Chapter Text
Half days weren’t that bad after all. Immortal summers felt like a breath of fresh air, warm breeze refreshing the atmosphere whenever the sun set, humidity clinging to his now always-cold skin. The sweet fragrant smell of oily sunscreen, mixed with all kinds of cheap and expensive perfumes, aroma of flowers lingering in there as well, kitchen smells and the always present New York sewers. All his senses were tingling now, overwhelming.
But Daniel was enjoying the summers now, when his older human self had felt miserable, hot, always sweaty, and frustrated with his body not functioning how he wanted it to, his now strong able body went on long midnight walks, even sometimes bathed himself in the last rays of sun before his hunting/dining activity. Walking in the sun as a vampire was one of the few perks Daniel had to give to the new job. The killing sprees, not so much. Even though it all felt delicious and delirious in the moment, his human tendency to consider feeding off the blood of the living as homicide did not help make the vampire journey any easier.
Armand wasn’t making it any easier for him either. He had been there yes, for a little while. Put his Maker cap on, at last guiding him, providing his blood whenever, supplying Daniel with enough “I love you” (in all shapes and forms) to last a lifetime too. All confessions always unprompted and uncalled for, and of course flatly rejected by the fledgling. Then Armand disappeared. Again. One random summer day.
Daniel had anticipated another exhausting and frustrating evening of being taught how to behave, how to walk properly, anticipating the constant arguing about nothing and everything, but Armand had not shown. Not the night after, not the weeks following.
Lestat had called it “transformational trauma”, and Daniel had laughed in his face then, assuring there was nothing of the sort happening to him. Right.
One evening, restless and freshly fed, Daniel had started enumerating the many symptoms of said trauma in one of his “in case of nervous breakdown” notebooks collecting dust in his study. These usually were reserved for his bad overdosing days, when he had first moved to New York. He had used some of these to self-diagnose whatever effects and symptoms he was victim of back then. A repeated pattern, except the poison of choice this time didn’t bring him any sort of satisfaction.
He first scribbled the most obvious one: loneliness. Scratched it immediately. Emptiness. Better. You can’t, statistically, feel lonely in a world of billions. Feeling empty and drained of life and purpose though, now that’s spot on.
He listed some more, fighting his journalistic tendencies to go for the best synonyms instead of just writing down the most accurate feelings. He highlighted emptiness, resentment, identity, bitterness, skepticism, detachment. All very human sentiments in fact, but all of these now still applying to his vampiric condition. Mixed together, they definitely shaped his experience as the vampire Armand’s fledgling: abandoned, isolated, angry, unsolicited, undead.
A beat. He pondered, lost himself in thoughts for a moment, staring out the large window, humid, dark and still night outside. Daniel had gone through a bad thanatophobia period when he reached his 70th birthday, and for some reason that exact memory had decided to make its way up again tonight. Triggered.
His thanatophobia got so bad at some point that he had accessed the deep and dark web for the most gruesome autopsy content, looking up all kinds of content to satiate his obsessive, morbid curiosity. Because he was obsessed, he would have denied it straight to your face if you pointed it out, but there was no denying it: he had encountered immortal beings more than once in his life, had imagined himself escaping the human life loophole somehow, but none of them had granted his wish for immortality. So, he had to make peace with it, one way or another. His way of dealing with that was learning everything about what was coming for him, sooner or later.
Well, the only thing that came for him after all were Armand’s fangs, struggling to find a beat in the botching mess he made of Daniel’s neck in a private plane over Newark.
He made a mental note to add “ruined facecard” to the list of symptoms.
And yes, he realised also he could have avoided his whole depressive grandpa episode if Armand had gave in sooner. In fact, he could have avoided being an immortal grandpa altogether, too. God he really needed to make Armand pay for it all. And yet…
Most of his summer was spent weighing pros and cons of letting Armand slither his way into his life again. The ancient vampire’s presence had left a mark, even in the short span of time they shared, bonding. Daniel had picked up habits already, brewing coffee for two, for example. Leaving an Ipad charging cable by the counter, just in case. And he hated it. Hated the fact that he had tolerated Armand’s presence, and the asshole dipped. Because Daniel was not the type of person to just let someone…in.
His ex-wives could tell you one, or ten thousand stories, about that. Daniel Molloy was not easy to live with. And on the opposite, Daniel had thought to himself that Armand was pretty easy to live with, surprisingly. But then he also remembered Armand had lived all his life trying to fit in. Did he feel the need to fit in, even with Daniel? Was his behaviour purely an act put on to please his fledgling, or did he simply…let go, this time?
And would Armand come back?
Now why did he pretend to care…
No, he cared. Vampire bond or not, Daniel had reached a point, maybe two weeks after Armand’s disappearance, where he came to terms with it. He needed him. He had put it on the blood at first, dependency on the fluid, the ecstasy of it all. But too much had happened to pretend otherwise. And the memories had come back, too. Daniel’s vampire transition now had unfolded bits of his locked out and mishandled memory. Lots of it blurry still, but enough had been restored to put two and two together.
There was a long story and timeline to them. Dubai wasn’t bullshit after all. In fact, what Daniel had suspected then to be, at some point, some sort of vampire foreplay between Louis, Armand and himself, proved to be somehow true. Assholes.
Speaking of, he had interviewed the vampire Louis, the vampire Lestat, now why not finish off the ultimate saga of crazies with the craziest of them all? He had unlimited time, energy and a whole lot of frustration to drive into a new project.
And he had tried before. Interviewing the inventor of deception himself. In Dubai.
_______________________________
Louis had left the Dubai penthouse, threatening Armand not to hurt Daniel in any way, Rashid had fled long before, and the Talamasca had expected Daniel to leave on his own. The modern vampire bunker now abandoned, swayed only by the sound of the desert wind crashing against the building core. Daniel had started packing up too, somehow content. Another bestseller secured, despite it all.
But the bunker had some more drama to unfold.
“You must be very satisfied of this outcome.” A low, pained voice interrupted Daniel’s packing.
Daniel hadn’t anticipated this one. His stomach dropped. He had been too engulfed in his future award-winning book scenario that he had not even considered the scenario. Armand had not fled.
Daniel slowly turned towards the voice.
Armand was badly hurt, he had managed to change outfit already (of course he did had thought Daniel in the moment) and clean himself from the fight endured, but even human Daniel Molloy could feel his presence was…lacking. He took damage, the very proof anchored on his mesmerizing face - now greyed by the temples. His usually perfect, silky bouncy curls now dull. His usually bright and vivid orangey irises just deep, red rubies burning through a defenseless, and very human, Daniel.
“I finished the job I was tasked to do.” The man was scared, though he hoped it wouldn’t show too much.
“Was it worth risking your life?” followed Armand, looking like he could launch himself at Daniel any second now. Daniel probably hallucinated that slight show of fangs right there. He hoped he had.
“You’ve manipulated most of that life, anyway” Daniel gave him a shady eyebrow raise-look over, “Maybe this is my grand rebranding. Reclaiming my stolen, tampered-with legacy and dumping it all back to the world for my resurrection, or crucifixion, whatever takes first!”
Armand had growled, then ended up three inches away from Daniel’s nose with supernatural speed. Daniel had obviously flinched and gripped the bed frame behind him for support, the nerves now stressing his old, shaking legs.
“Your self-destructive tendencies used to charm me, but you sound like a proper fool to me now, Daniel Molloy.” Armand was scanning through Daniel’s fear, eyeing lips, sweat, eyes, sweat, lips again.
“Fuck you. You, your self-righteousness, your psycho-analysing bullshit, you don’t get to call me a fool after manipulating everyone you’ve laid eyes on. Have you ever been genuine towards anything, or with anyone, Armand? Huh?”
Something slightly shifted in Armand’s expression, a micro breach in his calculating, terrifying façade.
“There was…someone I could be my true self with.” Armand admitted.
“Bullshit. No one knows who you really are. That’s what you do, this – this constant masking, twisting around your prey to better digest it when the time comes to finish it off.” Daniel hadn’t moved, but his pent-up anger was making his weak body shake all over.
“This is quite rich, coming from you. Two failed marriages, two daughters growing up telling friends and boyfriends about how they grew up without a dad figure –“
Daniel didn’t let him finish before immediately retorting: “But I never pretended to be someone else! See, that’s the thing! I tried to make it work– that’s what people do! I didn’t go around planning to murder my ex-wives with a trial just because I was bored and a little frustrated. I just got a divorce! Ever thought about that before?”
Touché, Daniel thought.
“Maybe I should have just let Louis finish the job in San Francisco.” Armand suddenly reached for Daniel’s trembling wrist by his side, the tremors stilling themselves under the crushing pressure of the vampire’s strength. Nails slowly digging in skin. Daniel winced, but tried to keep face.
“Maybe, yeah.” He had wanted the response to pass as more aggressive but, in the moment, it had sounded weak and almost pitiful. God he hated being old. And human.
“Always biting more than you can actually chew, Daniel Molloy. Will you ever learn?” Armand dug the nails deeper into the fragile skin, blood slowly drawing to surface. Not without futile resistance from Daniel, Armand forcibly brought the now bloody wrist to his mouth, not diverting his gaze from the terrified man before him.
“Do you want to know?” Armand asked slowly, almost diligently, eyes focused on Daniel’s, vibrant and terrifying.
Daniel realised Armand was restraining himself, could feel him almost…panting?
The vampire held the weak wrist close to his mouth, fangs slowly dropping. No biting, no harder pressure came. Armand was smelling him. More precisely, he was smelling the blood. And why was Daniel feeling hot suddenly?
“Know what?” Daniel felt breathless and cornered, yet he couldn’t stop staring at Armand’s beauty in the moment. Monstruous, this beauty. Eyes a burnt deep dark orange, sparkling, piercing through him. Daniel could have begged for mercy, potentially. He would have begged for anything really.
“Do you want to know who made me, the many reasons I have done what I have done, all the minute details of my story? Do you want to know everything, Daniel? Who I really am?”
“...Sure. If you manage to pull apart your own truth from the bullshit, I guess.”
And Armand had released his wrist then, disappeared from vision in a second, almost already out the door before saying: “Then I will tell you everything, if you can handle it.”
Daniel barely had time to catch himself when Armand had freed his wrist, pulled himself together before replying:
“Try me.”
22 days.
That’s what it took for Armand to unleash his beast of a story, and Daniel had listened, properly. They had repeated the same interviewing pattern as the one with Louis, going from room to room, eras to eras, story to story, from late evening to dawn, every day. Daniel did have remarks to say, opinions to share and they had argued back and forth, almost to the point where Daniel had feared his time had finally come and he wouldn’t have the opportunity to publish anything in the end. But he had listened. Mostly because he was intrigued, but also because he had been involved in that story, too.
And in many more aspects than he had originally thought.
Armand had waited until the very end to drop the bomb.
What he called “his first and last human indulgence”.
He finally admitted how, after the San Francisco fiasco, he had followed Daniel to end this meaningless dance once and for all, but got himself entrapped in Daniel’s life, to his own surprise. He had found Daniel “fascinating” for a human, and months had passed already when he realised he had been completely engulfed and obsessed with the boy: his life, his choices, everything about him. From there on in the story, Armand enumerated every single event from Daniel’s life he had been involved in somehow (and that was…a lot), thoroughly insisting on the fact that no one had ever captivated him as much, as if to make the pill easier to swallow.
Because some of these events were, actually, very dull. He explained how one time he had enjoyed playing all night long with the ice dispenser from a fancy fridge Daniel had bought with his first big boy writer pay check. Fascinated by the ice cubes dropping at incredible speed. How convenient! Magical! And he had played with it for so long that the fridge itself broke down in the morning, leaving a pissed off Daniel with a brand new broken fridge when he woke up.
Never before had Armand found interest in human interests, hobbies, technologies/ Then suddenly everything appealed to him. Anything Daniel would touch, talk about, discuss, Armand needed to dissect, learn from or own himself.
Armand admitted to much more, including creating setups where he and Daniel would meet, many times apparently. Different contexts, different countries, different decades. And every single one of them would lead to the same outcome. And Armand would erase, reshape the memories and fix the timeline, for Daniel’s sake.
And Daniel thought he was going to die from a stroke then. Glasses off, his pulse had dropped, his vision blurred, he kept listening to the story telling, recounted from the point of view of a 500 years ancient vampire, but he really thought the decades of drug abuse had finally caught up to him.
It was all real, all laid down on the table now.
Daniel, almost imperceptibly, asked: “What was the inevitable outcome…every time?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking” Armand went very still.
“You know exactly what I’m asking. What was it. What was the final outcome that made you inevitably erase your existence from my life, every. Single.time?” Daniel had avoided looking at Armand until now. He was fixed on him now, waiting.
Armand took a moment, before answering, sincerely: “Love. The inevitable outcome was love.”
Daniel felt a tinge of pain in his chest, perhaps the stroke was closer than it seemed.
Armand felt the need to resume: “Every single scenario, two strangers, however long or short, happy or depressing, you ended up caught in the trance and-”
“Trap, more likely” Daniel added without humour.
“Never. I couldn’t stay away from you too long. I had to see you, talk to you, touch you, if you’d let me - only. I never trapped you, or forced you. I let moments happen, contacts linger, everything genuine. You needed more from me too, something you couldn’t get from…the others. Something dark, dirty, that no one else would give you. But I did. And you’d fall deeper and deeper, and so did I. And I couldn’t let that happen, you were so…full of life, bright, smart, eager, a whole life ahead of you…”
Armand continued on, but something in Daniel had stopped responding. Armand said something about being Daniel’s prisoner/victim, and Daniel very loudly snorted at that. He had heard enough. He waved a hand at Armand to make him stop, which silenced the vampire.
Not for long: “I do understand this is a lot to take in, and –“
“Oh you think????” Daniel shouted back, face in hands.
Maybe that’s what he deserved for being such a shit person for all these years, Daniel thought to himself. Egotistic, selfish, self-centred, masochistic freak too apparently, A-tier asshole. And they welcomed him at the gates of Hell with his own private guardian evil in the form of a sexy-looking demon. He’d seen movies on Netflix less fucked up than the one he was stuck in.
“I need to insist on the fact that everything I have done through the years, Daniel…Every time I secretly stepped out of the shadow and got myself involved in your life, I have done it solely in your interest. I have never –"
Daniel had put his hand up in the air again. Salvation, please. Let him have that at least.
“I’m leaving.”
Daniel stood up and made his way to the guest bedroom.
“You’re sick, Daniel. You’re dying.” Armand said a bit louder than he probably expected, almost pleading, wanting to convey genuine worry to his boy, now that everything had been said.
“So be it. Just hope it’s gonna be quick for now.” and Daniel had shut the bedroom door behind him.
Fast forward to his flight back to New York, Armand had tried to stop Daniel from leaving (obviously), tried to use reason on him over and over again (HA!), but there was no going back.
No going back at all, because Daniel’s physical state had taken such a toll that his body gave up on him in that plane. The one flight that was supposed to bring him back to reality, sanity perhaps, had failed him too. Again, maybe, Daniel had thought, what he deserved for an ending, after all. Karma.
But Armand had been there, again, always.
Armand had turned Daniel at the very last minute, bypassing the terrible aftertaste of sickness and death pungently combined in Daniel’s bloodstream, he had saved his boy. But he had expected Daniel not to see it under the same light, not considering it as a "saving" but more as a selfish guilty pleasure. So he disappeared once the turning had fully happened, making sure Daniel had made his way through eternity. Then he disappeared.
And he had disappeared again. Figures.
Back to his summer hobby now, Daniel was reworking his potentially new award-winning release, trying to put into proper words everything that had been shared from Armand. Tying it to Louis, Lestat, Claudia's truth, doing research on timelines, places, covens. The work was gigantic. Armand's life was vast, lawful mostly and chaotic sometimes, and so...fascinating.
Then he got to his own timeline, not knowing exactly what to do with it. Not knowing if he actually wanted to do anything with it.
Because he also figured, after looking into every little aspect of this ancient vampire's life, through decades of survival, plotting, companionships, drama, suffering, manipulation, horror and beauty...he had been relatively insignificant in all of that. What had he done exactly to deserve to be a part of this immortal creature's story?
Daniel was no Louis, no Lestat, maybe a bit of Claudia sometimes, definitely no Marius...but he was no competition to the very people who shaped Armand's story. He did not deserve to be mixed in there, he thought.
But Daniel had it all wrong.
And Armand came back that very night.