The world tilts a little as Daniel asks this thing.
Standing stable and all, but like a readjustment has to happen inside of himself. A glitching kind of moment in which Armand reflexively attempts to divine what the correct answer is, his own competing desires and sense of control all disorganised within him. Blood dries in a wandering path down his arm, collected as a smear at the elbow.
"Yes," he says. Because he does.
And he would like for it to all be pared down just as simply as Daniel makes it seem. Feels in his own mouth the slight ache that comes with fangs growing sharp, that comes with wanting to bite down.
The hand lingering at Daniel's face turns outward. A tip of his head follows a gaze scraped down to where he knows fat veins lie down the side of a warm throat.
A day ago, Daniel would say he'd never offer. He'd balk at it like he balked at Armand back outside of the house he'd been touring, no matter how curious he might have felt. An hour ago, he would want to, but still maybe he wouldn't— just to be fucking respectful and try not to make it weird.
But that's out the window, because he feels incredible, and hesitation has been stripped away and the most annoying facet of his personality, the fearless hedonist part, just thinks: well of course he should offer, it doesn't matter how fucking dangerous Armand is or how this might twist things up between them, it would simply be crazy to withhold.
Armand's hand on his face, fingers practically in his fucking mouth. He tastes his blood still. He could take more, he could take it forever.
He tilts his head back in a plain offer. His own hand is still at his maker's side.
"Come on."
Been in Daniel's apartment before, been in Daniel's throat before. This time he's asking for it. Come on.
Armand's eyes don't do the thing very often. The bloom of black pupils, a predator's gaze, but not never. Sometimes, when he feels like chasing something, when it doesn't matter at all that his prey might be able to detect the thought, because the prey is already hysterical and running for their lives. Otherwise, it seems like a tell. He has better control than most.
They widen a little here, drinking in the sight. The invisible thrum of pulse beneath offered skin. Come on jerks in him like a hook caught in his belly, will have to consider later whether it's because it has the vaguest hint of an order or simply because of the recklessness of the words themselves. Feels like a tiger being teased.
Imagines, for a split second, leaping, tearing.
Does what feels like the equivalent, and steps into Daniel's space. Catches his hand in his hair, another to keep his chin so positioned and turned a little aside. Delicately applies his fangs on skin, a dainty twinned piercing sensation followed by the more intimate press of a warm mouth to throat.
Armand looks like the monster he is as he steps closer, and it makes Daniel's pulse hammer faster— fear has always been an improperly connected wire in him, and dying hasn't untangled it to a healthy position. Impossible to tell the difference, in his moment, between terror and excitement, and he's flying somewhere on molten silk clouds far beyond an ability to inspect it.
A bite, pain that isn't really pain at all, and Daniel makes some small, gasped sound, hardly aware of it. One hand on Armand's side, the other pressed to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
He had wound his arms around him, too, in San Fransisco. Sympathy for the devil, or a flicker of action before death. Here, Armand can feel him, see himself as Daniel sees him, and it isn't quite that he's beautiful— he's a centerpiece of reality, maybe Daniel sees too much of him, but he isn't afraid, not even of the parts that cut into his hands when he picks it up to look at, and he isn't repulsed, even when he's so fucking pissed off.
It feels good to be fed on. Did he believe it? Not quite this much. Jesus fucking christ.
One could imagine a plan afoot. (A thing with syntax.) Laying a trap that would hurt Daniel, laying in wait, pretending at surprise, offering the blood, being offered the blood, all to lead to this moment. That would be an absurd thing, of course. Armand knows a little bit about how the world works, which is a series of random collisions, violent rearrangements, and the knowledge that to survive the downward spiral of entropy, one must (the impersonal pronoun) make whatever decision is necessary in the moment to survive it.
He also knows that he doesn't appear that way to any of them. All of them in love with narrative meaning. Armand had given Louis that narrative. Louis, determined to rewrite it. Daniel, pen in hand.
All this to say: he might agree with the potential for his own conniving narrative coherence on account of this experience being so very good that it seems impossible for him to not have taken it on purpose. That it should just fall into his hands.
His hands hold Daniel fixed in place as he drinks, long, languid, vampiric swallows, eyes closed. If his own blood is addictive for its age and lineage, then maybe the closest he can come to experiencing it is in his fledgling. But it isn't that, not really. It is what it was already when Daniel was human, the breadth of his perception. He had thought, fifty years ago, of the dense crushing weight of gravity, of his story being swallowed down, unmade and unspooled. It might have been.
It might even feel nice. Drinks, thinks of tape tangled around fingers, pulling him in. Thinks of the single droplet of blood, Daniel unconscious and Louis behind a door, that he'd collected out of a pool, tasted, as he listened. Of the half sip he'd managed before he'd been made to stop. Of the gluttonous draining, finally, well earned, on the floor in Dubai. Armand had put his arms around Daniel as he'd died. The urge is there again.
The grip of his jaw gentles. His fingers gentle. Responsible, neat, he presses his mouth against puncture wounds to collect the last of what oozes from them as they close.
A writer doesn't exist in the narrative. Outside of it, watching, road-building. A journalist stands in the middle of the narrative with a magnifying glass (normal journalist, middle career), or a tape recorder (bad journalist, early career), or a fucking sledgehammer (good journalist, now and again).
Armand could have just dropped him off a ledge and then loomed over him until he asked for help. Armand could have just thrown Claudia out the front door of the theater one morning. Daniel isn't sure that Armand knows why he does things. Daniel wants to sit here with the fucking sledgehammer.
Things to think about later, when he's not cranked out of his mind.
Almost a protest, when Armand pulls away. Surely it's there in the spam of his hand, but he's not pushy about it. Hey man, finish the fucking line, and he's not suicidal, hey, why don't you actually just drain me, wouldn't that be fun.
They are standing very close. A naturally romantic configuration, still cradling Daniel's face, other hand curled around the back of his skull. Strange to think that something so uselessly ordinary as a kiss would make more undeniable alterations to this thing they are doing, and something as deeply intimate as blood drinking
well, they're fucking around. Irresponsible. Armand has less excuse, but maybe also every excuse. No rules, no laws, no commands.
Blood trapped in the creases of his lips, and a messier smear of it on Daniel's mouth. This, Armand studies, before he makes the mistake of flicking that focus up, meeting Daniel's stare, the question it holds. Armand steps aside, around, letting him go on the same motion as he moves for his coat, loose shirt sleeve flapping open at the wrist.
Armand withdraws, and Daniel is still in space, but something tilts and says no, that's not how it should go. Buckles up against the fact that Armand should be allowed to bolt if he wants to, and that Daniel doesn't know what he'd do if he stayed anyway.
Want to watch a movie?
Want to make out?
Yeah, great, that'll work.
His hand is on his maker's side until the last second, until Armand is too far away, even with Daniel's arm extended. Lingering atom by atom, off of his hand, his fingers, the little clawed tips at the ends that exist now because of Armand. Daniel lets him go, even though he could stay, in this questionable apartment with mismatched lamps and a tacky ceiling.
The hand at his side, a problem. Armand too conscious of his breathing, his heart beat, the churn of warmth that comes from blood drinking. Too conscious of an absence of touch from a being who is not (or no longer) his prey. Too tempting to linger and find out what exactly Daniel is reaching for and be disappointed by the answer. A drug has a way of making everything seem very beautiful and important.
He swings the coat around his shoulders. Not running, or moving faster than he needs, but moving all the same.
"You have my number," he says, uselessly, but adds, "for anything you need."
Generous. But he would be curious to know of what that would entail.
The problem with drugs, for Daniel, is that he's convinced himself several times that they don't make him numb to reality, they just make the world feel like what it should feel like. Why shouldn't he be high all the time? He gets more work done, he feels better, he occasionally has cosmic mind-altering realizations. And then he gets sober, and remembers he's literally burning holes in his brain and risking all of his teeth falling out, a hundred other things
that don't matter anymore, being immortal.
This is better. He can still hear his own cautious, bitter thoughts, but the swell of euphoria is as powerful as anything.
"Are you sure?"
About anything he needs. About this having been a good idea. About leaving.
A flash of a glance back that is borderline hostile, as if resenting the concept that Armand might speak an instruction that he isn't sure about, that he does anything he isn't sure about. But this is, also, unbecoming of him, a firing synapse in the muddle that burns bright enough for him to wrangle his composure, nod back to Daniel.
"Don't send my regards," is wry, there, a joke, but he is leaving, and he can pretend that he is leaving because the task is finished, as opposed to a retreat.
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no subject
Standing stable and all, but like a readjustment has to happen inside of himself. A glitching kind of moment in which Armand reflexively attempts to divine what the correct answer is, his own competing desires and sense of control all disorganised within him. Blood dries in a wandering path down his arm, collected as a smear at the elbow.
"Yes," he says. Because he does.
And he would like for it to all be pared down just as simply as Daniel makes it seem. Feels in his own mouth the slight ache that comes with fangs growing sharp, that comes with wanting to bite down.
The hand lingering at Daniel's face turns outward. A tip of his head follows a gaze scraped down to where he knows fat veins lie down the side of a warm throat.
no subject
But that's out the window, because he feels incredible, and hesitation has been stripped away and the most annoying facet of his personality, the fearless hedonist part, just thinks: well of course he should offer, it doesn't matter how fucking dangerous Armand is or how this might twist things up between them, it would simply be crazy to withhold.
Armand's hand on his face, fingers practically in his fucking mouth. He tastes his blood still. He could take more, he could take it forever.
He tilts his head back in a plain offer. His own hand is still at his maker's side.
"Come on."
Been in Daniel's apartment before, been in Daniel's throat before. This time he's asking for it. Come on.
no subject
They widen a little here, drinking in the sight. The invisible thrum of pulse beneath offered skin. Come on jerks in him like a hook caught in his belly, will have to consider later whether it's because it has the vaguest hint of an order or simply because of the recklessness of the words themselves. Feels like a tiger being teased.
Imagines, for a split second, leaping, tearing.
Does what feels like the equivalent, and steps into Daniel's space. Catches his hand in his hair, another to keep his chin so positioned and turned a little aside. Delicately applies his fangs on skin, a dainty twinned piercing sensation followed by the more intimate press of a warm mouth to throat.
no subject
A bite, pain that isn't really pain at all, and Daniel makes some small, gasped sound, hardly aware of it. One hand on Armand's side, the other pressed to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
He had wound his arms around him, too, in San Fransisco. Sympathy for the devil, or a flicker of action before death. Here, Armand can feel him, see himself as Daniel sees him, and it isn't quite that he's beautiful— he's a centerpiece of reality, maybe Daniel sees too much of him, but he isn't afraid, not even of the parts that cut into his hands when he picks it up to look at, and he isn't repulsed, even when he's so fucking pissed off.
It feels good to be fed on. Did he believe it? Not quite this much. Jesus fucking christ.
no subject
He also knows that he doesn't appear that way to any of them. All of them in love with narrative meaning. Armand had given Louis that narrative. Louis, determined to rewrite it. Daniel, pen in hand.
All this to say: he might agree with the potential for his own conniving narrative coherence on account of this experience being so very good that it seems impossible for him to not have taken it on purpose. That it should just fall into his hands.
His hands hold Daniel fixed in place as he drinks, long, languid, vampiric swallows, eyes closed. If his own blood is addictive for its age and lineage, then maybe the closest he can come to experiencing it is in his fledgling. But it isn't that, not really. It is what it was already when Daniel was human, the breadth of his perception. He had thought, fifty years ago, of the dense crushing weight of gravity, of his story being swallowed down, unmade and unspooled. It might have been.
It might even feel nice. Drinks, thinks of tape tangled around fingers, pulling him in. Thinks of the single droplet of blood, Daniel unconscious and Louis behind a door, that he'd collected out of a pool, tasted, as he listened. Of the half sip he'd managed before he'd been made to stop. Of the gluttonous draining, finally, well earned, on the floor in Dubai. Armand had put his arms around Daniel as he'd died. The urge is there again.
The grip of his jaw gentles. His fingers gentle. Responsible, neat, he presses his mouth against puncture wounds to collect the last of what oozes from them as they close.
no subject
Armand could have just dropped him off a ledge and then loomed over him until he asked for help. Armand could have just thrown Claudia out the front door of the theater one morning. Daniel isn't sure that Armand knows why he does things. Daniel wants to sit here with the fucking sledgehammer.
Things to think about later, when he's not cranked out of his mind.
Almost a protest, when Armand pulls away. Surely it's there in the spam of his hand, but he's not pushy about it. Hey man, finish the fucking line, and he's not suicidal, hey, why don't you actually just drain me, wouldn't that be fun.
Stands there. Looks at him.
What are they doing?
no subject
well, they're fucking around. Irresponsible. Armand has less excuse, but maybe also every excuse. No rules, no laws, no commands.
Blood trapped in the creases of his lips, and a messier smear of it on Daniel's mouth. This, Armand studies, before he makes the mistake of flicking that focus up, meeting Daniel's stare, the question it holds. Armand steps aside, around, letting him go on the same motion as he moves for his coat, loose shirt sleeve flapping open at the wrist.
It's not a question he has an answer for.
no subject
Want to watch a movie?
Want to make out?
Yeah, great, that'll work.
His hand is on his maker's side until the last second, until Armand is too far away, even with Daniel's arm extended. Lingering atom by atom, off of his hand, his fingers, the little clawed tips at the ends that exist now because of Armand. Daniel lets him go, even though he could stay, in this questionable apartment with mismatched lamps and a tacky ceiling.
no subject
He swings the coat around his shoulders. Not running, or moving faster than he needs, but moving all the same.
"You have my number," he says, uselessly, but adds, "for anything you need."
Generous. But he would be curious to know of what that would entail.
no subject
that don't matter anymore, being immortal.
This is better. He can still hear his own cautious, bitter thoughts, but the swell of euphoria is as powerful as anything.
"Are you sure?"
About anything he needs. About this having been a good idea. About leaving.
no subject
"Don't send my regards," is wry, there, a joke, but he is leaving, and he can pretend that he is leaving because the task is finished, as opposed to a retreat.