Chapter Text
Nothing but dizziness and a crack was felt by young Daniel. A blast that burned the side of his head, again, again, again. Out of consciousness, like a cramp that spread throughout the senses in an immobilizing way, it took him a while to realize that the beat was coming from him, from his body against the wooden floor.
"The boy is fine!" Armand bellowed. One more beat. "We're fine! Everything's fine!" The vampire yelled at his companion. Hearing moans, from inside the room where Louis cried in pain, and from outside the room, where the journalist screamed in the same pain. In a fit of rage, control slipping through his grip until the other vampire begged him to stop.
Armand let the boy go, the fascinating boy, knocking over a chair and finally making his body hit the floor one last time. Another moan, but he didn't care, and he didn't know why Louis cared. Why that interest? What made Daniel so special? He was offended, of course he was, he was jealous, angry. He was trying to make sense of it, and with Louis temporarily incapable, Armand would have the time he needed to dig deeper.
The vampire left his lover to rest, closing the bedroom door so he wouldn't hear if he screamed. Did Louis find him boring? Armand could be very mean if he wanted to, Wasn't that what he liked? Aggressive companion? Wasn't that what he missed? Great. He would be the extremely interesting incoherent sociopath of their story.
Walking across the floor, he looked around at the mess in the room, drugs, beer, blood. Armand identified the tape lying under the table, picking it up and examining it, placed it on the stand and pressed play, listening to it, leaving the journalist lying on the floor.
Meanwhile, Daniel was still dizzy, his head hurt unbearably, he had fallen on his arm and he feared a fracture, his consciousness coming and going. He kept his eyes closed as he heard noises on the other side of the apartment, heard an argument, and then footsteps walking across the room. His neck hurt like hell, he put a hand to the spot and felt like vomiting when he felt blood on his fingers, or maybe it was sweat. In a trance he stayed for maybe fifteen minutes while the vampire listened the taps. In the midst of what he thought was his eminent death, Daniel blamed himself for it, always thinking of ways to fuck up his own brain, always thinking with the wrong head.
But it was the sound of Louis's voice that pulled him into a greater conscience. His eyes were half-open as he painfully turned his neck towards the table where his tape was playing. He wanted to run away while the vampire seemed distracted, his legs suddenly moving in an attempt to drag himself along the ground, crawling, hoping the blood will lubricate his body to get to the door faster before another loss of consciousness. His heart jumped into his mouth when he heard a voice.
"Rest" Armand asked when he saw the journalist trying to escape, his eyes returned to the tape, deducing that Daniel would sleep with that simple command. Nonetheless, that didn't happen. Instead, when he looked again he had the boy staring back in a mixture of fear and strangeness. Armand frowned, looking directly at his victim once again. "Rest." It was said more clearly. Yet the boy seemed to resist, maintaining a consciousness that seemed to stare into the vampire's soul, as if waiting for something horrible to happen.
"Curious" Armand tilted his head to the side. This never happened before.
Suddenly the tape no longer interested him. He could listen another time. Armand slid a finger across the device and Louis' voice turned off, his shoes barely leaving the ground as they moved towards the boy. Now he was looking down at Daniel, barely blinking. "Up" The command given seemed to have worked, which reassured him a little when he saw Daniel's body levitated quickly, stretching his limbs so that he stood upright again, in response the victim gave a grunt of pain.
The pain came from the cramp, from the wound in the neck, from the contorted position of the injured body, but also from the fear of..
"of dying" Armand completed the train of thought and took a step forward. They were close now, close enough for him to examine the boy. His head was down, his curls damp with sweat, his breathing was rapid and labored - yet quiet and shy. What made him so interesting? He asked himself, looking for it in Daniel's face, which was sweating and bleeding, and despite that, he didn't take his eyes off the vampire.
Well, the boy was pretty. A little clumsy, naive he dared to say. Not a criminal, not someone without a future if it weren't for the obvious fate he would have at the end of the day. Stubborn. Not immediately giving in to Armand's manipulation left him intrigued, but maybe it was just the drugs. A journalist, huh? Tiring, boring.
In the middle of a thought that he couldn't say for how long it stayed with him, Armand realized that the boy was crying.
"It hurts...the blood is running down my heels, please..." Daniel's voice shook, He seemed overcome with grief, and Armand could see his chest contracting in pain.
The vampire shook his head evilly, sweetly. "No, no, no. You're going to stay here with me, you're going to teach me how to be fascinating" Armand said, when searching for something in the other's mind he couldn't read anything other than frivolities, childish jokes, and wasn't that boring? The boy groaned in fear, but Armand was merciful, bringing a hand up to cup the victim's chin. Beautiful eyes. Maybe it was just the eyes. Louis liked eyes. Human, brutally human.
"Is it your hunger, your thirsty instinct that makes you someone worth saving?" He tilted his head, applying a certain force to his hand as Daniel he seemed to fight his grip so insistently. It was captivating. Like an experiment with a mouse- or a puppy.
Watching the consciousness slowly want to leave the boy, he forced his head up so he could speak.
"I- I just wanted the drugs...we didn't even had sex" Daniel squinted his eyes, not knowing what the figure wanted to hear, what it wanted from him.
Armand smiled. Mundane. Too mundane. Louis always liked humanists, right? Wasn't he adorable? "So that was all? Is that what makes you so special that he didn't kill you?"
"You saved my life. He would have killed me, yeah?" Daniel blinked as he replied. The adrenaline of pain, survival instinct, and the vampire's stimulation left him with his eyes open again, wide.
Bold. Honest. Armand thought, good, very good. A strange smile formed on the corner of his lips. "Yeah" He released Daniel. He was curious, wanted to see what he would do now. A small red mark was left by his fingers stuck to the boy's chin as he stumbled back. Without blinking, he watched Daniel get up, feet shuffling to run towards the door and leave. But the door was locked, and Armand wouldn't let him open it anyway. A cold smile, it was predictable, but he admired the courage, especially for someone so hurt.
Daniel leaned against the door, futilely forcing the handle several times until his desperation increased and the wood served as support for him. Dizzy, tired, back against the door as he tried to recover. The despair was justifiable. He knocked on the door. "Please someone help me!" The boy screamed with all his strength, hitting his head on the wood as if that noise was the only thing he was left, the skull the only thing still useful for him to ruin.
As the journalist experienced horror, Armand closely watched the despair, as if he could be fueled by it. All of his victims fell in love with him, they accepted the fate of death with the mercy of the vampire. But it did not show in Daniel's resistance, a mere drug addict, this angered him even more.
"You're stubborn, your mind can resist a little. Maybe it's just the drugs" The vampire said, almost as if he wanted to convince himself of that. He let the despair hang over the other for a few more seconds as he placed a chair in front of him. The screams were like the sound of television, background to a real-life plot. But as the journalist's voice trailed off, Armand looked at him again, sitting in the chair "Come to me" He ordered, watching the journalist's body turn slightly towards him at the request, only to turn back to the door and start knocking on it again.
Irritating.
With the commands not responded to, Armand didn't mind using force, once again taking control of Daniel's body. He could have broken him in half, but he didn't, no matter how much he wanted to when the boy was struggling in such a way. Daniel's feet dragged across the floor, body levitating until it reached Armand, where he was forced kneel, with his arms glued to his body. He thought about screaming, but his voice was hoarse, and he wasn't dead yet. The pain began to take over Daniel once again, reducing his effort.
"Good boy" Armand murmured, facing him still sitting with his legs half open in the chair. "Isn't it easier when you collaborate?" Satisfied, he leaned closer to him, looking for what made him so different. "Mm. Is it your mind? How strong is it? You know, Louis always pursued a certain self-destruction. Is your stubbornness really that fascinating?” He was thinking, he wanted to break that boy into little pieces, he wanted to prove to everyone in that apartment that he was no different from any other victim. It was childish, but he didn't know any other way to deal with it, needed to have control of the situation. Of Louis, and of the life of this mortal
A silence followed, in which he stared at the boy coldly, who stared back. "Come on, say something interesting" He asked.
But Daniel remained silent, filtering his mind to stay awake, even with the wound open. He didn't understand what was going on, but he was certainly captivated in some way by the vampire.
At least that's what Armand realized, which helped him a little in trying to influence him. "Mh, don't you want to talk to me?" He cocked his head to the side, offended, mainly because he spent ten hours talking to Louis. Jealous. He received a frown of anger and fear, probably of saying something that would make the vampire kill him. "Am I that boring?" He chanted, only to have Daniel look up at him as if his life depended on it. The vampire sighed.
"Why don't you talk to me?! Why did Louis like you so much?!" Armand exploded with anger, a certain pain in his voice.
The boy blinked. "I don't know... He just talked... and I heard, and he had fangs and-" Daniel muttered, trapped in that boiling dream apartment, he felt his blood pressure dropping, the cold of his blouse as the blood dried on it gave him chills, he would have already passed out if it weren't for the physical and psychological pressure the vampire was putting on him.
Armand didn't seem to see the mystery in that. He could talk about the past if he wanted, but he didn't remember or want to remember enough to do so. It was frustrating, he shrugged defensively. "I'm talking to you and you're listening to me, and I also have fangs." He smiled, and Daniel saw sharp teeth sprout spontaneously. They looked smaller, thinner than Louis's, he imagined how much more a bite like that could hurt, and from his reaction, the vampire didn't like that at all.
"What's wrong? Are his fangs cool and mine aren't?"
"I didn't say that" Daniel replied, willing to fight that creature a little more. His legs shook as the position made him increasingly uncomfortable. He was hurt, and the vampire's consuming gaze on him left him embarrassed. "My legs... and...I think..let me go, please" he sighed. "I...I want to talk to you, but I'm almost fainting like this" He said, waiting for the seconds to painfully drag by as the muscle fibers made small bruises.
It wasn't enough.
"You're lying, you're terrible at it. Your mind is boring" Armand replied coldly, watching the other's face contort in pain. He didn't understand, but that was okay, he would have all the time in the world to torture the truth out of him.
The vampire looked closely at the boy for a few more seconds, considering. "You may relax " He commanded, and like cutting the strings of a puppet, the pressure on Daniel's body gave way, and he fell to the ground due to the cramp of his position.
Daniel groaned in pain but also in relief, feeling the cold wooden floor against his cheek as he tried to sit up again. His muscles were hurt, his knees hurt, but he needed to wake up, needed to leave-
"Ah ah. Not yet" Armand replied, getting out of the chair and kneeling down to Daniel's level, he was as cautious as death, and still the boy was scared by it. But he didn't let that put him off, as much as it was break of pride not to see the seductive nature of a vampire at work. "Rest" He asked, calmly.
"I don't want to rest" Daniel shook his head, relaxing his body a little, but not daring to close his eyes, he couldn't. Armand bit his own tongue, it was like talking to a wall, he needed to become as cold and hard as that. "Must you be so stubborn? The more you fight, the harder I'll have to break you" He explained, losing his holy patience and advancing on Louis' boy.
At a speed Daniel's mind couldn't keep up with, he had the vampire closer to him, the sides of their hips touching, as if a feline had jumped into his lap. Armand cupped his face with both hands, fingers gripping the back of his head, sliding through the curls, as his thumb slides across his temples. It was calming, soft, and only then did the journalist feel his mind being massaged. He said nothing, looking back into the being's vibrant eyes. Daniel was expecting a bite, a punch, anything, but he hoped it would be painful enough that he would no longer feel the rest of his body.
"Here. You want to rest. You'll give me some hard time, boy."
They were the last words Daniel heard, along with another request to rest that this time acted like a strong drug on him. Armand watched as the one in his hands finally gave way. It was probably the drugs keeping him alert, that, or something really fascinating was in him.
When the boy fell asleep, the vampire sighed, equally tired. He had blood on the floor, objects scattered around. He would have to clean up the mess, as predicted. But first, he took Daniel in his arms and left him lying on the couch.
Let the mortal sleep. Because when night come, Armand would make his life hell until he decoded what made him so special, and in the end, he would bring him into the arms of death. It just seemed like a plan, it usually took him an hour or two to break someone, but he wanted to savor it, wanted to steal whatever it was that made Daniel fascinating to him.