#so probably

ok so she and ivy as a pair (COUPLE) were based off of..drumroll.......

plus my old art of them:

Paris, when things were still new.

Louis lay in bed, Armand beside him.

Armand’s slicked-back hair had come undone, unraveled in the throes of falling into each other. They’d been speaking about jazz, which turned into a general conversation about the value of modern artistic trends and their sources. That led into a brief discussion about Josephine Baker, then that had somehow turned into Louis asking if Armand had ever visited Stein’s infamous salon, and finally they had arrived on the subject of Hemingway and whether or not he was as unpleasant as his writing suggested (“Worse,” Armand had laughed).

And somehow all of that had ended up with both of them necking, passionate but surprisingly chaste, before falling into bed.

Things were not what they would later become. There were no Maîtres or Aruns yet in the room with them. But it was becoming clear to both that Louis preferred a more active role in the bedroom and Armand was actually happy to oblige.

And now, after, Louis lay with his head against Armand’s bicep. Running his hand down the length of that strong, slender forearm, across the bridge of Armand’s knuckles.

He shifted to look up at Armand’s face.

He liked him like this. Soft and ruffled, hazy-eyed and fond.

Tucked away as they were, Louis could almost forget that Armand was Maître, out there. He was starting to understand just how much Armand enjoyed forgetting, too.

Yeah, Louis could almost forget.

Almost.

Tentative, Louis raised his hand up. Passed it back up Armand’s arm, over the planes of his chest. Across his chin.

Armand let him. Curious, and unafraid.

Louis placed the tip of his finger to Armand’s lips. “You never drink from me.”

It had taken a while before Armand would allow his own blood to pass Louis’s lips. He had not said why, but Louis thought he understood. Blood was power, blood was vulnerability. As vampires, it was who they were, in the most literal sense of the term. Louis’s fangs had come out without him even realizing, one night while they were together, and instead of turning away or going blank-faced, Armand caught sight of those fangs. Ran a hand up along the back of Louis’s neck. Gently pressed Louis’s lips down against his own neck.

Louis didn’t have much experience drinking from other vampires, and he’d not known to expect something so different from Lestat. Lestat had been thick and rich, with a strong metallic aftertaste Louis had had to learn to get used to. But Armand? Armand had been something else, maybe something better and worse all at once. Like venom, but headier, and somehow sweeter, too.

It was not every time that Armand would offer his own vein. But Louis always took to it with relish.

Now, though, as he ran a finger along the outside of Armand’s mouth, he couldn’t help the question. “Why don’t you drink from me?”

“You never offer.”

“And you never ask.”

Armand shifted, minute, a tell that he was uncomfortable Louis had learned so recently to read. “I do not crave blood the way I did, being older.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about here.”

Armand took too long to blink. Another tell. He swallowed. “If you want to give it to me, you will.” He stared somewhere off in the distance. “I have no wish to offer my fangs to those who do not really wish to take them. Unless I have to,” he said, meaning humans and food and life again. Not the other thing.

Louis felt the ghost of something in the room with them, running chill nails down his spine. A ghost that was distinctly Lestat-shaped. Wondered how Lestat could have left so many broken things in his wake.

He ran his fingertips again along Armand’s lips. Armand let him press them apart.

“Hold out your fangs,” Louis meant to say, but it came out a mutter, closer to a question.

Nevertheless, Armand complied. Brown-gold eyes watched Louis with avid interest, the whole time.

Louis ran the tip of his middle finger down one. It was pretty much the same as any other vampire fang, his own or Lestat’s, in the weight and sense. The sharpness of the point. The difference was that it was Armand’s.

Louis pulled back, let his own fangs loose. Ran fingertips across the sharpest edge, until blood beaded up.

Then ran one of his fingers, again, along Armand’s bottom lip.

Armand blinked, a quick measure to cover how his eyes went to roll back.

Louis bit his own lip without meaning to.

Slow, Armand stuck his tongue out, lapped at his own lip.

“What do I taste like?” Louis whispered.

Armand ran his tongue across his lip again, an involuntary motion, and let his eyes flutter shut. “You taste,” he murmured, “like life itself.”

Louis frowned, unsure if Armand was trying to be coy again.

Armand opened his eyes. “You taste like... rich brandy and dusty books. You taste like the blood of humans, if humans tasted like anything but food.” He looked at Louis, whose heart was pounding though he did not know why. “You taste unique. Like something I’ve never known before.” He gave a wry smile. “A vampire with good taste. That’s rare enough.”

Louis didn’t know what to say to that. Pleased. Charmed. 

And still not sure he could trust, fully, that he wasn’t being managed. Somehow.

The candle guttered.

Lestat’s shadow ran long across the wall.

Wordlessly, Louis pushed each one of his still-bleeding fingers, one by one, into Armand’s mouth. Perhaps to shut him up.

Armand’s eyes crinkled with a smile and fell closed. Warm tongue lapped at Louis’s edges.

Yes.