sure about that

Notes

If you would prefer this story in audio format, I am reading it for you here!

Since the first time, Louis has called him Arun five more times. He is keeping count so that when Louis leaves, wafts back out into the night like smoke as he is always so close to doing, Armand will at least have that, the number.

The first time was right after he said it in the park, when he took Armand home, put him on his knees, and fucked his face. A well-oiled little scene, as if rehearsed, almost perfunctory, like they both needed to make sure this thing worked the way they thought it was going to. Which it did. Very well indeed. The second and third times were at the theatre, nearly furtive except that Louis doesn't do anything furtively even when perhaps he should, voice low, for Armand's ears alone, though it's not just the physical ears one needs to worry about, of course, but Armand could hardly bring himself to care.

The fourth time, back at the apartment, Armand said you can hurt me, and then Louis slapped him across the face and said Don't need your permission for that, Arun. Which is a little funny because obviously he did, but anyway he has it now, so the fifth time was when he made Armand lie with his hands above his head and beat the undersides of his arms with his belt.

The sixth time— there hasn't been a sixth time, not yet, and the absence stands out in his mind almost like the event would, because Louis showed him a switch cut off a tree from the park, still green and flexible, and said "yeah?" But then when Armand undressed and lay down for it Louis hesitated at something and then didn't say it, just said the name he has now, Armand, you're doing so well, Armand, Armand, Armand.

It's going to hurt so much when you go, Armand thought. More than Lestat. More than anyone.

People, mortal or hypothetically immortal, don't last: groups, institutions do, because they are ideas, and ideas are the only fruit of the corrupt earth that can reach towards immortality. The kind man shackled next to him on the ship, so patient with the little boy parroting his prayers, is long gone, but the Ummah survives. Marius is gone, but la Serenissima survives. Santino is gone, but the Church survives. Lestat is gone, but the Theatre survives. When Louis is gone, what of him will survive with Armand? Perhaps just memories; he seems determined to leave no more lasting legacy. Not much of a joiner. But he has chosen to join with Armand, at least, sometimes, to an extent. Armand is not insensible of the honour.

"You should hit my feet," Armand says one night, "if you would like to scare me."

They're lying on their sides on Louis' bed, down to their underwear. Haven't done anything yet. Sometimes Louis likes to have a good think about it, first, where Armand can see and hear him. He likes that Armand will wait patiently. He likes that if he decides on nothing, Armand will accept it. Sometimes he denies his desire just to make sure Armand will take it quietly, and Armand makes sure to do so with an exaggerated good grace. Whatever pleases you, Maître. See what I can give you that he surely never did.

"Why are you scared?"

They say that boys coming back from the war are struck dumb with fear by anything that reminds them of its sights and sounds. Perhaps vampires are different, in this respect. By all rights, Armand ought to be afraid of fire, which has claimed almost everyone he has ever knew. But instead he loves fire like a constant friend, like an idea, and he is afraid of other things, which have no recollection attached. Of course that does not mean they have no causes attached, but he has no particular desire to remember what they are. He has memories with no fear, and fears with no memory.

He shrugs. "I assume it was done to me in the brothel."

Louis lies back, rests his head on his arm behind his head. He looks so good like this. He looks good every way, but— perhaps this is hubris, but Armand really does think Louis looks better when he's the way he gets for Armand. Something shining out of him that surely, surely, even those who don't want it for themselves can see.

Then he pulls Armand down into a kiss, and Armand goes, following the hand on the back of his head, feeling Louis' soft tongue with his own. "You like being scared?" Louis murmurs into his mouth.

Armand pauses, forgetting to move his lips and tongue for a moment. Puzzled by how to answer. No, of course not, he hates being scared. And he is scared right now, now that Louis hasn't refused or ruled it out, a deep nausea in the pit of his stomach that makes him glad he hadn't eaten tonight. But he wants something from Louis, something permanent, more than Louis wants to give, the idea of him. He needs to give something as momentous. His fear is the largest thing he owns, and he will give it to Louis to do with what he will.

Louis kisses him again. Nips at his lip. Then he says, "Go to the kitchen. There's some stuff left over from the old owners. Find a big bowl, fill it with hot water, and bring it back here."

It's certainly not the order he expected, but it's an order. Armand goes. The largest bowl is a blue and white ceramic dusty from disuse. He fills it with water from the tap. Has Louis always had pressurized taps in his home, he wonders vaguely as he does it. There is so much they don't know about each other.

He puts it on the floor in front of the bed and wonders whether it would be better-done to kneel straight away, or wait for the order. He's still considering it when Louis says, "Got it hooked up when I was around six, I think."

I meant for you to hear that, Armand thinks at him, flustered, because he hadn't, really. He is more afraid than he'd realized, perhaps, his mind throwing out panicked wisps of thought. He still hasn't decided whether he should—

"Sit," says Louis, amused, and Armand almost kneels instead even though it's not what he's been told, until Louis grabs his arms and stands to steer him to sit on the edge of the bed.

And then Louis kneels.

For a moment Armand's mind goes blank, a whiteness very like panic. He does not know what is going on, is failing to grasp some very important concept about his situation, and that is—

"Arun," says Louis quietly, and puts two gentle hands on his knees. "I'm going to hit your feet. And I am going to make sure—" and there's that cockiness that Armand loves so much, the little self-sure grin— "that you aren't scared." He says it like it's simple. Like Armand's fear is his to decide.

Well, would Louis have said it if it weren't ? What has Louis ever set his mind to that he hasn't accomplished?

"All right?" Louis adds, and it takes Armand a moment to realize he is actually asking, and is waiting for an answer.

"Yes," he says, and somewhere in between his lungs and the warm air of Louis' apartment, the words go from being a call-and-response to a commitment. Yes, Louis, I will do this with you. I will try my best, at least.

Louis holds out his hands. Armand realizes he had hidden his feet as soon as he sat down, toes tucked under the soles and the entire foot tucked underneath the bed.

He brings them out, and Louis takes hold of his soles with one hand and pulls the bowl underneath them with the other. He submerges them slowly, like they're separate entities who might object to being thrown into the water unawares. The water is not as hot as it could be— he hadn't given any thought to what it might be used for beyond carrying out the instruction— but it still feels good. And then Louis' warm recently-fed hands wrap around his feet and start washing, and that feels better.

He's doing it carefully, thoroughly. Water splashed up to Armand's ankles, fingers sweeping in between his toes. It is not as odd as he would have thought, because it has much in common with everything else Louis likes to do to him; the quiet authority, the sense of simultaneously doing what needs to be done and exactly what pleases him. It's just that now Armand is more at leisure to watch him, positioned above him and not in any pain, not yet. This must be how Louis looks when he hurts him, too. Satisfied. Capable.

Louis squeezes the arches in his hands, presses his fingers into the muscles on the bottom of Armand's foot and runs the whole length of it with delicious pressure. Armand can't help it, he makes a little sound, not quite a moan.

"Does that feel good?" Louis asks, smirking like he knows the answer.

"Yes," says Armand.

Lightning-quick, Louis shifts to hold both of Armand's feet in one hand, then flicks a fingernail at the bridge of each one in quick succession. "Yes, what?" he says.

After the languid pleasure of the massage, the tiny stings are so unexpected that they startle a laugh out of Armand, and a shiver in his legs, prompting Louis to hold him tighter. "Yes, it feels good, Maître," he corrects, and Louis rubs over the spots on the tops of his feet that he'd flicked, as if there were any remaining hurt to soothe.

"That's it," Louis says, and now when he starts in again, it isn't just rubbing; he taps his palms against the sides of each of Armand's feet in turn, batting them back and forth. He flicks the tops again, then goes back to soothing the stings, then does it again.

It's maddening, how light it is. It tickles, and Armand is afraid he is going to jerk at the wrong moment at kick Louis in the face. It would be easier, he thinks, if it were a bit more painful, something to latch on to, not so transient. "Lou— Maître," he says, "do it harder, I can take more."

"Oh," says Louis, "Are you the one in charge around here now?" And he lifts Armand's feet up, forcing his knees to bend a little more, and sucks both of his big toes into his mouth at once.

Armand gasps. That's— not only is it— it feels good, way better than he could ever have guessed. Louis is truly sucking, the pressure of his mouth pulling the joint very slightly looser, and swirling his tongue around the digits, and it's hot and wet and Armand squirms, half-hard in the space of a moment.

And he stares at Louis, Louis' face, his lips stretched around Armand's toes, eyes heavy-lidded but watching for Armand's reaction. He feels certain this is not something that Louis has ever done before for his own pleasure, maybe had never even considered it before this moment. And he is doing it, because he wants Armand to not be frightened. Because he wants to take the gift of Armand's fear and give it back to him, transformed into pleasure.

It's not what Armand wants from him. He wants the idea, the totality, everything there is too completely for this world. But it is something precious and unexpected.

Louis takes Armand's toes out of his mouth. He presses his lips to the bridges of them, then brings them up again to kiss the soles. Then he rests them on his lap and looks up at Armand, bright eyes and soft smile. "You ready for a bit more?" he asks.

Armand would like more of this, wants to cling to it, being touched, before he has to lie on his back with Louis so very far away from where he wants him, all the way down at his feet, to hit him. He wants to be held. But Louis will hold him after, surely, he has every time so far, wrapped Armand up in his arms and told him he took his pain so well. So it will be all right. It will. "Yes," he says. "I'm ready."

Louis stands up. "Wait," he says, and Armand waits while he disappears for a moment and comes back with a towel. He dries him off carefully, getting in between each of his digits, feeling for excess water with his wrist. Then he circles around Armand to sit on the bed with his back leaning against the wall.

The switch is still on the mantel, where Louis had left it last time. Armand stares at it. In a moment, he will have to walk across the room and get it, and then walk back, and then— it won't be so bad. It won't be—

Louis snaps his fingers. "Come here, Arun."

Armand turns around. Louis is sitting with his knees wide, patting the space in between them with one hand. The other hand is holding a pencil which had been on a pad of paper on a small table next to the bed.

Armand obeys. He scoots backwards, and Louis pulls him in, Armand's back to his chest, held tightly in between Louis' legs. "There," Louis says, low in his ear, his lips brushing the back of Armand's neck. "bend your knees a little more. That's it. Now flex your feet. Hold your toes for me."

Armand holds his toes, and Louis wraps an arm around his torso, and kisses just underneath his ear, and then reaches around with his other arm and starts tapping the pencil very softly against the bottoms of Armand's feet. Oh.

It doesn't hurt very much. Well, of course it doesn't, it's a pencil and he's a vampire. Still, something clenches in the pit of his stomach, and he tries not to let Louis feel him tense but Louis is all around him, holding him, nose in his neck, a hand spread out over his heart, and Louis keeps tapping him with the pencil in the same rhythm but says, "You want to pause?"

Armand has almost already refused. But then, Louis had said pause, not stop. He hadn't even offered stop. So that makes it easier, after all Louis had been not doing anything just a moment ago and that wasn't a failure, so they can return to that state for a bit and that would be all right. Armand doesn't exactly nod, but he lets his head move a little. It's up to Louis, really, if he decides to interpret it as a yes.

Louis doesn't stop tapping him with the pencil; he just moves it away from Armand's feet, up his legs and around his side until he is on Armand's upper back, a very nice place to be hit hard and nice to be hit gently too, as it turns out. Armand tilts his head forward, closes his eyes. The panic recedes with the soft metronomic rhythm of it.

"You can start again," he says, and at least at the moment he says it, Louis gets what he wants. Armand isn't scared.

Louis brings the pencil back to his feet with one hand, and slips his other inside Armand's shorts. Armand startles at the sudden contact there, his cock not exactly hard, no, but not exactly unaffected by all of this, either. Louis uses his hand firmly, pressing on the reliably sensitive spot just in front of his hole and then sweeping it up to pump his cock. Armand squirms from the sudden pleasure, twisting in his arms, and Louis holds him tighter with his knees.

"Louis," Armand pants, "stop, I can't— I cannot concentrate on it while you—"

"Shh," Louis soothes in his ear, and does not stop. "Don't need to concentrate on anything. Just feel what you feel."

Armand feels. He squirms harder when Louis really gets going, hand on his cock tight enough to hurt and the tapping on his feet as insistent as Louis can make it given the implement, which isn't very. He is nearly overwhelmed by it, two things happening to him at once, but every time his body spasms Louis just holds him more firmly, keeping him in place. Perfectly safe. The slaps against his feet are just a baseline, a frequency reference to measure his pleasure against.

It builds and builds until he feels he would shake apart if Louis weren't holding him so very tightly, keeping every part of him exactly where he is supposed to be. His orgasm is more painful by far than the taps, in the best way, wringing him out, forcing tears out of his eyes to match the bloody spend coating Louis' hand.

The next thing he is aware of is being on his side, completely surrounded by Louis. He is shaking a little, but not too badly. It is something for Louis to soothe, not Armand's problem. He settles back against him. Grinding against Louis' groin, where he can feel his erection, but that is Louis' issue to solve, too. Armand doesn't bother saying you can fuck me; that, Louis certainly knows. Whatever Louis wants to happen will happen, Armand being afraid or unafraid, fucked or unfucked.

For now, it seems that what Louis wants is this: Louis' arms around his middle, Louis' palm stroking his forehead, Louis' cock pressing against his ass, the tops of Louis' feet snug against the sensitized bottoms of Armand's. He presses down with the soles a little and Louis presses back. It feels nice.

Louis said it again, he realizes, the name. But right now he cannot remember if the previous time was five or six. He cannot remember which he counted as the first time, and he cannot remember if each time it is spoken counts as one or if he has perhaps said it more than once in a night and not had it counted, or— perhaps it doesn't matter. Yes, he can think on it tomorrow.