Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wait for the day you'll go away
Knowing that you warned me
Of the price I'd have to pay
And life's full of flaws
Who knows the cause?
Living in the memory of a love that never was
(Linda Ronstadt)

Armand was aware that he often lost time. 

It was better now than it had once been. 

On the slave ship, in the brothel, when he was in Marius’ care. 

He had never questioned why it happened or what caused it. He knew enough of the modern era to know that an answer was likely out there somewhere, but what good would such a thing do him? 

Armand had found purpose in his relationship with Louis despite the lies such a relationship had been built on. He had been more present in the years he had spent with Louis. There was cruelty between them in equal measure to whatever love remained between them, but also predictability. For all the ways Louis could hurt Armand, Armand was in control.

Waking up in an unfamiliar bed in an apartment that seemed only vaguely familiar was all the more disconcerting for how long it had been since it had happened to Armand. 

He tried to orient himself. It was a trick he had learned centuries ago to hide the moments when this would happen. He needed to put just enough of the pieces together to know enough to fake his way through his next few interactions and then it would be as if it never happened. 

He had been in bed. 

He must have been sleeping.

He pulled the curtain back. The sun was setting. 

There was no one else in the apartment. He would sense their thoughts. The other apartments were teeming with mortals. 

The living room was painfully familiar. Every surface was littered with lamps. He had bought several of them once upon a time. It was the same time that he painted the sky on the ceiling for his beautiful boy.

It couldn’t be…

His eyes drifted up to the ceiling. The painting looked just as it had. 

Daniel Molloy. 

What on Earth was Armand doing in Daniel Molloy’s apartment?

Something was wrong. 

Armand had kept himself from this place since 1985. 

They were supposed to be in Dubai. They were in Dubai.

Armand walked around the living room. There was a coloring book and pencil set sitting on a table. The images inside were meticulously completed. A child, perhaps. Daniel’s daughters were too old now for such things, but there were grandchildren. Armand had seen them in Daniel’s mind during the interview. 

There was a roll of canvas in a corner along with a broken down easel and materials for building a frame. It stirred an old memory in Armand. 

Something was wrong.

Armand had to get out of there. 

“Hey, babe, I thought you were gonna try to…” 

Armand moved across the room with preternatural speed pushing the man who had spoken against the wall with enough force to do some damage to the sheetrock.

“Fuck, man,” Daniel looked over at him from his place against the wall. “Like I was saying, thought you were gonna try to sleep in. Are you okay? Did I do something while I was sleeping to piss you off?”

Armand hissed at Daniel. He tilted his head, wondering why he couldn’t see into his thoughts. His hand on Daniel’s chest pressed hard enough to break a rib as he tried to make sense of the rhythm of his heartbeat.

“Amadeo…fuck…” Daniel held his hands up in surrender. 

“Don’t say that name. You are not allowed to say that name.” 

Daniel’s face fell from shock to recognition to something like sadness.

“Armand,” Daniel sighed. “Guess we knew this day was going to come. Can you…can you put me down?” 

Armand kept a firm hold on him, refusing to budge. 

“Okay or don’t. Not like it’s my apartment or anything,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “You’re not gonna kill me.” 

“Want to bet, Mr. Molloy?” 

Daniel laughed, “I fucking remember shit now. The boat sailed on you killing me decades ago. You wanna talk? We can talk. You wanna fight? Let’s go. I can throw you into walls just like Louis now if you want.” 

“How are you one of us?”

“You already know the answer to that.” 

“I wouldn’t.”

“You did,” Daniel corrected. “Or, well, part of you did.”

Five Years Earlier

Daniel had frequently referred to dust settling back when he got divorced (both times), but he had never actually imagined a scenario where post-breakup dust would be quite so literal. 

Now, Daniel was the sole human in the penthouse. His laptop was smoldering in the other room. 

Yay, for the Cloud. 

And Armand was sitting amidst the literal rubble of the wall Louis had chucked him into.

“Well, I think that’s my cue to leave,” Daniel admitted, staring down at the vampire. Louis had suggested some injuries took a minute to heal. He was going to hope Armand had limited ability to pounce right now.

Armand was still. He looked down at his lap, uncertainly. Daniel kind of thought he might be crying, but maybe there was just more blood on his face than he realized. 

“Look, them’s the breaks, right? Not like this relationship was all that healthy. You murdered his daughter. He was probably really pushing the limits of what could be considered consensual sex with a former child slave. All’s well that ends well.” 

There was another beat of silence. In a moment of uncharacteristic self-preservation, Daniel started to back out towards the door, thinking that maybe - just maybe - he was about to get out of this little scrape alive.

“Danny,” The vampire whispered. “Must you be so cruel?”

“Wha-” 

Vampiric speed was fucking offputting to say the least. One second Armand was sitting on the ground, the next he had flung himself into Daniel’s arms. He was more dead weight than anything else. Daniel had to imagine a spinal injury did that. 

“I can’t lift you,” Daniel warned. “If we fall, I probably break a hip, buddy.” 

Armand’s weight moved off of him. He whimpered slightly, but the sudden change in his height signaled he wasn’t so much standing as hovering. Fucking hell, vampires were weird, Daniel thought. Armand tilted his head, eyes going impossibly wide. For a moment, Daniel imagined he looked more like Fake Rashid than Armand. 

“You don’t remember me. He ruined it, didn’t he?”

“Who’s he?” Daniel held up his hands. It was a classic surrender pose, but it also had an edge of trying to keep a wild animal calm. 

The vampire huffed and rolled his eyes. He floated over to one of the couches laying down on his side, curled in on himself and crying. 

Daniel had stood up to oligarchs and drug cartel kingpins in his now long and storied career. He’d narrowly escaped with his life more times than was healthy to count. He hadn’t batted an eye during his second divorce to even mourn that highly questionable marriage. 

A vampire lying on the couch crying because his back hurt really shouldn’t have been the sort of thing to make him linger in what was potentially a giant high-rise Saw trap especially when said vampire had a history of torturing him.

“I’m pretty sure that doctor you guys have been throwing at me is a vampire,” Daniel walked over, sitting down on the coffee table so he was closer to eye level with Armand. “Do you need him? I can get blood if you tell me where Louis was keeping it.”

Somehow all of that just made him cry harder. Daniel had never been great at tears. He was frankly surprised he was even trying this hard.

“The pain will pass. Penance for all you have been put through on our behalf,” The vampire sniffed, red tears staining his cheeks and the dark fabric of the sofa. “Of course, I am the one to pay the price. Armand is nowhere to be found.”

“Armand…” Daniel frowned. “If Armand is nowhere to be found, then…who are you?” 

“Amadeo,” Amadeo sniffed, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Oh, Danny, it is so much worse than I thought.” 

“What is?” 

“What he’s done to you.” 

A week earlier, Daniel wouldn’t have believed any of the things that followed out of Amadeo’s mouth. The idea that Daniel was missing memories because of drug abuse was old hat. Daniel had been living with that reality for a long, long time. 

But he knew emphatically now that he had been missing memories from San Francisco.

He knew Armand was the reason that he was missing those memories. 

So when a teary eyed Amadeo muttered that Armand had erased them from Daniel’s life, erased years of time they had known one another, it seemed…plausible. 

Almost probable.

And fuck that very much as far as Daniel was concerned.

“I cannot stomach that awful blood in bags,” Amadeo sniffed. “I suppose I will just have to be patient while this heals. It will take longer…” 

Those big eyes were looking at Daniel again. Daniel did know that move. Poor little Amadeo needed blood. Wherever would he find it? Daniel might not be a vampire, but he had always been good at getting what he wanted, too. 

Daniel rolled up his shirt sleeve, “I might taste like some pretty awful medications.” 

“You will be delicious.”

“That’s…unsettling…” 

Still, he held out his arm to Amadeo who shifted with a wince before latching on to Daniel’s arm. 

Daniel wasn’t sure if it was wise to let someone who looked so gleeful about biting him get so close to his veins, but here they were. Daniel tensed as Amadeo’s shockingly small but efficient fangs broke the skin at his wrist. 

Whatever Daniel did remember of San Francisco, of those glimpses of memories Amadeo had awakened, it didn’t quite prepare him for the actual feeling of someone drinking his blood especially when it was done so gently. 

Daniel closed his eyes and was met with more glimpses of a forgotten past. Amadeo or Armand or some combination of the two of them tangled up in Daniel’s bedsheets and his arms. Daniel feeling more content than he had with either of his wives as he fucked him. Daniel wanting it to last forever.

Amadeo pulled away, “Thank you, beloved. I should be back on my feet soon.” 

“Uh…yeah, no problem.” 

It took only a few hours for Amadeo to move from his place on the sofa, his back healed enough to allow him to walk to the master bedroom, Daniel trailing behind. Amadeo went into the walk-in closet while Daniel noted the weird prison aesthetic of the bedroom. 

Whatever else Daniel thought about all of this, he had a feeling it was a good thing Armand and Louis were on the outs - for both of them.

Amadeo pouted at the clothing options in Armand’s closet. He pouted even more at the lack of accessories. Why were there no rings? How could rings possibly go out of fashion?

“So how did we meet?” Daniel asked, wondering how much Amadeo would actually say. 

“Armand tortured you for six days in San Francisco because Louis picked you up at a bar,” Amadeo said matter of factly as he walked deeper into the large closet to find something to wear. “Do you not remember any of that?”

“No,” Daniel sighed. “Just recently had my memory jogged on that one. But if you really are someone else, you weren’t there.”

Amadeo sighed. He found explaining himself tedious. It was another reason to be annoyed with Armand who had created this mess in the first place. 

“After San Francisco, you attempted to find Lestat in New Orleans, but you found Armand instead,” Amadeo explained. “And, well, he was sort of fascinated by you so he decided to let you live. It was a challenge really.” 

Daniel felt a sort of shiver down his spine that was accompanied by something of a sharp pain near his temple. 

“And of course, I may lose interest altogether and not bother to kill you. That's always possible. You have hope in that. And maybe with luck I'll lose track of you. I have my limitations, of course. You have the world to roam, and you can move by day. Go now. Start running. I want to see what you do, I want to know what you are."  

Armand in Lisbon. Armand in Paris. Armand in Prague. 

Vienna. Berlin. Switzerland. 

Then silence.

Then Boston then New York then back to New Orleans.

"That telephone, I want you to dial Paris, I want to see if it can really talk to Paris."

"Goddamn it, do it yourself. You're five hundred years old and you can't use a telephone? Read the directions. What are you, an immortal idiot? I will do no such thing!"  

Daniel could remember the look on the vampire’s face. It wasn’t apocalyptic, then. It wasn’t angry or old or violent. It was bewilderment and innocence with the tiniest bit of disappointment.

It was the boy masquerading as a gentleman that had been sitting in a pile of dust after Louis threw him into a wall.

It was Amadeo.

Daniel broke easily under those circumstances.

"All right, I'll call Paris for you. But you pay the bill."  

"But of course."

“You made me call Paris from New Orleans,” Daniel laughed a little, the memory coming into sharper view. “You rained hundred dollar bills and gold coins down on me when I said I’d do it.” 

“Yes!” Amadeo emerged from the closet, still in dust covered clothes, but beaming at the break in Daniel’s memory. “You did not know that I was not him then, but eventually it was discussed. I insisted that you be shared. I was the superior match for you anyhow.” 

Daniel still couldn’t wrap his head around how Armand could have wanted anything to do with him so he was more than willing to buy that Amadeo was the one that wanted to keep him around. Idiot kid meets another idiot kid and they run around being, well, idiots. 

Amadeo’s youthful exuberance faded just a little as he walked over to Daniel. He took the mortal’s hands in his, looking into his eyes.

"Daniel, you are a gift to me from Louis. He simply doesn’t know it. What would I do without you?”

“Whatever you’ve been doing since - what? - 1985?”

“ I have been withering away in this mausoleum. Armand’s insistence on this companionship has been exhausting.”

“Where is Armand when you’re here?” Daniel was aware that he hadn’t let go of Amadeo’s hands. He was also aware that he didn’t want to. The flickering edges of those long forgotten memories were already taking root in his heart if not his mind.

“Asleep, I suppose. Sometimes we are awake together, but I would sense him and I doubt he would allow me such liberties as telling you about the past,” Amadeo was sure that Armand had fled the scene of his crimes and was seeking refuge elsewhere. “There are moments when it is like a dream.” 

He lifted Daniel’s hands, kissing his knuckles before dropping them in favor of returning to the task of finding clothes in Armand’s wardrobe that he could tolerate.

“What do you mean?” 

“Simply that there are times when I am not here, when I am somewhere else, but I feel as though I am in my happiest memories or the safest places. It is not a chore nor is it painful,” Amadeo said honestly. “I am weaker than Armand. If he wishes to be here, he will be.”

Daniel just nodded. It was a lot to take in along with the revelation of an entire life with Armand and Amadeo that he didn’t remember.

There was a part of Daniel that really just wanted to spend the next two weeks processing what the fuck had just happened, but he was also aware that he and Amadeo had some actual shit to figure out.

Louis was gone, but he’d be back. 

Amadeo was non-committal on what if anything Louis knew about him. That meant that staying was likely not on the table. 

Most of the staff had fucked off as well and the death of Daniel’s laptop meant he didn’t have a direct line to the Talamasca. 

“Do you wanna come sit and talk about what your plan is?” Daniel was sitting in the living room, flipping through his phone. 

A flight was probably the first order of business. Did Armand/Amadeo have a passport? Did Louis take the private plane? 

Amadeo wandered in from the other room. He had been keeping himself busy pulling apart the tiny, semi-melted pieces of Daniel’s laptop. He walked over to Daniel, standing in front of the sofa where the mortal sat for a moment before sitting down directly to Daniel’s left.

“I despise how tall we are,” Amadeo sighed. “It was much better when we were small.” 

Daniel was very aware that it was a loaded topic of discussion to consider why Amadeo had any thoughts at all about his height and his size and the benefits of being small. They could unpack that, but Daniel had his hands full with an Amadeo that was apparently thinking about his height because he wished to crawl into Daniel’s lap, settling instead for resting his head there and looking up at Daniel with those all too innocent eyes. 

One problem at a fucking time.

“Kind of thought you were going to sit over there,” Daniel motioned to the chair opposite the sofa. 

A pouty bottom lip emerged and easily won the argument for not fighting Amadeo’s choice of seat. Daniel wasn’t even sure he wanted to, which probably made the whole thing all the more weird.

“Is this a trick?” Daniel asked in spite of his best attempt to go with the flow at least until he was stateside. “Is this…” 

“If we were playing a game, you would know,” There was an earnestness to Amadeo’s voice that made Daniel confident that he was telling the truth. “Everything gets taken away, always. After Paris, when we met you, I thought…then Armand took you away. I won’t hurt you, Danny. You know I won’t. You must know.” 

And…Daniel kind of did.

Or he was being mindfucked. 

That was really the problem when you’d been mindfucked once, wasn’t it? Could you ever really be sure you weren’t being mindfucked?

Whether he was reading Daniel’s thoughts or just aware that Daniel’s mind was clearly reeling just a little bit, Amadeo reached for his hand and held it near his chest. 

“You are mine, beautiful boy, and I am yours. Is there really anything else you need to be sure of?”

Present Day

Armand was less than impressed with Daniel’s telling of the story. He imagined Amadeo had done plenty to manipulate Daniel into helping him, but none of that accounted for Daniel being a vampire now or Amadeo being welcomed at his side. 

“He is a boy enamored with wanting to be loved. You simply filled that need for him,” Armand snapped. “Do not believe all he told you. He is prone to fantasy and lies.”

“Yeah, whatever.” 

“That’s all you have to say? No great defense of your love affair.” 

“Fuck you,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “The memories aren’t lies. That was you and me as much as it was me and him. I’ve got ‘em all now. I know exactly what happened. But I get that it died for you in the 80s. Great, wonderful, spectacular.” 

Armand scoffed. 

“So you wanna run off and try to get Louis or Lestat or fucking Marius to love you again? Have fucking fun. I can wait now thanks to Amadeo. So when he pops back out or you figure your shit out, I’ll be waiting.” 

Immortality had its benefits and one of those benefits was being able to tell Armand to fuck off without worrying he’d never come back or they would never find each other again before the rapidly ticking clock of mortality claimed Daniel. If Daniel had learned one thing from the pantheon of vampiric companions he had now met, it was that all of their relationships were cyclical. 

He and his gremlin were doomed to get together, fall apart, and get back together for the rest of eternity.

“You have not lost your knack for cruelty. Marius burned.” 

Daniel’s eyes narrowed a moment before his face and posture relaxed. 

“You don’t know.” 

Chapter Text

Present Day

“Amadeo claimed to know that our maker lived? He lies,” Armand said firmly. “Wishful thinking, another lived in fantasy he conjured up like our feelings for you.” 

“Cheap shot, boss,” Daniel knew he couldn’t let Armand get in his head. Armand had loved him once. Amadeo loved him now. Everything else was a fucking smoke screen. Daniel had to fight the urge not to snap back at it, not to take it to heart and go for the kill. “It wasn’t Amadeo. It was Lestat.”

“Lestat.” 

Lestat was more than capable of cruel lies, but Armand was aware that he had little to gain from lying about Marius’ continued existence. 

“I see. And why is it that Lestat volunteered this information?” 

“Once Louis calmed down, he got a little…possessive. There was some question of whether or not it was best for you all to be in my care. Amadeo had no intention of leaving and no one was gonna make that decision for him. I’m guessing Lestat thought the possibility of going back to your master might appeal to him.”

“Was that actually on offer? Did he want me back?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Haven’t talked to the asshole. Neither have you…him…any of you. There was no way I was letting Marius near them anyway.” 

“You keep saying them, all, any …It has not only been Amadeo here.”

“Nope,” Daniel confirmed. “Mostly him, but not always. You’re the only one that’s been totally silent for the last five years.”

Five years…

Armand let that sink in. It was a blink of an eye for a vampire, but it was more time than he had ever lost before and it was enough time for a great many things to be done to him.

“Tell me, Daniel, do you like his company?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Arun. Is he part of your little love nest here?” 

“Fuck you very much. I’ll throw you out the fucking window if you say that again,” Daniel had limits on what he was willing to listen to. It wasn’t just the general unpleasantness of someone alluding to a made up fact that he’d do anything to a kid. It was the fact that he did care about Arun and every bad fucking thing that had happened to him. “What there is between me and Amadeo is way different than anything I ever do with Arun. He’s - what? - eight and barely verbal. I take care of him, in a normal cool uncle kind of way, okay? He’s safe here and he sure as Hell wouldn’t be safe with Marius.” 

“Lies.”

“Keep telling yourself that one,” Daniel shook his head. “You know what I think is going to bother you the most about this whole fucking thing?”

“Do enlighten me,” Armand rolled his eyes. 

“I have seen it all, Armand. You can’t tell me it wasn’t so bad. You can’t tell me it was a different time. You can’t tell me that he fucking saved you or that you fucking liked it. Because I know both of them. I know the deepest well of your trauma intimately. It’s not lies. It’s the truth and I heard it all straight from you.”

And, hey, Daniel shouldn’t have been shocked that two of the living room lamps came flying his way and shattered against the wall.

A little destruction was to be expected. 

Five Years Earlier  

Daniel was still tallying up the facts as he saw him when they reached the airport. 

The facts that he definitely had a handle on were:

• Once upon a time in Paris, Armand had directed a play that resulted in Claudia’s death and was intended to result in Louis’ death.
  
  
• It was possible - though not proven - that Armand had manipulated absolutely every event up to that point - Santiago’s coup, Lestat’s appearance, Claudia and Madeleine’s entire situation.
  
  
• Now, Armand was sitting beside him frequently looking at him with big baby deer eyes insisting that they had once had a relationship and that he was not Armand at all but some alternate persona or past-trauma induced psychosis that came in the form of Amadeo - a sweet but badly abused 16 - 20 year old who called Daniel Danny and seemed desperately to want to cling to the old man who had blown up Armand’s life.

So all of that left Daniel Molloy in a precarious position when it came to trusting the gremlin he found himself with. 

On the one hand, Amadeo seemed genuinely to adore Daniel in some way Daniel certainly couldn’t fathom. He also seemed frightened in a way that defied Armand’s fear for his own skin when he knew his lies were up. 

On the other hand, Daniel wasn’t a fucking psychic and it was all too possible that it was an act, Armand’s latest version of sitting sadly in that box seat watching that trial. 

Still, Daniel seemed to think it was best to go with some mashup of keep your enemies close and better the devil you know in boarding a plane with Amadeo over running to the Talamasca for help in getting out of Dubai in one piece.

“You, um, you been on a plane before?” Daniel asked as Amadeo settled in the seat across from him. Apparently, the private plane was Armand’s and not Louis’ which was…convenient to say the least.

“Of course, I’ve been on a plane before,” Amadeo looked at Daniel like he was crazy. “I thought your memories were restored.” 

“They’re still a little jumbled, and I mean, you’re also the guy who couldn’t make a long distance call in 1973.” 

Amadeo sighed, “Yes, but that was before Florida, before our island.”

“So you were there, too? It wasn’t just me and Armand?” 

“No, Armand was quite willing to share when we were together,” Amadeo told Daniel, looking out the window as the crew finished putting their baggage - and the paintings Amadeo had insisted on taking from the penthouse - in the cargo hold. “He was less generous in sharing Louis.” 

Daniel couldn’t hide the sting of those words. It was stupid to be mad at whatever Armand felt for Louis when he could only barely remember what he, himself, had felt for Armand, but the sting was still there, deep inside like a phantom limb. 

“Oh, beloved, you must not take that to heart,” Amadeo reached for Daniel’s hands. Daniel was still getting used to that. Amadeo was apparently much more tactile than Armand was. 

Weird. Nice, but weird. 

Everything was nice, but weird right now.

“This the part where you say something about immortal compansionships and their longevity compared to dalliances with mortals?” 

“Hardly,” Amadeo smirked. “This is where I point out that Armand is made of mostly bad decisions and since Paris most of those decisions involve placating Louis. I am not deemed as useful for that and Armand cannot risk something going wrong.” 

“It’s a real healthy setup he’s cultivated there.” 

“Louis is angry at Armand for something that can never be forgiven. Armand has coped with that by creating a world where Louis is never told no.” 

“He wasn’t great about telling me no, either,” The longer Daniel’s memories settled the more clear that was becoming. 

“He was not, but it is different. Armand feared what would happen if Louis was suddenly told no and in your absence I was less congenial company for Louis than Armand. I did not much mind the arrangement.”

“Did Louis…Would he hurt Armand?” 

“Sometimes, but you must understand, it was an arrangement of Armand’s own making. I cannot say that Louis would have said no to different terms, but it was a risk that Armand did not wish to take,” Amadeo shrugged. “Claudia burned, and we paid the price for it.” 

“Is it weird penance? The whole I couldn’t prevent it bullshit with a side helping of spending the rest of eternity making up for it.” 

“It isn’t a lie,” Amadeo sounded a bit more defensive. “It was what you mortals call a no-win situation. Yes, Armand could have thrown Santiago into a fire and told anyone else even thinking of questioning him that they could join him. But then what? Another century of nothing? Louis surely would have left with Claudia no matter what Armand had done and Armand would never have had space beside him so long as she lived. Perhaps Lestat would have taken pity on us and provided companionship for a bit, but…Armand’s attempt to make up for it was real.” 

“Just not enough.” 

“Nothing ever is,” Amadeo let go of Daniel’s hands. “May we stop this? I know you are quite inquisitive, Danny, but the past is exhausting.” 

Daniel imagined no truer words had been spoken in the whole of the interview. For his part, he was starting to realize that answers weren’t always helpful. Every answer led to another question led to an ongoing feeling of dread and loss. 

Maybe one day he’d meet a fucking vampire that wasn’t mostly made up of baggage.

Daniel was still lacking a laptop, but he’d managed to access his files from Armand’s discarded iPad. Amadeo seemed far less interested in it, and Daniel would take what he could get. 

He started a new document. 

It was always cheap when the writer became a character in their own damn work, but it wasn’t looking like Daniel had much of a choice. This wasn’t just about gaslighting and memory loss anymore. 

It was about him and Armand, and the shattered pieces of his psyche (one of whom was also attached to Daniel). 

He went back to listing all of those facts that he knew.

• Armand helped kill Claudia 
• Armand did it to win over Louis (maybe? Sort of?)
• Armand followed Daniel 
• Armand kept coming back to Daniel 
• Armand erased Daniel’s memory 
• Armand loved Daniel

He deleted the last one. He couldn’t know that. Not without him there.

• Amadeo liked Daniel (maybe it’s an attention thing?) 
• Amadeo doesn’t like Louis (indifferent, not hateful) 
• Amadeo and Armand? Where do they start and stop? 

At least Amadeo seemed eager to provide Daniel with information. He might have asked for a break from the past, but he had been far more forthcoming than either Armand or Louis had been prior to now. 

Daniel was sure Amadeo spoke the truth even if he still wondered what his motives might be.

“There is a bed through that doorway,” Amadeo’s voice broke through the silence in the cabin as they reached cruising altitude. 

“You propositioning me?”

“I will be much less subtle when the time comes for that.” 

When . Fuck him, if that didn’t send a shiver up Daniel’s spine. 

“You need to rest, beloved. We will be in flight for hours.” 

“What about you?”

Amadeo paused, “It is a large bed. Quite comfortable.” 

“But you’re not propositioning me?” 

Amadeo stood, simply smiling as he made his way into the other room, assured that Daniel would follow. 

Daniel pretended he wasn’t going to follow for about five seconds. He found Amadeo meticulously turning down the blankets on the bed as if he knew Daniel would be there in just a moment. He watched as Amadeo unbuttoned his shirt and stepped out of his trousers, leaving him in just a pair of boxer briefs. He might have turned his nose up at Armand’s clothes, but they looked pretty perfect on him.

“Don’t count on me to strip,” Daniel was willing to toe off his shoes and chuck his hoodie over the nearby chair, but the rest of his clothes were staying on. 

“I have never known you to be so shy, beautiful boy.” 

“You’ve never known me to be north of 70,” Daniel scoffed. 

Amadeo hummed. Daniel sort of thought he was actually considering that fact. It was probably inevitable. Age was a reality and one foreign to Amadeo.

“You should rest,” Amadeo slipped under the covers. “Come, my love.” 

And, well, fuck. 

Daniel got into bed beside Amadeo. They laid there facing each other.

“I like how you look now,” Amadeo told him, tracing over Daniel’s lips with the feather-light touch of a sharp claw. “I’ve always liked older looking men.” 

“I don’t love that fact given everything I know about your childhood, kid.” 

Amadeo laughed, “I’m no kid , Danny. You are the child here.”

“Very funny.” 

Amadeo grinned a moment longer before pressing a reverent kiss to Daniel’s forehead. 

“You are attracted to me because I have dark skin and big eyes and a rather spectacular jaw line.” 

“I don’t…”

“You needn’t search for whatever excuse you think you are meant to give, beloved,” Amadeo brushed concern away. “I can see in your head that you don’t think you are meant to like me for those things, but you do. As do I when it comes to your looks. So let us not waste our time or our conversation on discussing why we like the things we like or if liking them is good or bad. Can we not just like them?” 

Daniel didn’t think that was how it worked. Not discussing things had resulted in two divorces. But…okay, they probably had enough on their plates right now to let that one slide. 

“I don’t know if I’m up for this.”

“For us?”

“Yeah,” Daniel admitted. “I’m dying.” 

“Oh…” There was a moment of agonized realization that swept across Amadeo’s features. It was as if he had thought Daniel must surely mean he was dying the way all mortals were dying, but that was not it. “Let us not think of that now.”

Daniel could have pointed out it didn’t work that way, but he really wanted it to work that way.

“You can surely just tell me how beautiful my skin and eyes and jaw line are.” 

Daniel laughed. He reached over and caressed Amadeo’s cheek. His breath caught in his throat for a second. It was almost like being surprised at being allowed to touch a wild animal and finding it didn’t bite. 

He knew this. 

He missed this. 

He had been allowed to do this before.

“You being gorgeous has never once for a second been up for debate,” Daniel knew that to be true as much as he knew any of the facts of his own existence to be true.

“I would have chosen you,” Amadeo whispered against Daniel’s lips. “Not Louis. You.” 

Present Day

“He meant that he would have killed you, you know. That’s what choosing you would have wrought,” Armand hated when Amadeo got to play the romantic little cherub and he had to be the realist. It wasn’t fair.

“Was he the one that gave me the blood first? Hmm?” Daniel pushed. “Was he keeping Night Island in a steady supply of drug dealers so long as their supplies were deemed pure? Did he buy me clean needles?”

“Emphasis on the clean part,” Armand clenched his jaw. “I kept you alive.” 

“And I tried to kill myself. I mean I wasn’t suicidal. That was Louis’ bag, but the effect was the same.” 

Armand could still remember it, the last time he saw Daniel before he erased everything. He’d lost over twenty pounds. He looked ill. Armand had a doctor called, fearing it was AIDS. 

He would have turned him in that moment if it were AIDS.

Armand knew that then and he knew it now though he would be hanged before he said it aloud. 

Amadeo hadn’t been able to see it. He had been blind to how weak Daniel had become, how ill, how dependent. He had been blind when it had been their own body failing back when they were still mortal. The boy wanted to keep Daniel. He did not understand that so did Armand, but it wasn’t to be. 

“You were dead weight,” Armand said instead of any of the other things he was thinking. “Just like Louis. An albatross around my neck dragging me down as punishment for some crime I must have committed that I can’t recall.” 

Daniel’s Adam’s apple bobbed for a moment as he fought the urge to rip Armand’s spine out of his body. Vampiric instincts were a lot to handle. 

“Then why did you give me clean needles? Junkies aren’t hard to throw away when you don’t want ‘em anymore. There was a whole lot of water around that fancy island. Why work so goddamn hard to keep me alive?”

“He’s gone,” Armand deflected. “Amadeo is silent in my mind. I doubt he will return anytime soon.” 

So go, Armand thought. The sweet boy you love is gone and I’m all that’s left. Go. You don’t want me. They never wanted me.

“Cool,” Daniel’s took an unneeded but grounding breath. “That’s not the answer to the question, boss.”

Chapter Text

Present Day
Daniel Molloy was a fucking saint. 

Well, no one else would agree with that, but he thought he deserved a few fucking points for how much he wasn’t beating the shit out of Armand. 

And, sure, Armand would probably best him when it came to vampiric abilities and physical fighting - to say nothing of use of the Mind Gift - but it might feel real good to punch him in the face all the same. 

Maybe it would at least knock some sense into him. 

It was weird to discover that Amadeo was the clearer eyed one of the pair of them, but here they were. 

Yay, for surprises.

“You were amusing,” Armand finally said. “You ran after me like an adorable stray dog. After years of little to no affection from Louis outside of the bedroom, it was flattering. I will not make it something it wasn’t just because Amadeo has delusions of grandeur.”

“Hey, he was the first one to say he liked me more than you did,” Daniel was twisting Amadeo’s words more than a little there, but it got the job done for the moment. 

“Where is Louis?”

“You don’t need me to tell you,” Daniel shrugged. “I’m sure you can dial him in anytime. Besides, you already know where he was going.” 

“It’s been five years if you speak the truth. I cannot believe that they have stayed together.” 

“Allegedly thriving,” And, okay, maybe Daniel was twisting a knife a teeny tiny bit with that one. 

“Would he see me? Am I forgiven?”

Daniel saw the momentary flash of vulnerability on Armand’s otherwise unreadable face. 

“Separate questions with separate answers. Yeah, he’d probably see you. No, you’re not forgiven,” Daniel had complicated feelings on Claudia’s demise, but he knew Louis was unlikely to forgive. 

“I see,” Armand nodded. “Still, I could try to explain.” 

“Sure,” Daniel nodded. “I’m hungry. You wanna hunt?” 

Five Years Earlier

Amadeo walked around Daniel’s apartment like he owned the place. 

The way he laughed when Daniel pointed that out left Daniel strangely off kilter. Did he own the place? Daniel made a mental note to add a bullet point to his growing Google Doc: Who owns my building? Is there any way it’s Armand?

“Do you, um, need to go kill someone?” 

“I believe the more palatable euphemism is hunt,” Amadeo smiled, looking boyish and innocent for someone who was, in fact, discussing murder. 

Daniel pondered how his face could look that way. Armand had never looked anything but hard - sharp lines, sharp edges. Daniel practically got a paper cut every time Armand opened his mouth.

“Okay, do you need to go hunt ?” Daniel supplied air quotes just for good measure. 

“Mm, I should. Bagged blood is hardly filling and Armand has been underfeeding us.” 

Daniel had wondered about that. Not having to feed often and not feeding enough seemed like a very fine line. It was probably safer for Daniel that Amadeo not get too peckish. He didn’t need to start looking like the lunch buffet. 

“Do you wish to accompany me?”

“You never let me do that before?” Daniel raised an eyebrow.

“ Armand never let you do that before,” Amadeo corrected. “You have watched Louis eat vermin. If you are going to do such an act justice in your book, you really ought to watch someone who knows what he’s doing.” 

“Louis doesn’t know what he’s doing?” 

“Louis was poorly instructed by Lestat and caught up on attempting to be human still.”

“You have better etiquette?”

“I was raised by an artist, Danny.” 

“I’m not touching that one,” Daniel snorted. “I might take issue with just how he raised you.” 

“Hush,” Amadeo rolled his eyes. “Do you wish to come or no?” 

And, well, Daniel did want to go. Armand had kept a veil over that part of his existence. Daniel did want to see what it was like. He knew what it was like for Armand to feed from him, that memory now restored, but that wasn’t the same as killing someone. 

Daniel thought watching Amadeo hunt would be a lot like watching a lion stalk its prey. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just that Daniel understood the approximation of human body language that made Amadeo seem innocuous. Lions not so much.They walked several blocks from Daniel’s apartment, mingling with the small crowd of people that were still out at this hour. 

Amadeo made conversation about the store fronts and the side streets with Daniel. He commented on things that had changed over the years, reminding Daniel that Amadeo had been here with him before - Armand had been here before with him. 

Eventually, Amadeo walked a little more quickly, moving to the side of a young man who seemed not terribly different from Daniel except perhaps for age. He was still making small talk. Daniel didn’t think he had to do that, but maybe it was a thrill. Maybe it was just cover. 

Whatever it was, Daniel picked up his own pace as Amadeo turned down an alleyway. He followed until they were near the dead end exit of the alley. 

Daniel’s breath caught in his throat which seemed a silly thing at first. He was aware that he was turned on even as Amadeo let the man’s hands roam over his body, pretending he was about to get something from him before a set of fangs neatly cut into his carotid artery, stilling those hands.

“Fuck,” Daniel muttered as Amadeo let the body drop. He knelt just long enough to close the wound in his neck. 

“Not quite sport,” Amadeo commented. “But he did taste rather pleasing.” 

He turned to look back at Daniel, who was looking at him with a kind of hunger that he could not recall ever showing someone.

Amadeo grinned as Daniel shoved him against the wall. They were both aware that Daniel was only able to move the vampire because he was allowing it, but that was part of the fun.

“This is not the reaction most would think a mortal should have to watching a murder,” Amadeo still had blood on his teeth and fuck, Daniel, if that didn’t make him even harder for him. “What will your readers say?”

“I can always lie.”

Daniel captured Amadeo’s lips. It was more aggressive than any kiss they had shared since Dubai, most of which had been chaste and brief. He could taste the blood on his lips and teeth. It didn’t taste like anything special. Metallic, barely there. But it still sent a bolt of something from Daniel’s brain to his cock.

Amadeo smiled at him, reaching up to caress his cheek, “I imagine we are both too old to be fucked against a brick wall in an alley, tempting though it may be. Come, beloved, let us do this properly.” 

The trip home was a blur.

It wasn’t the vampiric kind of blur. No one was fucking with Daniel’s mind. No one had used vampire speed to rush him back to his apartment. 

But Daniel was in a daze as Amadeo led him home looking terribly pleased with himself. It was a mix of watching him hunt and the memories of the past that it brought up.

Daniel wasn’t sure those memories were about Amadeo. He was pretty sure they were about Armand. But Amadeo was here and Daniel was alive, somehow despite all reason.

Amadeo shoved Daniel down on the bed, stripping his own clothes off eagerly. Daniel managed to sit up enough to get his own shirt off before Amadeo descended on him to pull his pants off.

“Do not be angry with me,” Amadeo reached across Daniel to rifle through the bedside table for lube. Daniel hadn’t exactly been hooking up all that much recently, but there was always the hope that someone might find their way back to his bedroom. There was lube and a box of condoms that rarely got used, but they were there

“Second thoughts?” Daniel couldn’t exactly hide his disappointment.

“Hardly,” Amadeo grinned, crushing his lips against Daniel’s. “I had forgotten just how magnificent your cock is, lover.” 

Daniel laughed, “Oh yeah?”

“Mmm,” Amadeo sat back on his heels, lube in hand. “Perhaps the most magnificent we have ever had and I need not tell you that it is no short list.” 

Daniel groaned. He knew he should be pointing out that thinking about how long that list was could be a boner killer, but he was human. He was fucking flattered. He could think on Amadeo’s trauma later.

“Let me remind you just how good I am at using it.”

If Daniel wasn’t fucking as frequently as he once did, there was something to be said about absence making the heart grow fonder. He held to Amadeo’s thighs as he rode Daniel, baffled that somehow he was getting to have this. 

It wasn’t that Daniel was that down on himself. He knew Amadeo was right. He had a big cock. He was good at sex. That was a given. 

But this wasn’t just having someone hot in bed with him.

This was an ancient vampire picking him for something other than a midnight snack. 

Him out of the billions of other idiot mortals.

“Oh, Danny,” Amadeo collapsed dreamily against him, peppering his jaw with kisses in the aftermath. “I have missed you so.” 

“I missed you, too,” Daniel was pretty sure he meant that. He was pretty sure he actually remembered that. He was pretty sure he also missed Armand. 

Amadeo rolled off of him and Daniel started to get up, thinking they ought to clean up, but Amadeo pulled him back. 

“You're tired. Rest, beloved” Amadeo said softly. “Hold me.” 

And, well, that was too damn tempting apparently.

He stretched lazily. He was going to regret staying in this position come morning. His back would hate him for it. He should get up and change. 

“The curtains. The sun,” It would be dawn in a few hours. 

“Do not worry,” Amadeo whispered against his throat, dreamily. “I will be fine, and I will be here when you wake.” 

For his part, Daniel fell asleep not long after, sleeping like a baby until the sun had long crept over the horizon.

The room was drenched in sun when Daniel finally woke up. He hadn’t slept so well in years. He almost wondered if that was Amadeo’s doing, but he pushed that thought away. The space beside him in bed was cold and empty. That probably tracked. Amadeo was probably awake, probably didn’t need to sleep. 

Weird that he didn’t close the curtains, though. 

Daniel got up and pulled them closed. He stepped out into the hall. Amadeo wasn’t in the kitchen so Daniel had to assume his appliances would see another day. The bathroom door was pushed part way closed. 

Maybe he was cleaning up? Daniel needed to do that as well. 

“Hey, where’d you run off to?” 

Daniel pushed the bathroom door open, only to find Amadeo sitting against the wall, tucked awkwardly between the cabinet that Daniel had bought at Ikea for extra storage and the bathtub. There was light coming in from the window. Amadeo eyed it nervously. 

“Hey,” Daniel repeated. “I thought the sun wasn’t a problem?”

He watched as Amadeo pulled his knees tighter to his chest, big eyes settling on Daniel now. 

Something wasn’t right. Amadeo didn’t cower like that. And if it were Armand he’d be shouting at Daniel most likely. 

No, this wasn’t Amadeo or Armand. 

“Arun…” Daniel scrubbed a hand over his face. “Let’s…let’s get you some clothes, okay?” He shook his head. “Let’s get me some clothes.”

Daniel Molloy was not a good dad.

That was not a newsflash to anyone who knew him. Admittedly, he had been a moderately fun dad. The reasons for that probably weren’t great. It was easier to let other people babysit his kids than for him to do it himself so sure, they could go to Chuck E. Cheese. And sure, they could go to Blockbuster and no, Daniel didn’t care if Katie wanted to watch an R-rated movie when she was eight so long as it kept her quiet.

Outside of that sort of thing, he had mostly been absent. That had been where the real damage came from.

Being in a room with an ancient vampire who was also apparently a little kid was, as a result, daunting. 

He probably couldn’t take Arun to Chuck E. Cheese.

Probably. 

He’d gotten him out of the bathroom, gotten him dressed.

Arun sat on the couch now, limbs curled up tight but somewhat unnaturally as he tried to make all six feet of his frame seem impossibly small. He was practically hiding the blood bag Daniel had given him (grateful that Amadeo had stocked some using whatever sketchy means vampires did that). Arun held it so tightly like he worried it would get taken away. 

If Amadeo’s age existed in some fluid space between sixteen and twenty-seven, and if Armand covered everything after, that had to make Arun somewhere under fifteen. 

How far under? Daniel found himself wondering.

Body language and behavior could all be a trauma response. Autism, maybe. Daniel had long thought Armand might be on the spectrum, but it was pretty hard to say if that was an innate trait from childhood or just how one behaved at 500+ years old. Daniel’s sample size on the latter was a bit lacking.

But if he put that to one side and thought about his own kids, thought about their milestones and their behavior (absent though he was in their lives), he was thinking Arun was under ten. Six. Maybe eight. 

Just a kid.

Just a kid who never got to be a kid. 

Just a kid that probably thought he was about to get raped.

Fuck. 

“Hey, buddy, you can understand me, right?” 

Arun nodded, big eyes watching Daniel as he moved towards him. 

“I’m Daniel. Danny. Amadeo calls me Danny,” He offered. “Armand, well, I have no fucking clue what he would call me, but do you…do you know me?” 

If Amadeo did then maybe Arun did, too. 

Another nod.

“I got old. Thought maybe you wouldn’t,” Daniel sat down on the edge of the coffee table, getting himself to eye-level with Arun where he sat on the couch while still keeping some space between them. His knees weren’t going to be too happy later. “If you know me, you know I wouldn’t hurt you. Not ever. So you can relax.” 

The silence lingered. Daniel wasn’t sure if Arun was buying it. If Daniel could keep him in the apartment until that passed, that was probably enough. He was sure instinct would kick in, but he didn’t want Arun to get scared even more so than the possibility of him getting hurt if he fled. 

“Danny…” The word didn’t quite seem like it fit in Arun’s mouth. It might have been an accent or it might have been that Arun just spoke so little. Daniel had a feeling that he wouldn’t be talking much. 

That was okay. 

Maybe it was fully for the best. 

Daniel didn’t win that many friends when he was talking.

“You should eat,” Daniel motioned to the blood bag. 

Arun looked at it and then back at Daniel. Daniel could see his fangs poking out at the bottom lip. Instinct was apparently a thing, but Daniel thought there might be a disconnect between that and Arun’s brain.

Okay, he could do this. He could Capri Sun a bag of blood and help Arun eat.

He could prove that he could do this. 

Whatever exactly this was.

Daniel wasn’t quite sure what prize he was trying to win as he stuck the tip of a pair of scissors in the bag enough to open it before handing it back to Arun, but he felt compelled to win it all the same. 

Don’t be an idiot, Molloy, you know it’s about Armand.

And, yeah, it sure fucking was.

Arun turned out to be a lot easier to manage than his actual kids now that he was calmed down from the shock of waking up in a strange place drenched in sun. He drank the blood in the bag and eventually another one - Daniel had to think that meant Armand really had really been underfeeding. Amadeo had hunted less than a full twenty-four hours prior, and Arun was hungry. He stayed curled tightly into the far side of the sofa for most of the day. 

At some point, his eyes started to linger on Daniel, watching him, tracking him. Daniel thought it might be curiosity more so than anything else. 

Daniel found himself adding bullet points to his Armand-themed Google Doc: 

• Arun recognized Daniel’s name, but maybe not his face? (Maybe he just doesn't understand aging)
• If he’s mentally ten that’s pushing it 
• Talking isn’t his thing (not sure he can) - understands English fine
• Is scared of sunlight. Knows it could hurt him/a vampire. Does he know how long he’s been a vampire? 
• Gets skittish when I leave the room

The last note made Daniel bring Arun into his bedroom late that night when he was pretty sure that he was going to crash. Arun might have been able to keep going, but if Daniel didn’t get at least a few hours of sleep, he was probably fucked. 

He worried that Arun would think that meant something was expected. Arun was a kid, but he wasn’t exactly a regular kid even putting aside the grown man’s body. 

If he looked a little trepidatious, it passed quickly when Daniel put on the TV. He was entranced with it and hey, Daniel wasn’t going to argue about screen time when it kept him calm and happy. 

Daniel was glad that he had a Disney+ subscription by virtue of a Hulu-Max bundle situation that had somehow been cheaper than subscribing to the shit he really wanted. 

He threw on Ratatouille in the hopes that it would have the least amount of dead or missing parents and mostly just involve a comical little mouse. 

It mostly checked those boxes. 

Probably better than some of the other options. 

Daniel wasn’t sure when exactly he fell asleep, but he woke to a bedroom illuminated by the screensaver on the television. The movie must have ended.  He reached for the remote initially planning to just turn it off when he realized the space beside him was empty again.

“Arun?” Daniel thought he had a good handle on the kid. He didn’t think he would have made a run for it when Daniel dozed off, but he got a little nervous when he found the apartment empty. 

Apparently he hadn’t gone far. Daniel saw the boy standing out on the fire escape leaning on the railing. 

Okay, not great, but not as bad as when he lost Katie for an hour and a half at Yankee Stadium when she was seven. He was slightly concerned Arun might fall, but at least vampires were resilient. 

Did Arun know he could fly?

“Hey, kid, are you…” 

“I keep telling you, Danny, I am no kid,” Amadeo smiled at him, but there was some sadness around the edges. He looked tired. 

“You’re back.” 

“I am,” He nodded, turning his head away and back to the skyline while Daniel climbed out onto the fire escape. “Apologies for my abrupt departure. It was not planned.” 

“I kinda liked the kid once I managed to talk him down. He seemed okay,” Daniel hesitated. “Was that…if I did something you didn’t want…” 

“Au contraire, beloved. I enjoyed our coupling immensely. I truly thought you would take more convincing,” Amadeo reached for his hand, tugging him over to the railing to stand beside him. “I do not always have control over what our mind does, I fear.” 

“No?” Daniel reached over, tucking a slightly tangled curl behind Amadeo’s ear. The vampire shook his head. “Still, must have been something.” 

“I thought it might be Armand at first. He will be quite angry when he wakes,” Amadeo knew there would likely be hell to pay when that happened. It wouldn’t be long now. Amadeo had never been given such freedom. Armand had never not reappeared after Arun did. Amadeo was on borrowed time. “We…Arun does not remember Marius. He only knows the brothel...the slave ship.”

“I was a little too similar to old clients?”

“Do not say it like that,” Amadeo shook his head. “You are nothing like them. You are not like anyone who has loved us before. He is a child. Truly, he still is. He would not wish for any contact like that. You are…well-endowed, and you came inside of me. I suppose that may have played a role in riling up old memories that were not wholly mine.” 

Fuck, Daniel was glad he knew in most ways but also sort of wished he didn’t. 

“I can wear a condom so it doesn’t feel like...”

Was that better? Helpful? Daniel didn’t know. He was in over his head here. 

Amadeo sighed, “And once again Amadeo must make sacrifices for the others.” 

“Yeah, your life is real hard,” Daniel teased because it felt like the tone he was supposed to be striking right now. Amadeo squeezed his hand. He thought he picked his tone right. 

“Just know that I would never object to feeling how you fill me.” 

Daniel wanted to pretend that he wasn’t turned on by the hunger in Amadeo’s eyes. He thought he was probably supposed to be telling Amadeo that they didn’t have to fuck. They could be celibate monks for the good of Arun. Hell, Daniel was aware that Amadeo’s relationship to sex - like Armand’s - was probably fucked and not in a good way. 

But it had been a really long time since anyone had been hungry for Daniel Molloy’s cock, and he wasn’t actually a monk. 

“What are we doing out here, then? You look like you need a coffin.” 

“A bed will suffice,” Amadeo assured him. “But, yes, I believe I will sleep. I wanted to see it.” 

“See what?” Daniel asked, draping his arm across Amadeo’s shoulders. 

“The sunrise. We are immune now to the most immediate dangers of the sun, but I…I have not watched the sunrise since before my turning.”

Daniel smiled a little, “Then we should stay out here for a while. We got good weather for it.” 

Present Day

“You’re flattered that a whore would want to be fucked by you?” Armand scoffed. “Believe me, Amadeo would be just as complementary to any man he picked up off the street if that man was willing to use him for what he was good for.” 

“Do you listen to yourself talk?” Daniel knew Armand was potentially on the right track to goad him into a fight. Protective instincts were bound to jump in at some point and make Daniel lunge like the feral monster he was now. He was doing his best to fight that urge. Fighting urges was not Daniel Molloy’s strong point. 

“Did you listen to him?” Armand shot back. “ Oh, Danny, your cock is the biggest to ever fill me. I remember our rushed couplings well enough to know your cock is not even in the top ten and that is to say nothing of the more creative men that wished to make us theirs. Sex toys during the Renaissance were a wonder. You could not believe what a man can do to a young courtesan with the neck of a wine pitcher when he sets his mind to it.”

“You wanna do this? Hmm? You wanna scare Arun right out into the open?” Daniel knew that was a potential outcome here as well. “He can spend the night coloring and I won’t have to listen to more of you calling yourself a whore.”

“I was one.”

“I know,” Daniel was well aware of that and a great many other things. 

“I am also in control of myself. Not the child. Not your foolish maker. Me. Whatever lapse I experienced has passed.” 

“Uh huh,” Daniel nodded. “Why don’t you go ahead and ask?”

“Ask what?”

“Where’s Marius? We both know that’s what you want to know. Where’s my pimp?”

“Now, I know you are speaking out of turn. Amadeo would never say such things about Marius.” 

“Nope, but Amadeo isn’t here,” Daniel could play this game too. “Do you wonder what might happen if you were with him now? Would he still share you? If you had never separated, when Lestat inevitably washed up on the shores near his palazzo, would you have been the entertainment?” 

Armand pushed his hair away from his face, pulling hard for a moment to ground himself. 

“Amadeo loved his work,” Armand said softly. “He would have gladly done it.” 

“I know,” Daniel said, but it was not without empathy. “I love him. Loving him means not letting him get hurt like that again.” 

“But he’s not here right now.” 

“I’m not gonna fight you, Armand, if you decide to walk out the door. But I’m not gonna help you fall back down that rabbit hole. Not for a fucking second. I don’t want you hurt either.” 

“I hate you.”

“Good,” Daniel grabbed his coat. “I’m still hungry. Are you coming?”

Chapter Text

Present Day

“I am not hungry.” 

“Oh,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “Back to starving yourself?”

“I do no such thing.” 

“Sure.” 

Armand was incensed at Daniel’s use of that word. It was dismissive and filled with mocking. Daniel used it when he believed Armand was lying, as if Armand did not know his own needs. 

The truth was that Daniel didn’t know what Armand knew about his own needs. He’d seen more than enough of Amadeo and Arun to know that wouldn’t have been Armand’s fault if it were the case. 

Still, he had a feeling they were in for an uphill battle regardless.

“Well, like, I said,” Daniel shrugged. “I am. You can stay here if you want or you can come with me.” 

It was a risky bet - Daniel knew that. It was possible that if he left Armand at the apartment alone, he’d bolt. If he bolted, Daniel didn’t think that he’d find him all that easily. Would Amadeo resurface? Would he be pissed at Daniel for letting Armand leave? For not chasing after him? For potentially not being able to find him? 

Still, he thought he knew Armand well enough, however vicariously, to know that he would ultimately follow him out onto the street. 

Armand had decided as he watched Daniel hunt that the boy was well trained. Amadeo had not let their - no, his - fledgling suffer. Daniel knew that in his youth he needed to take two souls per night to stave off the hunger. 

His kill was not entirely clean, but it was efficient and he made quick work of the bodies. 

There was some momentary rush of pride that left Armand angry in its wake. 

He took his own victim, overtaken with a desire to kill something.

Perhaps he was hungry.

Perhaps he was just angry. 

He wasn’t sure what he was feeling anymore. 

Perhaps he hated that the most. 

Daniel was staring at him from a few feet away. 

“Hot,” He smirked.

Armand looked away, “So insolent for a fledgling.” 

“Oh, sorry, no one’s made me deferential. Guess you’re not used to that,” It was perhaps an unnecessary shot. Armand’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything else as he got rid of the body and then rejoined Daniel.

“I suppose I owe you my thanks.” 

Daniel looked over at Armand who looked downright pained to even suggest it.

“Well, don’t strain yourself, boss.” 

Armand flinched at the nickname. It wasn’t unnoticed by Daniel, but he didn’t comment.

“You have been a good caretaker to my other selves,” Armand offered. “Amadeo on his own would be…messy. Arun would be unlikely to thrive. Clearly, you have cared for them. That is not unnoticed.”

“Sure seemed unnoticed. Maybe you were just hangry.” 

“Must you turn every sincere show of gratitude into a mockery?” 

Daniel laughed, “I mean, we’ve met? Yeah. Mockery’s my thing. I meant what I said, I love him.”

“Him,” Armand nodded. “He was always quite easy to be infatuated with.” 

“Not infatuated with him and he’s not a saint or an angel or whatever line you’re planning to drop next,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “I was in love with you, too. I know you didn’t forget that part. Only I forgot.” 

“A complex situation I have no intention of addressing or apologizing for,” Armand dismissed the conversation out of hand. “How did he get you to fall for him? More gushing praise about your cock? 

Four Years Earlier

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.” 

“It’s The Met, Danny, we have been there countless times in the past year.”  That much was true. Daniel wasn’t sure he’d ever spent so much time in The Met. He’d definitely never spent that much time at The Met when it was closed and someone was giving him a wing by wing tour by flashlight. 

Amadeo liked it. 

Daniel didn’t dislike it. 

That wasn’t the problem. 

“Yeah, and you’ve never been hanging on a wall before in all your glory.” 

“Don’t tease me,” Amadeo pouted before pressing a quick kiss to Daniel’s lips. “Silly boy. Beautiful boy.” 

“Stop buttering me up,” Daniel smirked. 

“I want to see it,” Amadeo turned a little more serious. “I have not seen it in five hundred years. I did not know it survived. I assume Armand did not either or it would have come into our possession as most of the paintings of us have bar a few too high profile to be stolen.” 

“And Marius isn’t that high profile of painter, is he?” 

“Do not relish in that fact,” Amadeo’s expression was fond, but there was some pain in his eyes. “I want to see it. With you.” 

Daniel sighed, “Not like I was actually gonna say no.” 

This Met visit wasn’t a break-in. 

They were open until 9pm on Fridays. Daniel and Amadeo were on the subway making their way over there by sunset at 5:30pm. Winter had its perks as far as Amadeo having ample evening hours to do as he pleased without dealing with the nuisance of the sun. Daniel was figuring out that not hurt by and enjoys being in were not the same thing when it came to ancient vampires and the sun.

It was a traveling exhibition. Work of minor, lesser known Renaissance painters. 

Knowing now that Marius was out there, that he was alive, that vampires as a whole were rich, self-indulgent assholes, Daniel wondered if Marius was funding the whole damn show. He took an extra exhibition brochure, tucking it in his pocket so that he could look into all the generous sponsors later. 

Amadeo led him by hand into the wing. He stopped to look at paintings by other artists, commenting here and there about having been in different studios or being painted by different men. Too often the anecdotes involved how much certain artists liked to roam with their hands.

Daniel bit his tongue, but he knew Amadeo was privy to his thoughts. He tried not to be a total dick. 

When they finally stopped in front of a massive canvas of Amadeo, painted as St. Sebastian, Daniel had to admit - it was pretty fucking good. 

Well, maybe the painting sucked, he didn’t know enough about painting techniques to judge, but the model was…well, perfect. 

Amadeo smiled as Daniel thought that and Daniel knew that he was reading his thoughts. Daniel tucked his hands in his pockets when Amadeo had dropped his in order to meander around in front of the painting, getting as close as he could with the barrier and a guard nearby. 

Daniel’s mind wandered to what the painting of the portrait must have been like. Did it take weeks? Months? How often was Amadeo made to stand for it? Was he actually tied up? 

How many people were in the room while it was painted?

How many of them fucked him during a lull in painting?

Did Marius get off on watching?

“I was a whore, Danny. You may blame him for it, but I was one before him. I simply didn’t stop being one when he found me. It did not really carry any grief with me. He asked me to work just as he asked other boys to sweep the courtyard.”

“Your work involved rape, Amadeo,” Daniel reminded him. 

“Yes, as it had for years at that point. I am sorry to admit that it was a better experience being taken in lush Venetian bedrooms than in a captain’s quarters on a slave ship where they thought me pretty enough to be a girl or in a brothel where most believed me little more than an exotic animal.”

Amadeo had a bluntness that Daniel had never heard Armand speak with. It was as if he were telling himself more lies and fewer lies at the same time. 

The past didn’t feel romanticized. It felt matter-of-fact. 

But somehow he made an argument it was still beautiful for all of its filth. 

“He didn’t treat you like that?” Daniel countered. Marius seemed to be many awful things - a big old racist appeared to be one of them. Amadeo simply shrugged. Daniel was going to call that a strong maybe. “I just don’t like some line of bullshit where you act like he saved you.”

“We will go in circles if we go down this path. We always do,” Amadeo sighed. “I had never slept in a bed like my master’s. I didn’t know one could be so warm while sleeping. Or if I had once known, the memory had long been clouded by life in the brothel.”

Daniel sighed, “Tell me about it.” 

Amadeo frowned, “You wish to hear about Marius’ bed?” 

“Not exactly. Maybe. I don’t know,” It was Daniel’s turn to shrug. “I wanna know about the parts you and Armand never told me. The brothel. The purchase. Call it an interview.” 

Amadeo smiled one of those smiles that was meant to seem innocent and coquettish, that might just manage to distract Daniel from this line of thinking. 

“You believe I am more open than Armand to an interview?” 

“I believe you frequently tell me a whole lot more, yeah.” 

Amadeo looked up at the painting, “I will not discuss the ships. I do not remember much of it and what I do remember is…it will run the risk of waking Arun.” 

“Fair enough,” He made a mental note to possibly push on that one when they were safely at home, when he could ensure Arun was taken care of if he woke up.

“The brothel was like living in two worlds,” Amadeo began. “When I was on the clock as one would say today, I was dressed up. I do not believe what they had me wearing matched any place in the known world at the time, but it met the expectations of what a Venetian thought an exotic boy from the Orient ought to look like.”

Daniel imagined if they kept walking through the wing they were in, they would likely find many paintings of just that sort of attire. 

“There were no rules. It would be frowned upon if a client killed a whore, but only in so much as that would hurt the business of the brothel. They could do anything they liked,” Amadeo swallowed. “Often, it was boring, mundane. Some were even kind as I’m sure some are to prostitutes today. Others…were not. If the damage they inflicted meant that I could not work then I did not eat. If customers did not wish to bed me, there was no bed. When I did well, when the men were pleased with me, when I was well-requested, I was given more favor.”

Amadeo wouldn’t apologize for learning how to seek out rewards over punishment in those circumstances, no matter the price it had cost.

“You must understand why we did not tell you this. We do not wish for you to see as we were. We were not so worthy of admiration in those years.” 

“Fuck that. It was fucking brave. I know it. You should know,” Daniel shook his head. “And I could never see you any other way than I always have, baby. Promise.” 

It was true. The more Daniel learned of how Armand had gotten to this point through Amadeo and Arun the better he understood, well, everything about him. But Armand was still the weird insect alien who had let Daniel chase him. He would always be that and it would always be a fucking compliment. 

But knowing filled in the picture.

It made it easier or more understandable to swallow everything else about them.

“And Marius?” 

“He came to know me in the brothel, spent increasingly large sums for access,” Amadeo explained. “A year, perhaps longer. It is a blur. I recall some negotiation between him and others and then I was given to him with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. He took me home.” 

Amadeo hesitated. Daniel was a good enough journalist and a good enough interviewer to keep his mouth shut, to give him space to start again.

“He washed me in his bathtub. It was magnificent,” Amadeo said softly. “And he touched me and I came…I did not produce fluid then…But no one had ever touched me for my own pleasure, only their own. Any pleasure I had felt was by happenstance. I didn’t know any of it could feel good.”

Daniel saw the conflicting emotions on Amadeo’s face. It was a fond memory and a painful one at the same time. There was shame in admitting how young, how small he was. Daniel wondered if Amadeo had always felt that about Marius. He wondered if he’d learned that later. Louis had thrown Marius in Armand’s face back in San Francisco. Daniel had gotten his own jabs in. Louis didn’t learn the word grooming from nowhere.  

Did Amadeo know that? 

Did he think that?

Daniel was going to take bonus points for not interrupting Amadeo to curse out the asshole who was fucking a kid. He would settle for doing that mentally and if Amadeo noticed - so be it.

“I think he knew,” Amadeo admitted. “I think Marius knew there was something wrong about us, about our love. It wasn’t as if he paraded me in the streets as his lover or as if no one scolded him for his house full of boys. A dear friend, older than me, Bianca, did more than once in my presence alone. She did not approve even as she took to his bed often. Perhaps he believed himself damned already whether he took me or not. Look how he painted me.”

The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian , a beautiful boy shot full of arrows. 

It was bordering on being right on the nose. 

“You were beautiful.”

Daniel wasn’t sure he was telling the truth. Amadeo’s face was Amadeo’s face. His perfect curls were his perfect curls. But there was no denying that he was too thin, that Daniel could count the ribs on the boy in the painting. There was no denying that he was whitewashed as all get out to be palatable to the Italian audiences.

“I would have liked you to know me then,” Amadeo smiled a little. He squeezed Daniel’s hand. “Or perhaps Armand would have. The line between us can be thinner than I once believed.” 

Maybe Armand was getting that wish if it were a real one. Daniel was with Amadeo now, the closest he could get to the boy in the painting. Daniel also assumed that this suggestion meant Armand had still believed himself innocent then. 

Or a victim, maybe?

A justification for all the bad shit he’d done since?

Daniel wondered if Armand would ever truly realize that had been stolen from him. Nice clothes and better status didn’t change that.

“Marius had little patience for my poorest behavior. He whipped me often in the earliest days, but he always healed the wounds to save me the scarring,” Amadeo said softly. “St. Sebastian had no such luck. Do you realize what that means?”

Daniel shook his head. He pinched the bridge of his nose, assuming they were ambling towards a common argument any second about Marius the Savior.

“He whipped me, Daniel. He used force to inflict a measured punishment. A vampire whipping a mortal boy? It is a miracle I survived.” 

“Sweetheart…”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I do not think that a mercy, not now. It is simply a fact and one I know well now. That is all.” 

“I don’t know if that is all, but I do get what you mean,” Daniel nodded. “You got dealt a shitty hand, but you got lucky in ways that don’t look like luck.”

Daniel could understand that. He was an old man who had reported on his fair share of atrocities. Some of the shit he’d seen researching the Dark Web stuck with him in ways that could still be nightmare inducing.

He had written in his own notes more than once - why did Marius keep Armand alive? Why did he turn him? Love? Lust? Control?

Amadeo wasn’t wrong even if the truth was fucking disgusting.

“Whores didn’t live long, especially male ones,” Amadeo looked at the painting. “And here I am, five hundred years later. Every moment that I was with him, he could have killed me - on purpose or by accident - but he didn’t. Perhaps I just want that to matter, to mean he wanted to keep me alive.”

“I will deny this if you ever bring it up again,” Daniel admitted. “But I don’t think you’re wrong. He coulda killed you. Just like you could kill me right fucking now. He didn’t. That does mean something.”

What exactly it meant, Daniel wasn’t sure.

Present Day

“Where’s Marius?”

Chapter Text

Present Day

“Greece,” Daniel answered him. “Marius is in Greece. He’s got a private island or some bullshit. Like father, like son, I guess.” 

“He was not my father.” 

“Uh huh,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “Father-husband-lover-owner-master…”

“You will stop there if you do not wish to see what I’m capable of.” 

Daniel laughed. He shook his head. 

“I know exactly what you’re capable of, boss,” He scrubbed a hand over his face all the same, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. It was uncalled for.” 

“Thank you,” Armand’s response was clipped and tight. He was quiet for a long time. “Why am I not in Greece right now?” 

“Do you wanna be in Greece?”

“That is not the question,” Armand snapped. “I do not believe that you have such power over Amadeo to simply stop him from going to our ma…” 

He closed his mouth, afraid to give that to Daniel, but it was too late.

“Go ahead. Master . Amadeo calls him that, too,” Daniel folded his arms. “I dunno. I sorta waited for you to go at one point, back when I was still human. But Amadeo…he’s not the starry-eyed little moron you wanna pretend he is. He’s pretty aware of Marius’ shortcomings.” 

“Was Marius told…of our predicament?” 

Daniel knew that the answer was yes, that Lestat had told Marius shortly after Daniel was turned. He wasn’t sure what the goal of that had been, but Marius hadn’t come running. He didn’t whisk Amadeo back to some ivory tower. Lestat had urged Daniel to urge Amadeo to seek him out, but that wasn’t quite the same.

Daniel sure as shit hadn’t done it either.

“Fucked if I know,” He lied. “I don’t really spend a lot of time considering what Marius of all fucking people knows or doesn’t know.” 

“He must not know then,” Armand said with an air of certainty as he raised his chin. “He would come for Amadeo.” 

Daniel bit back whatever sharp remark he was about to make because he could see that Armand was trying to fool himself, that he put some value on Amadeo’s worth being greater than his own to Marius.

Daniel didn’t have it in him right now to point out he and Amadeo were both just a thing Marius used to own. He doubted it would make Armand feel better to know Amadeo was in the same shitty boat as him. 

“Must not,” Daniel agreed. “You know how Lestat is. He probably didn’t want Amadeo telling Marius what a dick he is.” 

They started walking back to Daniel’s apartment. Armand was looking at his hands. Daniel could tell he wanted to say something more or something else. 

“When did he turn you?” 

“Two years ago,” Daniel shrugged. “Stuff got complicated.” 

“Complicated how?” 

Two Years Earlier 

Amadeo was not as well-versed in moving in the modern world as Armand had been.

He was improving, but he still required Daniel’s help in explaining a great many things just as he had back in the 70s when he was baffled by long distance phone calls. 

What Amadeo lacked in knowledge, he made up for in curiosity. Just as he had once marveled at being able to carry time in his pocket when he was gifted his first pocket watch, he could imagine how rewarding and informative it would be to open up the dozen or so machines currently beeping and ticking around him to determine how they worked and what function they were fulfilling. 

Unfortunately, it was harder to be curious when Daniel was lying in a hospital bed. 

He’d had to use the Mind Gift to find him and to gain access to his room. He knew that if Daniel’s daughters arrived, he would need to use the same Gift to minimally distract them, to smooth over Amadeo’s presence. 

Daniel would be angry. 

Daniel would have to wake up to be angry with him.

The things the doctors said made little sense to Amadeo, but he understood that they doubted Daniel would recover. It wasn’t the Parkinson’s, not directly. It might have been a side effect of the medications or perhaps a fall that had done more damage than they realized. Amadeo wasn’t oblivious to Daniel’s increasingly frail health. He knew he was unwell.

It was a stroke. 

Seemingly all there was to do was wait and pray and hope. 

Amadeo remembered when such a prescription was given to Riccardo and Bianca as he lay dying. Modern medicine was a marvel, but in the end, the choices were the same. 

Wait and pray and hope, knowing there was only one thing in all the world that could repair such damage to a mortal. The price would be his mortality. 

He could not do it. 

Not while Daniel lay asleep. 

He did not fear the gift as Armand did, but he knew enough about fickle emotions not to risk Daniel leaving him.

Amadeo had stuck to the shadows as the doctors spoke around Daniel, as they discussed matters with women that were most certainly Daniel’s daughters. 

Words like palliative and unlikely to recover were being thrown around. 

He may not be able to speak when he wakes. 

He may not be able to walk.

Amadeo was well aware that if Armand was there, he would tell Amadeo to leave things be, that it wasn’t their place to mess with Daniel’s mortality. They had done that once before, and it had ended poorly. 

But Amadeo had told Armand then the same thing he would say now: how could they leave him? How could they not intervene as Marius had when they were younger?

Armand had never been fond of that answer, but he had agreed in some ways. It wasn’t the way Amadeo had hoped, but they had been in agreement. 

Now it was Amadeo’s decision, wasn’t it? Just his? 

He had never made decisions all on his own before, had he? Certainly not good ones. 

He was bright enough to know as he used the Mind Gift to get a helpful nurse to silent the alarms on the machines surrounding Daniel and remove the tube in his throat that this might not have been a good decision.

But it was the one he had.

With a sharp nail, Amadeo pricked the pad of his thumb and let the blood drip into Daniel’s mouth. It was more than he would have given him in a single go once upon a time, but Daniel’s body was in revolt. It would take more than a few drops to open his eyes. 

Amadeo caressed Daniel’s cheek waiting for him to wake up. When his eyes opened, he smiled. 

“I’m going to need you to trust me to do what needs to be done so we can go home.” 

Daniel didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but he did know a few things: he didn’t want to die with a tube down his throat in a hospital and Amadeo was probably his best damn chance at getting out of the hospital. 

When they were home, Daniel questioned the ethics of letting Amadeo mind manipulate countless doctors, nurses and semi-estranged daughters into thinking this was perfectly normal, but Daniel felt better than he had in ages. He wanted to ride that wave for a minute.

He really should have taken the time to remember all the other waves he’d ridden and how badly they had ended.

The fact that it took weeks for Daniel to realize they were sort of in the shit with all the blood stuff probably spoke the most to his own threshold for addictive behaviors. He was aware of the cravings, of the want for Amadeo’s blood, but he let himself pretend it was just the usual attraction.

Then it started to get harder to function without it.

Then the quantities started to trend upwards. 

Yeah…this wasn’t how Daniel planned to go out.

The argument was inevitable.

“If you stop taking the blood, you will die.”

“That’s what mortals do, boss,” Daniel laughed mirthlessly. 

“I am older than you can conceive,” Amadeo reminded him. “You needn’t act like I’m an idiot.”

Daniel sighed, “I don’t think that. I just think…this is where we are and I don’t wanna be a fucking junkie to add a couple of months to my life.” 

“And what will become of me?” It was a selfish thought, but a true one. “Of Arun? We need you, beloved.” 

It was a selfish thought. Daniel could confirm that. 

But he also knew just as much as Amadeo did that it was true. Amadeo could be fine on his own. Arun couldn’t. Who did that leave? 

Louis? 

Lestat? 

Marius?

“There is something else that can be done. Ask for it, beloved. Ask and it is yours.” 

“I’m not…” Daniel shook his head. “I’m not ready to say yes to that.” 

“Then grant us a little more time. If you mean to die, what does a few more days of my blood matter?”

Daniel had never really envisioned a world where he would have much choice in when he died. Sure, looking back on San Francisco, there had been a moment where Armand had tried to frame murdering him as assisted suicide, but that was such a far away moment that it was nearly forgotten - the natural way, not the Armand fucked with my head way.

He was staring down the barrel of death. He had been for a while. But Amadeo was giving him something that hadn’t been on the table before. Daniel could pretend it was once back in the 70s, but it wasn’t. 

Armand wouldn’t have turned him.

Amadeo was offering.

Could he actually take it? 

It spoke to his maturity, Daniel thought, that he hadn’t just said yes.

There were a lot of things that had tipped Daniel off that he was getting hooked on Amadeo’s blood. Part of it was just the usual cravings. Daniel had been hooked on coke and heroin long enough to know those signs.

But it was also the fact that he was able to smell Amadeo’s blood in a way no human should have been able to, a sort of Pavlovian response from a vampire cutting open a vein for a vampire blood junkie.

Daniel and Amadeo had gone to bed a few hours earlier. Daniel hadn’t really planned to fall asleep, but his attempts to refuse Amadeo’s blood had pretty obvious side effects. The smell of blood in the air made him stir. 

He woke up to a pair of big worried eyes, looking down at him.

“What are you doing?” He grumbled, closing his eyes again. 

Amadeo didn’t answer. Daniel was aware he was still being stared at. He opened his eyes again to Arun biting into his own wrist before offering it to Daniel. 

He sighed, “Aww, fuck, kid.” 

He scrubbed a hand over his face, reaching for the bedside lamp. Arun held his arm out. Daniel kind of wanted a gold star for refusing to just lap at his open wounds, but now wasn’t exactly the time. 

“Don’t. I don’t…I don’t want you doing that.” 

The kid knew, then, didn’t he? 

He knew Daniel was sick, knew that the blood made him less sick. 

Whatever else this was, it was Arun making it pretty clear he didn’t want Daniel shaking off the mortal coil. 

“C’mon, hey…it’s okay. Just lay down,” Daniel tugged him down gently to lay beside him. There relationship was nothing if not platonic, but that didn’t mean Arun didn’t cling to him when he was around. 

Arun wrapped his arms tightly around Daniel’s waist, burying his face against Daniel’s chest. Daniel suspected he was crying, but didn’t move him away to check. He rubbed the kid’s back instead, pressing a kiss to the top of Arun’s head. 

A few years before Dubai, Daniel had written a book about the Dark Web. He’d been expecting it to be a book about the radicalization of religious extremist and black market weapons’ sales. He hadn’t expected so much of it to end up being about trafficking, about the terrible things that adults could do to children.

He knew - even if he thought Armand would never believe him - exactly what Arun’s life had been like, exactly why Armand was the way that he was. He also knew most of those kids ended up being unable to trust anyone again.

Arun trusted Daniel.

Arun was safe because of Daniel.

He already knew that, but this had to be proof of it. 

Daniel sighed, “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” 

Arun didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge him, but stayed where he was, holding tightly to Daniel as they both fell back to sleep.

Daniel woke to an empty bed. He went out into the living room to find Amadeo readying a canvas. Apparently, he was in the mood to paint. He did that sometimes. Daniel suspected Armand hadn’t been on board with that before.

“It was a cheap trick with the kid,” Daniel pointed out, though there wasn’t a ton of fire behind the words. They both knew Daniel was fading faster and faster. A big blowout wasn’t coming even if Daniel refused to take Amadeo’s blood. 

“It was no trick. He has as much right to voice his disapproval of your possible choice as I do even if his voice is not quite the same,” Amadeo was pleased with the outcome, though he had not truly orchestrated it. “I will not do it if you do not wish it to be done. On that, you have my word.”

“What about Armand?” Daniel asked after a long pause. “That’s the elephant in the room, right? He’s not here. Hasn’t been here in way longer than he’s ever gone missing before,” He took a deep breath. “Is he coming back?”

“I do not know, beloved.” 

Daniel believed him. Amadeo could be manipulative, but his manipulations tended to be half answers and romantic notions - not outright denials. 

Daniel wanted Armand. 

It was an insane thing to say when he hadn’t been with Armand while having all of his memories intact in decades. 

But Armand was the one that Daniel had loved first. 

Armand was the one that gave him almost everything he wanted and then turned him away when Daniel nearly destroyed himself. 

“It’s not like he could just disappear forever,” Daniel was arguing with himself more so than with Amadeo. 

“There was a time when there was no me and no him. I do not know how it works. It is possible that Armand’s time has passed. That it is just myself and the child left,” Amadeo reached for Daniel’s hand. “What does it matter if you will not be here when he comes?”

There it was. 

Not a lie. Not a denial.

Certainly a manipulation. 

Daniel swallowed against a lump in his throat. He nodded.

“Okay.”

Present Day

“The boy was a fool and always has been,” Armand felt tears pricking at his eyes, but he refused to cry about this. Not here, not now. 

He walked faster wanting to get back to the apartment.

“You wanna tell me what crawled up your ass and died, boss?”

“I don’t wish to be called that,” Armand snapped. It took all of his willpower not to shove Daniel into the nearest wall. It took even more willpower not to point out how much damage he could do to Daniel if he were so inclined - vampire or not. 

“So answer the fucking question,” Daniel snapped back. “We were in love. And I get it. You didn’t want to turn me. You didn’t wanna make a vampire. Amadeo pissed you off by doing it, but here I fucking am. Why are you so miserable about it?” 

Armand laughed, disbelief passing over his features as he stopped turning back to look at Daniel. 

“We were in love. And you broke my heart over and over and over again begging me to turn you, demanding my blood that I had foolishly given you, refusing to care for yourself,” Armand reminded him. “I will not have you stand here acting as if I wronged you when it was quite the other way around, beloved.” 

Armand turned to leave, but Daniel caught him by the wrist and forced him to look back. 

“Let go of me.” 

“One second,” Daniel swallowed, loosening his grip but not letting go. “I still love you. Maybe I wronged you, but you took my fucking memories of how much I loved you so cut me a tiny bit of slack.” 

“You ruined my companionship with Louis because you found it entertaining to do so,” Armand twisted his arm out of Daniel’s hold. “And I closed my eyes in that penthouse and woke back up in my worst nightmare where Amadeo claimed you and I have been relegated to nothingness for five years. Tell me you aren’t biding your time for his return. Tell me you were not happy with him when he gave you what I wouldn’t.” 

“I can’t.” 

“As I suspected,” Armand turned away. He needed to remove himself from this situation. He needed to hide. He needed to stay in control for fear he would lose another five years.

“There’s something else you coulda come back to.”

“What?” 

“Me being dead.”

Chapter Text

Present Day

“Don’t say that,” Armand said softly. “Don’t talk about your death.” 

“Oh, you don’t like that part?” Daniel sighed. “I almost died. I was actively dying. You knew that. You knew it in Dubai. Tell me your big plan wasn’t letting me walk out of there and dying.”

Armand swallowed against his desire to sob.

“I…I hoped that it would come to pass before you published the book,” He confessed. “I hoped it would be quick for your sake.” 

“Very thoughtful of you,” Daniel laughed. It wasn’t entirely mirthless, but, fuck, was this a mess. 

“You will see now what it is like. You are still young,” Armand countered, attempting to keep himself together. “I would have mourned you for centuries. I would have wallowed in the reality of having our last meeting be one so painful. But I would have lived and you would have died. That is how it is, Daniel. That is how it will be when your daughters die or have you not considered that?” 

“You’re right,” Daniel held his hands up in surrender. “You’re fucking right, and you know how much I hate to fucking say that. But is it really so bad that you don’t have to mourn me now? I’m right fucking here.”

Armand was torn. He wanted to tell him that it wasn’t the same, that Daniel would never be as he was before, that he couldn’t fathom what had been stolen from him. He was cursed. Amadeo had done it, but Armand would take the blame when the pain settled, when Daniel did bury one of his girls.

In spite of himself, he reached over and caressed Daniel’s cheek. Those red tears that Armand had so admirably been fighting back slipped down his cheeks.

“Your eyes…” He said softly.

Daniel took a cautious step towards him. He moved slowly, carefully. He was afraid he’d scare Armand away if he didn’t, like he was a spooked baby deer. 

“What about ‘em?” 

“I used to fear if I gave in and turned you,” Armand explained. “That they would look like mine.”

“And that would ‘ve been bad?” Daniel wasn’t quite tracking. Armand’s eyes were gorgeous, but beyond that they were also just…eyes. 

“Mm,” He nodded. “I did not want to see myself reflected back at me. The monster I am living in you.”

But, no, Daniel’s eyes weren’t like Armand’s or Louis’ or god forbid Lestat’s or Marius’. They were violet and beautiful and special. 

“Promise me something?”

“What?”

“When the years pass, when you finally realize what has been done to you, you must hate him and not me,” Armand begged. “Amadeo did this to you. He is at fault. Please.”

Daniel’s impulse was to tell Armand that was bullshit, that there was no real proof that makers and fledglings all came to hate one another, but he realized that wasn’t going to be helpful right now. Instead, Daniel slipped an arm around Armand’s waist.

“Okay.” 

1978

“So there’s, like, three of you?” 

Daniel lit a cigarette before leaning back against the headboard. He was starting to get used to how fucking fancy the hotels were that Armand kept taking him to. It was going to get harder and harder to go back to real life, he thought. 

“There is one of me, beloved.” 

“Sure, but it’s like that movie, right? With Sally Field? Sybil? Came out a few years ago?” Daniel asked before taking another drag on his cigarette.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“It was a good movie. The chick in it has like sixteen personalities, some are little kids, some are boys.”

“They aren’t other people,” Armand said with greater confidence than he truly felt. “They’re…memories.”

“Memories?”

“Yes.” 

Armand did this sometimes. One word answers meant to be a full sentence. Daniel knew he was unlikely to elaborate. The young reporter was beyond curious, but he didn’t want to piss Armand off and risk him running back to Louis. Daniel had to stay the better option if he wanted Armand to stay with him.

Daniel took one last drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out on the bedside table in one of the crystal ashtrays that probably cost more than two months rent back at his place. He reached for Armand who was reclining at the foot of the bed and pulled him into his lap. 

“He was nice, the other you.”

“Amadeo has his charms,” Armand said with grudging praise. “What did you two do together?”

“He wanted me to call Paris. Like on the phone. He’s easier to impress than you,” Daniel grinned. Armand couldn’t help but smile. Daniel’s grin was infectious. 

“That’s all?”

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. “Don’t worry. We just hung out. He didn’t hurt me or anything.” 

Armand didn’t think that Amadeo would harm him, but seduction was something he did well. The possibility that he might seduce Daniel away from him twisted in his gut.

“No part of me could harm you, beloved. I am sure of that.” 

“Well, good!” There was that grin again as he pressed a quick kiss to Armand’s cheek. “It’s crazy, though, man. You just…disappeared.” 

“Quite,” Armand stiffened a little bit.

“But you’ll always come back, right? Back to me?”

Armand smiled, “Does that matter?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Daniel laughed. “You’re the one I love. You’re the one that loves me.”

“Amadeo could love you, too. He falls in love very easily.”

“Not the same,” Daniel shrugged. “I want you.”

Present Day

There was a part of Armand that had hoped Daniel would sleep in his bed and not in the coffin stashed away in a walk-in closet. If he had, Armand could have easily laid beside him - secretly, of course - while he slept. He knew deep down that Daniel was quite a young fledgling. Coffins were safer, more comfortable when the narcoleptic pull of the sun came. Grudgingly, Armand thought Amadeo had taught his fledgling well if he so obediently went to coffin.

Still…he had hoped… 

Armand wandered around the apartment trying to come to terms with what had happened. His anger had faded. He meant everything he said to Daniel. He loved Daniel. It was heartbreak that had him speaking so cruelly to him before.

That didn’t mean that it was safe to stay. 

Heartbreak had a way of returning, didn’t it?

It was easy to tell what in the living room belonged to someone other than Daniel. He had clocked those items before he even understood what was happening. 

The canvases were no doubt Amadeo's, covered in self-indulgent facsimiles of what their Master had once painted. Armand paid them little regard other than to roll his eyes at them. 

The coloring books, though…

Amadeo would not have bothered with such things. His high opinion about art never would have allowed him to devote time to such a thing. 

The books were filled with page after page of meticulously colored mandalas. It was the sort of coloring book bored housewives bought, but there was something not entirely unfamiliar about the patterns. 

A Westernized, bastardized version of something Arun remembered, perhaps, Armand thought as he flipped through the pages. 

His own memories of his youth were such that he could not be sure what was true. He had attempted many times to create some shape out of all of the pieces, but the truth was he had no idea who he had been. Daniel had asked him questions of where he came from before. He remembered the slavers in Delhi, but he was not sure that was where he had originated. Looking at a modern map with countries and borders that had not been imagined then did little to help. 

Arun knew, he thought. Arun could remember their parents and their siblings. 

But he was not sharing such information with Armand. 

On the floor, near the wall, between the canvases and Arun’s coloring books was a box of items that Armand assumed to be Arun’s. Toys. Things one gave to a child to keep them busy. 

There was a stuffed hippo taking up most of the space. It looked like it had been well loved by Arun from the state of it. The tag showed it had been manufactured only six years earlier. It was not simply something that had been tucked away from when Daniel’s girls were small. 

It had been bought for Arun, perhaps he had even chosen it.

When had anyone done that for him before? 

When had Arun ever felt safe enough to do more than hide until someone else rescued him?

Of course, it would be Daniel who would bring out such things in him. Armand ought to have been happy about that. In some ways, he was. But it worried him at the same time.

It was far easier to leave Armand to live their life when they were living in sewers. If Arun and Amadeo were happy - would they really stay away? Were they stronger than Armand?

One Year Earlier

“Again, again,” Amadeo clapped his hands together eagerly.

Daniel had to admit that his moods were infectious. Amadeo could be prone to a sort of depression that Daniel imagined he’d describe as melancholy while laying prostrate on a fainting sofa, but that Daniel imagined was just built on his trauma. But when he was happy, it was near giddiness. 

Daniel shrugged. He focused on the candle in front of him that Amadeo had extinguished with his finger tips. Within moments the candle appeared to light itself.

“You are a truly magnificent fledgling,” Amadeo slid the candle across the hardwood floor and made his way into Daniel’s lap, straddling him. 

A year ago sitting on the floor like this would have been a fucking nightmare. Now Daniel was as good as sixteen again in all ways except his looks. And, hey, he wasn’t going to pretend having someone as pretty as Amadeo pounce on him more often than not wasn’t real helpful in making him forget he was going to spend eternity as a man in his 70s. 

“Aww, you’re proud of your little boy,” Daniel teased as Amadeo leaned down to kiss him. He groaned, shifting to lean against the sofa, not for the sake of his back but to make sure he had a decent purchase on Amadeo.

“You make me so happy,” He caressed Daniel’s cheek. “I should have insisted we do this decades ago.” 

“Ehh, I was an asshole decades ago,” Daniel would have been a miserable excuse for a vampire back in the 70s or 80s. 

“Imagine if I had not been here. What would have become of you?” 

They both knew the answer. Well, maybe not exactly knew. Daniel would be dead. That they were both fully aware of. Daniel still kind of thought Armand would have been the one to kill him. He was very sure that Armand wouldn’t have turned him. 

“I love you,” Amadeo had said it before. They both had. Daniel was aware that Amadeo needed to hear it, that some part of him needed to know he was loved. 

“I love you, too,” Daniel meant it. He really did - just as he’d always meant it with Alice. It didn’t take away the reality that something - someone - was missing.

“He would be very proud of you,” Amadeo offered. “He loved you.”

“Aren’t you not supposed to be able to read my mind anymore?” 

“It’s not your mind, beloved,” Amadeo laughed a little. “It’s the look you get in your eyes. I have known that look since 1979.”

Present Day

“This movie’s shit,” Daniel mumbled from the doorway to the living room. He was wiping sleep out of his eyes. He peeked out the window to make sure the sun was fully down before opening the curtain.

Armand sat up on the sofa. He was still holding the hippo he had found in Arun’s things. Daniel couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. 

“You been couch rotting all day?” 

Armand tucked his legs under himself and shrugged - partly because he didn’t quite know the reference, partly because he suspected it was true. 

“You told me of this film back in ‘78 when you first met Amadeo,” Armand explained. “I thought I ought to see it.” 

“Well, it’s shit,” Daniel sat down on the couch. The hippo served as a weird buffer between him on one side and Armand on the other. 

“Sally Field is a revelation.” 

“Ever the director,” Daniel smirked. “It’s just, the real Sybil was almost entirely discredited. She was probably lying. DID is a real thing, but it’s not like this. The probability that she was a fraud is high.” 

“Oh,” Armand swallowed. “Is that what I have?”

“Honestly? I don’t know,” Daniel shook his head. “Maybe? Maybe the 500-year-old vampire equivalent. Not shocked your brain has to protect itself when you’re that old and, well, you.” 

“I’ve wondered if perhaps it was something in the Blood. I do not remember being…fractured before I was turned.” 

“Sympathy isn’t my strong suit. You know that. I probably should have been thinking more about how fucking much this must be for you,” Daniel admitted. “I’m sorry.” 

“As am I,” Armand nodded.

“It’s not Amadeo’s fault either.” 

Armand rolled his eyes. 

“I mean it,” Daniel pressed. “He didn’t wanna wake up in Dubai with a broken back. Yeah, he likes me, but I don’t think he was running some game to push you out to turn me.” 

“He loves you,” Armand corrected. “I cannot imagine he is eager to share.” 

“Why not?”

“Because I am not,” He admitted softly. 

Daniel couldn’t help but grin, “Oh, do you want me? Cos you sure haven’t seemed to recently.” 

“You said you want him to come back.”

“I mean, yeah…five years…it’s been a minute. I care about him. I love him. He’s my maker, as you pointed out, but I don’t want you to disappear. I don’t want any part of you to disappear.”

“I do,” Armand confessed. “I do not want the weight of them anymore.” 

“I don’t think it works that way,” Daniel paused. “I missed you.” 

“What?” 

“I missed you. I mean I also sort of thought you might wanna kill me, still kind of think that, but I missed you,” Daniel told him honestly. “Amadeo knew I missed you.”

Armand picked up the hippo, “You bought this for Arun?” 

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. “I mean, he lives here. He’s not as in love with a dumb iPad like you and Amadeo. He’s gotta have some shit to do other than stare at me with those big eyes.”

“Those are my eyes.” 

“Yeah, but it’s different when you stare at me,” Daniel smiled. 

“If I disappear again…”

“I’ll miss you again.” 

“What if all you had was Arun? What if it wasn’t Amadeo who came through?” Armand questioned. “A boy who won’t talk to you who can’t…be of much use, a mouth to feed.” 

“The kid can actually hunt on his own just for the record,” Daniel offered. “Armand, if I had five or ten or a hundred years where I had to look after Arun, I would. Okay? I’m more worried you’re gonna run out on me.”

“I’m beginning to think I might like to stay.”  

“Yeah?”

Armand nodded.

“Then that’s all you gotta know - whoever’s here I plan to take care of,” Daniel told him honestly. “And I love you.”

Now it was Armand’s turn to just stare at him with big eyes.

Chapter Text

Present Day

It was strange to have Daniel back in a way where he could anticipate what Armand wanted, what he needed, and what would set him off. 

It was stranger still to be at the disadvantage of not having his own memories of the last five years. At least when Armand had erased Daniel’s memories, it had been clean. 

Still, he couldn’t help but notice the way Daniel knocked before walking in on Armand in the bath, the way he sat on the edge talking with him but kept his back turned away. 

Amadeo would have pulled him right into the water. 

Arun would have screamed his head off at him getting so close.

And Armand…he would have been torn between both options. He always was torn between those two extremes, wasn’t he? 

“I let Louis know you’re back,” Daniel offered. “I, um, asked that he keep it between us.” 

“Why tell him at all?” Armand questioned. 

“He visits sometimes,” Daniel admitted. 

“And he would not want to see me.” 

“Would you really want to see him right now with how things have been?” 

Armand wasn’t sure. He didn’t think he wanted Louis back. He wanted Daniel. But in a world where Daniel was not an option, Louis was a good alternative, a safe alternative. 

He threw us into a wall, his mind supplied. He did not think it was Amadeo speaking, but it was close enough.

“I suppose not.” 

“Do you…I told you he’s in Greece. You can book a flight.”

He. Marius.

Armand was quiet, “What would I even say to him?”

“Hey, I’d start with fuck you,” Daniel glanced over his shoulder at him. “But I know you probably won’t.” 

“He knows what happened, doesn’t he?” 

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. 

“Did Amadeo go to him? Did he try…things could have been as they were.”

“C’mon, man, I love you, but you know that’s not true.” 

Did he? Did Amadeo? Amadeo, who had once torn through their master’s door with an axe? Surely, he had not forgotten that passion, that need. Who were they without Marius’ love? 

The water suddenly felt cold and unappealing. Armand stood, splashing Daniel more than a bit as he swiftly exited the tub and wrapped himself in a towel.

“Amadeo told me stuff.” 

“Flowery stories of getting drunk near the canals, no doubt.” 

“No,” Daniel didn’t move from the edge of the tub. He didn’t want to crowd Armand. “About how long Marius visited you in the brothel, about how other people viewed you, about how he’d beat you, whip you.”

“Why? Why would he tell you such things?”

“Cos they’re true.” 

“Many things are. That doesn’t mean they need to be discussed. It doesn’t mean…we had one brief moment of happiness as tainted as it was. I do not need the modern era to destroy it.” 

“Only one brief moment?” Daniel questioned, finally standing up. “Not…1974 - 1985?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“I know,” Daniel nodded. “I’m just trying to remind you that the stories you tell yourself aren’t always true, not even to yourself apparently.” 

“Why didn’t Amadeo go to him?”

One Year Earlier 

“I do not see how it is anyone’s business that you are now my fledgling,” Amadeo pouted. “Lestat makes fledglings by the sack full. What reason could they possibly have to object to my making such a perfect vampire?” 

“I think they’re more concerned that the cat’s out of the bag that Armand hasn’t exactly been around for four years.” 

Amadeo rolled his eyes, “That is no more their business than the rest.” 

“Did, um…did Louis know about all of this?” Daniel realized he probably should have asked that sooner. “I mean, Lestat seemed to.”

“I suppose they both knew,” Amadeo confirmed. “Not as intimately as you do.” 

“How is that possible? You and Louis were married.” 

“ Armand and Louis were married,” Amadeo countered. “And it was frequently fraught. I had no desire to be in the middle of that so I chose not to be.” 

“Coming back again to the question of how ?” 

“Easily. I would claim a business trip, in the 70s I would sneak away to find you. Arun was smart enough to find the nearest coffin and hide. Louis was not all that interested in asking follow up questions.”

“Great marriage you all had,” Not that Daniel was one to talk exactly. “Look, there’s a complication and I don’t…I don’t know what it’ll mean to you.”

“What?”

“Marius,” Daniel took an unneeded breath. “Lestat would love to broker an olive branch of some sort where Marius takes charge of you.” 

“As if I am a child?”

“Yeah, I did not fucking endorse that for the record. I don’t want any of this bullshit.” 

“I know, beloved,” Amadeo didn’t doubt that. He swallowed. “Marius has not volunteered such things, though, has he?” 

“Didn’t get that impression.” 

“So I am to beg, hmm?” Amadeo paused. “He doesn’t love me.” 

“That’s not…”

“It is,” Amadeo assured him. “He did once. It was love. I think it was love. It was minimally lust with some amount of compassion. But he waited too long. I got too tall, too big, too manly. He did not want that.” 

Amadeo took a deep breath to ground himself.

“Would you really have wanted him to turn you back then? You’d be stuck in some teenage body forever like Claudia, reliant on him forever.”

“Preferred it to what did happen, perhaps, but no,” Amadeo paused. “You would not have loved us like that. I would not trade that now.”

Present Day

“He chose you over Marius?”

“Yeah,” Daniel laughed a little. “Sorry to disappoint.” 

“I did not mean that,” Armand whispered as he quickly dressed again in clean clothes. “I…He was right. It was love. He loved us. He wanted us. He gave us so much.” 

“I don’t really wanna relitigate St. Marius.”

“He is no such thing,” Armand assured him. “He gave us so much, but there was always a price. We believed it was worth it. I always thought Amadeo was blind to it.” 

“Maybe he was once, but he knew now,” Daniel had seen just how clear-eyed Amadeo could be, practical and pragmatic. “Can I…”

Daniel made a sort of vague gesture. He was still learning to navigate if he was allowed to just touch Armand, to hold him or kiss him. 

Armand nodded and Daniel closed the space between them. He pulled Armand into a fierce hug that didn’t ask anything more of him other than that he should stand there and be held.

“I have never lost so much time before,” Armand admitted, arms slowly coming up to hold onto Daniel just as he was holding on to him. “So many times I wished I could disappear. Where was Amadeo then?”

“Probably scared shitless,” Daniel offered. “I’m pretty fond of the kid, but he’s a lot of soft edges. Gentle.”

“And I am a monster.”

“Can you not put words in my mouth when we’re having a moment?” Daniel turned his head to press a kiss to Armand’s cheek to temper the comment. “You bore the brunt of everything they didn’t and it shows. You survived it.”

Armand stepped back from the embrace. 

“And now we’re here - in a place we were happy, in a place with our beloved. He will come back. It will be ten years, twenty years, a lifetime that I am hidden in the darkness next time for all I know.”

“I don’t know shit about how this works,” Daniel had already established that. “But if it’s ten years, twenty years, a lifetime, it doesn’t fucking matter now. Eventually, you’ll come back and eventually we’ll be together.”

“He will poison you against me.”

“He hasn’t so far.” 

“But with more time. I would not trust him.” 

“Then don’t,” Daniel said firmly. “Don’t trust him. Trust me. Can you…can you do that?” 

Armand looked at Daniel, red tears gleaming in his eyes, “I don’t know.” 

Daniel sighed, “What was it you said in Dubai about Alice? She wanted to say yes, but she didn’t trust you . You hadn’t given her a reason to. ” 

“I didn’t…”

“You did,” Daniel nodded. “It’s okay. I know you a lot better this time. It’s fine. Just…time. We’ve got time.” 

“Do you not believe you knew me before? In Florida?” 

“When I was higher than a kite and a fucking idiot? No,” Daniel shook his head. “But Amadeo talks a lot. I’m a good listener.” 

“I need some time.” 

“Sure.”

Daniel had promised not to stop Armand if he wanted to leave.

He didn’t.

Armand wasn’t really sure where he was planning to go.

Not Greece.

That went without saying.

He hated Marius. He hated Marius as much as he loved him. It was why he was so terrified that Daniel would come to hate him now that he had been turned.

The best he had managed to come up with was a hotel, a place in Manhattan, far too close to the mass of tourists in Time Square to be quiet to someone with vampiric hearing, but Armand didn’t think that he was seeking quiet. 

He only wished that he knew what he was seeking. 

Daniel was being reasonable and kind and helpful. Armand found himself terribly tempted to break his neck for his troubles. He wanted Daniel to be angry, to hate Amadeo and Arun, to demand Armand somehow keep them away. 

Armand had no idea how to do such things. If he did, he would not have vanished for five years.

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror with the bright fluorescent lights on. It made his eyes glow all the more preternaturally. He gripped the sink edge. 

“Can you hear me?” Armand asked. “Amadeo…If you can hear me, I am grateful for what you’ve done. I…we both wanted Daniel. You’ve had him. You’ve given him the Blood. Now, please…allow me the same courtesy, at least for a time.” 

Armand stood there staring at his reflection.

Only silence greeted him until he could stand to look at himself no longer.

Daniel had started to fear that Armand wasn’t coming back. He had thought about reaching out to Lestat just to see if he or Louis had heard anything. Louis would have given the more direct answer, but Daniel sort of worried he’d somehow taken Armand back. He also imagined that Lestat wouldn’t be able to shut up about it if Armand wasn’t there. Word would get back to Armand. 

But Daniel was trying to be a grown ass man and not an idiot about this. 

After two days, Armand texted him. Daniel was glad he’d taken his phone. He was even more glad that Amadeo had a phone with Daniel’s number in it that Armand was now using. They’d come a long way from call Paris .

Daniel had to take two fucking trains to get to Armand’s hotel. That wasn’t a huge deal, but he was worried it would take just long enough for Armand to change his mind and hightail it out of there.

Relief was almost instantaneous as soon as he was in front of him. 

Then he had no idea what to say.

“Why are we in Times Square adjacent?”

“I like the lights,” Armand admitted. He turned his attention to the large glass window, fingertips pressing to the glass. “It reminds me of the harbor in Venice. I’m sure that makes no sense, but…” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“No, I don’t suppose you would. Amadeo didn’t know it. I don’t think he holds much affinity for cities and high rises.”

“But you like those things?”

“Mm,” Armand nodded. “I do not know how to do this.”

“Do what?” 

“Be with you when you have the upper hand.” 

“Could we maybe just not make our relationship a game of one-ups-manship? Does one of us have to have the upper hand? You gotta be winning or else you’re losing?” Daniel shook his head. “My second marriage played that way. Didn’t end well.”

“Your second wife was a twit. I don’t know what you were thinking.” 

“You checking up on me and her?” 

Armand shrugged, “She was no Alice.” 

“And no you.” 

Armand stepped away from the glass of the window to look at Daniel. 

“I cannot talk to him. I tried.” 

“Amadeo?"

Armand nodded. 

“Okay, well, that seems par for the course,” Daniel shrugged. “Why do you wanna talk to him?”

“To come to some sort of agreement about matters. To have some assurance that I will be allowed to stay. I will find it in me to share you so long as he does not attempt to steal you.” 

“Has it occurred to you, boss, that I have some kind of agency here to decide who gets to be with me? Do you want some kind of promise that I won’t fuck Amadeo when he comes back?”

“If.”

“When,” Daniel repeated firmly. “I’m not gonna bullshit you here. Amadeo has popped up in the 70s, in the 80s - he told me he used to make himself scarce around Louis. I don’t think he’s going away. I also don’t think that’s a problem. But what do you need?”

“If I say yes, I will lose you.” 

“For fuck’s sake, you won’t! I want you. I love you. Yes, I love him, too. He’s a part of you. I will love and care for him and Arun for the rest of my fucking afterlife,” Daniel shook his head. “But if you tell me that it’s a deal breaker if I’m polyamorous with your alters, I can do monogamy. I fucked my marriages up, but shockingly, it wasn’t cos I was sleeping around. I…” 

Whatever Daniel was going to say next was silenced by the crush of Armand’s lips against his. It felt like a victory, but Daniel had a feeling they were going to have to have this conversation another fifty to a hundred times. 

Oh, well. 

At least they had time now. 

“You know what I’ve been worried about since you got back?” Daniel asked when they broke apart, Armand’s forehead resting against his.

“What, beloved?”

“That you’d be the one to bail,” Daniel reached up to cup Armand’s cheek with his hand. “Been trying to decide who would hurt worse - Louis or Marius.” 

“I do not want them.” 

“Yeah, I’m getting that. I wasn’t sure at first. You were so pissed.” 

“I thought I had already lost you long before Dubai. I did not want to be punished more when I woke and you were there.” 

“That’s not really my style,” Daniel pressed another kiss to his forehead.

“I’m beginning to see that,” Armand conceded. “I am unaccustomed to everything you are proposing.” 

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Maybe.” 

Daniel looked out the window at the lights, “Wanna go hunt in Times Square? I’ve always wanted to kill one of those guys dressed as Elmo.” 

There was probably much more to discuss, much more to come. 

But for the moment…

“Yes, I would like to see you take down a beloved children’s character in a bustling tourist area. Show me what my blood is capable of in your veins.” 

Daniel grinned. 

“Sounds good, boss,” He kissed Armand gently. “Race you to the elevator.”