"A useful compulsion." For the journalist, for the monster, either way. Armand shifts on his palms, sinking down to lay flat. He is as near Daniel as he ever was when he and Louis settled down to sleep, which is to say, still quite apart. He feels like the freewheeling atoms in the space between them are agitated, warm.
Louis was younger than Daniel when they met, but an older vampire. Still, nearly comparative, in the scheme of things. Armand liked to be near him, of course he did. When they did sleep in cuddlier arrangements, it was pleasant. Good.
That Armand has a desire akin to wrapping around Daniel like a fucking python feels different. Something that feels like a devouring and a protectiveness at the same time.
Quiet is his first response, and this either means he's trying to think of an answer, or that he already has one, and isn't sure if he should offer it in full. The space between them is like a physical thing, alight and radiating, like a floor panel in a video game that's going to explode if someone steps on it wrong.
Eventually,
"I don't know if I'm safe from you. But I think I'm safe with you."
And if he feels threatened, he knows he's on the right path, so what the fuck does that make them.
The intent look he has fixed on Daniel's face, unwavering throughout the thoughtful quiet, dips down and aside. Measuring the feeling of being pleased for this answer. He has some awareness he isn't as inscrutable as he wants to imagine, little tells in his face, a minor flex at his mouth.
Daniel said there were no stupid decisions here, or something like that. Perhaps the more accurate thing would be to say, there are only stupid decisions here.
"Will it bother you," he says, before Daniel can say something funny and mean about it, "that is, can you sleep with someone against you?"
This is, after all, about Daniel getting sleep after Armand has harmed him. He thinks that if Daniel would prefer he stand in a corner the whole time, he would do so. (Imagines Daniel would not actually prefer that.)
Daniel watches Armand's face. Burns things into his memory, too caught up in the moment to know how bad it will feel tomorrow to dissect this. The better the high the harder the crash, he know that. And yet here he is, chasing it, up and up.
Pause. Both versions of that question are completely insane. He doesn't know why it charms him, the fact that Armand doesn't just ask Will you hold me?, but it does. It makes something in his chest catch. Do you not know how to ask? he could say. What do you think will happen to you, if you phrase it like you want it?
Daniel shakes his head a little, slides an arm out.
"Come here."
For the record, it just means that they're giving stupidity a pass.
Something like anticipation prickles over him, a skin-deep sensation. Daniel, opening out his arm for him. (The sense memory of Daniel, catching at his leg, encouraging him to straddle.) The mattress shifts beneath moving weight, and Armand ducks in nearer, considering some half-measure before he does himself the favour of deciding against it.
Settles in against Daniel's side, and rests his head on his shoulder, his chest. An arm around him. A heart beat beneath his ear.
He had spent eighty years with a man that he knew, in some corner of his heart, would not let him breathe the same air as he if he knew the truth. Angling for a lost fledgling into affording him some comfort, even if that fledgling hates him and the other way around, can be one of his lesser sins. To be lived with, like all the rest.
The space between them does not explode. Does not trigger a game over screen, does not end the world. Daniel gathers Armand up into his arms, he pulls up the blankets, and he gets comfortable. Some fussing, it's been a while and they aren't used to each other this way, but as far as first times go it's easy.
Worryingly easy. Daniel tells himself this is a fast way to get his head fucked even without letting anyone alter his memories; regular humans gaslight and manipulate each other all the time. But then he thinks about how he wants the answer to a million questions, he thinks of Armand leaning in to kiss him, and he sees the thing inside of him that says yes, good, this is where you are safe, this is the correct den of terrible monsters to which you belong.
No rogue vampires are going to throw home made grenades at him. No Talamasca agents are going to show up. Nothing on this fucking planet is scarier than Armand, and everything knows it.
Daniel is tired, and this is comfortable, and some weak part of him could collapse with relief that anyone would choose to do this with him again, after all this time, after all the relationships he's ruined and bridges he's purposefully burned. He holds Armand like they're lovers, flexes one hand as though checking to make sure it still isn't tremoring, and closes his eyes.
And also finds a state of relaxation. A means of severing some wire that connects brain and body, without actually becoming numb to it. Feels as though he can take a stroll through the complex, labyrinthine interior of his physical form, from the tips of his fingers to the way he has settled his spine to lay against Daniel, to the slight pinch of his ear where it pressed between his own skull and the other vampire's chest.
Vampires, perfectly still when the rising sun casts its spell. Armand doesn't let it, not for himself. He listens to the steady and full heartbeat in Daniel's chest, the draw of breathing. He would sometimes access Louis' dreams in a light sort of way, but only out of boredom—dreams are nothing special, the kaleidoscope tossing about of dirty laundry, a garbage disposal grinding memory into unrecognisable paste. Mostly, he checked it for anything that shouldn't be there.
No such ability here. Just Daniel's arms around him, still holding an odd kind of unconscious tension as if to keep Armand close. Safe not from him, but with him. Armand twists this thought around and around in his mind, like the keychain between his fingers. It makes him want to stay.
Does not. Daniel doesn't expect him to, and he finds himself meeting expectation. Quietly, slowly removing himself some hours later. Stands in his pyjamas for some more minutes, before he changes. Folds the borrowed clothing, sets it on the bed. Tries to decide if Daniel had meant it about the blanket thing, like making sure a parakeet stays docile.
Fine. He readjusts the blanket, drawing it properly over Daniel, a strange and morbid sort of tucking in. Looks at the shape this makes in the bed, and thinks: he, Armand, is a fool. Maybe Daniel will think so as well, when he rouses beneath his blankets as the night comes creeping.
(Daniel's sleep is deep, and untroubled. When the vampire he's cradling disentangles himself to slip away, he doesn't stir; too tired, too sedated by the sun, and the previous night's lack of sleep, all the stress, the stupid jolt to his heart, and his maker's healing blood. He won't come to until sunset.
Still. He doesn't move like a human would, shifting around, but the change in position is significant. One arm moves just a little, reaching over the now empty space. Grasping for a body no longer there.)
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no subject
"A useful compulsion." For the journalist, for the monster, either way. Armand shifts on his palms, sinking down to lay flat. He is as near Daniel as he ever was when he and Louis settled down to sleep, which is to say, still quite apart. He feels like the freewheeling atoms in the space between them are agitated, warm.
Louis was younger than Daniel when they met, but an older vampire. Still, nearly comparative, in the scheme of things. Armand liked to be near him, of course he did. When they did sleep in cuddlier arrangements, it was pleasant. Good.
That Armand has a desire akin to wrapping around Daniel like a fucking python feels different. Something that feels like a devouring and a protectiveness at the same time.
"And now?"
no subject
Quiet is his first response, and this either means he's trying to think of an answer, or that he already has one, and isn't sure if he should offer it in full. The space between them is like a physical thing, alight and radiating, like a floor panel in a video game that's going to explode if someone steps on it wrong.
Eventually,
"I don't know if I'm safe from you. But I think I'm safe with you."
And if he feels threatened, he knows he's on the right path, so what the fuck does that make them.
no subject
Daniel said there were no stupid decisions here, or something like that. Perhaps the more accurate thing would be to say, there are only stupid decisions here.
"Will it bother you," he says, before Daniel can say something funny and mean about it, "that is, can you sleep with someone against you?"
This is, after all, about Daniel getting sleep after Armand has harmed him. He thinks that if Daniel would prefer he stand in a corner the whole time, he would do so. (Imagines Daniel would not actually prefer that.)
no subject
Pause. Both versions of that question are completely insane. He doesn't know why it charms him, the fact that Armand doesn't just ask Will you hold me?, but it does. It makes something in his chest catch. Do you not know how to ask? he could say. What do you think will happen to you, if you phrase it like you want it?
Daniel shakes his head a little, slides an arm out.
"Come here."
For the record, it just means that they're giving stupidity a pass.
no subject
Settles in against Daniel's side, and rests his head on his shoulder, his chest. An arm around him. A heart beat beneath his ear.
He had spent eighty years with a man that he knew, in some corner of his heart, would not let him breathe the same air as he if he knew the truth. Angling for a lost fledgling into affording him some comfort, even if that fledgling hates him and the other way around, can be one of his lesser sins. To be lived with, like all the rest.
no subject
Worryingly easy. Daniel tells himself this is a fast way to get his head fucked even without letting anyone alter his memories; regular humans gaslight and manipulate each other all the time. But then he thinks about how he wants the answer to a million questions, he thinks of Armand leaning in to kiss him, and he sees the thing inside of him that says yes, good, this is where you are safe, this is the correct den of terrible monsters to which you belong.
No rogue vampires are going to throw home made grenades at him. No Talamasca agents are going to show up. Nothing on this fucking planet is scarier than Armand, and everything knows it.
Daniel is tired, and this is comfortable, and some weak part of him could collapse with relief that anyone would choose to do this with him again, after all this time, after all the relationships he's ruined and bridges he's purposefully burned. He holds Armand like they're lovers, flexes one hand as though checking to make sure it still isn't tremoring, and closes his eyes.
no subject
And also finds a state of relaxation. A means of severing some wire that connects brain and body, without actually becoming numb to it. Feels as though he can take a stroll through the complex, labyrinthine interior of his physical form, from the tips of his fingers to the way he has settled his spine to lay against Daniel, to the slight pinch of his ear where it pressed between his own skull and the other vampire's chest.
Vampires, perfectly still when the rising sun casts its spell. Armand doesn't let it, not for himself. He listens to the steady and full heartbeat in Daniel's chest, the draw of breathing. He would sometimes access Louis' dreams in a light sort of way, but only out of boredom—dreams are nothing special, the kaleidoscope tossing about of dirty laundry, a garbage disposal grinding memory into unrecognisable paste. Mostly, he checked it for anything that shouldn't be there.
No such ability here. Just Daniel's arms around him, still holding an odd kind of unconscious tension as if to keep Armand close. Safe not from him, but with him. Armand twists this thought around and around in his mind, like the keychain between his fingers. It makes him want to stay.
Does not. Daniel doesn't expect him to, and he finds himself meeting expectation. Quietly, slowly removing himself some hours later. Stands in his pyjamas for some more minutes, before he changes. Folds the borrowed clothing, sets it on the bed. Tries to decide if Daniel had meant it about the blanket thing, like making sure a parakeet stays docile.
Fine. He readjusts the blanket, drawing it properly over Daniel, a strange and morbid sort of tucking in. Looks at the shape this makes in the bed, and thinks: he, Armand, is a fool. Maybe Daniel will think so as well, when he rouses beneath his blankets as the night comes creeping.
no subject
Still. He doesn't move like a human would, shifting around, but the change in position is significant. One arm moves just a little, reaching over the now empty space. Grasping for a body no longer there.)