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Armand couldn’t remember what his mortal eyes looked like.
At least, not exactly. Of course there were Marius’ surviving paintings of him as a young mortal, but Armand always thought his master tended to embellish even the smallest details to enhance the subject of his art.
Not that Armand wasn’t beautiful as a human boy, oh no, he had been reminded of that enough by Marius and others enough to know for certain. But still. Even natural beauty had its imperfections and if there was one thing Marius sought in his artwork, it was perfection.
So no, Armand did not believe his mortal eyes were quite the same mesmerizing dark pools as the portraits depicted. Most likely there wasn’t the same haunting shimmer Marius liked to add to their brown depths. His eyes had been brown, as many humans were, and not much more special. But whether they were brown like the trees in Venice, or brown like the decadent chocolates the boys indulged in during lazy summer days, or brown like the drying blood after a less than clean kill, Armand could not remember. Nor did he particularly care.
Armand had admittedly not thought much about his preternatural eyes either. Not since he was turned at least. He remembered feeling some kind of shock when he glimpsed his mirrored reflection for the first time; but that feeling, like most other things during that period of his life, faded over time.
His eyes were unnerving to others though, this much he understood. To humans, obviously; but unusual even by vampiric standards. His master’s eyes he remembered as an inviting, intelligent grey. Lestat’s an alluring shade of blues and violets. Even Louis’ eyes, which also changed from a human brown upon his transformation, nonetheless were gifted a brilliant emerald green.
And Santino’s eyes he tried not to remember.
Sometimes he wondered Marius’ thoughts on his fledgling’s transformed eyes, but if his master had any particular opinion, like many things, he refused to share it.
On his kinder days, Armand would describe the color as amber, but the truth was his eyes were of a bright orange color, unsettling for its alarming intensity. Made all the more off-putting by his unblinking stare, as dear Louis would so politely use the mind gift to remind him in public spaces. But playing human was always more Louis’s game than Armand’s.
The advent of color contacts certainly made things easier. Not that Armand was ever particularly bothered by any potential prey’s uneasiness, but it certainly made interacting in human spaces less conspicuous overall. Louis gifted him his first pair: a luscious brown color Armand wasn’t sure if he’d told Louis of before or just an educated guess from his skin tone.
Admittedly wearing contacts was not the most comfortable: he was constantly aware of the feeling of them in his eyes, and the Blood corroded relatively fast so he was constantly going through pairs. But Armand was fascinated by the technology. And if it kept him from receiving even more unwanted advances than usual in a night, or any more probing questions about his unusual eye color, then it was worth it.
He was wearing contacts the night he and Louis met Daniel Molloy.
Armand could feel Daniel’s attraction to him when they first locked eyes in Polynesian Mary’s. It was no secret that Armand was a beautiful man, and Daniel fell for him as quickly as any mortal.
Desire. The first emotion people felt upon glimpsing this Botticelli angel. The fear would soon follow. And Armand knew once Louis decided to bring the young, brash reporter back to their motel room, it would only be a matter of time.
But then. After.
After Louis’ attack and Armand’s decision to save the intriguing human, after Armand and Louis chose to separate for a time, after some weeks later Daniel thought to try his luck investigating a seemingly abandoned Rue Royale apartment.
It would not be until in a dingy basement in a rundown apartment in New Orleans Armand could never quite justify continuing to pay rent for, that the vampire and this mortal would meet eyes again. Armand was not wearing the contacts.
He knew even in the darkness and the shadow his eyes blazed a preternatural glow. For all that Louis tried so valiantly to cling to his humanity in telling Daniel his story, under Armand’s gaze there was no denying the monstrosity of their nature.
And Armand felt it: Daniel’s fear. Fear for his circumstances being locked in a basement and starved for three days, and the dreadful fear of his unknown fate. But not a true fear of Armand himself. Desire still, yes. A desire for this creature. A desire to understand.
And Armand was…curious.
So he let the boy live. And he let him run.
In their decade together, Armand seldom wore the contacts around Daniel when they were alone. On the nights they went out, which were admittedly most nights in their courtship, Armand would once again don the false lenses so as to more easily blend into the human crowds. Daniel never had much to say, or think, about it. Sometimes he would ask Armand how the contacts felt, if he could feel them, and Armand would answer clinically. If Armand listened to Daniel’s thoughts if he could glean any further opinion, his boy’s mind was surprisingly quiet. His boy was never quiet.
Sometimes, in his lowest moments, especially in the immediate years following Daniel’s leave, Armand wondered just what exactly his lover thought about his vampiric eyes. Perhaps, like with his master, it was kinder if Armand never knew.
By the time Daniel published his memoir, Armand and Louis were back together. They agreed to it after their many years separated and, although he never asked, Armand suspected Louis in part reached out following Daniel’s absence so as they could both be a little less alone. Louis, as it would turn out, had followed the journalist’s career nearly as close as Armand had. They preordered the memoir of course, and when it arrived, Armand graciously asked if Louis wanted to read it first.
If it was ever brought up, Armand would just say he never got around to reading it. What he needed to know about Daniel’s life and happiness (or unhappiness), he glimpsed from Louis’ thoughts or the sporadic article postings he could actually bring himself to read through. If Louis found this at all strange, well, he had the decency to keep his thoughts quiet too.
It wasn’t because the older vampire didn’t care. If anything, that was always his problem: Armand loved too much. And in truth, he couldn’t bear to read his boy’s pretty lies about a whirlwind decade-long romance and subsequent divorce with a woman named Alice.
******
Armand didn’t think anything of it at first when Louis suggested the dinner menu. Just another way to rile their boy up after so many years. And of course Louis was right; seeing Daniel’s reaction to the seemingly unending lavish courses was fun. But then came dessert.
It was true what Louis told Daniel, that every week he tried to partake in one human dish, despite Armand’s misgivings. However there was usually so little thought or fanfare put into Louis’ chosen penance meal each week that Armand had all but forgotten to consider it when Louis began to eat the sweet alongside Daniel.
Armand, or Rashid, had been excused by this point, but as usual he never strayed too far, always close at hand should either the vampire or the humble servant be required, always the attentive listener.
It could almost be like one of the plots from a comedy play, he would think later — having your current lover and ex lover converse in a room.
Then Armand realized they were talking about him. Alice.
Perhaps it would have been kinder to erase himself entirely from Daniel’s mind, but Armand was never known for his kindness, least of all to himself.
“This is the dessert I had after I proposed to my first wife….”
Damned Louis.
But they were never married. And of course Daniel never would have proposed. But they did go to a cafe on the Rue Servandoni their first night after arriving in Paris. It was the first city they visited together after Daniel finally quit running. After Pompeii and its Villa of Mysteries, when Daniel asked where Armand wanted to go and something possessed him to answer Paris.
After, in their hotel room, Armand could almost still recall the dessert’s sweet taste on Daniel’s mouth…
But Daniel is not finishing ruminating on Alice. Armand catches the next end of the sentence:
“...Like a mutt.”
Well. Not the harshest name he’s ever been called. But Armand is confused.
Daniel is remembering something, or at least something his mind believes to be real. But Armand never implanted the false detail of Alice’s eyebrows being mismatched: Daniel’s mind must have created that all its own. Twisting Armand and his vampiric eyes into something more palatable to the human image. A subconscious need to fill the spaces in memory.
“She always dyed it back to brown. I liked it when she left it alone.”
Oh.