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monstersinthecosmos · 5 months ago

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Vamptember Day 24 - Divorce

{black light burns - drowning together, dying alone}

Daniel’s headphones are on, but he still hears the muffled rhythm of their voices from the other room. Noise canceling only goes so far for the preternatural, it seems. He turns the volume up, and stares down at his book, and tries not to hear what they’re saying.

Awkward, overhearing it. Reminds him of his parents fighting when he was a kid.

He hears Marius slam the balcony door, the way it rattles the windows. He lays his book down atop his chest and stares at the ceiling, heart racing from the noise.

It’s not that he doesn’t know Marius has a secret temper. He can taste it when they drink from each other. Feels it like a charge crackling through the room when Marius is trying to hold it back, senses his suffocating shame when it burns up to the surface. But he’s never truly seen it, has he?

And not now, either. In the other room, away from him. Just the shouting, and the rattling windows.

Daniel doesn’t feel him out there on the balcony—he must have taken off. Too pissed off to take the stairs, or even wait for the elevator. No, straight up to the sky, and he could be anywhere by now.

His fingers tap idly against the book cover. No noise over the headphones anymore, but he can feel her in the next room. So strange, being near someone Marius’s same age. How heavy their energy feels, even though hers is wholly different. He wonders how long she’ll stay.

The song in his headphones ends, and he tears them from his head, tosses them to the other side of the bed. Digs into his pocket to click the iPod off. Sets his book aside.

Despite the shouting match, Pandora seems relaxed when Daniel pops his head into the living room. Stretched across the green velvet couch like nothing is wrong, leisurely turning the pages of the Gisele Bündchen book. Her shoeless feet plant against the couch cushions, knees bent so that the book can lay open across her thighs.

Daniel leans in the door frame, watching her. Waiting to see if she’ll say anything. Her toes tap gently to the beat of the radio, and her eyes narrow at one of the photographs.

“Marius went out?” Daniel finally asks.

“For a tantrum, I’m sure.”

“He only acts like this when you’re around, you know.”

Her mouth twists into a half smile, eyes alight as she glances up at him. She taps the couch cushion with one of her feet. “Come sit. Are you defending him?”

Daniel scans outwards again, checking that Marius really left. How good is his hearing, anyway? He scratches the back of his head, chuckling out of nervousness as he obeys her. She lifts her feet so that he has room to sit, then crosses her ankles over his lap.

He’s not sure where to put his hands, if he should tuck them beside himself or fold them over her cold legs. She’s wearing an ankle bracelet and her nails are painted dark purple.

“I think you’re mistaken, baby boy,” she says, and Daniel can’t help laughing a little louder. “He only behaves when you’re around.”

“Baby boy,” Daniel scoffs. If there were fresh blood in his body, his cheeks might get warm.

She slowly closes the book. Folds her hands on top of it. Stares at Daniel’s face. He can’t hear what she’s thinking.

“You look just like him, you know,” she says, after a pause. “Have any of them told you that?”

“Any of who?”

“Any of them.”

Daniel laughs nervously. “Apparently not.”

“If you’d been turned a bit younger, you and Lestat could pass for his sons. You know that, yes?” When he doesn’t answer, she flexes her foot, rolls her heel back and forth against the top of his thigh. “You must have been a vision when Louis found you.”

“Come on, that’s…” Daniel looks away from her. Chokes on the forced laughter, stares down at the shapely bones of her ankles, unable to watch her face. And, what? That’s what? He crosses his arms over his chest, whole body tense as he tries to keep his hands to himself. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m being unfair,” she says, after a pause, and Daniel glances towards her in time to see the way she tilts her head in thought. “You look young. You could still pass as his son. We didn’t age so well when were alive, you know.”

His son. Daniel’s stomach flutters, and Pandora’s eyes glint in mirth.

“You knew that, then.”

He tries to keep his thoughts hidden, but the memories cascade inside too fast. How many times Marius has been mistaken for his father out in public, the way neither of them ever correct it. The amount of times Daniel has called him daddy.

“It’s a rite of passage, I suppose,” Pandora says. There’s a useless, warm ache where she presses her foot to his groin.

“What is?”

“That whole father business. He was like that when he was young, too. Perhaps he grew out of it, in his old age. Now it’s his turn to be the father,” she sets the book aside, and Daniel looks towards the noise as it thuds against the coffee table. She folds her arms behind her head as she stretches. “You can touch me, you know.”

Daniel can see it, sort of, in his head. Something foggy that he’s caught in the Blood before, something he stored away deep down in his head from years ago. It surfaces as he laughs a little bit, and lets the tension down from his shoulders, uncrossing his arms and resting his hands against her.

The hair on her legs is so soft, with all this time. Short enough that he can tell she shaved when she alive, but she was turned in such a hurry. Not like Daniel, with every detail obsessed over. Not like Marius.

His fingers curl around her ankle, then over her arch. Marius touches him like this sometimes. He tries to repeat it, massaging her the way he imagines that Marius would.

“You weren’t much older than me when you were turned,” he says, thinking about it. He studies her face, trying to find a clue, but she’s too inhuman to tell.

Her eyebrow quirks as she hears the thought slip out. Daniel chuckles and drops his head, watches the work in his lap as he rubs her feet.

“Sorry. It’s not a bad thing,” he breathes through the awkwardness, feeling the strange hardness of her body. Marius is the same, it’s not that it’s unfamiliar to him. Just…

“I understand,” she says. “It was that way with the Parents. Or with the twins. It’s hard to see, once we become like this.”

“Marius… feels old,” Daniel mumbles. “You both feel, I don’t know. Ancient. I can feel you in the room, I can tell that you’re something… but Marius. I don’t know. Maybe it’s his paterfamilias bullshit or something.”

Pandora’s laughter is sharp and sudden. She offers a little kick to his hip bone.

“He looks old, maybe. In his face. He just wears it in his face, I think.”

“Well, there aren’t many of us who lived to see thirty. Maybe we just spend too much time around perpetual children.”

“Yeah…”

Daniel’s motions slow as he stares across the room at nothing. Sore spot, that Pandora couldn’t have known she was pressing on. Not sure his life counts as living to thirty. It had ended that night in San Francisco, really.

“Not that Marius is the paradigm of maturity,” she adds a moment later. She’s grinning when Daniel sneaks a glance at her, like they’re sharing a secret.

“Has he always been like this?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s different for us. He’s my maker.”

The words curl around his middle spine. He stares at her again, studying her face, realizing for the first time that there’s no photos of her in their apartment. The size of it swells in his chest, too suffocating to imagine. Marius as your maker. Marius as your maker.

“Most of us just have that one person, you know. One person who knew us when we were alive. Marius is lucky in that way, he has a few of us. So do you.”

Daniel shudders.

“Did you have a big family when you were alive?” she asks, continuing along as if she can’t feel his discomfort.

“No… I was an only child. My mom had a sister that lived nearby, and I had a cousin. That’s it. No one else had come to the US.”

“You’re special, you know.” And her voice is soft, not teasing for once. So sincere. She leans forward to touch him on the chin, to hold him where she wants him, to stare into his eyes. “You met all of us, right away. It’s like having a whole house full of aunties and uncles that want to see you do well.”

Ridiculous. Daniel wants to laugh, but he can’t find it.

“Most of the time you guys feel like my divorced parents.”

Her fingers pinch him harder. “Were you parents divorced?”

“No, it’s…” he tries to shake his head, but there’s no give. His voice falls flat, too distracted by the shape of her eyes. “It’s a joke.”

“You should call me Mommy some time.” For a moment, Daniel isn’t sure if she’s telling him what to do or it’s another joke. Isn’t sure if he’s supposed to laugh.

“Oh.”

Her eyes glance towards the open windows, and the curtain swaying in the breeze, out to the city noise and night sky. She and Marius have the barrier between them, but he wonders if she can hear his heartbeat out there somewhere, the only one that’s been there the whole time.

“Do it in front of him. I want to see what he does.”

#vamptember #marius/pandora #marius/daniel #marius de romanus #daniel molloy #pandora #stuff i wrote #pandora/daniel

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monstersinthecosmos · 2 months ago

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Vamptember Day 29 - Hunger

{kellermensch - lost at sea}

Marius used to think of this room as his studio.

Daniel still calls it that sometimes, being polite. But it’s less Marius’s Studio and more Daniel’s Craft Room. The easels have been crushed back into a corner and his reference books are buried behind stacks of model boxes. The large table in the center of the room, which used to be covered in jars of brushes and half-empty tubes and sketch pads and sponges and palettes is now strewn with tiny little screws and spare wheels and broken sections of track and all of Daniel’s special screwdrivers.

Neither of them have bothered with anything in here for a while, though. Marius sometimes painted in here alongside Daniel, when he was tinkering, but Daniel has been coming in less and less. Even towards the end of the obsession he’d been spending more time in the main room—Marius supposes it’s one of the spare “bedrooms”—where Daniel had built the first model village.

It was as if all the work had been done, and he could just sit there and enjoy it.

Marius swipes an instruction manual off of his stool, watches it flutter to the floor. Sits down and stares at the mess.

Daniel had asked him, a few nights ago, why he doesn’t paint anymore. If Marius had wanted to be mean about it, he might have said Someone’s spare train parts are all over the painting studio, but he’d just shrugged. He thinks maybe he changed the subject. And Daniel’s getting so much better at hiding his thoughts. So graceful, the way his head went quiet as he stared.

The last painting he’d been working on is still on the larger easel. Pushed flush to the wall now, no longer by the window or the lights. Dust blankets over it like a pathetic veil.

He can’t remember when he painted last. Time cramps in his brain—Daniel confronting him about it a few nights ago (or a few weeks ago?) and the painting sitting here for months and it’s been… decades since the ice, he thinks. The weight of centuries crushes in on his shoulders.

No one would miss him if he slept. He knows that. Daniel is better. Daniel will be fine.

The garage door rumbles beneath the studio. He might have heard the car approaching, but it hadn’t really sunk in. The garage opens and closes, and the car door a moment later. Daniel’s footfall on the steps into their kitchen, then up the main staircase, then through the hallway.

Marius should get up. Shake it off, say hello. Ask how hunting went. Ask him if he needs something. But time crushes down on his shoulders, and he feels like he can’t move.

Daniel doesn’t say hello, either. The relaxed, fed energy lurks in the doorway, staring in. Thoughts locked up tight as he just watches.

A part of Marius sees the room in front of him. He’d be able to recall it, if someone asked, or if he tries to remember this later. He can see the clutter, the half-finished painting of Scylla, a green iPod Mini with a cracked screen, a crumbled ball of used blue masking tape. But he’s miles away, really. Floating somewhere.

He’s been doing this lately, hasn’t he? And Daniel has walked in on him a few times, just like this.

There’s never a confrontation, though. Even now. Marius isn’t sure how long Daniel waits, but the energy eventually recedes. Back down the stairs, and Marius hears the TV, hears the soft cadence of laptop keys.

Marius thinks he might cry soon. In that way it bubbles up from time to time. The idea presents itself to him as a tidy, sterile fact—it doesn’t make him want to cry just yet. Just the forecast that it’s coming soon. But for now, he stays frozen still where he is, ancient bones heavy in place. The idea that there’s even emotion somewhere inside is so far away.

No crying tonight, he thinks. Too far away. Just one of those things, one of those truths, that it will come soon.

And he hears Daniel’s laptop shut downstairs, and the sound of him setting it on the coffee table. The TV going quiet, and the thunk of the remote as Daniel tosses it aside. Then the footsteps, again, coming back up the stairs, down the hall, stopping at the open studio door.

Daniel is behind him, but Marius imagines his face. It feels too ironic, too cruel, the familiar irritation, the frustration, impotent desperation. But what does Daniel know? Naive little fledgling. Try watching for two millennia.

“You coming to bed?” Daniel asks.

It’s early, for Marius. Daniel is still so young. Part of him knows that Daniel is concerned, doesn’t want to leave him like this, but his ugliest instincts gnaw through his insides. Hateful idea percolating that Daniel just wants to drink from him before bed, like he always does.

The two halves of him debate a response, staring ahead towards the clutter. Seeing it but not seeing it, and he’s not sure how much time goes by in the silence.

Daniel sighs.

Thoughts guarded, the best he can, but he’s too easily distracted, too easy to anger.

“Fuck’s with you?” he asks.

The twinge of provocation, softly alight in Marius’s chest, wakes him up a bit. His shoulders straighten. The half-finished Scylla comes into focus.

You should go, he thinks, unsure if Daniel will hear it. Doesn’t turn to face him, just stares ahead. And the two halves of him picture it.

Because Daniel’s better now, isn’t he?

“You always do this,” Daniel snaps. It tingles in Marius’s body again, warming up to his shoulders. Sort of pleasant, how it makes his hair stand on end. It’s something so barbaric and ugly, always on standby inside, begging for Marius to feed it.

It’s been a long time since he’s seen Daniel angry.

Perhaps it’s unfair to count those other times against him—mindless frustration, overstimulated tantrums aren’t so different than freezing all together. He wasn’t really himself, back then.

But he wonders what it would take to bring it out of him now. This new Daniel, this awake Daniel. How much longer can he stomach being ignored? Marius had made it centuries.

Of course, Daniel isn’t obligated to stay. He’ll leave, and he can now. Doesn’t need help anymore. It’s a matter of time, and maybe Marius can speed the process along.

Daniel’s impatience has his mask slipping. Fucking ignoring me flashes out of him before he can hold it back. The door frame creaks where Daniel squeezes it, and his nails tap against the wood as he composes himself.

They’re so similar, really. Marius feels it, like a pull, like they’re tied together. All the anger feels the same—blooms the same and whispers the same, to each of them. Unfolds in them the same way. He feels it, lingering in the dusty air.

He wants to hurt me, Marius realizes. So familiar to him that it aches in his chest. He almost betrays himself, wants to rub his hand over his collarbone to soothe his own anxiety, but he stays still.

How easy had this been for Akasha? How deep inside had she disappeared? Marius thinks, if he really needed to, he could bury himself that far under, but for now he’s barely below the surface.

And Daniel is coming closer now. The floorboards creak beneath his feet as he comes around the craft table, to stand in Marius’s field of vision.

“Seriously, what the fuck is this?” he asks. He presses his hands to the table, and Marius feels the way he stares, even without looking up to his face. Hard to read time lately. Marius isn’t sure how much goes by. He hears one of the clocks downstairs, ticking, and ticking. Daniel finally sighs. “Great. Real mature.”

Provoking people can be such an ugly habit, Marius knows. Something he does, himself. Unsure if this counts, but maybe it’s karmic, the way Daniel’s insult needles in his chest.

He finally looks up.

Daniel’s face is so flat, his eyes steely. Stubborn. The feeling starts to return in Marius’s body, and he wonders how much he can push back.

“You didn’t have much to say to me for a number of years, yourself.”

It should be what Daniel wants, and maybe the flash of mischief in his eyes betrays the way he scowls. Shoulders rigid as his nails dig dimples into the tabletop.

“Maybe you should go take one of your big sleeps if you’re this fucking cranky.”

The anger creeps through the roots of Marius’s hair. Heart skips as he narrows his eyes, studies Daniel’s face. “One of my big sleeps?”

“Everyone doesn’t do that, you know,” Daniel says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “You act like it’s normal just because you need to. You know Armand—”

“Armand is a child.”

Daniel rolls his eyes. “Sure, yeah. Such a child that you’re terrified of having a real conversation with him. Sure.”

Marius leans back in his chair. Raises an eyebrow. Interesting. He folds his hands in his lap. “Real conversations? With Armand? How did you feel when you read Lestat’s book? Tell me that.”

“You never even told him what happened to you.”

“He’s the only serious relationship you ever had when you were alive. Was he your first breakup?”

Daniel’s pupils blow wide. The hair rises on the back of Marius’s neck.

“Well killing Santino didn’t do shit for you, did it?”

His ears ring. His mouth opens, but he’s not sure what to say.

Oddly erotic, the way the fury creeps up. Sensual, awakening. His throat pinches in hunger, and he can still smell the victims on Daniel’s clothes, even over the smell of stale turpentine and model glue that haunts the room.

Daniel cracks a smug half-grin, as if Marius’s silence means he’s won. He presses his hands to the table again, leans in. “You drank from Santino, too. Still couldn’t figure it out.”

“That’s not—”

“I saw it, Marius. In your blood,” he says. He wipes his bottom lip with his thumb. “Saw it in his blood, too.”

Marius is up before he realizes it, before he intends to. Free-falling without his self control, unable to latch onto it, seeing everything as an observer. The way the table flips, and the amused shock on Daniel’s face, and the way his knees bracket Daniel’s hips a moment later. Daniel sprawled across the floor, his hair tousled as he pants, as his fist bunches into Marius’s shirt.

His hand wraps around Daniel’s throat, so easy to pin him there, so young still. Daniel’s pulse races beneath Marius’s fingers, his Blood activated, unaccustomed to defending itself.

Still warm, from his hunt. Marius breathes deep, smells the victims on him. Watches the emotions play across Daniel’s face, the way they come and go, as he tries to hide each one.

It can be odd, the way he reminds Marius of himself. But the way he can remind Marius of Armand, too. He wonders, watching the stubbornness fight for dominance, seeing the secret pleasure beneath it, if it was passed down. How much does the Blood carry? How much of this is Marius, himself, distilled over centuries?

The anger is like heat on his skin. Pleasant, like a warm bath. He shudders into it.

“Let me see it, Marius,” Daniel says. He arches his back, presses his hips up to Marius’s groin. He’s still so fledgling-soft, even after years of glutting on Marius’s blood. So weak, so that Marius doesn’t even budge. But his eyes glimmer in the struggle. Enjoying it.

Marius squeezes around his throat. It would kill him, if he were alive. If he needed oxygen. Still, he feels how it constricts Daniel’s arteries, sees how the color rushes his face. Smells the panic on him, his body and Blood frantic with primal instinct.

He leans down, their chests pressing together, his hair falling around them in a curtain. Breathes against Daniel’s mouth, smelling the blood on him still. He licks across Daniel’s bottom lip for a taste.

“You don’t truly want to be immortal,” Marius says. Calmer now, and he squeezes harder to make his point.

Daniel’s brows come together in frustration, but the words don’t come out. Marius has to ease his grip.

Scrambling for a retort as he grabs Marius’s shoulders, hanging on for leverage, not trying to push him away.

“You never let Armand fuck you,” he hisses. Desperate now, thinking with his flesh, running out of barbs. Marius almost laughs, but he’s stubborn, too.

“You wish you hadn’t.”

“You hate that he burdened you with me.”

“And you’re afraid of me.”

Daniel’s body relaxes, eases down against the floor. Cheeks flushed as he tries to hide his arousal, pretends he’s still mad.

Sun will be up soon, Marius feels it. Sees it in Daniel’s bloodshot eyes, that he’ll be tired soon. Perhaps it’s his signal, time for their bedtime ritual.

But easy enough to pretend he’s still angry, too.

He lets go of Daniel’s throat, to make space. Grabs him by the hair, instead, yanking his head to the side to expose the stretch of perfect skin.

Well, not entirely the bedtime ritual. It doesn’t usually go like this. Marius heart races as he leans down, as he tears in.

They’ve never been violent with each other. Marius has never made such a mess. He tears, with his teeth, so that a perfect red arc of arterial spray splashes across his face. It paints a messy line across Marius’s shirt, and over the floor. Marius wonders if it reaches Scylla and if he’ll have to scrap it, or start it over, or work around it.

For a moment he just watches it bubble out, lets the scent of it fill him. Daniel instinctively lifts a hand to cover the wound, but Marius pins his wrist to the floor. Just watches, until the wound is almost healed, as the blood pools dark around in him in a halo, and then leans into bite again.

He drinks, this time.

Smooth mouthful, rich and warm, still fresh from the hunt. So full of his petty verve. Marius cuts the wound again, and again, his head swimming as it fills him, as Daniel softens beneath him. He shakes as he swallows, and he grinds down, as if it’s sexual, wanting to feel the press of Daniel’s body. Daniel moans, like he’s dying, and cups his hand around the back of Marius’s neck.

Barely able to disguise his thoughts now. Not pretending to be annoyed, and too relieved that he’s gotten his way. Sated by the pain, even as the blood loss makes him dizzy.

Makes him feel human again, to feel weak like this. He shuts his eyes, lets his head roll against the floor, pretends that he’s still alive as Marius takes and takes.

It really hadn’t been anger at all, Marius thinks. Fear, maybe. He sees a collage of Daniel’s evening—the house party he’d crashed, full of warm bodies, intoxicated university students all pressed together in such a small space. So humid with all their sticky human desire. He sees the way Daniel had taken a walk by the river after, to let the alcohol burn off, the way he’d lit a cigarette without smoking it, old habit as he sat down on a dock to stargaze.

And Marius, after, as he’d come home. Eerie still, in the craft room.

He doesn’t ease up until Daniel’s heartbeat tapers off. He licks over the wound, patient as it’s slow to heal. Kisses the healed spot, suckles it gently.

The blood loss won’t kill him. They both know it, somewhere, even though Daniel likes to flirt with it. Likes to pretend, to try it on, to push it until his body panics. His Blood inside always tells him to fight, and somehow he always resists.

Still, he’s weak enough that he goes limp on the floor. Closes his eyes. Marius isn’t sure he has the strength to bring himself to bed.

That’s fine, though.

It’s calmer now, as he sits up. He ignores the mess—all the time in the world to deal with it, after all—and he slips his arms beneath Daniel’s body to lift him. Bridal style, and Daniel lazily loops his arms around Marius’s neck for the walk to their bedroom.

“Drink from me,” Marius urges, as they settle into bed. He draws a blanket around them, and hits the remote that covers the windows.

Daniel shakes his head. He curls into Marius’s side, rubbing his face against the blood-stained shirt.

“Tomorrow,” he mumbles.

“Are you sure?”

“Mmhmm,” his voice is so soft, weak as the morning begins to pull him under. He paws gently at Marius’s chest, snuggling in. Breathing the scent of his own blood.

Not quite a good cry, like Marius had expected. Cathartic, all the same. He hasn’t felt so relaxed in months. He wraps an arm around Daniel, pets his hair, enjoys the closeness.

“You don’t hide things as well as you think you do,” Daniel mumbles. Half asleep. Marius isn’t sure if it’s sleepy honesty or if he’s still trying to pick a fight. It aches inside, either way, and he holds Daniel a bit tighter.

And so much time can pass for him. Lately, he can’t keep track. He stares at the ceiling, listens to Daniel’s heartbeat, and can’t tell if he’s still awake. Unsure how long it’s been, how long he can make it before sunrise.

He strokes the back of Daniel’s head.

“So what is it?” he whispers. “Are you going to leave?”

Heavy pause, and Daniel doesn’t stir. Marius thinks he should savor this, while he still has it, now that Daniel is better.

But there’s a pinch at his ribs. A grumble as Daniel rubs his face into Marius’s pec.

“No, you asshole.”

Marius smiles. He covers his mouth with his free hand, like he has to hide it. Mortifying to be seen like this, even if Daniel is half-asleep. He sinks lower into the bed, relaxing, throbbing all over with Daniel’s blood.

“I…” he stares up at the ceiling. Rubs over his collar bone, like it can ease away the anxiety of it, blend all of it out. It takes all of his effort to say it. “I apologize. I suppose. For the way I behaved.”

Daniel opens his eyes, just long enough to kiss Marius on the cheek.

“I love you, too.”

#can you believe it's month 8 of vamptember LMAO sorry #listen whatever i just get really obsessed about finishing projects even if it takes forever dont look at me #vamptember #marius/daniel #marius de romanus #daniel molloy #vampire chronicles #stuff i wrote #there's only one left pray for me i get it written before vamptember 2025 no promises

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