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Sometimes Armand became aware of what Daniel meant in his life. Not as if he didn’t already know, he did. But there were these moments, like small doses of lucidity, that fell upon him like lightning strikes trees. Daniel is everything. Daniel. The gravity of Armand’s world.
Can you imagine loving like that? Loving so much you don’t feel the ground beneath your feet unless it’s with that person? Armand was always caught off guard, because, at what point in the centuries had he ever imagined he could love like this?
He loved Louis.
He loved Lestat. Maybe.
And he thinks he loved Marius.
But what he feels for Daniel is Love with a capital L. It’s raw, pure, and solid love. The kind that scrapes down your throat, that sinks its claws into your heart, pierces and tears it apart, that invades your bloodstream like poison and mixes into your molecules, corrupting your blood forever.
It was too much. Because it filled him completely, every little piece of himself, every hole in his chest, all of it vanished when he was with Daniel and, my god, Armand felt like he might overflow just by looking at him.
And what was he before him? How could he have survived so many decades and centuries without him? He was nothing. There was nothing. Armand could barely look back at those centuries without seeing the gaping void shaped like Daniel.
His Daniel.
Given to him by divine forces, by God or fate or whatever it was. Daniel had been made to fit inside Armand, and Armand had been made to fit inside Daniel.
It's a fact: nothing in the world could replace him, nothing in the world could awaken so much love in Armand, a love he hadn’t even known he was capable of feeling until he met him.
His fascinating boy.
Could this be true? What would have become of him if Louis hadn’t done the interview? Would they have met in some other way? And if Armand hadn’t spared his life that night in San Francisco?
He also thought about how lucky he was. How fate had been kind to him, even if he didn’t deserve it. Because his eyes had seen everything, his hands were guilty of countless cruelties, his heart had been a black hole for centuries and centuries. Some decades were just a blur in his mind, like he’d been falling from the sky all that time, just waiting for the impact.
Empty.
Wandering in the dark, dragging himself through eternity without ever feeling anything, seeing anything—being nothing.
But then Daniel came, with curly hair and an irritating personality, and suddenly Armand was seen, was heard, understood, chosen, loved.
Armand had never been chosen before—not truly, not like this. With all his flaws, with all his weirdness, his habits and monstrosity, his rage, the broken parts of his soul. Daniel saw it all. Daniel knew it all and still chose him, and still loves him.
Armand went through that jolt, blank eyes fixed on the image of Daniel sitting at the table, hunched over the computer in a terrible posture. He squinted even though his vision was more than perfect, sliding his finger across the touchpad.
"Okay" his voice suddenly cut through the air. "How long are you going to stand there doing your Nosferatu thing?"
Armand could’ve fired back at the provocation, but he wasn’t in any shape to do so right now. Daniel barely had time to look up, he blinked, and Armand was already inches away.
“Jesus…” he grunted, still not used to Armand reaching that level of speed. “What’s gotten into you today?”
“I love you, Daniel.”
“And I love you” he smiled sweetly, reaching out to touch his waist, stroking his thumb gently over the covered skin.
“I love you” he repeated, the words even sharper than before, his eyes shining like beacons. Daniel was about to say something stupid when Armand added, “In five hundred years, I don’t think I’ve ever truly loved anything, until I met you.”
“Babe…”
“Five hundred years, Daniel” he repeated, thumb brushing across his fingertips while the rest of his body remained completely still.
So it was one of those moments, huh? Daniel could handle that.
“Come here” he said, lowering the laptop screen before pulling Armand onto his lap, letting all his limbs wrap around him and hold him tight.
“Where were you? Why did it take you so long?”
“I’m here now” he slid one hand down his back and the other into his dark hair. “We’re together. You and me.”
“How did I survive so long without you, beloved? How did I endure all those centuries?”
“Does it matter now? If we’re going to be together for the rest of eternity, what difference does it make?”
Armand lifted his head, giving him that glassy stare, not even blinking.
“Daniel.” his hands held his face, “My beautiful boy. My Daniel. My love,” his fingers tangled in the white curls. “I was nothing before you.”
“That’s not true…” he tried to argue, but clearly Armand wasn’t done.
“I lived all these years waiting for you” he said with a seriousness that made Daniel’s mind freeze. “My love has always belonged to you, maybe that’s why I never loved anyone like this. I thought I couldn’t. But I just hadn’t found you yet.”
Daniel’s heart fluttered, his whole body responding as if Armand were a giant magnet.
“You are everything to me” Armand said, catching every trace of violet pigment spilling in Daniel’s irises. “And I would wipe out entire populations for you, beloved.”
“Alright…” Daniel laughed, even though every part of him was buzzing from the force of that declaration. And it’s not like he could ignore how radiant their bond looked now, radiating wave after wave of intense brightness and love. “No need to go that far. I know I’m one of a kind…”
“You are. You were made for me.”
“I was” he agreed, because he truly believed that, because during all those years without even remembering Armand, Daniel could feel the emptiness in his soul, a shadow, a ghost. He never understood what it was, never knew what his heart longed for until he got his memories back. “I was made for you. Custom ordered for the vampire Armand.”
Armand smiled. His eyes blinked, and that slightly empty, apocalyptic air was gone.
“Yes, you were” he echoed, half dazed, half intoxicated.
“And you were made for me.”
“Yes” he stroked the nape of his neck, warmth flooding his chest, the feeling growing inside him until it made him sigh. “Yes, I was.”
“I love you, you adorable freak” Daniel whispered, a hint of laughter slipping into his voice.
“Are you sure?”
Daniel laughed.
“You can bet on it.”