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The first thing Louis notices upon waking up that evening is how close to him Armand is sleeping. They don’t usually cuddle in bed, and the feeling of warmth and safety he’s experiencing right now makes him wonder why they don’t do it more often.
The second thing is the fact that he’s not actually in bed, but inside a coffin. The previous day's events come crashing down on him with enough force to shake any remnant of sleep out of him.
The arm hugging him close, the head buried in his neck, the legs intertwined with his, they are not Armand’s, they’re... Lestat’s. He’s in a coffin, in New Orleans, with Lestat. Louis lets the brief moment of panic wash over him before steeling himself.
Mindfullness. He’s good at this. He starts breathing deeply, trying to categorize his current feelings without judging himself for them. It’s hard not to feel guilt when the main thing you’re experiencing after leaving your companion after 77 years is an overwhelming sense of relief. Easier when you remember that said companion orchestrated the murder of your daughter.
He lets himself feel the anger, at Armand, at himself, and yes, at Lestat.
Lestat.
He doesn’t even know how to begin untangling what he feels towards Lestat.
Lestat, sleeping peacefully for the first time in who knows how long. It’s hard to stay angry at this Lestat, who has clearly already been doing a good enough job at staying angry with himself for the past 80 years. He still can’t believe the way he has been living.
Not that Louis had been thriving. Yes, he had all the money and luxuries in the world, a man who gave him all the affection he wanted, and plenty of humans who offered their blood to him at his command, but he might as well have been in prison.
What Lestat had been doing on the other hand was... something else. Levels of self-loathing and self-flagellation that reminded him of himself in the years after Claudia had left their home. Claudia. Armand really had the nerve to tell him that he should be over it after 70 years.
Before he can begin to get angry again, he feels Lestat starting to stir next to him, humming softly.
“Louis?” he whispers.
“Right here,” he smiles softly, running his fingers through his hair. “Did you sleep well?”
A nod against his chest.
“I’m glad you insisted on sleeping in the coffin, you know,” says Louis lightly. “I forgot how cozy it is.”
“You don’t have to coddle me, Louis.”
He was about to argue, but yes, he was doing that. Lestat had started panicking when Louis had suggested sleeping on the bed, not wanting to hear reason when he had explained the concept of blackout curtains to him.
He’d chastised himself when he’d realized that even a minor chance of the sun touching Louis was probably the last thing Lestat wanted to think about.
“Sorry, I just-“ he tries to apologize, before Lestat interrupts him.
“No, please. Don’t say that to me,” he sighs. “I’m the one who has to say sorry, for so many things, I... I don’t want to hear it from you. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Now you know that’s not true.”
“Still, if we had to compare-“
Louis stops him before he can continue. “Okay. Okay listen, I know I said we’d talk today, but let’s just... let’s wait a moment, let’s do it right.”
As soon as the words are out of his mouth he can hear how stupid they sound. What would the “right” way to discuss the attempted murder of your husband and the events that led to your daughter’s death even be?
“Do it right, what- what does that even mean?” scoffs Lestat. “Shall we discuss it over dinner, or, or maybe make a nice PowerPoint presentation-“
“A Power- how do you even know what that is?”
“I’m not an idiot Louis,” he snaps.
Louis lets out a long sigh. He can’t see this going well if they are already arguing over something as trivial as a poor choice of words on his part. This feels eerily familiar to the start of thousands of arguments they had, but he’s immediately brought back to the present when Lestat... sobs.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I-“ he shakes his head. “I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I don’t want to fight with you, I never want to fight with you again.”
Louis blinks quickly, taken aback. He’s still getting used to this fragile version of Lestat.
“Hey, hush now, it’s okay. It’s all okay, don’t cry. Let’s start over, alright?” he reassures him. He runs his hand up and down Lestat’s back gently until he feels him take a deep breath and nod.
“First of all, let’s get out of here so we can actually see each other,” he says while opening the lid.
Louis gets out first and turns on the light. He’s relieved to see that Lestat is already looking better than the previous night.
“What I meant to say before is, let’s not jump into it straight away. Let’s go out, let’s find someone to eat, let’s clear our minds for a second. Hunger is not good for talking,” he smiles at him.
“I’m not hungry.”
Louis frowns and sighs worriedly. “Lestat, you have to eat.”
The other man closes his eyes defeatedly. “Alright. If it’ll make you happy.”
*****
The search for a victim took longer than Louis had anticipated. The storm had calmed down, but not many people were feeling safe enough to just have an evening stroll around town.
Louis was grateful for the extra time. He had no idea where to even start.
They are back at the hotel now, sitting comfortably on the large bed, Louis’ back against the headboard and Lestat next to him, cross-legged and facing him. He’s the first one to break the silence.
“Can I talk now?”
Louis nods.
“Let’s get this out of the way first,” he says, avoiding the other’s eyes. “It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.”
Louis starts to argue, shaking his head, “No, Lestat-“
“Please don’t, Louis. Don’t interrupt me, and don’t try to deny it,” he sighs. “We both know it’s true.”
“We are the ones who planned your murder,” he reminds him with a pained expression.
“Oh please, you had every reason to do so,” scoffs Lestat. “The way I treated you both, I... it’s my fault from start to finish. Shall I list all the ways in which I caused the death of our daughter?”
“You really don’t have to,” Louis tries to stop him, but Lestat is determined to prove his point.
“If I’d told you what I knew, Claudia wouldn’t have left home, if Claudia hadn’t left you wouldn’t have been depressed, and you wouldn’t have resented me. We wouldn’t have fought, I wouldn’t have ruined our family by making you so scared of me that the only way out you saw was killing me,” Lestat says quickly. “You never would have gone to Paris if I’d warned you about the coven-“
“You did try to warn us-“
“... and you never would have been in this situation in the first place if I hadn’t turned Claudia.”
Louis laughs in disbelief.
“Yeah, why not go back to you turning me then, would have avoided everything right from the start.”
“Exactly.”
“No- Lestat no, I’m not agreeing with you, I’m saying you’re being ridiculous!” shouts Louis.
“Why are you trying to defend me?” shouts Lestat back, throwing his hands in the air.
He takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration.
“Blaming yourself for everything that happened in the last 100 years is not going to fix anything,” says Louis gently. “I’m not going to allow you to spend the rest of your life in this... self–harm prison you built for yourself.”
“Self–harm prison. That’s good,” he laughs under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You want to deny that? Really?” Louis raises his eyebrows. “Living in a ruin, wearing clothes that are so old they are falling apart- ” “My robe is perfectly functional.” “Playing on a wooden keyboard-” “There’s a study about- ” “Starving yourself.”
Lestat crosses his arms defensively and looks away, swallowing hard.
“Listen, I’ve been there. You know I have,” Louis tries patiently, trying to catch his eyes. “But you can’t go on like this.”
The silence stretches between them before Lestat speaks again.
“That guilt Louis... sometimes it’s so heavy that I can barely breathe,” his voice breaks. “How am I supposed to just... live life, like I didn’t look her in the eyes while her body turned to ashes.”
Louis closes his eyes against the wave of nausea that hits him at the thought. He grabs Lestat then, making him lie down against him, and the older vampire immediately accepts the comfort, sobbing softly against his chest.
Louis wishes he could avoid the question he’s about to ask, but it’s what’s been plaguing him the most for the past decades, and he needs to know before they continue. He’s grateful that he can’t see Lestat’s face when he asks.
“Why were you there? Why- ” he swallows. “Why come to Paris, why participate in that trial? If you say now that you deserved what we did to you, that you never wanted Claudia’s death, then why the hell did you do that?” he spits out the last part bitterly, sinking his nail in Lestat’s back.
He sits up a bit then, looking at Louis with red-rimmed eyes.
“I felt Armand’s mind calling me one day. He told me that he’d found out what happened to me, that he was horrified and he wanted to help me,” he starts explaining. “I was weak, no matter how many people I managed to drain, my body would not recover from...”
Louis nods, blinking hard.
“I knew that his blood could help. I know now that I was foolish to believe him, that I should have realized it was a trap,” he laughs bitterly, his eyes cold.
“What happened?” asks Louis, dreading the answer.
“He played nice when I finally arrived in Paris. Acted like he was genuinely worried about me. He comforted me, asked me if I wanted to talk about what happened. Next thing I remember I was locked in Magnus’ tower,” his tone is detached, like he’s just recounting a story he read somewhere. It gives Louis the chills. “Armand, he’s really good at what he does. He gave me his blood one day, starved me for the next ten. Beat me and then washed my hair with all the gentleness he’s capable of. Told me about how you made love to him and then described to me what he’d do to you for harming me.”
Louis felt sick.
“By the time I was on that stage, I barely knew what was real anymore. I know it sounds insane, but... he was in my mind, constantly. I couldn’t think clearly, I was afraid of what he’d do if I didn’t comply, afraid he’d somehow harm you even more.”
Louis still struggles to reconcile the Armand who lived by his side during the past 77 years with the Armand that was being painted by the events that transpired in the last days, and now by what Lestat was telling him. How could he have been so blind?
“I probably could have refused, run away somehow, but I knew the trial would happen anyway, with or without me,” he says with his eyes down. “I thought... ‘if I’m here maybe I can do something, maybe I can save them’.”
He looks up at Louis then.
“You have to believe me, I would have saved her too if I had the strength, but I... I had to choose, I had to...” he breaks down then, leaning back against Louis.
“Hey. Hey, I know. I know that now.” He can feel himself starting to lose it as well.
“I had to choose and I know it’s horrible but... I knew I could survive her death,” he sobs. “Well, I barely did. I wouldn’t have survived yours.”
Louis closes his eyes against the tears starting to fall. He feels frozen in the face of so much pain, no words that might comfort Lestat coming to him. He can only hold him closer.
“Armand is dangerous, Louis. His mind gift is amongst the strongest of any of us. He can make people do what he wants, believe what he wants-” Lestat stops talking when he feels Louis nodding, and he looks up at him.
“What did he do to you?”
He feels Lestat’s anger in the question.
“Apart from betraying me and selling us out?” he scoffs. Lestat just looks at him.
“He... I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out the extent of it, but...” he swallows hard. “He altered my memories. Fogged my mind. Deleted some things, replaced others,” he nods, blinking back tears.
Lestat takes his face in his hands, looking at him intensely, now his turn to remain speechless.
“I don’t know how much of it was my mind blocking shit out and how much was him but-“ he can’t hold back the tears anymore, Lestat wiping them gently with his thumbs. “He tainted my memories of... of you, of her. I’m sorry, god Lestat I’m sorry,” he sobs.
Lestat shakes his head. “Louis, what... ssshh no, no I’m sorry. I should have never left you with him,” he looks down. “I thought I was punishing myself at the time by letting you go with him, but I see now that I punished you too...”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself for what he did to me.”
Louis can’t stand to look at the pain on Lestat’s face any longer, and he knows he needs to keep talking, he needs to make him understand.
“I saw you, all the time. When I was with him, I saw you all the time.”
Lestat shakes his head confused.
“You were there with me, always. In your best suits, or... or with blood pouring out of your throat,” he shivers, briefly closing his eyes. “You were laughing at me, or comforting me, hyping me up or cursing me out. But you were there.”
He nods, unable to look at Lestat’s face.
“And they knew. I know they did. Armand knew, and... and Claudia knew. And they both hated me for it but I just couldn’t let you go.”
Lestat surges forward then, closing the distance between them for the first time in almost 80 years. Their lips meet in a desperate kiss, their tears mixing with each other's.
“I missed you, Louis,” he says between kisses. “I missed you so much I couldn’t breathe.”
“I know,” he nods desperately. “I know. I missed you too.”
Louis moves then, pushing Lestat against the mattress. He covers his face in kisses, on his forehead, his cheeks, his neck. He’s seized by a passion, a need he hasn’t felt in years, and he captures his lips again, deepening the kiss.
It’s then he realizes that Lestat’s sobs are growing in intensity instead of calming down, and he stops to gather him once more in his arms.
“Sorry, I can’t... I can’t seem to stop crying today,” he says shakily. “It’s just... it's a lot.”
Louis doesn’t want to think about how long it’s been since the last time someone touched Lestat with kindness.
“I know, it’s okay. Just let it out,” he says, planting another kiss in his hair. “That was too fast, I overwhelmed you.”
“I’m the one who started it.”
“Still...” he chuckles softly.
When Louis went to find Lestat he didn’t know what intentions he had. He just needed to run away from Armand and his lies, and he needed to see him, to tell him that he knew, and that he was sorry.
He needed time for himself, to figure out who he was after decades of being unknowingly controlled and shaped by another person. He couldn't fall headfirst in Lestat's pull again, but having him close was making his resolve falter significantly.
As soon as the extent of Armand's deception came to light, the wall of rage that was separating him from Lestat crumbled in seconds, leaving in its stead a stretch of pain, of loneliness, an ache for him unlike anything he'd felt before. For the first time in decades, he had felt the toll of what living without a part of himself had done to him. Lestat's absence was like a missing limb.
“She’d hate this,” Lestat whispers after a while. “She’d hate you for coming back to me.”
Louis ponders for a moment before answering.
“She loved you, Les.”
He lets out a sound, between a laugh and a sob, clearly not believing Louis’ words.
“She did. She hated you, and she resented you, but she loved you as well.” He feels Lestat’s tears soaking his shirt. “And yes, maybe she would have hated this, but...”
Louis takes a deep breath, bracing himself for what he’s about to say. Seventy years and it’s still nearly impossible to utter the words. He pushes Lestat back from him so that he can look him in the eyes.
“She’s dead. Claudia’s dead,” a sharp intake of breath. “We aren’t. God knows we both wished we were during these years, but we aren’t. So we have to live, for her, you hear me?”
Lestat opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He shakes his head.
“No, Lestat, answer me. Do you hear me?”
“I don't know if I can...” he whispers brokenly.
“I’m here. I’m not leaving you again. We are together, in whatever way you want, and we’re gonna get through this.”
Lestat just stares at him unconvinced.
“I know you don’t believe it right now, but trust me... can you?” he adds, suddenly realizing that he’s not the only one who has been betrayed by his partner. “Can you trust me Lestat? I understand if you can’t-“
“No, I... I do. I do trust you,” he reassures him. “Not sure if I trust myself.”
Louis feels his heart breaking again.
“That’s okay. Just... let me take the lead for a while. We’re going to be okay.”
Lestat hugs him again, and Louis almost allows himself to believe his own words.