Chapter Text
Once upon a time the annual de Pointe du Lac family holiday had surpassed Easter, Halloween, his birthday and Christmas as Louis's most anticipated time of year.
These days, he'd rather poke his eyes out with needles than spend two weeks trapped in a holiday house with his family.
Perhaps this change had happened because he'd grown up and reached the age where constantly being around one's family (plus Daniel who was, at this point, an honorary du Lac) had lost its appeal. However, Louis knew that whatever excuse he could give for not liking family holidays wouldn't suffice; it wouldn't be enough for himself, never mind anyone else. The truth was that, for years now, their holiday house had felt empty and, no matter how hard Louis tried to stretch himself to fill the ever widening gaps between everyone, there was always a frigidity to the air. Even before Paul was… gone… there had been that chill.
Alas, no matter how much he had begged Lestat to let the issue go, he refused. He was insufferably persistent. Lestat could be free whenever he wanted to be (everyone at his record company was too afraid of him to enforce any kind of schedule or deadline on him and he was their biggest moneymaker so keeping him happy was undoubtedly the best course of action) and was almost certainly the most stubborn person to ever live in the history of the human race. This meant that, every day for the past 6 months, they'd had this conversation:
"Mon cher?"
"Yes, Lestat?"
"Can I come meet your family this Summer?"
"No Lestat."
"Why must you deny me the simple privilege of meeting the people who raised the love of my life?"
(Yes, Louis did find it amusing how one of the biggest rock stars in the world periodically started speaking like he was from a different century altogether. He also found it quite cute. Lestat would never learn either of these facts).
Now, Louis had thought he might be able to get away with keeping Lestat far, far away from his mother forever. Of course, Louis's plans very rarely succeeded and this one seemingly wasn't any different. That being said, as he watched the death of his beautifully organised plan, Louis couldn't help but wish it hadn't happened in a fancy restaurant.
"You know, Lestat," Armand, Daniel's boyfriend (and Louis's ex, but that'd been a minor blip in time), "I really don't know what these du Lacs do on holiday, it's been making packing difficult."
Armand and Lestat had developed their own genre of banter which, to the untrained eye, would appear as a deep-set, seething hatred poorly masked with niceties but, no, they just liked to annoy the other. It was their love language it seemed and, with the snide smile now appearing on Armand's face, it was obvious that his words had hit exactly where he'd aimed.
"You're going to the house?" Lestat replied, obviously outraged.
"What? Hasn't Louis invited you?"
Louis glared at Daniel (in a way that clearly said "SHUT HIM UP") and went to kick him under the table. Somehow, however, he managed to kick Lestat instead.
"Ow!" Lestat yelped (pretending to be hurt, Louis had learned he had an almost concerningly high pain tolerance and being nudged forcefully in the shin would barely even register) "What was that for, mon cher?"
Lestat's voice was always the best indicator of how he was feeling at any point in time. Of course, this implied Lestat had mastered controlling his facial expressions. He certainly hadn't. In fact, Louis doubted Lestat even knew what "Stoic" meant. However the first signs of whatever was bubbling up inside of him always appeared in his voice before travelling to his face and then, eventually, his entire body. Usually, he spoke deliberately, pronouncing every syllable of every word as if he were delighted by its flavour, like he were at a wine tasting, drinking the kind of beverage food snobs would kill just to be in the same room as. Meanwhile, though he wasn't a slow speaker (had he been, Daniel certainly would have lost patience with him the first time Louis had dated him because he couldn't bear slow speakers), when he was upset, Lestat had a habit of speaking so that all his words sounded like one. This, Louis reasoned, was probably a product of French being his first language.
In that moment, Lestat's words slowly started to merge together and Louis knew they were in dire need of a change in topic. Alas, they were all doomed because Armand would. Not. Shut. Up.
"Well, Claudia's been bringing her girlfriend for the past few years—" Armand's grin grew wider, and Daniel and Louis just stared at him "—so Daniel said that I should be more than welcome. I just assumed that meant you were coming too…"
Louis wanted to slit Armand's throat with the knife their waiter had just placed down beside him. The waiter's appearance probably meant dinner was arriving soon but Louis was becoming increasingly concerned that the apocalypse would come before it did (which would be a shame, Louis had heard the fillet mignon here was magnificent).
Lestat's response was less an actual sentence and more a jumble of sounds which sounded vaguely French.
Daniel, for what might have been the first time in his life, had obviously decided keeping his mouth shut was the best course of action. Louis was inclined to agree.
Not even dinner arriving could save them now.
"Ummm excuse me," someone asked, appearing beside Lestat.
In some turn of events, one of Lestat's fans had arrived, having recognised him (or, "The Vampire Lestat," as he was known by the masses), and engaged him in conversation. Lestat, ever charming as he was, was momentarily distracted, even following the fan to their table to see their friend (whose birthday it was).
"What the fuck was that?" Louis hissed as soon as Lestat was somewhat out of ear shot, "And don't say 'I didn't realise'."
Armand blinked at him innocently, making Louis want to stab him again.
Daniel tried to jump in: "He'll forget by the time he gets back."
"No, he'll pretend to forget and then wake me up in the middle of the night and convince me."
"So say 'no'," Daniel shrugged.
Louis raised his eyebrows as if to say "He's very persuasive," causing Daniel to promptly rescind this advice.
The food arrived just before Lestat returned, bearing half a birthday cake and a charming grin. They ate. The fillet mignon was really as good as everyone had told him but would not be worth the icy taxi ride home.
"I hope you all have fun out on the lake," Lestat started as they got into the taxi. Their driver would be in for the most turbulent five minutes of his night. "I'll just be at home, writing music, picking lint off the sofa, thinking about you."
"It won't be fun, babe. I'll miss you every second of every day."
"Louis," Lestat sighed (he had the ability to make Louis's name sound so spectacularly elegant, drawing out the latter half of the word so it seemed less a word and more an entire poem) "don't pretend there is no possible solution to this issue. You do not want me there, I shall just have to find a way to survive with that knowledge."
His words were clipped as they so often were when upset turned to pettiness. Louis tried to hold strong but, as Lestat turned petulantly to stare out the car window, he could feel the draw of just saying "Fuck it, you can come too" because even being this far from him was too far.
Louis accidentally made eye contact with the driver in the rear-view mirror and watched him shrug helplessly.
Dammit.
"Fine," Louis sighed, "I'll talk to Grace about it."
Grace wouldn't say no even if they both knew their mother wouldn't be happy about it. Most years their mother wasn't happy Louis came at all but she wouldn't be happy if he didn't show up either. It was always going to be a "lose-lose" situation and Louis just had to hope Lestat wouldn't make it worse.
Either way, Lestat practically leapt across the back seat in order to embrace Louis, showering him with kisses in such a way Louis couldn't help but laugh whilst making a half-hearted effort to peel Lestat off him.
_
"Jesus, Louis, why are you asking me if you can bring your boyfriend? It's literally your holiday house," Grace all but yelled at him over the phone early the next morning.
The fact their father had left all of the family estates and businesses to Louis in his will had always been a sore topic for Louis. He hated it, to put it lightly, and hated the fact the Lake House was his lake house even more. Not that Grace, his dear sister, knew any of that.
"Besides, I'm sure Madeline and Levi would enjoy another outsider joining us considering I think they've said a total of 20 words to each other."
"Yeah, Gracie, I don't think Lestat is going to help mend any rifts in the family except for annoying Mama into liking Levi."
"Look he has a 'real job,' doesn't he? You said he went to law school, that should be enough for her."
Louis cringed, glad Lestat was still in the shower and hadn't been able to hear that (he had an almost supernatural ability to overhear things he shouldn't have). It's not that he'd lied per se— Lestat had gone to law school— he'd just omitted the truth. After all, how does one tell their family that one is dating the front-man of a band, never mind the front-man of a band deemed by many (specifically, his devoutly Catholic mother) as "Satanic". It had been hard enough from Claudia, his cousin, to admit she was an actress and when she told everyone (by announcing she was going to be on Broadway) his mother hadn't spoken to her for a month afterwards!
"Look I gotta get the kids to school, but we'll talk later, alright?"
Before he could reply, Grace had hung up, leaving Louis alone to dread what he knew was to come.
It wasn't that Mrs Florence de Pointe du Lac was a bad person. She hadn't even been a bad mother when it came down to it. A rift between her and Louis had just formed in recent years for which the former gave no explanation and the latter couldn't stop from widening. Louis's first theory was that it was because he was gay. This hypothesis was disproved when Claudia introduced everyone to Madeline. So Louis was forced to realise that it wasn't his sexuality that had seemingly turned his other against him but that he was gay, that her firstborn son liked men. Had Grace liked women, perhaps she wouldn't have given a shit, but Louis? Louis had to be everything she expected him to be, leaving him to struggle under the weight of an ideal impossible to achieve in even the most far-fetched of dreams.
"Did she say no?"
He hadn't heard the shower flick off and was suddenly wrenched from his train of thought by a freshly-washed Lestat. He was moping and his slight pout made him look all the more spectacular. Lestat had this habit of wearing his towel as low on his hips as possible (when he wore one at all, that is) which drove Louis mad and, even though his hair was still wet, he somehow didn't have the slightest resemblance to a drowned rat.
Suddenly, Louis had the realisation he could simply lie and say Grace didn't want him there. He wasn't going to but he could. Yet, even though he wouldn't admit it, Louis actually did want Lestat there. In fact, the thought of being away from him for two weeks caused his heart to twist to the point his blood could no longer circulate.
"No, she said you could come."
For a moment Louis forgot everything that was pushing him to the verge of a heart attack because Lestat began to beam like a kid on Christmas.
"Really?"
Louis nodded, somewhat taken aback by the sheer amount of joy exuding off Lestat; it was like the haze that forms above tarmac on the hottest day of the year.
This response was met with a flurry of French spoken at the speed of light as Lestat danced around the room like some kind of Disney Princess. While he could speak a passable amount of French, Louis just succumbed to the fact he wouldn't be able to keep up with the speed at which Lestat was talking and so he just sat back and marvelled at the spectacle.
"Y'know, I'm starting to think you're dating me just to go to a lake house," Louis smirked, leaning back onto the bed.
Lestat paused and turned toward him, wide eyed.
"Nononononon! Mon cher!" he pouted again, "How could you ever say that?"
Lestat then flopped down on the bed next to him, resting his head on Louis's shoulder. "I can buy the plane tickets because I know you haven't done that yet and what do your nieces and nephew like? I'll go buy them presents. Then I'll buy wine for your sister and her husband. Claudia prefers vodka, no? And I won't bother with Daniel because I always pay for his round. And how about your mother?…" he continued, talking almost ridiculously fast as Louis mindlessly fidgeted with a strand of his hair.
There was a beat of silence.
"You want me there, non? I don't have to come if that would make you uncomfortable—"
It was an odd moment of pause for Lestat, a strange second of self-awareness, but Louis dared to think that, perhaps, this wouldn't backfire on him like he'd originally thought. Perhaps Lestat could charm his mother (though he hadn't been able to charm Claudia the singular time they'd met) and maybe he'd actually enjoy the trip this year. Maybe. But either way, for now, he could at least make Lestat happy. Christ! Sometimes the only thing he ever wanted to do was make Lestat happy.
"I wouldn't want you to be anywhere else."
_
Lestat had packed everything except the kitchen sink and then proceeded to stress about not packing enough. It would have been quite charming were Louis not distracted by his own impending doom.
"What if they don't like their presents? Louis, is my hair right? Louis? Louis?"
Behind his detached comforts of "I'm sure they'll love them" and "Your hair looks amazing" Louis could not help but feel his mother's disapproving gaze. He could hear her voice in the back of his mind: "He is rather… fickle. He is rather… vain". It made him want to scream because he knew his mother and he knew Lestat: His mother would never be able to see Lestat for who he was in his entirety. Sure, he might be both fickle and vain but right now he cared. Lestat cared about him which is more than his mother had done in recent years.
The flight's duration was barely three and a half hours and yet time seemed to stretch like it did in the last minute before the final bell on the last day of school. In college Lestat had taken some class on Modernist Literature or something and spent an entire week monologing about "Bergson's Theory of Time". Louis had mostly focused on the way his intonation changed as he spoke excitedly about it, the differences in the ways Lestat's breath grazed his skin, changing from intrigued, to giddy, to thoughtful ("And personal time is how we experience time— it lengthens and shortens based on how we feel," he'd mused in Louis's ear as they'd been curled up together in Louis's dorm room, squeezed so close together on his narrow king single bed that their skin had practically become one, "Mon cher, time with you barely feels like time at all"). Now time was stretching out, an endless trudge toward somewhere Louis didn't want to be, dragging its feet and tripping over nothing at all.
Armand and Daniel were, rather coincidentally, seated in the row behind Louis and Lestat which would have been prime time entertainment for the flight could Louis focus on anything beyond himself.
"Daniel it's not working!" Armand muttered frustratedly.
"Have you tried turning it on and off?"
"Have I tried— of course I've tried turning it on and off! What do you think I am? An imbecile?"
"Oui," Lestat intruded, turning to peek at them through the gap between their seats.
"Look," Daniel groaned, ignoring Lestat, "we're about to land. We can go to the apartment and then we can figure it out."
"But Daniel—"
Daniel must have given Armand a glance which communicated something no one else could understand because he stopped mid-sentence, gleefully put whatever device had been causing him such distress away, and made a sound close to a hum.
"Thank god the guest room is downstairs," Lestat murmured to himself as he turned his attention back to Louis.
The very first thing Lestat had done when he "made it big" was buy a massive apartment in New Orleans. Now, on paper this would seem to have been to be closer to his college sweetheart. Of course, they'd broken up in their senior year and, at the time Lestat had bought the place, Louis had been living in San Francisco. When they'd gotten back together circa two years ago New York had been the best place to be for both of them. Still, Lestat kept the New Orleans house, with cars and staff and the promise that "That's where we were born to be". It was one of those things that didn't quite make sense to Louis but he decided to not worry about.
"Also," Louis remembered, "Gracie wants us to have dinner at hers tonight."
Lestat beamed. It was never fair to say Lestat "smiled" because he had one of those faces which contorted in such a wide variety of expressions that "smile" would be too broad, too basic a term to describe what he was doing. "Ah, I shall finally meet the little sister."
"Yeah, yeah, don't freak out about it." Louis also decided now was both the best (and the worst) time to confess something to Lestat. "Also, um, my family doesn't know you're a singer."
The other man blinked slowly.
"They think you're a lawyer."
Lestat's response caused everyone on the plane to turn to stare at them and at least three flight attendants to appear and try pacify him.
_
By the time they'd gotten to the apartment, Lestat had somewhat calmed down. Louis would take the win although the guilt twisting his stomach was probably worse than any tantrum Lestat could feasibly get away with under the circumstances. While it was probably good he didn't have to deal with a screaming, crying adult man on top of introducing said adult man to his family and revealing he'd lied to them all, Lestat was now giving Louis the cold shoulder. On the bright side, it meant he would probably soon forget why they were fighting but, in the mean time, Louis would just have to sit with what he'd done. He sometimes wondered if Lestat realised this moping stage was the equivalent of telling a kid to face the wall and "Think about what you've done". It was also the most effective way to guilt trip Louis but Lestat had definitely worked that out.
"You really need to stop sitting like that while having broody, introspective moments," Daniel declared, appearing in the master bedroom doorway. He lent on the doorframe, ever casual, ever cool; "It's bad for your back."
Louis straightened and turned to look at him.
Daniel had a quickness to him which made him endlessly interesting. Perhaps it was his fatal flaw, perhaps it was his greatest strength. It certainly made him entertaining, even when he was snide and sarcastic and wry and, consequently, a pain to be around. He could be a pain in the arse and he knew it; he revelled in it, even.
"I'm glad you find my misery entertaining."
"Shouldn't I? You're currently living out the plot of multiple rom-coms. How many people do you think get to say that?"
"And you think Florence du Lac will adore Armand any more than Lestat?"
Daniel didn't respond. He had the common decency to not point out the obvious for once in his life. A small kindness, considering it was something quite unusual for a "Bright, young reporter with a unique point of view" (as his bio on the New York Times site so boldly proclaimed) to keep his mouth shut.
Daniel then looked behind his back before entering the room properly, shutting the door softly, and sitting beside Louis on the bed. He looked into Louis's eyes, once again being uncharacteristically genuine.
"You could be dating the smartest, kindest, most perfect person in the world and your mother could still find flaw in them if she wanted to. Don't let her be the reason you loose something that makes you happy."
Louis pursed his lips and nodded. Then he decided there was yet another thing he needed to get off his chest: "I brought the ring with me."
Daniel blinked in bewilderment, not having to open his mouth to tell Louis everything he wanted to say.
Louis continued: "Look, I don't know! It's not like I'm going to do it here but I didn't want to leave it in New York and I wasn't in the most logical mindset when I packed!"
Daniel blinked again, mulled the thought over for a second, and then burst out cackling. Louis furrowed his brow.
"Oh. My. God. I was right! This is a rom-com," he managed to say between wheezes, "please tell me you can see at least some of the absurdity of it all!"
While he certainly couldn't appreciate how entertaining Daniel found the situation, Louis also couldn't help but laugh just a bit. It was one of those laughs one does when they realise there's nothing else they can do. After all, there's no use in trying to prevent the inevitable. It was a shitty situation and the shittiest part of it was there was no escaping now.
Just as Louis's laughter began to border on "maniacal" Armand walked in, not bothering to knock.
"Daniel," he said, paying no mind to Louis. As observant as Armand could be, he often became fixated on things, driven by some kind of curiosity or obsession. He proceeded to ask Daniel a flurry of questions which Louis didn't hear because he was far too focused on the realisation Lestat and his sister would be in the same room in a matter of hours.
Fuck.
Daniel left the room (Louis didn't dare think about what was about to happen in the guest bedroom) and was replaced by Lestat, who was still quite obviously annoyed. He flitted around the room pretending to look for something whilst Louis watched him, vaguely detached from reality.
"Is this you telling me to go back home?" Lestat asked suddenly, vaguely petulantly. He was hurt, and Louis could understand why— he should be hurt. However, Louis couldn't help but think Lestat could show at least some compassion. After all, he surely knew enough about Louis's family to understand why Louis might be hesitant to do all of this.
Either way, the question made Louis snap out of whatever daze he was in and furrow his brow; "What? No! Of course not, babe, I just— I just didn't know how to tell them."
Something flickered across Lestat's face, his shoulders dropped. He became softer and Lestat was so rarely soft. He could be bright, energetic, be the very thrum of life itself but he was never "soft". Lestat had always been less open about his past than even Louis and perhaps he'd struck a chord there. Louis didn't even know if Lestat's family knew he existed. In fact, all he knew was Lestat was the youngest of three boys and his mother was called "Gabrielle".
"I know I can be difficult, mon cher, but I'll try not to be, I promise."
He seemed so small, shrunk even further by the golden light of the early evening. It was a version of Lestat Louis rarely saw— it was sometimes easy to forget he was human when he was loud and glowing and seemed to control the energy in every room he was in. Yet, here he was, glistening eyes, quiet promises, some nameless fear dripping from every part of him.
Louis's heart shattered. Why? Because he knew Lestat couldn't be anyone but himself. Because he hated himself for making him feel like he needed to be. Because he knew that no matter how hard he tried to act in a way Louis's mother would approve of it could never be good enough. Alas, Louis smiled and quietly prayed he was wrong.
_
Grace, thankfully, had not invited his mother to dinner. She had wanted to keep it down to "Just Florence's kids" and so she had limited the invitation to Louis, Daniel, and their respective partners. While Daniel was very obviously not one of Florence's children, she had practically raised him considering all the times he'd stayed at their house for lunch, then dinner and then breakfast the next day. Consequently, he was a pseudo-brother to the du Lac siblings (and also, though Louis didn't tell Daniel this, he was pretty sure Grace wanted to know what Armand was like because she could be nosy when she wanted to be).
The drive to Grace's house was unpleasant to say the least. Louis drove, Daniel sat in the passenger seat, and Lestat and Armand were relegated to the back where they were silently playing a game of "I bet Grace will like me more". Louis had turned the radio off because he didn't want to run the risk of one of Lestat's songs coming on and hear him complain for the next three hours about how "They're ruining the experience when they play ads over the intro and then end the song early! Do these heathens not understand the artistry of composition anymore?".
Grace and her family lived in a stereotypical suburban home. Pickett fence, shingled roof, wooden porch, flower beds lining the tiled path to the door. Louis had once thought he'd live in such a house some day but that dream had drifted away long ago for no apparent reason. As he parked in the driveway (Grace had texted him, telling him to do so), the front door of the house opened and a little boy ran out, making a b-line for the car.
"Benji!" Daniel yelled as he got out of the car and Louis's nephew, Benjamin, launched himself at him. Armand looked on with the air of someone realising for the first time they'd stepped into something entirely alien to them.
"Uncle Daniel!" Benjamin responded happily.
Grace and her husband, Levi, soon appeared on the porch, the twins (Georgia and Rose) each holding onto one of their parents. Before he knew it, Benjamin had also run over to Louis and was now hugging him. He grinned down at his nephew, who had most definitely grown since they'd last seen each other at Christmas.
"I've missed you too Uncle Lou!" Ben giggled.
"Is that so?" He chuckled deeply, "Well you need to stop growing— you'll be taller than me any day now!"
Ben giggled, and Louis's smile widened. He then turned and waved to his sister and brother in law; "Miss me?"
"Never!" Grace called back, "Is this the mysterious 'companion'?". She gestured at Lestat who was staying almost impossibly still and impossibly quiet behind Louis.
She'd always laughed at how Louis simply called Lestat his "companion". "Just call him what he is: your boyfriend," she'd scolded him on multiple occasions, "or 'partner', but come on Louis, what are you hiding from?"
With Benjamin and Lestat in tow, Louis went to greet his sister and brother in law properly. However, after climbing the porch steps, Lestat jumped.
"The presents!" he yelped, about to turn and go back to the car, "I forgot them in the—"
Grace somehow managed to appear in front of Lestat before he could run away. She initially stuck her hand out to greet him but then obviously changed her mind and opened her arms and pulled him into a hug. That'd always been Grace's way: she knew when someone was family just by looking at them. Lestat, however, seemed like he was about to explode from the sheer amount of nerves he was feeling and Lestat was never nervous.
"It's about time we finally met," Grace declared joyfully, "I wish I could say I'd heard so much about you but I must admit my brother isn't the best at keeping us up to date with his life."
Any nerves melted away from Lestat's exterior as he slipped back into his usual, charming self: "Well we're going to have quite enough time to get to know each other and for you to show me the old family photos."
Grace drew back slightly, and looked at Levi, who had moved to stand beside Louis: "Levi! He's French! Who would've guessed?"
His brother in law laughed, making Louis chuckle a little helplessly. Grace had always been the snappiest of the du Lac siblings. They'd each known their roles in the family since they were young and they'd played them well— Louis was the brain, Grace the heart, and Paul? Florence had always called Paul "the soul", the "only one out of you all who truly knows what's right," but Louis was now more inclined to believe he'd been the lungs of their family; they were suffocating without him.
After introductions had been made, the party shuffled into the house. The interior was as idyllic as its exterior: warm white walls, dark oak floors, everything in perfect order. One would never believe a family with three young children lived here but Grace had always excelled at maintaining order in the most difficult situations. As they arrived in the kitchen, which opened out onto a dining room with the long dining table that Louis had bought for Grace's wedding, Levi had a realisation.
"I feel like I recognise you from somewhere, Lestat," his thick New Orleans accent incensed a wave of nostalgia to overwhelm Louis, stifling the horror about to follow, "You haven't been on television or anything have ya?"
Lestat's eyes widened and Louis could feel him glance over at him vaguely annoyed before he responded: "Oui, I'm a singer."
Grace, who had been cleaning something in the sink, dropped whatever it was with a loud clang!— Louis would be definitely reprimanded later for concealing such a pressing piece of information. Armand put the corner of his fist in his mouth to try and hide the growing grin on his face. In this endeavour, he failed miserably. Daniel, beside him, was too busy trying not to laugh at Armand to try help Louis.
Lestat quickly tried to fix the situation, but only seemed to be able to make things worse (somehow): "It's been very tricky to stop the press from sniffing us out for the past couple years but I've learned to deal with the paparazzi—" (Louis cringed as he said that, knowing Lestat's definition of "deal with" was have such big, dramatic breakdowns that paparazzi avoided him like the plague) "—and my fans don't ask questions if you know what I—"
"Oh Lord you're that Lestat!" Grace realised aloud, fortunately cutting him off before he said anything incriminating, her eyes widening even more, "The Vampire one!"
Armand could no longer contain himself, and, obviously trying to stop himself from pissing himself laughing in the middle of the kitchen, excused himself quietly and stiffly. Daniel followed him, simply saying "I don't want him to get lost" (while this could very much have been a joke, Armand had a bad habit of wandering somewhere, getting too curious, and then forgetting where he was going).
Lestat grinned as broadly as he did whenever someone recognised him. He couldn't help it! It was like he was born to be praised by people he barely knew! "The one and only."
(He often forgot he was in a band).
"Benjamin loves your cover of Dancing With Myself," Grace said, almost sounding like she'd forgotten that Louis had lied even though, no matter how much she forgave, she never ever forgot anything, "it's the only song he lets us listen to when I drop him off at school. I can't believe Louis would neglect telling me such an interesting fact about his 'companion'."
It was at that very moment Louis knew he would never live this one down.
_
Grace had been a professional chef before the twins were born. Consequently, she made the best food that one would ever eat and, seeing as she now ran a home baking company, she could make desserts twice as well.
Armand had almost definitely been saved from Grace's scrutiny by Louis's fuck-up. In fact, she seemed to take a liking to Lestat without much of a second thought— the pair seemingly bonded by Louis's stupidity.
"So law school to rock'n'roll," Grace began, sitting down after bringing dessert (a beautiful peach cobbler) to the table, "that's a big jump, Lestat. Why?"
Lestat chuckled in that loud, pompous way he always did when amused: "I woke up one day and thought to myself: 'If my life is going to be reduced to reading contracts, I might as well wither to dust right now' and then dropped out, joined a band, et voila!"
Louis continued to focus on his food so as to avoid being drawn into the conversation for further judgment. He cringed as he accidentally dragged his fork across the plate at the wrong angle, producing a terrible sound. This had the effect of drawing the table's attention to him and destroying any chance he had at melting into the background.
Grace began talking again, her annoyance at her elder brother increasingly obvious in her tone: "Once again Lestat, I am so sorry that my brother doesn't have the basic manners to tell his family what you actually do for a living. After all, it's a pretty big thing to forget to mention."
Sometimes Grace fancied herself a "fixer of all things" and tried to, well, fix things through sheer will. Of course, this usually ended up making things worse. That's what was about to happen here, Louis realised perhaps a tad too late.
"Oh no, no worries!" Lestat replied, speaking slightly quicker than usual, "We all know our Louis forgets to say things sometimes even when he wants to. Par exemple, he has yet to say 'I love you' but I know he does."
Lestat's tone very much implied what he was saying was a joke. However, the fact no one laughed after he had said it suggested otherwise. Well, actually, strike that— Lestat laughed, half chuckling to try and shoo the silence away. To no one's surprise, this tactic didn't work. Instead, Levi was staring intensely at his plate and pretending to eat even though there was no more food on it. Daniel buried his head in his hands. Armand sat grinning like he was watching some reality show and not Louis's life crumbling. And Grace? Grace just glared at her brother with one eyebrow raised.
They finished eating in this manner and then Grace sternly called upon Louis to help her clean up.
This is going to end well, Louis mused as he stood, gathering the plates. Lestat stared at him like a lost puppy as he left but Lestat would be fine. Louis, however, wasn't so safe.
As he loaded the dishwasher, he could feel Grace's eyes burning holes into the back of his neck. He could practically feel her tutting and shaking her head with disapproval. The rest of the party had moved to the living room across the hallway, far enough away that it would take someone being murdered in the kitchen for them to be easily overheard.
"Louis de Pointe du Lac," she began, sounding more disappointed than disapproving, "you are so hopeless."
Louis had always known that Grace thought he spent too much time trying to make other people happy. To put it succinctly: she had always admonished him for being an ass-kisser. While Louis wished he could prove her wrong, the thought of actually displeasing his mother made his stomach threaten to eat itself. So, yeah, Grace was right but it had always annoyed Louis how she saw the issue as if it was some kind of mathematical problem with only one answer.
"Shall I just go buy my coffin now? Save you cleaning my blood out of Mama's clothes when she stabs me for bringing him?"
Grace hit him with the towel she'd been running through her hands.
"You think that's the problem? Look, I don't know Lestat but I do know you. So, riddle me this: do you or do you not like your boyfriend?"
She enunciated the last word as if she were trying to bury it in the back of Louis's mind. It worked. He whipped around to meet her eye.
Grace was shorter than Louis. Not by much, but enough to make it seem comical that she was always the one in charge of every conversation they had. He blinked. She continued glaring.
"Of course I like him!"
"So you aren't using our mother as an excuse to push him away?"
"What? No!"
"Then why not tell the goddamn man 'I love you'? Don't you?"
Louis opened his mouth to respond but then realised he didn't know how. This had the affect of making it look like his mouth was connected to the rest of his face by a spring which had broken and no longer "sprung" like it had done in its youth. Then, squaring his shoulders, he replied in a much, much quieter voice: "I'm asking him to marry me."
His sister responded in a way which could only be described as some combination of outrage and giddiness. The volume of this response had apparently been equivalent to that of someone screaming "HELP THERE'S AN AXE-MURDERER!" because it caused Levi to leave his guests and check what was happening. Upon being told in a hushed tone why his wife couldn't contain herself, Levi, who was usually quite a stoic figure (a feature necessary for one's survival at du Lac family gatherings), also broke out into a broad grin and slapped Louis on the back.
"What the fuck is happening in here?" Daniel asked when he appeared in the kitchen.
"Did he tell you?" Grace whispered.
Daniel raised his eyebrows to make an expression which clearly said "About what?"
Grace mimed a proposal, causing Daniel's eyes to widen slightly as he nodded.
Somehow, Louis thought he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut and bearing the brunt of Grace's disapproval. All of this was somehow worse than being reprimanded for the very same things Louis already disliked about himself.
After the quick celebration in the kitchen, the cleaning was finished up and, before he knew it, Louis was driving everyone back to the apartment. Sleep. He needed sleep, he decided. Then he would wake up and everything would be okay because Grace seemed to like Lestat well enough so why shouldn't his mother?
It was going to be a long few weeks.