It makes everything in him jolt. Kissing Louis, electric and revelatory but familiar, which cases an ache like a wound, knowing it happened and it wasn't a dream, it was pulled away from them.
What else? Can't think of it now, it's too fucking much. He has Louis, feels him, smells him, everything is just Louis, the itch in the scar on his neck, the beat of dead hearts. A thought starts to surface, if Armand will know, if Armand will make him answer for this, how bad the fight will be— but he sends it away. Fuck off, all of that.
"This is probably better. I'm not half-hoping you aren't serious so I don't embarrass myself further."
Poetry. But what do you want, his dick literally did not work, then.
"You sat on my lap. I didn't care about it," (because it was uncomfortable, because Daniel was in constant pain, but Louis sapped it out of him), "I wanted you too much."
It happened, and it wasn't a dream. Louis kisses him and feels it like an echo. Kisses him and feels how Daniel makes the recollection sharper, stronger. Real. A real thing that happened, that they started and weren't permitted to finish.
(Armand's claws pricking at his jaw, the expression on his face like ice, anger so cold it sliced, it cut.)
"I didn't know."
No denial that Louis had been in his head, touching his thoughts. Fascinating still, always, endlessly. Distracting. But not with enough depth to know. Or maybe Louis simply hadn't been allowed to look at what it was Daniel felt for him.
Louis, a monster. Louis, who had bitten him. Almost killed him. Louis hadn't known there was anything else. Daniel, wanting him like this. Different than the kind of attraction Louis had cultivated like a jump scare, like an elbow to the ribs that Daniel would always, always return in kind.
Speaking so close their noses bump, their lips brush, telling him, "I am. Serious."
Corrects himself, "I was serious. I'm still serious now."
Knows this even with only parts and pieces, with only the sense of Daniel's expression looking up at him.
Daniel, in typical Daniel form, wishes he could remember all of it. When had Armand really appeared? Did he watch, while keeping himself obfuscated, or did he just eavesdrop with telepathy? Did he and Louis argue after? Did he guide Daniel back to his bedroom himself? Why? Why?
He'll have to run these down. Because he has to run everything down, the instinct in him can't be killed, not even by weeks of power-tripping on a rock tour while newly undead.
Has to know, because he has to know. And maybe because he has to tell Louis, too. Louis, who he cares for so much, who deserves to have all the things taken from him restored. Thousands of victims, but Daniel still thinks Louis is the better person. Too many reasons. He wants Louis to be happy— and it's so strange to think Louis would have him be a part of achieving that.
Just some junkie. Still. And yet Louis says serious.
A laugh breathed into the space between them, for how overwhelming the question is. Overwhelming in what it provokes in Louis, what it stirs in him for an answer.
"Too much."
Tempering, obscuring. Louis wants too much from him. He had described to Daniel what it had been, wanting Lestat. Knows that to be within him, still, knows that holding himself apart from it is necessary. He knows that the way he wants Daniel runs on a parallel, and knows Daniel would find it unbelievable.
"But we got time."
A couple weeks. Then what? Daniel goes back to Lestat. Louis continues hunting the past across continents, continues fights he isn't telling Daniel about. They come back together, when?
Logistics and practicality that Louis stops, puts out of his head for the moment.
"Will you tell me what you want?" comes as Louis winds impossibly closer. Narrows the space between them, hooked in by his fingers in Daniel's shirt, his knee hitched around Daniel's leg. Practicing restraint, when Louis wants to kiss him again. Spend hours on just that, making up for lost time.
Daniel pulls him closer, and kisses him. For real, this time. I am serious, even if he's nervous about it all still. But he wants him. Badly, and so much. Just like in San Fransisco, wanting Louis most of all the things he wanted, recklessly pulling his shirt off and trying to bait it first thing. Just like in Dubai, where he wanted to do the interview and get out of there alive and have the book, didn't want to end up fucking murdered by Armand, but wanted Louis more.
Like now. He wants to talk about it, wants to not end up screwed over, but he wants Louis. More. Most. He wants to know what his fucking tonsils taste like. Unfuckingbelievable that Louis wants him, but Daniel doesn't have enough moral fiber to keep saying no to something he wants. It's Louis' bad decision, Daniel's done all he can to dissuade him.
Daniel reels him back and Louis goes, laughing softly into the kiss. Poorly timed amusement fading away as Louis sinks into Daniel, no space left between them. Louis' knee hitched up over Daniel's thigh, fingers in his hair. Whole body going loose, flushed warm under Daniel's hands.
They should talk about it. Louis should do better, give Daniel the conversation before they pitch headlong into anything.
Except they are something. They've always been. Louis has been serious for fifty years. Serious even when Daniel was half a memory, when they were missing pieces of each other.
They can talk about it. They will. Daniel will ask his questions and Louis will answer, and they'll argue a little, maybe. (Probably.) Louis tells himself all of these things as they kiss, as he licks into Daniel's mouth, crowds him like they aren't already as close as can possibly be. Tells him, "I'd give you anything," between one kiss and the next. Bites down on his lower lip, breathes, "Anything" against his mouth, easy promises to make Daniel, who has already offered this to Louis.
Easy to promise him anything. They've survived everything together. Louis trusted him with all of himself before they even knew who they were to each other.
Stupid to promise a selfish addict anything. Fortunately, Daniel has grown since the 1970s. He's not going to say Then never leave me like the black hole he is. Knows better. He's just going to accept that anything is beyond his ability to believe— but appreciating it is not. That Louis is willing to say it fills him with a stupid, light feeling. Like driving too fast in a car and laughing about it. Heady, exciting, dangerous.
"Except a direct answer this whole time," he teases him in a faux-annoyed tone. Daniel kisses him, and kisses him, unreal, until he pulls Louis closer (somehow), "because you're so mysterious. And a dork."
Art nerd. Fashion diva.
Daniel rolls onto his back and takes Louis with him, easy like this, as a creature, and he looks up, obviously marveling. It had hurt in Dubai, but he was willing to ignore it. Now, there's nothing. Not even discomfort. He can just look up at Louis, hand on his cheek, and closeness is all there is.
Anything whispered again, over the heels of feigned annoyance, words Louis has never been called in any context but laughs anyway.
Might have pressed the point, if Daniel hadn't said this other thing.
"Oh?"
A choice to offer polite interest in this timely assertion, as Louis settles himself over Daniel. Loose-limbed still, sprawling across Daniel's chest, aligning their hips, tangling their thighs. An easy drape of contact, fingers tracing idle circle over the scarring at Daniel's throat. Touches his face, now that their position better affords him the leeway. Close. Not close enough.
From this vantage point, Louis takes a moment to consider him. To weigh this statement. Parse whether or not Daniel is telling him this thing like a joke, or something else.
Louis wants to kiss him again. Louis has to content himself with fingers toying with the curls at Daniel's temple, waiting for him to expand on this point before they go any further.
"Yeah, 'oh', so if I fumble anything just. Tell me."
He is sexually attracted to men, he's had a lot of sex with a lot of men, and he still considers himself straight, because—
Because. Wrapped up in the behaviors he was supposed to have left behind, and so he left that there there too instead of the harder thing, and took all his feelings of repression and survivor's guilt out on a book, because what else does a writer do. He's had sex with men since, and in non-transactional contexts, but those, too, are painted in shades he might not be entirely proud of. Infidelity, lies, abandonment.
"I guess we all tell ourselves things."
How did Louis phrase it. A lie he told himself about himself, and Daniel looked at him and said it was just about drugs, so. He's out of practice, airport handjob jokes aside.
Louis' fingers curl in Daniel's hair, thumbs across his temple. Touching to touch, watching Daniel say these things. Understanding them better now, with all the pieces of San Francisco, with his own past brought into clearer focus.
How Louis had swaggered into bars and picked up young men and called himself queer, but somewhere deep in his body for a very long time had felt shame. Sometimes still feels shame.
And Louis has lived many more years than Daniel.
"Is that still something you want to tell yourself?"
Even after Louis had stopped telling himself the lie, it took decades for the truth to come easy, settle without discomfort. Thinks less of Daniel's warning against fumbles and more of Daniel's comfort, of what Daniel will want in the future.
As if it's so simple as this, navigating these identities between them.
He likes women, too, so he can get away with it. No matter that getting away with it sometimes felt worse than being celibate, and he's sure it contributed to the failure of his marriages. Dishonesty with oneself about intimacy tends to turn corrosive, even if there's never a need to challenge it. There was a bleak kind of relief hidden in the betrayal of his body. The issue was taken away from him entirely.
And now—
Now, he's still only fucked women, and he's got bigger things to be dishonest about. He just doesn't want to be dishonest with Louis. For some reason that's worse. (If Alice could kill him with her mind she would.)
"Not right now."
Maybe later. He can't silence a lifelong habit overnight, and he'll probably grapple with it. But not now. He touches Louis' face, looks at him in wonder. In awe. Even though he's still a nerd who can't give him a straight (hah) answer, the reticent vampire. Daniel wants to be here. Now. With him.
Easy. Louis knows who he is. He can let Daniel wind his way towards that knowledge in his own time, so long as Daniel doesn't stop touching him, reaching for him, wanting him.
And then Louis' weight shifts, a sinuous arch of movement up to brush a kiss to Daniel's mouth. Suppresses the urge to bite him, to lick into his mouth, to be too hungry too much too overwhelming even if the traces of that desperation live in his body, telltale for someone who knows where to look.
"Will you still take me to a terrible movie?" is a real request, even if it a little like deliberately pressing down onto a wound. This memory Armand took. The way it had felt to kiss him, that first time. The way Daniel had looked at him, the way Daniel had kept kissing him, over and over.
If Louis is telling the truth about all this, about wanting him, fifty years, the way he tastes— there's a dreamlike quality to it, even actual dreams and recovered memories aside. Fairytale shit, except there's blood drinking and monsters and extreme, shared trauma. The way he moves, the feeling of his kiss, it's all... fucking crazy, Louis is unreal, brilliant, weird, shining.
Daniel makes a sound like a laugh, sharp and bright. Wound or not, what a request. (Sometimes bruises feel good. It's the ache.)
"Still want to go on a bad date with me?"
Like, that's what it was, surely. Daniel lifts his head to press a kiss to Louis.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's find ... whatever, who cares what's playing."
Another kiss. Louis makes a soft sound into his mouth, subvocal encouragement. A revelation still, kissing Daniel. That Daniel leans up to kiss him, that they are here and have found their way to this.
It only took fifty years or so.
"I want to go everywhere with you," Louis tells him. A giddy kind of promise, aware of the potential unfurling ahead of them. Years and years to go where they like, anywhere Daniel has ever wished to see or visit. Years to do as they like, together. "Any kind of date, any place."
Louis has been laying low, out of sight. But who would ever look for Louis du Lac in a movie theater, seeing whatever Daniel chose for them?
And there is real appeal in distracting Daniel, even from a terrible movie.
Maddening, to kiss Louis. He thinks some trite thing, 'doesn't know how he kept it together in Dubai, in that stolen moment', but of course he knows, he was dying, it wasn't just that he wanted but couldn't follow through— he couldn't fully feel, so disconnected from himself he was, floating in a fog of chronic pain and medicated malaise.
But it's incredible. He feels better than every fantasy, and fuck, but there have been a lot. Even before, even in those fifty years, sometimes Daniel's attention would stray, and past the fear and panic of twisted memories he'd wonder.
"Louis du Lac, at Disneyland." More kissing, in between it. Daniel hitches one knee up to encourage Louis to settle on him. "Actually, I don't know how long Disneyland is open after dark. Might have to break in."
An inordinate amount of money would change hands in the process, but Louis would pay it.
Louis certainly has never been. Has no desire to go. Has no sense Daniel is serious in this proposal, but offers anyway: Louis would engage in Disneyland, if Daniel had real desire to go.
Breath gone shallow, fingers tightening and loosening in Daniel's hair as Louis settles into the cradle of his hips. Kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, a restless rolling movement of his body down into Daniel's, eventually finding his way to, "I'd take you home."
Home, a concept in flux. Some sense of wavering, Louis' thoughts split between New Orleans and Dubai. Lestat. And Daniel, home is Daniel too.
What the fuck would they do at Disneyland. Put Louis in mouse ears, maybe.
No, quiet dark places, the back row of a movie theater, or a bar somewhere. Casino at a push. Beautiful outdoor scenery. Because Louis can go wherever the fuck he wants, doesn't need to arrange a car unless he wants one. Daniel has no romantic or even very interesting spots tucked away. Haunts only pedestrian places and temporary, liminal spaces, brief stops on all his investigations. Similar, now, to touring. Belongs nowhere. A Californian in New York, a shitty American in the world of the night.
His breath hitches. Louis' weight is good, grounding and inflaming at once. Intimacy is so different like this. Dead, it just feels better.
"Wherever you are works for me," he murmurs.
Home. Daniel doesn't know where he's going, either.
"With you," has nothing to do with location. "I'm going to be with you."
Wherever that might be. (Daniel has to finish the tour. Louis has to finish chasing ghosts.) Maybe Brooklyn. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe Daniel would never want to return to Dubai, given the givens.
A luxury, to decide together. To live together in dozens, hundreds of places. To find one that will be theirs.
Louis bites his lower lip, a nip of blunt human teeth, before Louis asks in a low murmur, "Will you tell me what you want?"
He could guess. He doesn't want to guess. Slotted together this way, hips to hips, chest to chest, nails scratching lightly along Daniel's scalp each time Louis' hand tightens in his hair, Daniel occupies all of Louis' attention. This is good. Kissing the breath from Daniel's mouth is good. Having him laid out beneath him on the bed is good.
In Dubai, Louis knows he had taken the deep intimacy of Daniel's hands on his body and his mouth under his as enough. It is enough now still, even as Louis' body trembles wanting more. Wanting to bite him all over. Wanting to clutch him closer, so close the boundaries between their skin blur.
And then, lower, voice fraying breathless as he says, "I would kiss you like this for hours. It doesn't need to be anything else tonight."
What would Daniel have done, fifty years ago. Scrambled to grab Louis' hand and run away with him into the dark, probably. It's still difficult to fathom, now, that he could be wanted this much, no matter that he's let go of the ledge and let himself wade into these waters, no matter that he can tell Louis is practically vibrating out of his skin for want of more.
He could laugh at himself. Since when are you so scared, Molloy. Just been a long time is all, he supposes. Not since somebody wanted to screw around. Since he gave a fuck about it. Since he really, truly wanted it. And not it, who. Speaking of who, he could also laugh at Louis, who says it doesn't need to be anything else when he feels like he's going to explode.
"Don't hold yourself back like that," he says, against Louis' mouth. Kissing him, touching him, winding himself up and up. "Not when I want you anyway and we both know I like it when it's too much."
Daniel's just bitching and prevaricating because that's what he does. Angles, even with himself, like a lunatic.
"Yes," falls out of Louis' mouth easy, a breath of an answer. Yes in a vibrant impression between their minds as Louis kisses him again. Let's Daniel feel it, the way want turns over in his belly, sparks scattering between them.
Some flicker of caution behind this immediate desire. Wanting to be good to Daniel. Take their time. Be careful with him, a real feat when Louis wants him this way.
Desire held in check for fifty years, known and unknown to Louis. Overwhelming now, finding it met and reflected back to him.
It had been the truth. Louis could do this for hours, torturing them this way. Kissing and kissing until they're both a shuddering mess. Louis wants to see Daniel flushed with the way they want each other, wants to take him all apart, let Daniel take him all apart.
They have time. Louis has to keep reminding himself of that. They have time for everything. Anything. All that they might desire from each other.
"Now?" asked like a private little joke, Louis' hips rolling down against Daniel slowly, deliberately. Fingers catching in his hair, mouth at his jaw. Offering. Assessing.
Yes makes him shiver, and press more kisses to Louis' mouth, artless but passionate. Louis rocks down and Daniel welcomes it, grabbing him to keep him there and close, shifting up to meet him. Still a marvel to do everything easily, painlessly; even before he got sick, the ordinary tiredness of age had made screwing around so tiring and awkward. More of a marvel, that they're both what they are— Daniel's fucked mortals, since, but not another vampire.
"Yeah, why, are you double booked or something?"
It's all in a rush, Daniel stumbling over the hurdles of disbelief and identity. But what if they wait and Louis changes his mind. Wakes up tomorrow after they've made out for hours, and realizes he's made a mistake. Shitty and opportunistic for Daniel to push forward now, greedy despite his nerves and insecurities, but, well, he is who he is.
"Yes," breathed back into Daniel's mouth. Louis bites yes along his jawline after, yes and yes and yes scraped along the high point of his throat. Likes how tightly they hold each other, the encouraging clutch of Daniel's hands as Louis moves into him.
Has to breathe a little laugh at himself, for the thought of delay. Wanting to go slowly while simultaneously wanting all of Daniel now, immediately, and then over and over again after.
"I want you," is corrected with a punctuating nip of teeth as Louis raises his head to look at Daniel. Grin, offer him something more, "I want you every way you can think of. More besides that. I been dreaming of it. You."
All this underscored with the insistent roll of his hips. Instructive. See, it's all true.
Intakes of breath as Louis bites him, doing something to him, there's a new part in his brain since transformation that says Yes more of that harder draw blood now, which is. Fucking weird, and fucking wild, and he thinks he likes it. A lot. Too much? More than bears inspecting, for now. Chill.
"Alright." Breathless as Louis moves against him. Daniel's hard by now, he's sure Louis can tell. Inhale, exhale. Repeats, just a little giddy, "Alright."
Daniel kisses him again and then shifts them once more, now that he's satisfied about feeling Louis' weight on him. Over him, so that he has leverage to push his hands beneath the other man's shirt, feel him as he kisses him, peels back fabric so he can taste his skin as it's exposed. If it's all true, he wants to feel it, taste it—
"Why do I want to bite you everywhere?" is asked with a laugh. Like, he can guess, but.
A hitched groan of sound as Daniel rolls them, already reaching to draw Daniel back to him. A sound that fractures into a laugh as Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips, hand settling at the nape of his neck.
"We're vampires," Louis deadpans, even as he tries to parse out the question. Had he wanted to bite Lestat everywhere when he first saw him? Had it been he or Armand who sank fangs into the other first? Is it intrinsic in him, even if he had never been a vampire? Something innate, wanting someone so badly there is nothing else to do but sink teeth into them?
The way he wants Daniel now, wanting to keep biting him, even with blunt human teeth. Wanting to leave marks and bruises, to hear the sounds Daniel makes, taste him. Press his fingers down onto the marks tomorrow, make new ones when they fade.
Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. Arches up off the bed as Daniel strips off his shirt, drawing his face up to kiss again, and again.
"Gonna make you wait," he murmurs, a low promise. "Gonna make you wait until you're inside me before I let you get teeth in me."
All their bite marks and bruises will fade— except the ones already on Daniel's neck, grotesque impressions of Louis at his most violent, marked permanently. His, in that way, forever.
Again, again, again. Daniel paws all over him, down his chest, tasting the hollow of his throat and lower when he can pull back from kissing. Though it's difficult. He wants more of Louis, who is so fucking beautiful. Who feels like. Like he doesn't know. Can't describe it. Not like the humans he's hooked up with. There's some other quality to it, thrumming between them, an undercurrent to the fishhook of sensation that already links them, electric and magnetic.
"Jesus."
That thought—
Too good. Louis will be able to feel an echo of the flinch that goes through him, desire spilling over into telepathy, unable to be contained.
But.
"Some other time. I can't reliably stop."
This person I'm eating is dying will snap him out of it, but he's yet to get anywhere close to moderation. Hanging out with spiraling rock star Lestat hasn't helped. Excess, indulgence, insanity. No little drinks.
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What else? Can't think of it now, it's too fucking much. He has Louis, feels him, smells him, everything is just Louis, the itch in the scar on his neck, the beat of dead hearts. A thought starts to surface, if Armand will know, if Armand will make him answer for this, how bad the fight will be— but he sends it away. Fuck off, all of that.
"This is probably better. I'm not half-hoping you aren't serious so I don't embarrass myself further."
Poetry. But what do you want, his dick literally did not work, then.
"You sat on my lap. I didn't care about it," (because it was uncomfortable, because Daniel was in constant pain, but Louis sapped it out of him), "I wanted you too much."
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(Armand's claws pricking at his jaw, the expression on his face like ice, anger so cold it sliced, it cut.)
"I didn't know."
No denial that Louis had been in his head, touching his thoughts. Fascinating still, always, endlessly. Distracting. But not with enough depth to know. Or maybe Louis simply hadn't been allowed to look at what it was Daniel felt for him.
Louis, a monster. Louis, who had bitten him. Almost killed him. Louis hadn't known there was anything else. Daniel, wanting him like this. Different than the kind of attraction Louis had cultivated like a jump scare, like an elbow to the ribs that Daniel would always, always return in kind.
Speaking so close their noses bump, their lips brush, telling him, "I am. Serious."
Corrects himself, "I was serious. I'm still serious now."
Knows this even with only parts and pieces, with only the sense of Daniel's expression looking up at him.
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He'll have to run these down. Because he has to run everything down, the instinct in him can't be killed, not even by weeks of power-tripping on a rock tour while newly undead.
Has to know, because he has to know. And maybe because he has to tell Louis, too. Louis, who he cares for so much, who deserves to have all the things taken from him restored. Thousands of victims, but Daniel still thinks Louis is the better person. Too many reasons. He wants Louis to be happy— and it's so strange to think Louis would have him be a part of achieving that.
Just some junkie. Still. And yet Louis says serious.
"What do you want? Right now?"
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"Too much."
Tempering, obscuring. Louis wants too much from him. He had described to Daniel what it had been, wanting Lestat. Knows that to be within him, still, knows that holding himself apart from it is necessary. He knows that the way he wants Daniel runs on a parallel, and knows Daniel would find it unbelievable.
"But we got time."
A couple weeks. Then what? Daniel goes back to Lestat. Louis continues hunting the past across continents, continues fights he isn't telling Daniel about. They come back together, when?
Logistics and practicality that Louis stops, puts out of his head for the moment.
"Will you tell me what you want?" comes as Louis winds impossibly closer. Narrows the space between them, hooked in by his fingers in Daniel's shirt, his knee hitched around Daniel's leg. Practicing restraint, when Louis wants to kiss him again. Spend hours on just that, making up for lost time.
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No YOU answer!!
Daniel pulls him closer, and kisses him. For real, this time. I am serious, even if he's nervous about it all still. But he wants him. Badly, and so much. Just like in San Fransisco, wanting Louis most of all the things he wanted, recklessly pulling his shirt off and trying to bait it first thing. Just like in Dubai, where he wanted to do the interview and get out of there alive and have the book, didn't want to end up fucking murdered by Armand, but wanted Louis more.
Like now. He wants to talk about it, wants to not end up screwed over, but he wants Louis. More. Most. He wants to know what his fucking tonsils taste like. Unfuckingbelievable that Louis wants him, but Daniel doesn't have enough moral fiber to keep saying no to something he wants. It's Louis' bad decision, Daniel's done all he can to dissuade him.
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They should talk about it. Louis should do better, give Daniel the conversation before they pitch headlong into anything.
Except they are something. They've always been. Louis has been serious for fifty years. Serious even when Daniel was half a memory, when they were missing pieces of each other.
They can talk about it. They will. Daniel will ask his questions and Louis will answer, and they'll argue a little, maybe. (Probably.) Louis tells himself all of these things as they kiss, as he licks into Daniel's mouth, crowds him like they aren't already as close as can possibly be. Tells him, "I'd give you anything," between one kiss and the next. Bites down on his lower lip, breathes, "Anything" against his mouth, easy promises to make Daniel, who has already offered this to Louis.
Easy to promise him anything. They've survived everything together. Louis trusted him with all of himself before they even knew who they were to each other.
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"Except a direct answer this whole time," he teases him in a faux-annoyed tone. Daniel kisses him, and kisses him, unreal, until he pulls Louis closer (somehow), "because you're so mysterious. And a dork."
Art nerd. Fashion diva.
Daniel rolls onto his back and takes Louis with him, easy like this, as a creature, and he looks up, obviously marveling. It had hurt in Dubai, but he was willing to ignore it. Now, there's nothing. Not even discomfort. He can just look up at Louis, hand on his cheek, and closeness is all there is.
"I'm straight, you know that?"
DANIEL.
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Might have pressed the point, if Daniel hadn't said this other thing.
"Oh?"
A choice to offer polite interest in this timely assertion, as Louis settles himself over Daniel. Loose-limbed still, sprawling across Daniel's chest, aligning their hips, tangling their thighs. An easy drape of contact, fingers tracing idle circle over the scarring at Daniel's throat. Touches his face, now that their position better affords him the leeway. Close. Not close enough.
From this vantage point, Louis takes a moment to consider him. To weigh this statement. Parse whether or not Daniel is telling him this thing like a joke, or something else.
Louis wants to kiss him again. Louis has to content himself with fingers toying with the curls at Daniel's temple, waiting for him to expand on this point before they go any further.
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He is sexually attracted to men, he's had a lot of sex with a lot of men, and he still considers himself straight, because—
Because. Wrapped up in the behaviors he was supposed to have left behind, and so he left that there there too instead of the harder thing, and took all his feelings of repression and survivor's guilt out on a book, because what else does a writer do. He's had sex with men since, and in non-transactional contexts, but those, too, are painted in shades he might not be entirely proud of. Infidelity, lies, abandonment.
"I guess we all tell ourselves things."
How did Louis phrase it. A lie he told himself about himself, and Daniel looked at him and said it was just about drugs, so. He's out of practice, airport handjob jokes aside.
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How Louis had swaggered into bars and picked up young men and called himself queer, but somewhere deep in his body for a very long time had felt shame. Sometimes still feels shame.
And Louis has lived many more years than Daniel.
"Is that still something you want to tell yourself?"
Even after Louis had stopped telling himself the lie, it took decades for the truth to come easy, settle without discomfort. Thinks less of Daniel's warning against fumbles and more of Daniel's comfort, of what Daniel will want in the future.
As if it's so simple as this, navigating these identities between them.
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And now—
Now, he's still only fucked women, and he's got bigger things to be dishonest about. He just doesn't want to be dishonest with Louis. For some reason that's worse. (If Alice could kill him with her mind she would.)
"Not right now."
Maybe later. He can't silence a lifelong habit overnight, and he'll probably grapple with it. But not now. He touches Louis' face, looks at him in wonder. In awe. Even though he's still a nerd who can't give him a straight (hah) answer, the reticent vampire. Daniel wants to be here. Now. With him.
"Is that okay?"
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Easy. Louis knows who he is. He can let Daniel wind his way towards that knowledge in his own time, so long as Daniel doesn't stop touching him, reaching for him, wanting him.
And then Louis' weight shifts, a sinuous arch of movement up to brush a kiss to Daniel's mouth. Suppresses the urge to bite him, to lick into his mouth, to be too hungry too much too overwhelming even if the traces of that desperation live in his body, telltale for someone who knows where to look.
"Will you still take me to a terrible movie?" is a real request, even if it a little like deliberately pressing down onto a wound. This memory Armand took. The way it had felt to kiss him, that first time. The way Daniel had looked at him, the way Daniel had kept kissing him, over and over.
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Daniel makes a sound like a laugh, sharp and bright. Wound or not, what a request. (Sometimes bruises feel good. It's the ache.)
"Still want to go on a bad date with me?"
Like, that's what it was, surely. Daniel lifts his head to press a kiss to Louis.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's find ... whatever, who cares what's playing."
It's 2023, there is nothing.
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It only took fifty years or so.
"I want to go everywhere with you," Louis tells him. A giddy kind of promise, aware of the potential unfurling ahead of them. Years and years to go where they like, anywhere Daniel has ever wished to see or visit. Years to do as they like, together. "Any kind of date, any place."
Louis has been laying low, out of sight. But who would ever look for Louis du Lac in a movie theater, seeing whatever Daniel chose for them?
And there is real appeal in distracting Daniel, even from a terrible movie.
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But it's incredible. He feels better than every fantasy, and fuck, but there have been a lot. Even before, even in those fifty years, sometimes Daniel's attention would stray, and past the fear and panic of twisted memories he'd wonder.
"Louis du Lac, at Disneyland." More kissing, in between it. Daniel hitches one knee up to encourage Louis to settle on him. "Actually, I don't know how long Disneyland is open after dark. Might have to break in."
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An inordinate amount of money would change hands in the process, but Louis would pay it.
Louis certainly has never been. Has no desire to go. Has no sense Daniel is serious in this proposal, but offers anyway: Louis would engage in Disneyland, if Daniel had real desire to go.
Breath gone shallow, fingers tightening and loosening in Daniel's hair as Louis settles into the cradle of his hips. Kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, a restless rolling movement of his body down into Daniel's, eventually finding his way to, "I'd take you home."
Home, a concept in flux. Some sense of wavering, Louis' thoughts split between New Orleans and Dubai. Lestat. And Daniel, home is Daniel too.
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No, quiet dark places, the back row of a movie theater, or a bar somewhere. Casino at a push. Beautiful outdoor scenery. Because Louis can go wherever the fuck he wants, doesn't need to arrange a car unless he wants one. Daniel has no romantic or even very interesting spots tucked away. Haunts only pedestrian places and temporary, liminal spaces, brief stops on all his investigations. Similar, now, to touring. Belongs nowhere. A Californian in New York, a shitty American in the world of the night.
His breath hitches. Louis' weight is good, grounding and inflaming at once. Intimacy is so different like this. Dead, it just feels better.
"Wherever you are works for me," he murmurs.
Home. Daniel doesn't know where he's going, either.
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Wherever that might be. (Daniel has to finish the tour. Louis has to finish chasing ghosts.) Maybe Brooklyn. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe Daniel would never want to return to Dubai, given the givens.
A luxury, to decide together. To live together in dozens, hundreds of places. To find one that will be theirs.
Louis bites his lower lip, a nip of blunt human teeth, before Louis asks in a low murmur, "Will you tell me what you want?"
He could guess. He doesn't want to guess. Slotted together this way, hips to hips, chest to chest, nails scratching lightly along Daniel's scalp each time Louis' hand tightens in his hair, Daniel occupies all of Louis' attention. This is good. Kissing the breath from Daniel's mouth is good. Having him laid out beneath him on the bed is good.
In Dubai, Louis knows he had taken the deep intimacy of Daniel's hands on his body and his mouth under his as enough. It is enough now still, even as Louis' body trembles wanting more. Wanting to bite him all over. Wanting to clutch him closer, so close the boundaries between their skin blur.
And then, lower, voice fraying breathless as he says, "I would kiss you like this for hours. It doesn't need to be anything else tonight."
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What would Daniel have done, fifty years ago. Scrambled to grab Louis' hand and run away with him into the dark, probably. It's still difficult to fathom, now, that he could be wanted this much, no matter that he's let go of the ledge and let himself wade into these waters, no matter that he can tell Louis is practically vibrating out of his skin for want of more.
He could laugh at himself. Since when are you so scared, Molloy. Just been a long time is all, he supposes. Not since somebody wanted to screw around. Since he gave a fuck about it. Since he really, truly wanted it. And not it, who. Speaking of who, he could also laugh at Louis, who says it doesn't need to be anything else when he feels like he's going to explode.
"Don't hold yourself back like that," he says, against Louis' mouth. Kissing him, touching him, winding himself up and up. "Not when I want you anyway and we both know I like it when it's too much."
Daniel's just bitching and prevaricating because that's what he does. Angles, even with himself, like a lunatic.
"Can I fuck you?"
Inelegant. But an honest desire.
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Some flicker of caution behind this immediate desire. Wanting to be good to Daniel. Take their time. Be careful with him, a real feat when Louis wants him this way.
Desire held in check for fifty years, known and unknown to Louis. Overwhelming now, finding it met and reflected back to him.
It had been the truth. Louis could do this for hours, torturing them this way. Kissing and kissing until they're both a shuddering mess. Louis wants to see Daniel flushed with the way they want each other, wants to take him all apart, let Daniel take him all apart.
They have time. Louis has to keep reminding himself of that. They have time for everything. Anything. All that they might desire from each other.
"Now?" asked like a private little joke, Louis' hips rolling down against Daniel slowly, deliberately. Fingers catching in his hair, mouth at his jaw. Offering. Assessing.
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"Yeah, why, are you double booked or something?"
It's all in a rush, Daniel stumbling over the hurdles of disbelief and identity. But what if they wait and Louis changes his mind. Wakes up tomorrow after they've made out for hours, and realizes he's made a mistake. Shitty and opportunistic for Daniel to push forward now, greedy despite his nerves and insecurities, but, well, he is who he is.
"Is that what you want?"
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Has to breathe a little laugh at himself, for the thought of delay. Wanting to go slowly while simultaneously wanting all of Daniel now, immediately, and then over and over again after.
"I want you," is corrected with a punctuating nip of teeth as Louis raises his head to look at Daniel. Grin, offer him something more, "I want you every way you can think of. More besides that. I been dreaming of it. You."
All this underscored with the insistent roll of his hips. Instructive. See, it's all true.
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Intakes of breath as Louis bites him, doing something to him, there's a new part in his brain since transformation that says Yes more of that harder draw blood now, which is. Fucking weird, and fucking wild, and he thinks he likes it. A lot. Too much? More than bears inspecting, for now. Chill.
"Alright." Breathless as Louis moves against him. Daniel's hard by now, he's sure Louis can tell. Inhale, exhale. Repeats, just a little giddy, "Alright."
Daniel kisses him again and then shifts them once more, now that he's satisfied about feeling Louis' weight on him. Over him, so that he has leverage to push his hands beneath the other man's shirt, feel him as he kisses him, peels back fabric so he can taste his skin as it's exposed. If it's all true, he wants to feel it, taste it—
"Why do I want to bite you everywhere?" is asked with a laugh. Like, he can guess, but.
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"We're vampires," Louis deadpans, even as he tries to parse out the question. Had he wanted to bite Lestat everywhere when he first saw him? Had it been he or Armand who sank fangs into the other first? Is it intrinsic in him, even if he had never been a vampire? Something innate, wanting someone so badly there is nothing else to do but sink teeth into them?
The way he wants Daniel now, wanting to keep biting him, even with blunt human teeth. Wanting to leave marks and bruises, to hear the sounds Daniel makes, taste him. Press his fingers down onto the marks tomorrow, make new ones when they fade.
Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. Arches up off the bed as Daniel strips off his shirt, drawing his face up to kiss again, and again.
"Gonna make you wait," he murmurs, a low promise. "Gonna make you wait until you're inside me before I let you get teeth in me."
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Again, again, again. Daniel paws all over him, down his chest, tasting the hollow of his throat and lower when he can pull back from kissing. Though it's difficult. He wants more of Louis, who is so fucking beautiful. Who feels like. Like he doesn't know. Can't describe it. Not like the humans he's hooked up with. There's some other quality to it, thrumming between them, an undercurrent to the fishhook of sensation that already links them, electric and magnetic.
"Jesus."
That thought—
Too good. Louis will be able to feel an echo of the flinch that goes through him, desire spilling over into telepathy, unable to be contained.
But.
"Some other time. I can't reliably stop."
This person I'm eating is dying will snap him out of it, but he's yet to get anywhere close to moderation. Hanging out with spiraling rock star Lestat hasn't helped. Excess, indulgence, insanity. No little drinks.
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