Work Text:
“How I loved him! And now don’t I love him?
Don’t I love him more than before?”
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The scent of tobacco rouses him. Daniel’s first thought is a panicked fuck, did I leave one lit? Finding the apartment not burning down around him when he opens his eyes, a second more gut wrenching thought creeps in: Alice doesn't smoke. She’s not even supposed to be home this weekend, took Kate to her sister’s for “girl’s time” that Daniel’s convinced himself has nothing to do with the argument they found themselves circling back to again and again in the last week.
A tall, slender figure leans against the wall across from his bed, the burning cherry of a cigarette catching in amber eyes, half-lidded in their gaze down at him. An alarm sounds somewhere in the back of Daniel’s mind. He ignores it, sidesteps the big picture to focus on the set of Armand’s shoulders, the tilt of his head. The tiny fucking dress draped over his body like it was custom made for him.
He looks… a bit pissed, actually, expression cold and closed off as their eyes meet in the dark. Daniel can’t imagine what for - the vampire had fucked off eleven months ago without a word. And now he’s come back to what? Menacingly watch him sleep, dressed like that? Like he’s just walked out of a goddamned Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog?
Ash falls from the butt of his cigarette, lands on the carpet. Armand’s eyes are still on him. Daniel stares right back, refuses to be the one to break the silence. The fucker can read his mind anyways; what’s a little mind invasion when the centuries-old vampire has already broken into your home?
“Not even a greeting, Daniel?”
He scrubs a hand down over his face, exhausted. Daniel hasn’t been up this late in weeks, finally adjusting to a normal human schedule again. “What do you want me to say? ‘Welcome back, baby, I missed you so much’? Where the fuck have you been, Armand?”
Armand stalks over to him, drops the cigarette on his nightstand, snubbing it out on the bare wood. Daniel hates himself a little for the way his heart skips a beat, anticipating a burn that never comes. Not that long ago Armand was putting cigarettes out on him, using his flesh as his own personal ashtray. He supposes he should be thankful. As it is, he only feels the familiar sharp sting of rejection.
So he stormed out on him. It happened all the time. No big deal, Armand always came to collect him before he got too bored or ran out of money. But this time he just… never showed up. Days and then weeks and then months of nothing. No calls, no notes, not even a door left suspiciously unlocked or a lanky shadow in his periphery. Silence. Abandonment.
“I was giving you time.”
“Yeah, well, ever hear of too much time? Too much space?” A shaky inhale betrays his slipping composure. “I thought we were— you said I was yours, Armand. I waited for you to come find me. Even tried calling that place in Miami, you know? I wanted you to—”
“You wanted to be saved,” Armand interrupts. “I wanted you to save yourself.”
Daniel scoffs, rolls his eyes to hide the stinging behind them. “Good for you, man, looks like you got what you wanted.” He gestures at himself, then around the room.
Armand’s eyes narrow in on the slippers on the other side of his bed, far too small to belong to Daniel. “Did I? Do you think this is what I wanted all that time we were apart?”
And how the fuck is Daniel supposed to respond to that? The truth: for the first month he was still bright with hope for his return. By the end of the third, fourth? He was crashing, hard. Acceptance of his situation didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
Missing Armand ached like an open wound that refused to close. Or rather, one he kept picking at, scab peeling back and flesh ripping open again every time he went out to find a fix. The syringe a superficial bandage for his flayed open heart.
Foolish of him, really, no drug on the streets would ever be enough to fill the holes Armand’s absence left in him. Alice helped, a bit, when he let her. Held him as he shook through the worst of it, telling her he’ll be fine soon, it’s just the dope, really, and he’s sorry for running out on her again, but he’s back now, for good, they can make this work.
After seven months, he let himself believe it.
And now here Armand is, the beautiful enigma back within an arm’s reach. If he stretched out now, his fingertips would brush the silk over Armand’s hip
“You fuck me up, you know?” Daniel starts, verbal filter be damned, he’s been waiting for this. “Gone for days, weeks, fucking months at a time, and I think: Okay. This is it, Molloy. He’s done, you’re done, time to live this life he’s always telling you to have. So I do, I go home, and I drag my sad sack through the door and beg for forgiveness, and she gives it to me. Is that not fucked? I’ve left her so many times - to be with you - and still she welcomes me with open arms when I come crawling back.”
Armand is frozen in place, mouth pursed but closed for once, letting Daniel spill it all out. Good, he thinks, then says, “And I finally have something good for me, something real. And here you come waltzing back into my life. Did you know I’m sober, now?”
A blink, then another three in rapid succession, expression pinched and more than a little confused. Yeah, that’s what he thought. Armand has no sense of what he’s done to him, how he’s altered Daniel in a way no mortal being ever could, made him crave something he knew he’d never have again. Not until now.
“You wanted me to have a life, and now that I’ve got something that doesn’t revolve around you, except for when it does, you’re, what? jealous?”
If Armand would just say something, anything, maybe this would be easier. It’s so much harder to resist him when he’s just standing there in that little slip and looking at him with his big wet eyes. Daniel almost wishes he’d throw a few insults around, shout at him, call him names, settle back into the familiar push and pull of their relationship. This isn’t him, this isn’t them, the blank silence while Daniel claws out his battered heart and vomits up every last bit of emotion he’d been holding inside.
Daniel sighs, heavy in his chest. He wants Armand, his mind and body already deciding the course of the night but still struggling against it anyway. It’s about the principle of the thing, damn it. “You somehow always get what you want, in the end, don’t you,” he says, fight draining out of him with every word. “What am I gonna do now? Turn you away? Pretend like I wasn’t dreaming of this every night since you left?”
That’s what does it for Armand, what shocks him out of silence, the verbal admission that Daniel wants this, has wanted this the entire time they were apart. He sways on his feet, as if the words hit him with a physical force.
Mouth twisting halfway open, wrestling the words in his mind through the shape of his lips, Armand says, “I only want you, Daniel. And—”
Not interrupting, but not tamping down his thoughts, Daniel stews. The thing is - he gets it, he does. He’d spent enough of his life with Armand, studying his idiosyncrasies and picking apart what want and time and distance mean to him, so of course one single year is nothing to a vampire. A blink of an eye, meaningless in the grand scale of his life. But Daniel just turned thirty-two and had spent almost the entirety of his adult life with his hand firmly clasped in Armand’s.
How the fuck else is he supposed to feel about nearly a year of radio silence?
Armand at least has the decency to look a little uneasy, hovering in the neutral space between Daniel’s bed and the wall. The demanding air about him has dispersed, leaving only the shape of a man, his near nakedness a mirror to Daniel’s own vulnerability. It feels like a crack in the armor, something about to give.
The question he’s been avoiding throbs through his body: why now pressing up on the underside of Daniel’s rib cage and threatening to break through with every beat of his heart. His blood sings echoes of why this night, what’s changed, why, why, why.
Armand steps closer, says “I… missed you,” and Daniel wills himself not to react. “Even apart, I could still hear you, feel you, calling for me, your voice a familiar presence in my mind.”
He pauses, leaving space for a response that Daniel does not give him. He wants answers, knows intrinsically that whatever Armand says will not satisfy. He does not care.
“And then it was gone. You were gone. I watched you…” Armand bites his tongue then, changes course. “I regret how we left things, but I am glad you’re doing well for yourself.”
His face is so open and genuine, it’s hard to stay angry. It’s not unappreciated, the way that this is clearly difficult for him, too. Still, Daniel remains silent.
“You’re upset,” Armand says. Brows furrowed, like he’s genuinely confused by Daniel’s reaction to his surprise appearance, he continues. “More than I—”
“Yeah, no shit.” The words slip out, an accidental interruption, sour on his tongue. “Finally caught on, huh? Welcome back, sweetheart.”
The bite in his voice is eased by the way he slides back in the bed, leans against the headboard and closes his eyes. It’s gone, all the fight he’d been storing up for months. Maybe if Armand had approached him during the day, when he wasn’t so tired and overwhelmed and yeah, lonely. Maybe then he’d have more to say. Maybe this was Armand’s plan all along.
“I’m— I apologize, Daniel. I shouldn’t have interrupted your night. I had hoped—” Armand speaks in stops and starts, uncharacteristically careful. “Well. We can discuss this in the morning, perhaps you should res—“
“Don’t.” Daniel doesn’t let him finish. “Not that word. Not now. Just—”
He cuts himself off, a cold slice of embarrassment through his gut when he hears the undeniable crack in his voice: desire and despair breaking through at last. However pathetic, it works. Armand stops mid-turn, something shattered passing over his face. He looks like he’s about to apologize again, and Daniel just doesn’t have it in him right now to be able to handle that.
“Fuck, Armand, don’t leave.” A breath, a pause, time enough to build a shaky bridge across the chasm torn in his heart.
Armand’s leg brushes up against the mattress. “Are you certain?”
“Please don’t make me beg.”
Daniel looks up at Armand, those eyes made of smoldering embers boring right into his soul, and something snaps inside. The last string holding him back finally severs. He pulls Armand into his lap the second his knee touches the bed.
Armand folds into him like no time has passed; thighs slotting tight around his hips, cool fingers a welcome relief to the hot flush creeping up Daniel’s neck. How he managed this long without it, without him, is a wonder.
Time moves like molasses as he relearns the shape of him under his fingertips. The jut of his collarbone, the curve of his nose, down the slope of his shoulders, testing the give of his biceps. He’s solid, immalleable and cold in a way that means he hasn’t fed in at least a couple of weeks. Armand has to be hungry, coming to him like this, threat and promise all wrapped up so nice in his lap.
A pulse of hot want throbs in the pit of Daniel’s stomach at the thought.
Armand’s eyes follow the movement of his hands as if he can see some invisible trail of Daniel was here, like he’s committing every glancing touch to memory.
“I am,” he whispers and leans in close, foreheads pressed together, noses brushing. Daniel feels his words on his lips like a kiss and suddenly he can’t take it anymore. He surges forward and captures Armand’s bottom lip between his own, and it hurts, actually, how much force he’d put behind this movement. He’d forgotten how it feels to kiss a marble statue.
A whiny, frustrated sound rings in his ears before Daniel realizes that he’s the one making it. He bites it back, teeth scraping Armand’s lip in the process. He wants to slow down, gentle, gentle, he tells himself, then tangles his hands in black hair and makes every attempt to climb inside Armand through his mouth.
It’s so good, the cool slick slide of Armand’s tongue in his own feverish mouth, teasing out involuntary wet little noises from the back of his throat. He should be embarrassed at how easy it is to be this riled up over a little bit of making out, but fuck, it’s been months. Daniel thought he’d never have this again.
He has to pause for a moment, get himself back under control. There’s still more he needs to ask, damn it. Daniel turns his head away; breath soft and damp in the space between their faces. Armand’s pupils are blown out when he finally opens his eyes. He’s smiling, just a little, lips shiny with spit and curling up at the corners.
Daniel allows himself to really take him in, now that the sharp edges of his mind have been sufficiently smoothed over with the hazy cloud of yes, finally, need, and want. The contrast of the purple dress on Armand’s brown skin is striking. Daniel’s good with words; hell, he’s made a whole career out of it, but right now the words are failing him. He’s no good at flowery language but god he’s half inspired to get up and write a poem right about now.
“Pretty,” he says instead. Armand laughs, light and airy, and shifts in his lap. The movement against his groin shocks him, hips involuntarily jerking up to get some friction on his dick, hard and suddenly demanding in his boxers.
“I take it you like it?” Armand asks. His thighs tense and tighten around his hips as he starts to rock shallowly over his lap. Like, Daniel thinks, understatement of the year.
He feels his head hang forward, tries to keep from clutching the fabric too tight as he holds on to Armand’s waist. “Mmmh, you could say that. Why a dress, though?” Daniel plucks at the hem of the slip, lace delicate between his thick fingers. “I mean, you know I'm not complaining but - this is new, yeah?”
Armand hums. “Your… affinity for the fine and feminine is not something you keep quiet in your mind, beloved.”
He doesn’t state the obvious: a dress of similar color hangs in the closet down the hall. More suited for wear in public, but the sentiment remains. He can almost smell Alice’s perfume in the back of his mind when a jagged bit of skin on his thumb catches in the silk over Armand’s thigh.
This is another game, Daniel realizes, another round of psychosexual mind-fuckery picking up again after all this time apart. It makes him hot all over, the way he wants to play along instead of shove Armand off and away from him. His traitorous dick jerks in his boxers.
This is how Armand likes him best, conflicted and horny and all his. Daniel should slide out from under him, tell him off, do anything other than lean in and mouth at his jaw.
“You are so fuckin’ selfish,” he whispers into the skin of Armand’s throat, clutches him closer, tighter, relishes in the way his flesh gives way to the unyielding press of him. “Missed this. God, I missed you so much.”
Armand pets through his hair with both hands, frantic, and slots their lips together to stop his babbling. “I know,” he pushes into Daniel’s mind while he licks at his teeth. “I know, I know, I missed you, too.” He doesn’t apologize.
“What do you, oh - please,” Daniel whines into his mouth, the heavy grind of Armand on his dick shorting out the coherent language center of his brain.
Armand picks up on his stream of consciousness anyways, easily sorting through the lust-addled thoughts like he’s been doing for the last decade. “I want you to fuck me like you fuck her.” He says it so easily, like it’s just that simple. Like it doesn’t twist Daniel up inside to hear.
So they’re back again with this jealousy. It never seemed to be a problem when they took others to bed before. When Armand watched from across the room as Daniel fucked some nameless guy or girl from the bar, eyes greedy but never envious. But Alice is different, always has been, even when they were together before. She was never a threat, not to Armand, but an annoyance. He “put up with it, with her,” for the sake of his happiness, he’d said, face twisted up in disdain.
Daniel’s first instinct is to give in, say whatever you want, baby. “Fuck off, you - what?” is what he says instead.
He has to know, doesn’t he, how sometimes their faces blur together. How two days ago he was fucking her and Armand’s face burned behind his eyelids and even when he forced himself to open his eyes he still saw amber instead of Alice’s deep rich brown.
“It’s different with you. You know that.” Daniel can count on two hands the number of times he’s fucked Armand in the last twelve years. It’s just not how they do things, and that’s fine, it’s good, so good, Armand fucking into him so well it turns him pliant and sweet in his arms.
But Armand just slides his long arms over his shoulders to settle in closer, looks at him with his big beautiful eyes, and yeah, Daniel’s done for. He’s nothing but a loyal dog, rolling over and baring his softest parts as he says, “Alright,” and Armand kisses him like he’s just given him the world on a platter.
Mind reeling, Daniel keeps kissing him, tries his goddamned best to make it different but he really can’t tell, it’s been too long since he’d had Armand. He follows his instinct then, and bites one last kiss into his lips before he moves on, down the length of his neck, laving his tongue against the faint bulge of his Adam’s apple.
Cheek to chest, Daniel’s face scrapes against the swirls of hair peeking out above the low, low cut of the dress. Alice would have been bursting out of this thing, he thinks, and then a second later: hey, ow, as Armand grabs at the back of his head roughly, pushes him in closer.
“Mmmmph.” Muffled into the solid chest before him.
“Harder” Armand hisses, unfamiliar disdain dripping like acid off his tongue. It’s wrong, her vocal inflections through his voice, skimmed from his memories to play out some fucked up roleplay idea he’s apparently been sitting on for the time they’d spent apart.
“No,” Daniel says, and Armand eases his grip, lets him pull back just enough to look him in the eyes. “I’ll do it, baby, I swear. I’ll fuck you, but I don’t want to pretend, not like this. Not after all this time. I want you.”
Armand’s eyes slip closed, and something in his posture changes ever so slightly. “Okay,” he says, unfurling his fingers ever so slightly, the faint scrape of claws a thrill on his scalp, “okay.” There he is, Daniel thinks, my vampire.
Balance - however fragile - restored, Daniel goes back to it. Teeth, yes teeth, he can use those. Daniel snuffles his way up to Armand’s clavicle, mouths at the bone there just a little. His skin tastes different tonight, some perfumed undercurrent beneath the familiar metal. His nose brushes a line over his jugular, mouth watering at the idea of biting down and ripping through to get at the blood pumping just under his skin. It’s tantalizing, this drug so close.
It wouldn't work, he knows, not without help from Armand. They’ve tested it: Daniel deliriously gnawing at his flesh in the hopes that maybe this time, this next bite, he’ll break through the skin. It lasted all of fifteen minutes before Armand had gently pried him away with a “that’s enough, lover” and split his own skin with a nail to reward his efforts.
So yes, Daniel is well aware of his inability to pierce Armand’s skin. That doesn’t stop him from fantasizing about it, the idea invading every dream he’s had in the last eleven months. He forces himself away from the temptation. This isn’t about the blood. It’s a part, sure, part of what makes Armand different is the blood. But that’s not all he cares about. It can’t be, not anymore.
He takes a lacey strap between his lips, his teeth. His hands are still around Armand’s waist, fingers digging in where they’ve started to slip on the silk, buttery soft under his palms. If he were human, Daniel would be leaving little imprints of his grip pressed into the flesh. They might even bruise.
All he has to do is turn his head the slightest bit and the little strap falls from Armand’s shoulder, catches on the swell of his bicep. A glance up confirms Daniel’s suspicions; Armand is watching him with a heavy gaze. He blinks, slow and catlike, eyes bright in the dark. Daniel clutches at his waist tighter, uses his leverage to shift to Armand’s left side and do the same with the other strap. The heaviness of the lace pulls the top of the dress down an inch, exposing more of his chest to Daniel.
“Your tits, Armand, god.” He does bite down this time, into the meat of Armand’s exposed chest. It doesn’t give, the satisfaction of sinking his teeth in not hitting quite the same when he hasn’t fed. It’s a thrill of its own, the cold pressure in his mouth, the soft sigh above him that goes directly to his dick, hard and insistent where Armand rests over it.
Daniel loses himself in it, scraping his teeth over his chest, alternating between bites and sloppy kisses to his flesh. Armand rocks in his lap, grabs his wrists and urges his hands down to the slight swell of his ass and - oh. The fabric of the slip is so thin he can feel right through it, can feel that Armand’s got nothing on underneath it. All he’d have to do is bunch it up in his fist and his hole would be right there, easy access.
“Yes,” Armand breathes, bearing down into his hands.
“This is what you want? Want me to fuck you?” Armand nods, bites his lip. Daniel tests the give of him through the fabric. “Gonna need to open you up, then.”
Up goes the slip, wrinkling around Armand’s waist, nearly naked but not entirely exposed. They match: Daniel’s still in just his boxers. He shoves two fingers into his mouth, gets them nice and wet. He could reach over and get the lube in the drawer, saved for special occasions, but if Armand wants to be fucked like Alice, he can take what he’s given.
He’s nice with the first finger, sliding it in slow and careful, testing the waters. When his eyes shut and he falls back on his hand, urging him deeper, Daniel wriggles a second and third finger in at the same time. He doesn’t give him much time to adjust before he starts fucking them in and out.
“This is all you get.” Daniel jabs his fingers in, rough and more than a little mean with it. “That’s another difference. There’s no prep with her, she’s always wet and hot for it.”
Armand whines. He’d feel bad for him, for not being more gentle, if he was human, maybe. He seems to like it anyway, rocking back into Daniel’s thrusts until the tight grip of his hole loosens enough that Daniel’s fingers slip out and he’s too desperate to be inside to keep going with his fingers.
“Like her?” Daniel asks, wriggling his hips to free his dick from his boxers. Armand’s not much help, content to sit there in his lap and watch him struggle. He hums in agreement. Listening, at least, to the unsaid question in his head.
Guilt and arousal swirl in Daniel’s gut, a kaleidoscope of Alice flashing across his mind: on her back with her hair splayed out, the arch of her spine when she’s on her hands and knees, her sharp little fingernails digging into his thighs when she fucks him from behind, the way her tits bounce when she’s on top. A breathy “Oh,” from Armand when he lingers on that one. It’s one of her favorite positions, Daniel has learned over the years, the way it gives her the control over her pleasure, using his body like a toy to bring herself off.
“You want to be on top, princess?” Huh. He doesn’t call Alice that. She’s fucking royalty to him, yeah, but a princess? Not a chance.
Armand though, Armand wears his invisible crown with ease, demanding all eyes on him wherever he goes. Anyone who even looks at him wants to give him everything, and Daniel is no exception. If he wants to be on top, then by god, he could ride him into the mattress until his heart stops beating, for all he cares.
The dress stays on.
Daniel holds himself still, holds his breath and lets Armand take the reins to ease himself down on his dick at his own pace. It’s so much, every nerve ending in his body alight and throbbing, all sensation narrowed in on the tight clench of Armand around him. And it’s not like he’s gone without; he and Alice have had their ups and downs but the sex was never an issue, always so good it made his toes curl and his teeth ache. But this is Armand, his vampire, letting him in, after all this time. It’s hard not to be a little overwhelmed.
So it’s all he can do to hold on for dear life, try to adjust to the sight of Armand seeking pleasure in his body and grinding down on him like he’d slip away if the weight in his lap was lifted even a fraction of a pound. His hands spread wide over the tops of his thighs, fingers slipping just under the hem of the dress. Daniel feels the groan building in him, low and starved for this, Armand, at last.
Part of him wants the slip off, wants to see all of Armand, every inch of smooth brown skin splayed out before him, but the tease of it, his imagination, makes it all the more delicious. The tent of his cock under the flimsy fabric is obscene, a faint ruddy mark beginning to bleed through. He’ll have to get it dry cleaned if he ever wants to wear this again.
“I’m not explaining the stain.” Armand huffs a breathy laugh, circles his hips in a dirty grind. “This is a one-time offer, beloved. This dress is ash when we’re through here.”
“Aww, you won’t even let me keep it as a keepsake?” Falling into the rhythm of it, he squeezes Armand’s hips and rocks up into him once, twice. “Something to remember you by?”
A dark look crosses over Armand’s face, something Daniel can’t read. He hides it quick enough, swooping down to occupy Daniel’s mouth with his tongue, licking in dirty and wet. As far as distractions go, it’s a pretty fucking good one.
It slows down for a moment, rocking together as one. Like this, nestled inside Armand, his vampire’s cool arms around him, he feels at home and alive. His strange, dead thing. Armand sighs into his hair, squeezes his thighs tighter around Daniel’s hips, kisses the corner of his mouth.
When he pulls Daniel’s lip between his own and sucks, it comes over him again, the fire in his belly that wants blood and teeth and gore. His vision clouds red, and he wrenches himself back, away from the blunt scrape of Armand’s teeth. Daniel fucks up into him instead, short jerking thrusts that make his tits bounce. His hair is wild, the carefully loose curls tangled and a little damp from where their foreheads had pressed together. His own sweat is beading on his temples and threatening to burn his eyes.
A few stray strands of hair fall into Armand’s eyes. Frustrated, he tosses his head to shake them away. He’s getting close, Daniel can tell, falling back onto his cock, heavy with purpose.
“Armand, baby, wanna touch you,” Daniel pants, breathless with desire. “Let me touch you, please?” When he nods, his mouth is open, eyes screwed shut. A hint of tongue peeks out.
He fights the crumpled dress up, clumsy and uncoordinated, and - fuck, finally - gets a hand around Armand’s cock, bloodhot and throbbing in his palm. It makes him clench down, hole fluttering around Daniel’s own dick and oh yeah, he’d forgotten how close he was.
It’s a shame, really, all that excitement to get Armand off first wasted when he finds himself fighting off climax. “Oh, I’m—” Daniel freezes in place, hand loose around Armand, cold fear slicing through him as he remembers that they hadn’t only forgone the lube tonight.
“I don’t—” he gasps, “No condom, babe.”
“When has that ever - oh.” Armand’s jaw snaps closed.
It’s just been on his mind, lately. He never worried about that before; youthful ignorance and reliance on the healing properties of vampire blood making condoms the least of his worries for the better part of his adult life. But with Alice -
“I’ll come - I swear, baby,” Daniel blabbers, thoughts jumbled and thinking only with his dick.
His hind brain has taken over, all sorts of filth filling his mind. He shouldn’t be thinking like this, Alice has just - she showed him the tests only a week ago and he’s already trying to crunch the numbers, picking up freelance gigs to make it work. He can’t be imagining Armand like that, knocked up with his kid too. It shouldn’t be the thing to send him careening into orgasm, but then there are fingers in his hair, pulling him in close, Armand’s breath on his lips. “Do it.”
And he’s no longer there on the edge of something great and awful, he’s hurtling right over it, vision whiting out as he fucks up into Armand and spills into him. Armand works him through it, rocking slowly in his lap, one hand in his hair and the other over his thundering heart. He feels like shit, when he comes back to himself and sees that he’d taken his hand off Armand’s cock in the throes of it. He’s still hard and leaking onto Daniel, pink smearing sticky on his belly.
Armand smirks down at him, thumbs at a nipple while he tries to catch his breath. “Is this how it is with you two, then? You let her do all the work?”
“Shit, okay. No?” Daniel’s voice curls up at the end, like he’s not quite sure if he’s telling the truth. In his defense, he just came his brains out less than two minutes ago. “Give me a minute okay? It’s been a long time since you—”
Armand rocks down on his spent cock, cutting off his words in favor of a little yelping whine that forces its way through his clenched teeth. Daniel glares. Armand looks the picture of innocence, black hair a shadowy halo around his face, one side of his lips quirked up in a smile.
“What can I do to get you off, huh?” Daniel asks. “Can’t go again so soon.”
“They say it takes better when the receiving partner has an orgasm, Daniel.” Armand grins at the flush that takes over his face, shame and desire wound up inside of him, hot and eager. He can’t be serious, plucking at Daniel’s crossed wires to get a rise out of him, but he looks so fucking sincere when he asks: “Am I wrong? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Daniel nods and wrangles his knot in his throat back down.
Armand says, “I think you can -” and when he leans in close, Daniel can see he’s let his fangs drop, ever so slightly digging into the flesh of his lower lip. “- go again. Or have you already forgotten who you’re fucking?”
Shitfuckwantneed surges up deep within him, the promise of fangs and teeth and blood revitalizing him more than any drug ever had. He holds still, barely breathing and eyes wide as he watches Armand drag his tongue across one of his fangs, blood oozing onto the flat of it and starting to drip down his chin. Daniel’s so good, doing his best impression of a corpse, letting Armand take his time and bring their mouths together.
His lips are wet when they touch, slick tongue pushing the blood into Daniel’s waiting mouth, one hand petting at his throat to feel it go down. The feel of it, Daniel doesn’t think he’d ever get used to. It’s ice cold in his mouth, slippery and rich. It hits immediately, nerves firing off under his skin, his heart kicking up and battering a jolting rhythm against the confines of his ribcage. Armand watches in fascination, still making minute movements in his lap, like he can’t bear to sit still.
A low drum in his veins, the blood pulses wildly, then settles. He’s hard again, throbbing inside the wet clench of Armand’s hole. He tests the friction: grinds up deep, holds Armand there, and pulls out. The glide is so fucking smooth, made easy with his spend. He has to, needs to, keep Armand full, make sure it takes, some could leak out if they stay like this.
“Hey, we gotta—” Daniel taps at Armand’s hip. “Gonna switch it up a bit. Okay, princess?”
Like this, the words come so easy. When he’d left, Armand had been bastard, hypocrite, smarmy fucker, a demon that haunted his every waking moment. Not now, though, not with his mussed up hair and twisted dress and hole clenching sweetly around him, drawing him in and in and in. There’s a glassy sheen to Armand’s eyes when he nods.
They manage to stay connected when Daniel tips Armand to the side, puts him on his back, black waves spread out on his pillow. God, he looks good like this, all laid out in his bed, legs spread open for him to fit between. He takes in Armand’s expression: the loose drip of his lower lip, his hooded eyes, pupils blown wide and gaze set on Daniel’s mouth.
Who would he be to deny him a kiss he so desperately wants but does not ask for? Hands cradling his jaw, Daniel hovers over him to bring their lips together. He intends for it to be sweet, really, but the movement shifts him inside Armand just so, and the quiet, real sound that bubbles out of him has Daniel’s hips rutting in of their own accord. His tongue slides along Armand’s, a mimicry of where they’re connected below the waist, fucking in dirty and wet.
It’s Armand who breaks away, turning his head to the side to pant in his ear. “Is this how it happened with her?” He asks, his own special brand of fucked-up curiosity seeping into every word.
“You can - uhn, fuck - see for yourself, if you wanna know so bad.” Daniel fucks in, does his level best to distract the vampire from digging through his memories of Alice while they’re wrapped up in each other. He hopes the moan it tears free from his throat is a sign that it’s working.
“Like this, then,” Armand says, and drags his fingers down Daniel’s back, claws just light enough not to break the skin. He locks his ankles over the backs of his thighs and lifts his hips up into Daniel’s touch. “Oh,” he sighs, long and breathy at the end, confirming what he’d seen in Daniel’s thoughts.
And that stings, the way he’s playing into some recreation of what he thinks Daniel wants. Emotion tears up through his navel, a frustrated sob gurgling out of him.
“Armand,” Daniel pleads, “I just want— I can’t fuck you like her, just you, only you, I want—“ lips on his, not even a kiss, just wet smearing over his mouth.
Armand , Armand, Armand is all he can think now. It’s everything, he’s everything, and yet somehow still not enough, something missing, something in him still incomplete. It won’t last, Daniel knows. This thing between them will bend and break and come back together and repeat the cycle over and over and over, tearing through scar tissue of old wounds; leaving holes in Daniel’s mind and body and soul until the everything becomes nothing, and he’s empty of it all.
But right now, with Armand’s arms around him, and his legs around him, and - god, fuck - his hole hot and wet around him, this is the only thing that matters. He’d give up just about anything to live like this: buried inside Armand forever.
Mine, his voice echoes inside Daniel’s mind, pushing through all the other noise, his frantic fears and desires quieting down to this moment. You’re mine, Armand tells him, and in this moment he believes it, that he is Armand’s and Armand is his. He’s going to make Armand his.
Daniel thrusts forward on his knees, fucking into his own mess again, and again, and again. Some of it leaks out, pearly stickiness smearing over Armand’s hole. One of Armand’s hands drops down, and oh yeah, he probably wants to get off too, except he’s not reaching for his cock, his fingers go searching further down, where they’re connected.
It throws off his rhythm, the sight of Armand prodding at his own hole, catching Daniel’s spend and - oh god - wriggling that finger inside, right alongside his dick.
It feels - “Baby.” His hips stutter and stop, adjusting to the extra tightness around him.
“Yes," Armand hisses, “that’s the idea.”
Daniel is going to die. That’s the only way this is going to end. He’s going to come so hard his brain liquefies and slides right out of his ears and then Armand will have to deal with the mess he made by showing up in this fucking dress and everything that followed suit.
He scrabbles at the slip, fingers fumbling and sliding in the silk. He can’t get a grip. Daniel growls, clawing at Armand’s sides. The fabric tears, the sound of seams popping harsh in the quiet room. He has to, has to get his hands on Armand, on his bare skin, feel with his own palms his lower belly.
The poor dress is trashed, falling freely to the mattress as Armand arches up into his hands. He can feel it like this, the movement of his cock inside, pressing up into his belly. He’s in Armand, filling him up from the inside out, making him his in the only way he knows how to do. He’s gonna, fuck, he’s gonna put a baby in him. Gonna knock him up and keep him around, maybe he won’t leave this time.
His wires are so fucking crossed, he’s looking down at Armand and he sees Alice’s round belly; can almost see the phantom bulge of it when he fucks in hard, punching a grunt from Armand. With his mouth open like that, Daniel can see his fangs again, wet with saliva and just a hint of blood. He must have nicked himself in his frantic jostling. He kisses Armand in apology, licks the mess right out of his mouth, grinds in filthily and wraps his hand around his long-neglected cock.
Armand keens, open-mouthed and warbling. It’s music in Daniel’s ears, spurs him on. He grips Armand’s thigh to hold it up over his hip and watches the way his lip wobbles in response.
“Gonna make sure it takes,” he pants, half-muffled into the crook of Armand’s neck. “Gonna - fuck!” Armand tightens up around him. “Yeah? You want me to?”
Nodding desperately, Armand’s cock twitches in his hand.
“Gotta do something for me first, babe.” And fast, he doesn’t say, the telltale simmering of orgasm building hot and fast again in his own dick. Armand’s eyes slit open in confusion, seemingly beyond dipping into Daniel’s mind to answer his own questions at this point. That’s fine, Daniel can spell it out for him.
“Bite me, come on,” He’s not afraid to beg for this. Daniel’s delirious with it, tugging at Armand’s hair to put his mouth right where he wants it. “Know you’re hungry, baby, you need it.” He’ll need a steady supply of blood if he’s feeding for two. I can do that, at least, Daniel thinks, and sobs into Armand’s hair. He can keep himself alive and healthy enough to for Armand to carry his -
The set of teeth at his throat sends his hips stuttering into Armand’s so hard he thinks they’ll bruise. The vampire is wrapped around him entirely, pulling from him with deep, heaving gulps, and yes, finally, it’s everything he’s been missing for the last fucking year.
He hopes Armand can feel it in his blood, the thrum of love you, love you, love you. Want and desire and something bittersweet swirl in his veins and he doesn’t say any of it, can’t make his lips form the words. Armand can read his mind, he knows, how could he not? Over a decade of this. Daniel’s never loved someone as devastatingly as he does Armand. It may kill him one day, if Alice doesn’t beat him to it when he inevitably fucks up again. He really was doing so well, but Daniel’s a fucking addict. He’s never been one to have a taste and let it go. Armand’s back in his life again, and he’s going to ruin everything. Daniel wishes he cared.
Armand detaches from his throat, pulling free with a wet gasp. His cock pulses in Daniel’s hand, hips kicking up with a new force that threatens to crush his wrist if they’re not careful. “Easy,” he says, breathless from the swoon himself and on the knife’s edge of coming again. This time Daniel’s determined to make Armand come first.
In the end, he doesn’t even have to try, just groans out “Baby” into his ear as he lurches forward on a rough thrust. And Armand’s gone, shooting off between them with a drawn out moan, eyelids fluttering as his eyes roll back in his head. It’s Daniel’s favorite sight in the entire goddamned world: Armand in the throes of pleasure. Some of his spend ends up on his chin, and Daniel dutifully licks it up while he comes down, still trembling ever so slightly.
Not the best idea, Daniel realizes, the high hitting him right as he’s trying to stay still inside Armand, suddenly desperate for his own release. Armand breaths out a laugh and kicks a heel into the meat of his ass, encouraging his shaky thrusts to start up again. “Feels good,” he sighs, “Go on, beloved, fill me up. Make me yours.”
That’s all it takes, the permission to come a crashing wave through his fragile restraint. He fights closing his eyes through it, bites down on his own lip as his climax crests, iron on his tongue. Daniel takes in Armand’s fucked-out expression, then down, down where his palm rests flat on his lower belly. It’s not possible, Armand is a dead thing without a womb, but for one moment he allows himself to imagine he can feel his seed taking, deep inside. He pictures it so vividly, Armand, softened in the middle, filling out that dress in all the places it had fallen flat on him just an hour before.
He doesn’t even register that he’d been crying, just feels the brush of a thumb against his cheek, Armand pulling him down to kiss him deeply. He’s got more blood on his tongue that he swipes along Daniel’s lip to heal the bite.
It’s still, these moments in the after, Daniel softening inside of him and wetness seeping out where Armand is fucked open and loose. He tips to the side, tries everything he can to stay inside, but Armand is already pulling away, sliding his legs closed.
“No, wait don’t go—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Armand soothes, tugging on one of Daniel’s loose curls. He shifts his hips slightly, with an uncomfortable wince. “Just… readjusting. Why don’t you clean us up?”
Blood and sweat and other bodily fluids mostly cleared from their bodies, Daniel tosses the dirty cloth across the room. It lands with a wet thud in the corner. He’ll get it in the morning, too tired to move again from his place at Armand’s side.
He’s almost asleep when he hears Armand speak. “Will you marry her?”
For a moment there he’d forgotten whose side of the bed he was on.
“I don’t know, Armand,” he sighs, heart heavy in his chest. “Don’t know if she’ll have me. Would you marry me?” He’s only half serious, not sure if he’s ready to hear any answer Armand is willing to give him.
The silence is fucking deafening. Armand stares at him, blank expression unreadable.
“I believe,” Armand says, “you were the one unsatisfied, my love.” He shifts, legs tense against each other and straight out as he lays on his side, still trying to hold Daniel's mess inside, even now. “I would have you exactly as you are. I would give you the whole world, Daniel Molloy. But you will only take it on your terms”
“I don’t—” Daniel looks up at the ceiling fan and not at the vampire boring holes into the side of his skull. “I don't want to do this anymore, Armand. I don’t want to keep fighting and fucking, and fighting and fucking, over and over again. I’m getting old.”
Armand scoffs at him, but Daniel isn’t finished. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“To your question, Daniel, my answer is the same as it was when you first asked me. What it has always been.” He takes a deep, unnecessary breath, and cups Daniel’s face in his palm, turning his face to him. “I want you, all of you, in any way. You have been mine in every way that matters. What is marriage to a vampire? A commitment? I have already committed myself to you in every way that matters. But,” he looks up at him through his lashes, "I cannot give you this. I can’t give you a life. I can’t give you a child.”
Fuck. the stinging behind Daniel’s eyes is back with a vengeance. It’s not like he wants another kid. He’s doing a piss-poor job of supporting the one he already has, but still - the idea of it: the proof that Armand had wanted something with him, something forever, it’s not nothing. Forgive him for wanting some tangible evidence that he belongs to Armand.
Daniel lets out a wavering breath, and prides himself for not breaking as he says, “For what it’s worth. If things were different… The ring in the drawer there would be your size, not hers.”
He can’t look at Armand, the gentle hand on his cheek letting him go as he shifts down on the bed. The sound of the sheets is loud, loud, loud, as he slides one arm under Armand’s back, the other around his middle. He lays his head against his stomach and imagines what it would be like to hear two heartbeats, beating out of sync.
And then it’s all silence, both of them quiet in the dark, willing his shaking breaths quiet. Daniel’s arms tighten around Armand, as if he could hold him close enough that he’d never slip away again. Their uneasy peace ends with the soft snick of the door opening.
Fuck, Alice is back, early and… alone. She tries to muffle the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood. It’s pointless, the floorboards in his shitty apartment creak no matter where you step. Time freezes. Armand extricates himself from Daniel’s arms and stands.
He can’t move, can’t speak, can only watch Armand pause, his face twisting up. Daniel’s eyes follow the movement of his fingers dipping down between his thighs. Oh, that’s - that’s his cum sliding down Armand’s leg, the pearlescent sheen stark against his brown skin. It’s his seed that Armand swipes up with two deft fingers and succinctly pops into his mouth.
He hates this. Hates that he’s frozen in place watching Armand suck his wet fingers clean, hates not being able to lurch forward and tackle him back onto the bed, hates that all he wants is to chase the taste of himself on his tongue. God, he hates that he’s more distressed about Armand leaving again than the fact that Alice is on her way back in.
Above all, he hates the way something pained flashes across Armand’s face, no doubt skimming Daniel's thoughts right from the source.
And then time starts moving again, and Armand is leaning into his space again, yes, yes, cool lips on his again, the taste of salt bursting ripe on his tongue. Daniel’s eyes slip closed, reveling in it for a fraction of a second. And then there is a rush of air and Armand is gone, again.