Chapter Text
There was some kind of nauseous persistent static in Louis's ears, behind his closed eyelids. He felt like his mind had been violently ripped out of his body and then shoved back in, the outlines still indistinct and hazy. He could hear the unmistakable soft crackling of a fire nearby. He could feel the wind gusting through the broken bay windows, smell the sweet resiny scent wafting in from the forest. A final violent shock coursed through him, every muscle and vein in his arms and legs contracting. And then, stillness. The pain was gone.
“Lou…” a deliciously familiar voice whispered close to his face. He felt a hand touching him, cool fingers pressing on his neck to feel his pulse, stroking his hair, delicately wiping his sweat-soaked brow.
“He’s waking, I can sense his mind,” another familiar voice said.
Louis forced his eyes open and for a moment he was convinced he’d been wrong in his previous assessment; there was indeed a heaven, he had died and gone to it. An angel was staring down at him, bathed in a white glow, his beautiful face contorted in an anguished expression.
“Louis—”
Louis blinked, struggling to clear his mind. The rest of the room slowly came into focus and he could see the outline of the high vaulted ceilings and the large fireplace carved into the wall. At the far end of the room, he could make out the silhouette of the red-haired twins, standing together with their backs to the rest of the room. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their heads bowed together, locked in some silent communication that only they could understand.
Louis turned his head. He could see Lestat more clearly now, kneeling on the marble floor next to him.
“Lestat?” he started to say, but the word caught in his throat. He painfully lifted himself into a sitting position, his head swimming from the sudden movement. “Lestat!” he said again, more clearly this time.
Lestat’s eyes misted over and he rushed forward to pull Louis into an embrace. They grasped at each other desperately, a sob threatening to break out in Louis’s chest. Lestat was here…Lestat was unharmed. A distant part of Louis’s mind registered what this meant; they hadn’t all perished with the queen. Somehow, they’d all survived. But it felt like an unimportant detail at the moment.
Lestat pulled back a little to rest his forehead against Louis’s, his breath shallow and ragged.
“I thought I’d lost you again,” he murmured.
Louis nodded, his throat tight. He took his time to look at Lestat—to really look at him—in a way he’d rarely had the chance to before. He took in the striking blue of his wide eyes, framed by pale lashes, with dark bruise-like shadows underneath them. His eyes traced the sharp edge of Lestat’s jawline and the soft curve of his trembling lips. Lestat was here, a sturdy solid presence in Louis’s arms. And he was unharmed—at least on the surface.
“I’m fine.” Louis tried to infuse the words with as much conviction as he could manage.
He struggled to his feet to prove his point and Lestat rose with him, moving with a fluid grace that was mesmerizing. It was only then that Louis noticed the small crowd gathered around them; Armand, Gabrielle, Marius, and a few others, all seemingly unscathed, the expressions on their faces ranging from concern to relief. He tried to move back, to allow them to also have their greetings, but Lestat wouldn’t let him. He swayed forward with Louis like they were dancing, his eyes still trained on Louis’s face, searching and desperate.
“Louis…” Lestat whispered again.
Louis took Lestat’s trembling hands into his, threading their fingers together, palm against palm. “Oui, je suis là,”
He wasn’t sure who kissed who first but he felt Lestat’s soft lips suddenly pressed against his own, felt the slight scratch of Lestat’s stubble against his face, Lestat’s body pressed closely against his, his strong heart beating erratically, in tandem with his own.
Lestat walked back into the suite he was sharing with Louis, a loaded silver tray carefully balanced in one hand. After the events at Maharet’s compound, they had all gathered here, on the pompously named Night Island. Armand had graciously offered to welcome all the straggling survivors, to rest for a while before continuing on their journeys. It was an uncharacteristically kind gesture that had surprised Lestat a great deal. But what did he know of Armand anymore—of this modern, impeccably tailored polo and designer loafer-wearing version of him, so far removed from the grubby little gremlin Lestat had met two centuries ago in the Parisian catacombs.
They had put all that behind them now. They had all come together and would endeavour to love one another, to be a real tribe, bound together by their shared grief and devastation. Lestat’s silly dream of uniting all the vampires in the world was now a reality. But at what cost?
The large suite was lavish and tastefully decorated, in an artful mixture of new and old. Armand had spared no expense to ensure all the vampires in residence were given the highest comforts the modern century could provide; private suites, that came with UV-filtered bay windows and unrestricted access to the beach, 24-hour room service at the touch of a button, and even chauffeured luxury cars and boats, ready to take them around the island or ferry them back and forth to the mainland for a late night hunt or a leisurely tour of the city.
When Lestat entered, Louis was sitting up on the bed, his back leaning against the carved headboard. He was still as gloriously naked as when Lestat had left him, only partially hidden under the covers. But to Lestat’s chagrin, the post-coital bliss he’d worked so hard to put on Louis’s face was gone, replaced by the all too familiar worried frown.
Lestat followed his gaze to the large television above the mantelpiece, that was displaying some local news report.
“In a tragic turn of events, overnight rock sensation Lestat de Lioncourt, better known by his stage name The Vampire Lestat, is now presumed dead following a car accident on the outskirts of San Francisco. Mangled fragments of his vehicle were discovered by authorities, underneath the 801 overpass. Earlier that same night, the singer had been forced to halt his sold-out performance due to the uncontrollable crowd. Police suspect a fatal highway chase involving a paparazzi vehicle may be the cause of the accident. While no human remains have been positively identified, the extensive damage found at the scene leaves little hope for any survivors.…”
Lestat already knew the story—it had been planted by his own human agents, a subterfuge to give humans a plausible explanation for what had happened on the night of the concert. Still, it was strange to see his own face on the screen again, flashing above the big titles.
“Here you go mon cher,” he said, placing the tray on the bed with a flourish. “AB negative, freshly warmed. Though I still think it’d be best if you let me fly you to town, where you can feed properly. Or perhaps we could steal one of the gremlin’s fancy boats, it would be fun…”
“Sure, maybe later,” Louis said distractedly. He picked up a blood bag at random from the tray. Lestat resisted the urge to make a face when he twisted the valve cap open and drank directly from the tube like it was a straw. He offered Lestat a small thankful smile before his eyes wandered back to the television where the news report was still droning on.
“…our correspondent Dale Jennings is currently in San Francisco, where hundreds of heartbroken fans are gathered in front of the cow palace, to commemorate their idol with flowers and other sentimental memorabilia….”
Lestat located the little black remote, buried between the sheets, and he clicked the television off.
“They think you’re dead,” Louis informed him sardonically.
Lestat waved his hand in a vague dismissive gesture. “It’s for the best. I had grown bored of the limelight anyway.” Louis cocked his eyebrow in disbelief but Lestat ignored him. “Besides, my agent tells me that the best icons are the ones that burn bright and fade quickly.”
The witticism landed like a stone at the bottom of a river. Instead of indulging it with a smile, Louis sighed, his face settling in a sad, almost resigned frown. His watercolour eyes studied Lestat’s face with an intensity that made him feel flayed open.
“If you ever want to talk about any of it…and I mean really talk about it, not the bullshit story you've been telling everybody…”
Lestat turned away, busying himself with storing the rest of the blood bags in the small refrigerator before slowly walking back to the bed.
He’d heard that same question more times in the past week than he cared to count. He’d heard from Gabrielle, who usually never bothered with questions or comforting affirmations—never said much of anything in truth. He’d heard from Armand, his amber eyes scrutinizing Lestat as if he could read the entire tale in the smooth lines on his face.
He’d heard it from Marius too, who wanted to know the details of what the queen had spoken to him about—of what she had made him do and witness. Lestat sometimes caught Marius glaring at him and he saw the anger and disappointment in his eyes—or perhaps he just imagined it there. I needed you, Marius, Lestat had wanted to say, I needed you and you were not there. I tried to stop her, I tried. But I did not have your words or your wisdom.
Lestat realized with shame he didn’t have the slightest idea of what had become of her body. She had been burned no doubt, her bloodless carcass incinerated without any ceremony or pomp, without consideration for what she had been; a queen, the mother of all the undead.
He couldn’t bear to think of her, of her blood now flowing in his veins, of the powers she’d given him; of what it had been like to travel with her through the clouds. It made him violently ill to remember the euphoria of being in her arms, the detached savage satisfaction he’d felt doing her bidding, being the mindless instrument for her destruction. How could he possibly explain these things to them when he could not understand them himself?
They all wanted to know how Lestat was feeling, to know if he was truly recovered and back to his old self. Lestat glimpsed it in their thoughts. They wondered why he often spent entire nights locked in a dark room, refusing to see anyone, not even Louis. They wondered why he’d wept like a child when the queen had died, cradling her headless body until it was ripped away from him. They wondered about his skin and his hair, about the blood inside him, how much he must have drunk to cause such a change and what that meant about the power he now possessed. Dr. Fareed had even gone as far as to ask for samples of Lestat’s blood and tissue, suggesting that it would aid greatly in his important research.
Lestat dismissed them all with a smile and a quip—all but Louis whom such things never worked on. Louis knew him all too well. Each time Louis looked at him, Lestat felt like Loouis could see into his very soul, see in it all the things Lestat was struggling to conceal; the things he fought so hard to banish to the deepest recess of his mind.
Louis knew—he must have. Surely, he had read the news reports in all their gruesome horror, seen the images of burnt corpses scattered on the white sand beaches of Lynkanos, the thousands of poor helpless mortals left strewn down the mountain. All the snow in the world couldn’t cover it up.
And yet Louis was still here. He still welcomed Lestat in his arms, without a trace of fear or repulsion. Even now, his eyes reflected nothing but concern.
“I’d much prefer if we didn’t talk at all,” Lestat said finally putting on his most charming smile. He moved closer, trailing light kisses on Louis’s naked shoulder and collarbones. “I can think of so many better uses for my mouth.”
Louis extracted himself from his advances, grabbing his chin to make him look up. “You sure that’s really what you want?” he asked. His gaze was unwavering as he dragged his thumb over Lestat’s bottom lip.
Lestat looked up at him and flashed a sultry smile before taking the offered digit into his mouth, suckling on it lightly. Louis let out a breathless gasp, his eyes fluttering shut in that way that always made Lestat’s stomach twist with desire. The truth was that Lestat did not know what he wanted, or what to do with the conflicted misery he felt. He only knew that some raw feeling had been laid bare inside him and he desperately needed to bury it, drown it in distractions and pleasures.
“I want you, Louis,” he said. “I always want you.”
He wrenched back the covers and crawled onto the bed. He settled on top of Louis, his thighs splayed across Louis’s narrow waist, trapping him into place. He felt Louis sigh beneath him, his warm hands coming up to roam down Lestat’s chest, deft fingers making quick work of the robe Lestat had hastily thrown on before exiting the room.
Lestat leaned down to lay more kisses along Louis’s jaw, letting his lips graze his graceful throat, not daring to do more than feel the blood thrumming underneath. What he wanted to do more than anything was, of course, to sink his fangs into the delicate skin, to let his tongue be submerged by that sweet nectar he had not tasted in decades.
His thirst for Louis’s blood rose in him to the point of feeling lightheaded, but he settled for kissing Louis instead, snuggling up to him, pressing his lips against Louis’s warm throat, listening to that thunder of blood rushing down his artery. With a pang of childish jealousy, he wondered who else had been here, who else had held Louis like this during the fifty long years they’d been apart. Who else had tasted him, stolen a kiss in some secluded dark room or smoky music den? Armand surely, and probably many more after him.
Louis pulled him down into a kiss. It was sweet and languid, his warm tongue brushing against Lestat’s in a maddening push and pull. Time slowed down to a crawl around them, the rest of the universe fading into the blurry background.
It didn’t matter how many lovers Louis had taken before or after him—it had never truly mattered. Lestat knew now that what he and Louis shared transcended any mere fleeting encounters. It was all-consuming, spanning over infinite time and space, conquering even death itself.
The nights on the island were filled with a strange effervescence, a delirious giddiness that came with having such a close brush with death, for creatures that had grown so accustomed to being immortal.
The only notable absence from the festivities were the red-haired twins, as well as their self-appointed loyal servant and protector Khayman. Maharet had decided it was best for Mekare to be taken to a safe and secluded location to recover, far from any mortal or immortal prying eyes. The mute twin now held the core; the mysterious spirit that animated all the remaining vampires, the number of which Louis had been told by Fareed was now estimated at less than fifty. Until they could find a solution to permanently sever the bond, all their lives were now tied to Mekare.
It was still hard for Louis to believe that the whole nightmarish ordeal had lasted only a few nights—that not even a week ago he was still living in his forest house in Washington, completely oblivious to the chaos that Lestat had unleashed with his reckless dreams of stardom.
It had felt like a lifetime, those long anxious nights at the Sanoma compound, unsure of what their fate would be or if he would ever see Lestat again.
Lestat himself seemed to have moved on quickly from the incident, at least on the surface. He seemed his cheerful self again, wandering from room to room, greeting and speaking to everyone with that same steady and self-assured demeanour. Louis watched, exasperated, as Lestat soaked up the attention and admiration, recounting Akasha’s massacre like it was just another one of the tales of great adventure he always told to Louis when they still lived together; I was at Donizetti’s first comic opera in 1843. I defeated the mad vampire queen and came out triumphant, stronger than ever.
“I never feared for my life at any moment,” Louis heard him say to a wide-eyed Jesse. “She was in love with me you see, she could not bear to harm me.”
Each time, Louis always stood up and left the room, frustration getting the better of him.
Louis knew the easygoing carelessness was a façade. He knew that deep down, Lestat was still anguished and restless about what had happened. He saw the way Lestat’s face sometimes changed, the mask of casual self-assuredness melting into a pained expression. He was there when Lestat woke up screaming and gasping for air, his panicked eyes glazed over as he begged Louis not to let her take him.
But as it always was with Lestat, the moments of vulnerability never lasted long. The next evening he would be back to his chirpy self, entertaining the gathered vampires with improvised renditions of his rock songs.
More and more, Louis wished he were back home— whatever that even meant at this point. Though he appreciated Armand’s generosity as a host, he found being back on the island strangely stifling. The white sand beaches and turquoise waters carried with them memories that Louis did not want to revisit—of long lonely nights where he’d wandered for hours, unable to escape his frazzled thoughts, a complete stranger to himself and to the rest of the world. Despite the boundless joy and relief he felt at having Lestat back safe and sound, and as much as he enjoyed the heady nights he and Lestat spent in each other’s arms, reacquainting their hands and mouths with each other’s bodies, Louis felt like the air between them was always thick with all the things they hadn’t said yet, with all the messy history they carried between them, always present, like a silent pressure at the back of Louis’s mind. He never pushed or pried for Lestat to be more open with him, but he couldn’t help the brewing frustration he felt at the continued avoidant silences.
Most nights, Louis retreated to the quiet of the library. It was not uncommon to find Gabrielle there, a book already in her hands. It seemed she too did not enjoy the company of others of their kind—her friend Sevraine being the only exception. She and Louis didn’t talk much, preferring to sit in a compassionate silence as they read. But Louis enjoyed her presence all the same. Despite having only known her for a short time, he felt a strange familiar comfort around her, something weirdly close to kinship. A silly notion probably—Louis’s family, whatever had been left of it, was long dead now. He was not even sure what that word meant for creatures such as them.
“What was she like, your Claudia?” Gabrielle asked him one night, in that same straightforward and brash way she always spoke.
Louis was surprised by the question, but Gabrielle’s face was open, her piercing eyes burning with genuine curiosity. He was submerged with the familiar pain at the sound of Claudia’s name, but he smiled and slowly closed his book.
“She was…,” he paused for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. “…a spark in the dark. She was vivacious, curious of all things and so full of life. She also had a fierce strength and ruthlessness to her, inherited from her other father. She made a much better vampire than I ever could. And sometimes I think she was more like him than she was ever like me.”
A brief smile stretched on Gabrielle’s face, a quick flash of pleasure that vanished as soon as it appeared. “Is that such a bad thing?”
Louis stared at her, momentarily struck by how much she resembled her son when she smiled.
“I wish I could have met her,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically wistful.
“Then why didn’t you?” It came out more bitter than Louis had intended. “She could have used someone like you,” he added more softly. “I realize now that Lestat and I were probably not the best people to raise a little girl...”
Gabrielle let out a bitter laugh. “Believe me Louis, neither am I.” She marked a long pause, and Louis waited patiently to see if she would go on. The little he knew of Lestat’s childhood was what he’d read in his memoir but it was enough to know that it had been a difficult one, to say the least.
“I never wanted children,” Gabrielle said finally. “And once I had them, I did not know what to do with them— how not to impart on them the wretched misery I felt all the time. I eventually devised that the best way to preserve them was to see them as little as possible.” Louis nodded. He understood that more than he cared to admit. He had loved Claudia with all his heart, but in the end, it had not been enough. Eventually, his darkness had consumed her too. “But Lestat, Lestat was different,” Gabrielle continued. “He was like me. And not just in his colouring, that he was the only one of my children to inherit, but in his restlessness, in his desire to escape from the stifling confines of our meaningless rural life. Freeing me was the best gift my son ever gave me.”
“I’m not sure Lestat saw it that way,” Louis couldn’t help but object, “I think he suffered from it—from your absence.”
“For a time perhaps,” she conceded. “But then he had you. Lestat is a creature made for bright lights and gathered crowds. He is never alone for too long. That has always been the way with him since he was a boy, so easily loved everywhere he went. He did not need me, any more than I needed him.”
And maybe she was right. Maybe Louis needed to come to terms with the fact that loving Lestat would always mean sharing him with countless others.
In the end, the decision to leave was an easy one. Lestat had been absent for days, locked away in the office Armand had put at his disposition, refusing to see or talk to anyone. He’d told Louis he was writing a book, a retelling of all that had transpired with Akasha. And so Louis left him to it.
He had far more pressing concerns on his mind. His conversation with Gabrielle had put things into a new perspective. Louis had been trying to outrun his past for the last fifty years. But he was tired of running now, he was ready to go home.
“Let me come with you,” Armand offered when Louis told him of his intentions.
Louis thanked him but declined his offer. This was a journey he needed to make alone.
It was well past midnight when he touched down in New Orleans. The brief feeling of satisfaction from storming off had quickly fizzled out, leaving behind only tired frustration. Maybe it had been a mistake to come here, But Louis had not stopped thinking about the house since his conversation with Jesse. He knew that something inside him would not settle until he saw it for himself.
He looked out at the distant lights as the hired black SUV zoomed across the bridge. He absently listened to the driver’s chatter. The old man had a strong accent, the kind that wasn’t common anymore in the city. It sounded like music to Louis’s ears, like a nice peaceful lull. He rolled down the window and breathed in the humid balmy air. It felt like a true homecoming, like the city welcoming back her prodigal son, finally returned, more than half a century after his shameful departure.
The young hotel clerk handed Louis his keycard, his eyes lingering on Louis’ face with a mixture of awe and curiosity.
“Has my luggage arrived?” Louis asked.
He’d contacted his housekeeper in Washington and instructed her to send over a few of his things. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stay in the city—if he would even be able to stay at all or if he would find it unbearably overwhelming to be here. But he wanted to be prepared.
“Yes sir,” the boy said nervously. “The two bags have already been placed in your suite.”
“Perfect.”
“I also must inform you that there’s a storm warning for tonight. We are advising our clients to stay put until it blows over in the morning—”
“Thank you,” Louis said, slipping the boy a 100-dollar bill before turning and heading out of the elegantly furnished lobby.
The French Quarter was nearly deserted, the last gaggle of tourists on late-night voodoo tours being herded by their guides towards the waiting buses. As he walked down Rue Royale, Louis found himself thinking about those early days—the only days their little family had ever had—when he and Lestat would return home, Claudia walking between them, the ribbons in her hair blowing in the wind as she chatted on excitedly about the picture show they had just seen.
A pang of desperate loneliness struck him and he nearly stopped in his tracks, ready to turn around and head back to the hotel. But he carried on, determined to see it through—this self-imposed pilgrimage of his past.
The house appeared nearly unchanged from the outside. The rusted iron gate creaked loudly when Louis forced it open, shattering the flimsy lock. Inside, the fire had consumed most of the wallpaper and the plaster, but the bulk of the structure remained intact. The floorboards, the mantels, the mouldings, the carved wooden doors were all still there, covered in layers of dust and soot.
Louis lingered in the parlour for a long moment, and then carefully walked up the crumbling staircase to the second floor—to where her room had been, right down the short hallway from his and Lestat’s. He stood at the threshold for a long moment, a feeling of unbearable dread and longing overcoming him.
Here and there he could still see traces of her things; scraps of the flower wallpaper that had covered the walls, scattered chunks of her pink satin lined coffin, now burned down to the wood; her dressing table with bits and pieces of the trinkets that she had collected over the years. But there was nothing of what Jesse had described. No sound of the piano playing, no birds chirping, no faint traces of her flowery perfume. There was no presence of her other than what was in Louis’s mind.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. He stood frozen at the threshold, not daring to go further, his body shaking with silent sobs.
Gabrielle waltzed into the office, with none of the regard all the others were showing for Lestat’s desire to be alone. She took a stern look at him where he was sitting on the floor, back pressed against the wall, legs folded in front of him.
“Louis left,” she announced with no other preamble.
Lestat sighed, tempted to ignore her. “Yes Mother, I am aware,” he replied anyway.
“And you let him.”
“If you knew anything about Louis, you would know I am powerless to stop him from doing anything.”
“Then go after him. I assume you know where he’s gone—”
“He wanted to be alone.” Lestat’s calm voice was no fair reflection of what he felt, this pain for which there seemed to be no remedy, not even the passage of time, this ache that would not go away no matter how many parties and amusement Lestat stifled it with. The grief for all the mistakes he’d made… all those he’d lost.
But it seemed Gabrielle understood it, the pain he could not voice. She had always been able to read him with a single look, and at that moment, Lestat was so grateful for it that he could have wept.
She strode towards him, her hard blue eyes flashing in the soft light of the fireplace. “Enough of this wallowing,” she said. “Come on, stand up!”
And just like that, as fondness and resentment clashed inside him, Lestat was back in Auvergne, hundreds of years ago, walking back with her from Sunday morning mass. Trudging across those frozen barren fields, the cold air making his nose itch. Gabrielle harangued him in that same impatient voice whenever he fell behind, “Hurry up. Quickly. Come along.” as she waved her leather-gloved hand for him to grasp.
“What are you going to do if I refuse Mother?” he asked with a bitter laugh. “Will you chastise me and send me to bed without supper?”
“No, but you’ll never be too old or too powerful for me to smack some sense into you.”
And that was exactly what she did. She slapped him, a sharp sting that he felt even through his new impenetrable skin. “Get up! Quickly,” she said. “And go to him.”
When Lestat stood up she moved closer and leaned forward to place a gentle, barely there kiss on Lestat’s right cheek, the very same she had just slapped.
“I love you, you know,” she said as if confessing to him some great secret.
“You could have fooled me on that one,” he said. But this was a lie. He knew she worried for him; they all did. Why did he feel he had to keep her at a distance? Why did he push away the only beings who could give him some comfort? “Thank you, Mother,” he added stiffly, leaning down to briefly touch his lips on her warm cheek in an identical kiss to the one she had given him.
She observed him curiously for a long moment and he nearly blushed when he finally took note of his own dishevelled appearance.
“Your hair’s whiter,” she noted. “Why is that?”
He laughed bitterly. “Apparently it comes from drinking her blood. Glutting myself on it until I could not tell reality from the visions she was wafting into my mind. Until I was no more than a puppet on her strings. But do not worry Mother, it’s still yellow enough to keep me happy.” That too was a lie, but it did not matter as much.
Gabrielle was right, he needed to go to Louis, the only thing that still made sense among all the chaos.
Lestat moved like a shadow, his footsteps making no sound on the dusty rotten floorboards. But Louis still felt his presence, an overwhelming nearness that made everything else fade away. Louis turned around and saw him standing at the end of the short hallway, his eyes filled with sadness. He was wearing a long grey coat over simple faded black jeans and a T-shirt. The odd look was completed by a baseball cap with a faded NASA logo. He had not cut his hair tonight and it fell in waves down to his shoulders, catching the moonlight as he moved.
“If you were going for inconspicuous, I’m afraid it’s a near miss,” Louis said.
“I wanted to look as unlike myself as possible—what with the whole ‘presumed dead’ thing.” Lestat extended his arms and did a little twirl to show off his mundane outfit. “I believe this is what Tough Cookie used to call Hobo chic.”
Louis did not respond. He turned away and made his way back down the creaky stairs and out through the ruined parlour. He walked out into the back courtyard, Lestat silently trailing behind him.
The courtyard was overrun with weeds, sprouting out of the long fissures in the tiled pavement. The fountain was chipped and covered in moss, the stagnant water filled with dead leaves at various stages of decomposition. A memory flashed through Louis’s mind; of the summer they had gotten goldfish for the fountain. Claudia had spent hours observing them, feeding them seedlings and crumbs of bread, giggling when they nibbled at her hand.
He could feel Lestat’s silent presence behind him, feel the air shifting with his slow breathing.
“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked. “Ain’t you supposed to be back in Miami, entertaining your audience with your heroic tales?”
“The gremlin informed me of where you had gone,” Lestat said in a halftone as if that was enough of an explanation.
Louis sighed. “I really wish the two of you would put this century-old grudge match to bed. Your mother is right, you both behave like children.”
He was stalling and Lestat did not take the bait.
“She’s not here Louis,” Lestat said. His voice was low and careful, in the way someone would talk to a spooked horse, to stop it from bolting at the sudden noise. “I know what that woman Jesse Reeves said to you, but Claudia is not here. She’s gone.” The words hung heavy in the air, almost like solid objects in the thin predawn mist.
Louis let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, Jesse is ‘that woman’ now, I thought the two of you were best friends."
He felt Lestat’s hand on his shoulder, warm and featherlight. Louis almost wanted to shrug it off, to get away from Lestat altogether and be alone with his misery. Maybe Claudia would come to him then, speak to him, tell him she was content, wherever she was. And wouldn’t that be so nice and convenient? Absolving Louis of all the pain and guilt he had been carrying around for nearly a century.
Lestat gently turned him around by the shoulders, and Louis was once again astonished by his new strength.
“Lou, are you listening to me? You have to let her go.”
“Have you?” Louis snapped in a choked voice.
“Yes,” Lestat brought his hands to cradle Louis’s face. “It was difficult, but I did, I made peace with it.”
“It’s easy for you. You never cared about her.” It was a lie, and Louis knew it.
“She came to me you know,” Lestat confessed, softly. His blue eyes were wide, filled with the same anguish Louis felt. “After the desert, during the long years I spent in that rotting house in the garden district. I could see her so clearly, hear her bell-like voice singing to me. As you know I don’t believe in any of that nonsense but I wanted to then, so desperately that I nearly convinced myself she was truly there. Only it was just my pain and grief echoing back to me.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead against Louis’s, the expression on his face that of such unfathomable pain. “I loved her, perhaps more than I ever let on—certainly more than she ever knew. She was my child, Louis—our child—made of you and me. She was of my blood, the same as you, the same as Gabrielle. I failed her both as a father and as a maker and for that, I will never forgive myself. I'm sorry Louis, for what our family became—for what my selfishness and ineptitude turned us into."
Louis nodded, tears streaming down his face. Lestat pulled him into an embrace and Louis clung to him like a lifeline, all the emotions washing over him, all the memories of what their life together had been—what it could have been. He wondered again why he’d come here, why he’d hoped to find here, why he insisted on playing this game of pretending he could go on without Lestat, pretending that every fibre of his being did not long for Lestat when they were apart. After all, Lestat was the only other being still living who remembered her laugh, who remembered what she had looked like when she was sad.
He lifted his fingers to Lestat’s face, stroking his thumb over Lestat's cheekbone. Lestat’s eyes fluttered shut and Louis lightly touched his eyelids, the tips of his fingers grazing the delicate skin, so pale it almost appeared translucent, the tiny blue veins so clearly visible. This too felt like a homecoming.
“Will you come back home with me Louis?” Lestat murmured, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “If you wish to stay angry at me you may do so. I know I have behaved abominably in the past few nights. I give you permission to shout at me all you want, break a plate over my head if you must.”
“And where is that—” Louis asked, pulling back and turning to look at the overgrown garden and the cracked fountain, at the broken shatters on the window. “—Home?”
Lestat drew closer again, taking Louis’s face delicately in his hand to catch his gaze.
“It is wherever you and I are together. It can be here again if you wish it. I’ll fix it all for you if you want, make it like it was before.”
Louis nodded, throwing one last wistful look at the fountain. “Alright. I’ll come back with you to that damn Island if that’s what you want. But I have to do one last thing first, and I’d like you there with me if that’s...”
He looked, unfathomably, nervous as if he didn’t know that Lestat would have gladly ripped out his own heart and presented it on a silver platter if meant Louis’s happiness. Lestat would have gladly gone through the ordeal again if it meant that he got to have this; to be here with Louis, in this place that had meant so much to both of them.
“Of course chéri,” he said solemnly. “Whatever you need.”
–
Grace and Levi’s names had been added to the Pointe du Lac Mausoleum, right below Louis’s.
There were no flowers, but the crypt looked well taken care of. He did not know if Louis’s remaining descendants ever visited at all, or if they had all moved to different parts of the world. Lestat had not sought them out, as great as the temptation had been in the long months he’d desperately searched for Louis. But he had ensured through his lawyer that the upkeep for the Pointe du Lac crypt would always be paid—that his Louis would always have this to remember them by.
It was far more than Lestat had ever gotten. All that had remained of his human family after the revolution had been ashes and shrivelled heads on a pike. As he watched Louis touch his hands to the cold stone, Lestat’s own vague human past seemed more than ever a myth, a story that he only half-remembered through bits and pieces.
_
Thick droplets had begun to fall by the time they left the cemetery. Louis’s earlier sombre mood seemed to have lifted and he was walking with his head thrown back, uncaring that the water was drenching his face and his curls. He was the most beautiful thing Lestat had ever seen.
“I’m thirsty,” Louis said suddenly. And at once Lestat suggested where they might go to hunt. Most of the humans in the city had already retreated to safety, behind their bolted door and boarded-up windows. But finding suitable prey would not be difficult. And oh, to watch Louis feed again—Lestat shivered with pleasure at the mere thought of it—to see Louis drain blood from a warm victim, instead of those stale bags he was now so fond of.
“No, not for human blood,” Louis clarified, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Before Lestat could question him further, Louis pulled him backwards into a narrow alleyway. Lestat went willingly, torn between shock and a desire so strong it made him feel lightheaded.
“I want to taste you,” Louis whispered against Lestat’s ear, his voice deliciously breathless. He pushed Lestat backwards until his shoulders hit the brick wall with a thud. His hand was delicately cradling the back of Lestat’s head as if he was afraid that Lestat would be hurt by the impact.
“Louis, I don’t think—”
“Shh, shh, shh,” Louis teased, closing in. He pushed Lestat’s face to one side, kissing his throat first, slow and tender. Lestat shivered, his head falling back in a sigh, even as he voiced another meek protest.
“Louis…Are you certain?”
Louis ignored him again, sinking his fangs very slowly, his tongue pressed against Lestat’s throat to catch any stray drops.
Lestat wanted to caution Louis, to warn him of what her blood may do to him, but once Louis began to drink, he sighed, his thoughts too muddled to care.
Louis shivered against him, his hand curling in Lestat's hair. Lestat felt the swoon descending on him like a warm wave, spreading from his neck to the tips of his fingers. He was floating and sinking at the same time, Louis’s hands on him the only thing keeping him grounded. There was nowhere to retreat. He couldn’t conceal anything from Louis in this state—the blood hid nothing— and for a brief moment Lestat was seized by an irrational fear, that Louis would know, that Louis would see… but Louis took another pull and Lestat sighed, melting against him.
The images bubbled to the surface of Lestat’s mind as if Louis was pulling them out of him, like draining poison out of a festering wound.
Waking up in his father’s castle, the fear and dread Lestat had felt at not seeing Louis beside him, at looking up at stones that had once been his childhood home, now a cold ruin; Her, standing in front of the broken window, ethereal and radiant; The wolves howling, the forest, the long trek back home, dragging the carcasses in the snow; Magnus whispering Wolfkiller as they flew at lightning speed through the cold air, Lestat fighting with all his strength, his limbs flailing uselessly in Magnus’s vice grip. Her voice thundering in his mind, mingling with his—my prince, my wolfkiller.
It all came rushing out and Louis took it all in, pull after pull.
The desert, the scorching sun, his skin burning to ash as he laid down on the hot sand, too weak and delirious to move; Claudia standing over him, her ribbons flowing softly in the wind; Azim’s temple, hundreds of corpses burning, the air so thick with the acrid smoke; crimson tears flowing from the queen’s eyes as she begged Lestat not to leave her, her hands pulling his head down to make him drink again and again; The searing pain as Mekare had severed her head in one swift savage blow. The confused grief and apathy that followed, the ache for release, for any escape Lestat could find.
Louis slowly retracted his fangs and Lestat almost cried out at the absence, though he could already feel the puncture wounds closing. His mind was hazy. His eyes fluttered open as he tried to focus, to ignore all the emotions crowding inside him.
The were tears in Louis’s eyes, red streaks that trailed down to his damp cheeks, making a stark contrast against his complexion.
“Louis—” he whispered.
“So this is what you’ve been hiding from me?” Louis asked.
The question was a rhetorical one—more of an observation really. The blood hid nothing. Louis knew all of it now, all the darkness that Lestat had always tried so hard to conceal from him. All the broken parts that were too jagged to put back together, too dreadful to be lovable. Lestat stood frozen, paralyzed with fear at what Louis might do next.
Louis looked at him, his green eyes filled with so much sadness. “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, his damp hand coming up to caress Lestat’s cheek. He pulled Lestat into an embrace and gratefully, Lestat melted against him, his chest wracked with sobs that he couldn’t suppress anymore.
They stood there for a long moment, scattered raindrops falling around them.
Louis pulled back first. He unzipped the brown Harrington jacket he was wearing and tipped his head to the side, inviting Lestat to drink from him in turn. Lestat’s hands were trembling as he cradled Louis’s waist underneath his jacket, burying his head in the crook of Louis’s neck, his lips grazing that particularly beautiful place right below Louis’s ear that he loved so much. He inhaled the warm heady scent, his head swimming as his stomach twisted with want and hunger.
He took the greatest care sinking his fangs in, cautious not to make more damage than what was absolutely necessary. He felt Louis stiffen briefly in his arms, but then he sighed, a low moan escaping his throat as the swoon took him.
Louis’s blood was warm and even sweeter than Lestat remembered. Louis held him close as he drank, his hands tracing soothing circles into his back.
Lestat had to force himself to pull back. He held the last mouthful of blood as long as he could, savouring the taste as he felt those last warmth ripples of it pass through his veins and into his heart.
He reached for Louis, capturing his lips in a desperate kiss. “I love you, Louis,” he said and it sounded more like a plea than a romantic declaration.
“I love you too,” Louis replied without hesitation.
Lestat gasped; the air suddenly knocked out of him. He blinked up at Louis, torn between crushing happiness and disbelief.
“Even after everything?” he asked. “Even while knowing that I…” he meant to say that I did all those things, but the rest of the words got caught in his throat. He choked on them, gasping for air on an inhale that felt too much like a sob.
Louis reached out to grasp his face in his hands, holding him in place with a strength that Lestat still had trouble reconciling with the frail delicate fledgling he’d known all those decades ago.
Louis’s expression was unguarded, every emotion laid bare for Lestat to see. “Always!” he said. “Being with you was the only time I ever felt truly happy, the only time I ever felt like myself. When I thought you had died, my life ceased to have any meaning. I’ve always loved you Lestat, even in your worst moments. I loved you against any rhyme or reason, against my own better judgment. It always baffled me that you could not see it.” He pressed a kiss on Lestat’s forehead, his lips so soft and warm against the skin that Akasha’s blood how turned so cold and unyielding. “Nothing will ever change that.”
Lestat shut his eyes tight, his entire body trembling as he wrestled against the tears he could feel welling up. What could he say to such a declaration? Any words his muddled brain could conjure up seemed feeble against the magnitude of his feelings. He felt as if his heart was swelling suddenly, his chest and ribcage expanding to accommodate it.
“Do you truly love me, Louis?” he asked again as they made their way down the main street, Lestat mindlessly following as Louis led them toward the deserted city center.
“Already told you that didn’t I?” Louis said, but there was no irritation in his voice, only amusement. “Is your age finally catching up to you old man? I hear unreliable memory is a common symptom.”
“Tell me again,” Lestat commanded.
Louis rolled his eyes, but he obliged, pulling Lestat closer to whisper in his ear “Je t’aime! Je t’aime, je t’aime! Tu es toute ma vie. Happy now?”
“Yes! But I may need you to remind me again soon.”
Louis shoved him back playfully, a sweet indulgent smile stretching on his face as he started to walk again.
Lestat fell into step with him effortlessly and he dropped back into their earlier conversation, telling Louis about the steps they could undertake to restore the townhouse and about how he was thinking about restoring his father’s castle.
“It would make an ideal summer home once all the work is complete. We could split our time between the two residences, six months in Auvergne and six months in New Orleans…”
His hand wandered absently to the small of Louis’s back, then shifted to his waist to reel him closer as they came upon a group of women, laughing as they ran to find cover from the rain that was quickly morphing into a real downpour.
“What do you think?” he prompted as they came up to a stop in front of a tall hotel building and a valet in a burgundy uniform and a plastic poncho opened the glass doors for them.
Louis nodded distractedly. “Sure Les, those all sound like wonderful ideas.”
“I almost wish you would argue with me about it,” Lestat said, an artful pout on his lips.
“Well, I won’t. I guess you caught me in an agreeable mood.” Louis shrugged. They went through the brightly lit lobby and Louis pressed the button to call the elevator. “But I’m sure somethin’ else will come up eventually that we can argue about.”
Lestat laughed, removing his cap off to shake the water out of his hair. Oh, he was certain about that, just like he was certain that if he and Louis didn’t still bicker from time to time, scratching at each other’s wounds to see who would bleed first, Lestat would miss it dearly.
The elevator came and they entered. Louis swiped a plastic card and pressed the button marked ‘penthouse suite’.
“Where are we anyway?” Lestat finally thought to ask.
And Louis replied simply, “Home.”
