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The nightclub was loud enough to make the walls tremble.
Armand could feel the bass through the pavement beneath his shoes, a dull, repetitive pulse that seemed to have lodged itself somewhere behind his eyes. Neon spilled across the wet alley in strips of violet and electric blue. Music throbbed through the brick. Somewhere inside, a woman was laughing loudly, a couple were having sex in one of the bathroom stalls, and somewhere a few blocks away, a siren wailed and disappeared further into the city.
Armand stood over the body and stared down at Daniel.
Not the body on the ground.
Daniel.
Daniel, who was swaying on his feet several yards away, staring with profound fascination at a pink neon sign reflected in a puddle.
Armand closed his eyes.
For one brief moment, he considered the possibility that he had been mistaken about the wisdom of leaving Daniel alone for even a few minutes.
He had only looked away just long enough to survey the other occupants of the crowded nightclub.
That was all.
One moment Daniel had been beside him, impatiently complaining about the music, the crowd, the smell of cheap perfume and cheaper blood. The next, Armand had caught the unmistakable scent of fresh blood and found Daniel standing over a corpse in the alley, wearing the vacant, dreamy expression of a man who had stumbled his way into Nirvana.
The man's throat was torn and the remains of his blood were trickling out in a puddle on the asphalt beneath him.
Daniel had not even bothered to clean himself. There was blood across his mouth and chin, soaking into the collar of his shirt.
Armand looked at him again. Three years. Daniel had been a vampire for three years. Three years, and Armand was reminded that his fledgling had been released into the world without any guidance or supervision whatsoever.
And, technically, that was Armand's fault. He had made Daniel. Had given him the cursed gift of immortality. He had spent the first few moments of Daniel's new existence watching the horror and wonder of it bloom across his face, and then he had turned and fled. He had been disgusted by himself, unable to look at those amber eyes, which now mirrored his own.
He watched him from the shadows, intervened when needed, did his best to keep him safe. It was not enough, would never be enough.
Nearly every time he looked at Daniel, some part of him seemed to wake and whisper that he had no business being surprised by any of this. He had no right to be angry. He was still angry.
"Daniel."
Daniel looked at him. Or rather, Daniel looked in his direction. "Mm?"
"You were supposed to dispose of the body."
"I did."
Armand glanced down.
"Do not take me for a fool. Does this body look disposed of to you?"
Daniel frowned at the corpse as if this were new information. "Oh."
Armand inhaled slowly.
"You cannot just leave a corpse in the middle of an alley."
"I was going to get rid of it."
"When?"
Daniel considered this. "Eventually."
Armand stared at him.
Daniel smiled. It was a terrible smile. A charming smile. A smile Armand knew entirely too well.
"What did you drink?"
Daniel's eyes widened.
"Blood."
"I know that." Armand gritted his teeth against the wave of frustration.
"Then why'd you ask?"
Armand looked at him for several seconds, his annoyance only mounting.
Daniel's pupils were enormous, nearly swallowing the iris whole. His movements were slow and loose, wobbly even, his attention constantly sliding away from the conversation toward every source of light in the alley.
Armand stepped closer. "Was there anything different? About the man, his blood?"
"No."
Armand sighed and tried again. "Nothing?"
Daniel considered the question with great seriousness. "Oh."
"Oh?" Armand's patience was thinning.
"He tasted like candy."
There it was. Drugged blood.
This man had been on a drunken, drug-fueled bender, and Daniel, in his infinite wisdom, had apparently decided not to let that deter him.
"Do you understand that this is why I told you to be careful?"
Daniel smiled again. "You're cute when you're mad."
Armand stilled.
"You are going to be impossible tonight." His voice was quiet. The kind of quiet reserved for when he wanted to scream.
"Mm," Daniel said, not looking at him. "The stars are going sideways." He made a back and forth motion with his fingers, as if to illustrate what he was seeing.
Armand pinched the bridge of his nose. He would be like this for hours.
"I told you to check," Armand said. "I told you to look at the pupils. I told you to smell the breath. To sip before gorging yourself! There were fifty people in that club and you picked the one who was already halfway to od'ing!"
Silence.
Daniel was staring at the reflection in the puddle again, legs wobbling in a way that was most unbecoming of a vampire.
"Come, I will take you home."
It took Daniel a beat to catch up to the conversation. He blinked. The streetlights were making halos and Armand was standing underneath one, which was frankly rude of him, to be beautiful like an angel, lit up like an altarpiece while asking Daniel to go home with him.
"Oh," Daniel said. The gears turned over, slow and syrup-sweet. "Oh, I see. I see what's happening here."
"Do you?"
"You're hitting on me." Daniel said it fondly. Generously. Like he was letting Armand off the hook for it. "It's fine. It's fine, it's — I'm very hittable. It happens. I'm told I have a face for radio and a voice for terrible decisions." He laughed. "However the saying goes. But. Ah. You should know. I kinda have a boyfriend."
He watched Armand's face for the disappointment. Armand's face did not disappoint, but it also did not do what Daniel was expecting. His eyes flickered around Daniel's face before he spoke again.
"That's alright," Armand said. Soft. "I can still take you home."
"Yeah, but he'd be there," Daniel said, and the sentence came out like a confession, because it sort of was one. "And you don't want to meet the boyfriend. Trust me. You don't. He's, look —. He's super possessive and annoying."
He began to walk towards the alley's exit. Armand walked beside him. One of the streetlights flickered just ahead of them.
"Annoying," Armand repeated. He tasted the word. Daniel heard it go down.
"Annoying doesn't even cover it," Daniel said, and now he was warming up, because this was a subject he had strong feelings about, and he could feel them the way you feel your own heartbeat when you've been running. "He's a fucking nightmare. A really beautiful nightmare. He's so hot it's like a medical condition. And he's, well, screwed up isn't the word. He's like, insanely fucked up. I mean, all the way. Like you could drop a plumbing line down into him and it would just never touch the bottom. You'd look at him and think, oh, he's got his shit together, that's a guy who is totally in control." Daniel gestured vaguely at everything. "But he doesn't. He's constantly running away."
Armand's eyes did a slow, not quite blink. He looked at Daniel. "This is how you feel?"
"Absolutely, man! That's the thing about him. At the end of the day, he's just like a big, scared child." A pause. "A scared child that would eat you or rip your head from your body if you looked at him in a way he didn't like." Daniel leaned conspiratorially toward Armand, and his voice dropped like he was sharing a grave secret. "He's old. He's, you know what he is. Like me, like you. A vampire. But older than any other vampire I know." He said the word with a kind of awe. But then his expression dimmed, a fraction. "He must have experienced a lot of loneliness and pain, as old as he is."
Armand sighed before replying. "Yes, he probably did."
"And he's also the most infuriating man ever! He acts like he knows everything. You try to have a thought and he's already finished it, and if he cares enough, he's already put it on a little shelf in a museum somewhere."
"That makes sense, Daniel." Armand smiled.
"Oh yes it does," Daniel said. "Anyway. He's terrible. And I'm crazy about him. So, it's pretty tragic, especially when a cute guy is hitting on me."
Armand was quietly walking beside him. Daniel felt his own mouth move and realized he wasn't done.
"I mean," Daniel said, and his voice was still loose and honest. "He probably wouldn't even mind. If I brought you home. He'd probably, he'd sit in the corner and watch. He likes to do that, the perverted freak. He's been watching me for like, fifty years or something. I think he'd like watching us." Daniel nodded solemnly. "Yeah, you could come home with me. He wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind. We could all — whatever. And then you'd see what I mean. You'd see and you'd be like, oh. Oh, he's got a type."
"Daniel." Armand's hand was on his shoulder, gentle, firm. "Let me take you home."
"Yeah," Daniel said, throwing out a relieved smile. "Yeah, okay. Yeah. Take me home. I trust you. I trust you, man. You've got a trustworthy face. Anybody ever tell you that?"
Daniel was looking up at him with the crooked, trusting smile of a man who had just decided that he had found a friend. Armand had been called many things across five hundred years. Trustworthy was not among them. He filed the novelty of it away, took Daniel's arm, gently, because Daniel was swaying, and steered him forward.
"We are leaving," he said. "You will walk."
"I know how to walk," Daniel said, and promptly stumbled over a loose piece of gravel.
Armand caught him. He felt Daniel laugh against his chest, felt the heat of him from the blood, and thought, this is the man who waited fifty-two years for me to stop running, even after he'd forgotten me. He held him a moment longer than necessary and told himself it was only to steady him.
"I'm going to be honest with you," Daniel said, chin propped on Armand's shoulder. "I don't remember your name. Did you tell me your name? Sorry if I forgot, man. I met you like an hour ago, and now we're going back to my hotel. I mean, I'm not complaining or anything."
"I understand. I should return you to your — your boyfriend, should I not?"
"Yeah. He's probably gonna be pissed at me for bringing somebody home so late though," Daniel said, before moving away from Armand to continue walking.
They were nearly at the mouth of the alley, when Armand remembered something and stopped. Behind them was the body of the young man, slumped on the gravel where Daniel had dropped him earlier. Armand had almost managed to forget it. He closed his eyes, opened them again.
"Wait here," he said. "Do not move."
"Where would I go?" Daniel asked, and did not move, just watched.
Armand walked back down the alley. He stopped at the body, hauling it up by the collar and the belt, carried it the few feet to the dumpster, and tipped it over the lip. It landed among the trash bags with a soft thud. He pulled the lid down and produced his handkerchief to wipe his hands, folding it away, and turned back to his inebriated companion.
“Jesus.” Daniel was watching him with the wide, delighted eyes of a man who had just seen a magic trick. "You're really strong," he marveled.
"I am a vampire. What did you expect?” Armand walked back to his side. "Get in the car."
"No, I mean it. You picked him up like he weighed nothing." Daniel opened the passenger door and slid in and as Armand got into the driver's seat. “You could throw him around like he weighed nothing."
"Yes."
Daniel looked back toward the mouth of the alley. "How far?"
Armand considered it. "Far enough."
Daniel looked over. "You could throw me around too."
Armand's hand paused, keys in hand. "Yes."
Daniel grinned. "Would you?"
There was something about the question that caught Armand completely off guard.
He caught the needy, hopeful glint in Daniel’s eye, and stared for a beat too long.
Then he said, "No."
Daniel's eyebrows lifted. "Even if I asked nicely?"
A laugh escaped his lips at that, and he looked away, shaking his head.
Daniel grinned back.
Armand started the car. The engine turned over with a smooth, deliberate hum, and he sat in the driver's seat with his hands on the wheel, then pulled out into the empty street.
"I think I'm going to fall asleep," Daniel said after a few minutes. The words came out slow and thick, like honey going cold. "Is that okay?”
"Rest, Daniel," Armand said.
"Hm?" But Daniel's head was already sinking toward his own shoulder. The words came slower, softer, each one a little further under the water. "Do you ever look at the sky and think, it's all just light?"
Armand looked at him, but Daniel's eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open. The blood had dried in a thin dark line down his throat, a few drops splattered on his shirt.
The doorman saw the old man with the bloodied face and the blood at his collar and started forward, but Armand looked at him, and his eyes glazed over, holding the door.
"He has had too much to drink," Armand said, without saying it. "You will remember a quiet couple, an uneventful evening."
"Yes," the doorman said. "Good evening."
The lobby was bright and marble and full of people, and none of them saw the man in Armand's arms. The woman behind the front desk smiled her professional smile, and Armand smiled back. The elevator carried them up in silence. The doors opened onto a hallway that smelled of flowers and industrial cleaner. Armand carried Daniel down it and into the suite, laying him on the bed.
He stood at the foot of the bed and looked at him.
Then he took off his jacket. It was a good jacket, expensive, ruined now, the blood soaking into the lining, the shoulder gone stiff. He folded it over the chair. He unbuttoned the shirt and worked it free of Daniel's arms, then unlaced his boots and set them side by side on the floor. He went to the bathroom, and came back with a washcloth, cool and wet, wiping the blood from Daniel's face. Around the eye, across the cheekbone, down the line of the jaw. The blood had dried in places and came away in flakes and streaks.
Daniel made a sound in his sleep. Armand's hand stopped.
"Mm," Daniel said, not waking. "Armand."
Armand's hand tightened on the washcloth. He was his only fledgling. There had never been another, and there would never be another. He had been so certain Daniel would be fine without him. He had never once considered that Daniel might be fine without him and still want him anyway.
He set the washcloth aside. Daniel's face was clean now. His hair lay against the pillow in a spread of silver and white, and Armand brushed a curl away from his face. He removed his coat and shoes, then walked back to the bed.
He lay down beside Daniel. Close. Not touching. The mattress gave under him, and Daniel, asleep, turned toward the warmth of it.
Armand propped himself on one elbow and watched him.
He watched the twitch of his fingers on the sheet. He watched the way his brow smoothed and unsmoothed in sleep. Armand did not move for a long while.
He thought, I have been watching you for fifty-two years. Let me spend the rest of my immortal days here, where you can watch me back.
He pulled the sheet up over them both and turned out the lamp. The room went dark, except for the lights from the street coming in thin through the curtains and laying themselves across the bed. Daniel slept, peaceful, utterly peaceful, with his face turned towards Armand's shoulder.
Armand continued to watch him for some time. Then he watched the light move across the ceiling. He listened to the cars honking outside, and a heated argument in the street below. Daniel slept through all of it, and Armand did not, because he could not bear to miss a single minute of it. Not the lights shining through the curtains. The shadows stretching and warping across the wallpaper. The sounds of the people coming and going. The weight of Daniel's head against his shoulder. Armand did not want to be anywhere else in the world.