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When Armand tells Daniel he’s six weeks pregnant, the first thing Daniel thinks to do is ask if he’s sure, which proves to be the wrong decision.
“Pardon?” Armand asks, always so polite, especially when he’s feeling small.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Daniel backtracks. “I just… Look at us.” Daniel vaguely waves his hands between them. “You’re five hundred. I have the vampiric body of a sixty-eight year old.”
“Yes,” Armand says, looking at Daniel like this is completely irrelevant information. Daniel holds back an eye roll.
“So, doesn’t that make a pregnancy,” the word catches on Daniel’s tongue, and Armand raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow.
“Unlikely, but not impossible.” He finishes for who he has claimed is the love of his life, but seems more to be the source of his ire at the moment. Daniel’s eyes (traitorously) flick to Armand’s torso. Maybe, if he squints, Daniel can see the smallest swell. Armand places a hand there almost protectively, and it makes Daniel stall.
Armand is, if he is to be believed (and Daniel believes him, he trusts Armand so much; they’ve fought hard to get to this point), carrying Daniel’s child. From the determined look on his face, he seems to be planning to continue to.
“Okay,” Daniel says, his voice much quieter than it was a few moments again. “Okay. You’re pregnant.” Armand sits on the edge of the couch in their living room, still cradling his bump with a single hand. He begins to rub his belly in the slowest, smallest circles, and Daniel isn’t sure whether it’s to comfort himself or the.. baby. Daniel swallows. “What does that mean?”
“Daniel.” Armand sounds exasperated, and even though Daniel sees right through it - it’s so obvious to Daniel that this is a show, a performance Armand is putting on to hide how deeply, deeply scared he must be - the tone grates on Daniel. “I assumed that you would tell me. You’ve done this before, after all.”
“As a human. With my human wives. I’m going to take a wild guess that this is not going to be the same thing,” Daniel is pacing back and forth, he realizes, and forces himself to stop. “This is a first for me. Us.” Daniel corrects himself.
“I didn’t say that,” Armand says. Daniel turns to him.
“What?” He asks.
“It’s not the first time,” Armand states, the hand on his belly stilling. Daniel blinks.
“I don’t understand,” Daniel tells Armand, because he doesn’t. Armand’s jaw ticks.
“This is my second pregnancy,” Armand tells him. Daniel’s mouth drops. He closes it, opens it again, then shuts it one more time. It’s Armand’s turn to talk. “Louis and I conceived a child together,” he continues, voice steady and face blank, betraying nothing. Daniel can’t read Armand, can’t pinpoint any emotion even through their bond. “Just before we met you.” Daniel scoffs, trying to play it off as an exhale.
“I take it you… chose not to go through with it?” Daniel has never been good at subtlety. Armand looks away.
“I lost it.” He states plainly. “Shortly after we dropped you off in that drug den.” Armand glances at his stomach, slightly rounded and filling in his button-down more than he’s used to. “It was quick, and physically painless. I hadn’t even started showing yet.”
“Jesus, Armand,” Daniel wants to touch Armand - give him some kind of comfort - but he can’t bring himself to. What’s he going to do? Give him a pat on the shoulder? “Wait,” Daniel thinks of everything that happened between him, Louis and Armand before the two dropped him off in that godforsaken room: the botched interview, the yelling and fighting, the weight of nursing Louis back to health. Stress, an unprecedented amount, placed on Armand, regardless of whether it was all his fault or not. “Armand,” Daniel’s voice has softened again. “Are you saying-”
“The events of those few days took a toll on my body,” Armand cuts Daniel off before he can finish the question. “I,” he pauses, taking a small breath to compose himself. “I’ll take better care of myself this time.”
For the first time in all the years since Armand turned him, Daniel feels like he’s going to vomit. He takes a seat next to Armand.
“Sweetheart,” he says, pleased when the nickname eases Armand, even if it’s not by much–just in how the slant of his brow relaxes. “It wasn’t your fault that-”
“I don’t want to discuss this,” Armand interrupts, and while Daniel has worked on making sure Armand doesn’t keep hiding from everything that keeps him high strung and selfish and dangerous, he recognizes this is a separate issue. He doesn’t push.
“Sure,” Daniel says, and then he doesn’t talk after that. He and Armand sit there, not looking at one another, but not necessarily avoiding each other’s gaze either. Eventually, Armand speaks.
“It’s the size of a pea right now,” Armand says, glancing at his stomach. “Lately I've been looking at the charts,” he points towards his iPad. “...the ones that compare each stage to produce. It’s silly,” Armand laughs at himself, not entirely in a nice way. “But I like them.”
“A pea, huh?” Daniel feels himself smiling. Armand nods. “May I?” He asks, gesturing at Armand’s middle. Armand takes the hint, placing his hands as his sides.
Daniel reaches forward and carefully begins to unbutton Armand’s shirt, stopping at the bottom of his sternum. Daniel stares at his perfect skin, noticing that Armand’s belly has the slightest curve to it - as though he’d eaten a large lunch - and the knowledge that Armand’s body is changing to accommodate for his child makes Daniel’s chest puff with pride. He flattens his hand just under Armand’s navel, right where the doctor told Daniel and his first wife the baby grows (so much lower than Daniel would have guessed all those years ago), and spreads his fingers out, wanting to feel as much as possible. Armand gives a little oh in response, and Daniel wonders if Louis had touched him like this back in the seventies. He wonders if they cried when Armand lost it.
“You know, my whole human life, my doctors said I needed more fruits and vegetables.” Armand gives Daniel an incredulous look. “Not that I’m going to eat our baby!” Daniel exclaims, and begins to overcorrect. “I’m saying - I’m making a reference to the charts - I’m trying to,” Daniel trips over himself, and Armand watches him, amused. He lays his hand over the one Daniel has on his stomach, his expressive eyes full of unbridled affection. Daniel shakes his head, then hangs it. “Fuck it. You know what I’m saying, Armand.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel sees Armand begin to smile.