the provenance of the pearls

“I told you.” Armand’s nose is in Marius’ neck. He’s not biting, though Daniel can practically feel how much he wants to thrumming in his own teeth. But no; that’s not part of the scene. The scene is— well, it’s being explained again by its director, low and insistent in the leading man’s ear. “You bathe me. Once I am clean, you take me to bed and fuck me. And then you give me blood kisses until I— until I am—” perhaps he finishes the sentence. Daniel doesn’t hear what he wants to be. Unfortunate, since he has a bit of a personal stake in the denouement portion of this evening.

Marius’ hands hover above Armand’s waist. “Crude language, for someone trying to make requests,” he says, which is reach that Daniel knows well, because he does it himself: can’t address the content, focus on the language. Yeah, he’s panicking. Which is natural, because—

“No,” says Armand. “I am not making requests.”

The situation, then: Armand’s maker is here. Armand’s maker is here because Armand wants him, has always wanted him, chasing at shadows of him in sharp-edged dreams and dirty little fantasies. Not the only thing he wants, no, but— one of the poles of me, Armand had said, and then tried to explain that he meant something to do with math and not in the sense of poles that hold anything up, which was reassuring not because the explanation actually made any sense but because it was delivered enthusiastically enough to make the point that Armand has weird hobbies, and maybe this is just going to be one of them. Armand gets something of Marius from Louis, and something different of him from Lestat, and yet another slightly mortifying thing from Daniel, but it turns out the real thing is alive, right around the corner, available, and Armand wants that, and who are any of them to deny Armand what he wants? Any of them, and especially him.

And so, Armand is not making requests. And Daniel is here— Daniel isn’t totally sure why he’s here, actually, but Armand likes him to be. It would be nice to think that it’s for moral support, but the reality is that Daniel Molloy is— as his many immortal companions never tire or reminding him— probably the most freakish vampire ever made. Armand got the best of Marius, and Daniel got the best of Armand, and the shit Daniel can do with his mind are not normal for anyone, let alone the little baby he is.

Which Marius knows about him, and is weirdly, sickeningly proud of, like Daniel is his actual grandchild. So if it came down to it, if they actually decided to test the assertion that Armand is not fucking asking, the two of them against their ancestor— well who the fuck knows what would happen, but it certainly wouldn’t be a foregone conclusion, is the point. Daniel is pretty sure they could have him immobilized in under a minute, actually, but maybe that’s just the fledgling hubris talking.

He kind of wants to, is the thing. Go on, motherfucker, try to refuse, let the child you bought from a brothel show you how much a refusal is worth—

“All right,” says Marius, hands finally coming to rest not on Armand’s hips. “Very well, spoiled little angel, I will give you what you want.”

Condescending as shit thing to say, and also kind of unclear whether he means spoiled in the sense of a child treated too gently (which, okay, setting aside the obvious irony is kinda fine, that’s a normal sex thing, at least grading on the sex curve of the company Daniel keeps these days) or spoiled in the sense of stained, rotten, dirty, a juxtaposition with angel, in which case he’s going to—

Well, too late, Armand is melting into him, and then melting further, slipping through Marius’ arms like wax down to the floor until he’s a huddled little silhouette, holding his knees. And Marius flinches for a moment and then recovers himself, follows him down, kneeling. His hands in Armand’s hair, pulling him up to look at his face, appraising.

For some reason, before the first meeting, Daniel had imagined him as… a more dignified version of Lestat, maybe, or maybe just a desiccated version, thin and pinched, greasy blond hair hanging around him like a curtain. Like the evil aristocrat in those goddamn wizard school movies he had to take the girls to see what felt like around eighty of, when they were kids. You’ll look back fondly on every moment you spend with them at that age, everyone had said. Well, now nobody admits to having seen those movies and they didn’t even prepare him for his own brush with the supernatural aristocracy. Marius is shorter than Armand, which is obvious in retrospect, inevitable really, compact and tan with close-cropped brown hair and the thin circular shadow of a, by today’s standards, decidedly unfashionable shape of beard under his chin. He probably shaves it every night— the vampire five o’clock shadow is a bitch, Daniel happens to know.

Even so, Armand can make himself small when he wants to be. He looks very small now, cowering at his master’s feet. “Amadeo,” Marius whispers. “Rest, while I take you home.”

And he just fucking picks him up, one arm under his knees and the other on his back. Which Daniel could do too, to be fair, and Armand could also do to either of them, but it’s still weird to see how practiced it looks, how obvious. Like Armand’s body has remembered how to fit into these arms.

And then they disappear into the bathroom. Which Daniel hadn’t received any particular instructions about: is he supposed to watch, the entire rest of the night? Armand likes to watch, sits by the side of the bed with huge glowing eyes while Daniel and Louis go at it. That doesn’t mean he wants to be watched.

Running water. How long did it take to fill a bath, the first time this had happened? Now it is only a few minutes, before the frightened boy is deposited into the tub. Splashing. Soft voices. Daniel stays where he is. He doesn’t really want to watch, is the thing. Or, perhaps, he is too afraid that he does. That he would stare down at the soft pliant little body and think—

—no, he doesn’t, and he wants to watch even less when he hears them moving, the next stage of the plan, of the scene, the reenactment: in the bedroom, Armand’s bed, which he’s set up for this like he wants it, like he remembers, red all over, Marius’ bed, as if drenched in gore, Amadeo’s bed. More noises, louder. Gasps, little groans, and then unmistakably, pleading. “No, don’t. Stop, please Master, it hurts—”

Daniel is up, and halfway across the room, on his way to do what exactly he isn’t sure. And then he realizes that the wetter, obscener noises he was tracking in the back of his mind have stopped, and then a very Armand voice snaps, “Idiot, you think this is the time I truly mean it?”

And that of all things, that voice, the way it slips back into helpless pleading the moment both Marius and Daniel are disabused of their naïveté, that gets Daniel— no, he was hard before. He was hard from the moment he saw Armand go, let go, throw himself into this thing he’s so scared of that he can’t stop wanting it. He trusts Daniel so much, or else he trusts Marius, or else he doesn’t trust anyone but simply doesn’t care about the consequences because he’s so fucking hot for this fucked up shit. Daniel collapses back down onto the couch and presses his hand to his groin.

Armand is crying, high and soft, his keens of pain punctuated by little punches of air at each thrust. He’s being fucking pounded into, hard and fast like you can’t do to a— okay, Daniel has no idea what you can or can’t do to a— whatever Amadeo’s age— if you’re going to. He gets his hand on his cock, pants pushed down just below his hips. Strokes himself firmly to the sound of Armand taking it.

There’s no theatricality to Armand’s orgasm, or maybe Daniel just misses it, or maybe he didn’t come at all, too young for a wet pleasure or too distressed for any at all. Or maybe this is the climax itself: that Daniel lies back and bucks his hips desperately to the sound of his cries turning into moans, wet and filthy. He knows what’s happening, knows what it looks like. Marius laid out on top of him, pinning him down, trickling blood into his mouth from little nicks in his own. Daniel knows because it’s how Armand feeds him, and yeah, it’s better than an orgasm. Better than anything. The absolute helplessness of the infant, imposed by the power of the parent rather than the weakness of the child. The perfect balance point between begging for more of what you can never lick up enough of, and having too much of it forced on you.

If Daniel hadn’t received a very thorough accounting of one particular vampire’s introduction to the undead sexual ethos, he would have thought it was a vampire thing. But Louis never got this, which means Lestat never did. And he would have thought it was just an Armand thing, if it weren’t for Armand’s— well, his everything when he does it. Daniel isn’t stupid. Of course it’s a Marius thing. And maybe it’s a someone-else thing, for Marius.

What a fucking family. Daniel comes, and manages to mostly keep the blood off the couch. Might as well lick it off his hand— it’s pretty much the same coming out as going in, it turns out. Which, maybe, is proof of the sense in which he is dead. Bodies that are alive cannot help but change anything that passes through them. But then, perhaps not: going in, the blood had been someone else’s. Now it is Daniel’s, tastes like him, is of him.

He lies back, panting, and listens to Armand drink. That’s a part of it, always, when he gives it to Daniel: that it is the maker who decides when the fledgling has had enough. That he always pulls away just a little too early, just before Daniel is satisfied, and there’s absolutely nothing Daniel can do about it. He just has to suffer with the knowledge of how good it is, what he’s being denied.

This time, though, when the drinking finally stops, it’s not with any protests from a hungry fledgling. For once, a child has been allowed to take his fill. Well, perhaps allowed is not exactly the word.

“Thank you, Master, you may go. Send me my fledgling, please.”

A few moments later Marius de Romanus wanders through the living room, a somewhat blank, stunned look on his face. His eyes meet Daniel’s. Daniel is terribly afraid that he’s wearing the exact same expression.

“Yeah,” says he says, and follows his summons before either of them can make the mistake of attempting clever commentary.

Armand is lying on his back, arms splayed. He pulls Daniel to him with a force that might have started before Daniel was in physical reaching distance, but what the hell, it’s where Daniel’s going anyway.

He isn’t sure what kind of debrief is expected here. If he says enjoy yourself? Armand will just come back with did you? Which Daniel left himself wide open to, admittedly, Armand can most certainly smell that he did. “Hey, you,” is what he manages, which is also what he said when Kate woke up from her appendectomy. Nice. Armand twines their legs together. His groin is sticky.

“I could make him do anything,” Armand says, eyes wide, a little dazed. It sounds a bit like he’s drunk, which is a mode of interaction Daniel can do. Smile and nod. Store away any unexpected wisdom to be re-examined later. “I could have him whip me, like he— though.” Armand’s smile is conspiratorial, like he is telling a scurrilous secret. “Louis did it better.”

“Yeah,” says Daniel. “Probably because Louis was pleasuring his masochist husband, and Marius was beating his child sex slave.”

Armand nods seriously, like Daniel is offering an interesting new theory. “Yes,” he says, “probably.”

Which makes Daniel feel like a bit of a dick. “Well,” he says, “you can have both now, I guess.” Another loopy smile from Armand, his teeth smeared with ancient blood.

And why not? Armand has trapped the monster under his bed, molded the wisps of his nightmare into the shape of an edgy sex toy. What’s the point of being a vampire if you can’t even do that?

(And what is Daniel doing, lying here with his monster, if not—)

Armand kisses him. There’s a lot of blood in his mouth, too much to be unintentional.

He doesn’t really want to drink— well, what the hell. It does taste good. And Armand wants him to. So, whatever Armand wants. Whatever Armand wants. Whatever Armand wants.