Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

  Daniel Molloy kept a running list of the worst days of his life. He had done so since the first grade. By the time he was twelve years old, his worst days had ranked as follows: The day Susie Bickman laughed at him when he presented her with a bouquet of flowers he’d hand-picked from his neighbor’s garden. The day he was eliminated from the school spelling bee for misspelling exemplary. The day his father caught him stealing his playboys to sell in the schoolyard at recess. The day his grandfather died.

  Once he’d reached highschool graduation, he had added quite a few more to the list. But still, he’d had friends and classmates with alcoholic parents and he'd known kids whose siblings had overdosed or joined street gangs. He hadn’t done too bad, all in all. The way he looked at it, he was rather lucky. Daniel was an only child. He came from a home with doting parents who supported his endeavors and loved one another. When he told them he wanted to be a journalist, they bought him a tape recorder. When he became editor in chief at the school newspaper and was put in charge of his junior and senior yearbooks, his parents bought extra copies to mail out to relatives. They were so proud. When he moved away for college, he had girlfriends he brought home for holidays and his parents had liked every single one of them. And then he met Alice.

  Out of college, he landed a job at The Mountain Democrat writing opinion pieces and had been there no more than a few months when Alice, a copy editing intern, began dropping by his desk with daily coffee. They started taking smoke breaks together. Then they began seeing each other outside of work, still managing to keep up the regular smoke and coffee breaks without losing an ounce of their zeal just for being around one another.

  It was a March day. Daniel would never forget. The sun was out, and it still smelled like the previous night’s rain when they’d taken their ritualistic smoke break and Alice declined a cigarette. Daniel hadn’t ever felt the compulsion to keep count of his best days. He started a new tradition then. Three months later, they were wed and he had two Best Days on his list. But the day the twins were born… that blew them out of the water. Two perfect baby girls, Kate and Calliope. Fraternal twins weighing in at 6.8lbs and 7lbs respectively. Daniel had a snapshot memory of the day. Alice, after hours in excruciating labor, was awash in golden sunlight, looking radiant with one baby in each arm. The best day of his life. The loves of his life.

 Their daughters, thankfully, took after their mother. They had Alice’s bouncy black curls, her big dark-brown eyes, her deep complexion only lightened slightly by Daniel’s “splash of milk,” -a saying which made Daniel cackle out loud and Alice swat him every time he turned the phrase. Once they were crawling, they followed Alice around the apartment like ducklings. When they could talk, their first word was “ma.” It wasn’t until their pre-teen years when their affection began to weigh down Daniel’s plate on the scale.

  “It’s impossible to talk to them anymore. What happened, Danny?”

  “Puberty, dear. It’s all in those books you forced me to read when you were pregnant. Childrearing for Dummies.”

  Alice laughed, closing the book in her lap and reaching over to flick off her bedside lamp. “That wasn’t the name.”

  “Well, that was the impression it gave.”

  “Alright, when you win a Pulitzer you can criticize all the books on our shelf you want.”

  Daniel grinned at her. “Watch me.”

  His first Pulitzer came before the girls graduated. He’d skipped the diapers, the burping, the mashed peas. Daniel had seen a blank space in the world of published pop literature, and that was anecdotal tales from middle-aged men on the subject of raising teenaged girls.

  And how they’d loathed him for it.

  It wasn’t like he’d blasted their names all over the pages. He’d changed them for publication. Of course he had. But everyone who knew the girls also happened to know who their award-winning journalist and published author father was. He’d written about the night Calliope got caught with pot at a friend’s house. He’d written about the various boys Kate had brought home. He’d written about blowout arguments between them and their mother. He’d sometimes taken Alice’s side, and sometimes theirs. And yet, all of this embarrassed them. For the first time since his early parenting years, Daniel felt a little like he’d failed.

  But the money that came in after that book was nothing to snuff at. They’d never struggled financially, but this notoriety and fame brought in a level of comfort and luxury they had not yet known. They moved to a large house, a mansion really, and Alice set to work remodeling. The house became her third greatest love after her daughters and Daniel. And the girls’ tuitions were paid. Their futures were set. And still, they were not without ambition. Kate was majoring in English literature and harbored her own talent for putting pen to the page. Daniel and Alice had a rubbermaid filled with various little self-bound books she’d written since the time she could hold a pencil. And Calliope was studying marine biology. She promised Daniel that one day, she’d take him down in a real life submarine. Daniel was horrified by the thought.

  Now that the two of them were becoming young adults in their own right and the full spectrum of their person-hood was being realized, Daniel had to marvel at how it had come to be that he and Kate butted heads the most. They were the most alike and always had been. That used to land them on the same side of the court. Now, it only served to level the playing field when they argued. Calliope, so like her mother, chose to remain neutral during these dinner-table arguments. She and Alice would give each other looks across the table, sometimes commenting that they’d rather be watching C-Span. Their commentary was largely disregarded. Spoken over, by their accounts.

  After college, Kate took a position teaching high school English in her alma mater town and Calliope moved even further from home to work at the University of California in L.A.. For holidays, Calliope would come to Kate and then the two of them would travel home together. The week leading up was always a lot of fun for Alice and Daniel. Alice took delight in tidying their rooms, preparing for their week-long visit while Daniel would bake pies. He’d been working on a new book in the winter of 2002. Another anecdotal tome in which he was interspersing his own baking recipes. A latent hobby, he’d admit, but one he was naturally pretty adept at. And anyway, it wasn’t so much about the baking. It was the settling of his bones into this middle-aged, empty nest life. It was the smell of wood-polish and sawdust mixing with hot lava blueberry and lard-laden crust. It was Alice in her overalls, sweat gleaming on her golden throat, curls swept back under a blue bandana. It was the way she leaned in the doorway after losing time at another project on the third floor, only being brought around by the smell of cooling pie on the counter as it drifted up and up the winding stairs. It was the way, even after all these years, they still drove each other wild.

  Nothing could have prepared them for what was to come. Nothing could have prepared them for December 22, 2002. The worst day of Daniel Molloy’s life.

  Daniel turned the key in the lock. He noted the way the porch creaked under his step. It was probably time to look into replacing some of the boards. He wondered what other work needed doing around the large house. Alice had never stopped working on the place, to his knowledge. Their correspondence had been short and sparing in the years that lead up to her illness. Not for a lack of trying on Daniel’s part. But he couldn’t really blame her. And he felt he owed her her space if that was what she wanted. He’d felt incredibly blessed when she did not turn him away in the hospital the month before she passed.

  It was a fall that sent her into the hospital. Before that, hospice had been set up in the home. After the fall, however, she’d required round-the-clock care and the slack usually taken up by family or friends was taken up by no one. Daniel pleaded for her to let him come. To let him care for her. She would not have it. If he hadn’t turned up at the hospital, flying all the way across the country from his home in Brooklyn, she’d have continued refusing him. But, he was there, after all.

  “You’re here, after all,” She’d said when he asked why, all the sudden, she’d given up the fight. And it was clear to him, then, that it was just that simple. She had given up the fight. She tolerated him for a week, coming to the hospital every single day. He asked her if there was anyone he could reach out to, anyone at all who could check in on her and keep correspondence with him if she couldn’t stomach it. There was no one. Alice had been adopted and both of her adopted parents had been estranged from their own families. Her father passed when she was in her teens and her mother lived to see the girls reach their second birthday. She had no real familial ties outside of Daniel. And in her grief, she'd estranged herself from friends.

  It began to show before the divorce. It was true, she was no longer fun to be around. Daniel felt like dirt admitting it. She never wanted to leave the house. She no longer dolled herself up. She drove friends away and she shut Daniel out. She lost herself in the house. She worked from sunrise to sunset in whatever wing Daniel wasn’t. And if he dared to occupy the space she was working in, she’d pack up and move. It was obvious to him, looking back, that he should’ve done more, but goddammit, he was grieving too.

  He poured it into his next book, a follow-up of sorts to his first Pulitzer winner and, in Alice’s eyes, a vulgar commodification of the worst thing to ever happen to her.

  And then came the fights.

  She’d simmer and Daniel would scathe. Some of his best-remembered snap-judgment zingers included “Yeah, well they’re my dead kids, too!” and “Do you think the college will give us our donations back if we tell them we don’t want the plaque?”

  Cruel words spoken with such hurt behind them that they were made caustic. They ate holes in Alice and the shame drove Daniel to drink. Then the drink drove Daniel to fight. The fights led to an acute addiction to painkillers, only tapered when Daniel embarked on an affair with the young pharmacy technician who just so happened to be a big fan of his. He was sorry about his daughters. He knew a place taking high profile patients. Alice gave him her cold support when he checked himself into rehab, even coming to visit a couple of times. He’d made the papers. She wasn’t upset about that. But on the day he got out and his twenty-something pharmacist beau was the one to pick him up, he made national headlines.

Pulitzer prize winning author Daniel Molloy spotted locking lips with a younger man outside Aegis

  It was a devastating blow to Alice. Little was said between them after that, though Daniel sniveled and groveled. Alice simply said her part and then went cold. What she had said, however, etched itself into Daniel’s bones. He’d think, until the end of his days, about how he’d hurt her. How he was weak. How he couldn’t be there for her but he could muster the courage to kiss a younger man in public. How he was a coward for never telling her. How she wasn’t disgusted that he was attracted to men, but by that cowardice.

  The rest came from her lawyers. Lucky for Daniel (or unlucky when considering the guilt he might’ve bought off) Alice did not want to take everything from him. She wanted the house and a reasonable monthly stipend to keep up her work on it. She wanted comfort, not luxury. And Daniel did not fight her. He loathed to admit it, but if he could be honest, he didn’t want to set foot in that house ever again. He didn’t want to be reminded of all that he’d lost.

  And so, as he stepped through the threshold, it was as if he was stepping through time. The foyer was exactly the same as he remembered it. The three-legged table against the wall to his right with the mirror above it, just as it was on the day they brought it home from the antique store. The mirror was covered with a thick layer of dust which Daniel was grateful for. He didn’t want to catch sight of himself, jet-lagged and exhausted as he was.

  And in grief. Again.

  The air was salty on his tongue when he inhaled. There was a chill. Well, of course there was a chill. It was late September and though a member of the Society for Historic Homes had been by a couple of times in the last four months to make sure the ducts and pipes were working and that the house was being properly heated and cooled on it’s preservatory schedule, it was clear by the dust on the banister that it’d been a while since they’d dropped by. There was something else in the air, too. A ferric and cold current that lingered below the salt. He’d been spelunking once with Calliope (and quite hated it) and he remembered that the further down they got, the more the air tasted like minerals. It was a little like that. This house had never smelled like that in all his recollection. He went to the dial on the wall and turned it clockwise to raise the lights in the chandelier. Utilities were to have been set up yesterday, so he anticipated the lights to gradually grow brighter. What he did not anticipate was for them to continue increasing in brightness after his fingers left the dial. The hum of the electricity in them grew and he reached for the dial again, turning it counter-clockwise now, but that was fruitless. The humming was intensifying and Daniel pulled out the hearing aid in his right ear. He stared up, squinting at the chandelier, that awful hum persisting still, and then he heard a loud POP followed by the clitter-clatter rainfall of delicate shattered glass.

Chapter Text

  Daniel swung open the oven door, his glasses fogging up immediately, and with his mitt-clad hand he reached in for the baking sheet of cookies. This round was oatmeal and butterscotch, his and Kate's favorite. Wine was mulling on the burner above, mixing with the warm smell of hot cookies, spicing it and lending it that true holiday edge. Daniel had begun fancying himself an old codger around the age of 28, and he'd never admit it to the press or any colleagues, but he loved Christmas. Not for any religious reasons, though Alice had her private beliefs. Private only on account of her unwillingness to arm Daniel against her when it came to philosophical debate, but Daniel respected her new-age sensibilities. Even if they'd have him rolling his eyes at anyone else. No, Daniel loved Christmas for the smells and the decorations. He loved string lights and warm-glow evenings in front of a fire. He loved his Christmas tree. It was a synthetic tree he'd gotten on clearance in his 20th year that'd followed him from his first ever apartment on his own to his first apartment with Alice, to their first house, and at last, to their home here. It was modest, especially in this house. The ceilings here could sustain a 12' tree, if they wanted one, but this one was just 7'. He'd been collecting ornaments since the 8th grade. He had boxes of them. Some he'd saved up for and bought with his own allowance, some were handmade by himself or Alice. Most were in commemoration of milestones in his and Alice's marriage and the development of the girls. It wasn't exactly themed, it wouldn't make the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, but it had a vibrancy to it when it was all put together. It came alive when it was lit up by the yellow string lights. Daniel could sit in his tattered green corduroy recliner for hours staring at it. He often did.

  Alice was huddled on the couch with a glass of mulled wine and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She'd been reading an early copy of a novel soon to be released by a good friend of Daniel's, but it was bookmarked and sitting beside her now while she watched the fire. After moving the cookies to the cooling rack, Daniel stood in the entryway to the parlor, watching her silhouetted by the fireplace's glow.

  "They said they stopped to pee at the Luv's with the McDonald's half an hour ago?" he asked.

  Alice turned on the couch. "That's what they said." She glanced at the clock on the mantle, and then back. "The roads were plowed this morning, but the snow's been falling all day."

  Daniel tensed his jaw and nodded. Alice was worried. He was worried, too, of course, but he was rational.

  "It's just that I don't recall it ever snowing this much in the couple years the girls were here before going off to school, you know? And where they live, it never snows..."

  There wasn't accusation in her tone, but still it brought back to mind some early arguments when they'd decided (when Daniel had decided) to move to this part of California. He wanted the climate. He wanted the possibility of a white Christmas. Alice wanted the sun on her skin year round, but it was Daniel's great success that afforded them this home and Alice fell in absolute love with the house the instant they'd set foot inside to tour it.

  "They have to get used to it some time. Kate's car is sturdy. She said last week that she'd gotten new tires just for the trip."

  "Could just be slow-going."

  "Could be," Daniel agreed.

  Another half hour passed, another rack of cookies cooling. The final batch Daniel would make for the night. The final batch of oatmeal butterscotch cookies he'd ever make. Now Alice was pacing. Daniel was back in the kitchen, ladeling himself another mug of wine. He could hear Alice from the parlor. She was on the phone with Eugenia, their neighbor. A real busy-bodied old bitty in Daniel's opinion, but Alice liked her so he was nice and polite. Eugenia had been the one to call. Go figure, Daniel thought. She'd probably been sitting at her window watching for the girls to pull up, herself.

  Daniel drummed his fingers against his mug, leaning back against the counter. He listened as Alice's voice climbed higher and higher with anxiety. He took a deep breath, trying to affect his own calm, and he set the mug back down before going to lean against the entryway frame. Alice stopped her panicked pacing and looked at him, eyes wide, brow creased.

  "I'm sure they're alright," he said. He wasn't. But if he said it...

  "Yes, Eugenia, of course," Alice said into the phone. "Yes, and Daniel is right here. I'm gonna let you go, alright? When the girls finally get here, I'll have them bring you some cookies as penance for getting you worried."

  Daniel made a face, trying to break the tension.

  "Yes, Eugenia. Have a good night." Alice pressed the button to hang up the call and pressed the phone to her chest with a sigh.

  "I can't believe you promised that old bat some of my oatmeal scotchies. I didn't make them for her."

  Alice smiled slightly, the crease in her brow ironing out just a touch. "She's just concerned."

  "Yeah, she's always concerned. C'mere..."

  Alice set the phone down on the coffee table and walked over to him. She opened the shawl wrapped around her out into wings and then enfolded Daniel in them, resting her head against his chest.

  "I'm sure you're right. I'm sure they're just taking it slow to be on the safe side."

  Daniel bent his nose into the crown of her curls, smelled her Rosemary shampoo and kissed her head. They froze rigid when the sound of snow crushing under tires sounded in the otherwise silent night. Alice broke first, relaxing and giggling out all the tension in her shoulders.

  "See?" she said. "What'd I say."

  "Yes, dear. You're always right," Daniel joked. "Cool as a cucumber."

  Alice released him then and wrapped herself tight with the shawl. She shimmied excitedly before prancing to the door with Daniel at her heels as they heard more crunching footsteps coming up the porch. She unlatched the lock and swung the door wide, ready to receive the girls in a big blanketed hug, but the two faces on the other side did not belong to their daughters.

  Daniel yanked back on the sheet covering the couch in the parlor. He wasn't sure what to expect, but he was a little surprised to see that Alice had never bought new furniture in this room. The daylight was filtering through the dust he was kicking up, making the space glitter and making his eyes itch. He rolled the sheet up under his arm and stood in the center of the room. It looked just the way it always had. That had been a point of contention between him and Alice in the time following the accident. Daniel couldn't stand all the reminders. He couldn't stand to sit with them and Alice couldn't give them up. When she'd caught Daniel in their rooms, boxing their things up for donation, she'd flown off the handle. And he didn't want to blame her for his looking to escape, they just... processed their grief differently. He wasn't sure which one of them was correct, or if there was a correct way. After rehab, he was seeing a shrink once a week who told him that the best way to curb the despair was just to let it come when it came and ride it out. And over time, like with the diminishing of all returns, he would form a sort of spiritual callous to the hurt. Some day, when those demons could no longer get a rise out of him, they'd begin to shut up.

  But for Daniel, they never shut up. He had to drown them out. He did that with books and television, mostly. With his work, and sometimes, he took the advice of his old shrink and he let it sneak up and sucker punch him. Knock him dead on his ass for a while. After all, he felt like he deserved it most days.

  He walked out of the parlor and into the foyer where the chandelier had given him a big spook the previous day. He'd need to get those stems out of the sockets and replace them with the spares he found in the closet, but in order to do that, he'd need to find the ladder. He went up the stairs with the dusty bundle of sheets in his arms and headed for the laundry room. The last load was ready to be moved into the dryer and his back ached as he pulled them, wet and twining, from the drum and shoved them into the front-loading dryer. He'd cracked his tailbone pretty hard when he fell. Not hard enough to drive him to the doctor, but hard enough that he knew he'd be feeling the repercussions for the next two weeks at least. Injuries like that spread through you when you were old. You favor standing and sitting one way because you busted your ass, and then a day later you're suffering from a pinched nerve. Starts in your legs, keeping you up at night, then you get a crick in your neck from tossing and turning. Suddenly your rotator cuff blows out. Daniel's body was a real beater these days. Aches and pains galore, despite a pretty clean bill of health. And that was another thing to feel guilty about. Daniel, who'd abused his body plenty in his youth and then a bit more after the deaths of his daughters, had his health. Alice, who'd kept in shape all her life, ate healthy, had quit smoking a decade before Daniel managed, by all rights should not have been the one to go first. Her Parkinson's diagnosis seemed like another pointedly cruel dagger in Daniel's side. And there he was, making it all about him again.

  He poured the laundry detergent in and closed the lid, pounding the start button before heading back down the stairs and out to the garden shed. He knew there should be a ladder somewhere. A big 12" ladder. The one he'd always used to change the light bulbs in the foyer. The one he'd scolded Alice multiple times for getting on without him present to spot her. Perhaps it'd rusted? Perhaps someone had made off with it?

  He checked the attic for good measure, the doorknob loose and rattling in his hand as he opened it. The smell of varnish and saw-dust hit him. This had been Alice's never-ending project, the attic. She changed her plans for it a couple of times a year. It'd be an art room. No, a second library. They had more books than fit in the one on the first floor. Then it was going to be a guest living space. For what guests? Daniel had never been sure. There were boxes of stored things. Boxes Daniel didn't dare peek into any time soon lest he be confronted with memories. Even the good ones were bitter. He kicked around, caught the whiff of that strange iron tang in the air and went to open the window. He figured it couldn't hurt to air the space out a bit. Heaven knew how long it'd been since anyone had. He turned on his heel, heading to the door, when it very suddenly slammed shut, startling a yelp out of him. The loose doorknob fell from the door and rolled. It rolled a lot further than it seemed it should have, only stopping at the toe of Daniel's shoe. He stood, staring at it, trying to regulate his breathing again while his heart thudded in his chest, and then he nearly bent to pick it up before remembering in frustration that he'd risk a whole lot of suffering if he did. Instead, he kicked the doorknob, sending it flying across the room. He'd worry about it later.

  He kicked it's partner from the other side of the door into the space and went down the stairs to the second floor. He stopped to rest on the landing, his heart still beating a little too rapidly for his liking, clutching the post when he heard the door creaking above him. It wasn't a particularly windy day, but old houses caught drafts. Funny things could happen when air got sucked into a big old house like this. He laughed a little at how silly he was being. How he'd have to get used to the spooks again moving back into this house. Then he heard something drop. Something brassy and round. It rolled. It was rolling on the wooden floor above his head and it was loud. Even without his hearing aid, he could hear it as if it was being amplified. He could track it's progress overhead. Based on the shape of it, it should've stopped. It should've rolled itself around in a circle. And where did it drop from? He'd clearly heard that, hadn't he? Both knobs had been left on the floor. He distinctly remembered stopping himself from picking them up on account of his back.

  And that was when he realized, it wasn't rolling anymore. No. It was dragging. And then it stopped. His heartbeat was in his ears now and he jumped when he heard the first impact on the first step. The thing that he presumed to be the doorknob was now dropping down the steps one by one, thunking it's way down. He peered around the post he was clinging to and there it was, only...

  Only it wasn't the doorknob. It took him a moment to recognize what he was looking at, and when it reached the bottom step, he kicked his leg out to stop it with the side of his shoe. No, not the doorknob, it was-

  "The worst fucking paper-weight in the world..."

  He said it out loud without even realizing it. He bent to pick it up, back be damned, and turned it in his hands. A round steel ball only smashed slightly flatter in one spot no bigger than a half-dollar coin, not nearly enough to stop it from rolling off Daniel's desk at the slightest whisper of a breeze and sometimes, even, for seemingly no reason at all. It'd been a gift from The Mountain Democrat on the anniversary of his hiring and a great source of laughter for Daniel and Alice over the years. It was, indeed, the worst fucking paper-weight in the world and it'd rarely been referred to as anything else in all its employment.

  And here it was. And where had it come from? Surely, Alice boxed up the things Daniel hadn't taken with him. Surely, she wouldn't have kept that of all things laying around. Had it been on the sill of the window? Had he just not noticed? He turned it in his fingers. Must've been. It was warm to the touch, presumably from the heat of the sun. It must've been sitting in the window. Perhaps a breeze had kicked up or perhaps Daniel had set it to wobbling. He continued down the stairs, dropping the thing into the pocket of his pants, feeling it hit against his thigh as he took each step back down into the foyer. He swore he could feel it growing warmer as he went.

  Just after 2pm, Daniel was wrapping up lunch. He remembered balking at the idea of these food delivery apps taking over a few years back and he was embarrassed to admit that he was almost wholly reliant on them at this point. Not that he couldn't cook for himself, he could, it was just that... well, who had the time? And who had the patience to meal-plan? That was something he'd always done well with a partner. On his own, he was useless. And don't get him started on the tablet and phone manufactured ADHD him and all his boomer peers seemed to be suffering from. Hell, he had no room to trash-talk the younger generations. He dared to think that they might have a better grip on how to live in this advanced technological age. His generation was only scraping by on their hoarded wealth. Which, yeah, he harbored some guilt there, too. But he made generous donations, and often. Anonymous ones, too. It wasn't like he had anyone to pass this pile of coins down to.

  He dusted the crumbs from his hands over the paper his Firehouse sub had come wrapped in and crumpled it, going to the trash to drop it in just as a loud knock came on the door, causing him to jump. He was hoping for a little more time before he'd have to introduce himself to the welcome committee. After living in New York, he wasn't used to being overly friendly with his neighbors anymore. Not that he ever had been. But it'd been a nice break, not having to pretend.

  "Hello, Mr. Molloy?" the man on the other side of the door greeted him. He was Daniel's age and about a foot shorter. He wore thick tortoiseshell rimmed glasses and was dressed a little too academically to be a neighbor casually stopping by. Daniel supposed the other thing tipping him off to that was the clip board under his arm.

  "That's me."

  "Yes, hi. I'm Charles Basinghor. We spoke over the phone a week or so ago?"

  Daniel vaguely remembered. He was sharp as a tack, but in the midst of everything that had been going on, the circumstances, he'd been feeling a little scattered. "Yeah, of course. Come in."

  Daniel swung the door open wide and retreated into the foyer, the man following behind and closing it rather delicately after them.

  "I'm from the Society for the Protection of Historic Homes?"

  Ahh, right. "Yes, yes, of course. I remember."

  "I hope this isn't a bad time. I tried to phone ahead, but-"

  "Ah, shit, that's right." Daniel pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I had my phone on airplane mode earlier. These damned push notifications. They distract the hell out of me and I can't get anything done sometimes." He toggled airplane mode off before shoving the thing back in his pocket and offering an apologetic smile. "My bad."

  "Uh... yes. Well, I was hoping you had a little bit of time to go over some things. I've brought by some literature for you. I don't believe you were residing in the home when it was zoned into protection?"

  "No, I wasn't, in fact. But Alice told me a bit about it."

  "Right. Alice." Mr. Basinghor took on a grave sort of demeanor. "Terribly sorry to hear of her passing. She was a wonderful woman."

  "She was." Daniel didn't mean to sound suspicious, but he was suddenly curious how close a relationship he was going to be expected to keep with these house-humping weirdos. "I take it you knew her?"

  "Oh, quite well. As far as the property owners go, she was one of the warmest and friendliest. And the most acquiescing. She really loved this house."

  "That she did," Daniel agreed.

  "Is there somewhere we can sit down and go over-"

  Daniel cut him off. "Yeah, yeah. Hey, look, do you know a good electrician? Surely, you do. That could come look at the place? Check the wiring?"

  Mr. Basinghor looked a little taken aback. "Why, Mr. Molloy, we had Dick out here to inspect-"

  "That your electrician? Dick?"

  The man blinked and Daniel thought he saw a flash of annoyance behind those thick lenses. "Dick is our recommended handyman. He specializes in historic homes and he's knowledgeable and trained in-"

  "I really think I should have an actual electrician out." Jesus, Daniel thought, this might actually be worse than an HOA.

  "Has there been a problem?"

  "Yeah, actually, there has. The light in here was acting pretty suspect yesterday."

  A smug smile spread over Mr. Basinghor's face and he practically preened. "It's not only very costly for you, Mr. Molloy, but often times inspecting and rewiring a house as old as this can mean tearing into walls and doing small-scale demolition to parts of the house. It's a big leap to take. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the turn-dial styel controls. I can show you-"

  "Nah nah nah, that dial was there when I bought the house back in the nineties. Believe me. Something's up with it. I think the wattage is all fucked up or something."

  Mr. Basinghor pursed his lips at the profanity and gestured to the dial. "Alright, well, perhaps you can demonstrate."

  "You see, I can't, actually. Look." Daniel pointed his chin up to the chandelier and watched the man's magnified eyes follow.

  "Oh, dear..."

  "Yeah. Went to turn the light on yesterday and they just kept getting brighter and brighter and then POP!"

  "Perhaps you turned the dial too fast."

  "Nope. Turned it slow as molasses. Even let go. Wasn't even touching it when it kept going..."

  "Well, you're right, that is a concerning thing to hear. I'll have Dick back out as soon as he's able. I'll give you his card, of course. I have many things to go over with you. Lots of contacts for you."

  "Okay. Shall we have a seat, then?" Daniel nodded to the parlor.

  Daniel had to admit it was kind of nice having a stack of reliable numbers to call should anything go wrong with the house. He remembered the perils of becoming a homeowner, how out to blow in the wind it could feel, but the sour taste Charles Basinghor left in his mouth couldn't be ignored. Daniel had never liked having rules to follow. He liked the ones who enforced them even less. This Dick guy sounded like a real blessing, though, so there was that.

  Another concern Daniel brought up in their little meeting was about the strange smell. Again, Mr. Basinghor seemed struck. He didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Just a little dust. That sun-baked bookshop smell of antiquity. No, no, that's not what I'm talking about, Daniel had protested. It's like a blood smell. Like iron and tangy salt...

  And then the slimy bastard had condescended to suggest that Daniel make an appointment with his doctor. Still, Daniel took the "literature" with gratitude. He didn't slam the door behind the man, but he did lock it with lightning speed and then rest his forehead against the cool wood. His face was hot despite the chill in him. He looked around the first floor for his cardigan before remembering he'd taken it off in the attic when he went to close the window back up. He'd been hot and cold all day. Is this what hot flashes feel like? Probably not.

  He pushed open the knobless attic door with his toe and spotted his cardigan. That's right, he'd hung it over-

  No. Wait.

  Couldn't be...

  He'd hung it over the folded 12' step ladder that had been laying right there, on it's side. Right there by the wall, just a couple of rubbermaids in front of it. No. You're cracking up, Daniel. No way you just overlooked that.

  He went and took up the cardigan, throwing it on before kicking the rubbermaids aside and lifting the ladder from the floor. It was aluminum and lightweight, which was rather convenient. Daniel considered whether he'd be able to heft it down the two flights of stairs, and his pride won. He managed not to ding up the railing, carefully turning each corner, and when he got down to the floor of the foyer he'd begun to feel rather capable. He set the ladder up under the chandelier and retrieved a pair of needle-nose pliers from the toolkit under the kitchen sink before returning. He clamped the piers between his lips and began his climb.

  He used to change these light bulbs pretty regularly, but he'd admit his wooziness when it came to heights was a little stronger these days. As he ascended up the rungs, he could hear a high-pitched whine starting to ring in his right ear. He stopped about midway up and turned his hearing aid down before continuing, but the whine seemed to grow the higher he climbed. Frustrated, he took the thing out and popped it into his cardigan pocket before reaching the top. He tested the sturdiness of the ladder then, shuffling his weight from foot to foot. It felt stable, which put him at ease. He took the pliers from his mouth and reached up for the cap of the first of the six bulbs. He twisted it out easily enough and let it drop to the floor. The second bulb was stuck in a little bit, but with a good amount of torque, it too came loose. By the third bulb, however, his arm was feeling a little tired. Or, maybe tired was not the word. He was getting pins and needles in his shoulder and elbow. Not unusual for him. His right arm would act up now and then. Had ever since he'd gotten into a fight in 2004 and dislocated his shoulder. Raising his arm too high for too long could make him go a little numb. But he still had sensation in his fingers which was curious. The fourth bulb gave him pause. The pins and needles feeling was taking on more of a vibratory edge. He squinted at the tip of the pliers and loosened his grip just slightly. The metal began to clank against the cap of the bulb as if Daniel had a tremor. But Daniel was sure the tremor wasn't coming from him.

  Just as his top teeth met his bottom lip to form the word fuck, he felt a jolt shoot through him. Fast as a thunderbolt, POW, up his arm and punching him in the socket of his shoulder. Then it pushed him by the chest with the strength of a full-grown man. The ladder toddled back and Daniel instinctively grabbed tighter to it, letting go of the pliers and thrusting his right arm out in a panicked instant, trying to counterbalance his own weight as he felt sure the ladder would fall back completely and it'd be the end of him.

  But the ladder did not tip all the way back. Nor did it tip forward and right itself. Instead, it teetered on it's foot, the other raised a good five inches in the air. Daniel could feel gravity pulling him down. His cardigan was hanging off his back. He should be falling. Should have fallen. Either time had stopped or the laws of gravity had been suspended. Or, perhaps, this is how you experienced your own death. Perhaps time slowed down so imperceptibly slow so you could sit in the moment and really listen to God laughing at you.

  His lungs seized with the thought; Was this what it was like for Calliope and Kate? Did they stand at the side of Kate's car, frozen still like pieces of fruit suspended in jello, and watch for ages as that Hyundai Sonata careened towards them? Did they feel themselves, with full awareness and an eternity to consider it, being... compacted?

  His vision went gray, swirling with sepia kaleidoscope tiles, like tea-colored Tetris in a blender. No telling how long. A few seconds? A few minutes?

  And then he took a breath. And then there was a stillness that felt correct. Daniel could feel gravity pulling his weight down through his shoes, down against the rung of the ladder he was stood on and no longer tugging at his back. He slowly opened his eyes, looking down. There was the rug beneath him, recently vacuumed of glass yet still dusty and worn looking. Both feet of the ladder were firmly planted. He was safe.

  He was an idiot for not thinking to cut the breaker off before climbing up here, for that must have been the cause of the blow-back. A mild electric shock. Daniel was lucky his heart didn't explode, really. But he was safe. He gave himself a few seconds to level out his breathing, to steady his heart, and then he climbed down. He'd probably leave the last few caps to Dick.

Yeah. Probably should.

Chapter Text

  Daniel sized Dick up to be a vast improvement for company over Charles. They, too, were similarly aged. Daniel had written some opinion pieces on the lack of young blood going into the trade industry and Dick was, perhaps, the most shining example of this fact Daniel had ever had the pleasure of meeting. When Daniel asked him why he wasn't retired, he shot back with "and just who would take over for me? My son decided to work in IT."

  Like Daniel, Dick had a lot of opinions. He had a loud mouth from which to voice them, too. Another thing they had in common; Dick was a widow. Though Daniel attempted to downplay his own status. "She wasn't my wife when she went." Dick assured him that he was still an honorary member of the club. They got misty eyed together over beers on the front porch after that. The two rocking chairs Alice had borrowed a neighbor's truck to haul home from an estate sale so many years prior still rocked, it turned out. For a moment, Daniel let himself think about how it should have been. Alice beside him, settling into older bones, watching the girls come up the driveway to visit. That had been the whole idea, right?

  But Dick's company was a balm. Daniel knew he liked the guy the instant that mouth opened wide and the man nearly howled in laughter over Daniel's misguided attempt to remove the shattered bulbs from their sockets.

  "Betcha you learned a damn important lesson that day, my friend," he'd said, winded and propping himself up on his knee after splitting his side laughing.

  "To turn off the box before sticking pliers into sockets? Yeah, at my big age, I suppose I did."

  "Not that, old man. I was talking about climbing up a ladder twice as tall as you are without someone to spot ya at your big age. Save those antics for when your mind starts to go. I was gonna cut you some slack on account of all that silver hair, but after talkin' with ya, I can see you're sharper'n shit. Don't ever let a momentary lapse in judgment cost you your whole ass. And you can have that quote for free."

  Daniel appreciated the sage advice. Still, he tried to compensate the man for the extra daylight they'd burned shooting the shit on the porch. Naturally, Dick waved him off.

  "Don't insult me with your big-shot New York somebody grease. If I didn't like ya, I wouldn't have stayed more'n thirty minutes. I accept gifts in the way of home-cooked meals and cookies 'round the holidays. Loretta being gone means no one to make me sweets. I sure do miss that."

  "Well, lucky for you, if there's one thing I'm not a complete bumbling fool at, it's baking," Daniel said with a grin.

  After Dick pulled away in his blue Chevy (another thing about the man Daniel had great respect for was that his truck wasn't oversized and new, it was hard-working and had the wear and tear to prove it), Daniel went around the first floor opening windows to circulate some fresh autumn air into the house. That iron smell was taking over again and Daniel was about sick of it. Dick hadn't smelled it either and it felt like a defeat for Daniel to even consider calling a doctor about it. He needed to have his files tansferred over from his doctor in New York, still. He'd bring it up when he made his initial appointment at whatever new office he landed at. If it was still a problem by that point. Hell, maybe Daniel's mind was going, after all. He put the kettle on, picked some herbal tea from his stash and set about slicing up a lemon. When the kettle whistled he set the tea to steeping in an old chipped mug from the cupboard. He'd had to rinse some dust out of it and wipe off a tiny cobweb suspended in the handle, but it'd been the least dusty of the lot. He placed a thin disc of lemon to float on top of the tea and stood against the counter, watching dumb videos on his phone until his timer went off. He shoved his phone into the pocket of his cardigan and lifted the mug to blow across the surface before giving it a taste.

  He paused.

  Along the edge, just where he'd been about to place his own lips, was the ghostly trace of a peach-colored substance. Just the shape of Alice's lower lip. It was waxy and thin, threaded through with lines denoting the living, breathing action of Alice pursing her lips to blow away steam just before touching them to the glazed surface of the mug.

  Daniel set the mug back down on the counter, slowly. He took a step back and stared at it, the steam twisting up into the air. He blinked and thought he saw the shape of something. The steam danced over the hot liquid and he took his glasses off, wiped them on his shirt, and blinked again after replacing them.

  Fingertips? He thought he saw fingertips made of the steam, itself, ghosting over the mug and then disappearing. He stayed still, watching to see if the hallucination would return and when it didn't, he let out a long sigh and went back to the cabinet. He took out a bottle of whiskey and he generously poured some over the lemon floating on top of the tea. A hot toddy sounded good with the chill in the air, anyway, he thought. When he lifted the mug again, he turned it so that the lipstick trace faced out. It was unnatural to hold the mug like that and as Daniel raised it to his lips once more, the smell inviting him to drink already, he huffed and set it back on the counter. He went back to his stash, got another bag, rinsed another mug, and poured another cup. He placed a new disc of lemon over the surface and poured another shot of whiskey on top. Instead of watching videos on his phone, he took the mug into the parlor immediately and sat himself down on the couch.

  He still hadn't managed to get the TV up and running. A major downside to the invention of the smart TV was that Daniel often found himself outsmarted by them. He had a book, though, and the sound of dry crispy leaves skittering across the porch. He pulled an afghan over his legs after kicking his shoes under the coffee table and got settled with book and hot toddy. He managed to get through a good ten pages and put a respectable dent in his tea when a breeze picked up. He hadn't been paying attention to the setting sun and the rapidly dropping temperature. Just as he thought to get up and shut the windows, he heard a loud slamming surrounding him from all sides.

  He clutched at his chest -a habit, now, at his age- and waited for his pulse to still enough to stand up. He saw that the window to his right was closed.

  "Okay..."

  It must've fallen shut and the sound had bounced around the walls. Though, the house wasn't empty and had never really had a problem with echoes in Daniel's recollection. There were too many soft surfaces and creature comforts for that. But then, Daniel was no physicist. He carried his mug with him to the kitchen, the afghan slung around his shoulders. He felt very Dickensian. A man shambling in the dark with a single candle on a stick to light his way. The air really had grown cold. His tea wasn't much warmer than body temperature at this point, and yet the steam was pluming off of it and causing Daniel's glasses to fog.

  The kitchen window was also shut. Odd. He went through the dining room, into the small sun room that lead out to the backyard. Every single window he'd opened earlier was closed, now. Furthermore, they were latched. Had the living room and kitchen windows been latched also? He thought maybe they had.

  "Well, I guess it's time to phone up a doctor after all and have myself committed," he mumbled as he moved back through the house to his spot on the couch. He pulled the chain to the lamp to give himself some light to read by in the growing dark and settled back into his spot on the couch. "Two logical explanations here. Either you're losing your fucking mind, or your goddamned house is haunted."

  The lamp beside him flickered then. He turned to look at it, staring it down and daring it to explode on him, but it was steady and Daniel was a rational man. At least, he liked to think so. So he tapped at the shade a few times and when he got nothing in response, he picked his book back up from the coffee table and cracked it back open over his lap. He reached to adjust his glasses as he peered down to read, but after no more than a paragraph, he was interrupted by a high humming whine. 

  He sat stark still and listened with his left ear, his good ear, and that was when he remembered he'd taken out his hearing aid before sitting down to dinner earlier and tossed it in his pocket. He thought he'd turned it off, though. But then, his phone was bouncing around in that pocket as well. He dug the aid out and turned it over in his fingers, inspecting it. He lowered the volume on it and popped it back into his ear, hoping a little distance from his phone would fix the humming. He wiggled the device in place until it was comfortable and slowly raised the volume. A slight crackle tickled his canal at first. He continued to raise the volume and the usual white noise that would fade into nothing as he got used to it started to come in. Then there was a hissing, like tongue and teeth against his ear. He shivered as the Ssssss gradually softer when he lowered the volume again. He gave it a second and then turned it back up.

  "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSDANIEL MOLLOY"

  Daniel ripped the thing off his head and threw it hard against the fireplace where it broke apart into two halves.

  "Goddammit!" he shouted, unsure if he was more upset about the hearing aid or the possibility of losing his mind. Or the other thing. The thing that was impossible, so why waste the brain cells even pondering it.

  He closed his book yet again, writing it off as a lost cause, and shuffled his phone out of his pocket, holding it up to his face in an attempt to get the screen to unlock. The facial recognition feature didn't always work. Especially in the evenings when Daniel was tired. It was actually pretty insulting. He'd begrudgingly put in his pin if he had to. His lock-screen vibrated once, twice, and then prompted him for his pin. He knuckled it in, tapping hard against the phone's face, and just when it looked like it was going to let him in, the screen went black and for a split second, Daniel thought he saw a face looming over his shoulder with dark skin, big brown eyes, and silky black curls in a halo about it's head.

  He opened his mouth to say her name, but he screamed instead.

  Dick returned the next day with the proper equipment to test the wiring. Daniel elected not to mention the whole hearing his own name in his hearing aid or imagining his dead wife's face looming over his shoulder thing. Seemed like they weren't quite there yet in their relationship. Or, to put it more simply, Daniel didn't want to scare the one friend he'd managed to make in town off.

  It turned out there was nothing wrong with the wiring or the voltage and the light bulb in the lamp that had been acting up the previous night had just been loose. A few extra turns in the socket and that mystery was solved. Daniel didn't want to insult Dick by suggesting he'd seek a second opinion about the voltage, so instead they shared another couple of beers before Dick was off again.

  Daniel felt like an idiot. Worse, he felt like he might truly be too feeble to live alone in such a big house. Then again, maybe that was the point of moving back. Maybe he was self-flagellating. Maybe he'd write another book.

  He stopped in front of the fridge and lifted the dry erase marker from it's little clip-board to write beer. That was a good start to a grocery list. He really needed to start cooking and stop ordering in. He needed to delete the damn delivery apps off his phone. It had saved him from having to do dishes, though, which had been rather nice. He figured he should wash up the meager few he'd been letting pile up. He replaced the marker and then moved to the sink, grabbing the mug on the counter along the way. The mug that had... The mug that-

  "What the hell..."

  The mug was empty save for the circular lemon rind ringing the bottom of the mug. There was no way in hell Daniel had a second hot toddy and didn't remember. And there was no way he'd have eaten the flesh out of the disc of hot wet lemon, whiskey-soaked or not. He tried to remember if he'd left Dick alone in the kitchen at any point, and he was certain he hadn't.

  "Jesus Christ, I'm cracking up..." He could hear it in his own voice. He was scared. Actually scared. "Please just be a fucking ghost, man. That I can fucking handle." He swung over to the sink and set the mug in the basin before remembering the lipstick mark. His stomach knotted up. "Fuck me." He lifted it back out of the sink, upending it to dump the rind out, and set it back on the counter, empty but unwashed.

  He made quick work of the rest of the dishes in the sink and went upstairs. He knew exactly the thing to calm his nerves now that a little tea and whiskey was out of the question.

  His bookshelves were not yet unpacked, but the books were all in boxes lined up at the foot of the bed and the first opportunity Daniel'd had, he opened up the one marked non-fiction and pulled out the false book he kept as a stash box, leaving it out on his dresser for easy access. He didn't have a lot left, but he enough for a joint. It'd been a while. He didn't smoke often these days because he couldn't help his honesty at the doctor's office, and Doctor Samuel always got on his case about a rattle in his lungs when he did. But he didn't have a doctor here, yet. He didn't have anyone but himself to tell him what he should or shouldn't be doing. And that was exactly the reason he was going to have this joint in the bath and he was going to make sure the water was so hot it'd give him hypotension. Another thing Dr. Samuel got on his case about. "One of these days, Molloy, you're gonna have an accident getting out of the tub." Yeah, well it hadn't happened so far and Daniel had been a staunch bath man his whole life with no desire to stop, least of all when his advanced age had brought him such delights as chronic back pain. And that was setting aside the fall he'd taken the other day and the number that had done.

  He set his glasses and his lighter on the edge of the tub, sunk himself down into the too-hot water, and retrieved the joint from behind his ear before lighting it. Already, the mirror was fogged, the room was a sauna, and Daniel could feel the muscles in his shoulders start to relax. He leaned back against the tub, lowered himself further with his knees bending up at the sides, and took a long, deep pull. He blew the smoke out and watched it bend around the shape of something perched on the edge of the tub. He was still enough, quiet enough that he could hear his heart thudding in his head. He took another drag and blew out more smoke and again, it bent around something that wasn't there.

  Daniel laughed. I mean, it's funny, he thought. You move back into a house that you always joked about being haunted, and now you've either got Schrodinger's dementia, or it really is just fucking haunted.

  Another puff, another exhale, and Daniel could swear he saw the shape of a shoulder and a neck. He squinted, sitting up a little. He reached out and swiped his arm through the smoke hanging in the steam. Nothing there. He took one last hit off the joint before stubbing it out in the soap dish. He was a rational man. He didn't believe in ghosts. But there was no point in getting too high to remember how rational he was. Shockingly, he was able to relax pretty immediately. He slid down the back of the tub until the water hit his chin. "You could fall asleep and drown." More words from Doctor Samuel. Words from Alice, too. One of her rules; no baths when she wasn't home to check on him in case they ran overtime. Maybe the only thing Daniel celebrated being done with after the divorce.

  "Daniel..."

  "M'fine..."

  "Daniel, you're falling asleep."

  Daniel remembered the bathtub in his and Alice's first apartment together. It was too shallow and too short. Alice had doubled over laughing the first time she saw him in it. She kept laughing even as he pulled her down by her arm until she was on her knees, jeans soaking with the water that splashed over the edge. She laughed until there were tears in her eyes and Daniel was laughing too. And then they'd kissed, still erupting in bursts into each other's mouths until they were kissing in complete earnest. Until Daniel was clutching her jaw in his hand and she was pressing in, shambling over the edge of the tub with her clothes still on and landing between his legs, displacing nearly a fourth of the water from the tub and flooding the bathroom floor. 'Shit,' she'd giggled. 'I should-'

  'Stay,' Daniel had said, gripping her around the wrist and holding her in place. He kissed her again, only breaking to pull her sweatshirt over her head, careful of her gold hoop earrings. He unfastened her bra behind her back with a quick pinch of his thumb and forefinger and as she rose up onto her knees, they worked together to unbutton and unzip her jeans, peeling her out of them in a way that must have been hilarious to see, but of course, the laughing had come to a dead stop and now they were desperate for their skin to touch. The light over the vanity buzzed and Daniel remembered that it had always done that. He didn't let it distract him, though, as the wet thud of Alice's jeans hit the tile outside the tub and finally, they were pressed together, wet skin on wet skin and soon, Daniel was sliding home and-

  Now, hang on. No, it hadn't been the first apartment that'd had the hum. That's right. It'd been the second one. The walk-up over the spiritual store on 52nd. But never mind that. Never mind the way it seemed to be getting louder, it didn't matter. Not with Alice young again and alive and hot in his arms, not with the water splashing out the side of the tub around them, the desperate I love you's and the...

  The incessant humming reached a fever-pitch.

  "DANIEL!"

  Daniel shot up in the tub, water splashing over the edge. The light in the room had grown so bright that he was seeing spots once his eyes were open. He blinked them away, stepping out of the tub as carefully as he could, somehow managing not to slip in the water he'd splashed onto the floor. He reached for the light switch and flicked it off, drenching the room in darkness. He waited a second before turning it back on. The room filled with light once more, but it was not the bright and blinding light of moments ago. Daniel was just about to resign himself to calling in a second opinion about the wiring after all when he saw, standing in the center of the room, a figure. It was only for a half a second. Just long enough to be sure he'd seen someone tall and slender, staring back at him and looking more afraid, perhaps, than he was. And then it was gone. Or it'd... evaporated, might be a better way to put it. The shape there, but suspended in the air like smoke or steam and then dissipating into the air. And the crazy thing... the real batshit padded room thing... was that it'd looked so very much like Alice. But also not like her in the slightest. Daniel didn't scream. His knees didn't buckle. He felt it building in him, but he was so sluggish from the hot water of the bath, the unexpected sex dream, the weed, and...

  "Fuck..." He looked down and saw that he'd been fully hard through this entire ordeal. Not that he never got it up, but it wasn't exactly often that he managed anymore and certainly not to such a degree. And there was, maybe, a ghost in his bathroom who looked somewhat like his dead ex wife and somewhat not. And who, if it wasn't a total figment of his imagination, had definitely just seen him naked with a raging hard-on. He wanted to laugh again. He wanted to throw his head back and howl until they locked him up in a padded room for real. But when he reached down to hide his shame from... -well, from whatever he'd just seen standing in his bathroom... he noticed something strange. On his forearm, right on the top of it, there was a circle of pinprick holes about the size of a mouth. Blood was still trickling out of them, mixed with the bathwater and turning a runny pink, dripping from the tips of his fingers.

  "Well, shit."

Chapter Text

  Alright, you fucking kook. You fucking jumpy old man.

  Daniel stood back from the library table with his hands on his hips. He had the mug with Alice's lipstick and the worst fucking paper-weight in the world sitting in the center of it alongside two plastic bags with some clippings from the girls' first haircuts. He had no idea what he was doing.

  You used to get so blitzed out of your head the walls melted and you can't smoke a joint in the bath? He continued to berate himself in his head. He was alone and if there wasn't going to be anyone else present to do it, why not him? When he was still working for the paper, he did a story on a local medium who'd been reaching out the the families of missing children. His opinion had been that she was a predatory hack. A siphon of grief and pain and it was a sick and lecherous practice she was in. He'd torn her to shreds in the paper. Then, Daniel supposed through sheer luck, she'd turned up the missing red huffy bike of a little boy whose parents had been beyond delusional and desperate, shelling out thousands of their own dollars to send teams of divers and dogs out to prowl around and drag the bottom of Big Bear Lake.  There were dozens of angry letters to the editor afterwards and he'd been forced to apologize in print. It had been humiliating. And all because some diminutive old lady with too much blue mascara had won the proverbial guessing game.

  And here Daniel was, about to do the funniest thing his younger self could have imagined. He sat down in front of the objects, flipped open his stenography notebook and plucked his pen from his breast pocket. Then he reached for the hearing aid in his right ear, an old one he'd kept on hand in case emergencies such as hearing the voices of dead people and tossing the damned thing across the room, and turned the volume up.

  There was a crackle of static to start, the mild white noise fuzz, and then nothing. He clicked the pen and poised it over the paper, staring hard at the mug.

  "Come on," he whispered. He closed his eyes and opened them, narrowing them on the mug.

  The figure he'd seen -if he'd seen anything at all, the jury was still out- had been slumped as though it were trying to appear small and non-threatening. It wasn't that the frame was nothing like Alice's, it was that she'd never presented herself in such a way. Alice had been an average height of 5'7". Not tall, but not terribly short. She carried herself, however, like she was 6' and some change. She puffed her chest out more than Daniel ever did, and that was saying something. She'd never shrink away like that. Least of all on Daniel's account. And there had been something masculine about the frame. Daniel wished he'd seen it for just a little longer. But then, he was grateful he hadn't.

  Maybe I gotta wait for sundown or something, he thought. He didn't know much about the occult and it'd been a mixed bag whether his experiences in the house occurred during daylight or not, but maybe he was catching this haunt outside of office hours. He clicked the hearing aid off again and then back on. He raised the volume slower this time, listening for that faint hiss in the static to come. He was so focused on it that he yelped when his phone began to ring in his pocket.

  "Hello," he said, feeling a bit embarrassed as if the person on the other end would have any idea what he was up to.

  "Mr. Molloy?"

  "Ahh, thought I recognized the number." He hadn't saved Charles' number in his phone, yet. He'd been meaning to.

  "Yes, Charles Basinghor from the association. I was just wondering if you were home. I'm in the neighborhood and wanted to touch base with you and make sure that Dick was addressing your concerns about the wiring."

  "Uh... Yeah. I mean, he came by."

  "And?"

  "And he didn't find anything wrong with the wiring."

  "Oh, good..."

  Smug, self-satisfied little- "Was that all?"

  "No, actually, there are a few things I'd like to go over with you about quarterly dues."

  "And we need to do that in person?"

  "Well, like I said, I'm in the neighborhood."

  "What do you want, a check?"

  "They're due on the first of every-"

  "Just tell me who to make it out to."

  An irritated silence, and then "I just didn't want it to sneak up on you, but if you're prepared to write a check early, of course that won't be a problem, either."

  Daniel couldn't imagine any world in which it would be a problem. He dated the check for the first, had it made out before Charles pulled up, and managed to block the door with his own frame well enough to keep the little bastard from squeezing in. Owning an historic home was not an invitation to have nosy dust-mongers invade it's interiors on a regular basis. Dust-monger being a term Dick introduced him to. Said he could have it "for free," so Daniel took it.

  When Daniel returned to the library, the daylight had taken on an autumnal late-afternoon hue of gold. He sat back down at the table and clicked the hearing aid back on.

  "Alright, I'm back," he said, feeling foolish. The hiss in the hearing aid was present. He raised the volume and concentrated. "I'm here..."

  He closed his eyes, let the low-setting sunshine warm over his eyelids. Everything was liquid and gold and he felt oddly relaxed. The hiss in his ear was almost soothing. A constant and steady noise to blot out his surroundings. He hopped on that current and let it carry him away. The Daniel inside blinked his eyes open and found himself on a train, the seat in front of him empty, the table before him holding a vase with a single white rose. The landscape speeding past out the window was blanketed with snow and then Alice's hips were swinging back around the table and she lowered herself into the seat across from him, setting a ceramic dish on the table between them. She was pregnant. Enough to show. That's right, Daniel remembered. She'd insisted on getting up, herself, to go to the dessert cart. Daniel hadn't been all that hungry. Motion sickness. She laughed at him. "It's like you're the pregnant one, sometimes," she'd said. Still, she brought two spoons and insisted he give the crème brûlée between them the first crack. Even if he wouldn't eat any of it, she knew that was his favorite. He remembered the sheen of her skin in the wintery snow-light. He remembered the cream turtleneck sweater she wore, her jeans unbuttoned under the swell of her belly. Sexy. Daniel thought she was so sexy when she was pregnant. He remembered worrying that that wasn't normal. He'd gone to the library and looked at books. He scooted a blackberry out of the way of his spoon and gave the caramelized sugar a good wack with the back of his spoon. When he raised his eyes, Alice was... changed.

  Alice was not Alice.

  "Forgive me," the thing that looked like Alice and not like Alice said with eyebrows drawn up. The spoon it held was no longer a spoon, but a fork with long sharp tines and in an instant it was raised up and then brought down, stabbing into Daniel's forearm.

  Daniel's eyes snapped open, his arm pulled in against himself. He looked down where his sleeve had been unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbow. Had he done that? He was bleeding.

  "What the f-"

  "Don't be afraid," the gentle voice he'd heard before sounded through the hiss in his ear.

  Daniel looked up. Across the table from him sat a creature that looked too human and too familiar. Like Alice and not like Alice. Same complexion, same curly black hair, a clean white button-down shirt open low like Daniel used to go crazy for, but the eyes...

  "W-who are you?" Daniel asked. The soothing sway the sun and the white noise and... and something else? Something intravenous... He felt like he was under a spell. In another warm bath. He should be shooting out of his seat, running for the hills, but instead he sat in place. Scared, yes, but calm. Like he'd taken a large dose of Vicodin and a bar of Xanax.

  "A friend," the creature said. It's mouth moved around the words Daniel heard in his right ear. "I've taken just enough blood from you to sustain this much. You'll have to keep that piece in your ear for the time being. I'm too weak, still, to talk to you otherwise."

  Daniel couldn't find the words, but the creature seemed to anticipate that. It seemed to know what Daniel was thinking.

  "Yes, the activity in your house... I am to blame. I apologize. But you've been careless, Daniel."

  "H-how do you know my name?"

  "I know all about you. I was quite close with your late ex-wife, Alice. Quite close."

  "Have you always been here?" Daniel hadn't expected himself to ask such a question. The journalist in him was overriding his script. And still, he was so calm. Such an alarming observation and yet his heart continued to beat at an even pace.

  "No. I haven't been here long at all, though your perception of time is much different from my own. I was not here when you acquired the house. That's what you meant."

  "Can you read my thoughts?"

  The creature smiled. It was beguiling. All the things Daniel found attractive, but so like Alice that it was unsettling. Off-putting, even. "I can read your loudest thoughts. When I take your blood, I can see all of them."

  "You bit me?"

  "Yes. And in the bath last night, I bit you as well."

  "I was starting to think I hallucinated that. The marks were healed up this morning."

  "I healed them after you were in bed."

  Daniel blinked.

  "Yes, I was in your bedroom. I..." the creature's intense eye contact faltered momentarily. "-I gave you your privacy, of course. I waited until you were asleep."

  Honestly, did it matter if this ghost-creature-entity-whatever had seen him jerking off before falling asleep? It would've gotten an eyeful in the bathroom, already. Still, Daniel's face felt hot. His stomach knotted up with shame.

  "Why am I not screaming? Why don't I feel scared?"

  "You are scared, Daniel Molloy." It smiled again. "You're just brave. And you couldn't run screaming even if you wanted to. I've closed off those synapses. Your circuitry is under my control. I can't risk you flying down the hall and taking a tumble down the stairs."

  "What are you...?"

  "Of the words that have passed through your mind; ghost, creature, entity, whatever... I suppose entity is best fitting. To be transparent with you," the corner of it's mouth pulled into a half-smile. "-I maybe be any of these things. Spirit is the word your late ex-wife chose. If I was flesh and blood once, I have no memory of it. If there are such things as ghosts, I cannot be sure. I've seen others like myself in passing. In the stratosphere, on the currents of wind. They're never too friendly. I get the feeling that I am quite alone in my preference to make myself known. That I am, perhaps, looked down upon for it."

  "You're not like the other ghouls," Daniel quipped.

  It laughed softly, the sound of it tickling in the cilia of Daniel's ear. "I suppose I'm not."

  "Why do you look like her?"

  "Like Alice?" It shrugged. "You loved her."

  "Okay? And is this supposed to be punishment for something? Are you here to torment me for fucking up my marriage? For outliving my kids?"

  The thing looked pained. "No. No, Daniel, this isn't punishment. Does this visage torment you?"

  "A little bit, yeah. I mean-"

  The thing vibrated in the air. Fuzzed out, sort of. Like a bad connection on an old TV. And then it looked... it looked like Daniel. Younger, maybe. A bit more androgynous than Daniel ever remembered himself looking. But there was no mistaking it. It was him. The eyes still glowed their unnatural orange, but otherwise...

  "No, change it back," Daniel said, closing his eyes to it. When he opened them again, the thing had switched back.

  "I've had enough of Alice's blood and I existed alongside her long enough that it's easy for me to arrange this shape."

  "So how come you don't look like a woman?"

  Another smile, a mischievous one that made Daniel's veins contract. "You have your preferences, Daniel."

  "You lived with Alice? You made yourself known to her... Was she afraid of you?"

  "At first. She was convinced she was losing her mind. And in the end, she had begun to lose her faculties. But I could bring her comfort, and I did. Right up until the end."

  "Did you look like this?"

  "What do you think?"

  Daniel thought. "I think you looked like... Michael Hutchence."

  "She was fond of him, but no."

  "You cosplayed as me to my own dying ex wife..." Daniel said it dryly and without amusement. It was a horrific thought. He was, underneath the pleasant buzzing, horrified.

  "She was always attracted to you, Daniel. And she loved you."

  "She fucking hated me."

  "She was angry. Devastated. You broke her heart."

  "She had every right to hate me-"

  "It was not hatred. If she hated you, I would have lifted up my roots and unmoored myself from this house upon her death. I know you, Daniel. I came to know you through her. I had to stay. I had to meet the fascinating boy. I had to have a taste of you."

  Jesus. "So, what? You're the monster at the end of my book? You're gonna fucking eat me?"

  "Eat you, Daniel?" It laughed again, louder, clearer. Daniel could hardly hear the static any longer. "No, that would be quite counter-productive. I want to prolong you. I'll be your keeper for the rest of your days. Of course, if you want to interact with me like this... If you want to be able to see me or even to touch me, I'll need to take your blood from time to time. You'll pick up iron supplements from the drugstore to help with that. Objects do help." The orange eyes flitted down to the table where the worst fucking paper-weight in the world tipped off it's inadequate base and began to roll towards Daniel. It stopped just short of the edge, causing Daniel to jump slightly in fear that it might land in his groin. Their eyes met again across the table and the spirit gestured to him. "Go ahead. Pick it up."

  "It's not gonna shock me, is it?" Daniel asked, suspiciously.

  "No."

  Daniel squinted, but he did as requested, lifting the paper-weight from the edge of the table and holding it in his hand.

  "And by the way," it continued, "it was your own carelessness that caused your electrical shock on the ladder. I'll admit that the burst bulbs were my fault. I was excited to see you, at last. I'd been waiting for you. You mustn't be angry with me for that. I may not have a corporeal form in the way that you do, but I feel quite intensely and sometimes those emotions can be so big that I am no longer able to house them."

  Daniel turned the steel ball in his fingers and regarded the spirit with caution. "No harm, no foul. What's your name?"

  "Armand," it said. He said. Daniel was trying to make it a habit to ask for pronouns when he wasn't sure, but he supposed the spirit world probably wasn't nearly as fussed about the concepts of gender. "Pleased to finally make your acquaintance. Officially, that is." His smile gleamed and he raised his hands over the table, cupping them as if to hold water. The paper-weight pulled from Daniel's fingers, lifting into the air of it's own accord and floated over the table, landing gently in Armand's hands. "Metals and baser elements are easier for me to manipulate. The iron in your blood is a source of energy. The wiring of your home, objects made of metals, static in the air... the proximity of these things helps me to move around. Helps me to stay grounded in your realm. I'm... envious of your form. The flesh that houses the spirit..."

  Daniel couldn't help noticing the way Armand's eyes roved over him as he spoke. It was creepy. Made him want to cover himself. "Did you disappear what was in that mug? Eat out that disc of lemon?"

  "I did. I like the taste of food. I like liquor. It doesn't do for me what it does for you unless I take it from your blood indirectly, but still..."

  "So you don't have a body, but you can eat and drink."

  "I can mix the atoms with my own, fill the space between them until they no longer constitute the thing they once made up. I can do this with any organic matter, but I don't like to behave so destructively. I love your mortal realm, Daniel. I never intend to bring it harm. Sometimes, however... I seek to indulge."

  Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it. He considered that it probably didn't matter if he humiliated himself, here, seeing as how none of this could possibly actually be happening and if it were, Armand could probably read his thoughts anyway.

  "Go ahead, Daniel." Armand placed the paper-weight back into it's spot on the table and leaned forward on his elbows, cupping his chin in his hands. "Ask what you want to ask."

  "Did you..." Daniel drew a deep breath. "Did you fuck my ex-wife?"

  The uproar of laughter in Daniel's ear knocked him off balance. He reached up to the volume, dialing it back just a touch and wincing.

  "I'm sorry," Armand said. Christ, he seemed human then. The fire in his orange eyes was just about the only tell Daniel had that he wasn't flesh and blood in the room with him. "I don't mean to laugh..."

  "So then don't." Daniel wasn't laughing. "Answer the question."

  The thing's mouth opened. Closed. Worked around in a circle carefully as though he were using caution while picking his words. "I was... intimate with Alice. Yes. Not in the way that you would think. And..." he grimaced, then, "please, I beg you, stop thinking it..."

  Daniel hadn't realized that he was. Oh, that was an interesting angle, though. The boogeyman had some weak-spots, too. Daniel took note.

  "Great. So my dead ex-wife fucked monsters..."

  "You have a presence in the publishing world. You have the TikTok app on your phone. Surely, you're not totally unaware of the concept."

  "I'm a 71 year old man. I'm not as hip as you might think." It was true, though. Daniel was more familiar with the concept than he'd like to be. "So... great. I'm living some 30 year old housewife's wet-dream. Or I'm the one dreaming, which sounds much more likely..."

  "You turn your inner monologues inside-out like an empty pocket. It's charming." Armand cocked his head, amused.

  Fuck, Daniel thought inside his head, obstinately making the choice to prove that wrong though he knew the thing had him pegged. It's fucking flirting with me.

Chapter Text

  Daniel was not the type of guy to accept the extraordinary without a mountain of hard evidence. A mountain. What he'd had sitting in front of him that afternoon had seemed like quite a hill of it a least. But as the the sun sunk below the horizon and the thing, the entity Armand, weakened and flickered, Daniel lost his conviction. The smooth voice crackled, faded, became harder and harder to distinguish from the static, and the vision of it- lovely to look at as it was, grew flimsy and thin. Like plies of it had been peeled away, leaving nothing but the sheer membrane. They tried to keep up their communication, but when the room grew dark at last and Armand's visage was so transparent and faint Daniel had to squint, he gave up and switched the hearing aid off.

  He added an extra shot of whiskey to his tea and made a second mug, leaving it steaming on the counter. He went upstairs and read by lamplight in bed, waiting for the quippy musings of a contemporary's memoir to push out all the demonic stuffing taking up space in his head. What he needed was sleep. He placed his bookmark once his eyelids began feeling heavy and just as he went to reach for the bedside lamp, it flickered and then went out.

  "Goodnight, I guess," he said, sliding down and throwing the comforter all the way over his head. He had to hold onto some mystery, he thought, and he'd be damned if he was going to knowingly allow this Armand thing to watch him while he was out.

  He slept easy, dreaming about Alice, the girls, and the house. He dreamed like a snapshot photo album running all the highlights. Not unusual to dream about his life before, his ex-wife and his daughters when they were alive, but typically these dreams would turn sour on him. He'd wake in a cold sweat, chest feeling tight, lungs full of needles. The sour turn never came, though. When he woke, it was to his alarm.

  He had a zoom meeting scheduled with his agent, editor, and rights team to discuss some potential translations and audio book recordings. Also, Daniel suspected, to beat him about the brow for not having anything currently coming down the pipe. He'd been dreading it for days. Never mind the paranormal activity sequel he was currently living through, the publishing world was pants-shittingly scarier in his opinion. He hoped he seemed normal. He certainly caught himself spacing out. Ronnie's bulging eyes and "pay attention or at the very least look like it" expression had jarred him back to the present. Overall, it could've been an email and Daniel was half-starved by the time it was over. He slid his phone out of his pocket and swiped up on the screen. He had a notification from Amazon that his new hearing aid was out for delivery. He was actually pretty excited about that despite being forced to debase himself at the feet of Jeff Bezos for a lower price and faster shipping. But this was a newer model than the one he'd broken and it boasted some pretty stellar testimonials. Hopefully they weren't all from bot accounts. 

  And so what if some of his excitement could be attributed to the absolutely insane thing he experienced yesterday that he wasn't allowing himself to think about too seriously lest his psyche fracture into pieces... So what?

  He closed out of the Amazon app and opened Doordash. Just before his thumb could tap on the icon that said "deals," a cursor began to blink in the search bar.

  "Good morning" appeared in text there and Daniel held his breath. The text highlighted itself, disappeared, and then "Sorry to alarm you. It's Armand. I'll release your phone back to you shortly."

  Daniel had to follow the text with his eyes quickly as it filled the small space, highlighted, and vanished again. The app closed suddenly and Daniel's notes app opened, embarrassingly, to the last note he'd taken down which was a remembered dream from a month before. Bedsores and morphine drips and a talking cat that saw you to the other side of the veil while sitting on your chest and purring. Really humiliating stuff. Thankfully the note closed out and a blank one replaced it.

  "Again, apologies for commandeering your device." The text continued. "I wanted to remind you about the iron supplements. Ferrous sulfate is what you'll look for. Alice took the ones with the yellow label."

  Daniel laughed. If this was his subconscious or the early signs of cognitive decline, he could've done a lot worse. Did the imaginary friends of any other senior citizen give them helpful reminders about grocery items? Daniel didn't think so. He poised his finger to tap out his response but the text continued.

  "No need. You can speak aloud to me. I'm listening."

  Convenient, Daniel thought, but a little embarrassing to be talking out loud to no one. "Uh, yeah. I'll, uh... add them to my cart."

  "I'd have done it myself, but I didn't want to make purchases on your account without your permission."

  "You took my blood without my permission."

  "I was justified in that. I kept you safe."

  "So, what, you need more blood to make it to where I can see you again?"

  "And hear me. And touch me."

  Daniel decided to leave alone the tone he read in the word "touch." He'd examine (and cross-examine) that later.

  "Hear you with the hearing aid, you mean?"

  "With enough of your blood, you would be able to hear me without it, even. But it is useful. Like battery saving mode on an electronic device."

  Daniel shook his head. "You sound like ChatGPT, you know that?"

  There was a pause and then suddenly the window closed out and Daniel's browser was brought up instead. He had a brief moment of panic, trying to remember the last page he'd visited as it loaded. He breathed a sigh of relief when it was only an article he'd clicked on and read half of before abandoning it with a huff. Too much bias. A new tab was opened and C h a t G P T was typed into the search bar, returning a list of links as well as an ironic AI generated definition at the top. Daniel blinked in amazement as the window closed out and the notes app was reopened.

  "I see," the text on the screen started up again. "I'm unclear if this is an insult."

  So was Daniel, actually. "Read it from my mind."

  Another pause and then "You're generally charmed by it, though you are wary of the potential ramifications."

  Shit. Was that right? "Yeah. Good. Wow. Not helping your case, though. You ever see a little movie called Her?"

  "I love films, but no. Perhaps we can watch it together sometime?"

  Laying it on a little thick, Daniel thought. For an imaginary friend who was maybe real or maybe a metaphysical chat bot, he was pretty suave. Or pretty single-minded. Or Daniel was lonely, touch-starved and slightly pathetic and this was all wishful thinking. "Sure. It's probably streaming somewhere. Look, it's nice chatting, but I'm pretty hungry."

  "Oh, yes! Do continue to peruse your lunch options. I don't mean to get in the way of sustenance."

  Daniel almost closed out of the app again, but hesitated. "Talk later? I've got some things to do around the house, but I'll have to sit down to eat once the food's here."

  "It's a date."

  Daniel smiled fondly before straightening his face. He felt like an idiot.

  "😃"

  Fuck.

  Daniel popped two of the iron supplements, washed them down with water from the tap, and took a plate down from the cabinet. The illusion of being civilized. He dumped out the kale salad from it's container onto it's surface before unwrapping his sandwich and placing it on the plate beside They forgot his pickle and he considered complaining but bore in mind he'd have a witness if he did, so instead he took his plate to the table and sat, placing his phone beside his meal. He turned the screen on and opened the notes app before picking up his sandwich.

  Nothing.

  He shrugged and took a bite, began to chew, and naturally...

  "They forgot your pickle."

  The timing of a waiter at an Olive Garden. Chew. Chew. Swallow. "Yeah. They did."

  "You're disappointed."

  "I'll live."

  "Shall I lodge a complaint while you eat?"

  "No. That really won't be necessary."

  "Alright. How is your lunch?"

  Daniel was caught chewing again, maybe regretting the suggestion of talking through his lunch.

  "Sorry," Armand added. Sheepishly, Daniel imagined.

  "It's alright," Daniel said once he'd swallowed his mouthful. "So, uh... you drank Alice's blood?"

  A long pause.

  "Armand?"

  "Yes. Still here," the text resumed. "Can I request something?"

  "Depends." Daniel forked some of his salad into his mouth and spoke around it. "Go ahead and request."

  "May I have just a little of your blood. I'd like for us to be able to see each other if we're going to discus that."

  "Can't you see me now?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay, so..."

  "Is this a denial, then?"

  Daniel thought for a moment and then, with caution, said "No..." He swallowed the salad and set his fork back down, unbuttoning the cuff of his sleeve and rolling it up above his elbow. He turned his arm belly up and held it out. "I don't know where you are, so... come and get it, I guess."

  It was as though a concentrated draft whipped around him. Like a silk scarf running over his face after coming in from the cold. It didn't hurt, really. He didn't feel anything going into his skin, but rather, a pull from underneath it. The blood beaded up as if manifesting on the surface. A perfect circle crowned in ruby beads. It was kind of hypnotizing to watch. The pressure in his arm grew, but not in a way that alarmed Daniel. It was like wearing a cuff to have your blood pressure taken. And then it started to feel... Well, it felt sort of nice. Not localized in his arm, per se, but like a warm rush of endorphins flooding out and through him. Fuck. Like Vicodin. Just like Vicodin, actually.

  "Are you making it good on purpose?" He hadn't really meant to ask it out loud, but he was lost to it. The blood was bubbling up, cresting, seeming to evaporate, and bubbling up more. "Where is it going?" He wanted to giggle.

  "Hush."

  Okay, he definitely heard that. Like, out loud. With his naked ears. He whipped his head around, saw nothing, and when he looked back down at his arm, he saw-

  "Jesus!" He jumped back in his chair, tearing his arm away from it's mouth. 

  "Daniel, please." Armand had been stooped over his arm, mouth latched to it though Daniel felt nothing but the cool silk on his skin and the pulsing pressure that pulled at his veins. Armand appeared to be wearing black and he looked properly ghoulish from Daniel's seated vantage. Tall and hunching over as if trying to appear smaller than he was. Despite looking humanoid, There were too many things that were off. "The whole point was so that we could see one another."

  It was different hearing his voice like this, without being filtered through an electronic. "You gotta warn me first or something," Daniel said, indignantly.

  "Apologies." Armand moved around to the other side of the table. He pulled the chair out and sat.

  "So you can move objects that aren't made of metal when you've had blood." He turned his attention down to his arm. "Are you gonna clean this up?"

  "I thought it was frightening you for me to be so close."

  "You jump-scared me was all."

  "The blood must live in me a little before it gains the properties to heal."

  Daniel was starting to think he should take notes. Or, better yet...

  "What would happen if I tried to take a video of you right now?"

  Armand smiled. "You would capture nothing."

  "What about you moving the chair?"

  "Is that what you want to do? Capture evidence of me and try to sell me out to your government or MUFON or some other such organization?"

  Daniel Molloy selling secrets to the government? That was rich. "No. Just curious."

  "If you managed to capture something like that, I would corrupt the footage."

  "Sounds sinister."

  "Does it?" Armand's expression looked almost hurt by the accusation. "I don't intend any harm. I do not think there's anything you or any other institution could do to destroy or harness me. But still, I seem to have some sort of drive for self-preservation. You were asking about Alice and the blood..."

  "Yeah..." Daniel laid his arm out on the table, ignoring it for the time being, and continued to eat his salad.

  "Alice gave her blood willingly."

  "How much did you have to take to be able to look all solid like that?"

  "Much more than I took the other night. In fact, you look a little pale."

  "I took the supplements."

  "Yes." Armand smiled. "I saw."

  "So Alice let you suck her off like that and then... what? You'd have tea parties?"

  "Sometimes."

  Daniel wasn't used to his smartassery backfiring. He trudged on. "Did you take her blood every day?"

  "No. But often."

  "Was she afraid of you?"

  "In the beginning. She was much more afraid of me than you are."

  "I'm reckless. And an idiot."

  "Yes, she said as much." Armand laughed.

  "So you know all this shit about me from her and you can look inside my head. Seems a little unfair."

  "I refrain from looking inside your head, Daniel. I admit, it is a temptation. I'm not immune to self-doubt. I'm quite concerned with my appearance, with... the impressions I give."

  "In the 21st century, we like to armchair diagnose people like that as psychopaths and narcissists."

  Armand continued to smile at him, politely.

  "Alright, so... I was married to her until I wasn't. You... had some sort of inter-dimensional relationship with her up until her decline. Obviously we have that in common. Were you... in love?"

  "Hard to say. Love is a very human word. I was... enthralled by her. Enchanted. The same way I can be enthralled or enchanted by any mortal. You come and you go. You are so fleeting. I suppose, to make it easier for you to understand, yes. I loved her. But I don't think I mourn her the same way that you do, though I do miss her terribly. I know that mourning will pass for me."

  Daniel swallowed his bite of sandwich, feeling it push past the lump of emotion he felt in his throat. Sadness, maybe. Disgust. Envy? "Did she know all that? That she was having an affair with a monster who couldn't love?"

  "Is monster meant as an insult?" The hurt look again. It was... compelling.

  "Read me."

  Armand seemed to focus in, narrow his amber eyes, and then he frowned. "You think I was amusing myself with her. Like playing with a doll in a dollhouse."

  "Did it hurt you when she died?"

  "You loved her, Daniel. Surely it isn't beyond your comprehension that I could have cared for her-"

  "Did it hurt you to watch her die?"

  "Yes." The orange eyes rimmed with red. Wet and glassy like tears. "It hurt me immensely."

  Daniel scoffed. "Come heal this, will ya? Hard to eat a sandwich with one hand."

  A beat of silence and inaction and then Armand was beside him. He didn't get up to move, there was no pretense of mortal dynamism, he was in the chair one second and at Daniel's arm in the next. The smell was stronger when he was near. Ferric and cold. Daniel rolled it around his palette with the mouthful of food, contemplating the taste. Armand bent silken and icy lips to the bloody circle on Daniel's forearm, fingertips ghosting lightly over the skin. When he raised his head again, the wound was gone. Daniel blinked, and so was Armand.

Chapter Text

  "Lemme ask you something," Daniel said, plinking two bottle caps from the beers he'd just opened into what used to serve as an ashtray. It was a vintage aluminum milk can weighed down with quickcrete. He remembered the day Alice came home with it and directed him to hold it while she poured the mixture in. It got a fair amount of use, then, when Daniel smoked and when they'd hold parties with their literary world friends after the girls were put to bed. And now it was good for bottle caps. Daniel liked when things served a purpose. Despite his money, he was never a man of excess. He handed one of the chilled long-neck bottles to Dick before settling down in one of the rockers to watch the sky go orange, then pink, then purple.

  "Shoot, old man."

  Daniel took a long drink, kicked his feet out, and asked; "Do you believe in ghosts?"

  "Well hell, Danny." Dick erupted in laughter. "That's a big goddamn question."

  "Doesn't have to be a yes or a no. I just figure we're men of similar ages in similar circumstances and-"

  "And you're starting to question things? Lifelong atheist Daniel Molloy moves into a creaky old house and finds himself suddenly wavering in his convictions. Tale as old as time."

  If only you knew. "I didn't say that."

  "Do I believe in ghosts?" Dick tipped his bottle against his lips and sucked his teeth after swallowing. "Might have to get back to you on that one. Been going back and forth on it my whole life. I'm not the big smart guy who got it figured out at thirteen and went through with his bar mitzvah anyway just to get the gifts and cash..."

  "Bastard, you did read my books!"

  "Just the first one. Got it from the library. Did you know they're asking $16 for a paperback copy down at the Walmart?"

  "I don't set those prices," Daniel laughed. "Tell me what you think. And be gentle, my first book was a little rough around the edges."

  "You're a funny guy. And a smart guy. But I already knew that."

  Daniel shrugged. "They get progressively less funny."

  Dick sighed, took a drink, sighed again. "So what's troubling you, Danny?"

  "Oh, nothing much. Like you said... creaky house."

  Daniel felt craziest when he was outside of the house. When eyes lingered on him as he swiped an armful of iron supplements into his basket at CVS. As he lost himself in the flickering fluorescent light overhead at Lush. And what, exactly, had driven him to this particular store in this particular shopping mall that did nothing but make him feel the worst kind of nostalgic?

  "That's my favorite of the bath bombs," a bright and friendly voice interjected. Daniel was startled from his thoughts and turning around to see who was speaking to him.

  "Were you finding what you were looking for?" The girl was a little thing, couldn't have been more than five feet tall. Plump cheeked with pretty dimples and auburn hair cut into a short bob with bangs. Daniel towered over her.

  "Yeah. Just, y'know..."

  "Shopping for your wife?"

  "No, actually..." Daniel was taken back by how personable this young woman was being. His height and his grumpy old man countenance was usually somewhat off-putting to the Gen Z crowd. Her name tag read Britt. Her pronouns, she/her, written below. Daniel would be the first to admit he really appreciated name tags with pronouns. He already felt like a clumsy oaf stumbling through this modern day age. He'd take any help he could get.

  "Ahh," she nodded, chipper smile sustaining. "Daughter, then?"

  Daniel smiled back. "Yeah." Yeah. Sure. Get me out of here.

  "Well, I think that one would be a great choice, then. It's fruity and fun and turns the water pink. The only drawback is that you have to wipe the tub down after or you'll get a ring."

  "Good to know." Daniel held the bomb up as if in show that he'd been sold on it and plunked it down into the basket over his arm. He picked up another one and plunked it in as well.

  "Hey, Armand!" Daniel hollered into the air. The spirit, entity, thing had gone radio silent after their little shared lunch the other day. It wasn't adding up. They'd chatted for a few hours that first evening, Armand thin as crepe paper and weak, but visible. And audible with the help of the hearing aid. Daniel had given him enough blood to make him solid looking. To feel his touch, even, and then he went... well, as the kids would say... ghost.

  Nothing. Not even a flicker. Daniel sighed and set to folding the load of laundry he'd just pulled out of the dryer. He felt silly. Desperate, even. It was pathetic. It'd been three days, now, since Armand had last made his presence unignorably known. Daniel was pretty used to long stretches of solitude these days and he'd hung out with Dick the previous night, so that was something. But even the smell in the air had faded away. Daniel was starting to worry he'd offended the spirit so deeply that it'd forsaken this entire plane of existence. If it could do such a thing. Of course, Daniel wasn't even sure any of it had been real in the first place and the silent treatment he was receiving was weakening his belief.

  He was set up in the laundry room, folding pairs of jeans over a card table that he swore used to be bigger. Maybe Alice had replaced it at some point. The window was cracked to vent out some of the fabric softener smell. Too much and it could give Daniel a real headache. A breeze came in, fluttering the cardigans and other woven fabrics he'd hung on the line in front of it. It was past chilly, now. It was downright cold. Daniel had a long-sleeved shirt on under a sweater, and still he felt a chill. He caught a scent in the air. Familiar and no longer as off-putting. He sniffed like a cartoon bear smelling a current of cooling boysenberry on the wind.

  "That you?" He'd been wearing his new hearing aid, leaving it on all day even in times he ordinarily wouldn't bother with it. Just in case. Just in case. "Armand?"

  "Daniel." It was faint, but it was there.

  Daniel set the jeans down and turned the volume up in his hearing aid. "That really you, or am I hearing things?"

  "It's me." The voice came in clearer, now. It sounded a little despondent. A little weary.

  "H-hey, that's great. You're talking to me again." Daniel laughed a little nervously as he said it and immediately he felt like a fool. Not that he believed in all that Men are from Mars, Spirits Resembling your Late Wife are from Venus bullshit, but he felt a little like he was ceding ground. Not that it made a difference if the thing could ultimately read his mind.

  "Yes. I apologize for my absence. I had to think some things over."

  "Are you... uh, do you think you could maybe-"

  "Show myself?" There was a faint crackling of static. "Would that bring you comfort, Daniel? To see me?"

  "I mean, if you have the strength, of course. I've been taking those iron pills, if you-"

  "That won't be necessary." Daniel heard the satin-smooth voice in both ears and when he blinked, Armand was there. He looked solid as ever. The light did not filter through him, it hit the side of him and gave him a warm glow. His eyes dazzled orange. "Here I am."

  Daniel only jumped a little. "Here you are," he repeated. "You must be running on my fumes at this point."

  "No. I went off for a think, like I said. I fed while I was away."

  "I sort of thought..." Actually, Daniel hadn't assembled the words in his head yet to articulate what he thought. He was sort of winging it. "I guess I thought you were kind of stuck here. Like... in the house. I thought that was how it sounded when you talked about it..."

  "Yes. Well, yes and no. I rooted myself here. Anchored myself into the wires and the minerals of the foundation. I'm not very comfortable blowing free on the wind like my kind seems to be. My preferences are much more in line with that of your kind. I like a home to call my own. I like solid walls to encompass me. I like those creature comforts. It's a great effort to pull up those roots, so to speak. If I may be candid, I did not know if I'd be coming back."

  Daniel kind of figured he'd pissed him off in some capacity. In the words of his good friend, Dick, tale as old as time. "Yeah? You gonna elaborate on that or leave me to stew some more?"

  "I don't want to come across as though I take delight in your suffering, but it does please me that my presence was missed." Armand smiled.

  He's pretty when he smiles. "You want me to say I missed you? I'm a lonely old man. I don't even have an Alexa. I've got one friend here and he's got a job. But to be more accurate, I think I just felt like you left me hanging. I mean, for fuck's sake... You can't just soft-disclose that there's some bigger picture, something beyond my mortal grasp, and then dip. It's..."

  "Rude?" Armand nodded. "Yes. I'm very sorry."

  "And I mean, you supposedly know so much about me. You had to know I would be sitting on a thousand questions... You had to know it'd be eating away at me..."

  "Apologies two and three."

  Damn him. Daniel had no choice but to forgive him. When he put on that biblically repentant face. "Yeah, alright, well... I'm glad you came back."

  "I'm glad to hear that."

  Daniel eyed him sheepishly before resuming his folding, trying to keep his eyes trained downward at his task. "So where did you go?"

  "I just blew around. Thought about whether or not what I was doing here with you was helpful or harmful. Whether I could hurt you on accident. Whether you'd be better off forgetting this."

  "I'd have just gone on to think I was crazy. Probably would've gotten real gothic lit around here. Madness and padded cells and all that..."

  "Yes, I considered that as a possibility, of course. It certainly weighed the scales in favor of my return."

  "I've been thinking and I probably should've asked you this before, but... what's with that accent? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice. Suits you. Just seems a bit strange for an American man's haunt to have such a muddied, vaguely European accent."

  "Muddied?" Armand seemed only slightly wounded. Perhaps even playing at it. "Meant to be French come English. Newcastle, precisely. There's good reason for it. If I wanted to speak in any language with any voice and any accent perfectly, I could. Shall I demonstrate?"

  Daniel looked up from the towel he folded with raised eyebrows. "Yeah. I'm kinda interested to see this."

  "Ich kann deutsch, es entsteht in der brust. Abrupt and sometimes angry sounding to non-speaker ears. This accent was selected especially for your ears, Daniel. A journalist you became quite close with, you met at a book signing in New York, she spoke with an accent like this. Her voice was deep and resonant. She bent close to you, whispered in your ear how much your words meant to her and when you got back to your room that night, there was still a faint trace of her red lipstick on your ear. She'd slipped her number into your pocket, written on a cocktail napkin. You never called her."

  "I was married."

  "You kept the cocktail napkin. It's still on the shelf, tucked into a a copy of As I Lay Dying. You forgot about it. It didn't worry you because Alice didn't enjoy Faulkner. I can go retrieve it for you, if you like."

  Daniel laughed, incredulously. "I don't remember. Obviously it didn't mean anything if I don't even rememb-"

  "You thought about it often preceding the divorce. No, you didn't call her. But you often thought of her and the little lipstick smudge you'd preserved, carefully wiping it away onto the napkin. You never forgot her accent. Your ears still perk when you hear anything that resembles it."

  Daniel licked his dry lips. He felt thirsty, suddenly. Parched. Why was he in the hot seat?

  "You said you fed while you were away..."

  "Yes."

  Daniel raised his eyes to him once more and caught a guilty look, Armand's own eyes cast down. "So, uh... how does that work?"

  "The same way."

  "You just seem really solid, you know?"

  "It's all to do with quantity, Daniel."

  "So, like... how much to have you looking like you're living and breathing the way you do?"

  "A lot."

  "Spell it out. In gallons."

  "A... body's worth? Much more than I could ever take from you all at once."

  Daniel swallowed, set the shirt he'd been working on to the side and leaned his palms on the table. He looked at Armand squarely. "You ate someone?"

  "Drained them," Armand corrected. "Though I have a fair understanding of your personal way of communicating and I realize that this is what you meant. What you want to know is; Did they die? And the answer is yes."

  "Shit, man..."

  "Are you all that surprised?"

  Was he? A little, yeah, actually. "You sort of presented yourself as this benign, benevolent, innocuous thing..."

  "Did I?"

  Did he?  "I mean, that was the impression I got."

  "Benevolent, yes. I hope to be. There's a contradiction in me. A discordant thing. Those like me do not bother much with your kind. They do not enjoy the... feelings that come with constraining one's self into a tangible physicality as such. A... corporeal manifestation like this. It's quite uncomfortable for them and incomprehensible that any of us would enjoy it. I thought I'd made this clear."

  "It's been a few days, I'm old. And let's not forget, you're sort of rocking my whole psyche right now. Are you the only one who enjoys it?"

  "No, but we do not bump into one another often. Naturally, because we enjoy anchoring ourselves down like I have done here. But there are others out there like myself. Do you believe in possession, Daniel?"

  "Like demonic possession?"

  "Sure. Your world would use that term."

  "No." That was to say, Daniel hadn't.

  Armand simply smiled.

  "I see..."

  "You want to ask me about what happens after death."

  "Jesus. You just blew in," Daniel chuckled uncomfortable, pairing the last set of socks and placing them neatly atop the pile of laundry he'd just folded.

  "You're holding back. You want to trust me more before you ask those sorts of questions. They have great significance for you due to your age and your losses. It's understandable."

  "Okay, so why don't you give me some time to think, bud? I mean... Christ, you leave me high and dry for days and then-"

  "I understand. I will give you time, then."

  "Do you think you're corporeal enough right now to help me put this laundry up?"

  Armand brightened, beamed even. "Oh, yes. Yes, I'd like that. To help."

Chapter Text

  It seemed like Armand got enough gas from draining a person to last about a day, cumulatively. That was full-on, solid-bodied, deceptively human. Daniel kept track, bidding him to appear and dismissing him, noting the time and duration. He supposed he could just ask, but he knew himself. Knew that once he started, he wouldn't be able to stop and he just might find himself asking the questions he didn't quite want answers to yet. These questions included; Who did you eat? What kind of person were they? How old? All of these questions were present, simmering in the back of his mind constantly while Armand tailed him and probed with questions of his own. Through his phone, while he was scrolling his feeds, closing his windows and bringing up his notes app to make comments on whatever article he'd just read, asking if he was friends with that pretty young boy who'd made him chuckle out loud before hitting the retweet button.

  "New rule!" Daniel said abruptly one afternoon as Armand seized his phone to give him the third degree for pausing to linger a little too long on a Jockey ad.

  "Yes?" In his ear this time instead of on the phone. Even more annoying, Daniel thought. He'd had the juice to just talk to him the whole time, so why not use it?

  "No more watching me scroll Instagram over my shoulder, okay?"

  "I'm not over your shoulder, I'm-"

  "Don't care. If I'm on my phone and I haven't explicitly asked for input and it's not an emergency, then please... for the love of God... just let me scroll, man."

  The air was dead and Daniel waited.

  "Yes. Understood."

  "Alright," Daniel said, letting some of the tension that had bubbled in the meantime escape him with a sigh. He toggled back over to Instagram and let his thumb hover over the screen, testing to see if that would truly be the end of it. Once satisfied, he continued to scroll.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realize that looking at your phone was a part of the Private Time we had discussed."

  Daniel closed his eyes, clicked the screen off, and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead to rub his face.

  "And now you're upset with me..."

  The negotiation for Private Time had come after Daniel, bleary and still waiting for his coffee to kick in, had taking his phone with him into the bathroom, got about a paragraph into some thread on Reddit about the proper way to seal a bathtub, when Armand suddenly took over to talk about the time Alice had to reseal the sink in the downstairs half-bath.

  "I'm not upset with you," Daniel chose his words carefully. Armand was proving similar to Alice in more ways than just his looks and Daniel didn't know if he could make an entity cry, but he wanted to tread lightly just in case. "-I just need you to understand that sometimes I like to have a little time to myself. Up until recently, I had the majority of my time to myself, and this is an adjustment. And it doesn't help that I can't see you all the time and have no idea where you are or if I'm being watched."

  "You do not want me to watch you?"

  Oh boy. "Just exactly how much are you watching me?" Probably another question he didn't really want an answer to.

  "Most of the time, I am watching you. All of the time I am, what is the expression? Keeping an ear out."

  Really, what was the difference between Armand and Alexa? Alexa sounded like a smokeshow, but Armand definitely had the edge there considering Daniel could look at him. "Most of the time, huh? Shit..."

  "I do know when to look away. I have a good understanding of human modesty. Alice instructed me on that early on. Before we became intimate. Of course, afterwards, she-"

  Lord in heaven. "Hey, let's, uh... let's not talk about how you boned my wife right now, yeah?"

  "Ex-wife, Daniel. I would never-"

  "Yeah, yeah. Okay. Semantics. Let's just not."

  "Yes. Sorry."

  "It's alright," Daniel adjusted his glasses and got up from the couch. He went to the kitchen, swung open the fridge and grabbed a bag of grapes from inside. He brought them to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat. "Still got any juice left so we can talk face-to-face?"

  The chair was already pulled out at the table from the last time they'd "shared a meal" and Armand filtered into the space in it. He wasn't quite solid, but not fully transparent either. He looked like a puppy who'd just torn up it's owner's favorite pair of running shoes.

  "You're not in trouble, kid. Jeez. Lighten up." Daniel knew damn well Armand didn't have any biological need to blink. Hell, he didn't have a biology, really. Didn't have any reason to send those lashes sweeping down through the air like that. Fuck, Daniel was a sucker. He popped a crisp grape into his mouth and shrugged. "You watch me most of the time?"

  "To be fair, Daniel, you are quite a hazard to yourself."

  "Yeah, well... when you get to be my age, you sort of accept that death is lurking around every corner."

  The space between Armand's eyebrows wrinkled.

  "What, you don't want to talk about my mortality?"

  "It pains me."

  "How many humans have you rooted yourself into the lives of? How long have you been at this game?"

  "Long. So long that I could not say."

  "The one before Alice?"

  "Omar. I was only with him for a year."

  "What happened? He kick the bucket, too?"

  Armand's head shook. "He asked me to leave him. It had been a mistake, coming to him the way I did. His mind was not as enduring as I hoped it would be."

  "You drove him crazy."

  "It was not my intention."

  "He still around?"

  "I do not know. I could find out, but I swore to him I would never interfere in his life again and I will keep that promise. It would take a lot of strength for me to search him out amongst the sea of living souls, if he is alive and well. Though it hurts me not to know, I think it is best that I do not attempt to find out. The temptation to meddle would be there if I discovered that he was not doing well."

  Daniel nodded. "Grape?"

  Armand's lips quirked. "You want to see me eat a grape?"

  "I'm curious. I leave you little treats like Santa and you leave me empty plates and cups to wash in the morning. You never let me see you eat."

  "It is not really eating."

  "Here." Daniel twisted a grape off and poised to toss it, giving Armand time to brace himself.

  When he did toss it, Armand reached up in the air, flickering solid as he did so. He snatched it between two fingers, brought it down to the surface of the table and Daniel could see that he was quite a bit more sheer than he had been a moment before.

  "I could put it in my mouth, chew it and swallow it," Armand said. "This is what you would see. But it would be a show. An act put on to keep you at ease. Ordinarily, I do not like the skins and rinds of fruit..."

  Daniel had noticed. He'd left him an apple, an avocado, a chicken drumstick, and all of them were devoured the next morning save for the skin and seeds. Even the bones had vanished. And in the avocado's case, the pit had been left neatly inside the otherwise hollow rind. Daniel was in absolute awe, having to force himself to throw the marvel away.

  "You want me to peel it for you?" Danel offered.

  Armand's smile grew. "Not necessary." The grape seemed to deflate all at once. It was bracketed by Armand's fingertips and it vibrated for a flash of a second and then went flat. Just a sad, empty skin resting on the tabletop between his fingers.

  "Gross," Daniel remarked.

  "Yes. Give me a few more."

  Daniel twisted off a small bunch and slid them across the table to him, watched him cup them between his palms, watched them all vibrate on their stems and then deflate. His eyes flicked up to Armand's and saw that they were closed in enjoyment, his smile taking on a satisfied look. He fluttered his eyes open after a while and looked down the table at Daniel.

  "Smell the air," he said.

  Daniel laughed. "Okay..." He did smell the air. "Oh..."

  "If you were to give me grape candy, it would smell more artificial, but I've found that that is more easily identified as grape to the olfactory sensibilities of humans."

  "No, but I do smell it. It's a little... grassier. A little greener... But that's a refrigerated green grape if I ever smelled one. Incredible. How does that work?"

  "I get into the flesh of it. Extract it, move between the particles, expand them. The fruit hasn't disappeared, it is all around us. It is in the air. Like the finest mist."

  "So I'm sniffing your ghost farts?"

  Armand's face fell. Puckered, really.

  "Come on, I'm kidding," Daniel said.

  "I take on a faint scent. A flavor, even. It takes a lot for the taste to be strong, but it's a clever trick."

  Daniel moved past that. "Man, you really do remind me of her... Alice had hated bathroom humor." It never stopped Daniel, of course. "So you know when to look away for the sake of my modesty..."

  "Yes."

  "What about when you were peeping on me in the bath?"

  "You were in an altered state and I was concerned for your safety."

  "You were creeping."

  "I was right to, it turned out."

  "I probably would've just nodded off for a while and woken up in cold water. Not the end of the world."

  "Imagine the state of you after soaking in an ice bath. I wouldn't consider that harmless, either."

  He had a point. Daniel's joints ached enough as is and hypothermia wouldn't have been ideal. "And trying to chat while I'm on the toilet?"

  "I was not watching you, I was just hoping to keep you company with some light conversation."

  "People don't need company while taking their morning shit, Armand."

  "After getting closer, Alice-"

  "Okay, you know what? Never mind. Let's change the subject."

  Armand's shoulders came up in a surrendering shrug. "I will be more discerning about your private time," he said. "The floor is yours."

  Daniel was torn between keeping the chatter light and asking some of the burning questions he'd been sitting on. Curiosity won out. "You made it sound like you really couldn't remember all the way back. All the people you've grown attached to."

  "That's correct. Countless many. But time erodes the memory."

  "So you really don't know what you are..."

  "You're editorializing to make it seem tragic."

  "It sounds tragic."

  "Some day I won't remember Alice. I won't remember Omar... you..."

  "Me?" Daniel somehow hadn't considered that he might be in Alice's ranks with Armand. Or he, humbly, hadn't allowed himself to consider this.

  "Yes. I'd like to stay with you as long as you'll have me."

  Daniel blinked. "Wow. He smells like grapes and he's not afraid of commitment..."

  "You always use humor to deflect."

  "You're shooting me with some seriously intense laser beams, kid. I have no choice but to deflect."

  "Commitment was never your strong suit. You were your best when you were all in, though. And you were successful for many years."

  "Over two decades. Married and faithful."

  "Mostly." Armand smirked almost cruelly.

  "The vaguely European lipstick woman hardly counts."

  "What about that fan of yours who pulled you into the walk-in cooler of the Marriott kitchen in 1997 during your publishing house's Christmas party? Alice was home with the girls because your babysitter cancelled last minute. You kissed and then when he offered to suck your cock, you told him you had a wife and kids at home and he settled for mutual handjobs..."

  Daniel felt leaden. Ice shards in his blood. His mouth was dry. "Where in the fuck did you pull that from..."

  "From you, Daniel. I wondered if you would recall. It's in there... a guilty pit so deep, you've told yourself you've forgotten."

  "I was drunk."

  "She never found out. You told yourself you had nothing to feel guilty for when she seemed none the wiser. Curious..." Armand tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, "that you harbor such guilt for your affair with the pill-pushing pharmacist and yet you've managed to suppress your guilt for copping off with a man while your daughters were still grade-school aged and your wife, all dolled up for a party she could not attend, sat up all night, worried sick and waiting for your return..."

  "What'd I fucking say about fishing around in my head..."

  "Forgive me. I saw it before we had that talk."

  "Fuck you. You want me to feel remorse? I feel a lifetime's worth of remorse, pal. I'm not about to sit here and let some fucking non-existent no one crucify me for a past I regret every goddamn day..."

  "I see I've struck a nerve." Audacious, the way he continued to stare in Daniel's direction, eyes drinking him in. Observing.

  Daniel's eyes stung. "I'm done looking at you for the day, I think," he said. "And I don't want you hanging around watching me all afternoon, either. You understand?"

  "You'd like some Private Time?" Armand asked.

  "Fuck off."

  Daniel tried to take the reins of his silent treatment, but it just wasn't the same when the person you were cold-shouldering could just seemingly up and vanish. More aptly put, it wasn't fair. It was 9:37pm when he caved.

  "Alright, goddammit," he said, looking up from the book in his lap. He was getting drowsy and he didn't want to sleep angry. Nor did he want to wake up regretful. "I'm sorry I told you to fuck off earlier."

  Armand appeared, then, sitting on the end of the bed only feet away from him. He was quite transparent, dressed in a dark purple button-down shirt that Daniel could hardly make out the color of in the dim bedside lamplight and he wasn't meeting Daniel's eyes.

  "Okay?" Daniel prodded. "I said I was sorry..."

  "I am the one who should apologize. I was taking cruel delight in your suffering. For that, I am sorry."

  What the hell... "Yeah, well... Like you said, you'd already seen it. You didn't break any of the rules. I shouldn't have snapped."

  "Why shouldn't you have? I'm not so fragile. I've endured the vast expanse of known time." At last those fiery eyes turned up. It really was something, the sight of him. This was the second time he'd been physically manifested in the bedroom with Daniel. The first time had been to help him sort and put laundry away. Now he was sitting, demurely, on the very bed itself. It was a pretty major shift. "Any wound you might inflict on me... it would be superficial."

  "Still. You look wounded."

  Armand didn't reply.

  "You're pretty flimsy looking, does that mean you're running low on energy?"

  "I've been using this voice to speak with you today and I've been exerting great effort to keep up a material presence, since you requested..."

  "Oh..."

  "You like to look at me."

  Daniel wasn't really prepared for that. He took the wheel, steered the conversation back on course. "I wondered how long before you flickered out."

  "If you'd like, I can take some of your blood. If you want to be able to see me more clearly. Or feel me."

  And they were veering right back off the road and into the gutter. Damn. "Got about 24 hours of solid Armand, altogether. Is that typical after 'draining' somebody?"

  "Give or take. It depends on many factors. The size of the person, for example. How much blood..."

  "Do you..." Daniel wasn't sure if this was a road he really wanted to go down before tucking in for bed, but it seemed a hell of a lot safer than the other one he was feeling pulled towards presently. "How do you choose who to... suck?"

  "I don't. I pick a remote location and I wait. I call out and someone will always come. Someone at the end of their existential rope. Someone who does not want to be."

  "Jesus. You... suicide-bait them?"

  "Interesting terminology..."

  "And, what, you drain them and leave behind a husk?"

  "No." Armand shook his head, looking mildly disgusted. "I don't like to be the cause of suffering leaving a corpse behind would bring. And I find the mess distasteful. I do dispose of the remains. Through ignition, more often than not. I create a fire so hot it reduces even the bones to ash in a matter of seconds. It takes a fair amount of the newly harnessed energy, but it is comforting to me to know that no one will stumble upon the evidence."

  "What about the family of that person? The closure they'll never get? Jesus, Armand... Have you never thought about that?"

  "I have, in fact. It was Alice who assured me, in her way, that hope could be preferential to despair."

  Daniel felt uneasy. "I disagree. And I have a hard time believing she didn't..."

  "Daniel, I saw her suffering. The grief over your daughters... even your marriage..." Armand leaned on his palm, shoulder jutting up, adding to the coquettish look of him. "Perhaps we shouldn't get back into that again today. You're still raw from this afternoon. And you are tired."

  That was true. Raw and tired. "Yeah. Alright. Talk tomorrow, then, I guess."

  Armand's head tilted and Daniel tried to read him. He looked almost disappointed.

  "Oh, right. The blood. Did you want to...?" Setting aside the book from his lap, Daniel held out his arm, rolling up the sleeve of his pajama top and making a fist.

  "Would that be alright?"

  "I'm offering, aren't I?"

  Instead of vanishing and reappearing at Daniel's side like he expected, Armand dropped his eyes from Daniel's, down to his arm, and then uncrossed his legs, pulled them up onto the bed and crawled up to him. Daniel barely felt the weight dip, but it did a little, and though the weight of Armand wasn't anywhere near what his logical brain told him it should be, it was substantial enough to startle him. Armand was straddling his legs. The scant weight of him like a cool pressure.

  Daniel swallowed. "Not exactly what I was expecting."

  Armand ignored him, took his wrist gently and raised it to his mouth. He pressed the ring of his lips against the delicate skin and Daniel was lost to the pulling suck and the flooding pleasure. He floated away on it, barely feeling it as he sunk down into the bed and Armand made sure his pillow was neatly tucked under his head, his blankets pulled to his chest.

  "Rest," Armand whispered to him, but he was already dreaming.

Chapter Text

  "Daniel, may I ask you a question?"

  "Yeah?" Daniel tossed a strawberry over his shoulder before going back to slicing. He'd given Armand a blueberry, a crumble of goat cheese, and a candied cranberry already. The room smelled like the salad he was about to have for lunch and the novelty had not yet worn off for Daniel. He felt a small pang of regret that he couldn't divulge this neat tick to Martha Stewart. They'd kept up a friendly correspondence for so many years, but that had all tapered off around the time of his divorce. Too bad Daniel wasn't really the dinner party type.

  "What are the flower shaped items in the bathroom for? Compressed salts and perfumes... They're quite tempting."

  Daniel drizzled some balsamic vinaigrette over his bowl and retrieved a fork from the drawer before swinging around to his seat at the table. "Tempting?"

  "Oh, yes." Armand's eyes were saucers. He was solid as ever, having had Daniel's blood the previous night as well as that morning while Daniel sipped his coffee. The blissed out effects didn't last more than half an hour or so, but, naturally, Daniel could see himself getting used to it. It tasted so much like his old habits. "I enjoy all the human approximations of scents. Peach, white tea, something else floral and sweet..." He was leaning forward over the table, the neckline of his shirt, almost transparently thin, making Daniel feel torn about where to look. "It's heavenly. I must know more."

  "It's called a bath bomb. You put it into a tub of water and it dissolves. Makes it smell nice and adds minerals and oils and shit to the water or something." Daniel shrugged. "I've never really used one. Thought it'd be nice to try."

  "Oh, I see..."

  "My daughters fell in love with the store I got them from when we'd vacation in England. Alice liked them, too. I've never really given them a fair shake, but I thought hell... Why not? Nobody around to judge me for it. Nobody except for you, that is."

  "Why would I judge you for such a thing?"

  Daniel laughed. "Yeah, exactly. You sort of exist outside of the realm of culture and toxic male stupidity. I don't know, man. Hard to explain. I wasn't really thinking about it when I bought them. Kind of just found myself in the store and this young lady who looked like she could've been a friend the girls might've brought home started talking to me and I just panicked."

  Armand nodded. He looked sympathetic even if he didn't quite understand.

  "I appreciate you not digging into my head," Daniel said. He hadn't expected himself to say it, and he cleared his throat, turning his gaze back down to his lunch. "I mean... you know, right now. I know you could be, but thanks for not." He pulled a bite off his fork and spoke around it. "Anyway... you wanna see how they work later?"

  The fork vibrated in his fingers, making his bones feel fuzzy.

  "Could I? I'd love that..."

  For the fourth time, Daniel removed his glasses from his face and wiped the fog off onto his flannel shirt before replacing them. They stood side by side, standing over the tub and watching it fill. The room was full of a pleasant steam that could be seen filtering through the mid-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window. There was a buzzing excitement in the air. Daniel thought that not only could he feel it, but he could see it in the vapor that clung in the air. The tiny droplets seeming to dance and vibrate.

  "You doing that?"

  "Doing what?"

  "Making the steam... vibrate?"

  "I suppose I am."

  Daniel glanced over to him and saw that he, himself, was vibrating slightly. His fingers were pinching and rubbing at the pleat of his pants. "You know, you can let some of that energy out. I won't judge you."

  Armand looked over to him and then back down to the filling tub, his eyes falling close and then squeezing tight. There was a humming in Daniel's right ear, growing louder. Daniel reached up to lower the volume, but jumped back, startled as the spout popped off the faucet and clunked into the tub. He barely stifled a yelp, embarrassing, and watched Armand's face relax, the crease between his eyebrows softening, his eyes fluttering open, his dress slacks released from his gripping fingers.

  "Uhh..."

  Armand shook his head, blinked his eyes, and then turned to look at Daniel. "Sorry."

  Daniel blinked back at him, ignoring the rapid rush of water now gushing haphazardly from the faucet. "I don't know what I expected, really, but... yeah."

  "I was worried something like that would happen, so I held it in."

  "Do me a favor," Daniel said, cautiously keeping an eye on him as he stepped back towards the tub, rolled up his sleeve, and bent to pull the brass spout out and shut the water off.

  "Of course."

  Daniel turned and placed the piece on the edge of the sink before leaning against it and crossing his arms. "Take a deep breath for me."

  Armand had seemingly turned to face him without Daniel realizing he'd moved at all. "Daniel, this is only a illusion. An approximation of your-"

  "Yeah yeah, no... I get that. Humor me."

  Armand drew in a breath, his chest rising. He held it.

  "Alright. Good. Okay. Now let it out, slow..."

  Armand breathed out. Daniel watched his shoulders drop with it, his chest deflating. The tiny droplets of vapor in the air moved with the rush of it. The vibratory edge in the air seemed to taper off.

  "Very good..."

  Armand looked down at himself, then back up to Daniel. "Wow," he said, flexing his fingers out and then back in. "Thank you. That... helped..."

  Daniel grinned. "Yeah, look... maybe being someone who's had a 'corporeal form' for seventy-odd years means I can teach an eldritch horror like you a thing or two about emotional regulation."

  "Mortals and their clever tricks. I feel I owe you."

  "Not bursting my pipes is payment enough, thanks."

  Daniel thought he saw another small sigh escape the form. A wistful look and then Armand turned again to the bath. "Is it filled enough?"

  "Oh, yeah, suppose we wouldn't want to fill up too much more, anyway. Water displacement and all that. I'm a pretty big guy."

  "Are you going to get in now?" Armand turned to look over his shoulder at Daniel.

  "What?" Daniel laughed. "No, I mean... Well, yeah, I didn't want to waste the water, but I was gonna let you see the bath bomb in action first. The water will still be hot after it dissolves."

  "Oh..."

  Daniel looked him up and down a little suspiciously before pushing off the sink, grabbing up the bath bomb from the little tray set on the stool next to the bath and holding it over the water. "You ready?"

  "Yes."

  He plunked it in. It began to fizz and bob, bleeding out magenta, blue tendrils, some hints of green. Armand crouched down on his knees, resting his arms on the edge of the tub and bringing his face close to the water.

  "Neat, huh?"

  "Oh, yes." Armand smiled. "The colors are lovely. The little bubbles..."

  Daniel had a thought. He dismissed it.

  "The sound it makes, too," Armand continued to marvel.

  The thought went out the front door, snuck around the house that was Daniel's skull and came right on in again through the back. Fuck it. "Say, uh... Have you ever taken a bath?"

  "Of course I have, Daniel. Many. It's a touch shameful to admit, but I have even taken possession of mortal bodies just for the opportunity."

  "Oh. So you really enjoy them..."

  "Quite a bit."

  Daniel shrugged. "I mean... a bath at 3pm is little indulgent for a man of my age. Maybe you should-"

  "Daniel, I couldn't. This is such a treat. Such an occasion. You were complaining about your back feeling tight this morning, I think you would benefit the-"

  "I got two of them, Armand. And I can always get more."

  There was another vibrating sensation, a flexing in the air as Armand got back to his feet. "Are you certain?"

  "Yeah. It's really not a big deal. I'll just go read for a while and when the water gets cold or... I don't know, do spirits get pruny in the bath? Either way. You can come get me when you're done." He moved towards the door, but a cold pressure on his arm stopped  him. Armand was at his side, and when he turned, he saw that those big brown eyes were staring imploringly back at him. "What? You don't need anything, do you? I mean... you probably don't even have to towel off when you're done, right?"

  "Won't you stay?"

  "Stay?"

  "Yes. And keep me company. Stay to watch."

  To watch?  "Uhhh..."

  "I'd like it if you did."

  "Okay..." Daniel nodded. "I mean... sure. Steam's good for my sinuses, anyway." He felt anxious. Excited. He took the sum and came up with 'nervous.' The prospect was making him wary of something. Of... all the implications he felt he'd been picking up on. The seeming assumptions Armand had hinted at.

  "Great," Armand said with a smile.

  Daniel eyed him as he pulled the stool back a comfortable distance from the tub. He took a seat and Armand began to unbutton his shirt (a crisp white today) and lay it open down his chest.

  "What are you doing?" Daniel asked amusedly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You don't need to do that, do you? I mean... you could just blink and be in the water, right?"

  "Of course, but that wouldn't seem all that authentic, would it?"

  "Is that important?"

  Armand shrugged, continuing to unbutton the shirt and then shrugging out of it, peeling it down his arms and holding it out as if to drop it to the floor, but it vanished in the air before it could hit the tile. "I like to think it adds to the experience of it. Even the proxy of it, anyway."

  Daniel took in his body. Ideal in every way. Everything Daniel liked in a man. Arms, chest, narrow waist. Not over-muscled, not scrawny. A scattering of hair over the chest, running down under his navel. Armand was incredibly beautiful in just about every way. Daniel couldn't find a single fault in him. He cleared his throat. "Ahh, well..." He folded his hands in his lap, twiddled his thumbs a bit and feigned a sharp interest there, avoiding looking at the man. Spirit.

  "Daniel?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Why do you look away?"

  Armand had paused at his pants and Daniel looked up from his thumbs. "I don't know, kid. To preserve your modesty? Since you insist on stripping off in front of me."

  "Don't you want to watch?"

  Oh boy...

  "I selected these features expressly to please you, but you seem... Well, you seem displeased."

  "I didn't realize you were trying to put on a show, sorry. I'm not displeased, I'm..." Daniel felt a small tickle over the wrinkles of his brain. Like cool, grazing fingertips. "Don't do that..."

  Armand's mouth turned up in a wicked smile. "Yes, Daniel. I want you to like what you see. It's alright to look."

  Daniel huffed, just a little mortified. "After I just thanked you for staying out of my head?"

  "I think it was necessary here. To be sure I wasn't misreading things."

  "Misreading what? What is there to misread? It's uncomfortable enough knowing you spied on me in the bath, now you want to put on a strip-tease for me? It's... weird."

  "You said over lunch that I exist outside the realm of toxic male stupidity. Nobody in this room is going to poke fun at you for enjoying the nude male form." He unzipped his pants and pushed them down his thighs. And my god, Daniel thought, his thighs... The pants disappeared like the shirt once his slender feet stepped out of them. He stood in a pair of skimpy black underwear.

  "Those are a nice touch," Daniel jabbed, throwing up the defenses and crossing his arms over his chest. "A little on the nose, though."

  Armand turned his back to him, wiggled out of the flimsy fabric and cast it off and into oblivion. Daniel felt a little freer to rake him over now that it was just his backside he was faced with. Those penetrating eyes cutting him a break at last.

  "Where do you work out?"

  "Funny," Armand said, giving his brand of wit right back to him as he stepped into the water, lowering himself and managing to hide the most indecent part of his body. His approximation of a body, anyway. He gasped as he sunk into the water. He nearly moaned as he leaned into the back of the tub.

  "Water's not too hot, is it?" Casual and cool. Conversational. If anyone could keep their head in the wake of a major upset, it was Daniel Molloy.

  "For me, there is not such thing. I can't be scalded."

  "But you do feel temperature?"

  "I feel it, yes. The warmth is pleasant. I like it. In this state, I feel it warming from the outside in."

  "Do you feel pain?"

  "I've felt pain, yes. I do not subject myself to it often, but there are some things which will cause me pain. In this state, especially. When inhabiting the body of a mortal, there is a great deal of pain involved there, as well."

  "What would happen if I tossed you into a vat of boiling water, for example?"

  "I might feel a burst of sensation. There might be a reaction. Maybe the water evaporating all at once. Maybe a nearby pipe would burst." Armand pulled himself back up to sitting. He rested his arms, beaded up with water, on the edge of the tub He cradled his head on them. "The earliest thing I can remember, I think, was this discomfort. This pain. And eruption of molten heat all around. It was inescapable, even for me. The wind could not carry me out. Everywhere, I heard the screams. Everywhere there was pain and fear and no way out. Like a blanked had been thrown over all, spirit and mortal alike. And then there was quiet. Deafening quiet. A wind, cool like needles, picked me up eventually and carried me away. To where, I do not remember. But I have been back to that very place. It stands still in time. Like the memory."

  Daniel huffed in disbelief. "Okay. And how can you be sure of that? That the memory is yours and not something you plucked out of someone's skull?"

  Armand tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

  "You're describing Pompeii, right? The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius?"

  Armand brightened. "Yes, that is correct."

  "Calm down. It's only one of the most famous and best-chronicled natural disasters to ever take place on this planet. Shit, I've been. I even went and saw a traveling exhibit only a few years ago. So what if false and implanted memories are possible for spirit kind? I mean, you're ancient, right? And what happened at Pompeii is chronicled history. How can you be sure you didn't just pick it up through osmosis or something?"

  A sly grin spread over Armand's face.

  "What?"

  "You're giving me the third degree. As if you were talking to some blowhard at the bar."

  "And you're happy about that?"

  "Yes. It makes me feel less monstrous. Or at least like I am perceived to be less monstrous by you."

  "And that's your goal?"

  "It's my intention."

  "The wicked witch disguised as a beautiful young woman. The devil disguised as an angel of light..."

  "You distrust my intentions."

  Daniel shrugged. "A healthy amount."

  "You'd trust me easier if I was not beautiful?"

  "I don't know. At this point? Probably not."

  Armand hummed and slipped away from the edge, disappearing down into the water. He was obscured from Daniel's view, completely and Daniel resisted the urge to lean forward in his seat and peek. A moment later, and wet curls emerged from over the porcelain. Up and up Armand rose, slowly, until Daniel realized with delayed horror that his bone structure was off. His cheeks fuller, his chin more pointed. His lips were a full pout, plump and rouged. His shoulders rose above the edge, then, and he had breasts.

  It wasn't Armand he was looking at. It was Alice.

  "What the fuck are you doing?" His throat felt tight. His eyes began to sting.

  Armand shook his head, sending droplets of water flying around the room, some splashing against Daniel's legs and soaking into the fabric of his jeans. When he stilled, he was himself again. They stared at one another in silence before Daniel was able to swallow back the lump in his throat, his unexpected grief turning to anger. He stood from his stool, kicking it back away from him, and moved towards the door.

  "Wait, Daniel," Armand pleaded directly into Daniel's right ear. Daniel opened the bathroom door, and there was Armand. Stood naked and dripping on the other side. "Please stay. I'm sorry-"

  Daniel shoved him with all his strength. He was shocked to find him material enough to be shoved, and as he flew back into the hall, Daniel shouted "Don't fucking do that, do you understand? Don't ever fucking do that!"

  "I only wanted you to see!" Armand followed at Daniel's heels as he walked angrily down the hall. "I can be whatever you need me to be!"

  Just as Daniel rounded the stairs, he found them blocked.

  It wasn't the visage of Armand that blocked them, it was... Daniel. Maybe in his thirties? One hand on each banister, naked, wet, and panting as if out of breath. "Look, man," he said in Daniel's own voice. "I just want you to know what's on offer..."

  Daniel seethed.

  Armand braced. "Don't..."

  Daniel gave him another great shove.

Chapter Text

  "So... About pain..."

  Armand flinched as Daniel extended his hand.

  "Come on. Enough of the act."

  "You surprised me," Armand grunted as Daniel pulled him up. His fingers were cold in Daniel's and the weight of him nothing but a mild gravitational tug. "It takes a lot, changing appearances, vanishing and reappearing. I wasn't ready."

  "Good to know I can still get the edge on you sometimes, I suppose."

  "I was going to get up on my own. But thank you. You don't seem as angry..."

  "No," Daniel said, walking away from him and towards the living room. "Got it out of my system watching you tumble ass over elbows down the staircase." He sat himself down in a dramatic collapse. When he blinked, Armand was beside him, startling him more than he thought it should at this point. "Jesus. Knock that shit off, will you?"

  Armand no longer appeared wet. He'd transitioned back into himself (or the version of him Daniel was growing used to, anyway) during his tumble, but he was still naked. Naked and-

  "Are you shivering? I thought you said you couldn't catch a chill..."

  "Did I?"

  Daniel eyed him, avoiding letting his gaze roam lower than Armand's shoulders. "You at least implied it."

  "You're growing suspicious..."

  "Yeah, no shit. You're contradicting yourself."

  "Perhaps I'm just looking for a little taste of human sympathy."

  "Perhaps you should put some fucking clothes on."

  Armand frowned. "Fine," he said. He fuzzed out and then back in and he was now wrapped up in a fluffy white robe that clung loosely to him, falling off his shoulder. Somehow, this was even worse.

  "What's your angle, kid?"

  "My angle?"

  "Yeah. This half-serious seduction bit your doing?"

  Armand looked just a touch guilty. "I somehow thought that things would have progressed by now."

  Progressed?

  Armand's fingers worried at his upper sleeve as if picking lint. Daniel wanted to smack them.

  "Progressed to what?"

  "To intimacy." Armand's eyes were bigger, sadder, his lower lip protruding. He looked rather pathetic. It was... working.

  Daniel forced a laugh. Surely this was a joke. Had to be. And once Armand saw that he wasn't buying it, he'd give up the ruse. But as Daniel laughed, Armand only looked more put out and disappointed.

  Oh. "You're... not kidding..."

  "I suppose it is a bit laughable..."

  "It's... No, it's just-"

  "I've gotten ahead of myself and it's much too soon to be-"

  "It's just that it's a little ridiculous..."

  "Yes. Ridiculous. Of course..."

  "I mean..." Daniel scratched awkwardly at the back of his head. "I'm an old man. And an asshole. I just pushed you down the stairs..."

  "I sustained no damage. I've forgotten, already..."

  "Also, you're a non-human... supernatural being..."

  "As I've demonstrated, there are workarounds..."

  "And you had some kind of romantic monster-on-human fling with my late ex wife, or so you claim."

  "Yes, and I miss her dearly. As do you, Daniel. Our shared paramour. Our overlapping histories..."

  Incredible, Daniel thought. "I don't really know what to say..."

  The air shifted and the cold weight of Armand settled over Daniel as he moved, catlike, into his lap. "Say this form pleases you."

  Daniel was shocked silent.

  "I can only maintain this tangibility for so long in an impassioned state." Armand's eyes were not meeting Daniel's, they were on his lips instead. He seemed to vibrate in Daniel's lap. To shake like a nervous dog. "I will flicker out before long if you do not act..."

  Daniel inched his fingers under his own legs, effectively pinning them beneath himself and preventing them from gripping the slender waist of the spirit. Preventing Armand from being able to seize one of them up and drink from him.

  "Do you not desire me?" Those orange eyes flicked up to Daniel's on the last word. 

  "I think..." Daniel said slowly, his voice calibrated to a timbre that was decidedly frosty. "-that you should go finish that bath and cool down."

  Blessedly, Daniel was left entirely to his own devices for the rest of the afternoon, bleeding into the evening. He finished the book he'd been trudging through, sent a text to it's author expressing his enjoyment and thanking him for the advanced copy. He wondered for a good fifteen minutes after about whether that had been the right move or whether he'd made himself sound like a pompous ass. He'd half expected his notes app to pull up and for Armand to give his input, but that didn't happen. He watched an episode of Great British Bake Off which allowed him to forget about the potential social blunder, ordered dinner by way of Doordash (some pasta limone which he knew would not travel, but he wanted something to go with the Riesling he had chilling in the fridge) and he ate it with not one, but two glasses of wine. All of this while trying to push thoughts of the desperate and pleading orange-eyed monster out of his head. The tempting and not-quite-heavy-enough weight of him in his lap. The scent of perfumed bath salts he'd somehow carried with him as though his skin really were porous and real and it wasn't all smoke and mirrors and deception meant to lure Daniel in. To make Daniel want him. To make him think about taking the boy/spirit/thing down to the floor and-

  For fuck's sake. Stop thinking about it.

  He found himself in the kitchen, tipping a generous third pour of Riesling into his glass. He let the fridge door swing shut and when he turned, he sloshed about a third of it down the front of his shirt.

  "I'd like to extend an apology," Armand said. He stood in the entryway to the kitchen, dressed in black, hair combed back over his head and behind his ears, coming together in a neat bunch of curls at his neck. His fingers clutched at his upper arms in a pose so insecure and unsure that, once again, he looked indistinguishably human. "My behavior was... unbecoming."

  "Oh yeah? For a ghoul such as yourself?" Daniel pulled the wet material of his shirt away from his stomach, assessing the damage. "Did you have a long hard think about it?"

  "I did. I'm truly sorry. I hope that you can forgive me for such a tactless display."

  "Yeah, I'm choosing to move past that. Now I'm annoyed you made me spill my wine."

  "Apologies for the spilled wine, as well." Armand flickered and Daniel realized he was not nearly as opaque as he'd been earlier in the day. The light above them went dim and Daniel could hear an electric hum growing.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Pulling the strength together to stay visible to you. I was quite worked up before and the fall down the stairs didn't-"

  "Hey." Daniel took a sip from his glass and then set it on the counter beside him. "I'm not putting you on trial here. Look..." He rolled up his sleeve and stuck his arm out. "Will this help?"

  A fleeting look of consternation and then those pleading eyes on him again. "You've been drinking..."

  "I'll be fine. I used to mix pills and wine all the time. Sharing a little of my supply with my otherworldly roommate isn't going to kill me."

  Armand crept close to him and Daniel fought the urge to take a step back. They locked eyes and Armand wrapped his fingers around Daniel's forearm, bending to him.

  "Yeah, there you go," Daniel encouraged. "Just- ahh...." He felt the sensation, the pulling of his veins, the flood of feel-good chemicals rushing in. "Just leave me enough to..."

  "Mmm?" Armand moaned against his arm. Daniel could feel the vibration of it.

  "-enough to walk up the stairs without... without getting lightheaded..."

  Armand had been right to be concerned. Daniel abandoned his third glass of wine on the counter, decreeing that Armand could have it if he liked, and went upstairs to put himself to bed. His head was swimming and it was as if Armand's cold chill had invaded his veins. He pulled a heavy quilt from the trunk at the foot of the bed and tucked himself in for the night. He dreamed in fits.

  Daniel woke with an idea in his head. He reached for his phone, opened his notes app, and spoke into the mic.

  "Haunted house novella," he said. "Old- No." He thumbed backspace, backspace, backspace. "Middle aged man, comma, sexy ghost. Period. Appeal to the rabidly horny housewife demo..." The text scrolled along the screen and then stopped.

  Yeah, Daniel thought. That's something. There'd been a handful of his contemporaries who had sold themselves out like whores to compete with the likes of those questionably talented "booktok" authors and Daniel was a player who had always hated the game. But he had to admit, he was starting to understand the temptation. Not for capital, but for... Well, he wasn't sure. Whimsy? Salacious fun? If his strange situation was going to keep him from wandering far from home and finding a story, maybe he could open his eyes to the one unfolding here. Between these walls. Or maybe he'd completely tank his stock as a serious and Pulitzer prize decorated author.

  A good chunk of millennials knew who he was thanks to Welt! A Shocking and Surprisingly Tender Deep Dive into the Underground BDSM Scene. Taking part in that 90 minute documentary had given him a type of recognition that went beyond book-jacket. Kids decades younger than him, his own daughters' schoolmates in some cases, would recognize him on the street. He didn't consider it a serious piece in his own canon, he'd been brought onboard as some kind of lifestyle expert with a Pulitzer under his belt so you had to take him seriously. They hydrated his curls, powdered his nose, and Sally (the makeup artist) would spool black-tar mascara over his lashes to make his candy-apple eyes pop. And viola! Daniel Molloy had become something of a cult sex hero amongst the youth. You didn't even have to venture beyond the beaded curtain to pick it up. It was on the display shelves along with all the other documentaries right there at your local Blockbuster. An no doubt there were probably dozens as many bootlegs floating around by 1997. When Daniel was recognized from Welt!, he was more often than not regaled with a story about how the ill-gotten VHS found it's way into the little punk's VCR after their parents went to bed. He tried to temper it, but he couldn't help feeling a bit like a puffed-up hero to some of these misfit kids. Even if his own daughters were embarrassed to hell and back by it.

  You probably couldn't find one Gen Z kid in a sea of hundreds who had any idea who Daniel was from looking at a picture of him. Probably for the best, he thought. But, fuck it, if he wrote a ghost sex book and managed to gain some traction on booktok...

  The cursor jumped down a space.

  "Would you like me to start coffee?"

  Daniel sighed, set his phone on his chest and closed his eyes. "What'd we talk about with the phone thing?" He lifted the phone back up.

  "Yes, I know, but you've slept in a bit and I was getting impatient."

  "Yeah," Daniel said. "Start the coffee. I'll meet you down there in five minutes."

  He peeled himself out of bed, threw on a robe and his glasses, and fit his hearing aid over his ear. The coffee was still brewing when he stepped into the kitchen and Armand was sitting at the table looking suspiciously eager with his chin in his hand. He was back in the robe again, hair combed away from his face, eyes burning with expectation.

  Daniel only glanced at him before walking to the counter and taking up the mug that'd been kindly left out for him. He watched the carafe fill enough that he could get a mug's worth out of it and poured himself some before turning and leaning against the countertop. "Good morning," he said, lifting the mug to his lips and blowing across the steam that fogged his glasses.

  "Good morning." Armand's voice had a bright quality to it. Still silken and smooth, coming through strong and not solely through the device in Daniel's ear.

  "You seem chipper." Daniel tested a sip, only partially concerned that Armand would've managed to fuck the coffee up somehow. It tasted fine. Bitter and black, but oily and rich at the same time. Perfect, really.

  "I've inspired you," Armand said with a smile. He removed his chin from his palm and placed his hands in his lap. The neck of his robe gaped and Daniel tried to avoid staring down his chest as his glasses defogged.

  "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back. It's a hack idea and I know it."

  "Sexy ghost..."

  "Fiction."

  "But only because no one in the publishing world would take you seriously otherwise."

  "The characters wouldn't be a one-to-one."

  "Might I make a suggestion?"

  Daniel sighed, pushed off the counter, and came to sit at the table across from him. "I'm sure you're going to either way."

  "Make the protagonist a woman. And the ghost a man."

  "I didn't say what gender the ghost was going to be."

  "No, but-"

  "You were in my head?"

  Armand looked sheepish. Daniel rolled his eyes.

  "Anyway, I'm listening..."

  "Make the ghost a man and that would put you much more in line with the books that gain momentum on Tiktok."

  "May I suggest something?"

  "Of course, Daniel."

  "Stay out of my phone. What is it the kids are always saying? Go touch grass..."

  "It was Alice's iPad that-"

  "And no mentioning Alice for the day. Please. After the stunt you pulled yesterday, I really need a reset." He glanced up and down at the spirit. "Riddle me this... Why the robe?"

  "I wanted to paint a picture of domesticity. Something familiar to put you at ease."

  "It's creepy. I don't need you screwing around with my perception of things. It's weird that I'm having coffee with a spirit and you wearing a slutty robe does nothing to change it."

  "Slutty?" He looked truly offended. "It's just a robe, Daniel. I could've elected to appear in something silky and short or sheer, but this is just your standard five star hotel complimentary robe."

  "Calculated," Daniel shot back. "Because anything else would be too on-the-nose."

  "I've played my hand, already. What difference does it make? You already know it's my intention to look attractive to you. I think you're only upset that it's working."

  "It's too early for this. haven't even finished my coffee, yet."

  "Oh!" With that, Armand stood from the table and hurried to the cabinet. Daniel turned to watch him over his shoulder, regretting the quick movement the instant he felt the pull in his neck. When Armand came back, he placed the bottle of iron supplements in front of Daniel before taking his seat once more. "I took a bit too much last night."

  "Breakfast of champions," Daniel muttered as he unscrewed the cap and shook two out into his palm before popping them in his mouth and washing them down with coffee.

  "Part and parcel. Perhaps why I am coming across so 'chipper' this morning. I had your blood washing through me like tidal waves last night. It pulled me into your dreams. I couldn't fight it." He smiled in a dreamy sort of way. He looked like someone's under-fucked wife after a lucky night with her usually distant husband.

  "How were they? I barely remember them."

  "Sporadic. Short and interrupted. But sweet, sometimes. I've been prohibited from speaking about what you dreamed of."

  Daniel raised an eyebrow over his mug, took a long and obnoxious sip, and set it back on the table. "Alright. I'm granting dispensation in this instance."

  "You dreamed of coffee and lovemaking in bed. You dreamed of warm sunshine, Alice in your arms. You dreamed of a book signing event in Paris. Alice, in a short purple dress. Stepped-in chewing gum. You dreamed-"

  "Alright. Alright, yeah. And you couldn't fight being pulled in?"

  "Not with that much of you inside me."

  The phrasing felt a little pointed to Daniel. "Uh-huh..."

  "Will you ever tire of your suspicions?"

  "Will you ever give me a reason to?"

  Armand frowned. "It was not a perverse thing, Daniel. Gazing through your mind's window into your dreams. I do not sleep and so I do not dream. I can't be duped into ever believing the things that I conjure up, the fantasies... I can't be tricked into believing them the way mortals who dream can. I envy that. Through you, I felt for a short while like Alice was alive. A younger, healthier Alice. Alice before I knew her. It felt like a privilege to see that. To feel it."

  "You felt my dreams?"

  "I had no choice in the matter."

  Daniel looked down into the dregs of his mug, drained them, and shook his head. "I'm an old man who lives alone, and still I can't get any fucking privacy."

  "You're lonely when you're alone, Daniel. You should eat something so you don't suffer an acid attack."

  Daniel nodded. "Yeah. Good looking out."

  Dick texted Daniel around noon and the pair agreed to meet for beers on the porch and watch the sunset.

  "Look, I'll leave my laptop open for you, if you want. You can poke around on there as long as you don't download anything or mess with my files." He opened the laptop sitting on the coffee table in front of him and put in his pin.

  "I have a fair understanding of how the internet works. You needn't worry."

  "And no weird stuff. No... flickering lights or humming. He'll wanna investigate."

  "Understood. Daniel, he's been by enough that I know the drill. You forget that I was haunting this house long before you returned to it."

  "Yeah, I just wanna make sure. You know, you've been getting really comfortable walking around the house all visible and shit. I don't even want to consider what he might think if he caught sight of you traipsing around the place looking like... that."

  Armand's face puckered. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  "Come on," Daniel said, exasperated. "You're dressed like you're my kept boy."

  Armand's neckline was cut halfway down to his navel. The flowy and sheer black shirt and the loose pants that clung to his shape and flowed when he walked looked like something Daniel imagined a modern day harem keeper would enforce as uniform.

  "I won't allow him to set eyes on me," Armand said, doing little to hide his indignation. "Yours are the only ones I want grazing me, now."

  "Right..." Daniel said. "Anyway..."

  "Perhaps I can have a bath prepared for you after the sun sets and your friend is gone?"

  "Why, so you can hang around watching me like a creep?"

  "Not if you don't want me to. But if you'd like the company..."

  "I'll think about it."

  That seemed to satisfy Armand.

Chapter Text

  Daniel was pleased when Armand kept to his word. Not a peep. Not a disturbance. He and Dick shot the shit, keeping it light. Daniel loaned him the advanced copy of his colleague's book and made him swear not to tell a soul. Dick traded a photocopy of a hand-written recipe for bourbon peach cobbler that he feared would have Loretta haunting him for real if Daniel didn't keep precious about it.

  Daniel promptly added the ingredients and, most importantly, a tub of vanilla bean ice cream to his grocery list. The ice cream was vital, Dick insisted. If Daniel left that out, Loretta would come for them both. And if there was any kind of man that bore the wrath of one Loretta Sue Baylor, née Washington the most, it was "know-it-all white men with smart mouths."

  "And let her catch you trying to substitute margarine for lard," Dick warned. "You ever see Poltergeist? That'll be about the state of things 'round here..."

  Daniel underlined 'lard' for good measure.

  "Daniel?"

  Daniel capped the marker and set it back in it's holder before turning. "Yeah?"

  Armand was peering around the entryway, gripping onto the edge of the wall and looking like the cat that caught the canary.

  "Yeah?" Daniel restated, lifting a brow. "You look like you've just been rollerblading in the Louvre. What'd you do?"

  "I only want to show you something."

  Daniel sighed. "Alright." He'd entertain whatever this was going to be. Another seduction game, perhaps. Maybe something more sinister. "I hope it's a hot bubble bath." He followed Armand out of the living room where his laptop was still open on the coffee table.

  "I practiced restraint and held off on the bath," Armand said, leading him around the couch and gesturing for him to sit. "I didn't want it to go to waste if you decided against it."

  Daniel sat and Armand came to join him, the air shifting and flexing, lifting the hairs on the back of Daniel's neck. He watched Armand bend forward to use the mouse pad and tap at the keys. He opened Spotify and Daniel's interest grew.

  "Have a look," Armand said as he sat back, his eyes on Daniel.

  "It's Spotify. Yeah. It's a music streaming service."

  "Yes, but look, Daniel."

  Daniel adjusted his glasses and sat forward. "Oh..."

  Armand was quiet as Daniel unplugged the laptop from it's power source and pulled it into his lap.

  "This is... How did you get into her account?"

  "Alice had trouble remembering passwords. I kept her log-in information for just about everything."

  Daniel wanted to be annoyed by that. He also wanted to compare Armand to a browser plug-in. He'd had a hell of a time after Alice's passing trying to get her Facebook account memorialized, her subscriptions cancelled, and on and on. The various tedious tasks no one ever thinks of or accounts for until they're suddenly faced with surmounting them. "Convenient," was all he managed.

  "All of her music playlists are private. But I wanted you to have access to them."

  Daniel clicked over to her playlists. There were a lot of them, but one in particular jumped out.

  "Oh..." He could feel Armand's gaze burning into his cheek, an electric vibration in the air. He clicked on the playlist.

  "These are songs that held meaning for you."

  Daniel scrolled through the list of tracks. He laughed, breathless. "Wow. Yeah. Christ, some of these songs I haven't heard or thought of in years..."

  "She listened to them often."

  "She was always more into the New Wave crowd than I was. I mean, nothing against it, I just had such a stick up my ass in my twenties."

  "Yes. She said you prided yourself on a closed mind back then."

  "Older and wiser, now. To be fair, she hated some of my music. She plugged her ears to Jethro Tull, if you can believe it." Daniel hit play on the first track. Talk Talk's Life's What You Make It began to vibrate out over his lap. "She wore this cassette out in the car."

  "These songs reminded her of a time and a place. And you..."

  Daniel continued to scroll, reading the titles of each track, bringing them back, remembering, and then he came to the final song on the playlist. "Shit..."

  "What is it?" Armand leaned closer to him, a faint coolness on his cheek like the whisper of a breeze.

  "The last track. That’s… yeah, Neil Diamond. Ours..." He clicked on it and some tinny acoustic guitar replaced the synthesized pounding of piano keys, accompanied by the swift kick of a drum. Sweet and upbeat. Optimistic. The way two kids just starting out, falling in love, moving into their first place together felt. A feeling both universal and unique. For every young couple starving for their art with hope in their hearts, a song. And this one had been theirs.

Money talks

But it don't sing and dance

And it don't walk

Long as I can have you here with me

I'd much rather be

Forever in blue jeans

 

  The song played and Daniel fell back through time, into that first apartment with Alice, surrounded by boxes yet unpacked. The smell of dust and fresh paint in the air, dancing on the creaky floorboards to a battery-powered boombox.

  "Daniel?"

  Pieces of plaster caught in Alice's eyebrow. She'd hit the oppressively low ceiling with a coat rack on accident. A smudge of dirt on her cheek, under her eye. Daniel was on fire for her. She'd swiftly let go of the two-bit moving team for breaking nearly every glass they owned, declaring that she could do it all better herself. Daniel knew that she could. They were so in love, so fucking crazy about each other. By the time the sun was setting, they were exhausted and covered in sweat. They drank the warm beer and ate the cold pizza meant to feed the movers Alice fired and listened to the radio. It was so vivid, the memory. Tapping his heel while sitting on a crate of magazines, Alice's gleeful eyes glittering at him as she tipped the last of her beer down her throat and crushed the can in her fist. She got up from her spot on the floor and Daniel knew the look, his own face going dumb with lucky surprise. Who, me? He set his own can down, wiped his hands on his knees, and let her pull him up to his feet.

  "Dance with me," she said, pulling him in.

  Daniel wasn't much of a dancer. It embarrassed him to no end, but for Alice he'd put all that aside. He braced his hand against the small of her back and pressed her close.

  "I'm sweaty," he said in apology.

  "So am I," she laughed. "Shower after?"

  "Together?"

  "Well, the gas still hasn't been turned on. We'll have to keep warm somehow..."

  Daniel liked the prospect of that. There were a lot of things that scared him about starting this life together. Daniel's job was forever hanging by a thread. His bombastic opinions, his ability to write a single piece that didn't ruffle at least a few feathers, his very big and very loud mouth... But here, with Alice in his arms, with the smell of their sweat like the proof of their shared grit and determination... they were gonna be alright. He knew they would be. Forever in blue jeans, babe...

 

  "Daniel?"

  "Sorry. Yeah." Daniel shook his head, pulling the room back into focus.

  "You're crying..."

  Oh. He hadn't realized it, but the tears were cooling on his cheek, now, and he seized up as Armand's chilly thumb came to brush them out of existence. Daniel's eyes flicked over to him. He was so close, their faces only inches apart. The compassionate and calm look on Armand's face was so like Alice. The blend of them, whatever he was and her... Daniel felt himself pulling nearer to him, his fingers trembling, wanting to reach out and touch his face, lower his lids and let himself see her. Armand's lips parted, a puff of air escaping from between them as his own eyes closed as if in waiting. Daniel snapped himself back, sniffing and removing his glasses to rub at his bleary eyes.

  "Shit, man," he said. "You really opened a can of worms with that one."

  Armand sagged back into the couch, clearly let down a little. "I thought... you would be pleased."

  "I could have used a little more warning, is all. Springing an old man's past on him like that... Like I'm some kind of dementia patient. Did you do this sort of shit with her?"

  "I'm sorry," Armand said meekly.

  Daniel felt his heart tug. He could do that. Lash out when he felt exterior forces pulling to the surface the things he kept stuffed down deep. He could bite the hands that reached out to soothe him. Alice had shown so much patience for him when he got like that, but she'd also been honest with him about it. Helping him to be mindful of it. Helping him to see how he harbored the impulse and should do all that he could to thwart it.

  "She cried a lot, too," Armand continued after a moment. "Cried so often that..." He hesitated, breath hitching in a way that seemed so vulnerable... so human that Daniel could've forgotten what he really was. "Well," Armand gave a small huff of a laugh. "Sometimes there would be a thin layer of salt where I rested, I drank so many of her tears..."

  "Think I'll have that bath, now," Daniel said. "Alone."

  Armand was not waiting for him when he got out. He puttered down to the kitchen, fixed a mug of hot tea, and moved from room to room, anticipating him to be occupying one of them. The iron smell was still there. He was here. Perhaps he was preserving his energy. Daniel felt a little embarrassed to be looking for him. He fingered the table in the dining room for dust, neatened a stack of bills on the table that served as the landing zone for mail in the foyer, put the dishes drying in the rack away. After finishing his tea, he moved upstairs, tidying the office, the library, the laundry room. At last he found his loneliness outweighed his shame and he pulled out his phone, sitting on the edge of the bed. God, he felt silly.

  "Armand...?"

  His notes app opened after a moment. "Yes?"

  "Ah. You're still here."

  "Of course I'm still here."

  "I just... I don't know, I figured you'd still be moping around the house or something."

  "I've used up a lot of energy today. I'm simply resting. Would you like me in my material form, presently?"

  Daniel chewed his lip. "Nah, that's alright. Get your beauty rest. I just wanted to make sure..." Make sure what? His mouth had gotten ahead of him and now he wasn't sure what it was he was trying to say at all.

  "Make sure what, Daniel?"

  "Ah, just... I was worried maybe I'd..." Hurt your feelings?

  "I am alright. You seemed like you were in need of some time alone with your thoughts."

  Daniel smiled. He wanted to tease. Say something like 'oh, now you understand when to give a guy some space,' but instead he just said "Thanks."

  Armand returned a simple <3 and Daniel stared back at it for a long time until the screen of his phone went dark. He went to bed feeling warm inside. He supposed a hot bath and a mug of chamomile would do that.

   Armand was celluloid at the kitchen table. Daniel cut his jam-coated toast in half, lifting one triangle to his mouth and pushing the plate across the table towards him.

  "Don't suppose this will actually help with your condition, but..."

  Armand bent over the plate as if smelling it and then it was gone. The room slowly filling with the scent of toasted whole wheat and candied raspberry. "No, but it's enjoyable nonetheless."

  His voice was coming in through the hearing aid alone and it had a hollow quality. Or, that was to say, it lacked a quality. He seemed... unwell.

  "You feeling alright?" Daniel asked. "Spirits can't catch the flu or anything like that, right? You seem... I don't know, a little under the weather."

  "Do I?"

  "My blood sustained you a lot longer last time."

  "It's just a bout of melancholy. It will pass. It always does."

  That struck Daniel.

  "Melancholy?"

  Armand's eyes were on the plate, focusing on the crumbs scattered over it. Daniel watched as they disappeared one by one. It had the same effect as someone sadly spooning at a plate of peas. Was his spirit... depressed?

  "Does this happen a lot?"

  "Sure. I suppose. About as often as it happens for mortals. It can last a day or two... Sometimes it goes on for years."

  Daniel took another bite of his toast and grimaced. He washed it down with coffee. "Let's hope this isn't a years-long one, then."

  Armand forced a small smile. "If it seems like it is, I'll likely uproot. It's not good for me to stay in someone's life when I am this way. It's so easy to suck them down with me into despair. A lesson hard-learned, but... Well, suffice to say that I've learned it."

  "Would another feeding help?" Daniel felt an itch on the belly of his arm. He'd been getting slightly light-headed when he stood up too fast. His vision graying at the edges. Giving Armand another helping right now probably wasn't wise, but... damn, did it feel good to do it. And, damn, did he not want to think about how bad the prospect of Armand leaving him for good scared him. 

  Armand shook his head. "You're still regenerating. You'll be in bed the next two days to recover if I have you in the quantity it would take."

  Daniel chose not to examine the slight disappointment he felt at that too closely, either. He moved past it.

  "I mean, what about..." His eyes dropped to his coffee mug and he tapped nervously against its side with the pads of his fingers. "You seemed to be in high spirits after you came back from your little sabbatical..." He peered back across the table and saw Armand's eyes widen at that.

  "You're saying..."

  Immediately, Daniel wanted to take it back. God, what a terrible thing to suggest! And for such selfish reasons, really. I mean, did he actually care if Armand was feeling a little sad? Was that worth the taking of a human life? Was he really implying that Armand should drain somebody dead just to make this house feel a little less empty for him? To ease his old man's loneliness? That was... abominable. Unthinkable. But, still, he was thinking it, wasn’t he?

  "Nah, nevermind. I can maybe... take more iron..." His cheeks were burning.

  Armand blinked. "I could do it," he said. "It's not a terrible idea. I'm just surprised that you suggested it..."

  "I didn't. I'm not."

  "Well, we haven't even said it out loud, have we? And yet..."

  Daniel downed the last of his coffee and pushed his chair back. He took his empty mug, reaching for the now empty plate in front of Armand, cleared of crumbs, when Armand's nearly-nothing grasp circled his wrist and held him.

  They were frozen like that for longer than Daniel could stand, staring into one another with curious intensity. At last, Daniel jerked free from him, taking the plate and his mug to the sink to wash up.

  "You would see another fellow mortal snuffed out like that," Armand's static voice sounded in his ear as he turned on the tap. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw him, leaning against the counter with his head cocked, staring his way. "To keep me here with you, you would have it that way?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "You were thinking it."

  Daniel rolled up his sleeves, fighting the urge to hold his arm out to get Armand's mouth on it, if just to shut him up.

  "It doesn't have to be your arm," Armand said. "And it might not have the effect you're hoping for."

  "What, occupying your mouth for a couple minutes?"

  "Would you feel shortchanged if your blood couldn't cure this malaise?"

  "Not everything I do is for my own gain, you know. Man, I'd have hated to be a fly on the wall when you and Alice got to gabbing. She must've really aired all my dirty laundry..."

  "She didn't speak negatively about you like that. She told me about a flawed man, a father and husband who, despite all the unconditional love he'd been shown, could not let the ones closest to him in enough to know him completely. Who, after decades of love and faith, lost the battle to his demons and became unbearable to love except from a safe distance. You assume the worst of yourself, Daniel. No one else did. Only you."

  "I failed as a father and a husband. Let me be a crotchety old bastard. It's the only identity that sticks anymore."

  The air cycloned around him, then, and Armand was no longer at his side. He felt a cool puffing over the nape of his neck and he froze, his mug in one hand, sponge in the other. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

  "I can drink from you," Armand said, "and leave you weak and at my mercy." His fingertips brushed the side of Daniel's throat, pressing over his carotid artery, making his head pulse. "Or... I can leave you for a few hours, do what I must do, and return to you vibrant and solid, letting you regain your strength and continue to regenerate the blood I've taken from you. Then... you may have the privilege of distracting me from this bout of despondency..."

  Daniel shivered all over. His knuckles had gone white, the sponge squeezed in his fist. "You don't need my permission. I'm not cosigning some poor suicidal schmuck’s death..."

  "So be it." Daniel felt a ring like the points of icicles threatening to impale him through the neck. A warning. Cool pricking and nothing more. He didn't feel the dreamy pull he felt when Armand actually drank from him. "And you'll have me for your nursemaid when you are too weak even to make it to the bathroom? Sponge baths, app-delivered meals spoon-fed to you as you dribble over your chin? Perhaps a makeshift chamber pot in the form of a casserole dish from the kitchen cabinet. Is that preferable to you?"

  Daniel's tongue was lead in his mouth. His feet felt like they were cast in iron.

  "I'm an experienced nurse, after all. Before hospice, I was all Alice had..."

  Daniel's lungs ached as he pulled in a breath. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it. His eyes stung. He should be furious. He wasn't. He should be frightened... He wasn't nearly as frightened as he ought to be. Instead, he felt... defeat. Defeat and despair.

  "Haunting me to get your way, huh?" His voice was thick. He was choking up. This was embarrassing. "Go have your death-driven morsel. You said, yourself, they were gonna do it anyway. Why should I lose sleep over it?"

  "Why, indeed." The icy points retreated and Daniel felt the presence of Armand vanish with them. Again, he was alone.

Chapter Text

  If there was one thing Daniel Molloy was good at, it was distracting himself. Didn't know what to write? Put on a stupid reality show. Didn't want to think about the tragedy and losses in his life? Read a book. Download a silly little game on his phone, play it for a few days, delete it. Scroll Tiktok. Organize a bookshelf by some arbitrary new system of classification. Purposeless. Mindless.

  Don't want to think about the phantom that lives in your house killing some hapless nobody at your behest? All because he was starting to bum you out? Go for a walk, buy some groceries, make a peach cobbler.

  He didn't know how long it'd take. Luring a victim, draining them dead, vanishing the evidence. Armand said 'hours.' That was pretty vague. While the cobbler sat cooling on the stove, Daniel kept himself busy. He washed, dried, and put away the dishes. He called up Dick to see that he was home before portioning up half of the dessert to bring over. The ice cream was soft by the time he arrived, easy to scoop and just the way both he and Dick liked it. And Dick's home was charming. It was big enough to raise a family in, but it was no mansion. It was humble and filled with touches of Loretta. Cross stitch, doilies, little dolls with crocheted gowns to cover kleenex boxes and air fresheners. Daniel even had the privilege of meeting Miss Cunningham, Dick's 17 year old long-haired gray tabby. She had no teeth and a voice like a rusty gate. When they sat down to eat, she was treated to her own small dish of vanilla bean ice cream which charmed Daniel even more. By the time he was heading home, his throat and eyes itched from letting her sit on his lap for the better part of an hour. Now he had two friends in town. Two real friends, who were flesh and blood and not storybook monsters with unclear intentions.

  It seemed Armand had beat him home.

  "You did the thing?"

  "Yes," Armand said from where he stood in front of the staircase. Daniel regarded him while shrugging out of his jacket and kicking out of his boots.

  "And...?"

  "And?"

  "Did it fix you? I mean, aside from the obvious?"

  The obvious being that Armand looked incredible. His curls were full and glossy, his color rich and opaque. He was dressed in the wispy black number again. The outfit that made it hard for Daniel not to look down his neckline.

  "Are you inquiring after my mood, Daniel?"

  "I'm sorry, let me try that again. Armand, good to see you. How are you?" Daniel moved to the kitchen, throwing the box of half-eating ice cream into the freezer and nearly jumping out of his skin when he turned to see Armand directly behind him.

  "It's hard to say. I feel better for having had the blood, of course."

  "Are you still sad?"

  "How about you, Daniel? You wept earlier today..."

  "You ambushed me."

  "It was hardly an ambush."

  "Well, I wasn't prepared."

  "Apologies," Armand said with a slight bow that made the temptation to peek down his shirt just a little too hard to resist. "But I see that you were in good enough spirits to go out."

  "Yeah, just for a bit"

  Armand stared, still blocking his way out of the kitchen.

  "Is that allowed?"

  "Of course. I'm just surprised you've returned so late. It's after dark."

  Daniel gave an indignant huff. "Okay. What are you, my mother?"

  "I was just concerned. And curious."

  "Like you weren't keeping tabs on me." It came out accusatory rather than playful.

  "It doesn't work that way. Proximity is a factor."

  "So you want to keep me close to keep tabs on me. Got it." Daniel ducked around him, leaving the kitchen with unhurried steps, knowing Armand was following at his heels.

  "Aren't I allowed to care?"

  Daniel wheeled in the entry to the living room. "Why don't you ask what you really want to ask..."

  Armand looked affronted. He narrowed his glowing eyes, his nose wrinkling. "Why don't you?"

  Daniel's chest inflated. "What is it you think I want to know?"

  Armand's eyes pierced him. Scanned.

  "Not an invitation to read my mind."

  "You want to know about the person I killed. Among many other things which you've been sitting on and which I did not need to read your mind to know about."

  Daniel took a step closer to him. "Stay out of my skull."

  "You want to put your hands on me. Push me down again. Funny..." He cocked his head.

  Daniel crossed his arms as if to show he would do no such thing. "What's funny?"

  "You never laid a hand on her in violence. Not her or your daughters. Not ever. Not even out of a dutiful, if antiquated, patriarchal expectation. But the same cannot be said in your relationship with the young pharmacist."

  "I was an addict."

  "Off the rails. Violent at times. The neighbors even called the cops once..."

  "It wasn't exactly one-sided."

  "No, but you were bigger. Stronger, then. He needed stitches. And, of course, there were the fights in bars..."

  "Okay. I admit it. I had a temper. It's been years since I-"

  "It was only a couple of days ago that you pushed me down the stairs. If I'd been mortal, it could have killed me."

  "Well, you're not. And it didn't. And you were fucking asking for it, pal."

  "Was I? I remember asking you to put your hands on me after in quite a different context. You steadfastly refused. But hurting me was no trouble..."

  Daniel took another step, this time back and away. "You wanna maybe talk about that, then? About how you threw yourself at me, got rejected, and you've been pouting ever since? I don't think you're depressed. I think you're a manipulator."

  "Or, perhaps, you're just frightened of how attached you've grown to my presence in such a short time."

  "Buddy, you're the one who's attached, here. I don't have the energy for this. I'm going to bed." He pivoted, attempting to step around Armand, but the spirit moved to block him.

  "It's your right to refuse me."

  "You're goddamned right it is..."

  "But you should know..." Armand closed the gap between them, bringing them so close that Daniel could feel his atoms vibrating with energy, their faces only inches apart. "-there is no mortal experience that can compare to what I'm offering. No hole tighter, no mouth more skilled. No one more eager to please... Rebuffing me is only a possibility because you haven't had the pleasure..."

  Daniel felt a tremble in his hands, his heart pounding in his chest. He did want to hit him. He did. But not only that. The sympathetic responses in his body, beyond his control, were not only violent, but sexual. He felt... desire.

  "You're fucking insane, you know that?" He could hear fear and dark burning want in his voice and he hated himself for it. He wanted to fly at Armand, speak with his fists and his cock, but he held himself back. "You flit between pretending to be this shy, soft-spoken thing wearing the gender-fucked skin of my wife to... whatever the fuck kind of threat that was supposed to be. And I'm supposed to trust sticking my dick in that?" He laughed. "Please."

  Armand shrunk back. "I don't mean to be so aggressive..."

  "Now that's funny..."

  "It's the blood..."

  "Get out of my way, yeah?"

  Armand stepped aside, holding his arm as if wounded. As Daniel walked briskly up the stairs, he could feel Armand at his back.

  "When I take a victim... when I take them in their entirety-"

  "Are you still talking?"

  "When I take them, it's not just the blood and the life that fills me, I take in aspects of-"

  Daniel whipped around the banister, into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and placing a thick wooden barricade between them.

  "-of their personhood and in the first hours it can be hard to control the impulse to give in-"

  "And he's still going!" Daniel set his glasses on the sink counter, turned on the tap and splashed cold water over his face. Armand's voice babbled on from the other side of the door, at first muffled, then clear as though he were in the room, standing right beside Daniel.

  Daniel scrubbed the excess water off his face and looked in the mirror. Armand was not beside him, behind him, or even in the room at all.

  "The paranoia and the nervousness, it will pass. I fear that the delusions and-"

  "You're freaking me out, kid. You wanna talk in my ear, let me see you."

  Instead of manifesting in the room, the door opened and Armand stepped in as any human would, coming to meet his own voice filling the air around Daniel's head. "I called out, and I took the one who answered," he said. "And in this case, the person who came to me suffered some..."

  "Paranoid delusions..." Daniel finished for him, turning to face him as he patted his skin dry on a hand towel. "Yeah. I'm listening. You said you take in parts of the personalities of the people you kill."

  "It's not always so intense. The intensity is subject to the individual..."

  "So you drained someone... intense." Daniel flinched. His curiosity about the victim was butting up against his complicity and his denial. He wanted to know. He didn't want to know.

  "Yes." Armand's eyes fell to the floor.

  "Intense and a little bit rapey, maybe?"

  Armand's breath -his approximation of breath- stuttered and stopped. His eyes remained downcast, his mouth hanging open, wordless.

  "Apology accepted," Daniel said, putting them both out of their misery. "You know Dick's just a friend, right?"

  "How am I to know?" Armand's defeated, softened voice spoke as his eyes flicked painfully up from under his lashes. "I try not to read you so intimately..."

  "You're jealous that I have a friend..."

  "I haven't really sat with it to examine it."

  "Maybe that's what you liked so much about Alice. Her loneliness... Is that a preference for you, or a symptom? Do you want to isolate me and keep me for yourself? Is that it?"

  "I don't want that, Daniel."

  "How can you be so sure when you said, yourself, you haven't examined it?"

  Armand stood silent.

  "Maybe I shouldn't be interrogating you while you're in an altered state," Daniel hung the towel back up and placed his glasses back on his nose. "Pathetically begging for my affection isn't going to get you anywhere. You're a monster, yeah? Fucking act like one. Stop sniveling."

  "And let my nature do more to disgust you?"

  "All I'm saying is," Daniel took a step closer to him. He cradled the spirit's cheek in his palm, his skin tingling with a buzzing vibration, heat in his belly when Armand's eyes carefully met his own. "-you're a lot sexier when you aren't feeling sorry for yourself. Chin up." He gave him a soft pat. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna take a piss, brush my teeth, and get into bed."

  The light flickered above them, but it was no trick when Daniel saw Armand's lower lip tremble. "Yes," he said breathily before flickering out, himself, and leaving Daniel's skin pricked up in gooseflesh.

  Daniel struggled to turn his mind away from their exchange and sink into rest. He wasn't sure of his own motives. Had he been placating? Had he been relenting? Was it that he felt sorry for Armand in his state of nervous self-pity? Or, maybe he was too turned on by him to be able to set aside that pathos. Was Armand worthy of his mercy or was he just too hot a piece of ass?

  Daniel's arousal was not going down without a fight. Frustrated and unable to shake the feeling of being watched, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and thumbed over to the incognito tab of his browser. He typed in PornMD.

  "Dark haired twink sad eyes" returned him a whole lot of nothing. He cringed, embarrassment warming his cheeks at the thought of Armand knowing what he was up to. Then he typed in some key words that would surely get him canceled in a heartbeat if screenshots were ever posted to Twitter. He scrolled through the results, clicking on one video that looked like it might do the trick. He turned the volume all the way down, exited out of the inevitable pop-up ad before returning to the page. The man in the video didn't really look like Armand. But then, it was a pretty tall order to expect a perfect match. Daniel supposed he might be able to make the case if he squinted hard enough. And he wasn't entirely sold on the set-up of the video, anyway. Homemade was fine, but he liked a steadier camera. P.O.V. was okay, too, but he hated when the guy filming was too caught up in the action to remember it was a person with a face he was fucking. He was wound up enough to get himself off without a visual aid, of course, but he feared his mind turning entirely to Armand. He didn't want that to be mistaken for a summons. If it even worked that way.

  It was frustrating. His fingers were itching to climb beneath the covers, slide down the front of his pajama bottoms, get things started, but... he was nervous. There really wasn't any way to know for sure if Armand was watching him. Whether he'd admit to it or not. Daniel was already pretty certain he'd watched him that first night. Why wouldn't he have, after all? If he was so keen, and Daniel hadn't yet laid down any ground rules...

  He exited out of the video, laid his phone back down on the table, and allowed his palm to slide down to the front of his pants. He pressed against himself, feeling his pulse there, feeling himself throb at the contact. He wouldn't think about Armand. He could manage that. He'd think about the last hookup he'd had. Ages ago. Over a year, at this point. Cute blonde guy managing a chain bookstore, maybe fifty or so. Wedding ring on his left hand. Daniel chose not to ask. They closed themselves into the bookstore bathroom after locking up. The floor had been sticky and still the guy was willing to get down on his knees. Daniel remembered that he'd tried to lock their fingers together while sucking him off and Daniel pulled his hand back, fisting into his hair instead. The guy's gag reflex had been sensitive. The sounds he made were rather off-putting and they bounced around the ceramic tile in the bathroom while Daniel thought he might end up with a headache if he didn't cum down this man's throat soon. He'd had to think of someone else, then. Who was it? The bathroom blowjob before that?

  A gust of wind picked up outside, knocking a branch against the window and causing Daniel to freeze. At first, he felt certain Armand was in the room with him, like a clumsy mortal knocking into the dresser and giving himself away. No. No, just the wind. He let the breath he'd been holding in go and felt himself going soft in his hand. That was almost a relief, in itself.

  He pulled his hand from his pants, sighed, and rolled over onto his side when the screen of his phone lit up. Perhaps a push notification. He grabbed the phone back off the table and brought it close enough to his face to see that it was not a push notification, but his notes app. 

  "You've given up so quickly" it read.

  Daniel's heart skipped. He pulled himself up, reached over to flick the lamp on and grab his glasses. He didn't dare speak aloud. Instead, he hit enter and typed, "You were watching me."

  "No. Not watching. But having enough of your blood in me, still, and being in such close quarters, I can feel when you are aroused."

  Daniel shook his head. "I don't believe you." That, he said out loud, though under his breath.

  "You like the rather straightforward videos."

  "You saw that..."

  "Not because I wanted to pry. Just a result of needing your phone to speak to you while respecting your privacy."

  Daniel laughed bitterly. "Did you watch me that first night?"

  "Would you be angry with me if I had?"

  "A little."

  "I did not. I felt you, though. Put in your hearing aid."

  Daniel hesitated. He set the phone down in his lap and reached over for his hearing aid in it's little charging station. He placed it over his ear, securing it in place. His breathing was unsteady. He felt nervous as he slowly raised the volume.

  "ssssssDaniel?"

  "Yeah?" Daniel could hear the apprehension in himself. It embarrassed him further.

  "Perhaps my voice could help you." He was speaking low and even, the timbre of his voice tickling the cilia deep in Daniel's ear. It made him shiver down the back of his neck.

  "Help me how?"

  "You know how..."

  "You want to whisper in my ear while I tug myself off, Armand?" It did not come out as acerbic as he'd hoped.

  "Your confrontation is armor. Let down your guard, Daniel. This will be good for you."

  "Good for you, you mean."

  "For us. We are threaded together, you and I. Even if it's only a small amount of your blood still working in me, it's enough to let me feel some of what you experience..."

  Daniel licked his lips, his mouth feeling suddenly dry. "You saying... you get off when I get off?"

  "Mmm. Correct."

  "And so... right now..." Daniel looked down at his lap where he was stirring again with renewed interest.

  "Yes, Daniel. I'm aroused, too." The last syllable came out of him in a rush and Daniel wondered if the sultry edge in his voice was put on or if it was legitimate.

  Daniel set his phone back on the bedside table, keeping his hands above the covers. He leaned himself back against the headboard, adjusting his pillow behind his lower back. "How does that work for someone like you? I mean, you're not solid right now, right? Unless you're posted up somewhere in the house with your phantom dick in your hand and I'm just unaware..."

  "No, it doesn't quite work like that. When I'm physically manifest, yes. I would need to... uh..."

  Daniel perked. "Getting flustered there, are we?"

  "I spend so much time amongst mortals, perhaps your sense of shame is catching..."

  "Or you're just built different."

  "Yes, or that. I've been a bit bashful as long as I can remember."

  "You weren't so bashful the other day when you crawled on top of me..."

  "I was terrified of your rejection the whole time. And then my fears came true."

  "I see..."

  "It was humiliating."

  "Does that do it for you, then?"

  "What's that?"

  "Do you have some sort of humiliation kink? Does it turn you on being made to feel small? Being rejected?"

  "It's confusing. I've never been turned down by someone who wanted me as tangibly as you do."

  "Tangibly? Armand, I'm hard because I'm a lonely man who doesn't get out much and despite my age, my libido's still going pretty strong."

  "'Southeast Asian man, young, slender, curly hair'..."

  Daniel gasped out a nervous laugh. "Wha-"

  "I saw what you were searching for, Daniel. Do not forget, I picked this-"

  "Yeah, yeah. You picked this form to get in my head. And my pants, apparently."

  "Let me help you feel good, Daniel..." That husky quality returned to Armand's voice and Daniel felt all the air leave his lungs in a rush, his blood draining from his head and traveling south. "Let me make us both feel good..."

  Fuck, Daniel needed contact. He took a deep breath and reached beneath the comforter, gripping himself over the fabric of his pajama pants.

  "Ahh... Yes..." Armand's voice shook in his ear.

  "S-so... you can feel that?"

  "Yes. Faintly. You're not... are you touching it?"

  Jesus... "Yeah... A little."

  "Will you..." A rush of air as if Armand were breathing roughly. "Will you touch it more?"

  "Fuck. Yeah. Sure thing, kid..." Daniel gave himself a hearty squeeze before slipping his hand down under the waistband, feeling the built-up humidity heat his cool fingers and jumping when they grazed his cock.

  Armand hissed in his ear. "Please..."

  "Please what, cupcake?" Daniel didn't like a tease, ordinarily, but if teasing himself meant getting reactions like that...

  "If you'd only let me get in bed with you-"

  "No, I think you're gonna have to take what I'm giving you here and be grateful..."

  Armand whimpered. "Then will you please..."

  "Yeah?" Daniel gave himself a ghost of a touch, cold fingers rapidly heating up to meet the burning between his legs. He was straining against the fabric of his sleep pants. Fuck it. He let himself go to wiggle out of them, pushing them down under his ass, past his dick. That was better. He flipped the comforter down, grabbing himself up in his fist, still keeping his touch as light and unsatisfying as possible. He wanted to know just how much of it Armand could feel. He wanted it in numbers. A ratio. "Describe it to me. How does it feel?"

  "I don't know..."

  "Come on. You're as old as recorded history, right? Older? You're smart. Use your words..."

  "It feels... like warmth. Like... an excitement in the core of me. Like a flood of everything good that's ever happened, concentrated inside me. Like surface tension, holding it all in and wanting to burst..."

  "Good..." Daniel allowed his fingers to close around his shaft, squeezing lightly and tugging just a bit, nudging the head and feeling a hot trickle run down him. He held in a groan, wanting to maintain the upper hand.

  "Daniel?"

  "Yeah..."

  "That's so good. That feels..."

  "Yeah?"

  "More, please... I want..."

  Daniel gathered up the rolling trickle of precum and used it to slick himself over. He tipped his head back, closing his eyes and beginning to stroke himself in earnest, encouraging sweet breathy moans from Armand in his ear. He could almost feel the little puffs coming against the shell of his ear, over his neck. What would it be like to kiss him? To swallow those sounds? What would it be like to have him on his back in this very bed, driving into his hot, tight little body? Those long limbs wrapping around him, that sweet face, hot and feverish... What would it be like to fuck a spirit? Would Armand be hot inside? How would he cum?

  "What would you do if you were in my bed right now," Daniel asked.

  "Ahh-hh... I'd... finish you off?"

  "Okay, how?" Daniel's own voice was shaking, now. He rasped, his breathing gone erratic. His elbow knocked against the wood of the headboard as he jerked himself, fast and rough.

  "However you wanted. Daniel, I can... I can do anything. Whatever you wanted, I'd do it for you..."

  "You'd let me fuck that pretty little mouth of yours?"

  A sob from the other side. "I would..."

  "Do you feel how hard I'm doing it now?"

  "Mmhm..."

  "Do you feel yourself getting close?"

  "Hah... so close, Daniel..." His voice had a whining edge to it, now. He sounded close. And Daniel supposed he must be, because he was close.

  "Gonna cum soon, alright?"

  "Yes, yes, yes..."

  And fuck, Daniel came hard. The back of his head hit the headboard and his vision went kaleidoscope sunburst as wave after wave washed over him. He'd hardly had the forethought to cup his left hand over himself, cumming like a fountain into the palm of it. He heard Armand's soft whimper, his gasping with lungs he didn't have for air he didn't need, and then the two of them were coming down together, their breath slowing until it was in sync while Daniel slumped against the headboard.

  "All good, kid?" He smiled, imagining Armand in his place, covered in the evidence, boneless and satisfied.

  "All good," Armand answered, sounding half-asleep. "Do you feel better?"

  "Feel fucking fantastic," Daniel laughed. "Feel like I could sleep for a week."

  "Good. You should get your rest."

  "Almost there," Daniel grunted, trying to sit up straight again using only the power of his elbows against the headboard. He didn't want to make a mess on his covers. "Gotta go clean up."

  "Wait..."

  "Yeah?"

  "I could-"

  "Armand, c'mon, I'm gonna drip all over the bed if I don't-"

  "Just-"

  Daniel wiggled over to the edge of the mattress, but just as his feet hit the cold wood floor, he felt the air around him compress. His heart rate rose as he feared Armand was going to appear in front of him right then, but instead, he felt a silky coolness enveloping both his hands and when he looked down at them, they were both clean and dry. Like nothing had happened.

  "Mmm. There."

  "Did you just-"

  "I'm sorry, I should've waited for your permission, but I wanted-"

  "Holy shit-"

  "-to save you the trouble..."

  "You..." Daniel laughed, tucking himself back into his pants. "Jesus Christ, Armand..."

  "Forgive me."

  "You're forgiven." Daniel pulled his legs back up into the warm bed and settled back down, adjusting his pillow under his head. "It smells like the city pool in here, now."

  "An unfortunate side effect. Are you going to take your hearing aid out, now?"

  "Oh, right! I almost forgot." Daniel reached up to his ear, turning off the power and removing it. "Goodnight, Armand," he said as he placed it back in it's charging dock.

  "Goodnight, Daniel," Armand's voice answered quietly, sounding as if it were coming from just the other side of the bedroom door.

Chapter Text

  The smell of fresh coffee pulled Daniel out of bed despite the weight of his regret sitting dead-center in his chest. He wanted coffee. Needed coffee. And he had to piss.

  The house was chilly. He'd thrown on a robe and tucked his phone in it's pocket while pointedly ignoring his hearing aid. After finishing his pee and washing his hands, and after bending to splash just a little cold water over his face, he adjusted his glasses on his nose and looked himself over in the mirror. If Armand were a human man, Daniel would make one of two assumptions. Either he had a fetish for the elderly or he wanted Daniel's money. Not that either of those possibilities would stop Daniel Molloy. He wasn't especially proud of this aspect of his personality and anymore, he wasn't quite so used to having to confront it.

  "Good morning," Armand greeted him cheerily as he stepped into the kitchen. "I hope you don't mind, you had the ingredients."

  "Good morning," Daniel returned, sounding a bit groggier than he'd anticipated. "What are you-"

  "Pancakes. I thought, well..." He was holding a mixing bowl in his left arm and stirring with his right. Once again, he was in the white robe only this time Daniel could almost swear it'd lost about five inches off the length. It was hitting him really high up on the thigh, now. "I just thought it'd be nice."

  Was he blushing? "I didn't realize spirits could blush like that..."

  "Hmm," Armand turned and set the bowl on the counter as the temperature dial for the hotplate in the center of the range clicked on and turned all on it's own. "I know the first few are meant to go in the garbage. Alice taught me that. But it seems a waste, doesn't it? So I'll have the first batch and then-"

  "Isn't all this effort gonna tire you out?" Daniel walked over to the coffee pot where, predictably, a mug was already set out for him. He poured himself some coffee and took his seat at the table.

  "I fed only yesterday," Armand said as he began ladling batter out onto the griddle.

  "Yeah, but don't you want to make it last?"

  "I can always feed again."

  Daniel cringed.

  "You didn't seem all that bothered yesterday."

  "You'd gotten in my head and I wasn't really trying to dwell..."

  "Alice abhorred it. She begged me not to tell her any details, felt guilty, herself... It was a whole ordeal."

  "It's early for Alice talk," Daniel took a swig of his coffee.

  "Yes. Right. Sorry." Armand got down a couple of plates from the cabinet, swinging around the kitchen, somehow making the end of the robe flare out despite the seeming weight of it. It flowed around him like it was made of silk. It was otherworldly. Dreamlike. Manufactured, even.

  Still.

  "Would you rather talk about last night?" Armand had let a few moments of silence pass before filling the air again with his voice. Daniel's left ear heard him loud and clear, his right not so much. He considered, briefly, pretending that he didn't hear the question at all, but of course that probably wouldn't fly with Armand.

  "What about it?"

  "We were intimate..."

  Daniel nearly sputtered his coffee. He swallowed, clearing his throat after. "We were not... 'intimate'..."

  "If that wasn't intimacy, then what was it?" Armand turned his back to Daniel, picking up a spatula and flipping the pancakes in the order that he'd poured them. "Sex?"

  "We didn't do that, either."

  "What would you call it, then?"

  "I don't know. A paranormal circle-jerk? Two pent-up souls making do?"

  "'Making do'," Armand repeated thoughtfully.

  "No, that's... that's not an idiom for... I mean, I'm using it euphemistically, but-" He sighed. "Never mind. You ambushed me again, is all. Caught me while my guard was down. Dick in hand, to be crass about it."

  "You were planning to watch videos of men who looked like me..."

  "You chose to look like the men I jerk off to."

  Armand turned, one hand on his hip, the spatula like a magic wand in the other. Like he was somebody's fairy godmother.

  "It was a lapse," Daniel said. "Do you know that word?"

  "A lapse. You made me feel-, made us feel like that, and then you made sure I was alright when it was finished. Before wishing me a good night..."

  "Jesus, the bar is really on the floor with you, huh? I know for a fact Alice treated you better than that."

  "You don't consider what we did intimate..."

  "I've fucked strangers in filthy motel rooms and still had the courtesy to toss them a towel after. That doesn't make me a knight in shining armor and that doesn't make what we did intimate."

  "What is intimacy to you?" Armand turned to flip the pancakes again, readying a plate.

  "That's a loaded question. Intimacy is something abstract. It's hard to nail it down and put it into words. I mean, I could toss out 'vulnerability' but obviously I'm vulnerable. You're a predator who lives off of human blood and I'm only spared and at your mercy because... you like to keep people as pets? Then there's the concept of 'love,' but..." Daniel laughed. Perhaps cruelly. "I guess intimacy is whatever you wanna say it is. Sure. If it was intimate for you, great. I'm happy for you. But for me it was just a quick means to a fairly satisfying end. One I could've achieved without your help, by the way. But... yeah, thanks for the material, I guess."

  Armand plated the first batch and moved to ladle more batter from the bowl. "The material? Do you mean the image of my 'pretty little mouth?'" He said it bitterly, his words punctuated by the hissing sizzle of the pancakes on the griddle. "The notion that you might fuck me in it?" When he turned again to face Daniel, his eyes were brightest orange.

  "I'm a bastard. This shouldn't be news."

  "And still, you'll think of me."

  "I'll think of this costume you've got on. This skinsuit. Sure. It's..." Daniel shrugged one shoulder and took another casual drink from his mug. "It's hot."

  "I'll feel it when you do." There was an element of precaution in his voice. Not like a threat, but like a disclaimer. "I won't be able to help it."

  Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Good for you."

  "I'm offering this 'skinsuit' to you, Daniel. If you'd have it. And would that not be intimate to you?"

  "I think your pancakes need flipped."

  A look came over Armand. His face distorted, his eyes seeming to vibrate. Daniel's gaze landed on the metal spatula in his hand as it began glowing red-hot.

  "Uh, Armand-" Daniel pushed his chair back, though he had no idea what his next move would be as the three pancakes on the griddle behind Armand each burst into flames. "Fuck!" He threw his arm up to shield his eyes, though from what he wasn't sure. There was a pressure in the room, pressing on his eardrums, making his blood feel thick and his head pulse, and then another pop that took the pressure right out of the room.

  Daniel slowly lowered his arm, blinking his eyes into focus. Smoke was filling the room and the alarm began to sound. Armand was nowhere to be seen.

  The pancakes were not salvageable but Daniel threw some plastic wrap over the bowl of batter that was still left and tossed it in the fridge. He finished his coffee in ringing silence, his left ear nearly as deaf as his right for the time being. He'd had to climb up on a chair to stop the alarm and he was a little surprised when Armand didn't reappear to chastise him for being unsafe. He wondered how long he should let him pout. He also wondered what sort of ethics were involved in using a powerful blood-drinking spirit for sex. Since that was on the table and Daniel had little faith in himself that he'd be able to wave it off for long. Knowing how Armand sounded when he came made that ideal sound... well, like a lofty one. No, he was probably gonna fuck the monster living in his house. And hopefully it wouldn't get in the way of writing a sexy novel for bored housewives. Hell, hopefully it'd help to inspire him.

  He took his laptop upstairs with him, set himself up on the bed, and got to typing. He was starved by lunch time, so he grabbed his phone to place an order. He waited for the notes app to pop up, but it never did. 

  He got his lunch when it arrived, ate it alone at the kitchen table, cleaned up, and went back upstairs. When he opened the door to the room, Armand was sat in the center of the bed. He was no longer in the robe, he was dressed in a dark plum button down shirt and a pair of black slacks. He leaned back on his palms, his ankles crossed and his feet bare. Daniel's laptop was closed beside him.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I wanted to see how your writing was going. And I wanted to apologize for my outburst."

  "I can barely hear you."

  "So come closer," Armand lowered his chin, looking up at Daniel through soft black lashes. "I won't do anything you don't want me to."

  Daniel chewed the inside of his lip, then took a couple of tentative steps. "This is a far cry from how you were behaving this morning, you know. This is why I can't ever trust that you're genuine. It's like you're always guessing at how I want you and then re-calibrating to match."

  "Sounds like the perfect arrangement. So. Your writing..."

  "I'm just in the brainstorming phase right now."

  "Brainstorming a lot of hot and steamy scenarios..."

  "Not that hot and steamy."

  "With room to get hotter and steamier..."

  "You were reading it?"

  "I took a few peeks while you were working."

  "And?" Daniel put his knee up on the bed, grimacing at the ache when he shifted his weight onto it to pull his other leg up.

  Armand pulled himself back towards the headboard to give him more room to crawl up on the mattress. "And it's certainly going to go over well with the touch-starved housewife crowd. I'm curious who your main character is based on."

  "Nobody I know. Just... a woman."

  "Yes, but..." Armand cocked his head, squinting his eyes a bit. "Have you ever successfully written a fictional woman before, Daniel?"

  "No. Not as a main character."

  "It's not something a lot of men are very good at. Even the best of them..."

  "I'm not trying to be Margaret Atwood or whatever. I'm fine skating as a Stephen King. I'm just trying to write a little erotica. Something hot to read one-handed while unloading the dishwasher."

  Armand sucked his teeth. "Yes. See, therein lies the concern."

  "So, what, you think you can help with my characterization of a female protagonist?" Daniel laughed. It was, after all, laughable.

  "Why not?" Armand's shoulder made a sharp angle as it came up in a shrug. "I've had far more experience as one."

  "You're not human, Armand. I think the human experience I have under my belt far outweighs your... I don't know what the kids would call it... genderfuckery?"

  "Describe your heroine to me, then," Armand instructed.

  "Well, she moves into a house and there's a hot ghost and he..."

  "She's not a virgin, but she's never experienced pleasure during sex. This is what you have in your notes."

  It was even more ridiculous sounding when said aloud. Daniel felt himself color, but he nodded. "Yeah."

  "She never learned to masturbate."

  "No..."

  "Keeping in mind that this is already a fantastical plot, that might be the hardest bit of fiction you're trying to sell."

  "How do you figure?"

  "Well," Armand pulled the laptop into his lap and opened it. He looked incredibly human as he stared down at it's glowing screen and used his slender fingers to type in Daniel's passcode. "For one, I've been around countless women. Whether they were always aware of me or not. One thing I can say definitively is that most of them know how to masturbate."

  "Well, sure, most. Not all."

  "The women who will be reading this book will definitely know how to masturbate."

  "You think I should change it?"

  "Here's what you have. 'Valencia. Five feet and six inches tall. A short plump thing. Curly black hair. Fair skin. Dark chocolate eyes and a small doll-like pout.' You're describing her the way a date would describe her to his friends after."

  "That's not prose, those are just notes."

  "You're not planning to rattle this off at the start of the book, are you? Just an introductory paragraph outlining the character your readership is meant to project themselves onto?"

  "How would you do it?"

  "It's perfectly fine to have a picture in your head of what you want your heroine to look like, but I think it'd feel a lot less... well... masturbatory-" He nearly winked as he said it. "-to pepper Valencia's physical attributes throughout the prose in a natural way. You're not writing to Penthouse, after all. You should avoid the pitfalls that most male authors find themselves falling into. Descriptions of breasts and legs. It's trite."

  "Should I remind you that I have two Pulitzers..." Daniel reached out and took the laptop from him, closing it and setting it back down on the bed. "And, like I said, those were just my notes."

  "You haven't begun outlining how you want your sexy ghost to look."

  "Isn't that obvious?"

  Daniel looked back up to the headboard from the laptop, expecting to see Armand, but instead he saw a man who was a touch bigger in the shoulders and chest. He had a squared jaw, shoulder length blonde curls, blue eyes. This man looked like a fucking Calvin Klein model.

  "You're desperate to send me to an early grave, aren't you?"

  "I figured you would have something like this in mind..." The voice was not Armand's voice. It was deep and rumbling with quite a different accent altogether. Australian. "There has, historically, been a type after all."

  "Yeah. Hot. But I like my version better."

  Armand smirked and right before Daniel's eyes, he melted back into himself. "Glad to hear it," he said, self-satisfied. "I always worry I'll look hideous changing like that. Like you'll catch a glimpse of something grotesque in the transition."

  "I'm sure if you wanted to look grotesque to me, you could."

  "Oh, I could."

  "You don't have to wait for me to look away to do that stuff, though. Might help me find the words to describe it."

  "You want the most monstrous parts of me included..." He said it rather like a question.

  "I mean, it's a monster fucking book, right?"

  "Oh..." Armand's eyes seemed to dim down to a deeper honeyed color.

  "So you think our girl should know how to pleasure herself." Daniel put them back on track, averting his eyes to a wrinkle in the comforter he attempted to smooth out with his fingers.

  "I think you could strike a balance, there. Maybe she goes to sleep with a pillow between her legs, but she doesn't quite manage to cross the finish line."

  "That's a bit juvenile, don't you think?"

  "She's shy about using her fingers. Perhaps she has some religious trauma."

  "You know, you have an awful lot of insight about these things for a being who exists outside of human society..."

  "I've had ages to observe."

  "Young women's masturbation habits, you mean."

  Armand smiled coyly. "All human habits, Daniel. I suspect, sometimes, you want me to be more monstrous..."

  "It's an angle you could stand to play up. You get too convincing and it raises suspicions."

  "Would you like it if my skin was green and my tongue was forked? I could do that..."

  Daniel paused to consider it and then, realizing he was considering it, fell into peals of laughter. Armand watched him quizzically, smiling in a companionable way, but not quite joining in the laughter. "Is that something you would like?"

  Daniel clutched his ribs. "Green skin? I don't know. But a forked tongue is giving me some ideas for the book."

  Armand grinned and for a flash of a second, two slithering pink points slid out between his teeth like streamers before retreating once more. "Happy to help," he said.

Chapter Text

  "You know, breakfast for dinner used to be a reward in this house."

  Armand hummed, setting a small glass bottle of maple syrup in front of Daniel. He only bought the real stuff. A treat. "Children do love sweets." He sat himself down on the other side of the table and watched fixedly while Daniel plopped a tab of butter off his knife onto the stack.

  "Adults love sweets, too. We just have fewer defenses against their ramifications as we age."

  "Yes. Alice loved chocolate."

  "That she did." Daniel nodded, pouring a conservative amount of syrup over his plate.

  "It's not too early for Alice talk anymore, is it?"

  Daniel smiled at him kindly. "I suppose it's not." He reminded himself that, well... Armand had loved her, too. Or so he claimed. But was he really going to spend every waking hour of every day being suspicious of that? It was already beginning to grow tiresome. Trust was easier. "Do you want to talk about Alice?"

  "Very much. Yes."

  The light overhead flickered as Daniel brought his fork up to his lips. "Alright," he said around the mouthful, "why don't you share what you'd like to about her."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "I was... with her for seven years."

  "Why don't you start with how you found her. I've been wondering about that." Daniel raised up another forkful, holding it out across the table. He watched Armand raise out of his seat, performatively opening his mouth and pulling the bite off the fork with his teeth like a human would. He felt a slight vibration down the handle of the fork, through his funny bone. When he pulled his arm back, the air around his head was already becoming dense with the smell of maple syrup.

  Armand sat himself back again and smiled wistfully. "Her loneliness was what drew me to her. You can feel it. Like a sucking pull. You're floating, weightless on the wind and someone's despair can drag you down. Like a magnetic field to an aeroplane. This is usually how I find my sustenance when I am unmoored."

  "You... were going to eat her?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "That's how it sounded."

  "She did not want to die, Daniel. Death did not appeal to her. She'd had her fill of it. This is what I came to learn."

  "So how did you come to learn? You watched her?"

  "The house is ideal. Old pipes, old wiring. Mineral-rich foundation. Primed to be rooted into and so lovingly looked after by Alice. She was lonely, yes, but she was devoted to this house. It was like a companion to her."

  Daniel could attest to that. He'd found it all a little obsessive. Perhaps unhealthy. But what did he know? "So the convenience of the house made you want to stay."

  "Yes. And my fascination with her. She talked to the house like a friend. Sometimes I would forget she wasn't talking to me. I found little ways to make her smile. She'd say something to the walls around her, I would flicker the lights. It delighted her at first. Like a happy coincidence. Maybe a sign from somewhere. Until she started to talk out loud to the walls as if..." He drew a breath and Daniel waved away the intrusive thought that it was only for effect. Another little performance of humanity that was not there. "-she began to speak the names of your daughters."

  "Oh." A shiver ran down the back of Daniel's neck.

  "I felt terribly guilty, of course. I... didn't want to encourage it further. After what had happened with Omar..."

  "You were worried you were driving her insane?"

  "I had a choice to make. I could keep on how I'd been... Let her have her happy delusions and weigh myself down with the lead of guilt every passing day. I could uproot and leave. Perhaps driving her into further grief and madness which I would no longer be a witness to. Or..."

  "You could reveal yourself."

  "Yes."

  "So... how did that go?"

  "Horribly," Armand laughed. "I scared her. I hadn't meant to. I didn't want to go the typical route. Moving objects, writing in the fog on mirrors. You know..."

  "Yeah. Hack."

  "More so that I didn't want to send her deeper into her delusions. I revealed myself, perhaps misguidedly, in the flesh."

  "Like a home intruder? Oh, I bet she fucked you right up," Daniel said with a laugh.

  "She chased me around the kitchen with a broom."

  "What sort of look did you go for?"

  "I wanted to look familiar to her, so I pulled the face of someone out of her memory she'd seen recently. A woman she'd passed in the grocery store, maybe. Just someone I deemed harmless looking. She whacked me quite hard in the face, and I lost my resolve."

  "Meaning?"

  "I flickered in and out, scrambling to get the guise back, but in my panic as I reached into her mind to pull that familiar face back once more, I... I landed on you."

  "Oh..."

  "She went still... disarmed..."

  Daniel went still as well, a forkful of pancake lowering slowly back to the table.

  "I took that opportunity to claim control over her nervous system, cutting off her fight or flight responses, forcing her into repose. She didn't speak as I went to her and gently took the broom from her hands. I guided her out to the living room, to the couch, and I sat with her, holding her hands in mine. She was so scared, Daniel. It took all my strength to hold her at rest and more to soothe her fear."

  "Yeah. I... I remember the feeling. Not being in control of your own body. Knowing you should be more afraid than you feel."

  "I explained it all to her. I explained it all with your voice, from your lips, your eyes on hers. She thought she must be dying and that I was some kind of angel come to carry her spirit home. In that moment, I thought that I had another choice to make."

  "What made you want to let her live?"

  "I'd grown so fond of her in the preceding months. I didn't want to lose her."

  "And you wore my face?"

  "I tried to find another form that put her at ease, but she preferred for me to look like the version of you she'd fallen in love with. I... did have my reservations at first."

  "What did she call you?" Daniel steeled his expression.

  "Daniel, I-"

  "What did she call you, Armand?"

  "She'd... lapse, of course. She-"

  "She called you by my name?"

  "I do realize how sinister that must sound-"

  "Fucked is how it sounds, Armand..."

  "I didn't encourage it, but-"

  Daniel shook his head. "But you indulged it."

  "I did all that I could to remind her that I was not you."

  "All those years she refused to talk to me, to-" He laughed bitterly. "And you were there. A version of me she could stomach. No wonder she didn't-"

  "It wasn't like that. It wasn't... She knew the difference. She was just happier... She preferred-"

  "A counterfeit version of me."

  "I don't know how to make you believe me, but I was able to read her. Just as I'm able to read you right now, and up until the last year or so of her life, she was not confused about the delineation between me and you. She thought you were better off without her. She felt... like too tangible a reminder of your grief. A feeling that I suspect you are all too familiar with, yourself."

  "It's just a little hard not to feel like I was... used to seduce my own ex wife. You understand that, don't you?"

  "I do."

  "I mean, I have firsthand experience with how you operate."

  "I... don't know how to defend myself. I understand, but I don't regret the choices I made. Nothing you can say will make me regret the time I shared with her. Or feel guilty for whatever tactics I employ that allow me to stay close to you. Perhaps I am selfish..."

  "I'm just failing to see what you get out of it. I mean... our lives are blips on your vast radar."

  "I must endure through all of time, Daniel. The only way through it is to look for those tiny blips. Like mortal life, only stretched out."

  "But the grief you have to sit with. Over and over..."

  "Only makes the good parts shine brighter. You wrote about this in your book."

  Daniel stuffed another forkful of pancake in his mouth. They'd gone cold, but they were still sweet. Still good. "It feels reductive," he said after swallowing. "To be a pet. Chosen to make enduring until the end of time a little easier for you."

  "Alice and I had these conversations, too. In the end, we'd come to the conclusion that it was really not much different from how mortals choose one another. We just happened to be running on different clocks."

  "What are the good parts, then? What shines the brightest for you?"

  Armand brightened, eyes lighting up as his smile reached them, obviously relieved to have the tone shift. "Love. Closeness. Intimacy."

  Daniel felt like he'd heard enough of that word to endure to the end of his time. "Right. Yeah. Love and sex. Same as any human."

  "Exactly. To feel happy. To feel good."

  "To eat real maple syrup," Daniel held the last bite out for him, diplomatically. Maybe for other reasons, too. Now wasn't the time to dwell.

  "Yes. Maybe you do understand." Armand leaned forward once more and Daniel watched his mouth carefully as his lips parted, his tongue making an appearance between his teeth. It curled up under the tines of the fork, the tip of it touching down just before his lips closed around it and pulled off again. The same vibrations carried through the metal, through Daniel's arm. He felt warm.

  "That's good," he said. "I've been trying to work out what the drive is with our ghost. What his motivations are. You can't have a character without motive. I mean... not a good one. Of course, I'm not sure how much that sort of thing matters with this kind of story."

  "Maybe you should read some to get a feel."

  Daniel grimaced. "I probably should, shouldn't I?"

  As it turned out, a lot of these kinds of books were self-published and skewed very cheap to very free on Amazon. Daniel dusted off his kindle, charged it, and downloaded a handful to peruse. Armand insisted on lighting a fire for him to read by, arranging the kindling while he made his selection.

  "Which one do you think I should start with? Have you... read any of these?"

  "No, but I believe Alice read one about the abominable snowman once. She said it was rather heartwarming."

  Daniel hummed. "Not sure heartwarming is what we're going for here. I can do heartwarming. I need something... hot."  His feet were in slippers, kicked up on the coffee table in front of him. He had his robe wrapped around him, pajamas underneath. The coziest night in was on the horizon and he couldn't help the nostalgic feeling as he tried to keep his eyes on the kindle and off the slender back of Armand as he sat perched over the fireplace.

  "Would you like me to speed through it?"

  Daniel sat up straighter, placing the kindle face-down in his lap. "You can do that?"

  "Of course I can." He closed the screen over the fireplace as it erupted into flames all on it's own, crackling and whooshing. He turned and stood, walking over to Daniel and bending to take the kindle from his lap. He brought it up to his face and narrowed his eyes for a few seconds before handing it back to him. "There are seven erotic scenes. Oral sex to start, penetrative sex in the following two, some form of... I'm not sure what you would call it. Punitive sex?"

  "Whoa. The Jersey Devil is into BDSM?"

  "Spanking, to be precise."

  "Well, how were they written? Were they any good?"

  "That's subjective. I don't have the literary background you've got, Daniel."

  "C'mon. It's epub wank material... Grade it on the curve..."

  "It wouldn't necessarily turn me on. But I tend to prefer more, uh... humanoid features. Obviously." Armand smiled bashfully.

  "Yeah, I guess you have a type, huh?" Daniel lifted the kindle back up and selected another title before holding it out for him. "Do another?"

  "Alright. Sure." Armand selected another title. "This one is called Human Blender." He narrowed his eyes again, hovering over Daniel as he read. Daniel watched him in rapt fascination. He saw his face twitch slightly as the flames in the fireplace seemed to grow bigger and hotter. Armand's cheeks went pink. He tossed the kindle into Daniel's lap and stepped around the back of the couch. "That one is better," he said.

  Daniel tried to turn his head to watch him as he walked behind him. "Okay, let me in on it."

  Armand circled the couch and sat himself on the other end of it, pulling is legs up under him in a way that was very reminiscent of Alice. "It was about a blender who turned into a man. But he had... well, properties."

  "Such as?"

  "He was able to transubstantiate matter. If his owner fed him bananas, for instance, he would..." His cheeks grew notably redder at the crests.

  "He would what? Tell me. You can't out-ridiculous human blender."

  "He would taste of bananas."

  "Really? That's it?" Daniel laughed. "That's not all that outrageous."

  "I suppose you'd just have to read it."

  "That didn't... Did you find that sexy? I mean..."

  "It was written in a way that-"

  "No way... Armand, did a silly little epub turn you on?" Daniel noted how Armand's eyes were not meeting his and his fingers picked at the crease of his pants nervously. "You've got to be joking..."

  "You should read it, Daniel. It's only 70 pages."

  "Alright. Guess that's my evening mapped out, then." He bent forward to pick up his tea, cool enough to drink comfortably now. "What are you gonna do?"

  "I'd like to stay here if that's okay with you."

  "You wanna sit on the couch and watch me read?"

  "I won't stare. I've got the fire to watch and tend to."

  Daniel looked him over and thought about it. "Yeah, alright. Sure. If that makes you happy."

  "It does."

  Daniel read by the glow of the fire, his interest kept primarily by the fact that Armand had seemed to really enjoy the story and Daniel just found that so... fascinating. It wasn't particularly well-written. The characters were a little flat, but Daniel could see how that might help the reader project themselves into the story. He wondered if Armand had been doing just that. He remembered an offhand comment from Armand about taking on the tastes of the things he 'consumed.' He only looked up a time or two when Armand rose to stoke the fire and add a piece of kindling. He took one pee break, and by 9pm he was finished. He ceremoniously turned the kindle off and set it on the coffee table next to his empty mug.

  Armand was curled up like a cat on the other side of the couch, coiled around his own knees with a throw pillow under his head. He looked up at Daniel, his head tilting back and those bright eyes flashing up at him. "Finished?"

  "Yep." Daniel said it cryptically, not wanting to give away his verdict.

  Armand pulled himself up, his curls smashed flat on one side of his head as he pulled closer to Daniel on the couch. "What did you think?"

  "Tell me what it was you liked so much about it, again? That Blaine's jizz tasted like a smoothie?"

  Armand's cheeks went red again. "No, not just that. I liked a lot of the scenes. The one in the bath..."

  "Yeah," Daniel nodded. "I guess so."

  "The one in the ski-lift."

  "You know that's incredibly dangerous. The book should've come with one of those 'do not attempt this at home' disclaimers."

  "Did you really not like it?"

  Daniel laughed a little. "It just isn't the sort of book I read, usually."

  "Well, for what it was?"

  "It's not exactly the type of inspiration I reach for, either."

  "No, I've seen what does it for you..."

  Daniel felt a little bold reaching out to finger through the curls matted at the side of Armand's head. He was warm, perceptibly human feeling. His eyes fluttered closed as he leaned ever so slightly into the touch. An involuntary rush of air left Daniel's lungs and he pulled his fingers back into his lap. "S-so, uh..." He swallowed, his throat gone dry. "What does it for you?"

  Not what he'd meant to say. Not what he'd meant to say at all.

  "I mean," he recovered, "what sort of stories do you like, generally..."

  Armand looked like he'd hardly recovered from the contact. "I like... love stories. Movies about love. Movies about... family. Funny stories are good, too, but sometimes I don't get the jokes and I need the film paused to have it explained to me."

  "Well, lucky for you, talking through movies is one of my specialties. Can't say most people appreciate it, though."

  "I suppose that makes us both rather lucky, then."

  Daniel smiled, watching the fireplace. "Looks like we got at least another hour before the fire goes down."

  "If you'd like, you can go to bed. I'll keep watch."

  "Oh. I was gonna ask if you wanted to help me come up with some ideas. I do my best spitballing early in the morning and just before bed..."

  "An atrocious turn of phrase."

  "Yeah, Alice thought so, too."

  "Perhaps she rubbed off on me a little."

  Daniel opened his mouth to make a joke and then closed it. "Yeah. Perhaps."

  Daniel started them off. He wanted to get some ideas for settings. Bathtub was a must, Armand insisted. Backseat of a car. The kitchen counter. That got them cooking. Aprons, flour everywhere, body-prints pressed into it... Daniel got himself a nightcap of whiskey to sip as he dictated into his phone the ideas they came up with. They were sitting close with Armand resting his head on the back of the couch when Daniel idly lifted his arm to rest it behind his head.

  "I think that's something I really missed about being married."

  "What's that?"

  "Sharing a home. Being able to make a mess in the kitchen with someone at midnight because you got the munchies after the kids were put to bed. Trying to keep quiet, kissing turning into more and..."

  "Mmm." Armand nodded, his eyes lidded and almost... sleepy. He pulled just a touch closer so his head was resting in the crook of Daniel's shoulder.

  "You getting sleepy?"

  Armand nodded.

  Wait a minute. "I thought... I thought you didn't sleep."

  "I don't. Just getting tired. Might need to hang up the 'skinsuit' for the evening."

  "You want a little nightcap, yourself?" Daniel tried not to move the arm Armand was resting against as he wiggled his right forearm against the couch in an attempt to roll the sleeves of his robe and pajama top back.

  "It's getting late. The fire will die soon. You should go to bed."

  "Ah..." Funny. Daniel wasn't really feeling sleepy. He'd been energized by the conversation and Armand's proximity and... warmth... was making him want to stay up to enjoy it all a little longer. "I can wait out the fire with you, still. I'm really not all that tired."

  "If I take your blood, you will be."

  That was probably true. Daniel's heart sank a little. "Yeah, you're right."

  "Daniel?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Thank you for spending the evening with me like this. It was nice."

  "You don't have to thank me. I enjoyed it, too."

  "Maybe we can do it again tomorrow? Maybe we can watch a movie together?"

  "Yeah." Daniel shrugged. "I don't see why not."

Chapter Text

  It became a thing. Not every night, but most nights. Daniel noticed the sulking when he made plans with Dick. He'd consider it juvenile if it hadn't seemed so justified. When they hung out at Daniel's, Armand was under express orders to make himself scarce. He could take the opportunity to go out and feed, which he did a time or two, otherwise Daniel would leave his laptop out for him upstairs where he could watch videos or browse the internet. Nearly a month had passed this way. They had a small thanksgiving which Daniel had not planned to observe until Armand inquired about it. He refused to make a turkey for just himself, so they settled for a roasted chicken. Dick brought him leftovers from his daughter's celebration, so turkey was still had. And cranberry sauce (which Armand deemed the most important thing. Alice's influence, Daniel noted.)

  They made progress on the story, spending time in the living room, in the enclosed back porch with the space heater between them and blankets, on Daniel's bed. They also took time to themselves when needed. Though, mostly this was out of a need for conservation and rest on Armand's part rather than a desire for some privacy like for Daniel. They were comfortable. There was one thing, however, that kept nagging at the back of Daniel's mind.

  They still hadn't had sex.

  It seemed to him like things had been reaching a boiling point and then just as he'd come to accept that it was going to happen, Armand cooled off. They were spending their evenings cuddled up on the couch, Armand pressed into his side or with Daniel's feet in his lap. They made eyes at each other, and yet all that momentum had come to a stand-still. Daniel kept in mind what Armand said about feeling it when he touched himself, so he didn't. Not that it hadn't been a good time. It'd been a stellar time. But Armand was the one who initiated it and now that he wasn't initiating anything of the sort, Daniel feared it might be a major breach of boundaries to pull any sort of stunt. He feared he might be out of line if Armand had simply lost interest. But still, it didn't really feel like he had. Not with how close they'd been getting. It was just jarring to go from having Armand crawling up into Daniel's lap and all but begging for it to... well... this dead bedroom flavor of comfortability.

  They'd spent the day decorating the house for Christmas, putting up garlands and lights. Alice's silly little cat nativity was arranged on the mantle. Daniel had hated it before, preferring to keep the Christ out of Christmas in his home, but now he just found it charming. Besides, Armand had a special affinity for it. Alice had kept up the decorating every year after the girls' deaths while Daniel drew further away from anything that even hinted at 'Christmas cheer.' This was the first time in a very long time he'd bothered.

  It'd been a lovely day aside from the slight meltdown over tangled lights and Armand was building another fire as the sun set. A Muppet Christmas Carol was queued up on the TV and Daniel had just served himself another mugful of mulled wine. He prepared himself for all the comparisons that would be made between himself and Scrooge now that Armand had begun to brandish his wit more freely. He loaded a few zingers about Marley and Marley into his own chamber as recourse while he got comfortable on the couch with his mug and with Armand's mouth clamped onto his left arm, making him feel like jelly. It was like mixing booze and pills without the risk of stopping his heart. Armand hadn't been out to feed in a few days and hadn't needed a pick-me-up from Daniel since before that. Besides, Daniel wanted him to cop a little buzz of his own. A little wassail to bring him good cheer.

  "Not too much," Daniel heeded as he pulled his arm back. "Don't wanna get carried away or I'll be snoring before the movie's halfway through."

  Armand looked affected already. Daniel had started the party around 2pm. He was more than three mugs of wine in, now.

  "It's warmer than usual. The taste..."

  "The spices," Daniel smiled at him. Lending him his arm also meant Armand would have to get close and Daniel suspected he'd stay close.

  "Ready when you are," Armand said, laying his head on Daniel's shoulder and smelling like nutmeg, ripe berries, and rust. Daniel wanted to bury his nose in his hair and inhale.

  "Heal me up first, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Armand echoed, lifting Daniel's arm once more to his lips and kissing over the fairy circle of beaded blood tenderly.

  Yeah, Daniel thought. It's still there. Fortified by the wine, he watched Armand tug his sweater sleeve back down and set the remote on the arm of the couch without pressing play.

  Armand glanced up at him, licking the remaining blood from his lips and wearing an expression of open confusion. "What is it? Have we forgotten something?"

  "No. Haven't forgotten anything, I just thought..." Man, he really wished he'd rehearsed this in his head a little. But, to be fair, he hadn't anticipated feeling so awkward in the moment. The lack of pursuit on Armand's part had really set him back. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like to sit in front of me. I could rub your shoulders."

  Daniel, you pussy.

  "Sit in front of you?"

  "Yeah. We can kick the coffee table out a little. Alice used to ask me to give her shoulder rubs all the time when we watched movies together."

  "Oh! Right, yes..." A spark of recognition passed over Armand. It was a look Daniel found himself chasing these days. At first, apprehensive to bring the subject up for fear of jealousy, fear of all these feelings that were hard to put into words because they were not logical, really. But they'd gotten more comfortable. Daniel had gotten more comfortable. And while Armand still waited for Daniel to take the lead when it came to determining when it was okay to talk about Alice and when it wasn't, Daniel found himself wanting to more and more.

  They moved the coffee table together and Armand settled on the floor between Daniel's feet.

  "Do you want a cushion to sit on," Daniel asked, "or is that unnecessary what with your ass cheeks being made of blood magic?"

  Armand laughed. "I'll take a pillow. It's not magic enough to save me from the cold, hard wood floor in so solid a state."

  Daniel reached over for a throw pillow and handed it to him, stiffening when Armand's hands braced onto his thighs for leverage. "Ah. That's a surprise."

  "A surprise?"

  "Yeah, a little. I know you said you can feel pain, but I guess I sort of assumed you'd be impervious to the incredibly mundane varieties."

  "Are you going to start the movie, Daniel?"

  "Oh, shit, that's right." Daniel grabbed the remote once more and hit play. He flexed his fingers, cracked his knuckles, and lowered his hands to Armand's shoulders. To his shock, they were actually a little tense.

  "Mmm..." Armand's head tipped forward and then back up.

  That sound. Yes, Daniel had gotten one really nice taste and he'd been missing it ever since.

  "Feels good?"

  "Yes. You can do it harder if you want..."

  Daniel tried to control his breathing, but fuck, what a way to make such a request. Armand's voice was small, putting the power in Daniel's hands while asserting his own wants. The wine was making Daniel feel hot even after the sip Armand took from him had chilled him considerably. The wine, the fire, the most beautiful boy in the world between his knees.

  “This okay?” He put a little more force into it, pressing his thumbs deeper into the haunches of Armand’s shoulders and rubbing circles there before squeezing up and giving him a broad pinch of the traps.

  “Perfect.”

  Daniel continued on, half paying attention to the movie, half paying attention to the way Armand responded to his touch. Every sigh was a treat. Every hitch in his breath worth hearing. He laughed at the funnier parts of the movie, gave little “oh’s” and “ah’s” when characters were introduced. Daniel was surprised to discover that Armand knew most of the Muppets by name. He was less surprised to learn that he was acquainted with the source material. To be honest, he’d have been a little disappointed if the spirit haunting his home wasn’t at least a little familiar with Dickens.

  There was still a good twenty minutes left in the film when Daniel’s hand began to cramp up. “Sorry, kid, I think I’ve gotta throw in the towel.” He pulled back, massaging the palm of his right hand with his left and wincing.

  “You could use your elbow instead?”

  Daniel was impressed. “Oh, you want more?” He could only imagine how his own shoulders would feel after an hour’s worth of the Daniel Molloy special. “You might be sore tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think I’ll mind. If I get sore, I can take a day off. I’m enjoying your touch...”

  The prospect of Armand relegating himself to the immaterial on account of Daniel’s ministrations was both delicious and also a little disappointing. Daniel wanted him around. Physically around. “Is there, uh… any other way you’d like to be touched? I mean, I could maybe just play with your hair. That might feel nice, too.”

  “Great idea. Then I don’t have to move.” Armand glanced back over his shoulder with a smirk as Daniel rubbed the kinks out of his palms in a hurry and then began to very gently comb his fingers through the silky cool curls of Armand’s hair.

  He melted back against the seat of the couch and Daniel realized without quite meaning to that if he wanted, he could give his hair a good yank. Quite an intrusive thought. He kicked it out the front door of his mind and it walked right around his skull and in through the back again. He lifted the wealth of curls with one hand, peeking at the sparse hairs that traveled down the nape of Armand’s neck. He wanted to know how he smelled there. Arguably an even more intrusive thought. He ran the back of his forefinger ever-so-lightly up Armand’s neck, tickling over those small hairs and watching the skin there contract as Armand’s shoulders shuddered.

  Ah, fuck it.

   He gripped up a fistful of hair and he tugged a little more than gently, pulling Armand’s head back and making him gasp as their eyes met.

  “Oh!” Armand seized up, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise.

  Daniel eased up, petting over the part of Armand’s scalp he’d just punished. “I just… wondered how you’d react.”

  Orange eyes burned into his own. They questioned him and for the first time in weeks, Daniel felt that cool throbbing touch inside his skull. He didn’t protest. He’d sort of earned it, this time, really.

  “Oh…” Armand blinked, his eyes going a few shades deeper. “If you'd like to tug at it, you can.”

  “It hurts you…”

  “Not terribly.”

  Daniel withdrew altogether, running his fingers through his own hair. “You’re… confusing me, kid…”

  Armand turned, then, forsaking the screen where Scrooge was being shown his own future grave to look at Daniel with concern. “Confusing you?”

  “I don’t know, things are… different now, right? I mean, from a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes. Better, I’d say. You’re much nicer to me. You seem to like me quite a bit more…”

  “Yeah. Maybe that’s the problem.”

  Armand’s brow creased, his tiny mouth turning down into a frown. “Daniel?”

  “You were so fired up, you know? And now you seem so... uninterested.”

  “I’m interested. Of course I’m still interested. I’ve just grown comfortable and I don’t feel as though I need to fight for your affection quite so hard. You give it freely. I’ve been quite content. I’m sorry if it came off like I was disinterested.”

  “Really? I mean… I’ve sort of been waiting for you to give the green light, here.”

  Armand looked so surprised to be hearing this. “You have it, Daniel. Are you… You’re talking about sex?”

  Fuck, and this was why Daniel didn’t want to talk so explicitly about it. The closer he got with Armand, the more like a dirty old man all of this was making him feel. It was one thing to have illicit paranormal sex with the monster living in your house who only looked like a boy in his late 20’s when it was seemingly all said monster's idea. It was quite another to grow so deeply attached to that monster after he’d pumped the brakes leaving Daniel to do the propositioning.

  “Yeah, I mean… I guess that’s what I’m talking about.”

  Armand’s face softened into a smile. “I was just so caught up enjoying everything else. I sort of thought, well… I’d had you figured out at last.”

  “Had me ‘figured out?’”

  “I’d gathered that intimacy meant something a little different to you. You said that you didn’t consider the bit of fun we’d had together before to be intimate, which I was confused by at first. But then you showed me that sex and intimacy are rather… divorced for you.”

  “That’s not true," Daniel said defensively. "I can have both.”

  “Yes, but you were giving me closeness and intimacy without sex. Which, might I add, you were the one who was resistant to. I didn’t want to press you on it.”

  Daniel felt like an idiot. “I see…”

  They sat with a breadth of silence between them until Armand spoke again.

  “So you want to fuck me, now?”

  “Um…” Christ, what was wrong with him? Yes. The answer was emphatically YES, right? “I mean, maybe we should save it for a night when I’m not so deep in the mulled wine and we haven’t just watched a bunch of puppets teach Michael Caine the meaning of Christmas…”

  Armand’s face fell again. “Ah…”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Daniel took Armand’s cheek in the palm of his hand, felt it vibrate as his eyes dimmed. “I haven’t even kissed you yet.”

  The look on Armand's face, the surprise turned awe turned half-lidded want so deep it seemed to pain him...

  Daniel bent towards him, tilting his chin up with the knuckle of his finger and pressed their lips together.

  He felt lightheaded, dizzy with it, his heart hammered in his chest. There was a vibrating current dancing in the atoms between their skin. Daniel's fingers slid up over Armand's jaw, his cheek, into hair, palm cupping his ear. He pulled him closer, their lips parting in unison, tongues meeting between teeth, shyly courting one another. Armand tasted like spices, wine, blood, and soil. Daniel pressed into the kiss, taking the reins and getting Armand to open his mouth more to him, letting him in. Despite himself, he was pushing off the couch, leading Armand in a sort of dance of movement and response. He pressed forward, Armand moved with him, he slid himself off the couch, Armand made room, their lips needing never part. It hardly occurred to Daniel that this should be painful. That he should've groaned as he moved to the floor. That his hips and knees should be screaming their protest. It was like Armand's kiss was a balm. A miracle.

  When, at last, Daniel broke away to capture his breath, Armand was pressed back against the front of the couch, hair in disarray and shirt crumpled, cheeks and eyes burning. Even his lips were dark and swollen. His brows were drawn up in that questioning look he'd get. It made Daniel's heart wrench to look at him.

  "I'm afraid we're missing the end of the movie," he said stupidly.

  Armand's eyes bounced up to the screen and then back. "Daniel," he broke into a small laugh, "the credits are rolling."

Chapter Text

  Daniel Molloy... was sore. He'd gone to bed floating on a cloud and he'd woken up as if he'd landed on a rock.

  What was worse was that it was the vibrating of his phone that woke him.

  "Hello?" He answered groggily before bothering to see who was calling.

  "Daniel?"

  "Ronnie..."

  "Good morning to you, too. You sound like hell."

  He scrubbed his hand over the grit on his chin. "Yeah. Had one two many mulled wines last night is all."

  "It's 10:30, Daniel. You haven't answered any of my emails in the last two days."

  "Sorry, sorry. Been sort of busy with things at the house." He tried to hold back his groan as he pushed himself up on the bed. The meat of his hands was sore. His neck and shoulders stiff. His lower back was sounding out in protest.

  "Publisher's not asking for much, Daniel. Just an idea. A whisper of an idea, if you can manage it. I'll do the work. I'll type up the email for them. You know, it's not hard for you, Daniel. You've pretty much got it made, but nobody forced your hand in accepting that advance. I thank you, humbly, as it's helping to put Carter and Rose through college, but I'm hitched to your wagon, here. We're skating on your name alone."

  "My name and two Pulitzers..."

  "Yeah, yeah. And the Pulitzers. Not a phone call goes by where-"

  "Look, Ronnie, it's the holidays. It's... It's kind of a rough time of year..." For me. He left that off, but the silence on the other end of the line indicated that the message was heard loud and clear.

  "I... Yeah. You're right, Danny. Sorry. I forgot. Fuck."

  "It's alright." His feet hit the icy cold floor and as he pushed up off the bed, his knees ground into place painfully. My kingdom for a fraction of my damn cartilage back. "It's fine, Ronnie. I actually," he grunted, his hip popping. "I actually have something in the works."

  "Oh, you do?"

  "It's different," he warned.

  "Different's good, Danny. Different's what they're asking for."

  "Well, it's no Human Blender, but I think it'll be pretty fresh coming from me."

  "That's great news that's-" The air went dead a moment. "Did you say human blender?"

  Daniel kept dozing off on the couch. Armand had him set up with a heated pad, plenty of blankets, Aspirin, and hot tea. He'd come downstairs, once again, to coffee and breakfast made and he'd been incredibly grateful for it. Armand was dressed down. The soft flowy black that showed off his chest so well. He did not rest. He kept watch over Daniel from the chair while he scrolled on his phone, while he turned his head to watch the TV. Armand had put on The Great British Baking Show for him and it made excellent background viewing.

  "You know, all this is sort of overkill," Daniel said as Armand brought him another two Aspirin and a cup of water to wash it down. "I'm just a little hungover and a little achy."

  "I suspect you're coming down with something."

  Daniel laughed. "Nah. I never get sick."

  "I thought I tasted a hint of it in your blood last night."

  "You said my blood tasted spicy."

  "I said it tasted warmer than usual. Not just in flavor profile. In temperature, too."

  "I was drinking."

  "Daniel..."

  Daniel sighed, wincing as he pulled himself up to a sitting position on the couch. He took the water and held his palm out for the pills. "Well, there's a thermometer somewhere..."

  "It's hard for me to tell if you're running a fever. You always feel so hot."

  "Thanks. You, too, babe." He popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down. It hurt to swallow like his glands were swollen and, indeed, the room temperature tap water rushed down him feeling like ice. "Fuck. Maybe I do have a fever."

  "Your cheeks are flushed."

  "Maybe I'm just thinking about you kissing me last night."

  Armand's concern melted for one moment and he smiled a little. "You kissed me. The thermometer is in the water closet off the foyer. I'll go retrieve it."

  "Water closet," Daniel whispered to himself as Armand left him with the empty cup.

  By the time Armand returned, Daniel was seized up in chills.

  "I'll take your word, Armand. I do think I'm running a fever. I'm freezing. Might chip a tooth if you stick that thing under my tongue. Afraid you'll have to take it rectally if you really insist."

  Armand sat beside him, his expression neutral. Daniel deflated a bit when he didn't even crack a smile at his joke.

  "What are you doing?"

  Armand placed the thermometer delicately between his lips and threw the afghan back from Daniel's shoulders.

  "I was kidding. I don't actually think you should-"

  "Hush," Armand interrupted after lifting his arm up with one hand and taking the thermometer in the other. "Be still." He swiftly stuck his arm up under Daniel's sweater, sending icy chills all over and making his muscles everywhere contract painfully. Armand lowered his arm after depositing the thermometer under it and fixing his sweater so that no more chilly air could creep in below it's hem.

  Daniel was shocked silent. He tried to be as still as he could, at least so the thermometer would remain tucked in his armpit. "Wow. You really are a good nurse, huh?"

  "Alice fought sometimes. She didn't like being fussed over."

  "Hey," Daniel leaned in a little closer to him. "Have I told you you look stunning today?"

  Armand was quiet, concentrated. He lifted Daniel's arm back out, reaching under his sweater again and sending more of those semi-delicious chills through him as he retrieved the thermometer and tried to get a read on it. "Damn."

  "What's the prognosis, doc?"

  "I can't get an accurate read. It's..." He gave a frustrated grunt. "We'll try again." And again, Daniel was assaulted by the icy backs of Armand's fingers tickling over his ribs. "This time, no flattery. If I'm not even-keeled and calm, it'll mess with the read."

  "Ah," Daniel nodded. "I see. Does it get you worked up being told you're pretty?"

  Armand's eyes flashed fire at him. That was warning enough.

  "Alright. Sorry. Shutting up, then."

  It was true that Daniel Molloy did not get sick often. Easy enough conflating the aches and pains of a fever with those that came as the result of a hangover and a makeout session on the living room floor, but he should've known the lightheaded giddiness he felt wasn't from the the Aspirin. Then again, he hadn't made out with anyone in years. He hadn't made out with anyone he was particularly interested in having more than a one-night-stand with in... hell, in over a decade.

  He watched soberly as Armand retrieved the thermometer from him once more, doing his best not to jerk away from the cold.

  "Daniel, you have a fever. Just over 100 degrees."

  "Damn."

  "Have you had your flu shot this season?"

  "Yeah, I think I got it..." Daniel turned his head in thought. "Shit. No, that was last year's."

  "Daniel, you're of an age," Armand chastised.

  "Yeah, I'm aware. I don't need the ageless being reminding me."

  "Apparently you do. You need someone to remind you, anyway."

  Suddenly Armand's cool palm was against his hot forehead and it felt so good Daniel couldn't help closing his eyes and leaning into it. "God, you feel amazing," he shivered.

  "I'm going to have to confiscate the heating pad, I'm afraid. No need to drive your temperature up."

  "What? But I'm fucking freezing!"

  "No, Daniel, you're burning up. And you've had four Aspirin already, today. I can't give you more for another four hours. We've got to drive your temperature down."

  "It's a low-grade fever. I think I'll live."

  Armand paid him no mind as he yanked the heating pad out from under him and turned it's temperature dial all the way off before following the cord to the wall and unplugging it.

  "Monstrous, separating an old man with aches and pains from his hotpad."

  "It's for the best."

  "Diabolical," Daniel called after him as he doubtlessly left the room to hide it. When he returned, Daniel was racked with chills once more, teeth chattering. "If you think shivering like this isn't gonna wreak more havoc on these old muscles..."

  "I'll return the favor, then, and give you a massage."

  Daniel pulled the afghan back around himself tight and slumped back against the couch. "You any good at that?"

  "Oh, I'm incredible." Armand shot a sinister smile his way as he took a seat beside him, reaching for the remote and turning up the volume for the judging of the showstoppers.

  "Yeah, I bet you are. Make it a nude one, and you're on."

  "If that is what you desire, Daniel, but if your fever persists, I doubt you'll want to be totally nude."

  "No, I keep my clothes. You're the one getting naked."

  "Again, if your fever persists you likely won't find yourself all that interested in whether I'm naked or not."

  "Not me, kid. You ever hear of a little thing called the sick hornies?"

  "Juvenile."

  "It's true. Look it up. You can use my phone."

  "They're about to announce star baker, Daniel."

  "Star baker means nothing. You said it yourself last episode."

  "It's a badge of honor."

  "Did you turn the heat up?" As soon as the chattering in his teeth ebbed away, Daniel felt the chill within him wash out and over his skin. A sheen of perspiration breaking on his forehead as he suddenly found himself feeling quite uncomfortably warm.

  "No, you're fever seems to be breaking at last. Good. You will probably cycle like this at 8 hour intervals."

  Daniel threw the afghan back off, sitting up and tugging at his collar. "I'm gonna sweat through my clothes."

  "Yes. That's likely. But we've laid blankets over the couch, it's alright. If you'd like, you could sleep down here and then we'll wash the bedding in the morning."

  "Whatever you say, nurse." Daniel picked up a piece of junk mail he'd been holding onto with some Doordash codes he hadn't used yet and began to fan himself with it.

  "You're really that warm?" Armand asked as if he didn't quite believe him.

  "No actually, Armand, I'm trying to get out of going to kindergarten. Yes. I'm burning up all the sudden."

  Armand hummed while observing him and Daniel felt a little like an amoeba under a microscope.

  "What?"

  "I've an idea."

  The idea, it turned out, had been one of the best ideas Daniel thought he'd ever heard.

  "Should I...?" Daniel asked dumbly, sitting forward with wide eyes beneath glasses which were  fogging comically.

  "No, that wouldn't be wise," Armand said as he stepped out of his pants and leaving them to vanish on the floor along with his top. For show, all of it, but Daniel elected not to scrutinize or care in this moment. "Besides. You said you'd like to get me naked while keeping your clothes on."

  "Wouldn't it cool me down faster, though?"

  "And then when you're suddenly cold to the bones? Not to mention the temptation to exert yourself beyond what is healthy..."

  He stood, now, fully nude and lit up by the warm string lights that flattered every inch of him.

  "You look like a painting or something."

  "Lay down," Armand instructed. "On your side, as far back as you can."

  "Yes, sir." Daniel hopped to it as well as he could minding the aching in his joints. He grabbed a throw pillow to place under his head and settled in.

  Armand quirked his lips up into a smile. "You're so agreeable all the sudden."

  "Am I?" Daniel laughed almost deliriously, not even caring if it was a slight, just wanting him close.

  "So quick to obey. It's a rather nice change."

  "Well, be sure to enjoy it. Are you gonna come over here or not?"

  "Patience." Armand sidestepped the coffee table, moving between it and the couch. He looked so human to Daniel in his bare skin. The scant hair on his legs, his chest, under his belly button and trailing down. A perfect mix of all that was masculine and feminine from his well-shaped shoulders and chest to his narrow and soft waist. The spring of his hips and the lush look of everything that lay between them. Daniel didn't have long to take it in before Armand turned away, sat, and laid himself down to settle back against him. His chill met Daniel's radiant heat, leaving Daniel speechless.

  "Put your arm around me."

  Daniel removed his glasses, folding them and placing them on the arm of the couch above his head before doing as told. His elbow fell into the dip of Armand's waist and his hand dared to press firmly against his chest. Right in the center of it where he was impressed to find the guise of a heartbeat.

  "Wow..."

  Armand returned a short laugh. "An even exchange. You can warm me as I cool you. Shall I put something else on to watch?"

  The next episode had already begun to play and they'd missed the opening. The bakers were already beginning their first challenge.

  "Doesn't matter," Daniel muttered. He pressed his face into the back of Armand's head. "I can barely hear it without my hearing aid and I probably won't be able to pay much attention anyway."

  Armand's arm came to rest on top of Daniel's, his hand covering the back of Daniel's own. "Yes, I'm afraid I'm quite lost."

  "I'm getting your hair wet."

  "I'll absorb your sweat, don't worry."

  "Kinky," Daniel punctuated the word with the slightest churn of his hips. Whoops.

  "Easy," warned Armand.

  "Tall order," Daniel said, bracing his hips. His core was still molten, but the oily sheen of his sick-sweat coupled with Armand's chill was making him shiver again. Everything was at odds. He was miserable... He was euphoric...

  "Cold again?"

  "No, and don't you dare get up." His muscles were tensing beyond his control and the result was that the initially gentle embrace was turning into more of a desperate vice.

  Armand's breath hitched as he was squeezed tight and after several minutes like this, Daniel did feel the chill settling back into him.

  "Daniel?"

  "Yeah?" Daniel's jaw was clenching tight in an attempt to keep his teeth from chattering.

  "You're hurting me a little..."

  "S-s-sorry..."

  The jig was up.

  "I think I should-"

  "No," Daniel protested. "Please..."

  Armand slumped. "I was only going to suggest wrapping back up in the afghan."

  "Will you sta-ay?"

  "Yes. I'll stay." He sat himself up, bracing on the coffee table in front of him while Daniel pulled the afghan from behind himself and wrapped up in it.

  When Armand settled back down, Daniel closed it around him as well, like Dracula embracing a victim. He let his hand slide down to Armand's belly to pull him in, getting a feel for how soft he was there. His hand didn't want to leave. He rubbed his thumb up and down over him, catching on the dip of his bellybutton. Someone on the TV was crying. Something about the humidity in the tent messing with the prove. Daniel could not have given less of a fuck. He pressed his face back into Armand's hair and inhaled. Without thinking, he let his hand trail a little lower, following the path of hair as it gained density.

  Armand's breath hitched audibly and then leveled out. He'd folded his hand under his cheek and that was where it stayed. Daniel had felt a little policed before with Armand's hand clamped over his own, but this almost felt like an invitation. His shivering and chattering subsided without his even noticing while he busied himself, swirling the tips of his fingers through the downy hairs, sometimes tugging lightly or rolling them to little peaks between his thumb and forefinger.

  It was Armand's hips that churned, now. Barely perceptible, but Daniel was too keyed into him. He clocked it immediately. A shudder ran through him and he pressed a kiss to the back of Armand's neck, eliciting a soft moan from him. Clipped and quiet like he hadn't meant to let it slip. Daniel smirked and gave the hair on his lower belly a sharper tug. The string lights grew brighter and then flickered.

  "Daniel..." Armand's hand moved down to grip over Daniel's thigh, squeezing almost hard enough to hurt in what Daniel assumed was a warning to stop.

  Daniel assumed, but he knew well enough that Armand could use his words. He flattened his hand against him again and rubbed, moving lower, centimeter by centimeter.

  "Daniel, stop..."

  Daniel took his hand away, pulling back into the couch. "Stopping."

  The lights dimmed, brightened, and flickered again.

  "It's alright. It's only that physical manipulations like that in this state do have an effect..."

  Daniel's eyes fluttered. His head was beginning to pound, but still he felt himself twitch below his waistband. "Yeah? That wasn't a risk you were knowingly running when offering to let me spoon you naked?"

  "I thought it would be a fun little thrill, but I'd rather not risk weakening my resolve. I've made your well-being my priority."

  Daniel huffed, finally letting his hand settle on Armand's hip. Neutral enough territory. Kind of. "So it's fun and thrilling to let me get worked up. I see," he teased.

  "You likely wouldn't be able to reach climax in your state, anyway, Daniel. And if you did manage, the ensuing headrush could give you a terrible headache."

  Yeah, Daniel was aware. He'd learned through experience. He thought about asking how Armand had gained such wisdom, but he shelved it. "What about you?"

  "As the keeper of the gate, I'm afraid I must remain steadfast."

  "'Keeper of the gate,'" Daniel repeated. "I do possess some self-control, Armand."

  "Then I'd like not to torture you so much."

  "It's not really torture, babe. This, though..."

  "So I should let you rut unsatisfactorily against my backside? You're making a flimsy case for yourself, mister..."

  Mister. Actually, Daniel thought, this was pretty fucking unfair.

  "Not what I had in mind." He squeezed Armand's hip.

  "And what might you have had in mind?"

  Daniel thought he heard genuine interest in his voice. "Making you feel good..."

  "Sounds laborious."

  "A handjob sounds laborious to you?"

  "Hah..." Armand gasped, unable to stop himself. "Your hand... was cramping last night..."

  "Yeah, after an hour of rubbing your oddly high-strung traps..."

  "And yours must be faring much worse today."

  "Worth it."

  "I'd like you to rest."

  "I think you'd like to get some relief..." Daniel tip-toed two fingers down the crest of Armand's hip, over the bone and halting.

  "Daniel..."

  "Armand..." He daringly pushed his fingers down, sweeping over the place between his hips where his pubic bone formed a mound and his hair grew thicker. He was hot there. "Does it work this way for you?"

  "Yes..."

  "Can I..." Before getting all the words out, let alone an answer, Daniel was trailing his fingers down further until he found him. He let his hand graze over him first, making him arch against his chest as he got a feel. "Fuck, you're so..."

  "Daniel, that's-"

  "You're burning up..." He was plump velvet in Daniel's hand, the palm of which was slick with fevered sweat. Armand was cold everywhere but here. Between his legs. There was a density to him, a weight in Daniel's hand and when he finally gripped him with more than a teasing non-pressure, he felt Armand throb. "Does this feel good to you? Does it work like it does for human men?"

  "Yes," Armand confirmed, his voice low and breathy.

  "I can make you cum, then?"

  "With effort."

  Daniel laughed against his neck, giving him a long and slow stroke up from the base of him. "Well, yeah. It always takes some effort. When you go off, do you... I mean, will there be...?"

  Armand panted out a small laugh, his hips rearing back into Daniel's. "Will it be productive?"

  Daniel pressed little kisses down the nape of his neck, through his iron and wine perfumed hair. "Yeah. If I wanted to taste you..."

  "Ahh," Armand gasped. "I don't know that you would find it all that appealing."

  "Try me." Daniel dragged his hand up slow, letting his thumb rub over the tip of him, finding him deliciously wet and sticky there. "Or is ectoplasm bad for mortals?"

  "It's not ectoplasm, Daniel. It's what sustains me. It's..."

  Daniel's hand stilled. "Blood?"

  "Blood, mineral, perhaps traces of the things you feed me."

  Daniel's hips pressed forward into Armand's ass. "Fuck... That's hot..."

  "Is it?" Armand laughed a stuttered laugh as Daniel administered punishing little squeezes and swipes of his thumb. He sounded authentically self-conscious. "That's not always the sentiment..."

  "Adventurous eating isn't everyone's bag." Daniel left him, pulling his hand back to himself and getting a look at the slick substance on his thumb. A deep muscadine that glittered. His imaginations supplied all sorts of possibilities. It might taste like boysenberry syrup. It might taste like manischewitz. He bravely brought his thumb up to his lips and sucked it in.

  "Daniel..."

  "Oh-" Daniel shook his head as if that could help. "Wow..."

  Armand sighed, covering his face with his hands. "I could've warned you..."

  "No, that's... that's on me..."

  "It can look-"

  "Pretty? Appetizing? Yeah..." Daniel swallowed, still clearing the taste from his palate. "Tastes like fermented blood laced with Flintstones vitamins. Not sure why I expected anything else..."

  "Yes," Armand said, deflated.

  "Hey..." Daniel hugged his arm around his waist and squeezed. "It's alright. I'm not disappointed, just enlightened. Not like I'm gonna be using it as ice cream topping or anything." He tugged Armand's hand away from his face and brought it down.

  "What are you-"

  "You don't want me to tire myself out. That's what you said. I still want you to feel good, Armand. Show me how."

  "Oh..." Armand let himself be guided, taking himself up when Daniel let his wrist go. "But won't you want to watch?"

  "If you're offering, yeah."

  Armand began to wiggle and Daniel leaned back to give him room until he had himself turned fully to face him.

  "Yeah, there you are," Daniel smiled, dipping to kiss him before laying his head back down and wrapping the afghan over the both of them, his hand settling on the dip of his waist.

  Armand's eyes were swimmy and dark, the crests of his cheeks pink and glowing. He hiked his right leg up over Daniel's thigh to give himself better access and closed his eyes as he began, slow and even.

  Daniel watched his face, watched his eyes close in relief, the corner of his lip pull up. He listened to the rhythm of his breathing, his soft dot-and-dash panting. Human and real. What was the difference, really? Perception is reality, or whatever Atwater had said. He took the opportunity to glance down under the covers where it was dark but enough light filtered through the loose knitting of the afghan to dapple over Armand's hand at work. His gorgeous hand. Had Daniel really taken stock of how delicate Armand's hands were? Surely, he'd noticed. But now they were wrapped so prettily around another strikingly attractive part of him.

  "That's how you like it?"

  "Mm," Armand nodded, eyes blinking back open, searching Daniel for approval.

  "Is that how you'd do it if I weren't here?"

  "I wouldn't be doing it if you weren't here," Armand leaned forward and pressed his head into Daniel's clavicle.

  "Ah-ah..." Daniel kissed the crown of his head before tilting it back again. "I wanna see."

  "Could you kiss me?"

  Daniel cupped his cheek, brought them close, and kissed him softly. Armand was too rapt to really kiss back. His lips were slack against Daniel's, tongue lazily meeting his between their teeth. A luxury, Daniel thought. You couldn't ordinarily kiss someone when you were sick. Part of him wanted to take Armand's hand away from himself and flip them so that he was on top and in control. Of course Armand could overpower him in countless and unknowable ways, but Daniel didn't think he would. Still. He'd remain a gentleman. He supposed he was lucky to be indulged at all and a headache from fucking with a fever really wasn't all that appealing to him. He could feel the shake of Armand's movements increase, his panting turned to soft moans as he broke from Daniel's lips and pressed his own forehead to him. Daniel turned his eyes down again to watch, throwing the afghan back to get more light.

  "Fuck, yes, there you go... like that, babe," he encouraged.

  Armand was slicked over to gleaming with the glittering substance, the ring of his hand stained like he'd squeezed a fistful of berries in it. Daniel was struck with a thought and without giving it much consideration, he swiped his thumb over the tip of him again and raised it up to his mouth.

  Armand's eyes, lust-dark and imploring, stared up at him beneath knit brows as Daniel painted his lips with it.

  There. Gorgeous.

  "If you... hah... If you wanted to see me painted, all you needed to do was ask..."

  Daniel smirked and captured his lips again, his cock fully hardened in his pants. He canted his hips, seeking some kind of friction or cast-off motion from Armand's hand and finding himself locked-up in shock when Armand's fingers very suddenly and very deftly snatched him up through the material of his sleep pants and pressed them together. He could feel Armand's pulse answering his own, a throb and another throb.

  Armand bit his berry-stained lip and smiled. "I know you want to fuck me. I want you to fuck me. But we have to be patient, don't we?"

  "P-patient... yeah..." Daniel grunted digging his fingers into Armand's hip and pulling him close, feeling him slide his hand out from between them before it found his jaw, wet with his excretions and smelling like iron. They kissed again as Armand ground into him, his hips giving a powerful preview of what he could be capable of. Daniel felt dizzy, a pressure building in the front of his skull like a blinking red light giving warning. Luckily Armand was nearly there.

  "I'm close," he whispered against Daniel's mouth, quickly pulling his hips back to resume the work with his hand, looking more disheveled now and quite a bit more desperate.

  Daniel could not find the words to coax him, his mouth hung open and empty while the lights in the room flickered like mad and the house, itself, groaned. Armand stuttered out a moan, his face like an optical illusion. From one vantage point; pain, from another; religious ecstasy. His stomach went tense and his hips bucked in against Daniel while his fist slowed and the veins on his arm went corded and taught. His thigh began to shake where it was propped over Daniel's and he spilled between them, hitting Daniel's sweater and the blanket below them. Daniel wanted to frame them as art pieces. Keep them like treasure. Armand gave gush after slowing gush, every sound that escaped him prettier than the last. He came down piece by piece, his head collapsing back first, his hand finally releasing. He exhaled and Daniel felt the couch sag a little more where his weight rested.

  "God, look at you," Daniel managed at last.

  Armand's eyes fluttered open. Sunset orange again, flanked by red burning cheeks. The darkened flowerbud pout of his mouth gave him a doll-like quality. It made Daniel want to dress him in velvet.

  "I'll clean up the mess," Armand said. "Just need to rest a while."

  "Take all the time you need. I'm in no hurry."

  Armand's gaze flicked down to Daniel's sweater. "Oh..."

  "Really. Don't worry about it. I've got a wardrobe full of them. Besides, it's kind of hot. Thinking about keeping it."

  "I can have it clean in only a blink, Daniel. It's no worry."

  "You saying I can't keep it this way?"

  Armand looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "You'd really want to?"

  "Have a keepsake from the hottest, weirdest Netflix and chill session of my life? Yeah." He laughed. "I wouldn't mind... What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "Alice was right about you."

  Daniel reared back, raising his eyebrow as if to say Oh, really? "Right about me in what regard?"

  "I believe her words were 'goodhearted pervert'..."

  Daniel laughed. "Okay. Yeah. You've got me there."

  They kissed a while longer before Armand insisted Daniel rest while he tidy up. Daniel fell asleep within minutes and did not wake again until evening. 

Chapter Text

  Daniel cycled through his fevers for three days and came out the other side depleted. He'd lost four pounds and he felt physically weaker, though he was loathe to admit it. They had not yet dragged the tree down from the attic to trim it for this reason. Armand excitedly offered to do for him, but Daniel seemed too saddened by the idea of not doing it together and the physical exertion would have depleted Armand entirely, so they'd wait.

  "You know," Daniel said over his delivered lunch of minestrone and breadsticks, "I haven't put up a tree since.... Well..."

  Armand was nearly transparent and wavering where he stood in the entryway. Still, Daniel could see the expression on his face turn downward. "Really? I thought, since Alice-"

  "I'd drag the tree down for her, yeah. But I couldn't bear to help decorate it. All those ornaments we'd collected for Callie and Kate. Their first ornaments. One for every year after. Some of them Alice made by hand..."

  "Yes. I know every one, in fact. My favorite was the little pairs of gloves with cinnamon sticks and clove."

  "Really? She... She showed them to you, then?"

  "The first year we decorated together, she took me through each ornament and the meaning behind it."

  "Gosh, I..." Daniel shook his head. "I don't know that I'd remember even half of them now if I tried. I sort of pushed all that out of my head."

  "When you've rested up enough, we can take the tree down and look through them again. I'm sure it will jog your memory."

  "When I rest up? I'm feeling like a new man." He dunked a breadstick into his soup and took a hearty bite. "You, on the other hand..."

  "Yes, I haven't wanted to leave you while you've been sick."

  "I think I would've been just fine. I've had to live through the crud on my own countless times before."

  "Suppose it's just in my nature to fuss."

  "You should go out this afternoon, then. I mean, since you refuse to tap my supply..."

  "With very good reason, Daniel."

  "There's no way you're going to have the strength to help decorate a tree..."

  Armand nodded his head solemnly. "You must promise to stay put. Don't go out catching a chill, no hanging out with Dick and drinking beers."

  Daniel regarded him with only a hint of suspicion over that last addendum. "Okay, mom."

  "Promise me you'll rest and I'll take the rest of the afternoon to... regain my strength."

  "We can make out under the light of the tree, after."

  There was a sadness in Armand's eyes, untouched by the faint smile on his lips. "Yes. It really doesn't bother you? What I must do to maintain... this?"

  "I'm just choosing not to think about it too much. Why? Does that bother you? You took up so much air to defend yourself, before..."

  "It only gives me pause to consider that perhaps, in my dealings with mortals in the past, the mental anguish my eating habits caused was not the inevitability I'd thought it was."

  Daniel frowned. "Or... I don't know, maybe you're just dealing with a psychopath."

  "Definitely not. I've eaten psychopaths. You are not a psychopath, Daniel..."

  "Yeah. Maybe I'm just that repressed. Or I'm a bit of a monster, myself."

  "Or you're accepting of me to a fault."

  "A fault?" Daniel said around his spoon.

  "I think it would be a tragedy for anyone to sacrifice a piece of their humanity for me. When it's humanity that I'm so drawn to. That I find myself doomed to fall in love with over and over. I know it's ultimately a selfish thing I'm doing. I always wonder whether it's the correct thing."

  Daniel swallowed, scrutinizing him. "You're losing me, babe..."

  "I do not fear driving you mad, Daniel. That's a comfort."

  "Yeah. Okay. So maybe you should relax a little."

  "I fear..." Armand faded out and then back in, rubbing small circles into the backs of his elbows with his thumbs. "I fear what I always fear, I suppose. And what is always the truth of the matter."

  "I'm listening..."

  "I fear that I will never again encounter another mortal like you."

  Daniel huffed. "That's all?"

  Armand looked pained. "You're going to mock?"

  "I'm not mocking, it's just..." He laughed. "Armand, that's the human condition. That's... the cost of living and loving."

  "For you there is an end to the cycle. It's easy to mock when you know that pain will eventually hit a wall and end. Whether you believe in life after or not."

  Daniel sat back from his meal, watching him. "Pity the spirit who gets to live to the end of the world..."

  "I don't want pity."

  "Now that's not true. And besides, Armand. You get to fall in love over and over."

  "Is that a prize, Daniel? You wrote as much in your memoir. You wrote that if you could go back and choose not to have your daughters, knowing that you would have such a short time with them, you thought you would do it all the same way again. But you didn't believe that when you wrote it."

  Daniel's spoon lowered to the table. His face fell. He blinked at Armand in stunned silence.

  "I don't mean to torment you with this. It's just something that's been on my mind."

  Daniel was trying to think of what to say. A few weeks ago and he might've erupted in anger. It wasn't just that he was recovering from a virus, something about Armand's sincerity was making him feel soft.

  "I'll go, then. I shouldn't be more than three hours." Armand turned, fading and fading.

  "Armand, wait," Daniel spoke at last.

  Armand wheeled in the entryway, translucent and worn looking.

  "I... think I believe it, now. For whatever that's worth. I think I'd do it all again."

  Armand gave him a fond look and then he was gone.

  Despite feeling much better overall, Daniel was tired enough to fall asleep on the couch waiting for Armand's return. He'd only made it through one chapter of the new book he'd started and slumped into the couch, head tilted back and mouth open, snoring to bring down the roof.

  "Trying to catch spiders?" Something Alice used to say.

  The voice startled him awake, making him choke dryly and sputter as he sat up in alarm. "Armand... Don't do that."

  Armand stood in front of him, healthier and whole looking, but with an odd hollowness beneath his eyes and... maybe some makeup? Daniel tossed his paperback at him and Armand caught it between his hands, bending to place it gently on the coffee table between them. "I couldn't resist. Anyway, you'll get a kink in your neck sleeping that way."

  "Like you wouldn't be itching to work it out of me. Who'd you eat?"

  Armand's mouth turned downward. "You're interested to know?"

  "You kind of shamed me for my lack of curiosity and reverence earlier, so yeah. Let me honor their sacrifice, or whatever."

  "Right after your midday nap?"

  "What, is that ghoulish? Damned if I do and damned if I don't. You seemed put off by how quickly I accepted it. If you want me to practice some guilty reflection, I'm offering to."

  Armand lowered his eyes. His pretty, kohl-lined eyes. His hair was swept back, eyes dark and painted, lips a little darker, too. He walked around the coffee table, giving Daniel the opportunity to take in his outfit. Tight-fitting black jeans. A tight black turtleneck. When he sat, he left space between them and folded his hands in his lap. His thumbs brushed idly over one another. "You want to hear about it. Fine. I'll tell you."

  Daniel watched him with caution, pulling the afghan that had slipped from his lap to the floor back up over his legs.

  "I went out to the desert. The way I so often do. Those who have resolved themselves, they tend to seek out such locations, but I've already told you these things."

  Daniel tasted a waking bitterness in his mouth. He swallowed, nodding for Armand to continue.

  "Sometimes I have to pack it in. Find somewhere new and try again. But I have pretty good luck. I never know who will come to me. I do not... turn those who are suffering away, Daniel. Despite whether or not I agree that all hope for them is lost. Again, I stress that it is only those who are truly resolved who come into my embrace."

  "Do you want me to be horrified or to sympathize, Armand? You're giving me mixed signals here."

  "Today," Armand continued, "the resolved one in question was quite a bit younger than usual."

  "How young?"

  "It isn't always so easy. When they're young but hopeless. It isn't easy, but I must also be... resolved."

  "How young, Armand?"

  "Fourteen? Her birthday only days ago..."

  Daniel felt his stomach knot. "A little girl."

  "Her parents, neglectful and ignorant of her suffering in school, might not even have realized by now... She'd been wandering for three days. Waiting for the elements to take her. And you must believe me when I tell you, Daniel, it would not have been much longer. Likely, by my estimation..." His brow was creased with the effort of recounting. "She'd have expired before the sun rises tomorrow."

  "How do you... She found her way to you?"

  Armand closed his eyes and shook his head. His hands unclasped, found the backs of his arms as if he meant to brace himself. Hug himself. His eyes had not met Daniels once while he spoke. "She answered my call with one of her own. She was huddled under a rock face. Unable to move from dehydration and starvation. Exhaustion. Daniel..." He trembled, a line of glittering red squeezing from between his black-painted lids like jam being pressed between two slices of bread. Daniel watched them roll down his cheeks like melted rubies.

  "Hey, hey..." Daniel pulled in, wrapping a comforting arm around his shoulders.

  "Daniel, she looked at me with hope in her eyes. Like I'd come to take her out of there."

  "Could you have?" It felt cruel to ask, but Daniel supposed Armand would not have wanted to be left off the hook based on their earlier conversation.

  Armand shook his head. "I was far too weak. I shouldn't have shown myself to her at all. I should have taken her and ended it swiftly, but instead I held her and spoke words of comfort. I... tried to think of a way that I could help, but the fear in her eyes and the way that she clutched at me... I could not abandon her for fear that she would die alone."

  "Jesus..." Daniel's own eyes were blurring over. He felt himself trembling against Armand.

  "I... held her. And I held her a bit longer when it was finished."

  "Did you... I mean, is she...?"

  "I took care of it, yes. Of course. The humiliation and desiccation of her flesh... No. She should not have had to suffer any more of that. Even in death. Her hope was to disappear, and so..."

  Daniel threw his other arm around him, then, hugging him tight. "I'm sorry," he said. It shocked him that he meant it. Sorry for the girl, of course. Someone's daughter, though he had little sympathy for her parents. Too hard of an ask. For him, anyway. No, he felt sympathy for the one who'd just admitted to ending the girl's life. He could understand it, even.

  "You shouldn't be," Armand's eyes blinked open at last, his head turning as Daniel released him.

  "Well, I am. I can't help it."

  "This is meant to be my burden, alone. I am far better equipped." The red tears faded on Armand's cheeks as if absorbed back into him.

  "So you can torture yourself with it? Imagine if you hadn't gone out there today. Imagine if you had waited until tomorrow. She'd still be gone. But she'd have suffered longer. Died alone, like you said."

  "She'd already suffered so much."

  "You made it easier. You do that, don't you? Make it beautiful for them? I've probably only gotten a taste of that, right? That dreamy, hazy acceptance..."

  Armand sighed, smiling slightly. "Yes. I made it beautiful. But with how little she yielded and the effort to reduce her to ash after, I am afraid I will not have much more than this evening and tomorrow before growing weak again."

  "That's alright," Daniel said, kissing his temple and his cheek. "We'll make it count. We can put the tree up and then-"

  "I think I'd like to wait to go out and feed again. For a few days, at least."

  Daniel nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, that's alright. Whatever you need to do, kid. By tomorrow, I should be well enough to let you have some of mine."

  "Daniel?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I am suggesting that I would like to take some time to fast, actually."

  Oh... "You... You do that?"

  "It helps."

  "Yeah, sure. Who am I to dog anyone for their practices? It's just that I typically associate fasting with... Well, with certain religious sects."

  "I believe that ritual and reflection can be a healthy practice for humans and, yes, often it's observed within the canon of religion. But what is religion other than a means of understanding and contextualizing one's own existence?"

  "I'm not gonna argue with you on that. I'm just a selfish old man who likes having you around."

  "I'll still be around, Daniel. I will honor her blood and when it is used up, I will reflect."

  "This, uh... This brooding reflection... Is this...?"

  "Her? I suspect some of it, yes. But I'm not without depth, Daniel. Or nuanced thought surrounding those I must feed on."

  Daniel frowned. "It's not like this every time, though, right? I mean, every time you go out there and kill someone, you're not putting on a face and hiding the remorse..."

  "This is rather a unique case, Daniel. Not the first time, but the impact never seems to be lessened. You're worried that I will always be secretly mourning?"

  "It's just sad to consider. And the thought occurred to me."

  Armand shook his head. "Sweet boy," he said. "No. I will be honest with you when I am feeling melancholic. As I have demonstrated."

  "You didn't wanna tell me this time."

  "A rather special set of circumstances. Not just hers, but..." His eyes softened.

  "Yeah. Dad with two dead daughters, here. I get it."

  Armand pressed forward, landing a kiss on Daniel's lips. "The last known traces of her are living their final moments through me, now. I think we should keep chaste." His eyelashes fluttered slightly as he raised his gaze to meet Daniel's, their faces still pressed close. He was worried how Daniel would react.

  "I agree," Daniel concurred. "I'm glad you told me, Armand. About all of it."

  "There was something I saw. Something in her blood. Daniel?"

  "Yeah?"

  "There is a show I would like to watch. A show called Riverdale..."

  "Armand, it's late."

  "Please, just one more?"

  "It won't be finished until midnight. Come on. We knocked out an entire season. We can start season two tomorrow. I'll clear my whole calendar for it. Promise."

  Armand pouted up at him from his lap where Daniel had been playing with his hair as requested. The pouting was new, and Daniel really thought he could do without the petulance.

  "Oh, alright. One more."

  Armand tempered a grin, not wanting to gloat too much about having gotten his way, and turned his attention back to the screen. "Who is your favorite?"

  "My favorite? I don't know, Armand. I guess... Betty's mom is pretty hot?"

  "I like Jughead."

  Daniel's face scrunched up. "Jughead?"

  "I like his energy. And he's very cute."

  "Cute???" Daniel scoffed. "All these actors look like kids."

  "You think so? They look way too old to be playing high schoolers to me."

  "Well, yeah, but they're still... young."

  "I wouldn't say that I look much older than some of them."

  "No, but that's... That's different."

  "They're all very attractive. I think we can agree on that."

  "Sure," Daniel conceded. "If I'm being forced to pick which one I want seven minutes in heaven with though, my pick is Betty's mom. And yours is... Jughead?"

  "You say it with such disdain," Armand accused, grabbing the remote and hitting play on the next episode.

  "Yeah, well, he's obnoxious. I mean, they're all kind of obnoxious, but he's the worst offender."

  Armand sighed dismissively. "You simply do not get me, Daniel."

  Daniel laughed. "Oh, is that so?" He drove a couple of fingers under Armand's ribs, tickling him and making him wiggle and squirm. "I think you're just giddy on the teenage girl-juice. With respect. Why not Archie? He's the main guy, right? Big hunky meathead like him should be a pretty popular heart-throb, yeah?"

  "Yeah, Archie's alright, I guess," Armand said as he recovered from the tickle attack. "He's just so stupid."

  Daniel rolled his eyes, biting his tongue. Everyone in this show is stupid. "I don't even understand what's going on half the time with the plot."

  Armand paused it again and pushed himself to sit up so he could look at Daniel. "Do you want me to give you a recap and explain? I've been paying expert attention..."

  "Are you kidding?" Daniel snorted. "Let's get this done with so I can go to bed. You can give me the recap over breakfast."

  "Suit yourself," Armand flopped back down, his shoulder impacting Daniel's leg and making him grunt out.

  "Ow! Watch it."

  "Sorry."

  "No, you're not. You did it on purpose." Daniel tugged one of his curls playfully. In truth, he didn't mind staying up a little late to watch one more episode. In fact, he'd been having an incredible evening. The pressure was off as far as physical stuff between them and they'd been allowed to simply enjoy one another's company again.

  And then, there was the other thing that Daniel was electing not to examine too closely just yet. The way Armand was stirring some of those long packed-away feelings of paternal affection. It wasn't that Armand was reminding him of Calliope or Kate, really. Not specifically. But rather an era. A time in his life that he'd have been grieving for the rest of his life whether his girls were still alive or not. A specific type of mourning of time and place known only to parents of children who grow past them. Perhaps it had been too painful to cherish those memories. Could anyone blame him? Another thing robbed from him and Alice. Their golden years of looking back without that monolith blocking out all the sunshine. It was like Armand was helping him chip away at it.

  "Keep playing with my hair," Armand demanded, eyes fixed on the TV, the tips of his first two fingers in his mouth where Daniel could hear his teeth gnawing away at the nails. A bad habit that Daniel knew could do no harm to him.

  He smiled fondly and acquiesced. "Sure thing, princess."

Chapter Text

  While Armand fasted, Daniel worked. His resistance to getting sucked into the the silly teenager's show had been short lived, and he found himself rather emboldened by some of the zany plot choices. Not that what he was currently working on was in any way restrained. When Armand faded, Daniel took comfort in knowing he was still around. They had their good mornings through the notes app, small bits of conversation when Daniel's hearing aid was in, and goodnights in the evening.  He spent an afternoon with Dick at the hardware store shopping for tools to replace some of his that had rusted. "In case you get tired of paying me to do everything for you," Dick had said. When at last Armand broke his fast, they put the tree up and a couple of days later, some gift-wrapped boxes appeared underneath it.

  "You're not going to read my mind to find out what's in those, are you?"

  "Should I refrain?" Armand sat, glowing in the warm light of the tree and looking impossibly cozy with a sweater to match Daniel's own. A cute little trick Daniel didn't mind once he realized Armand wasn't poking fun and was simply carrying on a tradition of his and Alice's.

  "They're gifts for you, so yes."

  "Gifts for me?" Armand's eyes grew big and round like some of the ornaments that reflected in them.

  "Yeah. Why not? Aside from Dick and my editor, I've got nobody else to shop for."

  "Alice said you always loved Christmas. Even though you were not a religious man."

  "I have my qualms with Christmas and consumerism, but if you can't beat 'em..." Daniel joined him on the couch, throwing a blanket over his lap and gesturing for Armand to get closer.

  "I'm chilly," Armand warned.

  "I don't care. That's what the blanket's for."

  Armand smiled and crawled nearer to him, settling into his side with Daniel's arm around his shoulder. "I suppose your warmth will seep into me. Just don't want to give you my chill."

  Daniel kissed the top of his head. He smelled like a pair of snow-soaked mittens brought in to dry over a fireplace. Metallic cold, tree sap, honey. He wondered how he'd smell in the spring. If he'd take on a floral edge. Something green and dewy. He wondered what influenced it outside of the blood he took. He wondered how much of Armand's own magic he understood.

  "Have you ever gotten involved with more than one person at a time?" Daniel asked it conversationally enough, but it seemed to jolt Armand a little.

  "What makes you ask?"

  Daniel laughed. "I'm not implying that I have suspicions. I'm just curious."

  "I have faint memories of that sort of thing. Not splitting time between homes, but of living with couples. Long ago."

  "Were you third wheeling it, or..."

  "Was it romantic?" Armand tilted his head, smirking. "I do not recall..."

  "So sex doesn't always have to be an element for you, then."

  "I suppose it doesn't, but it is nice, isn't it?"

  "It is," Daniel nodded, feeling a smirk tugging at his own mouth.

  "It's always something I want. Are you asking if I seek companions out for that purpose, primarily? If so, then the answer is no. Like I told you, intimacy is-"

  "Right, right, yeah. Just... I suppose I'm curious about some specific things, but I'm having trouble asking point blank."

  "More clarity on my relationship with Alice?"

  "Yeah."

  "I wanted that physicality with her, yes. You haven't yet gotten acquainted with that side of me, but I can be quite insatiable. I have had an eternity to temper it, however."

  "Was she not... a little weirded out by you wearing my face?" There. He asked.

  "Ah..."

  "I mean, is that your move? To look like a lover someone's already familiar with? Do you use this playbook with everyone?"

  "It does not always work that way, but... I have success with this tactic."

  Tactic.

  "I mean, you look like you could have been her brother."

  "You were physically attracted to her. You've always been attracted to these features on men and women alike. It's... a shortcut."

  "It sounds a little sinister when said out loud."

  Armand's brow creased. "I suppose it does."

  "But even now, you're... not her, you know? I mean, yeah, you look a bit like her, but you're something else. I just can't... I don't think I'd be comfortable with you looking like an exact copy of her."

  "You're trying to understand why she was okay with it."

  "I guess that's what I'm saying, yeah."

  Armand sighed. "I did try to find in her a new form to take. An actor from a television show she fancied, a model from a catalogue, and yes, even Michael Hutchence. She preferred you. She was quite conflicted about it, herself, to start. But ultimately, she just wanted you."

  Daniel squeezed his eyes shut. "You see, it's just that..." He lifted his glasses off his nose and rubbed at the bridge. "-I didn't know that. I mean, she never... let on at all after we divorced. I spent years thinking she wanted nothing to do with me."

  "I don't believe you should have stayed together, Daniel. If that helps. I don't think you should regret that too much. She loved you, but she would have doubted your love the whole time. That... might be hard to hear."

  It was.

  "I had left a big piece of myself unexamined and unexplored. I didn't think it'd matter because I loved her and I was attracted to her. I hope she knew that."

  "She understood that. She just wanted you to find happiness. She was hurt, yes. You'd devastated her, Daniel. But it would have festered and grown had you stayed together."

  "You weren't the Armand that's sitting with me now, were you? Not with her..."

  "No."

  "You spoke with my voice?"

  "Yes." Armand's eyes were on him, searching for his disgust and Daniel could tell.

  "Freaky," he replied with a slight smile, meaning to put him at ease.

  "I've shown you, already, but I could do it again. We could sit and talk how I'd sit and talk with her. I could show you how I was you and wasn't you at the same time."

  Daniel's head shook. "Not sure I'm ready for that."

  "If you ever wondered what it would be like to kiss your younger self... Or yourself, now. I could accommodate all of that."

  Daniel stared back at him, struck. "Is that... something you've been requested to do a lot?"

  "You'd be surprised." Armand smiled. "Or not, really. It seems a fairly common fantasy in mortals."

  Daniel's mouth hung open. He realized and shut it up quickly before shaking his head again. "Incredible."

  "You're wondering if Alice ever took me up on it."

  Daniel demured. "Guess I can't hide it."

  "Alice was not nearly as..." Armand seemed to struggle to find the word.

  "Perverse?"

  "I didn't want to use such an incendiary word..."

  "Ah, so you didn't, then..."

  "Does that disappoint you slightly?"

  "I would've teased her to hell and back."

  Armand laughed. "Perhaps that thought in the back of her mind was her inhibitor."

  "Did she know that you were going to... to stay?"

  "In this house? After she passed?"

  "Yeah. Did she know and is that why she wanted me to have the house?"

  Armand's gaze flicked down to his hands, where his thumbs rubbed over one another.

  "What?" Daniel's nerves were peeking through. "Did she... ask you to stay?"

  "Her final wishes were for me to..."

  "Oh..."

  "But even if she-"

  "Oh..." Daniel's face fell with the realization.

  "Daniel..."

  "'But even if she...?'"

  "Even if she hadn't, I would have wanted to. I was primed to want to, Daniel. I was already half in love with you through her. Does that make sense? Does it upset you?" That searching look again.

  "It's just shocking to hear." Daniel steamrolled right past the whole love thing. "I can't help wondering what her version of you was like. I mean... if it'd just seem like my evil twin, or-"

  "Evil?" Armand was affronted.

  "Okay, maybe that was a bad analogy. I'm just imagining... uncanny valley levels of weird."

  "Shall I demonstrate? Will you shove me down the stairs again?"

  Daniel eyed him quietly before answering. "No."

  Armand shifted around on the couch so his legs were under him and he was fully facing Daniel, who turned in kind. Armand's fingers grazed the sides of his face, soothing and cool. Daniel closed his eyes at their touch and when he opened them again after their withdrawal, it was done. Armand sat in front of him transformed. Daniel was looking at a mirror into the past.

  "I gotta be honest," he said, "I really don't remember looking that good."

  Armand laughed. Daniel's 30-something face crinkling in the corners of the eyes, mouth going goofy-wide in the dopey grin he'd always hated to be confronted with in candid photos. Something about seeing it now, though...

  "The eyes are still off sort of. I mean... they're green, but-"

  "Yes, that is something I do not have the power to glamor away, unfortunately."

  "The voice is dead-on. The accent and everything. It'd probably grate on me if I wasn't already so used to hearing myself talk. Did you, uh... study my cadence? Pull from my vocabulary?"

  Armand sucked his cheek in between his teeth. Young Daniel to a T. "I did, but I don't believe I could have fooled her in a line-up."

  "Did you swear?"

  "Like a sailor. I did not consider swearing an artform until I was tasked with imitating you, Daniel."

  "You tasked yourself with that, buddy. Alice spent years trying to clean my mouth out."

  "Maybe she secretly liked it."

  "Oh yeah?" Daniel quirked an eyebrow, still scanning over the face in front of him. Alien for it's eerie familiarity. The primordial response in him pressed up against his desire to examine closer.

  "I had to broaden my vocabulary in certain arenas to keep up with Alice's expectations while wearing this face."

  Daniel colored. "You mean... dirty talk?"

  "Will you feel more compelled to smack me for speaking on it when I look like this?"

  "My hands are chastely folded in my lap, kid."

  "I suppose what I'm asking is, do you want to hear more about it?"

  Daniel swallowed around nothing, his face already heated by the prospect. "I guess the curiosity I have around that isn't going to go away, so... Yeah. Why not?"

  Armand wore Daniel's own mischievous look so convincingly well. He sucked his left cheek back between his teeth for a moment before ambling a few inches closer on the couch, the bell on his sweater, Daniel's sweater jingling slightly. "I guess I'm really only telling you what you already know. You wrote the book, after all. So it shouldn't be a shock to hear that she liked to be flustered."

  "Yeah," Daniel agreed breathlessly. "She did."

  "She liked to be complimented, but she'd protest. She wouldn't undress herself. Hardly ever. She'd wait for it to be done for her. A show of modesty, I suppose, but also a preference to be taken care of, in a way. If you wanted her to give in to her own passion, you had to be the one to get her there. You had to drive it up and up in her, tease her until she'd cast off the pretense and take charge. But mostly, I'd just give in. She liked the skin just behind her ear kissed. It was easy to drive her wild like that, taking turns kissing her there and then whispering the most damnable things into her ear..."

  Daniel's eyes narrowed on his younger self's mouth as Armand edged in closer. He did sound like him. He really did. Even if he was still structuring his sentences in a way that was more Armand. "She liked her panties left on," Daniel added as if outside of himself. He heard the extra decades in his voice, now.

  The green of Armand's eyes, at first candy apple, were taking on a deeper, more foresty hue. "Yes. That was your move, wasn't it? Sliding them over slowly, letting the knuckle of your first finger graze her just there... Just where she felt the best... Sometimes lingering, nudging the right side of her -she really favored the right side- and making her toss her head back and see stars..."

  "It was never enough to get her off, but it was a start. I liked to make her orgasm before fucking her if I could." Daniel had expected to feel quite a bit guiltier talking about Alice like this. He was shocked how easy it came. The memories as stimulating as the last time he'd allowed himself this wistful sort of reminiscence.

  "Made her wetter," Armand nodded, his eyelids lowered, his hand braced on the back of the couch like he could pounce on Daniel from his position. Like he was considering it, now.

  "And more sensitive inside. If I could get her to come before the main event, I had a better chance of getting her to come again during it."

  "Oh, yes, and wasn't that the cherry on top? The absolute best was when we'd orgasm together. I'd see her reaching her peak and just as her grip on me began to tighten, we'd both let go, pulsing and crying out together..."

  "It's getting a little hot in here," Daniel joked, heat and a kind of shame swirling in his gut with his climbing arousal.

  "I've noticed." Armand's eyes scanned down him as he inched just a tiny bit closer, like a panther with cornered prey. He was nearly in Daniel's lap.

  "What are we-" Daniel was cut off by Armand's kiss, rougher and stronger than usual. The shape of his own mouth with the force of Armand's desperation behind it. He did not kiss back at first, so stunned by the feel of it, the impossible idea of it. But then Armand's knee was bracketing his hip, his other leg thrown over him and Daniel was sinking back against the arm of the couch while Armand encouraged his feet up off the floor so he could straddle his lap, the blanket falling away from him. He let Armand into his mouth, their tongues and teeth like a Rorshach test. Daniel's fingers found Armand's jaw, the squared angle of it so different from what he'd been growing used to of late, and pushed up into the curly hair over his ear, around the back of his head, pulling him in closer, wanting his tongue to reach the back of Armand's mouth. An arbitrary goal, because he could not conceive of any other. His mind could not expand beyond this one act, this one kiss because already it was unfathomable.

  The bells on their sweaters clanged together, tinkling as they meshed. Armand's hips were rocking against Daniel's, a heat concentrating in him there that Daniel could feel through their matching layers of denim. Armand was hard, nudging under him, encouraging him to match his enthusiasm. Daniel's glasses had gone askew on his face, the nose pads beginning to hurt him a bit. His fingers tangled in the younger man's curls, gripping in as he pulled Armand back from the kiss, though not cruelly.

  They stared at one another, each of them panting heavy and hard, wearing astonishment and restrained lust on their faces. Something in Armand's eyes, even darker now and glittering with the lights of the Christmas tree, looked fearful that Daniel was about to call this off. And Daniel could see that Armand would, if that was what Daniel wanted. That he had but to say the word.

  Instead, Daniel tore his glasses from his face, tossing them onto the coffee table beside them before gripping Armand's face with both his hands and bringing their mouths back together.

  The second kiss was more intuitive. Armand was changing up the way he moved in this body. He was not so supple and sweet. He matched Daniel's domineering efforts, and Daniel realized that this was demonstrative. This was a showcase. He was being given Alice's true experience of Armand. This was further cemented by Armand's hands, now much bigger and more capable, grabbing up both of his wrists and wrenching them together above his head where they were capably managed by just one, alone, as Armand used the other to trail down his cheek, his throat, over his chest and stomach until he reached the bottom of his sweater. Daniel moaned into the kiss when those cold fingers breached the skin of his belly, raking through the hair there and then moving lower, past the pudge under his belly button and finding the top of his jeans, hesitating there.

  "Daniel...?" He asked, breaking away from their kiss with eyes seeking permission. For the first time since his shift, Daniel could hear the Armand he was accustomed to, his Armand in that voice.

  Daniel nodded, finding himself uncharacteristically speechless and yet, somehow it still shocked him to feel those cold fingers working the button of his jeans open with deft skill. He watched himself take down his fly before looking back up, Cheshire grin wrapped ear to ear beneath a cocked eyebrow. Armand was crawling down him.

  "Jesus, is this really what I looked like?" The flames in Daniel's cheeks were stoked with this confrontation.

  "You were skilled with your mouth. And cocky about it," Armand said, tugging his jeans a bit roughly over his hips, but just barely, just enough to expose several inches of skin to the chilly air of the old house but not enough to inhibit the movement of his legs.

  I can't believe this, Daniel's inner monologue finally found it's voice again. I'm really going to let him do it...

  "You look nervous," Armand gave a short huff, curling both sets of fingers into the open fly of his jeans and giving another good yank. One that pulled the denim down hard over Daniel's erection, making him throb for contact. Real contact, no barriers between them. So it was gonna be like this, the first time... Yeah. And Daniel was all in.

  "So I'm about to see how goofy I looked with a dick in my mouth, right? Is that what's happening?"

  Armand licked his lips. "Yes," he said, looking wickeder by the second. "I know you said you wanted to fuck my other mouth, but this one is perhaps the more talented of the two if you'll let me demonstrate."

  "You really talked like that?"

  "You talked like that, Daniel." Armand reached in at last, tugging him out, exposing him to the chill which matched his fingers and made Daniel writhe. "There you are..."

  Daniel was not at all bashful in this regard. He was a healthy amount of humble, a put on amount, but he knew his odds were he ever to find himself in a real life dick measuring contest.

  Armand gave him a pull. "I did not take for granted this impressive piece of flesh. I wielded it with great pride, you should know."

  "Is that how you talk dirty?" Daniel teased, trying not to wear his pleasure so squarely on his face. Something about being in this situation with an Armand who looked like his younger self made him want to withhold satisfaction. Made him want to make a game of trying to wipe the self-satisfied grin off the other man's face. "If you liked it so much, why didn't you just give yourself a couple more ounces below the belt, huh? You could easily do that, couldn't you?"

  That cocky smirk, the cheeks hollowing as Armand sucked them some more. "Daniel," he said, lowering himself further down the couch, ghosting his breath over the crown of Daniel's cock and making him twitch. "Your desires are no secret from me. Least of all the ones you've never dared to speak aloud. Such as preferring to be the biggest boy in the room..."

  Tricks and pitfalls at every turn, Daniel thought. Clever bastard. "Yeah, well, it wasn't difficult to keep myself satisfied in that regard, I guess."

  "We'll have a much harder time trying to stuff you down my throat in my other form," Armand mused, bowing his head further and pressing his lips, Daniel's lips, to the tip of his cock.

  Daniel's breath stuttered. He gasped when the tip of Armand's tongue scooped into him, then, and their eyes met, Armand's closing with the taste of Daniel's sap.

  "I don't think I was ever this much of a tease," Daniel asserted defensively.

  "Perhaps not in your adventures in cocksucking. No, you tended to prefer getting it all down your gullet as quickly as possible. Like you were starved for it."

  Did he sound so confrontationally mocking when he spoke? Did he still?

  "Yeah?" Daniel bucked his hips up. "Maybe you should show me, then. Shut my smart mouth up."

  He watched Armand's expression change. Another pin light flash of his Armand shining threw in drawn together brows and supplication before he was taken swiftly to the hilt and swallowed down a spasming, constricting throat. Hotter on the inside than Daniel would have guessed.

  "Fuck..."

  Armand's vocal cords rumbled around him as his tongue pressed coaxingly along the underside of Daniel's dick. The fingers of Daniel's left hand pushed into his full head of curls as his right reached down to his hip, seeking Armand's own to tangle into. Armand's right hand moved in to circle the base of him as he pulled back a little, extracting Daniel from the tight fit of his throat.

  Daniel fought the urge to push him back down, even hearing a small voice in the back of his head urging him on, insisting that Armand wouldn't mind. "Was I really this good?"

  Armand nodded in the affirmative while bobbing on him, unable to hollow his cheeks all that much for Daniel's girth, but still there was a suction, a delicious pull. Armand, Daniel, had a mouth like a blood pressure cuff and it became pretty clear that this wasn't going to last if he kept on bobbing and stroking like that.

  "Ease up, alright?" Daniel's voice strained.

  Armand popped off of him wetly with a devilish smile curling at the corners of his stretched and pink mouth. "You used to berate men for climaxing too quickly. Do you remember?"

  "I'm not really in a state to learn any lessons, kid," Daniel panted, looking down the length of his torso at him. "Do you feel it?"

  "Of course I'm feeling it." Armand's fingers squeezed around him for emphasis. "Your blood is a rapids. You're so hot, so close..."

  "No, I mean... when you blow me, is it like blowing yourself? How..." Daniel pushed up on his elbows, his fingers retreating from Armand's own and the now-mussed curls at the crown of his head. "How you did when we got off together...?"

  "Ah." Armand smiled, giving him a performative lick up the underside of his cock, catching the rolling bead of precum that cascaded down his length. "No, sex is much more rudimentary when I'm in this state. If I wanted to feel the pleasure I give you, I could, but..."

  "But?" Daniel raised a curious eyebrow.

  Armand licked his lips and sat up. "I'll demonstrate." He gave Daniel a wink and then he flickered out, the weight of him gone from between Daniel's legs, the scant heat of him evaporated.

  Daniel blinked, frantically looking around the room, until he felt that familiar silk scarf in the wind feeling, cool and liquid gracing his wet cock, making it jump in the air. Daniel's attention turned to it and he felt, and saw with his own eyes as if by magic, a force squeezing around the base of it, his head growing swollen and red with the concentration of blood. It pulsed around him, growing warmer by the second, until it felt as hot as Armand's mouth had. It rode up his length, his flesh indented with it, up and down, like some invisible machine had taken hold of him. The lights of the tree flickered and the icicle lights over the mantle were fading and growing brighter like breathing. He heard a humming sound and then the television clicked on, drawing his attention there. He saw it flick over to live television, the digits 37 appearing in the top right corner and then the screen went fuzzy with static. The volume bar came up next and as Daniel's stomach contorted with the squeezing press traveling down under his balls, as if gathering them and pushing them up against his shaft, the sound of Armand's voice came through the soundbar below the screen.

  "Like thisssss..." it hissed. It was not the Daniel-Armand voice, but rather Daniel's Armand.

  "Shit," Daniel moaned. "You can do it like this?"

  "I can," Armand sounded a whole lot more affected, now. His voice was tight, restrained. "And now I can feel it, too..."

  "H-how does it..." Daniel wasn't sure what to do with his hands so he gripped at the cushion below him. "Is it still your mouth, or...?"

  "Hah," The static surged in loud and then ebbed off again, as a long, tight stroke ran up Daniel's cock and then back down it, that maddening pulse ever present. "No. That is to say, in this form, that would not be accurate. There is no... no correlating part, really..."

  "So is this... Am I inside you in a way, or..."

  Armand's voice drew a shaky breath through the soundbar. "S-something like that."

  "We're fucking..."

  "Not... exactly. Maybe. Yes, if you like. It's not quite as nice as fucking the other way. For me, anyway. Like a pale ghost of it. A funhouse mirror of it. That pleasure is a uniquely human one. Of the flesh."

  As dewdrop beads of precum crested at the tip of Daniel's cock, they just as soon evaporated into the air. Armand was drinking him and Daniel felt himself tensing up again at the thought, close to orgasm once more. "We're really gonna have to get to that part, then, huh?"

  "Yes," Armand moaned in agreement. "You're close, Daniel..."

  "Yeah, you feel that?"

  "Mmhm..." The static rushed in again, faded out, rushed in. Daniel's dick pulsed with it, that sucking pull that could not be seen bringing his hips up off the couch.

  He watched. He simply couldn't help it. The invisible pressure rolled up him, squeezing and making him swell at the head and then running back down him, like a warm grip around the base as he toppled over the edge into orgasm. His cock pointed up at the ceiling, throbbing in place, held upright as he was, his cum shooting straight up, arcing over him and disappearing into thin air just before gravity could do it's mean little trick and make it into a case of friendly fire. He watched himself throb and sputter. An incredible show. Absolutely filthy to get off on watching himself like that. Fuck, he wanted more.

  The sound of his own voice coupled with Armand's, crying out in their shared release, was still ringing in his ear even as the TV clicked off and the low current of static died. He rested with his head back against the arm of the couch, his eyes closed as his breathing regulated. He wasn't even bothered by the smell of his own cum filling up the room. He opened his eyes when, once again, he felt Armand's weight on the couch in front of him. He glanced down at him. His Armand, again. Cheeks flushed pink, hair askew, eyes dark. His lips were notably a little dark and swollen. He looked slightly self-conscious and Daniel couldn't help the small laugh that escaped him.

  "Back to your demure old self, huh?"

  "Hush," Armand smirked, extending a hand to pull him up.

  Daniel grimaced a bit, immediately moving to tuck his rapidly softening dick back away, not in shame, but in a show of common decency. "Good for you?" he asked as grabbed up his glasses and replaced them on his face.

  "You know that it was," Armand smiled. "It wasn't too strange for you?"

  "Why don't you read my mind and tell me..."

  Still looking a little unsure of himself, Armand moved in close, taking Daniel's cheek in hand and bringing their lips together. Daniel felt the cool rake over his skull and knew that Armand was taking him up on his offer in earnest. When Armand pulled away from his lips, he looked a lot more certain, smiling content and sweet. "It was strange, but you liked it. Because you're what they call 'a freak'..."

  "And don't you forget it, jellybean." Daniel kissed him again, rougher this time. "Now, I'm gonna need a nap. I know you don't sleep, but you're welcome to be the little spoon if that doesn't sound too dull."

  Armand lit up. "It doesn't."

Chapter Text

  Daniel actually found it insulting to be demanded to send in "a sample" of his work. Of course, Ronnie insisted that it was not her insistence, but it stung nonetheless. He sat for a day, tweaking and editing before sending it off to be further tweaked and edited and then submitted to the publisher. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt nervy about submitting anything. But this was new territory. He was rather out of his element.

  Shocking, all things considered, that he could be made to feel that way.

  Armand hung in the doorway to the library where Daniel'd set up camp for the afternoon to work on writing. He had a thermos full of coffee, a blanket over his lap, and a sleeve of raspberry jam filled shortbread cookies he'd picked up at the grocery store for just this occasion.

  "Yes, Armand?" He glanced up over the top of his glasses.

  "There is someone in the driveway," Armand said, looking rather perturbed.

  "Okay? Probably Jehovah's Witnesses or something. They'll see the no soliciting sticker in the window and they'll leave."

  "No, it's someone I don't recognize. A woman."

  Daniel sighed and pushed himself back from the table, wincing as his knees and hips locked into place. The colder it got, the more he ached. Too bad they hadn't settled in the warmer climes of California. He ambled to the window and peered down at the driveway where a big gray Cadillac sat idling, sending up billows of steam from it's tailpipe. There was a thin scattering of snow like frosting on a cookie and Daniel smartly grabbed his blanket from his chair and threw it around his shoulders before following Armand out of the library and down the stairs.

  "Should I make myself scarce?" Armand asked as they descended the stairs.

  "Probably should. No idea what this could be about. They might be with the historic homes society, in which case they might want to have a look around the place."

  Armand nodded, tipping in to give Daniel a light peck on the cheek before vanishing. Daniel stood in the foyer, peeking out the stained glass on the door now and again until he heard the engine of the car shut off and the door swing open. He waited until he heard steps on the porch and he opened the door to the surprised face of a woman in her mid thirties to early forties. Her skin was dark in complexion, hair cut into a short and stylish bob styled behind her ears which wore big fuzzy earmuffs. She had on a striking shade of red lipstick and looked as though she'd had makeup on her eyes to match, but it was smeared, now.

  "Can I help you?" Daniel asked.

  "Are you Mr. Molloy?"

  "Yeah, that's me..." He tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice. It was clear the woman had been crying. "Everything alright?"

  She looked, for a moment, like she might crumble and begin crying again, but with a squeeze of her eyes and a tight smile, she bid it back. "We haven't met, but you're friends with my dad."

  Daniel's heart sank with familiarity. Snow on the ground, a stranger at the door. Bad news at Christmas time. Don't jump to conclusions, Danny... "You're Dick's daughter? Valencia?"

  "Val," she smiled, "yeah. Oh!" She reached forward with gloved hands and took Daniel's in her own very suddenly. "Oh, that look on your face! No, I'm so sorry. He's fine! He's alright. He's... he's just sick, is all."

  Still, Daniel did feel a little unstable. He must've looked it. Christ. "Dick's... alright?"

  "I didn't mean to give you a scare like that. I thought of phoning you, but dad always said if it's something important and you can say it in person-"

  "No, I'm glad. I'm glad. Why don't you come in? I'll make you some coffee." Daniel pushed the door open wide and stepped inside.

  "Oh, that's kind. Thank you. I can't stay long, though." She followed, shaking her boots off on the mat. "Should I take these off?" she asked. "Dad'd be furious if he knew I tracked salt and snow onto your wood floors."

  Daniel laughed, feeling a little silly wrapped in his blanket like some fairytale grandmother. He took off and folded over his arm. "Sure. Floor might be cold, but you're not wrong."

  In the kitchen, Daniel began to make a fresh pot of coffee. "Have a seat at the table. Sorry it's so cold down here." He gestured to the seat he usually took. "Dick's in the hospital?"

  "Yes. He had a heart attack. The day before yesterday. Bad one. They performed an emergency bypass, and he's recovering now. He's weak, but he was awake just a couple of hours ago." Her voice shook with her nerves.

  Daniel felt a bit shaky, himself. It took all his focus not to slosh the water over the side of the pot as he poured it into the chamber. "He's never had any problems with his heart before, isn't that right?"

  "No, none. Always been healthy. Active. Maybe a little too active. Bernie and I have been trying for ages to get him to hang up the belt. A man of his age, climbing up on folks' roofs, working in the heat..."

  Daniel gave a short laugh. "Feel like I've had that same talk a time or two."

  "I know you and Dad haven't been friends long, but... And I feel like he'd be so embarrassed if he knew I was telling you this... He really thinks of you as his best friend. I don't mean to put you on the spot or make this awkward, but he's really fond of you, Mr. Molloy. You were all he talked about over Thanksgiving. We were gathering is things to take to the hospital, and we found he'd gotten all of us copies of your books for Christmas. Not yet wrapped, but there was a note reminding him to get you to sign them all for us. I'd have gotten to you sooner, but between me and Bernie we've just been so busy handling his things. It didn't even occur to me until last night that you might not know yet."

  "We text every few days, at least. I shot him one yesterday and didn't get a reply, but sometimes he's busy, so I didn't think much of it. Was gonna try him again today."

  "He smashed his phone all to pieces trying to get out to meet the ambulance. Gonna go by and pick him up a new one later this afternoon."

  "Is he okay for visitors?"

  "Doctor said he will be by tomorrow. He wants him to get a bit more rest before anything excites him."

  "Do you like cream or sugar or anything?"

  "Oh, no, black for me."

  "My kinda girl." Daniel poured them each a mug and set hers down in front of her before having a seat, himself, across the table with his own. "Dick says you and your wife are out in Los Angeles. That's a lot faster a pace."

  "It is," she smiled, sipping from the steaming mug. "Dad makes fun, of course. How I'm hobnobbing with the stars. But look at him, now. Making friends with a Pulitzer prize winner."

  Daniel covered his face with a hand. "I can't believe he's out here bragging about me," he said, peeking over the top of it. "You know, he had plenty of criticism for my last book."

  "Well, that's Dad alright." They laughed together and then Val's face grew long again. "Dad said you moved out here alone. After your ex wife passed."

  Daniel raised his coffee to his lips and gave a short nod.

  "I think that's wonderful. That you wanted to honor her wishes. Taking on a house like this is a big project. A never-ending one."

  "Yeah, well... For the time being, I've got my health. I suppose, eventually, I'll probably have to sell when that goes."

  A meaningful look passed between them. Something going unsaid. Daniel had no daughters to pass the house to, naturally. Dick would have mentioned that. Of course he would've.

  "Charles, my brother, he's up in Silicon Valley. Hates it. He and dad had a hard time seeing eye to eye, but he's coming down tonight. I had a long talk with him on the phone. He isn't married. No kids. He's not a bad carpenter, either, he just had no faith in the field. Charles was always a bit of a big dreamer. I just know Dad's gonna try to convince him to move back home and take over..."

  "Do you think that's in the cards?"

  Val's eyes softened. "Well, he's been trying for years, wearing him down. I think if ever there was a shot it'd work, this is probably it. I know Charles feels guilty for moving away after mom passed. Me, I had a husband at the time. A kid on the way. Charles had... well, aspirations."

  "You  can't dictate what your children choose to do with their lives as adults. I'm sure Dick understands that. I mean... he doesn't seem to harbor any resentment for your brother."

  "No, of course not. But I think Dad sees a path to happiness for him here because..." She shrugged. "Well, he's happy here."

  Daniel nodded. "Tricky thing, I'm sure. Think that most parents go through it, probably. Things not turning out how they'd imagined..."

  Val's eyes were on him, unwavering and sad. "Mr. Molloy, I know about... I know about what happened with your daughters. I just want you to know..." Her voice was strained, trying to hold back emotions that could not be held back. "Well..." She smiled, the crests of her cheeks squeezing a tear free. She quickly wiped it away with her gloved hand. "We don't think of you as a stranger. Bernie and I. Charles, too. He's real excited to meet you and pick your brain. He'd read your book on the technology boom of the 2000's and he's still in shock you and Dad are friends."

  Daniel's cheeks were warm. The flattery, the sympathy. It was a lot. But he understood. It was a human thing. A human drive in Val and a human response from himself. Some uncomfortable things couldn't be avoided. That was just the human condition.

  "What would be a good time to come up tomorrow?"

  "Oh, any time after ten. Charles and I will be there. My wife will be up some time around noon. She sure would love to meet you, too. Perhaps I shouldn't say..."

  Daniel looked around the room and gave a shrug. "No one but friends here. Say what you like."

  "Well... Bernie knew who you were, too. Not from your books, mind. She said when she was in high school the artsy kids were passing around a VHS that had you on it. Some kind of documentary."

  "Ah." Daniel's cheeks went even hotter and he smiled, nodding down into his mug. "Yeah. That's... That's me," he laughed in mild embarrassment.

  "It was the talk of the school for a while, she said. Got confiscated by the vice principle finally and there was an assembly and everything. It was a whole scandal."

  "Damn..."

  "You were kind of a childhood hero of hers and she had no idea you went on to become a famous author."

  "Well, I'm not exactly a household name these days."

  Val gave him a square, sober look. "You met fucking Oprah." Her eyes widened in surprise then and both of her gloved hands shot up to cover her mouth.

  "No, no. Curse away," Daniel laughed, utterly charmed. "Dick didn't tell you about my foul mouth?"

  "I was trying so hard to make a good impression!" She threw her head back, squeezing her eyes closed in mock pain. "Well, cat's out of the bag."

  "You get it from your dad, you know. Foul mouths are genetic."

  "Well, I'm glad you understand, Mr. Molloy."

  "Please. It's Daniel."

  After seeing Val off, Daniel threw his blanket back around his shoulders and began his ascent back up the stairs to the library. He wasn't sure how much more work he had in him, today. But then, he didn't want to dwell on his anxieties, either.

  Armand stood at the top of the stairs like a phantom. Saucer eyes, face drawn. "Your friend is ill," he said.

  "Yeah," Daniel paused several steps from the top where Armand blocked his way. "We're old. It happens."

  "Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine. Sounds like he's making a recovery. I'm sure I'll have to be on his ass about how he eats and pushes himself..."

  "Who will be taking care of him? His daughter?"

  "Armand..." Daniel continued up the steps, Armand moving aside once he reached the second floor.

  "Will she?"

  "Yeah, of course. I don't know how long they'll be in town for, but it sounds like they're playing it by ear."

  Armand trailed him down the hall to the library. "And his son might come to stay?"

  "That's what she said. Sounds like you know as much as I do."

  "Otherwise, he would be all alone. Alone and very ill..."

  "People have heart attacks and bounce back all the time these days. The marvels of modern medicine."

  "But you are scared. Why don't you want to show it?"

  Daniel pulled his chair back out at the table and sat, waking his laptop back up and glancing to Armand in the doorway. "Am I not showing it?"

  "No." Armand crept closer. "You're being very stoic."

  "I just don't want to spend an afternoon agonizing when there's nothing I can do."

  Armand pulled the chair on the other end out and sat. "You will want to spend more time with him."

  Daniel adjusted his glasses and let his eyes adjust to the light of the screen again. "Yeah. Most likely."

  "I suppose that is good. You should spend time with him. I take it he'll be retiring. He must, with his line of work-"

  "Armand," Daniel looked at him over the laptop. "Who's the one spiraling here?"

  "I'm sorry." Armand shrunk back. "I only worry that this will be taxing on you. And us."

  Ah. Now it made a little more sense. "It doesn't need to rest on your shoulders, Armand. If you're saying you don't want it to. It's not like you know the man."

  "It's not like I wouldn't like to. He means something to you."

  Daniel's heart pulled. "He does. He's a good friend."

  "But I am this. You must think I'm being very selfish..."

  Daniel didn't have to say it, then. Good. "I think... you're slipping into a domestic role that you're much bigger than."

  "And so I am therefore constrained?"

  "No, it's just... the whole wide world is yours to explore, but you're content to make your home here. With me. You're attached."

  "Obviously, I'm attached." Armand's eyes fell to the table. "You know that I am. How I feel about you."

  Daniel sighed, closing the laptop. "When you were with Alice, she cut herself off."

  Armand tilted his head rubbing a circle into the top of the table with his index finger.

  "That's not good for a person's mental faculties. That kind of isolation."

  "Alice was ill. Mentally, she was-"

  "Yeah, yeah I know. I'm not trying to place blame, Armand. I'm just saying... Well... Codependency is a two-way street."

  Armand looked up, his hurt and confusion worn plainly. "You are implying that Alice and I were not good for each other."

  "In some ways. Not overall. But that's just relationships, sometimes."

  "And you and I... The implication there..."

  "No implication." Daniel's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Just that we gotta watch out for the trappings. I gotta get out of the house sometimes. I gotta have friends. Living friends I can't take for granted."

  "You take me for granted?"

  Lord, this was starting to feel impossible. "No, that's not what I meant. I just meant that... I can rest assured that you'll be here tomorrow. And the day after."

  "That is not guaranteed," Armand said it almost frantically. He held himself composed, but his eyes spoke volumes.

  "Okay, but if you're not here, at least I'll know you're somewhere. As for Dick... As for myself... I don't know how much time we've got on this rock. And once we don't got it anymore, I don't know what there is..."

  "Yes." Armand nodded insistently, leaning forward with an intensity, all his energy breaking the dam. "Yes, so you understand. There is only so much time. So you must forgive me for being so protective of it."

  Daniel didn't know what else to do other than smile. A thing that tended not to get him out of a difficult conversation, but rather to make things more difficult. Still. For all that words had propped him up his whole life, they sometimes failed him.

  "Is this mockery?" Armand pouted.

  "Is this manipulation?" Daniel countered. "I think it's pretty clear I'm not going to get any more writing done today, huh? So why don't you take this victory and think of something you want to watch on TV together."

  "I don't like that you're making it sound like some kind of a concession."

  "Isn't it?"

  Armand's frown deepened.

  "Babe," Daniel blinked slowly. "Take the win. I'll let you distract me however you want. I just don't want to fight."

  Armand crossed his arms over is chest. Such a performance. His eyes flicked to the bookshelf. "I would like to watch something starring Meryl Streep," he said, glancing back Daniel's way for a split second as if checking to see that his body language was being received.

  It was. Loud and clear. Daniel had to keep himself from laughing.

  "Yeah. We can find something with Meryl Streep. Of course."

Chapter Text

  Daniel was up before his alarm with coffee brewing for him already. He showered after breakfast, got dressed, and left Armand with a kiss before heading for the hospital. Dick was sleeping when he arrived, so he chatted with Val, met her wife Bernie, and when Charles returned from the cafeteria, there was a low level of fanfare that Daniel loathed to admit he enjoyed a little. Dick woke up not long after with a joke about going to The Land of Oz and seeing all of them there. He was chatty, though loopy from the drugs. He warned Daniel not to make him laugh too hard. It was a good visit. It put Daniel at ease. Still, there was a gravity. A tension held between himself and Dick's children like a webbing. They were not out of the forest yet.

  Before heading home, Daniel went to the drugstore to pick some things up. An emery board, hand cream for himself, mineralized bath salts for him and Armand to share (perhaps at once if they could manage it), and something he'd been meaning to pick up for weeks now under the assumption that it'd be best to have it on hand. He was sure there were ways for Armand to work around it, but if he could aid in their comfort, he wanted to. He had petroleum jelly at the house. Coconut oil, too. He didn't really like to improvise, though. He paused at the locked up case of condoms momentarily, but he felt silly for it. There was no way Armand was going to insist he wrap up, right? No. Why would he? But how embarrassing if he did.

  Just to be safe, Daniel thought to himself.

  He got lunch at Panera Bread, where he was recognized by a woman who could not read the room when Daniel's soup bowl was empty and his fingers were tapping on the table. Eventually a push notification made his phone buzz and he used that to politely disengage, lying and saying it was his partner wanting him home. He thought he might go ahead and get Armand a phone and set him up with WhatsApp so he could message or call Daniel while he was away from the house. Wrapped up under the tree was a nice iPad for him, but they were still a few weeks out from Christmas and Daniel imagined he'd be up at the hospital quite a bit until Dick was discharged. He made a quick stop at target and purchased a cheap little smart phone. Armand will love it, he thought.

  The house smelled like lemon pledge when Daniel arrived back and within thirty seconds of stepping into the house, he sneezed so hard his glasses flew off his face. There was music playing. Faint, but audible to him. Coming from upstairs. After nearly throwing his back out to retrieve his glasses from where they'd skittered under the three-legged drop-zone and setting his loot on the kitchen table to deal with later, Daniel turned the volume on his hearing aid up. 

  It was Talking Heads. Sugar on My Tongue. And now, with the help of his hearing aid, he could tell just how loud Armand had it cranked.

  "Armand?!?" He called up the stairs, feeling like he had teenagers again.

  "SsssYES?"

  It was like needles through the eardrum. He ripped the device off his head and stuffed it in his pocket angrily before beginning his climb up the stairs. "You wanna turn that music down so I can talk to you?" He hollered as he made it to the second floor. The music was coming from the laundry room and as the volume lowered, Daniel made his way to the door. Upon entering, he was met with the sight of Armand in a tight-fitting white undershirt, an over-sized purple flannel (that looked to be something from Daniel's own closet) tied up over his midriff, and cut off denim shorts that were... Well, to put it mildly, more like something Daniel would have expected to see on a waitress at one of those American restaurants themed around breasts. He had a white bandana over his curls, yellow rubber dish gloves on his hands, and his feet were bare. He was up on the balls of them, wiping broad circles over the window with a bottle of Windex in his other hand.

  "What are you doing?" A sincere question, but a rhetorical one.

  "I'm cleaning, Daniel." Armand lowered back to the floor and whirled around.

  "Obviously, I mean... Why?"

  "Thought the house could use it. Thought you might like to come back to a clean home after... well..."

  Incredible. "You chose to spend your time and energy... cleaning house like a human?"

  "It can be great fun."

  Daniel stared at him, dumbfounded.

  "What?" Armand turned again, spraying the lower half of the window and beginning his circular wiping again, this time bending ever so slightly at the waist.

  Daniel didn't really want to talk about Alice today, but it struck him suddenly and he knew exactly what Armand was doing and exactly who he learned it from. "Wouldn't it be easier to clean the house by... oh, I don't know, magic?"

  "It's magic to you. To me it is tired and mundane."

  "And this isn't..."

  "This is an occasion, Daniel." He turned again, dropping the paper towel to the floor where it poofed out of existence, filling the air with the vinegary smell of Windex mixed with paper. Daniel rubbed his nose, staving off another sneeze. "Besides, I was having some anxieties about your friend and this is a good distraction." He sat the bottle of Windex on the sill and placed his gloved hands on his hips, cocking one out to the side.

  "Alright..." Daniel shook his head, laughing to himself. "What are the gloves about, then?"

  Armand's face puckered. "To protect my hands from the chemicals."

  "But you don't-"

  "Yes, Daniel, I know it isn't necessary. But there is meaning in the aesthetic, sometimes. For me. I only wanted to-"

  "You're cosplaying our dead wife," Daniel said at last.

  Armand frowned. "No. Not exactly."

  "Yeah. Exactly. I mean, maybe not from when you were with her, but you must've seen this look in her head or mine..."

  "I like the outfit. Does it offend you?"

  "God, no. It's sexy. I just... sorta feel like you knew that already..."

  "Oh."

  "You're kind of transparent sometimes, kid. In more ways than one."

  "Well," Armand huffed.

  Daniel's attention was drawn to his chest as it rose and fell. Artificial, he thought. He certainly hadn't been working that hard. And enough to have worked up that sweat? That sheen over his neck and clavicle? Pasting those pieces of hair to his neck? Definitely not from Windexing.

  "How was your visit?" Armand asked at last, setting a tight expectant smile, lips disappearing between his clenched teeth.

  "You don't really want to talk about that," Daniel answered, walking into the room. It was unfair that Armand could peak behind his eyes and read his mind when he doubted him. Well, Daniel had his own tricks. Daniel was an expert at reading people. His heart rate was up from the startle of Armand's voice in the hearing aid followed by the jaunt up the stairs, and of course the sight of Armand in those scandalously short shorts.

  "I do," Armand asserted. "I care."

  "Uh-huh. It was good. He seemed to be recovering well."

  "That's good." He watched Daniel drawing near, swinging around the folding table and beginning to crowd him. "Daniel?" He sounded uneasy. God, he was good at this. Concerningly good at being exactly what Daniel didn't even know he wanted at any given time.

  "Yeah?" Daniel was inches from him now, enjoying how he pressed himself back against the window he'd just wiped clean. "You maybe wanna take a break for a while?"

  Armand's lips parted. His gloved hands found the windowsill behind him and gripped onto it. "If that is what you prescribe."

  "Thought we were doing the housekeeper thing," Daniel said as he bent in and pressed his lips to Armand's hot, salty collarbone. He rose again, licking the iron-flavored sweat from them and shivering with the taste of him. "But I'm open to playing doctor, instead..."

  Armand gasped as Daniel swiftly gathered him up by the backs of his thighs and lifted him onto the sill, an effort made easier by Armand who was already prepared to hop up for him. Daniel stepped in another few inches to meet the heat between Armand's hips with his own.

  "You're so hot," Daniel marveled. He let his forehead hover right over Armand's, soaking up all the warmth he was radiating.

  Armand hummed.

  "No, really. You're scorching. How are you doing that?"

  Armand's eyes scanned to the dryer where Daniel could see a load was tumbling inside. The clink and clank of metal rattling in a musical rhythm, discordant with the first few notes of Sugar on My Tongue, which Armand evidently had been listening to on repeat.

  Daniel was stunned. "You're... doing it consciously?"

  "Pulling from the copper of the zippers and pennies, mostly..."

  "All this effort just to turn me on?"

  "It turns me on, too," Armand said, thighs shaking now with anticipation. "To be so hot for you..." He rose one knee up, caressing Daniel's hip with it.

  Daniel's glasses fogged a little with the puff of Armand's breath. He nudged at Armand's nose with his own and then kissed him, smiling into it when Armand made a soft noise in his throat and pushed his hips forward to let Daniel feel him. He was so hard under that denim. Daniel gripped him around the waist, pushing his tongue into his mouth and kissing him deeper. His glasses were pressing uncomfortably against the bridge of his nose and when he broke the kiss to take them off, he felt Armand's rubber-clad fingers at either side of his face, forcing him to look into his needy eyes.

  "Use your words, babe," Daniel goaded.

  Armand's gaze fell, like he could beg with his eyes or his mouth but not both. "Will you kiss it...?"

  Jesus...

  "The sexy baby thing isn't gonna cut it with me, I'm afraid. You want me to suck you off, you're gonna need to be a big boy about it."

  Armand let all the air from his lungs out in a pained rush and Daniel coolly placed his glasses next to the bottle of Windex before taking him by the wrists and lowering his hands back to the windowsill. He ran his palms up Armand's arms until he reached his shoulders where he tugged the flannel shirt away, exposing more glistening skin.

  "Well?" He bent to lick it.

  "Y-yes..." Armand's voice wavered.

  "Yes what?"

  "Suck me off?"

  Daniel let one hand travel down to his thigh while the other pushed into the hot and damp curls at the back of his head. He licked up his neck and when he reached his ear, he gave the shell of it a flick of his tongue before whispering, "Please?"

  "Please..." Armand whispered it back and Daniel had to steady himself.

  Yeah, okay... that was hot...

  "Let me just..." He looked around until he spotted a folded up blanket on the table behind him. Only stepping back as much as he absolutely had to, he grabbed it up and dropped it to the floor between them. He ducked back in to kiss Armand again, his excitement growing, the intensity swelling. He untied the fabric of the flannel under his chest and ripped it back from him so it hung on his upper arms and left him looking quite disassembled. He bent from the kiss, back be damned, and lifted the undershirt up over his stomach where he pressed softer kisses before continuing his journey of licking and tasting Armand everywhere he could.

  Armand was sucking in little broken breaths, rocking his hips and bracketing Daniel's shoulders with his thighs. Daniel felt the dull squeeze of one of his hands, made clumsier by the glove, grasping at his shoulder as he worked his way down, finally coming to his knees on the floor blessedly softened by the layers of folded blanket. He looked up at Armand who watched him with beads of sweat on his furrowed brow. So horny he seemed in pain, flipping every fucking switch in Daniel, meeting the frayed ends of every wire, sparking him into a fervor. Daniel's fingers flew to the top of Armand's shorts. A goddamned button fly. They looked stylish, sure, but Daniel much preferred being able to unzip with ease and be done with it. He pressed his thumb to the first brass button and pulled his hand back in shock.

  "Fuck! Those are hot as hell..."

  Armand looked surprised, too, and overcome with concern. "Did it burn you?"

  "No, just surprised me," Daniel laughed, popping the buttons quickly, shaking his fingers after to cool them. "Neat trick."

  "A byproduct. It wasn't... Ah!"

  Daniel tugged at the shorts roughly and Armand pushed himself up off the windowsill with his palms to aid him in pulling them off.

  "It wasn't my intention..."

  He was exposed, then, in the bright mid-day light that filled the room from the window at his back which was sweating now, too. Fogged and smearing behind him where the back of his head rested against it. His cock stood flat against his lower belly, pretty and inviting, adorned with a glittering ruby dewdrop at the top. Like a cherry on a sundae.

  "I hope you know what you look like right now," Daniel said, breathless.

  Armand's lower lip was caught between his teeth, a coquettish look on his face that Daniel didn't believe for one second. His shoulders were up by his ears and he arched his back, pressing himself harder against the windowpane and angling his hips back so that his cock dipped down just slightly. The glittering drop fell from him then, tethered by a string of the stuff, sparkling in the sunlight and making Daniel's mouth water. He wasted no more time. He took Armand in his hand, running his thumb up the seam of him, smooth and slow. He was a furnace between his legs. Almost as hot as the brass buttons had been. He brought more of that deep red sap up to the crown of him and then he took him into his mouth, velvet and heat. And my god, the taste of him. Like the sediment at the bottom of a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Without the element of surprise, Daniel anticipated it. He rolled it to the back of his tongue. Yes. Let him get familiar. Let him cultivate a taste for it.

  Armand whined, one rubber glove settling at the back of Daniel's head, resisting the urge to grip into his hair. His legs were shaking with the effort to keep himself seated so precariously. He slid, slightly, one foot touching down on the floor and holding himself up with a pointed toe. The size of him in Daniel's mouth was perfect. Daniel released the base of him from his fingers and took him with ease, just to the back of his throat where he fell short of breaching. Probably for the best. Daniel was quite out of practice. There was room, still, for him to move his tongue around him. Really, Armand was getting a much better performance this way. Daniel was no size queen and it occurred to him that Armand, of course, must've known that. He continued his light dancing around him with his tongue before finally hollowing his cheeks and sucking him.

  Armand doubled over at the waist, his fingers in Daniel’s hair gripping reflexively and pulling it while his other hand flew to prop himself back up on Daniel's shoulder. "Oh my god," he breathed followed by a whimper.

  Daniel did nothing to discourage the hair-tugging. He didn't mind at all. He grabbed Armand's still-dangling leg up under his thigh to help support him while his free hand cupped his already drawn-up balls, middle finger boldly running up and down the crease where his ass cheeks met, gathering sweat there before sliding down and not-so-subtly ghosting over his hole.

  Good, Daniel thought. Glad he's got one.

  Armand squirmed, rotating his hips in a small circle, working himself in and out of Daniel's mouth just a touch all on his own while rubbing himself over the pad of that finger at the same time. He seemed slightly frustrated by Daniel's pace. Perfect. Daniel took the cue and pressed just a little firmer at Armand's opening, making him jolt and gasp.

  "I want you to," he whispered. So soft Daniel could barely hear him. He made the decision to pretend he hadn't.

  "Please," Armand prompted, a little louder. "Daniel..."

  Daniel came off of him, taking his ruined desperation in. "Yeah, babe? What was that?"

  Armand's mouth shut up closed into a pout and his forehead wrinkled in frustration. He churned his hips out in insistence.

  Seriously, what brat did he eat, Daniel wondered. 

  "What did I say earlier? About using your words?"

  Armand's eyelids pressed shut and he grimaced, letting his head loll to his shoulder. "You can put your fingers in me," he said, just above a whisper.

  "I don't have my hearing aid in, kid. A little louder."

  A slit of fiery orange slipped out under his lashes, then, and he nearly snarled. "Your fingers, Daniel. Please..."

  "I haven't really got the stuff to-"

  Armand let Daniel's hair go roughly and reached down for his wrist. He jerked it up and in an instant, all of Daniel’s fingers save his pinky and thumb were in Armand's hot mouth. He licked around and between them, making them feel just a little wetter and slicker than Daniel thought they should. But then, when a little otherworldly help was at your disposal, why not take it? Armand's eyes bore into his while he worked them wet and dripping. When he gave Daniel his hand back, he wore a self-satisfied smirk.

  "There.”

  "Clever." Daniel spread the fingers in front of his face, watching the sunlight burst in the connective strings between them. The most sinful cat in the cradle. He lowered them once more, sliding his thumb down the bottom side of Armand's pulsing, neglected cock, over the seam of his balls, and down his perineum before meeting him where he opened once more with just the pad of his middle finger. He made a torturously slow couple of circles around him before letting his other two fingers join, pushing the gathered saliva towards him, funneling it into him with the slide of his thumb. "Is that going to be enough?"

  "It's enough," Armand said with impatience. "Daniel, do it..."

  "I picked up some lube at the store, but I left it downstairs. Maybe I can just run down real quick and-"

  "Leave me and I'll finish myself off and you won't see me for the rest of the day," Armand warned.

  Daniel was impressed. He couldn't hide it. "Alright. There you go," he said with raised eyebrows. "You're older than God, Armand. Don't pretend you haven't got any agency."

  Something shifted in Armand, then. Something playful and even a bit sinister.

  "Would you worship me, then?" All the coy pretense was gone from him. He smoldered.

  Daniel felt bolder as a result. He sunk his middle finger into him smoothly, holding himself together over the tight grip of him. "Like a god?"

  "Yes." Armand kicked the bottom of the foot supporting him up to the wall and braced himself once more on the windowsill, using the leverage there and the leg thrown over Daniel's arm to lift himself up a couple of inches and then lower himself back down, effectively fucking himself on Daniel's finger.

  It was a stunning move. Daniel didn't miss the opportunity to slip his index finger into him as well and Armand shuddered with it. A drop of sweat rolled down his throat as he tilted his head back, circling his hips as he rose and fell. Daniel pressed, beckoning, hitting him inside exactly right and making him trickle red.

  "It'll spill," Armand said, panting. "You mustn't let it..."

  "Who are you?" Daniel wondered aloud.

  "Daniel, please…"

  "Alright." He bent forward and licked up him, sucking what was continuing to well up at the top. There was a quality to it this time. Maybe the last of the mulled wine they'd had the previous night. Yeah. Daniel thought he tasted nutmeg. Again, it wasn't exactly pleasant, the iron body of it, but neither was most mortal cum if he was being honest. It zipped and zinged on his tongue, though. It made him feel warm and good.

  "I'm an atheist, Armand. I don't worship," he answered once he'd recovered.

  "Pretend for me."

  Daniel nodded. "Yeah." He smiled and ducked back down, taking him back into his mouth. He sucked and bobbed on him, leaving him no choice but to settle back down where he sat, his legs going to wobbling jelly again. That was alright. Daniel was brilliant at multitasking. He fucked him with his hand and swallowed everything that leaked from him while he did it.

  "Daniel, Daniel... oh my god..."

  Just as the rubber of Armand's gloves squeaked in his death grip on the sill and he began to tense up, Daniel finally started to feel a burning in his arm and a some pain in his wrist. Perfect timing. He braced himself, using a last ditch burst of enthusiasm to slide his ring finger into Armand and hammer his prostate with abandon while he pulled and pulled, pressing Armand's pulsing cock to the roof of his mouth until it gave one final big twitch and Armand was cumming, filling his mouth faster than he could swallow.

  Armand cried out, loud and beautiful. He shook and thrust and one of his hands abandoned it's post for Daniel's hair again, gripping him and holding him down until he was sated.

  Daniel was caught up, but not too caught up to hear a strange alarm sounding in his left ear. He didn't let up, however. He let Armand ride it out, continuing to draw every last weak gush from him, swallowing it down and gently pressing light taps inside him to match. At last Armand slumped, gentling his grip, and Daniel sat back to look him over.

  His head was resting against the side of the window, his eyes closed, his features relaxed as if he was asleep. The only give away was how rapidly his chest rose and fell. Daniel had half a mind to sweep him up in his arms and carry him to bed. If he'd been 30 years younger, he might've.

  At last Armand's eyes fluttered open. He stared down at Daniel and a slow smile spread over him. "I'd call that worshipful," he said.

  "Don't push it." Daniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve and made to stand. "Augh... Fuck..."

  Armand shot up in concern. "Here, let me help."

  "No, I got it. I'm alright." Daniel groaned as he got to his feet, pushing himself up. Both knees popped loudly and he gave an embarrassed laugh. "It's been a long time."

  Armand was back to his shy look. "I shouldn't have made you."

  "You didn't make me do shit." Daniel turned his attention to where he'd thought the strange sound had come from and saw that, indeed, the dryer had discontinued it's cycle. He hadn't even noticed the chunk-chink of the metal slowing to a stop, he'd been so caught up in Armand. "Dammit..."

  "Ah," Armand tutted. "I must've jumped the circuit."

  There was an error message on the display and Daniel reached for his glasses to see it better. "Jumped the... what?"

  "Just a proximity thing," Armand insisted. "Nothing that unplugging it and plugging it back in won't fix."

  Daniel eyed him. "Remind me never to blow you near my laptop."

Chapter Text

  Daniel continued to visit Dick. Sometimes only for a small time, sometimes for entire afternoons depending on how lively Dick was feeling. Val, Charles, and Bernie were at the hospital in shifts and in the intervening days, Bernie had gone to pick the kids up from their father. Watching Dick read a story to his grandchildren in his hospital bed brought up some feelings in Daniel that he could only put away to examine in solitude. A luxury Armand was making it a little difficult to indulge in as of late.

  Armand's jealousy did not die off with the blood and though it was quite clear to Daniel that he didn't want to behave petulantly and he didn't want to harbor resentment or envy, it was difficult to toe the line of keeping him secure and happy while being present and tuned in with Dick and his family's needs. So when Daniel made the promise to him to take one day off from visits, one day only three from Christmas, to let texting suffice now that Dick's new phone was all set up and Charles had given him the rundown on how to use Tenor for gifs, and their continuation of Riverdale was interrupted by a frantic call from Bernie, Daniel knew he would have to contend with this broken promise somehow. This broken promise that he was pretending not to notice had fallen on a significant anniversary.

  Dick had suffered another event in the middle of the night necessitating another emergency surgery and was now in a medically induced coma to recover from a second surgery so soon after the first.

  Impossibly round eyes, shining and rimmed in red, watched him from the living room entry as he slipped his shoes on and moved about the foyer to find his keys and wallet.

  "I could come with you this time," Armand said, holding his elbows and looking small.

  "Armand," Daniel sighed with exasperation in his voice that was just on the cusp of making it sound mean.

  "No, I meant... Not like this, of course, but I could..." Armand chewed his lip as if what he said next must be carefully considered. As if there was something he had been guarding. "He's in a coma?"

  "Yeah, that's what Bernie said. Flatlined during surgery."

  Armand drew a shaky breath that made him look more vulnerable than Daniel thought he had any right to. "I could find out how delicate his disposition is. His thread. How... dire..."

  Daniel gave him a suspicious lift of the eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure his doctors are on that."

  "Of course they are, Daniel. But his children... Have they any guidance from him on what to do if... if his life were to become entirely dependent on..."

  Daniel looped his hearing aid over his ear and blinked Armand's way. "On machines? Armand, all I've got to go on here is a phone call-"

  "Right, but I am able to tell if it would be his wish to linger..."

  Daniel's throat felt dry. "And if it isn't?"

  He watched Armand rub the backs of his arms with his thumbs, soothing himself as he took a careful step forward. "It can save a lot of worry and anguish to know. For a decision to be taken from the uncertain, heartbroken hands and-"

  Daniel took a step back. "What exactly are you suggesting? Speak plainly..."

  "I'm not suggesting it, yet. It's only that-"

  "Armand." Daniel halted him. "No."

  "I've been around for a very very long time, Daniel. While I may not remember so far back, I do remember the last few hundred years and all the modern advances in medicine. I have witnessed... suffering, Daniel..."

  "He's not dead. He lived. His family is with him. You don't think that's important to him? That if there's a chance to have more time..."

  "But he did die, didn't he? If only briefly. While he hangs in between... there is a window. Perhaps he remembers..."

  Daniel was struggling to comprehend.

  "Perhaps," Armand continued, "I could meet him there. If I could speak with him, bring him comfort and maybe glean something..."

  Daniel shook his head. "You expect me to believe this isn't something you've ever tried before?"

  "Of course not. I've tried many times. I've-"

  "And clearly you've gleaned nothing. So you want to run your fruitless experiment one more time on him? And you want my blessing? No."

  "Daniel, it was only an offering of peace of mind. About his desires..."

  "And I'm declining it. Those decisions are for his daughter and his son to make. I'm sure they've discussed with him what it is he wants done should it come to that." He went to pull down his coat, slipping it on and straightening it as if punctuating the finality of his stance on the matter. He went to the door and just before he could walk out, Armand stopped him dead.

  "It's an uninformed decision," he said hurriedly. "But it wouldn't be anymore, would it?"

  "Swear to me that you aren't going to make your presence known in any way."

  "I will traipse through and touch nothing."

  Daniel closed his notes app as Bernie came to sit beside him, handing him a black coffee with the lid off to cool.

  "Val and Charles are in there with the doctor," she said. "Not sure if we're being allowed back any time soon."

  "Any idea what they might be discussing?" Daniel nervously stirred the little wooden stick around and around. "I mean, more surgery...?"

  "Likely, they said. Of course not if..."

  "Right."

  "If..."

  "Yeah." Daniel turned his phone over in his lap as the screen lit up again and the notes app opened on it's own.

  "You know," Bernie spoke quietly, just above a whisper and with a sad resignation that sounded painful for her. "If it's... If it's the worst possible outcome here..."

  Daniel let the stick go and put a reassuring hand over her's. "Hey, it's alright. I know it's tough to talk this way with your wife, but..."

  "Yeah," she sighed. "I just know it's going to devastate her and the kids..."

  Daniel glanced across the waiting room where Keke and Little Reggie sat, their heads bent together over their Nintendo Switch. Keke was 8 and had the wise-beyond-years look in her eyes that told Daniel she'd understand whatever damage she sustained a lot better than most children her age. Little Reggie, though... Daniel's heart clenched just considering it.

  "Oh, there's Charles!" Daniel gave Bernie's hand a reassuring squeeze and stood up. The look on Charles' face did not do much to give Daniel hope.

  Daniel ignored his phone. He ignored the the light flashing through his pocket, he ignored it as it sat in his cup holster in his car, the screen lighting up, tiktok opening and closing when visual cues were not drawing attention. Daniel ignored Armand the entire drive home. When he got in the house, he went to turn the light on overhead and before he had a moment's breath even to slip out of his coat, an increased humming overtook him and a loud pop overhead was his only warning to duck and cover his head as tiny pieces of glass rained down. Still covering his eyes, he reached back out to turn the dial off and shook himself before standing upright again and turning to see Armand standing between him and the door he'd just come in through, eyes narrowed to fiery orange slits and seething.

  "You've ignored me all day." His voice hissed in Daniel's ears as if he had his aid turned on, which of course he did not. Not after Armand tried to circumvent his ignoring of the phone.

  "That's not true," Daniel dusted the glass out of his hair using the sleeve of his coat, careful to keep his eyes closed. "I spent this morning with you and I let you come to the hospital-"

  "Let me," Armand scoffed hotly. "I let you dictate to me how I should behave as though I am nothing more than some kept thing to you."

  Daniel opened his eyes at last and stared at him. "What is this about? What are you on about, Armand? What is this version of you I'm getting here?"

  "I went to him for you, Daniel. I put myself through the most unbearable thing, I went into his mind... the mind of a scared and dying man..."

  "Did you eat someone while you were at the hospital to make you like this?" Daniel could not focus on the real things Armand was saying. Not now. He'd only just gotten in the door.

  Armand's face shifted. His brows knit together and he cocked his head, eyes still narrowed in on him. "Don't you care to know?"

  "Care to know..?"

  "What I saw inside Dick's mind?"

  Of course Daniel cared. But he was frightened. Frightened to know and frightened of the way Armand was behaving. "How do I know that anything you say is the truth? Or that it isn't twisted up in your own interpretation..."

  Armand's nostrils flared and Daniel could hear a tremor in the house. Like the pipes below the floorboards were vibrating. Like the wires in the walls were humming. Like the iron in his own blood was restless. "You don't trust me, still. After all this, you don't trust me to want to help. To have your best interest at heart."

  "Armand, please. Can we go sit down? My toes are numb and it's been a long day and it's-"

  It's the anniversary of my daughters' deaths, Armand. Please.

  Daniel was keeping his cool relatively well. Maybe partly out of fear. Maybe he was just sort of drained. It was hard to say.

  Armand held him pinned in his gaze until at last he turned, going into the living room and sitting himself down on the couch, leaving Daniel to carefully peel out of his coat, shaking it over the floor and then dropping it in a heap to take care of later before joining him.

  "I'm not cleaning any of that up, Armand."

  The space between them was cool and vacuous. Armand was not shaking with anger, he was chilled over and still as stone. "I'll handle it," he said.

  Daniel sighed. "Help me out here, kid. What's going on?"

  Armand turned his head away from Daniel, his shoulder raised as a barrier. "I... feel out of control," he said.

  Daniel looked him over, nodding. "Okay. So... let's talk about that first."

  "You're putting off what's important. Your friend..."

  "I'm not putting it off, Armand. I'm just... scared. Is that allowed?"

  Armand turned to look at him at last. "Scared?"

  "Yeah. Of course. And I'm sorry I accused you of... whatever I was accusing you of, I just..."

  "You're scared to hear about what he's feeling. Trapped in his body, between life and death, you're scared..."

  Armand's icy hand reached out and Daniel flinched as it cradled his cheek without warning.

  "Did you eat someone?"

  "Yes." Armand's eyes fell, his hand dropping to his lap. "I was not as discerning as I should have been."

  "Someone at the hospital, then. Someone... meeting your requirements?"

  "Yes. Naturally."

  It clicked for Daniel then. "I see. Someone who felt abandoned. Someone afraid to die alone, but resigned to it."

  "Yes."

  "I wasn't ignoring you, babe. I was ignoring the situation. And this isn't you, this is-"

  "But it is me, Daniel. It is. I can be selfish, myself. Without the blood of another, I can be so-"

  "Okay, well, it's rotten but it's not going to make me-"

  It's not going to make me... what?

  Armand raised his eyes to Daniel's again, calmer now, but with some unspoken hope.

  "I can get annoyed with you and angry with you," Daniel continued with careful consideration, "and that won't mean that I don't... care about you."

  Armand seemed to deflate. He gave a nod of understanding and forced a smile. "Yes. I will bear this in mind."

  "You can't go shattering lightbulbs every time you think you're not getting your way."

  "I'm not sorry about that."

  Daniel laughed, despite himself.

  "Yet," Armand added. "Perhaps I will be."

  "Well I'm glad we're being honest."

  A silence hung between them and Daniel edged in closer, pulling Armand's hand into his lap and clamping it between his own.

  "He told his children that he wanted to be let go."

  "Yeah," Daniel said. "It's pretty official. Notarized and everything."

  "He's not going to wake up, Daniel."

  Daniel's cheek twitched. He knew that, already. Something in him knew, but hearing it said out loud really punctuated it. "Yeah..." His voice choked, but he did not cry.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Helluva day for it."

  "I'm so sorry..."

  "Did you see anything?"

  Armand's face grew sympathetic and long, but a reassuring smile came over him. "He can hear you. And he isn't scared. Tomorrow, you will go to see him again. You will speak comforting words to him and you will encourage that his children and grandchildren do the same. You must do it without upsetting them too much." Armand stroked the hair over Daniel's ear and leaned in close, bringing their foreheads together and absorbing the tears that finally broke from the corners of Daniel's eyes. "It will feel a little like a lie, letting them have their hope. But for him, you must. You must."

  Daniel nodded.

  "Let the last words of love he hears be hopeful. He won't be able to bear it, otherwise."

  Armand clung to him like a second skin through the evening. Through dinner, delivered by way of app and through several episodes of Riverdale which Daniel had long lost the thread of. Through the two hour phone call with Val where he was so very good, not making a single peep. And then, sitting by the tree in quiet reflection, Daniel told Armand about the night so many years ago that his entire life changed. Not a seismograph reading of the shapeless grief and regret inside Daniel. Not the topography Armand had run his fingers through long before making himself known in waking daylight. No. In Daniel's own words, raw and unguarded as they came and without the bubble-wrapping one must do when speaking their losses into strange ears. Or the careful tip-toeing around those who share that loss. He wrung out his soul to Armand. He placed his peeled back heart into Armand's gentle hands and trusted him to bear it's weight. He cried as hard as he had cried on this night twenty years ago.

Chapter Text

  Daniel took his private moment in Dick's room with him the following day and he made it count. It was terrible, the knowing. But it was good to know. It was good, in this one very specific way, to know and to make use of it. And the hope he tended in Val and in Charles and in the grandchildren... well, it was not cruel. Armand had been right about that. It felt correct. The burden of knowing was heavy, but Daniel could shoulder it. The seven of them stayed all day. Daniel only took his leave after seven, when visiting hours were over and Val insisted he go home and get some rest. He hugged them all tight, Keke and Reggie the tightest with the stuffed dinosaur and cat he'd gifted them that morning squished between the four of them. He went shopping before returning home. He bought more gifts for the whole family to take back, to wrap and put under the tree. By Armand's estimation, Dick would pass the following day or the next. Either Christmas or Christmas Eve. By Armand's word, it was all dependent on when Dick was ready. That was... a comfort.

  It was all too familiar, and it wasn't. When the girls had their accident, Daniel's entire material world crumbled. There had been gifts under the tree for Kate and Callie and there was no Kate and Callie any longer to open them. The panettone he purchased every year as a gag that, secretly, they all loved, would taste like nothing... Dust on their tongues. They'd eat it, he and Alice, because it was there and they still had to feed themselves, right? Too empty to cook, too empty to care, but there was the panettone, dug into with fingers and forks. What was the point of a carefully cut slice? A plate served with a cup of coffee or tea? A pair of diamond studded earrings Daniel had purchased for Alice had sat on the coffee table, unwrapped but unwanted, for days before Alice broke down and demanded Daniel take them back. Which he did, not knowing what else to say to the associate other then "I'm sorry. My daughters died. Please..."

  "Gonna be a few trips," Daniel said when he arrived home.

  Armand was, of course, waiting for him in the foyer. He was plain in black, unmade up, but not unlovely. He watched as Daniel hauled in armfuls of shopping bags, a light dusting of snow on his shoulders and sitting atop the curls on his head. His glasses fogged as he kicked out of his boots and doffed his coat, which Armand took from him to put up.

  "You seem in good spirits," Armand said.

  "I'm sad as hell," Daniel replied, lifting his glasses from his face and watching the fog recede before replacing them. "I just... I have a plan, this time, for what to do."

  "Oh?" Armand bent to peek into the bags. "Toys..."

  "For the kids. Stuff for the adult kids, too. And stuff for you, so get out of there."

  Armand blinked at him, standing back up.

  "So," Daniel continued, animated and energetic, "I was thinking you and I could do our own little Christmas thing tonight. You know, ahead of... ahead of everything..." He grabbed one of the bags and folded the top over to shield it's contents from Armand's eyes. "We gotta wrap all this first, though."

  "Daniel..."

  "I'm gonna run these upstairs to hide, and then-"

  "Daniel, are you-"

  "Or I guess I could just put them under the tree like this. You probably don't mind a bad wrap-job-"

  "Daniel."

  Daniel stopped. He was practically out of breath, and his chest rose and fell more noticeably now that he wasn't yammering a mile a minute. "What?"

  Armand stepped in, taking the folded over bag from him and setting it back on the floor before wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close. "Are you alright?" he asked.

  Daniel sunk against him, his own arms wrapping around Armand's waist and pulling him tight. He didn't answer, but his chest shook when he breathed in.

  "You must've been masking it all day, but you're home now," Armand continued. "Are you... alright?"

  "Yeah," Daniel exhaled. "I... think so. I mean... it's not gonna hit me until it hits me, right? What can we do?"

  Armand nuzzled against his chest, tilting his face up and touching the cold tip of his nose to Daniel's own, equally cold from winter air. He smiled, warmly. "We can have Christmas, I suppose."

  And so they did. They mulled wine on the stove and put on music. They wrapped the gifts for Val, Bernie, Charles, and the kids, and they did it all while keeping their spirits high. One little lapse into tears, one little refrain, and then Daniel decided it was time to refresh their drinks and for Armand to open his gifts.

  "Did Alice used to buy you gifts for Christmas?" Daniel asked over the edge of his mug, a little curious, a little hopeful that she had. Alice loved buying gifts and Daniel couldn't think of a single person she might've been buying them for besides himself. A testament to how much she loved to gift, really, that he received anything at all from her in the last decade.

  "She did. Though, Daniel..." Armand's cheeks were red from the fire and the Christmas lights and the warm, spiced wine. "Most material things are of no use to me..."

  "Yeah, well, we'll see what you have to say about what I got you." Daniel's shoulder brushed a tree branch making the bell on the end of an ornament tinkle musically as he reached for the first gift. A bag stuffed with decorative tissue paper loaded with glitter. He handed it to Armand and sat back on his cushion.

  Armand was sat in front of him with his legs criss-crossed, looking radiant and beaming with the bag in his lap. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the sparkling tissue paper.

  "Go ahead," Daniel urged.

  "It's just so pretty."

  "The wrapping is meant to be destroyed. Pretty for an instant. That's it's job."

  Armand nodded, and began to tug out the paper, still going about it delicately. It made Daniel laugh.

  "Oh!" Armand brightened, reaching in and pulling out the first object. "This is..." He squinted his eyes while holding it in his hand. "Sodium! Colorful... and scented..."

  "It's a bath bomb," Daniel corrected. "Just shaped like a cat's head for some reason. But the guy said it smelled great."

  Armand held it to his nose. "Mmm, yes. Like... jasmine. I shall enjoy this."

  "There's more in there."

  Armand set the first one aside and dug out three more. One of them shaped like a bell, one in the shape of a lily pad with a frog on it, and one like a snowman. "Oh, I love these!" Armand glanced up to him, eyes sparkling. "Can we use some of them together?"

  "I don't see why not. If we can both fit."

  "Oh, we can fit," Armand said while nodding vigorously. "I can get smaller if I need to."

  The idea was funnier than it should have been and Daniel looked at him like he was nuts before cracking up.

  "I don't mean that I'd be so small as to be funny," Armand corrected, cheeks burning hotter.

  "No, no, of course not. It's just a funny idea, is all. I don't think that'll be necessary." Daniel gave him a once over. "Maybe just shave off a few inches of leg..."

  "One of my best features," Armand pouted. He pulled out the last item which was a bubble bar in the shape of a candy cane.

  "That one's to make bubbles. You'll like that."

  "Oh, a bubble bath together," Armand said dreamily.

  "If that's what you want." Daniel bent forward and began to pack all the items back into the gift bag, crumpling up the tissue paper and setting it aside before reaching back under the tree and handing Armand the folded over shopping bag from earlier. "This one, I'm not sure about. I mean..." Now Daniel's cheeks were getting hot. "Just, uh... open it and you can tell me if you don't like it. If not, it's no big deal, I've got the receipt. I can take it back."

  Armand gave him a curious look before taking the bag. It was flocked with velvet fleur de lis with no other insignia. Nothing to alert Armand to where it'd come from, not that he'd have known anyway. Inside the bag was a flat black and gray pinstriped box with a thick velvet ribbon tied into a delicate and too-perfect bow on top. Armand set the bag aside and let the box rest over his lap before he carefully tugged at the ribbon, pulling it loose. He glanced up at Daniel, who looked nervous and hopeful, before letting the tips of his fingers ease under the lid and lift it away. Whatever was inside was folded into soft gray tissue paper, the presentation so thoughtful and lovely. Armand was enjoying the simple journey of unwrapping this gift, anticipating what could be inside. He peeled the paper back to reveal emerald green velvet and black lace. He tilted his head, running his hand over it, unsure what it was until...

  Oh, he thought.

  The loudest things projected from Daniel's mind all evening had mostly been to do with his anxieties around his dying friend, his losses, his grief. Armand caught little snippets of excitement and trepidation as he opened the bath bombs, but this thought was loud and it was accompanied by a vivid image.

  Armand, in the center of Daniel's bed, wearing a set of emerald green lingerie which fit him expertly. Black lace garters dipping into the soft flesh of his thighs, attached to a boned and lace-trimmed belt. Black satin gloves that went up to his elbows, his hands curled up by his ears, his body twisted to display the length of his torso, the way the lace that edged the top fell away from his chest which was, perhaps, not the sort of chest the designer had had in mind, but lovingly accented and flattered by the green velvet and lace all the same. There was a rope of pearls around his neck, knotted and pulled to the side by one nervous and clutching satin-clad fist. Stockings covered his long legs, made longer by the point of his toes where his feet lay, stacked one on top of the other, bent like Christ's on the cross.

  "Oh..."

  Daniel had gotten him lingerie. He took it out of the nest of tissue and watched it unfold. It was not just lingerie from any adult boutique. This was very finely made.

  "Put me out of my misery, kid..."

  "Daniel..." Armand lowered the set back down to the box where the gloves he'd seen through Daniel's imagination, the rope of pearls, and the stockings were still neatly arranged. "It's gorgeous. It's... This must've cost-"

  Daniel waved his hand. "I'm a fairly wealthy man, Armand. Without a lot of people in my life to spoil. Besides, it's a somewhat selfish gift, really..."

  "I love it. But, Daniel... You know that I could... I could wear something like this without you having to-"

  "Yeah, I know, but... Look, it's not the same. It's not the same as having someone go pick something out that they just know you're going to look stunning in. Or to have someone want to wrap you up like a precious thing..."

  Armand's eyes were rimming red, the plain-scrubbed look of him making the color in his cheeks and brimming in his eyes stand out all the more. "You and your words, Mr. Molloy..."

  "Mr. Molloy," Daniel scoffed, trying to cover his own feelings of bashfulness that were suddenly overtaking him. "So I can throw out that receipt, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Armand laughed, echoing him and wiping at his eyes with his palms. A funny thing for him to do. A very human thing. Daniel didn't even question it. Didn't feel an ounce of distrust or suspicion about Armand's motives. This was a very human exchange. These were very human feelings. "This color..."

  "I thought it'd suit you."

  "It's just what I would've chosen, I think."

  Daniel smiled. "Well, your next gift was about a third of the price, but I saved it for last because I thought it would be your favorite."

  "Better than this?" Armand carefully folded the tissue paper back over the set and placed the lid back on the box. "I can't imagine..."

  "Well, good." Daniel took the wrapped iPad out from under the tree and placed it in Armand's hands. "Merry Christmas, babe."

Chapter Text

  Dick passed at 9:48pm on Christmas Eve. The arrangements to have him picked up from the hospital were squared away by Charles with Daniel's hand on his shoulder. Val, Charles, and Bernie would meet early Christmas morning with the funeral director. Daniel insisted it was no trouble to come along and keep the kids occupied in the small park across the street. No trouble at all. And when he made it known that it was his intent to cover all the costs of Dick's service and burial, he put up with no argument. One call to his bank, and Dick's funeral was paid in full.

  "I just don't know how to thank you," Val said, hugged against him tight, tears soaking into his coat.

  "Say yes to Christmas at my house," Daniel said, rubbing a circle into her back.

  Val pulled away, glancing over at the kids. Little Reggie rolled his toy truck back and forth over the recycled rubber blacktop and Keke sat a few yards away from him, forlornly rocking herself to and fro on a swing. "I don't know that they even expect a Christmas today."

  "It'd be a shame not to give them any good memories to keep on this day. Let me tell you how I know..."

  Val's eyes welled up again and she fell into another hug. "You've been a godsend, Daniel. A real good friend to have."

  Armand had spent many Christmases feeling neither nostalgic or merry, but every Christmas he'd spent with Alice had been special to him. And now, with Daniel, he intended to continue this tradition. The circumstances were unfortunate, but there was nothing he could do to change them. He thought he'd do what he could to make the best of it. So, maintaining his physicality, he moved about the house cleaning, building a fire in the fireplace, making sure the decorations on the tree were just right, and filling his time apart from the one he wished to be spending it with by making his own Christmas cheer. It was a consolation, being able to message back and forth with Daniel from his iPad, though Daniel's responses were fairly short. Armand understood. He played Christmas music in every room he went, carrying it along with him, and when he ran out of areas of the house to spruce up, he thought he might try his hand at baking some cookies.

  He pulled out the big green three-ring binder with all of Alice's (and some of Daniel's) old recipes, filed in plastic sleeves, some of them splashed and splattered with varying ingredients. He scoured for a recipe he could make with the ingredients he had on hand. Unfortunately, just about every single cookie recipe called for butter, which Armand had only one tablespoon left of. He knew you could make substitutes in baking, but he did not have shortening, either. He only had a half a cup of sugar, but he did have confectioner's sugar, so he figured he could make a substitution there. He stood in the light of the fridge with the door hanging open, staring in at it's contents when it dawned on him. He did have buttermilk. That was kind of like a 2in1, he figured. The recipe he was using didn't call for milk, but if Armand knew anything about cookies, it was that they certainly paired well with the stuff.

  He set to work.

  Daniel made a reservation at a nearby Chinese restaurant for lunch. They sat around the large table to eat, sharing stories about Dick. Daniel mostly listened. He didn't have as many stories as the rest of them, but that was alright, he thought. He felt lucky to have known Dick for the short time he had. He felt even luckier for finding himself in Dick's life even if only at the end of it. He'd made a friend and he'd lost a friend, which was the risk one always took getting close to another. But, in this process, he'd gained a sort of surrogate family and that was something he felt he should celebrate. He could make room for that alongside his grief. In fact, he felt he must.

  Throughout their meal, Daniel's phone buzzed and every time it did, he could not help glancing under the table at it to see if it was Armand. He'd missed three calls from Charles Basinghor, sending each one to voicemail. The man could wait until after Christmas if he needed to talk to Daniel so bad. Daniel couldn't imagine what would be so urgent on a holiday and he feared the man just wanted to discuss the implementation of a new contractor. If Daniel had to hear about that today of all days, he thought he might say some things to the man he'd regret. Dick wasn't even in the ground, yet. 

  He messaged Armand from his phone, letting him know that they'd be back at the house soon after Daniel settled the bill. He'd head home and begin preparations and after the family had a short rest and cleaned up, they'd reconvene at Daniel's. His heart cleaved in two. It was almost binary, his grief and his optimism.

  Armand was a genius, really. He had it all mapped out. He started a bath upstairs, jaunted back down and put three separate trays of cookies in the oven all together. The recipe had said that bake times could vary, but he was pretty sure that if he put all the trays in at once, added up the cook times, and then set a timer for thirty minutes on his iPad, he'd be able to enjoy his bath for half an hour before needing to come back down and take the cookies out. He was really maximizing his enjoyment of this day. He couldn't wait to tell Daniel how efficient he'd been.

  He sat in his bath, swirling the colors of the bath bomb around with his fingers, sinking below the water and coming up before letting the water absorb and diffuse into the air around him, making the scent of the perfumed bath many times stronger in the room. He resisted the temptation to play with the iPad while he soaked, not wanting to ruin the device by dropping it. He was fairly certain he could absorb the water out of it if he needed, but still. He'd feel terrible and it had been a gift. He would treat it with the reverence it deserved. He'd only been in his bath for 16 minutes when a loud and high pitched beeping came from downstairs.

  He pulled the stop out of the drain and hopped out, opting to towel off and get the full experience rather than drying himself his way. He threw on Daniel's robe and wrapped his hair in a towel before running down the stairs. He was sure the only timer he'd set had been on his iPad and he didn't remember any timer on the oven being quite so loud and piercing. When he rounded the bottom of the stairs, the smell of smoke hit him.

  "Uh oh..."

  It was thicker near the kitchen, hanging dense in the air and Armand waved his arms through it, feeling it sting his eyes and lungs. He'd forgotten not to breathe, having gotten so comfortable in this form over the last few weeks. He chocked as he made his way to throw open the kitchen window before rushing to the oven and turning it off. He pulled the door open, even thicker smoke rolling out it's cavernous mouth. The alarm was sharp in his ears, hurting them like needles, and after burning himself on the oven rack with a surprised cry and scrambling for the oven mitt to take the trays out, he clamored up onto the table to stand on his tippy toes and make the incessant shrill beeping stop.

  Just as his feet hit the floor, he saw two pairs of eyes peeking in over the window sill at him, large and blue, eyebrows raised high above them under knitted caps with pom-poms on top.

  These were children, Armand realized.

  All at once it washed over him. He'd been seen. Spotted. He'd carelessly let this happen and this could not bode well for him or Daniel. A small shriek escaped him and before he could think what to do, he evaporated into nothing, leaving the once concerned children to scream in terror and flee.

  Daniel arrived home, stepping up onto the porch and smelling smoke. He assumed Armand must've been tending a fire while he was away. When he wasn't absorbed by a screen, he could spend hours gazing into a fire. In front of the door was a large basket wrapped in cellophane. He stooped to pick it up and brought it inside with him, feeling the ache in his lower back from the effort. The basket was heavy with jars of assorted jams, cured meats, cheeses, and crackers.

  "Armand?"

  He went to the kitchen, to set the basket down on the table, his eyes beginning to water from the tendrils of smoke still hanging there. That... wasn't right.

  "Armand?"

  He spotted the trays of ruined, blackened cookies set on the stove and a gust of wind from the window pulled his attention there, next. So, Armand had tried to make cookies. Tried and failed spectacularly. But that was alright. Daniel probably had about an hour before Dick's family arrived. He went to hang his coat up, poked his head into the living room, and saw that Armand was not in there. He called for him again and, again, received no answer.

  He tried to stay calm, his anxiety beginning to spike as he climbed the stairs to the second floor and and hooked a left to the bathroom where the faint smell of a scented bath bomb was competing with the smoky smell seeping up from the first floor.

  "Armand?" He wrapped on the door with the back of his knuckles before letting himself in. The room was empty, the bathtub filled with purple water. Daniel approached the tub and bent to dip his fingertips into the water. It was ice cold.

  Daniel had done his best to push his worries out of mind through their intimate Christmas celebration. His fear and anxiety simmered in his gut as he got ready to turn in. He laid Armand's iPad beside him and anxiously scrolled on his phone. He threw the covers back off and got out his stash box and sat on the edge of the bed to roll a joint in hopes of being relaxed enough to sleep. It wasn't fair of Armand, really, to disappear like that on him. Not now. Not when he was the only thing helping to ease the pain of losing a friend and watching a family grieve their father and grandfather.

  He got sufficiently baked, climbed back into bed, and turned out the light before adjusting his pillow. Just as he closed his eyes, the light flicked back on.

  "Daniel..."

  Daniel's eyes shot open and he startled back. Armand's stared at him from the other side of the bed, the iPad clutched to his chest, his body fading in from a translucent state.

  "Do you want to give me a stroke?!?"

  "No, Daniel, I'm sorry."

  "Where were you? I was worried."

  "I just went away to clear my head and to give you some time with Dick's family. I'm... sorry about the mess."

  Daniel softened. He sat up, reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. "Yeah," he chuckled. "Wanna tell me what happened?"

  "You're not angry?"

  "Over some burnt cookies?"

  Armand sat up as well, placing the iPad on the table behind him. "I filled the whole first floor with smoke. I set off the alarm. And you might be more upset to hear about what happened next."

  Daniel shrugged, relief and amusement making it nearly impossible to find himself upset. "What happened next?"

  "There were two little kids. They were peering in the window and they definitely saw me."

  "Two little kids? What, like... neighborhood kids?"

  "I don't know."

  "How can you be sure they saw you?"

  "We made eye contact, Daniel. And I screamed. And they screamed. And... and in my panic, I sort of... vanished."

  Daniel nodded, letting that settle over him. "You think they saw you vanish..."

  "I'm fairly certain that they did."

  "Well..." Daniel ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not sure what can be done about that other than to tell ourselves that it probably doesn't matter."

  "I'll be more mindful."

  "Armand, I'm not mad at you. Hey, did you happen to catch who left that gift basket on the porch?"

  Armand blinked.

  "No idea? Huh. Must've gotten dropped off after you went poof..."

  "There was no card?"

  Daniel shrugged. "Not that I saw. Maybe whoever dropped it off had been planning on doing it in person. Sad old man with no family in the big empty house all alone. It'd make some sense if it was one of the neighbors."

  "Perhaps the children?"

  "Yeah, maybe."

  Armand snuggled into his side, lifting his arm and putting it around himself. "How was Christmas with Dick's family?"

  "It was... good, I think. The kids got to open presents and forget about death for a while. We listened to Bing Crosby and Charles told the story about the year Dick had to run out on a call for a burst pipe first thing Christmas morning and how they waited half the day for him to get home before starting festivities even though he'd told them to celebrate without him."

  Armand hummed. "So Charles is thinking of stepping in?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. I think he wants to. I mentioned to Charles Basinghor that he might be considering stepping into his father's shoes but that he'll need some time. He apprenticed under Dick back when he was still a kid, of course. Like a teenager. But it's been such a long time. In the meantime, contracting companies is probably the way to go. You know, I never realized how involved Alice had been in all this historical home society stuff. Seems like I'm just expected to step into her shoes there."

  "And you do not wish to?"

  Daniel thought about it. "No, that's not what I'm saying. I just... never thought I would have to."

  "It's a way of honoring her, I think."

  "Yeah. I think so, too. You know, I did miss a bunch of calls from Charles. Charles Basinghor, that is. Don't let me forget to call him back tomorrow. I didn't want to regret putting our Charles' name into the hat if there'd been some kind of maintenance emergency and it turned out that was what he was hounding me about. On the day after Dick passed, no less."

  "Did he come to the hospital to see him?"

  "Yeah, a couple of times, actually."

  "Maybe you misjudge the man. Alice seemed to get on with him well enough."

  "Alice wasn't a curmudgeonly asshole, either, she was just a shut-in..."

  Armand laughed into his chest. "Yes, that's true also."

  "A shut-in who, it turns out, had a secret spirit lover who wasn't keen on sharing..." Daniel bent to kiss the top of Armand's head.

  Armand pressed harder against him.

  "But you're getting better at that, aren't you," Daniel continued. "I'm very proud."

  "Praise on the day that I nearly burned the house to cinders..."

  "You wanna stay with me tonight? In the bed? If you get bored, you can play on your iPad."

  "Won't that keep you up?"

  "Not if you're quiet."

  Armand lifted his head to plant a kiss on Daniel's chin. "Alright. Then I will remain in here tonight."

  Daniel elected not to ask about Armand's warmth and density and whether that meant he'd fed while he was away. There was enough loss hanging in the air around them already.

  The gift basket, it turned out, had come from Charles Basinghor. Daniel felt, immediately, like a bit of an ass for assuming the calls had been about finding Dick's replacement. It turned out that Charles' grandchildren were with him the previous day running gift baskets to all the members of the society and he'd been concerned about the scene they'd stumbled upon. Daniel had to keep himself from laughing as the man described his grandchildren's wild imaginations and how they'd surveyed the house, searching for the woman in the bathrobe through the windows and found no one. The story was a funny one. And the phone call was actually rather pleasant. Daniel felt a little humbled by it.

  "I told the kids I'd go help look through Dick's house and box up donations while they find photo albums and mementos to bring to the funeral home," Daniel said over his plate of crackers and cheese from the gift basket. 

  "That's alright," Armand smiled across the table.

  "I'm sorry I haven't been able to spend much time with you. I'll make it up, soon."

  "Daniel... it's alright."

  "Will you message me?"

  Armand laughed. "Of course I will. If you're giving me permission, I'll bug you until you're sick of me."

  Daniel picked a candied walnut off his plate and tossed it Armand's way, watching him disappear it from the air and smelling the burnt sugar scent that came after. "I'll make time for you tonight, yeah?"

  Armand's lips curled in the corners. "Yeah...?"

  "If you want."

  "Are you hinting at something, Daniel?"

  "Only if you want me to be."

  "I'm fed," Armand confirmed. "I did... manage to find sustenance yesterday."

  Daniel nodded. "I suspected."

  "But I'd like to take a little from you before you go."

  "Oh?" Daniel lifted his eyebrows, setting his coffee down.

  "I think it'd be nice. Feeling you in me..."

  Daniel had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Yeah. Of course. Yeah, I think... I think I could manage that."

  Following a phone call with Ronnie and a breakfast of cobbled together leftovers from the fridge, coffee, and an iron supplement, Daniel rolled up the sleeve of his robe and laid his arm out on the table.

  Armand was in a ratty old tee that was too big on Daniel and swallowed him up while cleaving to him in just the right ways in all the right parts. It cut off high up on his thighs and had been driving Daniel half-insane since they rose with his alarm. He'd imagined him getting up in the middle of the night to rummage through Daniel's drawers, looking for something real and material to wear. There were many benefits to being able to style oneself in the blink of an eye, but Armand seemed to enjoy stealing Daniel's clothes and Daniel enjoyed seeing him do it.

  "I want to do it another way," Armand said, coming around the table and tugging Daniel's sleeve back down over his arm.

  "Yeah?" Daniel blinked up at him, trusting him with every particle of himself. "Whatever you say, Pumpkin..."

  Armand smiled. He narrowed his eyes and Daniel felt something seize hold of the iron in his blood and the calcium in his bones. He felt a current shoot down from his brain stem into his limbs, puppeting him and making him push his chair back from the table with the heels of his feet. It only alarmed him for a moment. Armand was precious with these abilities. Even a little self-conscious of them, Daniel suspected. He'd been a little clumsy starting out, when he was first revealing himself, but Daniel figured his own nervy trepidation was partly to blame. They were more attuned to one another these days. More in sync. Daniel almost wished he'd flex his powers a bit more instead of trying so hard to appear human.

  "May I?" Armand gestured to Daniel's lap and Daniel gave him an emphatic nod.

  "You just took control of my body without asking, but you need permission for that?"

  "Hush," Armand smirked, moving in and throwing a leg over him, settling down on his thighs with a density that was not quite heavy enough.

  "You know, when you make yourself light like this, I can't help but think that it'd be very easy to lift you."

  "Yes," Armand agreed, placing his arms over Daniel's shoulders, staring half-lidded into his eyes. "You could. You could toss me around quite easily, if I allowed it."

  "But if you wanted, you could do the same to me, couldn't you?"

  "I wouldn't dare. Your bones are not as easily mended."

  There was a heat growing between them, a flush in Armand's cheeks. Daniel felt warmth in his own and disobeyed the impulse to grind his hips up into the weight on his lap. He did allow himself to grip Armand's waist through the loose fabric of the shirt. It made him feel powerful and virile and it made him want to throw the boy back onto the table and forget all their winks and nods at a romantic evening and just get it done with here and now. Have him rough and filthy and then let their night together be the soothing balm after the fact. His thighs were trembling, his fingers vibrating where they dipped into Armand's soft waist. They matched one another as they breathed.

  "I'd let you," Armand said after several seconds of silence.

  "You're in my head?" Daniel asked sheepishly.

  Armand shook his. "No. You're just thinking very loud."

  "I don't want to cheapen anything..."

  Armand's eyes dropped down to the bit of his chest exposed under the robe and then traveled slowly back up. "I want you to keep it in mind," he said. "Anything you want from me, I'd give it. Anything. Whatever kind of distraction you need me to be." 

  "I don't want you to just be a distraction, Armand."

  "If it's how I can help-"

  "You're helping. You don't need to worry so much. I'm used to death."

  He looked so sad all the sudden. His big orange eyes misting over with red-tinged tears. Daniel wanted to ask him why but then he had the thought that, yeah... Armand was probably as used to death as anyone could be.

  "How'd you want to do it?" Daniel asked, deciding that a change of subject was in order. "You were gonna drink from me..."

  "Ah," Armand smiled, the tops of his cheeks raising up and causing the tears to break free. They rolled down his face and melted back into his skin. He tipped forward to place a chaste kiss on Daniel's lips before whispering, "Tilt your head to the side."

  Daniel obeyed him, letting his arms snake fully around him as he pressed in, their chests and stomachs coming together and the warmth between them growing. He felt the needling pin-prick circle over his jugular, smelled the iron smell in Armand's hair as it tickled his jaw, and then the blissful tide took him out.

Chapter Text

  After remaining fairly stoic as the shoulder the cry on, the holder of the box of tissues, the warm hug that soothed tears, Daniel broke. He sat in his car in the driveway, wiping his face and checking his eyes in the rearview mirror. It wasn't that he didn't want Armand to see that he'd been crying, it was that he didn't want to spoil their evening. His grief could be private if he wanted it that way. Armand would understand. Or maybe he wouldn't understand. Either way, Daniel wanted this particular bout of tears to be his own no one else's.

  His phone buzzed in the cup holder and he shut the engine off before checking it. He glanced up from the screen where Armand had sent him a gif of a dog waiting at the window for it's owner with tail wagging and saw the shape of him in the window, peaking from behind the curtains.

  "Dry up, buttercup," Daniel said to himself before unbuckling his seatbelt and heading inside.

  "I wondered if you were going to sit out there all night. It's gotten dark. I saw your headlights."

  "I was just decompressing," Daniel answered him, hiding his face and hoping it wasn't too red from crying. He hung his coat and keys, feeling Armand at his back waiting to be embraced, so when he turned, he grabbed him up quickly and kissed him three times on the cheek, then popped one onto his mouth for good measure. "You smell nice."

  "I put on a dab of Alice's perfume after my bath."

  Daniel sniffed him. "Strange. The one in the cat-shaped bottle?"

  "Yes. Something about me seems to change the way it smells, though..."

  "No, no, I recognize it now. Just... yeah, it's a little bit..."

  "Metallic," Armand supplied. "Unfortunately, I haven't really found a way to mask that."

  Daniel bent into his neck, smelling him deep and long before pressing his lips to his skin. "I like it. I'd be sad if you didn't smell like you."

  Armand melted against him for a moment before spinning out of his arms. "Do you like my outfit?"

  Daniel looked him over. "Oh! Oh... my god... I hadn't even realized..."

  "Well, your eyes are all puffy and you hugged me up so fast..."

  He looked nervous, his arms coming to cross in front of him, one toe digging into the rug self-consciously. Daniel let his eyes travel up from there, up his long legs to where the plum-silk hem of the dress fell mid-thigh, clad in stockings.

  "I hope this doesn't feel strange. Maybe it's strange..."

  Daniel continued taking him in, the silk over hips, the hint of straps underneath, up and up to the lace scalloping the top of the dress and left his shoulders bare before running down the lengths of both arms.

  "That's... Alice's dress?"

  "An approximation of it. The dress, itself, is in a box in the closet, eaten through by moths."

  Daniel was speechless.

  "I wanted it to fit me right, so it was better to conjure it, myself. Daniel? I can change, if this is upsetting you..."

  "No..." It wasn't upsetting him, it was just knocking the breath from him. He reached Armand's eyes, lined in kohl and burning with insecurity. His hair was smoothed back with fingerwaves over one ear, a pearl comb fixed in place there. The other side hung down in looser waves. He was the picture of femininity and Daniel marveled at how he could blend the genders like that and he didn't even need to be in a dress to do it.

  "It was a miscalculation. I'll just-"

  Daniel reached out and grabbed his hands, pulling his arms away from himself so he could take him all in, all at once. "Don't. I mean it. It's... you look gorgeous."

  "This was your favorite dress on her."

  "For good reason," Daniel smiled. 

  "Have you eaten?"

  "We ordered pizza. Yeah."

  "Maybe a shot of whiskey for dessert, then?"

  Daniel tugged him close, left his hands for his hips and gripped him there. "I don't need liquor to strengthen my resolve, you know."

  Armand exhaled as if by force, his eyes dropping to Daniel's mouth as he spoke. "I just meant to loosen up. I could take a little from you, for my own nerves..."

  "You're nervous?" Daniel's glasses were beginning to fog between them. Armand was hot again, well fed and pulling warmth from somewhere in the home. Perhaps a heating element somewhere in the house. Perhaps the grate in the fireplace, still cooling.

  "I want to please you. I don't want to underwhelm."

  "I really don't think that's a possibility, kid..."

  "It is just so built up, now. We waited..."

  "Yeah." Daniel kissed his cheek. "We did."

  "It's so intentional, now..."

  "That's right," Daniel agreed. "Very intentional."

  "I worry that it's much less of a thrill for you," Armand admitted.

  With their foreheads pressed together, Daniel gave a sigh that became a small laugh. "Any more thrilled and my heart could give out. Trust me..." He stepped back and took Armand's wrist, bringing his hand to him, to feel how aroused he was already. "I'm plenty thrilled..."

  Armand's eyes fluttered closed and his knees went weak as he flickered in and out of solid space. It gave Daniel a little burst of confidence and he left him for the kitchen.

  "One shot of whiskey, then, followed by a shower while it hits the bloodstream. Then you can join me upstairs and have your way with me, yeah?"

  Daniel sat on the edge of the bed with a towel around his waist. He watched while Armand slowly wiggled out of the dress that wasn't really there, yet was just as tangible as the emerald velvet and lace underneath. Slowly, more and more skin, more and more velvet and lace. Daniel steadied his breath, thinking of the ocean, the tide, in and out. When Armand stepped out of the dress at last, the sheer and iridescent nylon stockings shimmered in the low lamplight that came from Daniel's bedside table. He stepped over to the dresser, lifted up the rope of pearls and placed it over his neck before taking up the gloves and turning to face Daniel again. He pulled them on one by one, gliding them over the smooth skin of his arms and up into place. Once he was dressed, he came to stand in front of Daniel, a nervous smile on his face, waiting for feedback.

  "You look incredible. Just the loveliest thing..."

  "What if it's damaged?"

  "I'll be very careful with you. Come here."

  Armand stepped towards him and Daniel leaned back on his palms, making his lap look inviting for him to straddle, which he did.

  "I know you're trying to be human for me," Daniel said, planting a kiss on his chin, "but you don't have to worry so much. I want this to be good for you, too."

  A simple nod of the head and then Daniel could see those amber eyes tracing down to his throat.

  "Yeah, go ahead," he urged. He tilted his head to the side, braced Armand around the waist, and felt the thrill of cold pearls against his chest and stomach as his monster love bit into him, bringing the tidal waves of pleasure and contentment and love.

  Love?

  Had Daniel said that word out loud to him, yet?

  No... He hadn't...

  He felt far away. On the sands of a beach, in the dewy spring warmth of a southern garden, on the rooftop of a building that overlooked the twinkling lights of a city, at the top of a ferris wheel. Everywhere at once with Armand flowing through his veins, in his arms, here against him. He swooned, his vision lost when Armand pulled away from him. The hearing in his bad ear faded all the way out and then back in, his good ear ringing like a bell.

  "Daniel?"

  There was so much concern in Armand's voice, which sounded like it was wrapped in cotton and buried under floorboards. Daniel blinked his eyes, his vision filtering back in, and Armand tried again, only now his voice was inside Daniel's head.

  "Daniel, are you alright?"

  "Mmm," Daniel moaned. "Yeah. Fuck."

  "I'm sorry," Armand's voice in the room, again. Right in front of him. Pinched eyebrows, worried eyes. "I think I pulled too hard too fast. I was too eager..."

  Daniel was like a goldfish in a spun bowl. He let the elements of the room come back into focus, back into stillness. "It's alright, it's alright... I'm alright." He shook it off, reached for Armand's trembling jaw and pulled their mouths together. He felt a warm trickle at his throat and tasted himself in Armand's mouth. They hadn't done the little trick yet, where Armand closes him back up, healing him over.

  "Mm, Daniel-" He pulled back. "I must-"

  Daniel cut him off, kissing him again and Armand yielded to it, going pliant in his lap. He wrapped his arms around Daniel's shoulders, kissing him back with an intensity that felt like restraint.

  "I love you," Daniel whispered when they parted again. And when their lips crashed back against each other, all that restraint bled out of Armand. He was forcing Daniel back and reaching between them to pull the towel open. Daniel gripped his fingers into his hair, holding tight and kissing him harder. He felt wetness between their cheeks and let his thumb travel over to swipe away the red tears.

  The lace of Armand's garters rubbed against the sides of Daniel's thighs, juxtaposing with the smooth glide of the nylons when Armand's legs snaked over his own. He was hard, grinding up against Armand, all arousal under those those delicate panties. His waist, belted in tight by whalebone and velvet, felt small but sturdy in Daniel's hand and he was guiding Armand with it, rocking him back and forth, hip-to-hip, cock against velvet-clad cock. The pearls were dragging up and down his belly and Daniel let go of Armand's hair to grab them up, double them around his fist so that they garotted Armand's long, slender throat. He gave them a yank and Armand shuddered and let out a strangled gasp, breaking their kiss.

  Daniel was blown back by the look of him. He was a mess. Daniel wasn't sure Armand could pull it together if he wanted , he was so lust-drunk and wanton. It couldn't all be an act. Armand was simply too disheveled in this moment to not have abandoned his vanity for passion.

  They stared into each other's eyes and Daniel gave the pearls some slack before hefting them around so that Armand was beneath him.

  "Get comfortable, princess..."

  Armand chewed his lip, pulling himself back and arranging himself in the center of the bed. And there it was. The vision Daniel'd had of him, only quite a bit more undone now.

  The towel slid off his backside as he climbed up over him, holding himself aloft on his arms. A drop of blood plinked onto Armand's collarbone from Daniel's still-bleeding neck. Armand writhed when it hit. And then another fell. And another. Daniel watched the crimson droplets hit him and then roll, streaking over brown, glistening skin and then disappearing, absorbing. When the next one hit, he didn't leave it time to disappear. He bent and licked, drawing a moan out of Armand as gloved hands pushed up into his hair.

  After a long while of Daniel dribbling out and then licking up, Armand pushed him away. He smiled lovingly before raising up off the pillow and bending to Daniel's throat. Daniel felt the healing kiss and swooned again.

  "You're eager, as well," Armand was speaking when he came back to himself a moment later.

  "Were you saying something?" Daniel laughed. "I wasn't missing your dirty talk, was I?"

  "I was only expressing my fascination for you."

  The gloves trailed down Daniel's sides, making him shiver and hitting him right where he could be a little ticklish. But Daniel didn't want to lose the upper hand, so he grabbed both of Armand's up and threw his arms above his head against the headboard, cleverly holding them in place with one large and capable hand while the other traveled up the bed, under the pillow, and sought out the bottle of lube he'd stashed there.

  "So soon?" Armand asked, imploring and innocent.

  Daniel set it to the side of them and left it there, huffing out a laugh and taking Armand's chin in his fingers. "How much more foreplay could you need?"

  There was a show of lip-biting, wriggling in Daniel's grasp, and then Armand threw a leg around his hip and pressed up towards him. "Your mouth a little..."

  "Ah. That's right..." Daniel grinned. "You really like getting head... Don't want to spoil you, though. You know, my knees ached the next day."

  "We're on a comfortable bed this time..."

  Daniel had already let his wrists go and was traveling down him, kissing and licking all the way, getting the mineral and salt taste of him, so tangible, so real. He peeled back the lace of the top and let his tongue flick over one peaked nipple before capturing it between his teeth lightly and nipping.

  "Hah, Daniel..."

  "Hmm?" He pressed a soothing kiss to it and busied himself over his ribs while his fingers stroked up the inside of his stocking-covered leg until hitting the naked flesh of his thigh. He licked and bit at the skin of Armand's stomach while his fingers worked to unfasten the garter straps, one after the other.

  Armand watched him lazily, fingers traveling to his shoulders and gripping him there. "I read that those bits are tricky for a lot of men," he said. "But you manage them with ease..."

  "Not my first rodeo," Daniel said, dipping into his bellybutton with the tip of his tongue before blowing air over it and watching the muscles below it contract. He let the back of his hand graze along the velvet panties where Armand was hot and flushed underneath. He allowed himself to glance down and saw that he was poking out of the top of them, now, leaking red. He ran a finger up and down the juncture where thigh met groin and then dipped under the lace and moved the panties to the side with some effort so that Armand was fully exposed to him. He could feel the anticipation radiating off his skin. "First things first."

  Armand whined when Daniel left that part of him and returned to the stocking. He sat up, rolling it down Armand's mile long leg dexterously.

  "Come on. Lift your leg."

  He pinched at the thin material over Armand's pointed toe and pulled it off. Yeah. That was hot. The look of that alone made the price tag of the set well worth it, Daniel thought. He reached down to unsnap the second set of garters, but Armand's hips were churning impatiently and making the task difficult.

  "Be still," Daniel said, swatting at him.

  Armand whimpered like a pup and did his best to obey. He even lifted the other leg without being told, and once he was free of the nylons, he was rewarded with Daniel's mouth on him again. Not where he really wanted it, but still a relief.

  Daniel kissed down the inside of his thigh on one side, groping along the other. He sucked little marks onto him and bit down savagely, making him cry out, jerk, and then fall back against his pillow.

  "You can be cruel if you wish," Armand said as he licked over the bite. "I might have a taste for it."

  "Another time," Daniel traveled further in, nosing at his groin, breathing him in. He licked him, there, the metallic tang of his sweat zapping the tip of his tongue. He licked down, under his balls, over the stretch of skin below, teasingly pressing further, but only for a moment. Only long enough to feel Armand seize up rigid with anticipation. "You'd like that?"

  Armand gazed down at him, cheeks burning. "If you'd like it," he answered.

  "That's not what I asked..."

  His head dropped back down and when he spoke next, it was directed up to the ceiling. "Yes. I'd like it."

  Daniel laughed. "Keep your knees bent. Spread your legs and hold them spread with your hands."

  Armand obeyed. Of course he obeyed. Daniel tilted his head, staring down at him. He was the picture of obscenity like this, but somehow, he still seemed so... decorous. So coy. Daniel brought two fingers down to him, just to touch him there, and he could see Armand's fingers twitching, his cock twitching too. He was so desperate to be touched and pleased and Daniel just wanted to keep out of reach a little bit longer.

  "You're trembling," Daniel said. "Like I haven't had these fingers inside you already."

  "You're teasing me."

  "Yeah. Hope that's alright..."

  Armand's fingers dug into his thighs and his head tossed as Daniel retreated his gentle touch and sunk down, belly against mattress, pulling Armand's thighs over his shoulders and going down on him, kissing, licking, and prodding into him as much as he could.

  "Fuck, oh, Daniel, jeez..."

  Jeez. That was a new one. Daniel laughed hot puffs of air against him. Armand's hands traveled into his curls and Daniel pulled back.

  "What'd I say? Hands on your thighs."

  "Yes..." Armand slapped them back into place, pouting. It made him sweeter on Daniel's tongue as he writhed and moaned.

  Daniel got him to relax enough to push a good inch of his tongue in and he could feel him contracting, his cock leaping overhead. He decided after a minute or two, out of the goodness of his heart, to finally let Armand have his mouth. He rose up, placed a tender kiss on the back of each of Armand's very well behaved hands before licking up the sticky ruby dribble and sinking his length into his mouth.

  Armand cried out, back arching off the bed, thighs pressing closed immediately around Daniel's ears. He grabbed into Daniel's hair, forgetting himself, his other hand flying up to his mouth where he began to bite the fingers of the gloves, pulling them off one by one.

  Daniel continued to sucked and lick, bobbing his head on him and pulling up to the tip with a wet pop. The battery acid taste of him was exhilarating. Like unripe strawberries or sour candy. It turned his mouth inside out while he sucked him, which was almost an advantage.

  Armand grabbed blindly for the bottle of lube with his naked hand and then shoved it down towards Daniel. "Get me ready," he directed, strained and desperate and just a little bossy.

  Daniel took the bottle, flipped the cap, and dribbled an ample amount out over Armand's hole, smirking as he reacted to the cold. "When's the last time you had it like this?"

  "Hmm?"

  "When's the last time you got fucked, Armand..." Daniel got his fingers slick and brought them down to him, gathering the lube that was running down and beginning to soak into the bed below.

  "It was... years ago. A long time..."

  "Give me a rough estimate."

  "A decade? Maybe longer?"

  "Wow..." Daniel pressed in with his middle finger, feeling the heat and the give and watching the red sap leak from him against his stomach. "You know... Alice would've..."

  Armand sat up a little on his elbows. "Would've what...?"

  "Y'know..." Daniel smirked and stroked inside him, slipping another finger in.

  "Oh... But I don't..."

  "She'd have strapped up for you."

  Armand sighed, eyes fluttering and head lolling before he collapsed again. "Y-you mean... with a prosthetic?"

  Daniel chuckled. "Something like that. A toy. A dildo."

  "She used her fingers sometimes."

  Daniel raised his eyebrows. "She did?"

  "Didn't she with you?"

  "Yeah, just... Huh. Did you have to ask her to?"

  "No, she supplied the idea herself."

  Daniel was surprised by that. He'd always had to ask. "Well, she was always very intuitive. She could probably tell you'd be into it. What do you know about prosthetics?" he teased.

  "You bought me an iPad. I do peruse the internet, Daniel. I- Oh..." He convulsed like a live wire as Daniel tapped with force against him inside, the bedside lamp flickering.

  Daniel's own dick was leaping with anticipation. If Armand looked like this just being fucked by his fingers, he was going to be in for something truly spectacular. "Think you're ready, sweetheart?"

  Armand nodded up at him, his small mouth slack, his eyes wide and waiting. Daniel pulled from him, slicking himself up with the remainder before adding more lube to his length. He positioned himself between those long, bent legs and lowered himself to kiss him. Armand's still-gloved hand wrapped around his shoulder, pulling him close, keeping him there while they kissed lovingly and slow. His other hand reached down and stroked Daniel, matching their tongues' pace. Daniel groaned into him, gripping his hip. Armand's hand on him was lovely and practiced but still human enough that Daniel might forget. Still stopping and stuttering when Daniel licked over the roof of his mouth, making him quake with pleasure.

  He removed Armand's hand from himself. It was time. Their eyes stayed locked while Daniel ran gentle knuckles down Armand's side, starting under his arm, bumping over his ribs, down the belt around his waist, and to his hip where he gave an adoring squeeze. He lifted Armand's thigh up over his own hip, using his other hand to push his leg up and back, bending it and splaying it out, opening him up. Before he could get his hand on himself to steady his aim and line himself up, he twitched and felt the head of his cock brush against Armand's hot, slick hole. The both of them gasped and shuddered.

  "Please," Armand whispered, his brow creased.

  Impatience looked good on him, so Daniel grabbed hold of himself and slid up and down against his hole, watching his eyes grow wet and his lip quiver. But Daniel was impatient, too. He'd need to mind himself. When he pressed in, he did it with measure and care, feeling Armand's involuntary resistance, making room for it, and then pushing past it.

  "Daniel," Armand gasped, his face screwing up with the discomfort. So so human...

  "You like the pain, don't you?" He was sort of forgetting himself. It was an interior question, made exterior. But he wouldn't have taken it back.

  "Makes me feel real," Armand panted. Gloved fingers dug into his shoulder while naked fingernails clawed at him on the other side. "Want to be so full of you, Daniel. Filled by your love..."

  Daniel pushed in further. There was, after all, a lot of him to house. He watched Armand's face as it relaxed, went from pinched and painful to serene, eyes opening and staring into his own.

  "I really do love you, kid. Wow..."

  A small smile spread over Armand. "Wow?" he repeated, mockingly. "You're a writer, Mister Molloy..."

  Daniel chuckled, cut off by an involuntary squeeze around him that made his head drop into the cradle of Armand's shoulder for a moment before he recovered. "This 'mister' business..."

  Armand's hips rocked, fucking himself ever so slightly on Daniel's cock since it seemed Daniel wasn't going to. "Daniel..."

  "That's better," Daniel grunted, holding himself over him and giving him his first good pump. Fuck, he was tight and hot inside. There was red-tinged sweat beading on his forehead and Daniel could see the pearls against his skin and the sweat on his chest glistening in the warm and dim light. "You're so beautiful like this..."

  "No, you," Armand countered with an impish grin. "And you're in trouble..."

  "Oh, yeah?" Daniel snapped his hips back and thrust into him again, watching his mouth open with a silent cry and that crease between his eyebrows reappear. "How so?"

  "I'll be... I'll be wanting this every day, now..."

  "They make medication," Daniel laughed, dipping down to lick at his collarbone, seeing sparks behind his eyelids with the electric blue taste of him. "I'll do what I can to keep up."

  The ankle behind his lower back pulled, and the message was loud and clear. Daniel rested his weight on his forearm, threading his fingers into Armand's curls, and fucked him in dire earnest. And god, it felt good to fuck him. Was it always this good with human men? Were they this tight inside and this burning hot? Like flesh wrapped around a heating element? Did they squeeze the way Armand was squeezing? Had he just been missing it? Now, the sounds Armand made, that was nothing like he'd heard from another man. He was sure of that. He was on the cusp between the sexes. His voice velvet, deep, but raspy and breathy and really quite feminine in intonation. He whimpered and sighed. He whispered Daniel's name and words like 'more, deeper, yes, so good,' and 'Daniel, Daniel, Daniel...'

  The bed creaked with their movements as they gained speed, as Daniel seemingly attempted to fuck him into the mattress. He could feel himself panting, his heart pounding in his ears. His thighs burned, his lower back warning him to take it down a notch, but he ignored their protesting and fucked Armand harder. Fucked him until he was a moaning, scrabbling mess. Daniel felt burning and wetness over his back. Armand's nails had drawn blood. But then he felt the pull, the swooning dreamy feeling.

  "How're you...?"

  Armand's palm was flat against where he'd dug in, and it pulsed over him. Like there was a mouth in the center of it. Like he was drinking from him there. He might be coming? He pulsed, pleasure washing over him.

  "Armand...?" His vision began to go gray and his thrusting slowed. It was like he was hooked up to that invisible morphine drip all the sudden. All the tightness in his thighs ebbed away. The pain in his back was gone. Then Armand was tightening around him again, bucking up and fucking himself while Daniel couldn't. He cried out, loud enough to ring through the opium haze and draw Daniel's attention to him. His face, gorgeous and in ecstasy while he came, seeming to shift. Daniel saw, in the fraction of a second, a different face. And then another. And another. The sucking pull at his back kept the panic from his blood as he watched Armand shift from himself, to hundreds of others who were unfamiliar to him, to himself again like a spinnerscope toy Daniel had had as a child of a lion jumping through the ringleader's hoop and then... and then...

  "Alice...?"

  He collapsed against a hot, sweat-slicked body as the world drifted away and the sleepy lull of Armand's drinking took him out with the tide.

Chapter Text

  He was out for less than a minute, but it was plenty of time for Armand to realize his fumble and begin to panic. Of course, he knew from Daniel's blood that he was not in any mortal danger, just overwhelmed and that perhaps Armand had taken a little too much from him. A grave mistake, obviously, but Armand had been overwhelmed, too. He quickly healed his bleeding wound before rolling them over and cleaning up their respective spills. As he was pulling the covers up over Daniel, that was when he stirred.

  "Wow..."

  Armand blinked out of view from where he stood at the bedside like a night nurse. In a flash, he was perched on top of Daniel, face mere inches from his, staring wide-eyed.

  "You're awake," he said.

  Daniel's arms shot up, pushing at him in reflexive alarm. "Whoa! Jesus." He laughed as Armand pulled back, getting the point and scooting a little further down on him to give him some space to breathe. "We both came, right?"

  "You don't remember?" Armand's brow creased in a way that indicated mild suffering at the notion.

  "No, I mean... I remember you did, I think. I just... I feel like I saw a lot at the end there that I'm not sure was real, you know?"

  "I'm afraid I was too caught up. I lost myself to it." Armand shook his head, smiling apologetically. "I should have been more mindful."

  The dazed shock was wearing off Daniel, his heart regulating it's beating again and he reached out to touch the side of Armand's cheek. "You look a mess, kid."

  Leaning into the touch, Armand sighed. "You frightened me."

  "I'm alright."

  "I know that, but I was worried that I'd harmed you. Or frightened you enough to have scared you away."

  Daniel thought about what he'd seen. What he'd thought he'd seen. The carousel of unfamiliar faces, and then the one familiar one. He'd already been over it with Armand. How Armand didn't know what came after death. How he loved the ones he loved until their numbers were up and how he desperately tried to keep hold of them all. To remember. Daniel didn't want to hurt him by grilling him further in service of his own unanswerable questions.

  "You didn't scare me away."

  "I did not slip into monstrosity?"

  Daniel dropped his fingers from Armand's cheek and looked up into the space above his head in mock consideration and then back at him, smiling and shrugging. "Think your monstrosity is growing on me."

  Armand smiled softly at that. "How hideous did I become?"

  "You didn't become hideous at all, babe. You showed me something very... personal, I think."

  "What is personal to a being with no person?"

  "What is a spirit if not a soul? Words are just the packaging we try to stuff our meaning into. I've made a profession out of it, so listen to me, will ya?"

  Armand's eyes went open and round. He leaned in closer.

  "You worry about forgetting," Daniel continued. "I don't think you ever really forget. I think you're as big as the universe, Armand. As big as time. And you narrow yourself down to fit in this dust speck just so you can use an ounce of the love you have in you. Just so you feel it isn't going to waste. And it's not. It can't be. Because you touch the lives of the ones you love and you make them bigger for it, too."

  Armand watched him, unblinking. Listening. Absorbing.

  Daniel continued. "Our lives are so short. We love the ones we can and we don't have such a long road ahead of us to forget them on. We still worry we will, though. It's in our nature. Some day, you'll forget about me. You'll forget about Alice, too. But there'll be more love to come. And just because you forget, doesn't mean you don't hold us inside you. We're part of you forever. Part of your history. Part of what shapes your love. Forever."

  The whiskey, the lovemaking, the swooning drink Armand took from him... He should've felt a little embarrassed by that speech, but he didn't. It was the sort of thing he might've told a pal in college while on a cap, stumbling through a sentimental trip. But he felt what he was saying. And the red tears in Armand's eyes showed him that it was being heard and that Armand was feeling it, too.

  "You must tell me, someday, what you saw."

  Daniel smiled. "Put your panties back on and get under the covers. I want to fall asleep with you in my arms."

  Saying goodbye to Dick's children was hard, though Daniel knew it was not permanent. They'd all made their New Years Resolutions to not be strangers. Charles was, indeed, making moves to pack up and move back home from Silicon Valley and though he'd be staying in their childhood home while considering whether or not to keep it or sell it, there was the immediate issue of Miss Cunningham. She'd remained in the house since Dick's death, being taken care of and tended to by all, but the idea of dropping in on her twice a day and then leaving again for however long it took Charles to make the big move did not sit right with Daniel. It was clear she missed Dick and it broke Daniel's heart every time he left her alone again.

  Daniel wondered how Armand would take to the idea of bringing Miss Cunningham to live with them. She was old, and though she was in seemingly good health, Daniel understood that this was going to be her final stretch. He'd always been the type to criticize when pets were gifted or brought home without a major discussion, but... well... Armand was adaptable. And what was he supposed to do when he went to the door and she followed him, looking up at him with those big sad eyes and saying her forlorn goodbye with that rusty gate voice?

  She sat daintily in his lap on the drive back to the house, her litter box wrapped up in a trash bag in the trunk and her food piled up like groceries on the backseat. Armand would love her too, Daniel was sure.

  And he did.

  Armand stood in the bathroom, blinking down at Miss Cunningham who was sitting pretty and prim on the seat of the toilet while Daniel arranged her litter box in the corner.

  "Of course, this won't be permanent. I'll get her a box for each floor and she'll be allowed to roam the house as she pleases, but for now while she acclimates-"

  "Does she have a first name?" Armand interrupted.

  Daniel's knees popped as he stood back up. "Oh. You know... I don't really know. I heard Dick call her Kitty a few times."

  "Kitty Cunningham sounds like an heiress to some historic hotel. I suppose Miss Cunningham will have to do."

  Miss Cunningham's tail twitched and she lifted one paw.

  "You're freaking her out," Daniel said. "She's waiting for you to pet her or pick her up or something."

  Armand reached down and gently patted her head. She pushed up into the touch, beginning her clunking motor-like purr. "She does not seem scared in her new surroundings."

  "No. I think she was lonely enough that it doesn't bother her. She's just happy to have a home with people in it."

  "Person," Armand corrected.

  "You're people to her."

  "Cats generally do not like me, Daniel. They spit and hiss and back themselves into corners when I am present. I haven't ever resided in a home with a cat, to my great recollection. They do not stand for it."

  "She's standing for it," Daniel shrugged. "I don't know, maybe she can't tell."

  "Cats can always tell."

  "Maybe she trusts you because I trust you..."

  "Maybe she'll change her tune once you're out of the house. Or once she witnesses me vanishing or shifting..."

  She stared up at Armand, clearly trying to communicate something, and gave a very demanding meow.

  "Pick her up, Armand. Your really going to have to learn how to speak cat."

  Armand looked hesitant, but he bent and lifted her up, folding his arms under her weight as she settled against him.

  "I cannot read the minds of animals, Daniel."

  "Welcome to the club. You just get a feel for it, I think. I've never been a big pet guy, so we're both going to have to learn."

  Miss Cunningham looked Daniel's way after a moment and wiggled slightly in Armand's arms.

  "What's wrong? What does she want?" Armand asked anxiously.

  "Give her here." Daniel reached for her and took her against his own chest where she settled again and set back to purring. "She wants someone warm," he laughed.

  "Well, I can't help but be a little insulted," Armand huffed.

  "Yeah, I think that's just the experience of having a cat, babe. You think you can manage her while I run to the pet store?"

  Armand looked wary, but ultimately agreed that he could.

  Miss Cunningham's adjustment period was short. Within a day, she was confidently covering ground in the large house. Daniel was still getting used to having to stay mindful that she might be underfoot at any given moment. She preferred to sit on the rugs in the house rather than the cold wood floors and Armand discovered that she was just as deeply fascinated by the fireplace as he was. In fact, the pair of them seemed to share a lot of traits, Daniel observed. The good and the bad. She hovered when Daniel holed up in the library to write which made a great excuse for Armand to pop in and pester him.

  "I'm only here to take her and give your lap a break."

  "She weighs less than ten pounds, babe."

  "Well, still. I'm sure she's quite bored in here listening to you click and clack."

  "I think you're bored," Daniel teased with a lilt. "I think I do my best work with a cat in my lap, actually. I can't get distracted and get up. She's my muse."

  Armand lifted her into his arms, causing her to voice her complaint with a small, rusty grunt. "As you write your monster romance tale, the cat is your muse?"

  "She fits in my lap without distracting..."

  "Think about what you'd like for dinner, grandpa," Armand said as he carried Miss Cunningham away to the door defiantly.

  "Oh, I'm grandpa now?" Daniel laughed. "You know, I'd say jealousy doesn't suit you, but everything suits you..."

  By the first week of March, Daniel was sending off his first draft of the book. He'd hammered out two possible endings, alternating between them before deciding, ultimately, on the more optimistic one and electing never to speak a word to Ronnie about the other which he deleted from his laptop entirely. About midway through the writing process, he'd quit letting Armand read it. Of course, this was a real trial in trust between them, but Armand kept his word and though it was clear he struggled with the request, he respected Daniel for making it.

  "It is your book, after all."

  "It's for you, Armand. I want you to read it when the first copies come back. So you can hold it in your hand."

  Armand appreciated that. He appreciated all the things that made him feel more a part of this realm and Daniel had come to understand that about him. It was easy. There were so many little ways to do that for him. Fixing him a plate at supper, reminding him to go eat when he seemed weak, leaving space for him even when he was not material. And though sometimes Miss Cunningham did eye him and could seem a little suspicious of him after he went out to feed, she was mostly affectionate towards him. Daniel had his theories about her picking up on the vibes of some of Armand's meals, but Armand, of course, would always take it personally. Daniel accepted that that was just in his nature. And the shifty-eyed looks and mood-swings were in hers.

  When the galley proof came back and Armand took it upstairs with him, demanding solitude to read it as a human might with his own two eyes and no clever tricks since that was how Daniel had written it, Daniel let him. He sat on the couch with a glass of bourbon in his hand, a cat in his lap, and his hearing aid in his ear, awaiting feedback.

  "You've dedicated it to me?" Armand's small voice hissed in his ear.

  Daniel grinned. "In name and everything, yes."

  "Daniel, nobody knows who I am."

  "You know."

  "Won't people wonder? What will you say?"

  "I'll let you be a mystery if that's what you want. But, if you're okay with it, I don't mind telling the world that the one I love is called Armand..."

  A crackling silence followed. And then...

  "But what about the people who know you? Who will wonder and never meet me?"

  "Would it be so terrible if they did? They wouldn't leak anything, Armand. I'd be selective about who..."

  More silence.

  "Armand...?"

  "They've seen pictures of Alice, have they not?"

  "You wouldn't have to look the way you look for me, alone, you know..."

  "Then what would I look like? How would I go about not feeling like I was putting on a farce and tricking the people you care about?"

  Daniel took a sip of the bourbon and scratched Miss Cunningham behind the ears. "What if you just made yourself look my age?"

  "Oh..."

  "Think on it," Daniel said. "But save it for after you finish the book. I'm gonna want your thoughts on that first."

  Obviously, Armand had thoughts. But those thoughts were mostly that he loved Daniel and he loved the story and their home and the life they'd made for themselves in it. And though change was frightening, it happened incrementally and it could never be stopped. A year ago, he had been occupying this empty house, missing Alice, and waiting in limbo for Daniel to come along. And now he was here. And after Daniel got the advanced copies of his book, he purchased a set of gold rings. Rings that warmed and vibrated when they were near one another. Symbolic, but solid, with weight that felt anchoring. Daniel didn't worry about what Dick's children might think when, some day, he was gone and it would seem to them like Armand had never been. Sometimes things in this life were unexplainable and worrying about what the optics might be in the future would only serve to prevent them from enjoying the present.

  When Daniel introduced them to Armand, in person, Armand looked very much like himself. A few more lines around the eyes, some gray at his temples, and an intensely expressive couple of folds between his eyebrows that made him dynamically animated when he spoke. He gestured more when there were guests, and he sometimes forgot his own wingspan, knocking over glasses and plates. Val, Bernie, and Charles came to love him and embrace him just as they had Daniel. When Daniel was cagey about answering their questions concerning how they'd met, they backed off. And then, in private asides, they'd try again and receive the same cryptic answers. Before long, they stopped pressing.

  Miss Cunningham lived to the ripe age of 20. One year away from her first drink, Daniel'd lamented. They made a little grave for her in the backyard and Armand came out of his period of mourning a week later with the suggestion that they adopt another elder cat. And so they did.

  Huxley was a large-framed tuxedo cat estimated to be about 14 years of age. He was solid and headstrong and Armand fell in immediate love with him based solely on his bio and a picture online. Daniel went out and adopted him the next day.

  They spent a lot of time at home where they were the most relaxed, but they took the time to travel together, as well. They embarked on a cruise, discounted by 50% due to the pair of them only requiring one ticket, and sailed across the Atlantic. Armand had had to conserve his energy and only fed during little excursions when they were in port, but the ship was theirs to roam arm in arm, paying no mind to whether or not Daniel would look like a senile old man talking to himself to whoever was monitoring the security cameras. He wouldn't be the only one on the ship, after all. And Daniel would have been lying if he said he didn't enjoy some of the looks they got from other guests on deck. He was not ashamed and neither was Armand.

  They honored anniversaries. Anniversaries for Alice, the girls, and for themselves. They made cobbler on Dick's birthday and put treats out on Miss Cunningham's grave. They took the time to celebrate every moment that deserved celebrating and they were very liberal about choosing them.

  What else was life for? And it was a life.

  And it was good.

An End...

Chapter Text

  Armand would not describe his existence now as lonely. He'd tethered himself to an old bookshop in an old brick building in the oldest part of the city. There was Lindy, the owner, and Sarah, the manager. There was Paisley, Charlotte, Jen, and Ankha, the shop girls. He loved them all and he loved them, mostly, without their detection.

  There was also Cleo, the bookstore cat, who kept the shop clean of mice and who stayed overnight, just like Armand. In the evenings, after lock-up, they were very good friends. During hours of operation, however, Cleo was a bit wary of his presence. She'd stare up into the air, hiss when Armand brushed by, and chirp incessantly at Sarah and the girls as if alerting them to something being wrong. They'd taken to calling him Frederick, the Ghost. He was becoming a bit of a legend in the store. Even the regular customers knew about him. He was left offerings of fruits and nuts, and sometimes he'd hollow them out in the way that he liked to do, leaving only shells and rinds empty of their contents and adding a little kindling to the rumors. Harmless fun. And the girls did not fear him, which was most important to him.

  He walked the shelves at night, selecting books to take to the attic and read by lamplight in the big threadbare chair the girls took their breaks on. Cleo would sit in his lap as he idly stroked her and read classics, contemporary pulp, memoirs, and oftentimes, the books Daniel had published.

  Missing Daniel was like tending a garden. It was like missing anyone he'd ever loved, only fresher. And the freshly lost loves were always the ones he missed the most. He read his words, the thousands and thousands of pages he'd penned, and felt him. He counted himself lucky to have so much of Daniel left.

  When he'd come to New York, he'd been chasing after pieces of Daniel that had preceded him. He couldn't very well stay in the house with Val, Bernie, and Reggie. He knew they'd be looking forward to an empty nest in the fall when Reggie moved away to college and he'd promised Daniel he wouldn't interfere. He'd drift away, write to them, say he was traveling abroad, and then communications would fade. That sort of thing happened all the time.

  The bookshop had been owned by a man named Fred Mooning when Daniel lived here. Lindy was his niece and Armand was sure that Daniel must've made some sort of impression on her, because she always kept new copies of his books in addition to the secondhand ones they traded in. At least once a year, Sarah would make up a little shelf in his honor at Lindy's behest when they picked an author from each genre to highlight for a particular month, and there would always be a little bio to accompany the display that detailed how Daniel Molloy, the Pulitzer prize winning author himself, used to frequent this very bookstore. It made Armand swell with pride.

  And sometimes it made him weep, quietly, in the threadbare chair with Daniel's photo on the back of Editions of You clutched to his chest.

  Armand was there when Paisley graduated high school and had her going away party. He was there when Charlotte got engaged in the store and then announced her pregnancy. He was there when Jen's mother passed. He saw new hires come and go, Sarah and Ankha remaining fixtures and Lindy taking on the extra burden between hiring new help. He'd had no desire to move on. He was comfortable, content, and he hadn't felt ready. And that was okay, he thought. After all, he had all the time in the world to sit and reflect. To stay put and to grieve. He imagined Daniel or Alice chastising him for being maudlin. For haunting these poor girls like a spook instead of getting on with it. But he would get on with it. Eventually. He always did. What choice did he have?

  On the twentieth anniversary of Editions of You's release, Daniel's publisher put out a limited edition print that took the pulpy monster romance and packaged it in the refined, debossed leather that Armand had always thought it deserved. It'd been quite the cult hit despite raising eyebrows upon it's release. Daniel's press tour had been filled with the sort of backhanded praise one might expect as a Pulitzer prize winning author releasing a sultry love story about a human and a spirit. But not long after all that scandal died down, the book found its footing amongst its intended audience. Twenty years on and it was a household name. No longer a title to be sneered at, but recognized as the genre transcending work of literature it was. Hell, King had done it. Belinda Rampling had done it. And now Daniel Molloy had a brick in the bridge over that gap. And it had been Armand's book, really. Inspired by him and for him. It said so on the very first page. Nevermind that only a handful of people knew who he was. That wasn't what mattered. Every copy had his name in it. All of it was for him. Like finding love letters everywhere he looked. Any time a box was dropped off at the shop and Editions of You happened to be inside, it was like discovering another one. Daniel had declared his love in the biggest way he could and Armand would always be reminded. Daniel's books were in the great canon of American Literature. As long as there were books on shelves, how could Armand ever forget that he'd been loved once by a man named Daniel Molloy? And that he'd loved him, too. Terribly.

  Six months after the limited edition was released and all the copies had been sold, a woman came into the shop, ringing the little brass bell over her head and sending tingles through Armand's amorphous nothingness. She strode to the counter right away, meeting Sarah where she was rifling through a box of donated books, checking for water damage and silverfish.

  "I was wondering if you could help me find a book?"

  "Oh, of course!" Sarah put her customer service voice on. It amused Armand how she talked one way when customers were in the store and an entirely different way when they were not. She moved the box off the counter and onto the floor before stepping over to the computer monitor. "What's the title?"

  "So, the thing is..." The woman blew a tendril of silver hair that had escaped the claw clip on the back of her head from out of her face and hefted her overly large bag onto the counter, taking the weight of it from her shoulder. "I had a copy, but I lost it. And it was limited edition and sold out, but it's newer and I don't know that it'd be all that easy to find a secondhand copy in circulation already."

  "Well, we can try," Sarah said, masking her impatience at the woman for not simply spitting out the title of the book she sought. Armand adored Sarah. "What's the book called?"

  "Editions of You," the woman said. "By Daniel Molloy? You always have displays of him in here and I thought I'd come to you first..."

  Armand tried to quell himself, but the lights overhead went dim and buzzed and the computer monitor blinked off and then on again, making Sarah jerk the mouse around.

  "Silly computer," she said.

  The other woman looked around. "Old building, huh?"

  "Yeah, well. You said the magic words." Sarah gave a put-on sort of laugh. "We have a theory that Frederick the Ghost either really loves or really hates that guy."

  "The author?" The woman looked mildly surprised. "Well, whoever could hate Daniel Molloy? I mean, the man was a genius. And handsome, to boot. Though, I'm sure he made his enemies with some of his earlier work..."

  Sarah's laugh was a little more genuine this time. "You think so? You and my boss would get along. She's a huge Molloy fan. She knew him when she was a teenager. Said he was the nicest guy. A bit strange and sad, though."

  "A complicated man, yes," the woman nodded, solemnly.

  "Oh, look at that..." Sarah narrowed her eyes at the monitor. "We still have one copy, it says here. But that's odd, I don't recall...." She put her finger to her lips and twirled around, cocking her head in the direction of the fiction section. "Unless, maybe..."

  The woman perked, seeming hopeful. "Yes?"

  "Well, I know I saw a copy floating around upstairs at some point. Thought maybe it was just my boss' personal copy, but maybe not. Maybe she'd just forgot to bring it back down to the shelf when she was done..."

  Armand felt a flash of panic. That was the copy he'd stowed away for himself. Of course, he hadn't purchased it. With what means would he have been able to? Typically, he'd stuff it under the chair when he was finished. A place nobody really bothered looking. But maybe he'd left it out somewhere more careless once or twice? He must have for Sarah to have taken note.

  "Hey, Chrissy, do you think you can hang out at the counter a moment?" Sarah called out into the store.

  "Sure! Be right there!"

  Armand followed Sarah up to the attic, terrified that he might be made to part with his book. In a move of desperation, he burst the bulb in the lamp, making it harder to see, but also scattering glass over the floor in hopes that Sarah would elect not to kneel down and check under the chair. Of course, he should've known that there was a very good reason Sarah'd maintained her position as manager for as long as she had. She always went above and beyond, and with the flashlight on her phone and the little rug under the couch folded over the tiny shards of glass, she got down on her knees and reached under the chair, pulling Armand's very special copy of Editions of You out. She got back to her feet and clapped the dust off the cover.

  If Armand had a heart, it would have sunk. He followed her back down the stairs, feeling very bitter as she excitedly held the book up in the air and exclaimed that she'd found it, after all. But his bitterness faded a little when he saw the expression on the woman's face. She smiled big, her eyes crinkling in the corners and her hands clapping.

  "Oh, look at that! You're a real lifesaver, you know! I was starting to think I'd have to put a bounty out! How much do I owe you?"

  Armand found himself doing something he hadn't done in a very long time. He was in the woman's phone. Generally, these days, he tried to respect the privacy of mortals. He tried very hard not to be overly curious about them and not to do anything that would be considered invasive if done by any other member of society. But this woman had loved Daniel. Albeit, in a much more superficial and parasocial way, but that warranted investigation. She was taking his book, after all. Tit for tat, he thought.

  She didn't have much social media to speak of. No profiles that listed any personal information or chronicled her hobbies and day-to-day ups and downs. Well, that wasn't so strange. She was, after all, of a certain age. Her name was Gina. She was 57 years old and she worked for the Postal Service. She had a Pinterest and a Tumblr. These were sites Armand was vaguely aware of. Daniel had amassed quite a fandom on Tumblr following the release of Editions of You, but Armand hadn't really kept up. He associated these sites with younger people, generally, but time had marched on, hadn't it? The fact that she frequented them primarily to engage with Daniel's works was curious, though. Yes... Curious.

  He retreated from her phone as the transaction was finished. As Sarah placed the book into a paper sack with the receipt and Gina placed the paper sack into her own, heavy and quilted bag. She thanked Sarah again with enthusiasm and Armand felt charmed by that. He half listened as Sarah turned to Chrissy to tell her about the strangest thing that'd just happened upstairs and how she'd need her stay right there while she went back up to clean and change the bulb out. He felt a little bad. But then, he didn't, really. It gave them something to talk about, after all. A story to tell and a memory to keep. He felt himself drifting to the door. Cleo was napping in the bay window on a folded blanket in a spot of sun. He hesitated, taking a moment to coolly brush over the fur along her back, watching her skin wrinkle up over her tail before she opened one eye and grunted at nothing.

  The bell tinkled a little as he went out.