[armand]

[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.

Comments

[brightyoungreporter]

Okay, shit.

Daniel drops himself all the way into the sand, and pulls Armand into his lap. "No, it was-- way more than satisfactory, sweetheart. I know what I'm gonna say isn't very sexy cool vampire, but it's important to me."

He might be holding Armand too hard, but he can't find it in himself to loosen his grip.

"I freaked out because I thought I fucked up. I know you like, uh, a certain level of submission and I want to give it to you. I liked what we were doing, enough that I was just gonna... use you, and it freaked me out, that I could--" He lets out a sigh. "I don't want to be someone who does that to you. Except I really do wanna do those things to you. I'm sorry, I'm not making any goddamn sense."

His voice a little rough, he adds, "You're my love too, you know."

[damned_devil]

Armand allows himself to be tugged, a rag doll that does little more than be pulled around. Then again, is that not what he'd been for so long? Simply a pawn to be used? Yet, when Daniel speaks, he's not like the others. He's entirely different, because this is the furthest thing from what Marius or his friends had done. Even with the coven, there had always been a power element in his desperation to prove that he was maitre.

If it had been satisfactory and Daniel had stopped anyway, then it means he truly does ...

The words have always been there, but Armand suspects he hadn't believed them. How could Daniel have so easily moved on with Alice? And yet, he had destroyed that marriage and another. He had come back to Armand. Could it be that he truly does love him the way that Armand has yearned for? Uncompared, unlike the rest.

It strikes him that he's been silent too long, and he drags his voice from the depths to speak roughly. "I don't know if I enjoy it because I've done it for so long and it's what I expect, or if it's something I truly enjoy," he admits. "Five hundred years is a very long time for habits to form, especially when I haven't been..." His nose scrunches up, uncertainty appears on his face. "You could never use me the way others have," he says instead. "It's not possible. I'm the one who turned you. I'm your maker. There are dynamics at play now that don't make it like the rest."

[brightyoungreporter]

The uncertainty unclenches something in Daniel's chest.

"Well," he drawls out. "I personally like variety. Kinda seems you might like it too, given how well you can boss me around." This, he punctuates by kissing the clean line of Armand's cheekbone. "You change yourself to make people happy, fine. Five hundred years is a long time to be doing it. I'm invested in making you happy. So fuck it, we do what we want and turn into people that make each other happy. Sound good?"

After a few beats, he adds, "I am absolutely giving myself a case of blueballs over this, but that's my own damn fault for stopping probably the greatest blowjob I can remember. You turned an idiot, maker of mine."

[damned_devil]

There is something with Daniel that feels different. Perhaps it had been their first meeting in 1973, followed by the years after. Daniel is the first person in his entire life that treats him the way he does.

Perhaps that means that Armand can change, too.

It's a terrifying idea, especially when he's so good at pleasing others, but even now, he wants to please Daniel. If this is what he wants, he'll do it. He'll do anything. "It's been some time since I've known simple happiness," Armand murmurs roughly, staring fondly at Daniel as he cups his face with both hands, tenderly looking at his fledgling. "Greatest, you say?" he can't help but tease. "You're not simply placating me?"

[brightyoungreporter]

"I almost wish I was," Daniel answers, turning his face to bite one of those clawed thumbs. "I only stopped because I was worried about you. And I wasn't lying about the dead guys. Not used to getting a blowjob in front of them. Not yet."

He shifts so that Armand can feel some physical evidence; while the worry had cooled him off a little, he's still hard against the curve of Armand's ass, still wanting.

"The Rashid thing is fucking hot," he murmurs, kissing his maker. "Of course, I saw him as the kind to top from the bottom."

[damned_devil]

Armand's gaze falls back to the corpses in question. Rigor mortis is going to set in, but they have vampire strength to aid them and the darkness around them to do the trick. Armand considers the ocean and how far he'll have to go, but with a few rocks, he believes the aquatic life ought to do the work for them.

"Let me clean up," he says, a hand pressed reassuringly to Daniel's hip. "And then we'll return home. We can talk more about our arrangement." His mind is already percolating possibilities as he imagines what Daniel is mentioning.

Retain control, yet also be submissive? It's an interesting idea, and one he wants to consider.

First, there are the bodies. He's out of Daniel's lap and uses his speed, the stoppage of time, and several rocks to tie to the men's clothes, taking them out one by one at least a mile before dropping them into the ocean and watching them sink. The sharks and the fish will make work of them and with luck, they're the type of men that no one will miss.

He lands back on the shore with ease, striding to pick up his jacket as he buttons up again, holding an elbow out for Daniel to take. "Shall we?"

[brightyoungreporter]

Daniel takes the time to put his dick away while Armand takes care of the bodies. By the time his maker has returned, he's sitting half-sprawled on the sand, watching with an openly besotted look and thinking about getting an aquarium.

He hops up, hand sliding into the crook of Armand's elbow. "Yeah, time to go home. Are we walking? Hypnotizing some poor cabbie? One of those situations means I have to keep my hands to myself." Making sure to waggle his eyebrows suggestively, he starts them up toward the boardwalk and streets once more.

[damned_devil]

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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."

[damned_devil]

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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."

[damned_devil]

"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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."

[damned_devil]

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.

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."

[damned_devil]

"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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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.

[damned_devil]

"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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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?"

[damned_devil]

"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."

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."

[damned_devil]

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.

[brightyoungreporter]

"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.

[damned_devil]

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.

[brightyoungreporter]

"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."