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“You and him?”
The dreaded question. Louis brings it up again, post-afterglow, in what he must think is an unassuming manner.
Armand can still remember the utter surprise that coursed through him when the vision of Lestat de Lioncourt first flashed from Louis’s mind into his own—quick as lightning, clumsily dimmed and then suppressed— but shocking and affecting in that moment. Louis’s attempt at beclouding no doubt would have worked powerfully on any human he directed it toward, but Armand is not any human. By now he has walked the earth for several hundred immortal years, his vampiric perception sharp enough to catch Louis’s inexpert attempt at concealing his thoughts.
Armand did not pry. Certain though he was that both Louis and Claudia were Lestat’s latest immortal progeny, he let the topic lie for a time, mentioning him only once as a warning to guard his mind from the others. But separate completely from their mutual shared connection with Lestat, Armand feels an immediate attraction to the quiet and reserved Louis de Ponte du Lac, who delicately sidesteps his overtures to join the coven. It was easy for Armand to allow himself the distraction of their easy flirtation as they circled each other night after night, even as it pulled him from his duties at the theater. Perhaps it was all too easy to be with Louis because they both excelled at hiding their true selves away, and trying to find comfort in the here and now. It made it easy to pretend, with him, as they argued lightly about their opposing views of humanity as two mortal philosophers might.
But the coven grew restless as they watched him permit this newcomer to gallivant about the city in direct violation of the Great Laws. Armand could feel the dance between them winding down. The topic they had both been avoiding these many months was heavy between them, even unspoken as it was. When he finally, finally pulled the truth loose from him, Armand knew the question loomed, dangling like an invisible Sword of Damocles.
“You and him?”
Now that Louis has revealed his truth, his painfully guarded secret, the truth of Armand’s own association must be addressed. But what can he say? For several centuries now, Armand kept his truth hidden. From the coven, of course, but he had buried it away from himself beyond any other. Those awful feelings and memories had been locked away long ago. It has always been easier to simply remember Leilo, the actor, the founder that everyone knew. For centuries now, Armand only allowed Lestat to be that in his mind and heart. To ponder the real truth is too painful, even now, these many, many years past.
Lestat had ripped centuries of purpose and order away from him, easily and carelessly, never considering what the absence of such purpose would mean for Armand. Louis certainly wouldn’t understand. How could he be expected to know what proving the utter falsity of the Children of Darkness’s existence and function revealed to him? That it meant that the burning of his Master, his beloved Marius, and his great works, and the boys, was not in service of some higher power or plan. That it was suffering purely for the sake of suffering. Marius burned, for nothing. The boys went to the fire, for nothing.
And then, Lestat left. Left him with his world in shambles, vaguely replaced with the theater. For him to rebuild, as though it were a sensible substitute for the order and purpose that had seemed to make Armand’s painful sacrifices somehow worth it all.
How did you know him?
He’s good at obfuscating, even from himself.
Especially from himself.
So when Louis coaxes the tale of their meeting from him, it’s almost easy for Armand to spin a fiction so meticulously crafted, from such specific fantasies, that it’s vivid enough for him to almost believe it all.
“You must be silent, mon cher.”
In Armand’s memory, he can feel Lestat’s muscles rippling, enveloping his own thin body completely with the powerful strength of his sinewy arms, keeping him pressed against the rough carpet floor of the theater box. Lips suck hungrily against Armand’s jawline, down the column of his throat slowly, too slowly, without a hint of fangs. Lestat has his lower body well-pinned down with his own, preventing Armand from gaining any purchase by which to respond meaningfully in kind. Armand can feel his massive erection press insistently against Lestat’s through the fabric barrier of both of their trousers.
In the haze of his libidinousness, Armand thinks he’s imagining what Lestat is doing until, with a dark chuckle, he presses his hips against Armand’s, slowly and deliberately grinding their cocks together until Armand moans softly and presses his face against his shoulder, overwhelmed.
“No, my sweet,” Lestat’s voice rings through his mind. “Bring that lovely face back to me.”
Long fingers grasp Armand’s chin and turn his face gently forward to meet his cool, eager lips. Armand reciprocates immediately, responding to Lestat’s attentions in kind, opening his mouth and kissing back eagerly. But this eagerness is no match for Lestat, whose kisses seem made to devour. Every attempt to match Lestat is met with futility—even here, he’s managed to get the better of him, the upper hand.
The natural power within his young human body has only been exacerbated by the infusion of Magnus’s powerful blood. Still, the sheer amount of strength within this fledgling confounds Armand.
Lestat, bursting with confidence and irrepressible arrogance despite his youth, both in mortal and vampire years, walks and talks as one with a certainty of perspective that speaks to some sort of hidden knowledge of the world, a knowledge that Armand lacks and desperately needs. It makes him eager to follow this vainglorious egoist, to learn whatever he may from him.
But Lestat is confounding and capricious. Armand hardly knows what he will do from moment to moment, much less what, if anything, he has planned out for the long-term. It complicates Armand’s attempts to truly gain Lestat’s favor and convince him to share his secrets.
“Remember, you must be silent,” Lestat’s voice reaches Armand telepathically, while his tongue presses hungrily inside his mouth. “The mortals in the audience paid for the opportunity to see this performance. They should be permitted to get their money’s worth. Practice good etiquette in the theater. Be considerate.”
If only Lestat would be considerate of Armand, who feels that his pressing needs at the moment greatly outweigh any right of their theatergoing neighbors in their nearby boxes to take in the performance in perfect silence.
It seems comically tragic that from the moment the vampire Lestat emerged from Magnus’s ashes—quite literally—Armand had been confident in his ability to bring the brash young fledgling into the fold, or the fire—yet in the end, it had been Lestat who ambled into the tombs below Les Innocents and demolished his confidence, and his control. Surely Armand’s had been a false confidence, a mask to blind the coven of its futility of purpose. A mask that blinded Armand, too, until Lestat boldly pulled it from his eyes and shattered the illusion that has kept him on this side of sanity. The illusion that the destruction of Marius and his studio had been for a reason, other than suffering.
If the Children of Darkness had not been supplanted by the dazzling modernity of the Théâtre des Vampires—if Armand had not had the foresight to permit Lestat’s destruction of the coven—there could be no continuity of purpose. And then, that terrible true purpose—simple suffering—would prove real.
This is what Armand tells himself as he revels in the attention Lestat bestows on him. Lestat, fabulously rich since inheriting all of Magnus’s wealth, lavishes the company with gifts on a consistent basis, Armand most of all. Even with Nicki’s sullen glares following him through the theater, Armand relishes every moment that Lestat cossets him with tender compliments or treats him with some rare indulgence that he’s procured for the two of them alone to share.
He wants Lestat to hold him, to touch him; to guide him, to bring meaning back into his shell of a life. If Armand submits himself wholeheartedly, does whatever he can to please him, perhaps he can have that.
Lost in memories and sensation, Armand is drawn back to the present by the shifting of Lestat’s hips as he draws his cock out. Armand doesn’t realize that he’s been whining softly until he’s being admonished for it as Lestat’s lips pull away from his mouth.
“Perhaps if I fill that mouth of yours, you’ll learn to be quiet in the theater,” he says. Armand resists the instinct to groan with anticipation. “But I actually would love for you to be more vocal with me here.” Telepathically, he means—naturally. “Let me hear you ask for more, sweet thing.”
Armand barely hesitates. “Please,” he asks. The words come easily to his lips, but he imparts them mind to mind instead, as Lestat has commanded. “Please fill my mouth with your cock. I love it when you put it down my throat, I love it when I’m full of you.”
His stomach rolls pleasurably when he sees the gleam of lustful approval in Lestat’s eyes, but his excitement turns to confusion when, rather than pulling Armand to his knees and feeding him his cock, Lestat instead tugs at the laces of Armand’s trousers to open them so he can take the latter in his unyielding grasp.
Armand gives an impulsive exclamation of surprise when Lestat presses him firmly to the floor and swings his body around so he lies upside down, his face pressed against Armand’s newly-freed erection, while his own cock hangs in front of Armand’s bewildered gaze.
“None of that,” Lestat chides sharply. His body is by all accounts larger than Armand’s, so he takes care to lean on his elbows, instead of pressing all of his weight down onto his partner. “Remember, you need to be silent! Now, take my cock in your mouth like a good boy.”
Armand does not need to be told twice. He’s more than eager when he leans forward to wrap his lips around the cock in front of him. Lestat rocks his hips gently, making his erection accessible without requiring Armand to crane his neck and upper back to reach him. When he takes Armand into his own mouth, his tongue circling the crown of his cock, Armand stifles the his moan of pleasure by leaning forward and swallowing Lestat down to the root.
Armand tries not to dwell on the fact that while both he and Lestat technically do not speak or otherwise make any other vocalizations, the sucking, wet noises of mouths on cock are plenty audible. Thankfully—hopefully—the humans in the adjacent boxes cannot hear them over the pitch of the orchestra.
He dwells instead upon technique. Armand has a clever mouth; he hopes it’s clever enough for Lestat. He always tries to mark every method he uses that Lestat seems to enjoy during their moments of intimacy. He drinks up every look or word of praise from him like they’re ambrosia, desperate to win his favor in perpetuity. Because no matter how much he fawns, or how enthusiastic he is during lovemaking, Armand is never quite confident in his position as Lestat’s favored companion. To begin with, Nicholas’s presence inevitably requires that the two of them coexist not only as coven members, but as artistic partners with the Théâtre des Vampires. Although Lestat and Nicholas’s relationship has been over for some time, there is a tension that remains, hanging over the air of the theater.
More than that, however, Lestat is a volatile personality, impulsive and headstrong. He drifts easily from one indulgence to another, with selfish regard for no one, and concern for nothing but his own avarice. Despite Armand’s vampiric seniority, he knows Magnus imparted great power into this fledgling. Save for Marius, only Lestat alone can match him. Armand is convinced that the two of them belong together. “Who can love us, you and I, as we can love each other?” Armand had said to him once, on one of the occasions he’d sought to convince Lestat of their unique synchronicity. Lestat had not replied to this little declaration of his, nor had he replied to any of the dozens of similar statements made in the weeks since the first.
So despite the pampering and the indulgences Lestat bestows upon him regularly, Armand remains nervous about the precariousness of their companionship. This is why he focuses so on doing every little thing in a manner that is to Lestat’s liking. He watches his lover scrupulously for signs of true complacency.
Currently, Armand relies heavily on physical cues, owing to the nature of his current position, facing away from Lestat with his face full of cock. Still, he’s able to tell that Lestat enjoys it very much when he takes him down the back of his throat and swallows around the entire length of him, based on the hitch in his rhythm as he sucks Armand down.
“Your hot, silken mouth is exquisite. Use more of your tongue. That’s right. Good.”
Armand still can’t be sure if Lestat is disappointed in his performance when he gives these sorts of directives, or whether he simply enjoys criticizing him so he can keep Armand in a perpetual state of complaisance.
The obsession might drive him mad. But if he fails to gratify him, Lestat in his impulsivity might leave and seek out his pleasure elsewhere. And then Armand will be alone again, bereft of the meaning necessary to go on.
Lestat had destroyed everything. But if Armand can have his love, it can all be restored in a new form. If they cannot have the old ways, can’t they have each other?
Distracted somewhat by his musings, Armand chokes involuntarily when a particularly aggressive stroke of Lestat’s cock presses against the back of his throat. He instinctively follows Lestat’s retreat when he pulls his cock out of his mouth in response.
“I thought I told you to keep yourself quiet,” he says, rearranging his position so that the two of them are once more pressed together chest against chest, and slanting his mouth against Armand’s. His words are only lightly mocking in tone. “But you’re much too noisy when my cock is in your mouth.”
“I love having your cock in my mouth,” Armand replies ardently. “I love it too much.”
Lestat smiles against his lips, grinding his hips upwards teasingly. “I will have to fill it again once we are properly alone, won’t I?”
“Oh, yes,” Armand says automatically. “Yes, please! Please let me have your cock in my throat again, let me drink you down until sunrise!”
“My filthy boy," Lestat says. Fondly, Armand thinks. Hopes.
“Please,” Armand continues, hoping that by taking this initiative, Lestat will be impressed. His tilts his ass up, tries to rub his hole along Lestat’s shaft. “Put it inside me now. I promise I won’t make a sound! I need to be filled with you, Lestat. Please, give me your cock, please.”
Lestat chuckles softly, so softly Armand feels it more than he hears it, even with his heightened abilities. Then he takes both their cocks firmly in hand. His strokes are practiced as he grinds their cocks together.
“Can you come like this, mon cher?” Lestat asks. “Can you come all over yourself, cover my cock with your spend? Mark me, mark us? Would you like that?”
The piercing note of a violin in the orchestra punctuates Lestat’s final words. Armand barely hears it over the pounding in his ears.
“Please!” Armand kisses Lestat fiercely, overwhelmed by the imagery he has conjured. “Let me come for you! On you!”
Armand thrusts his cock greedily into Lestat’s grasp, trying to will his orgasm to fruition. Despite knowing that completion will only come from his lover’s hand, he follows the instinct to tilt his hips upwards imploringly.
Lestat thankfully possesses a small modicum of mercy, obliging Armand’s desperate begging by increasing the pace of his own thrusting and the speed and pressure of his hand. He manages to stifle his little cry of relief when he topples over the edge, blissed out by the bursts of pleasure wracking his body as he spills over Lestat’s hand, which is still working both of their cocks furiously against each other. Lestat maintains his grip on Armand as he seeks his own completion, even as the aftershocks turn to oversensitivity and Armand shifts fretfully.
“Don’t move,” Lestat growls. “I’m close.”
Armand obeys immediately and without the slightest hesitation, despite the near-painful twinging of his softening cock, at the tone in his voice. Lestat smiles.
“Good boy,” he purrs, and then he’s coming too, covering the two of them more thoroughly with spend. Then, finally, he drops to the floor, laying on his back alongside Armand on the carpet. He reaches out to run his fingers through Armand’s hair fondly.
“Don’t clean yourself,” Lestat tells him. “You wear me very well.”
Armand feels a blush rise to his cheeks, courtesy, no doubt, of the blood coursing through his veins from a recent kill. The blush deepens when Lestat takes it upon himself to lean forward and tuck Armand away, still coated in their shared spend. It’s sticky and uncomfortable, but Armand does not complain. Especially not when Lestat does the very same to himself as the sounds of the play’s conclusion beyond their box drift in. Armand wonders fleetingly if the stains will wash out, or if Lestat will simply show up tomorrow evening sometime after dusk with a new replacement set of clothes to indulge him with.
“Shall we hunt on the way home?” Lestat asks several minutes later as they drift out of the theater and onto the streets of Paris. “As a replenishment? I do recall you mentioning something about drinking me down until sunrise? If you’re a very good boy, I’ll let you come on my cock.”