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Lestat has considered, many times, that his love is grotesque. He knows he is overbearing, overpassionate. He can chalk some of his faults up to the queen’s blood coursing through him, but he knows that he was always like this. On some level, he has always been too much. Some days, he is able to wear it like a badge of honor. He can parade his larger-than-life self onstage and bask in the attention. Delivering as perfect a performance as possible and receiving generous praise has always been an incredible balm for his self-loathing. He thinks, as he flicks dispassionately through tweets about his band, that there is not any difference between how he uses his moderate rockstardom to self soothe in the modern era and how much the attention of opera fanatics meant to him in his young days. He is grateful that modern perceptions have changed to allow much more drama. The opera was not stifling with its many layers of clothing and strict genre protocols to adhere to… no, he still found a way to pour himself into Lelio and revel in the positive reception. But he likes that his performances are no longer required to be subtle. You do not have to be a theatre freak to understand what Lestat says in his songs. Only a few opera goers had been able to see the true passion lurking underneath his performances in Paris.
It is regrettable that he was one of the few who could see Lestat fully.
But to go back to the topic at hand - Lestat has a painful awareness that his own love is unbearable to many. He has never found himself on the opposite side of the coin, until now.
Things with Louis are good. They are being honest with each other in a way they have never been before. The sex is stellar, better than anything Lestat had tried to replace it with in their years apart. Louis has miraculously reached a place in his own journey where he feels comfortable seeking Lestat out, being aggressively upfront in his affections.
And that is the problem.
Lestat is not sure why, when he has spent decades longing for Louis to return his love, he finds Louis’ attention so intolerable now.
Something is wrong. Lestat of the past would have begged to have Louis as he is now, extending gentle caresses and kisses and making the first move. But in the present moment, Lestat has to swallow down disgust and force himself to enjoy his lover’s attention. Something is wrong with him.
They are sitting on the couch in Lestat’s Montreal residence. Watching a movie musical. It had been Lestat’s idea to put it on, part of his endeavor to re-educate Louis on the theatrical arts after the fool Armand had turned him off from the art form, but Lestat has long since checked out from the movie. He’s attempting to turn his mind to anything other than the revulsion creeping through his body as Louis touches him.
Louis had started with gentle rubs of Lestat’s shoulder. Lestat was not necessarily in the mood to be touched, but accepted this. Only, the rubbing had continued. And gone to other places. Louis had extended his touches down Lestat’s chest. Lestat turned his mind from the television and the touches and began reading reviews on his phone to take his mind off of things. Only it wasn’t really working. Louis keeps touching. And God, couldn’t he see that Lestat wasn’t in the mood? Louis could not read his mind, but only an idiot would look at Lestat’s body language and see interest. Louis is not stupid, he has never been so stupid. And Lestat himself always took such notice of Louis’ mood and body language before making his advances, so why, why was this happening? Lestat rededicates himself to scrolling the reviews, finding brief contentment in a particularly glittering description of his vocals. The good mood is short lived. Louis hands travel down Lestat’s hips, to his thighs. And they grab.
“Enough!”
Lestat shouts, tossing his phone at the wall.
Louis’ hands stop immediately. They retreat from Lestat’s body entirely, and Lestat heaves in a deep breath.
“Les?” Louis is looking at him with wide eyes, holding his hands still. His hands have finally stopped their offenses, and Louis’ tone of voice is quiet and careful, in direct contradiction to the way his touches had felt careless and heavy.
Lestat revels only briefly in the fact that he has made Louis retreat, that he has won this victory for himself. The feeling of vindictive pride is very quickly replaced with embarrassment at his outburst. Confusion as to why any of this has bothered him at all. And fear about what it means for them, and their future.
Lestat turns away.
“I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he straightens his posture and puts on the mask. He leans close again to Louis and, once he has found it within himself to be convincing, returns his gaze to his lover. “I’m sorry. You can touch me again. It’s alright.”
Louis doesn’t return his hands to Lestat’s body easily, like Lestat wishes he would. Instead, he seems to be calculating. His eyes rove over Lestat, taking in all the minute details Lestat wishes he could erase.
“Do you want me to touch you right now?”
Lestat hesitates for a moment. Then the laughter bubbles out of him. The question is absurd. Of course he wants Louis to touch him. He always wants Louis to touch him. This internal hesitation, this quiet disgust at touch, is some glitch that will be buried and dealt with. They just have to move past it.
“Of course. If you want to touch, I am yours,” He punctuates this by spreading his legs wide, making the undertone of his words clear. “And this movie is terrible anyway. I don’t know who decided to cast Russel Crowe in a musical, but when I find out, they will make a delicious meal.”
Louis is not buying it. He shifts further away on the couch, and Lestat’s eyes flash with hurt and anger. He is offering himself to Louis, he’s ready to be loved now, and now Louis takes it away? Just because Lestat had a little outburst? Louis can be so cruel in reaction to Lestat’s drama. He has always been so cold.
“But you just screamed at me and freaked out when I touched your thigh? Are we just going to ignore that?”
Lestat cannot help the anger that spills out of him. If Louis would just listen, he would see that the outburst was a minor thing and Lestat is ready now.
“Yes, I reacted to you grabbing me roughly, as anyone would react to an unexpected forceful advance! But that doesn’t matter. I am giving you what you want, and you choose to focus on my mistakes. Always my mistakes,” Lestat crosses his arms, “If you don’t want to have sex with me now, you can just say so.”
Louis feels lost. He cannot understand how to move forward. Lestat is projecting desire, and is…upset that Louis took pause at his brief outburst. But Louis can’t shake the feeling that there’s something that needs to be explored here, and it has to be addressed before they can resume.
“It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you. You didn’t turn me off, not like that. I’m not mad,” he tries to be soothing. When Lestat is on the defensive like this, he’s hurt in some way that Louis can’t see. “But I’m worried. You don’t usually react that way when I touch you like that. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Lestat’s mask slips, and he looks every bit as confused and scared as he feels. He doesn’t know what to do, now that Louis has pushed for this issue to be resolved rather than stomped on. How does he say that his thoughts lately have lingered on things that happened hundreds of years ago, things he has long ignored and thought he had moved on from. He wants to be honest. He wants to trust Louis with all of this. But he honestly doesn’t even know how to verbalize it.
“I… suppose there are things that have been… making themselves known in my mind that I might share,” he admits. But goes no further.
“I would appreciate that. To know what you’re thinking,” Louis encourages.
“You have been very needy with me lately,” Lestat says, and it comes out not quite how he intended it. Louis looks a little taken aback, a little hurt.
“I can back off. I thought needy was what you wanted,” Louis is clearly now reckoning with his own feelings that he’s too much, and now he will shut himself off from Lestat again and remain that way forever and that is not what Lestat wants.
“No! I mean. No, don’t…you don’t need to back off. It’s not you that’s bad, it’s me,” he tries desperately to explain. But he lets the silence after that comment go too long. And Louis is looking at him again, his beautiful green eyes searching for something in Lestat’s face. Something Lestat isn’t sure he can possibly give. Lestat’s heart aches. He wants this. He wants to be loved, and understood. And he thinks, maybe if he explains a little further, Louis might get it.
“When Magnus… when he turned me. It was not just the turning,” Lestat begins, “And I should say what he did to me, it could have been worse. It is nothing compared to what happened to our Claudia and I know that. I shouldn’t be bothered by it, I shouldn’t even remember it. And I have tried to carry on without ever thinking of him or what we did. I have succeeded for hundreds of years, only now it comes up.”
Louis is listening intently, his hands tightening into fists unconsciously. Lestat is endeared, by the fact that Louis would make a fist on his behalf. Even though Magnus is long dead and will never answer for this sin.
“I have told you that he watched me perform. He was fascinated by me. He had to have me. In every way possible.”
Louis draws in a tense, heavy breath.
“He raped you?” Louis asks, barely restraining the anger in his voice.
“I don’t like that word,” Lestat deflects, “It carries such… such weight. No. I would not say that. But… he did things to me that I did not want.”
“That’s rape,” Louis says tersely. Like it is Lestat who is to blame.
“I’ll call it what I want,” Lestat responds, with answering frustration, “He told me how lonely he was, before he touched me. How drawn to me he was. How he knew I was special,” Lestat says these things like it is the first time he has said them out loud.
“He told me he loved me, desired me. And I think he did love me, in a sick and perverted way. Love is often harmful to the receiver. I know that,” He meets Louis eyes, then. He sees Louis strength, in all it’s intensity, and looks away.
“I did not fight him then. I thought that, maybe, once he had his way with me, things would be over. He would let me go. Foolish,” He scoffs at himself, “Perhaps if I had fought more he would’ve left me untouched. He was going to turn me regardless, but perhaps I would not be tortured by these memories if I had been braver then.”
Louis shudders at that. “You’re not… You can’t blame yourself for that, Lestat. He did what he wanted to do to you and it wasn’t right. You didn’t want that.”
“But maybe I didn’t make it clear enough, and it is ridiculous that I am traumatized by such a thing when he might’ve thought I would like it. He knew of my relationship with Nicki, after all. He knew I liked men.”
Louis shakes his head. “That’s not an excuse. He knew what he was doing to you, the…touching, the turning, he knew you didn’t want it. You couldn’t fight back more because you were afraid. That’s not an invitation to rape somebody.”
Lestat’s eyes glint with frustration again at the word. But he acquiesces, as Louis logic is starting to weaken his resolve.
“Yes, well. Now you know,” He says, like that is that and the conversation is over.
“Wait. I mean, thank you for sharing that with me. That was a lot for you, and I really appreciate you filling me in. But I want to know how this is affecting you now. You said you’ve been thinking of it lately?”
Lestat’s face is contorted into something uncomfortable. He nods.
“Okay. Yeah, okay. It makes sense. We’ve been intimate a lot more, it makes sense that this is coming up for you.”
Lestat rushes in to defend their love, tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. “I’m happy. I’m happy, Louis. Please, don’t think this means we can’t… we can’t be with each other. I don’t want to ruin this.”
Louis looks at him with sad, puppy dog eyes. “You haven’t. It’s not ruined,” He looks down at where Lestat’s hands are wringing in his lap, his thumb digging it’s nail into the meat of his palm in an attempt to ground himself. “Can I hold your hand?”
Lestat considers for a moment, then nods again, extending his hand out to Louis.
“Am I the first person you’ve told about this? The whole truth?”
Lestat nods once more, unable to find words as tears of blood run down his cheeks.
“Thank you. Again, for sharing that with me,” Louis rubs little circles with his thumb on Lestat’s hand. “I think…maybe you should talk to somebody. Find yourself a therapist experienced with assault.”
“A therapist cannot fix me, mon cher. I am beyond that,” Lestat notes with a mournful tone.
“I don’t think you need fixin’. Just, I don’t know anything about this stuff. I obviously mucked it up with how I handled Bruce. People talk about this stuff all day, they have the tools to make things easier for you. So you can stop thinking about it all the time, and enjoy our time together like you want to.”
Lestat is shaking, cannot stop the shaking. But he supposes that Louis is right. If he really thinks that what happened to Lestat is worth talking about, and talking to someone about it might make these awful memories stop resurfacing, it has to be worth a try. If only so Lestat can cherish his Louis like he is meant to.
“Yes, yes. Alright. I will look into someone. I doubt there is anyone specializing in the trauma of becoming a vampire,” He says the last sentence in a light tone, like it is a joke, and Louis laughs softly.
“No, there probably isn’t,” he acknowledges, “But there’s people who know a lot about trauma. And how it comes back to bite us in ugly ways we don’t want. It’s worth giving it a shot. So you can be happy.”
“So we can be happy,” Lestat gently corrects, leaning his body against Louis now.
“Can I touch your hair?” Louis asks, not moving an inch before he gets the approval.
Lestat sighs happily, “Yes… and thank you for asking.”
Louis slides his palm into Lestat’s golden locks, gently carding his hand through them. Petting his Lestat. “I’ll try to ask every time, for now.”
Lestat wants to protest, say that he doesn’t need a trigger warning for his companion to touch him. But, the idea is comforting. And might prevent him from getting so agitated like he had earlier. He really cannot keep throwing phones around like that. It is too annoying to replace them.
“Sounds perfect, my love,” He closes his eyes, and leans into the touch.