This is kinda pointless and has little plot. It's set in a post MW4 universe, everything after that didn't happen.
I'm not making any money from this and I don't own any of these characters or locations or even any of the words so form an orderly queue if you want to sue me, though I promise you can all share out my £1.87p equally.
Enjoy. Feedback is most welcome. Love Laine.
I apologise for Danny’s bad language but other than that there’s no scandal here.

"In the Savage Garden you shine beautifully my friend. You walk as if it were your garden to do with as you please. And in my wanderings I always return to you. I return to see the colours of the garden in your shadow or reflected in your eyes, or to hear of your latest follies and mad obsessions. Besides, we are brothers are we not?"
Memnoch the Devil Chapter 8, Armand to Lestat.

I had been alone in Paris for near on 3 years by the time he arrived. I expected him, despite his penchant for showing up just when he was unexpected but this time he was not unwelcome.
"I promise not to attack you this time Lestat," he began. I swirled around in time to catch a glimpse of him before he moved faster than the air it seemed to stand at my side. Armand's power never ceases to amaze me. I should ask him one of these years just how he gets so strong.
"It's a trade secret," he winked at me. Ahhhhhhh.. He was infuriating, reading my thoughts when I thought I was well shielded.
I shook my head, despairing in a light-hearted way about his childish nature.
"What brings you to Paris Armand?" I asked casually.
"You of course." He sighed and tutted as if this was blatantly obvious. "You've not been seen for a few years and the coven decided it was time someone went and found you and I..."
"Drew the short straw? " I offered.
He laughed that little crystal laugh, so perfect and childlike. I wanted to kiss him all over. From the badly hidden grin on his face I take it he picked up on that thought as well.
"I offered to come, I wanted to come. I'm your guardian angel remember?"
"What happened to the Botticelli hair cut then?" I couldn't resist a flippant remark or two about his radical appearance. Gone were the days of long hair, Armand now preferred to have his auburn curls somewhere hanging in his face, giving him the look of a street urchin or a rock star. He could be both, as it happened he was neither.
"Marius cannot possibly approve." I made a sideways glance to his clothes and hair.
He laughed again, I was beginning to enjoy his company rather too much, especially as he kept on laughing. He probably hadn't washed in a week, his hair looked as if it would run in fright at the sight of a comb and he was dressed rather unusually. The baggiest jeans you could possibly imagine, a black hooded sweatshirt and a grey t-shirt covering it. I had seen kids dressed like this in America before I had left and it seemed the fashion was just coming to Paris.
"I'm trying to "be a child o the time" Lestat," he pointed out, "as you and others so often remind me, I am a child."
He had a point.
"And no, Marius does not approve, all in a nights work for a rebellious youth though."
I laughed out loud, imagining the scene of Marius as angry disapproving parent. "You couldn't possibly go out like that you look a fright."
"So why do the coven want you to check up on me? "I questioned, "Some inexplicable murder happened? The Devil come to town again, or god?"
"Lestat stop! Can’t you ever believe that I would come here for you, to see how you were, to spend time with you if you wanted company? To sort out whatever it is that is stopping you returning to the New World. We all miss you very much. Not least your fledglings. Not least me..."
He left his final phrase very open ended, goading me go argue against it, to challenge his affection for me. Over the past centuries I've come to know better than to challenge Armand. I shrugged.
"Can't say I've missed you at all." I said sarcastically and kissed the top of his head for good measure, just so he knew I was joking.
I turned to grasp a strand of his hair, to twirl it around my fingers, as I have always loved to.
"Just who butchered your hair little one?" I had to ask.
He smiled, "Danny."
"He's here in Paris then?"
"Yes, but he won't get in your way, I made him promise. I won't get in your way either, if you'd honestly rather be left alone."
I had to smile back, as his grins were infectious. "No, I think some time spent with the two rebels without causes could do me good."
I took him in to my arms and gave him a tight squeeze.
"Just do something with the hair sweetie darling, or I shall never want to be seen with you again."

The next night I rose early, the sun was only just sinking into her watery grave beneath the Seine. I made sure I found Armand before he found me that night. I was a little shaken that he could sneak up on me as I was taking an innocent walk along the river.
The toxic twins were in a flat on the West Bank. The apartment building was nice enough yet their room was a dreadful mess. The lock on the door proved no problem for me and was obviously not meant to stop me, or at least I thought so.
The shutters were down and it took a while for my eyes to adjust to the smoky atmosphere. Armand had lived in some shit holes in his time, but this just about took the biscuit.
"Hey!" an all too familiar voice shouted from the other room, "you might wanna knock next time Mr 'I'm so big and strong I can take out door locks'"
Armand came stumbling through the open doorway, dressed the same way as he was the night before, except his hair had grown back to it's luxurious full length over night and wasn't his t shirt on inside out?
Daniel followed behind him.
"Hi stat," he mumbled kind of sheepishly. Darn Americans always miss off the first part of my name, far too lazy for their own good.
"The door was practically open Armand, I figured you'd want me to walk straight in, Mi casa es Su casa right?"
"Danny and I might want some privacy, we might be having sex, what would have done then hey!"
I had to laugh. He said it so matter of factly and he gazed at me in that simple childish way of his. Daniel nearly died of embarrassment and suddenly found the floor and object for intense study.
"I would have stayed and watched of course." I said, as dead pan as I could.
A smirk in my eyes must have given me away for he started giggling again.
Danny made his way to a kind of kitchen area in the main room we all stood in.
"You want something hot to hold 'stat?" he asked, trying to be the good host. Was that a strain of bitterness I detected in his voice?
"Oh.. I didn't know you loaned out your boyfriend Danny."
"Ha ha ha, you're so funny Lestat I just forgot to laugh." he flipped the switch on kettle, jumped up to sit on the work surface and whistle along with it.
"Sorry this place is such a mess." Armand tried to pick random items of rubbish and clothing off the floor, "Please sit down... well. Anywhere really."
There was what had once in a former more glorious existence been a settee and I slumped down into it.
"I see you got your hair back Armand, it's cute, real cute."
He gave me a scowl that could kill a mortal. Daniel laughed and poured some hot water into a mug, holding it in his hands he felt the head radiating and purred.
Both Armand and I stared at him, and he grinned back.
"This is my cue to leave I take it, as the big boys wanna discuss olde worlde stuff that my 20th century brain couldn't possibly grasp."
"Just take your drink and beat it Malloy. "Armand said in a tone surprisingly sarcastic for him. He stomped around the apartment picking up clothes, making us sure we knew he felt left out. Within a few minutes Danny was gone and I felt much more at ease. It wasn't that I didn't like Danny, he was cool enough and a great laugh, but I always felt a bit awkward around him. He was Armand's lover after all, not that I was jealous or anything. Well perhaps just a little bit.
"What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours? "Armand asked me, swinging his legs as he perched on the kitchen work surface.
"Not having which having would make then short?" I suggested, wondering if the quote was right. Romeo and Juliet had never been one of my favourite plays.
"But truly Lestat, what keeps you so far away from those you love?"
"I'm not far away," I retorted, "You're sat right there."
He tried to look a bit bashful, as if he doesn't get comments like that every night from mortals and vampires, strangers and friends alike.
"You know what I mean you insufferable brat, Gabrielle, Louis, David. Why he is practically a newborn and he's been lost without you 'stat. I will warn you, he's looked for a new teacher."
"Marius?" I offered into the air.
"Of course, what other vampire would think himself so superior as to become another's teacher." his comment was aimed at his maker and me. I suppose it didn't help to be brought down to earth now and again.
"It doesn't surprise me, he always had the hots for him, I could tell." Armand shook his head in that weary "I'm surrounded by idiots" way that he has and came to sit next to me on the sofa.
"I don't think it's quite like that stat but never mind." he stretched out, his head resting on the arm farthest away from me, his bare feet crossed on my lap.
"Louis misses you. He sends his love."
"That's a lie, at least the first part. I don't think Louis misses anyone, he's happy all alone in the dust and grime with his books and his guilt."
"Hmm..True, but he did send his love, I promise." he curled up his toes and released them snuggling further into the worn old sofa.
"You still haven't answered my question." he pointed out.
Little know all. Always had to have the upper hand, but then that was Armand.
"Will Daniel be ok? I feel guilty sending him away like that."
"That's a lie! "Armand said, mocking my previous tone and accent. I had been told he did a quite convincing impression of me. I didn't want to imagine the fun he might have with that.
"Lestat de Lioncourt never feels guilty about anything, not least my rag tag fledgling."
"Are you very much in love?" I asked him, quite out of the blue, trying to turn the subject away from my own reluctance to go home.
He laughed, and it struck me it was the way in which Claudia used to laugh. It sounded better coming from him.
"I can tell you're trying to change the subject. But yes if you really cared, of course we're in love." he rolled his eyes in his "are you blind?" way.
"I figured so." I said simply. "Armand.. in love... it's just so strange an idea to get used to."
"This is the part where I say.. but Lestat, I've been in love with you since the moment I saw you... well it's true and have and you know it. So don't go fishing for compliments!" he gave me a little kick too, just to emphasise the point.

The evening continued in the same fashion. I avoided his questioning the best I could yet enjoyed his easygoing company. As the hours past by I became aware that this whole situation was set up. Perhaps just by Armand, or perhaps the whole coven had a hand in it. Daniel Malloy was wondering around Paris, alone in a city where he didn't speak a word of the language; hell he couldn't even pronounce my name properly. He was young and in love and I was right in his way. I felt ashamed all of a sudden. I'd been struck by melancholy and suddenly everyone had to play act around me. Armand had been sent as the envoy, Marius used him like whore still and gazing at his innocent face it made me angry. He should be with Daniel, though as I stared I wished things had turned out differently between us.
I made my excuses and got up to leave. It was only just past one, so he and Danny would have some of the night left. He looked at me in abstract fear as I got up to go. At first I didn't understand but then it struck me that he had failed in his mission to extract the truth from me, to bring me back to the New World. If Marius harmed him for this I would tear his eyes out.
The biting cold hit me as soon as I stepped outside. Fog had settled on the ground and even with my vampire senses I could hardly see the nose in front of my own face. I approached the Seine and decided a walk along the riverbank was what I needed to clear my mind. Perhaps I should explain myself to the rest of the coven, save Armand a lot of hassle. Then again, why did I have to explain myself to them? I was free to do whatever I pleased.
The fog was so thick that I was almost on top of Daniel before I spotted him. His presence had been well shielded and I wondered as I approached him where he had gotten his newfound strength. Maybe he would tell me it was a trade secret too.
He was just perched there, on the railings overlooking the river, gazing, thinking so hard he didn't notice me until I tapped him on the shoulder. He flinched at my touch.
"You're done with him then?" he questioned and the bitterness in his tone stung me.
"Tell me, was he good? Because for me he's a tomcat between the sheets!"
He laughed maniacally, not even bothering to look at me.
"Danny..." I began.
"Don't ever call me that! Don't ever presume you know me at all Lestat. You might think you know Armand but not me." He shook his head in despair. If he had been mortal I would have feared he would jump in the water.
"Daniel," I started again, "It's not like that at all. He would never do that to you, he loves you, he told me so himself just tonight."
I hoped I sounded convincing. The truth was Armand was at the beck and call of his master and if Marius thought a job could be better done with a little "friendly" persuasion then Armand got the orders.
"You don't have to lie to me Lestat. I know he adores you, hangs on your every word. Hell it's practically hero worship. It makes me sick to think I got this far only to lose him to you."
"Daniel, you're not going to lose him, I promise."
"What does that mean to you?" he questioned savagely, "Have you ever made a promise you intended to keep Lestat? Has toying with his fragile heart ever been anything more than a game to you?"
"Of course he means more to me than that!" I replied indignantly, then wishing I hadn't spoken. To Danny's ears it was practically an admission of guilt.
"What could he possibly see in me anymore, now that he has you back?" he asked to no one in particular, unless god was listening and I severely doubted that. "You've the strength, the intelligence, you're the handsomest blonde mother fucker I ever saw..."
He jumped off the railings and stood in front of me, face to face. He was a brave young fool I had to give him that.
"You know that I was your replacement, while you fucked about with Akasha and toyed with Louis? Until you decided you wanted to play with him again I was just the stand in. Well now you're back, wooooo ho! The golden boy returns and I'm afraid the dumb ass American, the farm boy with no wits has to step aside. Well you know what..?"
He began to cry, red blood streaming down his alabaster cheeks like the blood of a sacrifice on marble.
"I'm fuckin' stepping Lestat. Fuckin' steppin aside. Wouldn't want to get in your way, taking everything you want, whenever it suits you."
Part of me wanted to take him into my arms and soothe his pain; the other half wanted to slap him, as he was well past the hysterical stage.
"I fuckin love him Lestat, and you couldn't give a shit really could you? Hmm? Well fuck you!"
He ran off, somewhere into the night, into the streets of Paris. The fog hid him and his grief. I stood there speechless, unable to act and burning with indecision. I heard the sound of feet on the pavement behind me like it was a distant dream. I twirled around, wondering instinctively who it was.
"What was that all about Lestat?" a voice loomed eerily out of the fog.

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"How long have you been here?" I questioned, rather too savagely, but I was annoyed that they had been able to sneak up on me without an even the smallest clue for my vampiric senses to detect.
"Long enough."
What kind of answer was that?! But there was more. There was always more from this one.
"What HAVE you been doing with Armand to make the young one so upset? I thought that you were enemies and the next time I see you the both of you are locked in passions embrace." Marius was much too interested in other people's affairs.
"We're not locked in passions embrace as you call it, don't be ridiculous.."
I was beginning to get irritated and started to walk away.
"That's not what the American seems to think. That's not what I plucked from your thoughts when you were with him tonight."
That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Perhaps I should just publish my thoughts for all to see. Then I remembered I'd already done that. Sort of.
Humiliated and confused I ran off into the night.
Perhaps I hadn't been completely honest with myself; maybe there was something between Armand and me. I had always thought it brotherly affection, not a lover's gaze he was giving me. And Daniel was a mess I didn't even want to think about sorting out and......Oh I was so angry. How dare they read my thoughts, challenge me. Why was Marius even here?
I mumbled to myself like a madman as I made my way to my daily resting-place.
Armand wonders why I want nothing to do with the vampire kind! They cause me trouble and heartache and all this only in one night. For the first time in years I was glad of the sunrise.

Nights and nights passed where I saw no one, well only mortals but I never usually count them. They're a different species after all. I was free and without obligation to anyone, probably one of the best feelings there is. But it is also a lonely feeling and the clubs and bars of Paris held no sway over me. Her spell had been broken centuries ago, overshadowed by things greater and more eternal than the city herself. Armand I will admit was one such thing, but there were other reasons why Paris was now a lacklustre tinsel town to me. The mortal animation seemed fake, as if the whole city were a film set or a gigantic stage. A backdrop, in front of which the affairs of the undead, the immortal, could be set. A fitting venue for a tale and nothing more.
One night I got the call. It wasn't specifically from him this time but I knew he wanted to speak with me. There were no words, just a sense of longing transmitted, the most basic of telepathic skills.
I knew well enough where he would be and raced along the Right Bank of the river to meet him. The huge door he had left slightly ajar and I shuddered as I crossed the threshold into the greatest of all churches. Notre Dame was an ageless place, the venue of many horrors and nightmares for me and I shivered to enter it again.
I found him there, near the main altar, sat staring as if he had never seen this church before. How it reminded me of our first meeting so long ago, when he had seemed so distant and alien to me. The years had taught me we were one and the same.
"Who lit the candles Armand?"
It seemed a fair enough way to start a conversation. My voice echoed down the length of the aisles and all around the archways. I had not yet seen his face.
"Some were already lit, the others my mind ignited before I could will it."
He stood up, walking up to the altar in front of him. A definite stride, he didn't float as he had done years before. Straight up to the altar to look Jesus Christ in the eye. He was a bold one my Armand, I could not imagine him living three hundred years afraid to enter a church.
"Do you ever question Lestat, why I served Satan so long? Don't you ever wonder sometimes why I kept the faith for all that time?"
This topic of conversation worried me though I had to agree with him, this had always puzzled me.
"Of course I wondered Armand, but you are a complex creature mon cher and I do not pretend to understand your reasons for doing things."
He laughed and threw his head back. I could only see the glorious red curls running down his back and I didn't want to stand in front of him. I would be too near the altar; I would be stepping in-between Armand and god. Not a prudent thing to do.
"I never really believed in Satan at all. Did you know that?" he whispered into the air, as if testifying to some holy court. "I did it because I hated god. I had to get revenge some how. He abandoned me Lestat, left me out to the wolves so to speak. Satan was my winning card, and now I hate god more than ever."
He seemed to flash forward and my vision lost all sense of his definite form. He threw the candles and the cross from the altar and I thought he might turn to knock a statue over too but I seemed his destructive force was vented.
He swirled around and fell to his knees in tears. The hysterical sobbing echoed around the knaves and pillars and it was an agony to have to listen to it.
I knelt beside him and tried desperately to comfort him. He sank into my arms and cried against my chest. I had been used to intense meetings with Armand, he always inspired in me high emotion and confusion, but this kind of hysteria was new territory.
I pulled him to his feet, trying to sit him down so at least we could talk. He seemed loathed to part from me and tried to grasp onto my clothing like a small child. I sat down beside him and he all but crawled under my arm to rest his head on my shoulder. Sweet broken child, I wanted to kill that person who had made him so, but I knew it was every person who had ever abandoned him and that included myself.
"I'm sorry Lestat." he managed through the sniffles. He wiped his eyes and nose with his sleeve, an intricately human and childish thing to do. I laughed just a little.
"Why do you always laugh at me? Am I so ridiculous to you?"
"Not at all mon cher, you are delightful."
He looked at me in an incredulous way as if he hadn't been expecting that answer at all.
"What has happened little one?" I could only see his face now in the darkness, the nearest candle was ten feet away and I lit it with my mind, hoping to illuminate not just the building but the situation.
"You mean you couldn't lift it from my thoughts?" he wondered, genuinely puzzled.
"You seem uncommonly strong of late, especially in the mind, and besides your thoughts are chaos."
He made no comment just snuggled against me in agreement. Was this how Lucifer raged after his fall from heaven? And who comforted him in his hour of desperate longing when he realised that god hates us all, not least his angels?
"Tell me what is wrong my sweet one."
"Daniel left." he said bluntly. I despaired that this was the cause of his rage. How was I to comfort him about the loss of a lover of whom I was jealous? Who left mainly because of me?
"He will return Armand, he loves you." I tried to sound convincing but my voice faltered. I wanted to tell him that he didn't need Daniel, that he had me now, but that was misleading and unfair. I didn't really know where I stood with him at all.
"Marius said he was never coming back." Armand sniffled some more and seemed heartbreakingly childlike. I winced at Marius' apparent cruelty.
"Well perhaps Marius isn't as clever as he would like us all the think." I was angry with Marius for that night in the fog when he had so taunted me about Daniel's violent mood.
"He's visited you then? "I asked him abstractly.
"He has hardly let me out of his sight. Why does he treat me so Lestat? I know he always resented Daniel, but now I've driven him away and I can't escape Marius to get him back."
I did feel for his predicament, difficult to say the least, and loathed to give him advice that would send him into the arms of either Daniel or Marius.
"Perhaps you should take a break from both of them." I suggested tentatively.
Warning bells started going off in my ears. What was I doing? He sensed my agitation but said nothing. We sat in silence for a while and he seemed to be musing over something.
"You know that if I go with you Lestat, it could be very difficult to explain to everyone else..."he broke off.
"Well let's go somewhere they can't find us." Why I started this insane conversation I couldn't quite remember but I was readily agreeing to run off with him. Trying to hide from Marius and whoever else wanted to pry into my business. But the words came out truthfully and without hesitation. Perhaps this was what my heart truly wanted. I dreaded to think I was agreeing to it for any other reason.
"But where would we go 'stat?" he questioned, "And what of your other loved ones? Louis, David and Gabrielle?" he said the last name with such venom it reminded me of their first meeting over two hundred years ago. Armand had never had much luck dealing with my fledglings though I never blamed him for the deaths of Claudia or Nicki. I'd been a coward where both of them had been concerned leaving Armand to do my dirty work.
Once Claudia had come to me in a dream, years after her death, talking to me as if nothing untoward had ever happened between us. She chided me for my poor treatment of both Louis and Armand saying that they had tried to give her everything she had asked for, even release, which I was too much of a coward to have ever given her. I wanted to think Claudia was happier now, wherever she was, yet that made me feel all the more guilty for delaying her transition to the other world, trapping her as I had in that infant form.
I had murdered Claudia; Armand had merely set her free.
Louis would not miss me, he hardly noticed me anymore. I heard Claudia's voice in that dream, telling me I had done him and Armand a great injustice. Well Claudia I sighed, if I can't help them both I will at least try to help one.
"You need to leave here Armand." he nodded. He didn't mind one dot being told what to do, it gave him a sense of direction he otherwise lacked, due to being seventeen and traumatised when he was turned.
He laughed softly at this, obviously feeling cheeky enough to read my thoughts.
"I'd put serious money on a wager that said you were my side of twenty before you were turned Lestat." he grinned mischievously, though I could still see the tracks of blood tears that stained his face.
"Nineteen, twenty, it's all the same really." I tried to brush it off but he already knew the truth.
"You were nineteen." he replied, as surly and confidant as I'd ever heard him, "I took it from Gabrielle's mind, though she herself had long forgotten your exact birthday. She couldn't tell you now any better than she could then, but it's all there in her mind."
"Well I suppose I shall never have to call you a teenage dirt bag again. But I was still have two years on you."
"Ha! So you admit it. Lestat you really are too gullible. Gabrielle's mind, why would I ever want to go there? And by the way I have two hundred years on you, so don't even start that debate."
I should have been angry that he had cheated such information out of me but part of me liked that Armand knew little things about me that no one else did. It gave us a sense of intimacy. I messed up his hair just to annoy him and for a second I thought he was going to hit me so incredulous was his face, but the emotion soon melted into giggles. He nuzzled further into my shoulder.
"Nineteen." he taunted me.
"Leave it out Armand." I said lazily, thinking of where we could possibly go to escape the past. When you've had as much past as Armand and me it's not an easy task.
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