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Armand tipped his head back against the porcelain rim of the bathtub, floating his palms gently on the surface of the water. Baths were an odd thing for him—soothing, pleasant as all warm things were to a vampire, and associated with a great many good things. They had almost always been a relief, and sometimes an indulgence. And the sensation was remarkably unchanged, through the centuries.
Granted, the tap was different, the heat easier to call forth, the water itself more reliably clean. The soap smelled different, the chemicals they used nowadays putting off an undertone quite unlike anything found in nature. Not unpleasant, just different.
But still, for all that was changed, the sensation remained. Warm water was warm water, then as now.
Beside him, off to his left, Louis was fixing his hair, washing his face. There was an easy domesticity between them, lately. They shared space as if it were normal, as if there were no other shoe waiting to drop. And perhaps there wasn't.
Armand worried his lip with his teeth. If Louis noticed, he might chide him for it. Louis liked caring for him like that. Looking out for him. Even when I don't or can't, his mind supplied, unbidden. But it went both ways. It was alright.
Armand had a craving. That was what Louis called it, anyway. His cravings. That instinct in him, the itch in his chest which drove him to goad Louis into whipping his back to bloody strips, or to beg for the privilege of washing his feet every night for a month.
It demanded something new every now and then, and Armand would pursue it until whatever obscure, restless piece of him had woken up was quiet again.
The most recent demand had been brewing for a few months now. He'd tried to ignore it, but it only got louder. The problem was, he felt a little bit bad about asking for this one, for Louis's sake. He was so prone to guilt, his Louis, and this was precisely the sort of thing he could agonize over for weeks.
Still, there was the bone-deep impetus to try.
He turned his head. Louis was there at the mirror, working product into his hair in a pair of boxers and an undershirt, barefoot on the tile. Armand took a moment to simply admire him, his face and the lines of his body.
Louis glanced over, gave him a smile. "What are you looking at?"
Armand weighed his words carefully. "You, sir."
Louis paused, cocked his head. "Sir?"
So he'd caught the new word. Not "Maître," because "Maître" was personal, there was only ever one of those. That was Louis's word and Louis's word only. It wasn't applicable here.
Armand explained himself in the most succinct manner he knew how: he opened up his mind a little, offered Louis a look at the restless thing in his chest, a taste of what it was asking for.
He watched Louis consider it. He watched Louis start to harden in his boxers. He noticed when the guilt began to roll off him, as Armand had expected it to.
At length, Louis asked, "You want this?"
"I want this," Armand confirmed.
Louis nodded. "Alright," he said. And again, "Alright."
He approached the bathtub, and as he did, Armand sat up and drew his knees to his chest. He made himself small, guarded. Tense shoulders, white knuckles, fingers gripping his shins. It was easy as breathing to fall into this posture. The fear was still there, in the back of his mind. He opened the door and it simply spilled out, as if nothing had changed. Louis knelt beside the bathtub, got down on eye level with him.
There was a strange doubling of sensations. This was Louis, his Louis, who was several centuries younger than him and had only been about six years older when he was turned.
And at the same time, he felt older than Armand. So much older and steadier and more experienced, a proper man, an adult, who knew what he was doing in a way that Armand simply did not.
Armand was about as experienced as it was possible to be. He'd had centuries of experience of all kinds. He'd done things a hundred times over that most people wouldn't try once.
He had no idea what he was doing. He was small and frightened and he wouldn't know what to do with his hands, if he was given a choice in the matter. He preferred to be pinned because it saved him the trouble of thinking. It was better when he didn't have to think.
He leaned into this feeling, encouraged it, allowed it to grow and spread.
Louis's eyes were kind, lightly crinkling at the corners in a gentle smile. It looked deliberate, that smile. Like it was intended to put him at ease. Louis extended a hand, as if to shake. "Louis," he said.
He glanced at it, nodded once, sharply. "Hi."
"You have a name, or do I get to pick one for you?"
He swallowed. "Arun."
"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Arun. You understand what we're here for, yeah?"
Arun's eyes darted to the door. He didn't even decide to do it, it just happened. It hardly felt like role-play, suddenly. The name felt more natural by the moment.
"Hey, calm down, now, none of that." Louis reached for Arun's shoulder, paused when it twitched, as if to flinch away from him, finished the gesture only when Arun was still. His palm was dry and soft, not the hand of a working man, and not particularly aggressive, either, not angry. Not yet. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Arun almost laughed at him. Yeah, right. He'd heard that one before.
(Had he? Had some of them said that? Interesting.)
"How about you look at me again, sweetheart. Can you do that for me?"
He discovered that his movements had become slightly jerky, his neck not easily cooperating as he turned to look Louis in the eyes again. That smile was still there, coaxing and solicitous. He didn't look like the violent sort. But then, it could be so hard to tell.
"There we go." The hand on Arun's shoulder trailed up his neck to touch his face, caress his jawline, trace a finger over his cheekbone. "Look at you," Louis murmured, almost reverently. "I wouldn't dream of damaging a pretty thing like you."
Arun had the unaccountable urge to kiss him. It flushed his whole body, warm and pleasant. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to like it, to want it. But this one—he was handsome, there was no denying that. And Arun liked being called "pretty" by him. He liked the way he said it, like it was true and not just a way to taunt him. Arun wanted to be pretty for him.
"Course," Louis said, "If you're too nervous, we don't have to do this now. I've got a good few hours with you. I could give you something to eat, let you sleep here tonight, and not do a single thing to you."
Arun's heart beat against his ribs. "I don't want to get in trouble," he said.
"No trouble," Louis assured him. "It's just the two of us here, and I wouldn't tell a soul, I promise. It can be our little secret."
He made to withdraw his hand.
Arun shot forward, grabbed his wrist, pressed his cheek into Louis's palm. "No," he said. "No, I want to."
Louis raised his eyebrows. "Do you?"
Arun nodded fervently. "Please. It's so rare that– I mean, you seem kind, sir. I want that. I want– I want you. I'm sorry I was nervous. Please don't go. Please. I'll be good."
There was something in Louis's expression, momentarily, besides careful gentleness. A flash of some great grief, a deep and helpless despair. Just as quickly, it was gone, and he was all business. "Get out of the water, then, and meet me in the bedroom."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Louis nodded, his gaze lingering on Arun. Not the way some did—not with lust. There was nothing covetous in that look. It was carefully blank, and behind the blankness, that same fathomless grief. And then he left, withdrawing and leaving Arun alone in the bathroom. Arun took a deep, steadying breath. It was going to be okay. Louis was good, he was kind and gentle and safe. Or at least, he could be. He could be trusted to choose to be, under the right circumstances.
Arun had said he wanted this. He couldn't back out now. He would be good. He had promised he would be good.
He stood up out of the water, reached for the towel which sat, folded, on the low table beside the tub. It was large, soft, and part of him wanted to wrap himself in it and huddle down on the floor and stay there for a while.
But no. No. He was being good.
He drained the tub, dried off, didn't bother to dress himself—there was unlikely to be any need. The adult still living in his brain, the quiet voice of Armand, who had a life, autonomy, concerns that went beyond the present moment, wanted to treat his hair properly. If he simply dried it with the towel until it wasn't dripping anymore and left it alone, it would lose all semblance of definition. He'd have to re-wet it later and spend all that time fixing it, time that hadn't been carved out of his night for that purpose, which was annoying.
He didn't do it, though. It would take too long. And besides that, the notion seemed almost ridiculous to him. Taking the time to do such things voluntarily was the pastime of a person with status, a person who chose and wanted and cared to look orderly, put-together, respectable.
Arun didn't feel orderly, put-together, respectable. He didn't feel like a person with status. The adult voice, the part of him that cared, was very faint. It seemed almost like a fantasy, like something he'd invented to make himself feel better. Preposterous, almost embarrassing, the notion that he could ever have grown into a gentleman.
He left the bathroom, emerged into the bedroom. There was the bed, dominating the middle of the room, not entirely unlike a brothel. He could do this. He knew how to do this.
Louis had been stretched out on the bed, waiting for him. Upon noticing him, he stood, came over, placed his hands on Arun's shoulders. Arun didn't flinch away from him this time.
"Alright, pretty thing," he said. "Have you done this before?"
Arun nodded. "Many times, sir." It hurt to say. He'd rather say "no." He wished he could be a virgin for Louis, could be pure and untouched and for his hands only. He wished that this was his first time, that it had been like this. Slow, kind, conducted with Louis's careful, compassionate good humor. But that was one fiction too far. He could never make himself believe it.
"You understand how this is going to work, then?"
Again, Arun nodded. "Just tell me what you want me to do. I'll do it."
Louis led him over to the bed. "Lay down," he said. "On your back works fine, there you go."
Arun settled into the mattress, the bedspread soft beneath him, the pillows cradling his head.
Louis undressed in quick, efficient motions, no time wasted. Arun's breath hitched as he joined him on the bed, moving to position himself over him, one of his knees between Arun's legs, braced on one elbow so he had a hand free.
"You don't need to be frightened," Louis said. "Everything's going to be okay. Do you trust me?"
"I want to," Arun whispered.
"I guess I'm just gonna have to prove it to you."
Louis moved down his body. Arun braced himself for the touch, the pain, but it didn't come. Instead, Louis knelt on the mattress between his feet, looked him in the eye.
"My only instruction for you right now, Arun," Louis said, "Is to keep as still as you can, okay?"
"Yes, sir." That meant it was going to hurt. It always hurt when they said things like that.
Louis scooped Arun's left foot into his hand, lifted it off the mattress, and planted a kiss on the bottom of it, directly in the middle. Arun gasped, not out of any particular sensation, but at the sheer unexpectedness, the gentle and unassuming affection. Louis kissed him again, this time over the delicate bones of his ankle, and then again on his shin, his calf, trailing up. One on the underside of his knee, one on the joint, the inner thigh, the slight protrusion of his hip bone. Arun reacted to this as if he were being beaten, as if each one were branding him where it fell. It felt a bit like they were.
He struggled not to jerk his leg away, not to thrash or flinch, as Louis, without a hint of impatience, without exposing his skin to so much as the edge of a tooth, went back to do the same thing again on the right.
When he'd once again found Arun's torso, he trailed kisses up his stomach, starting at the pelvis and making a straight line up to his clavicle, and then out, over his left shoulder, on the artery that pulsed on the underside of his arm, his bicep, the inside of his elbow. Down his forearm, his wrist, his palm. And then the same, again, on the other side. Louis kissed the dip between his collar bones, the pulse points at the corners of his jaw, and then he kissed him, gently, reverently, on the mouth.
Arun pressed up into the kiss, so that Louis chuckled slightly and pulled back. "Eager little thing, aren't you?"
Arun was panting. He wasn't sure that the heat pooling in all his limbs was arousal, exactly, but whatever it was, it was intoxicating. He felt drunk on it. Dizzy. Desperate for more, more.
"You want me to touch you?"
At that, some of the fear crept back. Arun fought the impulse to close his legs. This was so nice, he didn't want to ruin it with things that hurt.
He lifted himself, slightly, on his elbows. "I could do something for you, sir. Anything you want."
"Oh?"
"I'm here for your pleasure, sir. I could use my hands, if you wanted, or– or my mouth. Just tell me what you like."
"Aren't you sweet?" Louis tapped him on the nose. "I don't need anything from you just yet, pretty thing. Just lay there and be good for me."
How like Louis, to say I don't need anything from you, and then ask for the one thing that would be difficult to give him.
He laid back down and tried to be good.
Louis trailed his fingers down Arun's body, exerting a gentle pressure with them as he went—not enough to hurt, just enough that Arun had absolutely no trouble tracking his hand.
Its path terminated at the base of his cock.
"I'm gonna touch you now," said Louis. "You just try to relax for me, okay?"
Arun nodded hastily, and then fixed his eyes on the ceiling.
Louis's hand wrapped around the head, and Arun's mouth opened. He wanted to snatch the hand off him, to pull himself away. He wanted to thrust into the hand, which had begun to rub tight circles around the tip with a thumb. Louis's practiced hands, hands that knew precisely what he liked.
It was overwhelming, in his current state. Good, but loud, relentlessly, efficiently pleasurable. It sunk him deeper into it, whatever was happening to his mind. It made him feel even hazier, more out of control of himself, younger and more vulnerable. The longer it went on, the more afraid he became of when it would begin to hurt, how it would hurt him.
He whimpered, and he heard himself speak. It made him even more afraid to hear himself speak, because what he said was, "Be careful, be careful, please don't hurt me."
"Arun, baby, look at me."
He looked. Louis, endlessly patient. Not even angry at his protesting, his pleading. Most would not be so kind. His hand was still moving, making Arun's legs twitch, making it so hard to think or breathe.
He brushed Louis's mind for a moment, just to see, and he found a welter of guilt and arousal, satisfaction and discomfort, affection and concern. "I already told you, I'm not going to hurt you. This is a good thing that's happening, Arun; you're meant to enjoy it. Have you ever enjoyed it before?"
Arun shook his head. "N– No. No, sir."
It was a lie and it wasn't. It was far too complicated for a simple "yes" or "no." But "no" felt right. It did a better job of approximating the truth.
"Has it ever made you cum before?"
Arun shuddered. "Sometimes. But I don't—like it."
"Well, you're gonna like it this time. Does it feel good?"
He made an inarticulate sound of assent.
"Good. Just let it feel good, sweetheart. It's okay to enjoy yourself. You're safe. I've got you. There's no need to tie yourself up in knots about it. Breathe, honey."
Arun tried. He really tried. The sensation built and built, forming a knot in his stomach. Louis kept talking, low and soothing, telling him how well he was doing, how pretty he was, telling him to just relax and let it feel good, to remember to breathe.
Arun came with a small, broken cry. Louis kept pumping him through it until he went limp and boneless on the mattress, panting.
Louis wiped his hand on the bedspread, seemingly heedless of the mess, and then gathered Arun to him, lifted him up, wrapped his arms around him, rested a hand on the nape of his neck. Arun's breath was shallow and uneven, but his face was buried in Louis's shoulder, each inhale bringing him the scent of Louis's skin, his sweat, his blood, the soap he used, familiar and comforting and safe, safe, safe.
After a long, still moment, Louis nudged him back. He took Arun's jaw in his had, gazed into his eyes. "That wasn't so bad, now, was it?"
Arun shook his head. "You were right. I liked it."
"I'm gonna give you a choice about what happens next, okay?"
"…Yes, sir," Arun ventured. Something about what happens next still caused him a spike of uncertainty, but he was somewhat less apprehensive than he would've been before.
"See, I was so focused on you, I still haven't gotten mine. So you've got two options. You can give me that pretty mouth of yours, or I can fuck you. Which do you prefer?"
Arun deliberated. There was danger in each option. Danger, and a high likelihood of pain. Both frightened him.
(He was five hundred and nine and his name was Armand and he wasn't afraid of pain he liked pain he was in his own home he was in his own bed and it was two thousand and seventeen and he was with his companion of seventy-two years and he asked for this he asked for this and if he said "stop" and really meant it then it would probably stop. Louis had said so before anyway. Why was it so hard to remember that? Why was he still afraid?)
He chose the option which frightened him somewhat less, jutted out his chin like he was certain, and said, "Fuck me."
Louis looked him in the eyes, seemed to weigh something there. "Alright, then. Lay back down."
Arun moved to lay on his stomach, but Louis stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "On your back, baby. I want to look at you."
So he settled down on his back, let the comforter give beneath his shoulders.
He was left to lie there and wait while Louis clipped his fingernails, each one snapping like shale onto the nightstand. That he was clipping his nails was a positive sign, but being left to wait was indescribably awful.
When this was done, Louis produced a bottle of lube from the nightstand drawer. He came back over, lifted Arun's legs and pushed them up until his knees touched his shoulders and said, "Hold these for me. Good boy." Arun squirmed slightly at good boy.
He squirmed a lot more at the first cold, lube-slicked finger that pressed against him.
"Shh, shh," Louis soothed, placing a steadying hand on his sternum. "Just let it happen. Relax, sweetheart. It only hurts if you're tense."
Slowly, the finger worked its way inside. Louis eased it back and forth. It barely stretched him. It didn't hurt.
"Brave boy. I'm gonna add a second one now. You're doing wonderfully."
Arun's eyes were closed, all his energy focused on controlling his breathing, but he heard the cap of the lube bottle.
The second finger made itself known more than the first one did. The stretch was more severe, the sensation more intense, but still, it didn't hurt.
Louis's free hand petted his hair, trailed its thumb down his nose and over his lips. Arun parted them slightly in invitation. Louis pressed up with the fingers inside him, hit that bundle of freshly sensitized nerves, and Arun's mouth fell the rest of the way open. Louis slipped his thumb into it, pumped it in and out of the back of his throat, and Arun was fleetingly glad that he had no gag reflex to speak of.
"There, see? It's meant to feel good."
Arun moaned around Louis's thumb. He had no other way of indicating how thoroughly he was beginning to understand.
There was a third finger after that, and then a fourth. At no point did the sensation become, precisely, painful. Louis was careful, meticulous, moving slowly and with a great deal of lube. He kept petting him, also, and saying gentle, coaxing words, pausing every now and again to press against his prostate, to remind him that good things came to those who submitted.
When he was satisfied, Louis took Arun's legs from him and slung them over his shoulders, leaned in until their faces were close together, kissed him square between the brows, and pressed inside.
Arun made a needy, keening noise in the back of his throat. His hands grabbed at Louis's back, probably harshly enough to break skin, but Louis didn't seem to mind. He just kept thrusting, slow and steady, hitting his prostate again and again.
His head dipped, his mouth finding the underside of Arun's jaw. He took the skin in his teeth, sucked on it until Arun was sure he'd left a mark, and even that, still, did not hurt.
"Good boy," he was saying. "Good, perfect, obedient boy. You're being so brave, honey." There was a constant stream of nonsense praise accompanying his thrusting, which was firm but unhurried, steady and predictable. Arun could do nothing but clutch at his skin and try to keep breathing.
"Sweet thing, pretty boy, you're a marvel, you're– What's that mean, baby? Use your words."
Arun became aware that he'd been shaking his head.
It was difficult to think, even more difficult to arrange the thoughts into sentences. He tried to do it anyway. "I'm not… I'm not. I'm a f– fighter. Not good."
Louis laughed. "A fighter?"
He nodded. "'M awful. Stubborn. I'm—ah—a problem."
Louis reached down and took Arun's cock in his hand—he'd gotten hard again. Arun whined.
"Yeah, you're the picture of stubborn defiance," he said. "My beautiful boy, pretty thing, all wanton and needy, practically begging for me, aren't you?"
It was too much. It was all too much. Arun tried to speak and all that came out was inarticulate moaning and a couple of half-formed syllables which may have been "Yes…yes."
"Whoever said that was an idiot." Louis's words were losing their shape a little, his thrusting speeding up. He was getting close. "They just didn't know how to handle you. Didn't know what they had."
A little bitch, something in the back of his mind whispered. My daddy vampire groomed me into a little–
The pressure broke. He gasped, clutching Louis's back. A few moments later, Louis came, too. He paused when it happened, his mouth open, and Arun felt the warmth beginning to seep into him. He twitched helplessly as Louis began to thrust again, lazily, riding out the orgasm.
When he fell still, they just laid there for a few moments, breathing hard, tangled together.
Louis pulled out, let Arun's legs go. They drifted back down to the mattress, the tendons suddenly unused to extending that way. Louis laid back down on top of him, wrapped his arms around Arun's waist, and rolled the both of them over, so that Arun was splayed over his chest. He rubbed circles into Arun's shoulder with his thumb.
"A marvel," he said again. "You're perfect."
"So you're…satisfied? With me?"
Louis chuckled a little, a pleasant rumble in his chest. "Satisfied doesn't begin to cover it."
"Will I be seeing you again, then, sir?"
"Honey, I'm not even sending you back. I'll pay off anyone I need to. You're staying right here."
"Thank you." It was ridiculous that it came out choked. Of course Louis planned on keeping him around, Louis had kept him around by mutual agreement these seventy-two years. Louis loved him. He knew that. And still, hearing him say it somehow never got old. The novelty had never really worn off. Even now, in this fiction they'd created between them, it struck him the same way it had the first time.
"I love you," Louis said.
"I love you," Arun echoed.
After a moment's silence, "Armand?"
Arun buried his face in the crook of his arm, pressed his body more snugly against Louis's. "Not yet," he said. "Please. Not yet."
"Alright." Louis tightened his arms around him. "Okay, Arun. Whatever you want."