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Apparently, Daniel is something of a vampiric prodigy.
He’s a very efficient and neat killer, sure, but that’s not it. It’s about The Gifts, or whatever. Well, one gift, for now, but Armand is so hopped up on it he’s going full Montessori on Daniel’s ass. He apparently wants to make up for being an absentee maker at the start there, and he’s determined to nurture Daniel’s talents.
It started a couple months ago, when Daniel casually set a shitty book on fire, and even he was surprised at how easily it came to him. Armand then said something weirdly erotic about his blood being inside Daniel, and the whole incident got them both so horny they repeatedly had sex about it for a week.
And now Armand is of the opinion that Daniel should try branching out into other gifts as well.
Except…
You know how some birds of prey will deliver a kill that’s still wriggling to their nest, so the young can learn to deal the killing blow? Yeah, that’s pretty much Armand’s teaching methodology.
Only it’s not about killing, because Daniel, disturbingly, never had problems in that department. No, this is much more complicated, and Daniel is kinda regretting watching that David Attenborough documentary with Armand last night, the one about the European golden eagles lifting entire-ass goats off cliffs, because he’s pretty sure that’s the bit that inspired Armand’s current teaching efforts.
There’s a cop standing in front of them, staring straight ahead with the creepy, vacant stare of an antique doll. They’re in the middle of an abandoned construction site, the kind that really ticks Daniel off, because the housing crisis is a real thing, but at least there’s nobody to see them; and if anybody comes along, well, Armand can do what he’s done to the cop.
Which brings Daniel back to his predicament.
“Come on, babe,” he tries. “Can’t we do it some other time? I’ll blow you if we go home right now.”
Armand laughs, beautiful like a goddamn midsummer night. “That’s a very tempting offer, beloved, but we both know you’ll do that anyway.”
Yeah, he’s got Daniel there.
“Try lifting one of his arms.”
“God, can’t we just drain him?”
“You just ate,” Armand reminds him, and that’s true, there’s even still some blood in the corner of Daniel’s mouth; he licks at it pensively, staring at the cop. “Go on.”
Thing is, Armand is really so fucking calculated. He’s orchestrated every detail here like the ultimate theatre kid he is: he knows that choosing a cop will remove any sympathy inhibitions Daniel may have otherwise had for a technically still-living subject, and he also knows the cop will trigger Daniel’s fight-or-flight responses, because you can take the boy out of the drug den, but you can’t take the junkie out of the old man.
The empty construction site, the open space and illusion of isolation, and the goddamn stretched-out t-shirt Armand is wearing, the one with a neckline that droops well past his collarbones, because he knows Daniel is weak with horniness when he puts that on.
(Look who’s bartering with desire now.)
“Fine,” Daniel finally breaks, as they both knew he would. “Fine. But don’t get disappointed if nothing happens.”
“You’re my Daniel. I could never be disappointed in you.”
Well, shit, and then he goes and says stuff like that. And he means it too, it’s right there in his eyes. Daniel doesn’t know what to do with him, other than love him.
“Oh-kay,” Daniel says slowly to himself, standing face-to-face with the vacant cop and avoiding the eyes. “Okay. Yeah, this is creepy.”
“It’s a vital skill.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Start small. Try one of his arms, like I said.”
“Yeah. Which one?” He’s stalling, and they both know it.
“It doesn’t matter. Pick either.”
The thing about stalling a 500-year-old former art model is that he’ll out-patience you at literally anything.
The cop is still just standing there, except not really. He’s more… suspended. There’s a weird set to his shoulders, it lifts his arms a little, pulls his hands away from his hips, like he’s hanging from a ceiling, even as his feet are planted on the ground. Armand, with his hands in his pockets, tips his head to the side and watches Daniel idly.
An arm. Okay.
Daniel picks the right one and focuses on it, except nothing happens in his brain — it’s just a dude’s arm. He holds out a hand, tries to Jedi it. Nothing. He tries again. There’s still nothing in his brain, no connection, no shift. And not so much as a finger twitch from the cop.
“Uh, babe? Nothing’s happening.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Don’t be an asshole. Help me out here, this was your idea in the first place.”
Armand hums, then steps closer, presses himself to Daniel’s side, picks up his hand; elegant fingertips trace Daniel’s wrist, pause in the dips between the bones.
“Become aware of every joint in your own body,” Armand tells him. “Start with the major ones. Think about the wrist, think about the balance of it, where it will bend.” He slides his hand up Daniel’s forearm, cups his elbow, palm pressing into flesh through clothing. “The elbow and how it can lock. The shoulder, where it rotates.”
“Uh-huh,” says Daniel fuzzily, because Armand is touching him right now, which he really shouldn’t do if he wants Daniel to pay attention. Looks like they both have something to learn here.
“You know,” carries on Armand, smiling lightly at some memories, as he takes hold of Daniel’s wrist again, manoeuvres his arm to stretch out in a way that’s somehow so elegant Daniel almost doesn’t recognise his own limb. “Back in art studios, there were ropes to keep the models’ arms or legs suspended in the required poses, for hours on end. It’s a bit like that.”
The dreamy haze falls off of Daniel pretty instantly there.
“Say again?”
“Mhm,” Armand confirms, still smiling lightly, like he’s taking an especially fond trip down the memory lane. “I once spent eight hours kneeling on the studio floor, with my arms raised and hands clasped just above my head. The ropes around my wrists helped sustain the pose.”
“Jesus.”
“Beloved?” Armand only now seems to catch up with Daniel’s reaction. “What’s wrong?”
Precisely everything about what he’s just said, is the answer.
Renaissance studios: cold, miserable places, with uneven stone floors digging into delicate knees, a huddle of apprentices gathered in a circle, pencils flying clinically, like there’s just another bowl of fruit on a table. Naked, he was naked; Daniel doesn’t even have to ask about that. Underage too. Posed into saintly vulnerability, rigged up with ropes like a fucking marionette.
Daniel almost wishes he could peer into Armand’s mind, because maybe, maybe the real thing was marginally, infinitesimally better than what he’s imagining right now.
(It wasn’t. Daniel read up on Renaissance art studios and customs, during that early time when Armand was being an absentee maker. He knows it wasn’t better.)
Eight hours. Eight fucking hours.
Daniel reaches out and pulls him into his arms. He gets the feeling he’s going to practise his fire gift in a museum next. In his arms, Armand finally seems to put two and two together.
“Oh, Daniel, it’s—”
“Heads up, if you say ‘fine’, I’ll start screaming.”
Armand huffs an amused little breath, strokes through Daniel’s hair like he’s one in need of comfort here.
“Would you settle for a reassurance that I am fine?”
“...yeah, that could work.”
“Then listen to me, beloved: I am fine.” He pulls away, out of Daniel’s arms, which feels too soon, but Daniel reluctantly allows it. “I am fine,” he repeats, looking Daniel in the eyes. “Now go play with your food.”
“You mean I can eat him after?”
“Only if you do well,” Armand says, which they both know is a lie: Armand has yet to see Daniel crave something and not leap to indulge him.
Still, Daniel kind of wants to impress him now. (Must be a day ending with a ‘y’.)
He turns to the vacant cop again.
“Now, remember what I said about the ropes, beloved.”
“Oh, yeah, like I’m ever gonna forget that nightmare.”
Armand sighs. “Not like that. Remember what I said about ropes holding up limbs by their joints — imagine you’re attaching a rope to his arm. Pick a joint, focus on it. Imagine that tether.”
Daniel tries, he really does, but part of his brain is still stuck on that artsy torture show Armand so casually told him about, and another part is whining about just wanting to eat and go home.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen tonight,” he tells Armand after roughly ten minutes, to which Armand hums.
“I have an idea,” he says in that tone that makes Daniel’s usually dormant self-preservation instinct start shrieking like a nuclear siren.
Before he can ask what the idea is, Armand waves a hand, and the cop is suddenly awake, blinking and staring in shock.
“What the fuck,” Daniel stutters.
“Freeze!” the cop shouts, instantly pulling out his gun, and oh yeah, Daniel’s shirt is soaked in blood from his lunch.
The remnants of said lunch, by the way, are slumped on the ground, directly in the cop’s line of sight.
“Hands behind your head!!!” the cop screams again, swivelling his gun between them, before he — surprise, surprise — decides to keep it trained on the brown guy.
For his part, Armand isn’t even looking at him, hands nonchalantly still in his pockets, body turned towards Daniel, watching with a mild look on his face as Daniel’s dead heart goes up to 180bpm.
“Get down on your knees now!!!”
“Armand…” Daniel’s brain is fuzzy with static.
“Go on.”
“On your knees!!! Hands behind your head!!!”
“I—”
“Right now!!!”
“Arma—”
The gun goes off, the blast tearing through Daniel’s ears, and he screams, because Armand, Armand…!
Armand sighs, and that’s when Daniel realises everything is extremely quiet. He blinks, trying to look, because his brain feels like it’s still catching up and can’t process what he sees.
The bullet is suspended in mid-air; the cop is standing with his eyes squeezed shut on a reflex, frozen in the recoil; bits of spittle still hang around his mouth. Armand steps closer to the bullet and plucks it from the air, like something out of the fucking Matrix.
“Jesus,” Daniel heaves.
“Hmm?” Armand drops the bullet onto the ground, digs it into the sand with his heel.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
“Great. Then what the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Armand shrugs. “I thought a boost of adrenaline would help trigger your response.”
“Oh, Jesus, fuck you.” Daniel bends down, braces his hands on his knees, breathes heavily for a moment. “Fuck you so much…”
“I’m sorry if I went a little overboard.”
“Just a tad there, babe.”
Armand purses his lips; Daniel isn’t even looking at him, but he can fucking tell.
“You know, a gracious thing to do with an apology is to accept it.”
“Yeah, I’ll get to that in a minute. Ohhhh, fuck…”
Daniel hangs his head lower, takes a few more deep breaths: in through the nose, out through the mouth. He doesn’t strictly need to breathe, but it helps calm him down.
“Okay,” he says, straightening up, after a moment. “Okay, I’m back.”
Armand is looking at him with those unbearable doe eyes; his hands are alive, fingers rubbing over his thumbs — his tell when he’s worried.
“I’m sorry I caused you distress,” he says, so earnestly that all Daniel can do is forgive him on the spot.
“Apology graciously accepted.” Daniel reaches out to take his hand, pulls him closer. “Just, you know, don’t spring something like that on me again?”
“I won’t,” he promises solemnly.
Jesus wept, but his eyes are something else. Daniel kisses him, because he dares anyone to have a shred of self-control around this unbelievable gremlin.
“I’ll admit though,” he says when they part. “That was pretty hot. Stopping time with a bullet in mid-air.”
“Child’s play, to an ancient,” Armand deflects, in that lilting voice he uses when doing a humble brag. “And you’ll one day be able to do it too.”
“You think?”
“Yes.” Armand lays a hand on Daniel’s cheek, looks at him with those fiery eyes. “You’re mine, Daniel. Of my blood and of your own mind. And you have turned out exceptional.”
A happy, horny little shiver goes all the way down Daniel’s spine, spreads out tingling into every nerve of his body. Armand smirks, like he knows exactly what he’s done, because he does, the little shit.
“Now.” Armand steps back, smirk smoothing out into a smile. “Shall we continue with our lesson?”
“Yeah.”
Armand nods, and time jump-starts again; the cop wobbles, panicked confusion dawning on his face, and he goes to pull the trigger again.
“Rest,” Armand says in a coldly bored voice that distantly reminds Daniel of terror and nosebleeds.
The cop goes a weird combination of limp and stiff, back to standing like he’s actually hanging by the shoulders; the gun dangles loosely in his hand.
“Go on,” Armand tells Daniel. “Try to move the hand holding the gun.”
“Right.”
Daniel focuses on the hand, remembers what Armand said about the ropes. He pictures one, wraps it around the wrist in his mind; pulls, ever so slightly, to feel it go taut. Then he tries to pull again, fingers curling around thin air, and the cop’s hand twitches.
“That’s it,” Armand murmurs in his ear, in the exact same, decadent way he did the first time he let Daniel top him. “Just like that.”
Determined not to let his dick get involved here, Daniel tries again, finds the invisible rope in his mind, pulls on it. The cop’s hand jerks, and the gun clatters onto the ground.
“You’re doing so well.”
“Jesus Christ, are you trying to Pavlov me?”
Large eyes blink at him innocently. “What do you mean?”
“Nice try, asshole.”
“I preferred ‘babe.’”
“Then earn it.”
Armand laughs, presses a kiss to Daniel’s cheek, then takes a step back, hands slipping into his pockets again — a new gesture he’s been taking out for a spin lately. “Proceed.”
Daniel goes back to the rope, tries to pick it up again, tether the cop’s arm to his mind. He tries again and again, gradually gaining more control and maybe even some meagre semblance of finesse. By the time he gets to the elbow, he’s exhausted.
“Yeah, I think I gotta tap out,” he tells Armand. “I feel like I just pulled an all-nighter writing an article, only without the cocaine.”
Armand is on him in a second, hands cupping Daniel’s face, eyes blazing with pride.
“You did so well,” he tells him, and the words seep into Daniel’s blood. “I’m so proud of you, my beloved.” He kisses him. “My Daniel.”
It always does insane things to Daniel’s heart and brain when he says that.
A gracious thing to do would be to say something about Armand being an excellent teacher, but that adrenaline thing was a real gremlin move, so Daniel doesn’t say anything and just kisses him back.
They make out for a while, trading dirty kisses and lingering touches; Armand always gets so unbelievably horny when Daniel displays some prowess in vampirism, and this is honestly proving a pretty effective motivation for Daniel. That, and the occasional flare-ups of a ridiculous need to impress Armand — ‘look, babe, no hands!’ and all that. Huh. He really has been Pavlov’d.
Speaking of which…
He pulls away from the kiss, though keeping a firm hold of Armand, and nods towards the creepily vacant cop next to them.
“So. Can I eat him now?”
Daniel is still a fledgling — he can always eat. He can also always have sex, but that’s for later, when they get home.
Armand smiles at him fondly.
“Go ahead, beloved.”
Daniel drains the cop while Armand watches; a vague echo of their original, fucked-up affair back in the ‘70s, when Armand would sit across from Daniel and watch intently as he ate a mad variety of things Armand never got to taste.
He makes a bit of a mess, which he’s still prone to do when he’s especially hungry or excited. Lucky for him, Armand seems to find that cute.
They get rid of the bodies. Armand occasionally likes to have fun with it, and tonight seems to be one of those nights — Daniel stands with his arms crossed, leaning against a half-finished wall, while Armand poses the bodies into what’s probably some Renaissance art reference, before bricking them up inside another unfinished wall. Daniel catches himself smiling fondly, and boy, isn’t that just sick.
His gremlin is so fucking adorable when he as fun though.
“So.” Daniel pulls him in by the waist, which he’ll never get tired of; Daniel’s not really what you’d call sentimental (his two wives certainly didn’t), but Armand’s waist feels borderline designed to fit in the crook of his arm. Fucking kismet. “Babe. Let’s go home?”
Armand’s eyes light up, bright and eager at the nickname, and he ridiculously tries to cover it up by tipping his chin up and going for an aloof look. Only thing is, he misses the landing by about a mile.
“Yes,” he says benevolently. “Let’s.”
They walk off into the city night, where life still bursts and bustles in nooks and crannies; people talking in open-late restaurants, drunk party-goers spilling out of clubs and waiting for their Ubers, the occasional argument breaking out somewhere unseen. The city has a heartbeat, and Daniel follows it eagerly, arm still wrapped around Armand; they stumble too, just like the people coming out of bars, because Daniel still gets tipsy when he eats too fast, and Armand is indulging him.
Bus. Subway. Home.
At the door of their brick row house, they dig around in each other’s pockets, arguing about who was supposed to take the keys, before remembering Armand can just will the door open, which he does; they giggle about it like idiots.
“That’ll be our next lesson, beloved,” Armand tells him, as they tumble into bed; he often seems to catch Daniel’s tipsy mood despite not over-indulging himself; it’s fucking cute. “Can’t have you sitting on our doorstep if this happens again.”
“Eh,” Daniel says, nuzzling his neck. “When was the last time I wasn’t super-glued to your side.”
“Hmm, true.”
Armand tilts his head to give Daniel more of his neck, and Daniel takes him up on the invite eagerly, kissing and occasionally scraping blunt teeth over smooth, delicate skin. Jesus Christ, but he smells dizzying, like a sultry summer night or something. The sort of night that’s just made for fucking, which reminds Daniel—
“Oh yeah, I was gonna blow you,” he says, lifting his head.
Armand laughs, beautiful and wide-mouthed and so joyful that Daniel won’t even crack a joke about how that’s not the reaction his blowjob offers usually get.
Something of it must show on his face though, because Armand tangles a hand in his hair, pausing him halfway through his shuffle down Armand’s body.
“For the record,” Armand tells him, eyes gleaming like liquid honey. “I’m laughing because I love you.”
See, he says things like that. And they sort of rewire Daniel’s entire brain.
“Yeah,” he replies, voice damp with loving; he drops a kiss onto Armand’s stomach through the t-shirt he’s still wearing. “Yeah, I know. And I love you too.”
Armand nods, smiling, fingers gentle in Daniel’s hair. “I know that too.”
They’ve come a long way since Armand hesitating to believe that Daniel really loves him.
“Yeah,” he says slowly, “think we’ve made this moment a bit too tender for a blowjob?”
“Oh, not at all. Please proceed.”
Daniel snorts and goes for Armand’s fly.
“This, after all,” Armand continues in that melodic voice he uses when he’s being an asshole, “is something you need no lessons in.”
Daniel bites a deliciously prominent hipbone; Armand laughs like it fucking tickles.
That’s fine. Daniel’s gonna find a way to make him squirm before he’s done. He has to get some payback for the cop thing, after all.