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Lousianna, 1968
“To hot August nights.” Armand offers a toast as he and his best friend clink their bottles of pop and douse the charcoal briquets with liquid accelerant just before tossing a match on the grill.
Lestat turns on the ham radio resting on the patio table. Jay and the Americans are crooning a cool chart topper.
“Come a little bit closer
you’re my kind of man
so big and so strong
Come a little bit closer
I'm all alone
And the night is so long”
“There's nothing better than the smell of a charred cow and lighter fluid on a summer evening,” Lestat revels in a near orgasmic, culinary euphoria.
The first stars begin to speckle the sky and a waft of smoke from the grill twists in its ascent, reaching upwards towards the heavens as if trying to pluck a star from above the ether to better fuel the evening's feast preparations.
“You seemed close with…Antoinette, was it?” Armand goes in for the kill, needling for information.
“Always skipping hors d'oeuvres and the main course for dessert. Oui, it was Antoinette,” he clarifies. Setting the tomahawk on the grill, then taking a sip of cola he explains, "but it became tedious far too quickly.”
Lestat's mastiff Nico trots over when let outside by Armand. He whines. Lestat responds, “there's some for you too, my puppy.”
Armand gently rubs the dog's ears, which Lestat had refused to allow the vet to crop. The dog farts, then flops on his back to allow for belly rubs.
“Pfft! I swear, you and I should just have joint custody. He never submits to anyone, not even my mother. Never allows anyone close enough to pet him, save for you and me,” Lestat observes, completely mystified while turning over the meat, ”What's Solderini like? She give good…anything?”
Armand seems to pause, marinating in some as-of-yet undisclosed train of thought while continuing to shower Nico with belly loves. “She was a.. professional.”
“I thought you said she was a freshman, like we were,” Lestat shoots him a raised eyebrow of inquisition.
Armand shrugs, “So I thought. But when she demanded payment..well, I wasn't interested in a bruised ego and checkbook. Until then, her mouth was exquisite. Antoinette?”
“Too eager. It was flattering of course, but when it became more about being her trophy rather than a friend, I admit, I lost interest.”
Lestat is running on no food, plus a couple of his mom's beers, a.k.a. liquid courage, he'd downed after she'd left before heading out with her friend Pandora for the night.
“Boys are so much less complicated; there's a different sort of connection there..more real, I suppose,” he cautiously lays down, his stomach churning a bit from lack of food and nerves, still unsure how Armand will take the news.
The subject of boys liking boys had come up a time or two between he and Armand in high school, given the two were pretty confident they could zero in on who that applied to.
Back then, Lestat had gaged Armand carefully, and the guy had seemed alarmingly chill about it. Although this is the first time it's been broached regarding one of them directly, Lestat's really hoping Armand is someone in whom he can confide his happy news.
The tomahawk is ready so Lestat removes it from the grill and sets it on the table tray, then runs inside for watermelon slices and potato salad. The song ends and the Drifters come on.
“This magic moment
so different and so new”
“Are we speaking from experience or are we musing in more hypotheticals?” Armand asks with a demon-like curiosity.
It's now or never. “I've met someone at Tulane. Actually, it's more correct to say, I've reconnected with someone…”
Armand is out of his chair, gripping Lestat's shoulders, ready to shake the life out of him if he doesn't spill right then and there. “You must tell me who?!?!”
“But like any other
Until I kissed you”
Lestat can't help but melt into a completely foolish lovesick smile thinking about the guy who has utterly stolen his heart.
“You don't want to say?” Armand's ire is beginning to show, “If you tell me their name, I'll tell you my secret lover.”
Lestat's eyes are the size of saucers now. He finishes off his pop and grabs two more from the Coleman cooler beside the grill. “Are we really doing this?”
“And then it happened
It took me by surprise”
Armand's face is resolute, as if he wants to know this information more than anything else in the world and keep it without judgment. “Tell me, please.”
“I knew that you felt it too,
by the look in your eyes”
Taking a deep breath, the name falls from Lestat's lips like an angel's most reverent prayer. “Louis.”
“Du Lac? Are you serious- oh you're so gone. I can see. This is unbelievable, he was my first crush!” Armand confesses with a mile wide grin, ”A little high strung, but a good guy.”
Lestat dead pans, then stares at him in horror.
“You've nothing to worry about,” Armand assures him, “it was a school boy crush. I've moved on. You and your secret are safe with me.”
“You're certain of this, it won't change anything?” Lestat truly wants to know.
A deep scarlet flushes across Armand's face as he shakes his head. “I'm certain, and it would be hypocritical of me, if I allowed that, wouldn't it?”
He practically hugs the life out of Armand in sincere gratitude. Now it's Lestat's turn to peer into Armand's beautiful brown eyes, yearning for the knowledge his dear friend has been keeping.
“After Bianca..Me and Molly…”
“What?! Coy Molloy and you?!!?”
With a sly smile, Armand quickly dispels his beloved of said rumor. “Not with me, he certainly isn't..”
The tomahawk falls off the bone and Lestat slices the meat onto both plates, saving a corner for his sweet boy.
“Nico! Mange!” he urges. The gentle giant swallows the morsel whole and woofs in gratitude.
Each grab some sides and sit, gulping down more pop before digging into the carnivorous coma buffet laid upon the patio table.
“So you and Louis…who broke first?” Armand begs in pure delight, like a school girl desperate for juicy gossip.
Lestat's eager to share and after swallowing his first bite of charred-to-perfection beef, he paints the picture.
“I pursued him, but can you blame me? He's beautiful. Got in a dramatic fight with his brother, in front of the theater actually,” Lestat giggles at the irony of it, ”I didn't recognize him at first, but Paul was rambling about Jesus and the birds and Louis sinning..I don't know what Paul was going to accuse him of, but Louis was finished with the discussion when he pulled his knife on him, saying he'd bleed him like pig if he didn't run back to their Maman.. Mon Dieu he was so-” he bites his fist so hard it almost bleeds and Armand breaks out in a fit.
“Found a better use for that mouth, I'll bet,” Armand suggests without shame.
“Absolument. I confess..I adore kissing men so much more than women. His lips are so soft. Worshipful. He's not perfect. No one is. But all his passion and catholic guilt…it does things to me, Armand.”
Armand appears to know first hand and prods further. “Have you two..?”
Shaking his head, Lestat admits, “Everything else though. You? What happened with you and Molloy at L Tech?”
“We were arguing about an assignment for a journalism class we both happened to be taking,” Armand growls in extreme irritation, “and he slips on a banana peel, cracks his head wide open, and when he comes to..the bastard keeps arguing with me, completely covered in blood even as the paramedics are taking him to the hospital. I suppose it's his tenacity which wore me down. That, and he seems to be under the impression I'm some sort of devil or gremlin or something. Its either fighting or fucking with him, and I honestly love it.”
“What the Hell even…” Lestat is utterly astonished by their relationship dynaics and the turn of the evening's events, but pleasantly so.
“I'm just as surprised as you, but at least we know now, yeah?” Armand cautiously puts forth.
"Of course my friend," Lestat agrees tapping Armand's cola with his own.
They stuff themselves to bursting and then set up their small tent under the stars. Before falling asleep that night, with Nico lodged between them, both are grateful for a friend who knows the truth, and has made plans to double date before they have to leave for the Fall semester.