old habits

Daniel might be a bit blood-drunk. If blood-drunk feels like the way regular drunk promises to be but never is, if that voice in that comes into your head when you’ve reached tipsy and says hey buddy, if this feels good, getting drunker will feel like this but better! were actually true. He has just killed a man and drained him. Daniel feels fucking fantastic. He loves drinking blood. He loves being a vampire. He loves–

Armand has his back up against the wall, the very same fucking wall with a crater in it from his earlier collision, but this time he’s pressed against it on purpose, their mouths mashed together, one of Daniel’s legs in between his thighs, squirming and making little breathy moans that make Daniel wish he’d kept the recording running. He could listen to that for hours. Days. Months? A lifetime? He no longer has any sense of chronological scale. Time is broken. He has exited its stream.

If he weren’t blood-drunk, he would probably slow down. That would be polite. He hasn’t always been a polite sexual partner, but he’s grown to be a bit less of an asshole in the last thirty years of his life. If he hadn’t just guzzled the entire contents of a human body and then had Armand present his own neck as a chaser, he would definitely not be grabbing at the man’s ass quite so aggressively, shoving his thigh against Armand’s hard cock with quite so much vigour. And he tries, he really does. For a moment he tries to pull back, get his mind back under control.

Armand’s eyes are closed in bliss, and then they open and look right at Daniel as he says, “Please. Please, maître.”

It’s like being doused in cold water.

Daniel’s first instinct is to get the hell away from him. But at the first twitch of his body Armand’s fingers close around his biceps, which would be more than enough to keep him there on the a physical level, but in the end doesn’t even really make a difference, because Daniel can still see his fucking eyes, and that’s what gets him. Armand looks terrified. Which he deserves, that and much more, but what he deserves doesn’t make a lick of difference to Daniel. The idea of Armand, Armand his maker, looking like that, because of him, is simply impossible. So he stays, forearms braced on the wall on either side of Armand’s face. It’s not much of a pause, but it’s enough of one for him to have the first logical thought that he’d had since Armand had sunk his fangs into Daniel’s neck into the first place.

Armand is perfectly capable of putting Daniel in his place if he wants to. He had, when they’d headed out to find someone for him to eat and Daniel had tried to lunge at the first passer-by they’d seen. Armand is not scared of him. Armand is not trying to win his favour. Armand is just…

“You’re fucked up, you know that?” Daniel says. A part of him wants to see the hurt in Armand’s face, but another part doesn’t, and that part runs the back of his hand down the side of his maker’s face gently as he asks, “Do you really like that shit? Or is it just a habit for you by now?”

Armand takes so long to answer, his lips slightly parted and trembling, that Daniel can’t resist touching the lower one with his finger. It’s slack and pliant; he could slide his whole hand into Armand’s mouth if he had a mind to. It probably doesn’t help him get his answer faster.

“I don’t know,” says Armand finally. “The last time I considered whether habit and preference could be separated was nearly eighty years ago. All I can tell you is that they’re not right now.” And he blinks, sweeping his eyelashes down over his cheeks, perfectly aware of himself, and says the word again.

Daniel can’t think of another description besides fucked-up, and he’s already used that one, so he doesn’t bother with it again. Armand knows. Armand is completely aware of who he is, what he likes, and why. It just doesn’t change anything. And really, can Daniel claim differently of himself?

He can work with fucked-up.

He crowds in, pushing his leg harder between Armand’s for the reassurance that he is very, very interested. He stares at Armand’s neck, at his lips, and Armand just tips his head back against the wall, waiting for whatever Daniel decides to do.

‘What is it that you like?" He asks. “Is it the word itself? Do you like not having a choice? Being manhandled? Do you like to be hurt?”

Armand just presses into him with a little moan, and okay. Maybe this is not the best time to get a detailed answer out of him about his sexual proclivities. The best time would definitely have been before they started having sex, but it’s a bit too late for that now, and at the very least nothing Daniel just said seems to be turning him off.

And maybe it’s just the blood, this recklessness that feels like the drug he’s been waiting to find his entire life, maybe he’s delusional, but right now Daniel thinks he would be able to tell. If Armand didn’t want something, Daniel would know. If they’re putting a moratorium on interrogating the sources of wanting, he can do that. He can not ask himself why Armand wants, just like he can not ask himself why the first memory Armand had plucked out of his head was of Daniel’s own cruelty. She agreed, and you did it even as she cried. A splinter of coldness in you? She hadn’t even been bad-looking. It wasn’t the bag he’d wanted. It was the crying. The idea that someone wanted him so much they’d do anything he wanted.

He grabs Armand by the hair. it feels just like he’d imagined, smooth and soft. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. Here’s the deal. You will not call me maître. That word means nothing to me. When you’re in the mood to, you will call me boss. Understood?” He punctuates it with a sharp tug to Armand’s scalp.

Armand gasps, and whimpers, deliberately unfinished, “Yes…”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, boss.” He looks radiant.

“I hear the m-word, I stop. So if you don’t like what I’m doing, you know what to say.” That’s good, Daniel thinks, pleased with his own cleverness. A threat and a safeword rolled into one.

And now that he has that reassurance, it occurs to him that he really is still pretty pissed at Armand. Not for the fangs in his neck, not for the blood under his tongue, no; not for the lie that built his tidy little life that’s just come crashing down, which is Louis’ to avenge. But the other lies, the ones that Daniel built his life on: that he’d just gotten high a little too often in his misspent youth, that’s all. That he had no idea who that man in the bar was or why Daniel felt the need to leave with him like a compulsion. That it was ever possible for him to be a good husband, a good father, a good anything besides what the nightmare hovering always on the edges of his mind wanted him to be– and to not even know. To have spent a lifetime blaming himself for all the things he could never manage to hold on to properly, only to discover that it had been Armand all along, having them fall through his fingers like water. He’s fucking pissed about that.

And the blood mingles with anger like it does everything else and turns it into something delicious. A dish to be shared.

He considers the couch, or the table. But he’s spent his entire time here sitting politely on that couch, pulled up to that table on his laptop, exactly where Armand wanted him. He is done with asking what happens next. So he pulls Armand towards the bedroom, uninvited.

The bedroom is like a cage. It is a cage; beyond the arch of the doorway, a tiling of sliding doors made wooden stakes cover the walls like bars. The bed is in the centre of a depression in the floor, three stairs leading down to it on all sides, and when Daniel gives Armand a good hard shove towards it, he falls down them. He could have prevented himself from falling, surely, but he collapses in a heap on the carpet at the foot of the bed instead. It gives Daniel a chance to look around as Armand scrambles up onto it and Daniel makes his way down the stairs. At the paintings, the sculptures, the cushions on the floor, at the–

“You can, boss.” Armand is following Daniel’s gaze to the opposite wall, where paddles and floggers hang on hooks displayed like art. Underneath, something that could either be a brazier or a dog bowl.

He imagines it for a moment. Hitting Armand with an item specifically purchased to hit Armand with. By which one of them, he wonders, or did they scroll through the options together. Armand was right, at least, that nobody at Amazon is trying to sell him blenders.

“Nah,” he says, kneeing his way onto the bed. “My own two hands are feeling real steady today, for some reason.” He hits Armand in the face.

His palm stings. It feels fucking fantastic. Armand’s head jerks, and he lets himself fall back entirely onto the mattress, his chin angled slightly up. Presenting himself for the next one, and the next. Daniel obliges.

“Take your clothes off,” he orders, and Armand does, all while Daniel is hitting him wherever he can; he claims more skin as it’s revealed, his chest, his hips, the tender insides of his thighs and undersides of his arms. The bottoms of his feet, and Armand squirms and nearly kicks him until Daniel tightens his grip on his ankle to keep him still. Armand isn’t fully hard, but the way he’s looking at Daniel is somehow better than pure lust; delicate lips parted to allow through breath he doesn’t need, dark colour in his cheeks from Daniel’s handprints, eyes wide and glassy and accepting.

Daniel gets his own clothes off before surging up to kiss him again, and that is so much better, the entire length of both their bodies pressed together. He puts enough of his weight on Armand that the unnecessary breathing stops, and thrusts his tongue into Armand’s mouth until he feels his cock filling out underneath him.

Daniel himself hasn’t been this hard, this fast, since– maybe ever. There is so much blood in him, and all of it is ready to go, singularly focused on shoving Armand down and fucking him. Is there lube? Shouldn’t he use lube? Armand grabs his hand, bringing his attention back.

“Hold me down,” he pants. “Hand on my– yes. Please, boss.”

Daniel’s hand goes on his throat. It feels strong. It feels steady. He feels like he could squeeze right through this flesh. Armand squirms until it’s hard enough to cut off his air, to bruise. “We are going to fucking talk about this,” Daniel growls.

“But not now,” Armand rasps. Somehow, he manages to make it sound smug.

Not now. Daniel leans on his throat harder than he’d ever considered doing to another human body. With his other hand he grabs one of Armand’s legs behind the knee and pulls it up as far is it will go towards his chest. Fuck the lube. He leans down, holds the flesh out of the way and spits directly into Armand’s hole, filthy, blood and spit sliding down the crack of his ass. More spit for his own cock, blood from a hastily punctured lip, and then Daniel lines himself up and starts pushing in.

It’s slow, tight, not slick enough to make it particularly comfortable for Daniel, let alone for Armand. Armand just breathes through it, though, the air doing something for him that Daniel has yet to understand the purpose of, and just when Daniel is about to wince and pull out, try again more kindly, Armand grabs his hips and pulls him in.

And then he’s buried in Armand, as far as he’s ever going to get considering Armand had made sure Daniel would never read his mind. But then, he’d made equally sure that he could never again take Daniel’s memories from him.

Has he fucked Armand before? He doesn’t think so– a lot of his drug hazes before the turn of the millennium ended with him waking up with a sore ass– but even now, he can’t really remember. Either way, he has a lot of time to make up for. He fucks Armand like he plans to make up for it.

At first Armand just lies there and lets it happen; prettily, of course, but with a level of interiority that is almost alien. Then, like a switch flipping, he is back; he curls his legs around Daniel’s back, hooks his ankles against each other, shoves back to get it harder. Daniel is saying stupid things in his head, and suddenly realizes he’s saying them hoping Armand will hear them, and that he won’t. He says them out loud instead and it’s not as terribly strange as he’d thought it would be, to pound into him and call him sweetheart, darling, you’re doing so well, you’re perfect for me.

Armand is making breathy little squeaks with each thrust, and Daniel would never record that sound, because it’s his. And then one of the squeaks becomes a different sound, coagulates into a word–

“Yes, maître–”

Daniel slows down, loses his rhythm for a moment. He isn’t in the habit of making false promises, and he doesn’t plan on starting now, but old habits die hard, and this one will only ever be dormant. If Armand really did it by mistake, he might give him a second chance. But he stares down into his maker’s face and Armand’s eyes stare back like huge orange spotlights, waiting. Intentional.

“All right,” says Daniel, swallowing down a bit of self-reproach that Armand doesn’t need right now. Maybe he had gotten a bit carried away but that’s fine, that’s what the word was for. It’s all fine. “A bit– a bit too rough?”

“No,” says Armand, practically a whisper, “It was good, I liked it, I just wanted to…”

To see what would happen. For the first time in his life, he had a way to make it all stop. Of course he needed to see for himself whether or not it was real.

Daniel swallows. “It’s fine,” he says, and then absurdly, “I’m proud of you, that was– let’s finish this gently, okay?” Armand nods, looking more stunned than pleased. Daniel pulls out and rolls him onto his side, so he can press his chest to Armand’s back, gather some more blood from his lip, and push back into him with an arm wrapped around his chest, pulling him close. Maybe it’s just the fresh kill coursing through both of them, or maybe his sense of temperature has adjusted itself to his new internal circumstances, but Armand feels warm and soft in his arms.

“Good?” he asks, and Armand just presses back against him, which seems like all the confirmation he’s going to get. Daniel starts moving slowly, shallowly, and the way it holds him just over the edge is almost better than the wild abandon of earlier. He rolls Armand’s nipples between his fingers, and the lack of reaction feels almost pointed, so he pinches sharply instead, and of course Armand breathes like that, boss in response.

Armand lies still for a while, eyes closed and hair fanned against the cusion, then begins to tremble and then shudders and finally comes first, curling forward into himself like a hurt thing. When Daniel starts to pull out, though, he reaches back and puts a hand on his hip. “Stay,” he says. “Use me.”

No honorific. Daniel doesn’t need to be told twice; he grabs Armand tighter and fucks into him, tight, sharp thrusts. He’s not really hungry any more, but then, nobody drinks a glass of wine because they’re thirsty; they do it because they want to. He bites Armand’s shoulder as he comes and laps up the blood dripping from the shallow puncture. Armand lies still and lets him, the ghost of a tiny, peaceful smile on his lips.

When the wound is sealed, Armand rolls into his back. Daniel is still propped up on an elbow, looking down at him. Bruises take longer to fade than punctures; he has the imprint of Daniel’s fingers in his throat.

He should say something, needs to, but when he opens his mouth he still isn’t sure what it’s going to be. It’s fresh blood, it’s afterglow, but everything that can feel perfect does feel perfect right now. And everything that doesn’t is too old for Daniel to do anything to change. Still. They are going to talk about this. Asking is what he does.

Before any sound escapes him, Armand holds up a finger and puts it over his lips. Daniel feels washed with relief. He hadn’t really wanted to. “Tomorrow,” Armand promises.

“Yeah,” Daniel agrees, far too readily. There is a reason, he knows, why he should insist it be now. The reason is written into the tired grooves of his mind, memories forgotten and remembered and forgotten again. At the moment, he cannot remember the reason. From outside he can hear the call to Fajr. He had always assumed that vampires tired in much the same way as humans, just on the opposite schedule; but this is different. The break of dawn feels like being pulled and held under something soft and thick. It feels, for that matter, like his first encounter with Armand. It is so easy, so natural, to gather his maker in his arms and close his eyes.

The next time he wakes it is sundown, and Daniel is alone. He has slept, or perhaps been dead, through three adhans and his own abandonment. His heartbeat is silent, absent. Armand is gone, because Armand is always gone. But this time, Daniel remembers.