand says quietly, avoiding his eyes.
"But don't you see, all human decisions are made like this. What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong? There is no wrong! There is only desperation, and I would have it. I want to live forever with you," Younger Daniel is crying now, a few tears trail down his cheeks. His all-consuming desperation is practically radiating off him.
Armand's normally well-maintained expression betrays his hurt and sorrow. His eyes are tinted red with tears and the breath he doesn't need comes out shakily. Current Daniel feels his indecisiveness, like if only for a moment, he actually wants to consider Daniel's request for once.
"I can't do it anymore, Armand. I can't spend all night every night going from concert to museum to class to club back to one of your fifty apartments to have crazy mind blowing floating-on-the-ceiling sex, then go home and play the loving husband and father with Alice during the day," Younger Daniel leans forward on the table as he talks, inching closer to Armand with every word.
"I love you. I love our life together. I would choose you over her in a heartbeat, but I can't do both. I'm getting sober for you! You don't have to worry about that anymore. What else do I need to do to prove myself?" He's standing now. If he moves any further forward he'll be crawling on the table. He's also about two seconds away from dropping to his knees and begging Armand to just choose him.
It hurts. All the emotions that he had still retained from this memory now feel fresh, and the new-old ones that had been repressed for centuries are coming up now too. He feels his own love for Armand, so deep and true. He still feels Armand's mutual love for him in return. It's the blood, he realizes. That's why he can feel it, that's why this is in third person. Armand's blood now running through his veins means this isn't just his own version of events, it's Armand's too. It's diluted and still partially repressed on his end, but it's two people's memory combined. The memory of his proposal to Armand, not Alice.
This had apparently not even been the first time Daniel asked him for it. Daniel knows from Dubai that the idea apparently repulsed him in the 1940s, repulses him now, and presumably all the time in between. Including 1985. That knowledge just makes this hurt more. What had switched in Armand today that made him suddenly change his mind when he had seemed still dead-set in his ways just days earlier?
Armand sighs, resigned. "The answer is no, Daniel."
Younger Daniel's head drops. He sits back down just in time for the waiter to arrive with his dessert. The one he made mention of in his book. Younger Daniel eats it in tense silence. Armand watches with deep despair and a sense of finality.
Armand, younger Daniel, the cafe, the other customers, and everything else surrounding current Daniel begin to fade into black. He awakens suddenly with a gasp, still in the same position he'd fallen asleep in. His face feels wet, and wiping a hand across his cheeks confirms he'd been crying in his sleep. Jesus christ.
He wipes the bloody tears from his hand on the blanket beneath him as he sits up. He has no idea what time it is, but he can tell through the tinted windows that it's night again. Somehow, that one dream-memory had lasted all night.
His day is spent tearing into cold, unsatisfying blood bags and trying desperately to remember anything else of his relationship with Armand. He assumes that it must have ended sometime around this new uncovered memory, since from about that point out he has almost no gaps in his long term memory. But so many questions still remain. How long after San Francisco did Armand reintroduce himself into Daniel's life? Why did he break things off and take his memories? Does Louis know about any of this? Does Armand still love him? Why did Armand leave him like this if he loves him?
He decides then he'll do whatever it takes to find Armand and demand the truth from him. He'll chase him across the entire world ten times over if he has to, but he'll find him. He has to. Because despite everything, his anger, resentment, his remaining severe memory loss, he can't help it.
He still loves him.