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Strange, for Louis to open the door and not have Claudia follow behind him. Or the other way around, he thought maybe the ratio was half and half; the first turn of the key was by her hands after all. Her beaming smile as she opened their door wide, pointing at the small space, its diminutive incinerator, none of the yawning awful gape of their once beloved Rue Royale. Strange, exciting and somewhat shameful, Louis thought, to invite a man inside their abode without her knowing.
Even though Louis made sure to keep his steps measured despite the racing of his heart, Armand kept a respectful, if not sluggish, pace behind him. Walking like this made winding the staircase feel almost endless, those steady strides like unhurried drum beats behind him. Even the movements of fishing his key from his pocket felt as if they were mirrored in some manner, if the doorknob was better polished maybe Louis could see Armand in the reflection behind him, fingers fixed around a phantom key.
Louis cleared his throat as he opened the door. “Well, you’re familiar already. But here it is again, nothing much changed since last you been.” Louis held out his arm as if to gesture Armand further in, anywhere in front of him, the side even, he ached for even the slightest hint of him in his peripheral. But the elder vampire still skulked at his back, silent.
“I'm glad you came in. Didn't seem right to leave you outside staring at me with those big ol’ puppy dog eyes.” Louis chuckled but the sound felt raspier than usual, and his chest felt tight. Every organ in his chest felt the slightest bit too large.
“Been an eventful night. Think you hungry?” Louis shrugged his coat off his shoulders. “Should I offer you something to eat?” Louis could hear Armand shed his own, mirroring his movements. His steps falling in line with ease. He half expected to see Armand’s jacket sail across the air after he tossed his onto the table. “You know where the blood is if you want it. No need to act like a stranger when you've strolled on in before.” Still no response, just the slow measured footfalls, slowing to a stop as he did. He looked at the photos on the line. One man, young but balding a bit early– no less pretty for it– winked back at Louis in that frozen frame of time, his hands folded coyly over his cock.
Louis pursed his lips, worked spit around in his mouth to wet his dry tongue. He swallowed and turned around. Mercifully Armand stood in place, his coat folded over his arm. His eyes were as large and attentive as always.“You were chattier in the tunnel. When you were telling me all the shit I done against the coven. And outside. Now all of a sudden we back at my place, cat got your tongue.”
Armand licked over his lips, eyes scanning over Louis’ face. Even that movement was over slow, dragging, save for one quick fleeting glance to his throat and then back. He drummed his fingers of one hand against the knuckles of the other. Long, spidery things he had. “I find myself at a loss for words.”
“Could say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Could answer my question from before.”
Silence. One slow, opaque blink.
Louis shrugged. “That’s alright. We don't gotta talk. I don't think you here to talk.”
“I'm here because you invited me,” Armand said it steadily, Louis wondered if he meant it as a question, an accusation, or affirmation.
Louis scoffed. “I don't think you needed that. I think you know it too.”
One of the corners of Armand’s mouth pulled back slightly, revealed the minute gap between his teeth, the pointed edge of a canine tooth. Louis sucked at his teeth, found irritation creeping into his body.
“It's kinda pointless to play stupid at this point, don’t you think? You stalking me through a sewer, me taking you up and down and all around that damn river–got me batting my eyes and trying to talk all sweet– all this stalling and for what? Circling round each other like we got all the time in the world.”
“We do.” And Armand was able to say it with such conviction, as if he could wait until Paris crumbled around the two of them to make a move.
“This your way of telling me we should wait even longer? You trying to get me to kick you out?” Louis trailed a nail over the leather strap of his camera. “You sure are a strange one, Maitre. But then again it's Armand for me, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is.”
Louis pursed his lips. He thought about every time he’d anticipated Armand rounding on him, taking him by his lapels, dragging his hands down his front, and how the man kept stubbornly to his blindspot. Now, with Armand standing before him, he figured might as well have kept him at his back. Stock still save for the measured fidgeting of his hands, and his eyes taking in Louis’ every movement. “I invited you up here to fuck me. Need me to invite you again?” he dipped his voice low, drew into that biting teasing drawl he’d crafted in New Orleans, then honed in Paris. Teased himself closer. “Does it take two to get you going? Once for the door and once for my pussy?”
"Tell me.” Said just by his ear now, breathy, hot. Louis hadn’t noticed Armand close the space between them, yet another frame of time lost in the grand scheme of things. But Armand was here and undeniable in his presence, impossible to ignore his well-fed heat. “Just so I can be sure."
“Ordering me around when you ain't even–" Louis broke off with a chuckle, one of Armand’s hands was hovering just a hair above his waist and he guided it the rest of the way. It spanned well there, looked pretty. "Have you no shame?"
Armand laughed, and it sounded like it came from somewhere deeper in his body, left his lips roughened. "Look who's speaking of shame..." He smoothed his other hand hand down to cup Louis’ hip (firmer now, Louis realized, with all the familiarity of his footfalls into his home), moved the other over his belly, the very tip of his nails skirting the bunched fabric where his shirt tucked into his pants.
"You know, I kinda liked how your hand felt back there. Around the back of my neck. When you not trying to take my head off, stuff like that feels good."
“Does it?” The razor sharp ends of Armand's nails pricked through fabric as his hand worked its way up Louis' spine, one finger hooking into the back of his collar. Threatening to offer that sensation, to repeat it. Louis fought back a shiver, fought back the too-raw nerves in his body. He had to take those nerves, the frayed ends like broken wire, force himself to remember how this worked with another vampire.
This was the thrill of being wanted. The hunter’s thrill of wanting, sharp, pupil blowing want.
Louis lifted himself onto his tiptoes to capture Armand’s lips, tugging at his collar to bring him down to him. He almost wished Armand was clumsy at it, to give proper reason as to why he would put it off for this long, some reluctance in his movements to match his reluctance on their walks, at the Seine, anything. But this man, now that he had Louis, was eager, active. Had him bending backwards, stumbling in a clumsy dance with the intensity of his kisses, pulling back with wet smacks only to slide his tongue over his lip and seek his mouth from another angle. The hand around his waist gripped him tight, groped excitedly at him, untucked his shirt and did away with his belt, the other dutiful in its spanning along the back of his neck. Louis tried to funnel his frustration into every nip at Armand’s lips, every playful dip away from his mouth (reeled back so easily, so eagerly, now that he was in Armand’s arms.) How dare you leave me hanging for so long. How dare you have this and keep it from me. How dare you wait until–
Their waltz ended when Louis felt the back of his knees hit his bed– he didn't stumble, he had years of practice being backed into lovemaking furniture and climbing blindly upon it. Shedding his clothes between relentless amorous assault was near instinct. Armand pulled away from his lips reluctantly. "File?" He asked, before dipping down to kiss Louis again, quick as if instinctual or reflexive, hungry as if he couldn't spend too many seconds without the taste of his lips. Sloppy in his eagerness now, turning his head to catch Louis at the edge of his mouth, his chin, open mouthed and wet. Louis tried to keep up, mirror that deep-seated hunger, the still somewhat restrained bursts of energy.
His hands, where were his hands? Gone to do away with his shirt (and now that it was gone, Armand seemed both more muscular and longer without his clothes, but look how handsome that hair curled over his breasts) He wasn’t used to leaving men high and dry like this, too hungry for too long. Something laced his veins with excitement, something else turned icy in his stomach even as he slid his hand up Armand’s, felt the trail of hair, the rapid movement of his diaphragm, the slight softness of his belly. The barely-there hints of his ribs. Had he really left Armand suffer for this long? "I don't... ah…” Armand’s hand on his hip tightened, down to the nails, to the cuticles, so hungry for his flesh. “It don’t matter if you cut me up a lil."
Armand hummed distractedly as he pulled back and turned away, making strange clicking sounds with his fingers in his mouth– Louis didn’t realize he was biting off the tips off his nails until he saw him spitting out the remnants. Grinding nails against the wall as if it were his own then sucking them free of dust, testing them on his tongue. There was something brash, rude about the gesture, but in this space that felt endearing. Familiar.
Louis busied his hands with exploring Armand’s body, scratched lightly into the dark hair trailing down to his crotch before slipping below to feel Armand against him, heat and wetness. Armand looked down at him with something close to awe, tongue still working around his fingers, pupils blown. Hungrier than before, his irises so bright they almost seemed to glow. Louis felt the proud jut of his cock throb as he ran his finger up the length, pushed back, teased the very tip of his nail under his foreskin. He could almost feel Armand gasp, teeth clicking with urgency when he clamped his jaw shut, just a breadth away from his own fingertips.
“You like that, baby?” Louis crooned. He brought his thumb to Armand’s cockhead, rounding the slick blunt nub, then turned his wrist to tease his fingertips the slightest bit under. His own lips parted as he watched him, the pronounced rising and falling of his chest, how his belly sucked in, the restrained bucking of his hips. He gifted Armand one last stroke of his fingers, catching him between his index and middle and drawing back, the motion like a beckon. He smirked, lolled out his tongue as if to suck them both clean, before dragging them over his chest.
Armand took the bait, crawling over Louis to lick his wetness clean with broad strokes of his tongue. Louis welcomed it, pushed his tits forward and Armand mouthed eagerly to his breast, sucking one nipple into his mouth while he settled more firmly between Louis’ legs, hand skating up and down his ribs. At the sound of a moan Louis didn’t realize he had been holding back, Armand released his nipple with a pop, then nipped at his chin.
I have a treat for you.
And that was something new, to hear a lover through the Mind Gift, to hear Armand’s voice in his head just as hot as his body against him.
Quit playin’ and give it to me then.
Armand took Louis’ face in his hand, thumb stroking along his jaw before pushing down on his lower lip. Louis obeyed lazily, almost automatically, welcomed the digit into his mouth, pressing down on his tongue. Armand parted his lips just enough for Louis to watch him spear his own tongue on a fang, then roll the mixture of blood and saliva around in his mouth. And truthfully, this was little surprise, Lestat had kissed Louis with mouthfuls of blood on more than the rare occasion. But the very tang of Armand’s blood against Louis’ lips was shocking to the point of near fright. Lestat’s flavor was heady, as sweet as it was savory. Armand’s blood, aged too long maybe, spiked with too many souls– it was like drinking lightning. And Louis’ body must have jolted because that graceful hand was secure around his jaw, long fingers curling around his ear. Firmly, determinedly, Armand sought out Louis’ tongue to flatten under his own, spread that thick ichor of his. Even when Louis pulled away to breathe the taste bloomed over his mouth, his gums, flared in his cheeks. So sweet it nearly seemed to burn as he gulped at it, and Armand busied himself with mouthing at his neck, sucking at the movements of Louis' throat as he swallowed down blood and spit.
“Do you have anything?” Those lips murmured against his collarbone. One last road stop, Louis didn't have the patience to play embarrassed as he fished out the box stashed behind his bed, drew the dildo out, and all but shoved it into Armand’s hands. This was some point beyond death anyway, wasn't it? Consummation beyond the grave. Had been that way since 1910.
Armand cocked an eyebrow, appraising the toy. It was something chosen for nostalgic reasons, few of the men Louis had fooled with in the park compared, and he'd yet to find one to best it. He thumbed thoughtfully at the sculpted head, his eyes flicking back to Louis, pupils so dark they eclipsed his irises. “I do recall you mentioning there was room within you.”
“I wouldn’t lie about that.” Louis rolled onto his front, snatched a pillow and stuffed it under his hips. He rolled them a bit for emphasis, he’d be damned if he wasn’t clear enough about what he wanted now. He peeked over his shoulder just in time to see Armand crawl over to settle on top of him, the dildo dangling unhelped between his legs. More uses of the Mind Gift he supposed, more things to follow up on later. He placed a chaste kiss on Armand’s lips, arched his back again to grind against him. He earned a low, near unearthly sound in response. “You remember what I said, don’t you?” He whispered it, Armand’s lips trembled against his. “It feels good, with you back there.”
And it did feel good, Armand taking blood slicked fingers deep into his body, his settling weight, the wet excitement he dragged over Louis when he lost control of his thrusts, only to re-adjust his angle, find some place new to strike within him. The nuzzling at his neck, teasing scratching of fangs up and down his throat– Louis made sure to bare it so prettily for him. This was worth the longing gazes at the riverbank, the long walks, the tunnel. The shock of the flame and the threat behind it was nothing compared to this; tits heavy against his back and hips slamming into his own.
Fingers spidered over his heart, drew shallow lines over his breastbone. “Beating so fast, like a rabbit’s,” Armand found a way to whisper and pant the comparison into the crook of his shoulder, found a way to sound both satisfied and utterly, utterly desperate.
A particularly well placed thrust sent Louis gasping and his forehead dragging across the sheets. Something in the corner, a vague shape, threatened to grow hair and legs and hands, and Louis was struck by a sinking feeling in his stomach. Armand smoothed a hand under Louis’ belly, found a pace that was slower, deeper. His teeth worried at Louis’ shoulder, the shape in the corner flashed its own.
“That ain't a real bite,” Louis groaned, pushed himself onto his forearms and met Armand’s movements as well as he could. It was getting more difficult to speak now, the cock inside him felt twice as large with the force of hammering hips behind it. “Don’t you dare fuck me and not leave me with something.” Armand grunted in response, pressed even closer, almost crushing, this pressure now. The slide of his tongue up the side of Louis’ throat was nothing short of ravenous, drew fire up his veins, and then his bite. Heady, full-bodied. There was strength in those old jaws, strength enough to send Louis’ eyes squeezing shut– he thought fleetingly of his pleading from before, how he imagined Armand’s fingers drive between his neck bones. But then that sweet take of the blood, his hips thrusting almost violently as pleasure took its root in him, Armand took from him.
Armand had to be close now, his movements had become sloppy and unfocused. (And he was near formed now. Close now. Threatening to manifest at the edges of his vision). “I wanna look at you when you cum,” Louis groaned, clicked his teeth at the speed and heedlessness in which Armand drew out of him but swallowed back his complaint when he thrust back in, drawing Louis’ legs up and around him, pressing down until he folded him over. The angle was almost uncomfortable in his afterglow if not for that euphoric stretch within him, the rhythm of each stroke, the burn still traveling through his body.
Louis succumbed to the practiced urge to kiss at Armand’s straining shoulder as he shuddered through his climax, jaws parted and wet just above this ear. Chest to chest, his breasts felt heavy pressed against him with the effort, each heaving push of his diaphragm closer. And this was something he wanted, this intimacy and the proximity of jaw to jaw. Kisses against his jaw, sweaty stinking exhaustion. But it wasn’t quite ease that smoothed his palm down Armand’s back, made his lips quirk into a smile, give an exhausted laugh. Sweet, yes, but just in the back of his throat, the acrid twinge of obligation. This is what you do for a lover, Louis? That was not quite his voice saying it.
The untangling of their limbs proved to be more difficult than Louis had anticipated, once Armand pushed himself onto his knees Louis found the room to be suddenly too open, was struck aware of his stark nakedness and the amount of cum smeared between his thighs and his lower belly. It was impossible to tell what belonged to him and what belonged to Armand, though experience pointed towards much more of it belonging to the latter.
“You cum a lot.”
“Mmm. Some people would take that as a compliment.”
“Oh I do.” Louis dipped two of his fingers into the mess, sucked them clean. The bitter edge of his own blood helped to cut down that pure sugar of Armand’s. “Thank you.”
Their washroom was perhaps the only place Armand hadn’t stepped foot in before, and there was some level of betrayal in this, ushering Armand into every cranny of a shared living space, save for Claudia’s coffin. Louis leaned against the tub, clad in his bathrobe, as he watched Armand clear the last remnants of their lovemaking from his body.
"You never did answer my question."
Armand’s head snapped up as if startled, he nearly missed tossing his towel into the hamper. Louis fought back a grimace, the scent of their combined sex still clung heavily in the air, and he’d have to do laundry as soon as possible. "You're still alive, as far as I can tell." He leaned down to cup Louis’ face in his hand, stroked at his cheek. “You tell me, did you survive our little death?”
Louis scrunched his nose and Armand laughed lightly, pressing their foreheads together. That scent still clung to him, his body was still notably warm, still thrumming with excitement.
"Suppose you make me wait for it. Lull me into a sense of safety. Seduce me, even.” Armand hummed lightly, smirked as if to say haven’t I already? ; Louis chose to ignore him. “Years and years we keep going, along the way, you get Claudia a proper role on stage. I see her big debut, and you take that moment to kill me."
"Very unlikely."
"Unlikely!” Louis poked at Armand’s chest, pushed him so he could meet his eyes. “But not impossible."
"Very few things in this world are impossible.” Armand’s voice softened. “Though I'm starting to think you may be one of those few." He dipped in just enough to peck at Louis’ temple, covering Louis’ hand as it pressed flat against his chest.
"Suppose every day while I'm still sleep you just reach on over and go and make a lil nick…” he clicked his tongue, put a finger to Armand's neck. “... right at my throat. Too small for me to notice. And you carry this on for a hundred, five hundred, fifteen hundred years even. You just keep at it. Like its routine. Till the final day you finally meet round my neck then pop! My head comes off."
Armand leaned back, tilting his head, then chuckled. "Well that's certainly involved. And very creative. I know you aren't the Theatre’s biggest fan–”
“Don’t you dare.”
“– but you must write for me."
"Now I don't know bout all that."
“Just one play.” Armand flexed his fingers and plucked a cigarette out of the air, lighting it with a small flame perched on his fingertip. Louis watched as the cigarette carton floated lazily in tow through the doorway, landing into his lap. "You could even scribble down the ideas into a notebook and I'll do the rest."
Louis shook a cigarette out of the carton and took it between his teeth. "That ain’t plagiarism?"
“If I get permission it isn’t truly plagiarism, is it?” Armand leaned forward and offered his finger, the tiny flame dancing on top of it. Louis watched it for a second longer than he intended, then pursed his lips to ease the tip of his cigarette into it. Once it lit he pulled back, took a long drag.
“And if your coven finds out?”
“And how would they know? It’s just the two of us here, isn’t it?”
Louis puffed out a couple of rings of smoke, cocked his eyebrow when he watched Armand’s previously discarded clothing dance through the air. “You not gonna stay?”
Armand was already redressing with ease, pulling his arm into his sleeve. “I’m afraid I can’t, lover.”
Louis shook his cigarette in his direction. “That what this been about? You fucking me for show ideas?” Armand laughed openly, buttoning up his pants. “Hey– no I’m serious. You doing all that you might as well fuck another one outta me!”
Armand met Louis halfway, smoothing his hands over his shoulders, and dipped down to kiss the tip of his nose, his forehead, then his cheek. He whispered as if it were a grave secret. “Unfortunately I'm still burdened by duty, by curfew.”
“They can't run that place for a night without you?”
“I'm afraid they can't.”
Louis sighed through his nose and Armand started to straighten to full height, but Louis held him quick by the back of his neck. “Before you go, leave me with one.”
Armand tilted his head to the side, as much as he could hunched over, and Louis pointed at his neck, rolled his head to bare it. “First incision. Come on.”
Louis felt Armand sigh against his neck, exasperated, but then came the pinprick of sensation as Armand dipped his nail just above Louis’ finger, just enough pressure to draw a singular bead of blood. He showed it to Louis, balanced neatly on a singular claw, before being cleared away with a swipe of his tongue. “Is that to your liking?”
“You asking about my neck or the whole night?”
Armand shook his head and smiled, pressing one more kiss to Louis’ lips. This one he let linger, nuzzled against Louis’ nose before breaking away properly. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Louis?” He fixed Louis with that look, too big eyed and earnest in its wanting, as if he couldn’t cradle fire in his palm, as if he had no idea of how his breath felt at the nape of someone’s neck, or his tongue at their throat. And there was something in that that felt familiar, and made Louis both dread and ache.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Louis listened to the washroom door close behind Armand, then the apartment door, and afterwards the creak of the two opening again. A careless weight flopped alongside him where he sat on the edge of the tub, a large hand all but swallowed his carton of cigarettes, plucked one to dangle between thick ringed fingers.
"Why so eager to dive into another hungry mouth, cher?” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose, gnawed on his cigarette. “Knowing I'm already looking for you. Seeking you out. Are you that scared of me?" Lestat’s (rather what Louis had left of him) mouth widened into a sardonic grin. “Or maybe you want to make me jealous?”
“I don't care if we alone. I don't wanna talk to you right now. Claudia’ll be comin' back any moment.”
“Is it the thrill you seek? The danger?”
Louis waved him away. “I wanted him by the Seine. He wouldn't take me by the Seine.”
“Oh, but I'm sure if you joined his little troupe he would have mounted you in an instant.” The visage leaned forward, his whisper conspiratorial. “Maybe he's into that. An audience to see your pseudo deflowering.”
“Fuck you.” Leaving the washroom gave him no relief, and Louis knew it wouldn’t, the haunt leaned against his windowsill, turned around to greet him with even more smugness.
“You were always such a fun, feisty thing to own, Louis. Surely you can't be surprised when other men want to do the same. I had told you about the vampires of Europe, no?”
“You barely said shit.”
“I said enough for the two of you to know better than this.” Lestat took a drag from his cigarette, ashed it out window. “And you’ve already let Claudia stroll into the wolves den, what's stopping you from following her?”
Louis scoffed. “I didn't ‘let’ her do anything. She a grown woman. She makes her own decisions.”
“You believe that.” Lestat’s smile turned indulgent, almost tender. “Well you say you do.”
“This exactly why I hate talkin' to you. This why nobody could stand a conversation with you back when–”
“When I was living?”
Louis stubbed out his cigarette into his finger pad, ground the lit end until it went out and then some.
“What happens at the end of this little tale of yours?”
“What you mean?”
“What you told him, your little trick. When he finally rings around that pretty little neck of yours,” ever the visual talker, Lestat drew his finger across his neck, retraced where a blade had slit into him so nicely. “and your head goes flying off, then what?”
“I dunno, Les.”
“Oh but you should, shouldn’t you. You’re not the nest-bound fledgling you used to be anymore, aren’t you? No, you’re out in the big wide world! And when he does take your head off, where will you be? Will you still be here in Paris?”
“Don’t know.”
“In this dingy apartment, maybe? A century’s worth here. Or maybe given time the two of you switch things up? Become more acquainted with nature perhaps?”
“I don’t. Know. Now drop it.” Louis turned his back to it, tried his best to focus on his string of photos. The voice behind him continued undeterred.
“Your last moments on a placid grassy knoll underneath the full moon before he slips his claws between your vertebrae and sends your head rolling down the hill. And what of Claudia?”
“Stop.”
“Too morbid, hmm? Shall we imagine her following in her father’s footsteps– her daddy’s head ends up food for the night crawlers, but her head! I think they’d find a better place for it, wouldn’t they, cher ? How about mounted on the Theatre’s wall right next to mine?”
“Enough!”
“Enough?” The hand that landed on the back of Louis’ neck was as heavy and careless as a paw, and applied pressure nothing short of cruel. The hiss against his ear was just as cutting. “You keep playing these games, Louis. Dangling yourself into open jaws, leading sharp-snouted predators into your den. What did he say about your heart, that thing he covets? He said it was like a rabbit’s, Louis.”
Louis braced himself against the table. A photograph stared up back at him. Not one of his best work, the subject was out of focus and tasted bitter when he ripped his fangs into his shoulder.
“And what did you say to him?”
The man had nice eyes, but more importantly, they were brown. And he looked nothing like Louis had, everything else the wrong shape and size and color, but he was American, and when he spoke, it was with an accent that wasn’t his, but one he recognized.
“I told him his hand felt good, with it back there. When I wasn’t dying.” Louis raised his own, massaged at that place where another’s could fit so nicely. His fingers found raised, scabby flesh where Armand had bitten him, and one smaller sore where he’d left his mark.
He wasn’t dead. So surely, that felt good.