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Louis has not seen Armand in eight months.
There are no traces of Armand in his Dubai penthouse nor in the house Louis purchased, but there are traces in Louis's mind, still, that he cannot shake. It doesn't seem to matter that he has places of his own now with his own locks and own staff; he feels safest on the move. It makes him feel less like himself, makes him feel like he's finally understanding how Claudia felt.
If it were up to him, he would never have to think about Armand again.
But even vampires have assets to manage, and decades of doing everything together meant that everything is in both of their names. The email on his phone is only the latest from their asset manager.
Louis scrolls through the list she sent, pausing at a neat entry with a painting name he vaguely recognizes. Armand had it up in their house in… Tbilisi, Louis thinks it was. It was where they used to go when the Dubai heat got too stifling, but they hadn't been in years by the time Daniel came to Dubai. Louis never cared for it — broad strokes of pink and red that made Louis feel like he was inside a bar bathroom — so it was relegated to their other property, but Armand loved it.
Louis doesn't want it. He should have it destroyed or sell it off for a penny. Instead, he thinks about how Armand used to sit silently and stare at it, something relaxed coming over his face. The memory is so strong that it gives him pause.
Louis has removed all ways of contacting Armand, but there's still one way of reaching him: a fail-safe communication they set up for emergencies or if they were ever separated. A phone number that transmitted to a private email server. Louis has not used it before, but he inputs a simple message, Call me, and goes out for the night.
He keeps his phone in his hand, then flat on the table through dinner, but there's nothing for hours. It's unlike Armand, and Louis settles with the knowledge that this, too, has changed: Armand does not have to pick up as soon as Louis calls. He has no reason to anymore.
Still, the call comes right as he's getting ready for bed, checking the locks on the doors, checking the curtains on the window.
"Hello?" Louis answers, sitting on the edge of the bed, bracing himself for a voice he has not heard in so long.
A sharp inhale, and then, "Louis. What is it?"
Even though he was expecting it, the voice is — shocking. He would have thought he remembered the exact sound of Armand's voice, but it was a completely different thing to hear it in his ear, warm and too close. Armand sounds like he's somewhere windy, and Louis can't help himself. "Where are you?"
"Somewhere you wouldn't enjoy."
Louis huffs, annoyed by the non-answer. Somewhere he wouldn't enjoy. "Somewhere cold then."
Armand hums, agreeing. He sounds like he's smiling. Louis imagines it — Armand in a thick wool coat, a high turtleneck, a hat pulled over his curls, sleek and polished and handsome. The image annoys Louis, so he replaces the coat with an ugly yellow puffer and imagines Armand clumsy on skis falling headfirst into some snow.
That helps. "Lin sent me a list of things we have to figure out what to do with. I was thinking we'd sell it all off, but maybe there's things you want. Your things, I mean. If you want to look through them."
"Yes," Armand says after a long moment, his voice tinged with wonder. "Thank you, Louis."
"It's not a big deal," Louis replies uncomfortably, biting his cheek when he hears how defensive he sounds. "Makes my life easier, too."
"How are you?" Armand asks after a moment, his voice warm and sincere like this was a fucking social call. Louis can easily picture that curl of a smile, the way his eyes crinkle when he finds something funny. A smiling figure in black against a snowy backdrop. "I hope it is safe wherever you are. And warm."
Louis hangs up on him decisively.
Seoul in the 1980s was different from just about any other city Louis had ever been to. After San Francisco and the mess that put an end to their stay there, him and Armand were more transient, jumping from place to place in the search for somewhere new to put roots down. Seoul then was had a kind of laughing joy to it, a kind of delirious relief at being alive. But a grim amusement had undercut it, like everyone was aware of how fleeting that happiness could be, how delicate it was, and how silly it was of them to be so attached, so hopeful.
In South Korea, their regular business merged with their vampiric curiosity. There was an artist that Louis liked the look of; they had the right kind of background, the right kind of influences in a post-war Asia that Louis thought would be extremely profitable in a few decades.
Louis had thought he'd seen just about everything one could in a city this size, but Seoul tapped a part of his heart that he didn't know still existed. Armand seemed similarly taken with it, although perhaps he was taken with the version of Louis that was less interested in sitting in bars and drinking and more interested in talking to people, dancing, and laughing.
They ran into a spot of trouble one night, some kids who were looking for trouble and identified the obvious foreigners as easy targets. It wasn't hard to take care of them, but Armand was in a strange mood that night, keeping them still and placid as Louis ripped their throats out, and he laughed when Armand wrinkled his nose at the way blood splattered his shoes.
Louis was hungry and horny, then, a stranger's blood staining his shirt and drying in his hair. He couldn't keep his hands off Armand as they made their way back to the hotel, pushing his face into Armand's neck, laughing when Armand jumps at the feeling of his fangs on his skin. Armand smelled so good all the time, his voice was so dear, and Louis felt high off the feeling of having him. Of knowing this unknowable creature.
Louis had pulled off Armand's clothes before they even made it to the suite's bedroom, mouthing down his chest and blindly reaching for his cock, moaning when Armand's taste hit his tongue. He was too impatient to do more than get it wet and hard, eagerly climbing on top and guiding Armand's cock inside him after only a few minutes.
It hit him just as the head breached his hole that he, in fact, could not take a cock dry, and tried to get off. Armand's hands pinned him in place.
"You can do it." Armand murmured darkly, hands greedy on Louis's ass, gripping hard. "Keep going."
Louis sobbed through a pleasured groan, feeling his hole stretch impossibly around the thick girth of Armand's hard cock. It's too dry, too big, too much for him.
But the pain is blotted out from his mind before he has finished processing the feeling, the only proof of it the way Louis has bitten through his cheek in pain.
"You doing that?" Louis slurred, sinking down slowly, delirious on relief and the taste of his own blood dripping past his lips and down his chin. It felt good. So good. It wasn't painful like he thought it would be.
"Doing what?" Armand asked, thumbs stroking Louis's thighs.
"That." Louis whimpered. "It feels good—fuck, Armand—hurts—" Just as he acknowledged the pain, it disappeared again. Louis was confused, a part of him knowing that it wasn't supposed to be like that, but the slip of his hole on the hard cock inside him was distracting. He'd forgotten how good it was — to feel the man you love inside you. They hadn't had sex like this in a long time, maybe they never had. It was hard to remember.
"Kiss me." Armand said firmly, stopping his thoughts where they were.
He rode Armand that night on the white plush bed of their hotel, moving in ways he hadn't in a long time, rocking his hips and moving his waist in circles. Putting on a show. Armand was breathless under him, his pupils dark and his hair escaping the gel he'd put in earlier. He was looking at Louis like he'd never seen him before.
"You forgive me, don't you?" Louis whimpered through pants, leaning down to kiss him again. "You'll let me do anything I want. Tell me, tell me."
Armand was panting, too, his eyes wild and fangs peeking out from his blood-filled mouth. "Louis," He kept saying in a slur, looking close to tears. "Louis."
In the end, Seoul's bitter winter drove them out, but Louis thinks fondly of that time. Despite everything that has happened since, the way the memory of that night has taken on a sinister edge.
It doesn't surprise him that Seoul has changed so much in almost forty years. What does surprise him is how empty it feels being here alone. It gives Louis none of the joy or freedom he felt back then, and he feels his age for once in this bright new city.
When he goes back to his hotel after a disappointing wander around, he's in a terrible mood, and what he sees on the news doesn't help.
He sends another message to Armand. He doesn't know why he does it, really, except that he's angry and confused and has no one to listen to him.
This time, the call comes within minutes. Armand is silent on the other end. "Your fledgling's on the television."
Louis hears a rustle on the other end and then Armand's voice, serious and quiet. "Which channel?"
"CNN, I think." It was one of the only English channels his hotel had.
On screen, Daniel is grinning smugly at the anchor, gesturing as he speaks. It's on mute but Louis can imagine what Daniel is saying — he doesn't have to hear it. The cover of the book is blown up on the screen behind them.
Daniel's voice filters through Armand's end before Armand mutes him, too. They watch in silence.
"I'm pretty sure he's your responsibility," Louis says after a few minutes. Daniel's grin has grown and the anchor looks seconds away from snapping.
"I wish I did more to stop him from publishing it, Louis." Armand's voice is low and sweet, convincing.
"Really?" Louis asks lightly. His fist clenches where he's been playing with the sheets. "'Cause from where I'm standing, it feels like you went the extra mile to make sure it got out there."
They are words he's been turning over in his head for months, and it feels just as good saying them out loud as they did in his head.
"Is that really what you think?" Louis feels a faint pulse of guilt at the bare hurt in Armand's voice. He shakes it off.
"Yeah, that's what I think," he answers. Armand doesn't say anything and Louis feels a brief flush of victory at that, a satisfaction at being able to say something and not hear denials.
Softened by the silence, Louis asks again, out of curiosity, "Where are you?"
"Where do you think I am, Louis?"
Louis struggles to answer, his throat closing at the intimate way Armand is speaking down the line like they're together in bed. "Somewhere far, I think."
A brief pause. "Shall I tell you?"
"No," Louis says.
"Get some rest then, Louis."
A few weeks later, he goes to hunt, and the guy he takes into the alley is almost too willing, too complacent. Louis wouldn't have thought about it twice about it on any other day, he knows he has a strange kind of effect on humans, but now—
Louis wonders if it's normal, if prey has always been this easy.
"Can I blow you?" The guy doesn't bother waiting for a reply, his hands already on Louis's belt, pulling at it harshly and getting on his knees.
Louis swallows and settles a hand on his head. Louis's not aroused and he isn't sure he can even get hard with his mind so scattered, but he allows it anyway. It isn't the first time he's had the opportunity to fuck someone, nor the first time he's allowed it, but there's something unsettling in his bones tonight. Something that buzzes through his blood as he watches his cock in someone else's hand — rougher than his own and much warmer. And when he puts his mouth on him, Louis can't help a shiver at how good it is, perfectly tight, just the right amount of pressure on the head.
"Do you like this?" The man says as he pulls off Louis's cock, eyes wet and mouth swollen. His eyes, for a brief moment, are amber. "Does this feel good?"
Louis nods hurriedly, pushing his cock inside that wet mouth, making a noise somewhere halfway a sigh and a moan. "Shit, honey, keep going."
Something brushes against his mind as he says it and his whole body shudders, the heat in him turning ice cold as jerks away hurriedly, pressing his back against the wall behind him.
"What's wrong?" The guy asks, blinking up at Louis. His eyes are brown, Louis checks twice, and he's probably just good at sucking cock — it isn't exactly a rare trait. But Louis's dick has softened and he's shaking so hard he can't get a word out.
It takes the whole walk back to his hotel on foot to convince himself it was nothing, just his mind scaring him. He's been skipping meals, he tells himself. He's hungry and inventing things. He'll have to fix that.
But after two bags of blood, he doesn't feel any better. His hands keep shaking and he doesn't understand why.
This time, it takes only seconds after he sends the message.
"Louis?" Armand's voice is the same as it always is, warm and hypnotic. Louis's hands shake harder.
"I had the weirdest fucking— I don't even know—" Louis is aware of how frantic he sounds, borderline panicked. "Something's wrong with me."
"It's okay," Armand interrupts easily, soothingly. His voice reverberates in Louis's head, blotting out every other though. "Everything is fine, Louis. Tell me what happened."
It spills out of Louis in a rush, and it's a relief to say it. To confide in Armand, who has and will fix everything for Louis. That's what he does, Louis thinks, he takes care of Louis when Louis can't do it himself. Armand is silent on the other end, but Louis can hear him, the faint humming noises he makes as he listens, the rustle of his hair as he adjusts his phone.
"Did it? Feel good?"
Louis blinks, coming back to himself. He's on his side in bed, the phone pressed between the pillow and the ear.
Armand repeats, casual, "You thought it was me on my knees for you, didn't you? Did it feel good?"
"Yes," Louis admits. "And then no. It scared me."
Armand makes a rough broken sound on the other end, and Louis feels a shudder go through him.
"What did you think I'd do? If I were him?"
"I don't know." Louis squeezes his eyes shut. "I don't know."
"No?" He sounds fascinated.
"No," Louis says again. "I don't know."
He's hard, he realizes.
"I know," Armand says, like Louis said it out loud. "It's okay, Louis. Go on. There's nothing wrong with you."
But Louis doesn't feel like that's true, not when he spits loudly into his hand and starts jerking himself off, moaning freely into his phone. Louis wonders what, exactly, is wrong with him at the same time he wonders what Armand is wearing, whether that fat cock of his is ruining the line of his trousers.
"He wanted you so badly," Armand muses. "That boy. He knew that there was something strange about you, but you looked so beautiful tonight that he was willing to risk his life. Imagine that."
Louis is panting now, making small grunts as he plays with the head of his dick, pulling at it and making it hurt. "Don't— don't say that."
Armand ignores him. "He'll be thinking about you for a very long time, wishing more than anything that you'd spent into his mouth. And instead you're talking to me and fucking your fist, aren't you, Louis?"
Jesus. "Are you also—"
"No."
Louis's hand falters, but it picks up with renewed energy when Armand admits, a little chagrined, "I'm in public."
Louis groans loudly into the phone, his hips jerking into his fist, imagining it. He parts his knees, and he lets go of his cock to trail a hand teasingly down past his balls, circling tentatively around his hole.
"Yes," Armand hisses encouragingly. "There, my darling, put two in."
"It'll hurt," Louis protests in a whine.
"It won't." Armand sounds so sure that Louis can't help but believe him. "I won't let it."
As Armand promised, he doesn't feel the pain of the stretch of the scratch of his nails, just the wonderful grounding feeling of being filled. His hips jerk as he comes, untouched, just like that — two fingers inside himself while his ex talks him through it, mumbling nonsense that Louis can't hear.
He won't realize until much later how Armand spoke to him so knowingly. It was like he was in the room watching him, Louis thinks as he buries his head in the pillow, and the realization feels like a punch to the stomach.
It used to surprise Louis at times how quiet Armand was. Soft footsteps, quiet even breaths, his heartbeat so faint it was almost sluggish. Like a cat, Louis thought once, smiling fondly across at Armand. Armand's smile was soft, if a little confused.
Like a predator, Louis should have thought instead. Quiet and careful, always looking for the upper hand, searching for where you were softer and more vulnerable, and Louis would probably never know if Armand learned to be that way out of necessity or if he'd always been like that. Louis doesn't think Armand would know the answer to that, either.
It is possible that Armand is following him without Louis knowing.
The thought does not alarm him as much as he thought it would. It feels, in some way, completely inevitable. Maybe because Louis already suspected, even before their last phone call, that Armand was not taking their divorce as meekly as the lack of contact would suggest. Armand is a different kind of predator. He does not pounce or ambush; he lays in wait for the perfect opportunity.
But he has to be sure.
He goes to a new city, checks himself into a hotel, and leaves his room in a mess. Clothes on the bed and half out of his suitcase, books in a haphazard pile on the bedside table. He takes copious, precise photos on his mobile phone of every detail of the mess — the exact angle of his books stacked on top of each other, the clothes. He takes as many photos as he can, documenting every inch of the room. It would be too obvious to leave his sketchbook out, so he hides it under his pillow instead as a final trap, and hangs a Do Not Disturb sign on the handle as he leaves.
Louis gives it a few hours. He sits in a bar and sips at a cocktail, then another one, so used to doing this that he doesn't even grimace at the taste.
He walks back to his hotel room with heavy steps, his body cold and stiff. The room looks the same as he left it. He checks for the journal first, but it's exactly where he last saw it. He checks the photo on his phone to be sure. It hasn't been touched, not even a centimeter out of place. Louis checks everything else methodically, moving faster and more urgently as he goes through the room and finds nothing out of place. Only Louis has been in this room.
He's just about to call an end to it, put everything away and pretend he didn't just have an episode, when he turns to his suitcase and sees one of his folded shirts, the collar straight and even. He swallows, staring at it, then pulls up the photo he took of it, zooming in on the same shirt, the skewed collar.
Louis looks back at the collar in front of him, stares at where it's straightened with a caring hand, like it was instinct to reach out and fix it. His mind plays a memory, a thousand, Armand's hand quickly moving at his collar to straighten Louis's shirts.
He stares for so long that his eyes begin to burn.
What else is there to do? He can't run, not when he thought he already was running. He calls Armand.
"Where are you?"
Armand sighs into the phone, sounding a little exasperated, of all things. "You already know the answer to that, Louis."
Armand must have done it on purpose, then. Maybe he's been leaving hints all over the place and Louis has been too thick to see it. Too convinced that he was on his own because he was determined to be.
"Show yourself, then. Don't play with me," Louis says.
When Louis opens the door a few minutes later and sees Armand there, long hair tied back wearing clothes Louis has never seen in his life, he has to clutch the doorframe with the way his head spins.
"Jesus Christ."
Armand raises an eyebrow. "You sound shocked."
"I am," Louis snaps. "Why are you here?"
"Louis," Armand says slowly, forcing himself through the threshold, walking toward Louis as Louis stumbles back, his knees hitting the bed. "You told me to come. Didn't you? It's okay. You don't have to put up a fight to make it okay."
Armand leans down and kisses him, hands clutching his face like he has to make sure Louis is real. Louis exhales shakily, letting Armand kiss him, opening his mouth when a tongue swipes at his bottom lip.
His hands are at the lapels of Armand's coat and he should shove him back, say something cutting, put a knife through his heart. Instead, he pushes it off his shoulders, hands greedy on Armand's chest, his back, his ass as he finally starts kissing Armand back properly.
Armand groans and pushes him down onto the bed, tearing at his clothes. How many times have they done this? Yet it feels like they've never done this before with how clumsy their hands are as they undress each other, how desperate they as they kiss.
Armand must have eaten recently because his skin is so warm it's almost like he's been sitting under the sun all day, and Louis shivers at all that naked skin touching his, the hair on their chests rubbing together.
"My darling," Armand says like a prayer, kissing his neck. "Louis."
Louis fists a hand through his hair and pulls him back up to his mouth, nuzzling their faces together. "What the fuck are you doing here, Armand?"
Armand spreads his legs and gets between them, rubbing his hard dick against Louis's, eyes unblinking and so deep that Louis can't look away. "I've been waiting."
Louis huffs, grinding back. "For this?"
Armand leans down and smiles against his mouth, boyishly happy. "There is a house. It's the only one for miles with a beach of its own."
Louis's brow furrows. "What?"
"We could swim at night," Armand sighs into his mouth, grinding slowly and deliciously against him. "I could watch you — take photos, write a book. Whatever you want, Louis." Louis's body is going cold and he's starting to stiffen under Armand. But Armand doesn't seem to notice, lost to the fantasy he's building. "There's a plane waiting to take us."
The idea is so horrifying that Louis shoves Armand off before he can say anything, hard enough that Armand is shoved to the ground.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Louis snaps. Anger is flowing through his body. The presumption, the nerve. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Armand stares at him from where he's still splayed on the ground, blinking slowly like he's searching for where the scene has gone off-script. "You called me."
Louis rubs at his mouth. They're still naked. "What did you think this was?"
"You called me," Armand says again, and he's glaring now, getting up to stand. "You've been calling me, Louis. I heard you."
"You've been in my head again? That's what you mean?" Louis doesn't know why he's so surprised, why he feels so violated. Armand has proven that he's willing to do that and more, hasn't he?
And yet he is surprised. Maybe because the distance, the phone calls they've had, the easy way Armand has been talking to him have all lulled him into believing that he had control over the situation.
It's painfully naive, he sees that now.
Armand seems to realize his misstep, too. He hunches, tries to make himself smaller. It's shockingly manipulative. "I'm sorry, Louis. I'm sorry."
"You need to go," Louis says, shaking his head. "You need to go before I pull your fucking head off your shoulders."
"If that's what you need—"
"Don't," Louis interrupts him with a harsh laugh. His heart is beating an uneven pattern in his chest. "Is this what you're always going to do? Pretend to be whatever you think I want?"
"If it works," Armand replies, his voice bleak. Louis doesn't know if it's true. He doesn't know anything at all, it turns out.
Claudia isn't here to tell Louis how stupid he is, but he hears her cutting voice all the same.