Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The pink neon diner lights made Lestat look ethereal, and Louis suddenly regretted not bringing his camera along. He also regretted giving up photography all those years ago, but any photo he could take of Lestat right then wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough.

But they hadn’t met up to take photos. They had more pressing matters to tend to.

It had taken almost eight city blocks to shake the fans with their phone cameras waiting outside of Lestat’s tour bus. It had taken four more to shake the paparazzi, then two more to shake the final persistent reporter trailing them. Finally, finally, they’d slipped into this nondescript cafe and ordered coffees they weren’t going to drink, and settled in for a long overdue conversation.

Things were volatile in the beginning, too volatile for that, especially right after the book was published. They could barely manage sitting across from one another with lawyers present. It felt wrong though- it felt so wrong, so wrong, and Louis decided he would cut his losses and pay the damn fee for violating the contact order Lestat imposed between so they could try fix things like they used to- quick, dirty, efficient.

A few texts and a shitty motel room later, Lestat was screaming the words from his interview back to him, asking why couldn’t he just love him, had he ever even liked him, why did Louis even let him turn him if he didn’t, crimson tears staining his cheeks as he did. That was awful. That was probably the lowest Louis had ever been.

The sex that followed, however, was great. It was like the time he’d drained a man high off of morphine, only better, to the rings of Saturn and back only that didn’t even begin to cover it. There was no pain, no pain, finally. It was the first relief Louis had truly felt in years.

It felt like they finally made a breakthrough with one another that night, and Louis didn’t want to ruin things. They moved carefully. They spent a night together here, then a weekend together there. Gifts were given. Occasionally Louis then Lestat offered a long overdue apology, but they never talked through what really needed to be talked about. They danced around all sorts of things, Louis’ work, Lestat’s tour, would they move in together, were they companions, would they ever be companions again—

That was always the problem, Louis supposed. They hadn’t really ever been good at talking. That was how they’d wounded each other so badly in their past life. That was why Louis had left Lestat half-dead in a coffin while he sailed away across the ocean, and why he assumed Lestat would come to return the gesture all those years later at the trial.

Maybe talking earlier would have fixed things. Maybe it would have prevented all that pain in the first place. Maybe they never would have parted.

But they’d had never been good at talking. Even now, even when things were tentatively healing, like a rib trying to knit back together under bruised skin, it didn’t come easy. A pink haze from the neon lights formed a halo in Lestat’s hair, and Louis tried to convince himself it wasn’t somehow painfully romantic, beautiful, sexy—

—you can’t take him home yet you need to talk—

“What is it you wanted to talk about, Louis?” Lestat asked. His nails traced the body chain resting on his collar bone, and Louis struggled to stay focused. He gazed down at his reflection in the black coffee, then looked back up into Lestat’s cornflower blue eyes.

He could lose himself there. He had lost himself there, once. He was trying to find himself again, all while getting to know Lestat, trying to salvage the love that once burned so bright between them, and it was so much all at once—

He exhaled, and wondered if his lungs would hurt if he were still alive, really alive, in any way that was meaningful.

“Thanks. For the last couple years, I mean. For being patient with me, while I try and find myself after everything, for forgiving me after the book got published. Really, I know it’s not what you were wanting,” Louis started, and Lestat smiled.

“I’ve waited for you far longer than that, mon cher,” Lestat corrected with a wry grin, and then, “I missed you terribly. I hope you’ve come to know that. But we are closer now than we were before. And you’ll come home to me soon, non?”

Louis exhaled again, trying to find the courage in himself to continue. This was why they needed to talk. It seemed Lestat felt like they were finally back to where things had been in New Orleans, in the Rue Royale. He was asking Louis if he wanted to leave some things in his penthouse each time he was over, and Louis knew this pattern now. This was Lestat hunting. This was Lestat searching, yearning, seeking a companion, and the questions he sprinkled through their recent couplings just confirmed it.

Louis felt the fleeting warmth of the instant coffee through the mug and tried to ground himself around it before he spoke.

“I…I don’t know, Lestat.”

Lestat’s soft lips fell from a smile into something wounded.

“You…don’t know?”

“I’ve enjoyed getting to know you again. I’ve also enjoyed getting to know me. And…hasn’t that been good? Haven’t you liked getting to know yourself? You’re great out there. I didn’t know you could do all that, I guess I should have from before because you always had such a gift with music—”

“Non.”

The older vampire was uncharacteristically abrupt. If there was warmth in his eyes before it had gone, like the final days of summer fleeing into cold autumn nights. He stared back across the diner booth at Louis, something feral and frightening and sharp in his expression. Louis felt it like a knife’s edge on an ankle tendon.

“No, I have not enjoyed it. I have endured it. I have endured it for you, mon cœur. For the promise that you would return to me. I have been more than patient with you, mon cher. After the ball with our daughter, after your little tryst with Armand, after the sham of an interview with Daniel- I have waited! I’ve once again fought my nature, for you, Louis, hoping in vain you would love me back somehow enough to choose me finally! But if you would like to remain companion enough for yourself indefinitely, I…”

Lestat paused. Louis couldn’t tell if he was struggling, or if it was for some sort of theatrical effect, or maybe both. Lestat had a way of making accidents look deliberate, of never letting anyone know when he was falling upwards, and even in his sharpness he looked beautiful.

Louis wanted to reach out. He wanted to touch him. He didn’t want to lose him again.

“Lestat—Les, baby, I’m right here. It’s just that things are going good. I thought we were both doing good—” he tried to soothe him, tried to draw him back in, tried to read him to see if there was any of his Lestat left in there.

“Eh bien, tu pensais mal, mon amour! I am wasting! Perhaps you will never comprehend vampire loneliness if you do not know it now. I am so very grateful you won’t ever know it so intimately as I do, however—“

—the problem is Louis knew loneliness, knew it intimately, knew it so much his mind made up specters of Lestat where he wasn’t there, knew it so well he didn’t know who he was when the lonely swallowed him up inside of its gaping empty maw, and all he knew was that he was a

lonelylonelylonelyboy

destined for Hell, reminded of that every Sunday, hiding in a church confessional praying for salvation and then finally

SALVATIONthynameisLESTAT!

Then it was all red and slick and glistening and LestatLestatLestatLestatLestatLestat and then losing him was anguish. Then it was flickers of LestatArmandLestatArmand then just L _E S _T A _T L _E S _T A _T L _E S _T A _T did his heart even know any other way to b e a t could it beat without him he just wanted to know but he was afraid he already knew the answer—

“—I need more than scraps,” Lestat laughed, and Louis tried to listen and tried to come back from where he was in his head. “So if this is how you wish to carry on, mon cher? Perhaps it was fine with Armand, but not with me. Désolé.”

Lestat stood. He glanced down at Louis now, pink neon highlighting his cheekbones and reflecting off of his eyes and ringlets. Louis felt like he was falling, felt like the diner booth had slid out from under him and he was being swallowed into that gaping awful void again—

“There is only a thin veil between us if you should ever need me, mon saint. But please do not come for me again unless you mean to stay.”

Lestat was fine, hewasfinehewasfinehewasfine he was standing right in front of him, he wasn’t dying his throat wasn’t slit he wasn’t bleeding out so why did Louis feel like he was losing him forever again—

—LestatLestatLesat why have you forsaken me ithurtsithurtsithurts—

“Lestat, can we just talk about this?” Louis asked quietly, and Lestat’s expression didn’t change. The lack of warmth was disturbing. It reminded him of that day in the law office, or worse—

—he tried not to think of Lestat on the floor, bleeding out and losing light from his eyes—

“There’s nothing else to say mon cœur. Au revoir,” Lestat’s voice floated into his ears, deceptively gentle, and Louis felt like he’d been told he was to be banished all over again and no no no anything but that ithurtsithurtsITHURTSPLEASESTOPPLEASEDON’TGO—

If Louis had watched closer as Lestat turned, he would have finally seen a crimson tear drip down his cheek as he left through the squeaky glass door. But he didn’t—he stared stunned where Lestat had just been standing.

Surely this had to be some of his usual theatrics. It was an act right? He’d turn back up. They’d go back to his hotel room, or maybe even the tour bus as much as Louis hated that thing, and they’d make love and the pain would go away again.

Sunrise crept closer. Louis waited, and waited, until the sky was pale and he couldn’t wait any longer and he had to move or die.

Lestat never showed.

Lestat wasn’t anywhere Louis searched the next night either. The nights stretched on, all blurring together like bad film negatives.

Lestat didn’t return his texts. When Louis tried to call, the line dropped straight to voicemail. Louis hadn’t felt so nauseous since drinking half dead blood in Europe with Claudia.

He tried Lestat’s lawyer like he was supposed to in the first place, and he called her at a few different times. When she picked up she told him there were no new developments, and to please not call again until she contacted him first.

He knew a fuck off when he heard one.

So he waited. He slept. He woke. He slept. He woke.

His sleep was dreamless sleep, and once, just once, he wished he would dream of Lestat—except then he did and it was worse. He woke half-hard, then felt tears beading in his eyes when he realized he was painfully alone.

He stopped sleeping.

He hoped against hope he’d see him again. Maybe Lestat would give first, or maybe it would be the way it was when he would imagine him in Paris, in San Francisco, during the interviews with Daniel. Maybe if his mind could conjure him up again he could hobble through this, he could figure something out, he—-

He was lying to himself. He’d tasted the real thing again now and there was no substitute.

So Louis stared at the phone next to him as he suffered through another sleepless day. TheVampireLestat Instagram account. TheVampireLestat Twitter account. TheVampireLestat TikTok account.

A new notification danced across the top of his screen once more. He didn’t pay attention to what account it came from as he slid the screen open.

Lestat stared back at him from the glowing pixels, smiling wide with his glittery cheek pressed against a green eyed boy. Was Louis really nothing to him? Replaceable with some twenty-first century boy? Louis could kill him.

Maybe he would.

The young man looked desperately fragile in Louis’ arms.

There was no way a boy with hands as soft as these could have ran a city the way Louis once had. His skin was so smooth, and Louis could taste a hint of expensive cologne when he punctured his skin with his fangs. The scream that left his lips was soft, choked off as Louis drank, not nearly a rough enough thing to survive in the world he had all those years ago. This was no replacement. This was a fuck you.

Fuck you right back, Les.

He felt a pang of guilt as he drained the young man. The boy was just coming to terms with who he was, it seemed, Lestat had a way of bringing this out of people. Evidently this kid saw Lestat as heaven sent, some sort of sun god, and Louis couldn’t help but find it comical. They’d never see the sun again, not the way they were. He wondered if the man knew Lestat had wanted to take the sun from him forever, and he pondered the thought as he swirled the last bit of blood on his tongue.

Louis hoped, at least, he got to experience the ecstasy of being drained as he died. He felt him slowly stop struggling, and then when he finally stopped breathing Louis pulled back from his neck he sighed. He dropped him, staring at the body on the floor now, and remembered a time when he earnestly believed a fever was killing half the town. Then he got his bearings, because they weren’t in New Orleans, not anymore, and he looked around the tourbus.

They’d made a mess. The furniture was all askew, because he hadn’t gone down easy when Louis grabbed him. He could see why Lestat liked him. He was so very alive just moments before. Perhaps he would have been a good vampire, in some respects, but now they would never know.

He laid the young man gently out on the tour bus chaise, fixing the edges of his hair as he did. He was beautiful, admittedly, and Louis wondered if it was vain to notice their few similarities.

His painfully dead, cloudy human eyes mirrored Louis’ vampiric green ones, and Louis would have closed them if he didn’t want Lestat to see the subtle horror twisted over his face. He wondered if the curve of their smiles would have been similar—maybe he should have chatted him up. Maybe he should have taken him out first. That really would have pissed Lestat off. But that was more Armand’s style, or similar to it anyway. When Louis killed it had never come easy, it was never graceful and only sometimes gentle, and tonight was no exception.

He left the body and the tour bus in the middle Lestat's setlist, and the band played on.

Again. Lestat was doing it again.

Louis couldn’t believe it. Lestat just found another boy not even a full night after he’d killed the first one. This time he’d had the nerve to take him home.

Louis could recognize the windows, the glimmering city lights from the background of Lestat’s penthouse. He had only been there a handful of times, and only after they’d fucked their way through filthy motel rooms and the fucking bus.

What in Hell made this groupie so special?

Louis supposed he’d have to visit again, even the score.

Louis snuck into the penthouse under the soft light of the stars. He crept quietly through the halls, and it was easy enough to look like he belonged there. He would have kicked the door down if it were any other night, but no. Tonight he just needed to get in, get rid of the fucking groupie that Lestat was taunting him with, and get the fuck out.

He picked the lock, a trick he’d picked up with Claudia in Europe, then refined during his time in real-estate, and smiled when it clicked open. He stepped forward, and then jumped when he was met with Lestat’s bright blue eyes waiting for him.

“Going somewhere, mon cher?” the blonde asked, swirling some blood in a glass. He looked like he had been waiting a while, leaning against the stairwell to the loft in a silk robe.

“Dinner,” Louis half-lied. Or maybe it was a half-truth. He fully intended to drain the groupie Lestat had bought home.

Lestat stared at him, flatly, then laughed suddenly, full and bright and brilliant as ever.

“Tu es un comédien! You told Daniel you haven’t drank from unwilling donors in years. And yet here you are.”

“Things change,” Louis replied bluntly, and Lestat slowly calmed himself. He took a sip from his glass, and then set it down on the coffee table next to him.

“So they do,” he hummed, pensively, “tell me Louis, I’ve no problem if you’re looking for a specific blood type. Or maybe you like a certain kind of boy? I wasn’t privy to your time with Armand. But two for two men that I got to first— you know it’s rude to take from others, don’t you Louis? Or have you not figured that out after all this time being companion enough for yourself?”

The jab at the end was meant to derail, perhaps meant to goad him into a fight and push him into forgetting what they were really talking about, but Louis stayed the course.

“Don’t play dumb with me, you know what you’re doing,” Louis snarled, and Lestat just smiled.

“Quoi? What am I doing?”

“Why the FUCK do they all look like me—”

“Les? This another one of your vampire friends?” A soft voice came from the top of the stairs.

His eyes were amber, maybe like Louis’ would have been once. He looked like the end of summer felt, warm and earnest, and oh Louis hated that he had to do this—

“Telling people about our nature?” Louis asked Lestat calmly, baring his fangs slowly. Lestat’s eyes widened with horror.

“Louis, LOUIS, tu ne peux pas, you published a whole interview with Daniel—!”

But before he could say anything else, Louis had sped towards the boy at the top of the stairs and sunk his teeth in. He tried to make it quick this time—as he drank he saw a family—not unlike his own, no, he didn’t want to look, couldn’t look, not too long, fuck, but then he saw some years sleeping on couches after telling them about the way he loved, then he saw Lestat all radiant and bright and—-

The groupie collapsed in his arms. He gave up surprisingly quickly.

Louis stared down at him. The young man looked… relieved. Too relived to be dead. Somehow that made Louis feel worse. There was something twisting in his gut now that made him regret this, made him want to say I’m sorry, we always do this, we even killed our own daughter, it wasn’t you, it was him, he finds broken people and pulls them towards him, maybe you could have been our son but we would have failed you still somehow, but maybe he would have liked you better at least, maybe he would have picked you over me and then maybe you both could have killed me instead and this all would have been different—

But then the illusion was shattered by Lestat’s voice cutting through his thoughts, and reminding him where he was.

“Putain! Louis! Now we need to clean this up!” Lestat whined, and pulled him to get up from the ground where he sat holding the corpse.

“Come on, en haut! Help me to the fire pit on the roof. He’s a beautiful corpse but he won’t stay that way.”

Louis followed Lestat outside, feet like lead as he stared at the lithe body in his arms, and Lestat huffed as he started up the fire.

“I expect you, Louis, to do better leaving me to my affairs in the future. You’ve decided we aren’t companions, which means we need to leave each other to our vices. I let you have that courtesy all those seventy seven years. And now? What if I killed Daniel simply because he was near you, mm?” Lestat hummed.

Louis called his bluff.

“You wouldn’t. You like hearing yourself talk too much and he’s listening.”

Lestat grimaced, and then took the body from Louis’ arms and tossed it into the fire. He looked…sad. Uncharacteristically so. His eyes pinkened, glassy with tears, and Louis felt a fresh wave of hurt bubbling up in his chest all over again.

“Y’can’t tell me you cared about a groupie you met last night enough to cry over him,” Louis mumbled, unable to contain his bitterness. That wasn’t love. That couldn’t be, it wasn’t two hearts, beating in tandem like a drum—

“I was fond of him. I did not wish to watch him go into the fire,” Lestat sighed, and Louis felt his jaw clench.

“You made our daughter watch her boyfriend being burnt—” his voice shook as he spoke, and Lestat cut him off.

“Pour l'amour de dieu, il n'était pas—he was just easy! Our Claudia, she deserved a companion, a real companion, not the first boy who came along and told her she was pretty!” Lestat shouted, and Louis matched him

“He mattered to her! Do any of these men matter to you, or are they just easy?”

“I don’t know, Louis! My whole life was about you, Louis, even when you weren’t there! But you have abandoned me fully now, and I—” Lestat laughed, and it sounded more like a painful, shuddering cry than anything, “now I have to start again. I have to try again. I don’t know if they mean anything to me. I want them to. I want them to. I want—I want to be in love. I want to be loved for all eternity. I wanted it to be you, but you have made it quite clear that it will never be like that between us. So yes, I want them to mean something.”

They stared at the body burning in front of them. Louis suddenly felt like the monster Lestat wanted him to embrace being all those years ago. He glanced sidelong at Lestat, and Lestat just smiled wryly at him.

“It’s fine. There will be others. Perhaps the stars just weren’t aligned this time. Perhaps I will someday find someone a little like you who can need me. Perhaps you will find someone like me who is not a lot.”

A bead of red trailed down Lestat’s cheek, and Louis wanted to wipe it away, reached up to wipe it away, but Lestat brushed his hand back down.

“Go, Louis. Do not tease me like this anymore. Don’t pretend that you care when you cannot. Please, please, if you can’t love me, just let me go. Please Louis. You were never cruel.”

Lestat reached out to hold his face in his hands, and pressed a kiss to the bridge of Louis’ nose. He ran a thumb over Louis’ cheek and smiled, slowly—it seemed like he may have wanted to say more, and Louis was hoping he’d say actually don’t let me go, not ever, and especially not like this because the thing is we do need each other and the thing is a lot is the only amount of you that feels right anymore and I chose you and you are my companion and our hearts beat as one and how was it ever meant to be anyone but you—

—but he didn’t. He took his hands off of Louis’ face and gently, gently pecked his lips once more, and it wasn’t enough and Louis needed more, and he tried to press forward into the kiss—

—but Lestat turned away and set off back inside.

Watching him go felt like Louis was dying a second time, but it wasn’t blissful and it wasn’t beautiful and it wasn’t like when Lestat held him on the altar and eased him gently into it. This time he wondered if he should just go into the fire. He watched the flames dance, watched them lap at the charred remains in the center, and wondered what he would look like in their place.

Chapter Text

Who are you, Louis?

Fuck if he knew. An hour ago he was staring at a fire pit, thinking of jumping in.

W̷̭̾h̸̫̄o̶̹̒ ̸̞͗ă̵̢r̷̢̓e̷͔͛ ̴͝ͅỳ̷͖õ̴̭u̵͈͝ ̶͚̎o̶̭̿ù̷̗t̴̟̊s̴͖̈ï̴̩d̸̟̋e̶̹̚ ̶̻͌ö̴̡f̷̥̅—

That was the problem, wasn’t it? He thought he could be anything outside of anyone, and he wasn’t built for it. He thought he wouldn’t crumble when his family rejected him (he did). He thought it wouldn’t shatter a piece of his soul when Claudia went off on her own (it did). He thought he could find himself somehow outside of Lestat’s orbit (he couldn’t).

And now here he was again, crawling back to someone else to tell him what to do again, lest he fling himself into the coming sunrise.

At least Armand was good at being decisive. He would know what to do.

Louis crept through the halls of the apartment complex. When Armand had submitted a rental application to one of his properties, part of him considered rejecting the other vampire, making him go elsewhere, but then he realized accepting him into the building would be better. Keep your enemies close, right? Keep your daughter’s killer closest.

Now Louis was grateful for the foresight—as he jiggled the lock open, he wondered how would explain all of this to Armand. They hadn’t really spoken since Dubai, but somehow he didn’t really think Daniel would understand this one. The reporter would just tell him it was his fault, somehow.

Armand would understand. H̴̨̀e̸̗̊ ̸̟̋c̴͖̈́o̷̦͝u̸̝̇l̷̗̊d̶̼̒ ̸̘̈́n̵͍̈o̵̧̕t̶̡̊ ̷̹͋p̸̧̕ṟ̷̿ȩ̶̎v̶̙͗e̷͎̿n̸̤̾t̸̤͝ ̷̓͜i̷̧͆t̵͍̉.̸̱̚

Light moans and sighs filled the air as the door creaked open.

The air was thick with the scent of sex and pineapple—ah, so Armand had been keeping up with that—and as Louis rounded the bend he clothes discarded on the hallway floor. He continued through the apartment, into the darkened bedroom, and Armand straddling a young man, riding him vigorously. The gasps and moans grew louder, and the man was gripping Armand’s hips like his life depended on it, like he would float away from his earth and into the atmosphere if he let go, but his mortal fingers just couldn’t bruise the older vampire—

“Please, please, please, maître, just one more taste—”

A small trail of blood dripped down Armand’s neck, and if Louis squinted he could see what looked to be a self inflicted slice. Armand smiled fondly at the boy. Tousled brown hair covered the silk pillow case, wide sea green eyes stared back up at him, and slowly, slowly, Louis came to the realization that this could almost be a re-creation of a certain night in 1973 if it had gone very differently—

“You’ve had your reward for the night, beloved. Maybe tomorrow,” Armand soothed softly, and suddenly the man was thrown when he noticed Louis standing in the corner.

“Who…who’s that? Are we adding a third? Is he…” he mumbled, and Armand titled his head slowly to look at Louis in a half blank, half-apocalyptic stare. He turned back to the boy under him, then smiled.

“It’s alright, he’s no one. You’ve done so well. Now rest. Rest,” Armand soothed, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Louis watched as Armand reached a slender hand around the young man’s chin, tangled one in his hair—

And then drained him in one fluid motion.

When he was done he pulled back from his partner’s neck, rolled off of him and then stared over at Louis. His eyes full of quiet rage now and ah there he was, there was the Armand he knew and Louis remembered that look well—

“What are you doing here, Louis?” Armand asked, quietly, and Louis cleared his throat.

“This is my—I own the—”

“And you have left me blissfully alone until now—aside from the nonsense with the lawyers and our assets. So tell me, what are you doing here?”

Armand’s voice was dangerously sharp, and Louis couldn’t bring himself to answer. Maybe he should have just walked himself into the fire.

“It wasn’t enough for you to come for the Dubai estate, was it? You had to show up in the middle of my affairs, and I had to kill the boy so he wouldn’t be walking around with you stuck in his head. What if someone dangerous had seen? What if someone awful had drained him and then come for you? You’re welcome, Louis. Pity, though. I liked this one.”

“You could have just let him think about me. You didn’t have to kill him on my account,” Louis mustered up the courage to respond finally, and Armand laughed, quiet and bitter and dark.

“But I did, Louis. It’s what I do, isn’t it? You make the mess and I clean it. It’s what I’ve been doing ever since you first showed yourself to me. So tell me, what mess have you made for us now?”

They sat, silent, staring at one another. After a prolonged pause Armand rolled off of the bed finally and shoved past Louis into the bathroom. He emerged with a robe and supplies, setting them next to the bed. He picked up the drained body in the sheets and set it down on the floor next to him, and Louis stepped closer.

“I could help—”

“You couldn’t even clean up correctly in Paris,” Armand quipped, “it’s like you were begging to get caught, killed by a band of superstitious locals, and maybe you were! You were a walking suicide risk even then.”

Maybe Armand was right, Louis found himself thinking. When had he ever managed to find it in himself to be okay without Lestat?

“What would help me, Louis, is if you just came right out with it and told me why you’re here. I can already hear pieces of it.”

Ah. Right. Louis had never gotten used to the fact that Armand could do that.

“… he’s done,” Louis finally said, quietly, and Armand glanced at him from his work with the corpse.

“Lestat, you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“And why’s that?”

“Armand, look, I don’t know! I just…you know him, okay? I was hoping you…I was hoping you’d understand why…” Louis’ voice caught in his throat and fuck Armand was right, Louis made the mess and expected Armand to fix it—

“You two are both hopeless, you know. Both of you,” Armand drawled, slowly, starting to dismember the body in the bedsheet. The sickening crack of bone punctuated every word.

Louis clenched his jaw, turning away from his former companion. Why the hell had he expected this to go well, again? Armand had left him to rot while he was healing from the sun. Of course he was tired of Louis. Of course.

As he began to walk away, Armand called out to him.

“But I hope you know, Louis, I did care for you. It wasn’t all an act. I know you thought it sometimes. I could hear you in the darkest parts of your mind, the ones you thought you’d kept hidden. That was what hurt most of all, in the end. It hurt that you never believed I had a heart that could hold you. You and him, you’re alike in that way. I’m not sure what else I would have had to do to prove myself—to either of you.”

Louis turned back around to face him and steeled himself, then spoke again.

“Tell me why he’s like this, then. If you’ve ever cared about me, then give me this. You can’t bring Claudia back, can’t undo anything that’s been done between us in the past decades, but you can give me this.”

Armand laughed bitterly.

“It’s always been about him. Lestat Lestat Lestat, like a knife to the heart and an icepick to the brain. Even when it was about us, it was always, always about him.”

“Hasn’t it?” Louis challenged. “You only picked me because I was his first. So tell me, why the fuck is he like this now? How does he go from wanting eternity to nothing to do with me? How do I fix it?”

Armand paused, wiped a smear of blood and bone fragments off of his face, and turned to stare at Louis.

“Are you ready to listen?”

“Yes,” Louis answered, his voice just barely above a whisper, and Armand sighed.

“You were doomed from the start,” Armand admitted, “He loves people who will never ever give him what he needs, and then he crumbles when he realizes that. Even when there’s a crowd full of suitors who would die for him falling at his feet, he’ll choose the unattainable. It’s how he is.”

“I gave him what he wanted, I—”

“You’re not listening,” Armand hissed, “you think you know anything about him, fine. But you asked me to tell you where you went wrong, so just listen.”

Louis stopped, startled by the viciousness in the statement. Armand waited, staring up at him defiantly, daring him to speak again, and when Louis didn’t Armand continued.

“Lestat wants love. He’s starving for it; it’s burning up his skin and filling his lungs and brittling his bones like a disease. He wants it but he’s never quite figured out how to get it, poor stupid beautiful thing. He thinks he got close in his little trysts with the theatre. The lights of the stage, the cheers from the crowd, the feedback from a scene partner—of course, that’s not love,” Armand laughed, “but how was he to see that? He had nothing to compare to. Anyone who should have loved him was gone. Gabrielle the absent mother, Nicki the inattentive lover, Magnus the dead maker. He didn’t want me as a vampiric companion, even though I offered myself to him. So the theater was all he had, and they only loved Lestat as Lelio.”

Armand sighed, hacking off a limb from the corpse unceremoniously. Louis winced when blood splattered.

“He never gave you a chance to love him, not the real him, not really. Forgive him if you can—he loved you, Louis, and so he played the part in your life he thought you wanted. If you’ve lost him now, though, it’s because he’s finally figured out you’ll never love him. Not the way he needs.”

“But I love him more than anything in the world,” Louis whispered, voice breaking, and his eyes felt glassy and pink and he didn’t care if this was cruel to say to Armand he did, it had always been about Lestat hadn’t it, for both of them god they were so fucked up—

“I know,” Armand responded flatly, “but not enough. Not enough to fill the void inside of him. I don’t know if any of us can do that.”

Armand continued his work, then finally wrapped the corpse in silk sheets. He paused to check his work, and then gazed at the mass on the floor below him. Slowly, he went to the bedside table to retrieve an ID card and some papers.

“What’s…”

“It’s identification, Louis. Making someone disappear is so much more complicated in this day and age.”

“No, I…” Louis pointed at the paper, a thick parchment in Armand’s hand, and Armand laughed brightly.

“This? Louis, come on, it’s just a prop. You don’t remember when we briefly toyed with the idea of contracts in our play?”

Louis stared at the…contract, and Armand sighed.

“Look at it if you like, but destroy it when you’re done. I want all traces of him in this apartment gone.”

Louis nodded, and then Armand doubled back to the bedside then returned to hand Louis a phone.

“Get this out of here when you go,” the older vampire directed, then picked the tangle of sheets and limbs up in his arms. “I’ll be out for a while, I have to take care of this then hunt.”

Be gone when I get back was the unspoken request. Louis was sure he could give him that much, at least.

Louis stared down at the blood smeared paper on his coffee table.

He would recognize Armand’s formal penmanship anywhere. The dark ink to the thick paper was a nice touch. He’d handwritten everything out, made a perfect prop to play with a human boy he was particularly fond of.

It was no mystery though—visions of a young Daniel haunted Louis in that poor boy’s final moments. He shuddered thinking of how clinically Armand disposed of his body, even after sharing how fond he’d been of the young man in his bed. But he was no Daniel Molloy. There was only one Daniel and Armand couldn’t run from him forever, couldn’t fill the void with pale imitations of him for all eternity. Maybe it was Armand and Lestat who were alike, endlessly trying to patch a hole in their soul with boys who weren’t up to task.

Louis grimaced. He stared down at the paper again and tried to focus.

Headings like Maître and Rules dotted the pages. There were a few more. There was a section about Others, with a simple if maître so pleases written under it. He wondered if “no” would have been an option. Probably not with Armand and his laissez-faire attitude to thirds, but if this had been his own handwriting—

—Louis imagined having Lestat all to himself, just for a moment, just for a moment

he imagined pinning the blonde down in their coffin like he did before he was afraid of coffins and everything was bright and beautiful again

and Lestat would tell him

this is my body this is my blood, now take me, I’m yours

and Louis would devour him, he’d eat him whole if he could but then there would be nothing left and he needed him, so instead he’d push inside and drink from him until he was sated, and then they would be connected by come and by blood—

but Lestat wasn’t with him anymore and they weren’t connected and his heart achedandachedandachedandachedandached and why didn’t he go into the fire earlier again—

Louis’ hands were shaking. He tried to steady them as he kept reading.

There was a termination clause like it meant anything at all, neatly written out with clean language and easy reassurances. Typical Armand. That poor fool he’d lured in didn’t know there was no exit ramp that didn’t end in death.

At the end there were two signatures, one in Armand’s writing which Louis would recognize anywhere and one scrawl of a name that must have been made high.

It was a clean, simple document. It also didn’t look like the ones they’d considered before. Louis wondered if it was concise because Armand knew he intended to kill his partners later, or if there was another reason.

He reached out. He’d left the apartment at least, so Armand couldn’t be that mad at him.

He found Armand’s voice among the many, twisting and listening through the cacophony of the night, and found him laughing at a joke that wasn’t particularly funny. It sounded like he was somewhere vibrant, a nightclub perhaps. It was a stark contrast to Louis’ empty home.

It’s a clean read. It’s also short, Louis cut in.

Somehow Armand remained composed. He could hear him pressing a wet, sloppy kiss against his new mark’s neck, and then he responded.

That is the nature of these contracts. They’re not meant to be bogged down with redundant details.

We’d seen other ones—they had more limits, dates, I don’t know something about uh, words—

Armand sighed, pulling his victim by the hand onto the crowded dance floor. Louis could hear him enter the crush of bodies, could hear him pressing up against the other man, and then heard him respond again.

Think carefully, Louis. Yes, we looked at those once, and we both agreed they were rather trite to the vampire who can be harmed by very little—or maybe you were somewhere else in your mind, thinking of Lestat again. But regardless, this is a deeper exchange of power. My partners are always rather interested when they taste what I can give them as a reward.

Louis frowned.

What do you give them…?

It dawned on him slowly. The blood. The slice on Armand's neck from earlier, the blood dripping down his elegant collarbone and around the young man’s mouth. The blood.

Now you’ve got it, Armand laughed, as though catching a glimpse of that thought, why so many questions tonight, Louis? Thinking of making one of your own? A fledgling always comes to hate their maker, as a fair warning.

A pause. The sound of the club, the thrum of the bass between them was the only reminder that they could still hear each other. Armand spoke again.

If this is about Lestat, he won’t want anything less dedicated than what I’ve drafted here. And even then, he’d be put off by the termination clause.

Would he?

Mmm. For someone who claims to understand him, you’re missing the point. He’s terrified of being alone. I know he’s told you. I've seen it in him. So let’s say you go through with this, and let’s say you—aahhh—get somewhere. He hears you out.

Armand bit back a moan as his partner on the dance floor ground up against his hips. The black lights flashed around him in a haze, and he continued hurriedly.

It’s all moot once he realizes you fully intend to leave him again. That’s what he’ll see when he reads that. He will see there is a way out, and he knows you, and you and I both know you leave when things are inconvenient. You left me to play with a fascinating boy, to go into the sun, to go to him in the quiet dark of your heart. I tolerated it. He won’t.

Ouch. That hit Louis like a face to gravel. Admittedly he had been flippant with Armand…but he’d stayed with Lestat, faithfully, through so much. He’d stayed all the way until he’d finally drawn a blade to his throat. Did Lestat really see him like that?

How do you know that’s what he’ll—

Because I know him , Louis. I have known him since the start, and clearly better than you if you’ve come to me for help. Maybe he would have settled for that if you’d offered it to him before, but he’s reached that point where he wants more if he’s looking elsewhere. So give him more. Or don’t! But I won’t be cleaning up this mess if you don’t, because this is wholly avoidable.

With that, Armand faded out.

Louis stared at the contract again. More. Give him more. Lestat needed more, and Louis needed Lestat.

He took out his typewriter and started drafting.

Chapter Text

Dracula’s Daughter was an ultraviolet villa, the pride of the night.

Louis had bought the building for a song when it was crumbling and renovated it to something new, something beautiful, and within the year it was the talk of the city. The line to get in spanned city blocks on a slow night, and tonight was anything but slow. A steady thrum of people danced through the halls, and in the center: Lestat.

Lestat, unfortunately, was good for business. Anytime he was there, even more bodies filled the halls like a live catacomb. Even during their court dispute early on, Louis hadn’t had the sense to ban him from his properties. Now he was grateful he hadn’t chased him off. Lestat was particularly fond of The Daughter, and that made it easy for Louis to track him down.

There the older vampire sat, glimmering like a true gem in the middle of a costume jewelry pile. Louis would recognize the look on his face anywhere. He was fixated, hunting, staring at a young man across the room.

The boy seemed perplexed, glancing up down and everywhere, until he locked eyes with Lestat. Lestat smiled, and the individual jumped back. Louis wondered what he was saying to him, what made him stiffen, then slack, then smile and blush, but in the end it didn’t matter. He just needed to be gotten out of the way.

Just one of his tricks is all, Louis cut in, and the young man flipped his head around to look at Louis, if you’re smart, you’ll get out while it’s early.

And if I’m not? The boy thought back at him, and he could see flickers of the little mortal fool and Lestat all tangled up—

No. No. Louis sighed. He gleaned the young man’s memories quickly, because mortals were desperately transparent and so very open in their fears and hopes and yearnings, and sighed.

You have a brother named John, Louis started, his own memories of Paul sore like an unhealed bruise. He hated to do this, hated to press on such a tender area for them both, but it was for the best. He was saving this young man’s life, and he should appreciate it. Lestat had never been good at sharing anyway, and he wouldn’t give a damn about some kid’s brother.

Your mama said he’s sweet but runs slow, and she asked you to take care of him last year when she died, Louis continued, You love him but he just wears you down. You think you’re gonna get lucky tonight and then go on home to your life, just like you’ve been doing every weekend since the wake. What’s gonna happen though, is tonight you’ll meet the Devil himself and then John won’t have anyone left—

Maybe it was the threat, or maybe it was the specificity of the tale, but the young man stared on at Louis in horror. He backed up slowly, tentatively at first, and then took off in a full sprint for the exit door.

Well. That handled the first obstacle of the night.

Lestat scanned the room, looking for whoever derailed a perfectly lovely conversation with his mark, and found Louis standing off to the side. He frowned, and Louis couldn’t help but notice how enticing his lips looked in a pout—

Focus Louis. Focus.

Louis slowly made his way through the crush of people, to where Lestat was seated on the crushed velvet chaise. He sat down slowly next to him, and Lestat scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Oh, va te faire foutre! Just go, Louis, leave as you so fully intended! I have been endlessly patient with you mon cher, but this is getting—”

“It’s my club. I don’t need to go anywhere else,” Louis responded cooly, and the blonde all but screamed in frustration.

“It’s my hunt!” Lestat shouted over the music, “You cannot keep inserting yourself in the middle of it—and for what, Louis? What reason do you possibly think justifies this?”

“Can we talk in private?” Louis asked calmly, and Lestat laughed hysterically.

“No we cannot—”

“Les, it’s that or you’re done here for the night.” Louis sighed, and maybe he was bluffing but the look of disgust on the other vampire’s face told him that his bravado was working.

Lestat huffed. Louis knew he was evaluating his options, probably weighing if he could bribe someone to let him back in later on, make friends with a bouncer, fuck a security guard—

Louis sighed and leaned in close to Lestat’s ear, touching his arm a moment before softening his voice.

“Just a few minutes, baby. Please. You’ll want to hear this.”

That seemed to break Lestat’s resolve. The blonde stood up, huffed, and then stared down at Louis still on the cushions.

“D’accord! Where?”

“Come on. I have a room.”

Louis stood, and took Lestat by the hand. Lestat didn’t pull away, let him lead, and he almost wondered if he heard him laugh a little when they entered into the private room together. As the door closed the chaos of the club outside was left behind them.

Then Lestat’s phone pinged.

The blonde picked up, and Louis frowned.

“Now?” Louis asked, and Lestat laughed.

“It is unimportant, mon cher. I have ah—notifications, for when the band is mentioned. It seems the people online are amused we are in a private room together.”

Louis’ face fell, and Lestat laughed brightly before continuing.

“Well, what did you think was going to happen, Louis? You’ve dragged The Vampire Lestat off by the hand for a steamy night in a private room, or at least that’s how it looks. People will talk. They will talk, and then they will die, much like in New Orleans. I did not care what was said of me then, and I care even less now.”

Louis sighed. He supposed Lestat was right. The older vampire had always been much better at dealing with the public eye than he had.

“How’s all that going, with the band?” Louis asked, and Lestat frowned.

“You did not bring me here to talk about that, mon cœur. I know you well enough.”

Silence sat between them. Only the dull thrum of the bass outside, like an artificial heartbeat, cut through. Louis missed when their hearts beat together, felt the need for it again like an ache, and he supposed that was all the more reason to get on with it, rip the bandaid off and see if Lestat would bite—

“…I brought you here to say okay. You win.”

Lestat raised a brow.

“Quoi?”

Louis took a deep breath and steadied himself. This was it, but this was not how he envisioned it. They should be somewhere nicer. Lestat had asked him on an altar, in the church he had grown up in, in a pantomime of something that looked like holy matrimony. Here Louis was about to pop the question in a private room that his dancers sometimes used.

Maybe he could have planned this a little better. But Lestat was here now and he was listening, so Louis had to get on with it.

“If what you want is just for us to be all tangled up in each other again then fine. I’ll stay. I’ll never leave you again. I can’t do forever without you. We’ll be companions and it’ll be as close as you want. But there will be rules.”

Lestat stared at him a moment, and then burst out into hysterical, unmoored laughter. He laughed, and laughed, and then tried to steady himself as he responded.

“I agreed to all of your rules with our daughter, last time. That ended with me half dead in a box. For the record, mon amour, I would have let you kill me if you’d had the resolve in that moment. Sometimes I wish you had.”

The last declaration was solemn, heavy, and Louis winced as it hit the air.

“I never wanted you gone,” he told Lestat, gently, and Lestat just smiled wryly.

“Why try and kill me, then?”

“It was you or her, Les, and— and— god fuck how was I supposed to choose? You both hated each other by the end! I know Claudia was on thin fucking ice after everything with the bodies and the coming and going and with Antoinette and I was just so scared you’d finally kill her one day and she wasn’t even strong enough to make her own companion to defend her—”

“Do you really think I would kill our daughter?” Lestat huffed, face twisted in revulsion, “I made her for you, because you wanted a child from me! I would not take that from you, from us. I am not Armand! I warned you she would struggle forever, but I was ready. I was fully prepared to care for her. Even when it became clear what she was planning, I was prepared to handle it. It just got out of hand because you were involved in the plan. That…that wounded me, Louis. I didn’t know what to do, then. I thought you didn’t want our family any longer.”

That…hurt more than Louis expected. All of those nights in the European countryside spent missing Lestat, spent missing their home in New Orleans, spent missing their coffin and their quiet nights at home as a family.

Lestat would never know how terribly he yearned for them. Maybe Louis would never be able to convey that, and it was his own fault for bringing that era to an end.

“…I…I really did think…that if you knew what she was doing you’d…” Louis couldn’t finish his sentence. Lestat already explained that he would never kill their daughter. Louis thought about sitting across from Daniel, thought about the moment he learned he’d spent seventy-seven years with their daughter’s killer. He thought about the moment it truly hit him that Lestat hadn’t killed her after all—he was telling the truth. He had been all along.

It made him sick to his stomach that he’d stayed away so long. He felt sicker wondering if maybe this was beyond fixing.

“Claudia did a rather good job obscuring the most damning part of her little plan. She was clever, you know. She had what it took to survive, and she probably would have if she didn’t encounter the théâtre. De toute façon—I knew, Louis. I wish you’d spoken to me about it. I gave you plenty of chances. I played by your rules. We still ended up there.”

“…Those were her rules, Les,” Louis offered, quietly, “I didn’t know what I wanted then, I just knew it had to change. I know more now.”

Lestat pondered the statement. His summer sky blue eyes looked lost, and Louis wondered where he was and if he would come back to him. He wondered if this was a lost cause, and if Lestat could ever come back to him.

Right when Louis was about to try and find words to say Lestat broke the silence again.

“If I accept that explanation? If I say bon, you were always so soft on her, and that was perhaps a small part of why she could be so petulant at times? If I accept all of those rules were hers, what then?”

—No, not petulant, not unless she got that from you, she was strong willed, brave, good, but in the end that’s how she walked into a den of killers and didn’t even have the sense to be afraid and god why didn’t either of us have the sense to be afraid I failed her by not just saying no to staying then, or saying no we can’t fucking kill Lestat, and god am I failing her now by pretending we both didn’t need to try and get him under control when she was the only one brave enough to come up with any demands back then—

“Louis?” Lestat asked gently, and the softness in his voice that had been absent for so long pulled the younger vampire out of the dark spiral, “She was in every way our daughter, even after everything. She was a perfect vampire. I’ll miss her always, mon cher.”

Lestat reached a hand out, and Louis took it. They held onto one another for a while, fingers tangled together, thumbs tracing against a palm occasionally, and finally Lestat spoke again.

“Now if it’s as you say, what would you ask of me that she did not?” Lestat asked, his voice low and honeyed, and Louis caved.

“…I drafted a contract,” Louis started, slowly, and Lestat laughed. This time he almost sounded shy.

“Louis, mon cœur, if you’re asking me to marry you then usually you offer a ring first—” Lestat gazed into his emerald eyes, and Louis stared back. It seemed like Lestat was searching, trying desperately to understand, and Louis didn’t give anything away just yet.

“We can do that. That’s not what I’m talking about right now, though,” Louis replied, and Lestat smiled. He seemed perplexed now, and maybe anyone else would be fooled by his easy, flirty facade but Louis could see the nervous energy under it.

“You’d like me to drop the slander lawsuit?” the blonde asked. Louis shrugged.

“I’ve already told you that’s more about how Daniel arranged my words. It would be nice, but we can sort it later.”

“…I don’t have my lawyer here, but I don’t think there are usually contracts for companionship,” Lestat offered, and Louis raised a brow.

“Aren’t there?” The younger vampire asked. He reached into his back pocket and took out an envelope with the neatly typed contract, then handed it to Lestat.

Lestat opened the envelope, then unfolded the contract.

The silence between them was heavy, suffocating. Louis hadn’t felt this kind of weight since he’d been in a coffin last. The air suddenly felt thicker. He watched Lestat scan the pages and this was it, this was where he lost him and Louis felt like he was

falling

falling

falling

and he hadn’t needed to breathe for a long time but the air was knocked out of his lungs all the same, hot and suffocating or heavy and gravelly did it matter which, he was losing him he was dying all over again—

“I don’t have my lawyer here, but I see some of this is…rather intimate. Shall we cut out the middleman and you just explain it to me?”

Right. Breathe Louis. Breathe. Reading had always been a labor for Lestat. He looked perplexed because he was, probably.

“It’s structure.”

“For? Ah, are these the rules you speak of?”

“Should I write it out in French?”

“I can read, Louis,” Lestat pouted, “sometimes I just skim over very dense passages—“

“Lestat, I really don’t want you to do that.”

“I am being honest. I thought you liked that.”

“…Yes, okay, thank you. Well, this is important. If we’re going to be all twined together we—I need this to feel safe.”

“…You didn’t feel safe? With me? After I would have let you kill me?”

“…Not the way you think, maybe. You broke my heart, Les. I asked if I was enough and you couldn’t ever say yes. I needed you and you kept going off to other beds. That’s the part that really fucked me up. That’s the part that fucked us up.”

“I never, ever wanted that, I never meant to hurt you so terribly—”

“I know. I know. We both fucked up,” Louis sighed, “I think I hurt you, too.”

“…Oui. I just wanted to be with you. I…didn’t really want any of that,” he admitted, quieter than Louis expected, “I came to you night after night, and I understood leaving your old family was hard at first but then you kept rejecting me over and over. I thought you’d see I was good, worth wanting, if it was like that for a while. You did come for me, in the end. You did. You swam the Mississippi for me. You saw I was good.”

“Les, that is not what happened—”

“But it is,” Lestat tilted his head, “you came back for me after that. And now you’ve done it again. It’s all the same.”

Louis sighed. Ah. It was going to be hard to explain to Lestat that the weird warped tale he’d just laid out was not at all what happened between them. Perhaps he’d try another night, when things were less tender.

“…I came back for you,” Louis continued, not bothering to untangle the mess in Lestat’s head right then, “And I’ll stay. But you cannot be running off with whatever boy or girl catches your eye because I’m tired one night.”

“It was not just one…” Lestat seemed to be weighing his options, choosing his next words carefully, “if you’re not making use of me, then how am I supposed to know you still want me? How am I supposed to know you aren’t getting ready to cast me aside?”

Something small broke inside of Louis. Oh. Oh. So that’s what it was. Lestat needed to see evidence of being enough just as bad as Louis did. They just hadn’t understood each other back then.

“That’s what this all says,” Louis gestured towards the paper in Lestat’s hand “It’s says I’ll never leave you. I’ll be yours. But you have to be mine too. Just mine…and I get to do whatever I want with you.”

Lestat didn’t react at first. Then, slowly, the blonde stood and stepped closer to him, setting the papers next to Louis. He stood in front of the other vampire for a moment, then knelt, almost like he was going to pray, but instead he looked up at Louis adoringly.

“What is it you want to do with me, mon saint?” Lestat asked, staring up at him from his place at Louis' feet.

Forever was both too long and somehow not long enough if it meant Lestat looking at him like that, pliant and waiting.

“Everything,” Louis finally whispered. Lestat beamed.

“You mean it?”

“Mean what, Les?”

“That’s all it takes to get you to stay?” Lestat asked, and Louis frowned.

“Lestat, there’s more than—”

“You want me to yourself, and you want to fuck me. We’re the same in that way, Louis. You are the perfect companion. If I say yes, do I get to keep you?”

“…Yes,” Louis breathed, because he supposed that was a simple way of explaining it, and Lestat grinned widely, manically, and pressed his face against his thigh.

“Can we start now? Can we try again? Please say yes, please Louis,” Lestat nuzzled at the fly of his slacks, pressing a soft kiss against his cock through the fabric, and Louis felt himself hardening.

“Les, we should finish talking about—”

“I agree, to all of it. Comme vous voulez! Please, just let me,” Lestat mumbled, undoing the buttons of Louis’ pants and freeing his cock from its confines. He sighed, beaming dreamily at the sight of the younger vampire’s hardening cock, and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip.

“Please?” Lestat asked, and Louis’ resolve broke because fuck the way Lestat was looking at his cock like it was something precious coupled with the too soft brush of his lips was all too much to resist.

“Go ahead baby,” Louis barely breathed, and Lestat grinned. He scooted closer, leaning in to kiss Louis’ cock again hotter, wetter as he held it to his lips, and Louis moaned.

“Et te voici,” Lestat cooed, his words vibrating against Louis’ skin. He used one hand to hold the head against his soft, full lips, then teased the tip with gentle little kitten licks on the slit. The blonde moaned when he tasted a drip of precome on his tongue, and he smeared the next drop across his bottom lip. Louis felt dizzy and floaty and wonderful and fuckfuckfuck what were they talking about again—

Lestat wrapped his other hand around the base of Louis’ cock, and squeezed gently. He ran the pad of his thumb along the underside of his cock. Slowly he began to find a rhythm that his lover liked, gazing up at him as he swirled his tongue around the tip of his cock.

Fuck he looked gorgeous like that, lips coated in sticky precome and hands occupied with his cock. Lestat kissed the tip one more time, and before Louis could even process anything else Lestat was parting his lips wider and fluttering his eyes closed to take his cock inside the hot, wet heaven that was his mouth.

Louis’ hands gripped Lestat’s hair like his very existence depended on it, like he would fade away if he didn’t hang on, and Lestat hollowed his cheeks and sucked harder, tried to take him deeper into his mouth. He whined slightly, a small trail of spit falling from his lips down onto his chin as he bobbed his head over Louis’ cock, and Louis pressed his head forward slightly. He was close, but he couldn’t come yet, not yet, he needed more of this—

“You’re doing so good, Les”, he soothed, reaching a hand to cup Lestat’s face. He ran a thumb over Lestat’s cheek and continued to pull his hair slightly with the other, and Lestat gazed up at him. He looked dazed, content, in love, and he traced his tongue under Louis’ cock firmly and god he was so good at this—

Louis stared down at his lover and noticed him staining his own pants, half hard under the fitted fabric. He smiled, dizzy with arousal, and pulled Lestat further forward.

“Think you can come from sucking me, baby?” he asked, and Lestat nodded onto his cock. He reached down to touch himself, and Louis shook his head.

“No hands, darling. Show me you’re enjoying yourself.”

Lestat blinked up at him, slowly, then swallowed him deeper. He moaned slightly, gagging wetly as he took him, and Louis groaned as he felt his tip pushing into Lestat’s tight, hot throat and it was like heaven and it was like coming home and he pulled at Lestat’s hair to try and steady himself.

Louis fought the urge to buck his hips forward, and Lestat swallowed around him firmly. He moaned, then hummed softly, something that almost could have been soft, sweet words, and Louis almost screamed. Fuck Lestat knew what to do to push him towards the edge. He was already reeling when Lestat swiped his tongue under the length of his cock again and oh oh oh if he wasn’t already dead he would be dying again—

He almost didn’t notice Lestat pressing his own swollen cock against his shin— almost, until the rutting got more frantic. It couldn’t have been horribly effective through the fabric of their pants, and Louis laughed breathlessly.

“You’re—you’re so good Les,” he mumbled, brushing Lestat’s blonde hair back out of his face, because he had listened after all. He didn’t use his hands, and Louis hadn’t specified otherwise, “go ahead sweetheart.”

That was all the permission Lestat needed to press closer, rock his hips harder, swallow him even deeper, and he mouthed words around Louis’ cock as he did. The combination of his hot wet tongue and soft little noises he was making pushed Louis over the edge finally. He came with a sob, holding Lestat by the jaw and hair as he came down his throat, and Lestat sighed and swallowed diligently as he did. Louis didn’t notice him softening against his leg until after his head stopped spinning, and wondered when exactly during his climax it was that Lestat came.

He looked sweet like that, Louis’ cock still inside of his mouth, and he stroked Lestat’s hair for while he came down from his orgasm. Lestat sat, face pressed against Louis’ thigh, lips swollen and held open by his cock. He looked…almost peaceful. Louis felt it too. It had been too long since he’d truly felt peaceful—he almost forgot where they were, in some private room at a club he owned and not at home. Louis wondered how many of their problems could have been solved by—

Louis’ thoughts were interrupted when Lestat gave him a firm suck, and Louis’ thighs twitched.

He pressed his face closer, nestling his nose in the soft nest of pubic hair between Louis’ thighs, and sucked again, a little firmer.

“Les, sweetheart—” Louis mumbled, breathless, but fuck it felt so good and admittedly, vampires took way less time to recover than humans when it came to…well anything. Illness. Wounds. Even sex.

He tangled a hand in Lestat’s hair again, playing with the soft blonde ringlets.

“You wanna make me come again?” he soothed gently, and Lestat sucked in response. The older vampire moved a skilled hand to cup Louis’ balls, cupping them gently, and he rubbed the root of his cock with his thumb. He licked under Louis’ cock again, tracing soft patterns under the length, and Louis moaned.

He could feel himself hardening again in Lestat’s throat, throbbing against the back of it, and Lestat sighed as he did. He swallowed wetly, and whimpered a little when Louis pulled back and he felt the drag of it over his tongue.

“You’re doing so good Les—let me fuck your mouth,” he soothed, and Lestat nodded. He loosened his jaw, as though it could take any more, and Louis gently rocked his hips forward. He held Lestat’s hair to steady him, and Lestat moaned and drooled a little.

“We’ll be happy together this time,” Louis mumbled, and he wasn’t sure if it was more for him or for Lestat. Lestat nodded onto him, trying to take him deeper from where he pulled out, and Louis just continued to drag his cock over that soft, wet tongue, push into the breach of his tight, perfect throat—

Louis came again with a shudder and a moan this time, and Lestat swallowed it eagerly. He clung to Louis’s hips, didn’t stop licking or sucking, but this time Louis pulled out of his mouth before Lestat could pull him into a third round. The blonde almost looked disappointed.

Louis knelt down with him and kissed him, gently on the lips, brushing a few stray hairs out of his face.

“You did so well,” Louis soothed gently, and Lestat looked soft, raw, open in a way Louis hadn’t seen before.

“We could keep going. I’m enjoying it. You can put it back in—”

“Les,” Louis soothed gently, “I want to take you home now. Let’s go home?”

Lestat beamed, throwing his arms around him, and if there was something fragile under there it was hidden again under the bravado Lestat was showing to the rest of Dracula’s Daughter for the night.

“Of course! Of course. This room isn’t equipped for everything we want,” Lestat winked. He took Louis by the hand and walked him to the door, “Besides, we need a pen.”

It dawned on Louis that Lestat hadn’t read everything fully—there was no way.

“You need to read the rest of the—” Louis tried, but Lestat cut him off.

“I did read it! Now, let’s get home.”

Louis should have said no you did not and we need to do this right, or even I just want you to understand what you’re getting back into but having Lestat’s hand back in his soothed the urge to walk into the sun that he’d been fighting for weeks.

Chapter Text

Lestat had told Louis once he didn’t like sharing.

Lestat didn’t like sharing. Louis played that moment over in his mind often. I don’t like sharing, he’d said, eyes pink and glassy with tears.

Lestat didn’t like sharing. He was a hysterical mess the one time Louis stepped out, with his permission, and yet there Lestat was in a sea of groupies writhing around him, grabbing at him. The older vampire was just laughing and smiling like it didn’t mean a damn thing that they would all fall into his bed if he only asked.

Lestat didn’t like sharing. Louis hadn’t been brave enough to push the issue as far as he probably should have in the moment, but sometimes he wondered if things could have been different if he had—

—probably not, Louis thought. In every iteration he can think of he and Lestat always ended up half-dead and starving in coffins by the other’s hand. It was still a better fate than Claudia, who always died because they couldn’t save her from the world, couldn't pull away from each other long enough to do it, and there was no reality where that changed because she was dead when Louis found her and Lestat warned him about that, didn’t he—

Louis shook the grief from the front his mind (but only the front), because carrying that on top of whatever else was simmering underneath of it was too much too much too much in the worst possible way.

Right. Back to Lestat like always.

Lestat didn’t like sharing. This shouldn’t have be so damn hard for him, then. He’d agreed to Louis’ terms almost instantly that night they got back together at Dracula’s Daughter. Louis could feel his fangs extending as he watched a fan touch Lestat’s chest, and he knew now that he really should have made Lestat read the whole damn document instead of letting the blonde seduce him again the moment they got through the door.

That had to have been a calculated move, Louis sighed as he thought about it in retrospect. When he woke the next evening Lestat had already signed, the ink dried as he handed Louis the pen, and he really had no way of confirming or denying that he’d read. He could have read all of it. He could have read nothing. He just knew Lestat was with him again, and that was enough for his sleepy, hungry, horny brain at the time.

Louis was starting to wonder if he understood a goddamn thing about their arrangement, but here they were—

“Not going as well as you’d hoped?”

A smooth, silky voice startled Louis out of his thoughts. He whipped around and was startled to see Armand, standing behind him and looking almost, almost like he could blend in with the thrush of groupies on the main floor.

“You go to these things?” Louis asked, and Armand laughed.

“Probably not for the reason you’re thinking. He’s wasting his very many talents making reductive pop culture slop like this,” Armand crinkled his nose.

Louis hated that he almost agreed with him. Admittedly, Armand did have an eye for art, even if they didn’t always agree on some of the finer points—

“So if you aren’t here for the music, then why are you…” Louis’ voice trailed off. He remembered speaking to Daniel earlier, who had been here to interview Lestat before he went on to play his set.

Armand looked startled when the thought flickered in his mind, as though he’d been caught doing something truly horrifying, and Louis just smiled and shook his head.

“He asks about you, you know. All the time,” Louis prompted, gently, “never expected you to make a fledgling of your own, given your feelings—”

“There’s a lot of things you wouldn’t expect about me, Louis,” Armand snapped, surprisingly sharp. “You were barely there for most of our companionship. You didn’t even have to say his name, your mind, your heart, your blood was with him.”

The older vampire nodded towards Lestat, and they both gazed at him.

“And this? This is in his very nature. It’s how he was raised. I’m surprised he’s showing as much restraint as he is.”

Louis sighed.

“He’s supposed to. He agreed to it, I’m just not entirely sure he…”

Louis couldn’t bring himself to explain to Armand that he couldn’t even get Lestat to read a few pieces of paper for him after all this time. Armand stared at him, almost like he was staring into his soul, and suddenly it was almost like they were back in the Paris streets, and they were real and Lestat was maybe some hazy imagining, something he wanted but couldn’t quite reach and would he ever reach him again—

“What exactly did you write about this scenario, Louis?” Armand asked, voice low and calming.

Ah. He was going to spare him the humiliation of chewing him out for letting Lestat walk all over him.

“I… he’s not supposed to be fucking around with other people anymore.”

“Yes, and currently he’s only letting them fondle him. Did you specify that was an issue as well?”

“…No? Why in hell does that need to be spelled out—” Louis started to ask, and Armand groaned, clearly exasperated.

“Because, Louis, this is what Lestat does. This is what he knows how to do. This is what he’s known to do since he was a mortal in search of something to fill the emptiness inside of him. Playing the part of the lover on the stage, then off of it, then everywhere, is the one thing that worked for him.” Armand pinched the bridge of his nose, then massaged his temples, “This though— just canoodling? It’s child’s play to him. If it bothers you, you’re going to need to tell him. Now what exactly are you meant to do if he actually crosses that line tonight? Do you break the companionship? I suppose not if you can’t terminate, but surely there’s some sort of consequence laid out?”

Louis stared at Armand. Armand stared back, expectantly.

“I… I told him I’d never leave him. I signed too,” Louis admitted, and Armand stared blankly for a moment and then walked away.

Louis found himself alone in the dressing area for a minute, then a minute more. A few more minutes passed, and then Armand returned.

“Louis,” he sighed, and Louis could see a spot of blood on his mouth as he wiped it off, “you wrote restrictions for yourself into all of this? Expectations I could understand, but restrictions? And you have no clear consequences for when he breaks your terms, no less?”

Armand sounded incredulous. Louis shrugged.

“He wouldn’t come back unless—”

“You. Both. Are. Hopeless,” Armand sighed heavily, “I assume you meant to discipline him if he crosses that line, then? If you can’t leave him? Fair enough, you couldn’t even leave him when you left, may as well be honest about it.”

“Yes,” Louis admitted, quietly.

“So do it,” Armand shrugged, “don’t just sit here and seethe, follow through. If this counts as crossing a line to you, perhaps spell that out for him. Be clearer, Louis.”

His ex-companion met Louis’ eyes, amber into emerald.

“He does love you, Louis. Terribly. Maybe someday I’ll tell you more.”

“What—”

Before Louis could finish his thought, Lestat strode over to the two of them.

“Armand! Que fais-tu avec mon compagnon?” Lestat called out. He was smiling, but there was a coldness in his voice, an edge that warned the other older vampire to back up.

Armand just smiled. He looked like an angel, but the words that tumbled from his mouth next were brutal.

“Funny, I wouldn’t know he was your companion the way you were letting those girls and boys crawl all over you. You’d better watch him closer, Lestat.”

Lestat’s face fell, and he stared at Armand with an intensity that made Louis wonder if they were having a silent conversation. Armand just laughed, patted Louis on the arm, and strode back out into the night, leaving the couple to go home alone together.

Lestat was all but dancing through the home they shared together as they made their way upstairs to the bedroom.

He was flirting, putting on a show, acting like he didn't just spend the past two hours batting his eyes at love-sick groupies who thought they were going to get lucky.

Louis hated how Lestat could act like what just happened was something playful, like there wasn’t a precedent for Louis to flinch every time Lestat leaned in too close to a mortal that wanted to climb into the blonde’s bed. It was a raw open scrape in Louis' heart that had never closed, one that had been left their from their time in the Rue Royal home. And now? Now they’d just fixed things, and Lestat was already about to fuck them up again.

"Louis, mon cher-" Lestat cooed from the bed, and he'd stripped off to everything but that corset from his show like that was just some sick sort of foreplay, like he wouldn't have bedded one of those fans if Louis hadn't written it out that he couldn’t-

"You thought you could just fuck around with your groupies right in front of my damn face?" Louis snapped, and his voice came out so acrid and so detached from the hurt in his heart that he barely recognized the sound when it hit the air.

Lestat's face fell. The panicked, deer in headlights look was almost heartbreaking, almost enough to make him drop the issue all together, and Lestat wondered what in Hell Armand said to him in the moments he couldn’t hear them.

"You should punish me,” Lestat’s voice cut through his thoughts, “Désolé, I should have known better. You’ll have to show me.”

Louis sighed. It was rare to get an apology from Lestat. He made his way over to the bed and sat down next to him.

“Baby, it’s… I’m sorry. I should have been clearer that I don’t want you to do that. I—”

I feel like I’m not enough, I wonder if I’ll ever be enough for you, maybe this whole thing has always been fucked and you should have just threw me in the incinerator and made another one—

Before he could say any of that, Lestat crushed their lips together. It was a sloppy, desperate kiss, and he licked eagerly at Louis’ lips for entrance. Louis opened his mouth, let Lestat lick into it him frantically, and he felt his lover started to stroke him through his pants as he did. He moaned into the kiss, hardening as Lestat pressed up against him through the fabric, and when they parted Lestat’s eyes were glassy. He smiled, but it wasn’t convincing.

“I’m not very smart. You’ll just need to show me how to do better,” the older vampire cooed, and Louis shook his head. He moaned, because Lestat was squeezing his cock gently through his trousers now and fuck fuck fuck he didn’t waste any time did he—

“Les, no, you are. You know a lot of things, back when we were doing business together you had a lot of great ideas—”

“My father never let me to finish school, so there is a lot I don’t know. I am sorry, I get things wrong sometimes, I misunderstand often. I thought it was only about taking them to bed. But you can just correct me when I’m wrong now? You can hit me and I’ll be good then you’ll stay—” Lestat soothed, pressing his lips against Louis’ neck as he slipped his hand into the fly of Louis’ pants, and Louis gasped.

“Lestat!”

“I can take it. I can take anything you give me. You said you’d stay if I did, please, Louis, please, just stay,” Lestat moaned, voice like a song. He pulled his hand back finally, then rolled over, arching his back and pushing his ass out. Louis’ hardening cock twitched at the sight, and Lestat gazed up at him.

“Isn’t this what you want, mon cœur? I’m yours. Please, don’t go. I can be good,” Lestat begged, and Louis stroked his hair gently. He traced his hand down Lestat’s back, then pulled the strings on the corset a little tighter and made the blond gasp.

“We’re staying together, but you cannot keep doing that. You do need to be corrected, Les. This is overdue, and I’m doing this because I need you with me,” Louis soothed gently. It was, really. Maybe if they’d had this conversation way earlier—

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe there was one reality where they end up happy together, and maybe it was this one after they’d fucked each other up real bad first.

“Yes, yes. You’ll stay, Louis? That’s all I need,” Lestat gasped, arching into Louis’ hands.

“I’m here,” Louis soothed, kissing Lestat’s forehead, “I’m right here.”

Louis stood up from the bed finally, and the sound of Louis collecting his cane echoed through the otherwise quiet room. Louis was surprised Lestat had held onto it after all this time, but he supposed he shouldn’t be. He was holding it when Lestat had first fallen for him, and Lestat was sentimental. Of course Lestat would go to the trouble to bring that cane with him, even if Louis had forgotten about it.

Now it would have a new use.

Louis walked back to Lestat, positioned on the bed, waiting, and positioned the cane between the soft divot of his thighs and the slope of his ass. He was a perfect, beautiful thing, and right now his skin was like a silver moon. Not for long though. Louis raised his cane up, then bought it down with a thwack against the pert curve of his ass.

Lestat cried out, half a moan half a sob, and squirmed a little before repositioning himself where he was. A rich, red stripe bloomed along the soft curve of his ass where Louis has struck him, and Louis gently brushed his hand over him.

“Say thank you when I give them to you, Les. Let me know you want this,” Louis soothed, and Lestat nodded into the pillow.

“Merci,” he sniffled, and arched his back for the next one.

Louis struck again, and Lestat yelped, and it was unclear whether he was squirming into the cane or away from it.

“A-AH! Merci!”

Another, and then another and then another. One more. Louis couldn’t help but admire the way his soft, toned ass gave so easily for the cane with each strike, and Lestat whimpered and twisted under him.

“Merci, merci, merci, MERCI, ah, Louis!”

Fresh red stripes blossomed, sweet and sharp and biting over the crest of Lestat's already abused ass. Louis paused, taking a moment between the last strike and the next, entranced by the way Lestat tensed then relaxed into the sheets to accept the next blow. The younger vampire noticed a sticky mess of precome pooling on the sheets, under the blonde's thighs and aching cock, and he bought the cane down again experimentally.

"A-ah! Merci!"

Another wet spurt. He was enjoying this. Louis' mouth twitched upward.

Lestat's toned, pretty legs were trembling, angry red stripes giving way to gorgeous flecked bruises. Louis set the cane down for a moment, gently brushing his palm over the surface. The touch remained feather-light only for a moment, only as long as he could stand it, then he took the soft, smooth flesh of Lestat's ass in his hand and squeezed, harshly, kneading that perfect asscheek in his palm. Mine, mine, mine. Lestat moaned, pressed his flushed face into the pillow, and arched his back up into Louis' touch.

"More," Lestat begged, his still cock leaking desperately.

So Louis gave him more.

The sound of Louis’ cane on Lestat’s flesh filled the room, punctuated by Lestat thanking him after every lash, every new splash of red, and it took everything Louis had not to stop right there and toss the implement aside, push Lestat down further into the mattress and fuck him senseless right then and there because fuck he was doing so well—

He moved to the space where Lestat’s thighs met the soft curve of his ass and struck, twice, then three times, and Lestat gasped. He may have lost his breath if he’d had to breath, and then when Louis bought the cane down once more he composed himself finally and remembered their pattern.

“Merci Louis!”

Finally, finally Louis set down his cane, then reached down to stroke him as a reward. He wrapped his fingers around the base, finding a soft rhythm of strokes as he worked his way to the leaking tip, and Lestat whimpered and squirmed into his touch.

"You're so good, baby. You did so good. Tell me you're mine. Tell me you know we're doing this because you're mine. You’re mine, and you’re going to act like it from now on,” Louis crooned, his voice low and smooth like the deepest part of the night. Lestat pressed into his hand, pressed closer to him, his voice breaking a little as he responded.

"I'm yours, I'm yours, just yours, don't go-"

"Shh," Louis soothed him, continuing to stroke. He pulled the soft blonde locks of hair with his free hand, and yanked Lestat to look at him. His golden eyelashes were dewy with pink droplets, face sticky with vermilion tear tracks, and Louis leaned in to kiss a fresh tear off of the apple of his cheek.

"Look at me. Look at me, baby. I signed too, and I promised I will never, ever leave you again. But you're gonna show me you're serious about us.”

“Hit me again. Hit me until you’re happy with me,” Lestat pleaded, and Louis kissed the crown of his hair.

“You did a great job, Les, I’m happy being with you. I just needed to hear you say it,” Louis soothed, and he was trying to trust Lestat, trying, because after all he hadn’t truly crossed that line tonight so he should trust him and stay like he promised. Lestat was trying to do better and didn’t they both have to try for this to work?

“I wanna fuck you now, sweetheart. Can you take it?” He asked, and Lestat shifted his legs open. He was a sight to see, red tears drying on his cheeks and golden ringlets of hair splayed out on the pillow. He was laid bare except for the corset still pulling his waist impossibly tight. Fresh bruises that Louis had left were forming on his ass, and now that his legs were parted his swollen cock and soft pink hole were in perfect view.

“S'il te plaît.”

Louis reached to the bedside table and retrieved the lube, and he knew Lestat would protest given his penchant for fucking raw, but he slathered a generous amount on his fingers. He trailed his finger to Lestat’s waiting hole, his cock twitching when he ran his fingertip over the sweet, pink furl of muscle, teasing around the rim. He pressed the digit into the soft, pink ring, tightly closed after the caning, and Lestat sighed. He pressed back onto Louis’ hand, trying to fuck himself onto it.

“We don’t need—” Lestat protested, and Louis pressed a second finger in next to the first and scissored them into the tight clutch. It gave only slightly, and Louis sighed.

“You’re tight right now, Les. I need to open you up,” he soothed gently, and Lestat shook his head.

“I can take you,” he sighed into the pillow, “it would feel better for you if you just—”

“It would hurt, Lestat. That would hurt right now, not the way you want.”

“You liked it when you swam the Mississippi for me, you liked it when you first took me home after that. Just go ahead. S'il te plaît? I want to feel you.”

Lestat clenched around his fingers, deliberately pressed back onto him, and Louis realized the older vampire was not about to make this easy for him. So he rocked his wrist into him, pushed another finger in, at least trying to slick him up for what was about to come. Lestat moaned, whimpering desperate little pleas for him to come inside, please, and Louis finally slid his fingers out.

Lestat’s hole was slick and shiny with lube now but no less tight, and Louis’ own cock was aching. He sighed, and gripped Lestat’s hip with one hand and angled his cock against the swollen pink entrance. Neither of them could take being apart anymore, based on the slick pool of precome under Lestat’s stomach.

Louis pressed his lips forward, moaning as he felt the head of his cock enter Lestat’s impossibly tight hole, and Lestat almost sobbed with relief when Louis’ tip popped inside fully. Louis sunk deeper inside, watching the firm rim of muscle twitch and spasm around him as he did and fuck Lestat was so tight, so fucking tight, and Louis felt like he might finally get fully absorbed into Lestat if he sunk deep enough into him tonight. Louis moved his hand from his dick so that both hands were holding Lestat’s hips, because fuck he needed to be deeper, deeper, deeper. Lestat moaned a desperate, beautiful moan and gripped the pillow, let Louis push, let him deeper, deeper, into his guts, into his ribs, into his heart, anywhere Louis wanted to go—

Louis was rocking his hips into Lestat, just starting into a rhythm of thrusts, when suddenly Lestat clamped down around him with a shout. Louis realized from the telltale writhing and sobbing that Lestat’s orgasm had hit him fast and hard.

He gripped the blonde’s hips harder and leaned into his ear.

“Needed to be fucked that bad?” he teased, pulling his hips back, and Lestat cried out as he tried to catch his breath.

“Seulement par toi!”

“Good job Les, that’s right. My perfect companion,” He soothed, and then slammed his hips back inside.

Lestat screamed, nodding into the pillow, and Louis reached down to rub his spent cock gently.

“I need you to come again for me, sweetheart. Show me you love this.”

“Oui, s'il te plaît, je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime!”

The room was filled with the sound of their gasps, sighs, and moans, of flesh on flesh, of Louis’ cock sliding in and out of Lestat’s impossibly tight hole. Lestat moaned, pretty and songlike, and Louis wondered if he was enjoying it or performing for him as he fucked him through the afterglow. Sure enough though, his cock began to perk back up in Louis’ palm.

Louis kissed the back of his hair, nuzzling into it with his nose. He breathed him in, letting his eyelashes brush against his lover, then let his lips find the shell of Lestat’s ear.

“Think you can come from getting filled up by me, Lestat?”

Lestat’s eyes shot open and this time his moan broke into something more real, desperate, guttural, and he nodded against Louis.

“Please, Louis, I need it I need you I need your come—”

Louis moaned into his hair, and Lestat writhed against him, pressed into his hand, pressed back against his cock, wished he press against both at once so he could have as much of Louis as possible. Louis guided Lestat further onto his cock with the hand on his hip and stroked him harder.

“I’ve got you,” he soothed, and Lestat almost sobbed when Louis’ cock struck against that sweet spot inside of him again.

“Louis, Louis, LOUIS—!” Lestat whimpered, tightening again but trying to hold out, and Louis quickened his pace. He took his hand off of Lestat’s cock, but only barely, hovering near it still, and Lestat almost screamed.

“Show me,” Louis cooed breathlessly, rocking his hips at the angle he found again and again, and Lestat was twitching and clenching around him desperately and oh fuck——

Louis came undone inside of Lestat, filling him with his spend and moaning into the crook of his neck as he did. Lestat tightened around him, and Louis barely registered that the blonde had reached his second orgasm until he felt his wrist coated in Lestat’s come. In the haze of the afterglow, it hit him that Lestat managed to do exactly what he asked- he came while Louis filled him. He came from Louis filling him.

He kissed Lestat’s hair and pulled out, and Lestat whined at the sudden loss. Louis laid down next to him and pulled Lestat against his chest, though, and Lestat curled into him. Their hearts were both pounding, but perfectly in sync. As it should be. As it should be.

He’d missed this so much.

“Désolé. I won’t do that again, I’m yours.” Lestat mumbled, and Louis ran his fingers through his hair.

“We’re okay,” He soothed, “we’re okay, Les.”

“You won’t go?”

“I promise.”

“You did last time. You still left.”

Ouch. Admittedly Lestat was right, but… it still stung thinking about it.

“This time we both agreed to do better,” Louis tried instead.

Lestat hummed. Louis gazed down at him. He looked a million miles away, and Louis tilted his head up to look at him.

“Are you okay, Lestat?”

“What do you really need from me to stay? I lost you last time. You didn’t even want to be my companion when you came back this time. What is it, really?”

The question took Louis by surprise. Lestat’s eyes were glassy, pink again, and Louis reached to cup Lestat’s cheek in his hand.

“I won’t go—”

“If it was a lover anyone would have done. I could have kept you, Armand could have kept you, anyone in Paris could have kept you. What is it really, Louis? What do you want me to do?”

Louis averted his eyes, still holding Lestat’s face. He thought about the way Lestat laughed and laughed when he’d asked him if he was enough that first time.

He could tell him that. Or he could ask him again and maybe Lestat would tell him he was enough this time, and it wouldn’t be real but it would soothe something twisted in his soul for the time being until he had another bad night.

… He may as well ruin it now, if he was going to.

“… Am I enough for you?” Louis asked quietly, “Will you ever be able to be happy with just me, or is it just a matter of time before you get bored and go find something else to entertain you and we get all fucked up again?”

“Louis,” Lestat crooned, leaning in to kiss him, and Louis leaned back and shook his head.

“I need you to be honest with me Lestat, okay? I just… you’re asking what it is. I’m telling you it’s this. It’s always been this, Les. I’m telling you I need to know I’m enough for you, and it’s not just all the vampire shit like hunting together, it’s… fuck Les, it’s all of it. It’s the hunt, it’s the companionship, it’s the fucking, it’s— Lestat, it’s all of it. Am I enough for you, or no?”

Lestat looked like he’d been struck, hard, and Louis wondered what he’d said landed like that. He traced his thumb over Lestat’s jaw, wishing they didn’t look so good together, wishing he wouldn’t possibly have to leave him again and get used to hearing the sound of only one heartbeat in his head again—

“Oui. Désolé, it really is just about that?”

“Lestat, it was always about that. I asked you back in the Rue Royale. You laughed in my fucking face. I asked you this time and you said you got it but… am I enough, really?”

Lestat looked like he was thinking, deeply.

“I… remember that night. I thought it was because you still believed in a God that doesn’t answer to us, perhaps, because of your Catholic upbringing. I… well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. It was important to you,” Lestat sighed, brushing his hands through Louis’ hair, and Louis scoffed.

“Then you went and did all that after Jonah?”

“I don’t like sharing,” Lestat answered, plainly, and Louis huffed.

“Well I don’t either. I never wanted to share you, Lestat,”

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand,” Lestat mumbled, voice uncharacteristically small, “I don’t think anyone has ever wanted me like that before.”

“Well I do,” Louis said, firmly, yet gently underneath, “I do want you like that. Anyone who had you before but didn’t want you to themselves was a damn fool, but that just means you found your way to me.”

Lestat laughed, brightly.

“I was always going to be yours, Louis. I couldn’t have torn my heart away from you. I would have searched eons for you, even if we hadn’t crossed paths that night. You’re etched into my soul, mon saint.”

The sincerity of the statement made Louis’ heart ache, and he kissed Lestat’s hair and pulled him closer.

“That’s settled now?” Lestat asked, “You want me to be yours, wholly yours, we can get married and pretend to be good Catholics that have more sex than the church would ever approve of—”

“LESTAT—!”

“Perhaps we can have another child—”

“Lestat!”

“You can use me like you did tonight when you feel like leaving instead of leaving, or just when you’re depressed like you used to be and maybe you’ll feel better—”

“Lestat, we don’t need to do that every time I feel a little fucked in the head,” Louis finally managed to interrupt the older vampire, and Lestat shook his head and smiled.

“But we do, mon cœur. I didn’t realize you were abandoning me because I didn’t answer correctly, and it will be better now. It will be much better if you tell me what you need when you are ‘fucked in the head’, non? Then you won’t ever go?” Lestat cooed, and although there was a honey sweetness in his voice Louis could feel the tension still under it.

It looked like like it would be Louis’ job to make sure he didn’t get too out of sorts when he was fucked in the head. He could do that, couldn’t he? Lestat told him he was enough, even if it was just to make him stay.

Louis could make him tell him again if he needed it. Maybe that would stave off any really bad nights.

“Yes. I won’t abandon you, Lestat. I’m here. I’ll always be here.” He mumbled, pulling him closer, and Lestat curled into him.

“It will be worth it, mon saint,” Lestat promised against his soft skin, nuzzling against him as the pull of the daylight outside started to overtake them.

As they drifted, Louis let the sound of their hearts beating together lull him into sleep.

Chapter Text

He kissed Lestat’s hair and pulled out, and Lestat whined at the sudden loss. Louis laid down next to him and pulled Lestat against his chest, though, and Lestat curled into him. Their hearts were both pounding, but perfectly in sync. As it should be. As it should be.

Chapter Text

It should have been a quiet night in.

Louis welcomed the break in Lestat’s tour with open arms, although things already seemed to be improving with the recent additions to their nights. Lestat was a blur of light and electric movement on stage, and then when he’d bounce back to Louis after the sex was even more charged. It was like foreplay almost— here I am mon cher, every thrust of his hips said, but this time Louis knew it was all for him.

Who else could say that? How divine to be loved so openly.

Now they were home, finally home, away from the prying lights of the stage, quietly draped across the loveseat together. Louis had missed these nights terribly, had missed them ever since he took a blade to Lestat’s throat and instantly regretted it. He held a book in his hands, and Lestat’s pretty, toned legs were draped over his lap.

It was peaceful. Things were finally good.

That was why he was so startled when Lestat jumped up from the chair and screamed.

“Alors je devrais m'enflammer pour voir si tu le remarques?” the older vampire shrieked, and Louis sat up from his reading with a start.

“Les, what the fuck?” Louis asked, and he was started when he found Lestat’s tearstained face from across the room. Lestat laughed, wiping a fresh crimson tear off of his cheek.

“Ah, I’m surprised you even noticed that, considering—”

“Considering what, Les? For fuck’s sake, everything was going fine! We’ve been fine—!”

“You are pulling away from me mon saint, punishing me for something I cannot even fathom, and you won’t even let me—”

“Lestat, why on earth do you think that’s what’s going on here?” Louis furrowed his brows, and Lestat let out a shuddering sob. He crumbled to the floor, and Louis finally approached him and sat next to him on the soft rug they’d picked out together. He reached out to rub Lestat’s back gently, and Lestat leaned onto his chest and sobbed.

“Your gloom is back. These nights when we are home, you are so distant. It’s like last time, right before I lost you. You don’t wish to touch me, and I feel so empty inside, so hollow, and you are nowhere I can reach you,” Lestat choked back a sob, “There is no light in your eyes. I wonder how long until I fully lose you again.”

Louis sighed. Right. Right. He had promised Lestat he would be with him. Evidently, being with Lestat meant something different to Lestat than just being in the same room together.

“This…scares you, being quiet together like this,” Louis said slowly. A quiet night in somehow scared Lestat more than any of their more intense activities.

“You could let me know you’ve heard me when you’re distant, mon cœur? You could come closer?” Lestat asked, hopefully, and Louis sighed.

“I’m just reading Lestat. Sometimes you start talking and it takes me a minute to catch up—”

“I was talking for a while, Louis! I was calling out to you, reaching for you, and you were unreachable! I need you like I need blood and it feels like burning when you pull away, do you even know how hard it was to pull myself away that night in the diner it was a death Louis—!”

Louis had no true way of knowing what ‘a while’ meant to Lestat, just that the loneliness hit him hard. After seventy-seven years without Lestat, though, he almost understood the burning feeling Lestat was describing.

“I’m sorry, Lestat. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere just because I’m reading  and we’re settling in before morning comes. I didn’t mean to scare you. We aren’t going to be apart again, because I’m not gonna let that happen. I think…I think we need to try something now,” Louis started, slowly, wiping the pink tear tracks off of Lestat’s face, “but you need to listen carefully.”

Lestat perked up slightly, nodding.

“Oui?”

Louis helped him off of the floor, leading him to the chair he’d been reading in earlier. The younger vampire settled back down into the loveseat, then undid his pants and freed his cock. Lestat gazed down at him hungrily, and Louis gestured to the floor.

“Kneel,” he commanded, and Lestat moaned softly and did as he was told swiftly. He opened his mouth, clearly getting the first part of their arrangement, and Louis fed the tip his cock into Lestat’s soft, full lips. It felt heavenly, like coming home, and he moaned and rocked his hips forward—

No—stop, not yet. Louis exhaled, reaching a hand out to grip Lestat’s hair. He had a job to do.

“Les,” he cooed, gently, as Lestat started suckling the tip, “I want you to stay still.”

Lestat looked up at him, perplexed, but did as he was told. Louis stroked his hair, then sighed and gently eased himself deeper into Lestat’s mouth.

“There you are, good job sweetheart,” he soothed, reaching down to stroke Lestat’s cheek with his thumb, “you look so pretty like that.”

Lestat moaned softly, gently around his cock in response, and it made his companion gasp. It took the younger vampire a moment to collect his thoughts before he could continue.

“Here’s how this is going to work sweetheart—you’ll have me as close as you can get me, and you’ll know I’m not ever gonna leave you. But I’m going to do some reading for a little bit, okay? I think this will work better for both of us,” Louis soothed, stroking his hair, and then he reached his free hand out to retrieve his book.

Louis opened the book, and then Lestat swallowed slightly. He was straining, trying his best to be still as Louis turned the page of his book, and he gently ran his free hand through Lestat's hair.

"You're doing so good, baby,” he soothed, tucking some shimmery blonde hair behind his ear, and Lestat exhaled. He didn't need to—it was a performance, like many things with him were, but the warm breath against Louis' inner thighs felt horribly tempting.

Louis took a moment to glance at his lover kneeling between his legs. If he truly wanted to finish a chapter, then looking at Lestat was going to make things difficult. The blonde already looked blissed out, plush lips shiny and coated with spit. His hair was tucked back behind his ears where Louis had just fixed it except for a few stray ringlets, which made it easy for Louis to see the way he was holding his cock inside of his cheek. Lestat was staying mostly still like Louis had told him to—good. He was doing good. Now Louis just needed to keep it together.

Louis shifted his gaze back up to the book in his other hand, scanning through the pages again, maybe a little more quickly than he ordinarily would. The warm, wet heat on his cock was gentle, more reserved than Lestat would usually be with his mouth if they were doing things his way, and yet Louis’ cock was still getting harder by the second—

Lestat sighed again, flicking his tongue under Louis' cock slightly, almost as though not doing anything was a terrible struggle, and Louis moaned softly. He glanced down at Lestat, meaning to gently redirect him, because this was about going slowly, being together, feeling each other, but oh. Fuck. Oh. He was beautiful and Louis was breathless. Lestat was flushed down to his shoulders where his robe was sliding off, and Louis now had half a mind to tell his companion to strip for him so he could get a better view, to just suck him already—

But that wasn't the point. Lestat needed to learn something. He needed to learn they could be together in these soft little moments and things would be okay.

So as Lestat began to tongue and suck more insistently, Louis gently pulled his hair, pulled him back, bit his own lip and took a shuddering breath in as he did.

“Baby—baby, we're doing this for you." Louis’ fingers pulled the golden curls tight, held Lestat’s head still. It took everything he had not to give in, not to succumb to Lestat’s tongue teasing the underside of his dick, and Lestat looked up at him as he dragged it slowly along the shaft as though to say is it though, isn’t it for both of us—

“You wanted me to be with you and I’m here,” Louis mumbled, voice raw from Lestat’s mouth on him, “but you’re—fuck—you’re gonna show me you can be good this time. Show me that being with me is enough for you, too?”

Louis stroked Lestat’s hair gently, and his pretty companion looked up at him from between his thighs and swallowed, as though responding, then settled to be still again. His pupils were blown, cheeks somehow flushed deeper now. He blinked up at Louis as he tried to stay still, saliva dripping down his chin and lashes fluttering and glinting in the dim light, and fuck how was Louis supposed to focus on the book in his hand now—

He needed to at least finish this chapter.

“I'm right here, Lestat. I promise. Never leaving you, remember? You did so good telling me you needed me. Now be still.”

“Mmmmm,” Lestat hummed, deep and low and sultry, and the sound resonated from his throat onto Louis’ cock. Louis shuddered as the words on the page blurred into a jumble in front of him, and he felt Lestat’s throat twitch around him still tighter. The blonde was drooling a little around him, somehow taking him deeper, pressing his face against the soft nest of pubic hair that he’d exposed when he’d unbuttoned his slacks earlier. He breathed Louis in, and something about the gesture made Louis’ cock twitch desperately inside of his mouth, inside of his throat—

Two more pages. Two more pages. He could hang on that long could’t he?

Louis paused, his hand shifted from Lestat’s hair to stroke his cheek, prompting his companion to glance up at him. He looked properly ruined, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, pupils blown out black like the very night they joined at the altar under and Louis loved him.

He loved him.

He’d fallen for him the second he’d laid eyes on him, he’d yearned for him every moment they were apart and he was ruined on him forever.

‘Fuck,’ Louis shuddered, ‘Les, baby I..’

Lestat whined softly, and Louis tossed the book aside helplessly.

“FuckLesIneedyou,” Louis slurred his words together, covering his face in his hands, and Lestat looked like he was almost smiling around his cock. Lestat pressed closer, nuzzling against the root of his cock, and swallowed around Louis hard. The sound he made as he swallowed was wet, desperate, and Louis almost sobbed when Lestat swiped his tongue under the length of his dick again—

Louis wasn’t sure what exactly he was saying when he was coming. Maybe it was a word, a prayer, a wish. Lestat didn’t let up though, kept his mouth around him and swallowed every last drop of come that he could ease out of Louis. He rubbed Louis’ thighs gently, then his hips, gazing up at him with a fondness that made Louis’ heart ache in his chest.

He could die. If he wasn’t already dead he could die, from the climax, from the aftershocks, from Lestat continuing to suck, from the horrible softness in his eyes. He wondered how he ever doubted Lestat loved him. All he would have needed to see was that look on his face.

After several minutes Louis sunk back into the seat cushions, finally feeling his heart start to return to normal. His hand that once held a gothic romance hung loose over the armrest, and he laughed a little as he wondered why he ever thought he’d truly be able to focus on anything but his companion in this moment. He could feel Lestat’s heart beat with his now, finally back to beating together after their activities. He played with Lestat’s hair as he counted the beats per minute, his hand gently twisting loose ringlets, and suddenly he felt a tap at his free hand.

Lestat had reached out and picked up the discarded book from the floor and handed it back to him. He hadn’t removed Louis’ cock from his mouth fully, simply pulled back slightly while he bent to retrieve the tome.

“Again?” Louis smiled, laughing a little, and Lestat just lapped gently at the head of his cock.

Oh.

Oh.

He loved him.