seldom do you ever hit the mark

Daniel buys a ticket back to New York for the next evening and then promptly falls asleep, because waking up at dawn and also taking a trip to a mall that closes at midnight doesn't seem like a good combination. For all he knows, Armand might be napping too. He means to go look for him when he's woken by Maghrib, but then he starts looking over his notes, and coming to terms with the idea that this is all real and he's not insane and he's going to live long enough to write about it. He manages to find the kitchen and make himself a couple sandwiches with the odds and ends left over in it, and in a few hours he has a tentative outline and a list of follow-up questions for Louis, for the Talamasca archives, and for Lestat if he can get him.

He has none for Armand. There had been plenty, scribbled down during the sessions. Somehow, they had all migrated into a part of his brain that doesn't need writing down.

It’s late into the evening by the time Daniel is startled from his desk by a loud banging sound. He jumps up, his back and knees protesting, and bangs his way out of his room, abruptly terrified of— something. He trips, dizzy again, and clips his shoulder on the doorframe. Loudly, in his head, Armand’s voice: Are you all right?

He manages to hold himself upright, squeezes his eyes shut for a few seconds against the stars bursting in front of his vision, then exits the room at a more reasonable pace. To his left, in the hallway leading to the door, is a small pile. Two clear plastic bins; a larger one full of clothes, and a small one of books. A small grey suitcase, which is open, packed tidily with smaller bags. And the Marius de Romanus painting, wrapped in bubble wrap and leaning against the wall behind it all.

He turns away from it and finds Armand in the dining room with a hammer hanging from his hand. He is standing back, one finger on his chin, facing the wall. He turns when Daniel enters, and says, "My apologies. I heard your distress, and was concerned you were injured."

"You can't be serious," says Daniel. He had been going to tell Armand to at least be quiet in his head if he can't stay out of it, but—

"Yes," sighs Armand, "I suppose it doesn't quite match the tone of the room. But perhaps that's the point."

The canvas on the wall, where the Romanus used to be: a stark blue arrangement of shapes two nearly-human figures, one with a circle for a head, one a triangle. One has its arms tucked in oddly, the other criss-crossed by lines that could be a striped vest, or ropes around its chest.

"It's been in storage quite a while," says Armand, I thought the colours—"

"You didn't think shit about the colours," says Daniel. "You thought, gee, what can I leave up on my ex's wall that'll really say 'and fuck you too, buddy'?"

On the far side of the room, a stack of other candidates lean against the wall. On top, a canvas striped with curved colours that include too much blue than seems proper to a fire, yet unmistakably is. Armand follows his gaze. “I decided against the Samia Halaby,” he says.

Daniel can only shake his head. This is ridiculous. He turns to the table, which has a few smaller pieces strewn across it. He recognizes one of the Steins which had made its way into Louis' collection, framed. A few of them are photographs of naked women with their faces scratched out. He pulls one towards him with a fingertip. "Bellocq," says Armand. "Portraits of Storyville girls."

"Okay," Daniel rubs his hands over his face. "Okay. So you're... getting a place, I guess?"

"I suppose I will need somewhere else to be," says Armand. "I will stay in a hotel until— until I decide. I don't wish to stay here without—"

Louis, is the obvious ending to that sentence, but Armand stops it short and it occurs to Daniel that he'd stayed here without Louis just fine. It's Daniel who's leaving now.

An odd silence. Daniel swallows. Then he waves his hands at the art. "Take it from me," he says, “any satisfaction you might get from leaving a passive-agressive note on the way out is not worth it."

Armand hesitates. "I did not choose these pieces to be cruel," he says. "Or rather, not only for that reason. Louis bought the Romanus for me. I wanted to replace it with something I chose for him."

Which kind of makes it sound like he did mean it to be cruel. But then, he is taking the de Romanus with him.

"Let it be known," says Daniel, "that as your divorce consultant I am registering my objection that this is a bad idea."

Armand keeps his eyes on the painting for a few more minutes. His mouth opens, that little self-conscious pout with his jaw, then he takes it off the wall. He gestures to the stack of paintings. “Would you choose, then?”

Daniel ambles over, flips through them awkwardly with the stack leaning against his leg. Lots of them are similar to the one on the wall, vaguely threatening modern things. Some present some obvious objection at a single glance: a family being arrested by two baton-wielding police officers, another Basquiat, more canvasses that look too much like fire. He stops at one that has nothing to immediately rule it out: a group of stylized white animals with mouths open in amusingly oval shapes, an oddly spiky red sun in the sky. Behind them, the same shape but greener, facing the opposite direction. “What’s this one?”

Armand comes over to peer at it. “Fatigued Ten Horses Converse with Nothing,” he says. “The scene references the Battle of Karbala, where died the grandson of the Prophet, peace be upon Him. I looked at it for a few minutes in a gallery in Sharjah. I didn’t think Louis had noticed, but then here it was.”

He sounds forlorn. Deliberately? Is anything he does not deliberate? What would he be trying to get out of it, a hug? Well, Daniel figures, he can have that if he finds the balls to ask for it. Silence stretches between them, and then Armand says instead, “I am fond of it, but I think to take it would be…” he trails off. Daniel also isn’t sure what it would be.

The horses are really more a mass of horse than a differentiated animals; they have arched legs in common, necks sticking out at odd angles. With the addition of context, the mouths look less comic and more frightening. Maws, geometric shapes suggesting holes, absence. Okay, so it’s not entirely clear of the theme of child death, but what is? The horses look a bit like Daniel feels. Fatigued, yes. A little confused. Something has happened that they don’t quite understand, but the world feels different.

“You should put it up,” Daniel says. “if it’s the one you’d most like to take from him, you should leave it.”

Armand picks up the painting and sets it on the wall. Then he steps back, pointedly does not evaluate the effect it gives, and walks out of the room. "Consultant," Daniel hears from his retreating voice. "Next question."

He follows Armand's voice to the bedroom. Louis and Armand's bedroom. The bed is sunken into the middle of the room, literally caged in. Armand is standing outside the cage, contemplating an array of-- yes, of whips. Hanging from the wall, like art.

"Would it be acceptable, do you think," Armand says, "for me to take these?"

"Uh." Daniel tries to call to mind relevant experience. There was, he's pretty sure, a small and dusty box of sex toys under the bed he and Alice once shared. By the end he had probably forgotten they existed, let alone contemplating taking them with him. That doesn't really seem similar.

"Okay," he tries. "First impression: if these are the only things you take from this room, that's weird as hell. If you take a bunch of stuff, it's a little less weird."

Armand turns around. Casts an eye over the bed, the piles of pillows, the mantel of little sculptures, the paintings. "They're the only thing here I want," he admits.

What the hell. Armand seems to have little enough idea of what he wants; he should probably take full advantage every time he does have some idea. "Well then, better take them," he says. "If they're you know... yours?"

Armand gives him a sudden sharp, bright smile. “Does the bridle belong to the horse, or the rider?” he asks, Daniel hopes rhetorically, because he does not have a fucking answer to that. Armand gathers them up, running his fingers over the leather lovingly. Daniel isn’t sure whether to stare at him or avert his eyes.

“That’s all for now, I think,” Armand says, exiting to drop the whips on top of the open suitcase in the hallway. “And the mall has closed for the night. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah,” says Daniel, relieved that the conversation isn’t going to linger too much over the contents of the bedroom.

Armand has changed again, Daniel notices; he's wearing jeans now, though nice ones. Daniel drags his eyes away from them. "Would you prefer to drive," says Armand, "or fly?"

Daniel is momentarily stumped. "You... know how to drive?" he says, and at Armand's look continues "okay, stupid question. You've known how to drive since before I was a sparkle in my daddy's testicles, I get it. I still-- okay, it seems insane to pass up an opportunity to literally fly, but I still do kind of want to see you drive."

Armand smirks. "I'll drive you to the airport tomorrow, how's that?"

"Perfect."

They stand facing each other for a moment. How are you supposed to ride a vampire, anyway? Is this a piggy-back situation, or--

"And you're not," Armand says, "nervous about it at all? After what Louis--?"

That hadn't even occurred to Daniel. And since Armand is clearly rifling through his thoughts at warp speed, he must know it. "Should I be?" he says. "I mean. It seems like a really lame way of killing me, and we've already agreed how you're going to do that. So, no."

"You shouldn't be, no," says Armand, but he still seems slightly stunned.

"Okay," says Daniel. "Good."

"Good," Armand echoes, and then says, "The balcony, I think," and leads Daniel there.

The night is warm, but the wind at the penthouse level is still strong. Armand's hair whips across his face as he turns towards the railing. "It is, I think, a piggy-back situation," he says, and Daniel tries to steel himself to jump on.

He knows Armand isn't fragile. He knows. But that doesn't do anything to stop his brain screaming at him that he absolutely cannot put his entire body onto the back of a skinny kid who, yes, probably weighs about a hundred and thirty pounds. And then Armand looks back at him, his eyes flashing exactly like they have so many times from Daniel's nightmares, and the illusion breaks. He puts his hands on Armand's shoulders, heaves himself up, and wraps his legs around his waist.

Armand grabs his thighs. There's also really nothing else to do from this angle but cross his arms over Armand's chest, and his chin comes to rest naturally on his shoulder, and he does not have any time to think about how weird this is because he's being carried over the edge of the balcony and floating gently between skyscrapers, and--

"This is incredible," he says. He must be saying it to Armand, because his mouth is right beside Armand's ear, but this it's not like he really has anything to communicate, he just can't prevent himself from saying it. "I can't believe this is happening. Well, I can, actually, I guess I've been working up to it for a while, but-- holy shit. This is amazing."

Armand turns his head. Their cheeks press together momentarily. His eyes are luminescent. "I'm glad you like it," he says.

The mall is huge, of course, the sort of building that it's difficult even to parse as a building from the outside. From high enough up, the Burj Khalifa looks like the kind of spike that a villain would end up impaled on in a cartoon. At this hour the fountains are a vast expanse of still water. The surroundings are hardly deserted; restaurants, bars, and clubs are lit up with people and activity as they glide past, but when Armand sets them both down outside an entrance to the mall proper, nobody else is around. The door simply opens, as if the mall were open, because of course it does.

The lobby they walk into is drenched in warm golden light; not quite the daytime lighting, probably, but enough to indicate that there must be security guards patrolling basically every inch of the place. As there should be, because-- holy shit. And yes, there's one, coming towards them now, and Armand says "Rest," and he does.

It is, Daniel thinks, an eerie recreation of Louis' description of his early nights with Armand. He's not totally sure how he feels about that, but it's also hard to think about it at all when they're walking through a hallway opened onto by a sign that says The Gold Souk that, to Daniel, looks like a Disney fairy-tale version of what an Arabian gold souk ought to look like. Except, of course, that the marble is real, not painted-over plaster, and each chandelier probably costs more than his car, and the shops lining this section of the mall do very much sell gold.

Armand looks amused. "It does stand to reason," he continues Daniel's thought, "that if you are in a store in Dubai that sells gold, you are by definition in an authentic Arabian gold souk. Or is your theory on the epistemology of authenticity simply that things that are authentic ought to be older than you?"

Perhaps it was. Which wouldn't leave much for Armand, would it, and makes the seeming paradox of the mall-loving five-hundred-year-old vampire make a bit more sense. One would have to learn to love things that are opulent and young, to survive; everything is young to him.

And it is beautiful here. Beautiful in a real, tasteful way, not in the kitschy way that the mere spectacle of consumerism can sometimes be. Armand leads him through the hallways of fountains, intricate marble, and decorated archways until they exit out into a section that is as self-consciously the Platonic ideal of a Western shopping mall as the previous section was something else. Until they turn the corner, and the ocean reaches up for two stories in front of them.

In the low light, the aquarium tank glows blue. Schools of fish dart around the nearest corner in a huge arc. There is a tunnel running the length of the tank. Armand flashes him a smile, and leads them in. Right in the middle of the tunnel he slides his back down the wall to sit, legs splayed out, head leaning back against the glass. Sitting on the floor isn't in Daniel's usual repertoire any more, but hell, he can make an exception. He manages to make it to the floor relatively gracefully, which isn't to say he'll make it up the same way.

"Do you come here a lot?"

"Often enough," says Armand. "Never before at night, though. Usually while Louis sleeps, but it gets crowded. Sometimes I come during a prayer, and it's a bit better."

"Naughty," says Daniel, and tweaks his nose, because he is an insane person whose new idea of fun is teasing the apex predator who has promised to kill him. Armand giggles.

They sit for a while, watching the fish. It's peaceful. The fact of having Armand beside him seems, now, normal. Armand will be with him in his final moments. He ought to be used to him by then. Why not now?

"I have an idea," says Armand. "Wait here." He scurries out of the tunnel, and Daniel tilts his head up to stare at the ceiling of it. With almost all of the light the pale blue of the lights in the tank, it is easy to imagine he is surrounded on all sides. A school of black and gold fish stream by behind him. A shark drifts overhead.

Suddenly there is a sharp knock on the glass beside him. Daniel startles, scrambling away, but of course it is Armand. Armand, on the other side of the glass, inside the tank.

"Holy shit, you're going to give me a heart attack," Daniel hisses, but even before it's out of his mouth he has nearly dissolved into laughter. The shark seems to have taken one look at Armand and decided to get as far away as possible. He is treading water to hover around the floor of the tank, his hair billowing in the currents. He is wearing all of his clothes and a maniacal grin that shows his fangs.

Daniel does what any normal twenty-first century person would do when confronted by an aquatic vampire: he pulls out his phone and takes a picture. That makes Armand laugh, a few bubbles drifting up out of his mouth. He pushes back from the wall, into a lazy backflip that brings him to the other side of the tank. A stingray finds more courage than the shark, and Armand strokes a hand over the top of its flat body before propelling himself upwards.

He reappears in the tunnel a few minutes later, dripping wet and looking very pleased with himself.

"Christ," says Daniel. "You're going to-- no, you'll be fine. I'm going to freeze to death, with the wind speeds at that altitude."

"Oh." Armand looks genuinely alarmed. "We could get a taxi instead--"

"We can't get a taxi, nobody's going to let you in. It's fine," laughs Daniel, "you'll just have to fly fast."

Armand sits back down beside him. Daniel's entire right side is immediately soaked. "Show me the photo," Armand says.

Daniel pulls it up. It's not particularly clear: the only light is the blue glow from the tank, and Armand's face is washed out through the glass and water. Superimposed on the image of Armand's fang-filled smile and billowing hair is the reflection of Daniel in the glass, his mouth a little bit open in concentration, the black square of his phone in front of his chin.It is immediately Daniel's favourite picture he's ever taken.

"Send it to me," says Armand.

Of course Armand has a phone. It's still surreal to pull up the new contact entry form and hand his own over to the vampire. Armand types in the number and hands it back, not even adding his name.

Daniel's fingers hover over the field. Then he pulls up the emoji keyboard, scrolls through, and saves it. He sends the picture to the number, then tilts the screen to show Armand: a new conversation with the contact "🟠.🟠"

Armand squints at it. Then he bursts into a peal of laughter that seems to ricochet off the walls of the tunnel. There is probably another team of security guards on their way to them right now. Daniel can't take his eyes off of him.

Sure enough, there are voices sounding at the far end of the tunnel. It will be fine in a moment; Armand will tell them there's nothing to see here, and they'll wander away.

Instead, Daniel grabs his arm and whispers, "It's the fuzz! Run!"

Wide-eyed confusion, for a moment. Daniel scrambles up, grinning. His body may be slowly collapsing, but his legs still work and he's going to take advantage while he still can. He's got so much adrenaline running through him that if he doesn't do something with it, he might start vibrating. "What, you've never run from the pigs before?" he hisses, and the confusion slowly melts into delight, and Daniel starts running.

It is, objectively speaking, a slow run, but it doesn't feel that way. Armand is matching Daniel's pace, a stroll for him, his head turned to watch Daniel's flat-out sprint and the two security guards catching up with them as if it's a fascinating sequence in an action movie. They make it about halfway to the lobby that Daniel can see at the end of this hall before the guards finally get too close for comfort and freeze in their tracks. Daniel manages a few more steps before the hammering of his heart catches up to him and he has to slow down, only to find himself scooped up and pressed to Armand's chest as they duck out through the open doors and swoop up into the night sky.

Armand is laughing near-hysterically. "Daniel," he manages, gasping, "why did you do that?"

"Why?" Daniel squirms around, grabbing Armand's waist with his legs and letting the arm that had pinned him at the chest come around to his back. It's a bit more secure, and also lets him bury his face in Armand's chest to hide the blur of the world around him, which is going at a frankly nauseating speed. "Because it's fun. Didn’t you have fun?"

“Yes.” Quiet, like it’s not intended to be an answer that Daniel hears. Daniel can feel the pace of their flight slowing, and then Armand answers his other question. “I have run from the pigs before,” he says, “but I didn’t get away.”

If it were Louis narrating, Daniel would wonder if it were manipulation. But to what end? The one thing Daniel has left to give, he’s already promised to Armand. He holds him tighter.

For a while there is nothing but quick whipping against his wet clothes, and then it warms, and he opens his eyes to find them hovering not too high above the Palm Jumeirah. Without the movement, the air is a comfortable temperature. Armand hitches his legs up a little, a sturdier place for Daniel to sit. Daniel's breath slows, eventually. His hips ache. He is going to regret that little stunt when he wakes up tomorrow, but he sure doesn't right now. Armand deserves to have escaped at least once. Even if it’s from mall cops. They watch the lights twinkling underneath them.

"I will miss Dubai," says Armand.

"So stay," says Daniel.

Armand looks at him like he might be the single stupidest person he's ever encountered. "Is your memory going already, Daniel?"

Daniel rolls his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, Louis has the perfect right to kick you out of the penthouse on your ass," he says. "That doesn't mean he gets to banish you from the entire Emirate of Dubai. Get a place of your own. Wherever you want."

Armand's mouth opens. He frowns, then stares down at the shoreline underneath them. "What would I do," he murmurs.

"You keep asking that," Daniel says, "And the answer is same thing you'd do anywhere: whatever the hell you want. Pray, swim, go to the mall, advertise for suicidal arms dealers on craigslist. And maybe, once you're on your own for the first time in your life, you discover there's something else you want." The full force of it only really hits him as he says it. Armand is five hundred years old, and he has never once been alone with himself. This is the first time he has ever had to wonder what he wants without the question being answered for him.

"I could live near the Creek," says Armand quietly, gesturing vaguely to their right. "In the old city, or Deira. The crowds of seagulls are like the Venetian Lagoon."

The creek is a dark vein cutting through the glow of the city below. Two days ago, it was difficult to clearly picture Armand doing anything but sitting beside Louis. Now it is all too easy to imagine him wandering along the banks of the water underneath a canopy of seagulls, remembering Venice.

"Hate that," says Daniel. "Fortunately, my opinion doesn't matter at all."

Notes

The painting on the wall when Daniel enters: John Keith Vaughan, The Trial:

Samia Halaby, Women

E. J. Bellocq, from portraits from Storyville:

Kadhim Hayder, Fatigued Ten Horses Converse with Nothing (The Martyr’s Epic):