Chapter Text
In the bedroom, he flicks on the lamp that sits atop the dresser, illuminating the room with its soft golden light. Just behind him, he feels Louis pause and look around, his curiosity about Daniel's intimate space clearly enough to halt his apparent desire for whatever it is they're about to do.
Like the living room, this space too is filled with its fair share of shelves, carrying books and old keepsakes. On the far side of the bedroom, opposite the dresser, sits the coffin Louis had delivered for him two weeks ago—a handsome thing made of lacquered black wood and inlaid with mother of pearl accents, the inside lined in sumptuous, midnight blue velvet. Once again, rich people.
The window in the bedroom is large too, like the others throughout the apartment, but this one is outfitted with a protective glass tint—which Daniel had installed after two days of sleeping in the coffin and deciding it wasn't actually all it was cracked up to be.
Behind him, a soft, amused breath. "You get used to it, after a time,” Louis says, picking up the thought. “I slept in one while I was in New Orleans—realized I'd missed it.”
“Doesn’t give you a lot of elbow room,” Daniel says dubiously. Louis rolls his eyes.
“You say that,” Louis says, stepping back into Daniel’s space, moving in close. “And yet if I recall correctly, you wanted to fuck in one, once upon a time.” And of course, Louis just had to bring that up, didn’t he?
“Well, I never actually said I wanted to fuck in the coffin,” Daniel corrects, quickly scanning through his memories of that night to make sure that’s actually true. “I just asked if that was what you were into.”
“Because you wanted to,” Louis says knowingly, putting his arms around Daniel’s neck.
“I was gauging my options—” Daniel starts, not even sure why he’s arguing. Apparently Louis isn't either, because he just rolls his eyes again and kisses him. Daniel shuts up and lets him.
Kissing Louis hasn’t got any less fucking fantastic in the last ten minutes since their last one; he chases Louis’ mouth, hands settling around his tiny fucking waist and dragging him closer. It’s insane to think that his mouth and his body could feel even better than they look, than they’ve always looked to Daniel, and yet here they are.
They stumble back as they kiss, Daniel leading with absolutely no direction in mind until Louis’ back hits the wall by the door. Louis just huffs out a breath against his lips, mouth curving up against his, before he kisses him again. He seems to like putting his fingers in Daniel’s hair—tugging on the white-gray curls in a way that makes Daniel’s whole body light up. He presses himself all up along Daniel’s front, bites at Daniel’s lip, tugging it harshly between his teeth, and Daniel can feel that he’s getting a little hard now too, which maybe shouldn't be surprising, but is, a little. Hot too. All of this is: his grip in Daniel's hair, and his slim hips under Daniel's weathered hands, and the hardening line of his dick pressing against Daniel through his jeans.
At the same time though, it's also making him increasingly aware of just how much fucking younger Louis' body looks and feels compared to his, even if it isn't. Yeesh.
“You know,” Daniel says, breaking the kiss, catching his breath. “Regardless of whether or not it was in the coffin—we could have done this shit when I was still in my 20s, Louis.”
Louis gives a considering hum at that; his fingers card gently through Daniel’s hair, the gesture strangely soft now, intimate.
“I’m not complaining about doing it now,” he says.
Which is—huh.
Daniel thinks back to Louis at the door and in his living room, his seeming satisfaction that Daniel’s appearance hadn’t changed much after being turned. Proof of a life lived and all that. Maybe wrinkles and gray hair are actually a turn on for vampires. Who would have thought.
They kiss again, and Daniel lets his hand wander to the back of Louis’ neck, stroking the line of soft, coily hair at his nape, wondering, in spite of himself, how it might have felt between his fingers that night when they first met.
Louis may be perfectly happy with the fact that they didn't sleep together back then. But the thing is, Daniel’s been sitting on the memory of that night for years now—thumbing over and over at the faded image of a too beautiful man with a low voice and green eyes, same way he used to thumb at the scar on his neck that he could never figure out how to explain without feeling and sounding like a crazy person. Even once the image finally crystallized—after getting the tapes, after seeing Louis again—he still…well obviously he still thought about it.
He's thinking about it again right now—Louis, the handsome stranger, standing in front of the window in that little apartment on Divisadero Street. Daniel remembers watching him from his seat at the table, the coke working its way into his bloodstream and making him feel light, light, light—a feather on the wind, a wisp of smoke through a keyhole. Intangible, except for the weight of desire pooling in his blood right alongside the drugs, the longer he stared at Louis. The slender line of his back and the dip of his waist keeping Daniel aware of his fingers and making them itch; his easy swagger and his low voice keeping Daniel aware of his mouth and making it water.
“I uh–” Daniel interrupts now, the kiss breaking with a soft, slick sound. “You know, I really wanted to suck your dick that night.”
Louis lets out a soft, genuine laugh, his eyes crinkling a little at the corners—that smile that Daniel likes just a little too much.
“I know you did, Danny,” he says, sounding way more fond about the idea of sucking dick than anyone really should. Daniel can tell that they're both thinking about it now though, as they look at each other, about the two of them back in that apartment. The laminate floors and the buzz of the tape recorder, and the yellow street lights muted through the papered-over window. The memory spools out between both of their minds, playing like a movie made just for the two of them.
The shared memory lingers on Daniel, young and jittery, head full of dark curls. Getting to his feet and stripping eagerly out of his shirt, wanting so badly to get on his knees, and—
And then it isn’t a memory anymore, because now Daniel’s thinking about what would have happened if Louis had let him do it. He projects the image into both of their minds: Daniel on his knees, his hands shaking from the coke rather than from the nerves, the way they sometimes did with other men back then, as he unbuckles Louis’ belt.
In the present, Louis is watching him with that curious look again.
“Do you want to now?” he asks.
And that's—
Daniel recognizes those words, the same thing Louis said to him weeks ago in Dubai, when he’d first found out that they hadn’t actually hooked up that night after all. He knows immediately that the word choice isn’t an accident.
Daniel stares at him. “You were fucking with me then,” he says slowly. Louis shrugs against the wall, an elegant lift of his right shoulder.
“Was I?”
They look at each other. It’s one thing for Louis to say that he likes the look of Daniel now, that he wants him now, older, but his body flush with new immortal strength. It’s another for him to claim that he could have wanted Daniel then, during the interview, weak as he was with mortality and illness.
Do you want to now? he’d said, weeks ago at the dining room table, laughter in his voice, and Daniel hadn’t even bothered to respond then, it was so unfathomable. Still is.
He brushes the thought aside and retreats back to the easier fantasy instead; the better fantasy, the one that’s been nipping at his heels in one way or another for the last 49 years. Filtered yellow light. The cocaine lighting up his bloodstream.
Daniel gets on his knees. The movement is steadier now than it would have been even back then.
Louis’ eyes follow him down, watching him as he kneels in the dimly lit bedroom. Daniel slowly realizes that he likes this position—Louis looking down on him, Daniel having to gaze up. It feels right.
Listen as though I’m the voice of god, or an angel talking to you.
Louis’ head tilts, as he gives Daniel that curious, considering look again. And then he says, with a hint of that old 70s slickness in his voice, "So that’s what you want, boy?"
Daniel immediately gets so hard he feels a little lightheaded. Louis laughs at him.
“Okay. Fuck off,” Daniel says, but inside, he feels lit up, blood running hot at the idea of being Louis’ boy again. God. What the fuck.
He distracts himself by tugging open Louis’ pants, pushing the hem of his shirt out of the way, easing down the front of his underwear. And then he's staring at Louis’ flushed, hard dick and his pretty hip bones and the tops of his pretty thighs. God.
He’s immediately drawn in, pressing his mouth to the smooth skin at the curve of his hip, mouthing along to the trail of hair under his navel. It feels impossible, that he gets to do this, to put his mouth to Louis’ skin like this, his lips on these hidden places. He wants to put his mouth all over Louis’ body–spread his thighs wide and bury his face between them; push off his shirt and suck at his nipples.
“Take your shirt off,” Louis says then, like they’re both thinking along similar lines, and Daniel glances up to see that Louis' looking down at him with gratifyingly dark eyes. Daniel obeys him, flinging off his shirt without letting himself think too hard about it. And then he takes Louis in his mouth.
It feels good, doing this to Louis, for Louis. Daniel hasn't sucked a guy off since he was in his late 30s, sometime after his first marriage crumbled and uncomfortably close to when the second one began, but it isn’t that hard, figuring out how to do it again. He focuses on the weight of Louis pressing his mouth open; the fingers in his hair and the sound of Louis’ breathing, picking up speed, picking up weight, until it turns into a soft hiss of pleasure.
The taste of him, just lukewarm skin at first, and then, gradually, what should be the bitter taste of precome, except it's tinged with a soft hint of the sweet taste of—
Daniel sucks a little harder on him, the sound of it wet with the way spit is suddenly pooling in his mouth. It had freaked him out a little, the first time he’d jerked off after being turned and the mess on his stomach had an unmistakable tinge of red to it. He’s not freaked out right now though. He’s really, really not.
God, maybe it really is a good thing he didn't get the chance to do this when he was human. The 20-year-old version of himself probably would have gotten a little too into it, but then said something incredibly fucking stupid about it the second he pulled off. Meanwhile, human him in Dubai, would have immediately started thinking about fucked up medical conditions, if they’d somehow managed to do this then. Since Louis claims he would have been open to it. Supposedly.
You really don’t believe me, do you? Daniel hears in his mind, the familiar feeling of Louis’ telepathic voice slipping into his thoughts. Daniel flicks his eyes up; Louis’ watching him, still breathing hard, but his gaze is sharper now, less hazy. Daniel narrows his eyes.
Get out of my head, he projects back, without taking his mouth off him.
The hand that isn’t in Daniel’s hair reaches up to touch his face, thumb brushing over the creases at the corner of his eye. Why do you think I’m lying to you, Daniel?
Daniel wants to be annoyed, but the caress of Louis’ voice in his mind while his cock is in his mouth is unfortunately making his own dick kick in his jeans. He really wants to touch himself. Old guy with a tremor doesn’t exactly scream affair material, he thinks back distractedly.
Louis’ lips twitch up a little at the corners. His fingers tighten in Daniel’s hair. I think you would have been sweet, he projects, and then tugs a little harder. Daniel takes the hint and pulls off; Louis bends down and kisses him, tongue in his mouth, tasting himself there, which is. Hot. Daniel’s kind of panting as he kisses back.
“I could have come to your bedroom one night,” Louis says out loud, against his mouth, and oh okay, they’re still talking about it.
“Uh huh,” Daniel says, but Louis continues.
“I could have let myself in. Climbed into your bed. I could have done it just like this.” And in a blink, they’ve moved across the room, Daniel suddenly laid out flat on his own bed, Louis sliding on top of him. Daniel swallows. Louis using his vampire speed somehow hasn’t gotten any less scary hot despite the fact that Daniel can technically do it now too.
Louis leans down and kisses him again, wet and open-mouthed, and Daniel may be an idiot, but he’s not enough of an idiot to argue when Louis’ kissing him. He pulls Louis closer instead, pushing his fingers up the back of his polo shirt to feel skin, groaning when Louis rubs their bodies together again. His pants are still pushed down and out of the way, his cock pressing against Daniel’s bare abdomen, wet with precome and Daniel’s spit. Jesus.
“Would you have liked that, Daniel?” Louis asks, tone conversational, like he's asking him about the weather, or if he'd like for Rashid to make him another martini. He pushes a hand down between them, rubs the heel of it along the trapped line of Daniel’s dick through his jeans. “If I had done it like this?”
“Shit,” Daniel breathes out loud. He’s touching him through a layer of denim and underwear—it has no right to feel as good as it does.
“Maybe I should have,” Louis continues, thumbing lightly at his zipper now. “What did you call our interview again, Daniel? A do-over? You thought we'd done it, the first time. So perhaps it would have been fitting, for our second meeting, if we did.”
“That's one way to correct the record,” Daniel manages through his dry mouth, and he feels Louis’ smile against the corner of his lips. He slides his hands further up the back of Louis’ shirt, and Louis obligingly lifts his arms, lets him tug it off altogether. And—god. Daniel doesn’t know what he actually expected him to look like under there, but he’s somehow even more perfect than whatever he was imagining—soft skin and tight brown nipples, and a smattering of tight curly hair across his chest.
His hands almost shake when he touches him, like a phantom tremor, like they really are doing this in that guest room in Dubai. Louis, sneaking around to see him, like some knowing seductress, cheating on her husband. Temptation incarnate—a perfect being fallen from grace who 100% would have gotten Daniel killed. “Your boyfriend probably would have tried to murder me again if you did,” he says.
“I wouldn’t have told him, if you didn’t,” Louis replies innocently, and Christ—there’s probably no way Armand wouldn’t have found out if they'd fucked around in Dubai, but it doesn’t make the thought of doing it behind his back any less hot. Take that, fucker.
They kiss again, heat and impatience growing between them; Daniel reaches for Louis’ half pulled down trousers at the same time that Louis goes for his fly again. It’s only by the power of vampiric grace that they don’t get tangled up in each other as they maneuver out of pants and underwear until finally, they’re both naked. Louis slides back on top of him and they press against each other fully bare for the first time, cocks sliding together, slick and leaking.
“If we had done this in Dubai,” Daniel says roughly, picking up the thread of the conversation again. “I’m pretty sure that version of me wouldn't have known what to do with you.”
It’s still kind of true now, if he’s being honest.
“Yeah?” Louis says, a soft lilting thing. “I think he would have figured something out.” It’s just a little bit mocking, and unfortunately that just turns Daniel on even more. Louis looks down at him with a little smile like he knows. Of course he knows.
He kisses Daniel one more time, deep and lingering before pulling back and leaning over to get at the bedside table drawer. “Got anything in here we can use?”
“Uh…” Daniel has, admittedly, been jerking off pretty regularly since the night after his first kill, when his renewed libido first caught him off guard, but it’s mostly been in the shower. He has not taken the initiative to bother buying lube. “Maybe?”
Louis rummages around in the drawer for a minute before emerging with a small tub of petroleum jelly. “Old school,” he comments. Daniel rolls his eyes.
“It’s for my hands,” he says. “They get dry in the winter.”
“Unfortunate,” Louis says, in mock sympathy. But he takes one of Daniel’s hands between his own and massages his palm with his thumbs. Traces his lifeline once, before letting him go.
Louis fingers himself open, still mostly seated across Daniel’s thighs, a hand curled low between his legs. Daniel watches, feeling like he can't get enough air into his lungs, which he knows doesn't make any sense. He can’t really see what Louis’ fingers are doing with the way he's leaning over him, but he can see his face and that’s gorgeous enough on its own. Daniel reaches down to touch his wrist, feels the motion of it, and that’s good too.
And then Louis is wrapping his fingers around Daniel, slicking the vaseline over his cock as he positions himself over him. Sinks down on him. Slow. God.
He starts moving once Daniel’s fully inside, a first, tentative rock that makes his mouth drop open and Daniel's do the same, half from the tight heat of him encasing his dick, half just from looking at him, fucking fuck. They’ve barely even started and Daniel already kind of feels like he’s dying, heat tightening in his groin like a fist. Louis does it again, hands splayed over Daniel’s shoulders, hips rocking, a small gasp escaping his lips before they curl into a soft grin.
"You feel good, Daniel."
"You sound surprised," Daniel grits out, as his hands settle along the curve of Louis’ hips. His skin is so soft, his waist is so fucking narrow. Louis bites his lip over his smile and then leans down and kisses Daniel again, dropping his hips harder on him, working up a rhythm. The kiss breaks and Louis tosses his head back, hips rolling hard, lifting up on his cock before sliding down again. It forces a soft, barely there noise out of him, everytime he seats himself fully, and god, it’s making Daniel crazy—the way he sounds, the way he feels.
Daniel’s hands move over him of their own accord, palming over the perfect, slender line of his back just to feel him. They slide back down to his hips, the curve of his ass, his tight, flexing thighs. Daniel can't help gripping him there, feeling the muscle working under his hands. God it feels good. He uses his grip to pull him a little tighter against his body, moving him, rocking him forward. Louis’ breathing picks up a bit at that, hips dropping harder, like he likes it—like he likes Daniel pulling at him, handling him.
And that’s—god. Daniel can do that now, can’t he? Handle him. As much as he still feels like a helpless mortal under Louis, he isn't. Not anymore.
And if Louis likes—well, barring whatever he and Armand had going on—if Louis likes that, then Daniel can—he could—
Daniel flips Louis over, fast, a burst of vampire speed behind the movement. Louis lets out a surprised laugh as his back hits the bedsheets, but his expression looks pleased, intrigued.
“Oh, okay, Danny,” he says, looking up at him with bright eyes, tone playful, but Daniel feels like a man on a mission now; he pushes Louis’ legs apart and presses back inside of him, stares, transfixed, at the way the dark flush of Louis’ hole opens for him, takes him back in. Glances up and finds himself even more transfixed by the expression on Louis’ face, by the way his lips part just a little bit more at every inch that spreads him open, the tips of his fangs showing. He likes to feel it, Daniel realizes, a slow, unspooling flush of arousal at the thought. So Daniel makes sure he does, pushes slowly into the hilt and then grinds it in deeper.
Louis moans, a thick, low sound, the first full-throated noise he’s made tonight. It makes Daniel feel like he's on fire; he’s heard Louis’ voice shape around so many different sounds—long vowels, and clipped words, and sharp consonants. But he thinks this might be the best one yet. He drags his hips back and thrusts into him again, gratified when it pushes another one out of him.
“Okay, Daniel,” Louis says again, but it’s low and intimate now, breathless. His pupils are round and dark as he looks at him; his thighs part wider.
“Yeah?” Daniel responds, inanely, his focus fully taken up by looking at him, by feeling him; Louis, Louis, Louis.
“Yeah.”
Something in the air around them shifts; Daniel rocks into him, drives himself over and over into the tight slick heat of Louis’ body and it isn’t about San Francisco anymore, the 20-year-old version of himself that never got over that strange, impossible guy he met at a bar one night, who altered the course of his life in ways he couldn’t even remember; it isn’t even about Dubai, not really, a sick Daniel and a brittle Louis, looking for connection, or absolution, or both.
It’s just them, now, two vampires in this bedroom in New York, beyond the tapes and the recordings, and their voices in each other's heads; just the two of them–both of their lives so recently changed, a little unsure about where the fuck they're even going, but on the threshold of something, something—
Daniel fucks into him rough, hard, and Louis grabs at his shoulders and moans. Laughs. Snarls. Daniel snarls back, this ridiculous noise pulled out of him like an instinct, and then they're kissing again, sloppy and too eager, hips rolling together, tight slick heat around Daniel’s cock and Louis' nimble, beautiful, sweat-slicked body underneath him. His thighs bracketing Daniel in and his head thrown back against the sheets and the uh, uh, that slips out of his mouth so fucking hot that Daniel thinks he might go insane. It's so good, too good, the kind of good that could make a man do crazy things to have it, to keep it.
Daniel’s eyes stray, inevitably, to the bared curve of Louis’ throat, gorgeous and tempting, his lips drawn to it like Louis’ a fucking siren on the rocks. He feels that ache in his fangs again—he wants to taste Louis for real, not just that little hint he’d gotten earlier when he was on his knees. He wants to know what Louis feels like spurting hot and wet all over his tongue.
“Find out,” Louis breathes, tipping his head back further, picking up the thought. Daniel groans, opening his mouth wider over Louis’ neck. He wants to taste him, but even more than that—he wants to give Louis every single thing he asks for.
God, or an angel.
He bites down, fangs slipping in deep, moaning low as the blood rushes into his waiting mouth. There’s something appealingly sharp about the way Louis tastes, sweet and bitter, like coffee with cream. Daniel drinks like a man dying of thirst, working his mouth against Louis’ throat, licking at the stray lines that inevitably trail past his lips. It rushes through his body like electricity.
The feeding seems to do something for Louis too, gasping underneath him, body going even tighter around him. He fumbles for Daniel's wrist and brings it to his own mouth and Daniel thinks yeah, please, yeah as loudly as he can, and then Louis is snarling again and sinking his fangs into him, the sharp pain of Daniel’s wrist being torn open almost immediately replaced by a sweet, syrupy slow trickle of pleasure, both of them drinking from each other at the same time now, a heady exchange—blood for blood, a circuit connecting.
Daniel thinks, deliriously, about having enough of Louis' blood inside of him to turn him into Louis’ fledgling. Or enough of his own blood inside of Louis to turn Louis into—
Daniel comes, hot and sudden and almost blindingly intense, pressing himself deep inside of Louis, deep in a way that almost feels impolite, except he knows Louis likes it now, and anyway, Louis' still got his teeth buried even deeper inside Daniel’s wrist, drinking his blood, that soft sucking sound he remembers from Dubai. His thighs are still wrapped tight around Daniel’s body, keeping him inside, the tip of his dick rubbing up against the softness of Daniel's stomach and leaving a wet trail on his skin.
He's barely come down, panting against Louis’ neck, when he feels him wrench his teeth out of his wrist and bring that same hand down between their bodies; Daniel takes the hint, wrapping his fingers around Louis’ dripping length, tugging at him as he licks the leftover blood from his neck.
It only takes a few pulls for Louis to follow him over the edge, his breath hitching, spilling wet over Daniel’s fingers, whole body locking up tight where Daniel’s still inside him. It should feel like too much, too sensitive so soon after coming, but instead, it mostly just feels good still, has Daniel's own hips stuttering forward again, chasing the hot, spasming clench of his body. Louis makes a low sound and rolls his hips up into it, clutching at Daniel like it’s still good for him too. Like they could just keep going, like they don’t even have to stop.
Christ. This vampire libido shit really is serious.
They manage to separate eventually, Daniel easing carefully out of the addictive pull of Louis’ body and rolling onto his back, catching his breath.
“Well, fuck,” he says out loud. He can feel the blood drying over his face from where he bit Louis, the soft itch of the equally bloodied skin of his wrist slowly knitting itself back together. The sheets are a mess.
Next to him, Louis lets out a gratifyingly breathless laugh, blood streaked across his own face, and neck, and chest, and no less beautiful for it.
“Yeah,” he says, in a tone that should be flippant, knowing, been-there-done-that, but it misses the mark—too hoarse, too soft. Like maybe he’s a little bit surprised by how good it was too.
Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it isn’t.
A brief, still moment passes between them and then Louis moves; he rolls onto his side and inches closer to Daniel, lays his head on his shoulder, blood and all. Daniel feels his dead heart kick a little in his chest.
Slowly, he puts an arm around Louis and when he doesn't protest, Daniel leans down and presses a quick, impulsive kiss to his temple. Thinks, suddenly, about kissing Alice the same way, late at night and early in the morning, way, way back, when they were young and he loved her.
Daniel clears his throat.
“So,” he says, at length. “You really planning on heading back to Dubai after this? I mean, if you’re looking for a place stateside, you can crash here for a while until you find one.” Louis lets out a soft huff against his shoulder.
“It’s where I live, Daniel,” he says simply.
“Yeah, I know. But the penthouse is so…” The word cold is what comes to mind, as he thinks about the concrete walls, and the long echoing hallways of the apartment. Louis had likened the space to a coffin once, in the way it kept him safe from the sun; Daniel thinks it’s more like a mausoleum, the vampire entombed within.
Louis hums like an acknowledgement. “I know,” he says softly. “Place could use some color.”
“Will you at least stick around for a little while?”
Louis’ quiet for a moment; his fingers stroke over Daniel’s lightly furred chest, graying hair that’ll never get any grayer than it is right now.
“For a little while,” Louis says, at last.
***