Who: Leander Durant & Léon Pierroux What: They dance, they kiss, Leander bites… (2/2) Where: New Orleans, Louisiana When: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 Warnings: Some neck action, ifyouknowwhatImean.
"Those that court death either do it to defy something else or because they openly embrace it." Leander spoke softly, like he was speaking sweet nothings to the other man, instead of talking about death. For the vampire, it was often the same thing, but his dance partner couldn’t have known just how often they tended to coincide for him. There was nothing sweeter than someone willing to throw themselves right into death’s arms, and Leander was often guilty of supplying them. Right now, he had this man in his arms, but at least for the moment he was content to dance, even if the thought of getting his lips (and teeth) on that delicate, pulsing neck nearly made him groan. Almost equally was his desire to find out what the inside of the other man’s mouth tasted like, but it seemed like the man might actually let him, before the night was over.
The music changed and it was a little lighter, not quite as complex as music from the Baroque period, but Leander thought there was an underlying darker tone to it. Something surprisingly sinister about it, which he liked. Somewhere between Mozart and Bach, and it set the tone of the evening nicely, even if Leander was more of a Beethoven man himself. People were here to have fun, and for a little bit of mystery. Leander wagered that his new friend had come here for the same reasons, or if he hadn’t, he had found himself wanting anyway. There was a longing in his eyes and in his tone that gave him away more than he probably thought, but Leander wasn’t about to draw attention to it, not when they’d been making such promising progress so far. The man had walls, that much had been obvious to the vampire from the start, but Leander seemed to have little trouble charming him into dropping some of them. Luck was on his side tonight.
He wasn’t much for philosophy, at least not beyond hearing himself talk (Leander, like Lestat, fancied himself something of a linguist and often took his own words for some great wisdom), but he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy hearing this man talk about the merits of Freud’s crackpot theories. Leander didn’t really buy into the whole every man wants to become their father and have sex with their mother. A little too squicky for his tastes, being alive for as long as he had and engaging in many things that would shock any normal person didn’t mean Leander was without morals entirely. Keeping them moving while he leaned in another inch, their chests still firmly pressed together, Leander smiled, lips just ever so slightly parted. “So if half of us are driven to seek our own destruction and half of us are driven to mate… which half are you?”
Lucifer couldn’t know how deeply his words spoke to Léon, or to Louis. It was likely best for Léon that he never found out, because Lucifer wasn’t the sort of man that you wanted to hand the keys to your innermost self to. He didn’t even know him beyond the mask, and yet he was entirely convinced of that. Where Léon courted death only to deny himself life, he imagined that Lucifer threw himself wholeheartedly into its arms with a laugh, certain he’d come out of it unscathed. It drew Léon in like the moth to the proverbial flame, this man who in so many ways already seemed to be his balance. In the back of his mind, over the din of his thoughts, Louis advised caution, advised that this man would destroy Léon if he gave him half the chance. Léon already knew that, though, had known that when he chose to dance with the devil. It was too late for caution.
Far too late. Léon burned at Lucifer’s query as to which side of his nature he embraced. He could drag the night out more, couldn’t he? Deny himself even longer, hesitate until Lucifer simply took what he wanted. It was what he would have done, without the mask to hide behind. It was what Louis would do, had done. If one didn’t make the first move, could he be blamed when it all went horribly wrong? That had been Louis’s mask to hide behind, hadn’t it, that it had all been Lestat, Lestat who seduced him, Lestat who had turned him into a monster. If it had been all Lestat’s choice, if Lestat was to blame, then Louis could still find some sort of absolution, a salvation in being as much a victim as the unfortunate souls whose lives he had taken. If Léon demurred, if he answered the question with a misdirection, with something that would push the exchange on far enough that Lucifer lost his patience with the game and made his move, the fault wasn’t Léon’s.
Léon didn’t need the mask of someone else to blame when he already wore another, perched on his nose. If he ever saw Lucifer again (and he might; it was a large city, but stranger things had happened), the man wasn’t likely to recognize him without the haze of the alcohol, without the mask hiding part of his face. Léon was drunk, and reckless. He didn’t want to wait any longer for the sweet bliss that would help him forget the guilt that plagued his life, if only for a few hours. He met Lucifer’s eyes, breath catching and heart skipping. Then, he said, simply but with fire behind the words, “Both.” Before Lucifer could react (and before Léon lost his nerve), he closed the last of the space between them and pressed his mouth to Lucifer’s. No timid kiss, either, but a firm clash that gentled only after Léon felt his point was made, lips warm and sweet with champagne.
In all his long life, Leander wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever been kissed like that. He’d been kissed, certainly, a million different ways, and with different levels of desperation. More often than not, he’d been the one to do the kissing first, ever the one to make the first move, just like Lestat. That his dance partner had instead chosen to make the first move quite possibly only improved on an already exceptional kiss, because it caught Leander off guard. That wasn’t a thing that usually happened to him. Pleasantly surprised with that revelation, and the thrill of the other man’s answer to his question, Leander was content to let him have this moment, to let him set the tone for their first kiss. It was a very nice first kiss, and Leander tilted his head into it, pressing back initially with the same amount of eager pressure and following his lead to soften it at the same time as he did. That was when the world finally dropped away around them.
People must have seen them leave the dance floor, but it wasn’t like Leander cared about that. He wouldn’t have even if he hadn’t been wearing a mask, but the mystery certainly lent itself to his current apathy at their surroundings, in the moment. All he cared about was getting them somewhere a little more private, leading the other man by the hand until they were well away from any prying eyes, off in some dark corner in an empty part of the venue, unused by the current festivities. Just in time, too, apparently after they left the ballroom that was when someone chose to have some kind of mental breakdown. Something about a man without a head, who knows. His ears picked up the tale end of it, but Leander certainly pay attention.
All he was paying attention to currently was the man he had pinned loosely to the wall, pressing himself to him in a way that was impossible for any man to be modest about. Leander didn’t need to breathe, but the man he was at the moment doing his best to explore every inch of his mouth with did occasionally need oxygen, and he had to remind himself of that every so often before he got too carried away. Though, to be honest, at some point that would become inevitable for the vampire. “You taste like heaven,” Leander whispered in between exploratory kisses, nipping sharply at the man’s lower lip. Few things interested him more than the taste of blood, but this man’s lips and tongue that still tasted vaguely of champagne were just about the sweetest things he’d ever encountered, other than a good batch of O-negative.
Léon had expected the man to kiss like a devil, had expected it to be one of the greatest kisses of his life, but nothing could have prepared him for the way the earth seemed to shift beneath his feet once Lucifer began to kiss back, when he mimicked the softness that Léon had modeled. They melted into the kiss, melted together, Léon's world narrowing to their lips, pliant and yielding to one another. He spared a brief thought for Claire, and what she would think of the show that he was putting on with this mysterious stranger… but Claire would likely only encourage him, encourage this, victorious in persuading her brother to let go and enjoy himself for a night. Then, there was no more thought of anything but the kiss itself and the man in his arms, and what Claire thought of it be damned, the center of his world was this surrender to temptation.
It seemed like something out of a dream, like it wasn’t Léon being dragged along as they left the floor, like some other man had floated out through a crowd that whispered and cat called as though they had been putting on some sort of show entirely for their amusement. Damn them all, too, they weren't allowed to intrude. Léon would have to make the pleasure and regret of this night last; he had best savor it to the last drop, savor the press of Lucifer’s body to his, the wall at his back putting him neatly in a trap he had no desire to escape from. Why would he, when Lucifer’s body was strong and firm against him, when they were sealed together from chest to groin and Léon couldn’t hide how very much he wanted, not when his hips raised reflexively from the wall to press to Lucifer’s, the stirrings of interest unmistakable for anything else.
“Never… never heaven,” Léon protested. Even in the midst of the sort of kiss that turned a man inside out and remade him anew, he couldn’t simply accept the compliment. “I've never tasted heaven… only hell.” He was tasting it as he spoke, the memory of Lucifer’s mouth lingering even as their lips parted. It was hell, even to part long enough to breathe, when he wanted Lucifer’s tongue (cold, how was he so cold when he made Léon burn so hot) plundering his mouth, his lips parted for Léon to plunder in turn. He raised his hand to the back of Lucifer’s neck, bracing firmly there and drawing him back to him. He hadn't had enough, wouldn’t have enough, his thirst unquenchable even as he finally brought the water he'd craved to his mouth, hunger unsated though the branch had bowed low enough to take a bite. Lucifer, he thought, was an itch he could never quite scratch.
It wasn’t often that Leander got caught up in something like this that didn’t have an ulterior motive attached. Namely, the inevitable kill. And there truly wasn’t one, at least, not at first. You know that saying, ‘you’re only human’? Well, he wasn’t human, but he was only a vampire. At some point, that bloodlust was going to find a tipping point, but for now? Strangely, Leander was perfectly content with what was happening. It had been so long since he’d simply enjoyed being intimate with someone, especially someone who was still so deliciously human themselves. This wasn’t even the most intimate act between two people, arguably one of the least, but somehow, just a simple kiss with this man seemed to be more, seemed to consume everything around him, and Leander himself. That was something entirely new and different for the vampire.
The way he flexed his hips to press into Leander like that was near agony, and every time he felt that tantalizing press of body parts into each other at just the right angle, Leander couldn’t contain the growl that rumbled low in this throat, getting swallowed in their kiss as he slid his hand more firmly around to the other man’s backside and pressed back into him in response. Rarely did something like this leave Leander in such a state, when usually it would be the absence of clothing that made this kind of encounter memorable, but he barely paid attention to the amount of material that was still in their way, too distracted by the way their bodies molded together in perfect unison. It was, frankly, the best darkened corner snog he’d ever had.
His protest of Heaven made Leander nearly laugh, but he didn’t wish to offend him. It was utterly charming and a little bit baffling just how resistant he was to all things pure and heavenly, but Leander wasn’t about to complain. After all, the vampire was pretty far off from all things of that nature, so really the man’s peculiar tastes only benefitted him in the end. Maybe he was even more of a masochist than he let on. Leander grinned as he was pulled back into the kiss by the neck, and he went willingly. “Let’s give you a better taste of Hell, then,” he whispered, just before they made contact, and Leander was kissing him again like there was no tomorrow. Compared to Leander, the inside of his mouth and tongue was scalding hot, and the vampire couldn’t get enough of that heat. Groaning deep in his chest, Leander brought his free hand up to cup that exquisite jaw and slipped his tongue into the other man’s mouth again, exploring it thoroughly as he kissed him back hard enough that it was almost like he was trying to bite him with his lips.
The bruising force of the kiss was exactly what Léon needed; tenderness would never have consumed him so. The kiss was as intoxicating as the champagne, more so, even, and the hand holding his jaw in place for Lucifer to plunder felt as heavy as an iron clamp. It could never have occurred to him to pull away even before that touch, but after he felt almost helplessly held in place by Lucifer's whims. He kept his jaw slack, mouth open and eager for Lucifer’s attentions. The man’s plundering tongue was met with suction, and the slide of Léon’s own against it, welcoming the penetration. It was more intense than a normal kiss, more illicit. Perhaps it was because of the anonymity, or perhaps in spite of it, but whatever the reason Léon couldn’t bring himself to care so long as it didn’t stop, as long as be could stay safely out of the darkness of his own mind.
That was what this sort of thing was about, wasn’t it? Had always been, for Léon, the only times that he wasn’t consumed by dark thoughts. No pills could ever bring the euphoria of another body against his; his attempts at relationships had been, for the most part, with women, but he'd always known that it was the press of a strong male body against his that affected him most (the reason he had denied himself it so frequently, Léon wouldn’t know what to do with that sort of closeness to someone who could soothe the pain). Lucifer's body was particularly fine, and the hand gripping his posterior and pulling him closer, pressing their hips together so Léon could feel the return of his own interest beyond a doubt, had him clenching and gasping against Lucifer’s mouth. Yes, that, he wanted that. That Lucifer wanted as he wanted was flattery beyond belief.
Their masks made the angle of the kiss awkward, Léon's pressing even more uncomfortably into his face. There would be lines, when he removed it, red reminders of the pressure, the desperate kisses that didn’t allow for comfort. It would have been better, perhaps, to take the masks off, but Léon didn’t suggest it, would have refused if Lucifer had suggested. The anonymity made it better, was the point of a drunken fumble at a masquerade ball, and to take off the masks would have broken some of the magic. Besides that, desire wasn't meant to be comfortable. Desire was meant to leave a mark, and Léon would perhaps even relish it, in the morning. He groaned, low in his chest, and clutched even more tightly at the beautiful demon in his arms. He had no words to ask for what he wanted from him. Words were useless, anyway, and he had no doubt that the oblivion he craved was exactly what Lucifer intended to provide.
Where it had started off as arguably at least in the top five, this was quickly becoming maybe the most memorable kiss of his life, the longer it went on. Leander couldn’t remember the last time he’d stolen away from a party, or any kind of social gathering, to go do something as innocent and juvenile as make out with another man in a dark corner. Not that this was terribly innocent, what with the way they were currently pressed together and all, but still. This was by far the most innocent thing Leander had done in a long time. He took the moment to fully enjoy it, as Leander had not enjoyed that sort of thing in a long time. Maybe it really was true that the longer you lived, the more you started to take things for granted. Leander, who so strongly believed in thoroughly enjoying the things that you loved, had taken for granted the simple power in a good kiss.
And yet, the more caught up in that he got, the more Leander started to lose himself and forget to hold back. The way he gasped into Leander’s mouth, the way he clenched to him tighter and pressed himself ever closer to him, it wasn’t long before Leander wasn’t just consumed by the kiss anymore, he was enthralled with the sound of blood in his ears. With every new way their tongues tangled, every sigh and gasp between their connecting mouths, Leander could hear the man’s heart beating in his ears. He could practically feel his pulse racing, with how intertwined they were, every inch of the other man’s skin seemed to be on fire despite being pressed against something stone cold. The more he responded to Leander and with ever growing intensity, the more Leander lost himself, beginning to hear the blood pumping through his veins, thudding in the vampire’s own ears in a tantalizing rhythm, over the uttered sounds of pleasure.
Leander pressed himself flush to the other man, the hand on his jaw leaving to enclose around one of his wrists and pressed that into the wall too next to their heads, holding it there in an iron grip as he kept ravaging the other man’s mouth. The masks were uncomfortable, though at this point Leander hardly noticed the discomfort. He had no more desire to take it off than the man he was with seemed to, it was all part of the game, wasn’t it? Part of the mystery. Leander couldn’t help himself after a certain point, and he finally detached himself from the most enticing mouth he’d encountered in years, keeping the other man firmly pinned to the wall and dipping his head to begin making a long, hot trail with his mouth and tongue down the slope of his neck.
Having his wrist suddenly, unexpectedly pinned might have made Léon struggle against it, had he been less intoxicated on champagne and lust. It wasn’t nearly a first, but not since his days in college had Léon put himself in such a position, one where he was, in some sense, helpless. He had one hand free, still, unless and until Lucifer decided he wished to pin that one, as well. Léon wasn’t certain whether he’d have fought even then, when his reaction to the devil taking control of one hand was to tighten the grip the other hand had on the back of Lucifer’s neck, to pull him in closer and kiss back harder, uncaring whether the kiss got vicious, whether it hurt, Lucifer’s teeth hard even behind the velvet of his lips. Even still, he had no desire to stop it, and no desire to fight for his freedom. His fist, pressed against the wall, balled uselessly for a moment before relaxing again, surrendering to Lucifer’s whims as soon as his lips trailed down to Léon’s neck.
Before Louis, he’d liked having his neck kissed, liked having it bitten. It hadn’t been a spot that drove him out of his mind, as he’d seen in some men and women, but he’d enjoyed the attention to the stretch of skin. With Louis, it had become a place more fraught with significance, one that he’d begun denying access to as a matter of habit. To vampires, necks were for an entirely different purpose than kissing, and while it had still felt good to Léon, Louis’s tension in his head had made it almost entirely impossible to enjoy the sweet suction, the sharp sting. For Louis, the spot had spoken of danger, of the possibility of a bite that would take their humanity from them as surely as Lestat had. It had been easier, in the end, to simply say that his neck was… too sensitive, or that not sensitive enough to derive any pleasure from it, whatever lie worked.
The spark of fear from Louis didn’t quite penetrate through the haze of pleasure that Léon had fallen under, and instead of blunting the enjoyment, it twined with the adrenaline of the lingering fear of not knowing exactly who the man he was kissing was, and whether he could trust him at all. Only more reason to put a stop to this business with his neck, Louis might insist, but Léon was past the point of caring. He whimpered, softly, hand at the nape of Lucifer’s neck tightening not to pull him away, but to push him closer. He was tired of being safe, tired of worrying that every stranger he became intimate with might be the one who bit him, who damned him again. It was worth the risk, entirely worth the risk, to grasp this pleasure in the palm of his hand.
That whimper, and that tightening of the hand at the nape of his neck, was what truly did Leander in. He'd still been exercising a minimal amount of restraint until now, if you can believe that, but even a very disciplined vampire (which Leander certainly was not) had his limits. Leander in particular was notorious for letting the bloodlust make his decisions for him, much like Lestat, though Lestat was a little more deliberate about it. There was, perhaps, a time in Leander’s life as a vampire early on where he took that sort of enjoyment in the kill, but he didn’t have quite the same reverence for killing to feed as Lestat had. He simply couldn’t help himself sometimes.
It wasn’t intentional, at first. Simply a physical reaction to the way he’d been grabbed by the neck, causing Leander’s mind to white out completely as the other man’s heartbeat became a dull roar in his ears and the prevalent lust suddenly replaced by a much more insistent hunger, one that Leander always felt to some degree, just sometimes it was more manageable. Not right now, when the blood was so loud in his ears that he couldn’t concentrate on anything else, and his mouth was already on the other man’s neck. It really wouldn’t take much to just slip his fangs out and sink them into the man’s achingly soft, delicate skin. Even the thought of it had Leander’s vampire senses becoming that much more acute, and once that happened, there was really no going back. After all, Leander’s restraint had never been all that solid in the first place.
Leander raised his head for a moment. Just long enough to lock eyes with the handsome stranger he’d met at a Halloween party, and experienced a fleeting pang of regret before he could actually feel his fangs start to slide into view, demanding to be used. Before they became visible, Leander dipped his head back down into the crook of the other man’s neck and began kissing that soft skin again, pulling and sucking at it gently. At least the man wouldn’t realize what was happening until he was too weak from blood loss to do anything about it. That was the upside to the kind of vampire that Leander was. They could make even dying feel like euphoria, all he would feel was a much deeper kiss to the area of his neck that Leander finally opened his mouth wider around and sunk his fangs into flesh, his hold on the other man impossibly tight now.
Léon groaned a protest when Lucifer lifted his head, his neck cold, the skin overly sensitive in the absence of that beautiful, tempting mouth. Had the other man simply been kissing his way to even more skin, the loss wouldn’t have seemed as tragic, but instead their eyes met, a quick flash of something in them that Léon should have recognized, should have but didn’t, too caught by his own desires and the fact that what he thought he didn’t, couldn’t, make sense in the moment they were caught in. Regrets were for the morning, for when Léon realized that he was alone once more, that the passion of the night had faded and left only sorrow that it was over.
When Lucifer’s mouth returned to his neck, it felt somehow even better than before, all thoughts of his neck not being a particularly sensual place flying away at the touch of Lucifer’s lips. How had he never realized before, how great a pleasure it was to have a man’s mouth sucking at his neck, every gentle tug seeming to be hooked directly to the core of him. Desire built, languid, in his stomach, at his groin. The breaths he took were shallow, head lolling back to rest against the wall. It should have been embarrassing, being so carried away by nothing more intimate than Lucifer’s mouth at his neck, but Léon didn’t care, couldn’t care, not when everything felt so beautiful, so perfect. For the first time since he could remember, Léon felt purely, serenely, good.
Even Louis’s protests were silenced, at first, though there was still a faint unease to him, one that struggled against the pleasure of Lucifer’s touch. Léon ignored it, ignored everything that wasn’t Lucifer’s mouth, that wasn’t the strange sucking pleasure that soothed the darkness that had lurked in his chest since the time that he was a child. Was it so wrong to be happy? Was it so wrong to feel good?
And then Louis recognized it, recognized what was happening, and it hit Léon like a shock of cold water to his face. Ironic, ironic that the one night he surrendered caution for pleasure was the night that a damned creature found him at last. He struggled against Lucifer’s grip, gasping for air, gasping for life, but it was too late. Even had he been at his full strength, Léon doubted he could have fended off a vampire, but he’d waited too long, he was weak.
The world faded, turning dark, and his knees gave way. Léon relied entirely on the vampire’s grip, on the weight of the vampire pressing him into the wall to drink from him, to keep from slumping to the floor. As the world began to drift, Léon thought that perhaps, perhaps it wasn’t such a horrible end, so long as the vampire let it be the end in truth. Then, he couldn’t think at all.
For what felt like a long time, the man simply gave into him, and Leander contented himself to drinking his fill. Once the blood hit his lips, once he was sucking it in through his teeth and coating his tongue with it, Leander could hardly remember where he was, or even who he was with, the taste of blood was overwhelming all of his other senses. Maybe it was just because he had been caught up in the moment, but this man’s blood tasted sweeter to him than anything else that had passed his lips in a long time, blood included. He was sure that it was just a fluke, there was nothing special about this man, or his blood, the only thing unique about anyone’s was their blood type. Still, in the moment it tasted sweet in his mouth, and that only made him drink more enthusiastically, keeping the man pinned to the wall as he began to drain him.
When Leander felt him start to fight it, his grip on the other man turned to iron, but it also woke him up a little in the midst of the bloodlust. His eyes flew open, temporarily staring into the neck of the man he was draining of all his blood, and for the first time in a long time, he actually started to experience some second thoughts. Leander wasn’t exactly a vampire that ever regretted much of anything, and certainly never made any apologies, or at least not very many, but second thoughts? Like anyone, he was prone to having them. For a long time, he’d never really been interested in anything but finishing a meal, and much like Lestat he was incredibly picky about who he turned. This man, though. He was exceptional.
After only a moment’s pause, Leander made his decision, right around the time that the man began to truly slump forward in his hold, giving up the fight entirely as he had lost too much blood to keep up the struggle. Leander ripped his mouth away from his neck in that instant, and with uncharacteristically great care, he supported the man with his arms to let him slide gracefully down the wall to the floor, where Leander propped him up and peered at him. Still remarkable, how striking his features were. Exactly the sort of face that deserved to be immortalized, in Leander’s not so humble opinion. The vampire gazed on that beautiful face for a few seconds more before he turned to his own wrist, cutting it open with his teeth and pressing the bleeding, open wound to the dying man’s mouth, making sure to smear some of his blood on the man’s lips first to insure that he got a taste of it. “Drink, my angel. Drink and live.”
Léon woke with the taste of blood on his lips.
There had been times that he had known the taste of it before. Split lips. Bitten tongues. He’d thought himself familiar with the taste of it, thin and coppery, unpleasant and unwelcome. He had never tasted it like this before. Oh, he still recognized it as blood, still recognized the things that had made blood distinctive to him, in the past, but that wasn’t all the blood was. How had he never realized the complexity of it before? It wasn’t thin, it was robust, as thick and flavorful as a good wine. The copper was still there, of course, but it was somehow more, as well. He could pick out the complexities of it, as though his tastebuds had somehow been awakened to possibilities he could never consider before. He didn’t know what all the distinct flavors were, how to name them, what they meant, but they were there. He could learn them, learn to read them and know it, know what the blood he tasted was telling him about the one it came from.
Next awareness returned of his hands, resting against something impossibly soft. His fingers twitched against it, taking in the texture. He thought he could count every thread in it, if he took the time, and he wanted to take it. How had he never appreciated the fineness of fabric, before, how tightly woven it was and yet made up of so many flimsy individual parts? A thread couldn’t hold anything, but together, together their strength was greater, great enough that he couldn’t push his fingers past the weave, no matter how he tried. It was amazing, it deserved his full attention, except something in the room smelled… interesting, as well. Just a tease of scent, something sweet. Floral, perhaps. Soft, and powdery… except… he turned his head to the side, sniffed deeply, and no, no, it was the scent of the sheets themselves, wasn’t it? Perhaps whatever detergent they had used to wash them was particularly strong. That, or…
Léon sat upright with a gasp, eyes flying open. The dim light in the room was nearly blinding, and he glanced around frantically. Lucifer was standing beside the window, his own mask off, and for a moment all that Léon could focus on was the way that the light reflected off his hair, off every wave, every curl, turning it into a golden flare. The curtains were open, and outside he could see the lights of the city, a mesmerizing dance he’d somehow never taken the time to appreciate before. Beyond the lights of the city were faint pinpricks in the sky, barely visible to him but still there. He’d never seen the stars inside the city, before, only in rare trips outside. He thought, if he took the time to look closely, he might have been able to pick out constellations.
All of these amazing new sights, smells, feels… sounds, he thought, he could still hear the party going on, somewhere beneath them. Laughter, music, the sound of feet on the floor. Especially the taste, the taste of blood. Léon knew what they meant, and that meant he knew precisely what the stranger, the vampire, had done to him. He knew, and he was enraged. “You! You devil, you monster.” He was hungry, now, now that he’d fully woken. Léon was so hungry. “What do you think gives you the right to take my humanity from me? If you insisted on killing me, why couldn’t you have had the decency to leave me dead?”
Leander had thought ahead before coming to the party tonight. You had to when you were a vampire with his particular limitations. He couldn’t go out in the daylight, he wasn’t one of those vampires with fancy jewelry embedded in witchcraft that allowed you to walk in the sun, or worse, one who simply sparkled under direct sunlight. Utterly ridiculous. No, tragically, he was doomed to the night, another thing about himself that he played up as a gimmick to their devoted fans, but it wasn’t just an act, it was his reality. If he was going to come to this party tonight, he’d have to have a plan for either getting back before dawn, or having somewhere to stay until the following night. Considering he was a glorified rock star, Leander just wasn’t accustomed to having a curfew, so obviously he preferred the second option. He’d booked a room in the hotel, since it was conveniently at the same venue as the party he was attending. All he had to do was make sure his coffin got moved into the room before he went out for the evening, but being who he was, Leander always had people to do that.
After he’d drained the man almost to the point of death before feeding him his own blood, Leander had been careful to wait until the most opportune moment. Having enhanced hearing was helpful with that, he could hear when the room where they’d previously been dancing in divulged into chaos, and no one would notice Leander dragging a half-dead man upstairs to his room. Of course if anyone did see them, hopefully they would only see him supporting a man who was too drunk to walk on his own, mostly unconscious, with his arm slung over Leander’s shoulders. After all, it was Halloween, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t be the only one. If you weren’t too drunk to walk, you were doing something terribly wrong with your life choices.
Once inside the room, Leander had put the man carefully down on the bed, for now. It would be awhile yet before he became fully conscious again, with his new senses, so he would have to wait. Not an easy thing for him to accomplish, Leander was an impatient vampire, but he made do. He’d gotten a room with a view, as they say, and the view outside his window was particularly pleasant, so he’d spent a bit of time looking out onto it while he waited for the handsome stranger to awaken in his new form. Leander had already removed the mask on his chosen victim’s face, curiosity had gotten the best of him, but he was far from disappointed with what removing the mask revealed. An even greater beauty than what he’d already seen, and Leander thought, pleased with himself, that immortality would suit this man well. You couldn’t make just anyone an immortal, after all. There were standards to uphold, at least in his mind.
At the sound of the other man gasping himself awake, Leander waited a beat before turning from the window to face him, the lights dimmed but it would still be easy to make out Leander’s features, as he’d removed his own mask as well. No point in hiding their identities anymore. They were forever linked, now. Leander raised an eyebrow, turning himself fully around to lean back against the wall and cross his arms over his chest, observing his companion in the midst of his righteous fury. Leander had thought he’d run out of ‘firsts’, but being accused of not having the good sense to let someone stay dead? That was new. “I thought we’d already covered that I’m the devil, but perhaps I was mistaken. Not about you having a death wish, though. Clearly I was right on the nose about that one.”
The moment the vampire turned to look at him, the moment that Léon saw his unmasked face, he nearly wept. Of course. Of course this was who had taken him, turned him. History repeated, as though free will was simply a joke that the universe or some cruel god played. He knew that face almost as well as his own, well enough that it was a surprise, a shock, that he hadn’t recognized it even with a mask between them. Leander. It could never have been anyone but Leander who had enchanted him so thoroughly, could it? Léon had thought it himself, that he’d never met anyone who’d entranced him so thoroughly upon a first glance, but Louis had. Louis had, and the man who Léon couldn’t look away from had to have been his Lestat, bound through blood and tears, hatred and love all bound so tightly that Léon couldn’t begin separating them as he thought of those years that Lestat and Louis had spent together with Claudia.
“You.” This time, it wasn’t a wild accusation. It was a statement, grim and certain. “Of course it’s you. It’s always you, isn’t it? If someone’s going to behave like a reckless, spoiled child and ruin everything, it’s going to be you, Leander Durant. I shouldn’t have expected any better, after all the antics you seem so thrilled about in the press.” Telling, that he’d given so much attention to Leander, but Léon couldn’t be bothered to care, at the moment. If Leander realized how much attention Léon had paid to him, before they’d met, so be it. He’d be thrilled, wouldn’t he, to know that a stranger, a man whose existence he was entirely unaware of, had spent so many years caught up entirely in every mention of him he could find.
Perhaps Léon was entirely new to his new body, his new abilities, but Louis knew. Louis hadn’t forgotten, and it was with only a little stumbling that he got to his feet and moved over to Leander, so quickly that a mortal eye would think that he’d simply vanished from one spot and appeared in another. Leander would see, of course, see every motion, and the way Léon stumbled over his own feet before breaking his momentum, throwing a hand out to catch his balance, made his inexperience entirely obvious. Moving close to Leander might perhaps have been a mistake, if Léon hadn’t been too angry to be swept up by how attractive he was. The glamor was faded, now that Léon was a vampire as well, Leander’s beauty no longer so enchanting, so magical and overwhelming, but he’d always be damnably pretty. Léon hated him for it, hated him for everything that had swayed him to the other man, that had put him into a position he swore would never be.
Well aware that Leander could stop him, that his control of his body, his speed, was still greater than Léon’s, Léon raise a fist to pound at his chest, anyway, a pathetic thump of hand against torso as he took a hitching breath. Leander had taken more than his life; he’d taken his choice, his chance to say no to the life that he’d rejected, that Louis would have given anything to leave behind in return for taking up his humanity once more. Their sorrow lodged in their chest until neither could tell where his ended and the other’s began, a keen knife edge piercing their heart as sharply as any stake might have. He didn’t recognize his voice as his own anymore; it was less a voice than a mortal wound with words, when it emerged from the depths of his pain. “I would rather be dead than be damned!”
Leander hadn’t exactly expected gratitude, at least not initially. There was always an adjustment period. Still, he hadn’t quite expected…. this kind of reaction. It was almost eery, how the man spoke to him. Almost like he knew him, somehow. And the jabs he took weren’t vague, they were personal. That was interesting. Leander was quite content to let him keep going with his grand speech, almost amused by it, though for the benefit of his apparent conviction, the vampire actually attempted to keep a straight face. Nothing he said was strictly false, though Leander had heard much worse from others in the past. It didn't bother him. Reckless? Spoiled? Naturally. Anyone in his position would be, and any person who tried to deny it was a liar. Leander could be a liar, but only when it suited him, and rarely about himself. There was just no need to.
“I'm sorry, have we met?” Honestly, it was flattering that the man he'd just spent a considerable portion of the evening with had obviously also spent a fair bit of time paying attention to his extra-curricular activities, without knowing that's who he'd been dancing with tonight. Fate was a funny thing that way, as funny as it was fickle. Leander was not usually a believer in such things, with a few exceptions. But as far as he knew, that exception was still nowhere to be found.
He saw the man coming at him, of course. He could have moved, if he'd wanted to, could have made it so he ended up colliding with thin air when he finally came to a stop, but he didn't. He didn't see the point, and honestly, it was a little exciting to have someone so newly transformed take his anger out on Leander like this, still so unfamiliar with their own, entirely new strength. Another first, and Leander was confident enough in his own abilities to fend off any actual attack that might occur. This didn’t exactly count. He let the man’s fist land on his chest, not wishing to insult him by so easily fending off his attempt to lash out. He would rather be dead than damned? Familiar words to Leander’s ears, but he was still too fixated on his accusations from before to pay much attention to the familiarity. Despite the situation, Leander smiled. “You must be a fan.”
A fan. Léon supposed that, by the usual definition, he was a fan of Overbite. Of Leander, in particular. An obsessive fan, even, one might claim, with the way he saved articles, pictures. Léon hadn’t considered it, or himself, that way, nor would he begin doing so. Léon was not a fan, and he particularly wasn’t a fan of Leander’s behavior, or that damned smile on his face when Léon was clearly angry. Rage swelling again, he raised a hand to strike at Leander again, a slap across the face this time. He barely stopped to notice when his hand was stopped before he could reach that smug, beautiful face. “Never. If we keep track of you, it’s only because I’d hoped I could go my entire life without being unfortunate enough for us to meet. Because you ruin us, you ruin everything you touch, and you don’t even notice.”
He wrenched his hand back, used it to scrub at his face. “I should have known, I should have known it wouldn’t be enough. There’s nowhere we can go that’s far enough away, nowhere he wouldn’t find us.” It seemed pointless, so pointless, all of Léon’s watching, all of his plans, all of his caution. Somehow, in spite of it all, Leander and Lestat had found them—and by chance! If he’d known who they were, if he’d known that he’d met Louis, he’d have had something to say about it already. Louis knew it, and because Louis knew it so did Léon.
“And because you couldn’t control your appetites, you’ve condemned us again!” Léon met his eyes again, then, with a glare. He sounded hysterical. He sounded insane, but he couldn’t contain himself. He couldn’t contain his despair, or his anger, at the situation. At Leander, Leander and Lestat and their unthinking determination to watch the world burn. “What is it that you want? What is it that you want from me, from this?” For Louis, he’d known at least that he had his plantation to recommend him. Léon had nothing.
One hit was enough. Leander had allowed the first impact to the chest, but when he next went for a slap to the face, Leander stopped him on reflex, catching his hand with his and holding it firmly for a few seconds to ensure that he wouldn’t try again before the hand was wrenched from him. Leander hardly noticed, since at this point, the man (hardly a man, anymore, but he was still transitioning) was making an absurdly frequent use of the word ‘us’. Leander’s and Lestat’s interests were both instantly peaked, and it didn’t take long to figure out what he was prattling on about once Leander was able to successfully wade through the over dramatics.
“Condemned you again? You speak as if we’ve done this dance before.” Even as Leander said it, realization was already starting to dawn on him. Of course, Lestat had turned more than one person in his lifetime, but the significance of this felt…. more. Of all the people that Lestat had come across, only one had ever been so tiresomely concerned with notions of condemnation and the state of one’s soul. As much as Leander and Lestat had kept hope over the years, it was hard to believe in the moment, that they’d found Louis by such chance, but that was how reincarnation worked, wasn’t it? They weren’t going to meet in this life because Leander had been coveting his land, times were different, and so were they. So sudden that even he didn’t notice, Leander’s smugness immediately transformed into a look of pure shock, one that he got over quickly but it was plain that he had been taken by surprise. This hadn’t been premeditated. Embarrassingly, he’d just almost killed the man he and Lestat had been searching this earth for. How terribly ironic. For the first time in over a century, Leander was actually speechless.
After the man’s last question, the silence hung in the air for a good few seconds before Leander managed any sort of response. He simply stared unabashedly, mouth hanging open a little as his intended finished his scathing rant, and Leander wouldn’t say that his feelings were hurt, but it certainly wasn’t that his words hadn’t reached him in some way. “What do I want?” His voice was a murmur, barely audible, but he sounded incredulous, like he hadn’t even stopped to think about the answer to that question before now. It had never occurred to him, that he might have to answer for that someday. Without thinking, Leander stepped forward and took the man’s face in his hands, eyes searching his for any sign of the truth that he already knew in his heart. This man, this man he had decided to turn on a whim, could he really be their Louis? Leander knew he likely wouldn’t appreciate the close proximity, given how angry he was, but he couldn’t help it. Perhaps there really was such a thing as miracles. “Is that really you in there, Louis?”
Léon fidgeted in the silence that followed his last question, seconds seeming to stretch for hours as Leander did nothing but stare at him. He wasn’t supposed to… to look at him like that. He was supposed to laugh, to be smug about having changed them into a monster all over again. In Léon’s mind, and in Louis’s, he’d been the Lestat who had been careless with him, who had seen the whole thing as some sort of game, one where he’d ended up the only winner. The Lestat of those long years with Claudia, where Louis had been miserable for much of it, miserable and depressed and wanting nothing more than to escape but being stuck, trapped by the need for the vampire who had made him that he couldn’t deny. He was supposed to be the Lestat that Louis had hated with every fiber of passion in his being. That Lestat, that immature brat that Louis had suffered through, Léon knew precisely how to handle being stuck close to him.
When Leander repeated his question instead of answering it, Léon was ready to snap back at him, as if he needed to find even smaller words to use. Leander’s hands pressing against his face silenced him, before so much as a syllable could escape his lips. It was infuriating, the liberties that Leander was taking with him. Didn’t he realize how angry Léon was with him? This wasn’t a game, this wasn’t something that Léon was playing at. Leander had killed him, killed him and taken away his choice to even remain safely dead, and for what? He hadn’t explained why he had chosen to turn him instead of kill him, hadn’t even tried. Oh, Léon knew the answer. He knew that the irresponsible idiot had done it just because he could, and because he felt like it. Lestat had never needed another reason, and so far as Léon had seen, there was little difference between Lestat and Leander. Léon’s life had been taken, and then restored, on an impulse. He managed to summon up another glare, in spite of the gentle touch to his face that had so derailed him.
And yet… the way that Leander had looked at him, in that moment when it had struck him, when Léon could see the dawning of realization on his face, it stuck with him. Summoned up, unbidden, memories of the Lestat that had called himself Louis’s, that had embraced him and spoken of love. The one that Louis had pledged his heart to, in the end. Fortunately, those memories, Louis’s memories of a time when Lestat’s face had been the dearest thing in the world, only served to make Léon angrier. Leander had done nothing to deserve those feelings, had only proven that he wasn’t to be trusted, less than an hour into their acquaintance. It wasn’t unfair, Léon thought, to expect more from him. Lestat had grown into someone who deserved those gentle feelings, a brat though he might still have been. Leander was still… still… “Of course it is,” Léon snapped, pushing those uncomfortable thoughts aside. He was good at ignoring truths that he didn’t want, that he wasn’t ready to face. “Who else do you know that’s unlucky enough to have to deal with you across two lifetimes?”
In many ways, they were the same. In so many other ways, Leander was evolved in a way that Lestat never had the chance to be, at least not until much later. They had both separately earned their title as the brat prince, that much couldn’t be argued, and Leander had certainly made quite a name for himself with the fame that had come with Overbite. Lestat had also had his brush with fame, but for Leander, it wasn’t a passing phase. You couldn’t claim him to be loyal to many things, but his band was his family. Literally, in the case of Pandora, but that was another matter entirely. The point was, Leander wasn’t a vampire who didn’t understand the meaning of sentiment. And yes, he was careless. He couldn’t deny that, he was often reckless and acting without a thought to others. Leander had always been guilty of that, as had Lestat, but he wasn’t yet quite so handicapped by a serious case of tunnel vision as his equally vampiric counterpart.
He was as impulsive as he was irresponsible. No, Leander couldn’t say that he’d put any more thought into turning him than that it’d seemed like a good idea at the time, but something told him that explaining it that way would only ignite the man’s rage further. Strangely, he wasn’t interested in escalating a situation, for once. Where Lestat may have poked and prodded at his wounds just to provoke him further, Leander had no desire to hurt him because he could. He could and would do many things just because he could, but right now, in this moment, that wasn’t one of them. If he was truly their Louis, then he deserved much more than that. He deserved the sort of awakening that Louis himself had been denied, because Lestat had been too preoccupied with himself to understand how meaningful this change was. Perhaps Lestat had simply already been too old and jaded to remember the significance of becoming a vampire, but Leander was only a century old and change. He hadn’t forgotten. This moment deserved to be immortalized, just as the man he’d chosen to make a vampire did, and that was really all the forethought that had gone into Leander’s rash decision making. Only the most beautiful could be damned.
While it had been pure chance that Leander had chosen him to receive this gift of eternal life, and yes, it was a gift, no matter what Louis or this man had to say about it, he wasn’t going to squander it now if he could help it. It also occurred to Leander that he didn’t even know his name. That was tragic. He’d bungled this all up already and he hadn’t even meant to. Isn't that what Louis always said about Lestat, he bungled his way through things? It seemed that the hysterical man was right, no matter what they did, Lestat and Louis would always be drawn back together. If Leander hadn't been a believer in fate before, he certainly was now. His partner in destiny didn't seem to be quite so enthusiastic about the idea, but that was hardly surprising. Louis had always been a bit of a downer on the subject. On most subjects. But Lestat loved him for it.
Though that particular knowledge made Leander immensely uncomfortable, that wasn't what this moment was about. “Fair enough,” Leander replied simply, almost uncharacteristically gentle. The man had a right to be angry with him, and normally he would have shot back with an equally scathing remark, but not this time. Instead, Leander removed his hands from the man’s face to give him his personal space back. It was the least he could do. “You feel what’s happening to you right now, don’t you?” His voice was still soft, not at all pitying, simply sensitive to the issue at hand. Lestat may have bungled his way through the first time Louis experienced the change, but Leander was better than that. Contrary to what some people thought, he could take a moment seriously. Didn’t guarantee he’d be on his best behavior in the morning, but for now, he was the very picture of supportive sire. It was more than Louis had ever gotten. Even Lestat’s sire had bothered to guide him through the initial stages before he’d abandoned the newly made vampire.
“Your body is still dying. You won’t be able to fully adjust to your new abilities just yet, though I’m sure you know that.” Louis couldn’t possibly be staying silent in his head through all this, Louis stayed silent about hardly anything, at least when it came to Lestat. Even when Louis was in full sulk mode, he might as well be projecting his endless thoughts onto Lestat for all that his disapproving looks spoke volumes when his mouth stayed shut. “And I’m sure you know that you need a place with no light to stay until tomorrow night.” Leander gestured to the coffin in the room, the beginnings of a small smirk now playing on his lips, though it wasn’t malicious. Simply appreciating the irony of the situation. He was sure their Louis wouldn’t. “We’ll have to share.”
Léon had expected a fight. The Lestat that Louis had known, the Lestat that had sired him, would have shot back something that would only infuriate him more. The answer that Leander gave, far gentler than he’d expected, not arguing that Léon’s night had been nothing but misfortune, took the wind out of the sails of his fury. It was hard to fight, when the other involved wasn’t fighting back. It became simply bullying, and Léon had seen too much of bullies in his life growing up with his younger brother to ever become one. He deflated, perversely unhappy when Leander moved away to give him his space. If ever there was a situation where physical comfort was welcome, losing one’s humanity seemed the epitome of it. He wouldn’t ask for it, though. Not from Leander. Not ever.
With his anger gone, and Leander pointing it out, still more gentle than Léon would ever have thought him capable of, suspiciously gentle, Léon couldn’t help but notice the pains of his body dying, changing from living to dead to undead. It knotted his gut, shot through him like tiny slivers of ice cold glass. Yes, Louis was telling him all he needed to know about the process, but no matter that Louis was closer to him than another being could ever become, having him to tell Léon what he was going through, to ease him through the process, simply wasn’t the same as having another physical body there. His sire; Léon could feel the bond tying him to Leander, eternally, irrevocably, already. He hadn’t expected Leander to be interested in guiding him through it. Lestat never had been, had he? He’d simply allowed Louis to sink or swim, and Louis had mostly sunk, and sunk, until he was in the depths of despair.
Strange tenderness or not, Léon didn’t anticipate Leander being interested enough in the game to do a better job of being his sire than Lestat ever had for Louis. Louis would have to fulfill that role for him, in the end, the vampire who had taught himself more than anyone else had ever bothered to teach him. Was it any wonder, that Louis had been unlike the rest? That he’d retained more of his humanity, when it hadn’t been conditioned out of him, when it had taken him so long to learn to adore the one who’d made him in truth. It had come in time, yes, but the grasp he’d kept on the shreds of humanity had been Louis’s only great gift. Léon didn’t wish to be a vampire as Lestat had been, as Armand, as Marius, as any of the vampires who had made up the court that had come to surround Lestat. If Léon were to be damned, he wanted to be damned like Louis.
The smirk as Leander invited Léon to share his coffin sparked another coal of anger in his chest, but Léon kept his glare short, and silent. History repeating, all around, a cycle that he was a fool to think he ever could have broken. He’d been entranced, he’d fallen into the thrill of Leander’s energy, he had died and become a monster… and now he was being asked to sleep curled in his murderer’s arms for the day, in a box small enough to allow them no room to themselves, no privacy. Léon could choose to refuse the offer. He could instead greet the sunlight that crept through the window, allowed himself to burn to ash and never faced a single night as a damned creature. It would have been simple, and he doubted Leander would risk his own safety to make certain that Léon remained alive. He hesitated, looked toward the window; even Louis had been able to see one final dawn, before he was sentenced to a life lived at night. Was Léon to have not even that? He had never cared for sunrise, before, but now he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to witness more.
In the end, he sighed, and nodded his assent. It wasn’t a time for rash decisions; if he decided the next night that he’d prefer to greet the dawn, nothing would stop him then. As for this one… “If you hog all the room, I’ll kick you.” Léon would not, could not, admit that he’d prefer not to die alone, anyhow. Leander’s embrace might be cold comfort, but it was comfort, nonetheless.