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Armand hated sleeping alone.
He had built up the habit over centuries, whether the sleeping was in beds or on floors or in coffins, in sewers and then coffins again, beds again too. Arun had slept in cramped rooms with his family squeezed in the tight space together, then on the dirty floors of the ships, the brothels, along with the other unfortunate souls by his side. Amadeo would sleep alongside his master when he permitted it, and with the other boys in the palazzo when he didn’t, with the comfort of Riccardo close to him. The Children of Darkness took their rest in the same room as each other. He slept in coffins with the Theatre des Vampires, then in coffins with Louis, and then in beds with Louis, too, the strong wrap-around of his arms perfectly surpassing the enclosing walls of a coffin.
It didn’t matter whether he was actually going to sleep or not, now he had lived long enough that he didn’t need to rest as often - he still hated spending that time alone. When Louis retired to bed at sunrise Armand would still lay beside him; sometimes watching him sleep, sometimes shutting his eyes and mimicking unconsciousness for hours on end, listening to the sound of his heartbeat.
Sometimes Louis wasn’t there, and Armand would seek the company elsewhere.
He saw Daniel Molloy at the tail-end of sunrise, a pinkish light beginning to creep over the horizon as the fascinating boy haphazardly drew the motel room curtains with a groan. It was lucky for Armand, really, that Daniel was so scattered, so wayward. It meant they slept at the same time. He watched the boy collapse on top of moth-bitten sheets, his sweaty face pressed into the pillow as his hair fanned out beside him on the fabric, little halo-curls of brown.
It took barely a dip into Daniel’s mind to know he was struggling with the comedown of the night before, so exhausted and shaky that Armand could barely sift through his thoughts at all.
He saw the blurred memories of the night through Daniel’s eyes; only just managing to stumble through the door of the motel room, crashing into the walls, accidentally leaving the door ajar. That was all of ten minutes ago. The boy didn’t remember much else, and Armand assumed he wouldn’t remember those meagre visions after he woke, either. It was clearer and clearer, as Armand strained through his thoughts, that he was reeling from days of using rather than simply the night before.
Just go to sleep. Just go to fucking sleep, get it over with, he heard Daniel think frustratedly at himself, as though it was going to help any. Armand idled in the back corners of his mind, making himself privy to everything Daniel was feeling; he was fatigued, of course, but plagued with so many other things that stopped him from falling asleep. The heavy sweating, the stomach pains, the nausea. Armand almost liked it, in a way. It had been so long since he had felt anything of the sort.
Not that he particularly liked humans and their bodily functions. But this was Daniel, and Daniel was feeling all of it, and Armand was experiencing it by proxy as he watched and coaxed himself into the deepest trevasses of Daniel’s mind. It was like being human again. All he did was sit and watch and feel.
Daniel’s rapid heart rate, Daniel’s shallow breathing, Daniel’s restless limbs. Daniel’s fingers white-knuckling the bedsheet as his feet dangled off the edge of the bed, shoes still on. Poor, beautiful boy. Armand drew back from Daniel’s thoughts, left the boy to his own devices for a short moment as he went to shut and lock the door Daniel had so carelessly left open. Really, he was lucky there was a vampire stalking him. Where would he end up otherwise?
He slowly eased himself into Daniel’s brain again, caressed his fingers around the discomfort, and soothed the fascinating boy into sleep. Daniel’s body went limp against the mattress, the shaking and writhing finally ceasing, his pained whines tempering out into heavy breathing.
Armand smiled, and sat himself down at the foot of the bed.
He didn’t fall asleep.
He didn’t particularly need to; he didn’t yet feel the pull of exhaustion tugging at him, and it would’ve been a foolish idea anyway to allow himself to be so vulnerable in a place like this. Daniel was here, of course, but Armand was watching over him. There was little more protection one could have.
The sun was already disappearing over the skyline. Armand had drawn the curtains and perched himself on the small windowsill, knees drawn up to his chest as he watched Daniel; he was tossing and turning in his sleep, the lingering effects of Armand’s interference long gone, groaning quietly from time to time into the pillow.
Daniel didn’t have any belongings with him. Armand had checked the room multiple times over, filtering through Daniel’s memories as he slept and surveying his surroundings; Daniel had merely the shabby clothes on his back and his car keys on the bedside table. His car outside. Maybe, unless it had been stolen already. Armand hadn’t checked, and Daniel clearly hadn’t made a habit out of preserving his safety.
“What the fuck?!”
Ah.
Armand turned to the bed to find Daniel sitting upright on the bed, looking positively scandalised as he blinked the remnants of sleep from his eyes. It wasn’t a new situation, but Armand loved how startled he was every time; as though Armand wasn’t constantly by his side wherever he was, watching, waiting. Whether Daniel was travelling the world or sleeping face-down in a shitty motel room, Armand was going to be there. Surely, Daniel had learnt this by now.
“...You left the door open,” Armand said. Because he had. Whether he’d been watching Daniel beforehand and seeking him out anyway was neither here nor there.
Daniel exasperatedly rubbed his hands over his face, sweaty and tinged pink. “That doesn’t fucking mean come in.”
“Would you rather it have been someone else?”
“No-one else is here,” Daniel moaned. “It’s just- just me, no-one else for fuckin’ miles, if I drove any further I would’ve crashed into a ditch, I could feel it. Get a pole through my head after I passed out. Even you couldn’t have dragged me outta that.”
“I could’ve.”
Daniel scoffed. “Yeah, yeah. Great. I’ll die, you fix me, and now I’m the asshole for finding a place to crash.”
“Finding a place to crash and leaving the door open, Daniel. Do you think this is a pleasant place? Should we go outside, now, and ask the neighbours? Do you think they would be kind?”
“There’s no-one fuckin’ here, I told you, and you gave me your blood to protect me anyway-”
“To protect you against vampires. When a gun is pulled on you, Daniel, when somebody wanders into your open motel room with a knife, are you going to break the amulet then? Do you think that will do anything? Do you think another mortal will see my ancient blood and recognise it? Do you-”
“Boss,” Daniel whispered tightly.
“Do you just assume I will save you from whatever danger you find yourself in? Do you lose your brain because of it?”
“Boss.” He said again. “Armand.”
“What?”
“I don’t feel well.”
Armand huffed out a dry laugh. “Of course you don’t.”
“No, I-” Daniel stilled, his face dropping even paler as a sheen of sweat painted his forehead. “I really don’t feel well.”
Oh. Armand looked closer at him, tilting his head and leaning forwards. The tension between them had dissipated almost instantly, Daniel shrinking back in on himself and snaking his arms across his stomach as though Armand wouldn’t notice; there was a small yet noticeable tremble to his shoulders through his baggy tee and the little colour that was in his face had quickly drained.
He dipped back into Daniel’s head again, and waded through the pain and discomfort taking hold of him as it had done the night before. I’m gonna puke, Daniel was thinking. Can I really win this argument if I puke everywhere?
Daniel couldn’t win the argument anyway, Armand thought to himself.
He definitely heard me think that. Now he knows, and I’ve basically lost the argument already. Maybe I’m not going to throw up, maybe I just woke up too quickly. Maybe there’s something wrong with the bedsheets and it made me feel sick.
Armand couldn’t help but scoff. “It was the bedsheets, beloved? Not the copious amounts of drugs you’ve been taking?”
“Sheets are always- fuckin’ dirty in these places,” Daniel said around slow, deep breaths. “And it wasn’t- wasn’t a lot.”
“It was enough to make you feel like this.”
Daniel dazedly thought something along the lines of, fuckin’ smartass, before his thoughts quickly pivoted to oh shit, I actually am gonna throw up.
There were times during their companionship that Daniel didn’t want Armand to read his mind. This, clearly, wasn’t one of them: he looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes, body trembling, lower lip pinched nervously between his teeth. Help me, he was saying. Help me.
As much as Armand wanted to draw it out, to watch Daniel’s discomfort and neediness pan out under an observational lens, he didn’t particularly feel like cleaning up the mess. Daniel, of course, would be in no state to, and if they had to move locations he didn’t want to get in Daniel’s car either. And yet, still, he didn’t use any of his Gifts to move him. He wanted to touch, to hold, to feel. He wanted Daniel to feel all of it, too.
He pulled the boy up from the bed, wiping his clammy forehead with a cool palm and resting a hand in the small of his back, guiding him to the bathroom with a visible haste. Daniel went easily, as he did most days. An eager black hole. He shuddered under Armand’s cool touch and barely made it before he was crashing down beside the toilet, emptying the meagre contents of his stomach in the echoing motel bathroom.
Armand watched all of it. The hairs standing up on the nape of Daniel’s neck, the terror that built in the cold sweat underneath his shirt, the white-knuckled grip on his dirty jeans as he hurled again. His poor beloved. He turned the bathroom light off to silence the nauseating whirring, and Daniel breathed a trembling sigh of relief in the silent darkness.
The comedown was still tormenting him, however, and if any of the previous times were to go by, Armand assumed it wouldn’t end soon. It wasn’t a first, watching Daniel from the foot of his bed, feeling everything he felt from the guilt to the sickness to the fear to the pain. Maybe Armand would hand feed him crackers again. It was odd to remember, after so many decades of immortal unlife, how fragile humans were. Daniel would travel the world with him and drink his blood and yet, on occasion, he needed Armand to help him stand, to help him into the shower and wash his hair, to coax food into him after the vomiting stopped.
Perhaps it would be easier, if he had a mortal companion without such vices. But he didn’t want that. He wanted Daniel Molloy and the fascination of stalking his motel rooms and sleeping through the day with him. He wanted to watch. He wanted Daniel. He wanted nothing else.
“Did you want to keep arguing?” Armand asked softly.
Daniel let out a broken sob, clutching at his stomach, and spat into the toilet. “No.”
He bowed his head low enough to brace his forehead on the porcelain, hiccuping so strongly it moved his entire body. It was pathetic, almost, and yet Armand couldn’t look away. He didn’t dare move his hand from Daniel’s spine, didn’t shift even an inch on the bathroom floor, and lifted his other hand to thread through Daniel’s sweaty curls. Touching, touching; Armand anchored Daniel to the present and let the feelings run through his own body at the same time. Your hurt is my own. Give it to me, beautiful boy. I want to feel all of you.
Daniel arched his neck backwards to tilt his head into Armand’s hand, a gesture as needy as it was sweet. Armand scratched comfortingly across his scalp, humming low in his throat, monitoring every twitch, every sound, every minute movement as Daniel shifted to get comfortable, stomach roiling as he held back whimpered through his gritted teeth.
“You poor thing,” Armand murmured, so soft it was condescending, cooing as he rubbed firmly up and down Daniel’s back. “Who could have predicted such a thing would happen?”
“Fuck you, man.” Daniel choked on a cough. “Just ‘cause you- you’re a fucking vampire, and this never happens to you, oh I’m so perfect and I don’t need drugs because my own blood works like fucking crack and I-”
Daniel interrupted himself with a retch, body convulsing as he heaved at just the perfect time to cut him off. Karmic retribution for being so mouthy, Armand thought to himself; but he continued soothing his hand over Daniel’s back anyway. His skin was feverish even through the fabric of his shirt. Armand slipped his fingers underneath the material to feel the warmth against his bare spine.
“This- this sucks,” Daniel’s breath hitched, suddenly much more vulnerable in the way his back hunched and his body trembled underneath Armand’s hand. There was no escaping it; Daniel couldn’t run away from here, nor could he avoid the symptoms wracking his body.
“I know.” Armand let a sliver of genuine sympathy seep into his voice. It was lilting, gentle. It made Daniel shiver. “I know.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he said, weak and futile. “I’m not- I’m not a junkie, boss, I swear, it just-” Another gag, perhaps timed well enough to remind him of everything he’d done the night before, but he still insisted. “I’m not like that. I’m not.”
His voice grew more and more high pitched in his desperation, his hurt; Armand softly dug his fingers into the muscles either side of Daniel’s spine, moving along his torso every time he gasped for air and hiccuped through the pain.
“I know,” he soothed again. You’re not inconsequential, or a junkie. You’re a bright young reporter with a point of view. That was what Daniel wanted to hear. Every tender word from Louis that Daniel had misconstrued to somebody else, every soft touch at the table where he’d nearly died, it had wormed its way into his deepest desires.
Daniel wanted to be good. Daniel wanted to be a renowned journalist. Not curled on the floor of a motel bathroom and violently throwing up. But like every painstaking application to newspapers and shitty intern jobs and articles that went nowhere, he’d have to ride it out.
“I just need-”
Armand didn’t need to read his mind to know what he wanted; that ashamed look in his eyes along with the guilty hunch in his shoulders and the desperation in his face. He wanted Armand’s blood, and failing that, more drugs - but one of those things was in quick and easy supply, and Daniel knew full well Armand wasn’t going to seek out any of the San Francisco dealers he knew just to make a point.
“No, you don’t.”
“Not a lot,” Daniel hiccuped. “Just- you gave it to me before, even less than that, and I’ll be fine, it’ll just tide me over, and, and-”
Armand looked pointedly at Daniel, then at the toilet.
“You want your mouth on my ancient blood, after you have spent nearly twenty minutes desecrating the bathroom with last week’s terrible decisions?”
Daniel stared at him pathetically. “I could brush my teeth?”
“I won’t give you any more, beloved,” Armand murmured, hoping gentleness would better soothe him into giving it up. “You’re much more fascinating off the drugs than you are on them.”
He had witnessed Daniel’s comedown in San Francisco, too, over the course of the six days that first time they met. He’d liked the boy more and more as time went on; those racing thoughts flying through his mind, the erratic nature of his brain, every impulse in his body that he would stamp out with his drugs. Armand was fascinated. He wanted to experience Daniel Molloy in every state he could be in.
The hostage situation with Armand had quickly become the least of the boy’s worries, as he was sweating and coughing and shivering on the floor of his and Louis’ Divisadero apartment. He didn’t need to read Daniel’s mind then to know how awful it all felt. Everything he’d had in his system was more than enough for him and Louis put together. It was no wonder, when he listened to the tapes, that the interview was as erratic as it was.
He liked Daniel sober. Liked him sharp and mean and terrible.
Daniel coughed, haphazardly wiped his face with his sleeve. “I think a lot of people would disagree with you.”
“And you would take their word over mine?”
“Armand,” he nearly sobbed.
“Daniel,” Armand whispered back, sidling closer and closer until he was pressed into his side, chest against his shoulder, murmuring into his hair. “Daniel, Daniel.”
Daniel pulled back from where he was hunched over, shakily leaned into Armand’s cool touch. His breaths were short, sharp; every little inhale seemed almost like a cry, and Armand moved his palm to rest flat on Daniel’s chest, feeling every movement underneath his hand. His quivering breaths, his rapid heartbeat. The way he slipped backwards towards Armand and let him take over completely.
“You really won’t give it to me?” Daniel asked.
“Not like this.”
“So you’re concerned about my wellbeing all of a sudden?” He moved weakly in Armand’s arms when he scoffed. “I can’t get high on your blood because it’s bad for me? Is the Vampire Armand gonna put me in rehab?”
“Daniel.”
“Who am I kidding? You want me in rehab so you can play nurse with me. Just a step up from what you’re doing now, huh?”
He craned his neck to look Armand in the eyes; his face was still flushed pink, clammy and pale, but he had a clarity to him that he hadn’t had this morning. Armand tipped his own head forwards, accidentally brushing Daniel’s nose with his own as their gazes locked.
He couldn’t imagine what his own stare looked like. Something filled with need, anger, desperation. A sickened yearning. He wondered if Daniel could recognise it all.
“You can have it when you’re not like this,” Armand murmured, and in a weakened moment of fragility, said: “I want you to drink it because it's me. If you want it just because it gets you high, seek out another vampire. Get bitten and drained. Maybe they’ll give into your begging and turn you. But not my blood.”
“You want it to be special.”
Putting it like that made Armand’s skin crawl, but he supposed so, yes.
“It’s intimate, for a vampire. You know that. I don’t let you drink from me lightly.”
Daniel’s gaze softened with the realisation. As much as it could do, since he was still so ill; but it was clear enough that the boy felt some regret, and was hunching in on himself like it would hide his earlier transgressions. He was so sweet, Armand thought. Curled up in his arms and bowing his head like a dog. So well behaved when he was given this small nudge.
He shivered under the silence, his shallow breathing gradually returning to normal. There was nothing left inside of him to lose anymore. Armand held him tightly to his chest.
Daniel muttered to break the quiet, “I do like you playing nurse with me, y’know.”
Armand smiled softly. “I know.”