Chapter Text
Lestat was…perplexed, to say the least.
Louis showing up at his doorstep, before any of the songs had been released no less, had been incredibly unexpected. He hadn’t been sure what to do with his hands, how to respond, what to say. Their last encounter in Paris had been…vitriolic at best. Each of them withholding, each of them feeding into the other’s game. One-upping each other to see who would snap first, who would get to beat the other down. Louis had played it beautifully, given the information he had, and of course that twat gremlin had played it to his advantage. But Lestat had known well enough that Louis would never believe anything he said. He wouldn’t believe how cruel Armand could be. In his own pettiness, he hadn’t even tried to argue, he simply let Louis have what he wanted. It was just as bad as dropping him from the clear sky.
This Louis was a completely different beast from the Old Louis. He was gentler. Softer. Apologetic. Nervous, even. He had looked at Lestat like he finally knew the truth, what little comfort that was. Lestat had still failed, he’d still lost Louis. The details didn’t matter, or they shouldn’t have.
The thank you had floored him. The confirmation that he’d hurt himself was brutal. And the way Louis had pulled him into his arms, comforting him in their shared grief, had utterly ruined him.
He couldn’t bear to part with Louis so he agreed to the hotel. He didn’t bother explaining that he returned to their old street just to compose and practice (he’d been composing a lot lately). Louis was being gentle and accommodating and he couldn’t bear to lose that yet.
None of that is what actually perplexed him. Not more than this.
Louis’ wardrobe .
He’d stepped out of the hotel room to acquire extra blood. (He had explained blood bags as if Lestat had not been paying attention to the last 50 years. The rat thing did look bad, he’d give him that. It was just part of his process these days.)
So Louis stepped out and Lestat was nosy, so he went looking. Louis’ luggage was fastidiously organized and had Lestat frowning. He hadn’t been so…fussy since before Paul died. Just the idea made Lestat’s chest ache. Watching Louis hold himself so tightly had been excruciating. Part of his longing had been rooted in a profound desire to spring Louis from the cage he had built for himself.
He pointedly ignored the twinkling giggle from the corner of the room, the fanning of a skirt, the outline of a perfect bow. She was being quiet, that was enough.
Seeing the luggage like that scared him.
The clothes, however, had him sitting on the bed and frowning in disbelief. Black . All black. Every single piece. This is what he had been wearing? The man who had dressed them in warm browns, pastels, light fabrics of an array of shades was draping himself in solid, heavy black? In mourning? Hiding again? Lestat had the sinking feeling that it was a recent choice. After San Francisco.
“Lestat?”
He lifted his gaze from the black cashmere sweater he held in his lap, up to Louis’ dear, confused face.
“Are you cold?” Louis asked nonsensically, that brow arched. Lestat shook his head. “I got a few bags. I usually heat ‘em up…” He trailed off, eyes locked on the sweater Lestat was holding. “What-?”
“You never used to wear black.” Lestat bobbed his head. “You never even allowed me to wear black.”
Louis’ inhale was long and deep. Painful.
“Times changed. I changed.”
No you didn’t . If Louis were still human, he would have heard him. The way he pulled back his head under Lestat’s scrutiny suggested that he didn’t need to say it anyway. Lestat let his fingers move over the soft fabric. This Louis he knew all too well.
Lestat couldn’t say which shocked him more, Louis’ sigh, or the fact that he sat next to Lestat on the bed.
“It was easier, the last 50 years, to just…be what he wanted.”
Lestat turned his head to look at Louis’ profile, the smooth line of it that had consumed so much of his waking thoughts a century ago, and Louis took the sweater.
“I was enduring.”
“I hate that.”
Louis sniffed. “Seems like that’s all I’m good for anyway. Walking from one prison to the next.” He tossed the sweater aside, put the luggage to the floor.
“ Non mon cher ,” Lestat protested immediately. That snapped Louis' eyes to his unflinchingly. Bright and sharp, but none of that icy indifference. Lestat had to physically fight himself to keep his hands from reaching out.
“We caged you. All of us. Your mother, me, Armand. We tried trapping you for ourselves. We all acted as if we knew what was best, no one ever asked you.”
Lestat saw the ripple. He saw how hard Louis was fighting to not react, to not crumple in front of someone who had pummeled him for his vulnerabilities. Don’t laugh at me . Lestat would go back and slit his own throat for that if he could.
“It was easier to make you the monster than admit–”
“I know,” Lestat interrupted. “Now. Even then, maybe. Or maybe I just thought you needed me to be the monster.”
“I think…” Louis said slowly, looking back down at his hands, “maybe it’s time I stop looking for the easy way.”
Lestat nodded, mind whirring too quickly to be sensible. He was torn between two questions. On the one hand, he felt the compulsion to bury all the feeling in sex. That was a safe option, something they were good at, it would be easy. But, Louis was…he’d just said…He chose impulsivity over recklessness.
“What happened?” Lestat prompted. “With Armand?”
Louis let out a broken laugh and leaned over his knees, a hand rubbing at his eye.
“You’re just gonna laugh at me.”
“And what, I don’t deserve to laugh a little?” Lestat teased. And there it was. That smile. His smile. The one Lestat got whenever he was being particularly ridiculous trying to make Louis feel better. He dragged that hand down his face to cover his mouth, shaking his head. Lestat steeled himself.
“How did you find out?” he asked quietly. “About the play?”
Louis turned his head, cheek resting on his fist. Those gorgeous eyes sadder and more tired than Lestat ever remembered seeing them. Not even a glimmer of anger.
“I met someone in San Francisco.” Lestat scrunched his face, confused. Fifty years-? “Not like that,” Louis insisted, straightening. “Well…maybe a little like that. Daniel was…is…just as much of a mess as I am. He’s a journalist and he was curious. Interesting.” He nodded, brows pinched. “He was the first honest conversation I’d had since…well…”
“I know the feeling.” Meeting Tough Cookie had been like being pulled from the mind-numbing, icy waters of his loneliness. Tough Cookie thought Lestat being a vampire was hilarious. They thought all of Lestat’s musical knowledge shouldn’t go to waste. Alex and Larry had agreed. It had been a…humbling experience.
“Armand found out I didn’t fuck him or kill him, like I’d been doing with the others.” Louis shrugged. “I was high out of my mind those days.”
“Well aren’t you just full of surprises,” Lestat murmured. He was a little pleased that Louis had finally let himself off the leash. He was irritated that the gremlin got to witness it, but still. Pleased. Louis was always wound so tight.
Louis side eyed him. “We just talked that night. I broke the routine, and he didn’t like it.” Lestat snorted. “ Don’t .”
“I have to assume you didn’t notice his tedious parasitic tendencies because you were grieving her.”
“Maybe.”
“And that’s when you–”
“Yeah.”
“So, if it was so long ago…”
“I sent Daniel a letter. Wanted to check in. Talk. I didn’t think he would show up in Dubai. I don’t even understand why he would show up, internet works just fine.” Louis was tapping his thumb rapidly on his thigh. “Well, I should talk to him about that actually because I suspect it had something to do with Armand.”
“That makes no sense.”
“A lot of things don’t. I was too pissed off, I had to get out of there.”
“So how does your Daniel figure into this?”
“He figured it out. All of it. He interviewed me. When we met, we talked for hours. About his life. Mine.” He turned his head. “You. He spent decades researching you. I think he knows more about you than I do.”
Lestat wrinkled his nose, displeased at the thought. He’d done a lot of work to bury his identities. But the world was different now.
“He was working with the Talamasca. Had the script. The one Armand made notes on. It’s in his handwriting, all the changes in stage directions that he made for you. But they weren’t for you.”
“No. I was too weak.” The shard of guilt in Louis’ expression was gratifying. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t go to the theatre with a plan, I just…if they were going to kill you, if I couldn’t save you…I had to be there. And Claudia…” He let out a sob, shaking his head. “She was so young, I just hoped–”
Louis pulled him into another hug, crying with him again.
“I’m sorry,” Lestat sobbed, leaning into him heavily. “I can’t even say her name without…” He trailed off, not sure how to describe it.
“I know the feeling,” Louis echoed, hand coming up to his hair. Lestat let his eyes flutter shut against the fingers on his scalp. He sighed. “Everything after that just…unravelled. Sure, it was one catastrophic lie, but he just kept compounding it. Over and over and over. He spent almost 80 years trying to band aid the knife he shoved in my back.”
“He’s good at that,” Lestat murmured. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.” Louis hummed and he sat up. “So what happened with Daniel?”
Louis’ face scrunched up in a wince.
“You didn’t .”
“I was a little pissed off–”
“You killed him?”
“No!” Louis laughed. “I just left him there. The both of them are just so–Armand edited my memories, was up during the day and fucking with things and Daniel knew the whole damn time.”
“He what ?”
“They have this sick little competition–I don’t know, I didn’t stick around to sort it out. I told Armand to get out and Daniel could stay as long as he needed to.”
Lestat bit down on his response. He really, really didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to be the one adding to the weight on Louis’ shoulders, but…leaving a human (leaving anyone, really) alone with Armand was not a good idea.
“Daniel’s sick. Dying. I think he was hoping to interview me, write his book–”
“ Book?!”
“And then ask me to end his life,” Louis finished, leaving out any context for this book . By everything fucking unholy, his beloved could give him such a migraine.
“We should eat. Sleep.”
“We should talk more about whatever this book plan is–”
“I have no idea what Daniel plans to do now. And I really don’t care. Everything I said and did was based on lies, stacked lies, I can’t even think of a single thing I did that wasn’t in response to that. Eighty fucking years–”
“We–” Lestat stopped himself short, realizing what he was about to say. “Our kind has eternity. Someday it will be a distant idea of a memory.”
Louis turned those beautiful, knowing eyes on him. “That happen for you yet?”
“ Non .”
Louis smiled again, a little sadder, but no less sweet. It made his heart clench tight. And it stopped beating entirely when Louis’ hand came to his face, when his thumb stroked his cheek thoughtfully. Lestat covered that hand, not certain that he wouldn’t cry if Louis pulled away now. But he didn’t.
Their kiss was slow and achingly chaste. So tentative. It didn’t feel real. It was the only real thing in the world. Lestat knew he was crying.
“I can’t–” Louis whispered, pulling back but not away. “I’m not–”
“ C’est bon, c’est bon, it’s fine. Can I just hold you, Louis? Est-ce que tu me laisseras te tenir ?” (Will you let me hold you?)
Louis was already nodding, toeing off his shoes and moving onto the bed. There was no coffin, he could only assume Louis had been too impatient. Lestat decided not to care. He settled in behind Louis, holding him as promised and kissing his head. He felt Louis tremble in his arms, knew that he was crying. Lestat started humming, quietly, singing an old lullaby. It was a sad one. He’d sung it to Nicki once.
Chante, rossignol, chante,
toi qui as le cœur gai.
Tu as le cœur à rire…
moi je l'ai à pleurer.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
jamais je ne t'oublierai
(Sing, nightingale, sing,
you who has a joyous heart.
Your heart is made for laughing...
mine can only cry.
I've loved you for so long,
I will never forget you)
As he sang, Louis’ hand covered Lestat’s on his chest, clenching tight.
Lestat deliberately slowed his breathing, tapered off his singing, pretended to fall asleep. Because he knew with certainty that if he closed his eyes, Louis could fade. He could wake in his own coffin, alone. Even if he didn’t, when the sun sunk into the sky once more, Louis could leave of his own volition. He might never see him again. Louis left. That’s what he did. All Lestat could do was hold on for as long as he was allowed.
Until Louis demanded that he let go.