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The trouble began, as it so often did, with Lestat's lips against Louis's throat.
The alley was thick with creeping vines and damp shadows, and the smell of rust and flowers was heavy in the cool, humid air. It was one of dozens of tiny nondescript little hideaways in the Quarter, and they were just one pair of thousands of lovers that had used these darkened nooks for such a purpose.
It had never been a quiet place, not even in the long-gone years of candlelight and carriage horses. The advent of electricity had only made the night come more alive, and the automobiles and crowded bars full of tourists had swept cacophonously in during the long decades that Louis had been away. (They had both been away, in a sense.) Louis was relearning the rhythms of it now, and relearning Lestat as well, who remained just as strange and contradictory as the city they called home.
They couldn't have honestly called themselves lovers in the old days, despite their flaring passions and years of cohabitation. Now, they would have been dishonest if they tried to deny it.
It hadn't smoothed things out very much, of course.
"Lestat, please, not here, we'll get caught."
"And just what would be the problem with that, chéri?"
"You know precisely the problem with that."
"And it's your problem, not mine..."
It was difficult for Louis to formulate a convincing argument with those two sweet sharp fangs dragging delicately against his pulse, a whisper of almost-pain that made him tense and tremble with anticipation of the inevitable bite. He swallowed and tipped his chin up for Lestat, and felt a satisfied grin spread against his throat.
Damn his traitorous instincts.
Louis swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing beneath Lestat's lips. His fingers were tight in the soft velvet of Lestat's jacket, and that was quite likely giving off some mixed messages, too. Could he truly blame Lestat for ignoring some of his more token protests, when he so often ended up enjoying himself once he'd finally given in?
And Lestat was ignoring him, slipping leather-gloved hands inside his long dark coat and caressing him from his narrow chest all the way to his thighs. It was borderline obscene, was what Louis wanted to say. What he would say, surely, any second now.
Lestat's mouth opened against his pulse, and Louis moaned instead.
"Make up your mind, please, my dithering dearest." Lestat's lips played along his jaw, and Louis craned his neck until the crown of his head hit the cool stone wall behind him. "Say you don't want it and I'll stop."
Oh, but he did want it, that was the trouble. Even here, in this dark, filthy alley, surrounded by bottles and old newspapers and damp city moss, he still wanted Lestat. But they were so close to home, only blocks from the flat. If he stepped out of the alley, he was certain he could just see their lighted windows far above the street, shining like beacons through the fog.
"Not here," Louis repeated, but his resistance was crumbling kiss by kiss. His pulse pounded in his throat as if it had a will of his own and it wanted to be with Lestat.
"Why not?" Lestat backed off just enough so that Louis could see his handsome pout. He wouldn't be swayed by it, no matter how kissable Lestat's lips looked. He was being a brat, as he had so rightly been dubbed, and Louis refused to encourage it. Even so, Lestat's hands slid down to Louis's hips, squeezing coaxingly. "I want you, you want me, and the night is as beautiful as we are…"
It was a beautiful night, Louis had to admit. He couldn't see stars overhead for the fog, but the air was cool and lovely, and there was music and laughter from the bars over on Bourbon Street, and the evening seemed utterly alive in that indefinable way that only seemed to happen with Lestat.
And yet.
"Lestat. There is an entire family of rats watching us."
"Perfect! You can have dessert afterward."
Now that was too much. Louis shoved Lestat off him with an indignant sound, raking his fingers through his mussed hair as he stepped toward the mouth of the alley. He could hear Lestat's giggles behind him, quiet at first and then rising in pitch. Infuriating.
"What's the matter, Louis?" Lestat set a hand on his shoulder, which Louis shrugged off roughly. "What's more romantic than breakfast in bed?"
With a flare of embarrassment, Louis stormed out onto the street, wishing that he could wrap the thick winter fog around himself like a cloak and disappear. But Lestat was at his heels. He could feel his presence there, even without the tapping of his modern boot heels on the old cobblestones.
"Sometimes I think you want any excuse to say no." Lestat's voice drifted toward Louis like music.
Louis bristled at the accusation. "Is that what you believe that was?"
"I do. You want it to be my fault, you want me to slip up and do something wrong, so that you don't have to feel like such a prude."
Louis squared his shoulders, refusing to answer something so petty.
"A boring prude," Lestat added, irritated at the lack of response. "Probably a virgin, probably too Catholic to jerk off while you actually had something to--"
Louis whirled on him with a glare that allowed no argument, and wisely, Lestat stopped himself. But a smug grin slid over his face, slow as syrup and intentionally infuriating. "Touch a nerve, lover?"
"No," said Louis sternly. "But I will not have this conversation in public."
"What public?" Lestat spread his arms wide, whirling to describe the empty street, heavy with fog. "Oh, heaven forbid some mortal overhears that you actually have a dick!"
Louis shoved him up against a wall so hard he heard the stucco crack.
They stared into one another's eyes for long seconds, hearts pounding and chests heaving with breath that neither of them truly needed.
"Sometimes you make me think of Alexander," Louis said, as calm as the sea before a storm. His fingers were tight in the lapels of Lestat's jacket. "The story goes that when he reached the shores of Persia, he burned his own ships so his army couldn't retreat. Their choices were victory or death. That's you, Lestat, through and through."
"That almost sounds like a compliment."
"Almost."
Lestat gave a haughty toss of his head, and Louis let him go with an exasperated sigh.
"It's getting late. I'll have to hunt," Louis said. Alone was the subtext. It always was, but this time he wouldn't stand for Lestat's hobby of spying on him. He adjusted the collar of his coat, and turned fully away before Lestat's jawline could give him second thoughts. "If you still want to have this conversation, we can have it at home."
"I love it when you call it that. Home." Louis felt the cool ghost of a kiss against his cheek. "À bientôt, Louis."
And with that he was gone, leaving Louis alone in the street.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, a purely mortal response to the memory of an impending headache. The headaches were long gone, but the habit remained. Lestat brought it out in him like nothing else could.
Lestat was by the fire when Louis finally came home, his long legs stretched out on the chaise. His face was turned slightly away from Louis as he entered the parlor, so that Louis couldn't tell from sight alone whether he was sleeping or simply curled up like a housecat in front of the warm fireplace. But Louis was certain that Lestat had heard him come home. No one could come in or out without him knowing, especially now, with his powers exponentially stronger than they had ever been.
Louis hadn't anticipated how much he would relish that security. Even at their most fraught, he knew that he was safer with Lestat than on his own. Though he hated his dependence, the relief was undeniable: being under Lestat's wing again was like letting out a long-held breath.
"I'm home."
Lestat glanced up as Louis crossed the room. His expression was dispassionate, impossible to read. Louis half expected another argument, but the question Lestat asked took him completely by surprise.
"Do you like me?"
Louis balked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said. Do you like me? I can't tell sometimes. I know I make you miserable, and frustrated, and upset, and irritated, and resentfully aroused... but really, tell me the truth. Do I ever actually make you happy?"
The question struck a well of guilt in him.
He reached down for Lestat's hand, and mercifully, Lestat didn't hesitate in taking it. He tugged Louis down to sit with him, and when he easily acquiesced, he pulled Louis into his lap. It was awkward, with both of their limbs being far too long and Louis's legs much too bony by far, but Lestat didn't seem to mind. His arms came to wrap around Louis, forehead resting against forehead in a gesture that felt intimately apologetic.
Louis had already forgiven him, of course.
"Honestly, Lestat. You're the only thing that makes me feel at all sometimes."
Lestat huffed. "That's not half as reassuring as you probably think it is."
"I'm not being reassuring, I'm being honest, as I said." Louis shook his head, his unruly hair falling into his face so that he had to sweep it back. "Yes, Lestat. You make me very happy, when you aren't driving me absolutely mad. And sometimes even then, despite myself."
He lifted his fingers to Lestat's throat. The pulse there was quick and eager, leaping toward his fingertips like the waiting arms of a lover, and Louis took a breath to steady himself. Lestat was watching him with feline intensity, his eyes the color of a thunderhead. Why couldn't he take Louis this seriously before things escalated? Did they always have to fight to come to any sort of understanding?
But he was listening now. And how thrilling to be the subject of such intense study. How many people could claim to have been here and lived? Perhaps he was the only one.
A quiet oft-buried flare of possessiveness burned in his breast.
"That's why I kissed you backstage, you know." He stroked Lestat's pulse with his thumb and felt him suppress a shiver. "I think back upon it often. Did you know that?"
"No." Lestat leaned subtly, perhaps unintentionally, into Louis's touch. "You never talk about it."
Louis wanted to point out that Lestat rarely spoke of it in any serious way himself, but that was one door he knew better than to force his way inside. Lestat hid his pain like a wounded cat, silent until he viciously lashed out.
"I know," Louis answered, instead. "It's still overwhelming just to think of it. You were so fearless and so handsome, daring the whole world to come after you. You were like an ancient god reborn out there on stage, this radiant otherworldly presence, and all I could think was how frightened I was that I was going to lose you again."
"Louis…" Lestat's expression flickered with something vulnerable.
Louis raised his other hand, bracketing Lestat's throat with gentle caresses, like he was trying to soothe one or both of them.
"Sometimes I think you don't know what you mean to me, Lestat."
Lestat shook his head, and his forehead came to rest against Louis's again. "I don't," he sighed theatrically. "Not at all. I'm a hopeless fool. You'll probably have to give a hands-on demonstration before I'll understand."
"Incorrigible." Louis smiled softly. His eyes fell shut, and then there was only the sound of Lestat's pulse, and the subtle mortal scents he carried in his clothes and in his hair, and the coolness of his skin. "Where do I even begin?"
"Go back to the part where you think about that kiss…"
Louis did kiss him for that, a slow, blossoming thing that made his skin feel like it was lit up with stars. His lips parted for Lestat, and then there was heat in him that wasn't truly heat, and his fingers curling gently against the nape of Lestat's neck, and a quiet eager trembling somewhere deep inside him.
And finally the kiss broke, and Lestat's lips were at his temple, a soft sigh tickling his hair. Louis had to find his breath again to speak.
"It struck me then," said Louis, his voice quiet and serious, because it was a serious matter, "how long eternity could be, and how much of it I had wasted on my own. I wanted to kiss you a thousand more times, and there I was, afraid it was the last."
"I never knew." Lestat's arms tightened around him, and Louis relaxed by a fraction, comforted by the protectiveness. "You never told me, why didn't you tell me?"
"I tried, at first. Don't you remember? But there was no changing your mind. And I knew you didn't need me being a dark cloud the way that I always am, telling you all of the things that could go wrong, which surely you already knew and had dismissed. Although... in fact, I had a plan to do just that, only I… well." Louis pressed his lips together, hesitating, until Lestat kissed his cheek and murmured his name imploringly. His resistance crumbled in the face of that tenderness.
"I thought about making you choose," Louis confessed in a hush, his throat tight. "Me or the stage. To keep you safe. To keep you with me. It was a cowardly, selfish thing to want, and I wanted it more than I could remember wanting anything in a century. But when it came to it… you see, I knew you would be miserable if you chose me. And I also knew there was no chance that you actually would."
His shoulders had gone tense with embarrassment, his cheeks burning with the memory of a mortal blush. Beneath his thumbs, the muscles of Lestat's jaw worked, but Louis couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye.
"I would do anything for you," Lestat said. His voice was low and dangerous, and Louis's skin prickled at the sound of it, and the way his strong arms tightened around him. "Anything."
Louis knew better, of course. But Lestat sounded so desperate to mean it that perhaps, in a way, that almost made it true.
Or perhaps they were both hopeless fools, and recklessly in love, and willing to forgive nearly anything for it.
He didn't say I know, though he was sure Lestat wanted to hear it. He wouldn't lie to him. Instead, he slid his fingers into those golden curls and kissed Lestat's throat, opening his mouth where the pulse pounded there, the hot and steady throbbing liquid rush that he ached for and could never, ever have again. He felt Lestat shudder beneath him, and he pressed closer, until they were nearly hip to hip and Lestat's hand was slipping up his back beneath his sweater, cool and sweet and perfect.
"Take me to bed, then," Louis whispered, as if it were a secret just for them, and even the walls were forbidden to know. "There's nothing else I want right now. Just you."
A sound stirred in Lestat's chest—a quiet groan that Louis could feel reverberate through his bones like the rich baritone of a musical instrument.
In a flash he was swept up, and his legs wrapped around Lestat's waist in reflexive, wanton instinct. His shoulders hit the parlor wall hard, jostling the framed Renoir that hung to his left; he let out a startled sound, but the intensity of it was thrilling, and he wound his limbs around Lestat and sought out his lips for a kiss.
"Not going to scold me this time?" Lestat's voice was hazy and pleased when he finally broke away.
Louis stroked his hair. "What for?"
"Pressing my luck."
Gently, Louis tugged Lestat's hair, pulling him back so he could look him in the eye. "And what makes you think that you need luck, monsieur?"
Lestat made a thoughtful sound, and squeezed Louis's rear with the hand supporting him. Louis tried, and mostly failed, to stifle a startled moan.
"Ah," Louis murmured, eyelashes fluttering, "don't try to change the subject…"
"Isn't this the subject?"
"Yes, but…" But there was something to address, and his words wouldn't cooperate. Lestat's hips moved against his, and lightning shot down his spine. It was nothing like it would have been when he was mortal, and yet he felt himself responding just the same, as if the friction might accomplish something greater than itself.
"Christ," Louis gasped. He'd lost the line of thought already, and felt a little spark of frustration at how painfully easy it was. "Must it always be an argument with you?"
"We aren't arguing," Lestat argued, "we're bickering. Merely sharpening our claws. This is friendly antagonism, mon chaton, nothing more." He kissed Louis far too gently and sweetly, and Louis's heart fluttered like a traitor in his breast.
"Is that what it is?" Louis asked, combing his fingers through Lestat's curls.
"Nothing more," Lestat repeated, mouthing along Louis's jaw, forcing him to tip his chin back to allow the stream of kisses to continue. His thighs were tense around Lestat's hips, and Lestat had him pinned like a butterfly against the wall, moving in a slow and steady grind that made Louis's pulse thud heavily in his wrists, his throat, his groin. He could scarcely think, it felt so good, and so maddeningly not enough.
"I always want you," Louis whispered, "even when we aren't at each other's throats."
He felt Lestat's mouth curve into a grin beneath his ear, and the most delicious sharp-bright drag of fangs where his pulse beat just below.
"Louis. Was that a joke?"
"I would call it an innuendo," Louis replied. He laughed silently, his fingers curling in Lestat's hair and between his shoulderblades, skimming on the smooth silk of his shirt. "I truly do mean it, you know."
Lestat exhaled roughly, a ripple of some mysterious tension running through him. Louis stroked his hair and moved against him, and Lestat turned his head up to kiss him again, deep and slow. It was as if Louis had answered some unspoken challenge, and Lestat's bravado had vanished, no longer needed here.
"I feel weightless in your arms," Louis mused. "I'm tethered to the earth by my nature, I think, except when I'm with you. You're so strong now." His hand splayed wide between Lestat's shoulderblades, and he marveled at the strength of the rock-hard muscle there. How different it was than his own preternatural flesh, and yet it was the closest thing to it that he had ever really felt. He had never touched Lestat like this a century ago, not in any way that he could savor and examine and marvel at, and Louis felt a little thrill of eager curiosity to think that he could now.
"Yes, but I won't hurt you."
Lestat's voice was so soft and so serious that it made Louis's chest ache. Oh God in heaven, was that what he was frightened of? All the challenges, all the displays of his useless machismo, as if some part of him had been daring Louis to back down for his own good. It made a distressing sort of sense, though it broke Louis's heart to contemplate it—it was easier for Lestat to face rejection on his own terms than to drive Louis away again through circumstances out of his control. And for all that Lestat could be an obstinate vitriolic terror, Louis knew now how deeply he feared hurting those that he loved.
Louis knew that feeling all too well himself.
But it was strange. Once, long ago, Louis had lived in constant dread of Lestat's wrath, and even thought Lestat might be the one to end his life. He had gone to Carmel Valley that night before the concert knowing that Lestat might want revenge, and that if he did, his own death would come as a relief. He hadn't been afraid, only resigned. And quietly, wildly hopeful.
No, Louis hadn't been in danger from Lestat since he'd come back to him.
"I'm safe with you," he said, quiet and firm. "And you with me. Now please, take me to bed."
Lestat's silver tongue failed him in the face of genuine sentiment, and all he could do was comply. Louis was whisked away to Lestat's bedroom and laid on the violet-curtained bed as delicately as a damsel. Thoroughly unnecessary, but Louis felt no urge to protest when they'd been so much at odds. Perhaps there was something to all the arguing, then, if it made the aftermath all the sweeter. Not that he would concede the point to Lestat, naturally.
Louis gazed up at him, shadowed by velvet draperies and haloed by unwavering electric lamplight. Lestat's expressive face was so soft now, so curious and tender and yet focused with the utmost intensity upon him alone. Louis reached up to stroke his perfect cheek, and Lestat took his hand and leaned into that caress. He kissed Louis's open palm and nuzzled at the sensitive inside of his wrist until he gasped.
"Is this what you want?" Lestat pushed his cuff back and kissed at the exposed pulse point, looking down at Louis through hungry, half-lidded eyes. "For me to drink you here, just like I ought to have the night I came to you?"
Louis heard his pulse rush in his ears, and his fingers twitched against Lestat's cool skin. Yes, he wanted that, and oh, just to think Lestat had wanted him like this two centuries ago…
"Yes," Louis breathed, "yes, but…"
"But?"
Louis's eyes flickered down to Lestat's exposed throat, to the dip at his collarbone, and lower, where white skin disappeared beneath his silk shirt. Carefully, deliberately, he undid one of Lestat's fine pearl buttons, and stroked his throat again as the pulse quickened there. Lestat exhaled roughly, curls tumbling over Louis's wrists as he bowed his head and shifted against him. It was as if he couldn't help himself, as if Louis's gentle touches were enough to drive him wild, and it was all he could do to hold back and not sink his teeth into Louis right there. The heady mix of resistance and anticipation made Louis's heart race.
"I want you," Louis said, quiet and definite. "All of you." He met Lestat's eyes again, his wide dark pupils ringed by quicksilver irises, studying him with one hand curled over Louis's heart. He felt like something entirely different than prey.
"Say it," said Lestat, in a voice that was almost but not quite a challenge. "Say it, if you mean it. I want to hear it from you."
Louis felt a thrill at that, a giddy shyness mingled with an odd excitement. There was that same heat again, as if he could have blushed. Perhaps he did, a little. He always had been so unbearably human.
"I want you," said Louis, "the way mortals do."
Lestat looked so shocked that for a moment Louis was afraid that he'd misstepped somehow. But before he could backtrack and think better of it, Lestat was upon him, fingers curling in his sweater nearly tight enough to tear. Lestat's thigh pressed down against his groin, and Louis moaned at the feeling of that hard muscle tense and straining beneath Lestat's expensive trousers. Pleasure seemed to radiate from every point where they were touching, and he arched into Lestat and desperately willed his preternatural body to do the impossible, just for tonight.
"I want you out of these clothes," Lestat growled against Louis's ear.
Oh, yes, what a lovely idea that was. Louis sighed eagerly, slipping his hands around to deal with Lestat's shirt again. It was expensive, Louis could tell, and Lestat always took such pride in his things. So he unfastened the buttons with the utmost care, slipping each through its loop one by one until Lestat's chest was nearly bare. Three left, and he tugged the silk free of Lestat's tight trousers.
Lestat sighed impatiently. "Just tear it off me already!"
"You'll only sulk about it later," said Louis primly. Two buttons to go. "I refuse."
"I don't sulk," snapped Lestat, and slid two hands beneath Louis's sweater, bracketing his bare abdomen. His stomach went tense, and he very nearly popped the second-to-last button in shocked pleasure. But it was a matter of pride now, and Louis furrowed his brow even as he arched up into Lestat's hands, squirming at his exploratory caresses.
"You do," Louis exhaled, his voice tight. "And I would rather not be the cause of it, if you don't mind, so—ah!"
Lestat nipped at his jaw and a tremor of pleasure ran through him, stealing his words away.
"Now who's arguing?" Lestat grinned against his throat.
"You're impossible. I'm trying to be—oh, Christ—"
"Trying to be what?" Lestat's fingers had found Louis's nipples, teasing them into hardness, coaxing little sparks in him that he hadn't known he could feel. Hunger coiled sharply in his gut, and he wanted to turn his head and sink his fangs into Lestat's white throat. Shouldn't. Mustn't.
"Romantic," said Louis, "despite your best efforts."
With that, Louis leaned up to kiss him, so they couldn't mangle things further. He fumbled the last button open and slid his hands beneath that open shirt, wrapping around Lestat's strong back. His skin was so cool and so perfectly smooth, like some otherworldly animated marble. He knew Lestat had physically changed, and yet it was so hard to truly tell with his own eyes. Lestat always looked like Lestat and nothing else, a gorgeous and impossible contradiction, a whole so much grander and more interesting than the sum of his parts.
He pushed the shirt off Lestat's shoulders. It felt like such an insubstantial thing, really just a pointless scrap of silk. Lestat sat up to allow it, half straddling his hips, their legs a pleasant knot. Louis pushed himself up on an arm as he gazed at Lestat, taking in the sight of him, bare to the waist with his curls tumbling over his shoulders, as breathtaking as a statue of some young god come to life.
A rush of possessiveness came over Louis—a startling need to have Lestat as his own in some meaningful and consummating way. It was something like he'd felt before the concert, only magnified; a sweeping desire and a terrible fear that it might never happen again.
"I love you," he said quietly.
Lestat's eyes were wide. He still hadn't gotten accustomed to Louis saying those words, and it made Louis deeply unhappy to see the surprise in his face every time.
"I wish that you believed it," Louis sighed, and brought his fingers to Lestat's cheek to brush a curl aside.
Lestat's expression flickered, and then he was pulling Louis against him, fingers sliding into his hair as he kissed him almost roughly. Louis moaned in surprise, and tried to wrap himself around Lestat again, but he was quickly pressed back against the pillows. It was thrilling and frustrating all at once, and doubly so when Lestat shoved his sweater up and held his arms pinned with it over his head.
But it was pure arousal that he felt when Lestat kissed him like that, and he writhed beneath him shamelessly, nicking his lower lip with a fang and letting Lestat drink the slow trickle of blood. I love you, he thought with each beat of his heart, praying that Lestat could taste it somehow. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Lestat groaned and sucked at his lip hungrily, rocking against Louis in a steady grind that mirrored the pulsing of his heart. Louis struggled against Lestat's grip, but there was nothing to be done about it; he was far outmatched in strength, and had no true desire to escape, besides.
But Lestat seemed to have a different thought in mind. He ripped the sweater aside and bore down his weight on Louis's wrists, growling against the kiss and lapping at his mouth like a beast from some mythical tale come to ravish a virgin. Louis wasn't certain whether he wanted to protest or silently beg for more.
"I could kill you," Lestat murmured, lips still wet with Louis's blood. "I could tear you limb from limb right now, drain you down to the last drop and keep you like that, my prisoner…"
The true question, buried in the threat, was achingly transparent. Do you trust me?
"You could," said Louis mildly, though his heart was still racing from the kiss. "You could do anything you want to me. I doubt that I could put up a fight if I tried."
Lestat's skin was so pale, and his lips were so red. His eyes were the color of polished silver, his hair perfect rings of spun gold. He was, as always, the most beautiful thing Louis had ever seen.
"But you're not a wild beast, and you're not some force of nature. You're Lestat, and I love you."
If Louis were a human man, the kiss that followed would have bruised. Lestat's mouth crashed against his, and Louis cut his lip with a fang once again, offering himself to Lestat. Lestat drank greedily, and Louis moaned into the kiss, surging desperately against him as he ached for more contact. But it was like being pinned beneath stone, immoveable, and nothing he could do was quite enough.
He needed more, wanted something. On some ancient feral instinct, he slit his tongue with a fang. The taste of his own blood swelled and filled his senses, and he felt Lestat's hungry groan resonate through his entire body, head to toe. Louis arched into him again, wrapping legs around him since he couldn't move his arms. He could feel their heartbeats joining like clasped hands, and Lestat's bare chest was cool and hard against his own, pressing him down against the soft silk sheets. It was so easy to give in to it, to let consciousness give way to sensation as Lestat fed on him.
One of them was making quiet sounds, or perhaps it was both of them; Lestat was rocking against him, still lost to the swoon. Each slide of skin on skin was delicious, and everywhere they couldn't touch was unbearable agony.
Lestat broke the kiss, panting against his mouth like he actually needed to breathe. Louis licked his own blood from Lestat's lips in soft kittenish laps, each taste of it on his tongue sending little sparks of delight through him. It wasn't quite like the pleasure of feeding, but to know Lestat had felt that because of him…
Lestat murmured something Louis couldn't quite discern, and caressed his wrists before letting them go. With a full-body shiver, Louis wrapped around Lestat again.
"Why have we never done this?" Lestat asked. Louis could think of dozens of reasons, but none of them seemed to matter at all just now. "Two hundred years and I've never seen you out of those damned high collared shirts and cheap sweaters...."
"Really," Louis sighed fondly, tracing idle patterns on Lestat's shoulders. "You're insulting my clothing now?"
"Let me get you out of the rest of it," Lestat offered, "and I won't have anything left to insult."
"Are you this charming with everyone you bed?"
With an impish grin, Lestat kissed his cheek. "You love me. I don't have to be charming."
"Ah," Louis sighed, "I'm the luckiest man in the world."
Lestat laughed, and Louis realized once again that Lestat was right. "I don't think anyone else knows how funny you are," Lestat told him, and to Louis's surprise, he actually sounded like he meant it. He propped himself up on an elbow, drawing little back and forth lines in the center of Louis's chest, eyes sparkling as he looked down at him. "No one else makes me laugh the way you do."
Louis shook his head. The notion was ridiculous, but it made his heart skip anyway. "I don't know who that reflects more poorly upon."
Another peal of laughter from Lestat.
They ended up kissing again, and that by itself was divine. Lestat kissed like music, or poetry, like being led through the steps of a dance, and it wasn't long before Louis was lost to it. Soon his hands slipped down to the small of Lestat's back, caressing there in little circles that made Lestat shiver and suck in quiet breaths. He could have done just that for ages, he was certain, and he spent what might have been full minutes simply touching him, making Lestat shift atop his body in this bed. His own pulse pounded in his ears, and Lestat's seemed to reverberate through Louis's entire body.
Finally, when he could stand the tension no more, he slid his hands down to Lestat's hips, fingers hooking delicately through his belt loops.
It was all the invitation that Lestat needed. In a blur of motion, Lestat was between Louis's legs, tugging his dark trousers down over his narrow hips. The air was cool on his bare skin, and a mix of arousal and vulnerability made him squirm, drawing his legs up. But Lestat's hands were on him before he could, pushing his knees apart and kissing his inner thighs as if Louis were a feast and he was starved.
Louis groaned sharply, falling back against the down pillows and gripping fistfuls of Lestat's golden hair. Words caught in his throat, token protest and desperate pleas, but finally he simply gasped and let Lestat devour him.
Sharp fangs pierced his inner thigh, and Louis heard himself cry out as if from a far-off distance. He was flying, and something vast and warm and wondrous was opening up to call him home. He was loved here, understood here, and oh, it would be so satisfying to let go and fall into this endless embrace...
The swoon receded slowly, like a tide. He came back to himself surrounded by two strong arms and a heartbeat that he recognized almost as well as his own. He was cradled against Lestat's chest, Lestat kissing his hair and stroking his bare skin so gently and possessively that he hardly wanted to risk moving. So Louis sighed and relaxed into him, feeling sated and safe in a way he hadn't in quite some time.
"You can't imagine how long I've wanted to do that," Lestat purred.
"I can imagine quite well," Louis replied, a fond smile on his lips. "If I were still a man, you would have killed me without complaint."
"Oh, is that so? Maybe I should have made you starting from the thigh, and spared you those years of intolerable confusion."
"Or spared me the plausible deniability, at any rate."
Louis nudged his knee against Lestat's, and it was only as he shifted that he registered something different. Evidently Lestat had taken his trousers off at some point while Louis was recovering, and now he was as bare as Louis was, laying side by side with him.
He had never been so close to anyone before.
Of course he had been with women when he was alive, but the experiences had been brief and unsatisfying, tainted by shame. He couldn't remember a time when he had simply laid next to someone, skin against skin, enjoying their presence. It was surprisingly natural. He had expected, perhaps, that he might hesitate when it came to actually following through, but it seemed that he was well past feeling shyness or shame for wanting Lestat the way he did.
Louis loved him, after all. And surely this was quite low on his list of unforgivable sins.
Louis glanced down, unbearable curiosity overtaking any lingering propriety he felt, and he was perfectly shocked to see Lestat fully erect. He blinked in consternation, as if his eyes needed clearing, but the sight was unmistakable. There it was, as hard and as white as the rest of him, nestled in a base of perfect golden curls.
And Lestat was watching him stare. A little thrill of anticipation made his heart pound in his throat.
"Ah," teased Louis, "I remember reading about this."
Lestat snorted with amusement, which made Louis laugh silently, too. "What in the hell is that supposed to mean? Don't tell me I was right about you never jerking off! It can't be that I'm deflowering you, even you can't possibly be that Catholic."
"Don't be crude, please." But Louis couldn't help the smallest smile. It was difficult to overthink things when Lestat was like this, open and easy and glad to amuse him. He hadn't expected to enjoy that sort of thing in bed, but here he was. "It was in your book, don't you remember? 'A Priapus at a gate,' I believe it was." His hand came to rest on Lestat's thigh, fingertips skimming back and forth in a small arc, eager to touch but hesitant to cross the threshold.
"Oh, so you memorized it…"
"It was particularly memorable."
"And do you think of that often, too?"
Louis made a thoughtful sound. "Perhaps. Right now, I'm wondering what it might 'want to do again.' Shall we find out?" And with that, his curiosity overcame any lingering shyness, and he curled his fingers around the erection that Lestat had described so floridly in his book.
Lestat exhaled roughly and rolled over to kiss him before Louis had even had time to appreciate the feeling of it cradled in his hand. But he couldn't complain, exactly, not with Lestat responding so eagerly to his exploratory touches. Louis squeezed him, stroking experimentally, marveling at the unfamiliar movement. It had been two centuries since he had touched himself with any kind of purpose, and the recollection of it was hazy and mortal. In a certain sense, he might as well have been a virgin still. He had never been so intimate with anyone in his whole immortal life, and even as a human man, his trysts had been brief and meaningless.
This was anything but.
Nothing stirred for him between his legs, and yet it was fascinating just to touch Lestat, to feel the steady pulse of his heartbeat there against his palm. He felt surprisingly thick, or perhaps it was just the thought of this against his tongue, or even, somehow, possibly—
Lestat shuddered and buried a groan against Louis's shoulder as he thrust into his hand, almost as if he couldn't control himself. He felt a pang of tenderness at how nearly overwhelmed Lestat seemed, as if this alone might be enough to undo him. Oh God, he loved him so. Louis slid his free hand into Lestat's hair, caressing him and kissing his temple, and finally Lestat unwound.
"God," Lestat muttered, rocking his hips slowly into Louis's hand. "God, it's so good, I don't know why in the hell it's so good but don't stop."
Louis had no intention of stopping, and he squeezed his hand around Lestat's erection to say so. Lestat gave another soft groan in response, and Louis felt gratified to know that he could coax such results out of him.
"I didn't know we could have this," Louis marveled, kissing Lestat's cheek.
"It's happened before," Lestat answered, rambling, "I've been hard, like you read in the book, just, ah, never like this…"
"Tell me what you mean?" Louis wanted to glance down between them and see, but Lestat was so close atop him, nearly chest to chest, and the echo of his heartbeat had Louis yearning to feel them synchronized and pounding together in the swoon.
"It was just there, it didn't feel—didn't feel like anything. It just reminded me of what I wasn't. What I couldn't have. But you, oh, God, Louis, your hand, just your hand on me, Louis, I feel like I could die from only this…"
"No death tonight," Louis murmured gently. "Only a little death, come here, come here…" He stroked Lestat's hair and slid a leg around Lestat's hips. It felt natural to do it, and to cup Lestat's straining cock against his own taut and trembling stomach and encourage him to thrust against him like that.
"You're so beautiful," Lestat praised breathlessly, "so good at this, like you were made for me…"
And there it was again, that profound sense of possessiveness, that yearning to mean more than what he had. Sixty-five years. And he'd died for Lestat. He would die for him again without a thought.
"But I was," said Louis. "Don't you remember that?"
"Of course I do," said Lestat, drawing back to look down at him, his expression unusually serious. "I can hardly look at you without thinking of it. Without wishing you were actually mine."
It felt nearly like an accusation, laced with a pain that Louis hadn't meant to bring to the surface. Louis leaned up to kiss him, stroking the nape of his neck soothingly, demandingly, and arching up beneath him to meet his thrusts.
"Then make me yours tonight."
"Louis…"
"Please, Lestat. Like you should have done before the concert, like you should have done the night we met… like you should have done a thousand times by now."
Lestat slid a hand into Louis's hair and tipped his head back, blazing a trail of kisses down Louis's throat, sucking the blood to the surface without biting. Louis shuddered beneath him, letting Lestat rut against his stomach like an animal, the beginnings of blood sweat beading between them.
"Mine," Lestat breathed, in a low voice that made Louis's stomach curl with hunger and desire. His legs wrapped around Lestat's lean hips, and he ached down to the marrow of his bones, craving a consummation that he had no familiarity with at all and no idea whether he could even have. But even this was heavenly, with Lestat murmuring a litany of adoring things into his ear, as though he was the only thing in the world that mattered. He'd never known how much he wanted that.
"My masterpiece," said Lestat, his lips playing along Louis's collarbone and making him shiver. "My maddening companion. My angel, my conscience, my longest, truest love…"
Lestat's hand joined Louis's between them, and their fingers entwined in a brief embrace as he sought out Louis's cock. Louis's eyelashes fluttered with a mixture of pleasure and quiet shame, and he swallowed an apology; despite his arousal and his overwhelming eagerness, the preternatural blood hadn't worked in him the way it had in Lestat.
But if Lestat thought him deficient in some way, he didn't show it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Louis felt him throb in the tight channel he held him in, hard as marble against Louis's stomach, as if merely touching Louis could drive him wild again. His fingers were deft and exploratory, and Louis had the distinct sense that he was being memorized, every inch of him mapped and catalogued for future consideration. Perhaps he would write a book about this, Louis thought in a daze of sensation, and nearly laughed at the absurdity of it.
"Does it feel any different?" Lestat, by contrast, was utterly focused. "I mean, is it any good?"
He kissed Louis's Adam's apple, thumb sweeping over the head of his cock in a circle. It made Louis squirm, and that mix of hunger and arousal and pleasure was like hot coals inside his gut. The sensation itself was strange—intense yet nonspecific, as though Lestat might have had him shuddering and mad with need if he had touched him anywhere at all. It was a pantomime of mortal lovemaking, and yet it felt like something true.
"It's good because it's you," said Louis earnestly.
Lestat shivered against him. "I want to taste you." His fingers squeezed slowly around Louis's length in irresistable explanation, and quite suddenly it was all that Louis could think about. God, Lestat's mouth on him, Lestat's clever kisses, his fangs…
"Please," Louis exhaled, shuddering from head to toe with want. "Anything. I'm yours."
Lestat chuckled darkly. "Don't say things you don't mean, chéri."
Louis's heart clenched, and he tightened his fingers in Lestat's perfect curls until he looked back up at him.
"Do you think that I would do this if I didn't mean it?" Louis's voice was strained, threatening to break. "There's never been anyone else for me, Lestat. Not since the night you made me. Heaven help me if this goes to your head, I know I'll never hear the end of it until the world crumbles to dust, but I would have gladly gone to hell just to go to bed with you. I've given up on fighting what I want. Oh, God, and when I learned that you were still alive..."
Lestat kissed him just a little too quickly, overwhelmed by sentiment. "All right," he said, stroking Louis's cheek in a gesture that felt sweetly apologetic. "All right, forgive me, you know I'm a fool."
"You are," Louis sighed, and turned to kiss his palm. "A perfect fool, and I love you completely."
Lestat made a warm sound, brushing his thumb across Louis's lips. It was cool and smooth and caressing, and Louis felt almost certain that he could even feel the delicate loops of thumbprints against his lip. Their mouths were so sensitive, after all, though the reason for it was far darker than gentle things like this.
He parted his lips and let Lestat slip his thumb between them, past his teeth and against his tongue. The weight and thickness of it was unfamiliar, and Louis moaned as he recalled his earlier fantasy of taking Lestat's heavy length into his mouth. Meanwhile, that length had slipped from his hands, and Lestat's lips were blazing a trail down his chest and stomach, open-mouthed kisses with tongue and hints of teeth. It was overwhelming, and he quickly had Louis arching up into his mouth, his blood singing to be tasted.
What was he supposed to do? He didn't know, really, and a part of him suspected that it didn't truly matter so long as he did something. Lestat had always told him to trust in his instincts, and though it had ironically never come naturally to him, he thought perhaps there was something to it now. If he could only force himself not to overthink things, to let go and just feel…
He slid his tongue against Lestat's thumb, sucking experimentally. The sensation was unfamiliar, not really anything like feeding, but pleasurable nonetheless—and moreso when Lestat let out a guttural groan against the bare flesh of his side. Louis did the same again, letting out a nearly silent moan around the digit, and Lestat's teeth grazed his side just above his hipbone.
The scent of blood was sharp and sudden, and Louis groaned, nearly unable to bear the twin thrills of thirst and being fed upon. It wasn't a true swoon, but almost, almost, and the almost-but-not-quite was just as good in its own way. His hands slid back into Lestat's hair, making a glorious mess of silken curls, and he sucked greedily at Lestat's finger. That Louis managed not to bite down was a minor miracle. His heart was pounding, and his thirst was raging in his veins. It didn't matter that Lestat's blood was ancient and powerful now, it was Lestat, and oh, how Louis ached for it...
Lestat kissed his way up Louis's stomach, mouthing wetly at his nipple and grazing teeth there so sharply Louis expected a bite. He shivered with disappointment when Lestat didn't follow through. But then he was kissing him properly again, caressing him like he was precious, hands gentle and careful and absolutely everywhere.
Where did this end? Would it even end? He had no reference point for what this was; they touched each other in ways that evoked mortal lovers, and yet there could be no climax, surely. None but the blood. And yet when Lestat touched him, it felt real, felt like something, even if that something was entirely their own.
Lestat took hold of Louis's wrists and shifted his weight as they kissed, rocking down against him as he pressed his hands into the down pillows behind Louis's head. He dragged his thumbs over the twin pulse points, and the contrast between those sweeping caresses and Lestat's stony grip made Louis tremble with delight. Their heartbeats pounded just out of sync as he urged Lestat on with his thighs, deliciously, perfectly slow. He lost track of how long they lay like that. It might have been minutes. Time didn't matter at all, only that he was being slowly wound, like an endlessly tightening spring, and Lestat was the one turning the key.
"Louis," Lestat murmured, evidently just for the pleasure of saying his name. This time the gentle sweeping of his thumbs made Louis shiver head to toe. He kissed him again, long and slow and lingering, until Louis sighed with bliss, every inch of his skin singing with desire. "Louis, mon cher, mon coeur, mon seul amour, will you let me fuck you?"
Louis groaned helplessly, arousal coursing through him like liquid fire. "God in heaven, do you have to be so crass?"
"It isn't crass!" Lestat sounded almost hurt by the token protest, defensiveness creeping into his voice. "Forgive me if I don't know how to ask you that politely," he snipped, "I must have missed that particular cotillion class…"
"You could call it making love." Louis set his mouth in a line, trying not to be embarrassed. He ought to have been past that point by now, all things considered. And yet, somehow, saying it out loud felt terribly vulnerable, and he felt the most acute flash of fear that Lestat would ridicule him for it.
But he didn't. Instead, Lestat's expression changed and softened and finally rearranged itself into a sort of baffled tenderness.
"I thought we already were."
Louis's throat felt suddenly tight, and he wanted to wrap his arms around Lestat and hold him close.
"Oh," Louis said, very softly.
"Aren't we?" Lestat pulled Louis's right hand to his lips, kissing his knuckles, and Louis's heart swooped the way it did every single time. He looked almost sheepish, as much as Lestat was capable of such a thing, and Louis found it utterly disarming. "I mean… I've always thought… that is, as long as two people love each other, then the actual details are more or less inconsequential. Hell, maybe that sounds cloying, I don't know..."
Oh, God, Louis adored him, helplessly and totally.
And what could he say about it? To Louis, it meant everything that Lestat was a man. For so long, he had felt shame about that fact. Something was broken in him, he'd been sure of it; he had wanted nothing, been satisfied with nothing, until he'd met Lestat and transformed into this monster of suppressed appetites.
It wasn't shame that he felt now, but certainty.
He leaned up to kiss Lestat, soft at first, but with the promise of blossoming heat just beneath.
"Yes," Louis whispered eagerly. His heartbeat quickened, and he felt Lestat's beat faster in an answering echo of his own. "Yes, I want to. I want to with you in particular, please."
Lestat made a sound that was almost a purr, pleased and resonant from within his chest. "Lie back, beautiful one."
"I couldn't recline any more if I tried," Louis laughed, tipping his head back against the soft pillows as Lestat's kisses trailed slowly down his sternum. "I'm not accustomed to being so comfortable."
"Sounds like you ought to spend far more time in my bed." Lestat's fingers played over Louis's ribs as deftly as ivory piano keys, making him squirm.
"I admit, you make a rather compelling argument…"
"Say that again. I love it when you tell me that I'm right."
"Yet you so rarely give me the occasion."
Lestat shoved Louis's legs apart and delivered a playful warning bite to his thigh, just inside and above his angular knee. A few droplets of blood welled to the surface, and Lestat's tongue laved away the faint sting of the already-healed nip, making Louis gasp and quiver.
"My lover is so cruel to me," Lestat crooned. He kissed and caressed Louis's thighs, and Louis felt his inexperience keenly under such intense attention. He wasn't certain where to put his hands, but Lestat's hair seemed the most obvious choice, and it was soothing to run his fingers through it and ground himself like that. And Lestat seemed to enjoy it too, making appreciative little noises against Louis's sensitive skin that only made him squirm more impatiently.
"How long have you wanted this?" Lestat nuzzled the juncture of his hip and thigh, sucking at the skin there until the blood raised to the surface in a bruise. Louis's fingers went tight in Lestat's hair as he writhed beneath him, spreading his thighs just like he'd bared his throat.
Louis swallowed hard. "I, ah, I don't know…"
"You don't know?" Lestat licked the bruise he had raised, and Louis shivered. "My perpetually introspective friend, I find that almost impossible to believe."
Another shiver, and a little breath that might have been an exasperated sigh or the beginnings of a laugh. Louis was past the point of knowing or caring. "Always, then. Or at least since the night I met you, which may as well be the beginning of time for me."
Lestat exhaled a cool breath against Louis's skin, and the muscles of his stomach jumped. "Sheer poetry. Go on…"
How could he speak coherently like this? "I tried to deny it to myself, but I… oh, God. The more I tried, the more I thought of it, of wanting you, of wishing you would look at me…"
"Look at you? I gazed at you." Lestat's voice was rough, and his eyes were molten silver. "I pined for you for decades, you beautiful idiot. You broke my heart a thousand times, how can you say something so monumentally stupid?"
Louis didn't have an answer for that, and even if he had, Lestat's hungry mouth between his thighs would have obliterated any language he had ever known. It was the sight of it as much as the sensation that undid Louis—the divine obscenity of his slick tongue there, almost inside of him, sweet Christ, and then the sound and the feeling of Lestat moaning against him like he was a feast. Lestat slid a strong arm beneath his hips, tipping them up to his sinfully clever mouth, and Louis writhed against him in an instinct he hadn't known he had.
It ought to have been appalling. Perhaps if he had had his wits about him it would have been. Surely if it had been anyone but Lestat… but then, why even think of that? He would never have been here with anyone else.
Louis made a choked sound as Lestat's tongue entered him, a moan of pleasure so sweet that it nearly sounded like pain. It was almost too much sensation, almost overwhelming, and Louis's fingers tightened in Lestat's hair, trembling as he held on for dear life. Lestat's golden curls cascaded over Louis's taut and trembling stomach, and the feather-light brush of it tickled, made him squirm all the more desperately. It was too beautiful, too much, and he had to shut his eyes tightly so that he could survive it.
He could hardly imagine what might happen if they continued. If he were mortal still, he surely would have come from this alone, embarrassingly quickly, his cock completely untouched. But it lay lifeless against his belly now, no more sensitive to touch than the rest of him save for the symbolism in it.
Lestat's mouth was unraveling him slowly, wet hungry sounds coming from the junction of his thighs. Each time he stretched Louis open just that little bit, he gasped and arched and squirmed and begged silently for it never to stop.
And when Lestat's tongue withdrew, Louis nearly sobbed with longing. Mindless, he tried to rock back against him, but Lestat made a soft shushing noise and slid back up the length of his body. Louis was a shivering mess of sensation, completely overwhelmed, and he wrapped around Lestat immediately, grateful for the contact.
"Oh, hell, Louis, the way you taste, come here..."
Some distant part of Louis wanted to protest that. Neither of them had tasted like anything but blood in centuries, and that was far too brazen a thing to say, besides. But then Lestat's fingers were teasing him open, a bizarre foreign intrusion that felt far more strange than it did good. His brow furrowed, and he pressed his thighs together instinctively until Lestat clucked his tongue and nudged them apart again.
"I know," Lestat murmured reassuringly, "but just give it a moment, you'll get used to how it feels…"
Louis didn't mind, precisely; it wasn't bad, only exceptionally strange. He took a few deep breaths, and let Lestat thrust his fingers in and out until it turned into a pleasant sort of friction. And the intimacy was intense. He'd never had someone inside him before, only their blood—and Lestat had been his first at that, too.
"Have you done this before?" Louis asked in a trembling voice, stroking Lestat's shoulders.
"What do you think?" Lestat asked, and kissed his jaw. Louis tried to care where his mouth had just been, but simply couldn't.
"You're good at it. But I think you would be good at anything you tried…"
"Oh, now you're being sweet to me?"
Louis sighed out a moan as Lestat sucked at his pulse point. "I want to be sweet to you. You don't let me. I think—" He swallowed hard, starting to shiver each time Lestat's knuckles stretched him open, the drag of it maddeningly good. "I think you have done this, though I don't know whether you've been here, where I am, so to speak…"
"So to speak?" Lestat sounded amused, like he wanted to laugh at Louis's reticence. "You mean you can't decide whether I've taken it in the ass?" And he drove his fingers in up to the knuckles, so that Louis arched off the bed and saw stars. He clutched at Lestat's back, and his nails drew trickles of blood in his frenzy. Lestat moaned and kissed him deeply, devouring his mouth as he kept Louis impaled on his fingers. The scent of blood was a heady perfume, and it was Lestat's blood this time, that forbidden golden temptation forever out of Louis's reach. God, he wanted him. Wanted to bite him, and forget the consequences.
But Lestat drew back before that dam could burst, watching him with that focused intensity that made him feel like he was on display. Like Lestat could drain him dry with the force of his eyes alone.
"I have," Lestat finally answered, once Louis's question had been half-forgotten. "A long time ago, when I was still a man, and wanted it. Not since, though I've thought about it often enough. Wondered if I could, you know, whether there was still something to enjoy in it…"
"Ah," Louis gasped, as Lestat curled his fingers deep inside of him, "yes, there is, there is…"
"Oh, my. Even with no point of comparison?" Lestat teased, and then paused abruptly, his face falling as though something had just occurred to him. "You haven't done this before, have you?"
"I—you can't be serious," Louis choked. Lestat's fingers had gone still, which was absolute torture, and Louis rocked his hips in a desperate attempt to make him move again.
"I answered you," Lestat said, immovable as stone inside him. "Now fair's fair."
"You're a demon," Louis moaned, "you're my personal devil…"
"And you love it." His fingers plunged deeper, stretching Louis wider, and Louis whimpered in response. "Now answer me."
"I've never let anyone this close to me," Louis panted, managing to be indignant even through his arousal. "I've never even wanted it with anyone but you."
Lestat made another one of those gratified purrs, kissing him as he returned his fingers to that wonderful dragging slide. "I would have let you fuck me," Lestat said, low and quiet against his mouth. If he could have been hard, if anything could have done it in this world, it would surely have been that visceral thought. "I should have let you fuck me, that first night, when you were still alive."
Louis's pulse thundered in his ears, and he clutched at Lestat, his fingertips damp with his blood. It didn't sound crass at all now.
"Please," Louis said, or moaned, perhaps or simply thought. It didn't matter—Lestat understood. His fingers withdrew, another brief agony of loss, and then something else was there, thick and solid and pressing in and—oh God, this was it, wasn't it? Louis shivered, making a quiet, overwhelmed little sound, legs and arms wrapped tight around Lestat. He'd half expected it to hurt and simply wanted it too much to care, but it didn't even ache. Was that some function of his preternatural body, or was it because Lestat had seen to him so carefully?
His thoughts were a tangle, and moreso when Lestat kissed him, desperate and hungry. And oh, Lestat was trembling too, as if he needed Louis just as much as Louis needed him.
And then Lestat moved his hips, rocking into him, fucking him, hard as marble just for him. Louis hadn't known that he could feel this kind of pleasure outside the kill, but here he was, trembling with bliss without a single drop of blood in his mouth. It wasn't Lestat's blood inside him, but it was Lestat inside him, surrounding him, making love to him, and that was bliss.
Lestat's breath hitched, and Louis was afraid that he might weep, just as he'd described so often in his books. He sounded almost pained, and Louis reached up to stroke his cheek with fingers that shook.
"Lestat? Tell me you're all right…"
Lestat blinked down at him. Louis could have sworn there was a faint flush on his cheeks, but perhaps it was only the lamplight and his own imagination. Still, he looked breathless in some way that needed no true breath, as dazed and overwhelmed as Louis was.
Louis's heart ached from loving him.
"Of course," Lestat said, just a little too quickly, and shook his head. If there had been blood tears in his eyes, they were gone now. "I should have had you every night for centuries, that's all. I'm mourning all our tragic wasted time." But he let out a soft breathless laugh, nuzzling Louis's throat as he fucked him.
"We have time now," said Louis. "All the time in the world."
And best not to think of the troubles ahead, or the fights they would inevitably have, or the partings that the future might hold. Eternity was so long, and they had struggled so much just to be together. It was frightening to think that this could end—that despite the strength of their feelings for each other, this connection was still as fragile as spun glass.
"I love your faith in me, chéri." Lestat let out another throaty laugh that sent shivers throughout Louis's body. God, he could feel that laugh inside him. "Do you think we can do this every night?"
"Oh, yes, I do hope..."
It was an impossible vow to keep, and they both knew it. But in the moment, they meant it completely, and that was all that mattered.
They moved together like a tide or a harmony, two parts of a perfect whole, and Louis thought perhaps there was something to the idea that he was made for this. Or at the very least, that this was of some great symbolic importance, a consummation of something that they had begun long ago.
"Say you love me again," said Lestat, in a voice that was mostly breath.
Louis shuddered hard and gripped at his back, aching to feel his fangs driving into his throat, his blood pulsing and pulsing against Lestat's wicked tongue.
"Say it back." Louis was on the verge of something, trembling with it, feeling surrounded and filled and humming like a plucked string. "Say it back, please, Lestat. God, I love you so much, say it back..."
Lestat made some desperate sound against his throat, and he could feel him shudder over him. Perhaps it was too much to ask, too vulnerable, even after everything. The thought made Louis want to weep, but then Lestat kissed him, long and deep as he moved inside him, and that seemed to steady them both.
"I've said it each night since I met you, can't you hear it?" Lestat's curls fell around them like a golden curtain, and he cupped Louis's cheek like he was made of porcelain, a precious cherished thing. "Every beat of my heart has been for you. Every pulse of my blood through your veins has been proof of it. Of course I love you," he said, his voice near to breaking. "I don't know how to do anything else."
With fingers buried deep in golden curls, Louis pulled Lestat's mouth to his waiting throat.
Lestat's fangs were endless, a perfect pain that seemed to drive as deep as the marble length of him inside, as deep as his blood in Louis's veins from the very first night he was made. He cried out in ecstasy, heedless of the volume of his voice for just this once. He fell into Lestat's waiting arms, and Lestat into his, holding fast to each other in a weightless and infinite embrace where the seconds drew out into hours.
If there was a heaven for creatures like them, then surely this had to be it.
He returned to himself slowly, lulled into a pleasant dreamlike state by Lestat's heartbeat, still pounding languidly in time with his own. Perhaps he had fallen asleep afterward; he certainly felt as if he had been somewhere else entirely, somewhere wonderful and distant, and now he was waking somewhere far warmer and more pleasant than any coffin.
And here was Lestat, fitted right up against him side by side like pieces of a puzzle. Louis stretched and curled against him, relaxing (if it were possible to be any more relaxed) into the strong arms wrapped around him.
"Mmm. Lestat, what time is it?"
"Three or so, I think. We have a little night left to us yet." He kissed Louis's forehead and dragged long fingers through his hair, and shifted so their long legs tangled together in a delicious slide of cool smooth skin. "Why?"
Louis made a contented, sleepy noise. "I'd like to watch a film, if we have time. Just here at home, on the television set."
"A film, what for, what film?"
"I don't know yet," said Louis, smiling softly. "I just want to watch something with you."
"All right," said Lestat. "But we're going to make out, as they say, like a pair of mortal teenagers. Any objections to that plan?"
Louis laughed his silent laugh he knew Lestat could hear, and kissed him for what must have been the hundredth time tonight. "I wouldn't have it any other way."