you don’t begin to know what a mystery you are

Why is it that a situation only begins to feel untenable in the last few moments before it is going to end? Something psychological, clearly, desperation increasing to a fever pitch only when it would actually do some good. Desperation in the thick of it, with no prospect of relief, would be unproductive. Armand had spent the night nearly comfortable, gotten through the performance and the cleanup hardly thinking about it, only wriggling his shoulders around uncomfortably when something called his mind back, but the itch was all right, nearly pleasant, a reminder. Now, though, as he finally rounds the corner to Louis’ place, he is in agony. He wants to rip his skin off, scrub his insides raw with a brush, anything to make it stop. He slams Louis’ door shut and immediately presses his back into the wall, rubbing it desperately against the back of his shirt, as if that’ll help.

"Armand?" says Louis, from the room Armand knows is where he develops his photos, but getting closer. "Hey, sweetheart—"

“I’m so itchy,” Armand whines. It really is a whine, high and irritating, like a child, but it’s how he feels. Out of control of himself, though only now, he hadn't been at the Theatre, it only happens here where he's safe, something knows to let go.

Louis is here. Louis' hands guide him away from the wall he was writhing against, and he whimpers with the torment of losing even that little bit of friction. "Come on," Louis says, "Darling thing, you'll feel better with your shirt off, let me help you." Louis calls him these names, honey, darling, sweet thing, mon cœur, cher, minou, everything except the obvious, really, Louis is never obvious. He pushes off Armand's jacket and lets it fall to the floor, undoes his buttons and yanks his shirt out of his trousers to let it join the jacket, and Armand doesn't care about the untidiness or the necessaity of pressing his clothes again later, the skin of his back is exposed to the air, that's all that matters. "Go ahead," Louis encourages, pulling him a little farther away from the wall, giving him room.

"Nails first," Armand begs. It will get better once he lets them out, yes, but what's the point of enduring an itch if you don't even get to scratch it, if it just goes away with no bright line of relief from a little sting of pain? He presses forwards into Louis' arms, Louis' hands on his back already and his sharp, sharp claws so close to his skin. "Please, you have to."

Louis laughs, low and soft in his ear. "All right," he says, "you're all right, here you go," and digs his nails in to drag them in delicious lines down Armand's back, not hard enough to draw blood but certainly not teasing, hard enough to satisfy an entire night's pent-up itch. Armand sags into him and moans. It feels too good to do anything else.

Louis fans his fingers out, works over his skin, but he stops before the sharp relief can fade into a dull pain and says, with a tone of unassailable authority, "Enough. Let's see them."

They have a ritual for this, now. You can create a ritual for anything, as it turns out. Lestat had pointed that out to him as if it were news, as if he ought to be shocked to realize that all the old words and movements that Santino had entrusted to him for safekeeping were just that, spoken by Santino. Lestat had been very young and naïve, at the time: what else did he think a prophet was to do? And what was he there for, if not to prophesize a new era and inaugurate its rituals?

Lestat would probably still be young and naïve, if he were alive, but Louis had killed him. He fucking had it coming. Armand cannot bring himself to disagree, but it still hurts. It is ironic, or perhaps appropriate, that it is with Lestat's fledgling that Armand ordains his very first ritual all his own: for whatever he is, unique in creation or perhaps just uniquely cursed, and whatever Louis is to have seen it. Armand kneels, as he ought, and because this hurts, it's difficult, leaves him curled up panting whether he wants to be or not. Louis places a cool hand on his head like he is going to slit his throat in sacrifice, and holds him steady through it.

Armand unfurls his wings at Louis' feet with a final burst of agony that sweeps away the lingering impressions of Louis' scratches. Louis rubs his scalp lightly as he recovers from it, sucking in air as if he would die without it.

Then he lets go, and walks slowly around Armand. Armand keeps his head down, hands braced on his knees, the pain receding to something dull and heavy. It is strenuous, to hold them up. Muscle atrophy, Louis says, and Armand is not really sure that that is how it works, but then he also isn't sure that that's not how it works or even what "it" is. And it is a little easier, each time, whether for the reason Louis thinks or some other.

Louis kneels slightly off to the side of him, and places one hand on the joint where Armand's wing meets his torso, and the other braced on his other side. "Up," he says. "Ten." Armand lifts the wing, helped a little by the hand supporting it and hindered a little by the other one preventing him from twisting with his spine to accomplish the movement instead of using the muscles he's supposed to be exercising. Louis counts for him, voice low and rough, making him do it over if he doesn't lift it high enough for his liking, on one side and then the other. Then he stands behind him and presses against the back of the wing, making him push back against his hand for another ten repetitions.

Before long, Armand is coated with a light sheen of pink sweat. His back and the base of the wings ache with the effort. "You enjoy that," he says to Louis, "in a prurient way."

"Mm-hmm," says Louis, circling around to his front to put pressure on the other side of the wing. He brushes a kiss over Armand's cheek, just under his eye, and Armand feels almost light-headed with the tingle it leaves on his skin. "Ten more each side. You're doing good, I can feel you pushing harder than last time."

He's right. Armand can feel it too; it hurts less to make the effort, feels more like he wants to. The end is in sight, so he really does try as hard as he can, squeezes his eyes shut and strains with muscles he barely knew he had, and Louis actually staggers back a tiny bit before he can brace himself properly. He gasps, and Armand can feel how pleased he is, and afraid and hopeful and wondering, and he can't make the same effort for the next nine but the feeling leaves him warm inside anyway. Louis' interest is not just prurient; Louis is never just anything.

He is breathing hard, by the time they are finished. He is not sure if it is physical or psychological, an instinctive response to physical exertion. When was the last time, before this thing with Louis, that he had done exercise? He does not remember if he has ever tired himself out running for joy, through the streets of Venice or the gardens of Paradise. He has only one clear memory of exerting himself running, and it had not been for exercise. And yet there is something familiar about the pleasure of effort, of improvement.

"There you go," Louis whispers. He is kneeling with Armand now, arms wrapped around him and knuckles kneading the sore muscles in his back gently. "They're getting— Armand, you're gonna knock me over soon."

Armand is not sure that he would like to knock Louis over. But to be able to.

"Still itchy?"

Armand nods. It had gotten a great deal better when he had taken them out, and he had forgotten all about it during the exercises, but now that he is coming down from the exertion he can start to feel it again, the irritating prickle on the edge of his awareness. And he will have to fold them back up, of course, he will need to leave Louis and go back to the Theatre in time for curfew, and then he will be back to wanting to crawl out of hs skin, what's inside him no longer so easily contained.

Louis turns Armand around a little and leans him forward so he can get a closer look. Armand shivers as he brushes a light finger up the centre of one wing, then pinches in a way that feels like he is rolling individual feathers between his fingers. "S'what I thought," he says. "They're called pin feathers. Looked it up in some bird books when you said you were getting itchy, figured He probably made them once right and kept the design basically the same. The new feathers grow in inside a cylinder, like the shaft of the feather, that needs to shed off. No wonder you're itchy."

Armand had been annoyed, when Louis hadn't shown up to any performances this week. He'd imagined him out at the salons, at other theatres, in other beds, laughing at the pathetic attempts of the vampires who put on plays just because they cannot imagine a world without each others' irritating company. And perhaps he was, but Armand had not also imagined him at the library, reading about feather growth.

Louis stands and grabs his hands. "Come on," he says, pulling him towards the bed, "lie down on top of me. You'll like this, I think."

Louis lies on his back on the bed widthwise, not lengthwise, with his feet hanging off the side, leaving the long edge of the bed for a wingspan. He pulls Armand down, chest to chest, encouraging him to put his entire weight on Louis. Armand doesn't like to think about how fragile Louis is, small and weak in every respect except his genius, the part of him that sees and knows and understands. He can take Armand's weight just fine, though, coaxes him off his elbows and has him lie with his arms loose around Louis' chest and his wings spread out to the sides, laid out flat with their ragged tips just resting against the head and footboards.

Their faces are so close. Louis' eyes flick over Armand, eyes to lips and back again, so Armand leans down and kisses him. Not deeply, just a short press of their lips together, just to make sure.

Louis reaches his hands to the side, and strokes them down Armand's wings. The touch is firm but not harsh, how he usually does it when he is cleaning them or touching them for Armand's pleasure or his own, but today it feels like being stroked on skin that's just been beaten, hot and shivery. "Sensitive?"

Armand nods.

"Feathers need a blood supply to grow, so new ones develop inside a cylinder of epidermal tissue which protects them and draws blood flow," Louis says, and Armand cannot help the smile creeping onto his face. Did he take notes, he wonders. Did he take notes on Armand, too. What else did he look up. "They'll be delicate, until they're ready to come out, and then they need grooming to shed the old tissue. I'm not surprised that you're uncomfortable, you're covered in pins." And then he does something with his nails that feels like a build of pressure and then a stinging release, and Armand wriggles against Louis' body, trying to get away from it and towards more of it at the same time, and Louis does it again to a feather on the other side, and maybe he moans a little, very quietly.

Louis grins. "Nice?"

"Yes," gasps Armand. Oh, it's very nice.

"Then just enjoy it," Louis whispers, and Armand slumps down fully onto him, his cheek to Louis' chest. He couldn't do anything else if he tried; it feels incredible. It feels so obvious and right that it drives everything else from his mind. Every new feather released is a relief from a pinched pain he didn't even know he was in, and the little stings of release radiate pleasure through him like raindrops in water.

It's over too soon, limited by the number of new feathers there are for Louis to coax out of their encasings. Louis stops using his nails but keeps using his hands, exploring the new growith very gently with the pads of his fingers. Now that he knows what they are Armand can feel them, his new feathers not quite done growing, exquisitely sensitive every time Louis brushes over one. It will still be a bit uncomfortable, probably, to have to tuck them away while they're like this, but now that he knows, he knows it's worth it.

Suddenly, a shocking spike of pain. Louis jerks, tries to sit up for a moment before he realizes that moves Armand's body with him, then says "Shit— oh, I'm sorry, honey, I broke—"

His hand has blood all over it, which makes sense; he had said the whole point of the pin structures was to contain blood. "I think I have to—" he says, and then Armand feels him pinch the feather he'd broken between thumb and forefinger and yank, one last white-hot sting before it dulls and then stops.

Louis lies back, holding the little pin feather, one much smaller and more compact than the ones he'd groomed off of Armand. "Fuck," he says, "I'm so sorry, I knew they were sensitive and would bleed if—"

"It's all right." Armand blinks down at him, bemused. So he had broken a feather. What of it? He was growing more. Louis was helping him to grow more, doing it with him. Armand has already decided that, should he ever be able to fly using his wings, it must be only when Louis is ready to be carried under their power with him. They are Louis' wings, as much as they are Armand's.

He looks at the object in Louis' hand. Louis looks, too, and wipes the blood off it with his other hand. He's clearly worried that he'd somehow upset Armand by it, so he isn't doing it himself, so Armand takes the feather, grabs the wrist of Louis' hand that is covered with Armand's spilled blood, and guides it to his mouth. "Please," he says, and Louis hesitates a moment more before giving in, closing his eyes and laving his tongue over his own skin.

Once they were clean, the feathers that Armand had kept hidden away for five centuries turned out to be coloured just the tan of skin, so very obviously a part of his body, a unity with his naked form. With the blood wiped away, the nascent feather in his hand is the same colour at base, but it is something else as well; an iridescence, a particular catch of the light that looks a bit different from every angle as he rotates it. He watches it shimmer, fascinated, and Louis finishes licking up the blood and watches him seeing himself.

"They're like that, the new ones," he says. "Like you're glowing with a bit of every colour. I…" He licks his lips, looks nearly shy. "When I was researching… I looked up pictures of what they might look like, too, once they're healed. Found an Ottoman miniature up for sale, from a book called Siyer-i Nebi, with the wings multicoloured, like— maybe yours will be like that. One day. I thought I would buy it for you, maybe. If you'd like."

The feather catches the light. Armand stares at it, unseeing. His eyes sting. "Art does not always show the truth of what a thing looks like," he says.

"No, says Louis hurriedly, "of course not, it was just an idea."

But I would still like it, Armand thinks, if you bought it for me, and fails to keep it inside his mind, just at the moment Louis fails at something similar, and Armand realizes that he already has.

Armand puts the pin feather on the table beside the bed. "Please keep touching them a little longer," he says. "If you don't mind."

Louis laughs, low and disbelieving. "Mind," he says, as if it is truly so inconceivable for someone to not wish to stroke Armand's wings as they slowly grow. It is not inconceivable.

He is even more gentle this time, very careful of the blood-filled new ones. Armand lays his cheek back down on Louis' chest, and enjoys it.

“You know,” says Louis softly. “When I was reading about the birds, I thought, maybe He didn’t really make them right the first time, if they were causing you pain, maybe He could have made some improvements. But I understand now. I think He made them like this for you, so we could do this.”

No. That cannot be right, he is cursed, cast out. Louis had as good as said so about himself, both of them, all of them, surely none more than Armand. That cannot—

Loving hands on his face. He doesn't know any more. Loving hands on his feathers. His growing, living wings.