Chapter Text
Time works differently for vampires.
With eternity at your fingertips, what need is there to grasp fretfully at every fleeting moment like a child chasing fireflies down at the night-cloaked bayou? Better to savor the stretch of those endless seconds, to make music from the minutes, and construct concertos out of the centuries.
Patience, after all, is a skill every undead thing must learn.
"Louis, this is my new companion."
Make that every undead thing save one.
When Louis had declared he was companion enough for himself now, he'd known Lestat would not put up with this hard-won independence for long. He was bound to crack and try pulling some ridiculous, come-get-me stunt. Like so many things concerning the two of them, it was always going to be a question of when, not if.
Still, Louis had hoped for fifty years of playing it casual.
He'd expected at least twenty.
He's barely gotten four.
It would have been significantly less if not for Lestat's dumbass preoccupation with transforming himself from plank-playing shack dweller to globally revered rock god.
The only thing more fucked up than that trajectory is the fact that it has worked. So well that, forty-nine months, almost a dozen hookups, and enough transcontinental phone sex to bankrupt a medium-sized economy later, Louis de Pont du Lac finds himself backstage at Wembley listening to Lestat de Lioncourt introduce him to the new love of his life.
"His name is Leroy, like le roi. It is apt, for he is a king amongst men and the true sovereign of my heart. Destined to reign over me forevermore."
"Hiya, mate," says Leroy, offering his hand.
"Shut the fuck up," says Louis, refusing to take it.
"Now, now, mon ami, put your fangs away. Jealousy is not a good look on you," Lestat simpers, the ravenous look in his eyes giving away the lie. Green has always been his favorite color on Louis. "It is not Leroy's fault that our souls fit together like those broken pictures elderly humans waste their dwindling hours putting back together."
"Jigsaws," says Leroy.
"Oui, jigsaws! You always know exactly what I am trying to say, mon..."
Louis' heart stops.
"…roi."
Louis exhales, and it beats again.
"You see now, don't you, Louis? Why I was powerless to fight the pull? A connection like the one I share with Leroy is much too strong to be denied."
Louis sees no such thing.
"What the hell, Lestat? We had an agreement: I get to go off and find myself, and you get to sleep with whoever you want as long as you're discreet about it. What part of introducing me to the so-called love of your life sounds discreet to you?"
"Our agreement pertained to a six-month break, Louis. You have been away for almost eight. I cannot be blamed for finding my soulmate in these last seven weeks of crippling loneliness. Perhaps you should have hurried home sooner, mon former cher. Or been more discreet yourself, hmm?"
"Discreet about what? Unlike you, I've never had a problem keeping it in my pants! And former cher, my ass! I'll never not be dear to you," Louis gripes, losing his cool and rounding on Daniel. "You couldn't have put a stop to this?"
The newly fledged vampire doesn't look up from where he's sat perched in front of Lestat's dressing room mirror, idly flicking through that month's copy of GQ magazine.
"Do you think I'd suit a lip piercing? Wait. Is that even possible now, or would the hole keep closing back up?"
Daniel Molloy: half grizzled reporter, half teenage girl. If Louis weren't so preoccupied, he'd take Daniel to Claire's Accessories and hold his hand while they stick holes in him.
When Daniel receives no answer, he finally tears his eyes off all the glossy photos of fit young men dressed to kill. Or be killed. He can barely look away, and yet he'd only come to the gay bar that night to score. Yeah, and Louis had visited the Fair Play because he just loved to sleep with Miss Lily.
Catching sight of Louis' unimpressed stare, Daniel holds his hands up in surrender. "Hey, don't blame the biographer! Up until recently I was sure they were just buddies."
"And that didn't strike you as odd? Lestat playing nice with his food? You didn't think that perhaps it warranted calling out to me?"
"And just how was I supposed to go about doing that? You're the one who pulled the disappearing act, pal. Besides, I'm barely being paid enough to put up with Lestat's on-the-record bullshit, never mind all the extracurricular crap. Five hours we clocked up last night on wolves. Fucking wolves, Louis! Blondie here wants his fans to think he was a cross between Rambo and that superhero with the hammer even before he got vamped."
"Thor," Louis and Leroy say in unison.
"Isn't he clever?" preens Lestat, all adoring grin and sparkly heart emoji eyes.
Embarrassed, Louis is about to tell him to hush when he realizes Lestat isn't talking about him.
Huh.
So this is what it feels like to be stabbed by your lover. Fair's fair, he supposes. They've shared everything else, so why not this? And how like Lestat to go straight for the heart when Louis had been merciful enough to bypass it in favor of the neck.
Leroy slings a gym-honed arm around Lestat's shoulders, and Louis bites back a snarl, swept up in a vivid fantasy of tearing it off at the elbow and watching the blood spurt like a fire hose.
"Where'd he even come from?"
"Heaven," says Lestat.
"Twitter," says Daniel.
Louis doesn't know which answer he finds more disturbing. He rubs at his forehead and decides to go with the marginally less insane one. "Twitter?"
"Twitter. X. Y. Z. Whatever the fuck Musk is calling it this week. Blondie drew up a sketch from the photo of you he has sewn into the lining of all his costumes—"
"LIES! MOST FOUL AND HEINOUS LIES! My stage clothes are far too tight to accommodate anything except my beautiful body. And even that, sometimes, is a mountain too steep to climb. Why, only last week I split three pairs of leather pants, as they simply would not stretch around my enormous—"
"He sent the sketch out along with a message asking for any Louis-alikes to come forward," Daniel interrupts, just in time to spare them all a—mostly—unwanted visual. "Said they'd get free tickets and a chance to meet him backstage after the show. You'd think that would have acted as more of a deterrent than an incentive, but hundreds of the suckers kept showing up, night after night. Leroy here was the unlucky winner."
Louis stares at the guy, his nose scrunching up in distaste. Leroy is half a head shorter and a good forty pounds heavier.
"Seriously?" Louis confronts Lestat. "You think he looks like me?"
"Non," Lestat sniffs, his nose in the air. "Your journalist friend is lying. Why would I seek out a copy of the very face that has looked upon me with nothing but disdain in all the years since it rescued me from certain death? The one who picks me up when he is lonely only to throw me back down when he is finished, toying with my heart like un chat with une souris."
"Quit it with the hyperbole. It's only been four years, and you weren't going to die. That hurricane barely touched you. And as for the rest, it’s not as if I lied about my intentions. You knew what this was going in."
"I KNEW NOTHING!" Lestat cries, blue eyes staining red. "You told me nothing! You came, we fucked, you went. Until one day you stopped coming back at all! And then there were no more long, lazy talks. No more late-night walks. No secrets. No affection. No kisses, no texting, no smiles. Nothing exists between Louis and Lestat anymore, not even the dull pounding of flesh on flesh."
"Dull?" Louis yells, years of painstakingly learning how to rein in his temper going down the toilet within minutes of returning to Lestat's orbit.
"Oui. Dull. Leroy is by far your superior in the art of lovemaking. Why, just last night he did this thing with his tongue that—"
"Finish that sentence and I will rip out his oh-so-talented tongue and feed it back to him," Louis threatens, unable to remember a time when he has ever felt so offended. Leroy is superior in bed? Yeah, right. Over two hundred years, and Lestat has never had better than Louis. Never will, either, if he has anything to say about it. "And what about our time together in Baton Rouge? Or Dubai? Or San Francisco? There was nothing boring about the sex we shared on those nights."
"Oh yeah? Got real dirty, did it?" Daniel asks, reaching for his notebook and pen.
"Can we go somewhere private to talk, please?" Louis all but begs, needing to get away from Leroy's benign curiosity and Daniel's smug amusement before he can risk speaking plain.
Louis does not share the same theatre-loving, exhibitionist streak that lit up his maker and their daughter. Not for him large halls and filled seats. He prefers a quiet chair in a small room. Preferably with a locked door to keep the rest of the world at bay.
Lestat looks torn. He bites nervously at his lip and turns wavering eyes in Leroy's direction.
Don't look at him. Look at me! Louis wants to scream.
"Non. Je suis désolé, Louis," Lestat says, all the while staring hard at Leroy, "but I will have no secrets from my beloved. I know that is not how you liked it to be between you and me, but I find this way of being companions much more agreeable. Don't you, mon roi?"
Lestat tilts his head to rest it against the top of Leroy's. Louis feels his eyes frost over like grass in winter. Bendable blades turning to ice-hardened daggers.
"Yes," Leroy agrees. "But you can go talk to him if you want. I don't mind."
Louis is torn between gratitude and fury. Why is Leroy so unbothered by the thought of them speaking in private when Louis would rather burn this whole arena to the ground than leave him alone with Lestat? Does he not view Louis as competition? Does he think that just because Lestat's spotlight has shone on him for all of five minutes, he's somehow managed to eclipse a century-long love affair? Is the guy naive or just plain dumb?
"Let's talk," Louis says, reaching out for Lestat. "Your boyfriend doesn't mind."
Lestat takes a step back. Louis' hand is left clutching at empty air, his belly going into free fall.
"But I do," Lestat says.
Louis hisses, so beyond done with this whole situation that it isn't even funny. "You're being absurd!"
"Am I?"
"You're fooling exactly no one here, Lestat. You know that, right? Not one fucking person!"
"Such naughty profanity, Louis," Lestat purrs, his eyes burning hotter and a damn sight more invitingly than any fire Louis has ever spent a beat too long staring into. When it comes to Lestat, he fears he will always yearn to jump right in and savor the burn. "How riled up this news has made you. Strange, non, when I mean so little to you?"
"You clearly don't know the first thing about what you mean to me, or else you wouldn't be pulling this shit."
For the first time since he'd arrived backstage to find Lestat curled up in a stranger's lap like a kitten in a cardboard box, Louis thinks he sees his mask slip.
"Louis, mon—"
"What in the ever-loving fuck are you still doing in your dressing room? You're due on stage in five..." The tornado that had swept into the room stops spinning long enough to check her watch. "Fuck, no, three minutes. You better get your skinny ass out that door, Lestat, or else I'm gonna hand it to you on a silver platter."
"Hey, Christine."
"Hiya, Louis. How's the art world treating you?"
"Same as ever. Still filled with con artists and entitled assholes with more money than sense. How's the music business holding up?"
"Oh, you know, it is what it is. Still filled with con artists and entitled assholes with more money than sense," she replies, glaring pointedly at Lestat.
It has become a well-worn joke between them, but one that still has the power to make Louis smile. Of all the headaches that have come with Lestat's ascension to the rock stratosphere, Louis hates Christine the least.
"I am going! I am going!" Lestat huffs, pulling up the neon pink suspenders hanging down around his impossibly tight waist and throwing a gauzy black monstrosity around his bare shoulders. "There is no need to scold me. I am not a misbehaving child. You'll stay for the show, yes? I have written a new song just for you. Très jolie. Très romantique."
This time Louis knows better than to think Lestat is talking to him, but nothing can prevent the blood in his veins from turning to ash at the thought of his companion composing music for another muse.
"I'll be here," Leroy promises.
"Good. I've bought you and Daniel a private box for the entire length of my Wembley run. Eleven nights. A new record. Not even the indomitable Miss Swift or le Cold Players could manage that. But then all the best things end on eleven, don't they, Louis?"
Louis glares at him, recognition dawning as bright and painful as sunrise.
"And yet you'll be kicked out after only one night if you don't get a fucking move on!" Christine spits, her face turning a worrying shade of puce.
"You heard her, my sweet king," laments Lestat, turning to wrap his arms around Leroy's muscular neck. "I must go, though it pains me sorely to be parted from you."
They kiss noisily. Louis turns away in disgust, whistling through his teeth. Daniel throws him a commiserating shrug.
Louis and Daniel. Forever united by an incendiary book and a predilection for being jerked around by their makers.
Each smack of lips is another nail in his heart's coffin, but Louis won't give Lestat the satisfaction of seeing him squirm. He stays facing the wall until the click-clack of platform boots fades away.
"It's so good to see you, man," Daniel says. "We really missed you around here."
"Some of you more than others."
Daniel waves his hand in dismissal. "Oh, ignore Blondie. He's just been extra cranky lately. Probably on his period. Anyway, how have you been? You're looking good, buddy. New clothes?"
"Uh, yeah," he says a little self-consciously, winding his hands up into the butter-soft sleeves of his yellow cardigan.
"Suits you. I hated that all-black, Batman-wannabe aesthetic you had going on. It used to make me depressed just to look at you. This is much better. I mean, you do look a bit like a banana now, but in a sexy way."
Louis snorts. "Are bananas capable of being sexy?"
"Oh yeah," Daniel nods. "You need to get out more, man. Live a little."
"I think I might have stayed out too long already," Louis says bitterly, unwanted images of Lestat smiling at Leroy filling his head and rending his heart in two.
"C'mon," says Daniel, walking across the room to clap Louis on the shoulder. "Forget about it for now. There are more important matters at hand. I haven't seen you for ages, buddy! Why don't we find a kid off their face on E and have ourselves a private party?"
"I'm too old to go chasing after mercurial highs, Daniel. They barely scratch the sides, let alone soothe the underlying itch. Didn't the seventies teach you that?"
"Man, the only thing I learned in the seventies was how to be fascinating. So what's the plan? Suck the wannabe Louis dry during the guitar solo? That thing always goes on too long."
Louis smiles, picturing Leroy's neck between his teeth. The sick satisfaction of sinking himself deep into the man Lestat claims to love.
Louis shakes his head, and the image disperses like smoke. He is all out of revenge. Has been since Francis. Lestat can fuck with him all he wants, but nothing will ever be that bleak again.
"Nothing so permanent, Daniel. Lestat will tire of his newest distraction and come slinking back home. It's a tale older than the bedtime stories your parents read you in the forties."
"Three things wrong with that, pal. One: It was the fifties, fuck you very much. Two: My parents never read to me. It's probably why I turned out so kind and emotionally available. Three: Are you sure about that, Louis? He was pretty cut up after the last time you dined and dashed. And I'm not talking about the usual hysterical theatrics, either. That's just a regular Tuesday around here. No, he was quiet afterwards. Didn't talk. Didn't feed. Didn't even shed a tear. Just sat around staring at the walls and muttering something about some dead French composer. Ravel? Bizet?"
"Debussy."
Daniel eyes him speculatively, like an old bloodhound catching the scent of a fresh trail and wondering whether there was going to be something worth his while at the end of it. "You got any idea what that was about?"
"It's nothing."
And that Debussy-filled night in Buenos Aires had been nothing. Certainly not enough to warrant a tantrum of this magnitude. Still, Louis is reassured to learn that it is his failings as a companion and not some eternal-devotion-at-first-sight thing with Leroy that has inspired Lestat's defection. With a man as maddeningly mercurial as his maker, you never can be sure.
Cleaning up this mess should be easier given it is of his own making. While past mistakes can be atoned for, true companions are all but impossible to break apart. Just ask Armand.
As electric guitars shriek and drums crash above their heads like thunder, Daniel herds Louis towards the arena.
"Let's go watch your boyfriend do what he does best."
Louis scoffs. "Perform?"
Lestat is a gifted singer and a consummate showman, but there are dozens of things he does better. Pissing off Louis being chief amongst them.
"Make everyone within a hundred-mile radius fall madly in love with him."
Louis laughs. Daniel has him there.