Chapter Text
Louis De Pointe du Lac had spent most of his life mastering restraint. Restraint in business. Restraint in anger. Restraint in desire. It worked beautifully right up until it didn’t – and tonight it felt like an expensive suit tailored too tight across the ribs.
The car glided through the humid midnight like a sleek black confession. A dirty confession, really, because nothing about this wasn’t. Dirty business, dirty laundry. Not dirty enough to actually stain, but to remind him night after night what he was doing. A Mercedes-Maybach, because image mattered when your livelihood was built on velvet ropes and whispered promises. The windshield shimmered with rain, thin streaks of gold and neon dragging across the glass as if the city couldn’t decide whether to baptize him or damn him.
He tapped the steering wheel once, then again. His hand shook. He hated that.
It’s been a year since the breakup, exactly tonight. A lot can happen in such a year; and then nothing at all. But in the end, they’ve done nothing but move his things a couple houses down the block, and have occasional sleepovers at one of theirs. But honestly, Louis couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t felt as lonely as he did now.
Lily’s perfume still haunted the backseat. A warm, floral reminder that he’d tried – God, he had tried – to fit the shape the world demanded of him. Husband. Provider. Father. Straight. Stable. Especially straight.
The father part stuck. The rest... no.
He hadn’t left her for anything she’d done. Lily was good. Too good for him, really. Kind. Brilliant, honestly. But that woman never deserved how it was all an act; even when he sometimes got himself to believe it wasn’t. The sex hadn’t been bad. Neither the cuddling, the cooking, or sharing their chores. But fundamentally, had it had been wrong. The rest was just companion, or basic, anatomical stimuli.
And Lily had seen that. Before he did. Well, not before he did. But before he got himself to vaguely accept that something was in fact not right with them, and that maybe he should rather stick to solitude than ruin the rest of her life with his act of companionship.
He’d laughed then, at her words, at the whole monologue she’d provided him with at one in the morning, after he got back from work. Quiet and small, that’s what he’d felt like. Hurt in ways he still couldn’t name.
She’d been right, of course. Being homosexual certainly was no sin. He knew that. Knew he could download grindr, get the next guy from down the block, get it all done with and accept himself for what he was. But then again, you couldn’t just simply drill in a new dogma, and forget two decades of being told the mere idea of someone existing like you already where deep down meant committing a sin so great, your god would simply abandon you.
Now, Louis wasn’t entirely accepting his sexuality, but he wasn’t going to mass either, so he was in the best place to blindly stumble either way.
The dashboard lit up with an incoming call. MISS BRICKTOP glowed in bold white letters, judgmental even in Bluetooth font.
Louis exhaled through his nose and tapped the wheel to answer. “Evening.”
“Louis,” Bricktop’s voice crackled, all business and bourbon-warm sharpness. He’d dreaded her call all evening, but one could only avoid something so far. He’s obviously reached the end here, after having ignored her all evening. “Tell me you’re not still at the club.”
“No,” he murmured. The rain whispered against the windshield. “Driving.”
“At this hour?” A pause, chewing gum, probably tapping acrylic nails on her desk. “You running away again?”
He let a humourless smile tug at his mouth. “Just getting air.”
“Hm. Well, breathe deep. We’ve got things tomorrow.” Pages flipped on her end, brisk. “I need you in by ten. One of the girls wants to talk schedule changes. Allegra. Says she’s ready for headline nights.”
“She’s good,” Louis said automatically, eyes on the wet street. “Still green.”
“I told her exactly that. But she insists you promised her rotation next month.”
Another pause. “Did you?”
He searched his memory and came up with blur and exhaustion. “I said we could revisit it.”
“So she heard: ‘Crowns and spotlight, baby.’” Bricktop snorted. “Your kindness is a liability.”
“I prefer calling it tact.”
“I prefer calling it expensive.” Then, softer: “You sleeping at all?”
Louis drummed his fingers once, twice. “Enough.”
“That didn’t sound like the truth.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
“Well,” Bricktop sighed, in that way that pretended annoyance but meant real concern, “try to look alive in the morning. And don’t brood too hard. The shadows ruin your face, and we need you pretty for the investors.”
He shook his head; a small laugh caught in his throat. “Goodnight, Brick.”
“Night, baby.”
The glowing display went back to deep black, and for a second he feared he might crash the car. He really was speeding too fast, maybe. But then again, if he accidentally hit the wall right now, and he did it right- Naturally, Louis thought about his daughter, and with a grimace threw all of these plans overboard.
One of Claudia’s many drawings stuck tucked in the console; a family of three, hands linked, all bright sun-yellow smiles. He touched the corner of the paper with the pad of his thumb, grounding himself. Claudia was the one thing in his life that felt uncomplicated. The girl, currently with three missing teeth and a big scrape on her forehead because she tried climbing over his fence, was the greatest joy of his life, his little saver, to say, and the being he loved most in all this world.
Louis loved her, and because he loved her, he loved Lily even more.
He accelerated just a fraction. The engine purred like something predatory.
Tonight wasn’t supposed to be reckless. He was supposed to be going home. Answer emails. Approve invoices. Crawl into bed alone and pretend he didn’t feel hollow. Masturbate in that sad manner he usually did, maybe, and wonder what the fuck was wrong with himself. Then he’d be unable to sleep, get out of bed, and fuss over a house that was already spotless clean.
But restraint had teeth, and tonight it sank them in.
He rolled the window down. Heat and music bled in – trumpet from a distant club, laughter sharp as shattered ice, perfume and sweat and Bourbon Street sweetness. The city breathed sin like oxygen. It made something in him loosen. New Orleans. He’d never leave; he already knew that. He’s been born here, and if it goes like this he’ll die here.
His money will be Claudia’s. Everything will be hers. Maybe not the clubs – he’ll sell those, before he kicked the bucket, just to be sure she didn’t have to feel as unrespectable as he did. Really, it wasn’t that bad. But then again, the lines between dancing, stripping and fucking could blur.
Well.
He’s done what he’s done, and honestly, Louis preferred accepting that he was a horrible person if it meant being able to set up money for his child’s future. Dirty money, yes, but money, nonetheless.
The traffic light ahead blinked yellow, warning, then surrendered to red. Louis braked smoothly. The city shifted around him – darker here, less curated, more honest. The part of New Orleans where people didn’t bother pretending they were saints. He didn’t like it, or maybe that was just another fucked up idea in his brain, that oh-so-damned part in him telling him he was better than some others, even when deep down Louis thought he was the worst, most undeserving person alive.
At least he could self-reflect, right?
A figure caught his eye.
Right there, at the side of the street.
At first, just movement: someone stepping out of the wash of neon, from the corner near a cracked brick wall tagged in silver paint. Then, definition. Leather jacket, too-thin shirt clinging to a body that had no business looking that good in humidity, denim that hung halfway between fashion and desperation. Blond hair a little too long, a little too wild, like he’d either just rolled out of someone’s bed or onto the pavement – and either story would’ve been believable.
He leaned against a parking meter, hands in pockets, one boot crossed over the other, like the sidewalk belonged to him. Like he’d been sculpted out of trouble and given a mouth that could ruin someone for sport.
Louis’s pulse stuttered, like it hit a curb. And maybe he did, or would have, if he didn’t have enough brain to unconsciously move his foot before he pressed on the gas. The man turned his head. Their eyes met through glass, rain, dark. The sort of stare that feels like fingertips under your jaw. Lazy amusement, slow interest, not predatory but very aware of its power.
Louis should look away.
He didn’t, couldn’t get himself to. What was he, fourteen? Get a grip, Louis, and get your eyes on the road.
The stranger’s lips tugged into a half-smirk. Daring. Knowing. Beautiful in a way that made Louis’s stomach clench, and his chest tighten with something that wasn’t quite fear and wasn’t quite want, more like recognition of a fire he’d spent years pretending didn’t exist.
The light changed to green.
Louis didn’t move.
He didn’t even breathe until the horn from the car behind him snapped at reality. He jolted, exhaled sharply, and eased the car forward, but instead of accelerating, he rolled to the curb, not thinking clear at all.
The stranger raised an eyebrow, curiosity sparking. He pushed off the meter and walked toward the passenger window, fluid and unhurried. Every step a question Louis wasn’t prepared to answer. Louis lowered the window halfway. Damp air surged in. Heat, cigarettes, gumbo spice drifting from a late-night kitchen nearby, and something sharp and sweet that felt like danger disguised as cologne.
The stranger bent slightly, bracing one hand against the roof of the car. Some of that light drizzle haloed behind him like a spotlight built only for temptation. Cold blue eyes. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth that looked criminal.
“Bonsoir,” he said, accent unmistakably French, smooth as silk and twice as fatal. “Slow night? Or you just enjoy stalling traffic to stare at handsome men?”
Louis’s throat went dry. His palms on the wheel. Steady voice, he prayed.
“S’posed to rain harder. You need a ride?” he asked, even though that wasn’t what he meant and somehow they both knew it. Funny, how fast one could move from thinking about life-long celibacy, to moving into completely untouched territory. Not untouched-untouched but… unfamiliar, in the most sense.
The guy laughed. He had a rich, sensual laugh, voice still deeper than Louis had expected. But maybe again, he was just in the claws of whatever internalized bullshit he got stuck with.
“Only if you promise to keep looking at me like that.” The blonde man turned around, and looked up at the dark sky. “I don’t mind the rain. It’s actually pretty nice.”
Louis swallowed. “You’re all wet.”
“Yes, I am.” The guy tilted his head, studying him. He licked his lips, but it seemed more like a nervous gesture than anything else. Very unlike the leaning against Louis’ car – or the eyes, that looked him up and down as if guessing if this would lead where it obviously would. “There are some things you could do about that. Would you like that?”
Silence was an answer.
Louis leaned just slightly closer, trying to anchor himself to logic, dignity, anything. Maybe, if he just repeated that mantra, the same one that’s made him spent over a decade with a woman- wrong, wrong, wrong, and maybe then-
“What’s your name?”
“Lestat,” the guy purred, and Louis frowned. Chuckled, even:” That ain’t French. That’s somethin’ you made up.”
Lestat laughed. So far, that delighted expression has been the prettiest he looked. Which must have meant something, because that guy was the prettiest thing Louis must have ever seen.
“My maman made it up. After a bunch of kids you just run out of names.”
Louis’s grip tightened on the wheel. He couldn’t meet those blue eyes anymore, and instead, turned his head to take a look at the street. “Get in.”
No hesitation. Lestat opened the door and slid into the passenger seat like he’d been doing it his whole life – stepping into other people’s nights and rearranging them. And he must have, by the looks of him. Louis didn’t want to judge too hard, or let that part of his mind where he stashed his mild case of OCD away; but he didn’t like the idea of having wherever Lestat had been in those clothes touch the leather of his car, or even his house, as soon as they got there. Which was a frightening thought, one he hadn’t exactly overthought yet.
Having that man in his car, okay, fine. They could be driving anywhere. Certainly not somewhere together, just because Louis suddenly experienced a surge of bravery, or, to be more precise, extreme case of horniness that lead him to act so unreasonable.
He could have done with his hand, and a terrible adult movie. But right, the prostitute from the sidewalk would do too.
The door shut. The rain hit harder. The engine hummed like it knew this was foolish. Louis inhaled once, sharp, steadying. He pulled back into traffic. Uptown slid by in clean lines and quiet wealth, but the road ahead dipped toward Tremé – older, louder, honest in ways Louis avoided when he could.
The wipers dragged across the glass in a steady rhythm, slow as a heartbeat too calm for the panic caged in Louis’s ribs. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be doing any of this. A man didn’t go nine years untouched by anyone but the woman he pretended to be able to love and then snap like a faulty wire because some blond angel-devil on a sidewalk smiled at him. That wasn’t discipline, that wasn’t dignity, that wasn’t good sense.
Yet here he was, easing the Mercedes through the wet streets of Tremé, the neighbourhoods he owned pieces of, where every cracked brick and every wrought iron balcony felt like a witness. His kingdom. His cage.
Lestat didn’t speak. He didn’t fidget. He was too comfortable, lounging back in that seat like sin had posture and bones. The silence clawed at Louis’s nerves. He rolled his shoulder, straightened his collar, cleared his throat – little meaningless corrections, as if the illusion of composure could patch the hole in his restraint.
He turned onto the familiar street, past the old bar – his first one, his pride back when he was young and dumb and thought owning brick and neon could save him from everything. He’d never planned on going into this kind of business, but somehow one thing has led to another and now he owned half of the street, and couldn’t get out of it even if he wanted.
When he pulled up outside his townhouse, his stomach dropped. He scanned the porches, the windows across the street, the walkway lights that blinked awake in the drizzle. Nosy neighbours. Night owls. Folks with opinions and mouths. He saw no silhouettes, but paranoia was a stubborn animal, and his had gotten worse with every year.
He should’ve gone to a hotel. Anywhere but home. He pictured himself pulling back out into the street, circling the block, making up some excuse – sorry, changed my mind, never mind, go home, go back to your corner-
But Lestat was already looking at the house with something like hunger.
Well. That was that.
Louis turned off the engine. “Come on.”
Inside, the lights clicked on soft and warm – safety, wealth, tidiness, all the armour he’d built one business at a time. Lestat toed off his scuffed boots like he lived there. Louis’s jaw flexed. The leather couch. The silk throw. Christ.
“You want something to drink?” Louis asked, moving toward the kitchen just to have distance. Distance was oxygen. And a drink meant getting pleasantly tipsy, and hopefully in the right mindset to go through with this.
“I don’t drink much.”
“Something to eat, then.” Louis opened the fridge next. He didn’t even know why – habit, hospitality, shame pretending to be formality. The idea of food made his stomach turn, and he wasn’t in the mood to heat something up. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t in the mood for any of this, and all of it just summed up together as another reason why he might be the worst person alive. “You skinny as a rake. Come eat somethin‘.”
“I’ll have you know I definitely weigh more than you,” the blonde angel-devil said, tone airy, offended in a flamboyant, sparkling way. “And I am in excellent condition, merci beaucoup. Don’t let the jacket fool you.”
“What jacket? That thing?” Louis shut the fridge, heat crawling up the back of his neck. “I was bein’ polite.”
“No, you were pitying me.” Lestat leaned against the counter; wrists draped over the edge like he was posing for a doomed portrait. “I don’t need your fucking pity.”
The silence drew tight again. Louis’s pulse thudded in his throat, unfamiliar and wild like adolescence revisited. Lestat watched him, unblinking, predator-patient.
“How much do you want?” Lestat asked finally, bright and businesslike, voice slicing through the thick air.
Louis blinked. “What?”
“For me.” Lestat gestured at himself like unveiling merchandise. “How long, what you want, where you want it. How much you’re paying. Unless you brought me here to fold your laundry, cher. I can do that too, but we’ll both hate it.”
Louis’s mouth opened but nothing came out. His tongue felt thick. His brain lagged behind itself. A different life, a different Louis, a brave man, would’ve had a smart answer. Not this. Hells, he hadn’t thought so far ahead. Somehow, he still felt stuck at that red light, staring at the stranger he just packed into his car two minutes later.
All his life, keeping himself at distance, the distance only wavering when he’s had enough vodka anyways to forget the night – and now this. Louis was going to fucking pay a prostitute, this poor soul, to fuck whatever brilliant idea stuck him tonight out of him.
Lestat’s lips curled slow. Was it that obvious? “Oh. Oh, mon Dieu.” He laughed – pure delight, sharp as champagne bubbles. Even when he was very close to mocking him, Louis thought he was being charming; something about the way that guy could be delighted at the things Louis said and did. “You’ve never done this. You really haven’t.”
Louis swallowed hard. Shame, heat, the desperate impulse to bolt. “No,” he managed.
Lestat pushed off the counter, pacing lazy circles like he owned the tiles he marched on. “Well then. Education time.” He spoke lightly, but his eyes tracked every tremor Louis tried to hide. “A night is usually four hundred. If you want things I don’t normally do, we negotiate. Boundaries are simple: no blindfolds, no knives, and you do not put anything bizarre where it doesn’t belong. You break me, you pay hospital bills. I’m not joking.”
Louis stared. “I wasn’t- I mean, I didn’t-”
Lestat softened, not by much, but enough to see the man under the act. The performer lowering his chin, eyes searching Louis’s face like he was reading sheet music. “It’s alright,” he murmured. “I can follow your lead. But you need to tell me what you want. I don’t guess with clients who look like they might bolt.”
Louis swallowed. Bolt. Yes. That instinct roared in him, all muscle memory from a life spent swallowing himself whole. He braced both palms against the counter instead. Marble. Cool. Grounding. He stared at its veined surface like it held answers.
“I’m not-” he began, then shut his mouth before the sentence embarrassed him further. Of course he wasn’t. Of course he didn’t know how to do this. He’d spent his whole damn life pretending he didn’t want to.
The room felt tight. His own pulse pounded loudly enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised if Lestat heard it.
“I’m already here,” Louis said finally, voice low. “Ain’t no point backin’ out. And if I’m payin’, then I get what I want.”
Lestat’s lips curled. Not mocking. Approving.
“Good,” he purred. “Now we’re speaking the same language.”
“What do you normally do?” Louis asked, trying for casual, failing.
Lestat tilted his head, pacing again – an orbit around Louis. Not literally, but close enough to feel heat, not close enough to touch. “Depends. Most of my clients are men. Some want to bend me over and forget their wife’s face. Some want me to take control because they can’t admit they crave being ruined. Women are rare, but they’re nicer. Some talk. Some cry. Some want my hands, my mouth, my time. The men too. And some,” he flashed teeth, wicked, “simply need someone who looks good moaning. I do that very well.”
Louis blinked. “Jesus.” Okay, yes. That wasn’t as erotic as Lestat might have wanted it, but it fulfilled its purpose. Heat, slowly overriding the anxiety. Not completely, but enough to push it far back, and leave him aware of the blood rushing downwards.
Lestat leaned in, conspiratorial. “One man paid me twelve hundred dollars to sit on his couch and insult his interior decorating. Never even touched him. Worst rug I’ve ever seen.”
Despite himself, Louis almost laughed. Almost. The moment cracked in his chest like ice melting, and something reckless slipped through before he could choke it down.
“What do you do?” Lestat asked, stopping in front of him again. Eyes bright, feral. “In bed. What are you good at?”
Louis stared at him. Silence answered for him. His mouth felt wrong, too dry to speak truth. He wasn’t even sure what truth was. What count, what didn’t, what of it could be considered the part he liked, the part he preferred.
Lestat’s eyebrows lifted, slow delight blooming like a bruise. “Oh,” he breathed. “You don’t know yet.”
Heat crawled up Louis’s neck, shame and desire knotted tight enough to be indistinguishable. He forced his voice steady:
“Take off your clothes.”
Surprise flickered – interested, clearly, if the way Lestat looked at him and immediately began taking off his jacket was any indicator to go by.
“In the kitchen?” Lestat asked, a small laugh in his throat. “Wild start for someone who has never done this before.”
“You playin’ me? I said here.”
A beat. Something shifted in Lestat’s posture, from amused performer to something sharper – like a string pulled taut before the note.
He obeyed.
Buttons slid undone. Fabric hit tile soft as rain. Louis didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He watched, jaw locked, hands still tucked in his pockets as if to stop them shaking.
He turned, slow like a man used to being looked at. Used to being chosen. And Louis’s breath caught – not loud, not dramatic, just a quiet hitch like his lungs forgot their own job for a second.
Lestat’s back was a study in contradiction. Smooth skin stretched over lean muscle, shoulder blades sharp as wings waiting for permission. He wasn’t bulky; nothing about him was. More greyhound than bulldog, all coiled grace and quick hunger. You’d think a hard wind might blow him sideways – until you saw the strength in the taper of his waist, the subtle flex in his thighs. Man could probably throw someone over a shoulder if he wanted. Louis had thoughts about that. Shame burned low in his gut, hot and patient.
He’d called him skin and bone. Close enough. But you didn’t get a back like that without work. Or without running from something.
Scars caught the light; thin ones along the ribs, one ugly and jagged above one nipple like someone had dragged glass across him, not precise enough for a knife, not sloppy enough for an accident. Or at least, that’s what Louis pictured. Blame it on the books he consumed. Another small slash over the hip. A cigarette burn on the upper arm, old, round, cruel. Louis’s stomach tightened, but he looked nonetheless, feeling both ashamed of it and aroused of the idea.
He liked that illusion, and wasn’t this whole exchange him paying for illusion?
Golden hair curled at the nape of Lestat’s neck; damp from rain, messy in a way that wasn’t effort but nature. Light trapped in strands, like he’d stolen it. The idea made Louis irrationally angry. No one should shine that easy at midnight.
“Hold still,” Louis murmured, and he didn't realize he’d spoken until Lestat obeyed. Christ.
He stepped closer. Chest hair dusted across Lestat’s pecs – not wild, not soft, just enough to say man, not boy. Not that Louis didn’t know; Lestat couldn’t have been younger than him. A little, maybe. Or maybe he was older. More hair than Louis had there, though Louis’s hair was darker, tighter against his skin. Lestat’s arms were smoother, though – not much hair at all. Strange, the things you notice when you’re not allowed to touch. Or rather, not allow yourself to touch just yet.
Lestat shifted weight, casual, but the line of his spine said alert. Trained. Fight-ready in a way people who never had to didn’t move.
Louis’s gaze dipped lower despite himself. Narrow hips, muscle carved and obedient. Long lines. And lower-
He hadn’t meant to compare. It just happened. Lestat’s cock hung relaxed, unselfconscious, a little longer than Louis’s, slimmer too, soft but promising more. Uncut; a detail that hit Louis harder than expected. Intimate. Foreign. Beautiful in a way that felt like blasphemy to think about in his kitchen. Louis swallowed around it, heat pushing up the back of his throat.
He cleared his throat, voice stubbornly steady. “You lookin’ at me or the fridge?” Lestat asked lightly, mimicking his tone for some reason, glancing over his shoulder with that sinful half-smile, corner of his mouth marked by a little scar that made him look even more goddamn unlawfully handsome. Another pale line near his forehead. A life apparently lived too close to fists and bad luck.
Louis did not answer.
He just looked.
Looked and thought, that he should be more scared. In fact, up until now he’s lost all sense of that. Louis couldn’t think clear, and he didn’t want to. His guilt could handle it. That one night, that one moment for himself before he thought about everything else again. And if it all turned out to be terrible afterwards, he could have at least this to hold on. That illusion, that simple dark gift of what could have been affection in another life.
His voice, when it came, surprised even him: low, rough, reverent.
“Face me.”
Lestat turned slow, like unveiling something sacred or wicked – maybe both. Those pale eyes held him again, shameless, curious, cruel in the way only people who have survived too much manage to be.
Louis’s palms sweated in his pockets. He couldn’t move yet; he’d give himself away if he did. The restraint was a wire through his body, thin and burning.
Louis reached out before he knew he was moving. Fingers brushed the centre of Lestat’s chest: warm, living, real skin under his palm. A pulse jumped there. So did his.
And whatever restraint Louis had been clinging to – thin, fraying, useless – snapped like wet thread.
Lestat surged forward. Mouth on his. No warning, no hesitation – just hunger, pure and immediate, teeth and breath and heat. Louis gasped into it, stumbled backward, hands fisting in pale hair like instinct remembered what his mind had forgotten.
It was a kiss like being robbed and blessed at the same time. Too good. Too much. Years of repression snapping open like a door blown off its hinges. Louis’s knees nearly buckled. He tasted rain, and hunger, and a man who knew exactly what to do with a mouth.
God. He was going to embarrass himself. Right here. Just from kissing. Pathetic. Overdue. He would come in his pants like he had no self-control at all, if Lestat didn’t stop. And the other man just laughed against his lips; sharp and delighted, knowing, then bit his lower lip, pulling a soft sound from Louis he didn’t recognize as his own. Hands roamed, fingers in hair, at his jaw, sliding under his shirt like they had rights.
Louis fought back, grabbed Lestat’s jaw, kissed harder, dragged his body close so there wasn’t space to breathe let alone think. For a heartbeat he had the advantage – Lestat arched against him, gave ground, let Louis take and take-
Then it shifted.
Lestat’s hands dropped to his hips, strong, decisive. He spun them, slammed Louis gently but firmly back into the counter. Louis’s breath punched out of him, dizzy, shocked, wanting. Lestat’s grin was feral, triumphant, golden.
“Thought you’d take the lead?” he whispered, mouth brushing his, voice shaking with the same fever Louis felt. “Cute, baby.”
Louis didn’t have breath to argue. Didn’t have thought left to string a sentence. All he could do was feel: heat, pressure, the world narrowing to hands and breath and want.
Lestat turned him, pressing him forward over cold marble like he could rearrange Louis’s entire life with his body. His cock, that was. Fingers tugged at his waistband and Louis’s breath stuttered. His mind flashed white with memory and craving and fear and need.
“You like being fucked?” Lestat murmured at his neck, lips hot there, voice sin slick and velvet. “Tell me you do. Be good any say it.”
Louis swallowed. The truth was old and rusty. It crawled up his throat anyway.
“…Yes.”
“Good.” Lestat’s mouth dragged along his jaw, lips just a little too wet. “Say it again.”
Louis’s pulse hammered so hard his vision blurred. Shame and wanting tangled tight in his gut.
“I…like it,” he forced out, low. “I do.” The admission felt like kneeling in church and spitting in God's eye.
Lestat hummed, pleased, breath wicked against his skin. “Haven’t had someone make you forget your name in a long time, have you?”
He couldn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His silence was confession enough.
Lestat’s teeth caught his throat gently. “I’ll remind you what you like.”
Louis’s hands gripped the counter, white-knuckled, trembling. Fear and desire mixed until he couldn't separate them.
The kitchen tile vanished beneath him before Louis even realized he was moving. One moment cold marble under his thighs, the next he was stumbling backward, mouth locked to Lestat’s, breath shared and stolen in ragged bursts as they crashed into the hallway wall.
Lestat’s laugh broke between kisses; sharp, delighted, breathless. “Slow down,” he murmured, biting the corner of Louis’s jaw. Louis didn’t. Couldn't.
Years of restraint, a lifetime of pretending, and now his hands were everywhere at once; shoulder, jaw, hipbone, hair, ass, cock. God, the hair. He fisted it without thinking, dragged Lestat’s mouth back to his, swallowed that surprised noise like hunger.
Lestat liked it. Louis could feel the way his body reacted, arching, answering, pushing back with equal heat. That knowledge burned. He likes being handled. Even when he snaps like he’s in charge, he wants someone to be able to push him around. It was easy to forget that all of this was nothing but an act.
Louis had never taken anyone. Not really.
He wanted. Wanted that, wanted something else, wanted all of it.
Wanted like the world might end if he didn’t.
Wanted like submission and dominance weren’t opposites, just different ways of drowning.
They hit the stairs in a tangle, Louis half-dragging, half-carried by momentum and need. His pants were gone somewhere behind them – ankles tripped, fabric lost, he didn’t care. Lestat’s hands shoved his shirt up, nails scraping skin, and Louis tore it off, flung it blindly.
They reached the bedroom like they’d fought their way there.
Maybe they had.
Lestat pushed him first – palms flat against Louis’s chest, sending him back a step, breath knocked loose. Louis pushed right back, harder, kissing him like punishment, pleasure, prayer all at once.
Then he turned them, sudden and fierce, and Lestat landed on the bed with a laugh like surrender disguised as challenge. Louis followed, climbing over him, straddling his hips, bracing a forearm beside Lestat’s head as if pinning him there by will alone.
Their bodies aligned, heat to heat, breath to breath, and Louis’s mind blanked so violently it felt like breaking.
Lestat’s length pressed against him, insistent and devastating, and Louis’s thoughts dropped to a single broken point of gravity:
I need him inside me.
It pulsed through him like a heartbeat, like confession.
He kissed Lestat again, hard, desperate, tasting sin and salvation in the same mouth. Lestat kissed back just as fiercely, hand in Louis’s hair, tugging, guiding, then pushing at his shoulder like he wanted to flip him and be flipped all at once.
A struggle and a dance.
Control passed back and forth like a spark between wires.
Louis’s breath stuttered against Lestat’s throat.
“I want—” Louis whispered, voice shaking.
Lestat’s fingers curled at his spine, pulling him down, bodies pressed flush.
His voice came low, swollen with heat and knowing:“ I know, mon amour.”
Louis’s eyes squeezed shut.
He could come from kissing alone.
He could break from this.
He could live from this.
For the first time in years, he wasn’t pretending anything.
He kissed Lestat again, slow now, deep and trembling with everything he couldn’t say.
Lestat exhaled into his mouth like a man being given something he hadn’t expected to ever receive. Want softened into something dangerous. Tender, hungry, fragile.
Louis rested his forehead to Lestat’s, breath shaking, body shaking harder.
And for a moment, the world held still.