Last time on The VCs
@leroilestat
@spookybearwolf43
Lestat x Louis
“Lestat…” Louis looks into his eyes steadily. “I am lonely. I am restless.” He swallows. “Let’s find another daughter.” The words come out hard and fast, not an ask. A command.
————
Daniel is stubborn on the best of days. His journalism mind wracking itself for arguments sake. But he has no energy. Armand’s blood sings to him. He takes Armand’s offer quickly. Taking small demure sips at first. And bigger gulps as his strength renews.
Lestat froze and for a heartbeat he didn’t even breathe. Because of all the things Louis could have said this was not one he had expected. Slowly, Lestat sat back, he was staring at Louis as if he had just declared war or demanded marriage. Then his lips parted and a sound escaped him that was a disbelieving laugh. “Louis…” he said quietly. He was not angry but flabbergasted. A little bit moved and deeply unsettled.
He lifted Louis’ hands and pressed them against his chest. He was holding them there as he anchored himself onto the man who had just thrown a torch onto the powder keg of their shared eternity. “You do not mean a fledgling,” he said his voice dropping low. “You mean another child. Another entrance into our world. Another bond we cannot undo. Another heart to bruise and another one to keep alive. I cannot make one that young ever again. Perhaps, someone six-teen or seven-teen?”
His eyes searched Louis’ face. “And you are asking not out of impulse, but because you ache, non?” He leaned forward slightly, nose brushing Louis’ cheek in a rare gesture of softness. “You command it,” he whispered to himself. “And God help me I am already thinking of how to make it happen.” But he did not agree yet. He pulled back just enough to meet Louis’ eyes. “If we do this, mon amour, it must be together. Not the way we did with Claudia. Not two men trying in different directions to love the same child. We must do better.”
His voice softened further, though his pulse hammered beneath Louis’ fingertips. “Are you certain this is not loneliness speaking in its cruelest hour?” Because if Louis said yes… Lestat was already halfway committed. He could deny him nothing. He hoped his suggestion of someone older would be agreed upon.
Armand felt Daniel’s strength return in slow waves as the blood took hold first the trembling easing he saw color returning to his lips, then the heaviness in his breathing lightening. Armand watched every shift with the intensity of someone who has lived too long and lost too much.
When Daniel’s drinking grew eager, Armand lifted his other hand to steady the back of his neck, thumb rubbing small soothing circles as if to keep him from slipping into shame again. “That’s it,” he whispered, voice low and steady. “Take what you need.”
He didn’t pull away even as the blood he gave pulled a tremor of weakness through his own body. He simply adjusted and shifted closer. He was keeping Daniel upright against him.
When Daniel finally slowed Armand gently pressed his wrist to Daniel’s lips to stop him. “Enough for now.” He didn’t make it sound like a command. It sounded like concern. Armand wiped Daniel’s mouth with the back of his fingers, then cupped the side of his face, forcing him to look up.
Daniel would see it then there was no anger, no scolding, there was just devastating tenderness. “Daniel,” Armand said quietly, “we will speak of what we have done. We will confront every truth together.” He leaned their foreheads together again. “But not while you are still half dying in my arms.” His voice trembled. “I am here. And I am not letting you go.”
