Yes, Daniel can feel it. Confirmation swells into that thought, like grabbing at his hand and holding tight. Not that he thinks Louis is lying, he just—
Just. Old man things. Daniel has been humbled by age, and some of his behaviors after resurrection have been to spite (actively, to spite it, not in spite of it, he is doing it on purpose) that humility. Cranky notes, prickles of discomfort he can't be rid of, that obviously Louis would prefer someone who was beautiful. Daniel is not drowning in self-pity about it, or anything, but. Still there.
Many things are true at once. Daniel wants him and he knows Louis wants him in return. This is real. He is reckless and enthusiastic, he is insecure. He wants to bite Louis and say fuck it, let them make bad decisions, and he wants to be responsible.
Extra difficult to compartmentalize when he's mostly thinking with his dick, now, too, so there's also that. ANYway,,
"Do you have anything?"
He can't just sit here and dither, they have things to do, or Daniel thinks he will probably die for real.
The answer rises like smoke before Louis verbalizes it: the lovely wood nightstand, top drawer, glass jar.
Says, "Yes."
Says, "Let me..."
Trails into implication, already sinking back into Daniel, already catching his mouth for another kiss.
Daniel is not obliged to retrieve anything from the specified drawer. Louis is already coming up off the mattress, crowding into Daniel as he kisses him. Hands bracketing Daniel's face, curling into his hair, heels of his palms at Daniel's temples as he creates some minor space in which he might move.
Terrible, having to let go of Daniel even by halves, even for a moment. But Louis stretches out, hooks open the drawer. Does not think of Armand. Does not think of what he is studiously ignoring: no one has touched him at all since he and Lestat parted ways, resolved to attempt standing on their own.
Transparently expensive, Louis' choice in lube. Just as all the product in Dubai had been expensive, all things betraying the casual flex of wealth Louis has come to appreciate, find security in. He presses the jar into Daniel's chest.
Noses back up along Daniel's jawline, yielding Daniel's mouth for whatever commentary is sure to follow.
Daniel compensates, as Louis fetches his bougie lube. Keeps touching him, kisses his chest, up to the side of his neck, his earlobe. Leans on him because he knows he can, they're both strong enough, and it means Louis can feel how hard he is, bare skin against clothing. Daniel, still a little skittish about undressing, nevertheless completely cranked with arousal.
A sensual murmur,
"Did you render down an endangered vegan seal for this?"
Daniel tries not to laugh against Louis' shoulder. Not laughing AT him, of course, and their minds winding together like excited foxes (who haven't been ground into lube) will show that. It's just fun, and giddy, and he likes Louis, he likes all of it.
"What do you like? Don't say anything. I get it. But pick something."
It doesn't disappoint, Daniel's little sideswipe. Amusement curls between them, coloring the tenor of Louis' mind even before he turns his smile in against Daniel's cheek, the corner of his mouth, presses it into a kiss. Can feel it, their shared affection. The familiarity of their shared levity.
It would have been like this, Louis knows. It would have been like this if they'd come together before. It's just easy, between them. It's easy now, drawing Daniel into him, fingers sunk into the curls at the nape of his neck. Feeling laughter in his body and finding himself so pleased with it, with Daniel's irreverence and good humor.
Pick something, prompts an inscrutable little flex of emotion across his face. Dampens some of the vibrant glow of his thoughts, some more serious timbre bleeding in. Weighing the question as he rocks a thigh up against Daniel's groin, nips at his lower lip.
Has anyone ever asked him this question? (No.)
Lets the little jar fall to the coverlet alongside them, freeing a hand to draw Daniel down with him against the pillows. Close, tangling together as Louis lets a hazy pulse of memory drift between their minds. What does he like? Piecemeal impressions, a mix of experience: hands on his body, weight heavy over him, a bowed spine beneath his fingers, the burn of overextended muscles, skin reddening under his palms, the sharp pain of fangs at his throat. Pain, pleasure, tenderness, all things mingling as Louis sorts through over a hundred years of entanglements (Lestat, Armand, distinct in his mind, maybe distinct in this accounting even as Louis pares these recollections down to overwhelming sensations.) as he winds his way to an answer.
"I want you to fuck me," can't be cheating, it's a choice, even if it's something he's already said yes to. "I want that, and not only because you asked."
A pause, a slow bite of a kiss. He can taste himself in Daniel's mouth, and lets Daniel feel how much he likes that too.
"I want to find out what we like," feels like a distinction to Louis, a difference clear in his thoughts as he says this against Daniel's mouth. "Together. We have time now."
A nudge, close and almost protective, when he feels that brief dimming, even as he pushes down against the way Louis flexes up against him. A notion in their heads. That Louis should always have whatever choices he wants. Sex is just sex. It's what they make of it, whether it's just a transaction or a laugh or something miserable or something that rewires a person's entire inner intimate world as profound. Something even a heterosexual boomer knows. (Or maybe it's because he got old he can have this perspective.)
Daniel's turn to say Anything.
Feels all these things, sees all these things, kisses Louis deeper all the while. Only a brief flinch back, followed by a warning nuzzle, because, fuck, if he thinks too hard about biting then Daniel's not going to be able to keep his fangs from stretching out, aching and desperate.
"Okay." A fond concession. Louis is just not a simple answer guy, Daniel should know that. Let the tale seduce you. Let the fumble in bed after memory trauma seduce you. Well. Daniel is not that seductive, but he'll give it a go.
Another kiss. More clutching at him. Time. They do have time. Finally.
"You can turn around if you want, I'm not gonna..."
Be bothered if Louis decides he does not want to stare at wrinkly old man skin. His dick is still in perfect working order, he's always been lean so the whole affair isn't that bad, but compared to Armand, Lestat, Louis himself, it's pretty tragic.
Trying to tread carefully, aware of some tender stretch of terrain here. Aware of potential to nick something vulnerable in Daniel, and angling away from it. Still, fingers heavy in his curls at the nape of his neck, a hand falling down his chest to lay over his heart.
"I want to see you," softly. Offering, "I want you to see me."
Daniel had seen him. Daniel had come to Dubai and argued and needled and dragged truth out of Louis even when all Louis had to offer was a story he'd been telling himself (A story Armand had been telling him too, a quiet chorus shifting and omitting and realigning Louis' life.) for so many years that it had felt like all there was. Daniel had seen something else.
They're linked so closely. Louis is sunk so far into his head, bleeding desire like sunlight. Wanting. Offering pieces still, hazy answers to join the impressions he'd already given over to Daniel. (Teeth sunk down into the flexing muscle of a thigh, wrists caught up in one hand, bruises blooming livid in the wake of kisses laid to the throat and collarbone and chest and hip—) Savors the sweetness of Anything he finds in Daniel's mind, an offering passed back and forth between them.
"Come on," is lightly impatient, deeply affectionate. "Come on, Danny."
Is deliberately goading, teasing. Words murmured into the corner of his mouth as Louis leans up to kiss him.
All of these wrapped up feelings, made more and more intense for sharing them. Daniel is clumsy with it still, but it's so earnest. In there is his white-knuckled insecurity, feeling it but trying not to dwell on it. Address and move on. That he senses no aversion from Louis doesn't mean Louis isn't just being polite, so he is also being polite, in offering an out.
And yet.
Tremors of uncertainty. Not just Louis' sensibilities to contend with. Daniel still thinks Jane Fonda is hot, but maybe he doesn't like himself very much. Maybe he hasn't in a long time. One thing to say you don't care about aging, it happens to everyone, and then watch yourself change out of your own control in the mirror. One thing to make peace with it because it'll all be over soon anyway, and then have nothing be over, indefinitely.
And then this, and— Danny, and Daniel is giving Louis' shoulder a hard, (still flat) bite. How very dare you.
"Start down the 'boy' path and I'm really turning the screws on you over shit you're into," is deliberate teasing in return.
Okok. He can do this. His boner, for sure, believes he can do this, and has no qualms about physical appearance. Get with the program.
"Danny boy," Louis needles, as the bite at his shoulder throbs. As Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. "Danny."
Amusement warming the link between them, coloring everything, everything.
Louis' voice dips lower, shifts to dig his heel in at the back of Daniel's thigh as he says, "Come on, Daniel."
Shades of anything in the way Louis' thoughts shift, the way he draws Daniel in closer. Anyway that Daniel wants this, wants him, Louis will have him. Aware of some discomfort in Daniel, trying to quietly assuage it.
"This is saying something about deep, weird kinks," he says against Louis' mouth, in between those teasing calls of Danny, which Daniel does not love. It's not enough to actually annoy him, but it's like pulling his pigtails. He always thought it sounded childish, and that people who used it were trying to infantalize him. Which, you know. Plenty were. He was basically hooking, what's there to be said. "I'm keeping an eye on you."
What a thing. A sticky-note for the back of Louis' jacket, but instead of Kick Me, it will say I Like To Call Grandpas 'Boy'. Creep!!
Anyway.
"It's always been anything." Okay. Okay. "With you, anything."
Drugs, sex, interviews, going to Dubai. Daniel has wanted him for so long. Only another bracing moment, before he relents, and starts to peel off articles of clothing. The rest of Louis', too. Bandaid off.
Lets Daniel do this, strip him bare. Lets Daniel manage his own clothes, touching only lightly, seeking welcome as his fingers skim newly bared collarbone, fall down Daniel's chest to his hips. Smiling still, pleased with his teasing, with Daniel's exasperation. Pulling pigtails indeed; satisfaction fades only as Daniel gives him something else to occupy his attention, hold him rapt as clothes as discarded over the side of the bed.
Anything whispering between their heads. Louis holds it in the palm of his hand, a precious offering from Daniel who Louis had met only by chance. Daniel, who saved him.
"Come here," again, reaching up as Louis yields back down, shoulders hitting mattress. "Come down here and let me kiss you."
A ghost of Dubai: Tell me I can kiss you. Wanting him so badly, any way he could have him. Even a kiss, even a touch. Anything, anything.
Daniel feels warm all over. He knows, sometimes, especially in the 'mornings' or when he's too engrossed in work to remember to eat an entire living human being every few hours, that his core temperature drops lower than it ever did before transformation. But this flush isn't from having gorged himself on blood— arousal, adrenaline of overcoming embarrassment, but mostly, overwhelming affection. Crazy how it feels.
And this, too, finally. Bare skin on bare skin, and it's so novel and such a relief that he forgets to feel self-conscious about the difference in textures. Louis feels so good, and Daniel is helpless to do anything but grant him his request, and kiss him.
Just a little bit of hiding against him, but Daniel rallies. Lets Louis touch him, even look at him if he wants, only a moment or two of looking away himself. Different, when it's somebody he gives a shit about and not just some nutjob at a book signing he'll never see again. Who he thinks is so gorgeous, precious, and holds in such high esteem. Touches him, kisses him, sets flat teeth against the side of his jaw, rocks down against him and feels hard on hard, making him shiver.
All this for Louis, who is not so certain of Daniel's esteem. (Louis, who failed him. Left him.) But soaks in the glow of it all the same, lets himself bleed it back. All this affection. All this admiration. Louis has oceans of it, for Daniel.
"I've got you," is a breathless murmur, as they move together. As Daniel bites him and Louis shudders all through his body. Touching all the while, fingers in his hair, at the nape of his neck, down his spine and up again to follow the flex of Daniel's shoulders. Hooks up an ankle on the coverlet, reaches down to take them both in hand as Daniel moves and shiver and breathes. Louis can hear his pulse, wants to put teeth into it.
Just barely refrains.
Instead, asks soft as Daniel bites a bruise beneath his jaw, "You want me to make it easy for you?"
Daniel's pulse will be louder in Louis' ears, touching him like this. Tangible against his fingers, blood-hot and hard; he chokes on an inhale at the feeling of it, erections held together, driving him crazy. He thinks he can feel the remnants of his own spit on Louis' cock and that makes it just that much crazier.
Really happening.
"What's that mean?"
Knees push into the bed, and he rocks down, into Louis, into that grip he has on them. Fucking, but not quite. He braces one hand by Louis' shoulder and lets the other roam, stroking over his body everywhere he can get to, playing with one nipple before moving to the curve of his hipbone, touch teasing to join hands between them. Waiting, just to keep feeling Louis' hand, and his dick, uninterrupted.
Some lingering surreal quality to this entanglement. They are here and it is not a dream. They are here and can do as they like. (The latter maybe sticking in Louis' head more than Daniel's, all in all.) Daniel touches him and Louis arches into every single place he puts his hands, diminishes nothing about his reactions. All of him, laid out for Daniel as they move together, as Louis tightens his grip to hear Daniel's breath hitch.
"Could roll us over," Louis says, watching Daniel's face. Aware of how enmeshed their minds are, how maybe Daniel can see Louis' proposal even before Louis speaks it aloud. "Lay back for me, and let me have you."
A possibility. Some aspects of the picture in Louis' mind hooked back to Dubai, a different place, different time. Daniel's mortality, the pain in his body, things Louis had accounted for when he'd imagined—
A flicker of complicated, bitter feeling. He'd imagined. He half-remembers that he had.
The thought makes him shiver, makes his mind shiver. Louis can certainly feel it, like Daniel can feel his intent, and—
"Hey." A husky whisper, and he presses in for a kiss. Emotion grabs at him, like a rough hug. Daniel, continuing to be clumsy from lust an inexperience, but so earnest. "Hey, we're here. It's just us, and it's all really happening."
They won't forget it. They can't, not anymore. Daniel kisses him and kisses him, and leaks against his hand, and takes his own to clutch him close, fingers and hardness and desire.
"Thought about that? Wanted to take care of me, even then?" It makes his head spin. That Louis could want him so much, want him despite, in spite. All of it. It seizes at his heart and makes it all feel so fucking tender. He wouldn't have even been able to, no matter how considerate Louis was. Maybe he'd have wept with it, overwhelmed by the attention, the offer, the thoughtfulness. How long had it been since anyone wanted him that much? How long has it been?
"We can take care of each other. Be here now, yeah? We can do that, if you want. I'm not gonna be picky, Louis." And there's a breathless laugh, as he slides his hand down lower, stoking over Louis' balls and into the cleft of his rear. Just his knuckles, then, brushing over so-soft skin, leery of claws. "I just want you. I've wanted you for ... most of my life."
Dizzying, thinking of Daniel's lifespan. Louis met him at twenty. Louis bit his desire into Daniel's throat, spent almost a week locked in small rooms beside him, and now —
A little miraculous, all that had to happen to bring them here. A miracle Daniel made happen, whether he admits it or not.
Louis' body jolts, an all-consuming spark of movement as Daniel touches him lower, with something like intent. A technicolor flare of emotion in his mind as Daniel tells him these things, says I just want you. Says, we can do that, if you want. Overwhelming, what Louis wants. Fifty years of longing all the more potent for being contained and suppressed and obscured, thinking of how he would have put himself into Daniel's bed, how they'd have touched then. Different from how they touch now.
His heel hooks higher, better leverage, permissive, encouraging. Coaxes the slow slide of their fingers, tremors working through his thighs at the slickness of them, how easy it makes the stroke of their palms.
Says, "Don't stop touching me," while his thoughts circle through every single touch Daniel has laid on him from the moment he broke into this house and the way Daniel is touching him in this specific moment. Wanting all of it at once, even the innocuous, polite way they'd touched each other before.
A break in his voice, hitching over, "I just need to see you. I don't care about the rest."
Years and years to explore every possible entanglement, isn't that one of the benefits of eternity? They could joke about it. Maybe later, after. Right now, Louis is hard pressed to be particular. Even to try and pick some specific preference out of Daniel's head. Unlikely to be successful anyway. Louis can feel him, is slid so far into Daniel's mind that he is very aware of how true Daniel was when he said he wasn't picky. They just want each other. Louis feels that truth like a hook caught behind his ribs, helpless with the meaning of it.
"We're gonna get there," Daniel tells him, stoking fires and comforting at once. "Even if a fucking meteor falls out of the sky, okay, don't worry."
Louis is here, with Daniel, it's alright. Finally. Even though Daniel just decided to show up, be his annoying, nosy self— impossibly glad he did. That he followed some little instinct. Pulled by fate, or more likely, just Louis.
Minds twisting together, tumbling colors, feelings. Daniel thinks he physically feels a reflection of what Louis does, a marvel of a thing. He strokes him carefully, still not uncoiling his fingers for caution's sake, but he can't linger there forever. Or. Well. He could, but he doesn't think either of them are patient enough for it, right now.
"Show me how to do this, huh?"
With hands or mental images. He grabs the lube, taps Louis' hip with the points of his nails.
Something for another night, testing the limits of their combined patience. Interest flickers, unmistakable, but doesn't last. Daniel says show me and Louis' mind lights up.
The impatient, careless thing first: Now, just come here, we don't need anything else. Just wanting, urgent, willing to toss aside all the care Daniel is trying to offer him. Daniel lets go and Louis makes a wounded sound, some muffled groan against Daniel's jaw.
Lets go, only in favor of taking Daniel in hand, idle touches while Louis cups his cheek. Nods, wordless, before reaching down. Hitches an ankle up further, lets his thighs splay. Reaches for Daniel's hand as he says, "You won't hurt me."
Louis' already felt the resolve to go gently in Daniel's head. Here and now, his fingers thumb over Daniel's wrist, already drawing his hand down, guiding him closer. Touch me blooms between their minds, lurid imaginings laid out for Daniel to observe. Louis has been thinking of him. Lays out a kaleidoscope of desire at Daniel's invitation, instructive and aspirational all at once.
See. Works fine, with both of them. Daniel kisses him until he can't do both that and concentrate, and he leans there with his forehead against Louis', his gaze unfocused between them. He has no intention of forcing Louis to act like a frustrated, delicate flower, but he wants to know what the fuck they're doing, and it's important to him not to look at potential injury with a we'll fix it in editing attitude. Always has been. (Well, for his partners. He's always been fine with getting completely fucked up. Sometimes that's part of the fun. And maybe it will be, someday, with them. But that's not what right now is for.)
Careful, not nails on places he's never put nails. He feels Louis physically, and he feels Louis in his head, and he pays attention to both. Probably too much lube, it's been a while, he doesn't fucking know how much anybody needs these days, some guys want an hour of this, some guys could just drop their pants and that's enough preparation. Louis seems impatient enough for the latter, but Daniel's being stubborn.
Not too stubborn. When he believes it in his head, he relents, and gently nips his jaw as he pulls his fingers out, and swears through touching himself to get excess over his aching flesh.
Because you're gonna show me is, Louis knows, meant to elicit specific instruction.
And it does, in part. Louis' fingers following Daniel's, guiding, encouraging. Breath coming in heavy pants as Daniel touches him, as Louis strays further and further into his head. Desperately present in his mind as Louis' thumb strokes his cheek, lets Daniel have all the sounds his work drives out of him.
He lets Daniel have this too: how much he likes the way Daniel touches him, how much Louis has imagined him touching him this way. The way Louis has imagined having him, laying Daniel out across his bed, across the floor. Throwing a thigh over his hip to sink down onto him, hitching Daniel's thighs up around his hips to drive into him.
And how he might bite him. Louis' teeth in his thigh, his throat, the sounds Louis would make, the sounds Daniel would.
Look at me like a shorthand for what Louis means to do. To let Daniel see him, as clearly as possible through the haze of desire and impatience coloring all Louis' thoughts. Drags his fingers down Daniel's nape, across his shoulders, tangling fingers into Daniel's to slow the pace, direct the way he touches himself.
"Daniel," is strained, breathless. "You done making me wait?"
It's so much in his head. Halfway like they're there already, and the other half is the most intense tease he's ever experienced. The biting fantasies get him the most, and Louis can no doubt feel the tension that runs through him— it's good but it's a lot, tangled with him like this, the perfect position to lean his head down and sink fangs into his throat.
Like the surface of the sea shifting up and down, with one heartbeat he wants to fuck him more than bite him, and then the next, bloodletting takes over. Then back, and back again, and, and, and...
"Yeah."
Doing something here. Daniel pinches Louis' thigh in affectionate warning about the biting shit. He really won't be able to control himself. But fucking, he's done before. Though it's been a while. One last frisson of nerves—
(A torrent of things he only partially remembers as a kid, not because of telepathic interference but because of drugs and risky bullshit, an affair he had that was maybe the worst thing he ever did to his second wife, the clubs he kept visiting all throughout every marriage, a fellow reporter who would have left his own wife for Daniel, and all of them, Daniel buried, like an asshole, like a callous, awful person who used survivor's guilt like self-harm but kept on with it all.)
—but he's over it, because Louis is here, and he wants him so bad it's tipped over into needing him. And yes, done making them both wait. He pushes into him and thank fuck he still knows what he's doing. Something still trembles in him, and he clutches onto the other man, eyes bright and dilated with thin green circles and not like his maker's at all.
Daniel drives into him and Louis' thoughts all fall to technicolor fragments, sensation rather than shape, the deep ache of yes, and finally more impression than substance.
The sound Louis makes is a low, ragged groan. His hands clutch at Daniel's hips, encouraging and impatient, begging more and deeper with the dig of nails and flex of thighs around his hips. Begs until Daniel can simply give him nothing else, settled in so deep, and Louis' hands scrape up his back, his shoulders, cradle him, cup his face with one palm.
A brief, clear impression in Louis' head: Daniel's eyes, all the ways Louis remembers them. Across a stained table in a small apartment bathed in yellow light, looking up at him on a muted gray sofa, watching him across a gleaming table in the filtered light of the atrium —
Blue, Louis remembers. He remembers.
"Yeah," echoes back, delayed. Shades of relief in the way Louis breathes it out, leaning up to kiss Daniel's mouth. "Yeah, like this."
Feeling refracting, reflected back, see how badly Louis wanted him, see how much better this is than anything he'd dreamed about. The thing behind it, the overwhelming feeling that has no name but has shape and sensation and is all for Daniel. Louis thumb runs along his cheek, the corner of his mouth along cheekbone and back again, and again, and again as Louis tells him, "I was waiting for you."
Fifty years. Fifty years, waiting and not knowing he was waiting.
"Go slow," has nothing to do at all with gentleness or care. It's only the clinging, deep-set urge to make this last. Maybe some fear that Louis doesn't get this again, that this is all and he needs to hang on as long as he can before it is over.
It wouldn't have been like this in San Fransisco, Daniel just some kid. Enthusiastically offering himself up to be used so that he could get drugs, and the release of a desire he kept hidden in the night. And it wouldn't have been like this in Dubai, with Daniel too fragile, too useless, to do anything but be held carefully. Through it all, fifty years, Louis is unchanging—
No, that's not true. Louis has been in flux the entire time Daniel's known him, struggling to free himself of the very pretty net laid over him. Now here he is, and he and Daniel are something like equals, and the desire and affection courses between them like sunlight. Like sunlight should be, clear and warm.
"Don't say it like that," he breathes out, shaky. Waiting for him. "You couldn't have been, Louis. I."
Emotion chokes him. Buried deep in Louis, he ducks his head down, overwhelmed. Deep breath in and out, settling himself, clutching close and trying not to do something tragic like cry. Who else does he have, besides Louis? His kids are better off without him, Armand is a fucking nightmare. It's Louis, it's been Louis since that horrible apartment, becoming his lifeline.
"Okay," he whispers when he can, finally. "Yeah."
He kisses the side of Louis' face, artless, mindless, as he slowly rocks into him.
Holding these threads of though as Daniel moves, and Louis' entire body shudders through the sensation.
"I saw you," he says, a dreamy kind of unraveling. Daniel's curls are a mess, rucked into wild disarray made wilder now as Louis' fingers scrape slow across his scalp. Encouraging. "I knew you."
Looking at the boy Daniel had been across the bar and knowing then, him. Only him. No one else would have done. How easy he had been to talk to, easy for the first time in so many years. Long decades of holding pieces of himself in check, talking of everything but the most important parts of himself. Seeing him after, over and over, on screens and book jackets, knowledge locked away but always there.
"You," comes breathless, aching. Daniel is moving so slowly and it is agonizing. It is perfect. He is thinking of biting him, kissing him. Of bruises that would fade too quickly now. Louis' affection threads through all these things, burns brighter as they move together, the vast and overwhelming sea of Louis' affection-love-desire flowing forth as he whispers, "Me and you, if you want it. As long as you want it."
Forever whispering beneath this, because that's what Louis wants. Daniel, forever. Always in his life, always linked. Nothing new about it, this well-worn wish. It's so familiar. It weaves in alongside everything, held in its usual place.
A tremulous feeling. No one who's chosen Daniel before has stuck to it, because no one who's chosen Daniel has been able to endure Daniel, and the overwhelming desire to grab that offer of forever in both hands and cling to it is matched only by a gun-shy feeling taught by experience.
But what the hell, huh? Daniel knew heroin was a bad idea when he injected it, ever time. Accepting this might be a bad idea. He might get hurt. Will get hurt, through no fault of Louis'. Because Daniel knows better. But Louis' worth that, isn't he? Worth the shattering, like he thought before. Worth the heartbreak. No one better to endure it for. If they have forever for each other, then Daniel has forever to get over it when things inevitably fall apart.
"Ask me again when we aren't doing this," Daniel breathes out against him, humor in his tone as he rocks into him, back out, pushes in again. Everything is blood-hot, slick, velvet, perfect. "I'll think it's a serious offer when you're making it while I'm ignoring everything else to follow a lead."
He snaps his hips in quicker, just for variety. Just to dig all the way in and connect them, deep and firm, grind into where it feels like Louis likes best; he can feel it in their minds, reflections of every spark.
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no subject
Just. Old man things. Daniel has been humbled by age, and some of his behaviors after resurrection have been to spite (actively, to spite it, not in spite of it, he is doing it on purpose) that humility. Cranky notes, prickles of discomfort he can't be rid of, that obviously Louis would prefer someone who was beautiful. Daniel is not drowning in self-pity about it, or anything, but. Still there.
Many things are true at once. Daniel wants him and he knows Louis wants him in return. This is real. He is reckless and enthusiastic, he is insecure. He wants to bite Louis and say fuck it, let them make bad decisions, and he wants to be responsible.
Extra difficult to compartmentalize when he's mostly thinking with his dick, now, too, so there's also that. ANYway,,
"Do you have anything?"
He can't just sit here and dither, they have things to do, or Daniel thinks he will probably die for real.
no subject
Says, "Yes."
Says, "Let me..."
Trails into implication, already sinking back into Daniel, already catching his mouth for another kiss.
Daniel is not obliged to retrieve anything from the specified drawer. Louis is already coming up off the mattress, crowding into Daniel as he kisses him. Hands bracketing Daniel's face, curling into his hair, heels of his palms at Daniel's temples as he creates some minor space in which he might move.
Terrible, having to let go of Daniel even by halves, even for a moment. But Louis stretches out, hooks open the drawer. Does not think of Armand. Does not think of what he is studiously ignoring: no one has touched him at all since he and Lestat parted ways, resolved to attempt standing on their own.
Transparently expensive, Louis' choice in lube. Just as all the product in Dubai had been expensive, all things betraying the casual flex of wealth Louis has come to appreciate, find security in. He presses the jar into Daniel's chest.
Noses back up along Daniel's jawline, yielding Daniel's mouth for whatever commentary is sure to follow.
no subject
A sensual murmur,
"Did you render down an endangered vegan seal for this?"
Daniel tries not to laugh against Louis' shoulder. Not laughing AT him, of course, and their minds winding together like excited foxes (who haven't been ground into lube) will show that. It's just fun, and giddy, and he likes Louis, he likes all of it.
"What do you like? Don't say anything. I get it. But pick something."
no subject
It would have been like this, Louis knows. It would have been like this if they'd come together before. It's just easy, between them. It's easy now, drawing Daniel into him, fingers sunk into the curls at the nape of his neck. Feeling laughter in his body and finding himself so pleased with it, with Daniel's irreverence and good humor.
Pick something, prompts an inscrutable little flex of emotion across his face. Dampens some of the vibrant glow of his thoughts, some more serious timbre bleeding in. Weighing the question as he rocks a thigh up against Daniel's groin, nips at his lower lip.
Has anyone ever asked him this question? (No.)
Lets the little jar fall to the coverlet alongside them, freeing a hand to draw Daniel down with him against the pillows. Close, tangling together as Louis lets a hazy pulse of memory drift between their minds. What does he like? Piecemeal impressions, a mix of experience: hands on his body, weight heavy over him, a bowed spine beneath his fingers, the burn of overextended muscles, skin reddening under his palms, the sharp pain of fangs at his throat. Pain, pleasure, tenderness, all things mingling as Louis sorts through over a hundred years of entanglements (Lestat, Armand, distinct in his mind, maybe distinct in this accounting even as Louis pares these recollections down to overwhelming sensations.) as he winds his way to an answer.
"I want you to fuck me," can't be cheating, it's a choice, even if it's something he's already said yes to. "I want that, and not only because you asked."
A pause, a slow bite of a kiss. He can taste himself in Daniel's mouth, and lets Daniel feel how much he likes that too.
"I want to find out what we like," feels like a distinction to Louis, a difference clear in his thoughts as he says this against Daniel's mouth. "Together. We have time now."
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Daniel's turn to say Anything.
Feels all these things, sees all these things, kisses Louis deeper all the while. Only a brief flinch back, followed by a warning nuzzle, because, fuck, if he thinks too hard about biting then Daniel's not going to be able to keep his fangs from stretching out, aching and desperate.
"Okay." A fond concession. Louis is just not a simple answer guy, Daniel should know that. Let the tale seduce you. Let the fumble in bed after memory trauma seduce you. Well. Daniel is not that seductive, but he'll give it a go.
Another kiss. More clutching at him. Time. They do have time. Finally.
"You can turn around if you want, I'm not gonna..."
Be bothered if Louis decides he does not want to stare at wrinkly old man skin. His dick is still in perfect working order, he's always been lean so the whole affair isn't that bad, but compared to Armand, Lestat, Louis himself, it's pretty tragic.
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Trying to tread carefully, aware of some tender stretch of terrain here. Aware of potential to nick something vulnerable in Daniel, and angling away from it. Still, fingers heavy in his curls at the nape of his neck, a hand falling down his chest to lay over his heart.
"I want to see you," softly. Offering, "I want you to see me."
Daniel had seen him. Daniel had come to Dubai and argued and needled and dragged truth out of Louis even when all Louis had to offer was a story he'd been telling himself (A story Armand had been telling him too, a quiet chorus shifting and omitting and realigning Louis' life.) for so many years that it had felt like all there was. Daniel had seen something else.
They're linked so closely. Louis is sunk so far into his head, bleeding desire like sunlight. Wanting. Offering pieces still, hazy answers to join the impressions he'd already given over to Daniel. (Teeth sunk down into the flexing muscle of a thigh, wrists caught up in one hand, bruises blooming livid in the wake of kisses laid to the throat and collarbone and chest and hip—) Savors the sweetness of Anything he finds in Daniel's mind, an offering passed back and forth between them.
"Come on," is lightly impatient, deeply affectionate. "Come on, Danny."
Is deliberately goading, teasing. Words murmured into the corner of his mouth as Louis leans up to kiss him.
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And yet.
Tremors of uncertainty. Not just Louis' sensibilities to contend with. Daniel still thinks Jane Fonda is hot, but maybe he doesn't like himself very much. Maybe he hasn't in a long time. One thing to say you don't care about aging, it happens to everyone, and then watch yourself change out of your own control in the mirror. One thing to make peace with it because it'll all be over soon anyway, and then have nothing be over, indefinitely.
And then this, and— Danny, and Daniel is giving Louis' shoulder a hard, (still flat) bite. How very dare you.
"Start down the 'boy' path and I'm really turning the screws on you over shit you're into," is deliberate teasing in return.
Okok. He can do this. His boner, for sure, believes he can do this, and has no qualms about physical appearance. Get with the program.
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Amusement warming the link between them, coloring everything, everything.
Louis' voice dips lower, shifts to dig his heel in at the back of Daniel's thigh as he says, "Come on, Daniel."
Shades of anything in the way Louis' thoughts shift, the way he draws Daniel in closer. Anyway that Daniel wants this, wants him, Louis will have him. Aware of some discomfort in Daniel, trying to quietly assuage it.
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What a thing. A sticky-note for the back of Louis' jacket, but instead of Kick Me, it will say I Like To Call Grandpas 'Boy'. Creep!!
Anyway.
"It's always been anything." Okay. Okay. "With you, anything."
Drugs, sex, interviews, going to Dubai. Daniel has wanted him for so long. Only another bracing moment, before he relents, and starts to peel off articles of clothing. The rest of Louis', too. Bandaid off.
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Anything whispering between their heads. Louis holds it in the palm of his hand, a precious offering from Daniel who Louis had met only by chance. Daniel, who saved him.
"Come here," again, reaching up as Louis yields back down, shoulders hitting mattress. "Come down here and let me kiss you."
A ghost of Dubai: Tell me I can kiss you. Wanting him so badly, any way he could have him. Even a kiss, even a touch. Anything, anything.
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And this, too, finally. Bare skin on bare skin, and it's so novel and such a relief that he forgets to feel self-conscious about the difference in textures. Louis feels so good, and Daniel is helpless to do anything but grant him his request, and kiss him.
Just a little bit of hiding against him, but Daniel rallies. Lets Louis touch him, even look at him if he wants, only a moment or two of looking away himself. Different, when it's somebody he gives a shit about and not just some nutjob at a book signing he'll never see again. Who he thinks is so gorgeous, precious, and holds in such high esteem. Touches him, kisses him, sets flat teeth against the side of his jaw, rocks down against him and feels hard on hard, making him shiver.
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All this for Louis, who is not so certain of Daniel's esteem. (Louis, who failed him. Left him.) But soaks in the glow of it all the same, lets himself bleed it back. All this affection. All this admiration. Louis has oceans of it, for Daniel.
"I've got you," is a breathless murmur, as they move together. As Daniel bites him and Louis shudders all through his body. Touching all the while, fingers in his hair, at the nape of his neck, down his spine and up again to follow the flex of Daniel's shoulders. Hooks up an ankle on the coverlet, reaches down to take them both in hand as Daniel moves and shiver and breathes. Louis can hear his pulse, wants to put teeth into it.
Just barely refrains.
Instead, asks soft as Daniel bites a bruise beneath his jaw, "You want me to make it easy for you?"
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Really happening.
"What's that mean?"
Knees push into the bed, and he rocks down, into Louis, into that grip he has on them. Fucking, but not quite. He braces one hand by Louis' shoulder and lets the other roam, stroking over his body everywhere he can get to, playing with one nipple before moving to the curve of his hipbone, touch teasing to join hands between them. Waiting, just to keep feeling Louis' hand, and his dick, uninterrupted.
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"Could roll us over," Louis says, watching Daniel's face. Aware of how enmeshed their minds are, how maybe Daniel can see Louis' proposal even before Louis speaks it aloud. "Lay back for me, and let me have you."
A possibility. Some aspects of the picture in Louis' mind hooked back to Dubai, a different place, different time. Daniel's mortality, the pain in his body, things Louis had accounted for when he'd imagined—
A flicker of complicated, bitter feeling. He'd imagined. He half-remembers that he had.
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"Hey." A husky whisper, and he presses in for a kiss. Emotion grabs at him, like a rough hug. Daniel, continuing to be clumsy from lust an inexperience, but so earnest. "Hey, we're here. It's just us, and it's all really happening."
They won't forget it. They can't, not anymore. Daniel kisses him and kisses him, and leaks against his hand, and takes his own to clutch him close, fingers and hardness and desire.
"Thought about that? Wanted to take care of me, even then?" It makes his head spin. That Louis could want him so much, want him despite, in spite. All of it. It seizes at his heart and makes it all feel so fucking tender. He wouldn't have even been able to, no matter how considerate Louis was. Maybe he'd have wept with it, overwhelmed by the attention, the offer, the thoughtfulness. How long had it been since anyone wanted him that much? How long has it been?
"We can take care of each other. Be here now, yeah? We can do that, if you want. I'm not gonna be picky, Louis." And there's a breathless laugh, as he slides his hand down lower, stoking over Louis' balls and into the cleft of his rear. Just his knuckles, then, brushing over so-soft skin, leery of claws. "I just want you. I've wanted you for ... most of my life."
Fifty fucking years.
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—
A little miraculous, all that had to happen to bring them here. A miracle Daniel made happen, whether he admits it or not.
Louis' body jolts, an all-consuming spark of movement as Daniel touches him lower, with something like intent. A technicolor flare of emotion in his mind as Daniel tells him these things, says I just want you. Says, we can do that, if you want. Overwhelming, what Louis wants. Fifty years of longing all the more potent for being contained and suppressed and obscured, thinking of how he would have put himself into Daniel's bed, how they'd have touched then. Different from how they touch now.
His heel hooks higher, better leverage, permissive, encouraging. Coaxes the slow slide of their fingers, tremors working through his thighs at the slickness of them, how easy it makes the stroke of their palms.
Says, "Don't stop touching me," while his thoughts circle through every single touch Daniel has laid on him from the moment he broke into this house and the way Daniel is touching him in this specific moment. Wanting all of it at once, even the innocuous, polite way they'd touched each other before.
A break in his voice, hitching over, "I just need to see you. I don't care about the rest."
Years and years to explore every possible entanglement, isn't that one of the benefits of eternity? They could joke about it. Maybe later, after. Right now, Louis is hard pressed to be particular. Even to try and pick some specific preference out of Daniel's head. Unlikely to be successful anyway. Louis can feel him, is slid so far into Daniel's mind that he is very aware of how true Daniel was when he said he wasn't picky. They just want each other. Louis feels that truth like a hook caught behind his ribs, helpless with the meaning of it.
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Louis is here, with Daniel, it's alright. Finally. Even though Daniel just decided to show up, be his annoying, nosy self— impossibly glad he did. That he followed some little instinct. Pulled by fate, or more likely, just Louis.
Minds twisting together, tumbling colors, feelings. Daniel thinks he physically feels a reflection of what Louis does, a marvel of a thing. He strokes him carefully, still not uncoiling his fingers for caution's sake, but he can't linger there forever. Or. Well. He could, but he doesn't think either of them are patient enough for it, right now.
"Show me how to do this, huh?"
With hands or mental images. He grabs the lube, taps Louis' hip with the points of his nails.
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The impatient, careless thing first: Now, just come here, we don't need anything else. Just wanting, urgent, willing to toss aside all the care Daniel is trying to offer him. Daniel lets go and Louis makes a wounded sound, some muffled groan against Daniel's jaw.
Lets go, only in favor of taking Daniel in hand, idle touches while Louis cups his cheek. Nods, wordless, before reaching down. Hitches an ankle up further, lets his thighs splay. Reaches for Daniel's hand as he says, "You won't hurt me."
Louis' already felt the resolve to go gently in Daniel's head. Here and now, his fingers thumb over Daniel's wrist, already drawing his hand down, guiding him closer. Touch me blooms between their minds, lurid imaginings laid out for Daniel to observe. Louis has been thinking of him. Lays out a kaleidoscope of desire at Daniel's invitation, instructive and aspirational all at once.
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See. Works fine, with both of them. Daniel kisses him until he can't do both that and concentrate, and he leans there with his forehead against Louis', his gaze unfocused between them. He has no intention of forcing Louis to act like a frustrated, delicate flower, but he wants to know what the fuck they're doing, and it's important to him not to look at potential injury with a we'll fix it in editing attitude. Always has been. (Well, for his partners. He's always been fine with getting completely fucked up. Sometimes that's part of the fun. And maybe it will be, someday, with them. But that's not what right now is for.)
Careful, not nails on places he's never put nails. He feels Louis physically, and he feels Louis in his head, and he pays attention to both. Probably too much lube, it's been a while, he doesn't fucking know how much anybody needs these days, some guys want an hour of this, some guys could just drop their pants and that's enough preparation. Louis seems impatient enough for the latter, but Daniel's being stubborn.
Not too stubborn. When he believes it in his head, he relents, and gently nips his jaw as he pulls his fingers out, and swears through touching himself to get excess over his aching flesh.
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And it does, in part. Louis' fingers following Daniel's, guiding, encouraging. Breath coming in heavy pants as Daniel touches him, as Louis strays further and further into his head. Desperately present in his mind as Louis' thumb strokes his cheek, lets Daniel have all the sounds his work drives out of him.
He lets Daniel have this too: how much he likes the way Daniel touches him, how much Louis has imagined him touching him this way. The way Louis has imagined having him, laying Daniel out across his bed, across the floor. Throwing a thigh over his hip to sink down onto him, hitching Daniel's thighs up around his hips to drive into him.
And how he might bite him. Louis' teeth in his thigh, his throat, the sounds Louis would make, the sounds Daniel would.
Look at me like a shorthand for what Louis means to do. To let Daniel see him, as clearly as possible through the haze of desire and impatience coloring all Louis' thoughts. Drags his fingers down Daniel's nape, across his shoulders, tangling fingers into Daniel's to slow the pace, direct the way he touches himself.
"Daniel," is strained, breathless. "You done making me wait?"
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Like the surface of the sea shifting up and down, with one heartbeat he wants to fuck him more than bite him, and then the next, bloodletting takes over. Then back, and back again, and, and, and...
"Yeah."
Doing something here. Daniel pinches Louis' thigh in affectionate warning about the biting shit. He really won't be able to control himself. But fucking, he's done before. Though it's been a while. One last frisson of nerves—
(A torrent of things he only partially remembers as a kid, not because of telepathic interference but because of drugs and risky bullshit, an affair he had that was maybe the worst thing he ever did to his second wife, the clubs he kept visiting all throughout every marriage, a fellow reporter who would have left his own wife for Daniel, and all of them, Daniel buried, like an asshole, like a callous, awful person who used survivor's guilt like self-harm but kept on with it all.)
—but he's over it, because Louis is here, and he wants him so bad it's tipped over into needing him. And yes, done making them both wait. He pushes into him and thank fuck he still knows what he's doing. Something still trembles in him, and he clutches onto the other man, eyes bright and dilated with thin green circles and not like his maker's at all.
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The sound Louis makes is a low, ragged groan. His hands clutch at Daniel's hips, encouraging and impatient, begging more and deeper with the dig of nails and flex of thighs around his hips. Begs until Daniel can simply give him nothing else, settled in so deep, and Louis' hands scrape up his back, his shoulders, cradle him, cup his face with one palm.
A brief, clear impression in Louis' head: Daniel's eyes, all the ways Louis remembers them. Across a stained table in a small apartment bathed in yellow light, looking up at him on a muted gray sofa, watching him across a gleaming table in the filtered light of the atrium —
Blue, Louis remembers. He remembers.
"Yeah," echoes back, delayed. Shades of relief in the way Louis breathes it out, leaning up to kiss Daniel's mouth. "Yeah, like this."
Feeling refracting, reflected back, see how badly Louis wanted him, see how much better this is than anything he'd dreamed about. The thing behind it, the overwhelming feeling that has no name but has shape and sensation and is all for Daniel. Louis thumb runs along his cheek, the corner of his mouth along cheekbone and back again, and again, and again as Louis tells him, "I was waiting for you."
Fifty years. Fifty years, waiting and not knowing he was waiting.
"Go slow," has nothing to do at all with gentleness or care. It's only the clinging, deep-set urge to make this last. Maybe some fear that Louis doesn't get this again, that this is all and he needs to hang on as long as he can before it is over.
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No, that's not true. Louis has been in flux the entire time Daniel's known him, struggling to free himself of the very pretty net laid over him. Now here he is, and he and Daniel are something like equals, and the desire and affection courses between them like sunlight. Like sunlight should be, clear and warm.
"Don't say it like that," he breathes out, shaky. Waiting for him. "You couldn't have been, Louis. I."
Emotion chokes him. Buried deep in Louis, he ducks his head down, overwhelmed. Deep breath in and out, settling himself, clutching close and trying not to do something tragic like cry. Who else does he have, besides Louis? His kids are better off without him, Armand is a fucking nightmare. It's Louis, it's been Louis since that horrible apartment, becoming his lifeline.
"Okay," he whispers when he can, finally. "Yeah."
He kisses the side of Louis' face, artless, mindless, as he slowly rocks into him.
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Holding these threads of though as Daniel moves, and Louis' entire body shudders through the sensation.
"I saw you," he says, a dreamy kind of unraveling. Daniel's curls are a mess, rucked into wild disarray made wilder now as Louis' fingers scrape slow across his scalp. Encouraging. "I knew you."
Looking at the boy Daniel had been across the bar and knowing then, him. Only him. No one else would have done. How easy he had been to talk to, easy for the first time in so many years. Long decades of holding pieces of himself in check, talking of everything but the most important parts of himself. Seeing him after, over and over, on screens and book jackets, knowledge locked away but always there.
"You," comes breathless, aching. Daniel is moving so slowly and it is agonizing. It is perfect. He is thinking of biting him, kissing him. Of bruises that would fade too quickly now. Louis' affection threads through all these things, burns brighter as they move together, the vast and overwhelming sea of Louis' affection-love-desire flowing forth as he whispers, "Me and you, if you want it. As long as you want it."
Forever whispering beneath this, because that's what Louis wants. Daniel, forever. Always in his life, always linked. Nothing new about it, this well-worn wish. It's so familiar. It weaves in alongside everything, held in its usual place.
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But what the hell, huh? Daniel knew heroin was a bad idea when he injected it, ever time. Accepting this might be a bad idea. He might get hurt. Will get hurt, through no fault of Louis'. Because Daniel knows better. But Louis' worth that, isn't he? Worth the shattering, like he thought before. Worth the heartbreak. No one better to endure it for. If they have forever for each other, then Daniel has forever to get over it when things inevitably fall apart.
"Ask me again when we aren't doing this," Daniel breathes out against him, humor in his tone as he rocks into him, back out, pushes in again. Everything is blood-hot, slick, velvet, perfect. "I'll think it's a serious offer when you're making it while I'm ignoring everything else to follow a lead."
He snaps his hips in quicker, just for variety. Just to dig all the way in and connect them, deep and firm, grind into where it feels like Louis likes best; he can feel it in their minds, reflections of every spark.
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