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After the tears came silence. Armand basked in it, basked the simplicity of the moment and its fleeting nature. Daniel, laid out like an angel, eyes closed in sleep, his mind purged of Armand. It was done. The act had been committed. Armand watched his breath rise and fall, sweet and divine against the gentle moonlight from the window. The shadows played across his face like a prayer, his eyes closed like a blessing. His gift of a boy now lay sinless, clean, and new, unburdened by the weight of ancient blood.
Armand's shoulders shook as he watched him, crumbling under the blanket of loss yet held perfectly still under the terror of forgetting. Forgetting this day, this moment in time, the last remnant of this strange burst of sunlight in his life, and the feeling of chapped, warm lips against his own. Armand carefully pushed the curls from Daniel's face and allowed himself tears, his empty prayers echoing against the marble altar of time. Just one more second. Please. Just one more moment.
Daniel lay like a lamb, pure and clean against the sea of blood staining Armand’s thighs and hands, perfect and holy, gently dying as he wept. The little life they built crumbled, and time reclaimed its boy from the bloody arms of this immortal being. Armand’s prayers went unanswered in the face of a being much older, powerful god. He shook like the sea against the wind, his mind an ocean of regrets and desperate pleas—would have, could have—but he didn’t. And it was far too late now.
Armand bent over this beacon of light, basking in its fading glow, desperately listening to the soft sound of breathing, feeding off the warmth of this boy, this child, curled in his lap, with bloodstained hands cupping his face like a curse. Some cruel twist of nature, to be so defiled by a being such as him. Armand allowed himself those moments of grief, but when Daniel’s body shook with death and his holy face burned with the weight of secondhand sin, Armand was left with no choice.
He delivered him to the hospital, as gentle as a newborn babe, eyes stained with demonic tears as he delivered the practiced speech about his dear addict friend and how he found him half-dead on the street. The doctors took him in with suspicion nestled in their disgustingly human eyes, but were less inclined to care when he dropped thousands of dollars, whatever it took to bring him back to life. He transferred money to ensure Daniel was taken to the best rehabilitation facility afterward, and ensured his payment couldn’t be traced back to him.
When he returned to this prison of loneliness, it struck him how cold it had become in his lover’s absence. Even through their worst, Daniel warmed the house by simply existing—a soft smile and gentle humming, the smell of bacon and cigarette smoke, a book left half-read with annotated margins—but now silence was Armand’s only inheritance. During their fights, Daniel ran like a child and promised never to return, but he did, he must. Now, he would never return. Cold, quiet apartment, empty and lifeless.
Armand cleaned the bloodstains methodically, his mind horrifyingly blank, the force of his emotions blanching every possible thought from his mind and replacing it with burning, wordless loss. Armand knelt at the altar of time and gave no prayer, no anger—only wept for his beautiful boy and the sunlight that slipped from his fingers before he knew how to let it warm his ancient hands. In his coffin, he could not rest, couldn’t find peace in Daniel's supposed safety. Were they taking care of him properly? What if Armand hadn’t gotten him to the hospital on time? The weight of his actions burned through his being like fire. The disgusting force of his love had left a stain on the lamb of life, and now it lay dying in some empty hospital room, confused and hurt and empty. Armand caught himself—no, not empty—but full of that gorgeous life that spilled from his throat like honey, that pressed warmth into his body and gently drove the burden of existence from Armand’s life.
He allowed himself a single day to gut the apartment, to painstakingly remove every reminder of the love that once existed in these walls: each scratch on the doorframe, the posters pinned to the walls, the coffee stain Daniel had left on the countertop. It must be done, and so it shall. Armand was a cursed thing and would no longer shadow the life of a sinless boy with soft blue eyes and a gap-toothed grin.
It took Daniel a year and a half to get back on his feet again, and Armand watched from a distance. Daniel walked the earth differently now—older, more tired. His jaw grew sharper, and his once boyish curls were shorn short and jagged; his summer eyes turned cold to the world. His hands constantly shook with what was left of the life he had sacrificed to Armand, and it ripped the soul from Armand’s chest to see. His confidence was replaced by apprehension and exhaustion, but he eventually found his footing. He applied to a college and received a mysterious amount of scholarships and donations for his schooling, and Armand hung back to see him walk the stage, a smile creeping back onto his face as he accepted the diploma.
Armand watched as Daniel bumped into a woman with eyes like stars and voice sharp as a blade. His chest tightened as Daniel fumbled over his words, just as he had all those years ago. It took two years later for her to fall pregnant, and Armand allowed himself the foolish closeness of standing outside the hospital, waiting for something he couldn’t articulate. She would be due any minute now, and he winced at her agonized thoughts as they projected through the air; she feared the worst.
All at once, a man flew out of the hospital, fast and panicked like lightning, and paced the sidewalk. Daniel was taller now, his face shadowed in stubble, his eyes frantically searching the night for an answer to a question he couldn’t articulate. Armand watched him, smoked, and panicked internally, eventually deciding to slip back into the night without a trace—until Daniel spun on his heel and asked a panicked question, “Excuse me, sir, are you a father?”
The question caught Armand by surprise, and after a pause, he answered, no. His body burned with heat he hadn’t felt in years, and Daniel resigned himself to hopelessness, sitting on the curb, head in hands. This energy was infectious, and Armand found himself sitting beside him, carefully avoiding his gaze. “You will be fine,” he muttered, attempting to be comforting. “No, it’s not about me, man—it’s about this kid!” Daniel responded, anxiety staining his words like blood. Armand understood, finally, what this all meant to him. He felt the fear and childhood memories set Daniel’s mind into a frenzy and listened to his heart scramble like an off-tempo drum.
“I don’t know shit about kids,” Daniel muttered, and Armand couldn’t help but chuckle, his chest warm with that same fondness as all those years ago—back in the summer sunlight for only a second. His boy, this boy, the man he was becoming, and the person he had been—it made Armand’s heart soar with admiration and pride. “You will do fine. I know it.” Daniel huffed and met his gaze, his eyes like steel, cold and soft, the same as all those years ago. “You some kinda psychic?” he asked, his tone dripping with accusation. Armand only smiled and whispered, “Something like that.” He stood up and handed him the coffee he ordered just the way Daniel had always liked it, with the excuse that it looked like he needed it more than him, and let himself disappear into the darkness of the night, buzzing with affection for his boy—this man—and the memories that rushed through his body like a flood.
Time seemed quicker after that, but Armand never failed in his secret visits. He slipped into high school gymnasiums and watched Daniel’s daughters play sports, wincing each time their grey eyes scanned the crowd, looking for their father. Once, his oldest daughter’s gaze settled on his, and she gave him a soft smile. For just a moment, she looked like her father—a break in the clouds where rays burst and blossomed light. Armand watched them graduate, let himself observe Daniel’s face shift under the weight of time, gray blooming into his dark curls, gently kissing wrinkles into his face. He grew cold with time, and Armand watched his daughters’ faces sour at their father’s words. Armand quietly paid off wedding venues when the time came, and on Daniel’s anniversaries, he slipped cash into servers' pockets to deliver cakes with their initials written in chocolate icing, knowing Daniel had forgotten.
He watched time rip women from Daniel’s arms and bring more around, watched his daughters grow distant from him, and carefully studied the weight of time against his old lover. Years and years of this merry-go-round of life, a favor and a winning lottery ticket when Daniel’s life was grim, but in a crash of fate, Armand found himself pacing outside a hospital room, crushed under the weight of fear. Daniel had taken a nasty fall, and at his age, it could have been deadly. Armand spoke with doctors, nurses, staff—anyone who could update him—and eventually allowed himself to visit when he knew Daniel would be asleep. He entered the room and saw his boy curled against bleached white pillows, the salt and pepper in his hair catching the moonlight, and it made Armand sick.
The doctors told him no one was in the home to help him. Not one person. The force of his simple fact brought Armand to tears, Daniel what have you done? Daniel shook in his sleep, his chest heaving and rattling, his eyes darkened and lined with the evidence of age. It was quiet as Armand grappled with the true nature of mortality, was this the end goal? This was the life he had granted him? The gift?
Daniel was alone, his body aching, calling out for help, truly alone. Life sped past and lapped him, and the result was a pathetic old man with nothing to show for the mercy of life he had been granted. What of life? What of death? Armand finally understood how painfully close Daniel truly was to death, how little time he had left on earth and how it was truly going to be spent. Love, loss, days bleeding into the next, daughters and money and wives and whiskey, what did it mean? What was it worth?
Give and take and push and pull, the tide of humanity that blistered his aging body, the force of it all drove Armand from this place, the place that reeked of death, back to the safety and consistency of Dubai. He did not visit him after that, knew he could no longer watch death mark him, claim him as violently as life once did.
But fate has a strange way, doesn’t it? Once again, all these years later, he was knelt at the ruined altar of a summer love, the cold blue eyes and the weight of disgust, the whispers of the life they once knew and he love they once shared hidden under the thin sheet of mind manipulation, was this what it was worth? How long would it hold? When would he shatter again, his damned soul tethered to the spirit of life itself?
He wanted to hate him, truly. Wanted to be spiteful of the life he had lived and the experiences he had gained, but when Daniel’s lips curled into a smile and he fidgeted with his hands the same way he did all those years ago, he melted once again under the blooming rays of liquid sunlight that poured from the mouth of his beautiful, perfect boy.