Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time had been an accident. 

He had been reading in the library when Lestat burst in. Louis had heard it when he came home from his night out in New Orleans, slamming the door loud enough to wake half the house, had the only sleeping inhabitant not been his own near-deaf father. He rushed in seconds later, standing in the doorway, his blue waistcoat already unbuttoned and outerwear missing, likely discarded on the foyer floor. 

There was a twinge of pressure behind Louis’ eyes at the sudden sounds, the last remnants of what might very well have been the first vampire headache in history. ‘ Only because you deny yourself ’, his mind provided in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Lestat’s. 

No matter the cause of his malaise, he had been enjoying a quiet night for once. And so, in the interest of extending said night into the early morning hours, Louis pretended not to notice him. Unfortunately Lestat was undeterred by (or unaware of) this lack of attention, and started to talk anyways. He explained excitedly that he had been somewhere , and somehow ended up talking to someone that knew something about the newly inaugurated theater on the Rue Saint Pierre. It was a monologue more than anything, with Louis only occasionally humming in acknowledgment as he continued to read. 

“He said the actors were horrendous ,” he hissed out at one point, evidently annoyed. “Then again, what would he know about theater? I won't believe it until I see it.” Louis watched Lestat pace back and forth in front of the desk out of the corner of his eye, still not so much as looking up from his book. “Maybe we could go next week.” 

“M-hm.” 

Lestat stopped, turning sharply on his heel. “ M-hm?, ” he repeated. “Have you been listening to me at all?” 

“I’m reading, Lestat.”  

If anything the answer only inflamed him more. He climbed onto the chaise longue, as if getting closer would make Louis hear him better. Dirty shoes dragging mud onto the upholstered seat as he kneeled next to Louis to continue his tirade. 

“You and your damned books!” With that he ripped the offending novel out of Louis’ grasp. There were two thuds in quick succession as the book hit the far wall hard enough Louis didn't need to turn around to know there would be a gash on the wallpaper, then fell limply to the ground.

That was the last straw.

Lestat was still talking, gesticulating wildly as he complained about being ignored, and Louis wished he would just shut up for a moment. Without thinking he reached out, the fingers of his right hand threading into that fine blonde hair and closing into a fist. Louis didn't pull, but held it just tightly enough that Lestat wouldn't be able to get away without feeling a tug. 

The effect was both immediate and unexpected. Lestat did, in fact, shut up. He sort of deflated, sitting back on his heels as his next words died on his tongue, which left his mouth slightly ajar. A crease between his eyebrows betrayed he was as confused by this reaction as Louis, though he didn't try to remove the hand that still held him in place. 

The silence stretched out for a few more moments before Louis dared to speak. “I was reading,” he tried; not quite sure what to do with himself, still half-expecting the argument to start up again. Blue eyes blinked up at him mutely. Louis steadied himself. “If you want my attention you need to be patient, yes?” 

He felt the nod more than he saw it, the strands of hair in his grip going taut for a second as Lestat let out a nearly inaudible “uh-huh”. 

Louis unclenched his fist and laid his open palm against the curve of the skull beneath. Then, fully expecting Lestat to snap out of it at any second, he began to draw his hand back, trying to keep his ring from snagging. Instead, he found Lestat moving with him. He shifted to lay on his side, all the while following, no, chasing after Louis’ touch until his head was resting on his thighs, face turned away from Louis, making it impossible to try to decipher Lestat's expression without disturbing him. A twitch of his hand and nails scraped against scalp, and he could hear a breath hitch in Lestat’s throat. He tentatively repeated the motion, more deliberately. Lestat shuddered, then let out a deep sigh, the habitual rise and fall of his chest the only other indication this was a living being laying on his lap and not a life-sized wax replica of some sort. 

The situation was nothing short of bizarre. That a hand in his hair had left Lestat quiet and pliant in his lap was like seeing a firestorm stopped in its tracks by a bucket of water; a lion deterred by a line in the sand. 

Only after several minutes of this did he dare to move again. Again bracing himself for a reaction he picked another book from the side table with his free hand, opened it, propped it on his knee for support, leafed through the pages until he found where he had left off. The reaction never came. Lestat remained where he had come to rest. Then the rumbling of his throat against the side of Louis’ leg. “Read for me?” 

A question, not a demand, asked so quietly and softly that Louis might have missed it. 

“The next he addressed was a man who had been haranguing a large assembly for a whole hour on the subject of charity.” “But the orator, looking askew, said: ‘What are you doing here? Are you for the good cause?’”  Louis put on a voice to make a distinction between each characters’ lines, like he used to do when he read for his sister as a child. ‘There can be no effect without a cause…’

They got through a surprising number of pages like that, with him recounting disaster after disaster, all the while absentmindedly petting the golden head of hair in his lap, so still Louis might wonder if he was even awake, were it not for the occasional chuckle at a particularly funny passage. Louis had been growing tired himself, fighting against his own heavy eyelids as sunrise approached. He must have dozed off at some point, because he was awoken by a hand lightly squeezing his knee. The book was back on the table next to him, Lestat sitting up now, shoulders pressing together as he withdrew his hand. Louis hadn’t quite gotten his bearings yet when without saying a word, Lestat stood up and left the room. 

Neither of them brought it up the next night, pretending to eat from opposite sides of the table as Lestat’s father complained about the day-old bread.

Chapter Text

They did end up going to the theater after all.

Neither ever talked of the incident, but it took a week for whatever tension stemmed from it to dissipate. Of course, once it did there was nothing to prevent Lestat from proceeding with his usual brand of obnoxious nonsense. On Tuesday he declared they would be attending a play that Friday; a reasonable three-day advance warning for Louis to get himself together. 

Clothes appeared in his room soon after, their colors far too somber to be mistaken for anything of Lestat's and tailored to his measurements. The needling about his eating habits preceded even that. Several times a night Lestat would remark how the theater would ‘most certainly be full, there are oh so many people interested in watching’ , how ‘it would be a pity if one of us was too distracted by all that blood rushing in their veins, we really must aim to blend in, hm?’, or even the less subtle ‘Louis if you do not drain someone by Friday I will throw your coffin to the gators with you in it; don't look at me like that, I mean it’.   Lestat was right, no matter how hard that might be to acknowledge, and Louis acquiesced. It was the lesser of two evils, he told himself as he stalked the dirt roads leading out of the city for lost travelers or ne'er-do-wells, better to choose his prey now than to lash out at some innocent audience member, no matter how annoying their constant sniffling may be. So he killed one man on Wednesday, two more on Thursday, and a few large chickens on Friday afternoon, just after sunset. 

He wished his guilt stemmed not from taking the lives of living breathing people but from how easy it had been to do so. How little he really cared. And though the gnawing conscience in the back of his skull shunned him for it, Louis could not help but revel in this seldom experienced state of satiety. Furtive looks in the mirror revealed a reflection more human than any he had seen in a very long time, and despite the heaviness of his limbs, Louis was warm for the first time in years; not the fleeting thawing of his fingertips of holding his hands too close to the fire, no, this was the real thing. 

It felt good .

Needless to say, Lestat was pleased, preening over him every time Louis came home from a kill, which of course only served to make him feel worse. Even now he could see Lestat standing in the door frame to his room, smiling smugly as he watched Louis tie his hair back.

“This does suit you, you know.” 

“What does?”  Louis feigned ignorance, looking over the shoulder of his own reflection to watch Lestat lean against the door frame. 

“That,” he gestured to the mirror. “I haven't seen this much color in your cheeks since I found you half-dead in that gutter.” Louis had barely opened his mouth to argue before Lestat spoke up again. “Your face was very red at the time. Probably from all the alcohol. You were quite drunk.” 

There it was, another of the sneering taunts he had learnt to contend with whenever there was a moment of peace in their household. ( I simply cannot handle monotony, Lestat had told him on one of their rare amicable nights. Let me be anything but dull .)

Usually he would respond in kind, retaliating with a jab of his own, though he knew that would only escalate the situation. Nights like that would always end badly, either in blows or in a tense silence as they each retreated to one end of the estate, with Louis sleeping in the oratory more often than not. But not tonight. No, tonight he had a better idea.

Tonight Louis simply watched him dig himself deeper into a hole. “Still,” he took a cautious step over the threshold, then looked back to Louis as if waiting for his reaction. Seeing that there was none, he continued his advance. “You look good like this. A little less pale.” He watched as the reflection grew closer in the mirror. “Though I doubt anyone would notice anything but the state of your hair. If you don't want to go I would rather you just tell me, I am quite capable of finding a more willing companion for the night.” 

Louis turned around in the stool to face him just as Lestat came to a stop, close enough to touch if Louis just reached out. “You do it then, since I'm apparently so inept at tying my own hair ,” he provoked, his tone not quite as harsh as it should have been. Turning back to face his own reflection, he felt a hand land on his shoulder, another tug at the offending ribbon until it came loose, letting his long hair spill out around him. He waited until Lestat had picked up the hairbrush from the vanity table before speaking up again, taking a deep breath to steady himself. 

“That was rude.” He started off shakily, expecting to be dismissed out of hand, but Lestat was silent as he lifted the brush to his head.“I don't particularly enjoy you bringing that up.”

 “You invited me to the theater, did you not? And I accepted. I drank the blood, I dressed to your tastes, I arranged for transport, all because you asked me to accompany you.” 

“So I really cannot see what reason you have to be so insolent ,” he hissed out the last word, growing more confident the more he spoke. “You like to tease, don’t you? To say hurtful things to people and see how they react. Why is that?” He paused for a moment, waiting again for a response that never came. Trying to make eye contact in the mirror proved equally fruitless.

“Do you not want me to accompany you after all? Is that why you insist on insulting me? If that’s the case I’d be happy to stay here; you can go find you willing companions. ” 

“No! I… ” He drifted off, still avoiding Louis’ gaze. 

“Or is it just for attention? Are you so desperate to be noticed that it pushes every other thought out of your brain?”

An unnecessary breath hitched in Lestat’s throat at that, the brush pausing mid-stroke. “Did I say you could stop? You’re not done yet are you?” Lestat continued his aborted movement, brushing through Louis’ hair several times more than he needed to before setting it back on the table. In the mirror Louis could see his face, red and blotchy with embarrassment as he clumsily tried to tie the ribbon.  The eyes that finally met his own in the mirror were glassy, staring through blonde lashes in a way that made it seem like they were looking up at him, though their respective positions made that impossible. 

He softened at the sight. “I believe you owe me an apology.” 

“I’m sorry.” The answer came with a small voice, hands still fidgeting where Louis’ hair was now tied back. 

He let the silence stretch out for just a moment too long for it to be comfortable. “Thank you.” Reaching behind him, Louis pulled one of those hands over his own shoulder, letting it rest against his chest as his thumb made circles in Lestat’s palm. ” Trés bien, ” he continued. “ Tu as fait du bien pour moi. ” Lestat let out a shaky breath. 

They stayed like that for another few minutes, Lestat’s other hand eventually joining the first, his head coming to rest on Louis' own, in a position that couldn’t possibly have been comfortable.

By the time either of them moved to stand up they were already late to the play, though Louis suspected neither cared all that much.