Atonement

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/59457499.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Sex
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022), Vampire Chronicles Series -
Anne Rice
Relationships: Armand/Daniel Molloy, Armand/Marius de Romanus
Characters: Armand (Vampire Chronicles), Daniel Molloy, Marius de Romanus,
Riccardo (Vampire Chronicles), Bianca Solderini, Pandora (Vampire
Chronicles), Akasha (Vampire Chronicles), Enkil (Vampire Chronicles)
Additional Tags: Angst, hurt/comort, References to Child Abuse, references to human
trafficking, It's an Armand's Past fic, It's a "Marius Daniel Armand talk
in a room" fic, Post-Season/Series 02, Established relationship
Daniel/Armand, Devil's Minion Era Happened (Interview with the
Vampire TV 2022), Trauma, Flashbacks, Hypersexuality, Self-Harm,
Explicit Sexual Content, Dubious Consent, Domestic Violence, Drug
Addiction, Necrophilia
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2024-10-04 Completed: 2025-01-02 Words: 28,154 Chapters:
14/14
 Atonement
by alernun

Summary

“I respect your position as the paterfamilias,” Marius said. “That is why I elected, finally, to
approach you alone. But neither can I leave him to you until our business is concluded."

“What do you want with him after all this time?!” Daniel exclaimed. He felt like he was
about to explode.

“I want to make amends. To sit with him and to talk.” Marius admitted, voice soft. “I know
that I have wronged him. What I have to atone for.”

Notes

But what if Marius really tried to make amends? What would that look like? Is it even ethical
for him to try? What would justice realistically look like? What does an Armand who is a
little further along processing his trauma look like? What does Husband Journalist Mediator
Daniel look like? What does Marius beginning to understand the harm he caused look like?

These are all questions I wanted to explore, thus this fic was born. There will be CWs at the
beginning of every chapter since I know this is heavy.

CW for sexy times between Armand and Daniel in this chapter but that's it.

See the end of the work for more notes

 Paterfamilias

March 2024
Brooklyn New York

Daniel Molloy knew what it felt like to be stalked. His undead husband of just over a year
had been a pro at it in the 70’s and 80’s, after all. But he also knew he had a tendency towards
paranoia ever since Interview With The Vampire had become an International Best Seller, and
half the blood drinkers on Vampire Brain Radio sent him daily telepathic death threats. Most
of them were too chicken shit to take on the Brooklyn Coven of Two (and he pulled a little of
that weight now over a year in the blood), but they did like to yap.

So the first couple of times he saw the man in the red suit with the long blonde hair, he let it
pass. New York was dense, but not all that big, especially when you got down to the
neighborhood level. Could just be a yuppie local who liked vintage blazers.

Except he kept appearing. Kept staring with blue eyes that were just this side of too blue.
Through shop windows and on sidewalks. On this park bench or under that street lamp.
Weeks now, it had been.

Tonight, he occupied a shadowy corner table at their favorite date night restaurant. This time
Daniel had tried to point him out, excited to finally have a face to put to the story he kept
telling Armand (who kept humoring him, poorly).

But by the time Armand found the table with his eyes, he was gone.

“There’s no one there, Beloved.” he observed, and took a sip of his wine, eyebrow raised
with amused suspicion.

Daniel whirled around, all attempts at subtlety abandoned, and sure enough, nothing. No one.
Nada. “Son of a bitch,” he growled. “I swear he was right there! Fucking Lucius Malfoy
looking motherfucker. You gotta believe me!”

Armand laughed belfry-low and shrugged. “I’m beginning to wonder if the Dark Gift actually
healed your eyes. Oh, can we watch The Half Blood Prince again tonight? I do so love the
part where Harry uses Sectum Sempra.”

Daniel let it go, and held Armand’s hand on the walk home.
They snuggled on their criminally-priced-but-totally-worth-it couch and watched the Half
Blood Prince as requested (twice). The second time Dumbledore died, Armand actually cried
a little, and Daniel licked at his tears, which led to biting and blood drinking and groping.

Pretty soon, it was getting hot and heavy on said couch. Armand was face down in the
cushions, all breathy moans and pleading, and Daniel was kneeling behind him on knees that
worked again, giving him exactly what he was asking for as hard as he could. He would
never get bored of this. Never ever ever. It was perfect and warm and his Armand was his and
he would protect him, love him, kill for him -

Armand chuckled and arched his back. “I feel you…getting sentimental…Lover,” he panted.

Daniel dug his fingers into Armand’s hips so that little purple-red crescent moons waxed
across his skin. “Not all you can feel I hope,” he grunted, and it wasn’t long after that that
Armand came with a shudder and a soft sigh Daniel wanted to bottle, spilling on the throw
blanket he’d put down before the point of no return.

Daniel kept moving behind him, slower and less demanding, rubbing at his back, pulling at
his raven hair.

”What’s your name, Baby?” he said in Armand’s ear, earning him another silky laugh.

“Will that get you there, do you think?” his Maker teased.

“Let’s find out.”

Armand clenched tight around him, gyrating deftly in a way that had to have been taught, and
then began to chant like a prayer, “Armand Molloy…Armand Molloy…Armand Mol-”

“Uhnnnnnn.”

“ There's my sweet boy.”

Daniel rode out his aftershocks, turned his head to the left to get a cowlicked curl out of his
eyes -

And came face to face again with the mysterious blonde man. He was, impossibly, on their
balcony, staring impassively with a face that could have been carved out of marble at the
titillating tableau through the picture window.

“Fuck!” Daniel yelled and pulled out abruptly, clutching for something to cover them.

“Ah!…not your best exit strategy.” Armand grumped. “What on earth’s the matter?”

And of course, of course, the window was all stars and skyline. The stranger had vanished.

Daniel cursed again and tried to catch his breath. “I could have sworn…uh...nothing.
Nothing, trick of the light. You ok? Fuck, sorry about that.”

Armand waved a lazy hand as if to say ‘I’ve had much worse.’ “Maybe we should go to bed
early, Beloved.” He suggested. “I rather fear you’re burning the candle at both ends, what
with the book tour, the documentary, and my lessons -”

Daniel was so frustrated he wanted to scream. Instead, he pasted on a fake smile and nodded
agreeably. “Yeah, I could use a shower and some shut-eye.”
And he could, he mused, as they readied for bed. But he’d be short on the latter.

Because the minute Armand fell asleep, he was going to get to the fucking bottom of this.

He was given the opportunity to slip out of the apartment only 50 minutes later, around 4AM.
He extracted himself from an unconscious Armand’s arms, got dressed quickly and quietly,
then spared one more fond glance at him sleeping peacefully in the bed before heading out.

Armand hadn’t always been an easy sleeper. Daniel had helped a lot in that department.

That was one of the reasons he was going to try to deal with this himself. “Rest” was the
older vampire’s watchword for a reason - and it didn’t take a Freudian to figure out why. He
wished upon others what he desperately wanted himself, and Daniel would not disturb its rare
presence unless he had to.

Daniel stuck his hands in the pockets of his favorite leather jacket and walked out into the
night, following nothing but his instincts (which had never failed him). He let his steps take
him several blocks from their home as he focused his mind, fiddling with the telepathic
frequency dial until all was quiet except his own will - his own voice. He pictured the blonde
man in as much detail as he could and turned into an overgrown pocket park that had
reclaimed an old warehouse.

Alright asshole. Show yourself. I know you can hear me. You’re one of us, aren’t you?

Daniel pressed his back against an old Elm that had swallowed a blown out window, primed
for a fight, and waited.

Nothing.

Look Pal. I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m officially over it. You’ve been
shadowing me like some groupie for weeks, and Armand can’t sense you, which is fucking
weird - either I’m going crazy, which I doubt, or your Mind Gift is incredibly powerful, and
you don’t want him to. If you’re gonna try to kill me, pull up then. I decided to kick your ass
the minute I caught you ogling us like some undead peeping tom.

A few more seconds passed. Seconds Daniel used to prime the Fire Gift - a recent
breakthrough of his that had Armand beaming and covering him with kisses. Then…

“Ah, I regret that. It was not my intention to interrupt.”

A low, cultured voice sounded out behind him and Daniel whirled around, fire in both his
hands.

The blonde man stood mere inches away, still as a statue. His hands were raised as if to say “I
am no threat.”
Daniel’s fangs dropped. He hissed, and did not extinguish the flames. “Finally.” He growled.
“Better start talking, and fast. I’m all out of patience.”

The man - vampire, definitely vampire, Daniel thought - inclined his head, all tranquility.

“Understandable. First let me assure you - I did not come to harm you. I feel rather foolish
now, actually. It was my aim tonight to reveal myself at the restaurant…but I lost courage
when I saw how…easy he was with you. I did not want to mar that ease. And so I thought I
would try again at your home. But I…shall we say, picked an inopportune moment.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes and closed his fingers reluctantly around the embers. He was still
ready for anything, but no sense in wasting energy when they were in the “parley” phase of
whatever the fuck this was.

“Inopportune is an understatement.” He said. “Who are you? What do you want with me?
With him?”

The man smiled then, a patronizing expression, and tilted his head to the side in a way that
reminded Daniel so much of Armand that his stomach dropped. “Daniel Molloy, whom he
chose for your mind, first and foremost - I’m surprised at you. Can you not guess?”

And Daniel could, actually. He’d started to think it the minute this terrifying creature had
spoken of Armand’s ease, and moved in his horrendous echo. And when he’d started, his
brain, faster than most and cruelly incisive, could not stop.

Patrician features and alabaster skin and old, ancient power coming out off him like
radiation. Like poison. An unhealthy interest in Armand. Ink…no, paint, under his
fingernails. Dressed monochromatically in red, always red (and sometimes velvet).

“You’re his Maker.” Daniel intoned. He had started to shake with some combination of fear
and rage. “You’re Marius.”

Marius nodded. “In the flesh.”

“But you died.” Daniel said frantically. “He said he watched you burn.” And then, because he
couldn’t help himself, he added, “It’s my favorite bedtime story.”

Marius shrugged, and it did not look natural on him at all. “I burned. But I did not die.” He
said simply. “And your hatred for me is unsurprising.”

Daniel huffed derisively and squared his shoulders. He moved closer to Marius, getting in his
space. “Oh, is it?” He spat. “Has the world's oldest pervert done some soul-searching these
last few hundred years? You’ve got some nerve -”

“Daniel, this isn’t getting us anywhere. And neither will whatever half-formed notion you
have of trying to kill me. I promise you the attempt will not succeed. You know this.”
“Ahhhrrrgh!” Daniel roared, and punched the brick wall next to them instead, because
goddammit, he was right. Probably nothing could hurt this horror show. He was over 2,000
years old. He had made his maker, and his maker was dizzyingly powerful.

“I won’t let you near him.” He vowed impotently. “I won’t let you hurt him again. You’ve
been watching like a creep, so I’m sure you’ve seen; he’s happy now. He’s worked hard to get
over your flavor of bullshit and what came after. I got him now, so leave him to me, huh?”

At that, Marius’s expression - his entire stance - changed. He sagged a little, and his eyes
grew sad. The faint age lines that had been present at his turning showed up a little more in
the marble countenance.

“I respect your position as the paterfamilias,” he said. “That is why I elected, finally, to
approach you alone. But neither can I leave him to you until our business is concluded. We
are Bonded, and it is time that I -”

“Paterfa-what?” Daniel interrupted.

“The head of household.” Marius clarified. “His guide and protector.”

Daniel almost audibly gagged. “Jesus Christ. You’re sick in the head. He’s not some blushing
Roman child bride. I don’t tell him to do shit. If anything, he’s my guide -”

“In the blood, maybe.” Marius said easily. “But I have been watching, and you are his
household. His home. He took your name. He looks to you for leadership. For comfort and
for solace. In your passion, you even admitted this to yourself. Called him “yours” in your
thoughts -”

“Buddy, even if I can’t kill you, I promise, if you say one more word about that, whatever I
manage to do before you waste me will hurt like hell.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Marius rejoined. “This century is so obsessed with
equality. But you are what you are. And so I am here before you as a courtesy.”

Daniel blinked rapidly, astounded at the sheer audacity of this monster. “Oh is this courtesy?”
He asked. “Cuz it feels a lot like an ambush. Like I don’t have a choice.”

“Yes,” Marius responded simply, and straightened his lapel. “It will be like this. I will give
you a week to give him my message. It is appropriate and correct for you to convey my
intentions and to act as intermediary. But if you fail to do so, I will be forced to overrule you
and make contact with him myself. I was first, you see.”

“You belong in hell.” Daniel rumbled.

Marius smiled sadly again. “Undoubtedly. And yet, here we all are.”

“What do you want with him after all this time?!” Daniel exclaimed. He felt like he was
about to explode.
“I want to make amends. To sit with him and to talk.” Marius admitted, voice soft. “I know
that I have wronged him. What I have to atone for.”

Daniel barked out a laugh. “Ohhh I highly doubt you have the slighted fucking idea - what if
he doesn’t want to see you , huh? What if I tell him his groomer is ready to make nice and he
would rather walk into the fire than lay eyes on you? Where will your ‘courteous’ impulses
lead you then? ”

Marius’s lips pressed into a thin line. “If he refuses me an audience, then I will not press the
issue.” And then the thin line turned into a smirk Daniel wanted to wipe off his face. “But I
think we both know that he will not.”

And then the ancient vampire began floating up into the dark night. “You have seven days to
prepare the way, Daniel Molloy. I am sure you will handle him with care.”

Daniel stared at the black empty sky where Marius had been, and cursed whoever had made
his maker’s maker.
 Quare?
Chapter Summary

Daniel tells Armand Marius is alive, and wants to talk.

Chapter Notes

The chapter title, Quare, is the Latin word for "why."

CW for a panic attack.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Daniel woke early the next evening - around 5PM. Armand was up already, fussing with
something in their kitchenette, attention divided between a small Dutch oven and his iPad. He
was still in his silk pajamas, hair mussed and wild as it only was in these first hours of their
evening (as it only was for Daniel ), and he was humming to himself.

He looked fucking adorable, and Daniel’s heart clenched with apprehension. Only downhill
from here.

“Whatchya making, Babe?” He asked, because he needed to work up to this - needed a few
more minutes of Armand’s ease.

Armand startled from his Dutch-oven flow state, but then smiled at him widely. “Hello Early
Bird. I’m experimenting with heating bottled blood at a constant temperature. We can warm
up our cups with the Fire Gift of course, but it takes constant concentration and reheating.
Sometimes I just want to focus on what I’m doing.”

Daniel gave his husband a lopsided grin, then got out their two favorite mugs from the
adjacent cabinet. His was emblazoned with a glib Doonesbury comic strip older than his first
daughter. Armand’s sported a black cat drinking from his own mug, looking vaguely
menacing. Under the cat were the words, “The horrors persist but so do I.” Apt, Daniel
thought. Far too apt.

“Sounds tasty,” he affirmed, and watched as Armand ladled the blood of a slum lord they’d
decanted last week into his mug. He took a sip. Evenly heated greed and callousness. Yum.

“So, what’s on your to-do list tonight?” he asked in what he hoped was a casual manner, but
Armand, now finished with his cooking experiment, was already frowning at him. The Bond
was definitely betraying his anxiety.

“This and that. Some gallery appraisals and property management calls, but nothing urgent.
What’s the matter Daniel, you feel like crushed glass and electricity.”

Daniel laughed a little at that. “You sure you’re not the writer in this relationship?” He
stalled. But Armand folded his arms and raised an eyebrow expectantly. “Look, get your
blood coffee and let’s sit down, ok? I got something important to tell you.”

And now Armand’s fear was mainlining into him, acrid and frenetic and intense. And fuck
Marius de Romanus for that. Fuck him right back into the Dark Ages.

They settled on the couch, Armand curled up as small as he could get in the corner, all big
wet orange eyes and scrunched limbs. Daniel downed his blood in one gulp, then reached
forward and took Armand’s free hand firmly in his. He tried to think how to begin, but
Armand beat him to it.

“Have I done something to upset you?” He asked softly.

“No. Not at all.” Daniel assured immediately, and began rubbing his thumb in soothing back
and forth motions across Armand’s palm. “This is just…hard.”

“It must be, to render you speechless.”

Daniel took a big, fortifying breath he didn’t need physically (but definitely needed
mentally), and went with The Facts. “Last night, after you went to bed…I took a walk.”

Armand frowned. “Alone? So close to sunrise?”

Daniel nodded. “Yeah I…ok you know how I keep seeing that guy? Well, I saw him again
last night. While we were…you know. He was in the window.”

Armand swallowed hard then, and his anxiety took on a different shape. A more Daniel-
related shape. “Beloved we’ve been over this. I sense no one…see no one. And I would be
able to, wouldn’t I? I’m getting a bit worried about your state of mind at this point -”

“You’d sense almost anyone.” Daniel interrupted. “But you wouldn’t have sensed him. I
know that now.”

Armand pulled away from him, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and
forefinger. “You are speaking in riddles.” he said.

“I know…I know. Let me finish. He really freaked me out and I was pissed as hell at that
point so I took a walk and called to him with the Mind Gift. And he answered. Showed
himself for longer than a millisecond. We had it out. Sweetheart…God I don’t know how to
say this -”

“Just say it!” Armand exclaimed, voice horse with emotion.

“It was Marius.” Daniel blurted. “Marius is alive. He’s been following us for weeks. He
wants to talk. To you.”

And there it was. No going back now. Daniel kept his eyes trained on Armand’s face, which
was doing inscrutable things. He reached back out for his hand, but Armand pulled away, and
got even smaller. His irises began to do that vibrating thing that scared the shit out of him.
You could hear a pin drop in the apartment.

“Marius is dead,” his maker said finally. But It came out like a plea. Like a question.

Daniel sighed, took the now-shaking mug out of Armand’s hands, and held him gently by the
shoulders. “Apparently not.”

Armand shook his head repeatedly. His eyes began to fill with blood tears. “This is not funny,
Daniel.” He admonished. “You are being cruel. Why are you trying to hurt me?”

Daniel held him tighter. “Baby I’m not making this up. You know that. You can feel I’m
telling the truth. I know you saw him burn - but it looks like he recovered. He is very much
alive and weird. Gave me a fucked up ultimatum that if I didn’t tell you he wanted to meet,
he’d come at you himself. Some antiquated shit about me being the paterfamilias -”

Armand shuddered at that, and closed his eyes. The tears streamed down his face in crimson
rivers. “He used that word?” He asked, but did not give Daniel a chance to answer. “He came
to you before he came to me? He is alive…in the city…has been alive…all this time…”

“Babe look at me,” Daniel begged urgently. He could tell Armand was slipping away like he
sometimes did - into that inky-black place that Daniel couldn’t always reach.

“And never once did he…Paris…Riccardo and the children he…they…I…oh…I’m going
to…”

And then Armand was gone in a flash. Daniel got up and followed the sound of the bathroom
door crashing open. He got there just as Armand began retching up blood into the sink. It
came out of him violently, an impossible amount, the spasms claiming his whole body.
Daniel stood behind him helplessly, could do nothing but rub his back through it until red
turned to pinkish-white bile, and the retching morphed into sobs that broke his heart.

“W-why…” Armand asked through hyperventilating breaths. “Why…why…why…why

didn’t he want me? Why d-did he leave me to…to…??”

Daniel swallowed back his own threatening tears and held Armand with all his strength. Held
him together as they both collapsed on the bathroom floor. Rocked Armand and implored
him to match the pace of his breathing. Hoped the Bond would sync that like it always
synced their heartbeats.

“I don’t know.” he admitted. “I don’t know. But I got you, Boss. I want you. Always have. I
have you, ok? You’re safe and loved and you’ll never be alone again. Can you focus on my
voice, huh? Can you do that for me?”

The spent a good 20 minutes like that until Armand finally quieted. He lay in a fetal position,
half in Daniel’s lap. His skin was drawn and waxy and much too pale. Finally, he spoke in
something like his normal voice.

“I am sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for.” Daniel said immediately, and started to massage his scalp. Touch
was important to his Maker. This silent language of affection brought him back to himself
more readily than words, most days. “It’s a nasty shock. Shit it was for me, so I can’t even
imagine what you’re going through.”

Armand blinked slow and listless. “Why now, I wonder?” He mused hollowly.

Daniel shrugged and self-edited about six incendiary unhelpful things he wanted to say
before settling on a final draft. “He said he wanted to ‘make amends.’ But who knows? And
he also said that if you didn’t want to see him, he’d leave you alone. I just want to highlight
that you’re under no obligation to respond to this bullshit -”

Armand shifted in his arms and smiled sadly. “Oh but I am.” He said, and he sounded so very
tired. “You know that I am, Beloved. Please don’t judge me too harshly for it. I could no
sooner refuse him than the ocean refuses the pull of the moon. We are…”

“Bonded, I know.” Daniel sighed. “He said that too. Ok. You want to do this, then ok. I mean
I get it. You have questions. You deserve answers. Hell, of course I get that. But I’m not
letting you be alone with him.”

“Please don’t leave me.” Armand begged. “Please stay.”

“Bet your ass,” Daniel assured. “I’ll even do you one better. I’ll…I’ll try to mediate. To
structure the conversation around what you want and need. Cuz if we’re gonna do this we’re
gonna do it right. You’re gonna get what you need. To hell with his agenda.”

At this, Armand sat up, and looped his arms around Daniel’s neck. He looked so impossibly
young when he spoke next. “And what if I’m not entirely sure what I need?” He asked.
“What if I don’t know where to start?”

Daniel buried his face in Armand’s curls, face set with determination. “Well it just so happens
you married a prize winning journalist who made a name for himself interviewing some of
the biggest scumbags this world has to offer.” He deadpanned. “So consider me your personal
fucking bulldog on this, ok? We’ll work that out together. I’ll be with you every step of the
way. I’ll spend the week researching the shit out of him and prepping you and then we’ll
meet in a place of your choosing. No more Marius Ultimatums. He’ll get the full Molloy
treatment and he can choke on it for all I care. He wants to make amends? Fine. Let him try.
He’s gotta go through me.”

Armand nuzzled into his neck and let out a small, astounded noise. “What did I do to deserve
 you?” He murmured into the wet cotton of Daniel’s sleeping shirt.

“It’s not about deserve.” Daniel intoned. “You’re the love of my life - uh, death. Now drink
from me, Sweetheart, come on. Big deep draughts, I can take it.”

And Armand did.

They did most of Armand’s favorite things that evening. Hunted bloody and vicious amongst
drug dealers. Played Minecraft on his gaming computer. Made love slow and surprisingly
straightforwardly under the covers. (Not a whore, Daniel thought, never meant to be a whore.
Just a boy who wanted to be held).

Only now, as Armand swiped contentedly through some rare art for sale on the Dark Web,
info-dumping the pros and cons of each piece he was considering, did Daniel open his mind
again.

Hey, Asshole. We’re in. I’ll be in touch with the details.

Chapter End Notes

I got emotional writing this. Kept thinking of that episode of Fresh Prince where Will
Smith asked Philip "why don't he want me, Man?" Comments pretty please!
 Iustitia
Chapter Summary

Daniel secretly sees his own long time on-again off-again therapist to get support ahead
of the upcoming reunion.

Chapter Notes

I am NOT a mental health professional, but I have done a little RJ facilitation...definitely

one of the hardest chapters I've ever written so feel free to constructively criticize me in
your comments haha.

Iustitia is the Latin word for "Justice."

CW for very oblique references to Armand's past and relation of a fawning response.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The Offices of Doctor Robert Selkirk (PsyD, PhD, CPT)

Brooklyn, New York
The Night Before the First Meeting

“Hey Doc. Thanks for fitting me in.”

Doctor Robert Selkirk settled himself in his wingback chair and appraised his on-again, off-
again patient. He was pleasantly surprised. The last time they had spoken was over a year
ago, right after Daniel had received his Parkinson’s diagnosis. Robert had thought privately
then, as he politely ignored the tremor in his hands and the circles under his eyes, that Daniel
did not have long.

Now? Daniel Molloy looked 20 years younger with a wardrobe to match. He fidgeted across
from him with a pen and notebook as if he were the therapist in an unlikely costume of
leather and shades and…acrylic nails? Robert filed these observations away in the orderly
palace of his mind. Was this another end-of-life crisis? A queer reawakening? Was he using
again? He supposed he’d find out.

“No trouble,” he assured. “Though you’ve got me mighty curious. 11PM on a Wednesday?
The book tour really riding you that hard?”

Robert had not read the book. Vampires weren’t really his thing. But you had to be living
under a rock not to have heard of it.

Daniel chuckled and began clicking his pen repeatedly. He appeared nervous. “You have no
idea,” he said. “But this isn’t about the book. Uh…I’m looking for some pretty specific
advice, actually.”

Robert nodded. “You always are,” he half-laughed. “I tried telling you in ‘92 when we first
met Danny, therapy isn’t like getting an oil change. If only it were that simple.”

Daniel smirked at him and shrugged, spreading himself out on the couch. This space-
claiming was a common tell amongst Robert’s patients. An over-compensation for insecurity.
“Oh I don’t know about that. The stuff you taught me after the shit I saw in Bosnia kept my
head on straight. That’s why I like you. You deal in DIY therapy.”

Robert leaned forward, concerned. “Is that what this is about? Are you set to report on
another war zone?” He really hoped not. Whatever good drugs they had Daniel on,
Parkinson’s was Parkinson’s.

“Nah,” Daniel said. “Nah uh…ok so quick life update. I got married again a little over a year
ago. To a guy.”

“Congratulations,” Robert said, face smooth. So, queer reawakening then. Good for him.
Better late than never.

“Yeah uh…thanks. Anyway Armand - that’s his name - he…had a rough start.”

Robert frowned. “Maybe it would be better if he joined us, if this is about him?”

Daniel outright laughed then. “No offense Doc, but over his literal dead body would he let
anyone like you near him. Shit I’ll catch all kinds of hell if he finds out about our little tête-à-
tête. But it can’t be helped. I’m definitely in over my head here…”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Robert suggested. Daniel was all over the place.

“Tsh. The beginning…” his client muttered, almost to himself. “A tall order. But…ok so.
Armand’s a war refugee. And as we both know, they’re at risk for some pretty fucked up shit.
The flavor of fucked up shit that got him was child sex trafficking. He was sold to a brothel
in Europe when he was 13. Spent two years there he still won’t talk about.”

“I see,” Robert said. And he did. This was a common story in his line of work, even in 2023.

“Then he was…bought, no other word for it, when he was 15, although he’d tell you he was
adopted. By some rich artist asshole, Marius.”

Robert swallowed, and tried to control his face. “I’m guessing the abuse didn’t stop with
Marius?” he prompted. He could tell this wasn’t easy for Daniel.

“Nail on the head, Doc.” Daniel affirmed. “To tell you the truth I get nauseous just fucking
thinking about it. This guy…I mean I’ll say to you what I can’t say to Armand because it
triggers the fuck out of him; this guy raped him nightly and isolated him from normal life and
groomed him and called it love. He made him pose for his gross child porn paintings and
then, no shit, actually pimped him out to the buyers. This went on for years. Well into
Armand’s 20s.”

“I am so sorry,” Robert said, and meant it. “I can imagine this is hard for Armand to talk
about.”

“Yeah but…not for the reasons I thought.” Daniel muttered. “Anyway, long story short,
Marius never got caught for any of this - or maybe no one cared, I don’t know, but then war
separated him and Armand. Armand thought he was dead up until about a week ago.”

“And what happened a week ago?” Robert asked.

“Marius showed up at our fucking doorstep!” Daniel exclaimed. “Very much alive and
wanting to talk. As if he doesn’t belong dead or in prison. As if he has any right to lay eyes
on Armand again -”

Daniel was in distress, Robert observed. Dripping with rage he was trying (and failing) to
control. His eyes, uncanny blue and different than he remembered, flashed behind his glasses
and his mouth was pressed into a grim line.

“I can see you’re protective of him,” Robert validated. “Natural, for a partner. But we should
always critically evaluate our protective instincts. Ask ourselves if they’re not depriving the
victim of agency. How did Armand react? What are his thoughts on the matter?”

Daniel sighed, deflating a little. “I know you’re right up here,” he said, and pointed to his
head. “But…well, you know. Anyway, Armand had a Category 5 Panic Attack, and then
declared he wanted to meet with him. I agreed to mediate.”

“Daniel, are you sure you’re the best person to -”

“Like I said Doc, I’m all he’s got.” Daniel snapped. “He’s not going to let anyone else do it,
so I’m going to step up. It’s not even the hardest interview I’ve prepped for. Except for…”

“Except for what?”

Daniel scrubbed his hand over his face as if trying to wipe the discomfort away. “Well like I
said. Armand didn’t react the way I thought he would. I told him, you know, I said, ‘Ok fine,
dear old dad is having a crisis of conscience and you want closure. Let’s do this. Let’s make
sure you get what you want to get out of this.’ I had him write down his goals for the
meeting. Questions he had. Like a brain dump kind of thing.”

Robert nodded. “Smart. To have him pre-process like that. It’s what I would have done.”

“Yeah but Doc - just listen to some of this shit!” Daniel nearly yelled, then began rifling
through the pages of the notebook he’d been fiddling with all session.
“Armand’s Questions,” he began reading. “Why did you pick me? What made me special?
Where did you go on the nights you left me? Why did you let the others have me? When did
you fall out of love with me? How and when did I displease you? Why didn’t you look for
me sooner?...They go on like…like that .”

Robert crossed his arms and nodded again. “I see. And how are these questions different than
your expectations?” He thought he knew, but he needed Daniel to verbalize it.

“Are you kidding?!” Daniel spat. “They’re…well they’re…”

“It’s ok. You can say whatever you need to say here. It’s just you and me.”

“They’re PATHETIC.” Daniel exploded. “They’re disgusting. Marius is disgusting and all
Armand wants to know is why he didn’t molest him for longer. I can’t fucking deal with this.
I’m just glad he emailed me this list so I had time to throw shit against the wall and put on a
good face when he got home -”

“Daniel, calm down.” Robert implored. “Take deep breaths. In through your nose, out
through your mouth.”

He waited until Daniel followed his instructions, and then continued. “I can see why you
would feel that way. Of course I do. But as you know, I specialize in diasporic populations
and victims of complex trauma, and I can tell you…Armand’s questions are not unusual. You
said it yourself. Marius isolated him. Groomed him. Took Armand out of an obviously
abusive situation and yes, placed him in a different one…but one that was more insidious.
More, shall we say, gilded. Victims of this type often love their abusers. What else are they
supposed to do, when the abuser has arrested their development and positioned themselves as
the only source of love, affection, and security? And, in this case, their association ended
abruptly, against either of their inclinations. I would push back on your judgment of these
questions as “pathetic” and reframe them rather as the vestigial symptoms of a deep
abandonment wound.”

Daniel let out a long, shuddering breath. He looked like he was fighting back tears. “I knew it
was…complicated.” he admitted. “I just thought there’d be a whole lot more ‘Why did you
do this bad shit to me’ and a whole lot less ‘Why don’t you love me back?” How am I
supposed to feel about that, as his husband?”

“There is no “supposed to,” Robert assured. “We talked about this. About ‘shoulding all over
yourself.’ You’re allowed to feel angry and confused and hurt. But…if you’re really set on
mediating…on putting yourself in this volatile situation which I’ll remind you you are not
trained for, I would heavily caution you against revealing these feelings to Armand. I surmise
that he loves and trusts you, as evidenced by his asking you to help, and if you were to let on
to him that you found his needs pathetic -”

“Poor choice of word.”

“This would no doubt feel like rejection to him, and would damage your relationship.”
Daniel got up then and began pacing. “Yeah.” He ground out. “Yeah. I know. Fuck…in over
my head, like I said.”

“What are Armand’s goals?” Robert asked. “For this meeting? You said you discussed goals
with him as well -”

Daniel laughed bitterly and glanced back down at his notebook. “He wants to, and I quote,
‘Understand the past, and explore the possibility of future acquaintance.’ When I asked him
what the fuck that meant, he fawned all over me, reassured me over and over that I was his
Beloved always, and that he just wanted a family again. He hasn’t stopped stepford
housewifing all week about it.”

Daniel collapsed back on the couch, looking petulant. “I thought I was his family, Doc.”

“You are,” Robert affirmed. “But…we don’t love people in a vacuum. And love doesn’t
always take healthy or expected shapes. Are you familiar with the concept of Restorative
Justice?”

Daniel actually sprawled down on the couch then. “Not really.”

Robert hummed and tried to summarize the concept 101-style. “It’s an approach to justice
that seeks to repair harm, rather than punish it. In general, this is done by providing an
opportunity for victims to articulate the impact of said harm to the perpetrators and
communicate their needs. In turn, the perpetrator of harm agrees to listen, to take
responsibility in a way that centers on the victim’s idea of justice, whatever that may be,
rather than normative notions about what ‘ought to’ happen. If this is done to the victim’s
satisfaction, the person responsible for harm is allowed to reintegrate into the community.”

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and actually growled. “Sounds like hippie bullshit.
But…ok. Ok yeah, even I see that’s kind of what’s happening here. What Armand wants.”

“Right.” Robert said, encouraged by this emergent self-awareness. “And I must commend
you, you’ve already employed many of the core principles of restorative justice in your prep
work for this reunion. You’re centering the victim, letting him take the lead…but now you
have to follow through. You have to really, truly, be ok with whatever justice turns out to look
like for him. Even if it’s not what you yourself would define as just. Daniel…this isn’t going
to be easy. For you especially. It’s going to require a lot of subsuming your own feelings,
thoughts, and needs. That’s why I really don’t think you’re the right person to -”

“Yeah, message received.” Daniel cut him off. “I’m still gonna do it. I don’t know, call it
karma for the two marriages I already destroyed with my selfish bullshit. If this is what
Armand needs…then fuck what I need for right now.”

Robert sighed. “Daniel I’m not going to lie to you. This could destroy a third marriage. Breed
long-lasting hurt and contempt. There’s already some contempt there…and your needs and
feelings are important too.”
 “But not right now.” Daniel said grimly. “I hear you. But I’ll cross that bridge when this is
over. Right now I just have to fake it until I make it. He deserves to have someone in his
corner.”

Robert could see that there was no talking Daniel out of this. And so he shifted his thinking
towards harm reduction. “So do you, Daniel.” he asserted in his best ‘I am a very smart
mental health professional please listen to me’ voice. “I’d like to offer you that support and
coach you through this. When is the initial meeting?”

“Tomorrow night.”

Christ. Of course it was.

“Then, if you’re amenable, let’s extend this session and plan on more. And get ready for a
crash course in RJ facilitation.”

Chapter End Notes

How did this land for you? Your comments keep me going!
 Equalite
Chapter Summary

Daniel goes over the ground rules of the Restorative Justice process. Marius and
Armand meet face to face for the first time in over 400 years.

Chapter Notes

CW for Marius and Armand meeting in person and Armand having Big Feelings about
it. Also for some problematic inner monologue on the part of Marius. Guys I am
CRYING I just finished this and Armand broke my heart.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The Met Cloisters - Bonnefont Cloister Herb Garden

Night of the First Session

The fig tree was dying. Marius regarded it with diagnostic interest, feeling the flesh of the
ailing fruit and blighted leaves between his thumb and forefinger. Not the climate for figs.
Too cold and too damp. And then of course they weren’t tending the soil appropriately. He’d
had four slaves at the villa to handle such things. Marco, Lamike, Sebastian and…he could
not remember the last. Dust and ash now, all. Still…he wondered what they would have done
to salvage this one. If it were even possible, or if the thing was no more than an upright husk.

Marius let his mind drift in this way as he surveyed the meeting place of his fledgling’s
choosing. The choice was not surprising. It was his Amadeo to the hilt, all orderly garden
beds, fragrant herbs, stone benches and arches that were Medieval but also vaguely Mughal -
a beginning the boy still half-recalled.

He thought for the hundredth time if this was folly. . Self-flagellation (which he had never
been prone to), or the half-formed hopes of a sentimental old man. Old vampire. He
considered again, despite the confidence he had displayed to Daniel on their first not-so-
courteous encounter, if this was even moral to attempt.

“Well, I don’t think so. But this isn’t about what I think. Good to know you’re capable of a
little self-reflection though.”

A grating, world-weary voice answered his unuttered thoughts in the dark, and then Daniel
was before him again. He was dressed in the uninspired casual attire of the era, and his
expression was marginally less hostile than the last time they had been face to face.

“A strong Mind Gift, for one so young,” Marius observed. “I wasn’t making an especial
attempt to conceal my thoughts, but my baseline shields are considerable.”

Daniel, looking uncomfortable at the compliment, adjusted a piece of loose paper in the
notebook he was carrying, and gestured at three stone benches that had been arranged in a
triangle.

“Yeah well I’m learning from the best,” he said.

Marius nodded and claimed his own bench when Daniel sat. “And where is he?” He asked,
hoping he didn’t sound as full of turmoil as he felt.

Daniel regarded him with cold appraisal, and flipped through his notebook. “Oh, he’s
watching. He’ll come out - or maybe he won’t, depending on how this first part goes.”

“And what, pray tell, is the structure of this little Senate session again?” Marius inquired
impatiently. “I confess I did not quite follow the outline you relayed earlier. It all seems
rather…formal.”

“It is.” Daniel acknowledged. “It’s for safety.”

“I do not intend to harm him,” Marius implored. Because whatever had happened in the past,
surely even this surly man-child of barely 72 summers could sense his sincerity - his
contriteness -

“Uh huh.” Daniel bit out. “Anyway; to recap. You reached out because you want to try and
make amends for harm you caused Armand.”

“Correct.”

“And Armand agreed to meet because he is open to that possibility, but not before he gets
some answers. And he has a lot of questions.”

Marius nodded, and steepled his fingers. “Of course he does. He always did.”

“...Right. So, just to highlight,” Daniel continued doggedly, reading from his notebook. “This
is entirely voluntary for both parties. It stops if and when he wants it to stop…or if and when
you want it to.”

“I already told you I wouldn’t force the issue.” Marius intoned. Daniel didn’t even look up.

“This also means we take as many breaks as he needs, and it takes as many sessions as it
takes. Time is one thing we all got, after all.”

“Yes,” Marius mused. “Yes of course.”

“Great. Super.” Daniel said. “Now on to the rest of the ground rules. I’ve already gone over
these with him, and he’s agreed to them. You have to agree to all of them, or he’s out.”

“...Alright.”

“First, you need to keep your mind relatively open to me during sessions. It freaks him out
that you’re blood-deaf to each other, so he asked me to continuously assess your
truthfulness.”

Marius took a moment to be astounded. He hadn’t been spoken to like this since Mael and he
were on bad terms. It took all his discipline to school his face. “He thinks that I would
deceive him?” He asked.

Daniel smirked. “He may be pretty, but he isn’t stupid,” he said. (Insolent boy). “Look I’m
not going to rifle through your mind like an encyclopedia, but I was a journalist when I was
alive and a hell of a lie detector. Just. Keep the window cracked. I’ll know if you don’t.
Yeah?”

Marius set his jaw, but nodded. “Alright. If that’s what is necessary.”

“It is.” Daniel confirmed. “Next - absolutely no physical contact is allowed unless he initiates
it. Not so much as a fucking handshake.”

Marius had expected this, actually. He could guess whose idea it was. “Yes yes.” he
acknowledged, already bone tired.

“Third, and this is kind of an umbrella rule, but you’re new to it, so I’ll spell it out for you:
Don’t be an asshole. This means, listen respectfully without interrupting, treat him as an
equal in the process, and speak from your own perspective rather than trying to articulate or
guess at his.”

There it was again. That word. Equal. What did it signify, really? Were parents equal to their
children? Were mothers equal to fathers? Was one man’s talent equal to another man’s?
Marius despised this word. It so rarely applied to the natural world. Amadeo was blood of his
blood. His foundling. His fledgling. Made and reanimated in his image -

“Anyone ever tell you you think loudly?” Daniel growled. “I get that you’re a fucking fossil,
but in this context, what we mean is that Armand is equally deserving of space, respect, and
autonomy. Does that clear it up for you, Grandpa? And his preferred name is Armand now,
by the way.”

“Armand.” Marius tried it out on his tongue slowly. He did not like it. Not one bit. But this
was, as the Romans used to say, not a hill he was prepared to die on. “Armand.” He repeated.
Still no better. “Alright Daniel Molloy. I agree to these stipulations. Anything else?”

“One more,” Daniel said immediately. Marius thought unbidden that he could see what Ama
—Armand, admired in this one. A relentless, raw force of personality. Like the rocky hills he
had liked to climb those first few weeks as a vampire. Before disaster struck….

“I realize I’m not doing the best job,” Daniel continued, “and I acknowledge I am very
biased. But as the moderator of this process, I’ll attempt to remain outwardly neutral and
facilitate a dialogue that’s productive towards your shared goals. In return for this frankly
superhuman feat -”

“Ah, but you’re not human,” Marius said automatically.

“Remember the part about no interrupting? Anyway, in exchange for this, you will both
respect my role as moderator, and agree to be led by me in this process.”

“Consul for a week, eh?” Marius said, trying for some levity - but it came out dripping with
sarcasm.

“Careful, Buddy.” Daniel growled. “If I’m out, he’s out.”

But he wasn’t the head of household. Ridiculous. “I understand,” is what Marius said aloud.
“I pledge to…”

To the Mother and the Father, he thought deep within himself - deeper than Daniel could
reach.

“...to whatever Gods are watching, to honor the process. Now please…please ask him to
come out.”

Daniel nodded curtly, shut his notebook, and spoke, seemingly, to the air. “Sweetheart - I’m
done with my schpiel, if you want to -”

*Thump*

The soft sound of feet on stone cut Daniel off.

Armand had jumped delicately from the top of a nearby arch wall, and was now standing
next to his companion. He raised his head up off his chest in a deliberate motion that looked
difficult for him and faced Marius, all fidgety hands and large, luminous orange eyes.

Marius immediately drowned in those eyes. He had been deprived of them for so long, and
had never, if he was being honest with himself, built up an immunity to their power. This
orange was soft candle flame. Flickering with unknowable thoughts and still (still!) the burnt-
up relics of an innocent. He had made these eyes, but remembered also what his boy had been
born with. Remembered when they had been brown and wet and pleading. Their hold on him
had been the same - heh. Equal.

The eyes were the most recognizable thing about him. All the rest gleamed with a polished
hardness that his fledgling had not possessed when last they had seen one another. Where
once his Amadeo had favored flowing, colorful clothes that draped carelessly off his
shoulders and hips, Armand was clad head to toe in form-fitting black. Every inch of his soft
caramel skin except his face and hands was covered in it, making him look like a Puritan
Inquisitor. And his face…the Dark Gift and his last illness had robbed most of the youthful
plumpness from it, but the set of his jaw - the lines between his brows…these were new
additions. So too was his expression; rehearsed. Withholding. Barren like the pine wastes of
Germania - betraying nothing. And, Marius observed to his dismay, he wore no jeweled
rings. Just a simple, ugly modern wedding band that would not have been fit for a drover in
Venice on the fourth finger of his left hand.

“Oh Beloved…” Marius whispered it in Latin to exclude Daniel, hoping - knowing that his
boy would remember. “How the years have tempered you. It is as if you too have met with
fire.”

Armand (yes, Armand assuredly), smiled bitterly at this and raised an eyebrow. “Dilectus
sum?” He questioned in perfect Latin, then switched to English. It sounded spiteful and so, so
hurt on his tongue. “Beloved, am I? A curious name to bestow on a discarded poppet.”

Marius took a step forward - wanted so desperately to take him in his arms - to feel the
punishing new angles of him, but he stopped himself. This would not do. It was unmanly, this
passion - and it was against the rules he had just agreed to.

Still, Armand did not step back. He let the distance lessen. His right hand twitched.

“I did not mean for it to be so long,” Marius implored, knowing how inadequate it sounded.
How hollow. “I have thought of you from our last night together to this night.”

“Have you?” Armand bit out, and tilted his head to the side, owlish and contemptuous.
Daniel remained uncharacteristically quiet, gaze shifting between them. “Thoughts and
prayers, was it? Little sacrifices made to the household altars you keep out of habit?
Whispered regrets to nameless mortals over wine in whatever new home you built without
me? Well Master -”

Marius let out a small, broken sound against his will at the old honorific, so mangled by his
fledgling’s hate and pain.

“I regret to inform you I cannot say the same. I had no room for soft thoughts for many
years.”

Armand was trembling now. The orange eyes were filling with red. Daniel put a cautious
hand on his shoulder. Marius took another step forward.

“But you remember there was softness?” He asked. Begged. Hoped.

Armand’s face crumbled like a levy. He began to sob in earnest, making heart-wrenching,
animal sounds. The tears washed away all the sharp edges he had worked so hard to set,
revealing through the rivulets of red the ghost of the boy who had died and been remade.
 “Maestro,” he had fallen into Italian. Fallen to his knees and grasped Marius’s pale and
shaking hand. “Perché mi hai lasciato?” Why did you leave me?

Marius met him on his knees. Only Daniel stayed standing, notebook abandoned and face
unreadable. He had two hands on Armand’s shoulders now, and was rubbing small circles
into the lithe muscles there. Marius could see this had a calming effect on his fledgling.

“I am sorry, Child.” Marius said, and let his own tears fall, Virtus be damned.

“Meaningless word.” Armand whispered in English, and reached out to trace the contours of
his face, as if to convince himself it was made of flesh and bone. “Meaningless.”

They sat together like that for some time, Marius staying still as a statue per the rules while
Armand made trails with his fingers across his cheeks, his hair, his shoulders and hands like a
blind man. After several minutes, Daniel got on the cobblestones with them and tilted
Armand’s face towards his own, breaking the trance.

“Just checking in,” said his fledgling’s fledgling softly. “Is this enough for tonight, maybe?
We don’t have to rush this.”

Armand blinked a few times and then nuzzled into Daniel’s neck, entwining his arms around
his broad chest. The sight of it was a hot brand to Marius’s heart.

“Yes, take me home.” Armand said quietly into Daniel’s collarbone, then lifted them both up
half with his legs and half with the Cloud Gift.

Marius got up too, aching inside and out. Armand spoke to Daniel, but looked once more at
Marius.

“Let’s see if he returns. Maybe then….maybe then.”

And then they were gone.

Chapter End Notes

If you want to know more about the setting of the sessions:

https://www.metmuseum.org/press/news/2016/gardens-at-the-met-cloisters

Also comments for these emotional chaps especially are appreciated. They take a lot out
of me and it helps to know they are working/effecting people in some way.
 Necessitas
Chapter Summary

Armand and Daniel cope with the first session in some not-so-ideal ways.
CW for self-harm and drug use.

Chapter Notes

Necessitas is the Latin word for Need.

I wrote this chapter to Ethel Cain's Family Tree and Ptolemaea.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The Liminal Space Before Dawn

Armand was sitting hunched at their kitchen island. He looked corpse-gray, and hadn’t
bothered to wipe the mess off his face. He picked at his cuticles systematically, worrying
each one in turn, mangling them, bending them to his unknowable will as he stared at nothing
corporeal in front of him.

It was freaking Daniel out, and he was so tired already, even though it was barely 2AM. “You
lost a lot of blood tonight, Sweetheart.” He observed. “We should hunt. If you want I can
bring you -”

“I’m not hungry.” Armand cut him off, not looking at him.

Daniel bit back his impatience and started to run his fingers through Armand’s hair, petting
him in the way that usually softened him. “I know, but like, your body is. Gotta keep your
strength up, you know? This is some heavy shit.”

Armand stiffened underneath him. “Do recall I survived over 500 years without your help,
Daniel.” he snapped, then tensed his jaw. “...Sorry.”

Daniel stopped touching him and stepped away. “S’ok.” He murmured, even though it
wasn’t.

Nothing was fucking ok. The image of his beautiful, powerful, ancient husband melting
ruined to his knees for Marius played over and over behind his eyes like a sadistic projection.
It filled him with rage - and the worst part was, he wasn’t sure who the rage was for exactly.
What was it Louis had said? An imprecise emotion?...Rage for Marius, yes…but also for
himself, for letting it go down that way. Should he have intervened? Said something wise and
facilitator-y? Rage at…at…- but no. No he wouldn’t let himself feel that. He had to push that
down.

“Well…I’m gonna hunt.” He said leadenly aloud. “I’m starving.”

“You should.” Armand responded, staring at ghosts again.

“...Can you at least promise me you’ll drink a blood bag or two?”

His maker sighed as if Daniel had asked him to climb Everest. “Yes Beloved.”

Daniel actually winced at the endearment, sullied now by its apparent origins. Armand didn’t
notice. “Ok…see you before dawn.”

When Armand was sure Daniel was all the way down the stairs, he opened up his own wrist
with a sharp fingernail, and let the blood pour out of him and onto the cream formica of the
kitchen island. Too much, probably. He was getting light-headed. No matter. He needed to
see it. To touch it. This animating force that kept his hurting heart beating. This part of his
maker he had carried with him always - paltry comfort though it was. This dubious gift he
had cursed Daniel with, because he had been too much of a coward to watch him die.

Blood-soaked past and blood-cursed future. Tangled ventricles of violence, connecting the
three of them for eternity.

If he could erase his own memories, would he? He often wondered. Probably not. He was too
adept at suffering. A prodigy of pain. Pain, like love, reminded him that he existed.

Existence was agony tonight. He contained multitudes, and they were all straining against the
bounds of his body. Wailing discordantly. The blood-letting helped a little, at least. Hair of
the dog, he believed, was the modern idiom.

Armand smeared the blood around on the counter with his fingers like it was paint. Like he
was back in the studio. When he grew tired of this, he stood and walked to his computer
desk, (a gift from Daniel; a gift he did not deserve), and retrieved a pen and some printer
paper.

It was a simple thing, to take apart the pen with his mind, and discard the blue ink it had
come with into the sink. Simpler still to command the blood on the counter to refill the pen’s
long body, and recap the end, sealing the makeshift ink inside.

Armand ruminated as he cleaned up the excess (the evidence). Tomorrow, he was to have his
say. The time for weeping was over. He was to articulate the harm. Oh if only he could push
the recollections into his maker’s mind instead - the way Santino’s claws felt. The way the
dungeon smelled. The way the forbidden fruit of Riccardo had tasted - sweet and
annihilating. World-ending. But ‘the architects of our creation’, something something Lestat’s
pretension.

He would have to fall back on more conventional means.

Armand took up the pen and began to write.

Daniel ended up at the Comedy Cellar. Not one of his usual haunts, but the drinks were
strong and fragrant, fear-tinged ambition permeated the air along with flop sweat and stale
cigarette smoke.

He sipped on a gin he wouldn’t be able to metabolize and watched sad sack after sad sack die
a slow death in front of the open mic. He scanned the minds around him, looking for rapists
or murderers or crooked cops, and thought that anyone studying time travel needed to take a
look at how a “tight five minutes” could feel like an hour when the jokes were bad.

He swore under his breath. Not a single piece of shit in the audience or on stage. Hell, the rest
of the night had been a nightmare, why not this part?

He threw some bills on the counter and turned to go, mentally carding through the rolodex of
seedy dives that were his typical hunting grounds…

And then the drug-addled boy stumbled on stage. Daniel smelled the heroin in his blood
before he read it in his distorted mind - muscle memory. Hungry recollection. It saturated the
boy’s oft- abused veins, tamped down his anxiety as he grabbed the mic in a delicate hand
bedecked with polish and rings.

“Good morning, Vietnam!” The boy said cheekily, grinning at the audience (who actually
laughed).

He was beautiful. Fucking breathtaking. Daniel let himself look. He’d always been a window
shopper, and what was the harm in that? Show him a man who didn’t look and he’d check
that man for a pulse.

“This set is brought to you by the Good Drugs and our collective existential despair.” The
boy - Kade, Daniel gleaned - continued. “TBH we’re all right where we need to be, I mean, if
Putin nukes us, we’re already in a cellar. And I have it on good authority the drinks will be
free in the event of a global catastrophe. Maybe we should like, facetime the fucker -
queerbait him so he gets mad and speeds this along. What do you think? Any takers? Anyone
wanna make out with me in front of Putin for free apocalypse drinks? Gotta save money
where you can in this economy.”

That got a laugh out of Daniel, who spent Kade’s five minutes half-listening to his fatalistic
humor and feasting his eyes. He was cocaine skinny, and wore a leather crop top that showed
off a flat belly the color of heavily-milked coffee. (Daniel had a type; sue him). He had sewn
patches into his criminally tight jeans - unicorns with sequined horns and stars and little
skeletons and a big red and black text patch that said “Fuck The Police,” right on his left
thigh. His hair was every color of the rainbow - thick and crimped and layered in what had
been called a mullet back in Daniel’s day, but was now called a “wolf cut” by the influencers
on TikTok. His eyes were big and green, like that famous National Geographic cover girl, and
gleamed with intelligence and euphoria.

Daniel met them with his own when Kade’s set was over, clapped, and smiled. Just for shits
and giggles. Just to see what would happen.

What happened was Kade immediately made his way to the stool next to him at the bar
(tripping only a little), and peered into Daniel’s half-empty glass.

“What’re you drinking, Daddy? Actually no let me guess.” Kade said, then took the stirrer
out of it and popped it in his mouth, sucking lightly along with thin black plastic. “Gin, huh?
It always tasted like Christmas Trees to me, but you do you, honey.”

Daniel laughed again, and felt his gums itch as his fangs threatened to drop. The boy smelled
like blood and drugs and want , and he was so close.

“Don’t worry about what I’m drinking, what are you drinking?”

Kade told him, and Daniel bought him one. And then another. And another.

By the time they stumbled out the side exit and into the alley, Daniel was practically carrying
him. He was feather light and molten-hot in his arms.

“Clocked you the second you came in,” Kade slurred, and Daniel let the boy shove him up
against the brick wall. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a silver fox?”

Daniel stood suspended in this Bad Decision, fangs out, hands roaming. The boy was
grinding filthily against him, and he got hard embarrassingly quickly. Shit, he was halfway
there - no one had touched his dick in over a week, including himself - it was as intoxicating
as the rest of him.

He started to tell Kade to cool it, to reveal that he was married (though they’d both seen and
chose to ignore the ring), but what came out instead was…

“Less talking with that mouth.”

Kade groaned at that, and crashed their lips together in a hard, sloppy kiss. “Whatever you
say honey…”

Those were his last words.

Daniel kissed him within an inch of his life, drinking up his high-pitched mewls and the
churning disorientation of his thoughts. They both came in their pants when Daniel bit him,
and then there was nothing but the blood - the blood - the blood - blood laced with a high
Daniel hadn't felt in 30 years and all the boy’s bright and burgeoning potential.
 It made him laughter-light. Euphoric and warm. He dropped Kade’s body against the dirty
pavement and felt nothing but contentment. It was ok. He could rest now. They both could.

This was how he would get through this. Yes. He would find one each night and take what he
wanted - what he needed - and he would stop when the nightmare was over. He could stop
any time he wanted. He had before. And what Armand didn’t know - well.

Daniel left the boy where he lay, and floated into the night.

Chapter End Notes

Fun fact, my fan cast for Marius in this fic is Vintage James Spader, particularly in this
picture: https://www.comingsoon.net/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2019/02/wolf_spader.jpg
 Bibe
Chapter Summary

Armand articulates the harm done before he was turned. Marius responds.

Chapter Notes

Sorry this took so long, y'all. It was very, very difficult for me to write, but I'm glad I
saw it through. CW for references to pederasty, rape, child abuse, racism, colonialism,
and human trafficking.

"Bibe" is the Latin word for drink.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Marius almost gasped when Daniel and Armand showed up in the garden the next evening.
They were both decidedly the worse for wear. Daniel had none of the usual defiance in his
body language, and instead appeared exhausted and resigned.

Armand barely looked alive at all. His face was even gaunter, and tinged a sickly blue-gray
beneath the natural umber. His eyes were dull.

“Ok, round two, here we go.” Daniel said leadenly. They each sat (well, Marius and Daniel
sat; Armand collapsed), on the benches, Daniel sharing his bench with Armand.

“...Surely we’re not going to begin until he’s fed?” Marius said to Daniel in the most
reasonable voice he could muster. “He’s half-starved.”

Daniel folded his arms and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Preaching to the choir, Pal. You
try getting him to eat.”

“I would prefer it if the both of you would stop speaking about me as if I weren’t present.”
Armand intoned, low and dangerous. “I am fine. Let’s begin.”

Acting on impulse, Marius removed his suit jacket and began rolling up his shirtsleeve. “You
are not fine, Armand,” he said matter-of-factly. “Any fool can see that. Will you drink from
me? If you will not take it from my wrist, perhaps we can find a receptacle.”

Daniel’s hands clenched into fists. Marius felt the anger, furnace-hot, radiating off him.
Several thoughts passed through his mind.
You’ve got some nerve - No way in hell he’s gonna go for that - You probably taste like
mothballs and mansplaining -

But they all died on his lips when Armand leaned forward ever so slightly and licked his
bottom lip with the tip of his tongue.

Daniel rounded on him. “Babe do you want to …?”

Armand sensed the edge in the question, and folded further in on himself, hugging his own
arms like he was posing for a religious painting. “No.” He lied softly.

Daniel’s anger turned to incredulity - jealousy - confusion - hurt, and Marius winced at the
strength of the emotions. Fledglings and their feelings - a dangerous combination.

“It is natural that he should crave the blood of his maker,” Marius told Daniel gently. He felt
pity for this man-child. Armand had never been an easy creature to love. “Surely you can
relate to this?”

Daniel barked out a bitter laugh and threw his hands up. “Sure. Yeah. Whatever. Open a vein,
grandpa. Why the hell not.”

Armand’s bottom lip trembled a little, and he reached up to cup Daniel’s face. “No, no I said
I didn’t want to.” He whispered desperately. “Please don’t be angry -”

“I’m angry that you’re lying to my face.” Daniel growled back. “Not that you’re hungry for
it. Now drink. It’s fine.”

“Daniel -”

“It’s fine! I just want you to eat, ok?”

Armand blinked sluggishly and nuzzled into his fledgling’s neck. “Will you hold me while I
do?” He asked, so fearfully and quiet that Marius found himself swallowing past a lump in
his throat.

Daniel softened minutely. “Sure.” He murmured, and pulled Armand up on his lap, cradling
him tenderly.

Marius waited until Daniel nodded once more, then leaned forward and placed his wrist
beneath Armand’s lips. When the bite came, it was deep and hungry, and the bond between
them, so long neglected, bloomed with merciless intensity. It wailed with Armand’s need -
with Marius’s regret - it was the deep red of the dying sun behind his eyes.

“Bevi, Piccolo,” Marius said under his breath to suppress a groan.

This was a triumph in the forum.

This was Akasha’s flashing eyes.
This was lowering a beautiful, broken child into the bath.

“Va bene…va bene, bere…bevi e sii forte...”

Eventually, Armand broke away reluctantly with a small whimper. His color was better. He
stayed on Daniel’s lap, and Daniel let him, though he would not meet his eyes.

“Grazie…” Armand murmured, then switched back to English. “...Thank you.”

Marius took a deep breath, lowered his shirtsleeve, and tore himself away back to his own
bench. “You neglect yourself,” he admonished. “Please don’t do so on my account.” Then he
looked to Daniel. “Now what is next?”

“Armand has something he wants to read you,” Daniel said. “Your job is to listen. You can
take notes and jot down questions, but you aren’t to interrupt. Only when he’s done speaking
can you say anything. Same goes for me.”

Marius nodded. He had nothing to take notes with, but he had a good memory like all their
kind.

He watched as Armand pulled a beat-up looking piece of modern parchment from his shirt
pocket, and began, haltingly, to read from it.

“I am supposed to name the harm. To list out my grievances against you like a bawd with a
market list. You would think this would come easy to me, Maestro - I used to rail at you in
this way all the time, when I was mortal. But I am not that child anymore.

“And I was a child, when you found me. This is the thing Daniel and all the world it seems
expects me to focus on. That you touched me when I was a child. But we both know that was
the least of it. That was a balm, after where I came from. I don’t want to say this aloud,
because I know it’s not what he wants to hear…maybe it’s not even what you want to hear,
but I cherish the memories of your hands on me. It was the first time I can remember that
anyone ever touched me and did not leave a bruise.

If only you had just lay with that child you found. That child liked pleasure, and learned, with
you, not to be shamed by it.

“But you did not just lay with him. You consumed him. You weren’t just his lover - you
became his father, his teacher, his pimp, his lord, and his master. He lost himself in you. He
was bereft when the sun rose and you were not there. He wandered like a shade by the River
Lethe, drinking and gambling and carousing until the moon reigned again and he could exist
properly under your gaze. He knew only who you knew, learned only what you taught, and
admired only what you thought was worthy and beautiful.

You, a Venetian Pygmaleon, hollowed that child out, and shaped him into your Galatea. He
was nothing without you - and that, Master… that is the harm that was done.
“Amadeo had been…Arun, I think, once. Armand remembers Amadeo asking you again and
again about Arun. He remembers that you were a magician with unfathomable power, who
could pluck the words and pictures from his mind without him having to speak. But when he
asked you about Arun…about Arun’s mother and father and why his skin was brown when
all his brothers were pale - you told him to forget these things. When he awoke sweating in
your arms, babbling in a language he could not remember in a wakeful state about dreams of
mangoes and elephants and paintings of mandalas, you told him to trust you, and only you,
and not the life he half-recalled.

“Amadeo did trust you. Arun was happy to fade. Fading was better than hurting. But Armand
wonders now why Arun was erased. Why, if his master found him so beautiful, would he not
share with him the origins of all that touted beauty? Why would he buy a slave, make him a
prince, but only a prince in exile? Why would he praise that prince’s soft lips and jet-black
hair and tawny flesh in the dark, but make him pose for hours on a cold stone floor only to
render a white child on canvas? Why was Arun not good enough? And why, after he lovingly
crafted Amadeo in his image, did he then give Amadeo away to any guest with coin in his
pocket? Why did he let these men defile his Galatea? It is true none of them ill-used him as
he had been used in the brothel - but why was he offered at all? Is this what love is? To be
passed around like a wine goblet? Sometimes, Maestro, I do not know still.

“Maybe if Amadeo had been only yours then, Armand would not be so bad at loving today.
Maybe if Amadeo remembered Arun, he would have been stronger when you went up in
flames before his eyes. Maybe he would have had something to fall back on, when the
Roman Coven did their best to erase Amadeo. Maybe not. I will never know. All I know is
that you told me to rest, to believe in you, to love you, to serve you…and then you were
gone, and Amadeo was alone with the wolves.

“There is more. But tonight I only have the strength to write about Amadeo and the other boy
with the name that might not be his name.”

Armand finished reading but kept looking down at the paper, clutching it like a lifeline.
Marius watched as Daniel wiped quickly at his own eyes - a quiet, furtive motion that belied
the churning rage of his thoughts.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” his fledgling’s fledgling muttered, breaking the silence.

Marius frowned when Armand cringed, and slid off Daniel’s lap. “Aren’t you supposed to
suspend your judgment?” he asked, mostly to stall, because he was not unaffected by
Armand’s words - far from it.

“Fuck you, Pal.” Daniel growled, then sighed and put his hands up. “Just…give me a minute.
First time I’m hearing that.”

Armand, who had taken to staring at a particularly fascinating weed growing between two
cobblestones on the ground between them, blinked dully. “I am sorry. It is the truth.” He said,
voice flat and distant.
“Don’t apologize. You did good.” Daniel said with something more like professional
distance, and then the journalist leveled Marius with an icy stare. “Now it’s your turn. What
do you have to say for yourself?”

Marius ran his fingers through his hair in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “I confess
to feeling at a disadvantage,” he said to Armand, trying to catch his eyes. “That I could not
prepare a reply as eloquent as your charges - and they were eloquent. Your writing has
improved.”

“Since I was in my twenties?” Armand replied with humor’s dead husk. “I should hope so.”

“What, precisely, am I meant to say?” Marius asked, really asked; he hadn’t felt this at odds
with himself since his first years as an immortal, bumbling around Egypt looking for the
Mother that governed them all.

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Well, he asked you a ton of questions. Could start by answering
those. You could also acknowledge his reality. I don’t know. Just some ideas.”

Armand looked up then, and met his gaze, his entire face a pleading question. Silently, he
handed Marius the letter. Their fingertips brushed. “I don’t want your prepared speeches,”
Armand hissed. “Your sagely platitudes. I want what I gave you; the truth.”

“I have desired young boys for all of my years.” Marius blurted, heat nearly foreign to him
now rising up his neck. Shame, some distant part of himself thought. An infrequent,
unpleasant emotion. “You structured your charges chronologically, and so I shall answer
them chronologically. It was always that way with me - stately women and young boys. And
those proclivities were, as you know, common and accepted in both the era when I came into
the blood, and the era in which I found you. For hundreds of years after as well. But I have
come to understand recently, through my interests in this burgeoning field of psychology and
the leaps made in neuroscience, that society has it right now in a way it did not then.

“Your mind…the mind that called out to me with all its strength from that fetid basement in
Venice, though you did not realize what you were doing - was fierce, but underdeveloped.
Talented, but tender. So while it is some solace to hear you have fond memories of our
physical intimacy…I know now that it was wrong, what I did. What I wanted. What I still
want, but have not let myself have since the late 19th century, when Darwin and Preyer and
Hall began writing about the brains of children. It was wrong because it harmed you -
perhaps not physically, but because it led to the consummation of the self that you so aptly
describe.

“You had been ill-used, were barely verbal, had been cut off from your memories - and by
claiming you as I did, I made it impossible for you to develop a healthy sense of yourself. At
the time I thought what I was doing was guiding you into yourself by providing for your
teaching and care - but I now know that I was, as you said, subsuming you. Molding you in
the image of what I wanted. Some part of me back then knew it was wrong too - but I
honestly could not articulate why, exactly. I thought, as I believe I told you once, that it was
because you would grow up to regret our association. To be embarrassed by the submissive,
receptive role that you had taken with me. That was the framework of pederasty that I had to
work from - and it was all I could identify.

“I have more apt words, now. Heh…I am not…glad, exactly, that your fledgling is here for
this, but it does feel just that I say this in front of him too, since his thoughts have rung with
nothing but this sentiment since he laid eyes upon me. I raped you, Child. That is the word
for what I did. I raped you, and then, I believe the word is, “groomed” you, and for that I am
deeply sorry. I did not know that’s what I was doing, but I imagine that is little comfort. If I
could take it back, I would.”

He paused there, because Armand reached out to grab his free hand. His whole body was
shaking again. Daniel looked astounded. When it was clear that Armand would not speak, but
would also not let go of his hand, Marius squeezed it back, and let the touch and their bond
buoy him as he continued.

“As to why I never restored the memories I read from your mind - I fear the truth will hurt
you more than my offense. But you asked for the truth, and so I give it freely. Your memories
were confused, inconsistent, and…in some cases, full of barely fathomable cruelty. Arun…
and yes, that was the name I read - the only name you could remember - was not a well-loved
child. He had a greedy, alcohol-dependent father and a vindictive, unhappy mother who took
her rage at her lot in life out on the backs of her children. Arun lived in abject poverty.
Whatever mangoes he had tasted, he stole from the market. The only comfort he came by
honestly and consistently was in the village mosque.”

Marius put Armand’s letter down and reached up to touch his cheek - rules be damned.
Daniel did not comment. “Arun was a fine painter, you know.” He said. “You would
remember sometimes - and this was the one memory I would try to nurture - but the style and
philosophies you had been taught were so at odds with Western styles and philosophies that it
caused in you great distress every time you tried to reconcile what you had done with what
we did in the studio. You felt such guilt rendering the human form, that eventually I tried to
steer you towards other pursuits. Maybe I should have let you explore Islam - your painting
had been done in Allah’s name. This kind of artistic discipline was beautiful in its own way,
undeniably. But I confess I had no love for your born religion, or the fervor I could still sense
in Arun for it. I thought it would turn you into a mindless, Quran-thumping crusader, for you
never did anything in half measures. So I, perhaps selfishly, let the germ of your
remembrance die. After a while, I think we both convinced ourselves you did not miss it.”

Armand lay his forehead against their joined hands. “It was selfish,” he processed distantly.
“It was.”

“If you’d like…” Marius offered cautiously, “I could commit to paper everything I can recall
about Arun. Between my journals and what stays in my mind still, it’s a substantial amount.”

Armand let go of his hand and sat back down on his bench at some distance from Daniel
(who was watching him carefully). “I would greatly appreciate that,” he said softly.

Marius took a bracing breath. “Next, the paintings. I want you to know it pained me greatly,
to render you as anything other than what you were. While I, at the time, did ascribe to now-
outdated notions regarding the racial inferiority of the subcontinent’s peoples, to me, you
were physically perfect.”

“Wow,” Daniel deadpanned. “How sweet.”

Armand’s jaw set, and his eyes slid to his fledgling. “Daniel please ,” he implored.

Marius continued. “Once again, these racist, colonialist notions were the norm for the time
and society in which we lived. Although I had been immortal for many centuries by that
point, I was always particularly talented at societal integration - and was not immune to its
various influences. Vanity, plain and simple, motivated me to conform to contemporary
artistic conventions. I wanted to be known and loved for my work - and no one would buy
work that featured an Indian boy. You were good enough for me…better than good; but not
for them. I chose them. Folly. Vanity, as I said. I am sorry that it made you feel less-than.

“Lastly…” Marius blinked against the pressure that had begun in his eyes. He had been
working up to this, but it was hard. The shame was white-hot now under his skin. “Why did I
compel you to other beds. I could fall back on a lecture about Italian class dynamics and
hospitality - that I could not gracefully refuse my patrons. But we both know that I drained
men very much like the ones I let take you without so much as a second thought. No, the
truth is…and this is not easy for me to say…”

“Think you better say it.” Daniel insisted.

“I wanted to punish you,” Marius admitted. “I resented the hold you had on me. On how you
dominated my thoughts even when I was away from you. I disliked that I loved your
imperfections. Your temper. Your wildness. Your capricious, changeable nature - I…I
disliked that I loved you. I felt…unmanned, by the feelings of passion and tenderness and
rage that you elicited in me. And so I sought to push you away. I thought that maybe…if you
fell out of love with me…or fell into the thrall of one of the rich, landed men I gave you to,
then all would be as it should be again. I thought it would stop me from doing what I was so
sorely tempted to do. In the end…” Marius met Armand’s eyes, and let his own tears finally,
finally fall. “My actions only ended up corrupting your flesh, and damning you faster. It is
one of the biggest regrets of my immortal life.”

For a little while, the only sounds in the courtyard were the gently rustling leaves and the
crickets hiding in them. Marius looked to Daniel once he had gotten control over his
emotions, and addressed him. “Can we stop for this evening?” He asked. “I do not have any
more words right now.”

Daniel nodded curtly, his thoughts mired in ambivalence, discomfort, and a low-simmering,
ever-present anger.

Armand was the first to stand. “You have given me much to think about,” he said, and took
Daniel’s hand. Marius noticed a fraction of a second where Daniel hesitated to take it back. “I
will be here again tomorrow night. I…hope you will choose to continue.”
 And then they were gone. Marius remained for a long spell, reckoning with his demons.

Chapter End Notes

The Italian Marius speaks in this chapter roughly translates into "Drink, Little One. Very
good, drink and be strong."

What did you think? Please let me know in the comments - they keep me motivated,
particularly for this story!
 Pugna
Chapter Summary

Armand and Daniel fight.

Chapter Notes

Pugna is the Latin word for fight.

CW for dubious consent, addiction, victim blaming, and domestic violence.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Directly After the 2nd Session…

Daniel wants to scream.

He wants to punch a wall.
He wants to drain the first one (or two, or three) random passersby they encounter on the long
walk home.
He wants a fucking fix.

He does not want to be near Armand - near anyone who matters. He feels like shit about that,
because he can sense Armand’s yearning - fear - hunger through the Bond…but his cup
runneth empty, or whatever. Ran empty about two hours ago, when he watched his husband’s
fangs pierce Marius’s wrist.

“Would you like to hunt together?” Armand asks him quietly - cautiously, breaking him out
of his dark reverie.

“Oh, now he wants to hunt,” Daniel murmurs before he can stop himself, then sets his jaw
against the wounded look Armand gives him in response.

“Daniel…I’m sorry.”

“I swear to God if you say that one more time -”

“Well then WHAT do you want me to SAY?” Armand yells, startling pedestrians.

Daniel feels embarrassment hot in his stomach. “Jesus, fucking cool it. Just…yeah. Let’s
hunt.”
Armand’s lower lip trembles, but he nods minutely and stalks ahead, hands in his pockets, a
single-minded predator.

They drain a couple necking in the back of a shitty Buick in Brooklyn. The man runs a ponzi
scheme and tastes like greed. The woman has tried to kill herself three times in the last five
years. The meal is fast and joyless.

Daniel wants more. Wants a different kind of blood. He wants to be alone.

Armand drops the woman to the floor of the Buick and chooses the exact moment he forms
the desire for solitude in his mind to pounce on him. He kisses Daniel greedily - desperately -
long fingers digging into his biceps, legs entangling his like runaway weeds.

“Please, Beloved -” he moans into his neck. “Touch me…”

Daniel opens his mouth to kiss - to moan back -

“Don’t call me that.” Is what his mouth does instead.

Armand pulls back, blinks…”W-What?” He whispers, and he’s still gyrating his hips, still
pawing at his arms -

Daniel pushes him roughly off him. “I said don’t call me that. That’s what he calls you.”

Armand sighs and rakes his fingers through his hair - pulling at it worryingly hard. “Is this
how it’s going to be then?” He asks. “Am I to be punished nightly for engaging in the process
you devised?”

Daniel laughs cruelly and shrugs. “I don’t know, you seem like a real glutton for punishment.
Maybe you like it.”

Armand’s eyes flash - and then a loud *slap* cuts through the silence. Daniel’s left cheek
blooms with pain. “Fuck you.” Armand hisses.

Daniel sees red.

He grabs Armand’s throat and squeezes as hard as he can.
He pushes him so that he is lying flat on the back seat, head resting in the lap of the man
Daniel drained, pinning him with his full weight.

“Is this what you want?” he growls, hips bearing down harshly against his maker’s, fingers
tightening around his neck. “Go on, call me daddy or master or whatever gets you off. I’m
just along for the ride, right? Have been since 19 fucking 73.”

Armand opens his mouth…”I don’t…want to…hurt you…” he gasps out, bulging eyes filling
with blood tears.

Daniel smirks and ruts up against Armand, knee mashing between his thighs in a way that
can’t be pleasant. “Well that’s new,” he says, then rips into Armand’s collarbone so that his
maker’s blood spurts hot and fast into his mouth. The wound is deep.

He gets three good gulps in before Armand yells so loud the windows of the Buick shatter.

“STOP.”

Daniel careens backward, out the car door and lands ass first on the pavement.

Armand looms over him like a sleep paralysis demon, eyes blank and dangerous, fire primed
in his right hand. His fangs are out. His chest heaves. But when he speaks again, it is deadly
quiet.

“Get away from me.”

It’s like ice water over his head. A mallet to the gut. Daniel wants to beg for forgiveness. To
beg point-blank period like he used to in his twenties - at the feet of this creature that’s
hijacked his whole fucking life.

But Daniel isn’t that 20 year old kid anymore, and whatever he’s become since spits glass out
of his mouth, stands up, and adjusts the sleeve of his leather jacket nonchalantly, for all the
world like something precious didn’t just break into a million pieces.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he says, then flees.

Armand collapses onto the pavement where Daniel had been.

He hugs himself, rocks, and sobs.

He prays, he thinks. He can’t be sure.

His chest is an open, gaping hole.

Marius finds him within the hour. He knows it's Marius, because it’s not Daniel, and there are
only two creatures on this planet (...maybe one now), who care if he lives or dies.

“What happened, Piccolo?” Marius asks, soft and alarmed. “I felt you from across the city.
Like napalm in my heart. Where is your companion, hmm? Where is Daniel?”

Armand doesn’t answer. And when Marius crouches down to hug him, he hugs him back.
Chapter End Notes

*Awaits your firing squad in the comments*

 Bisogno
Chapter Summary

Marius takes a distraught Armand back to his house in Westchester, where they continue
their conversation.

Chapter Notes

WEEEE WOOOOH WEEEEE WOOOOHHHH consider this your warning section:

dubious consent (but not in the way you expect), torture, major angst, references to past
ephebophilia/pederasty, and Marius & Armand get physical.

Bisogno is the Latin word for "need."

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Armand let Marius fly him to Westchester. It was less than half an hour as the crow traveled,
and probably would have been faster if he had lent his own power to the propulsion - but he
did not have the will. Instead, he clung to his maker like a child and buried his face in the
shoulder of his maroon blazer, letting it assimilate his crimson tears.

After all what did it matter? What did any of it matter now?

They landed on the balcony of a large, gothic-style mansion. Ivy crawled up its iron railing
and brick walls like nosey neighbors - yet more witnesses to his pain. A pair of French doors
opened seemingly of their own accord, and then Marius was guiding him into a turn-of-the-
century parlor, all warm woods and Persian rugs and well-loved leather furniture.

Armand released Marius then and began to pace, worrying at his fingers and pulling at his
hair. For a while the only sound was the urgent march of his feet against the floorboards and
the crackling of a fire that had roared to life in a large hearth around the same time they
entered the room.
He could not have counted the number of times the fight with Daniel had played and replayed
in his head by the time Marius spoke.

“Dear One…come sit by me. Tell me what happened.”

The sound of his maker’s voice, this time, was a flint struck against his breastbone. It lit him
up with incandescent rage.

Armand rounded on Marius, looming over him where he sat all civilized composure by the
fire.

“What happened? What HAPPENED? YOU happened!” He yelled, and then, because that
elicited exactly no facial reaction from this stony ancient that had been his everything once,
he used his Mind Gift to send a nearby lamp careening into the wall.

It made a satisfying noise when it shattered, so he did it again with a glass chess board. Then
a wine decanter. Pretty soon, half the room’s small to mid-sized objects were floating
menacingly, orbiting Marius like space debris. And yes…now, now he was frowning. There
was tension in his shoulders. Good. I exist - I exist! Armand thought madly.

“Why are you here?” is what Armand said aloud. “Why do you come like the eleventh plague
of Egypt to destroy what little solace I’ve managed to acquire? Did Pandora abandon you
again? Is it that I finally made one? Or perhaps you’ve searched the entire world by now and
couldn’t find a boy who serviced you as well as I did, is that it? Is Father thirsty, hmm?”

He straddled Marius’s lap as he said this, smirking meanly down at the alabaster face that
was cracking just slightly with pain and alarm by now.

“Stop this,” Marius said quietly. Horsely. “You grieve me deeply.”

Armand rolled his hips into his maker’s and grabbed hard at his jaw, not sparing his
fingernails. Marius was already half-hard under his clothes.

“Oh, I grieve you ?” He mocked, and then let twelve crystal goblets shoot in all directions in
the space around them, their swan songs a cacophony of tinkling glass and sharp edges. One
of those edges caught Marius just above the eyebrow.

Marius’s gaze turned stern then. He placed his hands on Armand’s hips and forcefully created
some space between them - but Armand laughed manically when he realized it was not easy
for his maker.

“Armand, stop it this instant. I still have no patience for tantrums.”

But this just made Armand push harder. With his body. With his mind.
Something that should not have been on fire was on fire.
The objects in the air around them blurred with their speed.
And Marius - Armand realized with glee that Marius could not move.

He had successfully commandeered his body, and was holding him in place in the chair. He
could tell, because his maker’s hands were shaking with the effort to repel him, and the
distance between their bellies was closed again as Armand surged forward, pressing them
together as close as they would go.

“Trying a different tac now, are we?” He whispered in Marius’s ear as he let all his anger
become power, and made an idle laceration in the marble-like neck with his forefinger. He
lapped at the dripping blood it surrendered as he continued. “Are you going to whip me
again? I think you’ll find it still has the opposite of the intended effect. Or…maybe that was
exactly what you’d intended, hmm? Me prostrated and boneless, crying out with need for
you?”

Marius groaned. Armand paid him no heed, and began moving in tight circles in his lap. “Go
ahead, try to throw me off,” he taunted. “You could do it, but you’d have to kill me, I think,
to overpower me. And you’ve only been able to do that once. I doubt you have the stomach
for it again - I repulsed you so soon after.”

Marius blinked, blood tears escaping his eyes for the second time that night (and the second
time in over two centuries). “No Beloved…” he forced out. “It was not as you say.”

Armand acted like he did not hear him, and continued to slice neat parallel lines into the
perfect white canvas of his maker’s exposed flesh. When he ran out of neck and clavicle, he
began unbuttoning the suit, smearing the leaking blood around as he did so.

“That is what you say,” he mused, licking and biting and cutting and gyrating. “But then you
left me to be ritually tortured and gang raped by a Satanic coven, so forgive me if your
actions rather eclipse your words.”

Marius let out an ugly sob and bowed his head slightly. Armand did not allow this, and forced
his gaze up to meet his.

“I did not intend…” his maker began. “If I could have spared you that…” he tried again.

Armand paused all movement, then tilted his head to the side, eyes mad and half-unseeing.
“But what was it you couldn’t do, hmm? My master. My maker. My magician. My
abandoner.”

He drew out the final word cruelly, and removed the rest of Marius’s top layers. His chest
was just as he remembered. Translucent white and hairless and lightly-muscled. A rich man
who had not let himself be idle in life, but who had also not known any sort of hard labor.
Armand wanted to paint that chest with blood.

“By the time I healed, you were already lost!” Marius yelled, and Armand felt a great
lurching heat in his stomach as his maker reached out with…something, some power he
could not name, to stay his sadistic ministrations.

He might kill me after all , Armand thought. The notion did not make him feel anything.

“You wish to know the truth, so be it.” Marius said icily. “I healed a few years after the
attempt on my life and found you in Paris. I fully intended to collect you - and then I saw
how you were living. In filth. In cruelty. In fanatical service to a devil I had taught you was a
mere opiate for the masses - a childhood fairy tale meant to scare mortals with dubious
reasoning power. You were unrecognizable to me, and not just because you had stopped
tending to yourself. You had spurned all my teachings, and were as your own plague to the
people of Paris, living underneath it with its bones like a ghoul. I came for Amadeo, alright? I
came for him - only to discover that he had died. What kinship had I with who replaced him?
No, more to the heart of it - what kinship had he with me ? The vampire I found skulking
amongst the graves of Les Innocents would have scorned me just as surely as you are doing
now. Forgive me if I did not wish to linger in congress with the walking talking effigy of my
failure. An effigy who wore the mangled face of a boy I loved more than…more than
anything.”

Marius trailed off then into silent weeping.

Armand blinked dully, the fight having leeched out of him during his maker’s confession.
The objects in the air fell to the ground. Errant fires went out. Marius’s lacerations had
already healed, and Armand did not make more. Instead, he encircled his maker’s neck with
his arms, and rested his head on the chest of the thing that had made him. Their hearts beat as
one.

“Amadeo needed you, Maestro.” He said brokenly. “He tried to stay alive for you. Santino
he…they…I still cannot talk at length about what they did to Amadeo. Daniel…” a sob
escaped him as he said his husband’s name, the utterance reminding him of the mess this
night had become. “Daniel keeps trying to get me to write it down, or tell him my infernal
story. But I do not have to tell you, Master. You know what the vampiric cults of that time did
to convert those they captured. And you know what my beauty brings out in men and
monsters. Amadeo fought until he couldn’t anymore. You must believe me -”

“I do, Child.” Marius said, and embraced him tightly with newly liberated limbs, rubbing his
neck and back in sweeping, soothing gestures. “I do believe you.”

“And then he became something else to survive.”

“I know…” Marius sighed into Armand’s hair. Armand felt the warm familiar breath of it
 against his temple. “I am glad you survived. And I am not done yet, with Santino, if you
would like to know. The hour will come, when he falls into my hands.”

Armand began kissing where he had bit and sliced. Marius did not stop him. “Why are you
here?” He asked again.

“Because you were right,” Marius said immediately, spooling one of Armand’s curls around
his index finger as his fledgling made tiny, gentle fang pricks in his collar bone to sip from.
The pleasure was unbearable. “I am alone now. Pandora, quite fairly I must own, chose to
part company with me, as did Bianca after her. The burden I carry is heavier than ever upon
my shoulders…and I fear my sacred charge will very soon change in some dreaded, as yet
unnamable way. And though it is true what I said, about abstaining from boys…their welfare
was not the entire reason for my restraint. None of them were you, Beloved. None so open to
pleasure nor as beautiful, yes, you had that right too…”

Armand moaned appreciatively at the vindication, and went for the button of Marius’s
trousers with long, expert fingers. Marius, again, did not stop him.

“But that was not even half the alchemy between us, was it?”

It wasn’t. Armand knew. He remembered.

He reached beneath the loosened fabric and took his maker’s cock in hand. Marius let him.
He began to stroke.

“Ah misericordia…none were as fiery…as petulant…si così…as ready to trade words or as

wonderfully…oh hai imparato molto….wounded as you.”

“Tell me you need me.” Armand hissed against Marius’s ear as he freed his own straining
member from his pants and grasped their flesh together. They fit perfectly against each other,
as they had so many times before. “Tell me you need me .” Their tandem heartbeats
quickened.

Marius arched into his touch, watching his fledgling’s hand work them both deftly as if
hypnotized. “I need you…” he said. “I need you, Armand. I need you…I need you…I -”

They came together, messy and quaking with the strength of it in the half-light of the dying
fire.

Chapter End Notes

Marius's murmurings in Italian roughly translate to "mercy...yes like that...you've
learned much."

I really think this is what would have happened in this situation, you guys. Yes I know
it's potentially distressing. This is the fucked up trauma vampire show. Would love to
know your thoughts!
 Ignis Et Mortis
Chapter Summary

Daniel goes on a bender.

Chapter Notes

CW for: graphic violence, drug use, necrophilia, sex with an an unfortunate OC.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Club Chaotica (Meat Packing District)

That Same Night…

Daniel’s thoughts were razor blades, and so were his teeth in the coked up femme boy’s neck.
The go-go-booted hopeful had offered him a line off his (her?) forearm, all fluttering lashes
and sand-brown skin and too much glitter eyeshadow.

Daniel did the line just to have an excuse to pull him (no, a quick mind scan revealed, them ),
closer. His fingernails made half-moon depressions in their faux-leather mini skirt.

“Thanks.” He said it out loud and in their mind, having no hope of being heard over the
trance music pulsing around them. “What’s your name, Doll?”

He didn’t really care. But pretty little things like this wanted some talk before they let you get
handsy.

“Celtae,” they said breathily, and pushed their hips closer to Daniel’s - who was literally
wearing dad jeans and one of his boring button-ups, but then again, everything about him
was now designed to attract mortals, and it worked even when he thought it wouldn’t. (Big
Vampire Energy, he’d taken to calling the effect in his head).

Celtae, for instance, was enthralled by his flashing eyes and the dark mood etched all over his
face.

Daniel dove a little deeper. 28. Closeted. Persian. (Their legal name - their daytime name -
was Farhad). This was only their third time going out in women’s clothing. They wanted to
be taken apart by a masculine stranger and then go back to their buttoned up hedge fund job
in midtown tomorrow with a sore ass.

Daniel reached up and grabbed Celtae by their thick black hair so that their throat was bared
to him. He was inclined to make one half of Celtae’s dreams come true.

“Nice to meet you, Baby.” He drawled. “How about we dance for a while, and then we find
some place for you to suck my dick, huh?”

Celtae made a sound of enthusiastic agreement, and all but swooned in his grip.
He sucked the kid’s carotid artery like a juice box in full view of the crowded dance floor -
and there, there was the freight-train hit of cocaine, absolutely saturating Celtae’s blood with
the nerve they needed to be true to themselves. Daniel took, and took, and took.

But not too much. Not enough to knock them out. That mouth had work to do. And he would
not think about the hair, the skin, the bow of the lips, how they were an imperfect facsimile of
what he really wanted.

No.

He would drink and he would get loaded and he would fuck, and everything would go away
for a while.

Fifteen minutes later, Daniel was high as a kite in the passenger seat of Celtae’s maserati
getting an inexpert but enthusiastic blowjob. The kid bobbed on his cock like they were
starved for it - which, Daniel reminded himself with some satisfaction, they were. He
watched Celtae’s lips slurp wetly up and down the shaft, and it didn’t matter, truly, that they
didn’t know to hollow their cheeks or be mindful of teeth. The molten, mortal heat of their
mouth and the desperate little whimpers they were making were enough to get him close
pretty quick.

“Hold still, ok?” Daniel grunted, then gripped the black curls again almost cruelly so that
Celtae couldn’t move. He began bucking up into their mouth in earnest, fucking it with
selfish roughness until the kid was drooling and choking, tears streaming from their eyes in
steady, obscene rivers.

“I’m gonna cum down your tight little throat now, but don’t worry - I’ll be good for round
two in five minutes.” Daniel informed them…

And he would have imminently, if a loud rapping knock on the driver’s side window hadn’t
shattered the moment.

“NYPD, open up.”

Celtae popped off Daniel’s cock as if it burned and sat bolt-upright in the seat, big doe-eyes
looking up at the smirking police officer with sheer terror.
Daniel grit his teeth, tucked himself back into his pants, and rolled his eyes. “Fucking pigs,”
he muttered.

Bad move, because Celtae had already opened the window, and his voice carried.

The pig in question turned a glare on Daniel. “What did you say, Pal?”

“I said fucking kids, am I right? So eager. Couldn’t wait to get me home.” Daniel flashed his
best hater smile, and only felt a little bad when Celtae’s anxiety spiked palpably next to him.

“Goddamn faggot,” the cop - Brandt - murmured under his breath, then turned his attention
back to Celtae.

“License and registration, Twinkle Toes.”

Daniel frowned and leaned across Celtae to get closer to the cop as Celtae complied, shaking
like a leaf.

“What do you need that for? The car’s not even on! Fuck, this is the shadowiest spot in the
parking lot - one might think you were looking for a little action yourself, Brandt. ”

“Shut up! ” Celtae hissed at him, then turned back to the cop and started begging. “Please sir,
just let us go, we were going - I don’t want any trouble.”

Daniel bit the inside of his cheek and wished the kid would shut up, because the name on the
license and their slight accent already had Brandt’s hackles up.

“Should have thought of that before you started sucking cock in a public parking lot,
Osama.” Brandt said out loud.

What Brandt thought was: I wonder how good he is with his mouth. Wasted on this old timer,
if you ask me. Bet he’d do anything to get out of this bind.

Daniel made his decision right about then. “What not getting it from the wife at home?” He
drawled. “Go pick up your own piece of ass like the rest of us, buddy. Or I don’t know, quit
forgetting Jennifer’s birthday. Chicks hate that, believe me.”

Brandt’s eyes widened. What the…? How does he know my wife’s name?

“Ok wise guy, I’m going to have to ask both of you to step out of the car.”

“Yeah, I’ll pass.” Daniel said matter of factly, wanting to escalate as quickly as possible.

Celtae was full-on crying now, and Brandt called for back-up on his radio.

“I’m not going to ask again,” he said in his best Jackboot Authority voice.
“Ok…ok I’m getting out!” Celtae whimpered, then opened the door and stepped trembling
onto the pavement in front of Brandt, hands in the air.

Brandt leered, then kicked Celtae’s shin with a lazy sneaker so that they fell to their knees.

“That’s better, ‘Farhad.’ Right where you belong.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “What is this, a bad porno?”

“GET OUT OF THE CAR! NOW!”

Ah, the backup had arrived. Two goons in blue, guns already drawn, stalking up to the scene
like something out of Miami fucking Vice.

Daniel really didn’t feel like getting shot in the head, even if he would heal. Plus, Brandt was
getting all in his hookup’s space, stroking his cheek and whispering something about
“helping each other out.”

So, he got out of the car, disarmed Miami and Vice by breaking their arms, and then when
they started to scream, he ripped out their vocal chords. It took him all of three seconds. He
left them twitching and gurgling on the pavement and walked lazily around the other side of
the car.

Celtae started to shriek, but Daniel locked their jaw shut with a clumsy push of telekinetic
power.

“Shhh Babe. I like a screamer, but there’s a time and a place.” Daniel teased, high on coke
and bloodlust, then turned his full attention to Brandt.

The one remaining police officer, who was three shades paler and trying with all his strength
to reach for his gun, found he could not move as Daniel crowded him, staring him dead in the
eyes.

“You’re not bad looking.” He appraised. “I might have shared. But then you had to go and
piss me off.” Daniel grabbed Brandt by the collar and sliced into his mind. “...Oh I see, this is
your MO, huh? You wait back here to scare closeted twinks who don’t know any better and
then you get yourself some non-consensual strange?...Yeah…Celtae here was gonna be your
third this month.”

On impulse, Daniel spit right in Brandt’s face, and watched as the pink-tinged saliva dripped
down his 5-o'clock shadow. He imagined Marius as he did this.

“Jennifer’s about to lose 200 pounds of dead weight,” he promised, and then bit into Brandt’s
neck savagely, only wishing he could watch the light leave his gaze as he relieved him of his
blood.

Three chucklefucks down. But what to do with his date now?

 Daniel wiped his mouth and crouched so that he was eye level with Celtae. “If I give you
back your mouth, can I trust you not to make noise?”

Celtae blinked rapidly but nodded - and god damn it, those eyes - those eyes brought Daniel
back to a cold, brutalist penthouse. To a boy named Rashid who was really a monster.

“Y-y-you’re a….you’re a….”

“Yeah yeah, save it.” Daniel cut Celtae off. Then, using his preternatural speed, pulled them
up and bent them face down over the hood of Brandt’s police car. “Do you still want to get
laid?”

Yesyesyesyesyes -

Daniel fucked and drank…fucked and drank…and when Celtae’s heart stuttered to a stop
soon after their orgasm, he kept fucking until he came deep inside the still-warm corpse of
the unlucky mortal who had crossed his path tonight.

He imagined Armand as he did this. He liked snuggling with dead things, yes.

Armand…Armand…where was he? But knew very well where he was. Probably couldn’t
wait to follow the bond to his maker’s lair - to finish what started in that garden right in front
of his eyes. Years of his life, and now his undeath - utterly gone to this creature. This devil.
This whore who claimed to love him -

The police cars and all four bodies burst into flames as his dark thoughts crested.

Daniel watched the fire until he heard sirens, then melted into the night.

Chapter End Notes

Ignis Et Mortis means "Fire And Death" in Latin. I think we need a Daniel in every
major city with a bloated municipal budget, what do you think? (Holds out hat for
comments).
 Pater Et Filius
Chapter Summary

The death of two queer people raises community alarm bells. Marius and Armand talk
on the morning after.

Chapter Notes

So, I literally create an inciting incident and then improvise. Well, I realized, Daniel up
and killing random queer people in the heart of NY was ANOTHER inciting
incident...and so I had to go where the story took me. I hope you like it.

CW for oblique descriptions of sex between Armand and Marius as well as *waves hand
vaguely at them* their general weirdness. Also for LGBTQ+ community trauma.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The Chelsea Pride Center

Emergency Meeting
3:30 PM The Next Day

Katya Price grounded herself subtly, becoming aware of the floor under her feet and the
breath in her lungs, as she surveyed the weeping circle of young people around her. Gaia give
me strength, she thought, and called gently for attention.

“Hey folks. Good to see so many of you here today. Obviously I wish it was under better
circumstances. Why don’t we start by holding space for the tragedies that occurred this week.
Did anyone know the victims?”

A petite girl in a hijab that had only just started coming nodded and wiped her eyes.
“Hi….Sidra…” she reminded the group of her name. “Farhad…you all probably knew them
as Celtae… was my best friend. We met at NYU. I h-helped them buy some of their first
clothes as Celtae. But I wouldn’t go out with them…to the bars and such. I was too shy.
Maybe…maybe if I had I could’ve done something. Maybe they wouldn’t have…”

Sidra dissolved into weeping. Derek, one of the center’s usuals, put a cautious hand on her
shoulder.

“Nah honey don’t think like that. Whoever got Celtae wasted three cops! You would’ve been
toast too.”
Katya nodded and put on her best “I’m a wise adult, please listen to me,” voice. (In truth,
despite being a grizzled Gen Xer with a social work degree, she felt as at sea as the rest of
them).

“That’s likely, Sidra.” She validated. “And remember, when someone like this wants to harm
someone else, they’re going to do it, because they are sick and hateful. There’s nothing any of
you could wear, or say, or do, or…whatever, that’s going to stop someone like this. That’s
scary as hell, yeah…but it’s not your fault. It’s never your fault.”

Nice pep talk, Mistress, but it sure’s hell is someone’s fault. We gonna find them? I brought
my crystals.

Katya flinched as Lacey’s voice rang far too-loudly in her mind. The young witch was still
getting the hang of her burgeoning powers.

Stay after. Katya ordered through the telepathic connection, and made eye contact with her
apprentice, all leather and spikes and black lipstick in a folding chair opposite her. And don’t
interrupt me again. They need this.

“Do we think it was the same guy who got Kade?” Simon, a bookish twink theorized. “The
news said they’re not sure how he died, thought maybe it was some congenital heart thing -
but I saw him that night at the Comedy Cellar. He looked fit as hell, and was flirting with
some old dude. And we know they never investigate crimes against our community
thoroughly.”

Lacey spoke aloud for the first time. “ That’s fucking true. Tell me about this old dude.”

Simon shrugged, unsure. “Just…I dunno, old. Kade always liked them like that. Curly hair I
think? Looked a lot like Anthony Bourdain, RIP?”

Katya's stomach clenched. She leaned forward and turned her Third Eye on Simon’s
memories. Immediately, a blurry recollection from Simon’s point of view -

Kade’s last set.

Kade at the bar, drinking cosmo after cosmo.
Kade flirting with a man in his 70’s who was wearing a leather jacket and a predatory smile.
His eyes were blue - orange - blue - orange - flashing warnings of wrongness behind
inadequate sunglasses.

Fuck. It was him, then. The new one. She’d been afraid of this.

“Let’s not waste our energy speculating,” she said aloud. “Whoever it was is dangerous,
unstable, sloppy, and prolific. They’ll be caught, mark my words.” Mark my promise. “Let’s
instead brainstorm on how we can support each other now. Maybe start a phone tree or a
texting system when we go out…”

The rest of the meeting went on like that. Crying, planning, organizing. By the time everyone
started filing out into the afternoon, the ambient energy was a little calmer.
Well, everyone’s energy but Lacey’s, who rounded on her the second the doors closed,
cerulean eyes alight with fury and excitement.

“Did you see?” She asked in a rush. “I saw him, in Simon’s mind. Clear as a picture. It’s one
of those blood sucking parasites.”

Katya nodded. “I saw,” she said.

Lacey threw her hands up and began fidgeting with one of her rings. “Well, what are we
waiting for? Let’s get him! You know how I feel about sharing the city with those monsters.”

Katya smiled indulgently. “It’s not that simple, and you know it. Daniel Molloy is one of the
strongest young vampires alive -”

“Not alive.” Lacey grumbled. “Fucking undead white man colonizing the living forever, as if
one lifetime wasn’t enough -”

“And wherever his maker’s gone off to,” Katya cut off her apprentice’s ranting. “It can’t be
far. This is a delicate matter. We must be cautious.”

Lacey rolled her eyes and almost literally stamped her booted foot. “So we’re just gonna do
nothing? Shit I’ve seen your vines gobble up entire lines of Russian tanks! Surely one
vampire is nothing!”

“I didn’t say that,” Katya admonished sternly. “And how many times do I have to tell you,
Lacey. They are not my vines. It is not my power. It is the Earth Mother’s power, that She, in
her infinite generosity, lets us access through our craft. Show some humility.”

Her apprentice sucked her teeth, but looked appropriately chastened. “Yeah yeah, I know.
Sorry. I’m just…fucked up from all this you know? Like I don’t get it. Why do this now?
They’ve been here playing Monster House for years, mostly killing rapists and Big Money
politicians.”

Katya sighed, and took several deep breaths, trying to open herself body and soul to Gaia’s
wisdom. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But we’re going to find out and put a stop to it. Now
bring your wards and follow me.”

Meanwhile…

Marius prostrated himself at Akasha’s statue-like feet, and began to pray.

“Great Mother. I have felt you stirring these past months in answer to the din of modernity. I
know the television pleases you, and you are learning much. I wonder…have you had a
thought to spare for your most devoted acolyte?”
He glanced up at The First Vampire and her stoic husband, sitting motionless on their thrones
as ever. They did not deign to move now. He sighed.

“Years ago, when the Satanic horde put the fire to me, you restored me with your blood and
gave me council. ‘Forget him,’ you told me. ‘Forget Armand, and find Pandora. She is your
future.’ I was obedient, Mother. I did as you bade as I always do…but now…now he has
come back to me, and I find I do not have the strength to send him away. Mother…I love him
as I ever did, though he has pledged himself to another. And now, though it was not my
intention to catalyze such a thing, his bond with that other may break before my very eyes…
and I could have him again to myself. You know my heart, Akasha. You know no one has
ever filled it as he has. We are tied together in every way…please. Direct me, as you once
did. Tell me if I should gather up my Amadeo as I so dearly wish to do, and never let him
leave my side again…or if I should play the Wise One…the selfless sage…and reconcile him
with his fledgling mate?”

Marius realized with surprise that he was making fists so tight that his fingernails drew blood
along his palms. He watched it leak from the shallow wounds for a moment before licking it
pensively away. “I am so tired of being alone,” he confessed. “So weary of dust and pages
and paint for company. Oh please Mother…take this choice from me. Do not make me make
it.”

He stayed there for a long while. Well into the afternoon. Neither Akasha nor Enkil gave any
sign they knew he was there. Answer enough, he thought bitterly, and looked into her blank
gray eyes once more before he stood.

“I will not,” they said. “Do as you will, and leave me be.”

The bitterness continued to roil in his heart and in his thoughts as he left their shrine deep
under the Westchester mansion. He half-hoped she felt it.

He found Armand where he had left him - in the master bedroom ensconced in a blanket nest
of claret velvet and white sheets stained red with the evidence of their passion.

They had made love over and over again in the night, crashing together like subatomic
particles bent on fusion, succeeding only in clinging to one another in dizzying heights of
emotion and pleasure. He thought they had traded their blood back and forth almost as much
as they had when he’d turned him - except this time there was no acrid taste of syphilis and
poison polluting the act.

Armand had looked beatific in the moonlight, head thrown back in ecstasy (for Marius had
not held back, could not, after so long), lapsing into Italian as he whimpered and bit and
cleaved and came…

He looked wrung out now, knees drawn up and eyes staring at nothing. And so, so sad that
Marius actually glanced to make sure there was no fire in the grate, so worried was he that he
would throw himself in it. He had seen that look before.
“You left me.” Armand said softly without moving.

Marius hurried to the bed and took his place next to his fledgling. “You were asleep, Beloved.
I thought you would still be sleeping when I returned.”

“I suppose I should be used to it by now.” Armand continued in that far away wooden tone as
if he hadn’t heard.

“To what?” Marius asked, and reached out to push a black ringlet out of his face as he had
done a thousand times before.

“To being left,” Armand answered. “It will happen again, soon.”

Marius shook his head, went to embrace him…but Armand shrunk away, and so he stayed
put. “Child, I will stay as long as you will have me.” Marius promised. And meant it, by the
Gods. And meant it. “We do not have to be parted again -”

“Not you.” Armand hissed, and hugged his knees tighter. “Him. Daniel. My Beloved. I let the
madness get the best of me and now…” his countenance melted into quiet tears. He started to
play with the ugly drover’s ring on his left hand. “He will never want me now. Not after
this.”

The words were like a blade of ice to Marius’s gut. Forget that hot-headed fool! He wanted to
say. I am here now - I have come again to rescue you. I will keep you and cherish you,
always.

But Marius was a creature of discipline. And so he did not say those things. Instead he asked
“And…do you still want him?” For that was everything, he realized, a knot forming in his
throat.

What Armand wanted was paramount.

Armand made a soft, broken sound and nodded into his knees, pulling again at his hair in
what seemed to be a stress response. “I will always love him…” he sobbed. “He captured my
heart in 1973 and has not let it go since…and I’ve ruined it. Ruined everything again…”

Marius swallowed hard and did rub Armand’s back then. “No, Child.” He husked. “I did.”

Armand’s breath hitched, and he looked at his maker for the first time since he’d entered the
room. Awestruck. Confused.

Marius, who had been seized by the truth as he imagined the Vestal Virgins had once been
seized by it in their sacred temples, opened his mouth, and allowed himself to be its conduit.
“I should have been as a father to you last night and every night of our congress. Not…not
what I was. I have hurt you over and over again. I was the one who drove the wedge between
you and your mate in my selfish need for absolution. I should never have revealed myself to
you.”
Armand shook his head, and leaned into his shoulder. “Don’t say that.” He pleaded. “For I
love you too! Oh Master…I am so mixed up.”

“I am not your Master.” Marius said, voice breaking. He rested his forehead chastely against
Armand’s. “Not anymore. You are your own Master now. A fierce, beautiful, and resilient
blood drinker. And be assured, I love you too. I have loved you for half a Millenia…but I
must do right by you, now. I must alchemize this love into something paternal. I must be
what you need.”

“Don’t go, please don’t go…” Armand was hysterical. Not hearing him. Marius pet his hair,
and pulled the blanket up around him so that his body was covered.

“I’m right here, Armand.” he soothed. “My sweet boy. My…my son. Will you let me be your
father? Will you listen to your father’s council, and have me as such in your life?”

Armand waited a long time before answering. But eventually…

“Si, padre. Per favore.”

And then, then… Marius felt Her in his mind. She did not speak with words, but he perceived
“As Is Right,” clear as mountain water. It rung in his very bones.

“Mio figlio…” Marius intoned, rocking Armand gently and wiping at the blood on his face.
“We will mend this, my son. We will find him, and I will take the blame.”

They washed and dressed - and when, a little while later, the witch called out with the Mind
Gift, they both heard her.

I am Katya Price, Green Witch of the Boroughs. I seek the Vampire Armand. I have detained
your fledgling at your residence in Brooklyn, and summon you here for parley. Daniel
Molloy’s life depends on your swift response.

Armand’s pupils blew wide, and the china that had survived last night’s maelstrom began to
vibrate with his rage. “They dare…” he whispered.

Marius took his hand and led him to the balcony. “They will get more than they bargained
for,” he promised.

They jumped and flew.

Chapter End Notes

*Bewitches you all into leaving detailed comments*

 Wergild
Chapter Summary

Marius, Armand, Katya, and Lacey bargain over Daniel's fate.

Chapter Notes

Sorry for the long wait on this one, guys. I had some PeRsOnAl DrAmA and then the
holiday hit. I hope you like this one! Tell me if you can find the two homages to two of
my favorite movies in the chapter haha. CW for violence, drug use, suicidal thoughts.

Piss and shit and cooked flesh.

Daniel gagged at the smell as he came to.

The sun was in his eyes but he wasn’t burning. How was that possible?

He blinked through it until the world came into focus - a small, sad subset of the world,
anyway. A filthy, low-ceilinged room lit only by said sun bleeding through the broken blinds.

Passed out junkies and garbage littered the floor in place of any furniture. The man he had
been talking to about life only moments ago still twitched and smoldered just a few feet away
next to some rotting crab rangoon.

Kerosene, yeah. He’d doused himself in kerosene and lit a match. The last words he’d heard
were Daniel’s slurred “Hey, quit it - that’s not funny.”

Daniel turned away from the corpse and looked down. His right arm was purple, swollen, and
oozing with dozens of infected track marks. Each one hurt so bad he thought he’d vomit.

“No…” he slurred instead, biting back a whimper as he poked at his ruined arm. He might
lose it, isn’t that what the free clinic doctor had said? He knew this arm…this wasn’t his arm
anymore. Where was he? When was he?

“Brother, I think you’re right where you belong, if I’m being honest.”

That voice. The grainy ghost of an idiot, memorialized forever on those fucking tapes…

And then he was looking at himself as he was then - young and dumb in his gay high heeled
boots and dirty striped shirt, shit eating smirk on his face. Young Daniel crouched down in
front of him, blocking his view of the Richard Pryor corpse, and pat him mock-
sympathetically on the shoulder.

“You really fucked up this time,” he said.

Daniel shook him off and tried to hiss, to bear his fangs, but the pain exploded throughout his
entire body - like he was being stabbed in 1,000 places, and all he could manage was a soft
exhale for a moment. “This isn’t…” he croaked, “I shouldn’t be here.”

Young Daniel raised an eyebrow, sat crisscross applesauce in front of him, and began digging
through his jeans pocket. “Damn right you shouldn’t. This was our rock bottom, or don’t you
remember anymore? I’d understand if you didn’t. Been a long time, and he’s kind of spoiled
you.”

Daniel bit his own tongue against the pain and sat up straighter. There were so many places
he didn’t want to look. His arm. The bodies living, half living, and dead. His younger self’s
sharp eyes. He settled on following Young Daniel’s shaky, limp-wristed hands as they
continued to search for something in the depths of the jeans.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He bit out. “Who spoiled me?”

Young Daniel huffed out a laugh, then made a small sound of victory and produced a
quaalude from his pocket. “I’m talking about Armand. Here take this. Might dull the edges a
little.”

Daniel accepted the pill wordlessly and swallowed it dry. Anything to stop this pain. “Oh
spoil me? Is that what you’d call taking 12 years of my life and then when we finally find
some kind of rhythm, running off to daddy?”

Young Daniel looked at him like he was less than dirt. “Ok, Boomer.” He said derisively.
“We both know he fucking saved our life. That those 12 years were borrowed time. Or don’t
you remember how you got out of this shithole? If the drugs hadn’t taken you, AIDS would
have. He nursed you through withdrawals. Got you clean -”

“Got me hooked on his blood instead, you mean.” Daniel interrupted.

Young Daniel shrugged. “Ok, yeah. He’s not a fucking drug counselor. He didn’t know what
else to do with you! You begged for it like the fucking addict you are and he loved you.”

“No he didn’t.” Daniel said stubbornly. Hollowly.

Young Daniel scrubbed his face with the back of his hand and rolled his eyes. “You don’t
even believe that, man. Not really. He doted on you. You wanted for nothing. You were the
love of his life, and he’s had a long fucking life. And it was good, it was so good when we
were his. It was literally champagne and rose petals and sex on balconies at midnight. But it
wasn’t enough for you. You had to have more. You kept asking and asking for the one thing
he couldn’t give you -”

“WOULDN’T give me.” Daniel roared. “He lobotomized me and was ready to let me die -”

“But he didn’t, though.” Young Daniel pressed, undeterred. “In the end, you wore him down.
You got what you wanted. Eternal life with him and your third marriage. Except you have
like a PhD in fucking things up, so now we’re here again.”

Daniel swore under his breath and glared daggers at his younger self. “How the hell is this
MY fault?” He asked. “HE chose to go to Marius. To let that creepy fuck back into our lives.
Hell, I tried to support him through -”

“Oh please.” Young Daniel spat. “You made two shitty therapy sessions all about you and
then tried to choke him out. How many times did he let you rail at him and walk out on him
and throw shit at him in the 70’s, but the one time he needs you for some of his own shit, you
go all alpha male? That sound fair to you?”

Daniel swallowed. “Shut the fuck up,” he said low in his chest. “You don’t know anything
about it.”

Young Daniel laughed, high and reedy and cruel. “Yeah I mean I guess you gotta tell yourself
that, right? Anyway, it’s been uh…a trip, Grandpa, but you got an appointment with the
consequences of your actions.”

“What the hell are you -”

The room shifted then. He was in his coffin. His coffin was open, and two hard, unfamiliar
faces stared down at him through a thicket of thorny vines. The only thing that remained
constant was the pain.

He was ensnared by these vines, python strong and wrapped around every inch of him but his
face. The thorns pierced him deep in dozens of places - the source, then, of this agony. He
could feel his body trying and failing to heal around the intrusions. He was utterly immobile.
He started to scream.

“Fuck, he’s loud!” The younger one said. “He’s gonna wake the whole building.”

The other, an older woman, nodded curtly, jaw set. “Well you’re a witch, aren’t you?” She
chastised. “Do something about it.”

“Thought you’d never ask, Mistress.” The younger one said, then made some complicated
gestures with her hands, and all of a sudden, Daniel just…couldn’t move air through his body
anymore. It froze in his lungs, throat, and nose, silencing him completely.

What is this what’s happening who are they -

“This is justice, you fucking parasite.” The younger one answered his unspoken thoughts.
“And we are who you should have thought twice about before you killed our friends.”

Daniel must broadcast his confusion very loudly, because the older one sighs.

“He doesn’t remember, Lacey. His mind is disordered.”

“Sorry, I uh, don’t care.” Lacey bit back, sucking on her lip ring petulantly as she did.

The older one turned from her and addressed Daniel directly. “Daniel Molloy. We are here
because you have murdered two innocents that were under my protection. Or did you think
you and your maker were the only supernatural authorities in New York?”

I have no idea what you’re talking about. Daniel thought as loud as he could. Get the fuck out
of my apartment.

Lacey grinned madly at this and eyed her companion. “We could just leave him like this,
Katya.” She suggested softly. “And keep the wards up so Armand cannot reach him. Think of
it. A nice slow death, to give them both time to reflect.”

The older witch - Katya - held up her hand to silence her. “We are not like them, Child.” She
admonished. “We are not monsters. We have detained him so that he can do no further harm
and we will carry out this parley in good faith. You read his mind. He is not well.”

Lacey glared at that. “Oh, poor vampire. His life is so hard.” She mocked. “And that’s
supposed to excuse him wasting two of our people?”

Please… Daniel thought, a cold knot that had nothing to do with his restraints forming in his
stomach. It’s was beginning to come back to him. What exactly am I being accused of here?

Katya blinked wearily, and then, with a deft mental nudge, pushed the memories into his
mind.

Heroin-laced kissing - a dead boy in his arms. Kade - say his name, Daniel - had been funny
and kind and he’d died for it. Daniel had been there for that. What he hadn’t seen - what
Katya showed him now, was Kade’s mother howling like a wounded animal in the morgue
when she’d come to retrieve him. How the newspaper had printed without her consent a
picture of his disheveled, half-dressed body face down in the alley behind the Comedy
Cellar.

Coke-fueled rage and lust. Dancing and groping and a sad-eyed creature who just wanted to
be seen. Celtae’s heart pounding rabbit fast as they watched him kill the cop. Run, rabbit, run
- But they didn’t. They’d trusted him and liked him and they’d died for it. Split open by his
cock and his fangs and emptied until there was nothing left. They’d had to identify Celtae by
their dental records.

No… Daniel thought uselessly. Nonono… he wasn’t a saint; he’d taken readily to killing, after
being turned. But these were kids. They could’ve been him, once upon a time. Or one of the
dozens of friends he lost in the 80’s. And he’d sworn that first time he’d taken a life - pieces
of shit only. The kind of people who hurt kids like this, or hurt the world. Child molesters and
oil money oligarchs and wife beaters…

I’m sorry. He thought then, and Lacey barked a laugh.

“You’re SORRY?” she asked. “You’re SORRY?!” “Oh he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s SORRY -”

“Enough,” Katya shouted over her. “He’s here. And he’s not alone.”

They left his field of vision, and then a third voice…his husband’s voice, joined the chorus.

“I do not know how you have managed to infiltrate my lair, Witch,” Armand said
dangerously. “But I hope you are not overly attached to your body. Once I gain entry, I plan
on relieving you of it. Slowly.”

Daniel blinked through tears and pain and tried in vain to think out to his maker. Go away -
get out - leave me. They’re stronger than us. Just leave me.

A fourth voice, then. Marius. “Steady, Child,” he cautioned. “They have him, I can hear him.
He’s alive. He’s conscious.”

“He is mine .” Armand hissed, and then a loud crash…a struggle…the younger witch
screamed, …then they were all yelling, and all four of them exploded back in the narrow
frame of his perception.

Marius was pinning a banged-up Lacey against his chest, hands held behind her back.

And Katya had directed one of her grotesquely large vines to coil around Armand,
immobilizing him. Blood was dripping from the side of his mouth…the thorns…they were
hurting him.

Let him go, Daniel thought as loudly as he could. It’s me you want.

Be quiet, Katya responded in his head, but her eyes were trained on Marius. The adults are
talking.

“This is formidable magic,” Marius acknowledged evenly as Lacey struggled in his arms.
“My usual powers are cut off to me. How did you manage it?”

Katya smirked, and twisted her left hand at the wrist. The vine around Armand tightened, and
he let out a pained cry that turned into a low growl - a sound that shouldn’t (couldn’t), come
from a human body.

“You vampires,” Katya intoned. “You think you’re the center of the world. But you spare no
thought for the world. For Mother Earth.”

“We have our own Mother, Sorceress.” Marius responded, voice and gaze like permafrost.
“Now release my fledgling, or this conversation will be very, very short.”
“Release mine, and I will,” Katya countered. “Though you’re in no position to be making
demands. Daniel’s head could be off his body in a millisecond. There is already a thorn
primed at the base of his neck.”

“You will not…touch him…” Armand croaked, voice unrecognizable with rage and pain.
They ignored him and continued the stare-down.

Then, slowly, Marius released Lacey and nudged her forward towards Katya. She ran to her
teacher, and then he folded his hands in front of himself and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

The vine holding Armand loosened and disengaged from him. Dark blood poured out of the
wound in his chest it had created, and he coughed up blood. Marius held him steady and
close as the wound began to heal slowly (too slowly).

“There, now this parley can begin as it should.” Marius declared. Daniel could see his
knuckles were white where he was holding Armand back...holding him up. “What is the
meaning of this?”

“It’s his FUCKING welp,” Lacey screamed, and pointed an accusing finger at Armand.
Armand bared fangs stained with his own blood in response. “He killed two of our people.
Lured them, fucked them, and murdered them like some Jeffrey Dahmer wannabe.”

If the revelation wounded Armand, he made no sign. “We have dominion over the city,” he
informed her. “We can do with the cattle as we please, and we answer to no one.”

“See, that’s where you are wrong, Armand.” Katya cut in, taking a brave step closer to the
two vampires. “We may not have declared ourselves to you like we were at a Romanov ball. I
value my coven’s privacy. But we have been active in this area since it was still called by its
native name. We share dominion, and up until now I have had no objection to you and your
Daniel settling in Brooklyn. Because up until this week, you have limited your hunting to the
Evil Doer.”

Marius nodded, taking it in. “And these mortals Daniel killed - they were your familiars?”

Katya let out a derisive breath. “No. Not slaves. Just children. My children. Two misfits who
had nothing but what they had been able to carve out for themselves. Daniel seduced them, as
Lacey said, then drained them and threw them away like garbage. One of them died terrified,
and he kept violating the corpse after the heart stopped.”

Armand shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that.” He said immediately. “Daniel has always
hunted amongst the wicked. It is one of our lineage’s most sacred practices -”

“Armand…” Marius interrupted softly, and glanced down at Daniel for the first time. Daniel
saw horror, revulsion, and a little fear in them. He saw. He knew.

Let me talk let me talk let me talk - Dan shouted with his mind over and over. I have
something to say. I should get last words, right? Don’t I at least get that?
Katya’s jaw set, but then Daniel felt the air in and around his body again. He took a few
gulping breaths, then looked directly at Armand when he spoke. “It’s true. I’m so sorry. Just
let me go, Baby. I’m dead weight. And the pain…Christ the pain…I can’t take it, Sweetheart.
I just can’t take it anymore…”

He was talking about the vines, the thorns, the burning, yes. But also about everything else.
Their love. This week. The collision course that had them hurting each other over and over
and over again - a human lifetime’s worth of maiming scars.

“No!” Armand shrieked, and crouched down where he was trapped, eyes gleaming with
madness and terror. “It does not end this way. Not after everything we have endured - not
after I brought you with me into hell…how could you give up like this…I won’t let you…”

Armand dissolved into insane, multilingual babbling, and hid his face. Daniel closed his eyes
against it. He didn’t want to remember him like this. He wanted to sink into a nice memory.
Of Pompeii. Of their wedding day. Of their bodies slotted together in this coffin. He wanted
to crawl into the center of this fabricated warmth and die quietly.

Dimly, the conversation continued around them.

“Sometimes our children disappoint us.” Marius. “But we love them all the same. I will
answer for mine.”

“Will you?” Katya. “From now on?”

“Yes. I swear it by your Earth Goddess.”

“Mistress, you can’t really be thinking of letting them off the hook -”

“Silence, Lacey.”

“What must I do to make things as they were? To repair this truce?”

“Nothing can bring the children back.” Katya sounded so sad.

“No, that is true. But perhaps we can work together to help more of them. Formalize the
sharing of territory. I have done such things before, in the cities I have lived in.”

“Help the families.” Lacey said shrilly. “You look rich as fuck, so help the families. Pay for
the funerals and endow the Pride Center. Pony the fuck up.”

“...My apprentice speaks out of turn,” Katya rejoins. “But her idea is not a bad one.”

“Yes, the 7th century Lombards used to call it paying the Wergild - the life price -”

“The who?!” Lacey cuts in.

“I will do as your apprentice asks, and become a patron of your home for disadvantaged
youth. I find these terms to be more than reasonable. Now please - Daniel is my fledgling’s
anchor. He keeps him even. You see the effect all this has had on him. And if you think he is
dangerous now, believe me when I say, no wards on earth will protect you or this city if his
Daniel dies. You must release them both into my care. I see already our healing blood is too
slow-working against wounds made by magic. I will have to take measures to assure Daniel’s
survival.”

“...It might already be too late.” Katya admits.

“Let us hope for all our sakes that it is not.”

That is the last thing Daniel heard before he lost consciousness again.
 I In Te
Chapter Summary

Marius and Armand appeal to the Divine Parents to save Daniel.

Chapter Notes

Sorry this took a minute, folks. I got a little stuck (and also people were bumming me
out in my asks on tumbr about this fic not being ethical or whatever), but then this scene
literally imploded in my brain on the drive home from the gym today, and now the block
is officially conquered! I think you'll all enjoy this one.

"I In Te" is Latin for "I believe in you."

Enkil

The Priest Slave Marius has once again disturbed my rest. Such commotion these past days.
It grows tiresome. Almost as tiresome as his obsequious prayers to us - no. To her. He keeps
the pretense of dual worship up out of fear and obligation. His fear amuses me, and so I let it
pass.

They are getting blood all over the temple floor. Marius, his boychild eunuch who was never
properly gelded, and a young one I have not seen or heard as yet in my astral projection. A
mangled cripple, smelling of both of them, poison, and imminent death.

The boychild - I pluck his name from their minds - Armand - is hysterical. Even Marius is
discomposed, as distraught as he was after his great burning, but not visibly injured. They
carry the young one - Daniel - between them. His undead heart stutters almost as slowly as
mine.

Armand’s umber eyes meet mine bravely and first, then move to Akasha, and back to me. He
falls to his knees without having to be told, forcing Marius to join him on the ground to keep
Daniel stable, and then addresses his maker accusatorially.

“How could you have kept them from me?” He asks. “Our true Gods? Our Divine Parents? I
needed parents. I would have helped you exalt them -”
“It is not that simple,” Marius responds. It is one of his favorite things to say. He is pompous,
like the acolytes of Rah I used to harass with spiders and toads in my youth.

“But it is!” Armand insists, and then, wasting no further time, passes Daniel gently to Marius,
and crawls forward to where Akasha and I are seated, prostrating himself on the floor in
complete supplication.

“Armand, stay back!” Marius warns, and he is right to do so. My Blood Wife is
unpredictable, and I, too, am not slow to anger. But we are generally benevolent, if the proper
respect is shown. This one knows his place.

“Akasha…Enkil….” he says our names like secret chants, deferential even through his tears.
And then he does a very valiant thing - something only one or two of our children have done
over the Millenia.

“I come to you in perfect love and perfect trust, to offer my life as blood sacrifice for my
companion and my only fledgling.”

“Child, enough. ” Marius hisses.

“No…” Daniel just manages to get the word out. More blood drips from his mouth with the
effort of it.

Armand pays them no mind.

“We have tried to heal him with our blood, but the witches’ poison is too potent,” he
continues. “And it is all my fault…all my fault…I mangle everything that I touch. It is time
to end it. To rid the world of me. I walked into the sun once, but I was too strong by then. I
am glad now that I did not succeed. For if there is a way to be subsumed…to be reworked
and used for good…it should be this way. In devotion to you, who I would have worshiped
instead of my maker or false idols. For love of him…my beautiful boy…my Daniel…the
only part of me worth saving. Please. Please. Take my blood. It is old, and powerful. Drain
me until I am nothing - all I ask is that he lives. If it can be done, I know that you can do it.
Please…please…”

I cannot say which specific component of this petition moves me to action. The words, yes,
but also the history I read from his mind as he speaks. His continuous ill-use and subjugation.
The tragedy of him, yes, but also the bold fire in his eyes. Eyes that, though he addressed us
both, lock on me as if by some ambient magnetism. Or perhaps just instinct. It has been a
long time since I have been properly praised.

And he is wrong. He is exactly what a blood drinker should be. Powerful. Beautiful.
Resilient.

/Bring him/ I push the words into Armand’s mind, then turn my forearms so that my palms
are faced upward, primed for the weight of his companion.
Armand lifts Daniel with ease, cooing reassurance to his fledgling and ignoring Marius’s
mincing protests.

“This will mean death for you both!”

“No,” Armand says with his full voice as he carries Daniel to me, eyes lowered, and places
him in my waiting arms. “He spoke to me. He has accepted my offering.”

And then he closes his eyes and bears his throat to me.

I ignore it.

I will not succeed in sucking him dry when Marius and the world failed to do it before me. I
have no inclination to do so.

Instead, I use The Mind Gift to find the poison snaking along the endless tributaries of
Daniel’s veins. It is warring with the blood, and if things remain in stasis, it will win.

And so I push the poison out of every open wound and orifice available, just As Amel
entered Akasha long ago. It oozes black-red and malignant out of him, staining his ruined
clothes, and Daniel shrieks. Armand holds him tight and prays for mercy - for forgiveness -
for his lover’s life. At one point Marius (the fool), who is not connected as we three are in
this moment and thinks I am killing them, tries to interfere.

Armand knocks him back before I have a chance to do it, then whispers in my ear “I in te.” I
believe in you.

After minutes…or hours…what is time to me now? Daniel’s wounds begin to close, and he
regains full consciousness. He moves sticky and displeasing in my lap, sitting up gingerly,
crying now too and clinging to his maker.

“Jesus Christ…what the hell was that…what was that, Armand? Are you fucking crazy?”

“Shhhh Beloved,” Armand says, and helps him down the steps of our dais. “I did what was
necessary. You are in the presence of greatness.”

He hands Daniel back off to Marius and makes to prostrate himself again.

/Stop./

He does. Unsure. Frightened.

I lift my wrist.

/Drink./

He blinks once, twice…takes a tentative step forward. “Are you certain?” he asks.
/The Brat and the Slave did. I choose you, little monk. Drink, and they will never harm you
again./

His fangs are small. His draughts from me are polite and reverent. The last thing I am
conscious of in this reality before I let my mind wander again, is Marius’s simmering envy. It
brings me satisfaction.
 Remissionem
Chapter Summary

Daniel and Armand talk.

Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

As soon as Armand was sure Daniel could walk on his own, he let go of him and kept a
respectful distance.

Enkil’s blood hummed in his veins, drowning out Marius’s murmured words of hospitality as
he led them to a luxuriously appointed and windowless guestroom.

The blood sung to him.

It grabbed him by the hair and made him look himself in the eyes.
“You do not have to be good,” it said. The blood of his King.
“You only have to be what you are.”

Only one other creature had said that to him, long ago and a few times since. He was
currently sitting up against satin pillows, staring back at him with wide, inscrutable eyes that
were mirrors of his own.

They were quiet for a long time. Daniel in the bed, and he in a high-backed chair beside him.

Armand was the first to speak. “Do you need anything? If you are too weak to hunt, I can
bring you -”

“No.” Daniel interrupted softly, and reached for his hand. “Just you.”

Armand pulled back at that, and looked away. “You don’t have to say that, Daniel.” he
admonished. “I am here as your Maker and always will be, no matter the state of our union. I
assume you’ll want to keep the Brooklyn apartment, which is fine with me. I can send
someone to fetch my things, and I know a good, discreet cleaning service -”

“Armand what the fuck are you talking about?”

Daniel looked so desperate. But Armand did not want to look. Armand was tired of crying.

“Please,” he begged softly. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“You can’t be serious,” Daniel growled. “You’re leaving me? I don’t even get to say my
piece?”

Armand frowned at that, startled into eye contact again. “I had thought…that you were
leaving me,” he clarified, suddenly unsure of himself.

“Never said that.” Daniel insisted, and grabbed his hand again, harder. “Fuck Armand, I
never said that .”

And suddenly the fear was back, incandescent and fire-hot in his chest, his throat, behind his
eyes. Because if not rejection, then what? What were they supposed to do with these twisted-
up, smoking pieces of their love?

“But it’s ruined…” he tried to explain. “I’ve ruined it, Daniel. I was…I was intimate with
him. I regret it, but I cannot change it now. And I drove you to…to…” To relapse. To
innocents. To violence. Like I always do. Like I always do. “You are unhappy.”

Daniel huffed out a humorless laugh and pulled him onto the bed with his old strength (and
he was alive, oh he was alive and that’s all that mattered, truly).

“It takes two to tango, Baby.” Daniel said. “I…Christ. And fuck I won’t lie, knowing he had
his hands on you again makes me want to take a short walk on a tall roof, but…I wasn’t there
for you like I should’ve been. I thought I could do it, you know. I thought I could be the big
hero. And when I couldn’t I took it out on you. On those kids. Fuck, I’m no better than him.”

“Yes you are.” Armand insisted, and let his free hand trace Daniel’s curls, still matted with
blood. “You are. …I have come to see things more clearly, I think. This process, even the
blackest parts of it, and then the King’s blood, have helped me to understand. He is my
maker, my father, yes, but he is not my God. He is as flawed as any man, and I see him now
with a man’s eyes, not a boy’s. I love him…no let me finish, I love him and I always will, it
is in my blood as sure as the thing that animates us all…but he is not who I choose. I…I
relapsed too. Yes. That is a good word for it I think. And Daniel please try to understand…I
had no inurement. No experience with denying him…I am not making excuses. I am only
trying to -”

“Shhh. Sweetheart, I know, ok? I get it.”

Armand scrutinized Daniel’s expression. It was sad, yes, but soft also. Resigned. Welcoming.

He let out a shaky breath, and rested his forehead against his fledgling’s. “My sweet boy,” he
whispered.

Daniel started to pet at his hair, breathing deep of his scent. “Can’t believe you were gonna
off yourself for me.” he mumbled. “Fucking stupid thing to do.” Lips at the shell of his ear,
and his weary heart was breaking open.

“I would do it again.” And he would, he would.

 Soft, barely-there kisses on his neck, his collarbone…Armand leaned into this tenderness…
wished he could crawl inside Daniel’s chest like the parasite he was and never emerge. How
much easier it would be to live like that - melded to the thing he cared for most in the world,
free from agency, never needful.

“We’re really good at hurting each other, aren’t we?” Daniel husked into his neck, then held
him tightly to his chest, and it was almost as good as being inside it.

“Yes…but I began it, didn’t I?” A rhetorical question that cracked at the end. “All those years
ago, I set us on this path -”

“I’m on it with you ,Babe.” Daniel assured. “I’m still here. You’re here, and I’m here, and
right now I don’t give a damn about the rest of it, yeah?”

“....Yeah.”

Chapter End Notes

Remissionem means forgiveness in Latin. There will be a less poetic, perhaps more
satisfying epilogue.
 Epilogus
Chapter Summary

A glimpse into the lives of Dr. Robert Selkirk, Armand, Daniel, Marius, and the Pride
Center regulars three months later.

Chapter Notes

I can't believe I finished this one! Thank you to all of you who approached this story
with a spirit of openness, and who kept me encouraged with your insightful comments!

CW for some explicit sexy times and consensual feminization.

The Offices of Doctor Robert Selkirk (PsyD, PhD, CPT)

Brooklyn, New York
June 2024 (Roughly 3 Months Later)

Doctor Robert Selkirk took a moment to clean his glasses as Daniel and Armand Molloy
settled down opposite him on the couch. He still wasn’t used to it, after all these months. The
sight of them together - a walking scandal, juxtaposed with Armand’s incongruously stoic
and reserved demeanor. Especially when compared with Daniel’s usual good-natured
abrasiveness. An old soul and a child at heart, but not in the bodies you would expect, he
mused.

They had been coming every Wednesday evening like clockwork since March, something he
never thought Daniel would consent to in 1,000 years. He privately thought Armand was a
good influence on his long-time flighty patient.

“So, what have you been up to this week?” Robert asked. “Any opportunities to use the
pillow method for conflict resolution?”

Armand’s uncanny eyes slid towards Daniel and the corners of his mouth tilted up in the
ghost of a smile. Daniel outright laughed.

“Doc you don’t know what you’ve unleashed,” the older man said ruefully. “This one loves
your lists and worksheets and systems. Sometimes I feel like he starts fights just so he can
experiment.”
“I resent that suggestion,” Armand interjected primly. “Just because I’m better at
remembering and applying the techniques the doctor provides us -”

“Yeah save it,” Daniel teased, and rolled his eyes in a familiar ‘ Women, am I right?’ bid for
sympathy. “But in all seriousness, Doc. Thank you. It’s…it’s been really helpful. Christ I
knew I had a temper. We both do. And neither of us are great with words when emotions are
high. Or at like. Asking for stuff.”

“Yes, for example,” Armand interrupted, training his gaze on Robert, “He just assumed I’d be
against coming here for any reason, when in fact I am always open to learning new things,
particularly about the mind and how it works.”

“Or how you can work it.” Daniel murmured.

“Well, I’m glad to hear you’ve had the chance to practice some things,” the doctor demurred.
“Mindful practice is the key.” He glanced down at his notes, then continued. “And what
about the situation that brought you here with us, Armand. With your…with Marius? How
are you feeling about that relationship as it stands, with the new boundaries we worked
through?”

The only hint at Armand’s discomfort was the tiny tick of a muscle in his jaw. Robert
watched that muscle as the younger man spoke. “It’s fine.” He began, and then took a long
pause, maybe hoping Daniel or Robert would fill it - but no such luck. “...The suggestion that
we reacquaint ourselves exclusively through writing letters for now turned out to be a good
one. I want to thank you for coming up with it.”

Dr. Selkirk leaned in and nodded slightly. “Many survivors find that it provides necessary
space and protection while still allowing for that rebuilding of trust and connection. I’m glad
that seems to be the case here.”

Armand folded his arms and nodded, apparently disinclined to continue, but Robert noted
that he did not protest his use of the word “protection,” which was subtle progress. He turned
his attention towards Daniel. “And how is that working out for you? Do you feel more
psychological safety?”

Daniel scrubbed at the back of his neck with his left hand, but took Armand’s with his right
and laced their fingers together. (A rare display of physical affection, Robert observed.)

“I mean, you know my thoughts on this. If I had my way there’d be no contact. But…” A
grounding sigh. “But this isn’t just about me. And I recognize…what was it you said last
time…that this is a ‘both-and’ situation? Like, it’s true that Marius is a destabilizing force in
our marriage who did some really fucked up shit to the love of my life -”

“Daniel.” Armand said quietly.

“AND,” Daniel emphasized, “that it’s important to Armand to keep in touch with his only
living relative. I’m even starting to internalize that part. The stuff he’s managed to find about
your birth family has been so healing -”
Armand visibly scowled.

“No, I know you hate that word,” Daniel continued, undaunted, “but it has, and I sure’s hell
couldn’t have done that for you. Not with my Italian in the shape it's in. So…yeah. The letters
are fine. I can live with a pen-pal Father In Law. And it’s…nice, that you always offer to let
me read them. Maybe one day I’ll even say ‘thanks but I’ve read enough dry posturing about
Renaissance art for a lifetime.’”

Armand rolled his eyes, but the half-smile was back. “Not in this century, I wager.”

“And what about your end of the bargain, Daniel?” Robert pressed. “Are you still attending
meetings?”

Daniel nodded curtly and took his turn to fold his arms. “Yeah, yeah, shit, even on our cruise,
I attended AA. They listed the meetings as “Friends of Bill W.” on the itinerary. Isn’t that a
trip? But I’m building up my second set of milestone chips, slow and steady.”

Armand shifted closer to Daniel, his lithe, designer-clad hips making contact as he turned
towards his husband almost as if Robert wasn’t there. “I’m proud of you, Lover.” He said in
the silky, confidential voice he only used when he forgot they had an audience. “You are so
very strong.”

Daniel blushed and cleared his throat. Robert decided to help him out by launching into some
addiction theory education. The rest of the session went by unremarkably until Armand told
Daniel he would catch up with him downstairs and kept Robert back after their hour was up.

“Doctor…last week you pitched me a rather hard sell for solo appointments with you.” He
reminded him.

“Yes, I remember.” Robert said. “Couples therapy has, obviously, been working for you both.
But I think you might benefit from some complex trauma work, maybe even hypnosis with
the goal of memory recovery -”

“Yes, that prospect particularly is…intriguing.” Armand interjected. “I’m a skilled hypnotist
myself, but this isn’t the sort of thing I can accomplish on my own. Please put me down for
your soonest free block after sunset.”

Dr. Selkirk pencilled Armand Molloy in for later in the week, and tried to rationalize away
the goosebumps that took up residence on his arms at the mention of the younger man’s
practical familiarity with hypnosis.

Later That Evening…

Armand had made him wait on the couch for 15 minutes while he fussed in the bathroom,
and then swanned out in a plunging purple negligee.

“Surprise. I saw it in a little shop in Mykonos and couldn’t resist the feel of the fabric. I
remember you used to like it when I - oh!”

Daniel didn’t even let him explain before he threw him on the bed and planted his cock
firmly in between his perfect tits, which were swelling salaciously over the lace sweetheart
neckline, and God, this? Forever? Yes please.

“So fucking pretty…” he grunted as he fucked those tits rough and fast, getting bloody
precum all over Armand’s wispy chest hair and the high-end silk. “I’m gonna ruin this you
know…”

Armand laughed deep and low and grabbed his ass, encouraging faster, more savage thrusts.
“It’s for ruining…I’m for ruining…” he breathed, and Daniel came right there and then, so
hard that it hit Armand’s chin and filled the divot his graceful collarbones made at the base of
his neck with the obscene evidence of his orgasm.

Armand didn’t let it stay there long. Instead, he guided Daniel until he was lying prone on the
mattress, then used it to prepare him, fucking his spend back into him with long, surgically
accurate fingers.

They had been doing it more like this lately. Like they had when Daniel was an idiot college
dropout and Armand was his all-consuming blood god. Daniel had forgotten just how good it
felt to surrender to his monster in this way…forgot how much he needed it.

“I know what you need,” Armand hummed in his ear as he plunged into Daniel and set about
taking him deep and unhurried, reading the raw vulnerability this brought out in him through
the Bond. “My beautiful boy…my sweet brave thing, who opens for me like a flower…”

Daniel winced - at the pain that always came with this pleasure, and at the absurdity of the
words “flower” and “Daniel Molloy” being synonyms in any reality.

“Flatterer…” he grumbled. Then, “Oh…Oh fuuuck right there -”

“Yes, I know…I know my darling…you feel just like you did when I first took you, do you
know that? So snug and warm and eager for me…Do you remember that night?”

Daniel groaned and pushed back against each of Armand’s thrusts. His vampire talons were,
he was sure, making ribbons of their comforter, but he didn‘t care, couldn’t care…

”Yeah…you…uhn….you stuffed me full of French food and then finally put me out of my
misery…I was so gone for you by then…Baby…Christ you might get another one out of me,
I can’t believe it -”
“I intend to.” Armand assured, then changed the angle of his hips so that Daniel’s prostate
was hit without fail each time their hips connected. His vision began going gray at the
corners, so he shut his eyes and spread his legs wider, giving himself over entirely to
sensation and the feeling of being one with his Ancient Devil…his luscious, all-consuming
Angel of Death…

“Love you…love you…Love you always.”

“Say it again,” Armand breathed, speeding up as his own need began to dictate the pace.

“Love you forever.” Daniel promised, and meant it.

The Chelsea Pride Center End Of Year Gala

Some Months Later…

"Dear Armand,

I wish you and Daniel a most auspicious yuletide season, and was delighted to get your
Christmas Card. I myself have four real spruces topping fifteen feet tall in the Westchester
mansion this year, and have started a new mural in what I have dubbed The Tree Salon
depicting the earliest celebrations of yule I can remember all the way up to the emergence of
St. Nicholas of Myra. Researching the Turkish architecture that would have been the
backdrop of his charitable works brought me right back to Antioch, which, though not an
altogether happy time for me, was a beautiful one…but you’ll read all about it, I suspect, in
my upcoming memoir. Perhaps you can convince Daniel to take a pass at it before I send it
along to my connections at the Talamasca.

In speaking of memories, I am enclosing a few more documents I’ve been able to collect in
reference to your emerging (and quite fertile!) family tree. It seems as though you have blood
relatives all over the globe, particularly in the Punjab, Russia, Bangladesh, and -"

“Damn, Old Man. It’s a party! Get your nose out of that book and come dance with me!”

Marius closed his stationary case and set his pen down next to one of the three spoons sitting
beside his napkin. He was pleased to see it had been Derek, the green-eyed Puck and HIV
Program Coordinator at the Pride Center, who had interrupted his letter-writing. He would
not have welcomed the intrusion from another.

“Unless you would like to learn a Saltarello or try your hand at a Waltz, I’m afraid I will not
make a satisfactory dance partner.”

Derek, who was dressed tonight in a red velvet bodycon dress and dripping with costume
pearls, sat boldly in his lap and plucked the pen up off the table again to examine it. “A salta-
what? I swear, they do it different out where you come from don’t they honey?”

Marius’s face could no longer hold color, but if it could, he would have blushed. Instead he
smiled tightly and tried to feel normal about the slight weight of the young man perched atop
him like it was a completely ordinary thing to do. (It was, in this subculture, Marius had
learned...if you were liked…if you were desired) .

“You’re a vision tonight,” he said, and ran a thumb across the soft velvet encasing Derek’s
blood-rich wrist. “I do not share the impulse to dress like women do, but I know a great many
women who dress as men occasionally. For safety and such.”

Derek giggled and booped Marius on the nose with a manicured finger. The centuries-old
vampire gave himself a moment to be astounded. “Translation: You know a lotta butches and
not enough femme boys. Well keep coming around here baby and we’ll fix that. Katya’s
always looking for help planning the next big event.”

Didn’t Marius know it. He’d bankrolled half of this fundraiser, and was well on his way to
underwriting the upcoming 2nd Chance Prom. He didn’t mind though. He had grown to love
this little sanctuary for mortals who loved in the Greek style, and all those who helped make
it run. With his patronage came invites to things like this - reasons to leave his lonely rooms
wherever he was staying…they were a window into the world that he had long been seeking.

“Oh…oh my gosh this is right up your alley!” Derek exclaimed when the shrill tones of
Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ were blessedly replaced on the speakers by
a soft, classical piano rendition of ‘The First Noel.’

‘No more excuses, Old Man. Up.” Derek stood on dizzyingly high heels and held out his
hand to Marius, who sighed and let himself be led to the dance floor. They held each other’s
waists and swayed in place with the rest of the brave souls who remained under the dim,
twinkling lights, not dancing at all really so much as relishing an excuse to get closer.

There had always been songs, been social scripts, like this, Marius mused. Nothing new
under the moon. So then why was his stomach fluttering like this was all new to him?

“You know, you could make it a habit of calling me by my name.” He groused.

Derek laughed again - bell-high and clear, and reached up to tuck a piece of Marius’s pin-
straight hair behind his ear. “I like that you’re old.” He said simply. “Makes me feel young.”

“You are young.” Marius asserted. Too young.

“God, anyone ever tell you you’re patronizing as hell?” Derek quipped, and then leaned in so
that their hips and chests were flush. Marius stilled.

“My son has expressed these sentiments.” He said, and The Mother only knew how he kept
his voice even. Years of being dead, probably.

“I bet I’d get along with him.” Derek deadpanned, then leaned forward and spoke
confidentially in his ear. “I’m 33. I just have a great skincare routine. Now what do you say
to coming back to my place to uh…I don’t know. Watch art documentaries on Netflix or
something. Yeah, that sounds like you.”

Marius did end up going home with Derek that evening, and for many evenings after. He still
did not know if the boy’s television worked.
End Notes

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