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The first time it happened, Louis thought it was all in his head, a dream and a nightmare swaddled together tight as a fatty roast between invisible twine. To start, the bar was dimly lit. Even with vampiric eyes Louis found himself squinting past orange hair tufts in pursuit of pearly blonde he swore he’d banished from his mind - for the night at least.
Harvey preened over his martini, smile wet, “I really, really think you’ll like my next one. I’m trying to draw inspiration from Klimt’s Byzantine imagery, and the gold - oh I’m obsessed with the gold lately.”
He was a painter, largely undiscovered. Louis could smell potential in his caramel-like blood. And remained endlessly cocky when budding, profitable art was involved. They’ve met a few times, for Louis to feed a fascination with innate human skill to capture essences of humanity in things, the things they make without even damn trying.
Harvey talked of brush strokes and the revelry of losing oneself in creation. Once he’d said something about how when he put his brush down he felt as though he’d descended back to Earth from a visionary realm above. Or below. He wasn’t specific, but the delicate freckles that covered his nose, clustered like little constellations made Louis reckon above was more accurate. A big reason why he wanted to buy his art.
“Yeah? I’m thinking maybe I’ll commission a piece. ‘You consider that?”
“Mr. Du Lac -” he said, flirty glint in his eye. “I think I’d paint you whatever you want.”
“Hm.” In Harvey’s thoughts Louis heard him wonder how his mouth tasted, and chuckled. It was flattering, he forgot what it was like to be coveted for the sweetness he might’ve had a century ago, and merely pretended to possess these days. “No, no - wouldn’t want to cloud the vision make you do something you don’t ‘wanna do. Gold sounds nice, tell me more about it.”
Louis looked past Harvey again, eyes flashed through the crowd by the door gathering their coats, onto the couples leaning on the bar top, back to the tiny tables overflowing with stacked plates.
He thought his mind was playing a well practiced trick, his subconscious trying to convince his conscious that he couldn’t truly be anyone outside of Lestat. That he could feel Lestat’s presence when Lestat wasn’t there, could see his face when they weren’t on the same continent. Easy to believe, he’d seen him, felt him when he thought they were on separate plains of existence.
No. It couldn’t be. Last they spoke, Lestat was in NOLA. Buried in writing a song, he’d said. Far far away from the quant Copenhagen restaurant with the pale blue awning.
And it was that convincing which made Louis jump, his thighs raised off his chair, eyes wide. An achingly familiar hand scrunched over his shoulder, interrupted Harvey’s breakdown of gold symbolism. The grip was hard, delicious, demanded attention, entirely Lestat. As Louis expected, he was standing directly beside their table, dressed quite plainly for him in pale jeans, a leather jacket, and a disastrously thin white tee shirt. Louis shook his hand off, only able to manage a deep inhale through his nose as response. Lestat smelled of mouth-watering lavender, damn him.
“Louis,” Lestat began, smiling in that one foot sunk into sinister way. “Hello. I did not expect you here, it’s been too long, non?”
It’d been two weeks. Louis could tell it was stretching closer to three from the graveyard of missed calls on his phone every evening, growing and growing like a blister itching to pop. He’d told Lestat he wanted space. From him, from them, from New Orleans. He’s still stitching himself back together - and he couldn’t continue to use his worn needle, his leftover thread, on Lestat as well.
Harvey squinted, mind flipping over to try and puzzle their context. “Sorry, do you…like, know each other?”
“Lestat,” Louis said, under his breath at first “thought you’d be - not here.”
“A change of plans mon ami.” Lestat spun to face Harvey, and Louis didn’t need to be able to hear his thoughts to know his devious mind was working. “Yes, a matter of unfortunate fact for you if I’m being honest.” He pointed at Harvey. “You are in my seat.”
Louis clenched his jaw, the tension between them pulling like a worn rubber band, a sliver already yanked into it, dangerously close to snapping. “Lestat -”
“I’m what?” asked Harvey, “I don’t even know who the hell you are, and you’re what, here to steal my date?”
“Date?” Lestat cackled, just short of hysterically. Smacked himself in the cheeks with wavy blonde ends when he brought his chin back to centre. He gave Harvey a look laced with amusement, he was a doll to bend how he pleased. “You’re going to get up, grab your tawdry coat and walk out the door. Go home, wander the streets, it does not matter to me. But you are going to leave.”
“It’s not a date,” Louis groaned.
Harvey’s face went slack. “I’m going to leave.” He nodded, slow.
Louis dropped his face to his hands. Of course, of fucking course he’d come here for this. To demonstrate how he’s the superior force in Louis’ heart - and he was, he is. Lestat couldn’t be his sun, he couldn’t orbit him until he’s burned sore, and Louis felt he shouldn’t be his. They both needed time, Louis to be on his own, Lestat to familiarize himself with the world. Back in New Orleans, months ago, weeks ago, they’d talked about it, agreed.
The chair squeaked against the floor as Harvey mindlessly stood, walked out of the restaurant as seamless as a marionette who’d finished his act. Lestat sat down, hair thrown over his shoulder with a flourish that sent a shiver through Louis’ chest. He looked almost like he remembered. Stronger than the shell he’d found in the middle of a hurricane, yet his eyes were perpetually lined with red. And sometimes his pupils stayed fuzzy, dipped into an inebriated haze Louis knew too well.
He hated it. But who was he to tell Lestat how to live now?
When they called and Lestat held his phone close to his face to whisper endearments, mimic proximity, Louis knew the whites of his eyes would be tinted scarlet. That there would be a hard stretch of crimson over his water line, and he’d lift his thumb to the screen as though he could wipe it away. Better that the screen was there to catch him in the fantasy of consoling Lestat, keep him from instilling more needless cracks on his wounded heart.
Louis gulped, shell-shocked by the presence of his husba- his maker. “Why’re you here?”
“Do you have a cigarette?” Lestat asked, as innocently as he could. The bravado had disappeared with his victim, but his words lacked that initial punch. He kept trying, Lestat always kept trying. “You’re aware I prefer to celebrate my victories.”
Even in modern garb, denim of all sinful things, he remained a displaced shadow of past times. Off balance, as though he could accidentally snap his fingers and return to those years if he wanted. Louis liked that he had done a better job of acclimating. The jeans did look good though, he could admit it.
Louis ran his tongue over his teeth, then clicked his tongue. “You can’t do that shit inside anymore, remember?”
“Ah. C’est vrai!” He reached over the table to finish off Louis’ glass of gin. The bags under his eyes were chasmic, one could drop into them and be falling for decades.
“How could I forget that this existence must balance out even minor delights with palpable tragedies? These fragile human minds shouldn’t be making the rules. I hope things will change. Now they have the opportunity to peruse a genuine vampiric chronicle.”
Melodramatics propped up as a shield. He’d become simple to interpret despite his unprecedented unpredictability. Louis felt worn fondness in his chest, thought of sticking his fingers into the purple circles around Lestat’s eyes, of kissing him there to banish exhaustion. Then a harsher picture occurred, where he’d rub that same satiny skin until it turned raw. Until it slid off his bones like wet tissue paper, left true chasms where he’d touched. Afterwards he’d slurp up the mess from under his fingernails.
His response went for the aura of the latter. “‘Should’ve guess you read the book, you look wrecked.”
The restaurant began to clear, groups and groups of patrons wordlessly flittering out the front door. Lestat wanted this private, clearing extras into the wings was his version of adaptability.
Louis knew his words would hurt, and he could see it - really see Lestat’s mouth dip to a frown, drag him somewhere deep inside his hurt, for a flicker. Once, Louis told himself he wouldn’t send him there if he could help it, but well, maybe he was unpredictable too.
“You did not think to warn me?”
“I had no idea until it was too late, got an early copy mailed to me - haven’t even broken the spine.”
“Of course!” Lestat scoffed. “Another affair you won’t share with me. What else will you use to try and sever our bond? What other props will you throw up to keep me away while your lips stay silent?”
“That’s not - I told you, I’m on my own now.”
“I remember.” His irritation seemed to diminish, like something stronger took over. Those gorgeous grey eyes held a sparkle that forced Louis to hold back shuddering. “And I understand Louis, I do.”
Louis highly doubted that. Lestat spoke of loneliness and being alone as one and the same, both torturous. He was waiting, and unable to hide his impatience.
“You’re extraordinaire, with that book you -” Lestat gasped, softly, caught in a web of awe. “You’ve burst out of the shadows. Unashamed. As I’ve always known you could. But Louis, cher Louis, belle Louis, I wanted you there while I read it, I long to have you close.”
Louis’ jaw tightened, and his heart swelled. “I’ve been busy.” Which wasn’t a lie, but he’d never been too busy to neglect thinking of Lestat.
Louis had been driving a wedge between them, and he had gown quite devoted to it. It kept their existences separate. Before, Louis felt his was wrapped tight around Lestat’s like a vine, unable to grow without his support. Louis knew Lestat’s longing was mirrored perfectly in himself, but he wouldn’t say it. Telling Lestat you needed him was a dangerous game, Louis was too afraid he’d lose himself again in the process.
“I know.” Lestat nodded.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have bothered.” he said. “I asked you for space Les - what the fuck is this?”
Lestat straightened his shoulders, eyes volleyed to Louis’ with a new wounded interest, similar to a dog after an unprovoked kick. “I should have opened up the delicate wrist of your precious artiste and drank his contents from this very glass. I’m sure he would have tasted delectable, desperate -”
“I’m buyin’ his paintings.” Louis shrugged. “‘Can’t help what he thought about it.”
He was grasping at nothing, caged and desperately gnawing at the bars. Louis thought they were past throwing punches when tension rose. But another deep, callous part of him was glad. Not a bud of resentment for Lestat, but a new blossom altogether which felt justification in their separation.
He leaned back. “That why you showed up? To prove you’re the vilest, most ruthless of them all?”
“I don’t need to - what was it you said?” He flipped his hair out of his face, “Pauvre, égoïste, Lestat is, was, and always will be for Lestat.”
“That’s all you read?” Louis sighed, overcome with the need to shake sense into him. They didn’t talk about things enough, he was right, they should have dug it up together. “You are! I don't remember saying that. If I did I was upset with you when I was giving the interview, distressed by everything. You don’t even know the half of it - made me feel better to lash out on you. But you can’t tell me it’s all fucking lies. Some of it’s the most true shit I’ve ever said.”
“I want to hear you say it.” Lestat asserted, his mouth in a firm line. “Not from the mouthpiece you chose to write it down. He takes your words and twists them between his own Louis, it’s not right.”
“He’s a journalist. That’s what they do.”
“Tell me how each catastrophe was my fault. I’m a parasite you can’t clean yourself of, a song you abhor stuck in your head. It’ll be the sweetest laceration from your mouth.”
Lestat lifted his chin high, scanned the room, out of hunger or distraction he couldn’t be sure. Insecurity a whirling vortex, getting faster and faster around them. If he let it get stronger it would knock the tables over, shatter all the bottles behind the bar, leave the place in ruins. Despite Louis’ brain telling him no, his body reached for Lestat. The tips of his fingers tingled because his cells craved him down to their very core.
“You’re right. I can’t shake you.” Louis pried Lestat’s fingers from curling into his palm, laced them through his own. “But it wasn’t all on you mon cher.”
Lestat softened, eyes glassy and wide, momentarily speechless. Louis could hear his drumming heartbeat speed up, a metronome tracking the pulse of their bond.
“J’aurais dû appeler,” he muttered, so quick that it managed to flutter away in the thick air.
Louis’ French was elusive from time and unpracticed tongue. His face fell in bewilderment, eyes searching for explanation in Lestat’s wide ones. He was squeezing his hand, clawing back to English for him.
“I should have called,” he repeated, very quiet.
“You have,” Louis scoffed, held back full throttle laughter. If only because he had just quelled Lestat, and nothing else. “I’ve been dodging your calls.”
Lestat was silent again, his gaze on their joint hands like he was flipping around the best response in his mind. Maybe Louis wanted him to consider his words more, craved for him to understand why their relationship was a fragile thing. It needed to be cradled, and nursed back to health instead of thrown - no matter the amount of passion in the pitcher.
Lestat’s head snapped back up to Louis, on the edge of tears, a scream, a lunge. Lestat always seemed like he had toes off a ledge. “Then, should I stop? Calling?”
He’s still angry, of course, the anger might be forever dormant in his heart. From Lestat, a wry look quickly ignited Louis, effortlessly expanding to a wild forest fire. He’d fan those flames to make a point, prove that the initial embers weren’t for nothing. But that night, Lestat’s attacks had been missing. Sparks had fizzled and gone out, done out of desperation. Unlike their old joust, none of his hits stuck properly.
Louis wanted him near, Lestat interrupted his evening because he’d somehow known that first.
“No,” Louis smiled, enamoured.
Lestat may have ended up in Louis’ hotel room that night. And maybe Louis did finally unbutton those skinny, figure hugging, jeans with the tips of his teeth.
The second time, Louis was not particularly proud of. He still hadn’t been on a date. It could have turned into one if he indulged in humans, if he thought it’d make him feel anything other than seasick.
Francis ran a gallery in Brooklyn, a good one by Louis standards - and he wanted to borrow one a piece from Louis personal collection for an upcoming exhibition. The piece had been stuffed into storage, he wouldn’t miss it. Somehow he’d offered to fly it in himself. Out of the goodness of his heart, the self-discovery travelling is meant to bring, not because his Dubai penthouse felt eerily quiet.
“We’ll take great care of her Mr. De Pointe du Lac, you have my word.”
Louis was shaking Francis’ hand, no one in the dim, quiet gallery other than the delivery people carrying in the painting held inside thick layers of bubble wrapping. He thought about asking for a tour of the gallery, of the other procured pieces, of seeing if Francis’ black hair would disappear in the dark, or if the city’s lights would create a new hue while they strolled hand in hand.
As he peered into Francis’ thoughts he could see he wouldn’t exactly be averse to the concept. “I appreciate it,” he smiled, sweetly, predatorily. “Been with me for a long time, that one. I’m very protective of my art usually - don’t go shipping them off to just anyone.”
“Yeah?” Francis smirked, pulled his collar from his neck with the tips of his short nails. “I get that. I’d have a hard time parting with a Munch if I were you.”
“I ain’t going to miss it much,” he shrugged. “Y’know lately it’s been reminding me a lot of Love and Pain. The painting - not the emotions - you get what I mean.”
“For sure. That’s a metal piece. Did you know it’s also called Vampire? Not by Munch but still, actually - I think your piece seems more like it should be titled vampire.”
Yes, a million times yes. If he wanted, Louis could push Francis’ jaw upwards, expose his dark neck, that mouth-watering, pumping artery achingly in his reach. He could hear his heart drumming, faster and faster. The squelch of his blood pumping through his veins, he bet it would be warm, earthy, artsy. Louis had to hold back his fangs, ached to slide his teeth along that neck, puncture that soft human skin.
“You’ve got a good eye.” He ran his tongue slowly over his bottom lip, considering. “I think so too. It’s the reds. Very evocative.”
Even though it lasted a split second, Louis felt a tsunami if shame, his control hadn’t slipped in years. He didn’t believe he remained capable of such unabashed desire for blood, for company. Being his own companion didn’t mean he had to be a monk, no, no it certainly didn’t he could -
Abruptly, he felt Lestat in his bones. And the big glass doors slid open.
Then he heard Lestat, those accented syllables unmistakable. “Louis! Hello!”
Lestat, who was losing more shame by the century, took silence as a signal to continue. He took his big square sunglasses off his face and put them on top of his head to hold back his sinfully golden hair. It brushed over his cheekbones, and Louis knew he caught him looking - vainglorious grin on his lips.
“I hate to barge in, but I seem to be having a problem with my automobile.” He tilted his head, agonizingly slow, as though underwater. “I thought perhaps one of you strapping gentlemen would give me a hand?”
“You mean your car.” Louis chuckled, and it was fond, dumbly fond. “It’s a car now.”
“Excuse me - I could’ve sworn I locked those doors. We’re closed, but there’s a gas station a few blocks east I think. Bet they’ll be able to give you a jump. Is that what they call it? I don’t drive.” Francis said.
Lestat ignored him, was staring at Louis as though he was the only being in the world. As he usually did.
“So you are the expert! How fortunate of me to spot your lights on.” Lestat clapped his hands, one hard resounding smack that made the expanse of the room vibrate.
Louis felt his breath hop, and as his eye caught on the familiar silver band around Lestat’s ring finger. Reeked of Paris - of the years he’d yearned for him, felt himself aching to lunge. He wanted him. He loved him. He should stay away.
“I’ve stopped just outside,” Lestat said, addictively, perilously. As though he’d broken through the wall between their minds and could see what Louis had been desiring, had to offer himself up on a platter instead. “If you’d be so kind.”
If he wasn’t Louis’ favourite meal for every statable hunger, he may have been insulted by the ease in which he was lead off his path, outside into the night. It reminded him of the little girl from Grace’s storybooks, who knew of the safer path, yet saw the enticement of darkness too palpably. Maybe she’d been reborn out of it too - it was merely calling her back.
“Sure thing.”
Louis forgot about Francis. Perhaps he waved goodbye, gave a half-baked thank you, walked to the parking lot. He got into the front of a white SUV and somehow, against all his better judgement ended up in the passenger’s seat with a lap full of Lestat.
He hadn’t seen him in months, again. No conduction of proper conversation about what Daniel’s book meant - if it did mean anything at all. Louis was terrified of the answer.
“You have to be more careful mon cher. There was a group of our kind outside, waiting for you.”
Louis shrugged. “I heard them coming.”
“They hate your book.”
“Not mine it’s -”
“Daniel’s. Oui. You’ve said.”
“I knew they were there. ‘Would love to hear the scalding reviews from their sorry faces - see if they’ll get it all out before I rip their throats open.”
“I do not believe you,” Lestat ran his thumb along Louis’ bottom lip, almost close enough to slash skin on fangs. “Lucky you, I eviscerated them.”
“Better not be lookin’ for a thank you.” Louis growled, snapped his jaw shut a millisecond too late. Missed his chance to catch Lestat’s nail bed. He’d snatched his hand back, moved it down to fiddle with the hem of Louis’ sweater. His own fingers curled through the belt loops of Lestat’s pants, to keep him from slipping away, from giving himself the space to think about how they shouldn’t.
“Non, the pleasure is all mine.”
Lestat’s knees became firm in their hold around his hips, trapping Louis in turn against the leather seat and oh - it was the most delectable place to be ensnared. Their foreheads pressed into each other, breathy moans harmonized as their clothed cocks rut in an endless chase for friction.
On him, Lestat’s eyes were all black, twin craters of desire that were dragging Louis down, down, down. He felt his lashes flutter as Lestat’s big hands slipped underneath his sweater - groaned when he spread his palms over his hips, trailed them up his back to push him closer. His fingertips kneaded, the cold rings on his skin sent an electric shock inside, arched him forward, ignited desire he’d tried to keep dormant.
“Lestat.” Louis had his hands tangled in Lestat’s hair. He yanked at the root every few breaths to hear the way his exhales would morph into glistening whines. He’s sensational like that, he wanted him to want him enough to fucking cry. “We ‘gonna ruin your expensive pants only with heavy petting? Just your hips writhing on my lap?”
Instead of asking if he likes it, as he would have a century ago, Louis pulled at Lestat’s hair again to watch his eyes roll back, his mouth open and gasping for air he doesn’t need. He kissed him, forced his lips open so he can taste those pretty whines - feel the desperation shoot to his tonsils and hang on tight.
Lestat nodded, enthusiastically, his nails digging into Louis shoulder blades like a lifeline. And Louis rutted his hips up harder, made Lestat bounce up on, around his lap, thick black mascara smudged under his eyes - a gorgeous, depraved picture that was made for him.
Louis bit at his bottom lip, watched rapturously as Lestat preened and took his hands back to his own shirt. It stuck to his sweaty chest, fine silk crinkled and folded from their debauchery.
To Lestat, life was an endless performance, and Louis was addicted to being his spotlight, his director, his scene partner.
“Especially…for you.” He looked Louis in the eye as he made sluggish work of undoing violet buttons, that really did not match the shirt as well as they did his eyes. Then rolled the sleeves off in time with his grinding hips. “Toujours pour toi.”
“What?”
“You need to work on your French.” Lestat panted. “I said - always for you.”
He knew, it begged repetition.
Louis’ greedy palms flattened against his chest, on hard plains that stayed rose-blotted and full. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, blood really, and fuck - Louis could never conjure up a better sight. Lestat is Le génie du mal, free from his shackles in the pulpit of St.Pauls, cast in marble, forever the embodiment of the seduction of sin. In his dark descent, Louis got to bend that unattainable marble, as if it’s warm putty in his hands.
“Mhm,” Louis nods, his head leaned into Lestat’s neck, tip of his nose scraping up to his ear. He nicked a fang, quick, barely a scratch underneath his lobe, and licked at the drip of blood that oozed out. Lestat panted, leaned into Louis famished mouth as far as he was able.
“Please Louis, mon ange, take it from me. I want -” Lestat was rutting needlessly over Louis’ thigh, visibly unravelling, his pants strained and damp. He wore them so damn tight, his cock was undoubtedly in pain, strained up, seeking Louis out by name. It made Louis’ eyes burn, and tighten his grip on his chest, squeeze nipples between his fingers.
“Please, please,” a gasp, high as the clouds, “Louis.”
He hit his mouth to his neck in a hard kiss. “Wouldn’t that be cheating? Said you’d come without me touching you, or entering any of your holes.”
“I -” Lestat groaned, teeth kissing, frustrated head heavy and leaning forward with each grind. He was grabbing onto Louis’ shoulders, poking naughty holes with his nails in the cashmere in attempted releases of tension. “It does not count if you make one,” he smirked, offered up his neck again.
Louis really didn’t want to argue with that. When Lestat was close, ready, begging. How could he possibly? “So clever baby,” he said, then sunk his fangs into that delectable, plush, neck of his.
Entirely his. Lestat tasted of decadence, the thickest ambrosia, the most succulent wine. Louis sucked at the open wound, tongue licking over the edges, unable to fathom missing a single drop.
He’s unsure exactly when Lestat comes, all of his moaning, singing sounds blended together. But he does feel when it is over. Lestat’s voice dropped down to shallow pants and minuscule whimpers, like a small, wounded thing. And he’d let go of Louis’ shoulders to rub at his biceps instead.
At those soothing circles, pushes of torn fabric against his skin, Louis retracted his mouth from overt biting - pulled back to lick softly at the gash he’d made alike to a kitten over a bowl of warmed milk.
“Knew you’d do it.” Louis praised. Kissed the closing wound, his ear, his jaw. “Desperate for it. I could see it on your face when you strolled in.”
Lestat exhaled deep, mouth open, cheek rested atop of Louis head. There’s a big blotched stain of red on his crotch, on the bottom of Louis’ sweater that was once a vibrant green. He took it upon himself to pull it over his head, even though it meant removing himself from Lestat’s gorgeous neck.
He did pout at the separation, arms stuck at his sides with nothing to do, though ultimately allowed it. The sweater ended up in the backseat somewhere, and Lestat grabbed at Louis’ face, hoisted him in for a proper kiss.
He groaned. An amaranthine sound. Because it was good, damn was it good. Lestat’s lips were velvet, and they slotted into Louis as though they belonged there, were crafted specifically to kiss him, to lick over the roof of his mouth. He tilted his hips towards him, remembered the very real hardness stuck under in his slacks.
Lestat took the non-existent hint, his fingertips grazing the waist of Louis pants and loosening his belt. He’s excellent at multitasking in this specific configuration.
The scalding kisses hardly falter, they make Louis dizzy with their devotion, and in a seeming instant he felt his pants pool around his ankles. Those wicked, Lestat shaped legs caught Louis in a cage, and he began to swivel his hips down in deliberate, forcible, circles.
“Better than black tar heroin, multiplied by miles - all the way to the rings of Saturn and back your Daniel wrote.” Lestat mumbled, his nails scratched at Louis’ hairline. “I think I may agree with him. At least judging by the way you do it Saint Louis.”
“What?” Louis recoiled, question on the precipice of a bark.
“Your book.” Lestat said. “Excusez-moi, Daniel’s book.”
“You’re insufferable, you know that?” Louis put his hand back on the small of Lestat’s back, while the other fell between his legs to put pressure on that soaked spot. “Quoting that book to me all the time.”
“I do,” Lestat squeaked. Louis was palming him roughly, hand underneath his waistband, around his length. The insatiable thing was already half-hard again. He recalled the conversation with Daniel, during their first session back in Dubai and suddenly felt an intense ownership over his words.
“By the way, Daniel didn’t say that - I did.”
“Oui, that is what the book says.”
Lestat whimpered when Louis pulled back his hand. Better for him to put his time into unbuckling his pants, which he did sparingly before beckoning Lestat to take over, wiggling and writhing again until they were gone.
Then he was bare, and Louis felt the embers fully ignite inside of him. He’s glad that the lot is cleared, and no one has been brave enough to pass through in the dark - he was far from finished indulging in Lestat tonight.
And Lestat kept reciting his published confessions to Daniel, like it was scripture.
“Louis describes a vampire bite as the catalyst for awakening intimate feelings within him, a shift in worldview. That night left him feeling surrounded by Lestat.”
Louis felt Lestat’s canine-like grin in the air. He didn’t need to look, did not want to. Instead he licked a wet stripe over Lestat’s sharp jaw, in pursuit of his loud, sordid mouth.
Lestat let out a breathy chuckle. “He makes me sound extraordinary doesn’t he?”
“He’s good with embellishments.” Louis lied.
Their mouths crashed together. With more teeth than tongue, surpassing over love and aiming directly for need. Louis reached around to take hold of Lestat’s ass, squeezing perky roundness that finally, finally had them against each other bare. His cock was leaking precome between Lestat’s cheeks as he moved, hard and heavy and oh - he could not remember a time where he wanted to be anywhere that wasn’t sunk inside Lestat.
“Get yourself ready for me,” he ordered, abusing his grip to spread open his cheeks further - as though that would help him any in their position. Louis’ mouth was open, breathing heavily onto Lestat’s cheek, his neck, while his hand curved around the back of his head and through his knotted hair. Hair that he made that way, that he’d twist and pull until he was good and sated.
“I am ready.”
Louis scoffed, he certainly wasn’t. Rather than say that - he unceremoniously, harshly shoved his index finger through Lestat’s entrance. He grunted, served him right, but he also kept moving those nefarious, bony, fucking hips. He ground them down into Louis’ touch, sucked him up inside, as though he was made to hold him eat him up. Louis added a second finger, then a third, pumped them in and out, dry and raw.
Lestat smiled, debauched, then rest his forehead against Louis’. “Would you prefer another planet?”
“The hell you talking about?”
“The rings of Saturn and back, is too verbose for your pretty ears. What about - ” he moaned, as he lined himself up, shoved Louis’ cock into him, so thorough that he made his eyes flutter closed.
He looked back at Louis through those thick, golden, lashes. “Mmm, Louis. Putain - what about Mars? Or Venus? You are Venus to me. Your unyielding beauty, your never ending prosperity, how thoroughly you hold my heart. I will not tell you what to do with it, given that it is yours. All yours.”
Lestat always talked too much, ran his mouth far enough for Louis to not want to catch up. Spoke of eternal love, devotion - and yes, yes, Louis felt them too but he acutely remembered their perilousness.
If he utterly devoted his being to Lestat, would he lose himself? The self that he’s at last, been working to cultivate to its true form? He remembers how it feels to succumb to Lestat, to indulge in the complicated mayhem that is loving him with his entire heart.
Claudia was there to drag him out last time.
“Louis?” Lestat pulled back to look at him properly.
Despite their configuration Lestat sounded frightened. His eyes went back to their purple-grey, a sharp contrast against the beads of mascara smudged underneath.
Louis knew he should say something, anything, to keep their barbarous dance going - but his throat was thick, his neck rigid, and he didn’t know what. He halted his thrusts, but didn’t pull out. Being astronomically close, no, buried in Lestat remained a comfort.
“Louis.” His sticky fingers cupped Louis’ cheek, and he leaned into it - sucker that he was. “Louis.”
No answer. His tongue was stiff and useless too.
He watched Lestat’s face descend into worry. His brows dipped down, mouth slightly agape, complete with a thin red line at the bottom of his eye. “Louis I -” he took a deep breath “I hope I did not overstep. I cannot hold back what I feel for you, you are my raison d’etre. My -”
Louis kissed him. Made it long and drawn out while he gathered up his jumbled brain. Lestat did not seem to mind, he brought his free hand up to hold Louis’ other cheek, brushed his thumbs over them in somehow the most soothing gesture Louis held in recent memory.
He wants Lestat. He does not want to be Lestat’s.
He drew back, stared him right in the eyes. “Lestat, if you quote that book again while we’re - while I’m - here - I swear I’ll slice your head clean off this time.” Louis’ stomach dropped with a mix of gratification and remorse. It’s cruel of him, however his business-savvy brain knows it’s better in the long haul.
Lestat dropped his hands, his face smacked with anguish. Despite how thoroughly Louis knows it hit him, he saw him recover with lightning speed. Hair brushed back out of his face, and forced smile bandaged on.
“I like how my name sounds in your mouth.” Lestat raised up his hips again, sunk himself longingly up, out, then back down onto Louis’ swollen cock until he bottomed out.
Louis hissed when he felt his balls clap against Lestat’s perfect flesh. He curled his arms around Louis’ neck while his own rubbed up the divots of Lestat’s spine.
“The way you draw out the long ‘a’ is the exceptional aspect. As though it is thick honey stuck on your tongue. I remember how you savoured it’s sweetness. I would be that for you -”
Lestat made a sound between a gasp and a whine, as his thighs came back down to meet Louis’. He set a slow, but brutally fathomless pace. His delicious heat surrounded Louis for long, beguiling moments that left his head drowning, thew him down to the bottom of a well lined with his desire. Then, he’d release - and sink onto him again.
“I think about it constantly.” Lestat panted. “I anticipate when you’re going to bless me next, when I’ll get to hear the music of your inflection.”
“Stop.” Louis didn’t need to hear anymore. He crushed his mouth back to Lestat’s to end the talking, reached between them to wrap a hand around Lestat’s neglected cock, rigid and leaking.
The only way to end the stream of saccharine confessions he wasn’t prepared to hold. He wanted to, he did. His hands were too damn shaky lately - he’d told Lestat he would drop whatever he gave him, screw them up and smash them into millions of pieces, yet he kept trying to hand him precious things.
As they kissed, if one could call a mess of spit and tongues and teeth a kiss, Louis could taste the blood from Lestat’s tears falling between them too. He licked them up from his top lip, swallowed the laments he wouldn’t let him say. Yet they needed somewhere to go - no choice - they had to pour out of his eyes.
If Louis wasn’t listening for them, he’d reckon Lestat would’ve expertly hid the tiny sobs inside his moans. Hard for him to ignore anything about Lestat though.
He licked around Lestat’s mouth, then up to his cheeks. His tongue flattened on the wet plains of his face, lapping up all the blood and sweat, and mascara, while his fingers threaded through his hair. Gentler this time, only to hold his head steady while he moved.
Louis kept making broken, harsh moaning sounds. They reached a constant staccato as their pace quickened, jumped to a ferociousness mortals would envy. In another time, where he trusted him more - he’d be the one on his back, Lestat over him, taking care of him.
He’s in no state to do so.
The SUV was rocking on its wheels, the seat howling underneath them. They risked breaking it off entirely. It didn’t matter, Louis would buy him ten more SUVs to make up for this one that they’d demolish with their bond - would commission a whole new model made for burying himself in Lestat if he had to.
Louis groaned from deep in his chest as his nails broke the skin on Lestat’s ass. Perfect pearls of crimson that stuck out against his pale flesh, that reeked of cherry. Sensual, and tart. Louis didn’t need to see the marks to want to eat them, to dig his nails in further, to excruciatingly rip Lestat open and climb inside, where he’d finally be free of this god damn ache of missing him.
Instead he sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, bit, swallowed his blood. Too much for Lestat, his whine reached the heavens as he came thick and hot all over their union. His head fell onto Louis’ shoulder, though he didn’t stop, leaned into Louis’ guidance on his waist to keep him thrusting.
Lestat hissed, scratched down his arms, like a restrained dog in the middle of its heat, panting and squealing with nowhere to go. He was too willing to permit Louis’ use of him as a vessel for pleasure. As an overstimulated husk, he’d nod and nod - open his mesmeric mouth to sing oui, oui, oui.
Louis almost wished he had the room inside to feel guilt for it - for taking Lestat and using him how he wants because he knows he’ll take it. He’ll hurt and he’ll reach out for Louis in darkness, but he’ll never leave. Not really. There is a sick part of Louis that adores using his maker as his plaything.
It was all too slow at once.
Swiftly, Louis hooked his arms underneath Lestat’s thighs and push him up against the dash. The seat was reclined to its full capacity, leaving a small, usable space for Louis to flip them around in vampiric time. He pushed Lestat on his back, down onto the seat.
Louis brought Lestat’s legs up over his shoulders, bent him practically in half as he pushed boneless thrusts - and he gasped, a gasp so gorgeous Louis wanted to eat it. He thought about it, wrapped a hand around his ankle to lower in pursuit of his mouth -
“Louis,” Lestat moaned, the only word he could bear to pronounce.
Lestat’s hands were balled around the edge of the seat, big gashes through leather, like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. His eyes were little slits, completely encased with black, pendulums that had Louis transfixed. Somehow Lestat lifted his leg even wider, got his entire shin pressed against the window above. He took Louis boundlessly - made him feel as though he was plummeting down to a coveted, elusive death.
“This ever ‘gonna be enough for you?” Louis snarled.
He didn’t mean it, not really but he does wish he did. He hoped that Lestat wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. There were only so many times he could embrace then push him away before he’d retaliate. Louis had absolutely no desire to rehash a fallout. He’d had enough of those games with Armand, and Lestat before that.
Fine. He felt stronger for it.
All he could focus on was lunging into Lestat. Hard, consistent, thorough hits of hips. His mind was a broken dam. Thoughts kept whirring out of his mouth, however cruel.
“Or will you keep up your deranged crusade? Following me around the world like a stray whining for scraps? You can’t stand to see me with anyone else - wasn’t even like that tonight -” Louis groaned, dug into the meat of Lestat’s milky thighs, “b-because you know I can’t resist this, never been able to.”
Lestat’s eyes fell shut then, for a moment, and when they reopened his lips stretched up into a mirthless grin. It made Louis’ blood halt in his veins. Disarmed him, left no space for his plethora of thoughtful defences.
Something about how he was reduced to a puddle of want for him made Louis’ orgasm collide to their shores. He did at last lean down to bite Lestat’s shoulder, wailed into flesh, made a new gash and caught some between his teeth to keep for later.
“So. You use quotes from our book to get off.” He could hear Daniel beaming through the phone. “I knew you liked it.”
“I told you - I haven’t read it yet.” Louis countered, crossed his legs and leaned his head over the back of his sofa. He felt like his neck needed endless support when speaking to Daniel, he made everything seem heavier, clearer. “Been hearing mixed reviews though. It’s insulting, it’s complementary, it’s momentous.”
“Yeah, yeah. Tell Lestat to shove it.”
Louis laughed. A trumpet’s call for his slowly returning passion, it felt good.
“What? I bet you’re not in the habit of perusing Kirkus Reviews.” Daniel continued, always poking. “Don’t, by the way. They’re all hacks. - And what the hell are you trying to do by telling me this?”
“I don’t know I -”
Since he turned, Daniel calls often. For every question, sometimes through their thoughts, but mostly on the telephone, that is where Louis is more inclined to answer.
Once he’d called to inquire if vampire dentists existed, he thought he may have carried a cavity over when he inherited the Dark Gift. He ended up pulling the tooth out, just to be safe. Mostly, Daniel rings to ask after Armand. A subject Louis found sore and fruitless, he never had an answer.
“I’m not going confirm you don’t find the narration of your own sex life arousing - you clearly fucking do. What’s funny is that you prefer your narration. You know you can get that in your head, right?”
Louis’ cheeks were hot, he rubbed his hand over his forehead. Then kept it there, as though covering his eyes would evaporate his mild mortification. “It’s not that it’s - maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
“It’s fine, I caught it the first time.” Daniel said, nonchalant.
“I just thought, you - you would get it. Made me see so much when we were talkin’ face to face. I’ve been thinking about how lately, I feel like I’m getting reacquainted with myself. And you, you condensed me down into a few hundred pages, you have to know more than I do.”
“I’m not your therapist Louis. I wrote what you told me, mostly, added the tone of my brandishing wit.”
Louis sighed, dragged his palm down his cheek. “I’ve been travelling, trying to remember the parts of the world I liked. Looking for something, I don’t know, whatever it is that gives those humans the will to keep going.”
“I think you’re full of shit. Human’s don’t know either, trust me.”
“I do know that Daniel. I’m not trying to forego my vampiric nature. It’s just - I admire how they do things sometimes. They know death is coming and it doesn’t inebriate them. It infects how they see the world, perhaps, but they still radiate, connect, feel.” It was a curious power Daniel had, how he made Louis want to hold out his soul and ask him to examine it. “How?”
“What other choice is there? But hey - if you’re so enamoured to connect with the mortal answer quit it with your one-human-meal-a-week bullshit, yank your head out of Lestat’s ass, and go talk to some. I’m sure you’ll regret it.”
“Thought you said you weren’t a therapist.”
“Eh, call that one a freebie.”
By the third time, Louis was able to admit he’d gone on a date. A date with ulterior motives on his part, an evening he’d allow to take on the definition. Daniel was right he wasn’t human, he would never be human again. He didn’t want to be. He didn’t know what he wanted, how he hoped things would play out, if he could even connect with a human being anymore.
The ulterior motives had nothing to do with Lestat. Even if he was plucking a page out of his book.
As a mortal, the clubs were where he thought he belonged. Out of necessity, of course, but there’d been a curiosity too at first. He’d enjoyed the pull of a crowd, the way music danced through his lungs, and connected people in a unified experience for a moment.
Clubs today, in Budapest to be specific, were very different than his mortal years - not too different from the 1970s though. Perhaps the floors were cleaner, and the speakers louder but the feel of it, was familiar.
Stephen reminded him of some boys he ate in San Francisco, all those years ago. Wide hazel eyes, rich curly hair. The kind of boy who made each step seem effortless, as though the floor was made of water only he could walk on. Back then, he was unable to separate the hungers within him.
In the great debate of food versus sex, then Louis would have been affirmative for both. Sex then food. Food while having sex. It muddled together in a heap of self-destruction. Whoever said good food is better than sex could never understand that at times, they are one and the same.
“Do you ‘wanna dance?” Stephen asked, excitement bobbing out of his head.
Louis liked that. He liked that his bright eyes smiled at him through the dim room. He was drawn to the deep dip of his shirt, an open V lined with colourful embroidery. He thought about dragging a sharp nail down the plains of his chest, peeling skin back like a satin pillowcase; running his tongue down the bloody tissue underneath, and slurping up the contents.
It was how vampires formed connection. Blood and blood and blood. If Louis was determined to be his own companion, he would need to curb the waves of loneliness when they erupted. He knew blood would help, curated blood, an experience wrapped up in a cloak of fleeting bonds.
“Yeah.” He answered, put his hand in Stephen’s calloused one to drag him towards the dance floor.
They’d met at the bar. Louis with his elbow leaned over top, a drink between his hands, trying to place where he’d heard the song playing before. Stephen approached as though Louis was the only one in the room, crowds be damned. And they were, as long as Louis was present.
Regardless, they’d exchanged names, flirted over stereotypical drink orders. Nothing incandescent, but nice. Louis felt that unbelievably tight knot in his gut loosen, the pressure he’d put on himself to get it untied falling away. He’d been so introspective, tried to figure out all his solutions within the echo chamber of his head. It was good to get out of it, to let himself feel.
The music was drumming through his skull in steady, punching beats. Stephen’s hands were on his hips, squeezing in keen interest, not possession. Louis’ arms was thrown around his neck, fingertips underneath the top of his thin shirt so he could feel the blood pumping underneath tanned skin. He was warm, very warm. And rhythmic, every swell of notes had him swinging as though he were surfing on their surface.
Louis liked that too. As they swayed together, closer and closer - bodies colliding in the crowded space, Louis brushed his nose up Stephen’s cheek. Not exactly a forcible move, close enough to a hint that he felt confidence flow through him. He couldn’t pinpoint why he was apprehensive, maybe his old mind sometimes stuck on the reality of kissing a man in public - being in a place where he was meant to kiss men at all.
Stephen smiled, leaned in so that his breath bounced off Louis’ teeth. Strong and sweet as the tequila he ordered; he bet his blood would hold a caramel aftertaste. Louis closed the gap between them, pressed his mouth onto his slowly, carried the movement with him as they danced. It was fine. Good, it was good - indulgent.
“You’re a good kisser,” Stephen mumbled, and careened in for another.
Louis’ breath hitched, he drew back a bit. He tried to play it off nonchalant, to channel the part of him that could charm anyone he set his mind to. “Get me another drink?”
“Yeah, sure.” He agreed, backed up towards the busy bar. “Be right back.”
That knot was taut in his stomach once again, and when he pulled back he found out exactly why. In the corner of the room, by a door to the back exit, or a hallway Louis wasn’t sure - stood Lestat. He was lurking in a way that didn’t remind him of Lestat, instead of Armand. Who’d sneak around literal and figurative corners while he waited for Louis to crumble, not because he cared but because he got off on gluing him back together. Suddenly he was back in 1972, fucking and eating and waiting for Armand to clean up his mess.
He knew that wasn’t Lestat, in his heart he knew. But then again he didn’t. Lestat has broken him too, and those long faded scars sizzled fresh.
Panic won out. The knot in him became so tight that Louis thought he was going to snap it. That it’d strangle him somehow from the inside out.
Louis was outside in an instant. Through the back exit, past clandestine couples, past Lestat, past the staff loading new equipment down the narrow hall. He staggered into an alley, a block away, and instantly felt a trifle of relief. A voice in the back of his mind told him vampires weren’t meant for populous places. They thrived in specious apartments, and dark abandoned alleyways.
He pressed his palms against the brick wall, arms outstretched, head hanging between his shoulders as he tried to breathe clearly. But there was something lodged in his chest he couldn’t see his vision was blurring -
Unmistakable springy, Lestat steps approached.
“If he is why you abandoned me in Prague, why you have not been answering my calls this time I think I may have to -” he stopped, feet dragged, crunched on concrete. “Louis?”
Louis knew he was crying, he could smell blood falling down his cheeks and onto his neck. The collar of his white shirt stained, a volume of tears in a puddle underneath his heaving head. Or maybe that was the rain, he was too far gone to tell.
He didn’t react to Lestat’s presence, as much as he wanted to tell him to disappear and embrace him simultaneously. Loud, creaking, consistent sobs poured out of his mouth he didn’t try to stop. He was committed to feeling it all these days, the bliss and the anguish. He just didn’t anticipate they would twist together as thoroughly as they did that night.
He felt a hand clutch his shoulder. “Cheri - I didn’t mean, have I done something wrong? I do not understand, this is our charade now. I come to you.”
As the tears poured out Louis screamed. The agony, the loneliness, the confusion all expelled with it - every single thing that was clogging up his throat. He didn’t care who the fuck could hear him, he needed it out - to throw up his anguish in the tenebrous alley like a drunk would alcohol poisoning.
Lestat jumped. Part of Louis hoped he would defy all odds, be frightened off and leave him to wallow. That wasn’t Lestat though, he would cling on to Louis even if he turned to dust. He held onto both Louis’ shoulders, pulled him up to stand - but didn’t let go. Which was good; Louis’ legs were as wobbly as his breaths.
“Louis,” Lestat said, as he ran his thumb over Louis’ chin.
He wanted to throw him back against the opposite wall. He wanted to curl himself into his strong arms and stay there forever. Instead Louis trailed his hands up to Lestat’s took them off of him and threaded their fingers together. His wet, sticky, sorrow was beginning to dry.
“Why’d you come Les?” Louis lifted his chin up, as though it could hide how wretched he felt. Of course, he knew his answer by heart, he wanted to hear it. Selfish of him. If Lestat asked he’s unsure if he’d answer.
“I love you.”
Plain and simple for Lestat, but effective. Likely because he had no idea what else to say, Lestat had never had the talent of comforting. It made him nervous, not knowing which direction Louis wanted the conversation to go. Sometimes he wanted the cooing, whispered endearments - that Lestat could never get quite right - other times he needed the cruelty, the realism - and that usually went better. He could see that confusion in his eyes. Multiple paths before him, blank, identical from this angle. Louis hadn’t thought to label them.
It did make Louis smile, fleetingly. In that moment, he felt the incessant dread creep through his limbs; he needed to be held. Wondrously, even though Lestat could not hear his thoughts, he could feel the heart they shared so he pulled him into his arms, embraced him with his unwavering fondness.
Louis tucked his face into Lestat’s neck, wrapped arms around his middle, finally let out a quiet breath. Long, delicate fingers rubbed at his back, soft lips kissed his temple, yet nothing tried to move him. He could picture remaining in the burrow of Lestat’s arms forever - that promise was a large part of why he’d accepted Lestat’s Dark Gift to begin with. He forgot that copiously.
Lestat cleared his throat. Why would he need to with a voice like velvet? Pretty and comforting on Louis’ tired ears. “You do not drink from the vein anymore, you said.”
He stopped for confirmation. Louis nodded.
“Then why have you come here? I want to understand.” Maybe he really did, mostly he was masochistic for wanting Louis to spell it out.
“It’s a gay bar Les. Why do you think?”
Despite all odds, Lestat chuckled.
“You could pick up a man anywhere, your walk alone is a siren call. Beguiling thing you are, a simple stroll in the evening’s darkness with you on the path will cost someone their sense.”
“Feel like it already has.” Louis spoke into Lestat’s collar as though his floral scent could make existence easier. It has. And it’s made it so much damn worse. There was something different in his smell though a twinge of chemical bitterness that Louis was in no state to place. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Oui. I am speaking from experience.” Lestat caressed the nape of his neck, his nails a comforting trail through his hairline. “Come, let me get you out of these heinous streets.”
Louis nodded. He was the stray now, and it’s easy to wrangle a stray when they’re wounded.
“Claudia asked me who I was once, who I was outside of her.” Louis began. There was a hotel branded robe around him, and a cup of blood in his hands. Upon arrival he’d gone directly for the shower, to remove the dirt and grime, and melancholy off. “I didn’t know how to answer her back then. I’m afraid if I was asked again, ‘still wouldn’t have an answer.”
They didn’t talk about Claudia much, not since that night in New Orleans. Louis didn’t think they could handle getting into it tonight, yet he refused obliterate her from his point. Lestat froze at her name. He looked as though his mind was hauled somewhere else.
His eyes stuck harshly to the darkest corner of the room, by the white dresser, where the lamplight didn’t fully reach. Louis could tell Lestat’s grief was close, behind a paper thin curtain that he only had to pull back to see.
He wasn’t ready to.
It wasn’t that Lestat seemed good by any stretch. He hid information, not turmoil. You could always tell that Lestat was upset, it’s the why that was tricky. Louis cannot remember the last time he’d seen his eyes anything short of bloodshot. His words had an apprehensive edge, and he was wearing a new colour of smudged eyeliner each night they collided. Tonight it was an emerald green; Louis longed to rub it off, have it stained under his fingernails for a week.
“I’m tryin’ to figure out who I am outside of you too.” Louis continued, “what kind of stuff keeps me goin’ just for me, without you in the equation, or anyone.”
That snapped him back to reality. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
Lestat cringed as he took a sip from his cup. He hated drinking blood cold, but it was what Louis stored in the hotel fridge and Lestat made is clear he didn’t want to leave Louis. Like that wasn’t his default stance.
He sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, crossed his legs feline-like, apprehensive now that they’re within four walls. His leather pants squeaked as his legs rubbed; they hung low on his hips. Louis was disappointed in himself for not noticing sooner.
“Yeah,” Louis said. “Doesn’t seem like it stuck last time.”
“I do not see what is so horrible, devotion for the one you love is all consuming. We have forever, and you want to waste years apart? Have we not endured enough? Louis, my Louis I-”
“It scares me, alright?” Louis blurted. “You can’t understand. I haven’t lived with just myself in 77 years, no - longer. Didn’t want to for a while, thought I needed a companion to survive.”
“You are companion enough for yourself,” Lestat said, monotone. He gulped down the rest of the blood in his glass quick like a shot.
“Exactly. I want to be.”
“Good.” Lestat wiped at his lips, even though there was no blood there. He shifted closer to Louis until their legs were pressed together. Louis had to give it to him, he was displaying remarkable restraint. “As am I.”
“I want that for you.” Louis had no need for the restraint. If Lestat was close he had to touch Lestat, a law of his universe. He reached for Lestat’s hand, brought it over to rest on top of his thighs, drew small circles over the back of it with his thumb.
Lestat’s gaze was on their hands, as though they illuminated a brilliant light. “You are giving me mixed signals,” he said, matter of factly.
Louis barely held back a scoff. “We’re not ‘gonna keep doing things like this. ‘Need you to stop showing up unannounced, following me, calling a dozen times a night when you can’t find me.” His words petrified in his chest. Old ghosts of fear felt like they were rattling him down to his bones.
“You needed me tonight.”
“You sought me out.”
Fear of speaking plainly on his apprehensions, of letting Lestat hear how the contradictions pirouetted through his mind, of finally realizing that there was nothing left of himself to find. That he’d buried everything too thoroughly. He could dig and dig, grab a whole excavation team to search for fragments he no longer knew how to reattach. Lost the blueprints back on Rue Royale, in Paris, in San Francisco - who fucking knows?
"Ruined my date." Louis added, because he wanted to poke Lestat's wounds. "Was 'gonna bring him back up here later, learn how every inch of him tastes."
“He is wretched.” Lestat growled. "Your movements were out of sync, he did not see your radiance, appreciate it. Refused to let you lead the dance, ignorant mortal can't fathom how mesmeric you are when you do."
"And you'd be fine with it - if he did?"
"Never." His head was tilted towards Louis his eyes beyond bright.
A borderline hilarious confession from Lestat. How many times had Louis been jealous? Waited and waited for his husband to wake up and see that he was hurting. It should send a pang of irritation though him, instead Louis regarded their past with an almost clinical lens. He loved him. They loved each other. It’d exploded all over their faces.
Louis was squeezing Lestat’s hand, felt his heart in his stomach when he reached up to cup his cheek. Cold, familiar, fingertips anchored him back to the sofa. “Me too,” he mumbled, quietly.
“I nearly tore that boy’s heart from his chest tonight. I fantasized how it would feel to stick my fingertips through his eye sockets, hang him up from the ceiling - a grotesque chandelier. Leave him there to let the blood drip out until he became a useless, dry, husk.”
Louis shouldn’t want to hear that. He shouldn’t. He did. So much.
“He couldn’t kiss you properly.”
“Voyeur.” Louis muttered, swaddled by longing.
Lestat smiled, serenely; then leaned in for a kiss, soft, a whisper of sliding lips. Seemed he had the same rule, they couldn’t orbit each other without intersecting. He drew back, and his hand slid down to round the side of Louis’ neck. “I can wait. I can be astonishingly patient.”
“Yeah, sure.” This time, Louis did laugh.
“I can!” Lestat asserted, stood right up to make his point.
Louis reached out for him, hand clenched around air as though he could will it to bring him closer. “Hey - no come back here.”
“Non!” Lestat shook his head. Instead of retreating entirely though, he slowly kneeled down in front of him. He wrapped his delicate hand around Louis’ calf, held firm, and lifted it up to kiss there. Quick, yet sent tingles throughout Louis’ entire body.
Louis didn’t move, afraid to break the spell. “Les, what’re you doing?”
“If I am to be waiting another age, I believe I should get to indulge handsomely.” He placed another kiss, this time on his ankle. “Imprint a memory to nourish me through this drought you seek to impose.”
Lestat had trailed up to his knee, kissed the side of it, rubbed his smooth fingertips along the back. His other hand curled underneath the hem of his robe, pushing it up, up, up in pursuit of his thighs. Louis dropped his head down to the back of the sofa.
“Les…” he sighed, “I didn’t mean - we don’t have to -”
“S’il te plaît, mon cœur. I am not naive.” His thumbs were rubbing over his inner thighs, encouraging his legs to open up. Lestat lightly dragged his nails over Louis’ covered groin, quickly rising to attention. “I can decipher why you’ve brought me here.”
He said those last words with a flirty uptick that unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how he chose to look at it, made his cock twitch. Lestat, rolled up the terrycloth fabric kissed his hip. Yeah - definitely fortunately.
“This ain’t what I was intending.”
“Liar.” Lestat sucked his flesh between his blunt teeth, velvet lips closed around him to leave marks he’d have to look at and remember him by. His eyes rolled back, hips careened into the movement, and his hand fell to gilded hair.
Lestat had his tongue on his balls and he could no longer think. Every thought was Lestat please, Lestat more, Lestat I love you. His head was obscured by the bottom of Louis’ robe as he licked underneath his balls, pressed his tongue to the base of his cock in a way that made Louis whine.
He abruptly lifted shaking hands to the tie on his robe and throw it open so he could see Lestat, watch him mouth hungrily around his erection. Louis’ whole bottom lip was inside his mouth, eyes enthralled by Lestat’s glossy mouth closing over his tip. He looked up at him while he did, sucked on it slow as if it was a candy he wanted to savour.
“I - fuck - I didn’t mean we’ll never see each other,” Louis said. “Or talk. ‘Meant that we’ll give each other some space, and you’ll show up when invited.”
Lestat groaned around him, sent delicious vibrations up his body. Then he removed his mouth, went back to nuzzling his crotch and Louis could breathe a little easier. His hands closed around Louis hips, caressing then pulling him towards that greedy mouth.
“We’re not companions. Can’t have anyone counting on me right now.”
Louis breathed deep through his nose, incredibly aware that the point he was trying to make was counterintuitive to their positions. His logic was slippery, falling through cracks as diligently as rainwater built up after a week of humidity.
There was a laugh in Lestat’s eyes. “Whatever you wish mon cher,” he slithered.
Louis could hear in his voice that he didn’t believe him. But he also heard his heart thrumming faster, and faster.
Maybe it was arousal, however the way Lestat stubbornly kept their eyes locked until he’d taken Louis cock in whole, swallowing him down with fervour, indicated a hint of fear - meant he had something to prove.
Louis’ eyes closed in bliss as Lestat bobbed his head over his cock. Wet and eager and endlessly devoted. His palms spread under Louis’ thighs, pushed them apart so he could curl in further between. Each move of his head, spread of his tongue, knock to the back of his throat made Louis feel less and less committed to the essence of space he’d brought up. He grabbed onto the ends of his hair, held onto his head as it pumped up and down consistent as a drumbeat. Couldn’t he have both? Independence and Lestat’s face between his legs?
Lestat moaned, nodded, kept going. His green eyeliner bled down to his cheekbones. His eyelashes caught in it as his eyelids quivered shut, to paint him like O’Keeffe’s watercolours. A galvanizing sight, that washed out emerald. A carnal sensation rose up in Louis’ chest as he watched a blot of crimson leak from his eyes as well to leave a warm brown in their wake.
He could feel the wetness slipping from Lestat’s mouth, the brief little hitches of breath when he took in too much, but he wouldn’t relent. He kept his skillful lips around the length of Louis, pulling back for breath he didn’t need before consuming him another time.
“F-fuck baby, I’m going to - you’re makin’ me -” Louis groaned, grabbed Lestat everywhere he could reach as he released onto his tongue.
The room was suddenly quiet, as though the drumming of their hearts truly were the sole sound in the world. Louis heard his own slow down, a consistent thump. Then, as he recovered, Lestat’s falling into an identical beat, still suckling at his tip. He finally pulled back, smug smile on his face as Louis dragged him up to settle on his lap by the fabric of his shirt.
“Bein pour toi?” Lestat exhaled.
Louis might have nodded, mostly he lunged his mouth towards Lestat’s. Spent glorious, drawn out minutes on a voyage of his mouth, his tongue, his nice pink lips. He kissed so well. Kisses from Lestat were profoundly licentious, it had to be something to do with the French. Romantic language, lead to a sensual tongue, enhanced the ability to demonstrate devotion with it.
Lestat was rutting his body into his, like he was trying to align every inch of them, to prove yet again that together they are a wondrous thing. Louis believed that. He did. He would let himself for tonight.
“We’re not doing this on the sofa. C’mon -” Louis squeezed Lestat’s thighs, “not when there’s a nice king-size bed in the other room.”
Lestat nuzzled his nose across his cheek. “Ah he’s a romantic now. He yearns to have me on his pressed sheets. The passenger seat, hotel bathroom, the dreadful uncomfortable chaise, are beneath us.”
“You’re impossible.” Louis was powerless underneath Lestat, his syrupy voice infused with want.
He gasped as Lestat jumped up, grabbed Louis’ waist to hoist him off the sofa and into his arms. The entire ten steps towards the bedroom were spent with Lestat kissing and nipping up Louis’ neck; made him trip over his own feet more than once. Realistically it doubled the time and distance. Despite himself, Louis couldn't stop smiling.
They curled up on the bed afterwards. Louis' head rested on Lestat’s chest, limbs curled tightly together in a way that mimicked their years sharing a coffin.
“No coffin?” Lestat whispered.
Louis shook his head, eyelids heavy. “I don’t travel with one anymore.”
“What the modern vampire you are, with your thick blackout curtains, and Southern facing hotel rooms.” He burrowed his nose against Louis’ jaw, almost possessively. “Saint Louis, I am glad to see you shine.”
“Yeah.” He knew he was blushing, warm blots erupted to the tips of his ears. “Don’t know if I’d call it that but - I’m working on it. Trying to.”
Lestat closed his eyes, the lethargy of the sun gripping onto him. “Je t'aime tellement,” he mumbled, from between consciousness and sleep. I love you so much. That particular French, Louis would have carved into his skull for eternity.
Louis combed his fingers through his hair, twirled the ends. On Sundays they would sleep in, Louis insisted on it, and he’d wrap Lestat’s hair around his fingers, stroking in time with his hands tracing Louis' spine. He imagined the act communicated he would gladly spend all night there, that he loves him and he would spent every night, every day there. He leaned up to place a kiss on Lestat’s throat in case it didn’t come through.
It was still true. Different in ways Louis didn’t understand, but true.
The fourth time, Louis was alone.
He sprawled out on his sofa, the yellow one that made him feel as if Claudia was within reach. On his lap he held open a binder of photos - recent ones that he’s taken. Being behind the lens, it took his mind off things in Paris. And he was learning slowly that not everything had to remain locked up tight, far away enough to forget, from those years. Parts of him he’d forgotten, that he wanted back. Back to finding himself.
There are five missed calls from Lestat. Last week it was seven. The month before it was fifteen. The change is palpable, but halted every time Louis answers. He does once, and they go back to hundreds of calls a night.
They’re adapting. Louis spent weeks searching online for the perfect, most authentic, best camera he could find. Sure, he could’ve gone for a DSLR or even a modern film camera - and he did purchase both. But he wanted a 1940s Rolleiflex. To hold the blossoming nostalgia in his hands, let it bloom in the light of his joy for capturing moments. Those moments didn’t have to be good, or profound - they could be unflattering, the could be painful. He wanted to remember them all.
Louis flipped the page, the photo made his heartbeat quick as a rabbit’s. A photo of Lestat’s hands, the unmistakable point of his nails, wound around a wine glass. Six months ago, in New York, when he’d seen him last. He’d taken it quick, as quick as one could on a vintage camera.
Lestat, accustomed the unflinching stillness of posing for oil portraits did so without Louis’ insistence. It was as if he could sense a lens on him, and immediately called to pose. He thought of Lestat’s hands when they’re not posing, instead are wrapped around his collar, his hair, in his mouth.
He picked up his phone and called.
Ringing, ringing, awful empty ringing went on for approximately five seconds before Louis hung up. Too embarrassing, the act made him suddenly nauseous, mind running through anxious questioning. What if he answered? What if he didn’t?
Louis phone rang. Lestat’s name brightened up the screen. Accompanied by another photo. This one was softer, Lestat smiling and laying on his back - those piercing, unworldly piercing eyes staring at the lens. He has half a mind to let it go to voicemail, that’s what he does. He ignores and he maintains space. He’s made steps to heal everything else in his life yet got stuck when it came to Lestat.
He picked up. “Hi.”
“Louis! My muse!” Lestat slurred. “I did not think you would still be awake with your strict coffin curfew. Pardon-moi bed curfew for you. Do you not miss saying come to coffin? Such a delectably fiendish turn of phrase.”
“I don’t miss it, you know I do still have a coffin -” he scoffed. Correcting an inebriated Lestat was more arduous than digging a grave with your bare hands. “How’re you?”
In the background of the call, Louis heard bumping music, drunken laughter and then -
“Lestat - honey get off the phone.” A voice Louis didn’t recognize, unquestionably feminine. Though he reckoned a male voice would have sent the same thunderous jolt up his spine, made his jaw clench just as firm.
“In a moment ma rose. This call is très important - yes fine, fetch me another. Merci.” Lestat murmured away from his phone, his voice further in a way Louis resented. Then he heard a wet smacking sound that evoked the image of a kiss in crystal clearness.
God, did Louis do his best to keep the malice out of his voice. “Who was that?”
Lestat chuckled, in that glittering way that meant he thought he knew what Louis was thinking.
“No one cheri.” He paused, as though waiting for an accusation.“I am busy. I told you of the album no? We are preparing, and celebrating."
"When will I see you?” He heard Lestat shuffle, the sounds around him getting quieter as though he'd extracted himself from the party.
Absentmindedly, Louis had sliced holes in his sofa cushion. “I don’t know.” He did. Louis was already texting his assistant to book a flight to L.A, to Lestat. “Soon."