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Lestat was talking in his sleep.

“Louis, Louis…”

Louis opened his eyes to the sound of his name falling from Lestat’s mouth like a sacred litany. He drew a breath. He could feel Lestat’s withered heart beating where they lay so close together. Could hear it pulsing on the air like some flagging piece of machinery.

“Louis. Louis.”

He was pressed to Louis from his head to his feet. Wrapped around Louis in the coffin like he was trying to meld their flesh together. His face tucked into the hollow of Louis’ throat as he muttered and dreamed.

“Louis. Louis. Louis—”

“Les. Hey…” Louis rubbed tiny circles against Lestat’s back, right between the pale crests of his shoulders. Feeling the cool skin under his tattered robe. Feeling the bones and flesh underneath. “Lestat. Hey. Wake up.”

Lestat flinched. Inhaled. Gasping, desperate sound of waking. “Louis…” Shaking in Louis’ arms like something on the verge of collapse. Skin like vellum, like breath. The quivering, fragile skin of a human being. “Louis. You’re…”

“Hey…” Louis pressed a kiss against Lestat’s golden head. Outside the dark cocoon of the coffin, hurricane Odette was still raging. Wind howling through the shattered windows of the cottage on Dumaine Street. Rain falling through the cracks in the ceiling, pattering the coffin with its melody. “Hey. It’s okay, I’m—”

“Louis. You’re really here with me?”

Lestat sounded like a figment of himself. He sounded like a child. A mortal. Some flattened version of the powerful creature he used to be. Though the sight of him there in the dark was alive with color and light. Shades of him spilling through the coffin-black like auroras. Pale hair like golden threads; blue rings of his eyes glowing dim when he raised his head and set his gaze on Louis. Waxy skin the shade of coffin rocks. He was badly in need of a proper feeding.

“Yeah…” They were face-to-face now, tips of their noses brushing together. Lips mere centimeters away from touching. “I’m really here with you, Lestat.”

“Louis.” The shape of the name in Lestat’s throat was like the sound of glass. A fragile quiver, something just this side of shattering. “Are you going to leave—are you—” He pressed his forehead to Louis’. Hands making fists against the back of Louis’ jacket. “Are you going to leave me here when the storm is gone?”

Louis felt something crack in his chest. Holding onto Lestat, this fragile thing. Holding onto Lestat the Fragile Thing. “I’m not…” He pressed his lips to the corner of Lestat’s mouth. Right in the little dip of the scar he’d been wearing since his days as a human. “I’m not leaving, okay? I’m not.”

The truth was, Louis had been planning on leaving. When he’d still been standing outside in the rain, before he’d walked through the door. Before he’d seen Lestat living like a dead thing inside his shell of a home. But the moment he had Lestat in his arms—whatever plan he’d had was shattered like a window glass, washed away by the storm.

“You can…” The wind howled. It rattled the coffin. A shock of debris rained down from the ceiling overhead. “You can rest, Lestat. Don’t worry. We’ll wait it out. We’ll wait out the sun when it comes. And tomorrow night…”

Louis shut his eyes, lost his words, lost the thread of his thoughts. Lestat was a silent thing gently trembling in his arms. The storm outside the coffin might as well have been a lullaby. It was like being sedated, being pressed so close to Lestat after so much time apart. Chests inflating and deflating as one. Ticking of their hearts like two clocks whose gears were whirring perfectly in rhythm.

The last thing Louis managed before falling headlong into dreams was a muttered, “I got you.”

—

Louis opened his eyes. The world outside the coffin was quiet. Lestat was still pressed against him, still wrapped around Louis with his arms and his legs. Clinging to him like if he didn’t Louis might suddenly float away. They’d made it through the storm together. Rode out the daylight that came after. And the moon had risen again over the ruined cottage on Dumaine Street. Louis could feel the pull of it against the tides of his bones.

“Lestat,” he muttered into the darkened air around them. And Lestat flinched awake at once in his arms. “Hey. Hey…” Rubbing circles against his back as Lestat shivered himself into waking. “I’m gonna open the coffin now, okay?”

Silence. For a long beat, nothing but silence from Lestat. Then—“Okay.”

Lestat didn’t let Louis go. Didn’t loosen his grip on the back of Louis’ jacket for even a second. Their bodies slotted together like two links on a chain that could never, ever be parted.

Louis puffed a soft little laugh from his nose. “Gonna need to move to do it, Les,” he said, and sighed. And laughed again. And had to choke back the urge to sob. Too many feelings. Too many all at once to hope and name a single one.

“Oh…” Lestat’s voice fell from his mouth gentle as breathing. “Of course, mon cher.” The endearment instantly made Louis’ stomach ache. He felt the endless stretch of decades inside him. Something reaching across the void from another life. “Of course.”

Lestat’s grip on the back of Louis’ jacket loosened slowly. A child’s hands hesitant to release the hold they had on their mother. Louis swept a kiss along Lestat’s brow as they parted. Reaching up, he shoved at the lid of the coffin. A cacophony of debris hitting the floor as it slipped away from the top of it.

The bones of the cottage were still standing around them. Well—mostly. Half the ceiling had collapsed and Louis could see straight through to the sky overhead. He was pretty sure most of the roof was gone. There was standing water on the floor, but less than he’d imagined there’d be. The wind had dealt the brunt of the damage. Glass glittered on the damp floorboards as he rose to his feet. It was as though a hundred-thousand stars had tumbled from the sky and shattered themselves open to greet him.

Louis stepped out of the coffin. Crunch of glass beneath his shoes. Gentle pattering of water with the movement of his feet. He gazed down into the coffin at Lestat, lying there gazing up at Louis like a shattered thing. He was even paler than he’d appeared the night before. His heart was beating very slowly. Louis could feel it like a shifting in the air pressure just how badly Lestat needed to feed.

“You’re starving,” Louis said, feeling the hunger rising in him too. But Lestat’s was something deeper, something different. He looked like he hadn’t had a proper meal in half a century. “You need to eat.”

“Summon the rat catcher,” Lestat said, sitting up in the coffin slowly, a dead thing rejecting the call of his grave. “He will bring us—”

“No,” Louis said, shook his head, shuffled his feet. Glass and water mingling together to create a tiny symphony. “I don’t mean—you need—” He huffed. Deciding right then what he was going to have to do. There could be no other option. It was what their bodies needed. “Lestat, you need blood. Real blood. Human…”

Lestat watched Louis with his sullen, sunken gaze. Blinked. A little tip of his head, a little pinch of his mouth. “Do I need to point out the irony—”

“You don’t.” Louis pinched his brows, offered a little shake of his head. Vision swimming, dizzy from the hunger. Watching stray bits of moonlight play over Lestat’s pale face. “I’m gonna go… get us somethin’. You stay there and—”

“Louis.” Lestat lurched forward, reaching out to take Louis by the leg of his pants. Bunching the fabric in one fist, a swell of fear like rising water in his eyes. “I’ll come with you.”

“I’m comin’ right back, okay?” He stared at Lestat with eyes he begged to convey how much he meant it. With eyes that said, I want this. I want this so badly I’m going to kill for it now. “Just stay right there. Don’t—” He exhaled with his entire chest. “Just stay.”

Lestat released his hold on Louis’ pant leg slowly. Drew his hand back against himself as though he’d been burned. A crumpled paper version of the vampire he’d once been sitting there in his storm-battered coffin. Sunken cheeks and withered limbs. Louis wanted to crawl right back inside and curl up next to him and pummel his body with kisses. Though he looked like he wouldn’t be able to bear it. He looked too fragile to ever be touched again.

“Okay,” Lestat said after a long, drawn out moment of silence. And lay back down in the coffin. Crossed his arms over his chest like a corpse preparing for burial. “Okay.”

—

Louis stalked his way through the marshy, half-flooded backyards on Dumaine Street. Sticking close to the shadows being thrown by the houses. Moving like a predator, heightened senses catching every flicker of light, every nearby tangle of fractured human thought. A few voices out on the street talking about the damage that had been done to their homes. He could hear the insects taking shelter in the trees. He could hear the distant patter of footsteps on rain-soaked pavement. It was thrilling, really, how quickly the instincts were coming back to him now. After so many years without the need of the hunt, the killer inside wasted no time leaping right to the fore of his being.

He had no time to be discerning. No time to care if the person he was taking had lived a life wicked enough to make them worthy of their death. He simply stalked. And waited. Jumping fences swift as a cat to scope out the yards on the nearby streets. Pouncing on the first tasty morsel unlucky enough to find themselves in Louis’ field of vision. A stocky man in a red t-shirt in the swampland of his yard puffing on a cigarette all alone.

Louis took him quickly. Immobilizing the man with a strike to the side of the head beneath the raging light of the moon. Not a hard enough blow to kill him, of course. Just hard enough to make him a moveable feast. His limp body easily carried back along the path Louis had stalked through the yards; easily moved through the front door of the cottage; easily deposited on the floor next to the coffin where Lestat was waiting for him.

The man groaned very quietly, his limp body twitching a little where it lay among the ruins. Lestat looked at him for a long stretch of seconds, and then he looked up at Louis. “Well, you always were a most efficient hunter, mon cher.” A little tip of his head, a little twitch of something in his sunken cheeks. Corners of his mouth shaped into an almost-smile. A phantom of the radiant, energetic being he used to be. “When you allowed yourself to be, of course.”

“We’re not doing that right now, Lestat.” Louis drew a breath, fighting back a spike of familiar irritation. Though there was something in him that craved some cozy space where they might be permitted to snipe at each other. Arguing until the sun came up. Until they were sated and might collapse together in love once again. Louis knew that—maybe more than anything—would feel like coming home. “Just eat. Got somewhere for us to go when you’re done.”

Lestat blinked at Louis. Whatever shadow of his former self had been present was already gone. There was only the starving creature slumping in his coffin. “Won’t you join me, Louis?”

The hunger in Louis tied a string around his stomach. It felt like there was a hurricane spinning in the hollow of his soul. Hunger pulsed like a second heartbeat in his belly. He’d been planning on feeding while he hunted. Had been so hungry for the blood it felt like madness. But looking at Lestat—the hollow, sunken voids of his cheeks. The shadows under his dull blue eyes. Well—“I’m alright, I—”

“Please.” Lestat rose to his feet very carefully. The threadbare fabric of his robe dragging like a shedding skin behind him as he stepped from the coffin. “Louis.” He reached forward and touched Louis’ shoulder, bunching the fabric of his jacket in a wobbly fist. His hand that had once felt like it could move a mountain now some shriveled, sinewy thing. “I want you to—”

“Okay. We—” Louis looked down. The man made a noise where he lay near the coffin. Louis could smell the blood pumping in him. Could practically taste it sweet as honey on his lips. “Okay.” He gave a little nod of his head. Reached forward and touched Lestat on the side of his neck just to feel it. Just to feel that his blood was still flowing there in his veins. “We should do this quick. Get out of here as soon as we can.”

Lestat stared at Louis for a long stretch of seconds. Then drew his hand away, drew it back against himself. His expression so uncertain. Lestat so uncertain it made Louis feel like the world was upside down. This apex predator staring at Louis like he didn’t know what to do next. Like he needed to be told exactly how to feed, shown where the blood came from.

“Lestat.” Louis took Lestat by the shoulders with both hands. Looked him square in the eyes and said—“We’re going to eat. Right now. Together. And then I’m taking you back to my hotel with me. Do you understand?”

Lestat’s pupils dilated, blowing themselves wide open. Thin rings of dim blue circling all that dark. “Yes, mon cher,” he said, voice so hushed it was hardly a voice at all. “I understand.”

They crouched on the damp floor among the broken glass and feasted on the man together. Lestat suckling feverishly at the side of his neck. Louis sipping slower on the other side of him, allowing Lestat to take much more than his half of the blood. Sounds of pleasure bubbled in Lestat’s throat as he drank, and they carried into Louis’ ears like sweet music. He could feel Lestat’s heart pumping harder by the second. Tiniest spark of life returned to him by the time the man was emptied and they both were through.

There was a moment after when neither of them moved. They just stayed there on the floor with blood on their mouths and the lifeless body between them. Louis listened to the pumping of Lestat’s heart as though it were the meaning of life itself. The swelling of warm Gulf water rising up to greet him. The reason he’d really come home. The sort of rhythm so powerful it carried with it a color and a taste.

“Louis,” Lestat said at last, breaking the trance Louis had tumbled inside of, his voice a little light in the dark. “Louis…”

Lestat reached across the space between them, drew his thumb through the hint of blood that remained on Louis’ mouth. Lingering touch, lighting the ends of Louis’ nerves like a lightning crack. It felt like a kiss in every sense of the word. Watching Lestat draw the thumb inward again and pop it into his mouth. Sucking the end of it clean with a moan in his throat.

“Louis,” Lestat said again. Voice soft, eyes begging. He looked down at the body between them like he hadn’t realized it was there. “Louis, you should… summon my fledgling. Felix. The rat catcher.” Raising his eyes to Louis, giving a soft little tip of his head. “He will… take care of this unfortunate thing.”

Louis blinked at Lestat. He swiped his tongue through the dregs of the blood on his mouth. Tasting the place where Lestat’s thumb had been. Tasting Lestat as sure as he tasted anything at all. “Right,” he said. And drew a breath. And tried to remember where he was, what they were doing. Where Louis very much needed them to be. “Uh—yeah. Of course. I’ll just…”

He rose to his feet on wobbly legs. Shook the static from his brain. Feeling warmed though not quite sated from the blood he’d taken. It was enough for now. Enough to give Louis the focus he needed to get Lestat out of this shell of a home. He shut his eyes just as Lestat rose to his feet there next to him. Tuned his mind to the voices of the many. Listened. Focused. Breathed. Lestat’s fledgling wasn’t far from the cottage. It was like a tingle in his gray matter. Louis could feel it.

Felix. Are you listening, Felix? Your maker needs you, fledgling. Come to us.

—

The hour or so that came after seemed little more than a blur of moonlight as Louis rushed with Lestat hand-in-hand down the drowsy, hurricane-battered streets of New Orleans. The arrival of the rat catcher and the hysterics that followed. The shouting, the pleading. The hardly-contained rage from Lestat directed at this thing he’d created. The anger that only stood to amplify his guilt, his shame, his sorrow.

They’d ordered Felix to dispose of the body. Made a promise neither of them intended to keep to return the following night. Just before they walked out the door, Louis had stripped the threadbare robe from Lestat. Took off his jacket and demanded Lestat put it on. The color of it was perfect really, brought out the pink in his cheeks. A little cover for the sad rags he was passing off as his clothes.

They made it to the hotel in the Garden District in no time at all. Stalking wild through the night at such a pace Louis was certain they’d gone undetected by everyone out on the streets. They were shadows of themselves, they were ghosts. Haunting up to Louis’ suite and slipping inside, hanging a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and bolting it shut behind them.

Louis turned on all the lights and stood a short distance away from Lestat. Watching him take in every corner of the suite’s living room. Gaze flicking over leather and velvet furniture, head cocking slightly to one side like he’d never seen such things before. It wasn’t even a particularly lavish room. Their Rue Royale parlor had been a palace compared to this place. Still—Lestat just stood there staring like something stunned right through. A stray who’d been enduring on scraps in the sewers so long it couldn’t comprehend what it was seeing.

Louis went to him, took him by the arm and led him into the bedroom. “Take off your clothes,” he said, releasing his hold on Lestat and stepping away, ignoring the little lurch in his belly at the sound of the words in his throat. “Looks like you ain’t had a shower in a century.”

Lestat just stared at Louis. Filthy hair, blood-flushed face. The hollows under his eyes had filled in a little, but he was still in a terrible state. If Louis could have seen into his mind right then, he knew he’d find a tangle of thoughts like static. A brain denied simple comforts so long it wouldn’t know how to accept them if it tried. How long had Lestat been in that cottage? Decades? Since he’d arrived back in New Orleans after Paris? The span of a human lifetime stretched out beyond itself anticipating eternity.

“Alright. C’mere…” Louis went to Lestat again. Stripped the jacket from him slowly, draped it on the chair in the corner. Stood staring for just a second before taking him by the shoulders and saying—“I’m gonna take care of you now.” What was this thing he held between his hands? This thing whose heart flapped like the wings of a tattered bird inside him. It wasn’t Lestat. Yet it was more Lestat than Louis had ever known him to be. Stripped down to the basics of the thing. A wolf left to starve in its pen with all its fur shorn off. “Is that okay?”

Lestat’s eyes shimmered, wet with unshed tears in the light spilling from the beside lamps. His bottom lip quivered. He reached forward, took Louis by the front of his shirt with both hands. “Oui,” he only just managed, giving Louis a quick little nod of his head.

“Sit down,” Louis said, gesturing to the bed. And Lestat sat down on the edge of it at once. And Louis went down to his knees on the floor.

Louis took Lestat’s shoes off. The filthy socks he wore underneath them. He stood up and set them by the chair in the corner. Took Lestat by both hands and guided him up to his feet again. Stripped him out of his filthy shirt, his tattered pants, his underwear, his everything. Stripped him until Lestat was bare and pale and shivering in the golden light being thrown by the lamps.

He was fragile in his beauty, though his naked body wasn’t truly any different than the last time Louis had seen it—when? February 1940. Over eighty years ago. The frailty mostly came in the way he was holding himself. And though he was pinked by the blood he’d just taken, it was hardly evident beyond the layer of grime on his skin. Years of neglect all dripping down like Spanish moss from his limbs.

Louis said nothing. He took Lestat by the hand and led him into the en suite bathroom, got the water going hot and steamy in the glass-walled shower. Soft gushing sound filling the room as Louis stood a short distance away from Lestat and started undressing himself. Trying not to feel the weight of Lestat’s eyes on his body all over. He would fall into madness if he went to that place. There was no room for feelings like that right now. Not with Lestat in such a miserable state.

They gazed at each other when Louis was naked. Neither of them speaking. Two bare, familiar creatures shivering under artificial light and fighting the draw of each other. Hot steam from the shower fogging up the glass and billowing like smoke against the ceiling. Filling the room until it covered everything in a dreamlike haze.

He took Lestat by the arm and led him into the shower. Positioned him under the spray and reached for the tiny bottle of hotel-provisioned shampoo. He stood behind Lestat. He breathed. He took in the sight of those broad naked shoulders, the slender cut of his waist. Eyes lingering a good long while on the small of his back, and downward…

Louis shook the steam from his brain. Blobbed some shampoo in his palm and started washing Lestat’s filthy hair. They were silent as he worked his way through the steps required to get Lestat’s body clean. The shampoo and the rinsing. The repeating until the shampoo was gone. The conditioner he combed through with his fingers for five solid minutes making sure he’d worked every last knot and tangle free. The tiny bar of hotel soap he used to scrub every centimeter of Lestat’s grime-coated skin. Down on hands and knees washing Lestat’s grubby feet as the water rained all around him. Gazing up while he was down there. Watching Lestat watching him as though he were having a holy vision.

Louis touched Lestat on his bare thigh. Reminded himself to breathe. Very pointedly avoiding looking anywhere close to his dick. He allowed himself to ache for it for a single throb of a second. Then rose to his feet on unsteady legs. Put his hand on Lestat’s neck and whispered, “Close your eyes now, okay?”

Lestat gave a little nod of his head and let his eyes fall shut. Louis reached for the soap again and washed Lestat’s face all over. Gentle little swipes from the palms of his hands. Tracing the familiar, strong line of Lestat’s jaw with the pads of his fingers. Trying to hold back his gasp when Lestat reached forward and touched Louis on his bare waist.

After—when Lestat was clean, his skin pink and supple from the blood and the washing—Louis drew Lestat away from the spray and folded him up in his arms. Their middles pressed flush together, soft cocks nestled against one another sweet as praying hands. Louis’ face buried in the crook of Lestat’s neck as he whispered over and over again—I got you. I got you. I got you. And Lestat wept. And every sob from his chest cracked Louis’ chest wide open too. And they held one another. And they cried together. I got you. I got you. I got you.

Somehow, after a very long time, they pulled away from each other. Louis shut the water off. Swiped the dregs of blood tears from Lestat’s cheeks and led him out of the shower.

“Louis,” Lestat said, and nothing more. And stood there naked and damp and staring at Louis with the blue rings of his eyes shimmering around their black centers. Looking like he couldn’t possibly figure out what he was supposed to do next.

Louis grabbed a towel, dried himself quickly and immediately started drying Lestat. Every part of him seeming more golden now, and all the more familiar. His back, his chest, the smooth, muscled lengths of his arms. And when Louis finished with that he dried Lestat’s hair for good measure. Led him out to the bedroom and guided him to sit on the bed while Louis rifled through his luggage for clothes.

He pulled out two sets of pajamas and laid them out on the bed. Drew Lestat up to his feet without asking. Started to dress him as though he were a helpless thing. A doll. Something fragile, made of porcelain. Black silk on top. Black and gray stripes on the bottom. And when he was finished, Louis stood naked in front of Lestat, touched the sides of his neck with both hands. Feeling the throb of blood under his skin. The precious, gushing rhythm of their selfsame heart.

“Louis,” Lestat said. Louis’ name seemingly the only remaining word in his lexicon. His warm hands pressed forward and took Louis by the curves of his waist. Groping up to Louis’ ribs like he just wanted to feel them. Moving around the trace the slope of his back. “My Louis…”

“Lestat.” Louis leaned close, pressed his mouth to Lestat’s warm brow. Lingered for a second or two before forcing himself to pull back. Refusing to acknowledge the way Lestat’s hands felt on his skin. “Hey. It’s okay. Go wait in the coffin for me, yeah? It’s just over there.” He gestured to where the coffin—concealed beyond its shell designed to look like a travel crate—lay on the other side of the bed. “I just gotta get dressed is all.”

Lestat hesitated. Reaching out limply for Louis even as he stepped away. Touch lingering on the length of one arm as Louis reached for his pajamas. Louis did his best to ignore it. Did his best to silence the creature inside him that howled to lunge at Lestat. To press their bodies together. To kiss him until they were breathless. He dressed in burgundy silk, and Lestat yielded and went to the coffin. Stood next to it but made no effort to get it open and step inside. Watching Louis like he was trying to reason that what he was seeing wasn’t just a figment of his fractured mind.

Louis smoothed his hands down the front of his pajamas. He begged his heart to settle down. He went to Lestat, he opened the coffin. He put his hand on Lestat’s shoulder and said—“Get inside. I’ll be right behind you.”

And Lestat did as he was told without a sound. And Louis watched as he lay flat on his back in the coffin. Looking shiny and clean from his washing. Looking like something made of glass you had to speak very carefully around lest it shatter.

Louis crawled in on top and draped his body over Lestat’s. Worried very seriously for a moment he was going to crush him. Then remembered they were vampires and that wasn’t going to happen. Lestat was a solid, living weight there beneath him. He reached up and pulled the coffin lid down until they were swallowed in dark.

He pressed his face against Lestat’s warm neck. Smelling the hotel soap on his skin, the hot living gush of his blood underneath it. Sinking down into the comfort of his presence as Lestat folded Louis in his arms.

“Mon cher,” Lestat said very quietly into the dark. Mouth pressing tentatively to the top of Louis’ head. One of his big warm hands slipping under Louis’ pajama top to get at his skin. “Louis, Louis…”

“I’m here.” Louis’ spine seemed to catch like kindling when Lestat’s fingers traced the ridge of it. Down and up and down again. “I got you.”

—

They stayed in the coffin until the moon rose again the next night. Sleeping like dead things, like exhausted children. Like creatures trying to shake off centuries of damage. Like neither of them had slept in all the years they’d been apart.

Louis woke so hungry all his muscles ached. And he sat down on the foot of the bed next to Lestat knowing he was feeling it too. “We need to feed. And I won’t be able to bring you—” He started and stopped, scrubbed a hand along the back of his neck and sighed. “We’re gonna have to hunt tonight. You’re gonna have to come with me.”

Lestat looked just a bit less fragile than he had the night before. He held his neck just a little bit higher. His eyes were a little bit clearer in the light spilling from the bedside lamps. “Okay, mon cher,” he said, still not sounding like himself. Still Lestat the Porcelain Thing. Reaching over, he let his fingers dance over Louis’ hand where it was resting on his thigh. “Let’s hunt.”

“You’ll, uh—you can borrow my…” Scorching heat of Lestat’s fingertips dancing over the back of his hand. This simple gesture somehow more intimate than the two of them spending hours on end pressed together in the coffin. “Some of my clothes. Just until we can get you…”

Lestat said nothing. He just raised a brow at Louis and nodded his head. His fingers dancing over Louis’ knuckles as though they were keys on a piano.

Louis forced himself up to his feet. Searing heat of Lestat’s fingertips lingering on the back of his hand. He rifled around in his bags and pulled out pants and underwear and socks and shirts. He laid two outfits out neatly on top of the bed. He looked down at Lestat still sitting where Louis had left him and said—

“Think you can handle gettin’ dressed yourself tonight?” Louis’ belly ached. What was the feeling? Hollow throb of unending sorrow. Something that begged him to take care of the broken thing before him. But Louis steeled himself. He waited. He breathed. If Lestat was going to ever get back to being Lestat again—

“Of course,” Lestat said, eyes on Louis. Slowly, he started to move. Slowly, he got to his feet. Standing next to Louis and gazing down at the clothes on the bed. Touching one pair of the pants, feeling the expensive fabric under his fingers. “Of course…”

They stood like that for a very long time. Not moving, not speaking. Lestat drawing his hands over the fabric of all the clothes. Bringing one of the shirts up to feel against his cheek before placing it on the bed again.

“Lestat—”

“You’ve done very well for yourself, mon cher.”

Louis’ heart throbbed in his chest. Had he? Had he really? Well—he supposed. If he stood on the outside of himself and only focused on his investment portfolio. His net worth, his art collection, his closet bursting with expensive clothes. But what was a fortune compared to a life? The life he could have been living for—

“Yeah, I do alright.” He tried a laugh. Hardly felt it. Tried to fix his gaze on the clothes. Black knit shirts and black slacks for the both of them. The dregs of his Dubai wardrobe. Nondescript and casual enough they might go entirely unnoticed as they stalked the night. “Let’s just… get dressed. Go do what we have to. Okay?”

Lestat looked at Louis. Blinked once. Nodded his head. “Okay.”

—

They went hunting in the Quarter. It felt like the thing they should do. Being there, in that place, so close to the gates of the townhouse they’d once called home. They took their first soul of the night behind a bar on Decatur while the city busied itself rising from the mess of the storm. Well—Louis took him, really. Incapacitating the man swiftly while Lestat crouched in a shadowy corner like a cub waiting for the kill to be brought by its mother. They fed together quickly. They shoved the body beneath a mountain of trash in a dumpster.

They took another on Royal Street. It was amazing, Louis thought, that when he allowed himself the freedom of the hunt without shame he could feel hardly anything about it at all. Well—maybe that wasn’t the truth. He was feeling all sorts of things deep inside as they fed together. The pumping of the shared blood in their veins. The pleasure of bringing life to Lestat. The thrill of giving Lestat exactly what he needed. Finally, finally—after so many decades of petty denial and trying to love someone else out of spite—giving Lestat what he needed.

After—they went to Jackson Square. The draw of it was some wild, magnetic thing. They didn’t even talk about where they were going beforehand, it was simply calling them home. Walking around the great looping circle of it passing cigarette after cigarette between them. The lingering taste of fresh blood on their mouths. Saying nothing. Almost like they might never need to speak again. Like somehow they could pass thoughts to one another beyond that impenetrable wall that existed between fledgling and maker. Speaking through the touch of a hand on the nape of a neck. Speaking through the rhythm of heartbeats and the bottomless depths of their feelings.

But after their third or fourth cigarette of the night—after they’d done too many laps of that familiar circle to try and keep count—Louis nudged Lestat on the shoulder and asked—“So how you feelin’, Lestat?”

He asked knowing he didn’t need to. He could feel the answer in Lestat’s pulse, understood exactly where he was by the pumping of his blood. Asked knowing he wouldn’t be able to answer the question himself. How was Louis feeling? Incandescent with a depth of emotion he hadn’t known in decades. A hundred-thousand different feelings he’d never have names for coursing in his veins all at once.

Lestat said nothing for a long stretch of seconds. Puffing on the cigarette, eyes on St. Louis Cathedral looming in the distance like a ghost. Like a relic of their past rising up from the city to haunt them. “It’s as though…” He started at last. Took one final drag on the cigarette before passing it to Louis. “As though I’ve just been woken from a dream I didn’t know I was having, mon cher.”

“Yeah,” Louis said, taking the cigarette from Lestat’s blood-warmed fingers. The two of them walking so close together their hips nearly touched. “I hear that.”

Silence overtook them again. Heartbeats and shared breaths standing in for their words. They walked the circle of Jackson Square together until all their cigarettes were gone.

—

Every night for over a week went exactly the same: the two of them rising from their shared coffin to hunt by the light of the moon. By their third or fourth trip to the Quarter, Lestat was participating in the kills again. Calling on the beast inside him, remembering the hunter that lived in his bones. And with the heat of fresh blood pumping inside them, they’d roam Jackson Square and chain smoke in a way that would have left a human’s lungs withered and blackened.

They slept in the coffin together every sunrise, but the closeness never found its way to being fully sexual. Only hands that roamed on flesh above the waist, mouths that dusted kisses on skin with an almost bashful sort of reverence. Two beings finding one another again in the quiet comfort of their shared dark.

Louis had clothes shipped to the hotel for Lestat. Expensive slacks and button-down shirts and vests that hugged the line of his waist. Every night after they fed—Lestat’s eyes looked a little bit brighter. He seemed more capable of caring for himself. He sobbed against Louis’ neck in the coffin less and less. The words he spoke were less fragile; the lilt of his voice carrying like music, real and solid and true. He started speaking in full sentences and expressing full thoughts in almost the exact way the Lestat of a hundred years ago would have done. Whispering to Louis of blood and music, French opera houses and ancient lover’s poetry.

But still—there was something of a wall there between them. Some thin veil Louis could feel on his bare skin that neither of them could break through. Something standing in the way of the two of them exploring the full breadth of sexual and romantic intimacy. And he couldn’t quite put a finger on it yet, couldn’t quite understand the name he was meant to call it in the dark. But it was something, something—

And so—on the twelfth night of their stay in that Garden District hotel—an idea came to Louis in the early blue hours of the dark. He made a phone call while Lestat took a shower after their hunt. The delivery arrived before he’d even emerged from the en suite bathroom.

It was a simple Casio keyboard on a black metal stand. Louis set it up in the living room and placed a chair in front of it. Stood staring at the keys so long it made his stomach hurt. Another feeling he couldn’t put his finger on. Another emotion spinning deep inside him and making his body its home.

He went into the bedroom, leaned against the doorframe of the en suite. Steam hung on the air in thin clouds. Lestat was standing fully dressed in front of the mirror touching the ends of his hair. Eyes bright and wide and unblinking as he turned from his own reflection to face Louis. The corners of his mouth curling up. Predator’s mouth burdened with the lightness of unfathomable love.

“Bonsoir, mon amour. The shower is all yours if you’re ready.”

“In a little while,” Louis said, stepping forward and touching Lestat on the shoulder. “First, uh—” His pulse kicked up at once. He knew Lestat could feel it. “I got you something. Come here. Let me show you.”

Louis led Lestat by the hand out into the living room. Stopping where he’d set the keyboard up where the coffee table used to be. At once—Lestat’s heart started racing in time with Louis’. Louis could feel it between them like a drumbeat rattling their bones.

Lestat blinked, gazed at the keyboard. Its long shiny row of black and white teeth. “Louis,” he said very quietly. “Mon cher—”

“Just thought you might like to play a little somethin’ is all.” He drew a breath and slowly untangled his hand from Lestat’s. Took a step back, turned so they might face each other. Heartbeats pounding, pounding. “I, uh…” He swallowed. He looked at Lestat. A creature of such timeless beauty it made his stomach burn. “I’d really like it if you played, Lestat.” A pause. A beat. A single moment to draw a breath. “For me.”

Lestat gazed at Louis with unblinking eyes. The bow of his mouth was pink and slightly parted. “It’s been a long time, mon cher,” he said after a moment of silence. That look on his face that said he didn’t quite know if what he was seeing was true. “A long time since I…” He swallowed, gave a little shake of his head. Blinked. Tiny swell of unshed tears in his eyes. “I don’t even know where I would begin—”

“Play somethin’ you know by heart.”

Lestat stared at Louis with wet eyes for a long time before nodding his head. Then he turned, lowered himself into the chair in front of the keyboard on its stand. Tucked his hands in his lap like he was afraid if he touched he’d be burned. Spent several agonizing minutes like that before finally raising his hands. Daring to hover his fingers millimeters away from the keys. Then delicately lowering his fingers down on them, and pressing. Very, very gently pressing. Discordant sound falling out of the instrument, louder than Louis had expected it to be.

The vibration of it hung on the air for a second or two. Louis stepped back as Lestat raised his hands and let them hover over the keys again. Whatever he was about to do—Louis wanted to see it. Needed to see it. Needed it more than his body needed rest each dawn. More than his flesh needed blood. He held his breath. He started counting in his head for no reason at all. One two three one two three one—

It took Louis longer than it should have to realize what Lestat was playing. The slow build of the first notes touching Louis’ subconscious as though he were waking from a dream. Notes like kissing, soft enchanting melody. And then—oh. All at once. It hit him like a kick to the teeth. Of course. Of course Louis knew what it was. It was a song Lestat had played for him in their other life hundreds of times before.

Clair de Lune. Louis felt something shift in his brain, and suddenly the year was 1914. And his heart was flooded with memories. And he was standing in their drawing room at 1132 Royal Street. The music flowing from Lestat’s fingers moving into Louis like the pumping of a second heart. Clair de Lune, an appropriate name, Louis thought. Hadn’t every note always felt like moonlight moving over his skin?

Lestat played brilliantly. Only the slightest bit of hesitation in the notes at the start. Something Louis hardly would have noticed if this particular composition hadn’t been so ingrained in his spirit. The confidence in his fingers growing as he progressed to the complex middle of the piece. Playing with all the skill of someone who’d never even considered stepping away from the keys. As though the real, solid ivories of a piano had lived beneath Lestat’s fingers every second for centuries. A part of him like a limb; the beating heart in his center. The selfsame heart that had always beat inside Louis.

The music ended. The melody lingered. Lestat’s soft pale hands went still against the keys.

Louis’ breath caught in his chest when Lestat started to move. Silently rising from the chair and spinning on his heels to face Louis. Their eyes locked together, wide and unblinking. Breathing together, hearts beating together. They were the same, the same, the same, the same. Lestat took a step forward, and Louis drew an enormous breath, held it. His body was entirely still. He couldn’t even think to move. He allowed Lestat to crowd right into his personal space and take him by the collar of his shirt. Walk him backward until he was pressed right up against the door frame of the bedroom.

Lestat’s hand found Louis’ throat like it was coming back home. Fingers cradling Louis’ jawline as he pushed in close, pressed their foreheads together. Took a long silent moment just to breathe Louis in. The ends of their noses nuzzling together. Their lips a hair’s breadth from touching. Louis felt as though he were falling through the clouds, everything wild and spinning. He found the back of Lestat’s vest with both hands. Bunched the fabric in two tight fists until his knuckles burned.

Lestat’s lip twitched back. Soft snarling sound in his throat. He was a creature who’d caught the scent on a hunt. Lovesick beast howling in the dark of his blue-limned eyes. It was a thrilling thing to witness, something far beyond. And desire kicked low in Louis’ belly when Lestat put both hands on his neck and slotted their lips together. And licked into Louis’ mouth like some starving thing at last being permitted to feast. Velvet glide of their tongues together. Lestat bit Louis’ bottom lip and pressed him roughly against the doorframe with his hips. Snarling, wild animal love. They were beasts suddenly rocking together. Their cocks pounding to ferocious hardness trapped inside their pants. Every drop of the fresh blood Louis had taken that night rushing swiftly downward to that one central place.

Head swimming, his whole body groaning with how badly he wanted. Louis would have collapsed to the floor if not for Lestat’s body keeping him upright. He snarled against Lestat’s hungry mouth. Tried to shove his hands down the back of Lestat’s pants, up under the fabric of his vest. Greedy paws trying—and failing—to untuck his shirt from his waistband. Little sob in his throat as he sucked Lestat’s bottom lip, grazed the tender flesh with his teeth. Poleaxed clean through with the sudden need for skin, absolutely wrecked by the sudden ferociousness of his love. And then—

Lestat pulled back, kept one hand on Louis’ throat as he did. Louis whimpered at the loss of the kiss, then growled. Pawing at Lestat’s clothes with both hands. Irrationally furious when Lestat didn’t immediately lunge forward and kiss him again.

“Mon cœur…” The words fluttered out of Lestat desperate, broken things. “Louis…” He pressed their foreheads together. Drew a breath. And said—“Will you come to coffin with me?”

Desire struck Louis like lightning. Traveled on the wick of his spine all along the length of his back. He hadn’t been so aroused so quickly in three-quarters of a century. He felt it in his heart, his dick, the marrow of his bones.

“Yeah,” Louis managed, voice a straining figment of itself in his throat. “Yeah. Let’s…” He could hardly breathe, hardly think. Speaking was a near impossibility with how desperately he wanted. “Okay.”

Lestat pulled away, and somehow Louis didn’t collapse. He held onto the door frame behind him with both hands. And breathed. And breathed. And breathed. Trying to tamp down the blaze in his belly long enough that he could move, could think, could do anything at all.

Lestat sauntered into the bedroom and Louis watched him go. Pale hair skimming broad shoulders. Gaze tracking slowly downward to the devastating, slender cut of his waist. His pink lips were parted, and Louis could see his fangs were half-out. The full fat length of his cock was tenting the front of his pants.

Louis had to shut his eyes. His knees were going to buckle. He counted down his heartbeats in his head until his erection died away. And when he dared to look again, Lestat was already half naked. His bare skin like a siren’s song calling out to Louis. Giving him the nudge he needed to finally move.

He went to Lestat. He almost touched him. Thought better of it when he realized he wouldn’t be able to control himself now if he did. He needed Lestat’s skin on his skin. He needed to be naked. Making quick work of his clothes with shaking hands while Lestat stood across from him silent and patient as he peeled himself out of his pants.

The second they were both naked, Louis took Lestat’s hand and they went to the coffin, got inside, pulled the lid down behind them. The parallel lines of their bodies cupping like hands in the perfect, quiet dark. Lestat slung an arm over Louis’ waist, touched his back. Their faces close enough that their noses brushed together.

“How’d you, um…” Louis was talking without even meaning to do it. His hand cradled the side of Lestat’s blood-warm neck, feeling the steady, living pulse of his heart. “How’d you like your gift?”

Lestat was quiet. His hand skimmed down Louis’ back all the way and cradled the swell of his ass. “I do believe it’s the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever given me, Louis,” he said softly into the gush of silence. His voice was a tiny, quivering thing. Louis wondered if he was going to cry. “I felt as though we were back home on Rue Royale. All those years ago.” The anguished sound of his swallowing. Louis could feel the tension rise up the side of his neck and catch in his throat. “Tell me you remember, Louis. Tell me—”

“I remember.” Louis drew a breath, choking down a furious swell of emotion. So many moments he’d forced himself to forget suddenly flooding back all at once. Flashes of things that had come with the music, others only coming now pressed to Lestat’s naked body in the dark. “I tried not to. I—I tried to never think about it. All those times when we…”

Lestat breathed. He pressed a soft, sweet kiss to Louis’ mouth. “When we were so good together, mon cher,” he said, finishing Louis’ thought exactly. Kneading the flesh of Louis’ ass in his palm gently, gently. “Those times we were so happy it felt as though we were the only creatures left in the world.”

“Yes,” Louis said quietly into the minute space between them. His cock between his legs was filling very, very quickly. “Yes.”

Lestat pressed closer and kissed him at once. Drawing Louis tight against him, pressing their middles flush together. Tongues and teeth and snarling lips stoking the heat of their ever-burning flame. Their hands sought each other’s flesh until they were both rock hard and leaking. Velvet drag of their thumping cocks where they were pressed so close together. Louis wound his hands in Lestat’s hair and tugged hard, suddenly desperate for the sounds he would make. Desperate to make him feel it. That solid, living proof that Lestat had truly come back. Louis’ heart, Louis’ lover, his maker. His beautiful, golden, heartsick everything.

“Mon cher…” Lestat breathed hard against Louis’ lips when they broke the kiss. Little whimper on his tongue when Louis pulled his hair again. One of his hands pressing between them and gripping Louis’ aching erection. “Will you… will you let me. Let me take care…”

He kissed Louis again, licked into his mouth, bit at his bottom lip as though he were some starving thing.

“Let me take care of you. As you have taken such good care of me.”

“You don’t…” Louis was toeing the line of delirium. He didn’t know what he was saying. He was pretty sure he was talking just to keep himself from self-immolation. The air between them so hot he could’ve turned to dust. “You don’t have to do that. We can just…”

“Oh, love. Oh, my Louis, Louis…” Lestat drew his hand up along the length of Louis’ aching dick. Foreskin slicked with pre-come, gliding smooth as velvet over the head of it. “I have dreamed of this every sunrise for eight decades. I have dreamed of you…” Stroking up and down and up again. Little snarl in his throat. Only just barely holding the monster back. “Of feeling you like this. Your beautiful cock in my hand. Between my lips…”

The words were practically growling out of Lestat. He paused for one terrible second to spit in his hand, then immediately went back to working Louis’ cock again. Thumb teasing over the head, spreading spit and pre-come around. Making everything delightfully slippery as he stroked and stroked. His own neglected cock bumping right against Louis’ hip as he did.

“Feeling you deep inside me. Feeling your heat wrapped around me when I was deep inside you. So deep I could feel the beating of your heart.” Licking between Louis’ lips, his hand squeezing tight as a vise as he stroked. His fangs were poking out, Louis could feel them. The sharp, erect ends of them in his mouth as they kissed. “All of those beautiful things we did together, my Louis. When we took each other’s bodies inside as holy sacraments.”

Louis’ breath was coming very quick and hard. Pleasure pounded in his blood as Lestat stroked him root-to-tip; pleasure played along the ends of his nerves as though it were composing a symphony. He felt seized by it right down to his very center. The way it licked up the sides of his neck with every twist of Lestat’s big strong hand. Pleasure like lightning crashing in his heart; pleasure like hands on the nape of his neck. He could feel it in his blood, in his breath, in his teeth.

“I want you inside me, Louis. I want your beautiful cock to split me right in two.” Lestat worked the head of Louis cock in his hand with all the skill of an artist. Some mad fit of muscle memory reminding him exactly what Louis needed. Exactly the way to touch him to send him barreling right to the end. “I want to be inside of you. Fuck you breathless. Fuck you until you forget there was ever anyone else to have you that way. Until you forget his name, my Louis. Until you remember you belong to me.”

Lestat was rocking forward, his leaking cock seeking friction against Louis’ hip as he drew Louis ever-closer to completion. And Louis’ hips were moving too, fucking the sleeve of Lestat’s tight fist and almost perfectly matching his rhythm. His mouth on Lestat’s, the two of them snarling and kissing. Sucking Lestat’s velvet tongue and snapping at his bottom lip with his teeth. Biting down until he tasted blood just to lap at the wound. And Louis wanted to say something very important just then, Lestat’s blood on the end of his tongue like honey. Something that needed to be said. Something very important he needed Lestat to understand. But Louis couldn’t think, let alone get something like coherent words to come. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he—

He came with his fingers wound in Lestat’s hair and a sob catching hard in his throat. Pushing his cries between Lestat’s snarling lips as the orgasm ripped right through him. Waves of pleasure crashing over his nerves again and again. Spiking like a fever deep inside him but never quite reaching its limit. Maddening storm of pleasure, a thing even madder than love. Lestat pulled every last drop from his body until Louis had nothing left to give. And still it just kept going after. Pleasure that stretched so long and true Louis thought he might never see its end.

But when it was over—when Louis had finally spent himself and his nerve ends went up in tiny puffs of smoke and died away—he felt as though he had melted. Fingers in Lestat’s hair going loose and falling away. His cock all soft and withered as Lestat’s sticky hand cupped it gently. Skin buzzing with the afterimage of pleasure as Lestat peppered warm, sweet kisses all over Louis’ face.

He was distantly aware Lestat was touching himself, stroking his cock and from the sound of it using Louis’ come for lube. Slick, wet, filthy rhythm filling the dark of the coffin like music. His forehead pressed to Louis’, his mouth panting hot and frantic. Speaking broken French as he was always wont to do in the moments just before finding his release. Like the pleasure would crest to a point he could find nothing in his skull but fragments of his mother tongue.

Lestat came with a sob shattering like glass in his throat. His come splashing warm and sticky all over Louis’ soft cock and his hip. Their faces so close there was hardly space for a single breath between them. Louis could feel Lestat’s bloody tears on his cheeks. Lestat’s mouth was a monstrous snarl pressed to his. Lestat’s fangs were sharp pointed daggers against the top row of his teeth. And Louis couldn’t resist the urge to let his tongue dart out and feel them. Licking into Lestat’s mouth with a growl in his throat as Lestat stroked himself all the way to completion.

When it was over, Lestat came to rest practically right on top of Louis. His face in Louis’ neck as a flood of sobs wrenched their way out of his throat. Their bodies sticky and sated and covered in each other. Louis wrapped Lestat up in the fold of his arms. Pressed a kiss to the top of his sweat-damp head.

“I got you,” Louis whispered into the luminous dark that folded like arms all around them. “Hey. Lestat. It’s alright. Yeah, you can let it out. I got you.”

—

Later that same night—once they managed to extract themselves from each other and climb out of the coffin and get clean—Lestat sat naked on the vanity in the en suite, watching Louis put the finishing touches on his hair after his shower.

“Can I ask you something, mon cher?” Lestat’s voice was a velvety rumble in his throat. Louis looked at him. Soft pale face freshly cleaned of blood tears. One corner of his mouth still not quite healed from where Louis had bit it. Infuriating in his beauty. Louis wanted to bite him again.

“Course,” Louis said, a little thread of hesitation tugging low in his belly. He looked in the mirror again, all his focus still locked on Lestat in his periphery. “What is it?”

Lestat said nothing until Louis looked him in the eyes again. Bright blue eyes like magic tricks. Brilliant eyes of a human overlaid with the eyes of a monster. A gentle, braying beast Louis wanted to stroke with the back of his hand. “He was…” He started and stopped, looked away, down at his hands in a way that was almost bashful. “He was inside of you quite a lot, wasn’t he?” He let that sit for a moment that made Louis’ stomach ache. “The gremlin.”

Spike of anger. Instant heat. Too many feelings all layered on top of each other at once. And something like relief underneath them. Lestat—utterly himself. The undistilled essence of him in all his possessive, complicated glory. Louis looked into the mirror when Lestat once again met his gaze. Keeping his eyes fixed on the curves of his own hard face. He didn’t know if he was more happy or sad or pissed off. If he really just wanted to pull Lestat down off the vanity and kiss him. He settled on tensing his jaw, watching the muscles flex in his face. At last turning his gaze back to Lestat and saying—

“We were together seventy-seven years, Lestat.”

But it wasn’t what he’d meant to say. It wasn’t what either of them needed. It wasn’t what he’d wanted very badly to say in the throes of pleasure back in the coffin. That very important thing that was only coming back to him now. And he didn’t know why he couldn’t say it. Why he wouldn’t. He’d only need to open his mouth and permit the words to come.

“I know, mon cher,” Lestat said very quietly, sad blue eyes flicking over Louis’ face. His hand reaching out and touching the bare curve of Louis’ shoulder. “I know.”

—

For three nights after, they ventured out just as the sun bent its final rays down below the horizon. They hunted most efficiently and they feasted hungrily together. They smoked cigarettes on a bench in Jackson Square and talked about everything and nothing at all. They went back to the hotel and Lestat played Clair de Lune on the Casio for Louis. They closed themselves in the coffin with no clothes on. They got each other off using nothing more than their hands. They showered together after. They touched each other gently. They lay in the bed naked holding one another and kissing slowly until the sun was almost up.

Lestat had returned to himself, yet Louis couldn’t help but still feel that vellum-thin wall between them. The wall he’d been so certain at first had been ripped to shreds by the music. The wall that was presently stopping them from going all the way with each other. Stopping them even though they very much wanted to. Even though it should have been the thing they were doing every second, fucking each other wild and breathless. But the more he reflected on his inability—or really, his refusal—to answer Lestat’s simple question, Louis was starting to understand where the wall was coming from.

It wasn’t about Lestat or the music. It was a wall Louis had built up for himself deep inside the chambers of his heart. A wall he could still crouch behind to avoid the horror show that was Being Vulnerable. Something he could wield like a weapon when he didn’t like a particular truth. Something he was still mindlessly clinging to even now that he could see clearly. Even now that he could remember.

On the sixteenth night of their stay in the Garden District hotel, Louis understood exactly what he was going to have to do. His gaze was turned fully inward, looking at those last hidden parts of himself. Poking at the wall with the tip of his finger. Deciding right there and then to give the wall a name. Give it the name of his oldest friend that had always lived deep inside him. The one he could always call on to protect his truth. The one he called Withholding.

They’d just returned to their suite following their hunt and cigarette binge in the Quarter. Lestat had just sat down in front of the Casio but hadn’t started playing just yet. Louis approached from behind, eyes locked unblinking on the back of his golden head. Calling on the words deep inside him, feeling that vellum-thin wall start to tremble.

“To answer your question…” Louis shut his mouth. He drew a breath. He let the end of the sentence toll right to the tip of his tongue before he released it. “He never was.”

Lestat was very still where he sat. He turned around to face Louis with a calculated precision. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Like he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to find back there. “Mon cher, I don’t—”

“You asked if he was inside of me a lot.” Louis gazed down at Lestat and felt that wall in his heart begin to shatter. “I’m telling you he never was. Not once.” Demolishing his old friend Withholding. Shoving it down to rot with Fear and Shame. “Not a single time in seventy-seven years was Armand ever inside me. It never felt—I never even thought about it with him, it just—we were never—”

Louis breathed in, breathed out. Lestat was gazing up at him in silence with something like awe in his eyes.

“The way it was with Armand. It—” Louis stepped closer, cupped Lestat’s burning cheek in his hand. “It was never like me and you. I’ve never been with anyone… the way I was with you. I need you to…” He moved his hand from Lestat’s cheek, touched his neck to feel the steady, frantic drumming of his pulse. Sucking a breath when Lestat reached up and gripped the front of his shirt. “I need you to understand that, Lestat. No one else is ever going to have me that way. Only you.”

Lestat blinked up at Louis. There was a slick of tears in his eyes. Louis wished he could jump inside his head more than he’d ever wished for anything. For just that single instant—to be able to read the pulse of his thoughts, to understand every nuance of what Lestat was thinking.

Slowly, Lestat released his hold on Louis’ shirt. He rose to his feet. He pressed himself to Louis completely. Took the circle of Louis’ neck in his big warm hands and said—“I see.”

His thumbs moved over Louis’ throat soft and reverent. Like he just needed to feel the hum of his pulse. Needed to feel for himself it was there, it was there.

“Tu es à moi.” Lestat’s voice breathed out of him gently. His eyes were on the space where his hands were touching Louis. Like he could hardly believe he was there. He blinked. You’re mine.

“Oui,” Louis offered, felt the single syllable catch like a hook in his throat. He snaked his arms around Lestat’s middle, pressed his hands to Lestat’s back over his clothes. To steady himself. To feel Lestat there. To feel him. “Je suis à toi.”

I’m yours.

Lestat cradled the back of Louis’ head in both hands. Knocked their foreheads together. So close when he started to speak Louis could feel the movement of his lips. So close they were almost kissing. “May I suggest we skip the musical portion of the evening, mon cher, and—”

“Yes.” A jolt of desire traveled the length of Louis’ spine like an electric impulse riding a wire. “I would like that very much.”

—

They were standing in the bedroom across from one another. Close, but not quite close enough to touch. Locked in a dizzying orbit like a fertile planet circling a supernova star, though which of them was which Louis would never be certain. Undressing without speaking. Quickly, quickly. Louis’ hands were near the point of numb with excitement. The room filled with the soft rustle of fabric hitting the floor. The draw of frantic breaths. The steady, wild beating of their selfsame hearts.

When they were naked, Louis stood frozen for a moment or two. Eyes flitting over the radiant vision of Lestat in all his glory. All solid, lean muscle and skin pinked with the blood of the kill. His cock thick and heavy and half-swollen where it bobbed between his legs. Louis’ heart pulsed with desire and love. It was like seeing Lestat for the very first time there in front of him. It was like the two of them were starting from day one all over again.

Louis forced himself to turn away. He went to the bathroom quickly, rifled around in his toiletry case until he found the bottle of lube. Something he hadn’t touched in so long he’d only just remembered it was there. He took it out into the bedroom. He set it on the nightstand. He turned to Lestat and stepped right into his personal space. Put both hands on the slender dips of his waist.

“Seventy-seven years is a very long time, mon cher.” Lestat threw his arms around Louis’ neck, pushed closer. Buried his face right in the hollow of Louis’ throat. “A very long time to deny yourself something we both know you love.”

Louis pressed his hands to Lestat’s back. It felt like there was a fire leaping under his skin. Fingers slowly tracing the lovely dip of his spine. They were so close that their cocks pressed together, both of them hard and insistent and leaking. “I told you it was never…” Louis let his hands track down, finding the swell of Lestat’s ass, that velvet skin making him shiver. “Wasn’t about denying—it was never…”

Lestat pulled back just enough to look Louis in the eyes, press both hands to his chest. “Tell me, Louis,” he said, and pushed forward again, heat of his breath on Louis’ mouth like kisses. “Mon cher. Tell me…”

“You already know.” Louis pressed his forehead to Lestat’s. Reaching up, combing fingers through his soft pale hair, touching his neck. “You know. I told you already. I’m yours.”

Lestat was quiet for a handful of seconds. He kissed Louis on the corner of his mouth. On his cheek, his chin. “S'il te plaît, mon amour. The whole reason.” He nuzzled his nose against Louis’, hands sliding warm and seeking along the length of Louis’ back. “It would help me a great deal to hear it from your lips.”

Louis let his hands move over the nape of Lestat’s warm neck. Touch the skin of his throat, feel the wild hammering of his heart underneath it. If they were going to do this—if they were going to move forward—have any hope at making this something more than a heartsick lover’s affair in a hotel suite in New Orleans—

He stomped on the shards of Withholding. He stomped on Fear and Shame.

“I’m in love with you, Lestat.” Louis paused. He felt Lestat breathe in, breathe out. Exactly the pace of his own breathing. Everything perfectly in sync. So close their noses touched. So close Louis hardly needed to whisper. “Always been you. Always. I’ve been in love with you since—since the night I…”

“Louis.” Lestat’s voice was nothing more than breath in his throat. His hands pressed to Louis’ back like he was trying to will his way in. Meld himself with Louis until their flesh was the same. “Since when, my sweet?”

Louis wound his fingers in Lestat’s hair, cradled the back of his head. His arousal was nothing short of radiant, but compared to his love it felt like a flicker, some unimportant, secondary thing. “Since the night I saw you at the Fairplay Saloon. Before that. Before I saw you. I…” Breathing in, breathing out. Manic drumming of Lestat’s heart like a song under his skin. “I heard your voice. And it was like someone kicked me in the chest. And I didn’t understand why it felt that way at the time. I was so in denial about who I was. You know—you…” He sighed with his entire chest. “You know. You were in my head.”

“Your thoughts were a savage tangle of desire and confusion, my love.”

Louis could hear it in his voice. Lestat was already losing himself to the memory. He took hold of his hair and tugged him back, forced their eyes to lock together. Wet eyes rimmed in red. Cheeks flushed scarlet with blood and emotion.

“Yeah, well…” Louis swallowed. His hands were on Lestat’s neck feeling the gush of his heart. “Not confused anymore. About anything. I can see all of it clearly now. Clear enough to tell you why it never…”

He leaned in close. Shut his eyes. Breathed with Lestat. Felt his arousal, his longing, his anguish, his heart. All of it spinning right in the center of him. Furious blue eye of a hurricane.

“Why it never felt right to want someone inside me who wasn’t you. Not Armand, not—” He drew a shuddering breath. Felt it in his stomach, his chest. Felt it like a fist to the throat. “Not anyone. It’s because I’m in love with you. Because I’ve been in love with you the whole time. Every day. Even when I couldn’t admit it. Even when…”

Louis’ face was pressed against the side of Lestat’s warm neck. He hadn’t even realized he’d been sobbing the words until he could no longer force them to come. Until they were all drowned out in the great gasping sobs he was pushing from his throat. He was holding onto Lestat and shaking against him. Pawing at his skin and his hair. Lestat—right there and pressed against him. Lestat—alive and well, holding Louis so fiercely in the palms of his hands.

“Mon amour,” Lestat’s voice was a pitch-dark ruin. He was crying too. Just a little. Louis could feel how very badly he was trying to hold it together. “Beloved. Louis…” He pressed a kiss into Louis’ hair. Drew him back by the nape of his neck. Swept a soft, warm kiss along his brow. “My Louis…”

Louis rasped a breath. He wanted so badly to keep speaking. There was so much more there inside him he needed Lestat to hear. Like how he knew in his bones it wasn’t just about the love or the longing. It was that Lestat lived so wholly inside him there had never—not even once—been room for anyone else. Lestat was inside him always, pounding in his blood, filling his veins and his arteries. Lestat was the pulsing, eternal rhythm of Louis’ immortal heart.

But all he could do was gaze at Lestat through the film of tears that covered his eyes. The blood making everything pink-tinged and rosy. Allowing Lestat to lead him to the bed and sit him down on the edge of it. Head whirring as Lestat lowered himself down to his knees on the floor.

“Mon cher…” Lestat settled right between the V of Louis’ legs. Reaching up, cradling Louis’ tear-slicked face in his hands. “If you’re not ready—”

“I am…” Louis blinked his tears away. Drew a breath. Focused on Lestat’s unblinking eyes there before him. Black centers rimmed in vivid blue. “I am more than ready, Lestat.” A sudden fit of laughter rumbled out of him. A burst of joy finding his heart in the middle of the storm. “I have never wanted anything more.”

“Tu es l'amour de ma vie, Louis.” Lestat drew Louis down until he could slot their lips together. Kissed him sweetly. The faintest hint of teeth scraping Louis’ bottom lip as he pulled away. “Those words are so inadequate to say what you are to me. My Louis. My beloved.” He spoke the words soft as breath against the swell of Louis’ lips. “How can I ever—”

“How about for now…” Louis stroked a hand over Lestat’s hair, found the nape of his neck. Drew him impossibly close. So close they were almost kissing. “We don’t need to talk anymore. I’d rather you just show me.”

A sound bubbled up in Lestat’s hungry throat. Animal sound, a soft little snarl. Something both needy and dark. Tiniest flash of his teeth in the minute space between them. “Show you how much I love you, mon cher?”

“Yes,” Louis breathed. And just like that—like throwing a switch and flooding a room with so much light—the arousal hit him again. The scent of Lestat so close was an intoxicating thing. “Yes.”

Lestat rose to his feet as though on a current of air. Looming over Louis’ where he sat, cradling the back of his head, touching his hair. The two of them kissing with a growl bubbling in Lestat’s wanting throat. “Oh, I’ll show you, my Louis…” He licked along the seam of Louis’ lips. His voice was thick as molasses in his throat, absolutely wrecked with emotion. “I’ll push my love so deep inside you. So deep…” Little twitch of his mouth. Little curl of his tongue darting out for just a second. “So deep you’ll feel me in your heart.”

They were kissing, kissing, kissing. Growling against one another’s lips, the two of them locked dead center in the eye of the storm of their longing. They drew one another into the middle of the bed. Moved as though they were floating. Kissing, kissing, kissing, kissing. Louis lay on his back and spread his legs, pulled Lestat’s body down on top of him. Kissing, kissing. Kissing until they were breathless. Hands on each other everywhere. Their middles pressed flush together with their cocks swelling again to full hardness.

Lestat broke the kiss with a sweet little whimper. “Louis,” he said, the end of his nose nuzzling Louis’ cheek. Peppering kisses all over his face, lapping the remnants of his tears away. “Louis. Louis…”

He pulled away, sat back on his heels, and Louis watched him go as though seeing it from underwater. Head plunged down in the Gulf with the wild wind of the storm churning the water all around him. Lestat’s skin was radiant and flushed, lamplight catching in his hair and painting a golden halo on top of his head. He touched Louis on the hip, the waist, the middle of his chest…

One hand gliding down the length of Louis’ arm. He took him by the wrist and drew it close to his lips. “Louis,” Lestat said. “My Louis, Louis…”

He pressed his nose to the point of Louis’ pulse, scenting the blood under his skin.

“Louis.”

Lestat’s tongue darted out. He lapped at the skin, and Louis gasped—jolt of pleasure leaping from his wrist to his heart to his dick.

“Lestat.”

Louis reached forward, touched Lestat on the slender line of his waist. Hand skimming downward quickly to wrap around the length of his dick. Watching the beautiful shift in Lestat’s expression as he did it. Heartsick beast to starving animal in a fraction of a second.

“Louis.”

Louis stroked Lestat from base to tip and back again. Slung a leg up over his hip and tried to draw him closer. “Lestat.”

Lestat’s lip twitched back at once and his fangs popped out. Louis held onto his cock just to feel it thump in his hand. His own erection leaking and rigid where it pressed to his belly. Watching as Lestat’s sharp fangs pierced into the skin of his wrist. Puncturing the font of Louis’ artery. Louis’ vision whiting out for a second or two as Lestat began to suck.

“Les—Lestat…” Louis released his hold on Lestat’s cock, touched his chest, hooked both legs around his hips in some desperate attempt at drawing him closer. Needing skin-on-skin more than he’d ever needed anything. “Lestat.”

Lestat held firm where he had himself planted on the bed. Crushing Louis’ wrist against his mouth with both hands, drinking him down with a wild abandon. His eyes were shut and there were tears on his cheeks. Streaks of red marking a path on his face and cascading down to his throat.

“Louis.” The name growled out of Lestat as he wrenched Louis’ wrist away. Lapped at the blood trickling out of the puncture marks left in his wake. Red on his mouth and streaked on his chin. Both of his big wonderful hands moving swiftly to take Louis by the curves of his waist. “Mon cher…”

Lestat snarled forward at once. Covering Louis’ whole body with his own and crashing their mouths together. The taste of Louis’ blood was fresh as something just killed on his lips. Louis wrapped Lestat up in his arms and his legs. Gripping his soft pale hair at the roots as Lestat rocked his hips and their cocks slipped smoothly together. Rocking and rocking as though their bodies were a ship on the ocean. Thrusting hard against Louis as they kissed all tangled up together there in the middle of the bed.

When Lestat broke the kiss and pulled back he looked crazed. Hair a mess all on top of his head. Cheeks flushed with arousal and spattered with the blood from his tears. Pupils dilated to their absolute limit, deep black voids limned in hazy blue gazing down at Louis. And Louis swore he could see down into those eyes all the way to the bottom. See the radiant glint of Lestat’s wondrous soul reaching through the dark for him.

Lestat shoved Louis’ legs away from his hips. Hooked his hands up under Louis’ knees and pushed them back as far as they would go. They touched Louis’ shoulders, nearly touched his ears. The sensation of being spread open and exposed for Lestat so quickly was almost more than Louis could take. It was dizzying how thrilling it was and he instantly wanted more. Drawing his knees back against himself until his whole body ached. Pulsing, fervent need to be speared open by Lestat’s hunter’s gaze.

“Mine,” Lestat said with a snarl in his throat. He pressed both hands to Louis’ ass and spread him impossibly wider. Spit down onto his hole. Took two thick, warm fingers and started tracing circles against it. “Mine. All mine. My Louis…”

Lestat pulled his fingers from Louis and drew them up to his lips. Ripped the sharp tips of his nails away quickly with his teeth. Then thrust them into his mouth all the way, slicking the lengths with his spit. The sight of it enough to make Louis’ cock pound like a drum where it was pressed to his belly. The angle of his body sending streaks of pre-come all the way up to his collarbone.

“Mine.” Lestat drew the spit-slick lengths of his fingers over Louis’ hole. Slow, reverent swipes, the rhythm of it deeply meditative to the point of being hypnotic. “Tu es à moi…” His pupils somehow grew darker, wider. His gaze never once flitting away from the space where he was touching Louis. The ends of his fingers slowly pushing in just a fraction of an inch. Hardly penetrating Louis at all before he pulled back. “Forever and ever, Louis. Forever and…”

Lestat bent forward. Licked a stripe from Louis’ hole all the way up to his balls. Bracing both hands on the back of Louis’ thighs, shoving his knees back until he was practically folded in two. Until all Louis could do was quiver against himself, the tight little pocket of his body there in the middle of the bed. Hands groping blindly for Lestat’s hair, his neck, anywhere Louis could reach. Pleasure like lightning crashes with every long, broad swipe of Lestat’s tongue against him. The tip of it opening him gently, fucking in just a hair’s breadth before pulling back, plunging forward. Licking, sucking, peppering sugar-sweet kisses against it. Making love to Louis’ hole with his lips and his tongue until he was dripping.

“Lestat,” Louis heard himself say somewhere beyond the drumming of blood in his head. “Lestat…” His hands fell down at his sides and gripped the covers until his knuckles ached. “Lestat.”

His cock thumped in time with his heart. Louis would come from this if they weren’t careful. He could feel himself toeing the edge of madness already. It had been so very long. The space of a whole human lifetime. Lestat pulled his mouth away and replaced his tongue with his fingers. Dripping spit and seeking heat, pushing in until the tips of them penetrated Louis wide open.

A snarling sound punched from Louis’ throat as Lestat pulled his fingers back, plunged them forward. Back and forth, again and again. Until at last Louis’ body started to give way and permit their full, thick lengths inside him. Lestat slicked him with more spit, fucked into Louis with his fingers all the way. All the way to the glorious bottom. Until there were sparks in Louis’ eyes. Crooking the ends just so, working up a slick, rocking rhythm. Getting his mouth on Louis’ dick and trailing open-mouthed kisses up along the length of it. A moan bubbling hard in his throat as he took the swollen head inside.

Pleasure dripped over Louis’ whole body sweet as honey from the back of a spoon. The heat of it choking as Louisiana air in the dead of summer. Lestat worked Louis’ cock up and down with the wicked instruments of his mouth and his hand. His other hand spearing those two thick fingers deep inside him. Fervent, driving, maddening rhythm, making Louis’ body gape. Lestat’s tongue darting out as he took Louis deeper into his mouth, and swallowed, and sputtered around it. And welcomed Louis’ cock into the heat of his throat all the way, all the way, all the way.

“Please,” Louis said without even meaning to. Slurring, almost delirious. The pleasure crawling over his nerves and tunneling into his bones. “Lestat, please, I—I can’t—I…”

Lestat pulled back and let Louis slip from his mouth at once. “Mon cher…” He was panting, breathless. Spit on his chin and blood tears on his cheeks. He withdrew his fingers quickly and sat back on his heels. Drawing Louis’ legs toward him until his feet were resting on the bed. “Is it too much? We can stop—”

“No.” Louis reached out and touched Lestat with both hands. Palms grazing over his torso, his hips, his thighs. “Fuck—no, Lestat. Don’t wanna stop. I…” His cock was so hard it hurt just to speak, to breathe. Swell of fresh tears in his eyes and tumbling over his cheeks. “Just… got me so close already, you know. And I…”

Louis’ eyes flicked to Lestat’s cock where it stood rigid and leaking. The beautiful, blood-swollen length of it. So hard his foreskin had totally retracted. The head blushing pink and drooling a long tendril of pre-come from its slit.

“I see,” Lestat said very quietly. He wrapped his hand around his dick and stroked himself once, twice, three times. Slowly, slowly. “You want this inside of you, hm? Want to feel me splitting you wide open on my cock when you come.”

Louis drew a shuddering breath. Counted out his own heartbeats in the length of his dick. “Yes. Fuck. I’ll fuckin’ beg you if you need me to, just—been too long. Too—”

“Oh, love…” Lestat’s eyes were blacker than night. Quickly—he reached over, snatched the bottle of lube from the nightstand. Kept his eyes fixed firmly on Louis as he popped the cap. “You will never have to beg for this. Never, my Louis…”

He coated his cock with a generous amount of lube, slicked Louis’ hole. Spearing into him with two fingers and slicking him deep inside. And when everything was slippery he tossed the bottle away. Shoved Louis’ knees back quickly. Let the spread of his own thighs go impossibly wide on the bed.

“It’s yours, mon cher. As is the rest of me. Je suis à toi…” Tears quivered in Lestat’s wild eyes. His fangs were half-descended. He looked like he wanted to sob and feast in equal, maddening measure. “Hold yourself open for me, beloved. Let me see—yes. Oh, Louis. That is—you are so—mon cher, you are so…”

Louis gripped the backs of his thighs. His knees were drawn back to his shoulders. His breaths were coming very quickly. Nothing but the shared drumming of his and Lestat’s blood filled the cavern of his head.

“My beautiful Louis…” Lestat wrapped his hand around Louis’ cock and held on. Swiping the head of his own dick over Louis’ slicked up hole. His hands were shaking terribly. Louis could see it in his face—the way he was so close to losing his composure. So close to shutting off his brain and letting the wild animal free. “Relax. That’s it. Relax for me, mon cher. Relax…”

Lestat kept his eyes locked with Louis’ as he pushed forward. The thick head of his cock only just barely breaching the slicked up rim of Louis’ hole. Louis gasped a breath, held it. Only exhaling when Lestat pulled back, licked the head of his cock over Louis’ rim again. Hard twitch of his mouth as he thrust forward. Drew back. Thrust forward. Drew back. Again and again and—

“Louis—” Lestat sobbed. He snapped his hips and his cock speared Louis clean in two. Stopping himself with a growl in his throat when he’d buried only half his length. Blood tears spilling from his eyes and tumbling over his cheeks. “Beloved. My—my Louis…”

Lestat drew Louis’ legs toward him until they draped up over his hips. Thrusting forward with a snarl until he was buried inside Louis all the way. And they were perfectly flush together. One being, one heart. The points of their shared pulse pounding in that sacred space where they were linked together.

“Louis…” Lestat took Louis by the waist and held him firm and steady. “Mon cher, you…” He rocked back and forth once, slowly. Sending a single crack of pleasure up along the wick of Louis’ spine. “Mon cher, you really love me. You…”

It wasn’t a question. Lestat said it like he knew it was true, and yet he still wouldn’t allow himself to believe it. This blessing after darkness. This love that flowed between them like blood. Pleasure that danced silver-blue as moonlight all over the planes of their skin.

Louis opened his mouth, tried to speak, found he couldn’t. So he reached forward and touched Lestat instead. Firm muscle of his torso. Wild, drumming heartbeat like a ceremony under his ribs. He nodded his head, gaze firmly fixed on Lestat’s. Willing Lestat to see it in his eyes, see it deep down in the hollows of his spirit. Yes. I love you. I love you. I love you more than anything in the world.

Lestat sobbed. Held firm to Louis’ waist with one hand, moved the other to Louis’ dick in the split second before he started to move. Snapping his hips and stroking Louis’ cock in a wondrous, dizzying rhythm. The tears on his cheeks were the color of fresh cherries. His eyes were bright black wells without any bottoms. Louis fell into them and it felt like swimming, flying, floating, falling.

The pleasure spiked inside him at once. It was a swelling, furious, almost insurmountable thing. Lestat’s predator’s hips gliding smooth as any machine. His cock driving into Louis and spearing him open again and again. His hand working over Louis’ cock perfectly in time with his thrusts. Lestat’s eyes only shutting to blink the tears away. Broken French falling fast from his mouth like drops of rain on pavement. The speed of his thrusts picking up by the second. His lips twitching back to expose the ends of his teeth, his fully extended fangs like little daggers.

The monster was jumping out. It was beyond thrilling for Louis to see it. He moved his hands to Lestat’s thighs and held on as best he could manage. Allowing himself to be overwhelmed by the pleasure, allowing the snarling beast to take him. His cock jumping hard in the tight sleeve of Lestat’s clever hand. He wasn’t going to last much longer. He wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t—

“Louis,” Lestat growled, moved both his hands to the circle of Louis’ waist as his pace drove him impossibly forward. Hips gliding as though on a current, fucking Louis to the hilt again and again. Snarling beast. Heartsick man so in love, so in love. “Come for me, beloved. I want to feel you—feel you twitch all around me as you come—as you—”

Lestat’s top lip fully pulled back. He growled. Wild beast starving for blood. He fucked Louis like he was going to die if he stopped. If his hips let up for even a second. Driving the headboard against the wall with every furious thrust. And Louis knew with a certainty that the whole hotel would be able to hear it. And that only made the pleasure crest higher. Only made the desire push deeper down into his soul. He wanted the whole of the Garden District to hear it. He wanted the whole city of New Orleans to know.

Their bodies were a storm making a ruin of the bed. Louis hissed when he started to come. Lips drawing back and his fangs popping out to meet Lestat’s beastly snarl. His cock pulsed untouched against his belly. Spurt after hot spurt of come painting his skin as Lestat fucked him to the point of madness, well beyond the point of completion. Only spending himself deep inside Louis when it was certain Louis’ body didn’t have even a single drop more left to give.

The afterimage of pleasure kissed Louis everywhere. The soles of his feet, the pads of his fingers, swimming like auras behind his tear-slicked eyes. Lestat stayed inside of Louis for a very long time after they’d finished. His body half wilted, his cock going soft all the way before he finally let himself slip free. And collapse in a big sticky heap right on top of Louis on the bed.

Lestat settled between Louis’ spread legs, curled against his chest, allowing himself to wither and be folded into Louis’ arms. Head under Louis’ chin like he was some tiny, shrunken thing. And it didn’t take long for the sobbing to come. Louis soothed a hand down Lestat’s sweat-damp back and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

“I love you, Lestat,” Louis said very quietly. Allowing Lestat to shatter anew right there in the fold of his arms. “It’s okay. I got you.”

—

Later, in the coffin, after they’d cleaned themselves and the ruined bedclothes as best they could manage, Louis and Lestat’s bodies cupped each other like hands. Their hearts beat perfectly as one where their chests pressed together. Louis watched Lestat’s blue eyes shine inside their nest of dark. He traced the bow of Lestat’s mouth with a finger. So content he could have cried had he any tears left inside him to give.

“Can I ask you something, Louis?” Lestat said very softly into the minute space between them. His hand was tracing a pattern against Louis’ back again and again. Soft, looping rhythm. Shapes that all felt exactly like love.

“Anything,” Louis said, voice drowsy and slow. The sun would be coming up shortly. He felt the pull of the grave strong as any narcotic.

Lestat kissed the tip of Louis’ finger where it danced along the curve of his lips. Then pushed forward and stole his mouth for good measure. Pulling back with a contented humming sound in his throat. “When we leave this place,” he said very slowly, the slightest bit of hesitation in his tone. “Where would you like to go? If you could pick anywhere in the world for us to build a home, mon cher. Anywhere at all.”

Louis hummed. Little zing of something he couldn’t name in his chest. He was falling half into dreams, he could feel it. He fought with all that he had to keep his eyes open. To keep his voice clear as he gazed at Lestat through the dark and said—

“Don’t care.” Louis let that sit for a single aching second. He pushed forward and kissed Lestat on his soft pink lips. “I mean it. As long as I got you…”

Louis’ eyes fell shut. He lost the thread of his thoughts at once. He could hardly think in the shape of real words anymore. And Lestat drew Louis’ body more tightly against him. Pleasant crush of their torsos together. Pleasant heat of Lestat’s heartbeat on his skin.

“I feel quite the same, my Louis,” Lestat said in the moments just before Louis lost himself to the dreaming. The sound of his voice like the air settling after a storm. A gentle, looping melody. Caressing Louis again and again. “I have you. So I am already home.”