love of the form and essence divine !

“Is it better that I’m warm? I usually need a cool rag or the bathroom floor. Hold on– give me a second, let me take your shoes off.” He pries Armand’s chilly, marble fingers from him as he speaks and sits up. Armand has his knees nearly to his chest as Daniel pulls off his sneakers without bothering with the laces and tosses them to the floor. 

“There’s a trash can by the bed on your side so just tell me if the spins pass back around. They usually do whenever you move. Or aim in that direction.”

It wouldn’t matter if Armand puked on the bed if the booking weren’t in Daniel’s name– even if they’re in another country tomorrow, he’d prefer not to receive any alarming voicemails. He slides off the mattress and kneels to snatch his pink liquor from the mini fridge, then shuts it with his foot. He twists off the top and gingerly climbs back to his place beside his lover. 

For a moment it seems that he might make no reply at all, holding his aches down with the stillness and silence of stone. But a long, tensing inhale comes, and then its low-moaned release. “Not now, no. Not even a drop.” But he doesn’t know if it wouldn’t help to drink clean blood; he only knows the thought of it makes his bile churn and must be rejected out of hand.

He cannot think clearly enough to reason with his condition. If he could hold it up against the light, compare it with his centuries of knowledge through his and others’ experiences, perhaps he would see his remedy. But his thoughts slip away between his fingers when he tries to study them. (What warrants their agility when he still feels himself wading through mud?)

More traitor still, he feels the sting of frustrated tears coming on, and all he can do is shut his eyes against them and grimace. While his mind trails behind, his heart lurches with an irrepressible sense of misery and dread and loneliness, in spite of Daniel’s comfort. Why should he feel lonely in his lover’s arms? Why should he feel dread when the danger of discovery is past? ‘I am helpless,’ surfaces a thought like a diseased fish, belly-up, repugnant. And not his. ‘I can’t do anything right. Worthless, stupid, screw-up,’ come the words in the voice of a wilting wallflower in a last gasp effort at connecting with someone, anyone, in a dark dance hall. ‘Yes, I want it, yes, soft curls, brown eyes, quick death…’

His meal. These are final thoughts and memories of his meal, usually digested with the blood, now impressing themselves upon his senses. How ridiculous, and yet how unyielding the sensation!

typical armand, to face down the hurt he's caused with emptiness. typical, to act as though nothing can or should be said to the pain he caused. this, louis remembers so well about his former companion : the way armand could seem so small, so pitiful and weak, even when he wasn't. little arun, victim of all. louis hadn't understood it for what it was, when they'd been companions. it had taken time, separation, to know that the man of whom he'd once demanded true vulnerability wore that mask easier than louis had once assumed. the whimper only frustrates louis more. he won't trust any of it.

and this, this anger ---- let armand feel it. that's what he wants, right? a reaction? a moment ago, louis had been prepared to hold himself cold. he'd spent so, so many years, dead to it all. so many of them with armand. it surprises him sometimes, when the hate comes pouring back in, and he remembers how much he'd once held inside him, a monster gorged on self pity and rage.

But it wasn’t about Daniel. His surrender to the sunlight did not have a thing to do with his and Daniel’s fractured companionship, or with any desire to drag him or Louis toward any particular feeling on his account. The Veil. It was about the Veil, about Him, and the certainty, in that moment, that he could die for the perfection of that ikon. The fire hadn’t started with the sun, but with that face upon the Veil, burning him from the inside. The char, the desiccation of him only followed naturally. 

Not made by human hands, he had cried! The veil, the imprint, human, ghostly, perfect, whole, incarnate — What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? — Heart aching, aching at the thought of Him so close, and so impossible to hold onto. His lips break from Louis’s skin with a ragged gasp.

Open up is all it takes. Daniel tastes Armand before the food, and his freezing and perfect fingers like icicles are more welcome and familiar than anything on the table. As he breaks the skin and chews the grape's soft insides, he is overtaken by the sensation of being examined. It seems that Daniel is all mouth and throat. The rest of him is of less interest and may as well not be there at all, like being set up in a dentist chair. He doesn’t know where to look and opts to keep his gaze trained on Armand. He looks like he is eating too. When Daniel swallows, he politely leans forward into the knuckles curled up against his neck. He should be less indulgent, or at least make it harder to earn, but he doesn’t know if he could help it if he tried.

Your Daniel? Come on man—

He’s drinking Daniel in, the mouth, the throat, yes, but he notes too the way Daniel has settled himself, the reluctance to set all his weight down on his feet or his thin ankles. He reads the discomfort, now only a murmur, but which will surely mount the longer he holds the position. And Armand lets him, thinking about how much greater the relief will be when the hands readjusting him come after a long, dull hum of pain. And then there’s the drumming fingers, anticipatory and impatient. Daniel is waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s years too late to convince Daniel he isn’t up to anything. But what if this is the something he’s up to? Can Daniel imagine that?  That the novelty of putting Daniel on his knees, on the floor, at heel and finger-feeding him to watch him take it is what Armand is after?

Another grape is offered, pushing past Daniel’s lips. Then another. He watches Daniel accept bite after bite until his handful of fruit is spent, and reaches then for the ornamentation of a prosciutto rose. Fingers peel away a fleshy petal and the paper-thin marbling of the meat lays draped on Armand’s thumb. This time when Daniel opens his mouth, Armand presses it to his tongue in a grotesquerie not unlike a communion wafer received by the sinner. 

Armand’s decisive tap wakes Daniel with a little jump only because he wants to be alert enough to listen to Armand’s answer. 

Marzapane first, and then panforte with pepper, which was spicy and sweet. It feels important. The anecdote nestles somewhere in Daniel’s heart to be admired later like a stolen trinket. If Daniel has tried panforte, he cannot place it, nor can he conjure the image. His head is not keen on cooperating with him any longer, and he refuses to try and force it. 

What floats through his mind instead is the brisk jet of shower water from an hour or two prior. He thinks of sitting curled up with his phone resting on the arm of the bathtub where he watched the dark screen unhappily, waiting for another notification. He thinks of resting his cheek on the bathroom tile. He was past waiting out waves of nausea and merely taking refuge in a cool place, familiar and welcoming as always. 

I wish you didn’t eat today. You’re too hot. I miss the tile. 

He hugs Armand tighter anyway and tries to fit more of himself in Armand’s lap.

“Give it an hour, Daniel, and the warmth will fade. All too quick, I promise you.”

Their nights tend to fly by in a blur, almost too fast to feel. But he knows Daniel feels every second of this night, so much stiller, more stagnant than Armand usually allows. He knows Daniel has been cross about his illness for the reminder that he can still be made so weak so easily. That he is human, and struggles at times to keep up with all Armand’s grand plans. Is that why he asks, in spite of his evident fatigue, for the kinds of touches that thrill? How does Daniel want to wait out that hour until the chill sets back in?

The hold on his waist loosens. The hand travels down Daniel’s arm and plucks his hand away from the press between them to bring it to his lips. Armand lays kisses on the knuckles and the fingertips, on the clammy palm and the silk-smooth skin of the wrist. Sharp against soft, a nip, playful, fleeting, follows his ministrations. 

'My tongue? Whatever will make you happy, my beautiful boy.'

That tongue, redder even than the rosy lips, emerges and runs over the spot where Daniel’s pulse beats most forcefully. From it and from the charge of Daniel’s thoughts, Armand tries to read a reaction. Exhausted or excited? Which way tends his want?

He feels pinned down. Beneath Armand’s palm, his heart beats faster, perhaps only to remedy the distance between it and Armand’s hand. A shudder hides in the slow breath slipping past Daniel’s pleased smile.

“You make it difficult when half of what you say is only true on technicality,” His words are a sliver quicker than they should be. Faint color dusts his cheeks, and he finds himself helplessly grabbing hold of Armand’s hips. “If you loved me, you’d answer my questions. Lovers do less talking.”

He lets go just as quickly to push against the sheets as he tries to shift position. It does little to help him and only creates more friction between his lap and Armand’s ass. Daniel is not yet so far gone as to forget that he wanted something else from Armand. He is not yet so far gone as to forget that for someone unhappy to have Daniel in his coffin, Armand went very quickly from affronted to fucking him.

"Am I not answering?" he asks, tone honeyed and teeth bared. He will not bite Daniel again, not tonight, but he teases them both with the tip of a fang peeking through his smile, electrifying his kiss. "Are we not still talking?"

Armand's hands snake over Daniel's skin, down his arms, and latch onto his wrists, stilling them against the sheets. His boy is so much taller, all length, all limbs, and when Armand stretches to match his reach it pushes him flush against Daniel from grinding hips to the lips at his throat. There is nowhere to hide from his touch, no way to squirm that does not excite the friction between them which is slowly eroding Daniel's will to argue. Armand feels it without such human distraction. The sensation is there, all the nerves still singing, but it is a mere shadow to the rush of the blood. His body does not drive toward that one, limited sense of satiation, but feels every inch in its equal erotic potential. It is not the thrill between his legs that mounts to sweeter and sweeter peaks; it is the thrill behind his eyes, in the mind of him, wanting Daniel shivering, humming, twitching for him, wanting to play their hungry, voyeuristic games, wanting to pick Daniel and put him back together, with or without the idea of any preconceived climax. Armand learned long ago that he doesn't need that dead mortal reflex to fuck a human and love it. The pleasure surpasses the physical.

'We call that kink, boss,' Daniel had once deadpanned in response to Armand's poetics.

The grip on Daniel's right wrist shifts, and the pad of Armand's pointer finger rubs over the tender bite marks there. (He could have healed them, of course, but Daniel gets cross at him when he does. Daniel likes to feel the wound later.)

Was there love in your suffering, when you went into the sun?

He remembers it all. His mother's face. The voice of the choir as it became one. The glimpse of himself at the alter, human and grown as he never could be. Sybelle. Benjamin. The promise of love still to come, even in the fall.

Armand gives him a catlike smile, and the approval alone stokes the heat blooming in his chest. Daniel would do anything so long as Armand watched him with pleasure.

It is not Daniel’s job to decide when his wants will be acknowledged, nor is he any good at guessing. So it catches him by surprise when Armand nods to the hideous need crawling from his bones and snatches him forward like an unruly animal.

It elicits a startled yelp and his palms hit the hardwood. He intends to hiss out a curse, but all that comes out is a breathy hum. The fingers of his left hand tap erratically, nerves and eager anticipation mixed up into the same color.

Humiliation grinds hard against him at being commanded to crawl to his own debasement. He does as Armand expects and peers upward, both indignant and feverish with desire, and a pair of eyes as unyielding as his hands reflect back at him.

The hand that doesn't hold that electric point of contact is extending to hover over the meal. Armand seems to be weighing, not by the look of the food, but by reading the spark in Daniel's eyes, where to start the feast. Whatever he sees there, the nimble fingers are quickly guided; he plucks a grape and brings it to Daniel's lips. The knuckle of his forefinger drags across his lips for an indulgent moment. "Open up." And then the grape is pushed into Daniel's mouth, the tip of Armand's thumb pressed to his lower lip.

Daniel’s breath staggers with anticipation as Armand takes his jaw, tight enough to tell him it is a command, but not enough to stray far from tenderness. Yes, there was a discussion Daniel was trying to tug Armand toward, and he will return in a minute– oh, he loves how cold Armand’s fingers are. He wishes Armand would move his hips again. His lover kisses him like he really is something to be savored, and Daniel reaches for him, asking for more. He finds that his limbs are losing some of their heaviness as he forks his fingers through Armand’s hair, and the other finds its way up his thigh and gives his ass a squeeze. Daniel hums anxiously at the delicate kiss of a fang, waits for it to pierce him, and is left wanting. 

Daniel’s heart thumps helpless and clumsy– oh please, please do it. He only ever wants to be closer. What he would give to see that abhorrent thing possessed by his hunger. Blind and needing and primal. But it couldn’t happen like Armand says. Why is Armand insisting so hard on taking less of him? Armand would say yes if he wanted to, why doesn’t he? It is a whining, irrational thought, but not without merit. Armand would sooner find an excuse than a solution to the excuse. 

Daniel cannot help a breathy laugh. There is adoration in the way he looks at Armand, in his words, in the happy, idle tapping in his hands. 

The nag of Daniel's logic won't go away, though. Not tonight, and not when Armand crawls back into his coffin alone at daybreak. A seed of doubt is planted. 'Armand would sooner find an excuse than a solution...' Is that true? Does he just want an excuse? Is it just easier to say a thing is impossible than to ever acknowledge the wanting of it simmering within him? Armand's entrance into the modern age has been characterized by so many impossible things becoming possible before his eyes. He has seen a sunrise with the craft of the camera. His voice has reached the other end of the world with the telephone. He sates his every caprice by easily-won wealth. His name is known by a mortal who lives. He has fallen back in love with humanity. He has fallen in love. Why not one more impossibility conquered...?

But his doubt is not to be bared in front of Daniel, who will coax and plead and dig his fingers into the slightest crack and pull Armand open wide into the yes he loves to spoil Daniel with. ... And after all, he gave a little bit, Armand tells himself. He gave a truth or two more than he'd have liked to, and that was something like a compromise.

And what he wants to give Daniel now, he is certain his beautiful boy will not refuse.

yes, yes, it had been traumatic when magnus has thrown himself into the flame, leaving lestat in an empty rampart dripping in blood and gold. he'd thrived, though, he had not? clothed himself in finery and wonder, once the first tormenting, dreadful nights had passed and his transformation had finished. and he had done more for nicki than magnus had done for him. nicki's madness was rooted beyond the effects of the gift. lestat is not going to wash his hands of nicki. he already has.

And then, the despair that weeps from him is cauterized at the mention of a plane.

His breathing shudders, and suddenly all he wants to do is sob until he can’t anymore, but he tries to breathe because Armand reminds him to. He swallows and forces his chest to take in enough air to speak again.

“There’s a plane? Wh—where? Are we going home?”

He wants to go home so desperately it could split him down the seams. He wants the smell of coffee when flushed hands pull him out of bed. He wants his feet to hurt sleepwalking through and endless night, like being awake grinds against his soul. He wants to hear the ocean outside his bedroom window, and the eternal murmur of thousands of guests on their island.

They must have been traveling for some time, and it must have done something to his head. Homesickness is not a disease that often afflicts him— how little opportunity it would have if he is always next to Armand. But he is weak with it, like it has eaten out the marrow of his bones and made him brittle enough to snap.

“Please don’t lie to me. I’ll die if you’re lying, you’ll kill me.”

His hand skitters like an insect, as if frighted of letting go of Armand, and reaches over his chest to feel for his amulet. It isn’t there. His gaze drifts like an untethered boat, as if only now seeing their surroundings. They seem to be encased in a stone block of nothing, only tight corners and windowless walls.

He should trust that instinctual understanding, but he flinches away from it. He doubts his understanding of Daniel the more he hears him speak, and doubt is new, awful, arresting.

Daniel is so familiar in his arms, but he is a cipher to his heart.

Their island is the last place to which Armand would think to take Daniel now. They mustn't go any place known to Daniel, not when Marius might see through his mind exactly where they are and track them down. Armand does not know what to expect from a confrontation with his Maker in the wake of this kidnapping. It feels foolish to fear violent anger from him whom Armand still idolizes as the pinnacle of reason and restraint. And yet he cannot escape the anticipation of a punishment coming to him just as it would when cherubic Amadeo had disobeyed to get a rise out of his Master. That is why he expects the same, isn't it? Because he is acting just the same, in a way. Armand is trying to wound Marius. No, he insists to himself, he is trying to look after Daniel. But why the running, the hiding, the stealing of a companion at dusk, as if it means anything to get away clear tonight — as if doing so meant he could avoid Marius finding them for all the rest of time? That is impossible. So why not have just called on him and announced that he was removing Daniel from his care? ... Because to face Marius, it would open the door to all the turmoil he feels, his rejection of Marius and Daniel's companionship, the disgust that it makes rise in his gorge, the question of whose companionship his own has been measured against and found wanting. And maybe, just maybe, it would force him to look at the shadows of this own relationship with Marius and see something he was not ready to own about his past.

Turn away, don't look that thought in the eye too long. What matters is this: avoiding home is perhaps fruitless after all. Armand will someday have to face Marius. Perhaps it would be easier in his own little kingdom off the coast of Miami.

Look instead at the boy, the broken mess of a fledgling, and try understand not your own feelings, but his.