Just found it’s Armand’s birthday and feeling really very emo about Daniel celebrating it
Dear Anon, I am so, so sorry it's taken me so long to reply! I wanted to write a mini-fic to go with this, but I've been really exhausted lately, so it took a while but here it is!
(Psst, also, your ask inspired me, and I want to expand this little ficlet and eventually post it on AO3, so keep an eye out! For now, this is what I have <3)
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10 November, 1974
"What do you mean you don't know?"
Armand sighs; it was meant to be tired and admonishing, but the corners of his lips tick up, and the sigh is coloured by the alarming fondness he has developed for the boy.
"It means that, 500 years ago, people had more pressing things to do than keep track of birthdays, such as fighting for survival amongst sundry wars and plagues and famines. So no, Daniel, I do not know when my birthday is."
"Jesus, you're making me sad, man."
Armand scoffs. "Celebrations of life are for the living."
"Uh-huh, sure. Well, I'm living, and I wanna celebrate."
For the first time in this inane conversation, Armand is given pause; he tips his head to the side, tries to parse Daniel's words, the boisterous yet earnest look in his luminous green eyes. He's not sure he succeeds.
"You wish to celebrate... me?"
"Well, yeah?" Daniel frowns, like this ought to be obvious. "You're weird and insane and fun, that's definitely worth celebrating. Plus, hey, the deal was, I keep you entertained and you don't kill me, so that counts, right?"
Armand blinks. "Yes. Of course."
Fascinating.
-
11 November, 1974
"Happy birthday!" Daniel croons, his grin hooking his mouth wide, green eyes bright and glowing with pleasure between dark eyelashes.
He holds out a small packet, haphazardly wrapped in colourful paper; a hint of pink dusts his cheeks, his heartbeat quickened with excitement and nerves; he smells sweet with it.
Slowly, Armand takes the packet from him; it's light, and when he turns it over in his hands, it emits a quiet, gentle rattle.
"Okay, birthday tutorial: at this point, we usually say 'thank you'."
Armand shoots the boy a glare and makes one of his knees bend for his insolence, throwing him off-balance; Daniel yelps, then laughs, like Armand isn't...
Slowly, Armand slices through a piece of sticky tape with a claw, carefully unfolds the wrapping paper (it's blue, with pictures of colourful streamers and coriandoli on it); Daniel wiggles, shuffles his feet.
"Come on, man, don't have to be so careful, it's not like you're gonna be keeping the wrapping paper!"
Armand blinks, looks up, feeling rather caught.
"I'm not?"
It's Daniel's turn to blink. His eyes are so luminous, almost... almost like a vampire's. When Armand skims his mind, he is flooded with a wave of affection and warmth and sadness and... something he can't quite put his finger on. Daniel is feeling all of that towards him.
"Uh, I mean, sure, keep it. You're the boss," Daniel says, trying to cover up his moment of pause.
When was the last time somebody gave him a gift? he wonders, the thought so fierce it bumps into Armand's brain all on its own, like an insistent puppy. Armand presses his lips together. It's been... a while.
He finishes carefully peeling the paper away; beneath lies a cassette tape in a plastic case. Daniel is biting his lip now, a tingle of nervousness spreading across his body. Armand opens the case; the tape is a generic one, with a label that was clearly applied carefully, yet still ended up being slightly crooked.
To Armand, from Daniel, 1974, it says simply. Armand passes a careful finger over the cassette, feeling out its contours and edges and grooves. He wishes to commit it to memory, every atom of it, and that's before he even hears what is encrypted in its lengthy spool of magnetic foil.
"It's a mix tape," Daniel blurts out, as ever unable to let silence sit outside of an interview. "Uh, you know, a bunch of songs that I thought you might like and that... that I like. And wanted to give you."
Oh. A recording of a moment in time; of thoughts and connections webbing things together with intangible string. With sound. With music. With music of Daniel's time. A fragment of Daniel's very mind, captured and enclosed in this piece of plastic, wrapped up in colourful paper and laid in Armand's hand.
Armand has been given gifts before. A long time ago, he used to receive plenty, though they perhaps counted more as... payments. For services rendered. Once that part of his life ended, so did most of gift-receiving. The occasional token here or there, most given to secure his good will or out of custom. He has never received anything quite like... this. Anything so strangely worthless yet overwhelmingly invaluable and treasured.
He traces his finger along the cassette tape's ridge again; across from him, Daniel's pulse is fluttering, his thoughts racing, a frantic, buoyed loop of Does he like it, does he like it, does he like it?
"I like it," Armand says quietly, then looks up, meets Daniel's eyes in earnest. "I like it very much. Thank you."
The smile that breaks out across Daniel's face is radiant. Armand's chest flutters with light.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
It's finally here, lads! Born of a cracky conversation I had with the fabulous @graygiantess who then went on to write the amazing fic "Growing Pains", and it took me exactly a year to hold up my end of the deal...
I had this idea of the Talamasca sending Daniel the files again, or maybe he uploaded them to the cloud and just downloads them again to a new laptop
finally, he sits down and takes a look at them; as he suspected, there is a folder on him and Armand, filled with sub-folders and files
the first file is a video
the description is brief and clinical:
Video recording.
Date: 26th June, 1978.
Subjects: A.; Molloy, D.
Author of recording: Molloy, D.
Camera model: JVC GC-3300E (colour).
Note: audio not available.
so he clicks on it
the image flickers, pretty well restored, but still a little grainy, and it takes a while for the camera to focus
it shows Armand, in bed, shirtless among rumpled sheets, shot from the chest up, his drowsy, lazy smile filling the screen
he looks so easy and happy
he says something, but there's no audio, so the words are a sweet, lazy mystery
he reaches out and the camera wobbles all over the place for a while, showing blurry flashes of a room, before it stabilises and starts gliding away, turning around, suspended by Armand's power, to show Daniel in the frame as well, grabbing uselessly at the camera before Armand gently coaxes him back down on the bed and they kiss, laughing and happy
the camera lingers, then the image flickers out and the video ends
---
I THINK
this should be the first thing Daniel sees of himself and Armand
BECAUSE
consider. in love stories so full of gore and violence and psychosis (and there's plenty of that for Daniel and Armand in the '70s too), the REAL shock value would be in seeing something gentle and innocent
Daniel would be ready for madness. he would NOT be ready for THAT
My one (1) foray into Gasper, wherein Jasper drags a freshly-turned (and high as a kite) Guy to seek audience with Armand (and Daniel) on Night Island for hand-wavey reasons:
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He would speak more, but he’s suddenly caught by the slow glint of candlelight in his spoon; once more, he sees colours he has no names for, sees each fibre of the metal, could swear he sees each individual photon making up its reflection.
“Wow…” he breathes.
He moves the spoon, tilts it just a fraction, and watches in aeons-slow time as the light glides through it, like liquid or some secret, fourth state of matter. No, fifth. Plasma is a thing. Is this plasma?
“No, babydoll, it’s not plasma,” Jasper replies with a wry smile, and oh, Guy must still be talking.
Armand gives a curt little sigh.
“Well, that’s a horrifying glimpse into what could have been,” he says in a voice like polished glass, then looks at Molloy. “I was right not to turn you in the ‘70s, feel free to officially admit this at any time.”
“Jesus, he’s gonna be fine, it’s a temporary high!” Jasper groans, throwing his head back (his neck is beautiful, and Guy gets to bite it now), then lifts it back up to look at Armand. “It’s already fading, on night one he was so loaded he couldn’t walk straight. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. Not like I was a virgin when I did him. No offence.”
Armand huffs, then gives a dour look to Molloy, who is currently hiding a snort in his glass of blood and doing a pretty shitty job of it.
“Uh-oh, careful there, pal,” Molloy says with a crooked grin. “He’s ripped people’s hands off for less.”
Just read the devils minion proposal fic, I love that Daniel says "armand, amadaes, arun" when he proposes, like he says that when he asks "where does the bullshit start" in canon, it's a really nice parallel
Waaaahhhh, anon, you are making me cry so close to my bedtime! I am so, so happy you liked it and that the reference landed! This is one of my favourite fics that I've written, so this means so much <3
WIP Wednesday: The Sugarbabyfication of Old Man Daniel Molloy!
(Chapter 4 of 5+1 times Daniel can't catch Armand is in the fic's summary preview, so I thought I'd treat you to a snippet from a different WIP!)
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“We have recently found out that Daniel carries the cloud gift gene, and I am fully confident he will be able to express it. And soon, I’d wager.”
“Yeah, he throws me off a roof once a month to check if it’s kicked in yet.”
Armand smiles, white teeth and lazily pleased eyes; Christ, what an asshole.
“You are the most prodigious fledgling ever created, Daniel. You are remarkable.” He turns to their captive audience of one, eyebrows arching, chin jutting.
“Yes,” the other vamp babbles hurriedly. “Yes, most impressive. Most impressive. Unheard of, I’m sure.”
See, the thing is, Armand will still kill the vamps if they fail to be sufficiently impressed with Daniel’s vampiric prowess; but he will also kill them if they’re too impressed and look like they’d like a bite out of him (metaphorically speaking). It’s like a really weird version of the Sphinx, if it was built out of possessiveness, horniness and emotionally incestuous parental pride.
WIP Wednesday: the even more birthdays of the Vampire Armand
Lads, I've been hoping to start posting this fic on Sunday, but I still have 3 full segments to write, plus a handful of segments to finish, so I think it'll be next Sunday. This fic is already 14k though, so, uh...
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11 November, 2024
The last of the dead cop’s blood seeps into the grimy cracks of the neglected street, mingling with the last of yesterday’s rain, bits of chewing gum and some obligatory rat urine. The fragrance palette of New York City: Vampire Edition.
Daniel shakes the spray paint can and goes back to what he was doing before he got interrupted.
“What are you doing?” Lestat’s voice pops up in his head.
“Fuck off,” Daniel murmurs; yeah, he still talks out loud when he’s on the vampire radio; he’s literally a Boomer, leave him alone.
“I’m sensing you have fed,” Lestat carries on. “Do remember to clean up after yourself, you eat like a savage.”
“Uh-huh,” Daniel says, concentrating on making the vertical line in the ‘B’ straight.
“Blood spurting left and right, you can’t close your mouth properly over an artery to save your life. It’s like watching a toddler slap its first spoon into a bowl full of pureed beetroots.”
“So spank me.”
“You would spank a toddler? Mon dieu, you Americans really are barbaric.”
“Okay, A: figure of speech; and B: you wanna compare child-rearing notes, pal? You? Are you sure?”
The loop on the ‘R’ came out too big, looks almost like a ‘D’. Daniel decides to blame Lestat.
Thursday is my traditional WIP Wednesday, so have a snippet of chapter 2 (coming to an AO3 near you this weekend) from 'He prefers to hunt for it', aka 5 times Daniel couldn't catch Armand +1 time he did:
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So yeah. Daniel remembers. Him. Armand. Them. He remembers them. He remembers all the batshit stuff, sure: your run-of-the-mill psychosexual escapades, the random destruction of public property, the drugs, the blood, the rodents in the blender. Fine. He can deal with that.
Sure.
But there’s other stuff too. Shit he’s not sure he can deal with. Shit like happiness. Fun. Loving— loving. They were in love.
He remembers looking at Armand’s smile, big and open and happy, and feeling like he never needs to eat or snort coke again; he remembers holding him and being held, remembers it so starkly his now permanently 69-year-old body aches in the places that make up the missing shape of Armand pressed up against him. He remembers watching him dismantle a microwave and feeling so full of love he had to wiggle in place and laugh. He remembers laughing, sweaty in a heatwave, when Armand wrapped himself around him to cool him down.
He remembers— yeah, he remembers holding his fucking hand in fucking Paris.
