Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Daniel reaches out to him, Louis is readying to leave New York after meeting with a client. And unfortunately, Louis can take one guess as to what this is about. 

“How the hell are ya?” Daniel asks inside of Louis’s mind. “You thinking of passing through New Orleans on your way out the door?”

“Is it on the way?” Louis transmits back to him with a smile. He folds his clothing into his suitcase, preparing for an early morning flight out. “Pretty out of the way to stop in New Orleans before heading back to Dubai.”

And he knows what’s in New Orleans. He knows what Daniel is about to say before he begins.

“Yeah, hey listen. I got some fact checking to do—”

“I’ve told you, Daniel. I’ve given my story. He can give his. I declined to participate in this documentary—”

“I watched you feed on Armand in Dubai, right? I’m not making that up?”

Louis’s hands pause in their journey over the creases in his folded trousers. That wasn’t what he was expecting at all. He stares off, out the window at New York’s electric evening sky. 

“Yes,” Louis says. “Why?”

Daniel ignores him. “And was that a rare occurrence? Was that only for show, to convince me that ‘Rashid’ was only human?”

Louis’s lips press together, trying to track Daniel’s interrogation. “No, it wasn’t rare. Armand and I often shared blood. It’s a very sensual connection between vampires. It opens the mind even more fully—”

“Yeah, got that. That’s all I need,” Daniel says. “I’m emailing you something. You don’t have to watch it.”

Daniels cuts the mind connection before Louis catches his words. He closes his eyes, pressing his thumb and finger against his eyelids. 

After the first time Daniel sent Louis a glimpse of Lestat’s documentary sessions, Louis told Daniel never to again. Lestat had been describing in delicious detail the types of things Louis had been thinking about him when Louis was human. 

Louis had watched the whole thing in mortified annoyance. 

“Louis loved to watch my hands. Loved to imagine sucking my fingers into his mouth, his delicious lips holding them tight as I did mundane things with the other hand, like turning pages in a book or writing letters.”

And then: 

“Louis had no idea how love-making between two men worked, and I was delighted to wade through his thoughts as he tried to conjure the mechanics. He thought maybe he’d be on top, poor Louis—”

Louis had slammed the laptop shut and later deleted the video. Daniel had asked, Anything to add here? and Louis had told him to go fuck himself. And two hours later Louis had sent back a note, clarifying that he had known how two men fucked, thank you very much, but hadn’t experienced it first-hand. Then Daniel asked if Louis truly thought he’d be the top, and Louis hadn’t responded to him.

Now, in the New York hotel room, Louis’s laptop pings with a new email. He breathes out heavily through his nose. 

Louis had seen Lestat a handful of times since he’d found him in that run-down house in New Orleans two years ago, and only two of those times did they end up fucking. 

The first time was a collision of hunger and despair, a heady mix of ripped clothing and hands pinning hands, until Louis was staring up at him on a bed and finally asked Lestat to go slower—”Because I haven’t… I mean, not for over eighty years…”

Lestat had sobbed then, burying his red tears into Louis’s shoulder in that melodrama that Louis missed so dearly. Then he took hours opening Louis to him, just like the first time they’d done it one hundred and twelve years ago.

The second time was a year ago. It had been a mistake. Louis had come to Lestat’s first London concert—a much larger venue than he’d realized—and he’d seen him beforehand. Louis had been led to his dressing room for a quick hello, which turned into a needy kiss, which ended with the Vampire Lestat in all his rock star makeup and leather on his knees for Louis as the stage manager called him for places. 

Louis had threaded his hands into Lestat’s styled hair and whispered, “I’m almost there, but what about you?”

Lestat had pulled off him with a wet sound that Louis loved and said, “I can wait. I want you to watch me on stage, knowing that I’m still hard for you.”

Louis’s eyes had rolled back, and he almost came on Lestat’s face—in his hair, over his makeup—but Lestat's mouth had closed over the tip of him just in time. 

Then Louis had spent ninety minutes watching the Vampire Lestat air their dirty laundry in front of thousands—telling the world how loud Louis was in bed, how Lestat would never be worthy of him, how Louis did—actually—suck on Lestat’s fingers when he wanted sex but couldn’t voice it.

Louis hadn’t listened to Lestat’s music before then. He thought he’d wait to hear him live. He’d been extremely unprepared to hear song after song about him. About them.

Louis left after a particularly vulgar up-tempo piece that caused the young people around him to scream along to one specific part: “Wanna taste you on my tongue, mon cher!”

When Lestat had called days later to figure out what happened, Louis realized Lestat hadn’t meant to anger him. He was completely oblivious. Louis told him it had been a mistake to get carried away, and that he still needed space. They’d argued then—cutting words and indecent insults.

He hasn’t seen Lestat since. They text once a month or so. Maybe less often. But every time Louis thinks about dropping in or picking up the phone just to hear his voice, Lestat’s songs play on the radio or he sees an ad about the AmEx presale for his world tour. Lestat is doing fine. And so is Louis, come to think of it. 

They don’t need each other, Louis reminds himself. It’s just unfed desire. And Louis is no stranger to this kind of hunger. He coached himself through thirty years of it.

Louis stares at his laptop, close enough to see the bold new message in the queue but far enough away to not read the preview text. 

What does Daniel need clarification on?

I watched you feed on Armand in Dubai, right?

Louis rubs his jaw and trudges over to the desk chair. 

Daniel’s email contains nothing but the link to a video in Dropbox. When Louis clicks it, his screen is assaulted by Lestat’s face, his body, his weird clothes. 

Daniel has him framed on a couch in a house that can’t be Lestat’s. Even though Louis hasn’t been to Lestat’s new place in New Orleans, this has to be a set. Lestat wears a silver unbuttoned shirt with nothing underneath except far too many necklaces. His hair is down around his face without being overly gelled, but his eye makeup is still too much for Louis’s taste. 

Louis cracks his knuckles and hits play.

Lestat is already talking.

“...because to drink another vampire’s blood is a transcendent experience.” Lestat smiles briefly before it falls away. “I never got to have that with Louis.”

“Never?” comes Daniel’s voice off camera. 

Lestat swallows thickly, and Louis does the same. 

“I drank from him twice as a human—once in our first coupling and then to give him the Dark Gift.” Lestat’s eyes cloud over. “And only one other time, which I’m very ashamed of.”

Louis hears Daniel ruffling papers. “Not as transcendent when you’re trying to beat him into staying with you?”

Lestat glares at a point beyond the camera, where Louis assumes Daniel sits. Louis’s chest is tight, and brash as Daniel is, he’s worried for Daniel’s safety for a moment before remembering he’d just spoken to him.

“No,” Lestat answers softly. Louis watches the anger drain from him, his posture almost resigned. “We’ve already spoken at length about that evening. Would you like to open it up again?”

Daniel pushes on. “Louis never drank from you either?”

Lestat looks down at his hand, his fingers playing with a ring. “No. He found it repulsive.”

Louis’s head jerks back, his eyes narrowing. 

Daniel seems to pause behind the camera. “He found what repulsive?”

“Blood sharing,” Lestat answers simply. 

Louis leans forward, almost falling into the screen, examining every micro-gesture. 

“Why do you say that?” Daniel asks. And Louis knows he’s thinking of Dubai, of Louis drinking from Armand. 

Lestat breathes deep and affects an undisturbed posture that Louis knows is just that—a posture. He lifts his eyes to Daniel again.

“In nineteen ten, in his first days as a vampire, he injured himself in the sunlight.” Lestat shakes his hair out of his face in a way that lifts his chin higher. “He was healing for several days, and I offered my blood. I told him he would heal faster, I told him it was entirely natural for companions to drink from each other…”

Lestat trails off. Louis remembers. 

Louis remembers the taste of the tractor salesman still in his gums. Louis remembers the hunger gnawing at him—the hunger that was never far from desire. Louis remembers the way Lestat had to pull him off the salesman, the way Louis was unable to stop himself. Louis remembers wondering… who would pull him off Lestat?

Lestat shrugs in the video. “He was sickened by the idea. In later years, when he stopped drinking human blood and was so weak, I told him again… ‘I can do the hunting. I can drink enough for both of us if you—’” Lestat cuts off, swallowing hard. 

Louis’s chest is tight again. Louis remembers Lestat offering. And Louis remembers being hungry. 

“I wanted to show him—to share with him the incredible feeling of it,” Lestat says. “I wanted to drink from him to… to explain it, somehow. But he wasn’t eating enough.”

“What about in nineteen thirty-seven? After the song, after he swam the Mississippi to find you?” Daniel asks, and Louis rubs his hand over his forehead, knowing what was coming. “You didn’t bite each other during the makeup sex?”

Lestat smirks. “Hm. I really ought to read your book, Mr. Molloy.” He looks down again. “Louis bit me, yes, but he didn’t drink. He pierced the skin, he left his mark, but he didn’t want my blood.”

Louis’s elbows are on the desk, his fingers steepled in front of his lips. 

He had wanted. Louis had hungered for Lestat’s blood his entire vampiric life, and nothing made that more apparent than ripping Lestat out of Antoinette’s sheets, throwing him against the wall, and letting his fangs do the work. Louis had wanted nothing more than to drain him at that moment—to erase him—to take back what Lestat had taken from him. And as his fangs pierced Lestat’s neck for the first time, he knew he’d never stop drinking if he had one taste. 

It wasn’t just when they were rougher with each other that Louis barely held a grip on himself. He remembers their gentle lovemaking. Lestat’s slow rock into him, and Louis’s mind going hazy with hunger whenever Lestat called him his. 

Louis thought he’d been hiding his struggles well, but he supposes Lestat was always overly considerate about it all. Louis remembers the times Lestat’s mouth had been drawn to Louis’s neck, his dull teeth slipping over the skin before pulling back to kiss Louis instead. 

Lestat bit Louis’s tongue once. The blood pooled in Louis’s mouth, and Lestat had gasped and dragged his lips away. “I’m sorry,” he’d whispered, pulling back and instead kissing Louis’s jaw, his chest, his neck. 

Louis remembers how often his own fangs would drop when Lestat made love to him. How often he ripped into the pillow instead, afraid to start, afraid he wouldn’t stop—

“Why do you think that is?” Daniel asks, and Louis recognizes the tone of voice. Daniel the Journalist had found his mark.

Lestat tilts his head at him. “As I said, it disgusted him. It might have had something to do with how he disliked drinking from humans. But I tried to tell him we weren’t human—”

“Ah. So you think Louis was repulsed by blood sharing in general, not blood sharing with you?”

Louis closes his eyes, unable to watch Lestat’s face as it lands. He reaches out to Daniel and whispers to him, “You just love being an asshole, don’t you?”

He peeks at the screen again, listening to Daniel chuckle back to him. Lestat is very still. He smiles at Daniel like he used to smile at Tom Anderson. 

“Of course, that is a possibility, isn’t it?” Lestat says, his lips curling.

“Did Louis know that drinking from you might give him access to your gifts? Or did you withhold that the way you withheld the Cloud Gift?” Daniel asks smugly. 

“I did tell him,” Lestat says. “As you say, not about the Cloud Gift, but I brought it up once every five years or so. I told him he may learn my gifts more quickly if he drank from me… Still he refused.”

Louis remembers it happening more often than once every five years. Louis remembers asking, “How’d you do that? With the army guys the other night?” Louis remembers Lestat smiling up at him from the piano bench and saying, “I can teach you. You could learn it one day…if you were strong. If you had more blood or if you…” Louis remembers Lestat’s focused gaze, and Louis shaking his head, returning to his book. Hungry. 

Louis remembers his mouth being pressed to Lestat’s neck as Louis rode him, with a quiet “It’s okay, Louis.” Lestat’s hand on the back of his head, holding him close as Louis’s fangs dropped and retracted until the hunger was satiated through blissful release.

And Louis remembers jolting awake from nightmares of Lestat gazing up at him lovingly, neck bloody and Louis’s mouth wet. Lestat dead in his arms and his blood in Louis’s belly. Louis remembers sharing a coffin with Lestat and waking up with his mouth at Lestat’s throat, his fangs grazing over his pulse. Or Lestat curled around his back, and Louis’s hand bringing Lestat’s wrist up to his lips. Louis would jerk away, and when the soft voice came—“Mon cher? What is it?”—Louis would pounce on him, rut against him, feed his hunger in the other way. Lestat was always more than happy to oblige.

Lestat looks at Daniel on the video and says sadly, “It was my greatest wish to taste Louis. For him to taste me.”

Louis’s skin itches. His ribs feel cracked. His throat is dry as sand. 

“Uh-huh.” Daniel’s tone is sarcastic as he says, “And you didn’t bother to communicate this to him, I’m sure?”

Lestat flicks his wrist elegantly. “To tell him that I wanted something he could not give me? Another something, on top of his love?” Lestat lifts a brow. “Why would I do that?”

The video ends. 

Louis presses his thumbs into his eye sockets, wishing he could dig out the image of Lestat’s resigned sadness.

In his mind, Daniel says to Louis, “Anything to add, Louis? Any reason why drinking from Armand didn’t disgust you so?”

Louis remembers being in bed with Armand in Paris, and Armand asking permission with a press of his teeth to his neck. Louis remembers how maddeningly good it felt to be drunk from—and how he could only think of how badly he wanted Armand’s mouth to be someone else’s, Armand’s moans to be another’s, Armand’s grip to be harder. 

Louis remembers the first time he drank from Armand. Armand had asked him very directly why he didn’t return the favor. Not in an accusatory way, but a curious one. Louis had asked him, also directly, if there was any danger to it? If Armand would be able to stop him? Armand had laughed and reminded Louis that he was over four hundred years old. 

Louis started with his wrist. The feeling was other-worldly. He sucked at the blood spilling from the vein, and Louis felt his heart singing in response. His fangs dropped and latched, and Armand moaned. Louis’s eyes fluttered open, surprised to hear Armand’s voice and not someone else’s. 

The first time Louis bit Armand during sex, it was easier to remember where he was and who he was with, even if the ghost of Lestat seemed to hover. Louis was on top. Louis was responsible for the pleasure and the pain in equal parts. Louis had to keep his rhythm as his fangs sliced open Armand’s jugular. It was transcendent, yes, but it was a focused pleasure. Louis never lost sight of who he was with when he bit Armand’s neck. That was better.

Now, Louis closes his laptop. He looks at the hotel room that still needs to be packed up before he gets on the plane home, but Lestat’s words pound in his head like a drum. 

He found it repulsive.

He didn’t want my blood.

It was my greatest wish to taste Louis. For him to taste me.

And of course Daniel is right. Lestat never asked for it, and Louis never explained his reticence. 

It isn’t that Louis ever stopped wanting. The hunger is second nature to him now. It sits beside the other hunger—the normal hunger—on a shelf in his mind. When Lestat would come to him in visions in the 1940s, he’d tease Louis’s neck, sometimes biting, sometimes just kissing. As if to articulate how Louis couldn’t do the same, couldn’t touch him back, couldn’t taste him ever again.

“Louis?” Daniel prompts him. 

Louis snaps out of his memories. His stomach feels empty, as does his chest. Not for the first time, he aches to see Lestat, even just for a moment.

“Listen, try to stop by and see me before you leave New Orleans, yeah?” Daniel chuckles and fades out. 

~*~

Louis was right—Lestat’s new house was not the filming location in the documentary clips he’d seen. This house was warmer, less sterile. When Louis slips in through the side door, he’s equally shocked and unsurprised to find all the similarities to the Rue Royale townhouse. 

His fingers itch to drag across the fabrics, to pick through the books that he knows Lestat doesn’t read, to trace along the coat hanging by the door. But instead he sits in Lestat’s chair and waits. He doesn’t have to wait long. 

Lestat is aware of his presence. Louis hears the way Lestat’s heartbeat skips before latching on to his, their rhythms syncing. 

And it’s his heartbeat that Louis wants to devour. Louis feels sick as the door opens. He stands from the armchair and smooths his pleated trousers. 

Lestat swings a garment bag over one shoulder, drops a duffle from the other hand, and flips his unnecessary sunglasses up—all in one fluid movement. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and stares at Louis from the entryway. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure,” he says, affecting careless boredom. 

Louis swallows. Lestat wears burgundy denim jeans that sit too low and a crochet top that rises too high. Monsieur le Rockstar.

When Louis doesn’t answer, Lestat sighs dramatically and tosses his garment bag over the back of the couch. 

“What will it be tonight, Louis?” He’s lighting a cigarette and pacing away, aggressively. “What offense have I caused, what great plan for your life have I ruined?”

Lestat runs his free hand through his hair and leans a hip against the couch, and Louis feels a bit delirious with how badly he wants him. It’s starting to blur again, the lust and the bloodlust, and he thinks maybe this was a mistake. 

He pushes forward, knowing it’s too late to turn back. He’s here. 

Louis clears his throat. “All your songs were about me. I wasn’t prepared for that. That’s why I left the concert.”

Lestat tilts his head and flicks the end of his cigarette. “My songs are about me. You…feature, yes, but—”

Louis laughs then. He can help the way it bursts out of him. Lestat’s lips twist like he’s trying not to do the same. 

“’Gimme some face, a souvenir,’” Louis recites. 

“Hmm. You do owe me one such souvenir if I recall correctly.” Lestat innocently glances over his living room. 

This is the easy part, Louis thinks. The flirting, the sex, has always been easy. Maybe he should start there. 

He moves forward, and Lestat clocks him, as if surprised by how easily Louis gives in. 

Lestat remains perfectly still, one hand on the back of the couch, the other hanging limply at his side with the cigarette burning down. Louis reaches for his face, curling his fingers around his jaw and gently pulling him close. 

When their lips meet, both of Lestat’s hands come up to frame Louis’s face, and Louis can feel the heat of the cigarette even as Lestat carefully extends it away from his skin. 

It’s soft. And slow. And Louis wonders if the blood tastes different when it’s like this. If he could possibly stay this relaxed and languid once Lestat’s veins open to him, or if he’ll be out of his mind with it instantly. 

Louis opens his mouth to him, and Lestat finds a way to smoothly put out the cigarette before wrapping his arms around Louis’s shoulders. A soft moan pulses between them, pulled from either or both of their chests. 

Louis doesn’t want to talk about it. He just wants it to be as natural as breathing to them. Because it is. Because it always should have been. 

He pulls back for half a second, long enough to drop his fangs and pierce his bottom lip, and then kisses Lestat again. 

He knows the second Lestat tastes him. And it’s so familiar. Louis suddenly remembers all the times that Lestat’s fangs slipped, that Louis’s fangs slipped, because the reaction is the same. Lestat draws back with a heady gasp and whispers, “Désolé, I—I don’t mean to…”

Louis kisses him harder, swiping his tongue over the bead of blood on his lip and pushing it into Lestat’s mouth. 

The hands on the back of Louis’s head tighten and hold him in place, as Lestat runs his tongue over Louis’s. He pulls back just as quickly as before. 

“Why are you bleeding, mon cher?” He breathes the words against Louis’s mouth. 

Louis slices his tongue over his fang and presses forward again. He dives into Lestat’s mouth, and Lestat sucks on his tongue with a soft groan. Louis thinks maybe he gets it—maybe Lestat understands—maybe they don’t need to talk about it—

Lestat breaks away and steps backward, turning to face the wall. Tension fills his shoulders.

“Daniel…” Lestat says, his distaste for the man dripping from his words. “Daniel shared something with you, didn’t he?”

Louis is a bit breathless with the loss of Lestat’s mouth. 

“He called me for a fact check. Because he knew that Armand and I shared blood.”

Lestat goes still. “Hmm.” He turns to face Louis again, a tight smile on his face and his eyes flinty in the low light. “I see.”

Louis’s heart is in his throat. His body is in flight mode as he prepares to be more vulnerable in front of Lestat than he’s been in a hundred years, but he pushes through.

“You were right. I had an aversion to it, but not for the reason you think.” Louis’s voice quivers. 

If Louis is in flight, Lestat is in fight. His gaze is hard, and Louis knows he’s preparing himself for something far worse than what Louis has to say. 

“Please,” he says, shrugging with nonchalance. “Enlighten me.”

Louis’s hands are trembling, and he pushes them into his pockets. Lestat spots it, and maybe his eyes are softer now. Maybe Louis just wishes it. 

“Because I wanted you,” Louis rushes out. He feels blood tears welling in his eyes, and the embarrassment of it makes them come faster. 

It’s clear from Lestat’s expression that he doesn’t understand. His brow knits together, and his mouth is tight. Louis doesn’t need the ability to look into his mind to know that he hears the past tense alongside the words. 

“I want you,” Louis says. “And I’m starving—all the time, Lestat.”

Louis’s chest shakes. Lestat looks at him the same way he did in the shack two years ago—lost and with so many things to say, unsure where to begin.

“Louis…”

“Do you remember the first time you told me I could drink from you?” Louis sniffs, grateful that the first blood tears haven’t fallen. “It was after the tractor salesman.”

Lestat nods, as if nothing from 1910 to 1940 could have escaped his notice. 

“You—you had to pull me off him. And I resisted you. I shoved you back.”

Lestat takes a deep breath, frustration seeping into his posture. “I don’t understand what that has to—”

“And I could never master the Little Drink,” he cuts him off, the words tumbling out of him now. “It took me until the nineties to get it right.”

The blood tears fall. Louis feels relief with it, like something broke that has been crumbling for too long. Lestat is shocked by the tears though. 

“Louis—”

“You had to know, Lestat.” Louis steps into him, grabbing the front of his weird knit top. “I killed everything I tasted in those thirty years. You have to remember that.”

Lestat’s hands come up to his elbows, steadying him. His lips are parted, but his brows are still furrowed, undecided. 

Louis’s hands slide up to cup Lestat’s neck. And the rush of emotions of saying it out loud, even if Lestat doesn’t get it yet—the anticipation he’s had all night, that he’d walked into this house knowing that he’d finally taste him tonight. 

Louis’s left index nail scratches Lestat’s neck. He makes sure it’s nowhere near his jugular, but that the scratch is deep enough to pull drops forward. 

Lestat’s breath catches. 

Louis swallows, steadying himself as he stares at the drops as they multiply, a slow stream sliding over Lestat’s skin now. 

“I’ve thought this through,” Louis says, and his voice is low and thick. “And I don’t want to bite. I can’t have you lose yourself, because I need you to stop me.”

One of Lestat’s hands drops on Louis’s waist. He can feel Lestat’s ribs expanding against his. 

Louis’s eyes flick up to his, their faces so close. “You promise me?” Louis asks.

Lestat nods. “I will give you anything, Louis,” he whispers against his mouth. “You can take all of me if you wish to.” 

Louis jerks back. The sweetest words packing the heaviest punch. His face crumples as he pulls away from Lestat, and the tears pour in rivers. 

He hasn’t heard him yet. Louis hasn’t been clear yet. 

And Lestat—Lestat who stayed as Louis and Claudia planned his murder, who let himself be killed instead of letting Louis go—Lestat who starved himself and withered to nothing without Louis’s attention for seventy years—Lestat looks so lost as Louis drops his head into his hands and sobs.

“Louis?”

Louis is two seconds from running out the door, but Lestat’s arms wrap around him.

“Louis, I don’t understand. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, please tell me.”

He gasps in a greedy lungful of air. “I’m afraid I’m going to kill you.”

It drops between them like a rock. Louis feels more free and more chained, all at once. Admitting it feels like admitting something else. Admitting the fear of losing him means admitting the importance of him, doesn’t it?

Lestat presses his nose against Louis’s cheek. “You’ve already done that, mon amour,” he says, voice teasing. 

A laugh pushes out of him as Louis sniffs. Louis pulls back, taking Lestat’s face in his hands and meeting his eyes. 

“I just need you to promise me you won’t let me take it all,” Louis whispers. 

Lestat’s gaze is brilliant blue as he nods. As if it’s easy. And maybe it is. 

Louis pushes Lestat’s hair behind his ear, and his eyes drop to the healed scratch on Lestat’s neck. The blood is almost dry. Louis’s mouth is pulled to it, hypnotically. 

He brushes his tongue over the thin trail of blood on Lestat’s neck, and Lestat’s arms tighten around his waist.

It dances on his taste buds. Louis wishes he could say it was just blood, just the same taste as it’s been in his mouth for years, but it’s not. 

He slips one hand into Lestat’s hair, and the other scratches at his neck again, fresh drops springing from his pale skin. Lestat’s grip slips down to Louis’s ass and he can’t even appreciate the forwardness because his lips latch onto the small cut in Lestat’s skin and then his mind goes white. 

There’s something effervescent. He could float with this feeling. Louis’s fangs drop, and he has enough of his mind left to keep from piercing the skin, but his lips suck indulgently at the small cut in Lestat’s neck. 

It feels like the first kill. No, before that. It feels like the first—it feels like Lestat, on the altar. His wrist to Louis’s mouth. And that incredible knowledge that Louis had then, but has left him since—that he wasn’t damning himself, he was finding himself. 

Louis pulls back, his eyes hazy as he stares at the now-closed scratch. “What is that?” he asks. 

Lestat tilts his face to see him. “Mon cœur?”

“Why does it taste like that?”

Lestat blinks at him, a blush coming to his cheeks. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to be rude—”

Louis kisses him quiet, biting Lestat’s lip and sucking. “I need more, please. I—I need—”

“Bite, Louis,” he says softly. Louis’s eyes fly to his. “I will take care of you, I promise.”

Louis’s fangs are already dropped. He scrambles for the hem of Lestat’s woven top and tugs it up. It’s barely over his head before Louis backs him against the nearest wall and pins him there with his hips. 

Lestat’s face is so open and eager. And patient. 

Louis kisses him once before sliding his mouth to his throat. He hovers over his jugular, wanting it more than anything in the world. His lips slip an inch upward instead, determined not to cause maximum damage—

Lestat’s hand cradles the back of his head, tugging him back to the throbbing vein. “Right here, Louis. I want you to. I have you.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Louis teeth pierce Lestat’s neck, and he hears a deep moan—feels it maybe. The blood splashes hotly into his mouth, and Louis tastes it again—some kind of nectar that he’s only found in Lestat’s veins. He can feel him. His heartbeat pounds on Louis’s tongue and Louis is drunk with it. 

Lestat’s hair is soft in his fist, Lestat’s skin is smooth under his palm, and his life slides down Louis’s throat and into his own body. 

Louis isn’t even aware he’s moving his hips until Lestat grabs them, holding them still as they fight his hold to keep rolling against Lestat’s front. 

“I’ll come, mon cher—if you keep—if—”

And with that promise, Louis’s mouth is vicious on Lestat’s throat, long greedy pulls that try to drag the pleasure out of him. Lestat’s answering moan is decadent, and Louis feels like he can taste the sound of it. 

Louis’s left hand drops from Lestat’s shoulder and trails down to cup him through his denim jeans. The sound wrenched out of Lestat’s chest as he quakes in Louis’s arms is out of this world… and then Louis can taste it. 

The pleasure. The overwhelming need in Lestat’s body. The blinding bliss of being held by Louis, being bitten by Louis, being near Louis—

The flavor of his blood shifts, and Louis rips Lestat’s hands off his hips and pins them to the wall. His mouth is still working slowly over Lestat’s neck, swallowing down the aftershocks of his pleasure, and Louis can hear Lestat’s throat clicking as he gasps for air. With Lestat’s hands pinned and his body lax and his blood in Louis’s mouth, Louis feels unstoppable. His cock is hard against Lestat’s body, and his hips start their grinding again, seeking out his own pleasure now. 

“Louis,” Lestat rasps, breathless. “Louis, let me.”

Louis pulls off his neck with a wet sound that stirs his cock. When he looks at Lestat, his eyes are blown black, and his face is flushed, even with the blood loss. 

It hits Louis then that he did it. He stopped. It was the most divine experience he’s had in one hundred and fourteen years, and he was able to pause. 

Lestat presses a soft kiss against Louis’s bloody mouth, and then in the little space he has, he slips to his knees. 

Louis leans on the wall, the place where Lestat had been a second ago, as deft fingers slip open his trousers. Louis is panting hard, eyes squeezing shut, Lestat’s blood still on his tongue—in his veins, he realizes, and his cock jumps before he’s even been touched. 

Louis looks down and sees Lestat’s bare torso, the gash of Louis’s bite on his neck, and the blood he’d missed as it had slid down Lestat’s chest. Louis did that to him. He bit him, he bled him, and made him come like an animal. Lestat pulls Louis’s cock to rest on his open lips, and Louis moans out, “I’m almost there.” Like they’d been fucking for hours and Louis was announcing the end. 

Lestat nods softly. “However you want it, Louis.”

White hot pleasure shoots through his veins at the words, and Louis pushes into Lestat’s wet mouth with a whine. Lestat’s throat is open for him, as it always is when they do this, and Louis fucks his face roughly for only ten seconds before he grabs Lestat’s cheek and buries himself. The back of Lestat’s head is against the wall, and he has nowhere to go as Louis spills down his throat, but he gazes up into Louis’s eyes with the clear intention that there is nowhere he’d go. His throat flexes around Louis’s cock, and his gaze rests on him as Louis groans out his release. 

Louis pants, trying to catch breath he doesn’t need. He brushes his thumb over Lestat’s cheekbone as he softens inside his mouth. When he finally pulls back and frees Lestat, Louis’s legs are jelly. Instead of hauling Lestat up to his mouth, he drops next to him, and carefully takes his face between his trembling hands. The kiss is sloppy, but Louis thinks that’s good. The traces of Lestat’s blood and Louis’s spend dance on his tongue. 

Louis bites down on Lestat’s lip, letting his fangs do what they’ve always wanted, and when fresh blood beads into his mouth, he moans, sure he’ll be hard again in no time. 

Lestat has paused, his mouth open to him, but his movements slower. Louis pulls back, finding black eyes staring back at him. 

Lestat’s gaze flickers over Louis’s face, examining him. “Do you want more?” he whispers.

Louis nods, his body already tingling with renewed want. But Lestat looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. 

“And you want… me?” His voice is so small. Louis has to listen carefully to make sure he’s hearing the meaning. 

The vulnerability, the wonder. 

Louis traces a finger down Lestat’s jaw. “Always wanted you,” he says. “Always been hungry for you. I used to wake up with my fangs out, mouth against your neck in the coffin, remember?”

Lestat’s eyelashes flutter. “Louis…”

“Come on,” Louis says, peeling himself away and standing. “Need you fucking me the next time I drink from you.”

Lestat’s eyes are bright in shock as he stands. Suddenly he looks embarrassed. “I will maybe need…” He swallows. “I should feed, since you have concerns about drinking too much.”

Louis stares at him, feeling oddly stupid for not thinking of that, feeling oddly warm that Lestat is now thinking of that for him. 

Ripping his gaze away from Louis, Lestat says, “I can hunt animal, if it would offend you were I to…”

But Louis can only think of how long it would take Lestat to find enough rats and small animals to fill himself. 

“Can it be me?” he asks. Lestat blinks at him. “Does it work like that to… If you were to drink from me now—”

“That’s not necessary,” Lestat says swiftly. His eyes are dilated as he reaches for his top. “I can hunt quickly. Just tell me your preference—”

“Lestat.” Louis grabs his wrist before he can tug the knit material over his shoulders. “Drink from me.”

His gaze is almost apologetic. “I don’t have to.”

Louis recalls his words in the video clip: It was my greatest wish to taste Louis.

Why was he fighting this then? Louis’s thumb passes over the thumping pulse at Lestat’s wrist as he remembers… The last time Lestat had drank from Louis, he’d drained him and dropped him from the clouds. 

Louis reaches up and starts unbuttoning his shirt. As he peels it off his shoulders, Lestat’s eyes darken on his skin. “Don’t want you drinking animal. Or human.” Louis tugs Lestat forward by his jeans. “Not when it could be me.” 

Lestat brings a hand up to Louis’s face. His fingers trace Louis’s brow softly. “This is what you want?”

“Want you,” Louis mumbles as he rips open Lestat’s jeans. “Take these off. They’re ruined anyway.”

Lestat bites his lip, a saucy look in eyes. “Not ruined. Maybe I’ll frame them and give them to the Hard Rock Hotels. ‘The Vampire Lestat’s jeans, worn as he came without being touched—’”

“Stop talking and bite me,” Louis challenges.

Something dark and satisfied flickers in Lestat’s eyes. He levels his gaze on him as he says, “Go upstairs and get on the bed.”

Tingles run down Louis’s spine. It’s been so long since he’s been on the receiving end of a sexually charged command. Not since Lestat. 

Louis steps back, obeying. He keeps his eyes on him as he moves up the stairs, watching as Lestat begins pushing the tight burgundy denim down his hips. Finding the bedroom easily, Louis shucks his own trousers and kicks off his shoes. He’s vaguely aware that there will be no easy escape tomorrow; his clothing has been discarded in various rooms now. His eyes cast over to the single coffin, his heart pounding with excitement. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Louis doesn’t have to wait long.

Completely naked now, Lestat prowls into the room, tossing a jar of oil he must have retrieved against the bed pillows. Louis flushes with want at the promise, but before he can react, Lestat tugs him up and tears the warm gold duvet off the bed. When Lestat shoves him to lie back down, Louis realizes the sheets beneath him are creamy white. 

“We’re going to paint such a pretty picture together, mon cher,” Lestat purrs, looking him over appraisingly. Louis shudders at the idea of the sheets stained red. 

He can’t take his gaze off the dried blood trailing down from Lestat’s neck, and Louis has to remind himself that no matter how the hunger gnaws, it’s not his turn. 

Lestat bends to crawl up Louis’s body with the grace of a panther, and Louis’s cock is already swelling again. Their skin slides together as Lestat fits himself against Louis’s hips and presses their mouths together. His hands lift into Lestat’s hair as he opens his mouth to him. 

Lestat bites Louis’s tongue with dull teeth, and Louis groans. He shifts to Louis’s neck and Louis’s eyes flutter closed in anticipation, but Lestat only drags his fangs over the skin. Moving lower, Lestat sucks a kiss against Louis’s chest, flicking his tongue over a nipple before coasting across his stomach to the space between Louis’s hip and bottom rib. Lestat scrapes his teeth there as Louis moans, grabbing for Lestat’s hair. Kissing the small red beads of blood that pop up from under his skin, Lestat sucks lightly. 

Louis’s hips are squirming by the time Lestat kisses his way down to run his fangs over one hipbone. Louis can hear himself moaning soft little sounds on every hurried exhale, can feel his eyes rolling back with every drag of teeth over his skin, can still taste Lestat on his tongue from earlier. 

When Lestat nuzzles the place his thigh meets his groin, Louis’s legs start to spasm. “You’ve already done that tonight,” Louis says, at the end of his rope. “Get up here.”

“I thought you wanted me to bite you, Louis?” Lestat murmurs against his hip, and then his fangs are sinking into Louis’s inner thigh.

Louis’s body jolts. His back curves off the bed and his hands shoot down to grab for Lestat’s hair. The sounds he makes couldn’t be repeated later even if he tried; they are too primal, too singular to this experience. 

Lestat’s left palm presses against Louis’s hip, holding him to the bed even as Louis’s legs scramble for purchase against the sheets. Louis can feel the blood pouring into Lestat’s mouth, the greedy pull of Lestat’s lips. His cock is heavy and twitching against his stomach, and Louis needs Lestat to stop. He needs Lestat to never stop. He needs Lestat to do more to do less to touch him to get off him—

Lestat’s large hand slides up from its place on Louis’s hip, over his belly, past his ribs, reaching up for Louis’s mouth. It’s not until his wrist presses against Louis’s chin that he finally understands, and twining Lestat’s fingers between his own, Louis bites into the flesh at Lestat’s wrist even as Lestat continues to drink deeply from Louis’s thigh. 

The vein bursts open against his lips, and that sweet taste floods Louis’s senses more than it floods his tongue. Distantly, he hears Lestat groan against his thigh, and the pleasure floats to him through the blood. 

Louis sucks gently, taking just enough to coast on this bliss for a bit longer. He thinks of the high he used to chase in the seventies—gifting drugs to young men just to taste it through their blood. He thinks of the way he described the Little Drink to Daniel two years ago—the best drugs you ever had, multiplied by miles…to the rings of Saturn and back.

This… 

Lestat’s sighs in pleasure, unceasing in his drinking. 

This was the high. This was the drug. Louis’s lips grow greedy as he realizes the truth of it all—that if he’d had this for the past seventy years, he wouldn’t have needed the boys with the drugs in their veins. 

This…

Louis pulls his mouth from Lestat’s wrist, kissing his way over his palm, until finally slipping two of Lestat’s fingers deep into his blood red mouth. Sucking. 

Lestat eyes flick to his. Louis watches as Lestat’s mouth releases Louis’s thigh, his femoral artery spilling blood onto the white sheets. But Lestat’s focus is on Louis’s mouth, sucking on his fingers. Begging Lestat to fuck him, without words. 

As Lestat crawls up to Louis, pulling his fingers gently from between Louis’s lips to grab the oil he’d tossed near the pillows, Louis sighs in relief. 

He thinks he loves him too much. Louis wonders if his love for Lestat weighed too heavy in his veins all these years with no ocean to spill into. Decades of tight madness feel loosened now with Louis's blood given a course to run—into Lestat’s heart. 

Louis is thinking too many things as Lestat methodically opens the oil, slicks his fingers, and begins to open Louis to him. He drags Lestat’s mouth to his as Lestat slips one, then two fingers inside of him, and the taste of their blood together on their tongues… 

“I’m ready,” Louis says breathlessly. “I’m gonna…gonna come.”

Lestat doesn’t pause his movements, he only stares down at Louis and asks, “Can I taste it?”

Louis gazes back at him, thinking of the taste of Lestat’s orgasm in his blood. He nods. 

Lestat presses a soft kiss against his lips, curls his fingers inside of him, and then sinks his teeth into Louis’s neck for the first time in over ninety years. 

The pleasure is white hot and blinding. Louis hears himself coming, but he’s somewhere else. He’s floating to the rings of Saturn. 

Lestat groans into his throat, and Louis knows he can taste it. He can taste Saturn too.

His nails rake down Lestat’s back as he spills across both of their stomachs. His hips jerk, even as Lestat’s fingers continue to press into him. Only once Louis is completely wrung out does Lestat pull back, slipping his fingers from inside of him. 

Louis’s vision is hazy. His breath is coming fast still, and the sight of his blood staining Lestat’s mouth sends a tremor through his muscles. 

“Louis…” Lestat nuzzles his face against his. “Louis, tell me again, please. Why was it difficult for you to…? I don’t understand.”

Letting his hands coast down Lestat’s taut back, Louis feels the weight of him like a blanket. 

“I thought I could drain you,” he admits quietly. “I thought there was a chance you’d die if I drank from you. And I'd rather have been hungry my whole life than lose you.”

Lestat’s eyes are bright with unreleased emotion as he nods. He swallows and seems to take a second to gather himself. “And with Armand? It wasn’t like that?”

Louis scoffs and shakes his head. “You really wanna ask me that while you’re hard as a rock against my thigh?”

“I’m giving you time to recover,” Lestat says innocently. 

Louis laughs. “Well, don’t.” He kisses him, tasting himself in Lestat’s mouth. He reaches between them and guides Lestat’s cock where he needs to be, tilting his knees up. Lestat pants heavily once, before steeling himself and rocking forward. 

The push of him inside makes Louis bite his lip to keep quiet, but then Lestat forces his mouth open with a kiss. A muffled moan passes between them. 

Lestat keeps it slow, too slow. Louis’s hand traces down his spine to press Lestat’s backside forward. 

“Patience, mon cher.”

Louis’s eyes roll back in bliss as the strokes stay short and sweet. “I don’t got patience. I’m ‘allegro,’ remember?”

Lestat presses their foreheads together with a smile curving his lips. “Relax, Louis. Enjoy the andante.”

Louis groans. Lestat has Louis’s knees pressed back to his chest. He couldn’t fix the rhythm if he tried. Louis tries to kiss him dirty, with teeth and tongue and hard breath, but Lestat takes his time, refusing to go faster. 

“Deeper,” Louis moans. “Lestat, please. More.”

“Wait, Louis,” Lestat whispers. 

Louis lunges up and bites Lestat’s neck. He listens to Lestat gasp. He feels his rhythm stutter. Lestat’s body shakes as he slides in, bottoming out. Louis unlatches to throw his head back in agonizing bliss. He licks his fangs for the taste of Lestat on his teeth. 

Lestat shifts up on his hands to hover above him, pulling out of range of Louis’s fangs with a grin. “You want to play dirty now?”

Louis nods, reaching up for Lestat’s mouth to come closer, but Lestat evades him. Lestat rolls his hips, pulling all the way out to sink all the way back in, slow as molasses, smooth as silk. Louis’s jaw drops open, his chest shaking. 

“I’ll play dirty, Louis. Tell me.” Lestat pushes in again. “Tell me why you could drink from Armand.”

Louis barely hears the words. Lestat is deep now, finally hitting that place that makes Louis’s legs shake. 

“Lestat—”

“Tell me, and I’ll fuck you how you like it.” Lestat trails a hand down Louis’s chest to smooth over the skin of his stomach. He wraps his fingers around Louis’s cock—which he didn’t even know was hard again. “Tell me, and you can drink from me as I fuck you, mon cœur.”

Lestat rubs the head of his cock, and Louis loses his mind for a moment. 

“Because I didn’t love him.”

Lestat stills. Louis feels his shock as he feels his own. Lestat’s chest shivers as he looses a breath, like an arrow from a bow. His eyes are bright with red tears, and he looks like he will swallow it back and keep fucking him, letting them both ignore the words for now. 

“C’mere.” Louis wraps his hands around the back of Lestat’s neck and pulls him down. Lestat sighs into his mouth as they kiss. 

Lestat finds his rhythm—finds Louis’s rhythm, as Louis knows the snap of his hips isn’t his preferred pace. 

Louis turns his mouth into Lestat’s neck, holding him close and whispers, “Slower, mon amour.”

Lestat’s voice breaks on a moan. Louis stares at the ceiling, wrapping his legs around Lestat’s back and locking his ankles. 

“Louis…”

Louis’s fangs drop, like they so often did when they made love. His hand wraps in golden hair, angling Lestat’s mouth to Louis’s neck. “With me, please?”

Lestat’s body shudders as he rocks into him, letting his teeth pull over Louis’s throat. 

When Louis bites, Lestat follows. 

Their blood spills. Lestat’s soft sigh and Louis’s low groan play like music against the movement of their bodies. Louis can taste the unmistakable loneliness in Lestat’s veins, the sorrow that only slithers away when Louis is near. Lestat’s heartbeat pounds on his tongue, and Louis can feel his own sliding out of him and to Lestat. 

Lestat’s hips thrust into him, and Louis’s arms hug his body closer, as if he could make them one. 

Louis’s orgasm is soft, and if it wasn’t for Lestat’s moan at the change in his blood, he might have missed it altogether. That is the strength of it—the insatiable need to fill himself with the contents of Lestat’s heart. 

When the blood in his mouth turns sharper, Louis is distantly aware of Lestat’s hips jerking. The throat, bare under his teeth, grunts against him, and Louis tastes more than Lestat’s release. 

His love flows into Louis’s mouth. 

I send my love to you, Louis thinks, remembering, and you send it back ‘round to me. 

When Lestat lays spent, draped over him, his ribs moving quickly against his own, Louis finally pulls off Lestat’s vein and kisses the skin until it closes. 

Lestat stays shuddering in his arms, his face buried in Louis’s neck. 

Louis is warm with the blood. Lestat’s heart is inside of him.

And for the first time in his one hundred and fourteen years, Louis feels satiated. The hunger sleeps. 

~*~

“Mr. Molloy, I must clarify something from an earlier interview this week.”

Daniel is barely seated. The cameras are barely rolling. “Uh huh?”

Lestat tosses his hair, and Daniel sighs at the bite marks he sees on his neck. 

“The reason Louis and I never shared blood is because he loves me too much.” The corner of Lestat’s lips curve into a smile. 

Daniel narrows his eyes. “Okay. Is that it?”

“Yes.” Lestat settles back into the couch. Suddenly he leans forward. “Also, please amend your notes. He could only drink from the vampire Armand because he did not love him at all and never did—please add that to your notes—”

“Lestat!” a familiar voice from the other room calls. 

“I have it from the source, Mr. Molloy—”

Daniel rubs his brow as Louis de Pointe du Lac bursts into the studio and begins a heated argument with Daniel’s subject about what was and what wasn’t appropriate to share with an audience. 

Daniel flags his assistant. He needs a martini for this.