#and how marius still made him work and toil and struggle to claw his way across the room to get the healing blood...

[andessence]

Feeling the twitch of Daniel's mind toward putting him back on his unstable feet, Armand's hands scrabble to lock one over the other around Daniel's neck, balling again in his shirt. No, no, no, he'll fall, he'll look foolish reduced to swaying and tumbling, imploring Daniel to help him back up... But his flicker of dread is snuffed out near instantly. Daniel holds him close, bears his weight, protects him.

In days to come Armand will recall this — his fear, his weakness, how Daniel held him tight and did not ask him to struggle through on his own two feet. He might be clear-headed enough then to put his finger on just what about it makes his throat tight, and what the feeling of fever reminds him of. For now he can only radiate his miserable, anxious need into Daniel alongside the unnatural heat of his flesh.

It takes longer than it should for the murky, thick answer to come. 'Don't want to' — the senseless complaint of a child refusing bitter medicine. 'Don't want to...' And then reasons spring up to bolster the unreasoning denial. 'Leave blood all over the sidewalk? Indiscreet. Not here. I will endure it. Home.'

oh! armand is incapacitated by the vampiric equivalent of drinking himself sick. enfeebled. temporary. even foggy-headed himself, the pieces of armand’s fragmented and harried messages click together easily. daniel would feel far more equipped to help with such a familiar problem if there weren’t a corpse waiting to be discovered.

he supposes his surprise is unjustified— he already knows poisoned blood or even his own can be adjusted in flavor by what he eats. still,his lover has never seemed smaller to him, unhappy and snatching up fistfuls of daniel’s clothes as if he cannot be close enough to feel comforted. daniel instinctively anchors him more securely against him, armand wreathed in a sick but radiating sort of heat. it occurs to him he is uncertain if he is even holding him correctly. they need to get home as fast as possible for a handful of reasons, but putting him down feels unjustifiably urgent.

“ can you throw up? I mean— does that happen? you’ll feel better if you get it out! ”