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armand

[armand]

Daniel, historically speaking, is terrible at this. He'd been a shitty boyfriend, and then a shitty husband; dates were either the standard dinner and a movie, or more likely, centered around whatever story he was chasing.

The only time in his life that he suspects he might have been any good at romance is the part of his life that's been erased, and no shortage of irony here, by the vampire he's trying to woo tonight.

(He's aware he should give more of a fuck about that, but he just doesn't.)

So he asks Armand to meet him at the Boardwalk, and he uses the power of technology and anonymous dating apps to arrange dinner later, and even though he's got Armand's blood in his veins, he's a little nervous. What memories he's recovered, his turning-- it's not just his health that's returned and sharpened. An emotional component exists, the return of feelings he thought he'd been too cold and truth focused to feel.

Turns out he was just missing most of his heart.

Leaning against the railing, listening to the ocean, he decides not to lead with that.

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Daniel really does look so lovely when he looks at Armand like that. It reminds him of those days throughout the seventies, when Armand had the decision to stay with his beautiful boy, even though he would be damning him to addiction. Never mind that Armand had yet to truly let go of Louis.

That's no longer an obstacle -- in either case.

"I'd like to walk," Armand admits. "We could go to mine for the evening," he suggests. "I live near the ocean, we could stop there and return home for dawn."

He's eager to see precisely where Daniel intends to put his hands, though perhaps he'll keep them to himself as they speak. "Earlier," he says, after he sharply inhales, "when I was on my knees, there was a moment I was not Rashid. I was Amadeo. But you must understand, beloved, that both of them are like other people to me. I can cut them away from myself, so that I no longer experience that."

"Yeah, take me back to yours," Daniel answers, enjoying the idea of it, something slotting into place in that shadowed part of his mind, where the memories used to live.

To his credit, or so he thinks, he doesn't slow or stumble when Armand confirms the very reason he'd stopped things on the beach. His grip tightens, protective toward-- well, all of them. Rashid, who he'd lusted for, Armand, who he loves, and Amadeo.

"Do you want to cut them away from yourself?" And if he could, why hadn't he? "I get that Rashid is more of a game. I didn't get the sense it was the same for Amadeo."

There's a nostalgia in this, especially with how many times Armand would simply appear in the city Daniel was in, and take him back to a fancy hotel, or a cheap motel, or somewhere he'd bought that fell in between. It's almost romantic, even.

He feels the grip tighten, but genuinely cannot imagine why. "It's easier to think of them as different people. For one, the memories aren't as strong as they used to be. On purpose," he admits, seeing as he's been quite cautious to do so, to prevent his own mind from fracturing. "And because when I lost my maker, I no longer felt like Amadeo."

And what was Rashid? "Rashid was protection," he admits. "I wasn't sure if you would recall me. I needed to make sure you didn't."

"I'm the last person to judge anyone's coping habits, given what mine were," Daniel says. He finds himself hoping that the lost maker is safely dead somewhere, all the way fuckin' dead. At the moment, it's better Armand can't read his mind.

"So if that's really what you want to do, or what you think's best, it's your decision." Not that he really expects Armand to buy that. But since they're being honest, he takes his turn. "I didn't know you in any way I understood. I thought I was fascinated by you because you were-- well, beautiful. Devoted to your service. Definitely a smartass."

Glancing sidelong at Armand, admiring his fine profile in the moonlight, he murmurs, "But I felt something else, too, I had dreams that would melt away. Feelings I could blow off as my regrets about dying while closeted."

"I remember yours," is Armand's sorrowful reply, his smile sad. He had fed into them, leading to the downfall of their relationship. Sometimes, he wonders what it would have been like if he hadn't coaxed and plied Daniel with so many wicked things, but he suspects it always would have ended where it did.

"Autonomy, true autonomy, is new to me. If it wasn't my master, who became my maker, then it was one of the covens, and then Louis. Being with you, around you, is the first time I haven't felt I needed to perform or hide my truer nature. I suppose now it's just a matter of discovering who I am."

"If I were crueler, I would suggest that I should do that on my own, but I'm too selfish for that," he informs Daniel, and holds a little tighter as he brings them to his door, using his powers to open the lock. "Do tell me about your dreams, beloved. I want to hear whether your memories were clawing at your consciousness to get out."

"For the record, I'm a big fan of who you already are. Maybe there are parts of me that do remember, that factors who we were together into it with what I see now."

He steals a kiss as they pause at the door, maybe to steel himself ever so slightly to say, "If that was what you really wanted or needed, I'd do it. I'd be miserable, but I'd do it. So thank fuck for that selfishness."

Another kiss, this one lingering, and Daniel murmurs, "Lots of sex, but that's not surprising. Dancing, lights. Hearing you laugh. That was the best one. We were in bed, and I made you laugh."

Armand tips his head to the side, almost as if he intends to scold Daniel. "As I am?" he echoes. "You know so many of the terrible things I've done. I don't regret any of them," he admits frankly, which is something he's never said to Louis before, because it didn't behoove the situation.

And yet, he doesn't. If anything, he only regrets not getting away with it.

He tugs Daniel inside with him, bringing him into the sparsely furnished space -- after all, he lives with Daniel, why bother with this one? "We did go to several nightclubs," he admits, draping his jacket on the table as he begins to unbutton his shirt. "And, I'm sure that you did make me laugh," he says, frowning slightly now. "I'm not sure I can recall when."

Is this another memory he's lost? Perhaps it hurt too much to remember that he couldn't have it anymore, and that's why he buried it.

"Do you think I'd say it if I didn't mean it? That I'd be here?"

Here, finding a place to toss his own jacket, already determined to kiss the frown off Armand's face (no matter how aesthetically pleasing it is). Daniel waits until Armand's done fussing with his clothes to head over and pull him close, head ducking to the open collar of his shirt, the skin revealed there.

"So I'll keep trying until I manage it again," he says. "See, I've got centuries to get it right."

"I think people say a lot of things when they want something," Armand points out, his brow raising as he watches Daniel shed his own clothing. "You are signing up to be with a monster. Most people would run. The fact that you don't is one of the reasons you are so very beloved to me."

It's why Armand loves him. He sees the monster and wants him even more for it. He's never found that before.

His eyes fall shut as he grins, ridiculously pleased, as Daniel begins to work at his skin. He sheds the shirt in a pile on the ground, leaning back to let Daniel hold him. "Maybe if I begin giving you the memories, we'll both start to remember."

"Pretty sure I already signed up," Daniel points out, hands dragging up skin warm from recent feeding, nosing at the hinge of Armand's jaw. "Also, you sat and watched me dismantle seventy-plus years of your life, and turned me anyway. I gotta assume you like it when I pin you down to find the truth of you. Which," and he sweeps the hair from the nape of Armand's neck, nipping him there, "is a huge turn-on to a guy who's programmed to do that."

He hums, contemplating the idea of the recovered memories. Of course he wants them back; he'd been ready, at a couple points, to chase them down, to extract what he's missing if Armand didn't offer them up.

So why does he feel the vague tug of misgiving?

"Is it hard to hold onto them by yourself?" he asks, side-stepping his worry.

"I enjoyed watching you do that. Do you really think I would have let you if I didn't?" Yes, he had tried to retain control, but he had handed Daniel ever single piece of evidence and resource he would need.

The fact that he'd so admirably taken Armand and Louis apart is proof that Armand's faith in him hadn't been misplaced. He inhales sharply at Daniel's mouth on his neck and the light bite, his grin growing smugger as he revels in being able to delight in the prize of an immortal companion -- and the fear that no longer haunts him that Daniel will grow to hate him.

He shifts slightly, tangling his fingers through Daniel's hair to tug him off his neck, staring into his eyes as he drags his nails lightly over Daniel's scalp. "I worry that if I hold them too long, they'll grow tainted or obscured. They won't be as preserved as I'd like. I have a tendency to warp the truth, and I know how much you like the unedited version of events."

"I love that smile," Daniel informs him, feeling more and more daring with his words, "that shit-eating grin that tells me how pleased you are. Maybe that's part of it, I think the evil genius shit is hot."

The next bite is a little harder, and he nods along with what Armand says about the memories.

"You know just what to say to me, that unedited truth business," he says, meeting his maker's eyes, mouth tugging up at one corner. "Very hot stuff." He presses a brief kiss to Armand's mouth before he adds, "I want the memories. How easy is it to do?"

"And here you are, praising my genius. You do know how to stroke a man's ego," he murmurs, his hand already in Daniel's trousers to do precisely that, leaning into the bite as his breaths add sound and he moans softly, catching Daniel's gaze.

The business of memories deserves the full respect. "There are years," he warns. "But it would be undoing a block. Imagine a wall in your mind," he murmurs, "we'd be taking a sledgehammer to it. What I don't know is how much damage the drugs did, and how much I did. I can only fix the latter, the former is simply lost."

He isn't doing that, yet. Despite his tendency to do whatever he likes, he waits. Perhaps because he's eager for more kisses, more touches, more bites. More praise. "You'll know I abandoned you twice. You'll feel it doubly so."

"Fuck," Daniel breathes, with heat and feeling, though right now it has solely to do with knowing those long, lovely fingers are wrapped around his cock.

He pushes himself back to the matter at hand, at figurative hand. "So it's not something we can do spur of the moment, that's fine. And even if you left, you're back now. You're not going anywhere."

Hand curling at the back of Armand's neck, he reels him in for an urgent kiss. "And in giving them back," he says quietly, "that Daniel you abandoned will know you came back to him."

The smug grin returns, wider now, as he enjoys the effect he has on Daniel. He keeps a speculative look in his eyes, though, as if he's truly shocked that he could be having quite this impact, even as he begins to absently stroke his shaft.

"It's something we could do over hours of work. Peeling back layers until we find the truth." The truth, obscured by Armand's edits, but also the supply of drugs and blood he had given to his beloved boy, alongside all the gifts -- not to mention the entire island that they had once called their own.

He kisses Daniel possessively, because now that he has come back to him, he refuses to let him go. "After a small amount of subterfuge," is practically lost in the kiss.

"You know how I love to peel back layers until I find the truth," Daniel agrees, his hands getting busy peeling back layers of Armand's clothes. "One of my favorite things."

Not ever an easy process, paring the bullshit away until something resembling truth is left, as close to the truth as anyone can get be without losing the big picture.

"You'll be with me, and it's not just the truth-seeker in me. I want to know what I did to make you laugh, how many clubs we got kicked out of, because there's no way we didn't."

He plunges a hand into Armand's hair-- he's a little obsessed, and who can blame him-- and kisses back just as intently, as possessively, tugging him forward as he backs himself to the wall. "How about weird places we had sex," he murmurs, snagging another kiss, and another.

Armand helpfully steps out of his trousers, left only with the tight boxer-briefs that highlight all his best features, advancing on Daniel to pin him to the wall, still enjoying the desultory handjob he's able to provide.

"You did used to get us in terrible trouble," Armand admits, thinking of Daniel at his highest, and how glorious he'd burned. "I suspect some of those times you made me laugh were after I had drunk from you when you were soaring close to the sun. Everything was terribly amusing then."

He pins Daniel to the wall now, kissing him as he drags the pad of his thumb over the head of his cock. "We did fuck once in a morgue," he murmurs, "a fanboat in Florida. In a gondola in Venice. And in front of a terribly wonderful movie."

It's a shame he doesn't still have that VHS. He did love it so.

"I can't imagine the amount of trouble I would have been, high on drugs and the knowledge that I had a vampire looking out for me," Daniel says, barely able to get it out before he groans. He thrusts shamelessly against Armand's hand. "Did you kill people for me? I wouldn't be opposed to a bedtime story about that."

The list of places they'd fucked gets him laughing against Armand's neck, delighted by most of them. "Florida? Florida used to be a lot cooler than it is now."

"I cleared every city of would-be fledgling attackers," Armand confesses without a care in the world for his admitting to murder. "Anyone who dared threaten you forfeited their life. Any number of humans fell in that camp as well."

He grabs at Daniel's neck with his other hand to kiss him passionately, desperately, as fond memories of Florida filter through his mind.

"It was home," he admits, nostalgia colouring his view of it. "The place I was happiest, until it all went terribly wrong." Now, he focuses intently on bringing Daniel off, sinking to his knees for the second time tonight as he strips away Daniel's trousers to finish the work he'd begun earlier.

"That should bother me," Daniel gasps. He doesn't tack on a but, and only partly because Armand's unlikely to agree he shouldn't lay waste to anyone who'd ever looked at Daniel the wrong way.

He has a few precious moments to analyze the softness around Florida, to mark it as important, before Armand's back on his knees. "Yeah," he gasps, cupping Armand's cheek. "Please."

His cock springs free as he's stripped down, flushed and leaking. Stroking the pad of his thumb along Armand's cheek, he braces against the wall. "Come on, blow my mind, I want to be wrecked."

There are laws that must be followed, but for Daniel, Armand has broken them so many times over. He's killed vampires, he'd taken a mortal lover, he had fallen deeply for him. He had done all this, even while he argued for the laws to be upheld with Louis.

He's a hypocrite, but he cannot find it in him to regret it. Grabbing Daniel's hips to steady him, he presses him against the wall firmly and holds hard, unearthing old skills without the memory, because all that matters is giving Daniel pleasure. Tentatively, he plays this in his mind like he's in control.

Daniel may want this, but Armand will dictate what he gets. It's why he plays with pace, slowing down to tease, nearly popping off a few times, before returning to the task with fervor, eager to bring Daniel over the edge.

"Oh my god," he groans, head thudding back against the wall. They're safe, maybe not back at home but close enough, and Armand stays present, showing off a truly impressive set of talents that make him want his memory back yesterday.

He strokes Armand's hair in a way that will likely make it wild and messy, a thumb tracing the shell of his ear. Holding back on the noise would be impossible, but he also wants to be heard, wants to give every reaction to Armand as he kneels there.

And in very little time at all, he finds himself on the edge, cock throbbing, thighs trembling-- a place Armand keeps him, dangling. "I'm gonna come," he gasps, figuring it's obvious but still blurting out every thought on his fucking mind because he can't think anymore.

Armand's wicked thought is that if he makes Daniel make enough noise, then perhaps a concerned neighbour will come to check on Daniel to ensure that he's not being mistreated. Oh, how he would truly delight in that. It only makes him work harder, right up until he receives his warning.

At which point, he eases back, resting on his ankles as he peers pensively at Daniel, one hand returning to do the work. "Yes, lovely," he murmurs, lips pink and wet as he keeps his eyes big. "All over me, you are," is his insistence. "Say my name as you do," he coaxes, taking his time to nudge Daniel over the edge with one last little flick and a rub.

"Oh, fuck, Armand," he moans, staring down at his pretty, pretty face, those eyes both innocent and predatory, the mouth he knows to be flushed pink from his own cock. He watches, rapt, and when he feels the wet slide of Armand's tongue along the head of his cock, he's gone, coming hard.

He keeps his eyes open by sheer will, wanting to see it, wanting his claim satisfied all over again even as he does exactly what he's told. "Look at you," he whispers, wrecked and pleased. "You're all mine."

Is that loud enough to summon the neighbours? No, but Armand can try again later, if only to see how flushed and nervous he can make Daniel when there are people suddenly concerned for his health.

And won't that be a fun little game to play, while Armand sits innocently in the corner.

Now, though, he's glad he's disrobed for the mess Daniel's made of him. A small frisson of pleasure courses through him as he realizes how much he'd enjoyed giving Daniel a command from his knees and having it obeyed. Perhaps there's promise for him yet. Slowly, he drags his thumb over the mess and begins to lick it up, bit by bit, still on his knees though shifting to sit on his hip to absorb some of the impact.

"You're very thorough in claiming your territory," he praises.

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