Work Text:
"Shh... Rest."
"Rest, Arun. God knows you're going to need it."
"I've been calling to you for some time."
And it has. It's been calling to Armand, too. These are the words he wishes to hear.
"From every bad fix, from the unnamed malaise you feel Sunday afternoons."
From every painting, from the emptiness, from the screaming desire to be loved, to be wanted, to be fascinating the way he used to be, the way Marius would tell him he was.
"And now here I am, and you can rest."
Why has it not come to him? It almost did, long ago, but back then he didn't want it. Back then he thought he had the world in his hands, he commanded Marius's attention, he was loved and desired. And now... after the loss and betrayal of everyone he's ever loved, now he wants it again but he can't have it. Death by illness or old age is impossible. Death by sunlight? He's tried that. Death by fire or decapitation, he can't do those things to himself and no one else will do it for him.
"I don't want to rest."
Part of him does think that. Part of him wants to live. But the other part of him wants so desperately to die. Why shouldn't he die? He's boring now, after all. Beige, as Louis called him. "I'm the vampire Armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little bitch," he'd said also, objectively one of the worst things he's ever said to Armand, he supposes. But that didn't hurt nearly so much as being called boring.
"I am the quiet you've been longing for."
The quiet of the racing thoughts, of Louis screaming at him, his fuck-off-and-find-me routine. The quiet darkness that whispers in his ear, come to me and you will never be unloved.
"After all the garishness of life, the jostling, the clawing..."
The overstimulation, the hands pawing at his body, the strange mix of love and hate that he feels towards everyone who's ever touched him.
"I like my life."
Does Armand like his life? Sometimes. He likes when Louis wants him. He likes being needed. He likes when Louis fucks him, mostly. The brothel is a distant memory, faded by hundreds of years, but sometimes he does still feel it when Louis touches him. He likes it other than that. He likes the pleasure of the hunt and the kill. He likes the taste of blood on his tongue and his teeth. He likes being powerful. Is that enough?
"The dull thrum of desperation in you."
He is so desperate. So truly and impossibly desperate. To be needed, to be loved, to be fascinating.
"Will I get the fixes I need? Will I be somebody? Will I get the fixes I need to be somebody?"
Will he be enough? Will he ever be enough that someone will love him in their entirety, will give themselves over to him in their wholeness the way he does for them?
"But, Daniel, you already know who you'll be."
Boring. Beige.
"An ugly duplex back in Modesto. A job in an office with drab carpets and flickering lights. A woman in the mold of your mother, vacuuming on valium. A genteel drinking problem, like your father. Your wife counting down your thrusts. Your children shying away from you. All the confidence and hope of your youth replaced by a seething, boiling regret."
Beige. A slog of misery. Man after man after man using him and leaving him because he isn't enough to hold their interest. The pleasure of the hunt morphing into an addiction. Louis treating him like a chore, someone he only fucks out of lack of anything better to do. Loneliness. Regret.
"Until one day, you're at a traffic light. The light turns green, horns honking. You don't move. Horns honking. You don't move."
He feels frozen as time ticks slowly by. What can he possibly do other than wait?
"I have a thing happening in the city. I'm a bright young reporter with a point of view."
He was someone, once. A bright young boy with stunning good looks that drew everyone's eye, especially Marius's. Marius loved him. Marius saw him for who he was.
"Shh, shh, shh. A comfortable chair in a room that slants to the north. An easeful death."
Something a vampire can never have. The only ways for a vampire to die are so violent, so painful.
"Rest. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It'll feel like a bath. Rest. Like honey on your tongue. It is the comfort we all long for. The end."
And there, he admits it. He longs for it too.
"Rest."
The boy repeats it back to him softly, and Armand remembers being a boy himself, repeating the words of his Maestro.
"Rest. Come. Come. I'll hold you, you rest now."
He opens his mouth and bites into the boy's neck, and wonders why it doesn't make him feel any better.