Archive of Our Own ^beta

“So let me get this straight.”

Lestat never liked those words. Nothing good was bound to come after them.

“You suggested ‘hooking up’ to your ex-situationship whom you clearly hate, considering the sheer amount of shade tracks you have dedicated to him in the past few months.” 

Should Lestat stop their speech to ask them to speak in a comprehensible language? Perhaps they had explained those words to him before, but he couldn't really recall what they meant. Situationship? Shade track? 

“Shade tracks in which, by the way, you say he ruined your life. And this person used to be romantically involved with your current situationship too. You do realize how bad this is, right? Like, crazy levels of bad.”

Well, if he understood correctly what those unfamiliar words meant based on context, Tough Cookie certainly had a penchant for making very short incomprehensible summaries out of very long stories which they had completely misunderstood, didn't they?

“It’s not like that,” Lestat tried to defend herself, “you see, I—”

“It is!”

Raising their hands in the air, Tough Cookie leaned forward on the table they were sitting on top of, as if they were mimicking jumping off to strangle Lestat. The thing was, the weight shift caused the table to lift on the other side, making Tough Cookie slide and almost fall down on their ass, crashing to the ground with the entire furniture piece as well. They luckily caught the movement before any of that could happen, so the desk simply fell back to the ground with a loud thud.

Pretending nothing happened, they climbed back on the table, albeit leaning on it more carefully. And well, since aside from the two of them there was no one else in the rehearsal room, they managed to go quite unnoticed. No Alex, no Larry, no Christine, no other members of the crew were around.

Just the two of them.

Because Tough Cookie couldn't leave her alone and had to meddle in Lestat’s business on the daily, like the gossip-crazed fiend they were.

With a sweet, sad voice, they continued, “Jesus Christ, Lestat.” It wasn't really disappointment what dripped from their words, rather simple resignation. “I know you are messy, and that's, like, I don't know, almost a requirement when you're a superstar. A queer one at that. But I’m saying this for your own good. You are famous, attractive, charismatic, you could have anyone and everyone you want. Do you really, really have to get involved with this person again?”

Back then, Lestat had just come back from the after-party of his concert. He had fed using the little drink method on the people from the club, their human blood filled with many different substances. And Lestat wasn't really a fan of alcohol, preferring other kinds of stuff, like smoking, even drugs. But he caved in, just once, since he hadn't tasted it in a very, very long time. It would not be the first time he had changed his mind about stuff he used to dislike after all, who could berate him for wanting to try again!

Nevertheless, Lestat had to admit it went catastrophically. Not only because no, she still didn't like alcohol from the looks of it, but because afterwards she ended up having to face Armand while drunk. Truly a nightmare it had been. “What would you do, if someone got into your house—”

“Call the police, immediately?!”

“—after they had gone completely silent and no one had heard from them for way too long.” To the point that, given the circumstances they were last seen in, you feared they might as well be—

“What about the part where he attacked you!” Tough Cookie yelled. They were being way too loud, especially considering the walls were thin and some crew members might have been sleeping at that hour, so realizing that what came out next was only a bit more than a murmur. Putting their hands on their face with a cry of exasperation, like Lestat was genuinely about to make them go insane, they opened their fingers so they would be able to look at him through them. It was cute, just how much they were worrying about Lestat. A human in their twenties worrying about a vampire in his two hundreds. “It’s not even messy, it's downright psychotic!”

“I provoked him with the songs.” So many of them. Music videos which featured Armand, or better, someone he carefully selected to act as him, who could embody in equal parts Armand’s etherealness and ghastliness. Then teased him with dozens of lyrics, shitty lyrics, from ‘And down underground I went to him instead / to the filthy cowering vermin crew he led’ to ‘Pay attention to the plans he'll devise / or else you will fall into your demise’. He remembered he even had a joke in yet another song, about how Armand’s tongue was gifted in many, many ways, yet it seemed lying was what it truly excelled at. Having thousands of people screaming those lyrics, feeling so openly belittled…

“I had been trying to get a reaction out of him and I did,” he added. Armand had been waiting for him inside Lestat's own trailer to get his… revenge? An arm had wrapped around Lestat’s throat as his knees were forced to buckle forward until they hit the hard ground with such an impact that for a second he had feared they might even had shattered.

Back then, he hadn’t needed to see the assailant's face, because that loud heartbeat booming against his back could only belong to one specific devil. Then a familiar voice in her ear had started asking just for how long she meant to keep spreading such demeaning content about him and why. Lestat’s first words to him in lieu of greeting had been: “Can’t say I missed you either,” prompting the loudest “Lestat de Lioncourt!” he had ever heard being screamed into her ear, in between gritted teeth and so, so much hatred.

Lovely, it had been. And remembering it, Lestat couldn't help but shift in his seat in front of Tough Cookie, their gaze scrutinizing his face as if they were trying to penetrate his thoughts with Mind Gift, which clearly they didn't possess. 

They didn't seem to like what they saw. Pushing back the glasses up the bridge of their nose, they kept trying to keep an even tone, despite the colourful insults they were using. “Were you genuinely dropped on your head as a child, Lestat? That justifies absolutely nothing! You need to get therapy, like, now! Besides, what about the fact that while he attacked you, you got so worked up you wanted to fuck him? Even he got… weirded out.”

That wasn't how it went. Armand attacked him, but… he hadn’t been exactly hurting him. Well, he did, but it was not his aim. It was to get Lestat to stop doing what she was doing, to restrict her until she would swear to get rid of all that mentioned him, invocating some “right to be forgotten”, whatever the hell he meant by that. He was looking for answers, rather than looking to hurt him. At least, that's what Lestat thought. The hands on his neck were to prevent him from continuing to spew malicious words, not to crush his throat.

“I told you, I was drunk!”

“So you are telling me if you had been sober, you wouldn't have wanted to sleep with him.” Their gaze was so intense that Lestat felt like a butterfly pinned with a needle on a wooden board by a kid. Staring at her, holding her on checkmate. Go on, try telling me I’m wrong, but you know it would be a lie, their eyes seemed to say.

“You mortals could never understand the complexity of—”

“You Mortals Could Never Understand,” they imitated his tone and accent in a ridiculous manner. He didn’t speak like that, right? “Wait, actually, I should put that phrase on that SpongeBob meme and send it to the group chat.” Tough Cookie whispered that quickly as if talking to themselves, but seeing Lestat’s confused expression, they shrugged and waved their hand to tell him to forget about it. “Anyway, my point is, stop LARPing as a vampire for a second and just listen to me, Lestat! It’s not complicated. He got into your trailer. He attacked you—”

“And I almost bit a chunk of his hand off.” Lestat couldn't help but smile at that, as if he were recalling a memory that was particularly fond to him. She had laughed inside Armand’s mind as she bit down harshly on the hand holding his head still without hesitation to free himself, moaning as blood burst inside his mouth before Armand violently ripped it away, uncaring of the way his flesh tore open too.

Tough Cookie grunted in disappointment. “It made you horny and you asked him if he wanted to fuck—”

“Will you stop with such senseless accusations? I did not ask him if he wanted to sleep with me. His touch, the familiar sensation of his body against mine just brought back some… memories. I did not say anything about it out loud, nor did I act upon them in any way.”

That’s what it was, a bodily reaction. Lower stomach clenching, gums tingling. Something caused by stuff like their chests pressing together as Lestat reversed their positions and tried to get out of Armand’s grasp by pinning him down, feverishly hot and sweaty skin of her hands making contact with his own... Lestat tried to vanish the memory by shaking his head before he got needlessly deep in detail. “It was him, taking things from my mind, like he always does. Then he scrambled away from me, calling me despicable, degenerate and depraved—”

“Which you are.”

“—which I am, but he has always been aware of that, ever since we first met. And that's literally what he found attractive about me in the first place.” Being a rule-breaker, being unapologetically himself. Expressing herself at her fullest potential. Doing what she wanted without being bound or contained by anything or anyone. A hurricane incarnate.

“So he called you intoxicated and stupid and told you to fuck off and stop playing with him.” Back then, as he scrambled away from Lestat, Armand had seemed simply surprised at first. Hell, even some traces of affection had been there, it seemed. But then his expression had morphed into one of anger and hurt, like in an instant he had completely re-interpreted what was going on between them. Yet when Lestat tried to reach out to his mind and understand what was going on, he had been chased out of it with a snarl. Armand had seemed reluctant to leave, perhaps because he still hadn't got what he had gone there for, but then he soon fled after glancing back at him for a brief instant.

“Well, yes, which I don't understand because I have never been playing with him. And now that I had him in my arms, even though just briefly, I cannot stop thinking about it. I want to call him and tell him: See I’m not drunk now. And I still want you.”

This time, Tough Cookie actually did jump off the table purposefully. Tough Cookie was short, at least five inches shorter than Lestat, but since Lestat was seated on an armchair, they easily pulled her by her shoulders to shake her. “That is absolutely what you must not do! Do you understand me? And get that stupid, dreamy look off your face immediately.”

Their hands left his shoulders to pat on his coat pockets, but not finding anything they started looking around on top of nearby chairs and furniture.

“Where is your phone? I will delete his contact from it myself if I have to!” They pulled out their own device from their bag and started going through their address book to call Lestat, she assumed, so that it would ring and they would be able to find it without wasting any time. Smart Tough Cookie.

“I don't need that thing.” The first notes of Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns & Roses started playing and Tough Cookie headed back menacingly towards Lestat’s armchair to snatch his phone. “It's all here,” she tapped the side of her forehead.

“Well then, if you remember his number, I will make sure you never own a cellphone for the rest of your life.” 

Without any shame or sense of appropriateness whatsoever, they rummaged with their hand in between Lestat’s back and the backrest, where the booming sound was coming from. Once having gotten their hands on the cellphone, they let out a small sound of victory as they showed off the slab of glass to Lestat. “Besides, isn't hooking up with one ex enough? Do you really need another?”

“It’s not about hooking up with him.”

“Uh-uh.” They didn’t seem very convinced, so Lestat felt the need to clear up the misunderstanding.

“It’s about intimacy. Seeing him after decades, I remembered how much I have ever craved for him. I started wanting to experience again some sensations which I had long forgotten, but centuries ago used to know how they felt. Or things that I never had the chance to know, but wish I did.” Again, he found himself having to shift on the chair, having to somehow dissipate at least part of the restlessness that this mix of embarrassment and longing was bringing him.

“What do you mean by that? What kind of things?” They laughed while asking that, not taking Lestat seriously at all.

The answer wasn't immediate, because what examples could she even give to that? Most of them didn't even come to her mind naturally, they had to be prompted from circumstances. So it took Lestat some time to come up with a few examples and every single one of them caused a pang to her chest as he stated them out loud. As if, as long as they stayed in his head, they seemed achievable, but vocalizing them made him realize they could be nothing more than wishful thinking. 

“I don't know. Stupid ones, really. How did his curls feel against my fingertips? Would he still allow me to comb and wash them? Other times, I wonder, does he still feel the same way about that one monologue from Macbeth he could recite by heart? One thought I have been particularly fascinated with as of lately is, what would he say as I press my lips on his naked skin right above his heart? Would he ask me to bite down?”

These were thoughts that were supposed to stay personal. It was embarrassing, having to tell them to others. In person, at that.

“You still love him, don’t you.”

The smile on Lestat’s lips faded and his expression froze, looking straight into Tough Cookie’s eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. He schooled his expression into a more neutral one, like he had just been insulted, then he tried playing it off with a derisive laugh.

“I despise him,” she said. But behind those words there was no palpable heat nor confidence one would expect by someone uttering such a thing. Rather, it seemed he was making that remark simply because it was something that he felt he was supposed to say. Whether it was to convince others or even herself, it wasn’t clear, yet she didn’t really seem to believe in it.

“Perhaps. But, at the very least, you love him in equal measure. Does Louis know about what happened?”

Lestat had just noticed that Tough Cookie was caressing his arm in comfort, which they really didn't need to do, but he believed was really thoughtful of them.

“I already told her,” she sighed, gripping harder on the armrests. “We both have history with Armand and she understands how it's like to love Armand, to hate him, to be loved by him. Perhaps the only thing Louis has never experienced is how it feels to be hated back by him.” That was a burden she was glad Louis didn’t have on her shoulders. “I think she understands that me and Armand have had something before either of us knew her, that just like me and Armand have been bound to her at one or several points of our lives, me and Armand have been bound to each other.”

He was nodding to himself like what he had said just now was something that he had just realized, something he had felt deep down but never really managed to make sense of so far until that very moment. Because Lestat wasn't sure of it yet, but recently she had started thinking that what they had with one another, the three of them, was something that they couldn't really escape from. That even if one tried to run away from, it would just keep haunting them. 

“Louis doesn't want to be involved with Armand right now, and I don't know if she will ever want to be. That's not up to me to decide. But she's not against me seeing him or… anything else. But that's because he's Armand. He is an exception, perhaps because deep down Louis knows that, one day, she might feel the need to have Armand back in her own life too. I have had many years that Louis didn't, to metabolize things, to think about things, things that Louis didn't even know. She needs time, and time is one of the very few things our kind has.” Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. “So, as long as it doesn't change anything in my current arrangement with Louis, she's fine with it.”

“Well, as someone who has not been involved with this person, I would be completely against it. But ultimately, it's up to you.” Even Tough Cookie had eventually given up opposing him so strongly, it seemed. Yet Lestat didn't feel even the tiniest bit more reassured.

“Yeah,” he agreed, letting out certainly one of the longest and deepest sighs of his entire existence. “Yeah, I know.”

*

She eventually called for Armand again. To Tough Cookie’s dismay, it was not even a week after their discussion.

It happened at his following concert in front of thousands of fans, knowing that Armand would certainly have been listening, either in person or through one of those things mortals called ‘livestreams’. What she did was simple: she covered a song. And, based on its lyrics, Armand had known it was clearly a call for him. 

No arms trying to strangle him this time around. No whispering against her ear while she was manhandled. Just Armand, sitting in Lestat’s trailer at the end of his bed, playing on his tablet to something that, judging by the music, sounded suspiciously like Candy Crush. Lestat couldn't help but be a tiny, little bit disappointed by this welcoming reception, if compared to the one he received the other time.

“How revoltingly repetitive of you, trying to win someone over with a song.”

“I did ask you to pardonne-moi mes offenses, comme je pardon aussi à ceux qui m'ont offensés,” Lestat replied, turning on the lights. He closed the door behind him, carefully sliding the guitar off his neck and walking towards the instrument rack to place it there, before realizing it had been used as a hanger for Armand’s discarded knee-long coat.

A silly, little attempt to annoy her, that was all it was, but she had to admit she had to fight really hard against the temptation of being petty and throwing the coat to the ground, instead of picking it up and putting it in the right place.

As he turned around, he noticed that Armand was now switching off his tablet and putting it down beside him so that, if Lestat wanted to sit next to him, he would have to do it at least half a meter away from him.

But, well, even if Armand was treating it like his own house despite having been there only twice, that was Lestat's trailer. Not Armand's. Lestat was going to do as he pleased. Therefore, uncaring, he went to sit right on top of where the iPad had been placed.

She briefly felt Armand’s incinerating gaze on the back of her head as he removed his precious device right before the unspeakable happened. Besides, she had known Armand would remove it anyway before she sat on it, putting his vampiric speed to good use.

“To my knowledge, you could have been saying the Pater Noster because you had a Christian awakening.” Armand quipped while rising to his feet just after Lestat had plopped down, like he truly could not stand sitting next to him. Not even for a single second. 

“Hmm,” Lestat hummed in thought as he appreciated the view of Armand’s figure from the back as he walked away. The red tapered trousers in which his blouse was tucked looked really good on him, especially with the matching belt hugging his waist and bringing attention to it. “No, I cannot say that such fancy has struck me yet. Besides, you came here, no? So I’d say it did the job amazingly.” He extended his arm to catch Armand’s hand in his, pulling on it slightly to motion him to return sitting down next to him, but Armand was already out of reach.

So far, Armand hadn't even looked at him, at least as far as Lestat had noticed. He tried not to give it too much thought, but it definitely wasn't something that made him happy.

I may bite but you can look, you know, he wanted to tease him. He was well aware that people found him attractive, and that included Armand. Then why not even deem him worth a look? Could it have been that he didn’t want to give Lestat the satisfaction of seeming as affected by it as he was? After all, sometimes even something as shallow as a simple look had to be calculated carefully, not to give the other any leverage or upper hand.

Well, in that moment, mind games be damned, he wanted Armand’s eyes to just look at him, to roll down the curve of his neck. He wanted to eavesdrop on his thoughts as Armand would take in and appreciate the sight of what could be seen of his bare chest, given the fact that the tight, see-through black fishnet shirt he was wearing didn't leave much to the imagination. Was it too much to ask, to be loved and appreciated, yes, even by Armand still?

For a heartbeat, Lestat feared the other vampire was about to leave her, again, but fortunately he meant to simply put his tablet on top of the desk, safe away from Lestat. His attention had been caught, however, by something else lying on top of it. What fascinated him so much seemed to be a picture featuring Lestat, Tough Cookie, Alex and Larry, which Tough Cookie had decorated with rainbow heart stickers around the frame and gifted her. He traced its undulating frame with his index finger and Lestat was simply struck by how soft his expression looked in that moment. 

Hundreds of years had passed since he had first laid his eyes upon Armand, a sight so entrancing he didn't think he could ever forget it. And now, just as he had back then, he marveled at how nothing could hinder Armand's beauty. Because really, whether he was crying, smiling, well-dressed, caked in dirt, in pain, or thrilled, the pull on the strings of Lestat’s heart still remained the same. And, alongside all of that, he could feel the longing to cherish and love this otherworldly, ethereal creature whose monstrousness and wickedness surely surpassed even his own.

“I’m not sure what I was invited here for.”

Good point. Lestat didn't know either. Or, well, maybe she did, but none of it was something she could tell Armand directly.

“Come here and sit.” Lestat put his hand out for Armand to grab. But the latter seemed to be hesitating, pondering whether this was some sort of trap or not. And he still wouldn't look at him, especially not in the eye.

After having assessed it was safe for him to do so, Armand slowly walked forward until he stood right before him, then raised his hand and laid it perfectly on top of Lestat’s like he was asked to.

He had to admit that the hand had healed well, meaning Armand had been feeding well at least. No trace of the deep wound from their last encounter showed at all. Whether the action caught Armand by surprise or not, he couldn't say, but as Lestat brought Armand’s hand to his lips for a kiss, he noticed that Armand’s eyelids were closed.

Taking place right beside him on the mattress, Lestat having him almost sit on her lap, finally Armand willed their gazes to meet. “Lascivious flatterer,” she was lambasted, but she could swear there might have been a note of affection somewhere hidden in it too. “You never change.”

“Perhaps,” Lestat grinned. Her lips were still brushing against Armand’s skin as she spoke. “I think it is to your liking, however. Is it not?”

Naturally, his observation wasn't deemed worthy of a reply. Suddenly, Armand turned around the hand Lestat was holding, so that instead of having the back of it placed under Lestat’s mouth, his fingertips were lifting his chin up. He tenderly turned Lestat’s face first this way and then the other, maybe analyzing if, since the last time he looked at it closely, something changed in it, knowing very well it couldn't have. Or there simply may have been some interest in how the suffused, artificial light was reflected on his vampiric skin. It was quite impossible to guess what was frolicking around Armand’s head most of the time if you didn’t use the Mind Gift. 

Seemingly satisfied with his examination, Armand slowly brought his face closer to his own and lightly caressed his cheek with his thumb, their lips close enough for their breaths to mingle, yet still not touching. Armand’s unblinking gaze and silence was unsettling, yet, if one were to look closely, they would take notice of the light pout or the almost imperceptible hint of his tongue in between his lips showing and retracting just as briefly.

The thing was, Lestat had Armand right where he wanted. He had meant to make contact with Armand, to see him after he ran away from him the last time for a reason Lestat could still not pinpoint well. So why, when it was time to finally seize the moment, was he so hesitant, especially for one whose conduct had been guided by impulsivity for most of his life? Despite the terrible ache that had long spread in his guts and the way he could feel his hands itching, desperate to act upon his wishes? A stranger to himself he felt, having that cockiness, which characterized his natural disposition until mere moments before, now battling with doubt and being replaced by it. Maybe it was because everything so far was going well, too well, and he couldn't help but wonder just how long would this truly last. How long until either of them said something wrong, did something wrong, and this moment between them was irredeemably ruined? Because that's what always happened between them, was it not? 

If Armand had been dealing with the same issues, well, at least he didn't make it noticeable. Instead, he took the matter in his hands and went for a timid, innocent attempt to test the waters. He pursed his lips and pressed them on top of Lestat’s for a brief moment, before retracting and opening his eyes to see Lestat’s reaction. Some glossy, dark red lipstick was now on Armand's lips and the tip of his nose had gotten stained in white foundation. Lestat couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Oh, right. She had forgotten she still had her make-up on from the concert. Well, no matter.

And it was that easy for Lestat to forget all his worries about what any of this or that could mean. He just chased after him, locking their lips together once more. And that was because he simply couldn't think, as if his brain was solely focused on making him aware of what his senses were feeling: the smoothness of the skin of Armand’s neck under his fingers and the way his hair was tickling them just lightly, how someone was humming into the kiss yet he couldn't concentrate enough to tell whether it came from Armand or from himself. And against all his conjectures of how this could go, it seemed soft, shy, tentative on both sides, yet deep down he knew this adagissimo was only a flimsy facade that would soon crumble. So when he felt Armand’s hands slide down his blond hair to his back to pull his shirt and remove its hem from inside his tight leather pants, Lestat stopped him by breaking the kiss and softly thumbing his lower lip, smudging the lipstick even more.

“Nuh-uh. Let’s take our time, shall we? I don't have anywhere to be until the next sunrise. Do you?”

“No…” His tone seemed a tad lost, as if he had been taken off-guard by something.

“Perfect.”

And with that Lestat resumed the kissing, Armand this time around abiding by Lestat’s requests and simply digging his fingers in the holes of the fishnet shirt and idly tracing patterns on Lestat’s skin with the pad of his fingertips or scratching his back, so far not deep enough to draw blood.

The truth was that the message of taking it slow, rather than being for Armand, was mostly an attempt at vocalizing a message addressed to herself. She wanted to savor this chance, something she hadn't had the opportunity to have in hundreds of years, while trying to avoid breaking that fragile, precarious equilibrium between them like they so often ended up doing.

Yet none of that harmonized well with the eagerness brought by that gut-wrenching need burning inside of him to overwhelm Armand completely, to see him metaphorically walk on unsteady ground and to laugh at him as he toppled over on his own. He would look down at Armand’s lying figure and maybe people would expect him to be cruel, to push his face harder in the dirt, but she would just lower herself and lay on the grass alongside him, because that was where they both belonged.

Perhaps, he reasoned, the main driving force behind such craving was the desire to win for once against his long-term adversary. And he was aware that the most effective and satisfying way of achieving Armand's defeat would be from the inside, by going along with Armand’s own wishes. And he did know what Armand wished for.

If he wanted Lestat, then he would get him, alright. Lestat would worm his way under Armand's skin and have him be so full of ‘Lestat’ to the brim that it would be impossible for that devil not to turn, even for the briefest moment, from his fiercest rival into his most unbridled loyalist. She wanted for Armand to chant her name in desperation and beg for the process to be repeated, allowing Lestat to experience again and again the ecstasy that came with finally obtaining the fruits of her hard work—Armand’s undoing.

And to savor this, yes, he needed to go at it slowly. He’d get there eventually. He’d have to pretend he didn't feel like fire, instead of blood, was rushing in his veins at every touch. He could do this: he had always been an actor, a performer.

And thankfully, Armand had begrudgingly listened. He worked in matching the exact energy that came from Lestat, not going further than kissing him or pulling on his lower lip with his teeth while his fingers caressed everywhere he had access to. Lestat felt like a bar of butter melting on a stove as he was urged impossibly closer by those restless hands, pressing at times on his hips, other times at the back of his neck.

Well, it didn't take him more than one minute to realize that he had been catastrophically wrong about Armand truly listening to him. In hindsight, knowing Armand, she should have guessed that would be the case.

Inclining his head, Armand tentatively started deepening the kisses by sneaking his tongue inside Lestat’s mouth. Some embarrassing, strangled sound in between a yelp of surprise and a pleasured sigh left his throat and he could feel Armand smiling in the kiss, as if feeling validated and encouraged to continue. Slowly, he had said, lying to himself, as if this could be anything but a losing battle, sandwiched as he was between the pressure of Armand and that of her own desires betraying her. Patience might be a virtue, but it had never been Lestat’s.

Yet Armand retracted as soon as Lestat started responding in kind to his more passionate touch.

A bait. It was clearly bait in order to get Lestat to chase after him. Stopping, having Lestat re-initiate it to prove to her that she was just as desperate as Armand, unload on Lestat the responsibility of the increased ardor, as if it were Lestat the one at fault for taking things further. But it worked, because Lestat could not stop himself from instinctively going after him, his brain not recognizing he had fallen for his trick until it was too late.

Lestat may have been trying to play a mind game, but Armand ought to have been playing one too. Just like it had always been between them. And was it truly Lestat the one winning at the moment? For the first time that evening, she wasn't really sure.

The intensity of their open-mouth, hungry kisses had Lestat resting his hands on Armand’s hips to urge the other closer and have him sit on his open thighs. A synchronized sigh was what left both of their mouths as Armand plopped down on Lestat, despite the layers of clothing between them. Not yet grinding on him, at least, but he could feel Armand was trying really hard to contain himself from doing it. He wondered how tense the muscles of his thighs or those of his back would feel to the touch, if only he were able to reach them right now.

“You taste like chemicals, it's disgusting,” Armand complained in his mind, and truth to be told Lestat could taste some of it too. Some of the face paint must have gotten in their mouths.

Yet both of them continued unfazed, as their lips kept crashing harder against one another like their bodies were trying really hard to fuse into one single being.

“Even more disgusting than ‘vermouth and annihilation’?”

Armand’s consequential gasp at his teasing made Lestat giggle into the following kiss a little. Or, at least she had thought Armand's noise had been because of what she said, until she saw Armand’s lowered gaze and realized that he had brought Armand's hand to cup one of his barely clothed breasts. Yet he didn't have much time to linger on it. Lestat was suddenly being yanked forward by a hand clutching his shirt until he was crouching on top of Armand, who had let himself fall backwards.

The position certainly helped Lestat getting deeper access to his mouth and all he could do was think about the fact that, eons ago, she did have something like this with Armand, and wonder how on earth could she have ever lived so long without it. Yes, she knew the hows and whys of their separations, yet in that very instant he simply could never imagine parting from him nor willingly abandon the sense of all-consuming bliss she was experiencing. A discarded puzzle piece she had never managed to slot anywhere was finally fitting in the right place, where it had always meant to be.

He could almost hear his blood sing in delight, gurgling under his skin like magma and pushing harder and harder against the crust of solid rock, trying to break through. An outlet was provided to it when she had her tongue sliced open by one of her own canines —Armand’s wouldn't have been pointy enough to achieve that, surely— before tearing herself away and putting a hand’s width between their faces.

Trying really hard not to spit it out at a particularly harsh squeeze of his breast, it didn't take long for the blood to pool into a whole mouthful. And Armand, waiting and pliant, opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue as if being offered nectar and ambrosia from the Gods. The liquid went past Lestat’s lips and dropped into Armand’s awaiting mouth through the thinnest rivulet possible. It was like sand in an hourglass, replacing the one of mortal time whose grains had stopped flowing for both of them centuries ago.

He felt it on the hand he had loosely placed on Armand's throat, rather than it being captured by his ear, the cry coming from Armand’s throat as the first drops reached his tongue. Just like she felt, instead of merely seeing, Armand swallowing when not even another single drop of fluid could fit in his mouth. And with it, as he stuck his tongue out once more hoping to get some more, Armand’s hands had both gone to trace the curve of her hips to push her down from her kneeling position so that Lestat would be fully sitting on top of him.

Now it was her turn to try really, really hard not to make use of the friction between their bodies. “Good, the blood?”

Would Armand be willing to admit the truth? Or would he shy away from it, refusing to give Lestat the satisfaction of hearing him admit that something that came from Lestat could be good, like so very few other things that came from Lestat could ever be?

“Yours,” he replied softly, bringing up one of his hands to tuck behind Lestat’s ear a strand of blond hair. “Yours,” he repeated, perhaps meaning it was frankly irrelevant whether it was good or bad— it was Lestat's. And that was enough.

Straight to his heart it went, and for one second his chest clenched and hurt so much he feared it was going to give out. For someone who had often struggled with placing his own nature and actions in the spectrum of good and evil, the fact that someone could find inherent value in him regardless of this paradigm meant all the world. All the world.

“Don’t. I hate to see you cry,” Armand admitted in a soft voice, his thumb sliding down to Lestat’s cheekbone as if ready to catch any drop that may be on the verge of falling down. He didn't even realize his eyes had been stinging and his vision slightly blurred until Armand had said that. “I like to think of you crying. I like to think of your demise, of things going wrong for you. But then, when it actually happens, it feels like the worst thing I've ever experienced. Instead of feeling any sense of satisfaction, I’m simply filled with anger. My soul wails in unison.”

As soon as his last words were out, his jaw clenched for a second and he averted his eyes, revealing a certain discomfort in having admitted what he just had confessed. Armand’s arm had also dropped down to his side, as if touching Lestat’s face had scalded him.

“I don't know why I said that, you like crying after all. Knowing you, even simply to spite me, you will do it on purpose. Just forget all of it, would you?”

No, Lestat thought he would not be able to forget, but that didn’t mean he was going to be as cruel about it as Armand made him out to be. She never had been as cruel to Armand as Armand thought she was. Yet he let the matter drop, not wanting to fight about it. Best to distract him from the entire thing all together. And what would be a better distraction than simply diving into kissing him once more. 

New blood found its way into Armand’s mouth, as the tear in the muscle still hadn't closed. And, just like Lestat wanted, it seemed to be Armand himself the one who soon forgot their last exchange rather than Lestat, too busy licking into Lestat’s mouth and sucking on his tongue as if he could squeeze the blood out of it to the very last drop, like he hadn't seen any blood at all in centuries.

The hand that had gone back to cupping one of Lestat’s breasts started becoming more adventurous, massaging it with circular motions and squeezing, so much squeezing, which did feel good, yet he almost couldn't help but laugh at the thought that Armand was kind of using it like some sort of anti-stress toy, surely the thing he was sure Armand’s restless hands enjoyed to play with. Finally, more attention was placed on his nipple, which he started pinching with his fingers, twisting and pulling on it through the holes of the shirt. No shred of dignity left as he flinched at the touch and, pressing down on Armand harder, almost, almost asked him to be as rough as he wanted with them, as long as he didn't rip the piercing away.

“How do they let you perform like this, look at the state of you. Your face is painted like a clown and from the waist up you're basically naked. I believe it is something like nine parts skin and one part fabric. I can see—”

The flow of thought had stopped, but whether that was because Armand had gotten distracted or because he was pondering on his choice of upcoming words, Lestat wasn't privy to it.

“Everything. Everything.”

Lestat chuckled, finding the fact that Armand repeated the word twice for emphasis particularly endearing. He wanted to pepper kisses all over Armand’s face, but that would mean having to stop kissing him on the mouth. Quite unfair that she had to give up on one or the other.

“And you are telling me that's somehow bad? That you don't appreciate that?”

“The point, Lestat, is that it is indecent.”

“Indecent, huh. How hypocritical of you to talk about indecency while your head is filled with it. Just when you are asking yourself how it would feel to have my pierced nipple on your tongue.”

Oh, Armand’s mental barriers came up even quicker than expected, closing Lestat out. Even though he did see that coming, he still found it a shame that he had to stop kissing Armand to continue talking. Nonetheless, he couldn't help but smile at his little victory in the debate.

She started trailing little kisses up Armand’s jaw until she reached his ear, to which she whispered in the huskiest tone she could muster, “I suggest you keep your criticism on the matter for another less incriminating time, what do you say?” before retreating back and looking him in the eye.

Armand averted his gaze and turned his face away, having the decency to appear embarrassed. And he took his hand away from Lestat’s chest too, in what was probably some attempt to get even for the dig he received.

Lestat couldn’t help but coo at his pout. “Aw, come on. I’m just teasing. Ask nicely and I will allow you to make your deepest desires come true.”

“Deepest desires!” Armand side-eyed him and chuckled, as if Lestat had just told the greatest jest of all time. “Get off your high horse already.”

“Is this supposed to be a “riding” innuendo?” she joked. “I would associate you more with a wild cat rather than a horse. A very, very evil one that bites the hand that feeds him. But sure, I will leave your lap if that’s what you want.”

Unsurprisingly, the hand on Lestat’s hip tightened to keep her rooted in place as soon as Armand sensed the slightest movement coming from her.

“Just one please and I will let you put your mouth on them immediately. I’m sure Maître is able to ask for things nicely. Say please, Maître?”

Nothing. Perhaps to someone it could feel paternalistic and seem like he was trying to coax a child. But it wasn't the case between them. It was about the fact that Armand always ran his mouth off on how intolerably annoying Lestat was, and yet he secretly liked when Lestat behaved like that, because it wouldn't be Lestat otherwise. And because that would mean being justified in annoying Lestat back just as much, naturally.

“Please?” Lestat asked again, realizing a bit too late that with his wording just now it might have seemed that Lestat was also pleading with Armand, instead of asking him to say it.

Maybe it was that misunderstanding that convinced Armand to give in, believing they were, somehow, both requesting each other to give in to the other’s wishes. In between gritted teeth and an eye roll, Armand conceded it to him. “Please…”

Lestat’s face blossomed into a smile. It wasn’t that he was unused to hearing the word from Armand’s lips, quite the opposite. But, at least between them, it always happened in moments of fierce desperation, especially when Armand was really expecting not to receive what he was asking for. If Lestat had kept stalling for a few minutes and shown a firmer hand, he might have managed to get him to beg for it nicely on his own. But, right now, Lestat was too impatient to wait for that.

“I’m not taking my shirt off just yet, though. You are going to have to work through that,” he informed him, getting a groan of irritation in response.

Taking some of the pillows that were laying on the bed and repositioning them behind Armand’s back until he could sit comfortably against the bedframe, Lestat raised himself by pinning his knees on the mattress so he could align the breast that had been tormented by Armand’s hand to his mouth.

Impatiently, Armand pulled him closer by his ass. As soon as the distance was closed, the tip of his tongue tentatively swirled around the areola, teasing, then drew a spiral until it reached the nub, circling it as Lestat suddenly breathed in and threw his head back when he started rubbing it with insistence. And the wetness of his tongue against it might have been lewd, but more than that it felt cleansing. It felt good. It felt holy.

Armand’s right, open hand was worming its way up his middle until it hovered on Lestat’s other, untouched breast, pushing it and then squishing it in his grasp. God, that was… One of Lestat’s hands went to the back of Armand’s head, pulling his dark curls back so he could continue unperturbed in its ministrations, the other sneaking its way behind Armand’s back to press his chest closer to Lestat’s body, relishing in the feeling of the clothed curves of Armand’s body pressed against her stomach.

Then it wasn't just the tip of the tongue anymore, he was alternating by rubbing the flat it too, or to bite it or sucking on it, the metal bar adding another level of interest for Armand in his experimentations. Yet he seemed disgruntled about how he couldn't really get a good grasp on it because of the shirt being too tight, despite even trying to get a better grip on it by helping himself with his fingers… 

Suddenly, he felt the familiar sensation of Armand’s fang dragging against his skin. Yet he realized way too late that Armand was, at Lestat’s dismay, opening a fist-sized tear in the fishnet.

“You treacherous monster, I—” Lestat bellowed at the betrayal, the ‘I’ quite indistinguishable from a moan as Armand’s mouth started making use of the opening by finally getting to suck and play with her nipple properly. She felt as if the tingle from it had jotted down the entirety of his body to reach his toes, “—loved that shirt!”

“Your stupid, tight plastic top was eroding my tongue like sandpaper. Now I can work better,” he defended himself. He shifted between chewing on it like a toy, licking it, sucking it, pulling it with his front teeth and experimenting with the metal bar, which seemed to fascinate him endlessly.

A matching tear had been made, this time with his claws, on the other side of the shirt as well, so that he could work better there as well, kneading, fondling, squeezing and twisting as much as he willed. 

God, he loved this. He loved being touched by Armand and feeling this sense of complete rapture travel his body like he was undergoing an electric shock. He loved feeling loved. Cherished. And it was immeasurably valuable that it was Armand doing it, one who could be capable of so much destruction and hurt towards anyone, including him, yet not this once.

And Armand chose that exact moment to sink his fangs in the side of his breast. Lestat thought he heard a scream but he had no idea if it had been his own. Maybe it had been Armand the one who yelled, inside Lestat’s head, or perhaps someone had accidentally barged in and saw them. He didn't care.

Drinking vampiric blood, he had long found out, was different from drinking human blood. It wasn't simply the texture or the taste, it was the way it transferred from one body to another. You had to be careful when drinking from humans, let the blood come to you as it was pumped by the heart, because if you drank too fast you risked causing its rupture. But you didn't have to fear that with a vampire. Armand wasn't holding back. So gluttonous he was in his frantic attempt to gulp down all that leaked out from the twin wounds he made.

Lestat’s hand was still on the side of Armand’s neck, pressing the beautiful face impossibly closer to herself and, just like before, he could sense under his fingers his blood being swallowed down just behind Armand's larynx. Except, it wasn't just that, no. It wasn't simply about the actual movement of his throat as he swallowed. 

Lestat was feeling that stream of vampiric blood in the way he would feel it if it was still running inside his body. In the way he would feel it if it still were a part of him, like his fangs or his fingers were. He could still feel it as if it still belonged to Lestat himself— and yet at the same time, it was like the blood was guided by its own will to drip, slide and spread inside Armand’s system, until it mingled with Armand’s own blood in his veins and arteries and effectively became simply a part of Armand, at which point the phantom sensation would gradually wane with the dilution.

The realization was disorienting, dizzying even. And as he knocked on the confines of Armand's mind to let him have a taste of this, to make him know the overwhelming sense of rapture that he was experiencing, he too was rewarded with the impetuous gush of sensations that belonged to Armand. Mainly, this unstoppable, insatiable thirst to consume Lestat whole that the current influx of blood was satisfying, yet nowhere near quelling. More, more, more, it seemed to be chanting. Had it been a terrible miscalculation on Lestat’s part, believing she could satisfy this appetite enough to engulf him and emerge victor?

He inclined his head down to look at him, at this alluring embodiment of voraciousness, taking in the sight of Armand’s cheeks hollowing and filling as he sucked the blood in spurts. His face was matching with Lestat’s chest — shiny with spit, stained with a bit of blood and several shades of different colors of make-up that came from Lestat’s face — and she found it poetic in the way the two seemed to belong together.

Despite being nowhere appeased by his drink, Armand loosened his mouth’s hold and started licking the spots where his teeth had punctured through, getting the last drops before the wounds sealed close.

Lestat was getting off him just as Armand was about to get a bite on his other breast too.

“No, no, Lestat,” Armand begged, propelling himself forward to chase after her and trying to keep her in place by grabbing her by the black elastic band around her throat. His devastated expression looked funny, with all the smudged white paint and gloss that got on his face making him look a bit like a doll, a doll that a five-year-old child had been experimenting putting make-up on for the first time. But when their gazes met, Lestat was stricken by how vivid the color of his irises was.

“Let me, on both. For symmetry,” and when Armand asked for it, Lestat felt his breath on his lips, pulled forward by the neck as he was.

For the first time in her long life she heard something about symmetry during sex. Of course it came from Armand.

“Aren't you so damn greedy,” he laughed, emphasizing the last word as if Armand had in him the capacity to get self-conscious about it. “At this rate you are going to suck me dry. I’m not saying no to your proposal, you can, I simply wanted to take my shirt off. You ruined it anyway.”

“You look good in it.” Armand released the neckband and opened his palm, making it travel slowly from the hollow of his throat down his sternum while his gaze followed attentively, until it reached his abdomen and his vibrant eyes turned back up to look him in the face. Lestat was more used to jabs, rather than compliments from Armand. It burned right where his hand still laid. “Forget the holes I made. I like the fishnet on you. It’s alluring.”

Lestat couldn't help but point out his hypocrisy. “So earlier I was indecent, but now I look good.”

“You cannot possibly compare the two, that was about performing on stage. The circumstances in which you are wearing the item in question now are different,” he defended himself in all seriousness while starting to unbutton his own shirt. He was wearing nothing underneath and, well, Lestat couldn't prevent his eyes from taking a good look at the sliver of naked skin he could see. Still too little. The two sides of the now half-unbuttoned were still too close to one another.

Could this be a diversion? Well, if it was, Lestat had to admit it was unfortunately working on her, because her interest had certainly been piqued. Or perhaps it was the other way around, the entire discussion being just a decoy in order to remove a layer between them without permission and trying to distract Lestat from realizing he had. Either way, he had to do something about it.

Taking advantage of the fact that Armand’s position was not as stable as before, having crawled forward to chase after Lestat, it was easy to catch him by surprise and have him lose his balance by wrestling him down on his side and then push him on his back, wrists pinned at the sides of his head, as she put her weight on them to get on top of him once again.

“Personally, I think it's jealousy. Don’t like how they look at me, do you?” Lestat noted, while staring down at him. How tempting it was to let himself explore the naked surface of Armand's chest and stomach with his fingers like he wished to. Only one button left. But that would have meant having to release his hands. “And aren’t you embarrassed, having to come up with tricks like these, in order to—”

Out of nowhere, Armand’s head suddenly sprang up. He hadn't freed himself from his bounds to do that, but Lestat had been stupid and had stood way too close. And Armand bit him, right where he had long announced he wanted to. He bit him! He should have expected this. Not too hard, that was, more like nibbling since the fangs merely caught the skin, but that was only because Armand was in an unfavourable position to get more than that. Talk about giving an inch and him taking a mile!

What Armand himself had probably not expected either was, however, the fact that Lestat had instinctively jerked back in reaction. Mostly surprised, perhaps a bit in pain, perhaps a bit in pleasure, for a second he lost strength in his arms that were keeping him propped up and fully collapsed, squashing Armand’s head against the mattress in the process and causing the fangs to sink all the way in his breast.

The blood amount that gushed to Armand’s mouth at the impact must have been egregious, because his moan spread across every corner of Lestat’s entire body as sound would travel and resound through glassware clanging against one another. And he surely didn't waste this chance that he was being gifted, as he guzzled down as much as he could, like he feared it was going to be taken away from him. Yet the act didn't have his full attention, because he used his tongue not only to propel the blood down his throat, but harass her nipple relentlessly as well in the action. And that felt so terrifically good that Lestat didn't want it to stop, ever perhaps, a mere bundle of nerves lighting up all at the same time and frizzling, short circuiting he felt. Alright, maybe he had been wrong in that one lyric.

She couldn't think, nor rise. Her mind was completely empty while her heart longed and filled with the same desire that had started this all along. To take down Armand, because how dare he act like this, take him down completely, repeatedly, having him be so stuffed with Lestat, engorging him with Lestat and nothing else in every conceivable way until he would burst. For it to be the way he would have his ultimate defeat, for Armand to crave his own annihilation.

“I want to get inside you in every possible way I can fathom,” she managed to croak out somehow, surprised at her ability to even think a coherent sentence in the void state of her mind. Armand must have been completely immersed in his activities and caught by surprise by the statement because he choked, unsuccessful in tearing away his teeth from Lestat’s flesh. Perhaps the fangs had lodged themselves into it too deeply and naturally the fact that Lestat’s chest kept pressing down on his mouth wasn't helping him unlatch them either, preventing him from taking in air. Not that he needed to do that at all. It was nothing but an old human reflex, but it took him some time to realize it.

A burst of wetness hit her as Armand coughed out the last mouthful of blood he had been trying to swallow, spilling the red liquid down his own face and all over both of their chests and shirts. Armand was clearly trying to free his hands from Lestat’s hold to push her off and just breathe, but no, Lestat would not, could not allow that to happen. Actually, he even hoped some drops even got somehow stuck deep inside Armand's lungs and that he would feel forever the itch of something being caught there, unable to remove it. Wouldn't that be the right punishment? Some sort of Dantesque Law of Retribution for his insatiable thirst.

See, this is where all your greediness leads you, eventually.

He didn’t tell him that. Let him be even greedier, let him bite him so much more than he can chew. It would be so delightful to witness how it ultimately turns against him.

When the coughing stopped, Lestat finally let him go. Encouraged by Armand, who opened his own thighs to accommodate her better and was pressing his palms against Lestat’s hips to help him slide down, he went to meet him face to face. Unfortunately, their aims seem to be different, because Armand turned his head to give Lestat his own neck, no doubt hinting at him to bite.

No, not a chance, that would have to wait. She bent Armand’s knees and pushed his legs further apart to glue herself as close as she could, to be able to make Armand feel the contact as much as possible despite the leather and satin of their paints preventing naked flesh from meeting properly. Then he grabbed Armand’s chin with two fingers and turned his face around, taking notice of how the brown of the irises had been eaten away by the black holes of his enlarged pupils. Eyes brimming, like Lestat hanged the moon and stars in the sky for him. As he dived down to catch Armand’s lips so harshly that their teeth and fangs clattered against each other’s, he was surprised by how pliant Armand was in opening up once Lestat applied the slightest pressure on his lips. He loved when Armand put up a fight, because it was fun, entertaining, but he loved just as much when Armand was so needy that he found himself too desperate to be able to.

“Having my blood isn’t enough for you, is it? You want everything I could possibly ever give you. My tongue, my fingers,” he said, digging his fingers against Armand’s ribs as if he meant to actually shove them through. Perhaps he could. “My strap, all inside of you.” The slow, circular grinding movements were turning progressively into faster, sharper and more decisive ones as they kept kissing, while Armand squirmed and whined under him, overwhelmed. Delightful little noises that were music to Lestat’s ears. Her palms confidently crawled up under Armand’s open shirt to grab his breasts, one in each hand, sticky with the blood, Lestat's blood, that had been in Armand briefly before he had choked upon it and spilled it all over himself like some fledgling vampire, instead of someone who had been in the blood for centuries. “Empty you, fill you with myself. And you will beg me for it. Isn't that it, Maître, your centuries-old wish, for me to give you my all?”

“Please,” he ended up croaking out in between laboured breaths, and despite the fact that he was replying in her head, his voice sounded so hoarse one could have thought he hadn’t drunk anything in centuries. So now Armand could find it in him to beg. Wasn’t that interesting?

“Thinking of me like this quite often, I’m sure you have. In many various states of undressing, me on top of you, a leg in between yours, or grinding on each other, three fingers deep inside you.” Lestat slid his lips down his right cheek to reach his ear. “Me coming down your mouth so you could have even that inside of you,” he whispered before petting his curls aside to take his lobe in his mouth and suck on it.

“Birds of a feather… flock… together,” Armand found it in himself to talk back, before letting out a groan when Lestat must have hit a particularly pleasurable spot with his latest movement. Was he was referring to their previous meeting? Either way, Lestat liked him more when he was too busy whimpering under him and therefore didn't have any breath left to be cheeky.

“You’re clearly not doing a good enough job in keeping me busy, then.” Listening, he was. Provoking her like this, was he looking to be obliterated? Well, Lestat could certainly provide.

He moved away and immediately started removing Armand’s trousers, the smooth satin sliding together with his underwear down the equally velvetlike skin of Armand’s thighs, while Armand struggled much more in freeing Lestat from her tight pants, whose material wasn't particularly helping him peel them off. He had to admit that, while they may make his ass look fabulous on stage, once off-stage they’d turn into a nightmare to get out of. He had to take the matter in his own hand and help Armand out, or he would have lost both shirt and pants.

“You weren't wearing anything under them?” Armand pointed out, face scrunched and clearly weirded out by Lestat’s lack of underwear.

“Paint me surprised that you were,” she laughed while her hands were busy for a few seconds rummaging inside her bags, until they caught what they were looking for.

Less than a minute it took, given his practiced hands and vampiric enhanced speed, to fasten the silicon toy to its ring, slick it up and tie the harness around her hips. As he raised his gaze, he found Armand sitting, looking up at him and tilting his chin up at him briefly in encouragement. His opened shirt spattered with blood had been thrown to the side too, giving Lestat the chance to finally take an appreciative look at every inch of Armand’s naked body.

“You are just like I remember,” he noted, leaning lightly on Armand's thigh so he could kneel between his legs. Such a stupid utterance, because of course Armand was like he remembered. Lestat’s gaze followed his own fingertips as they crawled from Armand’s foot up his ankle, his calf, then traced one of the familiar scars of his thighs. Up, up, the ever-present creases of the stretch marks on his hips, the same number and position of moles on his stomach, his body hair waxed in some areas or trimmed at the same length as it had been back then. He was beautiful, perfect, healthy in a way only very few mortals could ever be. And it always felt comforting, to know that there were people out there who could share the same horror and marvel in their unchanging bodies.

“Not sure about right here, though,” Lestat muttered when her fingers reached his heart and she placed her palm on top of it. Her other hand went to cradle Armand’s cheek while the pads of her index and middle finger brushed against his temple. “Or here.”

A small disbelieving laugh followed.

“I haven't. Live through the ages, find what compels you forward, you said back then. I tried to, I thought I even found it once.” A pause. He knew what Armand meant. “I latched onto it, maybe too tightly, and ultimately I failed to...”

He didn't agree that Armand hadn't changed at all. Perhaps a bit of change had been brought by not belonging to a coven anymore, or living with Louis, or breaking up with her. Or a little bit of all of them. But Lestat didn't know what to say, or how to say it, so he didn't say anything. Instead, he sat backwards, waiting for Armand to come to him if and when he was ready.

And Armand soon crawled forward towards her. Guiding Armand by placing her hands on Armand’s hips, Lestat had him sit on her lap. At the beginning, riveting in the way Armand’s stomach would clench in anticipation only to be let down, or the way his breath would needlessly catch in his lungs, he would pretend to insert the tip in only to have it brush against his clit and slide up his stomach instead.

“Stop teasing and get done with it,” Armand protested, making his point clearer by pulling on Lestat’s hair and almost headbutting him in the process.

“You dare?” Lestat asked in jest, pushing him harshly on his shoulders so that he would fall on his back, like she was only waiting for such a slight to start taking things seriously. Maybe she was.

Kneeling and positioning Armand’s calves on her shoulders and then grasping his thighs, finally Lestat acquiesced to his demands by fully sinking into him in one go, catching Armand by surprise.

The slide in was easier than he thought, but when he tried to pull back, he could feel just how much Armand’s walls were clenching down on him.

“Wooden cock from three hundred years ago or these new things, Maître always takes me so well,” he told him as he slammed back inside unforgivingly hard as Armand yelped. Her pace was slow, relentlessly slow, but the thrusts were merciless.

“Cold,” the ungrateful vampire had the guts to reply, before his breath hitched when the following thrust landed. 

“My bad, instead of using lube I should have warmed it down your throat first. But it's alright, if you want it in there too we can make up for it later.”

He loved Armand’s fervid imagination. Not even one second after such mention that a fully flashed out fantasy about said scene would play like a movie in his mind, to which he never bothered preventing Lestat out from slipping inside. In it, he could see from Armand’s eyes Lestat feeding him his strap. He was swirling his tongue around its cold tip, climbing his way up while Lestat petted his hair, and testing just how much of it he could fit into his mouth and down the canal of throat. He would continue until he reached the base and, without needing to breathe, he would stay there warming it in his constricted windpipe for some time before sliding up and down on it, matching Lestat’s movements.

“Later, later. Now, feel it, here,” she said, bringing their joint hands on Armand’s stomach. She went for a more precise and sharper thrust, so that Armand could almost feel the bulge in his abdomen, and she could see Armand’s eyes glistening from the pleasure that was rushing through his body as his neck bent backwards.

“I need to see you come just from this. I need you to be clenching down on me so hard I will feel like I’m bound to be stuck forever inside you.”

The squelch as their flash met was obscene, bodily fluids helping the slide inside the warm walls yet making them aware of just how filthy they were getting as the movements got faster.

But Armand chose to keep provoking him.

“It’s going to be difficult considering just how sloppy you got after centuries.”

“Oh, is that so?” she asked and suddenly broke away to flip Armand over on his stomach. Delicious was the way Armand let himself be manhandled. As soon as Armand raised up on his knees, he climbed on top of him, getting inside of him once again.

He started caressing his chest, sticky with blood and sweat, whispering in his ear while he slipped inside and this time made the slide unforgivingly slow just to tease him.

“You know which one of our old times is my favourite?” he asked.

“I don't care.” Very rude.

“Our first, under Les Innocents. When I had us act upon the most sacrilegious, blasphemous and heretical ideas I could come up with. As a way to have you overcome the centuries of useless rules and fake beliefs they had made you live under, does it ring any bell?”

It felt wonderful to have Armand groan face against the mattress and clench under him at his words. He did remember, it seemed.

“I’m thinking about that one thing, with the crucifix… or the strings of rosary beads… and, once we were done, cleaned them up in a paten with holy water like we did before using them. Délivre-moi du mal. Is that the type of thing you're craving for right now? I can work with it.”

He noticed the hands gripping the sheets harder, almost tearing them apart.

“Touch me, please,” Armand earnestly begged.

“But Maître is so good he can come without me needing to, can he not?” he asked as he nibbled on his ear and finally started speeding up his thrusts again, hands running up from Armand's breasts to his shoulders so he could use them for leverage.

“Are you as good for me as you would be for others? I don't think so. You would deny it, but I think I’m your favorite and therefore get to have some special treatment. Maître is so kind, isn't he? How can I compensate him, hmm?”

He knew Armand was so out of it by the fact he wasn't even replying with his mind to her taunts. He had half expected Armand to intervene and tell him to shut up. Or maybe for him to kick him in warning, to get back at him somehow. Instead, what he got was high-pitched strangled cry after strangled cry, desperate like he was breathing for the first time before almost drowning underwater. Tighter, wetter as Lestat kept pushing into him until Armand collapsed, shrieking, Lestat’s name on his lips as she firmly grabbed his hips to ram into him until Armand started complaining that it was too much. She slowed down and came to a stop, yet remained sheathed inside.

For a second he wanted to ask, “Missed this?” but then he realized it may have come off as cruel, so he didn't. Instead, she left a kiss on a vertebra at the middle of his spine, lovingly, but the movement must have pushed her in deeper because Armand cursed at her, clearly being still too sensitive. So of course he did it again higher, with the excuse of wanting to leave another kiss, and Armand hissed at him like a cat, even going as far as to pinch him.

“You don't like my kisses, heartbreaking…”

He was suddenly thrown off him with a shove to his chest and a good dose of vampiric strength. How cruel to be left mourning the warmth of Armand’s skin against his.

“Wait, Maître is generous enough to let me clean him up,” he said, by crawling back closer in between Armand’s legs and dipping two fingers in, scooping up, bringing them to his mouth and finally putting his tongue on them. He couldn’t help but find it interesting, how all of a vampire’s bodily fluids had the same taste as that person’s blood, the only difference being the texture.

She quickly removed his harness, throwing it to the side, since she didn’t want to waste any time in getting his mouth gorge out all she could directly from the source. While Lestat laid down on his stomach, he had Armand turn face up. Using the flat of his tongue, he lapped up the fluid that was dripping from the folds as if he didn't want any of it to get lost on the sheets. Then he went to get everything that he could reach on the inside too. He was so wet, yet Lestat was certainly adding to that by salivating way too much because of the appetizing smell of sex he was breathing in.

“Need you to come again. On my tongue directly. Need to drink it up as soon as you make it...”

His hair was pulled backwards when her nose brushed his still sensitive spot, yet Lestat was relentless, the hands gripping his thighs tightening with the nails almost tearing the skin.

“You are a dog,” Armand uttered with an exasperated sigh, and to that Lestat perked up, “perhaps it's the view, but I can see an imaginary tail wagging.”

“Naturally, I’m having a nice meal, you see,” she replied. His tongue dipped inside and started drinking all Armand had made for him. Let me clean you up, he had said, yet… Maybe what was closer to the truth was that, yes, he wanted to clean him up, but only to soil him again, to get him dirtier, wetter. He wanted to squeeze all of it out of him.

The repetitive motion of plunging inside him with his tongue was soon replaced for a focus on his clit. She started with a slow lick upwards as Armand gasped and the pull on his blond hair tightened, but this time Lestat was finally being pushed closer rather than pulled away. Slow, very slow licks, kisses too, while lapping up anything that would leak out of him, then he soon started sucking on his clit and flickering his tongue as fast as he could, keeping his glistening folds open with her index and ring finger and having her middle finger inside him.

“Keep doing – exactly that,” Armand asked, panting, as he started grinding against his face and Lestat helped him with the movements by pulling him towards him by his hips.

It was fascinating to watch the way Armand's soft stomach would clench or rise in response to what he touched, trying to pull his legs back to allow Lestat to have as much access as possible at first, but now squeezing his head in between his thighs as if that could bring him any closer or aid the rocking movements. He couldn’t certainly blow his head off with his thighs, even with his vampiric strength, right? At least Lestat hoped so.

She could feel Armand was close by how much he was quivering, so she switched the position of her hand in order to be able to slip both her middle and ring finger inside of him, thrusting them deep inside him while she kept flickering her tongue against his clit. It was all muscle memory perhaps, getting the right spot inside him in a mere instant, like he somewhat still remembered after centuries. He didn’t need Armand to guide him. Which Armand rarely ever did anyway, at least vocally, as if Lestat had to prove he was as good as he claimed to be, and therefore letting him do all the work in understanding what to do simply by how his body reacted.

He bent his fingers, which were being ravenously swallowed by Armand getting tighter, and kept hitting the same place, again, again and again, even when, finally, Armand’s back arched as he came with a cry. She kept her fingers in, and kept lapping up any liquid Armand gushing out around them as the other kicked his feet against the mattress and Lestat’s back, a reaction probably caused by a throbbing overstimulation.

“Aren’t you delicious… I could be doing this again and again, really.”

And he planned to do exactly that. This had started this with a certain aim in mind, after all, to take Armand down completely. He had to honour that, didn't he?