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Louis wasn’t having a good day. There was no rhyme or reason for the stormy melancholy clouding his thoughts, but still it persisted. He did everything he could think of; had a feline snack, took a look at the Dubai skyline, revisited one of his favorite Hughes novels, yet nothing mitigated this wave of depression.
Existing in a perpetual state of physical shock and despair after the circumstances surrounding his turning all those years ago was something he’d come to accept along with other confronting realizations, but being eternally depressed was something that he never fully got over. He’d learned to maintain it to the best of his vampiric ability on some days, and on others, he was left with this: laying on his side in his newly-purchased coffin, absentmindedly scratching shallow patterns into the polished mahogany lid.
The only thing, or rather person, who could bring him out of his gloom in the modern day was Lestat, who currently leaned on the outside of it and half-hummed a song of which the title was a lost memory in both of their minds.
“You’ve been lying awake in there for quite some time, chéri,” he said. The rhythm of his heart hadn’t slowed with Louis’, telling him he yet hadn’t fallen asleep. “Shall I come in and sing you to sleep?”
“I’m not tired,” Louis replied, still scratching away. “Just need somethin’ to occupy myself with until I’m outta this rut.”
Lestat sighed. “Well, you know I’m here. Tout ce que vous voulez, I’ll do it.”
Louis hummed back. This was his acknowledgment when he couldn’t say “I love you”. Lestat knew this, and tried his best to keep his spirits high to compensate for their absence within his beloved.
“Get in here, mon cher,” Louis mumbled. Lestat, of course, wasted no time in listening, tossing open the coffin and slipping inside.
He huddled up to Louis, face to face, before closing the unlocked lid on the two of them. There wasn’t much he could make out regarding Louis’ features in the dark, cramped space. It was almost entirely black, but he could still see an outline of his nose and a small glint of the green in his eyes.
“Salut,” he whispered.
“Hello,” Louis whispered back. The warmth of his skin against his nose made him feel all too mortal as they lay with their chests aligned.
“Comment puis-je aider? J’sais que chanter ne suffira pas.” Lestat knew his way around Louis’ body after so many years together, and so, even in darkness, he easily placed his hand on the nape of his neck and massaged the area in silence as he awaited a response.
“Stay with me like this,” he said. “Hold me like you’re holdin’ me now. I like it when you’re up close.”
“Of course. I’d never deny such a request.”
Lestat gently pushed Louis’ head forward with his first two fingers so their foreheads touched. They were only inches apart, and it was clear that they both needed to find it within themselves to be slow and tender. Within seconds, almost naturally, their lips found each other. Louis placed a hand on Lestat’s toned arm and rubbed the silk pajamas as they kissed, caressing him as if it were their first night together. It was gentle and artless to know each other so well in the absence of light, moving in ways which they had done so many times before.
Love wasn’t a cure for depression, but having Lestat with him in these lulling moments undoubtedly helped. He felt less alone in such an isolating existence; his self-flagellating internal monologue overtaken by the soft beating of their hearts in sync.
Louis was first to pull away. “I wish I could see you.”
Wordlessly, Lestat lifted the lid slightly so the light of the coffin room bounced off of his sculpted face. His cheeks were flushed an embarrassed shade of pink, and his lips were shiny from their short-lived kissing session. From where he lay, he could see Louis again, too. A small smile fell upon his face, and the warm lighting brought out the undertones in his brown skin. The previous glint in his eyes was brighter than when they were closed in, and he was intent on saving this moment in the rolodex of the many times Louis’ beauty captured him entirely.
“Happy?” he asked plainly.
“A little more than before,” Louis said.
“That is better than nothing, chéri,” he replied, closing the lid on them once more.
Louis sighed into Lestat’s resumed touch, trying to clear the negativity clouding his vision and live in the moment. Vampirism offered him an eternity, and he wanted to find peace in that over all else; he wanted to be alone with Lestat, not his painful thoughts. His hand slid from the arm to his waist, lightly caressing the exposed skin beneath his button-up. A minute later, and he was intentionally touching under the pajamas, wishing he could be closer to Lestat despite their current proximity. Returning the favor, Lestat moved the grip from the back of his neck to his hips—which required some shuffling—and ran his hands over the area. If he tried hard enough, he could wrap both of them around Louis’ waist.
“I like touchin’ you,” Louis whispered. Lestat could hear the smile in his voice.
“Believe me, the feeling is quite mutual,” he replied.
The silence resumed as they rediscovered each other for the thousandth time. Over and over, they’d touch every inch of the body before them and fall into the loving caress of the other. To appreciate and be appreciated in such a simple way eased Louis into a better place, and though he could still feel some of that familiar anguish in the back of his mind, he fought to stay present with what, or rather whom, mattered most aside from himself.
As always, they got handsy. Even in their most modest moments, it somehow managed to happen. Regardless of who began what in the transition to arousal, it was rare that they didn’t continue. In Louis’ state of dejection, this called for one of those rare occasions. He had nowhere near the energy required for it, and that’s not where he was mentally even if Lestat took full control. Being unable to explain this telepathically, he knew he’d have to vocalize it.
“Let’s stay how we are. I don’t want nothing else for now, okay?” he said.
Lestat nodded, returning one hand Louis’ waist, and placing the other on the back of his head. He had until the end of the world to find a better time.
“I just want to make you feel better, chéri,” Lestat said, kissing the corner of Louis’ mouth not by choice, but rather that his aim was off in the darkness. “That’s certainly not the only reason for my touching, but…!”
Louis chuckled, leaning his forehead against Lestat’s shoulder. “Oh, I’m sure, you imp.”
“I’m being honest, am I not? What imp tells truths?” Lestat lightly caressed the back of Louis’ head, feeling warmed by the closeness. “You are most desirable, chéri. That’s all I wanted to express.”
“The feeling is quite mutual,” Louis echoed his previous sentiment. He grew limp. “I just can’t.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he laughed, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I care more about your present situation than something we’ve done ten thousand times over.”
Louis sighed and found Lestat’s fingers on his waist in the newfound silence, covering them with his own. Things were so much different than they were only a few months ago; he’d lived what felt like a hundred lifetimes by then. Processing, grieving, living and somehow even more processing had taken its toll on him, and he figured that’s where most of his initial desolation manifested. All of these things he’d done in so little time after being encircled by carefully-designed grayness was overwhelming; now was the time to decompress in the arms of the one living person he knew he could entrust his vulnerability to.
“I have an idea,” Lestat perked up in the lulling quiet.
“Oh no,” Louis teased.
“Tu es si méchant avec moi,” he half-heartedly complained. “Listen before you go protesting! Perhaps I could climb out of the coffin and grab one of your countless books and read to you, hm?”
Louis softened at the idea of the rumble of his companion’s baritone voice narrating the stories he so often got lost in. Lestat’s absence as he rummaged through the vast library would be less than ideal, but he knew he’d be back with a swiftness. He agreed to the plan and watched and Lestat stepped one, then two feet out of the coffin and left him lonely as his footsteps grew more inaudible.
Sometimes, he wished he could read Lestat’s mind, as he was sure Lestat wished the same for his thoughts. He wanted to know what ran through his head as he looked at the recently installed, entirely filled bookshelves covering each wall of the designated reading room. How many of the stories was he familiar with? What atmosphere was he trying to create with his choice? Louis couldn’t tell, rather laying there in a very human way until Lestat returned to bring him the answer.
Soon enough, he returned with multiple novels and a humble smile on his face. Before Louis could assume anything, he snuggled in beside him and filled him in on the decision.
“There were so many to choose from, I couldn’t pick just one. I figured my Louis would like to make a choice of his own, so I brought two titles for you; Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania or, The Intermediate Sex?”
“Of all the books you could’ve chosen, you picked the two I’ve read the most?” Louis laughed earnestly. “Read the second one. I love Carpenter’s work.”
“I know you do,” was all he said.
Louis didn’t reply, instead letting Lestat read along the lines with the thin crack in the coffin lid which was held up by the few other novels he’d grabbed. Words couldn’t express the security he felt with Lestat by his side on such a horrible day.
He cleared his throat, “In late years (and since the arrival of the New Woman amongst us) many things in the relation of men and women to each other have altered, or at any rate become clearer. The growing sense of equality in habits and customs—university studies, art, music, politics, the bicycle, etc.—all these things have brought about a rapprochement between the sexes.”
Lestat continued on with paragraph after paragraph delving into sexual liberation, homosexuality and what that meant for the new age of early nineteenth century men and women. Neither he nor Louis needed to read such a book to understand the gradual social shift toward their acceptance, but in Louis’ mind, knowing other men like him existed in that era made him feel a little less alone in such persistent isolation.
Louis shifted so his head was directly in the crook of Lestat’s neck. Having two bodies in one coffin was inevitably uncomfortable, but he found comfort in the softness in that little pocket of warm skin. His nose brushed against the sensitive tissue, and Lestat tried his best not to shiver through the next sentence.
“There is another point which has become clearer of late. For as people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that love and friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct—are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are—” Lestat stopped narrating. Louis’ caress had stiffened, and he knew then that he’d fallen asleep. It always felt like such a large accomplishment when this would happen. He smiled knowing that no one but himself would witness it.
Lestat placed the book on his thigh while he nudged the other two off of the coffin’s edge, closing the lid for the final time. He put his hand back on Louis’ waist and hummed rewardingly. His beloved was taken care of, even if moderately, and that was where the pride manifested. He hoped that when Louis awoke, he’d feel refreshed and that storm in his head had passed much like the others that had lingered and eventually passed before. There would be more storms to come with time, that was for certain; but it was these special moments that made them worth enduring.
“Bien dormir, mon cher. May your dreams be filled with clearer skies,” he whispered, meaning every word.