Chapter Text
Sometimes, in Paris, he had trouble falling asleep.
Between the worry about Claudia, the coven, the war, and everything in his life, his mind was loud enough to resist the pull of the sun, and he would lie staring up at the wood for hours, wide awake.
He talked about it once to someone, some skinny white boy with bright blue eyes that sat next to him at a bar in the Latin Quarter. Louis would have forgotten all about him, except that he had given Louis some advice about dealing with his sleepless nights. He had said that for him, what helped to relax his thoughts was to imagine walking around a familiar place. 'You think about your old school or your grandparents' house', he had said, 'and walk around the rooms. It will calm you down. Just choose somewhere familiar, where you feel at home.'
So for years, on that edge of elusive sleep, when his defenses were down, Louis had gone back to Rue Royale.
It became the only thing that stopped his churning mind when it got too loud to sleep. He kept doing it on and off for years, whenever he was sure Armand had drifted off and wasn't poking aroung in his mind.
He would close his eyes, take a breath, and sink into it. He would imagine opening the gate and walking inside, out of the cold street into the warmth. He focused on the tactile memories of the house, like the boy had told him to; sliding a hand along the polished banister as he walked up the stairs, the soft Persian carpet under his bare feet, the way the handle on the bedroom door always creaked a little.
There were never any people in the house when he thought of it like this. Thinking about Claudia skipping down the hallway would only bring the grief, already close to the surface as it was. And actually imagining Lestat in any real, deliberate way was out of the question.
But even though he never saw anyone, there was always music.
For the memory to work, for the fantasy to be so comforting as to lull him to sleep, there had to be the soft sound of a piano in the air. The promise of a beloved presence just beyond a never-opened door. The knowledge that around the corner, when he was ready to go in, there would be a place to finally rest.
He always fell asleep before he made it to that room.
Louis watched the final show of Lestat's tour from the back of the crowd. He knew that Lestat couldn't tell whether he was there— he searched the crowd during the opening song, but their eyes didn't meet in the darkness. Still, there was a hint of a smirk on his face as he crooned some of the more personal Louis-related lines that made it seem like he assumed Louis was listening.
They hadn't spoken since Cleveland. They had spend that day together in the hotel bed, and the next evening Louis had seen him off with a lingering kiss and very few words. They agreed to see each other in New Orleans, after the last show. Lestat had given him a shaky smile, love clouded by uncertainty that was felt in the way his hands grazed but never fully touched Louis's waist as they kissed goodbye.
There had been no phone calls, no flowers, no letters. Louis still followed all his social media accounts but he didn't leave comments and he didn't go looking for concert footage. He didn't know if Lestat was back to fucking groupies, if he was crashing out, or if he was quietly counting down the days for the tour to end, like Louis was.
He felt like Orpheus, walking away and trusting he would be followed.
Meanwhile, his Eurydice wasn't so much softly walking behind him as she was strutting along, flashing her chest at every passerby, which to Louis' mind made him a whole lot more trusting than that Greek idiot.
Lestat could do what he wanted of course — Louis was well aware that he was allowed to and that Louis would never even know, besides. He just hoped he killed them after he fucked them.
Meanwhile, Louis was keeping to himself. First he went back to New Orleans, took some local meetings, introduced himself to some bar owners and business owners, establishing himself as part of the world, a new resident planning to make his mark on the local music scene.
Going back to the apartment was strange. Trying to live there stranger still.
Whatever he did, it still felt empty. He put up paintings all over the place — too many of them, arguably, a collection of large and small frames on every wall in the main room trying to find a balance between the pastels of Mucha and the yellows of Basquiat. He found a Schiele that used to be in Rue Royale, the pale colors a perfect fit for the bathroom, and spent a week harassing the new owner to sell it back to him for 200k more than he bought it for. He tried to counter the colors with more muted works; black and white street photography and pencil sketches from the nineteenth century, modern charcoal works he picked up at a local fair.
Maybe in a few years, when the walls closed in, they could move again. Looking ahead into the abyss of eternity was usually a bad idea for a vampire, but he found he could face it now. He imagined moving on in twenty or thirty years, when neighbors and associates grew suspicious of their age, going to another part of town to start over again and again. Or to another country maybe, a few decades abroad before returning and buying a townhouse again, or one of those mansions in the Garden District, with more rooms for paintings and a garden. Maybe he could learn to grow flowers. One night, sitting on the tour bus that was parked in a back lot after a show, Lestat had told him about the mastiffs he took care of as a teenager. He'd looked so wistful when he talked about them. Maybe if they had a garden, they could get a couple of dogs.
He bought more plants, and more records, and a new coffin. Then he flew back to Dubai to pack up some more clothes and the last of his personal items.
The meditation room was still as he left it, with Paul's portrait and Claudia's dress on the wall. Part of him wanted to dismantle the whole thing and sell the penthouse. Even after all his redecorating, it still felt like a mausoleum. The furniture might be different, all of Armand's stuff might be gone, but the damage remained. The plastered-over part of the wall where he threw Armand drew his eye every time he entered. He still dreaded going into the bedroom, even though the bed was different. The way he felt here was still the same; removed from the world, stuck behind glass, an animal caged for its own protection.
He sat there for a while, on his bench looking at the dress, looking at the portrait, and letting the ghosts come.
Claudia was disappointed in him, of course. She always had been.
Oh Louis, she said, a vague, half-formed presence, hardly more than a scorch-marked yellow dress and the hint of bruises on dark skin, more of a voice than an image. We both know you were always gonna crawl back to him. Why did you even pretend?
He smiled at her, imagining her resigned disappointment. You're right, he thought. I really tried this time though, sis. He looked around at the walls, thought of the desert behind them. Couldn't get further away than this. High up on the other side of the world, sleeping next to another man every night. And you know what?
She rolled her eyes. Yeah. Didn't help. I know. Him nearly killing you didn't help. Thinking he killed me didn't help. Throwing him in the trash didn't help. You two deserve each other. Get another little girl to fuck up in a couple years when it grows stale.
No, Louis told her. There will never be another daughter. You'll always be there, anyway. In between us. Our foundation.
She faded then, into the wall, a disbelieving scowl on her face. He wished he could make himself imagine another version of her, one that was happy for them. Maybe Lestat's Claudia, the one that showed herself covered in burns, the one that had looked back at him, could show forgiveness. His Claudia was forever righteously angry.
Paul was harder to conjure, harder to talk to. He's the devil, Louis, was all he would say, standing there clutching his bible. You should repent your sins. You can still find the lord.
No, Louis said, gazing at him sadly. I don't think there is a devil. Maybe not a lord, either. There's just love.
That got Paul to relent at least, and fade into the air with a nod. I love you, brother.
So he kept the penthouse, for now. A place where he could visit if he needed quiet contemplation - something that the apartment, with its many musical instruments and its hurricane of an inhabitant, would not be providing.
Now, back in New Orleans, walking out after seeing Lestat onstage, he felt lighter than he had in decades. He did not think the ghosts were all gone, but he no longer saw them around every corner of the city.
He didn't linger in an alleyway next to the venue this time, and didn't leave any flowers behind. He just made his way back to the apartment.
There, he turned on the lights and put on some music. The record that had been on the turntable before was Lestat's album, which Louis had been playing almost every day while he was waiting. He put it back in its sleeve and moved it to the back of the pile, choosing something old and jazzy to play now, something he vaguely remembered dancing to once one of those nights he had buried in the back of his mind, when Lestat would sweep him into his arms and twirl him around the room, when his heart felt too big for his chest and his cheeks ached from smiling. He remembered those things now, the kind of happiness he had always thought he was incapable of except for in those moments when he suddenly found himself in the middle of it. He hoped they would come easier from now on.
He realized that he had no idea when and if Lestat would come to him. He might run off stage and straight here, or he might go out and party all night and come by tomorrow, or he might not show up at all, though that seemed unlikely. So Louis busied himself, sent a few emails about the bar in New York he had put an offer on, changed the record when it was finished, brushed some dust off the piano, before sitting on the couch, unable to do anything but wait.
He was reminded of once mocking Armand for picking lint of the sofa, which was basically what he was doing as he sat there. He felt a little silly. He'd dressed up, not ostentatiously, but he made sure to wear new, tailored camel pants and a shirt in a wine red shade that Lestat had once told him looked pretty on him. The buttons were undone a little more than usual, showing off a silver chain and just a hint of chest hair. He knew what Lestat liked, after all.
His phone finally buzzed as he was examining the coffee table, checking for stains. Lestat was calling him.
He picked up, heart racing. "Hello?"
"Chéri." Lestat's deep voice sent shivers through his spine as he pressed the phone closer to his ear. "The lights are on." A small hesitation, barely noticeable if you didn't know him well, if you weren't listening with baited breath. "You're here?"
"'course," Louis replied, trying to sound breezy, easy. "Why aren't you?" He got up, a chord tugging him towards the window.
Lestat replied, sheepish, "I no longer have a key."
Louis twisted the heavy floor-to-ceiling curtains aside to peek out onto the sidewalk where Lestat stood looking up at him.
The lamppost next to him made his hair flare golden in the night. He was wearing a dark leather jacket and what looked like black sweatpants. Louis couldn't quit make out the expression on his face. He could tell when he spotted Louis at the window by the soft sigh he heard through the phone.
"What did you do with it?"
"I threw it out of the car as I left. Very dramatic, I know."
"I'll come down," Louis promised. He hung up but took a beat to take him in before moving, looking at the picture he made below him, a promise fulfilled.
He made his way downstairs, jumping down the stairs two at a time, breathless despite not needing to breathe by the time he opened the front door.
There he was. It had only been a few weeks, rather than seven decades, but the feeling was similar to when he first walked into that shack in the middle of a hurricane. Like something restless in his chest could settle knowing they were together again.
Lestat was standing in front of him on the pavement, just outside the doorway, staring at him like he still saw more ghosts than Louis did, and he couldn't quite trust what was in front of him.
Louis cleared his throat, voice a little off with emotion, and said, "We'll have to get a new key made tomorrow."
Lestat nodded silently, still staring. He looked exhausted up close, his skin paler than usual and shoulders slumped.
"I was at the show," Louis told him. "You were great."
"Oh," Lestat said softly. "I didn't see you."
"Are you glad the tour's over?"
He shrugged. "I don't know yet. I wasn't thinking about it." His mouth tugged into a wry smile, like obviously he had other things to think about tonight. "There is a party. To celebrate the end of the tour. I hear it's the thing to do."
"You should probably be there."
"Yes. Later." Lestat's eyes darted up, back to the windows of the second floor.
"You wanna come in?" Louis asked with a tilt of his head.
Lestat didn't reply, but when Louis started to turn to lead him into the building, he grabbed his hand to stop him. "Wait, Louis. Before we—"
"What?"
Lestat tugged him back onto the sidewalk, the front door falling shut behind them. He led Louis to the side, until they were standing underneath the myrtle trees. Cars were driving by occasionally, and there was a distant thrum of life, the sounds of a city alive on a Saturday night, from far away.
Lestat fidgeted, before squaring his shoulders and looking at him. "Before we go in, I need —"
He looked scared, Louis realized. Like this might still be a trick, a final cruel punishment. Only a little though, the fear already waring with excitement. He frowned. Had he not been clear enough, after all the courting, the words finally spoken, the promise kept? He thought he had been, but maybe he needed to tell him one last time to drive the message home.
Lestat grabbed onto Louis's shirt, looking at him pleadingly. "What does it mean, if I go inside with you. What is —"
"Well," Louis said, stepping close to tuck a loose curl back behind his ear. "This is where I live now. I moved all my things here. And I suppose, when you come up, it could just be a visit. But I thought it might mean that you want to live here too. That when you're not touring, and I'm not somewhere for work, this'll be—"
"—home?"
"Yeah."
Lestat nodded, the last of his hesitance finally bleeding away, confidence bleeding into the smirk forming on his lips. "And will I still sleep in the guest room, in this home?"
Louis rolled his eyes. "Only when you're being an asshole. So a few times a week, probably."
Lestat grinned at him and said, walking past him towards the front door, "No, I think you would miss me."
Louis sighed, aiming his answering resigned smile at his feet, as he grabbed his key and followed.
He went up to the gate, fumbling with the key when he felt Lestat suddenly press in close, breathing down Louis neck as he tried to unlock the heavy door.
"You look good in that shirt," Lestat whispered in his ear. Lestat's whole body was against his now. He could feel every inch of him; the heat radiating off his skin through the flimsy tank top he was wearing underneath the leather jacket, the press of something he had in the pocket of his sweatpants against his thigh, his knees brushing up against the back of Louis'.
"Yeah?" Louis smiled at him over his shoulder. "Wore it just for you."
"Hmm." Lestat reached to untuck it, sliding his hand up his bare back. "It makes me want to do terrible things to you, chéri."
He finally managed to open the door, tugging Lestat inside and up the stairs as fast as possible as his hands started wandering more and more.
He was justifiably distracted by all that, hurrying up the stairs with Lestat groping him. He didn't pay attention to the sound of a door unlocking on the first floor until halfway up the stairs, when they practically ran right into Emma as she came down, swimming goggles in her hair, presumably on her way to the basement pool.
She looked just as blond and friendly as the last time Louis saw her. He'd been visiting the pool only in the middle of the night since moving back, and kept an ear out when coming and going so this exact thing didn't happen. Mostly because he didn't want to give Lestat the satisfaction of knowing Louis was jealous enough to kill a neighbor, which he knew would happen if he ran into her while Lestat was still on tour.
But now, seeing her eyes flit over coyly to Lestat, and hearing the way her voice dipped into a lower register when she said, "Hi, Lestat. Haven't seen you around for a while," Louis felt like being petty.
"Oh," he said, stepping back into Lestat's chest, "Haven't you heard? He's been on tour. His music's really taking off." He grinned. "Isn't that right, honey?"
And then, before anyone could reply, he turned his head to kiss Lestat's neck, right under his ear, on the spot he knew drove him wild, all while maintaining eye contact with Emma.
He felt Lestat shudder beneath his lips.
"Yes, mon cher." He swallowed, swaying into Louis . His eyes weren't on Emma at all.
His hand moved slowly down along Louis waist, making its way to his ass, and Louis said, "We must be going. Nice to see you…sorry, what was her name?" he asked Lestat, turning to him in a way that pushed his ass firmly into the hand hovering over it.
Lestat blinked at him with dark eyes. "Whose?"
He smirked and grabbed Lestat's hand, using it to drag him up the stairs, past Emma, without acknowledging her further.
Inside, Lestat hardly looked at the apartment before hauling Louis close and kissing him. It didn't take long to turn hot and deep, their mouths opening simultaneously to lick into each other. Lestat sighed at the taste of him, grabbing onto Louis' ass with both hands to pull him close, their bodies pressed together head to toe.
Louis had wanted to show him the apartment, to talk, to catch up, but all that fell away once he got his hands on Lestat's body. His palms dragged over his chest, rucking up his flimsy tank top to run over his abs, his chest, up into his soft hair. He smelled like concert still, sweaty and slightly like alcohol, like someone spilled beer on him at some point. It didn't matter. He was here, under Louis' hands, and suddenly he had to know.
He pulled back, hands under his shirt, holding him back when he tried to follow Louis' lips mindlessly. He asked, "Did anyone touch you? Did you let them-"
Lestat shook his head vigorously, a hint of pride in his eyes. "No, mon amour."
He reached around Louis's hands to grab the tank top and tug it over his head, letting it fall to the floor as he preened, arching his back, playing with the angles of his chest and hips. Louis suddenly realized with excited apprehension that being on stage for so long had made him even more aware of how he looked and how to use it. The bastard.
Louis' hands drifted down to the smallest part of him, grabbing onto the dip of his waist helplessly.
Lestat leaned in to whisper in his mouth, "You were the last person to touch me. The only one who will ever touch me now, if you wish it."
Louis groaned and violently tugged him in, kissing him hard. He nipped that full bottom lip with blunt human teeth before going down lower, biting across his neck. He licked a horizontal line across, tasting his skin, feeling the eternal hint of stubble rasping across his tongue.
He remembered slicing across this line when he killed him. How it had felt, in that moment, like the only way to control him. To connect to him.
Now, he sucked at Lestat's neck, next to his adam's apple, before letting go to ask, "You're mine?"
"Always," Lestat whispered back, eyes hazy with desire. His bare chest was flushed, and Louis felt his hardness press against his leg where they were standing flush together.
They were still in the doorway, barely a few steps inside the apartment, and Louis suddenly wanted Lestat everywhere. They should christen every inch of this place.
He stepped back to look around, trying to decide where to have him first. His eye caught on the barely-used kitchen. He remember a dream, months ago; Lestat waiting for him in the kitchen, a human life, a desire he hadn't been ready to face.
He licked his lips and took Lestat by the hips, urging him to step backwards across the room until his back hit the concrete and marble of the kitchen counter tops.
Lestat blinked at him, confused, like he wasn't sure how he got there. He still hadn't looked at the room, hadn't stopped staring at Louis' face like a starved man, drinking him in.
"Louis," he said, leaning back and canting his hips forward in invitation. "Will you take your shirt off for me?"
"Later," he replied, before sinking to his knees.
Lestat looked surprised at the turn of events, but before he managed to talk Louis had already reached for his pants and pulled them down. Underneath, Lestat was wearing tight black briefs, a strangely modern and low-key sight — when Louis imagined scenarios very much like this one, often Lestat was wearing some kind of garish thong, or nothing at all. The surprise was a nice reminder that this was very much real.
He pulled the briefs down as well, letting them pool at his feet, and looked at Lestat's cock in front of him, licking his lips in anticipation.
Lestat started to say something, but Louis ignored it, taking him into his mouth in one go, gorging himself, letting himself have all that he had been dreaming of for months, years, decades. However much he liked to think himself above such base things, that he was an elevated being occupied only with art and contemplation, he had spent rather a lot of hours of his life thinking not about philosophy or morality but rather about the feeling of Lestat's cock on his tongue.
He sank down on it, moving up and down and getting it deeper inside every time until he could take him down his throat, all the way down, tears forming in his eyes as his nose brushed against the golden curls at the base, breathing him in. Above him, Lestat had gotten over his dumbfounded surprise and was making the most delicious sounds of pleasure, groaning loudly each time Louis sucked him back down.
It was worship. It was devotion. Getting on his knees for this man and letting himself be used for his pleasure without thinking of his own felt like the last step in letting go and trusting not just Lestat but also himself, letting himself have all he wanted.
Lestat was being too careful, though. He wasn't touching Louis, wasn't fucking into his mouth. Louis felt the strain in his thighs under his hands as Lestat forced himself to hold still. His hands were flat against the cupboards next to his hips, nails dragging grooves into the wood as he tried to control himself.
Louis drew back, letting the tip of Lestat's cock rest on his lip as he looked up at him, and waited for him to open his eyes. "Cher," he said, voice hoarse, "let go for me."
Lestat stared at him, at the picture he must make; fully dressed, kneeling, mouth red and wet with saliva and precome, tear tracks on his face. "I don't…"
"Please, my love," Louis said. He let Lestat's cockhead slip into his mouth, gave it a sucking kiss. He leaned in to kiss one hipbone, then the other. "I want to feel like I'm yours," he said, repeating what Lestat had told him last time they saw each other, "because—"
Before he could finish, say because I am, Lestat whined, overwhelmed, grabbed his hair, and thrust his cock back into Louis' mouth.
He started moving his hips, finally fucking into Louis with even, slow thrusts, as his fingers ran softly through Louis' hair, nails scratching deliciously.
Louis closed his eyes, sinking into the feeling, and even without looking he knew that Lestat was watching him in awe. That open-mouthed expression on his face like he couldn't believe his luck. He had always looked at Louis that way when Louis let himself truly disappear into their lovemaking, when he gave all of himself to Lestat.
It had been rare, but it wouldn't be anymore, Louis thought. Within these walls, they would give each other everything. They would belong to each other.
He floated like that for a while, unaware of time, nothing but a mouth, one hand on Lestat's thigh, the other grabbing onto his ass to hold him close. Eventually, Lestat started thrusting faster, and the gentle caress of Louis' hair turned into a grip, holding him down as Lestat chased his pleasure. He came with a groan, pulling back slightly so his come hit Louis' tongue rather than his throat.
Louis barely had time to swallow before Lestat pulled him up, kissing him savagely. He stepped out of his pants, which were still tangled on his feet. Louis barely got a glimpse of him, completely, gloriously naked in the soft light, before Lestat dragged him over to the couch to return the favor.
Afterwards, they washed up and put their pants back on, and Lestat finally looked at the apartment.
Louis watched him from the couch as he padded down the hallway, barefoot and just wearing the sweatpants, to look at the closet, the bedrooms, the bathroom, opening each door to look inside. It looked like he was making sure Louis was really living here. An inverse of when Louis had walked in to discover that almost every trace of Lestat was gone, cataloging the empty spaces. Now Lestat was taking in the shampoo bottles in the shower, the dozens of socks and ties and undershirts in the closet.
He came back to the main room and walked around slowly, taking in the bookshelves finally full of books, the countless framed artworks on the walls. Eventually he stopped by the piano to look at the photographs Louis had put there.
They were in a three-piece frame, three pictures placed next to each other. In the middle: Claudia in Paris, grinning underneath a lantern, her fangs just barely peeking out. On the left, a rare picture of Louis himself that Claudia had taken around the same time, him standing by the Seine looking into the distance. He hadn't noticed her taking the picture at the time, discovering it later when he developed the film. He had been distracted by the phantom of Lestat, who had appeared next to him as he so often did when he strolled through the streets of Paris at night.
And in the right picture frame was Lestat himself, a recent picture that Louis had snapped with his phone after one of the shows, when they had been hanging out next to the stage door, smoking and making out. In it, Lestat was leaning against the wall, a soft smile on his face, looking at Louis behind the lens with a happy and questioning look, like he was flattered to be worthy of being in Louis' camera roll.
He stood there for a long time, looking at the pictures, his fingers absentmindedly running over the piano keys without pressing down.
Louis thought he should maybe look away, give him a moment to deal with seeing them together again like this, but he couldn't. There was still some apprehension, some fear that this was too easy and Lestat's ghosts would appear to drag him away. But his eyes never shifted to the shadows like they did when he saw them. He was just lost in thought. Eventually, his hand left the piano to fiddle with something in the pocket of his pants, still looking at their pictures.
Eventually, Louis cleared his throat and asked, "You still going to that afterparty?"
Lestat blinked, shaking himself, and walked up to Louis on the couch. "Yes, I should. But—"
He made his way across the rug to sit next to Louis, facing him on the couch. His hand went back to touch something in his pocket. "I have something for you."
He pulled out a small, dark blue box.
He fidgeted, rubbing a thumb over the emerald ring on his ring finger. "You gave me this and asked me to stay. To be yours. And of course I need no reminder, but I have liked having this. So I thought…"
He opened the box and pulled a ring out, holding it between his fingers. It was smaller and much less ostentatious that the one Louis had bought for him, but it was beautiful nonetheless. A simple silver band, with a little flourish around the bright blue stone in the center.
Louis reached for it, but Lestat put a hand on his, shaking his head to tell him to wait.
"This is not a question, or a curse, or… I am not asking you to be—"
"Your companion?"
Louis turned his hand around so he could entwine their fingers, squeezing Lestat's.
Lestat smiled, both of them remembering the moments in the church, the first time they tried this. "I hope you will be. But it isn't that. You don't have to wear it. And if you do, it's not because I want to own you. Or to force you to stay. It's a reminder, that even if you have to leave for a while, to wander the world without me — that you can always come home to me."
He tightened his hand around Louis', biting his lip, before he continued, "I realized something recently. When you asked me to move in here, and when you left this ring for me," he smiled wryly, tilting his head playfully at Louis, "well, I didn't know it was a gift."
Louis laughed. "Okay. I see what you're doing."
Lestat grinned back, his eyes sparkling. He looked beautiful in his happiness, Louis thought. "I thought it was pity. Or doubt. The thought that you did not know that I would always want you to come to me… It confused me, made me angry with you even. But now, I think maybe this is how you tried to show me…"
He ducked his head, hair tumbling over his eyes, hiding beneath it. Still unsure, a little, but willing to take the risk. "…that you love me now."
"I always loved you," Louis told him, taking the ring from his hand. He looked at it in the palm of his hand. "But yeah. I guess it was."
Lestat's eyes sparkled, tears in his eyes as he watched Louis slide the ring on his finger. A perfect fit, of course. After all, Lestat had remembered every inch of his body.
"Mon cœur, you want this, yes? This," he waved his hand to encompass the room, the apartment, the city, "and this." and he squeezed the other hand, holding on to Louis, indicating himself, the two of them next to each other. "It will make you happy?"
Louis just nodded, softly at first and then vigorously. And then he cupped Lestat's cheek, and leaned in to kiss him.
He leaned back after only a moment and looked at his hand on Lestat's cheek, the sapphire catching the candle light, next to Lestat's eyes. It was a perfect match.
It ended up taking Lestat almost two weeks to properly move in; his stuff was scattered across different hotel rooms, the tour bus, storage lockers, and his lawyer's office, for some reason, and there were countless meetings to deal with after the end of the tour.
Meanwhile, Louis was in the final stages of closing a deal on a club in Brooklyn, while trying to establish new connections in New Orleans.
They felt like ships passing in the night, Lestat flitting in and out of the apartment, Louis holed up in the guest bedroom trying to work, only colliding at the end of the night when they fell into a pile of limbs in the bed before crawling into the coffin together to sleep.
By the third week after Lestat's tour ended, things were finally calming down for him. But then Louis decided he had to fly back to New York for a few days to close the deal on the club he was buying and take a meeting with Daniel, who was pestering him about Armand again, so they ended up missing each other again when they were supposed to finally stop.
They texted and called while they were apart, and they had agreed that it was a good thing they had their separate lives, but still, even though it had only been three days since he left, Louis felt a wave of relief when the jet landed back in New Orleans. He wanted to finally settle into his new life, his new-slash-old companionship. He felt like they deserved a little honeymoon period now that they had essentially gotten remarried.
He hadn't heard from Lestat yet today, so he wasn't sure if he was home, if he had managed to get a hold of the final delivery of his things — another few suitcases of clothes, a few guitars.
Louis rubbed the ring on his left ring finger, a new habit that had formed easily as he was away from Lestat and found himself thinking of him. The same siren call that had followed him since he first met Lestat, now visualized in a sapphire ring representing Lestat's pleading eyes, always telling him come to me. He had run from it once, but now, it felt comforting to hear his voice call out to him when they were separated.
So it was a nice surprise when the Uber dropped him off and he looked up to see the lights on on the second floor. His steps faltered as he stood there, looking at the warm yellow light.
It was a warm spring night, and the windows were cracked open. It was too high up to see inside from down here, but he caught a glimpse of the interior: a teal wall, the chandelier, the edge of a bookshelf and the yellow curtains.
It was around midnight and there was still traffic around, but if he focused his heightened hearing, he could tune out the roar of motors and focus on the sounds drifting down from the apartment windows. He heard piano music, something old but unknown. Or the other way around, maybe: something familiar yet new. He rubbed the ring again.
Louis smiled and walked into the building, up the stairs, and through the door.