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They’re in a plane, in cruising altitude just above Chicago, where Armand has just pulled Daniel off the streets. The boy is gaunt and shaking from the cold October wind that penetrates his skin, pulled taut around his bones. Stubble is unkempt on his face, needle marks line the inside of his elbow and his hair is just about long enough to touch his shoulders.
He’s been living homeless for a fair amount of time. It always happens when he leaves Armand, when the Island life gets too boring, when the fixes become full. Without Armand’s finances to support him, he ends up on the streets, using all his money to buy drugs and ruin his body.
Armand had come, like he always does when Daniel wants to go home, but he’d looked at him on the streets, curled up into a ball, and something inside him shattered. This is his fault. Daniel is addicted — to his blood, cocaine, heroin, Mexican black tar. Anything he can take, Armand guarantees it’s found its way into Daniel’s system.
He doesn't know what to do with the boy. Armand can't possibly kidnap him, can't keep him locked away on the island until the drug withdrawals subsided. He can. But Armand can't do that to the boy he loves, he can't hurt Daniel.
And that's the problem.
Daniel knew Armand would do anything for him, even if it meant destroying his body. He pushed his luck time and time again, leaving, coming back, leaving again. Every time he arrived back at Night Island, he would be a shell of his former self, no longer the man Armand fell in love with, but someone else that brought ruin with him.
Armand uses the Mind Gift to slam the door behind Daniel, hard enough to shake the walls. They’re in the bedroom of their private jet. An argument is rising between them. In such an enclosed space, Armand isn’t sure this is a good idea. He doesn’t want to fight with Daniel, not when he looks as sickly as he does, but this sort of Daniel is a volatile one who doesn’t care about himself, or others.
“You’ve lost it, beloved,” Armand says, standing with his back to the boy, looking out the small, oval window at the opposite side of the room.
“Funny. Lost it? I wouldn’t have lost it if you didn’t push me! You make me act like this—!”
Armand lets out a bark of laughter, a singular one that slices through the air like the bullet of a gun. He turns to stare at Daniel. The boy holds the door handle, holding himself up as his legs shake unsteadily beneath him.
“Oh, so now I’m the bad guy? Typical, Daniel, the way you always twist things to make yourself look innocent!” he says, eyes wide and haunting. Armand’s sharp nails dig into his palms, urging himself to calm, to not blow up on Daniel. It doesn’t work. “I let you go, even though I don’t wish you to. I wait for you to come back to me, even when it takes months. I don’t hold you down, don’t lock you up, even though I should. How, pray tell, am I the bad guy in your story?!”
“You let me get addicted to your blood!“
“You cannot blame me for that. How could I have known what would happen? Daniel, you’re being destroyed by your fixes. I am trying to hold you back from them, but I detest keeping you locked up like a bird in a cage!” Armand argues, his irises shaking. “Would you rather I do that? Keep you locked in our home until you die of old age?”
“Yeah, maybe you should! You’re never gonna turn me anyway, I’m just some side piece you keep around when Louis gets tired of you!” Daniel yells, wobbling noticeably, legs buckling. “Keep me locked up, bring me out when you need attention, shove me back in again when you can’t handle me anymore! What a great fucking idea!”
Armand scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Dramatics again.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you know how lucky you are to have my attention, Daniel?” Armand asks. “No one has ever had me the way you do. I give myself to you wholly, I do things for you I wouldn’t dare do for other people. Beloved, I—”
Daniel’s legs take that moment to give out. He falls to the floor with a thud. Armand is too enveloped in what is quickly becoming sadness to recognise the signs. He reaches out for him, kneeling before Daniel, whose face looks blank before him, as if he didn’t believe until now just how much he’d ruined himself.
“Laugh it up,” Daniel spits out. “So I’m destroying myself, that’s not your issue. You could just leave me for dead, you don’t have to keep coming back.”
“Of course I need to come back, Daniel. You are my companion,” he says. “Am I yours, however - well, that is a different question.”
“You’re still hung up on Alice? Armand, she means nothing to me, it was just a stupid mistake!”
“A stupid mistake that resulted in her becoming pregnant, yes. She is not going to terminate it, and I will not make her.” Armand looks down at the ground, his undead heart thumping wildly in his chest. “This is your bed and you will lay in it,” he says, almost resigned, though a horror begins to creep on inside him. He wonders…
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for some time. I think now is the best moment for it,” he says as he takes Daniel’s hand. Armand pulls him, onto his shaking feet so that Daniel can sit on the bed rather than the scratchy carpet. “Do you trust me Daniel?”
“I— yeah, yeah. Always, boss.”
Still, Daniel twitches, looking nervously between Armand and the door as if he's planning to escape. He would have a hard time getting away though, considering they’re on a plane and the pilot has been asked to carry out one singular task: fly the plane until they get to the destination. He would be no help to Daniel now.
With a commanding hand on his shoulder, Armand lays Daniel down. He kneels by his side, a hand raking through his hair, soothing. Daniel looks up at him with those wide, green eyes that drew him in him over twelve years previous. He distantly wonders if this will be the last time Daniel looks at him.
Even in the aftermath of their fights, Daniel still looks up at him with a love Armand doesn’t believe he deserves, after eight years of Daniel trying to convince him that he does. His heart aches, a painful pulsing that feels like the nerves around it are pulling themselves apart.
His other hand lands softly on Daniel’s cheek. “I cannot let you destroy yourself. Look at you Daniel, you are a shell of your former self,” he says, his eyes welling with blood tears. “In your eyes, you may believe me a monster for what I’m about to do; and maybe you’re right. Maybe I really am the monster everyone seems to think I am. But I hope you see where I am coming from one day. At— at least I tried to be better — for you.”
“Armand? What are you talking about?”
“I love you, beloved boy, do not doubt it. If you don’t believe anything else, believe that.”
Armand folds over, his face inches from Daniel’s own. Two of his fingers press against the boy's temple, using the physical touch to grasp onto his mind. He delves into the folds of Daniel’s mind, dancing through memories absent of himself, looking for those he’s involved in. Daniel grips his wrist weakly, perhaps already catching onto Armand’s plan. He wouldn’t be surprised, Daniel was always an astute observer even when his mind is handicapped by substances.
He grasps onto a fleeting vision of Night Island, clutching onto it and not letting go. With careful precision, he whispers a short command: “Forget about Night Island.”
Daniel gasps. Armand can feel the icy betrayal shudder through his veins from Daniel’s mind. “You will forget about Night Island, San Francisco, now, and all the moments in between. The day you proposed to me, when you vowed to be my companion and when I rejected you, you will believe it is Alice—”
Daniel whimpers, sobbing openly into the cabin. Armand has to stop and take a deep breath, crimson tears slipping down his own cheeks. “You will believe it is Alice. Paris is Alice, Daniel. A purple dress, Alice. You thought she looked lovely when she wore it, yes?”
“No, no,” Daniel says, quiet, shaking his head and he squeezes his eyes shut, as if that could possibly keep Armand out of his mind.
He delves deeper into the memories. “San Francisco; I was not there. I was never there. It was you and Louis. You don’t remember what happened. He bit you. You blacked out. You woke up in a drug den.” Armand takes a deep breath. “Re-repeat it for me, Daniel.”
“I—”
“He bit you, you blacked out, you woke up in a drug den. Repeat it.”
Daniel shakes his head again. “No, stop it Ali— Armand!” His face pales considerably then, his eyes opening so fast that Armand almost doesn’t see it happen. “Fuck, no, please!” he all but sobs, breaking Armand’s heart into tiny little pieces. He’ll never be able to put it back together again. Daniel has ruined him for anyone else. Never will he find someone who fits him as completely as this shitty little kid from Modesto. And here Armand is, ruining that to give the boy a proper life, one he deserves, one far away from the vampire who used to torture him.
It was already working.
“He bit you, you blacked out, you woke up in a drug den.”
A splat of red hits Daniel’s cheek, a stark contrast from his pale, drained skin.
“You can’t… do this!” Daniel strains, gritting his teeth, staring at Armand with a rage he’s yet to see in the boy. He’s almost proud of how much Daniel’s fighting back, how he can feel him push against the intrusion in his mind, begging to get him out. He feels such a love for Daniel in this moment he almost wants to cease it all together. The logical part of his brain reminds him that he shouldn’t stop. Daniel is going to end up dead if he is not removed from Armand. It is the only way.
He uses more force on Daniel’s brain, just enough to leave him pliant, not enough to injure. “Alice is Armand. Armand doesn’t exist. Louis was alone. The drugs clouded your memories of the 70s and 80s. You hardly remember anything.”
“I.. hardly,” Daniel whispers, eyes staring straight into Armand’s blazing orange. He watches him take a slow blink, letting the compulsion wash over him like waves at the beach. “The drugs clouded my memories.”
“You will sleep now. You will wake up when the plane lands. You will grab your bag, walk out and head to the nearest rehabilitation centre. You will give them the money I’ve placed in your satchel and you will stay there for however long it takes for you to be sober. However long it takes for you to not threaten a relapse. You will go to Alice, tell her you’re ready to be a father and you will marry her.”
Daniel just looks at him with glazed, exhausted eyes. It’s hard to see if anything truly sinks in until his face goes slack and his eyes close, as if he’s finally given up. Armand watches him for a moment. His teeth bite at his lower lip, chewing on it nervously until he dips down. He presses a singular kiss to the boy's lips and slips out the room.
With no one there to bear witness, Armand sits down on the push seat and curls over. He pulls his knees up to his chest and cries tears of pure anguish.