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Christmas was a different beast in New Orleans.The humidity in the air didn't care that the calendar marked the end of December. It clung to the wrought iron of the French Quarter like a damp wool blanket, smelling of river silt, roasting coffee, and the cloyingly sweet peppermint of the tourists' cocktails.
Louis stood on the balcony of a townhouse he was valiantly pretending was nothing but a temporary residence. He had a glass of high-proof rum in his hand. It tasted like watered-down dust, really, but he still liked the way it burned on the way down. He liked the way the amber liquid caught the light of the streetlamps, too. Below him, the city was vibrating. Carols drifted from a nearby bar, mangled by a brass band into something syncopated and louche.
His mind was quite restless tonight. He was thinking about the word husband. It was a heavy word, a word with teeth, and lately, it had been sitting on the back of his tongue every time he looked at Lestat. But more than that, he was thinking about the Midnight Mass taking place in St. Augustine’s right now.
He hadn't stepped foot in a church for anything other than a tactical conversation or a momentary refuge in a very long time. Since the last time he and Lestat had taken Claudia out and watched the New Orleans skyline fade into the dark, Christmas had been nothing more than a logistical hurdle. A time when the blood was easier to find because people were drunker and more prone to walking down dark alleys.
But being back here, in the thick, wet heat of his home, their home, the ghosts were calling out to him. He could almost hear the rustle of his mother’s silk Sunday dress, the scent of the incense that used to make him sneeze as a boy. He could practically see Grace fussing with her hair, or her earrings, or her make up, always late for church. He could admit to himself today that he missed the ritual. He missed the idea that there was a season for love and family, even for beings like them. Especially for beings like them.
"You are staring at the street again, mon cher. It is a very drab street. Why must you treat the pavement like a long-lost lover?"
Louis’ lips pulled at sides, an almost smile. He didn't turn around; he didn't have to. The air in the room behind him had already changed, charged with that frantic, golden energy that followed Lestat de Lioncourt like a tailwind.
"It's nearly Christmas, Les," Louis murmured.
Lestat sauntered onto the balcony, his silk shirt unbuttoned to a degree that was frankly illegal in several states. He leaned against the railing, his profile sharp and beautiful against the neon glow of the Quarter. "Ah, yes. The season of insipid bells and the worship of a babe in a manger. I have never understood the appeal of a holiday that celebrates such cramped living conditions. Why a stable? With the smells? C'est ridicule."
Louis cut a look at him, a small, tired smile tugging at his lips. "It’s about more than the stable. It’s about... being home."
Lestat’s posture shifted. The flippancy didn't vanish, but it thinned. He looked at Louis, his blue-gray eyes searching. "You are feeling the pull of the old superstitions, mon cher? The bells are ringing in your blood?"
"I haven't had a tree since 1939," Louis said, surprised by the honesty in his own voice. "I haven't hung a single light. I haven't bought a gift that wasn't a bribe or a necessity. I've been... I've been cold for a long time, Lestat."
Lestat reached out, his fingers grazing Louis’s sleeve, hesitant. This was their dance: the long reach and the sudden pull-back. "Then we shall buy a tree," Lestat announced, his voice regaining its performative volume. "We shall buy the largest, most offensive tree in the Louisiana territory! I shall drape it in enough tinsel to be seen from the moon! Tu seras ébloui, Louis! You will be so festive you will grow a white beard and begin sliding down chimneys!"
You will be dazzled, Louis!
Louis laughed, a low, rumbling sound that made Lestat’s pupils blow wide. "I don't want a moon-visible tree, Les. I just... I want to remember what it feels like to wait for something good."
~~**~~**~~
The next three nights were a descent into holiday madness that only Lestat could orchestrate.
If Louis wanted Christmas, Lestat was going to give him Christmas until his fangs ached. He didn't just buy a tree; he bought a fifteen-foot spruce that required three very dazed looking day-laborers to fit through the front door.
"Lestat, the tip is touching the ceiling rose," Louis said, standing in the parlor with his arms crossed. "The wood is going to crack."
"The wood is honored to be touched by such a magnificent specimen!" Lestat cried from the top of a mahogany ladder. He was currently trying to string hand-blown glass ornaments from Prague (Louis wasn’t even going to ask how he’d procured them so late in December), while balancing a glass of blood-warmed wine in the other. This was going to end in disaster, Louis knew.
"Fledgling! Why are you standing there like a gargoyle?״ Lestart barked from his perch. “Help me with the decorations! The angel has a squint and I believe it is judging my technique!"
Daniel, who had been roped into this under the threat of having his typewriter thrown into the Mississippi, looked up from a box of tangled lights. "I'm a journalist, Lestat. Not an interior decorator for the undead. And for the record, the angel isn't squinting. It's horrified. By you and by this decor."
"Liar! Petit menteur! It is a masterpiece!" Lestat yelled, throwing a piece of loose tinsel at Daniel.
Louis watched them, the fledgling and the ancient, bickering like a pair of disgruntled old queens, and felt a warmth spread through his chest that had nothing to do with the bloon-rum he’s been nursing all night.
This was the noise he’d missed. The beautiful, chaotic friction of living with people who bothered to annoy you. The noise of a place full of love and comfort. Of home.
The realization hit him like a freight train. So hard, Louis had to stop himself from taking a step back from the shock. He was home. Really, truly, completely at home. In his favorite city, in this house that was decorated for him, with his best friend - and with Lestat. And his brash, over the top, annoyingly not annoying personality. And his scent and his voice. And his eyes, blue to the point of insanity, watching Louis carefully, lovingly, longingly. Louis was home. With his husband. With the goddamn motherfucking love of his fucking life.
"I'm going out," Louis said, the words tumbling out before he’d even finished thinking about them.
Lestat nearly fell off the ladder. "Out? Now? But we have not yet addressed the fireplace mantel! It requires greenery, Louis! It requires la splendeur!"
"I have errands to run, Les. Stay here. Try not to burn the house down with those vintage candles." Louis was already turning away from the scene in front of him.
“What about me?” Daniel quipped. He looked ridiculous, a frustrated crease in his brow as he tried, and failed, to detangle the lights.
“You’re staying here to make sure he doesn’t burn this house down,” Louis said with a smug smile and a condescending pat on Daniel’s shoulder. He pretended not to hear Daniel’s snort or Lestat’s indignant squawk as he pulled on his coat. The last thing he heard as he slipped out was Daniel telling Lestat, “Hear that, Frenchie? I’m the boss now.”
Louis stepped out into the night, the cool air hitting his face. He had a mission. He’d spent decades denying himself the pleasure of wanting things, but tonight, his want was a roar. He navigated the crowded sidewalks of Royal Street, slipping into the antique shops that stayed open late for the holiday rush.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he knew he'd feel it when he found it. And he did. He found it in the back of a dusty shop owned by a woman who looked like she herself had been part of the inventory since the 1800’s. It was a small, ornate music box, the wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. When he opened it, it didn't play a carol. It played a simplified, tinkling version of an aria from Don Giovanni.
Lestat’s favorite.
Louis paid for it without haggling, his heart hammering a rhythm against his ribs. He had the gift. Now he just needed the words. And the right time.
~~**~~**~~
Christmas Eve arrived with a thunderstorm, a true New Orleans deluge that turned the streets into rivers and the sky into a bruised purple. No official weather alarms had been set off, but Louis kept his eyes on his phone just in case. His city was a temperamental lady; she liked to keep you on your toes.
Inside the townhouse, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of pine and the heat of a hundred candles. Lestat was pacing the parlor, wearing a smoking jacket of deep burgundy velvet that made him look like a wayward prince. He was uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes constantly darting to Louis, who was sitting by the fire with a small pile of wrapped boxes on the table beside him. Louis noticed that ever since their stormy reunion, Lestat was... unsettled during storms. In ways he never was back then, before everything. Louis couldn’t bring himself to think about all the storms Lestat must have faced on his own. Starving and cold. Alone.
"You are strangely calm," Lestat said, stopping his pacing to loom over Louis. "The world is drowning outside, the bells are about to toll for the birth of a God who has no place for us, and you are sitting there like a saint in a stained-glass window. Ça me rend nerveux."
It’s making me nervous.
"I'm not calm," Louis said, looking up. "I'm just... I'm happy, Les."
Lestat flinched at the word. He dropped onto the ottoman at Louis’s feet, his bravado crumbling. "Happy. Here? With this ridiculous tree and the fledgling complaining about the cold?"
Yes. Those things did make him happy. But that’s not what he wanted Lestat to know.
"With you," Louis clarified.
Lestat’s breath hitched. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, flat box wrapped in silver paper. He held it out like it might explode. "I found this. It is... it is a trifle. A nothing. Un petit rien."
Louis took it, his fingers brushing Lestat’s skin, always so warm. Inside was a heavy gold signet ring. It wasn't new; the gold was soft and worn, and when Louis turned it over, he saw the engraving on the inside: L.L. 1910.
The year they met.
"I had it made years ago," Lestat whispered, his voice trembling. "I was going to give it to you, but I never found the right time. And then... well. I kept it. I thought perhaps I would throw it into the sea. But I couldn't bear to let go of the only thing that had both our names on it. The only proof I had of… of you. Of us."
Louis stared at the ring. The weight of it felt like a promise. He reached for the music box he’d hidden behind the sofa cushion and placed it in Lestat’s hands.
"I don't have a ring," Louis said, his voice thick. "But I have a song. One you don't have to play yourself."
Lestat opened the box. The delicate notes of the aria filled the room, competing with the rain drumming against the shutters. Lestat’s face crumpled. He looked at the box, then at Louis, and the look of pure, agonizing hope in his eyes was more than Louis could stand.
"Louis..."
"I'm done being alone, Lestat," Louis said, leaning forward until their foreheads touched. "I've been back in this city for months, and I've been waiting for the right moment to tell you that I'm not just staying because of a gallery, or a show, or any other bullshit excuse I’ve been feeding you. I'm staying for you.” He took a deep breath, while Lestat had stopped breathing altogether. In for a penny, right?
“I love you, Les.” Louis said. “I love you now, I loved you then. I loved you every day we were apart. I’m sorry I never said it. There are - there are reasons. They don’t matter now,” Louis had not planned on babbling so much. The speech he practiced in his head was much more dignified. But once he started he just couldn’t get himself to stop. “I’m done pretending this isn’t what I want. That you aren’t what I want. Because you are. Everything I want. Even when I don’t want it to be true. I don’t have a ring to give you. But I want to marry you anyway.”
Lestat made a sound, a choked, desperate sob, and threw his arms around Louis’s neck. They tumbled off the chair and onto the rug, a tangle of velvet and silk and raw, unshielded emotion.
"I thought you would never say it," Lestat cried into Louis’s shoulder, his French tripping over itself in his haste. "Mon Dieu, j'ai tellement attendu. Louis, mon cœur, ma vie… Je t'aime. Je t'aime plus que la lumière de la lune.."
My God, I waited so long. Louis, my heart, my life... I love you. I love you more than light of the moon.
Louis held him, his hands gripping the back of Lestat’s jacket, anchoring them both. "I know. I know you do."
They stayed like that for a long time, the music box playing its tiny, mechanical heart out while the candles flickered low. It was funny, Louis thought, all the years he’d spent running from this man, from this feeling, and all it took to bring him back was the scent of pine and the courage to admit he wanted to be home.
From the hallway, a dry, rasping voice broke the silence.
"Okay, look, I'm happy for you guys, really. Truly. It’s a Christmas miracle," Daniel stood in the doorway, holding a blood bag with a straw in it. "But if you start reciting poetry, I’m going to lock myself in the coffin and set it on fire. Some of us are trying to enjoy the holiday without the sound of soul-shattering reunions."
Lestat lifted his head from Louis’s chest, a tear-streaked, feral look in his eyes. "Go to sleep then, fledgling! Go to your dark hole! My husband and I have eighty years of Christmas to make up for!"
Louis laughed, pulling Lestat back down for a kiss that tasted like high-proof rum and the promise of a very long, very loud future.
"Merry Christmas, Lestat," Louis whispered against his lips.
"Joyeux noël, Louis" Lestat replied, his eyes bright with a light that finally matched the stars. "Viens ici. Kiss me again. I think the angel is finally satisfied."