Archive of Our Own

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There were only a few private spots around the rooms of the Chateau de Lioncourt Lestat knew were hidden from others. Mainly his brothers, who seemed to make a game of finding him when he slipped off to cry or to be alone and sad for reasons he couldn't really explain. It was silly, really. They would all complain about him complaining, and tell him to shut up and stop being annoying, and then when Lestat would shut up and try to go somewhere so he couldn't even be accused of annoyance, they'd seek him out as though he had stolen a favorite toy to have all to himself.

Like that had ever happened. It was always two against one, and Lestat was the youngest and smaller, even though he fought like hell and knew his brothers knew it. He could see it in their eyes when they had to work to pin him down. He wasn't stupid. He really wasn't, no matter what father said. At least he didn't think he was. How could he tell? Lestat didn't know. Mother was smart, but Mother was too engaged with her books to pay real attention to him, wasn't she? She would probably think him stupid just for asking the question in the first place. So Lestat didn't ask.

But Augustin was smart, in a way. Not smart the way Lestat thought most people talked about smartness, but sharp. He could sniff out weakness like a dog on the hunt. Thankfully his nose wasn't like a dog's, or else he would have found out Lestat's hiding spots already, and there were only two of them. Augustin was smart in a mean way, which is why when he'd seen Lestat playing with the little stick dolls he'd started laughing and laughing. Then he'd stomped on them when Lestat dropped them and stood up. It had been stupid of him to let go of them. Now they were splinters, and Lestat's cheeks were burning, and he was running blindly to the room with the latch that hadn't been fashioned properly without even making sure he was being followed by a servant or anyone. He did try to look, because he didn't want to lose this spot, but his eyes were too full of hot tears and he only managed a glance back into the empty hallway before he had to turn and stumble on.

Finally the door was in front of him, and with shaking fingers Lestat undid the latch, putting his shoulder against the door and shoving it open just enough to slip through the crack. The room was dusty, as all their rooms were, but there was the last light of the setting sun coming through the slit in the rotting curtains and the little corner with its nest of canvases and one old cushion was still there just as he had left it. Lestat closed the door behind him, sat down on the cushion, and burst into tears.

Crying wasn't very grown-up of him, but he couldn't help it. It was so awful, what Augustin had done. Why had he done it? Why had he been so mean, when all Lestat had wanted was to play with his little figures, making up scenes in his head by himself by the hearth in the great room? Not bothering anyone! He hadn't been, had he? And hadn't his brothers told him to go away and amuse himself when Lestat had tried to join them in their play at being great knights? Well, Lestat had done that! He had done as they asked and still he had been mocked and his toys destroyed and he was hungry, had been hungry for weeks because it was winter and he didn't eat fast enough to stop his brothers from stealing from his plate sometimes, and it was all so cruel and unfair Lestat clutched his knees to his chest and sobbed with abandon at the meanness of it; he sobbed because he was angry and insulted and could not hurt his brothers back the way they hurt him. He was still too small and they would only laugh at him, and the imagining of this made the tears come even faster.

His own sobs were so loud in his ears that he didn't realize someone else was in the room with him until they said something aloud. His name? Lestat looked up, glaring at this intruder and furious with himself that he'd let this favorite hiding place be discovered, and was shocked so much by what he saw that his tears stopped in an instant.

The man was beautiful. He had skin that was brown, like that of the miller's daughters who Lestat sometimes saw picking wildflowers on the edge of the meadow, and his hair was dark and curled the same way theirs was too, although it was much shorter, not nearly long enough to wear in a queue. His eyes were a stunning green color, like spring leaves when the sunlight shone through them, and they were fixed on Lestat with an expression that was so caring, so intelligent and forgiving that Lestat forgave him instantly for the intrusion, no matter who he was or why he was here.

"H…hello," Lestat said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Wh…who are you?"

"Louis," the man told him. He had a lovely voice, though his accent was very strange. "My name is Louis. You're Lestat, aren't you?"

Lestat nodded. "Why are you in…here?"

"Uh…" The man – Louis – seemed to look around himself for the first time, as though he'd forgotten how he came to be here. "I heard you crying."

"I locked the d-door."

"Lock's all rusted. I just touched it and it gave way."

This made sense, although Lestat felt fresh tears pricking at his eyelids. So he would lose this hiding spot after all.

"Hey," Louis said. "What's wrong?"

Lestat sniffled. "This is my favorite p-p-private space, and you say the lock is b-broken. Now I will only have the p-place in the cellar, and it is c-c-cold and d-damp there, and I have to c-clear away the c-c-cobwebs before I sit down."

"I'll fix the lock." Louis looked away, and for the first time Lestat noticed the strange clothes he was wearing. They were dark, and he was not wearing a cravat or any sort of waistcoat. His breeches were long and oddly cut, not tight at the knee.

"Are you from somewhere else?" Lestat asked. "Your c-clothes are funny."

Louis looked down at himself. "Are they?"

"Yes. They look very odd. I've never seen anyone d-dressed that way before."

"Maybe I'm just stylish."

Lestat narrowed his eyes. "Style…ish?"

"Yeah. It means…means wearing clothes that are in fashion. Maybe all the people of Paris are wearing clothes like mine."

Lestat sprung to his feet. "You are from Paris?"

"No," Louis said. There was something sharp about the way he said it that made Lestat's cheeks go up in flame. "Hey. I didn't mean…I'm not from Paris. I've been there, though."

"Have you?"

"Yes."

"And is it as beautiful as I've heard?" Lestat asked, embarrassment forgotten. "I don't mean – I am not being silly, I promise. I know it is dirty and there are bad p-people and things there, but is it – beautiful?"

Louis laughed, but it was a lovely laugh and Lestat felt it wasn't making a mockery of him, which made Louis even easier to like. "So you know about the dirt and the bad people already?"

"I am not a child," Lestat informed him.

"How old are you?"

"Seven."

"Practically a grown up," Louis said. He was smiling, though there was something sad in his eyes. "You heard right. Paris was beautiful. It's filthy, and the people there can be savage and brutal as people can be, but it's a beautiful place."

Lestat nodded solemnly. "I understand. I heard my mother talk of something like that once."

"Why were you crying?" Louis asked, changing the subject.

Lestat looked down at his feet, not wanting to confess his weakness, even to this most agreeable stranger. "I was be-be— stupid."

"Okay. So what were you being stupid about?"

Lestat bit his lip, glancing up angrily at Louis, who in response, sat down upon the dirty flagstone floor as though he didn't care whether his odd breeches were soiled. He was even more nice to look at when Lestat didn't have to peer up at him, and his eyes really were very kind. "I've got time. Tell me."

"Augustin stomped on my figures," Lestat muttered angrily. The injustice of it all came back to him as he spoke. "I was playing in front of the fire, and he saw me, and told me I was too old to play with dolls, and then he started laughing, and when I put them down to yell at him to go away he stomped on them. Now they are ruined and he will go around making fun of me for p-playing with dolls and calling me a b-baby."

Louis nodded, face grave. "I see."

"I wish I could hurt him," Lestat continued. He balled his hands into fists. "I'm tired of being weak. I'm tired of being hungry. I'm tired of – of –"

"Hungry?" Louis asked.

"He steals my food. Both of them d-do. I'm not quick enough to stop them, most of the time, but I am getting much quicker at eating."

"You don't have enough to eat?"

Lestat frowned. "Is that odd?"

"No," Louis said. "No, it's just…I'd forgotten about that, is all."

Lestat puzzled over the strange words. "Did someone tell you? We are nobility and an old family, but we are known to be very poor."

"Hmm."

"It's alright most of the time. When it isn't winter. Mother says we are lords of the land, and when the land is hungry we have to be hungry too. And Augustin says it's stupid of me to have survived this long, 'cause it means less for them, and that's why he steals my food. 'Cause it would've been theirs if I'd just died."

Louis inhaled sharply and went very still, as though Lestat had said something important. He opened his mouth to speak, but found he couldn't think of anything else to say about it.

Louis' eyes were like green bonfires, and they seemed to burn into his very soul. Looking at him Lestat felt suddenly afraid. It was as though he'd only just now realized that this was a stranger, who was wearing strange clothes and was for some strange reason talking to him as though Lestat were a person and not a silly, stupid child, and yet all of this was not why Lestat felt scared. He hated feeling scared. He wished Louis was gone so he didn't have to feel scared anymore, but when he thought of Louis leaving he was even more scared of being alone.

It was awful. Some part of him loved it.

As if Lestat had said all this out loud Louis sighed, moving again and not seeming so much like a statue anymore. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Are you an angel?" Lestat asked. It would make sense, with the eyes and the beauty and the sudden appearance. Not that he thought angels really existed or that one would appear to him if they did. Still, he might as well ask.

Louis looked startled by this question. "...No. I'm not. But…"

"B-but what?"

"I'm not from here. From your time. I'm from the future."

Lestat stared at him. "Are you trying to trick me?"

"No."

"I'm not stupid. I won't fall for it."

"Your name is Lestat de Lioncourt."

Lestat laughed. "This is the Chateau de Lioncourt, and I already told you my name."

"Your birthday is the seventh of November," Louis said, speaking slowly and clearly in his strange, accented French. "You have two brothers, and your mother's name is Gabriella. You sometimes sit in the meadow and ask God to take you away from your father's house. You do not know how to read. You love hearing music. You hate living somewhere like this, where what possessions your family uses are dilapidated and what possessions your family does not use are piled in rooms like this like heaps of trash. You wish, more than anything, to be good. But you don't know how."

Lestat stared at him, fascinated, and Louis stared back. Finally, he reached out his hand. "I know you. In the future, you know me."

"I do?" Lestat asked.

"Yes."

"Am I–" the words caught in his throat and Lestat choked on them, eyelids stinging with salt tears when he squeezed them shut. "Am I g-gone from here? Have I d-d-disappointed everyone? Or am I — am I good?”

There was a long, terrible silence. Lestat's breath heaved in his chest, violently, the way it did when he was already lost to tears. And then he was being tugged into Louis' arms and held so tightly it was almost painful, sobs shaking him against the firm grip of this strange not-angel, and for once Lestat didn't feel as though he had to hide them. Louis wasn't warm like Lestat expected him to be, but he didn't complain or act disgusted when Lestat dripped snot onto his shoulder, and he kept holding Lestat, as though he were something precious, as though he wanted Lestat to feel better instead of wanting him just to stop crying and snivelling.

Lestat clung to him and sobbed until he only had hiccups left. "You – hic – d-didn't answer – hic –"

He felt Louis' laugh, but it didn't bother him. It was a warm laugh. It felt nice, the rumble of it, this close. "I'm not the best judge of who's good and who's not."

"I don't – hic – understand."

Louis pushed him gently back, drawing a strange, brightly colored packet out of his breeches pocket and pulling a square of white fabric from it. With this he dabbed at Lestat's face, clearing it of the tears and nose runnyness that hadn't been soaked up by the fabric of his shirt. "You do try. To be good. I know you do."

"I don't understand," Lestat whispered again miserably.

"You don't need to right now." Louis looked him in the eyes now, and to Lestat's astonishment his eyes were pink, as though they were bleeding. "Don't worry. It's nothing. Just – something my eyes do, sometimes."

"Alright."

"You're a force of nature," Louis murmured. His finger came up, catching a stray tear at the corner of one of Lestat's eyes before it could roll down his cheek. "You do your best, always. And yes, you leave here. You travel to many cities before you choose one to make a life in."

"What kind of city?" Lestat interrupted.

"A beautiful city. Full of lights and people and the same filth Paris has, but hotter. In the New World." Louis' eyes misted over, staring through Lestat instead of at him. "A brutally romantic place. Caught between the beauty of the past and the frantic striving of the present."

"It sounds wonderful," Lestat breathed.

His response seemed to pull Louis out of memory, and he smiled. It was like the sun has come back up above the horizon the way it dazzled Lestat's eyes with its beauty; it really was. "It is, in a way."

"And it is far from here?"

"Very far."

Lestat nodded. "That's good."

"You're different than I imagined," Louis said after a pause. "But you're the same. Have always been…"

"Been what?"

"You." Louis shrugged.

"Well, I am me," Lestat replied a little peevishly. "And how did you come to know me, Monsieur?"

Louis laughed, low and soft in the dusty room. "It's not important."

"But then…" Lestat tried to think, head reeling with new information. "Why are you here…?"

This question seemed to strike Louis like the hand of God. His face shifted into a mask of confusion, his movements stilling so that once again he seemed to be a beautiful statue, like those in the church Mother sometimes took him to attend. "Why am I…?"

"You said you're from the future, right? So unless you were lying…" Louis shook his head, and Lestat pressed on bravely. "You must have come to see me for some reason."

"I can't…" Louis blinked and said something in an unfamiliar language. English, maybe?

"What is it?"

"I can't remember. How I…" Louis looked around himself, as though noticing the room for the first time. "Did I really come in through there…?"

"I d-didn't hear you. C-come in."

"I was–" Louis became very still again. Lestat didn't even think he was breathing.

At last there was a slow sound, a sigh, and Louis closed his eyes, looking tired. "...This is a dream."

"No it's not," Lestat protested, half because he'd never had a dream this interesting and half because he really, really didn't want it to be one. "See? I'm not sleeping. I can pinch myself, and it hurts."

"Not that sort of dream." Louis looked at him as though he was far away. "A different kind of dream. Not sure how I came into it, but…"

"But what?"

Louis reached out then, his fingers soft when they touched Lestat's cheek. "I'm gone already. If you wake up, I'll be…it'll be too late for me, Lestat."

"What do you mean?" Lestat felt the tears spring up again, eyes burning with them. "G-gone? Gone…where?"

Louis' hand dropped, and he stared dully down at his lap as Lestat sobbed. "Can't tell you that. Don't think anyone can, really."

"Stay, p-please. Please, Louis!"

"It's not up to me, Lestat." Louis looked up, and through puffy eyelids and a veil of tears Lestat watched as blood slowly trickled down from the corner of his eyes. "Made my choice. Sorry I couldn't…wanted to say goodbye to you, the you I know, but I don't think you heard me. Don't think you hear anything, anymore."

"I don't understand," Lestat sobbed, crashing into Louis and grabbing fistfuls of the soft fabric of his shirt in an attempt to keep him from leaving. "I don't – I do- I d-don't –"

"Armand will tell you," Louis said. He was fading with the last of the twilight, and despite Lestat's attempts to cling to him, to go wherever Louis went, for at least it would not be here and he would be with Louis, he was slipping away into shadow. "Someone will tell you if you ever wake up. I'm glad I…"

And then he was gone and Lestat was falling to the floor, fists clenched around air and knees bruising painfully with the force of the fall, crying harder than he had ever cried before.

Lestat.

Lestat scrambled away, into his corner with the dusty canvases and the mouldering cushion, away from everyone else, all the hurt of it, all the pain and unceasing agony of a life predicated on death, clapping his hands over his ears. "No, no, no, no, no, no…"

Lestat. I'm with him now…

"I can't, I can't!" He was pleading, though he didn't know with whom or for what. "Please! I can't!"

…won't tell you why…

"Tell me it's not true," he begged, and knew it was too late then but he still tried to shrink from it, cramming his now adult body into that little corner his smaller self had deemed a little too big to be really cozy I won't say where the wind was whipping around him like it did the night he was lost to humanity forever, and he was naked as he had been then, not a cloak to wrap himself in or a hand to drag him forward, tell him I love him, scrabbling for the canvases that had been there only a moment ago but they had gone, tell him tell him tell him tell him gone along with the illusion of innocent youth, gone with the cold feeling of stone around him she's calling me and the smokey scent of a fire Lestat screamed and it was ripped from him, the sound, he is ill along with the breath from his lungs embraced the light, dragged from it, screaming and he was rising, no longer fighting to remain but fighting against the storm that surrounded him, scatter the remains trying to bring him back down and into another shadowy corner of memory blackened flesh into ash Magnus dancing in the flames, blackened flesh into ash, floating away, gone into the wind; he was gasping for air he didn't need and Claudia was crying, crying out for the father he never was and he was leaving her again, again he was leaving her to die, sobbing as he reached up into the ink-spattered night and groped blindly for the stars.

Someone was holding his hands the moment Lestat knew he was reaching out for someone to hold. He knew who it was, but he couldn’t believe it, even after all this time. “Louis.”

“Lestat.” Overwhelming relief. Familiar exasperation. And affection, above all; a warm affection Lestat still could not bring himself to accept without hesitating. His eyes were sensitive even to the low light in the coffin room, where only a dim lamp illuminated the gloom, and the odd, unreal feeling of wakefulness announced the presence of the sun in the sky more effectively even than the golden-orange light streaming through the little corner window Lestat had commissioned for this room so that he could tell what time of day it was without burning himself or having to check his iPhone.

Louis' eyes glowed like twin planets set in the masterpiece of his face as he leaned over the open coffin, concern writ in every line of his face. "Hey. You awake?"

Lestat nodded. He did not feel like crying. He leaned up to kiss Louis, sighing at the way his lips opened like night-blooming jasmine before Louis pulled back, nose wrinkling. "You're covered in blood sweat."

"You think it’s sexy. Admit it."

Louis rolled his eyes. Lestat drank him in, realizing with a shiver that the clothes he wore were the same he had seen him in, in the dream, black pajamas hanging loose off his form, and he sat up in the coffin, hands gripping tightly at Louis' shoulders before he could stop himself. "You won't – you weren't –"

"Hey," Louis replied, obviously startled. "What is it?"

"Don't you dare," Lestat snapped. "Don't you dare, Louis de Pointe du Lac, or I'll drag you up from – don't, don't–"

"Lestat, snap out of it."

Now he felt like crying. So, of course, he did. Louis sighed, reaching into his pajama pants' pocket for the same packet of Kleenex Lestat had seen in the dream, and the accuracy of it set him to laughing, slumping against Louis' chest in throes of alternate hysteria and sorrow.

Louis just held him, and when Lestat pulled back, patted his face with the tissues, which was decidedly counterproductive, all things considered.

At last Lestat got enough breath to get himself under control again, the shuddering of his shoulders fading to dry little heaves every few breaths or so. Louis' fingers were carding through his hair, carefully untangling any little knots he found there. Lestat loved him so much it hurt. "Bad dream?"

"Not entirely."

"Uh-huh."

"It was nice, at first."

Louis hummed. "That kind of dream, huh?"

"No. I was a child again…" Lestat fell silent, not wanting to cheapen the memory of it with words. But he had to tell him. Louis had to hear it. "You were there. It was more like a memory than a dream. As though you'd come back through time to comfort me when I badly needed you."

"Sounds nice, your dream. So why'd you wake up…?"

"You had to leave." Lestat smiled against the fabric covering Louis' shoulder. "Which would have been bad enough."

"But that wasn't it, was it?" Louis asked.

"No. I was – you were – San Francisco. A last goodbye."

Louis sighed, fingers tightening in Lestat's hair just enough to make him wince before they resumed their gentle hold. "Not sure what to call that. Not a long goodbye."

"No. But not a short one."

"False goodbye?"

"It felt real." Lestat drew him infinitesimally closer, fingers pressing into him: solid. Alive. Here, somehow; somehow here. "Not false. Heartfelt."

Louis hummed. "Ad interim?"

"Mm. If you'd come to me in the past, perhaps…"

"We'll think of something eventually," Louis said. In the following silence Lestat listened to Louis' heartbeat. A sound he would never tire of. "I had a similar dream."

"You did?"

"Kinda. A few nights ago."

"Tell me about it, mon cher."

Louis inhaled deeply, his thumb stroking rhythmically against Lestat's shoulderblade. Once, Lestat would have thought it the sweetest performance of a comforting gesture. Now he knows that the repetitive motion is meant to soothe Louis as much as it is Lestat, and it's even more cherished for the knowledge. "I was young. Ten? Twelve? I can't remember. The other boys had gone off to tease the girls we were with and make them giggle, and I sat on the bank of the Mississippi. Feet in muddy water. Always knew I was different. Always knew I wasn't the same as the others, but…"

Lestat couldn't resist kissing him. Just a soft press of lips, unspoken love pouring through every cell in the brief moment of contact, or so Lestat hoped. "But?"

"Didn't know how lonely it could be," Louis admitted softly. "I felt it then. Think I felt it when I lived it, but when I dreamed about it…I understood."

"Come here," Lestat pleaded, and Louis sighed as though the asking was a relief and a blessing all in one, climbing over the rim of the coffin and letting Lestat fold into his side, chin resting in the crook of his shoulder, happy to be confined between satin and silken skin. He pressed a kiss to Louis' ear before snuggling closer to him, waiting for Louis to continue.

"In the dream you were with them," Louis said, when their hearts had steadied to sonorous twin beats. "But you came back. Sat with me, on the riverbank. Told me some story and a half about a monster catfish your cousin'd caught, telling me it was so ridiculously long I had no choice but to laugh 'bout it.”

“I don’t know if you would have liked me,” Lestat admitted. He was drowsing again, heart calmed by the feeling of Louis beside him, as it always was. “If we'd met…if we'd been young together.”

“Why’s that?” Louis asked, the casual tone of his voice betrayed by the way he tensed against Lestat's body.

"The stutter," Lestat said sleepily. "And the lack of knowledge. I'd've clung to you like a…"

"Lonely child?" Louis finished. He sighed. "I won't take that as an insult."

"It wasn't meant to be one."

"I know." They were silent for a long moment, so still Lestat was nearly half-asleep when Louis spoke again. "I'd have loved you, you know. 'f I'd met you back then."

"Don't flatter me."

"I'm not," Louis said. "I think I would've been jealous of you. Wouldn't have known what to do with my feelings, but I would've. Probably would've pulled your hair in the schoolroom."

Lestat giggled. "Dipped my pigtails in the inkpot?"

"Course."

"How sweet of you."

"You'd be the sweet one. I can picture it like a movie, you looking at me with ink dripping from the ends of your hair, all bemused wounded innocence."

"Mm." Lestat had to kiss him, right on the corner of his jaw. "Would you have been angrier then? If I hadn't been?"

"No. Probably would've waited for you to try and fight me. Then I'd've…"

"Yes?"

"Talked to you," Louis said softly. "And you would've talked to me. That would be the end of it."

"Or the beginning."

"Yeah." Louis' hand came up, fingers carding through Lestat's hair. Lestat sighed and melted into him fully. “‘Of somethin’ nice. Somethin’ like this. Not a goodbye. The opposite. Something perdurable.”

"Ah, perdurable he says, as though I should know what that word means."

"Means long-lasting. Permanent. Durable."

Lestat smiled. “Miraculously so?”

“Guess you could say that.”

“It’s how it feels,” Lestat admitted, eyelids heavy and fluttering against his cheeks. "That I met you. That you are here. It feels like a miracle, when I think of it."

“Yeah.” Louis swallowed, heart beating infinitesimally faster for a moment before it slowed again, strong as the sun beneath Lestat’s hand. "It does."

"I'd have loved you," Lestat whispered. "No matter when we met. From the moment I saw you. I would have loved you."

He felt Louis' smile against the top of his head. "I know."

–