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.
"I'll ask as many times as you want," Louis promises, breathless, throat bared as his head tips back. Wanting still, desire mingling with forever and me and you and us.
Forever in whatever form forever takes. Possibility like a shimmering ocean laid out in front of them as Daniel fucks into him and Louis holds onto him, encouraging, all grasping hands and drum of his heel at the back of Daniel's thigh. More telegraphed in all the ways Louis moves under him, the flash-fire catch of sensation in his mind.
What has Louis learned in a century on this earth? He's learned that things shatter apart and come back together after.
Forever. Forever, because Louis cannot parse out any future where Daniel is not desperately important to him. Where Daniel isn't everything, precious and vital and beloved. What changes that? Nothing. They've already been all the worst things to each other. Louis left him, when he should never have strayed from his side. What can be worse than that?
There's no one like Louis. Washed-up journalists on benders reliving their youth are a dime a dozen, immortal or not. Daniel still believes, might always believe, that he's incidental to this story; a part of the machine that got caught up by accident. He wasn't worth forever, it was just a thing that happened because someone was angry at him and needed an outlet, and to say yes to something when he hadn't the first time—
Things to think about later. Or not at all.
Feels too good to let it get muddy with his cynical brain. Their minds are tangled together and it's as good as being locked together with him physically, buried deep inside, pressing his cock all the way into the clutch of his body. Feels like forever since he's done this with another man, never done this with another vampire. It thrills him that it's with Louis, who he's wanted for so long, who's welcoming him with a force of desire he could have never expected.
"Good?"
Caged close over him, folded in, nose to nose. Daniel slides a hand over Louis' chest and lower, so that he can wrap fingers around the older creature's own arousal. In no hurry to have it all end, he just wants to feel him more, and more, and more.
The thoughts don't come into clear focus, but Louis can track the shadowy shape of them, the humming activity of Daniel's mind it's own draw. His own desire and thoughts and emotions refracting, mingling in among the pulse of activity in Daniel's head. It is as Louis always knew: Daniel's mind always spinning, contemplating, arranging and unraveling. All this activity, intrinsic to Daniel. Dizzying to have even a fraction of that focus. Louis wants it all.
Admiration of it all distracts, enough so that Louis is jolted by the slide of fingers, the clasp of Daniel's hand.
"Yeah," falls out of his mouth, exhaled against Daniel's mouth. Swallows, thrusts up into Daniel's hand as he says again, "Yeah."
Brings his hands up, fingers pulling slow through Daniel's curls. Takes Daniel's face between his palms.
"You feel so good," Louis murmurs. Their noses brush. Louis' breath coming in shallow pants. One breath, then another, then another, Louis grasping for some composure before he offers, "Like a dream."
Except they get to keep this. All of it. It's real, and it's theirs.
"Not dreaming," he promises. "We're awake. We're right here."
No more lost memories. Only making new ones.
New memories that include: this, driving into him, finding the angles that make Louis gasp, the best way to press into him, and all of it is good for Daniel, who feels like something is once again being rewired in him. Sex shouldn't be on the list of revelatory potentials, at over seventy years old, especially with his history, but he can't deny the elated things happening to his brain chemistry. Allowed to have this, to enjoy this, and it feels right. It feels correct in a way that should be terrifying, because it's everything he's put away and denied for so long.
And maybe he does know, has always known, but there's a difference between knowing and setting it aside, and knowing and being present within it.
He kisses Louis, and feels something in him, some emotional, intangible thing, shiver loose. It belongs to Louis, whatever it is; the man who had chosen him at that bar, who wanted to be interviewed by some idiot kid, who saw him as more than a hookup to be used despite what they'd both walked into the building for.
Daniel kisses him and Louis feels it, whatever shard of a thing comes loose in Daniel. Feels it echo in his chest. Feels it like something precious, makes him hang on all the tighter to Daniel as he fucks down into Louis. Nails biting half-moons into Daniel's back, his shoulders, clutched so close as they move together. As Daniel touches him.
"I want to feel you," is a little nonsensical, given their current position. But it's spelled out in Louis' head, wanting Daniel to come apart. Louis' dreamed this too, and he dreams it now, how Daniel would feel, what he would look like.
His fingers drag down Daniel's spine. Coaxing. Encouraging.
They should do this forever. They should do it again, and then again. Again after. Louis wants. Just wants him, helplessly.
"Cheating to ask me to embarrass myself," he accuses in a close whisper. Bad form to get off first when you're on top. Men and women aren't that different. Maybe it's been — alright, definitely — too long since Daniel's had sex that hasn't been about just understanding an assignment and getting there.
He's close anyway. It's too good. He's been trying not to think of it climaxing because, as expected, the second it enters his mind he's right there on the edge and everything is cranked up past when the dial's supposed to stop, tense and desperate. Near breaking.
Just—
They can do this forever, again, then again; helpless, starving, lonely, enamored. And yet Daniel isn't ready for this right now to be over. Not yet. He holds Louis close, grinds into him slow and deep, winds tighter together in their minds. Another minute. Just another.
Refrains from teasing, because Louis can feel it. All this in Daniel's head, it is in Louis' now.
"Stay," he whispers, fingers tightening and loosening and tightening again Daniel's hair. Breath gone haywire, uneven panting as Daniel rocks into him. The lines between their minds are so blurred that there are moments when Louis cannot say with certainty which sensation belongs to who. Coaxes, "Stay here with me."
Not kissing, but close. Noses brushing. Louis' forehead against Daniel's. Unclear in the moment if the pulse in his ears belongs to him or to Daniel. A drifting itch of fangs in his mouth, wanting this too, wanting to bite Daniel all over while Louis has him caught up here.
A quiet truth running like a current beneath all else in their minds: there has been no one, since Armand. A true thing that exists disconnected from specifics, but exists all the same. Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips and he breathes into his mouth and his mind shimmers, wanting him with a kind of absurd desperation, as if Louis doesn't have him already.
Louis deserves every bit of affection, and love, and validation from the universe. He deserves to find justice and peace, and he deserves to get the love of his life back— did Daniel assume? Sort of. Lestat has a way about him, as has been stated numerous times, but the way that strikes Daniel the strongest is his adoration for Louis. The same cord that rang through the interview, mirrored.
A private special thing, then, for Daniel. This moment. This encounter, this act. A thing he will guard jealously for the rest of his existence. That Louis chose him, after. A first time after for the both of them, albeit different afters. Louis thinks 'You and me' like Daniel was born yesterday, and yet, he knows so much of this will be kept and held onto preciously. Forever.
Maybe he can let go soon. It's starting to get hard to hang on, to draw it out. He doesn't need to breathe yet his breath feels tense and labored; all of him is coiled, pulled tight, near breaking.
'You can,' Daniel lets him know. Fangs, in his throat, or wherever else Louis wants them. Daniel can feel the sympathetic ache of his teeth. 'Anything you want.'
I want you is reflexive, whispering between their minds as Louis catches Daniel's mouth in a kiss.
Says it against his mouth, "I want you, I do."
A luxury to say it aloud. The only hush in his voice because they are both so breathless, wound so tightly in against each other. Louis, free to say this thing. Free to keep it, without any fear of it being lifted out of his hands or diminished down to nothingness. As near as Louis can get to the thing that lives behind it, that Louis has never been able to say when it truly matters, when he feels it most deeply.
His hand slides free of Daniel's curls. Fingers find his throat, the faded imprint of teeth Louis left there once. Shudders, fangs pricking at his gums, thinking about putting his mouth here. Some hazy dream of a fantasy not quite coming into focus, a dream Louis had once that he hadn't been allowed to keep. An impression, carrying some formless pulse of desire.
(I wanted you for such a long time, a whisper that isn't meant to tantalize; directed inward, a discovery. A confirmation.)
Louis puts his mouth over the old scar, sucking kisses across the skin. Teasing. Clutching on to Daniel, anchoring himself to that fraying restraint.
Close, and getting closer. Every rock forward is some new height of electric intensity for Daniel, who is caught up in not just Louis but this feeling of another person who is like him, not a mortal he has to be careful about hurting by accident. Not like being human still, with another human, either; there's no strain, no cramped efforts, no itching exhaustion. It's just everything.
And then, the touch to his neck. The scars there. Louis' scars, carved into him. It makes his breath catch, his movements stutter, and he grasps him harder and flexes his hips into him where he's buried deep, with Louis pinned to the mattress.
"See. You've been there the whole time."
A part of Daniel. Tangible. Even when they couldn't remember. Louis was there, written on his flesh, like a signature.
Can't quite say patience as a tease because Daniel could unravel him if he wanted, easy enough if he touched Louis again. Can't say it because Daniel is being patient, in some respects. Patient with his teeth, despite how much Louis wants them in his skin. Patient with Louis beneath him, holding together despite how precarious a balancing act it has become to hold off.
Beneath him now, Louis blinks hard against the prick of tears. Remembering because Daniel gifted him the memory, dragged it out of Louis' head with a tape recording and sheer determination. Because of him Louis can remember this: dropping his fangs for Daniel, who startled and laughed and asked to see them again.
His thumb circles the scar as he draws in an unsteady breath. When he speaks, his fangs glint up to Daniel, though Louis' voice sounds wrecked-raw as he murmurs, "You've always been mine," as his nail scrapes feather-light across Daniel's skin. Voice falling to a whisper as he echoes, "This whole time."
Half-statement, half-question. Louis says it and doubts it in the same breath. How unlikely, that Daniel would want to be kept. Louis stealing two weeks from him, audaciously demanding hundreds of years after. Can't help himself. Can't do anything but hang on tightly to everything that's been lost to him for so many years.
Daniel may not want to be kept and restrained, but that has nothing to do with being Louis'. His friend, the person on the other side of a lifeline, the one that's tethered between each of them. He feels utterly confident that he can pull on it, and never be alone, just like Louis can always pull for him, and Daniel will be there. Louis isn't his maker, and Daniel might even accept someday that's what Louis wanted, but look— they have this, instead. They can feel each other, they can sink like this, and it's so good.
Louis, the scariest and most enchanting thing Daniel had ever seen. Louis, who nailed him to the world and said you deserve this life.
"Yours."
He strokes Louis with intent. Not going to last much longer.
A thing that Louis will keep, hold tight in his chest: the sound of Daniel's voice saying Yours.
Arches up, brushing a sharp-toothed kiss to Daniel's mouth on the way to his throat.
Louis has held his place, his fingers over the scar that's remained, all these years. Daniel touches him, and Louis' whole body is flush with the sensation, fine tremors betraying the way Louis' self-control is fraying apart. He kisses Daniel's throat, mouths softly over the scarring before Louis bites him there.
Delicate, the way Louis breaks the skin. Hard-won finesse, the best of his capabilities, holding himself in check as he bites down.
They're already sunk so deeply into each others heads. Daniel is treated to the way Louis receives his blood, the taste of him, the way Louis' emotions flare bright as the blood forges a link of its own. As he drinks from Daniel, swallows down the familiar taste of him. Thoughts a blur of overlapping images and feeling, such deep, overwhelming affection as Louis drinks slow, luxurious swallows from Daniel's throat.
He knows how badly Louis wants it, and he's told Louis to do it, yet Daniel is still surprised when the bite comes. It slips hot lightning through him, not a violent electric shock but something that sneaks in, an intimate knife. He's been waiting for this for fifty years, to feel it, really feel it, not just survive it.
Louis can see all of him through his blood. A flipbook of adoration, the struggle to adjust to this unlife always pinned by the stability of knowing Louis is out here. The way he missed him, the way he's always missed him even when he wasn't aware that's the thing he was feeling. And, maturely, how fucking hot he thinks he is.
Daniel pulls his arms around Louis, lifting him enough so that he's not jostling fangs from his throat as he fucks him, because it's out of his hands, now. Louis wanted to feel him unravel and now he is, everything is too much, shattering, barely aware of how desperately he chases after it over the edge. Tension snaps in a perfect way as he comes, his mind an explosion of stars.
Briefly, Louis' jaw tighten. Bite down harder in those brief seconds where Daniel lifts him closer. Digging in against the fear of being dislodged even he feels Daniel's intentions to allow Louis to stay.
And then it's Louis' shoulders coming up off the mattress, arms looping up around Daniel's shoulders to keep himself there as Daniel fucks into him. As Louis drinks, deep swallows as his whole body flushes under what he feels and tastes in Daniel now.
Louis is sunk so far into Daniel when he comes apart. All that sensation, mirroring, echoing. Overwhelming, what Daniel feels, what Louis feels for him in return. Overwhelming, the moment Daniel comes. It whites Louis out, draws him in after Daniel as he comes, as Louis' self control breaks all apart. His lips open over Daniel's throat, panting, mouth rich with the taste of his blood as his fangs scrape across Daniels skin.
The same taste. Black licorice. Tea.
Unconscious instinct, the way Louis rolls them over. He's made a mess out of Daniel, he knows. The aftershocks make him unsteady, shaky, but he's still capable of draping himself across Daniel's chest. Teethmarks in his throat oozing sluggishly, momentarily abandoned as Louis presses a clumsy kiss to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel, colored through with such affection, thick with tenderness. Nothing but his name, not even trying to prompt a reply. Just his name, said for the pleasure of saying it, for his fingers in Daniel's hair and the taste of blood in his mouth.
No more beer, drugs, or medication. Just his blood, and Daniel can feel Louis' delight in it, and it makes him ache to return the piercing affection— he just can't, because he doesn't have that control, not anywhere near it. But the scorching reflection of it is still good, still mind-bending with pleasure and relief.
Why do vampires ever do anything else? How are immortals bored? C'mon. Give Daniel a break. They could be doing this every night.
Blood and sweat and come (which is more blood, he's pretty sure), harsh breathing though they don't fucking need to, and the sound of their heartbeats. Different, out of time, and beautiful for it. Daniel speaks Louis' name back to him in their heads, and slides a hand down between them to touch him, get his hand wet, and bring it back to his mouth. Still a disgusting black hole junkie, sorry, but if he doesn't taste Louis somehow he's going insane.
It blooms in Louis' head, just how much he likes that too. The way arousal flares up in his chest as Daniel does this thing, as Louis feels how badly Daniel wants to taste him.
Louis leans in to kiss him. Licks into his mouth, aware of the open punctures at Daniel's throat.
Heady, to be wanted this way. (Louis is still, always, in some ways the man standing in a courtyard, asking if he is enough.) Heady to know that Daniel wants him this way. To feel it so clearly. They are a mess and exhausted and Louis wants him again. Louis can taste himself in Daniel's mouth. Has Daniel's blood on his own tongue. He is still catching his breath, and yet—
But he's older now. Has learned something like patience in all his long years on this planet. He can hold one desire in check, focus on where they are now. Daniel under him, the rhythm of their hearts, the warmth of his skin. Daniel tastes him, and Louis kisses him again, deep and slow, before he lowers his head down to the bite he'd left, the slow drips of blood at Daniel's throat.
Louis catches them, arms around Daniel as he applies lips and tongue to the trailing droplets. Kisses over the wounds slowly, no urgency.
Better than I remembered, is true, but also a kind of joke. How much does Louis truly remember? Enough, enough to know, but there are blurred aspects, things damaged by Armand, by the injuries Louis survived.
He touches Louis, sliding hands over his chest, to his back, down to squeeze his ass. Something that's greed-adjacent in it, or more like, still half-convinced Louis is going to change his mind. A marvel, while he has it. Something he wants to sear in his memory, not because he's afraid a wraith will appear and take it away, but because Louis is a thousand miles out of his league and he makes Daniel's heart do stupid shit and things like this don't last, not for him.
Between their minds, an impression of a laugh, both for taste and because— what, why put the brakes on? Does Louis have somewhere else he needs to be, right now?
Still. Sure, it's worth savoring the moment. Daniel cradles Louis' face and looks up at him. He's forgotten all about how he's supposed to be ashamed of how he looks, and everything is just warm, and good.
"I missed the taste of you," Louis tells him, a close murmur on yo way to putting his mouth over open punctures. Kissing away the trickles of blood there as Daniel touches him. Aware of the ways they have made a mess of each other, of how much Louis likes that too.
How many years with the taste of Daniel somewhere in the back of his head? Half a memory, something that survived despite how immediately wrecked Louis was, how hard the drugs hit after those first swallows. He had carried that away with him, the way Daniel tasted beneath the bitterness of just so much alcohol and so many hits.
No, there is nowhere else. A certainty. Decades and decades where time and obligations all moved at whatever pace Louis chose, it is no different now. They can stay here, carry in all the papers from the next room, draw the curtains, lounge in bed. (Two weeks. Daniel has two weeks to spare.) He slots his weight into the cradle of Daniel's hips, scrapes a smile across the skin of his throat.
You feel so good, drifts as a murmur between them. Louis wants to bite him everywhere still. He wants him again, wants to stay in this bed as long as Daniel would allow. Louis lets all of this warm the connection between them, as his teeth nip along Daniel's collarbone.
Are bites supposed to feel this way? he wonders. Louis can probably detect that curiosity, the very slight pain of it just giving depth to the pleasurable experience, as though sinking fangs into those same scars has ticked a dial over from scar tissue that is occasionally sensitive and/or tangibly emotionally significant to all that, but also now an erogenous zone.
It doesn't spark anything immediate, just adds to the dreamy, sparkly (and sweaty, and messy) soup of afterglow. Daniel continues to touch him just because he can, stroking feelings of affection and happiness into him. A little bit in awe, like he had been as a kid; like he had been as an old man, too, though he always brandished sarcasm or a biting comment instead of allowing it to be expressed. Safe to express it now.
He's just always thought Louis is so cool. Still does.
Hands slide up to cradle the back of Louis' head. (Is he allowed to touch his hair? The instinct to act permission is there, but his brain's a little fried from climax. Help.) An encouraging thing. Anything that Louis wants. Two weeks, sure, but it's not like somebody's falling off a ledge into non-existence after two weeks. There's life after two weeks. It's exciting. What else will there be?
"Maybe I didn't think I could anymore," he says softly. Feel good. For someone else. "I'm glad it's you."
Would Daniel have wondered over touching Louis' hair in 1973? Louis wished he could know the answer.
It had been right, leaving Daniel human. Louis is certain of it. But he cannot help but mourn the lost pieces, the long years apart. Daniel couldn't have become the man he is now with Louis hovering over him, but Louis was so far. He was so distant, he missed so much of what guided Daniel's becoming.
"I missed you," is a specific thing. Louis missed Daniel so deeply. These long months between the interview, between the terrible things Daniel survived, between the tour and Louis ranging away from the complicated things he feels for Lestat, Louis chasing memories, Louis trying to excise himself from a process he understands broadly but doesn't know anything about in particular. Or at least, doesn't know how Lestat and Daniel are conducting their interview, and doesn't wish to compromise.
But he missed Daniel. Deeply. Endlessly.
Louis' tongue draws over the punctures, licks a hot strip up Daniel's throat. There is some mirrored movement in Louis' body, the way he balances his weight, the friction and shift of their bodies. They are a mess. Louis likes that too, likes the tangible signs of how they've come together. Likes the taste of blood on Daniel's skin, the hint of himself in Daniel's mouth.
"Can I touch you?"
Can Louis lean into how oversensitive and spent they are? Wring something more from Daniel, because he doesn't think he can contain the impulse otherwise.
Daniel was a disaster in 1973. He'd have asked, but been as insensitive as possible about it, entirely by accident. Smugly well-meaning. Embarrassing. He knew everything in 1973, you see.
And now he understands he doesn't know shit.
Except: that Louis missed him. That Louis wants him. And how much he wants Louis in return.
Daniel kisses the side of his cheekbone, his ear, nuzzling at wherever he can as Louis toys with the punctures and the scars they're layered over. What a perverse relief that they didn't vanish when he was transformed. They didn't need to heal. They're not a mark of pain, not really.
"Anywhere, as long as you want," Daniel tells him, with elated laughter in his voice.
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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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Forever in whatever form forever takes. Possibility like a shimmering ocean laid out in front of them as Daniel fucks into him and Louis holds onto him, encouraging, all grasping hands and drum of his heel at the back of Daniel's thigh. More telegraphed in all the ways Louis moves under him, the flash-fire catch of sensation in his mind.
What has Louis learned in a century on this earth? He's learned that things shatter apart and come back together after.
Forever. Forever, because Louis cannot parse out any future where Daniel is not desperately important to him. Where Daniel isn't everything, precious and vital and beloved. What changes that? Nothing. They've already been all the worst things to each other. Louis left him, when he should never have strayed from his side. What can be worse than that?
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Things to think about later. Or not at all.
Feels too good to let it get muddy with his cynical brain. Their minds are tangled together and it's as good as being locked together with him physically, buried deep inside, pressing his cock all the way into the clutch of his body. Feels like forever since he's done this with another man, never done this with another vampire. It thrills him that it's with Louis, who he's wanted for so long, who's welcoming him with a force of desire he could have never expected.
"Good?"
Caged close over him, folded in, nose to nose. Daniel slides a hand over Louis' chest and lower, so that he can wrap fingers around the older creature's own arousal. In no hurry to have it all end, he just wants to feel him more, and more, and more.
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Admiration of it all distracts, enough so that Louis is jolted by the slide of fingers, the clasp of Daniel's hand.
"Yeah," falls out of his mouth, exhaled against Daniel's mouth. Swallows, thrusts up into Daniel's hand as he says again, "Yeah."
Brings his hands up, fingers pulling slow through Daniel's curls. Takes Daniel's face between his palms.
"You feel so good," Louis murmurs. Their noses brush. Louis' breath coming in shallow pants. One breath, then another, then another, Louis grasping for some composure before he offers, "Like a dream."
Except they get to keep this. All of it. It's real, and it's theirs.
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No more lost memories. Only making new ones.
New memories that include: this, driving into him, finding the angles that make Louis gasp, the best way to press into him, and all of it is good for Daniel, who feels like something is once again being rewired in him. Sex shouldn't be on the list of revelatory potentials, at over seventy years old, especially with his history, but he can't deny the elated things happening to his brain chemistry. Allowed to have this, to enjoy this, and it feels right. It feels correct in a way that should be terrifying, because it's everything he's put away and denied for so long.
And maybe he does know, has always known, but there's a difference between knowing and setting it aside, and knowing and being present within it.
He kisses Louis, and feels something in him, some emotional, intangible thing, shiver loose. It belongs to Louis, whatever it is; the man who had chosen him at that bar, who wanted to be interviewed by some idiot kid, who saw him as more than a hookup to be used despite what they'd both walked into the building for.
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"I want to feel you," is a little nonsensical, given their current position. But it's spelled out in Louis' head, wanting Daniel to come apart. Louis' dreamed this too, and he dreams it now, how Daniel would feel, what he would look like.
His fingers drag down Daniel's spine. Coaxing. Encouraging.
They should do this forever. They should do it again, and then again. Again after. Louis wants. Just wants him, helplessly.
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He's close anyway. It's too good. He's been trying not to think of it climaxing because, as expected, the second it enters his mind he's right there on the edge and everything is cranked up past when the dial's supposed to stop, tense and desperate. Near breaking.
Just—
They can do this forever, again, then again; helpless, starving, lonely, enamored. And yet Daniel isn't ready for this right now to be over. Not yet. He holds Louis close, grinds into him slow and deep, winds tighter together in their minds. Another minute. Just another.
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Refrains from teasing, because Louis can feel it. All this in Daniel's head, it is in Louis' now.
"Stay," he whispers, fingers tightening and loosening and tightening again Daniel's hair. Breath gone haywire, uneven panting as Daniel rocks into him. The lines between their minds are so blurred that there are moments when Louis cannot say with certainty which sensation belongs to who. Coaxes, "Stay here with me."
Not kissing, but close. Noses brushing. Louis' forehead against Daniel's. Unclear in the moment if the pulse in his ears belongs to him or to Daniel. A drifting itch of fangs in his mouth, wanting this too, wanting to bite Daniel all over while Louis has him caught up here.
A quiet truth running like a current beneath all else in their minds: there has been no one, since Armand. A true thing that exists disconnected from specifics, but exists all the same. Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips and he breathes into his mouth and his mind shimmers, wanting him with a kind of absurd desperation, as if Louis doesn't have him already.
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A private special thing, then, for Daniel. This moment. This encounter, this act. A thing he will guard jealously for the rest of his existence. That Louis chose him, after. A first time after for the both of them, albeit different afters. Louis thinks 'You and me' like Daniel was born yesterday, and yet, he knows so much of this will be kept and held onto preciously. Forever.
Maybe he can let go soon. It's starting to get hard to hang on, to draw it out. He doesn't need to breathe yet his breath feels tense and labored; all of him is coiled, pulled tight, near breaking.
'You can,' Daniel lets him know. Fangs, in his throat, or wherever else Louis wants them. Daniel can feel the sympathetic ache of his teeth. 'Anything you want.'
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Says it against his mouth, "I want you, I do."
A luxury to say it aloud. The only hush in his voice because they are both so breathless, wound so tightly in against each other. Louis, free to say this thing. Free to keep it, without any fear of it being lifted out of his hands or diminished down to nothingness. As near as Louis can get to the thing that lives behind it, that Louis has never been able to say when it truly matters, when he feels it most deeply.
His hand slides free of Daniel's curls. Fingers find his throat, the faded imprint of teeth Louis left there once. Shudders, fangs pricking at his gums, thinking about putting his mouth here. Some hazy dream of a fantasy not quite coming into focus, a dream Louis had once that he hadn't been allowed to keep. An impression, carrying some formless pulse of desire.
(I wanted you for such a long time, a whisper that isn't meant to tantalize; directed inward, a discovery. A confirmation.)
Louis puts his mouth over the old scar, sucking kisses across the skin. Teasing. Clutching on to Daniel, anchoring himself to that fraying restraint.
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And then, the touch to his neck. The scars there. Louis' scars, carved into him. It makes his breath catch, his movements stutter, and he grasps him harder and flexes his hips into him where he's buried deep, with Louis pinned to the mattress.
"See. You've been there the whole time."
A part of Daniel. Tangible. Even when they couldn't remember. Louis was there, written on his flesh, like a signature.
"Come on."
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Beneath him now, Louis blinks hard against the prick of tears. Remembering because Daniel gifted him the memory, dragged it out of Louis' head with a tape recording and sheer determination. Because of him Louis can remember this: dropping his fangs for Daniel, who startled and laughed and asked to see them again.
His thumb circles the scar as he draws in an unsteady breath. When he speaks, his fangs glint up to Daniel, though Louis' voice sounds wrecked-raw as he murmurs, "You've always been mine," as his nail scrapes feather-light across Daniel's skin. Voice falling to a whisper as he echoes, "This whole time."
Half-statement, half-question. Louis says it and doubts it in the same breath. How unlikely, that Daniel would want to be kept. Louis stealing two weeks from him, audaciously demanding hundreds of years after. Can't help himself. Can't do anything but hang on tightly to everything that's been lost to him for so many years.
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Daniel may not want to be kept and restrained, but that has nothing to do with being Louis'. His friend, the person on the other side of a lifeline, the one that's tethered between each of them. He feels utterly confident that he can pull on it, and never be alone, just like Louis can always pull for him, and Daniel will be there. Louis isn't his maker, and Daniel might even accept someday that's what Louis wanted, but look— they have this, instead. They can feel each other, they can sink like this, and it's so good.
Louis, the scariest and most enchanting thing Daniel had ever seen. Louis, who nailed him to the world and said you deserve this life.
"Yours."
He strokes Louis with intent. Not going to last much longer.
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Arches up, brushing a sharp-toothed kiss to Daniel's mouth on the way to his throat.
Louis has held his place, his fingers over the scar that's remained, all these years. Daniel touches him, and Louis' whole body is flush with the sensation, fine tremors betraying the way Louis' self-control is fraying apart. He kisses Daniel's throat, mouths softly over the scarring before Louis bites him there.
Delicate, the way Louis breaks the skin. Hard-won finesse, the best of his capabilities, holding himself in check as he bites down.
They're already sunk so deeply into each others heads. Daniel is treated to the way Louis receives his blood, the taste of him, the way Louis' emotions flare bright as the blood forges a link of its own. As he drinks from Daniel, swallows down the familiar taste of him. Thoughts a blur of overlapping images and feeling, such deep, overwhelming affection as Louis drinks slow, luxurious swallows from Daniel's throat.
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Louis can see all of him through his blood. A flipbook of adoration, the struggle to adjust to this unlife always pinned by the stability of knowing Louis is out here. The way he missed him, the way he's always missed him even when he wasn't aware that's the thing he was feeling. And, maturely, how fucking hot he thinks he is.
Daniel pulls his arms around Louis, lifting him enough so that he's not jostling fangs from his throat as he fucks him, because it's out of his hands, now. Louis wanted to feel him unravel and now he is, everything is too much, shattering, barely aware of how desperately he chases after it over the edge. Tension snaps in a perfect way as he comes, his mind an explosion of stars.
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And then it's Louis' shoulders coming up off the mattress, arms looping up around Daniel's shoulders to keep himself there as Daniel fucks into him. As Louis drinks, deep swallows as his whole body flushes under what he feels and tastes in Daniel now.
Louis is sunk so far into Daniel when he comes apart. All that sensation, mirroring, echoing. Overwhelming, what Daniel feels, what Louis feels for him in return. Overwhelming, the moment Daniel comes. It whites Louis out, draws him in after Daniel as he comes, as Louis' self control breaks all apart. His lips open over Daniel's throat, panting, mouth rich with the taste of his blood as his fangs scrape across Daniels skin.
The same taste. Black licorice. Tea.
Unconscious instinct, the way Louis rolls them over. He's made a mess out of Daniel, he knows. The aftershocks make him unsteady, shaky, but he's still capable of draping himself across Daniel's chest. Teethmarks in his throat oozing sluggishly, momentarily abandoned as Louis presses a clumsy kiss to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel, colored through with such affection, thick with tenderness. Nothing but his name, not even trying to prompt a reply. Just his name, said for the pleasure of saying it, for his fingers in Daniel's hair and the taste of blood in his mouth.
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Why do vampires ever do anything else? How are immortals bored? C'mon. Give Daniel a break. They could be doing this every night.
Blood and sweat and come (which is more blood, he's pretty sure), harsh breathing though they don't fucking need to, and the sound of their heartbeats. Different, out of time, and beautiful for it. Daniel speaks Louis' name back to him in their heads, and slides a hand down between them to touch him, get his hand wet, and bring it back to his mouth. Still a disgusting black hole junkie, sorry, but if he doesn't taste Louis somehow he's going insane.
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Louis leans in to kiss him. Licks into his mouth, aware of the open punctures at Daniel's throat.
Heady, to be wanted this way. (Louis is still, always, in some ways the man standing in a courtyard, asking if he is enough.) Heady to know that Daniel wants him this way. To feel it so clearly. They are a mess and exhausted and Louis wants him again. Louis can taste himself in Daniel's mouth. Has Daniel's blood on his own tongue. He is still catching his breath, and yet—
But he's older now. Has learned something like patience in all his long years on this planet. He can hold one desire in check, focus on where they are now. Daniel under him, the rhythm of their hearts, the warmth of his skin. Daniel tastes him, and Louis kisses him again, deep and slow, before he lowers his head down to the bite he'd left, the slow drips of blood at Daniel's throat.
Louis catches them, arms around Daniel as he applies lips and tongue to the trailing droplets. Kisses over the wounds slowly, no urgency.
Better than I remembered, is true, but also a kind of joke. How much does Louis truly remember? Enough, enough to know, but there are blurred aspects, things damaged by Armand, by the injuries Louis survived.
"How do you feel?"
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Between their minds, an impression of a laugh, both for taste and because— what, why put the brakes on? Does Louis have somewhere else he needs to be, right now?
Still. Sure, it's worth savoring the moment. Daniel cradles Louis' face and looks up at him. He's forgotten all about how he's supposed to be ashamed of how he looks, and everything is just warm, and good.
"I feel fucking great."
But Louis knows that.
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How many years with the taste of Daniel somewhere in the back of his head? Half a memory, something that survived despite how immediately wrecked Louis was, how hard the drugs hit after those first swallows. He had carried that away with him, the way Daniel tasted beneath the bitterness of just so much alcohol and so many hits.
No, there is nowhere else. A certainty. Decades and decades where time and obligations all moved at whatever pace Louis chose, it is no different now. They can stay here, carry in all the papers from the next room, draw the curtains, lounge in bed. (Two weeks. Daniel has two weeks to spare.) He slots his weight into the cradle of Daniel's hips, scrapes a smile across the skin of his throat.
You feel so good, drifts as a murmur between them. Louis wants to bite him everywhere still. He wants him again, wants to stay in this bed as long as Daniel would allow. Louis lets all of this warm the connection between them, as his teeth nip along Daniel's collarbone.
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It doesn't spark anything immediate, just adds to the dreamy, sparkly (and sweaty, and messy) soup of afterglow. Daniel continues to touch him just because he can, stroking feelings of affection and happiness into him. A little bit in awe, like he had been as a kid; like he had been as an old man, too, though he always brandished sarcasm or a biting comment instead of allowing it to be expressed. Safe to express it now.
He's just always thought Louis is so cool. Still does.
Hands slide up to cradle the back of Louis' head. (Is he allowed to touch his hair? The instinct to act permission is there, but his brain's a little fried from climax. Help.) An encouraging thing. Anything that Louis wants. Two weeks, sure, but it's not like somebody's falling off a ledge into non-existence after two weeks. There's life after two weeks. It's exciting. What else will there be?
"Maybe I didn't think I could anymore," he says softly. Feel good. For someone else. "I'm glad it's you."
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Would Daniel have wondered over touching Louis' hair in 1973? Louis wished he could know the answer.
It had been right, leaving Daniel human. Louis is certain of it. But he cannot help but mourn the lost pieces, the long years apart. Daniel couldn't have become the man he is now with Louis hovering over him, but Louis was so far. He was so distant, he missed so much of what guided Daniel's becoming.
"I missed you," is a specific thing. Louis missed Daniel so deeply. These long months between the interview, between the terrible things Daniel survived, between the tour and Louis ranging away from the complicated things he feels for Lestat, Louis chasing memories, Louis trying to excise himself from a process he understands broadly but doesn't know anything about in particular. Or at least, doesn't know how Lestat and Daniel are conducting their interview, and doesn't wish to compromise.
But he missed Daniel. Deeply. Endlessly.
Louis' tongue draws over the punctures, licks a hot strip up Daniel's throat. There is some mirrored movement in Louis' body, the way he balances his weight, the friction and shift of their bodies. They are a mess. Louis likes that too, likes the tangible signs of how they've come together. Likes the taste of blood on Daniel's skin, the hint of himself in Daniel's mouth.
"Can I touch you?"
Can Louis lean into how oversensitive and spent they are? Wring something more from Daniel, because he doesn't think he can contain the impulse otherwise.
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And now he understands he doesn't know shit.
Except: that Louis missed him. That Louis wants him. And how much he wants Louis in return.
Daniel kisses the side of his cheekbone, his ear, nuzzling at wherever he can as Louis toys with the punctures and the scars they're layered over. What a perverse relief that they didn't vanish when he was transformed. They didn't need to heal. They're not a mark of pain, not really.
"Anywhere, as long as you want," Daniel tells him, with elated laughter in his voice.
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