Chapter Text
Things do not return to normal. Not that Armand expects it to, when it is so clear he has lost Daniel forever.
They inevitably end up on talking terms sooner rather than later on the virtue of cohabiting Daniel's Brooklyn apartment, but there is always an air of dejection hanging around them. Despondency sours into pure heartbreak when Daniel brushes off Armand's tentative touches. He tries it, sometimes, touching Daniel again. All hope is lost, he knows, but the lovesick part of him is still so very desperate to awaken Daniel's old desire.
So he tries it. He tries brushing their fingertips against each other when they walk down the dingy alleyways of New York together, he tries to sit close while they watch a film on Daniel's flatscreen, but Daniel recoils even with this sliver of affection, retreating into himself as if Armand is a revolting thing.
Armand feels revolting, too.
He thinks about that night, sometimes, about Daniel's staggering breath cutting through the air and aiming for his heart, the sound of his cries one room away. It was Armand who had made his beloved cry. It was Armand who called him disgusting and kicked him out of their bed. This was different from the other times Armand had been cruel to his lover. This was not cruelty for pleasure's sake. Armand had been hurt, so he had wanted to hurt Daniel in turn. But it did nothing to soothe his pain. He only felt more deserving of it.
Days pass like this. Then weeks. Two months, give or take. Armand has come to warm up to his lover's cold attitude, for it was better to have some of Daniel than nothing at all. And there are worse things than not being allowed to hold his beloved in his arms or press his own face to that lovely pulsepoint, Armand reminds himself. There are centuries of living in filthy catacombs. There are decades of being another man's pliable sex doll as he imagines thrusting into another lover. So this, Armand can live with.
Then he sees the suitcase.
Oh, how to accurately describe the dread he felt coiling around his intestines when he first saw the suitcase?
It is black, sleek, and empty, its dark maw pointed towards the ceiling and begging to be filled. The object is placed serendipitously in the middle of the living room for Armand to find once he walks into the apartment after brunch with a gallerist. All his mirth vanishes in an instant. So does all feeling in his extremities.
Armand spends the whole day sitting on the sofa and staring at the suitcase. He wants to burn it. Throw it out of the window and smash some glass in the process. But such an action would not stop Daniel from leaving. Armand knows that well enough. The man would run out the door with nothing but the shirt off his back if he really wanted to. He has done so before. Armand was foolish to believe this pattern would not repeat itself. Some things always would.
So, Armand stares down at the suitcase. He stares and stares until Daniel awakens from his slumber and pads onto the living room.
He is soft with sleep, his Daniel. Silver curls tussled on top of his crown, the way his broad hand vanished beneath the hem of his sleep shirt makes Armand want to cry. With grief, need, both and nothing at all.
"Where are you going?" Armand asks, tone deceptively casual. He keeps the sleek mask on his face, betraying nothing.
Daniel does nothing more than glance at the suitcase.
"Work." He shrugs. "I need to do something with myself. Can't just rot in this hole for eternity."
Insecurity paralyzes Armand. He has nothing against rotting in this hole for eternity, as long as Daniel is here with him. Armand looks down at his slacks. There is a loose thread on the seam by the knee that had not been there earlier. He begins to pick on it.
"Ah. When will you be back?"
"Dunno. Two months, give or take. Haven't bought the return ticket yet."
Haven't bought the ticket yet. The words ring in Armand's ears, and so does his building panic that he tries his hardest to keep under wraps, to no avail.
He's leaving he's leaving he's leaving he's leaving—
But when Daniel packs his suitcase and heads out the door, Armand does not stop him in a way that matters. He does not throw his arms around him and kiss him like he desperately wishes to, like he aches to. He does not paralyze his body where it stands or cut his legs off. He does not get on his knees and beg him to stay.
Instead, Armand picks on thread on his slacks till it grows longer and longer and says, "Daniel," his voice barely above a breath. Preternatural hearing or no, he doesn't expect Daniel to stop.
But Daniel stops.
The vampire turns only slightly, looking at Armand from across his sloped shoulder with tired eyes. Armand wants to hold onto those shoulders with his claws and never let go, but he doesn't think it will be appreciated.
But Daniel is looking at him. That has to count for something, does it not?
"Yeah?"
Please don't go. Stay with me. I love you.
But the words choke in his throat. What words are the right ones to say? He has never managed to crack the code before. The last five hundred years have proved Armand incapable of ever saying the right thing to make someone stay. Like clockwork, the sound of Daniel's stifled cries caress his ears, making his jaw clench and heart sink. He is struck by the foreign fear of trying again. What if this time, his words will drag away Daniel for good?
So, he says, "Don't forget to have the spare coffin shipped down to wherever you are.”
It must be a trick of the light or the settlement of dust Armand has yet to clean, the slight movement where Daniel's shoulders slumps.
"Right," Daniel mumbles. He turns. "Bye, Armand."
Bye, Armand. Not, see you, Armand. Not I love you, Armand.
Daniel closes the door after himself, and Armand is alone. It stings this time around, because Armand has the distinct notion he has no one but himself to blame.
###
Armand manages to stay away for one week.
It is a miserable week. He lays supine on the loveseat for the most of it, staring at an empty tv screen while the remnants of his soul fly further and further away from him. Armand ruminates on where it all went wrong, when he had grown too disgusting for his boy to love. He ruminates on what Daniel might be doing, wherever he is. Has the trip led him to another young thing to light his loins? Someone mortal and alive and beautiful, who can give him what Armand never could. It is this devastating thought that snaps him from his catatonic state.
He ends up tracking Daniel down. It is an easy task, all things considered. Armand has decades of experience tracking Daniel all across the globe, after all, and it becomes much easier once he realizes Daniel hasn't left the country at all.
Daniel ran off to Wyoming, of all places.
He spends a few weeks simply watching him. Armand forgets all about feeding and sleep and hygiene. He simply watches his boy, the very sight of him is enough to sate his hunger.
There is curiosity involved, as well. This place is an odd choice for Daniel. The man usually picks hubs where debauchery and stories run amok, but Wyoming is not especially known for its number of people, or night life. In fact, Wyoming is the least populated state in the US. It lights that long-absent flicker in him. Armand wants to understand why Daniel chose this place. Did he simply want a change of scenery by picking a place completely opposite their turf in New York? Do its vast prairie and mountain formations soothe him?
But Daniel does not seem any happier about being far from home. He looks just as exhausted, if not more, as when he did nothing in New York. His nights are spent interviewing, journaling, and feeding, and he does all of it dispassionately. There is no gluttony aimed at this new place he has selected. There are no sensuous pleasures with strangers that sway him. No invigorating affairs.
This confuses Armand. He knows better than anyone that Daniel thrives in invigorating affairs. This is how they fell into each other, after all.
So he keeps watching him, waiting for something to change. And then it does, but not in the way he expected. While stalking his most beloved as he prowls through a desolate park at night, surrounded by ponderosa pine and chattering magpies, Daniel stops in the middle of the road with a put-upon sigh.
"Just come out already, I'm tired of this game," he calls out to the dark trees surrounding him. They smell faintly of butterscotch and vanilla.
At a loss for what else to do, Armand comes out.
Daniel turns to look at him, and his brow furrows.
He is wearing the same clothes as the day Daniel left him. The slacks are loosened by the destruction of its seams and barely hanging onto Armand's hips. He wears the same grey button up as well. No shoes. He simply put on an overcoat and left the apartment, body moving on its own accord as it often tended to. And now here they are. While Armand has not looked into a reflection for the last few months, he knows he must look gaunt and hollowed-eyed. He cannot remember the last time he fed. Hasn't had a desire to, or maybe he feels he doesn't deserve it; what difference does it make?
Whatever Daniel sees in him, he is not impressed. He says as much. "A little old school of you, this cat and mouse chase," Daniel leers. Gives him another once-over before his face pinches with a frown. "The drowned rat act, too. What reaction are you trying to get out of me, looking like that?"
Armand says nothing. He simply basks in Daniel's effort to talk to him. It's been so long since he last really bothered to. It barely matters that tension floods this park they've found themselves in, sticky like tar against bark.
The quiet only spurs his boy on. He starts to pace in circles, prowling with his shoulders in a way that makes Armand salivate for the first time in weeks.
"I don't get you," Daniel spits, "Is this my punishment for the divorce? Being shackled for eternity to a smokeshow who, turns out, doesn't want a thing to do with me? I gotta say, Armand, you've fucking outdone yourself with the torture this time around. I'd clap if I wasn't so close to setting myself on fire just to spite you."
Those words, the very vivid picture they paint, and the sorrow they inspire in him are enough to spur Armand onto action.
"Don't even joke about that," Armand hisses, voice hoarse from disuse. "I will tear your limbs off one by one and keep your remains in a basement if that is what it takes for you not to foolishly self-destruct."
A caustic laugh bubbles from Daniel. "Oh look, he speaks!"
Armand takes a step closer. The twig beneath his bare heel barely creaks. He feels weak, as though he is a leaf ready to be blown over and stepped on by a pair of boots, but this he can manage. Gravely, and with every emotion he can muster within his withered body, he says, "I am serious, Daniel. I did not make you simply for you to kill yourself on a whim. How do you expect me to live on, you selfish child? I'd rather die than see you die."
And what does Daniel make of this bare-hearted confession? Daniel throws his arms up to the sky. "This is what I am talking about! I have no idea what you want! All I know is that it sure as hell isn't me, and yet you continue to fucking haunt me!"
At first, Armand doesn't hear the words. He watches and watches him, tries to understand the words spoken to him.
Then, it registers.
The world has tilted beneath his dirty feet, the moss threatening to swallow him whole. Surely this is one of those poorly placed sarcastic remarks Daniel sometimes makes that Armand can never decipher. But looking at Daniel does not tell him whether this was a joke or not. The words must be some form of irony, but sincerity is carved into the man's face alongside the lines of age. In fact, Daniel has never looked as old as he does now.
Several blinks of his eyes and it is as if he is looking at Daniel with a new, cleaner lens. The eyebags beneath his fledgling's eyes are darker than they previously have been, the wrinkles around them deeper. His forehead is crinkled with worry lines, his chin stippled. Daniel looks seconds from falling apart completely. He looks much like Armand himself.
"I don't want you?" he repeats the words back, and they taste foreign on his tongue. Stilted. Unnatural.
"You don't even want to touch me," Daniel rasps, voice rough with an unidentifiable emotion. "Which, hey, I can't say I blame ya' but it is also your fault for turning me after the expiration date, so."
His facial muscles start to move. He feels his jawbone grind his molars together, his mouth pulling into a sneer. A migraine threatens to bloom around his eye sockets where his eyes start to tremble. With a trembling voice, Armand hisses, "How dare you speak of yourself in that way, as if you were —"
"Disgusting, Armand?" Daniel finishes for him, pointed. He takes a step closer, and Armand takes one step back. It only makes the man huff another laugh, his smile wide and self-deprecating. "Like I'm some limp-dicked cretin, Armand?"
Unbidden, the memory appears. Armand and his beloved are naked in bed; the look of confusion on his beloved's eyes melting into heartbreak once Armand stops the ministrations and begins to spit vitriol.
Guilt pools in his stomach. He shakes his head, tries to rid himself of it before he spirals completely. "That is not what I meant—"
"What else could you possibly mean?"
"It is you who doesn't want me!"
The screech rustles the pine trees. It does not sound like his voice, but it was. There is a raw quality to it, something boyish and pitiful yelling love me, want me, don't leave me, to every pair of ears that ever bothered to listen; and now his anguish has been made clear to a pair of ears that would be better off to not hear anything at all.
Truth be told, it was a lost cause for Armand to think this conversation would not spiral and he would not lose control of this companionship one way or another. It started when he saw that suitcase in the living room and began to pick on the thread of his slacks, picking and picking until the thread uncoiled and left him stripped bare for Daniel to see. And now, Daniel sees. And Daniel, with his bile eyes wide open in his skull, sees more of Armand's bottomless desperation for love than Armand ever let anyone else witness. With a shake of his head which reads as bewilderment at best and disappointment at worst, Daniel turns and walks away from him once again.
###
Armand does not leave this wretched state and his wretched fledgling, although that is the sound thing to do. He operates on the non-logic that he has never been known to do the sound thing to begin with, so why start now?
A few days pass where Armand does not watch Daniel. He needs some time to lick his wounds, he needs time to be hurt and confused, and he suspects Daniel needs the same. But he never stays far away. There are other things to do in Wyoming, after all. It is a good distraction, of sorts, finding out what one can do in Wyoming. Like visiting the green river formation, for instance. The fossils here are older than him. There is comfort in that.
"Oh. You're still here," Daniel says once he sees him sitting on a bench while reading a brochure. His tone is difficult to place. Painstakingly neutral, if anything.
"Well, yes," Armand says. He folds the brochure neatly and puts it down beside him. "There are many sights to see in Wyoming, after all. I've never been here in this formation, for instance. Nor Yellowstone park. Now seems as good a time as any."
He has picked up eating and sleeping again so that he does not look utterly disgusting once he comes face to face with his fledgling, although he cannot stomach more than a few sips of blood. Mortal blood is stale compared to his beloved's, or perhaps it is the Wyomingites who have a particularly bland taste. He also has yet to find the motivation to shower or change clothes. Surely it is allowed for one to live in a little bit squalor when one is completely miserable.
On the plus side he has deigned to pick up shoes from his last victim. Well-loved workers boots with a little dirt around the mouth. The shoe laces are yet to be tied, though. Too much effort.
"You stubborn bastard," Daniel gruffs out, but there is little ire to it. Only a sense of resignation. It helps lighten Armand's heavy mood somewhat, but not quite.
"There is an ancient volcano around here, somewhere," Armand says, apropos of nothing. His eyes are stuck to the sycamore trees behind his beloved. "Is this why you chose Wyoming, Daniel? Did you want to write a book about its flora's ancient history? A little bit outside your forte, but I applaud you for trying out a new venture."
You will need to, if you mean to do this for eternity, he thinks, but doesn't say.
"I'm not writing a book about fossils," Daniel says, and it feels somewhat pointed.
Armand decides not to take it personally. He sniffs, asks, "So what is it about this place that lured you in?"
Daniel shrugs.
"Fresh air. New York isn't exactly known for fresh air." This, too, feels pointed.
Despite what the likes of Lestat would like you to believe, Armand is not ignorant to his own faults. He would be a fool to reach his own age and not know his love is the kind that chokes and kills those it holds dearest, so it comes to no surprise that Daniel wanted to escape it, even for a short while. It is only natural. You would not blame an animal for running out of a burning house, would you? Or a man chained by the ankle who chooses to gnaw his own leg off.
Armand looks down at his lap. His hands are folded together, one thumb rubbing over the other. To know is one thing, yes, but the heart still aches at the reminder. "I see."
And then, a few minutes of quiet which feels like centuries. Armand should know, he has lived through some very quiet centuries. A part of him wants to rip the skin off his face at the thought of turning back to those silent, dispassionate times.
A rustle from Daniel. The man puts his hands inside his leather jacket's pockets. He heaves a breath which is not quite a sigh, as if he is preparing for a battle.
"I haven't gotten hard in years before you turned me."
Armand whips his head up. Daniel snorts.
"It's called erectile dysfunction, honey, look it up." His tone is conversational, yet his gaze is elsewhere. Avoiding Armand's. He barrels on even though Armand is reeling. Perhaps it is the reason why he barrels on. "I was officially diagnosed with it in 2020, but it had been an issue earlier than that. Do you know how many affairs behind my ex-wives' back I fucked up because my dick softened in the middle of it? Don't answer that. But hey, it's not as bad, now. The blood granted me that much. It just takes a whole lot longer, and there aren't exactly fireworks at the finish line."
Armand moves to open his mouth, but nothing happens. He finds that he just stares.
"But you desired me in Dubai," Armand argues, at last. He doesn't understand.
Daniel sighs deeply. "I still have working eyes, Armand."
The word expiration pops up in Armand's head again. Is this the reason for what he mentioned earlier? But Daniel does not let Armand catch up. He talks and talks and talks, and Armand is still lost by the end of it.
"I don't even know why I'm telling you this," Daniel admits eventually, and here his voice begins to tremble the slightest bit. He masks it with another sarcastic huff and a laugh. It sounds self-deprecating at most. "It's not like you need any more reasons to leave me. Well, now you know. I was defective before you made me, and defective afterwards. Please give this old man a year to lick his wounds before you tell the nearest coven how much of an embarrassment I turned out to be, thanks."
And this, at least this Armand knows how to respond to. He always will.
"I've never been embarrassed by you, Daniel, you know that. I very well like how you turned out. You are my first born, my greatest accomplishment," he replies, earnest in a way he seldom is, but he finds it comes easier with Daniel. "I was enraged because I wanted you so much it made me sick, and I thought…"
Daniel doesn't say anything. He simply listens. Picking his words apart. Armand's shoulders hunch in on himself.
In a small voice, Armand admits, "I thought you didn't want me anymore. Perhaps my sins were too great for you to look past, and this was divine retribution for everyone I've wronged. To be repulsive to the one I…"
His voice had been barely audible when he started, and his words failed him completely by the end of it. This time, Armand is afraid he might cry if he tries to get them out. So he stops himself short. Feels his throat close up and retinas sting, thoroughly humiliated. Just the way he had humiliated his beloved two months before. Daniel deserves better than this, he knows that, but Armand cannot stand to cry again.
Armand wonders how many times throughout the months of hindered intimacy and miscommunication Daniel went somewhere far away to cry on his lonesome. Did the rejection kill him on the inside, too? Could Daniel stand to cry again, or have they both been thoroughly hollowed out?
As natural as one breathes or a fish swims, Daniel grows exasperated with his withholding.
"It is so typical that you make everything about yourself," he grumbles, "I'm the one stuck with this fucking condition for eternity, and you make it about how desirable you are."
"I know."
They delve into silence once again. The birds continue to chirp and a slight breeze blows through pine, and Armand's mind whirs. And Daniel… Daniel watches him. Strips him bare with the flick of his fluorescent eye.
"What are you doing here, Armand?" he asks the million dollar question, and Armand doesn't know the answer until its question is uttered out into the air.
"Begging, I suppose," Armand replies.
It is Daniel's turn to blink.
"Huh."
Armand's claws curl into the wood paneling of the bench. It creaks beneath his fingertips.
"How long does it take you to feel aroused? Can you— How does it work?" he asks, a twinge of desperation seeping into his voice. If there is even the slightest chance Daniel feels aroused by him, then he can fix this. He knows he can. He desperately wants to.
Daniel's eyebrows furrow at this. "You seriously thought I didn't want you." It is not a question.
It is not a question, so Armand doesn't answer. He cannot bear to.
"The last time," Armand starts, "Were you really…?"
The vampire looks up at the dark sky, as if cursing God Himself for putting him in this desolate state with his good-for-nothing maker to begin with.
Then, he nods, once.
"Oh, Daniel. I am sorry, beloved," Armand says, broken, "I ruined your pleasure with my own insecurity."
Daniel starts to squirm. It is obvious he hadn't expected an apology to come so easily, and he doesn't know how to respond. He puts his sunglasses over his eyes again and says, "Again, I can't blame you for that. Jerking off a wrinkly soft penis is not the definition of a good Friday night in my book, either."
Well, Armand doesn't know if he agrees with that anymore. The idea had repelled him because he thought Daniel was mocking him. But if he had truly enjoyed himself…
"That is up for debate, I should think," Armand hums. The sun is nearing the horizon, its warmth seeps into the air and dissipates the tension they brought with them. Armand stands up from the bench. "It is getting early, fledgling, you ought to head back to your lodging. I should hope to see you around these parts?"
The sight of Daniel biting down an amused smile fills his limbs with air.
"Yeah, sure, Armand," Daniel says. It is not a love declaration by any means, but Armand has never been more grateful for a string of words.
###
It takes a while, healing the unmeant wounds that have festered the last few months. They travel Wyoming in the meanwhile, visiting the Yellowstone National park and other monuments together. Dejection does not hang over their conversations any longer. They laugh, they make stupid jokes and they bicker, and sometimes Daniel forgets to put on his sunglasses and Armand can see fondness shine in his warm eyes. Armand can breathe easier. Maybe he can fix this after all. Maybe, maybe.
One night, Daniel invites Armand for a night cap at the cabin he currently rents. It is an olive branch Armand is terrified of snapping in two. Lord knows his track record has been awful.
It is a charming cabin. It is made of dark wood, smells of soft rot, and the wood boards creak constantly. All the rooms are decorated with taxidermy. A decapitated deer's head hangs from the living room, and stuffed rodents and birds line up the fireplace. The quilts are made of various animals and the decorative pillows are stuffed with goose feathers. Armand is especially taken with the horned hare that sits on Daniel's nightstand.
"That's a jackalope. A cryptid that some rednecks made up in the 70s," Daniel explains to him while Armand lies belly down on the bed and stares starry-eyed at the strange psuedo-critter. The man looks around the cabin with a wry smile to his lips. "You can rent anything as an airbnb these days."
They spend their first night together at the cabin reading in front of the fireplace. Rain patters off the roof, the smell of a live fire and damp wood envelops his senses, and Armand is happy to be reunited at his fledgling's side.
After that, Armand is quietly eager to visit more often and Daniel is vocally eager to have him over. They make the best of their time together at the cabin, considering they must leave sooner rather than later. Wyoming is too small to sate Daniel's bottomless appetite, and there are already hushed whispers of a killer on the loose amongst the townsfolk. Every night the small town sheriff drives around in his beat-up cop car eating powdered donuts while leaving behind trails of yellow police tape, is a night Daniel might be caught, and Armand cannot have that.
The main factor which keeps him calm is that the cabin is situated far away from the nearest small town. It sits in the prairie near Yellowstone, where the occasional hiker from outside the state has a habit of losing themselves in the vast nature. The sheriff must be very dedicated to his small town job to hope to find their trail.
That being said, Armand has more or less moved in by the end of the week, not that it was a difficult affair. He didn't bring anything with him, after all. However he does have an overnight bag shipped over, and Daniel shakes his head fondly when Armand digs around the duffel for his tablet. I don't understand how you survived so many centuries without that thing, doll, Daniel tells him, the slip of that nickname making a certain warmth slip beneath Armand's skin.
A few nights spent in each other’s company, sleeping in the very same coffin, but their time spent has been restrained. Perhaps contained is a better word to use. Anticipation begins to simmer within Armand at the faintest of touches. Of a single wayward glance. Surely Daniel must feel it, too.
"I'm heading out," Daniel tells him by the bedroom’s doorway. He is putting on his handsome leather jacket and his satchel. "You coming with?"
Meanwhile, Armand can be found laid out on the king sized bed. He is wearing a new pair of plaid pajamas, to match the aesthetic of the cabin a little bit. He’d lit a scented candle and placed it on the nightstand a safe distance from the jackalope, figuring the sophisticated blend of pathchouli and bergamot suited the cabin just fine.
"I'm afraid not, beloved. I am in a dawdling mood today."
Daniel turns to look at him. "Are you now?"
Those aged eyes drag across Armand's body in an outright filthy manner, roving over his flank and the sliver of skin between the top and bottom where his hip sticks out. His ample chest, where swirly hair peeks out from beneath the open vee of the pajamas. Desire seethes within these four walls and Armand preens under its engulfing heat.
"Mhm, suit yourself," Daniel says, humor and something else coloring his tone, and then he is out of the door.
Once the entrance door clicks shut, Armand takes the brochure from the nightstand and starts to fan himself with it. What a tease.
He also takes out his iPad and begins his research.
He reads every article he can find about erectile dysfunction. How it occurs, how to live with it, and different ways to relieve the condition somewhat. It is a very enlightening evening, so to say. Armand has been around eternally young, virile vampires for so long he forgot such a condition existed, but this whole ordeal seems to have jogged his memories of some old encounters with it. How could he have forgotten?
There was a friend of his maker he was first introduced to around the age of twenty four. An older scholar with silver hair thinning at the top of his head, and kind eyes framed by wrinkles. Armand remembers being taken by his strong profile and grandfatherly gentleness, but no matter what he tried the man was hesitant to bed him. Amadeo would sneak into his chambers at his master's behest, and the man would talk to Amadeo for nights on end, teaching the eager youth about medicine such as bloodletting, but grew sheepish whenever the boy tried to further their relations. It only made him want the older man more.
Once Amadeo learnt about his guest's biological impairment, impotence, as he called it— the boy grew embarrassed. Earlier that evening he had grown angry with the man and accused him of being a frigid eunuch. The man shushed his worries, and lavished him with attention instead; spread Amadeo on the satin sheets and indulged the younger man's desires thoroughly. No one else but his master had cared for his pleasure with such single-mindedness before that fateful night.
Perhaps Armand should have figured out Daniel had the same impairment. He has been very, very attentive the few times they crossed that threshold, whereas in his youth he was often eager to reach his own orgasm, sometimes forgetting about Armand's own. The memory of their kisses on the sofa came to mind first. Armand had straddled Daniel's hips with the single-minded goal to bring his boy pleasure, but Daniel distracted him with his deliberate caresses, his rumbling voice coaxing Armand to chase his own pleasure. Those loving, brilliant eyes had watched every twitch of his facial expression, cataloging which touches would bring him utmost delight.
Oh, how much Armand loves those clever hands. He adores how thick rope of veins bulges across the tendons on the back of his hand, the wide breadth of his palm and fingers. The calloused texture of them sinking onto Armand's plush skin when Daniel grabs him real hard. But softly, as well. Daniel can be so soft on him, so loving. Armand was a moron for thinking his other areas of softness to be a fault, rather than a gift.
Syrupy heat pools in his mind's eye, sweetening a memory which Armand had clouded over with oppressive self-hatred. Absent-mindedly, his hand began to carry south during the remembrance. The other is holding the iPad, which is still open on an article he scourged from pubmed.
His hand stills. Armand has eaten more since he shacked up with Daniel, and he can tell. He has grown warm and stiff beneath the plaid pajamas. Has been so since Daniel stared him down. He strokes over the stiffness once, twice, a gasp escaping his lips. Should he? Daniel would surely know if he indulged himself. That bloodhound of a man would smell it in the air, and who knows what sort of mood he would invite into the cabin.
Somehow that thought only spurs him on.
So, Armand slips his hand beneath the waistband of his pajamas. He is completely bare beneath, and gasps at the first touch of skin against skin. How long has it been since he last did this? Armand can't remember.
Related causes of ED are variable and can include arterial, neurogenic, hormonal, cavernosal, iatrogenic, and psychogenic causes, the article reads. Armand trails his fingertips down the velvety length as he reads before wrapping his hand properly around himself. He strokes, slowly. Measured. Organic ED involves abnormalities around the penile arteries, veins, or both and is the most common cause of ED, especially in older men. When the problem is arterial, it is usually caused by arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries…
Not for the first time in his life, Armand moans and bucks his hips to the thought of Daniel's aged veins. He adores every version of Daniel. The eager puppy he met in the 70s carved his own little doggy home in Armand's withered heart long ago, but old age suits Daniel so well. It goes beyond appearances.
Armand enjoys the wrinkles and his grandpa cardigans and the old man sounds he still makes even though his body has regained the boyish energy and mobility from his youth, but it is his arteries pushing overripe blood through a body eternally paused at the critical degree of decay, that really turns him on.
Yes, he admits it, it does something to him. His beloved's permanent sickness, his several conditions that he must suffer for eternity because Armand was too selfish to let him go, it all thrills Armand. Grief and guilt has made him go on too long denying this fact to himself. But here, in this cabin in the middle of nowhere all in his lonesome, he can be honest with himself for once.
The muscles of his thigh clench as he tightens his fist. Armand pumps harder. Slicker. Blood sweat beads his brow but he continues to read.
Many experts believe that atrophy, a partial or complete wasting away of tissue, and fibrosis, the growth of excess tissue, of the smooth tissue in the body of the penis triggers problems with being able to maintain a firm reaction, he keens in response to these beguiling words.
He imagines the appearance of his beloved's flaccid cock once again, and this time Armand lets himself indulge. Thick despite its shrivelled state, hanging loose and heavy between Daniel's white thighs. Drool pools beneath Armand's tongue. He wonders how it would feel in his mouth. Would it be like cradling a damaged baby bird in his hands, his own pet to nourish and love? And what sounds would Daniel make while he hollowed his cheeks around his limp penis. Would it be sounds of pain or pleasure? Why not a mix of both, please, let it be both—
"Ah," Armand gasps, voice shrill, "Ah!—"
He jerks his fist faster, a little bit harder. His toes curl into the mattress while his legs and stomach tremble. The pressure in his sac builds up. The pillow is soft beneath his cheek as he twists his head to the side, neck craned as his respiration comes in staccato breaths. He is so close, he can tell. Mind-numbingly, sweetly close.
"Direct risk factors may include the following: prostate problems, vascular disease, drugs, neurogenic disorders," Armand whimpers as his orgasm comes in waves, and he says little else. He simply feels.
The iPad drops to the floor during his throes, and he does not give a damn. He gives over to the sensation of overwhelming pleasure, until it ebbs away to a quiet, pleasant hum. Armand lets out a shaky sigh as his body settles into itself, the glow of masturbation softening his muscles and sinews. His bones, too.
While taking his hand out of his pants, Armand decides he will call doctor Fareed and request for him to look into some sort of blue pill to be made for vampire kind. Not that the good doctor could whip out a fruitful product any time soon; these things take time, but Armand is already starting to workshop other methods. He wipes his hand absentmindedly on his pant leg. He finds, after careful consideration, he isn't opposed to forgoing other methods, either.
The rest of the evening is spent making phone calls and scrolling on his tablet. While Armand moves to the living room so he can lie lavishly on the plush bear rug, he doesn't change his plaid pajamas, or take a shower. He sits there surrounded by taxidermized wild animals and the crackling fireplace, one hand stroking the bear's head while the other holds the tablet. He is ready for the taking, and good ol' fashioned thrill runs up and down his spine.
And then, Daniel comes home.
The change in the air once Daniel steps in through the front door is not to be undermined. Daniel walks in with a teasing, honey, I'm home, on the tip of his tongue. He stops abruptly when the smell hits him. His satchel falls to the ground. Armand can hear the click of his throat from where he lies supine and yearning. "Armand?" his beloved calls out from the hallway, a certain hoarseness to his voice.
"Hello, Daniel," Armand hums, putting on an air of nonchalance which he deserves applause for. He continues to scroll on his iPad. "How was your trip?"
His footsteps thump closer. So does his rapid heartbeat. "Fine. I saw one of Wyoming's two escalators today."
"Riveting."
The footsteps stop.
"Armand," he breathes out, "Did you—"
"Would you like to come and see for yourself?"
Armand puts his iPad away as he says it. He puts one elbow down on the plush fur as he lifts his upper body up, resting his weight on the limb. He waits.
Another click of Daniel's throat. "God yeah— yes, I would."
Oh, and he sounds so nervous. So eager. The enthusiasm is sweet enough to make Armand smile.
"Then crawl."
It takes a minute, naturally. A minute of heavy breathing, of time standing still, the tension swelling like a balloon threatening to pop, before his boy discards his pride and a pair of well-worn knees hit the ground. Slowly but surely, Daniel crawls across the cabin's floorboards. They whine pleasantly beneath his weight.
The door to the living room creaks open as Daniel makes his way towards Armand. Armand's eyes fall to the ground, where he sees his boy crawl on all fours, a mouthwatering flush riding high on his pale cheeks and the tip of his ears. Oh, the boy has fed well tonight. Two full grown men coursing through his veins, perhaps even three. It is easy to imagine Daniel with blood smeared all over his face and neck, with his jaws buried in his latest victim's jugular like the blood-thirsty beast he is, but for Armand he is but a domesticated animal.
Without another word, Armand lifts the hand which he had wrapped around his cock earlier this evening, holds it towards Daniel, and crooks a finger towards himself. Come here, boy, said using no words at all. Hopefully, this old dog still remembers his training.
Daniel crawls closer without a second thought. Close enough for Armand to see the spot of blood on the collar of his flannel shirt, or how large his pupils have become in the firelight. Not as domesticated as Armand believed, then. The wild sight of his beloved makes Armand feel like exquisite prey, like little red riding hood in his fine red flannel pajamas staring down the big bad wolf. He imagines petting the wolf's gray fur and demurely asking it, Why are your eyes so large? Why are your teeth so sharp?
When Daniel comes close enough, he opens his fingers from his palm, and lets Daniel smell the meat of him.
Daniel presses his face to his palm. Inhales deeply.
"Oh, fuck," he groans against the soft skin. He wraps his paws around the thin wrist in a bruising grip. Inhales deeper. "You've made me an old perv."
Armand hums, deeply pleased although he tries to hide it. He can't help how he squirms. "Have I?"
Ignoring what Armand asked, Daniel presses a kiss to his palm. Then, to each fingertip. "You smell so good," his voice rumbles.
"I do?"
"Stop it. You know you do." Sharp teeth nip at ring finger, and Armand's breath hitches. "Let me get you off, sweetheart, please." It’s been so long goes unsaid but Armand hears it, he does.
A hot, calloused hand rests upon Armand's upper thigh, massaging the muscle through fluffy cotton. He is so close to where Armand wants him, where desire and heat begin to stir him once again, and Armand knows he becomes a needy thing when indulged. It takes everything in Armand to not let his legs fall open on their own accord.
It takes absolutely everything that he is made of for Armand to wrap his hand around Daniel's wrist and stop his venture. "While you tempt me, I'd rather see you trembling under my hands tonight, my love," Armand croons.
Daniel's frown lines deepen. Apprehension swims in his eyes. Armand will hate himself for the rest of eternity for ever putting that look on his lover's face. "Are you sure?" he asks.
Armand brings his palm to the side of Daniel's face. His cheek is hot to the touch. Gently, Armand caresses the pad of his thumb across the bone. "Yes," Armand says, his affections swelling on the inside till he feels raw and hoarse, "I want to see you enjoy yourself, beloved. Please, don't deprive me of this."
And despite his own reasonably founded fear of vulnerability, Daniel leans into Armand's touch and nods.
The older vampire is quick to switch their positions, gently but swiftly holding Daniel by his broad shoulders and pushing him down. Armand is not content until his boy lies with his back flat against the bear rug. Armand straddles his hips and Daniel looks up at him as if he built every star in the sky and pulverized every galaxy in equal measure. Overcome with affection and desire, Armand leans close and kisses him.
It is a gentle kiss. Lips pressed against each other dryly, barely moving, simply drinking in the moment after so long without. It is not until Armand has him this innocent way he realizes how ardently he missed it. The soft scrape of stubble against his own bare cheek, the taste of his spit. When was the last time they kissed? It must have been that night where Armand foolishly rejected his firstborn and banished him from their bedroom. The reminder makes Armand's heart twinge. He is aching to do right by him.
Hungrily, Armand deepens the kiss before the man's doubts can rear its head again. He opens his mouth against Daniel, and Daniel sinks into him with a gentle sigh, silvery eyelashes fluttering shut against Armand's cheeks.
Those firm hands Armand fantasised about come to grip him by the waist and hold him close, and Armand cannot help but roll his hips downwards and against the swell of Daniel's stomach, where he is firm. Desperate to get closer, Armand starts to shove the leather jacket down Daniel's shoulders, and they briefly detangle and share a chuckle so the clothing can be properly removed.
Armand cannot deny he grows frustrated when he sees Daniel is wearing a flannel buttoned down to the wrist. He rips it open, buttons flying everywhere, and Daniel scoffs at the theatrics.
"I liked that shirt," he grumbles.
"You have several more just like it."
"Maybe it's my favorite, did you consider that?" he continues to complain, but his voice grows weak when Armand leans down to nose at his neck. "Ah, Armand…"
He is flushed and sweaty there. Armand laps up the pearly drops of sweat, and feels his own arousal build faster than the strike of lightning at the taste of his beloved's diluted blood. He hungers to sink his claws into him, but Armand does his best to ignore his own arousal. Tonight Armand is focusing on Daniel's pleasure, not merely his own.
Daniel's undershirt is a casualty during their foreplay. Armand's nail snags onto its collar and rips it open all the way down to Daniel's navel.
Ever so slowly, Armand begins to massage the sides of his neck, his shoulders, delicate hands travelling down to grasp a pair of strong biceps. "Mm, there you are," he hums appreciatively as the muscle bulges beneath Daniel's sunspotted, human-warm skin.
But when Armand graces his fingertips against the snakeskin belt, he feels Daniel go still beneath him.
Armand pulls away from the kiss. "Are you alright, beloved?"
Daniel shakes his head. His breath is heavy, curls mussed, but there is that displeased wrinkle to his brow. Almost embarrassed, he admits, "I'm still not there."
Yes, Daniel is indeed flaccid beneath him, but a closed circuit of their shared arousal flows between their bond and it tells Armand everything he needs to know. The mind is willing, but the body is not. How had Armand been blind to it earlier?
Armand presses another kiss to his lips, this one chaste.
"That is quite alright," Armand whispers against his lips, and undoes the buckle. "Let me take care of it for you, beloved."
The zipper cries out mechanically as Armand pulls it down, and then he drags down the top of Daniel's jeans and underwear for good measure.
He looks down at his beloved with naked adoration.
Daniel's pale skin is visible beneath the ripped undershirt. His chest with the smattering of hair, his fleshy hips and stomach where the torn undershirt has ridden up. The silver happy trail right beneath the navel travels down to a meaty pubic bone, where a thick thatch of wiry gray hairs surrounds Daniel's soft penis.
At the sight of it, Armand swallows down the initial doubt that rises up to the back of his throat. He tells himself that its flaccid appearance has nothing to do with him, nor his desirability. It is a physical condition. This is his fledgling's cross to bear, and Armand will do whatever he can to lighten the weight for him. And if Armand thinks of the other articles he read which aided him in reaching orgasm earlier, well, that is his very own cross. He's got thousands of them, what's one more?
Deliberately, as if dealing with an alien specimen rather than his own companion, Armand trails his fingers up and down the shaft, curiously poking the squishy, cool skin. Fascinating. Daniel is hot all over, except for here. The tentative, teasing touch forces a whine from Daniel's throat that his beloved surely will deny later. Armand neatly spits in his palm before surrounding the organ with his hand.
The first proper touch in months has Daniel screw his eyes shut and heave a breath.
"Shit, 'm sensitive," he mumbles, more than a little embarrassed. Armand finds it hopelessly endearing.
"Yes," Armand replies. He jerks him once, then twice, watching curiously how the soft head bulges when the foreskin is pulled back on the downstroke. Varies his grip between soft and hard, looking out for which Daniel responds the most to. The answer turns out to be them all, but his thighs tremble when Armand is hard-handed. It makes him hum, deep in thought. "I can see that. Does it hurt?"
In response, Daniel attempts to hide his face in the bear's thick fur. His Adam's apple bobs, and Armand is starving.
"Yeah. No. Both. It would probably help if you flashed a tit."
Armand clucks his tongue. "Always so vulgar," he admonishes. He still undoes a button or two with one swift hand and pulls his pajama collar down, exposing himself.
"Fuck," Daniel groans in pain. He reaches a hand out to touch, brushing the calloused pad of his thumb against one nipple.
The contact makes Armand's next breath stutter. He grows fuzzy around the corners, and gives an appreciative squeeze around Daniel, an artful twist at the wrist during the downstroke. He has always been sensitive here.
Thick, stable fingers begin to undo Armand's pajama top all the way down. The soft cotton slips down his shoulders, and Armand finds himself feeling nonsensically shy. Not unlike a blushing maiden being undressed on her wedding night. It is the reason why when Daniel squeezes the soft muscle padding his breast, Armand gasps. The sound is high in the top of his lungs and dissolves as easily as cotton candy.
Daniel laughs at his reaction. Voice low and gravely in his throat, he admits, "I've lost count of how many times I've dreamt of fucking these."
Armand swallows another gasp, decides to smile instead. "Yeah?" He feels like putty in his lover's hand.
"Yeah." Daniel places both palms where ribs meet chest, and uses his thumbs and forefingers to frame his pectorals. He pushes the pliant, plush muscles together. "I'd fuck that pretty cleavage of yours till my come painted your chin. Make a whole mess out of you."
It is vile. If another vampire found out his fledgling held such degrading thoughts about him and continued to live on, Armand would become a laughing stock in the immortal world. Armand cannot help how he arches into the touch, nor the fantasy.
His eyes flutter shut as he allows himself to visualize. He would most likely be on his knees or flat on his back. It doesn't matter because Daniel is above him either way. His groin throbs at the phantom feel of Daniel's long and hard cock pressed flat against his sternum; Armand would have to cup his chest together to make the glide worthwhile, but it is no bother at all. He'll watch as Daniel pistons between his breasts, the glide wet with precum and sweat, and he would goad him on til his boy reaches a crescendo of blinding pleasure. His own cock would be neglected but that is no problem at all. Sometimes Armand liked it that way. Sometimes he didn't. For this fantasy, he wants to be used.
And cum would paint his chin. Daniel would take himself in hand and pump his spend all across Armand's chest and collarbones, painting a defiled picture of him.
"Uncouth," Armand spits, "Filthy."
"That's me, babe." Some of that mirth in his eyes vanishes. He huffs a laugh. "In my dreams, at least."
Armand doesn't answer. He leans forward and lets spit drip from his pursed lips down to Daniel's cockhead, and his lover groans.
He resumes pumping him again, this time the glide slicker. Most of all Armand uses this opportunity to observe. He uses his other hand to cup his balls, rolling them around in his palm and feeling their weight. Daniel's limp penis is on the thicker side, yes, and his testicles are of an average size. He finds the visual appearance appealing, so sad and soft. Swiping the slit with the very tip of his clawed thumb, Armand muses over how much Daniel would grow with blood pumping through those deteriorated penile arteries. Is that where Daniel's condition comes from, or is it a neurological block stemming from years of drug and alcohol abuse?
He wonders about the taste. If the blood sweat tastes acrid on top of shrivelled, unused skin, or if he can make him drip pre-ejaculate at all. Armand can certainly try. He finds he wants to.
"I want to suck it," Armand says, "Is that alright?"
"Are you serious?" Daniel asks, incredulous.
Armand tilts his head to the side and blinks. He has already begun to move down Daniel's body. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Daniel opens his mouth to reply, but shuts it again. His jaw clenches as he grounds his molars together. He writhes and he wants, but has yet to voice his desire with words.
"Do whatever you want, you freak," he says through gritted teeth, but that bratty attitude is quick to fade away once Armand bows down and begins to nose at his pubic hair. He inhales his boy’s musk. Usually it is covered by his coconut cream body wash and cheap aftershave, but the smell is raw here. An iron edge to it due to how sweat lingers. He inhales even deeper, enamoured by the smell. Armand exhales softly against the pliant shaft.
Daniel goes still beneath him. Need has him breathless.
First, Armand slides the flat of his tongue up and down Daniel's penis. Gathers up the scent of him on his papillae, lets it froth among his spit before swallowing it down. It tastes… Somewhat different. There's a sharper tang to it.
A firm hand wraps itself into his curls, keeping his head down. "Fuck, Armand," Daniel gasps. It is more than enough motivation for Armand to keep going.
He licks, nuzzles, kisses the sensitive skin, before wrapping his mouth around the head. It is small in this shrivelled state, and it takes no effort at all for Armand to swallow down to the very hilt. Daniel lies neatly within his palate, a near perfect fit.
Armand buries the tip of his nose against gray pubic hair and hollows his cheeks around the penis, making Daniel shout and grip his scalp tighter. It indeed feels like a living critter sleeping soundly inside his mouth. A small, wounded thing he feels an unfounded parental instinct to care for, to nurse and lick clean. Armand can feel Daniel's faint heartbeat travel through the organ and tremble onto the tip of his tongue. This only enamours him.
It also, coincidentally, makes it difficult for Armand to keep his fangs sheathed, but he manages it. If there is anything two hundred years of abstinence taught him, it is miserable self control.
Bobbing his head even though there is no real reason to, Armand proceeds to fellate his impotent fledgling, drawing out sounds of pleasurepain from his laborious lungs. Once he has started, Armand finds it difficult to stop. The headrush he receives from this position makes his knees weak.
How vulnerable his boy is beneath him, inside him. Armand could clamp his teeth down and bite his soft bits off clean without any difficulty. Oh, how hard Daniel would cry and scream if he was castrated in this brutal manner. It only makes him love him more. He finds it a little romantic, as well, the fantasy of owning his beloved's genitals in such a literal manner.
He would keep it in a neat glass container in the bookshelf so he could gaze at it from his spot on the sofa in the living room. Perhaps he would show it off to house guests. Look, he would say while cradling the small container. My beloved's most intimate parts. Isn't it precious?
His body begins to move without his assent. His pelvis slowly gyrates against Daniel's calf as he sucks him off, leaking once more against the front of his pajamas. Armand is harder than he expected himself to be during this. He is clearly harder than Daniel expected him to be, as well.
"I can't believe you're getting off to this," Daniel grunts. All this warm-mouthed pleasure yet he is not close by any means, and he is growing frustrated by it.
Armand is hesitant to let go of Daniel's shrivelled member. He does so anyway, his lips making a small pop as they open around the shiny glans. His mouth feels empty without it.
"Why not? I love every part of you," Armand replies, "Daniel, I want to fuck you."
Once it is out there, Armand is eager to begin. He tugs Daniel's pants down his legs. Removes his boots and socks, too. Tosses them somewhere, knocking down a taxidermized squirrel from the coffee table in the process. Daniel is babbling beneath him, stupid with arousal. "The airbnb doesn't have any lube," Daniel argues weakly. He wants it, too. He is simply too embarrassed to say so.
Well, that won't do.
Armand proceeds to part his beloved's thighs, and makes his home between them.
"That is no problem at all," Armand says before bowing his head down, licking a long stripe across Daniel's taint, starting from the perineum.
"Fuck," Daniel winces, "Take it easy, boss, no one's touched me there since—"
"I don't want to hear about your last thrust, Daniel. I want you to enjoy yourself." Armand's nails dig into the white insides of his thighs, drawing blood. "Here, with me."
Daniel flinches at the pain, but chuckles anyway. "Jealousy looks good on you."
The marks of his nails embedded into Daniel's skin resemble small, perfect crescent moons.
Armand laps up the blood. "Does it?"
"Stop fishing for compliments and fuck me open already," Daniel grouses, but this time with a toothy smile that makes Armand's belly swoop low.
He takes his sweet, ample time opening Daniel up on his tongue. Armand occasionally rolls the heel of his palm across his limp cock and balls to bring him pain or humiliation or both, and it helps Daniel get off, but not completely. Not enough. The attention Armand lavishes him with makes the old man writhe and moan like a pornstar, but he has no hope of coming without stimulation against the prostate, and Armand has yet to invite his slim fingers into his boy's wet heat.
Not for a lack of want. There is nothing Armand wants more in this world than to sink deep within his companion, to luxuriate within his hot insides after long last. But don't all good things come to those who wait? To those who suffer for their love? Restriction, too, is love. This Armand believes wholeheartedly. He can stand to suffer a little bit more if it means the results will satiate them both. Plus, Daniel wears suffering so well.
So, he teases until tears begin to sting his boy's tear ducts, and he looks just as beautiful with tears streaking down his cheek as he did fifty years ago. Armand stops and watches in awe. It only makes the tears run harder.
An irritated snarl rumbles from Daniel's throat. His fangs are long and thick. "Stop staring at me and do something."
Transfixed by the tears, Armand reaches a hand out to touch them. They smear against his fingertips, deep vermillion and warm from the heat of his victim. Their wetness must be more than enough lubrication, Armand thinks as he reaches down to Daniel's taint once again.
Slowly, ever so, so slowly, Armand breaches him with one lone finger. He is so mind numbingly turned on that he rushes to enter another, but Daniel doesn't complain despite the stinging stretch. He only goads Armand on.
"Jesus Christ, please—" he moans, "Fuck the fingers, need you instead. Armand, baby, come on—"
His cock starts to twitch. It does not fill out yet, and Armand doubts it will, but that brings him another kind of thrill.
"I'd love to, beloved, but I don't think you're ready yet," he coos, making his voice gentle and condescending. He presses his palm to Daniel's twitching cock, crushing it against his mon pubis. The sudden pressure makes Daniel howl in pain. "Look at you, still limp. You need me so badly to get you off, don't you?"
Daniel cries as he nods.
Splotchy cheeks red from tears and a humiliated flush, Armand thinks he would look sublime with a collar around his neck.
"My beautiful, poor boy," Armand sighs. Oh, how much he adores him. Armand tugs down his own pants. He lets them pool around his knees. "So pathetic in this state, but you must not worry. I will take care of you. I love you."
Armand bows over him to lick the new droplets of tears away. They taste to him the same way the very top of the cream bucket tastes to a starving animal. So light and pure in its taste. He grinds his cock, hard and heavy, against Daniel with a roll of his hips. Feels his own chest rumble with agitation. He's leaking all over between Daniel's thighs.
"Say it to me," Armand demands, softly.
"I love you," Daniel replies, shaky. The smear of ancient blood against his hole and its aphrodisiac function has melted him completely.
Armand lifts one of Daniel's legs up so his knee is pressed between their chests. Strokes the hair on his shin before throwing it over his shoulder. His boy is so flexible these days. Armand has gone for far too long wondering how far he can bend.
"While I appreciate the sentiment, I meant the other way around." He presses a chaste, worshipful kiss to the inside of his calf. "Who loves you more than anything in the world?"
Daniel's chest stutters as Armand grinds down onto his hole again, his head catching wetly on the rim. It makes Daniel's breath hitch in his throat. He knows he is going to get what he wants if only he behaves and answers correctly.
"You do," Daniel says in a voice smaller than Armand has ever heard it. His heart aches.
"Yes, I do. I love you," Armand murmurs, "I will never let you forget it again."
When Armand pushes inside, he meets a pulsating resistance. Daniel curses beneath him and his thighs shake, and he is so, so tight. Tight enough that Armand might not make his way inside if he was an ordinary man.
Like a virgin, Armand muses, until a sharp bolt of pain shoots through their bond and Armand realizes Daniel might as well be a virgin. When was the last time his boy did this? Surely decades ago. Surely not since being turned. Armand knows his boy better than Armand knows himself. Daniel's insecurity over his lack of performance would not allow him to find pleasure someplace else.
That was for the best. His beloved has been reborn again and his undead virginity will be his maker's to take.
The thought alone is enough to make Armand thrust in deeper. Perhaps the tears weren't enough, but they will make it enough. He presses chaste, loving kisses to his fledgling's cheek, whispering soothing praise into his ear.
"Loosen up for me, my beloved. You can take it, can't you?" he murmurs, "My firstborn, mine only. You were made for this."
Daniel can only groan while pleasure and pain mingles into a two-headed monster. He lets Armand inside.
They melt into one another with filthy sighs. It's so good. A shiny bead of sweat falls from Armand's temple and hits Daniel's shoulder, its slight red tinge wetting his flushed skin. It's too good.
Armand cannot do this. Everything is too overwhelming. From the tight hold Daniel has on him to the anticipation they both have built in their respective minds; his mind gnawing fear of ruining everything again. Five hundred years' worth of sex and it has amounted to absolutely nothing if he cannot please his fledgling. How can he measure up to Daniel's fantasy after everything he has done wrong? How can Armand be worth it?
Then, a thump against Armand's bicep. Daniel has pressed his forehead against it. He is burning hot, just like Armand. "Armand, fuck," Daniel gasps, needy thing that he is. And, well. That's the plan, isn't it?
So, he begins to move.
Metronomic, Armand's way of fucking. He keeps a steady pace which never falters. He fucks him hard, and lets himself relish in the feel of Daniel's borrowed heat surrounding his cock, in those bearclaws sinking into his back and keeping him close. This, Armand can do. This, he can luxuriate within. He is allowed to lose himself, to allow his love for his fledgling to overflow.
There is no room for Daniel's bratty behavior, only eyes rolled back into skulls and slack jaws. All hope Daniel has for regaining his composure is lost once Armand brushes against his enlarged prostate.
"Oh fuck, oh, jesus, fuck yeah," he babbles, "Right there, baby, just like that, fuck—!"
Armand pounds into this wounded spot deep inside his beloved, his flaccid, useless cock slapping his stomach in rhythm to Armand's thrusts. It sounds so loud and obnoxious that Armand almost laughs, has half a mind to mock and humiliate him about it but pleasure has too strong a hold on him.
The only reason Armand manages to strike Daniel's prostate with every stroke is because of its engorged size within his rectum. It should be the size of a walnut, but is most likely double the measurements, and the reminder of that alone is enough for his hips to carry the faintest of stutters. Another sign of a life lived to the very brim, yet another condition that will never be reversed, and it makes Armand's eyes roll into the back of his skull. He pistons in and out and in and out and it feels—
Daniel's cock twitches between them, and it is an adorable sight. Armand almost wants to pinch it the way you pinch a child's cheek. Instead he wraps his hand around the organ and starts to tug on it, his palm sweaty enough to forgo spit. His pace is feverish and he flicks his wrist artfully with the rhythm of his thrusts.
He leans down to kiss the corner of his fledgling's lips. Mumbles there, "This is how much I love you, Daniel." Rolls his hips once more. Slower, deeper. "Can you feel it?"
"Uh huh," Daniel drools like a moron. He's fucked stupid enough to forget all words. At this, pride blooms in Armand's chest. Whether loaded with levodopa infusions or actively going through a night terror, Daniel is never stupid enough to forget all his words.
While licking drool from Daniel's chin, Armand realizes he is close. He can feel it in how his own abdominal muscles grow taut, the curl of his clawed toes sinking into the bear rug. He tries to stave it off for as long as possible, wants Daniel to orgasm first because it is what his boy deserves after being faced with Armand's cruelty for so long, but Daniel has only now started to drip pre-ejaculate onto his fist.
The drip is weak, surprising no one. Armand's mouth waters at the sight, but he stays put; continues fucking him. His steady rhythm starts to stutter once more, twice more, thrice...
"What do you need, lover? Tell me, I shall give it to you," Armand pleads, hoarse. He is so, so close.
Without another word, Daniel's paw sinks into the back of Armand's cranium, softly pushing his face against his pulsepoint. Right above that old neck scar. Armand presses his wet mouth to warm, aged skin slick with sweat, his fledgling's lovely blood thrumming right beneath the paperthin surface. How could Armand have forgotten? Even when Daniel was young and virile, he often needed the bite to push him over the edge.
And Armand drools. If he was not a bite away from utter euphoria, he would be embarrassed by the state of himself. As it stands, he can only let out an airy, broken yes, before sinking into overripe flesh.
The meat of him gives in so easily, skin tearing open beneath Armand's razor-like teeth. Daniel floods into him in a hot, metallic rush.
All Armand can stand to think is yes, yes yes, yes, as he topples over the edge of bleeding pleasure.
Searing blood pours from the puncture wounds and Armand swallows it all down with starved gulps, his throat constricting beneath the violent current flooding down his esophagus. There is so much of it, so much of Daniel cushioning his stomach lining; he runs through Armand's every artery, every vein and capillary, and so does that love that Armand thought himself so long without. But it is right here, and it is his. Like this, Armand can fool himself into believing the telepathic umbilical cord between maker and fledgling failed to sever, that they are still connected as one monstrous being in the sensuous and the spiritual realm. The love floods between them in an unending loop, and it is vast enough to make his entire body buckle as he comes.
He comes in thick ropes deep inside his beloved, and Daniel's walls tighten around him as he reaches his own dry orgasm, milking Armand dry. It is a moment of utter divinity. He fills Daniel to the brim as Armand himself is fulfilled with his blood. No blood nor love will go to waste, not anymore.
It is not until he collapses completely against Daniel's body, energy and muscles all spent, Armand realizes he was crying.
Daniel says nothing. He keeps his arms wrapped around Armand, the weight of his fledgling's palm rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades helps to ground him. So is the familiar musk of him plunged in the stench of sex, the beat of his sick heart. Dropping his shoulders onto Daniel's embrace, Armand lets himself be coddled this once. While he might not be convinced he deserves this gentleness, Daniel still wants to offer it, and Armand is not planning to deprive his beloved of his wishes any longer.
They lie there long enough for the blood to coagulate. Armand is slow to disentangle from the sticky cleft of Daniel's ass and even slower to disentangle from his neck wound, and he only does so to offer it small, dry licks. They look like the very picture of a mother cat cleaning her filthy young.
A clawed finger comes down to brush the tear streaks from his cheeks. When Armand dares to look up at his face, he sees that red rims his fledgling's eyes, as well.
"It got to you too, huh?" Daniel asks, a crooked smile on his handsome face. It serves to remind Armand this is not only a deeply vulnerable moment for him, but one they both shared with one another. He leans into the knuckles brushing against his cheek, every point of contact helping something childish and needy inside him finally settle down.
"Yes," Armand admits, the word barely above a small hitch of his breath. "I have— wanted this for so long."
“I know,” Daniel shushes him, as if he was a child. He presses a firm kiss to the side of Armand’s head and says into his curls, “Fuck, Armand, I know it.”
While basking in the bloody aftermath, Daniel pulls out a pack of Virginia slims from his leather jacket's pocket for them to share. These are not Daniel's preferred choice, which perplexes Armand enough to dissolve his sentimental mood. Daniel shrugs in response. "You used to smoke these pixie sticks constantly, I guess I wanted to figure out why myself," is his reason for the choice.
It charms Armand. No one has been as dedicated to paying attention to his preferences and figuring them out as Daniel Molloy continues to be. It terrifies Armand as much as it excites him.
They lie on the bear rug amongst countless heads and various body parts of taxidermized animals, passing cigarette after cigarette back and forth between one another. It cannot be helped, Daniel is a fast smoker, and Virginia slims burn out so easily when inhaled by ravenous lungs. Armand likes how they look in his large hand, would like those hands curled someplace else.
The thin dart currently sits between Armand's fingers. The cancerous smoke swims in his lungs, and he takes his time with it, all the while the fireplace continues to crackle in front of them; Armand finds that he is more than content.
No, he thinks as he watches his companion watch him, twin pairs of gold flickering in the live fire. I am not content. Content is a sorry state of being. It is neutral and middling..
This is anything but neutral. The way Daniel's tongue darts over his bottom lip is anything but middling. Silence is enough to send electricity up and down Armand's spine, awaiting more.
"You know, the funny thing is that we could have avoided all of this if we just talked," Daniel eventually says, "Instead of you trying to manipulate me into desiring you and jumping to conclusions when you didn't get the result you expected."
His companion glistens with sweat and contentment. Daniel lies so that he is leaning most of his body weight on his hip rather than his ass, which is most likely still sore. The evidence of his orgasm is sprawled across his lap and soft lower belly. His shoulders are lax, his smile confident. That similar pride bubbles in Armand again, knowing he is the one to please Daniel so much.
Finally, Armand breathes out the plumes of smoke. "Perhaps, but the tension which built up over the months did make this invigorating," he points out.
Daniel throws his head back as he groans.
"Don't tell me you're gonna cut me off for another four years. I'd prefer if you just killed me," he complains, unruly.
Armand traces the seam of his bottom lip using the filter. His eyes are stuck to the line of Daniel's exposed throat.
"Oh? Is your libido that high, mister?"
He tries to keep his voice even, but he forgets Daniel is a bloodhound. Armand can tell by the raise of his gray brow that he was caught in fantasy.
"Sure is, now that I've got a piece of you," Daniel replies, cocky, as he pulls Armand closer.
There that hand is again, familiar callouses sinking into the curve of his waist. Their nude legs tangle together, and Armand presses the cherry of the cigarette flat onto Daniel's shoulder. The small fire sears through his pale skin in the most enticing manner. All Armand gets as a response is an enraged hiss, bared fangs on full display. It is adorable.
"Prove it, then," Armand replies with a smile, which Daniel immediately begins to kiss off of his face, making him lose his composure. He starts to giggle instead, but the giggles dissolve into quiet gasps and moans once Daniel deepens the kiss.
Feeling mean, Armand reaches a hand down to grope his flaccid flesh, and pouts. "Are you sure you're aroused, Daniel? Evidence proves otherwise."
Daniel only huffs a laugh, pays his bullying no mind. His kisses travel down Armand's jaw, the softness of his mouth a stark contrast to the sharpness of his teeth against Armand's jugular. His hands, so clever and experienced, travel leisurely down his body. The touch is slow, appreciative, and Armand feels himself grow needy beneath it, arching his back and writhing for more, always more. The need only grows stronger once that hand settles where Armand is rapidly growing firm.
"I have eyes, Armand," he rumbles, "A working mouth, working hands."
"I'm sure you do," Armand replies, the words punctuated by a gasp and a moan. His hands find Daniel's shoulders and he holds on for dear life, one thumb pressing into the cigarette burn.
Daniel says nothing about the lewd sting of pain, he only relishes in it. Pressed against the rug, Armand feels all of Daniel's love upon him. Daniel worships every crevice of him with the singleminded devotion of a castrated monk worshipping his deity at the altar, or better yet, an old man doting on the foolish, ancient being he has waited with bated breath to love for decades.