Chapter Text
“Why the fuck aren’t vampires a migratory species?” Daniel said, about three hours after landing in Iceland. “This is fucking great. Look at that! An open bank. A bank! And it’s open for business! There are tellers in there!”
They both stood and gazed in wonder for a few moments.
“There’s a restaurant across the street,” Armand added. “And it’s still serving its lunch specials.”
“Lunch specials! Man, I remember lunch specials.” Daniel gasped and seized his arm. “Oh, we can go to a museum without having to break in! We can spend hours there without having to hide when they close! Luxury! Why aren’t vampires a migratory species?”
Armand had whipped out his phone and was taking a picture of the restaurant across the street. “Think of every vampire you know, Daniel. What is the common quality most of them share?”
“Pure fucking idiocy.”
“There is your answer.” He fiddled with something on his phone for a few minutes. “The southernmost city in the world is… Ushuaia, in Argentina. A population of over 80,000—a little small, so we’ll have to be careful when hunting or bring a supply of blood bags.”
“Our new summer getaway. Let’s not tell anyone about this. Let’s say Iceland sucked so much. I don’t want this place overrun by tourists.”
“Agreed,” Armand said, tucking his phone away again and taking Daniel’s hand.
***
The Phallological Museum in Reykjavik was a fun little novelty, mostly for three things.
First, going there at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and not having to break in.
Second, Armand pointing at the preserved whale penis creepily floating in formaldehyde, looking Daniel dead in the eye, and saying, “That’s you.”
Daniel snorted. “I’m not Lestat, baby, you don’t need to flatter me that hard to get me off.”
“It’s not flattery, it’s factual.”
“In what world is it factual that my dick is remotely comparable to a whale’s?”
A studied, casual shrug with one shoulder. “Well, that’s what it feels like when you’re inside.”
Which led to the third novelty: Fucking in the museum bathroom.
Life was so, so good.
***
In the week since Halloween, it had swiftly become apparent that Armand was, very transparently, Working Through Something, and that he was doing so on Daniel’s dick.
Daniel was fairly sure this intense internal conversation was happening mostly on the subconscious level, as Armand had about the same level of inclination towards self-reflection as any other vampire did, to wit: It was an activity exclusively practiced for reasons related to Catholic guilt or other forms of moral philosophizing.
This was not a Catholic guilt situation. This seemed more in the ballpark of processing trauma. Daniel really thought about inquiring after it (interrogating him, interviewing him) before deciding that he didn’t need to ask stupid, obvious questions when quiet observation would do the job perfectly well. (And, again, since Armand was using Daniel’s dick to do his Working Through Something, Daniel did not want to upset the delicate ecological balance when it was getting him laid this energetically and often. Now that the seal was broken on sex, Armand had a fixation on it, a mania for it that was as familiar as any of the other times he’d been gripped by an enthusiasm.)
Armand’s Working Through Something went like this: First, they’d be making out like teenagers and shooting up with some Dark Viagra. Then, Armand would take Daniel’s face in his hands, his eyes wide and dark and shiny and adoring, and he’d say something that could have been a fun and sexy little game if Daniel had not read The Vampire Armand and been privy to the… context.
Examples: You’re a raider from a horde of terrifying invaders, and you hauled me away on horseback and kidnapped me from my family, and now we’re in camp and you have time to claim your prize.
You’re a man on a ship taking me somewhere and I’m tied up in the hold and you think I’m so pretty.
You’re a sultan in Constantinople and you’re inspecting the goods to see if I’m worth buying.
You’re a monk buried in the earth, and every day when I come to feed you a spoonful of broth– (God, yes, feed me, Daniel had groaned, and Armand had had to slap him to make him pay attention) –every day my sinful body tempts you so much that you free yourself and— (Bury myself again in something nicer? Daniel had asked.) Yes, yes yes, yesyesyes, Armand had panted, already clawing at him. And we have to be so, so quiet so that the other monks don’t hear the terrible things you’re doing to me.
Without context, hey, fun and sexy! A buffet of fun, naughty little games! With context, spine-chilling. Not enough to wilt Daniel’s dick, granted—he was going to hell, but he knew that already; he was a terrible person in love with another terrible person, and evil thrilled him to the core of his soul. It was just… All these games were at least partially based on real life, and he was mad that he couldn’t eat all those guys.
Daniel’s job in this Working Through Something was never very complicated. It was: 1) to have an erection, 2) to say, “You got it, boss,” while thinking some outraged variation on, What the fuck, what exactly is the balance here between fantasy and real shit that happened? and 3) in the privacy of his own head, to spitefully and contrarily continue being his own damn self while Armand played whatever the day’s fucked-up game of pretend involved and bounced on his dick until they both came all over each other.
In the afterglow—what passed for the afterglow; there was only sometimes an hour or so between rounds—Daniel reflected that maybe that was actually the whole point. You’re a terrifying horseman kidnapping me, and he wasn’t, he was just Daniel, making love to his maker, his darling, the love of his fucking life, kissing him and touching him and holding him and whispering filth to him and making him feel good until his legs shook like a baby fawn’s. You’re a man on a ship, and okay, Armand could pretend that he was a man on a ship if he wanted, because Daniel was going to do what he would have done anyway, which was to kiss him and play with his hole until Armand was begging for dick, and then to give it to him and watch as pleasure wrenched Armand apart into nothing but a quivering, speechless body.
Maybe that was the whole point, because Armand was often smiling and laughing breathlessly during these games, as if Daniel was nailing all his lines in this script (and if he wasn’t smiling, then he was moaning sweetly or snapping at Daniel to fuck him harder). Maybe that was the whole point, Armand thinking of heinous, blood-curdling shit that had happened to him while Daniel held him and loved him. Why not? Revise it, paint over it, scrape the parchment clean and write over the ghosts of the old lettering. Take the terrible thing that happened and reclaim it.
What if you’d been there? the revision always asked. What if it had been you instead? What if I’d actually been loved the whole time? What if it had been blisteringly, deliciously hot? What if I’d been loved?
It was heartwrenchingly touching when Daniel let himself think about it on that level—that Armand was so utterly secure in his conviction that Daniel was such a source of unshakable and unquestionable safety, happiness, and pleasure that his mere presence written into those memories changed everything so profoundly.
What if you’d been there? the revision asked. And the answer was: Oh, it would have been so good if it was you, it would have been lovely. I would have wanted it all, I would have wanted it so, so badly.
***
He woke to the jostling of the mattress as Armand climbed on top of him, the warmth of a kiss with teeth. “Beloved,” Armand said, as Daniel noticed that his veins were already burning, his cock was already full and straining against his belly, that Armand was panting and rocking against him. “Beloved, wake up, I need you.”
A surge of lust ran through Daniel—oh, fucking miraculous, what a gift this was. “You,” he groaned, blearily wrapping his arms around his sneaking, sly darling and kissing back, slipping Armand a bit of tongue, nipping his lip... “Shooting me up while I sleep now? Fuck, you must want it bad.”
“I do, I do, I need it—Daniel, wake up.”
Daniel grabbed two handfuls of the most perfect ass in the world and rutted up between those cheeks, groaning. “So awake, sweetheart. Ride me.”
Armand slapped him; Daniel groaned. “Pay attention. Beloved, you’re a rich and powerful man, and you’ve purchased me from a brothel and you’ve taken me back to your palazzo to be your concubine.”
Daniel froze. His dick, traitor that it was, throbbed hard. Yeah, it’s hot, Daniel thought in exasperation at the damn thing. But also, what the FUCK, he wants me to play Marius mow?
His dick did not care. The rest of Daniel kind of really did care.
He gazed coolly up at Armand.
Armand gazed back, trembling, his mouth soft and kissable, his eyes big and shiny and pleading.
All the other games so far had been one-offs. Daniel had a sneaking suspicion that this was not going to be a one-off. This was going to be a whole thing.
Daniel tipped him onto his back and crawled over him, hanging above him on his hands and knees so he could stare down at his maker. “I don’t think I want to play this as a game.”
Armand’s eyes got bigger, wetter, shinier. His legs twined around Daniel’s hips, he tried to drag Daniel down to kiss him by the back of his neck; Daniel resisted. “Beloved, please. I’ll make it so good for you.”
“Not as a game, I said. I’ll play, but not as a game.”
Armand went still, blinked at him. “What?”
Daniel put his head a little on one side, studied him—the heave of his chest for air he didn’t need, the pretty cock hard against his hip, the squirm of his thighs. “You said last week that you were tired,” he said, his voice low and rich in a way that he had recently discovered would make Armand shiver when the drugs were in him. “You said you didn’t want to run a coven for a hundred years. Makes sense to me. You’ve been running everything for a long time. Telling people what to do. Protecting yourself. Starving and begging for somebody to love you, and no one’s given it to you the way you want. Even with me, back in the day, you were in charge of everything—running me ragged and dragging me around on a leash and bossing me around to hell and back, and I loved every fucking second of it. But you’re tired, aren’t you.”
“Yes,” Armand said. His eyebrows had knotted together as if he were about to cry. “Which is why I want to play the—”
“Yeah,” Daniel said roughly. “Except if you’re that tired, I don’t think it should be a game.”
A pause, and he could see the whirl of desperate thoughts, the despair, the neediness, the… the sudden catch of realization and fragile hope. “Daniel?”
Daniel laid down on top of him, held himself up with his elbows now. Kissed his sweet mouth soft and shallow, chaste despite their naked, wanting bodies twined together. “I think,” he whispered, “that if you want to belong to me as if I’d bought you,” another kiss, “then it’s my turn to hold the leash for a while.” Another kiss. Armand made a soft, whimpering noise, clutching at Daniel’s hair. Daniel pried his hands away and pinned them to the mattress. “You’ve been in charge of me for the last fifty years, and for most of that time, it just hasn’t worked out very well, has it? You haven’t gotten all of what you wanted, most of the time. You’ve been tired. Our hearthkeeper, exhausted and burned out. Fifty years of that, and five hundred before I ever came along—no wonder you’re running on fumes. I think you should rest now. I think you shouldn’t think about anything at all. I think you should let me worry about everything for… Oh, how about the next hundred years?”
Armand shuddered. He squeezed his legs around Daniel’s waist. In the smallest voice Daniel had ever heard from him, he said, “Really?” He sounded like a child raised in such poverty that he had never received a holiday or birthday gift before, and he’d just been pointed at a twenty-foot tall Christmas tree, blazing with lights and ornaments and tinsel, and told that the whole damn thing and everything underneath it was all for him.
Daniel kissed him hard, then pulled back enough to look into his eyes. “It’s not a game. You want to play concubine with me, we’re going to live like that for a hundred years.”
Another powerful tremor. Still in that small, small voice that still didn’t dare to fully hope: “What happens at the end of a hundred years?”
Oh, sweet thing. Of course he’d been abandoned too often. “Then we’ll see. Maybe you’ll be rested and you’ll want to take a turn running things for a while. Maybe we’ll go back to only playing little games. Maybe you’ll still be tired.” Another long, slow kiss. “Or maybe you’ll like belonging to me so much that you won’t want anything else.”
Armand’s legs clamped harder around him and he kissed back desperately, rutting up against him. “Yes, yes, yes, please, yes—”
Daniel kissed the corner of his jaw and whispered, “Give me your neck, I’m hungry.” Armand’s head fell to the side with a sharp exhale; Daniel mouthed down his throat until he found that loveliest spot to bite, and slipped his fangs in. Fuck, the blood burned with the drugs—Armand had taken a full dose again, and it made Daniel’s body throb with desire. Armand moaned as Daniel drank, and Daniel saw in the blood flashes of images: Himself, above Armand like he was now, buried inside him with fangs or cock or both; himself, whispering for Armand to turn around and bend over; himself, whispering, Be a good boy and service me; himself, his hands wandering freely over Armand’s body with no regard for where they were or who might see; himself at a council meeting, telling Armand to kneel on the floor beside his chair in front of everyone; himself, wrapped warm around Armand’s body and slowly pushing his cock in as he whispered, But I don’t care if it’s sinful, sweetheart, I want to be inside you—no, shh, don’t concern yourself with sin, it’s not your place to worry about anything but keeping your hole nice and tight for me—that’s right, ohh, that’s right, baby…
“God,” Daniel groaned against his neck, lapping at the last drops of blood before the bite closed. He was grinding hard between Armand’s legs now, rocking feverishly against him. “All of that, yeah, yeah, exactly, yes. And I’ll take care of you, I’ll protect you, I’ll make it so good for you, you’ll love it, love to belong to me.”
“Please,” Armand panted. “Please, please. Yours, take me.”
Daniel fumbled between them, shaking with desire as hard as if he’d been human. He lined his cock up and breached him in one hard jerk of his hips as Armand cried out and dug his nails into Daniel’s back, hilted himself in two more quick slams with a long groan—Armand had slicked himself up before Daniel had woken, and the slide was glorious and wet, even if it wasn’t fully easy with how tight he was. It hadn’t ever been easy for Daniel to get his cock inside someone, but Armand loved that. Loved it so much that he was already clenching down even tighter and milking at Daniel’s cock and coming on it, just from Daniel shoving it in. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, you needed that.”
Armand shook and shook, panting, twitching all over with aftershocks. He could go again. He could always go three or four more times before he felt like he’d had enough.
Daniel drew out, slammed in hard just once. Armand’s legs went limp and boneless around his waist. “So good. Fuck, that’s so good. So wet—good boy, good boy.” Another single hard slam. “Tell you how it’s gonna be. Listening?”
“Yes,” Armand sighed blissfully. “Yes, please.”
Daniel groaned, grinding in deep, and rasped against Armand’s neck, “Gonna have you like this every night. Every night, hear me? Every—single—night, you wake up, you go feed right away. You come back, give us both the drugs, and slick your sweet little hole for me so that I wake up just like I did tonight, with you wet and hot for it, ready for my cock and my fangs. Every fucking night unless I tell you otherwise.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes. Every night, every night.” Armand was already squirming and fluttering around Daniel’s cock, working himself up again. “Oh yes. Have me, have me, have me—”
Daniel levered himself up and pushed Armand’s thighs back, all the way to his chest and spread wider so he’d have a nice clear view of that pretty hole impaled on his cock, split so wide… “Fuck, look at that.” He fucked slowly for several thrusts, easing in and out just for the pleasure of watching Armand’s body swallow him up and clasp around him. He paused, about halfway in, stroking his hands up and down Armand’s thighs, his buttocks… “Clench on it like you’re coaxing it further in, want to see. Oh fuck, yes, like that.” God. Daniel brushed his fingers around that straining, struggling rim. “It’s almost too big for you, isn’t it?” Armand’s body seized up in another spasm of desire—he was still hard, hadn't gone even a little soft after that first climax. “Good thing you like it so big, isn’t it? Imagine if you didn’t.”
Armand had left his hands on the pillows where Daniel had been pinning them before; his legs, held up without support, were shaking, and his eyes were hooded and hazy with pleasure. “I’d be good,” he panted, breathless. “I’d still take it. I wouldn’t—mmm!—complain. Every night, every night…”
Fuck. Daniel’s whole body throbbed sharply with lust and he drove in to the hilt again, circling and circling his hips as Armand whimpered. “Yeah? Every night?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Yours. Love you, love it, oh…”
“What a good concubine, taking dick and not complaining even when it’s too big and too hard and too hungry.” Armand threw his head back, gripping handfuls of the pillows in his fists. “Poor thing. Fuck, poor thing, having to take it over and over…”
“Ruined,” Armand breathed. “Sore and gaping and ruined. And—oh—you’d just keep having me…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel panted, pumping in slow and steady. “I’d be kind to you, I’d be sweet, I’d know it was too much for you, I’d try to be gentle, but—mmm, God, your poor little hole would feel so good around my cock, and I’d just need to have you.”
Armand’s breathing was getting deeper, faster, like he was getting close… Daniel slowed down, but instead of snarling and kicking him in the ribs until he picked up the pace, Armand just whimpered and melted into the sheets. “It’s what you bought me for,” he whispered. He was leaking profusely onto his stomach, which was special—he usually didn’t get that wet. Not that Daniel needed that proof of just how much this was doing it for him. “You—mnn, can’t help it, can’t help that you’re so big, can’t help how often you get hard, can’t help how often you need to have me—oh, and I love you, I love you, so I’d spread my legs and open up my hole and let you inside whenever you want, whenever…”
His legs were shaking like leaves in the wind; he wouldn’t be able to hold them up himself for much longer—vampire strength was nothing in the face of vampire arousal. Daniel pulled them close, put them over his shoulders so he could wrap his arms around Armand’s thighs, hug them tight, kiss the inside of his knees, scrape his teeth against flesh… Armand sighed in relief, fisted his hands in his own hair, flexed and flexed around Daniel’s cock, rolling his hips… “You do like it, though,” Daniel panted. “Lucky little thing, you love my cock.” Armand nodded breathlessly. God, he looked wrecked already, bloody spend streaked across his belly and his hair wild across the pillow and his mouth open on little sounds every time Daniel bottomed out, his expression absolutely blissful, flushed down to his collarbones. “Fuck. Keep talking, baby, tell me about the fantasy, tell me how it was going to go when you thought this was going to be just a game.”
He slowed down further but stayed deep, just rocking in and out an inch, watching the bump of his dick subtly distending Armand’s stomach. Armand panted for a moment as if he had to catch his breath before he spoke “I—I’m a virgin.” Daniel’s dick jerked hard and he shoved in deeper as they both groaned. “They—they’ve been keeping me pure, waiting for someone to buy my innocence, showing me off to the rich men of the city to enflame their desire. Like you.”
“Damn right like me,” Daniel groaned, biting at Armand’s thigh without breaking skin. “Did I get to inspect the merchandise first, or did I fall in love with you as soon as I saw your face?”
“You—ah, ahhh—you pay the brothel mistress to let you spy on me in the bath. There’s a peephole in the wall. As soon as you see me bare, you—oh, oh, there—”
“I give her a fat bag of money and tell her I don’t want just your innocence, don’t I. I want to have you all for myself, and I’ll kill any other man she tries to sell you to.”
Armand nodded wildly. “And—mm—and so she lets you—she lets you enter my room.”
“Going to be entering more than just your room, aren’t I.”
“Yes, yes, and—and I’m startled, nervous, I thought there would be more warning, but you’re so handsome—oh, please, harder—”
“No,” Daniel said breathlessly, kissing and kissing Armand’s leg draped over his shoulder. “No, I’m in charge. Clench harder if you want, squirm if you want, but this is all you’re getting. What next? I tell you I’ve bought you, that you’re mine, you’re coming home with me, that you’re beautiful and I’m in love with you and I’m going to take care of you.” Armand sighed rapturously and reached for him with one limp hand; Daniel seized it and kissed it, bit his wrist for just a taste of blood, fucked in slow and steady with a long groan. “Do I climb right into the bath with you? My cock’s so fucking hard, watching you like this, vulnerable. Need you, precious, need you.”
“I’m frightened again when I see your cock, I nearly cry—”
Fuck. God. He was a bad man for how hot that was. “No, no, don’t cry, I’ll be gentle with it, I’ll let you play with it first, mmmm, might take weeks to get you ready for it, open you up slow—” Armand shook his head. “No?” Fuck. Fuck, hot. “I’m not slow about it?” Right. Right, because Marius had been slow, Marius hadn’t given Armand what he wanted more than anybody else ever had— “I get into the bath and pull you onto my lap and tell you it’s going inside you one way or another, then.”
“Yes.” Armand was rocking his hips up, fucking himself in tiny little movements on Daniel’s dick. “You kiss me and play with my body until I’m desperate, and then you, you, oh, you make me hold your cock with you and help line it up, you say I—hahh, have to learn how to serve you, have to be trained how to please you—oh, I want to, I want to please you, oh, Daniel, please.”
Daniel pulled out, all the way out, just for the pleasure of setting his cockhead against Armand’s aching, needy hole and breaching him again, good and slow, as if his insides were new and tender. He broke out in sweats as he drove in with a long, low growl, still clasping the hand Armand had reached out to him; Armand gripped back, whimpering like a virgin, god. “Just like that, just like that,” he panted. “And you take it like a fucking dream.”
“And I love it,” Armand breathes. “It splits me in half and I can feel it in my throat, and I love it, I love it—you fuck me, and then you take me back to your palazzo and put me in your bed and have me again and again, and again, and again—” Daniel groaned and bent over him again, catching his mouth in a smear of fumbling kisses as desire became undeniable, the flames of lust licking higher and overcoming him as he braced his hand against the headboard and began the long, deep, hard pace that Armand starved for most. “And again, and again, and again,” Armand whispered against his mouth, his voice going tight and reedy and desperate. “You don’t stop, you don’t stop, oh, don’t stop—going to come, I’m going to come, oh, please, please, let me, let me—”
Not enough hands, not enough hands to hold onto the headboard and cup Armand’s cheek to kiss him and stroke his pretty, pretty cock… “Touch yourself,” Daniel panted. “Touch yourself, come for me, come all you want—yes, sweetheart, yes, fuck, like that, oh fuck…” And at the sight of Armand obeying, at the sight of his rapturous, pleasure-drunk face and the sprawl of his hair on the pillowcase, at the the feel of his hand bumping against Daniel’s stomach as it flew over his pretty dick and the tightening of his thighs and his precious insides around Daniel’s churning cock, at the sound of his words crumbling into nothing but desperate, broken noises and stuttering breaths, at the taste of his skin as Daniel mouthed at his neck and then blood as he bit…
It was rather what having your soul wrenched out of your body through your dick must feel like, Daniel thought, several panting moments later when he’d collapsed on top of Armand, buried to the root and still twitching now and then with aftershocks of what might well have been the hardest orgasm of his life.
His fangs were still buried to the root as well, the blood welling sluggishly. In the blood, a flash of that giant whale dick they’d seen in the museum, a hazy, half-smug satisfaction: Just as I said, then.
Daniel started giggling, and then he couldn’t stop giggling, and then he had to pull his fangs out and collapse even more bonelessly in the cradle of Armand’s limbs all around him, had to bury his face in Armand’s bloody neck and gurgle giddily there until he was left simply smiling so wide his face hurt. “Wow. Wow.” With some effort, he levered himself up on his elbows so he could kiss Armand. “Hey. Hi. Wow. What a way to wake up.”
Armand’s eyes cracked open. He was still fiery-warm, still breathing heavy. “Did you mean it?”
“How hard does a guy have to fuck you before you figure out that he means it, huh? Explain that to me.”
“I meant… About how it’s not a game.”
Oh, right. Daniel fell into another fit of giddy giggling and hugged Armand close, nodding against his cheek. “Not a game. Not remotely a game.”
Armand hugged him with all his limbs. In that small voice from before, he said again: “Really?”
“Really really. Really-really really. So fucking serious.” Daniel got himself up on his elbows again so he could look down into Armand’s face, smile at the absolute fucking perfection of him, trace the planes of his cheek and brow and nose and lips with his fingertips… “Just like that thing they always say about you. The slave of everything that ever sought to own you. Me. My turn. I’m doing that, and you’re mine.”
Armand’s lip quivered and his eyes got shiny with fragile hope again. “Really?”
“All mine,” Daniel crooned, dipping to kiss him. “One hundred years. And I’ll look after you and take care of you and never, ever abandon you.”
“You mean just in bed, don’t you.” Ah, except that was the voice of someone who was anticipating disappointment, who had already resigned himself to getting less than everything he wanted.
“Nope. Everywhere. In bed and out of bed and in council meetings and everywhere. In Auvergne and New York and Iceland and southern Argentina. Mine-mine-mine.” Armand’s lip quivered again, and the hope in his eyes got a little brighter, though not yet any less fragile. “Don’t say really,” Daniel said. “I mean really. Sign over all your bank accounts to me. All your real estate, everything.” Armand’s nails were digging into his shoulders now, and he looked almost as wide-eyed and emotional as when he’d first seen Daniel’s dioramas and model trains. “You’re not even going to touch a credit card for the next century, baby. Unless my hands are full and I ask you to hold my wallet for some reason, but it’s my wallet and they’re my credit cards, and you’re my… hmm. Need a word. Concubine’s too much of a mouthful.”
“Catamite.”
“Hot, but same problem.”
“Slave. Whore.”
“Mm, those sound like I might not care about you.”
“Toy.”
“Too trivial, too easily discarded.” Daniel bent to kiss him again. “My baby. My sweetheart. My love. My Armand. That’ll do.”
Armand bit his lip. Tentatively: “What do you want me to call you? Master?”
“No,” Daniel said immediately. “You’d get in the habit of saying master when I’m fucking you and Daniel everywhere else. And I know you—you’d start to sulk and think I wasn’t really serious. So you’re going to just say Daniel everywhere, because it’s not a game and I’m not playing.” Armand did not look convinced. Daniel stroked his cheeks, kissed him quickly. “Who owns you, baby?”
“Daniel,” Armand whispered.
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
“Who am I?”
“Daniel.”
“Not a game. Not playing a role. Same guy. You just belong to me, and that’s it. Yes?”
There, that was making him look less fragile. His eyes were starting to shine properly, a little smile flickering at the edges of his mouth like he was shyly trying to hold it back. “Yes, Daniel."
Okay, and suddenly his own name was hot. Unexpected side effects. And everyone else would also be calling him Daniel, and they wouldn’t know that he… Well, okay, one hundred years of being constantly turned on sounded like a great time, actually. “And we’ll change your surname on all your documents. Armand le Russe, who is that? He doesn’t belong to anyone. Armand Molloy, though, someone owns him—who?”
“Daniel,” Armand whispered, now smiling outright and glancing away as if flustered by how deeply pleased he was.
Hey gang, Daniel pictured himself saying upon returning to Auvergne. We went on honeymoon to Iceland and came back married, which sounds backwards, but hear me out—it’s kinky, it’s a kink thing, we’re doing kink. It’s also like a game of gay chicken? Except involving a total lack of prenuptial agreements and the transferral of millions of dollars of property, investments, and liquid cash. Imagine marriage before feminism, but make it gay and kinky. Like that, that’s what we’re doing. For sex reasons. Because it gets us off like crazy, you would not believe how hard it’s getting us off. Well, you will believe soon enough, actually, from the way we are about to behave in public. Sorry not sorry.
This was going to be so much fun.
***
It would be fun if Armand could stop worrying about it, anyway.
“If you change your mind,” he said abruptly an hour or two after they dragged themselves out of bed and went sightseeing.
And then, an hour or two after that, tinted with sadness: “Daniel, if you don’t want to…”
And then, his eyebrows all knotted up like he was inches away from wringing his hands: “Please, beloved, I don’t want you to feel that I’ve trapped you—please just tell me if you’re ever unhappy…”
And then, on the edge of tears, “I’m going to drive you away from me, you’ll grow to resent me.”
At each of these little upheavals, Daniel cupped Armand’s face in his hands and said, “It’s not a game. This is what we’re doing for one hundred years. You belong to me like I bought you. It’s my turn.”
Ooh, but Armand hated it when he was clearheaded. Daniel could see him hating it. Daniel had the wallet and all the credit cards now, and every time that night that they bought museum tickets or wandered through a shop and Daniel paid for anything, Armand looked anguished. Wracked with guilt.
Daniel had been expecting at least a couple days of happiness and that flustered shyness, but apparently the money situation specifically got in Armand’s head like nothing else. He burst into tears when Daniel found out about the Reykjavik City Cards for public transit and sightseeing discounts and bought a pair of them for—drumroll, please—just over one hundred American dollars.
“Okay,” Daniel said, watching as Armand, sitting on the curb, wept into his hands like someone had died. “What are you not getting here?”
“Give me back the credit cards,” Armand wailed.
“No, they’re mine.”
Armand wept harder.
Daniel sighed and sat beside him. “Why do you want the credit cards?”
“You’ll hate me,” Armand sobbed. “You always hated me when I couldn’t buy you things! You—even your shirt from that band, the one you had to buy yourself because I didn’t have any money that night, you still hold it against me!”
“Right, because it was your turn then,” Daniel explained for what felt like the thousandth time. “And now it’s my turn. Can you calm down?”
Armand could not calm down. Armand was getting everything in the world that he had ever wanted and (as this was a deeply unfamiliar situation to find himself in) was now panicking about it. This was crystal clear to Daniel; it did not appear to be crystal clear to Armand.
Daniel sighed and put an arm around his favorite idiot’s shoulders, pulled him in until he could tuck Armand’s head under his chin and kiss his hair. “It’s my turn,” he said patiently. Armand writhed in agony. “Okay, let’s dial it back a couple steps. Time to practice like Sybelle said. Ready? I love you. Say your line.”
It took several hitching breaths before Armand could speak. “Yes, you love me.”
“That’s right. I’m madly in love with the biggest fucking control freak of the last five hundred years. That’s my baby. I dream of kissing him in the moonlight. I have been dreaming of kissing him in the moonlight ever since he stalked me across Europe in the 70s.”
“Give me the credit cards.”
“You don’t want the credit cards. You are tired, and you don’t want to run a coven, not even a two-person coven. You want to rest and let me handle everything and take care of you. The credit cards are a symbol. A metaphor for whose turn it is. It’s my turn, so I get the credit cards. You can have them back in one hundred years.”
Armand clutched desperately at the front of Daniel’s coat, sniffling against his neck. “You’ll grow to hate me, and I won’t survive it. I can’t stand it when you hate me. I want to die when you hate me.”
“It’s my turn,” Daniel said slowly and clearly, as if speaking to an imbecile, which he sort of was. “Please have some perspective on the situation. We are about six hours into this century of it being my turn, and you are having a meltdown because I bought two 72-hour unlimited bus passes.”
“I could have bought them for you,” Armand quavered. “Give me the credit cards.”
“No. They’re mine. I will let you hold the credit cards someday after I am confident that you have figured out that it’s not a game.”
“I know it’s not a game,” Armand lied.
“Do you? Because you keep grabbing my hand and saying, ‘Really? Beloved, really?’ with big sad eyes like I’ve told you we’re going to Disneyland and you think I might be lying that Disneyland even exists. Baby, it’s my turn.”
Armand had nothing to say to that except a bit of sniffling.
“Whose turn is it?” Daniel pressed.
“Yours.”
“Who am I?”
“Daniel.”
“Who do you belong to?”
In that little really? voice: “Daniel.”
“What’s your last name now?”
“Molloy.”
“Because you belong to…”
“Daniel."
“Great. Come on, idiot, get up.”
Armand sniffled again but let Daniel drag him to his feet. In a wretched voice, he said, “I don’t want you to hate me.”
“Right, because you’re a giant control freak. Fortunately I dream of kissing you in the moonlight.”
Armand clutched at Daniel’s arm as he started to turn away. “Just one credit card.”
Daniel sighed heavily and turned back. “Why?”
Armand did not have any answer for that except huge, pleading eyes and a quivering lip.
Dammit, Daniel had never been able to resist that. “One,” Daniel said, holding up a finger. “If you bind yourself with an oath that you won’t ever use it unless I give you permission. Not one red cent. Promise?”
The lip quivered harder. “How am I supposed to buy gifts for you?”
“Does a concubine have any call to be buying gifts?” Armand nodded immediately and vigorously. Daniel sighed. “You have to ask permission. You have to say, ‘Daniel, I want to buy you a present, please may I?’ and maybe I’ll let you. Because it’s my money that you’ll be buying me presents with, right?”
“But—”
“It’s my turn!”
“What about in emergencies?”
Daniel peered at him suspiciously. “Real emergencies, or gift emergencies?” Armand looked shifty. Daniel held his face in his hands, kissed him, and looked seriously into his eyes. “You’re insane. No credit card.” He took Armand’s hand and headed down the street.
“You said one!” Armand screeched, clawing at his sleeve. “Daniel, you said one!”
“If you could promise that you wouldn’t use it without permission, and you couldn’t! So deal with it!”
“Daniel!”
“Wow,” Daniel said aloud, as if to himself. “I wonder when Armand is going to figure out that I love him for things besides his financial capabilities as a sugar daddy.” They were passing by a store that looked aggressively sleek and modern and expensive, filled with interesting technology. It did not have a sign. “What’s this? Do you know what this is?”
“Apple store, for the cellular telephones and things,” Armand said, distracted. “Daniel. Give me a credit card. I vow that I won’t use it unless I have to.”
“Nope,” Daniel said cheerfully, because in Armand’s world, ‘unless I have to’ was a very broad statement which could be twisted to mean pretty much anything. He headed inside.