Chapter Text
Daniel is an extremely heavy sleeper, even for a fledgling. He will pass out almost exactly at sunrise (Armand has had to carry him to bed on multiple occasions, and his heart has never been softer than in those moments, picking Daniel up from whatever nest of papers he’d burrowed himself in to the point of losing track of time), and he’ll be difficult to rouse even well after sundown.
But Armand has his ways of dealing with it when necessary.
One thing, carried over from their original affair in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, is to bring a cup of dark, freshly brewed coffee, lean in close over Daniel’s sleeping form, and allow the aroma to waft over his face until his nose twitches ever so adorably. Of course, these days the cup contains blood (if not fresh, then carefully warmed up in a small pot on the stove — microwaves are exciting inventions, but for some things the slow and traditional methods are best), but the gist very much remains the same.
It’s just after sunset now, and waking Daniel up is absolutely necessary. The gallery opening is in two hours, and Armand has had A Day (capital letters), and he needs his Daniel.
And, even more crucially, a special package has just arrived.
He walks quietly into their bedroom, dressed only in Daniel’s shirt (he’s found this to speed up Daniel’s arrival at full consciousness by a flattering 65%), carefully carrying a large mug of warm blood in his hands, a newspaper tucked under one arm (Daniel does like his print). He places the newspaper on Daniel’s bedside table, then crawls on his knees to straddle Daniel’s sleeping form.
There he is. On his back, one arm thrown nonsensically up and curling above his head on the pillow (and he does have such wonderful arms). Not even breathing. Marble-white curls somehow perfect as always. The lines on his face an endless stream of stories, all soft and relaxed in his sleep. Navy-blue t-shirt complementing his skin tone quite wonderfully.
So peaceful. So irrepressibly lovely.
All the same, the blood in the cup isn’t getting any warmer, and Armand wants to give him his present already. He leans in, blows over the rim of the cup to direct the aroma in Daniel’s face. That lovely, shapely nose (Armand really must sculpt a bust of his beloved one day) twitches, a breathing rhythm starts up, and then those eyes crack open, amethyst-hued and soft with sleep.
“Mmmh,” Daniel says, bringing one hand to rub over his face. “Morning, gorgeous.”
Armand was the one who wanted to say that (except he’d have used the correct time of day), but he won’t be put out.
“I have a gift for you,” he says immediately instead.
“Yeah, I can see that,” hums Daniel leisurely, rubbing his hands up and down Armand’s bare thighs.
“Drink your breakfast before it gets cold.”
“And breakfast in bed,” Daniel croons. “How did I get so lucky.”
“I turned you. Now drink it, I want to get to the surprise.”
“Oh, so it’s a surprise now?” Daniel asks, but obediently sits up against the pillows to drink.
“Yes. And it arrived in the nick of time.”
As soon as Daniel is done with his breakfast, Armand reaches over to his own bedside table and retrieves a flat, black box tied with a crimson ribbon.
“For you to wear to the opening tonight,” he elaborates.
Daniel likes doing this sometimes — Armand picking out clothes for him, dressing him up, showing him off. Armand enjoys that immensely.
Daniel opens the box like a complete brute, with no finesse at all, and Armand loves all things about him, including this. He chucks the lid to the side, spreads open the tissue paper, and laughs delightedly when the contents are revealed.
“You’ve fucking outdone yourself, babe,” he says, lifting the garment out of the box and letting it unfold.
A black t-shirt (organic cotton from a certified small-holder farming cooperative, of course) with the words EAT THE RICH printed on it in a classic, wobbly horror font, in red with a shimmering effect. Armand designed it himself, and is quite proud of it.
“You’ll wear your leather jacket with it, I thought,” he says, unable to stop himself from licking his lips at the thought of it. “And your motorcycle jeans, the ones I got you when I finished renovating the Black Lightning.”
“Oh, shit, will you drive us on it there?” Daniel asks, the stolen blood tinting his cheeks a little, and Armand grins like the predator he is — Daniel loves their Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle, and more than driving it himself he loves sitting in the back, arms around Armand and holding on.
“I might,” Armand says coyly.
Daniel growls and pulls Armand closer, into a ravenous kiss (he’s always so hungry in the mornings — for blood, for sex, for Armand’s closeness. It’s unspeakably warming and wonderful), hands sliding down Armand’s back, under the stolen t-shirt, and over Armand’s bare buttocks.
“Hmm,” Daniel says, pulling away with a gleam in his eyes — they’re orange-gold now, to match Armand’s own. “Eat the rich…” he says, squeezing the handfuls of flesh in a way that makes Armand gasp and grind closer. “Guess I’ll start with you.”
He tumbles a giggling Armand into the sheets and dutifully follows the t-shirt’s instructions by proceeding to eat him out.
The gallery is fancy. Like, really fancy. Lots of white walls and open, unused space, and the floors are some polished hardwood thing, and when she spots a man in what looks like fancy-ass Indian formal wear, Lauren begins to feel pretty underdressed.
Armand did say to dress however she wants though, and that there would be people dressed in all sorts of ways, so. Whatever.
There’s a server with a tray full of champagne glasses that materialises next to her after all of five seconds, and she gladly helps herself with a quick thanks and a hope she’s not supposed to tip, because she has zero cash and also zero idea about which move would be more offensive here.
A hum of voices fills the gallery, neither too loud nor too quiet, as people saunter slowly around, checking out the art, and the atmosphere isn’t as snooty as Lauren imagined it would be, so she tries to get the plebeian chip off her shoulder and look around for familiar faces. That leaves Dad and Armand, because Sarah has texted her frantically that she was running late.
She spots them across the main room, standing off to the side, engaged in conversation. Armand seems nervous about something, and Dad seems to be talking him off the ledge, rubbing his hands up and down Armand’s arms.
As if on cue, they both suddenly turn their heads and look right at her, which is pretty Uncanny Valley, but she waves and approaches them.
Dad’s dressed in a leather jacket and a pair of black jeans, which makes Lauren a little relieved about her own shirt and jeans, because if the host’s… date is dressed like that, then surely anything is okay. The host himself looks amazing, by the way, wearing a dark Indian jacket (Nehru jackets! That’s what they’re called! Is that what they’re called?) with shimmering edges and a diagonal row of gold buttons, paired with absolutely skin-tight black jeans with golden embroidery going down one thigh.
“Hi, honey,” Dad says, and oh, Jesus, he’s wearing tinted glasses indoors.
“Hi,” she replies and accepts the quick hug; she’s not gonna stir shit at someone’s event.
“Hello,” Armand says. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Hey, thanks, you too,” she replies, surprised at how much she means it.
They shake hands; Armand’s touch is warmer than last time, when his hands were basically ice-cold. Maybe Dad is making him eat more.
“So this all looks cool,” Lauren says, gesturing around. “Congrats,” she adds, because she knows to say that much to the artist at their own show.
“Thank you,” Armand says, something pinching his eyebrows. “The lighting isn’t exactly how it should be, but…”
“Babe, relax, the lighting is great,” Dad tells him, wrapping an arm around his waist; Lauren would like to point out the tinted glasses, but Armand doesn’t seem to take his words as insincere.
“It’s supposed to be an immersive journey of shapes and angles,” he murmurs, a little petulantly, but he’s a lot more relaxed against Dad’s side now.
“And it still is, to a pleb like me.”
Armand rolls his eyes fondly.
“Listen, I’m also a pleb, but I can do a round and tell you what I think about the light,” offers Lauren.
It’s a half-joke, but Armand looks interested. “That would be useful, thank you.”
“Okay, then.”
She came here to look at some weird modern art in the first place, right?
With a wave at Dad and Armand, she makes her way to the nearest piece. She noticed earlier that all the of them seem to be burned and charred in some way. Paintings, sculptures made of wood and fabrics or plastics and a bunch of other materials, various other objects looking like the spoils of grandma’s attic — they all seem to have been set on fire and put out at a certain point, which… haunting. Creepy. And pretty cool.
And yes, they’re lit in pretty interesting ways — different angles; some very bright, some half-dim; some against a white backdrop, some against a black one.
Weaving her way through the exhibition, she arrives at what feels like a centrepiece — a sofa, almost completely burned down, with only its wooden frame remaining and charred. When she looks closer, she can see the cracks in the wood have been filled in with gold paste. There are two brightly coloured cushions placed on the boards supporting the seat — perfect and untouched by fire.
No More Lint , says the info plaque.
Lauren doesn’t know what she’s looking at, but it feels… something. It feels like something.
She’s by a particularly unhinged piece (a Baroque-looking wooden sculpture of a cherub with an axe splitting it nearly in half, the whole thing set on fire, and honestly? Lauren digs that one) when Armand glides over, managing somehow to look insanely smooth and supremely awkward. She’s beginning to really like this weirdo.
(And Jesus Christ, she forgot how inhumanly beautiful he is, what the actual fuck went into this guy’s genetic code?)
“Hi,” she says. “So, the lighting is pretty neat.”
“Thank you. I’d still have preferred it to be exactly as I wanted.”
“I like your art,” Lauren says, incredibly intellectually for a gallery opening; his face seems to brighten anyway.
“You do?”
“Yeah. I mean… I’m sure I don’t actually get it, but it’s really cool. Really creepy and really cool.”
She chances a look at Armand, expecting him to look awkward or disappointed or snooty, but he’s just… looking at her, face open and almost charmed.
“That is… quite possibly one of the most enjoyable things I have heard about my art,” he says.
“Come on, you don’t have to suck up to me, I like you fine. It’s Dad I have beef with.”
He smiles, a little crooked. “I very much meant it,” he says, with that weird gallantry that streaks through his mannerisms sometimes. “It’s… refreshing.”
“I know that one, that’s just a cute way of saying ‘stupid.’”
“No,” Armand says slowly. “It means refreshing. Different. A lot of people don’t understand what I’m saying with my art, which fine, that’s simply the way art is. But most try to pretend. And I have never had my art called ‘cool’, so forgive me if I insist on savouring that. It is… one of the nicest things I have heard, personally.”
“For real?”
“Yes. Your father has said some things, but I’d like to keep them private—”
“Oh god, please do.”
He laughs a little, and looks almost startled that he did.
“I just meant that they made me emotional. And I’m pleased that you think my work is cool.”
“Don’t forget creepy.”
“Oh, how could I. That’s my favourite part.”
Lauren smiles.
“Excuse me?” a voice pipes up into the brief silence; a young woman with a pretty extravagant fashion sense is holding a copy of the gallery’s catalogue — obviously an art student. “Would you sign this for me?”
“Yes,” Armand replies and goes about signing the catalogue.
“Thank you so much,” the student gushes, a small queue quickly filing behind her as others pounce on the opportunity.
“You are welcome.”
“His art is so amazing,” the student says to Lauren while Armand is busy signing things for other people. “Like, I’ve seen the use of fire before, but nothing with this degree of precision and almost whimsy. The power of expression, you know?”
“Uh, yeah,” says Lauren, and Jesus fuck, it’s almost like Dad’s voice came out of her mouth.
“Michaela, hi,” the girl introduces herself, and Lauren is willing to bet her name is spelled with three extra vowels and an apostrophe in there somewhere.
“Lauren.”
“You go to the New York Academy of Art?”
Okay, so that’s pretty flattering; Lauren hasn’t been asked if she was a student in a while. Although, she supposes, art academies are places where you might see people of all ages.
“No, I’m here— oh, Christ, I guess I’m here as family.”
“For real? Oh my god, he’s like a total mystery, half-real half-fiction, can I be nosy and ask what do you mean by ‘family’?”
And look. Dad’s fucked-up troll genes are stumbling about in Lauren’s own code, and she’s had like two glasses of champagne already.
“Yeah, so I guess he’s my stepdad. Or gonna be in a hot minute anyway.”
The girl stares, and the brain damage look in her eyes is satisfying because Lauren is a terrible person.
“Wait, what?”
“The buzzed old man in tinted glasses and leather jacket that’s constantly pawing at him? That’s my dad.”
“Holy shit!” the girl says. “Daniel Molloy is your father?”
“Yeah, but keep it to yourself, I’d like some plausible deniability if he takes off his shirt and starts dancing on the table in a couple hours. Or gets into a fist-fight with a paparazzi.”
“Oh, yeah, I get you, my mom’s totally like that. She fully did a solo song-and-dance number at my sister’s wedding. And then she bodily fought my aunt when she tried to drag her off the stage.”
They chat for a while about embarrassing parents, until the girl — Michaela — spots her art professor in the crowd and goes off to talk to her about some art project she’s working on for school. Lauren heads for the refreshments table, because while she should probably stay sober, this place is serving caviar and tiny little prawn canapés and other fancy shit, and she’s feeling peckish.
When she looks around for Armand, he’s off to the side, in conversation with the gallery owner and a tall lady in what looks like a fucking diamond necklace — a buyer, Lauren figures a moment later.
Dad is across the room, speaking to some interviewer and clearly giving them the brush-off, eyes constantly straying to Armand. When the interviewer finally gives up, Dad lingers, looking at Armand; he stays there smiling, just watching him talk to other people, like it’s a silent film he could watch forever.
“Oi, Molloy!” a sketchy-looking guy with a camera says, a little too loudly for a gallery opening — obviously a paparazzi. “Nice shirt!”
“Aww, thanks, Schneider,” says Dad with absolutely toxic politeness that suggests he and the guy have butted heads before, which, yeah, that tracks with Dad’s mission to make everyone in his profession hate him.
He holds his leather jacket open for a photo, and yup, the shirt says EAT THE RICH in red, slightly shimmering letters. Cute.
“Nice.” The pap snaps some pics. “So how does that square with your billionaire — sorry, multi-millionaire — boytoy over there?”
“One, I’m the boytoy here, and two, you should have seen what I did to him earlier today.”
Okay, Lauren’s not hungry any more. Jesus Christ, Dad.
(For real, he swore he wasn’t using again, but this? This right there is like some video skit from a parental guide to spotting the signs of using. Except he’s the parent.)
“Classy as ever, Molloy.”
“Yeah, yeah, speaking of class — don’t you have an ambulance to chase or something?”
Armand glides over, looking at Dad like his unbearable antics are the most precious things on the planet. He slips an arm around Dad’s waist and basically moulds himself into his side, smiling at the pap coldly. No, not coldly. There’s something… something of a tiger in his eyes. Shit, Lauren has no idea where that thought came from. Some really weird instinct.
“So, do you really have no last name?” the pap asks, clearly trying to get a rise out of Armand.
“That’s correct.”
“Okay then, Banksy.”
“You are so getting on my nerves right now, Schneider,” Dad growls, though he’s smiling with too many teeth.
“Perhaps you’d like to help yourself to some of the food and drinks on offer,” Armand says smoothly.
Somehow, it makes the pap put his camera down and look slightly… blank.
“Yeah, I’ll… I guess I’ll go do that,” he says and walks away.
Weird. Maybe Armand owns the paper he works for, or something.
Armand leans in close to whisper something into Dad’s ear, and Dad turns to look at the retreating pap, then nods eagerly at Armand.
“I fucking love you, babe,” Lauren overhears as he presses his forehead to Armand’s. “Have I said that today?”
“Several times. But please continue.”
Lauren really hopes Sarah gets here soon, because seeing Dad like this, all… all happy and fucking glowingly in love is extremely trippy (pun intended) and giving her some seriously mixed feelings. She’s glad Armand looks no less happy — he seems like a really nice weirdo, and for some strange reason Lauren wants him to be happy, even though she’s only met him twice.
Just then, Sarah finally gets in, panting a little in her very nice black dress; Lauren can just picture her trotting nervously along the last stretch of the road; it’s kinda cute.
“Hey, you look nice,” she tells her.
“Shut up, don’t make me nervous. Do you think I overdid it?”
“Pretty sure I just saw a lady with a real-ass diamond necklace and a floor-length gown, so you’re good.”
“Aww, thanks,” says Sarah, who is such a sap. “You look nice too.”
Lauren shrugs a little awkwardly, then hands her baby sister a glass of champagne. “Here, you look like you could use this.”
“Thanks, you’re a life saver.” Sarah takes a sip, her breathing slowing down as she looks around with interest. “So, did I miss anything?”
“Well, Dad’s gone clinically insane.”
“I asked if I missed anything.”
“Our new stepdad—”
“Jesus, please don’t call him that.”
“—makes some really intense art. It’s pretty neat though.”
“Yeah, what do you do at a gallery opening anyway? I googled stuff, but I don’t know.”
Lauren shrugs. “Apparently you just look at art and mingle with people? Anyway, it’s about him, he’s the one who has to handle guests and buyers, so we can do pretty much what we want.”
“Hey, cool! Okay, show me around.”
And you know what, Lauren is in a good mood, and she’s always had a protective spot for Sarah, so she does. She also inherited Dad’s tendency towards being an asshole though, so she first steers Sarah to the exact piece she knows will leave a lasting impression on her baby sister.
“Oh, Jesus,” Sarah says when she sees the wood, metal and canvas sculpture of a butterfly with its wings burned off.
“Yeah, they’re all like that.”
“Damn, that’s… holy shit, that’s haunting.”
“Yeah.”
“No, but I mean, like really. It’s…”
“I know, weirdly beautiful, and also creepy and cool?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
They do a lap around the gallery, admiring Armand’s charred, skeletal work. There’s something… hauntingly beautiful about it and the way gold paste and other embellishments fill the cracks in some — but not all — of the pieces. One of them is some abstract sculpture that’s burned exactly halfway, in a perfectly even line, like he somehow used a ruler in the process. Lauren has no idea how he did it.
It’s there that Armand approaches them — without Dad, who is busy making a clown out of himself arguing with someone else.
“Hello, Sarah,” Armand says with a smile. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry I’m late, this city is a joke.”
He smiles that mild smile of his. “Don’t worry, nothing actually interesting happens at a gallery opening anyway. You haven’t missed anything important or spectacular.”
“I don’t know, watching our father lose his mind in real time sure feels pretty spectacular,” Lauren says, because she just can’t help herself.
Armand tips his head to the side, looking confused. “Your father is in full control of his mental faculties.”
Okay, so he’s a little literal, which is fine. And also a little bit blind, because Dad is certifiably unhinged. Shit, he must really love him.
The corners of Armand’s lips twitch into a shadow of a smile.
“Please ignore my sister, she was born this way,” Sarah says, for which Lauren flips her off. “Anyway, this all looks amazing, and my art literacy is nowhere near the rest of the people here, so I won’t make a fool of myself talking about it, but I like what you’re doing. Also, I’m dying to know: how did you do this?” she asks, gesturing at the ideally half-burned sculpture Lauren has also been wondering about.
Armand smiles again, and this time there’s something vaguely unsettling about it.
“I’m very good with fire,” is all he says, and o-kay…
“Well, it looks amazing,” Sarah repeats, ignoring the slight pyro vibe. “And the whole place is really nice. Thanks for the invite, I don’t get enough opportunities to dress up.”
Something in his face livens up. “Please, feel free to come to any of my gallery openings. It is so important to have reasons to dress up in one’s life.”
“Dad agree with you on that?” Lauren asks sceptically, to which Armand looks amused.
“Not entirely. But I won’t let that deter me.”
“That’s the spirit,” says Lauren, because that’s really the only way to deal with Dad. Other than, you know, go almost no-contact.
“Please stop worrying about being late,” Armand tells Sarah for some reason. “These things go on for hours — the scheduled closing for this event is 1:30am, but it will almost certainly go over.”
“Sarah!” Dad calls out, approaching, because he’s only just remembered he has another daughter and finally noticed that she’s here. “Hi, honey, great to see you.”
“Hi.”
He gives Sarah a quick hug, then basically drapes himself over Armand, champagne glass in one hand; he’s buzzing, all barely contained energy, and seriously: he’s got to be at least tipsy if not outright on something. Does he… does he wear rings now? Jesus.
“Congrats, babe, you just sold another one,” Dad tells Armand, gesturing with his champagne glass to where a gallery employee is putting a blue dot sticker next to one of the art pieces — this one a smouldering, decapitated plaster swan.
“Ah,” Armand says with very little interest.
“Oh, hey, congratulations!” says Sarah, because she’s a good person and thinks to tell people stuff like that.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t seem very excited,” points out Lauren tactlessly, because she’s not a good person.
Armand shrugs. “Money isn’t very important to me.”
“Yeah, because you have it,” Dad says, pinching his side.
“True. But to me, art is an exercise in letting go. Once I finish a piece and someone else perceives it, it ceases to be mine. It is whatever the other person sees in it. It is however many things however many people see.”
“...Shit, that’s deep.”
“Yeah, he says stuff like that,” Dad brags, honest to god brags, and kisses Armand’s cheek.
They stay chatting for a while — Dad even remembers to ask about a project Lauren is working on, so reluctant kudos there — before Armand is whisked away on more hosting duties, and Dad is whisked along with him, like he’s some kind of arm candy. And oh, god, that’s the vibe, that’s exactly it. Loud-mouthed, 70-year-old arm candy.
They pass by that girl — Michaela — at some point, and she waves at Lauren, who awkwardly waves back.
“Awww, you made a friend!” Sarah instantly teases her, because that’s teasing by Sarah’s sweet little standards.
“Shut uuuppp,” Lauren mutters.
“Are you going to be revising your opinion that the art world is just a bunch of snobs talking out of their asses?”
“Nah, still checks out. But this isn’t so bad,” she adds, making a vague gesture around the whole gallery.
“Dick, please, this is amazing, I’m having a blast. And it seems like a success.”
“Good for stepdad,” Lauren murmurs, looking around the place.
Sarah turns to her, but instead of complaining about the comment, she looks pensive.
“You really think they’re gonna get married?”
“I don’t know, dude. Seems like it’s going pretty steady.” She points to where Dad is practically hanging off Armand, clearly contributing the occasional wisecrack to Armand’s interview. “I guess I just wouldn’t be surprised if we got the invite one day.”
“I guess. How do you feel about it?”
Lauren shrugs. “Not much in particular. Dad’s gonna do what Dad’s gonna do, just as he’s done his whole life. Armand seems like a nice weirdo though, so that’s a plus. What do you think?”
“I think it could be nice,” Sarah says hesitantly. “They do seem happy.”
Lauren nudges her knowingly. “And it would be an opportunity to dress up.”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
The light of a single, large candle flutters warmly, bathing Armand’s perfect features in soft gold; Daniel’s just lit that one with his fire gift, and Armand spent like ten minutes kissing and grinding against him for it, and it was awesome.
The alley is dark and narrow, enclosed snugly around them as they sit on a blanket spread on the ground; a cosy scene in a weird, gothic sense that Daniel now really gets, being a fucked-up creature of the night and all. A champagne bottle sits between them, along with two glasses and a carafe of blood.
Schneider’s drained corpse is packed away in a dumpster a few yards away.
Romantic as hell.
“Here’s to your success, babe,” Daniel says, holding up his glass where blood and champagne swirl together.
Armand chuckles fondly, but taps their glasses together in a toast.
“Really, you’re ridiculous,” he tells Daniel. “I’ve said it doesn’t matter all that much to me how many people buy my art.” He pauses, looking pensive. “Do you… do you think that’s wrong?”
“Huh?” asks Daniel intelligently.
“The fact that it doesn’t matter to me as much as it perhaps should. Is there something… am I doing this wrong?”
“Babe…” Daniel sets his glass down on the blanket to reach for Armand. “You get out of it what you get out of it. This is about you.” Shitting hell, probably the first time in his life something is entirely about him — no wonder he’s struggling. “Look, I’m no artist—”
“Daniel, you are a writer, my love…!”
“—but I seriously don’t think there’s a wrong way to do this. You do you, babe. I just reserve the right to be obnoxiously proud of you.”
“Hmm,” Armand says, hiding a blush in another sip from his glass. “Yes, you may do that.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I enjoy it,” Armand says, slowly twirling the stem of his champagne glass between elegant fingers. “You being obnoxiously proud of me.”
“You do realise you’ve just encouraged a behaviour pattern, right?”
Armand grins, his gorgeous, slightly crooked teeth still edged with blood, and that’s fucking beautiful. “Oh, I do. I do.”
(And damn if that last bit he said doesn’t sound nice. Daniel might be getting ideas. But that’s for another time.)
The fucking sofa goes for $120k, Armand’s highest sale yet.