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The salaryman tastes like misery and cheap beer, but after watching him slump lifeless to the wet ground, Louis wipes his mouth and says, “More.”
“Beloved, I…”
Louis’ eyes flash, the mist receding for a moment to pin Armand under that cut-glass stare. “You wanna go home, go home. Better off without your goddamn hovering anyway.” The blood – their third victim of the night – has already pooled somewhere low in Armand’s gut, like a dropped stone sinking in a lake. He imagines it’s worse for Louis, who has taken deep swallows for Armand’s small sips.
But what’s good for Louis has not always been what he needs, so Armand bites his tongue and follows his lead.
“I hate this city. Should have known the market was going to crash,” Louis mutters to himself. They’re keeping to the shadows, the edges of neon Kabukichō and its array of lost souls. For all his purported hate, Louis slinks deeper and deeper. No matter the city they’re in, he finds and follows the trail of disappointment and blood-swollen cocks.
Louis stops suddenly and turns towards Armand. “You’re thinking something.”
Armand nearly smiles. “Yes, it is my nature.”
“No, if you’re thinking something, you might as well fucking say it. Say it.”
“Okay.” Armand nods past Louis’ shoulder at a youth slumped against a flickering lamppost, lighting a cigarette. His broad shoulders fill out his half-a-decade-late jacket and his jeans are cuffed at the ankles. “There’s your final course.”
“I don’t need you making decisions for me, yeah?” But Louis zips across the street anyway and Armand watches as he holds the boy struggling against the lamppost, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he drinks him down.
Armand approaches and picks up the fallen, still-smoking cigarette. “Are you satisfied?”
“You’ve got some fucking gall, asking me that.” Louis’ voice is rough. He lets go and jumps at the sound of the boy’s head cracking against the metal pole. If anyone else hears, they don’t stir. “Give me that.”
Louis plucks the cigarette from Armand’s fingers and sucks. “He didn’t even get to smoke it,” he murmurs on the exhale, eyes drawn to the bleached corpse at his feet.
Armand takes a step forward. Louis stumbles away and heaves himself dry. It spreads, black and sleek, until it nudges against the toe of Armand’s boot.
“We should go, Louis,” he ventures.
“Okay.” A broken inhale. “Yeah.”