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On nights like these, it is important to find ways to keep oneself warm.
In a damp, dark place such as this, between four walls of smooth stone, the steady burn of the embers on the fire is not enough to carry a flame. In a place like this, in the tower, a place that chills him, there might have been nothing but coldness.
But the bright heat of Armand’s skin sliding over him, warm with sweat, serves to thaw him. In the flickering of the embers he catches glimpses of an angel above him, looking carved from marble, si magnifique.
There is something holy in the hitch of Armand’s breath. Something spiritual as his head casts back in ecstasy, and in the tremors through him, through their bodies linked at the hips—Lestat’s hands on his waist and Armand’s on his shoulders to keep balance as he bounces in place. The tremors run up and down him. He always shakes, Lestat noticed the very first time. He shakes so minutely, like there is an energy, or an emotion, within him that he can just barely contain.
There, illuminated by the fading light—the perfect curves of his neck. Lestat surges upwards and presses his lips to Armand’s clavicle. Armand presses back hungrily, insistently, and that’s the permission he needs to sink his fangs into that lovely blue vein and drink of the honey that flows there.
Armand gasps, again and again, with each suck, and he brings his shaking arms up to wrap around Lestat’s shoulders, to sink his nails in at the blades.
A delicious pain. Lestat’s eyes spring open from the sharpness of it, from the tears he has to blink back. Then, by some mistake, he looks out—not at his angel, but at the corner of the stone room before him, where an iron manacle lays on the ground, with thickly dried blood painting it.
He shuts his eyes, then, and pulls his fangs free of the vein, and pulls Armand closer so they are flush together, so the heat is thick between them. He rests for a moment, to gather himself, to shake his mind back to where it belongs.
That’s when something awful happens.
His angel is gone, and someone is piercing his neck. They are sinking their teeth through to the vein, to his heartline—
No, you can’t, you can’t—
He knows what will happen, he knows what he does not want. But their nails are digging into his back, and they are on him, their weight heavy on him.
His heart pounds painfully, the manacles are dead weights on his wrists and he knows he’s too injured and exhausted to get away—too close to the edge of death, to that sweetness like sugar he is just about to taste. Please, let him have it, please, let him go. Please, please, please.
“Plaire,” he whispers aloud. The feeling of the blood sliding out of him. The nausea in his throat as he swallows down bile and sick, as he scratches his hard nails uselessly across the stone floor.
“Please!” he cries, he can’t help it. “Please, please stop…”
He pushes against them, his hands scrabbling against their chest. The blood has stopped flowing out but he pushes hard against them, and tears drip down his cheeks and suddenly he hears himself gasping, gasping, as he shoves them away, and then—
The weight is removed entirely, and the heat of their touch is gone, and he’s not being touched. He is alone in the cold stone room.
“No,” he says, mindlessly, “no, no, no,” and he curls onto the floor, both hands clenched around his neck as if he could ever protect himself.
He hears himself breathing shallow and fast—will he die from lack of air? No, that’s not right, he’s already dead. Someone killed him with the taste of iron and sulfur on his tongue, someone forced him—
He gags at the taste in his mouth, and then he rises shakily to his knees before throwing up.
Nothing comes up but blood .
He gags again at the horrid taste, blood mixed with his own stomach juices, burning in his throat. He doubles over and gags again, then he sobs, and the tears fall into the awful puddle.
He winds his fingers into his own hair and yanks, to tear it, but the roots strengthened in his death and he can no longer break them. He pulls, and pulls, and pulls—until he hears something.
Someone is speaking to him. Urgently. He opens his eyes and sees an angel before him. Amber eyes fixed on him, and a gentle voice.
“ —hear me? Can you hear me? Lestat. Stop it. Stop. It’s alright now.”
Armand reaches up and pulls Lestat’s hands out of his hair. He stares at him, and Lestat stares back, still breathing quite hard but he—he knows Magnus isn’t there. Was never there.
He’s not sure what happened. He feels his toes curl, body tensing with shame. He thinks his whole face is probably stained red from his crying, and it’s humiliating, and he ruined a perfect moment—Armand looked so beautiful, tasted so sweet.
Now Armand’s face is creased with concern, leaning towards him. “You’re not there anymore, it’s just us,” he is saying, as if Lestat still has no idea where he is and has fully lost his mind. “I stopped as soon as you asked me to. No one is doing anything that you don’t want.”
The softness in his voice comes off like a mockery, an exercise in humiliation. Lestat’s nails scrape against the floor as he squeezes his hands to fists. He’s sure his face might turn red with rage.
“And thank you for that, Armand, since I am clearly such a delicate flower. Putain, I’m not an idiot, I—I just—I just had an episode, obviously, mon ange, but really—we could really get back to what we were doing and just forget about this.”
Armand sits back on his heels and listens to Lestat’s outburst, but his expression stays the same—infuriatingly calm. Lestat’s sure there is judgment behind those eyes, but Armand has always been too good at locking those feelings away for it to be noticed.
Silence falls between them, which is simply unacceptable. Lestat seethes, and says, “What, I know you want to say something, so say it. Say it to me!”
Armand rises smoothly to his feet. He picks up his clothes, which were strewn in a heap on the floor, and tucks them under his arm. Lestat heaves a ragged breath, watching him from where he sits on his knees beside a puddle of his own sick.
Armand turns back to him and says, “You could have told me it might be a problem. Then I would never have done it.”
Lestat stares at him. A problem? What does that mean?
Armand watches him with those owlish eyes. Lestat looks down at his naked form, but it’s a cursory glance, just a sweep of the eyes and nothing more because—because he’s completely spent now, and feels jittery, and if Armand tries to touch him again he might be violently ill all over him.
“A problem,” Lestat echoes, willing him to explain it. The exhaustion evident in his own voice makes him wince.
Armand blinks. He shifts uneasily on his feet. “I just mean—something you don’t want to do. Like when I told you—that I don’t want to be under you.”
Lestat sighs, heavily, another unnecessary breath. He can’t quite get the hang of not breathing. Trying it still makes him panic sometimes. He supposes he might have more than just one problem. Maybe a few. Maybe a lot.
Armand looks beautiful in the orange glow of the embers. When he addressed his problem to Lestat many moons ago, Lestat merely grunted an acknowledgement and flipped them over so they could get back to the business at hand. But he has never gone back on it. And so he knows that Armand will never go back on what he is saying now, either.
“Well, then—then I suppose we both have our problems,” he says. He clears his throat, trying for some sort of nonchalance. “We are an enigma, you and I. To all but each other.”
He stands up and crosses the room, beckoning Armand to follow him as he moves far from the vile puddle. Once they are sufficiently far he presses his lips to Armand’s neck, to his jaw, and bites down hard on his earlobe as they crash against the stone wall.
But—perhaps it’s a bad idea, because he still feels—
He de-escalates, pressing chaste kisses to Armand’s skin. The hot touch simmers down to a lovely warmth. Armand does not seem to mind, returning gently with his own soft touch. It’s a bit humiliating, exchanging kisses like adolescents, but as much as Lestat longs to ravish him he also wishes to avoid being thrown back into the past. It’s too close tonight.
Eventually the fatigue catches him. He lets his head drop to Armand’s shoulder, leaning closely into him as if they are dancing. Armand wraps his arms around him and lowers them both to the ground, where Lestat becomes wrapped up in his warm skin, warm blood, and warm touch.
Enfolded in the wings of his angel, he drifts away into sleep.