Work Text:
Today
In the good year they had before most things went to shit, Claudia reappropriated one of Louis’ tablets. It’s only her bad luck that he noticed. In Dubai, there was a little tech closet where all the overly complex light switches lived, bearing witness to the neat orgy of cable-management boxes, adapters, the latest chargers and all the samples. It never quite made sense, why a real estate magnate would receive tech samples. They just appeared, the way things appeared in Dubai; a closet full of neat stacks of Fires, Pixels, Galaxies.
But Louis was around, and it was easy enough to figure out what happened when he started getting targeted ads for press-ons and polyester club clothes and perfumes that promised to drive him wild.
Armand has a single, sedate glass of whatever Perrier-Jouët sends them every New Year’s Eve. If he’s ever encountered wildness, he’d probably dismantled it for parts and sent it on its way.
More importantly, it's very difficult to convince the all-seeing eye of adsense that you aren’t what it thinks you are, and Louis learned to live with the recommendations for his cuticles, his assumed cellulite, his quest to never let a boy get bored of him.
Probably, he’d said something to Claudia. Things get a little cloudy, when he thinks of her around that time.
Armand, wrapping a cool hand around his jaw, explained that Louis was his good luck charm. He was meant to be helpful, somehow, with a frustrating potential seller. He’d said yes because that’s what he does. He says yes. Armand asks so little of him. How could it hurt to be his charm?
The seller, who has a name that Louis’ didn't catch and Armand hadn't mentioned, is wearing Kapoor. Last year’s ready-to-wear collection. The maroon trench he’s opted not to take off is too heavy for the summer-like wind blustering through the thrown-open French doors of the cafe. Louis can feel sweat starting to form at the places his own shirt touches him too much.
His mind offers up “coffin” unceremoniously. The nails, the acrylics, are an opaque, bodily white tapering gently to a blunt, straight line. They’re meticulous — fussily perfect. They make no sense on this man.
He’s also not going to sell.
Armand is leaning in now, talking about the building’s potential. He’s telling the truth, of course. Louis had flipped through the portfolio before they left, glancing over the pictures taken from across the street. The facade was a little grimy, the way all the older buildings got around here, but she was a grand lady still, the iron bars on her windows beaten into curlicues, colorful flags mounted above her entrance. The address was vaguely familiar, too. Not from growing up, the Pointe du Lac family home was across the train tracks in an even older part of town. But Armand was trying to slip a goldmine out from this man and his lacquered fingers. Whole neighborhood was set to explode soon, little bistros and doggy daycares on the horizon. It’d probably keep being a gay club even, just something…sleeker. More modern.
Nothing about the set of that jaw tells Louis that this is a man interested in modernity. He looks like he’s fallen out of an oil painting, nails aside. He looks like he should leave slick stains of umber and peach on everything he touches. He looks like a good time, the way married men shouldn’t notice, probably.
Louis glances between them. He — L…L-something, as foreign as his accent when he accepts another generous pour from their waiter — he doesn’t have the look. Louis has been to enough of these meetings to recognize when the seller starts walking in the world Armand starts building around them with his words. It's magic, the way Armand replaces their vision with his own.
It's not surefire, and Louis knows, when he drains his half-full glass of wine and cuts off Armand’s imaginings with a dismissive wave of a hand. The bottom of his nails are painted. Oxblood, like he’s been clawing his way out of something.
Realization pulses a quick one-two against Louis’ ribcage.
“I’ve got to go,” he purrs. “Rehearsals. The plight of the working man.”
The voice is the same.
Armand, unshaken, stands up when Lester or Lemón or Lafayette does. Everyone is pretending no one is being rude, so Louis remains seated. He watches them clasp hands, shake. Another flash of the nails — blood, then smoke, body then spirit — and then he’s gone.
“Well,” Armand sighs, picking his menu up again. “That didn’t go quite to plan. Should’ve expected. It took ages to get him here.”
Louis makes a dutiful noise, watching the man leave. He traces from the strong spread of his shoulder to the careful tuck of his waist, searching for any clear indication.
He’s still certain with or without confirmation.
“We saw him last night.”
Armand glances over at Louis. “Oh? I suppose you all did go to one of those shows. Was he sitting near you all?”
“Yeah,” Louis says. Red-bottomed nails last night, waving close to his face, her hand taking a dollar from someone standing behind him. She’d paused, giving him a cheeky little smile, dragged her palm and the scratchy edge of the dollar bill around his neck and down his chest. Claudia and Madeleine had squealed beside him and he’d laughed, happy to be her chosen gentleman for the length of her performance.
“Something like that,” Louis continues, and sits up, bringing his attention back to Armand.
Last Night
“ Daddy Lou ,” Claudia says, throwing herself across his bed and pulling out the tight tuck of sheets under her. She’s so short, she barely makes it to the middle, her tall silver heels knocking against each other on the edge. Madeleine must notice too, because she’s pressing her fingers to her darkly painted lips, hiding a smile.
“ Claudia ,” Louis whines back, pushing his reading glasses up on his forehead. “You think I don’t notice you only call me Daddy Lou when you want something, missy? I’m not goin’ nowhere, I already got my pajamas on.”
He gestures to the slippery silk, the black LPDL monogram on the chest pocket. Claudia groans again, rolling onto her stomach. It's going to be a nightmare, cleaning the glitter from her dress off the sheets. Armand is going to be so quiet in his judgement, even if Louis doesn’t give in to his girl’s begging.
“You know most kids— people my age don’t ever want to hang out with their parents. Because their parents are all decrepit.”
She sits up, distractedly fluffing the back of her afro back out from the way it had compressed. Madeleine wanders over now, and Claudia twists so Madeleine can fluff while she gestures.
“You know what, you’re right, Dad. This is actually one of the benefits of teen pregnancy. Me and Madeleine will go and find some hot guy, have a good time. Get started on your grandchild, so I can go do hot girl shit with my baby like my daddy wouldn’t do with me.”
This is, obviously, not a winning argument. For one thing, they’re trying to convince Louis to join them at a gay bar, so he’s not certain how interested any attractive man would be in either of them. For another, he hasn’t checked too recently, but last time they had a talk Claudia has firmly confirmed that she was a lesbian. For a third, less diverting thought, Claudia stopped flinching when strange men talked to her only two years ago, it seems like semi-anonymous sex might be a little advanced for her.
But the way she’s fighting with her own laughter, cheeks going rosy with the effort, makes Louis sigh. When he glances at the door leading to his closet, Claudia cheers. She knows if she can get a single crack in his armor she’ll wiggle her way in, every time.
“I have to be home by midnight,” he tells them, and they’re both woo ing at him now, talking between themselves about whether pre-gaming is worth it. Christ. There’s no way the liquor at whatever grubby club they’re going to is going to compare to whatever Armand’s bought to gather dust in their bar cart.
“Daddy, I swear you’ll love it.”
“The queens are very good, Louis,” Madeleine tells him quietly, while she helps Claudia climb off the bed. “I made an outfit for one of them and watched her perform in it. To see how it stretched, you know? They’re very good.”
Louis shakes his head. He trusts Madeleine’s taste. She’s quiet, happy to step back and let Claudia shine, but she’s got an artist’s eye. It was the first thing Louis let himself like about her.
Today
They order something other than wine eventually. Armand frowns at the menu before sighing out a request for trout almondine to the waif of a girl waiting on them. Louis smiles his way through an order for a Ceasar salad, add salmon, then excuses himself from both of them. Probably, Armand has follow-up questions about the fish’s pedigree: who were its parents, what kind of schools did it swim in, did it own stocks and so on. He’s distracted enough that he almost, almost manages to keep the flicker of judgement off his face, watching Louis slip away from the table.
Louis will stop soon, but today’s not the day he brushes off the itchy hunger for a cigarette.
“Oh.”
L-something, Mr. Frenchman is standing in front of the restaurant, trench thrown over an arm, cigarette perched elegantly between his fingers. Everything he does seems to bring attention to those nails. Now, Louis catches the thin gold glint of rings, looping stacks on his thumb and forefinger. There’s another small hoop, tucked snugly around the thin pink shell of his ear. His eyes are piercing, supernatural blue. The lipstick, last night, hid the small, sweet scar splitting his upper lip.
Louis wants all beautiful things the same way; his skin tight and his inspection careful.
“Ah, I hope you aren’t the cavalry.”
Louis looks over his shoulder, accidentally makes eye contact with the valet, who straightens like a wind-up toy with a twisted key.
“Nah,” Louis says, partly to the valet, partly to the Frenchman. He tugs a slightly crushed gray-green box from his pocket, gently shaking it as explanation.
“Terrible habit,” Louis’ de facto smoking partner all but purrs. “Beautiful color though, nearly the same as your eyes. Are you always brought along as eye candy, or do you ever talk at these dreadful meetings?”
Louis chuckles, getting a cigarette in his mouth and checking his pockets for his lighter. Movement in the corner of his eye distracts him, and then there is a click and flames a polite distance away from his face.
Louis always has to focus more than expected, when he lets someone else light his cigarette for him. The taste is softer in this new pack, a compromise with Armand’s plan to get them both smoke-free in a year or two. Or five.
“Louis,” Louis says around the cigarette. “Louis Pointe du Lac.”
He sticks out a hand. Armand’s former target glances at it, takes his time looking over the rest of Louis’ body — Louis still isn’t used to this type of blatant flirting, the naked display of interest, even if it's plausible that tall, golden and handsome doesn’t know that he and Armand are together, hookups were never spontaneous back in Dubai, not even for them — and grabs his hand. The rings are thin, hard ridges. His hands are muscular and suede-soft.
“Lestat,” Lestat tells him, spark in his eye like he knows Louis has forgotten. “Pleasure to actually meet you, Louis Pointe du Lac.”
Lestat’s got a voice like long late nights, and Louis wants to chase his own name across that tongue. They’ve been back in the States going on a year now and Louis’ been so good, finally settling down in a city that laps at his skin with reminders of when he was fun.
“You were beautiful, last night, Louis,” Lestat continues. “I don’t usually get a support beam so steady and so nice to look at.”
Last night
The bar is loud, dark and damp. Just the way Louis assumed it would be when Madeleine explained to them in the car that it was a basement. The floor isn't quite as sticky as the one Louis' conjured out of twenty-year-old memories of basement gay bars. That has to count for something.
The butch working the door waves Madeleine in, and she escorts Claudia in, glancing back to make sure they haven't lost Louis. Louis still tries to pay cover, but he gets ushered in with an easy nod and wink.
He's still blushing when the girls finally stop moving, having made their way, more or less directly, to the bar.
"Ace has that effect on everyone, from what I've seen," Madeleine says, raising her voice over the steady rumble of the crowd and heavy thump of music. The space is clearly set up for a show, dancefloor mostly replaced with metal folding chairs.
"Not all of us," Claudia says, turning with three small plastic cups glowing neon between her fingers, clear liquid sloshing a little over her fingers. "She's given me the eye everytime I come in. And not the good eye, either."
"No," Louis says firmly, pointing at the shots. He didn't remember much from the many many family therapy sessions they'd had with Claudia, ages fourteen to seventeen. But it seems very likely that one of Dr. Zweig's recommendations was "don't do shots with your underage daughter."
"How'd you even get those," Louis asks, looking between her and Madeleine, who was certainly talking to him while Claudia was somehow acquiring alcohol.
"Oh, you know," Claudia says absently, handing Madeleine a shot. "Louis, c'mon. I won't tell Armand if you don't. Have fun with me!"
She's sparkling at him again. She really barely favors him, face so similar to a mother neither of them really remember. But she's still got his number. She knows he'd give her anything. And he suspects that she also knows about the deep-down worry that they'll never be as close as when it was just the two of them against the world.
Louis plucks the cup from her fingers and throws the shot back, rolling his eyes at both of them woo ing yet again like his own personal ambulance. Vodka. Not his favorite, even if it goes down smooth. Claudia matches him, grinning before tipping her head back. Madeleine's face twists as she sniffs the drink, and her shoulders shake with disgust when she takes the shot.
"No more for me," he half-shouts, "and we're talking about whatever fake ID you've managed to get a hold of when we get home, ma'am. In fact, no more for anyone. Didn't you two drink before we left?"
"Can't tell Maddie what to do, Papa," Claudia laughs, dancing around both of them, tugging them toward the stage. "They saved some seats for us, c'mon!"
Today
He's been outside a little too long. Their food must have been delivered by now. Armand will be furious at being made to dine alone for even a moment. Not because they don't eat separately, they spend plenty of time apart. But the image is unbecoming, Armand across from an absence shaped like Louis.
Lestat has stopped in the middle of his story to take a call. Louis' interested enough to stick around to find out why Feefee Liqueur isn't allowed back on Lestat's stage. Mostly, though, he's watching Lestat talk. His hands never stop moving, adjusting his hair, running an absent-minded finger along his scarred lip, reaching out to lightly tap Louis and mime pulling a cigarette to his mouth.
Louis pulls out one of his own, puts it between his lips to light it. It's searing, when their eyes meet, and neither of them look away when he hands Lestat the lit cigarette.
"Feefee, ma belle, ma choupette. I'll be at the club in, oh, twenty minutes. You're distracting me from a beautiful man. Ouais. Oua-no. No. I'm hanging up. Alright, ma bébé."
He shoves the phone into a pocket and takes a grateful drag on the cigarette. Louis watches this too, leaning against the exterior of the restaurant. The valet would probably love it if they stood anywhere else, actually.
Lestat keeps digging through his pockets, clearly looking for something. He makes an accomplished sound when he pulls a thin card from deep in the depths of his trousers. He hands it to Louis with a wink.
"Come to my show again. Your girls are already on the list. We’ll add you."
The card is thick, rounded edges smooth. One one side is just Lestat's name, on the other, an unlabeled number. Louis can't tell if the smear of lipstick is an artistic touch, or if Lestat just walks through the streets of the city with rogue lipsticks in his pockets.
Louis has only known Lestat for about fifteen minutes, but both seems possible.
"I hope you'll come," Lestast says, reaching out to brush a hand across Louis' shoulder. His nails catch a little, gently scratching Louis’ neck. He watches Lestat move.
"It is not so common," he continues, finally turning away from Louis, "to find a man who looks as good in the day as he does at night."
Lestat is gone in a puff of floral, smoky scent and Louis' got nothing more to do than return to his table.
Armand sits still, spooning careful mouthfuls of some thin, pale soup.
"They got a new way of doing trout almondine?" Louis smooths his shirt and sits. "That one looks awfully smooth."
"They were out," Armand tells him with a single sniff, quiet and quietly hateful.
"And so you got…soup?" Louis asks, looking down at his own empty table setting.
"You would've been able to haggle with me over my order if you'd been here," he says lightly, almost teasing. Anyone else listening in would think Armand is flirting even, the wry twist in his voice. Louis still only barely resists rolling his eyes. "I asked them to hold your plate. The server insisted that the contrasting temperatures were the star of the dish."
"The temperatures are the star of a salad?" Louis repeats. And Armand hears what he's saying, too, his skepticism, because he cracks a hairline fracture smile.
"I was speaking to Lestat. He was still outside," Louis continues, catching the eye of a server, maybe theirs, maybe not. He makes an approving sort've gesture — this seems like the kind of place where servers are trained to interpret the lazy gestures of whatever rich bastards walk through their doors.
His guess is correct, anyway, someone's bringing him a broad, heavy bottomed vessel that can't quite decide if it’s a plate or a bowl. Either way the greens are spiky and round by turn, a riotous parade of shades of green and the salmon is scattered with tender petals of purple, yellow and blue. He does the dance of approval and thanks with the server and finally looks back at Armand. He's wearing an expectant look. Louis wonders how long he'd have sat like that before deigning to ask a follow up question.
"He's not going to sell," The napkins are good quality, heavy and a little rough. It's a nice little contrast to the cosseted and cuddled experience of places like this. Louis stops fiddling with it and finally picks up the stout handle of his fork. "And he gave me his number."
"Hm." Armand mostly exhales the syllable, processing. "Well. Have fun, I suppose."
"I always do, cher."
The salmon is good. Flaky, warm and well-salted. Lestat's card rattles around in the chest pocket of Louis' shirt every time he goes for another bite. Armand is watching him, but Louis doesn't fight the pleased little curling of his mouth.
Last Night
Louis' memories of the drag bars of his own youth are full of holes marked with sniffs of this, sips of that, pockmarked with mystery pills someone handsome slips onto his tongue and then delineated, sharply, with Claudia's unexpected infant cries.
So it's not that he's so certain of his recollection of shows. But still, there couldn't have been this much woo ing. The beginning of a headache is pulsing in his right temple, catty-corner from the end of an eyebrow and still people are shouting, euphoric as a queen in a spandex bodysuit moults glitter and does yet another split.
"Do they ever do something different?" Louis asks Claudia.
" Hah ," she says and turns to, presumably, repeat Louis' question into Madeleine's ear. Louis grimaces a little, then presses a yawn into the back of his hand.
The number ends, the interstitial music untz untz untzes back into existence before the threat of a quiet moment can even loom.
"I'm gonna head out," Louis says, wrapping an arm around Claudia's shoulder and pulling her into his chest for a hug. Her hair gets all in his face, soft and sweetly herbaceous, and he presses a kiss to whatever part of her skull he's closest to.
"Dad, no," Claudia whines, "she's closing tonight, just one more!"
Louis pulls away to look at Claudia, who looks back at him. She's smiling around the tiny red straw of the cocktail Madeleine had gotten for her two performances ago and for a moment, in his eyes, she's nineteen, but she's also four, and six, and thirteen. It's not so far away, really, the week she'd been missing and he'd walked around, his hands empty and his throat raw with bile.
"Okay, honey." Louis settles back into his seat but doesn't let her go. "Who's next? More leotards?"
"She would never," Claudia says, reaching out for Madeleine's hand. She's not slurring exactly, but her words are coming faster, easier than they do in the daytime. Louis glances at the empty glass she's gesturing with. It's possible he's missed a refill or two. "Her name's Lestat. She wears these really gorgeous gowns, like from those boring black-and-white movies you and Armand made me watch. Maddie's been trying to get her to commision a dress for so fucking long. We can't make an empty seat on the front row, she'll put Maddie on the shit list forever. Also, Maddie says she pays better than any other queen."
"She's paying very well, Louis," Madeleine says, somehow quiet even over the thump of music. "It would be really beneficial."
Louis doesn't know if it's because Madeleine's French, or white, or a bit too grown to be messing around with Claudia, but it's like an itch under his skin when she says his name. Never Mr. Pointe du Lac or even Mr. Louis. Always just Louis, unvarnished and steady. It's unbecoming. He can see, if he squints, why that might appeal to Claudia.
"Alright, alright," Louis laughs, holding a hand up, "I didn't know we were about to see the Beyoncé of drag tonight. I'll stop asking questions."
"D’you think Rupaul is the Beyoncé of drag? Or like, someone we haven’t heard of yet?" Claudia's wondering is cut off by the music abruptly pausing and the lights dropping to the dim pink light lining the raised platform serving as a stage.
Two shadowed people scurry out, their heels thumping in the silence. Their hands are full, and there are stray cheers from the crowd as they set up a bulky piece of something.
"Huh," Louis says, as the lights come up a little, revealing the keyboard. One of them appears again, gently setting a microphone stand down and adjusting its height.
"Come on, mama!" someone closer to the back hoots. People around them laugh, but the silence prevails. Louis finds himself paying more attention now, glancing around at the barely visible people around him.
There are thumps again, these slower and more deliberate. Rhythmic. The hooting and random shouts are happening again, more frequently now.
"Is it starting?" Louis asks Claudia. Someone shushes him. He rolls his eyes and glances over his shoulder, ready to give them a pointed look, but Claudia is gasping and frantically patting his knee.
He turns back, and she's there.
She's standing in front of the piano, soaking up the rapturous cheers, one elegant hand extended to play something light and soft on the piano. She's holding a jeweled mask on a stick in the other hand, barely obscuring her eyes.
Louis’ not sure how much this particular gown invokes Hollywood in the fifties. It's tight, for one thing, fabric deep navy and catching the lights that have risen to shine on her now. Columns of interlocked triangles trace down the front of it, accentuating her (artificial, Louis assumes) curves. The whole thing wraps around her from collarbone to ankle before poofing out into a riot of lace around a pair of towering heels.
"Ah," Madeleine sighs, sounding pleased. "L'arlequine. Glorieux."
Apparently satisfied with the praise, she finally shuffles closer to the keyboard, crouching slowly, until her helpers appear again, placing the bench so that she can sit, legs arranged neatly to the side. The silence that falls is imperfect, the crowd knowing and anticipatory, humming with expectation.
Louis doesn't realize he's part of the bewitched legion until she lowers the mask, so, so slowly, and he sits back heavily into his chair.
Louis doesn't know much more about makeup than what he's aggressively advertised via his tablet. But he recognizes art when he sees it.
Her face is powdered white. Her mouth overdrawn wet kiss of glossy cranberry pink, garish and alluring. Louis thinks of soaring buildings, concrete curving impossibly when he takes in her eyes, brow and eyelids carved out of negative space, glowing highlighter and dark lines. There's a coquettish beauty mark drawn high on the apple of her cheek. The red-brown sweep that carves out her cheek does nothing to minimize the hard jut of her jaw, and she's all the lovelier for it. The jewels from the near-chandelier around her neck reflect the stage lights in a loving, glittering spray.
She plays a few notes, something vaguely familiar to Louis, but her rapt audience seems to know it immediately. Their murmured recognition is respectful still and Louis' almost got the name of the song, its dancing on the edge of his mind.
"Isn't it rich?" she asks, her deep baritone ringing bell-clear. Claudia shifts now, pressing a hand to her mouth. Louis smooths her hair away from his face, watching the stage.
"Are we a pair?" She's looking out at the crowd as if searching for something, or someone.
They'd gone to see a performance of A Little Night Music on a short trip back to the States. Claudia couldn't have been more than twelve. She'd fallen asleep before intermission. Louis can almost feel her heavy little head pressed against his side, Armand's fingers tangled with his own.
The song sounds different, here.
Lestat sing-laughs, "Me here at last on the ground. You in mid-air. Send in the clowns."
The crowd titters and Louis takes a deep breath, the muscles around his ribs stretching.
She falls silent, playing a little, then looks up, face plaintive, "Isn't it bliss?"
She pauses playing now, clearly making eye contact with members of the audience. Her eyes are piercing blue. Louis looks down at the still-glowing floor lights.
A little hopping tune appropriate for a music box starts and Louis looks up again, catching her standing. The music is piping in from the speakers now and is decidedly disco inflected, bass noodling along with the woman's voice that has replaced Lestat. She's standing now, wiggling from one edge of the stage to the other and mouthing along with the lyrics.
It must be a well-worn performance, because Claudia is tugging him up to stand with everyone else. People are singing along now — send in the clowns! — and they're parting for her. Louis doesn't know how she got off the stage, he doesn't really understand how she's walking at all as tight as the dress is and as high as the heels are. But she's moving and the crowd is reshaping itself in the image of her steps. The break only served to make the crowd more raucous, there are people whooping and waving dollars around Louis' face, though she's not particularly close them.
The song goes on, and she keeps lipsyncing, crowd backing her up as she parades a one woman circle among them and then back to the stage.
She's standing directly in front of Louis now, glowing from the surprisingly agile spotlight. There's nowhere to hide his eyes, and she's smiling now, looking directly at him. She reaches for him, no, behind him, taking one of the disembodied dollar bills waving in his periphery. Her eyes sparkle when she drags it down his neck, his chest, and then takes a step back. The stage must be closer than she expected, though, because she jerks a little, wobbles unsteadily.
Louis steps forward, offering a hand, and she grabs at it, smooth but quickly. Her smile doesn't budge, but she winks at him, and presses into his hand, leaning a little as she steps, backward, back up on the stage.
"Don't bother!" she shouts over the grooving instrumental, resplendent in the dancing mass she’s spelled the crowd into. Louis can't quite place her accent, but it's there, swaying her words in an unfamiliar cadence.
"Don't bother!" she says again, reaching her hands out as if to gather the entire writhing, beloved mass of them into her arms. "Don't bother, they're already here!"
She throws her head back, burnished gold hair falling away from her shoulders, and she laughs.
A Little Bit Later, Weeks After Dinner
“I’m going to see Lestat,” Louis calls from his closet. Armand can hear him from where he is in the bedroom, tapping away at one of those infernal mobile games on his tablet. Jaunty bells and whistles haunt their bedroom for an hour every night while Armand unlocks level 1300 plus infinity, regular as clockwork. He doesn’t even pay to get rid of ads, most of the time.
Louis is flicking through shirts, thumbing a light button-up patterned in small, ornate roses, a Paul Smiths maybe, when Armand says something that doesn’t quite make it around the corner from the bedroom. Louis frowns and walks closer to the doorway of his closet.
“Say again, love?”
Armand is where Louis figured he would be, installed in the middle of their bed, tablet arranged in his lap, tapping methodically.
“I said, again?” Armand murmurs. “You aren’t usually one for a repeat act. This’ll be the third time? Fourth?”
He’s lovely, a little muzzy in the neat nest of their blankets in a way he never is in the real world. His thick, dark hair flops softly into his eyes. Louis wants to touch him, so he makes his way over, rubbing his hand and then his mouth against Armand’s skinny shoulder. The cleaning staff remade their bed with the summer linens and Armand is a black-and-brown dot in waves of sage-green sheets.
Lestat has made his hunger for beauty tactile. They’d stood outside of the club last night for nearly an hour, just kissing. He’d smelled of smoke and sweat and jasmine, butter-soft against Louis in the warm city lights. There was still glitter beneath his eyelashes and Louis had to hold on for dear life.
“He’s fun,” Louis says, mashing his face against the jut of Armand’s clavicle. “It’s fine.”
Years later — at Louis’ next wedding — they will remember this moment together.
"He must be very good at whatever it is you two do together."
Louis grips the huff of laughter threatening to puff out against Armand's skin. Armand hates it when Louis laughs at him, and he doesn’t want to ruin this moment between them.
"We haven't," Louis says, "we're just talking. I go to her shows and then we grab something to eat. Drinks. That kind of thing. We might, I don't know."
Armand's fingers pause, hovering poised above the screen of his tablet.
They've never discussed what they do with these little flings before. There's no reason for Louis to tell Armand any of this. No reason to mention the way Lestat's eyes went colorless under the yellow lights. Yes, stray hairs stuck to his cheek still tacky with makeup remover. Yes, he'd made pleased noises low in his throat when he'd nudged Louis up against the cool brick of the club's facade.
“Interesting,” Armand says now, kissing the soft skin above Louis' ear and pushing him away. “Well. Good luck with that. Are you coming home tonight?”
Louis shrugs, trying on one of Lestat’s favorite gestures. It's a little awkward on him. “Dunno. I’ll text you.”
“You will,” Armand agrees. His mouth is quirked to the side, a rare unguarded smile, and his attention is gone again. Louis still runs a hand through his hair, and Armand huffs.
“I love you,” Louis says, and means it.