Chapter Text
Daniel is dying... this wouldn't be too odd, considering he was already dead, so perhaps it was more apt to say Daniel is dying again.
His life was just getting good too. He’d feared for it for a moment there, in Dubai, laying on the cold concrete with a 173 pound vampire on top of him (and not even in a fun way). Naturally he hadn’t had much time to really ponder his death before a wall of memories slammed into him, the feeling so overwhelming that he’d barely registered the sweet nectar of unlife flooding his mouth.
Of course, when he woke up with the vampire equivalent of buckteeth in his mouth and about a million questions for his Maker and asshole ex-lover, the bastard had deemed his presence was no longer necessary and fled.
Newly free of his perpetual back pain and degenerative disease and with nothing better to do Daniel had given chase, as a fucked up reversal of their original story. He’d hunted Armand through London, New York, Paris, Venice before finally catching off guard in Pompeii. A very bloody screaming match and not PG friendly reconciliation later and Daniel had somehow managed to wrangle his Maker back to New York, to teach him anything he did not yet know and tentatively rebuild their life together.
That’s not to say it had all been rainbows and sunshine after that. In the end Daniel’s a cankerous old bastard and Armand’s clinically insane, truly a match made in hell. So whilst Armand was trying to find himself and Daniel was putting the finishing touches on his book they nearly killed one another often.
The apartment was simply too small for both of them, and Daniel, with his endless wisdom, had voted against getting a new place until they were absolutely sure they were gonna keep rekindling what Armand snuffed out in the 80s. Such a time had come when Armand had almost eaten shit after tripping over a pile of Daniel’s research and splattered his latest blender concoction on his vintage early 16th century venetian carpet.
Daniel, from where he’d been sitting on the couch, had pinched the bridge of his nose with a deep sigh and gone “Alright,” in such a way that Armand had instantly geared up to run and start their chase anew. He hadn’t had the time to turn tail and run though before Daniel had reached out his ipad towards him with Zillow open on it and told him to: "Take your pick, I think it's time we got a bigger place."
The little 3 story brownstone in Brooklyn that they’d settled on was perfect for them. It has a basement with an incinerator (a smokeless incinerator, Armand was pretty excited about it and talked Daniel's ear off for hours), access to the old sewer system, enough spare rooms to each have their own workspace and then some and the coziest kitchen and living room with a little garden out back. The idyllic sort of picket fence shit that Daniel would have scoffed at in his 20’s.
But it was good for them, this space. Armand, with more room to experiment, had discovered a love for gardening, fascinated that the hands he’d deemed incapable of good could nurture life like that. And whilst Daniel could no longer go into the sun like Armand could he could still appreciate the little rainforest Armand had made for them out back, so much so that he turns a blind eye to what may or may not be the beginnings of flesh-eating plants propagating on their windowsill.
Daniel for that matter, after finishing his book and briefly following Lestat in his venture of becoming a rockstar, had taken to research and environmental projects. He's invested in having at least 500 years with his lover god damnit, he will not let humans ruin that for him. So he’s actively working with witches and other supernaturals to reverse environmental damages that humans inflict upon the world. This means he has a lot of research projects, conference calls, and the occasional out of town meeting.
It keeps them busy.
That isn’t to say they don’t have time for one another at all. Daniel has never been more besotted with Armand and vice versa. Their sex-life is great and their love life is even greater.
And thus, it really really sucks that Daniel is dying again.
At least, he thinks he is.
It had started 2 weeks ago. The sickness, the dizzy spells. At first he’d assumed the touchy asshole he’d grabbed in an alley behind a bar was sick or some shit, a bad feed. When it wasn’t gone the next day he’d thought he might have drank a little too deeply, taken a sip of dead blood. Not as deadly as Louis had first implied it to be but certainly not pleasant.
Armand had, like he so often would during sex, offered Daniel his neck and Daniel had figured he wouldn’t need to tell his maker about his little mishap if he could simply take a sip of his powerful blood and pretend it had never happened.
Only he’d woken up in the middle of the day to throw it all up again, and leaning his forehead against the cold tile of their little bathroom he finally admitted to himself that something was wrong.
He also told himself that Armand could NOT find out about it. They’d finally settled into something here and if Daniel was sick, if he was somehow belatedly dying because of his Parkinson’s or any of the billion things he put his body through in his youth, then he wanted to die with Armand there, an unlikely scenario if his Maker were to find out about it.
Armand would likely run again, or even worse, go on some sort of wild goose chase for a cure that didn’t exist, promising to return and not making it back in time. He’d torture himself about it until he threw himself into the fire to ‘reunite’ with his beloved or however the fuck he would voice it.
Yeah, hard no.
So Daniel hadn’t said anything to his Maker. Instead he’d quietly put out some feelers with his contacts, nothing too specific to raise concerns but enough to get a clear picture of what he might be dealing with here. Trouble is, nobody had ever heard of a vampire getting sick before, at least not unrelated to bad or dead blood.
Which meant Daniel was patient Zero of whatever this was. Never a good thing to be. Patient Zero nearly always died. Which was all the more reason to not tell Armand about it.
The fucker liked to make it difficult though. He liked being around Daniel when he wasn’t concocting a hellish milkshake or gently whispering at his plants because “it’s proven to help beloved, I'm not ‘losing it’ as you claim”. And the fact that Daniel was now pretty vertically challenged as even just sitting up could make his head spin was a little hard to hide with a 500 year old limpet stuck to his side.
Fortunately his inability to be a good father had come in with the perfect excuse for him. His two girls, after his recent stint with Lestat across Europe, had once again reached out in an attempt to gauge how much he’d lost it. And for the first time since they were in their late 20s and their therapists had recommended making amends with him for their own mental health (a meeting that had ended up with Daniel sitting alone in his cold apartment with Kate’s voice still ringing in his ears, though somehow Lenora’s quiet departure had hurt worse), they were coming to see him in person.
Armand often seemed to just know when his presence was more likely to piss Daniel off than calm him, though he occasionally ignored his Daniel-based 6th sense to come bother him away. This generally resulted with Daniel face down on their mattress which is why he hadn’t called the gremlin out on it as of yet, something something if it’s not broken don’t fix it.
The fact that Daniel hadn’t seen his daughters in 13 years, was excuse enough to be a little snippy with Armand, mind whirling with a billion things he had to prepare to get the house looking somewhat organized (a mighty tall order for two hoarders), which resulted in his dear Maker’s 6th sense going off, suddenly immersing himself in his latest project out of Daniel’s way. He himself bustled around enough to generally be out of sight when he had to lean against a wall or take a short walk to throw up in their neighbor’s trash.
It was a great system, it worked.
Which was probably why it all went to shit.
The day the girls were set to come over Daniel had worked himself up into a right mess. He’d, naturally, woken up an hour before dusk to throw up so hard he’d had bloody tears streaming down his cheeks. Luckily he’d been able to get his shit together and crawl back into bed before Armand wearily started to wake, but it had admittedly been a pretty good indicator of how shit the rest of the day would turn out to be.
The girls were only set to arrive at around 10 pm which meant he had 2 more hours to go over the living room again and try to remain calm. Armand, like an absolute angel that he was (albeit one that God feared), had dutifully retreated to the kitchen to wipe down the counters once more and prepare the drinks that Daniel had agonized over in the store a few days before (he’d considered reaching his mindgift all the way across to Ohio and Florida to grab their favorite wine directly from the girls’ heads and had only stopped himself due to a dizzy spell).
It was a quarter to 10, as Daniel repositioned the stack of books on their coffee table for the 17th time, when Armand finally dared to exit the kitchen again, socked feet sliding over to Daniel with an otherworldly elegance and easily taking the stack from his shaking fingers. Instead he guided Daniel’s hands into his long silky hair and made his best attempt at melting into his embrace, sighing happily as Daniel gave in and softly started combing his fingers through the curly mess.
“Everything will be fine Beloved,” Armand murmured into the crook of his neck, the vibrations traveling straight through him. Daniel simply hummed, shifting so he could gently kneed Armand’s scalp with his fingers.
“And if it’s not fine I could always erase this meeting from their minds,” He squirms when Daniel tugs at a strand of his hair in admonishment, sitting up straighter to gaze into Daniel’s eyes with his own blazing orange ones, a petulant frown marring his features.
“I could,” he insists, as if Daniel’s response had been in any way questioning his abilities. “It would make our lives rather easier if you allowed me to do that every once in a while, my love.”
“I’m sure,” Daniel drawled, surging forward to place a small peck on Armand’s nose before pulling away “But no.”
Armand opened his mouth, likely to argue (and if Daniel was lucky maybe he’d even have a powerpoint ready this time), when the doorbell rang.
Right, the girls.
Fuck.
Daniel scrambled up, careful to not drop his lap full of Armand unceremoniously on the hardwood floor and racing towards the door. Vampiric speed meant Daniel had to awkwardly stand in the hall for a few moments longer to not seem like a desperate old man who’d waited by the door all day. In those precious few moments he heard Armand’s steady steps following at a much more human pace and when he turned to look the other vampire’s eyes were crinkled with amusement.
Daniel shot him a look that he hoped conveyed just how much Armand wasn’t fucking helping before wiping his hands on his shirt despite the fact that he didn’t need to sweat anymore.
Deeming that enough time had passed to not seem pathetic Daniel made sure to practically stomp his feet to cross the small distance between him and the door before wrenching it open with a smile already in place.
On the other side of the door stood Kate and Lenora, standing side by side with a single small package between them. Kate, when she grinned up at him, full of malice and venom, seemed ready to tear Daniel apart. Lenora, beside her, was looking at a point beyond Daniel and already seemed ready to pack up and leave.
“Hey dad,”Kate bit out and part of him thought she would make a great vampire.
Yeah, he really should have known the day wouldn’t end well.