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Lestat always did enjoy the attention after performing. No longer was he Lelio; he returned gracefully back to Lestat, covered in smeared greasepaint, alight with a glistening sheen of sweat, his smile too large for his pretty face. Nicolas watched from a nearby candelabra as the actresses and actors and stagehands of Renaud’s fluttered around him like butterflies and small birds. The roar of applause and laughter and cheering had since died down, at least from the audience, but back here in the wings of the stage and within dressing rooms and among friends, the barrage of praise hadn’t ceased and wouldn’t do so for as long as Lestat allowed it.
“Nicki!” Lestat’s cheeks were reddened by the wine someone had brought out, and his eyes sparkled like stars as he set his gaze on Nicolas. “Come. Dance with me.”
Before Nicolas could properly protest, someone shoved a bottle of wine into his empty hand. Never one to deny himself the pleasure of drink, Nicolas took a long draught and set the bottle down. Lestat pulled him onto the now-empty stage only a second later before he could register what was happening, and it seemed that he flickered through the moments now - one and then the other, first the bottle and then the untied mane of perfect blond that framed Lestat’s face. Even with his tolerance, such strong wine had its effects on an empty stomach, and Nicolas’ head swam deliciously as Lestat led him in great sweeping waltzes across the stage. How deeply scandalous, he thought, but the shame never made it past that ingrained part of himself; tonight he intended to enjoy this life they had built together. Tonight he intended to waltz.
***
Time didn’t pass anymore. It only undulated in great waves, in and out, here and now, until their waltzing dissolved from quick, smart steps to languid ones meant only for them to see. The oil lamps that once lit the stage now burned low, dimmed with the passage of the evening, and their party attendees had diminished greatly. In time, their bodies slowed to a gentle swaying. Lestat’s breath felt hot against Nicolas’ cheek, and slow, and he knew the words that were to come.
“Nicki, take me home. I’m drunk.”
Nicolas laughed in the way only Lestat could make him laugh. He shook his head and the room swayed, as if proving the point he wished to make.
“So am I,” he said, blushing deeply when he felt Lestat’s arms envelop him around the waist. “But I’ll take you home, Lestat.” I want you to myself now, he thought, and the shock he felt upon thinking such a thing sobered him for a second. He shook his head, but the feeling – the need – only grew, this time in visions of the gentle pout of Lestat’s full lips and the softness of his skin in the places where only Nicolas had ever touched. They’d never been fully intimate with one another in the way other lovers must have been, but Nicolas knew all of the soft places on Lestat’s tapered waist, and the way his hip bones jutted from under his skin when he lay on his back, and the shiver that accompanied small kisses at the back of his neck. They’d been more intimate in their gentle, late nights than Nicolas had ever been with anyone before; sex was never the first thing on his mind, and hadn’t been since the initiation of the conversation before the theatre and Paris, but tonight stirred a strange and aching hunger. No matter how desperately he tried to think of something else – anything else – Nicolas’ thoughts always returned slowly to the brief moments he’d seen Lestat arching his back as he stretched awake in the mornings, or the soft exhales he had heard once or twice from Lestat’s side of their shared room when Nicolas feigned sleep. The wine wasn’t helping.
After a dozen goodbye kisses and embraces and sweet words, they finally left Renaud’s. Without being pressed to Lestat’s warm body, Nicolas found it a bit easier to distract himself with the roughness of the stones of Paris’ streets underfoot, and the dense summer night air, and the scent of the city all around them. But Lestat was drunk, and clinging to him in spite of the raised eyebrows and looks of distaste from the few people who lingered at such an ungodly hour. He did it on purpose, Nicolas knew, and frustratingly, it made him want Lestat even more. How terrifying it was to love him! How maddening, how confusing, to feel softly for Lestat like this when he had been told to believe it was wrong!
But then the levy of want shattered into oblivion, and for a deliciously clear moment, it didn’t matter what God wanted. It mattered only what Nicolas wanted, and he wanted Lestat so badly that this need tasted like blood on his tongue.
“Nicki,” Lestat whined, still hanging onto Nicolas’ body by the waist like he’d crumble to the cobblestone otherwise. Maybe he would have. His head rested against Nicolas’ shoulder heavily, his blonde hair occluding Nicolas’ peripheral so that all he saw was tinged with a halo of Lestat. “I want to go to bed.”
Nicolas squeezed Lestat’s hip lightly, reassuringly. “I know, Lestat.”
“Take me to bed,” he whined, and Nicolas laughed, acutely aware now of the tolerance he had developed for even the stout wine at Renaud’s.
The door to their apartment building appeared before them; they’d walked the whole way home without Nicolas once realizing it, too wrapped up in the thoughts that scared him and enticed him in equal measure. He pushed open the door and immediately Lestat exhaled in a great sigh of relief and pulled Nicolas into the little stairwell by the front of his shirt.
“Nicki, Nicki, Nicki, Nicki.” Lestat had a habit of saying Nicolas’ name in conversation as though he’d disappear into the ether if he ever stopped addressing him directly. There weren’t words enough to describe how it vastly endeared him to Nicolas; he supposed he felt similarly – if Lestat were to ever stop calling him by name, to stop addressing him by the nickname he had coined himself. How would he ever know that no one else had caught Lestat’s eye? That he was the one Lestat spoke to with his words dipped in honey, that their conversation hadn’t simply dwindled to simple subject, predicate, verb? “Hold my hand. I can hardly see the steps in front of me.”
“You had no more to drink than I did, Lestat.” Nicolas laughed but did as Lestat had requested. His hand was smaller than his own, and rougher. There were no calluses on his fingers from the coarseness of violin strings or the body of ink pens, but his palms were marked with the hard work of a hunter – the handle of an axe, the hilt of a sword, the wrist of a rifle. Briefly, in the flash of imagination, Nicolas envisioned Lestat soaked in the blood of the wolves he had killed. He saw clearly the shock of red against his pale face, his yellow hair; the vision of scarlet smeared against his skin, of the contrast against the beautiful blue eyes he had cherished and held so dear. He didn’t realize he had stopped on the stairs with Lestat’s hand tucked into his until the sound of distant, neighborly footsteps overhead coaxed him from imagination. Lestat seemed unfazed, occupied only with getting back to their apartment. His eyes were glassy and heavy-lidded. Nicolas laughed to himself at the sight and the thoughts that dropped into his mind like ripe fruit. He guided Lestat up the stairs, but he betrayed himself now; he didn’t need Nicolas’ help anymore than Nicolas needed his. But he didn’t say a word; he only brushed his thumb over Lestat’s and wondered when he’d get to feel him this close again.
In the apartment, the only adequate light came from the moon through the open window and cast thin shadows on the floor. Lestat leaned against the wall just inside of the doorframe, and Nicolas felt his eyes following him as he lit the oil lamp that rested on a small table at the center of the room; he felt the urgency with which Lestat stared at him, the need, the hunger. It sent a tiny shock of thrill through his nerves to think – no, to know unquestionably – that Lestat felt and entertained the same desire Nicolas had felt all night. But it frightened him too. The wine, he thought. It must be the wine.
Lestat seemed content to linger against the wall. No doubt he was swimming in his own thoughts; though Nicolas could tell now that he was feigning drunkenness, he was still affected by the wine, and the slight rosiness of his cheeks through the thick stage makeup betrayed as much. Nicolas crossed the room to the basin in their tiny kitchen and soaked a linen rag with water; as he wrung it out he became acutely aware of Lestat’s eyes on him, and never before in his life had he felt more like a prey animal.
He swallowed and beckoned Lestat to come to him. Moonlight caught in his hair as he walked through the room, and the softest glow surrounded him like an aura. A halo. Nicolas studied his features, so gentle and tired, almost cherubic, but cut with a curious sense of want. This is all a cruel trick of imagination, he thought. They’d shared tender kisses before, and often, but the things written on Lestat’s face reflected the types of thoughts Nicolas had attempted to chase away as they left Renaud’s; they were lustful, impatient thoughts, and the cold fire of desperation filled Nicolas’ every limb once again. Lestat reached out and placed his hand flat against Nicolas’ chest and said nothing, but Nicolas searched his eyes and found only echoes of the same longing he felt within himself. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and began to gently, wordlessly wipe away the makeup on Lestat’s face.
Lestat smiled in some soft amusement and distracted Nicolas from cleaning the greasepaint from his cheeks. In the newly bare spots, the blush from the wine (or was it the desire?) showed beautifully against his otherwise pale complexion, and the grin lifted his perfect face entirely, and for a moment he was sure his heart would burst if he waited another moment longer. The music of Lestat’s gentle laughter resonated in his bones with an ache he felt often, but would never grow accustomed to feeling.
“What are you thinking about, Nicki?”
Uncertainty flooded him in response. Should he lie? Should he tell the truth and be damned forever? He only shook his head and mimicked the amusement on Lestat’s face.
“Nothing important.” Everything. Everything I want to do with you.
Of course, he could never say it. But he could show it. With his free hand he held his palm to Lestat’s cheek and felt the remains of his thick, tacky makeup attaching to his palm. He didn’t care. He felt it, too, when he leaned in to kiss Lestat’s soft lips, and knew he would come away with his face stained white and flushed red. Lestat met the kiss with twice the desperation and just as much urgency; the hand that had lingered on Nicolas’ chest now fell to his waist, and possessively the other encircled Nicolas’ hip and guided him over to the bed they shared on the opposite end of the room – a simple mattress on the floor, but the nicest one they could manage, and to Nicolas it presented the symbol of their little life together after leaving Auvergne. His heart began to pound in his chest as Lestat pulled him down to sit beside him; their kiss had only broken long enough to allow this change of position, but it only took meagre seconds to put Nicolas into a spiral of anxiety and doubt.
That all fell away the second Lestat kissed him again. He still tasted like the wine: cheap and strong and bitter. But there was nothing bitter about the moment. Warmth flooded Nicolas and he felt as though anyone looking upon him could see a dim glow of something illuminating him from the inside. It had to be love. He knew it to be love. All of it belonged to Lestat.
The decency and Godliness Nicolas tried so hard to preserve fell away in peels the very precise second he felt Lestat’s tongue against the seam of his lips. He slid his fingers into Lestat’s hair and inhaled sharply before allowing his lips to part; he wasted no time in slipping his tongue into Nicolas’ mouth, and though they’d done this before, never had Nicolas felt so unbridled, so unglued as he did now. Lestat began to climb into Nicolas’ lap, but stopped, and pulled back from the kiss that had felt so all-consuming and wonderful that the abrupt stop made Nicolas a little dizzy. It was only in the absence of such sweetness that he realized how dense his desire had become, how his body longed for Lestat just as strongly as his heart and his mind.
“What is it, Lestat?”
Lestat only shook his head. He was thinking about something, but it was impossible to puzzle out exactly what it was, and the uncertainty brought the living buzz of anxiety back into Nicolas.
“Move back,” he finally said, and Nicolas obeyed without question. He pushed himself backwards until he felt his shoulders connect with the plaster wall, directly in the center of the mattress. Lestat nodded his approval and a wicked expression came over his features, still ghostly white from the paint he’d neglected to wash away. Nicolas wondered how much of it was on his face now, how red his lips must be not only from the kisses but from the soft rose stain that Lestat wore on stage each night.
“Wonderful.”
“What are you –”
Nicolas’ question died on his lips as Lestat did away with the shy pining. It had grown too much for him, Nicolas understood, and relief mingled with the impatience he felt as Lestat straddled his thighs.
“I can’t stand just to kiss you anymore,” Lestat confessed, and Nicolas’ cheeks burned bright red. The hands he had held on the stairs now rested firmly on his waist and they crushed their lips together in a heavy kiss. Neither of them cared any longer to wait. What had they been waiting for? Their only witnesses were each other and the moon, still hung brightly in the sky, still casting thin shadows on the floor. “I’m going to undress you.”
Nicolas wasn’t sure when Lestat’s drunken facade had faded, but it certainly no longer existed. His hands move deftly down the front of his shirt, unbuttoning it, exposing the olive skin of Nicolas’ chest, and the slow heat of Lestat’s hands spread throughout his body. He grew markedly aware of his body’s response to the touching and kissing, betraying the stoicism he had tried for so long to maintain. It all fell away in an instant, in a simple night’s unfolding; none of it had ever mattered, he realized, because it had always been there, had always magnetized them to each other.
He dropped the shirt he had worn off to the side of the bed. Almost intentionally it landed squarely in a puddle of moonlight, the evidence of their inevitable night already illuminated before it had even fully begun. Lestat had gotten to work unbuttoning and untying his breeches and already it looked as though he were wrestling with the layers of linen and cotton. He huffed an indignant breath as he finally undid the last button and began to tug them down past Nicolas’ hips. He laughed and raised himself up on his palms to help Lestat along.
“Take your time, cher,” he teased, and Lestat sent a playful glare up at him. Nicolas ruffled his hair. Somehow, in that way only Lestat possessed, he had diminished the worry and shame and anxiety that brewed uncomfortably and unwarranted in Nicolas’ chest. He wanted this moment; he wanted it more than anything in the world, but so much of his life had been spent believing that even doing this with a woman before marriage was enough to condemn his soul. And he knew that sin always felt good, but it didn’t feel like sin with Lestat. It felt like nothing more than the natural order of things, like an inevitable consequence of their closeness. It still lingered, somewhere deep in the back of his mind. But he was tired of worrying. God could figure out a way to deal with this himself.
The shock of sensation drew Nicolas from the existential reverie he had chased all night. Lestat’s hand rested on his now-bare inner thigh and suddenly the room felt smaller, hotter than it had when they entered. He realized with an odd feeling that he was completely naked, but he didn’t feel shy as he thought he ought to feel.
“You think too much, my Nicki. Give yourself over to me.”
His thoughts must have been worn clearly on his face, he realized. He nodded and drew in a breath to speak, but instead of words, a sentence, a whimper left his lips as he felt Lestat’s hand – calloused in such a different way than his own – wrap around his cock. His eyes fluttered closed as Lestat brushed his thumb over the tip and collected the precum that glistened in the soft light.
Every thought of God and man and his own morality died in that room. Lestat replaced all of it with the slow gesture of his wrist.
“Lestat –”
“Shh, Nicki. Allow me this. I’ve waited so long.”
“I wasn’t going to stop you.”
Lestat raised his eyebrows when he looked up again, and bashfulness covered Nicki’s face.
“Use your mouth. Please.”
A wide, mischievous grin spread over Lestat’s face. Nicolas felt a little thrill of fear come over him. What had he gotten himself into? Lestat wasted no time in fulfilling his request, and the immediate change drew a shuddering gasp from him. His hand tightened in Lestat’s hair so strongly that he groaned in response, and the vibration from the sound only amplified what he was feeling. Lestat’s soft tongue pressed eagerly against the length of his cock as he took more and more into his mouth. Nicolas’ breathing grew irregular and fast and his chest rose and fell in quick, short movements; his head rested now against the wall, tilted back ever so slightly, and his teeth sank into his lower lip in an attempt to keep from crying out. When Lestat noticed this, he pulled back entirely, and Nicki let out a little groan.
“No, cheri. I want to hear you.”
How could Nicolas deny him this? What reason did he have to say no?
“Keep going, Lestat.”
Lestat grinned again before placing his mouth back on Nicolas, who no longer withheld any of the deep, unsteady breaths that this new pleasure drew out of him. He swore under his breath and tugged again at the small curls at the back of Lestat’s head and drew him forwards. A little muffled whine left Lestat as Nicolas pushed his head down, and upon realizing what he’d done, Nicolas pulled his hand away and covered his eyes in embarrassment. Lestat only looked up at him and took him a little further into his mouth, wordlessly promising that he was content here, that he could take it. Nicolas’ hips shifted upwards without his meaning to and he moaned as he felt the tip of his cock connect with the warmth of the back of Lestat’s throat. He pulled his hands away from his eyes long enough to see tears welling in Lestat’s, threatening to spill out, and instead of feeling guilty for the sight he wanted more of it, wanted to see tears stream down his lover’s face until they gathered under his chin.
Lestat’s tongue sliding back and forth against the underside of his cock interrupted his thoughts; his mouth felt like velvet. Nicolas’ hand curled against the mattress, gripped the topmost layer of fabric in a feeble attempt at grounding himself. He whimpered again, this time without a trace of shyness.
“Please …” It was all he could manage now, with his mind solely on the feeling of Lestat’s perfect mouth, his gentle tongue, as if he’d done this a million times before. It occurred to Nicolas slowly that he had done this before, in his most private thoughts, that he had mapped out exactly how he would touch and tease and taste him as he did now. He cursed the past for not allowing them to live out the moment sooner. Lestat’s name fell from his lips like a holy word, like reciting scripture. The praise, Nicolas noticed, seemed to encourage him, and slowly his head began to bob up and down, his tongue dragging slowly as he moved. Indeed a few tears began to fall from Lestat’s eyes the deeper he took Nicolas into his mouth, and once he noticed, Nicolas brushed them away with the pad of his thumb.
Already the physical feeling of this moment overwhelmed him, but the sight of Lestat’s lips wrapped around him and the slow, deliberate motion of his head, the position of his palms flat on Nicolas’ thighs – all of it drove him wild. His Lestat, in their bed, with his cock filling his mouth; all of it felt beautifully surreal. Nicolas shifted his hips forwards again, intentionally this time, and cried out Lestat’s name louder than he’d dared before. As if knowing exactly how he felt now, Lestat wrapped his hand around what he couldn’t take of Nicolas’ cock and stroked it quickly as he focused his tongue instead on the tip, teasing and brushing his tongue against it in tandem with the speed of his hand. Nicolas covered his eyes again, more out of the sense of overwhelm than embarrassment this time, as a string of obscene sounds mingled with hoarse swears filled the space around them.
The vague familiarity of climax began its gradual build in his stomach, his thighs; Nicolas had only ever touched himself once or twice in his life, each time with a wash of guilt to accompany it, but the decadent indulgence of an approaching orgasm felt, for once, divine.
“Lestat,” he warned, and Lestat only looked up through thick lashes with a smug glint in his eyes. Nicolas couldn’t even bring himself to feel affectionately annoyed, as he so often did with Lestat’s self-satisfaction. Despite his labored, quick breathing, and the intermittent whines and gasps that slipped past his lips, the vulgar sound of Lestat’s mouth surrounded them and made Nicolas’ head spin with lust and desire and love for the man before him. Nicolas slipped easily into the waves of absolute ecstasy as he spilled into Lestat’s mouth with a final, shaking gasp.
Lestat swallowed as he met Nicolas’ eyes; his pupils were blown, his eyes darker than Nicolas had ever seen them, and when he finally sat up again he licked the remnants of Nicolas’ orgasm from his lips. Without a word, Nicolas brought him closer and kissed him, and a little jolt of uncertain sensation filled him as he tasted himself on Lestat’s lips. He released Lestat and began to think about reciprocating, about how badly he wanted to experience Lestat the same way Lestat had experienced him.
“Can I –”
Lestat shook his head with a sly little grin on his lips. Nicolas blushed. “Not tonight, my Nicki.” He pressed a little kiss to Nicolas’ lips. “I’m tired. I want you to hold me.”
“You’ve still got greasepaint on your face,” Nicolas observed, and they both laughed in quiet little giggles; it hadn’t mattered then, when so much else happened between them, but in the afterglow it all felt very silly.
Nicolas left their bed and returned with the cloth from before with a creeping sense of shyness as the vulnerability of the moment became very, very clear. But Lestat allowed him to remove the rest of the makeup with a pampered, devoted expression on his face, and as Nicolas removed the last of the white paint, he let the rag hit the floor next to his discarded shirt. He undressed Lestat just as he had been undressed; he took his time, though, far more patient than Lestat had been. Each button opened and his blouse fell away to reveal the smooth skin of his torso that he had coveted so often before but hadn’t wanted to admit to himself. None of that seemed to matter now – the shame or the guilt, the denial or secrecy.
Nothing had changed between them except the delight of broken tension. Nicolas tangled himself with Lestat under the quilt, pacified by the warmth of his skin, the radiance of the night’s events unfolding; Lestat fell asleep in mere minutes under the blanket of comfort that had befallen them.
Nicolas stayed awake, as he tended to do, looking out at the moon over Lestat’s delicate shoulder. He felt then what he knew Lestat must have felt each day since their visit to the witches’ place – how could sin feel holy? What God would deny such simple love? Nicolas brushed his thumb over Lestat’s rib and pressed a soft kiss to his shoulder, careful not to wake him. If they were damned for this shared divinity, then so be it.