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Daniel’s body was wracked with violent, trembling convulsions in his death. It was taking all of Armand’s considerable strength to hold him still. Half in his lap, half against his upper body. His chest flush to Daniel’s back, while he shook. The sweat drying on his brow smelled sickly sour, sticky and cloying. It was powerful enough to nearly overwhelm the rapturous feeling of his medicine-soaked blood on his tongue. So drenched in pharmaceuticals but deeply drunk enough to slowly allow his palette to filter through the chemicals to the raw, true taste of Daniel beneath.
Earthy, like a fine home cooked meal. Something a human might eat to reground themselves in the present, with a spice or two that hinted at new ideas and horizons. A possibility of exploration.
Daniel’s blood had always left a lingering, comforting aftertaste in the back of his throat. Whether it was the power of the substances of the moment, or the vigor of his personality, Armand had never been able to pinpoint. He could contend himself with a flick of his tongue against his own fangs, chasing the faint taste of iron home and metallic splendor even when Daniel was little more than a figment in the rearview mirror.
It would make him shiver, wrap his arms around himself and trace the finest points of his canines against his own wrist, a flick of the tongue, held there with promise and personal pleasure he greedily clung to in moments of stress, melancholy or contemplation.
He knew he could find Daniel anywhere, at any moment in any state.
Blindfolded? He could smell his cologne-sharp, woodsy drug store shelf stable alcohol masquerading as a rich man’s go-to. Daniel had favoured pines, oaks and in moments of spontaneous daring; citrus.
Deafened? He had the viper’s sight; honing and determined. Daniel was not tall enough or broad enough to stand out in a crowd, dressed for the common man and Sears-clad masses, but his bag, heavy from his recorder, his cameras, weighted down the shoulder, forced his posture to a lean. Hair once dark, lightening over the years and patching thin forever unruly that it became Armand’s beacon. Piercing green eyes playing at indifference but forever snatching bits and pieces from the crowd; a comment here, a news report there. Little bits of information for his mental rolodex, something to call upon in the sleepless midnight. Hopeful for his nightly visitor yet stubbornly chastising himself for the damsel flavoured doting.
“You could stay man,” uttered offhandedly one humid summer night, Daniel naked and flat on his stomach on the motels burgundy and mustard bedspread. Arms reaching for his newspaper, red pen in hand to mark notations for the latest piece. “Cross-referencing from the competition” He’d explained to a fascinated, laser-focused Armand, “If I’m doing a piece that’s already had traction elsewhere I don’t need to hammer some other assholes point home, I need my own.” But better-went unsaid vocally but screamed loud in Armand’s mind. Central, vital-he needed to be the standout. His words had to come out of the horde and prosper. He left the suggestion of further company in the air, while Armand paused in reaching for his own pants. Rolling over fluidly to drape his arm against Daniel’s back. He shuddered, briefly, for the icy coldness on his own drying sweat. Still to warm to the touch but denying any discomfort for the chance of longer touch.
“And why might I do such a thing?” Armand teased, using the low, soothing taunt that made Daniel subconscious arch against him, pen and cigarette still firmly gripped. “You know I have places to be lover, before you become so transfixed upon your work my presence becomes a mere shadow in your peripheral.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Daniel waved off the bait with enough genuine disinterest to spark him fresh, leaving Armand to shift his arm from a casual drape to a piercing grip of claws in curls, tight and demanding.
“Watch it.” Purred so delightfully slow in his ear, “Lest your argument become more tempting than you could bear.”
Daniel snorted, the sound tight from how far back Armand’s grip dragged his throat. Tilting his head forward for even more pressure on his scalp, chasing the claws. Hoping each one would leave a streak, a nick, in his skin. Daniel collected Armand’s fang and claw marks like trophies.
His words came breathy, deep. Each syllable coiled around the vocal cords, “Yeah?” Again, just for that flicker of irritation that fueled them both. “Make me.”
Armand still had the belt that Daniel’s teeth had worn clean through that night (and others, he kept it as a little momento, bringing it out whenever a certain someone needed some enthusiastic attitude adjustments) and wonders, distantly, if his older self will recognize it upon memory restoration and vampiric fueled senses. If he will catch the human teeth indents and have as much joy as Armand in overlaying them with the clean penetration of fangs.
Daniel, who’s shudders had tapered out to a death clutch stillness. Skin grey as his hair, ashen and pasty. Too dry to the touch, leaving his glasses perched in free fall down his nose. Caught, when the sweat ceased to abruptly for further traction.
Armand, when he bends his head, can see himself in them, a focus-free blur of the brightest sunset, where Daniel’s blood had fueled him enough to shine. Sparkling and crystalizing to a full portrait of his own face. Luscious dark curls, healthy brown skin; he doubts he’s looked so lively since his own long forgotten mortality, Daniel his new-perhaps most eternal life force.
It’s those he reaches for, immediately fixated and desperate. Long, graceful fingers clutching gently at the warm metal band. Little beads of sweat still coating the industrial arm. Chased away by his own dry grip, his reflection shifting as he held them up to the jets milky light. Sterile yellow glow dampening his own internal one, doing him little credit for how radiant he felt within.
Daniel’s own little test of time, these manufactured frames.
“Great,” Daniel sighed, irritably, “As if I didn’t look enough like my grandpa.” The mournful pout doing glorious things for Armand’s libido that Daniel was currently too despondent to replicate.
“I say they’re quite fetching,” Armand tried, easing them from his face. “Distinguished.”
“The hard-on is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in your argument, Boss.” Daniel groused, but he was smiling, if faintly. His ego was a sensitive little landmine Armand had learned to navigate with precision and, in his opinion, had resounding success with.
Most times. It, like the tides and currents, fluctuated with Daniel’s various successes and sobriety. In this moment, with Daniel studying his new personal attire held delicately in Armand’s hands, he feels the compass strike true.
It was no secret to either of them that Daniel could, in most cases, rely upon his looks for the fix and story alike, when all else might’ve failed. The glasses, a forced signature and declaration of his youth slipping free were as frightful as they were necessary. Daniel had never feared trying new things; that exact fearlessness an intoxication to Armand, but insecurity was a thriving beast in Daniel’s soul, at war with his biting, stubborn pride.
Ego and doubt in a house vines drunk tangle.
“And yet the argument remains compelling all the same.” Armand countered, sliding the glasses back on Daniel’s face. Admiring how the green darkened from a gentle sea foam to darker algae beneath the glasses minuscule tint.
“Ah, shut up.” Daniel batted at his hands, skin flushed and tempting, when he kissed him to silence. Pretending he couldn’t feel the buzz of Armand’s pleased purr on his own chapped, dry lips where they met.
Delicate little things, this marriage of glass and metal. Useless to a vampire’s sight and thus pointless to retain. Armand fancies that Daniel might immediately wish them to burst into flames or take a new home in the deepest trenches of the nearest waste bin.
Perhaps he ought to keep them, a new momento to harmonize with the bitten belt. Or..
Armand feels his fingers tightening against the band. Fragile and thin, he can feel the metal already protesting. His grip hardly exerts any force, but any is enough when he considers the ancient, undead creature behind it.
Slowly, he presses. Slowly, his flexing becomes purposeful. Gently, the fingers work up to the rounded part of metal nestling the glass in place; keeping it secure for sights longevity and expensive assistance. Glass that separates with a rough pop that’s too loud in the bubble their little tableau has crafted. Now too silent with Daniel’s absent breathing. Engine whirr a necessary background cascade Armand tunes out with practiced ease. Lest he go completely crazy from the insistent drone. Ears sharper than a canine and far more merciless.
The circlet of glass is smaller in his palm than he imagined, fragile, easy to curl his fingers around in the preemptive fist of a punch and push. A squeeze, better than any stress ball and all the more satisfying, as the whole becomes fragments. Slivers of glass newly parted, finding a home in the tight network of veins within his palm. The rise of his blood answering his call. Each finger unfurls slowly, peacefully, and the thickest droplets carved from where the glass shattered in its uneven fray, begin to run down his wrist, slow and sluggish. Seeking Daniel, who lays so still against Armand he wonders, for a brief spasm, if his reverie and enchantment has cost him.
The pulse of panic silenced by the overturning of his palm. Where glass sticks stubborn against his hand. Soaking slowly with the blood unleashed. He lowers his hand slowly, reverently, to Daniel’s stiff, dry lips. Barely parted for breath. Willing the drops to quicken, to seek. Encouraged by his own pressure, when he presses down more firmly, finding the coating of blood like lipstick against his skin. Swallowing his own brief, doubting curse as the blood roots home. Sense memory from deep within Daniel awakening his slumbering tongue. Eyes tightly closed, mouth moving in curious, stilted fractions. Even in near death, Armand feels a pulse of possessive satisfaction that Daniel’s body knows his taste. Recalls his syrupy sweetness and rich wine, Armand shifting down against the jets thin black carpet to make them more comfortable. Daniel’s tongue moves slowly, the slightest groan from his chest a powerful shudder to Armand as he leans up, laps at the taste and curls his tongue in obvious confusion around the steepled pieces. Begins to tug and pull with his teeth at the little fragments. He works one free and spits, letting it drop to an uncertain point beyond themselves as he dips the point of his tongue all the more forward, forcing the cut wider, deeper.
Blinded all the while, fueled by instinct and oblivious to the tightening of Armand’s grip the motions bring forth. Daniel mouths and laps at each with that same focused reverence. Every freed vein dragging a deep, rumbling moan from within. A particularly stubborn one that lodged closer to the inner wrist prompting a stubborn, intense growl that brought Armand’s still dropped fangs back to his neck, the freshly drying blood rooting out a new home against Daniel’s scar. Gnarled and dense as his hand is lavished with purposeful licks.
Impossible to be sated by such teasing little rivulets. He’s quick with his claw, desperate to his fledglings rising whims. Slicing deep into his wrist with ease. Rendering the sort of damage the glass could never replicate with its tiny, pathetic little shards. Daniel’s tongue is there instantly, mouth sealing against the wound in feverish haze, pulling at the threads, chasing Armand’s taste and rocking steadily up into his arm beyond all conscious thought. Armand feels the heaviness of fog encapsulating his brain, his body, as Daniel pulls and pulls. Drains and drags.
Motion, movement. He’s completely flat on his back before he fully registers that change. Welcome, curious weight above him. Blood drying to paper on his wrist. Two hands against his shoulders. Stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh. Like his fledgling doesn’t really know where to go and is being pulled by internal force alone.
The jet is a steady, low rumble beneath him. A tense vibration against his spine.
Daniel’s eyes burst open and reveal luminescent vermilion to Armand’s own startled gasp. There had been no guarantee, no reference point for how he might look, but they're his own. Fire bright and as beautiful as the evening sun. Armand swallows the sudden lump in his throat defiantly. Briefly unsure what to do with the feeling of utter serenity slowly making a home in his soul. Desperate, unmoored, he frees his other hand from Daniel’s stomach to pet, gently, through his hair. Encouraging further licks, pulls. Slowly entangles his claws deep within his curls, settles with a gentle purr he’s barely conscious of emitting, but clearly heard for the way it drives Daniel’s mouth to his throat, where the bite of his own clumsy and newly growing fangs tears into the skin. A merciless gouge that finds him arching up, hungry, to the immediate crest of intense pain.
A startling, confusing pain that finds his eyes fluttering shut in a hiss, a strange curl of something indistinct within that hovers on the horizon. A consciousness butting up obnoxious and seeking against his own. Not thoughts, but something more raw, more pure and so completely new that Armand flutters mentally. Briefly disoriented before a heavy pull from Daniel roots him back down, up. He apologizes with a grunt, tightens his grip in the curls and works his claws until they’re a massage, feeling Daniel’s own contented sigh within himself, rather than with his ears.
A fascinating bit of knowledge he’s forced to file away, for Daniel’s sloppy mouthing has turned to ravenous yanks, almost lifting Armand off the ground in their desperation before he wraps his leg up around Daniel’s waist. Pinning him and finding his voice like a long forgotten song.
“Slow down.” The words come out in a rasp, dry like his throat. All the blood going to his fledgling vigorously. “Easy, lover. Pull slowly, taste it. Take it in without waste. You know what to do.” Gentle encouragement, softest praise.
Daniel likes his lap, though Armand has never been able to get him to admit it out loud.
Like any cat, it is merely a coincidence that he often ends up there. Perched and curled.
Now, he straddles him from the front, arms wrapped tight about his neck and settled contently against his throat. Lapping at the cut Armand graciously provided with the aid of his claw in a slow drag. One that Daniel watched hungrily before he pounced. Up like a cat and around him in an instant. His weight a comfortable, soft pressure. Armand is content to keep his own arms loose about his waist, letting Daniel imbibe slowly, reverently. Long since accustomed to his little treat.
One he’d learned very quickly to savour, for how fast the supernatural healing denied him more.
Not that it stopped him from trying. From working his wide, blunted human teeth against the healing seal until a mournful huff left him bereft. Never failing to make Armand chuckle with pleasure for its pettiness. He’s such a desperate thing, his favoured mortal. Ever hungry. Ever chasing.
Never satisfied.
“Fuck,” uttered in ecstasy when he pulls free. The well finally too dry to chase. Daniel’s never very eloquent like this. “Your taste, it’s…”
Armand gives him a smug little hum in response, watching Daniel run his tongue over his lips, stubbornly stealing every drop. His liquid gold, the one currency he’ll never trade. “The best you’ve ever had.” Indulging him, encouraging the little beast.
“Fuck yeah, you know it is.” Too drunk in his pleasure, to sparked by the infusion to be deferential. A newfound vibrancy that has Armand working his fingers past his lips, greeted immediately by suction and friction. Wet, heated saliva free of all sanguine. Daniel hoarding his treasure deep in his throat, his soul.
Not a drop wasted.
“You always did.” Armand whispers when the present shifts itself into focus anew. Sense memory, the slow return of thoughts and old, long buried tales stir within Daniel. Forces his throat to slow, to mumble the briefest, faintest little noise of angry confusion Armand is quick to tamper.
“In time.” He promises. “In time, Daniel. Drink.” He’s a long night ahead, and great pain before sunrise. There’s never a fight Daniel will toss the white flag, but a resounding growl, followed by Daniel resuming his pulls, assures Armand that this looming fight is tabled, for now.
Expertise in compartmentalization. Armand becomes conscious, slowly, of destabilizing disarray in his thoughts. The jet and Daniel’s head swim, briefly in his mind’s eye before he understands with sudden clarity that he’s dizzy.
Dizzy..Armand hasn’t been dizzy in 500 years. The sensation brings forth a startled, hoarse laugh. Feeling more than seeing the tensing of Daniel’s brow. Knowing, in his minds eye, that when it furrows now his wrinkles make it deeper. Richer. More intent. Armand wants to work his tongue between every furrow. Carve a home in that furious anger and leave his impression upon every little indent. Make a space where every line is his. Where he can gleefully tell the world ‘mine’.
That it was he who put them there. Each one. That it was he who pressed down the stencil and Daniel who filled in the lines.
Daniel. Smart, wonderful, maddeningly intelligent Daniel feels him fading. He must, because he stops himself before Armand commands it. Lifts free his fangs and-oh-oh.
They’re massive. Thick and coated red. Nearly touching his bottom lip at full descent. Armand feels his stomach drop, knot and unwind to liquid heat. His shaky hand is up, petting and rubbing, before he has any thought that he’s moved. He presses the pad of his thumb against the tip, cuts more blood and hisses when Daniel clamps down. Too young, too new, to ignore a single drop. His lips work slowly, his tongue a hot line against his finger. The fang drags deep and Armand shivers, head falling back against the jet carpet when it becomes impossible to keep it raised. Fingers loosening their grip on Daniel’s curls, thoughts beginning to taper out to a soothing sort of hum.
“Fuck.” It’s the first thing Daniel’s said since Armand pinned him to the floor and bit out his life. Tinged with confusion, hurt, and something that might be wonder, might be love if he can choke out the word. There’s a low, inconsistent tangle between them that sits on the edge of their consciousness. Armand’s weakened hand petting down his spine, delighted by how he can feel every little notch, bone and cartilage. Long mapped out, forever held in impression in his memories.
“It’s my spine, Boss. Ain’t going anywhere.”
Armand ignores this retort and continues his sultry mapping. “And what a lovely spine it is.” Said more to hear Daniel snort than any true need to have a spine in his personal collection of antiquities. “Now hush.”
Daniel flops back down, spreading out starfish style on the bed. Unlike the putrid motels, his apartment is a comfortable little haven Armand’s help to design and decorate. The painted ceiling a personal touch he himself would keep rich over the years, snuck in through windows, through enchanted guards, whenever Daniel was sleeping or out on business. The apartment that would see him through two marriages, two distant children, career booms and, eventually, a terminal diagnosis.
A diagnosis that Daniel would spend the next few hours contemplating as he laid on his back and stared at the hand painted blue skies and soft, touchable white clouds. Without knowing why it brought him such intense, grounding comfort.
The younger Daniel, still deep in Armand’s clutches and heedless of his future, shifts to get more comfortable beneath his hand. Smart remarks dying on his tongue when he presses firm to every muscle. When he straddles him and begins a deep tissue massage that leaves him boneless against the bedding. His permanent ache temporarily alleviated beneath Armand’s loving and reverent touch.
“Fuck everything else, permanent masseuse, Boss. You’d make a killing.”
Armand already has a ‘killing’, financially speaking, and nips at Daniel’s earlobe for the comment. “I need no killing of the monetary sense, lover. And this single customer is a fine focus point for me.”
“Lucky me.” Daniel groaned, drunk with pleasure. “Little to the left, then.”
He bites, a nip to thin skin. “I know where to go.”
Armand knew Daniel’s body, his soul, far beyond what Daniel himself did.
Obsessive madness.
So much to be said, to be breached. Anger, fury, rejection and denial. Yet it’s all beyond Armand in the moment, all a thread dangling far off. Away. Tucked to the back and dangling there, taunting him. Unreachable in the moment for the blockade Daniel creates with his own body. The glow in his new eyes dimming, cresting upon approaching pain. The final shudders of death before he’s left new and hearty. Still drowning, slowly in what Armand knows must be the overwhelming burst of colour and senses around him.
But it’s his own face he remains focused upon. Hard to keep his eyes open, so exhausted as he is from the exchange. Daniel’s hands not yet free of their tremble as they cup his cheeks, his jaw. Tilting his head this way, that. Armand happy enough to allow his gentle manipulation. To have Daniel take him in like he’s seeing him for the first time, committing every detail to his newly heightened thoughts.
He’s startled to feel Daniel bend. The decision made in the back of his mind and pulsating between that strange thread between them. The feeling that puts a new beat to Armand’s heart and has him barely lifting his head to meet him in the middle. To snag and catch upon the moment before Daniel uncharacteristically dares to second guess himself. His mouth feels as it always did, if now a touch wetter from tacky blood and more deeply gouged into his jaw with age. He’s always been surprisingly soft to kiss before they become too impatient and begin biting or tugging. Armand pleased when he feels the shifting, the welcome opening of his mouth. He pushes his tongue forward languidly, contently. Let Daniel’s surprised moan roll over into his own, chasing iron and heat.
Rough, coarse stubble rakes against Armand’s upper lip. Leaves a faint little scratch he wishes furiously would stick around for the aftermath. Would love to contemplate and run claw and tongue over alike. Holding the memory where physical marks just refused to take.
Daniel’s thumb stroking beneath his eye is the only clue he gets to the slow, sudden appearance of tears. A little shimmer against his cheeks, rubbed into his skin and soothed by Daniel’s calloused fingers, refusing to part from the kiss long enough to lick it away. Stroking steadily, soothing, until Armand settles again.
Later, he’d hold Daniel through the worst of his death. Later, he’d help him into the planes shower and clean him off. Later, he’d scrub at his hair, find the inflight blood bags and wait for the inevitable torrent of Daniel’s emotions. His fury, his hurt.
Much later, beyond all that, he’d guide him through his hunt. His stalking. Delight in Daniel’s quick taking and his feral, messy feeding. Would take him home and show him exactly how many times he reapplied the fresh coats to Daniel’s ceiling, peeking in on him when he slept and where exactly they should put his coffin.
Later and later and tomorrow, the future, forever.
But for now, on the floor of a plane and with a comforting blanket of fledgling, Armand maps out Daniel with his tongue, and drifts, pleasantly, in mutual pleasure.