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In the privacy of his townhouse, Lestat finally draws Louis close and scents him.
It is not a subtle inhale as he passes by, nor the secondhand aroma of passing cigarettes between pinched fingers. No, Lestat scents him, rich and deep, nose pressed intimately against that sweet, delicate, throbbing gland at Louis’ elegant neck. That spot which is so overactive in humans, yet quiet in vampires, and the difference is especially obvious with Louis who bursts at the seams with life and vitality.
Oh, the life he could make for himself. The children he could sire on some poor, besotted maiden, falling into her bed every three years to beget his duty. A man of his tastes would not be fulfilled, but he could be happy; Lestat can see it as clear as day. The grey creeping over his temples, the wrinkles spiderwebbed across his smooth face. Smile lines and laughter lines and life evident as one lived.
It is almost beautiful. It is heartbreaking. Perhaps Lestat will remain to see it, or perhaps he will flee as the first signs of age begin to crack open on his poor, mortal Louis. He is not certain he would survive it.
He presses in closer, his mouth falling open in despair to taste his skin—although not his blood—anticipatory grief hot on his tongue like a brand, laving away as Louis pants and whines and twists in the cage of his arms.
And then—
“Louis,” Lestat gasps against his flesh, the artificial tang of cologne giving way to something deeper, something richer. “Mon cher, my Louis, my love.”
“Lestat,” Louis croaks, his impassioned squirming taking on a fever pitch. No longer does he roll his hips in pleasure, but in fear. “Stop, a-alright? You don’t—I’m—”
“Carrier,” Lestat breathes, tasting the truth clearer than even the finest blood. The original purpose of this evening long forgotten, the interloper whore asleep on the divan an afterthought. “Louis. Louis. Louis. How could you keep this from me?”
His struggles reach a fever pitch, desperate to extricate himself from Lestat’s loving arms. He does not succeed.
“‘Cause it’s none of your business!” Louis digs his fingernails in, trying to draw blood but instead hisses as Lestat’s skin refuses to give way. “What I am, that’s not—It’s not for you, Lestat! It ain’t for anyone, you get it?”
“Ah.” What a heartbreaking realisation. “You intend to hide who you are? A creature of your own making.” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “It is a life not worth living, mon cher. You will be alone and avoided, the empty ache inside of you festering like an old wound until you, mon dieu, rot away, unused and unwanted and lonely, for who would want an o—”
“Lestat!”
He softens his smile and pets Louis’ pretty flushed cheeks, the blood rushing a sign of health and vitality and fertility. “My deepest apologies. I tend to get carried away when faced with a tragedy on par with the most terrible of fates. My Louis, my dear, why do you hide your true nature? Is it your damnable sense of pride, or something more sinister?”
He is a black male carrier in New Orleans. He owns a glorified whorehouse. He is, by and large, underestimated and disrespected by both his social and fiscal peers; it does not take a smarter man than Lestat to conjure the worst possibilities.
“Because I don’t want to be looked down on,” Louis spits, teeth bared, eyes narrowed. Oh, he would be glorious covered in the blood of those lesser than he. “Like I’m worth less for what I got between my legs. Like the only purpose I should claim in this fucked up life is to give some high and mighty alpha a litter.”
A litter would be delightful, but Lestat is selfish only within his means.
“You are worth so much more than that.”
His attempts at reassurance fall dreadfully flat, and his once fierce love loses his fight, going limp in Lestat’s arms.
“Do you know how many male omegas I’ve met in my lifetime?” Louis asks, voice sotto voce, leaning in closer as if to tell a closely guarded secret. “One. An old white man on the street corner selling his cunt to whoever dropped a quarter into his lap. That’s it.”
Lestat—who has met a mere two more than Louis, mindless dolls simpering in the laps of French aristocrats—breathes out in awe. “I would never allow you to sell your body.”
The mere idea of abhorrent.
“That’s not the point. I—At the end of his life, all he was reduced to was a hole to fuck. No legacy. No worth. When he had nothing else, he fell back on what he was designed to do. To lay back and let himself be used.”
“It sounds as if you had a rousing discussion with this poor, unfortunate man,” Lestat says dismissively, for his beloved is clearly prone to histrionics, “but you forget the most important part, mon cher.” He smiles with a hint of fang he cannot take back. “You have me.”
He drinks from Louis that night; the little drink and he truly does only take a little, nothing but the barest taste of his blood to confirm what he already knows, what Louis has confirmed with his very being. Lestat has never tasted a male omega’s blood, and oh, it is sweet. Perhaps, however, it is the fact it is Louis’ blood blooming across his tongue which makes it all the sweeter.
Lestat does not take any further liberties beyond that which Louis is happy to give. Deep, luxurious kisses which leave him panting for more. Heavy petting devolving to base rutting, clothed cock against clothed cock. Louis spends in his trousers in a startled gasp, eyes wide and locked with Lestat’s as his entrance grows wet and tacky.
It takes everything within Lestat to not bite down and drain him completely, to change him right then and there, to slick his cock and sink to the hilt and not extricate himself until he had expended his seed deep into Louis’ welcoming cunt.
He refrains—but only just.
Lestat courts Louis.
Louis does not know this, because his thoughts scream confusion and bewilderment and affection, but not understanding. Not reciprocation. He believes Lestat is toying with him, using him for his body despite his reassurances. Lestat longed for Louis from the moment he first saw him, after all, since he drew a knife on his brother in the middle of a crowded street and threatened his life. What Louis has between his legs changes nothing.
They wile away the months in bars and Louis’ club and Lestat’s townhouse. He uses his fortune to spoil him, as much as Louis allows, although he favours touch and time more.
Lestat is happy to oblige. There are fewer joys in this life than seeing Louis fall apart beneath his tender ministrations. His rapture, his worship, as Lestat takes his cock in his mouth, one hand bracing his hip with the other curled deep in Louis’ cunt.
The first time he touches him there, in the place he is so devastatingly ashamed of, his beloved shies away, thighs closing tight on Lestat’s hand. It did not take long to coax the pleasure out of him, body spreading open to Lestat like the world’s most beautiful flower.
Louis’ cunt tastes almost as sweet as his blood.
Despite what he would call courting—and what Louis would call friendship—Lestat does not get to witness Grace de Pointe du Lac and Levi Frenier exchange vows as they chose to wed in the light of day. He does, however, wander onto the grounds sometime after sunset, in time to watch Louis perform.
He is magnificent in his joy, side by side with his brother. Free and fluid, making beautiful music with his body.
He wants to steal him away in the aftermath, to take him to his childhood bedroom and strip away the layers until nothing remains but them.
Again, he refrains, because the fate Lestat has planned for his beloved does not involve his human family and Lestat tries to give him what little time he has.
Only Lestat is reminded how cruel humanity can be, how tortured those who decay are, for he sees it as clear as day, far brighter than the normal, fuzzy human thought. He sees, as if it is happening right in front of him, Paul throwing himself from the roof of the du Lac home to his death. His head cracking on the pavement, blood seeping out like a squashed pomegranate. Then, as Lestat is reeling and attempting to understand what he saw, the scene changes. Louis is on the roof, too, helplessly pleading with his brother. There is a reach and a pull and a shove and then his Louis falls, too, his Louis lands and breaks and dies as the sun rises and as Lestat slumbers in his useless fucking coffin.
“Your brother is not well, Louis,” Lestat says into his beloved’s mind directly, not moving his gaze as Paul takes a sip of his drink and stares blankly at his sister, his mother, his brother. In his mind, the blood of he and Louis mix before seeping into the cracks of the cement. “Paul needs help.”
When the sun rises, Lestat retreats as Louis and Levi crowd Paul into the house. His townhouse is quiet, deathly so, and even as light pours in through cracks the heavy curtains cannot hide, Lestat does not sleep.
Not until Louis comes home, stumbling through the front door somewhere close to midday.
“Mama’s with ‘im now,” Louis drawls, accent thicker than usual with creeping exhaustion, even more so when Lestat draws him into his arms. “They takin’ turns… keepin’ watch… Won’t let him get further than the foyer. Not near the stairs.”
Lestat hums and strokes his hand across Louis’ neck. It is clammy with dried sweat and fear. He wants to lick it clean and replace it with his own claim. One of love and ownership and protection.
They sleep instead, Lestat in his coffin and Louis in the bed. The distance is heart wrenching but necessary, and when Lestat sleeps he can almost pretend he dreams; of Louis and the intimate press of bodies and declarations of love.
Lestat wakes in the early hours of the evening to a scent more heavenly than an open artery and sounds more haunting than a Haydn sonata.
The stress of the evening prior is too much, and Louis falls into the devastating throes of heat the day after his sister’s wedding.
“Lestat,” Louis cries, writhing on the damp sheets—wet his sweat and slick—reaching for something he cannot voice. “Lestat, Lestat, Lestat.”
“Mon cœur,” Lestat whispers, voice breaking as he crawls from his coffin to the bed to hover over Louis’ prone form. “My beloved. Is this all for me?”
Louis does not answer. No, that is incorrect; he answers but without words. The way he turns to meet Lestat’s touch, to arch into his meagre body heat, how he keens at the mere sound of his voice; that is answer enough.
“Lestat,” his beloved begs, large brown eyes welling with tears. “Please. S—S’il te plaît, Lestat. Touch me.”
Lestat is an alpha—a sire in the old world—and as such has no comprehension of a carrier’s heats. They are mysterious and private, reserved for none but one’s mate. Even whores do not dole out their heat for any man, no matter the coin. It is inconceivable, and yet—
And yet.
“My Louis,” Lestat cries, lowering himself—dreadfully clothed, why did he not remove his clothing?—to meet Louis, body covering him from head to toe, one long line pressing him into the mattress. Heavy and reassuring as Lestat whispers his devotion. “My love, my sweet. Mon cœur, that you would give me this. I cannot—” He breaks off into a sob, burying his face into Louis’ neck where the scent is strong and his pulse is throbbing.
Louis makes a noise in the base of his throat, more animal than man, and his hands come up to grip Lestat’s dishevelled locks. “Lestat.”
He pulls back just enough to look into Louis’ eyes. “Mon cher?”
His love’s lip curls. “Fuck me.”
Lestat answers in kind, teeth bared in a fearsome grin. “For you, my love, anything.”
Louis’ brief moments of clarity are punctuated by asking, begging, please, for Lestat to take care. He promises—“I am no mindless animal,” Lestat lies—to not take undue liberties.
“This is all for you,” Lestat croons, stripping them both and settling in between Louis’ perfect legs. “I am your servant, your devoted attendant, mon cher.”
While the thought of mating the traditional way—Louis on his knees, head down, pert derrière canted up like a bitch in heat—he cannot find himself willing to look away from Louis’ eyes. Wide and beseeching, Lestat takes him pressed chest to chest, long legs wrapped tight around his waist. There is scant millimetres between them, and he makes love with breaths shared like a secret.
“Mon cher,” Lestat sighs, licking and sucking at the delicious gland at his neck until he is babbling incoherent pleas for more and don’t stop and mon amour in his sweet accented French.
“Bite me,” Louis gasps wetly, body inching up the mattress with every overwrought thrust of Lestat’s hips. “Lestat, bite me.”
Lestat lays his broad hand on Louis’ stomach and considers his request. He can feel the way his muscles bunch as he is fucked so thoroughly, how he inhales in surprise as Lestat presses down to feel him move.
“Bite you?” Lestat asks, breathless and giddy. He pulls out to stave off his sudden urge to come, squeezing the base of his knot in desperation. “Do you know what you are asking of me?”
Louis does not answer. He is feverish with heat and knows not what he asks; but Lestat does. Lestat has dreamt of it since the moment he laid eyes on his Louis.
Lestat knots his mate with a passion he thought unobtainable, cock hard and throbbing buried deep inside. There is almost no sweeter bliss, no better outcome. Louis comes speared on his cock, shaking, trembling, acquiescing to Lestat’s love and affection despite his prior request. His own cock spurts weakly, untouched but for the friction of their stomachs rubbing together. The taste of his bodily fluid in the air and the cries of his little death are enough to send Lestat barrelling over the edge of oblivion with him.
When he spills himself with abandon and slips his fangs into the meat of Louis’ gland, there is no taking of blood; only of heart.
One night of heat turns into two, turns into the week. Lestat feeds Louis and then feeds on him, and the give and take is enough to last. He bleeds three vagrants dry once it is over, of course, and it is the quickest feed of his life. He must return to the welcome arms of his mate, after all.
The bliss lasts. Heat and bruises fade, but the bond remains. Lestat can feel Louis even when he is at his mother’s house, or at the bar, or doing business. It is unlike Lestat’s experiences with fledglings. It goes beyond the supernatural, their mating.
And beyond further—
“You motherfucker.” Louis’ hands clutch his stomach, bent over and spitting the last of the bile into the drain. “I fuckin’ knew it. I knew it. You said you’d—Fuck, Lestat, you’re a fuckin’ asshole!”
“I know,” Lestat replies, standing a good few feet back despite his wish to rub Louis’ back, to fetch and carry, to crow in delight at the wondrous miracle they have created together. Biting his tongue, he remains unmoving.
“‘I’ll pull out, mon cher,’” Louis parrots in a purposefully terrible mimicry of Lestat’s accent. “Should’ve known you were lying. All alphas do is lie.”
Lestat takes affront to that. “I did pull out.” He runs his tongue over his fangs, then amends: “Once.”
It isn’t his fault Louis did not specify his request was applicable for the entirety of his time. What respectable sire would even spill outside of his carrier during a heat anyway? It is sacrilege.
“Fuck. Fuck! I think I hate you.”
“Mon c—”
Louis bends over and retches once more, the last of his supper disappearing into the New Orleans sewers.
“How is this even possible?” Louis asks once they’re back at the townhouse. He is tucked into Lestat’s coffin, face pale but understandably so. “You’re—I mean, as far as I’m aware, you’re not alive.”
Lestat drapes himself over the lip of the coffin to stroke along any patch of flesh Louis allows; his neck, his chest, the small slip of skin between his untucked shirt and his trousers. “Cher?”
“How am I pregnant, Lestat?”
He shrugs. “I do not know. Fate is a fickle mistress.”
He has, after all, been intimate with many women. None of which have come forth with claims of fatherhood, a relief until the moment he inhaled the distinct markers of carrier under Louis’ artificial scent. Then he mourned, however briefly, that he would never see Louis swell with his seed, burgeoning with the life they have created together. A fleeting moment, but a moment nonetheless.
It was moot, of course, for now Louis is carrying their child. A feat Lestat did not know he was capable of.
“You never seen this before?” Louis asks hesitantly, fingers skimming over the silk lining. A soothing motion. “With… any other of your kind?”
“Not personally, but I have heard rumours.” The strongest of them, able to procreate with more than teeth and blood. “Some of us, we have gifts. Beyond that of the regular. Floating, ceasing the flow of time—”
“And fucking?”
Lestat rolls his eyes. “So uncouth. Mon cher, we made love.”
“Now look at me.”
Lestat does, because he would never pass on an opportunity to gaze upon his beloved. “Mm. Yes. You have such a pleasing form, Louis. I do love this suit on you, tres bien, the lines accentuate your—”
“I’m pregnant. It’s yours. Am I—” Louis exhales. “Am I gonna be okay?”
Lestat cannot answer. He does not know fact from fiction, truth from embellishment. He is a patron of the arts and philosophy, not of science. Perhaps vampires on par with Magnus could have made biological children and lived to tell his tale, had he not been so intent on blond sires.
And death.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure your survival, mon cher,” Lestat murmurs instead, leaning in to kiss his beloved with all the care a creature like him can muster.
There is a pause. “And the baby?”
That, Lestat cannot promise.
Louis does not like this non-answer, but it is kinder than lying to him. It would destroy him, Lestat knows—Lestat sees in his mind—that this child borne of love and desperation is important to Louis.
It is important to Lestat, too.
Paul almost dies when he finds out. Not from shock, but because he decides it would be a fantastic idea to try and gut Lestat from across the dinner table with a butter knife.
It is one of his saner acts.
It isn’t Lestat’s fault he uses a bit too much force than necessary. His prevailing instinct couldn’t help but interpret it as an attack against his mate and the father of his child. If Paul du Pointe de Lac finds himself with little more than a broken arm and a black eye, then Lestat will call it a win, even if he has to field glares from Madame du Lac for the foreseeable months, although it is mitigated somewhat when Lestat declares he wishes to wed his paramour.
“Since when?” Louis asks once they’re behind the walls of Lestat’s townhouse—the same one Louis has more or less moved into, and as such Lestat has begun to think of as their townhouse. He spins around to face him, hands low on his hips, just below the small swell of his belly. “Huh? Since when are we gettin’ married, because I think I missed the grand proposal.”
Wincing, Lestat attempts to placate him with touch. Louis, predictably, is not partial.
“Louis,” he tries as his beloved retreats further into the drawing room, Lestat following close on his heels, “Louis. Have I not made myself clear? There is no one else I would choose to be with, no one I would tie myself to for eternity to raise our child.”
“Well you sure do have a funny way of not showin’ it,” Louis snaps. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarette case and lighter, the latter a gift from Lestat, inscribed with their initials. He will add that of their child, once they are born. An evolving legacy.
He allows Lestat to stroke along his neck as he lights up. The bite on his neck remains as poignantly obvious since the day Lestat sunk his teeth in, a mark of mating rather than one of feeding.
“Is this not sign enough?” Lestat asks, voice hushed with reverence. “Do you want more from me?”
Ask it, ask and you shall have it.
Louis merely shrugs, the fight fled as quickly as it arrived. “I mean—My mother would like it. Another wedding, y’know.”
Lestat has seen the inside of Madame du Lac’s mind. The last wedding she would like for her eldest is one to Lestat, but he does not voice his concerns.
He presses a kiss to Louis’ high cheekbone and holds his hand to his belly. Louis squirms, but allows it.
“Will you marry me, mon cœur?”
Although many would claim him the harlequin he once was, a man obsessed with theatrics and being the centre of attention, in truth Lestat would have been perfectly happy to marry in the courtyard of their townhouse, a priest charmed to act the part, attended to by Louis’ closest. Instead, by order of Madame du Lac, they are wed in the family’s church.
The priest—one who has known Louis his entire life, he is told when he snaps at him for stepping on his coat—is a bumbling, stupid man. Lestat sees through his mind like glass; muddied and disgustingly human. He, like everyone in Storyville acquainted with the de Pointe du Lacs, was unaware of Louis’ designation. He is discomforted and unsure, as if he has overnight forgotten who Louis is. That he is somehow different than he was the day before.
“Like you did?” Louis asks him hours later once Lestat has carried him across the threshold as a wedded man. “When you found out about the gash between my legs, you sayin’ you didn’t treat me any different?”
“Non,” Lestat responds primly, because to him it is the truth; he was going to have Louis regardless, even when he was a beta. The gift of a child is a mere bonus.
It seems as though every person even somewhat associated with the du Lacs has come for Louis’ wedding to the strange Frenchman who arrived not too long ago. They stare from the pews with narrowed, judgmental eyes and even louder thoughts.
–he spread his whore legs for the first alpha to show him a lick of attention, he is surely pregnant out of wedlock for why else would they marry so quickly, what is Florence thinking giving her omega son over to this white devil, surely the whole family is cursed what with Paul and his ravings and Grace cavorting with a Baptist of all people. What would their poor, dead daddy think—
“Hey,” Louis whispers, head ducking to look Lestat in the eyes. “Hey. You with me?”
“Your extended family are very noisy,” Lestat whispers back, eyelids fluttering, wishing to close them and block out the thoughts but not willing to lose Louis’ gaze. Wide, soulful brown eyes Lestat will mourn when the time comes. “It is—overwhelming.”
“Just focus on me, baby.”
And like that, the cruel whispers and awful imaginations disappear like a puff of smoke. The droll masses are nothing compared to Louis’ soft smile and the gentle, dual heartbeats. His entire world, condensed into one being.
“Mon cher,” he whispers, endlessly fond. “Mon cœur.”
Louis sighs and leans into his orbit. “Mon mari.”
Not even the droning of the priest can ruin this moment, his Louis in his arms, his child in his belly, his future uncertain but—for now—unendingly perfect.
The reception is less so, a modest affair held at the de Pointe du Lac home on orders of the esteemed matriarch.
Lestat wanted it at the townhouse. Louis promised to get on his knees while he still could and suck him off in the bathroom after their first dance.
“Monsieur de Lioncourt,” Louis’ mother greets cooly, as is her way although Lestat imagined she might have been slightly warmer on the day of her eldest’s wedding.
Lestat takes great pleasure in bending down to press an equally cold kiss to her turned cheek. “Maman.”
She sniffs and steps away to stand under the perceived protection of her other son-in-law, the venerable Baptist Levi. Lestat always did have a way with mothers.
“Lovely ceremony,” Levi says graciously, although Lestat can sense the vague disapproval in the corners of his mind. Nothing like the masses, but enough to rankle. “How is Louis?”
“Well,” Lestat replies. The last he saw of his new husband he was entertaining Grace’s questions about the baby. A direct approach Lestat can appreciate; not this clandestine affair. “He took admirably to being an unwed mother. A shame I had to ruin it and make him an honest man, hm?”
Madame du Lac’s lip curls, not unlike her son’s when Lestat says something titillating when Louis is not in the mood to hear it. “Monsieur—”
“Call me son, Maman.” Lestat smiles with teeth. “That is what I am now, am I not?”
“My mother barely said a word to me all evenin’,” Louis notes when they have retired to the townhouse. He is prickly and anxious in that sweet way of his, but does not pull away when Lestat beckons him closer. “Know anything about that?”
Lestat lounges in the bed, reluctant to leave for his coffin until he absolutely has to. Oh, he cannot wait until they are to share such a tight space! He and Louis, pressed close in the dark, sleeping the sleep of the ancients together.
“Maman doesn’t like me,” Lestat complains, crowding into Louis’ space regardless, his front pressed to his side, one arm thrown over his softly curving belly.
“So you do know something.”
“Do you really wish to ruin our first night as a happily married couple by asking unnecessary questions, mon cher?”
He does not. Lestat helps him forget his concerns regardless, one hand tangled with Louis’ while his mouth is beautifully occupied between his legs.
The months pass, the seasons change, and Louis retreats. Not from Lestat—no, he would never allow it—but from life outside of the townhouse. Where once his mate would spend his days conducting his business or visiting his family, he now remains inside, abed. By unfortunate combination of unnecessary shame—“I don’t even fit any of my suits anymore, Lestat!”—or terrible sickness—“Can’t even ask you if this is a family trait.”—Louis does not venture far.
He does not mind, not when it means his Louis is safe inside property he owns, tucked up in a bed he has bought with Louis in mind, when they can wile away the evenings curled together, talking of a future Lestat never once thought possible.
“Is she gonna be…” Louis asks one such night, dulce tone hesitating on his question. “Normal?”
His mate has taken to calling their progeny a she, although even Lestat does not have the foresight to predict the gender. When he told him as such, Louis scoffed.
“I don’t need no premonition gift,” he had drawled. “She’s my daughter. I know it.”
Lestat, in a brief moment of genius, agreed.
“She will be as normal as any little angel could be,” Lestat replies, sipping decanted blood from a crystal glass. Not Louis’, of course. He would never endanger his beloved when he was carrying such important cargo.
“She’s half vampire.”
“And half human!” Lestat crows. The blood was drained from a passing singer. Beautiful voice, but not very bright. It was all too easy to lead her to their house and string her up by her ankles…
“Is that not gonna be a problem?” Louis tries again. “What will she eat?”
Lestat ponders for a moment, then shrugs. “Does it matter? I will provide for her no matter what she requires, be it blood or meat.” He pauses. “I will be disappointed if she prefers animal blood, but I suppose it cannot be helped. Children can be so fickle.”
His answer does not satisfy, but it is the truth. There is little Lestat cannot give to their child. If she wants the blood of untouched virgins he will raid a nunnery, if she wants the flesh of newborn babes he will stalk hospitals. He is no saint—a title reserved for his beloved—and he is a killer, and while he once may have stayed his hands from select innocents, he will do no such thing when his daughter’s hunger is the objective.
Louis will understand soon enough.
The time approaches as time does; rapidly, and without Lestat’s permission. The townhouse is prepared with the utmost care, reinforced and protected to the best of his abilities, stocked with food and water and supplies no matter the possible circumstance, and introduced to the finest medical professionals Lestat can find.
There are three midwives and one doctor temporarily residing in the townhouse when Louis goes into labour, each paid handsomely to temporarily remember nothing of their private lives and everything of the human body. In an ideal situation, Lestat would have glamoured them, but the energy required for such a feat is substantial and his attention is directed elsewhere.
A decision proven correct when the worst occurs, when time marches on without heed and Louis remains abed, panting and straining and trying, oh, his cher tries with every inch of his being, but there is a reason there are so few carriers of the male persuasion around. It is difficult on them, an evolutionary trait being weeded out slowly but surely, although Lestat has never had any intention of allowing his demise. Even when faced with the possibility of losing their child—a fate which almost came to pass, as the sun rises and sets and Louis sobs with exhaustion—Lestat would have turned Louis regardless. He would have hated him, but he would be as alive as any vampire can be.
The worst does not come to pass. On the third night and on his husband’s request, Lestat cuts Louis open down the middle and pulls their daughter free. She is squalling and strong, no sign of the struggle her father has been suffering to bring her into this world. Lestat carefully lays her in the white silken bassinet before he turns to his dying beloved and drains him dry.
“There is not much left in you, is there?” he asks between wet, gasping sips. “She took it all, our little one. How selfish of her to leave so little for her papa.”
Louis does not answer, fading in and out of consciousness as he is. He does not answer until Lestat bites through the skin of his own wrist and presses it to his mate’s lips, does not speak a word until he is groaning and drawing vampiric lifeblood into his own mouth, bringing about the change Lestat has dreamed of delivering since that very first night, flesh knitting back together like nothing had ever happened.
The doctor makes the sign of the cross over his chest as the midwives flee, although neither will get very far. Lestat has, after all, considered every possibility.
“May the grace of God—hgn!”
The esteemed doctor does not last long. Lestat slits the man’s throat himself, holding his gushing wound over Louis’ open mouth, squeezing arteries until the flow has ceased with his stopped heart. The midwives are next, dessert after the meal, and soon he and Louis are kissing and sharing their blood between wet, open mouths.
“My girl,” Louis gasps once his hunger has temporarily abated, “where is she?” Her screeching goes unnoticed as Lestat delivers her into his waiting arms. “Claudia,” Louis whispers, eyes like a stained glass window, gazing down upon their little miracle. “Claudia de Lioncourt.”
Lestat may burst with affection, overflows with it, overwhelmed with it. He would throw himself into the hearth to be done with it, but then he would miss this.
“Claudia,” Lestat murmurs in kind, bloodied fingertips trembling as he strokes along her perfect little brow, how her face scrunches in frustration.
“Lestat,” Louis says in alarm. “Your hand—”
A single drop of the good doctor’s blood drips from his pinky finger and to his daughter’s cheek. Before Louis can move—Lestat does not even try—it slips into Claudia’s waiting mouth.
And she ceases her crying and she opens her eyes.
“Oh,” Lestat breathes, eyes wide as he gazes upon this creature his mate has created. How she mouths for more blood, her vampiric eyes watching on. “Oh, ma petit.”
“You gave me a vampire,” Louis laughs, incredulous and delighted as Lestat draws them close. “You gave me a daughter who’ll live forever.”
“Ah,” Lestat sighs, eyes welling with tears as he takes in that which is his forever. “Mon cher, but you gave me everything.”