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The thing is, it’s all wrong before it even starts.
Wandering hands, wet kisses, dirty words- these are the things Armand is well-versed in- the things he’s good at- but they all feel underwater now, like his mind is separated from his body.
He’s sitting in Louis’ lap while Lestat ravages his neck, leaving little pinprick bites along the dark skin that will bloom into bruises later.
Behind him, Louis is whispering hotly against the shell of his ear, “You gonna let us do what we want with you, Arun?”
Armand shudders and nods, but his heart- his mind- isn’t in it like usual.
Normally, he can slip into the role of ‘Arun’ like an ill-fit costume- falling back into the shoes of that scared, lost child- but this time, with hands that he could trust to hold instead of hit him. He could say no , and Louis and Lestat would back off immediately- would hold him through the rest of the night, or leave him alone if he asked, at least until he had shaken back into a semblance of himself.
He could say no , but he remembers Lestat’s disgust all those decades ago, and then a more familiar memory, one that had seared into his soul like a brand- boring. You’re so boring !
Armand , he wants to tell Louis. Not Arun. The child was innocent, and I am not . And yet he cannot say either, much like Arun couldn’t say stop or no or I’m fading away, please don’t touch me .
“Why don’t we tie those pretty hands of his, mon cher ?” Lestat asks in-between love bites, snapping Armand out of his reverie.
Sharp teeth graze Armand’s collarbone right before he sinks his fangs into the frail skin. Armand cries out in surprise, nearly jerking out of Louis’ arms, but he’s held down, Lestat greedily sucking the blood straight out of his veins. His brain, unbidden, flashes images of another man with a paler set of blond locks, drinking the life out of Amadeo, cooing in his ear my pretty cherub, you’re mine now . Armand closes his eyes, shivering.
“I’ll do you one better, love ,” Louis purrs against the nape of his neck. “I say we tie him up and stuff his pretty little mouth.” Another pair of teeth graze Armand’s shoulder, slighter but no less sharp. “That’s all you’re good for, right, Arun?”
Armand whimpers, nausea churning in his stomach. “Yes, Maître.”
He doesn’t know what he’s good for, but the men at the brothel, and Marius, and now Louis- his Louis - had all said his body, so that’s what he’ll give, time and time again- even when it feels like whatever’s left of him is dying each time he takes off his clothes.
Louis’ fangs enter him without warning, another sudden intrusion, and heat floods his stomach at the same time that bile rises in his throat. His lovers take what they want from him, pinning his feeble body in-between their own, and Armand could stop it when it was just Louis, but Lestat has Magnus’ ancient blood running through his veins. Lestat could hold him down and take him whether or not he cried for it to stop.
Armand knows he wouldn’t, but the frightened child inside him doesn’t, and everything comes to a head when Lestat draws back to murmur in his ear, “You taste exquisite, dear . Pure as the angels above.”
Angel - that word.
Marius called him angel and cherub , even as he defiled him on marble floors with sugar-coated manipulations. The brothel-keepers advertised him as an angel , too, with soft, dark skin and big, round eyes slowly losing the innocence a child of his age should happily gallivant around. A sudden thought strikes him with unbearable panic. Has he ever been innocent?
He doesn’t realize his breaths are rapidly picking up until Louis’ arms loosen around him, his teeth seemingly having been withdrawn a long time ago to worriedly ask, “Armand?”
“ No ,” Armand grits the word out that he’s never been allowed to say- past the bile, the humiliation - and wriggles out of Louis’ lap. “ Stop .”
He scrabbles to get away, shaking like some sick little thing, nearly falling off the bed in his haste to escape.
“ Love ?” Lestat calls behind him, voice uncharacteristically gentle. “Armand?”
But saying those two words- stop , no - had sucked all the strength out of him. Without replying, he staggers toward the bathroom, the breath caught in his throat.
He slams the door shut and immediately slumps to the floor.
Copper-red tears spill over and down his cheeks as he succumbs to the panic seizing his chest, a harsh sob getting caught in his throat. He can feel Louis prodding at his mind, begging to be let inside, and further away, he can hear the muffled voices of his lovers through the door. Part of him longs to let them inside, to be held and pet and soothed, but a greater part of him is too horrified to let them see him like this.
One of the ancients reduced to a sniveling, sobbing mess over an ill-placed touch- one distasteful word.
Marius would probably laugh at him- Santino certainly would. He doesn’t even want to think about the brothel-keepers and their reaction to his fits , as they called them. Arun, and then Amadeo, and now Armand still carries the scars from those days. The raised indents of teeth around his shoulders, and lash lines down his back that Louis would pepper with gentle kisses every time he took him that way.
He buries his face in his bare, bruised knees, and cries until he can’t anymore- until the tight band of distress in his chest has faded into something more manageable, but no less fragile.
Only then does he rise on shaky legs, still sniffling, and stagger over to the sink. There’s blood on his knees and hands, and it’s smeared all across his face, too, like he’s some sort of fucked up caricature. He stares at his reflection in the mirror until he feels like he’s looking through it- through the immortal body and into the soft, broken thing beneath. He hates what he sees.
“Boss?” A hesitant voice suddenly calls through the door, making Armand freeze.
Daniel. His one and only fledgling. His beloved. His beautiful boy.
What is he doing out of bed?
Take all the time you need, love , Louis’ voice suddenly enters his mind. But don’t be alone . The realization hits Armand then, with equal parts appreciation and anger. While he longs for nothing more than to curl up in his fledgling’s arms- to lower his defenses in front of the one person he trusts most in the world- he also cannot fathom how Daniel would see him if he did.
This is the one thing he’s ever had control over in his life- the one and only time that he’s ever gotten to be the Boss, the demon, and Daniel his devoted minion. What would his fledgling think if he saw him shaking and tear-stained over a few misplaced touches?
“Hello, beloved ,” he answers his lover’s call, forcing his voice to remain even despite the trembling in his fingertips. “What are you doing out of bed?”
He’d put his sweet boy to sleep only a couple of hours ago- fledglings needed more rest, after all- and he knows that Louis and Lestat wouldn’t have woken him.
“I felt your panic,” Daniel answers softly, in this cruel mimicry of the time Louis had said the exact same thing, a lifetime ago in Paris.
Armand had watched the realization fill Louis’ eyes back then, in this almost dizzying exchange of power. He could see Louis losing the impression of him as a strong, ruthless coven Maître, and replacing it with someone fragile and broken- Arun . Armand refuses to let that happen with Daniel. He would have nothing left, and too many people to serve. He’d break.
“I’m okay, lover ,” he reassures gently, picking dried blood out from under his nails. “You should return to your coffin, your body needs the rest.”
There’s a beat of silence so taut with tension that Armand feels like he’s going to burst, and then Daniel says softly, as if he’s coaxing a frightened animal, “I… heard Louis’ and Lestat’s thoughts, Boss. I know you aren’t okay.”
Frustration simmers in Armand’s chest. He picks harder at his nail beds, until the blood he’d been trying to get at is replaced by fresh beads of crimson.
“Whether or not I am okay is not your concern, Daniel,” he chides, unable to hide the trembling in his voice this time. “I will tell you again: go back to sleep.”
If Daniel were any normal fledgling, he would listen, but Armand hadn’t chosen him because he was normal. He’d chosen him because he was dying from his stupid mistakes, and had a negative zero survival instinct, and indulged Armand’s strangeness with the ease of reading the local news.
Bullshit , the boy thinks, just before he barges inside.
Armand startles, big, wet amber eyes snapping to his fledgling. Daniel is dressed down in nothing but a band t-shirt and boxers, messy brown curls a bird’s nest atop his head. There are purple bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep, highlighting the paleness of his freshly-turned vampiric form.
He enters with a determined expression on his face, but when he spots Armand, blood-stained and pathetic across the room, that expression falls.
“…Boss,” he says, aghast. “I-”
“- you , fledgling, should have listened to me,” Armand hisses, baring his fangs, clinging to the last desperate semblance of control he has left. “You’ll be punished for this.”
Daniel flinches, violet eyes widening, and nausea roils in Armand’s gut, the fight draining out of him just as fast as it came. He stands there, panting, fresh tears welling in his eyes, rapidly losing all sense of himself in the too-bright lights of the bathroom. He’s an angel, and a demon, and all the other ugly things they called him, but under Daniel’s soft gaze, he feels pathetically and undoubtedly human .
“ Beloved ,” he practically begs, hands trembling at his sides. “I’m sorry, I- please leave.”
Daniel regards him carefully, recovering from his shock in record time. His eyes are gentle, chin jutted out ever so slightly, looking for the very first time to Armand like the man he was growing into, and not the bumbling twenty-something-year-old Armand had turned him as.
“No,” he says decisively. “I won’t leave you like this, Boss.”
Then he does the most daring thing yet- he crosses the short distance separating them, the prey becoming the predator, halting just before Armand’s shivering, shrunken figure against the sink.
“Can I… can I hug you?” He asks softly, voice just veering on desperate, like he ’s the one who needs it.
Armand blinks, a fresh tear flowing down his cheek like a crimson stream. Surprising even himself, he nods, hesitant but sure, and Daniel’s strong arms encase him not even a second later, cradling all the broken bits of him. The sob that jumps from his throat shocks even himself, but Daniel just squeezes him tighter, holding him together.
“It’s okay, Boss,” he reassures in a soft whisper, pressing a kiss to Armand’s temple. “You’re okay.”
It’s the permission Armand has needed since he was very small- an offer to let go of all his carefully-crafted defenses and just be . He melts into his fledgling’s arms, slowly falling apart all over again, staining Daniel’s pale skin with his grief. At some point, in the midst of the sobbing, they end up on the floor, the no-doubt cold tiles against Daniel’s thighs, cushioning Armand in-between them.
He cries for the child that would scream and beg as he was taken over and over again like a wax-melted doll made for other men’s pleasure- he cries for Arun . He cries for Amadeo , and the countless nights he spent curled up in his maker’s bed and others, clinging onto every honey-coated word that he mistook for love, the one thing he craved most in the world. He cries for Armand , abused and abandoned once more, renamed because he was unfit for even God’s love.
He cries, and cries, and cries until he has nothing left anymore- until all the blood has drained from him, and he’s sitting shaking in Daniel’s lap, clinging onto the other vampire- his fledgling, his beloved, his everything - overtaken with this unfamiliar, eerie state of calm after a hurricane of grief.
There’s something triumphant in Daniel’s voice when he finally pipes up, “See? Told you you’d feel better.”
Something fond settles in Armand’s chest at the easy tone, warm and familiar. This - even amidst all the trauma he had tried to erase for so long- he can do as easy as breathing. Loving Daniel is like second nature, an instinct sewn into his very veins. Maybe Louis and Lestat had been right to send him. Maybe they know him better than Armand would like to admit.
“Thank you, beloved ,” he murmurs hoarsely against his fledgling’s neck, pale skin streaked red from his tears. “I am… sorry.”
A sharp nip to his shoulder startles him, making him draw back from the safety of Daniel’s arms with what is very nearly a pout. His sleepy boy glares back defiantly at him, getting away with as much rebellion as he can- it seems- and Armand bares his fangs slightly, falling back into their game easily. “Don’t test me, lover,” he warns. “You’ll find I am not always so forgiving.”
“Don’t apologize for, like… showing emotions and shit,” Daniel mumbles, pointedly ignoring Armand even as a shudder runs through him at the silent threat. “I know you have ‘em, Boss. You can hide behind those big deadpan eyes in front of Louis and Lestat, but not me. I know you’re hiding a lotta pain under there.”
Armand blinks, caught. In all his five-hundred years of living, he’d never felt so completely and utterly seen. This is what he’d been dreaming of- longing for- craving for in a companion since that horrible, awful night he was turned, just a sick little thing in his bed, unable to stop the reckoning.
He nuzzles Daniel’s cheek with a cold nose, overwhelmed with a sudden affection. That night in San Francisco, he’d told his fledgling, still human and fragile at the time, that he was the quiet he’d been longing for, but that hadn’t quite been right- at least not anymore. Daniel is what Armand , with all of his rotten little heart, had been longing for.
“I appreciate it, lover ,” he purrs against Daniel’s cheek, basking in the sleepy warmth of his fledgling fresh out of a coffin. “You are all I need in this world.”
Daniel hums happily, pressing a kiss to the tender junction between Armand’s shoulder and neck. When he draws back, he flashes his best puppy eyes, batting those seductively long lashes purposefully, “Can I clean you up, Boss?”
Armand smiles, “You know how I can never deny you, beloved .”
And he doesn’t.
He lets Daniel draw him a bath, and his fledgling makes no complaint when Armand stops him from undressing, a hand on the hard plane of his chest- setting a boundary. “Maybe- maybe just me tonight, lover .”
Daniel settles on the porcelain edge of the tub obediently, idly carding shampoo through Armand’s curls, letting him push his hands away from anything below the stomach when he goes in with a soft rag next. He wipes the blood off Armand’s bony knee-caps tenderly, pressing fluttering kisses to the dark skin, and then does the same for his face.
Armand is practically melting inside the warm water coupled with the veil of his beloved’s careful attention, and it gives him the strength to start talking, his voice soft and willowy in the peaceful silence of the bathroom.
“The brothel, I can’t quite remember,” he hums hoarsely, letting Daniel raise his hand to start gently cleaning the battered nail beds there. “It’s more like… fragments. One of my first memories is waking up on the boat to a group of men around me, inside… ”
He chokes on the word, and Daniel squeezes his hand, a silent encouragement.
“…and that’s the first time I can recall being taken advantage of. The next- well, it happened at least once every day, usually more. Some pretended to be kind and told me they loved me. Others would grab my throat and make me cry. At some point, I couldn’t cry anymore, and that made my value go down.”
“ Bastards ,” Daniel hisses, tears springing to his own eyes. “Boss, you didn’t deserve that, you-”
His voice quivers, and Armand blinks slowly, confused. He withdraws his hand from Daniel’s ministrations and cups the boy’s cheek with a wet palm, cooing, “Why do you cry, my sweet boy?”
Daniel hiccups, leaning into the touch like a needy cat. When he cries like this, the violet-blue of his eyes looks almost liquid, like an ocean Armand could get lost inside. “I’m just- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be the one crying, I shouldn’t be the one being comforted- but I’m just so- so angry you had to go through that. I can feel your pain, Boss, and it makes me want to tear those awful fuckers’ heads off.”
“You likely could,” Armand hums, warmth curling in his chest at the protectiveness exuding off his fledgling. “They were weak and mortal, and you have sharper teeth than most.”
Daniel sniffles- laughs- nuzzles Armand’s wrist with a cold nose before drawing back. He stares at the streaked blood he left on Armand’s dark skin with his tears, pouting. “Now I have to wash it again.”
Armand smiles, bringing his wrist to his mouth and clearing the blood with the flick of his tongue, the heady taste of his beloved filling his mouth like the sweetest honey. Daniel tasted divine as a mortal, but as a vampire, his flavor has ripened into something deliciously savory. Armand could drink up all of him and still not be satisfied (but that’s unthinkable anyway).
He finds that he’s lost his nerve to keep going once his fledgling starts washing him again, lavishing his body with devotion, but he feels- for some obscure, strange reason- that this is important, so he forces himself to go on. “Marius- my maker- he made me feel loved, and I was so broken as to believe it was pure. Even when he took me like all the others- even when he pushed me into unfamiliar men’s beds, too drunk to walk, I thought- I thought this is love , this is what I’ve been looking for .”
A wry laugh bubbles out of his throat, “And then he left me to that cult in Paris, where the rest of my very being was stripped away by Santino, beaten out of me, until I was nothing- until I started chasing love in Lestat, in Louis, and then you - and even then, I- I still do not know what I am doing, or who I am. You have devoted yourself to a broken thing.”
Daniel is sniffling suspiciously again by the end of his speech, vigorously washing the bite marks around Armand’s neck where Louis and Lestat had bitten him. “You’re Armand ,” he chokes out, face stained red with the depth of his sympathy- sympathy , Armand realizes, and not pity . “You’re my Boss, my sire, my maker, my- my everything . Those fuckers don’t define you. You’re a person outside of what was done to you, Boss, and I love you so, so much, okay? You are’t broken. You aren’t .”
Peculiar. For centuries, Armand had gone without hearing those words, and yet as Daniel speaks them, it feels like some great weight has been lifted from his chest. He hums, leaning forward to kiss the fledgling’s tear-stained cheeks, tongue flicking out to taste the boy’s blood- his sorrow, his love, his everything . Armand wants to consume it all.
“I love you too, Daniel,” he coos softly, carding a damp hand through the fledgling’s curls. “Thank you for your kind words. I’ve gone many nights without them, and I admit they are a great comfort, even if I was initially reluctant.” A spark of guilt pangs in his chest. “I am sorry for baring my fangs at you.”
Daniel giggles through his tears, “It’s okay, it was kinda hot.”
“Perhaps something to revisit in the future,” Armand smiles back, endeared.
They clean up in-between lazy kisses until the water has gone cold, and Daniel towels him off tenderly, eyes beginning to droop from his interrupted bedtime. Do not call it that , he’d hissed grumpily back. I am a twenty-seven year old man . But Armand had just laughed. You’re still just a baby vamp to me, dearest .
Once he’d dressed, he gently carried Daniel back to his coffin despite the sleepy fledgling’s protests, his thin, clammy fingers fisted in the back of Armand’s shirt. For once, Armand didn’t scold him for it, as Daniel’s feelings were pouring into his chest, trickling down into his stomach- a gooey warmth Armand was unfamiliar with- screaming out only one thing only like a war cry.
You will be loved .
Armand settled in the coffin beside him, drawing him up tight and close, and pressed a chaste kiss to his beloved’s temple.
I already am, my beautiful boy .
BONUS
Armand is content just to watch Daniel sleep when light footsteps enter the room, interrupting his reverie.
Slippered feet enter his view, and then Louis is standing before him, all signs of dominance void from his exterior as he stands there in nothing but checkered boxers and his favorite thin blue cardigan.
“Doing better, I see,” he says in lieu of a greeting, slowly approaching the coffin where Armand and Daniel lay. “Did he help?”
You knew he would , Armand sends back warmly, too exhausted from the day to speak. He runs spindly fingers through Daniel’s unruly hair, amber eyes flitting toward Louis. Unbidden, he has to ask- are you upset, Maître ?
Louis flinches as if struck, shaking his head immediately. “No, Arun- Armand . I’m not. Why don’t we…” He hesitates, idling at the edge of the coffin. “Why don’t we drop the fancy titles for tonight? Can’t remember a time we have since those early days in Paris. I’d like to just be… Louis and Armand occasionally, if you don’t mind.”
Armand tilts his head, perplexed.
No man he had ever been with- aside from Daniel, of course- had ever denied the control that Armand effortlessly relinquished to them. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Louis might be different- that Louis might want him , not Arun. He was having a lot of revelations tonight.
“Louis,” he says softly into the darkness, testing the name that somehow still felt foreign on his tongue despite their seventy-year coupling.
Louis smiles gently, “Yeah, that’s good. That’s right.” Scuffing a slippered foot against the hardwood floor, he adds clumsily. “Look, I know you’re all cozy in there, but your fledgling will be sleeping for a long while, and I-” He stops abruptly, shaking his head. “-fuck it, why am I covering for him? Lestat and I were wondering if you’d maybe wanna come sleep in the main bedroom with us. You had us real worried there for a second, cher , but him especially. He’s been pacing the bedroom since.”
From the other room, an anguished voice resounds dramatically, “You’re a traitor, Louis De Point Du Lac! A Judas in the flesh!”
Louis rolls his eyes at the same time Armand chuckles, weirdly touched. “Okay,” he acquiesces softly, glancing down at Daniel. “I’ll be there.”
He un-sticks from his fledgling carefully and then tucks the covers precisely around him, leaving his boy to sleep with a kiss to the cheek. Louis leads him into the bedroom by an arm around his waist after, breathing a soft, “Missed you,” into his shoulder before they start walking. Lestat is sprawled out on the bed when they enter in nothing but one of his luxurious robes, ice-blue eyes flitting over to Armand as soon as he hears them approach.
“C’mere, you little demon,” he orders in an effort to sound nonchalant, but it’s laced with relief and unbearable fondness.
Armand goes willingly, falling into bed with both of his lovers, sandwiched in the middle by their strong, lean frames. He’s handed his iPad by Louis while Lestat mother-hens him, drawing the blankets up over his chest and pressing kisses all over his face. The thing about Lestat that Armand had not known in the decades he spent pining over him is that he covets the things he loves. He knows because he is quite the same, but it still feels like bliss to have his affections returned after nearly a century.
“We got you, love ,” Louis hums, throwing an arm around his shoulders.
“ Convenu, mi amor ,” Lestat agrees.
And Armand, to his own surprise, believes them, intertwined in-between his lovers as they lay bathed in pale summer stardust.