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By now, Luke is used to the gentle pressure of the fake bite. He’s done it a hundred times with Jacob, and now he’s on what feels like the hundredth take with Assad. But when Craig starts the scene again, and Assad closes in on Luke’s neck, warm scent of his cologne and end-of-day sweat, something is different. This time it fucking hurts.
The pain is sharp enough that Luke gasps a little, fingers clenching at Assad’s shirt. Over Assad’s shoulder, he can see Craig nodding approvingly. At least it looks good on camera, he thinks in a daze, and forces himself not to cry out, not to beg Assad to stop, not to do anything to ruin the shot and maybe ruin his chances at getting called back for season three.
Assad’s fingers tighten in Luke’s hair. His nails are sharp, almost scraping through the flesh of Luke’s scalp. But something odd is happening. The pain’s starting to bleed into pleasure, a slow spreading heat that's seeping down from his neck and melting him like butter. Luke’s eyelids flutter, and he clutches at Assad for a different reason now, as if he could pull him closer, close enough to get what he needs, and—
“Stop, Armand,” Jacob says.
Just like that, it’s over. The twinned ecstasy and misery dissipate. Assad pulls away, and Luke slumps to the table, cold. His head rings, vision spotting from blurred to black, and through the underwater fog of his ears he can hear Assad and Jacob’s murmured voices.
As his senses clear, something peculiar registers. They’ve run this scene enough times that Luke knows their lines by heart, the dips and cadences and specifically chosen intonations, and the words being exchanged hold none of them. There’s Craig’s voice, too, rising in volume, and then Assad is pushing from his chair with a speed and force that feels like it must be imaginary even as the impact shudders through the furniture and into Luke’s bones.
He lifts his head from the table, blinking, and the room is emptying in a flurry of movement and shouts, a panicked hum and the sound of too many sets of lungs locked in overly-fast breathing.
Wait, Luke tries to say, but he’s too woozy to get the words out. His tongue is woolen and thick in his mouth, and he’s tipping forward again until his cheek caresses the cool wooden grain of the tabletop. He just needs a little rest. Just a minute, that’s all, and then he’ll go find out what’s going on.
*
When Luke wakes, the sky outside the windows is dark. The heating unit rattles against a backdrop of silence. There’s a smear of drying crimson on the wall that makes Luke frown. He’s pretty sure the team usually cleans up at the end of the day, but maybe they just missed it.
Luke pushes up from the chair, trying to make sense of what’s happened. The still-lingering pain at his neck. Assad’s argument with Craig and Jacob, the flight from the room. Did Assad have a nervous breakdown? It seems like the only plausible explanation. Luke remembers Assad before the first day of the shoot, tense and rocking slightly to himself with his headphones locked around his ears. He’s loosened up since, but Luke knows panic can rear at unexpected moments. Maybe that was why the “bite” had hurt so much this time. Anxiety lockjaw with Luke caught in the crossfire. His heart aches a little for Assad, gorgeous and talented but humble and self-doubting to a fault. Poor bloke.
By the time Luke makes it to the doorway, he’s settled back in his body enough to realize that he needs to piss like a racehorse. Fuck. He’d been throwing back water bottles all morning, trying to replenish himself after so many takes of expelling real tears. Now his bladder feels like it’s about to burst. Luckily the building has a toilet attached to the room they’d been filming in, and Luke hobble-skips over to it as fast as he can, whipping out his dick just in time.
He closes his eyes for a good twenty seconds after he relieves himself. Just sways there, limp cock still hanging in front of him, unaccountably worn out. Is this what it means to get closer to forty? Even a forceful piss could knock the wind out of you? He blows out a long breath, slaps himself a little on the cheeks, and opens his eyes.
The next thing he hears is his own shrill scream, air whooshing through his pant legs as he jumps about thirty feet in the air and then crashes down hard onto his tailbone. The dark shape is still looming above him. The shape is—Assad, looming above him. Assad with his hair snarled over his face and shirt torn open even more than it was on set, exposing the heaving shape of his chest.
“Bloody hell,” Luke wheezes, scooting backwards instinctively. The tile floor is sticky under his palms, and he fights the urge to wipe his grubby hands on his shirt like a child. “Warn a guy next time, alright?”
Assad tilts his head. There’s something a little eerie to his movements, a speed and stillness that’s this shade of unnatural. This whole scary vibe he’s got going is majorly, unfairly hot, and the flush of blood it’s sending southward reminds Luke his cock is still hanging out of his pants. To his horror, it’s now half chubbed. He tries surreptitiously to stuff it back in his pants before the situation gets any worse, but a hand darts out to vice tight around his wrist before he can.
“Hey, whoah,” Luke gasps. He hadn’t even seen Assad move, but now he’s crouched over Luke with his hands perilously close to Luke’s cock, and yeah, maybe Luke lets it bump against Assad’s fingers for a half second as he scoots backwards again, because what else do you do when your coworker shows up out of nowhere while you’ve got your dick out?
Well. He knows the answer he wants, but he also knows he needs to be sensitive. Assad’s just had an anxiety attack, he reminds himself. Had to be a big one, too, for the guy to run out of set like that. So Luke definitely shouldn’t take advantage of the situation for his own sexual gratification. He shouldn’t. Or should he? Aren’t orgasms supposed to be good for mental health?
Luke takes in Assad’s ragged breathing, the near inhuman glow behind his orange eyes. He realizes that whatever's going on must be pretty serious, if Assad had even forgotten to take out his contacts. With a great sense of sacrifice, Luke resolves to table this for a time when Assad is doing better.
Gently, he guides their hands away from his limp cock, makes his voice soft and soothing as he says, “Hey, buddy. You, uh, you doing okay?”
Assad leans forward until he’s inches from Luke’s face, until Luke can see the fine lines around his mouth, can catch every glittering tone in his jeweled eyes, and then Assad takes a deep, inhaling breath, nostrils flaring—Luke has a ridiculous moment of feeling as if he’s being sniffed—and Assad sits back on his heels.
“You’re not him, either,” Assad says. There’s something almost disappointed in his tone.
Luke blinks. “Not who?”
Assad sighs like Luke’s a little slow, then hooks his fingers sharply in the collar of Luke’s shirt. There's a dizzying blur of movement and his guts slide like the drop of a roller coaster, then Luke finds himself planted on the closed lid of the toilet seat while Assad paces a few feet away.
Blimey, Assad is strong. Luke knew he was hiding muscles under that lanky frame, but to be able to throw Luke around like that? That’s a whole new level. More blood pumps helplessly to his cock, and he has to struggle to focus on what Assad is saying.
“—with Louis, it was obvious at once. That man bore his likeness, yes, but the interior was unimaginably different. But you,” Assad stops pacing to level his burning gaze on Luke. Luke starts to squirm, and Assad’s lips curve, voice dropping into a croon. “What a similar picture you and your double make.”
Assad rubs his thumb into Luke’s bottom lip. Luke turns his head, but Assad follows, keeping the pressure firm before slipping the finger inside. His nail digs against the soft inside of Luke’s mouth, but doesn’t break skin. “Same over-eager desperation to please. Same guilt-ridden desires, hardly able to articulate what you want.”
Saliva builds in Luke’s mouth, but when he tries to swallow, he finds his throat muscles locked, paralyzed by an unseen force. He’s forced to let the drool slop over his lips and dribble down Assad’s hand instead, and he suffers the humiliating image of himself as a poorly-trained hound that can’t control itself. As if to punctuate this, his cock, heavy and full from the close contact and shame, jerks so suddenly in his lap it’s like the wagging of a tail. Assad spares it only a cruelly dismissive glance as he presses his thumb deep enough that Luke almost chokes.
“Same buried conviction that you’ve already failed your life in every way that matters,” Assad says, then withdraws from Luke’s mouth.
Luke slumps forward a little, gasping. Slobber coats his chin, slick and messy. The spot on his neck where Assad had bit him earlier is starting to ache again. When Luke brushes it with his hand, his fingers sink into two deep pits. The pain goes straight to his cock.
Assad is watching this with a scientist’s scrutiny. “Nothing but a hole, aren’t you.” He dips one sharp-nailed finger into the pit and twists, lips curving at the moan it provokes. Luke’s thighs are shaking so badly that the toilet seat rattles underneath him. His dick is so sensitive that even the movement of air is dangerously close to getting him off.
“I don’t know by what means I arrived in the midst of your little theatre troupe, but I do find it comforting to know that at least one thread remains similar between our worlds.”
Through Luke's haze of pain and embarrassment, Assad’s words start to slot together. Between our worlds. Calling Jacob ‘Louis.’ The impossible strength, the shining eyes. The day’s events kaleidoscope into a new meaning, but that’s—impossible, surely. Mental to even consider it, but then again, the entire day’s been mental, and Luke doesn’t have any dignity left to lose.
“Sorry,” Luke finally ventures, breath catching as Assad removes his finger from Luke’s wounds. “Um, can I just ask something? Teensy point of clarification?”
Assad raises a brow and cocks his head.
“Are you—actually the Vampire Armand? Like, in real life? Not an actor?”
Assad laughs, long and slow and with a scraped-out hollowness that’s unlike anything Luke’s ever heard from Assad, and he knows. He knows.
“Oh, fuck,” he groans. “Oh, fuckfuckfuck.” He tries to jump off the toilet, but his head is spinning and the world goes black for a moment, and then Assad—not Assad, but Armand, the actual real life vampire Armand—is forcing him back to his seat.
“No, no, no,” Armand admonishes. “You’re not running off. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Right,” Luke manages. “Because you need me to teach you. Teach you how to be fascinating.”
Armand laughs at that, and this time the sound is so genuine it’s almost warm. He pushes Luke until he’s as far back against the toilet tank as he can go, and then slots his thighs around Luke’s waist to sit on his lap. The toilet groans under their weight. Assad’s pelvis crowds against Luke’s erection, and the rough scrape of fabric is so excruciatingly good that Luke starts rubbing himself without really thinking about it.
“It appears you’re getting mixed up,” Armand says patiently. “I don’t need you to teach me anything.” His hands slide over Luke’s waist, possessive, clinging, circling like a shark. “What I need, you understand, is a reward for all the inconvenience I’ve been put through.”
Luke stops rubbing himself when the words sink in. “As in—you’re going to kill me? Fuck, Assa—Armand— please. Please don’t, I’ll—”
“Shhh,” Armand says. He moves hips to grind against Luke’s throbbing cock, and Luke whimpers, because despite everything this is some of the best sex he’s ever had. “It won’t hurt, I promise. You’ll finally be able to rest.”
“But I don’t wanna rest,” Luke says wildly, ricocheting between petulance and abject terror. “This was—” he hiccups— “supposed to be—” another hiccup— “my year of ascension.”
Armand shushes him again. He cradles Luke’s face between his cool palms, kneads into the skin behind his ear until Luke begins to calm.
“How tired you must be, after so many years of toiling for such meager returns.” Armand’s voice is low, gentle; a glittering snake coiling around the very heart of Luke’s being. “The constant clawing to stay afloat in an industry you knew deep down you were never talented enough to be part of. Will I get the auditions I need, will I be somebody, will I get the auditions I need to be somebody. But Luke,” he says, tapping at Luke’s jaw, “You already know who you’ll be. A low tier actor fading from dubious recognition to complete obscurity. A middling musician whose songs will only be heard by a handful of people who pity you. A woman in the mold of your stepmother, cheating on you in a Florida mansion. Your beloved family passing on. Your friends drawing away into the comfort of their spouses and children, while you remain alone, just you and your flatlined career. All the optimism and bravado of your youth replaced by a sinking, drowning regret. Until one day, you’re—”
“I have projects lined up by my agent,” Luke forces himself to insist. “I’m an up and coming actor with a unique energy.”
“Shhh,” Armand says. “A comfortable toilet and the last orgasm you’ll ever have.”
“Huh—oh, blimey,” Luke moans, as Armand rocks forward with enough firm pressure that Luke spills instantly over his stomach.
Armand strokes his cheek to ease him through it. “Be grateful,” he murmurs. “Your counterpart did not receive such a gift, though I confess I wasn’t untempted.” His hands cradle Luke’s neck, tender as a mother. “But you’re an innocent in this story.”
“If I’m an innocent,” Luke sniffles thickly, “then you can let me go.”
“Oh, but Luke,” Armand says, something almost sad softening his voice. “We both know you don’t want that.”
And it’s true. He can see his life exactly as Armand described it, stretching out before him in an exhaustingly bleak road. Even now, his friends are all getting their big breaks or getting married. Sorry, they say, can’t go to that concert with you, dinner with the in-laws. You know how it is.
But Luke doesn’t know. All Luke’s got is a girlfriend he knows is cheating on him, a massive crush on his coworker whose body has been swapped with a nightmare creature that’s about to murder him, and five thousand USD in credit card debt from the dommes he can’t stop visiting in LA. His career is a joke. His band less than that. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page to his name.
Armand is right. It would be so much easier to stop struggling. So much kinder to himself to let himself rest.
Armand brushes back his tears. Luke’s not sure when he started weeping.
“It’s alright,” Armand says. “I’ll hold you.”
He gathers Luke against him, fits his teeth over the tender wounds, and Luke waits for it to descend again, the pain and pleasure, the easeful bliss that would usher him into a world where he no longer has to witness his own defeats.
Nothing happens.
There’s the probing wetness of a tongue, a muffled “What the,” and then Armand is drawing back, pulling Luke away to squint at him in confusion.
“Luke?” Armand asks, bleary and confused and thickly Geordie. “What’s—why are we—what’s happening?”
He tries to back away, but his zipper has gotten caught on the delicate skin of Luke’s ballsack, and the pull of it makes Luke yelp and grab Armand by the hips to keep him in place.
“Sorry!” Armand yelps, then seems to register that Luke’s dick is out, that the belly of Luke’s shirt is covered in drying cum. His hand comes up to press against his forehead, and he looks like he might faint. “Whoa, that’s—your penis. Okay. Um, can you—can you tell me what the bloody hell is going on?”
“Assad?” Luke croaks, looking up at him desperately through his tears. “Is that really you?”
Assad blinks at him, and Luke can practically feel the core of his warmth and kindness radiating outward even through his confusion. “Who else would I be?”
And Luke doesn’t care if it’s weird, doesn’t care if he looks slobbery and cum-stained and gross, he wraps Assad in a tight hug and buries his head in his shoulder anyway. After a minute, he feels Assad’s hands come up almost hesitantly to rub at Luke’s back.
Armand was wrong. Luke’s life does have purpose, even if the purpose is just this: to hold the body of someone beautiful and kind, and be held by him in return.
“Fuck, am I glad to see you,” Luke whispers.