Chapter Text
August
Lestat ran a brush through his hair one last time, breathing out slowly. He made note of the uneven beating in his chest, willing it to slow down.
Any attempt to expel the nerves he felt at that moment seemed fruitless. The weight of the ring box that he had been carrying around for a week was imposing in a way that made his teeth chatter. Still, he was ready to do this. He needed to do this. He needed to take this next step with Armand.
There was a knock on his door before Mekare and Maharet stepped inside and squealed.
Lestat playfully rolled his eyes, all while standing up and spinning around so they could see his outfit. It had taken him about two days to decide on the fit, so he was going to take any compliment he could get.
“You look incredible,” Mekare said.
“Definitely marriage material,” Maharet added.
Lestat took another deep breath, forcing a smile as his lips trembled a bit. He could not believe how nervous he was. He never got nervous. He supposed that it was quite a normal feeling to have before a proposal, though. “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Of course. Armand is going to lose his mind.”
Maharet stepped forward and handed Lestat an envelope. “Just a little something from all of us.”
Lestat opened the envelope and found a beautiful hand-made card with dozens of messages from everyone at the Talamasca house, wishing him luck that night. Lestat was suddenly overcome with a flood of emotions. He had been so ready to graduate and start his life with Armand that he had not realized just how much he would miss everyone in his fraternity when he graduated. “You shouldn’t have. Thank you.” He stepped forward to hug the twins.
Mekare rushed around the room, handing him his jacket and wallet. “Do you have the ring?”
Lestat nodded, tapping his pocket where the box was situated.
Maharet looked him up and down. “Perfect. Not a hair out of place. There’s no way Armand could say ‘no.’”
Lestat gave a small laugh. Despite the nerves coursing through his veins, he knew that to be true. He and Armand had been together for over three years now. There was only one answer his boyfriend could give him.
“Speaking of,” Mekare piped up. “He’s downstairs.”
Lestat checked his reflection in the mirror one last time, and stepped out of the room, ready to begin the rest of his life.
Armand kept his face neutral as the waiter stumbled over the specials, but Lestat knew he was dying to make some sort of comment based on the way he clenched his jaw over and over again. Lestat smiled even wider in hopes of making the employee a little less nervous. It was probably his first week on the job— Armand often took them to this restaurant and he had never seen this particular waiter before.
His boyfriend leaned forward once the man mercifully left them alone. “They just hire anyone these days.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“He told us about the Chilean sea bass three times, Lestat.”
Lestat could not help but laugh. “Forget about him. Let’s focus on something else… Go on, tell your boyfriend how handsome he is.” He tossed his long, blonde hair over his shoulder in a dramatic fashion.
Armand raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. “I already did, did I not?”
Lestat raised the same challenging eyebrow.
Armand lifted Lestat’s hand to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. “You look very handsome. As always.”
“Was that so hard?” Lestat asked, sticking his chin out slightly. “Happy Anniversary.”
“Our anniversary is next month, mon loup,” Armand reminded him.
“Yes,” Lestat agreed slowly. “But you’ll be in Cambridge for your Harvard interview. So, I figured we could celebrate tonight, instead.”
Armand frowned at this. “Well, I didn’t get you a gift.”
Lestat thought to the gift he had waiting for Armand once the waiter arrived with their champagne. "That's fine.”
Armand looked down at the table. “Has it really been three years?”
“Longer,” Lestat told him. “If you count the period of time where we were fucking but pretending to be just friends.” He gave a dismissive roll of the wrist so as to not bring up the constant argument the two of them had over that undefined part of their relationship when Armand insisted they could not be together before Lestat had put his sexual prowess to good use in a hot tub for three hours to convince him otherwise.
Armand drew his lips into a tight line before laughing awkwardly. “Right. Yes. Of course.”
Lestat took in Armand’s body language for the first time that night. He had been so nervous about his own plan, that he had not realized Armand looked a bit anxious himself. “Are you okay?”
Armand blew out a breath and reached for Lestat’s hands just as the champagne was placed on the table.
“Um, are you ready to order, or…?” the waiter questioned.
“Give us a minute,” Armand said curtly, not looking at the man.
Lestat opened his mouth to chastise him when Armand spoke up again.
“Lestat,” Armand began. “I was going to do this at the end of the night, but… I can’t wait anymore.”
Lestat felt his heart in his throat. It was suddenly so obvious.
Armand had gotten him a gift. He was going to propose as well.
It seemed they were both nervous for absolutely no reason. He squeezed Armand’s hand. “Don’t worry. I know what you’re going to say.”
“You do?” Armand replied.
Lestat nodded. “I do.” Just saying the words felt exciting.
Armand smiled, looking relieved. “Oh god, Lestat. That’s a relief. I’m so glad we’re on the same page… Being with you has been….”
“Amazing.”
“A crazy adventure.”
Lestat tilted his head. Yes, he supposed their relationship could be described as an “adventure.”
“I mean,” Armand continued. “We’ve had a lot of fun, right?”
“Well, sure,” Lestat said. “It’s been fun, but I also—”
“And you’re amazing in bed,” Armand interjected.
Lestat went still. True, his and Armand’s sex life was good, and that was mostly due to his own skill, but he had not really expected his proposal to go this way. “Armand, maybe I should take the reins—”
“And that’s why,” Armand carried on. “I need to say this to you now, before graduation. Before our lives change forever.”
Lestat felt his heart beat fast once again. Armand was finally getting to the point. “Yes. Right. I agree.”
“Lestat.”
“Armand…”
“Mon loup.”
“Yes…”
“I think we should break up.”
“Of course, I’ll marry you—” Lestat paused, processing what Armand had just said. “Wait. What?”
“Marry me?” Armand asked at the same time. “You thought I was proposing?”
Lestat snatched his hands away from Armand’s and fell back against his seat. “You’re breaking up with me? What the fuck, Armand?”
Lestat’s voice must have been louder than he realized because Armand looked around the restaurant before leaning in once more. “I’m confused,” he whispered. “Why on earth would you think I would propose to you?”
Lestat scoffed, throwing his hands in the air uselessly. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because we’ve been together for three years and it’s the next obvious step in our relationship?”
Armand looked at him like he was crazy. “Lestat,” he said with obvious pity. “This… We were never going to be long term, you know that, right?”
Lestat saw red. “Long term? Did you not hear me? We’ve been together for three years.”
“Yes,” Armand relented. “But, I’m me, and you’re… you.” He pointed up and down at Lestat, seemingly silently judging his outfit.
Lestat looked down at the burnt orange velour shirt he was wearing. It was vintage and cost seven hundred dollars. “And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”
“Lestat, please stay calm,” Armand demanded.
Lestat wanted to throw his champagne in Armand’s face. His ears started ringing as Armand droned on about his life after graduation, his life in law school, his life at Harvard. Lestat was humiliated, and he did not take well to being humiliated. He forced himself to unclench his teeth so he could remain as calm as possible.
“You have to understand, Lestat,” Armand spoke to him with the cadence of a parent reprimanding a child. “I could never marry you. I’m… a LeRusse. There are certain rules we have to follow. I thought you knew that going in. I thought you knew who I was.”
Lestat thought he knew who Armand was as well.
“So, that’s it?” Lestat snapped. “This is over? Everything we have is just… done? Because you’re going to Harvard and I’m not? I was willing to move there for you, you asshole.”
Lestat crossed his arms, and started cursing at Armand in French under his breath.
“I would never want you to move somewhere for me and my career,” Armand told him. “What about you? What would you have even done there, Lestat?”
“I don’t know. I would have figured it out when I got there,” Lestat said, feeling defensive. “I have a full modeling portfolio. And I’m president of a co-ed fraternity. My résumé’s not that pathetic.”
Armand closed his eyes slowly. “Sure. But Lestat, these are east coast elites, were talking about. Do you think they’re going to be impressed with someone who studied music theory?”
“I have a philosophy minor as well—”
“That degree doesn’t get you anywhere in the real world.”
Lestat was struck by how much he had not thought about the future at all. He had wrongly assumed that everything would simply work out in his favor. It had up until that point.
“I need someone… more aligned with my goals, Lestat,” Armand stated, seemingly blissfully unaware of how much his words hurt. “Look, I’m sure JFK could have had more fun with Marilyn, but when it came down to the wire, he settled with Jackie,” he lamented. “Because it was the smart thing to do.”
“Am I Marilyn in this situation?” Lestat asked. “Are you JFK?” He laughed sardonically. He could not believe what was happening. “Wait… Are you breaking up with me because I’m too… blonde?”
He felt tears fill his eyes and he silently begged himself to remain calm. Lestat was always quick to cry. “Fuck,” he said underneath his breath. His boyfriend, the one man who was supposed to believe in him more than anyone else on the planet, thought he was too dumb to be with him. “Oh my god.”
“Oh, Lestat,” Armand said. “Come on. Don’t cry.”
Lestat abruptly stood from his seat, causing the chair to scrape across the floor in an incredibly noisy manner. If everyone in the restaurant was not already looking at them, they certainly were now. He grabbed his champagne flute and drained it quickly before marching out of the restaurant.
Lestat was unsure if he had been walking for two minutes or two hours. It did not matter. Nothing seemed to really matter anymore. His plan—his one plan—for the future had been demolished in a matter of seconds by the person who he had trusted the most. He looked around at his surroundings and found only emptiness. Los Angeles really was the least walkable city in the country. Lestat was certain he was lost, which would make this already shitty night even worse.
He turned around as he heard a car slowly approach him.
Armand.
“Come on, Lestat. Get in the car. I’ll drive you home,” Armand said, rolling down the window of his stupidly obnoxious Bentley. Lestat had always loved that car and now that he was looking at it, he hated all the personalizations Armand had paid extra for. And he certainly hated that it was orange. He wondered if it had always been that ugly.
“No thank you,” Lestat replied petulantly.
“You’re going to ruin your shoes,” Armand told him.
Lestat looked down to the shoes he had bought specifically for that night and inwardly cursed. They were very much not walking shoes.
“Lestat… mon loup,” Armand practically pleaded. “I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know you made it home in one piece.”
“I’m not some helpless—” Lestat paused. He really could not afford to have an ego right now. He wanted a ride home. “Fine.”
They rode in silence all the way back to Lestat’s fraternity. Once they reached the house, Lestat realized he did not want to get out of the car. Getting out of the car would mean that their relationship was really over, and that he had no other plan for his life after graduation. Lestat felt nauseous over the fact that he had seemingly centered his world around a man who had been planning on dumping him for some brunette with years of inbreeding in their family tree once they reached spring semester.
Lestat trailed his fingers over the car door handle. “This is really what you want?”
He felt so fucking pathetic. He was Lestat Lioncourt. He never begged. He never pleaded. When he wanted something, he always got it.
“Lestat,” Armand said, reaching over and grabbing his face, kissing him with far too much tongue for someone who was breaking up with him. “I’ll always be grateful for what we had.”
In some sort of attempt to make the entire night null and void, Lestat reached down to palm Armand through his pants, kissing him once more. If he could just make Armand forget what he said—
“Lestat,” Armand moaned, not entirely unaffected by the situation. “It’s over. I would say we could keep fucking, but I don’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
Lestat was definitely going to cry now. He was throwing himself at the man he thought was going to be his fiancé, and it was not working. He sat back in his seat, took a deep breath and stepped out of the car.
“Fuck you and your family,” Lestat told him in French before slamming the door.
Two weeks later, Lestat lifted his head slightly from his pillow at the sound of knocking on his door. He knew it was Mekare and Maharet, but he could not bother to do more than grunt, giving them permission to walk into his bedroom of shame.
“Jesus,” Maharet gasped. “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“Is that a Taco Bell wrapper?” Mekare asked. She placed a hand over her heart like he had just told her he was dying of an incurable disease. “Lestat…”
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“You missed lecture again,” Maharet told him. “Luckily I’m very convincing and I told Professor Rice someone in your family died. She’s not going to count your absences. You’re welcome.”
Mekare inhaled sharply. “That sounds like something you should not lie about.”
“What else was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know? That he was sick? With the flu, or something?”
“Teachers don’t care about that anymore. It has to be grief or extreme anxiety.”
“Ladies,” Lestat interrupted. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” he reiterated. “Thank you, Maharet, but that was unnecessary.” He sat up in his bed, rearranging the pillow fort he had inadvertently created over the past fourteen days. “I’m going to my classes… Most of my classes. I’m not going to let some breakup bring down my GPA, or prevent me from graduating.”
Mekare and Maharet stared at him like they did not believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.
“I’m fine,” he told them for the third time.
“Nope,” Maharet said, reaching for him and pulling him so he was standing up after hours of lying face-down on his bed, silently hoping he suffocated. “Go take a shower. You’re disgusting. You look like the crypt keeper—”
“You mean grim reaper.”
“I don’t,” Maharet denied. “Besides, I know what will cheer you up. Martinis and pedicures.”
Lestat pursed his lips. He knew Maharet was right. Of course he did. He chanced a look at himself in the mirror and nearly gasped. He looked obscene. “Okay… Yes, let’s go.”
Lestat willed himself to relax as he sat in a massage chair while a nail salon employee violently scrubbed weeks of dead skin cells off the bottom of his foot. He looked over to Mekare and Maharet who were practically asleep in their chairs, clearly unburdened by the harsh reality of the world they lived in. He sighed deeply and looked through the magazines the salon had, ready to read, on the table next to him. He almost choked on air as he saw Boston Magazine amongst the pile.
“How the—? We’re in fucking Venice Beach,” he whispered under his breath as he picked the up the publication and began flipping through the pages.
Armand was right. No one was blonde in Boston.
“That can’t be true,” he said to himself.
“What?” the nail tech asked, looking up at Lestat.
“Oh, nothing,” Lestat responded. “Sorry.”
He continued half-reading headlines until he passed a picture of a wealthy-looking woman and a blonde man. Finally, he thought.
Lestat paused. The woman looked oddly familiar for some reason. His eyes drifted down to the caption underneath.
Sybelle LeRusse (left) and fiancé Ryland Vanderbilt III, both graduates of Harvard Law, class of 2024.
Sybelle. Of course. She was Armand’s cousin once or twice-removed, or something. Lestat clenched his jaw, wondering just how many times he would have to be reminded of his ex and his family that would never accept a Lioncourt in their clan before an idea quickly popped into his head.
He had been so focused on wallowing in his self-inflicted depression he did not realize that the solution had been in front of him all along.
He was Lestat Lioncourt. He never begged. He never pleaded. When he wanted something, he always fucking got it.
Lestat laughed out loud, scaring the nail tech. He apologized again and tapped Mekare on the shoulder, signaling for her to wake her twin up as well. “I figured it out,” he began. “I have a solution.”
“For what?”
Lestat rolled his eyes. “I know how I can get Armand back.”
“You’re getting Armand back?” Maharet asked. “I thought you hated him now.”
Lestat shook his head. He held up the magazine. “This is what Armand wants.”
Mekare and Maharet stared at the page Lestat was enthusiastically pointing to. “What?” they asked, confused.
“Someone serious. Someone smart,” Lestat explained. “Someone… in law school.”
Maharet pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think that’s—”
“It’s the perfect solution.”
“What is?” Mekare questioned, sounding concerned.
“Ladies,” Lestat said, excitedly. “I’m going to Harvard.”
They both furrowed their brows at him, silently asking for an explanation.
“To beg Armand to take you back?” Mekare asked, sounding disgusted at the thought.
“No,” Lestat scoffed. “I’m going to get into Harvard. Law school.”
The twins nodded enthusiastically despite the fact that neither of their smiles reached their eyes.
“That’s… Well, that’s wonderful, Lestat,” Maharet said.
“Totally,” Mekare agreed. “It’s so great to have dreams.”
The nail tech laughed silently as Lestat slumped back in his seat.
It did not matter that no one else saw the solution as easily as he did. It was the first time in weeks that he had felt determined to do anything other than cry while watching The Notebook or something equally as mawkish.
This was his solution. The way to get back to the future he had been planning for himself for the past three years.
He was going to get into Harvard. And he was going to get Armand back.
If it was the last thing he did.