Chapter Text
Lestat de Lioncourt is a certified mess to the highest degree.
The last remaining piece of his family is lost to him, and the rest have long since been buried far underground. He's one of the only living Lioncourts left, and it smarts. It smarts real fucking bad.
His apartment is expansive and empty, no permanent lover to fill his bed, no family to run through the halls. No sound of life or true warmth. Just him and his dog and a glittering piano.
He makes more money than he knows what to do with. Which only lends itself to long benders followed by even worse crashes, ending with more drugs and alcohol and warm bodies he can barely even see through the haze of his thoughts. A different pleasure every night. A new way to escape himself.
He's a rock star—it's practically in the job description. Lestat is a hot, fiery mess. He doesn't remember when he last cared to amend that.
And now he is late to every band rehearsal by at least two hours, showing up hungover and hiding behind a pair of expensive shades.
His hair is a nest of blond curls, leather jacket hanging off of his slim frame and Tough Cookie staring at him like she wants to throw him down the nearest flight of stairs. And a bit like she might be pitying him, like he was a creature that needed it, and Lestat hated that option a lot more.
He'd much rather her throw him down those stairs.
“I can't believe you. Or maybe it's worse that I absolutely can, because you've been pulling the same shit all year,” she snipes, but it lacks much of the heat that it once had. Like she's used to the disappointment and can't muster the energy anymore.
Lestat ignores the twist in his gut, like nails on the softest parts of him.
“I showed up at least, have I not?” He raises a brow, stepping around her to find his microphone stand, nimble fingers tracing the long stem of it.
“It's the least that you could do,” she grumbles, looking back at Larry and Alex who stand somewhere behind him, hooking up their own instruments. There's a heavy beat of silence, long and awkward.
The lights are making Lestat's head hurt even through the damper of his sunglasses. He sniffles, pushing his hair back from his face. His cheeks feel too hot, his entire body does, sweltering and aching. There are bruises on his hips and thighs from hands that got far too rough the night before. Lestat had been too drunk or high or both to remember what the man had even looked like. He feels vaguely nauseous.
“She's right, you know,” Alex says conspiratorially, though there's something hard as flint in his cobalt blue eyes.
Lestat's entire face is starting to hurt, his jaw working as he swallows, rolling his head to the side to look at Alex.
“Must I remind you, mon ami, why our album sales have reached millions this past year? Because I assure you, it is not because of the no-name bassist,” Lestat purrs meanly, meeting Alex's glare with a sharp smile.
“You're a fucking asshole, you know that?” Alex growls, stepping forward like he plans to bite Lestat's throat out.
Lestat doesn't move, looking at him through the thick fan of his lashes, lip curled to one side.
“Come on, why don't we just start practice?” Larry interjects nervously, fiddling with his drumsticks, looking back and forth between Lestat and Alex like he's afraid they're going to try and kill each other. “We shouldn't waste more time than what we have already, you know?”
Lestat smiles, beatific and strained, a steady thump jackhammering behind his temple. “Excellent idea. Shall we?”
Alex rolls his shoulders back, shaking his head roughly. They're just a few steps away from each other, and Lestat can see the anger drain out of him with a sigh, leaving behind that same wretched pitying look. It makes his mouth twitch, almost wishing that Alex had just took that swing at him instead.
Alex doesn't look happy to concede, but his flaring temper was always short-lived, burning up quickly into nothing. “Fine.”
He backs away and Lestat turns to his microphone, pale hands gripping it tightly. His knuckles are red, his lavender nail polish chipped.
They’re set to release their new album within the next four months. It’ll be their second full length album since their debut a year ago, and their last release had been an EP that included five new songs just six months before.
Tough Cookie—whose real name was Marianne and had only stopped objecting to her stage name about seven months prior—was their lead guitarist and second vocalist. Alex was their bassist and Larry was their drummer, two perfectly talented boys with personalities as opposite as night and day.
Which left Lestat as the main singer and occasionally on keyboard. And the face of the band, and the reason for their namesake, and why they're The Vampire Lestat at all. There would be no them without him.
Everyone takes their places, and the ensuing afternoon is nowhere near as tumultuous as its beginning. It never is.
It's the same song and dance they've been doing since the start of the year. Lestat pisses them off, they record a new track, and then they all go home. Everyone’s happy in the end. Lestat could still sing, he could still write, still perform—so he was still useful.
As long as he was still that, they couldn't get rid of him.
_______
Lestat has a favorite bar that is just walking distance from his apartment. It is small, not as extravagant as his normal tastes tend to lean, and he adores it.
Since his face became one that could be recognizable to the average person, he had only found himself here more often; dressed down to simple shades of black and maroon, sipping leisurely at a glass of red wine. The bar was rarely occupied by more than a handful of people at once, classic songs played on an old jukebox breaking the silence, the chatter quiet and inconsequential enough to drown out with his own thoughts.
The lights were always low, a warm orange that was easy on his eyes, particularly welcoming after a shitty hangover. The barstool squeaks a little every time he moves, his nail picking at a chip in the paint across the bar. The bartender is cleaning a glass just a few steps away. It’s a slow night, just enough chill in the air to cause a bite to the tip of his nose.
A cascade of papers sit before him on the counter, his pen tapping the wood in thought, turning his glass over in circles within an elegant hand. The band had been telling him that his recent songs were too raw. Too much cry-your-heart-out. They wanted something fun, something drumming, punchy and upbeat. They needed to decide on a good title track, and Lestat had spent the last few weeks trying to find the inspiration for it.
A bar was not typically the place to pour over new lyrics but—well. His apartment just felt far too empty.
Winter was quickly approaching. Billboards and commercials were advertising Christmas sales and holiday cheer, families and couples walking hand in hand through the streets, bundled in their scarves and mittens.
Lestat had overheard Larry talking about visiting his parents back in London, that he’ll be gone those last couple weeks of December. Marianne had her fiancé to go home to, a dark-skinned woman with bouncing curls and a fond smile. Lestat had seen her waiting in the parking lot of their studio often enough to recognize her. Alex lived in a multigenerational home, a house practically teeming with life.
Lestat had people to go home to, once. It feels as if it were an eternity ago.
He sits alone at the bar, scribbling incomprehensibly, and tries not to think about it.
_______
Sometimes Lestat thinks of writing to his mother. It carousels through his mind like a vicious taunt. But he’s not even certain of where she is, of how he’d go about finding her. And if he did, he doesn’t think he could handle the inevitable rejection. She would not want to speak with him, and it would crush him.
So it is simply easier to pretend. That she will find him when she is ready, that she is lost to him until then, and that he merely needed to wait.
And then, sometimes, he thinks of his father. Lestat does not often consider thoughts of his father and brothers. They were dead, and even during their life had Lestat not wanted to consider wonderings of them. His existence had been a burden to them, so he had left to alleviate it.
And now they were dead, and Lestat was not, and he did not know what to make of that.
_______
Lestat overdoses on a dreary Wednesday afternoon in the middle of December, all by himself in his too-big apartment and dressed down to a golden sleeping robe.
He's laying on the floor and staring at his ceiling, hair splayed out around his head and his entire body going numb. His tv is turned to a random channel, incessant noise he can't even parse the meaning of, his phone face down on the floor several feet away from him. The pill bottle is still in his hand, fingers weakly curled around it. He can’t seem to remember its contents, and couldn't even hope to read the label in this state.
His mastiff—Lucy, as large as a school bus and as gentle as a bed of lilies—is licking at his cheek. Her tongue is big and slobbery and Lestat thinks he just might be dying. He’s sweating, his heart racing in his chest and then slowing again, a droning beat. The air around him seems to swim, thoughts sluggishly sliding together until they slip like sand between the cracks of his mind.
He thinks of Nicki. He can hear the twinkle of his rare laughter, brown curls gentle against freckled cheeks, bowed lips pursed in a kiss. A singing violin crooning between his ears, warm skin and sweltering nights, the sting of withdrawal. Right there next to him and yet so, so far away.
He thinks of his mother’s sparse embraces, the reflection of himself in her eyes staring back at him, hair like spun gold and skin fair as fresh snow. Her fingers are cold, so cold and uncertain. She does not know how to love him. She never learned to.
He should be panicking, he thinks. He must be dying. He doesn't know. He doesn't care. He died in that large, empty house with men who hated him and a mother that looked away. He died in that bed with stale breath in his mouth and pleading to a god who did not exist.
He blinks, breathes out once, then twice, and stops thinking at all.
________
He had been dead for six and a half minutes—the doctors tell him as much as soon as he's conscious enough to listen. He had barely been able to breathe on his own for two days, waking deliriously in pain and to the smell of antiseptic. He can do nothing but listen.
He’s only alive because Christine, his lawyer, had noticed he missed one of their scheduled monthly meetings. And when she had stopped by his apartment he had already been unresponsive on the floor.
Lestat wonders if she should have just left him there.
“Were you trying to commit suicide, Mr. Lioncourt?” His doctor is a tall man with dark hair and bronze skin. Lestat had spent the last three minutes attempting to read his name tag and failing, his vision blurring every time he tried to focus.
Lestat stares up at him, chewing at his bottom lip, pale fingers picking at the hem of his gown. He pulls on a thread until it begins to unravel. “No. No, it was an accident.”
He doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not. He had been drunk and he hadn't seen a reason not to do it. Does that make him suicidal? Does he want to die? Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe—it circles in his head until the word loses all meaning.
Maybe.
“Just an accident.” He repeats, voice nothing more than a pathetic croak. His head still hurts, and his body is still buzzing, like static beneath his skin. His fingertips are numb, his heart beating too hard in the confines of his chest. He feels worse now than he did when he was actively dying.
The doctor is jotting something down, humming quietly in the back of his throat. Lestat has to resist the urge to demand what it is, nails biting into the palms of his hands.
There is no family to come visit him. No partner back at home waiting for him. It's just Lestat in the hospital bed, counting the beeping of his heart on a monitor.
_______
“We need to clean your act up,” Christine says upon greeting, her crisp red hair pulled into a perfect bun at the top of her head, glacier blue eyes settling on him intensely.
Lestat’s overdose had already made it to the news. Of course it had.
“I’m not in the mood.”
“You need a therapist,” she blazes over him without hesitance, taking a seat directly in front of him, long legs crossed. “You have been out of control for quite some time now. You should talk to a professional.”
Lestat’s jaw ticks. He smiles, feels it stretch over his face like a pantomime. He wants to laugh, though nothing is funny. “I did not realize I was to start taking orders from you now. You’re the one who works for me, non?”
“You are spiraling. Your best interest is in mine. That is why I was hired.”
He stares at her. She stares back, nonplussed. She had never been cowed by him, not by his temper nor his unruliness. She almost reminded him of Gabrielle. It is a terrible, terrible thought.
“I don't need a therapist. I wasn't trying to kill myself,” he tells her, because he feels as if he has to. That he should. “It was harmless fun that, well—I'm known to overindulge. From time to time.”
Christine looks at him for one long moment. Lestat feels his entire body begin to itch.
“I'll book an appointment. You will go at least once. After that, I will not be able to control what you do.”
Lestat did not like being told what to do. He abhorred it. Silence hangs between them, and Lestat can see a pensive little expression flicker over her face, quietly hesitant.
“Your label is considering dropping you. I suggest that you go.” Her voice is almost soft. Almost gentle. Lestat feels something breathe to life inside of him, like licking flames doused in gasoline.
“Me? Dropping me?” He scoffs, his voice raising, his heart monitor beeping far too loud and too fast. “You cannot be serious—
“Get clean, and all of this will blow over. You're talented, Lestat, they will keep you for as long as they can.”
Lestat's teeth grind together, and he hadn't realized he was picking at his nail beds until blood is beading out over his fingers. He looks down, watching as it stains the pale blue of his hospital gown. He thinks of death and of dying. The rot of his own body, decaying from the inside; breathless and devoid of life on his living room floor. What must he have looked like when Christine had found him?
He breathes out, shaky and resigned.
“Would you be happy if I go?” He asks childishly, pushing lank curls back from his face. He wants a shower—he feels disgusting and unkempt. He misses Lucy.
Christine smiles, her red lips thin and just barely more than a line. “It would put me at ease, yes.”
She pushes a cup of water in his direction, along with a simple granola bar and a blueberry muffin. He hadn't realized she'd even brought them with her.
“Eat. Take the time to recover. The press will be all over you the moment you're released.”
_______
Christine was right: the press are waiting just outside, looking to eat him alive.
He leaves from one of the back entrances of the hospital and there is still a small group of reporters waiting for him, springing to life like marionette strings pulled taught at the sight of him. It is barely 6 am.
Look this way, Lestat. Look here!
Is it true your new album is to be delayed?
What about your bandmates?
Have any drug charges been made against you?
Would you consider yourself an addict?
Were you trying to kill yourself? Was the overdose a suicide attempt? Is this a cry for help?
“What reasons do I have to kill myself?” He laughs, and it's the only thing he says before he's being ushered into the car, Christine waiting in the other seat.
His head is pulsing, camera lights still flashing in his vision. His breathing is labored, his chest unusually tight and his eyes are stinging. Something wild thrashes behind the cage of his ribs, climbing up his throat. He's picking at his nail beds again and forces himself to stop, tucking his hands between his thighs.
He can see their faces through the tints of the windows, camera lights flashing in his periphery. Somehow, it makes him feel nauseous, bile rising at the back of his throat. He feels like he can't breathe, his chest squeezing, gut roiling with sickness. He feels like he's going to puke. He feels like he's dying again.
Christine hands him a bottle of water and he slowly takes it, fingers closing around the cold surface of it. He's shaking, watching the water jostle behind plastic.
“You need to breathe, Lestat.” Christine's voice floats into his consciousness. He feels as if she had been talking to him for quite some time now without him hearing her.
He focuses on the chill of the bottle. He puts it to his overwarm face, tears smearing with the condensation. He hadn't even noticed he'd been crying.
“Christine? Did I overdose again?” He asks deliriously, clutching at his nape and bent so far over himself his head is nearly in between his knees.
“No. You’re having a panic attack. But you will be alright, you just need to breathe. You will be home soon.”
Home. It offers little comfort to him.
_______
“Your apartment is sad, uncle Les.”
Lestat is not Claudia's uncle, he is her employer. Of sorts. She babysits his dog when he's not home for long periods of time. He can't remember how old she is. A teenager, probably. No more than seventeen.
“I should be docking your pay for every insult I garner from you,” he says mildly, handing her a stack of bills and watching her face light up with a smile. She is irritating and annoying and he is deeply, utterly fond of her.
“You need a shower,” she tells him succinctly, scratching Lucy behind one ear, her tongue lolling out happily. “You look a mess.”
Lestat’s brow twitches, ripping off his jacket and pushing a pale hand through his curls. He’s been losing weight, his skin too wan to look healthy, dark circles making a permanent home under the slope of his eyes. He knows he looks terrible. He tears his hospital bracelet away from his wrist, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, trying to assuage the headache he already knows is to come.
“Go home and bother your mother.”
“Ain’t got one.”
“Your father?”
“Not one of those either.”
Lestat looks at her, big brown eyes staring back at him, Lucy’s tail thumping a rapid beat against the floor.
“I’ll make you breakfast while you get cleaned up. Auntie’s not gonna be home for a few hours, so I think I’m gonna stay here a while. You got a nice tv, uncle Les.”
And then she turns on her heel and skips off to his kitchen, Lucy following close behind her with a snort and tapping paws. Lestat swallows, looking into the empty space she’s left behind, and goes to find his bathroom.
When he disrobes, some part of him expects to look in the mirror and see someone new. Someone different. He had died for six and a half minutes. He should be different now.
He’s not. It’s the same Lestat looking back at him in the mirror, pale blue eyes and blonde curls brushing his shoulders. The sky held in his irises and the sun in his hair. He shudders, thumbing at the bruise on the inside of his elbow. Where they had drawn his blood, stuck in his IV, running through nearly every test imaginable.
He’s lucky there won’t be any severe lasting effects is what they had told him. Not physically, at least. It should be impossible. And yet.
And yet.
Lestat steps into the shower, turning his head up towards the warm spray. He sighs under his breath, feeling relaxed for the first time in days. He runs his hands through his hair, down his neck and across his shoulders. Feels the heat of the water work out knots of tension, his eyes slipping closed as he stands there for several long moments. Water pools in his lips, the creases of his lashes, the lines of his jaw and throat.
He doesn't know how long he showers—or, more aptly, lets the spray wash over him in comforting sheets. Until his fingers are wrinkled, so hot that it begins to sting, his thoughts lulled to a dull hum at the back of his head. He steps out when the water eventually begins to cool, his skin gone pink and finally feeling clean again.
He thinks of dying. It’s as if the thought comes to him with no warning, for no discernible reason. He thinks of his body in a fine casket, surrounded by silk or velvet. A bouquet of flowers over his chest and his expressive face made still in death. And then he thinks it’s nothing more than fantasy—Lestat would never have a funeral. There would be no one who would come.
He redresses in a deep emerald green robe, pulling his hair off of his neck in a loose bun. They must have cut the one he died in that night to ribbons. He never got it back. His hands are shaking, wringing in front of him, resisting the urge to pick at his own skin until it bleeds. He doesn't look at himself in the mirror this time.
His apartment smells of food when he walks out. His stomach growls despite itself, twisting with hunger. He hadn't eaten much while he was in the hospital; he hadn't felt much of the appetite to even try.
Claudia is standing at his stove, making breakfast.
“Your plate ‘s already on the table.” She's humming, her phone quietly playing music on the counter. Lucy is lying at her feet, her large head perking up in interest at Lestat’s appearance.
Lestat sits, staring down at his plate. He pokes at it with a fork. “What is this?”
Claudia looks back at him as if she thinks he were very, very dull. “It's an egg in a basket. You ain't never had one?”
“Can't say I have, mon petit chou,” he says tightly and she's smiling—teasing and sharp with her youth—tossing dark curls behind her shoulder.
“Cause you grew up real fancy, I bet. You guys eat lobster for breakfast or something? Whatever it is that rich people like you eat.”
Lestat scoffs and does not deign that with an answer.
The food is still warm. Lestat appreciates that more than the taste, though the flavor is not so bad either. It is not long before Claudia joins him, glancing up at him from her plate. He can see curiosity written all over her face, her white teeth chewing at her bottom lip, as if she were contemplating what exactly she should say first.
Lestat lets it go on for approximately five minutes.
He sighs, giving her an unimpressed, withering look. “Say whatever it is that’s circling in that little head of yours. It is rude to stare.”
“I don’t think you really care all that much about manners.” She smiles, propping her chin in her hand. But the levity is short lived, her expression soon turning pensive. Tight. It looks uncharacteristic on her.
“You’re on the news, you know. In all those gossip articles and posts online. Sometimes I forget that can happen to you. You’re just a weird French man to me, who lives in this big old penthouse all by himself.”
Lestat’s mouth twitches, somewhere between anger and great amusement. “And what do you think?” He doesn’t know why he asks. He doesn't care what the strange little girl who babysits his dog thinks. He doesn’t.
“I think it’s sad,” she says softly, poking at her food so she doesn't have to look up at Lestat. “They’re saying terrible things about you. But you ain’t so bad, I think. Just lonely.”
Just lonely. He huffs, a breathless noise that turns into a grating laugh.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He clears his throat, suddenly feeling his appetite evaporate. “Have you ever played chess before?”
Claudia glaces up at him, a small smile on her lips. “Nope.”
“Well, would you like to learn?”
_______
Lestat finds himself in his favorite bar a week after his release from the hospital. He’s not supposed to be drinking. Christine would not be happy with him if she knew. And neither would his bandmates, really. They had sent him a get well soon card in the mail and awkward, stilted messages that somehow wreaked with concern. Lestat was not looking forward to their next practice.
But it was only just a drink or two, just enough to get mildly buzzed. He was practically exhibiting model behavior!
He has his journal with him this time, full of songs and half-realized thoughts. The last ten pages are full of macabre, sordid lyrics of mortality and his own death. They’re only for him—no one else. Not something made for the band or his album, just Lestat de Lioncourt. The most private parts of him.
He pours his wine all over the pages and slams the book shut.
“You feeling alright there? I can't imagine the page said something so terrible as to warrant waterboarding it,” A voice says somewhere to his right, warm and deep and drawling. Lestat is not in the mood.
“I'm afraid I'm not giving out any autographs tonight,” he bites, turning to the side with something cutting already on the tip of his tongue, where he abruptly pauses.
The first thing he sees is brilliant green eyes shining in the low light of the bar. Almost unsettling but oddly beautiful on the man's pretty face, his full lips tilted in a slanting smile.
“Autographs?” He chuckles and the sound makes Lestat's heart feel like a caged bird. “Should I be asking for one?”
The man doesn't recognize him. For the first time in his life, he's strangely grateful. He’s been trying to avoid social media, but he knew the things that people were spewing online about him. He didn’t particularly care, but that did not mean he wished to be bombarded with it.
But the man is smiling just slightly, stunning in its beauty, and he suddenly doesn't remember why he had been in a bad mood in the first place. Maybe he's drunker than he had even realized.
“Well, for you, I could certainly be amenable.” Lestat leans against the counter, cheek resting in his palm.
There is something incredibly intense about the man's gaze. Something that makes Lestat feel like a prey animal under sharp claws and teeth, and a bit like he doesn't want to fight against it. “That accent—you're not from here?”
“How astute.” Lestat waves a flippant hand. “Born and raised in France.”
“Hm, Paris?”
Lestat scoffs, tracing lines in the countertop with his nails. “The countryside. Pretty piece of nature, I suppose, though incredibly dull.”
He remembers lying on the grass with Nicki. Bounding through the hills, mastiff puppies at his heels and his mother watching from afar. He doesn’t like thinking of it.
“You seem well suited to the city.” The man is smiling, as if Lestat were saying something of any interest. Lestat can’t help but look at his lips. It’s a very, very nice mouth. His smile makes him look younger, softer, though he must be at least a decade older than Lestat. But something about him makes him seem even older than that, confident and sure and at ease with himself.
“What can I say? I enjoy the spontaneous bursts of life here. And may a dull moment never find me for as long as I live.”
The man laughs again, soft and muted. It’s a brilliant sound. “I’m Louis.”
“Louis?” He wants to taste the name, to remember it when this night is nothing more than a drunken haze tomorrow. “I’ve never seen you here before.” And Lestat would have remembered a face like that if he ever had. He wants to trace the counters of it with his fingers, the sharp edges of his jaw and the creases around his mouth.
There’s an amused look that passes over Louis’s face, as if he could see Lestat’s thoughts written across his expression. Maybe he could—Lestat had always been terribly forthcoming with what he was feeling, could only hide it if he consciously decided to.
“I like to travel. I’ve been staying here at the moment. Just taking in the sights.” He looks at Lestat for a moment, green eyes pinning him to the spot, Lestat likening it again to teeth at his pulse point. He shivers slightly at the thought. “And I didn’t catch your name.”
“Lestat de Lioncourt.”
Louis’s brows raise. “Rather unique.”
Lestat snorts. “The name hardly exists. It’s a puzzle thrown haphazardly together through the name’s of my siblings. Just random syllables.” He doesn’t know why he admits to that. His body feels warm, his head buzzing, and he doesn’t want to stop looking at Louis.
“It fits you, though, I think. Almost sounds regal.”
Lestat smiles, nearly swaying into Louis’s space. They seem closer than they ought to be. Lestat hopes that Louis never thinks of pulling back. “If you’d like to think of it that way, then go ahead.”
He was a seventh child, the throwaway one. Lestat likes to think his parents were just tired of naming them just for them to die. But then he lived, and his father resented him for it.
“What were you writing?”
Lestat frowns as he slots back into reality, picking at the corners of his wine-soaked journal, suddenly drawn back to the reason he was here in the first place. “Nothing of importance. Whining, impudent drivel. I’ll need to throw this one out, anyway.”
And then in a spontaneous choice driven by alcohol and three parts arousal, shoves the journal towards Louis instead. “Or, I’ll just give it to you. Do whatever you’d like with it.”
There’s a naked look of surprise on Louis’s face, and something like sheer fascination. Lestat feels incredibly warm at being the source of that interest.
“Are you certain?”
Lestat shrugs. “What are the chances of us meeting again?”
Louis takes the journal in one hand, placing it in his lap. He handled it carefully. Gently, like it really matters. “Who is to say that we won’t?”
Lestat hums, drunkenly giggling as he leans a little closer. “Then you can tell me what you think of it. Or you can throw it away, or burn its remains, and I’d be none the wiser.”
Louis’s eyes are warm, his gaze so hot it feels scorching. Lestat thinks of kissing him, drunk and lonely in this bar. Of leading him home, letting Louis push him down on his large bed and letting him do whatever he’d like to him. He’d do anything to get that pretty mouth on him, to hear that rumbling voice in his ear, those slender hands on his body. And with that heated fantasy is partnered by one of death—Louis slaughtering him in his sheets, cutting his throat and leaving him to bleed out, fingers in an open wound.
There is a flinch in Louis’s expression, enough so that Lestat wonders if he had somehow managed to speak of it aloud without realizing. Then he is standing up, and Lestat can’t help the coldness that seeps inside of him, stinging like rejection. But Louis lingers, Lestat’s journal held in his hands, and his expression is like honey once again.
“Then I should hope to update you when we next meet.” Louis tilts his head to the side, a thoughtful slant to his mouth. “You’re drunk. Let me call you a cab home.”
Lestat doesn't want to go home to his empty, cold apartment. He follows after Louis anyway, a wayward dog at his beckoning heels. They wait outside in the chill, side by side but carefully not touching.
The air is cold and biting. Lestat is wearing nothing more than a vest made of velvet and a silk button up. He shivers, the nip of the wind slightly sobering. Then there is a coat being placed around his shoulders, Louis’s eyes bright as he tugs it over him.
“Louis?”
”I think you need it more than I do. Besides, we’re supposed to meet again, yeah? Give it back to me then.” Louis’s voice is intoxicating, his touch making Lestat’s skin light up like fireworks as hands pat over his chest, smoothing out his coat. It smells like Louis must, sandalwood and honeysuckle.
Louis winks at him as he inevitably climbs into the cab, and Lestat burns with desire.
It is not until he gets home, sober enough to manage a coherent thought, that he realizes he should have asked for his number.
But somehow, he’s sure that Louis will find him again regardless.