Work Text:
Armand has been keeping him prisoner, for lack of a better word, for a good couple of weeks now. He hasn’t talked to anyone else since Louis left the penthouse, only Armand. He’d only been in Dubai a couple days without Louis before Armand had whisked him away onto the first private jet — apparently co-owned by both Armand and Louis.
They ditched that jet in Paris and travelled across the country by car, heading to England. Daniel drove as they went through the channel tunnel. Armand had quickly proved he couldn’t be trusted behind the wheel. Witnessing his road rage was honestly scary to Daniel, and this wasn’t the first hostage situation he’d found himself in.
They travelled for weeks, jumping from city to town to tiny village, visiting all sorts of places. At one point, Daniel had eventually lost track, no longer a hostage but a willing participant along for the ride as he went from place to place with Armand’s thin fingers wrapped tightly around his wrist.
But soon, after a winding, completely unnecessary diversion, they were in London and arriving at Heathrow Airport — Armand’s original destination.
Armand had escorted Daniel through security, hand possessively on his back, urging him through as he mind-fucked everyone around them, bypassing all the usual checks with ease. And then they were on a plane, where Daniel stands with a singular bag, containing less than half of the things he arrived in Dubai with.
“Do you remember what happened the last time we were here?” Armand asks, running his finger over the aged interior of his private jet. Daniel just stares at him from the door, slightly haggard after driving for hours with no sleep. It takes a moment for his mind to catch up with him.
“What?” He asks as the pilot slips behind him, pulling the plane door closed with a slam. Daniel walks away from the random man, creating space between them, shuffling forwards until he can take in the interior in full.
The plane looks distinctly 1980s, with two rows of blue velvet seats facing one another, pushed together to seem like two couches. On either side are glass lamps on dark wooden side tables, and embedded within the seats are seatbelts crested with what seems to be hundreds of small diamonds. If it were anyone else, Daniel would laugh, roll his eyes and pronounce them fake, but this is Armand — he can do it if he wants to.
The plane walls are a dark cream, accented with black and gold. The walls separating the area from the cockpit, bathroom and bedroom are a shiny black, reflecting back on his face. The tables hold glasses, ready to be used for the couple bottles of spirits hanging on the walls. It gives that old-money vibe, and there’s something distinctly familiar about it that strikes Daniel as odd when he toes his shoes off and they sink into a patterned carpet.
“I haven’t used this plane since we parted the last time, Daniel,” he says, turning to stare at Daniel, his orange eyes tunnelling into his soul. “Back in 1985.”
Daniel looks back, confused, head tilting to the left, even as he feels a pang of something strange in his heart. “Back in 1985… I was—”
“You were in rehab, recovering from addiction while Alice had your first daughter, Katherine, alone. But before that, where were you?”
“She… prefers Kate,” he says, unable to say much else.
“But that’s not exactly what’s important right now, is it, Daniel?” Armand asks. Well, he doesn’t really. His voice takes upon that patronising tone it usually does when Armand has enough of Daniel sidestepping his questions, which is entirely rich coming from him, considering that’s all he’s done the past couple of weeks. “Do you remember the days before that? What caused you to end up in the rehab centre?”
The first officer pops his head through the cockpit door just as Daniel begins to open his mouth. He looks concerned as he regards them, gaze swiping over Daniel, then Armand, perhaps sensing the tension in the room. “Sirs, if I could ask you to both sit down and buckle in, we’re about to begin taxiing.” He slips back into the door with no more than a parting glance.
Daniel’s eyebrows furrow. “Odd guy, huh? D’you think he thinks you're my sugar baby or something?”
Armand almost laughs, though it’s still that biting condescending thing, like everyone is in on a joke but Daniel. “While that would be hilarious, that’s not the case Daniel, as Joel is a private captain I employ personally. He knows, if anything, you are my sugar baby.” Daniel glares at him and sits down on the longer couch, right in the middle. Armand shadows him on the other side, but pushes himself up against the wall, curling in slightly. “Rather, I believe he’s worried for you, Daniel.”
“He knows?” Daniel asks, then clarifies: “He knows what you are?”
“He has an idea. Joel is a very perceptive man,” Armand hums. “Joel thinks you're lunch.”
“Am I?”
“We will see in due time,” Armand says passively as the plane begins to pummel down the runway.
Daniel just rolls his eyes. He’s used to these half-baked threats now, something Armand does to make it seem like he doesn’t want Daniel to stick around, even as he doesn’t allow him to leave. Instead, Daniel turns away and looks out the window, staring as they slowly rise from the ground, shivering at the slight swish in his stomach when the wheels leave the tarmac. He’s always loved flying, the feeling of being so far removed from the ground that seemingly nothing could hurt him — well, apart from the vampire before him.
Daniel looks back to Armand once the novelty has worn off. His face is pressed against the window as they rise through the clouds. Daniel thought that the novelty of flying may have fallen away by now, given how many times he suspects he and Louis have flown together — or perhaps Armand is autistic and has a hyperfixation on aviation. That thought in particular has struck Daniel a couple times since leaving Dubai. Armand tears his gaze away at that, glaring.
“What?” Daniel urges, provoking the man.
“No matter. Why don’t we get back to the topic at hand—”
“—so you can ask me something nondescript and figure out how I feel about it? Yeah, I’m sick and tired of that, man. We’ve done this for weeks, you’ve been baiting me around with the promise of something, sprinkling crumbs of cheese like I’m your pet rat,” Daniel drones, leaning back. He looks up to the ceiling, ignoring Armand, his intense eyes now on him. “Just give me the entire cheese platter, stop being deliberately obtuse.”
“‘Deliberately obtuse’,” Armand mimics thoughtfully. “You’re beginning to—”
“—to speak like you’ve shoved a dictionary up my asshole? Yeah, I know, this is what happens when the Vampire Armand is your new travel companion.”
“Do you not realise the point of this journey? To recover what was lost?” Armand asks, leaning forwards until his elbows rest against his knees. “This was supposed to provoke something, Daniel. Yet every effort of mine proves fruitless. I would have better luck pulling my fangs out—”
“—you can do that?”
“Will you cease interrupting me? Irritating boy. Focus.”
“Okay, sure. You’re bringing me to these places because they had some significance during my drug use? I know I brought Alice to Paris, travelled the world with her for a couple years. Everything else is lost to the drug haze, Armand. I’m not sure what you’re trying to find, but it ain’t gonna work. Why are you so persistent in making me remember my memories of Alice anyway?” He asks, rolling his eyes, putting an arm over the back of the seat. “If you want to see something so bad, why don’t you just look inside yourself and find it? I’m no help to you.”
“I detest being within your mind.”
Daniel laughs at that. “Aw, shucks man, how nice of you,” he says sarcastically before sighing. “Wouldn’t make any difference if you did. You and Louis have already fucked around in there enough to completely change my psyche.”
“Yes. We have,” Armand says, then looks off into space as if he were thinking something deep. “Louis and I have touched your mind in ways you cannot fathom. Myself especially. You don’t know how much I have ‘fucked’ with your mind, Daniel.”
He regards Armand with a resigned expression, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “What are you talking about? Are you saying you’re responsible for more than 1973?”
Armand surges forwards, his shins hitting Daniel’s thighs. He towers over Daniel with that glint in his eyes he gets when he’s close to the truth. “Should I show you? Would you like that? Do you want to recall the memories you’ve lost, those nagging memories beneath the surface, those beneath the drugs and those hidden?”
Daniel breathes harshly, pulling his legs in slightly, almost cowering. Armand looks deadly above him, ready to jump him, and not in the sexy way. He looks ready to kill Daniel, which he should have expected given how twitchy Armand has been with him, even before the flight. It was almost possessive the way he’d touched Daniel since they'd arrived in England, as if Armand already knew how the trip would end.
“Alright,” Daniel says after a long pause, forcing himself to meet Armand’s quivering eyes. Armand grins, predatory, then speaks above him. His fangs slip out, small things that poke out from behind his lips. Then, he says one, striking thing.
“Soon you will be back, beloved.”
Daniel can’t question him on it, as Armand takes that moment to pounce on him, fangs digging into the scar on his neck, shoving through the thick tissue. They clatter to the floor, Daniel hitting it with a thud that procures a choked gasp from him. Blood splatters up, shading his neck, and Daniel gasps in alarm, hands gripping weakly at Armand’s shirt. This is it, it’s over. He didn’t even do some big ploy to piss him off into doing this, this is all Armand. His death is going to happen in a private jet, somewhere above Newark.
Gulp by gulp, Armand draws the blood from his body. Daniel can feel himself getting colder by the second, energy slipping from his veins until he can’t hold onto Armand any longer, falling limp against the floor. The edges of Daniel’s vision begin to blacken, slowly losing his sight as his eyes roll back in his head.
The vampire pulls back then, just on the cusp of death, leaning down and staring into Daniel’s eyes.
“May nothing but death do us part.”
Something wet is pressed against his lips and he gulps it down, doing so until his stomach hurts and his eyes feel like they’re about to burst. Only then, does Daniel finally lose consciousness.
When he wakes up, feeling like a newborn baby and an old man at the same time, Daniel curls up in agony. His body is trembling and there’s a strange sort of lust lingering under his skin, a bloodlust. Something sharp clogs up his mouth, causing a lisp as he speaks. “What happened?” he asks, tears in his eyes as he looks up at Armand.
The older vampire is looking at him with apprehension. He’s searching for something in Daniel’s eyes, the whisper of a nickname on his lips. His mouth drops open, about to speak, something soft in his eyes, when it suddenly falls. Whatever he’s trying to see, he doesn’t find it. His face is shockingly human then, the normally perfect mask cracking until devastation covers every crack and his every pore oozes sorrow. Daniel can taste it in the air; his tongue flicks out like a snake to scent it. And then, the realisation that he can do that shocks him enough that he focuses back on Armand.
“You’re not my boy,” Armand says, harrowed, almost as if he’d been hollowed from the inside, like something scraped at Armand’s very core until all is left is a young man, destroyed and vulnerable. “You’re not my Daniel.”
And Daniel, even though every part of him screams for answers, can’t say anything in reply. Only twenty minutes from touchdown, Armand pulls open the plane door and jumps out into the sky. Daniel runs to the door and watches him with his new vampiric eyesight. Armand flies off into the night air, heading in the direction of Florida, leaving his first fledgling frighteningly alone.
Daniel doesn’t get answers to the curious questions Armand’s been asking him for the better part of the flight.
He won’t for another three years.