John has to admit, he probably deserves this reaction. Nobody likes to be treated like a kid; five hundred years is pretty respectable compared to anyone else. So he lets Armand do whatever he needs to do to feel assured.

"I'm a human. The question you're looking for is more like the shaky little how long have you been seventeen, right? I'm ten thousand and forty-two. The precision is important. There was a day and a year you were born into the world, just like every other kid in that big house."

Says the man who has forgotten his birthday. He's lecturing because it makes him feel good to pretend he knows what he's fucking doing, to be casual and patronising about the horror of simply living too, too long. His blood beats steady under Armand's fingers, an ancient vintage.