Chapter Text
Lestat tosses the die, and Louis -- seated beside him at their dining room table -- squints, watching them land carefully. Two threes! Ha, ha!
Louis bites his inner cheek, looking up from the backgammon board to Lestat suspiciously then back down like he's putting together a most puzzling conspiracy. A delusional equation he seeks an answer to! Louis would never confess such a thing, but he's extremely competitive when they play games together, and even more so when Lestat wins.
(They don't talk about the one night Lestat attempted to teach him chess. It's best to pretend the high-strung tantrum and the subsequent two-nights long cold shoulder that followed never happened. )
"Why the long face, Louis?" Lestat laughs, sliding his checkers for the appropriate four moves of three. Louis's sourness at losing doesn't dissuade Lestat from evicting one of Louis's checkers to the middle of the board even though Louis is silently beaming 'Don't you fucking dare' with his withering gaze.
"Sure you're not cheating?" Louis says very pointedly, regally. Even when he's moments from a hissy fit, he's so elegant and refined. God, how Lestat treasures him!
"How could I cheat?" Lestat laughs. He hands Louis the leather dice cup.
"I'm sure you've figured out a way," Louis grumbles, regarding his roll with a pinched expression. A one and a two. His nostrils flare, and he pouts indignantly as he plays his turn.
Lestat hums thoughtfully, taking a drag from the cigarette they're sharing before placing it back on their glass ashtray. "I thought you didn't want me to 'go easy on you,' mon cher? Even if I could cheat, I would not for that reason alone. Ever obedient to your desires, I am, non?"
"You...you're probably moving your checkers around when I'm not looking," Louis suspects. "Like when I got up to get out that decanter and the two glasses." He takes a sip of blood from one of the said crystal chalices before another idea strikes him, a righetous light in his eyes as he hums before swallowing, points an accusatory finger at Lestat. "Or maybe you're moving the die with your mind, so you get good rolls." He leans back in his chair, nodding to himself. "Yeah, that's why. You've been cheatin' all night, huh?"
Lestat snorts in delight, lifts their bloody glass pitcher to top off Louis's drink. "Ahh, my most sweet-li-ess-ness love, so all the games you've won in the past were despite my cheating, too? Or is it that I've now suddenly decided to start cheating tonight? Hmm, love?" Louis glares. Lethally. So pretty! Lestat smiles even wider, overjoyed to see his Louis so worked up. "Darling, please stop being a sore loser. It's unbecoming."
"I'm not a sore loser; game's not over," Louis corrects with a delicate sniff as he watches Lestat roll another double: two sixes! Louis's eye twitches. Marvelous! He glumly perches his lovely chin atop his fist as he watches Lestat take another checker after another off the board. "Don't know why I even play this stupid fucking lousy piece of shit excuse of a 'game' in the first place."
"You love backgammon, sweetheart," Lestat provokes with just enough of a patronizing lilt that Louis tilts his head back, regards him extremely unamused-ly, his eyes gleaming so downright murderously! He moves another checker from the board, placing it with the others with a pronounced click to neaten the row of his bounty. Louis hasn't removed any of his pieces yet, so the gesture is greeted with a delicious eyeroll. God he's so beautiful when he's annoyed! How can Lestat not goad him when his eyes light afire, when his nose scrunches so adorably, when his mouth twists so cutely.
"Not anymore," Louis insists. "About to take this board and toss it in the incinerator in a minute."
"Hmm, so the gentlemen's whose blood sits in your belly can play together in the afterlife in our stead? That's so thoughtful of you, mon cher. I truly did marry a saint."
Louis's upper lip curls into a half-snarl before he scoots his chair back with a hurt pout, changing tactic. He bats his eyelashes so sweetly, his eyes doeful and wet as he fusses, "Had such a long night of work, wanted to spend some time with you before bed, play a game with my man, and all he's doing is taunting me. What'd I do to deserve this, hmm? To have such a mean husband that makes fun of me when I just wanna play a lil game with him."
Lestat melts, obviously. The blatant manipulation is the cherry on top of his Louis purring such forlorn words at him, all he can hear is Louis demanding to be comforted. With his big-hand, he swipes the board clean, the pieces splattering all about the room, and he slams the board shut. With a single-minded focus, he rises from his chair at the head of the table to bundle his darling into his arms and swoop him up in a cradle, peppering frantic pecks over his face in apology. "Oh, oh forgive me. You want to spend time with me, and I'm not behaving to your liking? How shall I amend this?" he coos against his temple as he swiftly marches them through the parlor and up the stairs. "May I have a second try? To make you happy tonight?"
Louis smiles, mmm so demure -- sneakily pleased with Lestat's romantic ambush --licking his lips and nodding, upping his performance. "I guess so. Don't know how much of a mood I'm in from all your trash talk."
Trash talk? Well. Whatever Louis says, must be! (But if Louis considers his playful jeering 'trash talk' then he'll be struck blind and deaf with the whiplash from hearing actual trash talk from Lestat.)
"But I, I suppose I..." Louis shyly starts before Lestat tosses him (lovingly but with some oomph!) onto their marital bed.
"Yes, tell me! What would you like? Anything is yours," he vows with typical sex-induced grandiosity. He's very serious, mind you. If Louis asked him to go grab the moon, shrink it down so he could fit it in his pocket, then Lestat is going to fucking fight Artemis with his bare hands until Louis's wish is fulfilled. He rips his waistcoat straight off, buttons popping and flying around as he does the same to his shirt after yanking his tie from his collar. He has to stretch out the cotton to shreds to save himself the effort of removing his cufflinks. His poor belt doesn't stand a chance-- the taut leather might as well be a paper ribbon!-- and neither do his pants and boxers.
Louis delicately and slowly unbuttons his clothes, of course, enjoying Lestat's feverous ante in his reclined, elegant pose. "I don't know if I wanna say anymore," he peeps out, so precious and sweet! So alluring and tortuously tempting!
"But darling, you must tell me," Lestat imparts knowingly, grabbing one of Louis's stretched out legs to lift up and pull off his shoes and socks for him to speed things along.
"Don't wanna," Louis whispers, giggling lightly when Lestat tugs at his navy-blue pants. "Stop, you're gonna rip these!"
"I'll buy you another pair," Lestat growls, but chastened by Louis's chiding tut he slows his machinations despite the demanding chant on repeat in his brain that he wants to see Louis undressed, Louis is so pretty undressed, he wants Louis undressed now.
"Go light the fire instead of hovering over me like a rabid dog, breathing all heavy'n shit, droolin'," Louis nudges him back with a beautiful pointed toe, a mirth-some sparkle in his eyes. As though he doesn't love Lestat's feral side, doesn't love to see just how wanton and hungry Louis makes him act.
As he kneels before their hearth, striking a match to kindle a flame, Lestat imagines his form and posture the way Exekias would paint Prometheus en black-figure upon an amphora: nude, virile, lighting and nurturing a fire. It's no hardship tending to their fireplace, he's very used to it. It surprised Lestat the first week of their marriage -- in the middle of May -- how Louis still complained of the cold when Lestat was still acclimating to the humid, warm climate. Their first anniversary is coming up soon enough, and Louis's never relented his demands for Lestat to warm him up -- wants it just as equally during the hottest months and the coldest. His Louis is such a marvel!
"And why don't you go grab my glass downstairs? I'm still hungry," Louis tacks on when the fire is sustained, still so tantalizingly slow as he unbuttons his shirt.
"As you wish, my love," Lestat readily bounds from their bedroom back down to their dining room, grabbing the decanter instead of the glass because it makes his loins twitch with excitement, the thought of Louis so hungry he chugs straight from its glass mouth without decorum. He palms himself, half-hard already as he marches back up the stairs. He can't imagine asking Louis to leave their bedroom in the nude, but Lestat takes no issue walking about his home in the bare flesh. But Louis? Oh his proper bride finds it a salacious, devious, but delicious scandal to be naked before his own husband even in the safety of their own home. Yes, his Louis is possessed by a feeling of an un-corruptible perversion when Lestat defiles him outside their bed; oh yes, how he clutches to Lestat so desperately while Lestat presses him against the wooden beam in their foyer as Lestat fucks him, or his kittenish shyness while on his knees in their parlor, bare as the the day he was born the first time, naked and scared he feels outside their bed's safe haven and it's Lestat's glad responsibility to unwind such silly fears, to banish them, to distract him from his wandering mind's prudishness, to keep him in the moment so good and well fucked he cant remember where he is, to unravel him so expertly he feels no need to cover his breasts or hide his face in the crook of Lestat's collarbone.
"Here, mon cher," he presents the decanter to place on his bedside table, pleased to see Louis has stripped both himself of his clothes and the bed down to their top sheet.
"Not gonna be able to finish that," Louis criticizes predictably, but he meets Lestat in the middle for a kiss when he settles on the side of their bed to lean over him.
"I'll help you, then. You know how ravenous I can be, hmm?" he murmurs to Louis's chin, licking the divot of it before recapturing his bottom lip.
"I'm also..." but then Louis stops himself.
"Hmm?" Lestat pulls back, inspects his blushing face. Oh was his Louis about to be crude before sex? How scandalous!
"Wanted to say I'm not just hungry for that blood. Is it...could I have you in my mouth? Just a little taste?" he asks cloying, blinking his pretty eyes, his chest heaving at the delicious thrill of voicing his desires so wantonly (even if censored a bit by his own standards). "Been thinkin' about it all night. Your pants...well, they're no good anymore, huh? But they...showed you off real well, made my mouth water."
"Oh, we can most certainly--"
"But I'm so sleepy, so tired. Don't wanna kneel. Can I just..." and he rolls over onto his stomach, crawls to the edge of their bed. He flicks his eyes to the side, and Lestat takes his hint, rises and stands up before him. Louis settles more comfortably, flat on their bed, and looks up at him in askance. "Like this? You stand there, and I'll be right here like this?"
Lestat could not be more in agreement of anything ever.