Work Text:
My eyes open slowly, heavily; an unusual thing after centuries of quick awakenings, but it’s not the only thing that surprises me. Being an early bird compared to other vampires, the darkness pouring in from the window beside me means I slept for uncharacteristically late. Looking around without moving much, the room is not the one I lay to rest either. The small room seems familiar though. The polished wood flooring, the plaster walls, the warm shadows of the fire dancing on the ceiling - I’ve seen them before, long time ago.
My heart pounds faster and faster the more I recognize the view, but the blood suddenly freezes in my veins when I fully realize where I am.
This is the small room we had with Nicolas in Paris back in the days. The one I shared with my Nicky.
I wild trembling runs through my body when I hear the page of a book turning to my right. There is someone there. The trembling becomes stronger and my heart tries to burst through my ribcage as I slowly turn my head to look at the reading person. I can’t believe my eyes when I see him, Nicky, my beloved Nicky, sitting there in one of the armchairs with his back to me. My mind tries to comprehend the situation for a second, tries to find some logic in the scenario, but gives it up quickly. Who cares if it’s a dream, or if my whole vampire life was a dream, or if I somehow jumped back in the past or if I only see a vision caused by a magic trick; Nicky is here, alive and well, and it’s all that matters.
I sit and stand cautiously, as if any careless movement could chase the volatile vision away, but the damned wood flooring betrays me with a loud creak as soon as I take my first step. Nicky looks up and closes the book in his lap slowly. He sits with his back straight like a nobleman, staring into the fire for a flying second before turning to look at me.
But it’s not Nicky looking at me. It’s Louis, with his sad green eyes, his melancholic beauty and his rose petal lips. His cheeks are pinkish from sitting too close to the fireplace, the flames coloring the white lace on his spotless shirt pale shades of orange and red. He smiles at me faintly, and I’m sure now that I’m either in the sweetest dream or the evilest trick.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He says quietly, calmly, before opening up his book and turning back to his reading again. Something snaps inside me then; I cut the distance between us in two long steps and I kneel down in front of him, catching his arms desperately. To hell with cautiousness!
Louis apparently gets scared because he drops the book, the hard cover hitting the floor with a dull thud as its owner looks up at me with wide, watery eyes.
“Lestat, what’s with you? You’re hurting my arm.” He sounds sulky and surprised as he whispers the words and I shake him gently.
“What are you doing here, Louis? Why are we here??” I am frantic now, crazy with confusion and sadness and happiness, because I’m obviously at the wrong place and time, with the wrong and the right person at the same time. Louis just looks at me like the madman I am for a long minute before trying to break free from my strong grip on his biceps. His attempts are weak and he gives up the struggle with an annoyed sigh, his delicious lips forming into a cute little pout.
“You had a bad dream maybe? Everything is all right. We are both here in our room and you slept through the whole evening again.”
“I don’t understand…”
“I don’t understand either, believe me. Sleeping like a sulking child because your play got cancelled tonight… Don’t tell me you’re still bothered by it.”
I don’t answer, can’t answer, so I just stare at him blankly, my grip loosening on him as I desperately try to put the pieces together. Louis lifts his hands up then, cupping my cheeks in a gentle way as he leans a little bit closer. “There will be plenty of evenings where you can be the star of the stage again. One night cancelled is not the end of the world. You can’t do this every time things don’t go the way you desire them to go.”
His thumbs caress my face softly, and I don’t hear his voice anymore. All I feel is his warmth, his fire heated hands, his delicate neck under the dark locks, the lively yet dreamy green of his sad eyes. He leans even closer, slowly, tentatively, and I’m too mesmerized and puzzled to move, so I just kneel there stupidly with my arms hanging beside me like a doll, watching him inching closer, and closer, until he closes his emerald pools of his soul and presses a long, shy kiss to my open lips.
My mind races. Everything is confusing. I’m in the wrong time, I’m in the wrong place, in my time and my room with Nicky, but Nicky is gone and Louis is here, and Louis is kissing me and he is warm, oh so warm and soft and I think I’m going crazy.
Then it downs on me.
Louis is warm, yes, but I’m burning hot, and not because of the crackling fire. I haven’t eaten tonight, yet my blood pumps through my veins like scalding liquid life, and I feel things I haven’t felt in centuries; a slow, rising heat in my chest, crawling down my belly and further, igniting me at places I shouldn’t feel this fiery when I feel the little poke of Louis’s tongue between my lips.
I push him away with a sudden force and grab his face to look at him closely. Dark circles under his eyes, little wrinkles here and there, things that I shouldn’t see. The white alabaster of his immortal skin is nowhere to be seen, only this velvet warmth of skin on his imperfectly perfect face.
He breaks an amused smile, laughing a bit.
“What’s up with you tonight? You’re even stranger than usual.”
He smiles widely, showing little pearly teeth behind his silky lips.
Little pearly teeth. No fangs.
“You… you’re mortal….” I whisper in disbelief and I feel panicky for a second, just staring at Louis and gripping his face tighter. He just smiles again, with the look of a parent laughing on a small child’s stupidity and ignorance.
“Yes, we are all mortals, Lestat. You, me, everyone. Please don’t start this again. I thought you were over this silly fight with your dark thoughts about life and death.” When I continue to stare at him with my eyes wide and offer no answer, he continues. “Come on, let’s get to bed. I go to bed with you too, all right? So stop this.”
I let him stand up and take me by the hand as he leads me to the poor thing we called our bed with Nicky. I lie down as he pushes me, and watch him mesmerized as he unbuttons the spotless white shirt, takes off the black velvet pants and folds them neatly into the armchair, changing into a clean wool nightgown and climbing in next to me. He covers us both with a woven blanket and faces me, stroking my arm gently.
There is only one explanation to all this: I’m certainly crazy. My mind played an evil, ugly trick on me, making me see the longest of dreams about an immortal life, about a beautiful, unending, powerful life. I must’ve mixed up the people, dreamt about a boy named Nicky I either saw in my village or made up, and gave Louis, apparently my love, the role of my beautiful fledgling.
It was a dream, a dream only. The longest of dreams.
It seemed so real; I can still feel everything, all the joys and sorrows of being a vampire, all the sweetness and bitterness of an immortal life. Louis just stares at me silently, his eyelids getting heavier, his hands slowly stopping in their caress.
The memories of my dreamt immortality still haunt my mind, but suddenly I feel happy. I got my mortality back, the love of my life back, here with me; even if the eternity was a dream only, it taught me about valuing these silly human things I can all feel now.
I start giggling and smiling. I feel crazy. I feel immensely hot. My body aches in forgotten ways and I love it.
I dart forward and kiss Louis fully on the lips, a smile still lingering on my face. He startles but returns the kiss and lets me roll on top of him. I press down on him, pin him down with my hips, taking his mouth with my playful tongue, making him moan and writhe under me as I grind into him, touching him everywhere.
Oh hell, how much I’ve missed this in my endless dream, this heat, this intimacy, this erotic frenzy I never felt as an immortal.
Louis doesn’t try to stop me when my wandering hands glide under his nightgown and up his milky thighs, groping him at the most inappropriate places and enjoying each small tremble I cause with my ministrations. I kiss his jaw and neck feverishly, and I groan loudly because damn, I missed this, missed this so much.
I sit up and start to tear my clothes off frantically, never breaking the eye contact with my sweet Louis as he lies there, startled and hot, innocent and sultry, with his dark hair splayed on the white pillows, his panting chest exposed under the white wool and the flames dancing on his delicate frame so erotically.
He is beautiful, so shamelessly beautiful, and he is mine, mine only to take in this mortal body, mine only to make him dirty and begging for my love.
I attack him once again, being too impatient to get him out of his nightgown even. I kiss him deeply and we both moan loudly. My left hand travels down on his body again, and I lift his thighs around me to nestle into his groin with mine. I know I’m being too impatient, know that I should give him some time and preparation, but I can’t wait anymore; feels like I waited too many decades and centuries in my immortal dream. I enter his body carefully, and he is so pliant and magnificent under me as he arches his back graciously with a trembling, aching sigh. His face is flushed, never remember seeing him so flushed, and he is so adorable in his mortal fragility as we get lost in our desire that burns us like molten fire. I thrust into him passionately, and I can’t decide if I want to kiss him everywhere or to stay up on my arms above him to watch him losing himself entirely.
His trembling hand finds my face then, caressing at my lips slowly before tugging me down by my hair, his long fingers getting lost in my golden locks. He tilts his head up sweetly for a kiss, and I’d be damned if I wouldn’t give it to him, locking our lips together fiercely.
We get into the highest point of our passionate paradise together, merely seconds apart, and I want to tell him how beautiful he is and how much I love him, how happy I am to get this chance as mortal fools together, when my eyes snap open – again.
I stare at the modern ceiling in disbelief. The room is safely darkened, but I can sense the last remains of sunlight slowly dying outside the big windows of my expensive apartment. I see Louis beside me, his perfect ivory face unmoving like a precious sculpture’s in his death-like sleep. I gently caress his face before I sit up. I take several deep breaths to calm myself, to wake up from this overly realistic dream I had. Part of me is happy to wake up for real in my flawless, immortal body; another part of me is immensely sad of losing that unique humanity that sometimes I crave so much.
The dream haunts me through the whole night –an uneventful night, a peaceful night, yet such an upset one. My soul is upset, my mind is distracted. I dream often, and I often dream very vividly, but this last one felt so painfully real that it hurts, and I wonder if it was a dream only or if it really happened somehow. I keep thinking of Louis, flushed hot against me, panting and moaning in ecstasy. His beautiful vulnerability, his mortal fragility that enchanted me just as much as it did on that dreadful night I set my eyes on him in New Orleans centuries ago.
But Louis doesn’t seem to remember any of it, doesn’t seem to share this amazing lifelike fantasy with me, so I decide not to talk about it. There’s nothing I want more than telling him the whole story and how it made me feel, but I know he would just shake his head as he always does, considering it another one of my follies.
I don’t go out to hunt that night and he mostly stays home with me, reading silently in the other room, only disappearing for a short hour to feed. As the morning approaches I catch him making his way elegantly towards our safe place. I’m watching him from the window, and he stops for a second to lock his gaze with me before continuing his sleepy walk to our bedroom.
Unlike on other mornings when I stay up early and risk a slight burn by watching the sunrise for too long, I climb into bed beside him and watch him closely as he slowly starts to drift into sleep.
“I wish we knew each other before we turned.” I hear myself speaking without realizing after long moments of silence, the words escaping me against my wish. Louis opens his heavy eyelids to look at me with a slight frown.
“Why?”
“So that I could make love to you.” My voice is barely a whisper, and he turns his head slightly to look at me better. His sweet eagerness from my dream is nowhere to be seen in his emerald eyes now, only his usual melancholy, his sorrowful love. “I wish I could make love to you like mortals do.”
“That’s silly.”
“No… it’s not. It’s so intimate. So beautiful. We could have been so happy.”
Louis gives me a small smile, and I can tell he is fighting falling asleep as he replies in a small voice.
“Aren’t we… aren’t we kind of happy? Isn’t changing blood more intimate than anything a mortal can ever experience? A short happy life with you… I rather be with you like this for an eternity…”
He is so unusually honest, I can tell he is already sinking. I pet his hair and press a long kiss to his lips, smiling. I thank him and tell him I love him softly, even if he can’t hear me anymore.
Maybe he is right… maybe an eternal life with him by my side is much better than anything a mortal romance could offer.