Chapter Text
Armand had come. Daniel had called out to Armand in desperation after months of ignoring him and he had come right away, of course he had. Of course he was still nearby, the stalker, watching Daniel from the shadows and waiting for an opening to pounce. The thought of it gave Daniel nothing but warm, lovely feelings that he wanted to wrap himself up in like a blanket and hide from the world.
“I’m so fucked, Boss,” Daniel said. “I’m too messed up to be anyone’s dad. I’m already a piece of shit boyfriend.” He said this, of course, straddled on Armand’s lap in his underwear, the vampire’s claws running up through his curls while he kissed the still unbroken skin of Daniel’s neck. Daniel moaned and rocked down as Armand teased his fangs against him, willing more than anything that he bite.
He didn’t, though, not yet. Instead he continued brushing lightly with his lips as he whispered. “Shh, my beautiful boy,” Armand said. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“You’re not mad at me, right?” It was a pathetic little inquiry, sounding more like a small child in trouble with his parents than a grown man with his lover. Daniel knew that, but he also knew how healing it felt when Armand coddled him.
“Not mad at you, beloved,” Armand said. Daniel wasn’t sure he believed him, but if Armand was going to get mad about it at some point, Daniel certainly wasn’t going to hurry it along.
Daniel lowered his chin, cutting off access to his neck but instead claiming Armand’s lips with his own.
“Can you just fuck me and make me forget about it for a little bit? Can I- can I have some of your blood?”
“Daniel- ”
“I know we talked about this, about cutting back, but this is a special circumstance.”
Puppy dog eyes had suffered from a diminishing success rate as of late, but that didn’t keep Daniel from batting them. Armand studied them for a few beats, his own eyes quite unreadable, before finally sighing and raising his arm to prick open. A wave of relief passed over Daniel at his acquiescence.
“Fine,” Armand said. “How can I deny you? But just a little.” He held his wrist out to Daniel, who immediately latched on with a desperate greed. He only got in two coppery mouthfuls before Armand pulled back. He whined, licking his lips thoroughly, as Armand sealed back the cut.
“Let us attend to your other request,” Armand said, a bid for distraction that Daniel was highly amenable to.
Daniel knew that Armand loved to watch him squirm around on his lap while he fingered him open. Daniel loved it, too, the absolute surrender, but he also couldn’t help but play it up a little. It wasn’t a performance, the feelings were all there, it was just that making the choice to let them all loose made everything so much more. Daniel cried out into the sheets as Armand drove his fingers into him, whispered how pretty and how good he was, then followed up with his tongue.
His mind drifted to Alice despite knowing Armand’s tendency to read his mind during intimate acts. She was pretty kinky, but Daniel doubted she would ever do this for him. He’d gotten her to get rough with him, slap him in the face and press her heel down into his chest. She hadn’t even taken much convincing, hadn’t gotten weird like other girls might have. Alice had been game for it. She’d tossed her beautiful dark hair over her shoulder with a cruel laugh and made him beg. Afterwards, they ate cereal with wine and watched Jacques Cousteau naked on the floor. They had pretended to know how to read palms and made up increasingly ridiculous predictions for each other based on them. It was just an excuse to run their fingers over each others’ skin, in the end.
Times like that were fucking over now. The weight of adulthood, something he should have been strong enough to carry by now, instead felt like peine forte te dure, crushing down on his chest. The more stressed and prickly he became about the book he was working on, the more Daniel felt a pang of annoyance at her need to touch his skin. Alice wanted to hold his hand as they walked through the streets of Paris and Daniel wanted to move faster. And she didn’t deserve that, because Daniel loved almost everything about Alice except for one thing.
Alice wasn’t Armand.
It was an all-consuming truth that Daniel didn’t let himself examine most days.
That was the part, he now realized, that had twisted his stomach the most when she told him. He liked Alice, he loved Alice, but the idea of creating new life with her when she wasn’t the one he wanted most made him feel wrong. He could get tired of Alice. He could make an okay life with her, but Daniel didn’t want an okay life. His fickle, unsatisfied nature cried out for more. The only things he knew he would never stop craving were drugs and Armand.
He almost wished -
Armand ceased his movements.
“Hey!” Daniel pouted, rolling over to bitch at Armand for stopping.
“Oh, you’re enjoying yourself now?” Armand asked, all haughty and full of spite. “You seemed quite distracted. I hope I’m not boring you.”
“Don’t peek if you’re not going to like what you see,” Daniel grumbled. “Besides, I have a lot on my mind.”
Armand withdrew his fingers completely, pulled Daniel up roughly into a sitting position. “Perhaps tonight calls for a more uncommon distraction?”
Before Daniel could ask him what he meant, Armand was lying back on the bed and unbuttoning his pants. He shimmied them off, and his expensive underwear followed. Lubricant was retrieved from the top of the bed. Daniel was bewitched as he watched Armand drip more onto his outstretched fingers, spread his legs and press those fingertips to his own entrance. Armand looked up at him and smiled as he dipped a digit in.
Fuck, oh, fuck. Daniel found himself almost salivating at the sight. He had only topped Armand a handful of times in all the years they had been together. Less than ten. It had never been a rule or anything; that was just how it had shaken out. He hadn’t wanted to push it. Now, as Armand penetrated himself with slicked up fingers, their gazes locked together, Daniel was cursing himself for not pursuing this more. Had he forgotten how beautiful Armand looked like this?
Daniel slid to the floor, hypnotized. He began make his way up Armand’s bare legs kiss by kiss, stopping to nuzzle when he reached his inner thigh. Armand’s hand brushed over Daniel’s chin as he continued fucking himself with his fingers. On impulse, Daniel caught them and sucked them into his mouth, letting Armand give a few hard thrusts to the back of his throat before throwing them aside so that he could take their place at Armand’s hole. He wriggled his tongue in, savoring the lewd noises spilling from Armand’s mouth as he did so. Daniel found himself unable to resist a chance to see Armand so broken up with pleasure. He lifted his head for just a moment to take a peek, but Armand’s hand instantly found the top of his head and shoved Daniel back between his legs.
“Focus on the task at hand, lover.”
Gladly. Daniel took a little nip at the skin of Armand’s thigh with his dull, human teeth, then got back to work.
After succeeding in making Armand sufficiently wet, loose and wanton, Daniel drifted back to kissing his legs. He licked a stripe up his cock. Bit the skin of his hip.
Armand laughed roughly. “Are you going to delay any further or are you going to put yourself inside of me?” He rolled over onto his stomach and glanced back, an invitation.
“Oh, I’ll put myself inside of you,” Daniel said with all the bravado he still had. He rubbed himself once through his underwear as he stared down at the beautiful fucking devil stretched out in front of him, then pulled them down and kicked them across the floor.
“Damn, there’s no one as sexy as you,” Daniel said, rubbing his cock over Armand’s hole before sliding right in. Armand choked out a gasp at the intrusion, pushing his ass back up against Daniel to make sure it was in as far as it could go. He felt so tight and amazing squeezing around Daniel’s cock; he was totally blissed out as he began the slow drag in and out, Armand’s lovely moans and mewling the perfect background music.
“Fuck, you wanted it so badly,” Daniel said, running his hands over the beautiful expanse of Armand’s back in wonder before settling his palms right at the small of it to steady himself as he fucked into him. “Why haven’t you been asking? I would have given it to you; I would do anything to you. You’re my baby.” Still his baby, still his lover, even when they didn’t talk for months on end. Armand was still his.
“Anything?” Armand asked. Daniel grabbed a handful of Armand’s hair and tugged it back so that he could see his face. His eyes were shut and he was running his tongue over his lips. He looked breakable in the moment, sweet, as if Daniel could actually hurt him, though Daniel held no such illusions.
“Anything,” Daniel said, driving into him harder.
Please, Armand projected into his mind.
He didn’t elaborate any further, but somehow Daniel knew what he wanted. Armand wasn’t projecting his thoughts, but he was radiating the feeling. His body was doing the communicating, the fluid motion of his hips as he melted back against him then fell away again.
Daniel let his hands slide from the small of Armand’s back, over his hips, then slowly skim around to spread out over Armand’s stomach. Armand cried out like he was suffering as Daniel cradled him like that. Daniel leaned over, sweaty chest against the wide expanse of perfect skin that was Armand’s back. He brushed back a dark curl gently so that he could whisper into his love’s ear.
“Baby, it should have been you. I should have gotten you pregnant.”
Armand let out a moan that seemed to come from deep inside of him, something animalistic and raw that took Daniel by surprise. It was so out of control, so unlike Armand that it drove him wild. It lit a fire, made him fuck Armand even harder as the idea began take root in Daniel’s brain. He whispered dirty things in his ear and laid messy kisses on his shoulders. “Should have been you. Want to come inside you, knock you up, get you into some trouble.”
“I want it,” Armand mumbled. “I’m mad that you didn’t.”
“I thought you said you weren’t mad!”
“I lied,” Armand said, letting out a pained and pleasured hiss as Daniel switched up his pace in a particularly delicious way. “I’m extraordinarily jealous that you did that to her and not me.”
“It wasn’t on purpose, sweetheart,” Daniel said, brushing hair out of the way and laying kisses on the back of Armand’s neck. “Alice is special, she’s just the kind of girl that I - but if I could change it, I would.” He felt hot and hazy and connected to Armand by a million invisible threads. Alice was amazing, Alice was funny and sexy and intelligent and independent and Alice was having his baby, but Armand was Armand.
“I could eat her,” Armand said, panting. His head bounced up and down every time Daniel fucked into him. “I could drain her dry after she has the baby, and we could say it was mine.”
“Shut up. You’re fucking perverse,” Daniel said, but it didn’t dampen his arousal. He kept on fucking Armand, one hand fisted in his hair and the other splayed under his flat stomach. Imagined Armand with sweat-soaked dark curls and perspiration on his forehead, exhausted in a bloody hospital bed. “Wouldn’t be the same, anyway. Want to get you pregnant, you, you.” Armand moaned obscenely every time Daniel slammed him into the bed. “Want to fuck a baby into you, damn it. I love you so, so much; I wouldn’t care if it’s some kind of freak of nature hell baby. I’d love it because I love you.”
“You can have it.” There were bloody tears dripping down Armand’s face and onto the white sheets. “I would carry it for you. Please give me a baby, beloved. I love you, I love you, too. I love you the most. Keep fucking me like that and come inside me so I can get pregnant. Please, please, please. Please, I need you to give it to me.”
“Fuck.” Daniel increased his speed, feeling almost nauseous with lust at Armand’s ramblings. “I want you to flip over.” He needed to see him. He barely paused as Armand twisted his body around. Hands grasped at Daniel’s forearms, claws puncturing the skin just enough to draw blood, but Daniel couldn’t take notice of anything but Armand’s face. Those massive, unblinking amber eyes locked onto his and that sweet mouth in a little ‘o’, huffing breaths with every thrust. Daniel had to kiss it, had to taste it as he felt his body draw closer to orgasm.
“That’s right,” he mumbled into Armand’s mouth, their foreheads pressed together. He grabbed another sloppy kiss, then licked a streak of blood off his cheek. “That’s right, baby, you’re doing so good, I’m almost there. I’m going to give you what you need. You’re going to look so pretty with my baby in you.” He grasped Armand’s dick between them, jerking it along with his thrusting. “Shit - I’m going to go down on you every day, can’t wait to get my hands all over your body and feel what I did to you. Everyone will see what I did to you and you won’t be able to fucking deny it.”
“I would never,” Armand whined, his body tensing up and lifting off the table just in an attempt to fuck up more into Daniel’s hand. “I’m close.”
“Don’t fucking lie,” Daniel said. “I know you’d try to deny it, but I wouldn’t let you. Because once you have my baby, you won’t belong to anyone but me. Say it. Say it.”
“I’ll only belong to you,” Armand said with a sob, dropping his head on Daniel’s shoulder as he began to come messy and red all over his stomach. Daniel did not let up with his hand. “Yes, Daniel, oh, Daniel!”
Spent and still being fucked all sensitive and tender, Armand ran a lazy thumb over his abdomen. He pushed the thumb past closed lips, pressed the bloody spend into Daniel’s mouth, making him suck it off. Daniel moaned around it, refusing to release the appendage and sucking it hard as his climax hit. Hands squeezed bruises into slender hips. He slammed one final time into Armand’s ass and stayed there as he spilled all hot inside of him. Armand held him in tight, not letting a single drop go to waste.
“Come here, babe,” Daniel said, lifting him up and holding him close. Armand wrapped his arms around Daniel’s shoulders and let himself be carried to an unsoiled section of the bed.
“A pillow,” he said softly as Daniel set him down. Daniel quirked his head in confusion, but handed Armand the pillow and watched as he tucked it under his hips, tilting his pelvis up.
“Just to get things moving in the right direction,” Armand explained, still holding on to the fantasy. Daniel nodded, wanting to indulge Armand even though he was beginning to feel more and more off-kilter about the situation as he came down from his haze of lust.
After a shower, Daniel crawled into bed with Armand, who hadn’t moved. He snuggled into the cool body, accepting little kisses on the top of his head as they lay there in silence. They stayed like that until the sun dipped low and night overtook the streets of Paris. Eventually, Daniel slid down to the edge of the bed to snag a pack of Gauloises from his messenger bag. He shook one out, set it between his lips and crawled up next to Armand, who lit it wordlessly.
“Thanks, babe.” Armand didn’t respond, just nodded while looking at anything else in the room. Daniel guessed that he was finally coming back to the real world, too.
They were both quiet for a long time, Daniel taking long drags of the French cigarette he didn’t really like half as much as Marlboros, and Armand caught up in whatever maelstrom was tearing around in his head. When Daniel did finally decide to break the silence, he did it in the ugliest way possible.
“I’m going to marry her, I think.” Daniel wouldn’t look at Armand as he said it, just stared out the open window and blew his smoke into the night air. He didn’t know why he said it, even though it was true.
“I know,” Armand said. “I read it in your mind the moment I saw you.”
“Man, fuck you.” Daniel laughed miserably as he smashed his cigarette into the ashtray. “I have to go. She’s really going to lay into me.”
“Enjoy it.”
“Can I have a kiss before I go?”
Armand leaned over and kissed Daniel, closed mouth and solemn. Daniel kissed back, then took a chance to lick a little of the blood that had settled in the creases of his lips. He felt Armand wince, then immediately withdraw. All of the passion that had been in his eyes half an hour before was gone, replaced by an eerie blankness.
“I do love her.”
“I can’t imagine why you think I would care about that.”
Daniel shrugged, rolling over Armand to get to his pants on the floor. He tugged them on, then grabbed his shirt where it had somehow ended up over the TV.
His head was screaming at him that he needed to say something. He knew it would be a long time before he could see Armand again. Because this felt like the end of something. Because Armand looked so beautiful but so cold now, gorgeous eyes also pits of nothingness that stared into space.
But Daniel’s mind was sluggish, exhausted and slightly high, so instead he just said what was on his mind.
“I’ll leave her if you turn me.”
He did not need to wait for Armand’s furious gaze to turn on him to know that it was the worst thing he could have said.
“I’m truly a fool, aren’t I?” Armand’s voice simmered with anger. “The way I let you manipulate me.”
This from the master manipulator. That was rich. “You’re kidding me, right? All you’ve done and I’m the manipulator?” Daniel latched on to the burgeoning argument like a life raft. Grabbing onto it was probably the only way he would make it out of here.
“You act like a victim, but look how you hold me hostage with your requests, and your love.”
“The idea of me holding you hostage is fucking hilarious. The thing you actually did with me, you mean?” The last hour, the whole day was crashing down on him. He had consumed nothing besides espresso and dope and vampire blood all day long; it was making him feel crazy. “And you never fucking let me go. I’m still here being held hostage and I can’t live a normal fucking life because of you! I have a pregnant girlfriend at home and I’m here fucking you!”
“Don’t blame your deficiencies on me, Daniel.”
“Oh, I’m aware that I’m very deficient on my own, but an explanation’s an explanation, man. All I know is that my life has been fucked since the day you entered it!”
Armand kicked at the pillow, kicked at the blanket, then stood up. “Yet you continue to call for me; a paragon of rational decision making you are. Why don’t you leave if that’s what I am to you? A bad habit. A destructive vice. Ah, yes, because you thrive on destructive vices!”
“Oh, am I allowed to leave, sir? I have the distinct feeling like if I do you’ll just continue to stalk me and my entire family!”
Years ago, when Armand had gifted Daniel his locket, he had cradled his face and kissed it with cool soft lips and said, “You are mine. You are under my protection.” Did that hold? Did that hold forever?
“Oh, you are allowed. Go, Daniel! Go be a lackluster father to a child who will resent you and a lackluster husband to a woman you can’t stop lying to. Please enjoy the utter disaster you’ve made of the life I’ve so generously allowed you to keep. Try not to leave your drug paraphernalia in reach of tiny hands.”
“It’s crazy how you act so hurt when this is completely within your control,” Daniel said. He wanted to pull his hair out. They had rehashed this flavor of argument so many times and never got anywhere with it. Why did he bother, the rational part of him wondered, but the adrenaline and dopamine pushed him forward. “Armand, I wanted to be with you forever and you refused me! You refuse me every time!”
“I offer you love, and I offer you money, and I offer you gifts, and I offer you pleasure, and I offer you a way out of every pathetic plight you find yourself in. I offer you more of myself than I have given anyone, yet still you insist on this view of me as cruel and withholding.” Armand looked livid and vulnerable and dangerous and wounded. It made Daniel want to equal parts gather him up in his arms and tell him to fuck off back to his actual companion. Armand had Louis. Daniel was expendable. No matter what bullshit he fed him, Daniel knew that had to be one of the actual reasons he didn’t turn him.
“You don’t care if I die. You don’t care if I leave you.”
“As if turning you would do anything to prevent you from leaving me. It would just as likely hasten the process.”
“I would not leave you, you are the whole reason I want to keep - ”
“Three minutes ago you love her, now you offer to give her and your child up without a thought. Forgive me if I don’t believe your word is your bond.”
“So because you don’t think you will be able to keep me, you’re content to just watch me die? You don’t see how selfish that is?”
“I would be more content to watch you live, Daniel!” Armand said. “I love you, dearly, but you are sick to the core with covetousness for something you understand nothing about! As I have explained, asking me to curse you to this existence is worse than asking me to end your life right now!”
Daniel’s heart was racing and his skin was prickling and he thought he might throw up. He paced back and forth multiple times, pointing at Armand then putting his hand down then pointing again as if he couldn’t decide what to say.
“Jesus, I’m glad you can’t actually have my kid,” he finally decided upon. “You’re fucking psychotic. Sometimes I wish you had just killed me before you started chasing me. You eventually make everyone you love wish they were dead, don’t you?”
“Leave!”
The door flew open and Daniel was thrown out into the hallway involuntarily. It slammed again before he could stand up, and the last thing he saw was Armand angrily shoving the pillow back under his hips. He stared at the closed door, wondering if he should storm back in, start up again, get to the point where their bodies did the apologizing.
But it was getting late. He had a book to work on. Alice was waiting. Armand would find him again.