Chapter Text
It doesn’t seem prudent to stick around too close to the scene of the crime, but they still swing around to get a peek at the nightclub from afar. Just enough to see that there’s four police cruisers parked outside of it with their lights flashing and no less than two ambulances tending to the herd of people milling outside in the cold.
“I’d kill to know what story they’re telling the cops,” Daniel mutters out of the side of his mouth.
“No, I don’t think you killed him,” Armand says and then bursts out laughing at his own joke, which isn’t really a joke by anyone sober’s definition of the word. Daniel has to usher him away before they start getting weird looks, but he can’t help the stubborn twist of his own smile.
“You are such a lightweight,” he scoffs, his hand wrapped around Armand’s upper arm to keep him from wandering off. He doesn’t seem to mind a little manhandling. This is actually the best mood Daniel’s seen him in perhaps ever, maybe barring the stretch of time when he still thought he and Daniel were going to hunt Wall Street suits together.
“You have no idea how much I’ve had to drink,” Armand counters, turning to pick a piece of lint off of the front of Daniel’s shirt. It makes him list sideways as they walk, so he’s leaning against Daniel’s shoulder like a cat stretched out across a sofa. The center of attention, but in a way that almost seems incidental. “Or my ability to cope with it.”
“You’re right. I have no idea the extent of your wicked and potent vampiric powers.”
He snorts. “Now you’re humoring me,” he says tartly, perching his chin on Daniel’s shoulder. “You can continue.”
It’s nice. It’s even pleasantly warm, from the combined stolen body heat of their meals, not to mention the lingering heat from the club.
It’s also a crash-out waiting to happen. Armand may be basking in the glow of attention now, but there’s no way he’s a happy drunk. Daniel’s the one who pulled him out of the drunk tank in the first place. There aren’t thick enough rose-tinted glasses in the world to forget how that one went.
But is it bad he wants to live in the moment just a little longer?
“Hey. C’mon,” Daniel says. His grip slips down Armand’s arm to grab him by the hand and tug him in the right direction. It worked in the nightclub, and it’s starting to feel kind of right. “I’ve got an idea.”
The thing is, buying forgiveness isn’t always a bad thing. He’ll stand by that. Sure, sometimes the flowers came too late or the girls’ Christmas presents were a couple of years out of date from what their interests were, but sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes the date night to that nice Italian place helped and sometimes he got a hug and a halfway-sincere thanks, Dad from a birthday gift, especially once he both started making real money and discovered the joys of gift cards. People like gifts.
And he hasn’t forgotten Armand and his bee cookie. He stared at the head on the nightstand when he went to bed the day before. He didn’t have the heart to throw it out, which is stupid, because it’s definitely attracting ants, but so it goes. He’s doing a lot of stupid things lately.
The point is: the Apple store on 5th Avenue is open 24 hours.
It stands like a glass obelisk to modernity, opulence, and late-stage capitalism. The Daniel Molloy of the past would have had a lot to say about lithium mines and over-consumption, but that kid had a lot to say about everything. He still grew up into a guy who likes his iPhone-Whatever-Pro because it has a big screen and connects with his AirPods so he can listen to NPR on the train. And also he kills people. Not much moral high ground left to stand on these days.
Armand loves it, of course.
He descends the spiral staircase into the subterranean store like a supervillain, slowly taking one glass step at a time as his hand glides along the railing, his eyes sparkling as he takes in the expanse of overpriced electronics. “This is amazing,” he murmurs. “What do people say? ‘Like Disney World’?”
Daniel follows much less gracefully as he tries not to slip, his shoes still wet from the snowy sidewalk. Vampiric reaction times as they are, maybe he’d be able to catch himself before anyone noticed. But also maybe not. He’s still getting the hang of this stuff. “You have not been to Disney World,” he scoffs.
“I have so.” Armand throws him a dirty look over his shoulder. “Louis and I had multiple investment properties in Florida.”
“And you went to Disney World?” He tries to imagine it and fails. Or succeeds, but it’s insane. All he can think about is Louis surreptitiously eating pigeons at the Food & Wine Festival while Armand stalks around in Mickey ears. What the hell did they do there? Ride Space Mountain?
“I wanted to see what was so enchanting about the mouse,” Armand says darkly, which does nothing to clear up the situation. His tone implies that he still doesn’t understand the enduring charms of Mickey Mouse.
Luckily they make it to the store floor before they can dig into that subject any further. A conversation for another time, maybe once Louis is feeling more magnanimous, which Daniel assumes has to happen sooner or later. He so, so hopes there’s pictures.
“You’re getting a phone, for starters,” Daniel says, taking charge of the situation before Armand can wander off into the endless expanse of white walls and pale wood. “So I can, you know, call you next time instead of running all over the damn city looking for you.” Or track his location. He’s honestly not sure how to turn that feature on, but they do it on TV all the time. It must be a thing. “And whatever else you want. My treat.”
Armand’s eyes flash to him, both wary and bright with cat-like glee. “Anything?”
He shrugs. “Why not? Get an iPad for each hand. Go nuts.”
It’s a dangerous order to give, but not in the way Daniel was expecting. He thought they’d wreck the store and his bank account in one fell swoop, but he’s learning a lot tonight, and the foremost lesson is that a drunk Armand wouldn’t know the word focus if it showed up and hit him upside the head.
Daniel had intended to let him loose and wait on a bench at the front of the store. A familiar place for the uninterested husband to post-up and wait it out, a move that he knows well. It’s a good vantage point to watch as employee after employee approaches and strikes out as Armand wanders aimlessly up and down the rows of electronics, somehow both engrossed in what he’s seeing and entirely incapable of choosing one of them. By the fourth employee to slink off and regroup with the rest of the herd at the Genius Bar, probably to hash out their next plan of attack, Daniel is starting to feel like he unleashed something on these people.
“Find anything?” he prods, finally taking it upon himself to intercept Armand at the Apple Watch display. Armand is pointing at different watch bands, his finger floating thoughtfully between different colors. He hums without looking up.
“Didn’t really take you for a watch guy,” Daniel pushes a little more.
“Oh, yes. I used to have one in Dubai,” Armand says, his hand drifting back toward the electric blue band. His eyes flicker up and catch Daniel’s frown. “I took it off before your arrival, of course. It would hardly have fit the role I was playing.”
Daniel snorts. “Right. Rashid’s not a watch guy. Must’ve mixed you two up.”
“Nor did I want you looking at my affairs,” he adds pointedly. “The notifications can be fairly obtrusive.”
“Yeah, you’ve got me there,” Daniel admits. Fair is fair. He would’ve snooped like hell if Armand (or Fake Rashid, for that matter) had been walking around with a screen strapped to his wrist. The iPad had been tempting enough. He prods experimentally at one of the display watches. “I can only imagine it. Seven o’clock, hunt a guy for sport. Seven-thirty, redecorate the living room. Eight, rearranged my boyfriend’s memories. Busy schedule.”
It just slips out, because he can’t help but be an ass. It’s a bit Armand’s fault too for mentioning Dubai, considering that little vacation ended up with Daniel bleeding out on the floor and a whole new life of vampirism ahead of him with no roadmap on how to get there. So: complicated feelings. But maybe not the best thing to bring up on an already complicated day.
What’s that saying about teaching an old dog new tricks? He never did figure out how to keep himself out of trouble.
Armand’s eyes come up, meeting his over the display of Apple Watches. They hold each other’s gaze for a long moment, locked in a brutal stalemate.
There’s that saying about a dog with a bone too. Oops.
“We ever gonna talk about that?” Daniel prods. “By the way?”
Armand’s eyelids droop. “My relationship with Louis?” he says delicately. “Or your gleeful destruction of it?”
“Either-or.”
The corner’s of his mouth pinch. “I find myself becoming rather unpleasantly sober,” Armand drawls. “So perhaps not.”
He drifts away toward the display of iPads, leaving Daniel to trail after him, as ineffective as any of the Apple salespeople. Armand lets him, which feels like a good sign that they’re not abruptly on the outs again, but that’s all he can reliably tell. They’re in rocky territory again, but when are they not? Everything about their relationship is a goddamn mountain range of ups and downs, from Armand faking his identity as the penthouse staff to Daniel imploding his marriage to the fact that they just shut down an entire club for the night. None of this is easy.
It’s honestly the part in his marriages where Daniel passively clung on until each of his wives respectively pulled the plug, and he had to deal with the fact that he was as relieved as he was regretful. He’s never been in a position before where he was the one trying to make this work. He doesn’t really know how.
Not that this is a marriage. Is it? Fuck. It’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s thought back to himself as a husband twice in the last twenty minutes.
“Did you mean it?” Armand asks, turning abruptly so Daniel nearly bumps into him, lost in his own thoughts. Armand’s eyes are wide but scrutinizing, the row of glowing iPad screens like a dozen extra eyes watching him just as judgmentally. “What you said?”
“Uh.” What did he say again?
“Perhaps you’re right. About our bond. I am…frequently ‘the problem’.” The corners of his mouth twitch again and he swallows. It’s a big confession coming from Mr. I Could Not Prevent It, of all vampires. Maybe he’s not as sober as he thinks. “Did you mean it?” he presses.
“That I want you to come home? Yeah, I meant it.” Daniel shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and shrugs. He wants to say something shitty like I might change my mind if you kill one of my daughters or we’re kind of stuck with each other either way, don’t you think? Classic move. Run away from sincerity. Make it seem like it’s Armand’s fault when he gets mad about it. He’s thinking about those marriages again.
But he’s also thinking about Hudsyn the fucking stoner, of all people. They’ve all got their fucking baggage. Maybe it’s just about learning how to carry it.
“Listen, we are what we are,” Daniel says, an awkward start to an awkward declaration. “I mean, we were never going to be normal, right? We barely know each other—”
“Of course,” Armand agrees unnecessarily.
“—and we’re tethered to one another by the brain stem,” he goes on. “Or vampire magic, or whatever-the-fuck. I’m a nosey asshole. You’re a…well, there’s a lot of words for what you are…”
“Keep going,” Armand says flatly.
“But you’re the only maker I’ve got,” Daniel says. He shrugs. “And at the moment, I’m the only fledgling you’ve got. So yeah. I want you to come home. Even on the many, varied occasions on which you’re the problem.”
The words come out like half a joke, but that defensive distance escapes him the more he talks, softening into something dangerously close to pure unadulterated sincerity. It should make him want to run away, his heart uncomfortably close to the surface, vulnerable after three years of pushing it obstinately to the side. He doesn't need Armand. He’s made sure that he doesn't need him. He’s gotten by just fucking fine on his own.
But he wants him there. It’s not a crime to say that, is it?
“I’ve been known to be a bit of a problem myself,” Daniel offers, restless in the silence. “If you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve noticed,” Armand says a little too quickly, but it comes out fond. He’s staring at him, his eyes soft and hooded, his orange irises almost yellow in the washed-out, futuristic lighting of the Apple store, which they’re definitely still standing in the middle of as they have this conversation. Armand doesn’t seem to care. He reaches out and rests his palm against Daniel’s cheek, his thumb brushing fondly over it.
Daniel’s heart thumps painfully. A pretty human moment for an undead guy.
“I’ve never been someone’s maker before,” Armand murmurs, his hand still cupping Daniel’s cheek, his sharp thumbnail pressing gently against the skin. “A human. A fledgling. A coven leader. A lover. So many things, yet never that. It’s so very different from what I thought it would be.” He tilts his head, eyes flickering downward. “I fear I don’t know how.”
Maybe this is the bond, the magnetic pull lodged deep in Daniel’s chest, the need to be closer, to lean into his touch, still with the ghost of warmth from the fresh blood in his veins. It makes him feel a bit like a dog on a leash, tethered but happy to be there, all the bite domesticated out of him. It’s not the Daniel from Dubai, who still had teeth and was scared enough to use them. Maybe that’s okay. Fuck that guy. He’s been worse things than a dog, and Armand’s regard is like a warm hearth. He didn’t realize how long he’d been scratching at the door, waiting to be let in.
Daniel grabs his wrist, but doesn’t pull it away. His thumb presses against the inside of Armand’s wrist, against the pulse. “Could figure it out,” he offers. “Can’t be that hard.”
Armand tips his chin upwards, his lips parted, somewhere between surprise and enchantment. “Perhaps so,” he murmurs.
“Hey guys!”
Record scratch. They’re still—yeah, they’re still in the middle of an Apple Store.
“Anything I can help you find?” An employee with a name tag that reads Sarah and a desperate air of customer service about her stands a safe distance away. The surface of her mind confirms that she was elected democratically to go break up whatever the fuck is going on over in the iPad aisle and she’s not thrilled about it.
Armand drops his hand and turns to Sarah with a tight smile. “Now that you mention it,” he says blithely. “There are a few things.”
*
A quiet relief pervades the Apple store when they finally leave, but they have to admit, they sure as hell were paying customers. Once he was refocused, Armand took his free reign seriously. Evidently they needed two iPads for some reason, one in the 13 inch and then one of the minis, which to Daniel’s eye isn’t all that different from an iPhone at this point.
But no one asked him and he was happy to be cut out from the conversation if it meant a minute to get his head back on straight. It’s embarrassing how much of a presence Armand has and how much of an influence it has over him. One soft touch and all that pride he’s been hanging onto by his fingernails goes right out the window. Then again, if Daniel wants to play hard to get, maybe he should stop running after him. That might be the first step.
Sources say that’s not gonna happen any time soon though.
He ends up carrying the bags while Armand fiddles with his new Apple Watch, his head bent, paying no attention to the other late night wanderers they share the sidewalk with. They part around them both anyway, as if two vampires taking their half out of the middle weren’t even there. Daniel bites his tongue and resists the urge to ask how he does it, his mind gift so strong yet so seemingly passive. The answer is probably to live five hundred years and not have a lot of hobbies, but maybe not. Something to work up to, if a more entirely sober Armand is still dedicated to this how-to-be-a-maker schtick.
“You said we barely know one another,” Armand all but announces, his new watch finally to his standards. He lets his arm drop and turns his full attention to Daniel. “Perhaps that’s the first step to this relationship of ours. Ask a question then. Let’s get to know one another properly.”
This is maybe a weird place to start after he’s lived in Daniel’s apartment for several days. And worn his clothes. And launched several new rumors across the internet. But Daniel’s interest sharpens like a knife.
“You’ll do an interview?” he asks a little too eagerly.
Armand meets his enthusiasm with a scowl. “No,” he says. “A question, Daniel. Like a normal person.”
Like a normal person. He doesn't seem to pick up on the irony there.
The skepticism must show on Daniel’s face, because Armand gives an exasperated scoff and waves his hand. “Oh, I don’t know,” he says to the unasked question. “What is your favorite color?”
“My favorite color?” Daniel repeats dryly, packing the weight of judgment in every word. He laughs shortly. “Gee. You sure you weren’t a journalist in a past life?”
“I’m trying,” Armand huffs. “Which is more than you can say.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Daniel waves it off, but he has to admit, he is trying. That’s kind of the best either of them can do these days. “Uh. I dunno. Blue?”
“What kind of blue?” he presses.
“Like the sky,” Daniel says without thinking, and he’s surprised to find that it’s true. He hasn’t thought that much about the daylight, except to try to avoid it and the subsequent being burnt to a crisp. Easier that way, and on a list of things he gave up for vampirism, a perfect blue sky day doesn’t really make the top of the list.
“Like the ceiling in my apartment,” he goes on. “With all the clouds. They came with the place. You could probably guess that.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You can change whatever, but uh—keep that. Yeah.”
Maybe he’s lying to himself—he does think about blue skies sometimes, laying on his couch staring up at those angelic blue sky ceilings, illuminated unnaturally by energy saving LED bulbs and keen vampiric vision. He’ll probably never see them in daylight again. Even with Armand’s fancy windows, there would still be a tint. That’s okay. That’s alright. At least he’s seeing them, which is more than he might be able to say if he were still human. He still doesn’t want to see them go.
“Of course,” Armand says softly. Surprisingly muted, as if Daniel just confessed some truth. It’s just a ceiling. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. He clears his throat. “And your question?”
A question. God, for someone like him, it’s like his birthday. Except that it’s also like tying his hands together. A question, but not an interview. The thing is, you have to know your subject, and how much bullshit you can get away with. Daniel has often stepped directly over that line while making eye contact with it the whole time, but it’s always been a deliberate risk. If he tries anything too clever, Armand will just clam up.
Keep it simple, then. Corny.
But it’s still gotta be at least a little interesting.
“Alright,” Daniel says and he scratches at his chin, pretending to think. “What do you miss most about being human? If anything.”
“Being human?” Armand throws him a disgruntled look as they stop and wait for a crosswalk, a stray damp wind ruffling his curls. “Daniel, I’m over five hundred years old. I have not been human in a very long time.” He says it with five hundred years worth of impatient condescension.
“So you don’t remember it?” he says. “Any of it?” And for once he’s not actually trying to be a dick. It’s real curiosity, and more than just professional. That’s his future, if all goes well. And maybe it won’t, what with the books and everything, but ideally. Will he forget, or will all those things eventually just seem like something that happened to somebody else? If you asked him three years ago he’d have said that aging already does that to you, but aging, or not-aging, as a vampire is different. Like a camera with a different lens, one incompatible with the last. He can already tell.
He has a memoir. He already told his story. At least he’ll never have to tell it to some shithead reporter, young or otherwise.
“Pieces,” Armand admits, pulling Daniel out of his own musings. “Nothing that I would say that I…miss, exactly.” He says it uncertainly, like he’s not sure if that’s true. Like maybe there’s something he misses, or he grieves for, that haunts him like a ghost. And like a ghost, he can’t quite wrap his fingers around the shape of it.
Or maybe Daniel is just projecting. Dangerous habit, that.
“I miss burgers,” Daniel says, lightening the mood like dropping a brick on a frozen pond. “A nice burger. I’d give anything for just one more. Crisp lettuce, juicy tomato. Maybe a little bacon. Real heart attack waiting to happen. Love blood, but you just don’t get that variety in texture as a vampire.” He jostles Armand with his elbow. “Maybe it’s an American thing.”
Armand hums a perfunctory laugh, but his eyes are still far away, the tilt of his head thoughtful. He lifts his fingers as they cross the street and catches a stray snowflake on his fingertip. It doesn’t melt.
“I envy things,” he says after a long pause. He’s still considering the snowflake. “Oh, many things. I envy your relationship with the passage of time. Such a complicated relationship! You love it as much as you loathe it. So terrified to leave this world without making your mark on it, yet it’s exactly that desperation that drives you to do such remarkable things. The last century alone! The innovation! A vampire would never have made this.” He brandishes his new Apple Watch and the screen wakes up attentively. “We would say—oh, later. Later, later, later. Why rush? We have the time. What’s the purpose anyway? There is no purpose!” He flicks his hand. “Humanity is always running forward, even when they haven’t a clue what they’re running toward. They don’t know where else to go.”
That was more than he expected. Daniel scuffs his shoe against the sidewalk. “You said you,” he points out. “Not me. Not anymore.”
Armand blinks at him. “Did I?” he says. “I forget sometimes. To me, you seem so human still. You’re still very close to it.”
Why is that so embarrassing? Armand says it so casually, so out of hand, but to Daniel it still feels like failing some sort of test. If Armand had been him that first year, popping heads off and letting them spray like a chocolate fountain, he wouldn’t think he’s not vampire enough.
“Ah, Daniel.” Bond or no bond, Armand must pick up on his dinged ego. His hand brushes Daniel’s elbow. “It’s not a judgment. Did I not just espouse all the things I’m envious of? You should be lucky to keep them for as long as you can.” His smile tilts and he scoffs. “Even if it means writing those ridiculous books.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He sinks his hands into the pockets of his jacket as he gnaws on a thought like a dog with a bone. “You know, you could be that way too. If you wanted.”
“Five hundred years—”
“Is a fucking long time to spend waiting for your undead life to become interesting,” Daniel drawls. “Get a hobby. Louis does his weird art thing. Lestat makes bad music. Pick something! Run a theater group that doesn’t have to call you master. Join a book club. I don’t know how to tell you this, but humans get bored with their lives too. That’s why they invented community theater.”
“Hm.” Armand hums shortly. He stops in his tracks and eyes Daniel warily. “And what is your hobby?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He turns around with a grin, his fangs grown out just enough to flash under the street lights. “I’m waiting to interview you.”
*
They bat around a few more questions on the way home, and Daniel is surprised to actually learn a bit about Armand after all. Favorite movie is a big hit. He’s never seen someone so enthusiastic about Blade Runner. Armand is still unsuccessfully trying to get his Apple Watch to order it for him on VHS via voice command as Daniel unlocks his front door. Must be a nostalgia thing. He wants to tell him that he should order a VHS player while he’s at it, but honestly he might have one around here somewhere. He’s a few decades overdue for a spring cleaning.
Inside the apartment, Armand hesitates, rubbing his fingertips contemplatively against the dining room table. “You called this place home,” he says without looking up. “Is it? My home?”
Daniel sets the shopping bags down on the kitchen counter. A lot of little reassurances tonight. Who would’ve thought the vampire Armand was so self-conscious? Abruptly, Daniel feels the same way. He did say home, didn’t he? “If you want it to be,” he says, trying to sound casual. So much for we’ll try this out for a couple of days. Yet why is he so nervous Armand might say no? “I won’t make you start paying rent, if that’s what you mean.”
Armand doesn’t say anything, but he flashes a pleased little smile that Daniel isn’t sure he was meant to see.
Daniel putters around for a little while longer—he died, not his old habits, and it’s hard to deny the old-man-isms sometimes—while Armand takes to the couch and fills the room with the sound of his trash TV. It’s nice, having someone else in the apartment. It’s only one other body, but just that seems to fill out the space better, like the balance was off before, not enough to make him trip but enough to notice.
When he finally wanders into the living room, Armand is stretched across the couch, his eyes half-lidded but still invested in whatever he’s watching, a throw-pillow mashed up under his head at an awkward angle.
“Alright, move over,” Daniel says. “You can have the whole couch when you actually do start paying rent.”
Armand snorts softly, but he’s clearly crashing, all that drama and shitty clubber blood catching up with him. He scrunches up like an inchworm, just enough to liberate a single seat cushion for Daniel. Good enough. Daniel drops down into it and is wondering how much longer before Armand falls asleep and he can put on something at least halfway decent. He’s still wondering when Armand stretches back out again, as languid as a cat, and parks his pillow in Daniel’s lap.
Oh. Okay.
Daniel sits entirely still for a moment, his hand hovering in the air, unsure what to do with it. Armand only squishes the pillow into a slightly less comfortable looking shape under his neck and settles down again.
Armand doesn’t need it, but Daniel tugs the blanket off of the back of the couch and puts it over him anyway, tugging it up over his shoulders. Hey, it’s cold outside.
“Daniel,” Armand murmurs, barely audible over the blonde women arguing on the TV.
“Mhm?”
“Will you drink my blood tomorrow?” He shifts his head, just enough to look up at him, his curls falling messily over his face. His eyes could almost pass for a dark amber in the sickly television screen light. “I would not ask if I didn’t believe it would help us.”
He’s not sure he believes that one. But—
“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” He rests a hand against Armand’s head, brushing his hair back away from his eyes. Nobody warned him that this bond thing came with so much goddamn sentimentality. “Worth a shot, right?”