Chapter Text
It's a Saturday evening, and, in an unexpected stroke of luck, Louis de Pointe du Lac is not scheduled to work tonight. He's not even scheduled for the opening shift tomorrow. If he were anyone else, he might take this as an opportunity to have some fun, let loose, and maybe make a bad decision (or even two).
But since he's not like other girls—as Daniel so often puts it—Louis shall be spending his free evening getting a head-start on his upcoming assignments. Unfortunately for Louis, his aforementioned roommate is not making it easy for him.
"Can I have the apartment to myself tonight?" Daniel asks, completely interrupting Louis' train of thought.
Louis glances up from the article he's reading. "Why?"
Daniel seems to deliberate for a moment, frowning slightly. "Do you want the actual answer? Or would you rather live in ignorance?"
Louis lets out a sigh and rubs the spot directly above his right eye where he gets migraines. He doesn't have one yet, but it's good to keep on top of things when Daniel is asking questions like that.
"Well, that makes me nervous, so yes, now I want to know. What terrible things are you intending on doing to the apartment in my absence?"
"Okay, so, I met this guy, and—"
Louis groans. "No. Not again."
Daniel drops into the chair opposite him and gives him those big, puppy-dog eyes that have an alarmingly high success rate. "No, Louis, this isn't like last time, I promise."
"I've heard that before."
Daniel grimaces. "This guy is different, I promise. He's just coming over for sex, nothing weird."
"So I'm being sexiled?" Louis asks. "From my own home."
"Louis, Louis, please," Daniel begs.
"Why do you need to kick me out of the apartment for that? It's not like we're sharing a bedroom."
Daniel groans. "Louis, please, this is going to be the most insane sex of my life, and I don't want to be distracted worrying whether you can hear me losing virginities I didn't even know I had."
Gross. "You never care if I can hear you having sex," Louis points out. "At this point I'm pretty sure you get off on it."
Daniel opens and closes his mouth several times before responding. "It's just easier if we don't have to worry about it, right?" He pouts and flutters his eyelashes. "Please? Please, Louis? Pretty please? We'll put everything back after we're done."
Louis cringes. "No, you aren't dirtying our communal belongings with some freak you met on Tinder."
"Grindr," Daniel corrects absently. "Please, Louis. It's not going to be all night. Just a couple of hours, and I will be eternally grateful. You remember that bar we went to the other day? Go get drunk or something—actually, I'm realising I don't know what you do for fun. Do you know what fun is? Whatever you end up doing, I'll pay for it. I will do literally anything. Anything." He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
Louis really doesn't want to leave, but Daniel will be miserable if he doesn't, and then he'll never hear the end of it. Louis heaves a long-suffering sigh, and closes his laptop. "Fine. But you owe me."
Daniel lights up. "Louis! Thank you, man, yes, anything. Fuck—I should shower, right? Wait, before you go, how do you feel about us having sex in the shower?"
Louis can practically hear his dentist chastising him for grinding his teeth. He forces his jaw to relax. "Just... don't get any bodily fluids on any of my things. And disinfect the shower after you're done."
Daniel makes a little noise of triumph and dashes back into his bedroom, nearly knocking over his chair as he leaves.
Louis looks down at the various papers scattered over their tiny kitchen table. So much for trying to get ahead of his workload. He's probably going to end up walking around town in circles, completely alone, until Daniel is done. He really needs to make some friends.
~...~
Louis takes the bus to the city centre, and then decides to just see where his feet take him. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, he ends up passing the bar that Daniel mentioned earlier. It doesn't look too busy or overwhelming, so he figures it's as good a place as any to spend the evening. Nothing has changed since the last time Louis was here. The interior is grubby and dimly lit, and the flooring is slightly sticky underfoot. There's only a handful of people scattered around the tables which surround the barren dance floor, and they're playing some vapid pop song that Louis doesn't recognise.
Louis makes his way up to the bar, and the bartender is quick to greet him. "Hey man, what can I get you?"
"What kind of IPAs do you have?" Louis asks.
"It depends on what you're looking for, but we've got a couple local flavours that are good."
"What would you recommend?"
The man points to one of the taps on his left. "This is our most popular, it's got a bit of a tropical taste to it, and it's not so bitter." And then to his right. "This one is probably my favourite. It's a little more hoppy, and you can taste the passionfruit. It has enough bitterness to bring a good balance, but not so much to be overwhelming."
Louis nods. "That sounds great, I'll take one of those."
"Sure thing, man."
Louis pays for his beer, and then takes it to an empty table nearby. He has a sip, and—yeah, okay, that's pretty good.
A quick glance at his phone tells him that it's not even been an hour since he left his apartment, and also alerts him to the fact that it only has 31% battery left. Fuck. That's not going to survive the night. He turns on battery saver and hopes it doesn't die before Daniel can text to give him the all-clear.
Louis looks out over the bar as he sips his beer. As his gaze drifts across a table on the opposite side of the room, he accidentally makes eye contact with the beautiful blonde man sitting at it, who just so happens to be looking in Louis' direction. Louis immediately looks away, not wanting to look like he'd been caught staring. Of course, then he starts worrying that maybe he looked away too quickly, and that made him look even more suspicious, and maybe that guy over there now thinks that Louis is a giant creep who likes hanging out in bars, alone, and staring at strangers for fun.
Louis' internal spiral is interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing, and then a smooth, deep voice.
"Is this seat taken?"
Louis glances up. The man is standing across the table from him, looking at him expectantly. Louis hadn't heard him approach. He's already forgotten the question.
"Sorry, what did you say?"
"I asked if anyone was sitting here."
Louis is fairly certain that's a French accent. He shakes his head.
"May I?" the man asks.
"Go for it."
He places his glass of white wine on the table, pulls out a chair, and sits down.
This guy is very attractive—purely aesthetically speaking, of course. Louis isn't gay, but it's the kind of thing you'd have to be blind not to notice. Strong jaw, bright blue eyes, silky blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail. The man turns to look at something off to the side, and Louis notices that his hair is tied with a black ribbon in a neat bow. Louis thought people stopped using ribbons in their hair whenever hair ties were invented, but clearly this guy didn't get the memo. He's also wearing a faded baseball cap, which is an odd choice of attire at night and indoors. On anyone else, it would probably look strange, but this guy manages to pull it off.
It's at this point that Louis notices the room is starting to feel uncomfortably warm, and he wishes he'd worn a short-sleeved shirt. Maybe someone turned the heating up? It certainly hadn't been this hot when he arrived.
"You know who you remind me of?" The man interrupts Louis' train of thought with a grin.
Louis rolls his eyes. Here we go. "If you're going to say that guy from Game of Thrones, trust me, I know."
"You've been told that before, I suppose?"
"Ugh, all the time," Louis says. "At this point, I'm refusing to watch the show out of spite."
"You've never seen it?" The man looks at Louis like he's just admitted to kicking puppies in his spare time. "Really?"
"Nope. I meant to, when it first came out, but I just never got around to it. And now I'm just being stubborn."
The man snorts. "Honestly, it's impressive you've made it this far without ever seeing it. Are congratulations in order? I don't know if that is a congratulations-worthy feat, but there you are. I tip my cap to you."
Louis snorts as the man actually tips his cap. It's then that he realises he doesn't know the man's name, nor has he introduced himself. His mother would be horrified by his lack of manners. To be fair, there's not much in life that she isn't horrified by.
"I'm Louis, by the way," he says to rectify the situation.
"It's good to meet you, Louis," the man says. And then he says nothing else. The moment of silence stretches out until it becomes distinctly uncomfortable. Maybe this guy doesn't realise this is where most people would volunteer their own name?
Louis finally bites the bullet, unable to stand even a second more of awkward, silent eye contact. "Sorry, what was your name?"
The man gives him a confused look, and they stare at each other for a moment before he laughs. "Oh wow, you really got me, I thought you were being serious."
"Uh. Yeah? I was?"
The man blinks. "Wait, really?"
"Yes?" Either this guy is really bad at social interactions, or Louis missed a joke somewhere. "Unless you're wearing a name tag and I'm just an idiot?"
"Oh." The man seems confused, like Louis is somehow magically supposed to know his name. It's weird. Maybe it's a French thing? "I'm Lestat."
Louis snorts, and, before he can stop himself, asks, "What kind of a name is that?"
Lestat's eyebrows raise, and Louis expects him to get upset, but if anything, he just looks amused. "I have my mother to thank for that. My siblings were all given the gift of normal, unremarkable names, but I was not so fortunate." He sighs, then takes a swig of his wine. "No, I was lumped with the name that is apparently impossible for anyone to say or spell correctly." Another sigh, and an even larger swig.
Louis chuckles. "Okay, I might not have it quite as bad as you do, but you have no idea how often people try to say my name like 'Lewis'. Or spell it with an 'e' at the end, rather than an 's'."
"Oh! It is the French spelling!" Lestat perks up. "Americans are terrible with it, aren't they? They never get my name right. In the 'stat', it's a long 'a', draw it out. It's supposed to be a beautiful, elegant sound. Not short and stumpy." He sighs. "Infuriating, isn't it?"
"Absolutely."
Lestat holds up his glass. "To all the idiots who have ever defiled our names."
Louis snorts, but he taps his drink against Lestat's, and they both take a sip. For a stranger who imposed upon Louis' night without invitation, Lestat is surprisingly good company. Louis could see him wanting to hang out with Lestat again. On purpose, even.
"So, what do you do, Lestat?"
Lestat looks at Louis with narrowed eyes, like he's trying to pluck the thoughts from Louis' head before he can vocalise them. "Are you messing with me?"
Okay, Lestat might be good company, but he's confusing company. "No? Sorry, is that a sore topic, or something?"
"So, you have no idea who I am?" Lestat asks.
"Should I?"
Lestat tilts his head slightly. "Hmm, no, probably not. I've been dabbling in music, but that fizzled out a few months ago."
"Have you made anything I might have heard?" Louis asks. Lestat certainly doesn't look like the kind of person who makes the kind of music that Louis enjoys, but you know what they say about judging a book by its cover.
"Oh lord, hopefully not," Lestat snorts. "My best work is from a few years ago. Nothing I've made recently has come even close."
Louis has only known Lestat for a matter of minutes, but he can tell this slightly dejected humility doesn't suit him.
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you think it is," Louis says. "I'm sure it's not bad at all, actually. That's the joy of being a creative; we're our own worst critics."
"Are you also a creative, Louis?" Lestat asks, brightening.
Louis shrugs. "I'm a photographer. Well, I'm trying to be. It doesn't feel like I'm having a lot of luck at the moment."
His photography work is a long way off paying the bills, and Louis is starting to doubt that it's ever going to get to that point.
"Hmm." Lestat stares at Louis for a moment, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Would you like to know what I think?"
"I'm sure you'll tell me either way," Louis teases.
Lestat splutters, a hand flying to his chest as he gapes at Louis. "You wound me."
"Yeah, yeah, what wisdom do you have for me?"
Lestat leans in, eyes blazing. "What you're lacking is a muse, Louis. Someone to give you something to photograph."
"Oh, yeah?" Oh boy. Louis is fairly certain he knows where this is going, and it's not somewhere he can follow.
"Indeed. And what do you know? It's your lucky day!" Lestat flicks the hair in his ponytail off his shoulder and sits up straight. "I will selflessly volunteer for this noble cause."
Yep, there we go. As much as Louis doesn't doubt that Lestat is, in fact, passionate about his craft, he has fairly good reason to believe that this isn't an entirely platonic offer. Still, he chuckles. "Selfless, yep, I'm sure that's it."
"Of course! From one creative to another, I want to help your art thrive!"
And this is definitely just the alcohol in Louis' system talking, but a crazy little part of him wants to take Lestat up on his offer. But, no, he isn't going to do that, because he doesn't want to give Lestat the wrong idea.
"Uh. I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to be an asshole or anything. But I'm not gay. It's cool if you are, just, it's not—this isn't... like that."
Smooth, Louis. Real smooth.
For a moment, Lestat looks taken aback, but this is swiftly replaced with an easy laugh. "W—what, did you think I was going to start taking my clothes off the second I got you alone? How presumptuous of you, Louis."
Louis feels his cheeks heat. "No! No—not—I didn't—"
Lestat laughs again. "You're fine, Louis. I'm—I was kidding. It's fine."
"Oh. Okay. Right." Internally, Louis breathes a sigh of relief. It's not like he wouldn't be flattered to have someone like Lestat flirting with him, but it's good to know that that isn't the case. He really needs to figure out what it is about him that makes people think he's gay and stop doing it. Again, he has no issue with it, it would just save people a lot of time and energy. Why waste time flirting with Louis when there are gorgeous and available men like Lestat around, you know?
... wait. What had they been talking about?
It's as Louis is trying to gather his thoughts that Lestat makes the kind of expression which suggests he just remembered that he left his oven on, and he dives for his phone.
"You good?" Louis asks.
"Oh, yes, it's fine, I just remembered I was supposed to be meeting someone."
Louis feels something like jealousy bubble up in his stomach, which makes no sense. He doesn't know Lestat, so what right does he have to be jealous that Lestat has other friends he'd rather be hanging out with? Not that Louis considers himself a friend of Lestat, per se, just... ugh. There's something weird happening with his head. This beer must be stronger than it tastes.
Louis' confusing train of thought is interrupted when Lestat sighs and announces, "In an unfortunate turn of events, he can't make it." Lestat pauses for a moment, frowning, and Louis tries to ignore the weird little spectre of jealousy in his head that is rather pleased about this development. "He asked me to come see him, and then just never left his house. Do you think I've been hoodwinked?"
Louis snorts. "Hoodwinked? What century are you from?"
Lestat rolls his eyes. "Yes, hoodwinked."
"What are you even talking about?"
"As in, do you think this was just some elaborate ploy to get me out of my apartment?"
"You've got weird friends," Louis says. "Though, to be fair, mine aren't any better. Mine sexiled me from my own home, so now I'm here, all sad and alone."
"Hopefully less sad and alone, now that I'm here," Lestat says with a wink.
Louis makes a show of sighing dramatically, ignoring the weird little flip his stomach just did. "Yes, well. Better than nothing, I suppose."
Lestat barks out a laugh, and Louis smiles into his final sip of his beer. When he places the empty glass back on the table, Lestat picks it back up.
"Can I buy you another one?"
Louis checks his phone. No notifications from Daniel, and his phone is still hanging in there with 25% battery. "Yeah, might as well. The night is young, my roommate is still probably busy defiling the apartment."
"That's a... beer? I suppose? Of some flavour?"
Louis snorts. "Yeah. It's a local IPA, just tell 'em it's the blue one on tap. They should know what you're talking about."
Lestat stands up with a flourish. "How obvious is it that I only ever drink wine and cocktails?"
Louis grins. "You know what you like."
"How diplomatic of you, Louis. I'll be right back."
Louis watches Lestat make his way up to the bar, and then say something to the bartender that earns him a dirty look. He returns shortly after, a glass of red wine in one hand, a beer in the other.
"There you are," Lestat says, placing the glass down with a flourish. "One pint of the world's most expensive IPA."
Louis snorts. "Hey, you offered. There's a reason I wasn't going up to pay for another one."
"Fair enough," Lestat says. He settles back into his seat, takes a sip of his wine, and grimaces. "Their red wine selection is abysmal, Louis. You're lucky you're drinking beer."
"Why not just get whatever you were drinking before?"
"I didn't want to give them the satisfaction."
Louis snorts. "Drama queen."
Lestat barks out a laugh. "Would you believe you're far from the first person to call me that?"
"That would not surprise me in the slightest," Louis responds easily.
Lestat rolls his eyes and takes another sip of his wine. "So, photography. What do you usually shoot, Louis?"
"It depends on what I'm getting paid to do, honestly." Louis shrugs. "I've been doing more portrait work recently, which has been nice. I've been really enjoying that."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Yeah, I'm trying to build up my portfolio while I'm still studying. Make myself a little more employable." Save myself from the horrors of being the world's most educated McDonald's employee for the next several decades.
"Oh, you're studying? Photography, I presume."
"Yeah. I'm in my last semester of my Bachelor in Fine Arts." Louis laughs at himself before Lestat can. "Yeah, yeah, I know. The world's most useless degree. Before you ask, no, I'm not majoring in underwater basket weaving. Though, truthfully, if that were a class, I'd probably have taken it, just for curiosity's sake."
"I don't think it's useless," Lestat says. "Sure, it's not engineering or... I don't know... medicine. But the world needs art and artists. Okay, yes, I'm biased considering I sing for a living, but if photography is what you're passionate about, don't compromise. Life is far too short."
"I actually started out doing a Bachelor of Commerce, if you could believe that," Louis says.
Lestat blinks. "How does one go from commerce to photography?"
"Well, I've always been good with numbers, so once I finished school, I figured I'd just keep going with it. I didn't hate it, but it was just missing something, you know? And then I thought about the fact that my student loan was in my name. If I was going to be saddled with decades of debt, I might as well have a little fun, too, right? So I dabbled in a few things here and there, but nothing really stuck, and I ended up just dropping out entirely and spending a few years working.
"Photography started as a side-gig. I'd been doing some writing, posting articles, that kind of thing. Sometimes I needed visuals, and stock images weren't cutting it, so I just started taking my own photos. And I loved it. My mom had been on my ass to go back and get a degree ever since I dropped out, so I decided I'd do it in photography. I'd already started picking up the gear for it, I figured I might as well learn a thing or two about how it all works.
"And that's how you end up being 26 and still trying to get your Bachelor's. My mom was pissed when she found out I'm not doing a BCom, but she'd find something to get upset about, even if I was. There's no winning with her, sometimes. All of the time, really." Louis sighs and takes another swig of his beer. He stares out over the dance floor for a moment before he realises that he's been rambling for the last few minutes, and probably boring Lestat to death. "Sorry. I don't—I don't know why I'm telling you all this. You probably don't care. I'm sure you came out here to get drunk, not listen to the life story of some stranger."
"No!" Lestat says quickly. "It's interesting! I'm enjoying getting to know you. And there's no shame in being 26 and still getting your Bachelor's degree. If it makes you feel any better, I never even went to college. I barely made it through high school. I—ugh." Lestat hesitates for a moment, chewing his lip. "I'm going to admit something, and you need to promise me that you won't laugh."
"Look, I'll do my best, but if you're about to tell me that you did actually get a degree in underwater basket weaving, there really isn't going to be much I'm gonna be able to do other than laugh."
Lestat rolls his eyes. "No. It's not that. It's far more embarrassing than that." He takes a deep breath before he continues. "I got into music through YouTube. I used to be a YouTuber. I made a few music videos in my bedroom as a teenager, one of them went viral, and here we are."
Louis just about chokes on his mouthful of beer. That was not what he was expecting. "Oh my god, really? How many subscribers did you have?"
Lestat grimaces. "I think I had a few hundred thousand?"
Louis racks his brains. It's been a while since he really kept up with YouTubers like he used to when he was younger, but if Lestat had that many followers, there's a chance Louis may have seen him around. "What was your channel name?"
"Oh no, I'm not telling you that. Those videos are still around, I am not embarrassing myself like that."
"Alright, fine. Am I allowed to know when you were posting?"
Lestat hums. "2017 was when things really took off for me, but I'd been uploading since the very beginning of YouTube."
Lestat is making it very hard for Louis to uphold the no laughing promise. "Oh my god, so that's early 2000s internet. Did you do the cinnamon challenge?"
"I see I have given far too much information about myself to a stranger," Lestat says, hiding behind his wine glass as he takes a drink. "Although, I did look rather good choking on it, if I do say so myself."
Louis ignores the low-hanging fruit. "Planking?"
Lestat grimaces. "Unfortunately."
"The Harlem shake, surely?"
"Why do you have that all ready?" Lestat laughs. "I haven't thought about these things in years. Do you spend all day thinking about old internet trends on the off-chance it comes up in conversation?"
"Look, for better or for worse, this shit is burnt into my brain, and it's gonna be in there until the day I die. I'm gonna be in the nursing home telling the orderlies about how we used to listen to 10-hour versions of the nyan cat song back in the day."
Lestat tosses his head back and laughs, interrupted only when his chair swings back suddenly and he barely manages to catch himself before he goes toppling off it. The two of them stare at each other for a moment and burst out into even louder laughter together.
"You nearly killed me!" Lestat manages, once he can finally draw a breath.
"You started it!" Louis protests. "You brought up your YouTube channel!"
Lestat rolls his eyes, but he's still grinning. "Okay, fine. I will accept some responsibility for this deviation in our conversation—"
"And for nearly falling off your own chair."
"—but what I was trying to get at, before we got distracted, is that success can come from strange places. I think it's admirable that you're doing what you love, and not letting yourself get caught up in the expectations of others. Especially your mother's. I know how heavily the expectations of a parent can weigh."
Louis spins his glass, watching the fluid swirl around in the bottom of it. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds a lot better than I'm about to be someone with a fine arts degree and no job prospects." He tips his head back and groans. "God. What am I doing?"
"You know," Lestat says. "We'd potentially be looking for a photographer, at some point. The band, I mean."
"Oh?"
"We're on a... break, you could say, at the moment, but I'm always working on new music. When we start recording again, we'll need some promotional material."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Do you have any of your work on hand?" Lestat asks.
Louis' heart is thundering in his chest as he picks his phone up. "Uh, yeah, I have an Instagram. Ah, actually, my phone is nearly dead, but we can look it up on yours, if you have an account."
Lestat scoffs. "Do I look like the sort of person who doesn't have an Instagram?" He chuckles to himself as he unlocks his phone and slides it across the table to Louis. "Search away."
Louis searches up his account and then slides the phone back to Lestat. His heart feels like it's beating in his throat; as excited as he is by the prospect of future work, he hates showing people his photography and watching their reactions happen in real time. He stares down at the table as Lestat looks through his account, picking at a dent in the wooden surface.
Lestat makes a sound of awe. "Louis, this is beautiful," he says. Louis sneaks a quick look up from the table to see Lestat's mouth hanging open, eyes wide.
"Yeah?"
"More than just yeah—this is gorgeous. You made it sound like you're just getting started, but looking at this I'd never have guessed you're still studying. It looks like you've been doing photography for decades, at least."
At this point, Louis' cheeks are burning, and he's thankful for the low light. "I don't know if it's that good, but thank you."
"You don't need to be so modest, Louis." When Louis looks back up, Lestat winks, and Louis immediately looks back down at the table. If his cheeks were burning before, they're incinerating now. "You have every right to celebrate your work. It's fantastic, and I'm not just saying this to be polite. Trust me, ask anyone who has ever met me—if I don't like something, I'm not afraid to say so. But this? This is marvellous."
Louis nods, still picking at the table. "Yeah, I just—I dunno. I like... angles? I guess? It's hard to explain, but I know a good shot when I see it."
Lestat hums. "You definitely have an eye for this, I agree."
Louis just smiles and takes another sip of his drink.
Lestat continues, "Like I said, we're on a break, but there are always things in the works, and I'd love to have you on board for promotion in the future. If you're interested, of course."
Luckily for Louis, he's already swallowed his mouthful of beer by the time Lestat makes his offer. He'd thought Lestat was just being polite earlier, and that he'd have lost interest after looking at Louis' work. But this? This is real.
"Th—That would be great. I would love to!"
"I'll follow you with my personal account, rather than my public one. I've got some... dedicated fans, let's say. I don't want you to get swamped because people noticed the account followed someone new."
"Right," Louis says. "Sounds good." Lestat must have been making it big with YouTube if he's still got fans like that a decade later. "I'll follow you back once I get home. My phone is nearly dead; I wanna try and save the battery."
"Of course."
"So, is it worth giving your music a listen?" Louis asks. "You know, to get a feel for the vibe you're going for."
"Some people think so," Lestat says, unhelpfully. He's watching Louis with the kind of expression that makes Louis feel like he's being examined. "But the last album was not my best work, to say the least."
"I'm sure it's not that bad," Louis protests. "I'm sure it's not bad at all."
"You'd be surprised." There's a slightly haunted look in Lestat's eyes as he speaks.
"Art is subjective," Louis points out. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so on so forth."
"Yes, but—"
"You can't argue with me, I'm the one getting the degree in art."
Lestat gasps, a scandalised smile stretched across his face. "Louis! A low blow!" For a moment, Louis fears he's taken the joke a step too far, but then Lestat laughs. He's fun to antagonise. Louis could get used to this.
As an added bonus, Lestat looks a little less sad than he did just moments before.
~...~
They spend the next hour talking about everything and anything, and Lestat buys them another round of drinks. Amongst other things, Louis learns that Lestat's mother is still waiting for him to go and get a "real" job like his brother.
"If it pays the bills, I can't see why she should have any problem with what you're doing," Louis says. "Lord knows I've done some sketchy things to make money."
"Oh?" Lestat perks up, smirking. "Anything I might have seen?"
Louis shoves Lestat's shoulder. "Not like that. Pervert."
"I can't help it," Lestat whines. "A gorgeous man like you? I'd subscribe to your OnlyFans in a heartbeat."
"You're drunk," Louis retorts. Still, the idea of Lestat paying to see him like that makes him blush. He's spent a good chunk of his conversation with Lestat blushing. He's definitely had a little too much to drink.
"I am tipsy, thank you. Besides, I can be drunk and still tell that you're attractive." Lestat winks. "No homo, of course."
Louis rolls his eyes, and his cheeks flame. He glances down at his phone, waiting to see if there's word from Daniel that it's safe to return home. There's nothing, and he finds himself feeling relieved at the fact that his time with Lestat isn't yet over.
"You've been checking your phone all night," Lestat notes. "Waiting for a message from a special someone?"
Louis snorts. "No, definitely not. No, I'm waiting to hear from my roommate to see if it's safe to go back to the apartment, but they're probably still at it."
Lestat whistles. "They really need a few hours?"
"Apparently."
Lestat hums. "I suppose it's better being out here than listening to all the moaning and thumping and squelching."
Louis squirms. "Please never use that word again. Especially talking about my roommate, who I am sure is desecrating the common areas of our apartment as we speak."
Lestat grins a shit-eating grin. "What? You don't want to think about all the delightful wet noises two bodies make as they come together? How do you feel about the word 'moist', Louis?"
Louis' entire body recoils in horror. "Lestat."
Lestat simply laughs, taking another self-satisfied sip of his wine. He looks entirely too pleased with himself, the bastard.
Still. Louis is going to miss his company when he has to leave. Maybe Lestat will be down to do this the next time Louis is banished from his own home.
"I just wish Daniel had given me an ETA," Louis sighs. "I don't actually want to sit here drinking all night. I've got essays I wanted to work on."
"On a Saturday night?" Lestat asks, raising one carefully-sculpted eyebrow.
"Unfortunately, due dates wait for no weekend." Technically speaking, nothing is due for another few weeks at least, but Louis knows from experience that if he doesn't get started now, he'll leave them until the last minute, and he'll end up crumbling under the stress. "I want to get ahead while I can."
"That is probably wise," Lestat agrees.
Louis looks back at his phone. It's sitting at 15% battery remaining, and as he's looking at it, it ticks down to 14%. Shit.
"I think I might have to start heading out," Louis says reluctantly. "My phone is about to die, and I need it to check the bus schedule. Plus, it's always useful to be able to call for help if someone tries to murder me," he jokes.
Lestat gives Louis a very alarmed look. "Is that likely to happen?"
Louis shrugs. "It hasn't happened yet. And it'd be a massive waste of their time and effort. I never carry anything on me worth stealing."
Lestat doesn't look reassured.
"It's fine," Louis insists. "I'll just start meandering home, and hope and pray that all sexual activity has ceased by the time I get there."
"Meandering?" Lestat asks. He says the word slowly, like he's trying it out for the first time.
"Oh, yes, it's like wandering aimlessly. People mostly use it to describe rivers, I think. Sorry, I've been told I can be unnecessarily verbose." Louis rolls his eyes. "I had a tutor accuse me of using AI to write an essay last semester, apparently because I used 'over-complicated' vocabulary." He huffs, shaking his head. "Okay, I need to go before I get started, or we'll be here all night."
Lestat shrugs, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. "That's alright. I've got plenty of time."
That is... unexpected. There are very few people who would willingly put themselves through a de Pointe du Lac rant—especially of the Louis variety. Then again, Lestat doesn't exactly know what he's signing up for.
"No, no, I won't make you sit through that. Plus I need to not be in a murderous rage when I get home, just in case the apartment is a mess."
Lestat chuckles. "Fair enough."
"But yes, you have my Instagram, so you can message me through there if you do end up wanting to work with me," Louis says. "No pressure, obviously. I won't be offended if you change your mind."
Lestat smiles, warm and easy. "And if you're ever looking for someone to pass the time with as you wait for your roommate to get the sex out of his system, feel free to message me."
Something in Louis' stomach flutters at the offer—he almost wants Daniel to sexile him again, just so he has an excuse to hit up Lestat. But he needs to not sound overeager, so what he says is: "Sounds good."
"Are you sure you don't want me to at least walk you to your bus stop?" Lestat asks.
"It'll be fine. No one is actually going to murder me. The area isn't great, but it's not that bad."
Lestat is frowning. "If you're sure..."
"It'll be fine. I promise."
Lestat still doesn't look convinced, but he relents. "Good luck with your roommate, then. I hope you don't walk in on anything too traumatic."
Louis hops down off his chair and slides his phone into his back pocket. "It won't be anything I haven't seen before."
Lestat's head tilts slightly. It makes Louis think of his childhood dog.
"No not—nothing like that. He's just terrible at locking the bathroom door. Or closing his own bedroom door. And he forgets his towel a lot when he's in the shower, so he just walks naked back to his own room."
Lestat's grin returns. "Ah, the joys of communal living."
Louis snorts. "Yeah, something like that. Anyway. Good to meet you, Lestat. Thank you for keeping me company."
"I'll let you know when I've had a chance to talk to the band about promoting any new music," Lestat says. "I hope you have a safe, murder-free trip home."
"Thanks." Louis freezes as he goes to say goodbye. He might hug a friend, but is it weird to hug someone you've just met? A handshake feels weirdly formal. Oh, but Lestat is French—is he going to want to do the kissing thing?
It's as Louis is floundering that Lestat hops off his chair and pulls Louis into a brief hug. Hugging Lestat feels like coming home after a long holiday. He's warm, and his deodorant—perfume?—is sweet; floral and a little fruity. It's not a scent Louis recognises, but he likes it. Louis is already missing Lestat before the hug is over, and he has half a mind to go back for a second one.
Lestat is grinning as he settles back on his chair. "Good night, Louis."
"Night, Lestat."
Louis isn't really sure what to do with himself, so he gives Lestat a slightly awkward wave before he turns and makes his way out of the bar. Leaving Lestat is like stepping out of a bubble. The noise from the rest of the bar hits Louis like a wave, and he realises that the space is now much busier than it was when he arrived.
Well, that was unexpected. Louis had really been expecting to sit and stare at a wall for a couple of hours as he waited for Daniel to finish up, so meeting Lestat had been a very pleasant surprise. A part of Louis wants to be embarrassed about how much time he spent talking. Louis doesn't really talk about his life, and especially not his mother, to anyone—not even Daniel, and he's annoyingly good at getting information out of Louis.
Talking to Lestat had just been... easy. Louis can't explain it, the man just had a certain way about him, and he's the kind of person Louis could see himself spending more time with. Maybe he won't wait to be sexiled again to see if Lestat would like to get drinks.
~...~
Ultimately, Louis' trip home is uneventful. Though his phone dies about five minutes into the bus ride, Louis doesn't get murdered at any point—no one even tries. Unfortunately, the death of his phone comes before he can receive any kind of confirmation from Daniel that the sexcapades are finished.
So, once he's dragged himself up the many (many) flights of stairs to the front door of his apartment, Louis makes a show of noisily inserting the key into their front door, giving Daniel and his conquest plenty of time to vacate the living room if they're still at it. Fortunately, when Louis pushes the door open, the apartment is dark and silent. Thank god.
He goes about his bedtime routine without turning on too many lights or looking too closely at anything in the apartment. He skips the shower, too. He can deal with all of that tomorrow.
Once his phone has been resurrected, Louis pulls up Instagram and goes to Lestat's account. It's private, so he sends a follow request. He'd like to have sent Lestat a message to let him know that he survived the journey home, but he hopes that the existence of a follow request is enough to indicate that he did make it home to charge his phone. From anyone else, that level of worry might have been overbearing, but it had been sweet coming from Lestat.
It's only as Louis is dozing off that he realises that he doesn't actually know the name of Lestat's band. He considers getting up to see if Lestat has accepted his follow request yet, so he can message to ask, but his phone is on the other side of the room, and he's very comfortable where he is. Louis makes a mental note to ask Lestat about his band the next time they talk.
Unfortunately, that mental note is promptly lost to the void of sleep.