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“Great show tonight,” Louis says as he lets himself into the green room. He does not mean it, of course. Lestat does not need to read his mind to know that Louis is placating him with halfhearted compliments. It is appallingly evident in the way he looks around this room, even, from the cans of hairspray and tubes of mascara and palettes of eyeshadow on the vanity to the jugs of blood kept chilled in a small drink fridge against the wall to Lestat’s discarded boots, which he had worn to the venue tonight and which he will wear back to the hotel.
Louis hates it all. He finds it vain and pointless; he does not understand the light shows or the big screens or the theatricality it takes to put on a performance as magnificent as his are. When Lestat tells him that the children on TikTok are calling his music nightcore and that they adore him, all Louis does is quirk his eyebrows and tilt his head and say, “That’s great.”
This is fine. So Louis does not understand, so what? Louis has a different taste in art, and he always has. He does not have to understand Lestat’s shows to want to love him. Different artists have overcome more challenging creative differences.
Lestat is reclined on a sofa facing the door, his legs spread and outstretched. He is still in his full costume tonight, save for the bright red wig which has been tossed carelessly onto the vanity and the long cape, which drapes over the chair. One of his sweet little blood bags is curled up on an adjacent sofa, dozing, and the other is tucked underneath his arm, giggling into his shoulder at a joke he hadn’t told.
Lestat twirls a curl damp with sweat around his index finger, smiles wide enough that his fangs poke out, and drawls, “Do you think so?”
“Yeah,” Louis says, with a strange little smile. “I had fun. You’re more comfortable up there now than you were the last time I saw you.”
When Louis is not here, his heart pounds in time with the rhythm. The thud of the drums, the echo of the bass. When Louis is standing hauntingly still in the VIP section with his hands tucked into his pockets, Lestat’s heart beats with his. Slower, steadier, louder. He has been off-rhythm all night. Not even the cocaine, fresh from the veins of his little darlings, has helped to make his heart beat faster.
It would be easier, he muses, to tear his heart out and make it beat for itself. Ah, he thinks, then, this would make a good lyric. I must write this down.
Louis, once he has finished surveying the room, makes his way to the minibar. Blood in a goblet, enhanced with a generous pour of vodka.
“Would you not rather have it fresh?” Lestat asks, fixing his hand in the girl’s stringy, dark hair and tilting her head to bare her neck for Louis.
“No,” Louis says, sipping neatly from his cup. “You go ahead.”
Lestat does, vile and vicious: his fangs tear into her neck. She moans and sighs and pushes into him. He palms her breast. He has sipped from her all evening, and with this one she gets the closest to death. He spares her, however, as he is not hungry anyway and Louis would be disappointed with him and he has not seen Louis’ beautiful face for entire moments, now, and so he pulls back and says, dispassionately, “That’s enough. You may go now.”
Louis watches with an amused smile.
The girl, hazy and pale: “Huh?”
“Go, I said,” Lestat demands. “Va-t’en, go, go, I have no need of you any longer.” He lifts her by the shoulder and shoves her toward the exit — and Louis catches her, presses her discarded top back into her hands.
Lestat snaps at the other, his fingers clicking in front of her face. “You!” he shouts, and she startles awake with a little shriek. “Leave us, now.” She, afraid, scrambles for her purse and darts out of the room, dragging the other girl stumbling and half-dressed behind her.
Louis finishes his blood quickly, swallowing it down in a few practiced gulps. Lestat watches the bob of his Adam’s apple as he does it, traces the line of his throat with one finger in the air.
Louis approaches. Lestat shoves his hair behind his ears on both sides, lest it obscure his vision.
“Hey, Les,” Louis says. He balances his hand to the back of the sofa and leans over to press a chaste kiss to his mouth. Lestat’s nails dig sharp into his thighs. “I’m glad to see you.”
Louis slots easily into the space between Lestat’s spread legs. Lestat’s breath catches, his hips canting forward so he’s closer to Louis’ face. “I am fond of this look you have,” Lestat tells him, petting the top of his head, “like a tourist. My usual crowd, they normally dress with a little bit more glam, but here you are with this very plain little getup, and still you are the prettiest one in the room.”
“No idea how your people come up with these looks for you,” Louis counters, hands sliding up the thighs of his skintight bodysuit. All black, with red detailing. He nudges Lestat’s hands out of the way; his nails slice through the cushions on the sofa instead as he shifts his grip.
The bulge of Lestat’s cock is displayed lewdly at the front of his suit, a little tease that becomes more visible with the right shift of light. Louis can certainly see it now, as it thickens just under the slightest bit of his attention.
Louis leans forward and licks it, root to tip, and Lestat does not feel the heat or wet of his tongue, only the pressure, but oh, how divine it is, how lovely, how he has waited nights just for this, only this—
Lestat, it seems, has clawed entirely through the sofa cushion, stuffing spilling out where his nails tore through. Louis, devoted and lovely, sucks at the head of his cock through his suit, hand pressed against the firm line of his abdomen as he fucks his hips up into Louis’ face. Would it kill him, really, to tear Lestat open the same way? He does not care for this suit, does not care for his own skin. All can be renewed or discarded. But no, no, he is tender and gentle and close, like Lestat is a fragile little thing which much be kept.
Then Lestat should open him: pry open his chest and climb inside, to curl around his heart. Then he would decide how their hearts beat, now and forever, and he would not let Louis be so relaxed while he is watching Lestat prance around on the stage for him, so, ha!
“What’s going on up there?” Louis asks, punctuated by kitten-licks on Lestat’s hard cock. “You’ve got something in your head.”
Lestat stalls for a moment, rolling his eyes up toward the ceiling. “I am unsatisfied with tonight’s performance,” he decides, then adds, for flair, “my guitarist took too many creative liberties which sounded like shit. I could not think, all the noise.”
“You still worried about the noise?” Louis asks, crawling up to sit astride his lap. He does not relent in his ministrations against Lestat’s cock, grinding his hips forward to push them together. “What about the noise of the crowd? You hear that? How much they love you?” Louis grabs a fistful of his hair and tugs backwards, and Lestat gasps as his head cranes toward the ceiling. “Almost deafening. All you can hear.” Louis pauses to bite Lestat’s throat without fangs, sucks until the blood pools and leaves the skin bright red. “We love Lestat, we love Lestat, we love Lestat. For hours, for miles.”
“And you?” Lestat asks, peering ahead just enough so he can look into Louis’ eyes. “What do you think of the Vampire Lestat?”
“Show you myself,” Louis says, with a smile and a final kiss to his throat, “once you get this goddamn thing off.”
A fever pitch, for a moment: Lestat scrambles to oblige, and Louis unzips him. Louis is tossed onto the corner of the couch, and he unfastens his jeans while Lestat peels the bodysuit off his arms and his shoulders, drags it just below his hips, then lays himself on top of his love once more. Lestat’s cock slots in the crook of Louis’ thigh, and he spends a few glorious minutes rubbing his slick on the skin there, gasping and sighing and murmuring strange, sweet nonsense.
“You sound like a harlot,” Louis tells him, bucking his hips up to rub his cock on Lestat’s stomach and carding his fingers through Lestat’s sweat-damp hair. “You gonna get in me or not?”
“But we have not stretched you,” Lestat bemoans, though he has made no effort to do anything about this. “Would I live with myself if I was responsible for your bruising, ma petite?”
“You could and you have,” Louis says, though his voice lacks no sweetness when he does. “Come on. I’m good.” He pulls his knee back so his legs are spread wide. “Got myself ready in the bathroom before the show. Wasn’t sure how much time we’d have.”
Such a vision! Louis, with his leg propped up on the grimy venue toilet, working his fingers into himself. Trying not to make noise, perhaps? Louis standing with his hands in his pockets, watching Lestat prance about onstage, serene and wide-open and waiting for him.
Lestat’s eyes widen, his heart clenches and unfurls with open adoration; he kisses Louis’ face while Louis laughs, and he praises, “Louis, Louis, Louis, my darling Louis, you are my world, you are my star,” and Louis says, “Yeah, yeah, get in me already,” so Lestat does, lining up his cock and pressing inside.
He is slow, at first, fighting his urge to slam his cock to the hilt and make Louis scream with it. More claw marks in the arm of the sofa. Louis makes pretty noises beneath him, touches his hair and his face. When he sinks all the way inside, he is still and patient.
Louis is not. Louis wiggles against him, arches up against the solid weight of him, says, “Les, baby, you waiting for the sun to rise? I want you, come on, I want you,” and, well, Lestat cannot deny that, so he gives in and fucks him.
The pleasure of having him is bone-deep, it reverberates through his skull, it reminds him why their twin hearts are not a curse meant to sully his musical performance. Louis cradles him between his legs, grinds up against him, tugs at his hair like he’s pulling at the reins of a horse. He is warm inside and tight, and the curve of Lestat slots into him perfectly, as he always has and always will.
He craves more. Craves blood and teeth and Louis kissing his feet, promising his adoration forever. Lestat has been without him so long — doesn’t he deserve it? Is he not beautiful enough? Does he not have the testimonies of hundreds of thousands of squealing mortals every night to prove it? Louis sighs his name and says, “Oh, there, just like that,” and it is only this Lestat wants on stage every night. He reveals his heart with his music, but nothing does it better than this, the way that his lover, his once and future companion, breathes his name into the space between them.
Louis comes with a shout, body going rigid, legs shaking, and Lestat fucks him until he follows behind, muffling his cry into the curve of Louis’ neck.
A handful of sluggish, lazy moments spent in quiet contentment. Lestat cleans them with a towel the makeup artist had left behind; Louis welcomes his weight again and strokes fingertips over the expanse of his back. Lestat does not speak — if he does, he fears it would be of poetic magnitude.
Then: a sharp rap on the door. His manager’s voice: “Mr. Lioncourt, we need you on the lot in five minutes, please!”
Lestat rockets up off the couch in an instant, his fangs bared at the door. “I will be on the lot when I am ready to be on the lot, thank you!”
A brief pause. She decides whether or not to fight back, then leaves it with one final command of, “Five minutes, Mr. Lioncourt!”
“Five minutes,” he sneers, shouts, “Tu me casses les couilles!” though he can already hear her heels clicking off down the hall. Times like this, Lestat is not sure why he does not rip her throat out.
Louis, his hand shaded over his pretty eyes, his straight-legged jeans hanging open and his softening cock draped against his thigh. “It’s alright, baby, you go,” he says, waving his fingers. “I’m good. I’ll see myself out.”
He is happy, sated, his smile shining out from behind the coverage of his thumb, and Lestat’s thighs tense with the urge to pounce on him, to cover him entirely, to keep anyone from seeing him and to keep him here, always, under Lestat’s wing.
“You could, of course, come with me,” Lestat says, his eyes darting around the room — anywhere but Louis, who has begun peeking out at him from between his pretty fingers.
“You got work to do,” Louis tells him, sitting up at last to dress himself, “and I know what kind of distraction I make.”
“Ah,” Lestat says, laughs, and his voice warbles a bit when he says, “but you are a very welcome distraction.”
Louis stands and makes his way to the wardrobe in the corner, says, “C’mere,” and waves Lestat over. Lestat kicks off his platform boots and peels his bodysuit off the rest of the way. Louis holds him there for a minute with a hand pressed in the center of his chest: a silent appraisal. What he concludes remains unknown, hidden behind his eyes. What he says is, “It doesn’t hurt your feet, wearing those boots?”
“They make me seven feet tall.”
“They do not.” Louis smiles at him, gentle and amused. His hand brushes over Lestat’s breastbone; his heart sings.
“They do, yes. I am at last a giant among men.”
“You don’t need boots to make you look seven feet tall,” Louis says. His brow furrows a bit. “The way you look up there — like you were born for it.”
Louis helps to dress him, smoothing hands over his shoulders and down the flat planes of his abdomen, smoothing out phantom wrinkles.
By the time he tucks Lestat back into his jeans, he is hard again. This earns a wry smile from Louis, who palms at his cock once, twice in pity, then says, “Might be easier to manage if you wore underwear.”
“I only wear my Calvin Kleins in these jeans if I want to look like a dyke.”
Lestat tugs on his boots, then makes his way to the vanity, where he preens over his appearance. His curls are damp, wild from Louis’ tugging. He sprays them to keep them in place exactly as they are.
Louis watches him from a few feet back: placid smile, thumbs tucked into his pockets. Lestat watches him through the mirror. Then he is finished, his five minutes elapsed. He does a tiny twirl to face Louis, holds his hands out by his sides, raises an eyebrow.
“Gorgeous,” Louis placates. He steps forward to press a kiss to Lestat’s temple, says, “Well, I love you.”
Lestat’s entire face seizes up: his jaw twitches, he blinks rapid-time. When he relaxes, he relaxes into a smile. “Ah,” he says, his eyes wide, “well, thank you for coming.”
“No,” Louis says, pliant and teasing, “thank you.” He nudges Lestat toward the door, says, “Go on, now. You can come and see me tomorrow night before you get on the road. We’ll have a drink before I head to the airport.”
Lestat straightens. He smiles at Louis, all teeth, grips the tops of his arms and squeezes tight. “Such a pleasure, Louis, as always,” he croons. “Kisses, kisses.” He mimics himself, kissing the air around Louis’ face.
He blows one last kiss to Louis as he reaches the exit. Then he swans off, into the night, in search of those who will adore him.