Chapter Text
In the aftermath of the rehearsal dinner, a steady silence had descended over Lestat's life. He was sleeping better, sure, but he couldn't escape the feeling that Louis was constantly about to ask another question, to say something else that would disrupt the silence in such a horrific way that peace would never be able to settle in his life again. (The way Louis had talked about what had happened, the way he had used that word— the word beginning with "r" which Lestat couldn't bring himself to even whisper in his own mind, nevermind aloud— still clawed him. He didn't understand! He couldn't! Louis hadn't been there, Louis didn't know! But how would Louis know unless Lestat explained it to him?.
Yet, as anxious as Lestat had become, he couldn't deny that the events of the past week had been nothing like the pandemonium he had expected to erupt when Louis found out. Non, some part of him was filled with pure joy at the fact he was finally, finally free from the weight that hiding the truth from Louis had placed upon him. And now here he was, in a dressing room, getting ready to marry his beloved Louis! There seemed to be nothing else as important to Lestat now than that fact. Despite Louis's resistance, Magnus would be there today but, for a moment, Lestat didn't care. For a moment, no one else would be there except for him and Louis, and that was all that mattered, non? There was nothing else Lestat needed.
He was ripped out of the daze he found himself in whilst staring at his reflection in the vanity by a knock at the door. It opened before he had the chance to say "Come in" and Madeleine appeared with a garment bag in her hand and Armand in tow. The latter was currently grinning maniacally.
"Your suit," Madeleine proclaimed, offering Lestat the garment bag as she approached him, "it's some of my finest work."
Lestat could not deny that the clothes inside the bag were, indeed, extremely beautiful. Although it had needed quite a few alterations when he'd first worn it, the suit Madeleine had made had looked magnificent and he could not fault it. The suit consisted of black pants, a white shirt and a tailcoat embroidered with a silver floral pattern. Regal, elegant, bordering on gothic— just what Lestat had wanted it to be.
As he accepted the bag and went to lie it down across one of the small couches in the sitting area, Madeleine opened her mouth to say something more: "Look inside the left side of the jacket, I added something."
Lestat did as he was instructed once he'd unzipped the bag. Upon seeing the addition, his breath held itself in his chest, twisting not in shock or horror but something else entirely: elation. For, on the section of the lining which would rest just above his heart, she had embroidered a set of initials so dear to Lestat that he was sure they were carved into the muscle of his heart. "L.D.P.D.L"— Louis de Pointe du Lac. He swallowed back the tears which started to prick at his eyes as the largest grin Lestat had smiled in the past few months began to stretch across his face.
Madeleine continued as he stared, wonder-struck, at the initials: "Louis asked me to add yours to his suit in the same place. I thought it was sweet so I put his on yours, too."
Had he not been frozen to the spot with joy, Lestat likely would have tackled Madeleine in order to give her a proper embrace to show how deeply grateful he was for her gift. Alas, Lestat had never experienced such pure, simple happiness in his life and so his body was currently trying to process it correctly.
Magnus be damned, today was going to be the best day of his life.
_
When Lestat had told Armand that he wanted their wedding theme to be "Love in the Savage Garden" with no other explanation, Lestat hadn't expected him to be successful in actualising it. Non, frankly, he had expected Armand to throw the idea out of the window and do whatever it was he thought was best, as Armand normally did. Yet, he had somehow encapsulated exactly what Lestat had envisioned.
The wedding itself occurred on a rooftop garden above the city. It wasn't a necessarily large wedding (compared to other high profile weddings, at least), but the roof felt luscious and wild nonetheless for, wherever there was free space, plants had been placed. It was an organised sort of chaos (as was to be expected where Armand was involved), but beautifully wild all the same. Lestat revelled in it as he stood at the end of the red-lined aisle.
Under an intricately-woven flower arch, Louis stood between Akasha, and his "groomsmen" (also known as Claudia and Daniel because Louis had decidedly very few friends). Oh Louis! His beloved Louis! Louis, who stood in a beautiful white suit, staring at Lestat in warm amazement; Louis, who was the entire world; Louis, who was so imperfectly perfect and yet had still chosen Lestat to walk down the aisle to meet him! The string quartet played a piece (which Lestat distantly recognised as one of Nicki's compositions), expecting him to begin his procession down the aisle. However, Lestat could not find it within himself to take a step forward.
Armand, who stood on the other side of Akasha, glared at him in an angry way which asked "What the fuck are you doing?". Lestat felt unable to provide an answer. In fact, Lestat felt that he was unable to move at all, although not for any of the reasons one might expect him to be frozen at the end of an aisle. Non, he was not frozen out of fear, or reluctance, or hesitation.
He was frozen because he was so indescribably, ferociously, terrifyingly happy that he feared that, if he moved even slightly, he would fall into an abyss and wake up in bed to discover his entire life to this point had all been one, sweet dream.
Louis raised his eyebrow in question. Amused. It was as if, by simply looking at Lestat, Louis could know exactly what was running through his mind. Perhaps he could. Lestat hoped that he could.
Alas, Lestat could no longer resist Louis's call, and his feet began to move before he could attempt to stop himself. He did not sense the ground passing beneath him, nor hear the click of his shoes on the ground. Non, the only reason Lestat knew he was walking down the aisle was because he could see— he could feel— Louis getting closer and closer; he could feel that dreaded distance between them shrinking and, mon dieu, it was euphoric! (Some days, Lestat wished he could live under Louis's skin simply so he wouldn't have to suffer that distance ever again).
He reached his designated position under the arch, no longer bothering to stop his smile from consuming his face. Louis laughed at this slightly under his breath, causing Lestat's grin to manage to widen further (who had known that was even possible?). Akasha began her opening spiel but all Lestat could hear was the steadiness of Louis's breath and the elated beating of his own heart.
"I believe both grooms have prepared their own vows," Akasha said finally, motioning first to Louis to begin, "Mr du Lac?"
Brown eyes locked Lestat into a stare which was so desperately intimate that, had Lestat ever doubted that he and Louis were the only two people in the world who mattered, these doubts would have been vaporised into a fine haze.
"Lestat," Louis coughed, eyes darting quickly to the stack of paper he had unfolded, "in the past I have not always been the… best at telling you how I feel—"
A couple of members of the audience chuckled at this.
"—And that fact will always haunt me because, well, I am tied to you in ways I cannot explain without sounding like a madman. You have always told me that I need to 'live my life' as if I'm going from one day to the next like some zombie. Maybe that is what I'm doing but, from where I'm standing, 'living my life' is what I do every second I spend with you. You are my life and I don't know what I would do without knowing you weren't there waiting for me at the end of the day."
Lestat's throat tightened. For the hundredth time that morning, he was prepared to begin crying.
Louis continued: "Sure, you can be stubborn sometimes. Overly opinionated. Perhaps too forceful—"
Stubborn, stubborn Wolfkiller.
"—But you are beautiful and brave and you always manage to hold me together when I'm falling apart (even if your methods are sometimes unorthodox). I used to think that you were the most fearless person I knew, but I've learned that you have this astounding ability to endure fear and pain and anything life throws at you. You are so, so brave Lestat, braver than I will ever be, and even a second without you beside me is an eternity too long."
Lestat's breath hitched as Louis's voice trailed off. He had seen his beloved Louis cry before, but it had always been in private, never in front of anyone else. Consequently, when he saw tears begin to trail down Louis's cheeks, Lestat did not know how to react. It was a miracle that Lestat didn't start crying then, too, but he decided that it would be too much for them both to be crying now.
"And Mr de Lioncourt?" Akasha continued once it was clear Louis had finished speaking.
He coughed, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. How to begin?
"Speeches have never been my forté, not ones like this, at least," Lestat began, trying to keep his voice from wavering under the weight of tears, "and I wrote you a song, but I fear Armand would have crucified me if I asked him to put a piano on top of a sky scraper—"
He didn't mean for this comment to be a joke but there was a round of laughter nevertheless. A warmth spread through him at the sound.
Once the crowd had finished, Lestat continued, his confidence bolstered by their amusement: "But from the very first moment I saw you, I knew you were special. D'accord, I was extremely drunk at the time, but the way you sparkled that night on the street is the same way you have sparkled every moment since. Some deluded part of me had been sure you would save me all those years ago and, though it might shock you now, that part of me was right. Of all the reasons I live from one day to the next, you have been the most pertinent, the most challenging, the most glorious of them all."
He paused to swallow, taking Louis's hands (which were now shaking) in his own.
"And, mon saint, I promise to continue to spend every waking moment of my life making sure you can be all the beautiful things you are and can do so for as long as we both shall live."
Mon dieu, Lestat could have said so much more then, he could have eulogised for eternity about how amazing Louis was, about how much love he held in his being for him, but, of course, tears now began to trickle down his face and Lestat could no longer speak without having his words masked by his sniffling.
Akasha saw this as the time to continue with the ceremony, guiding them through the exchanging of their rings, and legitimising the marriage in law (which was only a formality, really, because, in the law of the little universe he and Louis had created for themselves to live in, their souls had been entwined for years).
With one, final, "You may now kiss the groom," Lestat and Louis were recognised for what they had always been by the State of New York: bound together.
_
By the time they had reached the back seat of the town car intended to take them to the location of the wedding photo-shoot, Lestat found that he could no longer extricate himself from Louis, nor did he want to. They were laughing; they were crying; they were married! Miracle after miracle after miracle! Mon dieu, no one had ever been happier than Lestat was in that very moment.
"The initials in the suits were a good idea," Lestat whispered into Louis's ear once his voice found a way to break through the current of emotion. He drenched himself in the scent of Louis which lay beneath that of his cologne.
"I thought it was romantic," he shrugged, a sloppy grin forming across his face.
Lestat kissed the soft section of skin under his ear; "My husband, the romantic!"
He savoured the taste of the word on his lips— "husband". Sweet, luxurious, almost metallic. Mon dieu, had he ever considered the possibility that he could refer to Louis, his Louis, as his "husband" in anything but his dreams? His love for Louis had been translated into something more substantial, more formal, than anything Lestat had ever been able to muster himself. (Whilst he had never necessarily wanted to be married per se— companionship alone would have sufficed— Lestat could not deny this new kind of elation rampaging through his veins was amongst the holiest things he had ever experienced).
Louis began to laugh again.
"Quoi?" Lestat asked, pulling away slightly and cocking his head.
"Nothin', nothin'," Louis chuckled, "it just occurred to me that I'm actually your husband!"
Lestat furrowed his brow, swallowing nervously at the statement. Was Louis already regretting marrying him?
Louis's face seemed to soften when he saw Lestat's expression. A rush of warmth pushed back the coldness that had begun to creep into his fingers and toes.
"I had a dream like this once, Les," Louis whispered in that hushed tone lovers used when curled up together in bed, "years ago, at the start of Senior year before… everything happened. We got married and everyone was there and…"
"And?"
"And it was the best dream I've ever had."
Lestat had previously been stifling the full force of his tears, afraid of spoiling either of their suits, but he found himself crumbling under their power. Consequently, he buried his head into Louis's shoulder, smiling and laughing as he sniffled and wept.
What had he ever done to deserve Louis?
_
The reception started just as the sun began to set, throwing long shadows and shades of orange, gold, and red across the hall Armand had hired for the event. As Lestat walked in, his hand tightly holding Louis's, all of their guests stood from their seats and applauded them. However, he paid little attention to the guests (despite the fact he smiled and waved as they made their way to their table), for his focus was immediately consumed by the grand piano which stood just beside the area cleared out in the centre of the room which was presumably the designated dance floor.
The gremlin had actually done it!
Lestat pointed at the instrument almost immediately after he and Louis took their seats, causing his fian— his husband to chuckle fondly.
"You did say you wrote me a song," Louis whispered back.
Oui, the song! Of course, before Lestat could spring from his seat and begin to play the aforementioned song, Armand took to the microphone beside the piano and began outlining the course of the night. In doing this, Armand took about two minutes too long, and Lestat was prepared to fall asleep on his plate. At least, he had been ready to fall asleep until he heard Armand say "And now: a performance from Lestat de Lioncourt."
Upon hearing these words, Lestat sprung from his chair, pranced to the piano bench and sat down. He basked in the applause the wedding guests offered before properly turning his attentions to playing. It was a simple composition, an instrumental with a light, floating melody underpinned by heavier chords. He had considered writing a ballad instead, but Lestat had always found that his instrumental compositions were more powerful than any lyric he could produce. His focus was quickly consumed by the piano as he let the sound and the song wash over him; his heart began to beat in time with the melody (at least it felt that way). Pure bliss began to thrum from him until he glimpsed a figure approaching in his periphery.
Uneven footsteps echoed in his mind, amplified versions of the ones which now pierced through the song. A wall of scalding heat slammed into Lestat's face as all the willpower he had became concentrated on keeping the song playing as it was meant to be played.
Wolfkiller, a low voice purred through his mind, stretching out the last syllable until it slithered and slid and circled around Lestat, trapping him in place. Wolfkillerrrrr—
He glued his eyes to the keys, trying to ignore the fact his hands were shaking. His teeth sunk into the flesh of his lower lip as he tried everything in his power to keep himself from looking up.
Wolfkiller, I love you, it teased, I love you, I love you, I love you, I—
Lestat was so, so close to finishing the piece without a single mistake. He was so close to doing it perfectly. But then he looked up, accidentally meeting his gaze. He faltered, his finger hitting the wrong key and completely destroying the harmony, completely destroying everything. In his panic, he froze. Oh how Lestat hated being stuck! He hated paralysis and stagnancy and now here he was, trapped, suspended between reactions, unable to move except for his heart to race and his ears to ring and—
A warm hand came to rest on his lower back and he soon became overwhelmed by the unmistakable scent of Louis. With a soft kiss placed to his temple, Louis managed to reanimate Lestat's body with seemingly no effort whatsoever.
"Oh, Magnus, I've been meaning to speak to you," Louis said warmly to Magnus as he lingered by Lestat's shoulder. As friendly as his demeanour may have seemed, the way his fingers curled protectively around Lestat's waist told an entirely different story. "Shall we go outside?"
"D'accord," Magnus grumbled in return.
Louis's smile widened before he turned and placed a light kiss into Lestat's hair; "I'll be back in a sec, baby."
The very thought of being any further away from Louis now, on this day, in this scenario, sickened Lestat and so he shook his head frantically. "I'll come with you."
"You sure?" Louis asked softly, not making any move to stop Lestat from following him, only confirming that he was fine with doing so.
Lestat nodded before standing and walking hand in hand with Louis behind Magnus. The guests had long since returned to their conversations and, consequently, no one paid them much mind as they slipped out of one of the side doors into the empty hallway. After pulling the door shut behind him, Lestat turned around to see Louis and Magnus glaring daggers at each other.
Louis coughed. "I think you should leave."
"Excusez-moi?" Magnus barked.
"I don't want you here."
There was something so beautifully brutal about the way Louis now stood. Tall, regal, cold. Non, non, not "cold" per se: sombre, unyielding. He was a force which no being could overpower. His anger was thick, palpable, all-consuming— molten gold waiting to be poured down his enemy's throat. Lestat's eyes were pinned to him, awestruck and reverent.
There stood Lestat's husband. He was magnificent, non?
"But Lelio wants me here," Magnus smiled, "do you not, Lelio?"
Lestat's mouth went dry. Was that what he wanted? (The line between "want" and "didn't want" had, at some point, become so blurred that he could no longer differentiate the two. He knew he wanted to be loved. Whether he wanted Magnus's love, however, was a mystery to him).
"Oh, Wolfkiller—"
"Don't call him that!" Louis interjected.
Lestat's heart quickened.
Magnus began again, repeating himself: "Oh, Wolfkiller, we were happy, non? We had so many good memories—"
Was that what those memories were? Were they "good"? Were they "happy"? Pain flashed through Lestat, leaving him feeling as if he had been flayed in its wake.
Then, Magnus began to approach him and, like a terrified creature, Lestat stepped backward, pressing himself as close as possible to the wall. He was so, so close to him, to his skin. Lestat was on the verge of screaming, of stuttering, of choking on the words which would undoubtedly be too afraid to leave his mouth. His breath tremoured, his flesh disintegrated, he closed his eyes and prayed to that degenerate god who had never answered him before in some remote hope that now would be the time they cared enough to stop this, to stop him, to—
A whoosh of air flitted past Lestat's face, cooling, comforting, and, suddenly, he no longer felt Magnus's presence so close to him. He dared to open his eyes in order to see what had changed. The scene before him was one of triumphant, baroque majesty.
Magnus was sprawled on the floor, hand slowly rising to touch his reddening cheek (was that a trickle of blood traversing across his waxy skin?). Anger flashed through his eyes— the kind of anger held by a second-born son who believed he had been robbed of his rightful throne. His mouth was agape as he stared up at Louis, who had taken his place in front of Lestat. Louis, who was currently brandishing his fist (the knuckles on which were also reddening slightly), glared down at him.
"What do you think you're doing?" Magnus yelled.
"I told you to leave," Louis reminded him steadily. His voice was filled with a vicious politeness, a weapon he wielded with such grace that it could fell even the most talented swordsmen.
"Are you going to allow him to just do this to me, Le—"
Magnus's outrage was cut off by Lestat's overwhelming need to hold Louis, to return to that little world where they were the only two beings to exist. Before he could even think it through, Lestat had pulled Louis toward him, drawing him into a deep kiss which seemed to mark both the beginning and end of time itself. Louis melted into him too, exhaling and allowing Lestat to pull him closer, closer, closer. Magnus on the floor ceased to exist. Paris ceased to exist. The wolves, his brothers, his father all ceased to exist. Perhaps Lestat, too, ceased to exist or, perhaps, he had never truly known what it was to "be" until now. Perhaps when one looked up the definition of "Lestat de Lioncourt" in the dictionary they would find "He who is tethered to Louis de Pointe du Lac" or "Louis's lover" or, simply, "Louis".
Oh to be an inextricable part of that beautiful, panting being who had, mere moments ago, stood towering over him!
"Not you too!" Magnus grumbled as another door opened and closed, and a light, floating pair of footsteps approached them. This complaint was followed by the sound of a pair of designer shoes sharply kicking a man in the stomach.
Armand scoffed in disappointment as he looked down to inspect his shoes (Lestat could've sworn he heard him murmur "I just got these polished, too!").
"I've called—" Armand's voice faded away into a sharp cough. This cough seemed to be the only thing that could break Louis and Lestat's lips apart in that moment. When all three pairs of eyes had turned to look at him, Armand continued in that self-satisfied way he did when he was confident he was in control: "I've called security to escort him out. They'll be here imminently. Now can you two please return to the reception I have sold years of my life in order to ensure was perfect instead of doing whatever it is you're doing."
Lestat pouted— he'd rather enjoyed kissing his husband when said husband was in a mood bordering homicidal rage. Alas, Louis nodded, taking a small step away from Lestat.
"Good," Armand sighed, "if you two hurry you'll be able to see Daniel cry about the time Louis threatened to murder him."
With a huff of laughter, Louis grabbed Lestat's wrist and whirled him away back into the hall where Daniel was, indeed, on the verge of tears in the middle of his speech.
"—And I have never seen Louis de Pointe du Lac as furious as he was sitting in an AirBNB in San Fran, complaining about his asshole of an ex, and I pointed out that, after ten hours straight of ranting, that he might still be in love with that ex—" Daniel recounted, somehow maintaining an almost comedic tone, despite the fact salt water was currently glistened in his eyes.
Louis barked a laugh as he and Lestat retook their seats: "Fake news! I thought you were a good journalist!"
Everyone in the room chuckled at this joke— well, everyone except for Lestat, who was preoccupied by staring at Louis like a love-drunk idiot.
Daniel continued, dismissing Louis's retort immediately, "And, here we are, a couple of years later, at the wedding of Louis and the aforementioned ex! But, seriously, when I say I put my life on the line to make sure these two ended up together, I mean it. I had been sure I was going to end up the subject of a True Crime documentary that night."
More laughter, more smiling, more warmth filled the air. Armand soon returned from the hallway, sliding back into his seat as if nothing had happened. Lestat pretended not to see the small thumbs-up he gave to Louis, even though it made his heart skip jovially in his chest.
Daniel made his concluding remarks and sat down. Dinner was served. Dinner was delicious. Armand stood, made his speech (which was rather tautological and, to the uneducated ear, sounded more like him complaining about the fact he had dated both Lestat and Louis and still somehow got swindled into planning their wedding. However, he was overall light-hearted (the term "light-hearted" is used here relative to Armand's regular tone which was, suffice to say, the complete antithesis of anything "light") and even tried making the odd joke).
After Armand was done with his speech, it was time for the long-awaited cake. Out of all the wonders of the day, Lestat was perhaps the most excited for this cake, or, to be more exact: to cut into it. Louis handed him the knife as it was wheeled in front of their table and, as Lestat pressed the tip into the top tier, a sharp "crack!" echoed around the room. Then, slowly, a stream of red began to cut through the sea of white on the cake's surface, followed by another. And another. And another.
They had made Louis's vision a reality!
Lestat laughed with a concoction of excitement and amazement. What a marvellous cake! (It just happened to be extremely delicious, too). The bakery had also delivered a much smaller cake for Mojo, who Daniel had kept on a leash by his side for the entire evening. Lestat wouldn't flinch to say that watching the puppy eat his miniature cake was amongst the top three moments of his night.
The cake was succeeded by dancing. Seeing as neither he nor Louis had fathers to dance with (for a "daddy/'daughter' dance" was customary at these events, non?), Lestat had simply assumed that this part of the evening would begin with his and Louis's first dance. However, his mother approached him as they were clearing away the dishes and the band were preparing themselves.
"May we do the first dance, Lestat?" Gabrielle asked, offering her hand to him.
He hesitated. A strange feeling about his mother had been growing in him over the past few weeks, a feeling he could not seem to shake and was now prompting such hesitance in him. However, Lestat did love his mother— she was the only family he willingly acknowledged as his own— and so he accepted her invitation, taking her hand and escorting her to the dance floor.
The music began and they started to waltz slowly around the floor.
Over the past week, Lestat had contemplated how to best convey this next piece of information to her. He had agonised over it for so long that he had practically run out of time to tell her. Now was his opportunity and so, quietly, he told her that "I have bought you a ticket home first thing tomorrow."
Her brow furrowed; "Pardon?"
Lestat swallowed nervously. After all, he truly did love his mother and he believed she loved him, too— she just didn't always express it in the way he wanted her to. But, for the time being, she needed to go. Her absence would hurt him but he had this voice in his head telling him that she couldn't be here. Then again, perhaps he wanted to force her hand, to prove that she actually would be hurt by the idea he didn't want to be around her.
"Well Louis and I are going to be gone in a few days, anyway, so—"
A part of Lestat's heart broke off and folded in on itself as she nodded at this and shrugged; "D'accord."
Besides that brief moment of confusion, she was completely unphased by Lestat's demand, was she not? She did not care whether he wanted her there or not—
She did not care at all, did she?
Their dance ended soon after that interaction, although Lestat felt as if he had spent an eternity roaming around the resulting realisation, only finding himself more and more lost in it. He had become so lost, in fact, that even as he took Louis's hand for their first dance, there was a piece of him which could not stop murmuring about it in his mind; she does not care, she does not care, she does not care—
_
By the time they returned back to their apartment, Mojo was snoring in Lestat's arms and Louis was still smiling broadly. Lestat, however, could not beat back the exhaustion that had pounced on him after the interaction with his mother. He should have been happy, he should have been so elated that even boots made of lead could not weigh him down, and yet?
And yet she did not care.
After lying Mojo down in his little kennel which Lestat was ashamed to admit they rarely made him sleep in these days (he'd figured out how to unlock it by sticking his paw through the bars), he turned around to see Louis staring at him from the kitchen.
"What's wrong?" Louis asked before Lestat could inquire as to why he was staring at him like that.
"Nothing," Lestat swallowed.
"Please stop saying 'nothing,' Les," he sighed, "it has never once been 'nothing'."
Lestat swallowed. Why begin their married life with such a pointless lie?
"My mother is leaving tomorrow."
Louis nodded. "Well, we're leaving for the honeymoon a few days later so it's not like—"
"Non, I told her to leave tomorrow," Lestat interrupted, forcing his eyes closed as if he could avoid the truth if he couldn't see it, "I told her to leave and she was not upset."
Louis sighed. "You wanted her to be upset?"
"I wanted her to care!" Lestat yelled back, his voice cracking slightly at the last word.
He now opened his eyes to see Louis looking at him softly. Then, he tilted his head as Louis raked his hand through his hair and chuckled helplessly.
"Lestat, you can't let someone else's apathy ruin your life."
At any other time, Lestat would have taken this as an opportunity to fight, to bicker, to point out that Louis had, time and time again, allowed his own mother's disregard to effect him in a multitude of dire ways. But today was meant to be a good one, today Lestat was too tired to be angry at Louis over such things. Consequently, in place of anger, Lestat was filled with an overwhelming disappointment— he had let his evening with the person he cared about most be ruined by someone whose affections had never manifested in any obvious, physical manner. How could he be so gluttonous as to ask for more love than he needed?
Lestat sniffled.
Louis slipped his phone out of his pocket, murmured "Fuck, it's nearly dead," and then proceeded to begin to play a song quietly on it. Clair de Lune.
"Debussy?" Lestat asked softly, unable to stop a small smile from spreading across his face.
Louis smiled warmly back at him, extending his hand outward in an invitation; "May I have this dance?"
Lestat happily accepted the offer, bringing the hand not embraced by Louis's to rest on his husband's lower back. The scent of Louis's cologne had faded throughout the night to the point it was an undertone to his normal smell, sweetening it. This smell enveloped Lestat so that he was almost transported back to Spring days in the fields of Auvergne, picking berries from bushes and apples from trees, dancing in honey-coloured rays of sun.
They did not really "dance" per se— they simply held each other and swayed but that was all Lestat needed. He needed to be warm. He needed to be held and loved. He needed to laugh and cry and live.
He needed Louis.
They must have danced for at least an hour, continuing long after Louis's phone had died halfway through Clair de Lune. However, they did not need music— they could create enough of a song to sway to even in the silence; heartbeats twirling together to create a finer melody than even the greatest composers could have created.
And Lestat would have said that this was a new beginning but, in reality, it wasn't. His heart, his soul, his very self had been tied to Louis since fate had etched their names into existence, and would continue to belong to Louis even after death did them part.