Chapter Text
“The quality of the opera is suffering,” Lestat said with a toss of his golden hair; beautiful, inappropriate, and-
“Rather heartless, Mr. de Lioncourt, they’re eating children!”
The speaker had an indisputable Mid-Atlantic accent and was wearing too much for fall inside the New Orleans French Opera House with its modern heaters. Louis could smell the a faint sheen of perspiration on her neck mixed with perfume even from his shadowy corner of the room.
As Lestat bent his handsome head and whispered to the woman if sharing a secret, singling out the couple for his particular kind of post-mortem that evening. Louis lit his cigarette, listening to the consummate connoisseur of music prattle on the virtues of a proper Italian mezzo soprano as superior to any reservations about children.
Louis inhaled and held the smoke curled inside his head and watched the subtle undulation of her throat, the way her European husband’s eyes lingered on Lestat’s mouth. Beneath the electric lights, the tips of the hair of the woman’s mink fur muffler seemed to shimmer gold, only a shade dimmer than Lestat’s bright hair. The man thought so, too.
Louis exhaled slowly.
There was a look darted in his direction, not because Louis gave himself away, but because Lestat would look at him and as they followed his gaze and found nothing of note, the confusion was obvious.
Louis stamped out the cigarette. The room was foul: colognes, aftershave, perfumes, cigarettes, alcohol, and the odor of too many bodies together. Through the miasma, Lestat was very far away from him.
When they exited, Louis followed, a few steps behind after a mumbled “Sir” to ward off questions. He walked behind then opened the car door, the high-pitched giggling hurting his ears as the woman moved inside, pulling at Lestat’s arm.
“Make it quick,” he said softly as he moved to shut the door for him, fingertip just brushing over the exposed skin of Lestat’s wrist. He didn’t have long to wait, a few moment’s later the bodies were on the ground to be left in the alleyway or hauled home for the incinerator.
They always took the wallets and the pocketbooks. Louis insisted on giving away the money. Lestat merely said, “As you like, if you want to play Robin Hood, I don’t see the point of it.” Louis ignored the jab, he did like it. It made him feel a little better. No, that’s a lie, a lot better, that the money of those who sneered at him would see at least a little bit of their wealth diminished. That their lives, too, were gone, was mere legacy of their ancestors.
Lestat would never see it that way, but he indulged Louis in a way he had never been indulged before since he started wearing long trousers. And inexplicably, he was beginning to suspect, in return for the indulgence, Lestat stoked his anger on purpose.
The fur muffler burnt quickly along with the white scarf. They were in New Orleans, after all. That winter, it wouldn’t have been useful to give it away or keep as a trophy.
Lestat had on a little coy smile, the sort that also included showing off the lipstick marks on his open shirt collar as he tilted his head. Even with the closing reverie of opera music still echoing in his head. Louis wanted to push him to the ground, disorder carefully plaited hair, and bite into that smooth pale throat, except it would get their clothes dirty. He didn’t want to go to the tailor’s again that month. People were already talking.
The fires had been made in their absence. He circled past Lestat during their routine even after Lestat decided to bring a wet towel into the coffin room. He was there quite naked, for quite a while, washing himself. With careful deliberation, Louis’ took a book off the shelf, descended then stairs, settled himself on the sofa, and began reading.
Lestat called what they do “hunting” and had analogies and strategies that he tried to convey to Louis, but Louis had grown up in a city. His knowledge of forests was bounded by the thickets down in the bayou. And so, he listened. He listened also for the way that Lestat’s mouth moved, the way his hands gestured, the way his voice rolled through him, and nodded in acknowledgement, remembering the words even if he could not understand them entirely.
“Have you been on a hunt?” he asked after Lestat arrived in the parlor, clean again.
“Every night,” Lestat answered. He had not put on a shirt beneath his dressing gown, putting a long triangle of smooth skin on display. He put down the music he was studying over the piano and gave Louis his full attention. “Would you like to go out?” he asked, a bit quizzical, then worried, “Are you still hungry? Is that why-”
Louis shook his head. “Have you been to a formal hunt,” he persisted. “With dogs and horses?”
“I have, yes.” Lestat said after a moment. His glance fell on the cover of the book Louis was reading. “Though not exclusively for foxes and not for bigger games.”
Louis asked, “Did you enjoy it?”
Lestat blinked, nonplussed. “I hunted because we had to eat, but yes, I enjoyed it. It was,” he paused then said, “Liberating.”
“Did you have someone clean up after? Some sort of hunting servants, to carry back the game?”
“Louis,” Lestat came closer, prowling. “I hunted alone, for food. I’ve always hunted alone. There was no one else,” he added, touching Louis lightly on the shoulder. “Until you.” He seemed very intent, staring at Louis as if his electric gaze would make his meaning clear and his words truthful. After a moment, Louis turned and kissed Lestat’s hand, his mouth grazing the top of a knuckle. Lestat beamed, waited a moment in that almost unbearable way of his, then bounded back to his music.
There are very formal hunting terms and histories Louis was learning from his book, none of which Lestat had ever used. Nothing in the books applied to Lestat. At least, apparently nothing worthy of publication. Lestat was, of course, older, but even then, beyond his non-discriminating nature, Lestat must have been unconventional in his time.
The susurrus of pages merged with a slowly articulated diminuendo from the piano. If sound could have forms, they echoed a narrow waist, sleek muscles of smooth pale thighs, the clasp of-
Louis sighed. He shifted the book in his lap. Lestat was very beautiful. A stoic’s nightmare.
“I’m going to bed,” he announced. He looked up, but Lestat was already watching him, probably the moment the book closed. The lamps were turned low, casting the presence in chiaroscuro; his fine fair hair sprang like a halo from the soft waves of his hair and above the shocking blue of his eyes, eyelashes were casting shadows on his cheeks. He was aesthete’s dream. Louis wetted his lower lip. “Are you coming up?” he asked.
Lestat left the music open, but came and took his Louis’ hand in a way that reminded Louis of boys reaching out, tentative and questing, then determined once they made contact. Grace had once described it. He had read it in books, but Louis had never held someone’s hand like this before Lestat. The hand was strong, large boned, the skin soft like the young man he must’ve been once and always would be. Louis brought it up to his lips, placed a kiss on the soft mound at the base of his thumb. He felt his fangs extend and press against the small swell of flesh. The skin tasted a little like distilled vanilla, retaining the scent of the the old pages of music.
Lestat’s breath hitched with the first prick. “The stairs would be uncomfortable,” he complained against Louis’s mouth, words muffled, hand flicking the buttons of their trousers of open, as Louis was trying to hold and press him into the wall at every step. He would have him right there, in their house in Rue Royal, the silky golden hair mussed and enshrined and picturesque with the imported wallpaper, lion rampant in the forest, going nowhere.