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Chapter Text

In an oversized hotel suite bathroom in Paris’ second arrondissement, Louis pressed his face very close to the mirror and peeled back his eyelid with his thumb. There was something there, he could feel it, something stiffer than an eyelash. He rubbed hard at his eye socket with his fist, then pulled his eyelid up again. He could see a red-veined cornea, the pale pink-white viscera at the inner corner, even the tiny, sporadic fissures of light brown and green in his irises, like little branches shooting out from the undergrowth.

He stepped back away from the mirror, blinking rapidly. It was almost painful to stare at his reflection: the bloodshot eyes, the tightly-pulled mouth, the skeletal curl of his hands. He looked at himself, and wondered what his eyes might look like if they were empty. Lifeless, as Paul’s had been: glassy and brown-black, blood eking out of the corner like a single, congealed tear. 

On the dark marble counter sat a six-month-old bottle of vicodin, stolen from his mother’s bathroom, given to her after a hip replacement. She hadn’t taken any of it—she prayed instead. 

Eight pills would probably be enough, but he should take the entire bottle to be safe. A part of him was darkly pleased to think about the poor hotel staff finding him. He wanted to leave in a cloud of horror and destruction, just as Paul had. 

Outside, Paris’ winding, uneven streets glittered merrily. Sleek, black sedans stopped and started amidst dizzying traffic, engines groaning, pedestrians slipping between the gleaming hoods without glancing left or right. 

This thing called “Paris Syndrome” which he had been warned about had yet to touch him. Paris was charming and vibrant and painfully beautiful. He almost wished he hadn’t left his camera at the house in New Orleans. His mother would certainly throw it out, and if not her, then one of the maids. 

He took the bottle in one hand, inspecting the small, unassuming pills inside. 

Please, please just do it. It won’t get better. You know it. Before you change your mind.

His hand didn’t shake as he once thought it would. His reflection in the mirror was a gaunt, ugly stranger. He wasn’t usually this sallow by the end of summer, but he’d spent the past few months cooped up in his office. Paul hadn’t been doing so well—it was stupid of him to miss it in hindsight—and Grace had been busy with her new husband and his mother… Florence had wanted a new car, one of those shiny, boat-like Rolls Royces, and Louis had to ensure she got it by the time Christmas rolled around. 

She’d hardly glanced at the heavy Van Cleef and Arpels chain necklace he’d bought for her last year. Grace had held it in one hand, eyes wide and swimming at the beauty of the Mother of Pearl charms that dotted the chain, while Florence’s mouth merely twisted. 

It’s too long, Louis, she had said, do you think I have the neck of a giraffe? 

No, it had to be that new Phantom, with the aggressive front nose and the dainty badge, white leather seats, real wood for the trim. 

So he worked all summer, desperate, too, for a distraction from the disgusting monotone of his life. And on the day of his dear Grace’s wedding, he emerged from his hibernation, spent a single glorious night dancing and drinking with Paul, who was more clear-eyed than he had been in years. 

And then the roof. 

Louis should have never agreed—or had he suggested it? He couldn’t remember now. There had been an open bar, and he drank in a way that was “un-catholic” as Florence had put it. He must have still been drunk when he went up on that roof to watch the sun rise. 

Still drunk when Paul said he loved Louis, and when Louis said it back. 

Louis’ eyes came back to focus, and he realized he had left the bathroom and was staring at the neat, faint pattern on the carpet beneath his bare feet. The Parisians did pattern in such a classy way, he thought: pinstripes on the tufted duvet, brocade on the headboard, floral velvet curtains bracketing the windows, checkered tile in the bathroom.

The bottle of vicodin was hilariously light in his hand, almost like he was holding nothing. His eyes wandered to the city through the window. His view was mostly the tops of neighboring buildings, and small triangles of green from the parks.  

He had little connection to Paris, certainly not enough to die here, but he had always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower at night, with all its twinkling lights. He’d wanted to take a picture. 

Florence would probably throw out all his photo albums, too, the ones he’d carefully put together for every holiday, for every birthday and anniversary. 

Eight pills in his hand, then another six, for good measure. The hotel had given him a bottle of wine, a Bordeaux, which he poured out into a glass. It was a dark, sumptuous color, just viscous enough that it clung to the class in a thin film when he swirled it. 

He stared at the pills, at the glass in front of him, and thought of Paul, and Hell, and his mother Florence, and Grace, who might be pregnant now. Inexplicably, he thought of Jonah, too, that sweet, fresh-faced boy who he had fumbled around with a few times in the back of his old Mercedes. Jonah, who had gone off to West Point to be a cadet, and would probably never touch a man in the way he had touched Louis. It all made him sick, and angry. 

All his life, he’d wanted to do this. Or rather, he’d wanted to want to do this: a couple times as a teenager when he’d been so confused and uncertain and alone that he thought there couldn’t be a point to this, then again when his father died, and then the first time a big deal fell through, then the second, and then the third. 

This time was different. He thought it might be because he didn’t believe in Hell anymore, or didn’t care to think about it, but whatever the reason, he’d changed into something purposeful and careful. He was no longer a man of wanting, he was a man of action. 

The pills shifted in his hand, and he stared back at them, mouth dry, head light, obscenely calm. Unlike the other times—he’d really just wanted to be held or spoken to, kissed on the cheek and taken to bed—-there was no crying, no negotiating with himself, not even a moment of messy, dramatic exhalation or fingernails digging into skin.

He took a sip of the wine first, wettening his tongue, and then, as he lifted his palm full of pills to his mouth, a single sound rang out. It was a beautiful, clear chime, yet somehow deep and resonant all at once. His chest seized and a heat struck him straight through the gut like an arrow. 

He had forgotten that the Notre Dame cathedral was nearby. He was hearing it now, that great, deep ringing, like the heavens itself had opened up and was spilling down upon the earth. He dropped the pills with a shocked spasm, stomach twisting at what he had been about to do.

Oh, God, he thought, as his head began to split at the sound, cleaved in two like a rotten apple.  

Church bells, ringing in his ear. 

Louis fled Paris that very next morning, calling his assistant in New Orleans to arrange for him to stay somewhere quiet, remote. 

There are some lovely chateaus in the east. But it can be very cold. 

Somewhere warmer, he said over the phone. He’d rented a big black SUV which looked at home enough on the streets of Paris, but had become monstrous and oversized and totally American the moment Louis left the city. His two large suitcases rattled around in the back. 

He was suffering from a mild hangover—he’d finished the bottle last night, then polished off a glass of Macallan ordered from room service. The young woman with the slicked-back hair who had brought it to him unsubtly peered around the edge of his door when he opened it, expecting perhaps a guest. 

Biarritz is lovely, but there will be tourists, his assistant said. Louis wondered if she could hear the strickenness of his voice, could sense the weakness. 

The south then, but not Biarritz. 

I’ll send you an address when I’ve found a place. 

Something small, please. Buy it if you have to, but I want it out of the way. No staff. 

Then he hung up the phone. 

Forty minutes later, she had emailed him an address. 

I sent over an offer, in cash, and I imagine they’ll accept by the time you get there. The owner is very old and doesn't live there anymore. They usually rent it in the summers. 

Louis reminded himself to send her a sizable bonus for Christmas time, if he decided to live that long. 

It would have taken eight hours if he’d driven without stopping, but he gave himself a few breaks: twice to fill up on gas, and a third time to stop in Niort. 

A large cathedral stood in the very center, almost oversized in relation to the rest of the city. Louis found a cafe on the corner and sat outside, working through a very dry but hearty sandwich and a glass of red wine. The whole while, he kept his gaze averted from the cathedral. 

It loomed over him, like a figure at the edge of his bed. Small, brown-breasted birds darted between the iron-wrought legs of the tables and chairs, picking idly at whatever crumbs lay in between the stone-work. He watched them instead, throat working over the dryness of the wine, eyes a little bleary from all the driving. He still had hours to go, but for a moment, he let himself sit in that chair and watch the birds.

He wished he had his camera. 

Louis fled Niort quickly, settling back into his black Escalade with its faint smell of cigarette smoke from whoever had driven it before him. 

The town his assistant had found for him was a thirty minute drive from Hossegor, an hour from Biarritz, and was cupped on one side by cliffs and on the other by wide, sandy beaches that stretched out like white concrete. He slowed his car to a stop a few times to take in its beauty. 

When he arrived at the address, he almost laughed.

What a cruel thing. Across from his little cottage, the only building in sight, sat an old stone church, with a crumbling bell tower and a modest, overgrown cemetery around the back. Pale purple flower bushes made up a small, wispy front garden. 

Louis slammed the car door shut, pulled out his two bags, and walked with his head down to the front door. A pair of keys was sitting, loose, on the bottom step. 

Those keys wouldn’t have lasted long in America. 

The inside of the cottage was slightly nicer than the outside suggested: wooden beams everywhere, a neat kitchenette tucked away to the right of the living room. There were many bookshelves, all empty, and a deep linen couch that was strikingly modern. In Paris, the fashion was crown molding and oddly-colored furniture: green acrylic chairs tucked into a heavy oak table, ornate fireplaces and a graphic, cheap-looking carpet. 

It was different here, and he liked it. 

The bedroom was closest to the bluff, nothing more than a small box of a room with off-white walls and a pair of oversized windows that looked down onto the sand and the ocean below. His bed was a simple pinewood frame and a mattress still wrapped in the plastic. There wasn’t enough room here for much else besides a pair of small stools in the corner, padded with pinstripe cushions.

He stared out the window for a few minutes, watching the modest waves froth and crash onto the sand. There were no tourists here, no beachgoers, just a few locals walking their dogs along the shoreline. 

A voice that sounded like Grace suddenly tickled his ear: you’re being miserable again, Louis. Go out, see some people. Break in those shoes. 

He made a plaintive sound, entirely involuntary, and looked around himself, fingers curling into fists, chest tightening. 

Get out of here, Louis. 

Louis left his suitcases unopened by the front door, taking only the jacket from his leather duffel and changing his socks into slightly thicker ones. 

It was colder here, a fresh, bright kind of chill that had little to do with the temperature and everything to do with the roaring ocean a hundred yards down and to his left. 

He walked along a narrow bike path that went from his cottage, past the church, and down the scrub-covered bluff towards the center of town. There was a light emanating from one of the church windows, so faint that it could have been the glow of a phone if it wasn’t so warm. Louis ducked his head as he walked by. 

The town was small but curiously spread out from what Louis could tell in the dark. A small, slightly rusted Peugeot two-door was parked in front of a bakery with two surfboards strapped on top. A pair of orange cats, one slightly larger, the other slightly smaller, padded lazily across the wide cobblestone promenade that made up the town’s center. 

Small white plaster buildings with red-tile roofs in the Spanish style made up the bulk of the infrastructure, though there were some older stone buildings dotted throughout. 

He made his way down one of the alleys towards the ocean. It was mostly apartments here, except for a single establishment on the corner, facing a strip of modest green that lay in front of a double-lane road. Beyond the road, there was sparse scrub brush, sand, and then the ocean. 

At night, the water resembled the surface of a massive marble, disturbingly still, no light reflecting against it save for a tiny sliver of moon. Louis stared. It was mystifying how different the ocean looked here compared to his view from his cottage, where it roiled and frothed and tumbled over itself.

“Ah, but it’s different!” English. A French accent speaking in wonderfully confident English. Louis perked, glancing around himself. 

He eventually spotted three people leaning against the windows of the bar, half huddled beneath the overhang of the roof, as if it were raining. 

Two women, older, their hair poking out of knitted hats, fingertips pink from the cold, and a man, either Louis’ age or younger. Unlike his counterparts, he was poorly dressed for the cold and smoking a cigarette, lounging against the outside of the bar in a comfortable, lazy manner. 

It was too dark to see any faces—not even the warm, sweet glow from inside the bar cut through the black enough. 

Louis had never been somewhere so dark, he was realizing. It might have been the ocean, which wrapped around the town like thick woolen sleeves, or the cloudy, starless sky, or the sheer lack of highrises and car high beams and traffic lights. Or perhaps a combination of all of it.

The man had gone back to speaking in French. His voice wasn’t rapid, however, like the people in Paris, who spoke in a dizzying rush of vowels and consonants, punctuated every sentence or so with a wordless noise of consideration. 

His voice was slow, like a drawl, and still decidedly different from the other two women with their Southern accents. 

Louis stood there, in the middle of the alley, and despite himself, he listened. 

They talked about nearly nothing: a new bakery opening up on the main street, concerning weather making its way to the coast, the church needing repairs before the winter. But that man’s voice stood out. 

He spoke playfully, performatively, like he was used to talking in front of large crowds. Louis must have looked strange, standing awkwardly in the alley, hands shoved in his pockets, but none of them looked in his direction, and if they did, it was too quick and subtle for him to notice. 

A moment later, the man’s voice suddenly dropped into a croon. In the dark, Louis could just make out his head cocking and his lips pulling upwards as he smiled. 

The way he sat against the windowsill, with the women standing in front of and above him, forced him to tilt his head upwards, supplicating, like a flower to the sun. Even so, his smile was predatory. Louis could see the white-silver flash of teeth in the dark. 

He watched, throat sour, feeling like he was witnessing a version of himself from a few years ago, when life was easier, when Florence was happier, when he would slink into his own nightclubs through the back entrance and indulge his every desire. 

An older man came stumbling out of the bar suddenly, laughing heartily, and Louis stepped forward in a jerky motion, pretending he had every intention to walk in. It was a little bit of a blessing. He hadn’t gone through the kitchen cabinets yet, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t find much of anything, especially not alcohol. 

Louis sat at the bar of Le Coq Rouge —he’d managed to catch a glance at the sign as he walked in—and stared dully ahead at the meager shelves in front of him. None of the whisky looked particularly good, besides a nearly-empty bottle of Talisker and a dusty Lagavulin. When the bartender, an older woman with her hair tied back and a single, rather attractive mole an inch above her upper lip, gave him a glance, he asked for a gin and tonic, and at the sound of his American accent, she smiled curiously. 

He braced himself for questions, but she didn’t ask any. Maybe he looked as miserable as he felt. 

The young man from outside came floating into the bar a few moments later, alone. Louis didn’t mean to look, but he did anyway, watching as he slipped between the chairs and tables gracefully, gaze fixed on nothing, like he was deep in thought. 

Under the light of the bar, it was clear that the man was blonde, with hair long enough to be tied back. He kept it down, however, tucked into the neck of his collar. His eyes were dark, but decidedly blue, and when he sat down at the bar, it was one stool away from Louis. 

The bartender slid over Louis’ gin and tonic, then began to speak in a slow, casual kind of French to the blonde man, who responded lazily, eyes twinkling, mouth curved upwards in a perpetual smile. So far, Louis had noticed that most of the people in this town were either very young or older. He and this man two stools down from him were one of the few exceptions. 

He took a sip of his drink, wincing slightly at the taste of really quite terrible gin, and kept his gaze glued to the bar shelves in front of him. His unpacked suitcases in his cottage nagged at him like an old injury, and this town, with its frank and quiet air, was beginning to feel like a poor decision. 

A pair of older women walked in, both clad in thick woolen hats, speaking loudly, laughing hysterically as they sank into creaky wooden chairs. 

Louis wanted to scream at them: take your hats off so you can hear each other better. 

But he just sipped again at his drink and thought of Paul, and his mother, and Grace, pregnant with a child he would probably never meet. 

“We haven’t gotten any rain yet,” the blonde man said suddenly, musingly. His voice was incredibly soft, almost velvety, like the fattiest of fresh creams. Louis glanced sideways, feeling wary, and found that face turned slightly towards him already. 

“You are new here,” the blonde man added. Louis smiled thinly. 

“Yes.” 

“Not a tourist,” the man added, eyes drifting over him curiously. He had a really lovely face, really lovely, striking in the way that a movie actor might be, but with the mannerisms of an especially cheeky young girl. His head tilted, and his eyes crushed together, and he let out a little laugh, totally unprompted, and Louis felt a flash of indignance. 

“You’ll get very bored here, by the way,” he went on, tapping a single long finger against his bottom lip. 

“I want boring,” Louis lied. The man laughed again, and as the light caught his face properly, Louis let out a slightly involuntary sound of surprise, which he buried immediately after with a sigh. He had a lovely face, really. 

Louis watched him, confused and enraptured all at once, as he propped his knee up on the stool he sat on, resting his chin atop of it. 

He was too large for it to look comfortable, but he did it anyway. 

The sound of a child shrieking cut across the bar and Louis glanced over his shoulder as a mother crouched down beside a table and grabbed her toddler’s tiny hands in a single one of hers and whispered harshly to him. 

“Oh dear,” the man said. His expression was shockingly cold all of a sudden, eyes narrow, head tilted. He looked at the crying toddler with something Louis thought might have been resentment. 

“You want boring? I don’t understand,” the man murmured, turning back to the bar. Louis thought about answering, but the sudden and vicious swell of grief that came up his throat barred any words from coming out. He didn’t quite know how to say that what he really wanted was for the world to stop, himself included, but he didn’t know this strange, blond man who spoke almost perfect English, and liked to sit on bar stools like a child. 

Louis swallowed down the rest of his drink, standing up unsteadily. He had suitcases to unpack, and a bed to make, and the handles in his shower made no sense to him and he’d have to mess with them later tonight to avoid a cold shower. All these little excuses built up like a mountain inside of his head. He could suddenly no longer bear being in this quaint, small bar, listening to the warm, slow chatter. 

The young blonde man blinked as Louis threw a too-large bill on the counter. 

“Oh, you—” 

“Thanks,” Louis said vaguely to the bar, shoving his hands in his coat pockets and trudging out into the cold. The wide, stone promenade that made up the heart of the town was totally deserted, save for an older couple walking a massive sheepdog beneath a lampost. The storefronts shut their lights off after close here, not like in America, where mannequins and billboards stayed brightly lit all through the night. 

Louis walked quickly, face hot, that foul gin threatening to come back up his throat again. 

A part of him hoped that he was being followed, but when he glanced over his shoulder he saw no one, especially not anyone with blonde hair and a too-thin sweater, smiling jovially in the dark. 

Louis woke the next morning with a surprising headache, and a pain in his joints that made him feel old. He fumbled around his bedside table for his phone, brought it to his face, and realized it was dead. 

Mood soured, he padded to the kitchenette and opened up the brand new bag of coffee grounds he’d taken from the hotel. All he had was a french press, which always made the coffee taste gritty to him, but he made do. 

As he waited for the grounds to steep, he pulled open his laptop and stared miserably at the emails waiting for him: accountant, wealth advisor, general manager of the apartments he owned, director of the nightclubs, all the people who worked for him and made him his money and needed his money and were wondering where he was. He emailed his assistant, Clara, a template for her to use in replying to them. 

His phone had only needed a few minutes to get enough charge to turn on, and the moment it did, he saw an influx of messages there, too. The bulk of them were from Grace, and a few from Levi. None from his mother. 

Answer your phone, please. 

Louis? Answer. 

Where have you gone? I stopped by your house, but no one was home. 

Louis? Call me. Florence is starting to worry. 

Oh, that was cheap. The guilt that had been starting to build quickly vanished. His lip lifted into a sneer as he stared at his phone, at the words Florence and worry. 

The kitchen stool underneath him groaned as he stood up. It was made of a solid, heavy wood, but the legs seemed warped, or maybe it was the floor beneath it. That was at least one thing that reminded him of home. Dampness, everywhere, constantly. 

With his cup of piping hot, oversteeped coffee, he made his way out to the front door to sit on the craggy stone steps and stare out at the ocean. 

The church, a couple hundred meters away, winked at him, and he ignored it. 

This is what you get. 

Louis pulled out a cigarette, smiling humorlessly at the thought of Florence seeing him now, sitting in a small, cheap cottage in a small, cheap town, smoking before nine am. 

Last night had been strange, but not unwelcome. That blonde man at the bar seemed like he was sizing Louis up, and for what, he didn’t know, but the rest of the people in the town seemed nice enough. He liked being unknown here. There was no telling how long it would last, not with his massive SUV parked out front, and his dissonant, too-polished clothing. He’d have to change the latter, he was realizing, maybe go out into town tomorrow and poke around the shops. 

The church across from him suddenly twitched with movement, like a living thing, and he looked at it straight on, swallowing roughly, fighting to keep away the image of Paul’s broken, awkward body as it lay on the courtyard floor. But it was only a door opening, just a door, and he sighed, exhaling a plume of smoke between his teeth. 

A figure in a black cassock emerged from the church. 

The priest moved carefully but quickly through the front garden, a pair of elderly women following behind him. Louis used to know women like that, who volunteered at the church and would show him pictures of their grandchildren on their phones whenever he made the mistake of getting too close. They’d always been kind, even kinder after Paul had died, but it had never felt deserved. 

These ladies were the same sort, tottering along after the priest—who was looking increasingly younger the more Louis stared at him—clucking like birds, long skirts fluttering. 

The priest’s head suddenly turned, in the direction of the cottage, and Louis froze. Even from this sizable distance, he could see the halo of bright blonde hair, a little past shoulder-length, and a strong, certain brow, like someone who had been painted that way. 

The priest froze, placing his hands on his hips, and even from this great distance, Louis knew he was staring at him. The ladies had to walk around him, as he stood rooted amidst the purple wildflowers, but they didn’t seem to notice the odd pause. They walked with their heads close together, silver hair gleaming like it was wet under the weak morning sun.

Louis tossed his cigarette, heart pounding, and stood up quickly, not even bothering to brush the grit off the seat of his pants as he fled inside. 

He realized as soon as the door shut behind him that he’d left his coffee out on the step, but that hardly mattered to him now. The cottage looked emptier and grayer than it did ten minutes ago. It was all bleak. 

That man from the bar, with his odd accent and his even odder laughter. 

Dear God, Louis thought bitterly, a fucking priest.

Chapter Text

He was in a church. It could have been the one his family went to in the French Quarter, but it was at once too large and too small. The stained glass windows changed locations and size and color with every step he took. Massive tapered candles, as tall as a grown man, stood at a dozen different intervals between the pews, dripping sluggish trails of wax down their stems. 

And in the center aisle, kneeling with his head bowed, was Paul. Louis startled forward, but no matter how many steps he took, he didn’t seem to cover any distance. He could hear sirens from outside, sirens and shouting and cars hitting metal, and the occasional scream of a trumpet or a horn. 

“Paul!” He screamed, or thought he had, but Paul didn’t move. His head was lifted towards the altar, and at the altar, which had been empty a moment ago, stood a priest, eyes glowing like a demon’s, blond hair tangled and red at the ends. It almost looked like blood. No, not almost, it was. 

A priest, dripping in blood, reaching out for Paul, and Paul reaching out towards him in return. 

“Don’t—” Louis groaned, stumbling forward onto his knees. Fingers snagged at the hem of his clothing, digging into the skin around his temples, into his ears. Paul crawled forward on his knees. 

The windows shattered in a sudden, beautiful starburst, and birds in a thousand different colors came pouring in, screeching a terrible cacophony. 

Birds everywhere, talons digging into Louis’ skin. The priest moved but his robes remained a stiff column of black. Louis wailed, like an animal, and watched Paul stand to meet him, the great hurricane of feathers swelling until he and the priest were gone, and it was just Louis left on his knees, alone. 

Feathers soaked in blood covered the floor like a carpet. 

Louis woke to a white ceiling and sweat cooling on his back. He sluggishly dragged his hands over his face. 

“Fuck.” 

He was a priest, that blonde man, but he hadn’t seemed it at the bar, eyes twinkling, lips curved in an almost cruel manner. He looked like someone who played with his food, who tugged girls’ pigtails on the playground, who gave attention to people like it was a game. 

Louis dug through his still-packed suitcases for warm clothing, feeling faintly nauseous. He’d need to eat soon; there was a tinny ringing in his ear and a dryness to his mouth. He found a lined suede jacket that looked a little less sharp than his overcoat, and grabbed a pair of jeans instead of his usual wool trousers. As he pulled his boots out of the separate compartment he kept them in, a rattle sounded, and a small orange bottle fell out onto the floor. 

He blinked, a chill travelling up his arms. 

The bottle of vicodin laid innocently on its side. He picked it up, turning the bottle over to read his mother’s name on the label. 

A voice in his head begged him to throw it away, but the rest of him, which felt to be made of stone, took the bottle to his bedroom and placed it neatly in one of his bedside drawers. In reach but out of sight. 

He woodenly put on his clothes, trying to ignore the siren call of that bottle, and before he could do anything foolish, he wrenched the door of his cottage open and stepped out into the brisk morning air. 

In the daytime, it was easier to see the town’s charm: the white plaster buildings with their tiny, narrow windows and clay-tile roofs, the bundled-up people walking leisurely. The ocean was a flat navy blue band against the landscape, just kissing the grayish horizon. Louis inhaled salt and juniper as he walked, a scent that scraped at his nostrils and tickled faintly at his eyes. 

 A small market had been set up on the main street. Farmers sold vegetables, older women hawked knitted socks and hats and hand-poured candles. One man had an entire table devoted to cooking knives, which Louis lingered at despite himself, eyes catching on the gleaming gunmetal-gray blades, the polished wooden handles. 

The man greeted Louis in a gruff voice, and Louis responded in French, a little shyly. His accent must have given him away, because the man switched to English immediately after. 

“You’re the new one, yes?” 

Louis blinked, bewildered. 

“New? Yes, I—” 

“American,” he mused. Louis nodded. “And you live here now? Permanent—” His brow furrowed. “All the time?” 

“Permanently? I don’t know yet.” 

Permanent was a terrifying word. 

Louis picked up one of the knives, pressing his thumb to the sharp end of the blade just hard enough that his skin gave slightly. 

“This is a small town, I’m learning,” Louis said absently. Word of his arrival had already spread after only one night. 

“Yes, very small,” the man agreed. He was staring at Louis curiously, head cocked, like he was trying to understand something. His face, like many of the people here, was tanned and weathered, hair starting to gray at the roots. “But everyone is very kind,” and he smiled crookedly. “Even to rich Americans.” 

Louis cringed and put the knife down, glancing elsewhere. A few stalls down, a pair of women were selling massive, golden Basque cakes and cured legs of ham hanging from a wooden rack. One of the women was actually a girl, at closer glance, no older than twenty, scrolling boredly on her phone with her knee tucked into her chest. She, like her companion, was dark-haired and tan-faced, bundled up to the throat in a thick woolen jacket that had to be cuffed at the sleeves to accommodate her hands. 

“What about that priest?” Louis asked the man innocently, because he was dangerously curious, and he hadn’t been curious about anything for some time. He almost added, the blonde one, but the man’s face darkened before Louis could say anything more, eyes flashing with recognition.

“Ah, him. He fucks the wives besides their husbands’ backs.” 

Louis blinked. He looked at the man, just to be sure he wasn’t joking, but his mouth was firm and his expression didn’t change. 

What was this priest, then? A fraud? A pious man with a vice or two? It made some kind of sense, having spoken to him, but it still sent off a ringing in his head, like a warning siren.

“I’m just lucky,” the man went on, “that my wife is…” He played with a word in his head, eyes narrowing. “Homely? Yes, I think that’s it. He is a vain creature, thank God. And prefers blondes.” 

Blondes, Louis mused. 

“Older, too,” the man went on suspiciously. 

“I see,” Louis said. 

“But you are a bachelor.” 

“Yes.” 

“He's decent otherwise, that Lestat.” 

Louis nearly laughed, and he’d gotten a name, at last. Lestat. Odd, but very French. 

At that very moment, as if they summoned him just by invoking his name, a blonde head appeared in the center of the street.

Lestat, the priest, walked with an air that would have made him instantly unlikable to anyone who’d already made up their minds about him. There was a grace to his gait that reminded Louis of well-bred horses from Europe, or particularly athletic hunting dogs, something that was impossible to imitate deliberately. Louis watched, silent, from beside the stand. 

He turned slightly in Louis’ direction, and even though he was a good fifty yards away, and there were a dozen people milling about between them, Louis immediately turned, facing the man behind the stand with a thin smile. 

“I’d like to buy these.” 

“Yes, good, very good. You want the entire—the set? Yes?” 

“Yes.” 

Louis watched anxiously as a set of six cooking knives were placed in an unlined cedar box, then in turn, the box was put into a paper bag. 

To his surprise, the man held out a card reading machine. 

“You can tap your—yes, that worked.” A couple years ago, that amount, spent on a whim, would have made his eyes water, but it almost didn’t register now. He took his bag, nodded quickly, and took off in the opposite direction of the blonde priest, who had since found a cluster of people to talk to.

His voice, as it had at the bar last night, rang out like he was speaking from a stage. 

Louis walked until he found a modest cafe, far enough from the market that it was nearly empty. He ate thick-crusted bread and two eggs, and drank espresso made for him by a bored-looking girl who chewed gum as she worked. His box of knives sat on the table beside him. 

A young man walked into the cafe, making him the third person in the place, besides Louis and the girl working behind the counter. He had a cherubic, soft face, not even a hint of scruff at his jaw, and skin so tan that it made his blonde hair look nearly white. 

He gave Louis a curious glance, almost one of recognition, before sauntering up to the counter with a sheepish smile. 

The girl didn’t even let him get a word out before she gave a loud, cruel laugh, and began digging into him in a rapid, casual kind of French that had Louis’ head spinning. The accent here was hard to understand, nothing like the French that was spoken in New Orleans, or even Paris. 

The two of them went back and forth, no real animosity between the two of them, but Louis watched just in case. It became clear after a few minutes that the boy frequently came here, and frequently got out of paying. The girl only worked here because her father owned the place, and he was starting to notice the imbalance in the register. 

Next week! I swear! It’s just a coffee! Marie, you are killing me! 

“I’ve got it,” Louis said in English. The two of them froze, the girl looking indignant, the boy looking shocked. 

“He does this every time,” the girl said with a thick accent, then she turned to the boy, jabbing her finger at him accusingly. “Look at you, making this American man pay for you!” 

“It’s fine. Get what you want.” Louis almost added, it doesn’t matter, but the boy was looking at him with such intense adoration that he couldn’t bring himself to. 

The girl shook her head, lip curling as she hit the portafilter of the espresso machine hard against the counter to empty it out. 

“You are too nice.” 

Louis just grimaced. 

The boy got a sandwich and a coffee, and instead of leaving, he sat at Louis’ table, sliding the box of knives over to one side to make room for himself. He smiled, as Louis stared back dubiously. 

“You are the new one,” he said. 

“You’re the second person to say that to me today.” 

“It is a small town, ha! And everyone is very curious.” A pause, as he took an enormous bite of his sandwich. 

“My name is Hugo.” 

“Louis.” 

“French! Is that why you can speak so well?” Louis wasn’t sure of his age, but he couldn’t be older than twenty. His eyes were a very dark brown, and his hands were covered in tiny silvery scars, like he worked with them often. Or maybe he had a very rude cat. 

“I’m from New Orleans.” 

“Oh, I know it,” Hugo said, nodding. “You are very nice, by the way. Usually when American visit, they are so loud.” 

“I can be loud,” Louis said amusedly. Something about the way Hugo spoke and sat and ate was endearing. 

“I can be, too,” Hugo said after a few moments, like he had to think about it. Then he propped his knee up against the table and leaned back, drumming his fingers against the little wooden table they were sitting at. 

“You live in that old place, by the church, don’t you? I walk there sometimes. I saw your car last night.” 

Louis had to find a way to return the car, he was realizing. Or maybe he’d keep renting it until the company just gave it to him. The contract had been in French, and he hadn’t looked at it closely enough to know what they expected of him. 

“For now, yeah.” 

“It’s old,” Hugo said, wrinkling his nose. “They have nicer houses in the town. Very nice. Hey, do you think my English is good? I went to school for it on the weekends.” 

“I don’t need a nicer house,” Louis said, “I have one back home. And yes, it’s very good.” 

“Oh, I see.” 

They talked about a dozen little things: a video game Hugo had recently started playing, the job he had working for an oyster farm, what Louis thought about Paris. 

They had long since finished their food and coffee, but Hugo didn’t seem to care. 

“Hugo,” Louis said cautiously. “Do you know Lestat, the priest?” 

Hugo laughed, so loud and boisterous that the girl behind the counter, who had been unsubtly listening to them this whole time, scolded him. 

“Yes! Everyone does.” 

Louis raised an eyebrow. 

“I guess you would have met him, yes?” 

“Last night, yeah.” 

“He came from Paris, but before that—my mother tells me he is from the alps, but I do not know where. He’s—I do not not know the world in English— fils de bourge.” 

Louis frowned. 

“Rich?” 

“It’s not the same. Not really, but yes. His family is very old.” Louis’ eyes narrowed; the thought of someone from an old moneyed family becoming a priest in such a small town was strange, but then, the same could be said for him living here. 

“Is that all you know?” Louis pressed, keenly aware that he was beginning to sound slightly obsessed. That dream still tickled at his ears. 

Hugo smiled a little slyly, his face turning even more boyish. Louis really did like him. 

“They also say,” he said furtively, glancing around like Lestat himself might be watching. “That he only fucks the blonde women.” 

“I’ve heard,” Louis said dryly.

“And everyone says that it’s because they look like him,” Hugo went on, “but it's actually—” He took a sip of his nearly-empty coffee. “It’s because they look like his mother. Total perversion.” 

Louis’ brow rose. 

“That sounds like gossip.” 

“Oh, it is! But gossip is true most of the time, yes.” 

Louis’ mouth twisted. 

“Who told you that?” 

“It’s just what I’ve heard. He’s very popular, though. Everyone seems to like him.”

Hugo stared at him with eyes as glossy as buttons—he looked nothing like Paul, but something about his eyes had Louis feeling vaguely unsteady. 

He hadn’t realized how lonely he had been, not just since arriving here, not even since Paris, but from the very minute Paul had gone and left him. 

Eventually, he and Hugo parted ways. Louis gave the girl behind the register a wave goodbye, and she, seemingly won over, smiled in return. Hugo bounded out the door, thanking him loudly in English, and Louis allowed himself a cigarette on the street outside, letting the sun warm his face. 

He waited for it to burn through the filter before he began walking home. Home, ha! It was more of a halfway house than anything else, but at least it was comfortable, and quiet, and despite the looming presence of the church across the way, he felt a lightness as he saw the brown shingled roof. 

His walk from town to his cottage was only a matter of ten minutes. It had warmed up since the early morning, to the point that Louis was regretting his jacket and the sweater he wore beneath it. He walked slowly, idly, taking in the strange mix of rough coastal flora and the darker, woodier pine and cypress trees that creeped in from further inland. It was a wild place here, just barely tamed by a smattering of small towns that made a throughway to the larger, glitzier cities of Biarritz and Arcachon. 

As he came up the hill, he saw the silhouette of two people: Lestat was instantly recognizable with his height and breadth and bright blonde hair. Beside him, stood a woman, dwarfed by him, and even at this distance, he could tell by the animated motion of her hands that she was speaking excitedly. 

Louis had every intention of walking past them. He gave a short, brisk nod, hands shoved deep into his pockets, but Lestat the priest suddenly turned and waved him over. Louis stopped in his tracks, thinking of what Hugo had said: fils de bourge. 

There was a certain look to him, now that Louis knew what to look for. It was common in the wealthy circles he dealt in back home. The sons of the wealthy were always quite beautiful, with their ugly older fathers and their much younger, beautiful mothers. They so often looked like their mothers, women who had been plucked from relatively normal lives and placed in the laps of men who had been married twice before, flight attendants and bikini models and department store employees who were now socialites. 

Louis had always been told he looked like Florence growing up, though now that he was older, he was beginning to see his father’s face more and more. 

The woman standing besides Lestat was a little older than the two of them, though not blonde, and was wearing a wetsuit rolled down to her hips. She was thin but sinewy, freckled on the shoulders, and was smiling so warmly that Louis couldn’t possibly imagine she was French. 

“I’ve heard of you!” Her English was thickly-accented. 

“I didn’t get your name,” Lestat said, and he really didn’t seem like a priest. There was a sinister gleam to his eye, standing there with his full height like he was trying purposefully to loom over Louis, though he had only an inch or two on him. 

“Louis.” 

“ Louis ,” the woman sang to herself, “that’s a very nice name. Simone,” she gestured to herself, “and Lestat.” She threw her hand in Lestat’s direction, who smiled, head tilting slightly. Still sizing Louis up, it seemed. Could he tell? Could he see the lingerings of faith on Louis’ face? 

“Oh, you know, Louis,” Simone continued. Her hair was damp from the sea, water dripping down her chest and shoulders. If not for the wetsuit and the bright red bikini top, she might have looked like some mythical creature, salt in her lashes, barefoot on the dusty gravel path. 

“Some of the people here, our friends, yes, we have dinner at my brother’s restaurant. Do you know Le Nid? It’s at the edge of the main beach. You must come. You can meet some people, and it’s very—” Her brow furrowed. She looked to Lestat, lips pursed, and murmured something to him in French that Louis couldn’t quite catch. 

“Casual,” Lestat offered, but he was looking at Louis, a little uncertain, and Louis nodded. 

“Casual, yeah.” 

“ Casual!” Simone crowed. She, like Hugo, had a brightness to her that was infectious. “Yes, come to Le Nid tonight.” 

Louis almost wanted to say no. Lestat’s eyes were burning holes in the side of his face. But Simone’s expression was earnest and sweet, and Louis found her beautiful in a detached way, like he was staring at a magazine cover. 

“You will know two people, at least,” she added, and with her wet hands, she grabbed Lestat’s shoulders from behind and rocked him from side to side, like he was a piece of furniture. 

Louis stared at the wet fingerprints left behind on Lestat’s light blue shirt. 

“Thank you,” he said, smiling a little dazedly. Simone nodded, clapped her hands on Lestat’s shoulders again, and began to make her way down the hill towards where an old Jeep with the doors removed was parked at an angle in the dirt.

It left just the two of them. Lestat wasn’t smiling anymore, but his expression was open, curious. He jerked his head in the direction of the church, and Louis’ cottage, and they began to walk. 

Louis felt a prickle on the back of his neck, a chill moving through his limbs despite the strength of the sun. 

“Do you practice?” Lestat asked as the path changed from gravel to stone. It was worn in the center, from many years of footsteps. Louis shrugged. 

“Because you’re looking at the church as if it might come alive and consume you whole.” Louis thought of feathers soaked in blood. The dream had almost left him entirely, but not that, not yet. 

“Won’t it?” He asked dryly. Lestat only smiled, his face contorting into something playful and young and entirely untrustworthy, like the crooked, coltish expressions of delinquent boys from the French Quarter. 

“It may try.” 

“You don’t sound like a priest,” Louis said. There was none of that soft, needling gentleness, that faint condescension which usually came from a good place. Paul’s funeral had been a thing constructed for his own torture, surrounded on all sides by men of the cloth. His mother’s cool, glinting stare had remained fixed on his back the whole evening. Even Grace, sweet Grace, was wary of him, disappearing off to the bathroom whenever he sought her out for refuge. 

“What does a priest sound like? Do you know?” Lestat asked. 

“Yes,” Louis grunted out. “You don’t look like one either.” 

That made him smile again, lips wrapped around the filter of a cigarette he’d just pulled from the pocket of his jeans. He truly didn’t. It wasn’t even his beauty, which Louis had since come to terms with, seeing him in the full light of day. It certainly didn’t help, but it wasn’t that. There was a swirling, powerful anxiety in his expression, like a hunting dog about to be cut loose in a field. He didn’t look like someone who had a relationship with God, not in the slightest.

“So, you are not a tourist,” Lestat said, looking him up and down as they walked. 

“No,” Louis agreed.

“An expatriate,” he said carefully, sounding out the English like it was difficult for him. 

Louis said nothing. They had reached the church. A nest had been built in the small bell tower and a few gulls sat on the roof, hunkered down against the wind. Louis lingered awkwardly a few feet away from the old stone steps, staring intently at the lilac flowers which grew in bursts around the wrought-iron fence.  

“Well,” and he forced himself to look directly at that peculiarly intense blue gaze. “I’ll head home now.” 

“You are coming tonight, yes?” 

Lestat looked insistent. 

“You don’t seem like someone who wants—” He laughed a little. “You don’t seem interested in making friends, but you should.” 

Louis balked at that, at the boldness. For a strange moment, he felt a surge of shame. He had once been charming and warm and well-suited to people. He used to seduce others without even trying: business partners and women at the church and bartenders alike. He didn’t particularly like this version of himself the priest seemed to think he knew. 

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

“Good,” Lestat said, nodding to himself, and that reminded Louis of Father Michael and the older priest who came before him whose name he was forgetting. Something about the way he said good. 

Louis started walking again, shaking his head slightly as if his uneasiness was a tangible thing that could be dislodged and dropped to the ground. The priest gave him a lazy wave, which was more dismissive than it was friendly, and as Louis walked, he could feel that gaze on his back. He didn’t dare look behind him, but he knew if he did, he’d still see Lestat, a slim trail of smoke rising from where he stood like an industrial facility far off in the distance. 

Louis looked up Le Nid on his phone later that night, mapped out a route so that he’d get there before nine, and set off. 

It was his first time actually walking the length of the town. There was a hotel by the ocean with a few nicer cars parked outside, including a Range Rover Autobiography that was a few years old. The building itself was all white plaster, with a circular stone driveway entrance that had a fountain in the center, which bubbled water pleasantly out of a dolphin’s mouth. Besides the hotel, there were indeed some larger, more expensive-looking houses in this area: sprawling two-story compounds that jutted over the sand and had beware of dog signs posted on the electric gates. 

Louis walked around an old Audi station wagon in a dusty silver parked illegally on the curb, the treads of the tires nearly gone, then he rounded a slight bend and saw the tiny painted wooden sign of Le Nid. 

The restaurant itself sat on the narrowest part of the beach, where modest homes crowded each other for a spot along the sand, where the roads were quite narrow and the spaces between were filled with cypress trees and red-flowering bushes. The restaurant itself was low-ceilinged, wooden, and had fingerprint-covered glass doors that opened to the sand. The tables and chairs were all mismatched, and a fire pit covered in ash sat in the center of the outdoor patio. When Louis sheepishly walked inside, he saw pink-orange walls and photographs everywhere, a bowl of matches on the front table, a gray and white cat that lounged, unbothered, on a wooden shelf amidst books and old polaroids of the town from a few decades ago. 

A small wooden cross hung on the swinging door that led to the kitchen. 

Louis followed the sound of voices outside, to where half a dozen people were spread out between four tables pushed together. A few more lingered between the firepit and the low wooden adirondack chairs set up in a circle around it. The whole place gave the impression of someone’s  house. Even the cutlery and dishware on the tables were mismatched. 

Simone was sitting amidst the cluster of people, talking loudly to a man who looked like her brother. They both had the same dark hair and sharp eyes, and when they smiled, their teeth lined up almost identically.

Lestat was sitting in one of the wooden chairs in front of the firepit, feet planted on the ashy ledge, head tilted back. A glass of wine sat on the armrest next to him, half-full. He didn’t notice Louis at first, and Louis didn’t make himself known to him either. He walked in a half circle behind where he was sitting, greeting Simone with a kiss on the cheek. 

“I cannot hug you, my hands!” She held out her palms to him, glistening wet and sandy at the fingernails, but she pressed her body against his anyway, and gestured flippantly for him to sit. 

“What do you drink? Is it wine? We have wine— Lestat!” That blonde head turned, and Louis nearly flinched at the sudden, startling eye-contact. Lestat stood up, stretching his arms over his head like he had just woken, and daintily picked his way through the many chairs and tables laid out between him and Louis. 

“We have wine,” he said, eyes twinkling. 

Lestat stepped over a barricade of chairs with a little exhale of effort and went through the five or so bottles sitting opened on the table, shaking them slightly to inspect their contents. 

“White or—” 

“Red,” Louis said, “please.” 

Lestat poured him a rather full glass, and instead of returning to his chair by the fire pit, he pulled up a stool in front of Louis and straddled it. Again, Louis saw that sinister gleam in his eye, the slightly mocking smile. Boyish and sweet in one moment, predatory in the next. Louis leaned his weight on the table behind himself, taking a conservative sip of the wine. It was shockingly light, but as food began to appear on the main table in the center of the patio, Louis understood why. It was almost entirely seafood: mussels steeped in a white-wine broth, oysters swimming in lemon juice and vinegar, an entire Branzino, head and all, laid out on a bed of green. 

“Louis the American,” Lestat murmured. “You must know enough about the church to dislike it so much, don’t you?”

Louis’ eyes narrowed. 

“I was raised catholic.” 

“Lapsed, then.” 

“Lapsed is a kind way to put it,” Louis said. Lestat’s eyes glowed. “And what about you then?” He sipped his wine again. “Why are you here and not in Paris?” 

“Oh,” Lestat said, suddenly looking quite serious. “I ran away.” Then he laughed, like he had told a joke. 

“Ran away? From what?” 

“Death,” Lestat said, flapping his hand, “myself, all those rats.” 

Louis’ mouth pursed. He wanted to ask about the wives he apparently fucked, and whether they did indeed look like his mother, and if they did, why. He wanted to ask more about Paris, and if “rats” really meant the rodent, and if “death” really meant death. 

“And why are you here?” Behind them, food was being served, laughter was ringing out, but Louis didn’t care to participate. Besides, even if he wanted to, he was trapped like a moth beneath glass under Lestat’s gaze. 

“I needed a break,” Louis said flatly. 

“So you are running away too.” 

Louis’ lip curled. 

“We don’t know each other, you can’t talk like that.” 

If Lestat was at all affected by the scolding, he didn’t indicate it. His eyes roved over Louis’ face with such intensity that Louis had to look away. 

“Come,” Lestat said eventually, “let’s eat.” 

The tables had been arranged into a long one, chairs lined up on either side. Louis sat on one side, and Lestat found a spot across from him and one chair down. 

He didn’t know any of these people surrounding him, but they spoke in a mixture of French and English that was comprehensible for the most part. One of the guests, an older man in his fifties, had a Spanish accent and spoke little to no French. He made himself in charge of the wine, and got up frequently throughout the meal to refill glasses. 

Even when Louis held up his hand in a polite decline, his glass was filled regardless. 

He could feel it getting to his head. A day of little food and a night of little sleep was beginning to wear on him, but the atmosphere was so pleasant that he found himself sinking into the warm buzz. Seagulls encroached on the restaurant, cawing rudely from the roof and beneath the tables nearby. 

Lestat chucked a few empty oyster shells into the fire, causing it to sputter and crackle, sparks shooting up into the air. A few people at the table laughed. Simone scolded him, but her expression was fond. 

The people here were beautiful, Louis thought, so vibrant and bright-eyed and sure of themselves. Simone tossed a fish head towards the patiently-waiting cat who crouched by the table legs. Her lips were stained red, hair half-escaped from her ponytail.

Lestat reached over her for more wine, and his arm brushed her collarbone, and she bared her teeth as if she were about to bite it. 

They called him “Father”, but no one seemed to do it with any seriousness or sincerity. 

Father, pass the wine!

Father, that was my glass. 

Father, pray for me! My car’s in the shop! 

The church was a quaint, worn-in hat here. Florence would have hated it, Paul even more so. 

“Lestat might get on the table before the night is over!” Simone laughed, interrupting a conversation at the other end of the table. “He just might!” 

Lestat smiled like he was hiding a secret, as Louis laughed at the thought. A priest table-dancing. 

He was reminded of nights in New Orleans, before Paul’s state had gotten so grave, back when Florence had love for him and Grace didn’t fear him. 

Another bottle of wine was broken out, the label aged and water-stained. Simone’s brother held it up, jabbing his finger at the people sitting around him. 

“This is not cheap shit! Yes?” Then he popped the cork and took a swig straight from the bottle, handing it across the table to Lestat who did the same. 

Louis pulled out a cigarette, and Lestat nearly did crawl up onto the table, leaning his whole chest over the sun-bleached wood, dropping his chin on his own forearm, eyes glistening. 

“Do you want one?” Louis asked, laughing despite himself. 

“ Tricheur!” Someone shouted. “You said you had quit!” 

Lestat grinned crookedly, still staring at Louis with imploring eyes. Louis handed over a cigarette and lit one for himself. When he passed the lighter to him next, Lestat grasped his entire hand with his own, turning his palm over to read the time on his watch.

Louis stiffened at the boldness of it, his hand half tugged over the table, Lestat’s head cocked over it. 

“Oh, dear,” he drawled. Then he looked up at Louis, still holding his wrist, still smiling in that strange, pleading way. “It’s very late.” 

“Go home, then,” Louis said quietly, his voice nearly lost to the cacophony around them. Lestat’s eyebrows raised playfully, and his mouth opened, like he was about to respond, but then a speaker somewhere nearby suddenly began to blare music, and the already loud buzz around the two of them exploded into a wall of sound. Lestat’s head lifted and he sat up fluidly and his eyes rolled good-naturedly as Simone threw her arm around his shoulders and shouted encouragement into his ear. The rest of the table joined in, but he didn’t need any push, not really. 

Louis watched him jump up on the table, arms thrown over his head, laughing joyously. He sang along to a song that Louis didn’t recognize in French, the table groaning beneath him. Hands darted out to snatch wine glasses out of his way. 

Father, please! People cried, laughing uproariously, clapping their hands, singing along. Simone jumped up onto the table a moment later, taking Lestat by the hands and spinning the two of them in a narrow circle. 

Louis wished he had his camera. The lighting was poor, but there were enough stars in the sky, and a strong glow from the lanterns hanging from half-open umbrellas. Lestat looked grand and enormous on the table, a blur of blonde hair and flashing pink palms. 

The music changed into something slower and Lestat took that as his cue to leap down, eyes bright, no hint of that earlier portentous expression. He settled back in his chair, dropping his chin on his arms, which lay folded on the table. He was a tempest of emotion: one minute loud and uninhibited, the next, quiet and restrained, eyes blinking slowly, lips stained red from the wine. 

The atmosphere around them was starting to quiet again. Louis could hear the weariness begin to settle in. People spoke lazily, almost entirely in French. Simone had her head knocked back as she smoked the second half of Lestat’s pilfered cigarette. 

And Lestat, Lestat was staring at him, head rested on his forearm, eye crushed into a bright, blue triangle. 

Stop looking at me. 

Simone stood up, muttering something to herself, and even her movement didn’t shake Lestat’s attention. 

Why are you here? Why a priest? Dear God, of all things? Louis desperately wanted to ask. For the first time in weeks, months even, he was consumed by something other than grief. He wanted to know what it was about Paris that sent Lestat here, if he had always been like this, if he really was one of those fils de bourge that Hugo had called him, if he did entangle himself with married women. 

Simone returned from wherever she had wandered off to, a thick woolen blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a few pieces of wood held in her arms. She threw the wood into the fire, one eye screwing shut as sparks flew. 

Lestat still stared. 

Stop looking at me, Louis begged, because he couldn’t be the one to do it. His eyes were glued in place. 

Suddenly, Lestat stood up, yawning enormously. 

“It is late.” And just like that, the simmering energy left the table. Lestat might as well have been in a full cassock, spreading his hands out to the congregation with the words, “go in peace.” 

People stood like puppets, kissing each other on the cheek, giving the occasional hug. Louis watched Lestat politely avoid all of it, though he pressed his palms to either side of Simone’s head, like one might greet a dog. After, he shrugged on a long woolen overcoat and then he stood off to one side and jerked his chin at Louis, eyes wet with exhaustion. 

“We are going in the same direction, yes? Don’t worry about saying goodbye to everyone. They’re all drunk. They won’t remember it. Come.” 

And so they walked. Louis was too exhausted to be wary or reluctant. A chill had since seeped in through his clothes. Lestat meandered beside him, also quiet, eyes scanning the black water to their right. 

“Do you like it here?” He asked after minutes of silence. 

Louis nodded automatically, and then, when Lestat didn’t say anything in response, he added, “I would have liked anywhere that wasn’t home, I think, but yes. I do.” 

“Yes,” Lestat said, with a deep, almost frightening understanding. 

They didn’t speak anymore until the church came into view. 

The sun was starting to rise over the ocean, a tiny sliver of pale orange over a vast stripe of gray-blue. Lestat stared at it and burst into a fit of weary laughter. 

“Oh, it’s a Sunday, I’m just realizing—I really should be fired, shouldn’t I?” 

Louis suddenly joined him, laughing so hard that he almost fell to his knees. The town’s priest, drinking until dawn on a Sunday. 

They laughed, exhausted to the point of hysterics, and still quite drunk, and then Lestat slipped into the side door of the church, where Louis presumed a small apartment was hidden somewhere. 

It looked lonely, the stone church, crumbling slightly at the edges, surrounded by purple wildflowers. Almost as lonely as the little cottage across the way, half-obstructed by a black, glossy SUV parked in the driveway. They had said no goodbye, but then, Louis had no doubt he would see Lestat very soon again. He walked the short way to his front door, stripping his clothes in a state of stupor and collapsing naked in his bed, flinching at the coolness of the sheets. 

He fell into a deep and immediate sleep, the bottle of vicodin in his bedside totally forgotten.

Chapter Text

Out of the black, almost foreboding alley that crept along the side of Le Coq Rouge, Louis emerged. As usual, he walked with a surly hunch to his shoulders, his short dark hair gleaming with whatever he used to style it. Since his arrival here, his polished, understatedly-luxurious wardrobe had slowly transformed. Now, he was almost always wearing a charming mixture of his impractical, fanciful American clothing and thick, lumpy sweaters of a coarse Irish wool. 

This was their third rendezvous at the bar this week. Lestat had begun to shirk his duties as priest, which was all good and fine for the town. He suspected none of them really cared about the church so much as they liked the nativity plays that were put on for Christmas and the frank but enjoyable act of sitting in an old building together in slightly-nicer sweaters and shoes. 

He and Louis hadn’t yet talked about much. In fact, Lestat was learning the novel enjoyment of sitting in someone’s presence, swirling around the slightly-viscous contents of a glass, and making bemused, slightly cutting observations about the people who passed by them in total oblivion.

Louis chose to sit at the bar tonight, feet hooked around the back of the footrest on one of the stools. He glanced sideways at the other patrons, wary like an urban-dwelling fox, and drank reluctantly from a half-full glass that might have been gin and tonic, or simply soda water with a lime wedge in it. They had started to meet in a kind of sheepish half-secrecy, sitting down at different times, pretending the other had not been waiting outside, wasting the time with a cigarette and a meaningless exchange with one of the drunk locals who had been relegated to the bar’s outdoor chairs and tables. 

Lestat sat next to him, ignoring the cheerful waves from a few other locals. Louis’ head barely lifted. He took another sip from his drink, and it was clear, up close, that it was in fact alcoholic. Louis’ eyes were red, his hand gripping the glass with a heavy, fumbling grip, and Lestat assumed he’d had something to drink before he came here. 

“The usual, Father?” 

Lestat paid the bartender no mind. The man was twice his age, and seemed to find the idea of calling Lestat “Father” with any sincerity a hilarious joke. He would have laughed along if Louis wasn’t sitting so miserably next to him. 

The barman placed a glass of chartreuse with a splash of soda water and a dry-looking lime wedge in front of Lestat. 

“There are other bars we can go to, you know.” 

Louis didn’t answer for some time, then he shook his head rather sloppily. 

“I like it here.” 

“There’s another one across the street that’s a little quieter, and the drinks are a good deal stronger.” As Lestat said it, he realized that maybe “stronger drinks” was not something that Louis needed at the moment, but it was too late, he’d said it. And “quieter” sounded suddenly far too intimate, like he was suggesting a hotel room.

Louis glanced over, eyes narrowing. 

“You do a lot of drinking by the way, for a priest.” The word priest had yet to pass between them since that dinner at Le Nid, almost like Louis was afraid of it. 

“I’m bad at following rules,” Lestat said, which was true. 

“You might be in the wrong profession, then,” Louis muttered. Lestat laughed. 

“Yes! I think so all the time.” 

“Why then?” 

Yes, Louis was drunk. His eyes slid slowly from Lestat’s eyes to his nose to his mouth, like he wasn’t coherent enough to stare at his entire face at once. 

“Why? Of all the things?” In his voice, there was a black bitterness. He took another sip from his drink, lip curled into the beginnings of a sneer. 

“Why that ?” He muttered, almost to himself. 

“Well,” Lestat said, “it pays very well.” Louis didn’t laugh at the joke, but he let out a sound with that same bitterness

“I wanted to get out of my house,” Lestat said honestly, bewildered at how easily it had come out of him. “And the monastery was the easiest and quickest way to do it.” He didn’t explain everything else: Gabrielle’s bizarrely insistent urging, the grief he had been given by his brothers and his father, the abject poverty he’d fled from which made the monastery seem almost comfortable in comparison. 

“Mm,” Louis said, pausing like he wanted to say more. Instead, he took another sip of his drink. 

“And you?” Lestat asked. “What is it that you do?” He’d thought he’d mastered English years ago, but something about Louis—maybe it was his crystal-clear American accent and that easy, striding way that he spoke—made Lestat suddenly uncertain of every word. 

“Many things,” Louis said vaguely, “nothing particularly respectable.” 

“You are wealthy, then.” Another thing that had gone unacknowledged between them, though Lestat could tell. Louis didn’t seem particularly keen on broadcasting it, but there was some very obvious signs, the least of them being that heavy, slim watch on his wrist during that dinner. Lestat hadn’t really cared about the time. He was fascinated by the delicate ticking of the gold hands against the dial’s face, and the tasteful circle of sapphires inside the bezel. 

Louis turned bodily to look at him, expression faintly surprised. 

“Yes,” he said warily after a few seconds. 

“It’s not a secret. I think everyone can see that.” 

Louis looked down at his clothing, at his hands, grimacing slightly. 

“I’m from New Orleans,” he said, voice thick. 

“That is why your French is so good. I’d been meaning to ask. Most Americans are hopeless.” 

“Yes.” 

“And most wealthy Americans would just go to Paris.” What on earth are you doing here? 

“I wanted to go somewhere quiet.” Louis licked his front teeth contemplatively. Lestat waited in silence for him to continue. There was something slightly feral about Louis, much like the deer that wandered the flower fields at dusk, tiptoeing quietly amidst the lavender. Lestat was cautious to spook him. 

“My brother died,” Louis said flatly, “about a month ago.” 

“Ah.” 

“He killed himself,” Louis added a few seconds later, staring hard at the contents of the glass in front of him. Lestat drummed his fingers on the bartop. He was terrible at these sorts of things, like Gabrielle was. His impulse was to laugh, as he often did when words were beyond him, but before he could do anything, Louis was already letting out a hysterical sound of amusement from between his teeth. 

“Yes, it’s all fucked.” 

“It happens,” Lestat said faintly, which had Louis blinking at him curiously, his misery briefly forgotten. 

They moved on from there, back to their usual fare of the weather and the other people of the town. Louis had taken an interest in that boy, Hugo, though it seemed entirely innocent. Lestat felt a little guilty admitting he knew almost nothing about him. 

“He knows you,” Louis said thickly in response. Lestat raised an eyebrow. His minor celebrity here had never bothered him. Since the day he’d arrived, there had been talk and gossip, and he found most of it enjoyable. But the idea of this boy—Hugo—who he had only ever seen a handful of times at the church, who spent most of his time darting around the bluffs on a diesel bike, talking about him to Louis made him uneasy, almost hateful. What could he possibly know?

“Apparently you break more rules than just the drinking,” Louis added eventually.

“Oh,” Lestat said, “yes, I guess I do.” 

“I don’t care,” Louis said quickly, and there was a brief flash of apology in his expression. “It doesn’t bother me.” 

“It shouldn’t,” Lestat replied, feeling indignant now, but Louis didn’t balk. He swirled his drink slowly. 

“I’m curious why, but we don’t know each other very well.” 

So Hugo had told him about the women. Lestat had known he wasn’t being very subtle about it, but it was still a little humbling to learn that it was common knowledge. Louis took another sip of his drink, eyes roving slow and heavy over the glass bottles on the shelves in front of him. 

As usual, the bar was overcrowded, but not rowdy. People drank at tables, their children bundled up in their laps, dozing peacefully or staring, blank-eyed, at a phone screen propped up in their pudgy hands. 

Louis drained his glass, suddenly looking a couple degrees less steady than he did a moment ago. The barman refilled it without asking, and Lestat saw two fingers of gin, perhaps three, and a splash of soda water. 

“My brother killed himself,” he said strangely, like he was still getting used to saying the words out loud. Lestat nodded, wary. 

“He told me his head wasn’t feeling right, he told me, and I—” Louis laughed hoarsely. “I took him to a club, to take his mind off things. To take his mind off things.” Louis turned to look at Lestat, eyes rimmed many times over in red, lip slightly curled like he was disgusted with himself. 

“Who fucking does that?” 

Louis shook his head. 

“I tried to make him talk to the women there, you know. And he didn’t want to, he never wanted to talk to women, wanted nothing to do with them.” 

His head lifted, eyes swimming, then he glanced quickly at Lestat. 

“He wasn’t like that, though. Whatever you’re thinking, he wasn’t like that. He just didn’t know how. I think it scared him.” 

He took a large swig of his new drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His whole body trembled faintly, but it didn’t seem to be out of anything resembling fear. He shuddered like a great dying beast, head sunken between his shoulders, eyes lidded. 

Lestat didn’t think Louis wanted to hear about God, and he wasn’t particularly in the mood to preach, either. But he also knew he would be quite terrible at offering any kind of secular comfort. 

“He was, by the way. He was fucking Catholic,” Louis muttered.  

“And you’re not.” It wasn’t a question. Louis had already said, lapsed is generous, but Lestat got the sense there was more to it, and he wanted to know. 

Louis turned his head slowly to look at him, face horrifyingly blank. 

“Me?” 

“You.” 

“Fuck God. Fuck Heaven and Hell. That’s what I think.” 

Fuck God! Lestat had to bite his lip to stop himself from giggling. People hated that, when he laughed at the wrong time, which he did often. 

“Are you looking for a fight, Louis? Because I won’t.” 

“Do I want to fight a priest?” Louis sneered. “No.” 

Lestat felt a little pang of disappointment, though he didn’t know why. 

At that moment, the door to the bar opened, and a familiar face appeared. Sabine, a woman from Paris who had moved here with her family nearly a decade ago. They lived in one of the grand houses that lined the beach on the northern point, and though she had been here for years, she still carried a touch of that metropolitan glamour. Her bright blonde hair—which was dyed every three weeks to keep the gray at bay—was always fashionably curled, and her clothing was sleek and well-fitted, sumptuous textures of grained leather and dark green corduroy and charming pops of auburn mink fur. 

She touched the back of Lestat’s neck as she walked by, her fingertips freezing to the touch, and Lestat leaned back in his chair to speak to her. He could feel Louis’ eyes on him, burning holes in his throat. 

He and Sabine exchanged a few words in their native language: we missed you last Sunday. 

The children have come down with a nasty cold, and my husband is not far behind. 

We should get dinner. 

Yes, we should. 

All the while, Louis watched, eyes dark and wet, mouth loose. 

Sabine’s hand still lingered on the nape of his neck, and Lestat was reminded of their latest meeting, a few days after Louis had arrived. They had slept off the sex in the guest bedroom downstairs, as her Jack Russel Terrier pawed insistently at the door. Lestat might have loved her, or at least, he loved the way she dragged her blunt, polished nails up and down his back, the way she kissed. 

She was a perfunctory lover, which she blamed on having children and being married for thirty years. 

I’m not like those young women who perform like acrobats, I hope you know. 

Lestat liked her tenderness, which she only gave in very small doses, and never during the actual act. It was usually after, when they were both sweat-slick and panting, when the sheets below them were faintly damp and cool, that she’d let him rest his head on her bare, freckled chest, pink nipples pebbling from the thrown-open window. She’d stroke his hair, and tell him never to cut it, not under any circumstances, and he’d say that she sounded like his mother, and that would make her laugh, darkly pleased. 

Sabine turned her attention to Louis for only the briefest of moments, eyes gleaming as she took him in. She probably found him very handsome, and Lestat got a strange swell of pride from that, as if he’d made Louis with his own bare hands. 

She also probably sensed in him that they shared a similar background: a cool, comfortable approach to money that set them apart from the average desperate striver. 

“I only came in for the bathroom. I’ve left the dog tied up outside,” she said as a way of goodbye. Lestat kissed her cheek, then she kissed Louis’, and then she was gone. 

Louis stared pensively at the lip of the wooden bar in front of him, mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile. 

“I won’t ask who that was,” he said eventually, his earlier hostility forgotten. 

Lestat drained the rest of his drink, and just like that, they returned to their conversation.

The longer they spoke, the more Lestat got the sense that the Louis he had first met, and continued to see in their brief, impersonal conclaves, was a far different man than he’d thought. Beneath the grief and the roiling anger, there was a warmth, a mild arrogance. He didn’t laugh very easily, but he smiled often, and spoke with an easy, loping confidence that would have worked very well on most of the women who lived here, young and old. 

Lestat had moved onto red wine, the really terrible stuff that they called “house”, but the reek of turpentine in his nose, and slightly rotten berries, was oddly welcome. Across from him, Louis continued to speak in that careful, deliberate manner that Lestat was finding more and more appealing. 

The restraint was lovely, and oh so Catholic, and it made Lestat want to see what laid beneath it. 

“I take photos, or I used to.” Louis pulled out his wallet and Lestat tried not to stare at the heavy, metal credit cards that lined the slots, or the thick wad of freshly printed euros stuffed inside the larger pocket. 

The wallet was an expensive French brand, one of those designers that never used logos.  

Lestat watched him carefully unfold a photo of a young man, a little darker and stouter than Louis was, standing sternly on the steps of a great, white church. Then, another, of a woman smiling brilliantly at the camera with her arm slung around a man who looked to be her husband. She had a glass of wine in her hand and a massive diamond on her ring finger. She and Louis looked very alike. Either purposefully or by accident, her husband was only halfway in the picture, practically nothing but a shoulder and a chin, but Lestat could tell he was smiling just like she was. 

“Grace,” Louis said after a few moments. He’d since tucked away the photo of the young man, Paul, Lestat assumed, like he couldn’t bear to look at it. 

“She’s very beautiful. You look alike.” 

Louis stared, expression hard, at the photo. 

“She wanted to move up North before I left, to DC or Connecticut, somewhere like that.” 

“Connecticut,” Lestat said carefully. It was a harsh-sounding, poncy American word, and he’d only ever encountered it in books and newspapers, never spoken aloud. 

“I don’t know if—-she probably won’t now.” There was a hint of wistfulness in his tone, but it was mostly bitter, almost scathing, like he thought she didn’t deserve Connecticut, which Lestat knew turned a brilliant orange-gold in the autumn, and produced excellent oysters and tough little apples. 

He looked at Louis, trying to imagine this man in his native habitat: the insouciant and beautiful New Orleans, buildings corkscrewed from age and water damage. He imagined nightclubs three stories tall, dark like the inside of a movie theater, bodies twisting, music pounding, Louis steering a sullen younger brother through the halls, pouring tequila for him into thin shot glasses. 

“He was devout, your brother,” Lestat guessed. Louis’ mouth twisted. 

“Yes.” 

“And you didn’t like it.” 

“It fed his delusions. He couldn’t have been normal even if he tried.” Louis said it dismissively, though Lestat could detect a deep well of pain beneath. From the bits and pieces he had been given, Lestat was beginning to put together a picture: Louis, raised in a moneyed Catholic family, the eldest son, with an unstable younger brother who clung to the church.

Louis glanced listlessly towards Lestat and shook his head. 

“You wouldn’t understand.” 

A cold wall, suddenly erected between them. The things he’d learned in the monastery, in Paris, here, practicing, seemed distant and impractical. He had a man in front of him who wasn’t just skeptical, he found it all foolish, delusional. And Lestat was angry, despite himself.

“I might,” he said, sounding like a child. Louis shook his head, then muttered something under his breath, then shook his head once more. 

Lestat polished off his glass of wine, feeling unsteady despite being seated. Someone walked behind him, brushing the arm of their coat against his back, and he flinched as if he’d been struck. 

Louis suddenly stood, staggering slightly. His handsome face was illuminated harshly on one side by the light, lip curled into a sneer. 

“Goodnight,” he said roughly, and then, as if to soften the blow of his leaving, he added begrudgingly, “Lestat.” 

Lestat watched him leave in a daze, uncertain where exactly he had gone wrong. The door to Le Coq Rouge swung open, letting in a sheath of cold air, and then slammed closed. No one besides Lestat seemed to notice. The talking and drinking continued on in a merry, lazy fashion. Shoes stuck and unpeeled themselves from the sticky wooden floor. 

Lestat stared at Louis’ unfinished drink, at the slight fog around the rim, the wet crescent where his mouth had touched the glass. He picked it up, head spinning, and placed his mouth against that very same spot, taking a conservative sip. 

Horrid, bitter, bright. 

Louis

Louis’ temper had faded by the time he passed the stone church, windows glowing faint and orange in the dark like a jack-o-lantern. He could see movement inside: those elderly ladies from before, sweeping at the pews, checking underneath them for gum wrappers and loose papers. He could still picture Lestat’s eyes flashing with indignance. 

You wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t needed to say that. It was rude, but then, it was exactly what he wanted to say. He wanted to scream it, actually, wipe the soft yet smug look of knowing off his face. 

He shouldered open the door to his cottage, threw his keys down on the kitchen counter, and cranked the shower on as hot as it would go. He would sleep off the alcohol and the irritation, and wake to a kinder, more patient version of himself. He’d leave that bottle of vicodin alone, at least for tonight. 

Louis woke the next morning wracked with shame. Lestat was sweet, if strange, and probably the only person he could call his friend. He liked Simone well enough, but her friendliness seemed too wholesale. He took a cold shower—the gas situation in this cottage was testy and he’d given up the fight a week into living here. Besides, there was something nice and local about the discomfort of a cold shower. Then, he put on his most casual kind of clothing: jeans in a dark blue and a sweatshirt that Grace had bought for herself at the gift shop of a winery when it had grown a little too cold for her sundress. She didn’t like the fit of it and passed it onto Louis that very night. 

Between himself and the church was nothing besides dense coastal shrubbery and a worn footpath. He walked along the dusty trail, feeling rather stupid with a bottle of wine beneath his arm. It was barely noon, too early for a red, but it was all he had that was nice enough to give as a kind of truce to Lestat. 

He’d only made it to the front garden, heart pounding as he stared down that crumbling bell tower, when the side door swung open and Lestat was leaping out, not in his cassock, but in overwashed jeans that frayed at the hems and a pale pink t-shirt draped over one shoulder. He looked like one of those youth pastors who spoke of God in terms of pop songs and book characters and household items. 

He didn’t look surprised to see Louis, but his expression was rather sheepish, and as he came closer, Louis could see why. He, too, had a peace offering, except instead of wine, it was a box of cigarettes, the lid open. 

“We thought the same thing!” Lestat said in that animated, childish way that Louis was beginning to grow used to. He reached out for the box, and instead of taking it, pulled one cigarette out, flipped it around, and pushed it back in. 

“For good luck,” Louis explained roughly. Lestat blinked, then nodded quickly, like he understood. He hadn’t said anything about the wine, but he stared at it, and Louis belatedly held it out to him, fingers itching. 

“We can drink it on the beach.” 

“I haven’t had breakfast.” 

“We can grab a baguette first, then.” 

They walked, in a reluctant silence, like two siblings fresh from a fight, though Louis was having a harder time trying to remember his anger from last night. Had he even been angry? 

Lestat walked alongside him, his shirt still hung over one shoulder. The bareness of his skin was startling, but this was a beach town, and even though it wasn’t warm, the sun struck the tops of their heads and shoulders with a surprising force. 

He was shockingly and effortlessly lean, almost emaciated-looking, but in the way that young well-muscled men were when they’d grown too tall for their appetites. Louis could remember his last growth spurt at the age of seventeen, late for most boys, and the unpleasant, almost unsightly scrawniness that had come with it. He’d never hated the sight of his shoulder bones so much as he did then. 

He filled out a couple years later, but he’d never put in much effort to maintain any kind of serious muscle mass like some of the men who frequented his clubs: biceps bulging against their shirts, necks so thick that their heads looked undersized. 

He preferred it this way, besides. His suits never needed to be tailored much. 

Lestat had the figure of someone who’d used their body all their life, sinew and muscle wrapped together tightly. Louis almost asked if he’d played sports, but then decided that would be a bit too revealing. He’d done a decent job of not staring too much, though he had no idea why it mattered to him. 

This was how men behaved, he tried to remind himself, slapping the muscle in each other’s bellies, demanding workout regimens and protein intakes. 

When they reached the edge of town, Lestat shrugged his shirt on and Louis stared at the lettering printed across the chest in a bright red. It was the name of some fishing company, and he almost asked about that, too, but Lestat was already bounding towards the bakery on the corner, and before Louis could catch up to him, he had gone and paid for a baguette wrapped in wax paper. A trail to the beach, marked by a wooden post and a railing of knotted rope, started a few feet away. 

“Come,” Lestat called, and Louis indulged him by following a few steps behind, feeling like he was taking an overeager sighthound for a walk. 

They sat on a sand bank a good fifty feet from the lapping shore. Here, with the way that the bay curved subtly, the waves were small and crumbled far out beyond the shoreline. Louis took a hunk of torn bread from Lestat and they ate in companionable silence. 

Though neither of them had to say it, they understood the procedure well enough: bread, cigarette, wine, then another cigarette. 

Lestat tossed a few pieces of the baguette towards a damp-looking seagull who stood a few feet away from them. 

“They’ll swarm us if you keep doing that,” Louis warned. 

“It looked hungry,” Lestat murmured. 

He really might be a priest after all, even if he does fuck married women. 

They moved onto a cigarette quickly after the bread was gone. Lestat lit the both of theirs with a pack of matches he pulled from his pocket. The sleeves of the pink t-shirt stretched at his bicep as he struck the match against the back of the box, and Louis noticed soon after that he had a scar stretching along the inside of his arm, a pink-white color and oddly uniform. 

Lestat caught his staring and glanced down at himself, then smiled a little wryly. 

“It goes all the way to my armpit, you know.” 

“It must have been nasty.” 

“Brothers,” Lestat said casually, as if expecting Louis to understand. Paul had never given him any scars, and the worst he’d ever done to Paul was a mild concussion after a spill on their father’s motorcycle. 

In silence, they finished their cigarettes, then Lestat opened the wine bottle with his teeth and a pocket knife, spitting the cork out into the sand with a noise of slight disgust. Louis was still mystified by him, how he could swing from boyish and sweet to sinister and cruel and then all the way to paternal, which he owed to his vocation and nothing more. He was sure he’d yet to meet anyone like him. Or maybe he had and he hadn’t been paying attention. 

Still, it was nice to indulge in the distraction of this new person. 

He took a swig of wine from the bottle and grimaced. 

“Oh, it’s not good.” 

Lestat snatched it back and took a sip himself, eyes darting as he tried to decide whether he agreed with Louis. 

“It’s sweet,” he decided, which was neither good nor bad based on his expression, though he took another sip immediately after. Louis took it back, and then relinquished it, back and forth the bottle went, until the label had grown warm from their fingers and the bottle was half-gone.

Lestat

“Tell me about yourself,” Louis said, staring straight ahead at the ocean. His profile cut a stunning, sharp picture against the white-gray sand dunes behind him. He had the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head to block against the wind, and it was so boyish and beautiful that Lestat forgot about the question, the terror of it, and answered automatically: “what do you want to know?” 

“Siblings, parents… how you ended up here, all of it, any of it.” 

“There is not much to say,” Lestat said, and then he laughed, because what a lie that was. Louis didn’t laugh with him, didn’t even smile. He just stared, expression curious, eyes almost hard, but then, that might have been the brightness of the sun reflecting on the water. 

“My family comes from the mountains of France—I’m sure you’ve heard of Val Thorens.” 

“Yes,” Louis said. 

“But you haven’t been?” 

“Saint Moritz, but—” 

“Close enough. I mention it because whatever you think of when you hear of these alps is not—” Lestat laughed again, unsure how to describe the desolate beauty of his home. 

Of course Louis had been to St. Moritz, where people put big treaded tires on their 911s to prowl through the snow-covered streets, where the horses lived in polished heated stables and the spires of luxury hotels pierced the sky like knives. 

“My family had good breeding, but we were not living lives of luxury.” 

Louis smiled, a rare crooked smile, and said, “yes, you look well-bred, I’ll give you that.” 

“Yes,” Lestat agreed, too distracted to preen at the compliment. 

“And your parents?” 

“My father has not left. He was born in the chateau, as was his father, and his father’s father, and generations before that, I think. I have brothers as I said, but we never—we were close, but we did not get along. Do you understand?” 

“I understand,” Louis said gravely. 

“We spent a lot of time outdoors together, hunting and the like, which meant we didn’t talk much or we’d scare off the game. I think I was sixteen when I realized I didn’t like them very much.” 

“Hunting,” Louis echoed. He tried to picture Lestat crouched over the still-warm body of a buck, holding its limp head up by the antlers, and found it impossible. 

“And my mother…” Lestat paused, unsure how to describe Gabrielle in only a few words. She seemed far too large for that. 

“She is very beautiful,” he whispered. “And she loves me.” 

“What is she like?” Louis pressed, and his eyes were almost desperate, like he needed Lestat to explain or something terrible might happen otherwise. 

“It’s difficult to—” 

“Try,” Louis pleaded. Lestat looked away, unsure how much he wanted to give, especially considering that beyond a few stilted, angry confessions, Louis had offered almost nothing of himself: a few photos, a muttered out explanation of his brother’s fate, a general disdain for religion, but Catholicism specifically. And to speak of Gabrielle felt like he’d be spilling everything. He knew enough about himself that once he started, it would be difficult to stop, and then Louis would possess him entirely, and he’d still just have those photos and the words, my brother killed himself.  

“The first thing, then, that you should know about Gabrielle,” Lestat began, wary, “is that she hated when I called her ‘mother’ .”

Louis

As Lestat spoke, Louis began to understand how it could have happened: a distant, cold, beautiful mother who would once every so often demonstrate extreme tenderness, brief glimmers of devotion to her lonely son. She’d sold a solid gold Cartier watch so that he might join the monastery, and a sapphire and diamond tennis bracelet that belonged to her grandmother so that he could move to Paris. She, in Lestat’s wavering words, had set him free, and let herself rot and diminish in their great stone castle, with its fires always roaring, and her greedy, loveless sons circling her like wolves. 

“We loved each other more than anything, you must understand. My father did not love her the way I did, she did not love my brothers the way she loved me. It was singular, we understood each other perfectly.” 

Yes, Louis could understand how it had happened, seeing Lestat’s shining eyes, the hitch in his voice as he said Gabrielle. Cruelty striking him over and over in a brutal metronome, and there Gabrielle would be, grasping the stem, pausing the world, kissing his cheek and divulging in him her anger and desperation. 

When he finished with her, Lestat moved on to explain how he had come to be here, which he divulged with extreme reluctance. 

I wanted to get out of my house, he had said back at the bar, and that seemed to be the truth of it. He and his father didn’t understand each other, as Lestat put it. His brothers were dull and cruel. The monastery had been an escape, more than a choice, but Lestat, in his stunning, unwavering optimism, had taken it fully in stride. 

“Do you even—from everything you’ve told me, do you even believe in God?” Louis felt almost stupid saying it out loud.

Lestat laughed, and Louis felt the terrible temptation to hit him, brutalize him, even, until his face was screwed up in tears, and not mirth. 

“I love God.” 

“You loved the monastery, I’m sure.” 

“I loved the order of it, how neat and comforting the rules were. I hate when I’m told what to do for no reason, when I’m told what to do out of nothing special. No one would ever tell me why, they would just say, you can’t do that, Lestat. No, Lestat. You can’t speak that way, Lestat.” He muttered this last part rapidly, in his rough, mountain French that Louis was beginning to adore. 

“But the monks at the monastery were very patient, probably too patient, and if they couldn’t explain why something was the way it was, they’d put me in front of a stack of books—the Bible, yes, and hermeneutical texts—and tell me to find the answer there.” 

“Did you?” 

“I think so.” 

“Well,” Louis said with a sigh. He’d had too much wine to get into the weeds of a religious debate, especially with a priest. Lestat leaned back onto his elbows, shifting a bit to arrange the sand around his weight. The hem of his pink t-shirt had ridden up just enough for Louis to see the pale gold hair around his pelvis. His hipbones reminded Louis of the face of someone especially gaunt. 

“We should finish this bottle before it gets too warm,” Louis said, and Lestat nodded in agreement, taking it by the neck and downing half of what remained like someone who had been dared to at a frat party. Louis snatched it a little crossly, though there was no real heat behind the gesture, and finished his portion in more restrained sips. 

An older gentleman walked by with a border collie, who ran in eager circles around him, crouching its belly low against the sand, then kicking off with a burst of speed. The man tipped his head towards the two of them, and Louis looked away, suddenly self-conscious, as Lestat waved lazily. 

“Do you know him?” Louis asked after he had gone. Lestat shrugged. 

“Probably. He might come to church. I don’t look at the faces.” 

What do you look at, then? Louis thought about asking. But instead, he just watched the water lap placidly at the damp, packed sand, feeling the heat of the wine and the sun on his cheeks. 

Lestat

Louis was delightful like this, warm and quiet and tired against the sand. His expression was still a little hard, eyes creased at the corners with a silent kind of worry, but everything about the way he sat and spoke was so companionable. It took all Lestat had not to ask about his brother and his piety and why exactly Louis found it so loathsome. He knew he’d be ruining something precious. 

A seagull picked determinedly at a washed-up pile of seaweed, wings flapping. 

“I don’t…” Louis rubbed roughly at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t find it easy talking about myself.” 

Once again, Lestat was struck with the image of a deer, a young, wet-eyed buck, picking its way through the forest, like the ones he used to shoot with his brothers and haul onto the back of an ancient ATV. Louis was the same kind of reluctant. 

“I haven’t eaten enough today, this must be the wine.” 

“Or the sun,” Lestat offered, mentally urging Louis to go on. 

“Or the sun, yeah. Maybe. I was just saying—I like to be left alone. It doesn’t seem like it, but I do. And I don’t want to talk about my brother, or God, or the church, or any of it.” 

Lestat paused, thinking over what he could possibly say that wouldn’t cause Louis to dart back off into the undergrowth. He had never been good at this. He was a sensitive boy, apparently—that’s what Gabrielle always said—but tactless at the same time. 

“Yes, you are very miserable,” Lestat said quietly, “you must enjoy it a little bit.” 

Louis’ head turned slowly. Lestat swore he could see a glint in his eyes, something metallic. 

“What?” His voice was cool and flat. 

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Lestat added, knowing that he wasn’t. 

There was something really sweet about Louis, how contained he was, how gentlemanly. His voice could flash so quickly from casual and coltish and prodding to something more sensitive and gentle. He was very gentle, Lestat was learning, very careful, though he could see bursts of recklessness flash through his eyes when he spoke about his dead brother and the rest of his family. There was callousness, too, and Lestat assumed that was where the money had come from. 

He didn’t know much about America, only that finding success there was a dogfight, and Louis sat across from him, bending his head sweetly, putting on a very convincing performance that he had never fought once in his life. Lestat admired it. 

He could also tell Louis was rarely spoken to like this, with zero deference. It set his posture alight. He was stiff like a predatory bird perched on a fence post. 

“I don’t enjoy it,” Louis said eventually, blackly. Not, I’m not miserable, just I don’t enjoy it. “I don’t want it.” 

He picked up a handful of sand and tossed it. 

“And I know what you’re fucking doing, and I don’t want it.” 

Lestat’s eagerness softened. Louis turned on him, expression cold. 

“You really can’t say shit like that.” 

“You—” 

“And I know you’re about to ask me why. I’ll tell you. You don’t know me, not like that.” 

Lestat wanted to grab him, not out of anger, but out of something he didn’t understand. It was an intense, visceral feeling. It itched at his fingers, it gathered in his throat. He stared at Louis, and Louis stared back, and he knew that whoever looked away first would be losing something grave. 

But neither of them did, and Lestat wanted to laugh helplessly, because it filled him with a terrible premonition for the future: neither of them looking away, like two dogs on opposite sides of the street. 

When they eventually broke eye-contact, it was in total unison. Lestat shook himself of a strange chill, and Louis thumbed a cigarette from a box, wordlessly handing one to Lestat. 

“Thank you.” 

“I don’t like priests, Lestat. I don’t like God.” Louis said it with a faint tremble in his voice.

“I know,” Lestat whispered. 

“And I don’t like being pushed around. You don’t like being told what to do? Fine. I don’t like the pushing. You do it without even realizing it, don’t you? Blustering everyone, always getting your way, and it usually works for you, I can tell, but it won’t with me.” 

Lestat was almost amazed. He’d never met someone who would speak those kinds of things out loud. It filled him with a sly kind of pleasure, that Louis had noticed these things about him, and though he said he didn’t like them, he stuck around anyway. 

And then, almost as if he had read Lestat’s mind, Louis added in a bright, jagged tone: “I don’t usually talk like this. I might be losing my mind.” 

Lestat said nothing, just dug his fingers into the sand, watching the fine grains sift around the beds of his nails. 

The wine had been polished off an hour ago, but the sun still beat overhead, and they hadn’t moved even an inch, growing hot in their clothes. Louis shed his sweatshirt first, and then the thin, knit shirt that lay beneath it, stretching his arms overhead. 

Lestat looked at what seemed like miles of brown skin, a few moles dotting his ribcage, another just to the left of a dusky nipple. He was totally scarless, perfectly smooth, the only hair on him being the faint trail that went up to his belly button, and the darker thicker stuff beneath his arms. 

Louis looked much younger with his shirt off, younger still when he rolled his trousers up to reveal his shins, letting them heat up in the sun as well. 

Lestat, out of solidarity and a faint desire to show off, shed his shirt quickly after, and they laid out like women on the beach, their shirts balled up beneath their heads to keep the sand out of their hair.  

“We usually get more rain this time of year,” Lestat murmured, glancing up at the cloudless sky. “It’s strange.” 

Louis grunted in acknowledgement, eyes closed, head tipped back. 

“We had terrible storms last year around this time.” 

“It’s because I’m here,” Louis said dryly. “The weather is on its best behavior.” 

Lestat only laughed. 

They might have dozed. Lestat lost track of time. His eyes would crack open and he’d glance sideways at Louis, his face half-obscured by their empty bottle of wine half-dug into the sand, and Louis would sluggishly glance back at him, eyes wet, face already starting to take on color. 

Lestat had probably burned already, and would only notice it in the evening after a shower.

“Lestat,” Louis said quietly, voice uncharacteristically rough. 

“Hm?” 

“You said you used to hunt?” 

“Deer and rabbits and things, yes.” 

“Could we go sometime?” 

Lestat sat up, grimacing as sand shifted off of him like a second skin. 

“You need a hunting license, I think.” 

“I’m sure we could get one.” Louis said it in the manner of someone who was used to getting what he wanted. To hell with firearm regulations! Lestat was enamored. 

“Yes, we could. And yes, we can go.” 

“Good,” Louis said softly, eyes on the mineral-blue sky. The muscle in his stomach and along his ribs, a pleasing, athletic sight, shifted and pulled as he sat up. He bent his knees and threw his arms over them, chin resting on his bicep. He set his gaze on the ocean, now, eyes rimmed in oily black lashes squinting against the light reflecting off the water. 

“I’d like to kill something,” he murmured. 

Louis returned home to his laptop left open on the dining table. He sat at one of the quaint wooden chairs, two on one side, three on the other, and looked over emails he had been neglecting. His wealth advisor had sent one a week ago, explaining the 10 percent loss from this quarter: I’m confident we will still see a sizable return by the end of the calendar year. We can consider selling then. You are up forty two percent this year regardless, and that’s not taking into account your other investments. The properties in Miami have been expensive, but we are still making decent returns. I’ll get back to you in about a month, but don’t hesitate to reach out sooner. 

His assistant had sent him a series of text messages, wringing her hands about what she should and shouldn’t tell his family. 

I told them you were in France, but I didn’t give any details. Is that okay?? 

He wired over another six-figure sum to the bank account he shared with Grace and Florence, and then boredly scrolled through the most recent charges on one of the cards he paid for. 

Television and wellness subscriptions, 10-dollar coffees from upscale cafes—all Grace, he knew—a ridiculously-priced couch from a furniture brand that had locations in New York, Los Angeles, and London. There were some other charges that he was familiar with: tidy four-figure payments to the landscaping and cleaning staff for Florence’s property, new tires for Grace’s Mercedes SUV. 

He went so far down, eyes glazing over, that he encountered the funeral home costs for Paul, as well as the catering for the wake, and that big white marquis tent they put up, which Louis had loathed because it made it all feel like a wedding, like a party. 

When he was a little younger, he used to pretend the money was some kind of burden. He complained to the other men he went to his clubs with, he groaned about the service fees on the DBS he had purchased impulsively after a very good fiscal year, and they would all commiserate with him, sneering about private school tuition and property taxes and golf club memberships that kept rising and rising. 

But Louis was performing, and he suspected they were too. 

He liked the staff and the exceptions and the power that came with it, he liked gliding silent through the world, knowing he was just about untouchable. 

He closed his laptop and leaned his weight against the hard wooden chair back, the spindles just a touch too thin to be comfortable. 

He was thinking of Lestat again, and of his mother, that Gabrielle, who he imagined to be a smaller, sharper version of her son, grossly beautiful, a little sinister in her movements. He thought of Lestat as a boy, carrying around rifles half his weight, a fresh scar running along the inside of his bicep, those loud, rough older brothers. 

Finally, he thought about Paul and that horrible white marquis tent which had stayed up a few days after the wake and had ruined the lawn with its sharp metal poles, how Florence had complained about the gouges in the grass, how Grace had lost her temper with her for the first time in Louis’ memory, and had come crying to him afterwards, teeth gnashing, head shaking. 

Apologize to Mama, he’d told her. And you should be with Levi, Grace, he’s better at this than I am. 

She’d apologized to Florence the very next day, and no longer came to Louis, crying or otherwise.

Chapter Text

Dinner Sunday? 

It was an unknown number, and for a moment, Louis assumed it had to be Lestat. There was something very charming about the fact that they had yet to exchange numbers, probably because they were a three minute walk away, and besides, who had a need for phones in a town as small as this? 

But then a second message came through: its Simone! 

He must have given her his contact that night at Le Nid, when he was drunk and it was late and every passing conversation melted away as soon as it ended. 

Without thinking much of it, he glanced through the window at the church across the way. Yesterday morning, he’d woken to voices filtering in through his walls. The sound travelled tremendously here, to the point that he could hear even the doors of the church creaking open and slamming shut throughout the day. 

He had looked out through his window, a little sheepish, half-obscured by gauze-like curtains that did nothing to block the light, and saw a robust crowd of people outside. Lestat was there too—he stood out like a signpost in his black cassock, and with that mane of blonde hair. Louis watched him squat down in front of a pair of young children, mousy-haired and bundled up to the throat in thick, winter clothing, despite it being only October. An older man stood off to the side, drinking something warm out of a thermos and smoking a cigarette. So many people Louis had never seen before, all dressed up in their least ill-fitting denim and nicest sweaters. 

He could see the glamorously-curled hair of Sabine, looking a little priest-like herself in a long black coat, though what she wore underneath, dramatically-pleated wool pants and a pale gray sweater, destroyed the illusion. 

She and Lestat didn’t so much as make eye-contact, at least, Louis didn’t think they did. It was hard to see everything from such a distance, crouched as he was behind the curtains. 

Louis left the window after that, realizing he was being ridiculous, and also that he had left his coffee to over-steep in the french press. 

He was considering one of those big, shiny chrome espresso machines, with all the tubes and dials exposed, but that was a very hopeful purchase, a permanent one. So he drank his bitter, gritty coffee and sent Simone a confirmation that he would be coming to dinner. 

The morning of that Sunday, Louis woke before the sun had risen, chest tight and full. He drank the stagnant water left at his bedside from the night before, and then, realizing he would need more, crept out of bed and padded to the kitchen to drink straight from the faucet. The water tasted faintly metallic, but it was ice-cold. 

He sat on the couch in a way that gave him a view of the beach below from the windows. There was someone there, just a single person, emerging from the water like they had been born in it. 

They walked, totally nude, onto the sand and stopped a few feet away from a neat pile of clothing.

That pale, tall figure turned slightly, faceless because of the distance. The neck craned upwards, and Louis knew that he was invisible from inside his cottage, but he got the uncanny feeling regardless that he was being watched, just as he himself was watching.

The man threw a hand up to his brow, to block the watery morning sun. Nude and still, he stood, like a statue. His blonde hair was dark, almost tawny, from the weight of the water. 

Louis exhaled sharply as a flash of recognition went through him.

Lestat, very far below, pulled a sweater over his damp skin, stepped into some dark, overly-loose trousers, and shook the sand off his person like a dog.

In New Orleans, no priest would be caught outside in anything less than a sharp button up and dress pants, not even the youngest men. Much less swimming nude in the ocean at the crack of dawn. 

He watched Lestat from the windows of his living room, that wiry figure making slow but steady progress towards a roughly-hewn trail that went up the cliffs where it was less steep. At this distance, every movement was jerky, like a poorly-rendered video game. The sun hung at such an angle that there were almost no shadows on this side of the coast, which gave everything an eerie, dream-like air, and dangerously, made Louis feel as if he was no longer living in reality. 

Once again, he thought of that bottle of vicodin in his bedside table drawer, how insignificant each round white pill was. He went through the procedure of how it would happen: release the child lock, pour out the pills onto his duvet, separating them with a single finger like he was a scientist in a lab. Crisp white wine, covered in an icy sheen of condensation from the fridge, would be sitting next to him. Maybe the sun would be setting, pouring in warm, orange light from the windows. 

Tiny, hard pills against his tongue, like teeth or candies, melting slightly in his saliva. Then, a robust swig of the wine, and another immediately after, to rinse his mouth. He’d walk in a circle around the cottage, throw open a window to breath in some air, then he’d return to the bedroom and go to sleep, never to wake again. 

This line of thinking was a strange comfort to him, and hilariously indulgent, to the point that afterwards, he would get this awful, sheepish embarrassment that would prompt him to do something seemingly productive, like check his emails or buy bread from the bakery at the outskirts of town, closest to his cottage, or re-lace his only pair of sneakers. 

This time, he pulled his coat from the peg by the door and walked out onto the bluff which overlooked the ocean. He was far enough away from the sand and the shoreline that the waves were still a distant, almost artificial roar. If he closed his eyes, he could have just as well been in a quiet suburb, and that crashing hum could have been the sound of one of those giant green trash trucks, making its way through the wide, quiet streets, a giant metal claw picking up bins full of garbage bags and shipping boxes and clippings from the lawn. 

Louis walked away from the town, towards seemingly nothing. There was only a poorly-maintained road that probably merged into a proper paved street, which in turn would lead to the highway, or at least the smaller French version of it. 

He kicked at rocks as he walked, teetering alarmingly close to the cliff’s edge, not really caring what might happen if the rocky lip gave way and took him down with it. 

By the time his cottage was back in sight, it was almost noon. He looked to the church’s stone facade, out of habit, and felt a little burst of amusement at who he saw there. 

Lestat, standing on the stone balcony that looked like it may at any moment crumble into the ocean. From his place, the church was only a hundred meters or so away. The quaint cemetery behind it was small enough that Louis could count the gravestones without having to stop and think about it. 

Lestat must have seen him coming, because he disappeared from the balcony and reappeared at the small side door on the left flank of the stone church, holding the door open with his foot, slightly hunched against the chill in the air. 

“You’ve missed my sermon,” Lestat called over the blurring effect of the wind. His voice was toying. Louis shook his head as he walked closer. 

“I’m not listening to that shit.” 

“Ah, here we go.” It was a warm, familiar exchange, and it would usually lead to them walking together along the cliffs, laughing bitterly about something mean they’d been waiting to tell the other. 

Today, Louis was feeling indignant about Grace and her spending habits, so he whaled on her to Lestat, in the petulant and slightly misogynistic way that a brother often complains about a sister. 

How many fucking bags and massages does one person need? I should show you the credit card statements one day, Lestat. Spa treatments every week, and for what? She looks exactly the same! 

Lestat would gently take the side of whoever Louis had chosen to pick on that day, and then Louis would say in a discordantly mild tone, stop being a fucking priest. And then Lestat would laugh and he’d enthusiastically join in on the criticism a moment later. 

But it was impossible to remain so bitter with someone else, Louis was realizing. Even at their most hateful, there was a camaraderie to it, and quite naturally, with none of Lestat’s gentle, pious goading for Louis to be contrary to, they’d move on to kinder things. 

“I like it here,” Louis whispered, “I like the weather, and I like the ocean, the sound of it—it’s so loud. I can’t even hear myself think.” He was feeling a little guilty about the go he’d had at Grace, how she was probably back at home, thinking only well-intentioned things about him. Maybe she was reading one of those romance novels she’d become obsessed with, and calling her friends, also grown women, squealing about who had kissed who, and how their two beloved characters would miscommunicate themselves into an argument next. 

“Yes, I like that too,” Lestat said, breaking Louis from his thoughts. 

“I like not having a family here,” Louis added, feeling quite sheepish. Lestat laughed, and Louis couldn’t quite get over how lucky he had been to meet this person, that his assistant had found a cottage across from a church with this specific priest inside.

“Oh, yes, that may be the best part,” Lestat murmured. “It is the best part, actually.”  

“Grace would hate it here, by the way. She isn’t built for this kind of place.” 

“Biarritz, maybe,” Lestat agreed. “Or she might be better off abandoning France entirely and going to Spain. It’s just over there.” He pointed in a direction Louis assumed to be south, down the coast. 

“She would never visit,” Louis said. “She is much nicer than I am, but she has a lot of pride. She wouldn’t come here.” 

“Hm.” 

“Would yours?” 

Lestat looked at Louis, confused, and Louis elaborated. 

“Your family.” 

“My father is going to die in that house. He used to say it all the time, and also I think he really does hate me! Not like how parents do when they love you anyway, he really does.” Lestat sounded mirthful about it, almost delighted, like he’d accomplished something. 

“Gabrielle though, she has come before. She used to come all the time, actually.” His brow creased, as if he was realizing how long it had been and wasn’t happy about it. 

“Where is she now?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” Louis asked, incredulous. Lestat blinked. 

“No.” 

“But, she’s—” 

“She likes to travel, very analog, staying in hostels, hitchhiking, all of that. She’s like your Kerouac.” 

Louis wasn’t sure if this was a French tendency or a foreign one, but he enjoyed how everything American, past or present, became his, like he was some kind of ambassador. Your wineries in Napa, your sugary breakfast cereals, your Aretha Franklin, your Hemingway. 

“She might come soon,” Lestat said quietly, hopefully. 

Louis shook off a feeling of deep unease and pulled out a cigarette, which had Lestat making a soft sound of excitement and reaching across Louis’ body to pull one out of the box. 

“Please, take one, Lestat. I insist.” 

And Lestat just laughed, like Louis had said something truly hilarious. 

Louis’ hips and feet ached from his earlier walking, so he took his car to Le Nid. It was a strange kind of normal, being in a car again. Especially this big, black beast, which rumbled slowly over the rough, cobbled roads. 

Louis wasn’t as sheepish when he arrived this time, bypassing the restaurant's quaint interior and circling around to the extensive outdoor patio, which really was just a wooden deck suspended a foot above the sand. 

Louis saw Lestat’s hair before he saw the rest of him. Even in the dim light provided by candles and battery-powered lanterns, it gleamed like it was under a spotlight, bright, pale, shifting slighting beneath the fingers of a slender, manicured hand. He had a woman pressed against one of the wooden posts that held up the modest roof overhang, face buried in her neck, hands skating over and under the short hem of her stylish gabardine Mac coat. 

He stared, almost transfixed, at the wanton, carnal display in front of him. 

This was that Sabine, the one from Le Coq Rouge, who had touched the back of Lestat’s neck in a way that was so familiar, any lingering questions Louis had on the nature of their relationship dissolved instantly. 

Distantly, he could see the appeal, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Hugo said, how Lestat liked women who looked like his mother, which Lestat had inadvertently confirmed that day on the beach, his voice soft and dream-like. 

He wondered if Sabine knew as much. 

Unlike the quiet, buzzing warmth of Le Nid the last time, Simone had roused a larger, rowdier group. Every table indoors and out was taken up by jackets and half-finished glasses of wine. Someone was playing music on a speaker which was precariously balanced on the edge of the firepit, but whatever song it was had been drowned out by the sounds of voices and glasses clinking and knives scraping ceramic plates. 

“ Louis!” Simone wrapped herself around him. The skin on her arms was freezing cold. “You haven’t left for America yet, we must be winning you over.” 

He gave her a low, muted laugh. 

Lestat came ambling over, smiling at Louis like he had been the one to do the winning over. He reached up, eyes bright, and tied his hair back loosely. Sabine appeared a few moments after him, kissing Simone on the cheek, reaching behind her to steal a sip of her wine. 

“Lestat tells me you’re from New Orleans,” she said in thickly-accented English. 

“Yes,” Louis said a little stiffly, and then he caught himself, and smiled, “have you been?” 

“Once,” she said with a wistful sigh. “I was much younger. Very beautiful people, very good food.” 

“Yes,” Lestat said absently, though Louis knew he had never been. 

Sabine asked Louis the clunky, well-intentioned questions of someone looking for common ground. 

I do not remember the street name but all the buildings were painted blue. It was so lovely, and there was a cafe on the corner. 

Louis didn’t have the heart to tell her that New Orleans was a big city and he didn’t have a photographic memory of every street. 

And there was a hotel on the water. 

As Sabine spoke, Lestat draped himself over her back, eyes flashing like an animal’s at night on the highway. Simone had wandered off to greet some new arrivals, and in her place stood a few more people that Louis recognized from the last dinner, older men with thick heads of silver hair and ultra-thin cigarettes between their fingers. Lestat stuck his hand beneath Sabine’s jacket, though it remained atop of her sweater, and stared at Louis, goading and smug. A single hand of his covered nearly her entire torso, or at least it seemed that way. 

If any of the people here were offended at the overt display from their town’s priest, they didn’t show it. 

Louis sipped his wine, delicately at first, and then with more and more determination, until one of those silver-haired men refilled his glass and clapped him on the back and asked in French if he’d ever had poire williams.

“No,” Louis said, a little bewildered. There was a polite, good-natured uproar.

“Oh, Louis, you must!” Simone crowed. The man who refilled his glass grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, which had Louis grimacing and shooting a glance at Lestat, to see if he was watching. He was, though his expression was totally indecipherable. 

Sabine sat next to him, clapping her hands gleefully as a row of lowball glasses was set up. The bottle of this poire williams was a delight: round and fat with a narrow neck and an entire pear sealed inside. 

“They put the bottle on the tree when the pear is young,” someone was explaining.

Louis took one of the glasses, glancing around to see if the others would join him, but they were all staring, smiling rather intensely. A few stragglers were off at the other tables, talking and laughing over torn hunks of bread and soft yellow butter, but Louis still felt uncomfortably noticed. 

He lifted the glass slightly to the group, though his eyes found only Lestat, and then he downed the two-finger’s worth of alcohol and bit back a grimace. Brandy! Too sweet, but pleasantly pear-flavored, and light enough that he could drink it on its own without that sickly crawl up his throat. 

It seemed he had broken the seal, because soon just about everyone was taking glasses and drinking. Everyone, except Lestat. He had left Sabine to go prod at the firepit with a metal poker, eyes unfocused, sparks flying. He was an oddly somber image amongst the revelry, like a framed photo on the wall from a different time. 

Louis thought about going to him, slinging his arm around his shoulder and shaking him about and demanding to know what was making him so quiet, but that was the kind of thing Lestat would do, not him. And Sabine was just a few feet away, wrapped up in a rapid conversation with one of the few other women here besides Simone. 

“Lestat, you will burn the place down!” Someone called chidingly, and the familiarity made Louis’ eye twitch for reasons he couldn’t understand. Lestat only flapped his hand distractedly. 

And again, Louis felt the urge to go to him. But his feet didn’t move. He stayed rooted to the spot, he drank more of that pear brandy and spoke to people he’d never met before, offering cigarettes and taking them in turn.

Louis had won the evening. His sweet, stilted French had charmed just about everyone, as had his impressive tolerance for the wine and Poire Williams, though he sat slouched there in his chair looking totally oblivious to the fact. 

At one point, someone draped a plasticky red jacket over his shoulders, and he was drinking out of a glass that didn’t belong to him. He watched the people in front of him with a lazy, unaffected air, smiling faintly when someone turned in his direction, but otherwise remaining quite still and placid. 

Lestat watched him pull out a cigarette from a rumbled box in his jacket pocket, watched him light it with a neon green plastic lighter, the kind you never bought yourself but rather acquired after a night at a bar. He took a long drag, kept the smoke in his lungs for a little longer than necessary, and then let it pour out of his mouth in a slow, leisurely roll. 

Louis was blatantly handsome. Sabine had said he looked like “one of those movie stars” when she first met him at Le Coq Rouge, and when Lestat asked her what she meant, she waved her hand vaguely and didn’t elaborate, like she expected him to understand. Some of the ladies from the church had started whispering excitedly about him, making up fantastical stories about how he’d made his wealth and why he’d come here and a truly ridiculous theory about a dead wife. 

He’d gotten the whole town in a mild uproar, and Lestat was realizing he felt a little bitter about it, like seeing a beautiful untouched stretch of beach covered in garish green towels and cans of beer. 

Simone was going around trying to convince someone to jump into the sea with her, but not even the drunkest attendants seemed very convinced. 

Lestat might have, if it was Louis doing the begging, but Louis looked perfectly content where he was, laughing in that pacific, restrained way of his, largely quiet otherwise.

 That was a terrific bit of magic he did, dispensing only a few measured words at a time, until his counterpart was leaned all the way forwards on their toes, eager to take whatever he had to give. Lestat had no idea if it was something he did deliberately, or if it was just the way he was. Maybe, one day, he’d ask. 

As the night quieted down, Lestat decided he’d had enough of sulking—he didn’t even know why he had started doing it in the first place—and joined what was left of the gathering. 

Louis had his head leaned over the back of a chair as he sat, eyes lidded, only opening them a crack when Lestat came to stand over him. 

“Hm,” he said, eyes glistening. 

“Brandy will have you feeling terrible in the morning,” Lestat said, and Louis smiled slowly, the expression spreading to the rest of his face like syrup. 

“Oh yes, I’m fucked.” 

Lestat was still not used to the way Americans spoke, or the way Louis himself spoke. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright flash of blonde, and realized then that he’d been avoiding Sabine for the second half of the night. He certainly didn’t want to be near her now, not when he had finally won back Louis’ attention. In fact, he was feeling resentful at how much time she had taken out of the night, and how impatient she looked now, eyes glinting a little coldly as she shouldered her bag. 

Louis followed his gaze and let out a short, dry, amused sound. 

“She’s old enough to be your mother, Lestat.”

Lestat felt very young and foolish, the way Louis said that, and not—as the other men this evening had told him to be—proud, in any way. Lestat looked at Louis, unsure what to expect, and found he wasn’t even looking back. He stared hard at the profile of his nose and brow, that infuriatingly calm expression, the very faint smile lines around his mouth.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Louis said, still without looking back at him. Yes, Lestat felt very young and very stupid and just a touch confused. 

“Like what?” 

“Like—” 

“I don’t understand you,” Lestat said before Louis could answer. Louis finally turned his head, eyes glittering like they were wet, brow raised. 

“You—” 

“I don’t understand you,” Lestat said again, throwing his gaze to the black water in front of them. 

Louis said nothing. 

“It—” Lestat laughed, feeling oddly like he might cry. “You like it that way, I think.” 

“Go fuck Sabine, Lestat.” Louis stood, in that terrible flat voice he sometimes used.

“Yes, fine,” Lestat replied, suddenly indignant, angry. He watched Louis shrug on his coat properly, standing on the edge of the deck like a wind-ruffled raven, hunched against the cold, dark and seamless in the dim, orange light. For a moment, there seemed like a chance he would say something more, but then his mouth pressed tightly together and he clapped Lestat on the shoulder in silent communication. 

It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. 

And then he was gone. 

Louis probably shouldn’t have taken his car, but he wasn’t keen on walking alone in the cold, and his conversation with Lestat, at least, had felt sobering. He checked his phone for the first time in hours and saw a dozen messages from Grace, some long, some short, though only a few words stood out to him: Florence, stage four, declining treatment. 

He stopped the car in the middle of the main street, turning off the engine completely. A shaky breath, like a death rattle, escaped him. The glow from Le Nid had disappeared. 

I’ll call you when I get home. 

Home? Grace demanded over text, where are you? 

He parked the Escalade haphazardly in the gravel driveway and stumbled into his house. Grace had sent a few more messages, angry ones, and by the time he was calling her, his nerves were alight, his skin was cold, his head ached with a low, pulsating throb. 

“She’s refusing treatment, Louis. You have to come home.” 

“Hello, Grace.” 

“Are you listening to me?” 

“I’m not a doctor. What use would I be?” He felt incredibly detached, hearing Grace let out a gasping cry over the phone. What a hilarious joke. Florence, ill, just a few months after Paul had offed himself. In the papers, her obituary would read something about how her sweet, maternal heart had failed because of the passing of her beloved son, how she had gone so soon after him out of love. He loathed it. 

“She’s sick, Louis,” Grace snarled. “And here you are, lounging on a French beach somewhere. Your assistant—useless woman by the way—won’t even give us a mailing address.” 

“Yes,” Louis said distantly. 

“And all you care to do is wire money every month, like we aren’t even—like we’re a charity.” 

“Yes.” Charity was generous, at least those usually sent thank you cards

“You never cared for us. Never. And now Mom is sick, she’s really sick, and she’s been asking for you, Louis. She wants to see you before she goes. But you can’t let go of your sick fucking pride.” 

Louis stared out at the horizon, where the black sea met the dark gray sky, and said nothing. 

“ She’s gonna die, Louis, and you don’t even care to see her!” 

Louis didn’t bother saying, she’s the one refusing treatment, because no matter how gently he spoke, it was a callous thing to offer. A part of him, a very small part, was a little impressed with the strength of his mother’s conviction. 

She was doing what he had tried to do in that hotel suite in Paris, and what he had been considering every other day as he lived here. 

“She doesn’t want to see me,” he said instead. 

“You’re just saying that. You haven’t spoken to her, that’s why you think that.” 

Grace sounded lost and desperate and very young. Louis couldn’t be angry with her even if he tried. 

“ I’ve tried talking to her, I told her that God would want her to get treatment. I don’t understand why she—she thinks she can just pray. It’s stupid, Louis. She sounds like Paul.” 

Louis thought it was sweet that Grace figured this was an act of piety, and not of spite. He had no idea where she had gotten her innocence, no idea how it had ended up that he was the one who understood Florence more than she did. 

The conversation was going nowhere, so he gave a few gentle words of comfort, which Grace only scoffed at, and then hung up the phone. On a hard wooden dining chair, he sat for what felt like an hour. If it was neurologically possible for the brain to not have a single thought, he was doing it. Nothing but gray rolled between his ears, in front of his eyes. 

Florence, dying, it was almost like God had come back from sabbatical and given him a gift. 

You will feel something later, when it's too late to do something about it. You know how it goes. 

Yes, Louis was certain, but still, it was impossible to think that far ahead. Instead, he stood, movements wooden, and made his way to the bedroom, to the bedside drawer where Florence’s pills sat. He picked up the bottle, turning it over in his hand, and before he could do the act of it—opening the lid, pouring out the pills on his duvet, separating them with a single finger, counting, considering—he dropped to his knees. 

He couldn’t see the church from his bedroom, a blessing really, but he knew where it lay as he stared at the wall. 

Don’t, he thought. You have what you need here. But his body moved without his permission. He grabbed his coat off the hook, which was still warm with his body heat from earlier, and stumbled out into the black, cold night. 

The pills rattled in his pocket as he walked like a dying man to that church. A single light came from one of the windows. Maybe Lestat was there, maybe he had taken Sabine home with him after all, fucking her in the House of God, thinking of Gabrielle as he slid his fingers through blonde hair. 

The front door was open, the candles on the altar were unlit. The place looked like his dream from all those weeks ago, but the floor wasn’t covered in feathers and blood, just a fine, thin veil of dirty footprints. He’d made enough noise that whoever was still here must have heard him, because immediately, footsteps, echoing sharply against stone, came from the left. 

Lestat was wide-eyed, wearing plaid pajama pants and rainboots. He had a flashlight under his armpit, the beam of white, cold light swinging wildly as he walked. 

“Louis,” he said, sounding bewildered at first. Then, as he came closer, his expression unfurled like a flower. 

“I need—I need to confess,” Louis gasped, hand in his pocket, fingering the lid of his pill bottle. Lestat stood a few feet away from him, arms goosebumped from the cold, hair mussed. 

Like he did in his bedroom, Louis dropped to his knees, the sharp pain of stone biting through the fabric of his pants not even registering.

“I’m not… a good person,” he gasped out, staring, eyes blurred over like fogged glass. “I own seedy nightclubs, I hire girls from broken homes, I buy cheap apartment buildings and I hike up the rent just because I can. I write off my cars as business expenses and put my money in strange places so I don’t have to pay taxes. There was a boy named Jonah who—I didn’t do right by him. It was wrong. I let my brother—” He shook his head. “I’m weak. I’m evil. I lie.” 

Louis looked up, in a blind desperation, and saw Lestat staring down at him, and his hands were loose at his sides, head cocked. In his eyes, there was no God, no forgiveness, just a strange, needling hunger that Louis swore he had seen before. 

He was staring up at a callous creature, and instead of fear, an intense rush of safety coursed through him. 

Louis felt the grit of the grout between the clay tiles dig into his knees. The church still seemed like it might come apart at any moment. The plaster walls, in this light, looked like tissue paper, and the heavy wooden altar gave the illusion of a plastic miniature from a dollhouse. 

Louis shuddered, swallowing down a sourness in his throat. 

“Is that it?” Lestat asked quietly. 

“What?” Louis forgot himself for a moment, hands limp in his lap. 

“Is that all you have for me?” Lestat looked genuine, and Louis was frozen with disbelief. He opened his mouth, tongue thick against his teeth. 

“You’re supposed to say—” 

“I know what I’m supposed to say,” Lestat said, and this time, he did sound gentle. His head tilted, and he smiled crookedly. Louis blinked, a little offended, a little shocked, though he shouldn’t have been. 

“Fuck you,” he rasped automatically. 

“Yes, fine,” Lestat said, slightly exasperated. 

“You’re a shitty priest.” 

“I know,” and Lestat smiled gently this time as he said it. Louis watched, bewildered and a little afraid, as Lestat slowly sank to his knees in front of him. 

His lip curled. 

“I’m not praying.” 

Lestat had his hands folded in his lap, but he moved them, bracing each palm flat on the tile in front of him, inches away from Louis’ aching knees. 

He looked like a boy. 

Jonah, Louis thought, revolted and desperate at the same time. 

“I don’t want to pray either,” Lestat said, then he smiled, half-crooked. “I was going to ask if you wanted a cigarette.” 

Louis stared at him, feeling a cold wetness on his face and realizing he had been crying. He touched his cheek with his fingertips then looked down at the floor, at the smooth rounded humps of the orange Spanish tile, at the darker spots where his tears had fallen and saturated through the porous material. 

“Come, Louis,” Lestat murmured, softer now. He had looked so inhuman a moment ago, and now, he was the perfect image of a young man, eyes bright, lips soft and wet where he had licked them nervously, “let’s go smoke a cigarette. Not in here, I think that would be the thing that finally sends me to Hell,” and then he laughed, still looking at Louis, eyes flitting all over his face. 

Louis stood woodenly. His knees ached, as did his head. He followed Lestat out into the black cold like a lost lamb, blind, still aching terribly. The bottle of pills rattled faintly in his pocket, but Lestat wasn’t close enough to hear it, he didn’t think. 

He heard the rasp of a match striking the back of a box and then Lestat was puffing quickly at a cigarette to get it started, handing it to him after. 

Louis stared at the almost-fluorescent white of the filter, head spinning. 

“I’m not a good person,” he said again, dumb, tongue thick. 

“You keep saying that,” Lestat said amusedly. “I hate to imagine what kind of person you think I am.” 

He lit his own cigarette with another match. Why he didn’t own a lighter, Louis had no idea. 

For a few minutes, neither of them spoke. Louis scratched roughly at his throat, stuck his hand inside his coat pocket, feeling for the lid of his pill bottle. He toed at a rock until it tumbled off the edge of the cliff. All the while, Lestat was utterly still, like he was waiting for Louis to go on. 

Louis thought about his humiliating display in the church, thought about the horror of waking up tomorrow to the sun and realizing he had been dramatic and foolish, that he had bared himself to Lestat for nothing. Well, the damage had already been done, might as well keep going. 

“I look at people,” he said weakly, “and I think—I swear it—I think they’re all animals and I’m the only human among them. They’re all animals to me. Do you ever think that?” 

Lestat smiled in a pained way, teeth flashing in the dark. 

“Louis—” 

“You don’t,” Louis said quietly. “Who the fuck thinks that?” 

“Sometimes I think of myself as an animal who walks among men. Sometimes I think that.” 

“That doesn’t help me,” Louis said bitterly. If anything, it made him feel worse. Lestat rubbed his throat nervously, like he was shocked at what he had revealed of himself. 

“Why tonight?” Lestat asked, and when Louis didn’t answer, he went on. “You haven’t stepped foot in the church since you’ve arrived. You haven’t—I want to know, what was it about tonight?” 

Louis considered telling Lestat about Florence, and Grace, and what he had come to Paris to do, and what he had been considering tonight before he came stumbling to the church in his daze. He almost considered taking that pill bottle out of his pocket and showing it to him. 

“You did not seem to like Sabine,” Lestat added quietly. 

“She was fine.” Louis felt a sharp twinge of horror at where Lestat’s thinking had gone, and now he was beginning to second-guess himself, too. Sabine was fine, perfectly fine, and he repeated that in his head a few times to see how it felt, see if it settled in him without chafing. 

“I think you’ve been told things, and they are wrong,” Lestat added, and Louis could sense that they were heading into dangerous territory. He ashed his cigarette with a tap from his thumb, desperate for a change in topic.

“Do you even believe in God?” He asked. 

Lestat laughed at first, always laughing, and then fell silent. 

“I love God,” he said seriously, not looking at him. Louis frowned. 

“But do you believe in him?” 

“I love—” 

“I’m not talking about love, Lestat. I’m asking—look at me.” He grabbed Lestat by the chin, wincing at the incredible softness in his expression, the uncertainty. His thumb sunk into the hard bone of his jaw. He could feel his pulse there, a rapid, rabbit-like fluttering. 

“Nevermind,” he muttered, letting him go. 

“I love him,” Lestat whispered insistently. 

“Okay.” 

“You don’t believe me,” Lestat said thickly. He looked angry now, brows low, voice like acid. 

“You think I’m stupid.” 

“I believe you,” Louis said. “I believe you. It’s fine. It’s all fine.” His head was killing him, he realized, and his mouth was dry and foul-tasting from the cigarette.

He looked to Lestat, about to ask a little dryly if that hideous old church had any running water, but Lestat’s expression was curled and cruel. 

“That’s a terrible thing to ask, Louis.” 

“Well,” Louis said flatly. 

“Terrible,” Lestat repeated, looking sullen. A sudden, stiff shiver went through him, and he ducked his head against the cold, wet breeze. He was only in a shirt, and a chill was rolling in off the ocean, and Louis didn’t think before taking off his jacket and draping it over Lestat’s shoulders. 

Lestat didn’t move at first, but slowly, he stuck his arm into one sleeve, then the other. Louis held his cigarette for him until the jacket was properly on, then he zipped it up, something Louis never did because he found it looked silly, and hunched back into himself. 

He was angry, Louis could tell, but didn’t have enough energy to show it. 

Louis understood. He felt like that all the time. 

For a few minutes, they sat in total silence, smoking and shifting their bodies as the wind came in every direction. 

“It’s fucking cold,” Louis muttered. 

“Fucking cold,” Lestat echoed. He shoved his hands in the pockets of Louis’ jacket and hunched down even more. 

“Usually it rains this time of year,” he added quietly. 

“You keep saying that,” Louis said, feeling a little sigh of relief move out of him. “Why are you so worried about the rain?” 

“The roof leaks, and I have to shore up the wall on the one side with sandbags or it may slide right into the ocean. It’s really terrible.” He sounded a little entertained by it, smiling faintly. 

“Good riddance,” Louis said warmly, and Lestat laughed outright. He shifted his hands in the pockets of his borrowed coat, shoulder brushing against Louis’. 

Louis let his eyes close. His cigarette was gone, but it was lovely to just sit here, fingers freezing, head blessedly clear. He wasn’t thinking about Florence, for once, or Grace, or even Paul. 

“What’s this?” Lestat murmured. Louis cracked open one eye, unbothered, and then he heard the faint rattle of plastic, and his stomach dropped. 

“Medication,” he answered stiffly. The orange of the bottle glowed in the dark like it was lit from within.

 He reached for it, to snatch it back, but Lestat held it out of reach. 

“Is your real name Florence, then? How sweet.” 

“Fucking give it back.” Lestat only laughed, and it was the sight of his teeth, the back row of molars, that sent Louis over the edge. 

“ Louis —” Lestat warned, just before Louis clambered atop of him, breath whistling out between his nose. They wrestled in the sloppy way that young boys would, limbs flailing, knees slamming into thighs and the softest parts of the stomach. Louis might have knocked Lestat’s head back into the gravel a little too hard, eyes set on the orange and white bottle. 

“Give it—” He snarled, as he felt the hard sole of Lestat’s shoe glance against his hip.

He got a hold of Lestat’s hair, jerking his head to the side, reaching over him until he could feel the harsh flutter of his breath against his chest. He pressed Lestat’s cheek into the ground with the flat of his palm, fingers curling against his temple and eye socket and nose, using his other hand to pry the bottle out of his fingers. 

He felt a gust of warmth as Lestat’s mouth opened, and before he could pull his hand away, there was a sharp, wet burst of pain against his knuckle, teeth digging into the skin, into bone. 

“Hey—” Louis gasped, jerking his hand away, sliding back into the dirt, rock and prickly roots pushing through the thin fabric of his trousers. 

“Very mature, Lestat,” he hissed, shaking the pain out of his hand. Lestat lay sprawled in between two low, dried-out shrubs, jacket askew, his hair curtaining his face. 

“Fuck you, Louis,” he snapped back, eyes bright with anger. Gravel was buried into the softest part of his cheek, and he brushed it away with the back of his arm, leaving scattered pockmarks of red in its wake. 

Fuck you, Louis. It was so charmingly American, and undoubtedly something he had picked up from their conversations, that Louis totally forgot his own distraughtness and laughed. 

“Oh, that’s great,” he said, laughing harder, “soon you’re going to— ha, you’re gonna start speaking English like I do. That would be—” He dissolved into another peal of laughter, as Lestat watched from the ground, brows knit together warily. 

“It is not funny,” he said reproachfully. 

“It is, Lestat, you don’t even—you don’t even know why, but it is.” 

Louis pocketed the pill bottle and stood up, groaning slightly. He couldn’t remember the last time he had moved like that—probably a long time ago, probably sex. 

He studied his hand, squinting in the dark, surprised to see no blood, just pale, papery bits of skin peeling away from where Lestat’s teeth had dug in and a few red indentations. 

“Why do you have your mother’s medication, Louis?” Lestat asked, sitting up into a crouch, and then standing finally. He looked enormous in the dark, and he was still wearing Louis’ jacket. Louis’ lingering amusement faded. 

He wiped Lestat’s saliva off on his trousers, gripping the pill bottle tightly. 

“Goodnight, Lestat. Thanks for nothing.” 

“It’s going to rain,” Lestat groaned, sounding distant, even though they were still only a few steps away. “Just wait, Louis—” 

“Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Louis woke with a start to a dark room and the sound of rain everywhere, lashing at his windows, thudding against the doors. It sounded as if the ocean had come up the cliff to his front door. He sat upright, checking his phone for the time. There was a rather vague warning of “weather” for his area, which he assumed had been determined by GPS, and a few texts from Simone, letting him know that the power might go with all this wind, and that if it did, she had an extra propane generator in her garage. 

He ate a very late and meager dinner of a few pieces of cheese, some almost-stale bread, and a handful of grapes, cold from the fridge but slightly soft, the wrinkled skin giving way to dramatic bursts of sweetness. 

He messed around on his laptop, answering emails and checking balances. That was what his professional life had come down to, really: responding to emails and making sure the people he employed got paid. Bleak, but comfortable. 

Grace hadn’t sent him any messages since their call, but he wasn’t surprised by that. He tried to sympathize with her, imagining how it must feel to lose one brother to suicide, and then another to distance, and now her mother was sick and she was refusing treatment out of some terrible, bitter spite that Grace couldn’t understand. Louis did, but he had always been a little different from his siblings.

He tried to imagine what it must be like for Grace, the loneliness, the helplessness, but he conjured up nothing. He didn’t feel anything, and if he did, it was so far in the distance that it hardly registered. Maybe, somewhere in New Orleans, there was another Louis that was doing all the feeling, crying and wailing and hurting himself, and this Louis, the one who had fled to France, was left to run around with a blonde, heretic priest. 

The day passed by in a slow, dark slog. Louis was beginning to make a connection between time and water, something vague and half-formed. He had the same feeling now, surrounded by the black, relentless pounding of the rain as he did watching the cyclical rise and crumble of the waves from the cliffside. There was something there, and if he had the energy, he would have thought on it more. Instead, he padded around the cottage like a ghost, tidying anything that stuck out to him, toeing at the furniture to align it with the wide, aged floorboards. 

It was nine pm, though it could have just as well been four in the afternoon with how dark the day had been, when he heard a frantic knocking on the door. He tried to peer out the window, but it was impossible to see, and besides, he knew exactly who it would be. 

He cracked open the door, wincing slightly at the freezing spray of water that hit him in the face. 

“What—” 

“There is a storm,” Lestat gasped, panting hard, blonde hair plastered to his skull. Sitting behind him, covered from the rain by the roof overhang was a generator, just like the one Simone had offered. 

“What am I supposed to do with that?” Louis asked. Lestat, soaked to the bone and still a  little frantic in the eyes, blinked. 

“Do you have a reverse switch outlet?” 

“A what?” 

“For if the power goes out, Louis. You’ll need to—” 

“Just get inside,” Louis said shortly. Lestat slipped in through the door. He was in his cassock, which hung heavy around him like the cloak of some fantastical evil being. It sat at odds with the dark green rubber rain boots that he wore. 

Louis threw more wood in the fire, glancing over his shoulder reproachfully as Lestat shed his cloak, then his boots, peeling damp socks off his pale, pink-bottomed feet. 

“I have clothes,” Louis said quietly. 

“Yes, thank you.” 

Lestat stood there awkwardly in the little foyer, shivering faintly. 

“And a shower,” Louis added. 

“I should hope so,” Lestat said, though there was no mirth in his voice. He looked around Louis’ modest cottage with a quiet curiosity, and it was then that Louis realized Lestat had never been. Their meetings were almost always outside, meeting halfway between the church and the cottage, or at the sticky, lacquered bar of Le Coq Rouge.  

Louis took his warmest sleep clothes from his drawers and refolded them on his bed, smoothing out some of the creases. He poked his head into the living room, beckoning Lestat with a jerk of his chin. 

“Come, I’ll show you.” 

The bathroom was proportional to the rest of the cottage: very small but well-arranged, with a pedestal sink on the wall to the left and a toilet to the right and a shower at the back end of the room, with a window that looked over the southern part of the cliffs, offering a glimpse of the town below. The shower and the floor had been done in the same pale yellow tile, like grass-fed butter, and in an attempt from the old owners to modernize the space, a sheet of glass walled the shower off from the rest of the bathroom. 

Louis had begun keeping towels stacked on a small teak stool next to the sink so that he wouldn’t have to keep tiptoeing down the hall to the linen closet, soaking wet and totally naked. 

Lestat was shivering fiercely, standing at Louis’ shoulder, eyeing the bathroom’s interior with a muted curiosity.  

“The hot water is a little tricky, I can—” 

Lestat had started unbuttoning his shirt, which had Louis pausing for some reason. He cleared his throat and braced his palm against the lip of the sink. 

“I don’t care if you don’t,” Lestat said, and before Louis could give any kind of answer, Lestat was stripping his soaked clothing off with the careless, practiced ease of a boy in a high school locker room. 

Louis glanced at his faintly-tanned back, ropy under this lighting. The size of the bathroom made Lestat look enormous, though they were mostly the same size. His damp hair was already starting to dry at the scalp, creating a small ring of pale blonde flyaways that caught the overhead light like a halo. 

“I was going around town, making sure people were safe in their homes,” Lestat said, looking totally unbothered by his own nudity. 

Louis thought of the irony of Lestat the home-wrecking priest, checking on the wives and their cuckold-ed husbands, smiling angelically in the doorway. 

“That’s kind of you,” Louis said dryly. He turned on the shower just to fill the silence, and Lestat shrugged. 

“Not really!” 

“Was I the last house on the list, then?” Louis asked amusedly. The small bathroom was already filling up with steam, to the point that Louis’ clothing was beginning to feel heavy and damp against his skin.

Lestat stuck his hand under the spray, flinching slightly at the heat. 

“I’ll leave clothes for you outside,” Louis said eventually. The muscle in Lestat’s back pulled suddenly, almost like a spam, as he let out a sneeze. It shocked both of them, and then Lestat laughed and wiped tiredly at his face. 

He stepped into the shower fully, wincing and hopping from foot to foot, eyes screwed shut like a child’s.

Louis made to leave, but before he could, Lestat began to speak. 

First, it was: “your water pressure is really very good.” 

And then, he was grabbing a bottle from the inset ledge in the shower and holding it out so Louis could see. 

“What is this?” He asked. It was one of the few toiletries Louis had brought from home. He’d thought it was frivolous at first, until he stepped into the largest pharmacie in town, which was quite cramped and hardly larger than a typical bedroom, and found mostly sunscreen and cheap shampoo. 

“It’s for your hair.” 

“I see.” 

The glass was fogged up enough that Louis couldn’t see much from where he was awkwardly leaned up on the pedestal sink, but Lestat’s silhouette was clear. 

“Do you want a beer?” Louis asked. 

“Oh, yes.” A pause. “Please.” 

Louis grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge. It was the only brand here that he found tolerable. He passed one over the glass wall, which only made it three-fourth’s of the way up to the ceiling, and was immediately handed the can back. 

“My hands are too slippery,” Lestat said, and then he added, in a softer voice, “you have very nice things in here.” Louis shifted, feeling laid bare at the image of Lestat reading the labels on his cleanser and his body wash, picking up the pumice stone he occasionally used on the heels of his feet, seeing the spare toothbrush he kept there when he wanted to be efficient. 

He cracked open the beer for Lestat and passed it back over.

“I think the rain will pass by the morning, and if it doesn’t, it’ll only be a drizzle, but we were due for something,” Lestat said pensively. Louis could smell the sharp woody lavendar of his body soap, could see Lestat’s silhouette bend and shift. He took a long sip of his beer, and Lestat must have done the same, because a moment later, Louis heard a faint, musical laugh over the din of the water. 

“Beer in the shower, how strange.” 

“I do it sometimes,” Louis admitted, cracking a smile. “Two birds, one stone, you know.” 

“Two birds, one stone,” Lestat echoed, in the way he often did when he was picking up a new English phrase or idiom from Louis. 

When Lestat stepped out of the shower, Louis intended to avert his eyes, but it didn’t stop him from seeing the dusting of golden pubic hair, his flaccid cock, the veins that travelled down to his pelvis in faint blue highways. 

Lestat grabbed a towel off the stool rather casually and first draped it over his head, then moved the towel down the length of his body. As he bent over, Louis saw each knob of his spine pressing against his skin, the flutter of his ribcage, and the muscle that ran underneath. 

“Your clothes are on the sink,” Louis said quietly, hooking his pointer finger in the opening of his half-finished beer and moving quickly to the door. 

“Thank you,” Lestat murmured, distracted. 

The moment he stepped out of the bathroom, Louis took a deep, shaky breath inwards. His skin was uncommonly hot, which he attributed to the steam, and his head felt light, which he blamed, a little sheepishly, on the six-percent beer and an empty stomach. He finished the can as he walked to the kitchen, crumpling it in one hand and tossing it into the trash. 

He had red wine on the counter, which he grabbed and put on the dining table. To pass the time, and to line his stomach, he ate a few squares of cheese from the fridge, and a handful of cherry tomatoes that tasted more acidic than sweet. 

Lestat emerged a few moments later, peering curiously around the corner to see Louis sitting at the table, toying idly with his wine bottle opener.

It was strange to see Lestat in his own clothing. He moved around the house like it was his own, perfectly comfortable, the hem of his borrowed t-shirt just a little too short, revealing a strip of taut stomach. The fire roared in the hearth, providing more than enough light for the small living room. Even so, Louis had turned on the lamps he kept dotted around—the cottage wasn’t properly wired for ceiling lighting. 

He poured Lestat a glass of wine and watched him inspect it against the dim light of the table lamp. 

“Is it French?” 

Louis glanced at the bottle. 

“Yes.” 

“Hm.” Lestat took a sip, nose wrinkling ever so slightly, but Louis knew that wasn’t a sign of disgust. He always made that face, with any kind of alcohol, like he was bracing himself and enjoying it. 

“Why did you come here?” Louis asked to break up the silence. Lestat beamed, head tipping back over the chair, damp hair spilling with it. 

“Oh, you know.” A pause as he drank more wine. “The church was wet and cold—it leaks, as I mentioned—and I thought it would be nice to pass away the time with a friend.” 

“We are friends, aren’t we,” Louis said quietly. 

“You’re my best friend,” Lestat said, without a hint of self-consciousness. Louis would always be a little amazed by him. “And I’m yours, yes? Unless you have someone else hidden here with you.” He made a show of looking around suspiciously, though his expression was warm. 

Louis smiled. 

“No, it’s just you.” 

“Just me,” Lestat said dreamily. He reached for the wine bottle on the table, found it was empty, and looked at Louis expectantly. 

Louis gestured vaguely with hand towards the kitchen counter, and Lestat got up, swaying slightly, and went to find another bottle. 

When he returned, holding it by the neck, he sat next to Louis, instead of across from him, and peeled the foil off with his teeth. Louis turned slightly in his chair to face him. Their knees were just a few inches from each other. 

“I have an opener,” Louis rasped. 

“I know,” Lestat said. He did away with the foil, then grabbed the opener and twisted it rather expertly into the cork. “There we go,” he muttered as the cork popped free. 

Louis took the cork immediately and held it lengthwise between thumb and forefinger, dropping it onto the table from a height of a few inches. It bounced, then landed on one of the flat ends, standing proudly with a tiny wobble. 

“Oh,” Lestat said, delighted. He tried, failed, tried again, failed again. The open wine bottle was momentarily forgotten. Louis took the cork from Lestat, having to pry it away from his fingers, and demonstrated again. 

“Once you know the right height, it’s easy.” 

Lestat watched, like a cat on the windowsill. 

“Is it a game?” He asked. 

“It can be,” Louis said with a shrug. He dropped the cork, watched it land perfectly, then picked it up and did it again. 

“My turn,” and Lestat snatched it from the table and tried again. 

“Lower,” Louis said amusedly. “You’re dropping it too high.” 

Lestat dropped the cork lower this time. 

“Too low, Lestat.” 

Lestat smiled privately, like he was laughing at himself, then took a swig directly from the newly-opened bottle. He tried a few more times, only managing to land the cork once, and by then, his eyes were dark, and his mouth was loose, and his fingers curled tightly around the edge of the table. 

Louis was fascinated by his temper, his mercurialness. 

“It doesn’t really mean anything,” he said casually. 

“Of course it does,” Lestat replied sullenly, trying again. The cork wobbled and fell on its rounded side. 

He stood up suddenly, hands clenching and unclenching, pacing in a tight circle between the kitchen and the little dining table. 

“You’re being crazy,” Louis observed, voice mild. Lestat’s head shook irritably. The anger was brilliant to see, almost beautiful. Louis took the cork in between his fingers, studying the porous edge where wine had seeped in ever so slightly. He dropped it on the table, one last time, and smiled a little cruelly as it landed on its flat end. Lestat was still pacing, muttering in French. Louis took the cork and threw it in the trash as Lestat watched, dark-eyed, from a few feet away. 

“You’re being crazy, sit down, Lestat,” Louis said, returning to his chair. He leaned back, sliding his legs forward, reclining as much as the hard wooden back allowed. Lestat exhaled roughly, dragged a hand over his face, and sat down next to him. He smiled twitchily in Louis’ direction, though he didn’t meet Louis’ eyes.  

His knee dug into the side of Louis’ thigh, almost painful with the force of it. Even though there wasn’t much of a difference in height between them, his legs were decidedly longer than Louis’, and so the borrowed pajama pants showed his entire ankle and a few inches of shin as he sat. 

Lestat took another swig from the wine bottle and offered it to Louis, who took it and did the same. It was lighter than the last bottle, and sweeter. It was the kind of wine that got you drunk very fast and left you cotton-headed in the morning. 

Louis took another sip, almost desperately. 

He liked it when Lestat wasn’t smiling, or laughing, he was realizing. He liked seeing the bright, blue-hot flash of anger on his face, how it transformed his body into something twitchy and explosive. He felt alarmingly safe in it, like being in a foreign city and suddenly hearing the sharp, familiar babble of American English. 

“I have a temper,” Lestat said eventually, sounding incredibly subdued. Louis raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh?” 

“Do not be like that.” 

“How should I be, then?” Louis meant to say it jokingly, and he was in fact smiling, but the words came out all wrong. He sounded cruel and provocative, but Lestat, true to form, didn’t bat an eye. He shrugged, yawning like a lion. 

“However you want, really. By the way—” He rubbed roughly at his eye with the heel of his palm. “Why do you carry your mother’s medication in your jacket?” 

Like a punch thrown. Louis blinked, and Lestat must have realized he caught him off-guard because he smiled a little devilishly and dropped his chin to the table, just a few inches from where Louis had set his wine glass. 

Those knees still dug into Louis’ thigh. 

“You’re a dick,” Louis said calmly. 

“You should tell me.” 

“I should kill you,” Louis said in that same flat voice. He was feeling unbelievably measured, like he had a moat surrounding himself, and Lestat was on the other side, hurling jabs. 

“We can do a trade. You ask me whatever you’d like, and I’ll answer.” 

Louis laughed. 

“I don’t have to do that, Lestat. I know everything I need to know.” Lestat’s eyes flashed with a blatant skepticism, almost fear, and suddenly Louis was curious what he was missing. A troubled childhood spent in the desolate mountains. A mother with whom his closeness had slid into an incestuous intimacy. An ordered, tedious few years in the monastery. And then, Paris. 

“Paris,” Louis said out loud, not even meaning to. Lestat’s head cocked. 

“Tell me about Paris, and I’ll tell you about my mother.” 

Lestat licked the front of his teeth in consideration. 

“Okay.” 

Louis grasped the wine bottle by the neck and took a sip, then passed it over to Lestat, who cradled it in his lap. He didn’t drink from it at first, waiting until just before he spoke, to wetten his tongue. 

“I was sent to Paris after the monastery,” Lestat began. “I had never been, and I was feeling very—I do not know how you say it. Hopeful, but not quite.” 

“Optimistic?” Louis offered. Lestat shrugged. 

“Maybe, I do not know. Optimistic, then, okay.” He smiled brilliantly. “And do not get me wrong, it was a wonderful time. I got myself into trouble, as I always do, and maybe I suffered the consequences, though I don’t really see it that way.” 

“Why did you leave?” Louis asked.

“A priest in one of the Parisian archdioceses took me under his wing,” Lestat said, sounding just as dream-like and proud as he had when he spoke about Gabrielle. “He sought me out, you know. He said he saw God in me, which I had never heard before! Not even from the monks!” 

Louis listened, noting the manic glimmer in Lestat’s eye, how close they were sitting together and yet how far away Lestat’s expression was. 

“And?” 

“I learned under him,” Lestat said a little primly, not quite as emotional. His brow lowered, and his lips pursed, like he considered saying something more, but whatever it was died in his throat. Louis drank more of the wine for something to do, pushing it back over to Lestat, who took it blindly, gaze lifted to a space just below the ceiling and just above Louis’ head. 

“And?” Louis pressed. 

“He’s not here anymore, you know. I was the last one to speak to him, actually, and after he died, I had so many people coming up to me and asking how I was doing and if I was alright and blessing me and telling me they’d pray for me. It was really wonderful. It sounds awful—” He looked directly at Louis, who shook his head faintly. It didn’t sound awful at all. “But I loved the attention.” 

“What was his name?” Louis asked. Lestat raised an eyebrow. 

“Why does it matter?” 

“Just curious.” 

“Magnus.” The weight with which Lestat said the name sent an unwelcome chill down his back. He wanted to ask more, was desperate to, in fact, but Lestat seemed to have had enough. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out to the point that Louis had to turn in his chair so their thighs could rest on either side of each other. Otherwise, Lestat would have been practically in his lap. 

“Your turn,” Lestat said, lip curling. 

“You want to hear about Florence?” Louis asked with a grimace. 

“About last night.” Lestat stared at him intently, but there was a gentleness in his expression that had Louis feeling immediately defensive. 

“It’s all fine.” 

Lestat looked frustrated. He drummed his fingers on the table. 

“You are not as…opaque as you think you are,” he said, pausing to think of the right word, eyes glinting in a way that made him look cold. 

“And you’re not as transparent,” Louis said with a shrug. Lestat smiled humorlessly. 

“Well, now I’m feeling cheated.” 

“Damn,” Louis said without feeling. 

“Damn!” Lestat repeated. Louis smiled. 

“Last night was a lapse in judgement,” he offered, sensing Lestat’s frustration. Lestat’s head tilted. 

“That’s all?” 

“Florence is ill,” Louis said carefully. He had decided offering up one truth would be easier than telling all lies. Maybe Lestat would be satisfied with that. 

He wasn’t. 

“With what?”

“Something cancerous, something bad. She doesn’t want treatment.” 

“Because she blames you for Paul, because she hates you,” Lestat said absently. Louis blinked at him, startled. He supposed it wasn’t impossible to put together, given what he’d told Lestat over the weeks since they’d met, but it was still shocking. 

“You’re very smart, do people ever tell you that?” 

“No,” Lestat said wanly. 

“Anyways, yes, she hates me.” 

“Do you hate her?” 

Louis swallowed roughly. 

“You’re asking a lot of me, Lestat.” 

“Oops.” 

Oops was another thing he’d gotten from Louis, and since learning it, he had taken to using it constantly. Maybe he was even squeezing it into his Sunday service, teaching the town his newly-discovered American slang. 

Louis rested his elbow on the table, and then his chin on his palm. 

“Anyway.” 

Lestat passed the bottle back to him, and he drank nearly half a glass’ worth of it in one swig. They exchanged the bottle back and forth for a long time, until it had run totally empty, and Lestat was beginning to look bleary-eyed from exhaustion.

“I told you I wanted to go hunting,” Louis said. Lestat nodded, looking on the verge of sleep. “I still want to go.” 

“We can,” he said faintly, “we can do whatever you’d like.” 

Louis was finding it easier and easier to imagine a version of Lestat, still lanky from youth, shouldering a hunting rifle and setting off into the forest with a pack of his brothers. He could imagine it so clearly now, though he wasn’t sure what had changed. 

Lestat swayed forward, elbow coming up to brace his weight on the table. They were so close that Louis could smell the faint citrus of his own shampoo in his hair.

“I’ll set up the sofa for you,” Louis rasped, though he didn’t get up to move. Lestat grunted. 

“Come on, let’s set up the sofa,” Louis repeated, but neither him nor Lestat so much as shifted. 

Lestat’s head was bowed, like he was already asleep. His breathing was slow and deep, every breath causing his shoulders to swell slightly. His head dropped a little further. 

“No,” Louis said softly, even as he came closer. Lestat’s pupils were so large that they nearly swallowed up the surrounding blue. He exhaled roughly through his nose like a large animal might, head tilting. 

“No,” Louis said again, firmer this time. “We aren’t—no.” He shivered as the ends of Lestat’s hair brushed against his ear. 

Outside, the rain lashed furiously at the windows. Louis didn’t have much confidence in this little wooden cottage, but it seemed to be holding up alright. No water leaked in from under the front door, and the lights didn’t flicker. 

Still, it felt precarious, all of it did. 

Lestat was uncharacteristically silent, and it was only when his head finally dropped against Louis’ shoulder, damp, heavy, warm, that he let out a soft, wincing sound, like the whine of a dog. 

Yes, this is fine, Louis thought weakly. 

He curled his hand around the back of Lestat’s head, fingers twitching as he slid them through that silky, slightly-tangled hair. He pressed, just a little, and Lestat shifted until his face rested more snugly into the crook of Louis’ neck. He could feel the damp warmth of Lestat’s breath through his t-shirt. 

Louis drained the rest of his wine glass, feeling faintly sick, his pulse thudding in his ears, his hands clammy and trembling slightly. Lestat hesitantly slid his hand around Louis’ waist, the touch so light that it was almost non-existent. 

Lestat’s head shifted again, until his cold nose had found Louis’ bare skin, no fabric between them this time. The closeness was staggering. It had his mind going blank, his limbs useless and limp. He exhaled sharply and glanced wildly around the room, like there might have been someone else there, someone watching, but the cottage was empty. The only movement he could see came from the rain falling in sideways sheets against the windows.

Lestat’s hand around Louis’ waist had suddenly tightened, fingers curling into the bottom of his ribcage. He thought about telling him to let go, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. 

Lestat made another sound, indecipherable but loud enough that it shook Louis from his stupor. He stood up, pulling himself away from Lestat’ surprisingly strong grip. 

“I’ll get blankets for the sofa. Don’t—just stay there,” he said quickly. He walked numbly to the linen closet, pulling out a slightly-itchy mohair blanket and cotton duvet, both left here by the previous owner. 

They still smelled of laundry from when he washed them a few weeks ago. 

When he returned to the living room, Lestat was on the couch, and if he was uncertain about what had just transpired, he didn’t show it. 

He looked up at Louis, with his still-damp hair and his hazy, wine-blurred eyes, and Louis began to tell himself that whatever he did here didn’t mean anything. He was in a different country, in a cottage by the sea. No one was watching, not even God. 

He set the blankets down on the coffee table. 

Lestat shifted into a recline on the couch, knees bent to allow Louis some space. He smiled lazily, a little smugly. Yes, Louis could easily imagine him now with a rifle over one shoulder, picking his way carefully through the undergrowth as a young buck did the same a hundred meters ahead. 

Louis didn’t want to touch him, his mind recoiled at it, but there was a strand of hair sticking out of the top of his head, and Louis couldn’t help but reach out to fix it. 

One strand wasn’t enough, however. He combed his fingers through the side of Lestat’s hair. It was shockingly soft, like silk ribbon, even when it was damp. He brushed through it, then curled a few thick pieces around his hand, and Lestat let out another one of those awful, desperate sounds, like an animal stuck in a foot trap. 

Louis sank into the sofa, still holding Lestat by the hair. His chest heaved for seemingly no reason, and Lestat, instead of making room or backing away, surged forward to meet him, head knocking into Louis’ chest, pushing him down onto his back. 

Lestat was both overpowering and pliant, a heavy, consuming weight against Louis’s stomach. His damp hair was everywhere, and Louis could feel the length of his cock against his hip, and was certain Lestat could probably feel his. 

The hardness of it was alarming, maybe even threatening. 

For a brief moment, Louis was swept up in that awful sickness that young men were prone to, and attempted to calculate how far up his belly Lestat’s erection went, how thick it felt against the thin wool of his sweater, how it measured up to his own. 

He almost wanted to stick his hand down the front of Lestat’s pants, and like they used to do in the south with their prize stud bulls, wrap his fingers around his length, purely clinical. 

He grew distracted with this line of thinking, which was almost a blessing, until Lestat’s hips shifted and his weight on Louis’ cock became a slow, firm slide. Up and down, then back up again, in a strong but erratic pattern.

Louis groaned at the unexpected burst of pleasure, cupping the back of Lestat’s head with one hand. This was not like Jonah, who had been sweet and acquiescent and far too young. Lestat pressed against him with as much force as Louis did. His hips rolled in a pantomime of an actual thrust, and Louis wondered if he was imagining the women he fucked, if Louis was even in the room to him.

He slid his other hand down the taut length of Lestat’s back. He could feel each muscle pull and shift, the swell and collapse of every breath. 

He heard the faint purr of laughter in his ear, distantly understanding it was Lestat, but finding it hard to reconcile with. It was almost like the sound of a reptile, a rasped kek kek kek from one of those giant lizards on those tiny islands. 

He tightened the grip he had in Lestat’s hair and tugged his head back, so he could get a good look at his face. 

Lestat was grinning rather madly, like he had been proven right about something, and Louis couldn’t quite tell if he was being laughed at or not. 

“What are you —” Lestat licked his lips, swallowing roughly. “What are you doing?” 

He let go of Lestat’s hair like he had been burned, and Lestat dropped his head right back down to the crook of Louis’ neck, not kissing, but gasping and groaning open-mouthed at the skin he could access. The heat from his lips spread from that tiny spot in hot, inconsistent licks down the rest of his body. 

Some sick, ugly part of Louis wanted to push Lestat’s head down, to slide himself up against the couch cushions, spread his thighs apart, and pull his cock out. He had no idea if Lestat would even understand, or be willing. He’d probably laugh, in that mean way that he did when he was confused, and then Louis would be left there, ears burning, naked in every sense. 

Still, he was tempted. He wanted heat and saliva and the sharp, almost-pained huffs of breath from the nostrils against his pelvis. But it seemed Lestat wanted the same thing for himself, because with every shift upwards from Louis, he followed, his hips sliding up Louis’ belly, further and further up until Louis had to grapple him back down. 

There was no grace or synchrony to it. Louis was starting to feel sweat at the backs of his knees, and Lestat’s shoulders were trembling, where his arms were bunched up between his chest and Louis’, his own weight pinning him down. 

Louis’ shirt rode up his stomach as Lestat grinded down against him, and Louis could feel every inch of him through the thin flannel of his pajama pants. Lestat exhaled shakily. His thigh shifted until it was slotted between Louis’ legs. What had been clumsy a few minutes ago was starting to feel coordinated. 

And if he could feel the hot brand of Lestat’s erection against his stomach, then he knew without a doubt that Lestat could feel his. 

Lestat’s hip twitched a little as Louis slid his arm over his back, wrapping around the smallest part of his waist. The sheer mass of him was addicting. Nothing like a woman in the slightest. 

Not a woman. A priest, Louis thought miserably. 

“This is a terrible—this is—” Louis gritted out, even as his hand slid down the back of Lestat’s pants and his fingers dug into the meat of his ass, pulling his hips even more flush to his own. He gripped Lestat so strongly, he could feel the skin give way slightly beneath his fingernails, but it was impossible to tell if Lestat was in any pain. 

Even before Louis had grabbed him, the sounds that left him were ones of a pent-up, reluctant agony. 

Louis felt like a predator and boy all at once, rutting clumsily against Lestat’s stomach, grabbing hungrily at his hair and his flesh. He was desperate to know if Lestat had ever done this before, or if Louis was a special case altogether. 

“Wait,” Lestat said distantly, in between a gust of air. Louis’ skin was slick and hot where Lestat’s mouth was pressed against it. Louis felt the muscle in Lestat’s thigh twitch so hard it might have been a spasm. 

“ Wait—” He repeated, gasping out suddenly, hands like claws digging into the couch cushions and a part of Louis’ shoulder. 

He let out a shuttered groan through his teeth, then stiffened, gasping lightly, head bowing as if to obscure his face from Louis’ sight. 

It took Louis a few seconds more to understand what had transpired. 

“You—” 

“Quiet, please,” Lestat rasped. Louis felt the weight on his stomach lift. He subtly adjusted himself in his trousers, breathing hard. His body seemed to loathe the sudden lack of pressure. He tingled unpleasantly, felt nearly nauseous, like he was floating in zero-gravity. 

Lestat wasn’t looking at him. His ears were bright red and his hair was a tangled mess and all of a sudden, Louis was beginning to realize how young he looked. 

“I think I’ll—” 

“I’ll get you new clothes,” Louis said quickly. “It’s late. Stay here.” 

He grabbed sweatpants from his drawer, quickly, almost panicked. He had the sense that if he took too long, Lestat would flee out the front door, into the rain. 

He pulled a fresh t-shirt from his closet, too, even though Lestat’s current shirt was totally fine. Just bringing the pants felt like too much of an acknowledgement, and Louis hoped it would spare both of them just a little humiliation. 

When he returned, the living room was as dark as it had been before. The fire was putting itself out, slowly, the wood crackling into black, ashy chunks. Lestat changed in front of him, head still ducked. The meekness was totally alien on him, and Louis found it a mixture of appealing and unsettling. 

He took Lestat’s old shirt and pants, muttered something about the laundry, and then added a rushed, goodnight, before slipping back into his bedroom. 

He tossed the shirt in his hamper, lightheaded, and then grabbed the flannel pajama pants he had lent Lestat, and with a fiery burst of shame, turned them inside out. 

It was too dark to see much, so he pressed his fingertips against the fabric, for confirmation. His fingers came away wet, glistening slightly. He stared. 

There was no noise from the living room, nothing to indicate Lestat was awake or moving. Louis could picture him perfectly, especially now. He had his proportions totally memorized, every bony protrusion, every ribbed expanse of muscle. 

He lifted his hand to his face, brows furrowed, chest still pounding. 

Don’t. 

But there was no disgust when he touched his fingertips to his tongue and tasted salt and the faint chemical sweetness of the laundry detergent he had used to wash the pants a few days ago. 

Again, he thought of Jonah, for no real reason other than the fact that it was the closest thing to familiar he could find in his memory. But this was nothing like Jonah. Louis hadn’t even gotten close to his cock, pretended like it wasn’t even there, in fact, and he knew with absolute certainty that he had been the only one out of the two of them to reach an orgasm, all three times they had met secretly in Louis’ tinted coupe. 

Louis licked his pointer finger this time, tongue curling over the hard flat edge of his fingernail. He leaned back on his bed, glancing furtively at his bedroom door, like Lestat might appear at any moment in the threshold, then pulled his pants down enough that he could access his own cock. 

It was so hard that he could feel it throb in his hand. It was almost disgusting to look at, disgusting to feel against his fingers, which were still a touch damp from a combination of his own saliva and Lestat’s spill. He bit down on his own knuckle as he stroked himself, shakily, with little tact, like he was touching the erection of a stranger. 

Lestat may have already been asleep in the living room now, but Louis didn’t take any chances. He kept himself quiet, he tried to think of the prostitute who used to touch him with his clothes still on, or the girl he met in one of his clubs, who had hair so black and long that she resembled a painting, who had draped herself over his back and kissed at his ear and slipped her hand down his pants in full view of the public. 

But too quickly, black hair became blonde, and his hand would spasm, and Lestat would magically appear in the room—in the bed, groaning like a man, not like a woman, hissing and spitting like a cat, coming into bedsheets with a shocked, desperate cry. 

His heels pressed into the bed, his lower back tensed, and he spilled into his own fist with a quiet whimper. 

In the pale, bald light of the morning, Louis looked at the white ceiling of his bedroom and tried to remember if the paint always looked that way, slightly yellowish in some corners, bluer in the others. It wasn’t just the paint, it was his bed frame too, and the bedding that pooled around his calves, and the pack of cigarettes he kept on his bedside. It all looked different. 

He got out of bed, staring guiltily at the flannel pajama pants that lay crumpled on the floor. 

Lestat had been right about the rain. The sky was totally clear. The tire tracks in the dirt roads were filled with muddy water, and the beach sand was packed hard and dark, but the wildflowers swayed in the gentle breeze and the church across the way looked shockingly clean and vibrant: the stone facade stark, the windows shining like rock sugar. 

Quite predictably, the sofa was rumpled and empty, the bedding folded neatly and left on the coffee table. Louis winced as a headache began to take hold of him, stretching between his ears like a rubber band being pulled. 

He rounded on his terrible little french press, staring unhappily at the silver handle and the slightly-stained glass that made up the body of the vessel. The coffee that it made was as terrible as it always was. Louis took his mug with him to the sofa, sat down, and felt that headache begin to deepen. Laying on the stone hearth by the fireplace was a neatly folded black garment. A stiff ring of white sat on top of it, which Florence always used to call a dog collar. Paul hated it, and would mutter clerical, Momma, it’s clerical. 

And then Louis would say, Paul, no one cares to know what a priest wears. Don’t be stupid.

Chapter Text

Lestat had fled the cottage early that morning, still wearing Louis’ borrowed clothing, fingertips cold, face overwhelmingly hot. Louis had seemed so calm last night, but Lestat knew how much of that was a facade, and it gave him a small amount of insulation against the outright shock of what had happened. 

He supposed, anyway, that it was inevitable. He had a quality that he couldn’t quite describe, but it was dark and seducing and it led anyone near him into total disrepair. Last night had been a somewhat timely reminder of how these things would always go, and if Louis hadn’t been scared off already, he would be soon. 

Lestat shouldered open the old, heavy wooden door that led to the side-chamber of the church. Already, he could smell the slightly-metallic musk of tepid water. The stone stairs that led to his small apartment beneath the church were vaguely slippery and as he reached the bottom floor, he cringed as his feet sunk into a sodden carpet. 

“Oh, that’s lovely.” 

The room was mildly flooded. The cupboard doors in his tiny kitchenette were warped and dark along the bottom, and the wooden legs of his bed had soaked up so much water from the floor that the entire frame looked to be ruined. Worst of all, when he flicked on the lights, there was an ominous fizzling sound and then nothing. 

Lestat told himself, as he gathered his leather boots and his jacket and his spare robes, that God never worked this explicitly, that this place was prone to flooding and he wasn’t being punished, not quite yet, not in this way, but it was all feeling a little too convenient. He stuffed his things in a duffel stored on top of his dresser—his suitcase had been under the bed and that, too, was waterlogged. 

He ascended up the stairs to the main chamber of the church, and without meaning to, looked through the windows at the cottage across the way. 

Louis had considered, at first, calling Grace and confessing completely. The ritual of explaining himself, begging for forgiveness, was baked into him. 

I laid with a man, Grace, and it wasn’t the first time. 

I’ve corrupted a priest, I made him stray from God. 

Florence is killing herself because of me. 

He ran the simulation in his head over and over, until the words struck nothing inside of him, until he was numb to all of it. He chewed over the words perverse and homosexual, and when that began to feel downright dramatic, he moved on. 

He wanted to talk to Lestat, as if Lestat was a totally impartial third party, watching from the balcony somewhere. He wanted to know what had gone through his head last night, how much of it had been the simple mechanical process of rhythmic pressure, and how much was cold-cut arousal. 

He was desperate to know, and then guilty for his desperation because his mother was dying. 

He steeled himself as he finished his coffee, and glanced absently out the window towards the church, as if he’d spontaneously develop the kind of vision that would allow him to see right through the walls, to see Lestat as if he was only a few feet away. 

Instead, he saw something else entirely.

A diminutive figure stood on the steps outside the church: short tweed pants, a navy, waxed coat, strands of blonde hair peeking out from a newsboy cap. The figure suddenly turned to face the ocean, and Louis was struck with a flash of recognition. The same nose, the same mouth, the same piercing, sometimes cruel eyes. Even from this distance, Louis was certain of who it was. 

Gabrielle de Lioncourt took her cap off, and a shock of bright blonde hair tumbled down her back. She scratched idly at the skin below her ear, in a gesture that was distinctly rough and masculine. She was waiting for Lestat, Louis guessed, but she had no bags on her person, nothing to indicate she’d been traveling. Where on earth had she come from? 

A moment later, Lestat was bounding out to meet her. It seemed he had thrown on whatever he could find, because he was wearing a thick, wool sweater and his hair was still tucked into the collar, giving the illusion that it was even longer than it was. With it, he wore tall, gentlemanly rain boots, the kind that hunters in the countryside might wear, and was smiling brilliantly. 

Together, they looked impossibly similar, though Lestat was much taller and broader, and Gabrielle had a quiet, restrained air to her that Lestat only had when he was very angry, and even then, it only lasted a few moments before he exploded. 

Gabrielle reached out to touch his face, her tiny, pale hand curling around his chin and suddenly, Louis found he couldn’t watch anymore. He pulled away from the window, blinking rapidly. 

There would be no talking to Lestat, not today, and probably not until Gabrielle had left. He poured himself another cup of coffee, and thought again of last night: Lestat gasping roughly into his ear, laughing even, like a possessed being, Louis slinking off to his bedroom only to pull his pants down and touch himself for the first time in months. 

He remembered trying to ask Paul, once, about masturbation. If he ever did it, if he was curious. Paul had only stared, lips trembling like he was about to cry out, eyes wide. 

You can, Louis had said. You think God cares about that? 

But Paul had been struck totally silent, and Louis never broached the topic again. 

He took his coffee with himself to the bedroom, grimacing at the sight of the flannel pajama pants on the floor, at his own rumpled bed sheets, which looked unhelpfully erotic with the light streaming in from the windows. 

Lestat had been so strange last night: needling and avoidant, gleeful and reluctant. But it hardly mattered now. He’d run off as soon as the sun came up, and now Gabrielle was here. 

Louis took a lukewarm shower, trying and failing not to think about Lestat, smelling of his own shampoo, his silhouette against the fogged glass. He put on a shirt, and then a sweater, and then after sticking his head out the front door, a jacket as well. 

The sooner he got outside, the sooner his head would clear. Maybe he’d see Simone at one of the cafes in the center of town, or Hugo, or any of the other people he had been reluctantly befriending over the month or two since he’d arrived. Maybe, he’d see Lestat and Gabrielle, and he’d introduce himself calmly, and pretend last night had never happened. 

Yes, it was all fine. 

Louis looked as wary and reluctant as he did the first evening they met. He walked into the bar with his hands in his pockets, his handsome brow furrowed slightly like he was deep in thought. Gabrielle’s diverting arrival had made Lestat realize how much time he usually spent with Louis, how many steps they had walked along the cliffs, how much wine and beer and overly-sweet sangria they had sipped at. It had only been a day, but it was strange that they hadn’t spoken yet. 

And of course, there was the other reason. 

Louis sat down across from Lestat with a quiet hum of greeting. He played with his box of cigarettes idly, eyes fixed on the yellow-orange of the wood table top. 

“Where’s your mother?” 

“Getting a drink, I think.” Louis leaned back in his chair, neck craning, and then his eyes cleared when he made out Gabrielle’s small, boyish frame through the window, leaning impatiently against the bar. Her hair had come untucked from her cap, but only in a few sections. 

“Why is she here?” Louis asked. Lestat blinked. He had expected a rushed, whispered conversation about the events of last night. Or at least, considering it was Louis, a muttered acknowledgement of it. 

Instead, Louis was looking at him with a strange, quiet intensity, glancing periodically over his shoulder where Gabrielle was waiting at the bar, like he didn’t want to be overheard. 

“She visits sometimes,” Lestat said, feeling suddenly a little indignant. 

Louis’ mouth twisted, but he nodded. 

“There is a phrase in English,” Lestat added carefully. Louis rubbed at his jaw like he was thinking of something else. 

“I do not know exactly how it goes,” he said. “Something about an elephant.” 

Louis’ head turned, slightly predatory, eyes glinting in the watery afternoon light. Around them, the outdoor tables had filled up completely: mostly adults drinking beer and wine, slouched low in their chairs, the occasional sand-covered dog panting beside them. 

“You know the meaning but you don’t know how it goes?” Louis asked, his voice almost cold, only, Lestat wasn’t afraid in the slightest. It took great effort for Louis to allow himself to be cruel, and he looked exhausted. His eyes were rimmed in gray, lips slightly chapped. There was even a faint shadow of stubble on his jaw that Lestat had never noticed before. 

“Elephant in the room,” Louis added darkly. “As in, something you can’t ignore.” 

“Yes,” Lestat said. 

Louis chewed at this thumbnail. He looked really quite stressed, shoulders hunched almost up to his ears, brow furrowed permanently. Still, very beautiful, despite it. An arrow-shaped flock of gulls flew overhead and someone snapped a picture with their phone. Louis flinched at the clicking sound, then glanced behind him in search of the source. 

“You’re angry with me,” Lestat said. He’d learned that he needed to start things with Louis, or they would never get anywhere. And it always worked a little better if he was antagonizing. 

“No,” Louis said flatly, “I’m not.” 

“You’re confused,” Lestat supplied. Louis’ lip curled. “Uncertain, maybe. You think I’m—” 

“Will you stop it?” 

“Is it because I’m a priest,” Lestat whispered, leaning halfway across the table, “or is it because I’m a—” 

“ Enough—” 

“Lestat, they only had Leffe and Guinness. I don’t know how you live here, I really don’t.” 

Louis stiffened, then leaned back in his chair, glancing quickly at Lestat, expression wounded.  

Gabrielle was standing at their table, precariously holding three glasses against her chest. Two were a golden lager, and the third was dark brown with a foamy cap that bobbed as she placed it on the table. 

“Hello, this is for you,” and then Gabrielle slid over one of the lagers to Louis, who blinked in surprise, face clearing. 

“Lestat said you’d probably show up,” Gabrielle said with a shrug, “worst case, I had to drink two beers.” 

She placed the second lager in front of Lestat, and took her dark glass of Guinness with her to find another chair to pull up to the table. Lestat heard her speaking in rapid, girlish French to the couple sitting at the table over, asking for a spare chair. 

She returned a moment later, sitting quite happily in her borrowed chair, and took a long sip from her glass. 

Lestat tried, for a moment, to look at Gabrielle as Louis might be, taking in the bony cut of her wrists jutting out from the dark blue flannel sleeves of her shirt, the shortly-trimmed fingernails, the knitted tuque from which a few blonde strands spilled out. Her coat was draped over her shoulders, a waxed gentleman’s hunting jacket, and one of her knees was propped up against the table. Travel had roughened her, and it suited her tremendously. 

Lestat could remember her drifting like a ghost through the halls of their house, hair braided down her back in a single golden line, pale and thin and quiet. She looked practically robust now, cheeks a little coloured from the sun, eyes sharp and cool as they roved over the scene in front of them. 

He had told Gabrielle only the most basic of things about Louis, partly because they had so much else to discuss, but mostly because the mere mention of his name had a heat swelling up in his face, which she would have noticed immediately. 

Gabrielle studied Louis, as he studied her. 

“American, right?” 

“Right.” 

“Hm.”

Louis took a sip of his beer and wrinkled his nose. 

“I hiked the Appalachians, once,” Gabrielle said, licking foam off her upper lip. “But I didn’t linger.” 

“By yourself?” Louis asked, surprised. Gabrielle smiled thinly. 

“Always.” 

Louis shot Lestat a strange look, and Lestat looked away. For a few minutes, the three of them sat in relatively pleasant silence, sipping at their glasses, watching the movement of people between tables. At this time of year, there were next to no tourists, just a few plucky young surfers in full wetsuits taking a chance with the reef break a couple hundred yards out to sea. 

“It’s almost as if the rain never happened,” Louis said, gazing at the horizon. Lestat stiffened. 

“Yes, Lestat tells me it was quite terrible last night. The church basement is flooded,” Gabrielle added. One of the men who worked behind the bar stopped at their table, holding up a tray of oysters on ice and a half-loaf of bread, sliced into thick, still-steaming pieces. 

“Oh, yes, right here, thank you,” Gabrielle said pleasantly. “I was hungry,” she explained. Lestat watched her tuck her hair behind her ears and beneath the knitted cap she wore. It was still strange to be near her, to watch her do mundane things like eating and drinking and sitting at a table. 

The oysters were pearlescent, gleaming, and both Louis and Lestat stared at them for an uncomfortably long time. 

“Rent a place in town, Lestat. God knows you have the funds,” Gabrielle said, licking her thumb clean of mignonette. 

Louis’ head turned to Lestat, curious, a little indignant. 

“What kind of—” 

“It’s not important,” Lestat said quickly, shooting Gabrielle a sharp look. She made a face that said oops, and swallowed down another oyster. Louis looked almost betrayed to learn there was something about Lestat he didn’t know, and it had him folding his arms over his chest and staring stubbornly out at the beach-goers lazily walking in zig zags along the sand. 

“There’s no need to live in the basement of the church anyway, Lestat. You know I’m not opposed to slumming it, but there’s really no need.” Lestat had forgotten how brisk Gabrielle could be, how bullish. 

Louis cleared his throat. 

“You can stay with me, if you’d like.” A pause. “Both of you. I only have the one sofa but I’m sure I could find a blowup mattress.” 

Both Gabrielle and Lestat looked at Louis, who shifted slightly at the sudden attention. They watched him pull out a cigarette from the box without looking down, every movement slow but fluid. The pale palms of his hands flashed, knuckles pulling and shifting. 

“It’s really no trouble,” he muttered. 

“I’ve booked a hotel already,” Gabrielle sniffed, then she blinked, seemingly remembering herself, and added, “but thank you. That is kind.” 

Lestat looked at Louis, to see if his offer had been genuine, and Louis stared back, totally still for a moment, before he gave the tiniest of nods. 

The sound of Louis groaning in half-restrained pleasure, his hips bones pushing into Lestat’s stomach, suddenly struck him, violent and horribly-timed. He blinked, looked away, and ate an oyster purely on impulse. 

In his pocket, his phone buzzed, but he ignored it. 

Gabrielle was telling Louis of her time in the Appalachians, and when she grew bored of that, she moved on to Scotland, and Samarkand, and the perfectly round, delightfully-small city of Yerevan. Louis listened, thoughtful, quiet, though his eyes darted towards Lestat every few seconds, and Lestat was finding it difficult to listen. 

In the bright, bleaching sunlight, Louis had been washed out into a palette of soft, grayish browns. He almost didn’t look real. It was only the stiff collar of his tailored wool jacket and the charmingly-large sweater he wore underneath that grounded him against his surroundings. 

Another buzz of his phone, and this time, he pulled it out of his pocket and checked the screen. 

Oh dear, he thought tiredly. 

“Sorry—got to go. The contractor is here.” Both Louis and Gabrielle nearly broke their necks to look at him, though Gabrielle looked especially startled, like she’d forgotten he’d been there. Lestat would have time to be sour about it later. 

He’d left the two elderly ladies who volunteered for the church alone to monitor the flooding, which was both selfish and terribly naive. 

Oh, I really have to go. The church—I have to go.” Lestat stood, and for some reason, he expected Gabrielle to rise with him, but she merely fished another oyster from the ice and squeezed some lemon on it. 

“It’s fine, go. I’ll be nice,” she said amusedly. Louis raised an eyebrow, leaned back so far in his chair that he was almost horizontal. 

“I’ll be nice, too,” he added mildly, and then he smiled, expression dry and humorless. 

 Lestat grimaced. 

Lestat grabbed his coat off the back of the chair, downed the rest of his beer in a very ungentlemanly manner, and bid Louis and Gabrielle goodbye with a coltish salute. 

Louis watched him walk towards the promenade that led to the center of town, feeling a strange sense of giddiness at the thought of being alone with Gabrielle, this strange, entirely new person. 

Before he could disappear from sight, Lestat was stopped by an older woman and two children sitting at a table nearest to the door that led inside. He dropped down into a crouch, his arm resting on the table, to speak at eye-level, eyes shining, mouth curling. Not for the first time, Louis was struck by the performance of him, how shockingly earnest it was, how quickly he could shift from this to something darker and crueler and more frantic. 

Both he and Gabrielle watched him for some time, neither of them speaking. When Lestat got up again to make his leave, he pressed his hand on the top of one of the children’s heads, affectionate, almost paternal. 

He’s a priest, Louis was reminded. 

Lestat finally disappeared, and Louis’ attention returned to his mother, who sat placidly across from him. 

She thumbed her bottom lip, looking at Louis through blonde-gray lashes. 

“You look exhausted,” she said quietly, in a voice so shockingly maternal that it had Louis’ face warming and his shoulders dropping. He swallowed roughly, once, twice, then a third time. 

“What?” 

“You look very tired, it’s alright. I am, too.” 

Louis could see how easily one could fall in love with Gabrielle, who was so excellent at maintaining distance that even the slightest deviation felt like complete tenderness. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Oh, yes, I’m sure of that. I was just saying you look tired.” Her head cocked, and Louis wondered if Lestat had told her of what had happened last night. 

“What did you mean when you said Lestat had funds ? It’s not from you.” 

“Ouch,” Gabrielle said lightly. “No, it’s not.” 

“Where, then?” 

“If he hasn’t told you then it’s not for me to—” 

“You don’t care about that,” Louis said a little harshly. Her exquisite face pinched slightly and she looked away. 

“You’ll have to ask him either way.” 

Louis drained the rest of his beer. He wanted to press, but Gabrielle seemed obstinate. Her eyes glinted a little coldly as she looked at him, mouth pressed together in a firm line, betraying its general softness. 

“Let us talk,” Gabrielle said suddenly, “as men do.” She folded her hands underneath her chin, eyes sliding from Louis’ wallet which lay flat on the table, to his watch, with its dainty gold links and the small, unpolished bezel. It was his most expensive watch, and it didn’t look that way to anyone who wasn’t an expert. 

“I don’t find many people very interesting, I’m afraid,” she said flatly, and Louis realized quite instantly that he was going to dislike her. 

“And I don’t tend to ask questions—my son does, and I don’t know where he got that from. Certainly not me, or his father.” She glanced sideways at the bare, grayish beach. 

“It’s beautiful here,” she said simply, almost reluctantly. “Anyway, yes, I thought I should clear the air. I’m not the kind of person who is particularly loyal, or kind, or even nice, and I don’t pretend to be. I wanted to warn you. Some people find it offensive.” 

“Okay,” Louis said, feeling darkly delighted, staring this perfectly unique creature down from across a salt-corroded table. 

Gabrielle said nothing for a few long moments.

“Why are you here?” Louis asked. 

“Lestat’s father—” 

“No, tell me why. Whatever it was could have been a simple phone call.” 

Gabrielle smiled broadly. 

“Oh, I see, I’m learning a lot about you.” 

Louis stared at those bright blue eyes, and got the eerie sensation that he was staring at a very familiar face, and it wasn’t Lestat’s. 

“You may not have noticed—I don’t expect you to, after all, you haven’t known him for very long. But Lestat has always been a sensitive boy, sensitive like a girl.” She said that with a curl of her lip, like she found it distasteful, and Louis couldn’t help but sneer a little. 

“And he gets distraught when he’s alone.” 

“He’s not alone,” Louis said evenly. Gabrielle’s mouth twitched. 

“This won’t be a fight, by the way. I’m not looking to do that.” She leaned back in her chair with a heavy sigh, grabbing her beer with her fingertips and taking a long sip. “I can tell you are,” she added, smiling, “but I’m not.” 

Louis really was starting to despise her. When he’d first met Lestat, he got the uncanny—and yes, uncomfortable—sensation that he was being fully understood, and he thought that had been the worst of it, but Gabrielle, lounging across from him with her men’s coat and her rabbit fur aviator hat, didn’t look as if she understood Louis, in fact, not at all. Instead, those bright blue eyes saw right through him, down to the bone, and whatever she was seeing, she found ugly and unimpressive. 

“You want to know about Lestat’s money? Fine, I’ll tell you. But he’ll hate me for a day or two, and hate you, too, probably.” 

For a day or two was such a strange way to put it, but then, Louis knew she was right. Lestat’s temper flared and waned, and he lacked whatever intrinsic quality that allowed most people to hold onto grudges. Maybe it was pride. 

“Lestat got into some trouble—as he always does—with a priest in Paris. Whatever sordid thing you are imagining, yes, that would be it. And then the man killed himself—” 

Louis flinched hard, thinking of a stone courtyard covered in blood. 

“And it was all a bit of a scene. The church had no idea what to do with Lestat, as I’m sure you can guess. He was very young, freshly ordained, and none of those old men there knew that Lestat was not the type to speak of these things. They were worried about the press. It’s not been good press for them lately, has it?” 

“No,” Louis rasped. 

“And Lestat was hardly a boy, but close enough. Bad optics, very bad.” 

“Yes,” Louis said, in barely more than a whisper. 

“So they paid him, immediately and with great generosity.” 

“I see.” Louis felt a vague sense of nausea creep in. 

“And now you’re angry at me, for some reason.” She sighed, took a sip of her Guinness, and folded her hands in front of her, voice dropping into a softer version of the clipped tone she had taken before. 

“I have been traveling alone for a long time. You’ll have to excuse my tactlessness.” 

“Tact,” Louis said quietly, in a dark kind of wonder. “That’s what you think the problem is?” 

Gabrielle squinted, and in that gesture, she suddenly looked exactly like Lestat, and Louis’ anger softened. He turned his head to the horizon, letting his eyes lose focus until the stripe of navy that was the sea and that band of pale blue that was the sky became a soft, blurred gradient. 

“Well,” she said eventually, “now you know.” 

“He doesn’t use it. The money, I mean.”

“He did, at first,” Gabrielle murmured. “For a few months, I was lavished with jewels and expensive liquor and vacations to private villas. And then after a few months more, it was tweed suits and Damascus knives and an apartment in Rabat.” 

“And then?” 

Gabrielle blinked. 

“Well—” She bit at her thumbnail. “Well, I left to travel and he had been sent here—the church was still very leery and wanted him somewhere remote. And I am terrible about visiting. I do think he’s also… yes, I think he may be ashamed of it.” 

“Ashamed of the money?” 

Gabrielle took a cigarette from Louis’ box on the table and lit the thing impatiently with her own lighter. 

“Sorry—and no, ashamed of the implication, I think.” 

Louis leaned back in his chair, head spinning slightly. He thought about that bottle of vicodin still in his jacket pocket, and Lestat pressed atop of him, groaning, hair curtaining the both of them. 

He thought about how Lestat spoke of Magnus, who Louis was certain was the same man Gabrielle described now, how proud he had sounded, like he had been chosen by God himself. 

“I see,” he said. Gabrielle ran her tongue over teeth, sighing faintly. 

“You probably think I’m a terrible mother.” 

Have you seen the Lestat that I saw last night? 

“I am,” she added. The ice that had once held oysters was now half-melted, tiny bits of sand floating along the top. Louis pushed a bit of the remaining ice around the tray, watching it slide and bounce against the beaten silver lip like a bumper car. 

“I never wanted to be a mother, you know.”

Louis thought about Florence. He’d never asked her something like that, and for a while, he would have never thought to. 

“And now I’m not,” and she laughed humorlessly. “I’m really not.” 

Louis realized, as Gabrielle sipped at her beer and watched soullessly as a couple walked by on the beach with a sandy black labrador, who panted laboriously and crunched on piles of washed-up seaweed, that he might have liked her very much in a different life. It was easy sipping mediocre beer next to her, easy letting the chatter of nearby tables and the too-crisp ocean breeze roll over them. She tore through his cigarettes, muttering a gruff sorry each time she took one. 

“Louis, I want another beer. What are you having?” 

“Oh, it’s—” 

“I’m buying you a drink, there’s no way around it.” She smiled, boyish and crooked. “I know I can be insufferable, so think of it as an apology.” It was the first genuine smile he’d seen out of her, and it didn’t make him like her any more, but it soothed some of the strangeness between them, eased the tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been storing between his shoulder blades.

“Whatever this was.” 

“You like it?” She asked, incredulous. Louis smiled emptily. 

“Not really.” 

“Yeah, fine.” She got up, tugging her trousers down at the front unselfconsciously, and picked her way around the scattering of tables and chairs and people to the door that led inside the bar. 

The door was propped open with a stool, so Louis could just make out the sounds from inside. He watched her return with two drinks, one being the beer Louis requested and the second being something that resembled an old fashioned, which was an utterly bizarre choice for an afternoon drink. 

She set down his beer and took a sip of her own drink.

“Ugh,” she said immediately, “that’s fucking disgusting.” Louis raised an eyebrow as she stood up, adjusting the enormous fur hat around her face, and stalked back over to the bar. Louis could hear a sudden flurry of exasperated French, most of which boiled down to: it’s shit! It’s total shit! You drink it if you like it so much! Yes, see! Shit! 

Louis couldn’t help it but smile.

When she returned, she had that same dark stout in her glass and her eyes were gleaming. 

“Sorry. What were we talking about?” 

“It’s fine,” Louis said, waving his hand. 

Gabrielle smiled, checked her watch, squinted, and then asked Louis the time. 

“Four,” he said. 

“Four,” she echoed, then nodded to herself. 

“You’re going to leave again,” Louis said quietly, “aren’t you.” 

It was almost as if night had descended upon them. Though the sun still winked overhead, there was a sudden chill in the air, and a peculiar darkness, like some giant translucent blimp had appeared in the sky, changing some essential quality in the light that told the eye and mind it was daytime. 

“I love him,” Gabrielle whispered eventually.

“If you loved him, you wouldn’t leave.” Louis knew he sounded childish, as soon as he said it. He took his box of cigarettes off the table and flipped the lid open and closed. 

“I love him, but I love my life more—yes, very selfish, I know. You love to be the bigger person, don’t you? It’s really fascinating. Because you aren’t, you’re like me. I can tell.” 

“You—” 

“Selfish,” she said thickly, eyes roving lazily over Louis’ face. He scowled. 

“I think you need that to be the case, for your own sake.” 

Gabrielle shrugged. 

“Maybe.” 

He almost wanted to tell her that she was right, about everything, that what she had said had dislodged something deep inside him, like a calcium deposit or a part of his soul. But looking at her, she seemed to know this already. 

Gabrielle tore through her stout, this time drinking it like she had somewhere to be, urgently. Louis was glad to see it. He didn’t know how much longer he could tolerate that face—Lestat’s face—staring at him with such detached curiosity. 

“You wanted to know why I came,” Gabrielle said a few minutes later, shrugging her coat on. She smiled a little forlornly. 

“Lestat’s father, the Marquis as he calls himself, though he isn’t one, legally—really, he’s just an old man in an even older chateau—he’s dead.” 

Louis’ eyes narrowed, though something leaped in his chest, and he couldn’t quite tell if it was dread or delight or a mixture of both. 

“And you haven’t told him.” 

“He’s happy right now,” Gabrielle said distantly. “I’d hate to ruin it.” 

“You have to tell him,” he rasped. “you have to.” Louis got a sudden paralyzing fear that maybe Florence was already dead, that the reason Grace had yet to call was that she was busy with yet another bout of funeral planning. 

“I will,” she said a moment later, her voice soft. “I will, when it’s right.” 

“It’s not going to be right, it never—” 

“And you mustn't, do you hear me?” She stood suddenly, eyes gleaming with a sharp, passionate intensity. “It’s not for you to tell him.” 

Louis looked up at her. Even though he remained sitting and she was standing, the table between them prevented her from properly looming. Instead, she looked rather small, rather young, her clothing boyish and curiously outdated, like someone plucked out of a different time. 

Louis pulled out one last cigarette from his box. He’d stay here until he’d finished his drink, and then maybe he’d walk back to the church, see if he could find Lestat. Would he tell him? He didn’t think so. 

It was selfish, but he’d rather not be the one to deliver the news, lest it tarnish something between them. Yes, it would be better to find him afterwards, when the dust had settled and the sun had risen again. 

“I will tell him,” Gabrielle said thinly, “just give me some time.” 

Louis tapped on the end of his cigarette, watching a clump of gray-black ash fall off of it and onto the ashtray, which was really just the repurposed bottom of a flower pot. 

“You’re very easy to talk to, you know,” she added, smiling bitterly. “Do you do that on purpose?” 

And before Louis could even begin to think of an answer, Gabrielle was pulling her cap a little forward to cover her eyes and trudging off in the opposite direction of Louis’ cottage and the church.

Chapter Text

Outside of the church sat a pair of white utility vans and a single Mercedes saloon car, the rims and body of the vehicle flecked with mud. Louis couldn’t see Lestat as he walked by, but he was certain he was inside. After Gabrielle had left, he finished his beer in total silence, lifting his head only once to give a wave to Hugo as he walked quickly past the cafe. 

He wondered what the boy thought of Gabrielle being here. 

Louis gave the church a wide berth as he walked back to his cottage. Without Gabrielle to serve as a buffer, the thought of seeing Lestat now filled him with a strange, riveting uncertainty. 

The inside of his cottage was the same as he had left it. None of the rain had managed to seep in overnight, not even at the old, thickly-painted white window trim. He sat heavily on the sofa, not quite drunk, but maybe a little buzzed, and checked his phone for messages. 

There was one from Levi, a clipped update on Florence. She was still refusing treatment, but accepting pain medication. The last sentence of the message made Louis’ gut churn: i think she’s losing her mind. 

Louis got up, checked that his pill bottle was in his bedside where he left it, and then returned to the living room, only to stop in his tracks at the sight of Lestat’s folded cassock on the fireplace hearth. 

He glanced out the window at the church in the distance, and with a little grunt of effort, grabbed his coat back off the hook, tucked the cassock under his arm, and stepped outside. 

A worker was fetching tools out of the back of one of the vans. His dark forearms made the white of his shirt seem almost fluorescent in contrast. He didn’t say a word to Louis as he made his way to the entrance of the church, but his eyes lingered on his clothing and his face all the same. 

Lestat was sitting on the floor with his back against the altar, listening with a twisted mouth as an older man with a shock of bright silver hair spoke to him. He was wearing a black button-up shirt and black slacks, the white of his clerical collar just visible. On his arm hung a waxed rain jacket, and instead of dress shoes, he had on a pair of what looked like hiking shoes. 

They were deep in conversation, but as Louis made his way down the aisle, Lestat looked up and smiled a little tiredly. 

“Louis, this man oversees my parish and a few others in the area. Father Aubert, this is Louis de Pointe du Lac.” 

Lestat’s switch to English prompted the man to raise his eyebrows, and he looked at Louis over his shoulder, curious. 

“Just Louis is fine.” 

“American?” Aubert asked, and Louis nodded. “With a French last name, interesting.” 

“We’re almost done,” Lestat said to Louis, eyes flitting to the bundle of black clothing under Louis’ arm. Unlike Aubert, Lestat wore nothing to indicate his position, and Louis was beginning to realize he was an aberration in this. 

When he wasn’t dressed up to the throat in his cassock, Lestat was in frayed jeans and sweet patterned sweaters, silk pajama tops that had a dull, refined sheen, oddly-colored t-shirts with stretched-out necklines. It gave him a slightly dated look, like he was living in a time before the cool, young priestly prototype of dark jeans and a black shirt with the clerical collar peeking out. 

Louis nodded to Aubert and left the way he came. 

Outside, the single worker had become three, and they were all smoking cigarettes and talking amongst themselves. Louis pulled out a cigarette for himself and stood a little ways off. 

“You work here?” One of them asked in clipped, accented French. 

Louis grimaced. 

“No, not at all.” His French had improved since coming here, but not as much as he would have liked. Lestat spoke to him almost exclusively in English, and beyond him, Louis didn’t do too much socializing besides the occasional dinners at Le Nid. 

“What’s the problem with the church?” He asked.

One of the men laughed tiredly, shaking his head and gesturing vaguely to the stone facade. 

“There are many.” 

“I heard it was—” Louis didn’t know the word for flooded in French, and he had little interest in struggling publicly, so he paused, and said instead: “It’s the rain, isn’t it?” 

“The foundation is sinking. The whole thing must be redone, but they don’t want to spend the money, or take the time. So we are reinforcing.” 

Just like that, se renforcer replaced raffermir in Louis’ mental catalog. To reinforce. We are reinforcing. He, she, they reinforced. He’d ask Lestat about the difference when he had the chance. 

The men seemed interested in Louis, curious about him, and they asked nearly a dozen questions: where he was from, if he liked it here, what he did for work. The last question made Louis squirm as he tried to explain in his stilted French that he owned things, and these things made him money. He didn’t think he’d ever been embarrassed to talk about these things, not until coming to this small, strange little town. 

The big double doors that led to the main chamber of the church rattled briefly and then swung open. 

Father Aubert went straight from the church steps to his saloon car. There was a suited man waiting in the driver’s seat. The car quietly growled to life, reversed gingerly against the gravel driveway, and then drove off. Lestat followed its path with his eyes for a few moments, and then he looked at Louis and gave a twitchy, humorless smile. 

“Hello.” 

“You left this,” and Louis held out the folded cassock and watched Lestat’s mouth tighten and pull as he took it from Louis’ hands. 

“Thank you.” 

“I spoke to the workers. They said it’s not looking good.” 

“Not looking good,” Lestat mused. “No, I don’t think so.” 

“My offer still stands,” Louis said quietly. It felt uniquely vulnerable, saying this to Lestat, and a part of him was afraid that when he looked at the other man, he’d see a cruel, cajoling smile. 

But Lestat only nodded, shifting his weight from foot to foot. 

“Only if you want to, of course.” 

“Gabrielle is staying at a hotel in town,” he said, not looking at Louis. The strangeness between them was terrible, like something physical, and where once, Louis could count on Lestat to bridge the gap, it seemed, for the time being, he wanted it there. 

“You’re staying with her.” 

Lestat’s brow furrowed and he looked away. 

“I didn’t want to bother you.” 

“I offered.” 

“Yes,” Lestat murmured. “I know.” 

“It won’t—the other night won’t happen again, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“I’m not worried about it,” Lestat said, but he looked off again towards some bit of space just above and to the left of Louis’ head. Louis frowned. 

“I wish I could explain to you—oh, it’s all fine!” Lestat smiled, twitchily, eyes gleaming, and clapped Louis on the shoulders with his palms. “Come get a drink with us tonight at the hotel. I won’t run off this time.” 

Louis thought about what it had been like, to come here, alone and sour and wishing for death, of walking into Le Coq Rouge and seeing blonde hair and a curling, almost-threatening smile. If he was any braver, he’d say go with him anywhere, anytime. 

“Yeah, I can do that.” 

“It’s very nice, you know, the hotel. Right on the sand, very old and classical.” 

“Did you pay for the room?” Louis hadn’t intended to ask the question out loud, at least not in such a pointed way, but it came out nonetheless, and where a minute ago, Lestat had been smiling and bouncing subtly on the balls of his feet, he was now utterly still. 

His eyes narrowed into blue-gray slits, and a few pieces of hair that had been tucked behind his ears came loose. 

“Does the room have two beds, or is it just the one?” Louis continued, feeling bitter and a little like he was going insane. How is it possible the whole town was aware of it and didn’t seem to care? 

Lestat’s eyes flashed with a bright, petulant indignation. 

“You don’t understand, you really don’t.” 

“Fine,” Louis said flatly. He felt something sickly in his stomach, like bile and an excess of sugar mixing together. Distantly, he was aware the feeling had to be resentment, a slight lean towards jealousy, which was equal parts disgusting and terrifying. 

“Come have a drink with us, you do not have to stay for very long.” Lestat’s voice had softened again, and his expression wasn’t quite so cool.

“Maybe,” Louis said. 

“You can… poke in? I do not know.” 

“Pop in.” 

“ Pop in, okay.” 

“Or drop by,” Louis added, “they both work.” 

Lestat nodded again, eyes smoldering faintly, hands shoved in his pockets. 

As they were speaking, the masonry company had moved in to start working on the church, re-applying waterproof caulking to the corners of the rooms, replacing eroded stone with brand new chunks that stood out like fake teeth. 

“Okay,” Louis said tiredly. “I’ll stop by.” 

“Stop by,” Lestat echoed. “Oh, there’s too much.” His voice had taken on a weak, overly-dramatic waver, and Louis could only laugh. 

“Your English is very good, Lestat, better than my French, that’s for sure.” He clapped him on the side of the head, just against his ear, which was something he’d never done before to anyone else besides perhaps his brother, and started his walk back to the cottage. Lestat shouted out the name of the hotel as he went, and a tentative time to meet. 

It was a tiny four story boutique hotel right on the sand. The lobby was hardly larger than a living room, with a pair of elegant chaises in the center and a large check-in desk made of a heavy green quartz that gave the whole space a distinctly seventies’ air. Despite it being so close to the water, they hadn’t committed to anything resembling beachy . It was as if the place had been plucked directly from Paris’ seventh arrondissement and dropped here. 

The hotel bar and restaurant was a dimly lit corner on the ground floor. Booths upholstered in a chic brocaded fabric dominated most of the seating options, though there were a few cocktail tables near the bar, and a few more dining tables made for two or four by the windows. The outdoor patio was closed for the winter except for those wanting to smoke. 

“You came,” Lestat said, looking relieved. He wasn’t alone. Besides Gabrielle, who looked boredly off into empty space, mouth set in a terse line, a jacket draped over her shoulders that Louis knew belonged to Lestat, there were a few locals who Louis recognized from his and Lestat’s time spent at Le Coq Rouge and Le Nid and the other common haunts. 

Already, the table was littered with half-full highball glasses and pints of beer. A waiter, who also seemed to be the lone bartender, came by and picked up an empty plate smeared with a deep orange-red-colored sauce. 

A few of the locals offered to make room for Louis in the booth, but like Gabrielle, he pulled up a chair from an empty table nearby instead. She regarded him through thick, silver-blonde lashes that were intensely straight, narrowing her eyes into a perpetual but slight squint. 

“This place is nice,” he said. Lestat was discussing the church with the man sitting next to him. There was a slight deference with which people seemed to talk to Lestat, something Louis was noticing more and more. 

“What’re you drinking?” Gabrielle asked gruffly. Her English was shockingly good. Louis almost wanted to ask where she had learned it, if she had been this capable when Lestat was a child, and if so, why he wasn’t as fluent as she was. 

“Not sure.” Louis had come here with the funny idea that maybe he wouldn’t drink tonight, but that had left him as soon as he sat down. “What are you having? It’s my turn, anyway.” 

Gabrielle gestured vaguely to say, anything, and Louis got up, a little annoyed, and walked to the bar. 

He ordered double gin and tonics for the both of them and joined the table, preferring to watch in a content silence. It was incredible to watch Lestat in what seemed to be his element, flying from rapid French to a sweet, accented English, and then back to French again. His mouth did something lovely when he spoke his native language, lip curling almost into a smiling sneer. 

He had his hair down but tucked into the neck of the sweater he was wearing, and every few minutes, his eyes would flit over to Louis, and though he didn’t smile, there was a smug brightness in his eyes, a sort of teasing curiosity. 

Louis was feeling very quiet today. He and Gabrielle sat like a surly pair of twins at the end of the table. Gabrielle boredly struck a match against the edge of a paper coaster.  

The night went on without any dramatics. Louis’ only real complaint was that he and Lestat seemed to barely have a chance to speak. When the rest of the table slowly began to filter home, Louis scooted himself into the booth as Gabrielle got up to smoke and brought his drink with him. 

“I’m glad you came,” Lestat said, sounding painfully sincere. 

“I’m not going to apologize for what I said earlier.” 

“I don’t expect you to.” 

“Okay, good,” Louis said roughly. He fiddled awkwardly with the creased spine of his wallet. Lestat picked at some reddened skin around his fingernail. 

“I swim in the mornings, sometimes,” he said in a soft voice. “If you’d like, you can join me.” 

Louis couldn’t quite tell if this was a trap or not. He had sworn Lestat could see him watching from the windows, all those weeks ago—months now, in fact. 

“Is the water cold?” 

“Yes, very,” Lestat said with a faint laugh. 

Louis’ nose wrinkled. 

“No, then, I wouldn’t—I don’t like cold water. I’ll walk on the sand though, I’ll do that.” 

“Yes,” Lestat said, eyes twinkling, “okay.” 

“How much longer until you can move back into the church?” Loui asked softly. Lestat’s eyes flickered. 

“Maybe a week.” 

“Not long then.” 

“No.” 

Louis opened his mouth to say something more, but at that moment, the door to the patio opened, and with it came a gust of freezing cold air and a pink-nosed Gabrielle, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. 

Louis nodded to her and pocketed his wallet. Lestat gave him a look that Louis could only understand as longing. The bartender came and swiped a few empty glasses off the table, giving the three of them an odd look. They were standing in a strange, silent triangle. 

Louis cleared his throat abruptly. 

“I’m gonna head back.” 

Gabrielle had gone to the bar already without saying goodbye, leaning her weight on a stool in front of her. 

Once again, it was just Louis and Lestat. It was still difficult to look at Lestat without thinking of what his body felt like pressed against his, the sounds he made, how some of them were full of air and others were more vibration than actual noise. 

“I’ll see you,” Louis said quickly. 

“Yes,” Lestat said in a faint voice. Louis shouldered his jacket on and left via the patio, stepping over the flimsy bit of rope blocking it off from the sand and walking straight across the beach to where his cottage, and the church, lay waiting. 

Over the next week and a half, Louis and Lestat and Gabrielle drank at every alcohol-serving establishment. They shared a raucous dinner at Le Nid, which had Louis wishing he and Lestat could end the night walking alone back to the cottage, not talking, hardly breathing, eyes set on the ground in front of them. 

The church would take a little longer than anticipated, to Lestat’s chagrin, and so instead of cancelling the Sunday service, he decided to hold it on the beach, an hour later in the day so the sun had a chance to warm up the cold, damp sand. Louis watched Lestat nail a hastily typed letter to the postboard outside the church, and then send a Whatsapp message to a group where he was the only admin. 

On one of their meanders through the town with Gabrielle trailing behind them like an old dog, Louis spotted Sabine sitting in the very same cafe he had first met Hugo. Her eyes were huge as they walked by, and though Lestat, perfectly oblivious, didn’t seem to notice her, Louis couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away. 

Lestat suddenly touched the small of Louis’ back, pushing him sideways slightly to avoid a silty puddle in between the flagstones, and Louis blinked back into focus. 

On instinct, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Gabrielle was already looking at him. Not Lestat, just him. Her expression was flat, though not unkind, and as she walked, she stepped into the very same puddle Louis had been guided away from without even a flinch. The hem of her jeans—which were in a men’s cut, like all of clothing—turned dark. 

Lestat was talking to him, an edge to his voice that he usually used when he was being less than pleasant, but whatever it was, Louis was deaf to it. Gabrielle still stared at him. 

Will it be tonight? Will you tell him tonight?

Far south, the remaining crest of dark clouds from the other night’s rain slowly curled over the horizon, like a great gray beast slithering back into its lair. 

On Sunday morning, Louis downed the lukewarm coffee he’d made before his shower and put on a thick fleece with a hood for his usual walk around the cliffs. It wasn’t until he got outside that he saw the empty church across the way and the fog in his brain suddenly cleared.

Louis walked cautiously to the cliff’s edge, peering down at the sand below. Just as Lestat had said, there was a small group of the usual churchgoers sitting on jackets and towels in the sand. Lestat stood in front of them, a black leather jacket worn over his cassock, and judging by the motion of his hands, he was speaking. 

Gabrielle was sitting a little ways off in the sand. Her pants were rolled to her knees, toes buried in the sand. 

Louis walked over slowly, and she pretended she didn’t see him until he was standing right in front of her. Her smile as she looked up at him was dry. 

“Sunday service at the beach,” she said, “hilarious.” 

“I think it’s nice.” 

“No you don’t.” 

Louis’ mouth tightened. 

“You haven’t told him yet.” 

“No,” Gabrielle said coolly. “Do you plan to?” 

“It’s not my news to tell.” 

Gabrielle considered him for a moment, and then nodded. 

“Yes, you are right about that.” 

For the first time, Louis listened to Lestat speak as a priest. He had a lovely, musical cadence, and there was a gentleness to the way that he preached, and yet a lack of fear. For as long as Louis had known him, the idea of Lestat being a priest had been puzzling. If Louis had any respect left for the church, he’d think it was a perversion of faith: a priest who fucks and commits adultery, who drinks with abandon, who doesn’t meet evilness and sin with any of the gravity the rest of his cohort does. 

But he was understanding now. Lestat spoke about love and the beauty of life and humanity, and he believed it, which was most shocking of all. 

“I don’t know where he got it from,” Gabrielle muttered, reading his mind. 

“Not from you,” he said distantly. Another person might have taken it as animosity, but Gabrielle just nodded. 

“Or you.” 

Louis laughed. 

She picked up the bleached paper-thin exoskeleton of a crab out of the sand and held it to the sunlight. 

“I used to hate the beach,” she murmured. “The older I get, however, the less bothered I am by the sand and the noise and the wind.” 

“I’ve always liked it,” Louis said, “but then, we were mostly going to Palm Beach and Bora Bora, not places like this.” 

“Oh really,” Gabrielle asked amusedly, “Louis de Pointe du Lac wasn’t hitchhiking his way to the Outer Banks all that much?” 

Louis stared at her, wondering exactly how much Lestat had told her of him. 

“No,” he said. 

“You don’t have to be ashamed of it.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Yes,” Gabrielle said, squinting, “I guess you’re not.” She tossed the crab shell behind her. “I’m surprised you came here. I’d expect someone like you to go to Marseille, rent a villa on the sand or something.” 

“I wasn’t really looking for a vacation.” 

“Hm.” 

Lestat had finished his makeshift service, though people still milled about around him, talking and laughing, shaking his hand with grips high on his forearm. 

Louis scratched idly at his knuckles, only to stiffen as Gabrielle got a hold of his wrist and pulled it across his body for her to look at. 

“Let’s see this, then.” She was studying his watch, mouth twisted in a humorless little smile, eyes sharp as she studied the dark blue face, the gold bezel. 

“You collect these things?” 

“I buy them,” Louis said, pulling subtly at her grip. 

“What else do you buy?” She asked, voice taking on a playful edge. 

“Everything,” Louis said faintly. He thought of Grace’s big white SUV with black trim, the second AMG in her collection; the apartments in Palm Beach and Miami; the pied-à-terre on 57th. 

Lestat was walking over to them now, kicking up sand with each step, eyes bright with a liveliness that would annoy Louis if it came from anyone else. 

Gabrielle leaned back onto her elbows, her profile cutting a sharp, beautiful image against the wild rocky backdrop. 

“Hello, Father,” she said a little cruelly, and then her face softened immediately as Lestat joined them in the sand, though he sat on Louis’ side, not hers. 

Louis glanced sideways at him, finding it impossible not to smile. The strangeness was gone again, and it felt lovely to sit next to him and feel nothing but closeness. 

Lestat idly touched the delicate gold links of Louis’ watch, the same one Gabrielle had just been studying. His expression was mild and curious, which was always such a shock to Louis, when he usually appeared almost wolfish in his sharpness. 

Lestat hadn’t seen this watch yet; Louis switched them out whenever he got bored. 

When he’d first started making the kind of money where salespeople called him and not the other way around, offering limited-edition models and rare vintages, he’d bought everything he was offered. It felt like some kind of obligation. It had been Royal Oaks and Datejusts and Seamasters, custom Cartier Tanks for Grace and Florence. And then the novelty wore off, and he was left with a dizzying collection that he cared little about. 

He’d learned quickly and painfully that having money meant you could be a collector of just about anything, everything, with almost zero effort.

“Are you hungry?” Lestat asked, in a voice so low that Louis barely heard it. Gabrielle, on their other side, watched the horizon serenely. 

“Probably,” Louis answered. 

“Come then,” and he stood up, showering both Louis and Gabrielle with sand. Louis got up after him, glancing over his shoulder at Gabrielle, who smiled in a strange almost-sad way. 

“Off you go. I’ll join later.” 

When will you tell him? Louis’ eyes asked. 

“Later,” Gabrielle repeated, waving them away. “The two of you together are too loud for me.” 

Lestat laughed, like it was a huge compliment, and started making his way to the natural path that had formed up the gentlest part of the cliffs. Louis, with a tiny shake of his head, followed him. 

What was meant to be a quick lunch turned into a sprawling, hours-long meal in one of the cafes in the heart of the town, which of course necessitated a walk afterwards, and then a few cigarettes, and then a few drinks and more cigarettes after. Lestat even found them an empty billiards table at the old pool bar by the North end of the bay, and it became clear soon after that they were both rather good and a modest handful of the other bar-goers started lingering by their table to watch. 

By the time Louis was walking home, it had been hours since the winter sun had set. 

He walked alone along the stone promenade. Beyond the constant dull roar of the ocean, the town was totally silent. Eerily silent given that it wasn’t even past nine in the evening. He was reminded of that perfect window between when the clubs closed their doors and when the sun rose back at home, when almost everyone was inside and not even the neighborhood cats were on the prowl. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a sudden flash of movement and turned very slowly on his heel to face it. 

A moment later, he relaxed. It was Sabine walking towards him, bundled up to the throat in a thick woolen overcoat, her hair fashionably curled as always. Her face, however, was plainly distraught. A panting Jack Russel hopped at her feet, and then turned its attention to Louis’ pant hems as soon as he stepped closer. 

“He doesn’t bite,” she said breathlessly. 

“It’s fine.” 

“I wasn’t following you,” Sabine added, eyes glinting nervously in the dark. 

“Alright,” Louis said amusedly.  

“But I have to ask—I know you have become close, the two of you, and I wouldn’t be asking this if it wasn’t important, you must know—” 

Louis’ stomach plummeted to his toes. The sound of the little dog’s rasped breathing had become a terrible, grating metronome. He cleared his throat, looked over his shoulder.

“I’m not sure—” 

“Has he spoken about me? To you, I mean?” Her expression was pinched, lips pulled tight into a grimace. “He hasn’t been answering my calls and we usually—oh, I don’t want to be inappropriate, but we usually meet on the weekends.” 

Louis felt a wash of relief as he understood. Poor Sabine. 

“His mother, Gabrielle, is visiting.” 

“Yes,” Sabine whispered. “I know.” 

“That’s probably why,” Louis said, shrugging. 

“But it's—” She laughed to herself, shaking her head. “I am being driven crazy by a child!” 

Louis’ nose wrinkled at the wording. 

“Please don’t tell him I came to you. I don’t want—yes, I understand. His mother is here. It makes perfect sense.” 

Louis looked at her properly, at the faint wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, the slight loss of fat beneath her eyes. He only knew where to look because he’d driven around enough with Florence or Grace in the passenger seat as they flipped open the little mirror in the shade visor and poked and prodded and pulled at their faces, complaining under their breath about things that looked perfectly fine to Louis and terribly wrong to them. 

Sabine did resemble Gabrielle, at least in the blonde hair and in the pleasing proportions of both of their faces, but that was where the similarities ended. Louis couldn’t quite tell if Gabrielle was always such a perfectly boyish vision, or if that had been a natural result of travelling alone for vast amounts of time. Either way, he found it suited her, and if he didn’t know her in the way he did, he would have found her irresistible. 

The Jack Russel nipped at Louis’ trouser pants and he stared down at it, at the glistening black eyes which seemed almost soulless. 

Sabine smiled faintly. 

“I’m sorry to have… bothered you. I’m not myself.” 

“Lestat has that effect on people,” Louis said dryly, and he almost grimaced, thinking about what he might have just revealed, but Sabine only laughed. 

“And he knows it!” 

She whistled to the Jack Russel, who bounced like it had just been activated with a remote, and then tottered off after her, leaving Louis to stand in the center of the empty promenade, heart pounding with relief and a little satisfaction.

Louis had just enough time to shower off the salt and sand on his skin and turn on the television when he heard a knock on his front door. He glanced over his shoulder dubiously. There was really only one person it could be. 

With a groan, he turned off the television—it was some local French news station anyway—and padded to the front door. 

Lestat swayed drunkenly on the porch. Louis could tell he was drunk, and not just exhausted, because when he drank, his face became an even sharper, crueler version of itself, like the loss of inhibition made some deeply-buried part of him push up to the surface. It wasn’t evil, more so a wildness, like those long-haired snow dogs that became the perfect image of wolves when it grew dark. 

“I am upset,” he announced, before Louis could say anything. “That is all.” He brushed past Louis and collapsed on the sofa, exhaling in sharp, short puffs from his nose, staring at the ceiling. His hands clenched and unclenched against his thighs, like dying spiders. 

“Gabrielle told you,” Louis said before he could think of anything more appropriate. He winced, as Lestat laughed brokenly, gaze still pinned to the ceiling. 

“Oh dear, she told you first? And you didn’t tell me?” 

“She said that she was going to—” 

“Gabrielle lies, Louis. That’s the first thing you should know about her.” 

“She told me that she would tell you soon. She kept telling me,” Louis said, feeling stupid and childish. He watched, uncertain, as Lestat picked up a book from the coffee table and stared coldly at it.

“I’m sorry about your father, Lestat.” 

“Oh, none of that, please.” 

“I am,” Louis said shortly. “And don’t fucking act like that. I hate when you act like that.” 

“ She told me, she kept telling me, Lestat.” It was a flat, nasally American accent, totally unlike Louis’ voice, though he knew it was meant to be an unflattering imitation.

“Grow up,” Louis said calmly. 

Lestat said nothing for a few moments, then he opened the photography book he’d been holding, and with a small amount of effort, tore out half a dozen of the glossy pages. The sound was like the ripping of flesh in a horror film, or the uncanny crack of thunder from a little too close a distance. 

Louis swallowed down the lingering saliva in his mouth, slightly shocked. 

“That’s wonderful, Lestat. Really, wonderful.” 

Lestat dropped the destroyed book on the floor, gaze distant. 

“Should I find some more things for you to destroy, hm?” Louis demanded. He walked around the back of the sofa and stopped a few feet in front of Lestat, who in turn, wouldn’t look at him. He had his eyes fixed on the wooden top of the coffee table, fingers curling and uncurling at his knees. 

“I apologize,” Lestat said in a very quiet voice. Louis grimaced. He almost wanted to take Lestat by the face and shake him. Don’t say sorry now, you had me on the back foot! You were winning! 

But Louis didn’t say anything for some time. He just stood a few feet away, watching Lestat, who stared dully ahead at the coffee table, jaw working in short, fluttery bursts. 

Louis wasn’t sure what he was waiting for exactly, but then Lestat suddenly sighed, his whole body collapsing like an old building, and he shrunk against the backrest of the sofa. Louis decided then to go to the kitchen to fetch the bottle of wine he had set aside. Originally, he’d intended to down the entire bottle himself, while making and deleting voice messages to send to Florence, but it would be much nicer to share it. 

“I’m pouring you some,” Louis said from the kitchen. 

“Yes, fine,” Lestat murmured tiredly. He appeared drained all of a sudden, head knocked back against the couch cushions, eyes lidded. Louis sat in the armchair adjacent and handed him a glass, watching with a raised eyebrow as he set it down without touching it. 

Louis took a sip of his own wine, and stared at the black windows, the glow of the lamps inside reflecting off the glass like little suns. 

He thought about telling Lestat everything, about what he had planned in Paris, and what he cautiously and absently planned here every morning he woke up, that bottle of vicodin sitting in his drawer. He thought about asking him outright about what Hugo had said months ago, how much of it was truth and how much was just vulgar speculation. 

He wanted to ask about Magnus, and how much money the church had given to him to sweep it under the rug. 

He considered all of these things, taking small, slow sips at the wine in order to steel himself, until he looked over at Lestat and nearly flinched. 

He hadn’t moved from where he was sitting. His head was still knocked back against the cushions, his hands were still limp at his sides, the wine glass sitting empty on the coffee table, but he was also crying. There was no sound, not even a shift in his chest to indicate a sob, just a steady stream of tears flowing down his temples and disappearing into the dense waves of his bunched-up hair. 

“Oh,” Louis said roughly, “I’m not—I’m not very good at these things.” He got up slowly from the armchair and sat on the other end of the sofa. 

“It’s fine,” Lestat whispered without looking at him. “This happens very often to me,” and he gestured at the tears with one hand. 

“I’m sorry about your father.” 

“Yes, thank you.” 

“The wine is good, better than the other night’s.” Louis held up his own glass and then  gestured to Lestat’s, sitting untouched on the coffee table. The mention of the other night sent a course of strength through Louis’ limbs. He stood to shake off the excess energy, pacing in a tight circle around the living room. 

Lestat had since taken the wine glass and was drinking mindlessly from it, the way an upset child sips at warm milk. 

“We never really discussed it,” Lestat said after a few minutes of silence. His wine glass was totally empty now. 

“We don’t need to,” Louis said, his voice almost frantic. “There’s no need.” But as he rounded the couch for the third time, all the vigor left him, and he stopped, listless, bare toes half curled into the carpet.

“It won’t happen again, so what’s the point?” 

“Why won’t it happen again?” Lestat asked. It was hard to take him all that seriously when his eyes were still wet and his lips were stained purple from the wine. 

“I thought you’d be—why aren’t you more embarrassed? You’re the one who—” Louis gestured wordlessly, teeth grinding so hard he could feel the vibrations in his jaw. 

“Why would I be embarrassed?” And even though his eyes were still wet and bleary from earlier, softened like someone had drawn him in chalk and swept their hand over his image, he looked terrifyingly certain. He blinked slowly, brows remaining low over his eyes, mouth half-curled and soft. 

“It’s just pleasure, Louis. You don’t have to be afraid of it.” 

“It’s not right. You’re a priest, you should—” 

“I’m not a very good priest,” Lestat whispered, still staring at Louis like he might eat him. 

“No,” Louis snarled, “you aren’t.” Though he knew it was a lie as soon as he said it. 

He sighed shakily, and sat down on the far side of the sofa, facing Lestat with his back against the armrest. He folded his knees in, to avoid touching Lestat with his feet. 

“It’s not right.” 

“What’s the point in not coming to church if you still think that way, hm?” 

“You’re only here because you’re angry with Gabrielle. You’re angry about your father. This doesn’t have to be—” 

“I’m not surprised. She’s very selfish. I love her but she’s very selfish.” 

Louis swallowed roughly. 

“She should have told you as soon as she arrived.” 

“She did what she thought was best.” 

“She’s a terrible mother,” Louis said bitterly, even as his chest panged as he remembered her gently caressing Lestat’s face upon seeing him, eyes bright and shining. The last time Florence had touched him, it had been an open-handed slap to the face two days after the wake. And Louis had stared at her, briefly shocked, imagining the utter destruction he could do to her in return without much effort at all. He could remember so clearly looking at the thin skin on her forearms, which slid like a dog’s scruff over the fat that lay beneath. 

Everything about her, after that slap, seemed so delicate. 

“She’s going to leave soon,” Lestat whispered roughly. “I’m sure of it.” 

Louis hated how beautiful Lestat looked when he was miserable. He extended his legs out a little further, and as he moved, Lestat did the same. The sofa, in reality, was probably only fit for three men of their size. 

Lestat slid sideways in a kind of slow-motion, resting his cheek on the inside of Louis’ knee. It looked horribly uncomfortable, but Louis allowed it, marvelling at the heat of him against his shin, at how large he looked hunched over like that. 

Louis pulled him up a little with a grip under the armpits until Lestat’s head was on the meat of his thigh, where it was more comfortable. He didn’t look down, just stroked Lestat’s slightly-tangled hair with his fingertips, listening to the soft shudder of every exhaled breath. 

“Grace’s husband—I don’t know how much I’ve told you about him, but he sent me an update about Florence.” 

“Hm?” Lestat’s murmur vibrated through him, like Louis was pressed against the hood of a 12-cylinder car. 

“She’s the same. Still refusing treatment. I don’t think she’ll change her mind.” 

“Do you want her to die?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Louis slid his hand from Lestat’s hair down to the nape of his neck, fingertips lifting the neckline of his shirt up slightly. His skin was ferociously warm. His hand moved down lower, sliding underneath Lestat’s shirt completely and resting in between his shoulder blades. He could feel his heartbeat, the slight rasp of his breathing, a tiny bump from a mole under his pinkie finger. 

“Sabine spoke to me tonight, she asked why you were ignoring her.” 

Lestat groaned again, in quiet acknowledgement. 

“Why her, Lestat? There’s lots of women here.” 

Lestat said nothing for some time. 

“She’s beautiful, and she was kind to me.” Louis’ hand reflexively slid lower, to the mid of his back. Here, the muscle was thicker, forming a valley where his spine lay. 

“Beautiful, yes.” 

“You don’t think so.” Lestat’s voice was muffled against the fabric of Louis’ pants. 

Louis didn’t know how exactly to say that he found women beautiful all the time and never wanted to fuck them. And when he did, when he used to, it was because he wanted something out if it that had nothing to do with pleasure or attraction. 

Lestat’s head had shifted a little further up, closer to where thigh met hip. Louis said nothing about it, but he was stirring in his pants just a little. His belly was warm from the wine, his face, too, and Lestat hair felt so nice underneath his fingers. 

“I told her—are you listening, Lestat? I told her it was because Gabrielle was visiting. You know, you’re busy.” 

“Mhm,” Lestat said, sounding incredibly distant. His mouth opened on an exhale and stayed open. 

To Louis, the silence was almost torturous. He was hardening in his pants, and Lestat was so close to it now, a mere inches. 

“Hey, we never went hunting, remember? We were supposed to go.” 

Lestat let out a mumbled response, that Louis could feel against his leg more than he could hear. 

“Hm?” 

“Spring,” Lestat repeated softly, turning his head slightly so his voice was clearer, “in the spring, when it’s warmer.” 

“Yes, okay,” Louis whispered. A plan made for spring, months away. 

 For a few minutes, they laid in silence, Lestat draped over and between Louis’ thighs, eyes fluttering slowly, Louis reaching for his wine glass and taking conservative sips to make it last longer. 

The only light in the room was from a standing lamp in the corner, which reflected a dull ball of buttery light onto the television screen on the opposite wall. 

Lestat suddenly bit lightly at the fabric of Louis’ pants and Louis nearly jumped. Then he mouthed at the same spot in an ameliorating manner, and now Louis was certain Lestat could see his erection through his pants, could see it and wasn’t afraid of it. 

The brown wool high up on his inner thigh turned dark with saliva. The heat from Lestat’s mouth was so intense, Louis swore he could feel it in his bones, turning his skin into some kind of conductive material, warming the rest of his body like he was being baked by the sun.

 He set his wine glass down shakily and rubbed his palm up and down Lestat’s spine, fingertips digging into the muscle. 

“Have you done this before?” Louis asked, voice soft. Lestat looked up at him, cheek crushed against Louis’ hip, his eyes glazed and wet and impossibly large. He nodded, slowly at first, then a little quicker. Louis felt a curl of revulsion in his gut. 

If he was any kind of good person, he’d tell Lestat to stop. He’d push him back with his palm on his forehead and turn on the television to break up the thickness in the room. But he wanted pleasure, touch, heat, and Lestat was looking at him with such intensity. 

He lifted his hips off the couch and pulled his trousers and underwear down in one go. He used one hand to cover his cock a little shyly, pressing it to the skin of his belly, hiding it from Lestat, which was ridiculous, given what they were both agreeing to. Lestat slid his hand up and over where Louis was holding himself, prying each finger up and away, replacing the grip on his cock with a slightly luke-warm, long-fingered hand. 

Louis let himself sink back against the couch cushions, belly still tight with uncertainty. 

“Have you done this before?” Lestat rasped. He looked almost unrecognizable: pupils so large that his blue eyes seemed black, hair falling in a curtain around his face instead of pulled back or tucked behind his ears. It lent him a slightly feral appearance, almost threatening, and Louis was suddenly struck with the terrifying image of him opening his mouth and revealing a long, yawning throat and the massive saber teeth of a lion. 

“Yes,” Louis muttered, forcing himself to look at him. 

“But only this way,” Lestat said. Louis was a little impressed at how delicate he managed to be. He had no doubts it was for his own benefit. 

He nodded. 

“That boy,” Lestat said, eyes glittering. “Jonah.” 

“Yes,” Louis replied weakly. A spider’s web of precum connected the head of his cock to his stomach. Lestat’s hand was wrapped quite casually around the base, and though the grip was firm, confident, it wasn’t enough pressure to be pleasurable. 

“Don’t worry,” Lestat rasped, eyes even blacker than they were a minute ago. “I am not a boy.” 

Even worse, you’re a priest, Louis thought weakly. And that was the last thought he could remember, because at that moment, Lestat licked a long, hot stripe up his cock, and then sank down halfway with a short, aggressive exhale from his nose. 

Louis’ thigh kicked in unbridled surprise, and then he sank his hand deeper into Lestat’s hair, fingers curling into his temples, and let his eyes fall closed. 

Lestat had indeed done this before, but there was an amateurish quality to the way he coordinated his mouth and his breathing and his skating hands that was almost sweet, and Louis would have laughed encouragingly if it didn’t seem like his mind was deserting him.

Lestat’s throat spasmed around him suddenly, and instead of pulling away, he let out a few short puffs of air through his nose, body shifting, hand sliding up Louis’ stomach, up his chest. When Louis felt fingertips at his throat, he almost batted them away. 

It was an almost chilling reminder that unlike Jonah, and the trysts he’d had with the women who frequented his nightclubs, Lestat was physically his equal. In height, there wasn’t more than an inch or two of difference, and in breadth, they were much the same. 

Louis had no idea who was stronger, but he was suddenly liking his chances less and less as he felt long, pale fingers wrap around his throat and squeeze ever so gently. 

“Lestat—” Louis rasped indignantly, but then Lestat sank down lower onto his cock, saliva bubbling up at the corners of his mouth, and as his throat tightened like a vice, Lestat’s hand around Louis’ neck did the same. Probably reflexive, but the pressure on both ends was heady. 

His heel dug hard into the couch cushions, and out of instinct, he grabbed at Lestat’s wrist, not removing his hand, but feeling for the shifts in the tendons of his wrist, tracking it as his pleasure mounted. 

Lestat had the timing of a musician, or the reflexes of a cat. Every time he choked or spluttered or half-gagged, the grip on Louis’ throat would tighten and then relax. 

Louis could almost hear Lestat’s purring croon. You’re doing this with me, isn’t it fun? 

Something seemingly enormous tightened and pulled in his belly, and he glanced down at the shining crown of Lestat’s head, rasping against the hold on his throat: “ Lestat— do you swallow?” 

A single wet blue eye, half-crushed in pure confusion, lashes tangled together. Louis had no idea what swallow was in French, nor how to translate around it, but it hardly mattered, because a moment later, he was coming. 

Lestat made a vaguely-troubled sound of surprise, but Louis couldn’t look at him. He could only feel pleasure ebbing out from him in short, almost-aggressive bursts, and then the soft, smooth rasp of a tongue on his softening cock. Blindly, he reached out and stroked through Lestat’s sweat-damp hair. Despite coming for what felt like an eternity, the shaft of his erection and the sparse but dark hair which surrounded it was mostly dry, save for the slick gleam of saliva. 

“Yes,” Louis panted, head light, body as heavy as lead, fingers still tangled in Lestat’s hair. “I guess you do.” 

Lestat mouthed idly at the skin of his pelvis, then his stomach, lips tacky but soft. He settled his forehead in the slight concave of Louis’ sternum, close enough that Louis could smell the vaguely sweet perfume of his hair, and let out a shaky exhale. He then let a little of his weight off his knees, and suddenly, Louis felt the hot brand of his erection press into his thigh. 

Oh, right, he thought hazily. 

Lestat flinched, as if predicting protest from Louis, and rolled onto his back, nestling himself between Louis’ legs, the back of his skull pressed against Louis’ chest. It might have saved Louis from the contact, but his arousal was entirely on display, even clothed as he was. 

Lestat’s right hand ghosted over the outline of his own cock through the fabric of his pants, then jerked away as if he’d been burned. He rested his open palm instead on his lower stomach, fingertips stretching to nearly the entire width of his waist.  

He looked painfully hard, but he didn’t do anything, just lied there, eyes lidded, ear and cheek pressed against Louis’ chest. His hand twitched again, the pinky finger dipping lower, to where the waistband of his underwear just peeked out from his pants. 

“Do it,” Louis rasped. Lestat looked back and upside down at him, eyes still watering, face pale everywhere except for his cheeks. 

Touch yourself, Louis wanted to say, but instead of speaking the words out loud, he leaned forward, winded as he was, and nosed firmly at Lestat’s forehead. 

Go on. 

Lestat’s head tipped back down, he exhaled shakily, and then he slid his hand, flat, beneath the waistband of his pants. His breathing turned sharp as he pulled himself out of his pants, hand wrapped around the length of his erection. 

Louis shifted himself a little, to avoid the bulk of Lestat’s weight pressing down between his legs, where he was still sensitive and throbbing slightly. 

Lestat lifted his hips up, to push his pants a little further down, and then pressed his palm hard against himself, pinning his cock to the flat of his belly in the same gesture Louis had done earlier, the muscle in his thighs and pelvis twitching. Almost entirely nude, Lestat’s body took on the same massive appearance that it did in Louis’ little yellow-tiled bathroom, a sculptural structure of muscle and bone and skin that was seemingly endless. 

Lestat brought his hand up to his mouth and spat once, then twice, into his palm. The spit, a small fraction of which was Louis’ own come, glistened obscenely in the dim light. Louis felt an almost uncontainable surge of arousal course through him as Lestat brought that hand back down and slicked himself up with it. Desperate and uncertain where to put it, he bit down hard and wet on the cartilage of Lestat’s ear. 

“Hah—” A mix between a gasp and an indignant cry from Lestat. Louis eased up on the bite, kissing where his teeth had left faint indentations, licking over the kisses in an almost mindless manner that had Lestat’s head trying to cringe away.

Louis moved his own leg until he was straddling Lestat properly from behind and then hooked his heel over Lestat’s thigh, finding purchase in the hollow behind his knee. Holding his leg down and open. The adductor muscle in his inner thigh flared against his skin like the flash of an alarm, and Louis remembered that men were not usually as flexible as women, that wrenching open a thigh might not be as welcome. But Lestat didn’t protest in any real way. 

He touched himself with a frankness, like Louis wasn’t there, or rather, like he was showing Louis what he liked, for him to remember later. The back of his head dug hard into Louis’ chest, belly tightening, ribs flashing. 

Louis pressed his hand flat to Lestat’s forehead, pushing up to scoop that blonde hair out of his face. He did it again, stroking, like one might pet a cat, and then a third time, only he started lower, palm covering Lestat’s eyes and brows. He could feel Lestat’s lashes flutter against his hand, could see a glistening bead drip down the head of his cock. 

It’s just pleasure, Louis, Lestat had said. 

Lestat let out a slew of gritted-out sounds. The leg that Louis had pinned with his own tensed and pushed against the hold. Louis still had his hand over Lestat’s eyes. He hadn’t moved it, he didn’t want to. 

There was something incredibly fortifying about being the only one here who could see. He watched with an indulgence that would have humiliated him if there was an audience, watching pleasure ripple through Lestat’s body, tighten him in some places, loosen him in others. 

It was hard to tell what was a performance for him, and what was genuine, but in the moment, it all felt incredibly real. 

Lestat’s hips bucked suddenly, a flash of movement that had every muscle in his stomach pushing against skin. His hand tightened around himself, though it didn’t speed up, and he came onto his own stomach with a soft, restrained moan. 

Lestat’s head blindly shifted, mouth parted, tongue pushing hard against the bottom of his teeth. 

Louis didn’t want to move his hand from Lestat’s eyes. He was almost terrified of it, and so instead, he took his other hand and pressed it firm against Lestat’s chest. There was a fine dusting of golden hair that was nearly invisible to the naked eye, but Louis could feel it as he rubbed lopsided circles against the skin there. 

Oh, God, Louis thought.

Chapter Text

With his sight gone, Lestat’s other senses came tripping to the forefront: the faint odor of soap and tobacco on Louis’ fingers, the rapid flutter of Louis’ heartbeat against his back, the soft rasp of his breath in his ribcage. Sweet, sensitive Louis had a bit of a mean streak, Lestat was discovering. 

He reached up, blindly, and pulled Louis’ hand away from his eyes, having to pry off each finger. Louis cleared his throat and then made a sound like he’d just woken up from a deep sleep. 

Lestat stood up from the couch first, spill running down the length of his thigh. The lamp in the corner of the room seemed brighter than it did a few minutes ago. The ivory linen sofa looked so bright now that it almost appeared to contain a light source within itself, in the same way that the whites of a person’s eyes could sometimes glow in the dark. 

Louis was still sprawled lengthwise on the couch, chest heaving, eyes lidded as he looked up at Lestat. He had his socks on, and his t-shirt was rucked up past his belly-button, and he looked up at Lestat with a calm, almost-innocent expression, like he hadn’t just cradled him from behind and put his hand over Lestat’s eyes and watched as he brought himself to orgasm. 

“Can I—” Lestat cleared his throat, shocked at how hoarse his voice sounded. “Can I use your shower?” 

Louis’ lips twitched ever so slightly, and Lestat couldn’t quite tell if it was meant to be mocking or fond. 

“Yeah.” He stood up, then looked down at himself and grabbed his pants off the carpet and pulled them on, no underwear, belt still undone. Lestat followed him to the shower and let him turn it on, even though he knew by now how it worked. 

There was a faint gurgle, a hiss, and then lukewarm water poured down onto butter-yellow tiles. 

As soon as Lestat was safely tucked away into the shower, out of sight, Louis felt a sudden and enormous onslaught of emotion. He glanced at his hands, which shook faintly where they clenched at the back of one of his dining chairs. He paced in a circle around the table, then walked mindlessly to his bedroom, checking the bedside table where he kept Florence’s pills. 

Mama, something’s wrong with my head. 

For a few moments, he let himself stand totally still, listening to the patter of the shower, muffled through the wall, and the distant crash of the ocean. It was no longer so difficult to breathe—it became one of those background functions, like blinking or wettening his lips with his tongue when they became dry. 

As if on autopilot, Louis gathered extra linens from the closet and began to set up a bed on the sofa for Lestat. It felt very productive, but he knew himself well enough to tell when he was afraid. He must have tucked the sheet beneath the cushions ten different times, pulling tight at the linens like he was a hotel maid. 

The shower was still going, and it made Louis wonder if Lestat was going another round by himself in there, or if he was standing nude and still beneath the spray, in the same kind of stupor as Louis. Likely not. 

When the makeshift bed could no longer be fussed with, Louis checked his emails. He thought about sending a message to Grace, under the guise of asking for an update on Florence, but no matter how casually he worded it, there was an undercurrent of desperation that disgusted him. She’d parse through it instantly, if she cared to. 

It was bleak, realizing that the only person he could possibly talk to was wasting his hot water a few feet away. But he didn’t trust Lestat with this. He had too much skin in the game, so to speak, and he wasn’t plagued with these kinds of fears. A priest who drank, who adultered, who laid down with men, who lied. 

When Lestat emerged from the shower and padded into the living room, there was a makeshift bed set up for him on the couch. Louis was sitting on one of the chairs at the dining table, knee propped up, laptop open in front of him, illuminating his face with a cool, blue-white light. He looked tired, but very handsome. 

Lestat glanced at the bedding on the couch, swallowing down sourness in his throat. Louis looked almost cold, but Lestat couldn’t be sure. 

In the time that Lestat had been showering, he’d changed into a pale blue sweatshirt that Lestat had never seen before. It didn’t look like anything he’d usually wear, and it occurred to him, a little belatedly, that Louis probably had an entire life in this cottage, totally separate from the self he projected when he went into town. No wool trousers, no sharp, short, stiffly-collared jackets and pebble-grained leather belts. 

Louis rubbed at his face a little tiredly and reached for the wine glass next to him, only to realize it was empty. 

Lestat looked again at the bed set up for him on the couch. The quilt had been folded down very neatly, a flat sheet tucked around the couch cushions. It had been done with such care. 

“Is your bed very small?” Lestat asked. Louis’ expression curdled. 

“Don’t do that.” 

“It was a question.” 

“You know what it was. Besides, you’re—in a few days, a few weeks, you’re going to—” He broke off, looking frustrated. 

“What am I going to do?” 

Louis bit at his thumbnail, looking towards the door.

“Sabine was asking for you, did I mention that?”

“Yes,” Lestat said thinly. He was growing tired of her name being tossed around, tired of how ready Louis was to hide behind it. “Yes, you mentioned it.”

“I’m not going to be like Sabine,” Louis said gruffly. The computer light had dimmed, shadowing parts of his face. The rest of the place was dark save for that single lamp in the corner, dark and suddenly very cold. Lestat’s hair kept trickling water down his back.

 “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Lestat rasped, and he did.

“I’m not going to be like her, so if that’s what you want—“

It was almost painful, but not very surprising, at how quickly they could go from the intimacy on the couch to whatever this was. Lestat felt as if he was speaking to a stranger, and Louis still hadn’t closed his laptop, like he was desperate to keep a physical divide between them. 

Lestat felt a strange little hitch inside of himself, like a gear kicking into place. He glanced at the destroyed photography book he’d left on the coffee table. It was open to a half-torn page of the Paris skyline, and the sight of those thick square limestone buildings with their sweet wrought-iron balcony railings caused a surge of bile in his throat. 

He walked over to Louis, crossing a distance that was no more than a couple yards, but felt immense. Louis shifted in his chair, licked his lips nervously. His casual dismissal, setting up a bed on the couch, mentioning Sabine, hadn’t worked like he’d hoped.

Lestat grabbed Louis’ chin, a little harder than he would have otherwise, tilting his head back a little further than necessary, so that Louis was swallowing roughly and with mild difficulty, and then he kissed him. 

Louis’ leg reflexively kicked out at the chair leg beside him, and he exhaled sharply through his nose. Lestat was delighted to discover that Louis—even when caught off-guard—was a participatory kisser, with teeth and tongue and a hand at the back of the head. 

Lestat pulled away first, blinking away a haze of lust and dwindling anger.

“I’ll see you, Louis. That is what you say, yes? I’ll see you.”

“Yes,” Louis rasped. He looked wildly uncertain now. 

Lestat glanced once more at the bed set up for him on the couch. From anyone else, it might have been a sweet gesture—gentlemanly. But Lestat knew Louis better than that. 

Lestat walked the ever-familiar path to a well-appointed property on the north side of the beach. He ignored the front door and went straight to the guest house. He needed only to flick the outdoor light on, which was kept hidden by a plastic cover near the door, and then footsteps came from the main house, careful but a little loud in the otherwise silent air. This close to the ocean, the roar of the waves became like white noise, absorbed back into itself, and every other noise became so stark. Lestat had almost been driven insane by it when he first moved here.

Sabine was wrapped in a thick ivory robe, hair done up in curlers, her eyes pale and wide without their usual layer of makeup. 

“You haven’t called,” she said, sounding a little indignant, speaking in her clipped Parisian French that Lestat always found very charming. He beamed. 

“I’ll make it up to you, yes?” 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, in a soft, wounded voice. “You haven’t called me.” 

“Yes, I know.” 

“You usually call, and you haven’t, not for the past few weeks.” 

“My mother’s been—” 

“Gabrielle,” Sabine said, with a strange sharpness to her voice, “I know.” 

“I’ve been terribly busy.” 

“I think you should go home,” she murmured. Her hand clenched the edge of her robe like she was afraid an errant breeze might expose herself. 

“I cannot.” 

“You should go anyway.” 

Her hands appeared more veined than usual, almost spidery, and the bones in her wrists stood out so much that it appeared she had broken them and they were pushing against her thin skin unnaturally. In the summer, she used to stand in front of the mirror and touch the parts of her that were starting to show her age. She was thin, like most of the women here, but she loathed the dimples in the backs of her legs, and she liked to run her fingers around the corrugated stretch of Lestat’s ribcage as he laid in bed next to her, sighing wistfully. 

I used to have a body like this. Don’t waste it, you hear me? Never get married. 

“I really cannot, Sabine, do you understand?” He couldn’t begin to explain the mess he had gotten himself into, the recklessness, the desperation of it. 

Louis had come to him, picking his way carefully through the undergrowth like one of those shy Pyrenees-dwelling bucks, and Lestat had crashed right through the trail with a gun strapped to his back. 

Sabine took a few steps forward, cupped his chin, and the warmth of her hand and of her expression was overwhelming. He swallowed roughly.

“Oh, Lestat,” Sabine whispered sadly, knowingly. “Come here, that’s it. Come.” 

She still had her hand on his chin as she reached behind herself with the other hand to open the door to the guest house. There was a dusty elliptical in the corner, and fishing rods, and photos of her children, red-faced and grinning on the beach. 

And then of course, the bed, which they had spent many lazy afternoons in. 

“Come, Lestat, it’s alright,” she murmured, eyes crushed with a strange kind of emotion. Lestat let her guide him to the bed. Sometimes, in the past, when he’d been feeling strident and hungry, he got to play the role of the enthusiastic young lover, the debonair, and he’d roll the two of them into the bedding and Sabine would make the sounds that a girl would make, in the height of pleasure. 

But Lestat was exhausted, and wrung out, and he knew he wouldn’t harden again right away, so he let Sabine curl herself around and atop of him, deceivingly warm and heavy despite her slightness. 

“What have you done, Lestat?” She murmured against his cheek. “Hm? Tell me.” 

Louis left the bedding on the sofa until the late afternoon, until it became unbearable to look at. He’d been watching through the window, to catch any movement in the dark church windows, but he saw nothing, no sign of life, no sign of Lestat. 

He was still watching when a figure appeared over the crest of the hill, much smaller than Lestat, with a different swagger to their walk, but even with the newsboy cap over their head, the bright blonde hair was unmistakable. 

Louis glanced around the cottage quickly, looking at the space with the eyes of a stranger, to see if what had happened last night was evident in the way the sofa cushions were crushed or in the lay of the rug on the floor. 

And then there was a quiet, restrained knock, and Gabrielle was standing at his door. 

“Is Lestat here?” She asked roughly, peering around the door jam in a way that most people would consider rude. 

“No,” Louis said hoarsely, and then he frowned. “You haven’t seen him?” 

Gabrielle’s eyes narrowed. There was no evidence in her face that she had experienced any kind of emotion really, not even the slightest bit of strain in her brow, but her voice was dull and a little frustrated. 

“No,” she said after a long pause. Once again, she looked around Louis’ shoulder at the interior of the cottage. Louis had a few ideas of where Lestat could be, one in particular that sent an angry, cold jolt through him. All because he’d set up a bed on the sofa. 

“I was going to drink,” Gabrielle said plainly. 

“Yes,” Louis said, in a voice that felt desperate. 

“Yes,” she echoed. And without another word said between the two of them, Louis grabbed his coat and they walked down the hill, past the church, and into town. 

Le Coq Rouge was not particularly busy, it being a Monday afternoon, but they had still set up the patio tables outside, and a handful of people milled about the iron chairs. One young couple sat on the low stone wall that separated the walkway from the beach, drinking from plastic cups and tossing olive pits into the sand. 

Gabrielle sat at one of the tables furthest from the other bar goers and tore off her cap and her jacket like she was suddenly very warm. 

Louis took that as his cue to get the both of them beer. 

“So, you’re not ashamed of the money,” Gabrielle said in a voice a little too loud for her surroundings as soon as Louis returned. He could tell by her tone that she was feeling playful, and like her son, that playfulness almost always came out callous. 

“You’re not ashamed of the money,” Gabrielle said again, a little quieter, then her head turned, and Louis swore he saw a flash of Lestat in that sharp, wild expression. “So what are you ashamed of?” 

Lestat must have told her after the first time, he must have. Louis glanced around himself desperately, then back to her.

“I don’t know what—” But he was interrupted by Gabrielle’s tiny, pale hand lifting up to silence him.

“Lestat has said nothing. No need to look like that. But I’m not stupid.” She inspected the foam top of her beer critically. The wet bottom of the glass had picked up a layer of sand, which made an awful scraping sound as she slid the glass a few inches away from the table’s edge. 

“Deviation, if you haven’t noticed, has never bothered me.” 

She sipped at her drink, the tip of her pink tongue darting out like a cat to catch a few stray droplets along the rim. She really was stunning, and not even the men’s clothing and the surliness and extreme dysfunction as a mother could take that away from her. 

“Anyway, I did actually come here to say something. I’ve been watching you the past week or so, and I mean the plural you. You guys, or whatever it is that Americans say.” 

Louis felt an awful twisting coldness in his gut, though the inside of his mouth remained piping hot, like the cold beer was reacting chemically with his tongue. 

“You’re deeply unhappy,” she said quietly. “and you take it out on him, and he lets you, because he’s really a very sweet boy. But he’s like an animal, he reacts to things without calculation. It’s totally pure. But he’s an animal, and he will get fed up with it, and you might hurt each other.” 

Gabrielle leaned forward, eyes bleary, mouth loose. 

“If you want that, go ahead. I’m done being a mother.” 

“I don’t think you ever even started,” Louis said coldly. Gabrielle smiled wolfishly. 

“Oh, that’s good.” But then her expression fell slightly, mouth twitching down into something like a frown. Louis thought it was probably regret, but it was almost impossible to tell. Her face was like a mask, totally the opposite of her son’s, which showed every mercurial flash of emotion whether he wanted it to or not. 

Louis had wrongly assumed before meeting Gabrielle that Lestat had a sick, unrequited obsession with his mother that she had cruelly cultivated over many years, but he was realizing now, or had been realizing, over the week and a half that she’d been here, that she loved him immensely, and that was almost worse. 

He looked at her, and felt this strange detached pity, cradled underneath by a deep disdain, and yet, he was at Le Coq Rouge, sharing a drink with her, listening to her talk as she fiddled with the sleeve of her jacket. 

That jacket, like the rest of her clothing, was clearly designed for men. 

“What’s the deal with your clothes?” Louis asked. 

Gabrielle’s brow rose slowly, and then her mouth split into a cold, toothless smile. 

“Careful,” she said. 

“You didn’t always dress like that, did you?” 

Gabrielle shifted in her seat. 

“How’s your mother doing, Louis?” 

“Oh, fuck you,” he said automatically, blinking hard. Of course Lestat had told her, of course he had. 

“Sorry,” Gabrielle said, still smiling unhappily. “Anyway, you won’t be dealing with me for much longer.” 

“You’re leaving,” Louis said stupidly. He’d been expecting it, but it still came as a strange shock. 

“I’ve got to,” Gabrielle said in a very American way. She leaned back in her chair, taking her pint glass with her. “I’ve got to.” 

“Where will you go?” 

“I’m not telling.” 

“I’m not unhappy,” Louis said belatedly. In fact, beside the past twenty-four hours, he’d been the happiest he’d been in years, and even now, amidst all this uncertainty, none of the misery felt very permanent. 

“Okay,” Gabrielle said with a shrug. 

“Are you going to say goodbye?” 

Gabrielle looked out at the ocean to her left, expression pinched but not especially troubled. 

“Probably. He’s sulking at the moment, but it never lasts long.” Sulking felt like a strange way to put it, but Louis didn’t say that. 

“He’d want to see you before you go.” 

“Of course he would,” Gabrielle said tiredly. Louis got the sense that this had happened many times before, and he could imagine it perfectly: Lestat trying and failing to convince her to stay just a little longer, smiling with tears in his eyes, and Gabrielle clapping him on the shoulder and zipping off to a new adventure. 

Gabrielle drained the rest of her beer, licking her bottom lip contemplatively.

“My sons are going to fight over the inheritance. The cash is fairly meagre, but the estate is valuable, and they’ll fight like dogs over it. You may need to help Lestat with those things, lawyers and all that.” Her gaze was intense, almost flinty. “He’s never cared much about those things, so you may need to help him.” 

Louis knew all about lawyers and inheritances and the cold mathematical language of a will. 

“Are you going to be in your mother’s will, do you think?” Gabrielle thumbed at a ring on her forefinger as she spoke, like she was looking to soothe herself.

It was such an awful question, one that Louis hadn’t thought much about, but for some reason it made him laugh. 

He felt almost hysterical at the thought of Florence passing down her cars, which he had paid for, and her house, which he had paid for, and her Bvlgari and Cartier jewelry, which Grace had picked out but he, of course, had paid for. 

“I don’t think so.” 

Gabrielle, for a moment, looked very sad for him, which made Louis want to collapse against the table like a tired, old dog, cheek to the splintered wood. 

“I have to pack,” she said after a few moments of silence. Louis watched her stand up, tucking her cap back over her head.

“If you see Lestat, will you send him my way?” He asked softly. 

“I don’t think I’ll need to, but yes.” 

She held out her hand, which despite looking quite small and feminine, was rough and dry to the touch. They shook like businessmen, like a deal had just been signed, and then Gabrielle was walking down the street, stepping carefully around loose cobblestones. The sun hit her harshly on one side, giving the impression that her navy trousers were black on the left and a bright royal blue on the right. As Louis watched her go, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would never see her again. 

Louis continued to nurse his beer, letting the sun warm his skin through his clothes, and when the first beer was eventually drained, he raised up a hand at the bartender and a second one was brought moments later. Foam spilled over the glass on one side, wettening Louis’ fingers where he touched it.

Louis! Louis thought he might have been imagining the voice. It sounded a bit like Lestat, but the tone was so cheerful, almost relieved, that he knew it couldn’t belong to him. He lifted his head warily, only to sink back into his sweat in relief at the sight of Hugo walking animatedly towards him on the promenade. 

If Louis had been having trouble remembering where Hugo worked, the mere sight of the boy would be reminder enough. He was still in knee-high rubber galoshes—a requisite for labor on an oyster farm—and his bright blonde hair was curled chaotically in ten different directions, no doubt stiff to the touch with salt. 

Louis made the same lazy gesture to the bartender and another beer, the same one he was drinking, we dropped off at the table. 

Hugo’s face brightened as he sat down. 

“I have seen you around, but I have not said hello.”  He sipped cautiously at the beer. “I am—you can tell me the word— timide.”

“Shy,” Louis offered, and Hugo snapped his fingers in delight. 

“ Shy, it does not sound American, does it?”

“I don’t know the etymology,” Louis said dryly, and he could tell instantly by Hugo’s expression that he had lost him. 

“How are you?” Louis asked instead. The smile he gave was forlorn and a little bland.

“You’ve made friends with the priest,” Hugo said instead of answering, grinning in a crooked way. 

“He lives across the way,” Louis replied immediately, and he knew a moment after that he sounded far too defensive about it.  

“You’ve made friends with him,” Hugo said again, cocking his head. “How did you do that?” 

“It was pretty easy,” Louis said, feeling the first bit of amusement he’d felt all day. He didn’t think he would have been able to avoid a friendship with Lestat, not even if he tried. Hugo shook his head, curls bouncing. 

“It is not. He has no friends—oh I don’t mean that to be rude.” His eyes suddenly grew huge and earnest. “I’m not trying to be rude, I’m just saying, he’s always been very alone.” 

Louis frowned, thinking of Simone and the others that met at Le Nid, and the large group of townspeople who attended the church, and even Sabine, who Louis couldn’t quite tell if he despised or not. 

But the more he thought about it, the more he was starting to realize that yes, Lestat might be well-liked here, maybe even doted on by the likes of Sabine and the churchgoers, but his friendships did seem nonexistent. Not for the first time, Louis was struck by the image of a wild creature, like a deer living amongst sheep, or a wolf among dogs. 

“It is not surprising,” Hugo mused, “you are—is this the right word? I am not sure— charming.” He pronounced the ch like sh. 

Louis raised both eyebrows, and almost wanted to say: you should have seen me before my brother killed himself, I was unstoppable. 

Instead, he replied: “yes, that’s the right word I think.” 

“Okay,” Hugo said, looking relieved. Then he smiled again, a quick, fleeting gesture on his face. “But you are friends, yes?” 

“Yeah.” 

“ Yeah,” Hugo echoed, in a way that reminded Louis of Lestat. He drummed his fingers on the table, fingers which were slightly pruned and worn at the nail beds. “So, you are liking it here?” 

“Yes,” Louis said, feeling an itch in his throat, like he was lying, though he didn’t think he was. Hugo sipped cautiously at his beer, and Louis suddenly wondered if he should have even ordered the boy alcohol, much less left his pack of cigarettes on the table between them. 

“Hugo.” 

“Hm?” 

“How did you know those things about Lestat? About the blonde women and his mother, those things?” 

Hugo blinked, peeling his fingers from the condensation on the glass of his beer. 

“Oh, everyone talks about it.” 

“Is that all they say?” 

“I do not understand.” 

“What else do they say about Lestat, is there anything else?” 

Does he seduce men, too? Have you ever heard of a man named Magnus? 

Hugo smiled twitchily. 

“I have heard little things, pieces. But none of it is—I mean, you should know these things already.” 

“We don’t talk about serious things,” Louis lied. Hugo nodded, like this made perfect sense.

“My father says he’s dangerous, that he killed a man in Paris, and that’s why they sent him here. Has he tried to kill you? We all thought he might have killed Gabrielle, because she disappeared for a long time, but it seems she was just travelling. She is very beautiful, Gabrielle.” Hugo spoke quickly, without pause, and whatever he saw in Louis' face must have prompted him to continue. 

“I don’t think he is dangerous, just strange.” A quick, nervous sip at his beer. “He’s always been kind to me.” 

“Yes,” Louis said faintly. 

“Are you alright?” Hugo leaned suddenly over the table. 

“Yes,” Louis repeated. He didn’t know how to tell Hugo he wanted to be alone now, but thankfully, Hugo finished his beer only a moment later, and he seemed to understand by Louis’ expression that there wouldn’t be a second round. 

“Bye, Louis, I will see you.”  

“Yeah,” Louis said quietly. He waited for Hugo to disappear between two buildings—a bakery that had shut its doors for the day and a swim shop that seemed to cater exclusively to desperate tourists who’d left their bathing suits at home—before making his way back to the cottage. 

The rest of that afternoon passed in a blurry haze. Louis thought about Gabrielle packing her things, thought about her checking out of that boutique hotel, trudging across the hillside to the highway like an American Beat poet on an adventure. 

It was hard to really hate her, even knowing what he knew about her. She was one of the few people Louis had met who was truly individual. 

He cracked open a bottle of wine, because the beers hadn’t been quite enough, and ate prosciutto straight from the fridge. Once again, he thought about messaging Grace, but the longer he spent here and not in New Orleans, the less necessary she felt to him. This must have been what happened to Gabrielle: a few months spent wandering the Caucuses and suddenly she was no longer a mother or a daughter or a wife. 

He didn’t like the feeling, but he stewed in it until the cottage grew dark. 

He might have fallen asleep on the sofa at one point, because the next thing he remembered was the sound of a faint knock on the door, which was quickly followed up by a trio of bangs, like someone was slamming their palm against the wood. 

His heart pounded as he stood.

“Coming,” he said blearily, knowing who it had to be. 

It was hard not to feel a dark curl of satisfaction at the sight of Lestat standing in his doorway. He must have come straight from the church because he was still in his cassock and there was a visible glow from the church windows in the distance. 

The workers’ van had long since disappeared for the night. How long would they be repairing that grim little basement? How long would Lestat be adrift?

“You—” Louis began. 

Lestat dropped to his knees with a heavy, painful-sounding thud, as if his legs had just given out. He remained there, at Louis’ feet, massive in the dark.

“Don’t,” Louis said, voice thick and weak with revulsion. “Don’t do that.” Against his better judgment, he cupped Lestat’s chin, his thumb stroking that sharp jaw. 

“Don’t, Lestat,” he said again, unable to remove his hand. Lestat looked up at him, eyes lost and swimming, nearly black in this light. 

His head moved forward, nuzzling into Louis’ hip, like some great, lumbering dog. He exhaled shakily. Louis looked up at the groaning ceiling with its wide, aged beams, and whispered a bleak, meaningless prayer. 

“This is not right,” Louis murmured after. Lestat’s eyes were screwed shut, his face pressed now to Louis’ crotch, and despite everything, it was somehow sexless, still dog-like. Louis, in his stupid grief, thought of Paul, thought of his mother and Grace, anything but the large shape at his feet, trembling not from the cold but with some kind of unknowable emotion. 

“You’re doing this because of—” Louis didn’t want to say it out loud. He swallowed down a surge of odium. 

“Get up,” he whispered. “Please, stand up.” 

He was stiffening in his pants, to his horror, and Lestat had to feel it against his cheek. Louis could have moved him easily, could have dug his fingers in that hair and pulled his head away. 

A very naive part of him had thought the other night was the end of it. Lestat had been drunk with grief, Louis had been just plain drunk, and they’d acted in a way that was bizarre. He’d almost wanted to call Grace and tell her, laughing casually, in total disbelief: the craziest thing just happened, please laugh with me. You have to laugh. 

But Lestat was back again, and Gabrielle was gone, and everything about it tasted bitter in Louis’ mouth. He didn’t like seeing Lestat so close to his cock. It stirred that same feeling as the other night, that Lestat might open his mouth and reveal teeth as long as pinkie fingers, and devour him in a handful of enormous bites like a starving wolf. 

“Lestat,” Louis rasped. “Please. Get up.”

But again, he didn’t push him away. His hand came down to cup the back of Lestat’s head, cradling his face between the crease of hip and thigh. 

“Gabrielle left,” Louis said. Lestat hadn’t spoken a word. “I know she’s left. You aren’t thinking straight. Your head’s not right.” And neither is mine. 

“Are you listening to me?” Louis grabbed him by the shoulders, fingers snagging on the fabric of his cassock as he pulled him bodily to his feet. Lestat staggered, then swayed, and then with all the demanding bluster of his usual self, captured Louis’ head in a cradle between his hands and kissed him.

His weight fell back onto his heels, and he took a few startled steps backwards, dragging Lestat with him without even considering the alternative. 

You can push him away. He’s probably stronger, but not by much. 

It was hysterical thinking.

Lestat ended up pulling away first, panting hard, eyes wide and white and searching. 

“Don’t make me sleep on the sofa, Louis.” 

“Stop.” 

“There’s nothing to be—” 

“ Stop , for a moment, stop.” Louis took a few steps back. His head raced, and he almost felt sick. Lestat still smelled of his shampoo, and the scent, which he should have been used to by now, was overwhelming. 

“I need to think.” 

“Why?” 

Like a child asking, why, why why? 

“I need a moment.” 

Lestat’s eyes darted around the house before settling on Louis. His expression was soft and wounded, but he stood there, at full height, like he had no plans to leave. 

“What is there to think about?” He whispered, half-gentle, half-goading. He smiled a little crookedly, and took a step forward. Immediately, Louis was reminded of that dream from his first week here: a blonde priest with bloodied hair, feathers covering the floor of a church like forest moss, Paul kneeling in the aisle, waiting to be consumed whole. 

“Can you—for once— listen to me? I said give me a minute, I said—” 

“I listen to you,” Lestat said softly. “I always listen to you.” His expression twisted suddenly, lip lifting into a sneer. “I listen to you,” he said firmly. 

“Shut up, Lestat, for a moment .” 

Lestat stepped forward again, looming over Louis as much as he could with only an inch or two of height on him. 

“Don’t fucking do that,” Louis snarled, “I hate when you do that.” 

“You thought I’d sleep on the sofa, you—” 

“You’ve been staying with Sabine,” Louis shot back. “You can’t be angry with me, you’ve been staying with Sabine.” 

Lestat said nothing, though his eyes roved over Louis’ face slowly, like he was beginning to understand something novel. He reached up idly and tucked his hair behind his ear, only for it to come undone a moment later. 

“And you—” Louis choked against a sudden swell of emotion. “You told Gabrielle about Florence, you told her. Was that payback? Were you trying to—” 

“No,” Lestat said warily. 

“So you’re just stupid then? You just don’t think, is that it? What else did you tell her, Lestat? What else?” 

Lestat’s eyes turned flinty. 

“You are turning the subject.” 

“Changing,” Louis rasped. “Changing the subject.” 

“I didn’t tell her of last night, if that’s what—” 

“She knew anyway, she knew.” 

“I think she is not blind,” Lestat said coolly. “And I think you are afraid.” 

“Well done, Lestat,” Louis sneered. “That’s great.” He paced in a circle, ignoring the ominous chill he felt at turning his back to Lestat, even for a moment. It was some evil joke that Lestat was in his cassock of all things, and maybe it was on purpose, though deep down, Louis didn’t think so. 

“I didn’t tell her, Louis,” Lestat said, sounding almost sullen now. “I would not have—” 

“Fine,” Louis said faintly. 

“I am not—” 

“I said fine.” 

“I am not stupid,” Lestat whispered, like he was reassuring himself. 

“You don’t think,” and as Louis said it, he rubbed roughly at his throat, feeling the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallowed. “You don’t think sometimes. You come here like this, expecting—expecting what exactly?”

The sound of the ocean was louder than usual, and it took Louis a few moments to realize it was because the front door had been left half ajar. Wet, pulped grass gathered at the threshold. The waves were deafening, and the sound seemed to grow larger with every moment. And then there were the short, irritated breaths coming from Lestat’s nostrils, and the metallic rattle of the wind against the window frames. 

Louis couldn’t take anymore. There was a pain pulsating from behind his eyes, and it was probably the wine, but Lestat’s presence wasn’t helping. He was too close, hair a wild, white-blonde mane which took up most of his field of vision. He reached out without thinking much of it, planting one hand over Lestat’s mouth, using the other to cup the back of his head. 

For a moment, the entire cottage fell silent. It seemed as if even the ocean had suddenly stopped its ceaseless roiling. 

Lestat stared, indignant, shocked, and then slowly reached up and wrapped a hand around Louis’ wrist. His breath came out in short, harsh puffs from his nose, which reminded Louis, painfully, of the night before, of Lestat taking him into his mouth, and those gusts of air against the skin between his thighs. 

“Why would you come here, Lestat?” His head dropped, forehead pressing against Lestat’s sharp collarbone. Lestat made a soft, surprised sound. He didn’t seem to mind Louis’ hand very much. Though his grip hadn’t softened around Louis’ wrist, he hadn’t made any effort to pull it away. 

Louis could hear the rapid thump of Lestat’s heartbeat, the faintest rasp of air swelling his lungs and then deflating them. He mouthed mindlessly at the front of Lestat’s robes, tasting laundry detergent and salt from the ocean air. 

“I need to think,” Louis whispered. His mouth traveled up, past the stiff white of Lestat’s clerical collar, to the pale skin of his throat. 

Lestat shuddered. 

“I haven’t done this before, you know that? I don’t do this.” 

A tiny rapid nod. 

“But I think you have.” 

Another nod, but slower.

Louis grimaced. His mouth had found Lestat’s jaw at some point, and was about to encounter the tips of his own fingers. When he removed his hand from Lestat’s mouth, Lestat immediately kissed sloppily at the corner of his eye, like he’d been blinded, and when Louis didn’t jerk away, he continued a wet, rough path to Louis’ lips. 

A hand fisted into the bottom of his shirt, and they walked in an awkward sideways shuffle towards the hall. Louis hadn’t made his bed today, hadn’t cleared the mugs from his bedside, but his eyes weren’t open enough to notice and his mind wasn’t clear enough to remember. 

Lestat hadn’t been in here before, but he said nothing about the suitcase still open by the window. 

Lestat’s cassock came off the moment his knees touched the bed. He still wore a shirt and pants beneath, but the act of disrobing anything while kneeling on Louis’ duvet was more shocking than actual nudity would have been. 

Lestat’s eyes were red and glistening, and a distant part of Louis registered this may be a mistake, like pills from a plastic orange bottle being poured out onto a coffee table. 

Louis got up before Lestat could come any closer, stumbling into the bathroom to grab the bottle of lotion he kept beneath the sink. Lestat watched it with an unsettling wariness as he returned. 

I’m not Sabine, you know that, don’t you? 

He set the bottle on the bedside table, shucked his shirt off, and glanced behind him at Lestat, who remained perfectly still, kneeling on the bed, hair tucked behind his ears. 

“Lestat—” And Lestat must have known by the tone of Louis’ voice what he intended to ask, because before he could get to it, Lestat was replying in a thin voice: “I’m fine.” 

But he looked far from it. His eyes were locked on the lotion, nostrils flaring with uncertainty. 

Louis sat on the bed, back against the pillows, and those eyes darted to him, and he realized he had misunderstood a second too late. Maybe there had been uncertainty in Lestat’s expression, but it was the kind that promised a challenge, not a retreat. 

Lestat surged forward, just as he had in the living room, pressing Louis down into the pillows, kissing him fiercely. 

Lestat’s nose dug into Louis’s cheek, their bodies slotted against each other. 

“ Hold—” Louis began in between rough, wet bites to his lip. 

Lestat muscled his way between Louis’ thighs, using his hips like a battering ram.

“No,” Louis said firmly, pushing at his chest. “No, hold on.” Lestat kissed his throat, his jaw. 

“ Lestat— I’m not your fucking mother.” 

Lestat went stiff between his legs, then slowly pulled back and sat on his haunches. Louis felt hot in the face. He pressed his lips together, fearing he might have made a terrible mistake, but Lestat’s eyes were gleaming with a keen, familiar amusement. 

“Oh, that was cruel,” he whispered, lips curling. “For you,” he added as an afterthought.

Louis’ face crumpled. It pained him to admit how beautiful Lestat looked, with his black shirt half-unbuttoned, his hair damp at the ends, all curly and dark. 

“I didn’t mean that,” Louis said quickly.

“Don’t do that, Louis. I thought it was very impressive, you know.” He studied his own fingernails, and Louis took his hand by the fingertips and pulled it away from him. 

Lestat looked up slowly. 

He didn’t seem angry, Louis thought, but something else entirely. 

His nostrils flared, his head shifted slightly to the right, like he wanted to break the eye-contact but wasn’t quite able. 

“I didn’t mean that,” Louis repeated. 

“It’s alright.” 

“I shouldn’t have said it.” 

“Well,” Lestat said airily, “you did.” He was still sitting back on his haunches, looking like he was seconds away from pouncing again. 

“Did you—” Louis licked his bottom lip. “Sabine has a big house, doesn’t she? Did you stay in separate rooms?” 

Lestat’s head cocked. 

“No.” 

“Okay.” 

“I don’t like to sleep in separate rooms, if it can be helped.” There was a bit of coolness in his voice, a bit of accusation. Louis sat up a little more against the pillows. 

“I know.” 

Lestat wanted everything from him, that was why he looked at him like that when they walked along the beach early in the morning, when they drank late at night, why he’d gotten so angry when Louis set him up on the couch. He wanted everything from him. 

Louis swallowed roughly. 

“Are you going to go back?” 

Lestat’s expression clouded. 

“What would you like me to say, Louis?” 

“No,” Louis admitted, and then found it in him to crack a smile. Lestat’s eyes brightened. 

“Ask me, then. Ask me not to go back.” He leaned forward, pressing a palm into the bed, right next to Louis’ shoulder. 

“Will that make a difference?” Louis asked. Lestat’s nose was inches from his now. He loomed over Louis like a nightmare, eyes glistening in a strange way that had nothing to do with tears. 

“Of course,” Lestat whispered, and he looked almost shocked to be asked that question. 

Louis reached up mindlessly, curling his hand around Lestat’s nape, feeling a shiver shoot through him involuntarily. He couldn’t help but still feel like this was all a trap, that the moment he asked this of Lestat, the other man would grin and leap out of bed and take a picture of Louis sprawled on the bed with the flash on. 

Out of some sick need for insurance, Louis reached forward, slowly, so as not to startle either of them, and grabbed Lestat between the legs. 

Lestat’s mouth twitched, but otherwise, he didn’t move. 

“Don’t go back to Sabine’s house,” Louis rasped. There was a long, painful silence. Lestat was obnoxiously hard against his fingers, and Louis’ grip was tight enough that he could feel the throb of his pulse through his clothing.

“Why?” Lestat asked softly. 

“Don’t be a dick.” 

“Tell me why.” 

“You know why,” Louis said, swallowing nervously. 

“Okay.”

“That’s it?” Louis asked, a little incredulous. Lestat nodded slowly, like he was the confused one now. He was still kneeling halfway between Louis’ legs, weight settled on his heels, backlit in the otherwise dark room by the glow coming from the hallway.

The sofa had felt spontaneous and almost accidental, like two boys having a romp during summer camp. It felt like equal footing, even though it may not have been. 

This was different. Louis still had Lestat’s genitalia half-crushed within his hand, and Lestat hadn’t moved. Whether it was a measure of trust or something else entirely, Louis couldn’t be sure.

Minutes passed in heady, anticipatory silence. Lestat’s eyes bounced slowly from the bottle of lotion on the bedside table to Louis’ face. 

“I can do what I did last night,” he rasped suddenly. Louis blinked, and Lestat must have seen his confusion. “I can do what I did before. You don’t have to touch me.” His eyes glimmered as he sank prostrate between Louis’ legs. 

It was a little devastating, Louis thought, that Lestat assumed that’s what he wanted. 

He’s like an animal, Gabrielle was saying in his ear. You might hurt each other. 

Her tongue was catching errant droplets of beer along the rim of her glass, her eyes were bleached by the sunlight, pupils like pinpricks, lashes clustered together in a pensive squint. She was looking at Louis like she was disappointed in him, and it reminded him of Florence. 

He exhaled roughly, then curled his fingers in the front of Lestat’s shirt and pulled him upwards, up and up until their noses were a matter of centimeters from each other. Lestat licked his bottom lip, pupils blown like he was high. 

Louis glanced sideways at the bottle of lotion on the bedside, and Lestat’s eyes followed. 

Are you going to let me? 

He kissed the side of Lestat’s face, equal parts shocked and delighted to feel the faintest hint of stubble. With one hand still fisted in Lestat’s shirt, he slid the other down his back, slipping down the back of his pants, fingers and thumb digging into flesh and muscle, hard enough that he felt the almost rubbery squeal of skin giving way to force. 

“Off,” Louis rasped in between gasps for air, and Lestat echoed the word like a parrot and tugged his trousers down. He kicked them off one leg, floundering a bit like an unsteady colt, and then left them hooked around the other ankle. He wore no underwear, which Louis thought might be a bit sacrilegious in priest’s garb. 

And then he felt the full length of Lestat’s erection pressing against his belly. Once again, an alarm bell rang in his head, like he was being threatened or postured upon, but if Lestat felt the same way, he made no indication of it. He had his face buried in Louis’ neck, kissing and scraping with teeth at the tender skin there. 

Louis shoved his hand between their two bellies, relieving some of the pressure in his cock with a firm squeeze. He still had to rid himself of his own pants, but as soon as he tugged at the waistband, Lestat enthusiastically took over, kissing a trail down his stomach, hip, thigh, laving his tongue over his knee, until the pants were in a heap on the floor and they were both startlingly nude. 

Louis looked at the bottle of lotion, lifted his hand to reach for it, and suddenly there was a firm pressure against his bicep, pinning him down. Lestat suddenly sat above him, straddling him, staring down with flared nostrils and a peculiar, almost-callous expression. 

Louis felt like a poor sod from Florida whose pet tiger had just turned on him. 

“Well?” He asked, glancing at the hold Lestat had on his arm, sounding unintentionally arch. 

Lestat said nothing for a moment. 

Then: “I meant what I said, I can do for you what I did last night. You won’t have to touch me. It will be easy.” 

“You must be joking,” Louis hissed. He suddenly didn’t care that Lestat’s words reeked of insecurity, and that it might have been better soothed with kindness. 

Louis tried to push against Lestat’s weight, and Lestat eased up so much that they ended up rolling over like two warring tomcats. Lestat made a distinctly French sound of surprise as Louis sat himself up on Lestat’s torso, until his knees were pressing into Lestat’s armpits, and most of his weight was settled on his chest. Panting slightly, he planted his palm on Lestat’s forehead and pressed down. 

Lestat settled. 

“ You don’t have to touch me, seriously Lestat? What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

Lestat smiled crookedly. 

“I thought—” 

“I know what you thought,” Louis said, lip curling. It offended him, he was realizing, to be seen that way, even if Lestat had every reason to. 

“I don’t want that.”

“I’ve hurt your feelings,” Lestat said, smiling like he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. Louis kept forgetting there was this side to him, a side that was playful to a sinister extent, a side that could be cruel. 

“I’m not like that,” he said, blinking hard, thinking about Jonah kneeling in the footwell of his old Mercedes. 

“Touch me then,” Lestat said, sniffing it out like a reluctant challenge. 

Louis reached for the bedside table blindly and dispensed a generous amount of lotion onto his fingers. 

Then he looked down at Lestat, sprawled insouciantly on the bed before him, the pale expanse of his torso stretching on for miles. With every breath, the muscle in his stomach fluttered. 

They both glanced down at his cock, which was hard and had already left a tiny glistening spot on his belly. 

Lestat’s pubic hair was trimmed but not excessively so, and a dark gold in color. That same hair trailed up his navel very faintly, the strands so sparse and the color so fair that in the daylight, it would all but disappear. 

Louis thought he was stunning, and that priesthood was wasted on him, and then realized dumbly that no, given where they were and what they were doing, it actually wasn’t. 

“Will it be better if you turn over?” Louis asked, the words sounding oddly vulgar. 

Lestat’s expression was wry. 

“Better for who?” 

Louis had no idea how to answer that. 

“Roll over,” he rasped to Lestat instead. Lestat looked briefly reluctant, until Louis turned him over by the hip and pressed a kiss to his lower back, then another to his flank, and soon the kisses turned to light nips, scrapes of teeth. 

Lestat made an uncharacteristic sound in his throat as Louis bit so hard at a spot near his ribs that he left an indentation and tiny dots of blood still trapped beneath his skin.  He laved over the spot with his tongue in a sort of apology, then bit down again, just to hear Lestat yelp indignantly. 

Louis distracted him so thoroughly that when his lotion-covered fingers slipped down between his legs, Lestat almost didn’t react.

“You’ll have to bear with me, Lestat,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to his freckled shoulder. 

Lestat nodded tightly, like he was already bracing himself. 

Louis pressed a single, lotion-slick finger in, and winced in sympathy as Lestat’s body tightened, and he grunted sharply against the bedding. His other hand slid up and curled into Lestat’s hair until his blunt fingernails had reached the scalp. 

Sweat had gathered in tiny droplets along Lestat’s lower back, too perfect-looking to disturb. 

Louis tried to imagine the roles being reversed, and he could, quite easily. Lestat would be laughing like velvet in his ear, and he would be a smothering, overly-hot blanket over Louis’ back, he’d moan like he was acting in a perverse play. 

The second finger, and this time, Lestat groaned, open-mouthed, into the sheets. 

Those common logistical anxieties about sex— am I doing this right? Does this even feel good? — were nonexistent. Louis felt certain, he felt almost blind with arousal and still incredibly calm. 

One of Lestat’s pale, veined forearms slithered backwards and his hand grasped desperately at Louis’ thigh, nails digging in until Louis felt little starbusts of pain like cat teeth. 

A third finger. He angled them down now, understanding basic anatomy after all, and watched as Lestat flinched then relaxed with a loud, shaky sigh. 

Louis could tell by the sudden looseness of his shoulders that he was feeling more pleasure than discomfort. With his thumb, he stroked the inside of Lestat’s thigh. 

Lestat sank a little further into the mattress. His hips began to shift, first idly, then with more purpose: tiny aborted rolls into the bedding below. 

He turned his head to the side, glancing with a single wet eye in Louis’ direction. His gaze wasn’t as sharp as usual. His mouth moved slowly as he licked his bottom lip. 

“I won’t last,” he murmured. 

“That’s okay,” Louis replied, a little distracted. Lestat was tight and hot around his fingers.  

He still couldn’t get the idea out of his head that all of this was a last-resort for Lestat, the actions of someone who felt abandoned and lost, the actions of someone grieving. Louis could imagine himself doing the same thing very easily. 

Sullying himself, giving in to whatever most tempted him. 

If he was a little less selfish, he would have shoved Lestat away the moment he came to his door. 

Lestat let out a sudden, fractured moan, head turning to bury into the mattress. One of his hands wedged between his own stomach and the bedding, and Louis knew he was gripping himself, riding out the orgasm, anchoring it. 

Louis draped himself over Lestat’s damp back and kissed the side of his mouth. Lestat’s movements were slower now, syrupy. He kissed with a lazy insistence, mouth half-open, eyes like slits. 

“So last night wasn’t a fluke then,” Louis murmured against Lestat’s lips. “You are just quick.” 

He wasn’t sure if he intended it to be rude, but Lestat only made an amused sound like a purr. Not offended in the slightest. 

“I’ve had no complaints so far,” he rasped back. And that made Louis think of Sabine and he frowned, a bit of darkness creeping up his throat.

Lestat kissed him again. Louis could tell by the shape of his mouth that he was still smiling.

The hand he had used to finish himself off lifted—Louis saw it out of the corner of his eye—and that thumb pressed politely against Louis’ bottom lip. When he didn’t immediately pull away, Lestat slid two fingers, dripping with his spill, into Louis’ mouth, pressing down hard on his tongue like he was trying to trap it in place. 

Louis was too aroused to protest any of it.

All the while, Lestat kept kissing him, occasionally encountering his own fingers as he went, and Louis might have heard a rough, amused laugh, but then, his ears were ringing and his cock was viciously hard and Lestat’s fingers were inching their way down his throat. 

It was disgusting, he would have said, if he was able. But he still sucked Lestat’s fingers clean, and Lestat kissed him through it, humming appreciatively. 

When Louis eventually pulled away, it took him a few moments to form any coherent words. 

“That was foul, Lestat.” 

“Mm.” A distracted, unconcerned sound. 

Louis slicked his cock with more lotion, knowing that Lestat was beyond shame and there was no point in trying to force it. He could still taste his spill in his mouth, along with the bitter tannins of the wine he’d been drinking.

The lotion wasn’t the right texture, not slippery enough, but Lestat hadn’t made any complaints so far. 

Louis lined himself up, blinking sweat out of his eyelashes. Lestat had gone stiff again, a sound like a growl pouring out of a place deep in his chest. 

Louis pushed in slowly, as much for his benefit as Lestat’s. 

Lestat’s shoulders bunched as he pushed himself up onto his forearms, head bowing between his biceps, his breathing harsh. 

“Does it hurt?” Louis murmured, unsure whether—deep down—he wanted to hear a yes or a no. 

Lestat merely laughed in a short breathless manner. 

“If it helps,” Louis said dryly, “this will be quick for me too.” 

He pushed until there was nowhere left for him to go. Lestat had been holding his breath up until this moment, and when he released it, it came out in stuttered stops and starts. 

The muscle in his back pulled and shifted, like his body was trying to make sense of the intrusion, but otherwise he didn’t move. In fact, he was incredibly docile, almost sweet.

When he began to move, starting with only the most shallow of thrusts, Lestat only gasped. His fingers dug into the bedding, claw-like. 

And as Louis began to chase his own pleasure in earnest, Lestat let out soft, restrained groans at every handful of thrusts, bracing himself against the bed with his arms, head ducked, mouth open and pressed to his own bicep. 

There was something sinister about this submission. Louis didn’t trust it, even though he was desperate to keep it. As he gazed down at half of Lestat’s flushed, damp face, he got the sense that this was how Lestat was: a quid pro quo, a sly underhanded flash of his belly, and suddenly he had his teeth in you. 

This might even be the way in which he worshiped, like he was throwing God a bone, bowing prostrate when it suited him because he loved the game of it, and probably thought of himself as a god in his own right, too. All this talk of love seemed like only a half-truth. 

“Why are you letting me do this?” Louis demanded. He got a hold of Lestat’s hair, tugging his head to the side so that their mouths could meet. 

“Tell me,” Louis gasped against him. 

Lestat only replied with a strangled, pained groan. He was tense all over. Louis could feel one of his legs trying over and over to bend so he could get his weight under it, but the sheets were slippery, and Louis had so much weight on him. 

“Is this what you wanted?” Louis rasped against Lestat’s damp, pink cheek. They were stuck together like wet bandages. Lestat’s eyes were wide, glittering, sightless. 

“Yeah, see, you don’t even know.” Louis wanted to tell himself to shut up. He was talking too much, and Lestat was largely mute. The only sounds which left his mouth were guttural, involuntary ones that came from somewhere deep in his chest. 

“You’re going to kill me when this is over,” Louis whispered, this time to himself. “You might actually kill me.” Maybe Hugo had been right and Lestat had actually killed Magnus himself, and he’d do the same to Louis after this. 

A choked, rasped laugh from Lestat, like the cynical cawing of a crow. 

“You did this on purpose—” Louis gritted out, hand wedging between Lestat’s slick chest and the bedding, fingers crawling up that tense, pale throat. The meat of his palm pressed sloppily against Lestat’s mouth, sliding up further until he had peeled back his upper lip to feel the slick hard edge of his teeth. Every breath Lestat let out was wheezed and wet. No air came or left his nostrils, which gave Louis the distant sense that Lestat was dying, that he was killing him. 

Louis felt a sudden pull in his lower belly and immediately buried his nose into Lestat’s nape, where his hair had turned dark and curly with sweat. 

“ Stay here —” Louis said. “In the bed, not the sofa. Don’t go to Sabine, stay.” 

That same rasping laugh, which, on the cusp of orgasm, Louis found to be suddenly very beautiful.  

In a daze, he reached underneath Lestat again, this time grinding the flat of his palm against his cock. 

He’d learned rather quickly that Lestat had a strange interest in discomfort, especially when it was couched otherwise in pleasure. A dry palm pressing against an achingly hard cock sounded like torture to Louis, but Lestat was still hard, and despite letting out these miserable, half-grunted sounds, he had yet to make any move at pushing Louis away. 

His whole body tightened and one of his arms lifted like he was trying to push himself up. 

“ Wait—” Lestat began, a word that was choked out more than it was said. And then not even a moment later, he was stiffening like he’d been shot and Louis felt a wet heat cover his hand. 

Some strange surge of affection filled Louis’ throat and he kissed blindly at Lestat’s damp cheek, then closer to his lips, where the skin of his mouth was stretched taught around a rough, shaky exhale. 

Lestat squirmed beneath Louis’ weight, one of his knees bending sharply beneath his body as the lingering pleasure of his orgasm began to fade. 

“I’m close,” Louis promised. 

Lestat, wracked with over-sensitivity now, tried to turn in on himself, but Louis pressed down hard on his shoulder to flatten him out. 

“No—,” he hissed out a little too harshly. A fizzle of heat began to work its way down his belly. He plastered himself against Lestat, feeling every roiling muscle in his back, the shudders of his breaths. 

That heat grew stronger and tighter, and because he’d fucked women before, he knew to push himself up and pull himself out just as the feeling crested. 

Lestat flinched hard as Louis’ spill hit his lower back. 

“Okay,” Louis panted, staring muzzily down at his dripping hand. Lestat, with his head turned to the side, observed him with a single blue eye, cheeks red, lashes a little damp. 

Louis, unsure what else to do, inspected the shaft of his cock and said quietly, “there’s no blood.” He’d been afraid of that, irrationally.

Instead of responding, Lestat curled one massive hand around Louis’ flank and urged him closer to his head, and Louis, understanding immediately, knelt down, avoiding the mess he’d made on Lestat’s back, and kissed him. 

Softly at first, and then with a little more intensity as Lestat seemed to sink into the gesture. 

He murmured something in French, sounding a little dazed, and Louis, a little out of it himself, couldn’t be bothered to translate. 

Have I fucked the English out of you? He wondered, not quite smug, but nearly. 

When Lestat pulled away from the kiss, Louis took that as a sign to totter off to the bathroom and fetch a wash cloth. He ran it under warm water for a few moments, wringed it out over the sink, and then walked back to give Lestat a ginger wipe down. 

As soon as its context disappeared, Louis found his own semen disgusting. 

Lestat rolled over onto his back as soon as it was clean, still yet to speak a word to Louis directly. 

Louis left the room again, a weird thrumming feeling in his throat, filled a glass up with water, and returned to find Lestat lying with his forearm thrown over his eyes, like Florence used to do when she got her migraines. 

“Lestat,” Louis whispered. The forearm shifted and blue eyes cracked open a sliver, the exhaustion in them so heavy that they appeared wet. 

“I brought you some water.” 

I’m fine,” he mumbled, mouth barely opening to get the words out. Louis frowned. 

“You should probably have some anyway, just a little.” 

“We only fucked, Louis, I’m not ill.” It was said in a faintly dramatic, faintly exasperated tone. But Louis couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d done something a little bit terrible, like he’d wounded Lestat or stolen some of his life force. He prodded him in the chest with two of his fingers and Lestat’s eyes opened fully, expression mildly irritated but sleepy. 

“You are poking the bear, Louis.” 

Louis grabbed Lestat by the chin, turning his head left and then right, looking for what exactly, he didn’t know. Lestat’s eyes blinked slowly, placidly, like something domesticated. 

“I’ll drink the water, if you’d like.” 

“Yeah,” Louis whispered. Lestat propped himself up on his elbows with a gingerness that implied some small amount of pain, and then drained the glass in nearly one go, exhaling immediately after. 

“Hm,” he murmured, settling back down against the pillows, then rolling unceremoniously onto his stomach, "I was actually… very thirsty.” 

Louis slid into the bed next to him, feeling awkward and lumbering and not at all like himself. Lestat shifted as the mattress gave way. His head turned, as if sensing Louis’ apprehension, and then he grinned lopsidedly. 

“God won’t care, Louis. Trust me, I would know.” His voice was thick and slow, but his eyes gleamed with a rude, keen amusement. Louis opened his mouth to protest, thinking about how nice it had been to slap his hand over Lestat’s mouth and silence him, if even only for a minute. But he couldn’t conjure up anything to say, and besides, Lestat had already dropped his head back down to the pillows, eyes closing, mouth falling slack. 

Some time later, Lestat threw an arm possessively over Louis’ waist, just heavy enough that Louis felt a mild resistance every time he breathed. With his eyes closed, Lestat looked a lot more human than he usually did, a lot younger, too. 

He shifted in his sleep, leg kicking out against the bed sheets wrapped around his calf. Little red marks around his hips were starting to settle in, fingerprints. 

He’s like an animal, and he will get fed up with it, and you might hurt each other. 

Lestat eventually settled into stillness and exhaled loudly and deeply, like an old dog letting out a sigh on the porch. 

Louis looked out at the black wall of windows to his right, which at this hour, resembled mirrors more than anything. It was only the distant roar of the ocean that indicated something actually existed beyond his plastered bedroom walls. 

He wanted to wake Lestat, to be distracted, to see slitted, sleep-wet eyes staring at him, to hear his mouth click as he gathered his tongue to ask, are you alright? 

Outside, a bush rustled and Louis just made out clawed, skittering footsteps, a loud, oblivious snuffling, some kind of wild animal, rooting around the dirt.

Chapter Text

It was so early in the morning when Lestat woke that the sky and the sea were an almost identical shade of gray, no sun yet to spear through the horizon and separate them. Louis slept next to him, on his stomach, face half-buried into his bicep. His lean, bare back rose and fell with a mesmerizing rhythm. 

At the end of the bed, one of his feet stuck out from the duvet, pale on the underside, curled delicately. Lestat was tempted to bite it. 

Louis shifted next to him, pulling a pillow closer to himself and groaning faintly. The soft, rumbling sound reverberated through the mattress. Lestat placed a hand on the nape of his neck to quiet him, wondering idly about Louis’ feelings on smoking inside the bedroom. 

His nape was almost feverishly warm. Lestat could feel a light dusting of baby hairs and beneath that, the stiff, rubbery length of his neck muscle. He grinded his thumb into the tension he found on one side, and one of Louis’ eyes cracked open slowly. 

He groaned again and then settled. 

Lestat stayed in bed until the sun began to rise in earnest. Louis dosed beside him the whole time, face growing pinched as sunlight flooded the room. Still he didn’t wake. 

Lestat stood, hissing slightly at the full-body soreness that swept through him. He felt like he did after long, arduous hunts as a teenager: shoulders throbbing with the weight of a rifle, back and thighs tense from crouching in place for hours. 

He padded to the kitchen, stomach tight with hunger. He’d gone to Gabrielle’s hotel last night, hoping to share a meal with her, knowing she would not linger here for much longer. The concierge had only looked at him pityingly. 

She checked out this morning. 

Of course she had! If it had been anyone else, he would have dismissed it as pure cowardice. But he knew Gabrielle. She had left the moment she wanted to, and Lestat would have to wait until she was drawn here again, like a migratory bird with its own made-up seasons. 

So Lestat drank instead. And when he’d had his fill of alcohol, he wandered the town with his head down until he found himself at the church. 

It looked like a recently-killed and mummified object, wrapped in sheer plastic tarps and cotton dropsheets. The electricity had been shut off for the renovations, and the workers had instead threaded thick black cords with naked bulbs throughout the basement, which were powered by a propane generator outside. 

He’d showered, feeling uniquely filthy, smelling of Sabine’s perfume and sex and liquor, and when that hadn’t worked, he put on his priests’ garb and sat at the creaky wooden desk in the makeshift office where they stored the candles and he read paperwork and reviewed sermon plans until he could no longer bear it. 

Until he fled to Louis’ cottage. 

Lestat opened the fridge to see nothing but some bottles of white wine, a few packets of cured meat, and butter. 

“Oh, Louis,” he murmured to himself, exasperated. 

Instead, he made coffee for the both of them in that terrible little french press that he used. Lestat much preferred the ancient but functional espresso machine that had been donated to the church a few years back, and a part of him toyed with the idea of taking a thermos across the way and returning with freshly-pulled americanos for the both of them. 

But then he heard a rustle coming from the bedroom, along with a sound that people made only when they were stretching out after a much-needed rest.

So he used the french press, waiting for the coffee to steep, drumming his fingers on the coffee table. 

Louis emerged a few moments later, yawning as he walked, bumping a little blindly into the side of the wall. 

“Lestat,” he rasped as he took a seat at the dining table. He had a mark on the side of his neck that looked like he’d been scratched by a cat, though Lestat knew it had been no cat, and despite falling asleep and waking up nude, he’d since put on a very American pair of plaid boxers and a t-shirt that Lestat had never seen before. 

The pale yellow color made him look very summery and young.  

“I’m realizing we never had the chance to talk about this properly.” He scratched his arm, then his throat. Lestat had been expecting a flighty, self-loathing mess this morning, but Louis looked disturbingly calm after the events of last night. Despite the sleepiness in his eyes, they were otherwise clear, even sharp. “What I mean to say is that I’m sorry about your father.” 

“Oh.” Louis surprised him sometimes. “It is no big deal. We were not close.” 

“That doesn’t matter.” 

He suddenly stood up and went to inspect the coffee Lestat had made. He sniffed the inside of the French press curiously, then poured himself a cup. 

“You should get a proper coffee machine,” Lestat said. He had yet to get over the blandness of Louis’ cottage, a characteristic, he knew, that had nothing to do with taste and more to do with some strange desire to self-flagellate. 

Not even a coffee machine, or a piece of art on the walls. 

“The press works fine,” Louis said with a shrug. 

“You have nothing in your fridge for breakfast.” He didn’t know how Louis managed to survive, how his body didn’t cannibalize itself inside the blank walls of the cottage. 

“We can go into town then,” Louis said bemusedly. He finished the rest of his coffee, stood up, and grabbed his coat off a hook by the door. 

“Come on.” 

It was just warm enough that Lestat didn’t feel the chill through his clothes. The sun was up, but it cast only a weak, watery light on the ground. He and Louis approached the church and Lestat didn’t miss the darkly curious look on Louis’ face as they walked by. It looked unnaturally hollow and somber without anyone inside it. Usually, a few ladies from town liked to volunteer in keeping the pews clean of dust, tending to the modest garden that surrounded it. 

But until the repairs had finished, they wouldn’t be returning. Limestone dust and old, smoke-damaged lungs were not a good combination. 

Because it was a Saturday, the town center was lively. People milled about shops and sat out on curbs eating pastries wrapped in wax paper. A few children skateboarded with helmets on. An older woman sold flowers from the bed of a pickup truck, occasionally handing single buds to young ladies passing by. 

Louis stopped in front of a cafe and read the menu posted on the window. He leaned forward with his hands clasped delicately behind his back, looking, for the moment, to be far older than he actually was. 

“Well?” Lestat asked. Louis nodded and walked around the front of the building to the patio that faced the ocean. The promenade, like the main street, was bustling. 

A single waitress seemed to be serving the entire cafe, though one of the patrons, an older gentleman wearing a baseball cap, had just left a few bills on the table and was leaving with a lazy wave. A black and white sheep dog followed after him as he walked. 

Lestat leaned back in his seat, another wave of exhaustion hitting him. 

“Louis,” he started softly. Louis looked in his direction—his sunglasses made it impossible to track where his eyes actually were. “I am very hungry.” 

“Oh dear,” Louis said amusedly. 

“I may expire.” 

“We can’t have that.” 

“The waitress… get her.” 

Louis looked over his shoulder, still smiling, and waved at the waitress as she passed from table to table. 

Louis ordered for himself a pastry and an espresso, in French, which had Lestat nodding approvingly at his accent. Lestat merely pointed to a few items on the menu that he wanted and thanked her. 

He might have recognized her, but the sun was terribly bright now, and she moved in a dizzying flurry, even when she stood still. 

“Did you not have dinner?” Louis asked, frowning. 

“No,” Lestat said. “I’m too tired to explain.” 

“Alright,” Louis said mildly. 

Their food and drink arrived only a few minutes later, and when it did, Louis neatly pushed his pastry into the center of the table for Lestat to pick on. He had his knee hiked up on the chair he sat on, which painted a boyish, recalcitrant image, and had since pushed his sunglasses up to sit on top of his head. He was fascinating to watch, Lestat thought. 

In the distance, Lestat heard the faint crow of his name. He scanned the promenade warily, but it was impossible to parse through the sunburned thighs and low-slung baseball caps. 

“Lestat!” It came again, and then Simone appeared some fifty yards down the beach. She wore bright red linen shorts that went down to the knee, flip flops held in one hand, car keys jangling in the other. Her shoulders were peppered so thoroughly with freckles that she appeared to have been spray-painted. 

Louis squinted at her as she approached. Did he need glasses? Lestat had never noticed before. 

“Oh, it’s Simone,” he said mildly. 

She was waving as she walked, bouncing with every other step. Lestat dreaded her arrival for some reason, and his instinct was proven correct the moment she draped herself over his back and laughed at his flinch. 

“That Sabine’s been asking about you, Lestat. What have you done this time, hm?” Her tone was good-natured, fond, but Lestat cringed. He didn’t want to look at Louis, but his eyes flitted to him anyway, and Louis only stared back, frustratingly calm. His mouth twitched, but beyond that, there was no reaction.

“We will all be at Le Nid tonight, if you’d like to come.” 

 “It’s—” Lestat began quickly, intending to say no as nicely as he could. 

“Sure,” Louis said. He downed the rest of his espresso and ran his tongue over his teeth. Lestat glanced at him, bewildered. Something in his gut told him that this would be a terrible idea.

“Perfect—Louis, you are looking as cool as ever. How do you do it? Always so very cool.” 

Louis smiled like he was holding onto a secret. 

“Do all Americans look like you?” 

“No,” he said. 

Simone laughed, though Louis clearly hadn’t meant it as a joke. 

“No, of course not!” 

She lingered by their table and chattered mindlessly about whatever was concerning her that day. Lestat ate in silence, feeling a bit like a starving beast as Louis sipped neatly at his espresso and grinned with his sunglasses on his head. 

When Simone grew distracted again by someone else she knew, she flitted away, shouting out as a goodbye: be there by nine! 

“Louis,” Lestat groaned. He couldn’t tell who this was intended to hurt more, him or Louis. 

“You’re being paranoid,” Louis said amusedly as soon as Simone was properly out of earshot. Lestat gaped. 

“You—” 

“It is a small town, we are bound to see her anyway. And besides, I like that place.” 

It occurred to Lestat belatedly that Louis might just want to be social, that he enjoyed drinking late into the night with people he knew only casually. Maybe his intentions were entirely innocent. 

But then he looked at his face again and saw only a bright, disturbing gleam in his eyes, and Lestat could only laugh helplessly. 

Lestat had eaten breakfast like he’d been starved and then cried out about having lots of work to do and fled to the church. Louis got the eerie feeling that something was going to go wrong tonight, that one of them was going to do something incredibly ill-conceived and stupid and there was nothing Louis could do to stop it. 

He checked his emails on his phone as he walked back to the cottage. Levi had sent another update on Florence, which Louis only skimmed. It was more grim news, more concern about her mental state. Grace, apparently, wanted to hire a lawyer to argue the case that Florence was incapable of making her own medical decisions. 

Louis almost wanted to write the check just to make Florence furious, because he knew it would. But it would be a waste of money anyway. This wasn’t an ailing mind, this was exactly the one who had raised him. 

Tell Grace to call me if she’d like, Louis texted Levi. He didn’t like using him as a middle man—it was insulting to some degree—but Levi had been more gracious to Louis after Paul’s death than he expected him to be. 

And of course, he owed Louis ridiculous amounts of money, which Louis would never collect from him because he didn’t care to. 

Louis made his way back to the cottage, plugged his phone in to charge at his bedside, and stopped. He opened the table drawer, feeling an inexplicable magnetic pull, and heard the faint rattle of pills. The bottle was stuck in the very back, behind an empty journal and a few emergency packs of cigarettes. He picked it up, held it between thumb and pointer finger, and exhaled shakily. 

The sunlight coming in from the windows projected a tiny neon orange rectangle onto the wall next to Louis, which moved every time Louis turned the bottle in his hand. 

An unknowable amount of time passed before Louis hid the bottle in his drawer again and walked woodenly to the sofa to work on his laptop. 

His poor assistant needed multiple electronic signatures about a week ago and a company which he frequently forgot he was on the board for was restructuring and he’d have to attend some meetings over zoom to advise on next steps. 

It was dismal, looking at the words on the screen, when the events of last night had just taken place. It was unbearable trying to type coherently when he kept hearing Lestat’s sharp breaths in his ear, the soft, surprised sounds he made, the dark laughter. 

Louis abandoned any attempts at being productive only a few minutes later, and waited, in a kind of hibernatory stupor until the sun began to dip below the horizon. 

It was nearly eight in the evening when his front door rattled then swung open. Lestat stood in the threshold, blinking in surprise, as if he’d forgotten this was Louis’ house and not his. 

“Hello,” Louis said, looking at him upside down from the sofa. He was wearing a sweater with a neckline so large it could have slipped off his broad shoulders at any moment. It would have been rather erotic if all that skin had been exposed, but as it was, Lestat wore a white t-shirt underneath, his hair tucked into the collar like he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. 

Louis looked at him and suddenly felt very shy, thinking about how vulgar they’d been, how close. 

“Are you ready?” Lestat asked. He scratched his throat so hard that he left a few lines on his skin, and Louis was forced to look away. 

“No,” he said. He roused himself from the sofa and shuffled to the bedroom, Lestat at his heels. He moved very energetically, very loudly, slapping his palm on the top of the threshold in the way that young boys do to show off their height. 

“Can I dress you?” He asked as Louis stopped in front of his closet. 

Louis turned to look at him, quizzical.

“Can you dress me?”

“Choose for you, I mean.” He smiled with teeth, head cocking to one side, looking just a little bit evil. 

Louis gestured to the closet in a gesture that said, go ahead. 

Lestat did more snooping than he did dressing, reading the labels on his clothing, and occasionally, the sizes. 

“This would fit me,” he said, holding up a knit shirt and observing it critically. 

“You were meant to be dressing me, I thought.” 

“Yes, of course. Oh—this is nice.” 

Louis left the cottage, with Lestat in tow, wearing an outfit he had worn many times before, it being all of his own clothing, but he let Lestat believe he’d done something revolutionary. He seemed very happy about it, even smug.

Louis drove the rented Escalade he’d absconded with months ago. His assistant had negotiated a monthly contract for him, so that he would not be charged per day. 

All taken care of. When you head back to Paris, just drop it off where you picked it up, she had messaged. Back then, it had seemed fanciful, the idea that he’d ever make it back to Paris. He still thought the same thing, but for very different reasons now. 

Le Nid was bustling by the time they arrived. Some of the locals that Louis knew well by now waved as they walked through the restaurant’s dark interior. Simone and the usual suspects were setting one of the long tables. A few empty wine bottles had already been lined up on the floor next to the fire pit. The air smelled richly of fat and barbeque smoke and caramelized sugar. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis spotted a flash of blonde, and for a brief moment, his heart stuttered, thinking Gabrielle had made a surprise return. But it was only Sabine, shrouded in a long knit dress shaped like a caftan, her bare heels exposed in a sharp-toed leather mule. 

He glanced briefly at Lestat, but his charming, amiable expression hadn’t changed. 

“Sit, sit!” Someone cried, dragging Lestat by the crook of the elbow to a seat at the table. Louis, similarly, was gestured to sit down in a seat right across from him. 

Someone had roasted the haunch of a pig and glazed it with herbs and butter. Simone kept pushing salads in Louis’ direction, sharply informing him of the ingredients: chickpeas, yes? What do you call it? The same? Ah, but I was sure there was another—

And then something caught her attention and she was whisked away to another conversation. 

Whenever Louis looked up at Lestat, he found the other man to be already staring at him, expression warm, a little curious. 

Hello, Louis mouthed. 

Lestat’s smile cracked open on one side, gaze unflinching even as a bottle of wine and an opener was set down in front of him. 

“Let the Father do the honors!” Simone crowed. Someone, somewhere, sniggered like she had told a hilarious joke. 

Sabine, at the other end of the table, lifted her head at the sound and smiled a little to herself. She had her husband with her this time, and it made Louis realize he had never seen the man around town before. He was about her age, silver-haired, tanned just enough to look healthy. 

On his wrist was an enormous glinting Submariner and on the opposite hand, a yellow gold wedding band. 

Louis wondered if he knew, if any of the husbands in this town who’d had the misfortune of being married to beautiful blonde women knew. 

Probably not, or Lestat would be nothing but a head on a stick. 

Lestat cracked open the bottle of wine and topped up Louis’ glass first, which Louis found immensely satisfying, then he passed it to Simone, who passed it on and on and on again.

An older gentleman who owned a few hotels in this town and the next, and was apparently good friends with Simone, pulled up a chair next to Lestat and tried talking him into officiating his daughter’s wedding. 

And when Lestat readily agreed, he moved on to questions about the church repairs, which had Lestat looking significantly more reluctant. 

“We do not know. They are very slow about it.” 

“The parish drags their feet, eh?” 

The man’s English was strongly accented, but Louis could tell he was just about fluent. It was the kind of idiom that only someone who’d spent lots of time in English-speaking countries would know, or maybe he had an American wife. Lestat looked to Louis, an eyebrow raised questioningly. 

“Uh, slow, it just means they’re slow,” he explained, reluctantly entering himself in the conversation. He wasn’t in the mood to talk business, but the man took him in and in a moment realized they shared some things in common. 

Lestat looked a little relieved he had been moved on from, leaning back in his chair, humming along to the music that blared on the speakers. Simone passed by on her way to speak to a young woman sitting at the head of the table and patted Lestat’s shoulder once in a friendly greeting. 

His whole body flinched, and then he smiled at her in a quick, fleeting gesture. 

Louis, meanwhile, was trying to explain American nightclub revenue margins to a Frenchman without losing his head. He felt incredibly on display, could feel Lestat’s eyes burning holes into the side of his face. 

“How are things holding up, then, with you all the way over here?” The man asked. 

Louis smiled blandly. 

“I delegate.” 

He howled like Louis had said something extremely funny. 

Some wine was placed in front of him and he drank it down immediately, then poured himself another glass. 

“Louis, could you pass the wine?” Lestat asked suddenly. Louis could not explain what compelled him to say it. Maybe it had been the jokes that had been tossed around already this evening, or his general distaste for Lestat’s vocation, but he grabbed the bottle of wine around the neck, held it out across the table, and said in a dry, humorless tone: “Yes, Father.” 

Louis saw Lestat’s nostrils flare once, and then he looked away as he took the wine bottle. Louis’ eyes didn’t leave his face for a moment. The rest of the table ate and talked, oblivious to what had transpired, but Lestat seemed unnerved, and Louis felt sorry, almost. 

The next moment their eyes met, Lestat’s expression was totally cold, and he’d pushed his plate of food to the side. Not even Simone appearing out of nowhere to hang off his shoulder and pet his hair was enough to soften his gaze. 

Louis smiled at him crookedly. 

Oh dear. 

He watched Lestat down his freshly-poured glass of wine, to a few muted cheers from around the table, then he stood up, hands like claws around the back of the chair, and beelined towards the inside of the restaurant. 

Louis got up casually, glancing around himself to be sure no one was making any unwanted connections, and then followed after. 

He found Lestat in the bathroom with the door half-propped open, the faucet running as he stared at himself in the mirror. 

“Lestat,” Louis said from the threshold. And when Lestat didn’t respond, Louis stepped fully inside the tiny bathroom and closed the door behind him. 

As soon as the lock clicked, Lestat whirled around, eyes glistening with a sheen that Louis thought might be tears.

“You said that to be cruel,” he hissed. “You were mocking me.” 

Louis’ mouth opened to defend himself, but Lestat was not finished. “I know what you were thinking when you said it. You were mocking me, for last night, for the other nights. You didn’t mean it, I know that.” 

Louis’ brow rose. 

“Did you want me to mean it?” 

Lestat’s face froze, like he’d been caught out, then curled again with anger. 

“Stop.” 

Louis felt an unbelievable surge of fondness at Lestat’s expression, at his petulant, mutinous words. 

He pressed his fingertips to Lestat’s mouth, and Lestat’s eyes glinted unhappily. He exhaled sharply through his nose and attempted to look away, but Louis steered him back with his fingers on his jaw.

“You are petty,” Lestat added darkly. “You pretend not to be, but you are.”

“And you’re sensitive,” Louis murmured. 

“Yes,” Lestat said without a hint of shame. 

Louis considered him: the sharp jut of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw, the still-visible mist in his eyes. 

“Lestat, did you want me to mean it?” 

Lestat sneered. 

“Because I’m not like that. I’m really not.” I’m not like the blonde women you chase, I told you that, and yet you still seem surprised by it. 

“Neither am I, not usually,” Lestat rasped. “Last night was not normal for me.” 

Louis had known that already, to some degree, but hearing Lestat say it out loud sent a weird shiver of uncertainty through him. 

Would it all start to chafe at him soon? 

“Did you hate it?” Louis asked. He knew the answer before Lestat even said it, knew it the moment he saw that reluctant gleam in his eyes. 

“No.” 

Louis nodded silently.

“We should go back out, unless you’d like to go home. We’ve been in here too long.” 

“Yes,” Lestat said faintly. He adjusted himself in his pants with such a casual air that Louis thought he’d imagined it and then shouldered open the bathroom door with a frustrated sigh. 

They were lucky no one was waiting outside to use the restroom, or it would have looked very suspect. 

Despite Lestat’s anger, Louis was feeling uncommonly relaxed. 

Don’t call him ‘father’ again, noted. 

Lestat didn’t return to his seat at the table and instead found the adirondack chairs by the firepit. He sat heavily, crossed his legs at the knee, and then decided he’d rather have his feet propped up onto the lip of the firepit instead.

Simone came over and made a game of offering him wine: a glass of red and a glass of white held behind her back, one in each hand. 

Lestat chose the left hand and was given the white, but when his nose wrinkled at the sight of it, she only laughed and handed him the red instead. 

“I’ll take it,” Louis said, walking over and gesturing to the white. Simone glanced up at him, lashes stuck together with moisture and salt, and smiled brilliantly. She smelled intensely of herbs, the same kind that had been used to season the food, and beneath it, another earthy, sweeter scent, like marshmallow root. 

It was strange to think of her wearing perfume, but Louis liked it. He opened his mouth to tell her so, but before he could say the words, Lestat was adjusting the adirondack chair next to him for Louis to sit in, and any thought unrelated to sitting next to Lestat and drinking wine in his company deserted him.

Simone wandered off to be entertained by someone else and Louis settled in the chair beside Lestat. 

“Are you still angry with me?” 

“I do not know yet.” 

“Sabine didn’t have much to say to you.” 

“No,” Lestat agreed tiredly. His head hit the back of the chair and his eyes closed halfway. He really did look exhausted. 

Louis patted his shoulder awkwardly, unable to do anything else in a place like this, and Lestat’s mouth twitched in amusement. 

“You have service tomorrow,” Louis murmured, taking a tiny sip of the white wine—he didn’t like it either, but the glass had been poured. 

“Yes,” Lestat muttered, sounding morose about it. 

“What will you talk about?” 

“I don’t know yet.” 

“You don’t have a plan?” Louis asked, incredulous. 

“I have a few. I always decide in the morning.” 

“You’re strange.” 

“I’m very fluent in verse, Louis. I’m not like your American catholics who go through Confirmation and then forget it all the moment they have their first beer.” 

“You drink as well,” Louis pointed out. 

“That’s not what I mean. And my services go very well, by the way. Not that you would know.” 

“I’ve been to the one on the beach.” 

Lestat scoffed. 

“That was not legitimate. I was making sandcastles.” 

“I thought you were pretty good,” Louis said with a shrug. He suddenly itched for a cigarette and looked, without even realizing it, towards Lestat, who seemingly read his mind and produced a box out of his jacket pocket. 

“Thanks,” Louis said. 

“What do you think I should talk about?” Lestat asked him, holding out his lighter and flicking it on for him. 

Louis got his cigarette going before answering. 

“Basketball.” 

“Be serious,” Lestat said, frowning. Louis laughed silently at the irony of Lestat telling him to be serious. 

He tapped his chin in mock thought, not intending to give any real kind of answer, when a memory struck him. It was so sudden it was painful. He couldn’t be sure if it was the way they were sitting or the smell in the air or the pinch of Lestat’s mouth as he frowned but something brought him reeling back to a few years ago. 

“Ephesians 5:21,” he said blankly. 

Paul, sitting straight-backed on the lip of the large stone fountain in the center of their driveway. This was back when he still had many good days on the horizon. His eyes were bright and lively, lips quirked coyly as they always were when he was trying to trick Louis into talking about God. The brick driveway had just been pressure-washed by the gardeners and it gleamed a deep, slick red under the sunlight, and made the air smell of wet clay. 

Paul was telling him about that morning’s service, still in his church clothes, head tilting up to the sun as he spoke, basking in the warmth. Louis remembered thinking that the fountain hoses needed to be cleaned, because they gurgled so loudly, like a phlegmatic older gentleman, that he could barely hear Paul even though they sat only a few feet away from each other. 

Grace’s car at the time, a bright red Cayenne, was parked haphazardly in front of the garage, one of the tires encroaching onto Florence’s flower beds. 

We talked Ephesians today, Louis. 

Lestat’s expression twisted ever so slightly, his mouth curled up, then straightened, like he didn’t want to be caught smiling. 

“You know it?” Louis asked. 

“Submit to one another,” Lestat said thinly, distastefully. 

“Out of reverence for Christ,” Louis added. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. You don’t seem like you like it.” 

“I think it’s terrible,” Lestat muttered. 

“You of all people can’t be saying that.” 

Lestat’s head turned slowly, in that almost-predatory way of his that he used when he was about to blow a fuse. He was probably thinking of last night, and of Louis calling him father at the dinner table. 

“Being a priest, I meant.” 

Lestat sank into himself ever so slightly. 

“I think it's terrible,” he said again, as if convincing himself. “I think it's naive.” 

“Going by that logic, the whole bible is—” 

“Love one another, yes, do not steal, do not lie, do not—” 

“Do not touch the skin of the pig on the Sabbath. There goes American football, I suppose.” 

Lestat’s eyes brightened like he was about to shout. 

“I don’t care for American football.” 

“Neither do I,” Louis said, smiling now. Lestat shook his head, clearly ruffled. It was rare that Louis saw him at a loss for words, but he was enjoying himself for the moment, enjoying, too, the feeling of the wine settling in his stomach. 

“I think you’re pious in theory,” Louis went on, feeling quite drunk now. “I think you worship out of novelty. I think God is a metaphor for you, and I wish you would just go ahead and admit that.” 

Lestat laughed. 

“You’re calling me a hypocrite, you.” 

His English really had gotten better. He didn’t stumble over words or pause so much, didn’t sink back into French when he was trying to make his point. 

Louis downed the rest of his wine and stood up to get more. 

When he returned, Lestat was staring out past the grubby tables of Le Nid at the black ocean a couple hundred yards away. With no sun to illuminate the sand, the beach resembled a paved-over parking lot, gray and flat and packed down hard. 

“What do you believe in, Lestat? That’s what I’m asking.” 

“What a lovely segue, Louis. Very skillful.” 

“I’m just asking.” 

“I believe in pleasure. I believe in love.” 

“You’re a hedonist.” Louis couldn’t even pretend not to be delighted with himself. He smiled sloppily, leaning more of his weight against the armrest of the chair. Lestat looked indignant, like he wanted to burst out and defend himself, but he took another sip from his glass instead, swallowing slowly, blinking slowly, pensive. 

It took a few moments before he responded, and when he did, his voice was incredibly soft. 

“Pleasure doesn’t have to be selfish, in fact, it often isn’t. You should know that now.” 

That had been a dig. But Louis couldn’t bring himself to be offended by it. The more he spoke to Lestat about God, the more it was confirmed for him what he first assumed to be true. He’d become a priest because he was lonely. He wanted the performance of it, and yes, the love, the feeling of many hearts beating in sync with one another. It was naive and a little sad, but Louis could understand how it happened. 

“Ephesians always bothered me,” he said quietly, thinking of Paul preaching to him as they sat on the lip of the fountain.

“Hm?” 

“It always bothered me. Something about the way the priest would always—something about it bothered me.” 

“Should we go back to the cottage? You’re drunk.” 

Louis glanced sideways at him, partly surprised by the boldness. Lestat’s expression was gentle but a little amused, and now Louis was beginning to wonder if he had made a fool of himself at some point in the night. 

He looked around himself and found that the restaurant had emptied out significantly. Only Simone and her brother and a few other locals remained.

Many people, Louis assumed, had deserted Le Nid in favor of a hot shower and a warm bed. 

They walked back together in near silence. Occasionally, Lestat would curl his hand around the back of Louis’ neck or around his wrist, or he’d whisper musings in Louis’ ear, his mouth so close that he tickled the skin. 

There was, of course, no need to whisper, for it was late in the night or early in the morning and the streets were completely deserted. 

Louis stripped off his clothes the moment they were inside, and despite the fogginess of his brain, he didn’t miss the way Lestat’s eyes gleamed sharply. The way he tracked his movements through the cottage. 

Louis felt a now-familiar niggle of alarm, like he was about to be mauled, but those prickly thoughts left him as soon as his head hit the mattress. 

He heard the shower running, and minutes later, Lestat was sinking into the bed next to him, a little damper than before. 

Louis felt a thigh press against his. The covers rustled aggressively. 

Lestat ran hot, he had learned. 

“Ephesians, Louis,” Lestat murmured, clearly believing he was speaking only to himself. Then he laughed faintly and rolled onto his stomach, and the cottage was finally silent.

Lestat left that next morning early to prepare for service. It was nearly noon when he returned to the cottage. 

Louis was laid out, nude, on the bed, one knee bent up, the skin of his calves gleaming like they’d been oiled. 

The blankets laid in a heap by his feet, the chrome edge of his laptop just visible beneath them. It was startling to see him without clothing, when for so much of their time together, he’d been carefully buttoned up to the throat. But it was a clear message: things were different now between them and there was no going back.

Louis watched Lestat shed his cassock and replace it with some of the clothing he had since brought from the church basement. Most of it was extremely casual. But Lestat had also rescued some of his wool suits and nicer clothing from the dust and debris of the renovation. It all hung in the closet next to Louis’ expensive leather jackets and tailored trousers. 

Louis lit himself a cigarette and took a mug from his bedside, resting it on his chest to serve as an ashtray. His soft cock laid against his hip, gleaming too, like his calves, like his shoulders and his brow. 

“Ephesians 5:21. What a strange thing to bring up,” Lestat said as a way of greeting. He’d been thinking about it the whole service.

Smoke filtered out between Louis’ teeth as he opened his mouth to speak.  

“One of our priests was very partial to it, but he’d always—he’d always focus on the part about wives and husbands. Do you know that part?” 

“Yes,” Lestat said. He watched Louis lick his lip, run his tongue over his teeth as if to wash away the residue of his cigarette.  

“I always hated it.” 

“It’s not really about wives and husbands. Not really.” Lestat understood where this was going. He wanted to prod further, to press at the wettest part of the wound until Louis relented, but knew it would be fruitless. 

“I think I know why it bothered me so much now.” Louis swallowed roughly.

“Yes,” Lestat said eventually. 

“It left out the faggots.” It was said with a strange detachment. 

Lestat sat down on the bed, on the very edge, and as he did, he reached out and curled his fingers around Louis’ ankle. His leg shifted slightly, but he didn’t pull away. His eyes roved over Lestat’s face with a slowness that was totally un-self conscious. 

“It’s not actually about wives and husbands, Louis,” Lestat murmured, unable to look back at him right at this moment. “It’s about all of us.”

“I thought you hated it. Submit to one another. You said it was terrible.” 

“Yes, well.” Lestat felt himself smile without really feeling it. He wanted to point out to him that he, Louis, was feeling indignant on the behalf of Ephesians 5:21, that he still had some Catholic zeal left in him. Lestat almost wanted to try on being Protestant for a moment and get into the weeds of salvation: Louis, your thoughts on Ephesians 2:8 and 9?  

Really, he wanted to say, out of all the things the bible says of homosexuals, Ephesians is your problem? 

He wanted to goad him. But Louis looked so peaceful, smoking on his bed, nude like a statue, a mug full of ashes on his chest. 

“I find it frightening, Ephesians,” he admitted. 

“That’s what faith is, it's about submission. That's why I don’t like it.” Lestat wondered if Louis was thinking about his brother now. If he thought that faith meant submitting to everything, even death.

“Are you trying to get me to lapse?” Lestat asked, smiling, even as his head pounded. 

“No,” Louis said after some time. His cigarette was down to the filter, but he held it still, impervious to the heat at his fingertips. “I’m just trying to understand why you do the things that you do.” 

“When you find out, please do tell me.” 

That made Louis grin. He dropped his cigarette, finally, into the mug, and beckoned Lestat closer, lazily, with his hands still resting on his stomach. 

Lestat knelt down on his elbows and pressed a dry kiss to Louis’ knee, and when that drew out a bemused sound of confusion, he kissed him again, in the center of the shinbone, tasting salt and the faintly sweet, warm-fruit taste of human skin.