Chapter Text
They had managed some peace for a few months after the disaster on Divisadero. Armand had wondered privately if erasing Louis’ memories of the brutal consequences of his latest drug binge would encourage him to go right back out into the streets. But apparently, the interview itself and Louis’ loss of control at the end of it were enough to motivate him to attempt not sabotaging every part of their life.
It did not last.
This episode started similarly to Louis’ previous cycles: less eating, more partying, haphazard hunting while high, and, finally, disappearing. Armand was at two days now without having heard from Louis and if he was honest with himself, he was angry.
Desperate, upset, exhausted, afraid—But also angry. Would this loop truly never end? Was there nothing he could offer Louis anymore so that he would always end up preferring mind altering substance and mindless sex?
Before Divisadero, Armand had been so exhausted that he had begun wondering what would happen if he did not go looking for Louis for once, if he allowed Louis to finally face some consequences for his actions.
Of course, then he found out that his worst fears were correct and Louis would like as not end up in the sun. He was also forced to face the fact that as exhausted as he was, as helpless and heartbroken as he felt, he would not be able to emotionally survive losing Louis. A thousand years of suicide watch were indeed better than being without Louis completely. That was what had motivated his change of heart after the trial, too.
So there he was, once again searching for Louis in the dingiest parts of San Francisco. He had covered most of Louis’ favored clubs and bars of the more respectable sort with no luck. The Tenderloin afforded him more success – he cornered one of Louis’ more regular dealers in the back room of a club thick with cigarette smoke and, underneath it, smelling faintly of sweet rot.
Lil' Bags was a scrawny fellow with shifty eyes and nervous, agile hands. He looked Armand up and down as though evaluating how much was safe not to say to him. He quickly came to the correct answer – not a lot. “Look man, I haven’t seen him for a while, but you might want to try the warehouse district near the piers. You know where the old cannery building is? Yea.”
Armand turned to go, grabbing a snapshot of the location from Bags’ mind just in case.
“Hey man, I don’t know what your deal with pretty boy is, but you might wanna stay out of it for a while.” When Armand paused at the door without turning around, Bags continued in his gratingly nasal voice. “Somebody from the Mission went missing the other night. One of Salazar’s boys. Went home with someone who looks like your guy and acts like him too – smooth, charming, talks like he’s too good to be in the room.”
“This city is full of men like that,” Armand said flatly, hand still on the doorknob.
“Well, they think it’s him. Doesn’t help he’s been seen hanging out with Reds, yea? Hey, don’t tell me later I didn’t warn you, man.”
Armand sighed, finally out of patience. He needed to get Louis off the streets and back home. “You never saw me,” he said quietly, reaching for Bags’ mushy mind with the Mind Gift. Then, he was out the door at vampiric speed.
*
Closer to the docks, Armand managed to find and hold onto the imprint of Louis’ mind. He was not certain if it was the approaching morning or if Louis was once again too hopped up on drugs to keep his shields up, but Armand was finally able to hook onto the feeling of Louis and follow it until he finally found him.
They were on a quiet, dark street, surrounded by warehouses and boarded up buildings, half-abandoned commercial infrastructure and neglected slums making the blocks uneven and distorting the sound of industrial motors and ventilation systems huffing away even at night on odd blocks. The area was miserable. Armand could not imagine what Louis thought to find there.
“Louis!” he called from a block away, making Louis stop in his tracks and turn around. Armand watched the expression on Louis’ face cycle through confusion, frustration, dark amusement, and finally settle into something closer to annoyance.
“Well, you found me. Congratulations!”
Armand sucked in a breath and forced himself to not explode. Last time, that had gone very badly. They could not afford that again. “We should go home.”
“Mm. You can go.”
“Louis. It’s almost morning.” Something like déjà vu hit Armand hard enough to make his head spin. His fangs itched and he struggled to hold them back.
“I didn’t ask you to come looking for me.”
“No,” Armand snapped, before closing his eyes briefly and reeling in his irritation. “You simply disappeared half-feral into the city and left me to guess where you are, what you are doing and when you are coming home. If you are coming home.” His voice broke suddenly, just as he came to stand directly in front of Louis, their eyes meeting in a perverse competition of wills. Divisadero flashed in front of Armand’s eyes. But Louis did not know about any of that.
Louis gave a short, unsteady laugh. An ugly sound. “You always make it sound so dramatic. Maybe I just wanted a little goddamn distance from your hovering.”
“Louis.” Armand sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Did we not discuss this after—after what happened on Divisadero? You agreed you would try.”
Louis’ expression darkened, his eyebrows furrowing. He did not like being called on a failure to do something he said he would. “I did. I am. I’m not even high right now.”
“No?”
Something about Louis’ expression looked pained, like he was confused or perhaps simply deciding how to best say something to Armand. “I haven’t hunted since…last night? Two nights ago? I don’t—"
“Who did you eat?” Armand asked.
Louis’s face did something complicated. “What’s it matter to you?”
“Louis, if you’re in trouble—”
“I’m not in trouble!”
“The last thing we need is a cartel hunting you!”
“A cart—Who have you fucking been talking to? Maybe stay out of my business?”
“I would if you weren’t constantly trying to destroy yourself!”
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Armand reached for him instinctively.
Louis shoved him away and hissed, fangs down. “Don’t touch me. I’m not—one of your broken little projects!”
“This is ridiculous—”
Armand should have noticed it earlier – the sound of tires on cracked asphalt, the rumble of an engine, muffled by the permeating industrial hum but distinguishable to vampire ears. The van careened out of the wet, marine fog mere meters away from them, headlights off, the windows tinted black. Armand caught it with his peripheral vision. It took his mind – entirely focused on convincing Louis to just come home – a moment to catch up with the sudden, instinctive clenching in his stomach.
He watched Louis’ eyes go wide, but all of Louis’ reflexes were muted – whether by drugs or hunger, Armand didn’t know, did not have time to deliberate on.
He lungeed forward, barreling into Louis and knocking him off his feet as the first bang of a shotgun round exploded through the monotonous hum of machinery and the deep thrum of some far-away underground rave. Armand felt his body slam into Louis’ a millisecond before he felt the first bullet strike the back of his skull.
Pain bloomed from his head and down through the rest of his body.
Then all of his senses cut out.
*~*
An instinctive terror took over Louis as the bullets pinged on the sidewalk and the van wheeled by. Louis tensed up and attempted to shove off the protective weight on top of him. It took him a few moments to realize Armand wasn’t pinning him down, just laying motionless atop him, and that a dampness was spreading down his neck.
Louis got up, realizing only too late he should be more careful and perhaps play dead a little longer - he almost invariably heard such cautions in Armand’s voice now. Still, nobody shot him down and Armand lay quietly at his feet, the perfect imitation of the most beautiful corpse in the world, hair soaked in blood, the exit wounds perched like lush twin cherries over his right eyebrow.
“Armand? We need to go, baby, it’s dangerous here…”
He caught himself, choked down a scream, gently shifted Armand’s motionless body into his arms. He half knelt and stopped, paralyzed with terror that the back of Armand’s skull would give out and everything would spill down his legs and all would be over. That did not happen, so he rose up and hiked Armand up to rest his head on Louis’ shoulder, just to be absolutely safe.
He directed himself vaguely homeward, but he realized they were very far - he could almost feel it in Armand’s voice, the soft tearful chiding for straying so far from their marital nest. There had been a perverse enjoyment in that, seeing how many nights he could grin and smoke as the four hundred year old vampire of godlike power pretended to be small and helpless for him, before a night would come that he’d finally get sick of this theatre and tear his head off. Clearly, though, there was some truth to the pantomime: Armand could, in fact, be helpless. Being far from home was biting them in the ass, and Louis was in no state to be a protective husband.
Paradoxically, he found himself wishing he had gotten properly high tonight. Abstinence was pounding at his head and melting at the bottom of his gut, his whole body felt damp and unsteady, as if Armand might slip through his arms at any moment. When he tried to touch his mind, the texture was unlike anything he had ever felt from his companion, not the rubbery half-raised shields of peaceful sleep nor the swirls of a nightmare, only an overpowering beam of buzzing static that almost made them both fall over. It was getting so close to dawn.
He took a last look at the greying horizon and made his choice. He soldiered on to the first house with a for sale sign on the door he could find, broke down the door and stumbled down to the basement.
Going down the stairs, he passed Claudia climbing up, a fleeting glimpse of red flannel and red eyes, as she had appeared to him decades earlier through the haze of his bloody eyes.
“Come back, sweetie, I can't figure this out. How did you do it when it was me in this state?”
How did you bear it, most of all, was what he couldn’t possibly picture. The basement felt lonely; the townhouse in the middle of the city where nobody remembered her name must have felt like being on the moon. But Claudia couldn’t be blamed for wanting nothing to do with either of their sufferings, and vanished quick as a bird.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. There was no couch or bed in the basement and he didn’t dare wander upstairs: He laid Armand down on a metal table, took off his own jacket and folded it down into a soft layer under Armand’s head. Was that a sensible thing to do? Should he turn Armand on his side? You probably weren’t supposed to move someone with a broken skull, but he could never tell when the rules applied to them the same as mortals, if any harm done could linger, transmit itself to the spine and nerves from the stress of a wrong angle, if a vampire could die of that.
He remembered that night in the church it had looked like the bullets had gone through Lestat’s shoulder like water - had it been his imagination or just the first of his many lies of how the dark gift would be? It seemed like there was always some way a body could be broken, the only harm denied to them was the final release.
The sun was starting to come up, punctual as death. A small ray was spilling out dangerously close to Armand’s neck, out of the overhead light hole. Louis picked him up again to tuck him carefully in a corner, kissed his forehead and slit his own wrist over him, only to find more sunlight infiltration by the wall, from the ground level windows. Cursing, he moved Armand a little further in, but he felt it wouldn't be enough - you didn't need to burn for the sun to make you weak and hard to wake, and he couldn’t allow any chance of that, even if Armand had normally become sun resistant these days.
Louis moved the table over him, draped his jacket over Armand’s face, then chanced a quick trip upstairs to the first floor powder room to soak his shirt in cold water and wrapped it tightly around Armand’s head to hopefully keep everything inside. He was midway through unbuttoning his pants for an extra dark layer when he remembered about the blood. Louis wiped off the trail that was by now reaching his elbow and angled down his wrist so Armand could drink. Louis felt Armand’s lips tremble in response, but not quite suck, and his body convulsed in a painful-looking spasm as the blood crawled down his throat, but otherwise there was no response.
“Is it any better, baby?”
Nothing. The static in Armand’s mind was quieter now, which could be a good sign as well as not.
“I hope it doesn't hurt. I hope you're just getting the first peaceful sleep I've let you have in a while, and that… and if despite everything, you still would like to see me again at sunset…”
He broke off, cheeks burning with embarrassment and eyes full of tears. He had really thought he was almost clean, felt clean and empty and always tired as he was supposed to feel when he didn’t seek any extra help. But apparently he was still tainted, the farthest thing from the magic awakening call that Armand’s blood had been for him in the crypt. Please, I promise I’ll never do it again.
He remembered the first time he had woken up high, in a pool of blood and vomit with a dead boy tucked in beside him in the coffin. He had felt completely certain that Armand was of course going to leave him now, nobody’s love or patience could extend that far, Louis couldn’t be the only one to always fall short. It had been an exhilarating thought, yet he had burst into tears until Armand came to find him. He had never thought this would be how Armand might leave him.
Louis screamed as he thrust his arm into the light in frustration, and was caught staring when the burn was more of a tingle and nothing formed on his skin. He blinked until the sun retreated, leaving them alone and safe. Of course.
“I have absolutely no time for this now,” he hissed into the darkness.
The darkness was not mindful of his sorrows, choosing instead to coil up into another figure. His heart twisted up as he saw only what he deserved: no Claudia but Lestat, smiling sardonically in his Mardi Gras suit.
"Sixty years gone past and still it's the only way you can love."
He turned away, blinking, focused on wiping away the still-creeping bloodstain on Armand’s temple with his sleeve. "You can keep coming for me all you want, Lestat, I couldn’t give less of a shit about what you think of me.”
“Who says I’m coming for you? Can’t I want to come see my old maitre one last time? I think you might finally be rid of him.” Louis had slid between him and Armand instinctively, but of course that wasn't going to stop the fucking apparition from kneeling down right through him and taking a sniff of Armand’s bloody hair. “Tell me, is it finally a bit of latent sadism that had you waiting twenty three years to finish the job, or just one of your old spells of laziness?”
“Fuck off.” He edged back to the corner, pulled Armand in his lap to lay his head against his chest and hid his own face in his hair, the perfect romantic picture of systematical refusal to ever face your deeds.
He closed his eyes, hands trembling as he pulled Armand closer. He hadn't had the fucker in so long. Claudia, yes, always in his darkest times, if not as often as he missed her, but Lestat he thought he had left behind in the tower forever. Of course, why shouldn't he return now that Armand was defenseless?
It had been Armand, and Armand's love - Arun's love, devout and unhindered - that had dispelled him on that park bench decades ago, Armand's love, battered and unforgiven, he had wielded against Lestat in the tower. Hell, having Armand was probably the only reason why he hadn't already gone back to Lestat, flowed helplessly back to him like rainwater as he had so many times in New Orleans for all of Claudia's efforts. Now they had both betrayed and spat on that love in a hundred ways, why should he still expect to be protected?
But I'll stop. I don't care: if he survives I will forgive him, I will love him just as we used to, he pleaded into the emptiness, pressing Armand's cold hand to his chest like a sacred relic.
Even the promise of such a faithless creature must have some worth, for when he opened his eyes again Lestat was gone for the rest of the day, and he could lay next to Armand and wait for the moment of truth undisturbed.
*~*
Armand drifted into consciousness slowly, like meandering through a dark, thick maze, slowly drifting upwards to the surface of an ocean made of syrup. It was not how he usually woke from vampiric sleep. His usual waking was fast and crisp, a few seconds of all of his senses gearing up before he was in full wakefulness. This time, he felt odd, as though he was trapped inside his own head, all of his senses oddly scrambled.
He tried to open his eyes and found nothing but blackness. Not the soothing darkness of a coffin, but simply – nothingness, like staring into a black hole. He tried to hear and picked up nothing intelligible, except for a variety of searing high-pitched whistles, like an old electric box. A string of panic began to wind around Armand’s chest, although he suddenly became acutely aware that he could not actually feel his chest. He knew where it ought to be, but he could not seem to gain any sensory information from the area – was he wearing a shirt? Was he lying in a coffin or on a floor? Was he even…lying down? He must have been...
His limbs did not obey him when he tried to move them.
He could very faintly smell and taste blood, vampire senses breaking through the otherwise entire numbness of his body. Except that, he felt completely disconnected, as though his mind had been entirely separated from the rest of his body.
A spike of fear flashed through him – beheading? But no, he would surely have been dead then. Also…why would he be in such a sorry situation to begin with? Armand tried to recollect what had happened last, but for several moments, he could not seem to arrange his thoughts and memories in any semblance of chronological order.
The more Armand tried to remember the harder it became. Pressure gathered around him, although, confusingly, he could not tell where it was coming from or what part of his body it was affecting – like he had been shoved into a trash compactor. He caught snatches of memory – being worried about Louis, sweeping through San Francisco in search of Louis, a smoky club, fog, Louis’ voice shouting something at him, explosions— Explosions? No, that did not seem correct.
Where was Louis?
Another spike of fear made Armand reel with nausea, but he could not move or even register what position his limbs were in or orient himself in the black nothingness around him. Completely disoriented, he reached for the Mind Gift, attempting to spread his consciousness beyond himself.
Louis? Louis, can you hear me?
The pressure surrounding his body shifted and seemed to pass through him in waves or vibrations, a thrumming against him skin, or perhaps his bones – Armand could not actually feel either the presence of absence of having skin, which was baffling and somewhat frightening. Louis?
Then suddenly, booming through the darkness— Baby, I’m here. Can you hear me? Armand?
Yes.
Oh, thank God.
Louis, what is happening?
The Mind Gift seemed to be coming through. It cost Armand effort – sending every thought felt like dipping beneath the surface of a black lake and having to struggle up for air with unresponsive limbs and a body made of lead. Understanding what Louis was saying back took effort as well—every word seemed to tear through something behind Armand’s eyes.
Baby, it’s okay. You’re s—you’ll be okay. I mean, I mean, this kind of thing can take a minute to come back from, but you—you’ll be okay.
For all of Louis’ attempts to be reassuring, Armand could hear the panic and desperation in his voice. That was not reassuring. He also had not answered Armand’s question.
Louis. Can you explain, please? Where are we? I can’t see or hear anything. I don’t think I can move… The last thing I recall is looking for you—or maybe us arguing?
He felt through the Mind Gift more than actually heard Louis swallow and cough anxiously. Yea. There was a drive-by. They shot—they were gunning for me, I think, or. I don’t know. But you got between me and the van and took a couple slugs to the back of the head—Fuck, Armand, it’s pretty bad. The entire back of your skull is shattered. Sounded like a shotgun but I don’t—I’m not a gun guy— Louis broke off into the mental equivalent of a choked sob. I’m sorry, baby…
Armand took a few moments to process all that. It did not bring back any new memories or make any of the ones he had managed to grasp onto any clearer, but it did explain some things – like why all of his senses were completely inaccessible or giving him what were likely false sensations. The pressure he felt was possibly a blanket or Louis’ arms around him. The sudden bursts of heat and pinpricks of icicle-like cold could be his body picking up Louis’ movements or the movement of air. Sometimes, the high-pitched ringing in his ears would change and warp, and for a moment Armand would think something nonsensical like, that smells like a triangle, instead of a more accurate, the pitch of that sound has changed.
He would have sighed in frustration if he could. Then another thought made him nauseous all over again. Are you hurt? When Louis did not immediately respond, Armand sent a more panicked, Louis, tell me.
I’m-I’m fine love, it’s—you don’t need to worry about me. Fuck, Armand, don’t…try not to talk too much, ok? You’re making yourself bleed again.
Armand sent out a puzzled, questioning sensation.
From the ears, Louis clarified. I think it’s from using the Mind Gift when you’re this week.
I can’t communicate any other way just now, Armand snapped, relief that at least Louis was unharmed and they seemed to no longer be in immediate danger allowing space for a new wave of frustration to settle in.
I know, love. But just—I’m just afraid—I mean, Armand, it was bad. Fuck. It is bad. I just want—
Louis, we are vampires. This will be unpleasant, but my body will heal with time and blood. Something in Louis’ emotional aura shifted – no, spiked – at the mention of feeding, but Armand did not have the mental control or strength to interrogate the feeling properly.
Yea, well, still damn heavy when your companion is passed out for hours and hours and you have no idea how to help…
A period of unconsciousness does tend to occur after catastrophic cranial trauma, Armand supplied primly.
Fucking shit, Armand, not now. Louis’ thoughts were saturated in fond, teary amusement. Some of Louis’ distress seemed to have abated, which was a relief to Armand, because he could feel if through the Mind Gift and the emotional intensity felt like sandpaper against raw flesh in his mind. Armand had a brief thought that now Louis might understand his devastation and anger on Divisadero. Armand was not even dying whereas Louis had attempted just that. Of course, Louis did not remember that part and Armand hurried to shift his thoughts. He did not trust his mental shields in that moment.
Besides, he suddenly had another pressing thought. Did you put me in the coffin? Somehow, Armand was certain Louis had not. It did not feel like he was in his coffin, or any coffin. Armand was fairly certain his vampiric senses would let him know if he was.
Louis hesitated before responding. We’re not home, baby.
Something about that made a tidal wave of exhaustion roll over Armand. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to fall back into the blackness surrounding him and not have to think or feel anything until his body healed sufficiently for at least some semblance of coordination and function. But, of course, he could not do that. Where are we? His mental voice sounded taunt even in the ethereal space of telepathy. If Armand was lucky, they were at one of their currently empty properties in the city.
We’re in a basement in an empty for-sale house. I think it was foreclosed on.
Oh, excellent. Armand could not help the sarcasm.
I panicked! It was so close to dawn!
Armand felt like he was being slowly rotated in zero gravity. He reached out for Louis’ mind, tried to see where they were through Louis’ eyes. But this was a complicated maneuver to do at the best of times, and now it only caused violet nausea to well up within Armand, the blackness around him tightening and exploding with a million tiny lightening bolts. What he managed to glimpse through Louis’ eyes felt like gibberish – the visual equivalent of hearing a foreign language he only knew several basic words from. Armand caught images of shapes, colors, textures, but he could not seem to make any of these things make sense.
He would need to wait for his brain and nervous system to heal and regenerate more in order to properly receive information from the outside world. And for that, he would need blood.
Easy, easy, hey don’t do that, Louis was saying frantically into his mind. Armand, if you want me to tell you or show you something, just say so? I mean, I don’t know how much control you have of the Gifts right now, but, shit, please don’t try that again. You’re—your ears are bleeding a lot.
I need blood to heel faster, Armand informed him, unable to sound any less irritable and uncomfortable than he felt.
That same moment of hesitation from Louis as before, when he had admitted to them being caught out in the city at dawn. I did try to feed you my blood.
Oh?
I don’t think it—worked much.
Armand could not be certain if that was in fact the case or if the damage to his body had just been that overwhelming. Still, he could not help saying, Well, for obvious reasons, the healing efficacy of a pharmaceutical soup tends to be low.
Louis sent him the mental equivalent of an exasperated groan and an eyeroll. You’re an ass, did you know that?
Mm. I wonder why being blind and paralyzed in a strange basement might have me on edge.
Alright, Arun, enough. No more talking for a bit. Using the Mind Gift is not making your healing go faster.
Armand sent Louis the mental equivalent of a pout. It was entirely unfair for Louis to invoke Arun at that moment. The nerve, honestly. But he fell quiet and allowed himself to float in the hazy darkness surrounding him, the electric-like buzzing in his head changing frequencies – which still felt more like shapes than sounds – now and again.
After some indeterminate amount of time, Louis asked, Can you feel it when I touch your face, love?
No.
Can you tell I’m holding you?
I—I can feel you generally, but it is more your thoughts and feelings, not actual touch.
You know what? I’m gonna go out and hunt.
Are we home now?
No, honey, we can’t go home yet, remember? The sun’s still up.
How will you hunt, then?
I don’t know… Maybe I can use the Mind Gift to lure someone off the street? I’m not good at it like you and I’ve never really tried, but… First time for everything right?
Armand was having a hard time remembering where exactly they were or what the layout of their current accommodations was. Perhaps Louis had not told him in detail? Armand found it difficult to keep proper hold of his memories and thoughts in the cottony, numb darkness. But even though Louis would not be able to go outside in daylight, he still sounded like he meant to leave. Perhaps go to a different room or floor or… What if he saw the sun and felt its siren call? What if he thought to step outside for a moment to grab a victim and then found the pull of the sun too tempting? What if—
Woah, baby, baby, what’s wrong? What are you trying to do? Louis sounded panicked.
I’m not…doing anything? Armand was confused.
Your entire body just…seized up, like you were having a convulsion or something.
Armand had no answer to that. He had not even realized that was happening. Wait until we get home to hunt, he told Louis instead. He desperately, desperately did not want to be left alone in some unfamiliar, grimy place, unable to function, unable to protect either himself or Louis.
You need blood, honey, and mine obviously wasn’t the right stuff.
Please, Armand insisted. Just stay with me. Blood can wait.
A moment later, Louis’ reply came, soft and tender. Okay. Okay, love, you just rest. I’m not going anywhere.