Chapter Text
He takes Louis to be a hallucination at first; he’s seen the specter of his lost love with increasing frequency the past several years. That’s why he’s not surprised to see him standing here this night with the wind howling and the rain gushing down in torrents. Lestat stands to face him, drinking in the familiar countenance, the soft smile on Louis’s lips making his heart ache terribly.
This vision is wearing modern clothes, which is admittedly something new—whenever his subconscious conjures Louis to punish him, he’s invariably dressed in clothes that Lestat remembers from their lives together. Sometimes he’s from 1910, looking like he did the night Lestat first spoke to him at the Fairplay. Other times he appears in 20’s or 30’s fashion but, more often than not, he wears the outfit Lestat had designed for their Mardi Gras ball, sans wig, his front saturated with blood.
“Hello Lestat.” he sounds like he always did.
“Hello Louis,” his heart is beating faster as Louis takes a few steps forward.
Lestat holds his “keyboard” in front of him, as if it would serve as any kind of protection against the wrath of a vampire. Still, the last time he saw Louis in person, he’d said “I’ve come to kill you, Lestat,” and his hallucinations haven’t been much kinder in the interceding years.
“Just passing through?” he asks, following Louis with his gaze.
“No. I’ve come to see you.”
“Oh? And how does your companion feel about that?” Lestat asks, his stomach twisting into sour knots at the word ‘companion’.
“I’m companion enough for myself, these days,” Louis replies.
“Good for you,” Lestat says and he does mean it. It’s good Louis has learned to care for himself. If only Lestat could say the same. He talks some nonsense about rehearsing for a coming tour before he finally gives Siri the instruction to pause. Silence but for the storm raging outside.
“Been enduring here?” Louis’s looking around the decrepit cottage and Lestat is all at once acutely aware of his own dreadful appearance. He hasn’t seen a mirror in months at the very least and figures he must look something like a drowned rat.
“Not enduring, living.” He folds his hands in front of himself as if he’s receiving a guest in his opulent drawing room, chin held at a prideful angle despite the frightened look in his eyes.
“In New Orleans...this whole time?” Louis asks, as if this somehow surprises him.
Where else is there for him to go? Paris holds nothing but painful memories. This city is the only place he’s ever been truly happy—even if the beings he’d loved there are long gone. He owns several rundown old houses throughout the Garden District and when one becomes uninhabitable, he simply picks up his iPad and moves onto the next.
“It is my home. I am she. She is me.”
Louis is studying him with a barely restrained sadness, perhaps pity. A pitiable creature is what he’s become. And then he asks if Lestat saved him at the trial.
A bitter smile tugs his lips when he replies, “I gave you to Armand. You tell me if that was saving.”
“Why?” Louis asks, now losing his composure, anguish creeping into his expression, “Why didn’t you say: ‘it was me who saved you, not him’?”
Lestat lifts his shoulder in a shrug, “I don’t like to point out my virtues. Besides,” he says affecting a lighthearted tone he doesn’t feel before it cracks miserably at the end. “I knew you’d figure it out. And look! I was right. All hail me.”
He turns to set his wooden piano aside and is startled by Louis blurting out the words: “I didn’t know it was a gift.”
Lestat stares at him, wondering where this conversation is going as Louis continues speak like he can’t hold the words inside anymore. His stunning green eyes are rimmed red with unshed tears and he hates to see that.
“I carried it like a curse. I was selfish. I tried to make nights awful for you. I wanted you to suffer because I was—suffering.”
Lestat feels his eyes burn, expecting to endure another conversation about how badly they’ve wronged one another, to rehash old hurts until this hallucination finally leaves him be or kills him all over again.
“Shall we go over all the ways we’ve wronged one another and how it will never be right between monstrous us—”
“I came to thank you!”
Lestat is taken aback. That’s one thing his hallucinations have never, ever said. In all the scenarios his mind has dreamed up to torture him, Louis has never said anything as unlikely as ‘thank you’. And why the hell should he? His eyes rake over his fledgling again, the slight shaking of his body; he takes in his clenched fists, the shame and grief twisting his beautiful features and he begins to think this may not be in his head after all.
“For the gift you gave me. For the gift I denied. For all the nights in front of me where I might learn to live honestly,” his voice trembles with heartrending vulnerability, “Thank you.”
Lestat feels his breath coming faster, wounded heart thundering in the frail cage of his chest, pumping insufficient blood too swiftly—making him sway a little with dizziness. This is real. Louis is here. And if Louis is here, then there’s one thing Lestat has to know, something that’s haunted him for decades.
“S-September eighth,” he struggles to get the words out through the grief choking his throat, “Nineteen-seventy-three...” just saying the date aloud is enough to make him sick with dread. “September 8th, 1973. It was 11:07 here. It would have been 9:07 in San Francisco. Armand called me.”
He can remember the exact day and hour; he’d been just about to go to coffin after an unusually late night when Armand’s voice reached out to him. It was a voice he hadn’t heard since Paris and after the initial wave of hatred passed, Lestat focused on what he was saying and was filled instead with a cold dawning horror.
He remembers calling out to Armand over and over, asking where they were, but the older vampire would refuse to say. When Lestat tried to probe further into his thoughts to get some glimpse of their surroundings, Armand would block his mind with decisive fury and threaten to sever their connection altogether. Lestat reluctantly played by Armand’s rules because that carefully vague phrase he’d used was ringing in his head.
“Louis has injured himself,” it echoed in his mind and he was reeling as Armand told him that Louis had been thinking of him.
Injured and thinking of him? Despite his calm, measured way of speaking, Lestat could sense Armand’s genuine panic through the mental link. The seriousness of the situation must have been dire or he’d never deign to contact him at all. Of course, Lestat wanted to speak to Louis—he’d be there in the blink of an eye if he had any clue where he was.
And then, after no response from Louis, his declarations of love remained cruelly unshared by Armand. Lestat had collapsed onto the closed lid of his coffin, feeling like he might actually faint as he tried with all of his might to force his way into Armand’s mind, to perhaps get a glimpse of his beloved through another’s eyes. But Armand abruptly cut him off, leaving him to scream Louis’s name into the unfeeling void.
After that, what reason had he to believe Louis still lived?
What reason had he to do anything at all?
The overcast sky and rain forbade his first impulse to self-immolate in the sun, so he was left to crawl into his coffin, teeth chattering, shaking down to his bones. He was barely aware of some awful moaning sound that turned out to be his own voice leaving his mouth on a ghastly wail. Another fledgling, another beloved companion destroyed by Armand, and it was all Lestat's fault.
Blood tears soaked his hair and matted it to the satin of pillow and that’s the way it would stay for an indeterminate time—years. He slept on until one night, his starved body took control and forced him out to feed in a new frightening world he couldn’t understand; the world of the twenty-first century.
Here, now, Lestat’s mouth trembles and he feels his voice thicken with tears as he asks, “Were you there?”
Louis is already nodding, a desolate look creeping into his eyes as he struggles not to weep. It seems hard for him to look at Lestat when he says, “Yeah.”
Lestat’s heart is cracked open, spilling out a suffocating pain into his body, filling him until he can’t breathe. He tries to brace himself but still can barely get the question out. His voice is so weak and vulnerable it’s hardly recognizable, lips wobbling around the words he forces himself to say: “Did you hurt yourself?”
The crushing look on Louis’s face as he nods makes his own expression crumple further and tears are slipping down Lestat’s cheeks as he accepts what he’s always known.
“I was lost,” Louis admits with a sob in his voice, “I was in a dark way. I was thinking about—...”
Lestat nods in complete understanding—of course, he’d figured as much. After all, memories of their daughter’s final moments have played behind his closed lids for 77 years.
“I can’t get her out of my mind,” he says, miserably, “You have the same problem?”
Louis nods and his voice comes out in a feeble whisper, “Yeah.”
“I can’t, Louis, I can’t...” Lestat is shaking his head, not sure how to even say what he wants to say, doesn’t feel strong enough to find the words. The guilt is overwhelming, eating him from within. He should have been stronger, better, should have held firm and never turned her in the first place, should have just let Louis leave him but he was so pathetically afraid of being alone. He should have been able to do something at the trial, should have thrown his own body over hers even if it meant they both perished. That’s what a good father would do. I can’t get past it. I can’t undo it. I can’t make it up to you. I can’t live with myself.
His spiraling thoughts are interrupted by Louis, “Hey, no, it’s not on you. You hear me?” he says firmly though his voice quakes. “I carried her home, I made you turn her...saved her from a fire so half a century later she could—” the sentence dissolves into tears and Lestat aches to hold him and to absolve his guilt but he doesn’t know what he’s allowed. Part of him is still afraid Louis will disappear the second they touch.
“She looked at me,” Lestat says and he’s never said this to a soul, never shared the last image he has of their little girl, being reduced to cinder as her eyes—wide and full of terror, search out his through the billowing smoke, pleading. “Like a child...looking to her father...” he shakes his head, bitter tears falling like rubies, “but I was never—”
The air leaves his lungs at the sudden impact of Louis colliding with his chest, Louis’s arms winding around him as if he never wants to let go. For a moment, Lestat is stunned, having not been touched kindly in decades, let alone by the one he loves most, the one he thought was lost forever.
He uncurls his hands and grips at Louis’s back, sobbing as the scent of home hits him, face pressed into Louis’s shoulder. Louis’s hand is cupping the back of his neck protectively, holding him tighter against his body than any human could tolerate but Lestat is no human and he squeezes right back. He breathes and feels his chest fully expand for the first time since February 1940.
Louis is breathing into his neck, then pressing kisses to his hair, to his cheek. And Lestat knows he’s not dreaming because his subconscious is never so kind. The tenderness of it makes him cry harder. Louis’s hands grip his upper arms and he pulls back to look at him. Lestat shakes a lank strand of hair out of his face to see him better and clings to him like a life-line as Louis starts talking with fevered purpose.
“You were her father, Lestat. No one can take that from you. She was your daughter; she was more like you than she’d ever admit. She was ours. Mine and yours. And she was beautiful. And now she’s gone, and this pain we gotta carry—we’re gonna do it together from now on, okay? You and me.”
The blood tears are coursing down freely and Lestat can’t say anything but Louis’s name. Louis pulls him back into his arms and they hold each other again as the windows behind them shatter inward. The wind and rain are howling through at full force, rattling the very bones of the skeletal old house but Lestat is hardly aware of anything but Louis; his fiercely beating heart and his warm, solid chest pressed tight to Lestat’s own like he means to merge them into one.
When they finally disengage, Louis seems to notice the uninhabitable state of the house and the water beginning to puddle up on the floor among the bits of shining glass and yard debris. With an apologetic grimace that says he’d rather not let go of him at all, Louis releases him and says, “C’mon we’re getting out of here. Grab whatever you need and come with me.”
Lestat freezes in surprise and Louis quickly amends, “To shelter out the storm, Les. You don’t gotta commit to anything tonight.”
His heart overflows with love for Louis, for his gentle consideration and concern. Lestat is ready and willing to take anything Louis wants to offer but instead of saying that, he squeezes Louis’s hand and nods.
As the weather worsens, they make quick work of the walk to Louis’s hotel room, Lestat staying close to his side so it’s easy for Louis to catch his hand and lace their fingers together. To make sure it’s okay, he chances a look at Lestat, whose heart is hammering loud enough to hear as he desperately tightens their grasp and offers Louis a watery smile.
The staff has already cleared the hotel lobby and gone home to wait out the hurricane. In the elevator, with its large mirror backing and shiny metal doors, Lestat gets a glimpse of himself for the first time and has to grab onto the brass bar to keep steady. Louis is there beside him, against all odds and looking as beautiful as the night Lestat made him. And at his side, a wet bedraggled lunatic clutching onto an iPad and a plank of wood.
The vain creature he’s always been shrinks back in revulsion from the monster in the mirror. He tries a smile, which usually helps him look more like himself, but a smile is not reflected back; more like a pained approximation cut into the stiff face of a mannequin. Grotesque and sallow it looks, with red-rimmed, wet eyes in the artificial light. He lets the fake smile drop, along with his gaze, and decides to examine the patterns in the tile beneath his old muddy boots until the ding of the bell.
Louis leads them to his fancy suite of rooms and unlocks the door with a key-card. With a click, the door swings open and Lestat follows him into a luxurious, vibrant space decorated in a way that evokes memories of their old townhouse. Parquet floors and thick velvet drapes over the long french windows, boarded shut against the fury of Odette.
Everything is so clean and unspoiled here, Lestat feels loathe to touch anything with his unkempt hands. Louis tells him he can set his stuff down wherever and, not wanting to presume he has any right to the bedroom, he props his ‘piano’ against the parlor wall and plugs in his iPad to charge near the chaise-lounge. Louis watches him with a curious expression he can’t quite parse— perhaps he’s struggling with the incongruity of seeing Lestat in this time, in this place.
“I assume you’ll wanna shower,” Louis says, gaze sweeping over Lestat briefly before he averts his eyes and leads him through the lushly appointed bedroom to the bathroom with its graceful claw-foot tub and brass fixtures. Louis clicks the light on for him and makes sure there’s enough clean white towels on the rack. He still remembers how Lestat goes through at least two of them a bath and Lestat is once again struggling not to cry at the sweetness of it all. What sweetness does he deserve?
“I’ll be right out here. Holler if you need anything,” Louis says, pulling the door closed after him and leaving Lestat alone in the bathroom.
Lestat methodically strips out of his ragged garments, careful with his ancient dressing gown but tossing his tank top and trousers in an ungainly heap on top of his socks and shoes. He steps into the tub, bracing himself on the wall as he works the faucet with his free hand. He tells himself he’s going to stand there and wash his hair but the instant the hot water hits his freezing skin, he breaks down in wracking sobs.
Something about the warmth of the water reminds him how cold he’s been—how broken he is. This small amount of physical pleasure is nearly overwhelming; the water soaks into his hair and plasters it against his scalp as he stands, swaying beneath the shower head. The swirling pool at his feet is turning pink with the blood of his tears and old sweat accumulated in his hair. The crying takes the strength out of his trembling legs and he lets himself slowly sink to the bottom of the tub.
Louis picks out a pair of pajama bottoms that are little long on him so they should be perfect on Lestat. A wine colored t-shirt joins the pants but no underwear—the Lestat of his past rarely bothered with such things unless they were particularly scandalous. Louis’s face flushes at a certain memory of Lestat showing him a flash of garter belt before they left for the opera one night. Louis had been hard as a diamond and struggled to follow the play with all the blood having vacated his brain. Lestat had been his smug self, knowing he was going to get his ass pounded the moment they got home.
The Louis of now adjusts himself and takes a deep breath. It’s astonishing how much of an effect Lestat has over him. He’d never felt this kind of visceral attraction and need with Armand and somewhere deep inside he’d always known that what he shared with his maker was a once in a lifetime kind of love. A kind of soul deep craving that borders on pain in its intensity but he can’t live without it. He knows that now, more assuredly than he knows his own name.
Seeing Lestat again, knowing the truth of it all and the depth of his love, that old feeling is returning a hundred fold stronger with every passing moment. As Claudia had once said, in no time they’re breathing in sync with each other, their shared heart beating properly once again. Louis hadn’t realized how numb and detached he’d been in his stagnant relationship with Armand until Daniel shook him from his stupor with a marked up script and a terrible truth.
The state he found his maker in yanked at his heart and twisted his guts; it reaffirmed his having made the right decision to seek out Lestat. He hadn’t known what to expect but it wasn’t this. The Lestat of his memory, the one who is larger than life and suave and powerful, evaporates and he’s faced with the harsh reality: the once proud vampire living in the kind of squalor he would have balked at a lifetime ago, reduced to living off the blood of street vermin and wearing moldering rags, using wood for a piano and setting fire to his new fledgling’s sleeve just to make him go away.
Since the moment he pulled Lestat into his arms again, he was overcome with the need to protect him. Which is, of course, objectively absurd. Lestat, even starved, has many times Louis’s power and needed no one’s protection. And yet he had folded into Louis’s embrace as if he was desperate for it, desperate to be held and comforted and if that’s what Lestat needs to be okay, then Louis is more than happy to provide.
Speaking of Lestat, it’s been an hour now and the shower is still running. Louis calls through the door and gets no response, nor does he hear any movement aside from the water striking porcelain. A fresh wave of concern hits Louis and he decides he’s going in. He needs to bring him his clothes anyway so Louis bundles them under his arm and gives a short knock before pushing the door slowly open, as was always their custom.
He finds the shower curtain parted just enough to catch sight of Lestat, not standing like he expected but huddled up on the bottom of the tub, face buried in his arms, resting on his raised knees. From here the faintest sound of weeping reaches Louis over the water and he sees Lestat’s bent shoulders quake with sobs. Before making the decision to, Louis is across the room and sliding back the curtain.
He looks up at the sound of the curtain and Louis sees his stricken expression, the tear stained face, the trembling chin for a fleeting moment, before Lestat looks away in obvious shame, wiping at his cheeks furiously. At the same time, Louis notices how much weight Lestat has lost. He’d always been lithe and slim but now Louis can see the bumps of his spine and rib cage beneath his pale skin, his shoulder blades protrude sharply like the wings of a fallen angel. Louis’s heart hurts to look at him.
“Lestat,” he says and pulls him back around with a hand on his slick shoulder, his own sleeves now getting pelted with water, “Please look at me, cher.”
He cups Lestat’s chin in his hand and turns his face toward him but Lestat still hesitates before he opens his eyes again. When he does, fresh tears slip free, though he leans into Louis’s palm like he can’t get enough. Louis rakes his other hand through sodden blond hair, pushing it back off Lestat’s forehead and then just petting it softly, coaxing from him the most heartbreaking whimper.
“Louis, your shirt is getting wet,” he says with a tear-clogged voice, as if that’s even on Louis’s radar right now.
He smiles gently, “Don’t care about the shirt. I care about you.”
That only serves to upset Lestat more, it seems. His expression dissolves back into misery and he shakes his head weakly, his eyebrows curled upward in a soundless question. Why? He can’t read his maker’s mind but Louis knows his thoughts all the same.
“Because you deserve it,” Louis says, voice gone rough with feeling, slipping further back into his old accent the longer he’s home, “Because I was always too much of a coward to tell you what I shoulda told you until it was too late. You told me all the time, how much you loved me, and I was afraid...afraid to say it because it woulda been the truest thing I ever said. And then you’d know, and I would lose my upper hand—the only bit of power I had over...this.” He gestures between them helplessly to encompass their whole complicated history, “Always too damn scared to give myself over completely.”
“Louis...” Lestat looks caught between awe and fear, maybe even a degree of shyness. His face is pinker than should be possible given how malnourished he is and Louis feels compelled to kiss it over and over, to feel his blush grow hotter beneath his own lips.
“I was an idiot. I was immature, selfish. But I’ve grown a lot...at least I hope I have. Love ain’t a game and I don’t give a shit about power plays anymore. I wanna start making it up to you.” Louis continues, feeling the raw truth of his own words. Tears creep into his eyes again and he keeps touching Lestat, stroking over his hair and broad shoulders and the long curve of his back. It feels so good to touch him again.
“Never an idiot,” Lestat protests with a halfhearted smirk and a sniffle, “I don’t fall for idiots.”
Louis hums a laugh, appreciating the echo of the old Lestat in the joke. How has he gone so long without the other half of his heart? How did he ever think he’d be free of this love? Without stopping to consider it any further, Louis strips out of his wet shirt and the rest of his clothes. Lestat watches with wide, hungry eyes as Louis steps into the tub behind him and extends a hand to hoist Lestat to his feet.
It takes frighteningly little effort to pull him upward and Louis knows he could legitimately hurt him if he were to get rough. That shouldn’t be; Lestat should never feel small and fragile like he does right now. It’s easy to maneuver him into position, with Louis pressed up against his back, hands gently finding their favorite spot on the taper of Lestat’s tiny waist, until the other vampire gets the idea and lets himself lean into Louis’s chest.
“Good,” Louis praises and kisses the pale shoulder beneath his lips, “Good boy.” Lestat shivers against him and lets out a quiet curse.
Louis stops touching him just long enough to get some shampoo in his hands and then they’re sinking deep into Lestat’s hair. Lestat’s pretty mouth falls open and he lets out a long moan as Louis’s nails scrape over his scalp, working his hair into a lather with languid motions, making it as slow and pleasurable as possible. Lestat’s body goes completely lax, head tipping forward now so Louis can work small circles into his nape.
Rinse, repeat, conditioner, blond hair slipping through his fingers like silk now instead of straw. Lestat seems to be in almost a stupor, little helpless grunts and sighs escaping him now and then as he lets Louis take complete control.The trust in the gesture catches him right in the chest and he’s grateful for the water washing his tears away as soon as they escape.
Soap next; Louis gathers suds in his hands and starts rubbing over Lestat’s shoulders, down lean sculpted arms, before working his way around to his chest. He feels his own breath catch and stutter as his hands move over the rigid peaks of Lestat’s perfect pink nipples and the other man gives a little jolt as if he’s been electrocuted. Louis muffles a groan at how sensitive Lestat’s grown over the years, even if the reason for it breaks his heart. He’s all but shaking as Louis kneads at his breast muscles a little too long to be considered hygienically necessary.
Louis had told himself he wouldn’t get aroused—this was meant to be about taking care of Lestat, but obviously that ship has sailed. He’s painfully hard and makes a point of keeping his hips away from the tempting curve of his maker’s ass as his hands slide down the valleys and rises of his trembling abs. Lestat is panting already and whines aloud when the back of Louis’s hand brushes his erect cock.
With one hand Louis surrounds Lestat’s throbbing length, giving it a perfunctory stroke as he rolls his balls in the other—just enough to tease before moving on to the crease of his groin and his thighs, then back tortuously to his hips as Lestat squirms and moans, managing to collide with Louis’s hard-on in a way that makes them both freeze.
Louis can feel the blood rushing in his ears, imagining how easy it would be to push into the wet sudsy crease of Lestat’s ass and take his thick cock back in hand, simply rut against him until they both come. But this isn’t about him and what he wants—the thought makes him hesitate long enough that Lestat turns in his arms and meets his eyes with a heated, almost crazed look of need as he searches something in Louis’s face for permission. His hands are now cupping Louis’s face, so gently as if he’s the one who needs comforting; such big strong hands that could do so much damage but prefer tenderness.
“Tell me to stop,” Lestat whispers, so close their noses are bumping together.
Louis feels his fangs descend a little, his mouth watering at the vicinity of Lestat’s plush lips and long, bite-able neck. He can’t tell him to stop, never had the desire to. He can’t say who makes the first move, perhaps they surge forward as one like the very first time they kissed. One of them lets out a sob and Louis crushes Lestat tight to his front as he licks into his mouth, feeling the tiny daggers of his fangs, the decadent give of his lips, the sensual slide of his tongue. God, the taste of him.
The nails of one of Lestat’s hands is digging into Louis’s wet curls, and the other is raking up and down his back and sides as if he can’t decide what to touch first. Their hips are rocking together in tight little motions; every brush of their cocks is almost too sweet to bear. Louis’s hands slide down the length of Lestat’s back, fingers dipping deftly into the cleft of his ass before rounding out to grab hold of both exquisite cheeks and haul him closer.
Louis intentionally pierces his tongue on his own fang and lets the blood flow between them, Lestat making the most obscene noise as soon as the taste and smell of it reaches him. He sucks on Louis’s tongue, coaxing more precious drops out before the wound seals itself. He knows it’s not nearly enough to satisfy and Lestat must be dying of thirst, so he pulls back despite the sound of disappointment he earns.
He guides Lestat’s face toward his neck, encouraging the silky press of his lips to the flutter of his pulse.
“Go on, sweetheart,” he says, noticing the way Lestat’s breath halts briefly against him and the way his cock jerks where it’s slotted into the soft wet space between them. The endearment had slipped out accidentally but Louis can’t regret the visceral reaction it seems to pull from his maker.
“Are you certain?” comes the timid whisper from Lestat, his breath and the movement of his lips sending a shiver down Louis’s spine. Of course he is. He’s never been more certain.
“Take what you need. I got you.” With a hand in his hair, he nudges Lestat closer still, until he feels the cool dampness of his open lips stretching wide against his jugular.
There’s the sweet pain of Lestat’s teeth sinking into his flesh and then euphoria spreading out to every finger and toe from the place they’re connected. The great drumbeat of his heart chases Louis’s own as he draws upon his veins, a vast world of thought and emotion bursts open behind his closed eyelids—the only way their minds can truly entwine. Lestat clings to him, moaning deeply as he drinks and the love pouring out of him nearly knocks Louis off his feet.
He feels the despair Lestat experienced after the events of 1973, the aching emptiness of years existing alone, believing his truest love was gone, followed by the almost unbearable ecstasy and disbelief of seeing him again after all this time—the utter relief of being held in his arms. Above and beyond everything is love and the enduring devotion that’s only grown stronger over the decades spent apart.
Louis whimpers when Lestat finally retracts his fangs, tongue laving gently over the holes left behind. He already feels warmer and more substantial in Louis’s grasp, and when he pulls back to look at him, he’s beautifully flushed with his blood, mouth stained red and begging for a kiss. Louis doesn’t deny him; he kisses the taste of himself out of his maker’s mouth as Lestat ruts against him with growing desperation.
With their cocks lined up, Louis meets him thrust for thrust, building up a long forgotten rhythm that unravels too quickly, for Lestat is already gasping and on edge, clinging to him and mouthing sloppy kisses everywhere he can reach. Louis moans for him unabashedly, almost delirious with arousal, knowing he won’t be far behind.
“Louis, Louis...” Lestat begs, deep and breathy, “I-I’m close, mon couer.”
“Let it go, baby,” Louis coos back to him, “I love you. I love you so much.”
That’s what does it—Lestat gasps and goes rigid, eyes wide as if in shock before they roll back and slam shut, his head tipping back on a guttural cry that echos through the bathroom with an inhuman volume. The sight of him, arched and moaning, the wet endless bursts of his release slicking Louis’s frantic thrusts as he follows Lestat into oblivion.
When he finally comes back down, Lestat is slumping into him, kissing his shoulder and clavicle with an aching sweetness, mumbling praises into his wet skin. Louis skims his hands up and down his back and sides, kissing away the fresh tears he finds trickling down Lestat’s neck. For a long while, they simply hold each other and breathe, until Louis feels strong enough to break their embrace and wash them both clean again.
They take turns drying each other off after Louis helps him out of the tub, smiling as he drops a towel onto Lestat’s hair and ruffles it up into a fluffy golden mess, which the other indulgently allows. He’s watching Louis with fondness and a naked want that says they’re not done with each other just yet. A surge of heat plunges through Louis, gathering between his legs, and he licks his lips in anticipation. They should take this slow but the way he’s being looked at is straining his reason.
“Did you mean it?” Lestat asks after a moment, head tilted in that puppy-like way of his that makes him seem impossibly young. His hands are on Louis’s bare chest, warmer now than before, thumbs stroking mindlessly at the short curls there.
Louis holds his waist, mouth going dry as he nods aggressively, keeping Lestat’s gaze as he says it again, “I love you, Lestat. For better or worse, God help me, I love you. I think I’ve loved you since that first night at the Fairplay.”
“You love me...” Lestat repeats like he’s struggling to believe it, abject wonder on his face as he reaches up to trace the line of Louis’s jaw, the column of his throat.
“Let me show you,” Louis purrs, holding his hand in place to kiss the palm, then the delicate skin of his inner wrist, “Come lie down and lemme show you just how loved you are.”
“I’ll let you show me anything, Louis,” Lestat breathes, blinking away the wetness in his eyes and flashing him a dazzling smile, “anything at all.”