Archive of Our Own ^beta

London, England 1968

It was common then, that people perceived Louis and Armand as a young couple.

There was no way for mortals to see beyond their youthful appearance to the truth of their age, but the real blunder, if any, was the common perception of Armand as one of the increasingly androgynous male population.

Tall like a model, the angular planes of her face untouched by makeup, and her habit of cutting her waist-length curtain of hair right to her collar bone- It was an understandably easy mistake.

What became clear to Louis was how much Armand privately enjoyed it. The Mister’s and Have a good day, sir’s, and the tiny old women passing them on the street gossiping, “Oh, what a handsome young man he is.” Men sat up straight when she entered a room and saw their girlfriends staring her down. The spell only breaking when she opened her mouth to speak.

Armand reveled in this development and her confidence had always been intoxicating to be around for Louis. She loved getting to bask in that satisfaction, especially when it took the form of opening car doors or a suit coat placed over her shoulders to fend off the chill she couldn’t feel. The role of charming gentleman caller fit Armand better than any others she had been forced to fill.

Like most nights, they were out of the house. The sidewalks still crowded in the chilly winter evening with the sun fully set before 7 o’ clock. They were standing in line behind a family poorly wrangling their children around the ticket booth for a film Louis, frankly, has never heard of. But Armand had always been curious about films, if not for the stories then to watch the creep of advancements from silent films to rousing, full color musicals. She was talking about it now. Albeit, Louis wasn’t really listening, distracted by the handsome look of her hair tonight.

Like most days, she awoke, plaited her hair into two braids and cut the length as the shower heated. It was shorter today than usual, no longer brushing her shoulders but now curling around her ears with a bit of pomade encouraging it away from her face. Perfect for showing off the strength of her jaw and cheekbones.

Louis’ appraisal is cut abruptly when Armand's gaze widens out of the blue, and drops low. Louis follows her eyes and sees a little girl, she can't be much older than 6. She seems to have caught Armand with her small hands around Armand’s ring and little finger. There is a dazzled look on her face as she tries to glimpse the twinkling jewelry Armand has reintroduced into her attire and stares with eyes as big as saucers at the stones dancing under the street light.

Armand lets her gaze without hesitation, even presenting her other hand with its nice watch and gold signet ring simply engraved with A, in an attractive typeface. The girl's eyes lingers though, flitting back to a bracelet Louis never seen Armand wear before.

“Do you like this one?” Armand prompts and the girl nods. There is no further conversation needed for Armand to unlatch the little jeweled bracelet and place it to the girl’s fist, “A gift then, for you.”

And she smiles, then falters for a moment however brief, and hugs Armand around her leg before turning back to scurry after her family that are filtering through the theater doors without her.

Armand’s wearing a smile as she stands back straight. Just a small one that makes her look awfully gentle, but it drops when she looks back at Louis. “What’s the matter?”

She schools whatever face she must be making back to something more pleasant, “Nothing,”

And well… there isn’t anything the matter. Not really. It's just that she had never seen Armand extend this kind of charitable tenderness to anyone, let alone a child. And now suddenly Louis was finding her face flushing with a kind of desire she was sure she had long rid herself of. “Nothing. I just wasn’t expecting you to give it to her.”

Armand hummed in acknowledgement as she paid for their tickets and moved to get the door, “I’ve worn it maybe twice, I imagine she will enjoy it more than I would.” And seems to think nothing else of it.

During the film, Louis struggles to focus on the screen, her mind constantly sliding back to the image of Armand's sweet expression. The smile that had played on her lips as she watched that little girl gape at the bands of gold adoring her.

It pokes at an ache Louis hasn’t felt for a long time. Not since New Orleans. The blip of time when there were children in her life, but she had betrayed Grace’s trust all on her own. With Lestat there were times when she felt such overwhelming warmth watching her with Claudia but that too was fleeting, wasn’t it?

Louis hadn’t even though about other children since Claudia had came in and out of her life. Yet the ease in which Armand had dropped the expensive and unique bracelet into the small hands of that stranger’s child was giving her butterflies.

Coupled with the electric sparks of every brush of Armand’s knee against hers in the dim theater, it’s a miraculous feat of self-restraint that they make it out of the building and around the corner before Louis sharply pulls Armand into a shop's darkened doorway to kiss her desperately. Armand gives way quickly, gripping Louis’ waist and pressing her back into the glass, sending Louis up onto her tiptoes with her arms thrown around her lover's shoulders.

Somewhere across the street, a gaggle of teenagers whistle and holler, “Get a room, mate!” Louis can’t even find it in her to take offense, and neither can Armand it seems, with the way they find themselves smiling against each other.

“Hello." mumbles Armand.

“Hi.” Louis replies, feeling dizzy at the reminder that even on her toes like this with her head tilted back, Armand still has to bend to close the distance between their lips.

“Having a good night?”

Louis hums happily and kisses her again, nipping playfully at her lower lip, “Take me home, handsome. I’m over everyone and their mama trying to get an eye-full of you. I’m gonna have to start putting my name on what’s mine.” Louis murmurs.

Armand's breath catches. And isn’t that one of the thing that never seems to get old? How exciting it is to get this frighteningly power creature flustered by the simple fact of her attraction? Wanting to touch Armand is an understatement, Louis needs her like a fire on a long, frigid winters night.

“Yes, Maître.”

As soon as they get through the door they are back on each other. Armand winds her arms around Louis’ waist, leaving feverish hot kisses down the column of her neck. Back-to-front in the breezeway, Louis’ head drops back onto Armand's shoulder and luxuriates in the moment. Held so tightly by strong arms, with those sharp fangs grazing maddeningly across her sensitive flesh. Louis shudders with the force of her own desire and spins in her grasp, dragging Armand's mouth back down to hers.

They fumble haphazardly through their narrow townhouse, somehow making it up the stairs with their tongues in each others mouths. Armand backs Louis blindly down the hall to the bedroom, lost in the slide of their lips- and misses the open doorway entirely, shoving Louis' spine into the sharp corner of the frame where it juts away from the wall. Kiss-drunk and giddy, they both curse, and then break into giggling. Armand moves as if to pull-away until Louis grabs a wrist and shoves it under her dress. 

The soaked fabric of her panties has Armand's fingers slipping almost frictionless over her concealed bundle of nerves. Despite the barrier between them, Louis feels so sensitive already, finding herself gasping at that slight touch. Always gluttonous when it comes down to Louis’ pleasure- Armand tucks the ruined underwear to the side and dips a finger into her, petting for that deep, hidden spot alongside her thumb which circles Louis' clit. All of a sudden, she's grateful for the sturdy wall at her back.

“We’re never going to make it to the bed at this rate.” Louis sighs halfway to a moan, but rocks down into Armand’s palm despite herself.

She hums in response, "Is this a comment or a concern?”

“Concern. While your hands are perfect-” A moment of silence, to appreciate those skillful hands that do something to make her brain malfunction and her cunt flutter, “But I had my heart set on your cock.”

“Oh, is that the slang these days?”

Louis giggles, which melts into moaning, that gets muffled against Armand's lips as she finds herself wrapping her legs around Armand’s middle and carried into the bedroom.

Her back hits the mattress with a soft whisper of her bare skin against the sheets. Armand must have undone her zipper while she was distracted. And then there are those clever hands on Louis again, slipping her dress off her shoulders. Armand breaks away to slide the garment down and off over her legs, the boots and her panties follow soon after.

Getting to watch Armand undress is like Christmas each and every time. Always wrapped up in fine, tailored fabrics that slide off the slopes of her body into elegant puddles. Under the coats and the suit jackets and button downs are miles of sweet skin formed to broad shoulders tapering into a soft waist and narrow hips and those well turned legs that seem to never end as Louis follows the contours of their shape with her eyes.

From the dresser Armand retrieved their dildo, a beige toy designed with paler users in mind, but Armand never seemed to think anything of it. The strap-on is a relatively new addition to their bedroom, but a very welcome one. Bought in a grody little shop right at closing time almost a month ago on one of their strolls. Never have they had any difficulty finding satisfaction with just the tools God gave them, but Armand took a specific kind of pleasure in simply wearing the thing. The ability to fuck Louis with it might as well be the cherry on top.

Louis sits up on her ankles and reaches to graze her palm up Armand’s thigh, over the lactic of raised scar tissue across her backside, and urges her to step close enough for her shins to touch the bed frame. The proximity means her cock bobs a kiss away from Louis’ face, and she indulges the urge to plant one right on the slightly cool tip. The stimulation can’t be much, if at all, but Armand’s breath stutters all the same.

She flits her eyes up to hold Armand’s gaze and licked a long stripe from root to tip, memorizing the heady look on her face and her parted lips, before closing her own eyes and taking Armand into her mouth. She takes her time sliding down its length until the cold ring of the harness presses against her chin, then pulls off all the way leaving the cock wet with saliva. Again, Louis meets Armand’s eyes and projects, “Use me.”

Once, cuddled under the covers afterwards laying against Armand’s shoulder, Louis had asked her what she gets out of receiving a blowjob like this, “Other than bask in how pretty you are?”

The look on Louis’ face must have been as unimpressed as she felt to make Armand laugh softly and tip forward so their foreheads touched.

In Louis’ mind she offered her own perspective. Louis’ head bobbing down into her lap. The wet click of her throat when it slides deep and her hums around the length that Armand can feel vibrating into her clit. There was the friction of the base against her aiding the approach to her release, but the crown jewel of the memory was this: In a coy motion, Louis tucks a rogue curl away behind her ear and blinks up at Armand with misty eyes and a surety which conveyed that even on her knees, Louis was the one holding the reins. Always putting Armand exactly where she wanted her.

Armand makes a weak simpering noise that goes straight to Louis’ cunt. Long fingers settle tentatively into her hair -and receiving no sign of protest- feeds her cock back into Louis awaiting mouth. Armand groans loudly at Louis’ gagging when it hits the back of her throat and then presses her hips forward even more to bury herself completely.

Louis can’t tell who’s getting more out of this, its a close race either way. Armand can seem to pull from an endless well of restraint. But Louis has done nothing if not delight in draining her dry of all that composure. She fucks Louis’ face with small jerks of her hips, chasing her pleasure yet trying so hard to remain gentle. She's hunching forward and whimpering all the while, as if she could actually feel the spasm of Louis throat around her. Keyed up as they are, they could both come from this alone. Feeding their orgasms on the perpetual wind of each other's pleasure would not be unheard of in their bedroom. Armand always becomes achingly pitiful getting her pussy ate or her dick sucked, and Louis had long since realized she could get off to her own depravity and the scandalization that followed in its wake.

“Ah Louis, I’m- I’m so-” Armand shudders with a surprised squeak as she comes, shocked still holding Louis flush against her pelvis. Soon, she’s releasing Louis, pulling back to unsheathe herself. Their connection points now being where Armand’s hand has settled on the junction of Louis’ neck and shoulder, and the dribble of spit between the head and her lips.

There she is, is what crosses Louis’ thoughts as her eyes take in Armand’s state. Red-ish pricks of blood sweat glint in the valley of her tits in the low light. The rise and fall of her chest and the tension now absent from her posture. The soft center Armand kept hidden behind schooled expressions and layers of silk and wool, now laid bare only for Louis.

Carefully she laces her fingers with Armand’s and slides back on the bed. Armand pursues obediently with that dancers grace she has spent centuries etching into her bones. Louis likes when she can get her to forget it, but there’s no denying the heat that pools between her legs seeing Armand on her hands and knees before her.

Louis lets Armand cover her and kiss her deeply, lets her lick into her mouth like she will taste the evidence of her orgasm on Louis' tongue. With a easy nudge, Armand is on her back. Louis nibbling at her bottom lip and lazily groping her chest.

“What a sensitive boy, I have.” Louis purrs as she twists Armand’s nipple just to hear the tiny noise she makes. “A little time with a hot mouth around you and you're already melting in my bed.”

In a languid motion Louis moves to straddle her. The perfect position to grind her dripping cunt against Armand's stomach. And- ah right there- that groan she was waiting for. The sound that told her Armand knew she was just as affected.

“You're real lucky I like that about you. You're good for me like that, so desperate to get your cock in me.”

She slides back to gets the wide tip of Armand's cock against her entrance and sinks down, bottom lip caught between her teeth at the stretch. Armand soothingly kneading the flesh of her thighs as she finally slides to the hilt. Now settled inside, Louis is too far gone to play coy. She rolls her hips before lifting almost entirely off to sit right back down, dropping her head back with a sharp, “Oh!”

Bracing against Armand’s chest, Louis eases herself up and down the toys length taking her sweet, precious time. Sometimes forgoing even that to just rut into Armand's lap, grinding the full length against every sensitive spot inside her to savor the perfect fullness that toes the line of being too much.

Armand's hands creep up from Louis thighs to settle on her hips, copping two nice hand-fulls of ass on the way, but otherwise she remains dutifully still awaiting a command. Louis’ head droops to one side and she directs one of Armand's hands to press hard into her abdomen. Panting, she asks, “Do you feel it? That's you, moving inside me.”

Armand's irises are thin rings of fire as she stares wonder-struck up at Louis. It wouldn't take any heightened vampiric senses to feel the shifting muscles as her cock carves through Louis again and again.

“Baby boy,” she huffs, “You keep looking at me like that and I'm gon’ have to make you a daddy.”

The sound that leaves Armand is wanton. Her palm bearing down against her belly making Louis see stars.

“Uh-huh. That'll show all them other girls who wanna keep making passes at you. I'm locking you down before some other bitch gets the chance.” 

Somewhere deep, there is a part of her that is withering with embarrassment. How is it after everything, she still aches for a child- to carry, nurture and encourage to grow?

As if she hadn't fucked it up the first time. As if Armand hadn't already denied her in Paris and then let what she could call her own burn to ash. As if she could even get pregnant in the first place.

(She Had tried asking firmly. She had tried asking nicely. She has tried begging for at least her daughters to be saved, not just to Armand but any merciful or self serving being who would no doubt hold it over her head, and yet nothing had changed. Armand did not obey and sire Madeleine, and she certainly did not rescue Claudia from her pyre. )

And yet, deeper still, a voice wonders, but if you could? It sings to her, If the world was different, a kinder place? What If Armand was capable of giving to you a child, wouldn't that be wonderful? If the baby were hers, could things turn out differently?  Better? And she wanted to drown in the fantasy. There's no going back for all she has lost, but for this moment she could imagine her body was prepared for the undertaking, that the seed just needed to be planted.

“Louis.” Armand's voice breaks beautifully over her name. The hand on her belly twitches. Inching down to thumb through Louis’ curly, dark thatch of hair for her clit. 

 “Yeah you’re a bit easy, Sweetie. All a girl’s gotta do is bat her lashes and call you handsome for you to put your cock in her, hmm?” It’s not really a question but Armand nods all the same. “I wanna feel your cum inside me when I take you down to the courthouse. I can’t have our baby born out of wedlock. Everyone already thinks you’re my man, might as well make it official and make you my husband.” Louis growls, and fucks down harder. 

Armand lets out a soft cry, her hips buck up out of time before remembering their place, placid under Louis.

“You like that? You wanna be my husband, honey?”

“Yes, I’ll be anything for you.” Armand pleads, and it makes Louis feel nauseous. She bites her tongue to keep from begging her to never say those words again.

““Want you more than anything in the world.” that's what you said, right? All those years ago?”

“Yes. Yes, I still do.”

“Prove it. What're you gonna do for it? Show me how you’ll make me stay.”

With that challenge Armand surges up, knocking Louis off balance- in a blink she’s on her back pinned beneath Armand as she is pushing back inside. She’s got one hand braced against the headboard, and the other folding one of Louis’ knees to her chest and strikes the perfect rhythm that has her bones turning to putty.

She tries, but the most elegant thought Louis can muster in the moment is, “Fuck! fuck me baby, please.”

There's little for Louis to do in this position but lie back and take it. She throws her arms over Armand's back and digs her claws into whatever flesh she finds. Which draws a hiss out of her lover who sags close enough for their noses to brush.

Fear and hope seizes her in tandem. Folded in half, as she is, under Armand is the perfect position for impregnation. Louis can almost feel Armand's cum shooting deep inside her womb. If there were ever a moment that a pregnancy could take in her, this would be it.

“You're gonna get me pregnant.” Her voice thick on her tongue. How did she end up here, suddenly on the verge of tears?

“Yes.” Armand grunts.

“With your baby.” Grace had had twins, Maybe Louis would too. a set of fraternal, one who favors Louis and the other Armand. Or maybe identical, rich dark skin and a strong nose with soft coils that’ll curtain those doe-like eyes she fell in love with despite every warning.

“After ev- everything, I've earned this from you.” Yes, it's the least Armand could give her after killing her daughter. And she would deserve it, another shackle anchoring her to this woman she should loathe instead of clutching to like a life line. She had made her bed and was resigning herself to lie in it, snakes and all.

“Anything for you. Anything, everything.”

Louis could see herself, round and padding barefoot around the living room. With her hand laid over her belly would she feel happy? Or know she had learned nothing about what happens when you create a life knowing they will suffer because you could not quell your selfish fantasies?

Skimming just the image off her mind, Armand breathes, “You'd be beautiful carrying our child.” And it’s that awful tenderness shining through her voice that has Louis coming with a sob. Tears spilling down her cheeks as her body wracks with the aftershocks. Armand's back spasms with the crash of her responding orgasm, her hips locked flush against Louis.

What was only a trickle of tears quickly turns into suffocating crying. Blinded by a haze of red, hiccupping around every inhales and exhale, cringing where she has hidden her face in Armand’s neck as her rational mind returns to her. There is now only the painful reminder of the simple truths: She will never bear children. Nothing can change the fact of her infertility, especially not Armand with her rubber dick. No amount of delusional wishing can fix that.

Yet no amount of reasonable thinking can keep her traitorous heart from breaking. Because all she is left with is want. Reduced to trembling in Armand’s embrace -who tries to soothe her with soft words that are falling on deaf ears- because she has never been good at wanting what is best for herself, or anyone for that matter. Louis could thump her fists against Armand's chest and she'd lower her head and say ”Yes, Maître. Thank you, Maître.” and take the beating. But all her energy has seeped out of every crevice, leaving her emptier than how she started.

There is no voice to her desire or anger. Or whatever desire and anger become when they intertwine. Anger that Armand is so servile in all other instances except the ones that matter most.

She had been shown several ways out. Leave Paris with Claudia and perhaps Madeleine in toe. Or death in the sewers, closing the lid of the coffin to once more resume her starvation. Or maybe with the coven, among the flames and standing in the very spot Claudia took her last breath. With the hope that between the floorboards a particle of Louis will reunite with a particle of Claudia in death. Perhaps simply alone. Leave Lestat and Armand to pick up where they left off, wherever that may be and live on her own the two weeks, or two years, or however long it would take for her to reach the same conclusion she always reached: that her life now lacked meaning without Claudia.

Yet the anger did little to staunch the bleed of her desire because still what her stupid, girlish heart wants is a child in the shape of the monster she calls Love.

Love, who is stroking her hair, calling her name in the same voice you'd pray for absolution with, “I'm sorry. Would that I could, our child would be here now. What is mine is yours, Louis. My blood, if you asked me again, for you I would-”

”Don’t.” Louis cuts in, the words like feeling like sandpaper, “Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” her heart couldn’t take another rejection, not that one.

With a hand on her cheek, Armand coaxes Louis’ face out of hiding. She holds her gaze with a gravity she cannot turn away from, “There is nothing I would not forsake to keep you.”

She speaks with a intent that cannot be ignored, and Louis knows with out a doubt Armand means it. 23 years together and the bitter promise of a life lived side by side, yet it is now that Louis feels that a door has swung shut behind her. How wonderful to be so highly coveted, how terrifying the cage.