Chapter Text
Can’t find a way by Steady Holiday
Can’t find a way to fall in love with you
Can’t find a way to fall in love with you
You worship everything I do
But I know I can’t find a way to fall in love
Lestat had loved Louis’s fierceness. He fell in love with him during a street brawl with his brother and during their relationship he worked tirelessly to provoke Louis to violence to rekindle their passion whenever it was dimmed. Good or Bad. Lestat knew how to stoke the flames of Louis’s heart, even as his will to endure was dying.
Armand was a cold stifling wind; utterly refreshing after Lestat but in the end, he smothered any and all of Louis’s remaining burning passion. Burning was volatile, and inconsistent, and could not be safely maintained for a length of time. What Louis and Armand had were early fireworks that got reduced to mere crackling embers at the best of times.
It was heartbreaking because Louis’s humanlike warmth and insatiable curiosity were what drew Armand to him in the first place, yet he managed to singlehandedly smother the last of the roaring flames. Well, they did it together, if Louis was ever ready to accept responsibility. While Lestat had been Louis’s coal fire for thirty years; Armand and Louis were a cold fire the moment they left Paris.
That was that.
I really wish it wasn’t true
The secret’s out I wasn’t right for you
Everyone knew before I knew but I denied
Yet, they never parted.
From their understanding, most mature human relationships were crackling embers, not burning, hard to contain flames of passion. And what were they to do? Leave the only other civilized vampire they could stomach to be around and had any history with? For the sake of truth, were Armand and Louis expected to face the void stretching out for decades at a time, alone? Were these devils not allowed to try to love each other no matter how long it took or how futile the endeavor felt?
Were their conversations at opposite ends of the long rectangular dinner table a farce? Would they look human to outside observers, or would the stark silence be frightening to humans? There was no reason for much chit-chat when they can read each other’s minds and there is no longer anything new to say after fifty years – quite a few of those years spent in isolation from the outside world.
Would Armand taking notes on his iPad of Louis’s precise intake of three sources of “ethically source” blood be too clinical? What else was a vampire caring for an ill partner supposed to do? Let him eat whenever he pleased or remembered? Louis would starve to death without him. Armand’s hands were tied. He cared for Louis more than Louis cared for himself. That Louis knew for sure.
Would it appear natural when Armand took to stroking Louis’s hair while he slept for hours or would the knowledge that Armand often had to apply psychic sedation to help Louis sleep at all be blood-curdling to those who valued free will above all else? Humans have their medicines for psychological and neurological disorders. Armand liked to think he was Louis’s medicine. Bitter but necessary.
And what to make of their lovemaking? It had become infrequent since their fireworks had long faded, so they made it routine. It was either routine or not at all – giving over to complete “bed death.” They were both healthy vampire males with bodily needs, so routine was the only way forward. At specific times known to no one but themselves, they would make love with whatever scrap of goodwill they could muster toward each other.
Love made from goodwill, not passion was not always satiating.
Cause all the little things you do
You meet me in the middle, make me smile
It isn’t lost on me how hard you try
But I can’t find a way to fall in love with you
Fantasy made the love from goodwill go down smoother.
After the fireworks had faded Louis would reminisce on those nights in Paris to ignite the passion needed to fuck Armand. The memories of the feeling of the exhilaration he felt when Armand taught him how to climb towers with his bare hands or the nights spent reading books in his library coddling by the fire or admiring paintings when the two of them broke into the louver were once enough to foster a simulacrum of passion for Armand, but now they weren’t enough. In the year of our lord 2022, Louis had to think of Lestat to get through a night with Armand with any amount of satisfaction.
What a wound to his pride and the belief that he had moved on. That the flames of his first love had long died. It seemed theirs was an eternal flame.
At first, it pained him so to think of Lestat while with Armand, it filled him with so much guilt and shame he would work tirelessly to block his mind so Armand would never know. But at some point, in their relationship, he stopped caring so much that he threw himself into his fantasies of Lestat more times than not. Armand would have been completely unconscious not to know.
If Louis was being spiteful, he did not know himself.
Armand just chose never to mention or make a fuss about it because it would cause Louis stress and discomfort to be confronted. And he lived his life to be a sanctuary for Louis, away from his past trauma and his woes. A padded room of loving. A sealed bubble. What a predicament they were in. They have boxed themselves in.
In the middle of the night
I run the numbers on a decent life
But I knew the answer when I looked into your eyes
This isn’t black and white
It’s safe to say that I would die for you
Cause I can depend on you in every way but one
Can’t find a way to fall in love with you