Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time, it’s his doorman. A note in the mailbox, buried between a few bills and the takeaway menu of a sushi bar he would’ve kept in the past.
“Mr. Molloy, a package for you was delivered three days ago. I tried ringing you during working hours but you didn’t answer (obviously Daniel sleeps during a doorman’s working hours; rest is essential for a fledgling of only two years. Or at least that’s what Louis,the closest thing he’s had to a maker lately, told him). You can find the package in the back of the porter’s lodge if I’m not there. Please let me know once you’ve picked it up.”

Daniel takes it the next evening. An anonymous box; it could easily be a bundle of books from his publisher (“Daniel once, just once could you mention in an interview that you’ve read one of the books we publish? I’ve sent you several gothic love stories that would even fit…” “They would fit if my book was fiction, which it isn’t,” he’d answer, shutting down the conversation).
Inside there is a book, though not the printed version of a vampire fanfiction. Heavy, bound with the care and aesthetic of a Taschen publication, perfect for setting on a coffee table to be passed through the hands by guests Daniel hasn’t had in years.
“Fausto & Felice Niccolini. Houses and Monuments of Pompeii, reads the cover.
No dedication inside, no note. Obviously.

“Fucking asshole,” Daniel says aloud to someone he hopes is listening.

The next day the book is left beside the trash bin (how many times has Armand found himself waiting in that alley? If he was a painter he could draw every inch of it from memory, just like he could draw the apartment inside that building. He’s even done it on some mornings in the past, while Louis slept. He traced the outlines of that street in the air, allowed himself to drift closer and closer to that apartment, to that boy, at least in his memories.)
Daniel didn’t even throw the book into the garbage; he just left it nearby.
Armand picks it up, the pages are starting to stick together, damaged by the rain that began falling at the end of the night.
Armand leaves the book where he found it and walks away.

It’s the fifth of December, twenty days until Christmas, and he still has time.

“Daniel.” His daughter’s voice on the phone is clinical; for a moment Daniel is almost convinced he’s speaking to an AI or some bullshit like that (nobody has asked him to write an article about AI. Once they would have. Back when he wasn’t a Bigfoot hunter but a respected journalist. Not that it would’ve paid shit anyway, so whatever who cares).
“Katie, did something happen? Why are you calling at this hour?” He doesn’t comment on the fact that his daughter calls him by his first name, the other title stopped fitting him years ago, if it ever had.
“Because the last three times I called you didn’t answer. I thought you were dead, but I know you have Nor listed as your emergency contact, and she would’ve told me.”
The last three times she called, Daniel was probably sleeping.
“Sorry, sweetheart, I must’ve left my phone on silent. Between the book tour and the illness”( and becoming a vampire)“my head’s not really at its best.”
“The book, yes.”
Silence. For someone who earns a living with words, Daniel is really winning this conversation.
Kate continues, “Anyway, that’s not why I called. A package arrived for you, from Amazon. You put my address, why? I didn’t even think you knew my address.”
He doesn’t, because Kate never told him. She only vaguely located herself somewhere near Syracuse, and Daniel never had the curiosity to investigate. He wishes he could say he respected her privacy, but that would be bullshit, bullshit he wouldn’t believe even after a line of coke.
“I didn’t order anything to your house.”
“Well, it has your name but my address. The postman must’ve delivered it anyway since the last name on the door is the same. Do you want me to send it to you? I opened it, but I can slap on some tape and take it to the post office.”
She could say Come pick it up, or I’ll come get it.
Less than twenty days until Christmas, and technically Daniel is still dying. Every chance they spend together could be the last blah blah blah.
But he knows she won’t say it.
“What’s inside?” he asks her.
“An air fryer.” Her tone is flat, but then he hears her smile through her voice. “I thought you lived off takeout, do you decided to get into cooking?”
“I didn’t order it, I told you.”
Kate barely seems to hear him. “I would’ve understood a microwave for leftovers, or maybe a blender for smoothies, but an air fryer?”
Blender.
“So what should I do? Should I ship it to you?”
“You know what, sweetheart? Send it back. Must’ve been a mistake.”
Who has ever heard of a vampire using an air fryer? Vampires drink people, not fry people.

Who doesn’t love air fryers?

Armand is obsessed with air fryers.
If he had an apartment, if he didn’t live drifting from one hotel to another (technically, he does have an apartment. Technically, since the mid-nineties, he owns the entire building where Daniel lives, plus a few properties on the coast and on Night Island, which, however, must not be mentioned), he would have a room dedicated solely to air fryers.
It’s true that blenders are more useful, but air fryers? Exceptional.
And not just as objects, but for the absolute frenzy they cause among women. If Armand used social media, which he doesn’t because tweets about the new Vampire Lestat’s song absolutely do not count, just like all the accounts he created to defend Daniel when someone dared cancel him on Twitter (Armand found them all and eated them) he would definitely be subscribed to one of those Facebook groups where legions of women chat for hours, make new discoveries every day, and then proceed to have mortal arguments whenever an outsider dares compare an air fryer to a simple convection oven.

Who doesn’t love air fryers?

Daniel could have kept it for himself or given it to his daughter; since Kate is a woman, she would surely have appreciated it, and it would’ve been a way to rebuild their relationship. Daniel should have appreciated it instead of sending it back. Returning it to the sender, rejecting it.
Like the book on Pompeii.

Like everything from Armand. Except the blood, because Armans was good, was useful only for his blood.

Those we make always end up hating us.

Daniel spends a lot of time on the phone. Which isn’t uncommon for someone in the days before Christmas, but is uncommon for Daniel in the days before Christmas.
“A package arrived for you,” says Valentina, his new assistant (nobody talks about what happened to the previous one. Nobody talks about the interview she gave where she accused him of being paternalistic, misogynistic, and with her lip trembling on TikTok described how hellish it was to be constantly called “honey.”Daniel would have appreciated being called honey. The best he can hope for now is granpa.)
“Hm? Why did you receive a package for me?”
“I didn’t receive a package for you personally, but the agency is your reference point for collaborations and all the bullshit I constantly have to force you to do because God forbid you ever decide to spontaneously do one of those things that make you receive those lovely checks you enjoy so much.”
He likes Valentina, in the way he’s able to like people during this time when everything gets on his nerves, when every sentence seems to go down wrong, when he wakes up in the morning and, even though he no longer needs to breathe, feels like he’s always out of air.

(That something else might be missing he doesn’t even want to think about it. Not that it would matter. Not that there’s anyone left who could hear those thoughts. Maybe he’s been talking to himself in his head all this time.)

But he likes Valentina, she stands up to him, shrugs and doesn’t give a damn about any of his bullshit. She’ll go far in this job, unless she catches him on the wrong night when he’s too hungry to control himself.
“What’s inside? I know you opened it.”
“I opened it so this conversation, this one you clearly don’t want to have, would be shorter. It’s a fucking Rolex, by the way.”
“Huh?”
“Do we need to change your meds? Should I call your doctor, Daniel?”
“Maybe you should start taking meds. Or I don’t know get laid more so you learn how to answer politely.”
“Which I would totally do if I didn’t have to be on the phone with you.”
They both sigh. Valentina continues:
“Anyway. It’s a Rolex. I could tell you the model and how much it costs because I was very tempted to sell it and pay my rent forever, but there’s an engraving, so I assume it’s from someone who plans on showing up sooner or later. You don’t give someone a Rolex without making sure they know it’s from you.”
Daniel sighs.
You have no idea.
“Sell it. Or throw it out. Return it. Do whatever you want with it.”
“Sorry? You want me to throw away a Rolex?”
“Or sell it to pay your rent, I don’t give a shit.”
“Last week when you were late for that interview—why the hell did you say on live TV that your watch broke and you lost track of time, and now a Rolex magically appears at your doorstep and I’m supposed to keep it?”
“Exactly.”
“You know what- fine, do whatever you want. I’m sending you an email summarizing this entire conversation because I am absolutely not losing my job when you change your mind.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
“You don’t even want to know what it says?”
“I don’t need to.”
And he hangs up.

Beloved.

It’s December 18th.

The air fryer he can understand, since tecnically Daniel doesn’t cook.
The book on Pompeii not everyone likes books. The Blade Runner poster he found torn near the building maybe it arrived damaged, and in any case it might not fit Daniel’s apartment decor.
He can even understand Daniel not liking the new pair of sneakers he had delivered after hearing him complain that the shoe stores open at night only sell low-quality crap.
But finding the Rolex he sent him just a couple of days earlier at an auction is… tacky, to say the least.
Now, if Daniel needed money, Armand could understand. If Daniel needed money, Armand would obviously already have taken care of it just like he always did in the past: a rich uncle dying under mysterious circumstances, a debt wiped clean overnight, little conveniences like that.
But Daniel doesn’t need money because Armand constantly keeps an eye on his bank accounts. Nothing invasive, just an occasional check, like making sure you turned off all the lights before going to bed.
So Daniel selling the Rolex makes absolutely no sense, especially considering that he publicly stated in an interview that he needed a watch. Daniel didn’t explicitly ask him, since they aren’t speaking, but it’s as good as if he had.
Maybe the problem was the watch itself, not his design.
Armand sends him five more watches, same value, different designs, all engraved with the same inscription.
Daniel is not a man of refined taste in fashion or accessories (Armand almost calls him a simple man, but nothing about Daniel Molloy is simple otherwise Armand wouldn’t be in this situation). Surely one of them would suit him.

Beloved beloved beloved.

Two watches he finds at a fence.
Three in the trash.

They’re standing in front of the Lamborghini whose keys some stranger has just handed him. Inside the hotel behind them, voices can be heard, someone is making a toast, the first guests are beginning to leave, bumping into them on their way out.
In the past, Daniel Molloy would never have left a party early not even a Christmas party like this one, hosted by his publishing house; not even those corporate gatherings full of arrogant artists his ex-wife dragged him to, because leaving early meant missing a chance for another drink or the possibility of finding something to snort in a fancy restroom.
But this year, Daniel is not feeling very festive. Alcohol doesn’t affect him anymore (at least not when drunk from a glass), and he doesn’t have much desire to listen to other people’s thoughts either.4

Who would gift such a powerful car to someone who is officially dying of Parkinson’s and theoretically shouldn’t even be driving?
A red bow on the dashboard would’ve made it even more ridiculous. And for God’s sake, he has money. If he’d wanted a Lamborghini, he would’ve bought himself a Lamborghini.
“If I may-” Louis at his side interrupts the flow of his thoughts.
“I’m not taking romantic advice from someone in your situation,” Daniel snaps, making an unclear gesture meant to conjure the mess that is Lestat and everything orbiting around him.
“You don’t take advice from anyone.”
“When have I ever?”
“In any case. You know I’m not exactly his biggest fan.”
There’s something ridiculous in the way Louis can’t even bring himself to say his name. Daniel has never given him that courtesy. Louis burned his laptop and told him not to write his story, and Daniel responded by ruining his private life in a bestselling book. On the other hand, Louis left him to die, so maybe Daniel is still owed.
“But maybe you should try talking to him.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Like I’ve been the one hiding under a rock all these years, disappearing off the face of the earth. I haven’t gone anywhere. I didn’t even change my damn phone number.”
He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Fuck, I’ve been on every talk show in the country at this point. Not exactly hard to find me.”

Daniel imagines Armand in some hotel room with the TV on.
Did he change the channel the second Daniel appeared?
Did he hurl the remote at the screen, trying to hit him from afar?
Or did he simply stare, motionless, emotionless?

“I’m just saying...if this whole situation, this gift thing, bothers you, you should tell him. You two should communicate. Communication is important.”
“And that’s coming from you, Louis, with your outstanding relationship history. Sorry, pal, but between the two of us, we couldn’t make one successful marriage. Anyway, we are communicating.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
Daniel gets into the car, starts the engine.
Foot pressed down on the accelerator.
“Like this.”

He crashes it into the nearest wall.

Come get me, asshole, he thinks.

It’s December twenty-third, and no one drives Armand insane the way Daniel Molloy does.

Come get me.

Show yourself, asshole.

To be honest, Daniel didn’t think the whole crashing-the-car plan would work. Definitely not his most sophisticated strategy, but he was pissed and pissed people aren’t always the most rational. Which also explains why Daniel became a vampire and why Armand broke his five-hundred-plus-year oath.
Yet as the first snow begins to fall, there he is in the alley behind his crappy building like some kind of Christmas miracle.

It’s December twenty-fourth, the birth of baby Jesus or whatever.

Daniel should be at home, leaving voicemails for daughters who don’t want to hear from him, brooding about all the reasons he’s alone on Christmas Eve, alone on Christmas, blah blah blah.
But he doesn’t want to be home. He feels restless, as if something is pulling him outside, dragging him through the streets of New York.
He doesn’t believe in vampire bonds; he thinks it’s one of Louis’s excuses for why, in every circumstance, he has always chosen and will always choose Lestat first.

And yet… here he is.

In Daniel’s fantasies, when he allowed himself to imagine this moment, Armand at least had the decency to look like shit.
Instead he’s beautiful, infuriatingly beautiful.
Look. Look at everything you can never have again.
As if his beauty were a direct affront to Daniel. A reaction.

“You shouldn’t be out after yesterday’s accident. We’re stronger than humans, but you’re still young. Your body needs time to recover,” the bastard has the nerve to say.
As if they’d last seen each other yesterday, not two years ago in a pool of shit and blood an regrets.
“Daddy?” Daniel says.
Armand sighs.
“What is it? Would you prefer maker?”
“What I’d prefer is knowing you’re in your apartment with the blood bags I sent you, or did you send those back too?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t opened the package yet. If, for once, you manage to stay in my presence for more than a few seconds, I can give them back to you directly. You know all these shipments back and forth aren’t exactly great for the environment. And considering we’re among the few who will be around for a very long time, I’d rather the world didn’t explode.”
As if he actually cared.
As if he hadn’t been so fed up these last two years that he would’ve blown up the world himself.
Let the world explode (everything except the two of us).
“You don’t like my gifts, Daniel? They’re not to your taste? They don’t suit your preferences?”
He even has the audacity to look offended.
Daniel wants to hit him.
“You complained your shoes were uncomfortable, so a pair of shoes arrived. Found in the trash. You told your assistant not once, not twice, but three times that you don’t have a watch and that’s why you’re always late, and yet you rejected six watches three of which cost as much as an apartment—but fine. I thought the problem wasn’t the shoes or the watch but the method of transportation. So I send you a car, and you decide to crash it into a wall, with yourself inside to complete the picture.”
Armand’s voice drops to a whisper. “After everything I’ve done to keep you alive.”
Then louder: “My gifts weren’t refined enough for a two-time Pulitzer winner? What would you have liked instead? Because all you had to do was ask.”
“Oh, ask. Ask and you shall receive, Daniel. just like you used to say while dumping things on me I didn’t want and denying me the only thing I ever kept asking you for.”
“Of course why don’t we talk about the eternal request some more? Immortality. ‘Please, Armand, make me immortal. Please, Armand, make me like you. Please, Armand, let me live forever.’”
“Let me live forever with you, dumbass. The with you part was the important part. I wanted to live forever with you.”
“You wanted to live forever with Louis too, after a handful of hours with him.”
“Because I was high as a kite and a fucking idiot, and Louis was hot, that kind of hot people write songs about it like the new Vampire Lestat’s album prove it. You know damn well that was a completely different situation.”

Does he know? Daniel wonders.
Is this really why they are in this situation? Armand has five centuries under his belt and has learned nothing, and Daniel has never managed to make him understand that the thing he chose, over and over, every night, every day, was him.

Not eternal life.

Him.

“This has nothing to do with my fucking tastes. Ugh.” He is so angry and he feels so stupid (he feels in love) “You’re-you’re like a goddamn feral cat that leaves dead mice and worms at my door or on my pillow when I’m not home. I don’t know how much you’ve erased of our past, even from yourself, since the most I’ve gotten back are those fucking flashes that show up unannounced. And why do they all have to be sex? Man, I get it, we had amazing fucks, but those porn-scene flashbacks were useful when I needed a little blue pill to get it up now that my libido is in perfect mood, can’t we switch to, I don’t know, the memory of us watching play? A movie night on the couch? It’d save me a lot of awkward conversations about my boner.”
“I can’t control your memories.”
“Besides the fact that that sounds like bullshit, otherwise there wouldn’t be memories to rediscover, do you really want to focus on this? Nevermind. I don’t know what you remember about me, but this guy—” he points at himself “totally a dog person. You know? Loyal, eats your leftovers, drools all over the place, makes you trip because it’s always around your feet?”
“You wanted me to get you a dog? You never mentioned it in your interviews.”
“I didn’t want you to get me a dog.”
Then, softer:
“Please don’t get me a dog. I don’t think I’d be able to control myself and I’d end up eating it, and I can live with a lot of things, but not with that one.”
Armand stares at him, eyes glowing orange.
“You have my blood. You are my blood. Of course you’d be able to control yourself. You’ve had the Gift for such a short time and you’re already so strong.”
Daniel wants to scream.
He wants to run far away and throw himself at Armand’s feet and beg him to stay.
Stay forever.
Never leave again.
God, he is so pathetic. He is the most pathetic man in the world.
“Is it all right the way I am now? Are you happy?” he asks.
“I love it well enough the way you turned out. You are my firstborn.”
I’m your only one, he thinks.
But he doesn’t say it.
“No, Armand, I didn’t want you to get me a dog. What I wanted was for you to show up. Stop leaving your dead mice on my doorstep, come inside. Show up, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t want your fucking gifts, especially things I could’ve bought myself because I’m filthy rich now. I wanted you back, asshole.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Seems like bullshit, considering you’re standing right here.”
“It would’ve been a disaster. The ones we make always—”
“End up hating us, yeah, yeah. And? Guess what? Life, at its very best, is shit, and relationships are a mess. With our marriage track record, the best we can hope for is to navigate a giant pile of shit together and no, I’m not going to say something cheesy like ‘but together it will be beautiful,’ but fuck, stop standing at the door and try stepping inside. Get your hands dirty. Let me be the one to kick you out. Do you think anything you do could scare me off after everything I know about you and everything I’ve seen?
Fuck, I stayed after six days of torture in San Francisco. And you think a fight over who’s taking out the trash will drive me away?”
“I always took out the trash with Louis.”
He looks so young, for a good sake. Five hundred years old, one of the most powerful vampires ever, and he looks so young.
“By ‘trash’ I assume you mean bodies, and I’m not asking further questions. Anyway, great you always took out the trash, and both my ex-wives could tell you I’ve never taken it out once, so that’s solved too. Now do you want to come inside, or do we have to work through your abandonment issues out here while my balls freeze off? Because I don’t know about you, but I could really go for a drink, a fight, and a fuck. Maybe all three at the same time, and I’d rather not give the neighbors a show unless that’s what floats your boat.”

“We can go inside.”

Daniel doesn’t offer his hand; he doesn’t lead the way, but Armand follows anyway.
For a moment Daniel is tempted to turn around like some ridiculous Orpheus-and-Eurydice reenactment just to make sure Armand hasn’t vanished again.
It’s freezing, but Armand’s breath on his neck feels burning hot.
If Daniel weren’t a journalist, and if these things weren’t total bullshit, he’d swear the falling snowflakes weren’t snowflakes at all but sparks of lava on his skin, and that the streets they’re walking through aren’t New York but Pompeii. You are mine beautiful boy, It rings in his ears. It's always been that way since that moment at the Polynesian Mary, maybe even before. His. And it's mutual. Daniel couldn't put it into words, which is pretty shitty for a writer, but Armand has never been Marius's, Lestat or Louis's; he's always been his, even when Daniel didn't exist yet.

“You didn’t get me anything,” Armand whispers, and even without looking, Daniel knows there’s a slight pout on his face.
“What?”
“You didn’t buy me anything for Christmas. I gave you all those gifts and you got me nothing.”
“I didn’t kick you in the balls for disappearing for two years. I think that’s a pretty decent gift. How would you like it wrapped?”
Daniel could swear Armand’s laughter rings louder than the midnight bells.

It’s December twenty-fifth.

“How can you seriously prefer Home Alone 2 to Home Alone? It’s already wild you made it to five hundred years without watching either of them, but the burglars in the first movie? Kevin’s traps? Even the scene where the parents realize they forgot him is way more iconic.”
They’re sprawled on Daniel’s couch, the cushions stained with blood, the iPad lying abandoned at their feet, Armand tucked between Daniel’s legs.
Daniel hasn’t regained his memories, but if there’s one thing he’s certain of, it’s how their bodies fit together.
It’s not the vampire bond—it’s seeing someone completely. It’s how every part of him recognizes Armand even without remembering everything. It’s the way, whenever they lie on a couch to watch some stupid Christmas movie, they immediately fall into place, and Daniel just knows that in that position Armand is genuinely comfortable, not pretending to be.
“I don’t know, I like the pigeon lady,” Armand mumbles.
“The only thing the second movie does better is the hotel scene with the concierge. I’ll give you that—that alone is worth the movie. And the hotel is gorgeous.”
“Do you want me to buy you that hotel, Daniel?”
“I don’t want you to buy—never mind. But if you could find a way for me to drink Trump, I wouldn’t mind. I’m sure he wouldn’t taste like honey and pineapple like someone,” and when he says he kisses Armand on his lips, briefly as if he had been doing it for all his life (maybe he did) “but it would be a great gift to humanity.”
“It could be arranged” Armand says.