Archive of Our Own

He stays for a week. After. Holds Daniel’s waiting teeth to his own wrist each morning, watches as his eyes turn vilet and then gold, as his hands cease their shaking. He holds Daniel’s head as he sleeps and finds his own tears spilling from his eyes. In his dream, Daniel whispers Armand, Armand, as if it is a name worth repeating, as if it is a holy thing. Armand sets Daniel’s head gently on the coffin’s velvet plush lining. And he runs. 

***

He follows Daniel as he goes back to New York. Watches from afar his fledgling become independent, yet feels, in his own blood Daniel’s grief, his betrayal. On the edges of Armand’s vision, Marius’ hair glows pale as the dawn-sun.

My poor child, Not-Marius, yet still somehow Marius, says. 

Armand gazes at him. Through the window, he spots the light in Daniel’s apartment turn on, watches him lie on the sofa, imagines the sigh that would slip from his mouth and feels something inside chest collapse like a dam breaking. He looks towards Marius, shimmering at the edge of his eyeline, in the dark of this apartment he does not remember taking. 

I left him, Armand says, I promised myself I wouldn’t.

What would you know of a promise, dear boy? 

Anger, quick and sudden in his veins, his face gone almost sallow with it– that and the hunger. He refuses to feed. 

You left me, as well, Padrone. He says, spits it at Marius’ feet. You wouldn’t look at me as I lay dying. 

Calm yourself, Marius chides. Insolent boy. How could I bear to look at you in that state? My darling Amadeo, how can I bear to look at you now? You are as frail as you were when I first laid eyes on you. 

Is that why you’re here again? Says Armand. To save me.

He remembers the feel of the strike so well, his head falls to the side of its own volition. Marius is not here, not real, except for when he is. You would do well to remember your station. Everything you have, I have granted. 

Yes, Armand says, almost sobs. Doesn't apologise. 

Across from his apartment, Daniel suddenly drops the remote he had been holding, eyes so bright, Armand can see them even from here, can see them flit. Can see Daniel’s head turn as if he can sense Armand. From here, from everywhere, he looks beautiful: storm-grey hair coiling on his head, shoulders broad in his Rolling Stones t-shirt. In his own blood Armand can feel Daniel’s restlessness– the feeling that he is missing something right at the tip of his nose.

But if Armand is anything, then he is good at hiding. Unable to keep looking at Daniel, he slides underneath the window, back pressed against the wall like it had been when Louis had slammed him against it. Not for the first time, but perhaps the only time that mattered. 

You deserved it. Hell you deserve worse. A voice. Gravel-rough and just as steady. From where he rests his head on his arms, Armand looks up to see a vision of Daniel sitting with his legs spread, mouth in a wide grin, next to his maker.

No, Armand says, wails. No, I never – I never wanted him to see you. Please. 

Not-Daniel vanishes, somehow, mercy of his own shattered mind or Marius, he does not know. Still, he takes what he can get. 

I would not hurt him. Marius says, knife-sharp voice. Armand digs his nails into his wrist. Is that what you have told him? That I harmed you? That I would do the same to him.

No, Armand pleads, of course not, Maestro. I–

He stops, suddenly the ground under him is not the ground. He is running. The air around him is thick, the sky above a bright blue, the sun more gold than Arun has ever seen. He is looking at a mango tree above him, it looms large, the mangoes themselves sun-bright. Arun holds his palm out, skywards, waits as a mango falls onto it. Rips the skin with his teeth. Smears his kurta with its dripping juice, carries more in his arms. Eats until his teeth become sick with it.

Greedy thing, Marius says, and Armand blinks, his hands press on the floor under him. Oak. Daniel's blood in his veins still. From a week ago. From 1973. It doesn't matter. The silver thread of their bond, silent. 

You were always a greedy thing, my Amadeo. Why would you wish to keep your fledgling from me? My blood flows in his veins, as it does in yours. Ah, Marius’s teeth sharp under the dawn light spilling inside the flat. You do not wish for him to see the worst of you. Still, you think, he could love you. My naive child. Only I could love you.

Armand opens his mouth to scream, instead he buries his fangs into the pulsing blue vein on his wrist.

***

His eyes open at night fall. He is still curled against the wall. Immediately, he shuts his eyes and focuses on the splintering thread of life that runs between him and Daniel, and finding it solid, he uncurls his fist. Bloody palms, bloody wrist where he'd bit himself in madness. 

On the wall opposite him, a sliver of moonlight. Bathed in it, Marius, eyes bluer than the core of a fire, hands clasped together in his lap. He's sitting on the chair he used to favour in the Palazzo. Tall, thin planks etched with wooden carving. The chair he used to keep in their bedroom, the chair whose edge Armand would rest his head on when he would service his Maker, before and after the turning. 

Armand swallows down the nausea suddenly bundling in his throat. 

Padrone, I thought you'd be gone. 

Hallucinating, is the word Daniel would use, Armand knows. Except he isn't. For the last 77 years, his life was marred by Lestat’s show. Armand never told Louis that more often than not, Marius had been there too. Silent, mostly, but watchful, and never two nights in a row. Mostly he would appear after a fight. Once, after San Fransisco, Louis had held Armand by the throat against the wall, had pressed his knee, hard to his stomach, then thrown him on the ground. Boot on the low of his back. Blood spilling in his mouth. He doesn't remember what he had done to deserve it, what he had said. But he had borne it. His due for for Claudia, whether Louis saw it is that or not. All through it, he had felt the desire thrum like a drum beat in his veins. Louis had fucked him on the same floor. Both of them wanting, always wanting. After, he had washed in the tub, alone, except for Marius sitting opposite. Whore, he thinks Marius had said, All my efforts and still you behave like a beast. Heathen child. 

Marius does not say anything now, just watches him. Armand presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, breathes, breathes, for all the good it does him.

Your fledgling has woken. 

Armand glances at Marius, his bored voice. Remembers how Lestat had sounded just like this towards the end. He flings himself towards the window anyway to look as Daniel exits his building. Armand follows him.

In the month since Armand has left Daniel, he has not fed. Whether it is punishment or not he doesn't know, all he knows is that the idea of anything in his mouth makes his hands shake and his eyes tremble. The axis he has built his entire world upon has been tilting since Dubai and he doesn't know how to stop it. The only thing he knows he must do is keep Daniel safe. And so he does. From the vampires that want to kill him. Armand may not have anything inside him worth living for but the blood in him is still ancient, and the desire in him is unkillable. He kills one more today, as Daniel sinks his teeth into the neck of a middle-aged businessman. His hands, wide on the man’s stomach. Eyes open and simmering. For a moment, all Armand wants to do is drop to his knees and beg for mercy. He leaves before Daniel can sense any of it. Five hundred years and the one thing he doesn't forget is fear. Sticks to him like weeds on a sidewalk. Spreads inside him like disease.

Daniel returns home and Armand follows. Daniel took three victims today. The pride is not his to feel but he feels it anyway. His beautiful boy. Bathed in moonlight, more alive than anything has ever been. 

You were too. Marius says. Wistful. So alive. My Amadeo. Running wild in the night. 

You whipped me anyway, Maestro.

How else were you to be taught, child? It was all you knew. I tried gentle words. You were unsated. You made me run for miles before I found you at the Canal. Blood on your hands, the body unmoving. You know what the blood of the dead would have done to you? How was I to live with my own folly? You drove me to the madness divinely, Amadeo. I see you have not lost that skill. 

No, Armand thinks. Shudders. Here, a memory, unbidden: Arun’s wrists caged in metal, shackled to a wall. The floor underneath him unsteady. Sea-water smell in the air, salt in his mouth. Language he does not understand. Pain like fireworks bursting inside him. Not new but it has never been this brutal, this arresting. His eyes shut, he thinks of mangoes swaying above him. Sky clearer than any sea he's ever seen.

This is why I never wanted you to remember. Says Marius and Armand jolts back to himself. Somewhere inside him, Arun is clenching his fist, beating at the walls and Amadeo is lying with his head in his Maker's lap. Armand, Arun, Amadeo, where does the bullshit start, he thinks, through the swill of smoke in his mind. It is 2022, or it is 1522. Armand is in a ship, is in an open field, is in an empty apartment. He is Arun and Amadeo. He is nothing, he is hollow stone where it matters.

A hand in his hair. My boy, you were made to suffer. Marius’ voice like honey in his ear. Like returning to land after decades stranded at sea. The only lighthouse Armand has ever had. 

What don't I remember, he says. Please, Padrone, what can't I remember of Delhi.

Stop this foolishness. What use have you for memory? The only thing you are is a mouth to fuck, a hole to swallow what is given to it. Amadeo, my Amadeo. That is all you have ever been. Mine.

Armand presses his nails to his stomach and vomits blood on the pristine oak floor.

***

It is 6 am in Delhi. Arun knows this because he can hear the azan in the distance. A hand next to his on the grey cotton sheet they lie upon. His sister. Arun, she is saying, bhai-jan, brother dear, chalo, come. Sitting on his knees, head pressed to the mud of their house, his sister’s pinky pressed to his own. 

Armand wakes with a gasp. Blood drying on his cheek, the wisp of memory curling around his palms. Cloves, laung, he thinks, his sister smelled like cloves. Unbidden: a name in his mind, rising from a place long forgotten, buried under years of rubble. Aisha. Meaning alive. Arun. Meaning dawn. Against the same wall as yesterday, Marius lounges, gazes longingly at the blood drying on Armand’s cheeks. For the first time in five hundred years, Armand looks at Marius, and feels only anger. 

***

The anger, of course, dissipates as his mind retreats towards Venice. Hands upon hands on him. Nothing but white-hot rod of pain splintering his body in half. Hunger strong enough that he almost remembers the Hindustani his mother spoke, almost remembers the words to the prayers. The only god in Italy is Marius, though, face whiter than the foam on top of a rolling wave. Voice like silk. Now, he raises his head from the wall and looks at Marius. 

I saved you. I gave you life. I made you. 

Yes, Maestro. Amadeo, back to his rightful place in Armand’s body. I am sorry. 

Feel of a whip on the backs of his thighs– well deserved, for his arrogance, for his anger. Of course, he knows it is not real. Amadeo floats in his mind, but Armand knows that now there is no whip, no Marius. Still, the sting blooms, doesn’t recede. What is he meant to do with the memory that does survive? How is he meant to live with it, when all he aches to do is kill it? Kill the memories of Marius? If he kills the memories of Marius, he might as well die, himself, he thinks, as he perches to look into Daniel’s apartment. Silent now, in the sheet-like spill of evening light. He wants, more than he has ever wanted anything, to go to Daniel. To bury his face in his neck and curl his legs onto Daniel’s lap. To breathe into his skin, feel his heart under his own palms. He wants to meld into Daniel, wants to place every part of himself in the space between Daniel’s ribs until he can feel Daniel’s breath careening in his own lungs. How he has never wanted anything and anyone as much as he wants Daniel. How Daniel is the one thing he cannot– must not have– the one thing he cannot bear to ruin.

In Paris, he told Louis: Donation was made in kind. Wrung his hands together, watched Louis’ face naked with feeling like watching a child shrivel their nose with disgust at a rotten piece of vegetable. Because it had been that– disgust (Armand did not want to imagine that it could have been anything else. How could anyone look at the canvas and not reel with terror at what Amadeo was? Even in his pristine beauty, he was always a ruined thing. Better to know that from the start than to be surprised later that your own blood was blackened by him)– at what Amadeo had been. At what Armand was. Is. In a decision borne of impulse pure as the first pearl gleaming inside an oyster, he had told Daniel of the first time Marius had lent him out. In Istanbul sometime in 1978, with the mosque a ten minute walk from their room, with his head on Daniel’s chest, his heart an iambic beat of da dum, da dum, da dum– music so holy it should have burned Armand– beating with the call to prayer just beginning as the sky arranged itself into a blood-orange dawn. Stilted, his recollection had been stilted. The important thing was the shame he felt for days after– at the jolt of pleasure from their touch. One inside of him, one in his mouth. A hand, not his, touching him. Marius’ persistent, undead gaze. Later, he had been whipped, for the pleasure or the fear, he still doesn't know. But he remembers now, with his wrists bleeding from his own nails, blood on his cheek never dry, the look on Daniel's face. Not pity, not compassion, but a kind of devastation. Like he'd just had the front row seat to watching his own heart be ripped out and put in a meat grinder. How could Armand not take his memories then? How could he ever want Daniel to hold on to the ugly, shattered bits of whatever his life had been, to live with it, when in his 500 years, Armand himself still did not know how to live with it. 

He looks, now, towards Marius. 

Maestro, he says, was any of it good? Before Venice? Please, I beg of you. I won't ask anything of you again. 

A lie, but when had Armand ever had use for the truth? At the very least the question was true, and he thinks, if Marius answers him, he might even keep his own word. Aisha, he thinks again, that singular name. Smell of clove. Rough palm against his. Concrete floor under their knees as they knelt to pray. 

Child, says Marius, nothing of you has ever been good. 

Amadeo shuts his eyes. He knows his lines, knows not to let the lapse show. Everything good I have, he says, practiced. You have given me. It is by your grace and yours alone. Amadeo crawls to Marius and takes his hand and kisses it. Arun screams his throat raw, nails digging into his scalp. Armand collapses against the wall Marius is sat by. Difficult, now, to keep track of the ghosts living inside him. Better to focus on the blade-like churn of his nails against his own wrist. Better to keep his eyes open. If he shuts them for long, he doesn't know where he'll end up. Stranded in a ship or back in his own body with Daniel far away. Always in a hell of his own making. Always in hell.

***

He does not know how long it has been. But he can feel Daniel’s turmoil as if it were his own. And in a way, it is, now that the same blood runs in their veins. Marius’ blood, he thinks, unbidden, and turns his eye to that same white wall to see Marius still there. He runs his thumb across the tip of his index finger. Counts his breaths. It has been some time since he has fed. He does not remember what has transpired since, just that Daniel is still as alive as he can be, if nothing else, he can feel Daniel’s anger along with his anxiety, both simmering in his own veins like grape-vines coiling together on a rusted iron gate. The only good thing among all the rot. He wants to ask: why are you still here? But he doesn’t. Afraid, still, despite Marius’ unreality. His back against the wall below the window through which he watches Daniel. Outside, night has fallen. A slow, languorous sound of thunder. He wonders whether he will die here, losing blood by his own nails. He wishes, suddenly, that he had a blade.

I am certain this house, if I may be so bold as to call it that, contains knives. But you always liked something daintier. This is why I did not want to make you. Weakness in your flesh, my child, my Amadeo. 

A slow smile on Armand’s face. He feels, inside his mind, crazed. Nothing fits– his hands too big for his body, his whole life too big for the skin that tries to encase it. In his mind lingers Delhi, and Venice, and Rome– the palazzo moulded into the greying salted floor of the ship, moulded into asphalt stretching forever– bustling streets, women in saris and men in kurtas. Familiar din of spices– clove, cinnamon, red chili. The harder he tries to grasp at the fraying seams, the more they rip. Sand flowing through fingers despite how tight the grip. What is he meant to do with it? He has no more strength in his hands to hold it, nothing left inside him except this gaping hole that wants to swallow him. How to not let it when he has wanted it for so long?

Something is twisting in Marius’ expression. Blue eyes bluer, claws somehow appearing sharper. You want to remember? You think that will cure you of the devil that inhabits you? You lay waste to my years of benevolence. Here, then. Have what you desire. Shut your eyes and fall. I will not strain my arms to catch you again.

Not of his own volition, Armand thinks, but of course the Marius in front of him is as much Armand as Amadeo and Arun. So Armand’s eyes shut and– hands on Arun’s body, not by the men on the ship, an older man, father or uncle, he does not know, eyes dark as the mud from which the mango tree sprouts, kind, even as he runs his hands on Arun’s body, under Arun’s kurta, inside his trousers. Armand gasps, opens his eyes, Marius’ smile a tiger-gleam. When he shuts his eyes again, he feels the rough-like sensation of a canvas under his fingers. Paint on his dark blue kurta. A voice rich like silk. Mahshallah, Arun! How could this have been made by human hands! Pride, pride, inside his chest. His hand in his sister’s. Both of them crouching by the bustling market near what is now Chandni Chowk, palms outstretched for stray coins, for a moment’s generosity. Later, Aisha’s heaving breaths, forehead sun-hot with fever. A woman’s hand in his own, iron-strong, then screams, her voice like a dove-call Arun! Arun! Nahi! Mera beta! Mera beta! No, my child! Arun's own screams– Ammi! Ammi! Metal-like hands on his neck, a lash on his mother's back, her blue dupatta blackened with her blood. Blood and screams torn from their throats. Then nothing. Days and days of darkness, hunger, nothing in the air but a sea-salt waif. A language that doesn’t fit inside his teeth. 

Armand opens his eyes. His nails have dug into both wrists, so deep, he swears if he moves them the bones will show. Pearly-white and clean. 

You see, Marius’ voice, clear as a river water under a pale blue sky, you were ruined from the start. Nothing in your savage blood but rot. I will not ask forgiveness for trying to protect you. It is all I have ever done. Protect you. 

The words are true, Armand knows, but Arun’s hands are shaking, his mind overrun with a language Armand has never spoken. When he opens his mouth, all that comes is a wail, piercing enough he feels the window shatter above him. Something swelling in the bond between him and Daniel– the moment when the conductor’s hands suspend in the air, right before they fall to his sides– the orchestra’s crescendo and then nothing but blessed, blessed silence. 

***

Daniel feels that the glass will break before it does. Feels, in his blood, a panic– not panic. Too weak a word. Feels in his blood a doomed storm, rising, rising, despair, anguish, no word in the English language enough to describe it– this pressing wave gurgling, the shatter of glass. He knows it is Armand’s like he knows the blood in his veins, like he knows the tremors in his hands. He knows the inside of Armand’s heart like he knows his own. Blood of his blood. Flesh of his flesh. It is not instinct but a knowledge that lies deep within him– older than him, pressed into the marrow of his bones since the moment he came to this earth– that leads him to his window– that makes him look until he sees the familiar head– curled halo of black hair. He sees Armand’s arms raise in the sky, then fall. The silver thread of their bond trembles, and trembles. Daniel runs. 

***

The door gives under his shoulder. He wonders how no one has called the cops for all the breakage of glass. When he opens the door, he finds Armand with his head against a clean white wall. Shards of glass in his hair, Daniel can see thanks to the new vision. And god– god– the blood on his clothes– green shirt stained. He looks weakened– circles under his eyes, on his wrist– god, how, Daniel wonders, swallows down bile. 

“Armand,” he says, “Baby–”

And Armand– scrambles– falls to the floor with his arms outstretched– Christ bleeding on the cross– no penance in sight. 

Armand shakes as he crawls over to Daniel. “You can’t,” he begins. “Please, you can’t. I can’t– He– please.”

Daniel kneels next to him, stretches his hand to touch him but Armand flinches, bats away his hand, his eyes drifting to the wall he just abandoned. 

“Please,” Armand says and Daniel does not know who he is talking to, “Maestro, not him. Please.”

Something cold taking over Daniel’s body, like being plunged in a glacier with no way to see land. 

“Armand,” he says, wishes the shake in his hand was due to Parkinson's. “You are in New York. It is 2022. You are Armand.”

Armand looks at him, unseeing, then it is as if the sun is leaking through dark grey storm clouds. Something certain on Armand's face as he grasps Daniel's hands with his own blood-ridden ones. Runs his fingers over Daniel's knuckles, presses his dry lips to his palm.

“You should not be here.”

“No, shit." Daniel replies, “You left me. And you look like a fucking three year old could knock you over. When was the last time you fed?”

“I do not need it as–”

“Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. Who the fuck are you calling Maestro? Should we add hallucinations to the thousands of symptoms you already have?”

The thing is, Daniel is terrified. He is terrified of what Armand has done to himself, of the idea that he might lose Armand in any way that matters. And when he is terrified, all he knows is anger.

Armand is shaking his head, eyes back to that wall, hands trembling.

“You must go.”

“No way in hell.”

“I do not want you here.”

Daniel scoffs. “The fuck you don't.” He might even have believed it if not for the way Armand continues to clutch his hands in his own, his fingers tracing Daniel's palm with a kind of awe that makes Daniel's undead heart beat like a war-drum, like thunder.

Daniel, unable to help himself, cards his fingers through Armand's hair. Armand's eyes shut. Softly, he says, “I won't let him. I won't let anyone. Hurt you. Please, beloved, you have to go.”

“You think I can– you think you can say that shit to me and then just expect me to waltz outta here? Baby, I thought you knew me better.”

A shock of laughter from Armand, he stands up, and takes Daniel with him. Turns back to the empty wall. 

“I know,” he says, “Please. I know what I am. But I want to be his.”

Something breaking inside Daniel's chest, as he watches, for a moment in pure stilled horror as Armand's head falls to the side, as he falls to his knees, hands clawing at his face, at his already bleeding wrist.

Armand gasps, and Daniel wrenches his arms and holds them to himself, presses his wet face to his own shoulder. 

“No one is here.” Daniel says. “You are mine already. If you think you belong to anyone else, baby, you've got a surprise coming. You were mine since the first time I saw you and you're mine now.” Ridiculous, these words when it took Daniel years to remember Armand. True, still, he knows. The truest thing he knows about himself is Armand.

In his arms, Armand is a fawn running from a hunter. In his arms, Armand is the hunter itself. But before anything, he is Daniel's. That much Daniel knows, has always known. The world could fall on its hinges, buildings crushed to the floor, Daniel could lose his entire mind and forget his language and still he would know that Armand belongs to him and he, to Armand.

“Shh,” Daniel whispers, and carries Armand home.

***

Armand is in Daniel's home, he realises. He's on the sofa. It's dark-green, plush like fresh moss. Daniel is wiping the blood from his face, his wrists. Then, Daniel's wrist pressed to Armand's mouth, when it should be the other way around. 

“Just drink,” Daniel is saying.

“I– you should be drinking from me. I'm your maker.”

A laugh from Daniel. “Baby, if you can stand upright for two seconds, I'll drink from you.”

“Insolent.” Armand says, “You're insolent.”

“Yeah, that's not a surprise. Just shut up now and drink.”

Armand obeys.

***

The bath is warm. For the first time in– weeks? Armand feels a semblance of reality returning to his body. Fucking poetic– that Daniel is the one to bring the reality to him. It fits, Armand thinks, as Daniel is the only reality Armand wants to turn towards and not away from. The only reality that beats joy in his heart. Daniel is sitting on the edge of his tub, something unreadable on his face. As if he wants to pluck his fingers into Armand's mind and take. There is nothing in here worth taking, Armand wants to say but the words melt into ash in his throat. He flits his eyes through the bathroom. Finds Marius isn't here. Relief in his bones, and then the familiar guilt at the relief. Tugs his nails into the blue vein on his wrists. 

“Stop, stop that.” Says Daniel, calloused, wrinkled hands grabbing Armand's own.

“I am sorry. Sincerely.” Armand says. He has lapsed. Unforgivable, for this to happen in front of Daniel. Tuck back the memories. Contorts his features into anything resembling sane.

“Stop that too.” Says Daniel. “You haven't been sincere about a thing in your shitty life. Don't lie to me now.”

Armand can't help the laughter. His Daniel. His boy. Beautiful and cruel fascinating and his whole reason for living. Daniel smiles back at him. “You wanna tell me why you ran outta here when everything was going dandy? Actually I think I answered that question on my own.”

Armand shakes his head. Clasps the edges of the bathtub tighter. Palms against smooth white porcelain. The seams of his self stitched carefully but temporarily. One wrong nail in a loose stitch and Marius will reappear in the corner. Face bright in the room's unforgiving light. Claws sharpened against Amadeo’s skin. 

“I was doing what was best for you.” Armand says.

“Bullshit. You don’t get to decide that. Not again, Armand.”

Armand doesn't say anything. Daniel sighs, then leaves the bathroom. Comes back with a mug full of blood the way Armand warmed it in the one week they shared.

“Drink,” says Daniel. “I'm asking you to drink.”

Armand cannot deny him, would never want to. 

***

Days of this: stark-white moonlight lighting the dark oak floor of Daniel’s flat. Thelonius Monk on the record player as Daniel sits on the dining table in front of his laptop, typing, researching– the world for him neverending unknowing that he is Armand’s entire universe. Armand who sits next to his chair sometimes, starts trying to build the Jama Masjid on Minecraft before trying to sketch it on paper. His prayer rug neat in the corner. Daniel’s hands on his waist as they move to the music. Soft swaying steps. Daniel’s laughter in his mouth as he moves inside Armand. Armand’s own mouth only ever forming Daniel’s name, legs around his waist, arms around his shoulders. Wanting to hold on, forever. Eternity, never promised, even to a monster like him. A life built between unsteady hands. But a life, nonetheless. 

***

Of course, the problem with unsteady hands is that, at some point, they drop whatever they have held. It is a Tuesday when it happens. A day alarming in its normalcy. Armand wakes with Daniel already having gone to see Louis and Lestat. He quashes his feelings– guilt and fear and envy and guilt and guilt and shame, stands near the window to see the handful of visible starts– Ursa Major starting to show itself slowly. He stands and he closes his eyes– feels a kind of pleasant hum behind his ribcage, through his undead heart, when he smells it– the smell of water– sea-brine, and sea-weed, salt and lemon-scent yellowing in the air. He does not know where it comes from but for a small shattering moment, New York turns to Venice. The mug drops from his hands, and he’s back in New York. Cleaning Daniel’s floor, thanking Allah that this spot did not have any carpet. When he goes to wash the mug, he finds him– Marius, sat on Daniel’s favourite chair in the dining room– the one that leans back to kiss the wall– the one that Daniel sits in and types, swings back and forth upon. 

Armand says, No.

Will you beg?

I will do anything. If you leave. Please. Please.

Why should I? Are you not standing here because of me? Are you not alive and able because of me?

All I am, is because of you. But I ask you to leave him out of it.

How can I? You made him. Is he not mine too?

No, Armand thinks, shouts. Doesn't notice the glass on Daniel’s window collapsing. The small shake of the ground underneath him. He is not yours. He is mine. To love. To hold. I will never hurt him. 

You think it does not hurt him to wake each morning and look at you? To know what you did to him? You think it did not hurt him when you stole his memories? When you stole his life? I never stole anything from you, Amadeo. I only gave. 

Armand shuts his eyes, nails digging into his cheeks, blood on the t-shirt he is wearing. Daniel’s. What do you want, he begs. What do you want of me? I have nothing left to give. I never had anything. 

I have left you to your devices too long, child. You have forgotten where you come from. 

Armand laughs, manic. Hands in his hair now, a dizzying kind of light around him, his mind as if breaking open at the center, all threads interwoven yet splintering in the middle. I have just remembered where I have come from. I do not wish– I do not wish this anger yet it is all I feel. Aisha. Aisha. You kept her from me. You kept me from her. 

She was dead. 

She was still mine!

She was nothing! You were nothing! Lowly, servant-bred. Half-mad. They did not create you. I created you. You seem to forget that when your poor excuse for a fledgling takes you in his arms, on his cock. You deign to think he could love you like I have? You dare to take his name and mine in one breath?

Don’t. Armand says. Shivering, he realises, he is shivering. Don’t speak of him like that. 

Ah, he seems to have grown wings. 

I cannot forget you. Armand says, pleading, always pleading. Forgive me, Maestro. I love him. Forgive me. 

Amadeo, that silken voice, those eyes, empty like the barrel of a gun. Amadeo, my child, my cherub, you are my greatest pleasure and my most beautiful shame. Some days, I regret taking you from the brothel. When you break my heart with those words, yet, I cannot stop loving you. Such is my curse. 

Most days, Maestro, I wish you hadn’t taken me from the brothel, either. 

Do you know now? The answer you have been seeking? What I want from you?

Armand opens his eyes. On Daniel’s chair, his Master lingers, face cold as grey-slate in the winter, smooth as sheets of ice. Yes. He says. My love, whatever of it I am capable of having, I have given to Daniel. But my life– my life is what you gave me. Now, you want my death. My blood. 

It is the only way, cherub, to keep him safe. 

It cannot be, Armand wants to scream. I want him, he wants to shout, petulant– greedy like a child, and like a child he feels, stretching his palms to grasp as many mangoes as he could– another unbidden memory here– peeling those mangoes with Aisha– sinking their teeth in. The thread of the mango seed (called guthli, he knows) hanging from their teeth. Only laughter. Only ever laughter when they were together, even in illness, there was laughter. But here, he has broken Daniel’s window. Marius has taken Daniel’s home. He cannot, will not, break Daniel again. 

So, Armand heads to the bathroom– and he shreds himself. The sharpest knife he can find, the bath-tub filled with water that begins to turn pink. He does not know what he is doing. The tide inside of him rising with each cut– and god, there are many. May Allah forgive him for this, he thinks, Please, may Allah hold Daniel in mercy and love; blade pressed on his thigh, his stomach, his arm, his veins, the only thing whole is Daniel’s t-shirt lying on the edge of the bath-tub. Unwilling audience, but present, nonetheless, present as Marius begins to fade from his vision, a finality in his face. Like the first time had had fucked Arun in the bath– had licked his tears, had shushed him. Had said, I will call you Amadeo. You are loved, beloved of god. Finality in his face then too, and the realisation– you are mine, mine forever. 

***

This time, when Daniel feels the nothingness– static– not the aftermath of a crescendo but the sheer lack of it– he knows it is Armand. For the second time, he runs. 

***

“Fucking hell, you fucking– Armand.” Daniel says, tries not to howl at the red in the tub. Armand is breathing, still, some of his wounds already healed but his hands seem to tear them open of their own volition. Rushes, he rushes to them. Please, he thinks, can only think in pleas. Panic like claws of a tiger grasping his wrist, hands shaking like Parkinson’s is back in his body, the familiar feel of the medicine river-smooth clogging his throat. And all the smell of blood, Christ, so much of it. Still, he slices his wrist, presses it to Armand’s slack mouth, tries to press it to his wounds. 

“He was here, wasn’t he, in your mind, in our home.” Stupid of Daniel to not bring up the hallucinations before. He realised of course, even if Louis never did. Had a hunch during the interview that only became truer when he saw Armand in that flat he had acquired to stalk Daniel. Old habits. How many times was he there when I fucked you? He wants to ask, but at the moment, Armand seems incapable of words, or thought. Daniel watches the wounds close, curses all he can think of to curse– Marius, God, Louis, Lestat, himself, Armand. What good does it do? What good does any of it do? Something to occupy his mind as he tries not to think of oblivion. Tries not to fall into it. Black hole, Armand had said. Yet, he cannot seem to be able to swallow Armand into himself. Cannot seem to keep him. 

***

Armand wakes. Armand wakes, and he cannot seem to keep the scream inside his throat, or the sobs in his lungs. 

***

They sleep through the next day– drink blood from the bags. Neither of them capable of talking. Twist of Daniel’s mouth imprinted in Armand’s mind, like black ink on white muslin. Mercifully, Marius does not linger anywhere. 

On Thursday, with the scythe moon hanging in the empty black sky, and the record player teeming with My Funny Valentine in Ella Fitzgerland’s voice– rich and heavy like gold left in the sun-rays, Daniel sits down next to Armand on their sofa. Passes him a mug warmed with blood. He has not hunted, seeming unwilling to leave Armand to his own devices. 

“You seem to be itching to say something, beloved.” Armand says, sighs, accepts the mug as his due. 

“You think?” Says Daniel, acerbic tone, betrayed by the way his hands linger on Armand’s knees, his calf. 

“Why?” Daniel says, pleads, before Armand can say anything at all. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Armand. I won’t take it. Why did you do it? Why didn’t you tell me about Marius?”

“You knew?” Brief flash of surprise in Armand, then awe. His beautiful boy. Too smart for his own good.

“Yeah. I’m not Louis. I know where to look.”

“And when.”

“How long did he–” Daniel taps the edge of the glasses he still wears, despite not needing him. Taps them with his index and middle fingers. Press of old comforts. “Was he here when we came together?”

“When we fucked you mean?” Armand says, amused. 

“Yes.” Frustration from Daniel, yet fondness underneath. Armand will never know what he has done to deserve this. 

“No,” he says, presses his fingers to his shirt-sleeves. Daniel’s Queen shirt. “He wasn’t there in the 70s either. Since that was going to be your next question. He usually– that is I– I never saw him when I was with you. Thus, I was– unprepared– when he came that day.”

“Unprepared.”

“I am sorry.”

“No, you’re fucking not.”

Armand sighs. He is tired, no more anger left in him. In its place a sort of cleaving hollowness– like a dried out well. “What would you have me say, Daniel? What is it that I can do to revert us to our good fortune?”

“Good fortune,” Daniel parrots. “You wouldn’t know good fortune if it hit you in the fucking face.” 

Armand snorts, to his own surprise. His eyes widen as he presses his palm to his mouth. Daniel’s eyes light in glee, he throws his head back and laughs. 

“Baby,” Daniel says, softer now, as if a reminder of Armand’s discrepancies make him only more affectionate. “Just talk to me. I just want you, baby. Just tell me.”

“Ever the journalist. I didn’t think you’d beg.”

“I’ve begged you before.”

“Hm. Not for this.”

“You wouldn’t have entertained me for this.”

“I can entertain you with other things, beloved.”

A laugh from Daniel, brighter than the blinking moon. “Not right now. Do I need to prepare for this to happen again?”

“No.” Armand says. “He’s– gone. I know it.”

“Does Louis know?”

“No.”

Daniel raises an eyebrow. “77 years and you didn't think to tell him you hallucinated your Daddy Maker Maestro?”

Despite himself, Armand flinches. These continued lapses, since Daniel brought him back, irk him. But they do not seem to cause any distress to Daniel. “Louis chose to hide from me the presence of his maker during the entirety of our relationship. My…dealings with Marius were far lesser. Usually only after Louis and I argued, or a scene went– badly.”

A sparkle of anger behind Daniel's eyes– protective on Louis’ behalf, Armand knows. He tries not to let it feel like betrayal, curls his hands into fists, anyway. 

“There's nothing Louis could do to you that you wouldn't deserve.”

Armand’s eyes shut before he can stop them. A shard of pain moves across his chest and sparks bright blue behind his eyes. “I know.” He says, opens his eyes. “All I meant to say was that Marius only appears when I have– when I have–”

“Something to repent for.” Daniel finishes.

Armand can't help his smile. “You don't even need the mind gift, beloved.”

Daniel's index finger begins drawing mindless shapes onto Armand's calf where it rests on Daniel's lap. A circle, a triangle, then a butterfly. 

“Are you done repenting? For leaving me?” Says Daniel.

“No,”Armand says, smiles, “but it doesn't feel like a chore with you. It never has.”

“Why did you leave? No bullshit, I can smell it on you. Always could.”

“Yes. My least favourite thing about you.”

Daniel laughs, a little cruel, but largely teasing. Armand's most treasured sound.“Liar.” He says.

“I left because you– in your sleep you said my name and it sounded so fond. I am not a thing that deserves fondness, Daniel. This is why I erased your memories. This is why I left. Except, I am selfish too, so I came back.”

For a moment, Daniel stays very quiet, his fingers stopping their movement. Then he leans forward, hand on the back of Armans's neck, and kisses him, slow like dripping honey. Everything around them is quiet. Armand presses his palm to Daniel's chest, takes unbelievable pleasure in the hymn on Daniel's heartbeat da dum, da dum, da dum, thinks, if I can love anything, please, let me love him in a way that matters, in a way that does not harm. 

***

“What does he say to you? Marius?” Daniel asks the next night after he comes back from a hunt, feeling through the bond, Armand’s safety– unsteady, but present– a fawn learning to walk on trembling legs. He presses his wrist to Armand’s mouth and doesn’t take no for an answer. 

Armand lights a cigarette after. Both of them standing outside in the balcony, watching the city drift from silence to wakefulness– never stilling. 

“He doesn’t say anything, anymore. He’s gone.”

“When he’s there, smartass.”

Armand shrugs. He’s found that he’s unable to correct these small moments of his body– he shrugs, these days, involuntarily, finds himself snorting when he laughs, or brushing his fingers in his hair. He wonders if he’s splitting apart at the seams but he’s never felt more held. More compact. “Mostly, he– scolds me.” And the honesty, too, is new. Armand would think Daniel was playing with his mind but he doesn’t feel any of it. Just Daniel’s unrelenting presence– through the bond and apart from it– a touch to his back, a hand on his shoulder, a kiss on his hair. All, seemingly, without reason. Each day, he wonders what he has done to deserve it. But this wondering, too, comes without distress. He doesn’t know why. But for now, he ceases these questions. Lets himself bask in Daniel’s radiance. 

“Scolds you? For what?”

“Forgetting him. Don’t look at me like that– I know it isn’t real. His presence. It was a comfort– when it happened earlier– in Dubai or elsewhere.”

“But not anymore. Why?”

“Daniel. You must know.”

“Say it anyway.” Daniel grins, his eyes fire-like, lit by the orange ember of his cigarette. They gleam. Armand wants to kiss him and never stop. 

“I was– afraid– I never wanted him to be around you. To.. well.”

“To hurt me.”

Armand twirls his cigarette between his fingers. “Yes.”

“How would he have done that? I’m asking for logistical reasons. If you know he wasn’t real.”

Armand laughs, so fond, he could almost die with it. “It was more– I was worried he’d say certain things to me that would make me re-evaluate my….usefulness, or my lack of usefulness, to you. Mostly, I just never wanted to see him next to you.”

“Because he hurt you.”

Frustrated now, despite the fondness. “No, Daniel. He saved me.”

“You still believe that? After you tore yourself to pieces to get rid of him? Oh, yeah, I can catch up, baby. Don’t think I didn’t notice you looking for him when you were half dead. Don’t think I noticed how relieved you were when you didn’t see him.”

Armand falters, the cigarette bumps into his wrist and he grimaces. “He– he gave me my life.” He says, quiet. “I think he wanted my death too. And I– if that was the price to save you– then I would pay it gladly. A million times over.” 

“Except you wouldn’t have died.”

“No,” He pauses, turns away from Daniel. “I wasn’t– I wasn’t in my mind. I just wanted him to stop.”

“Baby,” Daniel says, moves to wrap his arms around Armand’s waist, his chin on Armand’s shoulder. “I am safe with you. Even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t give a single shit. I can hold my own.”

Armand laughs, breathes, breathes, breathes, to take in Daniel’s scent. Fresh like the first blood at dawn, like a sprawling yard of ripe mango trees. 

***

Daniel’s questions don’t stop. Armand would feel like an insect pinned under a scalpel if it wasn’t for the way Daniel asks them– always touching him, when he does. A hand on his ankle, his chin on Armand’s head. Armand cannot tell what he prefers– pinned under a scalpel or touched with this intentioned grace. 

Saturday: After they leave a performance of Turandot, Armand almost in tears by the end, and feed on a couple with a habit of locking their seven year old in a cupboard when she cries, and hitting her when she doesn’t stop. As they stroll along the park, fed and content, hands intertwined, Daniel asks: 

“So he hit you?”

Armand hums, swings their hands a bit. “I– Marius was often kind, but Amadeo was quite a handful.” 

“Not Marius,” says Daniel, clicks his teeth. “But that’s good to know. More reasons for me to imagine ripping dick off and then feeding it to him.”

Armand breathes in and out, for a moment– counts in his head, Urdu ready on his tongue– ek, do, teen, char, paanch. “You mean to ask regarding Louis.”

“Yes.”

“You saw– in Dubai.” 

“Excepting that. He hit you any other time?”

“Only once or twice. As you said, I deserved it.” Armand pauses. Then: “I wish you wouldn’t speak of my maker in that language.”

Daniel rolls his eyes, but tightens his grip on Armand’s hand. They continue walking. Armand, despite the questions, feels only a kind of relief– a kind of settled peace. Like seeing the sun after days of storm. 

“What did you do?” Says Daniel.

“To be quite honest, my love, I don’t remember. I bore it as my due for my part in Claudia’s demise.”

“Your part? Baby, you did the whole thing.”

Armand swallows but somehow does not look away. “I know.”

They stop at a bench and Daniel sits down, pulls Armand's hand so he sits next to him.

Armand feels slightly unsettled, now, like the last patch of dust remaining on an otherwise pristine table. He says, “You know I wouldn't. Harm you again, in that manner.”

Daniel laughs, pulls Armand closer to him, detangles their hands so he can put an arm around his shoulders. “I know.” Then, “You'd let me though. Hit you, if I was mad.”

Armand wonders if this is a test. He doesn't know the right answer. The nail of his right thumb presses into his left palm. He waits for the pain, then says, “Would you like for me to be honest?”

“Yes. Even if you think it'll upset me.” Daniel says, then sighs as he grabs Armand's hand. “Stop that, baby. This isn't a test.”

It's all a test. Armand wants to say. You'll leave anyway, I just want to make this last. He says, “Yes, I would.” Then, “I would deserve it from you, as well.”

Daniel’s mouth tilts upward in a smile– the edge of it catching the moonlight. Here he looks holy and debauched all the same– Icarus going head-first into the sun. “You would. But I’m only interested in hurting you when you want it.”

“I did want it,” Armand says, tries not to grit his teeth. “I didn’t stop him because I did want it.”

“Deserving and wanting are two different things. He shouldn’t have done it anyway.”

“Does it matter?” Armand says honestly. The moonlight flickers across the silver-maple tree. If he squints his eyes it feels like the tree is weeping in silver tendrils. 

“Christ, everytime I think I understand 10% of what goes in your fucked up little head, you just gotta prove me wrong, don’t you.”

Armand laughs, “I don’t think I understand what goes on in my head, dear.”

Daniel looks at him, a hint of surprise in his clear eyes which bloom blue like a June sky. “You’re more honest these days. Like Clinton during his penance period.”

Armand shakes his head, can’t bring himself to stop smiling, presses closer to Daniel. “You’re the one whose head is so fascinating.”

“Yeah, a whole lot of good that did me."

Armand hums, runs his fingers over Daniel’s knuckles, the soft paper-skin of his hand. “I love you.” He says. It's the easiest thing he’s ever done. Not that it did Daniel any good. Daniel presses his smile into Armand’s hair anyway.

***

Daniel’s questions only increase. On the sofa, their limbs tangled. Parks and Recreation on the television because it makes Armand laugh. 

“So, Marius hit you.” Says Daniel. 

Armand groans, another lapse but his counting has decreased. “What does it matter?”

“You think it doesn’t matter what your daddy did to you?”

“I was a vile child.” 

“So was I.”

“Your father did hit you.” Armand says softly.

“Yeah,” Daniel says, “I deserve it?”

“Of course not.”

“But you did. Got it. Because you’re just soo special.”

“You do not understand, Daniel. They were– times were different. I– I cannot speak of–” Armand stopped, his hands clutching his biceps. Thumb dragging over them. “I cannot reveal to you what it was like before him because I cannot reveal it to myself. Still, somehow, it is there, everyday in my mind. I was a dead body before Marius, Daniel. If you threw me in the ocean then I simply would have sunk.”

Daniel breathes in slowly, his hands have clenched into his sides. “Aisha.” He says. “You say that name in your sleep sometimes.”

The anger pierces Armand then. He hasn’t felt in some time, not since Marius left. But here it is again, ant-like crawl over his whole body. “What of her?”

“Who is she?”

Armand laughs. “You– what do you want from me?” He doesn’t realise he has stood up until his calf touches their coffee table. His body thrums, with what, he does not know. Daniel’s eyes, in the lamp light, are incredibly soft. 

“I want to know you.”

“What is there worth knowing?” He is shouting now. “Fine. Do you want this as well? She was my sister, I think. I cannot remember but I saw her when I ran from you. She died and I could not save her. I had a mother, I had–”

Here, another memory. The same man, his hair dark around his face, his mouth lined with string-thin lines. Smiling as he calls to Arun. Idhar aao, bacche. Dekho mein kya laaya hoon. Shahi tukda, mahal se. Come here, child. Shahi tukda from the palace. He must work at the Mughal courts. Armand says to Arun. Servant probably. For Babur. Arun doesn't hear any of this. Consumed as he is by the sweets the man feeds him, pulls him into his lap. Kisi ko mat batana. He says. Do not tell anyone. 

Arun's voice, small. Aisha ke liye le jaaoon? Can I take some for Aisha? The memory splinters here, delicacy of sweetness in his mouth and the man’s hand on his body, never forceful but present. There is no pleasure but there is no pain. Arun thinks how happy the sweet would make Aisha. Arun does not remember this later, when there is only– dark dark dark, where is Armand now, when Arun's mouth is so empty but something is inside him, pain, only pain, tearing, knife sharp. Daniel's voice. Daniel. Daniel.

“Armand,” Daniel is saying, grasping at Armand's hands which have begun to claw at his face. When did that happen?

“Baby,” Daniel says, “here.” And then he is pressing Armand's teeth to his neck and grabbing Armand's wrist, pressing his own teeth to Armand's veins. 

Armand's mind swims. A woman in a sky-blue sari, the pallu draped over her head, green bangles on her wrists, black hair fine on her arms. Her lips pressing to Arun and Aisha’s hair. Chalo ammi ki madad karo khana banane mein. Help Ammi to make food. She says, her voice honey-sweet, and just as warm. A man with stark white hair, a brush in Arun's hands, blue and white on the paper, then a scalpel in Arun's hands as he carved the onyx to create verses from the Qur'an, as he carves ruby to create flowers, pays no mind to the sting on his fingers. Mahshallah! Says the voice, rising tide of pride in it. Insan ye kaise bana sakta hai! How can a human make this. Sea-weed smell in Arun's lungs and then the bath. Pale hands and golden hair slipping in the water, does Amadeo cry as he is entered? But there is a hand on him in a way he doesn't remember feeling. He is no longer Arun and not yet Amadeo. He is nothing but Marius’. Scent of fire– Marius' ash, Daniel's hand in his. Armand gasps against Daniel's throat, clings to him. Both drinking from the other. Flesh and flesh and blood and blood. No other universe but the place where their bodies touch. His memories belong to them both now. Armand cannot tell where he ends and Daniel begins. 

***

Daniel leans against the balcony wall and spreads his legs. Armand sits between them, as Daniel presses a cigarette to Armand's mouth, lights it with his mind. Pride swelling inside him, blooming like spring flowers.

Armand inhales, says, “You saw.”

“I did.”

“There was a man– before– I didn't remember –”

“I know.”

“You saw that too?”

“Barely,” Daniel says, his voice rough but his heart beats steady against Armand's back. 

“I was– it wasn't bad. But I was impure from the start.”

“The impurity is not yours baby, it's theirs. This is not your burden.”

Armand laughs a bit, inhales the smoke and passes the cigarette to Daniel. “Of course it is my burden.”

“Because they made it yours. All of them. Marius. I'd kill them all.”

“Even if I did not let you?”

“Yes. Because I love you.”

“Marius kept her from me.” Armand says, voice unsteady. “I had a sister.”

Daniel's lips press to the top his spine, his arm around Armand's chest. “She loved you so much.”

“I did not deserve it.”

“What the fuck does deserve have anything to do with it, Armand? She loved you. That's yours. And he took it. I'll never forgive him. For you."

Armand laughs, then begins to sob. Listening to his own words in Daniel’s mouth. She was mine, he thinks, I loved her, I know this like I know the feeling of your blood inside me. I loved her and now I love you. Broken, ruined, love that it is. Through their bond, he feels Daniel’s love– aggressive and fierce and protective– iron-strong and desert-hot. Daniel kisses him with it, tasting of smoke and blood and everything worth living for. 

***

Later, Daniel is moving inside him, pressing his teeth into Armand's neck, his chest, whispering you are so beautiful, baby, so perfect, I love you. Armand wishes he could crack open Daniel's chest and live inside him so he'd only breathe when Daniel breathed, so he'd only see through Daniel's eyes. But then Daniel wraps his hands around Armand's throat and Armand can feel Daniel's pulse beat inside him, can feel him when he presses his hand to his stomach. His entirety consumed with Daniel. Daniel above him, and inside him. Now, before, forever. Time is nothing but the place where their bodies join together. Armand thinks, this is enough.