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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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@andessence
ANDESSENCE
ind. sel. multimuse rp blog ft. characters from theatre, literature, mythology, television, & original works, sideblog to @avinkusprince, est. march 2018, written by ros, varying levels of activity. canon, oc, and crossover friendly. please read rules before interacting.
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armand's gotta taste the anger surging through him. gotta feel it, pulsing fast against his tongue, pretending at life ( so much of louis is this : a facade of aliveness amongst the dead of him. ) he feels it boiling up, and doesn't try so hard to swallow it back down. sometimes, it's the only thing the feels real.
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.
" you ain't got nothing to say for yourself? " louis says, hand above armand's face curling and uncurling, in and out of a fist, easing blood along the veins, letting armand take and take. ( just like he's gonna take daniel. like he took claudia ---- ) " you gonna tell me you could not prevent it or some bullshit, all that pain you're causin' him? you gon' let him suffer? "
The eyes, bright, the toxic glow of a poisonous animal — they stare at Louis as shades of shame, relief, exhaustion, and desire flicker over them. But there is a vacancy in the depths of that blaze, a void that sometimes deceives one into calling it hunger, want, affection, admiration… but that is only, after all, emptiness. It always has been. Even if he scrounges around inside himself for something to say to appease Louis, what can he find? What would matter enough to be worth the effort of expressing? Isn’t it enough that he is here, taking the blood, letting himself be pulled back from the brink? Don’t seek answers in his ashes.
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.
‘You will never understand,’ he says without the words, and his fangs refasten in Louis’s flesh for another bite, feeling the jerk and slip of the tendons glancing off them. And eyes, eyes hollow, gorging on Louis’s ire and giving nothing back. It isn't an accusation, just a resigned, quiet lamentation. ‘No words could make you. Never.’
Daniel would feel less unnatural if Armand would take by the waist and show him exactly how he is intended to sit pretty. The two words, like the jingle of his collar, strum affectionately against him even as he keeps his knees together and picks sitting stiffly on his ankles. It will kill his toes to let them hold his weight, so he slides his feet out flat onto the hardwood, ass to his heels, and finds it not much better. Every section of the uncushioned bone in his feet is jammed up against the floor.
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—
Now that he thinks of it, he isn’t sure whether an incredulous tone comes across telepathically. Braced and anxious and needing, his left hand drums a staccato against his thigh as he watches for Armand’s hands.
If Armand is listening in on this indignant thought, he doesn’t let on, not to insist nor to laugh. Smooth, pleased is his composure, indefatigable, his feigned innocence.
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.
“Good, isn’t it?” he asks, his thumb still in his mouth, fingers curling around Daniel’s chin, holding his jaw open. He can see a glint of drool accumulating at Daniel’s lower lip.
It is amazing how quickly Daniel begins to drift slotted against Armand. He is held fast in the soothing rhythm of tender hands petting his sweaty hair, sweeping down his waist and up between his shoulders. Even Armand’s accent curling around his letters lulls him gently.
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.
Pull me closer. I miss your kisses. I miss your tongue.
Happy to acquiesce to Daniel’s demands, Armand draws him more solidly against himself, stilling his petting to apply the secure pressure of his grip around Daniel’s waist and at the nape of his neck. He squeezes. It may be the fever that makes Daniel ill, but it is the craving of his demon that makes him sick, and always has. He has come to love the chill of Armand’s dead flesh, and now, when he could most needfully request it, Armand has come to him flush with life and warmth. What bad luck.
“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?
“Shall you sleep, Beloved…?”
thinking about david lostboys.... i love him man he's terrible.... but not only am i determined not to expose u all to a second vampire fixation right when vampire lestat is about to drop (a lethal dose of my nonsense), on a purely pragmatic level it would fuck up all my organization and tagging because that would be TWO guys both named david on here. impossible,, insurmountable,,, slightly annoying,,, , ,,
so sick and twisted i have to grade quizzes when my heart yearns to write freak vampire shit. why, god, why....
the way i need a lost boys musical album immediately..... and yet... the way that would inspire such evil david muse within me ...... i mustn't have it, but lord, the heart wants what it wants. i mean LISTEN to this
Reflexively, Daniel tilts away to bare more of his neck at the warm kiss of Armand’s whisper. Like a malfunctioning prey animal, when he senses the proximity of Armand’s mouth, he exposes himself more. His body does so without his thoughts intervening. There is no help to be found from his thoughts. The sensation of elongated canines dragging torturously, lovingly slow over his flesh, flashes through his mind. And with untrimmed nails, Armand would press his thumb into the soft of Daniel’s chin and hold him exposed, and then those teasing pinpricks would pierce through…
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.
“You said you were pleased to wake up next to me. You didn’t hunt before I saw you this morning. Your hunger was mine first, and I’m perfectly alive. I know you can stop yourself either way.”
The thighs about Daniel's hips tense just a touch, and that is all it takes to keep him there. Daniel is still weak, whether he wants to admit what losing such a quantity of blood does to him. Even if Daniel were not minutes out from the swoon, what would his most ardent resistance mean against the iron of Armand's hold on him if he really wanted to use it?
"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.)
"Tonight I stopped myself. But tomorrow? Who knows? Maybe I'll kill you yet," he murmurs into Daniel's skin. "Or maybe I'll have to start tying you down when I leave in the morning so there are no more midday trespasses. Then I know right where you'll be, waiting for me, come dusk..."
" he is not my brother . . . nor is he yours. " lestat's hand does not rest, but continues languidly, reaching to the top of armand's head, carding through to the base of his neck, lingering there, and then going once again from the crown, down to the altar. that strangeness of treating this parasite, this monster, gently does not strike him, not would it give him pause. they are creatures of neither god nor devil, creatures disowned of entire pantheon by their impossible life, together. who else will treat them kindly, but one another?
" he does not care that you suffer. he does not care what you are, or how you serve him. he is indifferent to you, do you not see? " his voice, tinged with disgust, with the memory of how ardent armand had been before the veil, how willing to sacrifice himself, truly sacrifice, for a god who would not do the same. " you are not even a pawn to him, you are less than this . . . and you, who has so much power, giving to him what he won't give to you. i see no love. was there love in your suffering, when you went into the sun? "
Wide eyes drink Lestat in — his disgust, his kindness. And it is not that Armand thinks Lestat is lying, nor even that he is completely wrong. It is that it cannot possible matter, nor can it shake what Armand understands in every damned cell in his body.
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.
"Yes." Quiet, unconcerned with convincing. "Even if it were just my own. Love is not opposed to suffering, Lestat, and it never has been... Why have you decided to come back to us now?"
With only the touch of a nail to the soft cartilage of his throat, Daniel’s body perceives a command to see more of his neck. He tilts his head back, unaware of himself, too distracted by how his cock is pressing against the front of his jeans.
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.
Daniel's heart pounds as he crawls to Armand’s lap on hand and knee. He feels stupid, and he feels his desire grows more directionless by the second. His mouth is beginning to salivate either by the smell and sight of the food it is about to be subject to, or by being level with Armand’s dick. If Armand pivoted, grabbed him by the hair, and slid his cock down his throat instead, it would be both a relief and a disappointment.
Overeager, the unmanaged attention straying to Armand's body, the salivation pooling at the thought of the emptiness on his tongue being filled by something more than honey-drizzled fruit. Armand listens to the crackle of the anticipation rolling off of Daniel and meets it with a cool, serene expression. "There you are. That's your place." The tag of the collar jangles as Armand lets the ring fall back down and crooks his finger beneath Daniel's upturned chin. He lets the tip of his nail scrape against the pulse. "Good boy. Sit pretty for me." Cool, serene, yes, but not devoid of a certain doting, condescending pleasure.
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.
"Very important to keep my Daniel well fed," he purrs, and the possession in my is warm and heavy rolling off his tongue. He picks more grapes, a handful, but does not immediately offer them to Daniel. He waits and watches for the signs of of Daniel splitting the first beneath his teeth and chewing — for the feel of Daniel's throat swallowing against the back of his fingers.
saw the new lost boys musical yesterday.
sending out a huge thank you to my beloved rp companions <3 i'm sorry i've been so absent - things have just been weird recently. :') i appreciate those of you awaiting replies for a frankly absurd amount of time, especially if you're here for any character except armand and have been waiting out my deranged fixation/fever. you're stronger than any U.S. marine.
Layers of drowsiness peel away bit by bit, and a different incoherence sweeps him up in its place. That low, knowing voice surely must weave in some of that thrall he felt so curious about a moment ago, and it tells Daniel that he is a fool. And like a fool, he smiles, enamored, as Armand touches the tip of his nail to his lip. It would only take one mistake, Armand says, but Armand does not make mistakes, so why should they worry? His lover is dishonest by habit and here that habit is again– pointing to a frightening outcome, but obscuring all the details with the gesture. Pausing to look closer will usually make something look different than how Armand describes it to him.
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.
“A mistake doesn’t sound like you. Who was it? Someone nameless and faceless, I’m sure. You couldn’t do that to me. You would see me, of course you would! You like me much more than your other victims. Hunting before you come to me isn’t what keeps you from killing me. You wouldn’t let that happen. You wouldn’t let it go so long that you became so hungry.”
Armand is only too happy to welcome the hands that grasp him. Daniel has taken the bait belatedly, but now his hungry thoughts hardly require the Gift to hear, and Armand seizes on the opportunity of distraction, rolling his hips and pressing back into that groping palm. He won't have the rest of this conversation if he can help it. Not out of cruelty, no. He just... knows how these things end. He will refuse, and Daniel will be hurt, and the hurt will turn to anger, and by degrees their conversation will turn to a fight that neither of them wins. How long until the shouting? Until the tears come? Until in his fury and heartache he thrusts into Daniel's mind a vision of poor, mutilated Riccardo and the hunger that could kill any love? Assuredly, talking will only lead to misery. Daniel won't be talked out of his want, and Armand won't be talked out of his reservations.
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.
"Victim. Mmm, is that what you are, Daniel? My victim?" He sets the fork down with a prim little clink against the china. It frees his hand up to press over Daniel's chest, to feel the beating heart as he rocks his hips again. He's ignoring the questions, breezing past Daniel's point, and he does it oh so seductively. The purr of his voice comes quiet as he turns his head to murmur against Daniel's jaw, "How many times must I say lover before you believe it?"
it is exhausting, this scolding, guilting way of armand. far from the powerful, haunted figure that had cornered lestat within a church and captured his imagination and his adoring hate, it is as though lestat once more has a tutor, and this tutor once more is eager to sap his time and energy. even as he only half - listens, lestat affects his annoyance, one foot tapping impatiently in fine leather boots, fingers toying sensually at the wolf fur of his cloak, hand fallen from his face. the more this goes on, the less guilty he feels. his eyes land everywhere except upon armand's.
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.
" the guidance of a maker will not restore nicki, " lestat cuts in impertinently, before armand might finish with his accusing. " he wishes his own ruin, even so. you have seen him. and if he craves his own destruction, he is more than capable of creating it. let him run mad, as he pleases. it may make him a better violinist. what does it matter to you, if i no longer care to intervene upon him? "
Armand's eyes are drawn inexorably back to Lestat. They rove over him, taking in the curl of his claw through fur, the impatient tap of his foot, his avoidant gaze. Armand preaches restraint and duty, but it all feels hollow in the face of this brash and vital mandate of Lestat's: give your time and your self only to that which pleases you. To Armand, he will not even give the meeting of eyes. What does that mean? 'Look at me.' He bites back the begging, holds it between his teeth, behind his eyes where his thoughts are locked too firmly to be heard by Lestat. As if he'd even care enough to try hearing. 'Look at me. Want me. Need me.'
"It matters very much to me who holds your attention, Lestat. You cannot guess why?"
Daniel is a reopened wound, and Armand tells him that he is bleeding on the floor. Hush now. Something of his tone lands softly even as he feels his wound open wider. If Armand keeps speaking soothing nothings to him, he might start to scream. He hopes Armand does not stop, anyway. He cannot dig his nails into Armand any harder, and he knows they will snap off at the root sooner than break through his skin. Stronger than I am. But it is like the bottom of the ocean or the edges of the sky tell him that he has misunderstood what they are. How could it have happened any other way? Armand makes it impossible for Daniel to know him.
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.
“Are we in New Orleans? There was a door—there was a door there, what happened to it?”
Home? That cannot be right. Armand is accustomed to thinking of Daniel as perpetually running away from something, everything. The Daniel he holds in his memory is always racing to the next new and exciting thing. It is why Armand has attempted to entice him with promises of a trip to a novel destination. But Daniel asks after home. In his state, in the blur of a remembered self, where does he think home is? The only place Armand thought of as their home was the Night Island.
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.
"We are not in New Orleans. But all is well. There will be a door when it is time to go." He draws Daniel's grasping hand away from his chest in a gesture Armand recognizes as the fretful, compulsive search for his amulet, and he runs his thumb back and forth over the knuckles as he holds it fast. "These are not lies, Daniel. I am here. There is a plane. And we shall go away together. Home, if you wish. Soon, so soon. And until it is time to go, we are here together. You have me. ... How can we calm these racing thoughts, hmm? Shall I tell you a story? Sing you a song? Or shall I just gather you up and hold you until the trouble's passed?
Maybe I’m horny but I’m thinking about how Daniel was Armand’s de facto submissive when he was mortal because naturally Armand was a stronger creature capable of greatly maiming him.
But then I think about immortal Danny grabbing a fist full of the front of Armand’s shirt and telling him to knock that shit off and Armand having to remember he created another in the de Romanus bloodline.
Armand just: yes sir I’m sorry
