(Prompts from this list! Feel free to send me some!)
OH BOY, RAPH. LOOK WHAT YOU WENT AND DID.
142: “It’s just your imagination.”
Shaky fingers are clawing at the pale arms, and the whole body is curling in on itself, and there’s sweat and blood, and Armand feels something heavy sinking inside when he realizes it’s familiar.
Blonde hair this time, and the palpable, overpowering smell of human fear filling the room. He takes a step back, away, watching the way the shoulders hunch, the way the vertebrae bulge out like spikes.
“They’re in my skin, Armand,” he’s crying, and scratching, and his pathetic human nails are only raising the most fragile little white lines. Barely breaking the skin.
His throat feels dry and he takes another step back. “It’s just your imagination,” he mumbles.
And he’s cold suddenly, even in the Florida heat. In the air so humid and heavy that it enfolds you. He feels the chill and remembers the way the drafts used to cut through the tower, and how it would hover around stones as if they were ice.
His hands had still been bloody, and his forehead pressed to the heavy wood door. Whimpering beyond it, and the pitiable wet thump as he’d attempted to pound at it without the use of fists.
“Armand,” gasping and screaming. “Please, please, they’re crawling all over me.”
Eleni’s hand, gentle and loving on his back as he froze there.
It’s just your imagination.
The sun would be up. He’d backed away from the heavy tower door, barred and sealed like a tomb. Left him there where he’d be safe from the dawn.
But this.
Daniel’s chest heaving, bones contorted into rigid, unnatural lines. And Armand had to go now.
Cutting Armand’s hair every night isn’t something new. He does it on his own sometimes, and he accommodates Daniel’s giddy, childish curiosity about it on those nights, too. It starts just with scissors, and then Daniel teaches him about electric clippers, and then it turns into crewcuts and flattops and elaborate patterns carved in. Daniel sometimes touches the tufts of hair that land in the sink and on the floor, and he rolls the strands between his fingers in rapt fascination.
“It doesn’t… feel like real hair,” he says one night. Mohawk tonight, and Armand runs a hand down his shorn scalp, just above the sideburn left behind, and even on a vampire it feels soft like peach fuzz. Daniel pulls a long lock from the sink and wraps it tight around his knuckle until his fingertip turns white.
“What do you mean, Daniel?”
“I don’t know, it feels…” unnatural. “Different.”
He shrugs and drops it, then touches the shaved side of Armand’s head, as well. He scratches behind Armand’s ear and it elicits a head tilt and a smile and soft purr.
“Hey, Armand?”
His eyes are closed and his head is still tilted towards Daniel’s hand, nuzzling the warmth in his palm. “Mmm?”
“Can we try to dye it? Do you think it would take?”
They start with a strip test. Daniel runs out and buys the bleach during the day so that they can try immediately when Armand wakes up. At first it’s just a streak that comes up from his forehead and curls around his face. It takes longer than it should on regular hair, but they’re not worried about the damage it might cause, and Armand doesn’t seem to feel it burning where it’s too low against his scalp. Hours later and it’s done and they can’t stop touching it. Daniel can’t stop combing his fingers through it and marveling at the way it twists in with the other curls. Armand keeps it for three nights before he cuts it off and starts again.
Then it’s his whole head one night, and it takes hours for the auburn to burn down to a pale yellow, almost white. Daniel inspects it every night, curious to know if the Dark Gift will restore the stripped cells and pleased to learn that it does not. The hair still feels unnatural but doesn’t feel damaged the way human hair would. Several times, he catches Armand frozen in place, staring at himself in the mirror with his knuckles against his mouth, and it’s an expression he doesn’t know how to read.
“Can I straighten it?” he asks one night, and It takes hours and way too much hair spray because the curls keep creeping back into place, and eventually Daniel settles for snapping a quick Polaroid before they all pop back in, so that he can have this one memento of the ten minutes Armand had straight blonde hair. They try it again a few nights later with Aqua Net in an aerosol can and wind up with some approximation of Siousxie hair, and even though Daniel thinks it looks cute, Armand mumbles something about being too flammable and washes it out as soon as he can.
And finally there’s the trip to Manic Panic on St. Marks, and the cat hisses at them when they come in, and Armand stares at it coldly as his skin gleams in the ugly fluorescent light, and the girls behind the counter delight in advising them on all the best colors, and they’re nervous, they can feel something is off but can’t figure out what, but they’re still drawn to the danger, as seduced by it as Daniel is. He and Armand leave with one of every color.
Daniel tries a purple on himself, and his hair is light enough that it takes without bleach, and he’s stained the tops of his ears and the corner of his forehead. Armand goes with a dark green. The excess never permeates his skin, because nothing really ever does, and afterward Daniel can’t stop staring at the way it lights up the amber color of his eyes.
But Daniel’s fades after a few washes, and he stares at the way the color tints the shampoo bubbles, and the way it rinses and drips through his fingers. Stark and vivid against the white porcelain tub. And he sees the way it dissolves, night after night, from something lively and exciting to something dull, while Armand’s stays as bright and vital as ever.
And when he’s tired of it, Armand shaves his hair off so that it’ll grow back normal. And Daniel’s remains a fucking mess.
//You know… physically speaking vampires would still be able to be on the receiving end of sex. It’s not like their orifices were supernaturally disappearing after being turned… A functioning member is not the only thing that grants a man the ability to have sex.
Some vampires say the blood acts as a sort of substitute. That they simply don’t feel the need to have sex in a physical way. Which is fine. To each their own.
But I sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it is really necessary to view the (IMHO obviously remaining) anatomical ability of vampires to still have sex in some form as a thing that is somehow suddenly so impossible that it borders on the absurd to even think of it. Some seem to be rather aggressive about it-
I’m in agreement – Blood-sharing is the highest form of intimacy between vampires but why should that include other forms of intimacy and closeness, especially with creatures who are so attuned to physical sensation? We were told in the Story of the Twins that the spirit Amel (and this was known even before we learned AR’s take on what Amel really was/is in PL and PLRoA), was starved for the sensations of the physical, driven to wanting physical experience to the point that it actively sought contact, drew blood from human in minuscule amounts and then ultimately assumed a symbiotic relationship with Akasha’s body as she died, creating a new sort of being altogether.
It was about sensation, about experiencing all that was possible to experience. Vampire senses are enhanced upon their change from mortal to immortal and those enhancements continue throughout the existence of the vampire. That’s my verbose way of saying –why deny the pleasures of the flesh (unless that is one’s choice rather than an impossibility)?
And if the vampire embarks on a relationship with a mortal (probably not advisable, but arguable inevitable with some personalities) certainly there is nothing to prevent the vampire from pleasuring the mortal or even taking pleasure from that moral. In addition, the mind gift would likely have uses as an ehhancement.
Canonically, AR began with the idea that vampires did not have sex, but even that had exceptions(Marius and Pandora, for instance) after time had passed. It was described as less than satsfying. Many -most, actually- physiological details are left ambiguous, so who is to say what is functional or not.
Fanfic, though…it goes anywhere the imaginations of the authors want to take it. Some prefer to stick to canon, others, not so much. There are as many variations as can be imagined and they can and do change with the levels of interest each author might want to express/explore. I don’t see either way why it would be impossible, only that the pull of blood-drinking might be al that some of them want. Everyone’s mileage vary on the subject, of course.
Summary: Lestat makes a surprise visit to Trinity Gate in NYC, tries his best to convince Louis to come home with him. Takes place right near the beginning of Prince Lestat.
Characters: Lestat, Louis, Armand (very short appearance)
Words: 2930
Warnings: No warnings apply
No major spoilers but it takes place at the beginning of PL.
Lestat listened to the sound of footfall outside the bedroom. A very light step, like that of a cat – Armand, he reasoned, followed by the deliberate, steady pace of a vampire who let his weight sink into the stylish carpet as if he had the right to pretend to be human.
He glanced towards the French doors of Louis’s bedroom, checking that he had shut them behind him when he had made his usual grand entrance through them, and gave a satisfied nod before his lip curled in disgust at the requisite mess surrounding the bed (“It’s called a ‘ floordrobe’,” Benji had told him). His own clothes were neatly folded on the chaise near the window, but he had decided – in a burst of generosity – that he would toss them to one side should Louis wish to take their entertainment to the chaise. It reminded him of a strikingly similar one they’d had in the Rue Royale, a sturdy chaise that had survived many amorous encounters between them. A shock of lust crashed through him; what a generous maker he was, giving Louis a nice nostalgic visit.
Louis’s footsteps drew nearer to the door; Lestat heard him mutter something to Armand, and then the slow turn of the knob. He stretched out his tawny body, rearranged some of the rose petals to discreetly cover his treasure (better to delay Louis meeting his old friend to build the need and lust between them), ensured the silk throw was nestled over one hip invitingly, and rested his head on one hand.
Armand could feel the extra energy as he came through the carriageway into the back garden. Not completely sure what it was, only that he could sense them moving in the flat, and there was something sweet and playful and innocent infused in it, thrumming beneath the presence itself. Lestat was home, he could feel that as well, and Louis. Their energies were different from each other, each palpable and distinct. Lestat felt bold and loud and vivid, Louis soft and sweet and comforting. Lestat was a popping champagne bottle, the splatter of paint on a Pollock canvas, a firework in the night sky. Louis was a gentle hand on your back, reassuring whisper in your ear, the slow and seductive pull of dawn.
I’m here, he told them as he ascended the stairs. He wondered if he should let himself inside, or knock, but instead put his hands in his pockets and waited.
But then Lestat’s face was in the window, his eyes glittery and excited, skin darkened by the recent trip to the sun. The door opened on its own, Lestat’s doing, and it was instantly obvious that he’d chosen to use his mind because his hands were full.
Before he could speak, Lestat extended one arm out, in his hand a single German Shepherd puppy. Three others wiggled against his chest and he cooed in French at them. “Here,” he said, and thrust the one into Armand’s chest. Armand grabbed it instinctively, somewhat bewildered but immediately charmed by the warmth and purity radiating from the creature. “I named this one Armand.”
The spike of anger and reflexive venomous response that usually came out in these moments were quelled by the gentle life in his hands, and he looked away from Lestat to stare at it. It was kicking its legs and squirming but he gave it a little scratch behind its ear to calm it down. It stopped moving and looked at him, eyes so shiny and black, and responded by licking his face. Armand ducked his head so that Lestat wouldn’t see his smile.
“Come inside, I want to close the door. Don’t let them out,” Lestat said, and backed away to make space.
He saw Louis then, when he cleared the doorway, still snuggling his namesake to his chest. Sitting cross-legged on the velvet couch, Mojo curled up beside him, a solid black puppy in his hands. He was scratching its ears and smiling at it and…
Strange ache in his chest, because he’d never seen that look on Louis’s face before.
“Where did all these puppies come from?” he asked. Louis looked up at him as if waking from a trance, like he’d been too absorbed to even notice Armand had arrived.
“Turns out Mojo is a lady,” Lestat said. He plopped down on the floor in the center of the room and took turns giving each puppy pats on their heads. They climbed on his legs and chewed on his shirt.
He held his puppy away from his face to inspect it again. It tilted its head at him and whined, and… strange ache again as he realized how unusual it was, and how he was straining to remember last time he’d held an animal this close. At home, in Kiev. They could never keep pets in Venice. He felt cold all over for a moment before pulling it to his chest again, feeling its warm little body settling against him and hearing the fluttery little heartbeat.
“What are you going to do with them?”
Lestat shrugged and picked one up, rubbing his face against its chubby, furry belly.
“Why don’t you give one to Daniel? Maybe you can win him back.”
I-want-my-IWTV 