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All in all it had a pretty unremarkable, although pleasant day and evening. Due to their jobs’ unconventional schedules they both happened to be off on a Wednesday, so they decided to let Claudia skip kindergarten and have an impromptu family day. They had gone to the zoo, where Louis pretended he was interested in marine animals, Claudia and Lestat pretended they weren’t afraid of the reptiles and all three of them genuinely marveled at the otters and the way they were holding hands while sleeping and floating down the little pond (he hadn’t missed Lestat’s sappy gaze at that and had tried to play it off but had blushed all the same).
Afterwards they had eaten at a fast food chain of Claudia’s choice (why was it always McDonalds?) and in the late afternoon they’d gone to the park near their house and let Claudia run wild at the playground (for which she’d initially claimed she was too old - That’s baby stuff, daddy, and I’m five already.) while he and Lestat were drinking some awful store-bought cocktails and gossiping about their neighbours (not in good faith either - his and Lestat’s gossip sessions could turn outright cruel and he felt awful that he didn’t feel awful at all giggling and insulting their neighbour Bob who was clearly going through a midlife crisis).
Louis was finally on the couch, with a good book in hand and a glass of wine on the coffee table and he felt at peace, the way he always did at this house that they’d made into a beautiful home, but especially today. He felt the exhaustion from the day seeping into his bones and the words were starting to blur on the page, dancing before his eyes. He was thinking of calling it an early night and just going to bed when he heard quick footsteps coming down the hall, accompanied by giggles and exclamations. Louis felt himself smiling instinctively at the sounds. He had been wondering what his husband and daughter had been up to, since they had disappeared after he and Lestat gave Claudia her bath (she was probably getting too old for that too, but it was breaking his heart a little to let her be so independent already) but he was sure it had been another one of their elaborate games, in which Lestat came up with a full script, a whole theatre production for him and Claudia to play out.
His suspicions were confirmed when Lestat barged into the living room, carrying Claudia on his back, both of them wearing paper crowns. Louis laughed at the sight, feeling his chest expanding at watching his two favourite people sporting such big smiles and knowing they were having fun. He more often than not joined their games eventually but tonight he was content to simply watch them from the couch. As the pair passed him by, Lestat winked at him, before dropping (gently) Claudia on the carpet in front of the coffee table and plopping down on his belly beside her.
“So, my dear princess, tell me about all the foreign kingdoms you saw on your journey. I am the Queen, that’s true, but you see, I have never left the castle before and I’m eager to know more about the outside world.” His French accent, now even more exaggerated for the sake of their game, was making it hard for Louis to understand what he was saying so there was no hope of Claudia catching everything (they had talked about using such complicated words while talking to her and Lestat had been a staunch defender of it being a way to stimulate her and expand her horizons so Louis finally found himself agreeing to it) but surprisingly Claudia only nodded wisely and answered him.
“Well, there was the Kingdom of unicorns, The Kingdom of Death, The Kingdom of Rainbows, The Kingdom of Nightmares and The Kingdom of Tears.”
Louis almost burst out laughing at the swift forlorn look Lestat threw at him at their daughter’s…concerning imagination, but he let them continue their scene without interruption. He watched as Lestat played the old, glamorous and dramatic queen, while Claudia was her daughter, the princess that would soon succeed her.
His book was entirely forgotten, his exhaustion as well, all his attention focused solely on them. It wasn’t like he was seeing them like that for the first time, nor the tenth, but there was something about today that made him soften. Maybe it was the beautiful day they had spent together, maybe it was the fact that he and Lestat hadn’t fought in a while, maybe it was simply him growing older and milder.
He watched Lestat and thought about how earlier in the day, at the zoo, he had dropped his hand quickly after Lestat had taken hold of it, too nervous of this kind of display in public, even if that was the mildest possible action. Louis thought about how often he did that, how he never let himself be hugged for too long, or kissed for too long or held for too long when they were outside, How he must look to everyone else - the long-suffering husband to a clingy man, the always annoyed partner, who was simply putting up with his husband’s antics even when they were pissing him off. The one with one step out the door.
To everyone around them it probably seemed that way. Lestat was constantly all over him, he was the most boisterous of the two, the one more likely to express his love loudly, publicly, or in fact at all. Lestat probably believed that himself, Louis realised with a pang. For many years, maybe that had been Louis’ intention, even unconsciously. He had rarely told him outright that he loved him, always ready to slip away, to minimise, to deflect.
But it wasn’t true. He loved Lestat so much he sometimes felt like the weight of it crushed him. He could hardly breathe, sometimes, blindsided by his love for Lestat, could feel it swirling inside of him, trying to make its way out, ready to split his skin open with how powerful it was. Louis hadn’t always been honest about it but it had always been true nevertheless.
Even when they were fighting, when they hated each other and spat out the most hurtful words they could come up with, when the veins in their necks were straining from the strength of their yells. Even when he couldn’t stand him he loved him.
It was ridiculous, hysterical how off its axis Louis felt the world was when he and Lestat were on the outs. How only laying eyes on him made him okay again. There you are. And here I am.
But things were good between them now, have been good for a while. Louis wasn’t naive enough to believe they won’t go through hard times again but he felt calm. He knew they would find their way back to each other if and when that happened. He wasn’t hoping, he wasn’t imagining it. He just knew, like he knew the sky was blue or that Claudia loved the nighttime but was scared of the dark.
His face must have betrayed something, though not enough, because Lestat was throwing curious and then concerned glances his way from where he was lying next to Claudia. Next, he glanced at the clock- a little early for Claudia’s bedtime but she had tired herself out from their games plus Louis’ weird mood seemed to have thrown off his husband. Lestat pretended to yawn and stretch as if he was dead tired.
‘I think it’s time the Queen went to her chambers. I need my beauty sleep don’t I?’ He made a move to stand before going back down as if he had forgotten something. ‘And naturally you don’t, Princess Claudia, you’re always beautiful, but alas the rules of the castle are that the princess has to go to bed when the Queen does.’
Claudia giggled at the compliment and her little face, all scrunched up, combined with the satisfied smile on Lestat’s face almost made Louis’ heart tumble right out of his chest and into their arms. Claudia seemed to remember then that she was five, which meant that she had to put up some sort of a fight against going to bed, even though she had already begun blinking slower and slower.
‘But the princess doesn’t have to follow the rules. Cause she’s the princess, duh.’ Louis and Lestat both chuckled at that, although Lestat quickly morphed his expression into one of resignation.
‘Every royal has to obey the rules, ma petit. Otherwise they throw you out of the royal family. I don’t like it either but these are ancient rules and they have great power here.’ Claudia pouted and sagged her shoulders in a truly impressive way before throwing Louis a pleading look. He could do little more than smile at her in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Your father is right, Claud. Don’t look at me like that.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look at Lestat, suddenly, not knowing what would come over him if he did. What had already come over him. He felt his gaze nevertheless, his quizzical look hitting him in the chest. Don’t be scared, Louis wanted to say. Can’t you see? How can you not feel it? It’s all I’m made of. He was quiet. A second passed between the three of them, then two. They sat in a peculiar silence as if each of them were holding their breath, awaiting something. Finally Lestat stood up and looked down at Claudia.
“C’mon, princess. Bedtime.” He picked her up and she didn’t protest it tonight, she just snuggled closer to him, the fight wrung out of her in the blink of an eye. Lestat threw one last look at Louis, a hesitant smile his way, before heading towards Claudia’s bedroom.
“Night, Daddy Lou.” Her voice barely reached him - it was so sleepy and they were already farther away. Louis felt the horrifying sensation of pressure building behind his eyes and something heavy stuck in his throat, so his voice wasn’t much louder. “Goodnight, baby. Love you.” He was embarrassed, his tears were always coming out with shame chained to them, his ragged breaths were always muffled. He had never been a crier, Lestat was always the one to fill that role, so on the rare occasions that the tears did take him, Louis was startled, confused, almost, about why his body was doing that to him, because it was all supposed to stay inside, people weren’t meant to see him like that, Lestat-
Lestat. It was only Lestat. He had seen him in any way imaginable during the years. He had seen his smiles, seen him dance, seen him drunk and high, seen him trip and fall in public, seen him play dumb for their daughter, seen him fight with creeps in clubs, seen him on his hands and knees, seen him spitting vitriol (more often that not at Lestat himself). What did he have to be embarrassed about? It was Lestat, after all. It could never not have been Lestat. He could trust him with this, Louis realised with a jolt. He had already trusted him with everything else.
It was strange. Louis wasn’t a romantic but maybe he was. He wasn’t a crier but maybe he was. For the right reasons. He laughed at that, a little, while a few tears were rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t hear them, but he knew that Lestat was reading Claudia her bedtime story upstairs, knew he was lying next to her, keeping her close. He was probably doing all the voices. His husband. Louis felt a pang of regret that he wasn’t there with them but he felt it was better this way tonight. It would be too much for Claudia to see him like this, but mostly for Louis - his poor heart couldn’t take it. It had suddenly overflowed.
There was tomorrow, and all the other nights.
The soft sound of footsteps interrupted Louis’ train of thought as he lifted his gaze in surprise. He had expected it would take more time for Claudia to fall asleep or maybe a lot of time had passed without Louis realising it because his husband was walking towards him now, speaking in a low voice before even entering the room.
“Mon cher, is everything all right? You’ve been so quiet this evening, I’m wo-” Lestat fell silent as he finally laid eyes on Louis and saw he was crying. Immediately he took the few remaining steps to the couch, crouching next to Louis, taking his face in his big hands. Louis often felt like he was engulfed whole by just those two hands, like he was hugged, or even consumed by them, even when they were merely resting on his face or waist, because of their sheer size and softness.
“My love, what’s wrong? Please talk to me.” Lestat had a panicked look on his face, his eyes were searching all over Louis’ face for a sign, his mouth half open. It made Louis’ heart beat even faster, the worry in his eyes, but he thought that maybe simply laying eyes on him at that moment would have done that. It went like that, he supposed, when the gates flew open.
“Come here.” He pulled him up, so Lestat was sitting beside him on the couch and captured him in a bruising kiss, not bearing to wait a second longer. A surprised humph left Lestat’s mouth, but he responded to it anyway, like his brain was just wired to do so. After a second, though, he pulled away, his eyes a little more frantic.
“Louis, are you okay? What’s-” he looked around, as if confused by everything suddenly, by the whole night, and Louis’ mood throughout. “What’s this?”
Louis smiled and shook his head, though his lips were still trembling and his eyes were still smarting.
“Nothing’s wrong. You hear me? Nothing is wrong, Les.” It was his turn to take hold of his husband’s face, of making him look him in the eye. “I love you.”
Lestat immediately stiffened in his arms and Louis hated the way his brows furrowed, the way his mouth wasn’t curved all the way into a smile, the uncertainty in it. He hated himself for a second, for sowing those doubts in Lestat, but he let that feeling go. It might have been true, but tonight wasn’t about that. Before Lestat could get a word in, Louis gave him a peck and his hands tightened in his blond hair like they had a mind of their own.
“I’m sorry I don’t say it enough. You deserve to hear it more often,” His voice was wobbly and, yes, he could still feel a pang of discomfort because of the words, but mostly he felt relief. He saw Lestat’s eyes turn glassy, his mouth moving, opening and closing and no sound coming out of it. His Lestat, always so quick to tears. “I really, really fucking love you.”
That first sob made its way through Lestat’s body with force, making him shudder against Louis and Louis wanted nothing more than to take him into his arms, than to be close to him, to hear his heartbeat against his own. And so he did. He gathered him in his arms, this behemoth of a man both in size and in spirit now suddenly no bigger than a boy - his face in the crook of Louis’ neck, his arms clutching Louis’ shirt like a babe in his mother’s embrace.
“Louis, I-”
“Shh.” He kissed the blond curls tickling his chin. “You’re my boy, alright? My beautiful boy.” Lestat was limp in his arms, the only movement coming from him was in sudden sobs and gasps for breath and Louis could feel the collar of his shirt getting wet, his skin beneath it absorbing the salty tears, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not tonight.
This man, this kid seeking comfort in his embrace. Why hadn’t he told him that earlier? Somewhere amongst the stories of the past, of the cold rooms and even colder family members, of the silence and then shouting and then beating, Louis had known how much Lestat had needed to hear those words. Why had he denied him that? Silly. Stupid.
He tried to slow down and deepen his breathing so that Lestat could copy from example and soon enough the two were breathing in tandem, sharing the same breaths, the same air, their lungs one and the same.
“You are an amazing husband,” Louis could hear the fondness in his own voice and, for once, rejoiced in it. Yes, let his husband hear it, let the whole world hear for all he cared. “And an amazing father.”
Lestat lifted his face up and Louis almost laughed - it was a mess. He had snot running from his nose, his eyes were puffy and red, his hair tangled, his cheeks blotchy. And yet he was radiant, a light shining from deep within his eyes, that same lifeforce that had kept him whole, that had made Louis fall in love with him, only stronger now, somehow. He was so beautiful.
“You are not dying, right? Lestat chuckled at Louis’ furrowed brows. “You haven’t contracted some mysterious illness that gives you ten hours to live and those are your last words to me?”
Louis laughed too, then, even as he had to swallow around yet another lump in his throat at the thought that that was the only reason Lestat could imagine Louis saying those things to him. It had been a joke, but Lestat was always most honest through them.
“No,” he caressed Lestat’s cheek, his touch light and reverent. “Just you.”
Lestat’s face scrunched up like he was about to start crying again, so Louis kissed him in the hopes of stopping that. This kiss was different from the previous one, Louis’ tongue going deep in Lestat’s mouth, his teeth sinking into his lips, like he was trying to consume him whole. Lestat made the most beautiful noises, high and desperate, breathless. It went on like this for some time, the two wrapping their arms around each other, trying to defy reason and finally, in some way science hadn’t yet discovered, to become one.
With shaking hands Louis pulled himself back, albeit with great difficulty. Lestat’s lips chased after him on his own accord, eyes still closed in bliss. He looked- fucked out already. His face was slack, lips swollen and parted, breaths deep and quick. Louis could stare at him for hours, ages, and not get tired once.
“C’mon. Let me take care of you,” Lestat looked like he was in a daze as he took Louis’ hand and followed him up the stairs and into their bedroom, as Louis undressed them both and then pressed their naked bodies together, seeking the contact more than anything else. He was beginning to get worried that Lestat really was out of it, but then he felt his big palms moving up and down his back and when he pulled his head back Lestat had a small, almost shy smile on his face, like a child told he’d done a good job. It wasn’t an expression Louis had seen often and he reveled in it now, peppering his face with quick kisses and when he looked in his husband’s eyes they were glassy once again.
“Don’t cry, baby, it’s okay,” he was repositioning them again as he spoke, because it was evident that Lestat wasn’t going to move, letting himself be led, instead - another rare occurrence which Louis cherished. “It’s okay. I got you”
He arranged the pillows so Lestat could sit nearly upright against the headboard, and, after reaching for their bedside drawer and taking the lube, hidden (though not so subtly - they had had numerous talks about personal space with Claudia and she knew not to look through their stuff) there, Louis nestled in his lap. Lestat’s hands automatically grasped his waist, his long fingers caressing his skin. His eyes were locked in on Louis’ and the look in them was so besotted that Louis got flustered and then doubly so when he thought about what his own face was surely conveying.
“I know.” Lestat said it like a prayer, like a confession. Like a secret only Louis was allowed to know. The two moved together until their foreheads touched and their lips ghosted over one another’s and they stayed like that when Louis took Lestat’s hands and poured lube over them, when he guided them into himself and when he began to rock against them, their mouths falling open simultaneously, the two of them swallowing whatever little sounds were coming from the other.
It was obscene in a way - they were tasting each other’s spit, taking in each other’s breath, licking into each other’s mouths. They were like two boas which were trying to eat one another at the same time, their jaws detaching grotesquely.
They were never usually this quiet during but Lestat was obviously in a peculiar mood now, and Louis felt it crass to break their silence with dirty talk. Except-
When he felt ready, relaxed and awaiting, he guided Lestat inside himself, rolling his hips slowly, taking him in inch by inch. Somewhere along the way Lestat had closed his eyes and when Louis noticed he grabbed his chin and the sudden touch made his eyes fly open.
“Look at me, baby,” he felt like he was floating, like they were far away from here, in a place where only the two of them existed, and he felt so free there, he felt how his chest loosened and the shackles he was always putting himself in finally came down. “I love you.”
Lestat made an aborted sound and his hips stuttered beneath Louis.
“I love you, you hear me?”
“Je t’aime, Louis.”
“No,” Louis shook his head, the sweat already trailing down his face and his body, the heat from their quickening movements engulfing him. “I need you to say it.”
Lestat’s face was flushed, the colour in his cheeks making him look younger. His eyes were hooded and Louis could see the effort he was making not to close them, because he had told him so. A look of confusion passed over his face and Louis said again “I love you, Lestat.”
“You-” his hands were shaking as they made their way to Louis’s face, moving over his back first, then his shoulders, then his neck. Louis nodded, unable (and unwilling) to keep the smile off his face, even as he felt his lip curling in pleasure. “You love me.”
The words were weak but they were said, out in the open, left hanging between them and Louis nodded again, tucking his face in the crook of Lestat’s neck, leaving hot, sloppy open-mouthed kisses there.
“So much.”
He didn’t see but he knew by Lestat’s breathing and the sounds he was letting out that he was crying again. He didn’t like making his husband cry so much in one evening but he knew, realistically, that that was Lestat - he always had so much emotion in him, it was practically begging to be let out.
They didn’t say anything else after that, just kept holding each other until they weren’t sure where one ended and the other began, until there were no more two people on the bed but a singular mass of limbs and muscle and blood.
They came with their mouths on each other, shuddering through the orgasms, heaving like they’d ran a marathon.
Afterwards they laid in their mess and Louis thought about how they were going to regret this in the morning and how they needed a shower and to change the bedsheets and to maybe drink some water. But that could come later. Now he needed to stay exactly where he was, with Lestat in his arms, curled in his lap in a reversal of their positions just minutes ago, his head tucked beneath Louis’ chin. Louis wanted to see his face but for that he would have to disrupt them and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Louis,” Lestat was pliant in his arms, loose like a liquid, which he always was after sex, but especially so tonight. Louis waited for him to continue but he was just repeating his name over and over again, like a mantra, “Louis, Louis, Louis.”
He squeezed him, feeling protective all of a sudden, like he could shield him from the world with just his hands. He wanted to say something, to finish off the night with something fitting and right but despite his breakthrough Louis wasn’t good with words and he couldn’t find them now. But he thought that was alright. He thought that Lestat knew a little better now. And if not. Well. Louis would keep reminding him. He’d learned how to.
In lieu of an answer Louis pulled the blankets over Lestat’s body, tucked his hair away from his face and positioned himself just so Lestat’s head was right above his heart. His husband’s hum of approval and impossible effort to burrow deeper inside him made him chuckle and allowed him to close his eyes and rest. He was excited for tomorrow. And all the other days after that.