Archive of Our Own

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It happens so fast Lestat can't even take the time to think about anything, much less what he's saying or doing. One moment he's seeing Louis in the crowd, real this time, not dressed in the clothes of yesterday and soaked from New Orleans rain but in modern clothes, clean lines and a bold pattern on the shirt, face almost stoic except for the way his mouth curves up at the corners when Lestat spots him. One moment he's seeing Louis, and the next he's coming offstage after the second encore, the band a mess of weary heartbeats and mortal sweat around him and Louis vanished from the crowd, and Lestat chasing after him through labyrinthian hallways.

He's not where Lestat would have thought to look for him, of course. No, apparently the wings or Lestat's dressing room were not suitable locations for Louis de Pointe du Lac. Instead he had chosen the first place Lestat goes once he realizes Louis is nowhere inside the building: the alleyway outside of the stage door.

Lestat lets the door bang closed behind him in silence, raising his eyebrows in surprise when he sees Louis, as though he'd only run into him by accident, and holds out the cigarette he removes from his pack without even saying anything. He's getting much better at this whole 'devil may care' thing. Much easier to hide his hurt when the loneliness eclipses every other emotion, and he’s had a lot of practice hiding loneliness.

"What makes you think I have a lighter?" Louis asks.

Lestat very deliberately does not look at him. "I didn't know you needed one."

A brief pause, and then Louis reaches out, his fingers aflame. Lestat holds very, very still and tries to ignore the heat burning its way down his spine as Louis lights his cigarette and the first tendril of smoke curls up into the night sky.

Lestat closes his eyes, focusing on the sensation of nicotine bleeding into his veins. He'd never smoked as a human, never had access to anything so luxurious before and had never really wanted it anyway. Wine and bread and a warm place to sleep with someone he loved: that had been enough.

Now he had plenty of wine, at least via the blood of any number of willing donors. The bread wasn't necessary. And the other thing was more difficult to obtain than Lestat had foolishly imagined it to be, back in the eighteenth century, when he knew even less than he did now. Not as though that was saying much. "Thank you."

"Mm."

"I saw you," Lestat says. It comes out very cool and collected: good. As per the terms of their relationship, which Louis had of course not said out loud but had dictated nonetheless. "In the audience."

"Did you?" Louis asks. His voice is like hot syrup on ice, his accent shiver-inducing. Lestat, proudly, does not shiver. Nor does he melt. "Was wondering if you had time to see me with all the writhing around."

Lestat shrugs. "I notice every pretty face in the crowd."

When Louis laughs, Lestat realizes his mistake. He cannot bring himself to care. "I see. So, you did notice."

Lestat drags on the cigarette, watching the ember at the end flare up and flicker out before he releases it. "I did."

"And?"

"And?"

Louis looks at him. He's smoking as well, Lestat notices belatedly, although he seems to be much less reliant on his own cigarette as a method of escape from the present conversation. "Take it you're still mad."

Lestat frowns. "And if I was? Your book was less than factual, and may I add–"

"Told you there were edits–"

"It was as if you never tried to understand, to know–"

"I told you, I thought I burned–"

"You," Lestat says, and he's wobbly on his feet, pointing the cigarette like a finger toward Louis while looking anywhere other than him, too afraid of what meeting Louis' eyes would do to him. "Yes. You were right. I know. I know that is how you – I am sorry."

There's silence in the alley, broken only by distant rabble and the occasional drunken shout from the world of humanity, made alien to them far before the millenium of the current century.

"Hang on," Louis says, eventually. "What?"

Lestat flings his hand out so far ash goes flying over the roof of the neighboring two-story building. "I was unjustifiably angry. You – you told the story from your own perspective. I have no right to challenge it, just as I have no right to challenge–"

"Fuck rights," Louis says, stepping into his space. "Fuck whatever you're talking about, Lestat, you know the book was edited, don't give me this shit–"

"It's the truth, Louis!" Lestat's shouting now, uncaring of the startled mortal thoughts he can sense being directed to their vicinity. "Your truth, your unburdening of the past, of my guilt–"

"Really? My truth? You don't know anything about 'my truth,' won't listen when I try to tell you what the truth is. Don't pull that with me."

Lestat laughs. "As if I was not there with you!"

"No," Louis says. "You weren't. Not you, not – you can be real fuckin' obtuse, you know that?"

"Oh, and now he is calling me stupid–"

"Obtuse, different word–"

"Pedantry, pedantry, pedantry!"

"Add deaf to the list, since you don't listen to anything I say." Louis' eyes are steel-sharp. Now he's really furious. Lestat loves it, or some distant corner of his soul – if he still has one – does. He's a lot more focused on the other part, which is a seething mass of hurt and anger. And he had been trying to apologize! "Do you? Ears blown out by those massive speakers of yours, or does everything just go in one ear and out the other?"

Lestat snorts despite himself. "As my ears could be damaged that way."

"Fine. So you've got no excuse for not listening to me, that it?"

"I am listening to you!" Lestat yells back. "I am listening, Louis, to the sum of your words before this, to–"

He gestures, as though he does not have to elaborate rather than having a lump in his throat that would prevent any further speech that isn't ridiculously high-pitched.

Louis looks at him, face arranged in that way he used to have when he was puzzling over some business decision of the Fairplay, and the memory only makes things worse. "To?"

Lestat grunts. After a tense silence, Louis looks away, shoulders sinking back to neutral, and laughs. Not much humor in it, but then there had never been much humor in Louis. It's why Lestat had delighted so much in making him laugh, before. "I'm not looking for an apology about – about what happened in the book. What happened back then. We've been over that."

Lestat shrugs miserably. "Fine."

"But you're still angry."

"Yes. No. I am imitating you, mon cher. I have decided to become unnecessarily confusing."

"Don't gotta imitate me to do that," Louis tells him. Lestat glances over, and when he does he's treated to Louis' eyes crinkling at the corners. Unfair of him to smile, knowing as he must know how beautiful he is when he does.

It only makes Lestat angrier. He looks away with his whole body, turning toward the mouth of the alley. "A month."

That does it. He can almost feel Louis' anger and guilt and the anger that comes from that guilt, catching and burning. "Back to that, then?"

"Why should I not go back to that?"

"I don't know what you wanted me to do."

Lestat whirls around. "Be honest with me. That is what I – and then to stop calling, stop texting, stop everything so suddenly–"

"You blocked me!"

"I waited! Three whole hours, Louis!"

"And what was I supposed to say, Lestat? I'd told you everything I–"

"And to leave me with it, with that awful book, to leave me alone with your hateful words, your insulting characterizations–"

"Told you already, I wasn't–"

"To confirm my worst fears and to do so without even the – the – je ne sais quoi, to do so to my face–"

"What, you wanted me to insult you on FaceTime? Tell you all the same shit I said back in the seventies, and then say I didn't really mean it after? Is that what you wanted, Lestat?"

Lestat's fangs are poking into his gums. "It would have been more honest."

"It would've been stupid," Louis says. "I told you what I wanted to tell you when I found you in that shack. I told you on the phone, too, Lestat, but you didn't listen."

"Actions," Lestat snaps. "Speak louder than words. As Benjamin Franklin once said."

Louis' brow furrows. "I don't think that's who–"

"I don't care."

"You are such a fucking brat."

"I am 'a man made of dried twigs with a thin carping voice,' actually," Lestat returns, burgeoning with petty pride at the memorized quotation even as his anger burns. "According to you."

"You're – Christ."

"Not quite."

"Ha ha. Very funny.”

Lestat glares at him in silence. He wants to hit Louis' beautiful face. He wants to take him up into the sky and sob into his chest, apologizing for the impulse without apologizing for the action. Louis brings out the worst in him, and it's fucking terrifying, and Louis, if the mustard seeds of truth in the mix of that awful book are to be believed, feels that Lestat brings out the worst in him, and Lestat, whatever deity is around to listen if there is any, can't help but want to bring out the worst in him again and again and again and again, just to make Louis give him the definitive that would let Lestat be at peace, either in the soil of the Earth or otherwise.

Let Louis accept his monstrous nature and come to terms with it, yes. Let Lestat be a tool for that self-acceptance. He doesn't care anymore. That he still carries some romantic, long-forlorn hope of Louis loving him the way Lestat loves Louis is really a testament to his own stupidity more than anything else.

“Look–" Louis sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in that disarmingly mortal manner he has. "I didn't want to fuck it up. Didn't want to…you know."

"No, I don't know, Louis." Like Lestat knows anything about what Louis is thinking, ever. It's what makes him so frustrating, and so hard not to love.

"Liked where we were," Louis says, "Before. That get through your thick head, or are you gonna keep acting stupid?"

Lestat looks down at the ground. "No."

"No to what?"

Lestat shrugs, indescribably tired. He doesn't want to be arguing anymore. He wants to go lie in his coffin and be miserable in peace, and he wants Louis to be there with him, and he wants for Louis to go away and let Lestat fall apart into pieces with a tiny shred of his dignity still intact. "Whatever you like."

Louis stares at him incredulously before laughing. "What, you need me to repeat myself?"

"It may help." Lestat takes a drag on his cigarette, only to discover it has burnt down to the filter in the period of his introspection. He chokes on foam-smoke, coughing so hard he thinks he may actually retch for a brief, terrifying moment, and when he's finished unthinkingly holds his hand out to Louis for another.

Louis' eyebrows go sky-high. "Oh, you're making demands? Now?"

"If I were," Lestat says recklessly, "I would not be demanding a cigarette."

Louis gives him a long look that is probably not at all as scorching as Lestat finds it to be, puts his hand in his pocket, stops, and sighs. "You don't make this easy."

"That is my brand, or so I am told."

Louis smiles at him, brief and knowing, like this is both some sort of joke they're both in on, and then he's stepping closer and Lestat forgets everything but the way his hand comes up to rest, feather-light but somehow still possessive, on Lestat's bicep; forgets everything but the ghost of a laugh on Louis' perfect lips and the flicker of shadows when his eyelashes rest ever so briefly against his cheeks before he meets Lestat's stunned, stupid stare. "Oh yeah?"

Lestat swallows. "I'm sure you know, as the owner of–"

"Copyright holder" Louis says, mouth twitching. "Intellectual property. Not your owner. God forbid."

"Would it be so bad?" Lestat whispers.

Louis looks away. "Not really sure you want me to answer that. Besides: I don't think you want to be owned."

"Oh, mon Louis," Lestat says, because, God, Lestat may not deserve him, but – oh, he wants, more than anything, more than life even, even when he was faced with death and forced to be what he is now, "not by anyone other than you."

He's always wanted Louis that way, and it has always frightened him, and here he is, in an dirty alleyway full of cigarette stubs and empty cans and the filth of humanity he had hoped to raise Louis above, back when he'd been even more ignorant and stupid and full of silly ideas than he is now, and Louis is still here and alive and so radiantly beautiful that when he rolls his eyes and grabs the fabric of the jacket Lestat had pulled from who-knows-who backstage and pulls Lestat closer for a kiss, it takes at least a few seconds for Lestat to realize what's happening, and even longer for him to close his eyes.

They had kissed in this century. Brief things; Lestat couldn't ask for more. Louis didn't. Hadn't. He'd left him with a wad of cash and a promise from Lestat, wept over and truthfully avowed, to live on.

Like he could do otherwise now, knowing Louis was alive. The feel of his lips on Lestat's cheek alone would have been enough, but Louis had been kind. Before he'd left for Dubai he'd kissed Lestat like they used to kiss, once. Lestat had been so still he wasn't sure his undead heart had beaten even once, afraid to scare Louis away forever. And then Louis had kissed him again, and his mouth had been ever-so-slightly open, and his bottom lip had been right there, and Lestat had only tugged at it, gently, the way Louis used to like, and what had presumably been a goodbye kiss had turned into Lestat pressing Louis into the side of the airplane stairs as tears slid down his face and were licked away by Louis' tongue before they hit the ground, his legs hooked around Lestat's waist so tight he might as well have been clinging to his last tether to earth keeping him from floating off into space.

Lestat was one moment away from ripping Louis' shirt off and begging him to stay when Louis had put a hand against his shoulder and pressed, and Lestat had gone rigid, his whole body tensing for the words that never ultimately came. As if Louis would ever be so merciful. God, but Lestat loved his cruelty as much as he loved the rest of him.

"See you soon," Louis had said. A few quick adjustments to his clothes and a swipe of the bloodstain on his chin and he looked as put-together as ever. Lestat probably looked exactly as he felt: windswept.

He doesn't feel windswept now. He feels like he's starving, even though he'd taken un petite coup from one of the gathered groupies in the wings between the first and second encores, and the anger from their earlier argument sparks up again, but this time it's because Louis is kissing him like he's been starved, like he is starving, body more honest than any of his words have ever been, and Lestat wants to tear open Louis' chest and crack his ribs and force himself inside, just to feel the beat of his heart and the heat of his blood a little closer. Feel that honesty on his skin, the way Louis' insides would spasm and flutter; wants to snarl into the pulsing, ruby-red viscera, mine, mine, mine.

He's uncomfortably hard in his leather pants, whimpering into Louis' mouth like a whore, thrusting into air as they stumble back, Lestat's shoulders colliding with the concrete and Louis being pulled with him, pressing himself into him, Lestat's hands trying desperately to touch every inch of him at once. Then Louis shoves a leg between Lestat's thighs and Lestat's hips jerk, the pleasure so exquisite it’s almost pain. He doesn't care, would endure anything as long as Louis never stops kissing him like this, like he's tongue-fucking Lestat's mouth, slicing his bottom lip with a fang and making them both groan at the taste of the blood. Louis sucks at the cut hungrily, hands like iron clutched around Lestat's waist as Lestat ruts against his thigh, and in a rush of fear Lestat realizes he is – no, not yet, not – Louis bites his lower lip again, re-opening the cut that had begun to heal, deepening it, sucking greedily, and Lestat is crying out and coming so hard his vision goes white, hips moving in short thrusts against Louis' thigh.

Louis pulls back, blood dripping down from his perfect mouth as he pants. "Did. Did you…?"

Lestat’s chest heaves. The embarrassment hits like a slap to the face, cheeks hot and itchy with the sudden blood flow and shame squirming in his stomach. He pushes at Louis’s chest, the sting of tears in the corners of his eyes exacerbating the need to hide and hide and never come out.

Louis is silent, bracing himself against the wall to counter Lestat’s frantic shoving.

“Get out of the way,” Lestat snarls.

“You’re embarrassed,” Louis says, as if he’s just now realized this incredibly obvious circumstance. “Is that it?”

Lestat sniffs. “I do not find being humiliated a sufficiently titillating—“

“Lestat the rockstar,” Louis says slowly, before leaning in close to Lestat’s ear, breath warm against his skin. “All that thrusting on stage, all that moaning in your songs, all that bragging about your big dick, and all it took was my thigh between your legs for you to come in those ridiculous leather pants like a teenager.”

The burning in his cheeks is beginning to feel very different than it had only a moment ago. Lestat tilts his hips forward, just enough so that he can reassure himself with the feeling of Louis’ cock, hot and hard through his trousers, against his hip. “…It was not intentional.”

Louis’ eyebrow quirks up: No shit. Lestat leans in to kiss him and is thwarted by another, more serious look. “You get this hot and bothered when you’re performing?”

“Perhaps.” Lestat shrugs.

“You wanna think about that answer some more?”

Lestat shivers at the sound of his voice, low and threatening and so deliciously, sensually Louis. “If I said I didn’t?”

“I’d say you were lying.” Louis’ hands move, undoing the button of Lestat’s pants and tugging down the zipper. Lestat's not wearing anything underneath, doesn't bother, and the feel of air against sensitive skin makes him squirm. “I’d say my proof is right here.”

“It seems my lies have done nothing to dissuade you.”

“Stop talking.”

“Gladly,” Lestat says, as though he has ever wanted to stop talking in his life. He makes to sink to his knees, but is jerked back up again roughly and pushed against the wall again, Louis’ hand gripping hard enough at his shoulder to bruise a mortal black and blue.

“Oh?” Lestat asks, aiming for cocky despite his confusion. “What is it, mon cher?”

Louis kisses him, hungry, biting too-hard at the corner of his mouth and tearing into the flesh as Lestat melts into him. It’s so good he almost doesn’t notice his pants being shoved down and his own hand being guided to the evidence of what had been the source of his embarrassment only a few moments ago until the shock of sensation against over-sensitive flesh causes him to jerk back. “Lou—“

“Shut up,” Louis hisses, and guides Lestat’s hand, now slick with his own cum, to Louis’ cock.

Lestat is only too glad to shut up. He needs to process this glorious moment in silence, commit it to memory so that he can canonize it in song after song after song of praise. Louis de Pointe du Lac, the most beautiful and alluring creature Lestat has ever encountered, Louis de Pointe du Lac, the businessman, the art mogul, the ruthless capitalist who had served Christine with a cease and desist over the use of Lestat's own name and image, as though Lestat were something that could be limited by copyright law, the very idea – Louis de Pointe du Lac, his Louis, allowing himself to be pleasured with the evidence of Lestat's own overeagerness smoothing the way. Not allowing, even, because it is apparent that Louis is enjoying the sensation very much, and Lestat's mouth falls open in breathless, incredulous wonder.

"Does it feel good?" He can't help but ask.

Louis doesn't so much as kiss him as silence him with his mouth, Lestat moaning into it as his hand quickens, half-hard again at the way Louis reacts to this adjustment. His tongue is hot and clumsy against Lestat's own, too preoccupied with his pleasure to be precise, and Lestat is so in love with him he half-sobs at the sheer feeling of it and at Louis' hips jerking into his hand. "Yes, chéri, oh, yes, Louis, you–"

"Fuck," Louis breathes, “yeah, like that, Jesus.”

Lestat presses kisses along his jaw, against his neck, sucking at the pulse-point as his hand twists and Louis swears, pre-cum making the glide of Lestat’s hand impossibly slicker. He tightens his grip as Louis starts to fuck into his hand with a low moan, slipping his other hand down from Louis’ waist and beneath his waistband for the sheer selfish pleasure of shamelessly groping his ass.

Louis huffs, but it turns into a sigh when Lestat kisses him again, sucking on his tongue for several glorious moments until Louis pulls back just enough to speak. "Yeah."

"Mm?"

"Feels good," Louis tells him. Lestat kisses him quickly, and again, and again, because he can't help it. Louis should always be kissed, as long as Lestat is doing the kissing. "Since you asked."

"Lovely," Lestat tells him. "Beautiful, Louis."

Louis' hips quicken in response, breathing into Lestat's mouth, mouth wet and open against his lips, those soft noises Lestat had remembered hearing and had never thought he'd hear again, once, muffled and gorgeous. Lestat loosens his grasp just to hear Louis' sound of protest and feel his hips stutter before Lestat takes control again, stroking him the way he'd memorized and vowed to never forget, marvelling at the way Louis goes pliant under his hands.

Back into old patterns, yes, but what old patterns they were to fall back into. What a revelation it was to watch Louis give himself over to pleasure, his pretty cock pulsing and flame-hot in Lestat's palm.

“Lestat."

“Yes?”

“Gonna come,” Louis murmurs, and Lestat is sliding down onto his knees before he can think about it, reveling in the picture he no doubt makes, face flushed and upturned, lips parted, laser focused on making sure his hand stays right where Louis needs it.

Louis' eyebrows scrunch together as he looks down, half-incredulous and half-lost in pleasure, and then Lestat opens his mouth, fangs down, hungry, demanding it with a low growl, and Louis is coming, just the way Lestat wanted him to, onto Lestat's face and with Lestat's name on his perfect, kiss-bruised lips.

Lestat is breathing just as hard as he is by the time he remembers that they are in a public alley. Not as though he cares. Were it up to him, he'd go onstage this instant with the evidence of Louis' pleasure there for the entire world to see and envy.

You want to be The Vampire Lestat so bad? He broadcasts wildly to anyone in the vicinity who can hear. Well, you can't. I would die before I let anyone else have this.

"Jesus," Louis breathes, as if he'd heard. "Fuck, you–"

"Yes," Lestat says, batting his eyes up seductively at Louis as he attempts to lick some of the cum off his chin.

Louis stares down at him. Doubt curls up in Lestat's stomach and stretches out, nauseating. He gets to his feet slower than he wants to.

Perhaps – perhaps this has been too much too soon, Lestat stares down at his shoes as he tries to ground himself. His head feels very light, and Louis is silent, and the embarrassment comes flooding back as Lestat gets a trembling hand on the waistband of his pants, tugging them back up his thighs. Another source of shame to add to the list of sins, or crimes, or whatever name is best for the atrocities Lestat has committed. More minor than most, but it's a long list, and Louis is still silent, and if he doesn't say something in the next few seconds Lestat might as well go bury himself in the earth again. Might do it even if Louis does, for that matter. He's so very tired.

A strange sound in his ears. Louis laughing. No, that can't be right, but Lestat looks up. Louis is laughing. Heaven and hell have never been so united in one sight.

Tears well, unbidden, to Lestat's eyes. He tries to conceal them as Louis's merriment echoes off the walls of the alley, turning his head to the side and shuffling toward the stage door.

"Where – where're you going?" Louis asks, breath hitching with amusement.

Lestat grits his teeth. "Away."

"Lestat."

"Don't–" Lestat means to slap the hand that comes up to his face away, but he's too slow, consumed with despair, and Louis' hand curves along his jaw, and no one in their right senses could resist that touch. Not from Louis. A broken, pathetic noise escapes from Lestat's throat.

Very stupid, how he tries to stop himself from crying even though he knows the attempt to hold back tears only makes them more inevitable, but Lestat's never claimed to be an intellectual. Couldn't even figure out how to read on his own after three decades of life surrounded by books, and months in a monastery. He's not smart, and he's not good at loving anyone in any way people are able to love each other, and he's being held by Louis de Pointe du Lac in an alleyway after he'd come in his leather pants, so desperate for it that he'd betrayed himself, and now Louis is, for some reason, not shoving him away and telling him to pull himself together, even though it is objectively what Lestat deserves to be told.

"Hush," Louis has been telling him, for how long or for how many repetitions Lestat could not say. "Lestat. Hey. Look, you're – Christ, don't blow your nose on my shirt sleeve, I have tissues if you'd just let me—"

Lestat buries his face in Louis' shoulder, breath coming in heaving sobs. Maybe if he doesn't hold back, Louis will realize – but no, it's an excuse; he can't hold back anymore, not anymore, and he clings to Louis so desperately he knows he'll leave bruises and is sickeningly glad of it even as his vision greys.

Louis says something. Lestat doesn’t catch the words, but he clings to the sounds of them, trying to anchor himself even as they blur away from reach. Someone else’s voice. Intruding, an unwelcome third voice in their existing duet. Daniel? Tell him to go away, Louis. Don't want, just you.

Thirsty, so thirsty, why is Daniel saying something about eating when all Lestat can think of is the thirst, burrowing into his bones and sucking up the marrow. A bottle of white wine brought up from the cellar in autumn. Arms lifting him and Daniel's voice is saying something nonsensical, about drugs, in his ear. The play had been going so well, and the crowd had been begging for his newest guitar solo, chanting Wolfkiller, Wolfkiller–

"You drank bad blood," Louis says. He’s speaking very slowly. "Daniel told me. After the encore."

"Yes," Lestat says. The syllable is heavy in his mouth. It rolls around his tongue fascinatingly. Now that Louis has said it, Lestat doesn’t know how he’d forgotten. “Drank it out. Not enough to…wouldn't affect me like 't'would her. Shame. She's in. Christine'll know."

A butterfly lands on his temple and presses a kiss there, and Lestat sighs, releasing the last vestige of control he'd been holding on to. The kiss is so soft, and so very sweet.

"Wasn't kindness," Lestat tells it. He has to shout down a dark hallway that is getting longer, but he knows he's being heard, so he tries his best. "Not trying. Not a hero. Wanted to try it."

"I know," says a voice, and the tenderness of it melts away into the blackness blooming behind Lestat's eyelids; negative images of fireworks exploding into the night sky.

The thirst, when Lestat is aware of his surroundings again, is overpowering in a way it has not been for some time. He also has a pounding headache. Lovely.

"You threw up on my shoes," Louis tells him. They're in the back of a car, which is about all that Lestat can manage to notice right now. "I liked that pair."

"Buy another then." Lestat looks down to see if his pants are on. They seem to be, so there is that, at least. No remnants of blood on them either, though he supposes that honor had all gone to Louis' shoes, seeing as Louis is currently clad in a pair of what look like flip-flops from CVS, judging by the poor fit and the neon teal color.

"Can't. Bought them in the nineties. Vintage Hermès suede, mint condition until about twenty minutes ago."

"Where are we going?" Lestat asks, pointedly ignoring him.

"Your hotel, obviously." Louis glances at him. "You thirsty?"

"No," Lestat lies through his very much extended fangs.

"Got blood if you want some."

"I don't."

"Just drink it," Louis tells him, and opens a cooler next to him.

"Why do you have blood bags?"

"Not into drinking from your groupies."

Lestat makes an offended noise Louis rolls his eyes at, and a blood bag is being shoved into his face. It smells of plastic, and it's cold. "Cold, Louis."

"You're not thirsty? Alright," Louis says, and moves to put the blood bag back.

Lestat hisses, hand flying up to close around his wrist. "Fine. Since you insist."

Louis snorts, but he doesn't break away from Lestat's grip, and Lestat sinks his fangs into the bag looking at him, making a face at the temperature and the artificial taste. When he's drained it he pulls back.

The disgust must be clear on his face, because Louis grins at him. "It's better when it's warm."

"I doubt that," Lestat says, eyeing the empty bag with disgust. He does feel better, but, really, at what cost? He shudders. "And you prefer this to my 'groupies,' as you call them?"

"Prefer it to seeing you through them," Louis says. "It's actually sickening, you know that? They think you're some sort of rock god."

"Because I am," Lestat replies distractedly, thinking with an immense rush of jealousy of whatever fans Louis has drained. "What is a rockstar if not an idol, and what is an idol if not a god?"

"Now you're just boasting." Louis rolls down the window and tosses the empty blood bag out of it. Lestat watches him, contemplating the logistics of sucking him off in the backseat of a car presumably driven by a mortal who is paid very highly to ignore much worse things than that.

He could, but he doesn't think Louis would allow it, and Lestat is not in the mood to be rejected at the moment. "You suggested it."

"You don't get it. They see you like…" Louis grimaces. "A statue of Priapus come to life. Pure mortal fantasy, nothing else. They get off to the thought that all you do is fuck and sing and thrust your hips on stage."

"Well," Lestat muses, "they are not entirely wrong."

Louis' gaze is practically murderous. "Don't want to hear about it. Don't want to see it, don't want to feel it when I'm trying to eat. That's why I brought the blood bags."

"Louis," Lestat purrs, "I would almost think you were jealous."

Dead silence. Then: "I'm not jealous."

Lestat laughs, because otherwise he would cry. "No. No, of course not."

"Not jealous," Louis continues, slow like he's thinking before he says each word, "'cause I know who can get you to come in your pants, and I don't think it's your groupies. Unless something's changed in the past century?"

Lestat flushes. "The drugs–"

"Nah. Don't think so."

"You–" Lestat shifts away from him, arms folding across his chest. "One encounter is not representative."

"Mm-hm. That's what I thought." Louis glances at him and smiles, not mocking or derisive like Lestat expects, just amused.

"Well." Lestat tosses his hair off his forehead. "As long as you know."

"Oh, I know."

"Good."

"We're here," Louis says, which is when Lestat realizes they haven't moved at all in the last few minutes. "You remember who the reservation's under?"

"No. That is why I employ people to remember that for me."

"Uh-huh. And your phone's charged?"

Lestat pulls it out and presses the button that makes it light up. Nothing happens. "Yes."

"Right," Louis says. "Need mine?"

"I know how hotels work, Louis. I simply go up to the counter, flash a charming smile, and tell them the Vampire Lestat is here and has decided to grace their establishment with his presence."

"And that works for you?"

"Well," Lestat concedes, "the mind gift is sometimes useful. If they are stubborn. Or blind."

Louis shakes his head, and to Lestat's complete and utter surprise, leans in for a kiss. It's all Lestat can do to oblige him, pressing another to the corner of Louis' mouth when he starts to pull back, the need for him close sharp and aching.

"Go on," Louis says, signalling the driver to open Lestat's door, which is done with professional haste. "I had your manager send your coffin ahead."

Lestat hesitates, the fact that Louis will not be coming with him sinking in his stomach like a stone. His head pounds miserably. "I see."

"Good night, Lestat," Louis says, and Lestat is up and on the pavement, wincing at the bright lights of the hotel lobby through the doors and turning back before he can help himself, watching as Louis' lips quirk into a beguiling smile before the accursed driver closes the passenger door and the tinted windows hide him from view.

When Lestat wakes the next evening, having retired to his cold, empty coffin to wallow in his own misery after feeding on a few of the blood bags mysteriously deposited in the refrigerator of his hotel suite the night before, he's startled by a sharp knock at the door.

He doesn't bother dressing, apart from the open robe he's already wearing, before he opens the door. The knocker pointedly doesn't look down. "Delivery for you, Mr. Lioncourt."

Lestat arches an eyebrow, and looks down at what she's holding out. The name 'Louis de Pointe du Lac' is written on a business card tucked neatly beneath the dark red satin ribbon tied around a slim box.

Lestat takes it from the delivery girl and closes the door without another word, curiosity itching under his skin. The ribbon is easily cut with a fingernail, and the lid lifted off to reveal a beautiful coil of silver chains, delicately intertwined around an O-ring.

A necklace. An apology gift, perhaps? Or simply a token of affection. Not what Lestat had been expecting, but it's beautiful, and it's from Louis.

Speaking of: the business card had fluttered to the floor along with the cut ribbon, and to Lestat's surprise there is actually writing on the back of it. He picks it up, finger tracing the edge of those familiar curling letters.

Since you want to be owned so bad. Thought you might need a reminder of who you belong to. — L.d.P.d.L

A collar, then. Lestat grins so wide his cheeks ache and slips it on, suddenly ravenous.

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