Rashid is finishing up the dishes from dinner when he hears the soft cry from his bedroom. It's just about dusk — around the time he starts thinking he should think about getting ready for bed, even though he knows he's not going to for hours yet; dinner was really more like lunch. It's also around the time Armand wakes up.

There's the noise from his room again, a pained-sounding little whimper. That's not a vampire vocalization; that's a human noise. A mimic of one. A lure. Armand woke up ready to play.

Rashid can't help the little frisson of excitement that spreads through him. There's always something exhilarating about it, the reminder that the creature in his home is a creature. It's not that he forgets, exactly, not that it would ever be possible, but …

He carefully dries his hands off and goes to the bedroom door. He doesn't turn the light on; he doesn't need it to see the reflection of Armand's eyes under the bed, bright amber and pointed straight at him.

"Is someone in here?" Rashid asks, affecting innocence as well as he can. "Are you okay?"

He looks around the room and finally crouches down next to the bed, peering underneath it. "Hello?"

Armand's on him almost before he's gotten the word out, slinking out from under the bed and knocking Rashid to the ground. He headbutts Rashid gently and presses his mouth against his shoulder; he's not biting, his mouth is barely open, but Rashid can feel his cool breath through his t-shirt and can't help but shiver.

"Oh no!" he says airily, the breathlessness almost entirely fake. "Oh no, I've been attacked."

Armand's laughter floods through him, soundless but bright and joyous in Rashid's head. Rashid can feel the very lightest press of teeth against his shoulder now, not enough to even break through his shirt, much less his skin.

Rashid gets his hands on Armand's shoulders, pushing him just enough to get Armand's mouth off him, just a tiny bit of distance. He snaps his own teeth at Armand, blunt and useless, an entirely empty threat. If this were a real fight, well — he'd be dead already. He swallows hard and tries not to feel any sort of way about that.

Armand's eyes are lit up, tracking that movement of his mouth, his jaw, his throat. Rashid tries not to feel any sort of way about that either.

It's just enough distraction, he thinks, that —

Yes. He's able to flip them, one ankle hooked around Armand's, hands still on his shoulders but pushing him down now into the carpet. There's the lightest clink of metal from Armand's collar. Armand growls, low and playful, and bares his teeth. His fangs, not much longer than the rest of his teeth but notably sharper, seem to reflect the light from the hall just as much as his eyes do.

A part of Rashid takes a mental measurement, notes that they've grown fully back in, less than a month this time since Armand's last tooth-pulling incident. It had been a setback for sure, but that's faster, he thinks, than the time before. That's good; that means he's eating, that means he's healthy, that he's …

Digging his claws into Rashid's waist. Not nearly as hard as he could be: there will probably be some scratch marks, when Rashid looks later, but not any blood. But hard enough to tickle. Rashid squirms in his grasp.

"Stop," he gasps out. "Stop, that's. That's cheating."

توں ایہ چاہندا اے, Armand says, clear as anything in Rashid's mind.

Rashid laughs as well as he can, genuinely breathless now, more a series of short gasps than anything. Want it — well, he certainly does. Too much, maybe. And Armand so rarely uses language, not when he can communicate in feelings and floods of color. He's teasing Rashid, and Rashid is. Well. It might be undeniable at this point that he's feeling some kind of way about it.

It's not like it's never happened before when they've play-wrestled. Or. Well. A few other times. But Rashid is able to restrain himself; he's a vampire scholar, and he's a vampire owner, and he knows well enough to separate the actual being that lives with him from some sort of the more … colorful fiction he's read or films he's watched. Colorful being the polite term, of course. Prurient, perhaps, would be more applicable. It's not like he's indulged in any of that sort of media since Armand's come to live with him. And it's not like he thinks about any of it in relation to Armand. (If he's slipped up a handful of times, in the privacy of his own shower, well, that's just a consequence of his circumstances.)

Despite Armand's claws digging into his sides Rashid has remained firmly on top of — above Armand, and he's able to shift just slightly back, putting space between his groin and the innocent press of Armand's body.

It's enough space for him to breathe. It's also enough space for Armand to slip a hand between them and cup what Rashid is valiantly attempting to ignore.

Rashid is stunned into stillness. He can only imagine what's showing on his face, and he tries to school it into neutrality: interest would not be appropriate, obviously, but nor would something overly negative; he doesn't want to shame Armand.

"Armand," he says. It comes out a bit strangled. He clears his throat. "No."

He's never owned a dog but on the occasions that he's had to discipline Armand, that's the sort of tone he's tried to emulate. Stern, authoritative, but not harsh.

Maybe if he'd ever had a dog he'd be better at it. Armand's hands have gone lax, but they haven't moved from their places on Rashid's side and on … on his dick. Armand's eyes are nearly all pupil but what little orange is visible is fluorescent. The flush covering Rashid's entire face is probably similarly bright.

Rashid swallows heavily. He sits back on his heels. "No," he says again.

Armand doesn't bother with words this time, and Rashid isn't quite sure how to parse the emotions pushed into his mind. There's a little bit of hurt in there, enough that Rashid feels instantly guilty. There's the familiar desire to please Rashid, to be obedient and good. But there's also a different sort of desire: Armand has never communicated arousal to Rashid before, but it's pretty obvious that's what this is.

He fully believes in Armand's ability to consent to, and even have preference for, things like mealtimes, or sleeping under the bed versus on it, or wearing a muzzle when they go walking at night. But this feels … well, this feels different. It would be one thing, maybe, if he didn't have a file full of Armand's history on his work laptop. If he didn't know how some people treat pet vampires even today. Rashid doesn't want to be one of those vampire owners. He's never wanted anything but to make Armand feel safe.

Armand almost always defers to Rashid, sure. But if he wants something, Rashid does his best to make sure he has it.

It's hard to imagine, though, that Armand would really …

"Want," Armand says. Out loud, in English. The slightest tip up at the end like it's a question. That's something Rashid has heard him say before, usually when he wants Rashid's attention. But — "Rashid want Armand?"

That's. Oh. He feels like the breath has been knocked out of him for real. That's not something he's ever said, that Armand has ever heard. That's a sentence Armand has put together all by himself.

"Rashid want Armand?" It's a little more insistent this time, and Armand looks so earnest that it's nearly painful, the way it tugs on Rashid's heart.

Armand's hand is a little more insistent too, tucked between Rashid's legs. He can feel his dick kick a little under the firmer touch.

He feels like he's the one who doesn't talk all of a sudden, who can't talk. He does the only thing he can think of, which is to take Armand's face gently in his hands and fit their mouths together. Armand responds eagerly, lips parting, clutching at Rashid's waist with the hand not between his legs.

A bloom of warmth in his mind, a very enthusiastic telepathic yes.

Armand's teeth are sharp. Just a little sharper than a human's, other than the fangs, but certainly enough to be noticeable. And there are so many of them. Rashid knew this, of course, academically and practically, has had his hand in Armand's mouth before; Armand was play-biting him just minutes ago. But he's never felt them on his lip, never felt them with his tongue. Armand's tongue curls around his own, longer and strangely grooved on the underside, rough like a cat's. Distinctly nonhuman.

Distantly he's aware he's rock-hard in Armand's hand but that's nothing compared to the feeling of Armand's mouth beneath his. He's not sure how he's going to come back from this, if he'll ever be able to kiss a human being again without feeling like something's lacking.

Armand stretches himself out on the carpet and pulls Rashid down on top of him, moves away from Rashid's mouth to nuzzle at his neck instead. It's perfectly chaste, no teeth involved at all, but Rashid lets out a groan. It's embarrassingly loud in the silence of the room. Armand makes a small sound against his throat, drawn out and sibilant, lips pulling back just enough to make his teeth evident.

"Fuck," Rashid whispers. He rocks down against Armand's hand where it's still pressed against him, trapped between their bodies. Vampires run naturally cooler than humans but Rashid doesn't think that's enough to explain how warm he feels right now, like he's about to burn through … well, his pants, frankly. He can't even be embarrassed by it, not when every hitch of his hips gets a matching pulse of enthusiasm from Armand, an unnecessary shot of aphrodisiac delivered straight to his brain.

He drags a hand down Armand's jaw. When his pinkie brushes against Armand's collar, the sensitive skin there, Armand makes a noise low in his throat and nuzzles up into Rashid's hand. Rashid runs his thumb over Armand's lips and Armand dutifully parts them, letting Rashid trace over the sharp points of his teeth for a moment before nipping playfully at his fingers. Rashid crushes their mouths together again, licking at Armand's fangs, too far gone for any sort of finesse.

One of his hands tangles in Armand's hair; the other wraps around his free wrist, pressing it into the carpet. Armand's fingers flex once and then fall open. His other hand tightens its grip on Rashid's cock, and Rashid ruts helplessly against him. Armand is making quiet sounds into Rashid's mouth when he's not sucking on his tongue: not approximations of human language but distinctly inhuman trills that buzz through Rashid's teeth up and up into his skull.

His hand clenches in Armand's hair with just enough presence of mind not to pull at it. He doesn't know how Armand will respond and this isn't the time to find out. He pants out Armand's name into his mouth and Armand's tongue twists rough against his again.

He rocks down into the pressure of Armand's hand; his fingers, where they wrap around his other wrist, flex and press him down harder into the carpet, a matching reflex. Armand nips bluntly at his lower lip and he moans loudly.

Rashid, Armand says, with another surge of desire.

Rashid whines as Armand pulls his mouth away, a flick of rough tongue along the line of his jaw, and then Armand's mouth is on his neck. His teeth are on Rashid's neck.

There's a moment of fear, rationality cutting through the arousal. A moment where he remembers: Armand is an animal, a predator, a beast he's dressed in sweatshirts and yoga pants and let sleep at the foot of his bed. He's a killer, and he could kill Rashid right now.

Armand bites down so, so gently, the points of his fangs denting Rashid's skin but not pushing through. Rashid's vision floods white, his entire nervous system singing, some sort of strangled noise emerging from his mouth. He's never felt like this before, he thinks distantly, and he can feel Armand's pleasure curl through his brain, twining around his own.

When he comes to, he realizes he's collapsed entirely onto Armand, pushing him down into the floor with his entire weight. Armand has both arms around his shoulders, holding him in place. He's shivering, making a low whine that's not quite vampiric and not quite human.

There's the pressure in Rashid's mind that means his name, the psychic sound that's not quite words. It's infused with happiness — with contentment.

Armand lets go of Rashid with one arm, traces his fingers over the spot on Rashid's neck where he'd dug his teeth in, on his way to cupping Rashid's cheek. Rashid turns his face into the touch. When their eyes meet, Armand's are so, so bright, brilliant gold in the dim of the bedroom.

Rashid pushes himself upward, dislodging Armand's arm, just enough to roll off him, their shoulders pressed together. In the second it takes him to recognize he's rolled onto something, a hard line of pressure beneath his shoulderblades, Armand lets out a sharp sound, almost a yelp.

It's Armand's chain, Rashid realizes, scrambling upward. The iron chain attached to the collar around Armand's throat. The chain that's bolted to the floor at the foot of Rashid's bed, a long enough lead that Armand can lay on the bed or under it, can reach the doorway in case Rashid is in the kitchen or the living room, can get to the small wire drawer unit in the closet that holds the clothes Rashid has bought for him. Bought with his Talmasca salary, money from the organization that studies Armand's species. Because Armand isn't human. Because Armand is … is his pet. Is the creature he's taken into his care.

"استغفر الله," he mutters, although this feels perhaps beyond forgiveness. He doesn't realize how hard he's breathing until he feels the wave of calm Armand is projecting, the touch of Armand's hands holding his.

"Rashid want Armand," Armand says, slowly and carefully. He touches Rashid's face again, a light caress of claws against his cheek.

It's the sentence that had gotten Rashid into this mess — a statement of his own desire, he realizes. Not of Armand's. Just his own horrible wanting that he'd tried so hard to repress.

Armand tilts Rashid's face up and Rashid reluctantly meets his eyes. There's nothing but warmth in their amber glow, the same calm he'd send to Rashid, the thread of pure affection that's now wrapping itself around Rashid's panic.

"Armand … want Rashid," Armand says. There's a sense of hesitation, but it doesn't sound like he's saying something he doesn't believe: it's the same pause that Armand used to take every time he expressed any sort of preference. He's gotten so much better over the past few years, more comfortable in Rashid's home, coming to trust that it's his home. That Rashid wants him to have what he wants.

And he'd wanted the chain, Rashid knows. When Rashid had first tried to leave Armand free in the apartment, Armand had hidden under the bed until Rashid had agreed to clasp the lead back to his collar. He'd wanted the security of it, and — though he hadn't expressed it directly, Rashid suspects — he'd wanted the feeling of being owned.

Because he wants to be Rashid's. He's made no secret of that. And if he wants this as well, to bring a … a sexual aspect to their relationship, Rashid thinks, as his breathing slows, as he lets in the happiness that Armand has nudged up against his mind … What good is Rashid doing denying either of them?

"Okay," he says quietly. He leans forward to brush his lips over Armand's. "This is good."

Good, Armand echoes, another bloom of happiness. This is good.