Chapter Text
Louis firmly pressed the puff to Lestat’s face.
“Lighter, with little taps so it blends,” Lestat instructed
Louis nodded, pressing the puff back into the box of powder for a moment and then tapping it lighter on Lestat’s skin, the powder covering his face and making it even paler. They sat in front of a little vanity in the coffin room, the little pots and boxes of cosmetics laid out in front of them.
“It’s full of lead, of course,” Lestat said with a smile, “but I thought why not? It can’t do any harm”
Louis smiled at that wryly, making sure to get that powder up near Lestat’s hairline where the wig would be, and Lestat closed his eyes, wayward powder falling on his eyelashes.
“I had all the cosmetics ordered in, made traditionally, just for tonight,” Lestat added, opening his eyes again
Lestat really had thought of everything. Every detail. Apart from the ones that would kill him.
The application of the white powder had left a cast on Lestat’s lips. Louis licked the tip of his forefinger and ran it over Lestat’s lips, clearing it. Lestat’s breath hitched a little.
There was a coral pink rouge for the lips next. Louis dipped his finger in and added it to Lestat’s lips, gently swiping back and forth and then tapping to blot. Lestat gazed at him intently.
I believe that is for the lips, Miss Lily
I don’t like the way that mine look plain and Mr du Lac don’t mind when I do it
“I can see that look in your eyes, Lestat. Don’t mess up my hard work,” Louis told him firmly, letting a slight teasing note enter his voice
“We could reapply it, mon cher,” Lestat said breathlessly
“There will be time enough later,” Louis promised
Lestat looked like a fairytale prince, right out of the illustrations in the French fairytale books that Mama used to read to him, Grace, and Paul when they were little. Tales by Charles Perrault and Madame D'Aulnoy and Countess of Ségur. Mama had wanted them to improve their French, her voice low and melodious as she read to them. Mama didn’t do voices but her own voice would wash over the words, comforting and warm, as Grace, Paul and himself listened raptly. Grace would steal the books from the bookshelf when she got just a little older, bringing the books out to the garden and making him and Paul playact the tales with her. The Blue Bird, Diamonds and Toads, Puss in Boots. Mama would get coldly furious at the muddy fingerprints on the books and then would be slightly mollified when Grace was able to recite passages from heart, her French impeccable-
“Louis?”
“Sorry, what was next?” Louis asked, distracted
“The rouge for the cheeks, Louis,” Lestat said, tilting his head at the pot
Louis twisted the lid off, notes of wood resin, safflower and sandalwood rising, and dipped his fingers in the red-pink cream.
“The vermillion in it comes from the cinnabar, containing mercury,” Lestat noted
“Was everything poisonous?” Louis joked lightly
“Perhaps,” Lestat said with a slight smile, “Perhaps just the beautiful things”
Louis tapped the cream along Lestat’s cheekbones. Applying poison to his skin. Red cream filled with mercury. White powder filled with lead. For a moment, Louis hoped desperately that maybe somehow Lestat had been wrong and that this could harm him, could kill Lestat, right here and now, the poison sinking into his flesh in the quiet of their room, of their home. Forget the facade of the Mardi Gras ball.
“Not too blended and you want to have it roughly in this shape,” Lestat explained, tracing a horizontal oval on his cheek
Louis applied the rouge carefully, following Lestat’s guidance. Lestat looked like a fairytale prince but it was all artifice and illusion. Louis was reminded of the memory that Claudia had shared with him, Claudia on the train as Lestat prevented her escape. Lestat threatening her life if she ever tried to leave again.
I’ll turn your bones to dust.
Lestat was the monster, the ogre, the giant. Grinding bones to make his bread. And this plan tonight, Claudia’s mysterious plan, was what it will take to save themselves, to escape his grasp. This was not La Belle et la Bête. A kiss or a confession of love would not save them. This was Bluebeard and Donkeyskin and they needed to leave. Louis owed Claudia some small chance at a happily ever after.
Louis finished applying the rouge. Louis wiped his hands with the small washcloth, the fabric coming away streaked with red, glossy and artificial and completely unlike blood.
“And the beauty mark?” Louis asked, picking up the kohl pencil from the vanity and looking back at Lestat
“Here and just a small circle,” Lestat said, pointing to a spot on his left cheek, up on his cheekbone, “this placement is called La galante”
Louis brought the kohl pencil to Lestat’s skin, about to make the circle, when he had to pause as Lestat kept talking.
“These used to be called mouches and, rather than using kohl or elderberries, they were often made of black silk, in little shapes of circles and stars and hearts, glued onto the skin,” Lestat explained blithely, “isn’t that fantastique?”
“Mon cher, would you stop talking so I can apply it?” Louis teased, holding Lestat’s face in one hand as he carefully held the kohl pencil in the other
Lestat stopped, giving Louis a fond look, his eyes sparkling as he held obediently still for Louis.
“Merci,” Louis said quietly as he concentrated and leant in closer
Louis drew the tiny circle, filling it in. His breath close enough that it was ghosting Lestat’s skin.
“Did you wear all this a lot, in your time?” Louis asked curiously, drawing back and looking over his work
“Actually no, I didn’t have much occasion to attend such events,” Lestat confessed after a long moment
Lestat sharing even such a small detail from his past was a rare enough thing that it took Louis slightly off guard. He’d almost expected to hear that Lestat had worn these cosmetics every night.
“Magnifique, Louis,” Lestat said, leaning forward to the vanity and examining himself in the mirror, “and now you?”
“You are not putting that fucking powder on my face,” Louis said sardonically
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Louis,” Lestat said with a smile, “But the rouge for the cheeks? The kohl for the eyes?”
It was part of the disguise, wasn’t it? Going to the ball. It wasn’t that different from the costumes that had arrived.
“Okay,” Louis agreed
Lestat’s hand cupped Louis’s face and Louis had to fight back the swift rising tide of panic, suddenly that grip crushing his jaw like eggshell, bones cracking inwards, pain searing through him, feeling like he was falling even as he sat quietly.
“You’re trembling, Louis,” Lestat said with a frown, “Est ce que tout va bien?”
“Just the hunger,” Louis said, forcing a smile, trying to remain calm
Lestat applied the rouge to Louis’s cheeks. Vermillion. Mercury.
“French women sometimes used soot from oil lamps or burnt cork for the eyebrows,” Lestat said with amusement as he rubbed a little kohl on his finger, tracing over Louis’s eyebrows making them slightly darker
“Should I be glad we’re not going for complete authenticity?” Louis forced out the joke, the words feeling dry and cracked in his throat
Lestat smiled softly, thumb stroking Louis’s jaw a little.
“Close your eyes for me, Louis?” Lestat asked
Louis closed his eyes. Lestat was gentle as he traced the kohl pencil along Louis’s lash line and then delicately smudged it with a finger- maybe his pinky? One side and then the other. Louis fought down the fear that Lestat would suddenly plunge those fingers into Louis’s eye sockets. He could do this. Louis remained very still, letting the fear and nausea wash over him and recede, and waited for Lestat to be done.
Louis’s eyes were still closed when suddenly Lestat’s lips were pressed against his own, just there and gone again in the briefest of moments, and Louis wanted to throw up. And Louis wanted to grab Lestat and kiss him senseless.
Louis opened his eyes, Lestat looking at him with such affection that Louis felt dizzy, felt ungrounded, felt adrift. Felt ensorcelled.
“Beauty spot, ma belle?” Lestat offered, brandishing the kohl pencil
“Sure, wherever you like, I suppose,” Louis said
Lestat drew a little beauty spot on Louis’s left cheek and then another on the right side of Louis’s face, near Louis’s nose on the laugh line, and nodded approvingly at it.
“Do these have names too?” Louis asked when Lestat drew away, thinking of Lestat’s mark by his left cheekbone
“The one on your cheek is like mine, La galante,” Lestat said, “But the other is L’enjouée”
“Does it mean anything?” Louis asked
“Playful,” Lestat said with a grin
“And yours?” Louis prodded. Ours?
“Gallant,” Lestat said
Of course. A pair of fairytale princes. Gallant.
“A mark on the right side, like yours, could also indicate that someone was married,” Lestat said softly, brushing his finger possessively up to the mark, his nail sharp against Louis’s skin