Archive of Our Own

Merrick left without cleaning up. There were only dark looks, a mumbled ‘wasting my time’ and a demand for a refund two times higher than the agreed upon price.

Louis was secretly relieved. Even if he’d forever be uncertain about how Claudia felt about him or where she was now, if she was even still there – he didn’t have to know. Didn’t have to live with any of the answers.

From his periphery, he could see how Lestat’s shoulders sunk as soon as the door slammed shut. He looked almost human now, with a tired quality to his eyes. Louis was tempted to describe it as defeated. And this was the new-age Lestat. So much more vulnerable than the old one would have ever been, wearing his weaknesses openly. No performance now, none of the glamour and self-assuredness that had left Louis always feeling inferior somehow. But maybe that was a lie, too, something misremembered, altered. Maybe there had been quiet nights where Lestat cried in his coffin and Louis pretended not to hear. His smiles and flourishes hiding the hurt and troubles. Maybe it had been necessary that Louis forget them entirely, so he could paint him as this perfect monster.

No scars on his chest. No trauma. No mother who touched him when he was still a child. Never before?

Louis couldn’t think too hard on it because it made him want to hide Lestat away in his coffin, in the safe dark, and hold him until everything that had ever happened to him grew inconsequential in the grand scope of time. Would that ever happen? Probably not. It had been 200 years, after all. And still, Gabriella in his tour bus, smiling beatifically at Louis, because Lestat had brought her to meet him…

And how hypocritical of Louis to want to protect Lestat. Louis, who had attempted to kill him, no matter how righteous or necessary it had seemed back then. And now, accusing others for being a bad influence.

“Let’s just go to bed.” Louis broke the quiet in the living room.

Lestat didn’t want to look at him but Louis could always tell when Lestat was listening to him. There weren’t many instances where he didn’t.

“We can clean all this up tomorrow.”

“Procrastination is the thief of time.” Lestat quoted quietly, almost pondering.

Louis couldn’t help smiling. “Since when you been readin’?”

Now Lestat turned to him, offended. “I’ve always been reading, Louis, you were just too busy to notice it.”

That hit a bit too close to home. Louis’s smile died. He looked away awkwardly, cleared his throat. The book, annotated in black ink, ballpoint pen - awfully modern – accusations about scars, colors, weather, books. He had taken it with him on his little overnight stay at Lestat’s. Did he hope to discuss it with him? Subconsciously?

Truth was, Louis had read the book for the first time when Lestat threw it at him. He only knew the words marked in colorful highlighter and annotated with corrections. Some of the lies were his own; some tweaked by Daniel to sound more compelling or scandalous. Some undoubtedly done by the Talamasca. But there was still enough of Louis in there that Lestat had a right to be hurt. No matter that Louis had recounted it all when he was trying to hurt him, when he thought Lestat was the one responsible for the trial, for Claudia dead and gone. It had happened. Louis hadn’t ever had the chance to clear it all up to Lestat. And even though he had read what Lestat had had to say about it all, even though there was a different way he looked back on those year now, a bit more open to all the happy moments, there were still bound to be some misconceptions he held about the time.

But what good would it bring to ask Lestat for clarification? His memories were just another biased account of it all. It could just as well muddle everything up even further, until no one could be certain what had actually happened.

This was a quiet thought that Louis never intended to be heard by Lestat.

“Anyway, I don’t like it to be dirty in here.” Lestat went on, sweeping out of the room to get a broom, presumably.

Louis swallowed down his guilt – just one of the countless flavors of it he tasted daily – and followed him. “Come on, Lestat, we just had a very long day. Can’t it wait just a day?”

“It’s four hours until sunrise. Do you propose we just lie in our coffins and wait for the pull of the sun to put us to sleep? I don’t know if I can-“ Lestat broke off and suddenly, Louis understood.

It might be stressful to clean the whole house - exhausting even, after the panic attack, Daniel’s betrayal and his collaboration with Armand - but lying alone in a coffin and having to relive the whole night was worse. Infinitely worse. Better to have something to do. Stay in the company of someone else for a few hours more.

Louis silently watched Lestat yank out a broom and dustpan. It was foreign to see Lestat with it in his hands, even more so when he carelessly passed them off to Louis and picked up a vacuum from the supply closet.

Louis needed a moment to reconcile the Lestat he had once known with the one presently in front of him. It was impossibly domestic and impossibly pedestrian and Louis could almost believe they were a couple of millennial roommates cleaning up the mess their cat had made. Without half of the baggage and all of the vampire mess they were caught up in, annoyed only by having to do chores.

“You sweep and I vacuum.” Lestat told him.

Louis did as he was told. Swept up the circle of cornstarch and couldn’t stop glancing at Lestat as he crouched down to plug in the vacuum, his robe fanning out around him on the ground, a ridiculous play at being a reaper, or death. As far away from the vicious, powerful being he actually was as possible, no trace of the boisterous rockstar. Then he stood back up with all the natural grace of a cat and he was still Lestat. Even defensive and vulnerable and modern, he was still Lestat.

Louis was overcome with a feeling all too familiar. He never wanted to leave. Wanted to be the only one who got to see Lestat in all his versions but especially this one, devoid of all performance, tucking his hair behind his ear so he could look down at the vacuum nozzle. Wanted to be able to let his broom and dustpan fall and stride across the room and be welcomed when he embraced Lestat, wanted Lestat to drop his vacuum and hug him back with a relieved sigh, soft and pliant. Wanted Lestat to bury his face in Louis’s neck, hide away, hide away from everything and everyone, wanted-

“I can’t vacuum if you don’t sweep first.” Lestat grumbled and effectively ripped Louis from his fantasy.

Louis was embarrassed to find his cheeks heating, as if Lestat could read his thoughts still, could begin to guess what Louis was thinking of. When Louis knew for a fact that Lestat still thought Louis to not want him. And his thoughts had been so mortifyingly tame…

Louis cleared his throat, looking down on the cornstarch already piled in his dustpan. “Would’ve thought you had a better vacuum than that. One of the new ones, you know, those who don’t have cables and this little flashlight so you can see the dust better.”

“There are too many new inventions to keep track of now. This vacuum works well enough, so I use it. I don’t spend much time dwelling on vacuums.”

“You spend it reading instead?” Louis teased gently and was treated to a dark look by Lestat that melted away as soon as he saw Louis grinning at him.

Louis almost fell back into his fantasy as Lestat’s face softened into an answering smile.

When Louis was back in his custom built Hastens coffin – which was the most comfortable coffin Louis had ever slept in, despite the darkness still reminding him of the rocks, grief and suffocation – he texted Lemuel.

The last message in their chat was still the link to the video. Louis hesitated. Some integral part of him wanted desperately to protect Lestat, tell Lemuel that this wasn’t true, that it was AI, like Lestat had tried to tell him. But he knew that Lemuel would never believe him. He’d only sound like a fool. Instead:

Louis: Yeah, I’ve seen it

Louis: Think I’m gonna stay here a while

He debated for a second on the wording. Imagined Lemuel reading the message and interpreting it within the context of the video. Assuming things about Lestat that were only half true. Or true entirely; Louis still didn’t want him having that knowledge. No one to have that knowledge. They’d judge Lestat, harshly. This was too personal, made him too vulnerable.

He put his phone down, waited. In the darkness, he could see Lestat’s face again, blood down his chin, tears in his eyes. Begging him, accusing him, still desperate, fearful. No matter what Lemuel thought. Louis couldn’t bear leaving Lestat again, not after this. When Lestat so obviously expected it of him and dreaded it at the same time. And with him gone, Sofia – Gabriella - would surely come back. It sent a cold shudder through him and Louis vowed to himself he’d never let her near Lestat again – unsupervised, at the very least.

His phone buzzed.

Lemuel: When should I expect you back?

Louis: I don’t know yet. Don’t wait up.

Lemuel: Just tell me when it’s over between us. I can send you your stuff from my apartments anytime.

Louis stared at the message for a few seconds. He’d thought about Lemuel assuming. He hadn’t thought about him assuming this meant Louis and Lestat would get back together.

It wasn’t a ridiculous concept. Louis could see where it came from. Why Lemuel would think that. He hadn’t read the book but he’d been there at the meeting. He’d caught Louis scrolling his hashtag on social media. He had access to the location of Louis’s businesses and he knew where Lestat lived. And Louis hadn’t exactly told him why he was staying with Lestat.

Did Lemuel wonder why Louis would remain with Lestat when he’d just found out about Lestat’s relationship to his mother? Did he understand it wasn’t a consensual thing?

They hadn’t exactly talked much about emotional stuff.

Louis: It isn’t like that. Just some things left to wrap up.

Lemuel: Like I said: let me know. I don’t want to be caught up in any of it. I’m not a sidepiece.

Louis paused for a few seconds. It’d be nonsensical to argue.

Louis: Don’t send the video to anyone else.

Then, after a second of hesitation.

Louis: Do you know how to scrub it off the internet?

Lemuel: Pretty sure it’s not legal on YouTube anyway. It should be gone by now. But no one can guarantee there won’t be reposts on other websites.

Lemuel: This isn’t my area of expertise anyway. You should ask someone who actually knows their way around on social media.

That was about as much as Louis had expected. Was it even his place to try to delete it off the internet? But he didn’t want Lestat to have to deal with it. The thought of Lestat watching it again, reading the comments, all the vile things people on the internet said, when he was already this affected by hate against his album… his tentative, almost ashamed look at the bar. It matters to you.

Louis: Thanks

Lemuel: Take care. Give him my condolences

Louis clicked on the link again. YouTube had indeed taken the video down. But it was the first thing that showed up on Twitter and Louis fumbled his phone as he tried to turn the volume down. The sounds alone made him nauseous.

Maybe he should’ve reported the post. But he couldn’t bear thinking about it for a moment longer, so he just closed the app, shut off his phone entirely in good measure and tried to go to sleep.

In the quiet dark, his thoughts began to circle. He felt cold rocks pressing down on him and had to bury his hands in the soft satin until his nails tore it open so he could convince himself it was just his imagination.

Lestat was playing piano.

Louis lay in his coffin, staring up at the lid and listened to the sounds drifting through the apartment.

It was a soft song. Hopeful. Not one Louis had ever heard before, certainly not one on his album, but also no old classic. It sounded like Lestat, like the melodies he’d played Louis in their half-finished state over FaceTime, where the bad connection had warped their true sound into something uglier but which were still undeniably beautiful. Louis could remember holding himself back – companion enough for himself, in the too large penthouse Armand’s ghost still lingered in. It was easier to cling onto his own rules over his tablet screen, even easier over text. But that had been so long ago. Two years in which Lestat, uncharacteristically, stopped responding. Denied Louis contact entirely and even though there had been 77 years with not even a glimpse of him, it had felt like an eternity, the worst kind of torture. Weeks and months stretching on without end. And now, Louis couldn’t remember anymore why he’d ever told himself he should stay away from the magnetic pull that Lestat had, always.

Lestat didn’t acknowledge him at all when he came into the living room. Continued playing with his whole body, leaning forward to press the keys more forcefully.

“New song?” Louis asked conversationally.

“In a way.”

Louis sat down on the couch, leaned back into it.

“Wanna tell me more?”

Lestat paused, still looking down at the keys. Then, he turned around on his piano bench and his gaze was hesitantly guarded when he met Louis’s eyes. His hair belatedly fell over his shoulder. It looked soft. Louis tried not to remember the feel of it, sliding through his fingers.

“When are you leaving again?”

Louis shrugged, not taking his gaze off Lestat. “Was thinking of staying here a while. There’s business in town. It could be like-“ he paused, taking a breath, thinking quickly – he didn’t wanna pressure Lestat, didn’t want it to seem like he had any expectations, just wanted to make sure he was okay - and what came out of his mouth was: “like roommates.”

Lestat frowned. “Like roommates?” he asked incredulously.

“Why not? It’s… mutually beneficial.”

“Mutually beneficial” Lestat repeated again, under his breath. “How is this mutually beneficial, Louis?”

Louis felt himself growing embarrassed and tried again to shrug nonchalantly. “I have a place to stay and you-“ there was a flaw in his reasoning. He could just say ‘you won’t have to be alone’ but he doubted that’d go over well with Lestat, even if it was true. No, he had to think of a different excuse, quickly. “You can bounce some song ideas off me. Now you don’t have your band here. And I can send away the superfans that have found your address.”

“You’d kill my superfans?” Lestat asked and he almost sounded starstruck. As if Louis had proposed to him. Which he hadn’t. Which he wouldn’t. Because they were friends now. Maybe roommates. If Lestat bought it.

“They have it coming if they show up at your doorstep.”

Lestat seemed to ponder it for a second. The overhead light let his hair shimmer golden. He was wearing a robe, like he had done back in Rue Royale on lazy days. When he couldn’t sleep and went to play a little during daytime. Or when he couldn’t be bothered to redress fully after they-

Louis cut off that train of thought, disgusted by himself. He had just yesterday found out that Lestat had been abused. And they were friends again. It wasn’t the right time. That wasn’t what Lestat needed from him right now. And it wasn’t the same robe, anyway.

“Roommates. D’accord. I mean, I’d like that.”

Louis couldn’t stop the smile that rose in him, brought up by a deep well of affection Louis had known for decades now. Lestat was still looking at him, hesitantly and with wonder in his eyes. As if he could barely believe it, Louis staying a gift he didn’t deserve.

It was ridiculous. Louis was caught between feeling impossibly warm and slightly guilty.

“Well, now that you know I ain’t gonna leave, is there anything else you’ve neglected to mention? Made another fledgling in the time between?”

Only a few days ago, Lestat would’ve received it as a slight, no matter how teasingly Louis said it. Now, there was a playful glint in his eyes.

“Technically, only TC is my fledgling.”

Louis rolled his eyes good-naturedly. No vampire on earth was as eager to have a gaggle of fledglings as Lestat. Lestat, who tilted his head in thought. It was entirely for show.

“And there might be a few insults to Mr. du Lac’s character in Dan’s documentary that may or may not be truth.”

Louis’s smile dimmed. He couldn’t help but see Daniel again, standing in full daylight next to Armand. Armand, who he not only knew to be the reason for Claudia’s death but also lost his life to. Daniel’s aggressive brand of journalism – Louis had no doubt he and Lestat had clashed catastrophically, Lestat’s withholding nature against Daniel’s greed for seeing people bleed their truths. Daniel’s provoking words, almost triumphant as he uncovered Lestat’s abuse with that clip- Lestat’s face as he looked up at his mother… it still made him nauseous.

“I’ll talk to him as soon as I have my things sorted. Try to get it off the internet.” Louis promised him.

Lestat turned back to his piano, feigning nonchalance. “If you’d like.”

Louis was about to respond with incredulity – there was no question about it, Daniel had to be taken accountable for what he’d done – but paused. Lestat’s shoulders were tense. And this was very much something that affected Lestat deeply.

Louis wasn’t very well-versed with handling trauma that wasn’t his own. Should he continue giving Lestat updates about the video? Or let him forget all about it, bury it down low just as he’d done so many times before. It probably wouldn’t be important a few weeks from now. Lestat wasn’t a big enough star for it to be circulating in the news.

“Okay. Well, I’ll take care of it.”

Under the presumption that he wouldn’t stay more than a night, Louis hadn’t brought more than a bag of clothes. It had been self-preservation, really. Pointless, since it had ultimately failed and Louis was now in the process of contacting various assistants and managers to send stuff over. He’d been traveling a lot and his wardrobe and favorite books were strewn all throughout the world. There were headphones he’d like to have, which were probably in New York.

If this roommate situation was gonna be permanent, he was pretty sure Lestat would let him bring some of his furniture, too. But Louis had enough apartments for three people, each with its own distinct decoration style - from minimalist to opulent - and none was quite like Lestat’s. Where Louis felt like his own were soulless and obviously rarely used, Lestat’s was bursting with life and carried his essence in every room. The extreme colors, the blend between vintage and modern, vapid rockstar and sophisticated aristocrat in one. It reminded Louis a bit of their townhouse on Rue Royale. It felt like home, even after just a day. But maybe that was just Lestat striding through the rooms, throwing himself uncaringly onto the couch, filling the apartment with noise.

Sometimes, when Louis stumbled across certain section on a bookshelf, or a candlestick that he distinctly remembered purchasing in 1924, Louis couldn’t help but think Lestat had furnished it with Louis in mind, too.

And even though he’d claimed it as his reason to stay, he could do his business from anywhere; delegate the personal visits to his assistants and only do the ones in and around Montréal himself.

After he’d arranged the deliveries, Louis told Lestat he was going on a walk and that he’d be back soon.

There was a park nearby that he set as his erstwhile destination. He’d debated telling Lestat that he should look for him if he wasn’t back in an hour. But there was a very high probability that Lestat would demand to go with if he knew that it was potentially dangerous. And Louis needed to do this alone.

Daniel.

His presence had always been stormy, even more so now that he was a vampire. It wasn’t particularly hard to find him in the fray. And he’d grown closer within the last 24 hours, his power a simmering thing, too grand for his young age. Stronger than two weeks ago when Louis had contacted him last. He’d harbored a grudge against Daniel for ambushing Louis with the Talamasca and punished him with the silent treatment. Now, he was so angry the silent treatment wouldn’t do.

Oh-oh. Am I in trouble now?

Louis shoved his hands into his pockets to stop himself from doing something irrational.

In trouble?! You published a sex-tape, Daniel! You worked with Armand to publish a sex-tape about Lestat.

You’re great at stating the obvious, Louis, you’d make a terrific journalist.

Stop fucking joking.

Oh you’re testy, okay. But I don’t get why you’re angry at me. I did what I always do. I got to the truth.

Louis should’ve expected something like this. It was perfectly in line with Daniel’s nature, cruel and forward. Still, it didn’t stop him from wanting to tear Daniel to shreds verbally, make him see how twisted and backwards his logic was, how much it had affected Lestat – but he hesitated. He didn’t want to out Lestat further, discuss Lestat’s abuse with Daniel, the person who had made it public knowledge in the first place. It didn’t feel right.

I forgot. You journalists don’t care about consent. If I remember correctly, you never did.

Hey, she wanted to sleep with me.

With a paper bag. Yeah, right.

Okay, seriously, what’s gotten into you? Lestat lied to you, too, yeah? Told you his mother was dead all this time? And now, in a truly astonishing twist, turns out he’s a real motherfucker.

You should stop talking quick if you want to keep your head, Daniel.

I don’t think you’re in the position to make any threats. I’ve got some muscle behind me now.

Oh, Armand? You really believe he isn’t lying to you right now? What the hell has turned you into his marionette now? Weren’t you right beside me, trying to figure out what he did to make us forget San Francisco?

Daniel was quiet for a second. Louis had to fight his desire to cross the distance between them and rip his new Armand-style eyes out. Some of it must’ve still translated across the psychic connection because Louis could feel some hesitance on Daniel’s part. Or he was just debating what to divulge to Louis about his new alliance.

Look, Daniel started and Louis was very tempted to cut him off, this one word so aggravating suddenly, as if Louis was the one who had to see reason. Lestat’s whole vampire patriotism shtick is incredibly dangerous. There’s more than enough vampires already. These past few weeks, we had more newly turned than we had the whole last decade. What happens if we make humans go extinct? We start sucking on each other?

And you couldn’t’ve asked him to stop? You had to post that instead?! That doesn’t sound like a good excuse, Daniel. Sounds like you want revenge for something. What’d he do? Insult you too colorfully? Can’t even stand a little resistance from a subject? Two times Pulitzer prize winning journalist, everyone.

Shut up. I can handle the Brat. It’s Mommy Dearest, she was the one encouraging this whole Great Conversion thing. This was the best way to drive a wedge between them, according to Armand.

Oh and you listen to Armand now?

He’s known both of them for longer than we have, he knows Lestat better than we do- yes I listened to Armand.

Everything in Louis recoiled against that statement.

And what tells you Armand’s telling the truth? Last I knew, you hated him. What happened.

Daniel was hesitating. There really was something and if Louis knew Daniel good enough, it was gonna be something entirely unreasonable. Armand had made him a deal which forsook any and all moral principle. Lestat had made fun of him for something.

Lestat pulled a mind trick on me. Two months of nothing. No substance, no real stuff on his backstory at all. Just empty posturing. Then I think I got something, something real, and there he goes. Tells me about his dead boyfriend while shaking and crying, I look on camera and nothing. It’s all fake. All in my head.

Daniel sounded righteously angry, as if it was totally justified to uncover years of abuse because of that. As if it was anything but traumatic for Lestat to see his past with Louis dissected in a book. As if it wasn’t obvious he didn’t want people knowing more about the worst decisions in his life. As if it wasn’t surprising enough to get anything out of Lestat, who hadn’t even told Louis about what had really happened with Nicolas.

Louis couldn’t stop himself from sending a strong wave of feeling over the connection.

I really really wanna rip your head off right now, you know that? Still the asshole who fucks a crying girl with a bag over her head. And now you’re even stupid enough to trust Armand because of a petty slight.

Louis closed the connection.

He was standing in the middle of the park now, without having consciously walked here. There was a bench a few paces away and Louis, for a lack of knowing where to go, went to sit.

Distantly, he was thinking about Lestat’s panic attack in the car and on the sidewalk. About Lestat breaking down in front of the camera and still possessing the admirable strength to keep it off the record. Better than Louis had ever been able to.

He was too angry at Daniel and at himself to return home yet, too incensed, caught in a blind and bitter thing. The dark meadow, the trees, the cold wind, invisible to him. He dug his nails into the wood. Then, in an insane and dangerous impulse, he searched for Armand in the fray.

Armand had a complicated presence. Despite being the most powerful vampire Louis knew, he felt understated, like a slow-moving giant beast along the ocean ground. His mind was almost the opposite of Daniel; harder to make out for Louis but so overwhelming in power, he could usually keep track of him once he found him.

To Louis’s surprise, Armand was closer than he’d previously assumed.

Louis. He sounded pleasantly surprised, disembodied voice light and feathery. Everything in Louis tensed, as if in the presence of a predator. He was. Armand could rip him apart. Would, too, had tried to, once. Cruel without reason. Scheming, always.

Louis stared at the park in front of him. Softly swaying treetops, rustling leaves. He could imagine Armand between the bushes, patiently waiting. Or there, beneath the streetlight, rigid and with glowing orange eyes. And his presence suffused Louis entirely, as if he was really here, in this park, in Louis’s ear, in his mind.

Louis fled the park in a show of cowardice that was very unlike him. The whole way home, he felt Armand’s eyes on him, and no matter how hard he tried, he could never be fully sure he closed the connection.

When he got home, Lestat had ceased playing and was staring into nothing overtop of the piano.

Louis took his jacket off. The mere presence of Lestat in the same room calmed him; somehow, Armand was less of a threat here, even though logically, Louis knew Armand was stronger. Could Lestat prevent him from getting into his head?

“How was your walk?” Lestat asked lightly, his voice dream-like, floating.

“Fine. Did you know Armand was in the city?”

Lestat let his fingers slide from the keys, down into his lap. He didn’t look at Louis even though Louis wanted him to, desperately.

“Of course I know. He’s visited my tour before.”

Louis involuntarily bristled. “He what?”

“Not to worry, he only apologized for- I don’t quite recall. My overwhelming personality? My withholding companionship? Not telling you it was I who saved you? It wasn’t really sufficient.”

“But why? Armand isn’t really the type to give earnest apologies. What’s he want here?”

“Well, that’s easy. He wants me to not do the concert. You’re quite in agreement in that regard.”

It was upsettingly close to what Daniel had told Louis. But he was caught up on something else.

“Don’t do that. I’m not in agreement with him about anything.”

Lestat shrugged, like it wasn’t that important. This subdued version he had become after the video slowly got on Louis’s nerves.

“I think he doesn’t like the idea of the Great Conversion.” Lestat dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

Louis itched to take him by the shoulders and forcefully turning him around. Lestat didn’t keep his performance up if he was faced with Louis and it was one of Louis’s favorite things to witness. And also really fucking necessary now.

“And he thought apologizing would make you listen to him? Doesn’t sound like his greatest plan.”

Now Lestat did turn. He leveled Louis with a blank stare. “I’m sure there’s a logic behind it that only makes sense to Armand. Maybe there’s a second part to it. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t spent 77 years with him.”

Louis immediately tensed. “I thought we were past that.”

“We are.” Lestat decidedly swiveled around to his piano and started a cheerful little tune that effectively cut off any more discussion.

Louis seethed. He thought about biting back with accusations – Lestat could’ve told him and spared them the decades apart, Lestat could’ve elaborated on the Great Laws, stopped withholding so much Claudia was tempted into searching for answers on her own.

But Louis had grown and he believed he knew Lestat better than he had when he accused him of killing their daughter. Louis had listened to ‘Stained Glass Eyes’ exactly once and then never again. Thinking too much about it made him desperate to ask Lestat to go to dinner with him and Regina. So he turned around and left for the guest room.

Being roommates meant living in close quarters but not talking about anything substantial. Not about Gabriella, not about Claudia and Regina and especially not about their shared past. Even though Louis couldn’t look at Lestat and forget the way he’d looked at him in their happy days, full of awe and adoration. When Lestat brushed past him in the hallway, Louis remembered dancing with him in the courtyard or their living room and when they ate dinner together, Louis couldn’t stop himself from staring at a drop of blood at the corner of Lestat’s mouth and inevitably imagined kissing it off. Or if not that, wiping it away. Or getting closer, at all. They weren’t close enough anymore.

By the third night, Louis was convinced this roommate idea was the stupidest thing he’d ever thought of. Maintaining the distance made Louis irritable and tense. He snapped at Lestat more than necessary or deserved and once, he contemplated leaving for just a night to meet up with Lemuel. But if Lestat had issues with feeling inadequate, Louis leaving might just be counterproductive. Sometimes, Louis had half a mind to just leave the whole idea of friendship being healthier behind and approach Lestat. He was almost certain he’d be welcomed.

But then he checked his social media and was reminded of the clip of Lestat and Gabriella or caught glimpses of secretly taken videos of Lestat with his groupies and reminded himself why it was necessary. Nobody had ever shown Lestat that he was enough without sharing his body. Louis wasn’t entirely certain but by the glimpses he’d caught, he was pretty sure most of Lestat’s bandmates wanted to sleep with him, too. And there was so much baggage between them that the whole thing would just blow up in their faces. Being friends, roommates, was healthier for the both of them. They could still talk, establish some kind of stability. Better than being miles apart where Louis distracted himself from the ache of missing him by pretending he didn’t at all. Answering texts and calls only once a week even if he couldn’t stop himself from reading them immediately. Pondering on a response for so long it didn’t make sense to respond at all, anymore. Because roommates meant that he got to wake up with Lestat playing piano a room over. That he could sit on the couch reading a book while Lestat wandered in circles thinking of the right lyrics, humming melodies to himself, thumbing through books without reading in order at all.

Sometimes, Louis felt the couch dip as Lestat sank into it beside him and had to catch himself in the process of leaning over. But it felt so much like their first years in Rue Royale that it was hard to escape the fantasy of being together again.

Did Lestat feel the same? Did he fight laying his head in Louis’s lap and asking him to read aloud? Louis couldn’t tell because Lestat was so careful around him now, soft but reserved and sometimes, Louis hated that he hated Daniel because he had no one to talk to about it and he couldn’t exactly tell Lestat because, again, he didn’t want to push him.

One especially weak and humiliating evening, Louis almost texted Lemuel. He only barely avoided disaster and shut the app instead of hitting send. It wasn’t the best idea to ask someone he was kinda involved with for relationship advice. Probably. Lemuel’d know; he was younger.

There weren’t many harmless activities they could do together. Either they posed the risk of bringing all the old baggage up or had Louis almost forgetting about their current arrangement. And Louis missed him. Sometimes, just living alongside each other wasn’t enough.

Louis found an old album of his pictures in one of the boxes that had only gotten shipped over recently. This was probably one of the most dangerous landmines to discuss with Lestat but when he opened it up and found a picture of Claudia staring back at him, the hollow ache in his chest propelled him up and out of the room before he could think.

Lestat was on his phone in his room. Louis had wondered why it was so empty before – only a coffin, night table and a whole lot of empty space. The huge windows looked like black portals into nothingness at night.

Louis wandered in without knocking. Lestat put his phone away immediately, already standing in his coffin.

“Do you think it was a mistake to cancel the séance?”

Lestat lifted his brows. “Where’s this coming from suddenly?”

Louis came to sit in front of him on the ground and hesitantly, Lestat resettled himself in his coffin.

“I don’t think I ever showed you these.” Louis told him and balanced the photo album on the coffin’s edge. The little lamp from the bedside table sent a warm glow over the pictures. Louis watched Lestat’s face carefully as he caught the book so it wouldn’t slide off, eyes flitting over the page.

Lestat displayed every emotion he felt on his face. When he spoke, in his voice, when he moved, in his body. Now, there was a raw sort of pained awe in the set of his mouth, his eyebrows, his eyes. His forehead creased. Lestat made to reach out for a picture, maybe trail his fingers over the surface but Louis stopped him by grabbing his wrist. “They’re old. Might fade if you touch them.” He could hear the hoarseness in his own voice.

“Elle a l’air heureuse.” Lestat said quietly.

“She was.”

There was a faint smile on Lestat’s face now. He turned the page to another, studying it quietly. Louis didn’t know what he was looking at but he didn’t have to. It was enough to see Lestat’s reactions to them. The slight changes in his expression. A downturn of his mouth, the redness gathering in his eyes, how hungrily he devoured Paris, Claudia, Louis. There had to be one or two of Madeleine in there, too. Armand, maybe. The one singed picture of him at the Seine and Louis suddenly wanted to point it out to Lestat, tell him he’d been there, too. Ask his opinion on the one he’d asked his hallucination of Lestat to comment on. Compare their answers, how accurate his vision had been.

“I was never good at it.” he said instead.

Lestat did an aborted half-nod. “I know. You said.”

He almost caressed another. Stopped himself. Then looked up at Louis. “I don’t think so.”

Louis scoffed. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I’m no expert on photography, but I can see you in these pictures. That alone makes them special.”

Louis didn’t dare to tell him that that didn’t prove its quality but rather showed how biased Lestat was. It was nice to hear, anyway.

Louis glimpsed into Lestat’s room to see if he might want to have breakfast together before going to bed when he found his coffin open and room empty. Even more empty than it was ordinarily.

Louis didn’t mean to spy or snoop around. But Lestat had left his phone and just as he was about to turn back, it vibrated.

Lestat’s coffin was more modern than the one he had had in New Orleans. It was almost reminiscent of Louis’s own back then, with its smooth wood surface. But the silk lining looked soft and comfortable and Louis allowed himself to wonder, just for a moment, what it might feel like to lie down in it. Even from a small distance, Louis’s vampiric sense of smell could pick up on the traces of Lestat’s scent on the fabric.

His phone vibrated again.

The voices are getting restless. You have to come. I am waiting for you.

Then, If you don’t come, I’ll be gone.

The contact name was ambiguous. Toi could mean anyone. But from the content of the messages alone, Louis got a bad feeling.

Louis hadn’t heard of Gabriella in all the time since. He hadn’t even been aware Lestat was still in contact with her. Maybe it had been foolish to assume Lestat had noticed how bad it was for him to keep her around. But when Lestat had postponed the concert, claiming a family emergency was the reason, Louis had kind of stopped thinking about it. He’d focused more on scrubbing the internet of the video – pointless, aggravating, never-ending – and then there had been the issue of the photos. Lestat had asked Louis to get a print of one of the pictures so he could hang it on an empty wall. And Louis, unable to deny Lestat, had called around to make it possible. Of course, Lestat had come back with five photos instead of just one – Louis in a Parisian café, Claudia laughing on their first hunt with the coven, Claudia and Madeleine before the transformation, looking at each other, Louis and Claudia, caught unawares by Armand, as they often were, Claudia, again, writing in her diary. Lestat had hung them in a little photo collection on the wall and then turned to Louis and asked: what was Madeleine like? He was fascinated by her; French, witty, and so dear to Claudia.

That had been the only time they’d broken the no past rule. But it was good because Louis felt a little lighter telling Lestat about their daughter.

The screen lit up. I won’t help you when they tear you apart.

“What are you doing here?”

Lestat was next to him before Louis could let go of the phone. He ripped it from Louis with a force he didn’t expect.

Louis wasn’t sure Lestat wouldn’t go. Especially not with that kind of ultimatum attached. Even less sure how to broach this whole topic without Lestat raising his guard.

“It’s bad norm to look at someone’s phone, no? This is my business.” Lestat addressed him brusquely.

“Is that Gabriella?”

Lestat sniffed, looking away. “Sofia.”

“I don’t care how you wanna call her, that’s your mother texting you?”

Louis knew he was coming off too strong but he couldn’t pull back. It still made him nauseous to even think about and meeting up with Gabriella was such an obviously bad decision. Louis had thought Lestat was getting better. He’d been brightening up a bit. Hanging pictures. Normal things. Nothing like running off to screw his mother.

“She is. That’s allowed.”

Louis could barely bite back the maybe it shouldn’t be and instead took a deep breath to calm himself. The thing he’d like to do most was ask Lestat for his PIN and tell Gabriella to fuck off. Unfortunately, it was also the fastest way for Lestat to withdraw from him.

“Okay. Do you want to see her?”

Maybe that was a bad question. Lestat hesitated, avoiding Louis’s eyes. Then, in a quiet voice: “I haven’t seen her in two weeks now” and he sounded like a child, looked like a child, sunken into himself, shoulders drawn up for protection.

Louis was tempted to bundle him up in his coffin and go meet Gabriella in his stead. This too-young version of Lestat, nine and not over 200, was all her fault. It’d be really nice to see her bleed. Small and crushed, the way she made Lestat feel. But Louis wasn’t sure she was even capable of feeling any emotion beyond cruel joy and lust.

“I get that. But do you really want to? What about how you feel after? Or even during?”

Lestat turned away. “I won’t do it, je te le promets.”

“You have to tell me more, what won’t you do, Les?”

The nickname got him to draw his shoulders up even higher. Louis couldn’t see his face but he could see him shaking slightly, taking shallow breaths. “I won’t touch her. But I want to-“

“How do you know she’s not gonna?”

“I can ask her-“

“And what then? What if she says no? Or she says yes and then does it anyway?”

Lestat took a deep breath. “You talk like you know her. But you don’t. Let me take care of my own business.”

Louis paused, thoughts racing. He couldn’t bodily restrain Lestat to keep him from going. It seemed like he couldn’t convince him, either. Only one option left.

“Well, if you’re going, I’m going, too.”

Lestat turned around quickly, shoving his hair back from his face. He was crying. “Why?”

“Because I wanna make sure you’re comfortable. And if something happens you don’t want to happen, then I can help you tell her.”

“You won’t go if I go to her?” Lestat asked softly, with a tentative hope in his eyes.

“Of course not.”

“Oh.”

Lestat looked down on his phone. Turned it on and unlocked it. He hesitated for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the screen. Then, he turned it to Louis.

Countless messages, most unresponded to. One or two I don’t want to talk about it now, Can we do this later, Give me a month.

One, No, please. In response to, If you don’t need me anymore, I’ll go.

The implication was clear. If Lestat continued to stay with Louis. If he didn’t need Gabriella’s attention anymore.

Lestat pressed the phone into Louis’s hands.

“Can you write that I can’t make it?”

After that day, Louis never caught Lestat texting Gabriella again. When he brought it up again, Lestat dismissed it with saying he had blocked her.

It was such a modern thing to do, such a thing unlike Lestat in Louis’s mind that he couldn’t help but find it funny.

Louis tried finding her presence in the fray but she must’ve been too far away already. Lestat had told him how she liked to travel.

Lestat brightened up day by day. Returned slowly to the Lestat from before Louis had discovered the messages, just as him and Louis returned to pretending like they didn’t know some of the most intimate information about each other. No talk of Claudia or Gabriella anymore. But there was this-

Quiet mornings in the living room together, just before the sun would breach the sky and force them to go to coffin. Louis reading the books from Lestat’s bookshelves, awfully reminiscent of him doing the same in the first few years in Rue Royale. Lestat playing at the piano, occasionally turning and asking Louis’s opinion and more often than not, Louis was ready to give a review because he paid more attention to the way Lestat’s hair fell over his shoulders, his body leaned into the movements, than to the book. During those times, Louis again thought of being human roommates on the verge of more. Sometimes, he felt like he was one of those young men in love with their friends from the movie trailers on social media. But he wasn’t. He’d been somewhere over 110 when he’d stopped noticing his birthdays and Lestat was his sort-of-ex-husband. And Louis knew what it was like to be the one Lestat looked to first in a room. The one he tried his hardest to please.

He knew what it sounded like when Lestat told him he loved him.

A week after Lestat had blocked Gabriella, Lestat softly knocked at Louis’s door. It was the night after they had a minor falling out over Louis’s habit to eat blood with a spoon. Lestat said it was ridiculous and that he spilled everywhere when he did it. Louis argued it was only sensible and felt more like a meal than a quick drink you could have standing up. They didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion.

When Louis opened, feeling as if he was in a fancy hotel and not Lestat’s own apartment, Lestat smiled at him in an uncharacteristically shy fashion.

“Do you want to go hunting?”

It was as much an olive branch as it was a reminder that Lestat was still the same vampire Louis had gotten to know in New Orleans.

Lestat found them a group of young men, mildly intoxicated and itching for a fight. Their thoughts were both racist and homophobic and Louis couldn’t help but feel Lestat had chosen them to appeal to Louis’s sensibilities. He watched Louis as he advanced on the boldest of the three, his macho posturing and open disgust slowly giving way to terror. Louis felt as if he was performing in front of a captive audience but while it would normally make him awkward or unsettled, it now lit a fire in him.

Louis showed them his fangs. One of them lost his bravado and tried to make a run for it and Louis snapped his spine for his efforts. He lost consciousness immediately. As Louis lifted his head to the rest, Lestat had one in his clutches, eyes unwaveringly fixed on Louis. One hand in his victim’s hair, the other holding his shoulder as he thrashed. Louis met his gaze and felt a shiver traveling down his spine as he thought about being in the victim’s place, Lestat’s hands on him like they hadn’t been in almost a century.

The boldest tried to stab Lestat with his illegally imported pocket knife. Louis caught him from behind, sank his teeth in his neck. He went limp almost instantaneously, dropping the knife. Louis had to hold him up to continue feeding.

There was a glint of hunger in Lestat’s eyes, ravenous, burning, and then he bit, too.

Louis had to avert his gaze, focus on the slow pulls of blood that filled him with more strength than the rat blood ever had. And, even if he was loathe to admit it, it tasted sweeter and more alive than any of the bags he kept in his fridge.

They shared the unconscious man. Louis took his neck, sensing Lestat coming closer from behind. But instead of going for the other side of the neck, where Louis would’ve been able to feel the warmth radiating off him, where Lestat’s smell would’ve overpowered the victims’, where Louis could’ve pretended he was drinking from him- Lestat picked up a limp hand and pierced the thin skin of his wrist.

When they returned home, sleeves and collar slightly bloodied, Louis felt more restless and unsatisfied than he did when they left. He wordlessly claimed the shower first and tried to scrub the itch under his skin away with soap.

In coffin, he saw Lestat’s burning stare every time he closed his eyes.

Louis paused in front of the door to clean his shoes on the doormat when Mrs. Robinson wished him a good evening from a door over. Louis smiled at her, lifted a hand in greeting. “Greet your grandkids for me. Kevin still sick?”

She set down her grocery bag. “Oh goodness, no, the poor little one is running around again as if nothing could touch him. And I always tell him he should slow down, else he breaks a bone, but he of course doesn’t listen.”

“Well, hope he doesn’t get in trouble. I wish you all the strength in the world.”

“Oh you’re a treasure, Mr. du Lac. Now go in quick, before your husband starts to make noise again. I’m so glad you’re back, he’s so much more bearable now.”

Louis laughed. “Yeah, he’s like a dog sometimes.”

Only when he closed the door behind him and threw his keys in the wooden bowl did he realize what Mrs. Robinson had called Lestat. And how painfully domestic it felt to come home to a lived-in, extravagantly decorated apartment. Wouldn’t it be easy to call out ‘honey I’m home’ like they did in all the movies? Playing house again, 80 years removed from Rue Royale. But this time with neighbors whom he wouldn’t have to lie to, who openly called them husbands without sneering.

Louis, who had lived a lie for 33 years, miserably in self-hate for 30, grieving for 5 and a lie again for 77, yearned for it so suddenly and so completely that it staggered him.

Lestat was in the living room sorting through books, dressed comfortably in his robe and woolen pullover with sleeves that covered his hands when he let them slide down. He was miles away from the rockstar on stage. Miles from the charming vampire offering a glass of wine and a place at his table. He was muttering under his breath in French.

Louis felt for him so violently that he couldn’t breathe. He wanted to go over and embrace him. How embarrassing, that his fantasies had grown so pathetic, so pitiful. Just a hug. Just snaking his arms under the robe so he could touch the soft wool of the pullover, feel his warmth.

Suddenly, there was no argument against it in his mind. Nothing that made sense. Roommates hugged. Friends hugged. Lestat was, before all else, his friend. And Louis felt he was starving for just a touch. The hunt, close but not close enough, Lestat an impossible distance at the victim’s wrist, his eyes dark in the night, the blue almost completely swallowed by black, enraptured by the hunt but still looking at Louis. Looking at Louis without any of the fear and now here, in what Louis called his home. Sorting through books he’d maybe bought because he thought Louis might enjoy them.

Lestat turned as he was already halfway through the room, a question in his half-open mouth and the knitted eyebrows.

Louis crashed against him more violently than he had imagined, held onto him fiercely enough that he could hear the wool rip under his fingers, but Lestat went soft and pliant all the same. A soft surprised breath of air escaped him. Louis buried his face in Lestat’s shoulder until all he could smell was the scent of his clothes and underneath, the sweet pull of his blood.

Distantly, he was aware of both the sound and feeling of Lestat’s heart beating quicker than it had before – out of surprise? love? – but Louis was too overwhelmed by the pleasant dizziness that swept through him, hot like fresh blood.

Being this close to Lestat had always been intoxicating, disorienting in the way it made him forget everything else. Even in Paris, kissing a mirage of him, Louis had felt insane, untethered, so far from any semblance of control. Now, this many years later, when the last memories of hugging Lestat were tainted by grief and worry, he was entirely unprepared for it. For the way the tension melted off him, his mind went quiet. It was like all of the decades choked with grief and the ever-present guilt ceased to exist.

And just for now, it was enough.

Still caught in it, unthinking, Louis kissed the side of Lestat’s neck, reveled in the feeling of Lestat’s hair brushing his cheek and chased it, closer, closer.

Lestat – without letting go of Louis at all – softly cleared his throat. “Are you alright?”

Louis regained his senses with a deep inhale. Remembered that he hadn’t wanted to push Lestat. That it probably wasn’t smart to convince Lestat he was enough when they were just roommates by doing this and stepped back swiftly.

“Yeah, of course. I’m sorry.”

Lestat’s arms remained hovering in the air a second more before he slowly, almost reluctantly, lowered them. He looked at Louis with such quiet concern and adoration both that Louis had to look away.

“I didn’t- there’s no excuse for it. Just forgot myself, is all. I’m sorry.”

“It’s strange what you’re willing to be sorry for.”

“Yeah, well.” Louis was more than a bit embarrassed by it all.

The hunt might have affected Louis more than he’d initially thought. And after finding out that Lestat very much still welcomed Louis, it was much harder to stop himself from constantly reaching over. It was almost instinctual again, painful in its familiarity. They wouldn’t go on a hunt again, that was for sure.

Louis tried to distract himself by looking through social media. If he saw and reported bits and pieces of the sex tape, he wouldn’t be tempted to convince Lestat into cuddling or some shit like that, was his reasoning.

He had a text waiting on him from Lemuel – if Louis was free sometime next week. Louis asked if it was about business or pleasure and switched back to Twitter, where he got distracted by a heated debate about how problematic it was to support an artist who openly participated in incest.

Louis was tempted to forgo any and all of his principles and ask Lestat to go on a violent hunt again. It was a pity that modern social media granted all these people anonymity, where they could say the most heinous things and Louis couldn’t even put the fear of God in them. Before he could either shatter his phone or go on search of Lestat, a smooth presence entered his mind.

Louis was immediately tense.

Gabriella is with me.

For a second, he debated not answering at all. It was fitting; the two people Louis hated most in the same place. Let them stay there, far away from Louis and Lestat.

Good. Keep her.

I thought it’d be of interest to your companion.

Louis almost audibly snorted.

Stop fishing, Armand. You know he’s not my companion. Just leave us alone.

So he’s not… is there a method to your madness this time?

I don’t have the patience for this, go and entertain Gabriella.

Louis tried to close the connection but found he couldn’t. It sent a shiver down his spine, with a similar creeping fear that had gone through him as he discovered he couldn’t remember. Not fear of going insane but rather of not having control over his own mind.

If I had him like you have him, I wouldn’t waste him.

I don’t have him. And since when are you a relationship expert? Would be pretty stupid of me to listen to you, anyway; he hates you just as I do.

He hates me, he loves me, it’s all the same. He just won’t stay with me like he’s willing to stay with you.

And how backwards that was. Lestat, who always feared abandonment from others, being the one abandoning another.

But in this case, Louis didn’t blame him for it. Sometimes, when he thought back to those 77 years he shared with Armand, he felt cold. Without truly knowing it, he’d spent decades with a monster. And somehow got out alive.

Louis couldn’t imagine ever feeling comfortable in the presence of Armand again.

Louis de Pointe du Lac. Emotional evisceration, your specialty.

What do you want, Armand?

Oh, of course. Maybe you could tell Lestat to open to me again? I’d quite like to talk to him about Gabriella. But he doesn’t receive my messages.

Louis was briefly envious of Lestat, powerful enough to block Armand out. Then, he was more than glad.

Somehow, I don’t think you’re the right person to make demands, Armand. You killed our daughter.

So you’re not companions but she’s your shared daughter? Then again, it’s not much of a surprise - I saw a great deal of Lestat in her-

Armand almost sounded wistful, as if they were old friends reminiscing on a holiday together. It filled Louis equal parts with horror and rage – how could he be so nonchalant about it when he’d been the one orchestrating it all? Killing her after accepting her into his coven. Just like he’d stayed with Louis after Louis destroyed his coven.

I’m not doing this with you. What’s that you wanted to say about Gabriella?

A mental shrug.

Well, I’ve got her. Tell Lestat to not do the concert if he wants her to live.

What if he doesn’t care?

Armand sighed, a quiet and floating thing, one of those he used to do when he was under Louis on his stomach, face turned to the side on the pillow-

Louis got vaguely nauseous.

Then I’ll have to decapitate him. But it’s really too much of an effort because I imagine if I behead him, I’ll have to do you, too, and that would mean rallying my followers-

Louis had no doubt Armand would actually kill them over this. Or that he had followers, Armand told the truth in blood over the defaced pictures of Lestat, the Fang Gang laughing dirtily at some kind of cruel joke before Louis lobbed their heads off.

Don’t strain yourself. I don’t think the concert’s gonna be a problem. He’s not doing it.

Louis couldn’t stop the half-formed thought about being glad if Armand killed Gabriella from transferring over to him. And then he realized he’d have to tell Lestat about all of it if he didn’t want to betray him and push him away. Telling Lestat about Gabriella being in danger would undoubtedly lead to him frantic with the need to save her. Louis didn’t want to be complicit in furthering their messed-up relationship in any way, so he had to make sure she stayed alive, at least.

Keep her until the date of the concert, I guess. If he doesn’t do it, you can let her go.

I don’t think you’re in any place to make demands either, Louis. You haven’t even apologized to me.

Louis scoffed. Me? Apologize to you? Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. Fuck off, Armand.

His grace wasn’t boundless.

A disappointed sentiment floated through the connection, feather-light.

For all your insistence that you aren’t companions, you certainly share the same sentiments.

Then he was gone.

Louis let go of the breath he was holding, trembling from relief he was almost ashamed of feeling.

The room was quiet and empty and for a second, he couldn’t believe the whole conversation had been in his head; had been here, where he normally felt so safe and at home. He felt raptured, hollow somehow, as if Armand had infected him with his own feelings of inadequacy.

The door to Lestat’s room down the hall opened. Louis could hear his heart, beating in a slow and sure rhythm. Reliably, Louis’s own gradually slowed until it fell into step with Lestat’s, and by the time he appeared in the doorway, wind-swept, gaze immediately finding Louis on the couch, they were in sync. He must’ve been on the balcony, watching the humans as he’d grown fond of doing, because he brought the scent of cold air in with him.

Suddenly, Louis was eager to know if his hands were cold. If Louis could warm them for him. Be assured that Armand wouldn’t take off their heads, as immature that sounded.

Lestat swept into the room with only the barest hint of hesitation, gesticulating with one hand in the air. “The old lady next to us lost her dog – you know the one, the little Pomeranian? – and the teenage boy down the road found him for her and brought him home. I never knew what everyone appreciates in small dogs. They’re loud, have an entirely inflated sense of ego and aren’t even helpful if anyone were to attack you. Not that it’d to anything against a vampire, but the illusion at least is nice, yes? I felt that way when I was younger; Mastiffs are truly excellent at scaring annoying bullies off. Oh, that reminds me-“

Lestat let himself fall into the couch next to Louis, close enough that he’d only need to reach out to tuck Lestat’s wild, frazzled hair behind his ear. Louis barely caught himself from bodily turning and instead just tilted his head in Lestat’s direction.

“J’ai pensé we could adopt some kind of dog. Do you have a favorite?”

Louis raised his brows. “Do dogs even like vampires?”

“Well, dogs like me.”

Louis huffed out a laugh. “Then it doesn’t matter, of course. I can be the chew toy for the dog. Let him get out all his energy.”

“Why do you assume it’ll be a him? I’m completely impartial to gender, it’ll only have to have the right personality-“

“Oh, I know.”

Lestat paused in his rambling to throw Louis a disapproving look. “And the dog of course has to like you.” He finished pointedly. “Are you trying to shame me for my preferences? Be careful, I believe that’ll get you cancelled on social media.”

“I’ll get cancelled? If you’d gotten popular enough, you couldn’t have been able to dig yourself out of scandals. I don’t think it’s good norm anymore to sleep with your fans, Lestat.”

Lestat looked irritated. “But I’m a rockstar. That’s what rockstars do. Anyway, there’s not much else that makes for a good distraction. Do you propose I take up drugged blood again?”

“I think it’d be ideal you wouldn’t have to search for distractions at all.”

Lestat tilted his head, not unlike a dog. He looked as if that hadn’t occurred to him at all. “Haven’t you partaken in the same kind of lifestyle in the 70s? Dan’s book alluded to it.”

Louis laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, because I was doing so well then.”

At Lestat’s questioning glance, Louis shook his head. He didn’t exactly want to dredge up old hurts. “I was still grieving and I was unhappy with Armand and searched for something to punish him- us both, really. And then, of course, I found Daniel and gave the interview to-“ and there he hesitated.

Lestat was still listening attentively, even though his expression had grown dark.

Louis really did turn in his direction now, resting an arm on the back of the couch and folding one leg underneath himself. “I know you don’t wanna talk about the book but I’d really like to tell you why I did the interview. If you’re willing to listen.”

Lestat tipped his head down. Swallowed, took a breath. “Alright.”

Louis scrambled for words. He felt like he was on a clock, like Lestat would leave if he couldn’t explain sufficiently enough in a short time.

“I wasn’t doing good and I obviously thought you killed Claudia – or were a big part of it. And I still-“ Louis paused, braced himself for the words. “I still missed you. Despite it all. Like you said, you were a spirit and you never really left me. Even in Dubai, I saw you there, with me.”

As he looked up again, Lestat’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed. Louis couldn’t make out if he was breathing but there was so much wonder in his gaze, again, so much naked adoration that Louis couldn’t breathe.

“I hated myself for it, for still clinging onto you even when I thought you were- yeah. So when Daniel turned up and said he interviewed people, I thought I could prove to myself that I really did hate you. And I insulted you, convinced myself all those years in Rue Royale were different than they really were.”

Lestat had leaned closer, gaze fixed on Louis so oppressively, ravenous for his words. Louis thought of Armand again, who hadn’t seemed to hold Lestat’s attention as fully. Maybe few people did. And Louis was almost overcome, again, almost let himself lean in, too, close the gap, just to feel Lestat-

But he was telling him something. Something important.

“Armand said it was because I secretly hoped you’d see the book and come to me out of outrage for all the lies I told and at the time, I thought it was a ridiculous concept. Or tried to tell myself. But now, I believe he was right. And then the second interview- how did you put it? You wanted someone to find out, deep down? Self-destruct? As I said, I wasn’t happy with Armand. And maybe subconsciously, I knew what he was doing to me. So I wanted to get the truth.”

“Why the lies the second time? Why say I hated Claudia and threatened her with-“

Lestat broke off, one of his clawed hands curling into a fist.

“Because I didn’t know better. And my hatred towards you because of her death and Armand’s manipulation warped my view of you but- I think I can see it better, now.”

Louis wrestled with himself, tried to stop it- but leaned forward and put a hand on Lestat’s still. “Thank you for giving me your copy of the book. I learned a lot. Like the- the cat you kept in secret, so I wouldn’t eat it? And you snuck Claudia treats for it so it wouldn’t starve? I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it-“

“She was called Madame Chateau. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t the French word for cat but she didn’t wanna hear it.”

A tear separated from the red well that had gathered in Lestat’s eye and slipped down his cheek. The smell of his blood filled the air and Louis laughed wetly. There was a terrible, insistent ache in his chest but it didn’t feel like it normally did when he talked about Claudia or thought about her – nothing like the memories he’d dredged up in Dubai in front of the judging eyes of Daniel and Armand’s impartialness.

There was a strange kind of relief in it, in knowing that there was another who remembered Claudia just as Louis did, back when she was 14, 15, 20. How she’d grown up to be an adult, so independent, so smart so soon. And what an upbringing it had been; she with her demon parents, forced to kill too young.

“Thank you that you took her hunting and to that Lover’s Lane – even if it did all turn to shit, I think I’d sheltered her enough that she’d been stunted. Wouldn’t’a known what sex was with 40.”

Now they were both crying, the smell of their blood mingling. Louis gripped Lestat’s hand tight and he held Louis’s back, just as hard. Louis’s voice was unsteady now, wavering with every word.

“I thought I was her father but I was really the fun uncle. Always too lenient.”

“No, no, don’t say that, Louis.” Lestat’s hair fell into his face, obscured one eye. “You gave her affection, so much affection. I don’t think I ever knew parents could be like that. I never- I, I never gave her-“

Louis shushed Lestat, scooted closer on the couch to grab onto his shoulder with his free hand. “You took her driving, and she got all the gifts in the world, you spoiled her just as much- even if you could be real mean to her- but you did so well for what you’ve been taught, Lestat, you never had anyone show you what- what a parent was s’posed to look like.”

Louis tripped up on a hiccup but Lestat had already lowered his head enough he couldn’t see his face anymore. And then, Lestat tugged at their joined hands and Louis, caught completely off-guard, tipped forward into him. He instinctively brought his hand up to hold Lestat, who buried his head at Louis’s neck to weep, quietly.

Louis tipped his head so that his quivering mouth rested on the top of Lestat’s head and watched from the periphery how his own tears soaked Lestat’s hair and painted it copper. His breaths came ragged now, chest jerking, but Lestat didn’t seem at all bothered by that.

“I bet she hates us.” Louis whispered, later.

“Of course she does.” Lestat’s voice was broken. “Our little milkweed, she was always vicious. Do you love her any less for it?”

“No, no, ‘course not.”

Lestat sighed, long and sad. Then, he righted himself, drew back from Louis. Louis immediately missed his warmth. He was still dizzy from crying, blood loss and the fuzzy affection he felt for Lestat, so he kept on talking: “I wish we were back there. In Rue Royale, together. There was a time where I wished I could escape it and- I was so stupid. The only thing I want is to be there. To have our- our family back.”

Lestat smiled at him, a trembling, sad little thing. “Je sais, Louis. J’y pense aussi, every night.”

Louis went to coffin still shaken up. He hadn’t told Lestat anything of what Armand had threatened him with and he couldn’t bear to do it now. All of his emotions were too stirred up and he felt exhausted down to the bone.

As he lay in coffin and stared up at the lid, he could feel the weight of the stones pressing down on him. The smell of musty, wet stone all around. The agonizing knowledge that she was gone. But when he closed his eyes, all he could see was the golden lamplight softening Claudia’s expression as she skipped around the townhouse, Lestat’s irritation played up and Louis loving both of them so much he couldn’t contain it.

Louis woke in the middle of the day with a wretched, harrowing feeling spreading through him. It was more emotion than knowledge; his memory only consisting of a few remnants of Lestat beheaded, Armand and Daniel passing his head back and forth between them. Like a ball, but with wide eyes, a mouth working to get air that could go nowhere. But not more, just this terrible terrible feeling-

Louis was cramped in the coffin. He scrabbled along the walls for the latch, found it, threw the lid open and stumbled in his haste to get out.

The room was dim. Lestat had thoughtfully outfitted the room with blackout curtains – even if not a bed – and Louis had drawn them before going to coffin but he hadn’t done it properly and slivers of light still got in. There was dust dancing in them.

As a child, the sight of sunshine had always calmed him after a nightmare. Now, it made it difficult to breathe – he didn’t even need to! – sunlight forever associated with Paul’s twisted body on unforgiving bricks, Claudia gone even if he never saw it, the searing pain of the sun biting into his skin. It was danger, more than everything else, and he wasn’t even really thinking when he reached the door and entered the darker hallway.

Lestat’s door wasn’t far enough for him to gain rational thought; it was only when he ripped it open and saw the generous light spilling into Lestat’s bedroom, onto his coffin, that he thought about anything else but the not-breathing and the emptiness in his chest that threatened to transform into panic. But it didn’t help much because there was light on Lestat’s coffin and what if it wasn’t sealed properly and Louis would open it only to discover a pile of ash where Lestat should be – alone, suddenly, again, but worse; killed Lestat again without even knowing. Not even Armand there to juggle heads.

Were Claudia here, she would shake her head at him. No, more likely: give a scathing comment about how pathetic he was, rushing back to Lestat, again and again. Roommates, sure, he heard her scoffing. A kept man again, are you?

Better kept than dead, Louis thought at her ghost. Better kept than alone, better kept by Lestat than anyone else, better kept than not at all. It all ended the same.

And if there was only ash, well, then maybe Louis would just lie down right beside him, no Armand here to pull him back.

Despite the melodrama, Louis closed the curtains before gently opening the coffin.

Normally, vampires could sleep through pretty much anything once they were down. It was what had made it so easy for Louis to take out the Paris coven. But sudden light, that was the one thing that could wake them.

Lestat slept curled onto his side, which was both very unvampiric and had him looking younger than he was. Half of his hair had fallen over his face and when he blinked, his eyelashes caught onto strands of it. Louis couldn’t quite accurately make out the color of his eyes in the dim light, even though he knew it from memory.

Recognition came slow. Lestat blinked again, took a breath like he just woke from the dead. Then, he was suddenly sitting upright, looking at Louis with furrowed brows, concerned.

“Quoi? T’es réveillé, pourquoi ?”

Louis grimaced. He didn’t want to talk about the nightmare. Or about last night. Really, he just wanted to get into coffin with Lestat and put his head on his chest so he could listen to his heartbeat close up. Keep a hand on his neck to feel his head attached to it, no open wound, not even a scar.

But he wasn’t sure he was entitled. It wasn’t what roommates did, it wasn’t what Louis was allowed to ask of Lestat, now.

“Wanted to make sure you’re good.”

Lestat swayed. He looked sleepy, still, with mussed hair and drooping eyes. Louis ached.

“Je suis- I am. Good. Do you want…” he broke off, his eyebrows pushing even closer together, like he was trying really hard to remember something. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to give me a moment, I didn’t expect this.”

“Would’ve been strange if you had.” Louis smiled but it turned out a bit thin.

Lestat stared at him again. Every passing second, he looked more and more alert. Louis had forgotten this; Lestat waking in increments, the times Louis had the privilege of being awake before him. It had been one of Louis’s favorite things, a reminder that Lestat was still capable of vulnerability. Something akin to humanity.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“How did you tell?” Louis tried to joke but it fell flat, even to himself.

“About- something imagined or something real?”

“Parts of both.”

Lestat looked like he wanted to reach out to Louis. Louis wanted him to. He was still crouching awkwardly in front of his coffin, unsure why he’d come, unsure if he should leave again. But the thought of his own empty coffin scared him in a way he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“Can I sleep here today? I can use the wardrobe, I just can’t…”

Louis looked over his shoulder to the wooden behemoth of Lestat’s wardrobe, which was no doubt stuffed with his clothes to the brim. But maybe Louis could force himself between them. They’d be soft, and smell like Lestat, no doubt. It sounded like a better idea the longer he thought about it.

“That is ridiculous, there’s no space in there for you.” Lestat lifted his chin, almost in a challenge. “But you can stay here, if you want. With me.”

Louis hesitated. “You sure?”

“Well, I’m not the one who’d be made uncomfortable by the concept. Clearly.”

“But I’d be? Where’d you get that idea?”

Lestat pointedly didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s obvious. After you learned of me and Sofia-“

“Gabriella.” Louis interrupted.

“Gabriella, sure. After you learned of us, I don’t blame you for finding me appalling.”

“What? Where the hell’s this coming from?”

Now, Lestat scoffed. His entire body was rigid, turned away. “Let’s be roommates. Let’s go on a hunt and make sure we don’t touch. Let’s show him pictures of her because he never got one. I know why you’re here, Louis. You pity me. I just hope you didn’t make up a nightmare so you could come and offer me a cuddle out of pity, too.”

Louis couldn’t think of a response to that, he was so flabbergasted. Out of pity? Sure, his initial thought process had been that Lestat needed company but oh if this wasn’t also self-serving. Getting to wake up and hear Lestat play, his heartbeat in the air, his smell all around – going into the living room and hugging him. The simple, uncomplicated joy in just seeing him, day after day, after rising, after eating, while composing, before coffin. The concept of this being a chore… Louis couldn’t quite believe Lestat had even entertained it.

“I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable, Lestat! You just went through a whole lot and us getting together again would’ve just made everything unnecessarily complicated – and I thought it’d be healthy if we were friends, again! There’s no world in which I’d come and live with you out of pity. I think you don’t understand how selfish I am. I dunno if I’d be capable of that.”

“Well, you paid a girl a million dollars just out of guilt, I think you can do a lot of things for the wrong reasons.”

“It wasn’t quite a million-“

“900.000 then-“

“And I know I was creepy but I don’t think this classifies-“

“I told you I get why you’d be disgusted, Louis! I think I am, too, sometimes.”

Louis shut up.

Lestat still wasn’t looking at him.

“That’s alright.” Louis tried. Lestat drew his shoulders up. “But I’m not. I just think we should all take some time before we commit again. Think about some things, work through open issues…”

“And your nightmare?”

Louis deflated. “Yeah, I’d like to stay here. If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

Affronted, Lestat lifted his gaze. “Have you heard anything I’ve said?”

Louis chuckled. “Yeah, okay.”

Lestat’s coffin was somehow even softer than Louis’s. Or it was just Lestat’s presence, his quick heartbeat under Louis’s ear, his breathing so close. All Louis could smell was him; his blood rushing under skin and flesh.

Louis couldn’t quite remember the last time they’d shared a coffin like this. It must’ve been in the period of time where Claudia had been plotting to kill him. Looking back, Lestat must’ve known the whole time. They had still slept together, close enough that Louis could’ve just sawed his head off in his sleep. And still. Still, Louis couldn’t remember Lestat ever looking at him differently, much less with hate. No, no, even then, Lestat had seemed so in love that it’d made Louis dizzy. Now, still, he could barely think for a minute without circling back to the present, unreal and impossible as it felt.

Lestat exhaled a long breath. Louis could feel it, his chest rising and falling. The smell of fresh blood bloomed in the confines of the coffin.

Louis pushed himself up into a sitting position. “You mind if we switch?”

In the dark, he could still see Lestat’s head on the pillow, his hair fanned out around him. The tear tracks down his face. He nodded jerkily, not even bothering to wipe them away.

Louis wanted to do it for him. He almost would’ve, but Lestat was already moving. Maybe it was too intimate, anyway. They were still officially roommates.

Louis laid back on the pillow and waited for Lestat to slowly come to rest with his head on Louis’s chest. As soon as he was settled, Louis wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in Lestat’s hair.

Lestat’s shoulders shook in silent sobs and he turned his head into Louis even more.

Louis inevitably thought of Gabriella, the video. Lestat looking up at her. Had Lestat ever looked at him like that? Open, yes, almost raw with a mix of pain and adoration. But also hurt. Also scared, somewhere in there. Louis didn’t think so. He’d looked so young. He had never appeared that young and fragile to Louis, especially not in Rue Royale. Now only when it was about her.

Louis held him tighter, breathed in his scent. He wanted to stay here for another hundred years. Forget the 77 of a loveless, grief- and anger-fueled marriage, the few in Paris where the ghost of Lestat haunted him, the 30 in Rue Royale where Louis didn’t, wouldn’t drink and Lestat cheated and Claudia ran away.

But he didn’t mean that. He wanted to keep all of them, even if he didn’t have the strength to live them again. He wanted to keep Claudia, most of all, in New Orleans, in Paris, in war-riddled Europe. But it was so hard to keep her, a chain dragging Louis down and right now, he just wanted to be happy. Just for a while, forget it all and float in this feeling – safe, fed, strong, with Lestat right here, also safe.

Lestat turned his head so he could speak. “You could’ve just asked if you could hold me.” he mumbled, sounding exhausted.

Louis smiled at the coffin lid, almost giddy with it. “Can I hold you? For the day?”

Lestat sniffed. Then, slowly, his arms came up, brushed past Louis’s sides. And he held onto him, too. “You can. I’d very much like you to.”

“Okay. Then let’s go to sleep.”

Lestat hummed and the vibration traveled into Louis’s chest.

Louis completely forgot to tell him of Armand.

Louis blinked his eyes open and stared straight at an unfamiliar coffin lid.

“Bonne nuit, mon cher.”

Lestat’s chin was digging into Louis’s chest and he was smiling at Louis, all soft and like Louis was the one Lestat had most wanted to see upon waking.

Louis almost forgot where and when they were. He was light-headed with the warmth spreading through him and he was suddenly acutely aware of how they were touching almost everywhere, pressed together in the small space of the coffin. He could just barely stop himself from getting into a crazy uncomfortable position to kiss Lestat. That wasn’t what they did nowadays, he reminded himself. It was hard to hold onto the thought when he realized Lestat’s hair was frizzy the way it always was right after sleeping. He wanted to touch it. And Lestat reached up to trace Louis’s smile and Louis hadn’t even known he was smiling and he suddenly couldn’t remember why they didn’t kiss anymore because they should, that seemed like a very very good idea right now and now Louis was so close to him, he could almost smell his blood and he felt drugged, high.

Somewhere, a phone buzzed and Louis was abruptly ripped from his trance. He pulled back and threw the coffin lid open to let some air in.

The cold did wonders.

“So you are disgusted.”

Louis, halfway through a deep breath to clear his head from thoughts about spending the whole day in coffin and forgetting about everything else, turned back to Lestat.

Lestat had shrunken back to the foot end and there was a very naked hurt in his eyes.

“No, that’s not what this is. Don’t- you’re way too hung up on that idea, seriously, Lestat.”

“Then why?” Lestat’s voice went high, into a whine.

“Because- we’re supposed to be roommates, remember? We’re friends.”

Lestat scoffed, looking away. “Ah. I see.”

“I don’t think you do, Les. I’m not trying to hurt you here. I just don’t know if we’re ready to-“

“So it is about her.”

Louis winced. “Kinda? After all this shit with her coming in and messing with your life, I think it’d be best if you took some time to figure yourself out, yeah? Like I did after the whole thing with Armand.”

Lestat snorted and it almost sounded dismissive. But he still wasn’t looking at Louis.

“Maybe I don’t agree. I think you’re not doing this for me, you’re doing this for yourself. Which is fine. I just don’t appreciate you lying about it.”

Of course, Lestat did what he always did: hit a sore spot.

“You calling me a liar? I know you’re always saying we don’t have to talk about the book but maybe we do!”

Louis heaved himself up and out of the coffin. He felt inadequately dressed in his pajamas, too vulnerable. They should have this conversation in proper clothes, somewhere else than Lestat’s bedroom. Louis felt unmoored, like this, looking at Lestat still sitting in his coffin, having to look up to see Louis. He felt too powerful and completely helpless at the same time. It was a discomforting feeling.

“You do have to admit there’s a lot of lies in the book, Louis.”

“Those aren’t lies, it’s misremembering. That’s totally different.”

Lestat scoffed and bodily turned away. He wasn’t quick enough; Louis had already seen the redness in his eyes, heard how his voice wavered.

“As if it isn’t worse.”

Suddenly, Louis felt like he had to apologize. He remembered the annotations. The deep hurt in them, in every bad word Louis had or hadn’t said. Up to a certain point, Louis could sympathize with how terrible it must be to read their decades together being dragged through the mud.

“Okay, there were a few lies, too. But you showed me your version! I uncovered a different one with Daniel. I don’t remember it quite like the book says. Like what we talked about yesterday, the cat? Madame Chat or whatever her name was?”

Lestat shook his head, still turned away. Then, he took a breath and faced Louis.

“Why did you come to my coffin, Louis?”

“Because I had a nightmare.” Louis supplied readily.

Lestat went on looking at him expectantly. Louis swallowed heavily.

“Because I wanted to make sure you were safe. And I- I missed this.” His voice was uneven. “I’m really not as selfless as you think.”

“So why?”

Louis exhaled through his nose, fed up with talking. He wasn’t good at it; he didn’t like to do it. Why should he?

“Fine, then.”

He moved to get back into the coffin in front of Lestat. Lestat turned with him so they sat cross-legged facing each other. Louis put his palms onto his knees.

“You want truth? Armand called me last night. Said he had Gabriella and that he intended to kill her. If-“

Lestat’s eyes widened and Louis could see him tensing to jump up. Louis moved forward supernaturally fast and grabbed his hand. To his immense satisfaction, it stopped Lestat entirely.

“Wait. Listen. He’s gonna kill her if you go on to do the concert. You let it go, nothing happens. And if you don’t care about her dying, then Armand wants to kill you. That’s why I had the nightmare.”

Lestat wasn’t looking at Louis, rather through him.

“Armand couldn’t kill me, that’s ridiculous. I have the blood of Akasha in me.”

Louis raised his eyebrows. Lestat blinked back into himself. “Oh, don’t worry about that.”

Louis wanted to press, but he got hung up on the fact that Lestat was still sitting in front of him. In every version of this talk Louis had imagined, Lestat was out of the door as soon as Louis finished telling him about Gabriella’s imprisonment. But he wasn’t. He was thinking about some ancient vampire and withholding from Louis, same as always. He was- turning his hand over now, so he could properly grasp Louis’s hand in his own, trace his thumb over Louis’s pulse point on his wrist and Louis involuntarily shivered.

Lestat looked up at him from under his eyelashes, smiling knowingly.

“You’re not-“ Louis started, stopped. He felt Lestat’s touch intensely, as if they hadn’t just cuddled a few minutes before.

Lestat shrugged, forcing casualness. “She’ll be fine. She can take care of herself. Always has.”

“Okay…”

Louis looked down at their hands. Somehow, he had forgotten again why he insisted on them being roommates. If Lestat asked now, he couldn’t tell him- Maybe Lestat should ask. Then he could abandon this whole plan.

It was silent for a minute. Lestat went on drawing circles on Louis’s palm. Then, he raised Louis’s hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it.

Louis couldn’t do anything but watch, strangely breathless.

“You know, funny thing-“ Lestat began, voice airy and light. “You kissed my ghost in 1946 but not me now.”

Louis flinched and it jerked his hand out of Lestat’s grasp.

“Daniel shouldn’t’ve kept that in.” he said but he sounded odd.

Lestat tilted his head and it exposed his neck. Louis knew where his aorta was. Where he’d have to sink his teeth to get to his blood, probably even more delicious than it had been in 1930. Louis felt the hunger suddenly, sharp, an inexplicable craving and he almost leaned forward to find out if he could smell the blood through skin. But Lestat moved to meet his gaze and Louis found himself staring into his eyes, suddenly.

There had been a time where he’d thought he’d never get to look at them again.

His principles lost all meaning.

Louis shoved a hand into his hair – finally, finally, the feeling of it -, cradled the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss.

Oh, he should’ve done that sooner. He’d forgotten what it felt like. The ghost in 1946 a pale proxy unlike the real thing, his memory an unreliable, insufficient thing. This, getting to kiss Lestat, was better than drinking blood. Better than sex with any of the nameless boys in the 70s.

Then, Louis’s fang cut Lestat’s tongue and his taste flooded Louis’s mouth and Louis was ravenous, tried in vain to get closer, scrabbling with his free hand for purchase in Lestat’s robe, pushing into him until Lestat relented and sunk down into the coffin.

His mouth was soft but hair softer and Louis pulled back to marvel at it, untangling his hand and brushing through it again, along the scalp from the forehead down to his neck.

Lestat was looking up at him. Dizzy and completely gone, adoring, his eyes as black as they had been on the hunt and Louis tried not to smile so he could kiss him again and then again, longer.

“I love you” Lestat whispered to him in between. Louis buried his face in Lestat’s neck, feeling like crying, and responded, “We’re the wrong way around in the coffin.”

“Louis.” Lestat said, breathless, and pulled him away too soon, to cradle his face. “Louis, mon cher, I love you Louis.”

Louis kissed him again because he didn’t know how to respond and he felt so full with his love, completely suffused by it and he wanted to give it back to Lestat but didn’t know how.

The next time he lifted his head – just so he could get some sense back because he couldn’t think right as long as they were so close, as long as Lestat kissed him like that – Lestat was quiet. But he was still looking at Louis with bright, adoring eyes and for a few seconds, Louis couldn’t do anything but stare back.

Lestat was- Lestat was smiling faintly. There was a slight breeze coming from an opened window and it brought the smells of night. Louis came back to himself just a bit, pushing himself up on his hands so he could keep it that way.

“We can’t start this again, Lestat. I was serious when I said- hey, stop distractin’ me, I need to…”

“I want to buy a bed for you, Louis, would you like to have a bed?”

“No, we aren’t— I mean yes, I’d like a bed. But we can’t just be husbands again…”

Lestat gasped and there was a delighted twinkle in his eyes.

“Did you just say husbands? We’re married?”

“Well, what do you call consummating a union in a church?”

“So what is it, husbands or roommates?”

“Didn’t I just say we can’t be husbands again yet?”

“Why do you insist on breaking my heart, Louis? Louis, Louis, my Saint Louis.”

“…”

“Oh, did that work?”

“Shut up Lestat. If you can’t stay focused, I’m gonna get out of this coffin right now. We’ll talk with at least six feet distance.”

“Do we have to talk? I’d much rather…”

“I’m getting out right now.”

“Noo, Louis… I promise I’ll behave. What is it, we’re not companions again? I understand. You can keep your room. But can I sleep in your bed sometimes?”

“Okay, slow down. I want you to figure out that stuff with Gabriella before we do anything else. Or at least until you’re completely comfortable with it. And only if you want to, not because of anything else, no matter what. Yeah?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

Lestat was looking at him that way again, soft and adoring and Louis took his face in his hands and kissed him again. Then, he burrowed his head underneath Lestat’s chin and let out a deep breath that he felt like he’d been holding since he killed Lestat. Holding still during the dark years in destroyed Europe, walking with Armand along the Seine, staring at the bland walls of the Dubai penthouse and then his tablet screen on FaceTime with Lestat. It made him go utterly boneless.

Lestat underneath him hummed happily.

Lemuel: Are you free next week?

Louis: For business or pleasure?

Lemuel: For pleasure.

Louis: Yeah, I don’t think I can make it. And while we’re at it - you mind sending me my stuff over?

Louis: You know the address.

Lemuel: His or yours?

Louis: Don’t be cute. His.