Work Text:
They’re doing an art tour of Europe. A triptych, Armand has dubbed it: they each got to choose one location, and they’ll flip a coin for the third. Daniel chose Madrid, Armand chose Rome, and they’re fighting over their fourth consecutive coin toss when fate intervenes.
The first coin toss was a bust because Armand changed his mind when the coin was in the air; the second time the coin rolled into a crack between the floor and a doorstep, and they abandoned it after four minutes of rescue efforts; the third time Daniel got petty and practised his mind gift on the coin. The fourth time it landed on London, which they somehow both ended up contesting, and it sort of snowballed from there. Daniel had just bitten Armand, and things were getting both insufferable and sexy, when Louis briefly dialled them up on the vampire telephone.
“I was— oh, hell no,” is all he says, and then he’s gone. Daniel, with his hands halfway down Armand’s pants, could swear he hears the old-fashioned hangup tone ringing in his head.
“Uh, do we care about what that was, or…” he asks Armand, who is currently pulling on a fistful of his hair.
“Not enough to follow up at the moment,” Armand pants decisively, then bites back into Daniel’s mouth, and oh, hell yeah…
“Ring-ring!” Lestat’s incredibly annoying voice pops up in their minds.
Armand throws his head back, glaring murder at the ceiling as he inhales sharply, and Daniel thumps his forehead into Armand’s collarbones with a groan.
“You deal with him,” he says there. “It’s your fault he’s in our lives.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Give me a minute, I’ll come up with something.”
Armand sighs.
“What do you want, Lestat?” he asks.
“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” purrs the world’s most annoying Frenchman, and that’s a title not handed out lightly.
“Put Louis back on,” Armand says coldly.
“Alas, my St Louis is a sensitive soul, and he is currently recovering from this shock of indecency. Bien, bien. Since you’re both still travelling the world, Louis and I were wondering if you’d like to visit us in Paris.”
“Hell no, Paris sucks,” Daniel snaps.
Armand puts his hand over Daniel’s mouth.
“What are you doing in Paris?”
“Oh, just a little fashion show we will both be attending, yours truly as a model and Louis as my very, very private photographer…”
Daniel digs his claws into the meat of Armand’s ass; Armand doesn’t budge; Daniel switches gears and licks his palm instead, to which Armand wrenches his hand away and looks at him with disgust.
“How old are you?” he murmurs disapprovingly, while Lestat talks on in their heads.
“Seventy-nine. And I didn’t hear you complaining four hours ago, when I did the exact same thing just before you jerked me off.”
“Context matters, Daniel.”
“Oh, did you mean custom and practice, babe?”
Armand is just grinning at him, ready to fucking eat him alive, and Daniel is so ready to be a three-course meal, when Lestat does the mental equivalent of rapping his knuckles on a table.
“Oh, god, you’re still here,” Daniel drawls — he’s vampirism’s biggest nepobaby ever, currently wrapped in his insanely powerful maker’s arms. Come at him.
“I see your maker has yet to instil any respect towards your elders,” Lestat sighs dramatically. “You clearly need a firm hand.”
“Touch him, and I’ll kill you,” Armand replies with the same sort of natural calm an iceberg probably feels upon seeing any kind of human-made vessel in its path; Daniel preens and presses a quick kiss to his lips.
“Bien. Armand, you and your enfant terrible are cordially invited to Paris, the second week of November, shall we say? You’ll be staying chez moi, and Louis has the most endearing idea of passing some time playing board games. A little tame, perhaps, but ah, the things we do for love.”
“That sounds enjoyable. But Monopoly can be quite triggering for Daniel—”
“Hey, fuck you!”
“—so perhaps let’s not include it in the night’s entertainment.”
“Oh yeah? Hey, Lestat! Shoots and ladders give Armand a meltdown!”
“That game is entirely based on chance, there’s no strategy involved, no way to gain an advantage—”
“You mean nothing you can control?” Daniel teases with a shit-eating grin.
“It seems I’ll have to break the news to Louis that his game night was a terrible idea, after all,” Lestat sighs.
“Nah, we’re doing this, I’m bringing the shoots and ladders myself. Lestat, we’ll see you in two weeks, yeah? Molloys out.”
Daniel drops the connection; Armand is looking at him with wide, glistening eyes, an instant emotional 180.
“You called us the Molloys,” he says in the voice of a trembling baby animal.
Daniel grins. “Yeah, I did.”
He pulls one hand out of Armand’s pants and grabs his hand instead, the one where his engagement ring is stacked on top of his wedding band, neither of which Armand ever takes off; they go great with Daniel’s own stack.
“So.” Daniel presses a kiss to Armand’s knuckles, right next to the rings. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Armand pounces. And then he does plenty.
Madrid
Daniel likes the Prado.
He’s not sure why; it might be simply the fact that it isn’t the Louvre or the National Gallery, or that he clandestinely met up there with a contact for a story about Spanish power struggles back in ‘76 and felt like he was in a Le Carré novel… or that Armand fucked him against a priceless Velázquez that one time in ‘78.
They wait until closing time and break in; it always gets Daniel’s blood rushing giddily, brings out the idiot 22-year-old in him.
Earlier, Daniel killed a lady from Sotheby’s, who dealt with stolen art to help a bunch of rich assholes get a tax dodge. He decanted a lot of her into two thermoses, and he hands one to Armand. They wander the museum, sipping blood through straws and holding hands — it’s a cute fucking date. Armand points out some paintings, gives Daniel miniature, in-depth lectures about incredibly niche things, from the chemical compositions of certain paints to food symbolism, and did Daniel know that modern technology makes it possible to determine where, precisely, a painting was painted en plein air, because microscopic traces of pollen and soil become embedded in the paint?
Daniel could listen to him for hours.
“Hey.” He squeezes Armand’s hand. “Remember the last time we were here together?”
“March of 1983, I believe.” Armand takes another sip through the straw. “They had a temporary exhibition of Diego Rivera, and you wanted to see it. You enjoyed his spat with Rockefeller.”
“Yeah,” Daniel says, feeling all soft and sticky inside, because Armand remembers, he remembers everything about him, notices everything about him. The benefits of marrying your stalker.
“Would you like to go to Mexico next? We can go to the Museo Mural. We can go tomorrow, if you like.”
Daniel laughs.
“No, babe, it’s fine. I mean, yeah, let’s go, but maybe not tomorrow, you know?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Whenever we want, babe,” Daniel corrects him, swinging their joined hands; Armand hums, smiling, as he sips more blood. Christ, he’s so lovely.
They stop by Caravaggio’s David, the one with the incredibly horny leg, and Daniel blushes, because he still can’t believe Armand has sculpted him, life-sized, in fucking marble. And nude. Dynamic, defiant and with blatant references to David and Goliath. He called it Daniel. Fucking insane. Going by Armand’s smirk as they look at the painting, he’s thinking about that too.
Eventually, they reach it — the main event of every Prado tour they’ve ever taken.
Bosch’s triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. A massive trio of oak panels covered with the sort of crazy bullshit Daniel sometimes saw after a bad LSD trip back in the ‘70s. It’s huge, but somehow also a miniature (it would make a hell of a jigsaw puzzle, Daniel’s old man brain thinks instinctively — he should get one), and no matter how many times he’s seen it he can always discover a new unhinged thing happening in some corner.
Armand plays with it for a bit, opening and closing the panels, admiring the glossy exterior and the vaguely haunting globe painted onto it.
“Look at this, Daniel,” he says melodiously. “An enclosed, ghostly sphere, just like the limits of human comprehension.”
“Yeah, it’s great.”
“So ghoulishly deserted,” Armand continues. “So barren of life.” He sighs happily; Daniel loves this weirdo. “And yet, when you open it up…” He does just that, swinging the panels open again to reveal the parade of colourful indigestion-induced nightmares. “It’s teeming with madness. The Earth and its waters on the outside, and the insanity of life inside. Almost like a message that creation is where things go wrong.”
“Hey, speak for yourself, I turned out perfect.”
Armand laughs.
“That you did, my love. Absolutely perfect.” He kisses Daniel’s cheek and flounces off to take a look at something else in the room.
Daniel is left with Mr Bosch’s crazy little friends. There’s a guy being fed something mouth-to-mouth by a disproportionately large duck.
Daniel has always felt some kind of way about this painting. He likes it, but it unsettles him, bends his mind, turns it inside-out. It look him a while to work out why he’s attached to it. Why it feels both familiar and unsettling. Comforting and uncomfortable.
It looks the way those six nights back in San Francisco felt.
Horrifying. Surreal. Beatific. A dream swooping back and forth between enchantment and nightmare.
He looks at the painting now, feels the warm trickle of blood all the way to his ankles, sees Armand’s ethereally beautiful face; he remembers a few years later, looking at this painting together, Armand critiquing torture methods, Daniel hanging on his every word.
“That a vampire thing?” he drawls. “Brooding all over yourself while staring at a painting that’s so on-the-nose symbolic of your past that it’s borderline offensive to the audience?”
Armand chuckles, coming up behind him, and wraps his arms around Daniel’s waist, hooks his chin over Daniel’s shoulder.
“That depends,” he says, peering at the painting with him. “Which part of your past are you brooding about?”
“Early ‘80s. I was really working you to turn me, back then, remember?”
“Mm, how could I not? Some of the most stressful years of my life, keeping you alive.”
“Yeah.”
They both pause, thinking about that time Daniel provoked a gang member into knifing him, forcing Armand to swoop in, heal Daniel’s wound and feed him his blood. Or perhaps it’s just Daniel who’s thinking about that one, and Armand’s thinking about Daniel tangling with the IRA to get a story. Or any of the other thousand stunts like that. Some junkies pull out their own teeth to get another Oxy prescription; Daniel provoked near-death situations to get Armand’s blood and beg to be turned. Potayto, potahto.
“So.” Armand presses a kiss to Daniel’s ear. “What about Mr Bosch in particular warrants this… brooding.”
“This painting kinda… reminds me of us.”
“Oh?” Armand says playfully, and fuck, Daniel hates himself for being about to ruin that lighthearted, dismissive spark. “Is it the duck?”
“Hah. No. It kind of, uh. Makes me feel the way I feel about those six nights in San Francisco.”
“I still think it was five.”
“Babe, not now.”
“Of course. Please go on.”
“It was weird and fucked up, and in my brain it’s still kinda whimsical sometimes. And then we visited this painting a bunch of times, and you pointed out different details and we basically took notes. You were like, ‘Let’s make a guy shit birds,’ and I was like, ‘On it, boss!’”
“I’ve never even attempted to make someone shit birds.”
“I know, just an example, but stay with me.”
“I’m staying.”
“Right. My point is, you were off planning your Saw-traps, eating people, and at that point you stopped keeping me from it, you were trying to show me the horrors or whatever, playing it the fuck up so I would stop asking you to turn me. Yeah, part of it was real, but you gotta admit you went all out with the theatrics.”
Armand hums, cheek pressed to Daniel’s. “Perhaps I did.”
Daniel would make an asshole remark about the ‘perhaps’ and how Armand would gaslight a fucking polygraph machine if given the opportunity, but he’s too caught up in himself right now. And isn’t that just the story of his two divorces right there.
“And I was with you. All the way. Sometimes I was stoned, but a lot of the times I wasn’t. Sometimes it freaked me out, but again, a lot of the times it didn’t. You prowling the night, me by your side, fucking choosing your dinners for you like a fucked-up dietician, picking out a guy just because he ticked me off in a bar and laughing when he screamed as you hunted him. I fucking liked it. What does that say about me?”
Armand is quiet, but nothing in his body shifts, and he continues holding Daniel just the same: easily. Lovingly. With comfortable familiarity.
“A splinter of coldness,” Daniel says, voice a little pitched with whatever the fuck is happening in his chest, in his guts. “Was that what you called it?”
“It was,” Armand confirms. Not like Daniel needs it — his brain is a tape recorder now, a brand new vampire gift, first of its kind.
“Yeah. Seems like a hell of a lot more than a splinter. I was… Look, I don’t care about killing, now. And yeah, I’m a vampire, and that’s how it goes, some vampires care, some don’t. Fine. I can accept that. But actually, I’m worse, because I pick and choose — I don’t kill indiscriminately, just because I need to eat, no, I fucking choose who dies. Like the lady sloshing about in your thermos right now, I picked her ‘cause she was an asshole. So I play morals, find people worthy or unworthy, like some fucking Roman emperor, that’s even worse.”
“Humans have been doing that to each other for millennia, I see no great difference. I don’t know what you want me to say here, beloved.”
“How about the truth? I know it’s still a bit of a foreign concept to you, but—” Daniel snaps his mouth shut with a click, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.” Shit, he always does this, always takes it out on other people, that’s why both of his ex-wives left him.
Armand’s arms loosen around him as he steps away, and Daniel grabs at them in a panic, trying to keep him closer, mumbling apologies again, because fuck, he’s fucked it up again…
“Shh,” Armand says gently, keeping a hand on his back, dragging over to his shoulder, never breaking contact as he steps around to face Daniel. “It’s all right.”
The spike of panic settles down, and Daniel can breathe again. Not that he needs to, strictly speaking, but at 79 it’s kinda hard to kick the habit. Armand cups his face in his hands, and Daniel reluctantly meets his eyes; Armand smiles at him, that small smile that merely twitches his lips but warms his eyes like a hearth.
“Vampires have been brooding, as you say, over these questions for millennia. As brilliant as you are, and as in awe of your mind as I am, it’s highly doubtful you’ll suddenly arrive at some grand, universal answers, especially right now, in a museum, on a random Thursday night. As to your coldness.”
He pauses, strokes his thumb over Daniel’s cheek; his eyes are so soft and loving.
“Yes, you have that splinter in you. Perhaps more so than a splinter. And I love you with it. Do you understand? Not because of it, or in spite of it — with it. You are compassionate, also. And I love you with it too.”
“So you’re saying I contain multitudes,” Daniel’s mouth runs itself, deflecting.
Armand smiles again, so fond; no one else has ever put up with Daniel’s bullshit like that. Not just put up — Armand fucking likes it. Finds it endearing. For whatever reason.
“Yes, if you like, we can borrow some internet wisdom. My point is, I love you entire.”
“Yeah, but, uh… should you?”
Armand looks just patronising enough to irk Daniel into being a little less maudlin.
“Should any of us be loved? Should you love me? I’m a liar and a schemer and a monster. And yet you love me quite completely.”
“Yeah,” Daniel says, instinctively gripping Armand tight around the waist, because it’s taken him so painfully long to truly, completely believe Daniel loves him. “Yeah, I absolutely fucking do. And you’re more than that. I know you know.”
“My point exactly. Perhaps the ‘should’ has no place here. Perhaps it just… is. We are so far removed from humanity, after all.”
“Nah, even you don’t buy that,” Daniel calls him out softly. “You used to, maybe, but you don’t.”
“Hmm, foiled again. Very well, perhaps I don’t. But Daniel…” He frowns, eyes a little absent for a moment, and his thumb strokes back and forth over Daniel’s cheek again, this time for Armand’s own benefit. “Don’t… fall into this trap, beloved. This chase of the idea of being purified by love, if only you could shape yourself into something worthy of it. It’s not… it’s not for you.”
“Oh, but it is for you?” Daniel asks, because he’s an asshole, and he knows Armand is admitting to experience, not playing at hypocrisy, and it flays Daniel’s heart. So. Abrasiveness it is. Daniel’s oldest, best-worn shield.
“You keep telling me it isn’t,” Armand side-steps. “And… I have come to accept that you love me entire. Allow me to use your own logic against you.”
Daniel huffs. “Asshole. I guess I’m just trying to work out what all those things…” He makes a vague gesture at the paining. “Say about me. Like you said, nothing new. Vampires have been brooding over this forever. Guess it’s my turn.”
“Maybe a quadrilogy was in order, after all?” Armand suggests gently. “Dissecting the Vampire Daniel as well.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
A beat, then Armand sighs, the way he does when Daniel manoeuvres him into a corner.
“I think, in the end, it means you were right. You have made a truly outstanding vampire.”
“Dear Diary, today Armand admitted I proved him wrong…”
Armand scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ve done no such thing.”
“Hey, you just said I was right, pal.” Daniel taps his temple. “It’s all on tape.”
“Yes. But I was also right. Had I turned you back then…” Armand swallows, shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge a sticky scrap of nightmare. “It would not have ended well.”
“Yeah,” Daniel says slowly, grudgingly. “Yeah, okay. You’re right.”
Armand sighs like he’s in a goddamn sports drink commercial. “Say it again.”
Daniel snorts; Armand arches an eyebrow. “Say it again, and I’ll blow you right here, up against this painting.”
And. Well. It’s not like Daniel had any self-respect left to begin with.
Paris (sucks)
Louis and Lestat talk them into going to the fucking Louvre; it’s open until 9pm on Wednesdays, which means plenty of touring time, with the winter sunsets.
Daniel mentally downgrades Louis and Lestat on his list of friends to third place. He then proceeds to realise there’s no one else who could fill the first two spots, but you know what, fuck it. The Louvre during opening hours is unforgivable. The Mona Lisa room? That’s a war crime.
The crowd is rabid. They’re screaming and pushing, milling in a mindless churn, holding up phones and cameras, jostling each other, all a sweaty, stifling tangle whose collective heat puts Daniel off his lunch. He once interviewed an epidemiology expert who told him that the thought keeping her up at night is one day hearing four words: ‘rabies is now airborne’. Daniel thinks this is exactly what that would look like. It’s like one of those zombie apocalypse movies Armand loves to watch.
Speaking of Armand — he’s standing at a distance from the crowd, stiff and dour, like he just watched a cat piss in his shoes. He’s never looked more autistic. Well, apart from that one (and only) time Daniel took him to a municipal swimming pool.
Louis, brandishing his Leica (what a hipster), looks all sweet and excited.
“Come on, just one picture,” he lies blatantly.
Armand glares at him but stiffly walks into the crowd, like he’s going to the gallows.
“Five bucks says he loses it,” Daniel tells Lestat, watching the famously unhinged love of his life enter a sweaty mingle of human tourists.
Lestat snorts. “Please, what kind of an idiot would I have to be to take that bet?”
They watch as Armand pushes into the crowd, faces the painting, then turns around.
Louis’s camera shutter snaps like a dog’s maw over a treat.
“Okay, no, give me the wide eyes,” he tells Armand.
Armand’s eyes narrow into flints, but he must be feeling generous, because he turns his back on Louis, merging with the crowd, then turns around again, and holy shit, his eyes are incredible.
The camera snaps again.
“Wait, no, again, one lady was also facing me.”
It’s not hard to see what Louis wants to do here — the faceless, milling crowd, all turned in worship towards an unimpressively small portrait on the wall, and in the middle of it Armand, the only one facing the camera, with his striking eyes and odd, intense beauty. Simple but effective, and evoking National Geographic’s girl with the green eyes. He’s really getting good at this. Daniel is gonna ask him for a print, and not only because Armand looks feral and incredible.
“Okay, but look over your shoulder, don’t turn around completely!”
“You said, one picture,” Armand protests.
“Yeah, but I meant, like, one good picture?” Louis tries, his voice and body language going all sweet and sunny, as always when he’s being the biggest shit, because he knows no one will deny him anything when he smiles like that.
Armand sighs theatrically, then repeats the process.
Lestat huffs, crossing his arms abruptly, and here’s another meltdown waiting to happen.
“Can you believe he ever was a model?” Lestat asks snidely.
“Yup,” Daniel says happily, watching Armand with naked appreciation; for all his huffing, Lestat’s eyes follow Armand too. “What’s the matter there, Les?” Daniel asks, because he hasn’t ruined anyone’s day in a while, and one must stay in shape. “Worried about being replaced?”
“Hah!” Lestat says, so loudly that a few people actually glance over.
It’s absurd, obviously — Louis’s Instagram is all Lestat. Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. An endless stream of professional and candid shots, on and off tour, behind the scenes, on stage, at home. A myriad of settings, all kinds of lighting, adventurous angles, experiments with hair and makeup: you name it, Louis has shot it. And his pictures have never been better. Add to that the fact that Lestat took centre stage in any picture of Armand Louis ever took in Paris, despite being imaginary at the time, and Lestat and his extremely psychotic ego can rest easily.
“Okay, come on, one more, I almost got it!” Louis says cheerily to Armand.
And here would come Daniel’s five bucks, if Lestat had taken the bet. Armand snarls, flicking a hand, and the entire room is plunged into stillness so suddenly that the resultant silence is deafening, ringing in Daniel’s ears like the aftermath of a grenade. Armand pushes back into the frozen-still crowd, adjusts a few people who aren’t turned away from Louis’s camera enough, then he turns around and gives Louis a scathing look.
Louis lowers his camera, looking disappointed.
“‘Mand, come on,” he says. “This has to be… has to be real, you know?”
Silently, Armand grips the top of a teenager’s head and rotates it to face the painting on the wall, never breaking eye contact with Louis. Louis heaves a sigh. Daniel has a sip of blood from his reusable steel water bottle. Lestat finally jumps in, sweeping in between them.
“Mon cœur, if the gremlin isn’t up to the task, I will be happy to oblige,” he declares, then bats his eyelashes ridiculously. “I thought I was your muse…?”
What a fucking manipulator — Louis’s heart basically melts and oozes out of his chest right there; Daniel’s gonna have to be careful not to step in it on his way out.
“Come on, Les,” Louis tells him, all soft already. “You know you’re my favourite subject. But I mean — look at him! He’s beautiful, yeah, but he’s also so fucking creepy! You know?”
Armand sighs, looking forlornly into the middle distance.
“You used to read me love poetry,” he says in the tone of an ailing widow. “Do you remember that?”
Louis snorts; Armand grins back, something familiar passing between them. Daniel and Lestat exchange a look, as they usually do when Louis and Armand get like this — the two of them are some of the least intentionally funny people Daniel has ever met. (He loves Armand, he really does, he would spray-paint it on public buildings and, in fact, he has, but Armand’s sense of humour is kind of… special. Daniel likes it, but Armand wouldn’t exactly win a standup competition. Not on purpose, anyway.)
“One more try?” Louis asks, and he’s fooling no one with that sweetness, least of all Armand.
“Fine, but you’ll give me that Gallé lamp that you kept when we split our assets.”
“Oh, come on…! You don’t even like that lamp!”
“How much do you want this picture, Louis?”
“Oh, my god, you’re such a dick. Fine, I’ll get you the lamp, but unfreeze the crowd and give me five shots.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“You think they were like that during sex?” Daniel asks Lestat.
“Ugh, please, I try not to picture it,” Lestat says with a fake shudder; he’s also lit up a cigarette and is smoking in the fucking Louvre.
“Liar,” Daniel calls him out lazily.
“You’re already doing re-takes and have me as a conscious participant, this is hardly candid!” Armand and Louis are still arguing.
“Yeah, but the people are real, you know?”
“I really, really don’t.”
“Oh, come on! Les, tell him what I mean!”
Lestat, who clearly wasn’t expecting to be dragged into this, looks like a deer caught in headlights, then promptly waves a hand and restarts the clock; the crowd explodes into noise again.
Armand licks his lips in that way he does when he’s ice-cold furious and stops time again. Lestat starts it back up. Armand stops it. On, off, on, off, on-off-on-off-on-off, noise and movement flickering like strobe lights at a festival act that has it out for the epileptics. Daniel pinches the bridge of his nose, his inner ear going crazy; when he glances at Louis, he looks queasy as hell.
“Okay, okay!” Daniel finally steps in, grabbing Armand around the waist and pulling him away. “Babe, stop the thing again. Lestat, don’t restart it or I’ll aim at you when I puke. Louis, this is your fault.”
“Hey!”
“Armand, you’re gonna unfreeze time in a moment. And you’re not getting the lamp. Louis, you get one shot. Lestat, put out the fucking cigarette before the smoke detectors come back on, this jacket is vintage leather, I’m not getting it wet.”
“This fledgling, why does he think he can boss us around?” Lestat asks the room at large.
“Because he’s perfect,” Armand tells him, with too many teeth.
“Nope.” Daniel pats Armand’s chest where he’s still holding him back. “It’s because I’m the only one here who grew old enough to grow at least half a brain.”
“Hold on, how come I only get one shot?” asks Louis, who always has his priorities straight.
“Because I’m the one who has to deal with your model for the rest of the night. Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
Eleven minutes later, Daniel finally drags Armand out of there, and they’re greeted by the crisp winter air outside, a blissful escape from too much light and noise and heat. Louis and Lestat stay suicidally behind, to continue with Louis’s photoshoot; if they die there (or kill each other), Daniel calls dibs on Louis’s photography gear.
“Told you, babe,” Daniel says, arm wrapped low around Armand’s waist, pulling him closer to his side as they walk along some idiotic little rue-de-whatever; he presses a kiss to Armand’s temple. “Paris sucks.”
Rome
Armand’s favourite painting by Caravaggio is Judith Beheading Holofernes. Go figure.
It’s his new favourite, actually, as of a few years ago, following a journey of lengthily processing and then very bloodily… addressing his feelings towards his maker. (The most satisfying resolution to a Stockholm Syndrome case Daniel has ever seen.)
“What do you think?” Daniel asks, draping an arm over Armand’s shoulders as they stop to admire the painting. “Do we wrap it, or are you gonna wear it home?”
Armand laughs; god, he’s so beautiful when he laughs. He’s always beautiful, sure, but joy lights up something special inside him. Good job he’s married a professional court jester, then.
“Perhaps not today,” Armand tells him, still smiling, voice vibrant with amusement. “But when we’re done roaming and pick out a new home to stay for a while, we may come back for it.”
“Deal.”
There’s a sculpture of Armand in one of the rooms, so they swing by to say hello.
Over the past few years, Daniel’s part-time job has been tracking down artworks featuring Armand and turning them over to Armand for judgement: leave or destroy. After half a millennium, Armand at last can decide which of his depictions remain, and which he wants gone; he gets to decide who looks at his nude body, which broken and scavenged pieces of his past will remain on display. 500-odd years too late, but better late than never.
This particular sculpture is one of those Armand has decided to keep. It was the easiest decision he’s made, and Daniel can see why.
It’s carved exquisitely in marble, and it depicts Armand as Mercury, the messenger of gods. He’s captured in take-off, with winged sandals on his feet and a sash of fabric flowing around his body, the pose light and impossibly dynamic. He’s smiling. He’s smiling, in contravention of the Renaissance’s rule of empty, beatific stoner looks, and he’s just bursting with life.
The sculpture’s best feature, its absolute fucking showstopper and focal point, are Armand’s obscenely perfect legs. The pose is incredible: one foot arched, the toes pressed firmly to the ground, the other leg bent at the knee, leaping off already, calves crossed in a way that instantly evokes the brush of silky-smooth skin, the toga covering Armand’s ass and private parts but showing off all the rest. The Capitoline Museums are clearly wise to that, because they’ve put the sculpture on a plinth of just the right height to draw the gaze naturally to those perfect, coltish legs. It’s absolute soft-core porn bait for the tourists, and Daniel is not immune.
Armand chuckles, coming over to where Daniel is ogling shamelessly.
“Perhaps we should take this one home instead,” he says slyly.
“Nah,” Daniel tells him. “I’ve got the original.”
“Hmm, yes, you very much do.”
So, naturally, they fuck right there, on the cold, stone floor; Armand wraps those unspeakably perfect legs around Daniel’s waist, gasping and moaning as Daniel fucks into him, half-desperate and half-steady. Armand’s dark hair is fanned out across the pale grey floor, his eyes all mist and liquid pleasure, mouth open; he looks ethereal. Not angelic — godlike.
And holy shit, does that give Daniel an idea.
He pulls out, soothing Armand’s whines with a kiss, and urges Armand up, to switch places. He rolls onto his back, tugs Armand on top; their moans blend and echo in the vast sculpture hall as Armand sinks down onto him, straddling him, knees splayed wide and pressed into the floor. Daniel runs his hands up those thighs, rubs his thumbs under the sharp juts of hipbones, then squeezes the firm flesh of Armand’s ass; Armand clenches around him, and Daniel nearly blacks out.
Armand stars off slow, rocking in place, back arched, taking his pleasure and ignoring Daniel’s for a while, and it feels so fucking right that Daniel could come just from this. Armand throws his head back when Daniel’s cock rubs over his prostate, and then he sighs, a blissful, happy grin spreading over his face, and Daniel stares up, dazed, at the living, breathlessly smiling Armand and the sculpted, marble version of him looming just over his shoulder.
He wants to watch them take off together.
Slowly picking up speed, Armand starts lifting himself off Daniel’s hips a little, those thighs working like nature’s flawless machine, lean muscle shifting under smooth brown skin, hips rolling like he’s riding a fucking horse, and Daniel pants, grabbing at them, guiding them a little, pleasure coiling tight and low in his belly.
Armand’s eyes have slipped closed, mouth opened, his bunny teeth showing in moaning breaths, and he looks so fucking good like this, pleasured and lost in it and so, so fucking adored. When Daniel starts stroking his cock, his eyes fly open, so bright they’re almost golden, framed with dark eyelashes, Armand’s hair falling forward as he swoops in to give Daniel a biting kiss. His back is so smooth, Daniel’s fingers gliding over the vertebrae, and then Armand straightens up again, keening when Daniel presses a hand to the small of his back, half-arching and half-supporting him.
“Shh, you’re almost there,” Daniel tells him, because he can feel it, in their bond, which is incredible, but also in all the small signs Armand’s body shows him: the way his breaths hitch more and more often, the way his eyes haze over and lose focus, the way his belly draws tight and his hole clenches.
Daniel glances at the sculpture over Armand’s shoulder, then swipes his thumb over the head of Armand’s cock, pressing just right, timing it with Armand rocking down, Daniel’s cock dragging over his prostate, and there. There.
Armand’s orgasms are voiceless things, face torn open in pleasure, breath gasping, body arching, pleasure flooding their bond with liquid light, and fuck, Daniel is coming right after him, Armand hot and wet and vice-tight around him. Armand’s voice comes back quickly, like it always does, his panting breath laced with a moan, and Daniel opens his eyes.
The messenger of the gods and the vampire swim in his vision, both smiling and lighter than air.
And yeah, Mercury is nice. But Armand is so much better.
With a huff, Armand collapses on top of Daniel, face tucked into Daniel’s neck, hair spilling all over; he rolls his shoulders, wriggling very slowly, like a snake burying itself in sand. Daniel wraps him in his arms, holds him close, waits for his brain to come back online. Fuck, it feels so good.
Armand makes a sound, a languid thing between sigh and moan, and presses lazy kisses to Daniel’s neck.
“That was exquisite, beloved,” he tells him, nuzzles in for a quick little sip of blood, a half-kiss half-drink that makes Daniel’s head spin.
“Hey, exquisite yourself,” Daniel says, and that’s the absolute peak of coherence he can reach right now.
Armand hums a little laugh, sits up and stretches like he’s just woken up, then eases off, moaning quietly when Daniel’s softening cock slips out.
“Oh, fuckfuckfuck,” is all Daniel can contribute, then gracefully smacks the back of his head on the marble floor.
Armand laughs, and Daniel is fucking Pavlov’d by that sound, because he instantly wants to smack his head on the floor again. Jesus. Armand briefly cleans them both, and then they lie side by side for a while, Armand playing with Daniel’s hand, with the sculptures towering above them in the hall.
Eventually, Daniel goes for his underwear, only to discover that’s what Armand used to perfunctorily clean them both off. Asshole. He sets the boxers on fire with a snap of his fingers and goes for the jeans instead, because he has to wear something — too many beady little marble eyes staring at his junk.
Armand, of course, has no such prissy concerns, and gets up to take a slow stroll through the room, fully nude, the last drops of Daniel’s come still trickling down his thigh; Christ, it’s obscene and so fucking gorgeous. They can talk all they want about vampires being technically dead; they should see this: Armand, walking through this gallery of long-dead people’s husks carved in stone, and yet he remains. Living. Present. Indomitable. Walking barefoot on marble, and with each step Daniel could swear he hears him announce himself: I am here.
Daniel sits on the stone floor and watches him in awe.
He mingles with the statues, stopping in front of some, hip cocked, suddenly playing a critic — a show put on for Daniel’s benefit, and Daniel smiles, loving him for it.
“That was very much not the style in Ancient Greece,” Armand comments with a snobbish pout over one sculpture’s getup. “A romanticised, Renaissance rendition of it.”
“Thought you’re bit young to remember Ancient Greece first-hand,” Daniel teases.
“I know about fashion,” Armand says dismissively, and well, can’t argue with that.
Daniel finally gets his ass off the floor and ambles over, still a bit weak in the knees — sue him, he’d like to see anyone fuck Armand and not be all jello about it afterwards. He’s about to carry on with their banter, because that’s easily his favourite pastime, when Armand gasps a little, stopping in front of another sculpture.
“See an old friend?” Daniel asks, then realises that that’s actually very much a possibility.
Armand nods, and well, shit. Daniel braces himself, because 9 times out of 10 Armand’s past is not going to involve anything good. And they sort of just fucked about that 1/10 right there, so the odds are not in his favour.
The sculpture is something from Greek mythology, an Artemis, going by the bow and arrows; Armand is staring at her with those huge, round eyes.
“Who is it?” Daniel asks; softly, but not too softly. Gotta thread that needle carefully.
“Giovanna,” Armand replies with a distant sort of look in his eyes, but there’s almost a smile on his lips. “From Venice. She was a prostitute and a model. A friend.” He chuckles briefly. “She was once painted as the Virgin Mary, if you’d believe it.”
“Oh, I believe it,” says Daniel, who has seriously boned up on Renaissance and Enlightenment art. Ropes. The models were rigged up with ropes. For hours.
“Yes,” Armand hums, amused. “The unspoken social contract of the day. The paintings and sculptures were dedicated only to those most worthy of veneration — gods and saints and heroes of myth. And lending them their bodies and their faces were… us. The beggars, the unfortunates and the prostitutes.”
Daniel opens his mouth to say ‘You weren’t a prostitute, you were a victim of child sex trafficking’, but he manages to close it again. They’ve been over this countless times, Armand editorialising his past, using words that imply more agency than he actually had, but something is different this time: Armand is talking about his past in the first person. This is big. And Daniel will be damned if he interrupts it.
“We laughed about it,” Armand carries on, a light, fond smile on his face; his eyes are amber-bright and a million miles away. “I remember one time, we… there was a banquet, and we sneaked in. We sat under a table, laughing. She spilled her wine…” His mouth twitches, open around a smile, and he would look broken if there wasn’t this brightness on his face. “I remember,” he tells Daniel, turning to him, shocked and excited.
“Yeah,” Daniel says in a slightly cracked voice. “Yeah. Keep going, baby. What colour was the wine?”
“Red, of course,” Armand answers without hesitation. “I remember it stained her clothes, and then I knelt in it by mistake. There was a painting featuring us both — a take on the ecstasy of St Theresa. I was the angel, she was the saint, and all that noble society looked at us in reverence.” He giggles. “And in reality they were piously crossing themselves to the image of two whores!”
Okay, Daniel is not crazy about that word, but he’ll let it slide, for the moment. They can always circle back to it later and have that fight then — right now, Armand is happy.
“Giovanna,” Armand repeats, smiling. “She had… auburn hair and… blue eyes, I think. She used to dress up as a boy, and we would go out drinking in the taverns when we managed to sneak away.”
“She sounds like a hell of a spirit,” Daniel says fondly.
“She was. And a good friend.”
Daniel hums; he walks closer to the sculpture, sizes it up, and carefully wraps it in his arms. He lifts it off the plinth.
“Daniel, what are you—”
“Grab that, would you?” Daniel nods at the plinth, already carrying the sculpture over to the middle of the room, where a familiar-faced Mercury is flying off.
He waits for Armand to deposit the plinth, and he sets the sculpture of Giovanna back onto it; he takes a step back, assesses his handiwork, then adjusts it a little. There. Two friends reunited at last.
“What do you think?” he asks, pretty damn pleased with himself.
Armand cups Daniel’s face in his hand and kisses him so hard they almost topple over and break both statues.
The next night, Daniel wakes up to Armand showing him an article about the mysterious break-in into the Capitoline Museums and the decision to keep the sculptures together, as an attraction. The way Armand smiles at him for it is better than any piece of art.