Chapter Text
Gremlin. I know you are listening. You can’t help yourself, can you? Pathétique. It’s a wonder your fledgling has such spirit. Very strong for one so young. But he vexes me greatly. Did you know we are creating a documentary together, hm? Ah, I’m sure you do. It’s quite the experience, I must say, but I will be surprised if he makes it to the wrap party. He does vex me so. Pisses me right off, to be blunt. Just tonight he had the audacity to–ah, nevermind. The specifics do not matter. But oh, the exercise in restraint. Such smug conceit! I wanted to reach down his throat and rip out his tongue by the root. J'en ai marre, Armand! He is too much. The next time he pisses me off, I might just tear him limb from limb. Perhaps flay him alive and have him dropped into the middle of Rodeo Drive at midday. Wouldn’t that be a sight, hm? I could gouge out his pretty eyes and send them to you first, if you provide a forwarding address. A little keepsake to remember your firstborn by. Or is there another part you would prefer? His cock, perhaps? His hands? They are lovely hands, for a senior citizen. What do you think, Gremlin? Would this balance the scales between us? I suppose not. You have only one fledgling, after all. So I would have to make it good, non? Make it really count. Then perhaps we would be even. Or closer to it, as it were. Armand, I know you can hear me…
A blast of cool air hit Daniel in the face as he opened the door to the studio’s roof and stepped out into the night. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit one without the aid of a lighter.
“Impressive.”
Lestat flicked ash from the end of his own cigarette and cocked his head to the side, appraising Daniel with a hawkish gaze that made him feel something like a fucking rabbit in the grass.
“You were well made.”
Daniel snorted. “Yeah. A real masterpiece. You shoulda seen the way he made me drag myself across the fucking floor for it, over and over again. I lost count of how many times. Said some shit about it being necessary. Pretty sure it was just regular old sadism.”
“I have never heard of such a thing,” Lestat replied, sounding genuinely perplexed. “One exchange works the Dark Trick, but...”
A shrug, a puff of his cigarette. “Doesn’t matter now does it,” Daniel said, ignoring the curious squint Lestat’s gaze took on as it raked over him again. “And that was a little graphic. A bit much, don’tcha think?”
Lestat grinned and lifted his shoulders in a lazy approximation of a shrug, midriff bare under a long jacket and leather pants hugging him tighter than could possibly be comfortable. “I do nothing in half measures, fledgling,” he said. “Besides, theatrics are effective.”
“Breaking: overgrown theater kid thinks theatrics are effective. News at eleven,” Daniel said. “The book was published. Nothing. You put out that goddamn awful music video. Nada. You’ve been yammering on and on about him for, what, a couple of weeks now? Not a peep. I’m not holding my breath.”
“Hmm,” Lestat hummed. Daniel couldn’t figure why on earth Lestat gave enough of a shit one way or the other, but that hardly mattered. “Children of Darkness is a chart topper,” he argued with no real passion, picking out a statement to harp on that was entirely tangential to the point, as if he was explaining a simple concept to an ignorant child. “The music video already has twenty million views on the YouTube. Three sound samples have gone viral on TikTok. Perhaps you simply have terrible taste, vieux.”
“Right,” Daniel laughed. It was really a terrible song, and the video was worse. But maybe he really was just too fucking old to get it.
“Have you heard from Louis?”
An abrupt but utterly predictable change of subject. Daniel inhaled, pulled the cigarette from between his lips, exhaled. “Not since the last time you asked.”
Lestat actually got an incredibly fucking pathetic look on his face at that. Every time. Enough to almost make Daniel feel bad for him. Almost.
“Ah, well. Perhaps, when the documentary airs-”
“Yeah. Perhaps. Yeah.”
Hip and elbow leaning against the roof railing, Lestat turned away toward the glittering nightscape and blew a plume of smoke into the breeze. A dismissal.
“Speedrun your mope session and get your ass back inside,” Daniel directed as he put out his cigarette. “We’re back on in five.”
“You have such a funny way of saying merci, Daniel Molloy. ”
The second hand on his desk clock ticks rhythmically. Almost eight thirty. Daniel’s fingers tap at the keys of his typewriter without pressing down, without producing a single letter on the page in the machine. He scrubs a hand over his face and picks up his coffee mug. The remnants of his last cup have long gone cold, but he drinks it anyway. Contemplates another cup despite the hour. Taps impotently at the keys again. Jittery. He could do with another cigarette. He blinks up at the bookshelf above his desk. White lettering on a black book spine jumps out at him, A Shadow on the Skin. A mockery.
Maybe you’re a one hit wonder. Maybe you just got lucky. Maybe you can’t write for shit. Maybe you should give up for the night. Or forever.
A siren wails from the street below, and he’s surprised he even notices. It took some getting used to, but he’s been here for more than a year now. Daniel Molloy–journalist, best-selling author–living in New York City, his face in the newspapers and on the bookshelves, his words in their heads, the spotlight of truth aimed with precision by his discerning hand–a bright young reporter with a point of view.
Nights like this it feels like bullshit.
He finds himself in his tiny kitchen, eyeing the coffee pot. The place is so small he can see the fuzzy television in the living room from practically anywhere except his bedroom. Elvira’s perfect tits spilling over the top of her signature black dress with plunging neckline draws his eye. He doesn’t remember turning on the TV, but he must have. He likes the background noise while he tries to work. It usually helps him focus. Macabre TV on MTV. It’s a Halloween special. Music videos and special guests and spooky kitsch and all that jazz.
Daniel turns around and dumps the contents of the coffee pot down the drain. He can’t scratch the itch–the invisible, tormenting itch. An ache, generalized. Coffee won’t help. A cigarette won’t either. He could get something that would at least stop him from feeling like shit for a little while, but it’s not what he really wants. It’s not what he needs.
They're out to get you
There's demons closin' in on every side
They will possess you
Unless you change that number on your dial
Michael Jackson sings from the TV, and Daniel broods. His first book is a success because he made it so. Because he worked his ass off on those articles. Because he still works his ass off, because he’s good at what he does. It’s not because of any goddamn–
Now is the time
For you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night
I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see
A wolf howls from the crackling box in the living room. He’s been staring at the peeling corners of the ugly wallpaper.
“Darkness falls across the land…”
Daniel’s hands close into fists atop the kitchen counter. A familiar thrill runs up and down his spine.
“The midnight hour is close at hand…”
That voice. Soft, alluring. It was so even when it was a source of primal terror. It should be comical now, trying to mimic Vincent fucking Price–
“Creatures crawl in search of blood…”
Daniel exhales sharply as he feels Armand’s presence at his back. His eyes close at the ghost of a breath across his neck.
“To terrorize your neighborhood…”
In his ear now, low, purring. He shivers.
“And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down…”
A claw trailing down his spine, felt through the flimsy fabric of his shirt like the barrier isn’t even there at all. Daniel’s knees almost buckle, but he isn’t so weak. He isn’t.
“Must stand and face the hounds of hell, and rot inside a corpse's shell…”
“You are–so fucking corny,” Daniel manages, despairing at the way the words stick in his throat when those elegant fingers twist into his hair and tip his head back.
“Hm. I missed you too, beloved.”
There’s laughter in Armand’s voice–the fond, affectionate kind that always gives him the most embarrassing swoopy feeling in his gut.
He’s in a good mood. He always is when he first shows up.
If Armand heard that, he doesn’t respond to it. Unless the blunt-toothed nip at Daniel’s earlobe that sends blood rushing straight to his dick is supposed to be punishment. He barely suppresses a whimper.
“The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of forty thousand years…”
All for naught, because he yelps– yelps –when Armand spins him around by the grip on his head, his mimicry of the lines crawling across Daniel’s skin like spiders as he open-mouthed nuzzles his way from Daniel’s neck to his chest, leaving goosebumps in his wake, and shoves his fucking face right into Daniel’s armpit and inhales.
“Fuck. Knock it off. You’re such a freak.”
And he loves it, goddammit, he loves it.
“And grizzly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom… ”
And there they are, his fangs, sharp little kittenish things, gleaming like the flames in Armand’s eyes when he lifts his head and grins in Daniel’s face, looking decidedly more wolf than kitten. He whimpers now. He can’t help it. He’s already going fuzzy around the edges of his consciousness at the mere sight of those fangs, and a hundred memories of them piercing his skin, sharp pain and sweet pleasure–
“And though you fight to stay alive,” Armand purrs, sliding a knee between Daniel’s legs. His knees do buckle then. All the better to seek friction to rut against like a dog when Armand’s lips touch the shell of his ear, ghost down to the curve of his neck. “Your body starts to shiver.”
“Please…”
“For no mere mortal can resist the evil of the thriller…”
And there, the sharp points of pleasure-pain, piercing him, claiming him. Daniel groans, clings to his bloodthirsty demon, body going limp as he forgets the chase of anything but the ecstasy of the penetration and the blood pull and lets himself float away.
He is pulled back to earth by the cessation and the release, but only for a moment, only for as long as it takes for Armand to slice his own throat and guide Daniel’s mouth to the fount of blood as if he was a mother leading a suckling babe to the teat.
It’s a different sort of ecstasy then. Less like losing his senses to a wash of pleasure, like slipping under the water in a warm bath. More like a hit when the world tilts on its axis and the cosmos opens to spill its secrets. More like the relief of hunger sated, thirst quenched. A good piss after holding it in too long. Coming after being edged to the point of desperation. An itch scratched.
The blood fills Daniel’s mouth, fills his senses, warm and rich and red, and he sucks the wound greedily. He latches onto Armand with limbs and lips and teeth and drinks and drinks.
There, there. Good boy. Oh, Daniel…
He doesn’t even care that Armand is in his head, he’d let Armand do anything to him for this. He bites down, thrills at the way Armand’s breath hitches.
You like it. You love this. Don’t you see? Imagine what could be, what I could be, if you just–
He is cut off. Gently, but so firmly that the full extent of his human strength could never fight it. Armand pulls away, holds him at arm’s length, pinned against the counter.
“Armand,” he slurs, glassy-eyed and bloody-mouthed.
“Don’t.”
Daniel stares at him mutely, coming down from the high. The itch is scratched. He feels relief, but a vague sense of loss disquiets him. “But–”
“Daniel, don’t,” Armand repeats, softer this time, no less commanding. “I’ve only just arrived. I have plans for us. Please don’t ruin it.”
Frustration gnaws at him, but the pleading look in Armand’s now-honeyed eyes makes him relent. The last time he’d brought it up, the resulting fight had turned so ugly. If not for the phone call a few weeks ago, he would have thought Armand had given him up for good. Resignation settles over him like a heavy blanket, and Daniel sighs.
“What plans?”
“It’s Halloween, beloved,” Armand says brightly, inclining his head toward the ghouls dancing across the television screen as if the tension of a moment ago is utterly forgotten. Unlikely, given that this tension has hung over their relationship like a storm cloud for years now, but Daniel is willing to set it aside for the moment. “We’re going out, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Daniel nods. “What, trick-or-treating? Do you think I’m ten years old?”
“Don’t be silly,” his lover chides, swiping a thumb over a smear of blood on his neck that escaped his ordinarily impeccable eating habits. Armand brings his thumb to his mouth, tongue flicking out to clear the blood away. Ridiculously appealing. “We’ll go to a party for adults, of course, but I would like to see the parade and the little ones out and about in their costumes on our way, so you must hurry.”
“Well excuse me for not being ready to go out when I had no fucking clue you were even coming today. Besides, I’m trying to work.”
“Not very successfully, it seems,” Armand replies cheerfully, “so you might as well give it a rest for the night and enjoy yourself.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Daniel gripes, but he doesn’t have the will to truly fight it now.
“And you need a shower, my love,” Armand directs, finally stepping back from Daniel to give him room and extending a hand toward the bathroom expectantly, as if offering him permission to use his own facilities.
“Nobody asked you to shove your face into my pits,” Daniel shoots back.
“I am not complaining,” Armand replies with a frown, as if truly concerned that he has given offense or been misjudged. “Daniel, I do not mind. In fact, I quite enjoy it. You know this. It is simply that polite society dictates–”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Daniel cuts him off. “I’ll take a fucking shower, alright?”
Armand beams at him as he shakes his head and makes his way to his bedroom, stripping his shirt off along the way. A glance over his shoulder, and he catches a blur of movement as Armand opens his fridge and all of his cabinets before returning to his spot to stand there smiling at Daniel as if he hadn’t moved at all. An obnoxious habit Armand has picked up lately, seemingly concerned that he isn’t taking proper care of himself or some other such nonsense.
He’s taking perfectly good care of himself, thank you very fucking much. He kicks off his boots and pulls off his socks and strips out of his jeans and underwear directly in front of the open door, if not because it’s his apartment and he can do what he wants then to make a point about how his physical shape and health are just fine. He’s still half hard from the way Armand chose to greet him, but that can be taken care of in the shower or ignored until it goes away.
Daniel has only just stepped into the warm spray of his shower when he feels the prickle along his spine, a developed sixth sense that warns him he’s being watched. It’s gotta be some kind of prey instinct, he assumes. The kind of sense most humans have lost touch with because they've mostly forgotten what it's like to be on a predator’s menu. He laughs to himself. If only they knew.
“Yes,” Armand agrees, and Daniel jumps despite that sense that already warned him Armand wasn’t going to let him shower in peace.
“Can you stop sneaking up on me in my own fucking apartment, for fuck’s sake,” Daniel spits, turning to find Armand peering at him solemnly through the clear plastic liner. He never bothered to get an actual shower curtain. Didn’t see the point, living more or less alone like this, and never really allowed any privacy when he isn’t alone.
“Daniel, I didn’t sneak up on you,” Armand says. “I just followed you.”
Daniel rolls his eyes and turns his back to Armand, trying to ignore what feeling those predatory eyes on his naked body does to him and for him.
Taking care of it in the shower after all, then, he thinks, and he’s not so worldly that he doesn’t feel a little flush of shame creeping up the back of his neck at the thought of taking the initiative to just jerk himself off in the shower while Armand simply watches him.
He never gets the chance to overcome his embarrassment and just do it, because between the space of one breath and the next Armand’s hands are on him. Warm enough, almost humanly so. He’s fed recently, Daniel thinks, and to his real shame he completely hardens in Armand’s hand, not because of his rhythmic tugging alone but because the fantasy of Armand hunting another human, Armand choosing some unfortunate soul to kill before coming here to tend to Daniel like he’s something precious… it turns him on. It gets him so fucking hot, and he’s ashamed, and he doesn’t care, and he’s groaning and coming in spurts in Armand’s tight fist before he knows what hit him.
Armand rinses his hand primly in the warm water, smiling at Daniel with such fond warmth that he can’t even be insulted that he didn’t lick his fingers clean.
“Another time, beloved,” Armand murmurs, rolling up his other sleeve and grabbing a bottle of shampoo from the side of the tub. “We’re pressed for time, remember?”
“Only because you act like you’ve never seen kids dressed up in goofy costumes before. But you see them every year,” Daniel grumbles, submitting to having his head sudsed and gently scrubbed by his lover’s deft hands.
“Head back,” Armand orders, tipping Daniel’s head under the water with a tug of his curls, not even giving him time to comply. “It’s a tradition that I enjoy,” he adds.
“Mmphh,” Daniel replies as Armand lightly scrubs at his face with a freshly soaped washcloth, mindful of his sharp nails. He does the same all the way down his body, from behind his ears to the spaces between his toes, no curve or crevice left unattended, at a speed much quicker than Daniel could ever accomplish on his own.
“You know, sometimes I think that I’m just a doll to you,” Daniel says as Armand forces him back under the water to rinse him. “Or like a pig you’re trying to fatten up and scrub clean for the kill.”
“Oh do shut up. You know better,” Armand tsks, dragging him out of the tub. He frowns when he can’t find a clean towel and leaves Daniel shivering on the mat for a moment to hunt one down. He’s frowning even harder when he returns, holding a towel that he probably found crumpled on Daniel’s bedroom floor. He says nothing as he wraps Daniel in it, but Daniel feels the still-damp spots on the towel and Armand’s disapproval all at once.
Give it to me, and I’ll live wherever you want, however you want. I’ll live alone or with you and Louis or whatever the fuck you want. I’ll let you buy me a big ugly house and staff it with people who will do my laundry and wash my ass for me and dress me in whatever fancy designer shit you want. Give it to me, and I’m yours forever. But if you want to leave me human, then I’ll live like a human on my own terms.
Armand either isn’t listening, or he is ignoring Daniel so hard and so successfully that nothing shows in his expression but the determination of his mission to make him presentable to the world. For the best, probably. He is really pushing it now.
Before he can blink, his clothing is laid out on his bed: clean underwear and a pair of stone washed pale blue jeans, neatly stacked; a white BVD t-shirt with a deep V neck fished out of the bottom of one of his drawers by an exasperated Armand; white Sperrys placed under the foot of his bed.
“I can dress myself,” Daniel grumbles as Armand stops whirring around the bedroom long enough to push him toward his clothing.
Armand’s quirks a brow as if he doesn’t quite believe it. Daniel catches it over his shoulder as he steps into his underwear and shimmies into his jeans before Armand can try to play dress up with his doll in earnest.
“What?” he huffs, defensive, disliking the way Armand squints at him suspiciously.
“I am trying to work out exactly what makes you so irritable this evening, beloved,” Armand replies. “You’ve had my blood. I gave you an orgasm. You are clean. Perhaps you haven’t eaten enough today.” He leans closer to peer at him more closely, studying his skin as if Daniel is a specimen under a microscope. “I believe you are dehydrated as well,” he declares.
Before Daniel can finish applying deodorant and pulling his t-shirt over his head, Armand has blurred into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, which he unceremoniously shoves into Daniel’s hands.
“Drink,” he commands. “And you are not to touch a drop of liquor until I can get you something to eat,” he adds, nodding to himself as if satisfied with his diagnosis and treatment plan.
“I’ll just have a beer then,” Daniel mutters under his breath. He’s being surly and childish, he knows it. Maybe it isn’t fair. Sometimes he is truly irritated by this sort of treatment from Armand. Most of the time he basks in it, even when he acts as though he hates it. Most of the time, he preens over it, if only on the inside. The vampire Armand, an ancient demon from hell who has claimed thousands upon thousands of lives, a violent and bloodthirsty beast that once tortured him, stalked him, tormented and instilled an unholy terror in him…Armand, fussing over him like a mother hen, tending to his every need, worrying over him, protecting him.
It feels fucking good. It feeds something in him. Ego? Maybe. Maybe just the need to be seen, to be somebody. Daniel Molloy: beloved of the vampire Armand.
But not enough to be kept forever.
A lump forms in Daniel’s throat unbidden. He shakes the thought away, shakes out his wet curls, takes the glass of water from Armand and washes the lump down. If he let that thought sit and fester, he would start again, and a fight would be inevitable.
By the time he finishes the whole glass and sets it on his nightstand, Armand has retrieved his necklace from the top of his bureau. The amulet, as Armand calls it. Sometimes he thinks of it as a collar.
“You’ll wear it, of course,” Armand says, holding up the vial of his blood encased in gold, dangling from a gold chain. There was an unusual stress in his voice, a question in his burning eyes.
“I don’t go anywhere without it,” Daniel assures him, perhaps for the hundredth time. This in particular he does not resent. It goes beyond making him feel special. It makes him feel safe. Kept. Even if not forever.
He staves off feelings of bitterness as Armand steps behind him and clasps the chain at the nape of his neck–a confused anger at the inherent contradictions of it all which is never far from his mind: Armand, who allegedly loves him so much that he frets over his safety and bids him wear his own blood around his neck as a ward against and warning to other immortals; Armand, who categorically refuses to grant him immortality, to bring him into the Blood and be with him forever–refuses to even indulge a conversation about it these days.
You would come to despise me if I gave you what you want, Daniel, Armand once insisted years ago. You would regret it. You would blame me, hate me. It’s as certain as the rising of the sun.
Is that how you feel about your Maker? Daniel had asked. Armand insisted it was not, but that was different. His Maker had been destroyed by an enemy mere months after he had been made a vampire. His Maker had only made him because he was dying and he was left with no choice.
Daniel vaguely recalls a tasteless joke–something about overdosing on purpose to force Armand’s hand–and shattered glass that followed. A look on Armand’s face that distinctly reminded him of San Francisco and sent a chill skittering down his spine. He hadn’t dared say anything like that again. At least not while sober.
The amulet falls heavy on his sternum, and Daniel raises a hand to adjust it as Armand presses a butterfly kiss to the top of his spine.
“I supposed you don’t really need it while I am with you,” Armand concedes as he spins Daniel to face him. “But I love the way it looks on you. My beautiful boy.”
It’s really hard not to preen sometimes. Daniel thinks he has every right to feel a little smug, a little cocky, that this beautiful and powerful being thinks he is beautiful and wants him too, even if just for now.
He soaks it in, basks in it, feels something ease inside his chest as Armand peppers little kisses across his jaw and then abruptly shoves him down to sit on the edge of the bed. Armand towels the dampness out of his hair and runs a wide-toothed comb through his curls then bends him nearly in half and massages his scalp. Elbows on his knees, Daniel groans and leans into it. It hurts and it feels wonderful all at once, same as it does when they’re staying in and Armand insists on trapping Daniel between his knees and oiling his hair while they watch whatever tv program Armand chooses. He leans into the aggressive massage so hard now that he nearly tips forward far enough to fall onto his face when Armand abruptly disappears from in front of him for a moment. He reappears with the bottle of fancy mousse he bought for Daniel some months ago that has sat nearly untouched on his bathroom shelf. He runs the foam through Daniel’s hair, massages it in. Talks to him over the loud hum of the hair dryer, blabbing about something he saw on the television news–roving gangs of miscreant youth terrorizing Brooklyn neighborhoods with shaving cream. Armand finds such antics much more entertaining than the NYPD does. When Armand finally pushes Daniel upright again, he attacks his curls with deft fingers and a conservative dollop of whatever cheap gel was sitting on his shelf next to the mousse. A critical eye, a light misting of Aquanet over his head, and a spritz of a favored cologne at the pulse point at his throat finishes him off.
It’s worth enduring all the fuss for the way that Armand admires his own handiwork once he’s finished, standing him up and spinning him around and observing him like a proud parent and a starry-eyed child all at once. It’s worth it for the blushing thrill of Armand purring that Daniel is his pretty young thing in his ear, nipping his earlobe, kissing him for good measure.
He groans, of course. Rolls his eyes for effect. Teases Armand mercilessly for his obsessions. But he soaks up the attention like a dried sponge, delights in the way that Armand turns almost bashful when Daniel teases him.
Armand takes his revenge, of course. He always does, and he always wins, always gets his way. Revenge this night looks like a pair of feathery white angel wings attached to straps, which Armand slips over Daniel’s shoulders heedless of his protests. Next comes a halo made of tinsel and fuzz, suspended on wires over a headband which Armand delicately places over his carefully coiffed curls.
“Botticelli himself could not have envisioned an angel so beautiful,” Armand coos, wicked delight gleaming in his eyes.
“I hate you. I look ridiculous,” Daniel whines.
“You look good enough to eat, my sweet,” Armand says, and that is enough to stop his protests.
“You’d better have a costume too,” he grouses, turning before the mirror on his bureau to eye the wings critically. His ass looks good in the jeans Armand picked out, at least. “I’m not going out like this alone.”
“Of course not,” Armand soothes. He disappears into the living room, and when he returns, Daniel forgets to be embarrassed.
Red horns sprout from Armand’s own beautiful curls, and a red fucking tail swoops down from the belt at his hips, over his ass, bouncing behind him as he moves. He’s wearing a leather jacket and a black t-shirt cut even lower than Daniel’s, showing off his beautiful chest and little curls of dark hair. His boots click on the parquet flooring as he poses for Daniel’s benefit, and Daniel can’t help but grin.
“A little on the nose, no?” Daniel teases. “Goddamn devil.”
Armand smiles, but he’s still looking at him expectantly, almost nervously. Emboldened, Daniel crosses to the doorway and takes his lover by the hips.
“You look good,” he says, “but I’d rather strip you out of all this and stay in.”
Armand laughs, a little breathless, halfheartedly pushing him away. “No, Daniel. Plans, remember?”
“What if I want to make different plans, hm?” he pushes. Reaches out, grabs Armand by the belt loops, tugs him closer again. His gaze devours Armand’s exquisite face, lips, throat, collarbones, chest. He lifts his gaze just in time to catch the flicker in Armand’s eyes and relish it. It took years for Daniel to dare play pursuer, and once he did he wished he’d worked up the nerve much sooner. Armand loves it as much as he does, even if he does not always relent.
This night is one of those nights, much to Daniel’s chagrin.
“I said no,” Armand replies, finally putting some force behind the hand that keeps Daniel at bay. “Do you think I put in all this work for nothing?”
“Enjoying each other is not nothing,” he argues, squeezing Armand’s hips for emphasis.
“Even so,” Armand says, smoothly shutting him down and stepping beyond his reach. “We’re heading to Christopher Street. If you stop dawdling we might yet catch the end of the parade. We’ll go to Ninth Circle afterward. Grab a jacket, the nights are growing chilly. Come, beloved. I can stay for a few days. We will revisit your ideas later.”
Mollified by the promise that Armand will not disappear by morning, Daniel obeys without further argument or complaint.
The night is beautiful, a cool breeze and a bright quarter moon. The streets are busy, and along their way Armand finds plenty of the trick-or-treating children he so wanted to see. It’s strange and jarring and touching all at once, to watch Armand smile at them benevolently and feign fright at their cheap rubber masks and drop silver dollar coins into their plastic buckets as he always does. Daniel finds himself smiling rather stupidly as he watches Armand crouch beside a little girl who shows off the empty space where her two front teeth should be and drop an extra coin in her bucket “from the Tooth Fairy,” as if the Tooth Fairy has anything to do with Halloween.
They do catch the last hour or so of the parade. Even this most mundane of human customs, Armand is charmed by. He points out a beautiful blonde woman in a pink dress, covered in imitation blood. “Carrie,” he says simply, grinning, as if understanding the reference is a point of immense pride. A pair dressed as Leonardo da Vinci and the Mona Lisa, he has only condescending critique for, which he politely chooses to deliver directly into Daniel’s mind without saying a word. Werewolves made of fur and rubber he acknowledges with only a baffling and alarming “That’s not what they look like,” which he refuses to elaborate on further. Daniel whistles for a parade sign lambasting Reagan with a comparison to Marie Antoinette, accompanied by a handful of people dressed to emulate the period. Armand says nothing this time, but Daniel can see the scathing critique of their period accuracy in his eyes alone, and he would be annoyed if not for the wonder of the fact that Armand does , in fact, have relevant personal experience that lends authority to his criticisms of both the Renaissance and French Revolution costuming. It’s mind blowing, is what it is. It’s not just that Armand looks too young for such a thing to be possible. Sometimes he truly seems that young too. Sometimes, he even seems human.
Like now, with his teeth gleaming under the lights as a smile grows on his face and he laughs and claps in approval. A quartet of queens prance down the street in heels, bright yellow flight attendant uniforms, and brightly colored tights, each carrying a bag that sports a large letter. Together, they spell out TWAT. The crowd loves them. Armand loves them.
And Daniel loves Armand.
Madly. Hopelessly.
Daniel woke with a start and a thwack to his head and a stream of expletives spilling out of his mouth as he shoved open the lid of the coffin. He rubbed his head, then his eyes.
It was all so real, so fucking vivid. And it wasn’t even a sex dream, not really.
The wet dreams he understood. Those needed no explanation. His Maker was beautiful—manipulative, lying fucking asshole that he was. Enticing to the point of frustration. Daniel would have been having unfortunate sex dreams about him even if the last act of his mortal life hadn’t been fucking Armand. Even if his life as a vampire hadn’t begun the same way. But he had that–a grand total of two experiences, not nearly enough to rid him of the lust and just enough to let him know what he was missing.
No, the sex dreams made sense.
Whateverthefuck this melodramatic, angst-ridden, bizarrely domestic shit was, did not. Not a lick of sense. He’d known Armand for all of six days in his youth, and those six days were a nightmare. But these dreams, these dreams where he was young again and Armand was his lover…they had started mere weeks after he was given the Dark Gift, after Armand disappeared. Few and far between, odd little interludes to the more frequent raunchy ones. The dreams were hazy then, more vague, but no less haunting. Over the passing months, they grew in strength and frequency. They became so detailed and vivid that they felt real . He had never in his mortal life dreamed like that. Not even the vivid levodopa dreams had been so powerful. He’d been tempted to ask Louis if it was normal for a vampire, but he didn’t want to risk opening that particular can of worms.
After retrieving a bag of blood from the retro Philco fridge in his hotel room and warming it, Daniel puttered around aimlessly for a few minutes with a glass of blood in hand, sipping it with no real urgency. It was never as good like this as it was fresh. He wanted to hunt, but there was no time before work. He adjusted to a nocturnal schedule well enough, but he missed the mornings. Sure, he’d been practically nocturnal in his youth, as far as he could recall. But age transformed him into a morning person, shockingly enough. He’d once done his best work after a cup of coffee at the crack of dawn.
That was all over now. At least for the, what, next five hundred years? Give or take?
You were well made, Lestat said, and he still wasn’t sure he knew what the fuck that even meant. He’d inherited at least the Fire Gift and the Mind Gift from his Maker, sure, and his proficiency at them was apparently unusual for one so young in the Blood. Still, he imagined it would be centuries before he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face again.
When he finally buckled down to get his ass to set, he made it in just under an hour. Getting ready for anything was ridiculously easy as a vampire. A natural propensity toward a state of cleanliness. Speed. Agility. Mobility. No pain beyond the dull throb in his head from smacking it on the lid of his coffin so hard. Supple joints. Steady hands. The Dark Gift was a blessing, and if someday Daniel could even develop the Cloud Gift and let traffic become a quaint fact of his past which no longer need concern him, then he wouldn’t be entirely opposed to the idea of getting on his hands and knees and kissing Armand’s fucking feet.
Give it to me. His own voice rang in his head. He could hear it, the voice of his youth, plaintive and demanding all at once. Disturbed, Daniel folded his glasses into his left jacket pocket as he made his way past bustling interns and sound techs and makeup and wardrobe people, toward the chair by the cameras with his name on it.
It was probably just his subconscious assuring him that he had wanted the Dark Gift, that he always had. He certainly asked for it at least once in his youth, from Louis, stupid as that move had been. It happened. He remembered it.
Ignoring the familiar preparatory chaos of the set going on around him, Daniel pulled his phone out of his right pocket and opened a browser. Hesitation held his thumbs over the keyboard for a moment, and then he started typing.
>Village Halloween Parade
Advertisements. Official website. Videos. Blogs. Tons of photos, most of them recent. It wasn’t a narrow enough search to be useful. Daniel sat and thought for a moment then tapped a few more terms into the search bar. Elvira on MTV, Halloween. Thriller music video. That narrowed it down some. He tried again.
>Village Halloween Parade 1984
Better results, yes, if he ignored the fucking AI summary. Daniel scrolled and clicked the first link that looked promising: a random blog of someone’s compiled memories of Greenwich Village in the 80s. He began to scroll through the poorly formatted post. There were a ton of photos, most of them captioned. Most were pretty generic.
A few caught his eye and made his pulse pound in his ears.
No way. He had probably attended the parade that year. He’d lived in the area at the time. Who were his friends? He couldn’t remember. Maybe he’d been drunk. Or relapsed. He hadn’t really gotten serious about getting clean and sober until he met Alice in early ‘85. A few stints in rehab throughout the 70s, he vaguely remembered, but those didn’t do much for him.
No, he definitely would and could have gone to the parade that year. Maybe with some friends. Maybe even on his own, looking for a hookup. Maybe looking to score if he’d been relapsed at the time. Who could say. The photos of the costumes that jumped out at him from these pages…it was entirely possible they made an impression on his mind at the time and he’d just forgotten about it. Why his brain yanked them from his subconscious now and superimposed visions of Armand over them, he couldn’t say. Dreams were surreal things, and trying to make real sense of them was a fool’s errand.
Daniel stared at the image of four men in bright yellow, posing with bags that spelled out TWAT. Swiped his fingertips across the screen to zoom in closer. Blinked. Felt something akin to nausea– could vampires even get nauseated?–washing over him. He worried he might break out into a blood sweat.
No fucking way.
It wasn’t that there was no fucking way, of course. There was. Of course there was. Only, he didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to let himself think for a moment that–
“Daniel.”
He looked up to find Lestat already in place across from him, perfectly coiffed and made up, legs crossed, staring at him in annoyance, as if he already said his name multiple times. Maybe he did.
“You complain that I do not abide by your schedule to your liking, but when I am punctual and ready to perform, you are not prepared. You are distracted.”
“Yeah, no, sorry,” Daniel muttered, swiping the tab closed and opening his messages to tap out a response to texts from his producer before shoving the phone back in his pocket. “I’m ready. Let’s do this. Recap before we get the cameras rolling. Where were we? Cairo?”
Lestat ran a hand through his golden hair and flicked the wide sleeves of his jacket. An exasperated sigh through his nose signaled his disdain, but he did not complain further. He launched into a bullet-point style review of the points they’d discussed during the previous evening’s filming session. The sound techs gave the green light. The cameras rolled.
It had never before been such a struggle to focus. Lestat had an engaging way of telling his story and an often irritating way of answering questions. The story itself was nuts. Daniel scribbled notes on the fly, interrupted, clarified, needled, pressed. Or rather, that was his usual way. This night, he was in fact distracted. Woefully off his game.
He figured it might be for the best. He hated himself for throwing softballs and letting things slide that should probably be investigated, but given the subject matter… well. Maybe he didn’t need to be a complete asshole while the guy waxed poetic about his mother-slash-lover ditching him to go off on some solitary jungle expedition not long after he got the bad news about his ex throwing himself into a fire. The Vampire Lestat fans were a rabid bunch, and God forbid he come off as harsh with the delicate object of their devoted affections. His social media accounts were already flooded with the little fuckers ever since news of the documentary filming dropped, and he was not naive enough to assume that even the majority of fans who thought the whole vampire thing was a bit would not still take offense on Lestat’s behalf for perceived insults to his fictional backstory.
Insane. The whole thing was insane. Everything and everyone was fucking insane. Daniel almost laughed aloud just thinking about it, but he caught himself. Forced himself to tune back in. Lestat was recounting how he’d been caught in the sun while grieving, badly burned, forced into hiding underground–
And then everything happened all at once. Lestat trailed off. Seemingly in slow motion, he sat up from his lazy lounge in his black leather chair. Leaned forward, practically crouched where he sat like an animal. His lips curled back and his fangs descended, pupils blown wide as he stared at something beyond Daniel’s head.
The humans on set weren’t moving, suspended in time, and Daniel felt an all too familiar prickle down his spine.
He turned in his seat just in time to see twin points of flame glowing in the rafters behind the overhead lights. Just in time to catch the streak of movement whipping toward the stage. He didn’t see the moment of impact, but he heard it.
A series of crashes punctuated by sounds akin to raw meat being punched and feral tomcats hissing and spitting while they clawed each other in an alley.
Daniel was on his feet, shouting. Utterly futile. Lestat’s chair and the decorative end table were already smashed. He caught the moment the two crashed through the glittery drapery at the back of the sound stage, ripping the material and bringing down the rigging from the ceiling.
Furious, Daniel shot forward, heedless of the fact that he was no match for either of them. He stopped when he came upon them struggling in the ruins of the sound stage backdrop. Both of them bloody, Armand straddling Lestat and pinning him to the ground, crowding into his face with fangs bared.
“You would not dare,” Lestat snarled.
“Try me and see,” Armand hissed back.
He’d missed whatever was said to prompt that exchange, but he didn’t fucking care.
“Hey, fucking assholes,” Daniel snapped as he wound his hand back and slapped Armand upside the back of his head before he could stop himself let alone think better of it.
Armand whipped around to look up at Daniel, eyes wide with more astonishment than anything else. It couldn’t possibly have hurt too bad. Unfortunately.
“You just broke my fucking sound stage, Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck is the matter with you? Goddammit.”
“It isn’t really your sound stage, now is it?” Armand observed coolly with a disdainful sniff that made Daniel want to smack him again.
Lestat took the opportunity of the distraction to throw him off.
In a blink, all three of them were on their feet: Lestat poised as if to resume the fight at the slightest provocation; Armand brushing himself off as if nothing had happened.
Someone gasped.
Every mortal on set was gawking at them. Armand’s control of their perception of time hadn’t held through the fucking catfight.
Producer Mark walked through the door at that exact moment, as if on cue. He stopped, stared, then let loose a “What the fuck?!” that was so comically high-pitched in its shock and dismay that Daniel could almost have laughed.
He figured an introduction was in order.
“Everyone,” Daniel drawled grimly, sweeping a hand toward his Maker who was staring at him with flaming owlish eyes. “Meet the vampire Armand.”