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***
Louis woke up to a quiet evening, an evening of promising peace. The silence of the night, a cradle to the trees, only disrupted by the symphony of voices coming from the street, but the quiet comfort of the late sunset weaved the shadows into a sweet melody. He took a deep breath, tasting the scent of jasmines and roses from the back yard and, inhaling the sweet perfume, he opened his eyes while silently emerging from his coffin.
He lurked in the darkness, acknowledging the first stars that shone through the large window in the blackening sky. Louis thought of a musical piece while crossing his arms, standing in front of the window. Violins and cellos compassing the foliage of the waving trees, trying to reach through the dim, almost sweet moonlight.
The steps echoing through the corridor though, now more than familiar to Louis, made him give up a loud sigh that killed the silence in the room.
“Good evening, Louis.”
“Lestat.”
Louis turned around to face Lestat’s silhouette in the parlor and kept silent. The intrusion wasn’t welcome, but Lestat crossed the room and closed the distance between them. He stopped inches away from Louis, who turned his head and diverted his gaze from Lestat’s prying eyes, shining with the light coming from the street.
“Would you come to the theatre with me tonight, Louis?”
Louis looked down to the floor, while thinking that Lestat seemed to be in one of those strange charming moods of his tonight and, even though he preferred to stay in the house, read a book, and savor the colors of the rising sun -finally left alone to his brooding thoughts- he chose to humor the blonde, for they had been at odds lately and Louis had been keeping to himself, musing about the past.
“Well?” Lestat asked with questioning eyes.
“I’ll be downstairs in a couple of minutes,” Louis whispered.
***
Louis kept his distance from the start. The busy street enchanted Lestat, who walked down the streets in old-fashioned manner, humming to himself an old song in French Louis seemed to doubtfully recognize. Lestat looked charming; he had cut his hair tonight. Still, his blonde wavy bangs shone beautifully under the street lamps, his lips smiling discreetly at the city’s charms, and his lotion filled Louis with a strange melancholy. All of a sudden, sadness took hold of Louis, creeping up on him; a strange passenger going unnoticed. He felt tears brimming his eyes. Unforgiving tears. Crimson tears threatening the ivory skin.
He abandoned himself to memories of days now passed, thinking of them while walking down the street, in the same manner than now. Thinking of Lestat’s laughter after the opera, the beating of his heart searching for answers, the anguish he felt every time he knew he was unwanted.
He looked at Lestat, remembering him dressed up in silk and velvet, so full of life, and laughing at Louis’ inquisitive nature. Yes, Louis pictured the past, and it danced in front of his eyes, while deceiving his dreams and hopes. He realized he wanted this moment to last, for all the glimpses of long-ago buried memories burdened his mind.
“Louis, are you even listening to me?”
Louis stopped daydreaming and looked at Lestat, completely crestfallen.
“Louis, Louis…,” Lestat’s smile disappeared, replaced by a frown.
They kept walking in silence, both of them left to their own thoughts. A sense of guilt fluttered through Louis’ mind and a shiver went down his spine, leaving a cold chill lingering on his limbs. Closing the distance between them, Louis hooked his arm around Lestat’s, who then gave him the warmest of smiles. It was charming and caring, incomprehensibly understanding, and full of awe.
After so many years, he still found it difficult to sort out his maker’s behavior, and he had learned to know that Lestat didn’t fully comprehended his nature either, nor his own for that matter.
***
Louis found himself unable to pay attention to the stage, let alone the play taking place. He gave way to his thoughts and they made him frown and close his eyes as if in pain. He dreamed of the actors being no more than dancing flames, swaying to the tantrums of their own words and pouring out at their own accord, ready to be extinguished by the breath of the slightest breeze. He imagined himself as one of the figures pacing back and forth in front of his eyes and found some kind of silent comfort in his fantasies. So much so, he didn’t realize the play was over until he heard Lestat’s crystalline laughter and applause.
The mortals around him reminded him of his own hunger. Their warmth and scent pulsed before him.
“Shall we, Louis?”
“Lestat, you know I hunt alone.”
“Louis, we are having a wonderful evening. Please, won’t you join me?”
The anger dressed in courtesy caught Louis off-guard. He couldn’t believe Lestat was indeed trying, but he only shook his head.
And then it happened. He could sense it in Lestat’s tensing jaw and sharpening eyes. Months of silent treatments were about to come to a conclusion and it would have nothing to do with him declining his invitation. Lestat knew he’d say no, but he was always looking for detonators.
“Fine, then. Run to your precious mortals and hunt by yourself. Go to your convictions and false terms of emancipation! Rot to the core and delve into your present state of nothingness if you are not to tell me what has been going on!”
“I’m not in the mood to put up with you tonight, Lestat.” Louis was tired of his tantrums.
“Put up? You haven’t been the one to hear unbearable lamentations from a forlorn creature, not even fit to be called a vampire for two hundred years! Damn your ungrateful nature, Louis!”
Lestat became conscious of his words only when he saw the hurt in Louis’ eyes. Ungrateful? He only became aware of the damage when he saw that half smile playing on Louis’ lips, a smile he would never forget. It was the most indifferent incarnation of disappointment, hurt, and resentment.
“Alors…” Louis sighed, looking up to the sky and starting to walk down the street, away from Lestat.
“Mais, pour quoi? Dites-moi pour quoi, Louis!”
Louis didn’t turn around to answer Lestat’s questioning, it was something both of them had been asking to each other for too many years now, why?
Lestat stood still on the street, the people present at the argument now walking away. The blond-haired vampire stormed his way to the house, not able to clear his mind. Why did Louis have to be so stubborn sometimes?
After a few hours of pacing around the house, restlessly trying to vent his anger, he opened his eyes to a sudden realization. He had hurt Louis, but never before had it tortured him like this. Then again, Louis had never been so impartial about it.
As the time before sunset ran by, Lestat started to feel the anger burning in his veins starting to subdue. He laid all his senses on the night, waiting for the familiar footsteps on the threshold.
He knew Louis had been in a gloomy mood lately; he couldn’t hide sadness away as easily as he thought. His eyes betrayed him; they always did. Those emerald eyes were too human and sometimes their gaze was unbearable, for they seemed to burn on their own.
***
Louis hadn’t fed. Too lost in his own pondering, he had thrown away the possibility, only because Lestat had wanted him to. Perhaps he would starve himself to death. That made him smile as he went over Lestat’s words again and again while heavy rain started to pour down on him.
He had walked aimlessly, but the streets now were becoming well-known to him and Louis greeted darkness as he headed off around the corner, crossing down Bourbon Street. St. Louis Cemetery was emerging before his eyes.
***
Lestat had searched half the city when it finally hit him, as if the wind had whispered it into his ear. He knew where Louis could be, and he smiled in relief. He was sure he would find him there and a courteous apology came to his mind. So, while pacing through the dim lights like a ghost, he walked to the nearest place he knew where to get what he had in mind.
***
The fallen leaves crushed beneath his feet. The lightening sky shaded the marble angels on top of memory palaces, the wind whispering long-forgotten secrets to them. Shadows tried to deceive the eye, but there he was.
Lestat came close, just careful enough to make his presence known, but Louis didn’t seem to take notice of him being there. He stood still out of respect, staring intently at Louis, who was fixated on the inscription before him.
The blonde finally closed the distance between them, for the unforgiving sun was threatening to rise soon enough. He stopped next to Louis and left what he had gotten for his fledgling on top the grave. He laid it there, slowly, carefully: a beautiful bouquet of gorgeous chrysanthemums. The flowers of the dead, as Claudia used to say. He read the letters carved on the stone, fading away for so long now.
Louis de Pointe du Lac
1766-1794
“Merciful Death... I am so sorry,” the tremors in Lestat’s voice brought Louis out of his slumber.
Lestat apologizing to him was something Louis never thought possible, and there was a warm feeling spreading through his limbs. The heartfelt regret displayed in his maker’s voice made him feel guilty of thinking of him as inhuman and the chrysanthemums almost appeared ethereal to him in their beauty.
“I told myself the pain would ease the burden that was building inside. I told myself that time would be irrelevant, but then time became illness itself and minutes dragged into centuries, Lestat.”
“Louis...”
Louis looked his maker in the eyes and lost himself in the winding fascination he felt for him, allowing Lestat to pull him close, snaking his arms around him in a tight embrace, sealing their lips together, running the tip of his tongue over Louis’ upper lip.
Caught in a daze of forgiveness, Louis deepened the kiss, for in his mind everything was replaced by the yearning to sever himself, remember past ways and what he had become. Thus, Lestat tightened the embrace, touched by Louis’ tenderness, for it was usual between them -too used to being cruel to each other-, and responded to him gently, scratching his tongue against Louis’ fangs. He tasted the copper flooding his mouth, and started feeling his companion’s hunger as if it was his own.
Breaking the kiss, he sank his face in the silky black mane and inhaled deeply, memorizing the scent with all his senses while tracing Louis’ jaw line. He then began to run his thumb smoothly over Louis’ lower lip and finally sank it into the warm wetness of his mouth.
The sweet perfume of that black, long mane was reviving memories of the past that were menacing to fade away, forcing him to tighten their embrace, as if Louis was the only thing to cling on to before death came.
Louis hooked his arms behind his maker’s neck and sank his face on the crook of his neck, the scent of blood numbed his thoughts. It was a sad reminder of the hunger burning him from the inside; his maker’s blood. The pain taking hold of his hart reached out in an enticing moan and pushed him to bare his neck, welcoming Lestat, who started nuzzling at the tender flesh before sinking his fangs sluggishly into his fledgling’s life and memories. The first gulp of blood tasted like honey to his palate. It was a sweet, ever-flowing nectar burdened with two hundred years of burning images, melancholic yearning, and utter disappointment.
He saw himself through the emerald orbs he had fallen in love with. He saw himself as a mocking and uncaring figure, selfish and misunderstanding, and the pain nestled in Louis’ soul. He also saw Claudia, the most terrible gift he’d ever given to Louis, the demonic child with a woman’s hart -his beloved’s child and eternal torment. And with the unstoppable flood of memories, came the unmistakable rhythm of a heart’s beating. Louis’ heart beating against his chest, in his ears, and through his blood. The beating of a heart dozing off; a heart going over the edge.
Suddenly, he felt the sweetest caress over his flesh. Louis was nibbling at his neck and piercing the skin, drinking away his guilt and pouring forgiveness into him, mixed with his own blood, closing the most intimate demonstration of love between vampires.
Ragged breathings compassed repressed moans as they pressed to each other, hiding their faces in one another. It was climax. Now, he knew Louis did feel for him and his soul was shaken by a saddened happiness that threatened to give way to all the emotions this child woke in him, but he could feel his lover starting to let go, his frame weaker and slipping away from his arms.
Lifting his head from his fledgling’s throat, he looked into half lidded eyes, emerald pools reflecting the brightening sky; ivory skin was warming silken marble.
Those pools... The pain...
“Oh, Louis... I didn’t know.”
And with the last breath of strength in him, Louis gave Lestat a deep, bloody kiss on which he could taste himself, before falling asleep at the mercy of the rising sun.
***