Chapter Text
Louis leaned back on the couch and turned on the TV to watch the performance live from the stage. He could of course go to the VIP-section and witness it from the audience, but Lestat was a famous rockstar and he didn’t want to stir the rumors-pot any more than was necessary. The public knew a certain Louis had been the inspiration for most of his songs, and that this Louis was his purported ex-husband. Of course they assumed Louis, or at least the name, was entirely fictional and based on what was to their knowledge a fictional novel called Interview with the Vampire. So Louis’ existence remained a mystery to the fans, and if he did exist they had no idea what he looked like, and Louis preferred to keep it that way.
The crowd cheered as Lestat appeared on stage and began his first song – one of Louis’ favorites from the album, a five and a half minute long retelling of Louis’ descent into vampirism layered with cryptic metaphors, the style very obviously borrowed from Bohemian Rhapsody with the slow piano at the beginning that merged into rocky music sometime after the first verse. Judging by the fans screaming along to the lyrics they loved the song as much as Louis did, even if most of them assumed it was entirely based on the fictional concept of Lestat being a vampire. He wondered how many genuinely believed he was.
He’d figured by now that most people believed there had been a ‘Louis’ in Lestat’s life. He’d read the comments under the Youtube videos, and he agreed that from the way Lestat talked about him in interviews, it all seemed too real, too raw for it to be entirely fictional. However, he’d also witnessed discussions on Twitter about how Lestat had to be canceled because he was (among other things) lying about having been married. There was no marriage certificate to be found, that part was true. But the vows they gave to each other in that church in 1911 and sealed them with a kiss under Jesus Christ, that was as much of a wedding as they were allowed to get back in those days.
After four songs, Lestat disappeared backstage while his band played an intermission. Louis was half expecting him to show up in the dressing room to change his outfit, but when Lestat was back on stage after just two minutes, he realized he’d planned all of this to keep the surprise element for Louis as well as for the audience. He wasn’t coming back to the dressing room. Louis had to witness the progressively more and more revealing outfits through a screen.
Outfit number two was a semi-transparent dark mesh tank top, revealing just enough of his toned muscles underneath to keep Louis’ eyed fixed on his body and his mind wandering to places it really should not be wandering to. His pants were the same ones he’d worn before, and with the bottom seam of the top resting just below his belly button, they exposed his prominent v in a way Louis had most definitely not been prepared to see. Lestat’s trick was working, and Louis loved and hated him for it in equal measure.
More songs followed, one about the love of your life slowly slipping away that Louis knew all too well was about him, one about his own life as a human with Nicolas, one about his mother – which Louis still could not wrap his head around but it would explain so many issues Lestat had – and finally one where he played the violin and used a loop pedal to have it play as accompaniment to his piano rendition of Those Who Must Be Kept while the backdrop showed two statues coming to life and at the end of the song, he had two of his bandmates drag him away from the piano and push him to the floor in a theatrical pretend-attack. There must have been a trapdoor built into the stage because when they got back up, Lestat was gone again.
Outfit number three was an iridescent fishnet top that hung loose on his body. It was cropped, but the pants he was wearing were slightly different than the ones from before. Instead of low-rise, they were high-waisted, drawing Louis’ attention right to his accentuated ass. And he was covered in body glitter, the colors pink, purple and blue glistening in the spotlight.
“Alright,” Lestat spoke into the microphone when the crowd had started to calm down from all the screaming and wolf-whistling. He had that wicked smile on his face that let Louis know he was up to no good. “For the next part, I thought we’d do something fun.”
More cheering from the crowd. Louis held his breath. What was he going to do? He watched as one of his bandmates brought out a chair and set it right next to Lestat.
“I’ve been looking at your beautiful faces all night, and I have to say, what a stunning crowd.”
The audience went wild at the compliment, but Lestat continued over their screams.
“But one of you has caught my eye in particular…”
He walked over to the edge of the stage and crouched down by a man in the front row. He was quite handsome, his blue eyes wide in disbelief and excitement as Lestat approached him.
“What’s your name?”
“Louis!”
Lestat had another smug smile plastered on his face. Of fucking course. Using his mind gift to pick a Louis from the audience.
“Of course it is,” Lestat mumbled quietly, as if this hadn’t been the plan. “Would you like to come on stage for the next song, Louis?”
The man nodded aggressively, and security helped make way for him to join the rockstar on stage.
“How fitting that your name is Louis,” Lestat mused. “The next song we’re about to play, I wrote it for my Louis.”
He motioned for the man to sit in the chair, and he did, Lestat’s hand on his shoulder, leaving a trail of body glitter on this man’s shirt.
“Are you okay with this, Louis?”
The man nodded. “You can do anything you want to me. I’m so down.”
“Love to hear it,” Lestat chuckled, and turned back to the audience. “Let’s have some fun, yeah?”
The light dimmed and the band began playing their latest single Long Face. And hell, it was about Louis, a shameless portrayal of their sex life for all to hear, and it drove Louis up the walls that Lestat had chosen this song for an audience member to come on stage, to prance around him, to trail his fingers up and down this stranger’s chest, all while the camera man circled them and Lestat shot flirty winks and glances through the screen right to Louis.
He ended the song on the obligatory moan (Louis had been so taken aback upon hearing it the first time and couldn’t stop thinking about it since), grinding against the man who’d been pulled up from his chair sometime during the bridge.
“A big round of applause for Louis!”
As the crowd cheered, Lestat hugged the man and led him to be escorted back to his barricade spot by security. Louis wasn’t entirely certain, but in the harsh lighting it looked like the man was at least half hard. Jesus, Lestat.
Lestat went on to play more songs, but Louis could only think of that performance. Lestat, grinding his hips against a stranger named Louis, whom he’d picked specifically because his name was Louis, wearing that outfit that Louis would without a doubt lose his self-control over if he was even just in the same room as him. Lestat leaving trails of glitter on the man’s clothing that should be on him instead, that should mark him, make it visible to the whole world that he was Lestat’s and Lestat was his.
It was obvious that Lestat was riling him up. And god, it was working. Louis couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so hungry for him, except that the hunger was constantly on his mind, but it didn’t count that he’d lost control that one time because he was high off of cocaine blood, or that other time because Lestat had been too flirtatious that night so what else was he supposed to do, or that other time when they shared a coffin because Louis was still officially staying at the hotel and it just felt so right, so familiar to kiss in that coffin, none of it counted. Because what else was he supposed to do? But the reality was that even if he hadn’t been high, even if Lestat hadn’t flirted with him, even if they didn’t have to share a coffin, they’d always find their way back to each other. It was the string, the vampire bond, and nothing could sever it. But it was also so much more than that.
Two more outfits. Louis had counted.
Lestat disappeared backstage, thank god because Louis didn’t know how much longer he could keep his composure for, but his breath hitched when he saw him reappear in a pink cloud of smoke, a fun little special effect produced by a fog machine, wearing black fishnet tights, black leather shorts that were so short they exposed half his butt, and a black waist corset that stopped right under his chest with nothing underneath. It wasn’t laced very tightly but it accentuated his already small waist perfectly. The body glitter was still on him, as well.
Louis couldn’t claim that he was only human, because he wasn’t, but that technicality didn’t change the facts. There was no way he could truly focus on any of the songs Lestat and his band were playing with the sight of Lestat like that, flirting with the camera just for him. The world could have burnt down and he was certain he wouldn’t have noticed. Lestat was jumping around, his energy fueling the crowd’s cheers and whistles, and Louis thought to himself if that was the fourth outfit, what on earth would the fifth one be? His pants felt embarrassingly tight and a heatwave overcame him as his mind ventured to a fantasy in which he would get to strip Lestat of these clothes and run his tongue along his collarbone, along his chest, leave marks all over his body, kiss him like his lips demanded to be kissed, touch him, elicit the sweetest moans and whimpers just for him.
The music faded and Lestat’s voice brought him back to reality.
“We are unfortunately coming to an end of this show,” he said, the crowd answering in disappointed aaaws. “But there is one more song I would like to perform. I wrote this song back in 1937 for my then husband Louis. We’d had a… fight.” It was almost imperceptible, but Louis still noticed how Lestat’s voice trembled at the word fight. “I hurt him. I didn’t deserve the forgiveness he would give me. But I wrote this song for him then, and he came back to me.” A pause. “Maybe he will, again.” A glance into the camera. “This is for you, mon cher.”
Louis knew what would come, the song he would play, he knew it inside and out with how many times he’d listened to the recording even while he was with Armand. Every time he did, he could hear Armand’s thoughts about wanting to destroy the record, but he never dared to. He would never disobey Louis like that.
Still, even though the song was ingrained in his memory like it was a carbon copy, hearing the first few notes vibrate through the speakers knocked the air right out of his lungs and sent shivers down his spine.
He was catapulted back to the spring of 1937, when he’d found a record of this very song on the doorstep of their Rue Royale town house. It had been the gazillionth gift sent by Lestat at that point, and usually he would throw them straight into the incinerator, but not this one. He didn’t know what had come over him when he found himself putting it on the turntable and listening to it. An obvious Lestat creation, it had his signature written all over it, he could even hear it in the way the piano was played. But the voice…
Fast forward half an hour and he was soaking wet, shoving a naked Lestat against the wall and claiming him back.
This time, it was Lestat’s voice. No premeditated flaw, just a silent plea of come to me, come to me mon cher, because I still love you so deeply. He didn’t need to be able to hear his thoughts to know that was the message he was sending.
Lestat thanked the crowd for coming and scurried off the stage, followed by his band mates. The cameras cut out. Louis took a deep breath. How was he supposed to face him like this, want clearly written on his face, his mind fabricating fantasies he hadn’t allowed himself to desire for many decades, but how could he stick to his promise now, to be friends with Lestat, just friends who maybe kissed occasionally, maybe more than occasionally, but who were still friends and not lovers, definitely not two damned souls yearning for each other?
He heard voices, a hushed I’ll be fine, I don’t need your help, thanks, before the door opened and Lestat stepped in, strands of hair sticking to his face with bloody sweat, making sure to stick out his butt when he turned around to lock the door, and if it weren’t for the armrest that Louis was gripping onto he would’ve already slammed that motherfucker against the wall, but he was resisting. He could resist. But that thought flew out the window the moment those blue eyes met his, pupils blown wide, and he leaned against wall, hand on his hip, that teasing grin on his face.
“Four outfits,” Louis just breathed, suddenly realizing he must have missed something. Had there been a fifth and he’d been too distracted by everything else?
Lestat shrugged in feigned innocence. “The fifth one was a bit much for the stage. Figured I’d leave it just for you.”
Louis’ mind caught up when he saw Lestat’s fingers slowly, sensually travel to the busk of his corset, teeth biting down on his bottom lip as he unclasped it and it fell to the floor and then, with his eyes firmly fixed on Louis, he tugged on the waistband of his shorts and pulled them down in a swift motion together with the tights. He wasn’t wearing underwear. Of course he wasn’t. So he stood there, provocatively naked, only covered by the body glitter that had yet to mark Louis as his own.
Louis’ eyes trailed up and down his body.
“Bastard,” he hissed, and without thinking he found himself approaching Lestat. He was way past resisting. He wasn’t even sure anymore why he’d denied himself the pleasure of this in the first place.
Lestat let out a small moan as Louis pushed him against the wall and crashed their mouths together, this time fully aware, fully knowing what he was doing and meaning to do exactly just that. Lestat’s lips parted and he took it as an invite for his tongue to meet Lestat’s. He felt his fingers work on the buttons of his shirt and tossed it to the floor, then his hands were gripping his back, pulling him closer, and Louis devoured every second of it, every hungry kiss, every moan, and he hoped that goddamn glitter was on him now, it had to be, his bare chest pressed against Lestat’s as his mouth wandered from his lips to his neck and left a trail of dark bruises, the hunger consuming him, eighty-five years of lust and want and longing accumulating into this exact moment.
Lestat’s fingers undid the buttons of his jeans and he eagerly kicked them off, followed by his boxers, leaving nothing but the glitter between their bodies.
His hands, a second ago still tangled in Lestat’s hair were now on his butt, grinding his hips against him just like he had done to that man Louis on stage. He could feel Lestat’s hard length against his stomach, already leaking precum, so he grinded harder, eliciting an even louder moan, Lestat’s hot breath blowing against his skin, his lips, and then more wet kisses, and more hickeys, now payback hickeys adorning Louis’ neck.
“I knew you’d like the last outfit,” Lestat teased, but Louis kissed that smirk right off his face.
“Fuck me,” he moaned, his lips against Lestat’s neck, muffling the sound. “I need you. Right now.”
They could have walked those few steps over to the loveseat, but before Louis knew it, he was lying on the floor, Lestat in between his legs, one hand stroking up and down his painfully hard cock, the other grazing his upper thigh before he felt the tip of his nail against his hole. He let out a whimper at the sensation.
He gasped, letting out a loud moan when Lestat pushed his finger all the way in. “No need- I can take you like this.”
“Don’t want to hurt you, mon amour.”
“I don’t care. Need you-” Another moan.
“Are you sure?”
Louis just nodded, biting back another whimper when Lestat removed his finger, leaving him completely empty, craving the fullness he could give him. He watched as Lestat lined up his cock and slowly pushed the tip in, careful not to hurt Louis. Louis threw his head back but nodded, urging him to keep going.
Lestat let out a deep moan as he slid all the way in, and then his lips found Louis’ again and met them in a longing kiss. It had been way too long since they’d come together like this, so many years wasted, the past months unnecessarily spent restraining instead of living, but what was a few months if they had eternity waiting for them?
Louis’ hands were tangled in Lestat’s hair again as he was kissing him with a burning fervor, moaning against his lips every time Lestat hit just the right spot, and soon they were both reduced to a mess of moans and pants and hot breaths against each other’s skin, strands of Lestat’s hair in Louis’ face, eyes fluttering shut, blonde eyelashes against his cheekbones, just for them to open again to meet Louis’ gaze. Lestat took care of Louis’ throbbing dick with firm strokes from the head to the base and back to the head, bringing him close, dangerously close-
“I- I think I’m gonna-” The warning came too late; Louis interrupted himself with a cry as he came all over their chests, and Lestat followed a few seconds after, his hips stuttering as he came inside Louis, eyes squeezed shut, swollen lips parted, not a trace of the lipstick left. Louis had successfully kissed it all off.
Lestat collapsed on top of Louis for a moment, regaining his breath, and once he did, he carefully rolled over, keeping one palm on Louis’ chest, right over his heart, face nuzzled into his neck. He felt the soft press of his lips against his skin, and then he laid his head on his chest, pulling him closer. A hug, as they lay on the floor in their post-orgasmic bliss, glitter all over both of them now.
“I’ve missed you,” Lestat whispered. “I love you, mon amour.”
Louis bit his lip. He’d feared he might say something like that, and he hadn’t prepared an answer. He’d been good at avoiding it, smiling, kissing him in response, but he’d never uttered those words out loud. He’d thought them, he knew he felt them, but it had been a way to protect himself in the past. But Louis had changed. He’d grown stronger. He didn’t need to protect himself anymore.
“I love you too,” he finally said. A hundred and fourteen years after Lestat had said it first. “I’ve always loved you.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Lestat’s head as he tightened his hug around Louis.
“So, what do you say? Still just friends?”
Louis huffed out a weak laugh. “Fuck being friends. We can be whatever we want to be.”
