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Armand has been… restless, since the interviews started.
Louis figures it’s an Armand thing. Armand has lots of things. There’s his maker thing, his Lestat thing, his definitely-not-a-former-cult-leader thing. He wouldn’t be surprised if Armand also had a sharing-Louis-with-a-cocksure-reporter thing. But, if Louis has learned anything after seventy years, it’s that prying doesn’t do shit with Armand except slam up all his practiced defenses and turn his eyes into blank, catlike coins. Eventually, Armand will come to him, and they’ll fuck about it, and Louis will read in between the lines and work out how to soothe this tempestuous, avoidant, obsessive thing he’s chosen to love.
It doesn’t take long. Daniel’s sharper than he used to be: still able to get under Louis’ skin just as much as he did during their session in the 70s, but years of experience have honed that clublike flailing to a pinpoint precision that sets Armand on edge. And Daniel, the clever boy, has definitely noticed. His eyes track Armand-as-Rashid with a whiplash combination of lust and suspicion, and the tension between the two thickens almost hourly. When Louis feeds on Armand during one of their sessions, Armand preens under it, so obviously gloating that Louis has to cup the side of his face, thumb at his cheek as a warning before he blows his own cover. Tone it down.
Not two hours later, Armand taps on their bedroom door. Still in full Rashid garb, he presses his gloved hands together, and asks if there’s anything else he can do to aid Mr. du Lac’s comfort? And Louis spreads his legs and Armand’s shoulders visibly relax as he sinks down between them.
Louis has Armand on his back and is fucking into him lazily. Armand’s eyes are closed, his lips parted, and his hips keep grinding up in a way Louis would bet money Armand’s not doing consciously.
It’s stunning. Armand doesn’t really act during sex anymore, not the way he did early on– hell, the way he did until the early seventies or so, when it seemed like some switch flipped and he started letting Louis actually get him off properly– but he does like to, well, curate himself. Louis can’t always shake the feeling that Armand’s every moan, every plea, every movement is calibrated. Usually Louis has to pull out the big guns to get him this disinhibited during sex, and as gorgeous as it is, it’s almost weird to see Armand so fully absorbed in it. He’s not even tilting his head to show the curve of his neck to advantage, and his sighs are barely voiced, clearly genuine. Louis’ never gotten him to this quiet place so easily before.
“So good to me, Rashid,” he murmurs, “giving me exactly what I want, taking such good care of me,” and he slips into Armand’s thoughts to get a hint of what prompted this, of what he can do to get Armand here next time—
Only to be repelled so strongly that his vision spots out, his brain ringing like a gong.
When he comes to he’s hunched over Armand, panting, and Armand’s eyes are open and fuzzed over.
“You stopped,” he says, petulant, and nudges at Louis’ back with his ankle. When Louis doesn’t move, the haze Armand’s in seems to lift slightly, and his brow creases.
“Yeah,” Louis says, “yeah, sorry, I… I did.” He starts moving again, trying to pick up the same rhythm. “Got in my head for a minute, honey, you know me.”
Louis knows he’s a terrible actor, has never had a fraction of what Claudia or even Lestat had. All of Armand’s ease has drained away, and even though he is clearly very carefully pretending this is all very normal, Louis can feel Armand scrabbling around in his head, trying to pinpoint what went wrong.
Louis brushes his lips against Armand’s throat, licks over the carotid artery, tries to project thoughts of love and lust and possession. Rashid, he thinks, like it’s a lifeline. Arun.
Armand ever so slightly relaxes back into the mattress and in that moment, his shields reveal the tiniest gap, the smallest pinprick that Louis can just dart in and–
–Curly gray hair, flashes of someone pushing up his glasses, slamming down his coffee cup. Refill. Louis feels Armand thrill with it, indignant and turned on–
–Daniel, because it’s obviously Daniel, in his 20s, on his knees with big, wet, pleading eyes and a red-stained cloth in his mouth–
–Daniel, 70 again, with Armand in his lap while he bangs away at his keyboard. Armand is wanton, wanting, and when he grinds on Daniel’s cock Daniel huffs in annoyance and stills Armand’s hips with one hand–
–Armand getting fucked by younger Daniel, head tilted back in honest bliss–the same Daniel tucked into Armand’s side, tracing a fang with fascination, jerking back when Armand playfully nips at his finger before dissolving into laughter and offering his wrist–Daniel with his hands tied, stills of him flashing from challenging to squirming to begging, tugging fruitlessly at the headboard–Armand, older Daniel groans, all hard New York as, as Armand takes him into his mouth, fuck, Armand–C’mon, just let me, young Daniel says, eyes bright and confident, it’s really weird when you don’t, and he reaches for Armand’s cock–Bite marks littering older Daniel’s neck, throat, Armand’s tongue lapping at where some of them still bleed sluggishly–Young Daniel calling him hot, sexy as fuck, fucking terrifying– but I’m into it, man, don’t get me wrong–Daniel in the present day regarding him with a raised eyebrow: Strip. Some of us could die any second, get on with it–younger Daniel’s face flickering with light from a screen, looking at Armand with absolute worship–Armand’s ass aching as present day Daniel pulls back his hand to give him another solid, stinging smack–Pure, staggering want: to feed, to fuck, to bring Daniel back someone’s still-beating heart, to be the lead he’s chasing, the story he’s writing, the drugs he’s taking, to carve open the back of Daniel’s head and watch his infuriating, gorgeous, idiotic brain pulse and work, to worm in there himself and zip it shut behind him–
And at the center of the whirlwind, there is a sun-white clarity where Armand floats and just is. Is adored. Is held. Is loved. Is admired. Is dissected. Is comforted. Is had.
Louis jerks himself out of it. Beneath him, Armand is doing his best to make all six feet of him as compact as possible, eyes in full on wounded lemur mode.
“Armand,” Louis says, raw, already exhausted, and somehow still rock hard.
For a fraction of a beat Armand hesitates and Louis’ behind the camera again watching parts of him snap into focus: the sharp slice of his cupid’s bow, the vulnerable curve of his earlobe, the deep hollow of his eyelids.
And then Armand’s face shutters. “Mr. du Lac.”
And, fuck it, fine. Fine. If that’s how he wants to play it.
Louis fucks back into Armand, viciously pleased at the way Armand clenches around him, clearly caught off guard. “Awfully fucking vivid imagination you have there, Rashid,” Louis says, punctuating it with a slow, rough grind. “What would our venerable guest think if he knew?”
Armand has his head turned to the side and he’s blankly staring at one of their recent acquisitions where it hangs on the wall, accepting whatever Louis does to him like the fucking martyr he gets off on being. It makes something cruel spark up inside Louis, a desire to shake him until he has an expression again. He pinches a nipple, hard, and Armand shudders. “I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Armand says dully. His body is jostled back and forth with each of Louis’ thrusts and the meek acquiescence of it makes him feel vaguely sick.
“Insatiable thing,” Louis pants. “Not satisfied to just fantasize about him blowing you.” He laughs, an ugly, ragged sound. “Did you honestly think a pretty face and a tight ass could make him fall in love with you?”
“As if you’ve never done it,” Armand mutters bitterly, and oh, Louis must have touched a nerve. It takes a lot to get Armand to fight back. “As if you’ve never pretended I was him before.”
Louis scoffs. “I could have Daniel in a second if I wanted him.”
Armand’s eyes glow like a blood moon. “I don’t mean Daniel,” he says, and then he moans, high pitched, theatrical, and throws his head back. “Louis,” he gasps, and it takes a moment for Louis to realize that Armand’s usual crisp, clipped vowels have gone liquid. “Louis, please, mon coeur, mon ange, don’t stop, don’t leave, come to me-!”
Louis’ hand is over Armand’s mouth before he’s even conscious of doing it, lightheaded with the cocktail of lust and nausea roiling through him. Armand huffs a laugh through his nose, sickeningly triumphant, and Louis can feel his lips curve into a smirk where they’re pressed against his palm.
There’s a part of Louis that whispers to call it, to stop things now and leave so they can lick their wounds alone and later broker a fragile peace based on not talking about it and mutual small concessions about lamp placement and throw pillows.
But the predator in him snarls at the suggestion, wants to lock his teeth around Armand’s collarbone and overwhelm him until he can’t form words, wants to make him come until he’s shivering and choking with it, wants to show him how much someone can fucking take.
“You think he’d have the patience?” Louis asks, fingers still digging into the soft skin behind Armand’s jawline. “To wipe your tears and tuck you in at night? To handle your dithering and mothering, your notes on everything, your obsession with that fucking iPad–”
Louis stops, furious at how like a child he sounds. Their current domestic grievances are too petty to be anything but laughable, everything from Paris too nuclear to touch. He wants to hurt, not incinerate. Armand’s eyebrow crooks, faintly amused, and Louis can feel his attention drifting back to distant lands.
“He couldn’t get you off like I do,” Louis says, and slips the hand muzzling Armand down his chest, wraps around the length of him, teasing at the head. “Wouldn’t even want to, after the novelty wears off. You’re a puzzle to solve now but as soon as he figured you out he’d lose interest. And you, sweetheart, are nothing if not predictable.” He feels Armand tense up and grips him hard at the base. Armand whines, fisting at the sheets. “A skittish little thing playing dress up, desperate to pass off his dime-a-dozen sob story as mystique.”
Armand laughs, a little wild. “Better than a man in love with the sound of his own voice.” He cries out as Louis latches onto his chest and bites hard, but surges on, voice stuttering. “Bribing the living into pretending to care, puppeting the dead through this absurd charade–”
Louis stops jerking him, pries Armand’s hands out of the sheets and slams them above his head. Armand hisses, arching his back like a cat. He snaps his fangs at Louis’ wrist but comes up an inch short.
“None of that, now,” Louis says, lacing his voice with condescension. “I thought you wanted to be sweet for me, Rashid.”
Armand’s too self possessed to startle, but Louis can see the recollection of what they’re supposed to be doing drain back into him. The tendons in his wrists flex, then relax.
“My apologies, Mr. du Lac,” Armand says, perfectly contrite. Louis thinks he’s the only one who could pick up the thread of begrudgement running through it. “I forgot my place.”
As if Armand’s ever forgotten his place a day in his life. He decides where he wants to be at any given moment and expects everyone around him to pick up their cues without the benefit of a script. Well, It’s a good thing Louis knows this one by heart.
“Make it up to me, then,” Louis says, and all the way Armand could do just that rise unbidden, a glorious carousel of depravity. He wants Armand on his lap during the interview, eyes glazed over, hips shifting restlessly, kept on edge. He wants to see Daniel try and keep his composure as Louis absently toys with him, a plaything to keep his hands occupied while he considers his phrasing. He wants to narrate every time he and Armand have ever fucked in detached, clinical detail and force Daniel to take notes on it. He has an image of Armand silently serving their dinner that night, his throat lurid with bruises, and it’s compelling enough that his teeth are at the dip between Armand’s collarbones before he’s even conscious of moving.
Armand would let him do any of it. Armand would probably thank him, after.
“Would I, sir?” Armand asks, voice soft. Louis is preoccupied sucking a bruise at the juncture where his long, elegant neck slopes into his shoulders. Armand tilts his head, allowing him easier access, and sighs out, “I suppose no one else could claim to know me better.”
There’s something complicated in his voice, but… yes. Yes. Louis is being foolish. Daniel doesn’t even know Armand’s real name.
The boy from San Francisco is Armand’s fantasies is a fabrication, Daniel of the present day so deep in the closet he’s deluded himself into thinking his obsession with Louis and Rashid is purely academic. So what if Armand felt a little threatened by Daniel’s intrusion, his monopolization of Louis’ nights? Who does it hurt to let Armand dream up a Daniel so obsessed with him that he’s effectively defanged, no longer a rival for Louis’ attention?
It makes a warm and liquid affection for Armand swell in Louis’ chest and in that moment, he feels magnanimous. So he winds a fist in his curls, pulls him down so that his lips are pressed up against the shell of Armand’s ear, and growls: “Refill.”
Armand fucking falls apart, voice breaking on a punched out cry, shaking through it as he coats them both with red. Louis comes too, sometime, lost in the furrow of Armand’s brow and the trembling of his lips.
Within the week, Armand decides that it’s high time for Rashid to exit stage left and for Armand to make his grand entrance, descending from the heavens. Not long after that, Daniel descends on Louis while Armand is out hunting, the two of them trading stunted memories and half-formed recollections in whispers. And then Armand comes back, looking smug and sated in a way that really suits him, then cornered in the way that Armand thinks suits him but really just makes Louis want to roll his eyes a little bit.
And then it all comes out.
And then Daniel goes to his room and his thoughts run wild and untracked and off-kilter in a way Louis hasn’t heard from him since he was in the deepest throes of addiction.
And then Armand, who apparently spent over a decade trailing Daniel around the world to serve as his personal stalker, sugar daddy, attack dog, and dealer rolled into one, finally does the unpredictable and doesn’t follow.
Instead he presses the long line of himself against Louis and looks at him with beseeching eyes, and Louis lets Armand cup the base of his head and rub at his neck with a soft, comforting thumb. And then he stands still when Armand kisses him, and allows Armand to gently bully him towards their bed, and permits Armand to sweetly ask his forgiveness over and over with the beautiful arch of his back and the sweep of his lashes over his cheekbones and the caressing, controlling manner he always uses when he’s worried he’s broken something beyond repair.
And they both pretend they can’t hear Daniel, three rooms over, vividly remembering a hotel room in Munich in ‘82 where Armand is going through the exact same motions.