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Chapter Text

Daniel felt like death. His body ached everywhere and he burned with fever. His throat felt swollen and raw, like someone had taken a weed-whacker to it. 

He lay on the sofa in front of the television with a blanket he’d pulled from the bed, occasionally kicking it to the floor when it got too hot. 

He was struggling to sleep when the apartment door banged open. He hadn’t even realized it had gotten dark. 

Armand walked in, ready to drag him off to whatever party or art show or play he had planned for the night, but stopped short when he saw him. From the vampire’s expression, Daniel looked as bad as he felt. 

“Sorry, boss, you’ll have to go alone tonight.” He coughed with the effort of speaking.

Armand bent down and touched his forehead. “You have a fever.” 

“Ding, ding, ding, you win the prize,” Daniel said. 

Armand frowned deeply. He grabbed Daniel’s arm. “You need medicine. Come, let’s get you to a doctor.” 

Daniel tugged his arm out of Armand’s grasp which wasn’t easy, especially given how weak he felt. “It’s just a flu or something,” Daniel said. “I already got medicine.” He gestured behind him to the kitchen table, where bottles of Robitussin and Nyquil sat. He’d made a trip to the corner store earlier and bought a couple different kinds, unsure which to pick. He’d taken the Robitussin, but it hadn’t done much besides taste like poison. 

Armand looked from the table and back to Daniel several times, as if weighing his options.

“I’ll be fine,” Daniel said. “I just need to sleep. Go do whatever the hell you were going to do without me.” 

“No,” Armand said. He sat on the easy chair next to the sofa. “I’ll stay with you.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. He wanted to make some comment about how Armand only wanted to see how sickness worked its way through a mortal body but he was too tired. It hurt every time he swallowed and he couldn’t get comfortable to save his life.

“Do you want soup? Mortals eat soup when they're sick, don't they?” Armand asked. 

Daniel smiled. Armand was actually worried about him. Go figure.

“I had soup earlier,” he said. Well, he’d tried to. He’d heated up a can of chicken noodle from the same corner store but it tasted oddly metallic and he’d dumped most of it down the sink. 

Daniel coughed again and shifted onto his side. Armand watched him warily. “What can I do?” 

“Make me a vampire.” 

Armand glared at him. 

Daniel sighed. “You asked.” He found the remote between the cushions and turned off the television and buried his head in a throw pillow. “Why don’t you tell me a story?” 

“A story?” He sounded a little taken aback. “What kind of story?” 

“The story of your life?” He smiled weakly, glancing up at Armand, who did not smile back. “Pick one. You’ve lived for hundreds of years. You must have stories.” 

Armand’s expression remained blank. Either he couldn’t think of anything or more likely, he just didn’t want to share anything that came to mind. “What do you want to hear about?” he finally asked.

Daniel adjusted his pillow. “I don’t know. Have you ever regretted a kill?” 

Armand sat back in the chair. He was quiet for so long Daniel assumed he wasn’t going to answer. But then he spoke, “There have been several, of course.”

“Yeah? So tell me about one of them.” 

“You want to know the strangest things,” Armand said. 

“Says the guy who once made me spend six hours in the magazine aisle of a bookstore explaining tabloids and girlie mags,” Daniel countered. 

Armand considered for several minutes and then said, “Louis told you about the Theatre Des Vampires.”

It wasn’t a question but Daniel eagerly said, “Yes.” 

“Sometime in the 1830s, a young man came to the theatre. As you know, most of our patrons believed it to be some dark satire. But one or two saw through the act. This particular man believed that the devil was communicating with him through bird song. He’d spent months meticulously making a record of the bird calls outside his window and he brought them to us backstage after the show, demanding we translate the message.” 

“What did you tell him?” 

“He was told that of course we could not. But he was insistent that the devil sent him to us and I could hear his thoughts. They were a whirlwind of delusions. And despite that, he was charming. He was nearly bursting with the need to be understood. And he was utterly fascinated by the macabre.” 

“You liked him,” Daniel said.

Armand nodded. “He reminded me of—” Armand stopped. Daniel looked up at him. “Someone else. Someone Lestat and I both knew long ago. So I spoke with him. He told me how he believed he’d sold his soul by mistake and now the devil wanted him to do his bidding but he couldn’t understand the instructions. He was desperate to do whatever was required of him. 

“Santiago overheard, and told him that the devil wanted him to serve us at the theatre. So he did. And of course, he saw what we really were. That knowledge drove him further into the depths of madness. He soon decided he could decipher the devil’s messages himself and would come to me with lists of ramblings he’d decoded. Then he began insisting the devil wanted us to turn him, and of course, we would not.” 

“Why not? He sounds like a perfect addition to your troupe.” Daniel was joking but Armand shook his head. 

“To give one in such a fraught mental state the blood is to condemn them as surely as killing them,” Armand said. “He steadily got worse and did nothing but wander around the theater mumbling but a few of the others found him and his stories of the devil’s messages amusing. Until one night, he pulled out a sword and attacked one of our actors as they left the stage. He said the devil had revealed that we were all pretenders and must be dispatched. The vampire he’d stabbed was fine, of course, but it had gone too far. I knew whoever killed him would make him suffer so I did it myself before the others could get to him.” 

“And you regret it?” 

Armand shrugged. “Regret is perhaps the wrong word. It had to be done. He’d lost all sense of reality and was a danger to us while we slept. But I took no pleasure in his demise.” 

“Do you think he really had a connection to something otherworldly? A demon of some kind? The devil himself?” 

Armand raised an eyebrow. “No. I think he’d simply assigned meaning where there was one none. There is no devil, Daniel, and hell is empty.” 

Daniel laid back against the pillow. “That’s one hell of a bedtime story.” 

“You chose the subject matter,” Armand countered. 

“So I did.” The truth was, Daniel loved it whenever he could get Armand to tell him anything about his life before. He was so damned cagey about his past. “Who is this person you and Lestat both knew?” 

“We knew many of the same people, of course,” Armand said, completely dodging the question. Daniel made a mental note to circle back to that sometime when he wasn’t feeling like ass. 

Daniel wondered, not for the first time, what it must have been like to go to the Theatre des Vampires, what he would have made of it. 

“Probably nothing,” Armand said, reading his thoughts. “But then again, you’re more curious than most. It may have ended badly for you.”  

“I don’t know, I’d have met you,” Daniel said. 

“I was a different then.” Armand stood and stepped closer, looking down at him. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” 

Daniel sat up. “No. But your blood might help.” 

Armand hesitated, and then sat beside him on the sofa. He didn’t argue this time. He bit open his wrist and pressed against it Daniel’s mouth. 

The blood was hot and salty, electric as it burned through him hotter than the fever. Much better than the useless cold medicine. He could feel it racing through his veins as his heart pounded. He dug his fingers into Armand’s arm, holding it fast against his mouth, but he couldn’t hold tight enough and soon Armand had pulled away. 

Daniel wanted to drink more, enough that he’d never be sick again. He reached for Armand but Armand got up off the sofa, moving out of his grasp. He may have been worried, not worried enough to make him immortal. 

“You said yourself it’s just a flu,” Armand said.

“But you could make me like you and I’d never get the flu again.” 

Armand did not dignify that with a response. 

At least the blood made him feel a little better. His throat no longer felt like it had been through a shredder and the fever broke, leaving him sweaty but less miserable. 

Armand brought him a pillow from the bed and positioned it under his head. Leaned down and kissed his forehead, lips cool against his skin. Then Armand sat back in the chair. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Daniel said.

Armand didn’t move. “Sleep, beloved.” 

Daniel closed his eyes and, after a day of being miserable, was finally able to drift off. He didn’t know how long Armand remained there because when he awoke, it was daytime and the apartment was empty. 

Chapter Text

Armand watched Daniel walk out the door, slamming it as he went. He had to fight the urge to follow him and make sure he didn’t get himself killed. These days Daniel was ever more reckless, impulsive, and more often than not, drunk. A dangerous combination. 

Armand did what he could to provide his mortal lover protection—wealth, power, a vial of his blood— but it felt futile when Daniel ran so far away, traveling erratically, utterly apathetic about his surroundings. 

And yet Armand had to let him go. He’d made a deal with himself long ago that he would always let Daniel leave if he so chose. That he would not keep him against his will. 

Even if it scared him.  

Truth be told, Armand didn’t know he still had such capacity for fear until Daniel had come along. Daniel pushed Armand to his limits in every sense, even testing his ability to abide by the promises he made himself. 

So Armand had built this whole island for Daniel, a place where he could live in luxury and have anything he desired.

Well, almost anything. 

And yet it wasn’t enough.

So he let Daniel run off into the night, alone and vulnerable, again and again, increasingly more fearful he would not come back. 

A week was nothing to Armand. How many weeks had he lived? How many had passed uneventfully, with nothing to mark them in his mind? 

And yet this week, with Daniel gone, inched by at a tortuous pace. 

Armand walked through shopping center on Night Island, trying to lose himself in the cacophony of human noise: heartbeats, voices, the music that was pumped through the speakers. When that failed, he went to Miami and killed. Even blood didn’t slake the small, pulsing ache in his center. 

He returned home to the empty villa and sat in the dark, watching a phone that didn’t ring. 

If Daniel decided he wanted to go live another life, such as it was, it wasn’t Armand’s place to stop him.

But he loathed the silence. 

A little more than two weeks later, Armand arrived back at the villa to see the message light blinking on the machine.   

He walked toward it like it might attack if he wasn’t careful. He hit play.

“Pick up, asshole. I know you’re there.” Daniel’s words were slurred, but not incoherent. He heard him take a drag on a cigarette and then, “Fine, fuck you.” The wheels on the cassette tape continued to turn. Then there was the sound of a glass breaking. “Goddamn it.” Another pause. And then the call disconnected.

Armand sighed. 

He played the message back several times, aching to go to him, to take the glass from his hand and ease the demons in his mind. He could figure out where Daniel was easily enough, but he hadn’t asked him to come. Hadn’t said he wanted him outright. 

Armand stepped away from the machine and waited for the phone to ring again. It didn’t. 

Three days later, Armand received several phone calls about credit cards hitting their limits. Did he authorize the charges in Nashville? What about the newer charges in Memphis? 

He approved the charges. Increased the limits on the cards. Paid the balances off. 

Daniel would have no idea, assuming it was even him using the cards. He lost them so frequently now, discarding them around town in his drunken stupors like so many candy wrappers, too inebriated and scattered to notice. 

Cold slithered through Armand, dark and foreboding. 

How long could he allow that foolish boy to destroy himself? He was only thirty-one and at this rate, he’d be lucky to live another decade.

It might have been different if Daniel truly left to turn over a new leaf, to live a mortal life free of the burdens of his knowledge of the existence of vampires. Maybe under such circumstances, Armand would be able to let him go. 

But that was not the case. Daniel traveled around aimlessly, getting too drunk to hold onto to his wallet, putting himself at risk, hoping to find the balm to his unease in the bottom of a bottle. He wouldn’t find it there. And increasingly Armand worried he wouldn’t find it anywhere.

Except, of course, in the blood.

He could not give it to him. The thought of losing him to mortal death terrified Armand more than he could ever impress upon Daniel. But he couldn’t break that vow he’d made. Would not break it. And even if he could, he couldn’t face Daniel’s eventual hatred of him for doing so. 

It was a problem without a solution.

Armand left for Memphis. 

He found Daniel easily enough. He was staying in a motel a few miles from Graceland, just off the highway. It was rundown and seedy, the paint peeling from the exterior and its sign only half-lit. The man at the desk gave Armand a key to Daniel’s room without question in exchange for a hundred dollar bill.

Daniel wasn’t in the room. The bed was unmade. Empty liquor bottles decorated the dresser, along with crumpled shopping bags. Empty cigarette boxes and matchboxes were piled around full ashtrays. He found a few changes of clothes in the dresser and some toiletries in the bathroom, nothing of note. 

Armand headed to the bar next door, a dive in a brick building that shared a parking lot with the motel. Inside, the place was mostly deserted save for a few people sitting at the bar. One man was a regular whose thoughts were louder than his blood pressure and focused on some frustrations at his job. A couple played pool on the table off to the right. 

And there, slumped in a booth in the corner in back, was Daniel. His blond hair was messy and sticking up in all directions. He still had his glasses, at least, and his shirt looked clean. He had a newspaper in front of him folded to a completed crossword, the pen beside it, and an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

He was painfully bored, rolling the whiskey around in his glass, wondering why he’d come here. 

Armand resisted the urge to smile at that little bit of vindication. He sat down at the table unceremoniously and took the glass out of Daniel’s hand. Smelled it. It was vile and harsh, like paint thinner. “Why are you drinking the cheap stuff?” Armand asked.

Daniel’s pulse jumped but he managed not to show his surprise outwardly. His thoughts betrayed his relief, which eased some of the cold in Armand’s chest. 

“Why do you care?” Daniel asked. Slurring only slightly. He took the glass back and finished its contents in one gulp. “What are you doing here?” 

“I’m here to see Graceland, of course,” Armand said. “Have you gone?” 

Daniel balked. “Just passing through.” 

“On your way to where?” Armand asked. 

Daniel glared at him with those stunning violet eyes of his. “Does it matter?” 

“No,” Armand said softly. “Does it matter to you?” 

Daniel shrugged, deflating a little. 

“If it doesn’t matter, I suggest you come home and give the credit cards a rest.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes. Lit a cigarette. “Don’t we have enough money to buy the moon at this point?” 

Indeed they did, not that anyone would know it from his choice of accommodations or liquor. 

“Do you want me to plead with you? I won’t make the choice for you. You’re welcome to stay here and drink yourself to death in this dive bar if that’s what you prefer.” The words came out a more harshly that he’d intended. He always tried to sound mild, as though it didn’t matter to him what Daniel did either way, but his tone betrayed him now. 

The thought of drinking himself to death actually sent a tremor of fear through Daniel. On some level, he knew he couldn’t sustain things the way they’d been going. Good. He needed to understand that. 

“You know what I want,” Daniel said, his words so utterly defeated it nearly broke something in Armand. Daniel stared down at the table, stubbing his cigarette out mostly unsmoked. 

Armand touched him lightly on the shoulder. “I know. Come on. We can get back before sunrise if we leave now.” 

Armand slid out of the booth and waited beside the table. 

Daniel didn’t move. His thoughts were a whirlwind: love, fear, annoyance, frustration, desire. Wanting the blood, wanting Armand, wanting to go home, wanting to run away, wanting to drink until he couldn’t want anymore. 

Finally, he grabbed his cigarettes and stood, following Armand back to the motel room to get his things. Some measure of relief worked through Armand as they packed up anything worth taking and he called a cab. 

As the taxi sped toward the airport, Daniel put his head on Armand’s shoulder and Armand stroked his hair. Daniel was safe with him for now. That was something. He only wished it could be enough. 

Chapter Text

Armand watched Jesse tell Louis about the ghost she’d seen for a third time, and Daniel watched Armand, trying not to laugh inappropriately at the way the light from the fireplace clung to his hair, his rings, his skin. 

Louis was riveted by the story, and Jesse seemed happy enough to tell it again. Clearly the experience had had a huge effect on her and she patiently answered his questions about the ghost, the diary, all of it. The others drifted away, having heard it twice before over the past few nights. Armand finally got up and left the room, too. Louis and Jesse hardly noticed. Daniel waited a moment and then followed Armand through the villa, and then out back. 

There was a massive stone fountain, spewing water from the mouths of carved mermaids whose eyes seemed to follow Daniel. It made him laugh. Armand was sitting on a bench near the fountain that over looked the ocean down below. 

“Don’t want to be regaled with more tales of vampire ghosts?” Daniel asked, still watching the mermaids warily as though they might come to life and attack him. 

“Ghosts aren’t real.” 

Daniel scoffed. “How can you know that? We’re real.” He loved that he could say ‘we’ now to refer to vampires, that he was one of them. “Why couldn’t ghosts be?” 

“The dead don’t come back, Daniel,” Armand said firmly.

Daniel tore his gaze away from the fountain. And then a thought occurred to him. He felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner.

“Must be weird, huh?” Daniel sat on the bench next to him, draping his arm around Armand’s shoulders. 

Armand looked at him. Swept some of Daniel’s hair off his forehead. “What are you talking about?” 

“All this. Having all these people here together. You have hundreds of years of history with so many of the people here, right? It’s like the most fucked up family reunion ever.” 

Armand smiled at him. “I confess it’s a little strange.” 

“And yet you hold no animosity toward any of them. You were thrilled to see them all again. It seems everyone’s forgiven each other all of their transgressions.” 

Armand shrugged. “What good is animosity to our kind? Those were lifetimes ago and what’s done is done.” 

Daniel considered, dropping his arm from Armand’s shoulders. He thought of his interview with Louis a mere decade before, and even that felt like another lifetime. He’d been another person then, hadn’t he? The optimistic, intrepid reporter with his cassette recorder, interviewing people in his off hours, sometimes two or three a night, in search of a story or set of stories that might make his career and offer him some glimpse into the meaning of it all. 

Somewhere in a storage unit in San Francisco was a box full of cassettes with those stories, along with the recorder itself and so much other detritus that had made up the life of that Daniel, a life he barely remembered, full of people he hadn’t spoken to in ten years, whose names and faces he wouldn't even recognize now. Who would he be in a hundred years? Five hundred? 

“But is it really as you told Louis all those years ago? That you live in eras and then leave them behind?” Daniel asked, the idea suddenly striking him as sad.

“In some ways. Perhaps I didn’t explain it well then and his recount was not entirely accurate,” Armand said. He pressed his fingers lightly to Daniel’s cheek. “But if you wish to survive the centuries, you’ll need to find things to anchor you.”

“And I’m that for you.” It wasn’t a question. They’d had that conversation years before and it had come up several times, Daniel sometimes throwing it in his face when Armand refused to turn him. 

Armand kissed him lightly on the lips. 

“But surely some things never end!” Daniel said. “That’s the beauty of being immortal. Eternity means always having chances to reconnect, to come back together. Louis and Lestat are proof of that.” 

Armand tilted his head slightly, studying Daniel’s face. He could no longer read Daniel’s thoughts but perhaps he could sense the distress in him at the thought that maybe in fifty or sixty years Armand would have no need of him anymore. 

“No one knows what the future holds, beloved,” Armand said. “But yes, I suppose eternity does offer opportunities for forgiveness.” He smiled faintly, seeming to like that idea. 

And surely that truth was playing out even now, as Louis desperately questioned Jesse about Claudia’s ghost without an ounce of ire directed at Armand, who had been at least partially responsible for her death.  

Daniel relaxed slightly. Took Armand’s hand and squeezed it. He’d so desperately wanted eternity but he couldn’t fathom it without Armand. He had no delusions that they’d be side by side for unbroken millennia, but he would always need him, would always love him. And wasn’t that how it should be? He thought of Marius and Armand, now reunited, and the love between them was plain enough to see. 

“You shouldn’t be so pensive about a future that hasn’t come to pass,” Armand said, though Daniel could sense some sadness in him, too. 

He knew that Armand still believed he would resent him for this gift one day. Daniel didn’t know how to disabuse him of that notion. It was absurd! Even the grass at their feet danced for him now! How could he resent it! It would never happen. 

Restlessness struck Daniel like a bolt of lightning. He kissed Armand on the cheek and stood, pulling Armand up with him. “Let’s go to Miami. Just the two of us.”

Armand didn’t argue. He let Daniel lead him by the hand down the path around the Villa, where they were unlikely to encounter the others, and down to the docks. 

Chapter Text

Daniel awoke to a camera in his face and batted it away. 

It wasn’t the first time. A couple months before, Armand had discovered Polaroid cameras, and Daniel had awoken more than once to the flash of photos being taken. Armand took photos of everything: Daniel sleeping, making coffee, drinking coffee, taking showers, getting dressed, smoking, glaring at him for continuing to take photos. 

And then he took photos of New York, of the buildings, the trees, the sidewalk gutters. Of people on the streets, of himself. He’d hand the camera to Daniel and make him take three or four boxes worth of film of Armand standing in the same position under a street lamp in Central Park. 

Armand took so many photos that they bought all out all the Polaroid film within eight square blocks. They had to box the photos up and put them in one of the empty apartments because they wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Daniel had not been particularly sad when Armand finally set the camera aside.

But now the camera in his groggy face was a video camera, huge and bulky, though Armand held it gracefully.

“What are you doing?” He demanded, sitting up and stifling a yawn. 

“I’m making my own movies,” Armand said. He’d been obsessed with movies for the better half of the year and they’d spent an inordinate amount of time going to the cinema or sitting at home in front of the television watching movies on tape. 

“Great,” Daniel said. “That’s great.” 

He stumbled to the kitchen and filled the coffee pot with grounds and water, all while Armand stood behind him, the camera aimed in his direction. He lit a cigarette while the coffee percolated and leaned against the counter, smoking and watching Armand watch him through the eyepiece of his new toy. 

This was going to be a long month. 

They stood on the street corner, Daniel holding a microphone while Armand held his camera, asking the man what he thought of modern life. The man was confused. He’d thought they were a news crew until Armand had started asking questions, and what questions they were! What did he think of the automobile? Had he ever been to England in the summertime? What was his favorite part of the city? Did he know he had a heart murmur? The man had scoffed and walked away. 

“You can’t ask questions like that,” Daniel said.

“So you ask the questions. You’re the reporter,” Armand said. 

“What is this even for? Why do you want video of random people answering random questions?” 

Armand stared at him as though he were an idiot. “Why did you record the stories of strangers?” 

Daniel tried to explain it had been different, he’d been collecting the stories of people’s lives, trying to learn something, to make something. 

“I’m making something,” Armand insisted, and stopped a passing woman, who endured his questioning for almost ten minutes. 

A week later, they were at an art gala. Armand’s camera was allowed only because people seemed to think he was some kind of professional hired by the artist to film it, an artist in his own right. What a young talent he must be! How long had Daniel worked with him? Did he have card? Did he do weddings?

The last question made Daniel laugh so hard he offended the asker, but he couldn’t help it. He pictured Armand in a suit, camera aimed at an altar, demanding the bride and groom explain to him the modern purpose of marriage before they said their vows.

In the midst of filming, a beautiful young man had approached Armand, flirting shamelessly, insisting Armand could record him anytime. Armand’s gaze landed on Daniel and Daniel knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Oh no,” Daniel said. “Don’t even think of it.” 

And yet somehow hours later, Daniel was in bed with the man, the camera aimed in their direction as they moved together. He tried hard not to think of Armand watching and rewatching the tape later. Afterward, the man left quickly, probably as regretful to have participated as Daniel felt. Daniel wondered if maybe now that he had a recording, Armand wouldn’t urge Daniel to do this again. 

Armand left his camera on the tripod and came to lay beside Daniel, snuggling against him. 

“You seem to enjoy it well enough,” Armand said, kissing him lightly on the cheek. 

“It’s biology, physicality,” Daniel said. “You know I’d rather it was you.” He looked up and saw the red light still blinking. “God, are you recording this, too? You have a problem.” 

Then finally, after weeks of recording everything from ripples in rain puddles to the clouds moving across the sky, Armand rushed into the apartment just after sunset. He flew past Daniel, bumping into him, nearly knocking the toast off his plate. He plugged the camera into the television, excitedly rewound his footage, and sat on the sofa. 

“What’s so exciting?” Daniel asked. 

“Watch,” Armand said, and pressed play. 

The film was grainy, recorded somewhere without sufficient light for the camera’s aperture. But Daniel could make out Armand lying in a coffin, his head against a satin pillow, wearing the same clothes he wore now. His hair was cut short, has it had been last night, though now it hung long around his neck. 

For a moment, Daniel was enthralled, excited. He’d never seen Armand in a coffin, was never allowed near him when he slept. He didn’t even know where he went during the day. That alone was enough to draw his attention. 

But as the video played, it showed Armand still and dead-looking, utterly unmoving, his hair ever so slowly growing back its original length while he lay unconscious. 

After maybe an hour, Daniel couldn’t watch anymore and went out to the fire escape to smoke away from the screen. But Armand was captivated and spent the whole night watching it. Daniel occasionally glanced over to see Armand’s hair had gotten longer, though he had not otherwise moved in his deathlike sleep.

Daniel found it incredibly disturbing and yet Armand watched it again the next night, as though he might gleam something new from a second viewing. 

Two nights later, Daniel awoke to the smell of coffee and something else, something sweet. There was no camera light blinking in his face, no lens there to capture his wild, uncombed hair or the rough stubble on his cheeks. He put on his glasses and found Armand in the apartment’s kitchen. 

On the table sat a styrofoam cup of coffee and a box of pastries. The camera was no where in sight. He took a donut from the box warily, as though it might be a trap.

“What, did you break your camera or something?” Daniel asked.

Armand waved a hand. “I have no more need of the camera.”

Relief washed over Daniel. 

“Now hurry. We have to get to the electronics store before it closes.” 

Armand paced eagerly while Daniel got ready and grabbed Daniel’s arm the minute he was dressed.

When they got to the store, Armand purchased a computer and a stack of disks, asking the shopkeeper a dozen or so questions before finally taking his purchases and leaving. 

“What are you going to do with that?” Daniel asked. 

“I don’t know yet.” He held up the bag. “Let’s go see what it can do.” 

Daniel found he was curious about that himself, and anyhow, it couldn’t be worse than the video camera. He hoped. 

Chapter Text

Lestat watched Claudia warily from the doorway. She sat in an easy chair facing the window, but she was so far back he doubted she could see much. She was eerily still and silent, like she so often was these days. He found it maddening. He would have preferred if she were throwing glasses and screaming. At least then he’d know how to react. 

“Do you want something, father?” she asked.

Father! She used to say it with such affection, such love, but now it dripped with distain. 

“I thought perhaps you’d hunt with me tonight,” he said, moving into the room and the pale light of the gas lamps. 

“No, thank you.” Her voice was flat and she looked at him as if he were a bug she would love to grind beneath her heel. 

He had to force himself not to react to her anger, not to show the fear and despair that danced inside him. He smiled his most charming smile and bent down close to her. “But ma cherie, you haven’t—“

“I’m quite full.” 

She was porcelain pale and would need to feed tonight, he could see that, but he wasn’t going to argue. 

“Of course. Well, then, bonsoir, ma petite.” He placed a light kiss on her brow and it took all of his strength not to reel back at the white hot anger he could feel emanating from her, a loathing so palpable it almost burned his lips. 

He left quickly. 

Louis was in courtyard reading the newspaper. Predictable.

“We must talk, come!” Lestat commanded.

Louis glanced at him over his paper. “Do you expect me to take orders from you suddenly?” 

“Will you just come with me for once without fighting!” 

Lestat headed out of the gate to the street, not daring to glance back. He waited and soon Louis appeared at his side in gloves and a frock coat. His beautiful face was painted with uncertainty and Lestat was overcome with the need to pull him close and keep him there. 

Instead, he started walking, making sure that Claudia wasn’t following. She’d been doing that to him on occasion, refusing to go with him and then following behind him, as if trying to catch him out in some way. He couldn’t understand why. 

When they got far enough away, he pulled Louis into an alley. It smelled like fetid rain water and he could hear the rats scurrying away. 

“We have a problem,” Lestat finally said. 

Louis looked unsurprised. To him, existence was a problem. 

“Claudia is… I don’t know what she is! She’s become cold, distant. Angry.” He watched Louis, trying to gage his reaction. 

“How so?” Louis finally asked.

“Oh, don’t pretend you haven’t seen it! The way she sits in silence for hours. The way she looks at me like she wish she could set fire to me with her mind!” 

“She’s an adult now, Lestat. Stop treating her like a child and perhaps—“

“That’s been true for years. It’s more than that!” How could he possibly explain it to him? Impart on him what he truly saw in her cold, lifeless eyes. Who he saw! How painfully her malice echoed Nicki’s. The hatred, the rage. And so much of it! 

When had that happened? It felt like only yesterday they were laughing together, killing together, she his little protege in the art of death. And now she abhorred him and Louis was too blinded by his love for her to see it. 

“You’re overreacting,” Louis said, but doubt crept into his voice. He wanted to believe everything was fine so desperately that he’d pretend it was for as long as he could. He had come to some sense of peace in these past decades. Oh, he was still the damnable bleeding heart, but he’d been content enough. He wouldn’t want things to change. 

Lestat forced himself to be calm. Screaming at Louis never worked, though he enjoyed doing it. Louis was stubborn. He needed to be reasoned with. He kept his voice level. “She has changed.” 

“Children grow up, Lestat,” Louis said. “She’s still our Claudia.” 

He shook his head. “Perhaps to you. But she loathes me now. I don’t know what I’ve done! I’ve given her everything, taught her everything!” He was shouting again. A man passing by looked into the alley. Lestat snarled him, flashing fang. He hurried off. 

“But you haven’t,” Louis said. 

Lestat’s head snapped back to him. “What?” 

“You haven’t told her everything. You know more than you’re telling either of us. Where you came from, who made you a vampire, what other vampires you’ve encountered. These are questions she has, questions I share.” 

Annoyance overcame him. Always wanting to know the past! What good would that do them? They’d go in search of others and get themselves killed! “Questions you taught her! What does any of that matter!” 

“Perhaps if you would open up…” He trailed off. Seemed to know it was pointless to continue. 

Again, Nicolas’ face flashed in Lestat’s mind, those wild, furious eyes. And there Louis stood, so stoic, green eyes burning into him, not with fury but with something else. Was it love? It used to be love, even if Louis would deny it.

“I’m not arguing about this again. I’ve given you both everything and yet still you’re ungrateful! I won’t have it. I’m telling you, she’s dangerous.” 

Louis laughed. God, how he loved that sound, and how he hated for it come now when he was trying so hard to press upon him the seriousness of the situation.

“I never should have done it.” He began to pace in the alley. “It was the devil’s trick. And now it the devil demands his due.” 

Louis stopped laughing. “You don’t mean that. You love her as I do.” 

Lestat rounded on him, moving toward him in a sinister way that caused Louis to back up until his back was pressed against the stone wall. “Love doesn’t preclude mistakes, cher.” He touched Louis’ face with his finger, tracing the line of his jaw. “Love only makes them worse.” 

He might have kissed him then. Wanted to kiss him.

But then Louis spoke. “She’s not a mistake and I won’t have you speaking of her that way. She’s merely her own person rather than your little shadow. Whatever she’s feeling, the answer isn’t to yell at me. Talk to her. Find out what troubles her. Settle your differences.” 

He still didn’t understand. The malice in Claudia, it wasn’t Louis’ brand of anger. It wasn’t something that could be worked out with a calm discussion. 

Lestat pulled away from him. Knew suddenly that Louis would always choose her if his hand was forced. And how could he blame him! He loved her desperately. Lestat loved her too, but now there was so much darkness in her, radiating out of her. He would take it from her in an instant if only he knew how but he could no more douse the flames of fury in her than he could in Nicki. 

Louis watched him, curious and still uncertain. 

“I said you need to speak with her.” Louis’ voice was so soft, so alluring. “Do you hear me?” 

“Yes, I hear you! It’s you who never hears me!” Lestat felt a familiar cold engulf his heart, a loneliness he hadn’t felt in years. “Something has shifted in her, Louis, I’m telling you.” 

Louis sighed. “What would you have me do?” 

“Just… tell me if she speaks to you of me,” he said, keeping his voice low, imploring. “If she says anything I need to know. Because she will not speak to me herself.” 

Louis stood a step toward him, reached out for him. He stepped back, out of his grasp. Louis dropped his arm. “What are you so afraid of?” 

Lestat didn’t answer. He didn’t know. He only knew that such a level of animosity would not be satisfied to seethe. It would burn like a raging fire and it might very well engulf them all. 

Lestat turned on his heel and headed for the mouth of the alley. 

“Where are you going?” Louis asked. 

“Don’t tell her of this conversation. Say that I was asking about finances. We all know I only care about the money,” he said bitterly, and walked away.

Chapter Text

“Why three?” Louis asked.

“Because that’s the game,” Daniel said. “You get to pick three things you can bring with you.” 

It had been raining from a tropical storm for two nights and the island was closed down due to the threat of a hurricane. The ocean swells were high and going to Miami, while possible, was a treacherous, rocky journey.

So they were more or less stuck inside the villa and Daniel was to trying to keep up conversation. 

“Why are we going to this desert island?” Lestat asked. He was flopped over the easy chair, his leg up over the arm rest, leaning halfway off it, while studying his fingernails and looking bored. 

“It’s not that you want to go,” Daniel said. “It’s like…if you were going to be stuck there alone, without rescue, what would you want to have with you?” 

“A boat so I could leave,” Lestat said. 

Daniel groaned. Armand was perched on the arm of Daniel’s chair and put a steadying hand on his back.

“Can I bring books?” Louis asked.

“Yes,” Daniel said, perking up. “Of course.” 

“How do you know you’re going to be stuck on the island so that you know to bring these things? And if you know in advance, wouldn’t you stop it?” Lestat asked. Daniel suspected he’d be checking the weather reports more closely before coming to Night Island from now on. 

“As if you’ve ever managed to stop yourself in the middle of sliding into catastrophe,” Armand said.

Lestat glared at him. 

“It’s just a hypothetical exercise,” Daniel said. “For example, I’d bring cigarettes, a Gameboy, and whiskey.” 

“You can’t even drink whiskey,” Armand said. 

“Oh, you don’t need to remind me of that,” Daniel assured him, wishing to hell that wasn’t the case right now. 

“Wouldn’t your Gameboy run out of batteries?” Lestat asked. 

“You’re overthinking it,” Daniel said. 

“Do multiple books count as one item or does each book count separately?” Louis asked. 

“What are you going to do with books, cher?” Lestat asked. “Except as kindling for a fire. Actually, that’s not a bad plan. I’ll bring books, too. And matches.” 

Louis frowned at him. 

“Okay, that’s two, what’s your third thing?” Daniel asked. 

“A boat, as I said.” 

“Why do you need kindling if you have a boat?” Armand demanded. 

Lestat shrugged. “Perhaps I’d like to stay a night or two and enjoy the solitude.” He shot Armand a pointed look.

“I’d bring a helicopter,” Armand said, staring straight at him. “That means I win, doesn’t it, Daniel?” 

“There are no winners!” Lestat protested. “And you can’t win because you didn’t bring three things.” 

Daniel put his head in his hands. “You know what, this was a bad idea. Sorry I brought it up.” 

Chapter Text

Daniel won the fish on Coney Island. It was one of those games where you threw ping pong balls into little fish bowls, and he’d played it on a whim while waiting for Armand, who’d gotten sidetracked asking one of the other game operators a thousand questions. 

When Armand found him again, he was holding the fish in a little plastic bag. Armand poked the bag curiously. “Won’t it die in there?” 

“If we leave it in there, yes,” Daniel said. 

“What an odd prize,” Armand said. 

“What, do you want me to try to win you a giant teddy bear instead?” Daniel joked. 

Armand looked over at the game booth that had the giant teddy bears and made a face. “No.” 

When they got home, it was almost four in the morning, so Daniel put the fish in a spaghetti pot filled with water. The next afternoon, he ran over the pet store and bought a fish bowl and everything else the pet shop owner recommended. 

He lined the bowl with shiny little pebbles and then artfully placed a plastic diver in the center, with a treasure chest off to the side. He filled it with water, added the stuff the pet store guy had said made the water habitable, and scooped the fish into the bowl. It swam around happily—or as happily as a fish could swim—and Daniel sprinkled some fish food into the bowl for it. 

When Armand came in after sunset, he saw the bowl on the counter. “Oh, it’s still alive.” 

“So far,” Daniel said. 

Armand bent down so his face was level with the bowl. “What would happen if we put it in the microwave?” 

“Leave the fish alone.” 

Armand stared at it as it darted around inside the bowl. “Have you named it?” 

“El Dorado,” Daniel said. “Because it’s a goldfish. Get it?” 

Armand actually laughed and Daniel smiled, pleased with himself. 

A week later, Daniel stumbled into the apartment as the sun rose.  He and Armand had parted ways on the street corner so he could retreat to his coffin. They’d been at a show that had turned into an after party in some guy’s loft in Soho. 

Daniel was still drunk and a little high. Exhaustion was starting to hit but he was too keyed up to sleep, so he opened the fridge in search of beer. There was none. 

Daniel sighed and pulled a glass out of the cabinet to get some water. That was when he saw El Dorado floating belly up at the top of the bowl. He poked at the fish, useless though it was. Felt a little sad about the fish’s untimely demise, and then felt silly.

He took it to the toilet and flushed it down, only afterward wondering if he should have waited for Armand. And then he laughed at the thought of a vampire standing around a toilet, saying kind words about a dead fish. He dumped the water from the bowl and then dumped the rocks into the trashcan, setting the little diver and treasure chest next to the sink before heading to bed. 

The next night, Daniel awoke to find Armand in the kitchen. He was dressed in a suit and Daniel vaguely recalled something about symphony tickets. Armand was staring at the empty fish bowl. 

“Your fish died,” Armand said. 

“Yeah, that happens. They don’t live that long,” Daniel said. Armand turned to face him and ice trickled down Daniel’s spine as a thought occurred to him. “Kind of how we mortals must feel to you, huh?” 

“Don’t start, Daniel, it was only a fish.” 

“And what does that make me?” 

“A sentimental fool. Now get dressed or we’ll be late. I’ll make the coffee.” 

Daniel glared at him but Armand turned around and started filling the coffee pot with water. “It’s true, though, isn’t it? I’m just a pet to you. A temporary companion that you’ll bury in the backyard as soon as my heart stops.” 

Armand turned, a vicious smile on his lips. “How obscene. I’ll get you a proper burial plot, of course.” 

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m much worse than that, beloved,” Armand said, turning back around to dig the coffee grounds out of the cabinet. 

“No argument here.” Daniel stormed off into the bedroom and sat on the bed. He debated putting on his jeans and going somewhere else. Maybe that guy with the loft in Soho was bored and wanted to get high again, or he could always just leave the city, go somewhere else. He wasn’t trapped in a fishbowl, after all. 

Armand came into the room and handed him a mug of coffee. Daniel knew he’d probably heard his thoughts but he didn’t comment on them. Instead, he pulled Daniel’s suit from the closet and lay it on the bed beside him. Then he swept a cool hand down Daniel’s stubble-covered cheek. He sat down next to him and made a tiny wound in his own wrist. 

Daniel’s attention immediately fell on the droplets of dark red blood as they beaded out of the wound. “What, you’re bribing me with your blood now?” Daniel asked, trying to sound disgusted instead of desperate to drink it. 

“It’s not a bribe. It’s a reminder,” Armand said. He thrust his wrist at Daniel, who set the mug on the floor. He grabbed Armand’s arm, putting his wrist to his mouth. The blood shot through him, hot and electric, and when Armand pulled his wrist away, Daniel reached for him again, desperate for more. Armand stood, bending down to kiss Daniel on the lips. “You’re mine.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel said. He let the coffee cool while he shaved and dressed and then chugged it, stopping to chug a second on cup on the way out the door. 

It was only later, while sitting in the third row of the symphony, that he thought about how people often gave dogs treats to train them to behave.

Chapter Text

Armand stood in the hallway of the rundown building. The carpet was torn and moldy and the window at the end of the hall was broken, allowing in the elements. The building had been abandoned, more or less, for years before they’d decided to tear it down. 

Normally, Armand would ignore the notices and simply let whatever had been left in that particular apartment be destroyed. Eternity was too long to hold onto everything and anyway, he hadn’t thought about that particular building in decades. It was simply one of many apartments he’d bought while he lived in Brooklyn with Daniel, a place to store things. He bought them on whims and at random and used only half of them. Daniel had complained about touring apartments for nights on end but he’d enjoyed making up stories for the realtors and exploring different buildings. 

Armand smiled faintly at the memory of it, back when every night had been a new adventure in learning about the modernity of man and the world around them. 

He suddenly reconsidered. Whatever had been left in this apartment was the detritus of another life. There was nothing in there he could need or want. Better to leave it to be crushed with the wrecking ball. Perhaps the Talamasca vultures would come right before the demolition and pick through the contents for anything they thought worthy of their sad little collection. 

He was about to leave when he sensed a presence and turned. 

Daniel stood in the hall looking for all the world like a ghost. For a second, he looked so much like his mortal self from those days that it jarred Armand, though of course he was thinner now, his body ravaged by the alcoholism that had almost killed him, and then renewed by Armand’s blood. His skin was as pale as Armand’s and he stood still, something he’d rarely done when he was human. He wore jeans and a jacket and had his hands in his pockets. 

“Leaving so soon? I thought we had to clear the place out,” Daniel said. 

Armand had not expected him to come. He’d left a message on Daniel’s phone when he’d gotten the notice, mostly on a whim. He’d thought Daniel was in Chicago, or that perhaps he’d gone back to Rio. Daniel rarely kept him abreast of his travels. At any rate, he didn’t think he’d bother to make the trip when he didn’t even answer the call. 

“It’s just junk,” Armand said. 

Daniel shrugged. “Well, I’m here. We might as well take a look.” 

Armand nodded and unlocked the door. It stuck, the wood having swollen in the frame, but he got it open easily enough. The apartment smelled musty and dust motes danced in the air.  

The studio apartment opened into a galley kitchen that led to a giant living area-slash-bedroom. The kitchen was empty, its old yellow stove the only appliance. The countertops were covered in dust. But the main room was full of boxes stacked eight high to the ceiling against every wall. Shorter stacks emanated out, leaving a path in center. 

Daniel came in behind him and whistled. “I guess madness runs in our blood, huh?” 

Armand cut his eyes at him. Daniel often made jokes like that and Armand did not find them funny. “It’s organized.” 

“If you say so,” Daniel said. He walked through the kitchen and pulled a box cutter out of his coat pocket. He went to the first box next to the counter and cut it open. Laughed. Looked over at Armand. He shoved his hand into the box and came out with a fistful of bottle caps. He let them fall back into the box, making little tink, tink noises as they hit each other. “Why the hell did you keep these?” 

Armand had no answer. He’d kept all sorts of things. All of it had felt important at the time, every little bit of Daniel that he could hold onto, back when Daniel was still mortal and Armand was all too aware of the temporary nature of their arrangement. 

Daniel tore into more boxes, pulling out unopened boxes of As Seen on TV gadgets and tools from a hardware store. Then he came to a box of computer disks. He titled the box so Armand could see. “We might want to properly destroy these, just in case.”

“Of course.” He’d filled those disks with writings of all sorts, writings he’d rarely let Daniel read about his thoughts, or sometimes strange little stories that came to him, macabre tales, and dark little poems. 

Daniel brought the box into the kitchen, setting it on the counter. Then he reached over and put his hand on Armand’s shoulder. “You okay?” 

Armand looked him in the eyes, this beautiful boy he’d transformed into a vampire, who’d gone mad and come back, whose mind was now locked against him. That was the cruelest trick of the Dark Gift: that he could no longer read his thoughts. “Fine.” 

Daniel smiled at him. “Good. So how about you help? This will go faster if we both work.” He pulled another box cutter out of his pocket and handed it to Armand. “I was a Boy Scout once. I come prepared.” 

Armand went to the opposite side of the apartment and opened a box that was full of clothes. A lot of denim. He discarded it and opened another. 

“Hey, where are the munchkins?” Daniel asked. 

“At home,” Armand said, shooting Daniel a warning look. 

“Shame. This seems like the sort of thing Benji would love.” 

Armand smiled to himself. Benji would love this but it would come with endless questions, and he’d have stop to explain the contents of every single box. 

Daniel opened another box and laughed again. He pulled out a blender pitcher that still had hardened cement stuck inside it. “This brings back memories. You did some really fucked up things with these.” 

“And Lestat was happy to mock me for it in that book of his.” 

“He wasn’t mocking you,” Daniel said, dropping the blender pitcher back into the box. 

“You don’t need to defend him to me,” Armand said sharply. 

“I’m not defending,” Daniel said. “He was just trying to tell our story.”  

“It wasn’t his to tell.” 

Daniel opened his mouth. Then he seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say and went back to work instead. 

Armand stacked a set of opened boxes to one side and pulled out another, slashing it open. Inside were a bunch of sketches and paintings, pieces made by various artists Armand and Daniel had met at parties. He was about to set the box aside when he saw the corner of Polaroid sticking out from beneath some of the papers and pulled it out. He dropped the box and stared at the photo.

In it, Daniel was sitting on the couch in their old apartment. He wore thickly framed glasses, jeans, and an orange polo shirt with a brown and white stripe across the chest, the sort of thing that had been fashionable at the time. He held a cigarette in one hand and was looking directly at the camera, his gaze intense. He was smiling. He looked younger, his cheeks fuller. Armand stared at it. It had been taken been soon after they’d come to New York together. It felt like centuries had past since then, not mere decades. 

He touched the image with a finger, thinking of the young man Daniel had been then. The boy in the photo had no idea what the next years would hold, nor the decades after he was finally given the blood that he so desired. 

Back then, Armand had tried not to let himself think about the future. He’d wanted to live in the moment, to experience everything life had to offer with his mortal companion, and not dwell on the fact that one day it would end. He turned his gaze to the Daniel in the room with him. 

He thought he’d known then how it would end. He’d been wrong. 

Daniel must have felt his eyes on him because he looked up curiously. “What’s that?” 

“Just a photograph,” Armand said. 

Daniel crossed the room and stood next to him, so close their shoulders brushed against each other. He grinned. “Man, I look happy there, don’t I?” 

“You didn’t know what you were in for then.” 

Daniel’s smile dimmed. “You make it sound like a bad thing.” He took the photo and studied it before handing it back. 

Armand looked at it again and then glanced up at Daniel, who was watching him with a curious expression. Daniel put his arm around Armand’s back and pulled him into a sideways hug.

“You’re in a melancholy mood tonight. Don’t think you think this is kind of fun?” 

“It’s all garbage,” Armand said.

Daniel scoffed. “Sure, but it’s our garbage. We had a good time back then, didn’t we?” 

Armand surveyed the remaining boxes, suddenly uninterested in picking through more of them. “Yes. But we don’t need to rifle through our trash to remember.” He stuck the photograph in his pocket and grabbed Daniel’s arm. “Let’s go back to the house. Louis, Benji, and Sybelle will be happy to see you.” 

Daniel looked dubiously at the stacks of unopened boxes. “If you’re sure.” 

“I am.” Armand tugged on his arm and led Daniel back to the kitchen, where Daniel picked up the box of computer disks and gave one last look around. 

“Do you want to grab the blenders? I bet some of them still work. Benji could have fun with those.” 

“Absolutely not. Imagine the mess.”

“Oh, I don’t have to imagine, boss. I lived it.” Daniel shook his head, smiling. “We never did manage to get the splatters off the ceiling.” 

Armand smiled back at him and put his hand on Daniel’s cheek, pressing his palm against his cool skin, stroking his cheek with his thumb. Then he turned, opening the door and ushering Daniel out into the hall. 

Armand left the door open and unlocked. Let whoever wanted to come ransack the remains if they were so inclined. He had everything he needed from that time. 

Chapter Text

Daniel stood in the phone booth as the snow started to fall, listening to it ring. It was after hours but he’d only just remembered the date in the taxi on the way from the airport. Or rather, he remembered why the date sounded significant. 

He willed someone to pick up. Short of that, he’d have to leave a message. 

He leaned against the booth, exhaustion starting to wear on him. Normally he slept well on planes. These days, it felt like the only safe place to sleep. Once the cabin door was locked and the plane was at cruising altitude, there was no way his vampire stalker could get to him (or so he hoped). But he’d felt uneasy for the entire flight from London, chugging ginger ale between gin and tonics, hoping something would help. Nothing had. 

“Hello?” 

Daniel straightened. A live person, even after five. Lucky. Daniel told the woman who he was. He heard the shuffling of papers. Sounding annoyed, she told him the courier had gone to the address he’d provided but he wasn’t there to receive the manuscript. She admonished him for missing the delivery. “We can resend it tomorrow, but the editor really wants these proofs back by next Monday.” 

“Sorry, there was a family emergency,” Daniel lied. “My grandmother died and I had to leave the state.” He winced. His Irish heritage made him faintly superstitious and speaking someone’s death into existence was a no-no. He knocked quietly on the wooden box beneath the phone that held the phone book. 

The woman from the publishing company apologized. Assured him they could give him another week given the circumstances. Asked when he’d back in New York, or if they needed to send the manuscript somewhere else.

An unhinged laugh bubbled up out of him. Where would he be in a day or two to accept a delivery? The devil only knew. The devil who haunted him, following his every move with supernatural cunning. 

The woman seemed to mistake his laughter for a sob and told him how she’d lost her grandfather the year before. 

“I can be in New York the day after tomorrow.” It was only an hour flight. He could get some sleep here and then head back to the airport in the morning. He’d be there in time to get the proofs the following day with more than enough time to spare. 

The woman made a note, verified the address where he’d be—a hotel where Daniel had stayed once before—and then apologized for his loss again before hanging up.

Daniel put the phone back on the receiver and leaned his head against the cold glass of the booth. Daniel had never been punctual but he never used to miss entire appointments. 

Something tapped against the glass.

Daniel looked up, startled, his heart slamming into his ribs. Armand’s face was on the other side of the glass, ghostly pale, his amber eyes locked onto Daniel. He was smirking. 

Daniel opened the phone booth door, trying to ignore the blood thrumming in his ears. “I’ve been in Boston less than hour,” Daniel said, forcing his tone to sound casual. “That’s impressive, even for you.” 

Armand’s smirk faltered. He looked faintly surprised, which made him look younger, more human. Daniel loved when he could catch him off guard, even momentarily. It took some of the edge off of his terror. 

Daniel started walking down the street. If he couldn’t find a hotel and get some sleep thanks to the vampire’s sudden arrival, at least he could find a bar. 

“You’re going to New York?” Armand asked, falling into step with him. 

Daniel wanted to lie but it was no use. Not only had he likely overheard, but he could read his thoughts and hear his pulse, like walking lie detector. 

“I have business there. You can’t come.” Imagine if it were as easy as that! Sorry, All-Powerful Immortal, you’re not allowed to stalk me until my work in Manhattan is complete. 

“I’m not all powerful,” Armand said. 

Daniel grunted. Might as well be.

“It’s about the book?” Armand asked.

Something in his tone made Daniel stop, ice flooding his veins. He’d wondered if Armand would actually let the book get completed. Armand had known about it from the start, of course, but now that it was coming to fruition…

Armand watched him with a sinister, almost playful gleam in his eye. “If I killed you now, would it stop the book from being published?” 

Daniel swallowed. His mouth felt very dry. “I doubt it.” He didn’t need to proofread it. It was basically a courtesy, and his final chance to make sure they hadn’t left anything out, to see if they’d made any changes, and maybe try to fight them if they had, for whatever that was worth. The book could be printed tomorrow if they so chose. 

Armand stood unnaturally still, staring at him until Daniel thought his heart might explode. And then he smiled. “I don’t care about the book. As I said, no one will believe it.” 

Daniel relaxed slightly, but his pulse still raced. 

“Go to New York, do your business.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Just don’t take too long. If I get bored, I may decide to end this little game.” His smile widened in a way that showed his fangs, which sent another jolt through Daniel, a mix of fear and, god help him, desire.  

Armand pivoted on his heel and continued down the sidewalk. Daniel stared after him. He had the strangest urge to run after the vampire, to chase him down and continue the interaction. Ask what he thought of the book, what might happen when it was out. Did he hope it might lure Louis out of hiding? Or Lestat? Did he intend to kill Daniel once it was done? 

He forced himself to remain planted to the spot as snow fell into his hair and dotted his glasses, until the vampire was long out of sight. 

Then he went to the closest bar and ordered a very stiff drink. 

Chapter Text

Daniel kept the party horn between his lips as he leaned back on the sofa in the corner, away from the crowds. He blew on it a few times, watching the paper extend into the air and then collapse back in on itself. 

It was 3 am and the combination of jello shots and whiskey had turned his stomach into an acid pit. The handfuls of chips and stuffed mushrooms he’d eaten were not doing anything to calm the storm. The cacophony of music and voices was starting to make his head hurt and he wasn’t even hungover yet. 

From his position, he could see out the window of the high-rise which overlooked the ocean. He could just barely see the lights of the Night Island glittering off shore. He wondered why they hadn’t just stayed there. Surely there was enough spectacle. There had been fireworks at midnight. Then they’d have been stumbling distance from the Villa.

But no, Armand had insisted on this party, hosted by a pair of artists he’d met last year at their show. Their paintings hung around the penthouse, colorful depictions of decaying animals in fields of flowers and on the roadside with roots winding through their skeletons as their flesh rotted away. At one time, Daniel may have appreciated the ghastly aesthetic but now, he only saw in them his grim future. Rot and decay. 

It was now, as of 3 hours ago, 1985. His only New Year’s Resolution was to become a vampire, something he’d whispered in Armand’s ear after they kissed at midnight. Armand had shifted from elated to miserable in half a second and stormed off. For all Daniel knew, he’d left this damned party. Maybe he’d gone back to the Villa without him.

Well, fuck him.

If he wouldn’t turn Daniel, then what was the point? Daniel would be like one of those hideous paintings soon enough. Probably left to rot in the small garden behind the villa so Armand could watch the skin slowly seep from his bones. 

A young woman sat on the ottoman near the sofa and smiled at him drunkenly. She pointed to the party favor in his mouth. “Happy New Year.” 

“It’s not,” Daniel said flatly. He found his cigarettes and replaced the party horn with one of those as the woman stalked away in search of a better time. He was about to get up and find another drink—anything was better than getting sober—when Armand appeared in his periphery. He was watching Daniel from halfway across the room. Armand was striking, as always, his auburn hair curling down around his pale face, his auburn eyes glowing in the dim light. 

Daniel sighed. Just come here, damn you. And bring a beer.

Armand vanished into the crowd and then reappeared in front of him, two beers in his hand. He handed one to Daniel and then sat on the sofa next to him, holding one of the beers himself like he could drink it. 

Daniel popped the beer open and took a swig. I hate it here.

“We can leave,” Armand said. “We need to get back shortly anyhow.”

“No, you need to get back to your coffin,” Daniel countered. He didn’t know why he was being so combative. Sometimes he couldn’t help it. “I don’t need to be anywhere.” 

Armand turned away, his expression a mask Daniel couldn’t really read, but he could guess. He was tired of this fight. Daniel was tired of it, too. 

Turn me and the fight will be over. 

“I cannot.” 

Liar. 

“Daniel.” 

Daniel groaned, took a long swig from the beer, and looked around. The party had thinned but there was still enough of a crowd that it wasn’t ending any time soon. He could sit here and drink until he passed out and no one would care. Hell, he could die right then and there and no one would even notice, although the artists would probably be elated to have a live model for their next work. 

Armand glared at him, and then his voice came straight into Daniel’s mind. Stop being fatalistic, Daniel. There’s more to life than death. 

Daniel looked around. Hanging only feet away was a painting of a rabbit, half-skeletonized, one of its eyes shriveled up as it hung from the socket, with grass growing through the corpse. He gestured at it. “Is there? Because this sure as hell seems like a party that’s got a hard-on for death.” He was too loud, misjudged his volume. A group of people who’d been chatting nearby all turned to look at him.

Daniel had had enough. He stubbed out his cigarette, chugged the rest of the beer, and stood, moving through the crowd as fast as he could manage. He grabbed his jacket from the pile on the bed and was down on the street in minutes, heading for the dock on autopilot. 

Armand caught up with him quickly. “You didn’t need to make a scene.” 

Daniel laughed, loud and mirthless. “A scene? That’s what you care about? You know what, you’ll deserve it when I finally croak and you’re forced to attend these parties all alone.” 

“You’re being impossible.” 

Daniel felt for his keys in his coat pocket to make sure they were there. The sooner he could get to the boat and get home, the better. Armand reached for the keys. Daniel tried to pull away but Armand got hold of them. He was too fast. 

“Give those back,” Daniel demanded, stopping in front of an alley. 

“In the state you’re in? You’ll drive into the middle of the ocean and get yourself killed.” 

“Oh, you would hate that! Can you imagine! Your mortal lover’s body lost at sea, where you wouldn’t even get to enjoy the spectacle of its decay.”

Armand grabbed him roughly, and pushed him back into the alley. He forced Daniel against the wall and raised a hand like he might slap him. Daniel wanted to protest but he was too stunned, and the alcohol in his system made him slow to react. His heart pounded and he stared at him, waiting for the blow. Armand dropped his hand but his eyes burned with anger.

No, not anger. 

The redness in them was blood. Bloody tears welling up in his eyes. 

You think you understand what your death will do to me, but you cannot imagine. 

Daniel’s pulse raced and emotions rolled over him in waves: sorrow, annoyance, love, hate, fear. Not fear of the vampire in front of him, but of the march of time, of the inevitability of a death that should not be inevitable when he had immortality so close at hand. 

So don’t let me die, Daniel thought. Why couldn’t he see that it was as easy as that? God, he really was an idiot. An idiot who was now crying. Daniel couldn’t stand to see him that way. 

He leaned forward and kissed the blood tears from Armand cheeks. They were salty and tasted of iron. He ran a hand over Armand’s hair, smoothing it down. His lips trailed down his cheek to his mouth and he kissed him. Armand, who still had him pinned to the wall, pushed against Daniel, kissing him back. Daniel’s tongue scrapped against Armand’s fangs and soon the kiss was full of blood. Armand made a noise, guttural and low. 

His lips found Daniel’s throat and his fangs pierced Daniel’s neck, the pain quick and sharp like needles. His mouth closed on the wound and he drank. Daniel held him close, as if he could hold in him place. Daniel could feel the thrum of his heart beat in time with Armand’s. If he had to die, he only wanted to die like this, in the ecstasy of this embrace.

Armand pulled away from his throat and found his mouth again, the kiss hot and full of sticky blood. Daniel broke from the kiss and trailed his lips down to Armand’s throat. Armand made a small gash for him. The blood surged through him as he drank like electricity on a wire, setting his nerves on fire. The blood brought images too, too chaotic and quick to make sense of. 

When Armand finally stopped him and eased him away, Daniel grabbed for him, tried to get his mouth back on the wound. Armand had to physically hold him back while it healed. 

As easy as that and I’d be yours forever, Daniel thought sadly. 

Armand met his eyes, no longer stained with tears but still tinged with sadness. 

“Let’s go home, Daniel.” 

Daniel let Armand lead him back to the villa without further protest. 

After sunrise, he lay in bed, picturing Armand’s sorrowful expression, the bloody tears, the grief already there for a loss he could prevent. Maybe he wouldn’t be stubborn enough to let him die after all. He clung that thought so he could fall asleep, even though he knew he was probably kidding himself. 

Chapter Text

Armand sat on the other side of the bar table, asking Daniel about drying cleaning. What was its purpose? And how did they clean the clothes without water? Daniel didn’t have answers. They used chemicals, he knew, but not the specifics of how it worked. So Armand moved on. Did Daniel really appreciate how easy it was to get new clothes in this modern era, where you could just buy them off racks?

Daniel pulled a cigarette out of the box and then flicked open a matchbook. It was empty.

Without even pausing his diatribe about clothes, Armand produced a matchbook from his pocket and extended it across the table between his fingers. Daniel took it, his fingers brushing the cold skin of Armand’s hand. The quick touch was oddly charged and he had the strongest urge to take the vampire’s hand in his. 

Instead, he lit his cigarette, taking a deep drag. It took him a moment to realize Armand had stopped talking. He was looking at Daniel with a faint air of surprise. 

Daniel lay in a bed on the fifth floor of a gleaming white hotel on the coast of Greece. The ocean waves had lulled him to sleep in the late afternoon but now he awoke with a start.

Armand was sitting on the bed. Daniel’s heart slammed against his ribs. 

“Good, you’re awake.” So casual, as if they were travel companions and it was perfectly reasonable for him to be in Daniel’s hotel room, rousing him from sleep. 

Daniel sat up and reached for his glasses. “What the hell do you want now?” 

It had been maybe a week since he’d last seen the vampire on the street in Prague. They’d talked about the juxtaposition of modern and historical architecture for hours while walking through the city. 

“This hotel,” Armand said. “Why did you choose it over the others nearby?” 

“You woke me up because you want me to be your travel agent?” Daniel asked.

Armand laughed, that melodious, sensuous sound. “Isn’t that what you’ve been?” 

Daniel shook his head. “You’re mad. This isn’t some pleasure cruise.” He pushed the blankets off but Armand continued to sit there on the edge of the bed, watching him with those intense eyes that almost glowed in the moonlight. If someone had told him five years ago he’d awaken one night to find a vampire perched on his bed, he’d have thought they were insane, but now it felt almost normal.

Armand touched his cheek, hand brushing over Daniel’s stubble, skin cold against his warm face. Daniel's breath caught. “Has this become routine? Is our game at an end?” Armand smirked, flashing fang.

Terror shot through Daniel. But it wasn’t only terror he felt. There was also intense desire, almost more powerful than the fear. Armand’s smile widened. The asshole was enjoying this. 

“For god’s sake, at least let me get up and get some coffee,” Daniel said.

Daniel carried his paper plate to the kitchen, tossing it in the trash. “I’m just saying, you don’t have to order every single thing you see an ad for.” 

Armand sat on the sofa facing the the television, which was playing an infomercial for some magical egg scrambler. 

Daniel shoved the pizza box with the remaining pizza in the fridge and then grabbed a beer. “You don’t even eat eggs.” 

“You eat eggs,” Armand said. “And it might work on other things.”  

Daniel remembered his fascination with microwaves a few months before and winced. He turned back around to pull the bottle opener out of the drawer. He popped the top, letting the bottle cap fall to the counter, and took a swig. 

Armand came up behind him and put his hands on Daniel’s hips. Daniel hadn’t even heard him move from the sofa. His cool, silken hands trailed up beneath Daniel’s shirt, gliding up his sides. Daniel set the beer down and Armand pushed him against the counter. He kissed the side of Daniel's neck. The touch of his cool lips against his throat was electric, even before the fangs pierced his skin. Armand drank, his fingernails digging into Daniel’s chest as he held fast. 

When he stopped, he kissed the wound and then loosened his grip, pulling his arms out from under his shirt. Daniel smelled the blood, rich and heady, before Armand’s wrist appeared at his mouth. Daniel drank, sinking back against Armand as the blood shot through him. But all too soon, Armand tugged his arm away, running a hand down Daniel’s back as he steadied him. 

Daniel turned around and grinned at him. “See? Much more fun than some egg gadget.” 

Armand kissed him. “I’m ordering at least 3.” He reached around and pilfered Daniel’s wallet from his back pocket and then carried the phone across the room to the sofa where the cord just barely reached. 

Daniel sighed.

Daniel sat in the Adirondack chair on the patio near the cliff overlooking the ocean. He’d spent two weeks in Texas before he’d started to fall apart again, losing time, sanity, his hotel room key. The car had arrived last night as if by magic and he’d gotten inside, no questions asked, letting it whisk him back home. 

Now, he was back on Night Island. He had a glass of whiskey on the table next to him but it tasted sour, rotten. He sipped it anyway, trying to quell the dryness in his throat. 

He heard Armand approach, which meant he was making an effort. He could move soundlessly when he wanted. 

“Here to gloat that you won again?” Daniel asked bitterly. 

“Because you came back?”

Daniel looked up at Armand, who was staring out at the ocean rather than looking at him. He wore a soft-looking dark blue collared shirt and black pants, and the wind whipped his hair around his face, a beautiful devil whose pallor was exacerbated by the light cast from the nearby lampposts. 

“What do I win?” Armand asked. 

“The remainder of my mortal life,” Daniel said. “And my corpse when it ends. Congratulations. Should have gone for door number 3. Maybe you’d have won a new car.” 

Daniel expected Armand to leave as he so often did these days when he sensed the fight starting. And it was always the same fight. Sometimes Daniel wondered why they bothered. Maybe they should dig out Armand’s old camcorder and just record one they could play on a loop inside the villa. Save both of them the trouble.

“We don’t have to fight.” Quiet, defeated. 

Daniel grabbed Armand’s hand. He hadn’t fed tonight, Daniel could tell. He was too pale and his skin was cooler than usual. He pulled his arm close and then kissed his wrist. Isn’t this what lured him back, again and again? 

“My blood?” 

You. All of you. Your blood, your black heart, your mesmerizing hold on me. The hope that you might come to your senses and make me like you. 

Armand pulled his arm from Daniel’s grasp. He bent down in front him, kneeling on the paving stones. He placed his hands on Daniel’s arms, so cold and inhuman in contrast to Daniel’s sticky, sweaty skin. He felt almost feverish and didn’t know if it was just the heat or something else. He didn’t want to be human anymore. 

Armand swept some of the hair from Daniel’s brow, kissed his forehead. “Be alive, Daniel,” Armand said. 

Daniel scoffed but there was no real rancor in it. He couldn’t seem to muster any. He was too busy studying Armand’s throat, itching for the blood on his tongue. Armand climbed onto the chair and made a gash in his throat. Daniel locked his lips around it. Just a taste before Armand eased him away. He kissed him again before standing and taking Daniel by the hand, leading him back inside the villa. 

Daniel sat in the parlor, watching a mosquito buzz around the room, pressing his tongue against his fangs every so often as if to check they were still there. He pushed his fingers into his arm and then waited to see how long the impressions of his fingerprints remained once they were pulled away. Such a strange sensation, the way touch lingered on his cold, immortal skin.

Armand appeared in the doorway. Daniel smiled at him.

“Is this where you’ve been all night?” Armand asked. 

Daniel shrugged. He was supposed to go to the mainland with Marius, who’d invited him along, but then he’d gotten caught up playing chess with Khayman, who had left after their game ended over an hour ago. 

Armand sat down beside him on the sofa. He’d fed recently. Daniel could smell the blood racing through his veins and see it in the little vessels under his skin, which now gave him a faint pink color. 

Armand kissed his cheek, blood-warmed lips burning against Daniel’s cooler skin. The impression lasted like one of those cartoon lipstick kisses that stayed behind long after the kiss was over. He laughed at the thought. 

Armand looked over him, titling his head in question. Daniel shook his head. Took Armand’s hand in his and then with his other hand, trailed his fingers lightly up and down his arm. “Why did you never tell me what it was like for you? How everything is a revelation.” 

Armand smiled, amused. “How could I have hoped to explain it?”

“Imagine if I’d never known,” Daniel said, amazed by the thought. Armand stiffened slightly, still bracing for a fight that was, finally, over. 

Daniel lifted his hand and kissed it, grinning at him. Armand relaxed and leaned against him, the smell of blood becoming intoxicating. Daniel sat, forcing himself to be patient, letting their arms touch, and delighting in the fact that for once, his skin was cool against the warmth of Armand’s. 

Chapter Text

Daniel knew it was probably a waste of time but he couldn’t resist. He was in Paris by happenstance, which was how he ended up everywhere these days. Always going wherever the first or most convenient flight out during daylight hours was heading, because that was when the vampire had to be sleeping, and he couldn’t track him or be lurking in the crowd behind him at the ticket counter. 

He’d run from Armand in Lisbon and then again London, and now here he was. Paris.

Daniel had never been before. The Eiffel Tower was smaller than he’d imagined. He wondered how often people thought the same thing about the Golden Gate Bridge. 

But he was there. And despite the immortal chasing him, he’d had the idea to find The Theatre Des Vampires. Well, where it had been, anyhow, since it wasn’t there anymore. Once he decided on it, he became determined. 

Of course, he didn’t have the tapes with him, nor a copy of Interview with the Vampire. He’d have to rely on his memory. 

He tried to trace Louis’ steps backward from the Louvre, straining to remember any details he’d given about the location, about the hotel where he and Claudia had stayed, but there wasn’t enough, at least not that he could remember. He walked around in circles but found nothing that sparked any familiarity. Paris had built right over the ashes of the Theatre and any clues to its precise location were long gone or beyond Daniel’s grasp. 

After an afternoon of walking around, he stopped at a cafe, defeated, and sat outside. It was getting dark. He should have left Paris and gotten further away while it was still light out instead of wasting the day on a wild goose chase, and now it was too late. He drank coffee and smoked his last cigarette while he contemplated the stark reality: things happened and the world built right over the ashes and moved on. In a hundred years’ time, you might never know they’d happened at all. 

“Some people remember,” Armand said. 

Daniel jumped, spilling the last dredges of coffee as he did. “You know, you could start with hello.” He grabbed some napkins and tried to wipe the coffee from the front of his jacket. 

Armand sat across from him, dressed in clothes similar to the other people around them, a sweater and pants with a scarf. His hair had been cut short. His fingernails gleamed and rings adorned his fingers. 

“You were looking for the Theatre?” Armand asked. Something strange crossed his expression before his face went carefully neutral. 

Daniel shrugged. “Just curious to see where it was. It’s not important.” He felt like a demented tourist, tracing the steps of a vampire who’d told him his life story while another followed on his heels. And now that Armand was there, across from him, it felt doubly silly. What did it matter where it had been? What could he possibly hope to find on a street corner that had been utterly rebuilt and changed in the last century? 

“Ghosts,” Armand said. 

Daniel blinked at him. He still wasn’t used to the way the vampire got inside his head as though he were thinking out loud. “Wait, wait, ghosts are real?” 

Armand laughed, a melodic, seductive sound. 

“You were joking,” Daniel said. He was doing that more frequently, making jokes and teasing Daniel. He didn’t know what to make of it. 

“Yes, of course. There are no ghosts. And there’s nothing on the site of the theatre but shops and apartments. But I can show you. Come.” Armand stood, pushing his chair back. Daniel got up and followed.

They stopped on a street corner not six blocks from where he’d been. He’d gotten close, even just guessing. Of course, maybe Armand was lying and just showing him a random street corner. It wasn’t like there was a plaque that read, “Here stood the The Theatre Des Vampires.” 

“Why would I lie?” Armand asked. 

Daniel didn’t know. He tried to imagine the theatre as Louis had described it transposed over the building now there, but it was no use. He turned to Armand, who was staring the facade of the building, too, perhaps remembering how it had been.

“Does it feel strange to be here again?” Daniel asked.

Armand turned to him, a tiny furrow of his brow. “No.” 

Daniel snorted. “No? That’s it? How long was the theatre here? How many decades did you live there? And then with everything that happened at the end…” 

“You mean when I let Louis burn it down with the others still inside?” Armand’s expression was strange again, sinister. Danger flashed in his eyes and Daniel’s pulse raced. Easy to forget this beautiful creature was a killer, and ruthless one at that. 

“Ruthless? Is that what you’ve taken from the story Louis told you? Or is that your own assessment?” Armand stepped closer to him and Daniel, reflexively, stepped back. Armand didn’t stop so Daniel kept backing up until he stepped off the sidewalk, nearly tripping and falling into the street. A pale hand reached out and grabbed his jacket, pulling him back onto the sidewalk. And then he was standing there on the corner of the street, the vampire still holding fast to the fabric, blood thrumming in his ears. 

“Well? Answer me,” Armand demanded. 

Fear turned to anger, and then irritation. “You are ruthless, you know are!” 

Armand realized he was still holding Daniel’s jacket and let go, his hand dropping to his side. He turned back, looking behind him at the place the theatre had once stood. 

Daniel shifted uneasily. Ran his fingers through his hair. Itched for a cigarette but he was out. Armand kept his back to him. Sometimes, after accosting him for answers or conversation, he simply walked away. Maybe he wouldn’t care if Daniel did the same. 

But Daniel remained, feeling rooted the spot, as minutes ticked by. 

“Look, you don’t have to answer, but I have to ask,” Daniel said. Armand finally turned back to him. His expression was hard as steel. But he waited for Daniel to spit it out. “If you could go back, if you could do it all again…” 

“Would I do it differently? What a boring question.” 

Now it was Daniel’s turn to be taken aback. “Boring? I’m asking about regrets, about choices… We all have those pivotable moments. Don’t you ever think about it?” 

Armand met his eyes but his expression had softened ever so slightly. “What good does it do to dwell on what other choices one might have made? There is no going back. What’s done is done.” 

Daniel considered that. He wasn’t wrong. And really, for a being who might live for millennia, it was a pragmatic way to look at things. Centuries of regret could eat you alive. 

Armand tilted his head, indicating they should walk, and then pivoted, moving down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. Daniel fell into step beside him. They walked in silence. Several blocks later, Daniel made him wait while he ducked into a corner market and bought cigarettes, and then they kept going. 

Finally, they stopped at storefront with large glass windows. It was shop that sold antiques in an older building, one that had clearly been there for a long time. At first, Daniel thought Armand was going to break in and retrieve some personal item. But he didn’t. Daniel lit a cigarette and then asked, “What is this place?” 

“The doll shop,” Armand said. “It was rebuilt after the fire but it looks quite similar to how it looked at the time.” 

Daniel thought back to Louis’ story, of how after they’d burned the doll shop, he’d followed Armand up the tower, to his secret room where he spent time away from the theatre. A safe haven from the other vampires, a place to be alone. Daniel had always liked that detail, that the leader of the great vampiric theatre needed a place to get away. Strange to stand here now, beside Armand, and think of it. 

“Strange for a living person to know these things about my past,” Armand said. 

Daniel took a drag on his cigarette. “Why show me this?” 

“Because you wanted to see things from Louis’ story. Isn’t that why you came here?” 

Daniel laughed, smoking billowing out of his mouth. “I came here because you found me in London so I had to go somewhere else. This little tour was just… I don’t know. A random impulse.” 

“Would you do it differently?” Armand asked, as if this had merely been a long tangent and now they were back to their earlier conversation. 

“What, fly to Paris?” Daniel asked sarcastically. Armand did not dignify that with a response. Daniel finished his cigarette and let the butt hit the sidewalk, where he crushed it with his shoe. “No. I mean, sometimes I think maybe I could have burned the tapes and convinced myself I’d made it all up, but… No. I wouldn’t.” 

Armand shot him an unreadable look. “You’re telling the truth. Which means you’re either a fool, or unduly optimistic.” 

Daniel smiled at him. “Or maybe I just prefer to know there’s more magic in the world than most people think. I like being in on the secret.” 

Armand stared at him for the longest time, so long that Daniel worried he’d finally said the wrong thing, and Armand would decide this little game of his was over. He could feel his heart slamming against his ribs. 

And then finally, Armand said, “A fool, then.” But Daniel caught a hint of a smile before he turned and walked away. 

“Hey, where are you going? The night is young!” He called after him, knowing damn well he might regret it if the vampire did turn around. But he did not. He vanished around a corner, leaving Daniel there alone. Daniel sighed, took one last glance at the antique shop, and went to find a hotel.

Chapter Text

Daniel stared up at the painting hanging on the museum wall, trying very hard not to laugh. 

The painting itself was ridiculous enough but remembering how it came to be was even funnier, and looking at it now brought back a flood of memories from the days when he and Armand had lived in Brooklyn. Life had been an exhausting whirlwind, an endless parade of activities and experiments and classes and shows and parties. Daniel had still been human, trying to run at the pace of a vampire who was determined to dive into life with all the passion an immortal could hold. That had been four decades ago, but in some ways, it felt like yesterday. 

Armand came up beside him and lightly touched his arm. 

“The rest of the guards?” Daniel asked. Armand had handled the first two when they’d entered, ‘convincing’ them to turn off the cameras and then go to sleep, but there were a few others roaming the premises. 

“All sleeping,” Armand smiled mischievously. 

“How lucky,” Daniel said, smirking back. He nodded up at the painting. “That was a wild night, wasn’t it?” 

Armand stared up the canvas. In it, Armand stood in front of Daniel, who was definitely drunk, flipping off the artist or the viewer. Armand was looking straight ahead. It had been painted using a Polaroid for reference, one of dozens taken of them during that party. The artist, a young woman, had stuck that particular Polaroid in her bra while waiting for it to develop, which was why Armand hadn’t taken it like he’d taken the others she’d snapped of them. She’d invited them back a week later to unveil it. 

The colors she’d chosen for her painting were bright, almost neon, pink and orange and yellow, which made it look sort of a like an-off brand Warhol. 

“You didn’t want to go to that party,” Armand said. 

“Yeah, well, I was exhausted. It was, what, the tenth night in a row? The twelfth? You could read my thoughts but you couldn’t tell how exhausted I was?” He sounded defensive and he didn’t mean to. They hadn’t broken into the art museum to fight. “What does it matter? It was decades ago and I went. There’s the proof.” 

“I didn’t say it matters. I was merely stating my recollection of the night in question.” 

Daniel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You want to know my recollection? There was a lot of tequila and disco music, and the host wouldn’t stop taking photos, which reminded me of you when you first got your Polaroid camera. We left early, and when we got home, you and I had way more fun alone in the bedroom.” 

He put his arm around Armand’s shoulders. Armand gave him a sideway glance. “You’d have wasted your life away in bed if I’d have let you.” 

“With you? Definitely.” 

Armand gently removed Daniel’s arm from around his shoulders and touched the frame of the painting, testing to see if anything happened. This was a smaller art museum, not the Met, and while they had security, it wasn’t top notch. It didn’t need to be. This particular painting was valued at about two thousand dollars. A lot for something that looked like the 70s threw up on a canvas, but nothing compared to other works. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to just leave it here?” Daniel asked. “I mean, your face has adorned museums before.” 

God knew Marius had painted him enough times. Hell, Daniel knew for a fact a painting of Armand was currently hanging in an art museum in Brazil. It was a portrait Marius had painted from memory one night on a whim. It had looked so real that Daniel had spent six straight hours staring into its eyes before passing out in front of it. Marius had moved it out of the house, afraid that it was causing Daniel distress. He’d still been a little unstable at the time. 

“It’s ours,” Armand said firmly. 

He’d tried to buy it from the artist the night she’d invited them over to show it to them. She’d refused but promise to give it to them in a few years. But then they’d moved to Miami and the painting had been forgotten. Until last week, when a brochure for the museum had arrived in the mail and there it was, hanging in the background. 

Daniel had looked up the artist only to learn she’d died a few years ago and her family had donated her collection. The museum was not interesting in selling. 

Daniel shrugged. “Okay, boss. It’s your call.” 

Armand tugged on the frame and it came off the wall easily. Daniel waited, half-expecting alarms to sound like in a heist movie, but the museum was dead silent. Armand turned and headed for the exit. “Don’t forget the money.” 

“Right. Got to support the arts.” Daniel couldn’t help being sarcastic but he did pull out the thick stack of hundreds and leave it on the ground below where the painting had hung. They walked out into the lobby, where two guards were snoring softly in their chairs, the monitors in front of them blank, and went out the front door. 

“That’s ugly,” Benji said, as Armand hung the painting in a prominent place in the upstairs hall. 

“It’s art,” Armand corrected. 

“Did you really used to dress like that?” He looked at Daniel curiously. 

“The polo shirt? Yes. It was actually cool to dress like that back then. I was a very cool guy.” 

Armand made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. Daniel shot him a look but his back to was to them and he didn’t see it. 

“In hot pink and yellow?” Benji was incredulous, clearly offended by the thought.

“The colors are a stylistic choice,” Armand said, stepping back to examine how it looked now that it was hanging on their wall, portrait Daniel flipping the bird to anyone who passed by. 

“You should wear glasses again,” Benji said. “You look better with them.” 

“Don’t you have Pokemon to catch?” Daniel asked. 

Benji rolled his eyes. “You’re the only one who plays that game. But I do have to get back to Fortnite. My friends are waiting.” He turned and left, disappearing into his room.

“You realize he’s not actually a child anymore,” Armand said. He put his arm around Daniel’s waist. 

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Daniel looked at the painting. Armand’s hair was cropped short in it and his eyes were magnetic, his expression slightly mischievous, his smile curved in amusement. “You’re beautiful there. She really captured you.” 

Armand tightened his arm around him. “So are you.” 

“I look like a drunken asshole.” 

Armand kissed him on the cheek, quick and feather-light. “You were happy that night.” 

Daniel smiled. Even as he flipped off the camera in the painting, you could see it in his eyes and his little smirk. He’d been tired and tequila-drunk, sure, but happy. 

“Are you happy? Now?” Daniel asked. 

Armand studied his face, those alluring brown eyes burning into him as if he might finally break through the wall that kept him from reading Daniel’s thoughts. 

“In this moment? Yes.” 

That wasn’t exactly what he’d meant but it was close enough and Daniel decided not to push his luck. Instead, he leaned against Armand and stared up at the garish neon depiction of them both from another time, when they were also happy. He hoped this time it would last for a while.