Work Text:
Louis smiled and sucked the caramel off his finger. “Hi Louis,” his sister said, her voice floating through the phone speaker left stranded on the kitchen island.
“Hey honey,” he replied, wiping spilled coffee creamer off the counter. It smelled like a Sunday, with the kitchen all to himself as it always was. Only, today he felt like cooking. Caramel macchiato with too much caramel sounded nice.
“Happy Father’s Day, big brother,” she said. He smiled and kicked closed a cabinet, shot a paper-towel basketball into the trash.
“Thanks, Gracey,” he said with a short, honest laugh.
“What y’all getting up to today?” she asked, with the phone speaker crackling lightly. Humming, he tapped the pad of his finger against the edge of the pan heating up on the stove.
“Probably go out and get a drink. Same as I always do.” He threw in a pat of butter, satisfied. “How’s the kids? Y’all doing dinner with Levi?”
The fridge opened and he retrieved a cart of eggs. He bumped it closed with his hip, cracked and threw them in the pan, listening to his sister’s voice all the while.
“Yeah, we’re going to La Cage. Gon’ be hell on my wallet but, you know. Nice things every once and a while. The kids are on a budget.”
Louis chuckled and peppered his eggs. He raided the spice pantry for onion powder, smoked paprika, and anything else that sounded necessary.
“I wish y’all still lived around here,” Grace sighed, and Louis smiled at the memories he knew they were both sharing. “I miss cuttin’ up at someone else’ dinner table with you.”
Louis laughed. “You can take me out next time I’m in town. Y’all should come up here one summer.”
He buttered up toast and dusted it with cinnamon and sugar, then heated up the oven, just the way their Granny preferred to make it.
“Yeah. Maybe I’ll bring them up in winter so they can play in the snow.” She paused, probably calculating flight costs in her head. She exhaled and shifted somewhere on the other side of the phone. “Well. I was just calling to say hi. Tell you happy day.”
“Alright now,” Louis said, fumbling with his spatula and flipping the eggs. He leaned over to close his toast up in the oven.
“You take care of yourself today, okay, Lou?”
“Yeah,” he smiled. Easy strides took him over to the counter where he picked up the phone and took it off speaker. He held her right up to his ear. “Thanks, Sissy,” he said.
“Alright. I love you,” she added.
“Love you, Grace. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
His smile didn’t fade as he watched over his breakfast. He poked the eggs with his finger and decided he should probably flip them again. The clock ticked softly on the wall and he moved to get a plate while stirring the coffee mug in his hand. Without meaning to, his mind drifted upstairs.
To Lestat, who had been in bed scrolling on his phone when Louis rolled away from him this morning. The chances were high that he was still lying in the same spot. As Louis began to unload the oven, he caught a glimpse of the time as it flickered to the next number. Lestat was going to be late.
He threw off his oven mitt, plated the eggs, tossed the pan in the sink, and stole a sip of his coffee. In his mind, he was trying to visualize the little digital map found in his phone, and wondering what traffic might look like at this hour. Trying to remember if Lestat should turn left or right off that one road if he wanted to get there any faster. He reached again for the baking tray with his bare hand.
“Mother— fuck!” he hissed, drawing his hand back and knocking the cutlery he set out onto the floor. He huffed, shaking the pain out. He leaned down and tossed the collateral damage in the sink. Turning his face in the direction of the stairs as he ran his hand under the water, he yelled, “Lestat!”
”God damnit,” he said again as he inspected his hands and fingers. He dried them with the hanging kitchen rag. As he turned back to his breakfast, there was, of course, that customary leap to irrationality that threatened to make Lestat the root of another ruined morning. But he was grown enough, sane enough today, to say no to the feeling.
He safely retrieved the toast, got a new fork and knife, and a bottle of hot sauce from out the fridge.
He was forking only the second bite of eggs into his mouth when Lestat came nearly tumbling down the stairs.
His hurricane ex-husband. He was restless even when he was still. Louis didn’t need words to know he was frantically mapping out the same route in his head that Louis had thought of before he burned his hand off. How many people would he curse out in his mother language while he was on the road? Louis’ guess was three.
“You’re gonna be late, ain’t ya?” he said after swallowing, glancing up at him as Lestat sat at the end of the steps shoving on shoes pulled from the pile pooling at the bottom. They were Louis’. Probably a size and a half too small.
“Nope,” he said, pushing off the stairwell and flitting behind him into the kitchen. Wild wind entered with him as he moved from refrigerator, to cabinet, to cabinet, back to original cabinet. Hurricane season always came early.
“It’s the one on the left,” Louis offered, not bothering to turn and look. He lifted his coffee for a sip.
“Ah,” Lestat said, finding the pink water bottle Louis assumed he was looking for in the cabinet on the far left. “What smells good?” he asked, standing still finally, and over the filtered sink where he filled up his bottle.
“Toast. Want a bite?” Louis pointed over his shoulder with his fork in the general direction of the pan cooling on the counter.
Lestat screwed his lid closed and reached around Louis to snatch the once-bitten toast off of his plate instead. “Thank you. Bye Louis.” He kissed him quickly on the cheek and squeezed his shoulder from behind.
In another sweeping flash, he rounded the corner out of the kitchen. He was quiet this morning, Louis thought, and ironically, not rushing. He was squirrelly and restless like he always was, but there was something in his quick footsteps that didn’t care if he was late. That… didn’t care about anything at all, actually. Louis couldn’t place it, not exactly.
“Hey!” Louis called to the other side of the wall, “I’m going out with Lily tonight!”
”Okay!” Lestat yelled back. And, again, there was something in the normalcy that wasn’t quite right. How his voice felt more far away than it was.
“Okay. Bye.” Louis said to the door slam.
Happily, he finished his breakfast humming the last jazz tune he’d heard Lestat practicing on the piano. Misty, he realized it was, when he was finally washing and putting up dishes. He smiled to himself and decided he’d fish out his Ella Fitzgerald record if he could find it later. He’d let the sun fade away to the sound of her voice.
Later that night, he was in an upscale bar in the middle of the city, with a drink in his hand and jazz playing all around him. He laughed and smiled and clinked glasses with Lily.
“Okay, okay. It’s past my bedtime,” she giggled. Her cheeks were beautifully flushed and her hair was up as it wasn’t usually. She hugged and squeezed Louis. “Bye sweetie. So good to see you again. Aw, Happy Father’s Day, love.”
“Thank you, Lily.” He squeezed her back and smiled shyly. “Drive safe, baby.”
She and a small crowd of others were filing out. It looked like the night was winding down. Louis would stay and hear the band play the last few songs in their set. His eyes fluttered shut and a smile touched his lips when they shifted into In A Sentimental Mood. One of his old favorites. He sat down on a high stool at one of the cocktail tables. During the piano solo, he felt an arm slink around him.
“I’m headed out too, Louis-Lou. Don’t drink yourself into next morning.”
There was Daniel at his shoulder, holding a glass that was probably going to leave with him. Louis laughed and clapped hands with him.
“Alright. See ya, Danny boy. Stay off the roads, old man,” he grinned, and his eyes were only a little tired. His head syrupy from the liquor.
“Yeah, you too.” Daniel stepped back and yawned. “You should get back home to the missus,” he said. “And give Lestat my regards. Tell him Happy Father’s Day, for me.”
“Alright, thanks. Night, Daniel.”
“Goodnight, Louis.”
After he left, the piano player was still lamenting on the keys.
Louis blinked and a funny feeling passed through him like he’d left the oven on this morning.
The man on the piano was the only white guy playing in the band, with blond hair that didn’t match anyone else’s. He swayed when he played and kept his head bowed almost like he was praying over every note.
His solo ended sort of abruptly and the saxophone cut in. The piano retreated quietly to the background.
“Shit,” Louis cursed.
He never told Lestat Happy Father’s Day.
And not like, he just forgot to tell him this morning, he never told him.
It simply just wasn’t anything he ever said. And not out of spite or cruelty that Louis, he could admit, was too quick to be capable of. He was only now realizing it, as Duke Ellington’s song faded into the next.
It dawned on him suddenly, too— so quickly it gave him whiplash— that Lestat also knew this one on the piano. He’d learned it years ago, probably way back in ancient times when they were only just dating. Before they’d managed to hurt each other so badly. Well before Claudia was even thought of. Lestat had learned it out of Louis’ old song book that he never bothered touching, and only because he knew how much Louis liked it. He’d forgotten about that.
Father’s Day. Lestat… Yeah.
They always went out with Louis’ whole family, then. Out with all of Louis’ long-time family-friends. They’d sit at a long table in the back of some restaurant packed tightly together, surrounded by food and loud laughter. There was always a pile of signed cards and flowers. Cards to take home and stick on the refrigerator. And Claudia always left with a not-so-secret wad of crumpled cash from her Grandma and all the aunties.
They’d take big family photos and joke-off in the parking lot with bags of leftovers tied around their fingers, telling stories about Uncle Paul as they drifted halfheartedly to the car, Claudia tugging impatiently at Louis’ hand.
And Lestat was somewhere. Somewhere in that memory. Somewhere in that parking lot. Louis wouldn’t be there if he wasn’t.
They didn’t always get all together for every holiday, but Grace and Mama always made a thing out of Father’s Day.
When Louis got divorced, he’d drop Claudia at her father’s place so she could get out and say hi on the stoop, and wait in the car until she was done. In his memory, it was always raining on those days. He stopped taking her when she finally admitted she didn’t want to go anymore.
When Claudia died, well, he was no longer talking to Lestat. Grace was still trying to get Louis to come to family dinner, and he did until he couldn’t any longer. It made him feel out of his skin to be there without his kid and without his husband.
One of those first couple of Father’s Days without her, he had half a mind to send him a text. He stared at his phone in the dark in the middle of the night, looking at the most recent text from nearly a year ago and hovering over the digital keyboard. His eyes flicked to the top corner of the screen when the clock switched to midnight and it wasn’t Father’s Day anymore. There was no need to send a text then.
When they got back together, they were living apart, and he wasn’t really telling anyone that they were working on it, so nobody brought him up. They were just friends again for a while. Did long distance eventually, kind-of lovers, officially. And on Father’s Day, Louis would go out with Lily, and Morgan & Emily for a drink. Or he’d spend the evening at Grace’s dining table with the kids. Then he’d go home at last and pour another one out for Claudia.
Lestat moved back in with him late in the summertime, when the heat was stickier but the days were less exciting. The buzz of summer had worn out. And, though Louis would deny this, he too had been worn down by Lestat.
Maybe not worn— that wasn’t quite the word. He didn’t mean it in a bad way. Well, he kind of did. Softened, maybe. Turned stupidly into putty by him. Sawed off at every edge and harsh corner. It wasn’t right, how Lestat molded him into a man he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t avoid it any longer that last summer.
And honestly, he hadn’t been trying very hard, nor did he need to. That was the worst part. No gaudy gifts, no pleading eyes and pouting lips. The ball was always left in Louis’ court whenever Lestat would come over and sit all quiet and polite on his couch. That did strange things to Louis’ head. And if they fucked later on said couch because of it, well that was nobody’s business.
One day, he simply got sick of watching Lestat tote all his junk back and forth between homes. Got tired of seeing him almost forget to pay his utilities at the house he actually lived in because he’d lose track of time spending days and nights at Louis’. He just told him one day he should stay put. Offered, very casually, to sell the other house for him.
Today was the first Father’s Day with the two of them back under the same roof.
Louis called a car home as another piano solo ended.
The front door closed with a click. “Lestat?” he called into the darkness. He shrugged off his coat and added it to the mess at the door. He toed off his shoes at the bottom of the stairs and kicked them into the pile.
All the lights were off. It was cold downstairs. The air was still and empty like there’d been no one around to disturb it for hours.
He peeked into the living room, into the library, and into Lestat’s office. All dark, all vacant.
He checked the fridge to see if there was any dinner Lestat had tucked away for himself. A sigh drifted out of him and his eyes squeezed shut when there wasn’t. Stolen toast was maybe the only thing he’d ate today. Stolen toast, water, and probably a cigarette for lunch.
He cracked his fingers and tried to cool his nerves. He closed the fridge and padded up the stairs.
The bedroom door creaked as Louis softly pushed it open and stuck his head inside. It was unusual for Lestat to be sleep at this time, but he only ever demanded for the lights to be off whenever he was finally going to bed.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, Lestat laying there in the dark. He was curled up in bed and facing away from the door. He’d be otherwise shrouded in pitch black if it weren’t for his phone illuminating right in front of his face, brightness on probably the highest setting. It was the same scene from this morning, only with the sun in a different place. It was as if he hadn’t moved a muscle all day, other than that thumb mindlessly scrolling. As if Louis hadn’t watched him walk out the door earlier today. Louis sat at the edge of the bed and reached out to touch him.
“Hi Louis,” Lestat said quietly. He spoke his name like a song, though he didn’t move, didn’t turn around to meet him or melt into his touch. Didn’t move at all.
“Hey, sweetiepie,” Louis combed through his hair.
Coming home to Lestat was an abrupt thing, usually. So he didn’t notice anymore how his hands in Lestat’s hair was the thing that helped him breathe when the day was done.
Lestat tended to be up and running on adrenaline by way of sleep-deprivation, ranting about some musical nonsense and surrounded by a mountain of scribbled-down sheet music. Pacing through the house and humming the same notes over and over again.
They’d talk about nothing, Louis would listen to him ramble and they’d get halfway to an argument because Louis liked to play Devil’s advocate. Then Louis would pull on his hair and they’d pass out underneath tangled sheets. Louis would wake up in the middle of the night and Lestat would be holding his hand and sniffling with his eyes shut. He never seemed to get any sleep at all, actually. Louis dragged his fingers through his favorite shade of blond.
“You know, you pro’ly shouldn’t stare so much at that thing,” he said.
And without any thought, Lestat clicked off the side button and held the phone over his shoulder for Louis to take. No argument, no protesting.
A funny feeling twisted in his stomach, unnerving and unfamiliar. He didn’t like it sometimes, how obedient Lestat could choose to be. But it still made him feel so unbelievably fond. Made him feel stupid and sick.
He plucked away the phone and placed it on the nightstand by the charger. He went back to carding through his hair.
His fingers caught on a singular braid. It was so much like the ones that Claudia used to leave in Lestat’s hair, but messier. Less practiced. He smoothed it over and kept his fingers tangled in gold.
“How was work today?” he asked, trying to be casual and gentle about the sound of cicadas outside which was driving him crazy. It was probably 2am and Lestat hadn’t jumped into his lap, or bad mouthed not one of his musicians, or even looked at him.
“Good,” Lestat said, still staring like his phone was right there in front of him, “the 2nds finally figured out what to do with themselves, bless them. It’s sounding much better now.” He exhaled quietly. “I didn’t yell at anyone today.”
“Yeah.” Louis chuckled softly and tugged on a piece of Lestat’s hair. “Proud ‘a you, doll.”
Lestat hummed and closed his eyes. Louis would call that a win.
“What time d’ you get home?” he asked, carefully brushing his hair. The house was too still, and he was worried Lestat had been stuck like this for a long time.
He shrugged. “I let them go early,” Lestat said.
Louis pulled his hair back over his shoulder and exposed his neck. He let his fingers wander there instead. All the right words were stuck in Louis’ throat. He felt it harder and harder to swallow with every moment that passed without Lestat looking at him. Or making hardly any noise. Or barely moving, barely breathing. Louis took a deep breath for him.
“You okay, baby?” he said with his hands on his neck, right over his pulse.
It was stupid, his irrational fear that Lestat had this possibility of disappearing even when he was right in front of him.
“Fine, Louis. How’s Miss Lily?”
Louis sighed quietly and slid his hand underneath Lestat’s jaw. Gently, he turned his head towards him. Lestat met him halfway, rolling over on his back and looking finally towards him. He kept his hands folded close to his chest and distinctly not on Louis. Louis, with his heart trying to leap out his throat, caressed his face.
“What, Louis?” Lestat asked him.
“Nothing. I— nothing.” He brushed away his hair again. The mess Lestat made out of him. He got up abruptly.
“You going to sleep already?” he said as he escaped to the other side of the room. He fiddled with the drawer handle of their wooden dresser on the wall.
“Yeah,” Lestat said softly. He sat up a little and shuffled under the covers, readjusted the pillows. “Well,” he added.
Louis was pulling his shirt over his head. He looked over to the bed.
“Well?” He urged.
Lestat fussed with and fluffed a pillow, and laid his head back down. “Well. I was waiting for you.”
Louis stared. Sometimes, that was all he knew how to do. His heart was trying to run away from him. He turned away and kept undressing.
“You waiting for me?” He said to the wall. The burning in his cheeks and the fluttering in his chest would be ignored. Because what did he look like, a grown ass man blushing like an asshole teenager at the words of his husband, ex-husband, whatever.
The covers shuffled once more behind him and Louis searched for a pair of sweatpants.
“Yeah,” Lestat said in a small voice. “Drinking, driving. It’s dark out there.”
Louis exhaled. The sound shook out of him.
“I called a car, baby. You didn’t have to,” he said.
Finally, he crawled into bed beside him. It was a shock to him, and maybe it shouldn’t have been, the way he was hit with an indescribable, strange sort of relief when Lestat’s hands met his bare skin. Lestat’s arms came around his middle and his head fell down on Louis’ chest. Louis swung an arm around his back and his fingers rested between Lestat’s shoulder blade and neck. One day, he’d sit himself down and try to remember when it was that he forgot just what this meant to him. When did he start taking it all for granted? At what point did he stop noticing that it was only Lestat that could do him like this?
“You beat the devil out that pillow just to come n’ lay on top of me?” he said, pinching lightly at the back of Lestat’s neck.
“I hate memory foam,” Lestat said.
Louis huffed a silent laugh. “Mhm.”
Their ankles brushed together under the blankets and Lestat’s fingers whispered absently over Louis’ bare stomach. After all these years, so much had changed. Louis felt finally like a big man everywhere else in his life. Down in the office, whenever he opened his bank account, when he cut a check without hardly looking at the numbers. When he stood in front of his mother. When he stood on his own two feet. Everywhere except here. He was still a coward here, laced in quiet and hiding in the dark with Lestat, where only him and God were watching. Gently, as gentle as he could manage to be, he kissed his forehead.
“I like the braid in your hair,” he said to him.
“Thank you,” Lestat responded sweetly. He turned his head further into Louis and breathed him in. Louis breathed out.
“Baby doll?” he asked.
“Yes, mon Louis?”
“Um,” his hands traced back over Lestat’s hair. They needed somewhere to go. Something to do. Maybe his mouth would remember how to work if his hands were busy. “Sorry I didn’t… tell you before you left. Ah, Happy Father’s Day, love.”
He felt Lestat’s eyelashes as he blinked against his skin. He felt his fingers tapping more erratically at Louis’ side. He didn’t say a thing.
“I shoulda brought you out with me. I’m sorry.” Louis swallowed and scratched the back of Lestat’s neck.
His fingers kept their errant pattern on Louis’ skin. Lestat’s shoulder did that odd jittering thing that it did whenever he was thinking too hard. He bounced his heel under the sheets and up against Louis’ leg.
“That’s okay,” he said after a long time. “I don’t… I try not to drink any more.”
Louis frowned. And he felt so, so guilty. “Hm. But I mean… You know that’s not what I mean, okay? I should’ve celebrated with you. That’s my fault. It’s also your holiday. I didn’t… fuck, I’m just. I’m sorry, hun.”
He was seeing himself all those years ago, at family functions and Father’s Day dinners with Lestat holding onto only shadows while Claudia held onto Louis’ hand.
They were a package deal. That’s what they were, and Louis never had to tell him Happy Father’s Day because everyone else already was. Or, they must’ve been. They had to. Everyone knew Lestat was her daddy too. The cards he was handed were all addressed to Louis & Lestat, and Claudia, too. Always together.
A memory he forgot about flashed in his head.
Homemade cards from Claudia in messy, kiddish handwriting, scribbled out in crayon and covered in glitter. Signed, CLAUDIA, in all caps, and Lestat du Lac in flashy cursive.
He never signed one of those himself. He felt sick, discerning for the first time that he didn’t even know whether or not Claudia was making the same sloppy glitter cards in secret, and putting Lestat’s name on the front instead. If she ever did, it never made its way to Louis for him to sign.
Father’s Days were always surrounded by the people that Louis loved, and by people that loved Louis. Lestat’s people were all dead or fucking off somewhere in France. And none of them knew how to appropriately use the word love. Sometimes, neither did Louis.
Lestat didn’t have friends like Lily, and Morgan, and Bricks. No one even called to check on him when he was going through rehab. Most of them only stuck around for a chance to get in between his jeans. None of them were the Sunday-dinner, say-a-prayer-over-the-food type.
That was Louis. He was always the one who stuck the dinner invite on their fridge. It was him who punched the address into the GPS when Lestat pulled out the driveway on the way to the venue. It was never anything he thought about, or had to think about, Lestat in the driver’s seat, and Claudia in the back. And when it all stopped, when Claudia’s heart stopped beating and Lestat was no longer in his house, there was nothing left to think about.
The invites still came, and like always, they were addressed to Louis’ house, not Lestat’s. Because there was a point in time where Lestat’s home was simply in Louis’ heart. So when the two of them stopped sharing a fridge, who was telling Lestat where to go?
Who was making sure he RSVP’ed and got out of the house on time? Who laminated cards for him and stuck them on the ‘fridgerator with one of Claudia’s magnets?
Louis knew the address, and he could choose not to go if he didn’t want to. There was family waiting for him whenever he wanted it. What option did Lestat have other than to sit in the dark at home and all alone?
Just like he’d done tonight.
No longer a Father without a child and without a husband. Louis kissed him again, this time on the crown of his head.
“You heard what I said?”
Lestat made a small hum and scooted closer. He went back to being still in Louis’ embrace.
“Oh, don’t… worry about it, Louis. I’m okay. I’m not upset with you.”
Louis dragged his hands behind Lestat’s ear. “Your musicians tell you Happy Father’s Day?”
He shook his head.
“No, I don’t think any of them know,” he aired casually.
Louis still wasn’t used to the tight, silent space in the room, and Lestat in his arms who barely spoke over the sound of the ceiling fan.
“Hm. Well, I should’ve said. I’m s—“
“Please, Louis. Stop. It’s alright,” he said, knocking his fist once against Louis’ heart.
“It’s not,” Louis’ said, beginning to take his hand.
Lestat beat him there, moving so suddenly it almost startled Louis. He grabbed his fingers and pulled his hands closely to his chest, holding tighter than he must’ve been aware of. His voice remained calm and quiet. Pleasant, and only a little empty despite the tension held in his hands.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, and he pressed his lips to Louis’ skin in not-quite a kiss. “You’re her real dad. I was never any good at it.”
“God, Lestat,” Louis whispered.
“It’s fine, Louis. Can we go to sleep?” And Louis finally thought he sounded sad.
He wasn’t good at fixing. Not the cabinets or the bookshelves, or his car whenever it broke down. It was Lestat that did those things. That frowned at the instruction manuals and got his hands greasy fumbling with Louis’ engine, or carburetor, or whatever the hell it was. Louis couldn’t come up with a single word to make anything better.
“Okay,” was all he had. There was only so many times he could say sorry before it didn’t mean anything at all. But with Lestat’s ear to his chest, he hoped he could hear it somewhere in his heartbeat.
He looked at the ceiling and watched the fan turn. He played back today in his mind. He replayed memories of this day years ago and tried to find where Lestat was hiding in them. Tried to find all the places Lestat had slipped through the cracks.
He thought he was asleep, after so long, but Lestat suddenly moved both arms around Louis’ neck and squirmed in the bed to tuck his head underneath his chin. He pressed his face as close as he could to Louis’ throat. His soft exhale filled the room and Louis could feel the shake of it as it touched his skin.
Louis held him and titled his head so his cheek landed on the top of Lestat’s hair.
“I miss you,” Lestat said, impossibly quiet. “And I miss her.”
Louis let a breath go. Years of grief counseling and making amends with himself, he was okay now. But this, he still feared like monsters in the closet and boogiemen under the bed. He never touched this with Lestat. He could talk about his beautiful kid with his sister when they traded stories about Paul. He could talk about her with Lily and Babette, or to some random woman in the grocery store that asked if he had a little girl.
But Lestat was the keeper of his secrets. He had the key to his heart. He lived behind the door that Louis never liked to open, where all his failures and worst moments lay.
He was there to pick up Claudia whenever he forgot, or pick her up when Louis couldn’t get her to stop crying. Sing her to sleep in a way Louis never could. He signed her school papers when Louis didn’t, and made her eat her vegetables when Louis couldn’t even eat his own. He was the one that wiped Louis’ tears on the rare occasion he would admit he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing with her. He held them up, put everything he had into their little family. And Louis let him be crushed under the weight of it.
The father of his child. It wasn’t so easy to talk to him about memories. The last one left on the planet that knew every detail and more, just as Louis described them. The only one that remembered the smell of her conditioner and the color of her favorite pair of socks. He couldn’t talk about it with him. He never could.
But with a soft nod, he hoped Lestat would understand that he knew. That his heart beat the same way his did, and he knew what the pain felt like. Maybe it was selfish of him to keep all the words away. He didn’t have any to give and maybe he was supposed to work harder to find them, but…
He just pinched Lestat on his side and continued nodding his head. He didn’t know how he managed to remain a saint in Lestat’s image of him. That, he did not deserve.
“I don’t think I could’ve…” Louis began, “I don’t think I could’ve raised her without you.”
Lestat fiddled with the lobe of Louis’ right ear. His favorite nervous tic, when Louis was close enough.
“Mm,” he said gently, almost adoringly. “Well, you did.”
“Yeah, and I think she hated me for that.” He was glad he was laid on his back, so gravity didn’t have such an easy time pulling the tears from out of him.
Lestat tutted and trailed his finger along Louis’ jaw.
“You know what she said to me once?” He shifted to pull Lestat’s weight further on top of him. “And she told me never to tell you this—“
Lestat wrapped his arms back around him in a hug. Louis felt his eyes shut so the blond lashes no longer beat softly against him like butterfly wings. He laid there and clung to him too much like Claudia did when he was getting ready to tell her a bedtime story.
“She said with you she felt complete. With us. Two people on either side of her. She thought all of us were complete like that.”
Lestat sighed and the breaths that followed were careful and precarious. He tried to laugh, but it was too soft a sound.
“Maybe just her then,” he said. “No one but me to stand on your side. A devil but no angel for your other shoulder.”
“Come kiss me, Lestat,” Louis said, cradling the side of his head while Lestat’s fingers still nervously played with his ear and fluttered at the side of Louis’ face. The kiss was gentle and forgiving.
And in that kiss, Louis didn’t have the heart to say: You are my angel, Lestat. He couldn’t. Because he was still a coward and maybe he always would be. And only Lord knows— only God and Lestat— how many times he had told him to his face that he was the Devil. He wished sometimes that Lestat had no memories of them to look at, to remember, and to forgive despite it all. The decisions he made out of stupid, impossibly weighted love. Louis didn’t have that. He couldn’t do that. He wished sometimes that Lestat didn’t remember anything about him.
“I’m sorry, Louis,” he was saying to him now. Saying into his skin. His head was bowed slightly, eyes away and shadowed in shame as he stayed just as close as Louis would let him.
He hated those words. It wasn’t easy for either of them to say but Lestat was much better about it. About trying to say it. And Louis could pretend sometimes that it was bullshit. That Lestat didn’t mean it and only wanted to climb back into his bed (he’d let him). But even Louis, the denier, could not go his whole life never admitting that there was probably nothing more earnest than the way Lestat asked him for forgiveness.
But this time, the forgiveness was not Louis’ to take. Lestat would have to find it on his own, as Louis had to on this day some couple years ago, lost to the sands of the past, looking in the mirror at himself.
Louis kept him close to his heart and promised himself this time that he wouldn’t let go. He wouldn’t let go of the rest of his life held in his hands.
And Lestat fell asleep just like that, with the rest of his family in his arms.