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His eyes. The taste of his lips. The feel of his hand in my own.
Feelings and sensations which had long been dulled with time. Nothing feels dulled now.
“Murder? What murder?”
Molloy’s words taunt me. In the small corner of my mind where I can finally think, suffused in memory, his words find me there.
“Where does the trash go, Louis?”
Rusted, broken cogs slowly start to turn.
“Was it raining, Louis?!”
Something had been off that night we left New Orleans. I had known it even if I hadn’t seen it, hadn't seen Lestat's machinations at work in the form of a most hated woman. And something feels off now as well, though I am no closer to seeing the cause here than I had been all those years ago. It remains just out of reach, like a forgotten word stuck right on the tip of my--
“Louis, my love?”
What was I thinking.. what was I just…
I tilt my head in his direction but do not turn to him, lost in thought.
“Hmm?”
“You are thinking about him again, aren’t you?”
The words cause a stir in me, the hair on my arms rising. I suppress a shiver, confused at my reaction.
“Yes.”
I am honest with Armand, always. He sees into my soul the way no other has before, the way none will after him.
“After me, Louis? What will you find after me, dearest?”
His hands come to rest on my shoulders, sharp nails resting just so on the exposed skin of my clavicle.
“Nothing.”
Honesty, always.
I tilt my head back and meet his smiling mouth with my own. His lips are soft, warm, and always so gentle, but the taste… what is wrong with this taste?
The discomfort in me grows, ever stranger, ever stronger, and a frown pulls my brows together. I move to turn my mouth away from him, but Armand’s fingers have crept quietly up to my chin, to my neck, halting the movement.
“I have neglected you, my love.” He speaks against my mouth, our lips brushing with his every word. “In the excitement of Mr Molloy’s stay with us, we have not truly had time alone together, have we?”
Usually, such a proposition would fill me with joy. Just hours before Daniel’s arrival, I had so happily partaken of Armand’s flesh and he of mine.
But now… dread? Sorrow? What are these queer feelings doing within me, so out of place in the quiet peace of my mind?
“Armand… something feels wrong.”
“Yes, I imagine it does.” He sighs, pulling away. “Well. What is to be done about that?”
___
I dream of him sometimes. Dream of his arms around me. Dream of his breath, panting and sated, against my throat. Dream of his eyes looking into mine, their loving depths sucking me in in in.
Lestat…
Even thinking his name, even just in my mind, in my heart, feels dangerous.
My eyes dart around the room, though I know I am alone. I don’t know why I do it, what it is that scares me, but I do.
“We are joined by a cord, by a cord that you cannot see, but it is real. It is real.”
Tears sting my eyes, dark and bloody, clouding my vision. I try to hold them back but they spill out, pour from me, as they sometimes are wont to do when I can think of him. As they did that night. I swipe at my face, but they keep coming.
My heart swells with half-forgotten feeling. Sometimes, it feels like I must have loved him once, truly loved him. With all of myself, just as he had loved me. Sometimes it feels as though I still—
My thoughts grow heavy, lethargic. Half-formed ideas, half-remembered thoughts, they all fall away from me, jumbled and messy just like the tears staining my face, until a single solitary thought remains.
You were never enough for Lestat, a quiet thought hisses across my mind.
Any love, any small, quiet yearning on my part, that was not the love Lestat had wanted or needed.
You would never have been enough.
Another thought comes to me, viper fast, as the roots of the first thought sink deep into my mind:
The only love I have ever needed, ever truly needed… my only love..
I shake my head, confused by the intrusion of thought. Is this an intrusion? No. No.
The only love you need, Louis, forever…
Amber eyes and dark, curly hair. Slender fingers twisted tight into the hair at the nape of my neck.
The only love I will ever need…
Armand.
The love of my life.
The tears continue to fall, now forgotten.