brightyoungreporter

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Babe," Daniel says, well aware that nothing about him in tone or facial expression actually communicates what he's about to say, "we can't make a habit out of hypnotizing the fine citizens of this city to be our little worker bees at any given moment." Yeah, this would be more effective if he hadn't handed the banana over in favor of making sure that jacket gets back on Armand and taking his hand again. "It feels a little... ruling class. For me."

He gives a little snort at the description of Santiago. "Fine. Either of our fellow vampires remember him enough to flash me a mental image, I'll rethink my position on it."

Following Armand's gaze to the ferris wheel, he finds he sure does want to do something about his feelings and get a good grope in, maybe more than he'd even expected. He squeezes the cool hand in his, lets Armand move them along.

"I can't remember the last time I've been on one of these," he says, once they're at the foot of it, looking up at the slowly rotating lights.

From:

damned_devil

Armand simply stares back at Daniel for the reproach about using the local population as their help. "What else are they for?" Perhaps he needs Daniel to remind him about humanity, because it's been so long that Armand had been one himself that he forgets that they aren't simply vessels for their usefulness.

And still, Daniel takes his hand, so he smugly smiles, instructing the hypnotized man to leave the stuffed creature at their door.

"I'm not sure either will paint the picture accurately," Armand muses, given what he had put them through, respectively. Yes, trying to hog the spotlight should seem a more minor inconvenience, but Armand has seen both Lestat and Santiago on stage and is well aware of the dual egos at play.

Armand watches Daniel's face in the lights, staring at him with awe and adoration and no lack of besotted fondness. "I hope you've no fear of heights," he murmurs, as if he hasn't taken Daniel in his arms before flying to the sky before.

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Nah," Daniel says, paying way more attention to Armand's face than anything else. His stupid, beautiful, angelic face that's probably about to hypnotize the ride operator, and while Daniel's accepted that much of his life will now involve swindling (he's okay with it), he takes the opportunity to pass over the five bucks it takes to ride. "No fear of heights here."

He wraps his arm around Armand's waist, leading him over to-- what, loading area? Either way, it's where they can settle onto the bench and get buckled in, so to speak, the bar coming down over their laps.

"Of course, you could always hop out and zoom around," he teases, leaning in so that his mouth brushes the perfect shell of Armand's ear.

From:

damned_devil

Armand spends a half a moment debating whether he intends to climb into Daniel's lap, but they're in public and he does still believe in propriety and acting as one would expect. Still, it's quite the tempting thing -- as Daniel always is -- and he leans firmly into the weight of his shoulder.

"And abandon you again? I'm done with that," he says, as if this is just a casual comment and not a reminder of the time he did abandon Daniel. His tongue taps his lower lip as he inhales sharply for the touch of Daniel's lips to his ear, a shiver made worse by the breeze striking up.

"Is this what humans do, then? Circle the world to see it from above?"

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Yeah," Daniel says, still nuzzling, taking in the scent of Armand's skin, his hair. "I know, you're not going anywhere." His hand shifts to Armand's thigh and squeezes. "I'm not letting you go anywhere."

Even a week ago, those words would have felt strange in his mouth, answering some bone-deep urge and pushing past the filters in his brain that say too much, too possessive. Now, he hears Lestat's voice in his head, the bond between fledgling and maker, and he goes with it.

"It's one way we do it," he agrees, quiet and warm. "...they, it's they now, isn't it. But having so recently been there myself, I can say a giant wheel in the sky doesn't begin to cover what humanity will do to see the world from higher up."

From:

damned_devil

Armand's hand drifts into Daniel's hair to slide through the curls, using his sharp nails to roughly nudge at his scalp. His eyes are closed, negating the bright lights and the view as they begin to travel upwards, but to him, it's about who he's with and that Daniel wants him in a way that he hasn't felt in centuries.

It also begs the question -- has anyone ever wanted him like this? The truth is too terrifying to face, so he ignores it.

"I cannot wait to try running and see exactly how far I get. I suppose I do owe you a chase in reverse," Armand muses, staring at him fondly as he opens his eyes, ignoring the city below. "Are you speaking metaphorically, beloved?" he questions, of Daniel's 'higher up' comments.

From:

brightyoungreporter

Something clicks for Daniel, and he grins into the side of Armand's neck. "I had, what, about five more arranged stops on the book tour, back home," he murmurs. "And then, yeah, your time was up. I wasn't sure how I was gonna do it. Draw you out, maybe. Punish myself until you got the picture. Or," and he presses a kiss to that golden skin, "I was gonna figure out how to hunt you down."

His hand squeezes Armand's thigh again.

"Sounds like we should do that anyway. I know we've got a small world here, but I'm game." He nips at Armand's jawline, and then eases back, the rest of the conversation coming back to him.

"Nah, I was thinking more like NASA," he says. "Vampires in space, though. There's a book idea. You know Rolling Stone called me a pulp fantasist?"

From:

damned_devil

"You wouldn't have needed to go very far," Armand notes, ensuring his tone is even and half-bored. "I was never that far from you. I couldn't face the guilt and the repulsion of what I had done to my fascinating boy, but I was there."

The squeeze at his thigh and the promise of a hunt is a promising thing, as equal as it an old memory locked away that he doesn't know how to experience. He takes the sway of the bucket into account, sliding into a straddle of Daniel's lap while they're poised above Darrow, where he can draw his nails down Daniel's face.

"I'll let you chase me anywhere you like. Beg for you. Plead for you," he murmurs. "Let you write whatever books you like." He leans in to press soft kisses to Daniel's neck, fangs elongating. "Tell me which writer and if ever I return home, I'll deliver his body to your door."

From:

brightyoungreporter

"I know," Daniel tells him, hands sliding to the small of his back, absolutely no fear of their compartment capsizing. Even if it did, Armand can fucking fly. "I thought I could feel you. I was just getting impatient."

His head tips back, mouth falling open. "If I started writing about you, I'm not sure I'd ever stop. Biography, fiction, a series of essays... I could go on." He slides his hand into Armand's hair, crowding those growing fangs towards his throat.

"Right now, let me feel your teeth."

From:

damned_devil

"You? Impatient?" he mocks gently, raising a perfectly dubious eyebrow as he looks at his infuriating reporter. "Never," is lost to Daniel's neck as he sinks his teeth in and drinks from him, slowly to draw out this moment. He unbuttons his suit jacket swiftly to give himself more room to rock his hips forward against Daniel's, letting their compartment sway a little.

"You tried," he murmurs, in between soft bites and lapping licks to clean the blood, "to get my story before. Over the years, I suppose you were able to draw more out, blood from a stone. I'm not like Louis, though. I don't need the odyssey of recollection."

He'd rather burn his memories, let them all be lost like the ones already in the darkness.

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Fuck," Daniel sighs, with feeling, staring up at the night sky and its unfamiliar stars as his blood pumps slow and easy into Armand's mouth. He's hard under the roll of Armand's hips, pressing up slightly.

"You may not need the odyssey of recollection, but if I know myself at all, it wasn't about that. Just like I do now, I would have wanted to know everything about you for the selfish pleasure of knowing it. Of being the world's first and foremost Armand expert."

From:

damned_devil

The taste of Daniel's blood is as heady as ever, but he only takes a little drink. He still wants Daniel on his own two feet when the ride comes back around. As they descend to a new position, he clambers out of Daniel's lap, but only to grab at his hips and try and reverse it, so Daniel can have his own drink.

"I'm afraid no one can ever be that," Armand informs him, a soft sadness in his eyes. "There's too much I've forgotten about who I am. There's too many walls that have been erected to become who I've needed to be. However, you can be the expert of the Armand I am now."

From:

brightyoungreporter

Does Daniel trust the ferris wheel here in the pocket dimension of batshit ill-repute? Nope.

Does he trust Armand? Against every ounce of common sense and happily so.

He shifts and moves just as directed, tickling some memory deep in his muscles of letting Armand move him how he pleases. With a soft, hungry sound, he takes his own little drink, marveling at the taste, the intimacy, the lunacy of doing this high above the ground.

He's careful to heal up the puncture, lap up any smears of red, and then he's kissing Armand's face, at the outer corner of each eye.

"I am absolutely gonna be the expert of the Armand you are now, because the Armand you are now is my Armand." He grins, buzzed and buzzing with the blood, the heights, fully intending to do whatever he needs to ease that sad look. "Gonna be your biggest fan."

From:

damned_devil

Armand feels himself on the brim of a tender moment, restraining himself furiously so he doesn't simply burst into an overwhelmed emotion that he can't control. There is no weaker possibility than him simply losing control, and he fights furiously to keep it, even through Daniel's romantic proclamations.

He wants to be that for him, but then, he's wanted to mould himself for all his lovers, and be exactly what they need him to be. Ever the actor, ever the performer, ever the donated. "You're high," he accuses fondly, instead of having to process the unsteadiness of his reaction, tenderly cupping Daniel's face with a palm. "You're always so lovely when you're high."

From:

brightyoungreporter

Yeah, he's a little high.

And at any other time since he'd met 'Rashid' in Dubai, Daniel wouldn't settle for a deflection. He'd chase the story, his own personal hunt.

"I can feel your brain trying to do something with that," he says, kissing the sweet shape of Armand's mouth before he settles himself back to where he should be. His arm stretches, easy in its mingled protection and possession, around Armand's shoulders. "Stay here with me, okay? It's almost time for dinner, anyway. I want to show off for my maker a little bit."

From:

damned_devil

Armand is stuck, both in the thoughts of the past, and his fears of the present, along with spinning his wheels to preserve his future. Honesty is something he uses sparingly, as a weapon, as a humbling moment to show that he's open and vulnerable (but only when he means to be).

And yet, not, as he settles into Daniel's hold, he's tentatively shaping his mouth around something else. "There is a version of me that will exist because you want him to," he says. "And I willingly wish to be that for you. That Armand. However, I'm not sure that it will be who I am, because I don't know who I am. I only know that I exist to protect what I want."

Right now, that's Daniel Molloy, and god help anyone who gets in his way.

He does perk, slightly, at the thought of dinner and Daniel impressing him. "What machinations are you orchestrating?" he asks, still trying to shake off his doubts.

From:

brightyoungreporter

Daniel's heart either bursts or breaks; he can't be sure.

"I know, babe," he says, almost a whisper. "I know that about you, and it's-- it's true of all of us, that we're shaped by the people most important to us. It's why I'm trying to be careful, isn't it." That bit turns statement, instead of question. "But if you mean that, then I'm just gonna concentrate on making you happy."

Which leads to him pulling a burner phone from his pocket.

"A couple of fucking idiots on Darrow's online dating service think they're meeting a sixteen year old girl on the beach in about ten minutes."

From:

damned_devil

"Sometimes, I wonder if you aren't the first person that I've stayed myself for. You haven't flinched at my worse crimes, or my heinous sins. You know what I've done, even if not the whole extent, but you don't burden me with pity." His fingers slide over Daniel's chest, resting over his heart.

He'd turned Daniel selfishly, but he's so grateful he did, and grateful he waited, so Daniel could hear everything and choose him still -- the first who ever has.

"Oh dear," Armand muses, his smile growing with every second, gleeful with the hunt ahead. "Well, they're going to be very disappointed to find us, then. I have been quite peckish, I haven't eaten a thing to prepare for our date."

From:

brightyoungreporter

He lifts Armand's hand from his chest, lips brushing those long and elegant fingers that he's spent a hell of a lot of time considering.

"You'd think terrible people, assholes in general, would taste worse, but there's a real satisfaction in it," Daniel tells him, pressing a pleased smack of his lips to Armand's temple. "Like cracking open a cold beer after a long day."

The ride comes to an end, then, and either no one noticed them sucking neck up there or they know better than to bring it up. "C'mon," Daniel says. "We'll be picnicking on the beach."

From:

damned_devil

"The sins that a person bears never bleeds into their blood, it's merely the satisfaction of ridding the world of something that blots its virtue that makes us feel so glorious," he opines, eyes drifting closed for a moment for the kiss to his temple.

These soft glorious domestic touches will do him in, if only because he's not sure he'll ever get used to receiving them with such lovely frequency.

Armand smiles winsomely at the ride operator, taking Daniel's hand as he strolls away (with one last wink at those in line), eyeing the beach and the darkness that beckons. "You will show me the message log later," Armand insists. "I want to see your best evocation of a teenaged girl."

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Are you flirting with the mortals?" Much as he'd like to sound indignant, he hears his own amused fondness, maybe a little bit of irritation sneaking in-- irritation easily soothed by squeezing Armand's hand and then switching it up so he's got a hand on Armand's ass as they pass the last of them.

"It's not my best work," he says, "but yeah, of course. You haven't tried catfishing for dinner before? It seems like it's up your alley." Gentle teasing, accompanied by the shift to wrapping his arm around Armand's waist. Being able to put his hands on his maker, however and whenever, only makes him greedy for more.

The walk to the designated spot on the beach isn't a long one, but the ocean rolls calm against the sand and the stars shine just as bright from here. It's fucking romantic, is what it is.

Has he always wanted this? He's done shit like this before, with the wives, with girlfriends; it'd been pleasant. Could be that his vampire senses are sharper, and it's much more likely to be Armand-induced euphoria. A small, nagging part of him, however, wonders if he might have enjoyed it more with another man at this side.

As he leads Armand around a natural wall of rock, he sets the tangle of thoughts aside. He is here with Armand, and they're gonna drink some perverts and at least get to third base about it.

His phone chimes. "Any second now," he murmurs, and sure enough, a pair of overgrown frat boys bearing a case of beer slink onto the scene.

From:

damned_devil

"I'm simply being polite," he says, as if it hasn't been flirting with them (and yes, that is absolutely what he had been doing, and enjoying himself while doing it, and enjoying seeing Daniel prickle over it). He supposes that he'll have to continue to test the bounds of Daniel's possessiveness later, to see what he can reap.

He raises a brow, cool and calm as he deflects the accusation. "I may have fibbed from time to time in order to arrange a hunt." The truth, though, is perhaps worse. "Most of the time, there's no trickery needed. I simply post my own face. I have quite a few takers."

This, now, isn't to make Daniel jealous, but simply to state facts -- he has never struggled to lure people in with his looks.

The rock wall does make Armand want to pause dinner, pin Daniel to the rocks, and devour him whole, but he truly is hungry. He's been fasting for days to prepare for his next meal and Daniel has done an excellent job providing for them. "Would you like to find out if perhaps their type is flexible?" he suggests, already taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his cuffs to roll up his sleeves, mindful of the mess that's soon to be created.

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Yeah," Daniel says, grinning stupidly. "You're a pretty princess and the boys come running when you beckon your unbearably lovely finger. Probably plenty of old perverts too."

Their quarry starts to bitch at each other about whether they're in the right spot. Daniel takes the moment to shed his own jacket, and then reaches out to skim his hands along Armand's naked forearms. "Yeah, that... that does it for me," he mutters, "I like that."

"Do your thing, babe," Daniel says. "If they end up hitting on you, though, I might rip their dicks off."

From:

damned_devil

Armand begins to walk away, beckoning Daniel to come with him with one of those unbearably lovely, long fingers before he turns to smile warmly at the two boys. "Gentlemen," he greets them, amiable and warm. "Are you here waiting for someone?"

The two of them give him a disgusted look, even if their eyes linger far too long. They're tempted, Armand can see that, and even when the inevitable begins to happen, he feels a thrill go through him.

"Fuck off, faggot," the one on the right snarls, nudging his buddy. "Hey. Maybe if the girls don't show up, you can fuck this one. I bet he's as tight as them."

Oh dear. Armand's smile widens. "Beloved," he calls over his shoulder calmly. "Would you like that one?"

From:

brightyoungreporter

"Awww, babe, you're so sweet. I sure hope you meant what you said about sin not tainting the blood, because this guy's at best a date rapist." He strolls along, letting the assholes start to panic. "Hey, next time, how about I wear a suit and we pull a Dateline, only better because we eat them."

He pauses once he's next to Armand, and then gives him the sweetest kiss he can manage-- with feeling, not just for show.

And then he turns and shows off for his maker.

Daniel grabs the fucking bigot by the throat, turning so Armand can absolute get a look before he opens wide and sinking long fangs into his prey's neck. The blood spurts hot and wet, and Daniel's watching too, to see Armand feed.