Chapter Text
“Are we really doing this again?” Louis asked Lestat, the exasperation clear in his voice.
After Louis found Lestat and told him he knew Lestat saved him and they made up, they became friends, if you could call it that. Lestat moved out of that shit cabin and moved into this big, rich apartment. Louis went back to Dubai and they texted, called, Facetimed. It was good.
And then someone sent Lestat a link that talked about Daniel Mallory’s new book. Lestat asked about it and Louis gave vague answers, and Lestat read between the lines. He hung up on Louis and tossed his Ipad onto the couch, grabbed his phone, wallet, and keys, pulled on a jacket and stormed out. He had called Louis on the way to the nearest bookshop and demanded that Louis explain himself.
He had again hung up on Louis and went inside to buy a copy of Interview With A Vampire and when he got home, he had been quick to start reading and crossing out and writing giant words onto the pages.
Now, Louis stood in Lestat’s New York apartment watching him treat the book like it was something he could physically argue with.
It wasn’t even the worst part anymore. The worst part was how normal it had started to feel.
Lestat sat at the kitchen island, pen in hand, marking through entire paragraphs like he could rewrite history if he pressed hard enough. The apartment around them was mostly chaos—guitar cases stacked near designer furniture, tour schedules printed and pinned up like battle plans, a framed magazine cover on the counter where Lestat’s face looked too polished to be real. The Brat Prince Lestat is now Rockstar Lestat.
“We will do it as many times I want,” Lestat answered without looking up at Louis.
Louis rubbed a hand over his face. “You are just going to find another part to yell at me for and we will fight just for you to go back to trying to sue me.”
That finally got Lestat to stop writing. Not because he was done. Because he was deciding whether Louis had said something worth reacting to. He tapped the pen once against the margin of the book, slow and deliberate. “I’m not trying to sue you,” Lestat said.
Louis looked at him. “You literally have lawyers involved.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out the documents Lestat’s lawyer had sent to his home in Dubai.
The papers landed on the counter between them. Lestat’s eyes dropped to them immediately. He pushed them away.
“You wrote a book about me with a human reporter and the gremlin,” Lestat said simply, as if that explained everything. “Daniel isn’t a human anymore, though is he?” Lestat flips through, nearly to the end of the book, and begins to read. “‘You’re not to touch him, you understand?’ Louis had demanded from where he stood above Armand. ‘When I come back, you need to be gone.’ Louis had dropped the papers and—’”
Louis yanked the book out of Lestat’s hands. “Don’t,” he said, sharper than he meant to.
Lestat stilled for a second, more from the interruption than the warning. Then he looked at Louis, slow, deliberate, like he was deciding whether to be amused or offended. “You don’t want me to read it?” Lestat asked. “Strange, considering you were so eager to have it written. The part where you throw the gremlin against the wall and leave him is one of my favorite parts,” the blonde taunted.
Louis put the book down and pointed a finger at Lestat. “Do not call him a ‘gremlin.’ It is disrespectful.”
“So was throwing him against a wall,” Lestat countered.
Louis opened his mouth to argue when Lestat suddenly stood up and leaned in close, smirking. “Do you want me to throw you against the wall?”
Louis blinked, surprised. He hadn’t expected that. “No,” he said firmly, though his voice wavered slightly.
“Too bad,” Lestat murmured before grabbing Louis by the collar and shoving him against the nearest wall with enough force to make Louis gasp. The air rushed out of his lungs as his back hit the solid surface. Before Louis could react, Lestat pressed his body flush against him, pinning him in place. Lestat hummed and said, “This reminds me of many nights. Some filled with passion, some of fighting and screaming and—”
“Dropping me from the sky?” Louis cut in. Louis held his gaze, breathing uneven but steady enough now. “You want to talk about what I did?” he said. “Fine. Let’s talk about what you did, starting at the beginning. You made me fall in love with you and turned me into a vampire.”
Louis shoved Lestat and he let go. “Shit happens, you cheat on me a bunch with some white, blonde, whore and suggest an open relationship I agreed and when I fucked somebody that isn’t you, you freak out. The town goes to shit, we get Claudia." He shoved Lestat again. “We’re happy for a while. You fuck things up again she she ran away.” He shoved him. “You know what happened to her? She crossed paths with another vampire, and he kept her under floorboards for a week and broke her bones and raped her, again and again!”
Lestat holds a hand out. “Calm down, mon cher.”
“She comes home, asks me to leave with her, and before I can answer, you start to throw me around the townhouse like a rag doll. You leave, then come back with gifts and apologies–again–and I eventually take you back. Why? Because I was stupid and didn’t know how to live without you. She came up with’a plan to kill you. And you wanna know something, Lestat?”
Louis stopped there. His chest rose and fell once, uneven. Not from the fight anymore. From what came after it.
“I didn’t want to kill you,” Louis said.
That made Lestat still completely. Louis looked at him directly now, like he needed him to understand it wasn’t a contradiction.
“But I knew I had to,” Louis continued, voice lower. “Because there wasn’t any other way out of it. Not for me. Not for her. Not for any of us. So I went through with her plan and I slit your throat.” Louis wiped the tears forming in his eyes. “I should have listened to her though. I should’a burn you. Then the Parisian Coven wouldn’t have killed her. Armand and I would still be together.”
All the pain and regret that was in Lestat’s eyes faded away into anger at Armand’s name.
“Does it all circle back to him now?” he asked. “Instead of me? Do your thoughts and dreams and hopes go back to him?”
“Sweet Jesus, Lestat,” Louis scoffed. He shoved the papers back into his briefcase and started walking to the door. “I’m done fighting with you. I do this every time, too. We fight, I try to talk to you and calm it down, you find an excuse to keep it going.”
Lestat didn’t move at first. Then, behind him—
“Of course you’re done,” Lestat said, voice sharp again, like a switch had flipped. “That’s what you always say when it stops going the way you want it to.”
Louis paused with his hand on the door. He didn’t turn around yet.
Lestat stepped forward a little, not close enough to touch this time, but close enough that Louis could feel him there anyway. “You bring him into it,” Lestat continued, quieter but cutting now, “like he’s some answer. Like he’s a clean escape from all of this.”
Louis finally looked back over his shoulder. “He isn’t part of this,” Louis said.
Lestat let out a short, humorless laugh. “He’s always part of it,” he replied. “Even when he isn’t in the room. Ever since you got with the gremlin, you made him a part of it all.”
Louis turned fully now, hand still on the doorframe, eyes tired in a way that had nothing to do with tonight. “I’m not doing this again,” he said.
Lestat tilted his head slightly. “You already are,” he said.
A beat. The silence stretched.
Then Louis shook his head once, like he was forcing himself back into control. “I came here because you called,” he said. “Because you said lawyers, and lawsuits, and because I thought—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I thought maybe this was something we could handle without turning it into another war. I thought…I thought maybe you were the Lestat I found in that broken cabin in the hurricane, the man I was finally able to talk easily with. I thought maybe…”
‘I thought we could fix us,’ is what Louis never said out loud. He doesn’t need Lestat. He doesn’t need to force himself to love a man who made him feel like shit more than once.
Louis shook his head and opened Lestat’s door. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. We will settle this lawsuit and I’m leaving.” He heard Lestat calling out for him, but he was done. He didn’t want to be in a relationship with him again. He couldn’t. It was too much of a mental toll on him.
I need to get high, Louis thought. Maybe tomorrow, after I settle this stupid, fucking lawsuit, me and Daniel will go get high.
—“I like that idea.” Daniel’s voice floated through his head with the Mind Gift. “I thought Lestat was going to be an easy guy. Fuck, was I wrong. I am always too sober to deal with him.”
Louis chuckled.
—“Didn’t I say he was a mess, Daniel?”
—“When I interviewed you in ‘73,” Daniel answered. “The second one, you were romanticizing him, then talking shit, then went back to romanticizing , then back to the shit, then back to the—”
—“I get it, Danny. I’m indecisive.”
—“You’re mental, Louis. You most likely have schizophrenia, or at least, you did in Pairs with what I like to call ‘Dream–Stat. Super clear that you got depression and PTSD from Storyville and Paris.”
—“Wow, Danny. Did a psychologist diagnose me from the book?”
—“Several, actually.” He got a chuckle from Daniel. “Do you know how many emails I get from those basterds?”
Louis laughed.
—“You are an interesting old man, Daniel.”
—“You’re older than me, fuck–face.”
—“At least I still look hot,” Louis thought, dry as anything.
There was a beat of silence on the other end of the Mind Gift.
Then Daniel.
—“…I hate that I can’t even argue with that.”
Louis let out a short breath that was almost a laugh, more real than anything he’d felt in Lestat’s apartment. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets as he walked, blending into the noise of New York again.
—“So,” Daniel said after a moment, tone shifting, “tomorrow night is the lawsuit circus.”
Louis’s smile faded just a little.
—“Yes,” he thought.
—“And Lestat is going to turn it into a performance,” Daniel added.
Louis didn’t respond immediately. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it. Everything Lestat touched eventually became a stage. Even this. Even them.
—“He always does,” Louis thought finally.
Daniel hummed faintly.
—“I should tell you something.”
Louis made it to his car, opened it, tossed his briefcase inside, and got in the driver's seat.
—“Is everything alright, Daniel?” Louis asked.
—“Yeah, yeah. Just…You know what? It isn’t actually important. It can wait until tomorrow. The sun is going to be up soon and you still need to hunt.”
The thought of hunting made Louis’s stomach boil as he drove to the hotel he’s staying at. He hasn’t eaten much besides half a cold blood–bag every once in a while. Daniel thinks Louis has been eating every other day. Which, Louis has been doing, but he doesn’t actually eat anything when he hunts.
—“Louis?” Daniel asked.
—“I’m here, Daniel.” Louis parked his car and got out. He walked into the hotel, flashed his card, and walked into the elevator.
—“Did you hear anything I just said?”
—“No.”
Daniel sighed.
—“Alright. Whatever. Just get some sleep. Lestat has been calling you over to do literally nothing and has deprived you of your sleep. And you need it.”
—“Alright, Danny.” Louis got out of the elevator and walked down the hall to his room. He flashed his card, walked in, and locked the door behind him. He dropped his briefcase onto the desk and started to undress.
—“Hey,” Daniel said, softer now.
—“Hm?” Louis hummed, walking into the bathroom.
—“You gonna be okay?”
Louis paused with his hand on the sink. He looked at his reflection in the mirror—dark eyes, tired lines, the same face he’d had for over a century now. He thought about Lestat’s apartment, the book, the fight.
—“Yeah,” Louis thought finally. He turned the faucet on, letting the water run over his fingers. “Once I am once again able to get away from him, I will be. Promise.”
Daniel didn’t respond right away. Maybe he knew Louis was lying. Maybe he didn’t care.
—“Alright,” Daniel said after a moment. “Get some sleep, Louis.”
—“Goodnight, Danny.”
The connection faded. Louis stood there for a second longer, water still running. Then he turned it off and walked back into the bedroom.
Louis laid down and closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep. He just waited for the sun to rise.