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“Oh look, mon cher, they have Christmas movies on the television!” Lestat exclaimed happily from where he was sprawled out on the sofa, pointing the TV remote up higher than necessary at the screen as he flipped through the array of film titles displayed on the screen.
“Hmm, that’s nice, baby,” Louis hummed, taking an indulgent sip of the glass of AB on the side table as he turned a page of his latest read. He had a fleece blanket draped over his lap, seatbelt fastened tightly underneath, his most comfortable pair of house slippers on, and the soothing low hum of the plane’s engines creating a most perfect ambience. Louis sighed, feeling completely content for the first time in months. And their real vacation hadn’t even started yet.
“Louis, should I watch Home Alone 2 again or Home Alone 3? I forget which was the one where the boy got sick with the, how do you say…hmm pox de poulet?”
“That’s the third one, love. I think you preferred the second one when we did our last rewatch,” Louis replied without looking up.
“Oh yes, you’re right,” Lestat hummed. “As always, mon coeur. What would I do without you,” he said, throwing a besotted look over his shoulder.
“Likewise, baby,” Louis dutifully replied, his lips curling up in an indulgent smile when Lestat cooed at his answer. The movie started to play soon after, and Louis became fully engrossed in his novel, barely registering the small sounds of exclamation Lestat made whenever something happened to Kevin McCallister in New York City.
When Louis slipped his bookmark into the page where he left off, deciding to give his eyes a break for a while, Kevin’s mother finally found him at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Louis unfastened his seatbelt and stood, stretching out his limbs before heading to the sofa where Lestat was sitting with his back ramrod straight, sniffling loudly.
“Baby, are you crying?” Louis whispered, coming around to sink into the sofa beside him and gather Lestat into his arms. Lestat went willingly, his broad shoulders shuddering as fat, bloody tears spilled over his cheeks in rivulets. “It’s a happy ending, Les. Kevin’s mother found him.”
“I know,” Lestat hiccupped, turning his face into Louis’s chest. “It just reminded me of our Claudia. It feels like I’d just gotten her back and now she’s gone again,” he wailed.
Louis swallowed back the ache in his own throat at the reminder as he rubbed slow circles into Lestat’s broad back. It was the reason why they’d planned this impromptu “honeymoon” at all. Initiated by Lestat (of course), who hadn’t been even slightly deterred by the fact that they were first married over a hundred years ago, because Louis, we never had a honeymoon back then so we must have one now. And because Louis was trying this new thing where he said yes to more of Lestat’s insane ideas, he had agreed.
He’d also figured it might be a good way to spend the holidays doing something other than moping around the house together by themselves, wondering what Claudia was doing and whether she and Madeline were enjoying their first Christmas together in their new home.
Lestat had never been one to care much about the holidays in the 20th century, happily letting Louis take charge of the festivities for their unconventional, little family. But ever since the three of them had reunited in the 21st century—with the welcome addition of Madeline—Lestat had taken to the spirit of Christmas with all the exuberance of a Target-obsessed, minivan-driving, suburban mother of four-under-four.
So they’d spent the past few Decembers exclusively watching a selection of Christmas movies that were carefully curated by Lestat, driving down to the local Christmas tree farm together to look for a tree, decorating it together while holiday classics played from Louis’s old record player that he’d managed to preserve from the old townhouse on Rue Royale, and sitting down for a seven-course meal together on Christmas Day that Lestat and Claudia meticulously planned weeks in advance.
It was everything Louis had ever wanted but thought he wouldn’t get to have after those first few good years after they’d made Claudia—a house full of love, a family of his own to celebrate the holidays with, for his husband to be his alone and his daughter at home with them, happy and in love. Over a century later, he finally had it.
And then Claudia had announced that she and Madeline were considering moving. They’d been wanting to go overseas again—make some new memories where the old ones were tainted by the acts of Armand and the coven. They’d left in September, promising to call and visit and reassuring her parents that it wasn’t a goodbye but a “see you later.”
Louis and Lestat had seen them off at the airport because Claudia had refused to let Louis charter a jet for them. As soon as Claudia and Madeline had gotten through security, disappearing from view, Louis had let his tears fall, trying to be discreet about it while they were still very much within view of hundreds of mortals.
Lestat had been despondent, nearly wailing into Louis’s shoulder as he tried to soothe him enough to cart him into their waiting car before anyone spotted that he was crying tears of blood.
The following months had been a painful reminder of those years when Claudia had first left them, back when it had just been the three of them in the townhouse, stuck in a time and place where they had to hide from the world around them in more ways than one.
Louis would take work calls in his office when he had to, fielding the rest of his usual tasks off to his subordinates. Lestat sat in front of the baby grand piano in their parlour for hours, sometimes furiously scribbling on sheets of music and other times, crying into his hands until Louis pulled him away and into his arms.
One night, they’d migrated to the couch, the television granting them the mindless reprieve they desperately needed as they waited for Claudia’s calls. It was four seasons into Desperate Housewives that Louis realized exactly what they’d become. He’d started giggling uncontrollably, clutching Lestat’s arm as he wheezed into his shoulder.
“Louis, you’re scaring me,” Lestat had said lowly, probably thinking back to the years when their house fell into disarray, when Louis would spend hours obsessively poring over the newspapers, trying to piece together where Claudia might’ve travelled to.
“Lestat, we’re empty nesters,” Louis had giggled, letting his forehead fall to Lestat’s collarbones. “Everything we’ve done, all the shit, fucking up Claudia forever…and now we’re empty nesters! Isn’t that just fucking great?”
Lestat had looked confused for all of a moment before his expression had cleared. “Ah, we are mourning the flight of our little hatchling from the nest. Indeed, Louis. It’s a terrible thing.”
Louis had lifted his head to look up at him, hands covering Lestat’s over his shoulders. “Baby, we’re just like any other parents whose kids have left the house. It’s normal. We’re normal,” he’d said, more than a little hysterically.
And then a few days later, Lestat had been watching The Masked Singer, in the midst of loudly interrupting the performance to proclaim that he could do far better when a commercial break had come on. A montage of happy couples prancing along the shoreline of a white, sandy beach dotted with palm trees, the stars twinkling above their head while they kissed, played on TV. Lestat had gasped loudly.
“Louis! We must do this,” he’d exclaimed, blue eyes wide as he gestured frantically at the TV that was now showing an ad for…cereal? A new iPhone? Louis hadn’t really been able to tell.
He’d frowned, leaning forward to kiss Lestat on the cheek, feeling unbearably endeared by him. “What, like a honeymoon?”
Impossibly, Lestat’s eyes had grown even wider. “Mon cher, you are a true genius,” he’d murmured, grabbing Louis’s face with both hands and drawing him close. “You, me, a quaint but luxurious little villa over the crystalline blue of the ocean. Passionate young love aplenty to consume and create…We need to plan it immediately.” He’d planted a smacking kiss on Louis’s lips and scrambled off the couch, ignoring Louis’s call for him to come back and watch the singer’s reveal.
So, they were on a plane to the Maldives, where a beautiful overwater bungalow was waiting for them, attached to their own private stretch of beach where they would be undisturbed for an entire week.
Louis sighed into Lestat’s hair, pressing little kisses to the top of his head as he snuggled into Louis’s lap. He missed Claudia too, of course he did. Only when she was near him did that ache fade away completely. But over the years, Louis had learned to live with the pain of being away from her, reminding himself that forcing closeness as she grew older would only make her resent them again.
But Lestat was having a harder time of it the second time around. Fortunately, Louis had anticipated this might happen and planned ahead accordingly.
“Les,” he purred, leaning over Lestat’s head and shifting those mesmerizing blonde curls away from his neck so he could press a gentle kiss to the soft pale skin at his nape. Lestat sighed contentedly into Louis’s lap, curling into a tight ball on the sofa. “I think I know what’d make you feel better, baby.”
Lestat lifted his head from Louis’s lap, eyes red-rimmed and face puffy even as his ears perked with interest. “Are you wearing that lovely little negligee I bought you last month? The silk one with the matching garter belt?” he asked hopefully.
Louis just smirked, gently moving the hair out of Lestat’s face. “I guess you’ll have to see for yourself,” he said lowly, sprawling back on the couch and drawing a dumbstruck Lestat on top of him, into the vee of his legs. “C’mere, baby. Show me how much you love me.” And that’s all it took.
Lestat’s pupils dilated until his irises were mere rings of their familiar piercing blue, his fangs dropping as his mouth opened in a hungry snarl. When he pounced, Louis was ready to catch him. He had him right where he wanted him.
They didn’t do much more talking for the rest of the flight.