Chapter Text
Chapter One: Plastic Off the Sofa
Louis and Lestat, August 2023
6 months and 4 nights since Louis received Lestat’s email
6 months and 1 night since Lestat accepted Louis and Armand’s response in the form of an invitation to the Dubai Penthouse, which became the setting of eternity’s most excruciating dinner and threesome
6 months since Lestat flew back to New Orleans alone and Louis moved out of the Penthouse to embark on a Hot Girl Summer in Cape Town
3 nights and several long conversations since Louis knocked on Lestat’s door and announced that he was moving back in
Lestat vividly remembers having this argument a century ago.
Louis is refusing to drink. Again.
It’s been three nights since Louis arrived and he still hasn’t hunted yet. Well, Louis left for about twenty minutes last night and presumably caught a rat, but Lestat can’t be sure; the New Orleans vermin population really isn’t what it used to be. Not that he’d say that out loud, because Lestat’s been behaving himself. He’s been ever so good. They’d talked about it; how Lestat wouldn’t act out this time, how he’d mind his manners and prove himself worthy of Louis’ love. It was even Lestat’s idea, this emphasis on allowing Louis to make his own choices about everything now, with all the information. Lestat had lovingly explained to Louis how trust was non-negotiable if they wanted to make this work, if they were going to give eternity another try. It was all in the email. That said, c’est suffit/ it’s enough .
He understands that Louis isn’t going to hunt. Probably doesn’t know how to anymore, if the off-putting (even by vampire standards) dining situation in Dubai was anything to go by. And Lestat isn’t going to do that , not if he and Louis are going to do it right this time. But Louis won’t give him a single inch. He won’t even try Lestat’s de petit coup/ the little drink “Apps for Dinner” club night idea. (He won’t try it right now at least, Lestat will have to do some more convincing because the drugs… the boys… Louis would be a fool not to try.)
Until Louis is ready for that, however, Lestat wants to break into a blood bank. To sweeten the taste, Lestat promises to work the October haunted house blood trailer, charming the lined up young people into donating blood for a free ticket. Innocent blood, Innocent blood, hold the murder, s'il vous plaît . He explains to Louis he really will put a lot of money and effort into getting healthy humans to donate what they’ll take. He obviously wants ailing humans to have enough to go around. He’s not a monster anymore, which Louis knows full well because that was also in Lestat’s email. He took great pains to explain how he’d shed his murderous skin in the damp of his hunger aprés París and Lestat is eager to show his newfound virtue to Louis. That said, he can’t exactly walk into a blood bank and purchase a liter of A+, so he’ll have to steal it, morality be damned. It will be great fun though, and high drama, perhaps like in a spy film. Perhaps he can get Louis to pretend the Bond girl upon his return, maybe he can find him a golden bikini. Lestat imagines Louis glistening gold while drinking the delicious human blood that Lestat had provided… Desire curls in his belly. And promptly uncurls at the stern look in Louis’ giant, gorgeous eyes.
Louis wants to go on a “cleanse.” (He had actually called it that! Lestat supposes Armand gave Louis the WiFi password after all). A quick (quicker if his fingernails didn’t fucking hobble him on a touchscreen) Google search revealed a “cleanse” to be a means for twenty-first century waifs to keep themselves waifish and clearly a terrible idea for a vampire to adopt. The “cleanse” is to be exclusively animal blood and apparently very little of it. Louis explains something about a rodent for every ordinary day with a dog for his “cheat day”. He tells Lestat that he can easily pick up the ingredients for this “cleanse” by visiting the local pet store, which is 2.4 miles away and open until 10:00 PM on Mondays. Louis shoves his cell phone displaying the map and information in Lestat’s face, looking exceedingly smug.
Merde, this is how Louis hunted now. And not enough animal blood to even approach nourishing himself. The Rat Tally is back with a vengeance, Lestat thinks grimly. He tries again to explain just how ethical his blood bank plan is.
“Human blood makes me bloated, and Armand had been stuffing me full of it. ”
Lestat’s brow wrinkles with bewilderment. “Bloated, you mean like a corpse?”
“No,” Louis snaps, eyes narrowing with annoyance. “Not like a corpse, Lestat! I mean it makes me bigger in a way I don’t particularly care for. A little lagniappe that I prefer myself without,” Louis’ handsome face creases with earnestness.
Lestat is truly confused. Il pense qu'il est trop grand maintenant?/ He thinks he’s too big now? What the hell is Louis talking about? Louis isn’t big. Lestat wouldn’t have a problem if he were. Societal attitudes around body fat were rather different while Lestat was reaching sexual maturity and he has long enjoyed the pleasure of fucking his way through the diversity of the human physique, but Louis just factually isn’t. Lestat briefly allows his mind to wander to his lovers who were and how lovely sex felt with more flesh to enchant. Not that Lestat didn’t immensely enjoy enchanting Louis’ flesh…
This is a non-issue.
“Well, you know, I was drinking alcohol all the time as a human so when I overindulge often enough my body goes back to that,” Louis’ tone is firm, matter of fact, as if perhaps Lestat were too stupid to remember what Louis looked like one-hundred years ago and to see him right now, standing in front of him.
“Retour à quoi/ Back to what?” Incredulity returns Lestat to French. Louis had made a slight human (which, frankly Lestat would remember better than Louis would, seeing as he was the only one in possession of a vampire memory at the time). Once, a very long time ago, Louis had confessed to restricting food to punish himself as a human. He had called it a fast. Fast, cleanse c'est tout pareil/ it’s all the same for the world’s foremost undead Catholic. Louis now seems incapable of evaluating his body objectively, and the delusion flares a biting nastiness within Lestat. Perhaps Louis wishes his body could bounce so beautifully beneath Lestat as Nicki’s had all those years ago in Paris. Perhaps beneath all the layers of discipline and restraint and repression, Louis wishes he could eat with abandon. He wishes his body could grow soft and strong instead starving it so very fragile. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe, he enjoys being a sexless weakling and no doubt he—ce suffit/ that’s enough.
Lestat is therapized enough to now know that this line of thinking is neither kind nor helpful nor necessary . He takes a breath and wills the distorted thought to exit with the exhale.
The difference between Louis’ human (must be human, Lestat’s instincts reminded him unhelpfully) blood-nourished body and the way his body looked after repeatedly skipping meals was a minuscule and entirely negative transformation. Mince á maigre/ thin (positive) to skinny (negative). And Louis preferred himself this way? Mon Dieu/ my God.
Louis inhales and exhales slowly and intentionally. Because they’re fighting and because Lestat will always have hundreds of years of vampirism breathing down his neck, Lestat’s mind can’t help but snark that it won’t work because we’re dead, our brains won’t respond to the oxygen. The part of Lestat no longer interested in not being such un connard/ an asshole corrects himself, since Louis’ calming breaths are not a threat to Lestat. Besides, the jury is still out about the placebo effect of breath work in vampires. Armand certainly thinks that it works.
“My body is my own.” Louis’ expression masks into a maddening My Boyfriend Was My Therapist sort of calm. “I will listen to it and feed it what it is asking for. Please respect my autonomy in this matter.”
Louis is lying of course. Lestat can feel his hunger burning down the cord between them and can smell it in the air around him, sharp and hackled. Louis is so fucking hungry, mortals can probably feel him screaming for blood. Listen to your body until you are so hungry and weak you have no choice but to run around for a rat that will not sustain you? Sois sérieux!/ Be serious!
“Besides—” Louis says quickly before Lestat’s cruel mouth can open up, “all of my clothes are made to my exact measurements. I start drinking human blood all the time and you won’t be able to see this ass in these trousers.” Louis wiggles his hips salaciously. Lestat truly couldn’t give less of a shit about these particular pants; billowing and shapeless with a high and rigidly unforgiving waistband, and stinking like Armand still. The distraction couldn’t be more obvious and Lestat is so, so frustrated about it. His fangs ache.
He takes a deep breath.
The trousers… do not survive the encounter.
*****
The next evening, Louis isn’t pressed into Lestat’s shoulder the way he ought to be. Lestat can’t hear his heartbeat in the apartment either. Lestat’s stomach swoops and he’s out of the coffin, rushing about the apartment because Louis has done it. He’s left again and Lestat had prepared for this of course, he’d talked about it as a possibility with Pat and no victim of domestic abuse should ever have to forgive her abuser no matter how much time or work or— Louis has left a note. He’s gone to the pet store. It says so in shiny silver ink because Lestat had a glitter pen phase in 2004 and still has several lying around his home in the Lower Garden District.
Waking up in a panic like that is a sure fire way to trigger Lestat’s… issues. It could make him impossible, it could make him a lot , it could trigger symptoms of the several Cluster B Personality Disorders Pat has diagnosed him with over the years. Lestat had joked in Dubai that with every century he endures he earns a new mental disorder and neither Louis nor Armand had laughed. Pat had, when Lestat had tried the joke in therapy. Regardless, Lestat has to use a coping mechanism or he might go insane, scare Louis away, and ruin his eight year streak without committing a murder. Or something.
Lestat decides to go for a run. It is outlandish and unspeakably silly for a vampire to jog, which is the reason Lestat had point blank refused for the first fifteen years Pat had suggested it, but well… It does help. It gives him somewhere to put all his restlessness and uncertainty; a means of staving off the savagery. Always, he has to go preternaturally fast. Often, he has to use the cloud gift; stretching his power until he is so high and light that his problem seems very far away. Occasionally, he needs a fight. Tonight is such an occasion.
Lestat dresses into his running shoes, a sleeveless t-shirt he’d cut while manic as an alternative to committing murder, and black shorts Tough Cookie got him as a joke (though perhaps not really) that are impossibly short and bear the word SLUT across his ass. He does his hair in two French braids and does not think about how Louis used to do so for Claudia all those years ago. Or rather, he does, but he makes the conscious decision to let the thought pass him by with his next exhale. He decides to wear a different pair of socks, pink to match the lettering on his shorts.
Lestat pours himself a glass of cow’s blood (he knows, he knows! It tastes like fat, but it’s readily available, nourishing enough and suits his “flexitarian” lifestyle just fine.)
Lestat launches into the silky warmth of early evening, slowing to jog around Coliseum Square Park for the attention. He dazzles the dog walkers and winks at a handsome heterosexual couple smoking marijuana on a blanket. It’s fun and harmless, one of the bloodless pleasures Lestat now spends his nights searching endlessly for.
The next part is not as fun or as harmless, but it’s not entirely devoid of either. Lestat gifts open the gate of one the hideous, new-build apartment complexes his New Orleans is now riddled with and beckons when he senses someone healthy arrive. He drains about a third of their (Lestat now tries not to make assumptions about the gender identities of his victims) blood and sends them stumbling home. Lestat heals the wounds before slinking off, nudging his victim to forget about the impossible eyes they met beneath the stairs. Usually he’ll do this twice in a night, supplementing with animal and donated human blood as he gets hungry.
It isn’t perfect, but neither is Lestat. He’s sure the lack of consent bothers Louis, but everything bothers Louis, and vampires are gifted for a reason. Lestat sometimes misses the spectacle of how he used to hunt, how he and Claudia would hunt before everything got so dark. Hunting like that would blend artistry with instinct in a way that made his animal heart sing and his mania dance, and sobriety from the kill is the second hardest thing he’s ever had to endure. That said, his baby-slaying days are behind him and he really does prefer it that way. These “Big Gulps,” as Lestat privately christened them to pay homage to the sort of cup the mortal members of Satan’s Night Out would fill up with liquor and drink on stage in the late nineteen-nineties, meet his nutritional needs just fine. Lestat takes no pleasure in self-denial and he is not currently depressed enough to allow himself to go hungry. He simply finds pleasure additionally and alternatively.
Thinking of Claudia sends a panging sadness through Lestat that he directs directly into the pump of his legs, heading towards the river. Lestat has an excellent idea . He’s nearly flying now in his swiftness, willing any passers by to look away look away look away . He launches himself over the sea wall, drifting gracefully to stand at the edge of the riverbank. Lestat listens.
He is going to bring Louis an alligator. Lestat knows about a gator farm in Westwego and it would, of course, be no problem to cloud gift one across the river but Lestat needs something a little more theatrical to appease the blood hum that disquiets him. He decides to indulge in gator wrestling, a delightful hobby enjoyed by mortals like Alex’s uncle who lives in the swamps on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. Surely, Louis would eat if his meal was seasoned with such romance and power. Lestat glows while imagining Louis draining the beast and tasting the memory of its duel with Lestat, Louis’ hole clenching at the flavor of Lestat subduing such a powerful creature. It’s going to drive him wild.
Lestat continues to extend his senses, listening for a wild alligator on the banks of Algiers or Gretna. Silence on shores of the Ninth Ward and Arabi then—in Marrero, Lestat can hear the lurching, glacial beat of an alligator heart.
He’d swim, but he really does like his shorts. Instead, Lestat maneuvers his gifts two-fold, soaring upwards and across the river and urging don’t look don’t look don’t look to any mortals on the levies or the Crescent City Connection. The thudding of the reptile heart grows louder and louder, until Lestat is landing lightly on the silty beach, the Mississippi lapping warm and brown behind him as it sparkles back the lights of the greater New Orleans area.
“ Bonjour ,” Lestat says to the alligator, who is absolutely enormous, perhaps sixteen feet long.
With blinding speed, Lestat darts towards the alligator. The alligator lunges forward, jaws snapping, but Lestat evades it effortlessly. He’s trying to swing a leg over the creature’s back and gain a little purchase, but the alligator is thrashing wildly, jerking with an ancestral knowledge that Lestat is dangerous. The alligator strikes upwards, twisting its belly towards Lestat where he lands a crushing blow. The great thing bellows. Then the alligator’s tail comes crashing against him and it reminds Lestat of the mace and the wolves, and just as his fangs extend and he begins to laugh, his feet are knocked from beneath him. He lands on top of the alligator, which has wrapped its tail around him tight and has started rolling the pair of them towards the river. Lestat’s fangs are at the animal’s throat in an instant because non merci, his clothes are getting filthy , and he feels genuine thirst for the animal, what with the excitement of the fight and the deafening pump of blood that Lestat knows will not be hot, but will not be wholly unpleasant. Oh là là, qui est-il devenu/ Oh my, who has he become?
Lestat restrains himself. Sometimes it feels like that’s all he ever does these days, but he wouldn’t have it any other way because this alligator blood is for Louis, he does everything for Louis, and he can’t get Louis to eat it if he drains the damned thing. Lestat throws his weight with vampiric force and then he’s on top, striking it again and again and again and again until—The thing lay still, but not dead yet, its heart continuing to beat dully. Lestat lifts the now limp alligator off of the ground, draping it over his shoulders as triumph blooms in his belly. He follows that soaring feeling upwards and then he’s leaving Marrero behind and flying home to Louis.
Lestat really does feel better after a run.
*****
Lestat lands on the balcony of their apartment on Terpsichore Street and struts, alligator still on his shoulders, through the guillotine window in their bedroom. Louis is reading on the bed and does not look up at Lestat. It’s a game, he obviously smells the alligator, and Lestat can’t wait to play, to show Louis that he really is communicating so much better now with all this time and space to learn how.
“ Bonjour , my love. Will you please give me your attention when you’ve finished your page? I’ve brought you a gift.”
Lestat waits patiently, positive that Louis is reading two pages, his church window eyes scanning the words so carefully until they finally glance up to Lestat.
“Lestat,” he shimmers when Louis says his name, even though he says it like a mother might scold her child (which isn’t entirely sexually unappealing to Lestat, unfortunately). “Why is there an alligator in our bedroom?”
“ Pour manger-toi, bien sur/ For you to eat, of course! ” The alligator is dripping blood and river water onto Lestat as well as the hardwood, and he’ll clean it up, of course he will nowadays , but he wishes Louis would get up and eat already. Louis is still cross legged on the bed, staring at the alligator, face twisting into the sort of disgusted expression Lestat might have worn if it was still a century ago on Rue Royale and he had just witnessed Louis pluck a rat off the street like a bon bon.
“I’m not hungry. My trip to the animal market was highly successful,” Louis said, a corner of his mouth quirking up.
D’accord/ Okay . Lestat gives Louis a winning smile.
“And what sorts of creepy crawlies were you able to procure, ma belle/ my beautiful ?”
Louis still blushes at the feminine endearment after all these years, but he’s giving Lestat a proper smile now, and Lestat nearly gasps because sometimes Louis really is just astonishingly handsome.
“I already told you about my cleanse, and vampires don’t forget things so I’m thinking maybe you just want to hear my voice. I also visited that Smoothie Restaurant on St. Charles for my mortal meal of the week,” Louis says, tilting his dashing jaw towards the styrofoam cup on the bedside table that smells of strawberries.
Lestat focuses on the sounds of downstairs for the first time, finding the fluttering hearts of the—no, not rats, these creatures must be even smaller—
“ Louis , are rats really too much for you now? Has your stomach shrunken to the size d'une souris/ of a mouse ?” Lestat does his best to keep his tone light, teasing, but it must come out strained because mon Dieu, what is happening right now?
“They’re gerbils,” Louis says, laughing a little. “It was all the pet store on Claiborne had, but it wasn’t too bad. Bigger than a mouse.”
D’accord/ Okay .
“And how was a smoothie du Roi des Smoothies/ from the King of Smoothies ?”
“Very paste-y indeed, the right texture and everything. They’re supposed to have all sorts of health benefits, but I can’t say I was able to keep mine down for long enough to benefit from much. Smelled like strawberries on the way back up though.”
And Lestat really does not know what to say about that boîte de Pandore/ Pandora’s Box of mental illness so he moves the conversation along.
“Sounds like a scrumptious appetizer, mon coeur/ my heart , but wouldn’t you like to follow it by drinking from this great beast, subdued by the supernatural might of my vampiric power?” Lestat lifts the alligator above his head like he’s won a contest, careful to give Louis a show of his straining biceps and the muscles of his stomach from under the scissor ragged hem of his cropped shirt.
Louis rolls his eyes, but his expression sparkles with fondness.
“No thank you, Lestat. Another time, yes, absolutely, let’s eat an alligator together. But I can’t tonight, this cleanse is… important to me. This is a big change, and I’m glad I’m here, I really am, baby, but everything’s different now and it’s a bit overwhelming, and I need… this. A reset,” he smiles at Lestat, perhaps a little sadly, but painfully and beautifully honest and did Louis really need to break his heart like this so soon after arriving? Of course he did.
Lestat realizes three things at once.
1. He can no longer speak about this with Louis without first talking to Pat. Louis is much sicker than he thought and seeing the love of his existence twisted up with such misery and hunger is… triggering, mon Dieu, in a way that makes Lestat want to scream and slit throats. Which he isn’t going to do because Louis doesn’t deserve it and Lestat doesn’t yell at people he loves anymore. Louis wouldn’t drink from the throats anyway.
2. This “cleanse”, insane as it sounds to and makes Lestat, won’t kill Louis. Even more infuriating, he has Armand of all beings to thank for his Louis’ health and strength. Louis must have spent the last half a century drinking from Armand and could could probably carry on like this for much longer before he withered to the state he was in at times on Rue Royale. Not that things are going to get to that point, but Lestat is grateful for the time he’ll have to figure it out.
3. Lestat needs to eat this alligator right fucking now or risk the aforementioned screaming and slitting throats.
Lestat tries one final time, trying to pour as much love as possible into his gaze.
“You are sure you will not eat this alligator? Even though it was heroically brought to you by your…” Your husband, your ex-husband, your maker, your murderer, your victim, what are they in this New, New Orleans? “Loving companion,” Lestat recovers with a smile. Louis notices the pause.
“I’m sure, mon chèr ,” Louis says softly, frowning a bit now, and he must really want Lestat to retreat on this if he’s speaking French.
“Very well,” says Lestat and he drains the animal dry, not breaking his eye contact with Louis. And it’s a crying shame because Lestat really does look rather brave and handsome in the alligator’s memory. He feels better though, after his meal. Louis is staring at him and at the alligator with such hunger in his eyes and Lestat wants nothing more than to feed Louis; it’s all he’s ever wanted. It’s too much.
Lestat switches the music on abruptly and then Beyoncé’s masterful Renaissance on shuffle is filling the condo with a blend of beautiful sounds Lestat knows they both enjoy. Lestat strides back to the balcony with the alligator corpse and after a moment of concentration, hurls the beast by its tail into the air and down Terpsichore Street, in the vague direction of the Mississippi River. After a moment and a push of his senses he hears the splash of the reptile in the river and comes back in through the window to face Louis, whose eyebrows are raised and who is now chewing on the cherry red straw of his smoothie. Lestat wonders if Louis could hear the splash. How has time, Armand’s blood, and a half century of enough to eat strengthened his angel?
“My years of rest and relaxation (Lestat has not read it, he barely reads anymore now that he doesn’t have to, but he suspects Louis has) were very rejuvenating. I’d like to show you what I can do now,” says Lestat. And it’s true because Lestat loves attention, but also because he needs Louis to be aware of the full extent of his powers for them to work this time around. Lestat’s stomach swoops with the memory of his own evil, that night in the sky.
Louis doesn’t notice the shift because Lestat doesn’t let him, his flirtatious smile never faltering.
“I heard it splash, just in case you were wondering,” Louis says and Lestat is warmed for the first time this century with the knowledge that they have no need for a mindgift between them, that the silence of the vampire bond can give them the gift of trust and understanding.
“Additionally,” Louis continued, mischief invading his expression a bit, “I have a few tricks of my own you might be interested in seeing.”
Then, the lights in the bedroom go out and every candle in their bedroom is lit (and it’s quite a few candles; the electricity in New Orleans still goes out often, and Lestat occasionally enjoys the romance and nostalgia of candlelit sex). Louis leans back onto bed, book straddled on the table beside him, and he’s still chewing on that straw, which is red and wet like Louis’ mouth—
“ Une momente, sil te plaît/ A moment, please ,” Lestat says weakly because he really needs to get his head on straight before they get started. He knows his blood tastes completely deranged, not to mention that it smells like the river in here and he’s covered in mud, though he suspects that’s part of the appeal for Louis. But Lestat really can’t, not quite yet and dashes off to retrieve the mop.
Another bloodless pleasure of eternal life is a beautiful smelling home, so Lestat fills his bucket with scalding water and Fabuloso, and gets to work swishing away at the mud and violence of the alligator on the floor. Lestat dances as he mops, hips moving in time with the hypnotic beat and angelic vocal performance of Madame Knowles-Carter. Lestat looks over to see if Louis is blushing at his shorts, but Louis is clearly itching to join and dance with him. Louis’ shoulders dance just a little at first, then he’s on his knees on the bedspread, arms moving groovily in time with the music. Lestat wonders where Louis learned to dance like this and he feels very grateful to see him now, dancing in their bedroom, differently yet exactly the same; changed and unchanged by the relentless rhythm of time.
“ Désolé, mon cher/ Sorry, my darling, I seem to have trapped you on the bed until this dries. I must bathe for I smell of reptile, but we can dance together when I get out,” says Lestat.
“I’d like that very much,” Louis’ face is beautiful and open with playfulness, and Lestat loves him so much it hurts. Louis is all his blood will ever taste like, for all of eternity.
In the quiet of the bathroom, Lestat dumps the mop water and strips. He puts his dirty clothes in the hamper and turns the water to absolutely scalding. He’s crying now, a little bit. Louis is right, this is overwhelming, and he’s feeling so much love and fear at the same time. There’s a lot of pressure, and the Claudia of it all, and how in this savage garden is he supposed to get Louis to drink without forcing or manipulating him, putain de merde/ fucking hell ?
Lestat gathers a towel, smothers it against his face and screams . Just for a moment and not too loudly, but he really needs a little scream. He’s been off all evening and it’s better than screaming out there and making Lestat’s mood Louis’ problem. Lestat gets in the shower and breathes in the steam slowly, hot and heavy, in and out. He visualizes his fear rolling down his back like the water and focuses on the love in his blood that fizzes sweetly for Louis until he’s calm and ready to face him.
Lestat dries, dresses in a pair of women’s silk pajama shorts, and comes to Louis who is dancing around the bedroom in a pair of Lestat’s underwear.
“ You think you’re so cool ,” Louis sings, pointing at Lestat as his hips sway back and forth.
“ Even though I’m cooler than you,” Louis whispers with a smug grin and a twirl.
“ C’est vrai / It’s true ,” Lestat says, because it is.
They dance to “Plastic Off the Sofa” together the way they would dance in 1917, Lestat’s hand on Louis’ waist and their other hands clasped together, and they’re spinning around the room, going faster and faster, Louis laughing when Lestat attempts the riff and has to stop with a giggle because it’s hard . It’s good, it’s so good with Louis’ head against his chest like this. The music changes and Louis pecks him once on the lips before spinning away to show off his modern dance moves. This song is faster, and they have fun dancing with each other as they would in a club, as they have danced in clubs with the others’ human doppelgangers. Lestat thinks about all of the music history wrapped up in this album, much of which Lestat unfortunately slept through, and he can’t wait for Louis to tell him about when this was the music of the day and where and how he (and probably Armand, Lestat remembers with a roll of his eyes) would dance. At the climax of “Heated” Louis is on the floor, bouncing and chanting and fanning himself with a huge smile on his face, and Lestat just adores him, adores the way femininity can flow from Louis unashamedly now, and Lestat feels so grateful to know this vampire. He leans in to kiss Louis, and they collapse on the bed in a tangle of panting love and need.
*****
When dawn pushes rosily against their windowsill and it’s almost time for them to go to coffin (they have two, but Louis has slept in Lestat’s every day so far), Lestat feels hot breath against his neck.
“Thank you for the alligator. I see you trying. I’m trying too.”
“ Je sais, je sais / I know, I know . I would do anything for you, Louis.”
“ Je sais ,” says Louis. “You’ve changed so much. It’s good, and I’m glad, but sometimes I wonder who you are and what you’ve done with my husband.”
His husband , adoration flairs hot and bright inside Lestat and he holds Louis even closer, peppering the space where his neck meets his back in loving kisses.
“And by the way, Lestat; I did like your shorts.”