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“Les,” Louis says gently as he lifts Lestat’s face from his chest so he’s looking up at him. “I’m overjoyed to see you again as well, but we seriously need to leave this house before the roof falls in on us,” he whispers rubbing the blondes back gently. The hurricane raged on around them. The roof was leaking upon them and the shutters were blowing so hard Louis was scared they were going to break a window and slice them with glass.
Lestat bashfully mumbles something not quite coherent to Louis about not wanting to leave. The blondes features are hedged deeply with guilt and shame.
He was nearly unrecognizable to the man who had been his lover for decades. Could this really be the boastful, ostentatious, Lestat that had made him? This man who looked so small, so weak and fragile? He held Lestat tighter. He felt scared as if the slightest brush of a hurricane wind or sway of the house could send Lestat flying. If he never understood the importance of feeding on humans opposed to feeding on vermin before, he certainly did now.
Lestat lets out a frightened whimper and buries his face back into Louis’ chest as the room ignites with light as thunder booms outside.
“Lestat please… Please come with me cher. It’s not safe for either of us out here. Immortal we may be, but I’d rather not stick around here to find out the agony of lightning burns,” Louis says imploringly, nearing the thin line between asking and begging.
Lestat shakes his head desperately, gripping onto Louis harder. He grasped around Louis’ waist as if he were a toddler holding their blanket as a lifeline after a nightmare. Lestat tenses as another loud crackle of thunder erupts outside.
A realization suddenly dawns upon Louis, “You’re scared aren’t you. Is it the thunder? Is the storm scaring you?” He asks gently lifting Lestat’s head up again.
Lestat shakes his head, looking away biting his lips as red begins glazing his eyes. “Non… not the storm,” he trails off deflecting.
“Are,” Lestat chokes back a heavy sob before finally meeting Louis’ eyes, “Are you really here?” His voice cracks thickly before he finally gives away to tears, his cheeks streaking with blood as if he were Christ as the Crown of Thorns lacerated his forehead. “I- I’ve heard your voice and seen your face. B-but when I reached out you slipped through my fingers, never truly there.”
Louis’ countenance melts completely. It seemed impossible that this man- or more closely this boy- standing here was his Lestat. This stuttering, scared, look alike to his Lestat. Back in the Rue Royal days Louis would have done anything to see even a slither of this immense vulnerability and honesty from his maker. But now that he was actually seeing it, it scared him. It seemed so unnatural, he felt the urge to back away in the same manner that someone would do when approached by a venomous snake. Yet he wanted nothing more than to take the blonde into his arms and soothe him.
“Les-“ Louis starts before being interrupted by an explosive rage of thunder.
Lestat tightens around Louis. “Please… stop tormenting me if you aren’t actually here. Please leave me, grant me peace please,” Lestat pleads through thick weeps.
“No, no, Les, it’s okay. I promise I’m actually here,” Louis coos, “We can talk. Or if you’re not up for it we don’t have to, we can just hold each other. But please Lestat, it’s not safe here, please come back with me to my hotel.”
Lestat shakes his head vigorously, “No I don’t believe it. You’re not really here. You’re just a figment of my mind, of my guilt tormenting me!”
Louis’ heart breaks at Lestat’s broken confused manner. It pains him to think of the years Lestat must have spent tormented by guilt and shame, punishing himself for the past while he lived in luxury, marrying another man to punish Lestat for something that wasn’t even his fault.
“Les, I promise I’m real baby,” Louis pleads as a roof panel caves in, nearly hitting them, “Okay if I prove to you I’m real will you come with me? Please Lestat, don’t punish yourself any longer. It’s not on you baby,” Louis begs as he gently thumbs away Lestat’s bloody tears.
Lestat nods gently looking down to the rotted floor boards and biting his lips to hold back little whimpers and sobs. Louis takes Lestat’s trembling hands into his.
“Here baby,” Louis holds Lestat’s hands to his chest, “Feel my heart beat against your hands. Could a hallucination have a heart beat?” Lestat shakes his head while sniffling, his weeps finally starting to dissolve.
“Exactly Les. And-“ Louis begins kissing all over Lestat’s face. He tenderly kisses his temples, then each cheek, next the soft gentle jawline that Louis found so attractive, then a couple soft pecks on the lips, and finally a few gentle nosey kisses, which earned a small sniffly laugh from Lestat. Louis’ face melts into a soft smile, his worried expression fading at the sight of Lestat’s calming down. “See Lestat? I’m really here, and I don’t plan on not being here ever again.”
Lestat nods softly before lowering his head back to Louis’ chest. “I missed this… just hearing your heart beat and hearing your living breathing body…. I was so scared after Armand called…. I-“ Lestat chokes on a sob, “I thought you were dead.”
“I know you did cher. But it’s okay, I’m here now,” Louis coos gently while kissing Lestat’s forehead. Another booming strike of thunder erupts. “Fuck- okay Les, Baby, I love holding you in my arms again, but we really have to leave before this house collapses in on us. Come back with me to our hotel.”
“Can… can you hold me more?” Lestat asks so softly, almost to the point of sounding like a shy toddler clutching to their mother on their first day of school. He looks back up at Louis with pleading bloody eyes.
“Of course. We can talk or I can just hold you. Anything Les,” Louis says gently before adding playfully, “after we get you a bath that is.”
Lestat laughs, not a small sniffly breathy laugh like before. The deep giggly laugh Louis remembered from decades before, the laugh he loved ever so. Even if the blonde standing before him didn’t look like his proud, strong, eccentric Lestat, he was still his maker, the man he loved more than anything else.
He was back in Lestat’s arms again and Lestat felt like home. Louis never wanted to feel homesick ever again.