Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Chapter Text
Fuck.
Daniel knew he was dying. The Parkinson’s was killing him, and he knew it. But he was only sixty-seven, too young to be dying of old age. Too young to be dying.
What a crock of shit that was, he knew it, to be nearly fucking seven decades old and saying he was too young to die. He knew he was one lucky sonofabitch, to have acted the way that he had in the seventies and lived to tell the tale. But fuck. He was
dying
and it sucked just as much as he thought it would’ve.
It all started with a fall. Because of course it fucking did.
He hadn’t been doing anything outrageous; he wasn’t that kind of guy. But the result had still been the same. He’d been in the supermarket, of all places, and he was just shopping. He’d known better than to be doing all of that, in hindsight, he should have known better than to go out so late at night. It was around 9 PM. His tremors were always worse at night. He’d only taken his cane, too, instead of the rollator, rookie fuckin’ mistake. But he hated to rollator. It made him feel old.
Long story short, he fell of course(since that much had already been spoiled), and after he fell he felt so bad for the little teenaged girl who was manning the shop for the night. No matter how much he tried to reassure her that he was fine and that he falls all the time—which again, in hindsight, he realized made his case even worse—she called the ambulance anyway, and he found himself escorted to the nearest emergency room. When a doctor finally came and tried to see him, he basically pleaded for her not to call his family. He was fine, he said.
“But Parkinson’s often clouds our better judgement, Mr. Molloy,” was her response, and a few hours later, Katherine had driven down from New Hampshire.
She tapped her foot in brown kitten-heels. She didn’t dare look at him directly, but she glared at him every once in a while, and she looked just like her mother did. Though, she did have Daniel’s own blue eyes. On her hip was her own little bugger, Mannie, who was probably named after Alice’s father, but he’d long forgotten.
What was funny was that Katherine had never met her grandfathers on either side, but anything was better than naming her kid Daniel.
“Listen, Katie…” Daniel sighed, “It was an honest mistake. I didn’t need you to come down here, honest. This ER doc, you know how they are.”
Katherine huffed, “I know you don’t need me to be here, Daniel. You’re lucky that the doctor said you couldn’t be discharged by yourself. I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
“How does that make me lucky?” Daniel rubbed his forehead.
The two of them sat in silence for a while, though Mannie babbled and played on his iPad. The kid had light hair and dark eyes, blond. He figured that Katie had been so miffed about him and Alice being her parents that she wanted to spare her IVF baby the heartache.
Ouch.
After a while, the doctor returned. Doctor Banuelos. She carried a clipboard and had a somber look on her face.
“Mr. Molloy? Ms. Molloy?”
Katherine cringed so hard that her neck retracted back and she looked like she had a double chin. She didn’t, though. She was skinnier than Alice was back when they were in their coke faze.
“Ms. Copenhagen is fine, thank you,” she tried to smile.
Dr. Banuelos tried to smile back, but it was stilted as all hell. “And the little one?”
“Mannie Copenhagen, my son. So, the clipboard?”
The doctor’s smile fell slightly. “Yes. Well, Mr. Molloy, do you remember how many years it’s been since your diagnosis?”
“Been about six years, doc. I think. Give or take.”
She looked momentarily puzzled but nodded. “Your regular clinic is private, and since it’s so early, I haven’t been able to get them to send it over yet. Unfortunately, you seem to be progressing slightly quicker than I would have liked to see, but given your age and lifestyle, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. At least based on what you told my nurse.”
That pulled a laugh out of Katherine. That then drew a sidelong glance from the doctor, but she was too professional to comment on it.
“So, unfortunately, it’s looking like we’re making our way over into Stage Four Parkinson’s disease. This means that this is Advanced Stage Parkinson’s. Now, I’d recommend that you check in with your PCF as soon as you can, just so that you can get a more precise idea of what’s going on with your condition from someone who knows you well. But what we’re going to start seeing is a lot more challenges, physically and cognitively. More assistance with your motor skills—fine and gross—is probably going to be necessary. Communication difficulties are common. And I’d recommend a more… Reliable mobility aid? A cane might not cut it anymore.”
Katherine scoffed. “I thought you said you had your rollator with you.”
Daniel just chuckled. As Dr. Banuelos rambled on and on about how much more terrible his Parkinson’s was going to get, and how important it was to have support, and all the resources he could give, his head was in the clouds.
A part of him had never expected it to get this bad. He knew that it would get bad, sure, but he’d survived a lot worse. And Parkinson’s wouldn’t kill him, sure, but his life as he knew it was definitely ending. He could already see himself, sitting limp in a wheelchair with a quilt on his lap, drooling like a kid all over his laptop. Decrepit and old and useless.
He’d never actually imaginined that as his future until that moment.
Katherine nodded along with the doctor and rocked Mannie on her knee. Mannie. What the hell kinda name was that for a boy? What ever happened to Manny?
And then Dr. Banuelos made her exit, said she’d give them the room. And Katherine turned to him and sighed, and Mannie had suddenly fallen asleep. Or Daniel was missing time. Either way.
“So, Daniel, what’ll it be?”
Daniel blinked. “Huh?”
Katherine sighed and rolled her eyes. She handed him a handful of pamphlets and then readjusted her heels onto her feet before she stood, all without jostling the kid. “Your doctor said it might be time to look into Assisted Living.”
“Assisted Living?” Daniel guffawed, “Come on now, Katie…”
But Katherine simply turned her nose up. “What, did you think you were going to be staying with me? Oh, don’t look at me like that. This is on you. You’ve had plenty of time to come up with something, the Parkinson’s didn’t just sneak up on you, Daniel.”
There was an inclining of Daniel’s being that wanted to snap at her, to say he’s her dad, surely, he could get a little leeway here! But he knew damn well that he didn’t deserve that. Not at all.
“C’mon, Katie—”
“Katherine.”
Daniel sighed, “Katherine, right. Copenhagen?”
“I changed it for Mannie.”
“Right. Look, I get it. You hate my guts. But you’ve got a big house, Katie. I wouldn’t be a bother, they just think I’m a fall risk! I know I’m getting’ older, I just…”
He wasn’t lying about the space part. Up in New Hampshire, she had a quaint little one-story brickhouse out in the boonies. But for what it didn’t have in height, it had footage, it was damn near the longest house internally that Daniel had ever seen. Three bedrooms, four bathrooms, a woodburning fireplace, and a two-car garage. Basement too.
Katherine shook her head, “It would be a bother, though. I don’t want to be taking care of you and Mannie and myself. Plus, there really isn’t room.”
“Oh, Bull-fucking-shit, Katie. You’ve got a three-bedroom. I’m not saying long term, maybe just a couple months for me to get back on my feet. Find something… besides these… Care homes. I mean, what happened to the guest room? I distinctly remember you having three bedrooms. And a couch!”
“You’re not taking the couch,” Katherine rolled her eyes. “And the third bedroom isn’t a guest room anymore.”
“What?”
With her free hand, Katherine gently rubbed her stomach. “Baby Maeve needs her own room.”
“Holy shit,” Daniel was taken aback, “You’re pregnant? Again? Since when?”
“Since a couple months ago, eleven weeks, actually. Which you would’ve known if you came to the baby shower I invited you to. Let me guess, didn’t get the mail?”
“Shit kid… I… When do I get to meet her?”
“It’s fine. I don’t know if you get to meet her, honestly, Daniel. I gave you a chance with Mannie and I just… I don’t know if I even want my daughter knowing you, at this point. Look, maybe Marci can help you out, but I can’t. Now, you can call me if you really need something, but honestly? I’d rather you not. Now, my kid has school in the morning, and I have work, so I need to get back to New Hampshire.”
Katherine left. Daniel didn’t have anything else to say.
---
After a bit of pleading with the discharge nurse, Daniel was able to go home all by himself. It left a bit of a sour taste in his mouth, being treated like some kind of child. He taxied back to his apartment, and then he got on Reddit.
He hated to admit it, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to use. His tremors were horrible, even with his meds, and his eyes were going. He couldn’t type more than twenty words a minute, and out of those twenty words, only about half were legible. Recently, text to speech had become his best friend.
r/Parkinsons was a shitshow. Most of the people who posted there were the adult children of people with it, which was awesome, but that meant there was hardly anyone with Parkinson’s posting on the sub. And if they did have it, they were freshly diagnosed and panicking. Not his crowd.
So, he decided to change that.
r/Parkinsons
u/PrudentsScore554
Care Options outside of a Home
Keeping it short. Got Parkinson’s. Text to speech is a bitch to use. IPD if that matters. Doctor says it’s stage 4. Daughter doesn’t give a fuck about me. Well, my daughter is actually pregnant. Single mom. Looking for options outside of going to a home. Not happening. Any advice?
Daniel had always been told that his writing was more elegant than his speaking, but it was always a huge blow to his ego. He knew that he could always say exactly what he wanted to write, but it had always felt like two different skills. But hey, at least none of his fans would be able to recognize his style!
The responses he got mostly pissed him off. All of them were worried about Katherine, her kids, how they’d survive without their grandfather, how sorry they felt for her. Great advice from everyone, kudos!
In the end, he only got about five comments, a handful of upvotes, nothing helpful.
And then it came through.
Sweet-Cherub-Love invited you to chat
Daniel clicked the notification right as soon as he saw the little notification on his phone, even though he’d been using Reddit on the computer prior to.
Sweet-Cherub-Love: Hello
I checked your page.
You’re from New York.
I can take care of you.
I have experience with Parkinson’s.
I know how this sounds.
Would you like to discuss over drinks
Daniel couldn’t help but scoff. At first he thought it had to be a troll. But that was low, even for most Reddit scumbags. Trolling the Parkinson’s sub? Really? He also felt ever so slightly unnerved, but he didn’t think about that part too much. Had he posted that he lived in New York? He felt like he hadn’t. But that was fine.
He felt strangely pulled to reply to the message, even though it was weird. It had to be some sort of scam. Though, if Daniel had been running it, he’d try it in the dementia sub instead. Still, he replied.
PrudentsScore554: This would be a really scummy scam.
The person on the other end of the screen replied almost immediately.
Sweet-Cherub-Love: It is not a scam.
I do not want to scam you.
Will you meet me?
What I say is true. You are desperate for this.
Ok. Woah. Daniel wasn’t sure how he felt about the way that this total stranger was texting him. Like he knew what Daniel was thinking. Like he knew Daniel. It was creepy… So then why did Daniel…
PrudentsScore554: It’s not so easy to meet up for coffee in New York when you have Parkinson’s.
Sweet-Cherub-Love: I can come to you.
Daniel’s head felt a little bit fuzzy. Wasn’t that what the doctor said? Maybe his disease was progressing quicker than he thought… Because he knew it was a terrible idea, but…
PrudentsScore554: I’ll come meet with you.
They planned to meet the next morning, which was absurd and Daniel knew it. He figured it had to be some kind of fetish, right? That was the only possible explanation that he could think of. And what kind of guy did that make him, then, humoring something like that?
A guy who hadn’t gotten fucked in a long time, mostly.
But the next morning, at ten, per Daniel’s request. It was a fancy little bougie café down by Canal Street called Suited. When Daniel said he wanted to go somewhere closer, Cherub (who’s name he had not yet learned) insisted on Suited. When Daniel tried to pushback further, saying it would take him an eternity to get there, Cherub shot it down once more. He ordered Daniel an UberX.
Daniel didn’t think about how this person had his address.
The café was a thirty-minute ride. During that time, he did his best to try and reason with himself. He knew how fucking crazy he must have looked, and he felt fucking crazy too.
But he was dying. He was fucking dying. Even if the Parkinson’s didn’t directly kill him—which it probably wouldn’t—his life as Daniel Molloy, the spunky journalist who was actually really active for his age, was coming to an end. So, maybe meeting up with strange people from Reddit who somehow seemed to entrance him and happened to know just a little bit too much about him wasn’t the wisest thing ever, but fuck it. He only got to live once.
He’d perused the person’s page before meeting up with them. He wasn’t that crazy. r/ArtifactPorn, r/RevertHelp, r/FountainPens. It was all remarkably… Boring. But they did seem to post at least somewhat regularly, and mostly about things so mundane that Daniel was finding it harder and harder to believe this was some kind of scam or insane grift. It was just… Odd.
In some of the pics from the fountain pen sub, their hands were in it. Thin, long, dark, hairless, and manicured. Something sexual stirred in Daniel, but he Their handwriting was very good, but he was struggling to get any kind of read on this person, not even their sex. Hell, not even their name. He knew they were artsy, maybe Muslim, and brown.
It was risky business, and Daniel knew it. But he just felt so inclined to go, even though he didn’t exactly know why.
The café was just as swanky as it seemed on Google Maps. It was a hipster’s wet dream; the beams of the ceiling were exposed, the place was all industrial greys and pipes with the slightest indigo accent, filled slightly with a crowd far too young to be anything but Daniel’s grandchildren and the scent of Columbian coffee.
He looked around the room for the person he was supposed to meet. Sometimes, and Daniel knew he shouldn’t think it, but it felt like everyone in New York was some kind of brown. That, or Italian. Point was, he couldn’t tell who was who, and he realized that Mx. Mystery probably didn’t know who they were looking for either. He figured his age might give him away, though.
He pulled out his phone, and with his best grip he started to go on the Reddit app. His computer typing was treacherous, but texting on his phone was nearly impossible. Before he got a chance, though—
“Daniel Molloy.”
Tall, dark, handsome, familiar. But Daniel didn’t know him. Strong bones, big doe eyes, perfect curls that framed his face. As he looked down at Daniel, he smiled slightly through short lips. He was… Not at all white, but there was something so… Greek about his face. Not in the literally sense though, no, he didn’t look Greek. There was something ancient and deliberate about him. He seemed like he was carved, crafted, molded. All of his features fit his face like they chiseled there intentionally. He was beautiful. In the ethereal way.
Daniel felt more out of place than before. “Former student or former fan?” he tried to joke.
“Your sweet cherub,” the man smiled slightly wider. If Daniel could’ve still gotten hard, he would’ve. “We can order on the kiosk. What do you desire?”
Playing it cool, Daniel shrugged. “Flat white?”
“And to eat?”
“Not too hungry. What’re you getting?”
The man tilted his head. “There is nothing.” He quickly ordered on the kiosk and then led Daniel to a seat. A booth. Daniel sighed out in relief, glad he wouldn’t have to sit on the fucking metal stools.
There was silence for a moment as they sat. It was almost deafening silence, even though Daniel could hear the sporadic chatter, the frothing of milk. The man smiled. Daniel shifted uncomfortably. The man watched him, stared him down through dark eyes. His gaze was slightly off-center—not quite enough to be wall-eyed, but definitely unfocused. It was like he could see right through and past Daniel. Like he was seeing a part of Daniel that was deep inside of him. A part of him that wasn’t there. There was something sad about them, the eyes, they were wet and endless. A boat before it drifted into a storm it’d never return from.
The man’s mouth gaped slightly with Daniel’s thoughts.
Then Daniel blinked, and he was no longer entranced by the eyes. And he blinked again. He didn’t know why he was thinking the way he was.
“They’ll bring our food to us soon, I’m sure,” the man nodded, dragging his slender index finger against the table. “in the meantime, I am sure you’re to discuss.”
Daniel sucked in a breath. Right. “Right. So, let me get this straight. You, what are you, can’t be more than twenty-two, saw a random post on the Parkinson’s reddit, read through my entire page, learned my name, and you’ve decided out of the goodness of your heart that you want to help me?”
The man bared his teeth as he smiled, his eyes widening ever so slightly. “Well, I never said it was just pure goodness.”
Daniel knew he ought to be unnerved. Maybe even disturbed. But he found it harder and harder to feel so. He wondered if everyone became so blasé at the end of their lives.
Daniel’s coffee arrived. The boy seemingly didn’t order anything.
“There are many things I can do for you. You say your disease has advanced to Stage Four, yes? I’ll say, you’re remarkably dependent for someone who’s condition is so advanced.”
“I’m barely in Stage Four.”
“Still. But how long will this last, Mr. Molloy?” He traced circles on the tabletop.
Definitely an old student, then.
He continued, “your eldest daughter is with child and already has one, and your other daughter you haven’t bothered to reach out to because you know she won’t respond. Writing, your only source of income, has become almost impossible. Even if it weren’t a hit to your pride, you can’t afford to go to a care home with your insurance. The insurance you’re worried you won’t be able to afford, but you need it for your Levodopa injections. And…”
The man lifted Daniel’s flat white with the delicacy of a marble sculptor.
“You haven’t even touched your drink. You keep your hands under the table to hide the tremors, but you’re self-conscious about the way your head shakes. You need assistance, and I am willing to serve. Anything you’d need. Anything you’d like. Anything. Let me.”
As he lifted the mug to Daniel’s mouth, careful not to spill any of the coffee, he tilted his head forward and down—submissive and docile—and through his thick lashes, he started at Daniel like a puppy.
“Drink from me. Take from me. Use me.”
Daniel took a sip of the flat white. It tasted far too expensive for his taste, so he was glad that he wasn’t paying. He kept his face decidedly neutral. So, the kid had some kind of fetish, and maybe he was a stalker, and definitely Daniel had been his professor before (even though he hadn’t taught in about fifteen years, too long ago to have been teaching a kid this young), but none of that really mattered. It was fucked up, it was weird, but Daniel was so into the guy it was out of this world. He knew that was fucked up too.
He'd never heard of a Parkinson’s-oldman-submission fetish, but there was a first for everything. And Daniel realized he was just as dirty as the boy for wanting this.
Fuck, he was so wrong. He was so fucked up. This kid had to be at least a decade younger than his daughters.
Though Daniel already knew he was going to hell. And he was sure his life among the living was going to go to shit sooner than later.
So, as he pulled his head back away from the cup that the man had placed up to his lips, he smirked.
“Sure, yeah. Let’s do it.” He paused, “wait, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Oh,” the man smiled, slightly darker now. “You can call me… Rashid.”
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Notes:
This chapter has something kinda like sex, but I'm ace and a virgin, so I'm not really sure how well this was executed haha
I always liked that one fancast of Alice where is Rekha Sharma in a green shirt and she looks exactly like Armand. I thought it would be cool for Daniel's two ex wives to be eerily similar to Armand, not just Alice. Marci is just totally my oc, and I totally oc-ified Katie too. Where do Katie and Lenore come from? Like I know Katie is a commonly used name, but it's not canon, right? Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my new chapter!
Chapter Text
Rashid. Rashid. Rashid. Rashid. Rashid.
Did it say something about Daniel’s age that he wasn’t at all able to match the name to the face?
He’d only been a professor for a short while, which he always thought was so funny. How many people could say that being a professor was their side job?
He'd had a couple hundred students, sure, but he’d tough at NYU for christssake. All the artsy white kids started to look the same after a while, and even the ones who weren’t white started to look like them, too. But a face like this kid’s? It’d stand out, even to someone who didn’t give much of a damn like Daniel.
Back when Daniel taught, he was somewhere in his thirties. The details kept getting harder to remember. He remembered, though, how odd that he thought it was when his coworkers would be getting jiggy with their students. It wasn’t illegal, per se, but he always did find it odd. Creepy, too. What business did these forty, fifty-year-old men have talking to their freshmen undergrad students? Daniel was married too, at the time. Padme, his second wife, had just given birth to Marci right before the semester started, so at the time, Daniel said he was really going to turn it around for Marci.
He didn’t really think about how easy it was to get drugs on a college campus.
But that was beside the point. Maybe the reason Rashid had never stood out to him was because he was a taken man and Rashid was a child. Daniel only taught lower-division classes. Though, he thought, that had never really stopped him before. He remembered vaguely how infidelity had always been somewhat of an issue between himself and Alice, yet he couldn’t remember doing any of the actual cheating.
Still, mathematically, it wasn’t adding up. Daniel hadn’t stepped foot in a classroom for the last two or three decades—sometimes showing up for Katie and Marci’s school thing, which was still a rare feat. Rashid was only two or three decades old. But he clearly knew Daniel.
So, after they made it home from the cafe, and after Rashid had let himself in and gotten far too comfortable in the home of a man that he couldn’t have possible known, Daniel popped the question.
“Where do I know you from, anyway?”
Rashid didn’t turn to face him, he simply tilted his head in his direction. He was organizing his shoes, Daniel noted, squatted in the way that Daniel thought only women could, ordering them from oldest to newest.
“Well, Mr. Molloy, the answer isn’t so straight, I’m afraid.”
Daniel sighed and tried not to roll his eyes. “C’mon, kid. If you were in my shoes, you’d be weirded out too. Some teenager somehow finds me online, just so happens to know my name, and then wants to move into my house? Either you’re homeless and desperate, or there’s more to this story.”
“Even the journalist, aren’t we?” Rashid chuckled, finally turning to face him. “You are no better than I am, letting me stay.”
“I never said you could stay. I could kick you out right now.”
“You never said I must leave. And you won’t.” He returned to his organizing.
Daniel sighed once more, running a hand through his hair. “Give me a hint, at least. I want to know how creepy I’m being right now on a scale of one to ten. A student? But you’re too young, right? How old are you? You’re too young to be Katie’s friend, certainly. Marci’s?”
Rashid shook his head. “You’re getting colder, Mr. Molloy. Does it matter how I met you? What matters is that I am here, and I am willing to help you. Do not bite a gift horse in the mouth.”
Daniel simply sighed again.
“What I can assure you,” Rashid began, “is that I have no interest in Katherine or Marishiten. Nor am I one of your past students, since it seems to be bothering you so much.”
“Then you have to be a stalker,” Daniel concluded. “I let a stalker into my house?”
“Your popularity has fallen quite steeply since your prime. Do not flatter yourself. Plus, aren’t I too young to have known you when you were last even remotely famous?”
Daniel didn’t have anything to say as a rebuttal.
“So, then, let us begin. There is nothing that I can’t help with. Say the words, Mr. Molloy, and it is done—cooking, cleaning, laundry, bathing... Feeding. Just say the word.”
Daniel couldn’t, in good faith, say that he didn’t like the sound of it. But...
“I don’t need you to do all of that, I’m not some sort of invalid. And I know... I can tell that you’ve got a think for it,” Daniel frowned. “I don’t need to be infantilized.”
Rashid laughed at that. “Infantilized? Hardly. If anything, you seem to be the one who likes them younger.”
Dead silence.
“In fact, I like your age, and everything that comes with it.” Rashid continued, “While you were such a fascinating boy, you’ve grown sensual with age. You’re the oldest man I’ve been with.” he paused. “Well, almost. But the difference between he and you... You are dying, Mr. Molloy. Allow me to bear witness to it. Let me watch as your body gets weaker and weaker until it is almost no longer yours. It is rare that I witness a death like yours. Slow. Drawn out. A final, extended orgasm. Let me see this disease remove you from you.”
Honestly, it was too for much for Daniel to even begin to unpack.
“Christ, kid,” he started, “You’re fucked up. I need a cigarette.”
Then, like clockwork, out of Rashid’s pocket, a cigarette came. They were Marlboro—the vintage kind—but in the genuine way, not that hippie bullshit they upcharged.
It brought a smirk out of Daniel, “I bet those are older than you are.”
“Purse your lips,” Rashid said, ignoring Daniel’s comment, “I’ll procure a lighter.”
“Bedroom.”
Rashid went and grabbed the lighter, and then in a truly bewildering sequence of events, kneeled before Daniel, stuck the cigarette between his lips, and then lit it. He then looked up at him between those bangs of his, looking doe-eyed as ever and submissive, and then promptly bowed his head to face the floor.
“Exhale on me if you please,” he whimpered, “Do whatever you wish, I will take it. Humiliate me, won’t you?”
Daniel inhaled, and Rashid pulled the cigarette away, and as instructed, Daniel exhaled onto the boy. But he didn’t feel well about it. He frowned.
“You did not like that, Mr. Molloy?” Rashid breathed out heavy, “You never were the dominant type, not like this. Not with her. No, even when you were in charge, she was in charge, wasn’t she?”
Rashid placed the cigarette back in Daniel’s mouth, but then he stood. He lapped behind Daniel, standing beside the couch and caressing him from behind. He was cold. He took the cigarette out of Daniel’s mouth and smoked it himself.
“Even when she didn’t touch you, she was in charge. Even if she only watched, you were her pet. Her fascinating boy, aren’t you, Daniel? You’d do whatever she said to get her hands on you…” Rashid trailed his hands down Daniel’s chest, still over his clothes. “So long and slender, her hands. Dark as well. Skilled, though. Very. Alice, she… No, Padme, wasn’t it? Or was it… Armand?”
Armand? Why did the name almost ring familiar? Daniel couldn’t think about it, no refused to think about it. Something was telling him that he shouldn’t, even though his brain was just about scraping the surface of whatever it was. He couldn’t deny that Alice and Padme were similar in looks. He had a bit of a type, that was all. They were skinny when he’d met them, bronze in the summer, dark hair (though Alice’s was wavy and Padme’s was bone-straight), and big, brown eyes.
And as he imagined back to sex with them, images flashed through his mind that he couldn’t account for. He remembers being on his knees, licking a slender, terra-cotta colored foot. It was too long to be a woman’s, too pronounced. He remembers being bent over in Paris, the hands that groped him as he was getting fucked were beautiful and delicate yet still overwhelmingly masculine. He remembers—
“Where’s your head, Mr. Molloy? Have you become bored?”
Daniel gulped and shook his head as the hands slithered their way up from his chest to around his neck possessively.
“You don’t bore me at all, Rashid. I just…”
“You just nothing,” Rashid chuckled as he blew smoke right beside Daniel’s ear, “don’t think of anyone but me.”
Daniel scoffed slightly, “and how’s that supposed to work when you’re talking about my ex—”
Rashid’s fingers tightened around Daniel’s neck. “Only me.”
“You got it, boss.” Boss? Boss? Even Daniel couldn’t think of the reasoning for that one. It had just… Slipped out of him.
But Rashid loved it. He moaned, “yes, Daniel, yes, my boy. That is how you submit. But you know a lot about submission, don’t you?”
Daniel nodded, all hungry-like. Desperate. He knew he was pathetic.
“Alice… Padme… Armand… They didn’t have to do a thing, she didn’t lift a finger, most often. But her cock had you hooked stronger than those drugs. If you were lucky, she’d let you suck it. But more often than not? She wouldn’t even let you see it. She’d tuck it between her legs and fall into the role of the eunuch boy-whore. Yet, you’d still submit to him. Tell me, Daniel, do you miss sucking dick?”
He felt as Rashid’s left hand snaked up from its position around his throat to his mouth, and without asking permission, and without warning, Rashid stuck his fingers in Daniel’s mouth—cigarette long forgotten.
“Suck. Like you used to. I think all three of them would say you’re quite skilled. You like it this way, don’t you? Rough like this? And you remember Alice’s cock, don’t you? The silicone of it always hurt the back of your throat. It was cold, hard—like a dead thing. But you sucked it and licked it and let it all inside of you… What did it look like, Daniel?”
Images flashed once again through Daniel’s mind. Hard abs on a slight body, dark skin and dark pubes… But no harness. And Daniel remembered, actually quite well, how Alice and Padme despised pegging him. They both said the same thing:
“Who is that man’s name that you’re moaning. Who is Armand?”
“Don’t think,” Rashid spoke, cutting through his thoughts, “Just suck.”
And Daniel listened like the good boy he was. When Daniel thought that, a slight chuckle escaped Rashid. It was weirding him out, but not nearly as much as it should’ve.
“Do you like this, Daniel? Do you miss it?”
Daniel nodded fervently.
“Orgasm for me, Daniel,” Rashid commanded. “Release yourself.”
At first, Daniel started to shake his head. He hadn’t cum in years. He could barely get it up with pills, and as much as he was having fun with Rashid, there was almost no way he’d be able to actually finish. The kid hadn’t even touched him, for christsake.
But then suddenly he felt it: that heat between his legs, that ache in his stomach, that almost-pain in his cock. He felt hot wetness spread in the front of his pants.
“Holy shit,” he gasped as Rashid removed his fingers from his mouth, “How did you do that?”
Rashid shrugged, wiping his wet hand on his own pants. He didn’t even seem to be the slightest bit flustered. “I just commanded it from you. Don’t act like you didn’t want it.”
Daniel, too stunned to speak, sat silent for a moment as Rashid walked to the bathroom to wash his hands. His hands and legs shook. His doctor had said too much excitement was bad for him. But fuck, was that worth it.
---
After… That… The two of them found themselves in Daniel’s bed. It wasn’t necessarily venereal, only erotic in the way that Rashid seemed to naturally be—calm and peaceful human sexuality, like a pussycat in women’s skin. It was effortless.
Still, Daniel sighed. Mind blowing orgasm aside, there was too much that wasn’t making sense about the whole ordeal.
“So,” he started, “you won’t tell me how you know me, but you say it’s got nothing to do with the girls, and you say you’re not one of my old students, but you clearly know me. And I’m starting to think I know you, too. From somewhere. I have too.”
Rashid simply shrugged, “where I know you from is nowhere you’d remember.”
“So, we do know each other then? You’re not just a stalker?”
Rashid rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and then finally nodded. “Does it matter either way? You aren’t terribly bothered by it.”
“Still… C’mon, kid. A hint?”
Rashid rolled over, facing the ceiling then. “There are no hints.”
“Where are you from, then?”
“I feel I’ve lived a million different lives, Mr. Molloy. I can’t say that I am from just one singular place.”
“So, I’m only Daniel when you’re fucking me?” Daniel smirked.
Rashid simply rolled his eyes, “I didn’t fuck you.”
“Anyway,” Daniel sighed, “so, what? You’re like a nomad? Is this what you do? Find a dying man to toy with right before he dies, and steal all of his money? It’s not a bad side-hustle, I’ll give you that.”
“Believe me, Mr. Molloy, if I were only after a man’s money, I would have picked one far richer.”
“Okkkk… Well, you’re pretty rich yourself. Generational, or…?”
Rashid thought for a moment, then sort of bobbed his head from side to side. He didn’t say anything else after that, so Daniel had no choice but to accept that as an answer. Alice’s parents had done it often, and she’d always tried to brush it off as a quirk of their immigrant status. Daniel never questioned it, but it did give him the slightest bit of insight.
“Y’know,” he started, “I was thinking you had to be some kinda Middle Eastern, right? With a name like Rashid, and a very non-descript British accent of yours. But you’re Indian then, right? Or at least one of their sister colonies.”
“I don’t think it’s very couth to call the countries surround India their “sister colonies,” Mr. Molloy,” Rashid huffed. “But no, I’d hardly consider myself Indian. The boy is from there, I’ve been told, but he does not remember much of India. Not nearly enough to consider it a home.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow but didn’t push it. Rashid didn’t give him much of a chance to respond anyway. There was a glassy quality to his eyes as he spoke, like he was fighting to remember something so long buried that it was like pulling teeth.
“It isn’t important to get into,” he shrugged. “The last place I called home was Dubai. I have seen people say it is going through a cultural renaissance, but I don’t agree. Everything they have is built off the backs of slaves. It’s disgusting, really.”
“Were you a slave?” Daniel asked, halfway in jest.
Rashid bobbed his head again, “Not for a long time, I haven’t been one.”
That gave Daniel more than a little bit of pause. He hadn’t expected the kid to give him an actual answer. It made a sort of uneasiness bubble up in his gut. At best, Rashid was twenty-six. Daniel still remembered a lot of the interviews he did with the sex workers in San Francisco. When he’d been in Castros, almost all of them were gay men. He knew the common consensus of sex trafficking was wrong: most people weren’t kidnapped from the mall or snatched on their way home from school—they were trafficked by their parents or other close family members. But that didn’t mean stories like Rashid’s were impossible, if Daniel was reading this right, anyway.
So, after being trafficked from Delhi, Rashid must have been a slave in Dubai. Maybe an indentured servant, same bullshit. But Daniel also knew that most men who were brought to Dubai for “work” were construction workers. Rashid manhandled him too well to be weak, but the kid wasn’t exactly built like a construction worker. The pit in Daniel’s stomach grew deeper, and he felt that he had suddenly developed a conscience.
It'd make a lot of sense if Rashid had been a sex slave, and that made Daniel the dirty old bastard who took advantage of that. And not in the sexy way, either. Just the gross way. He felt himself break out in a bit of a cold sweat, but as he did, Rashid just shook his head with a chuckle.
“Don’t worry yourself about it, Mr. Molloy. It isn’t what you think. I’m not nearly as young as you think I am, you know.”
Daniel simply scoffed. He found that hard to believe.
In return (to what, Daniel wasn’t sure), Rashid simply scoffed and shook his head. “Sleep now, Mr. Molloy. You must be so exhausted.”
And suddenly, Daniel did find himself feeling quite exhausted. Sleep came to him almost instantly.
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Notes:
Hello, warning for self harm in this chapter, but for the sake of drinking blood. The actual blood sucking itself is far more graphic than the self harm, but Armand does cut himself with a knife. Be warned.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
For a week after that night, although Daniel did his best to air on the side of caution, he couldn’t get Rashid off of him. They still hadn’t fucked, but by God, the kid was relentless. It was almost supernatural, the way that Rashid somehow managed to make his body respond in ways that it hadn’t in nearly a decade. He didn’t even understand how his body was able to do it.
The whole “coming while still flaccid” thing. He was still trying to figure out how that worked.
Though, Rashid had the strangest habit of acting like Daniel was making him do things, like his hand was being forced.
“Of course I will, Mr. Molloy,” he’d say, head downturned and back semi-curled, submissive, “it seems as if I have no choice.”
But he and Rashid both knew that the opposite was true—Daniel was older, but in some unseen way, it was Rashid pulling all the strings. With a lift of his hand, the command of his voice, Rashid was in charge and there was nothing that Daniel could do about it.
And Daniel loved it.
When it came to the Parkinson’s, Rashid was on top of things in ways that Daniel hadn’t expected from some kid he found off of Reddit (hell, he hadn’t expected much of anything). Although… Daniel wasn’t nearly as fond of the coddling that he received from Rashid on that front.
For as lithe and gazelle-like as he was, Rashid was surprisingly strong. And Daniel? Daniel simply was not. The first time it had happened, soon after the mind-blowing not sex that he had with Rashid, was when Daniel had woken up from his forced slumber.
One thing about Daniel was that he wasn’t terribly new to the whole “having Parkinson’s” shtick. He’d actually had it for a good while, at that point. Some days it was harder than others, gritting his teeth and baring through arduous process that was making dinner and getting ready for bed. He didn’t do so much, not anymore. He had gotten lazy as most twice-divorced men did. He used to cook back when he stayed with Padme and Marci, but that was a long time ago. Then he’d defaulted to microwave dinners, ‘til his doctor told him that his cholesterol was too high and that he was getting fat. Hello Fresh had been great until he realized how much of a hole it had been burning in his pocket, and New York Tiffin Service was up-charged up the ass.
He oscillated between the three forms of getting his feed, while occasionally cooking for himself. He was sort of embarrassed by the idea of ordering something budget friendly in order to feed this kid who was made out of money. Plus, the kid hadn’t eaten anything at the diner in the morning, and they hadn’t even thought of lunch, on the account of Daniel being commanded to sleep (however that worked), so he knew that Rashid had to be starving.
“I’ll whip something nice up, we’ll dine in.” Daniel couldn’t see Rashid as he spoke, nor could he hear him, so he hoped that he could hear him, “you’ve got any dietary restrictions? Alice was vegan, Padme’s vegetarian.”
Instead of receiving a response in words, Daniel was met with a slender hand on his shoulder, and when he turned around, Rashid was smiling gently.
“Oh, but Mr. Molloy, I don’t know if it is safe for you to be cooking in such a state.”
Daniel scoffed, shaking his head, “don’t worry kid, I’ve got plenty of experience in the kitchen.”
He shrugged Rashid’s hand off of his shoulder and made his way over to the knife-block. His kitchen was nice enough, probably as nice as it could get in a NYC apartment without spending a quarter of a million bucks. But when he reached for the knife, his hands started to shake, and his legs started to, too. It was hard to stand, far harder than Daniel knew it should have been, even with his condition as advanced as it was. His doctor had said that things were going to pick up around now, getting more and more severe, but this was too intense. They’d broken the news to him yesterday.
Rashid watched from where he had been standing where Daniel was beside the fridge, arm still mid-air from where Daniel brushed it off.
“Just give me a second,” Daniel mumbled as he tried to get his bearings. Rashid said nothing—he just watched. His face was decidedly blank, Daniel thought, and he just watched him shake there with those big, black eyes.
Daniel shuffled backwards as best as he could into one of the cheap dining chairs that he had placed right outside the kitchen for this exact scenario. His doctor had told him time and time again that the mix of the tile and carpet in his apartment was a disaster in the making, but Daniel had a little too much pride to move somewhere else solely because of his Parkinson’s. Hence the chair.
Daniel noted absently how he didn’t feel that telltale drowsiness that normally accompanied his flare ups. He also hadn’t really felt that the sort of aura that he felt before his “episodes,” it had just started.
Rashid didn’t seem to be bothered, nor did he seem to be terribly relieved, as he grabbed ingredients from the fridge and began to chop them himself.
“It’s quite dangerous to cook with your condition, Mr. Molloy. Luckily, I will do it for you,” Rashid said with a smile in his voice.
Daniel scowled, “now hold on a second—”
But Rashid simply shook his head. “It is no problem to me, Mr. Molloy. Allow me to serve you.”
“I don’t need a nurse, I just—”
“But isn’t that what I advertised myself as? There’s no need to get rowdy,” Rashid diced the onions, “I will make risotto. It is a simple recipe, and you happen to have all of the ingredients. Lucky, isn’t it?”
“Wasn’t gonna make risotto…” Daniel tried to get out, but it came out muffled. He knew it was hard to understand, and it frustrated him. There was nothing worse to a writer than not being understood.
Still, Rashid simply hummed like he did understand it, though his response showed he clearly didn’t. “It’s no problem, Mr. Molloy. Just relax.”
But this time, when Rashid spoke, Daniel felt no urge to listen, his body didn’t just obey. In fact, Rashid’s demeaning tone made him angry.
“I’m not an invalid,” Daniel huffed, “You don’t get to… Just…”
His tremors hadn’t ceased as he stood, and as he pushed himself upwards against the arm of the chair, he knew it was a bad idea. But Rashid, standing in the kitchen and measuring out the rice on a scale Daniel didn’t even know he had, was so damn smug that it was making Daniel ill. How dare he? How dare he act like Daniel couldn’t do anything himself?
“Listen here, boy,” Daniel growled, only to be met with a chuckle from the other, “If I want to cook dinner, I’ll cook dinner. Just because I—”
“I’m sorry, I can’t really understand you,” Rashid shrugged with a giggle. “Don’t worry, boy. I’ll handle everything. I can cook, I can clean, I’ll change your diapers too, beloved. Don’t even worry your little head about it.”
Daniel finally made it to his feet, going to give Rashid a piece of his mind. But he just felt so… Weak. Weak and shaky in a way that he hadn’t hardly ever felt before. He felt like his feet were dipped in mud, or more like tar, and every step he tried to take, he could barely lift them. And he kept talking, but he knew he wasn’t saying any words, but the way that Rashid wasn’t really responding and more so just chuckling. It was so damn demeaning, Daniel didn’t know what to do with himself.
What did him in was the carpet.
Daniel kept trying to walk, lifting his feet but not really moving. His body seemed like it was frozen in place, but his mind wasn’t. He realized that he was tilting forward, and he also realized that there wasn’t much that he could do to stop himself, and as his semi-curled toes needed to lift themselves to rise to the tile of the kitchen, he knew he couldn’t and he watched, almost in third person, as his body began to make its decent to the floor.
Absently, he noted that Rashid had turned around fully. Those big, black eyes watched him with almost no emotion, though his short mouth was curved ever so slightly into a smile. For someone who had claimed to be such a good caretaker, Rashid didn’t seem to lift even a finger to stop Daniel’s fall.
The impact was hard, Daniel landed shoulder first on the left side. He gasped out in pain as well as he could, which wasn’t much since the wind got knocked out of his chest. Rashid, with face still patently neutral, made his way over to Daniel’s writhing form on the floor—knife still in hand.
He squatted in front of Daniel—who was looking up at him and cursing himself internally for doing to much in the middle of a flare up—and tilted his head like a dog. When Daniel noticed the knife, he suddenly felt his blood turn cold, and his breath speed up more than it had already from the pain of the fall.
“Aw,” Rashid cooed, “did that hurt you, beloved?”
It was at that moment that Daniel knew he would die. He didn’t realize, due to the amount of pain that he was in, how his tremors had stopped, nor did he notice the slight orange glow that had come to Rashid’s eyes, or the way that he shook.
Daniel’s vision cycled through red and white, and he swore he had cracked a rib, or a shoulder, or a collarbone. Maybe all three.
“How old you’ve grown, my love. Fragile. Delicate. Frail, even. And you need me. Don’t you need me, beloved?”
Daniel nodded silently, feeling weak and terribly, terribly old.
“It is so interesting,” Rashid mused, “how fast humans grow old and die. Fascinating, even. I remember how you were before, when you’d play with death. When you were much younger, and the drugs. Do you remember it, Daniel?”
Daniel saw flashes, hazy flashes as he fought to hold onto consciousness. The rice had found itself in the pan, Daniel could hear it sizzling. He could smell it.
And he remembered it. He remembered Armand. And he remembered this feeling, the feeling of death, when his body was about to give out from another overdose, when he was shaking—damn near seizing—and his vision was going, and his bladder abandoned him, and he found himself on the floor… a kitchen floor, with food on the stove, and those same eyes that Rashid watched him with. Daniel remembered dying. He’d died before, hadn’t he, over and over again.
No, he hadn’t died when he overdosed. That was absurd. He was alive, wasn’t he.
He remembered drinking from Armand, his wrist a waterfall, an Armand who was Rashid. He remembered—
Armand chuckled. Daniel looked up at him. Rashid. Armand. Rashid. Rashid?
“Rashid,” Daniel gasped, “What are you?”
Arma-Rashid’s face softened. He didn’t respond in words, he simply glided the knife along his wrist, and Daniel, so foolish, opened his mouth like a needy whore and sucked, the sanguine liquid coating his face and the front of his shirt.
He bit and sucked like a madman, like some sort of animal inside him had just woken up. He was worse than a dog, he thought, with the way he bit and tore through Rashid’s wrist. Armand, though, he didn’t seem to mind. His eyes vibrated in something akin to pleasure. His breath was heavy, as far as Armand’s breath could be.
Daniel remembered back when he was younger, how he’d be clean for months, years, and how when he finally relapsed, the high was so much better than it had been right before he got clean. He was a junkie through and through, and even though he wanted to be appalled, he wasn’t. Something about the blood felt deliciously familiar.
After what seemed to be too short, but Daniel knew to be too long, Rashid pulled his wrist away. Yet when Daniel looked up, he saw only Armand. He didn’t have a clue in the fucking world who Armand was, but the name matched the face, and Daniel’s mind knew that Rashid was Armand. But Armand was Alice was Padme, Armand didn’t exist, Armand was—
“What are you,” Daniel croaked.
“I am Death, beloved,” Armand smized. “I’m just playing with my food.”
---
Daniel woke up in bed a few hours later; the clock read 11:39. He was in his bed, curtains closed tight. He was clean and smelled of deodorant and soap. From the next room over, he heard a hushed whisper but at the same time, he felt a pair of eyes watching him.
“—concerned me. I know Katherine doesn’t wish to be bothered, but I’m worried. Again, I apologize for calling out of the blue, but it really startled me. Yes. Yes. Yes, of course. Again, so sorry to bother. I’m just worried. Thank you, Marishiten. In Mr. Molloy’s file— Ah. Marci, then? Marici. It’s beautiful. I’m Rashid. Yes, thank you. Alright. Buh-bye.”
He could hear Armand’s footsteps, deliberately slow and loud. Daniel knew that Armand knew that Daniel knew he was listening. He felt trapped, suddenly.
“Mr. Molloy,” Armand sounded hesitant and meek, “you’re awake.”
“Enough with the bullshit, Armand.”
“No, I’m Rashid. I keep telling you,” he sounded exhausted.
“No. You. Are. Armand.”
“I don’t know who Armand is,” Armand frowned, “but, what I do know is that the risotto is finished, if you’re willing to eat it now. You became very agitated when I mentioned it before. I know it’s late but…”
“Yeah, it’s not about the risotto! It’s about how you’ve been toying with me, Armand! Cut the shit!”
“I do not like the tone you’re taking with me, Mr. Molloy. I do a lot for you. I understand you’re upset about needing assistance, but I am Rashid, and I am here to help you. Work with me. I understand confusion is a part of this disease, so let me help you. Will you let me help you.”
Daniel scowled as his eyes landed on Armand’s wrist, “Yeah? You think I’m senile, but I remember. What happened to your wrist then, “Rashid”? You fed me your fucking blood, vampire.”
Armand frowned, and in and grabbed his wrist in a pitiful fashion. “Mr. Molloy, you cut me. You attacked me! You’re lucky I didn’t call the police.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“What do you think happened, then?” There was the slightest tremor in the vampire’s voice.
Daniel barked out a laugh, “oh not much. You just called me a fucking invalid and knocked me to the floor with your powers! And then—”
“I knocked you to the floor?” Armand chuckled, “Mr. Molloy, certainly you know how preposterous that is.”
“What?”
“You’re nearly seventy years old. You’re telling me I knocked you to the floor with my “powers,” and then you miraculously woke up unscathed?”
That caused Daniel to pause. He felt… Very fine. He was actually quite comfortable in his bed, he wasn’t even slightly sore. If anything, he felt great. Like, better than he had in months. He looked up Armand, who suddenly looked quite boyish and very confused and not at all like Armand. Who was Armand? Certainly not Rashid. Suddenly, Rashid’s face did not fit the name Armand at all, and to Daniel, he couldn’t be anyone but Rashid.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Mr. Molloy,” Rashid frowned. “I offered to make you risotto when you were in the kitchen. I understand it must have felt as though I was undermining you. I am sorry. Quickly, you became quite agitated. Your speech was garbled and I couldn’t understand you. This made you angrier, my back was turned to yours, and you…” he trailed off momentarily, “you grabbed a separate knife and threatened me! The things you said made no sense! Armand, Armand, Armand, over and over! I was so confused; I put my arms over my face… And you slashed my wrist. That is what happened. When you settled down, I cleaned myself up, bathed you, and gave you your medication.”
“That isn’t what happened…” Daniel frowned, “You… You said… I am Death!”
There was the slightest crinkle in Rashid’s face, almost imperceptible, his eyebrows lowered slightly, his eyes wrinkled in the inner corners, and his mouth opened ever so slightly. Daniel had seen the look before on other people:
Absolute bewilderment.
“Mr. Molloy…” was all that he said, and Daniel watched as the boy shuffled through a whole range of different, neutered emotions.
After a while, he spoke again. “I… Believe that you believe yourself. That’s the nature of your illness.”
Daniel’s head was spinning. Was he losing it? He very distinctly remembered it all, Rash-no Armand… Wasn’t it Armand? Who was Armand? The harder he tried to remember, the less sense that it made.
Armand was a demon, Armand was Death, wasn’t he? Armand was a bloodsucker, Armand was Alice, Armand was his first real lover, Armand was Rashid?
Rashid—the kid who was standing in front of him, no older than twenty years old, who couldn’t look Daniel in the eye, head tilted downward and hands clasped—was Armand? Rashid was a demon? Rashid was Death? Rashid was a bloodsucker? Rashid was Alice? Rashid was his first real love? Rashid was Armand?
It didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t make any sense. It wasn’t true. Daniel was dying and he was also losing his fucking mind.
Rashid stood silently. He was a kid. A fucking kid. And if Daniel was really imagining all of this (that would make him borderline psychotic) then he was a real sick fuck. Had any of what he thought happened actually happened? It couldn’t have happened. None of it could have happened.
“So then,” Rashid said lightly, “the risotto?”
Daniel nodded, defeated.
Daniel Molloy was losing his mind.
Notes:
Hope you all enjoyed! Sorry for not replying to all the comments, I get a little bit awkward. But I read all of them and I'm so thankful for them all! I'm glad you're enjoying my story and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well!
Chapter Text
The next morning Daniel awoke to a phone call from a number he hadn’t heard from in months.
“Appa,” the voice on the other end of the line said in a pointed tone, “Why didn’t you call me?”
It’d been so long since Daniel had last heard from Marci.
His younger daughter was basically the exact opposite of the older. While Katie had had the misfortune of growing up with two addicts as parents, Marci had the luxury of growing up with her mother’s side of the family. So, while Katie was surprisingly well adjusted, Marci hadn’t had much that she had to adjust to. He hated to admit it, but Daniel barely made a point of keeping up with his life.
“Hey baby,” he smiled as he yawned, “what’s up?”
Marci huffed, “Don’t what’s up me. Do you know how scared I was getting a call from your nurse in the middle of the night?! I almost had a heard attack!”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal, I’m fine.”
“Fine my ass. He told me you attacked him?! With a knife! And Katie had to tell me—”
Here we go. Daniel sighed and moved the phone slightly farther away from his face, “Look. I don’t know what Rashid told you, but he was being dramatic, alright? And Katie’s exaggerating too. Do I sound like someone with stage four Parkinson’s?”
“I suppose not,” Marci audibly frowned, “But I am still worried. You can’t just go attacking people. I want to see you.”
Daniel sighed. While Katie lived all the way out in New Hampshire, Marci was a much more digestible hour and a half away in New Rochelle, a cute little suburb about an hour away, but still in the same state as Daniel’s.
“I don’t know, Marci… I…”
“You what?” she huffed, “You can’t drive? Rashid said he wouldn’t mind taking you.”
“It really wouldn’t be a problem at all, Mr. Molloy.”
Daniel choked on his own spit, muting his mic so that his daughter wouldn’t think he was some kind of idiot. He hadn’t noticed Rashid standing there when he woke up. He had been groggy, but not that groggy. It was a reoccurring sort of theme he noticed with Rashid. Sometimes, he would just be places, and Daniel never knew unless Rashid wanted him to know.
It was freaky in a way that Daniel couldn’t brush off, even though he was trying so hard to pretend like the last night didn’t happen the way he remembered it did. It couldn’t have. That would be completely nonsensical.
“You can’t sneak up on me like that, kid. Jesus Christ.”
Rashid didn’t necessarily respond. His lips curled into a smile. “Your daughter.”
On the other end of the line, he could hear Marchi repeat “hello?” over and over again.
“I’m here,” he sighed.
“Sahaj and I were thinking dinner tonight? Yes?”
“Tonight? Oh, Marci, I don’t—”
“Tonight would be splendid, Marici,” Rashid butted in from over Daniel’s shoulder. “What time?”
“Rashid! I was afraid you’d jump ship after the stunt that my father pulled!”
Rashid slit his eyes in Daniel’s direction, pleasant smile turning into a smirk. “I’m quite font of Mr. Molloy, all things considered.”
Marci simply laughed, “How does around five work for you?”
“Perfectly for us. Though… After eating, it would be quite late for me to drive us back. Mr. Molloy gets very tired after his medication.”
“That’s not a problem at all, you can spend the night.”
Daniel frowned, “I don’t know…”
Rashid plucked the phone out of Daniel’s hand like a plum. “That sounds good, Marici. Thank you. We will be seeing you shortly.”
He hung up.
Daniel couldn’t say that he felt terribly comfortable as Rashid stared down at him with that little smirk on his face. He must have thought it was funny, Daniel packed into his blankets like some kind of burrito.
He snaked his arm out of his comforter, the one that was way too hot for use in New York(had Rashid put it on him while he was sleeping?), but as he was reaching for his glasses, he paused to get a good look at Rashid.
For what seemed to be the briefest second, he could see the slightest orange rimming around the bottom left corner of Rashid’s left eye. When Rashid noticed Daniel’s staring, his eyes crinkled at the bottom, and he blinked, but when he opened his eyes again, the orange rimming was gone.
Daniel blinked too, and grabbed his glasses, and then blinked again. He was doing his very best to chalk the previous night up to some sort of crazy fever dream. Rashid had a way with… Manipulating… A situation, but Daniel still had enough of a mind left to know that something happened last night. Maybe not exactly how Rashid said it, and probably not Daniel remembered it either.
So, he did his best not too be stuck on it, since it wasn’t like he could go back in time and see how it had gone down. But the one thing that bothered him…
Rashid certainly knew who Armand was.
“Armand,” Daniel coughed as he finally sat up, “Armand.”
Rashid didn’t seem to really react, not in the way that Daniel noticed people typically did when they were caught red handed. “Not now, Mr. Molloy. We already did this last night.”
Daniel didn’t quite remember that.
“Anyway,” Rashid sighed as he inhaled, “we will begin our morning with breakfast. Breakfast and your morning medication, followed by a bath, perhaps an outing for lunch, and then we will continue to your daughter's residence.”
Daniel hmmed, and he liked the way that Rashid included him in the making all of these plans. And without waiting for Daniel to give a real reply, Rashid turned on his heels and made his way to the kitchen, leaving the door open.
He could smell the butter in the pan, and the scallions in the butter, and the tomato in the newly created scallion oil, in the eggs in the tomato. He heard the slicing of bread, the ding of the toaster, the clanking of the porcelain in the cabinet, and finally, Rashid’s feather-light footsteps.
“I’m back,” he proclaimed, “Shakshuka.”
“D’ya learn that in Dubai?”
“It is a popular dish in many places, Mr. Molloy. Now, sit up all the way for me. Can you manage?”
Daniel grumbled slightly but sat up, doing his best not to be too annoyed. But that inkling of tact quickly disappeared when he looked up again and saw Rashid sitting on the corner of the bed, holding a piece of eggy bread in front of Daniel’s face.
“Say aaaah,” Rashid smirked.
Daniel just sighed. “I can feed myself, fuck you very much.”
“Oh, but it must be so hard for you,” the other cooed. “Let me serve you, Daniel. You’re dying, after all.”
“Fuck off. I can feed myself.”
“But you’re shaking so much, Mr. Molloy. You can hardly sit up straight.”
And yeah, absently, Daniel could tell that his hands were shaking all of a sudden, just as they had the day before. But honestly? He felt great. Hell, he felt more than great. Better than he had felt in genuine years, to be honest.
Daniel pouted and turned his head to the right like a fussy baby, and Rashid made airplane noises as he brought the bread and Shakshuka to his mouth. It was kinda funny, but mostly not.
“Come now, Mr. Molloy, you must eat. If you do not eat before you take your medication, your stomach will not be able to settle correctly, and you’ll have to use the bathroom. Which I do not mind helping you with, but…”
Daniel scoffed. He had never needed help eating… But the food did smell pretty good… And Rashid was sitting there all nice and cute…
Daniel opened his mouth.
Rashid brought the food into Daniel’s mouth, “bite.”
So, Daniel bit down. Rashid smiled, “Now chew.”
So, Daniel chewed.
“Now,” Rashid smiled, “swallow.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Very good,” Rashid was still smiling, though his eyes had a slight wobble to them. “Let’s keep eating then, and then get ready for our day.”
“What is that? Nystagmus?”
Rashid’s smiled widened as he shoved the bread more into Daniel’s mouth. “Eat, Mr. Molloy. Your body needs it.”
There was something so intoxicating about the food that Rashid had made, almost like a drug. Daniel didn’t think it was just the flavor of the food alone.
---
Rashid had Daniel lie in the bed like some kind of vegetable while he got him dressed. It was a little bit demeaning, but Daniel also liked it, so he decided to be pliant and docile while Rashid lifted his arms above his head and took of his night shirt, and he didn’t complain while Rashid put him on a nice button up. He certainly didn’t complain when Rashid took his boxers off and “accidentally” brushed against his cock when he put him on a new pair.
If Daniel had felt great when he had first woken up, he felt like a god by the time Rashid was done getting him ready. He hadn’t felt so light on his feet in years. And not just pre-Parkinson’s—he hadn’t felt this good since he was in active addiction.
His memories of way back then were hazy at best, but his body sure as hell hadn’t forgotten the feeling of it. Armand? Back when he was young, he remembered… Drinking blood, the Vampire’s blood, and begging for the Vampire to turn him.
Daniel knew he must have been half senile.
He sat straight up, none of that groaning and half-asleep shit, and he stretched his arms over his head and let out a deep sigh, and he felt like a fucking teenager again, before the random back pain and hip aches.
“For lunch, there’s a café I’m interested in. After that, we will head to your daughter’s home.”
So, they went to another fancy café, though it wasn’t annoying in the bougie way that the one they’d gone to the previous day was. It was a French style café, but Rococo-esque. There were fancy golden plates and forks, and Daniel was certain he’d seen Rashid pocket one.
Whatever.
The drive to New Rochelle was long and quiet. Every station that Daniel put on, Rashid turned the volume down. They didn’t talk much. Rashid had a nice car. It was a shiny, black Rolls Royce. Expensive. Daniel was beginning to realize that Rashid was quite the expensive guy. He liked that about him; he felt like a sugar baby.
Marci’s house was quaint. It was a brick, grey, princess style two-story with an abundance of bay windows: two triangle bay windows, an octagonal bay window, it was ridiculous. They had a winding, stone walkway that was surrounded by more grass than Daniel had ever seen while living in the city.
“This is the correct address, yes?” asked Rashid from the driver’s seat. Daniel nodded, and they pulled into the ridiculously large parking lot.
Rashid went to the back of the car and popped the trunk.
“I thought, for the sake of the outing, we’d use your wheelchair, Mr. Molloy. To save energy, of course.”
Daniel paused, “What?”
“You’re hearing must be going,” he chuckled, “I said, we will use your wheelchair so that you can save your energy.”
Daniel grumbled but didn’t fight it, so he let Rashid grab the wheelchair out of the car, and he let Rashid use his surprisingly muscular arm and back to transfer it.
He knew that he didn’t need it. He didn’t really give a fuck what the doctor had to say, because he really wasn’t that disabled, and he was getting pissed off with how much everyone wanted to act like he was. But he liked the way that Rashid handled him, and he hadn’t been… Taken care of in so long.
Not since Armand. If that ever really happened.
The sound of cheap, ungreased wheels against the stone-laden path must have alerted Marci and her husband of their presence.
While Katie more so took after Daniel, blue eyes and pale skin and loose brown culrs that made her look like a young Karisma Kapoor, Marci took more after her mother. It was fitting, mostly, since Daniel was barely present in her life. It was like Padme had made her all by herself.
Just like Padme, Marci had this endless, long, straight black hair, thin downturned eyebrows, the darkest black eyes that you’d ever seen, and the world’s most beautiful copper skin that was just a tad darker than Rashid’s. It was like Daniel’s genes hadn’t even tried.
Not only that, but she took after Padme culturally, too. It made sense, really. While Katie got to experience both of her parents being deadbeat junkies for most of their life, Marci grew up surrounded by rich Desi culture… And delicious food, which Daniel was most excited for.
“Appa!” Marci called as she rushed out to greet the two of them, sounding almost exactly as she did on the phone, “Appa, you look well.”
Daniel chuckled, “Do I? It would take someone as handsome as me to look good while hunched over in this chair.” He was being facetious, but he honestly did feel great. Still greater than he had felt in years.
Marci let out an airy laugh and gave Daniel one of the worlds most awkward hug. She was dressed up, more than both Daniel and Rashid; she had a mid-calf-length, hot pink Kurti with a pair of nice jeans, and about a thousand gold bangles (and yes, Daniel knew they were real gold. Padme was very specific).
“You look great, Marci,” Daniel smiled.
Marci hugged him a little tighter and then turned her attention to Rashid.
“You must be Rashid, then.”
“Yes, you would be correct in that.”
Marci let out a childish giggle, then, and smiled at him, “You’re quite handsome! You remind me of my sister’s mother, in a way.”
Rashid just laughed as he pushed Daniel up to the front stairs. Though when they reached the stairs, he positively insisted that Daniel stay seated. So, Marci and her husband watched awkwardly as Rashid reversed the chair and Daniel thump, thump, thumped up the three steps that led to the front door.
Marci was apologetic, “I didn’t buy the house thinking…”
“Yeah,” Daniel sighed, “yeah.”
Rashid smiled kindly once he finally got Daniel inside of the house, “It’s a wonderful house, Marici. Marici and…?”
“Thank you. Vinod,” Marci’s husband finally spoke up, and Daniel was already pissed off.
Vinod and Daniel had been at odds since the day that the two of them met each other. It was traditional, Vinod said after tracking Daniel’s Facebook down and calling him during his lunch break. He didn’t have a choice but to ask Marci’s father for her hand in marriage, even if her father wasn’t really a part of her life.
So, the first time that Daniel ever met his younger daughter’s husband in person was when Marci was in the hospital for a “mild” case of sepsis. Yes, Daniel did miss the wedding. Vinod was paler than Daniel, but with dark eyes and dark hair that was clipped nicely above his ears. He worked in tech. He looked like he worked in tech.
“Daniel,” Vinod said slightly. Daniel responded with a nod.
After a painfully long and plain stare-off with Vinod, Daniel turned his attention back to Rashid who was looking around the room with wide eyes. Marci had run off to the kitchen at that point and Vinod was getting harder and harder to look at.
“What’s up, Rashid?”
“It is… Beautiful.”
Daniel looked around. He’d been to Marci’s house before. It was… Fine. Similar to Padme’s house. A Live, Laugh, Love sign, on Om mandala above the door, a cheugy, possible AI generated table cloth, and then finally what Daniel deducted had caught Rashid’s eye: Marci and Vinod’s Laddu Gopal sitting on their Puja Ghar.
It… He? Was a cute little statue, even if Daniel didn’t really understand it. Marci had explained it before. It was a baby Lord Krisha made out of marble, he had gold accents on him, brown hair, tilak, and a flute. Marci had him in a beautiful yellow dress with peacock feathers and a matching turban. Marci would give him little sweets and baths. It was sweet.
“Rashid…?” Daniel prompted again. Rashid seemed absolutely entranced by the little guy. He hadn’t moved at all, not really, but he seemed to be breathing heavy. It was barely visible still, since it seemed like Rashid never did breathe.
“He remembers this, something about this image, the child.”
“What?”
“Arun,” Rashid whimpered, “he remembers it. He remembers…”
Daniel knew that name, and in a hazy way he could place it. He felt hazy images of himself and Armand speaking about Arun and Amadeo. But that couldn’t be right. And Daniel was crazy, obviously. But for once… This didn’t feel like one of Rashid’s games. If anything, it seemed like it had just slipped. Like Rashid had been too entranced to think about the words that were coming out of his mouth.
Marci popped her head around the corner from inside the kitchen and said, “Food’s ready!” and in a very deer-in-headlights moment, Rashid’s trance was broken, and he walked behind Daniel and pushed him into the kitchen.
Notes:
hope you enjoyed! Sorry for the delay