an introduction, a "fuck it", and the aftermath (or beginning of what's to come).
iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~3.5k
if i had a nickel for every time i wanted to join a fictional band in a tv show that also featured a member of the off-broadway cast of hadestown...i'd have two nickels...which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice right...
anyway welcome to Season Three Episode Four But Someone Else Is Also There
taglist @thelastemzy
another epilogue i fic masterlist
Not much time passed before Isabelle was traveling again.
She didnât want to say that the reunion had rattled her, but it certainly hadnât been insignificant. In addition, her cabaret concerts as an already-established actress playing Molloyâs lesser-known interviewee with quite a similar name were starting to become rather strange, so she had gone back to simply being Isa Gassion, which itself was a tell for eagle-eyed fans who recognized the birth name of the dear friend often mentioned in her story.
If an agent was confused, she could easily drop them without consequence. If an audition proved particularly tricky to get into, she could easily place herself on the stage of a piano bar frequented by a producer, popping up on a directorâs social media feed, offering a hand when a composer dropped their groceries. Even as decades passed, she still felt the pangs of the young mortal woman who could not do any of this, the pain of every talented but underprivileged hopeful who was struggling to get a foot in the door. The guilt was there, but, she thought, at least she was telling the stories well-much better than those who would be chosen by wealth, algorithm, or pure geographic luck. She still felt that she represented the more downtrodden group, as her earnest hundred-yet-twenty presence rebelled gloriously against the plastic sheen of what the industry now looked for. This was making room for the rest of the good ones. Besides, sheâd realized, who decided the only ethical way to get ahead was to surrender oneself to the biased whims of the powers that be?
And now, with possibility looming of the Great Conversion and vampires in big cities starting to congregate, her beloved New York City was starting to close in.
So, to the secret excitement of the understudy sheâd befriended, she took a weekâs break from the Shakespeare revival that was her current joy (a joy only occasionally thrown off when the star would look at her and beg with a different voice, transform me, then, and to your power Iâll yield, the stage lights turning his sweet brown eyes amber) and set off for a destinationless cross-country drive.
A few days of solitude and multi-genre windows-down 80-in-a-60 dirt road karaoke sessions later, Isabelle was standing in a gas station aisle, pondering her next kill along with a strange new invention known as a gummy cluster, when she sensed a soul behind her and felt a tap on her shoulder.
A young man, a heavy denim jacket, a face that appeared to have once been held in perpetual nervousness and was just starting to get used to an alternative. A head of dark curls that reminded her of an endearingly insufferable young writer sheâd spent a night with while touring A Little Night Music a few decades ago-oh-OH, NO-thatâs for later-
âI donât work here,â she told the stranger, cutting off her own thought.
âI know.â
âSoâŠâ
âSorry, I just thought,â he stammered, trying to look through her sunglasses, âI thought I knew you.â
There was a hint of glassiness to be found in his pretty eyes, not dissimilar to what sheâd seen in those of her old covenâs victims, and she sighed.
âWhat do you want?â
After a quick glance at her nails around the neon pink bag of clusters, he looked back up.
âTo talk to one of you who isnât an asshole.â
It was then that she noticed the button on his jacket, its glow-in-the-dark VL almost entirely scratched out by resentment and a penny.
â...Thatâs fair.â
~
There was something odd about the boy, igniting a sad suspicion in Isabelle that grew more and more unmistakable as he described the newness of his current stage of life.
âItâs wild, man,â this Alex was saying into the sky an hour later as they strolled along the edge of the highway. âEverything that felt so heavy all my life, it justâŠdoesnât matter anymore.â
âYou say that like itâs a good thing.â
âFor sure. Itâs like I canât even remember what got me so hung up in the first place.â
âAnd thatâŠdoesnât bother you at all?â
âAre you kidding? This emptiness feels so fucking freeing, I donât need to-â
âBut do you feel like yourself?â
âIâŠlook, this is the only time Iâve ever felt like life was easy,â he explained as they passed a cigarette back and forth. âEverything that guy said, itâs like I can finally-â
âRest?â
â...Yeah.â
âOf fucking course. Tell me the manâs name?â
âHe called himself Arun, but-â
âRight.â
And that was how she ended up following Alex back to his band, witnessing a touching but tainted reunion, meeting a brat prince who left her as amused and unimpressed as every peacocking baritenor sheâd ever known, slicing open her fingertip in order to share Jell-O shots with her new favorite drummer, and, now, standing in the wings of a concert venue which by this point seemed to have a heartbeat of its own.
âWhat brings you here?â Daniel had asked earlier, pointing a camera at her but also wondering in earnest. Sheâd answered cryptically but truthfully, that she was worried someone was being manipulated and was trying to prevent further damage, that she wanted to get closer to these proponents of the Great Conversion in order to do what she could to help stop it. Daniel, as ever, had pointed out that there were many ways to do that which didnât involve sex, drugs, and rockânâroll.
Classical musicians have got to have a different kind of fun at some point, sheâd responded, seconded by a hearty agreement from the blond vampire they hadnât even known was in earshot and an arm slung around her shoulder as she stared with tired humor into the camera.
Lestat wasâŠinteresting, to be certain. After so many decades spent mostly apart from other vampires, it was something of a relief to converse again with someone whoâd been around longer than she had, who knew every reference she could possibly make, and-around her, at least-allowed his performed and manic slang to fall to an older, more melodic way of speaking that she had dearly missed from the rotating cast of her life. Heâd told her about Nicki while often looking to the side, claiming that the two of them would have made wonderful friends, and she agreed-however withholding and vaguely the tale was told, Isabelleâs heart broke for the young violinist as she could easily see through the narrator to the storyâs core. Heâd somehow convinced her to join in his next tour stopâs performance, though what exactly sheâd be singing she hadnât yet known. Heâd introduced her to Sofia, a presence admirable in some ways and uneasy in many others, who spent not an insignificant amount of their acquaintance trying and failing to sway her to the side of the Great Conversion.
Isabelle had been somewhat curious about the enigmatic former lover described to her by Armand and the coven during her time with them, and, sure, he was something to behold in person, but she didnât necessarily like Lestat-she couldnât, not after learning in two breathlessly cutting cross-century depictions of his abandonment of one and abuses of another. For his part, Lestat openly found Isabelleâs edge of pretension and attempts at morality insufferable, but respected her as an artist and enjoyed her presence with a reverse version of the same condescending amusement she took in his. Claudia had been right, Isabelle thought: all of them really were the worst. So she tolerated thisâŠbeing, and told herself she was simply keeping an eye on everything as it unfolded.
One day, while Isabelle had allowed herself to indulge in a side-quest trip to make fun of some shitty tourist attraction with the band-look, the last vampiric-leaning found family I had was the Paris coven, and we all know how that went, let me have a bit of fun-she had felt it again. Armand was close, and some part of his energy was shaking, seeming to be thrown off and recalculating with every passing moment.
Sheâd turned toward the back of the group, where Alex was walking a few paces behind with a bit of a faraway look, and urged him to join them with what she hoped was an eased, friendly smile. A few minutes later, as Armandâs energy receded, her head had started ringing with the sheer volume of Lestatâs telepathic smirk.
When the band had returned to the tour bus, their frontman was waiting with a completed second verse to the song they would be debuting that night, and despite the nearly-century-old inner voices defending her only companion, Isabelle found herself convinced to learn it.
Iâm calcified in his head as a pristine, old-fashioned artist. Frankly, Iâve spent a lot of years doing that to myself, too.
Heâs going to hate this.
No more romanticizing the performances sheâd given during the foggiest years of her immortal life, no more hiding from her vampiric nature. It was time to do something-as Salamander once put it-âfor the plotâ.
She watched as Lestat whipped the audience into a frenzy, hooking them on every drawling word and movement of his hand until the room was positively buzzing with collective effervescence. Isabelle had experienced versions of this before in her career, but never quite like this, never filled with as much abandon as what fizzed and sparked in the air now. This was rock.
This was fucking awesome.
Still, this did not stop the occasional pang from coming, as she wondered how much of Lestatâs costumed echo of Claudiaâs humiliation would come across as mocking the victim herself, as she heard him send jabs to Armand that went quite a bit over the line, as she wondered whether this would really be-
And then he was leaping into the audience, strutting toward the silent muse, ruffling his hair, dancing around him, anything to get a reaction, until he was back onstage and that face in the crowd was looking straight to her in the wings.
âMy Beautiful Unwell, there is yet another surprise in store for you tonightâŠâ
Blank.
âThe maĂźtreâs real first fledgling, the Lady in Black corrupted, his lark now decades free of her heart-locked cageâŠâ
Betrayed.
âLadies, gentlemen, and all the rest, tonight I have the distinct honor of presentingâŠâ
And the night before that, heâd laid me down and ârestâ-ed away every speck of horror Iâd felt while learning the truth of the coven.
She tossed the ripped version of that same veil behind her head, picked up her skirts, and bounded onto the stage-
âTHE VAMPIRE ISABELLE DE LA RUE!â
The roar from the audience came so loudly that she could barely hear herself chant.
âHey, big boss, out to make amends? My greedy little gremlin, saving more than he spends, telling everybody âIâm so sorry for that!ââ
âThe trials and betrayals of a wannabe brat,â Lestat added his voice to hers, grinning as he watched her completely let go and join him in this fuck-all level of theatricality.
âSneaking in the shadows, but the world is bright,â she went on, and saw that a door, having just been pushed through, was closing-âgive me a veil, let me bring you into the light!â-sheâd once meant it genuinely, and now she twirled this veil between her fingers as choreographed, but he had left, he was fucking gone, so was Daniel-âI wanna feel the deepest regions of your soulâ-and oh, how she had, but now he was somewhere outside against a wall, the soap opera continuing, and she pointed her microphone over her shoulder-
âBut youâve got a lot of rules for an old piece of mold,â Lestat cut in, having taken her wrist to bring her mic toward him before she pulled it back to say, âletâs go.â
âONE.â
Make it cathartic, then. This could be fun.
âTWO.â
When it came down to pride, he didnât want you.
âTHREE.â
Tried to erase all of our history.
âFOUR.â
Yes, I knew him. I survived knowing more.
âFIVE.â
With nothing left, heâd rather decide-
â-who dies and who stays alive!â she sang, locked into competition with Lestat: octave on top of octave, immortal lungs against immortal lungs, enough to bring her out of her head. They stared blinding but playful daggers at each other while continuing to hold the note, and Isabelle poured every atom of repressed heartbreak into it, every lonely night across this blur of decades, every questioning second and implacable instinct. Seeing this in her, Lestat smiled, a crazed and exhilarated smile from which she turned away and back to the audience-fist in the air, curls whipping around her head, torn skirt following in her wake, feeling younger than sheâd felt in a century.
Starting to lose breath himself, Lestat nodded to TC and dug his heel into the stage in time with her clacking sticks, sending the chorus off to another rollicking start.
By now, the audience was not only jumping but dancing, and the performing vampires fed off of their energy almost as fulfillingly as blood itself. Isabelle, trying to forget whatever was happening outside, was drunk on it; she rolled her hips, she laughed aloud, she mock-fainted into Lestatâs arms as they sang about a coma. Guilt channeled into reckless abandon as she threw herself across the stage, yelling along until the last line of the chorus was Lestatâs alone-
âHe asked me, âwas it good?â I said, âcomme ci, comme ça!ââ
Fucking liar, she telepathically called him, and they shared a mad grin from either side of the stage. The chorus then repeated again, followed by a quasi-climactic repetition of that title. Isabelle continued bounding around the stage, going back-to-back with Salamander as he laid down the bassline, yelling lyrics in unison with TC, spinning herself into a tornado of organza and lace until-
It was Alex that she now landed beside, and the boy was remarkably shaken, clearly having just realized the true identity of his sponsor. He looked to Isabelle with wide eyes, and she nodded, drawling out each âbig bossâ and gesturing to where Armand had stood as if to say, yeah, this is your guy.
When the song finally hit its button, the audience roared their appreciation, and Isabelle somewhat absentmindedly joined Lestat in his grand, unstable bow. She stayed onstage for a while longer, joining in for âThe Lonelinessâ and âWhy Do I Have To Feel?â before making her exit with the rest of the band so Lestat could perform a solo piece with his guitar. Once she was in the wings, Isabelle immediately threw the veil from her head and ripped off her gloves; it would have been one thing to look in the mirror and see the true version of that costume again, and it was quite another to be in its bastardized echo.
No sooner had she returned to her dressing room and flopped onto its dingy couch than a curt knock had sounded at her door.
âCome in, Alex,â she said tiredly, and he did.
âYou knew?â
âCourse,â she answered with half a smile, sitting up and patting the space next to her. âYouâve got a different kind of heartbeat from the rest. Speaking of the rest, donât you have to go back on in a minute?â
âNot exactly at the top of my mind right now,â he said as he sat down, still with a faraway look.
âUnderstandable.â
âSoâŠthat really was Armand from the book?â
She nodded, looking forward rather than at him, and he did the same. Silence held for a while before Alex spoke again.
âWhat does he want with me?â
âI donât know. Infiltration, a pair of eyes, something to do with stopping the Conversion or revenge orâŠboth, probably both. At least you know now.â
They were quiet for another moment, processing, and he opened his mouth to ask-how did you know him? I didnât read yours before we met, would have been the question, she could hear-when the hallway door to the outside opened and Daniel strode through with a huff. Isabelle stood and went to her still-open doorway to intercept him, but the journalist was not in a mood to chat.
âCanât talk. Iâm draining a local sound guy, Iâm heading to the tour bus, and Iâm going the fuck to sleep.â
âWhat happened out there?â
âI wonât. I wonât-â
âWhat did he say to you? Why is he here?â
âItâs none of your-â
âOh, it is,â she said, fully blocking his path now. âWe were reborn in the same sinking boat, Molloy. Maker, lover, tormentor, and too much at stake to try to keep secrets-â
âOut of my way,â he said, refusing to look at her as he tried and failed to push past-
âThere are no secrets, I can read your fuckinâ mind,â she nearly laughed, still a bit hysterical from the emotional cocktail of the concert. âGo, get your fix, get your sleep. This isnât over.â
She let Daniel go, and he moved down the hallway as if he hadnât stopped at all. Just before reaching the final door, though, he slowed in his tracks and turned around, meeting her eyes for the first time that night.
âDid you ever get anything past him?â he asked, still shaken but as intently as ever. âIn the Paris years? Anything he could have seen if he really wanted to?â
Possible reasons for the question flitted through Isabelleâs mind at speeds too fast to process, then memories as she searched for its answer-well, yes-and she could only get out a âwhat do you mean?â before Daniel let out a still-wondering breath and left.
No, this certainly isnât over.
Alex hadnât moved from the couch in her dressing room. She could sense it without looking at him, and was about to che-
âWhy did you do it, Isabelle?â
Her heart seized in her chest, and she turned over her shoulder to find that Alex had indeed stayed entirely still, save for a tilt of the head.
âLet him go.â
The large brown eyes blinked, a practiced nonchalance, about to say he had no idea what-
âLet him go.â
Filled with something now, she stepped back into the room, closed the door, and yanked the boy to his feet by the collar.
âWhy is it that youâve chosen him to torture? Why are you trying to get in with this at all? What would you get out of-â
âI believe,â not-Alex replied with a drawling coolness that proved eerily uncharacteristic in this form, âbeing the first to ask, I should be the first to receive an answer.â
â...Fine. It went too far, I know. But Iâve been kept so in the dark about all of this-â
âIt was you that tagged yourself along, you who decided you needed to save this poor boy from my âwrong above wrongsâ meddling, I never asked-â
âOf course you didnât. Youâre after him,â she gestured down the hall, âand Lestat, and, God, probably Louis too; apology tour or grand fuck-up-ening of everyone youâve loved? Or havenât you told Daniel yet? You know, I could have sworn that charming asshole I met in the seventies had something following him-fuck me, I guess, hadnât learned enough yet to go with my instinct-â
âYour instinct,â Armand drawled in Alexâs awkwardly unpracticed voice, âis precisely what youâve suppressed since you left me. Iâve let too many people go, itâs not happening again.â
This last statement had clearly come out much more vulnerable than intended, and Isabelle realized that she could find power in letting it sit, letting the silence be filled with this rarely seen Armand: unperformed, raw behind rawness, the flaking layers of paint behind the chosen strokes, thrown off guard by his own devastation.
âThe boy needs to be back onstage,â she said softly after a solid few moments.
âAnd why am I meant to care?â
âBecause he didnât do anything to deserve this,â came the impassioned answer, and then, after a bit of a sigh, âand because Lestat will get suspicious if heâs missing for too long.â
The face almost relaxed, turning into a bit of a smirk as it processed what lay beneath the second part of what sheâd said, and the body resumed its place on that shabby emerald couch.
As the heaviness in the air lifted and Alex became Alex again, Isabelle realized she was measuring her breath, only allowing herself to heave a sob after he stared at her for a moment, bewildered, and then bolted to the stage upon hearing the beat kick off once more.
s3 short stories continuation yaaaaaaaay. there'll be more i'm sure. another stop on the apology tour you know the drill
taglist @thelastemzy
previous epilogue fic masterlist another epilogue ii
It was happening again.
The same phenomenon, the same experience that she and Daniel had realized they had in common during their two-years-past interview, the same highly inconvenient âraptureâ clearly symptomatic of a vampire bond.
Ironically, it was the word âlifeâ that hung in the air as time stopped, her voice soaring and crystalline as the note suspended almost out of her body.
The burgundy hues of the venueâs furniture started to blur with the ruddy gold of the tea candles on each table, all falling back into darkness as a whirlpooling pair of amber eyes pierced towards her from the back of the room.
Of course.
After eighty-seven years, sheâd thought that any potential reunion would be far more emotionally heightened. Right now, though, all she could think, and all she communicated to him with a nearly pained glare, was let me finish.
The disappearance of the rest of the world wasnât his to decide, she knew this, but after a broken sigh, Armand granted what he could. The moment that he turned away and exited into the stairwell, time fell back into place, her rapt audience reappeared, and the B flat was once again rocketing out the top of her head.
âLife may be fleeting.â
The fermata was held.
She could feel him upstairs in the lobby, one hand in the pocket of his coat as the other traced the wall. She could feel him, and she knew he felt her, every breath and heartbeat and contouring float of melody.
âLove lives on.â
The applause rang ricocheting off the venueâs walls, bringing her back into the present. As Isabelle came up from her bow, she made eye contact with someone there to see not the vampire de la Rue, but the brilliant Broadway newcomer Isa Gassion.
This was a redheaded and starry-eyed child with a Wicked t-shirt and little tears running down her cheeks, a modern portrait of Isabelleâs youngest self. A quick read told her that this was the first time the girl had ever considered that her dreams could be more than dreams.
This was who she did it for.
They shared a bright smile before Isabelle gracefully ducked backstage and let out a breath of multitudes.
I hope she will not have to endure as much as I have.
Things had gotten easier over time; once Isabelle had escaped the coven and come into her own, opportunities started appearing more and more often. Still, there was plenty to face.
Plenty, like whatever reason her maker had for appearing to her after eighty-seven years.
She said goodnight to her musicians and exited up an old iron-wrought spiral staircase, emerging into the warm New York night to a few more thankful cheers. She signed autographs, took photos, and answered questions with the same warmth and rapport sheâd always yearned for from her idols as a child, but his eyes remained ever confronting at the back of her mind.
Once the last few had dispersed, it did not take long for the rest of the world to disappear once more.
She did not turn around.
âEvening, Armand.â
âBonsoir, mon alouette.â
Her sigh came involuntarily, half tired and half struck by the familiar long-gone sound.
She did not turn around.
There was a breath of silence as he waited for her to do so and confirmed she would not, then a soft rustling of paper.
âI know it has been quite some time. I know we have heard far more about each other than we have truly seen. I have been enduring intense conversation with myself, and as part of this journey, I wish to read you something I have written from the deepest regions of my soul.â
âThe deepest?â
She could nearly hear him blink.
âWell, that would certainly be refreshing. The deepest regions of your soul, not the excuses, not the lies, not the manipulations sent to me through other vampires in hopes Iâd be persuaded to come running back-only when you were lonely, only when Louisâ mind was elsewhere or Daniel ran away, proving yet again Iâd never once been a first choice? The deepest? The parts of you that youâd rather lose everything over and over again than trust anybody with? Truly the deepest, Armand?â
She turned around.
He lookedâŠ
Sad.
Disconcertingly so. Sheâd seen the more desperate shades of him during their years of companionship, of course she had, but this was another level entirely.
The word pathetic came to her mind, and despite knowing all the horrors he had wrought, part of her still wanted to push it away in his defense.
âGo on.â
He only stared for a moment, massive pleading eyes like blood moons, before hardening a bit and turning his focus back to his paper.
âDearest Isabelle. I not only broke my heaviest vow in damning you to this existence, but later denied it to the world-to my world, to the others I have hurt the most. Our companionship was relatively short in the grand scheme of eternity, but it cannot be forgotten. The world I called mine when you were part of it was, perhaps, the closest I have ever been to what the half-delusional âenlightenedâ sort of humans strive for. You questioned and adored me in almost equal measure, gave me radical acceptance where I had never had it and contradictions I had never known before. You did not hide a single thing-and still do not, somehow. I admire and, indeed, envy your ability to keep all that we face from changing who you are while, meanwhile,â and here his voice shook, âall that I have ever done is change who I am.â
Armandâs gaze at the paper went somewhat out of focus, then shifted, no longer reading.
âIt was necessary for survival, but it has led to my never once being truly seen, not only due to the betrayals of others butâŠalso⊠to my own forbidding. It has also led, of course, to what would be referred to these days as-certainly not the strongest idea of self.â
There was a thrum in her chest saying go to him, go to him, and she forced herself to instead imagine a burning Claudia and Madeleine, holding the image even when it shook with old compassion for this being in front of her.
âIn fact, I,â Armand breathed, âI believe there was a period of a few hundred years in which the only choice I ever truly made was you.â
âŠOh.
Isabelle blinked, blinked again, made a few involuntary glances to make sure no one was around-but even if they were in danger of being witnessed, she could not have stopped the blood tears from falling.
She breathed heavily, fighting every burning instinct to pull him into her arms and hold him until they both healed, as if they could, and somehow found herself able to respond-quietly and choked by emotion, but a response nonetheless.
âBut it wasnât,â she said, a crying whisper. âNot in the end.â
And he looked about to fall as well, and she couldnât keep from still talking-
âYou could have come with me, I would have been there for every part of you. I would-â
âOh, every part?â Armand choked out, starting out hurt but steadily growing in bitterness. âThe parts that relieved the doomed child and her lover of their eternal curse, that would have killed Louis with them if not for the intervention which that damnĂšd novel ever so clearly showed I took credit for? The parts that let the coven have their way? The parts representative of everything that you and your precious thoughts of agency and morals despise? Yes, you would surely be just fine with what I did even to your mind, what I still do to those I need to-â
It suddenly occurred to her that the New York evening was turning cold.
âThat use of the Mind Gift is unforgivable. Full stop.
And I guess I didnât actually consider that a part of you.â
She sighed, and he leaned forward a bit, nearly baffled by that final statement. It was almost close to the way he used to tilt his head whenever heâd wanted to hear more of what sheâd had to say, which was so, so often when she was a new fledgling, as he was getting used to having to ask for a loverâs thoughts rather than read them directly-
âPerhaps I was blinded by love. Perhaps I was so enthralled with the coven and our blooming bond and that stunningly new environment that I didnât have the space to deal with the cognitive dissonance of so adoring someone who would really do that to people. But you said it yourself-with all of these beyond-words-horrid things youâve gone through, you never had a chance to figure out who you really are. Armand, Amadeo, Arun,â and every name was said with utmost tenderness that leaked even through her anger and analysis, âeverything that is a âreal youâ within all of them, I fell madly in love with. Thatâs what ultimately kept me there, thatâs what made it so hard to leave. You are not what has been forced onto you, you are not what you have done to survive-I mean, well, we all have to account for-but as-still, maybeâŠâ
âWhat are you?â
This was said quietly, tiredly, but with the slightest hint of innocence and that same curiosity that the maĂźtre had shown upon meeting an audience member almost ninety years before.
It nearly made them both smile.
A car rolled by, and streaming out the open window was a crackling-yet-clear recording of her old friendâs voice, non, je ne regrette rien.
âIâm a vampire,â Isabelle said. âIâm a lyric coloratura soprano. Iâm a Midwestern girl who wanted to be everywhere else and finally got there. Iâm tall and freckled and neurotic and stubborn as hell. I have some deep spark in me that a lot of shitty, shallow people simply refuse to embrace in themselves, and I still get a thrill from chasing those people down alleyways for dinner. Iâm fucking resilient and Iâm so close to a life that doesnât require me to be so anymore. Iâm very good at falling in love with everything and very bad at falling out of it, and very, very good at writing songs about it all. Iâm the unacknowledged first fledgling of an ancient vampire, and Iâve always been able to make him think, but Iâm not sure if heâs ever going to do something about it.â
A simmering, but not uncomfortable few moments. A passing siren, a blaring advertisement, the rattle of a subway car.
âAnything else in that letter?â
âRegret,â he said with a sad fondness, not even looking at the long-crumpled missive in his hand. âRegret.â
â"When my time comes around â lay me gently in the cold dark earth â no grave can hold my body down I'll crawl home to her" - work song, hozier
[oh he looks majestic in these oh my god]
A/N: hiii! so this is a little... terrifying because i genuinely donât write things like this. i usually live in the trenches of angst, yearning, emotional ruin, etc etc but this time i wanted to try something softer. lighter. (i'm so full of angst pls someone pull me out of the trenches)
i'm still not sure if this fully escaped the angst allegations because apparently i canât help myself, but this is definitely me stepping outside of my comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory. hell this isn't even that intense but hey! i'd love to venture out... and go beyond AHAHAHA beyond as in.. beyond.
anyway, i hope you enjoy this!! i took a break from chiaroscuro hihi, will be back soonest!! đ
â : masterlist
Heat.
Not sharp, not anything with edges â just warmth, all over, the kind that had built itself into the sheets and my skin and the air over the last however long and settled there like it had always lived there.
My body came back to me slowly, the way it did in these moments, piece by piece, like something reassembling itself after being taken apart.
My limbs first â heavy, that good heavy, the kind that meant everything in them had been thoroughly used and was now done.
Then my heartbeat, still moving faster than usual, still making its way down from wherever it had been â I could feel it in my throat, behind my ears, in the tips of my fingers.
Then the room. the ceiling, the plaster of it, the water stain in the corner I'd never cared about. The lamp on the nightstand throwing its amber everywhere, that warm honeyed light that made the walls look like the inside of something safe, something closed off from the rest of the world.
The balcony door, cracked open, the curtain doing its slow unconscious thing â in, out, in, out. The city beyond it, dark and low and quiet in the way it only got past three in the morning, when even the noise had given up.
I was warm everywhere.
My hair was a disaster across the pillow and I was distantly aware of this and completely unbothered. There was a pleasant static behind my eyes, not pain, just the afterglow of a nervous system that had been thoroughly occupied and was now winding itself down through the lowest possible gear. I lay still and breathed and let myself be exactly where I was â horizontal, heavy, unhurried, the lamp making everything amber and soft â and thought nothing.
It was one of the rare times my mind actually went quiet. He had a way of doing that.
Taking me somewhere past the noise and leaving me there, wrung out and still, like a bell after it's been rung.
The covers moved.
I felt the shift of weight before I saw him â the specific displacement of the duvet, the change in the air â and then he was coming up, slowly, pushing the covers back and emerging into the lamplight.
His hair was completely undone, dark and falling across his forehead at angles it had no business being at, and he pushed it back with one hand in a gesture so absent and unguarded that it did something to me immediately, lodged itself somewhere in my chest without asking.
He was still coming back to himself too â I could see it, the way he blinked once in the amber light, the way he was finding the room again, finding the hour, finding me. His eyes settled on my face and stayed there.
The giggle came out before I had any say in it. Small and involuntary and a little breathless, surprised out of me by the specific sight of him â by his wrecked hair and the particular way he was looking at me, half-gathered, entirely himself.
I pressed my lips together after but it was already out. Something happened at the corner of his mouth.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi," he said back.
And then he smiled. Actually smiled â not the almost-smile I knew, not the small controlled curve he allowed himself when something caught him off guard, but a real one, quiet and brief and entirely unguarded, the kind that moved further up his face than he usually permitted.
It was gone in a few seconds. It always was. But I saw it and I kept it, the way I kept all of them, filed somewhere I didn't examine too often because examining it had a tendency to undo me.
He didn't sit back. He stayed close â propped up but close, his face near mine, his eyes still on me, and I reached up and he let me.
My fingers went to his hair first, pushing through it, feeling the specific softness of it, the weight of it falling between my fingers as I moved through it slowly. He exhaled. He leaned into it â barely, just slightly, just enough that I felt it, his head following my hand with the smallest motion, like he hadn't decided to do it. Like his body had made that decision without consulting him.
I moved to his forehead. Traced the line of it, the furrow between his brows that never fully left â some permanent impression of centuries of thinking, pressed into the muscle and staying. I smoothed it with my thumb.
His temple next, the thin skin there, and then his cheekbone, and here I slowed down because the lamp was doing extraordinary things to the angle of it, the light carving his face into something architectural, something from another era, which was accurate, which was something I tried not to think about too directly because it opened into things I couldn't afford at four in the morning.
His jaw â the line of it, sharp in the light, the curve where it met his ear. I took my time with all of it. My fingers were memorizing. I'd accepted this about myself by now.
I kissed his forehead. Felt the cool of his skin against my lips â not cold, just his temperature, the specific degree of him. His cheekbone, slow. The corner of his eye, barely anything. His temple. He was very still through all of it, that held stillness, and I moved to his jaw and pressed my lips there and felt him exhale again, longer this time, through his nose.
His nose. I kissed the bridge of it. He blinked.
The corner of his mouth â not his mouth, just the corner, just beside it â and I felt something in him change, a slight shift in his breathing, a quality of attention that sharpened. His mouth was right there. I was right there.
I stopped.
I looked at him for just a second â his face, his eyes, the full attention of him sitting right there waiting â and I smiled, small and private and completely deliberate, and I turned over.
I settled onto my side facing the balcony, pulled the covers up to my shoulder, and looked at the curtain and felt the smile sit in my chest like something warm and mine.The silence behind me had a very specific texture.
"You," he said.
I said nothing. The curtain moved.
"You were right there."
"I was tired," I said. "I needed to sleep."
"You are not sleeping. You're smiling. I can tell from here."
I pressed my lips together. Outside, a window across the way had a light on. Someone else awake at this hour. I gave them three seconds of my attention.
"No fair," he said, and then before I could respond â before I could fully appreciate the fact that Armand had just said "no fair", like a person, like someone sulking, which he absolutely was â his arm came around my waist and pulled.
Not gentle about it, not rough about it, just immediate, just closing every possible inch between us in one motion, hauling me back against him with a kind of purposefulness that made me laugh again, surprised out of me.
He pressed his face into my neck. I felt him smile there, against my skin. He was smiling. I could feel it.
"You're sulking," I said.
"I'm not sulking."
"Oh, you absolutely are."
"I'm expressing dissatisfaction," he said, into my neck, "with the situation."
"That's sulking."
His arm tightened at my waist and pulled me further in, and I felt the full press of him against my back â his chest, his legs finding mine beneath the covers, tangling with them, one of his legs sliding over both of mine and staying there, the weight of it, pinning gently. His other hand came to my hip.
He was everywhere. He had made himself everywhere, stitched himself to me without ceremony, and the warmth of it â even with his natural cool, even with the specific temperature of his skin â was total. There was no space between us. I didn't think he intended there to be.
"Better," he said, to no one.
"You're unbelievable," I said, meaning it as a complaint, not managing it at all.
"You left me there," he said. Still muffled in my neck. Still completely serious. "Deliberately."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck. Then another one, higher. Then the side, slow, working up toward my jaw â unhurried, making his point without making it, which was how he made all his points. His leg stayed over mine. His hand at my hip pressed slightly, pulling me back into him as if there were still somehow space to close, which there wasn't. He found more anyway.
I looked at the city. The light in the building across the way. The curtain, in and out. My body, heavy and warm and completely held.
"Armand," I said.
"Mm."
"You can let go a little."
"No," he said simply, and kissed my neck again, just below my ear, slow and deliberate, and I laughed quietly and stopped arguing because there was no argument here, really. There was just him, behind me, his leg over mine and his arm around my waist and his face pressed to my neck and his hand at my hip keeping me close, and the amber lamp making the room feel like somewhere time didn't apply, and the curtain moving in and out in the dark.
He stayed like that for a while. His lips moved against my neck without kissing â just resting, sometimes pressing the faintest thing, sometimes just warm and still. His thumb moved at my hip, slow and aimless. I put my hand over his at my waist the way I always did and felt his fingers shift immediately to find mine, lace through them without looking, without needing to look.
Then his lips pressed, more deliberately, to the side of my neck. Not a kiss exactly â more like he was placing something there. And then I felt it. His lips parting slightly against my skin, right over the pulse, and pressing there. Holding. His mouth directly over the heartbeat, feeling it through the skin of my throat, and he went completely still, both of us, like the room had taken a breath and forgotten to release it.
I felt my own pulse come back to me through his mouth. Strange and intimate, this loop â my heartbeat, and then him feeling it, and me feeling him feeling it. His lips stayed. He didn't move. He was counting, or not counting, just receiving â taking in the rhythm of it the way you take in a sound you've been waiting to hear. Beat, beat, beat. Reliable. Ongoing. Mine.
I thought about what it cost him to need this. What it said about all the rhythms he'd felt go quiet over the centuries, under his hands, beneath his mouth, how many he'd felt stop. I didn't let myself go too far into that. But I thought about it, just at the edge, just enough to understand the weight of his stillness.
"Still going," I said, soft.
He exhaled against my neck. His arm tightened around me.
"Still going," he said.
He kissed the pulse point then â actually kissed it, lips pressing and holding, longer than the others, something serious in it, something that had nothing to do with want and everything to do with something else entirely. I closed my eyes. His leg shifted over mine, heavier somehow, more deliberate, like he was reminding himself and me both that I was here and he was here and the distance between those two things was nothing, was negligible, was something he had personally eliminated.
His hand found mine under the blanket and held it properly this time â not two fingers, not the light resting touch, but his whole hand closed around mine, warm-adjacent, his thumb pressed into my palm.
"Don't go anywhere," he said. Quiet. Almost to himself.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I'm in my own bed."
"I know," he said.
He paused. "I know."
There was something in the second one that was different from the first. I didn't ask about it. I just held his hand and felt his mouth still at the side of my neck, the occasional small press of it, unhurried, like he was just â keeping contact. Maintaining something. His leg draped over mine, heavy and grounding. His chest against my back. His breath when he took it, slow and deliberate, drawn in through my hair.
The lamp held its amber. The curtain moved. The city outside was dark and patient and doing nothing we needed to pay attention to. I lay there in the total fact of him and felt my heartbeat slowing down, degree by degree, the static behind my eyes going gentler, my hand held in his, his mouth at my neck.
His lips pressed once more to the side of my throat â soft, barely anything, barely a kiss at all, just contact, just the reminder of it â and his thumb moved in my palm, slow.
"Sleep," he said. Not a command. Not even a request. Just an offering, something placed gently into the space between us.
I stopped fighting the weight behind my eyes.
I went slowly, the way sleep actually came in moments like these â not sudden, not a drop, but a gradual dissolving, the edges of the room going softer and softer until they were gone. His hand in mine. His mouth against my neck. His leg over mine, keeping me exactly here, keeping me exactly his.
I slept.
He didn't move.
Not once. Not an inch.
i saw a vision and it would not leave me alone until i wrote it down. i wish creation was always this simple AURURHHRRH â a thought haunting you long enough that eventually you surrender to it. god, i love you chiaro.
i soo love the idea of armand checking readerâs pulse every chance he gets. fingers against a wrist, against a throat, like he needs proof. like the warmth and the beating beneath his hands are evidence that this is real and not something he imagined out of loneliness :((
and kissing the pulse on their neckâŠ.. oh that makes me feel violently unwell actually
HI EVERYONE IT'S BEEN NEARLY A YEAR. so glad to see the armand x reader tag is filling up. go ahead and give my girl isabelle a read if you'd like. ends on a cliffhanger bc of course it does, we've got a s3 sooooon
taglist @thelastemzy
chapter ix fic masterlist next epilogue
Twenty Twenty-Three, New York City, United States of America
âEighty-five years, and I havenât seen him since.â
Daniel only nodded, having breathed in the end of her story.
âBut the longer I sat with it all, the more I found out through the telepathic grapevine about Claudia and Madeline and Louis, the farther I got from the influence the coven had over me during those yearsâŠthe easier it became to despise Armand. Love became loathing became an understanding almost close to indifference. Meanwhile, there was an eternity to be lived.
âI made an effort to form more relationships with humans, all of which ended in some sort of tragedy, of course-but, at the time, I figured it worth it. âFor the plotâ, as those my apparent age say now-weâre wired to need each other, to go through all the beautiful mess of friendship and love and family no matter what; thatâs part of being human.â
âBut we arenât,â Daniel said flatly.
âI clung,â Isabelle readily confessed. âEven harder than Louis did. But I didnât want to be selfish, I couldnât keep allowing myself to become close to people if I just had to leave them at the end. So it wasâŠit was incredibly lonely, especially after the constancy of being around the coven at all times. I watched as Ădith became a star, both with joy and pride for my friend and the pain in knowing that that might never be mine; thatâs one of the curses of immortality, holding yourself back, never being able to make a name for yourself with your own name. That is, I suppose, untilâŠâ
âUntil?â
âI hear the âbrat princeâ is taking up rock music. Youâve referenced that, too; didnât think I would notice?â
âLike I said, Isabelle, you sometimes seemed so caught up in who you were at the time of your story that-â
âI went to America,â she steadily interrupted, âbought a small apartment in an artistsâ district of New York City, sat in that apartment for God knows how long, and got my damn self back. Each and every memory, combed through and tested, questioned and sat with until I knew for certain that my entire recollection was mine and mine alone.
âThe fact that I allow emotion to be seen does not make me weak, Daniel; it does not negate the fact that I walked away when endless others couldnât, that I still try to be as ethical with my killings as possible, that all the powers of a past loverâs ancient blood have been simmering through my veins for decades longer than they have in yours.
âBut IâveâŠIâve never told my full story to another before, as I obviously couldnât tell humans, as I feared being manipulated again, as I-like him-swore never to turn another. I saw my family only once more after everything; of course, I realized then that nothing could ever be the same. I eventually did catch some wonderful roles, gaining recognition while going by Bella Ditell again, and faked dying young; I wasnât going to deny myself the opportunity to show everyone back home what they refused to see I could be. But over time, the need to prove myself gave way to the slow realization that I really did have eternity, and my responsibility then was to find out what to do with it.
âThere were indeed a few vampiric friends here and there, I even tried finding another companion, butâŠnone of those relationships ever lasted.â
âWhyâs that?"
âItâs beenâŠwhat, just over a year since youâve been turned? You canât tell me you havenât felt those fucking eyes trying to get to you through others, through any means possible.â
A beat.
Daniel nodded.
âRight. Well, after the years parsing through my memory, once he was settled in with Louis and that started to go sidewaysâŠaround that time, every time I would start to get close to someone, I dreaded the day that I knew would eventually come. It always did. Suddenly, their eyes would go blank, and whatever voice I had started to love would give way to our makerâs words: âIsabelle, precious one, Iâve nearly found you. Youâre doing well, my songbird, so well, but youâre lonely, I know you are. You werenât meant for this, you wereâŠââ
She choked up for a moment, but pushed through in the recitation, the words spitting out through a fresh and heavily fought batch of tears.
ââYou were meant to be lovedâ, heâd say through each one of them,â she breathed, words sheâd longed to hear under any other circumstance. ââI cannot bear to see you go on alone, not when every curve of your willowing frame was built for my attentions, not when I am now plagued by regret, not when I am now reduced to nothing but a second choice. Come back to me, beloved-â
âYouâre âbelovedâ, too?â Daniel interrupted almost quietly, his gaze boring through his coffee table, but she kept on spilling-
â-come to me again, my Louis would adore you, I am sure your light would set us all to rights again, come to me, come to me, all that fucking jazz,â she finished in one quick and exhausted breath. âTrying to mess with my head, but I knew he also meant it, which messed with my head more than any of the calculated shit. I never broke, thoughâŠbut the thing is, whichever unlucky vamp he spoke through that time would never go near me again. I can understand why I wouldnât be thought worth the pain of being used as an ancient vampireâs vessel; they all seemed so shaken afterwards. ButâŠthatâs why. Thatâs why I was so desperately lonely, thatâs why I was forced to stop even trying with others of our kind. I moved states and countries again and again, killed terrible politicians and found some great roles and made art and clung to those temporary communities, faked my death every few years, moved again. ItâsâŠitâs a tiring life, Daniel, lonely indeed.
âBut at least I know,
âWith blessed and rare certainty,
âThat my life is my own.â
She paused, letting out a final breath.
âAnd that is how itâs been ever since.â
Daniel looked back up at her, confirmed that this was her version of her storyâs current end, and nodded.
âAnd with plenty of upheaval on the horizon,â he half-sighed, betraying an ever-so-slight hint of nervousness that almost made her smile.
For all his abrasiveness, the brother fledgling in front of her was so new at this.
No matter what was coming for the vampiric community, she knew she would endure.
In fact, Isabelle de la Rue was quite intent now on doing far more than that.
They sat together in the strangeness of that moment, each processing that they were no longer the only one theyâd thought themselves to be, each reckoning with the truth of the past and weighing the chances of the future.