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The impact is not the worst part, he thinks. It never is. The impact is blinding pain, dull thud of unconsciousness, a broken mess he doesn't remember. The wind--dragging through his hair, tearing at his clothes, wind howling laughter in his face--is crueler by far.
Somewhere there's a dull creak as the towers sway. Louis whimpers and presses his face closer into Armand's chest, a child hiding in mama's bosom, cowering from the storm. He always fucking hated thunderstorms.
"Shhh." Armand's hands, still gloved, rest on the small of his back. He's all shadow and leather, dark contacts, Rashid's clothes puddled around them like water. "You're safe, now." The room steadies around them, something almost unnaturally still, Armand's power cast like a net. "He can't hurt you anymore."
Muffled laughter bubbles up, high and hysterical. Lestat's blood-smeared dances before his eyes, his eyes huge, howling, mad. Anything for you. When he'd let go, there'd been a jolt of relief, because it was over, wasn't it?
And then Louis remembered that vampires don't die so easily, that he'd have to remember this forever, an eternity of hell even crueler than Paul's. And he'd screamed all the way down, the echo of it like a small dead animal rotting in his throat.
"Let it out," Armand whispers, orders, and Louis sobs. Hot tears trickle down his cheeks, recycled blood salty on his tongue. He's making a mess of Armand's shirt, isn't he, fucking it up like he does everything else.
"I have other shirts, beloved." Gloved fingers stroking the back of his hind, trailing lines of numbness through a scalp. Armand's body is a shield, fragile though it may be, liable to turn as everything turns, everyone turns on him.
Not everyone. She hadn't turned. She'd come back to him, even after his calls in the night had sent that fucking animal on her, thinking she could save herself by saving him, maybe. Be his knight in shining armor, like he never was.
And look how you paid me back. Claudia sits on the edge of the bed, bare knees pulled to her chest, blood crusted on her thighs. Shoulda left you to rot outside the house, let you cook when the sun came up. Woulda been better for everyone, right?
"Enough, my love." Armand's fingers press down hard on the back of his skull and Claudia's voice sputters, flares out like a broken radio. "No more torturing yourself, not tonight. Stay with me."
"Don't wan' you," Louis slurs, pressing his face against Armand's chest, eyes squeezed shut. He can feel the dull dead thump of Armand's heart, hear the echo of Daniel's somewhere else in the building, still hard at work on his fucking notes. "Want her, want her, want Les...Les--"
Catch me, baby. Please, please, come down from the sky, grab me 'fore I hit the ground. You just wanted to scare me, didn't you? You didn't mean it, I know you didn't. You didn't mean what you said to her, either, we're not your mistakes, we're not, please say we're not. Please?
"You're not a mistake," Armand says calmly, so calmly, and Louis wants to scream at him to shut the fuck up, get out of my head. Somewhere Claudia laughs and Antoinette hums a strangled note, somewhere Lestat's fingers brush so lightly over piano keys, tapping melodies over Louis's ribs.
His neck hurts, raw where Lestat's fangs split into it, fucking him open with twin bone cocks. Maybe that's why Claudia cried when she saw it, couldn't stand the memory of firesides and floorboards. Home was the only safe place in the world, a soft garden for wounded little flowers to begin again, and look what happened.
Feed it to the fucking--
Knees pressed together, curled up in Armand's lap, he's shaking worse than Daniel had at the dining table. Mouth hanging open as he pants for air, ink dripping behind his eyelids, Claudia's words scratched onto the inside of his skull.
He fed on me first, made sure I was too weak to call for help, call for Louis. Then he kicked my legs apart and he told me he loved me. It's funny that that's what I keep thinking of, funny in the way that makes you wanna scream instead of laugh. But if I scream I'll never be able to stop, not ever.
Something warm presses against his lips, soft and fleshy. Armand's nipple scrapes the roof of his mouth, the hair on Armand's chest trickling his skin. Louis bites down on instinct, letting blood spill down his throat. Honey and pineapple. He hadn't been lying to Daniel about the taste, not really.
"That's it." Armand rocks them back and forth, humming notes of a song Louis doesn't know, that Armand probably doesn't really know, either. "Every drop, go on. Take what you need."
It should feel humiliating, slobbering into his lover's tits like this, sucking like a baby. But Armand's blood spills through his mind like a red tide, sweeping the ink away, and Louis sucks eagerly, chasing it, always chasing it.
She's right. He should be dead.
"None of it was your fault." Armand lies so sweetly, always has. "You didn't know what a beast he was. You did your best for her, you always have." His blood pulses with echoes of the magnolia tree, memories of blossoms sprouting, blooming, shedding in an endless cycle.
Petals tickling his skin. Lestat's red tears, falling on his face. New Orleans spread out beneath them, beautiful as the last sunrises, beautiful as Lestat at the altar or Claudia laughing in the theatre or Armand walking down the Seine or or or--
"Deep breaths." Armand breathes in, breathes out, and Louis feels himself out of obeying, out of choice or control even he doesn't know. He breathes, and he feels himself being lowered down, he and Armand curled up in the gilded cage of their bed. "You're safe, Louis."
Falling, falling, without the luxury of a landing, he's held too tightly. Louis pulls off Armand's chest with a wet pop, pressing his lips to Armand's collarbone, leaving a smear like fine lipstick. He raises his head slightly and presses his lips to Armand's throat, a fine red line, a mockery of a slashed throat.
"I hate you," he says dully, to Armand, to himself, to Lestat, to Antoinette and fucking Bruce, to Claudia, even, who never could leave well enough alone.
"I love you." Armand kisses him on the forehead, tender as a mama tucking her baby into bed. His hand cups the back of Louis's skull, tracing fine lines over his scalp. "Rest now, my dear."
Rest. Louis's eyes slip shut, darkness closing like a coffin lid. If he dreams of husbands in the sky and daughters on the ground, of ash in the dirt and quiet angels watching it from high above, he doesn't remember any of it.